Record unemployment in Spain. Rioting in Greece. Strikes over foreign workers in the UK. German troops to be deployed in France. And you can be thrown in jail for photographing the police in Britain.That’s the news from Europe. In the USA, there’s the Obama story. And there’s also Obama, and Obama. And more Obama…
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Diana West, Gaia, Holger Danske, Insubria, islam o’phobe, JD, VH, Zenster, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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Bad(Minton) Diplomacy
by Diana West
From USA Today’s The Oval:
Sports and diplomacy appear to have mixed once again:
State Department spokesman Robert Wood said this morning that the U.S. is disappointed that Iran did not issue visas to an American women’s badminton team that was invited to a tournament in Tehran.
He said the team had supplied all the paperwork required.
The Associated Press writes that…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
CAIR Problems Start to Snowball
by David J. Rusin
After years of enjoying intimate access to policymakers and offering sensitivity training to law enforcement personnel, luck may be running out for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). As the Islamist lobby group faces an embarrassing lawsuit and a suddenly cold shoulder from Washington, some are speculating that CAIR’s time on the national stage is almost up.
The slippery slope began last November. During its annual dinner, CAIR was served with a federal civil complaint on behalf of four individuals alleging that Morris Days, a “resident attorney” at CAIR’s former Herndon, VA, office, had defrauded them by not providing paid-for legal work — perhaps because he is not actually a lawyer:
According to the complaint, CAIR failed to conduct a background check on Days prior to hiring him and when they did discover his massive fraud, they immediately set about to cover it up. CAIR officials purposefully concealed the truth about Days from their clients, law enforcement, the Virginia and D.C. state bar associations, and the media.
Twenty-four hours later, CAIR took another hit as the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a charity charged with funding the terror group Hamas, ended with guilty verdicts on all 108 counts. Federal prosecutors had listed CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.
Now evidence has emerged that the government is reducing contact with CAIR due to concerns over the skeletons rattling in its closets. The Investigative Project (IPT) reports that last fall, “FBI field offices began notifying state CAIR chapters that bureau officials could no longer meet with them” until the organization’s national leaders answer questions they would rather avoid:
In one letter obtained by IPT News, James E. Finch, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Oklahoma City field office, canceled a meeting of the local Muslim Community Outreach Program, a state-federal program designed to enlist Muslims in terrorism prevention and investigate reports of civil liberties violations.
[…]
“If CAIR wishes to pursue an outreach relationship with the FBI, certain issues must be addressed to the satisfaction of the FBI. Unfortunately, these issues cannot be addressed at the local level and must be addressed by the CAIR national office in Washington, D.C.,” the letter said.
In the wake of the above revelations, five members of Congress have circulated a document, entitled “Beware of CAIR,” which advises their colleagues to “think twice” about engaging with CAIR representatives based on “indications that this group has connections to Hamas.”
Whether or not CAIR’s days really are numbered, at long last the bloom is off the Islamist rose.
| — Hat tip: Holger Danske | [Return to headlines] |
Community Organizing Explained
Immediately after the Democratic National Convention in Colorado, the Boston Globe published a letter from L. David Alinsky. He boasted about how Barack Obama had made extremely effective use of his training in the methods of David’s late father, the famous Chicago radical, Saul D. Alinsky.
David Alinsky gloated: “I am proud to see that my father’s model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday.”
What was Saul Alinsky’s model that Barack Obama used so successfully to defeat the Clinton machine plus the Republican Party in a dramatic one-two punch never before seen in politics? What is known today as “the Alinsky ideology and Alinsky concepts of mass organization for power” are fully set forth in Alinsky’s 1971 book, “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals.”
Alinsky’s worldview was that mankind is divided into three parts: “the Haves, the Have-Nots and the Have-a-Little, Want Mores.” His purpose was to teach the Have-Nots how to take power and money away from the Haves by creating mass organizations to seize power, and he frankly admitted that “this means revolution.”
He wanted a radical change of America’s social and economic structure, and he planned to achieve that through creating public discontent and moral confusion. Alinsky developed strategies to achieve power through mass organization, and organizing was his word for revolution.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Finding the Moderate Muslims
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, President George W. Bush rushed to assure Americans that Islam was a religion of peace. In his first speech after the murderous attacks, Bush stated, “(Islam’s) teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.”
Bush strained to support this position by seeking out “moderate Muslims” across America. One of the first groups he approached was the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Bush met with CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad soon after Sept. 11. That began a federal precedent of kowtowing to CAIR. In December 2004, FBI counterterrorism agents in Florida were forced to attend “sensitivity training” by CAIR. In January 2005, CAIR met with top State Department officials to discuss American foreign policy; Awad proposed a cooperative effort to challenge “Islamophobia.” In January 2007, the Transportation Security Administration initiated CAIR’s “Hajj Sensitivity Training,” featuring it on its website.
There was only one problem: CAIR is an organization with deep ties to terrorists in the Middle East. According to Andrew McCarthy of National Review, CAIR was created by a wing of Hamas, the Islamic Association for Palestine. Awad was president of the Islamic Association for Palestine. Much of CAIR’s early money came from the Holy Land Foundation — the same foundation that had its funds frozen in the aftermath of Sept. 11, and the same foundation whose founder, Ghassan Elashi, headed up the CAIR chapter in Texas.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ford and GM Car Sales in Freefall
President Obama may be forced to dig deeper into taxpayer pockets to bail out the American car industry after General Motors and Ford admitted to the lowest vehicle sales for 26 years.
General Motors, America’s biggest car maker, said that it had sold 49 per cent fewer new vehicles in January, compared with the same period the year before while Ford admitted that new car sales had fallen by 40 per cent last month. Chrysler, which is a private company owned by the private equity firm Cerberus, is believed to have suffered a 49 per cent decline.
Speaking to The Times, David Cole, the chairman of the Centre for Automotive Research in Detroit, said: “The US car industry is not in recession, it’s in depression. This drop in sales is unprecedented — if we do not see an improvement in the credit market, the industry will need more money from the taxpayer. This credit market is an absolute killer.”
While the auto industry was already braced for a grim January, the astonishing sales declines indicate that the measures recently taken by Washington to stop the American car industry from going bust, have so far failed. In December, Washington threw a lifeline to General Motors and Chrysler with a $17.4 billion federal bridging loan. The loan was designed to provide both emergency capital to the manufacturers but was also devised to convince the American public that the two carmakers had a future and could be relied on to meet warranty and servicing obligations arising from the sale of new vehicles.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Is America Really a ‘Muslim Nation’?
After his election as president, Barack Obama announced that he would be sworn in using his full name, Barack “Hussein” Obama. The reason, he explained, was to use this “unique opportunity to reboot America’s image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular.”
It seems rather strange that only a few weeks earlier, using Obama’s middle name was akin to a hate crime. But if that seems strange, consider some of his first acts in office.
On Monday Jan. 26, 2009, his first post-inauguration television interview was with the Al-Arabiya Network, based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in which he assured the Muslim world that “the Americans are not your enemy,” and “We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith’s name.” In other words, Obama, speaking for “the Americans,” was saying that we cannot blame all Muslims for what some have done in the name of Islam. But the Islamic religion is based on the Quran, which teaches that Muslims should “slay the idolaters (non-Muslims) wherever ye find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush.” Nobody should hold all Muslims accountable for what some might do, but then again, Islam is not a friendly religion — preaching hatred and violence against anyone not a member of that faith.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Charm Offensive and the Global Jihad
By Jeff Jacoby
EARLY IN HIS presidency, Jimmy Carter set about to alter US policy toward the Soviet Union. Six days after his inauguration he sent a letter to Soviet ruler Leonid Brezhnev, hailing the two countries’ “common efforts towards ormation of a more peaceful, just, and humane world” and saluting Brezhnev’s supposed “aspiration for strengthening and preserving. . . peace.” In a commencement address at Notre Dame, he declared that Americans had shed their “inordinate fear of communism.” In the months that followed, Carter slashed the defense budget, scrapped the B-1 bomber, welcomed the Sandinista coup in Nicaragua, and launched diplomatic relations with Cuba’s dictator, Fidel Castro.
It wasn’t until the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979 that Carter finally woke up to his naiveté. Moscow’s brutal aggression “made a more dramatic change in my opinion of what the Soviets’ ultimate goals are,” he admitted, “than anything they’ve done in the previous time that I’ve been in office.”
Carter’s failure to understand the threat posed by the Soviet Empire had costly consequences for America and the world. Will that pattern now be repeated with Barack Obama and the threat from radical Islam?
Ever since taking office two weeks ago, Obama has been at pains to proclaim a change in US-Muslim relations. In his inaugural address he invited “the Muslim world” to embark on “a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” Six days later he gave Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language satellite channel, his first televised interview as president. This week he continued his charm offensive with a friendly letter to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. He has promised to deliver a major address in an Islamic capital by spring.
The president cannot be faulted for using his bully pulpit to reach out to the world’s Muslims, especially given his Muslim roots and family ties. But running through his words is a disconcerting theme: that US-Muslim tensions are a recent phenomenon brought on largely by American provincialism, heavy-handedness, and disrespect. Missing is any sense that the United States has long been the target of jihadist fanatics who enjoy widespread support in the Muslim world.
“My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy,” Obama said, although “we sometimes make mistakes” and “have not been perfect,” and even though “too often the United States starts by dictating” and fails to use “the language of respect.”
Such apologetic pandering is inexcusable. For decades, as commentator Charles Krauthammer noted last week, “America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them.” To liberate oppressed Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan, and Iraq, hundreds of thousands of Americans risked — and in some cases lost — their lives. Respect? Not even the Islamist atrocities of 9/11 provoked American leaders to treat Islam with disdain. “We respect your faith,” George W. Bush earnestly told the world’s Muslims on Sept. 20, 2001. “Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah.”
Even more troubling is Obama’s cluelessness about US-Muslim history.
“The same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago — there’s no reason why we can’t restore that,” he said on Al-Arabiya.
Well, let’s see. Twenty years ago, American hostages were being tortured by their Hezbollah captors in Beirut and hundreds of grief-stricken families were in mourning for their loved ones, murdered by Libyan terrorists as they flew home for Christmas on Pan Am Flight 103. Thirty years ago, the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran, proclaimed America “the Great Satan,” and inspired his acolytes to storm the US embassy and hold scores of Americans hostage. Meanwhile, Islamist mobs were destroying US embassies in Pakistan and Libya, and staging anti-American riots in other countries.
Radical Islam’s hatred of the United States is not a recent phenomenon, it has nothing to do with “respect,” and it isn’t going to be extinguished by sweet words — not even those of so sweet a speaker as our new president. Sooner or later, Obama must confront an implacable reality: The global jihad, like the Cold War, will end only when our enemies lose their will to fight — or when we do. Let us hope he’s a quicker study than Jimmy Carter.
[Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com]
| — Hat tip: Holger Danske | [Return to headlines] |
President Obama’s Militant Muslim Connections
by William F. Jasper
President Barack Obama’s inaugural committee billed his January 20 National Prayer Service at the National Cathedral as a celebration of America’s “diversity of faith.” Among the official participants offering prayers at the event was Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America.
Mattson was also a guest speaker later that evening at the first Muslim Inaugural Celebration at the Thurgood Marshall Center in Washington, D.C. This was not the first time Mattson had been so honored at Obama shindigs; she was also given center stage at the Democratic Convention’s opening interfaith prayer service last August in Denver.
In selecting Dr. Mattson for these high-profile events, Obama has pointedly chosen to disregard the fact that the organization she heads, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and its subsidiary foundation, the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), have long-standing ties to terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Muslim Brotherhood. The U.S. government lists ISNA and NAIT as “unindicted co-conspirators” in the terrorism-funding trial of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF). The foundation was charged with conspiracy and providing millions of dollars to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. In November of 2008, a jury in Dallas, Texas, delivered guilty verdicts on 108 separate charges against HLF and seven of its officers.
ISNA and NAIT were not charged in the Holy Land Foundation case, and they (along with the ACLU, which is defending them) have accused the government of carrying out a smear campaign and a political vendetta against the organizations and the larger Muslim community.
The federal prosecutors vigorously denied these claims in a July 10, 2008 filing in federal court. “During last year’s trial, numerous exhibits were entered into evidence establishing both ISNA’s and NAIT’s intimate relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestine Committee, and the defendants in this case,” the prosecutors asserted. “They were intimately connected with the HLF and its assigned task of providing financial support to HAMAS…. That ISNA and NAIT appeared in these documents and share a common history with these defendants is a reflection of the evidence, not any attempt to ‘disparage’ or ‘vilify.’ “
Ingrid Mattson was not personally named in the indictment or charged with any crime. According to her many defenders, she is the voice of moderate Islam in America. According to her critics, she is the voice and face of “stealth jihad” or “soft jihad” in America, perpetrating a deceptive ruse of false moderation that uses ballots instead of bullets, words instead of bombs — but aimed at the same ultimate objective: the defeat and gradual Islamification of America.
Militants Masquerading as Moderates
Dr. Ingrid Mattson is a professor of Islamic studies and director of the Macdonald Center for Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut. In this capacity, she is one of the main trainers of Muslim chaplains for state and federal prisons, the U.S. military, and American universities. ISNA has also served as the main organization relied on by the federal government to certify chaplains for federal prisons, which have become hotbeds for Muslim militancy and recruitment. Moreover, the ISNA vets and certifies imams for many American mosques, and, according to government and media reports, controls (through actual ownership) 50-80 percent of the mosques in the United States. ISNA has achieved this lock on so many mosques, reportedly, through the North American Islamic Trust, with funding provided by the Muslim Brotherhood and the government of Saudi Arabia. All this considered, concern about Mattson’s close ties with, and newfound stature in, the Obama administration is certainly justified.
ISNA and NAIT are indeed closely tied to Hamas and its Egyptian-based parent, the Muslim Brotherhood, both of which are well known for simultaneously carrying out dual political and terrorist programs. This dual application was made very clear in a 1991 Muslim Brotherhood presentation entitled “An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Brotherhood in North America,” by Mohamed Akram.
Akram told the Brotherhood faithful that they “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” Akram laid out a comprehensive plan for “settlement” in the United States to attain social, political, educational, and economic influence and power.
The final page of the 32-page official text version of Akram’s presentation lists the Muslim Brotherhood’s chief friends in the United States. Leading the list (at number 1 out of 29) is ISNA; NAIT is listed as number 8 on the same list…
| — Hat tip: Holger Danske | [Return to headlines] |
President Wants U.S. Nuke Arsenal Slashed 80%
Proposes radical deal even as Russia revives Cold War-era military bases
[Comment from JD: Communists will not adhere to this proposed “deal” — only the US will. End result = US disarmed = goal of Communists.]
JERUSALEM — President Obama plans to offer Russia a deal whereby each country would reduce its nuclear weapons stockpile by 80 percent, the Times of London reported today.
The proposal is consistent with Obama’s previous calls on the campaign trail for the elimination of all the world’s nuclear weapons, arguing the Cold War is over.
Obama’s statements came even while Russia reportedly worked to revive its Cold War-era naval activities and weapons supply channels to former allies in a clear challenge to the U.S.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The High Cost of ‘Free Trade’
When it comes to learning lessons, however, we humans all too often have a tendency to go from one extreme to the other. Since Smoot-Hawley was such a failure, many politicians, Republican and Democrat alike, have concluded ever since that low tariffs are better than high ones, while no tariffs are best of all.
What we’ve heard over and over again from proponents of free trade is that if we buy other nations’ products, they’re bound to buy ours and everyone will live happily ever after. Unfortunately, that thinking is no less shortsighted than Smoot-Hawley, but it is only now, during our worst economic crisis since the 1930s, that many Americans will finally start to see why.
Overall, allowing the flow of tax-free goods between any two countries serves to turn what had been two distinct business markets into one.
For the U.S. to have done that with Canada, or any country that enjoys a standard of living comparable to ours, is not necessarily a bad thing. Since workers in both countries are comparably paid, each group should find it just as easy to buy products from the other country as domestically produced ones. The same would hold true for Japan, where typical workers’ wages are close to those in the U.S. However, the Japanese have to a large extent shunned free trade, particularly in order to protect their domestic agriculture.
What we have forgotten is that whenever we embark on free trade with third-world countries that have low standards of living, we are also turning two markets into one. In such cases, that is bound to have a leveling effect, with the standard of living in the third-world country going up and ours, inevitably, going down!
At the outset of such free trade, well-paid Americans can easily buy inexpensive third-world products. But not to worry, the free-trade proponents told us, the happily employed foreign workers will also buy exports from us and everyone will prosper.
But that has never happened and never will. When U.S. companies could no longer afford American workers because they couldn’t compete with cheap third-world labor, American factories shut down by the thousands and a huge “rust belt” was created. As for the promise that our newly prosperous third-world trading partners would also buy our exports, thereby maintaining a trade balance, that was an out-and-out deception that should have been seen from the outset. After all, there’s no way third-world workers making $1 an hour or, in many cases, $1 a day can afford to buy much of anything from a country where workers average at least $20 an hour.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
€200,000 for Libertas Put on Hold by European Parliament
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has put on hold a decision to give Libertas €200,000 in EU funds after an Estonian MP yesterday denied ever backing the anti-Lisbon party.
Igor Grazin, who sits in the Estonian parliament, is one of seven national or European politicians that Libertas, run by Declan Ganley, used to apply for official status as a pan-European party.
But just hours after senior MEPs sitting on the parliament’s bureau backed Libertas’s request to gain official status and access to EU funds Mr Grazin denied signing its application.
“I have never signed any papers asking for recognition of Libertas as a political party in the EU and all corresponding claims are utterly untrue,” wrote Mr Grazin in a signed affidavit presented to parliament president Hans-Gert Pottering by the Liberal group.
Liberal MEP Andrew Duff, who uncovered the affidavit signed by Mr Grazin, asked Mr Pottering to “urgently review” the decision to recognise Libertas and give it EU funds.
“Mr Ganley appears to have fallen at the first hurdle. Apparently his claim to have recruited enough supporters was untrue. What Europe really needs is a bit more Veritas and a lot less Libertas,” said Mr Duff, who is a strong supporter of the Lisbon Treaty.
A parliament spokeswoman confirmed that the €200,000 funds allocated to Libertas on Monday night would be put on hold until the matter had been cleared up. “We will have to review this situation in light of this new development,” she said.
A Libertas spokesman, John McGurk, said the group was not worried about the review because Mr Grazin had signed the document in Libertas’s Brussels office.
“We do have a document with his signature on it and Mr Ganley and Jens Peter Bonde are willing to sign affadavits about that,” said Mr McGurk, who added Libertas could get a politician from another state to sign the application if that is what was required to get official status.
Under the rules governing the founding of European political parties an organisation must present an application with the signature of at least seven European or national politicians from different countries, representing a quarter of the 27 EU states. Libertas’s application listed Mr Grazin as one of seven different nationalities that had signed up to support the organisation, which plans to compete in the European elections on an anti-Lisbon Treaty platform in all 27 EU states.
The other supporters include three Eurosceptic MEPs: Philippe de Villiers and Paul Marie Coûteaux, both members of the Movement for France, and Greek MEP Georgios Georgiou. The national politicians backing Libertas — Lord Alton, a life peer in the British House of Lords; Finnish MP Timo Soini; Bulgarian MP Mincho Kuminev; and Polish regional assemblyman Cyprian Gutkowski — all of whom hold either Eurosceptic or staunchly conservative views.
Mr Grazin would not return calls when contacted yesterday.
The parliament’s bureau is expected to reconvene in a few weeks to consider the matter. Libertas was one of 10 European political parties that on Monday night were granted access to an €10 million annual EU fund distributed by the parliament to help create a pan-European political culture.
| — Hat tip: islam o’phobe | [Return to headlines] |
EU Publicity Campaign to Target Lisbon No Voters
THE EUROPEAN Commission is spending €1.8 million on a communications strategy to target Irish women, young people and low-income families with information about the EU.
Blogging, cinema advertising, listening exercises and advertising in women’s and youth magazines are key parts of a 12 month EU-Ireland information plan, which specifically targets segments of the public that voted in large numbers against the Lisbon Treaty.
“The representation wishes to communicate with the general population and in that context, specifically with target groups within the general population,” says a call for tender for a public relations agency to run the campaign.
“These target groups comprise: younger people in the 16-30 age bracket; women of all ages; lower-income families and individuals.”
The tender does not mention the prospect of a second Lisbon referendum this year, focusing instead on the need to provide public information on matters emanating from the EU and how it affects daily life.
But Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou McDonald yesterday strongly criticised the EU tender, which she said amounted to “propaganda” and taking a “hard sell” approach to Lisbon.
“To me it seems the commission is targeting groups identified with voting No to Lisbon in the last referendum. This new strategy does not amount to dialogue but rather propaganda to influence an expected referendum later this year,” said Ms McDonald, who was one of the leaders of the No campaign in the first referendum.
Research conducted by the commission in Ireland a few days after the first Lisbon referendum last June showed young people between the ages of 15 and 29 voted against the treaty by a factor of two to one. A majority of women also voted against the treaty while a majority of men voted in favour. Separate research compiled for the Government by Millward Brown confirmed these findings while also noting that the biggest No vote came from the lower-income group where 65 per cent voted against the treaty.
The commission yesterday rejected any suggestion that its Irish communications strategy was part of a campaign to get the Lisbon Treaty passed in a second referendum.
“There will be no advocacy or publicity campaign ahead of the second referendum,” said Joe Hennon, spokesman for EU communications commissioner Margot Wallstrom. He said any additional resources diverted to Ireland would be in response to the conclusions of the Oireachtas special joint subcommittee’s report, which identified serious lacunae in communications on Europe in Ireland. He said any extra resources would be for several years and would aim to address the problem of a lack of knowledge about the EU.
| — Hat tip: islam o’phobe | [Return to headlines] |
EU: German Troops Sent to France
France and Germany are expected to give details this weekend of an agreement to station hundreds of German troops on French soil for the first time since the second world war, in a region the countries have squabbled over for centuries.
The historic move for troops in either Alsace or Lorraine is part of a 20-year joint military project to encourage reconciliation between the two countries.
Despite its symbolic significance for a country occupied by Nazi forces, the decision has so far prompted little more than curious and insouciant reaction from the French public. “The prospect of seeing German troops settle in France again … makes my grandfather splutter,” said a Libération reader in a posting on the French newspaper’s website. “What an extraordinary symbol of Franco-German reconciliation”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Giscard to Debate Treaty in Dublin
FORMER FRENCH president Valéry Giscard D’Estaing, who played a key role during Ireland’s Lisbon Treaty referendum last year, is to debate with anti-treaty advocates in Dublin later this month.
Mr Giscard is travel to Ireland on February 12th to be awarded honorary patronage of Trinity College, Dublin’s Philosophical Society, following a vote by members of the body recently.
The event will offer the former French president, who chaired the EU convention that drafted much of the text of the treaty, an opportunity to offer “his vision for the future of Europe”.
Efforts are under way to secure a meeting between Mr Giscard and Taoiseach Brian Cowen, though no arrangements have been made and it is not known if a meeting will take place.
He became a key figure during the campaign after Libertas quoted him as saying that the treaty meant that “public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals we dare not present to them directly”.
The quotation was taken from an interview carried in French newspaper Le Monde but the next paragraph made clear that he believed that such an approach would be “unworthy” and only confirm European citizens “in the idea that the construction of Europe is organised behind their backs by lawyers and diplomats”.
Following the referendum campaign, Mr Giscard, who was a controversial figure during the work of the EU convention and strongly in favour of greater EU federalism, denounced Libertas founder Declan Ganley, claiming that he had deliberately misquoted him in a “dishonest” way.
He insisted that the passage quoted by Le Monde related only to France, because the French government was trying to tell its population that the content of Lisbon was different from the one it had rejected in 2005.
“[The government] wanted to tell them ‘it’s not the same’ when, in reality, the content was the same. So [my] argumentation was for the French. It had no meaning for people who had not voted on the text, like the Irish,” he told The Irish Times last June. Mr Giscard (82) was president of France from 1974 until 1981.
Patronage of the TCD Philosophical Society has been awarded in the past to a host of leading figures in politics, business and the arts including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, FW de Klerk, John Hume and Mohamed ElBaradei.
US presidential election candidate Republican senator John McCain is another to have been so honoured, along with Bob Geldof, Salman Rushdie, Niall Ferguson and Al Pacino.
[I will try to get a ticket to this event and write a report on it for GoV. — islam o’ phobe]
| — Hat tip: islam o’phobe | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Farmers Arrive in Piraeus and Clash With Police
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, FEBRUARY 2 — There were violent clashes this morning in the port of Piraeus between Athens police and several hundred Cretan farmers who have arrived in their tractors to protest against the exclusion of their products from the government’s aid package. The police intervened with tear gas against the farmers, who responded by throwing stones and threatening to break the blockade with their tractors. Police then charged wielding truncheons, causing three farmers to be injured, reports Mega, a television channel. The Cretan farmers yesterday announced the suspension of their road blocks in Crete in concurrence with their trip to Athens to talk to Agriculture Minister Sotiris Hatzigakis, who is heading to Brussels today to talk over 500 million euro aid package. The Cretan farmers complain that the aid package ignores the island’s farming. The minister had invited the farmers to the capital, but without their tractors. The new tension comes as almost all road blockades — which have paralysed traffic in Greece for two weeks — were lifted as farmers reluctantly accepted the government’s aid package. The blockade on the Bulgarian border is now the only one still in place. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: More Riots During Protest of Farmers From Crete
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, FEBRUARY 3 — This morning the police clashed again with farmers from the island of Crete. The farmers arrived yesterday at the Athens port of Piraeus, to demand a bigger share of the 500 million euro package offered by the government. Negotiations with the ministries of Agriculture and Economy have failed. Now tensions are likely to rise again after the end of the riots, in which farmers blocked many roads with their tractors for two weeks. At the moment the only main road that is still blocked is at the Bulgarian border. Some of the thousands of farmers who have been blocked at the pier with their tractors since this morning by police stopping them from entering Athens, tried to break through this morning. The police used tear-gas bombs against them. Today socialist opposition leader Giorgio Papandreu visited Piraeus. Papandreu is criticising the position of the government of Costas Karamanlis in the conflict. He wants to talk to the farmers, who are keeping ferries from Crete from mooring and from departing to the island. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims Protest Slumdog Millionaire Dubbing Error
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 3 — An Italian Muslim group expressed fury Tuesday over a dubbing error in the Italian version of Oscar-nominated film Slumdog Millionaire that gave the impression that a group of brutal assailants is Muslim rather than Hindu. The error occurred in a scene in which the protagonist, a Muslim boy from the slums of Mumbai, sees his mother beaten to death by a group of Hindus armed with clubs who attack the neighbourhood. In the Italian version, an off-screen voice shouts “They’re Muslims, run!”, while in the original version the voice shouts “They’re Muslims, get them!”. The film’s Italian distributor, Lucky Red, has said the mistake was a result of human error and has corrected digital copies of the film. But Italian Muslim Intellectuals Association President Ahmad Gianpiero Vincenzo said the company should issue a clear statement rectifying the mistake and apologise to the Islamic community. “It may have been simple human error, but it’s disturbing that a professional distribution company doesn’t feel even remotely duty-bound to offer an official statement clarifying that the assassins in the film are not Muslims but Hindu fundamentalists,” Vincenzo said. “What is worrying is the social consequences of such a racist and Islamophobic attitude which by now affects all immigrants, and the fact that offending our sensibilities seems to be considered almost normal,” he added. The British film, in which a Muslim boy rises from humble beginnings as a street child to win the Indian version of TV quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, has won four Golden Globes and has been nominated for ten Academy Awards including Best Film and Best Director for Danny Boyle. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Nazi Fugitive and Muslim Convert ‘Doctor Death’ Died in 1992 in Cairo
BERLIN (AFP) — One of the most wanted Nazi war criminals, Aribert Heim or “Doctor Death”, thought to be in his 90s and in South America, actually died in Cairo in 1992, media reports said Wednesday.
Heim was wanted for killing hundreds of concentration camp victims with horrific medical experiments, including performing operations without anaesthetics and injecting petrol directly into their hearts.
German public TV channel ZDF said in a statement that Heim died of bowel cancer in 1992, citing his son and acquaintances in Cairo where he had been living under the assumed identity of Tarek Farid Hussein after converting to Islam.
ZDF and also the New York Times claim they have more than 100 documents including Heim’s passport, bank statements, personal letters and medical records that prove without a doubt that Heim lived in a Cairo hotel until his death.
He had been in hiding since 1962. Leading Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre said last July that he believed Heim was still alive and living in either Argentina or Chile.
On Wednesday, Zuroff said that the German TV report sounded authoritative but that he would be seeking further confirmation.
“The report on the death of the ‘butcher of Mauthausen’ is apparently reliable but we don’t for the moment have either a body or a grave…,” he said.
“Some people have an interest in substantiating this death, so we are going to check the available documents on the subject.”
He added: “Personally, I would be very disappointed if Heim had been able to end his life without being tried, but I do not regret the efforts that we have made to try and have him arrested because through this the world came to know what he was.”
| — Hat tip: Zenster | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Record Unemployment in January, 3.3 Mln Out of Work
(ANSAmed) — MADRID — An all-time record has been reached in Spain, with over 3.3 million out of work, according to figures released today by the National Institute of Employment (Inem). Compared to December 2008, the number of those without work has risen by 198,838 people, a rise of 6.5%, the largest monthly increase recorded so far, reaching a maximum of 3,327,801 unemployed, the worst figure since 1996. The further increase in unemployment, reported two weeks after a survey of the active population was carried out, puts the level of those out of work at 14%. This comes as the tenth consecutive monthly increase. According to Inem, last year a total of 1,065,876 people were signed as unemployed, an annual increase of 47.1%. The government has defined the figure as ‘very serious and worrying’’. According to the general secretary for employment, Maravillas Rojo, as quoted by news agencies, the significant deterioration of the labour market is linked to the international financial crisis, the lack of liquidity and the fall in consumer spending, which are the causes of economic stagnation. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: 15 Suspected Al-Qaeda Operatives Arrested in Two Cities
Barcelona, 3 Feb. (AKI) — Spanish police arrested 15 suspects in the eastern cities of Barcelona and Valencia on Tuesday for forging documents, allegedly to abet the Al-Qaeda terror network. At least 10 North Africans were arrested in the Barcelona neighbourhood of El Raval, accused of being part of the document-forging group, according to Spanish media reports.
The group had its own printing press — to provide cover and support to Al-Qaeda, Spanish media reports said.
Police have reportedly found a large number of blank passports and identity documents. However, no weapons or explosives have been found, reports said.
Five other terror suspects were arrested in the suburb of Mislata, located in the province of Valencia. The suspects reportedly include four Indian nationals and one Pakistani.
Orders for the arrest were issued by judge Fernando Grande-Marlaska, of Spain’s Audiencia Nacional, or National Audience, a senior court which hears cases related to terrorism and organised crime.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: BT Wants to Monitor Your Online Activities
Did you know … BT wants to monitor your online activities to serve you targeted ads? Don’t let it spy on you
A man walks through a shopping precinct. Tiny cameras capture his every move. If he so much as turns his head to glimpse into a shop window, that action is recorded, next to a reference number that identifies him uniquely among the many shoppers around him. As he walks through the crowded mall, the advertising billboards subtly change to suit his profile, flashing aeroplanes and knitted sweaters to replace the beach towels and lipstick intended for the woman in front of him. He ducks out of the precinct, looks around him, then walks down a side street to the door of a VD clinic. But the cameras are still watching him. Silently, passively. But watching him all the same …
This is not a novel by Philip K Dick: it is happening right now. The only difference is that it’s not happening in the physical world, it’s happening online. Since last autumn, BT — under the “Webwise” banner — has been trialling a technology called Phorm, which dials direct into your internet service provider’s network and intercepts communications between you and the websites you visit, using information about the sorts of things you are viewing to serve you targeted ads.
From shopping and watching TV to keeping in touch with friends, seeking advice about our health and finances and even meeting prospective partners, what we do over our internet connections now reveals more about us than any other single activity we engage in. But despite this, the world wide web is most commonly seen as media. And with media comes advertising. We tolerate the advertorials, double-page spreads and ever longer ad breaks because we understand that this activity funds the production of our newspapers and favourite TV shows. But should we tolerate Phorm?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: British Jobs for British Workers
So ‘British jobs for British workers’ is both perfectly reasonable (look at the way the deified Barack Obama is insisting that contracts under his stimulus plan should go to US firms) and wise if we want to maintain ourselves as a society.
The pity is that it is quite meaningless as long as we remain in the European Union (the same force which, for instance, forces us to wreck our Post Office, imposes HIPs on the housing market, imposed the Data Protection Act on us, loads us down with other politically correct laws on ‘discrimination’ which are hugely expensive and counter-productive, penalises us for using landfill, so forcing councils into the recycling frenzy and all that it involves, including fortnightly rubbish collections, drags us into trade wars with the US which are not to our benefit, kills our fishing industry, despoils our agriculture, systematically wrecked our meat industry, obliges us to levy VAT, designs our passports and driving licences, seeks increasing control over our foreign and defence affairs, has a court which can overrule our Parliament….I could go on).
Infuriatingly, most people who are against all or most of the above have no idea that they are the work of the EU. British politicians, perhaps ashamed of their impotence, keep deathly quiet about how they are ordered around by the European Commission, which increasingly drafts our laws and tells Parliament what to do.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Christians Haven’t Got a Prayer in ‘Diversity’ Britain…
Nurse Caroline Petrie has been suspended and could even be struck off. What was her offence? Did she turn up drunk? Did she dispense the wrong medicine or forget to empty a bedpan? Was she knocking out prescription drugs to the local pusher?
Perhaps she was guilty of neglect, of deliberate cruelty, or of practising a bit of freelance euthanasia.
No. Her ‘crime’ was to offer to say a prayer for one old lady on the ward. It’s what we used to call an act of Christian charity.
But that was enough to bring her to the attention of the ‘diversity’ nazis at the North Somerset Primary Care Trust.
[…]
If I was in hospital, I’d be flattered if someone wanted to pray for my recovery. It wouldn’t matter to me what God they believed in.
As far as I’m concerned, they could draft in a Red Indian to perform a raindance at the end of my bed if it meant I got home sooner. I wouldn’t care less about my nurse’s religious belief, provided it didn’t involve blood-letting and human sacrifice.
[…]
While they genuflect to Islam and ‘respect’ every oddball religion from paganism to devil-worship, they despise Britain’s Judeo-Christian tradition and use every extent of their powers to crush it. It’s only Christianity which is singled out for such vilification, as with the airport worker suspended for wearing a crucifix and the devout Christian registrar threatened with the sack for refusing to perform homosexual marriages.
Just imagine how they would have reacted had Mrs Petrie been a Muslim offering to pray to Allah for a patient’s recovery. Anyone who objected would be accused of a ‘hate crime’ and dumped in a skip at the back of the mortuary.
What’s really chilling about this case is that neither of the patients complained. It was only when news reached the ears of another nurse and a ‘carer’ that the full inquisition swung into action.
What kind of sick society have we become where self-righteous sneaks can ruin someone’s career?
[…]
The most intolerant people in Britain are always those who preach ‘tolerance’ most loudly.
How does victimising Mrs Petrie square with not promoting ‘causes that are not related to health’? Isn’t that exactly what the hospital authorities themselves are doing?
Why should Mrs Petrie, or anyone else, have to ‘demonstrate a personal commitment to equality and diversity’? She can harbour whatever beliefs she likes, provided it doesn’t interfere with her professionalism.
There’s only one word to describe hatchet-faced harridans like administrator Alison Withers and the tell-tale creeps trying to get a dedicated nurse such as Caroline Petrie sacked for dispensing a little Christian kindness.
Sick.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: It’s the Children at the Bottom of the Heap Who Have Been Hurt Most by Turning Education Into Jargon-Laden Twaddle
The subversion and disintegration of the education system in the interests of social engineering have now reached a stage well beyond parody.
For the past four decades and more, the education establishment has been in the grip of the ‘all must have prizes’ orthodoxy which holds that in the interests of ‘equality’ everyone must be said to achieve equally. Since there can be no losers, there can be no winners — or to put it another way, everyone must be said to be a winner.
From this ludicrous and deeply ideological belief that equality actually means ‘identicality’ has flowed such disasters as the un-teaching of reading. Structured reading schemes which actually teach children to decode the words on the page were discarded on the grounds that some children made faster progress than others — whose self-esteem would thus be destroyed. So they weren’t taught to decode words, but taught to guess or memorise words instead.
The result has been hundreds of thousands of children who are functionally illiterate — including some, as was reported recently, who actually leave school nevertheless with a clutch of GCSEs.
How could it possibly be, you may well ask, that GCSEs can be awarded to candidates who can’t read or write properly?
The answer is that, in order to accommodate and conceal the progressive disintegration of education standards under the ‘all must have prizes’ philosophy, the standards of all public examinations — SATs, GCSEs, A-levels and even university degrees — have been progressively lowered so that more students can be said not only to have passed them but to have done so with good grades.
Thus the government has been able to boast that standards are rising, whereas in fact they have been going through the floor. It has also been able to shoe-horn record numbers into university, on the grounds that restricting university access to those who are most academically able is ‘elitist’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Jail for Photographing Police?
The relationship between photographers and police could worsen next month when new laws are introduced that allow for the arrest — and imprisonment — of anyone who takes pictures of officers ‘likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’.
Set to become law on 16 February, the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 amends the Terrorism Act 2000 regarding offences relating to information about members of armed forces, a member of the intelligence services, or a police officer.
The new set of rules, under section 76 of the 2008 Act and section 58A of the 2000 Act, will target anyone who ‘elicits or attempts to elicit information about (members of armed forces) … which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’.
A person found guilty of this offence could be liable to imprisonment for up to 10 years, and to a fine.
The law is expected to increase the anti-terrorism powers used today by police officers to stop photographers, including press photographers, from taking pictures in public places. ‘Who is to say that police officers won’t abuse these powers,’ asks freelance photographer Justin Tallis, who was threatened by an officer last week.
Tallis, a London-based photographer, was covering the anti-BBC protest on Saturday 24 January when he was approached by a police officer. Tallis had just taken a picture of the officer, who then asked to see the picture. The photographer refused, arguing that, as a press photographer, he had a right to take pictures of police officers.
According to Tallis, the officer then tried to take the camera away. Before giving up, the officer said that Tallis ‘shouldn’t have taken that photo, you were intimidating me’. The incident was caught on camera by photojournalist Marc Vallee.
Tallis is a member of the National Union of Journalists and the British Press Photographers’ Association. ‘The incident lasted just 10 seconds, but you don’t expect a police officer to try to pull your camera from your neck,’ Tallis tells BJP.
The incident came less than a week after it was revealed that an amateur photographer was stopped in Cleveland by police officers when taking pictures of ships. The photographer was asked if he had any terrorism connections and told that his details would be kept on file.
A Cleveland Police spokeswoman explained: ‘If seen in suspicious circumstances, members of the public may well be approached by police officers and asked about their activities. Photography of buildings and areas from a public place is not an offence and is certainly not something the police wish to discourage. Nevertheless, in order to verify a person’s actions as being entirely innocent, police officers are expected to engage and seek clarification where appropriate.’
The statement echoes the Prime Minister’s answer to a petition signed by more than 5700 people. Gordon Brown reaffirmed, last week, that the police have a legal right to restrict photography in public places.
‘There are no legal restrictions on photography in public places. However, the law applies to photographers as it does to anybody else in a public place. So there may be situations in which the taking of photographs may cause or lead to public order situations or raise security considerations,’ Downing Street says.
‘Each situation will be different and it would be an operational matter for the officer concerned as to what action if any should be taken in respect of those taking photographs. Anybody with a concern about a specific incident should raise the matter with the chief constable of the relevant force.’
However, Liberty, which campaigns on human rights, has decried the excessive use of stop-and-search powers given to police officers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act. The group’s legal director, James Welch, said the powers were used too widely.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: the Age of the Snitch — How Public Sector Informers Are Creating Stasi Britain…
Carol Thatcher, the daughter of former Prime Minister Lady Thatcher, now faces being banned from the BBC after reportedly referring to an unnamed tennis player as reminding her of a ‘golliwog’.
[…]
By reporting her remark to the BBC hierarchy — and who knows whether or not it was distorted or taken out of context in the lodging of this complaint — her disloyal and sneaky colleagues took an axe to her right to privacy.
The implications are deeply disturbing. For such behaviour means that no one can ever relax with colleagues for fear that one of them might go running to the boss to complain.
It destroys the freedom to speak in private for fear that this might be used to cast you into outer darkness for having a view which falls foul of some arbitrary definition of what is acceptable.
[…]
In politically correct Britain, BBC informers and NHS apparatchiks designate jovially gabby broadcasters and Christian nurses as enemies of society, to be summarily convicted by kangaroo courts of conformist bureaucrats and banished in opprobrium and disgust.
It’s all part of a wider trend. The police ‘hate crime’ division urges the public to inform on anyone who expresses an opinion they deem hateful to the usual range of disadvantaged groups.
An energy company invites children to become ‘climate cops’, reporting on parents, relatives and friends who leave TV sets on and commit other examples of ‘climate crime’.
It is this combination of lunacy and coercion which leads one to think that the land of those great apostles of free thinking, John Milton and John Locke, is fast turning into a nightmare straight out of the pages of George Orwell or Franz Kafka.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Why Are Our Police So Aggressive to Powerless Individuals and So Meek in the Face of a Disorderly Islamist Mob?
Last Sunday’s MoS carried a story about the extraordinary film circulating on the web, which you can see at the end of this blog, showing (in my view) something like 60 police officers (others go for a lower figure. See for yourself) backing away from an increasingly confident mob of Islamist demonstrators. And I use the word ‘Islamist’ deliberately. The loudest voice among these marchers is heard frequently shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is Great!”), and refers to the retreating constables as ‘Kuffar’, a scornful Islamic term for infidels — also ‘swine’ and ‘poofs’ and ‘cowards’, not things I would advise you to shout at a police constable in London on a normal day.
[…]
The people who circulated the film in my direction made another comparison, between this and the walloping the police gave to some pro-hunting marchers a few years back.
[…]
Does this contradict my objection to the aggressive militiamen I encountered? I don’t think so. On the contrary, I am again struck by the loudmouthed aggression of the police towards a powerless individual, and their strange passivity in the face of a disorderly crowd.
Some will remember the reluctance of the Metropolitan Police to act against obstreperous Islamist militants in the past. They don’t seem to have the same reluctance to grab pro-Tibetan marchers. (By the way, that is ‘reluctance’, not ‘reticence’ a word increasingly used by people who mistakenly think ‘reticent’ means ‘reluctant’. It doesn’t)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Serbia; Tadic, Yes to Talks But No to Independence
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, FEBRUARY 3 — Serbian president, Boris Tadic, said today in Belgrade that he is ready to start talks with Albanian leaders in Kosovo on concrete problems, on condition that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia is not up for discussion. “We are ready to meet legitimate representatives of the Albanian population of Kosovo to discuss concrete problems of primary importance, relative to everyday life but these topics must not put in discussion the territorial integrity of Serbia and its sovereignty over Kosovo”, said Tadic at a press conference held in Belgrade. “We are absolutely open to every type of discussion that observes such principles”, he added. Representatives from international organisations present in Kosovo, most importantly the UN and the EU, proposed starting talks between Belgrade and Pristina, in an attempt to deal with the situation of a “wall meeting a wall” that exists between the Serbian and Kosovo leaders on the subject of independence. In fact, Belgrade rejects the independence unilaterally proclaimed by Kosovo nearly one year ago on February 17 2008, which has been recognised by 54 countries so far, including the United States and Italy. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Health: Doctors From Ramallah Trained in Cagliari
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 3 — In the past few days Palestinian medics have been given the opportunity to learn new skills at the Brotzu hospital in Cagliari. They will use these skills to open a kidney transplant centre in Ramallah. The mission had been planned long before Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip. The medics look at the damage to health structures in the Gaza Strip: “We don’t even know how many colleagues have died”, said Mohammed Ayyoub, the Palestinian doctor at the Brotzu hospital who organised the initiative. This makes it even more important to develop a rational aid plan for the Gaza Strip. “Now things must be done well” he underlines, “without emotional reactions”. The five medics who participated in the initiative were able to see the most advanced techniques and technology in the sector at the Kidney pathology department led by Mauro Frongia. The medics received their training as planned and now the project of the transplant centre in Ramallah can continue. Ayyoub stresses that the problem in the West Bank is that under the present circumstances “the patients don’t only suffer from their disease but also have problems when being transported to the various centres for dialysis” due to the frequent presence of road blocks, he explains. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
AU: Muammar Gaddaffi, Call Me ‘King of African Kings’
(ANSAmed) — ADDIS ABABA, FEBRUARY 3- The Libyan leader Muammar Gaddaffi, who yesterday was elected head of the African Union at the summit of the heads of states and governments in Addis Ababa, said that from now on he wants to be known as “King of the traditional African kings”. Sources reported the news at the end of the summit. Gaddaffi is reported to have made the decision after putting on the traditional dress of African kings during a ceremony in their presence held in Libya a few weeks ago. The Libyan leader had seven African kings accompany him to Addis Ababa, wearing vividly coloured clothes decorated with precious metals, but they were unable to take part in the summit for security reasons. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Energy: Egypt Can Continue to Sell Gas to Israel
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, FEBRUARY 3 — The Administrative High Court of Egypt has decided that the country can continue to sell natural gas to Israel, annulling a previous decision, according to a France Presse report. In November — the local press writes — an Egyptian court granted an appeal lodged by a group of people who oppose the normalisation of relations with Israel, ordering the suspension of a 15-year gas supply contract signed in 2005 by both countries. This decision has now been annulled by the High Court, because it would have damaged the “sovereignty” of the State, which “would not have respected its commitments and agreements with other countries”. The High Court also established that a group of experts will be consulted on the matter during a hearing on March 16. One of the initiators of the appeal, Ibrahim Yousri, a former diplomat, announced that he will turn directly to President Hosni Mubarak to ask him to suspend the contract. Israel’s ministry for infrastructures welcomed the decision of the High Court, underlining that the contract in question is “strategic and crucial” for the country’s energy supply. According to the contract the Israeli-Egyptian East Mediterranean Gas consortium sells 1.7 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year to Israel’s power company CEI for 15 years and a total of 2.5 billion dollars. A 100km submarine gas pipeline transports the gas from Al-Arich, in northern Sinai, close to the Gaza Strip, to the Israeli port of Ashqelon, south of Tel Aviv. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: Gaddafi’s Son Critical of Arabs for Leaders Inaction
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, FEBRUARY 3 — A severe criticism of Arabs for not having held their leaders to account for their inaction during the recent Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip was made by Seif al-Islam, son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. “In Israel when an error is made or a defeat occurs those responsible are removed from their positions and elections are organised, said Seif al-Islam in an interview with the pan Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Aswat. This is what the Arabs don’t have. The governments remain (in power), as do the heads, the leaders, despite the losses, the wars, the defeats. The Arabs, continued Gaddafi’s son, who heads the Gaddafi Foundation, won’t make progress until capable people are put in the right positions and are replaced when mistakes are made. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas Bid to Replace PLO Unacceptable
(ANSAmed) — PARIS — Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), defined the appeal by a Hamas leader last week for a new representative body of the Palestinian people as ‘totally unacceptable’’. Speaking to journalists at the end of a meeting with the French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the Elyse’e Palace, Mahmoud Abbas said that Hamas’ call ‘to replace Fatah, the PLO (the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, ed.), is totally unacceptable’’. The head of the Palestinian Authority was referring to comments made by Hamas political leader, Khaled Meshaal, in exile in Damascus, in support of a new structure that would represent ‘the Palestinian people in the territory and those in the Diaspora’’. At the end of his meeting with Sarkozy in Paris, the first stop on a series of visits to European capitals to conclude in Rome, Mahmoud Abbas went on to add that ‘‘Hamas is an integral part of the Palestinian population. We must carry on a dialogue with Hamas to reach a solution in the context of a government of national unity for the election’’. The Palestinian leader announced that he had discussed ‘‘the role that France could have after the formation of an Israeli government and the inauguration of a new American administration’’ with Sarkozy. ‘‘We hope that the European Union will also be able to play a political role’’ in the peace process, he added. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: UNICEF, USD 34.5 Mln Needed for Children and Families
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 3 — Unicef, the UN agency for children, has launched an appeal to collect 34.5 million dollars for children and families in Gaza. The request is part of the appeal the United Nations launched yesterday in Geneva for 613 million dollars for children and families to cover a period of more than nine months. Unicef is already supplying emergency aid, and financial and technical assistance. More money is needed to allow Unicef to carry out 20 projects for children. Most of this money, 12 million dollars, will be used for programmes to protect children, 9.5 million dollars are destined for education. Unicef also has a leading role in the coordination of humanitarian aid and the protection of minors, education together with Save the Children, psychological support with the WHO, as well as the reconstruction of the sanitary system. The water system has been seriously damaged and families have no strength left after the 18-month blockade. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mideast: Israel Adopts Sanctions Against Al Jazeera TV
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, FEBRUARY 3 — The Israeli government has decided to adopt a series of sanctions against Qatar’s television network Al Jazeera, apparently in response to the decision made by Qatar to close Israel’s sales department in Doha. Israel is also displeased with the way the network covered the Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza, saying Al Jazeera was on the side of the Islamic movement. The Israeli authorities seem to have decided to limit Al Jazeera’s activities by not renewing or granting entry visas to the network, making it difficult for its journalists to have access to briefings and press conferences. Only three spokesmen, from the premier’s office, the foreign ministry and the armed forces, can be interviewed by the Arab television network. A source in Israel’s foreign ministry said that the sanctions are part of “a revision of relations with Al Jazeera in the light of the present situation” in which Qatar has grown closer to Iran and the group of “radical” Arab countries. Qatar closed Israel’s sales department in response to the Israeli offensive in Gaza. At first, according to daily Haaretz, the government even considered closing Al Jazeera’s offices in Israel but decided not to do so for legal reasons. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Semitism Growing in Turkey, Economic Boycott Against Israel
Signs of anti-Semitism are on the rise in Turkey following a rift between Erdogan and Peres in Davos. Turks are boycotting Israeli goods; Israelis cancel trips to Turkey.
Istanbul (AsiaNews) — Relations between Turkey and Israel are tense, coming close to a crisis point after Turkish Prime Minister got up a left a round-table discussion in Davos to protest Israeli President Shimon Peres’ defence of his country’s offensive in Gaza. Especially worrisome are signals of rising anti-Semitism in the Turkish population and of cooling economic relations between the two countries.
Turkey’s Milliyet newspaper published a front page interview with the president of the Turkish Jewish Community Silvyo Ovadya titled: “We do not want tolerance, but equality.” In it Ovadya tried to explain what is happening in his country after the Davos incident.
“I am Turkish,” said Ovadya, “and I do not want tolerance. The constitution and democracy are enough for me. Of course, anyone is free to criticise Israel’s policies, but every attack against Israel can stir hatred against Jews. I am proud to say that I am Turkish everywhere in the world. This is my citizenship; here I am neither a guest, nor a foreigner. Why should I need other people’s tolerance towards me?”
Born in Istanbul in 1955 and a graduate in electronic engineering, Ovadya did his military service in the Turkish army in Cyprus. He is a fan of the Fenerbache soccer team. He also rails against the rising anti-Semitism in Turkey. He is not alone.
On 23 January of this year, five of the main US Jewish organisations wrote a letter to Prime Minister Tayyp Erdogan asking him to “urgently address current wave of anti-Semitism”.
“Dear Prime Minister Erdogan,” began the letter, “We write to express our profound concern over the current wave of anti-Semitic manifestations in Turkey. Many recent incidents are gravely distressing to us. Protestors besieging the Israeli Consulate in Istanbul have expressed their hatred of Jews. Billboards around Istanbul are full of anti-Jewish propaganda posters. . . . We have been longstanding friends of the Republic of Turkey and have always valued our relationship with your Government. In the spirit of this historic relationship, we express our deep concern and, recalling your earlier denunciation of anti-Semitism as a ‘crime against humanity,’ call on you to urgently address these disturbing developments.”
Two weeks after the incident Jews have not been experienced any physical attack Ovadya said, partly because Istanbul police has stepped security around synagogues, but the psychological pressure is very strong. Cases of intolerance are daily occurrences.
“A Jewish child, who is good at school, was recently ridiculed and verbally abused during school break by fellow students; a policeman protecting a synagogue refused a lunch meal that was offered to him because it was ‘Jewish food;’ the door of a Jewish-owned shop near Istanbul University was covered with a poster that said, “Do not buy from here, since this shop is owned by a Jew,” a bitter Ovadya said.
For some time now various Turkish organisations have been promoting a boycott campaign targeting Israeli products. This could hurt Israel, whose exports to Turkey are worth more than US$ 3 billion a year.
Indeed whilst the crisis between Israel and Turkey has not touched military cooperation between the two countries, it is having great repercussions on economic relations.
Israel too is hitting back at Turkey’s tourism-based economy. The atmosphere of tensions has persuaded many Israelis to cancel their planned vacations to Turkey. Travel agencies have seen flight bookings on Turkish Airlines to Turkey’s main resort areas drop by as much as 70 per cent, a serious blow for Turkey’s tourist sector. Last year alone half a million Israelis visited Istanbul and other Turkish cities thanks to great tour deals that gave even low-income families a chance to visit Turkish beach resorts or archaeological sites on the Mediterranean coast, in places like Bodrum and Antalya.
Despite everything Israel’s ambassador to Turkey remains upbeat. “I am confident and trustful that we are going to be able—within a period of time—to come back to business as usual in our relations,” Ambassador Gaby Levy said. “It is in the interest of both countries to start trying to calm down and move forward.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Automotive: Ford Turkey Halts Production Till Mid February
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, FEBRUARY 2 — Turkish Ford’s car factory in Kocaeli (Otosan) halted its production on Saturday till February 16, as reported by Anatolia news agency. Turk Metal Union official Yucel Yucel said that parallel to the negative developments in the global markets and decline in demand in the domestic market, Ford Otosan halted production and sent 6,400 employees on paid leave. Yucel said the factory worked for only for five days in January. Ford Otosan, had laid off 300 employees in its factory last month in Inonu, and halted production in its Kocaeli factory between October 25 and November 2, November 13-27 and December 20 and January 12. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Daily Star on Stands, ‘We Are an Independent Source’
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, FEBRUARY 2 — After an 18 day absence, this morning English language newspaper ‘The Daily Star’ returned to Lebanese newsstands after being suspended for over 2 weeks by a court in Beirut. “We have returned to give readers an independent source of news and opinions”, wrote director and editor Jamil Mroue on the front page. On January 14 the management of the newspaper was notified that it would be forced to close due to bankruptcy. The decision was made after a British bank that loaned money to the newspaper, Standard Chartered, sued the heads of the newspaper. Mroue made an appeal and the order was suspended. “Salaries and other expenses must be paid off and advertising revenues are in sharp decline. This is a particularly situation for a newspaper that fights to not be subservient to local political or foreign forces”, continued Mroue in his editorial. Founded in 1952, the Daily Star for years was one of the main newspapers in Lebanon, directed by founder Kamil Mroue who was assassinated in 1966. In 1995 it returned to newsstands under Jamil Mroue, Kamil’s son. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Tensions Rise Over Bekaa Valley Water Crisis
(by Lorenzo Trombetta) (ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, FEBRUARY 3 — The “war over water” has until now been an idea connected to hypothetic future scenarios, even if in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley there has been tension between clans for over a half century which threaten to erupt “soon” due to increasing water shortages. The Lebanese bishop, Samaan Atallah, launched the alarm from the village of Nabha, a town in the northern part of Beqaa 30 km from Baalbeck, the primary centre of the remote eastern provinces of Lebanon. “The state must intervene, because tension is continuing to increase and it could soon erupt”, the bishop affirmed. In Nabha, water is getting scarce and an old dispute between the two most important clans in the area, the Shiite Amhaz and the Catholic-Maronite Tauq, worsened by current political divisions risks falling once again into violence. “Nothing can be grown on this terrain, there are more than 20 hectares that cannot be used”, stressed Abd al-Wahhab Amhaz, leader of the Shiite clan of the same name. They own the largest amount of land in the area, once wetlands with an abundance of water that came down from the peak of ‘al-Qurna al-Sawda’, the highest in Lebanon at 3,083 metres above sea level. A bloody feud for control over the water resources erupted between the Amhaz and the Tauq in 1951. The latter decided to take the high ground, near the source of the water, and in order to irrigate their crops altered the flow of the streams that had originally led to the valley floor. Since that day, Amhaz sustained from the town of Irin, the news service from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the flow of water has decreased and the feud between the two clans over he years continued to spill blood (over 10 victims since 1991). Currently, the gradual increase in temperatures, the drop in water reserves and the vertiginous increase in the population of the area (from today’s 4 million, which should double by 2025), push researchers to see whether in the coming years the demand from the irrigated fields in the valley, where almost half of the population depends on agriculture, will rise by 18%. “It isn’t our fault if the water doesn’t flow into the valley, because it doesn’t rain enough”, affirmed Milhem Tauq, one of the representatives from the clan claiming the higher ground. Today the Shiite clan has found political and economic backing from Hezbollah, which has emerged in the last 15 years as the real power in Bekaa. Strengthened by this support, Amhaz went to the town of Baalbeck last September to protest against the situation, and the tension continues to rise. “Only the government can resolve this problem, but it must be soon”, repeated the Maronite bishop. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Militants Urged to Renounce Violence and “Return to Normal Life”
Riyadh, 3 Feb. (AKI) Saudi Arabia has issued a list of 83 militant fugitives based overseas and called on them to turn themselves in to authorities and “return to a normal life.”
According to a report in the local newspaper, ‘al-Watan’, 81 citizens and two Yemenis may have fled the country in order to re-enter secretly and carry out attacks.
Saudi television read the names and showed photos of some of the wanted men and said they had “adopted the straying ideology,” a reference to al-Qaeda.
Authorities have asked them to give themselves up to police and “return to a normal life”.
But they fear they may be following Muhammad al-Awfi and Said al-Shahri, who after returning from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, fled to Yemen to form a new terror cell.
Saudi Arabia also put hundreds of militants through a rehabilitation program which included education by clerics to “correct” their thinking and financial help to start a new life.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Stakelbeck on Dividing Jerusalem
Dear friends,
One of the main points of contention in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians is the Palestinian desire to assume control of East Jerusalem.
It’s the Israeli capital and Judaism’s holiest city. Muslims counter that it is the third holiest site in Islam.
But for Israel a unified Jerusalem is about much more than just history. It’s also about security.
I recently traveled to Israel, where I put together a story about the possible division of Jerusalem and the security challenges it would pose for Israelis. You can watch it here:
You can also see my brief report about recent Hezbollah terror plot in Europe that was thwarted with help from Israeli intelligence here.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey-Israel Trade Volume Rises by 135% Under Akp
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, FEBRUARY 2 — The trade volume between Turkey and Israel has reached to 3.3 billion dollars in 2008 from 1.4 billion dollars in 2002 when the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development came to power, daily Hurriyet reports. The official data showed that Turkey’s exports reached 1.9 billion dollars in 2008 from 1.6 billion dollars in 2007. Turkey’s imports from Israel rose 36% in 2008 to 1.4 billion dollars. One of the main trade items between two countries is the defense industry. Turkey had auctioned the modernization of the M-60 tanks to the Israel Military Industries (IMI) for 668 million dollars. The IMI also won the modernization of the 300 military helicopters for 57 million dollars. Turkey signed three other deals with Israel for the modernization of war jets. The financial amount of these agreements is 850 million dollars. The tension rose between Turkey and Israel after Ankara harshly criticized the Israel’s operations in the Gaza Strip which left more than 1,300 people killed. The Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s reaction to storm out of the Gaza session in Davos is unlikely to effect the mutual relations, experts say. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Democracy Slow to Come to Afghan Women
by James Palmer
Khadija Ahmadi was the only woman on the 13-person radio station staff.
The 30-year-old mother of three was highly regarded by co-workers for groundbreaking broadcasts in this western Afghan city — ones that allowed women to speak openly about their personal and family troubles over the airwaves.
The show, as Mrs. Ahmadi described it, was “unique and controversial.”
So controversial that it sparked violence.
On April 6, a grenade was hurled over the wall of Mrs. Ahmadi’s compound, damaging the second floor of her house. A similar attack followed four days later. Fearing for her safety, Mrs. Ahmadi abandoned the job and fled with her family to Tajikistan for the better part of the year.
Since returning to Herat late last year, she has reported to work but won’t go on the air.
A sign outside of a hair salon in Herat, Afghanistan on December 13, 2008, on which a women’s face was painted over.
Despite sweeping reforms in recent years affording women more rights and opportunities under Afghanistan’s democratically-elected government, women here are still living and working in fear. ‘We made gains after the Taliban but then we began loosing ground in 2004,’ said Soraya Sobhrang, who heads the women’s division of the Afghan Independent Rights Commission (AIHRC). According to the AIHRC, honor killings, rape, kidnapping, sexual harassment, forced marriages and child marriages are on the rise throughout the country. (James Palmer/The Washington Times)
“These people are just against women,” Mrs. Ahmadi said of her attackers. “Many people hear the word democracy, but they have no idea what it means.”
Under Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, Afghan women were forbidden to work, pursue education or even step outside their homes without a relative. Despite sweeping reforms and new laws affording everyone more rights and opportunities under Afghanistan’s democratically elected government, women here still live and work in fear.
“Men in Afghanistan always want to dominate women,” Mrs. Ahmadi said. “The man has the first and last word.”
[continued at link]
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Indonesia: Islamic Fundamentalists Want to Ban Rotary and Lions Clubs: They Are Pro-Israel, and Masonic
The accusation is that they finance Israel secretly, and represent Freemasonry in Indonesia, prohibited under Sukarno. Threats also against Muslim members of the two organizations: “they can consider themselves infidels.”
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — Banning the Lions and Rotary clubs. This is the public request that the Forum of Ulemas and Muslims (FUUI) has addressed to Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
The Islamic fundamentalist group charges that the two organizations “might have secretly donated funds to Israel.” The president of the FUUI, Athian Ali Muhammad Da’i, says that the Rotary and Lions clubs “are not social organizations but are part of the Freemasonry and Zionist movements, which could endanger Islam.”
Together with its request for the ban, the fundamentalist group is also warning the Islamic faithful: “We urge all Muslims to renounce membership in the Rotary Club and the Lions Club. Otherwise, they can consider themselves infidels.” In support of the request, Da’i affirms that other religious organizations — among which he also cites the Vatican — have banned their faithful from joining the two associations.
For the president of the FUUI, the Rotary and Lions clubs “have introduced Jewish ideals to their Muslim members,” and “seek information from the members, which are prominent figures in Indonesia’s government and society, which can be used for the Zionists’ political and economic agenda.”
Dean Boulding, vice president of the Jakarta Rotary Club, calls the request of the FUUI “funny.” “One of our co-founders was a Mason and several of the original Rotarians were also Masons, and in the early days meetings were occasionally held in Masonic halls. But that was more than a century ago.”
Freemasonry came to Indonesia during the period of Dutch rule, but it was prohibited by former president Sukarno precisely because of its connection with colonialism, and that ban is still in place.
Ma’ruf Amin, deputy chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and an advisor to the president on religious affairs, says that “we have not received any complaints from the organizations yet.” The MUI has not taken any measures following the statements from the FUUI, and reserves the privilege of carrying out its own investigations before issuing any fatwas or edicts.
The FUUI has distinguished itself in the recent past for its public initiatives in defense of the purity of Islam, and against any foreign influence. In 2008, the organization supported the campaign for banning Jamaah Ahmadiyah Indonesia, the Ahmadis, accused of being an heretical sect of Islam.
According to Raja Juli Antony, executive director of the independent Maarif Institute, the accusation of the FUUI is connected above all to the initiatives that the two organizations are carrying out in favor of young students in Indonesia, an activity that is viewed negatively by Islamic groups. For Raja, the war in Gaza has sharpened the hostility toward the Rotary and Lions clubs, which have always been considered expressions of the United States.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Myanmar, Children Exploited for Less Than 30 Cents a Day
They work as farmhands, waiters, on building sites and in the fishing industry. Their “wage” varies from 0.25 to 0.85 US dollars a day. According to Save the Children over 400 children have abandoned school.
Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Small children forced to work for a “wage” less then 30 cents of a US dollar a day. The alarm is being sounded by a non governmental organisation — that asks to remain anonymous for security reasons — in Myanmar, according to who the practise of the forcing minors to work, in slave-like conditions, is still widespread today. Among those worst hit are children in the Irrawaddy delta region, badly hit by cyclone Nargis last May.
Burmese businessmen, fishermen, and farmers use male workers aging between 10 and 15 in order to pay out below minimum wages: for one working day the children receive a wage that varies between 300 and 1000 kyat ( 0.25 — 0.85US dollars), compared to an adult wage that varies between 1500 and 3000 kyat (1.50 — 2.50 US dollars).
“Children willingly work for 300 kyat and a meal”, says a member of the NGO, while local sources add “they are easier to control and they put up with heavy workloads”. In Myanmar it is not uncommon to meet children as young as eight who work aboard fishing boats, as waiters in the building industry or in the fields.
“I am tired but I am happy that I survived”, 10 year-old orphan Myo Min tells The Irrawaddy. Now he lives with his brother and works full time on a fishing boat. 11 year-old Po Po, also lost a brother and his father last May: he has abandoned his studies and now works as a waiter in a restaurant in Labutta. He earns 5000 kyat a month (equal to 4.20 US dollars) as a dishwasher and says he cries “every night” because he misses his mother.
According to the international organisation Save the Children An estimated 400,000 children did not return to school after the cyclone; about 40 percent of the 140,000 people who were killed or disappeared in the cyclone disaster were children. Many who survived were orphaned or separated from their parents.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Al-Qaeda Attacks on NATO Routes ‘Revenge for Gaza’
Militants are carrying out attacks against NATO supply lines in northwest Pakistan to avenge the killing of Palestinians in Gaza, Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has purportedly said in a new audio message. The message was released hours after militants blew up a key Khyber pass bridge on a road along which 80 percent of NATO provisions enter Afghanistan.
The tape’s authenticity has not yet been verified.
“We cut off supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan in solidarity with Gazans,” al-Zawahiri said in the 17-minute tape posted overnight to jihadist websites.
“We repeat to our brothers in Gaza that we are with them and will avenge them in Afghanistan by fighting head on their modern-day Crusader campaign which extends from Chechnya to Somalia and from Afghanistan to North Africa,” al-Zawahiri stated.
“I give you some good news. The moment that Israel launches bomb attacks against Gaza, Islamabad has been forced to cut off NATO supplies,” he said.
Pakistani authorities estimate it will take at least 10 days before the bridge is rebuilt and NATO’s Khyber pass supply route can reopen.
[…]
Against the backdrop of a still image of al-Zawahiri, Arab leaders and dead Palestinian children, he urges Muslims to inflict human and material losses against western and Arab states and Israel and to overthrow Arab regimes.
Al-Zawahiri also mocks US President Barack Obama’s expression of concern over the killings in Gaza as an empty gesture.
“We received your deep concern accompanied with thousands of rockets and bullets, and tonnes of white phosphorous, mixed with the blood, body parts and tears of the Muslims in Gaza.
“But the deep concern of Obama did not last for long. During his inauguration speech, he did not mention one word about what happened in Gaza, as if nothing happened.”
| — Hat tip: Holger Danske | [Return to headlines] |
US Congresswoman Visits Faizul Islam Campus in Rawalpindi
ISLAMABAD: Promotion of mutual understanding between the people of the United States and Pakistan is required to remove misconceptions and ensure bilateral cooperation for the world peace.
This was stated by visiting member of the US Congress Shella Jackson Lee after her visit to the Faizul Islam Campus of the Anjuman Faizul Islam Rawalpindi on Tuesday. President of Anjuman Mian Siddique Akbar briefed the visiting Congresswoman on the working of the organisation.
He said the Anjuman was constituted in 1943 to provide shelter and necessities of life to destitute children. It is a reform-oriented welfare and academic body of moderate and broad-minded social workers from different walks of life, he said and added since its inception it had been striving to promote welfare and educational activities without indulging in politics, sectarianism and extremism.
The Anjuman, he said, had emerged as one of the well-reputed welfare organisations of Pakistan, which has earned the confidence of philanthropists in its efforts to provide shelter, necessities of life and facilities of formal and technical education to orphans and destitute children in its six welfare centres situated in and around Rawalpindi. The visiting guest thanked the office-bearers and members of the Anjuman for their hospitality.
| — Hat tip: Holger Danske | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: Muslim Cleric Sentenced to 15-Years in Jail for Terror Plot
A Muslim cleric was found guilty of plotting ‘violent jihad’ and acts of violence to pressure the Australian government to withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Melbourne, 3 Feb. (AKI) — An Australian Muslim cleric was sentenced to 15 years in jail on Tuesday for setting up a terror network that plotted attacks on major sporting events. Six of his followers were also sentenced to heavy jail terms, in what is considered the country’s biggest terrorism trial.
The 48-year-old Algerian-born cleric, Abdul Nacer Benbrika, will not be eligible for parole for 12 years. His followers received terms ranging from six to 10 years, but they may be eligible for parole before serving their full sentences.
In the highest court in the state of Victoria, judge Bernard Bongiorno sentenced Benbrika and his terror cell followers for directing and being a member of a terrorist organisation, as well as possessing material linked to the preparation of a terror attack.
“The organisation fostered and encouraged its members to engage in violent jihad and to perform a terrorist act,” Bongiorno told the court.
Bongiorno added that Benbrika and his followers had shown no remorse since guilty verdicts were handed down last September, and there was no evidence they had renounced their violent beliefs.
Defence lawyers argued that Benbrika and his men had no explosives, no weapons and no specific targets, and they were led by a ‘sheikh who couldn’t organise a booze-up in a brewery’.
Bongiorno disagreed and explained the guilty verdict.
“To be guilty of the offence of membership, it was not necessary that the terrorist organisation to which they belonged had gone as far as selecting a particular target. The organisation became a terrorist organisation…once it engaged in any activity which could be characterised as fostering or preparing the doing of a terrorist act,” said Bongiorno in a court transcript.
Other media reports said Benbrika and his men had chosen the country’s biggest football championship final and Melbourne’s Formula One Grand Prix as targets for potential attacks.
However, Bongiorno also said that jihadist material shown to Benbrika’s followers had the effect of ‘desensitising’ members of the group and that a key prosecution witness had lied to police about the so-called targets.
Benbrika’s followers were handed down different jail sentences ranging from six to ten years.
Aimen Joud, 24, was sentenced to 10 years in prison, while Fadl Sayadi, 29, was sentenced to eight years, Ezzit Raad, 27, was sentenced to five years, Twenty-three-year-old Abdullah Merhi, was sentenced to six years in jail.
Ahmed Raad, 25, was sentenced to 10 years, while Amer Haddara, 29, must serve a six-year sentence.
During the trial more than 50 witnesses gave evidence and thousands of hours of telephone intercepts and other recordings were played to the court.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Maroni in Libya to Unblock Patrols
(ANSAmed) — ROME — Caution is still advisable, but it would appear that the launch of joint Italo-Libyan patrols off the African coast is finally close at hand, despite problems and setbacks of recent years. The Interior Minister Roberto Maroni will be in Tripoli tomorrow where he will remain until Thursday, to sign a statement of understanding with the Libyan authorities. The timing of his visit is no coincidence, coming on the day that the Senate votes to ratify the bill on the treaty of friendship signed between Prime Minister Berlusconi and the Libyan leader Gaddaffi last August. The agreement on patrols was signed in December 2007 and is re-stated in the Treaty. Meanwhile, Maroni’s visit has been heralded by internal polemics in Italy surrounding some of the statements the minister made yesterday, when he said that to deal with illegal immigration ‘‘we should be nasty, not conciliatory: determined to apply the full weight of the law’’. The Interior minister has for months been repeating that as soon as the agreement with Libya is in place, the number of embarkations of immigrants headed towards the Italian coast will dwindle almost to zero. The large majority of boats which land at Lampedusa and other Sicilian beaches set out from Libyan ports (such as Zuwarah, which is near the Tunisian border). These are embarkations that an effective maritime patrolling operation off Libya’s coast should be able to discourage. But finding an agreement with Tripoli has not proved at all easy: there have been misunderstandings, false starts and halts midway, tiring debates and failures of understanding which the minister has been party to. Maroni’s trip has thus been preceded by several meetings with the Libyan ambassador in Rome, Hafed Gaddur, whilst over the past few days a delegation headed by the Rome’s Prefect, Rodolfo Ronconi, has flown to Tripoli. With the end now in sight, this week as Parliament signs the definitive ratification of the friendship treaty with Libya, a green light should also be given to the patrols, which should set off before the end of the month. The agreement sees Italy hand over six ‘Guardia di finanza’ (Customs and finance police) motorboats to the Libyan authorities; the crews will initially be spliced with Italians taking care of training, assistance and maintenance of the vessels. Italy is also expected to provide twenty small boats for use by the Libyan police. There is also the complex issue of the southern Libyan borders: thousands of miles of dessert, crossed by desperate sub-Saharan Africans fleeing wars and famine. Tripoli has for some time been asking Europe for help in equipment and surveillance technology for use in the area. In this case, the agreement plans for the installation of a network of satellite controls to monitor the border on the sands. Finmeccanica will be the manufacturer: the friendship Treaty reports that Italy will cover 50% of the cost, whilst Rome and Tripoli will apply to the European Union for further support. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Canary Islands Landing; 3 Migrants Dead
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, FEBRUARY 3 — A boat with 74 migrants on board, as well as the bodies of 3 dead migrants, landed at dawn at the port of Arguineguin, on the southern part of Grand Canary island, after marine rescue vessels went to its assistance 60 miles off the coast. The immigrants, all sub-Saharan African and probably from Gambia, were all in poor condition due to their long voyage at sea. According to accounts of several of the survivors, the migrants, which include at least 10 minors, were adrift for between 8 to 10 days. After the alert was given by air patrols, marine rescue service despatched rescue vessel, Salvamar Menkalinan, to the area, which located the boat about 60 miles off the coast of Grand Canary. Three sub-Saharans were already dead, while the other 74 boarded a rescue boat, and were transported to the port of Arguineguin. Last Sunday, another 68 migrants landed at the port of La Luz on Las Palmas Island, after being rescued by Esperanza del Mar, a hospital ship, which had been notified by a fishing boat. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisians Transferred From Lampedusa to Rome
(ANSAmed) — LAMPEDUSA (AGRIGENTO), FEBRUARY 3 — Sixty Tunisian migrants have been transferred from the temporary shelter in Lampedusa to Rome by aeroplane, with sixty more to follow. The Tunisians will be taken to the identification and expulsion centre in Ponte Galeria, while they wait to be returned to their country in small groups. The repatriation should start in the coming days with scheduled flights from Fiumicino Airport. Last week Interior Minister Roberto Maroni signed an agreement in Tunis for the repatriation of around 500 Tunisian immigrants in two months. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Behead a Christian, Raise Your Rank
Islam’s Shariah cited in 7 of 10 worst nations worldwide
Reports that at least 10 Christians were abducted and killed for their faith — sometimes by beheading — during 2008 has pushed Somalia into the Top 10 among nation’s that aggressively persecute Christians, according to a new report from Open Doors USA.
The organization today released its 2009 World Watch List, which cited Korea — for the seventh straight year — as the nation that persecutes Christians more intensely than any other around the globe.
But Somalia rose from 12th in 2008 to 5th this year because of the growing level of attacks there, according to the report which noted two of the worst three nations, Saudi Arabia and Iran, are nations governed by Islamic Shariah law, and seven of the Top 10 nations fall into that category.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims Have U.N. in Their Pocket
On Jan. 21, an appeals court in the Netherlands ordered filmmaker Geert Wilders (who is also a member of that nation’s own parliament) to stand trial on a charge of “insulting” and “spreading hatred” against Muslims. His 2008 short film, “Fitna,” showed verses from the Quran over actual scenes of violence by Islamic terrorists. The court, reported Fox News (Jan. 22), ruled that these insults to Islam were so egregious that the defense of free speech did not apply, and it is in the public interest to prosecute him.
If convicted, Wilders faces a maximum sentence of two years in prison. Said the defendant: “I lost my freedom already four and a half years ago in October 2004, when my 24-hour police protection started because of threats by Muslims in Holland and abroad to kill me.”
I have heard from Muslims in this country that jihadists around the world have more than insulted traditional Muslim law by their fierce punishments of both non-Muslims and Muslims who have acted in speech or writing against jihadists’ reinterpretations of the Quran. Some of these protesters, exercising freedom of conscience, have been killed for their “blasphemy.”
What awaits Wilders in the Netherlands may be a harbinger of what will happen if a non-binding Dec. 18 U.N. resolution, passed by a strong majority in the General Assembly, becomes international law. The resolution urges U.N. members to take state action (punishment) against “defamation of religion” and “incitement to religious hatred” caused by defamation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
3 comments:
Baron, I'm subscribed to the RSS feed for GoV. However, the Daily Mews Feed is delayed by 5 days. Instead of seeing 2/4, I'm seeing 1/31. Any idea why?
Orlando --
Alas, this is a Blogger issue. We have heard of similar problems before.
I think you can around the problem by writing your own script for the RSS, but I have no idea how to do it. You'll need to consult a technical expert, someone who really knows what he's doing.
How Europe's companies are feeding Iran's bomb.
"One example of Germany's dysfunctional Iran policy is the energy and engineering giant Siemens. The company acknowledged last week at its annual stockholder meeting in Munich, which I attended, that it conducted €438 million in trade with Iran in 2008, and that its 290 Iran-based employees will remain active in the gas, oil, infrastructure and communications sectors."
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