The most entertaining story of the evening is the Turkish Carnival Association media hoax.The most sobering news alleges that the leaders of Hamas have holed up in a bunker in the basement of an Israeli-built hospital in Gaza.
Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, Diana West, Fjordman, Henrik, Insubria, JD, RRW, ScottSA, Steen, VH, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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Demonize and Censor
Obama himself has denied any intention of re-imposing the “Fairness Doctrine.”
But actions still speak louder than words.
Obama appointed Henry Rivera to the transition team to review appointments to the FCC, where Democrat appointees will become the majority in 2009 and the chairman will be a Democrat. Rivera was an FCC commissioner in the 1980s. He supported the Fairness Doctrine then, and was replaced by Ronald Reagan with a commissioner who favored free speech.
Rivera has consistently supported re-imposition of the “Doctrine” and his transition team mission to select future FCC commissioners speaks volumes about Obama’s true intentions. His position was so clear on this that, according to the New York Times, Obama moved him to another position on the transition team in November to deflect criticism.
What is clear is that FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell’s term ends June 2009. His replacement by President Obama would give the Democrats a 3-2 majority on the commission and the chairmanship.
What’s also very clear is that the legal authority to re-impose the “Fairness” gag is still in place. President Reagan got the FCC to lift the gag, but he could not convince the Democrat-controlled Congress to repeal the law giving the FCC the authority to impose it.
In fact, Reagan had to veto a Democrat bill that would have mandated the FCC impose the “Fairness Doctrine.”
Democrats in Congress still feel the same way today.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
New GOP Chairman Should Remove Party From the Int’l. Democrat Union
Yes, it’s certainly time for a change in GOP leadership and direction. The candidates for Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman include former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, former Maryland Lt. Governor Michael Steele, current RNC Chairman Mike Duncan, Michigan party chairman Saul Anuzis, South Carolina party chairman Katon Dawson, and Chip Saltsman, the presidential campaign manager of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Each of these candidates is working to convince the GOP rank and file that they are the more conservative candidate and best qualified to lead the Republican Party back to its roots of limited government. It’s a tall order.
But here’s a true test of where they really stand. One question every true Republic should ask the wanna-be chairman is this: Which document would you choose as the guiding principle for your vision of government — the Declaration of Independences, as written by America’s Founding Fathers, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as produced by the United Nations?
Do you think that is a strange question to ask a potential chairman of the Republican Party? Would you assume that he would naturally stand with the Founding Fathers? Then you are about to be surprised.
Not many Americans, particularly Conservative Republicans, have heard of the International Democrat Union (IDU), but most would be very surprised to learn the names of its membership and its true goals.
Formed in 1983, the IDU says it’s a “working association of over 80 Conservative, Christian Democrat and like minded political parties of centre and centre right.” Some of the political party members of the IDU include the German Christian Social Union; British Conservative Party; Norway Conservative Party…and the U.S. Republican Party.
[…]
But a careful look at the IDU’s founding Declaration of Principles reveals a very different message. The second paragraph of the IDU document states: “Being committed to advancing the social and political values on which democratic societies are founded, including the basic personal freedoms and human rights, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…? That, of course, is the United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights that the IDU document is promoting as its guiding principle.
There are two conflicting philosophies of governance in the world. One, the American view, as outlined in the Declaration of Independence, states that all people have rights they are born with and that government’s only job is to protect those rights at all costs. The Declaration says that these rights are forever and unquestioned. It is the foundation of human freedom. It is what makes the United States a Republic, where the rights of minorities (even of one) are firmly defined and protected.
The other philosophy says that government grants our rights, professing that all such rights give way to an undefined common good whenever it’s warranted — which is often. That means that all so called rights are subject to the whim of whatever gang is currently in power at the time, dictating the definitions of what constitutes the “common good.” Today that is commonly called a democracy, where the power of majority rule can and does obliterate the rights of minorities.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rocky Seas for Team Obama
After weeks of smooth sailing and cooing press coverage, the Obama team has been buffeted by a round of troubles, goofs and harsh reaction, much of that coming from Obama’s own party. Politico reviewed the wreckage:
[…]
It seems that the transition from campaigning to governing may not be as easy as Obama and his media fan club imagined. And things will only get tougher. There are two main challenges on the immediate horizon — either one of which can bring what is left of the honeymoon to an abrupt end.
[…]
Next week, the Senate will hold the confirmation hearing of attorney general nominee Eric Holder. This is shaping up to be one contentious outing as Sen. Arlen Specter and other Republicans prepare to delve into Holder’s involvement with the Marc Rich and Puerto Rican terrorist pardons and the Elian Gonzales affair. It’s not his legal views which are most at issue, but his character.
[…]
In the preparation for the hearings, Holder may not have done himself any favors. Indeed, he’s given fodder to those who claim he places politics about propriety. He will be shepherded through the confirmation process by none other than Ron Weich, chief counsel to Minority Leader Harry Reid, and Sen. Pat Leahy’s Chief of Staff Ed Pagano.
It is extraordinary that current Senate staffers would work for the executive branch nominee — a fundamental violation of the separation between the branches of government. These aides are employed by and paid by the Senate, which is supposed to be performing its institutional obligation to examine and, if appropriate, confirm the executive branch?s nominees. Granted they are of the same party as the incoming administration, but are key aides of the senators — who are supposed to be evaluating the qualifications, character and experience of the nominee — appropriately tasked with double duty to make sure Holder gets through that evaluation unscathed? Do they write and answer the questions for the nominee? And why would they be permitted to do all this on the Senate’s payroll?
[…]
Even more than a rocky confirmation hearing, President-elect Obama’s fortunes may flounder on the shores of a stimulus package, so vast and so packed with mines that virtually everyone has reason to dislike some aspect of it. His tax “cuts” have drawn fire from both ends of the spectrum. Democrats don’t like the idea of tax cuts at all, while Republicans are figuring out these don’t amount to much at all.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Schiff — Obama’s Plan a Recipe for Economic Ruin
“Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, an investment firm specializing in overseas investments, wrote in a research note the stimulus debate has not done enough to focus on the cost to taxpayers that will come from the programs. “The truth is that the only way out of this mess is less government, more savings, and increased production,” Schiff wrote. “Obama’s plan is a recipe for economic ruin.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Amsterdam’s Youngsters Carry Western Values to Its Grave
[Translated by VH]
A large group [ca. 120] of young people in Amsterdam who has united under the name ‘Palestine Amsterdam’ comes into action for … the Palestinians. During a silent march on Saturday, January 10 at 13.00, they will symbolically carry the Western values of human rights, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to its grave.
The parade [with a black coffin] will start at 13:00 at the Poldermoskee [Polder Mosque] in Slotervaart [immigrant neighbourhood in Amsterdam, with last year dozens of arsoned cars] and ends around 15:00 hours at the monument on the Dam [Dam square in front of the “Palace” with the WWII victims memorial monument]. On that location, the victims will be commemorated by releasing balloons. The number of balloons will be equal to the number of casualties in Gaza.
The young Amsterdammers will ask the attention for the Palestinian cause and the many civilian casualties in Gaza and want to waken the government and the Dutch population in this way. The action-group is very disappointed and shocked by the attitude of the Dutch government, which refuses to condemn the Israeli disproportionate invasion.
These young people from Amsterdam will be dressed in black and wear their freedom-shawls. Starting 12.30 am: Poldermoskee, Jacques Veltmanstraat 463 and the finish will be at the monument on the Dam. It will be a peaceful trip in which the many civilian victims are commemorated and where attention is drawn to the poignant case in Gaza. The action-group will continue to promote the Palestinian cause as long as the current situation continues and they announced they would organise more actions in Amsterdam.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Armaments: Agusta, Order From France for NH90 Helicopters
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, JANUARY 8 — The French government has ordered 22 NH90 helicopters for 600 million euro, as announced today by the Defence Ministry. The number of Nh90 helicopters headed for the French army has therefore risen to 34. NH90s are built by the NH consortium, in which Agusta Westland (Finmeccanica group) holds a 32% stake. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Britain ‘Disappears From Map of Europe’
Britain has “disappeared from the map” of Europe in a controversial European Union sculpture to be unveiled on Monday in Brussels.
The Czech Republic, current holders of the EU presidency, has commissioned a large scale “provocation” for the Brussels building of the Council of Ministers which hosts national leaders during summits.
The installation takes the form of a giant jigsaw map representing the “clichés and stereotypes” of each of the EU’s 27 member states by different national artists.
Conservative Roman Catholic Poland is depicted by a sculpture of priests raising the rainbow flag of the gay movement, subverting the iconic image of the American soldiers planting the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima.
France, despite the efforts of President Nicolas Sarkozy to reform its labour laws, is represented by a map of France covered with the inscription “Strike!”.
The Netherlands is shown as having sunk beneath the sea in the aftermath of climate change and all that appears above the waves are the minarets of mosques, an explosive reference to the country’s high levels of Islamic immigration.
EU officials have expressed concern. “This is very provocative for an official building and does not seem to have been properly discussed in the appropriate forum,” said one official.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Even in Oslo They Use Children as a Human Shield
[via HVV, contains pictures]
On Saturday there was yet again a demonstration against Israel’s recent actions in the Gaza strip in the streets of Oslo. New this time was that children, wearing shirts drenched in fake blood, were used as a human shield to avoid violence. The attempt was futile though, and riots erupted at the end of the demonstration near the Israeli embassy.
On Thursday there had been another demonstration that resulted in what was later in the Norwegian press described as the worst street fights since the eighties in Norway. Apparently, a lot of demonstrators were provoked by opposition party leader Siv Jensen from the far-right Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet, Frp). She had pointed out in an interview on national television that Mads Gilbert, one of two Norwegian doctors helping Palestinians in a hospital in Gaza City and who has been used recently as one of very few sources of news from the Gaza strip, belongs to the Norwegian Maoist party Red (Rødt) and clearly has a political agenda. It is noteworthy that this doctor was not surprised by and even defended the 9/11 attacks because of US policies and the moral right of the suppressed to attack the US, but it should be added that he also regretted the attacks because of all the innocent victims. Nevertheless, pointing out the background of this questionable doctor who has been used as an authoritative source of news from the Gaza strip by virtually all Norwegian media for the last fews weeks was clearly, well, shall we say “disproportionate”, and apparently a legitimate reason to throw stones at policemen, set fire to several garbage bins and ruin store windows in the center of Oslo Thursday night.
The Norwegian Palestine Committee didn’t want a repeat of Thursday evening’s riots, and therefore thought it would be a good idea to have some Palestine children at the front of the demonstration, hoping demonstrators would restrain from any violence. To add a bit of realism to the demonstration, the children wore shirts drenched in fake blood, but it could not be confirmed whether the committee also had considered adding a few adult men in black uniforms carrying some rocket launchers to the group. Anyway, even though there was no violence reported during the actual demonstration, but a group of demonstrators continued to walk to the Israeli embassy, and once again violence broke out in the streets of Oslo.
It’s a strange thing, how many of these recent demonstrations for peace in the Middle East have ended in riots, not only in Norway but in the rest of Europe too. Norwegian newspapers noted that almost no ethnic Norwegians could be spotted in Saturday’s demonstration, and during Thursday’s demonstration two immigrant gangs were notably present among the demonstrators, which in fact was a risk factor for violence and a worry for police in its own right. Some commentators have already suggested that many of the immigrant youths have used the recent events in the Middle East simply as an excuse to attract some media attention again, the suggestion being that they therefore are to be excused and thrown some more money at.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
France Vows to Punish Assailants Who Hurled Firebombs at Paris Synagogue
Vandals in France hurled Molotov cocktails at a synagogue in a suburb north of Paris amid tensions in France over Israel’s offensive on the Gaza Strip, French Police said Monday.
The police headquarters of the Seine-Saint-Denis region said the gasoline bombs damaged a restaurant next door but caused no injuries. A window was shattered in the restaurant and the wall blackened.
Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said in a statement that Sunday’s nighttime attack in Saint-Denis was “cowardly and inadmissible.”
“Everything will be done to find those responsible for this attack and to bring them to justice for this intolerable act,” she said.
It was the latest in a series of anti-Semitic incidents in France since Israel began its offensive in Gaza against Hamas militants December 27.
Assaults against Jews and arson attacks on Jewish congregations have been reported in France, Sweden and Britain.
Assailants last week rammed a burning car into the gates of a synagogue in Toulouse, in southwest France.
France has Western Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim communities and a history of anti-Semitic violence flaring when tensions in the Middle East are high. In 2002, some 2,300 Jews left France for Israel because they felt unsafe. […]
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Turkish Carnival Association a Media Hoax?
[Translated by VH]
Is there really a Cologne “Turkish Carnival Association of Germany”? With the catchy acronym “TKVD”? Or is the whole thing not a hoax created by the media, or something similar to what the industry fabricates [TKVD is also a linear guidance system]?
This question is allowed to be asked after the first “press conference” of the “TKVD” at the Hotel Caprice at the Eisenmarkt [Steel Market], in the immediate vicinity of the Pro-Cologne fraction office. After the presentation that was held there, it does not seem to have been meant very seriously.
As two young people sat in front of the assembled representatives of the World Press and floor sweepers: A 27-year-old business student who had put on a headscarf, and acted under the name “Melek Cezmi”, announced that the alleged 35 associations and their members wanted to project with their handheld display, a presumed to be typical Turkish “mustache of light” on our holy, Catholic Cathedral [Cezmi held in her hand a model car BMW with a moustache glued to it]. Her emerging companion -acting under the name “Davut Yilmaz”- called the extension of the Cologne trifolium [the Prince, the Farmer and the Maiden, the traditional representatives of the Carnival] with a Turk as a fourth figure. And the media mob that traveled from half of Germany diligently wrote it down …
A Reality Comedy!
The joke obviously was succesful, the “TKVD” stayed at least for days in the full attention of the regional media. A Turkish carnival club would simply fit too well in the beautiful colorful Multi Culti World, as many journalists want to make us believe. And because people believe what people want to believe, “Melek” and “Davut” had a fair game …
Pro-Cologne hereby congratulates the two warmly on their success: They have exposed the mass media for what they are: a fake world, which real life has hardly anything to do with!
—— Adding:
Note: One of the representatives of the TKVD told English media on Wednesday that the members of the club of course will not renounce their religion (Islam) during those crazy days. Alcohol is for instance prohibited and also “public morality” may not be endangered [thus is the exact antipole of the essence of Carnival].
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Minister Blasts Muslim Protesters’ Prayers
“Enough with pro-Hamas marches now,” said Riccardo De Corato. “Milan is not a province of Gaza and has no intention of reluctantly instituting this type of ‘Gaza Saturdays.’“
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right coalition, which includes the hardline anti-immigrant Northern League, has clashed with Italy’s Muslim community in the past.
It irked Muslims last year with plans to block the construction of new mosques in Italy.
Protests against the Israeli offensive continued in Italy on Sunday, with 3,000 people marching through the center of Naples. Another 1,000 held hands to form a human chain and march through Rome’s historic center to demand an end to violence in Gaza.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Russian Sites Receive Extra Monitoring
[Translated by VH]
Several Russian sites, including the embassy in The Hague, received additional monitoring. A spokesman for the National Terrorism Coordinator (NCTb) said Sunday.
Apart from the embassy, the official residence of the ambassador, the office of the Russian airline Aeroflot, and the building of the Russian trade representation are being monitored. The latter two are based in Amsterdam.
The spokesman for the NCTb can not say anything about the reason for the additional monitoring. It might have something to do with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine over gas supplies.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Protests at Municipal Sponsorship of Bolzano Porn Film Festival
Forza Italia calls public funding absurd. Unitalia urges mayor to reverse decision
MILAN — Liberated, secular, sexually uninhibited Bolzano tops the Italian league table for sales of contraceptives, according to statistics. But there were loud protests when a film club in the Alpine town with the central European air dedicated an event to hardcore movies. Objectors called on the council to refuse a cinema licence and arts grants, claiming it was scandalously anti-cultural to discuss sex films like “L’Albero delle zoccole. “Rubbish. The cycle is balanced and includes several major films”, snaps Michele Capozzi, who directed “Pornology, New York”, the film that opens the festival this evening. Whatever the case, zealots from Unitalia, a party to the right of National Alliance, are less than enthusiastic about actors like Rocco Siffredi, the star of “Anatomie de l’enfer”, scheduled for screening next Thursday.
What’s going on in Bolzano? A few weeks ago, there was controversy when ARCIGAY posters showing a bare-chested man with a condom in his hand, and a caption so explicit it was offensive, announced the launch of an anti-AIDS campaign. In addition a few months ago, the German artist Kippenberger’s frog was accused of blasphemy when it went on show at Bolzano’s Museion. On that occasion, however, the election campaign and political opportunism contributed to the commotion. “These episodes of extreme bigotry project an image of Bolzano that is at odds with personal experience”, says radical Arnold Tribus, editor of Tagezeitung newspaper. “Freedom and promiscuity are widely practised here”. He adds: “But it is true that some determined political cliques specialise in obscurantist, sexophobic campaigns. Most of them are rightwing but there’s bigotry on the Left, too”.
In fact, opposition to the ARCIGAY poster came first from National Alliance but found cross-party support. “With good reason”, admits the mayor, Luigi Spagnolli, of the Democratic Party. “In the end, we corrected our mistake and withdrew the poster. The Cineforum issue is different. The town council has no grounds for intervention unless there are clear breaches of the law, such as allowing under-18s in”. He explains: “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop them using the cinema, which is an integral part of the club’s legally rented premises. As for the grant, the council paid the club 7,000 euros in 2008. We’re waiting for the report on 2009’s activities before we make any decisions”. “What about the money from the provincial authority?” counters Forza Italia’s feisty Micaela Biancofiore. “I’m not a bigot but I think it is indecent that public bodies should finance hard-core films”. “Wrong. Even the most sensitive issues deserve discussion”, Ferruccio Cumer, a member of the club at the centre of the dispute, told the Corriere dell’Alto Adige, pointing out that the cycle of porn films being shown is the third section of a series called Hard Times.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Something Rotten in the State of Norway
The pictures tell an interesting story: all over Europa Muslims are protesting Gaza. At the fringes are anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic slogans and cartoons. But in Norway this extreme islamist right is echoed in the official press: anti-Semitic slurs and cartoons are printed in Norway’s established papers.
It is hard to believe.
On Thursday 8th of January a demonstration was held in front of Norway’s parliament building. A few hundred souls protected by 200 police in full riot gear. Many participants were elders bussed in from far away. Maybe they didn’t know what was in store. Few Oslo-citizens dared to venture out. There was foreboding in the air.
The daily Dagbladet had two days earlier carried a front page that screamed: Siv Jensen supports the bombing., with the title transposed on a picture of a wounded Palestinian child. Siv Jensen is leader of Norway’s biggest and only oppositions party: the Progress party. All the other parties tend to agree on major points, and keep PP on the outside, in spite of a 25-30 percent backing in the polls.
Not only the parties, but also the press has moved to the center-left in later years, presenting the Progress party as something that do not belong, out of bounds. Like Israel.
When Siv Jensen dared to speak in front of the parliament she was committing something like sacrilege, a blasphemy against political decency, a favourite word with the foreign minister, the suave Jonas Gahr Støre.
TV was transmitting live what was soon to become the worst riots Oslo has seen in modern memory. Hundreds of Muslim youths ran amok, smashing windows, abusing people and shouting “kill the Jews” and “allahu akbar”.
The pro-Israeli demonstration had to be terminated and the participants were shuffled into busses for the ride home. On the way several were attacked and brutally beaten to cries of “attack the Jew”.
The very same night there was huge demonstration, officially pro-peace, but unofficially pro-Palestinian. Leader of thee mosaic community, Anne Sender, and rabbi Joav Melchior, decided to take part, but cries of “kill the Jews” in Arabic made their blood freeze. Melchior wears a kippa, and he was verbally abused and told to go packing. With sadness they both left.
On Saturday there was another demonstration in front of the parliament, this time with children in “blood-soaked” clothes at the front of the demonstration. In spite of several brutal confrontations in front of the Israeli embassy, Basim Ghozlan, leader of the Islamic Union, asked the demonstrators to proceed to the embassy, where police waited for them. The children suddenly found themselves sandwiched between police-barriers and the surging violent demonstrators pushing from behind. Panic ensued.
Police brought in 160 people, most of them youn people of Middle Eastern/North African background. Three kids — 12 to 13-yearolds, told how they had been led by a hard core to smash seven MacDonald-restaurants. Then the cry rang out: “To the university to chase Jews.”
One should think that the papers woud be full of denunciations and shock that Jews are again fair game in the streets of Oslo. The last time was under the German occupation. But there is a strange silence. A few innuendos: “we deplore expressions of racism etc”. But no real shakeup. Why not?
One answer: There is no firewall between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism and one is afraid of criticizing the Muslims. An inverse situation: unchecked criticism of Israel, and very timid criticism of Muslims. The situation is not unique in Europe, but seems to be galloping. A caricature in Norway’s largest daily, VG, gives an indication…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Crisis and Environment Boost Direct Online Purchases
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JANUARY 9 — Driving down costs with the goal of sustainable consumption, a new generation of consumers in Spain are turning away from traditional commerce and buying, thanks to the Internet, food and agricultural products directly from producers. But that is not all. The Agricultural Shared Responsibility Project (Arco), which was in a report in El Pais today, promotes various systems of processing and consumption of sustainable food products from an economic and environmental standpoint, with supermarkets managed directly by producers, like in Almeria, or in small direct sales outlets like in Huelva or Aracena in Andalusia. In Granada, producers adhering to the Coag Association directly supply, with the support of the Council of Andalusia, some of the local hospitals. Direct purchases on the Internet, which guarantee savings and the origin of the products, are constantly growing: sales in Spanish stores that sell online, according to data from the Market and Telecommunications Commission, increased in the first half of 2008 by 73.4% compared to the same period in 2007. In 2008, Internet commerce generated a business volume greater than 4.7 billion euro, thanks mainly to an increase in the number of Internet users over 15 years old, going from 27.3% to 39.8pct currently, or 8 million more in one year. Forecasts by experts in the industry state that this could represent 70% of the population in the next 2 years. Even the large distribution chains and intermediaries are running for cover, opening web pages offering their own products directly to consumers. For cheaper and healthier consumption, a shopping centre is expected to open this year in Madrid, managed by agricultural producers selling retail. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Caution Urged as Taser Law Comes Into Force
Swiss discuss use of “torture” weapon
Swiss police can use stun guns instead of regular arms under legislation that comes into force on January 1, but opponents have cautioned against their widespread use.
Amnesty International says the guns have been known to kill people and should only be used as a last resort and under strict conditions.
Taser guns were approved as part of a new law applicable from January 1 governing the use of force by federal police and border guards. It aims to ensure a minimum infringement of individuals’ rights by police using violence or weapons.
Plans under the law to allow officers to use Tasers went through several rounds of inconclusive debate in the House of Representatives and the Senate over two years before being agreed by parliament in November.
The law lays down strict conditions for the use of the devices. Among the scenarios where the use of stun guns would be permitted would be an attempted aeroplane hijacking or to overpower people who endanger themselves or others.
But the Swiss branch of Amnesty International says more research is needed into the risks of using stun guns on certain vulnerable groups, such as people with heart problems or those with psychological issues.
Denise Graf, Amnesty’s Swiss police expert, said: “The Taser is used in Switzerland by special intervention forces. The problem could be that if they use it once or twice without any problems that then they could use it more and more and in the end use it in a disproportionate way.”…
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Thousands of Pro-Israel Demonstrators Turn Out in Germany
A day after 8,500 anti-Israel demonstrators marched past government buildings in Berlin chanting “Zionists are fascists and terrorists,” pro-Israel supporters staged a rally on Sunday across from the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, a symbol of peace in downtown Berlin. […]
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
UK: CCTV Cameras Used to Provide ‘Evidence’ Against Diners Who Complained
It is a jewel in the National Trust’s crown, a restaurant that offers fine dining and some of the best Rothschild wines amid the splendour of a 19th century stately home.
But when the Fletcher family went for a pre-Christmas treat at the Manor Restaurant in Waddesdon Manor, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, they were disappointed with their meal.
Marilyn Fletcher, 57, sent a letter complaining of slow service and poor food, in a lunch which cost £127 for four.
But she was left astonished by the restaurant’s response. Simon Offen, the catering manager, emailed her to say he disputed her version of events after he had “watched and listened with interest to the video recording of her table”.
Mrs Fletcher was horrified that the meal had been recorded on CCTV cameras, and said her family found it “extremely disturbing” and felt “outrage at the invasion of our privacy”.
In a letter to the National Trust’s director-general, Dame Fiona Reynolds, she asked: “Does the National Trust condone recording, watching and listening to private conversations at customers’ tables in National Trust restaurants?”
Mrs Fletcher, from Great Missenden, near High Wycombe, has demanded to see and listen to the recording, and has questioned the legality of Mr Offen’s actions.
“There was no legitimate or lawful reason why Mr Offen should have been recording conversations at our table and then listening to them ‘with interest’,” she said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Prisoners Convert to Islam for Gang Protection
Prisoners at one of the country’s top security prisons are converting to Islam for protection because of a rife gang culture, an inspection report says.
Inmates at Long Lartin prison said some were “becoming Muslim” because it is a “bigger gang”.
Radical cleric Abu Qatada, once described as Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe, was held at the prison last year before being released on bail — which he went on to breach.
Similar concerns were raised in an inspection report in to Whitemoor Prison in Cambridgeshire last year, in which prison officers warned extremist Muslim prisoners are ganging up on others in an attempt to radicalise them
Inspectors at Long Lartin, in Worcestershire, were told gang culture us widespread.
One inmate said: “Yes there is a gang culture here which is becoming an issue. A lot of people are becoming Muslim just because it’s a bigger gang.”
Another said: “There are issues with Muslim gangs wanting to overpower others.”
One added: “Muslim gangs; if you have a problem with one, you have a problem with them all,” while a fourth said: “People are converting to Islam for protection.”
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Reform Plan Raises Fears of Bank Secrecy
The Bank of England will be able to print extra money without having legally to declare it under new plans which will heighten fears that the Government will secretly pump extra cash into the economy.
The Government is set to throw out the 165-year old law that obliges the Bank to publish a weekly account of its balance sheet — a move that will allow it theoretically to embark covertly on so-called quantitative easing. The Banking Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament, abolishes a key section of the law laid down by Robert Peel’s Government in 1844 which originally granted the Bank the sole right to print UK money.
The ostensible reason for the reform, which means the Bank will not have to print details of its own accounts and the amount of notes and coins flowing through the UK economy, is to allow the Bank more power to overhaul troubled financial institutions in the future, under its Special Resolution Authority.
However, some have warned that it means: “there is nothing to stop an unreported and unmonitored flooding of the money market by the undisciplined use of the printing presses.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Businessmen Demand Ban of Goods From Serbia and Bosnia
Pristina, 12 Jan. (AKI) — Kosovo businessmen have demanded a ban of imports from Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina because the two countries have been refusing to recognise the official documents of Kosovo which declared independence from Serbia last year, local media reported on Monday.
Pristina Albanian language daily Ekspres said that the Kosovo chamber of commerce and businessmen has asked the government to boycott Serbian and Bosnian goods until the dispute is resolved and look for alternative import routes.
Serbia exports about 250 million euros worth of goods to Kosovo annually. It had considered a trade embargo after majority ethnic Albanians declared independence last February, but dropped the idea under international pressure.
Serbia has meanwhile been recognising only those documents bearing the stamp of the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) but not that of the Pristina government, which has affected trade and the transfer of goods.
Serbia mostly exports construction materials, grain,fuel and medicine to Kosovo. Safet Grdzaliu, an official of the Kosovo Chamber of commerce, said talks have been taking place on substituting Serbian imports with those from Turkey, Macedonia and Albania.
“We will find alternative markets and there will be no shortages in the event of a ban on Serbian and Bosnian products,” Grdzaliu said.
The government is reluctant to ban imports from Serbia and Bosnia and would rather try to solve the problem through international mediation, Koha ditore daily reported.
More than fifty countries, including leading western powers, have recognised Kosovo so far.
But Belgrade and Kosovo’s Serb minority remain opposed to Kosovo’s independence. The Serbian government has continued to a wage a diplomatic battle to at least officially retain Kosovo within its borders.
Kosovo has since 1999 been administered by the United Nations, after NATO airstrikes drove Serb forces from Kosovo amid ethnic fighting and gross human rights abuses during a two-year war with guerrillas.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Protracted Refugee Situation: The Continuing Struggle of Europe’s Forgotten Refugees
RIPANJ, Serbia, January 12 (UNHCR) — Miljo Miljic and his family live in a spartan apartment in the Serbian village of Ripanj. There are no family photos, no paintings, no book collection, no heirlooms — no possessions recalling their former lives in their hometown of Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
“We didn’t take anything with us because we didn’t have time. We had to run for our lives. The only thing that comes to mind in such a situation is to save your children and your own life,” says Miljo. “You don’t think about the photographs, you don’t think about personal documents, clothes, whatever.”
Miljo, his wife Milica, son Milutin and daughter Stanislava are refugees, forced to flee Tuzla in 1992. All they have as proof of their past and their identity is a refugee card. Their belongings were left behind as Miljo and his wife, clutching their then infant children, rushed to escape.
More than half-a-million civilians fled to Serbia from Bosnia and Herzegovina and from Croatia in the 1990s conflicts. Considerable success has been achieved on local integration, with over 200,000 former refugees now holding Serbian citizenship. But some 96,000 refugees remain — the remnants of Europe’s largest protracted refugee situation. Many live in desperate conditions and face a bleak future.
The experience of the Miljic family is quite common. On arrival in Serbia, they were accommodated with 350 other refugees in the Suplja Stena Collective Centre just south of the Serbian capital, Belgrade. It was effectively a refugee camp where they slept in a single room with 27 other people and shared the bathroom, lavatory and kitchen.
Milica says this was the worst period of her life. “It was horrible when we arrived at the collective centre. I thought I’d kill myself, but then we had to look after these two small children,” she recalls. Things got a little bit better when the family were given their own room.
They stayed in Suplja Stena until 2003, when the collective centre was privatized and sold. Although the centre was only meant to be a temporary solution for Serbia’s refugees, it was still a shock for the Miljic’s to be cast out into the street and forced to fend for themselves.
In nearby Ripanj, they found someone willing to rent two rooms and a bathroom. They have been there ever since, but life is still a struggle. “We live from what we earn day-by-day; we never know when the next job will come. It’s very difficult to take care of two children and to put them through school,” says Miljo. Life is easier in the summer when they find work cleaning holiday homes and gardening, but in the winter it is really difficult to make ends meet.
Miljo and Milica thought about going back to Tuzla, but their old home had been trashed and looted and they did not feel safe. They considered selling the property, but they would never make enough from the sale to build a new place. What’s more, their children had grown used to Serbia. So repatriation is not an option; nor is resettlement.
That leaves local integration. But taking Serbian nationality will not guarantee them employment or a new house, while the cash-strapped government cannot afford to give too much under its social welfare programmes. So they are holding onto their refugee cards, which entitle them to basic medical care and occasional humanitarian assistance from UNHCR and its partners.
But Miljo and Milica are aware that one day their refugee status will be revoked because they are no longer deemed to be in danger and the root causes of the Balkan refugee problem have almost ceased to exist. That won’t end the problem of finding employment and paying for food, rent and medical bills at a time when they will be near retirement age.
At least they have managed, despite the difficulties, to provide their children with a decent education. This has been their investment in the future. Milutin is still in high school, but Stanislava, who has applied for Serbian citizenship, is doing an internship in a Belgrade hospital after finishing nursing school.
The parents are pinning their hopes on Stanislava finding a decent job, even though unemployment is high in Serbia and the economic outlook is grim. “We only want for our children to complete their schooling, find employment and be better off than we are. I don’t think about us anymore,” says Miljo.
UNHCR helps where it can, but the refugee agency also has limited resources and the situation is unlikely to improve during the current recession. “I don’t think that we’ll be able to help everybody,” says Lennart Kotsalainen, UNHCR’s representative in Serbia, while adding that the government and the international community should at least help the most vulnerable.
The UN refugee agency has recently put renewed stress on finding solutions to protracted refugee situations, which account for some 6 million people worldwide who have been in exile for at least five years — many of them for decades. High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said last month that political will was a main precondition for finding durable solutions.
He said each protracted situation was unique and solutions must be comprehensive, using a combination of approaches that can include repatriation, local integration, and resettlement to a third country. For Serbians such as the Milic family, a real and lasting solution still seems remote.
By Andrej Mahecic
In Ripanj, Serbia
| — Hat tip: RRW | [Return to headlines] |
Ending the West’s Proxy War Against Israel
Wall Street Journal January 12 2009
Stop funding a Palestinian youth bulge, and the fighting will stop too.
As the world decries Israel’s attempt to defend itself from the rocket attacks coming from Gaza, consider this: When Hamas routed Fatah in Gaza in 2007, it cost nearly 350 lives and 1,000 wounded.
Fatah’s surrender brought only a temporary stop to the type of violence and bloodshed that are commonly seen in lands where at least 30% of the male population is in the 15-to-29 age bracket.
In such “youth bulge” countries, young men tend to eliminate each other or get killed in aggressive wars until a balance is reached between their ambitions and the number of acceptable positions available in their society…
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza’s True ‘Disproportion’
Carlos Alberto Montaner
Madrid, Spain
Carlos Alberto Montaner is a Cuban-born writer, journalist, and former professor.. He is one of the most influential and widely-read columnists in the Spanish-language media, syndicated in dozens of publications in Latin America, Spain and the United States.
Israelis are being accused of suffering too few casualties in their confrontation with the Hamas terrorists. Those who reason thus usually speak the words “disproportion” or “asymmetry” in an indignant tone. While at this writing close to a thousand Arab Palestinians have died or been wounded as a result of the bombings, the Israeli losses amount to just over a dozen.
Tel Aviv’s critics — from whom an anti-Semitic stench often rises — do not say whether Israel should increase its quota of cadavers or if it must reduce the Arabs’ quota to achieve the reasonable proportion of blood that will soothe the peculiar itch for parity that afflicts them. Nor do they specify the morally permissible number of casualties to end the rain of rockets that for years has been constantly falling on the heads of Israeli civilians.
This demand for “proportionality” can only be called surprising. Until this conflict began, history books everywhere always expressed great satisfaction and a certain chauvinistic pride when a nation’s army inflicted on the enemy a large number of casualties, vis-à-vis a trifling price paid by “our boys.” Israel is the only country expected to behave differently and, in fact, it does; I know of no other nation that announces where and when it will drop its bombs, thus enabling civilians to evacuate the territory. Of course, in this it behaves asymmetrically, because the Hamas terrorists, forever eager to cause the greatest damage possible, never announce when or where they will launch their rockets against Israel’s civilian population.
In turn, Israel has not the slightest interest in causing casualties. All it wants is to stop Hamas’ attacks the only way it can: by eliminating the terrorists and destroying their arsenals. There’s no other way to deal with them. Hamas is not a political organization with which agreements can be reached, but a fanatical gang intent on wiping Israel off the map. To achieve this objective, its members are even willing to turn their own children into human bombs, just to kill the hated Jews.
Here’s another very important asymmetry. The Jews build underground shelters in all houses near the border; they close the schools and hide the children at the least sign of danger; they treat the death of a single soldier as a national tragedy; they do everything possible to rescue their prisoners, and protect the civilian population from the consequences of war. In contrast, the authorities in Gaza, drunk with violence, fire their machine guns irresponsibly into the air to express joy or grief (causing numerous injuries), do not hesitate to install their headquarters or hide their guns in schools, mosques or hospitals, use human shields to protect themselves, turn to suicidal terrorists and reward the families of such “martyrs” with money.
One week before Hamas broke the truce and stepped up its rocket attacks against the Jewish state (the spark that set off this conflict), I was in Israel, where I had been invited to deliver a lecture at the University of Tel Aviv. As part of the contacts organized by my hosts, I visited the Wolfson Medical Center to learn about the program “Save a Child’s Heart.” I was very moved. It is a foundation devoted to providing heart surgery for very poor children, most of them from the Arab world. As it happened, I witnessed the hurried arrival of a tiny 5-day-old girl, who had to be operated on at once to keep her from dying. She was brought in by her mother, a woman in a black head covering that allowed me to see only her tear-filled eyes, and her husband, a small, bearded man who watched with amazement the indescribable kindness with which a group of doctors and nurses treated the baby. The family came from Gaza.
Since the war erupted, I have asked myself constantly what became of them all.
| — Hat tip: ScottSA | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: Frattini in Pro-Abbas Drive
Palestinian president could help oversee Gaza border
(ANSA) — Zagreb, January 12 — Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini is visiting the Middle East this week to help shore up support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In Syria, Frattini said he would ask Damascus — with which Italy has ‘‘a particularly close relationship’’ — to work for a solution which ‘‘legitimises’’ Abbas’’.
Frattini warned against the possibility of the Gaza-based militant Islamist group Hamas setting up a separate Palestinian entity in Gaza.
‘‘If we want a Palestinian state we can’t imagine a different status for Gaza’’.
‘‘We don’t recognise the occupation of Gaza by Hamas as legitimisation for a second Palestinian state,’’ he said, stressing that there could not be two states, one controlled by Hamas and the other, in the West Bank, by Abbas’s more moderate Fatah group.
As well as Syria, Frattini said he would travel to Israel, the Palestinian territories and probably also Egypt.
The trip will help Italy ‘‘firm up’’ its position on the conflict, Frattini said on a visit to Zagreb Monday.
Among other things, Italy will seek a deal for a multinational presence on the border between Gaza and Egypt, in which Italy is ready to participate.
The force would report to President Abbas, whose Fatah group lost elections to Hamas last summer and heads the Palestine Authority in the West Bank.
Israel’s 16-day offensive in Gaza, which has claimed 900 Palestinian lives, is aimed at stopping Hamas firing rockets into southern Israel. Abbas has told Italy that ‘‘he is ready to assume responsibility’’ for controlling the border, through which arms have been smuggled, Frattini said.
Frattini said Abbas could oversee border checks ‘‘together with other countries like Turkey, Egypt and other European countries including Italy’’. In the short term, Frattini said, Italy will try to make sure aid to Gaza — including an Italian convoy leaving this week — is supplied faster.
Frattini said he had received assurances from Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and her Egyptian counterpart Abul Gheit that the Italian convoy of food, medicines and power generators would not be obstructed in any way.
He said it would work with the Red Cross, which is already in Gaza.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israel: Joe Trades Wrench for Reporter’s Notepad in Israel
What he could summon was contempt for Israel’s critics, who are outraged by the more than 870 Palestinians killed in Israel’s bruising air and ground onslaught against Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers. Thirteen Israelis have also died since the operation began, including four killed by the rocket fire that touched off the war in the first place.
“Why hasn’t Israel acted sooner?” Wurzelbacher asked. “I know if I were a citizen here, I’d be damned upset.”
He described himself as a “peaceloving man,” but added, “when someone hits me, I’m going to unload on the boy. And if the rest of the world doesn’t understand that, then I’m sorry.”
Wurzelbacher, who underwent intense media scrutiny during the campaign, said he was enlisted to cover Israel because he’s “an expert on media bias.”
“I was on the short end of the stick,” like Israel is now, he said.
When Wurzelbacher joined Republican Sen. John McCain on the campaign trail, he agreed with a supporter who asked if he thought “a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel.”
Wurzelbacher said the full story of Israel’s campaign against Hamas isn’t coming out on mainstream news outlets. He said they are demonizing Israel instead of recognizing it as the victim of Gaza militants who have fired thousands of rockets at Israel over the past eight years.
“It’s asinine when someone is firing upon you and the world is coming down on you,” he said. “Common sense has gone out the window.”
“Hamas hides among its own people,” causing civilian casualties, he added. “But I hear no cry out from the international community.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Arrests 700 People, Mostly Arabs, in Protests Against IDF Gaza Op
Seven hundred protesters against the Israel Defense Forces operation in Gaza, mostly Israeli Arabs or residents of East Jerusalem, have been arrested since the operation began, and dozens have been indicted. The protesters, 226 of whom are still in custody, are suspected of involvement in disturbances, illegal demonstrations or stone-throwing, police said. Of the detainees, 237 are minors. Most of the protests that led to arrests took place in Jerusalem or the north.
Palestinians and Israeli left-wing activists claim that in the wake of Operation Cast Lead, the IDF has reintroduced the use of a semiautomatic rifle that uses live ammunition to disperse crowds that was banned after the second Intifada.
The Ruger .22 rifle was banned following the Al-Aqsa Intifada, in which it was used to break up protests and caused the deaths of a number of Palestinians, including youths and children. […]
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Bans Arab Parties From Running in Upcoming Elections
The Central Elections Committee on Monday banned Arab political parties from running in next month’s parliamentary elections, drawing accusations of racism by an Arab lawmaker who said he would challenge the decision in the country’s Supreme Court.
The ruling, made by the body that oversees the elections, reflected the heightened tensions between Israel’s Jewish majority and Arab minority caused by Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Arabs have held a series of demonstrations against the offensive.
Knesset spokesman Giora Pordes said the election committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of the motion, accusing the country’s Arab parties of incitement, supporting terrorist groups and refusing to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Arab lawmakers have traveled to countries listed among Israel’s staunchest enemies, including Lebanon and Syria. […]
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Leader Warns Hamas of ‘Iron Fist’
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops advanced into Gaza suburbs for the first time early Tuesday, residents said, hours after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Islamic militants of an “iron fist” unless they agree to Israel’s terms to end the fighting. Hamas showed no signs of wavering, however, with its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, saying the militants were “closer to victory.”
Despite the tough words, Egypt said it was making slow but sure progress in brokering a truce, and special Mideast envoy Tony Blair said elements were in place for a cease-fire.
Sounds of the battle could be heard clearly before dawn Tuesday around the city of 400,0000 as the Israeli forces, backed by artillery and attack helicopters, moved into neighborhoods east and south of Gaza City. Israeli gunboats shelled the coast from the west.
The Palestinian residents told The Associated Press that Israeli tanks rolled into public areas of the Tel Hawwa neighborhood, pushing back militants. Tens of thousands of Palestinians live in apartment buildings in the neighborhood south of Gaza City.
One of the residents, Khader Mussa, 35, told The Associated Press by telephone that he saw two apartment buildings on fire. He said he was huddling in the basement of his building with 25 other people, including his pregnant wife and his parents. “The gates of hell have opened,” he said. “God help us.”
Several other buildings were on fire, witnesses said, including a lumberyard. Thick smoke blanketed the area.
The Israeli military confirmed that a battle was in progress but gave no details.
On Monday, as diplomats struggled for traction in truce efforts, Olmert stood within Hamas rocket range and said Israel would only end military operations if Hamas stops rocketing Israel, as it has done for years, and is unable to rearm after combat subsides.
“Anything else will be met with the Israeli people’s iron fist,” Olmert said. “We will continue to strike with full strength, with full force until there is quiet and rearmament stops.”
As he spoke in Ashkelon, Israeli tanks, gunboats and warplanes hammered suspected hiding places of Hamas operatives who control the poor, densely populated territory just across the border. The Israeli military said Hamas fired about 20 rockets at Israel on Monday, fewer than previous days.
Just a few hours earlier, a rocket hit a house in Ashkelon but caused no casualties. Olmert addressed regional mayors in the relative safety of the basement of a public building during his two-hour visit.
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Mideast: Support for Hamas Mixed Despite Protests, Says Research
Jakarta, 12 Jan. (AKI) — Despite demonstrations across the Middle East against Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip, research conducted by a US think-tank showed there was little support for the ruling Hamas movement before the current military action.
In its 2008 survey, the Washington-based Pew Research Center found “significant opposition” to the group in many Muslim countries.
Among the eight countries with sizeable Muslim populations surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in 2008, Hamas received a positive rating in only one, Jordan.
Fifty-five percent of those surveyed in Jordan had a favourable view of the organisation while 37 percent expressed an unfavourable opinion.
Hamas’ image also declined in neighbouring Egypt. In 2008, only 42 percent had a favourable opinion, while 50 percent held a negative view.
In Lebanon there were deep divisions among the country’s three religious groups.
Hamas — a largely Sunni organisation — received its highest ratings from Lebanese Shia, 64 percent of whom expressed a positive view of the group. However, just 9 percent of Lebanese Sunnis expressed a favourable opinion. Perceptions of Hamas among the country’s Christians have consistently been overwhelmingly negative.
Since there have been a number of demonstrations in countries including Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran and Jordan, against Israel’s military action and the spiralling number of casualties in Gaza, support is likely to have increased for Hamas in the past two weeks.
Meanwhile in a separate study on terrorism in predominantly Muslim countries, the Pew Research Center found that support for terrorism in Indonesia had fallen dramatically.
The research centre found that only 11 percent of people in Indonesia believed that terrorism was justified if Islam was under attack. In 2002 the figure was as high as 26 percent.
Experts in Indonesia believe that support for militant Islam has fallen after attacks on innocent people. Anger about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq has also dissipated.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sources: Hamas Leaders Hiding in Basement of Israel-Built Hospital in Gaza
Senior Hamas officials in Gaza are hiding out in a “bunker” built by Israel, intelligence officials suspect: Many are believed to be in the basements of the Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza City, which was refurbished during Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip.
Shifa, the coastal strip’s largest hospital, was built while Gaza was under Egyptian rule, before 1967.
During the mid-1980s the building underwent massive refurbishment as part of a showcase project to improve the living conditions of residents.
Millions were invested in the project, which was overseen by Shmuel Goren, the coordinator for activities in the territories at the time.
The Israeli civil administration in the territories constructed the hospital complex’s Building Number 2, which has a large cement basement that housed the hospital’s laundry and various administrative services.
During a cabinet meeting a week ago, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said senior Hamas officials found refuge in the hospital basement because they know Israel would not target it, due to the patients in the upper floors. Palestinian sources told Haaretz that not all the senior Hamas leaders are hiding in one place.
Rather, they have spread out, and some are constantly changing locations. Some of the bunkers they are using were linked by tunnels Hamas built in recent years.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
The Peace Process is in Jeopardy? I Wonder Why!
by Barry Rubin
Whatever became of reality, at least in analyzing the Middle East? Consider the following:
“With every image of the dead in Gaza inflaming people across the Arab world, Egyptian and Jordanian officials are worried that they see a fundamental tenet of the Middle East peace process slipping away: the so-called two-state solution, an independent Palestinian state coexisting with Israel.”[1]
So begins an article in the New York Times that explains the peace process is failing and the two-state solution slipping away. It is one more example of an obsessive narrative whose key premise is this: the Palestinians can never be responsible for anything.
Of course, the Arab world’s public reaction to the Gaza war is not pushing it in a more moderate direction. Yet on a governmental level—and compared to past such crises including the 1982 Lebanon war, 2000-2005 Palestinian intifada, and 2006 Israel-Hizballah war—most governments have come as close to being pro-Israel as you are ever going to see them. Privately, they make clear they want Hamas beaten. Publicly, they are far more reserved in their speech and passive in their reactions.[2]
That’s the big story. As for the Arab street, that much-exaggerated phenomenon, since when have governments followed its dictate?
Yet there’s even more to this kind of argument quoted above: the implication that only Israel is responsible for the peace process’s poor prospects and a Palestinian rejection of a two-state solution, and only now is it happening.
What about these historical events…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Ahmadinejad: “The United Nations Headquarters Must be Relocated”
Iran’s President on Saturday issued a tirade on the UN Security Council resolution on Israeli attacks in Gaza and some Arab countries silence in this regard. “They must not presume that their silence devastates resistance and dignity of nations they must realize that this silence only puts an everlasting blemish on their forehead,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed Arab and Islamic countries.
He then touched on Egypt’s attitude towards Gaza issue saying “Egyptian government must announce its stance as soon as possible and clarify its nation’s relation with the issue.”
The Organization of Islamic Countries has been founded to support Palestine but “I wonder why it is silent and does nothing regarding these crimes.”
“The United Nations is summarized in the Security Council, the council is summarized in the United States and the United States is summarized in supporting the Zionist regime,” he said adding “the United Nations headquarters must be relocated, we are ready to allow this organization to work in Iran without any impositions.” […]
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Announcing Prize for Assassination of Mubarak is Not Iran’s Government Stance: FM Spokesman
Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said the news released in some internet sources on Iran’s prize for the assassination of Egyptian President does not represent Iran’s official stance.
Some internet sources have claimed that Iran has announced a one-million dollar prize for any individual who assassinates Egyptian President Husni Mubarak.
He then said in spite of freedom of expression in Iran people should avoid making such remarks which do not help Islamic countries’ solidarity against Israel and prevent opportunitists from making use of such observations.
Iran also criticizes Cairo for closing Rafah border crossing with Gaza which is already crippled under Israeli tight economic blockade and says Egypt could have a more dynamic role in aiding Gaza Strip against Israel but has evaded its responsibilities as an Islamic and Arab neighbor of Palestine.
Someone executes this little fellow
[Comment to this picture] “A pro-Hamas, pro-Palestine fan in Iran has a placard of Hosni Mubarak the president of Egypt in her hand that reads on top of the photo “Someone executes this little fellow”.Rotten Gods writes: “A pro-Hamas, pro-Palestine fan in Iran has a placard of Hosni Mubarak the president of Egypt in her hand that reads on top of the photo “Someone executes this little fellow”.”
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
War in Georgia: Economic Losses and Consequences
In an interview released to Limes before Russia recognized South Ossetia and Georgia independence, Institute for Energy and Finance (IEF) President Leonid Grigoriev talks about the conflict in Georgia.
LIMES: What is the economic background of the nowadays situation in Georgia?
All the countries of the former Soviet Union went through very difficult times in the 1990s; the crisis of the transition period was much longer than it was in Central and Eastern Europe. Civil conflict specialists point to the role that impoverishment plays — the threat of losing one’s previous status and a loss of hope as the reasons behind creating a coalition so that sides in the conflict use for survive. The full implementation of these “classical” rules took place in this case — national conflicts followed huge crises. For obvious reasons, the most difficult crises occurred in those countries that could not overcome internal civilian strife. Georgia was not very lucky in this case. The blatant nationalism of Georgia’s first post-Soviet leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia resulted in the separatism of national minorities, which was almost unavoidable. The proponents of independence put Georgia’s economic development at the bottom of their list of pressing tasks. Thus, the source of the current problems of Georgia and its neighbors emerged in the first few years after the breakup of the Soviet Union. One of Gamsakhurdia’s first decisions as president was an absurd ban on trade with Russia, which plunged heavy industry into a crisis. Georgian industry suffered to an even greater extent than other former Soviet countries.
It was difficult to manage independent finances in the country when centralized subsidies were done away with for education and science. Such a potentially profitable service sector — like Georgian culture, which is still highly valued in Russia — lost its market in one stroke. Georgian culture, together with tourism, could have generated revenue even after the transition crisis in the former Soviet Union, and not only in Russia. The system also fell apart in Georgia of allocating financial resources for tourism, and this supported agriculture while imports of tropical fruits to the Soviet Union were limited and when Turkish and Spanish beaches were not yet opened to Russians…
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Cardinal Dias: Indian Government Should Protect Minorities and Victims of Massacres
The cardinal recalls the Church’s activity on behalf of the people, “without distinction of caste or creed.” Cardinal Oswald Gracias asks for prayers “for peace in India and in the world.”
Mumbai (AsiaNews) — “India is well known as the world’s largest democracy,” and for this reason the authorities must respond adequately to “attacks on Christian minorities in Orissa and Karnataka,” restoring the image of a “secular and democratic country.” These remarks came today from Cardinal Ivan Dias, prefect of the congregation for the evangelization of peoples, visiting Mumbai to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his priestly ordination. The anniversary was celebrated last December 9 in Rome — Cardinal Dias was consecrated on December 8, 1958 — but the prelate wanted to commemorate the event in his native land, today, with a solemn Eucharistic celebration in which the city’s current archbishop, Cardinal Oswald Gracias, also participated.
Cardinal Dias recalled the recent anti-Christian persecutions in Orissa, and those who died in the massacre in Mumbai last November 26. He related the “deep concern and pain” of Benedict XVI over the violence, the pope’s “special prayers” and blessing for the victims and their families. The cardinal then emphasized the work of the Catholic Church in India in service of the poor, the sick, and the suffering, the Catholic schools and institutions that offer instruction and hospitality “without any discrimination whatsoever of caste, culture or creed.” He finally recalled his “deep-seated devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary,” and urged the faithful to face their “challenges and difficulties,” reiterating that “suffering and persecution are an essential trait of our Christian DNA.”
Cardinal Gracias addressed a special greeting to Cardinal Dias for the 50th anniversary of his priesthood, recalling the many activities that he initiated in the ten years during which he led the archdiocese, and the human qualities that convinced Pope Benedict XVI to call him to Rome to lead an important dicastery. “The shadow of the terrorists attacks on our city is still upon us,” Cardinal Gracias said, and on this day of celebration as well it is necessary “to pray for peace in the subcontinent and for peace the world over. “
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Protest Targets US Consulate in Pakistan
Some 2,000 protesters in the Pakistani port city of Karachi burned U.S. flags and chanted anti-Israel slogans, and several hundred of them marched on the U.S. Consulate, senior police official Ameer Sheikh said.
“They were in a mood to attack,” Sheikh said. “They were carrying bricks, stones and clubs.”
A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Islamabad, Lou Fintor, said the protesters did not get close to the consulate, which was closed Sunday.
[…]
Associated Press Writers Zeina Karam in Beirut, Lebanon, Aoife White in Brussels, Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, Harold Heckle in Madrid, and Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Nepal: Government Backtracks, Lets Indian Priests Return to Pashupati Temple
Government decision follows street demonstrations and protests by opposition parties. Criticism from the World Hindu Federation and India’s nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, plays an important role.
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) — Nepal’s Maoist government has backtracked and reinstated Hindu priests from India (Bhandaris) it had removed from the Hindu Temple of Pashupati. Prime Minister Prachanda’s cabinet had replaced the Indian priests with Nepalis, breaking a century-old tradition.
Police, aided by members of the Young Communist League (YCL), had stormed the holy site on 1 January after the Bhandaris had locked themselves inside, and brought in their Nepali replacement, this despite a ruling by Nepal’s Supreme Court saying the government had no jurisdiction in the matter.
On Thursday the head priest Mahabaleshwor Bhatta and two assistants, Ganesh Bhatta and Ram Karanta Bhatta, led a traditional ceremony, asking for forgiveness for the forced break by police of the daily puja.
More than 2,000 people, worshippers, temple custodians and political leaders, took part in the service that enabled Bhandaris to take back their temple.
After removing the Indian priests, the government in Kathmandu came under fire from Nepal’s religious communities as well as the country’s political opposition.
The chairman of the World Hindu Federation and the leader of India’s Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP, also slammed the decision.
For many Nepali commentators criticism from these two sources was instrumental in getting the government to change its stance.
With the return of Indian priests at the helm of the Pashupati temple, all demonstrations in front of the religious site by pro-Bhandari protesters were called off.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China: Another Child Dies From Melamine-Contaminated Milk
The official number of victims rises to 7, but there are suspicions about the health authorities, who are refusing to conduct autopsies on the dead children. Families are being prevented from speaking with the press.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — A one-year-old boy with kidney disease because of the powdered milk that he drank from birth died yesterday in Qingzhou (Shandong). His death brings to 7 the official number of victims in the melamine milk contamination scandal, but is triggering doubts about the actual number. Melamine-contaminated milk has led to kidney disease or urinary tract problems for more than 300,000 children.
Hou Rongbo says that his son, Hu Haiqi, was diagnosed with kidney stones last September. He died from respiratory complications. Since he had also been diagnosed with leukemia, the father wants the hospital to conduct an autopsy to verify the cause of death. But the public health officials are refusing to give permission.
The government and authorities all over China have so far tried to minimize the deaths from tainted milk, and the courts are not accepting the lawsuits brought by parents of sick children against the companies implicated in the scandal.
Zhao Lianhai, an activist from Beijing who helps the families of sick children to seek justice, tells the South China Morning Post that he is aware of other cases of children who were fed the tainted milk, got kidney stones and died, for whom the health authorities are refusing autopsies.
Last week, the police jailed 10 parents before they were able to participate in a press conference to denounce the lack of help from the government. Beijing had promised free medical care for the sick, up to the age of 18 years, and compensation for the sick.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Japan: Newly Poor Find Shelter in Hibiya Tent City as Economic Crisis Worsens in the Land of the Rising Sun
Plants shut down or lay off workers, who are left without money and home. Suicide and crime are signs of their malaise. But some good may come out of it after all, raising hope among some.
Tokyo (AsiaNews) — The financial tsunami caused by Wall Street’s crisis a few months ago is hitting Japan hard. Over New Year celebrations Hibiya Park, a large green space located downtown between the Imperial Palace, the Diet (parliament) building and the city’s commercial core, was turned a tent city. The broad green grass is now covered by tents and tables where union officials and volunteers are helping out the unemployed by providing them with a hot meal and advice.
“I am grateful to have a place to go for New Year because at present I have no place of my own,” said one of the many laid-off workers who now call the tent city home. “The volunteers have given me encouragement, but I have no job prospects and the year that is beginning looks gloomy.”
The newly poor should not be confused with the homeless who usually spend the night in the underground areas of big stations—they are just victims of the global financial meltdown that has reached Japan.
A 69-year-old man now living in the Hibiya tent city used to work at the Nissan plant near Tokyo. He quit in order to let younger people to work.
“Someone had to leave the company,” he said. “So I quit voluntarily because there are younger workers who must support their families.”
Another temporary worker, 39, was laid off in mid-December.
“Since then I have thought several times to kill myself. My family is in Osaka but I cannot see them in this state.”
On the radio he heard about the tent city in Hibiya Park. “I am grateful to the volunteers, especially since they talk to us out of kindness, not out of pity.”
Suicides and crime
Until 20 years ago, about 80 per cent of the Japanese population was middle class, enjoying the good life. A good standard educational background was good enough to get a full time, lifelong job in a solid company.
Towards the end of the 1980s Japan’s banks invested heavily and recklessly at home and abroad, losing a lot. The soap bubble economy eventually burst, threatening the country’s economic system. It took Japan ten years to come out of that crisis thanks to the daring policies of Junichi Koizumi, a reform-minded prime minister who, inspired by the late US President Ronald Reagan’s neo-liberal economic approach, pushed through deregulation, a policy which outgoing US President George W. Bush had continued.
In fact many experts believe that the current global economic crisis is not due to the capitalist system per se, which since the fall of the Berlin Wall has spread wealth everywhere, but to the lack of proper government supervision of financial institutions.
In Japan though, deregulation has had tragic consequences for temporary workers, who make 30 per cent of the workforce. Their contracts usually last a year and are not always renewed.
A Labour Ministry study showed that from now to March 85,000 temporary workers will lose their job and some 2,150 will become homeless since they will no longer be able to live at company-run hostels.
In the last few days of 2008, as many Japanese crammed planes and bullet-trains to go back home to celebrate the New Year with their families, in the capital many a young man walked the streets, a bag in the hand, carrying a few items of clothing and some money in their pocket to spend at cybercafés for the night. Having just lost their home, wandering hopelessly in the city, overwhelmed by desperation, some have taken their lives. Others got seriously ill because health care was suddenly a luxury. Still others took to crime. In the upscale neighbourhood of Roppongi a 28-year-old man threatened some passer-bys. After he was stopped by a policeman he said that his “contract had ended in mid-December” leaving him without a future. “I am frustrated,” he said; “I just wanted to scare people.” Two days later another one killed a taxi driver, cutting his throat to rob his daily earnings. Similarly episodes have been recorded in Osaka and Kobe.
A tent city has also been set up in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park where doctors, lawyers, trade unionists and ordinary people offer their services to the new homeless over the holiday break because government offices remained closed from 27 December o to 5 January,
Former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has called the present situation a “once-in-a-century financial crisis” but such a view can encourage a fatalistic kind of pessimism at a time when the crisis is so big that it needs to be closely studied to be overcome. The future remains unclear.
Indeed, it does. The crisis that has hit Japan’s top car maker Toyota is a sign that we are living in exceptional times. In 2007 the company sold more than a million vehicles. In 2008 it lost US$ 150 billion, not as a result of speculation on the stock exchange but from lower earnings in its main markets in the United States and Europe where the financial crisis on Wall Street and a higher yen cut into its sales.
“Positive” effects
An editorial writer said that, as paradoxical it may appear, this crisis is having important positive repercussions. First of all, it marks the end of a unipolar world. The United States has shown that it is not up to it. The impact of the financial meltdown on Wall Street is worse than that of the terrorist attack against the Twin Towers. Unipolarity is giving way to multipolarity in world governance. The unbridled global capitalism of the last 20 years appears to be at an end.
The financial crisis’ challenge to Japan is particularly important for it ha a positive side since it is forcing the country to adopt more broadly-based policies.
The Asahi daily wrote that Japan must find solutions to its problems by relying on its own economic and cultural resources rather than depend upon others, namely the United States, as it has done for so long. Its own history is a lesson in the matter.
In the last 150 years the country has faced three great crises: the transition in mid-19th century from medieval feudalism to modernity; the transition in mid-20th century from militarist imperialism to democracy, and the current financial revolution.
History shows that it was able to overcome the first two crises by relying on its own cultural resources. But the third challenge is the hardest ever because it calls for courage in taking on new values like concern for man and a commitment to solving environmental problems for the whole of humanity. For Christians these are spiritual values that come from God.
At the end of a debate broadcast by NHK TV a man and a woman were asked to write on a tablet a term that could symbolise the New Year. The woman chose omoyari, which means concern for others, sympathy; the man wrote kibo, hope.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Somalia: ‘Beware, We Are Coming!’
Islamic rule ‘from Alaska and Chile to South Africa’
Radical Muslims in Somalia are promising Islamic rule from Alaska and Chile to South Africa and from Japan to Russia, issuing the warning “Beware, we are coming,” according to a media monitor.
[…]
“Our objectives, by the grace of God, are to see the return of the Islamic Caliphate, the last of which was the Ottoman empire that collapsed in the 1920s. We want to bring that system back and govern the world with God’s law,” he said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Somali Pirate’s Body Washes Ashore With $153,000
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — The body of a Somali pirate who drowned just after receiving a huge ransom washed onshore with $153,000 in cash, a resident said Sunday, as the spokesman for another group of pirates promised to soon free a Ukrainian arms ship.
Five pirates drowned Friday when their small boat capsized after they received a reported $3 million ransom for releasing a Saudi oil tanker. Local resident Omar Abdi Hassan said one of the bodies had been found on a beach near the coastal town of Haradhere and relatives were searching for the other four.
“One of them was discovered and they are still looking for the other ones. He had $153,000 in a plastic bag in his pocket,” he said Sunday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Wants Brazil’s Support for Trying Israeli Leaders as War Criminals
Iran’s Minister of Cooperatives and President’s special envoy to Brazil Mohammad Abbasi asked Brasilia to support trying Israeli leaders as war criminals. Abbasi delivering Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s message over Gaza situation to Brazilian President’s Senior Adviser Marco Aurelio Garcia condemned Israeli onslaught in Gaza.
He then asked Brazilian officials to support trying Israeli leaders in international courts as war criminals.
Abbasi has already met Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim to pursue Tehran’s diplomatic efforts regarding Gaza.
Amorim on his part said Brazil urges an immediate truce in Gaza Strip.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Airlift Proposed for Tens of Thousands of Iraqis This Year
You heard that right! John Podesta’s hard left Center for American Progress is proposing we airlift up to 100,000 Iraqis who have worked for the US in virtually any capacity (day laborers?) to a location outside the US just until they can be processed (quickly) to live in your town.
| — Hat tip: RRW | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Surge of Asylum Seekers Portends New Record Year
Kemi reception centre had to resort to mattresses on floors
A surge in asylum seekers has which began after Christmas has taken Finnish officials by surprise.
Last year set a new record year for asylum seekers, but the increase which began in December and continued into January, has filled refugee reception centres around Finland.
In the first week of January alone, about 100 new arrivals came to Finland asking for political asylum.
In 2008, 3,900 entries were recorded, and a new record is expected to be reached this year.
Half of January’s applicants were from Iraq and Somalia.
About 60 per cent of arrivals from those countries have had their asylum requests accepted.
The increasingly difficult political situation in those countries can be seen as one reason. Another reason for the congestion is the tougher asylum policies taken by Sweden and Norway”, says Sirkku Päivärinne, head of immigration affairs at the Ministry of the Interior.
“Because of the rush, we need to increase the amount of personnel dealing with applications, and to open new centres. The next units will be opened in Pietarsaari and Vaasa.”
| [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Immigration Measures to Face Scrutiny
Strasbourg, 12 Jan. (AKI) — Italian initiatives to tighten controls on immigrants and Roma Gypsies will be scrutinised by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, on a visit to Rome. Hammarberg is due to begin a three-day visit to Rome to assess human rights on Tuesday.
The visit follows a memorandum published by the commissioner in July last year in which he criticised certain measures of the Italian government’s security package, including the practice of forcibly returning migrants to certain countries with proven records of torture.
Commissioner Hammarberg recommended anti-discrimination measures and protection of migrants, such as Roma Gypsies and the Sinti, a Roma ethnic group.
He also questioned the strict application of counter-terrorism measures.
In July 2008, the commissioner said there was “little progress in the effective protection and enjoyment of human rights” for the estimated 160,000 Roma and Sinti in Italy.
“Widespread discrimination against these minority populations, already highlighted by other reports continues,” he said.
At that time, representatives of Roma and Sinti expressed a mixture of frustration about their lack of recognition and their “invisibility”, fear about the security measures, and a need for protection in a society where they feel exposed to victimisation and hatred.
During this week’s visit, the commissioner will meet the undersecretaries from the ministries of interior and foreign affairs, the Italian Senate’s human rights commission, international organisations and community groups.
Established in 1949, the Council of Europe promotes democracy and human rights and responds to social, cultural and legal challenges that arise in the 47 member states.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Chuck Norris — Obama’s First Act as President
[JD: Politicians all across the West are following a plan of social re-engineering (aka communization) of their societies in all aspects (mass migration, no border enforcement, multi-culti, thought-crime, …etc). This naturally means they will never follow the will of their people. Note that with all the economic turmoil going on, this is the first thing Obama has pledged to sign.]
Obama emphatically promised more than a year ago that “The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing that I’d do.” Will Obama keep his word?
[…]
The fight to pass FOCA is being waged despite a new nationwide survey revealing that four out of five U.S. adults (82 percent) would limit abortion’s legality. One out of three (38 percent) would limit abortion to rape, incest or to save the mother’s life. One out of three (33 percent) would also limit abortion to either the first three or first six months. Only nine percent said abortion should be legal for any reason at any time during pregnancy. These statistics are in stark contrast to the goals and objectives of FOCA, which would close the culture debate on abortion in an unprecedented way for any piece of legislation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Global Warming Update: ‘Earth on the Brink of an Ice Age’
As Democrats and their president-elect — with invaluable assistance from their media minions — continue spreading climate hysteria in order to raise taxes and redistribute wealth, a possibly inconvenient truth has just been presented to the international community: “The earth is now on the brink of entering another Ice Age, according to a large and compelling body of evidence from within the field of climate science.”
Additionally, the entire bogus manmade global warming theory that climate alarmists and their surrogates have been forcing down the throats of the citizenry “is based on data that is drawn from a ridiculously narrow span of time and it demonstrates a wanton disregard for the ‘big picture’ of long-term climate change.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Religion: Ad War in Madrid Between Atheists-Believers
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JANUARY 7 — A battle for spot advertising is under way between atheists and believers in the Spanish capital. Two public buses in Madrid will carry ads in favour of atheism, following Barcelona on January 12. It is a campaign which was already tried out in London, then promoted in Barcelona by the Atheist Association of Catalonia using private donations, and which is now set to be launched in Madrid and Valencia. The slogan is: “God probably does not exist. Stop worrying and enjoy life”. But it will arrive late in the Spanish capital. In fact, the number 493 bus of the Martin company has been driving in the southern area of the city around since December 25 with the slogan: “God does exist. Enjoy life in Christ”. The initiative was promoted and paid for by the Evangelical Church, in particular by Paco Rubiales, a lawyer and pastor at the Christian Meeting Centre, in the Madrid district of Fuenlabrada. A second bus with the same slogan will circulate around the capital’s streets from next week. The pastor insists that the idea came to him after he took the ‘atheist’ bus in Barcelona and London. The Archbishop of Barcelona replied to the hedonist message by the Atheist Association with a statement issued in recent days in the Catalan dioceses which reads: “Belief in God and his existence is not a reason for worry nor an obstacle to honestly enjoying life”. Yesterday in Madrid, the Madrid Association of Atheists and Free Thinkers (Amal) asked the District Transport company (Emt) to purchase the whole advertising space on two buses, to promote the message in favour of atheism for two weeks, starting January 26. Its next objective will be the city of Valencia. The initiative first started in London as a reaction to ads by a Christian society which quoted a phrase from the gospel of Luke: “When the son of man comes, will he find faith on Earth?”. It quickly spread across the Atlantic, even as far as Washington. In Madrid the atheist ad has been caught off guard by the Evangelical Church though. The 2,200 euro paid to the Barcelona public transport company Tmb comes from a private bank account, says El Pais, opened by the Atheist Association of Catalonia at La Caixa, which will pay for the Madrid and Valencia publicity. The website www.busateo.org shows the total amount of donations of 6,500 euro, and a preview of the ads which will be put up on public buses in Barcelona and Madrid, which the capital’s transport company has to approve. The website has published messages of support by internet users. “It was time we atheists had greater visibility” comments one fan, suggesting a fund-raising to create two enormous ads, with the campaign slogan, in Plaza de Colon, the main square in Madrid, the site of the big Catholic rallies called by the bishops in protest at the ‘secular’ social reforms of the Zapatero Government, from homosexual marriage to quickie-divorce. The last rally for the traditional family day, called by the bishops on December 28, saw around 200,000 people. But the bus campaign has turned into a real battle for advertising space. According to the founder of the Union of Atheists and Free Thinkers, Albert Riba, his society has two objectives: “To make atheism more visible and allow people to think before making decisions. To decide not from habit but after reflection.” In any case, Riba does not believe that his campaign is in competition with the Evangelists’: “Everyone has the right to think and believe in what he wants”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Cyber-Spy Shares Her Know-How Tracking Terrorists
Shannen Rossmiller, a former judge from Montana, has posed as Muslim militants to infiltrate extremist chat rooms. Now she wants to expand her one-woman operation, she says at an FBI conference.
[…]
As her children slept, she spent nights and mornings posing as more than two dozen Muslim militants from her home computer to gain information about planned attacks and terrorist cells across the world. Her investigations have led to two terrorism-related convictions in the U.S., and she has provided intelligence in dozens of other international cases.
Now she is trying to expand her one-woman operation by creating a “cybercore” of experts in language, data-mining and technology, dedicated to helping the government track terrorists. Rossmiller unveiled the idea at the FBI-hosted gathering of 400 from 40 countries at Fordham University.
[…]
But she does not encourage untrained amateurs to take the risks she has. Rossmiller has received numerous death threats and has been forced to move her family for safety. Her home has been broken into, and her car was stolen and later found riddled with bullets.
“I’m not out there saying, ‘Sure, join up the effort, do it from home.’ . . . You might find yourself in legal trouble. You might mess up something ongoing and not realize it,” Rossmiller said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Prince Harry
by Diana West
Last time I read about Prince Harry it was because the media had blown the lid off his secret deployment to Afghanistan’s war-torn Helmand Province. As a young officer who had pressed for active duty, “Harry Wales” was serving there without public knowledge to avoid drawing untenable risk to himself and his men by providing jihadists with a prize to send any “martyr” rocketing to “paradise” for his “72 virgins” (or raisins, whatever): the fair-haired head of an infidel prince of Britain. Of course, once the news blackout was cut short, so was Harry’s hitch. Which was really low and rotten of all leakers and media concerned.
Now, Harry’s back in the news, again the short-ended object of leakers and media malevolence, but this time also as Britain’s Biggest Political Whipping Boy. Harry has been excoriated as a “racist” up and down the British establishment for an unguarded piece of home video shot during his military training three years ago. The purported evidence of “racism” has been extracted from his narration of the video. There is a segment in which he is filming cadets sleeping on the floor of an airport before being shipped off for maneuvres during which he comments on their kit, etc., and during which he also describes a Pakistani cadet in the group as “our little Paki friend, Ahmed.” That’s one count against him. Then, later, preparing for night patrol, he notes that another soldier, dressed for darkness, looks like a “raghead.” (To quote: “F—- me, you look like a raghead.”) Count two.
Watch the video yourself. I did, and heard neither hatred, heat nor malice in these unguarded moments the then-cadet never imagined would be released on the Internet. (If I were Prince, I would direct Scotland Yard to find the identity of the leaker(s).) Frankly, given both “Paki”-stani compliciity in innumerable jihadist attacks at home (including Scotland) and abroad (including Afghanistan, where the prince and his comrades would be deployed), not to mention the “rag”-wearing habits of those engaged in these same acts of jihad on the West, you might say the prince’s completely candid remarks evince a remarkably broadminded neutrality in their lack of animus.Here is one minority defence of the prince that appeared in the Telegraph (probably by mistake)…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
2 comments:
Er ... cleanup on the runescape aisle. Either that or it's some sort of really weird Blue Light Special.
Ahmadinejad: “The United Nations Headquarters Must be Relocated”
File under:
STOPPED CLOCK RIGHT TWICE A DAY
I nominate Darfur as the UN's new place of residence. Perhaps being right in the middle of the carnage involving HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS persecuted by Muslims will slow their regular dispatches condemning Israel for deaths numbering in the hundreds.
Does every Palestinian life really outweigh five hundred black Christians and animists in Africa?
Palestinians whatever their sorrows are the most over-funded people on the planet compared to others who suffer.
As in "The Mouse That Roared" it's all in who your opponent is. Provoke Jews into retaliation and you'll be rolling in media attention and money.
Wonder why that would that be?
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