The major story of the day is still the situation in Mumbai. Once again, there are a lot of articles included. Scroll to “South Asia” and look at the AKI articles in particular.A consensus is emerging that at least part of the attack was planned and launched from Pakistan. Needless to say, this will have major implications for the Indian response.
Thanks to AA, Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, Holger Danske, Insubria, JD, Rolf Krake, Srdja Trifkovic, TB, VH, Yorkshire Miner, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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CAIR Bus Ads Urge Floridians to Learn About Islam
“Islam: Got Questions? Get answers” reads the ad plastered along the side of a south Florida bus. The ad campaign launched Tuesday by Muslims in South Florida includes colorful banners several feet high on more than 120 buses urging people to learn more about Islam.
The $60,000 Calling Islam campaign aims to get people to seek out accurate and objective information on Islam, according to its sponsor, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
The ads, which include a website address and telephone number, urge people to seek out accurate and objective information about Muslims and highlight Islam as one of the three Abrahamic religions, along with Christianity and Judaism.
“ The main objective of this campaign to bring a positive awareness of Islam and the Muslim community to our fellow Americans “
Altaf Ali, CAIR”The main objective of this campaign to bring a positive awareness of Islam and the Muslim community to our fellow Americans,” said Altaf Ali, executive director the South Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
The eight-week campaign is aimed at countering the negative impact of a controversial DVD Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West that was distributed to millions of households in battleground states like Florida before the presidential election.
People can sponsor a bus with a tax-free donation from anywhere between $500 for eight weeks to $65 for one week.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Campaign Warns Americans About Looming Shariah Code
Detroit billboard says religious law imposed by Islam threatens rights
Shariah, or Islamic law, may be spreading around the world, but it isn’t going to be established in the United States without opposition, vow members of the United American Committee.
Officials with the non-profit have erected a 48-foot-long billboard just outside of Detroit, home to one of the largest groups of Muslims in the U.S.
“SHARIA LAW THREATENS AMERICA,” warns the sign.
The UAC says it’s “dedicated to awakening the nation to the threats of radical Islam” and works to “educate Americans on the nature of Islamic extremism.”
The group’s mission is to battle against “the ideological aspects of the war on terror to counter elements of radical Islam in America.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Duo Take Obama Birth Challenge to Court
When the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court meet on Dec. 5th, in their regular private conference to decide which cases to hear, two lawsuits that have captivated a segment of the blogosphere will be up for discussion. Both urge the court to consider claims that President-elect Obama is not qualified to be president, because he is not a natural-born American citizen. […]
Pennsylvania lawyer Philip Berg claims that the circumstances of Obama’s birth are vague and that he may have been born in Kenya. Obama’s mother, Berg asserts, later flew to Hawaii to register the birth.
Leo Donofrio, a New Jersey lawyer, contends that election officials in his state failed to ensure that only legally qualified candidates were placed on the ballot. Obama may have been born in the United States, Donofrio argues, but “natural born” status depends on both parents being American citizens. Obama’s father was Kenyan. […]
The Obama campaign had hoped to end the controversy last spring by releasing his actual Hawaii birth certificate. But that prompted further questions about its authenticity, which were compounded when state authorities in Hawaii said they could not vouch for it, because they were constrained by the privacy laws [recent analysis suggestes the document is not authentic].
Then, on Oct. 31st [a week after Obama visited his grandmother in Hawaii], the director of Hawaii’s Department of Health issued a statement, proclaiming that he had personally seen and verified that the state has “Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record,” which shows that he was born there.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Google ‘Censoring’ Anti-Obama Bloggers?
Writer claims Internet giant banning stories that expose president-elect
Pamela Gellar of Atlas Shrugs claims the search engine giant has banned her groundbreaking articles about Obama — a technique many people refer to as “sandboxing.”
“There was no warning, no notice, nothing,” Gellar told WND. “They have basically sandboxed me.”
“Sandboxing” happens when Google strips a website’s rankings from its search engine results. According to some theories, this happens to new websites when Google puts them into a holding area known as a “sandbox” until the site gains credibility.
However, Atlas Shrugs is not new, and Gellar believes her stories have been intentionally suppressed by the Internet giant — especially ones about President-elect Obama. She said her exclusive stories about Obama’s birth certificate that once received thousands of hits every day will not come up in Google word searches.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Media Fiddles While America Burns
by Cliff Kincaid
I got into trouble many years ago when I co-hosted CNN’s now-defunct Crossfire show and told an Ambassador from Libya, who was filibustering and denying his government?s links to terrorism, to “Please shut up.” The producer told me that I went too far, but at least I said “please.” On the other hand, CNBC?s Maria Bartiromo went too far when she concluded a Monday interview with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, a major Citigroup investor who has been bailed out by U.S. taxpayers, by saying, “Thank you very much for your precious time.”
Precious time? This is a multi-billionaire foreigner whose financial firm has been bailed out with U.S. taxpayer money. Alwaleed ought to thank us for our precious money?money we don?t have to lend to foreign billionaires.
Bloomberg News, one of the few news organizations seriously examining the role of the Federal Reserve in the financial meltdown, now puts the cost of the various bailouts and other federal schemes to “save” the financial system at an incredible $7.7 trillion. And there is no reason to believe that the bailouts are at an end. At the end of it all, America could be reduced to the status of banana republic, without the ability to pay to import bananas.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
North American Union Supporter Top Obama Economic Adviser
Socialist activist Bonior reportedly being considered for Labor secretary
President-elect Barack Obama recently appointed to his economic transition team a known socialist activist who has previously urged the creation of a North American Parliamentary Union, a governing body to consist of Mexico, Canada and the U.S.
Former Rep. David Bonior, reportedly being considered for the Labor secretary position in the incoming Obama administration, has a longstanding close relationship with the Democratic Socialists of America, an organization dedicated to transforming America into a socialist society.
There is evidence indicating Bonior is a member in good standing of the DSA.
Earlier this month, the Detroit chapter of the DSA honored Bonior and his wife Judy at its annual dinner. Bonior has been honored at several DSA functions the past six years, including in 2003, where he was the keynote speaker at the U.S. socialist organization’s national convention in Detroit.
At the 2003 convention, Bonior laid out his plan for a North American Parliamentary Union, according to a DSA transcript of the event…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Another Dam Breaks
Tonight, another dam breaks in the battle against the Canadian Human Rights Commission and its abusive censorship powers.
The Canadian Jewish News has done something I honestly never thought it would do. It ran a news story by staff reporter Paul Lungen, at some length, revealing the CHRC’s dirty little secret: CHRC staff regularly go online and post hundreds of anti-Semitic, anti-black and anti-gay “hate messages”, all in the name of fighting hate. Here’s the story.
I’m impressed and I’m surprised. (That’s happening a lot these days!)
There are two major Jewish newspapers in Canada: the CJN, which tends to be more supportive of the Canadian Jewish Congress and has a liberal leaning, and the Jewish Tribune, which is the house organ of the B’nai Brith and tends to be more right-wing. For the CJN to publish such a balanced story is impressive, given their close orbit to the “Official Jews” of the CJC. And for them to break their silence on the neo-Nazi memberships of the CHRC is positively stunning. Again, here’s the full story, and here’s the startling excerpt:
| — Hat tip: Rolf Krake | [Return to headlines] |
‘Aboriginal Justice’ Comes to Norfolk, Where Village Elders Mete Out Punishments
Communities will choose how young criminals are punished under a pioneering form of justice based on that meted out by Aboriginal tribes. It is the first time neighbourhoods will have had a direct say in how criminals are punished. After an offender is arrested a specialist team of police officers will meet with neighbours to discuss how louts will be treated.
Ideas range from repairing the damage they have done, apologising to victims or working to improve conditions in the area, as an alternative to being dragged before a court. The aim is to make sure victims are happy with how their complaint has been handled while preventing troublemakers re-offending. […]
Mr Merry said: ‘We have been looking at a system which is based on the traditions of aboriginal tribes but, in a more modern context, has been widely used in Canada … It basically involves asking the elders what they consider justice to be. […] ‘None of this will detract from the court system and, if somebody is a persistent offender or commits a serious offence, we can still fast-track them straight to court. But often that is not the best solution.’
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Angry Tories Rally Behind Arrested Frontbencher Damian Green
A furious David Cameron said today that police and ministers had “serious questions” to answer after one of his frontbench spokesmen was arrested over Home Office leaks.
Damian Green, the Shadow Immigration Minister, was held in custody for nine hours last night as part of a Scotland Yard investigation into the leaks, prompting widespread anger. David Davis, the former Shadow Home Secretary, said that the arrest was “reminiscent of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe”.
Mr Cameron said that he was especially concerned that at least nine counter-terrorism officers had been deployed to detain Mr Green and search his home in Kent and office at the Commons.
“I think there are some serious questions that have to be answered. If they wanted to talk to Damian Green, why not pick up the telephone and ask to talk to him?” he said.
“The police have to answer questions. Frankly, Government ministers have got questions to answer as well.”
| — Hat tip: Yorkshire Miner | [Return to headlines] |
British Hate Preacher Choudary Gloats Over Mumbai Terror Attacks
Anjem Choudary: “Any Brits killed had only themselves to blame.”British hate preacher Anjem Choudary blamed the Mumbai attacks on Great Britain.Choudary has spoken out about conquering Great Britain from the outside.The Daily Star reported:
HATE preacher Anjem Choudary last night praised the slaughter of 125 people in Mumbai.And in a vile rant he said any Brits killed had only themselves to blame for being on the “battlefield” in the war Muslims nuts are waging against the world.Extremist Choudary, 41, the right-hand man of exiled cleric Omar Bakri, 50, and former leader of banned hate group al-Muhajiroun, said the attacks were revenge for the West’s “crusades” against Islam.Outspoken Choudary, whose family live on £25,000-a-year benefits in London, raged: “Any Britons or Americans who visit Muslim countries are entering a battlefield and risk being used as hostages by al-Qaida to publicise its cause.”
| — Hat tip: AA | [Return to headlines] |
Czechs Apologize for Leak of Talks With Sarkozy
PRAGUE, Czech Republic: The Czech foreign minister says he has apologized to France after a magazine published the transcript of an alleged conversation between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek.
A statement by Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg says his office “obviously” made a mistake and that “the unacceptable incident” will be investigated.
Czech Ambassador Pavel Fischer says he was at the Oct. 31 meeting in Paris, and questions the transcript’s authenticity.
The text published Thursday in Reflex weekly quotes Sarkozy as saying in a discussion about a new European-Mediterranean organization that Arab leaders “are horrible.”
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Danish Committee: Tear Down Ghettos
Cities are being urged to rip down council housing in order to prevent the spread of ghettoes
Youth criminality, social problems and city planning would be best dealt with by tearing down council housing residences, according to the Social Affairs Ministry’s urban renewal committee.
The committee, Programbestyrelsen, recommended the government focus more on preventing the spread of ghettos and allow housing associations more freedom to demolish or renovate their buildings.
In addition, the report suggests the government place schools near low-income areas. Council flats should also be allowed to remain empty for up to six months after a tenant leaves, in order to find a renter who has full-time employment, states the report.
‘We’ve seen that it can help by ensuring a more varied make-up of residents,’ said Jesper Nygaard, head of housing association KAB.
The report indicates that demolition of council housing should not be done in the largest cities, however, due to their general lack of housing.
But in the west-Jutland city of Esbjerg, demolition and relocation has been a successful formula, according to Bente Bendix Jensen, the Liberal chairwoman for the city’s job market committee.
Jensen pointed to the demolition of housing block ‘Kridthuset’, whose residents were relocated in flats across the city.
‘It wasn’t a controversial decision for us at all,’ she said. ‘The entire committee agreed that there was no other solution and that the demolition helped these people have a better home.’
Programbestyrelsen’s report also recommends action from local councils and housing associations. They are advised to consider selling council flats individually and allow those with jobs to be first in line for rentals.
The committee’s figures suggest that the situation for council housing residents is gradually improving, however. In the 37 areas the committee studied during the past four years, the number of jobless dropped from 47.5 in 2004 to 40.8 in 2007.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Admiral Thrown Out of NATO
One of the mlitary’s top brass has been sent home from his job at Nato’s headquarters in the US state of Virginia, reports Ekstra Bladet newspaper.
According to the newspaper’s sources, Rear Admiral Torben Ørting Jørgensen was a bit too blunt and did not show his superiors enough respect.
Jørgensen never had any authority problems, but officers in the strict American military put far more emphasis on rank than their Danish counterparts. He was sent home by Nato leadership two months ago and told not to report back to work.
The Defence Ministry has remained silent on the case, citing its principle of not commenting on personal affairs.
Jørgensen is one of four successful brothers, his siblings include a high-ranking Interpol officer, a former Maersk CEO and a former Arla CEO.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Dull ‘Jewel’
Reviewers have had little good to say about the Danish translation of Sherry Jones’s ‘The Jewel of Medina’.
The book suggests one of the prophet Mohammed’s wives was only nine years old. News that American publisher Random House had dropped the book due to fears that it would incite Muslim anger generated gobs of free press earlier this year.
But with the novel’s release yesterday by Presto Publishing, the consensus is that the free press it got was entirely undeserved.
Berlingske Tidende newspaper called the book ‘a botch job’ and a ‘trivialised chick-lit jealousy drama’. Jyllands-Posten newspaper called the book’s prose ‘nauseating’ and the plot ‘implausible’.
Ekstra Bladet’s reviewer wrote: ‘It’s too bad it was this book that was published in the name of free speech’.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Finance: Islamic Banks in France From 2009
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, NOVEMBER 27 — >From next year Islamic banks conforming to sharia law, could be part of the panorama of the French banking system. Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said at the opening of the second French forum of Islamic finance that she had decided to “make a great welcome in Paris to this finance”. Le Parisien reports that there are at least three banks requesting accreditation: the Qatar Islamic Bank which already has offices in London, the Kuwait Finance House, and the Al Baraka Islamic Bank, from Bahrain. Their target is the more than five million muslims resident in France, an attractive market: according to a survey last year by IFOP at least half a million muslims would be interested in loans which respect Sharia law (which forbids loans with interest). From this point of view, said President of the French-Arabic Chamber of Commerce Hervé de Charette, “the arrival of Islamic finance in France would be an integrating factor”. According to Elyes Jouini, a professor of economics at Paris-Dauphine, it is still a frightening prospect because it is against religious integralism and aimed at financing terrorism. The global economic crisis is revolutionising the market though ad from New York to Hong Kong there is a rush for the billions of dollars of the rich oil producing countries of the Gulg. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Living Will: Spain; Municipality Opens Information Counter
(by Paola Del Vecchio) (ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 27 — An advice counter for “a dignified death” has been set up for the first time by council offices and is financed by the government. This initiative is taking place in Rivas Vaciamadrid, a Spanish municipality located 15 km away from Puerta del Sol in Madrid which has 60,000 inhabitants, and is led by Izquierda Unida-Psoe. Introducing it, the councillor for Health and Consumption, Adolfo Garcia, first of all clarified, “that nobody should confuse the terms; this is not a counter for euthanasia. What we are proposing is to inform citizens of their right to die without suffering and without futile care in the case of terminal illnesses. These rights have for years been protected by the legislation of this country but have almost always been ignored”. The counter’s advice, Garcia explained to ANSAmed, will range from information about a living will “to specialized assistance from lawyers and medical experts in the most complex cases”, such as in the case where “a doctor refuses to abide by the living will of the patient”. The service has received the placet from the bioethics and medical planning authority and from the management of the municipality of Madrid’s basic care service. “The bioethics authority agrees with us about the necessity to inform citizens and hopes that the panel will also be established by other municipalities in the region”, said Garcia. Managed by a member of the association for the right to die with dignity (DLDM), which promoted it, the counter will show users the possibilities for indicating their final wishes in a “living will”, which was introduced in Spain in 2002 with the basic law for the autonomy of the patient. It regulated the right of the patient to formulate “preliminary instructions” regarding medical care and established the register of living wills. “Citizens”, explained councillor Garcia, “will be informed about the three formulas that they can choose between. There is the one drawn up by the Catholic Church, which refers to the main ethics of life, with the necessity of avoiding suffering but without going beyond palliative cures. Then there is the model drawn up by the municipality of Madrid, which implements the national legislation, on the basis of which the citizen indicates the clinical situations in which the living will should be referred to and gives instructions about any organ donation. Finally the third formula”, he continued, “is proposed by the association for a dignified death and authorizes the administration of palliative drugs even if these shorten life and it recognises the right to die quickly and painlessly, should euthanasia be legalized in the future”. A living will, in this final case, would go far beyond the legal limits of the current legislation. And indeed the municipality’s initiative has certainly provoked controversy. According to the conservative newspaper La Razon, the municipality of Rivas “is paying the assisted suicide, which is not regulated by the law, with public money”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: ‘Interview With Mohammed’ Out in December
Anti-Islam activist Ehsan Jami will premier his 10-minute film ‘Interview with Mohammed’ on December 10, Jami told magazine HP/De Tijd.
The clip features Jami asking questions of an actor playing Mohammad about women’s rights, Judaism and leaving the religion.
Jami abandoned plans to make a cartoon film about Mohammed on the request of justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin, news agency ANP says.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Police State UK: Outcry as Anti-Terror Police Arrest Top Tory MP Over ‘Immigration Leaks to Media’
David Cameron today led a furious outcry at the arrest and detention for nine hours of the Conservative Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green. The Tory leader called the police operation ‘extraordinary and frankly rather worrying’, while former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis compared it with the arrest of opposition in Zimbabwe.
Mr Green had his home, his Commons and constituency offices searched over claims that he leaked confidential Government documents. The arrest, in an operation described by Mr Green’s colleagues as ‘Stalinesque’, plunged the Tories into an unprecedented row with the police and the Government. […]
Mr Cameron has called for explanations from both the police and Government ministers. He said: ‘The police have to answer questions. Frankly, government ministers have got questions to answer as well. If they didn’t know, why weren’t they told?
‘What do they think about in Britain today, counter-terrorism police are spending their time searching an MP’s office, arresting him, holding him for nine hours, all on a day when British citizens are being killed on the other side of the world and all because, as far as I can see, he made public some information that was in the public interest that the Government found uncomfortable. ‘Well, let’s hope that our democracy hasn’t come to that.
‘If they wanted to talk to Damian Green, why not pick up the telephone and ask to talk to him?’ […]
—- Caption:
Leaks at centre of drama:
November 2007:
Internal memos suggest Jacqui Smith was involved in covering up the licensing of 5,000 illegal immigrants as security guards;
February 2008:
A Border and Immigration Agency memo reveils an illegal immigrant was able to work at the Commons using a fake identity pass in a serious breach of security;
April 2008:
A secret blacklist emerges of Labour MP’s suspected of plotting to defeat Gordon Brown’s plans for 42-day detention of terror suspects without charge;
September 2008:
A draft letter from Miss Smith to Number Ten reveals ministers fear the recession will bring a rise in violent crime, theft and burglaries. The document also warns of hostiliy towards migrants.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Crucifix, Castile Council Challenges Ruling
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 27 — The local government of Spain’s Castile and Leon region, led by the Partito Popolare, has today announced that it will present an appeal against the ruling handed down by the Valladolid administrative court enforcing a removal of religious symbols from the classrooms of public schools. It points out that it intends neither “to eliminate nor to put crucifixes in place”. Council spokesperson, José Antonio de Santiago-Juarez, is quoted by agencies as defending “the independence of school boards in deciding whether or not to keep their religious symbols” and wondering whether the walls of school buildings have “a different democratic state of health to the table at which government ministers or the president take their oaths”, and on which a crucifix is to be seen. The spokesperson stressed that the council has always kept within the constitution and respected the independence of school boards, which it will now defend through this appeal to the High Court. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Bishops Spokesman, Cross Symbol of Liberty
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 27 — “The cross is a symbol of liberty when compared to totalitarianism”. This is what the spokesman for the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Juan Antonio Martinez Camino, affirmed referring to the Valladolid administrative court’s sentence that ordered the removal of the religious symbol from a public school. “No one has to be afraid of what the cross symbolises when it is present in the public sphere — Camino said, quoted in the newspaper El Pais — because it is the symbol of liberty and the distiction between Church and State”. The Jesuit, auxiliary bishop to Madrid, reminded that “he who is on the cross and says give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden to Launch Beetle Rescue Mission
Sweden plans to employ helicopters to save an endangered species of beetle in the country’s far north, regional officials said Thursday.
“About 50 burnt pine stumps, which this species of beetle is particularly fond of, will be transported by helicopter and released … in the national parks in the region where it was observed,” Tomas Rydkvist, a wildlife official in the Västernorrland region, told AFP.
The beetle, a flatheaded pine borer or Chalcophora mariana, is shiny black and copper in colour and is about three centimetres (about an inch) long.
Rydkvist said the beetle’s natural habitat is made up of open, sparse forests with lots of dead trees. Ideally the trees would have burned in a forest fire.
“We thought the species had disappeared from Sweden, as fires are better controlled nowadays. But in the summer of 2007 several specimens were observed” in Västernorrland, Rydkvist said.
The total cost of the helicopter rescue is expected to amount to around 100,000 kronor ($12,533), Rydkvist said, adding that was “not a lot of money.”
“If the species disappears, we could spend all the money in the world but it wouldn’t help bring it back,” he said.
Rydkvist said it was hoped the operation would help to firmly reestablish the beetle in these areas.
The effort is part of government programme aimed at reducing the number of threatened species by 30 percent by 2015, Rydkvist said.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Wife ‘Paid for Her Muslim Husband to be Killed After He Made Her Wear Burkha’
It will not compensate for all the women killed by the demands of this violent religion for sartorial sobriety in its women folk, but it is at least a step in the right direction. We in the West have yet to learn that a society who uses violence to get its way only understands reciprocated violence. We have yet to shake off our collective guilt for the horrors of the Second World War. We stared into an abyss and found ourself wanting, It will take a while to learn the lesson, that unfortunately horror and violence is part of the human condition and not an aberration, and that however much you try and reprogram human nature to appease your guilt , you are bound to fail.
This link has far more ominous overtones coming as it does after the arrest of the 12 BNP members for distributing legal leaflets in Liverpool. Arresting an opposition politician for doing what every politician does is a sign that the Labour Government is losing it. It is a pity that we don’t have a patriot act then they could really have gone to town. The news out of Britain gets more and more depressing as the Labour Government desperatly trys to hang onto power as the economy spirals into a black hole. I think that Britain will be the first of the European countries to suffer a discontinuity as El Engles so eloquently puts it. Chaos is a better word.
| — Hat tip: Yorkshire Miner | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican Thanks Muslims for Returning God to Europe
PARIS (Reuters) — A senior Vatican cardinal has thanked Muslims for bringing God back into the public sphere in Europe and said believers of different faiths had no option but to engage in interreligious dialogue.
Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Catholic Church’s department for interfaith contacts, said religion was now talked and written about more than ever before in today’s Europe.
“It’s thanks to the Muslims,” he said in a speech printed in Friday’s L’Osservatore Romano, the official daily of the Vatican. “Muslims, having become a significant minority in Europe, were the ones who demanded space for God in society.”
Vatican officials have long bemoaned the secularisation of Europe, where church attendance has dwindled dramatically in recent decades, and urged a return to its historically Christian roots. But Tauran said no society had only one faith.
“We live in multicultural and multireligious societies, that’s obvious,” he told a meeting of Catholic theologians in Naples. “There is no civilisation that is religiously pure.”
Tauran’s positive speech on interfaith dialogue came after a remark by Pope Benedict prompted media speculation that the Vatican was losing interest in it. Some Jewish leaders reacted with expressions of concern and the Vatican denied any change.
The “return of God” is clearly seen in Tauran’s native France, where Europe’s largest Muslim minority has brought faith questions such as women’s headscarves into the political debate after decades when they were considered strictly private issues…
| — Hat tip: Holger Danske | [Return to headlines] |
Albania: Italian Cooperation Invests 650 Mln Since 1989
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 25 — Investment projects in Albania approved by the Italian Development Cooperation from 1989 to today total 650 million euros, said Italy’s Ambassador in Tirana, Saba D’Elia, quoted by Informest, Service and Documentation Centre for International Economic Cooperation. For Albania, Italy represents the third largest donor after the World Bank and the European Union. Projects financed by the Italian Government are in the energy, transport and agriculture sectors, as well as infrastructure and services. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: UN Plan; Serbia Welcomes, Pristina Angry
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE/PRISTINA, NOVEMBER 27 — “Great satisfaction” in Belgrade, anger and recriminations in Pristina. These were the reactions the day after the UN Security Council’s approval of the latest plan for deployment in Kosovo by the EU Eulex mission (made up of 2,000 troops), declared as “neutral” regarding the recognition of the controversial secession by Serbia proclaimed on 17th February by the former province of majority Albanians. “We receive the adoption of Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s plan with great satisfaction” stated Serbia’s Prime Minister , pro-European Mirko Cvetkovic, outside a meeting in Belgrade with his Danish counterpart Rasmussen. It is “a very important decision for the future development of regional relations” in the Balkans. The comments by the Kosovar Albanian leadership were of a different tone, seeing the plan as giving in to Belgrade and a substantial partitioning of Kosovo. “We continue to oppose any solution which puts the sovereignty of Kosovo and its integrity” said Xhavit Beqiri, spokesman for the Kosovar President Fatmir Sejdiu. “We still welcome Eulex” added Begiri, stressing however that Pristina insists on recognising the mandate only in the channel of the old plan by mediator Martti Ahtisaari (also rejected by Belgrade as a sort of predictable justification of the February secession) and reject any exception as “unacceptable”. Ban Ki Moon’s plan, despite Kosovo’s protests, includes not only Eulex’s neutrality on the key topic of independence, but also its deployment as a leopard’s spots, placed side by side with the maintaining of the previous EU Unmik mission in the main remaining Serb-speaking enclave, Kosovska Mitrovica, recognised in its current regime as having total autonomy from Pristina. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
EU-Syria: Following Libya, Damascus Nears Europe
(by Chiara De Felice) (ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 27 — November of 2008 will go down in Brussels as the month on which the final barriers fell between the two shores of the Mediterranean: following the start of talks with Libya two weeks ago, today has been the turn of Syria to lay down its final resistance and give its nod to an accord of association with the EU, which has been gathering dust at the bottom of the Commission’s drawer for years while awaiting Damascus’ decision to add its signature. The green light to signing the accord come after two days of negotiations between EU Commissioner for External Relations, Benita Ferrero Waldner, and Syria’s Deputy Premier with responsibility for the economy, Abdullah Al Dardari, who has finally accepted Brussels’s invitation to review the conditions of the accord drafted back in October 2004. The Accord of Association, a document outlining the extent of cooperation between the EU and third countries, was ready for signing four years ago. But it was never signed by Syria and all talk of the matter was put on ice following the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri in 2005. ‘‘I believe that Syria has made significant progress, such as re-starting diplomatic relations with Lebanon and setting up indirect contacts for peace with Israel’’, stated Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner. The Commissioner went on to point out that Brussels technicians have prepared a new accord which takes into account recent developments in EU-Syria relations. The draft will be signed in Damascus by EU and Syrian authorities on December 14, to then be ratified by the respective authorities: the EU Council and Assembly and Syria’s President. ‘‘This is a historical achievement and a ground-breaking moment for EU-Syria relations, based on a common will and reciprocal interests’’, said Ferrero Waldner. The Association Accord will allow cooperation in various areas to be set up, from the economy to security, to trade and industry. The thaw between Brussels and Damascus began in July when Syria’s President Bachar al-Assad was once more offered a place at the international diplomatic table, at the Mediterranean Union summit, following isolation in the wake of Hariri’s killing and suspicions — to date still unclear — of a direct Syrian hand in the affair. Soon afterwards, in September, the EU Commission gave its green light to the 110-million-euro EU programme to support reforms in the country. The aid covers the period 2008-2009, and is aimed at reforming public administration and justice, the economy and the private sector, as well as social reforms. But decisive for the re-opening of Brussels credit was the resumption of diplomatic relations with Lebanon, a ‘‘historic step towards normalising relations’’ which did much to calm nerves in Brussels.(ANSAmed).
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Morocco: Political Cooperation With Holland Strengthened
(ANSAmed) — RABAT, NOVEMBER 27 — To reinforce cooperation at a political level to fight more effectively against terrorism and illegal immigration, Moroccan and Dutch Foreign ministers Taieb-Fassi Fihri and Maxim Verhagen decided at the end of their meeting. The decision to make the regulations more efficient could also be linked to the recent statement by Dutch Interior minister Guusje Tar Horst, who believes that young Moroccan residents in Holland are responsible for the worst criminal episodes. This has obviously been rejected by Moroccans. (ANSAmed).
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Rabat: Dutch Moroccans Are “Expats”
THE HAGUE, 28/11/08 — Morocco regards Moroccans born in the Netherlands as temporary residents of a foreign country. The High Council for Migrants calls them ‘expats,’, Trouw newspaper reported yesterday.
The term ‘expats’ is used by the Moroccan government’s advisory body in an invitation to meetings at which the council will present itself in the Netherlands next week, according to the paper. The migrants council has set itself the goal of increasing the participation of the ‘expats’ in “the political, economic, cultural and social development of Morocco.”
Earlier this week, the Moroccan government was stressing that it does not involve itself at all with Moroccan Dutch. Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen had travelled to Rabat to hear this and returned to the Netherlands pleased.
Also piquant is the fact that prominent Labour (PvdA) MP Khadia Arib is involved with the High Council for Migrants. To the annoyance of the Party for Freedom (PVV), she took a seat last year on a body that was preparing the establishment of the council for the Morrocan king. But a majority in the Lower House found this no problem.
Apart from this, Trouw claims that the Moroccan Dutch disagree completely with the council. They are “furious with their former fatherland due to its extreme meddlesomeness,” says the paper.
The council, to be set up next week, will make a trip through the Netherlands via meetings in Utrecht and The Hague. According to Trouw, there are four Dutch council members. These are historian Bouras, activist El Ouafrassi, Imam El Bakkali and welfare organisation EMCEMO executive Menebhi.
Another newspaper, De Volkskrant, wrote yesterday that Moroccans in Morocco are astonished by the behaviour of Moroccans in Europe, including the Imams in Dutch mosques. “With Europe, you think of civilisation, but these people are more radical in belief than in Morocco. I do not understand it. There is no poverty there,” the newspaper quoted Mostafa Abkari, chief editor of Moroccan newspaper Le Maroc, as saying. Taoufik Bouachrine, chief editor of another local newspaper, Al Massae, also says Muslims from countries like the Netherlands are often “more extreme than in Saudi Arabia.”
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Tangiers Forum: Union a Leader Hemmed by North-South Divide
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 27 — “The Mediterranean Union is up and moving and nothing can stand in its way,” said the Morocco’s Foreign Minister, Taieb Fassi-Fihri, speaking in Tangiers yesterday evening at the opening of ‘Medays 2008’, a forum dedicated to themes around political, economic and social integration for the Mediterranean area. Details of the first three days’ work have been reported by the AFP agency. In the presence of Ministers of Mediterranean countries and international businesses and entrepreneurs, Fassi-Fihri launched an “urgent appeal to the Maghreb countries, to political decision-takers, to economists, to enable a vision of the Arab Maghreb Union to be realised, to come forward and to progress”. Otherwise, said the Moroccan Foreign Minister, “the Mediterranean Union will be lamed by this absence and this division, whose symbol stands as the closed border separating two sister nations” he said, alluding to Algeria and Morocco. Attendees at the forum, which has been organised by Moroccòs Amadeus research institute, are making no secret of the obstacles lying in the path of a union of the area: “The biggest divide between global incomes” runs between the two shores of the Mediterranean and “the challenges weighing on economic development (in this region) are immense” said France’s Secretary of State for Economic Outlook, Eric Besson. While Kamal Nasser, Egypt’s Ambassador to Paris, speaking in the name of his nation, which shares the presidency of the Med Union with France, critically stressed how the EU allots only 2% of its foreign investments to the Mediterranean area. Talks this morning, however, covered peace in the Mediterranean. Invited to take part were the General Secretary of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, the US Undersecretary of State, William J. Burns, Moroccòs Interior Minister, Chakib Benmoussa and France’s Defence Minister, Hervé Morin. There will follow an exchange of ideas on themes covering education and research, with a contribution from the Deputy Speaker of the Italian Senate, Emma Bonino. Tomorrow’s plenary session will, be dedicated to economic development, transport and energy in the Mediterranean area; among others, contributions are expected from Antonio Tajani, EU Transport Commissioner, who will hold talks with his colleague responsible for the EU’s Economic and Monetary Affairs, Joaquin Almunia, as well as with Kema Unakitan, Turkey’s Finance Minister. (ANSAmed).
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Egyptian Clubs Father to Death to Cure Headache
An Egyptian man has been admitted to a mental hospital after he killed his father with repeated blows to the head to cure his headache, Egyptian state news agency MENA said on Wednesday.
Mustafa Said Khalil Ibrahim, 37, clubbed his elderly father over the head 25 times to “change the blood in his head and cure him of a chronic headache,” MENA said, adding the man said his father had requested the radical treatment.
The man had initially been charged with manslaughter by a prosecutor in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiya, but a doctor later declared him insane.
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Spain: Dentists in Morocco for ‘Smile Route’
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 27 — The third expedition of the Smile Route left from the Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid for Morocco, organised by the Vital Dent Foundation, which will travel through the south of the country giving free dental care to more than 9,000 children. Most of the care will be given in schools by 15 volunteer dentists from Vital Dent and about 20 NGOs, in the form of information and prevention advice using educational games. Along with medical supplies the team will take toys, clothes and sports equipment from Real Madrid for the children. The expedition, which will focus on the cities in the south of Morocco, in the High Atlas and on the border with Algeria, will return to Madrid on 7 December. (ANSAmed).
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Terrorism: Morocco; Eleven Arrests in Belgium
(ANSAmed) — RABAT, NOVEMBER 27 — Belgian police made eleven arrests today in Brussels, Tongres, Nivelles and Arlon as they carried out international arrest warrants issued by the Moroccan court. Those arrested, including six Moroccans and one Algerian, are accused of being part of the Moroccan terrorist group led by Abdelkader Belliaj, who is currently on trial at the criminal court in Salé (a town a few km north of Rabat), which will pass judgement on crimes of terrorism. Files and computers were seized during the operation, as reported by the Moroccan press agency MAP. (ANSAmed).
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Tunisia-France: President Called as Witness in Torture Case
(ANSAmed) — ROME, NOVEMBER 27 — The President of Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, has been cited as a witness in the 15 December of Khaled Ben Said, the former Tunisian Deputy-Consul to Strasburg and former Police Commissioner in his home country who is facing torture charges. The accused, reports the AFP agency, will appear before Strasburg’s Court of Assizes to answer charges of having tortured a woman, a mother with a family, over a period of 24 hours, with the aim of forcing her to reveal information about her husband, suspected of acts of subversion against the head of state. The events are alleged to have taken place in 1996 inside the police headquarters where Ben Said held the post of Commissioner, located in the north-eastern Tunisian town of Jendouba. The alleged victim and accuser, who has been living in France for many years now, is Zoulaikha Gharbi. Tunisiàs authorities have labelled her accusations “imaginary”. An official Tunisian source told AFP that “they are not supported by any material evidence at all”. On the contrary, according to Zoulaikha Gharbìs lawyer, Eric Plouvier, there are “numerous pieces of evidence” to prove “the involvement of the former Deputy Consul”. The lawyer also added that the presence of President Ben Ali in court along with other diplomats from the country, “will provide Tunisiàs authorities with an opportunity to come and give an explanation, if that is what they want to do”. (ANSAmed).
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Israel: Livni, Olmert Should Go Home at Once
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, NOVEMBER 27 — A serious crisis at the top of Kadima, Israel’s main government party. The new leader of the party, Tzipi Livni, today asked outgoing Premier Ehud Olmert to go home at once without further waiting games. “He has no other choice” said Livni in a meeting with Kadima leaders. In her opinion Olmert cannot take government responsibility after Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz yesterday announced that he would bring charges against Olmert regarding the multiple reimbursement by several organisations of air tickets. Collaborators of Olmert already specified that he wants to stay in office until the elections in February 2009. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy-Israel: Napolitano Condemns Anti-Israel Declarations
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, NOVEMBER 25 — Visiting Italian President Giorgio Napolitano has condemned “the insane proclamations’ against the state of Israel and has stated that Italy “can only react indignantly and strengthen its own commitment to banning such requests for good and making sure that humanity never again relives the aberrations of the past”. He said this in response to the welcome address by the Israeli president Shimon Peres. “The time for peace”, continued Napolitano to Peres, “can no longer be put off”. “Peace”, he added, “requires courageous choices and is not easy to achieve. But it is the best and only guarantee for the rights of the peoples in the region, including the right of the people of Israel to exist and prosper as a Jewish state. For the first time after many years, the recent courageous efforts have led to the renewal of the broken thread of dialogue and they are revealing for the first time after many long years a concrete horizon of hope”. Therefore, he concluded, we must “raise our sights and aim far, towards the unavoidable target of peaceful coexistence of two sovereign states, whereby the two peoples living on this land that is rich in history can finally realize, together with their legitimate and inalienable rights, their aspirations for peace and potential for development”. Napolitano, who is accompanied by the Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, emphasized the excellent relationship between Italy and Israel and Italy’s closeness to the Jewish people which has “suffered bitterly” in particular the “appalling tragedy of the Shoah (Holocaust)”. “Italy is close to them”, he said, “in defending their inalienable right to live in peace and safety next to other countries in the region”. Peres gave Napolitano a warm welcome and declared his “admiration and respect” for the character and personal history of the Italian president. “Italy”, added the Israeli president “is a splendid state which gives kindness to the whole world and has a creative talent which enriches our life”. (ANSAmed).
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Mideast: Palestinians Must Recognize Israel, Napolitano Says
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, NOVEMBER 27 — “We must never let matters slide as considers the delegitimization of Israel,” said Giorgio Napolitano at the Jewish University in Jerusalem, expressing his “concern” over the “harsh conditions in which people live in Gaza”, but adding that this “can never obscure,” for any Palestinian or Arab, “the issue of the full and unequivocal, consistent recognition of the state of Israel, its legitimacy, its right to exist and its security.” This part of his speech met with thundering applause in the auditorium. Immediately afterwards Napolitano left for Bethlehem where, this morning, he will be meeting with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen). On the subject of the delegitimization of Israel, Napolitano spoke once again of the condemnation of the negationist and threatening statements made by Iranian president Ahmadinejad (whose name he did not mention, but only referred to him as ‘a head of state or government’). To these threats, said the Italian president, “we oppose the tormented history to which we have borne witness or have been active participants in, the ever-present duty of memory especially as concerns the tragedy of the Holocaust.” The duty of memory, said Napolitano, compels Italians to also remember the Italian Jews who are part of Italian history, since they were “among the leaders of the Risorgimento” and “suffered the vile persecutions in our country of the Fascist regime and the Nazi occupation,” as also Antonio Gramsci and Enzo Sereni and many other Italians who to the Jews “chose to give solidarity and assistance in the most dangerous moment.” (ANSAmed).
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UN General Assembly Chief Calls for Israel’s Destruction
“Brockmann’s call,” said Bayefsky, “was in effect, a call for the political destruction of Israel by means of the same strategy adopted against apartheid South Africa.” Brockmann said:
“More than twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to provide a non-violent means of pressuring South Africa…Today, perhaps we in the United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel…”
The adoption of the 1947 partition resolution, accepted by Jews and rejected by Arabs, is now bemoaned by the UN. Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan described Palestinian Solidarity Day as “a day of mourning and a day of grief.” This year, as in years past, the UN used the occasion to fly only two flags, that of “Palestine” and that of the United Nations. Though the resolution was ostensibly the UN’s first commitment to a two-state solution, today the flag of the member state of Israel is left out.
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Iran, Lebanon Sign 5-Year Security Pact
Iran and Lebanon have signed a security agreement, according to which Iran will supply the Lebanese army with weapons and equipment over the next five years, the London-based daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat reported. […]
By supplying the Lebanese army with weapons, Iran will thus be responsible for arming Lebanon’s two major armed forces: the national army, and Hizbullah, The Media Line’s analysts indicate. […]
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Iraq: Security Pact ‘Puts Detainees at Risk of Torture’
Baghdad, 27 Nov. (AKI) — Thousands of Iraqis detained by US forces will be at risk of torture or even execution if they are handed over to the Iraqi authorities, top rights Amnesty International warned on Friday. The warning came as the Iraqi Parliament overwhelmingly ratified a controversial security pact with the US under which around 16,000 prisoners held by the US will be transferred to Iraqi custody from the end of the year.
The pact (Status of Forces Agreement or SOFA) allows American troops to remain in the country for three more years. It has already been approved by the Iraqi Cabinet.
“The SOFA does not provide any safeguards whatsoever for prisoners transferred to Iraqi custody,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
“These prisoners will potentially be moving from the frying pan into the fire,” said Malcolm Smart.
“We receive persistent reports of gross human rights violations — including torture — taking place in Iraqi prisons and detention centres. The US must ensure that no one is transferred to Iraq custody if they would face a real risk of torture or other human rights violations.”
The Iraqi authorities are already holding thousands of people, many without charge or trial, and often in appalling conditions, Amnesty said.
Many of these prisoner have no access to lawyers, while others have been sentenced to death after trials which failed to meet international fair trial standards, Amnesty stated.
The US is currently reported to hold around 16,000 prisoners in Iraq. Most are detainees who are held without charge or trial, some for more than five years and without recourse to any independent review of their detention.
Prisoners include former Baath party officials and former members of Saddam Hussein’s regime who could be at particular risk.
Ali Hassan al-Majid and two others sentenced to death for crimes committed under Saddam Hussein’s rule are likely to be executed if handed over to the Iraqi authorities.
Amnesty said it is also concerned that the agreement contains no reference to the more than 2,000 Iranians living in Iraq who are opponents of Iran’s hardline government.
The Iranians belonging to the People’s Mojahedeen Organization of Iran (PMOI), are based at Ashraf Camp in northern Iraq, where they have been under the protection of US forces for several years.
Some Iraqi officials have suggested that the Iranians will be forcibly expelled if they fail to comply with orders from the Iraqi government to leave the camp by 31 December 2008.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Mideast: First Arab Youth Parliament Urges Joint Arab Action
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, NOVEMBER 27 — The first Arab youth parliamentary conference called for giving an impetus to joint Arab action and promoting the efforts exerted by the Arab League to establish an independent Palestinian state, close Palestinians ranks in the face of the Israeli occupation and facilitate Palestinians’ movement in Arab states, the Egyptian Mena news agency reports. At the closing session of the conference today, Arab youth urged Arab countries to fill the Arab diplomatic vacuum in Iraq, reconstruct Iraq and Lebanon and step up efforts to expel foreign forces from Iraq. The conferees also called for rallying Arab efforts to confront calls by International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to issue an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. They also called for putting an end to the phenomenon of piracy along the Somali coast without any foreign interference. Youth from Tunisia, Algeria, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Somalia, Palestine, Comoros, Lebanon, Libya and Egypt, took part in the event. The conference is organized by the Egyptian National Council for Youth. (ANSAmed).
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Mumbai: Modest Pan-Arab and Jihad Media Attention
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, NOVEMBER 27 — Pan-arab satellite programs and their main internet sites have paid modest attention to the attacks in Mumbai which caused more than 100 deaths, while ‘jihadist’ sites limited themselves to scant comments of celebration. The Qatar broadcast al-Jazeera has had several link-ups with its correspondent there but without following events with a special broadcast. Al-Arabiya, the TV channel broadcasting from Dubai and financed by the Royal Saudi house, also reported the events in Mumbai using its journalists on the scene, but broadcast as part of the usual daily news. On its website Alarabiya.net, the attacks in India are in fourth place, after news on Lebanon, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Another important London-based Saudi news website, Elaph, opens with the Mumbai attacks but along with other photo news on Iraq, sport and medicine. Al-Jazeera has the attacks in India and Afghanistan as its headlines for ‘home in movement’. Islamic extremist forums also give it a low profile, in a ‘posting’ by some subscriber who adds laconically: “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great). (ANSAmed)
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Syria to Join Turkey in Sending Aid to Gaza
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, NOVEMBER 27 — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan plan to send humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, which is under Israeli blockade, daily Hurriyet website reports quoting Syrian ruling Baath party’s mouthpiece daily. The two leaders also agreed, in a telephone call, to work towards pressuring Israel to end the blockade of the impoverished Palestinian enclave which it imposed when the Islamist Hamas movement seized power in June last year, Al-Baath reported. Israel tightened its blockade after a November 4 surge in violence and has allowed food into Gaza only three times since. The border crossings which are the sole gateway for goods for the territory’s 1.5 million people were closed again on Thursday. Assad and Erdogan agreed to “work towards sending humanitarian aid urgently to the Palestinian people in Gaza and affirmed the need for combined international efforts to break the blockade,” the paper said. They also expressed their “deep concern over the suffering being endured by the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, who face a humanitarian catastrophe because of the blockade.” Syria remains technically at a state of war with Israel despite a 1974 armistice and the opening of Turkish-brokered proximity talks on a resumption of formal peace negotiations. Pro-Western Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab governments to have signed peace treaties with the Jewish state. (ANSAmed).
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Afghanistan: Suicide Attack Targets US Embassy in Kabul
Kabul, 27 Nov. (AKI) — At least seven people were killed and 16 others were injured in a large explosion near the US Embassy in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Thursday. Officials said a suicide bomber had targeted a convoy of foreign troops near the embassy entrance. Reports say the bomber detonated explosives about 200 metres from the heavily guarded entrance to the US compound.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack.
The blast badly damaged several cars and a bus during the busy morning rush-hour traffic.
“The information we have so far is that four people have been killed and three wounded. It was a suicide attack,” a city police chief, General Alishah Paktiawal, told the media.
The US embassy was closed for the Thanksgiving public holiday and were unlikely to be out on the roads at the time, an embassy spokesman said.
The blast occurred on the last day of the visit by the United Nations security council delegation.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Drugs Financing Taliban War Machine, Says UN
Kabul, 27 Nov. (AKI) — The Afghan Opium Survey 2008 released on Thursday by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime shows that opium has become less important to the Afghan economy due to a decrease in cultivation, production and prices. However, opium finances the Taliban war economy and is a major source of revenue for criminal groups and terrorists.
Opium cultivation in 2008 declined 19 percent to 157,000 hectares. Production was down by 6 percent to 7,700 tonnes.
The Survey shows that prices are also down by around 20 percent. As a result, the value of opium to farmers dropped by more than a quarter between 2007 and 2008, from 1 billion dollars to 730 million dollars.
The export value of opium, morphine and heroin (at border prices in neighbouring countries) for Afghan traffickers is also down, from 4 billion dollars in 2007 to 3.4 billion dollars this year.
The area of arable land in Afghanistan used to grow opium dropped slightly between 2007 and 2008, and one million fewer people were involved in opium cultivation this year. The Afghan opium problem is therefore shrinking in size and becoming more concentrated in the south-west of the country where 98 percent of the opium is grown.
Despite the drop in opium cultivation, production and prices, the Taliban and other anti-government forces are making massive amounts of money from the drug business.
In Afghanistan, authorities impose a charge (called ushr) on economic activity, traditionally set at 10 percent of income. Opium farming may have generated $50-$70 million of such income in 2008.
Furthermore, levies imposed on opium processing and trafficking may have raised an additional $200-$400 million. “With so much drug-related revenue, it is not surprising that the insurgents’ war machine has proven so resilient, despite the heavy pounding by Afghan and allied forces”, said the Executive Director of UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa.
Costa insisted on the importance of “keeping down both opium production and prices”. “If the Taliban can disrupt the market, so can NATO: drug production and trafficking would be slowed by destroying high value targets like drug markets, labs and convoys — which the Afghan army, backed by NATO, are starting to do.
“The downward trend in Afghanistan’s opium economy would gain speed with more honest government, more security, and more development assistance”, concluded Costa.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Emanuele Defies Terrorists to Deliver Daughter’s Milk
Italian chef managed to take milk to room in Oberoi hotel
MUMBAI — Out of the chaos in the aftermath of the Mumbai bombings comes the story of a father’s love. The father in question is Emanuele Lattanzi, the Oberoi’s Italian chef, who managed to take powdered milk to his six-month-old daughter in the terrorist-held hotel before she and the other hostages were freed. “An act of courage”, said Italy’s foreign minister, Franco Frattini, who described the incident to reporters on his arrival in Mexico City for a series of bilateral meetings.
FOOD PROBLEM — The daughter, who is Italian like her mother, is six months old. On Thursday, Emanuele had already made it known that the most urgent problem facing his wife since the terrorist attack was feeding her. Emanuele decided to risk it. He went into the hotel and took the milk to the room where his wife and daughter were staying. Five other Italians were also barricaded in their rooms in the two buildings that make up the Oberoi-Trident complex, and which are linked by an underground passage. The Italian consulate kept in touch with all of them by telephone throughout the siege. Mr Frattini assured the press that diplomats had already made arrangements to assist the Italians who left the hotel after the Indian army moved in.
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India, Jihad’s Permanent Battleground
by Srdja Trifkovic
Teams of heavily armed terrorists carried out seven coordinated attacks in India’s financial capital “Mumbai” (Bombay) on Wednesday evening and early Thursday morning. Over 120 people were reported killed by Friday morning and over 300 wounded, with the final toll likely to rise once the ongoing hostage crisis is ended. Similar attacks by Islamic terrorists occur with grim regularity in India (see Timetable at the end). The disputed province of Kashmir notwithstanding, militant Islam sees the second most populous country in the world as a piece of “unfinished business”: having been ruled by Muslims once, it cannot legitimately revert to Dar al-Harb.
The attacks represent a massive intelligence failure on part of the government in New Delhi. Even India’s business capital is now seen as a soft target for Jihadist terror, yet the ruling Congress Party continues its old habit of minority appeasement and automatic insistence that the problem is confined to an unrepresentative extremist fringe aided from abroad (i.e. Pakistan). This attitude indicates common ideological roots of India’s political and media elite and its Western role model. Both are supine, secularist and leftist to boot.
Now that the jihadists have targeted two luxury hotels and a top-tier restaurant frequented by visiting foreigners, now that they have brought their holy war to India’s upper crust and their Western business partners, the country’s elite class should wake up to the fact that India has a Muslim problem. That problem is fundamentally the same in each and every country in the world with a substantial Muslim minority. It would be there even if the government in Islamabad and its semi-rogue agencies like the ISI were to terminate all support for Islamic terrorist groups active across the Subcontinent (which will never happen, of course). The attacks remind us that global Jihad has India in its sights, no less firmly today than in the early centuries of the expansion of Islam’s bloody borders.
Prior to the Muslim invasions which started in the 8th century India was one of the world’s great civilizations. It matched its contemporaries in the realms of philosophy, mathematics, and natural science. It was a richly imaginative culture, one of the half-dozen most advanced civilizations of all time. Its sculptures were vigorous and sensual, its architecture ornate and spellbinding.
Muslim invaders began entering India in the early eighth century, on the orders of Hajjaj, the governor of Iraq. Starting in 712 the raiders, commanded by Muhammad Qasim, demolished temples, shattered sculptures, plundered palaces, killed vast numbers of men—it took them three days to slaughter the inhabitants of the port city of Debal—and carried off their women and children to slavery. After the initial wave of violence, however, Qasim tried to establish law and order in the newly conquered lands, and to that end he even allowed
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
India: Kashmir ‘Key Issue’ in Terrorist Attacks
Rome, 27 Nov. (AKI) — The disputed territory of Kashmir is the underlying cause of the suspected Islamist terrorist attacks in India, a leading member of the Pakistani community in Italy, Ejaz Ahmad, told Adnkronos International (AKI). He was commenting on the Mumbai terrorist attacks that police say have killed 125 people and injured 327 others in the past two days.
“Until now, the foremost group fighting for Kashmir’s freedom has been Lashkar-i-Toiba,” said Ahmad, referring to the banned militant Kashmiri separatist group.
Lashkar-i-Toiba is the main separatist group operating in Indian-administered Kashmir, and is based in the Himalaya mountains in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
It has denied any role in the Mumbai attacks and said it has no links with any Indian group. A previously unknown group calling itself the Deccan Mujahadeen claimed responsibility for the attacks.
“Many of Lashkar-i-Toiba members and other Kashmiri freedom fighters are detained in Indian jails,” Ahmad said.
One of the militants involved in the Mumbai attacks on Thursday reportedly telephoned an Indian television channel to complain about abuses in Kashmir, over which India and its neighbour, Pakistan, have fought two of their three wars.
The suspected mastermind of the 1993 Mumbai attacks, the most destructive bombings in Indian history, Dawood Ibrahim, is still at large, Ahmad also noted.
The 1993 bombings in Mumbai were allegedly coordinated by Ibrahim, an Indian underworld boss turned terrorist, on behalf of Islamist terror groups based in Pakistan. The bombings killed up to 250 civilians and injured 700 others.
Those attacks are believed to have been carried out in retaliation for the destruction of a Muslim mosque by a Hindu nationalist mob in December 1992 and the massacres of Muslims in Mumbai the same month and in January, 2003.
Lashkar-e-Toiba and another Kashmiri separatist group, Jaish-e-Mohammed, were found to be responsible for two taxi bombings that killed 52 Hindus and wounded 100 in Mumbai in 2003.
The 2003 attacks in Mumbai are believed to have been in retaliation for the religious riots in India’s northwestern state of Gujarat in 2002 in which more than a thousand people, mostly Muslims were killed.
Police blamed Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Students Islamic Movement of India for the deadly July 2006 train bombings in Mumbai that killed the 209 people and injured over 700.
India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday appeared to point the finger at Pakistan’s involvement in the latest Mumbai attacks without naming any country.
Pakistan’s leadership strongly condemned the attacks.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
India: Al-Qaeda Inspired Foreign Group Behind Attacks, Says Expert
New Delhi, 27 Nov. (AKI) — The deadly attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai bear the hallmarks of a foreign, Al-Qaeda-inspired group, a New Delhi terrorism expert Vikram Sood told Adnkronos International (AKI) on Thursday. Sood described the attacks as a “very serious” assault on the Indian state.
Suspected Islamist militants launched a series of coordinated gun and hand-grenade attacks late on Wednesday, killing over 100 people, injuring nearly 300. A number of hotel guests were also taken hostage in the attacks.
“I don’t believe it was the Deccan Mujahadeen at all,” Sood said, referring to a previously unknown group which claimed responsibility for the Mumbai attacks.
“The group doesn’t exist. It’s a red herring,” he told AKI.
Sood is the vice-president of the Observer Research Foundation’s Centre for International Affairs, a New Delhi public policy think-tank. He is also a former head of the Indian external intelligence agency’s research division.
The militant group that carried out Wednesday’s attacks in Mumbai appeared to be extremely well trained and well backed in terms of logistics, money and weapons, Sood said.
“From the TV shots of the terrorists, they are totally in control and have a long-term perspective” he said.
He described the Mumbai attacks as a “qualitative leap” compared with other recent attacks in India such as the May serial blasts in the western Indian city of Jaipur which killed at least 66 people and left about 200 wounded.
“They have made no demands but they are holding hostages and dragging it out. They are anti-Jewish, anti-American and anti-British,” said Sood.
The militants reportedly attacked a Jewish centre in Mumbai, took a rabbi hostage, and sought British and American citizens, asking to see their passports.
Sood declined to comment on whether a Pakistani militant group might be responsible, saying it was “too early to say”.
But he said: “This kind of attack needs careful planning, reconnaissance, knowing the behaviour of security personnel and those coming and going, and how to be inconspicuous.”
Wednesday’s highly organised attacks on ten mainly western and business targets in Mumbai are similar to the devastating serial blasts that killed 250 civilians and wounded 700 on 12 March 1993, Sood said.
The 1993 Mumbai attacks were the most destructive bombings in Indian history.
They are believed to have been coordinated by an organised crime syndicate in retaliation for the destruction of a Muslim mosque by a Hindu nationalist mob in December 1992 and the massacres of Muslims in Mumbai the same month and in January, 2003.
Asked if the Indian authorities could have prevented the latest attacks in Mumbai, Sood said: “It is hard to say without knowing what intelligence they had. But there have been lapses in the past.”
“This is a very serious assault on the Indian state. It must try to prevent future attacks,” he underlined.
“This means intelligence, counter-intelligence, response mechanisms, namely moving in commandoes and hostage negotiators, and the physical securing of vital installations.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
India, Long a Target of Terror (Overview)
At least 600 dead since 2002: this is the tally of terrorist attacks that have struck the country over the past six years.
Mumbai (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Over the past six years, more than 600 people in India have been killed, and hundreds have been maimed by terrorist attacks. Those responsible include local groups of Muslim and Hindu extremists, but also suspects linked to terrorism in Pakistan, and to Al Qaeda. The following is a chronology of the major terrorist attacks in the country.
Mumbai, Nov 26, 2008: Several killed and many more injured in seven terror attacks targetting mostly foreigners’ hangout places.
Assam, Oct 30, 2008: At least 45 killed (figure can change) and over 100 injured in 18 terror bombings across Assam.
Imphal, Oct 21, 2008: 17 killed in a powerful blast near Manipur Police Commando complex.
Kanpur, Oct 14, 2008: Eight people injured after bomb planted on a rented bicycle went off Colonelganj market.
Malegaon, Maharashtra, Sep 29, 2008: Five people died after a bomb kept in a motorbike went off in a crowded market.
Modasa, Gujarat, Sep 29 2008: One killed and several injured after a low-intensity bomb kept on a motorcycle went off near a mosque.
New Delhi, Sep 27, 2008: Three people killed after a crude bomb was thrown in a busy market in Mehrauli.
New Delhi, Sep 13, 2008: 26 people killed in six blasts across the city.
Ahmedabad, July 26, 2008: 57 people killed after 20-odd synchronised bombs went off within less than two hours.
Bangalore, July 25, 2008: One person killed in a low-intensity bomb explosion.
Jaipur, May 13, 2008: 68 people killed in serial bombings.
Hyderabad, Aug 25, 2007: 42 people killed in two blasts, at a popular eatery and a public park.
Samjhauta Express, Feb 19, 2007: 66 people killed after two firebombs went off on the India-Pakistan friendship train.
Malegaon, Maharashtra, Sep 8, 2006: 40 people killed in two blasts.
Mumbai, July 11, 2006: 209 people killed in seven blasts on suburban trains and stations.
Varanasi, March 7, 2006: 21 people killed in three blasts including one at a temple and another at a railway station.
New Delhi, Oct 29, 2005: 61 people killed in three blasts on the eve of Diwali.
Mumbai, Aug 25, 2003: 46 people killed in two blasts including one near the Gateway of India.
Gandhinagar, Sep 24, 2002: 34 people killed in the attack on the Akshardham temple.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
India: Rabbi Among Dead Hostages Discovered at Jewish Centre in Mumbai
Mumbai, 28 Nov. (AKI) — Indian commandos ended the siege at a Jewish centre in Mumbai on Friday while fighting continued at one of the luxury hotels two days after the city came under attack from extremists. Reports citing an Israeli diplomat said that five hostages had been killed, among them former Brooklyn Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife Rivka.
The couple ran the ultra-orthodox Jewish centre, known as Chabad Lubavitch, located at Nariman House.
An Israeli rescue service run by Orthodox Jews also said its staff sent to Mumbai to help at the siege believed that hostages in the Chabad centre had died.
Two workers and a young child had escaped from the Jewish centre on Thursday.
The child was identified as the son of Rabbi Holtzberg. It was not clear whether the rabbi was among the dead on Friday.
A team of at least nine Indian commandos dropped onto the Jewish Centre’s roof from helicopters and stormed the building on Friday.
Late on Friday, police in Mumbai said the death toll had reached 143 with the discovery of 24 bodies in the luxury Oberoi hotel, where guests were set free on Friday as security forces took control of the building.
Elsewhere in the city, gunfire and grenade blasts were reportedly still being heard at the Taj Mahal hotel.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesian Media Reports Fair on Faith, Say Experts
Mainstream Indonesian media is mostly judicious in taking into account religious sensitivities in its reporting, a discussion on press freedom and religion heard on Tuesday.
Elisabeth Karamat, an Austrian diplomat on exchange at the Indonesian Foreign Ministry, said questions about the limits of media freedom would be raised whenever a media outlet ran stories on sensitive matters of religion. “The Indonesian media is very strict about reporting on religious issues and respectful in how they deal with religion,” Karamat told the discussion organized by the Center for Dialogue and Cooperation among Civilizations.
Karamat said that in Europe, public and political debates on cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad were dominated by a central argument that the freedom of speech allows them, and that Muslims there had to accept it if they wanted to live in Europe. “I personally do not agree,” Karamat said.. “This is not fair, and if we go on like this there will be clashes in society.”
She mentioned the case of Tyrol, Austria, in the 1980s and 1990s, when area Catholics were offended by a satirical film of Jesus and Mary. An Austrian film institute defended the 1982 film as a case of free speech, but in 1985 the Austrian government banned it. The dispute was taken to a high European court, which ruled in 1994 that the ban was justified, as the film was offensive to the Catholic faith.
Karamat said religious freedom was not just a right to practice faith, but also a right to practice it under state protection.
Abdul Mu’ti, head of CDCC, said that the Indonesia media had to tread carefully when writing about religious issues. “It’s an interesting question, how we should combine the very free media atmosphere in Indonesia with the issues of religion, which the government still considers untouchable,” he said.
Alois Agus Nugroho, a media expert from the University of Indonesia, said mainstream, high-circulation media was balanced in reporting on religious issues, since to maintain a wide readership they had to remain impartial and objective. “They still exercise self-censorship when it comes to reporting interreligious issues,” he said. As for the low-circulation media outlets, he said they had to draw readers by spicing up their reporting with provocative wording while still keeping the facts straight. “This is an example of market diversification, especially to attract the middle-lower class,” Alois said.
Karamat said anti-Islam sentiment was on the rise in Europe, and that this could lead to conflict, as Islam has become the second most practiced religion in most European countries. “On one hand you have the second biggest religion, and on the other hand you have the media bashing the religion of these people,” Karamat said. “Media workers in Europe have to get trained, and not only do they have to get to know more about Islam, but they have to be involved in interreligious dialogue as well,” she said.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Author Blames Al-Qaeda for Mumbai Attacks
Rome, 27 Nov. (AKI) — Top-selling Pakistani author and journalist, Ahmed Rashid, said Al-Qaeda was almost certainly behind the deadly terrorist attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai in Wednesday. Rashid spoke to Adnkronos International (AKI) on Thursday, while in Rome to promote his latest book ‘Descent into Chaos’ about the failure of US and European policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“All the hallmarks of this attack seem to be Al-Qaeda,” said Rashid. “This was a very well-trained group, there were multiple attacks that were coordinated extremely well.
“There were multiple targets and this was a suicide squad, all the attackers were clearly prepared to die. It was certainly the most sophisticated kind of attack that we have seen in India so far. We’ve seen other bomb attacks but very amateur compared to this.”
He said it was significant that foreigners were the main focus of the attacks.
“I don’t think this has ever been the case in local bomb blasts and terrorist attacks,” he said. “This is the first time foreigners have been targeted in this way.”
Rashid said extremists were using terrorism to “create a crisis” between India and Pakistan so the Pakistani army would be diverted from its battles on the Afghan border.
He also criticised Indian intelligence for failing to effectively stop terrorist attacks.
“We’ve seen already the earlier bomb blasts that have taken place in India the culprits have not been caught,” he said.
“And there has been a lot of criticism by the Indian media and the Indian public against the lack of security and lack of information available to Indian intelligence.”
Rashid also made a grim prediction about the threat of future terror attacks.
“I think it is quite possible there will be more attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan and in India. This is a very critical period we are passing through.”
Rashid also told AKI that although he had received a good response to his book in India and Pakistan, he expected a more critical response from militants.
“A lot of people will be interested in reading the book, but clearly the extremists are not going to like it. In fact, they have already condemned the book very strongly, especially in Pakistan.”
Rashid also stressed that ‘Descent into Chaos’ topped sales of non-fiction books in both India and Pakistan, a rare feat for a Pakistani author, he says.
“When it is translated into other local languages, I expect an even better response,” he said.
One of Rashid’s previous books, ‘Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia’ published in 2002 was a New York Times bestseller and translated into 22 languages.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Massacre in Mumbai: Up to Seven Gunmen Were British and ‘Came From Same Area as 7/7 Bombers’
British-born Pakistanis among arrested militants
British-born Pakistanis were among the Mumbai terrorists, Indian government sources claimed today, as the death toll rose to at least 150.
As many as seven of the terrorists may have British connections and some could be from Leeds and Bradford where London’s July 7 bombers lived, one source said.
Two Britons were among eight gunmen being held, according to Mumbai’s chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. At least nine others are reportedly dead.
The eight arrested were captured by commandos after they stormed two hotels and a Jewish centre to free hostages today.
One security official said: ‘There is growing concern about British involvement in the attacks.’
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
‘The Most Dangerous Woman in the World’
Aafia Siddiqui was once considered a brilliant scientist. Then the US government called her the new face of al-Qaida — a Pakistani woman who ranked among America’s top terrorism suspects. Now the MIT-educated mother of three is in custody, claiming her long disappearance was a wrongful abduction by the CIA.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
The Legacy of Jihad in India
By Andrew G. Bostom
The phenomenon of modern Islamic terrorism has forged an inchoate strategic alliance between the Israeli and Indian governments, while heightening the awareness of a common threat—the institution of jihad—among the civilian populations of these nations.
Rarely understood, let alone acknowledged, however, is the history of brutal jihad conquest, Muslim colonization, and the imposition of dhimmitude shared by the Jews of historical Palestine, and the Hindus of the Indian subcontinent. Moreover, both peoples and nations also have in common, a subsequent, albeit much briefer British colonial legacy, which despite its own abuses, abrogated the system of dhimmitude (permanently for Israel and India, if not, sadly, for their contemporary Muslim neighboring states), and created the nascent institutions upon which thriving democratic societies have been constructed. Sir Jadunath Sarkar (d. 1958), the preeminent historian of Mughal India, wrote with admiration in 1950 of what the Jews of Palestine had accomplished once liberated from the yoke of dhimmitude. The implication was clear that he harbored similar hopes for his own people…
| — Hat tip: Andy Bostom | [Return to headlines] |
Another Shephard Slain, But No Outcry Follows
‘Silence of homosexuals is deafening when it comes to their own murdering innocent people’
A pro-family organization in Pennsylvania is raising questions about the lack of outrage over the murder of a man named Shephard in a dispute involving homosexuality.
No, not Matthew Shepard, whose murder in Wyoming a decade ago has been used by “gay” activists ever since as a reason to demand enhanced “hate” crimes for anyone who perpetrates criminal activity against a homosexual.
This case involves an innocent man who was murdered by a homosexual when the victim resisted his attacker’s sexual advances.
The latest case involves Jason Shephard, 23, who was attacked and killed by Bill Smithson, an openly homosexual man, who slipped the victim the date rape drug GHD and attempted to rape him.
“When the young man resisted his sexual advances, he was strangled,” reported the American Family Association of Pennsylvania.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
India: Italian Leaders Pledge to Fight Terrorism After Deadly Attacks
Tel Aviv, 27 Nov. (AKI) — The fight against terrorism is the key to achieving world peace, Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano, said on Thursday. Napolitano was speaking after the deadly attacks that killed at least 125 people and injured 327 others in the Indian city of Mumbai in the past two days.
“The fight against terrorism is essential for the peaceful development of international relations, and is of profound interest to all civilised countries,” said Napolitano (photo).
He was speaking at the end of an Italy-Israel business forum in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv.
Italy’s Foreign Minister, Franco Frattini, agreed with Napolitano. “The Mumbai attacks confirm that terrorism remains the top priority for world action,” he said.
Ministers attending a NATO summit in Brussels on Tuesday would discuss ways to fight terrorism, he said.
Frattini earlier on Thursday sent a message of condolence to India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, over the Mumbai attacks on behalf of the Italian Government and all Italians.
The message expressed “firm condemnation for such acts of inhumane violence”.
“These acts strengthen the international community’s resolve to act with the greatest determination in the fight against terrorism and to ensure the perpetrators of these vile acts are brought to justice,” he said.
The devastating Mumbai attacks against ten mainly tourist and business targets have drawn condemnation from world leaders and the United Nations.
India has suffered a string of attacks in recent years which are believed to have been carried out by militant Muslim groups.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
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