Thanks to Aeneas, C. Cantoni, DJ, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, no2liberals, Paul Green, Yorkshire Miner, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Details are below the fold.
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Bailout Bill Loops in Green Tech, IRS Snooping
Last week, the Bush administration proposed a three-page bill to bail out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion. It died in the U.S. House of Representatives earlier this week.
On Friday, though, the House approved a far bigger, broader, and beefier version of the bill—which has ballooned to a remarkable 442 pages. The vote was 263 to 171, with the bulk of the opposition coming from Republicans. Because the Senate already approved the measure, it immediately went to President Bush, who signed it into law.
On the theory that this would be a way to convince previously skeptical Democrats to approve the measure, one large chunk of the bailout bill is devoted to renewable energy, energy-efficient appliances, and so on (the “Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008”). The authors lured Republicans with protections from the alternative minimum tax (via the “Tax Extenders and Alternative Minimum Tax Relief Act of 2008”).
That includes, as the New York Post pointed out, millions in tax breaks and related pork for kids’ wooden arrows, Puerto Rican rum producers, auto race tracks, and corporations operating in American Samoa. (The likely explanation for the latter: StarKist has a large tuna-canning operation in American Samoa. And StarKist’s parent company happens to be located in the district of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.)
The bill has become, in other words, something almost unrelated to the business of bailing out Wall Street. The Beltway term for this is a “Christmas tree bill,” meaning everyone gets to hang their favorite spending projects on it—though by the time Congress gets it through, it more closely resembles a slop bucket.
“We will not Christmas-tree this bill,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat promised a few days ago. “The times are too urgent. Everyone has their own desires and needs. It’s going to have to wait.”
So much for that idea.
Here’s a look a some of the green-tech measures…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Crowds Again Gather to Pray Before Image in Window
Springfield, MA: a crowd of hundreds again gathered outside a Mercy Medical Center office on Stafford Street to view what some believed to be an apparition of the Virgin Mary appearing in a second story window.
Crowd first gathered Tuesday afternoon [September 30th], taking photographs of the shadow outlined on the window with their cell phones and saying the rosary.
“I think it’s Our Lady of Guadalupe,” said Olga Romero who lives in the nearby Saab Court Apartments, referring to the apparition of the Virgin Mary reported in 1531 in Mexico…
| — Hat tip: DJ | [Return to headlines] |
Election Precinct in Islamic Center That Hosted Extremist’s Visit
The Board of Election for Franklin County, Ohio opened the first election precinct in an Islamic Center in the state this year during the primaries and will do so again during the upcoming general election. Yet, this same Islamic center sponsored an appearance of an avowed supporter of the terrorist group Hamas and a group cited as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land terror financing plot.
The Noor Islamic Cultural Center at Wilcox Rd., Dublin, Ohio, featured a visit by Hamas terror supporter Salam Al-Marayati who spoke in conjunction with an event put on by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) held at Noor Islamic Center, a group connected by the government with the Holy Land plot.
Al-Marayati made news when he refused to meet the Pope, but also has said that the terrorist bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut in the 1980s was not a terrorist act.
It is a little hard to fathom why the Franklin County Election Board would allow an election precinct to be opened in such a place isn’t it?
| — Hat tip: Aeneas | [Return to headlines] |
Militant Obama Youth March to ‘Alpha, Omega’ Chant
Teen boys in uniform drill, shout, profess, ‘Yes we can’
[Video]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
N.Y. Times Whitewashes Obama-Ayers Connection
Fails to report key associations, ignores incriminating documents given to paper
A prominent article by the New York Times this weekend purporting to investigate the connections between Sen. Barack Obama and former Weathermen radical Bill Ayers omits key associations between the two and in some cases seems to minimize their relationship.
One law professor and blogger who was interviewed for the Times piece says he provided the newspaper with key documentation showing Ayers was directly involved in the formation of the board of an education organization on which Obama served as chairman.
But the Times did not present that information and instead made the claim Ayers was not involved in the selection of Obama as chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, or CAC, which was founded by Ayers.
The Times article in question was first released online under the title “Obama had met Ayers, but the two are not close.” That title was soon changed to, “Obama and the ‘60’s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths.”
The piece purports to present the scope of Obama’s relationship with Ayers, an increasingly public point of contention during this campaign season, with Gov. Sarah Palin just yesterday highlighting the controversial relationship.
News reports, archived records, interviews and Ayers’ own curriculum vitae document that Ayers was the founder of CAC, which bills itself as a school reform organization. Documentation shows Ayers led the application process to apply for the original grant that funded the CAC.
Ayers served as co-chairman of the Chicago School Reform Collaborative, one of the two operational arms of the CAC, from its formation in 1995 until 2000. In 1995, Obama was appointed as the CAC’s first chairman.
The Times, though, does not mention Ayers’ role in founding the CAC, documented in several articles in 1994 and 1995 in the Chicago Tribune, which detail Ayers’ extensive work to secure the original grant from a national education initiative by Ambassador Walter Annenberg, as well as Ayers’ molding of the CAC guidelines.
Many argue it would have been unusual for Ayers not to have been involved in the selection of the chairman of the group he himself founded.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Racism Without Racists
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
One of the fallacies this election season is that if Barack Obama is paying an electoral price for his skin tone, it must be because of racists.
On the contrary, the evidence is that Senator Obama is facing what scholars have dubbed “racism without racists.”
The racism is difficult to measure, but a careful survey completed last month by Stanford University, with The Associated Press and Yahoo, suggested that Mr. Obama’s support would be about six percentage points higher if he were white. That’s significant but surmountable.
Most of the lost votes aren’t those of dyed-in-the-wool racists. Such racists account for perhaps 10 percent of the electorate and, polling suggests, are mostly conservatives who would not vote for any Democratic presidential candidate.
Rather, most of the votes that Mr. Obama actually loses belong to well-meaning whites who believe in racial equality and have no objection to electing a black person as president — yet who discriminate unconsciously.
“When we fixate on the racist individual, we’re focused on the least interesting way that race works,” said Phillip Goff, a social psychologist at U.C.L.A. who focuses his research on “racism without racists.” “Most of the way race functions is without the need for racial animus.”
For decades, experiments have shown that even many whites who earnestly believe in equal rights will recommend hiring a white job candidate more often than a person with identical credentials who is black. In the experiments, the applicant’s folder sometimes presents the person as white, sometimes as black, but everything else is the same. The white person thinks that he or she is selecting on the basis of nonracial factors like experience.
Research suggests that whites are particularly likely to discriminate against blacks when choices are not clear-cut and competing arguments are flying about — in other words, in ambiguous circumstances rather like an electoral campaign.
| — Hat tip: Paul Green | [Return to headlines] |
Social Engineering Derailed Our Economy
By Diana West:
The fact is, if American citizens become too widely acquainted with the fact that race-based social engineering virtually created the sub-prime mortgage industry that has transformed the U.S. economy into The Titanic, Obama will sink in the polls. That’s because race-based social engineering is what Obama both advanced as a so-called community organizer, and later funded as an official of Chicago’s Woods Fund, where he served alongside unrepentant terrorist and political ally William Ayers — another phantom political fact citizens now pondering their presidential votes are not supposed to consider. But I digress. The question is, how exactly did the government overlay of race-based goals onto the real estate marketplace help create the sub-prime mortgage industry, which, having imploded, triggered the current economic crisis, and what did Obama have to do with it?
The answer goes back to one of those totalitarian drawing boards where social engineers draft their human havoc. Not “enough” minorities owned homes, the social engineers decided, because not “enough” minorities were eligible for mortgages, the social engineers concluded. Therefore, in the bean-counting name of what “should” be, the social engineers effectively junked all bottom-line, non-racial markers of mortgage eligibility, from steady employment and clean credit to the all-important down payment, that banks have traditionally relied on to determine the difference between a good and a bad credit risk. This paved the way for increasingly unconventional “sub prime” loans for all (including rubber-check-writing deadbeats, speculators and novices-in-over-their-heads of all races). The social engineers claimed victory for what they called “affordable housing” — which also paradoxically created a vast market of extremely unaffordable housing — but it was just a house of card!
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Dems Did it!
When Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and other upstanding Democrats point to the “failed policies” of the Bush administration as the cause of the current chaos in the financial markets, they are deliberately trying to transfer the spotlight from their own party’s mistakes. The current crisis can be traced directly to President Clinton’s revision of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, or CRA.
The revision essentially required banks to expand their loan portfolios to include more low-income customers. Bank examiners rated banks on their compliance with these revisions. Community organizations such as ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) were empowered to comment on bank compliance. Banks quickly learned that a generous donation to these organizations was easier than defending themselves against complaints filed by these organizations. Loans made to low-income borrowers were immediately sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose policies also were revised to allow the purchase of these loans.
The task of revising Fannie Mae’s regulations fell to Herb Moses, director of product initiatives, who was also the homosexual “lover” of Rep. Barney Frank, who was a member of the House Banking Committee, which had oversight of Fannie Mae. These policy revisions were, in hindsight, spectacularly stupid. Rather than income verification and standard debt-to-income analysis, a welfare check stub or enrollment in a credit-counseling program were acceptable as “proof” of ability to make mortgage payments…
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Extradition Bid Raises Fears of ‘Thought Crime’ Offences
Crown Prosecution Service lawyers will put the case on behalf of the German authorities tomorrow that Fredrick Toben, an Australian doctor, should be extradited for offences allegedly committed in Germany.
The case is the latest example of the global reach of criminal laws — and of their impact between one European country and another.
The extradition request is being made under the European Arrest Warrant, a fast-track procedure to allow criminal suspects to be sent between European states.
The warrant, which came into force in January 2004, abolished the principle of “dual criminality” that existed under old extradition laws. This means that someone in Britain can be extradited for something that is not a crime here — as long as it is a criminal offence in the state requesting extradition.
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The reform was rushed through in part as a response to terrorism after September 11. Ministers also argued that it would speed up a cumbersome and slow extradition process, helping criminals to be brought more swiftly to justice.
Critics pointed out, however, that people could find themselves charged with an offence they did not know existed because racism or xenophobia, for example, can be interpreted differently in different jurisdictions. The spectre of “thought crime”, a person facing trial for broadcasting xenophobic or racist remarks such as denying the Holocaust on an internet chatroom in another country — as alleged against Dr Toben — was the very criticism raised against the warrant before it took effect.
At the time ministers undertook that if such “offences” took place in Britain, the perpetrators would not be extradited. However, in defence of the European Arrest Warrant it is argued that a country cannot ask for someone to be extradited on suspicion of committing a far-fetched offence that would never be a crime in most states.
Lord Filkin, then the Home Office Minister, said when the legislation went through Parliament that no one would be extradited for conduct that was legal in Britain. Spectre of ‘thought crime’ comes back to haunt Britain
Crown Prosecution Service lawyers will put the case on behalf of the German authorities tomorrow that Fredrick Toben, an Australian doctor, should be extradited for offences allegedly committed in Germany.
The case is the latest example of the global reach of criminal laws — and of their impact between one European country and another.
The extradition request is being made under the European Arrest Warrant, a fast-track procedure to allow criminal suspects to be sent between European states.
The warrant, which came into force in January 2004, abolished the principle of “dual criminality” that existed under old extradition laws. This means that someone in Britain can be extradited for something that is not a crime here — as long as it is a criminal offence in the state requesting extradition.
The reform was rushed through in part as a response to terrorism after September 11. Ministers also argued that it would speed up a cumbersome and slow extradition process, helping criminals to be brought more swiftly to justice.
Critics pointed out, however, that people could find themselves charged with an offence they did not know existed because racism or xenophobia, for example, can be interpreted differently in different jurisdictions. The spectre of “thought crime”, a person facing trial for broadcasting xenophobic or racist remarks such as denying the Holocaust on an internet chatroom in another country — as alleged against Dr Toben — was the very criticism raised against the warrant before it took effect.
At the time ministers undertook that if such “offences” took place in Britain, the perpetrators would not be extradited. However, in defence of the European Arrest Warrant it is argued that a country cannot ask for someone to be extradited on suspicion of committing a far-fetched offence that would never be a crime in most states.
Lord Filkin, then the Home Office Minister, said when the legislation went through Parliament that no one would be extradited for conduct that was legal in Britain.
| — Hat tip: Yorkshire Miner | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Muslim Fashion Store to be Launched Online
Verona, 3 Oct. (AKI) — Muslim women around the world will be able to buy fine Italian clothing in the first Islamic fashion store to be launched online on Tuesday.
The site is being launched by a young Italian Muslim convert who runs her own fashion business near Verona in the country’s north.
“I make clothes based on the Islamic model that respects Muslim demands based on the (Islamic) Sharia law and also compatible with Italian fashion,” said Giorgia Caliari, in an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI).
“By doing this, I intend to fulfil the needs of the sisters that live in Europe,” said Caliari, now known by her Muslim last name Afnan after converting to Islam seven years ago.
Afnan said that she is designing long coats that reach the knee, as well as dresses that go with the hijab, or Islamic headscarf.
“Right now I do not sell the Niqab (veil that covers the face) for a problem of practicality. I personally do not use it because I use the hijab, and thus I do not know about its suitability.”
Afnan runs her own small business in the northern Italian town of Caselle di Sommacampagna near Verona. A local tailor in her in town produces the clothes to her specifications.
“Mine is the first Islamic clothing store produced in our country, and I hope this gives rise to other entrepreneurial initiatives like mine, that have as an aim, to help Muslims live their lives in respect of their faith, compatible with the rules of this country,” said Afnan.
Afnan is married to a young Palestinian from a small village near the central city of Hebron in the West Bank and they have three children.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
NHS Child Loses Out as Surgeon Gives Liver Transplant to Private Patient From the Gulf
A senior surgeon broke NHS guidelines by transplanting part of a donated liver into a private overseas patient instead of saving it for someone on Britain’s waiting list.
Professor Nigel Heaton, head of the transplant unit at King’s College Hospital in London, transplanted part of the liver into a boy from one of the Gulf states.
Investigated: Professor Nigel Heaton broke guidelines
The surgeon was the subject of a formal investigation after other doctors said that a child on the NHS organ waiting list should have been given priority. National guidelines state that, because of the acute shortage of donor organs in Britain, livers must be offered to all other NHS centres before they can be given to a patient from outside the EU.
There are about 400 NHS patients on the liver transplant waiting list — 20 per cent of whom will die before a suitable organ can be found.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Over 300,000 Enterprises Close Down in 2007
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, AUGUST 5 — More than 322,500 enterprises in Spain stopped operating in 2007, equivalent to 8.6% of the total registered, while in the same year 410,975 new companies were established, equivalent to 11% of the total existent ones, data released by the national statistics institute (INE) showed. It is the first time since 1999 that more than 300,000 enterprises shut down in a year. The INE data indicate that in Spain fewer enterprises are created and more are closed; 80% of the companies are of small size and 50% do not have paid workers. In terms of the number of companies created, the trend in the last decade recorded a progressive rise, interrupted in 2007, the year in which 15,000 fewer enterprises emerged than in 2006. The number of companies operating in Spain exceeds 3.42 million, of which 51.3% do not have employees, while 28% pay one or two workers. Thus in total 80% of the companies have two or fewer employees, while large companies, with more than 20 employees, represent only 5.5% of the total. Trade companies are also following the same trend, according to the INE data: fewer are created and more are closed down. The statistics of the trade companies indicate a 33% drop in the number of companies established in May 2008 compared to May 2007. Moreover, the number of trade companies dissolved in the same period rose by 4.3%. The closing of companies is attributed by the economic studies institute on the one hand to the “natural course” of the enterprise, and on the other to the crisis which has hit the real estate sector since last summer. In fact, many of the companies which closed down are small and medium-sized enterprises of the 500,000 which in 2007 turned out to be linked to the real estate and construction sectors.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Galicia; Breeders at War Against Foreign Milk
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, SEPTEMBER 23 — Galician breeders are on a war footing against the milk distribution industries, accused of carrying out ‘dumping’ practices and importing huge quantities of milk from abroad, thus forcing local producers to lower the prices and get rid of the surplus. The protest, promoted by Galiciàs three main agricultural trade unions — Sindicato Labrego, Unions Agrarias and Xovenes Agricultores — went through moments of tension yesterday when some fifty breeders, in Outeiro, near the Portuguese border, blocked a tank lorry coming from Portugal, spilling onto the road the 25,000 litres of milk it was transporting bound to Penasanta corporation. The blockages carried out by the breeders, the media report today, were removed by the demonstrators before the intervention of the police. “It is a warning to the industry and distribution,” maintained the unions, according to which the fall, for the first time in August, of the price of milk of origin is due to a ‘dumping’ practice, removing from the market the milk produced by local breeders. “They use this mechanism to regulate their markets and are causing in Spain chaos in the sector, with drops in prices in the autumn unseen for 30 years,” the Unions Agrarias trade union claims. Although the forceful act was carried out against Portuguese milk, for Galician breeders Portugal is not the main competitor. “What does us most harm is the entries of enormous quantities of the product from France,” the unions protest. “It is intolerable, while the milk from Portugal and France is arriving, Galician industries to tell us that our product is in excess”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Headmaster’s Killer We Cannot Deport in Case We Breach His Right to a ‘Family Life’
Strolling through a London suburb, the young man dressed in jeans and a brown leather jacket barely warrants a second glance from others in the street.
But 13 years ago, he stabbed to death headmaster Philip Lawrence in one of the most notorious murders of recent times.
This is the latest image of 28-year-old killer Learco Chindamo — prison number KA0030 — who has been freed from jail on ‘temporary licence’ after serving 12 years of a life sentence imposed for Mr Lawrence’s murder.
Out and about: Learco Chindamo takes a walk earlier this week
Chindamo, who hopes to start a new life, was only 15 when he murdered the 48-year-old father of four outside St George’s Roman Catholic School in Maida Vale in 1995.
Chindamo was waiting outside the school to fight a 13-year-old pupil, who is thought to have offended his Triad-style gang.
Only last year, during an immigration tribunal hearing to decide whether he should be deported on his release, Chindamo was described as posing a ‘genuine and present risk’ to the public.
The tribunal ruled that Italian-born Chindamo could not be deported after being freed because this would breach his right to family life.
Mr Lawrence’s widow Frances said she was ‘demoralised and devastated’ by the decision.
She commented: ‘In Article 2 of the Human Rights Act my husband had the right to life. Chindamo has destroyed that right yet he has used the legal process to enable him to live as described in Article 8.
‘The Act works in his best interest, it is ill-equipped to work in my family’s interest or for people in my situation.’…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
World Economic Crisis: France Moves Into Recession
The French premier, Francois Fillon, today warned that the world was “on the edge of the abyss” as his country moved into an official recession.
Fillon’s comments, blaming an “irresponsible” financial system, came as the Dutch government seized control of bancassurer Fortis’s Netherlands operations in a €16.8bn (£13.06bn) deal greed with the Belgian and Luxembourg authorities.
The effective nationalisation, forced upon the governments by the scale of the financial meltdown, includes Fortis’s interests in Dutch bank ABN Amro.
The shock decision came just days after the three governments injected €11.2bn into Fortis, Belgium’s biggest bank, to keep it afloat.
Fillon was speaking on the eve of today’s emergency summit of EU leaders in Paris to try to find collective ways of restoring confidence.
He said that the president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who called the talks, would propose that Europe “make its banking systems secure, unfreeze credit and co-ordinate its economic and monetary strategy”.
“We do not rule out any option to guarantee that no banking institution will be forced into bankruptcy. The state will intervene each time it’s necessary to secure our banking system,” he said. However, opposition from other governments has ruled out a US-style bail-out plan.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Almost 75% Serbs Feel Insecure, Survey
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, OCTOBER 3 — Almost 75% of the Kosovo Serbs feel insecure regarding their safety in Kosovo, unlike the 7 percent of the Albanians there, according to a survey organized by the U.N. Development Program (UNDP), the results of which were presented, reports BETA news agency. “Almost 75% of Serbs have said they felt insecure or less secure regarding safety,” according to the survey of Kosovo citizens’ “satisfaction” with the work of the institutions and with the situation in the fields of security, economy, inter-ethnic relations, post-status Kosovo and corruption. The chief of UNDP for Kosovo, Frode Mauring, said the survey had shown that the majority of people in Kosovo see welfare and economic issues, unemployment and poverty as the key threat to the stability of Kosovo. For the first time there is a feeling that Kosov institutions are responsible for the state in Kosovo, and not UNMIK, as has been the case so far, Mauring said. In his words, although the popularity of UNMIK has dropped, only 15% of citizens believe that the mission should leave Kosovo. The survey was conducted from July to September and has also shown that satisfaction with the work of Kosovo institutions is lower. The most drastic drop was observed in the assessment of the work of the UNMIK chief, while an average drop in satisfaction was registered in the case of the Kosovo Assembly, its president and premier. According to the citizens, the most corrupt institutions are the Kosovo Energy Corporation and the Kosovo Trust Agency, said the manager of the survey project, Faton Bislimi. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mideast: Gaza; Stop With Toy Guns, Too Many Wounded
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, OCTOBER 3 — The surveillance corpus, that has been serving as police force after the expulsion of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) from Gaza, called upon the parents not to give plastic guns to their children due to the high numbers of injuries they caused. Medical sources in Gaza said that especially in the three days of Eid Al-Fitr, which have just closed the holy month of Ramadan, some 150 children were treated after being shot by the plastic bullets fired from compressed-air guns, inappropriately defined “toys”. “Many of these wounds are serious because involve the eyes,” an agent said, adding that the adults must avoid giving certain objects to kids or at least supervise their plays if they are too violent or dangerous. The police, who demanded from the store owners to stop selling the dangerous toys, said that certain ‘armed clashes’ between children fuel their combat spirit, often degenerating in quarrels and clashes between adults. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mideast: Israel-Iran: Two Huge Antennas to Rise in Dimona
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, OCTOBER 3 — The construction of two more than 400-metre-high antennas has started outside the Israeli nuclear plant of Dimona (Negev), Maariv daily reported, adding that their construction, which would require three months, takes place “in the context of the tension between Israel and Iran”. In the meantime, the works for the installation of a new U.S. radar station, delivered in the past days to the Israeli military base of Nevatim through an air bridge by Galaxy aircraft, continue in western Negev, near Mount Keren. The radar station will be exclusively managed by some 60 U.S. soldiers who have arrived from Europe. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Report: Palestinians on Alert for Hamas West Bank Takeover
Israel expected to retreat from strategic territory as result of U.S.-backed talks
JERUSALEM — Security forces associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah organization are on alert for a possible Hamas takeover of the West Bank, a pan-Arab newspaper reported today.
WND two weeks ago quoted security officials stating there was specific information Hamas was planning an eventual West Bank takeover.
Now the London-based daily al-Sharq al-Awsat quoted Fatah security sources stating Hamas may assassinate Fatah officials as part of a larger plan to takeover the West Bank just as it seized control of the Gaza Strip in a violent coup last summer.
It also quoted unnamed Hamas members in the West Bank as saying a West Bank takeover is in the works.
Israel is currently negotiating a retreat from the West Bank as part of talks initiated at last November’s U.S.-backed Annapolis Summit, which sought to create a Fatah-led Palestinian state before January.
While Al-Sharq al-Awsat quoted unnamed Hamas sources, WND recently conducted an exclusive interview with Mahmoud Al-Zahar, the Hamas chief in Gaza, who said Hamas are the rightful representatives of the Palestinian people and should control the entire West Bank just as they rule the Gaza Strip.
“According to our rights, we are the elected majority, and a majority in a democracy should control all the Palestinian areas, whether in the West Bank or in the Gaza Strip. This is not an extraordinary issue,” said Al-Zahar, who is considered the second most powerful Hamas leader following the group’s overall chief, Khaled Meshaal, who resides in exile in Damascus.
“Do you respect democracy? If you respect democracy, the elections in January ‘06 indicated Hamas is the majority and it should run the administration in Gaza and the West Bank,” said al-Zahar, speaking from Gaza.
Al-Zahar was referring to Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 in which Hamas was victorious by a large margin. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas unilaterally disbanded the Hamas-led Palestinian government after Hamas seized control of Gaza last summer.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Those Who Want to Bring Evil Still Active, Bishops
(ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 1 — In a “calm and constructive” atmosphere Lebanon’s parliament adopted a new electoral law late last night, an atmosphere that the Maronite League — as reported by AsiaNews agency — hopes will prevail in a meeting of Maronite MPs that should prepare for inter-Christian reconciliation, but one that Maronite bishops together for their monthly meeting do not see across the country. In their view the country still lacks the necessary cooperation to lead it out of its current crisis and back to a normal situation where people can live and work in peace, said their press release. A new electoral was part of the Doha agreement that ended months of political crisis. It redraws electoral districts but does not lower the voting age from 21 to 18 or introduce a quota for women (currently only six out 128). Under the new law Lebanese expatriates will be allowed to vote, but only in 2013, but voting now will be held on a single day. The law also lays down rules about spending, media, ballots and the identity papers voters will need to cast their ballot. Still not every issue has been settled. In the press release read by Mgr Youssef Tawk at the end of the meeting of the Maronite Bishops Council, no opinion was expressed about the new election law. The communiqué began by condemning the Tripoli blast that killed seven people. For Lebanon’s Maronite bishops the attack shows that people who want to bring evil to Lebanon are still active. In this atmosphere politicians of every stripe should encourage calm and strengthen the spirit of reconciliation. They ought to renew their efforts to bring the country back to normalcy, reduce its huge debt and allow people to lead a normal life. This is also what the Maronite League wants to do by promoting reconciliation among Christian politicians. Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir referred to it at the end of a surprise visit to the Lebanese president (see photo). “We shall not spare our efforts to reach reconciliation,” Sfeir said. Whilst expressing hope that Christians “would sit together because other sects have achieved reconciliation,” he did not underestimate the difficulties ahead. For his part a Lebanese Forces leader told NOW Lebanon not to expect any major breakthrough in the upcoming meeting. He said that as much as the patriarchatés action was important, “others” were not yet willing to put aside their partisan and electoral interests in favour of Christian reconciliation. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mosul, the Relentless Slaughter of Iraqi Christians
Two new attacks yesterday against the Christian community: the owner of a clothing store and a 15-year-old boy were killed. A source for AsiaNews denounces the climate of “panic” that fills the city, and the “indifference of the media,” which have passed over the slaughter “in silence.”
Mosul (AsiaNews) — A new attack against the Christians in Mosul: yesterday afternoon, an armed group assassinated Hazim Thomaso Youssif, age 40. The ambush took place in front of his clothing store in Bab Sarray; it is not yet known who ordered the killing, but it is suspected that it is the work of Islamic fundamentalists, in a city that has long been the theater of deadly attacks on the Christian community.
On the same day, 15-year-old Ivan Nuwya, also a Christian, was killed. The young man was shot to death in front of his home in the neighborhood of Tahrir, in front of the local mosque of Alzhara.
A source for AsiaNews in Mosul decries the “climate of panic” in which the Christian community lives, the slaughter of which continues “to the indifference” of the media, which “do not even report the crimes that are committed.” Speaking of the situation in Mosul, the source emphasizes that the city “has become the holocaust of the Christians,” and that there is no sign of improvement despite the efforts in the war on terror.
The diocese has been paying an increasingly large tribute of blood in recent years, beginning with the tragic kidnapping of Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, whose lifeless body was found last March 13 in an abandoned area just outside of the city. During the ambush that preceded the archbishop’s captivity, the three men acting as his bodyguard were massacred by the terrorists.
In 2007, the Iraqi Christian community suffered 47 deaths, 13 of them in Mosul: these include Fr Ragheed Gani, murdered on June 3, and two other priests.
Between January 6 and 17 of this year, there was also a series of attacks on Christian property. A wave of bombings struck the Chaldean church of the Immaculate Virgin, the Chaldean Church of St Paul, which was almost destroyed, the entrance to the orphanage run by the Chaldean sisters in al Nour, a Nestorian church, and the convent of the Dominican sisters in Mosul Jadida.
The last episode of violence dates back to September 2, when there was a tragic end to the kidnapping of a 65-year-old doctor, Tariq Qattan, who was killed in spite of the fact that his family had paid 250,000 dollars for his release. Two days before, another Christian, Nafi Haddad, had been kidnapped and killed. (DS)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen Economy Takes USD 2 Bln Hit From Terrorism
(ANSAmed) — SANAA, OCTOBER 1 — Terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups have cost Yemen’s economy more than $2 billion, Yemen’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi said terrorist attacks had impacted the economy of the country, one of the poorest in the world, and called on the international community to provide more aid, state news agency SABA reported. Yemen has witnessed a recent upsurge in attacks by groups linked to Al-Qaeda in the last year, including a deadly attack on the US embassy in Sanaa on September 17 in which 18 people were killed. Al-Qirbi also welcomed international observers to attend the country’s parliamentary elections in April next year and pledged to take all measures to ensure the elections were fair. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Behind the Bluster, Russia is Collapsing
The bear is back. That’s what all too many Russia-watchers have been saying since Russian troops steamrolled Georgia in August, warning that the country’s strongman, Vladimir Putin, was clawing his way back toward superpower status. The new Russia’s resurgence has been fueled — quite literally — by windfall profits from gas and oil, a big jump in defense spending and the cocky attitude on such display during the mauling of Georgia, its U.S.-backed neighbor to the south. Many now believe that the powerful Russian bear of the Cold War years is coming out of hibernation.
Not so fast. Predictions that Russia will again become powerful, rich and influential ignore some simply devastating problems at home that block any march to power. Sure, Russia’s army could take tiny Georgia. But Putin’s military is still in tatters, armed with rusting weaponry and staffed with indifferent recruits. Meanwhile, a declining population is robbing the military of a new generation of soldiers. Russia’s economy is almost totally dependent on the price of oil. And, worst of all, it’s facing a public health crisis that verges on the catastrophic.
To be sure, the skylines of Russia’s cities are chock-a-block with cranes. Industrial lofts are now the rage in Moscow, Russian tourists crowd far-flung locales from Thailand to the Caribbean, and Russian moguls are snapping up real estate and art in London almost as quickly as their oil-rich counterparts from the Persian Gulf. But behind the shiny surface, Russian society may actually be weaker than it was even during Soviet times. The Kremlin’s recent military adventures and tough talk are the bluster of the frail, not the swagger of the strong.
While Russia has capitalized impressively on its oil industry, the volatility of the world oil market means that Putin cannot count on a long-term pipeline of cash flowing from high oil prices. A predicted drop of about one-third in the price of a barrel of oil will surely constrain Putin’s ability to carry out his ambitious agendas, both foreign and domestic.
| — Hat tip: no2liberals | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Tehran Buys Russian Helicopters
Tehran, 3 Oct. (AKI) — One of Russia’s largest helicopter producers announced on Friday that is finalising a deal with Iran for the purchase of several helicopters.
According to Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti, the helicopter — the Kamov Ka-226T (Photo) — would be used for civil rather than military purposes.
However, the helicopter, which Iran is reportedly considering, has an interchangeable ‘mission pod’ that can turn it into a passenger, freight, search and rescue as well as patrol aircraft.
Roman Chernyshev, director of Kamov said the helicopters would be for civil rather than military use and he expected to sign the contract by the end of the year.
He also said that other Russian aircraft makers had already signed deals with the Islamic Republic, citing as an example, the expected delivery of 100 Tupolev TU-204 passenger airliners.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Russia’s UAC May Join India in Development of Brahmos-2 Missile
MOSCOW, October 3 (RIA Novosti) — Russia’s United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) will participate in the joint development of a new cruise missile with India only if a decision is made to adopt it for service with the Russian Air Force, the company said on Friday.
UAC was formed last year from leading domestic plane producers to streamline the country’s aircraft-building industry, and includes Ilyushin, Tupolev, Sukhoi, Antonov and Mikoyan, as well as companies involved in distribution.
“Our participation will be certain only if we receive an official request to equip Russian fighters, the Su-MKI in particular, with these missiles. So far we have not received such a request,” said UAC president Alexey Fyodorov.
Russia and India announced in September plans to jointly develop a new BrahMos-2 hypersonic cruise missile.
The new missile will have a top speed of over Mach 5, which would make it virtually impossible to intercept…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Russia to Stage Largest Air Force War Games Since Soviet Times
Russia will stage its largest air force war games since Soviet times next week in the latest stage of the Kremlin’s strategy to show off the country as a military superpower reborn.
Their progress watched closely by increasingly jittery western militaries, dozens of nuclear bombers will take part in the exercise. Tu-95 Bear bombers will fire cruise missiles at targets in sub-Arctic Russia for the first time since 1984.
While Russia insists that the war games are not meant as a gesture of aggression, the West is growing increasingly uneasy about the scale of the manoeuvres.
The aerial exercises, which will take place close to American airspace in Alaska, are part of a month-long war game known as Stability 2008 that Russia claims is the biggest for 20 years.
As the bombers take to the air next week, Russian ships will also be conducting exercises in the North Sea and the Baltic as well as in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. A flotilla of war ships is also sailing to the Caribbean for joint exercises with Venezuela, Washington’s greatest foe in South America, which will come within a few hundred miles of the US coastline.
A Russian nuclear powered submarine has also just docked in the Kamchatka peninsula after completing a one-month voyage under the Arctic Ocean without resurfacing. The Kremlin has made territorial claims to a large portion of the Arctic, which holds vast energy supplies under its rapidly shrinking ice.
Not since the end of the Cold War has Russia demonstrated its global military reach in such a manner.
Over 60,000 troops and 1,500 tanks and armoured personnel carriers have taken part in the first fortnight of exercises. Land-based and submarine launched nuclear missiles have also been tested. Once the bombers have fired their cruise missiles next week, Russia will have carried out its first near-simultaneous test launches of all elements of its nuclear triad since the Cold War.
The has worried military observers critical of the Kremlin, who say the scope and character of the exercises does not gel with official explanations that they are designed to train the country’s armed forces in counter-terrorism and military defence.
Pavel Felgenhauer, a respected military analyst, says the geographical reach of the exercises suggests that they are intended to simulate a nuclear war with the United States…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“Daily War Against Terrorism is the Pakistani People’s War”
A Christian lawmaker, who heads a Pakistani minority group, talks to AsiaNews about the atmosphere of terror that is gripping the country. He explains that the war on terrorism has become a fight to free Pakistan from extremism for security.
Islamabad (AsiaNews) — Tensions are still high in Islamabad and other Pakistani cities following the 20 September Marriot Hotel bombing which killed 53 and injured 266. Tight security measures have not however discouraged terrorists, so much so that the United Kingdom and the United States Embassies have told their diplomats to send their families home, thus confirming that they expect further attacks.
Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian member of Pakistan’s lower house, told AsiaNews that fear is widespread because 99 per cent of the victims of attacks are Pakistanis even though the main target is the international community.
Yesterday for example in Wali Bagh in Charsadda (North-West Frontier Province) security forces prevented the assassination of Awami National Party Chief Asfandyar Wali Khan. Five persons, including two policemen and a suicide bomber, were killed and 12 others injured in the attack.
Interior Affairs Minister Rehman Malik said that the government was undaunted and the war on terror would continue until the militants are defeated.
“There is no other option,’’ Malik said, adding that we “will not stop any operation unless we reach its logical end. That means that this war will continue until we make Pakistan terrorism-free.”
Bhatti, who also chairs the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA), slammed the attack and all kinds of terrorism, especially that by the Taliban and al-Qaeda who want to spread an idea of Islam that is creating panic in Pakistan and around the world.
“Behind these brutal attacks there is but one force. The war against the militants is important but finding their strategists and financiers is more important,” he said.
“It is worrisome that the extremists can attract so many young people, ready to kill and be killed,” he lamented.
“Many say that the war on terror is an American war and that the Pakistani government is killing its own people, but now this war is for Pakistan, for our innocent people killed in many attacks. For this reason the war on terror has become our war. Everyone must realise this and work with the government for our own security against extremism.”
“In this the role of the media is fundamental,” he said. “They should not glorify the extremists and their acts of terror or justify them. There are no justifications for the murder of the innocent.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Christian Father and Son Hacked to Death in Orissa
The man was a very influential Christian leader. Radical Hindus seek to eliminate community leaders. Widespread mistrust of police action. Four extremists have been arrested after a long delay, accused of raping a sister.
Bhubaneshwar (AsiaNews) — Two tribal Christians, a father and his son, were killed by a group of Hindu extremists on the night of October 2 in the village of Sindhupanka, in the district of Kandhamal.
They were Dushashan Majhi and his 15-year-old son, Shyam Sunder Majhi. The two were sleeping amid the remains of their home, destroyed the day before by Hindu radicals. Dushashan was the leader of a Christian community, highly respected and influential. The elimination of community leaders has become the prime objective of fundamentalist groups, to stop the action of Christians and what they call “forced conversions”.
A local source tells AsiaNews: “Dushashan was an important community leader and had stood for elections for the local village council last year. Recently, Dushashan had filed charges against some extremists who burnt down a church in the village in the violence in the wake of the murder of the Swami Laxamananada”.
The swami’s death, which police believe to have been the work of the Maoists, unleashed a pogrom against Christians and their institutions on August 24, which has spread from the district of Kandhamal (Orissa) to other states of the confederation.
“These fundamentalists”, the source continues, “are targeting influential Christian leaders and systematically eliminating them. Dushashan and his son were sleeping in their demolished house, were dragged outside by radicals in the dead of the night and hacked to death with an axe”.
The police confirmed this account last night. But many witnesses accuse the police of inaction, and of failing to guarantee the safety of the Christian population. Others speak openly of complicity.
One example comes from an incident in recent days, in which four Hindu radicals were arrested under the accusation of raping a sister in Baliguda. The violence took place last August 24. Female doctors visited the sister on the night of the incident, and presented a report confirming sexual violence within 72 hours. But the police held onto the report and made the arrests only on October 1. And only on October 3, 38 days after the fact, did Naveen Patnaik, chief minister of Orissa, speak out against the incident, calling it “savage” and “shameful”.
The police chief of Baliguda has been put on probation. But many Christians are convinced that all of these decisions have taken place only because of the bad publicity for the government of Orissa, after news of the rape hit the national newspapers.
But local Church sources tell AsiaNews that even the four arrestees are simply scapegoats intended to stop the criticism of inaction against the police and the government, and that they are not responsible for raping the sister.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Girl, Mistaken for Christian, Gangraped, Murdered in Orissa
NEW DELHI: Rajani Majhi, a 20-year-old girl, was gangraped before being burnt alive by a mob at the church-run orphanage in Orissa’s Bargarh district where she worked, says a senior priest. They mistook her for a Christian.
“I am willing to testify in any court of law,” TV Peter, procurator of the Sambalpur diocese in the western part of the state, said on phone. The incident took place on August 25 as anti-Christian violence engulfed the state.
“Some policemen and locals were witness to the atrocities by a mob led by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal at the orphanage in Padampur village in Bargarh district. I went to the spot immediately afterwards and spoke to the witnesses.
“The mob thought she was a Christian girl but actually she was a Hindu and was adopted by a childless couple. She was working in the orphanage,” said Peter.
Instead of rescuing the victims, the policemen remained mute spectators, alleged the priest.
Rajani was a student in Padampur Women’s College and worked at the orphanage to finance her education. The orphanage, which was set ablaze by the mob, was meant for children of leprosy patients.
“Almost two years back, she joined the orphanage run by Jesuit priest Father Edward Secuira of our diocese to continue her studies,” said Peter.
He related the sequence of events that started around 1.30 pm when Secuira was resting in an ante-room, adjacent to the boys’ hostel in the orphanage.
“A group of attackers kept banging on his door. When he opened it, he was immediately dragged to the courtyard and brutally beaten up.
“Seeing Father Secuira being hit, Rajani and some children from the orphanage began running for their lives. But the mob did not let Rajani escape and gang-raped her,” Peter said.
“By that time, Father Secuira was locked in his room. All he could hear was Rajni’s plaintive cries, ‘Save me Father, I am spoilt now. They are going to kill me’,” Peter related.
The mob left two hours after Rajani had been burnt to death. Secuira’s bed had also been set ablaze by the mob, Peter said.
Asked what he planned to do now, Peter repeated his offer to testify in court, as “not many were likely to come forward to testify against the murderous mob especially in the present circumstances when the atmosphere is vitiated”.
“The people are still being persecuted. We don’t have any trust in the government,” he added.
Anti-Christian violence flared up in Orissa after the murder of VHP leader Laxmanananda Saraswati in the state’s Kandhamal district on August 23.
The violence continues on Saturday, with extreme Hindu groups blaming Christians for the death, a charge the Christians have denied repeatedly.
Rajani’s gangrape and murder came on the same day as a 28-year-old nun was gangraped in Kandhamal district and a priest who tried to save her was beaten up and doused with kerosene before both were paraded naked, while a dozen policemen watched.
Only on Friday did the state government order a probe into this incident, over a month after the nun gave her complaint in writing.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
India: Archbishop Claims 100 Christians on Hindu ‘Hitlist’
Bhubaneswar, 2 Oct. (AKI) — An Indian archbishop from the eastern state of Orissa claims he is one of 100 Christians, including church clergy, whose lives have been included on a Hindu “hitlist” threatening their lives.
In an exclusive interview, Archbishop Raphael Cheenath, Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhunaneswar, told Adnkronos International (AKI) the names of bishops, priests and other Christians were included on a “postcard” sent to him by Hindu extremists who threatened violence.
“I am under threat of death,” he told AKI. “The card says ‘We will eliminate you’ and not only me. There is a list of people.”
State authorities reinstated a curfew in parts of Orissa on Wednesday after a woman was killed and 12 others were injured in the troubled Kandhamal district in the latest religious violence.
“It is simply out of control,” Cheenath said. “Because the administration is so irresponsible, people do this sort of thing without any hindrance.”
Kandhamal has been at the centre of anti-Christian violence for several weeks. Fierce clashes between Christians and Hindus broke out after a Hindu religious leader was shot dead. Now the violence has spread to four other Indian states, including Karnataka.
While Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has described the violence as “unfortunate” and appealed for calm, Cheenath said the authorities were failing to stop continuing violence.
“A curfew has been imposed but it is only for Christians who are law-abiding citizens, not for the others,” he said.
“Others go on doing whatever they want, destroying chapters, burning houses, and killing people.
Cheenath echoed other clergy who have claimed Christians are being forced to denounce their faith.
“Under attack they are being forced to say that they are Hindus, or their relatives will be killed or their property will be looted or their houses will be burned. Under these kinds of threats they are making everybody Hindu.”
Cheenath’s archdiocese covers the capital of Orissa, Bhubaneswar, which has 100 churches and chapels.
He said many church buildings had been destroyed in the recent conflict and up to 20,000 Christians in Kandhamal had sought relief in refugee camps because they were too afraid to go home.
“For one or two months, they will not go back because there are people going around with swords, spears and guns to shoot anybody and attack anybody,” he said.
Cheenath said the religious conflict was embarassing for the government and unacceptable under India’s Constitution which gave every individual the right to practise their faith and freedom of speech.
“Why should Christians be earmarked for practising their faith,” he said. “It is a duty of the state government to observe the Constitution.”
Recent violence has drawn strong condemnation from Pope Benedict XVI and the Italian government.
The Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Franco Frattini, on Wednesday welcomed moves by Indian authorities to stop the spiralling violence, restore human rights and ensure respect for fundamental freedoms, including religion.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Suicide Bomber Attacks Pakistan Politician’s Home
A suicide bomber has blown himself up at the home of a leader of Pakistan’s coalition government, killing four people.
The bomber detonated the explosives at the house of Asfandyar Wali Khan, the head of the Awami National Party (ANP), which controls Pakistan’s troubled North West Frontier Province.
The bombing occurred in the town of Charsadda as Pakistan’s new civilian government attempts to tackle a burgeoning Taliban insurgency.
Mr Khan was visiting a guest in a room attached to his house during celebrations for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr.
“Four people were killed in the suicide blast. The target was Asfandyar Wali but he is safe,” said Mian Iftikhar, the provincial information minister.
The ANP, a secular party that has allied itself to the US-led ‘war on terror’ has increasingly become the target of terrorist attacks since it came to power after elections in February.
Twenty-five people were killed in a bombing at an ANP rally in Charsadda before the elections.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Boy Feeds Aussie Zoo’s Animals to Croc
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — A 7-year-old boy broke into a popular Outback zoo, fed a string of animals to the resident crocodile and bashed several lizards to death with a rock, the zoo’s director said Friday.
The 30-minute rampage, caught on the zoo’s security camera, happened early Wednesday after the boy jumped a security fence at the Alice Springs Reptile Center in central Australia, said zoo director Rex Neindorf.
The child then went on a killing spree, bashing three lizards to death with a rock, including the zoo’s beloved, 20-year-old goanna, which he then fed to “Terry,” an 11-foot, 440-pound saltwater crocodile, said Neindorf.
The boy also fed several live animals to Terry by throwing them over the two fences surrounding the crocodile’s enclosure, at one point climbing over the outer fence to get closer to the giant reptile.
In the footage, the boy’s face remains largely blank, Neindorf said, adding: “It was like he was playing a game.”
By the time he was done, 13 animals worth around $5,500 had been killed, including a turtle, bearded dragons and thorny devil lizards, Neindorf said. Although none were considered rare, some are difficult to replace, he said.
“We’re horrified that anyone can do this and saddened by the age of the child,” Neindorf said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pirates of the High Seas
Armed raiders targeting merchant shipping are netting $50m a year off Somalia — and now access to the Suez Canal is under threat. Ian Johnston investigates
They are armed to the teeth, ruthless and desperate, but claim to adhere to their own code of conduct. They have grown so powerful that they threaten to cut a vital trade route, and fearful merchants are crying out for naval escorts. In the seas off Somalia, it seems as if the so-called heyday of piracy at the turn of the 18th century has returned, with an estimated 1,000 pirates organised into five main fleets stalking a latter-day Barbary Coast.
High-speed plastic skiffs, AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades have replaced the galleons, flintlocks and cannons of old, and their targets are no longer ships full of Spanish gold, but oil tankers and human hostages to be ransomed for millions of American dollars.
However, the deadly intent is the same and the threat to shipping is becoming as serious, with merchant marine organisations warning vessels may be forced to stop using the Suez Canal and make the long detour round the Cape of Good Hope. It seems almost unthinkable, but a route taken by tankers carrying a third of the world’s oil could be closed because of piracy, a crime many in Britain will associate only with semi-legendary tales of Blackbeard and Johnny Depp’s comic turn as Captain Jack Sparrow in the film Pirates of the Caribbean.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Federal Probe Into S.F. Sanctuary City Policy
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal grand jury is investigating whether San Francisco’s policy of offering sanctuary to undocumented immigrants violates U.S. laws against harboring people who are in the country illegally, city officials say.
City Attorney Dennis Herrera said his office has hired a criminal defense lawyer to represent employees who might be questioned or asked for documents. He and Mayor Gavin Newsom said they would cooperate with the investigation.
San Francisco, like about 80 other U.S. cities and five states, has a law prohibiting the use of its funds to help enforce federal immigration law or to question individuals about their immigration status. The San Francisco ordinance, originally prompted by arrivals of refugees from Central American wars of the 1980s, specifies that police can report jailed felons to federal immigration authorities.
The Chronicle reported earlier this year that San Francisco juvenile justice authorities, interpreting the sanctuary policy, had flown some illegal immigrant youths to their home countries after Juvenile Court judges found they had committed felonies. Other youths were sent to unlocked group homes in this country and escaped.
The policy of not referring juvenile offenders to federal immigration authorities had been in place for at least a decade. Newsom announced in July, after the first Chronicle articles appeared, that he had halted the flights in May and told city officials to start turning over youthful felons as well as adults to immigration officers for deportation.
Herrera’s office was notified of the investigation several weeks ago when the grand jury issued a subpoena for documents. It’s not clear whether prosecutors are seeking evidence of possible criminal violations by city officials. Herrera issued a prepared statement but did not answer questions about the investigation, and U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello — who has been a vocal critic of the city’s policy — had no comment, said spokesman Joshua Eaton.
Herrera’s statement said his office would “cooperate fully with the U.S. attorney’s inquiry involving individuals in city custody who may be undocumented.”…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic Takeover of U.S. Already Under Way
An expert on terrorism is warning the United States should be fighting Islamization, which she believes already is under way. And author Brigitte Gabriel should know: She watched it happen in her native Lebanon.
“Lebanon used to be the only majority Christian country in the Middle East,” Gabriel told radio talk show host Andrea Shea King in a recent hour-long interview “Most people today do not know that. We were the majority, the Muslims were the minority, but as the years went by, the Muslims became the majority because of their birth rate, but also because of our open-border policy.
“We welcomed everyone into our country,” Gabriel said, and people didn’t realize that the “minority,” the Muslims in the society, “was not tolerant” and “did not believe all people were equal.”
“They tried to impose their way of thinking on us, and they succeeded,” she said.
An excerpt of her interview can be heard here…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Librarians: Christian Books Make ‘Gays’ Feel Inferior
After a Northern Virginia public school system banned books containing a Christian viewpoint on homosexuality from its library shelves, saying the texts might make “gays” feel inferior, students and parents are fighting back.
More than 40 Christian parents and students held a protest Thursday to speak out against Fairfax County public school librarians’ decision to refuse titles such as “Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting” and “Someone I Love Is Gay.”
Protesters wore black shirts saying, “Closing Books Shuts Out Ideas” after they unsuccessfully tried to donate more than 100 Christian books on homosexuality to several high school libraries, the Washington Post reported. Focus on the Family is the leading organization behind a “True Tolerance” effort to balance library shelves by adding a Christian perspective to the numerous pro-”gay” books currently stocked.
“We put ourselves out there … and got rejected,” student Elizabeth Bognanno told reporters. “Censoring books is not a good thing. … We believe our personal rights have been violated.”
The school system’s policy on library collections states “the collection should support the diverse interests, needs and viewpoints of the school community.”
However, it also states, “Librarians are under no obligation to include donations in the library collection.”
Coordinator of library information services Susan Thornily told the Post the books did not meet set standards. She said librarians told her the books contained large amounts of scripture, very little research or would make homosexuals “feel inferior.”…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Report: Fluorescent Bulbs May Do More Harm Than Good
Bulb report If you use compact fluorescent bulbs to light your house, a new study shows you may actually be doing more harm to the environment than good.
That’s a surprising find considering CFLS’s are touted as a greener alternative to traditional lighting.
They are much more energy efficient and last a lot longer than incandescent bulbs. But unlike traditional bulbs CFL’s contain toxic mercury.
The study by a team of researchers from Yale University shows that in states that rely on cleaner power like Oregon, the fluorescent lights may actually do more harm than good.
The study says fluorescent bulbs actually release more mercury than Oregon coal plants…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
FDA: Tiny Amount of Melamine Not Harmful to Adults
WASHINGTON (AP) — Eating a tiny bit of a melamine, the chemical responsible for a global food safety scare, is not harmful except when it’s in baby formula, U.S. food safety officials said Friday.
Melamine-tainted formula has sickened more than 54,000 children in China and is being blamed for the deaths of at least four tots. The chemical has also turned up in products sold across Asia, ranging from candies, to chocolates, to coffee drinks, that used dairy ingredients from China. Authorities in California and Connecticut have found melamine in White Rabbit candies imported from China.
But infant formula made in the U.S. is safe, because manufacturers do not use any ingredients from China.
The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that its safety experts have concluded that eating a very tiny amount of melamine — 2.5 parts per million — would not raise health concerns, even if a person ate food that was tainted with the chemical every day.
Separately, a New Jersey company announced a recall of Chinese-made yogurt drinks Friday after FDA testing found melamine. The Blue Cat Flavor Drink, also called Lanmao, is sold nationwide in Asian groceries, said a spokesman for the company, Tristar Food Wholesale of Jersey City.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Next: the Mother of All Bank Runs?
It’s plain that the current financial crisis is worsening in spite of—or perhaps because of—the Treasury rescue plan.
The strains in financial markets are becoming more, rather than less, severe in spite of the nuclear option of a $700 billion package: Interbank spreads are widening and are at a level never seen before; credit spreads are widening to new peaks; short-term Treasury yields are going back to near-zero levels as there is flight to safety; credit default swap (CDS) spreads for financial institutions are rising to extreme levels as the ban on shorting of financial stock has moved the pressures on financial firms to the CDS market; and stock markets around the world have reacted very negatively to this rescue package.
Financial institutions in the U.S. and in advanced economies are going bust. In the U.S., the latest victims were Washington Mutual (nyse: WM — news — people ) (the largest U.S. savings and loan) and Wachovia (nyse: WB — news — people ) (the sixth largest U.S. bank). In the U.K., after Northern Rock (other-otc: NHRKF.PK — news — people ) and the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB (nyse: LYG — news — people ), you now have the bust and rescue of Bradford & Bingley; in Belgium you had Fortis (other-otc: FORSY.PK — news — people ) going bust and being rescued over the weekend; in Germany, Hypo Real Estate, a major financial institution near bust, has also needed rescue.
So, this is not just a U.S. financial crisis. It is a global crisis hitting institutions in the U.K., the Euro-zone and other advanced economies (Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada etc.)…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.N. Anti-Blasphemy Resolution Curtails Free Speech, Critics Say
Religious groups and free-speech advocates are banding together to fight a United Nations resolution they say is being used to spread Sharia law to the Western world and to intimidate anyone who criticizes Islam.
The non-binding resolution on “Combating the Defamation of Religion” is intended to curtail speech that offends religion — particularly Islam.
Pakistan and the Organization of the Islamic Conference introduced the measure to the U.N. Human Rights Council in 1999. It was amended to include religions other than Islam, and it has passed every year since.
In 2005, Yemen successfully brought a similar resolution before the General Assembly. Now the 192-nation Assembly is set to vote on it again.
The non-binding Resolution 62/145, which was adopted in 2007, says it “notes with deep concern the intensification of the campaign of defamation of religions and the ethnic and religious profiling of Muslim minorities in the aftermath of 11 September 2001.”
It “stresses the need to effectively combat defamation of all religions and incitement to religious hatred, against Islam and Muslims in particular.”
But some critics believe the resolution is a dangerous threat to freedom of speech everywhere.
The U.S. government mission in Geneva, in a statement, told the U.N. Human Rights Council in July that “defamation-related laws have been abused by governments and used to restrict human rights” around the world, and sometimes Westerners have been caught in the web.
Critics give some recent news events as examples of how the U.N. “blasphemy resolution” has emboldened Islamic authorities and threatened Westerners…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
1 comments:
In the Racism without Racists article, the study itself was racist, because it only focused on unconscious racism among whites. The researcher didn't even bother studying unconscious racism among blacks. The white academic establishment has neglected blacks, yet again.
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