Abu Elvis points out the only possible conclusion to be drawn from the two stories about Palestinian explanations for the financial crisis. In one of them, the Palestinian prime minister says that Allah’s divine intervention caused the crisis as retribution against America. In the other, a Hamas spokesman blames the whole thing on the greed and mistakes of the Jews.So: (1) the cause is divine, and (2) the Jews did it.
Ergo, the Jews are divine!
That explains everything.
Thanks to Abu Elvis, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, LN, Steen, TB, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Details and articles are below the fold.
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A Silence on Terror: Candidates Won’t Name Enemy
HERE’S a wake-up call for a nation at war: We’ve had all but one of the presidential debates, plus the veep debate — without once hearing the words “Islamic terrorism.”
Seven years after 9/11, we still seem to be debating whether it’s polite to name our enemy directly. Worse, the emerging consensus seems to be “no.”
That is not a good sign. How is the next leader of the free world going to solve a problem he can’t even name?
Yes, the economy is by far the most urgent issue — but that doesn’t make the war any less serious.
In their first debate, meant to center on foreign policy, John McCain and Barack Obama focused on the tactical fronts (Iraq, Afghanistan and the cold war with Iran) or specific enemies (al Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah). But neither mentioned the underlying geo-strategic conflict between Western civilization and jihadism…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Filip and Obama
by Diana West
Filip Dewinter (above, center) on the violent “antifa” attack that prevented him from participating in a debate at the University of Ghent: “We were struck and beaten because we wanted access to a university for an approved debate. The so-called anti-fascists used fascist methods to try to silence us. This can not be allowed in a democracy.”
The Gates of Vienna is must-reading for otherwise inaccessible battle bulletins from the WOWC (War on Western Civilization). Here is translated news of the latest skirmish between courageous defender of Western civ (such as it is) Filip Dewinter and his thuggish opponents—violent suppressors of free speech, who, in purely Orwellian newspeak, are self- and media-described as the “anti-fascists.”
Update:
Just after posting the above report about Filip Dewinter’s violent struggle for freedom of speech in Europe, I came across this piece by Michael Barone warning, as the title says, against “The Coming Obama Thugocracy.” It concerns the Obama campaign’s widespread efforts throughout this presidential campaign to shut down dissenting political speech across the country. Separated by more than an ocean, the two stories—the one about a Flemish defender of free speech in Belgium, the other about a Democratic threat to free speech in America, should be thought of and analyzed together. Consider ourselves warned.
From Michael Barone:
“I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors,” Barack Obama told a crowd in Elko, Nev. “I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face.” Actually, Obama supporters are doing a lot more than getting into people’s faces. They seem determined to shut people up.
That’s what Obama supporters, alerted by campaign emails, did when conservative Stanley Kurtz appeared on Milt Rosenberg’s WGN radio program in Chicago. Kurtz had been researching Obama’s relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers in Chicago Annenberg Challenge papers in the Richard J. Daley Library in Chicago — papers that were closed off to him for some days, apparently at the behest of Obama supporters.
Obama fans jammed WGN’s phone lines and sent in hundreds of protest emails. The message was clear to anyone who would follow Rosenberg’s example. We will make trouble for you if you let anyone make the case against The One…
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
The American Secessionist Streak
Sarah Palin’s secessionist sympathies sparked minor hysteria last week. Her crime was hailing with round praise the work of the cranky Alaskan Independence Party, which advocates a statewide plebiscite on the secession of Alaska from the Union. “The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government,” the party’s late founder, gold miner Joe Vogler, once said. “And I won’t be buried under their damn flag.”
Palin’s husband was a member of the AIP for seven years, and Palin herself has courted the AIP for more than a decade. In an address to the party convention this spring, wearing a ski parka and looking like she was about to decamp into the back country, Palin told the secessionists, “Keep up the good work.” Dexter Clark, the white-bearded vice chairman of the AIP, recently explained the motivation behind the “good work”: “Through oppression, greed, corruption, incompetence and folly, the [U.S. government] is forfeiting its moral authority.”
The thing is, it’s not just residents of the Last Frontier who favor breaking away from the Union. According to a Zogby poll conducted in July, more than 20% of U.S. adults — one in five, about the same number of American Colonists who supported revolt against England in 1775 — agreed that “any state or region has the right to peaceably secede from the United States and become an independent republic.” Some 18% “would support a secessionist effort in my state.”
The motivation of these quiet revolutionaries? As many as 44% of those polled agreed that “the United States’ system is broken and cannot be fixed by traditional two-party politics and elections.”
Put this in stark terms: In a scientific, random sample poll of all Americans, almost half considered the current political system to be in terminal disorder. One-fifth would countenance a dissolution of the bond. This is not a hiccup of opinion. In an October 2006 poll conducted by the Opinion Research Corp. and broadcast on CNN, 71% of Americans agreed that “our system of government is broken and cannot be fixed.”
No surprise that the disquiet finds a voice in popular movements. In 2007, a small group of delegates to the second North American secessionist convention — the first was in Burlington, Vt., in 2006 — met in Chattanooga, Tenn., to discuss how to foment the collapse and destruction of the United States of America. They came representing 11 rebel groups in 36 states, under banners such as the Republic of Cascadia (wedding Oregon and Washington), Independent California (forging the world’s fifth-largest economy), the United Republic of Texas (returning the Lone Star State to its aloneness), the League of the South (uniting the secesh states of old Dixie) and the Second Vermont Republic (separating the Green Mountain State from the U.S.).
The dominant idea among the delegates was that the U.S. experiment had failed; it had become impractical, tragically ridiculous, its leaders and institutions bought off, whored out, unaccountable and unanswerable to the needs of citizens. The United States would have to be reborn smaller — our loyalties realigned to the needs of localities — if the American dream was to survive…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China Examines How Dutch Deal With Religious Freedom
THE HAGUE, 11/10/08 — China has been having a look behind the scenes of the Dutch multicultural society.
On the invitation of the human rights ambassador of the Foreign Ministry, a delegation from the Chinese State Administration for Religious Affairs has been in the Netherlands for three days on a working visit, which ended on Friday. The delegation came to “familiarise itself with religion and philosophies of life in Dutch society and the role of the government in this connection”, the ministry explained.
The delegation was received on Thursday by the secretary general of the ministry on behalf of Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen. “He stressed that the Netherlands attaches great importance to protecting the individual freedom of religious and ideological conviction. He asked about the reasons why Chinese bishops are not allowed to attend the synod in Rome, and also asked for an explanation of reports in the media about the closure of churches in homes,” the ministry stated.
The delegation’s programme included talks with policy makers and academics and visits to the Free University (VU) of Amsterdam, the Contact Organisation for Muslims and Government (CMO), a mosque, a synagogue and a school with pupils from both Christian and Islamic backgrounds, said the ministry.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Church of Scotland Backs Islamic Sharia Law Courts
Europe continues with its slow suicide, as they continue to bend over backwards for group of people who want to destroy them. All this is aided by Christian leaders. Earlier this year the Archbishop of Canterbury UK took a stand for the introduction of Sharia Courts into Britain which has lead to Sharia courts actually handing criminal cases instead of just civil cases. It is already been proven that Muslims in Britain are not happy with having their own courts along side British law, as they are preaching to make Sharia law the one and only law for the UK…
| [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Muslims Protest Against Mosque Closure
Modena, 9 Oct. (AKI) — Muslims in the northern Italian city of Sassuolo plan to protest on Friday against what they claim is the town council’s refusal to allow them to build a mosque.
“Tomorrow we will perform Friday prayers in the street, to protest against the municipality for not allowing us to have a mosque,” said Hisham Abu Marwan, spokesman for the Islamic Association Huda of Sassuolo, in an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI).
The Muslim community, guided by Egyptian-born imam Sheikh Tareq, said it wanted to continue protesting against the council which had ordered police to close the prayer hall that the community had been using for more than 10 years.
“We will pray in the street in front of the mosque that was shut down, and there will be several hundred of us so that the municipality does not discriminate against us,” said Abu Marwan.
“We wanted to follow the rules and so we rented a new place where we could pray, but the authorities deemed it unsuitable because they said it is located in an industrial area and not an appropriate place to carry out religious activities.”
Abu Marwan said that explanations from city authorities are nothing but excuses and asked them to allow them to pray in the place that they rented.
The council offered the group a temporary place of worship located five kilometres outside of Sassuolo. But Abu Marwan said the location was too far away, and the community was looking for a permanent solution instead.
At least 300 Muslims from Sassuolo, an industrial city near Modena, have been praying in the past few days outside the mosque closed by the authorities.
There is a considerable number of Moroccan immigrants that work in the ceramic factories in Modena who have been living there for years.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Libya Increases Pressure on Switzerland
Libya’s reported withdrawal of oil and assets from Switzerland is the latest round in a prestige fight between the two countries, says security expert Kurt Spillmann.
A Libyan state news agency report — purportedly based on statements from the foreign ministry there — said the move is retaliation for “abuse of Libyan diplomats and business people by the Geneva police”.
Diplomatic tensions between the two countries started in July following the arrest in Geneva of one Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s sons.
Media reports quoted Issam Zanati, director of the Libyan Tamoil company, saying the decision to halt the oil supplies to Switzerland had come from the Libyan government, not the company. He could not say when deliveries would resume.
Farhat Qadara, head of Libya’s central bank, told The Associated Press that “Libya has withdrawn all its deposits from Swiss banks and transferred them to other European banks”.
Libyan reports say the sum amounts to SFr8 billion ($7.1 billion).
The Swiss foreign ministry said it has received no official information from Libya…
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Disgraced Politician Withdraws From Parliament
The political career of one of Norway’s rare MPs from an ethnic minority remained in jeopardy Friday, after she was caught running up huge phone bills by calling clairvoyants for advice, also on political matters.
Saera Khan, who went on sick leave after admitting to the reason for her high phone bills, withdrew her name late Thursday from her party’s list of candidates for the Parliament next year, and from other duties. That means she won’t seek re-election.
Khan has represented the Labour Party and was considered a rising star, possibly even a candidate for cabinet minister.
Instead she’s in disgrace, with party elders saying they’re “very disappointed” in Khan, not least because she initially lied about the phone calls.
The matter hit the news after parliament officials refused to pay the huge phone bills Khan had submitted. At first, she claimed the bills were the result of long-distance calls to a boyfriend allegedly serving with Norway’s troops in Afghanistan.
She ultimately admitted the calls to clairvoyants, and newspaper VG reported Friday that the advice she sought at taxpayer expense didn’t only involve personal matters. Instead, some of the clairvoyants told VG that Khan asked about whether the opposition Progress Party would win government power next year, how Labour would perform in next year’s election and whether she’d win another seat in Parliament.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Lone Pizza Chef Defeats Tax Authorities
Ismail Abdullah, a hard-working pizza chef from near Örebro, has won his case against the tax authorities who could not believe that he had worked alone all year.tax authorities argued that he must have had help and taxed him accordingly.
He works seven days a week, 365 days a year — not possible ruled the Swedish tax authorities (Skatteverket) who suspected that he must have had a full-time employee alongside him to lighten the arduous burden.
Skatteverket sent Abdullah a bill for 20,000 kronor ($2,750) for withheld P.A.Y.E and payroll taxes for an employee that he had never had.
Abdullah argued successfully that he was indeed the only pizza baker in his restaurant in Stora Mellösa while admitting that he had received help from apprentices from time to time.
The tax authorities have now withdrawn their demand and have approved the tax declaration submitted by Abdullah who has been left with his confidence in the authorities shaken.
“Everybody trusts that the authorities do the right thing. When some clerk makes a significant mistake of this nature then one loses faith. I have been very disappointed,” Abdullah said to local newspaper Nerikes Allehanda.”
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: EU to Earmark 190 Million Euro for Infrastructure
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, OCTOBER 8 — Each year Serbia will have at its disposal 190 million euro, out of EU pre-accession funds, for the development of its regions, Serbian State Secretary for Regional Development Dejan Jovanovic has said in Brussels after meeting with regional policy representatives of the European Commission, reports Tanjug news agency. “We have good plans that have been approved and Serbia will have at its disposal 190 million euro each year out of the pre-accession funds,” Jovanovic stated, adding that this is a considerable amount which will be used to finance roads, waterworks and schools. He stressed that in the coming period EU expects Serbia to strengthen institutions which will deal with regional development and, simultaneously, to adopt laws on regional develpment which will enable the use of more money from the pre-accession funds. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Ringleaders of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Wahhabi Movement
Wartime commander of the mujahideen unit in Bosnia, Abu Hamza became known to the Bosnian public after he murdered Egyptian Hisham Diab, alias Abu Velid, in 1997 in the central Bosnian city of Zenica. After managing to evade arrest for three years, Abu Hamza was finally brought down in Germany in 2000 and deported to Bosnia, where he was sentenced to seven years in prison. An investigation into the case, however, showed that the real Hisham Diab was still alive and an active member of an organization called “New Jihad” and a former close associate of the radical Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman, who is serving a life sentence for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The identity of the person Abu Hamza killed in Zenica remains unknown.
According to police information, Abu Hamza arrived in Bosnia at the beginning of the war in 1992, and obtained Bosnian citizenship after marrying a Bosnian woman. A Bosnian police source, close to the investigation of Abu Hamza, told The Jamestown Foundation on March 15 that Abu Hamza was part of a 15-20 member group of Egypt’s militant Gama’a al-Islamiyya that arrived in Zenica and Travnik in 1992. During his stay in Bosnia, Abu Hamza used several names and falsified documents. He used the names: El Akil Abdellah Ahmed, born in Yemen; Bega Kamel, born in Libya; and five other names with Yemeni and Libyan documents each with different places of birth and dates. While in prison, Abu Hamza saw several different criminal investigations launched against him, including one for the murder of a Bosnian Croat policeman and another for the torturing of non-Muslim refugee returnees.
In 2001, Italy sent a request for his extradition, but Bosnian authorities refused because of Abu Hamza’s Bosnian citizenship. The Bosnian police source said that Italy sought Abu Hamza’s extradition for the suspected planning of suicide attacks in Italy, including one plot to kill the Pope during his visit to Bologna in September 1997. For the same crimes, Italy also requested the extradition of Abu Hamza’s associates, also naturalized Bosnian citizens, which included Tunisian Khalil Jarray and Yemeni Saleh Nidal, both members of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA). The two were arrested by international forces in Bosnia on terrorism charges, but were quickly released after Italy failed to send enough details to sustain their warrants. Their whereabouts are now unknown. The two suspects held Bosnian citizenship until 2001 when it was revoked by the government in Sarajevo.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Islamic Parties Call for Ban on Wine Imports
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, OCTOBER 10 — Algeria’s Islamic parties are back on the offensive with a renewed call in Parliament for the 2009 budget to include a law banning the importation of alcoholic products into the country. According to reports in daily El Khabar, governing party members of the alliance sustaining President Bouteflika, the Movement for a Society for Peace (MSP, formerly Hamas) and the Movement for Reform (Mnr, Ennahda), lodged the proposal in Parliament once again. MNR and other independent deputies presented an official motion to ban the importing of wine and other alcoholic products and to limit imports of alcohol for medical and industrial use. Moderate and less moderate Islamic parties have repeatedly attempted to ban the importation and consumption of alcohol in the country, so far without success. (ANSAmed).
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, OCTOBER 10 — Algeria’s Islamic parties are back on the offensive with a renewed call in Parliament for the 2009 budget to include a law banning the importation of alcoholic products into the country. According to reports in daily El Khabar, governing party members of the alliance sustaining President Bouteflika, the Movement for a Society for Peace (MSP, formerly Hamas) and the Movement for Reform (Mnr, Ennahda), lodged the proposal in Parliament once again. MNR and other independent deputies presented an official motion to ban the importing of wine and other alcoholic products and to limit imports of alcohol for medical and industrial use. Moderate and less moderate Islamic parties have repeatedly attempted to ban the importation and consumption of alcohol in the country, so far without success. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Health: Lombardy to Sign Cooperation Agreement With PNA
(ANSAmed) — MILAN, OCTOBER 10 — In just a few months the Region of Lombardy will complete a cooperation agreement regarding healthcare with the National Palestinian Authority with the purpose, amongst other things, of training doctors, carrying out operations in the paediatric field and sending materials and instrumentation. “The text of the agreement is almost ready”, the governor of Lombardy Roberto Formigoni announced today at the end of a meeting in the Region with Fathi Abu Moghli, health minister of the PNA, “but the political decision has already been taken”. Only the go-ahead from the Foreign Office is needed for it to be signed and the Region assures that this should just be a formality. “But in the meantime”, said Formigoni, “we have already set solidarity initiatives into motion”. At the moment cooperation is underway between the Riuniti di Bergamo Hospital and the Makassed Hospital in East Jerusalem, between the latter and S. Paolo di Milano, and, using regional funding, between the onlus Cbm and the Basra hospital in Bethlehem. This latter collaboration will also extend to the Ospedale di Circolo di Varese. The agreement, explained the governor, falls into a frame which also involves Israel, with whom the Region entered into a treaty of cooperation regarding healthcare in March, based on the exchange of knowledge and technology. “These trilateral relationships between us, Israel and the PNA”, concluded Formigoni, “express our commitment to friendship and peace and promote direct dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Al-Arabiya.Net Hacked
JEDDAH: Alarabiya.net was hacked, which prevented Internet browsers from accessing the major Gulf news organization’s website on Thursday. The media organization reported that the hackers managed to divert traffic to an outside website that showed a burning Israeli flag and a message saying: “If attacks on Shiite websites continue, none of your websites will be safe.”
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Inflation Tops 29 Percent in Sept.
Tehran, 9 Oct. (AKI) — Iran’s inflation rate reached 29.4 percent in September, a 4 percent rise from August, Iran’s central bank Markazi announced on Thursday.
Surging food prices and high housing costs are believed to be some of the reasons for the country’s soaring inflation, Iranian media reports said.
In Iran, inflation is calculated on the basis of a basket of 359 widely consumed products.
Last week, the chief of Bank Markazi, Tahmaseb Mazaheri, resigned in protest over the economic policies of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government.
Ahmadinejad “doesn’t just not do anything to stop rampant inflation, but is the cause of it,” Mazaheri was quoted as saying.
The central bank Markazi said last August that as many as 14 million Iranians are living below the poverty line.
Inflation in August 2007 stood at 17.9 percent.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Tehran to Name Street After Slain Lebanese Militant
Tehran, 9 Oct. (AKI) — Tehran’s City Council has voted unanimously for a proposal to dedicate a street in the Iranian capital to slain Lebanese militant Imad Mughniyeh.
Imad Mughniyeh was the intelligence chief and commander of Hezbollah’s secretive military wing, the Islamic Resistance. He was killed in a bombing in Syrian capital Damascus on 13 February 2008.
Hezbollah and Syria have blamed Israel for assassinating him and Hezbollah has repeatedly vowed revenge for the killing.
Imad Mughniyeh Street will replace ‘Baharan Street’ which means, spring.
The naming of the street follows a stamp issued by Iran in March to commemorate Mughniyeh (photo), described as an ‘ambassador of the culture of martyrdom’ by former Iranian commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Rahim Safavi.
Israel has denied and involvement in Mughniyeh’s killing, and there has been speculation that Syria or Saudi Arabia may have been behind the assassination.
Mughniyeh was considered the mastermind of several hijackings and other terrorist acts, including bombings against French and US military barracks, that resulted in the death of 58 French soldiers and 241 US Marines in 1983.
He was on the FBI’s top ten most wanted list with a five million dollar reward for his capture.
He was wanted by Israel and the US due to his alleged role in the bombings of the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994, as well as a wave of abductions of westerners in Lebanon in the 1980s.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Tehran Could Make 60 Nuclear Bombs in Two Years, Says US Expert
Milan, 10 Oct. (AKI) — Iran may have the capacity to produce up to 60 nuclear bombs within two years, a leading US non -proliferation expert has told Adnkronos International.
Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC), was taking part in a summit , “Preventing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East”, organised by Italy’s Institute for the Study of Foreign Policy (ISPI) and the Italian Foreign Ministry in Milan.
In an interview with AKI, Sokolski raised the alarm about Iran’s intentions, claiming that it would have sufficient plutonium after the opening of the Bushehr plant to construct from 30 to 60 bombs.
The nuclear facility at Bushehr is being built under an agreement between the Russian and Iranian governments for 800 million dollars and is expected to begin production in early 2009.
Sokolski said Iran was putting in place the necessary technology and knowledge to recover the new plant’s waste using a chemical process that does not need complex installation or specific structures.
“Plutonium that could be used to make atomic bombs,” he told AKI. “The fuel for Bushehr will be supplied by the Russians who also said they would dispose of the waste products from it.”
But he said few people know that this waste will remain in Iran for two years before being taken away.
“In this time frame the Iranians, with an excuse to analyse the waste, can transfer it to a chemical factory and extract the plutonium,” he said.
He said in the first 18 months the plant would use between 22 to 25 tonnes of fuel, from which 300 kilogrammes of plutonium could be recovered from the waste to make from 30 to 60 bombs.
Henry Sokolski heads the nonprofit organisation founded in 1994 to promote a better understanding of strategic weapons proliferation issues among policy-makers, scholars and the media.
He also serves as an adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics in Washington and is a member of the Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, to which he was appointed in May 2008.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan: New US Base to Train Iraqis and Palestinians, Says Report
Amman, 10 Oct. (AKI) — The United States military has recently built a new military base in Jordan where Iraqi and Palestinian Authority security personnel will be trained, according to pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi.
The base is very large and besides training Iraqi soldiers in anti-insurgency warfare, it reportedly contains a simulated refugee camp to train Palestinian Authority forces, an unnamed Palestinian source told the daily.
Between 500 and 600 armed forces personnel are expected to take part in special anti-militant courses and could be deployed as soon as Israel agrees to handover security in the West Bank town of Jenin to the Palestinian Authority.
The training should take place in the desert west of the Jordanian capital, Amman, and the trainers are expected to include senior military officials from the Jordanian and US armies.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait: Nuclear Iran Would Alter Regional Power Balance, Says Expert
Milan, 10 Oct. (AKI) — A nuclear Iran would severely alter the balance of power in the region, the head of a leading Middle East think-tank has told Adnkronos International (AKI).
“With only one atomic bomb in its arsenal, it (Iran) would become an insurmountable regional power, a fact that would not contribute to the stability and security of our region,” Sami al-Faraj, president of the Kuwait Centre for Strategic Studies told AKI.
“Kuwait is much closer geographically to Iran, than other Gulf Cooperation Council countries, making Iran’s nuclear programme a reason to worry,” he said, referring to a six-nation security and economic organisation established by Gulf states during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s.
Al-Faraj was speaking at a summit entitled “Preventing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East” organised by Italy’s Institute for the Study of Foreign Policy (ISPI) and the Italian Foreign Ministry.
“The difficulties the United States has had in restoring stability to Iraq, have favoured Iran, which along with its nuclear programme intends to establish itself as the sole regional power,” he stated.
For al-Faraj, the political aspects of the Iranian nuclear programme are much more dangerous than its military aspects.
“For Iran, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction are cards to play in the dangerous end-game for control of the Greater Middle East — from North Africa to Central Asia,” he said.
“The Iranian leadership feels isolated and surrounded, and is convinced that only an atomic bomb can guarantee its survival and avoid the prospect of regime change,” he added.
Al-Faraj also considers an Iranian nuclear programme a danger, even if it is only to generate civilian nuclear power — as Iran claims.
Iran’s nuclear plant at Bushehr is nearer to Kuwait than it is to the Iranian capital, Tehran, al-Faraj pointed out.
“A human error, such as the one in Chernobyl, would destroy the lives of the inhabitants of the southern Gulf, from Saudi Arabia to Yemen,” he stressed.
Iran rejects suspicions harboured by the US and other western powers that its nuclear programme is aimed at building atomic weapons.
The United Nations Security Council in late September unanimously adopted a resolution urging Iran once again to suspend its sensitive nuclear fuel work.
The resolution offered no new sanctions but merely reaffirmed the three rounds of sanctions the UN Security Council has already imposed on Iran for refusing to halt its uranium enrichment programme.
But Iran has consistently claimed its uranium enrichment programme is entirely peaceful and its sovereign right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The international treaty is aimed at stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Mideast: US Journalists, Story Still Unclear
(by Lorenzo Trombetta) (ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, OCTOBER 10 — A series of questions without answers leaves some dark spots on the happy ending to the story of the two American journalists, disappearing first in Lebanon and then reappearing in Syria where hey were taken into custody with the excuse that they had entered the country illegally. Taylor Luck and Holli Chmela, 23 and 27 years old, journalists for Amman’s Jordan Times, returned home to the Jordanian capital ‘‘safe and sound’’ early this morning. Yesterday evening, nine days after they disappeared, they were released by Syrian authorities and handed over to officials from the US Embassy in Damascus. Upon his arrival in the Jordanian capital, Luck told ANSA his version of the facts, which are in contrast to the official Syrian one. Damascus accused the two of having entered the country illegally ‘‘with the help of a smuggler’’. ‘‘After arriving near to the Lebanon-Syria border — Luck said this morning — the taxi driver and his accomplice tried to rob us, when a military vehicle appeared and some soldiers got out. They took our passports and cellular phones and loaded us in the transport’’. ‘‘After which we realized we were in Syria — his version continues — but we decided to say that we were tourists and not journalists. They took us to a prison near Homs (160km north of Damascus) where we remained, in separate cells from October 1st to October 8th’’. ‘‘At the moment of our transfer to a military prison in Damascus, an official identified Holli from the photos seen on TV and we were identified as ‘the two missing journalists’. Only at that point — he adds — were we handed over to the US Embassy in Damascus’’. Luck concludes: ‘‘In any case we were treated well and they seemed to understand the difficulty of our situation. Maybe we were naive, but in any case we were victims’’. Luck’s version is also different from that which appeared today in the Lebanese and Pan-Arabian press: for a ‘‘Syrian security source’’ quoted in the pro-Syrian newspaper as-Safir in Beirut, the two journalists ‘‘had gone to a travel agency in northern Lebanon in order to go to Syria. When they discovered that it would be difficult to enter without visas, they accepted the offer to cross the border with a taxi driver who was in contact with some smugglers’’. The passage, which cost a little under 100 euros total (6,000 Syrian lire), is said to have taken place in the Wadi Khaled border area, not far from where they were arrested by a Syrian border patrol. According to the source quoted by as-Safir, the episode happened yesterday, and not October 1st. According to the reconstruction of the Pan-Arabian newspaper al-Hayat edited in London, Luck and Chmela were not headed to Syria before October 7th: eye-witnesses quoted by the newspaper confirm to have seen the two young Americans in Beirut’s crowded nightclubs at least as recent as October 6th. Their ‘‘illegal’’ passage to Syria, in fact there is no trace of them in Lebanese border records, whether it was accidental (as Luck sustains) or voluntary (as the Syrians sustain), according to al-Hayat it happened at the earliest the night of October 7th. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Damascus, Sources Say Anti-Terrorism Campaign Begins
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, OCTOBER 10 — The gun fight which occurred yesterday in Damascus between suspected terrorists and local security forces inserts itself in the anti-terrorism campaign recently launched by Syrian authorities. This has been confirmed by “a reliable source from Syrian security” cited today from the Lebanese news site ‘NowLebanon’, according to which the operations of Damascus’ anti-terrorism squads had intensified in recent weeks and had led to the arrest of 48 “terrorists”. The Syrian government and Damascus’ official means of information have not yet released any information on the clash. According to a Palestinian source cited this morning in the Pan-Arabian newspaper ash-Sharq al-Awsat, “terrorists of Iraqi and Saudi Arabian nationality” participated in the shooting which took place yesterday in the Palestinian refugee camp ‘Yarmuk’, in Damascus’ southern outskirts. Other sources speak of the involvement of ethic Arab Iranians, opposers of the ayatollah regime in the Islamic Republic. The sources agree in fixing the final balance of the victims: four dead, of which three suspected terrorists and one security agent. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Intelligence Allegedly Getting Ready for Terrorist Act Against President of Georgia
The Russian intelligence agencies have been preparing for an act of terrorism against the President of Georgia, Mikhaill Saakashvili, online paper Nasha Abkhazia reports. The online source says the given information became known to it from one of the leaders of the Abkhazian regime.
This very person had met in Sochi with the deputy chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Russian General Staff, General Pinov, with whom the question on the operation was discussed.
The directive to organize the terrorist act against Saakashvili has been reportedly given by the Secretary of Security Council of the Russian Federation, former Federal Security Service (FSB) Director, Nikolai Patrushev, and the Federal Security Service and the GRU were tasked to carry it out. This task has been developed by the Caucasian directorate of the FSB and the 5th department of the GRU independently from each other.
According to the scenario of special services of the Russian Federation, Saakashvili might be attacked by members of an Ossetian paramilitary formation which ostensibly " revenge on Saakashvili for the blood of their confreres spilled in Tskhinvali".
It is not excluded that special services of the Russian Federation have forced the members of the particular unit to take the commitment of the act of terrorism and afterwards the “terrorists” would be certainly killed, Nasha Abkhazia marks.
According to news agency Medianews, between 2006 and May, 2008, the Russian special services considered physical liquidation of Saakashvili only at a theoretical level. They started to think about it at a practical level since September, 2007, when it became clear that they would fail to create chaos in Georgia, and there was no force to launch new revolution against the current Georgian President.
According to the agency’s source, Patrushev has given command that the group which should carry out the act of terrorism, is ready for action in November-December. According to calculations of special services of the Russian Federation, in case of success of the operation, a large-scale struggle for power and complete chaos would start in Georgia that is in every possible way favourable to the official Moscow, Nasha Abkhazia concludes.
| — Hat tip: LN | [Return to headlines] |
Hindu Radicals Continue to Accuse Christians. the Police Begin Arrests in Orissa
Even after the Maoists claimed responsibility for the killing of Swami Laxmanananda, groups of fundamentalists affirm that his killing was decided “during a pastoral council,” to offer “a sacrifice to God.” Diocese of Bhubaneshwar: the lies are increasing the persecution.
Bhubaneshwar (AsiaNews) — This morning, dozens of homes belonging to Christians were attacked and burned in the village of Sukuli, in the district of Kalahandi in Orissa. Kalahandi is on the border with Kandhamal, where since August 23 there has been a pogrom against the Christians and their institutions, which is gradually expanding into other areas of the country. Meanwhile, the police have arrested Hindus — responsible for the violence against Christians — and Maoists, accused of killing a radical Hindu swami, who the fundamentalists say was killed by the Christians. Militant organizations continue to accuse the Christians, fabricating false evidence.
Security forces, the government of Orissa, and the central government have been highly criticized in recent weeks for their inability to prevent the attacks or defend Christians from looting, burning, and distraction.
Almost as if to respond to this accusation, yesterday the police of Orissa arrested 40 people connected to the violence against Christians. A representative of the interior ministry of Orissa has stated that so far, the police have arrested at least 1,000 people connected directly or indirectly to the violence. Of these, at least 500 are from Kandhamal.
Yesterday, the police arrested three people for their involvement in the assassination of radical Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, killed last August 23. They are Duryodhan Sunamajhi, Munda Badamajhi, and Sanatan Badamajhi, all active members of the communist party (Maoist) of India.
A few days ago, Maoist leader Sabyasachi Panda claimed responsibility for the killing of the swami, as his party had already done on August 23. But the police preferred to follow the line of investigation suggested by Hindu fundamentalists, according to whom it was the Christians who killed the swami. These accusations generated the pogroms of recent weeks.
This rumor, which has now spread all over India, is taking time to die out.
Yesterday, after the claim of responsibility by the Maoist leader, a radical Hindu group, the Jagaran Samukhya (JS) again declared that the assassination of the swami was “a pre-planned conspiracy executed by the Church.” Ashok Kumar Sahu, national president of the JS,says that the decision to eliminate the swami was made at the pastoral council of the parish of Betikola in Kandhamal, last May 25. Sahu has also circulated the alleged minutes of the meeting, which stated: “As according to the command of our bishop, it was decided to offer those (who indulged in Satanic activities opposing our expansion) as sacrifice at the altar of the Lord.” According to the published “minutes,” a date — August 23 — was set for the execution, intended to be followed by a great victory celebration.
The pastoral council that, according to Sahu, authored the minutes, has denounced them as false, saying that their signatures were forged.
The archbishop of Bhubaneshwar, Raphael Cheenath, reached by telephone in Delhi, says: “That parish belongs to the Christians and there is absolutely no question of making a sacrifice, besides such far fetched activities must be condemned and district authorities must take firm and immediate necessary steps to stop this false michievous disinformation from spreading. From the very beginning, it was clear that the Maoists were responsible for the tragic and condemnable murder of Swami Laxamananda. I am very sorry to say that the state government did not come out clearly that the Moaists were responsible, in fact this morning the government said that they had incriminating evidence with regards to Guruji’s death — this only causes suspicison and confusion in the minds of people.”
According to the Maoist leader who claimed responsibility for the assassination, the government covered up the evidence that proved who committed the murder.
Fr. Mrutyunjay Digal, the secretary of the diocese, confirms that these “minutes” published and diffused by the JS are “malicious.” “Betticola is my parish, I was baptized, confirmed, and received other sacraments in that parish — the entire area is strong in Catholic faith. In December 2007, our church was destroyed by the rampaging extremists venting their fury and violence on our peaceful Christian community of Kandhamal and specifically my parish. Extremists forged an entry into the parish council minutes stating that ‘a sacrifice to be offered to the Lord of the one who is making obstacles for the spread of His work’.”
Last August 27, the parish was again attacked by groups of Hindu fundamentalists. “My older brother,” the priest continues, “along with my other childhood friends were tonsured, forced to drink cow dung water and chant Hindu shlokas. Now these baseless and completely fabricated parish council minutes are another persecution for our community. Thousands of Christians in the region have been subjected to conversion ceremonies under threat of violence and death.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Huge EU Cash ‘Bribes’ to Send Migrants Home
HUGE cash bribes are being offered to African migrants to return home from Europe, the Daily Express can reveal.
Handouts, of more than £5,500, funded by taxpayers, are being dangled in front of thousands of immigrants — some working illegally — in EU states.´
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration: 150 Eritreans Land in Reggio, 6 in Hospital
(ANSAmed) — BOVA MARINA (REGGIO CALABRIA), OCTOBER 9 — A group of around 150 Eritrean national landed this morning at Bova Marina in Reggio Calabria. 43 women and 15 children were among the group. They arrived in Calabria on board a 14 metres long motorised fishing boat without ID. Six immigrants in poor physical condition were admitted to the Melito Porto Salvo hospital. A heavily-pregnant woman and her two year-old son were also admitted. Local and national police intervened at the disembarkment. The immigrants have been temporarily housed in the Council gym at Bova Marina while they wait to be transferred to a detention centre. An investigation has been launched into whether there are human traffickers among the immigrants. The immigrants are thought to have left Libya in the past few days in a bigger boat. When they neared the coast they transferred onto the fishing boat and arrived onshore. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jobs: Spain Tightens Screws on Contracts for Foreigners
(by Paola Del Vecchio) (ANSAmed) — MADRID, OCTOBER 9 — The Spanish Government is tightening the screws over immigration while the slaughter of illegal immigrants trying to reach the coast of Spain by sea continues. As promised in recent days, the Labour and Immigration minister Celestino Corbacho has drastically reduced the list of ‘‘jobs difficult to fill’’ that is, jobs where employers can look for labour overseas. The initiative is meant to protect the national labour market which in Spain saw the unemployment figure reach 11.3%, with 2 and a half million unemployed. The cut, according to El Pais, concerns 32.14% of the list of jobs difficult to fill, in particular in sectors which until a few months ago had the greatest number of foreign workers: service industries, which comprised 58.6% of foreign workers in the first half of 2007, construction (24.2%); and agriculture (11.8%). Crossed off the latest list, which expires every quarter and is drawn up by the state Public Employment Service are domestic helpers, waiters, carpenters, plumbers and farm labourers, professions which up until a few months ago were performed mainly by immigrant workers. Through the list from 1 January 2005 to 31 July 2007 454,717 immigrants with contracts were added in Spain; 88,180 in the first eight months of 2008. At the start of his mandate the Labour minister announced a major cut in contracts for immigrant workers to give priority to Spanish unemployed workers. On 3 September he promised that the number of contracts would be ‘‘close to zero’’, giving rise to protests and criticism by immigrant bodies, as well as from many Spanish nationals. In the end the Vice-premier Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega intervened to correct her colleagues statements, saying that there was no discrimination against foreign workers. Today De la Vega repeated that ‘‘there is no change in the Government’s immigration policy’’. Ministry sources are justifying the initiative as the correction of a bad practice by many businesses of importing foreign labour only to sack the workers and send them to the unemployment queues once they start to have rights. Then the employers get new batches of foreign workers. This practice has produced the greatest number of contracts in the last few years The difficult labour market in Spain, where unemployment will reach 15 pct in 2009 according to IMF estimates, will not stop the waves of illegal immigrants journeying by sea in the hope of reaching the shores of Europe. The latest disaster was reported today with fifty migrants missing. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Deputy Premier, Still Contracts for Moroccan Workers
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, OCTOBER 9 — The Spanish economy, “despite ongoing difficulties at a global level”, will continue to offer work contracts to Moroccan workers, “in the countryside above all”. This was the promise delivered by Deputy Premier Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega in Rabat today on her official visit to the Maghreb country. The Deputy Premier, says press agency Europa Press, recalled how at the start of 2000 Moroccans had been able to sign temporary work contracts to work in Spain and another 16,000 signed temporary contracts to work in the country’s farms. During a joint press conference with Moroccan Prime Minister, Abbas el Fassi, Ms De la Vega thanked him for his country’s “total and absolute” collaboration in the fight against illegal immigration, which “is bearing very positive fruit” with a 20 pct drop in the number of landings in Spain. As for the clampdown on contracts given to foreigners being implemented by Spain’s Labour and Immigration Ministry, the Deputy Premier assured that “there has been no change whatsoever in the immigration policy” of the Zapatero government and launched “a call for calm” in view of the programme of voluntary return to their countries of origin for unemployed immigrants. During talks with Moroccòs Foreign Minister, Taieb Fassi Fihri, Ms De la Vega urged the application of agreements for the repatriation of unaccompanied Moroccan minors. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Hamas Blames Jews for Global Crisis
A Hamas spokesman in the Gaza Strip stated on Tuesday that the banking crisis rocking US and world financial markets was caused by “bad administrative and financial management and a bad banking system put into place and controlled by the Jewish lobby,” AFP reported.
Fawzi Barhum, spokesman for the organization, blasted American leaders, and particularly President George W. Bush, for failing to acknowledge the role of “the Jewish lobby that put the US banking and financial sector into place.”
The lobby “controls the US elections and defines the
foreign policy of any new administration in a manner that allows it to retain control of the American government and economy.”
| — Hat tip: Abu Elvis | [Return to headlines] |
Haniyeh: American Empire is Collapsing
Enemies of US exalt in financial crisis wracking Western nations, despite toll it has taken on region. Muslim clerics, al-Qaeda leaders: ‘Allah is punishing America’
America’s opponents in the Middle East are gloating at the financial meltdown in the United States, describing it as the divinely inspired collapse of an overstretched empire…
Hardline clerics across the region as well as representatives of US opponents like Hamas and al-Qaeda have described the plummeting stocks and frozen credit markets in the United States as a kind of retribution for American misdeeds.
“We are witnessing the collapse of the American Empire,” Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister in the Gaza Strip, told worshippers during Friday prayers. “What’s going on in America is a result of the violation of the rights of people in Palestine, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Muslims around the world.”
Haniyeh’s comments followed those made by other regional leaders who have long had an antagonistic relationship with the US and appear to be enjoying the country’s troubles.
However, the financial meltdown has not left the region unscathed, with stock markets across the Middle East dropping more than 10% in the past week.
| — Hat tip: Abu Elvis | [Return to headlines] |
Hitler: The First “Anti-Globalization” Protester?
In my turbulent youth, nothing bothered me so much as having been born in a time that clearly would only erect its halls of fame for shopkeepers and civil servants. The waves of historical events appeared to have calmed, such that the future appeared really to belong only to “the peaceful competition among nations” — which is to say, a placid mutual swindling — with all violent methods of self-defense being excluded. Individual states began more and more to resemble commercial enterprises [Unternehmen], which sought to undercut one another and to snatch away clients and contracts from one another…. This development seemed not only to continue unabated, but (according to the universal recommendation) was even supposed to transform the whole world into one big department store….
— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, volume I, chapter 5
(translated from the German edition of 1943, Verlag Franz Eher Nachf., p. 172)
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Raymond Ibrahim’s “Today in History”: Charles the Hammer Saves the West From Islam at Tours
Precisely 100 years of Islamic conquests after Muhammad’s death (632), the Muslims, starting from Arabia, found themselves in Gaul, modern day France, confronting a hitherto little known people—the Christian Franks. There, on October 11th, 732, one of the most decisive battles between Christendom and Islam took place, demarcating the extent of the latter’s conquests, and ensuring the survival of the former.
Prior to this, the Islamic conquerors, drunk with power and plunder, had, for one century been subjugating all peoples and territories standing in their western march—from Arabia to Morocco (al-Maghreb, the “furthest west”). In 711, the Muslims made their fateful crossing of the straits of Gibraltar, landing for the first time on European ground. Upon touching terra firma, the leader of the Muslims, Tariq bin Zayid, ordered all the boats used for the crossing burned, asserting “We have not come here to return. Either we conquer and establish ourselves here, or we perish.” Islam was there to stay.
This famous Tariq anecdote—often reminisced by modern day jihadists—highlights the jihadist nature of the Umayyad caliphate (661-750), the superpower of its day. As most historians have acknowledged, the Umayyad caliphate was the “Jihadi-State” par excellence. Its very existence was closely tied to its conquests; its legitimacy as “viceroy” of Allah based on its jihadi expansion.
Once on European ground, the depredations continued unabated. Writes one Arab chronicler regarding the Muslim northern advance past the Pyrenees: “Full of wrath and pride” the Muslims “went through all places like a desolating storm. Prosperity made those warriors insatiable…everything gave way to their scimitars, the robbers of lives.” Even far off English anchorite, the contemporary Bede, wrote, “A plague of Saracens wrought wretched devastation and slaughter upon Gaul.”…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
2 comments:
baron:
You said: (before you updated this thread)
"I can also cut the Obama stories by 80%, and most people won't mind."
fjordman drew attention to the fact that at this juncture the spread of Marxism is the main danger, far more pernicious than the Muslim thuggery.
He wrote a long essay on this subject not long ago.
Obama is the first step toward the Marxist takeover of the US and several corollary will follow according to the left political agenda. It will include the silencing of the Anti-Islamic voices in favor of the Farrakhan style Islamist movement and there will be repercussion on the European theater given the US political weight: remember how Obama stoke up the Leftist fervor at the Berlin gathering.
It's not clear to me how could you advance your project by ignoring the nefarious direction the US - most likely - will turn under Obama and its effect on the world scene.
Some posters on this forum are completely cut off from anything but their own writing and they live in a imaginary world of their fantasies.
fjordman great essay at Brussels Journals:
"Sweden: The Triumph of Cultural Marxism
From the desk of Fjordman on Thu, 2008-10-09 17:11
Mona Sahlin, leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, confirmed that her party and the Greens want to form a coalition government in 2010."
In this very cogent article fjordman foretell the total collapse of the Swedish society with the approval of the Swedish people but for some the US is more of a danger than the Swedish establishment...
I strongly recommend fjordman's writing on the ridiculous if not sad Swedish societal landscape.
WARNING!
This is fjordman's essay not mine, so the habitual bashing individuals asked to get off of my back.
Walid Aly in the Sydney Morning Herald today thinks the Nazi's are coming in relation to the current financial crisis:
"The bad news for us is that malignant social politics have been slowly returning for a while in Russia, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Britain, Denmark and Norway. And it is an affliction that spreads well beyond Europe in the form of radicalism in the Muslim world and Hindu and Buddhist nationalisms in Asia."
Of course what he fails ot mention is that those same countries are the ones under attack from Islam.
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