Don’t miss Bill Ayers’ op-ed in the Toronto Star.Also worth looking at: the “Axis of Evil” countries love Obama. Kenya is expecting a quid pro quo from its favorite son. Corzine is rumored to be in line for Treasury. And the recession hits China.
Thanks to Abu Elvis, C. Cantoni, Frontinus, Insubria, JD, Steen, TB, Wally Ballou, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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Corzine is Being Considered for Treasury Secretary.
Gov. Jon Corzine, a multimillionaire and former Wall Street chief executive, is being actively vetted by the Obama transition team as a possible candidate for Treasury secretary in the new administration, two New Jersey Democrats familiar with the process said early this morning.
[..]
Corzine, who used to run financial services giant Goldman Sachs, had long dismissed as speculation talk that he might be interested in running the sprawling U.S. Treasury Department. But in recent days he has changed his message, telling a television interviewer “No one’s ever going to say never.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sarah Palin Blamed by the US Secret Service Over Death Threats Against Barack Obama
Sarah Palin’s attacks on Barack Obama’s patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.
Palin’s tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists Photo: Reuters
The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of “palling around with terrorists”, citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.
The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling “terrorist” and “kill him” until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.
But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.
The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.
| — Hat tip: Frontinus | [Return to headlines] |
Web Faux Pas: Plan Leaked for ‘Civilian Security Force’
Before blogs caught it, Obama site told of requiring students to serve
[Obama website changes wording of Obama corps program after flurry of criticism by bloggers.]
The official website of President-Elect Barack Obama, Change.gov, originally announced that Obama would “require” all middle school through college students to participate in community service programs; but after a flurry of blogs protested children being drafted into Obama’s proposed youth corps, the website’s wording was softened.
[…]
The language of requiring students to serve and the creation of a “Classroom Corps” sparked a surge of criticism from bloggers for bringing back memories of the much-publicized video of marching Obama youth and Obama’s “civilian national security force,” which the candidate said in July would be just as powerful and well-funded as the U.S. military.
[…]
J.D. Tuccille of the Civil Liberties Examiner also points out, “Most public schools depend on federal dollars. As Obama elaborated in a speech last December, ‘At the middle and high school level, we’ll make federal assistance conditional on school districts developing service programs, and give schools resources to offer new service opportunities’
“So, it won’t be the nasty federal government forcing your kids to donate their time to government-approved service, it’ll be the local schools — but that requirement will be among the strings attached to federal money,” Tuccille writes.
Obama’s selection of an advocate for mandatory civil service, Rahm Emanuel, as his chief of staff has further worried bloggers that Obama’s plans may be more “requirement” than “encouragement.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bill Ayers Op-Ed: Becoming a Target of ‘Terrorist’ Attack
Whew! What was all that mess? I’m still in a daze, sorting it all out, decompressing.
For the past few years, I have gone about my business, hanging out with my kids and, now, my grandchildren, taking care of our elders (they moved in as the kids moved out), going to work, teaching and writing. And every day, I participate in the never-ending effort to build a powerful and irresistible movement for peace and social justice.
In years past, I would now and then — and often unpredictably — appear in the newspapers or on TV, sometimes with a reference to Fugitive Days, my 2001 memoir of the exhilarating and difficult years of resistance against the American war in Vietnam.
Then came this political season.
During the primaries, the blogosphere was full of chatter about my relationship with Barack Obama. We had served together on the board of the Woods Foundation and knew one another as neighbours in Chicago’s Hyde Park. In 1996, at a coffee gathering that my wife, Bernardine Dohrn (also a founder of the Weatherman) and I held for him, I made a $200 donation to his campaign for the Illinois state senate.
Obama’s rivals and enemies thought they saw an opportunity to deepen a dishonest perception that he is somehow un-American, alien, linked to radical ideas, a closet terrorist who sympathizes with extremism — and they pounced.
On March 13, Senator John McCain, apparently in an attempt to reassure the “base,” sat down for an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News. McCain was not yet aware of the narrative Hannity had been spinning for months, and so Hannity filled him in: Ayers is an unrepentant “terrorist,” he explained.
“On 9/11, of all days, he had an article where he bragged about bombing our Pentagon, bombing the Capitol and bombing New York City police headquarters. … He said, ‘I regret not doing more.’“
McCain couldn’t believe it.
Neither could I.
On the campaign trail, McCain immediately got on message. I became a prop, a cartoon character created to be pummelled.
When Alaska Governor Sarah Palin got hold of it, the attack went viral. At a now-famous Oct. 4 rally, she said Obama was “pallin’ around with terrorists.” (I pictured us sharing a milkshake with two straws.)
The crowd began chanting, “Kill him! Kill him!” It was downhill from there.
My voicemail filled up with hate messages. They were mostly from men, all venting and breathing heavily. A few threats: “Watch out!” and “You deserve to be shot.” And I got some emails like this one from satan@hell.com: “I’m coming to get you and when I do, I’ll waterboard you.”
The police lieutenant who came to copy down those threatsdeadpanned that he hoped the guy who was going to shoot me got there before the guy who was going to waterboard me, since it would be most foul to be tortured and then shot.
The good news was that every time McCain or Palin mentioned my name, they lost a point or two in the polls. The cartoon invented to hurt Obama poked holes in the rapidly sinking McCain-Palin ship.
The McCain-Palin attacks not only involved guilt by association, they also assumed that one must apply a political litmus test to begin a conversation.
In a robust and sophisticated democracy, political leaders — and all of us — ought to seek ways to talk with many people who hold dissenting, or even radical, ideas. Lacking that simple and yet essential capacity to question authority, we might still be burning witches and enslaving our fellow human beings today.
Maybe we could welcome our current situation — torn by another illegal war, as it was in the ‘60s — as an opportunity to search for the new.
Perhaps we might think of ourselves not as passive consumers of politics, but as fully mobilized political actors.
Perhaps we might think of our various efforts now, as we did then, as more than a single campaign, but rather as our movement-in-the-making.
We might find hope in the growth of opposition to war and occupation worldwide.
Or we might be inspired by the growing movements for reparations and prison abolition, or the rising immigrant rights movement and the stirrings of working people everywhere, or by gay and lesbian and transgender people courageously pressing for full recognition.
Yet hope — my hope, our hope — resides in a simple self-evident truth: the future is unknown, and it is also entirely unknowable.
History is always in the making. It’s up to us. It is up to me and to you. Nothing is predetermined. That makes our moment on this Earth both hopeful and all the more urgent — we must find ways to become real actors, to become authentic subjects in our own history.
In this time of new beginnings and rising expectations, it is even more urgent that we figure out how to become the people we have been waiting to be.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Auschwitz Blueprints Surface in Germany
No one from the federal government’s archives was immediately available for comment on the authenticity or importance of the documents.
The plans, published ahead of the 70th anniversary of the “Kristallnacht” or the Nazi pogrom that was a harbinger of the Holocaust, also include a crematorium and a “L. Keller” — an abbreviation for “Leichenkeller” or corpse cellar.
A drawing of the building for Auschwitz’s main gate was also found in the documents that Bild said were believed to have been discovered when a Berlin flat was cleaned out.
The mass-circulation newspaper quoted Hans-Dieter Kreikamp, head of the federal archives office in Berlin, as saying the blueprints offered “authentic evidence of the systematically planned genocide of European Jews.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kazakh Leader “Secretly Owns” £50m Home
The president of Kazakhstan has secretly bought one of Britain?s most expensive homes, according to the former head of his country?s security service.
Toprak Mansion in The Bishops Avenue in Hampstead, north London — known as Billionaires’ Row — was bought for £50m by a company controlled by a property tycoon.
The former Kazakh intelligence chief said the company was acting as a front for President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
“Toprak Mansion is owned by Nazarbayev,” said Alnur Musayev, who used to run the successor to the Soviet-era KGB in the central Asian state. The president, he added, wanted to disguise his part in the transaction.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Report Identifies UK Terrorist Enclaves
Secret enclaves of al-Qaeda extremists based in London, Birmingham and Luton are planning mass-casualty attacks in Britain, according to a leaked Government intelligence report.
The document, which was drawn up by the intelligence branch of the Ministry of Defence, MI5 and Special Branch, states that “some thousands” of extremists are active in the UK. They are predominantly UK-born and aged between 18 and 30, and many are believed to have been trained in overseas terrorist camps.
Under the heading “International Terrorism”, the report, which is marked “restricted” states: “For the foreseeable future the UK will continue to be a high-priority target for international terrorists aligned with al-Qaeda. It will face a threat from British nationals, including Muslim converts, and UK-based foreign terrorists, as well as terrorists planning attacks from abroad.”
The report states that the threat from the Islamist extremist community in the UK is “diverse and widely distributed” but adds that the numbers of terrorist in Britain is “difficult to judge”.
The document does state, however, that the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, which is based in MI5’s headquarters at Thames House in London, estimates that there are “some thousands of extremists in the UK committed to supporting Jihadi activities, either in the UK or abroad”…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Franco, Iron Fist Between Garzon & Public Prosecutor
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, OCTOBER 23 — An iron fist over the enquiry into the victims of the Civil War and the Franco regime, between judge Baltazar Garzon, who has claimed himself to be competent to rule over assumed human rights violations, and the chief prosecutor of the Audiencia Nacional, Javier Zaragoza, who had appealed against the ruling to the Magistrate at the Penal Chamber of the High Court. Garzon, according to judicial sources quoted by news agency EFE, today rejected the appeal, while Zaragoza had already called a plenary meeting of the Penal Chamber which will examine the appeal and make a ruling on upholding it. Garzon maintains that it should be him and not the Penal Chamber of the Audiencia Nacional, which is the higher authority, to respond in the first instance to objections by the Public Prosecutor. Garzon pointed out that recourse to the Prosecutor was presented “per saltum” to the Penal Chamber on 20 October, that is 3 days after the conversion of preliminary investigations into committal proceedings. For this reason “it is compulsory to reject the Public Prosecutor’s request, without any alternative”. The Chief Prosecutor appealed to article 23 of the penal code which states that “if during preliminary hearings or any preliminary phase of a penal hearing the Public Prosecutor maintains that the trial judge is not competent to act in the case, he can make recourse to the relevant higher court, which can decide without further recourse”. An iron fist, concealed behind the procedural conflict, as it will be the Penal Chamber in any case who will pass judgement on the appeal. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Exhumations in Valley of the Fallen Ordered
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, 6 NOVEMBER — Under the investigation of presumed crimes against humanity in the Civil War and Francoism, Judge Baltazar Garzon has authorised the exhumation of the bodies of 8 republicans — 7 men and 1 woman — who were buried, unbeknownst to their families, in the mausoleum of the Valley of the Fallen, where the body of General Francisco Franco is kept. This was reported today in El Pais, specifying that the 8 republican victims were shot on August 20th 1936 by a group of Falangists, and thrown into an abandoned well in the nearby town of Aldeaseca, and exhumed 23 years later. The remains were transferred to the Valley of the Fallen, a month before the inauguration of the monument, whose construction was decided by Franco in 1940 to celebrate his victory and to render homage to the fallen. “The regime — said El Pais — needed bodies to fill the enormous crypt, whose construction was delayed 20 years”. The Francoist government asked all Spanish towns to provide nationalist bodies from the Civil War, but many responded that they only had victims in the “Red Army Graves” of the Republican Army. For this reason, Franco was forced to authorise that in the Valley of the Fallen, next to the remains of the dictator, republican victims be buried, and now, family members are protesting the exhumations. In the meantime, historian Stanley Payne, speaking today in Madrid at the opening of the III International Congress on “The other memory” warned about “consequences that could require actions undertake regarding historical memory”. And warned that while “the transition served to establish democracy, a second transition could cause social agitation and recreate the contraposition between the two fronts”. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Slovenia: Center-Left Parties Set Up Ruling Coalition
(ANSAmed) — LJUBLJANA, NOVEMBER 7 — Four center-left parties in Slovenia announced yesterday they reached an agreement to form a new coalition government headed by Social Democratic leader Borut Pahor, who won the elections held on September 21. The four parties jointly hold 50 out of the 90 seats in Slovenia’s one-house Parliament. The Social Democratic party (SD) has 29, the ZARES party nine, the Pensioners’ Party DESUS seven and the Liberal Democratic Party five. The four parties will decide on the sharing out of ministerial posts by the end of the month. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy-Mediterranean Trade Grows in First 5 Months 2008
(ANSAmed) — MILAN, SEPTEMBER 23 — After the moderate growth last year, at the beginning of 2008 the trade between Italy and the Mediterranean countries registered an increase with a double-figure growth, exceeding 27 billion euro in the period January-May. The data is revealed by a survey of the Milan Chamber of Commerce on the latest ISTAT data on the import-export of Italy with 13 countries of the area (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Malta, Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Jordan). In particular, export reached 11 billion euro, up 25% compared to the same period last year, while import was 16 billion euro (up 23%), with a difference between the two figures which continues reducing slowly. Turkey confirms itself as the main outlet market for the Italian goods in the Mediterranean, with a growth of 18%, where almost one-third of the export to the area (30%) is directed. As regards the goods, machineries and transport material still are the main export goods (35% of the total) while mineral fuel and related products represent the majority of the import (67%), arriving mainly from Algeria and Libya, which represent 62% of the import. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Med Union: Troika Considered for European Presidency
(ANSAmed) — MARSEILLE, NOVEMBER 4 — To overcome the hurdle of a European presidency of the Mediterranean Union, which would change every six months, compared to the presidency of the southern shore which would remain in charge for two years, the 43 Euro-Mediterranean ministers are thinking of dividing the European presidency into three parts, with the current EU presidency collaborating with the preceding and subsequent presidencies. Diplomatic sources say that in this way France, which does not want to relinquish the management, would be guaranteed the presidency of the Union for another six months. A revision of the rotating role of the European Union presidency has been made necessary following the failure of the Lisbon Treaty. Indeed, the Treaty would have guaranteed a single European presidency for two years (Lisbon states that the president should remain at the head of the EU Council for two and a half years).(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt’s Police Say Bin Laden’s Son is Welcomed
Egyptian police said on Sunday they did not interrogate Omar bin Laden, one of the five sons of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, on his arrival at the Cairo International Airport, an Egyptian security source said.
“Omar bin Laden was not prevented from entering the country and was not questioned by the Egyptian Police,” Cairo International Airport Security Chief Mohsen Fahham told AlArabiya.net.
“If he wants to return back to Egypt, he is welcomed. He decided to leave directly to Qatar after returning from a failed bid for political asylum in Spain,” Fahham said, noting out that it was up to Omar to remain in Egypt or leave it.
However, his English-born wife told AFP that they were deported from Egypt after returning from a failed bid for political asylum in Spain.
“ We pray that some country in the world will be merciful and allow Omar a place to live in peace “
Statement by the bin Ladens
Spain on Saturday turned down the 27-year-old bin Laden’s request for political asylum after he said his life was in danger in the Middle East because he is a pacifist.
“The Spanish government said that Omar was safe in Egypt and so had a place to go, but when we arrived in Egypt they deported us,” his wife Zaina Alsabah bin Laden said by telephone from a passenger plane at Cairo airport.
She declined to say where they were heading as it might jeopardize their chances of being able to clear immigration at their destination.
“We’re not feeling very good, seeing that everything we have is in Egypt and we can’t get anything, can’t get (credit) cards, we just have cash.”
However, an airport official said the couple was heading for Qatar.
Omar, one of the children of the fugitive founder of the al-Qaeda terror network, had appealed against Spain’s refusal on Wednesday to grant him asylum after arriving in Madrid from Cairo.
But the Spanish authorities deemed that his security was not in danger and he returned late on Saturday to Cairo, where the couple met and have been living for several months.
“The directive that Spain gave was illegal because they said we would be accepted in Egypt,” Zaina said.
Zaina on Saturday condemned what she said had been a “political decision,” adding that the couple had been trying to raise money to fly to New Zealand instead of returning to Egypt.
“We pray that some country in the world will be merciful and allow Omar a place to live in peace,” the bin Ladens said in a statement issued while they were in Spain.
“Omar is an innocent young man who has never participated in a single violent act. His only desire is to live the rest of his life in peace.”
Spain’s interior ministry said Wednesday’s decision to turn down the asylum claim was in line with the opinion of the U.N. refugee agency.
“Our reasons for leaving Egypt and coming to Spain had nothing to do with any actions of the Egyptian government,” the couple said.
“We are most grateful to the Egyptian government and the lovely Egyptian people. They graciously showed us every kindness, more than any country in the world, in fact. There were outsiders working within Egypt which created genuine concern for Omar’s safety. That is the only reason we left Egypt.”
Omar bin Laden, who has a Saudi passport, is the fourth child from Osama bin Laden’s first marriage. His wife, 52, whom he married in 2007, is British, having changed her name from Jane Felix-Browne.
Omar trained with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan from age 14, but by 2000 became disillusioned with the Taliban’s fight, according to an interview on earlier this year on CNN, and left with the blessing of his father. But he said he did not know where his father was and did not think his father was a terrorist.
Omar said in the statement that he has not spoken to his father since 2000.
The couple, who met while horse riding, set up the “Al-Mirage” horse ranch just outside Cairo this spring and had planned to make a business out of arranging horse and camel back desert safaris from the ranch, which lies in the shadow of some of Egypt’s lesser-known pyramids.
Zaina said on Sunday that she hoped they would be able to go to Britain in early 2009. In April Omar was denied entry to the United Kingdom, where his wife’s children live, over fears his presence would cause “considerable public concern.”
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: People Die as Police Fight Local Tribes in South
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, NOVEMBER 7 — Heavy fighting between Lybian security forces and members of the Tebu tribe have caused the death of four people and the wounding of 29 more. The death toll could, however, get worse. The skirmishes took place in the Kufra oasis, around 1,500 kilometres south of Tripoli, following protests caused by long term tension over certain government policies that the native tribes have called discriminatory and oppressive. It is thought that there were mass arrests following the fighting, but there is no official confirmation of this. An appeal from the Tebu Health Front has been released which asks that the international community intervene with “necessary humanitarian measures to save the local populations and stop the massacre as soon as possible, given that the situation continues to deteriorate”. The organisation has denounced the mass arrests by Libyan military units, saying: “they arrest women, children and old people and also people from other Libyan cities that come to visit Kufra”. The memo from the organisation continues: “these actions demonstrate that Libya is about to became a new hotbed of tension if the international community does not take the necessary steps to avoid the situation blowing up”. Kufra lies in the heart of the Sahara desert, in an area that used be a stopping point for caravans transporting goods on camels from Sudan and other nearby countries towards the cities of the Mediterranean coast. The Kufra area has around 60 thousand inhabitants and is today considered to be a risk area for the presence of a large number of people smugglers. In Kufra, indeed, lorries and off-road vehicles full of illegal immigrants from various central African countries come and go often. The drivers, often paying bribes to the local police, are able to bring groups of men to the Libyan coast where they can take boats to southern Italy or other European destinations. It is not rare for people to be left to die in the desert not far from Kufra due to vehicle breakdown or because the people being transported are robbed of their possessions by those who are transporting them and they get left in the desert with little means of survival. In another memo, from the executive committee of the National Congress of the Libyan opposition it is claimed that “the latest developments in the city of Kufra will be followed with great anxiety and worry” and that “backup military units, equipped with all sorts of weapons, have been deployed in the area to control the situation, after the numerous victims of the fighting and the state of anarchy that it has created”. (ANSAmed).
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, NOVEMBER 7 — Heavy fighting between Lybian security forces and members of the Tebu tribe have caused the death of four people and the wounding of 29 more. The death toll could, however, get worse. The skirmishes took place in the Kufra oasis, around 1,500 kilometres south of Tripoli, following protests caused by long term tension over certain government policies that the native tribes have called discriminatory and oppressive. It is thought that there were mass arrests following the fighting, but there is no official confirmation of this. An appeal from the Tebu Health Front has been released which asks that the international community intervene with “necessary humanitarian measures to save the local populations and stop the massacre as soon as possible, given that the situation continues to deteriorate”. The organisation has denounced the mass arrests by Libyan military units, saying: “they arrest women, children and old people and also people from other Libyan cities that come to visit Kufra”. The memo from the organisation continues: “these actions demonstrate that Libya is about to became a new hotbed of tension if the international community does not take the necessary steps to avoid the situation blowing up”. Kufra lies in the heart of the Sahara desert, in an area that used be a stopping point for caravans transporting goods on camels from Sudan and other nearby countries towards the cities of the Mediterranean coast. The Kufra area has around 60 thousand inhabitants and is today considered to be a risk area for the presence of a large number of people smugglers. In Kufra, indeed, lorries and off-road vehicles full of illegal immigrants from various central African countries come and go often. The drivers, often paying bribes to the local police, are able to bring groups of men to the Libyan coast where they can take boats to southern Italy or other European destinations. It is not rare for people to be left to die in the desert not far from Kufra due to vehicle breakdown or because the people being transported are robbed of their possessions by those who are transporting them and they get left in the desert with little means of survival. In another memo, from the executive committee of the National Congress of the Libyan opposition it is claimed that “the latest developments in the city of Kufra will be followed with great anxiety and worry” and that “backup military units, equipped with all sorts of weapons, have been deployed in the area to control the situation, after the numerous victims of the fighting and the state of anarchy that it has created”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mideast: Gaza, Hamas Prohibits Ceremony for Arafat
(ANSAmed) — GAZA, NOVEMBER 7 — A ceremony of commemoration for Palestinian President, Yassar Arafat, on the 4th anniversary of his death has been prohibited in Gaza by Hamas leaders due to ‘‘security reasons’’, reported a website tied to Hamas. The initiative was joined by elements from al-Fatah that as in the past, hoped to bring tens of thousands of supporters to the ceremony. Hamas sources specified that last year, an analogous commemorative ceremony could degenerate into disorder and demonstrators would be killed and many others would be wounded. For reasons of public order, and in particular, fears that ‘‘acts of sabotage’’ could occur during the ceremony, the leaders in the Gaza Strip have decided that this year there will be no ceremony for Arafat. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
106-Year-Old Nun to Vote Barack Obama
A 106-year-old American nun who last voted in a US election when Dwight Eisenhower was seeking office has decided to throw her support behind Barack Obama.
Sister Cecilia Gaudette, who was born in New Hampshire in 1902 but has lived in Rome for 50 years, said the Democrats’ contender struck her as “a good man”.
“I’m encouraged by Senator Obama,” the nun, who will be among the oldest Americans to vote, told the BBC. “I’ve never met him, but he seems to be a good man with a good private life. That’s the first thing. Then he must be able to govern.”
She decided to take part in next month’s US federal election — her first since voting for President Eisenhower, a Republican, in 1952 — after learning that she could cast an absentee vote on the internet.
She said she hoped Senator Obama, if elected, will be able to bring an end to the war in Iraq and contribute to fostering world peace.
Since announcing her voting intentions, Sister Gaudette has becoming something of a media celebrity, with her religious order fielding calls from around the world.
But it has all proved a bit much for the frail nun, a member of the Religious Sisters of Jesus and Mary, and she now wants to be left in peace.
“Sister Cecilia is tired, she is startled and she is even a bit anguished by all the attention,” said Sister Carmen Aymar, a deputy superior general at the convent in Rome where Sister Gaudette lives. “Now she wants to be left alone.”
Sister Gaudette came to Italy half a century ago but remains fiercely patriotic.
“She is very proud to be an American,” said Sister Aymar. “She keeps an American flag in her office. She is a very determined woman and still very lucid.”
| — Hat tip: Wally Ballou | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Businessmen Believe Obama Will Bring New Stimulus
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, NOVEMBER 6 — Barack Obamàs coming takeover of the White House has been met with optimistic reactions from the Turkish business world, which believes the change in the US administration will bring about a new wave of excitement, invigorating mutual commercial relations and attempts to solve global economic problems. According to Today’s Zaman, businessmen stated that trade between the US and Turkey, which has slowed considerably over the last decade, will likely increase again. Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM) President Mehmet Buyukeksi, noting that the US share of Turkey’s total exports is hovering at around 4%, said Obamàs presidency might be a chance to turn trade relations around. Obamàs innovative and pro-change stance is an important asset inspiring hope for the improvement of the relations, he said. If the grip of the global financial crisis around the neck of the US economy loosens a bit as a result of relaxation triggered by the new pro-market president, exports to the US will also see an increase, Buyukeksi predicted. Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK) Chairman Rona Yircali was a bit more cautious, however. He said no big leaps in trade should be expected in the short term due to the damage the crisis is inflicting on the US economy. The relations will at least not worsen during Obamàs presidency, he said, adding that Obama once said, “We have to repair relations with Turkey.” As of the end of 2007, Turkey’s exports to the US amounted to 4.6 billion dollars, whereas its imports were 6.6 billion dollars. There are 922 American investors currently active in Turkish business. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Also the Wealthiest Suffer From the Global Crisis
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, OCTOBER 21 — The rankings of the top 100 wealthiest Turks list did not change much this year, according to Turkish business magazine the Ekonomist. The Koc family, which owns Turkey’s largest conglomerate, Koc Holding, still sits at the top of the list, with 11 billion dollars in assets, followed by the Sabanci family, with assets worth 10 billion dollars, reported daily Milliyet. However, the wealthiest in Turkey are not immune from the global crisis, the Ekonomist revealed. The Koc family’s wealth shrank nearly 7 billion dollars this year from last year’s 18 billion dollars, just as the Sabanci family’ wealth declined 7 billion dollars from last year’s 17 billion dollars due to the global economic crisis. While most of Turkey’s rich live in Istanbul, Husnu Ozyegin of Fiba, Mehmet Basaran, Boydaklar, and Mehmet Ali Aydinlar, the owner of Acibadem Hospitals, also ranked near the top of the list this year. The report not only lists Turkey’s richest people but also gives insight into their lifestyles, dreams, hopes and the source of their wealth. The report was based on a wealth calibration set by Merrill Lynch-Cap Gemini research. In order to be considered wealthy by this research one needs to have cash or real estate worth 1 billion dollars in addition to the value of onés home. There are 70,000 wealthy people living in Turkey, according to the report. The population’s wealthiest one percent has an 8% share of Turkey’s overall income. These people earn 148,000 dollars a month. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Fire on Russian Nuclear Sub Leaves 20 Dead
At least 20 people have died in a fire on a Russian nuclear submarine. Another 21 were injured when the extinguishing system failed to work during sea trials, but navy officials denied there had been any radiation leak.
The Russian Pacific fleet spokesman Igor Dygalo said both sailors and shipyard workers died in the incident, which occurred off the eastern coast of Siberia.
The Russians claim that the submarine itself has not been seriously damaged. Military prosecutors are investigating the incident and it is regarded as sufficiently serious that both the deputy defence minister, Alexander Kolmakov, and the navy commander-in-chief, Vladimir Vysotsky, are flying to the scene.
The submarine, whose name and class have not been revealed, has been ordered to suspend sea trials and return to port in the far eastern Primorye territory, Captain Dygalo said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Emotions Boil Over as Bali Bombers Buried
Thousands of people gathered for the funerals of three Indonesians executed on Sunday for the 2002 Bali bombings, sparking clashes between police and emotional supporters.
The three men from the group Jemaah Islamiah, Imam Samudra, 38, and brothers Mukhlas, 48, and Amrozi, 46, were executed by firing squad in central Java shortly after midnight, claiming to want to die as “martyrs” and having shown no remorse for the attacks.
“ Of course they are martyrs. They fought hard in the name of Islam but they died. But dying doesn’t mean they lost — they still won. “
Supporter
The bodies were delivered to the village mosque for prayers, before being carried through a crowd of onlookers—shadowed by armed police and many reporters—to an Islamic boarding school.
“Of course they are martyrs. They fought hard in the name of Islam but they died. But dying doesn’t mean they lost — they still won,” said one supporter, refusing to give his name.
“This is God’s grace. The mujahedeen (holy warriors) will fight on!” shouted someone in the crowd, crying and holding his hands to the sky in religious awe.
Among those in the streets were followers of controversial cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who was accused of co-founding regional militant group Jemaah Islamiah and jailed for conspiracy over the Bali bombings, but later cleared of wrongdoing.
The bombers said they launched the attacks against packed nightclubs on the resort island of Bali — killing 202 people, mostly foreign tourists — to defend Islam and avenge U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Iraq and to create an Islamic caliphate spanning Southeast Asia.
‘Not martyrs’
“Someone who killed others will not die as martyrs unless they waged a war in the name of religion. They were not fighting for religion. “
Umar Shihab
Most Indonesians practice a moderate form of Islam, and the head of the country’s leading Islamic body, the Indonesian Council of Ulamas, said Sunday the bombers could not be considered “martyrs.”
“Someone who killed others will not die as martyrs unless they waged a war in the name of religion. They were not fighting for religion,” Umar Shihab was quoted as saying by the Detikcom news website.
Even as the bombers’ radical supporters protested, others quietly agreed their “jihad” was wrong.
“If there’s a war fighting jihad is good for the religion but don’t do it here in Indonesia. Bali isn’t a battlefield,” said Robi, 30, a neighbor of Samudra.
Australian reaction
Australia immediately issued a travel warning for citizens going to Indonesia and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith warned of possible reprisals. “It is not a day that fills us with any joy or any celebration,” Smith said on Australian television.
“We continue to have credible information that terrorists may be planning attacks in Indonesia,” he added.
Although new attacks targeting bars and tourist hangouts were possible, Jemaah Islamiah’s network was fractured and sympathy for the bombers was low, said a leading Australian analyst.
“There will be some people in Indonesian society who regard them as martyrs, but they will be a very small proportion,” said Damien Kingsbury, an associate professor at Deakin University.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Malaysian Blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin Released
High Court rules he is innocent and that Interior Ministry charges were unlawful. His attorney calls the decision “historic”.
Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews/Agencies) — A Malaysian High Court ordered the release of Raja Petra Kamaruddin, a Malaysian national and editor of Malaysia Today who was arrested on 12 September charged with threatening public security and causing racial tension for publishing writings that ridiculed Islam in this predominantly Muslim country. Raja Petra left prison today welcomed by family, friends and supporters with a garland of flowers.
Shah Alam High Court Justice Syed Ahmad Helmy Syed Ahmad ruled that the home minister acted outside his powers in having Raja Petra Kamaruddin arrested
The grounds given for the blogger’s detention were insufficient and his arrest unlawful under the Internal Security Act (ISA), a holdover from British colonial times, which allows the government to detain anyone deemed a threat to the country without charges for an initial two-year period, and to extend the detention indefinitely.
Many in the opposition and among social groups have called for the law’s repeal.
On his website Raja Petra had increasingly infuriated authorities by publishing numerous reports about alleged wrongdoing by government leaders who denounced Raja Petra’s claims as false.
The blogger’s attorney, Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, said that the judge’s order was a “historic ruling”.
“It is the first time that a court orders the release of someone arrested on the basis of the ISA. This is a great step forward for civil liberties in Malaysia,” he said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sakharov Prize to Hu Jia Angers Beijing, Makes Activists Happy
China’s government slams “award to a jailed criminal”. Human rights activists praise the choice as “a huge encouragement”, urging Beijing to recognise basic human rights “to become a great modern power.”
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — China reacted angrily to the European parliament’s decision to award the prestigious Sacharov Prize to Hu Jia, a distinguished fighter for human rights and freedom. Chinese human rights responded instead with enthusiasm at the announcement.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao slammed the decision, calling it a “gross interference in China’s domestic affairs.”
“We express strong dissatisfaction at the decision by the European Parliament to issue such an award to a jailed criminal in China, in disregard of our repeated representations,” Mr Liu added.
Earlier this week, Beijing had warned the European Union that such a choice would “bring serious damage to China-EU relations.”
“I don’t think this award represents the opinion of most people in Europe,” Mr Liu added.
Hu Jintai has been fighting for years for the rights of HIV-AIDS patients and has become a symbol of the courageous struggle for human rights in China.
He was arrested last December for criticising the government’s policy of tearing down entire Beijing neighbourhoods to give way to Olympic installations.
In April he was sentenced to three and half years in jail on “subversion” charges for publishing articles online showing “his relationship with foreign powers, intended to discredit China’s image.”
For many Chinese activists government claims do not reflect public opinion.
“This [the Sacharov Prize] is a huge encouragement for both Hu Jia and all freedom fighters and human rights defenders on the mainland,” said Mr Bao Tong, a prominent political dissident.
“It’s also a most important declaration of support for all Chinese citizens who yearn to have basic human rights,” Mr Bao added. “What Hu Jia has been fighting for represents mainstream world values. If China wants to become a real modern power, it must first acknowledge universal human rights.”
Wan Yanhai, another prominent Aids activist, said the award could lead to Hu’s early release from jail. But for Li Jingsong, Hu’s attorney, the reward might be counterproductive.
“It’s unlikely the authorities will change their minds, because they wouldn’t want to be seen as giving in to international pressure,” he said.
Still half of the security guards who follow him around day and night “said to me that Hu is a nice person and a true Christian who is able to love even those who have hurt him,” Mr Li noted.
The prize includes 50,000 euros (US$ 64,000). Gao Yaojie, a gynaecologist whose campaign for AIDS patients has been honoured by the United Nations and many Western human rights organisations, said he hoped “the authorities will at least not block the money”, which ought to reach his wife, Zeng Jinyan , who has been under house arrest for the past 11 months, and their one year-old daughter. “Their life has been very hard.”
Speaking by phone Zeng (pictured with Hu) said she was happy about the award. “I have always felt that support for Hu Jia will be helpful to him in the long term,” she said.
Hu’s mother, also reached by phone, did not discuss the prize, but said her son was moved to a prison in Beijing from Tianjin two weeks ago. She was permitted to visit him, along with her daughter-in-law and grand-daughter, on 22 October.
“Hu Jia doesn’t look tired as he doesn’t have to work in the new prison,” she noted. “I can tell that” he “is now in good spirits. Additionally, the food is much better than before” and he “was also allowed to hold his daughter during the visit.”
“I don’t know the reason why they transferred” him “from Tianjin to Beijing. I hope the authorities will allow him to take medications,” she added.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Cost of Resisting China’s Big Brother
CHINA: Clampdown on activists who expose surveillance through new technology
The activists’ photographs, video, transcripts and diaries, usually distributed via the internet, have given outsiders rare glimpses into surveillance and abuses of power by China’s vast public security network. China tolerates some local activism but it confronts those who begin to operate at a national or international level.
The relatively few national-level activists who have mastered the use of the internet and digital technology like Hu and his wife, Zeng Jinyan, are “desperately outnumbered” by the people watching them, Kine said. “It tells you that those people like Hu Jia, who do master the technology and get the message out, are prey to retribution,” Kine. “What you see in China is that anyone who reaches a certain level of prominence, those people face serious consequences,” he said. The authorities’ main concern is to control anyone who has the potential to form the nucleus of groups that could openly challenge the ruling Communist Party, he said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Winds of Recession Blow at Canton Fair, Asia’s Biggest
At least one quarter of China’s annual exports pass through here, totaling 38 billion dollars each time. But U.S. and European buyers are subdued, increasingly interested in selling rather than purchasing. More attention to the domestic market, and to the rest of Asia.
Guangzhou (AsiaNews/Agencies) — A slow opening to the 104th “Canton Fair,” which from yesterday until November 6 will exhibit the best of Chinese products for export at the Pazhou Complex. Experts and merchants explain that the fears and signs of recession are not sparing the China Import and Export Fair, a leading event for worldwide commerce, held every spring and autumn.
According to official data, about 22,000 Chinese companies are participating, 20% more than at the one held last April. The commerce ministry has invited about 850,000 foreign companies. Wen Zhongliang, commercial director for the event, expects 53,000 stands, 10,000 more than last time. But foreign participation appears to be on the decline, especially from the United States: of the 424 international exhibitors, only four are from the United States, compared to 22 one year ago, according to the local newspaper Nanfang Daily. Inaugurated in 1956, the fair exploded in 1984 with business totaling 10 billion dollars, and 50,000 participants from 140 countries. In 2004, exhibit space reached 555,000 square meters, making it the second-largest fair in the world. In April of 2008, export deals totaled 38.23 billion dollars, with 190,000 operators from more than 210 countries. One quarter of China’s annual exports are settled here.
Zhang Bin, manager of the Haier Group, a leader in household goods, observes that “The number of buyers from the U.S. and Europe this time has greatly fallen. U.S. buyers don’t want to attend such fairs even in their own country.” David Liu, chief operating officer of a software company in Beijing, explains to the South China Morning Post newspaper that “More than 90 percent of our clients are from the U.S. They outsource their projects to us. Now we are losing that business, so we have to start thinking about the domestic market.”
Deputy commerce minister Gao Hucheng warns that “The financial turbulence may have a relatively big impact on China’s exports. We need to be on high alert.”
Foreign companies participating in the fair are also looking to the Chinese market now, more than to the possibility of moving their production here. They plan to open stores now that sales are falling in the United States and Europe. Joey Ye, sales manager of the electronics company Enping in Guangdong, estimates that “the organisers lost 70 percent of the usual attendees.” “I don’t expect any business from Europe and the US this year. Many of my clients have told me they will not come. I will have to rely on orders from other Asian countries and the Middle East.”
There is also greater attention to the Asian markets, which are nonetheless responding with caution. Naghi Yasil of Dubai, who buys building materials, explains that for years he has bought millions of dollars of materials for years, but now, “because of uncertainties about the consumption market early next year and prices of raw materials and commodities, I will mainly sign short-term deals this time.”
The first phase of the fair, which runs until Sunday, October 19, involves machinery, construction materials, chemical products, vehicles, and electronics. This will be followed by furniture and furnishings, toys and cosmetics; in the last week there will be textiles, clothing, and clothing accessories, medicines, recreational goods, foods, and traditional products.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya Banking on Obama Payback
WASHINGTON — Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga is demanding payback from President-elect Barack Obama for silencing WND staff writer and bestselling author Jerome Corsi, who investigated Obama’s links to the authoritarian African official.
Odinga told Kenya’s newspaper, The Nation, that he expected Obama’s election to provide a windfall of U.S. trade, tourism and investment.
“What we want to see is the expansion of relationships in terms of trade and direct investments,” said Odinga. “We want to see more of our products finding markets in the U.S. and expect more direct investments by the Americans in the country.”
Odinga made it clear he played a small role in helping Obama win the White House — specifically by detaining Corsi and preventing him from holding a press conference in Kenya to disclose the findings of his investigation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Zaire: Military Believe Judge Was ‘Bewitched’
SANDF official still at work despite suicide attempt
A Senior military judge has escaped prosecution for attempting suicide because some of the SA National Defence Force’s top brass allegedly believed her claim that she had been bewitched.
The defence force’s first black female judge, Colonel Phildah Nomoyi, 41, doused herself with petrol and set herself alight in her garage in June.
Now Thaba Tshwane — the military complex in Pretoria that is home to thousands of personnel from privates to generals — is buzzing with gossip about how Nomoyi escaped being booted from the force.
Nomoyi suffered second-degree burns and spent almost a month in Thaba Tshwane’s 1 Military Hospital, including more than a week in a psychiatric ward.
Attempting suicide is a serious offence in the military and officers face charges ranging from malingering to conduct unbecoming of an officer, which can get them fired or a sentence of up to five years in a military jail.
At least two senior officers claim that Nomoyi escaped sanction after some top brass accepted her explanation that she was “bewitched” when she tried to kill herself.
The Department of Defence, which has maintained a stony silence over Nomoyi’s fate since she was discharged from hospital in July, confirmed to the Sunday Times this week that she would not face any charges.
Communications chief director Siphiwe Dlamini declined to comment on reports that she had been let off the hook due to her witchcraft claims, and would only say: “Based on the facts at the disposal of the department, there are no grounds to lay any charges against Colonel Nomoyi.”
Nomoyi wept openly in court this week after agreeing to recuse herself from a case of road rage.
On Tuesday, military defence attorney Lieutenant-Colonel Mahlatse Modula told Nomoyi in open court that his client demanded that she remove herself from his case because she was “not fit” to try him as she had attempted suicide.
Nomoyi then allegedly became hysterical and rushed out of the court building in Thaba Tshwane to her car.
Defence force officers, who spoke to the Sunday Times on condition of anonymity because they would be “fired” if they spoke openly, were furious that Nomoyi got off scot-free and said her case “would open the floodgates” as troops would now cite witchcraft if they did something wrong.
The Sunday Times has established that Nomoyi refused treatment from a social worker and psychologist.
| — Hat tip: Abu Elvis | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration: Tunisia; 4 Illegal Immigrants Arrested
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, NOVEMBER 7 — Four people (three men and one woman) who were trying to illegally reach Italy by boat were stopped by the Tunisian Coast Guard and arrested. The four had departed at night from Kelibia (a town on the Gulf of Hammamet in the Cape Bon zone) with probable intentions of reaching the island of Pantelleria, 40 miles away. The attempt was stopped thanks to the Tunisian Coast Guard which patrols the 1,300 kilometres of the country’s coast. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration: Over 140 Illegals Land in the Canaries
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 7 — There is no end to the immigrant landings in the Canary Islands , where in the last 48 hours vessels with 76 and 67 immigrants on board have landed, all of sub-Saharan origin. The last boat, maritime rescue sources report, which was intercepted yesterday at midday two miles south of the island of Tenerife, was rescued in rough waters and towed in by a patrol boat of the Los Cristianos coast guard, where it arrived in the evening. Four of the immigrants, with hypothermia and dehydration, were transferred to hospital, while the others were integrated into immigrant centres, waiting to be taken back to their country of origin. According to sources from the emergency coordination centre, the migrants had departed 4 days ago from Mauritania. At dawn on Wednesday, again in the port of Los Cristianos, another 67 sub-Saharan immigrants landed, of which 20 minors, all in good physical condition. The newest arrivals worsen the immigrant emergency on the island in the Canary Archipelago where, according to what was reported by the president of the regional government, Paulino Rivero, 5,000 un-accompanied minors have landed in the last 4 months, that “have saturated to the point of collapse the immigrant centres”. Currently in the archipelago, there are 1,500 immigrant minors in the structures that have a maximum capacity of 300 people, with an expense that Rivero claims of 30 million a year, all to be paid by the regional administration. He is currently finishing an agreement with the executive branch for a national contribution of 15 million a year, which will serve to lighten the economic load weighing on the Canary Islands. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: EU Commission Approves Immigrant Integration Plan
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 6 — The EU Commission has adopted the Spanish programme 2007-2013 which includes European funds for the integration of citizens from third world countries. The fund for the years in question is 161.7 million euros (the community contribution is 122.9 million euro). “With the launch of its multi-year programme Spain has shown its commitment to the integration of foreign citizens” said Commissioner for Justice, Liberty and Security, Jaques Barrot. Spain decided to bet on indicators and evaluation methods to verify progress made by immigrants and on acquiring intercultural expertise in public administration. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Councils Ban ‘Elitist’ and ‘Discriminatory’ Latin Phrases
They are phrases that are repeated ad nauseam and are taken as bona fide English, but councils have now overturned the status quo by banning staff from using Latin terms, which they claim are elitist and discriminatory.
Local authorities have ordered employees to stop using the words and phrases on documents and when communicating with members of the public and to rely on wordier alternatives instead.
The ban has infuriated classical scholars who say it is diluting the world’s richest language and is the “linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing”.
Bournemouth Council, which has the Latin motto Pulchritudo et Salubritas, meaning beauty and health, has listed 19 terms it no longer considers acceptable for use.
This includes bona fide, eg (exempli gratia), prima facie, ad lib or ad libitum,etc or et cetera, ie or id est, inter alia, NB or nota bene, per, per se, pro rata,quid pro quo, vis-a-vis, vice versa and even via.
Its list of more verbose alternatives, includes “for this special purpose”, in place of ad hoc and “existing condition” or “state of things”, instead of status quo.
In instructions to staff, the council said: “Not everyone knows Latin. Many readers do not have English as their first language so using Latin can be particularly difficult.”
The details of banned words have emerged in documents obtained from councils by the Sunday Telegraph under The Freedom of Information Act.
Of other local authorities to prohibit the use of Latin, Salisbury Council has asked staff to avoid the phrases ad hoc, ergo and QED (quod erat demonstrandum), while Fife Council has also banned ad hoc as well as ex officio.
Professor Mary Beard, a professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge said: “This is absolute bonkers and the linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing. English is and always has been a language full of foreign words. It has never been an ethnically pure language.”
Dr Peter Jones, co-founder of the charity Friends of Classics said “This sort of thing sends out the message that language is about nothing more than the communication of very basic information in the manner of a railway timetable.
“But it is about much more than that. The great strength of English is that it has a massive infusion of Latin. We have a very rich lexicon with almost two sets of words for everything.
“To try and wipe out the richness does a great disservice to the language. It demeans it. I am all for immigrants raising their sights not lowering them. Plain English and Latin phrasing are not diametrically opposed concepts.”
Henry Mount the author of the bestselling book Amo, Amos, Amat and All That, a lighthearted guide to the language, said: “Latin words and phrases can often sum up thoughts and ideas more often that the alternatives which are put forward. They are tremendously useful, quicker and nicer sounding.
“They are also English words. You will find etc or et cetera in an English dictionary complete with its explanation.”
However, the Plain English Campaign has congratulated the councils for introducing the bans.
Marie Clair, its spokesman, said: “If you look at the diversity of all our communities you have got people for whom English is a second language. They might mistake eg for egg and little things like that can confuse people.
“At the same time it is important to remember that the national literacy level is about 12 years old and the vast majority of people hardly ever use these terms.
“It is far better to use words people understand. Often people in power are using the words because they want to feel self important. It is not right that voters should suffer because of some official’s ego.”
Several councils, including Aberdeenshire, and Blackburn and Darwen, have also prohibited the use of the French phrase in lieu, while many local authorities have drawn up lists of English words, which cannot be used as they are considered politically incorrect.
Amber Valley Council, in Derbyshire, has told staff it is no longer acceptable to use language “that portrays once sex as subordinate to the other”.
Staff have been instructed to say “synthetic” rather than “man made”, “lay person” instead of “lay man”, “people in general” in place of “man in the street”, “one person show” rather than “one man show” and “ancestors” instead of “forefathers”.
Broadland Council, in Norfolk, has banned “housewife” and replaced it with “homemaker” and asked staff to refer to “staffing” rather than “manning” levels.
Several councils including Blyth Valley and Weymouth have banned the phrase disabled toilet and disabled parking because they imply that the facilities themselves are disabled. They have renamed them accessible.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Axis of Evil Countries “Open” to Obama. Al Qaeda Calls Upon Him to Convert to Islam
Ahmadinejad congratulates the U.S. president-elect and asks for “fundamental and fair” changes on foreign policy. North Korea says it is ready “for dialogue,” and calls upon Obama to relegate the errors of previous governments to the past. No official comment from Myanmar.
Tehran (AsiaNews/Agencies) — From axis of evil countries comes partial openness to American president-elect Barack Obama, who is being asked to disown the stance adopted in foreign policy by his predecessor, George Bush. A fundamentalist group connected to Al Qaeda instead calls upon Obama and Christian countries to “convert to Islam.”
On Thursday, November 6, the official news agency Irna published a text in which Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad congratulates Barack Obama for his success in the election, and calls upon the new U.S. head of state for “fundamental and fair” changes in foreign policy, characterized by “noninterference” in the domestic affairs of other countries.
In a document published in the English section of the official news agency Irna, the Iranian president “congratulates” Barack Obama “on being able to attract the majority of votes of the participants of the election,” and expresses the hope that he will work to “rectify the critical situation facing the US, restore lost reputation as well as their hope and spirit, fully respect human rights and strengthen family foundations.”
It is the first message of congratulations that an Iranian leader has sent to a newly elected American president since 1979, the year of the Khomeini revolution, with the ascent to power of the ayatollahs. For almost 30 years, the two countries have not had official diplomatic relations, and George W. Bush has repeatedly included Iran on the list of countries that are part of the so-called “axis of evil.”
“Convert to Islam” is the message that the leaders of Al Qaeda have issued “to the new leaders of the White House and their allies among Christian countries.” The text is signed by Abu Omar al Baghdad, an association of terrorist groups guided by the Iraqi branch of Al Qaeda.
Partial openness to the new American president is also coming from North Korea, which says it is ready to “sign agreements” with the new U.S. administration. The report comes from Ri Gun, North Korea’s representative in the six-party talks on Pyongyang’s nuclear program. “We will have dialogue if (the US) seeks dialogue.” A newspaper connected to the Pyongyang regime, printed in Japan, also emphasizes the “the new phase” into which the Korean Peninsula has entered, and invites the new Obama administration “to put behind it the errors of the governments that preceded it.”
From Myanmar, ruled for more than 20 years by a military regime that violently represses dissent, there has so far been no official comment on the results of the American election. The leaders of the National League for Democracy, however, hail Obama’s victory “with caution,” and reiterate that “only time” will tell whether the new president will be able to “open a breach” in the isolation imposed by the ruling dictatorship in the former Burma.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Directing Local Action — Globalist Organizations
Sustainable Development demonstrates how the wrongful use of money can be used to manipulate the innocent. Money grants are everywhere and these grants are destroying America.
Regionalization is happening without Americans understanding it. Checks and balances that are inherent in a system of free enterprise and private property are being systematically eliminated.
America is being “reinvented” by replacing political boundaries with “regions” that are directed by regulators. These regulators serve on unelected regional “councils” and operate at taxpayer expense.
These councils govern by watershed jurisdiction or over “ecosystems” and neighborhoods. This method of governance was used in the Soviet Union.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Governments Should Do More to Protect Freedom of Speech From Extremists Says New Report
Muslim reformers and critics of Islam around Europe are being silenced by Islamic extremists, according to a new report by the Centre for Social Cohesion. The report warns that unless European governments take urgent action to protect these individuals and their right to freedom of speech, Islamic extremists will be empowered and the evolution of a peaceful, tolerant ‘European Islam’ will never take place.
Victims of Intimidation: Freedom of Speech within Europe’s Muslim Communities by Douglas Murray and Johan Pieter Verwey tells the stories of nearly 30 Europeans of Muslim background — some believing Muslims and others not — who have been threatened by Muslim extremists. Based on interviews with many of these individuals, the report details the substantial threats and violence they have faced as a result of critical inquiry into aspects of their faith or lifestyle.
The victims of this intimidation include politicians, journalists, writers, artists and human rights activists. Their personal stories are diverse and wide-ranging. Some have criticised Islam itself; others seek to reform traditionalist practices. All, however, have been targeted on the pretext that they have broken Islamic rules and traditions. Cases highlighted in the report include:
*Deepika ‘Deeyah’ Thathaal — Norwegian pop star of Afghan and Pakistani origin, whose 2006 video highlighted honour-based violence and showed the singer removing a burqa to reveal a bikini, she has received numerous death threats for challenging traditional patriarchal values.
*Naser Khader — Danish politician from Syria who publicly supported the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten for publishing satirical drawings of Mohammed, received numerous death threats, was attacked by local religious leaders and lives under 24 hour police protection.
*Seyran Ates — Lawyer and activist of Turkish origin, Ates has been shot and repeatedly assaulted for criticising the growing influence of political Islam in Germany and advocating women’s rights within Germany’s Turkish communities.
*Mohamed Sifaoui — Algerian journalist and author, known for exposing al Qaeda cells in France, was openly attacked in Paris by Islamists and frequently receives death threats for criticising political Islam. In 2008, the French Government withdrew his police protection.
Many of the individuals featured in Victims of Intimidation have suffered physical assault and are forced to live under constant police protection as a result of their words and actions. Several tell of community and religious leaders’ failure to support proponents of moderate Islam. Others warn of ineffectual government responses to coercion by extremists.
Douglas Murray, director of the Centre for Social Cohesion and author of the report says:
“The inalienable right to freedom of speech and expression has come under threat by Muslim extremists. Fellow Muslims are finding it increasingly difficult to criticise elements of their faith or culture without fear of significant reprisal.”
“In a free society, no belief or set of values should remain beyond open criticism. To grant a belief system amnesty from discussion concedes that intimidation and violence can succeed.”
“Unless Muslims are allowed to discuss their religion without fear of attack there can be no chance of reform or genuine freedom of conscience within Islam.”
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
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