There’s a lot of financial-crisis news tonight — the unemployment rate in Turkey is almost 14%, there are ominous signs from money supply indicators, and the bailout of AIG has benefited sharia finance.In other news, there were new incidents of violence in Greece, and George Galloway has been refused entry to Canada on the grounds of national security.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, CSP, Diana West, Henrik, Insubria, JD, KGS, Reinhard, TB, Tuan Jim, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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Diana West: Bailout Fallout: Uncle Sam’s Sharia Board
Meet Moe, Larry and Curly. I mean, Mohamed, Muhammad, and Mohammed.* As members of the AIG Takaful Shariah Advisory Board, they really work for you and me, the American taxpayer, ever since we the people bought an 80 percent stake in the bankrupt insurance company.
How’s that for bait and switch? While we agonize over chump-change AIG bonuses, we ignore the fact we’re paying for the subversion of liberty and justice for all by funding AIG’s promotion and entrenchment of sharia—Jew-, Christian-, and humanist-hostile supremacist Islamic law. As of December 2008, by the way, AIG Takaful insurance products went on sale in the USA under the ironically named Lexington Takaful Solutions.
Lexington, Lexington—wasn’t that where our experiment in liberty began with the shot heard round the world? Must have been a dream. At this rate, Lexington will go down in history as the beachhead of US taxpayer-funded sharia. From “taxation without representation” to taxation to support sharia: How the free have enslaved themselves.
But back to the Sharia team on Unlce Sam’s payroll…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
EU: Confusion Reigns Over Possible Eurozone Bailout Plan
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS — A summit of EU leaders in Brussels on Friday (20 March) was the scene of some confusion as to whether member states have agreed the bones of a eurozone bailout plan.
A senior German politician, Otto Bernhardt, member of the German chancellor’s CDU party, told Reuters early on Friday that eurozone finance ministers agreed at a recent meeting the main components of a eurozone bailout plan that would see richer countries contribute to a special reserve fund to which struggling eurozone members could apply.
However, German finance minister Peer Steinbrück was somewhat cryptic when asked about the funds existence at a press conference later in the day. “I can’t confirm such a meeting or such conclusions,” adding that no eurozone member currently had difficulties in meeting debt payments.
“In the unlikely case that it did happen, the eurozone would be ready for action,” he said.
Mr Bernhardt told Reuters that the fund has already been set up with the European Central Bank and is ready to help eurozone countries “at a moments notice”, continuing that “we won’t let anyone go bust.”
“We are in a position to act within 24 hours. The ECB would take immediate action,” he said. “The ECB can make an unlimited amount of money available.”
Ireland, which Mr Bernhardt said was in “the worst situation of all” immediately denied the existence of such a plan.
“Finance ministers didn’t discuss anything to do with a rescue package for members of the euro zone” Irish foreign minister Micheal Martin told Irish radio on Friday morning.
A German spokesperson said “there is no such plan” and that Mr Bernhardt said he had been misinterpreted.
European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said: “I am not aware of this kind of decision.”
But Mr Bernhardt was quite precise in the details he gave to Reuters, speaking of a quid pro quo arrangement on corporate tax, something that has also been previously reported in Irish newspapers.
“We would look very closely at past sins,” Mr Bernhardt said. “We will not tolerate there being low-tax countries like Ireland for example. We will insist on a minimum corporate taxation rate.”
Germany has long been irritated by Ireland’s low corporate tax rate, standing at 12 percent.
However, sweetners to business formed the backbone of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger years attracting huge amounts of foreign investment and Brian Cowen’s government wants to continue to use it to get the country — hit by a falling property market and plummeting exports — out of the financial doldrums.
In a speech delivered to Microsoft’s headquarters in Brussels on Thursday (19 March), Mr Cowen said the government plans “highly favourable business supports, tax regime and infrastructural supports,” in a bid to turn Ireland into a “smart” economy.
Talk of a eurozone bailout have cropped up persistently in recent weeks.
Earlier this month at a breakfast meeting at the European Policy Centre think-tank, economy commissioner Joaquin Almunia said the EU did have plan to help struggling eurozone states but refused to elaborate on the details.
“It is not clever to talk in public about this solution”.
Last month, Mr Steinbrueck said that richer eurozone countries may have to come to the aid of single currency nations that are having problems.
“The euro-region treaties do not foresee any help for insolvent states, but in reality the others would have to rescue those running into difficulty,” he said on 17 February.
Meanwhile, the European Central Bank on Friday denied the existence of a rescue fund.
“The reported information is for the ECB untrue,” a spokeswoman for the Frankfurt-based central bank said, reports Bloomberg news agency. The euro dropped after the comment was published.
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
Lessons for the West From Asian Capitalism
On balance, the strengths of Asian capitalism are greater than the weaknesses
ASIAN elites have always looked at the world differently from Western elites. And after this crisis is over, the gap in perspectives will widen. Asians will naturally view with caution any Western advice on economics, particularly because most Asians believe that the crisis has only vindicated the Asian approach to capitalism.
To be accurate, there is more than one Asian approach. China’s economy is managed differently from India’s. Yet neither China nor India has lost faith in capitalism, because both have elites who well remember living with the alternatives. The Chinese well remember the disasters that followed from the Maoist centrally planned economy. The Indians well remember the slow ‘Hindu rate of growth’ under Nehruvian socialism.
The benefits of the free market to Asia have been enormous: increased labour productivity, efficient use and deployment of national resources, a tremendous increase in economic wealth and, most importantly, hundreds of millions have been lifted out of absolute poverty.
Just look at Chinese history through Chinese eyes. From 1842 to 1979, the Chinese experienced foreign occupation, civil wars, a Japanese invasion, a cultural revolution. But after Deng Xiaoping gradually instituted free market reforms, the Chinese people experienced the fastest increase so far in their standard of living.
The desire for an orderly society is deeply ingrained in the psyche of all Asians, which helps explain why virtually all Asian states hesitated to copy America in deregulating their financial markets. Instinctively, they felt government supervision remained critical.
This was equally true in India’s democratic system and in China’s communist party system. It is telling that, while Y V Reddy, India’s former central bank governor, was occasionally vilified by his country’s media for holding back on deregulation, he has now become a national hero. His stance saved India from the worst effects of this crisis.
China was equally wary of deregulation. Indeed the Chinese leaders may have understood earlier than most that America was building a house of cards with its reckless creation of derivatives.
Gao Xiqing, an adviser to Zhu Rongji, then Chinese premier, said in 2000 that ‘if you look at every one of these (derivative) products, they make sense. But in aggregate, they are bullshit. They are crap. They serve to cheat people’. Mr Gao said all this while Alan Greenspan, as chairman of the US Federal Reserve, was waxing eloquent about the economic value of derivatives.
Asian culture has been honed by centuries of hard experience, which explains why Asians save more. All Asian societies have memories of turbulent times. They know from experience the importance of preparing for the bad days that will follow the good. Most Asian friends of mine find it inconceivable that some Americans can live from pay cheque to pay cheque. ‘But what happens if you lose your job?’ they ask.
The Asian financial crisis of 1997-98 may have been a blessing in disguise. The failure of the International Monetary Fund and Western policies then confirmed in Asian minds that they had to create their own safety mechanisms for economic downturns.
Thus began a decade-long exercise of accumulating foreign reserves. China’s went up from nearly US$145 billion at the end of 1998 to almost US$2,000 billion at the end of 2008. India’s went up from US$27.83 billion in early 1998 to US$315.6 billion in June 2008. This enormous pool has helped to protect Asian societies as they hunker down for the storm.
And when this storm is over, we should not be surprised to discover that the greatest global believers in capitalism will be in Asia. But it will be an Asian mix of capitalism, not the Western formula, that will become the dominant form of global capitalism, where the ‘invisible hand’ of free markets will be balanced by the ‘visible hand’ of good governance.
The Asian mix may have its own weaknesses. Asia is still underperforming in creativity and innovation. Corruption will remain a serious problem.
The Asian emphasis on the family unit may also be a mixed blessing. Many of Asia’s most successful entrepreneurs are keen to retain family control of the business. This enables them to take a long-term view. But the downside is nepotism and the lack of a deep culture of meritocracy.
On balance, the strengths of Asian capitalism are greater than the weaknesses. Within a decade Asians will have some of the largest free trade areas, including those between China and the Association of South East Asian Nations, the Japan-Asean FTA, and the India-Asean FTA that is likely to be set up.
Recent history has taught Asians a valuable lesson: more trade leads to greater prosperity. In the Asian way — two steps forward, one step back — trade barriers will gradually come down. By the middle of the 21st century, intra-Asian trade will far surpass that of any other region.
Despite this, there will be no ideological trumpeting of the virtues of Asian capitalism. After their experiences of the past 100 years, Asians are wary of ideology. They prefer the simple, commonsense approach of learning from experience and they will heed the advice of Adam Smith, who said that prudence is ‘of all the virtues that which is most useful to the individual’. It may also be helpful to nations.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Money Supply and Velocity Show the Crisis is Different This Time
As the table shows, rather than constricting money supply as it did during the Depression, the Fed has been aggressively increasing it in the current crisis.
According to the Fed’s statistics, M1 grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 17% in 2008 while M2 grew at a 9.9% rate. Both accelerated rapidly as the crisis deepened — M1 increasing at a 39.6% and M2 at a 18.4% SAAR in 2008’s fourth quarter.
In contrast with the Depression, money’s velocity during the current crisis is not slowing because its supply contracted. Instead, the channels that had distributed it throughout the economy abruptly ceased to function. Following the irrigation simile, a vast extent of the economy is now parched.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Strangers to Business
PICK the odd man out: Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, John Key. Only one of them, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Key, has any material personal experience of how to make a dollar in the private sector. Rudd may be the wealthiest Prime Minister Australia has had, because of his wife’s admirable business acumen, but even that business is built on government contracts. Rudd’s experience is that of a lifelong public servant and politician, with a short stint as a consultant with KPMG. Obama is the world’s most famous community organiser, lawyer and, since 1996, full-time politician. Only Key — who was a manager at a clothing manufacturer and then moved into currency trading — has worked in a wholly private enterprise for any meaningful period of time.
This is not to denigrate the public service or community sectors. They do important work. But a lifelong immersion in the public sector creates a government-focused cast of mind and blind spots about the private sector. Obama and Rudd are in the business of pursuing growth by government programs, which demonstrates a dangerous ignorance of the role of growth led by productive private enterprise, small business in particular. No wonder Obama gave Rudd the thumbs up last week for the PM’s approach to the global financial crisis. But if there was ever a time when we needed those who understand the importance of growth in the private sector, it’s now.
If you doubt that blind spot, here is how US Vice-President Joe Biden explained the Obama administration’s strategy to help small business. He was asked on the CBS Early Show by a viewer who had laid off most of her staff last year how the US President’s trillion-dollar stimulus package would help small business. Biden was plainly stumped. After buying time by suggesting the woman contact his office, he then spluttered that “it may very well be that she’s in a circumstance where she is not able, her customers aren’t able to get to her, there’s no transit capability, the bridge going across the creek to get to her business needs repair, may very well be that she’s in a position where she is unable to access the — her energy costs are so high by providing smart meters, by being able to bring down the cost of her workforce”.
This is not a spoof. Either Biden is a buffoon who does not know his stuff or there is no stuff to know. The best Biden could conjure up for a small business owner was to build a bridge to improve her customers’ “transit capacity” and smart meters so she can count her energy costs.
Closer to home, addressing the NSW Chamber of Commerce in Sydney a few weeks ago, Rudd had nothing much to tell small business either. Small business men and women waited in vain for Rudd’s vision for small business. All they got was Rudd’s standard helicopter made-for-television view of the GFC and Australia’s response to it. There was no chance for questions and answers. “It was all spin and no substance,” said one businessman at the luncheon.
Rudd’s appointment of Craig Emerson as Small Business Minister was promising. Yet the Government as a whole demonstrates no understanding that, with two million small businesses employing about 4.5 million people, according to the Council of Small Business of Australia, small business is the key to real growth.
Now ask yourself why the Obama administration and the Rudd Government have nothing much to offer small business. Given that both are committed to industrial relations reforms that boost the power of unions, perhaps they have very little interest in small business where unions have no hold? Or could it be that neither is focused on growth derived from private enterprise, preferring to forge ahead with growth by bigger government? A bit of both perhaps.
Key, on the other hand, understands what is needed to make businesses hum: lower taxes, smarter regulation and a flexible labour market. He has recognised that a one-off sugar hit — or cash splash — won’t help business employ people for any longer than it takes to spend the cash. Permanent tax cuts help business employ more staff — permanently.
He told The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Kissel a few weeks back that he is determined to stop the slide that has seen NZ fall to the bottom half on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s per-capita gross domestic product rankings. “We have been on a slippery slope … so we need to lift those per capita wages, and the only way to really do that is through productivity growth driving efficiency in the country.” Key is cutting taxes, reforming regulations that inhibited foreign capital and tackling environmental legislation that has been misused by green groups to stop private sector investment. Oh, and he is undertaking a line-by-line review of every government department as part of his Government’s commitment to capping spending.
No wonder Key is the odd man out. And it is a shame that NZ will not be attending the G20 meeting in London next month, the latest effort by world leaders to confront the global financial crisis. Spend big and all will be in order is Obama’s resounding theme. It’s all stimulus this and stimulus that. Is it too much to hope that G stands for growth, not group-think?
Yet real growth — through the private sector — is not a concept you hear much about these days. We have a Government that talks incessantly about the dangers of the GFC yet is steadfastly committed to industrial relations policies that will, through their unfair dismissal laws, discourage small businesses from employing more people. And a Government that only accidentally supports small business when it suits some other agenda, cherry picking small business stimulus winners to push Labor’s green credentials and its education revolution. Good for those who sell insulation batts and a small band of workers who will build new school halls. But there is no broader vision to encourage growth in the small business sector as a whole.
There is plenty the Rudd Government could do if encouraging jobs growth was its genuine focus. Banking on rising unemployment and focusing on retraining is not enough.
For example, the PM, keen to stamp his influence on state governments, ought to be paying the states to abolish payroll taxes — which have the direct effect of hindering employment — rather than funding this year’s sales of plasma TV sets. And that’s just for starters.
This could be the Liberal Party’s moment in the sun, reminding us it stands for encouraging real growth in small businesses, in the same heartland that once delivered it government.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
The Mother of All Depressions (MOAD)
The US government lit the fuse to the $683 trillion dollar derivative’s debt bomb on Wednesday March 18, 2009 with the announcement the Fed would purchase $300 billion dollars worth of US Treasury used toilet paper and an additional $750 billion dollars worth of mortgage backed used toilet paper. In total the commitment to counterfeit over a trillion dollars leaves only $682 trillion dollars worth of derivatives to sort out.
Economics is all about price discovery. No one knows what the real value is of the $683 trillion dollars in derivatives. No one knows who owns what. No one knows who owes what. If left to its own devices, the market would lower prices until all assets had a value to someone. The government in its infinite wisdom has just short-circuited this discovery mechanism.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Unemployment Rate Reaches Historic High
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 17 — Turkey’s unemployment rate jumped to 13.6% in the three months through January, the highest in at least four years, as falling orders from home and abroad sparked job losses in manufacturing. The rate rose from 10.6% in the same period of last year, according to the Turkish Statistical Institute’s household labor force survey for the period of December 2008, which covers November and December of 2008 as well as January of 2009. The jobless rate was 12.3% in the month-earlier period, as daily Hurriyet reports quoting Bloomberg. While the number of unemployed increase by 838,000 people compared to the same period last year, it has reached a total of 3.274 million. Unemployment increased 3.2% points in urban areas to reach 15.4%. Meanwhile, in rural areas jobless rate reached 10.7%, with an increase of 2.6 percentage points. Non-agricultural unemployment rate stood at 17.3% during the December period, with an increase of 4.3 percentage points compared to the same period a year earlier. Unemployment among men rose 4.2 percentage points to reach 16.3%, while jobless rate among women increased 4.1 percentage points to reach 20.9%. Turkeys economy grew 0.5% in the third quarter, the slowest in six years. The global crisis has slashed European demand for Turkish-made goods such as cars, leading automotive output to plunge an annual 62% in December. The slowdown limits the economy’s ability to absorb the youth who join the workforce every year. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Two Nations: Those Who Work, Those Who Won’t
Blaming immigrants for our unemployment levels misses the point: the problem is people who are bone idle
Michael’s alarm still goes at 5am every morning, by 7am he has cleaned his Notting Hill house, at 8am the children have a three-course breakfast and by 9 he has walked them to school and is sitting at his desk sending out his CV. Six weeks after he lost his job at Goldman Sachs, he still works a 14-hour day. He now waits tables at his favourite restaurant, sweeps the leaves from the communal garden tennis court and helps the neighbours’ Filipina housekeeper to clear the drains.
Paul Bright, a factory manager for a paper doily factory in Essex who has also been made redundant, has the same drive. At 60, he could retire. “All I want to do is work again,” he says. “I am like a smoker who doesn’t know what to do with his hands once he’s quit. I need to feel useful.”
The Chawners wouldn’t understand. Mr and Mrs Chawner and their two daughters insist that they are “too fat to work” because they have a combined weight of 83 stone — so they watch television all day living off their £22,000 benefits. In the past 11 years, only the youngest daughter, Emma, has attended a job interview and that was on The X Factor, where she was kicked out in the first round. Mr Chawner explains: “Often I’m so tired from watching TV I have to have a nap. I certainly couldn’t work. I deserve more.”
These are Britain’s two nations. Not those born abroad and those born here, not black or white, rich or poor, men or women, North or South, public or private sector. But those who belong to the world of work and those who are alienated from it, living off the taxes from other people’s earnings…
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
ACORN’s Mob-Style Tactics Discussed at Congressional Hearing
In recent months demands for ACORN to be investigated under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for repeated incidents of electoral fraud have been growing.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Audio: Hear the Inside Scoop on ACORN
Lawyer who sued organization discusses what activists did
A lawyer involved with a lawsuit against ACORN, or the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, has told WND that the organization is aware of the problems that are generated for elections officials when thousands or even millions of registrations are dumped into the system just before a deadline.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Barbarians at the Gate
As Russia announces a massive rearmament plan, Defense Secretary Gates plays down the threat and suggests the U.S. may have to make do with less.
Russia pressed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “reset” button last week as President Dmitry Medvedev announced, despite his country’s economic woes, a “comprehensive rearmament” program.
[…]
The Boston Globe has reported that two defense officials have said Gates will soon announce up to a half-dozen major weapons cancellations later this month. Candidates include the new Zumwalt-class destroyer, the new Virginia-class attack submarine and the F-22 Raptor designed to replace an aging F-15 fleet that is older than the pilots who fly them and whose wings are almost literally falling off.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Capitalism Didn’t Fail: We Ought to Try it Sometime
Barack Obama and the rest of the left are taking advantage of the collective economic ignorance of the population by insisting that the economic meltdown was caused by capitalism run amok. Without strict government controls, we are supposed to believe, capitalistic greed will devour the universe. Why are people buying this?
Is there really no one left who can see just a scintilla of hypocrisy when Nancy Pelosi lectures us about corporate “greed and arrogance”? Evidently, most of America is too angry at AIG executives to care about the larger issue: a massive centralized government that is now completely out of control.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Capping & Trading on Obama’s $250,000 Lie
In explaining their tax plan, the President and his minions continue to repeat two crucial figures: 95 and 250,000. The first is the percentage of Americans the Obudget purportedly provides tax relief to and the second is supposedly the minimum annual income of families who’ll be forced to pick up the tab for the benefits bestowed upon the first. But just as are those the administration proposes for carbon, these caps are easily worked around — for a price.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ga. House Republicans Block Obama Honor
The Georgia House voted against approving a resolution that would have honored President Barack Obama and praised him for being a politician with an “unimpeachable reputation for integrity, vision and passion.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
House Adopts Plan for ‘Volunteer’ Corps
Also requires new evaluation of ‘mandatory’ service for all
The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a plan to set up a new “volunteer corps” and consider whether “a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people” should be developed.
The legislation also refers to “uniforms” that would be worn by the “volunteers” and the “need” for a “public service academy, a 4-year institution” to “focus on training” future “public sector leaders.” The training, apparently, would occur at “campuses.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Interview With Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano: ‘Away From the Politics of Fear’
Napolitano: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word “terrorism,” I referred to “man-caused” disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Networks Claim ‘Responsibility’ to Air Obama Speeches… But Often Skipped Bush
The Hollywood Reporter’s (THR.com) James Hibberd is reporting that the TV networks are “reluctantly” shuffling their on air schedules to fulfill their “responsibility” to air President Obama’s important campaign speech… er, I mean address to the nation next week. The Nets are solemnly claiming the mantle of the patriotic American fulfilling their civic duty to air presidential addresses, it appears.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s ‘Friendly Frustrated Freedom Fighters’
I pride myself in being a person of calm demeanor, unless of course you are Attorney General Eric Holder and you call my America a “nation of cowards.” So as I begin this column, I find myself on the verge of total rage — which is great for writing.
In these first 60 days of the Obama administration, I am beginning to have concern over issues of national security. There have been some very disturbing trends over the last two months.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Wants You to Pledge Loyalty to Him Tomorrow
They have taken a pledge of loyalty to Obama, and they say they are coming tomorrow for yours. Organizing for America, the Obama-for-President campaign morphed into Obama-for-Maximum-Leader army, will hit the streets for their “Pledge Project Canvass,” knocking on doors and accosting folks in parking lots and sidewalks to ask them to sign a pledge to support Obama’s policies for health care, energy and education reform.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Our New Terror Policy: Safety Last?
Are you safer now than you were two months ago? From the handling of captured terrorists to airborne security, the U.S. government has quietly relaxed post-9/11 protections.
For years, liberal Democratic politicians and the establishment media have worked to paint a picture of former Vice President Dick Cheney as a demon with godlike powers. The Washington Post, in a Pulitzer-winning series of articles, called him “the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office of vice president.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Canada’s Sensible Stance on Terror
Mohamed Mahjoub tries the soul of Canada’s justice system.
The police and courts contend that the Toronto man is a former senior member of the Vanguards of Conquest, an Egyptian terrorist group with ties to Al Qaeda; that he has had contact with Osama bin Laden and others linked to terrorism; and that he has lied in court.
He has been declared inadmissible to Canada, but denies Al Qaeda ties and has fought deportation, saying he fears torture back home. So he was held between 2000 and 2007 on a security certificate that lets the authorities detain indefinitely foreigners who pose a threat, without charging them, if they can’t be deported.
But as the shock of the 9/11 terror attacks receded, Canada’s courts quite reasonably decided to release Mahjoub and four other Arab men who had been held in detention for years. They were all placed back in the community, under tight supervision, pending resolution of their files. The last was set free just months ago.
Mahjoub was freed in 2007 into his wife Mona El-Fouli’s custody, on a $32,500 bond, with a monitoring bracelet and other restrictions. Initially he was “elated to be home with his family,” his lawyer said.
That joy has soured. This week Mahjoub asked Federal Court Justice Simon Noel to place him back in detention to spare his family what Mona calls “intrusive” and “oppressive” surveillance. “I have to go back to jail to protect my family,” Mahjoub said. “We can’t handle it any more.” Reluctantly, Noel agreed, but not before remarking, “we’re going back into the darkness” with this development. Today Mahjoub is back behind bars.
What does the Mahjoub family find so burdensome? The Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Canada Border Services Agency took photos of them on outings to Ontario Place and a skating rink, opened and photocopied mail and took photos in their home. A judge reviewed these details earlier this year and found the actions reasonable, designed to ensure Mahjoub complies with his restrictions. Yet the family feels harassed. Because Mahjoub must be supervised at all times by his wife or another adult, he can’t be alone with his children.
While it is hard not to sympathize with Mahjoub’s wife and young sons, aged 9 and 11, it is also hard to fault the restrictions. The other freed detainees live under similar strictures. And the courts have been prepared to vary restrictions, as required.
Canada’s courts have ruled, rightly, that supervised release for terror suspects who have no inherent right to be in Canada is preferable to endless detention without charge, or deportation to torture. Mahjoub is still considered a threat. The courts would be remiss to put his demand for fewer restrictions ahead of the public’s safety.
Mahjoub has always had three options, short of persuading the authorities that he poses no threat: Agreeing to be deported, close surveillance, or jail. Indeed, he still has those options. The choice is his.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
MP Galloway Barred From Canada
OTTAWA (AFP) — MP George Galloway has been blocked from visiting Canada because of his support of Hamas, which is banned here, the Canadian immigration minister’s office said Friday.
“I’m sure Galloway has a large Rolodex of friends in regimes elsewhere in the world willing to roll out the red carpet for him,” Alykhan Velshi, spokesman for Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, told AFP.
“Canada, however, won’t be one of them,” he said in an email.
Galloway was to give a speech in Toronto at the end of the month, but has been denied entry over his opposition to Canadian troops in Afghanistan, said the Sun newspaper.
Velshi said Galloway was deemed inadmissible to Canada due to national security concerns.
It was an “operational decision” by border security officials “based on a number of factors, not only those mentioned in the Sun piece,” he said.
Such a decision could be overturned by ministerial order, but it is not warranted in this case, he said.
“We’re going to uphold the law, not give special treatment to a street-corner Cromwell who brags about giving ‘financial support’ to Hamas, a terrorist organization banned in Canada,” Velshi said.
This week, Galloway traveled to Gaza at the head of a humanitarian convoy. He praised the Palestinian “resistance” and condemned Israel’s 22-day offensive launched in December, in which 1,300 Palestinians died, as “genocidal aggression.”
The MP also donated thousands of dollars and dozens of vehicles to the Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
MP George Galloway is Despicable, But He Shouldn’t be Prevented From Speaking in Canada
Anti-Israel, Anti-American, pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah British MP George Galloway apparently will not be able to deliver a scheduled March 30 rant in Toronto: The Sun is reporting that the Canadian government is barring him from our country — largely because of his pro-terrorist take on Afghanistan.
I respect the underlying motives of immigration minister Jason Kenney (who has become Canada’s most vigorous and effective opponent of Islamist and Islamist-inspired anti-Semitism). That said, I believe that our country should be open to anyone — even people with such loathsome views as Galloway — whose speech is not (to borrow a phrase) “directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” Otherwise, we are effectively engaging in censorship of speech whose message we simply don’t like. And we all know where that leads.
A better solution would have been to let the guy in, but then have police on hand to apprehend him as soon as he violated Canada’s anti-terror laws — say, by fund-raising for a banned terrorist group (something he’s done before).
Another possibility: Sick Christopher Hitchens on the guy. ….
10:30AM UPDATE: JUST GOT THIS MESSAGE FROM KENNEY’S OFFICE …
Yes, George Galloway is legally inadmissible to Canada. If he presents himself at a point of entry to Canada, he will not be admitted to the country. He was deemed legally inadmissible to Canada under s.34(1) of our Immigration Act (which can be found here). The decision was made by CBSA officials based on s.34(1) of the Act and was based on a number of factors, not only those mentioned in the Sun piece. It was an operational decision; not one taken at the political level. The Minister of Immigration nevertheless has the legal authority to give someone a “ministerial permit” who is otherwise ineligible to enter to country. The Minister will decline to exercise that discretion. (In the past, he has given “ministerial permits” to individuals facing persecution such as Masoda Younasy, or journalist Jiang Weiping.)
Alykhan Velshi Director of Communications | Directeur de Communication National Headquarters | Administration centrale Citizenship and Immigration Canada | Citoyenneté et Immigration Canada
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
MP George Galloway Banned From Canada on Grounds of National Security
Outspoken anti-war MP George Galloway has vowed to fight an ‘outrageous decision’ to ban him from Canada on the grounds of national security.
Mr Galloway said the ban was ‘not something I’m prepared to accept’ and pledged to use all means at his disposal to challenge the ruling.
But a spokesman for Canada’s immigration minister Jason Kenney insisted the decision, taken by border security officials, would not be overturned for a ‘infandous* street-corner Cromwell’ (*’infandous: too odious to be expressed or mentioned).
[…]
‘I’m sure Galloway has a large Rolodex of friends in regimes elsewhere in the world willing to roll out the red carpet for him. Canada, however, won’t be one of them.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
All Homosexuals Should be Stoned to Death, Says Muslim Preacher of Hate
All homosexuals should face stoning to death, a Muslim preacher of hate declared yesterday.
Anjem Choudary, the firebrand cleric who wants to see Britain ruled by Sharia law, said such a regime was the only way to fix the country’s ills.
Under it, adulterers and homosexuals would be killed by stoning. Asked if that would include anybody — even a Cabinet minister such as Business Secretary Lord Mandelson — Choudary responded with an astonishing diatribe.
He said: ‘If a man likes another man, it can happen, but if you go on to fulfil your desire, if it is proved, then there is a punishment to follow. You don’t stone to death unless there are four eyewitnesses. It is a very stringent procedure.
‘There are some people who are attracted to donkeys but that does not mean it is right.’
Choudary was speaking at a press conference in London arranged by Muslim extremists to justify their protest in Luton last week against soldiers returning home from Iraq.
His incendiary remarks immediately prompted calls for him to be investigated by police. Tory MP Patrick Mercer said: ‘These statements show the depravity of this man’s beliefs. They must incite hatred and encourage terrorism, and I would encourage the Metropolitan Police to investigate them as rigorously as possible.’
The Rev Sharon Ferguson, chief executive of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, said: ‘This is appalling. The police should look very closely at what has been said to see if there is any action they should be taking.’
Police were not at the press conference but a Scotland Yard spokesman said officers would investigate if a complaint was made.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Muslim Politician Challenges Right to Enter UK
The controversial Dutch MP Geert Wilders has launched a fresh bid to enter the UK after lodging an appeal against the decision to refuse him entry, the Daily Telegraph can disclose The anti-Muslim politician was due to attend a Westminster event last month but was stopped from entering the country after the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, intervened on grounds of public security.
But he is now challenging that decision and has appealed to the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal.
He will not be allowed to attend any hearing but the Home Office will have to defend its actions at public cost.
Mr Wilders had been invited to show his anti-Muslim film, Fitna, which criticises the Koran as a “fascist book”, in the House of Lords last month.
The Home Secretary refused him entry because his opinions “would threaten community security and therefore public security” in Britain.
The MP flew to the UK in any event but was turned back at Heathrow airport and had to return to Holland.
The Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen later criticised Britain for the move and said he would press for a reversal of the travel ban.
Mr Wilders has urged the Dutch government to ban the Koran. His film sparked violent protests around the Muslim world last year for linking verses in the text with footage of terrorist attacks.
Mr Wilders had been due to attend a screening of the film, organised by UKIP peer Lord Pearson, in the Lords. Despite his non-appearance, the screening went ahead in a committee room of the Lords, guarded by two policemen.
Mr Wilders yesterday said he would head for the UK “the same day” if he wins his appeal.
He said, “My British lawyer has advised me that the Secretary of State at the Home Office’s decision to ban me from entering Britain was both politically and legally wrong. More importantly it was legally wrong.
“I am quite confident I will win this case and as an elected Member of Parliament in The Netherlands, an EU country, I will be quite correctly allowed to enter Britain.”
When asked what his reaction would be if he wins this case, he said, “I shall leave for Britain on the same day even if I have to travel by bicycle.”
However it could be up to 19 weeks before a hearing for the appeal is set.
Mark Wallace, Campaign Director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “This case is a costly mess and yet again taxpayers are being left to foot the bill for the Government’s blunders. Free speech is central to the British way of life, and it is very worrying that the Government seems happy to ban Mr Wilders whilst letting poisonous hate preachers with terrorist connections live here on benefits.
“Mr Wilders may not be pleasant but banning him is an ethical fudge which is severely backfiring.”
A Home Office spokeswoman said: “The Government opposes extremism in all its forms. It will stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country and that was the driving force behind tighter rules on exclusions for unacceptable behaviour that the Home Secretary announced in October last year.”
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Bullet Sent to Sweden’s Finance Minister
A letter with a .22-calibre bullet arrived at the offices of Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg on Thursday courtesy of a leftist extremist group angered by bonuses paid to executives at state-owned companies.
“The bonus system costs hundreds of millions — a bullet in the neck is just a few kronor,” the letter stated, according to the website of the Revolutionära Front (‘Revolutionary Front’), which claimed responsibility for the correspondence.
The group published news of the letter on its website on March 10th, a full nine days before it reached the finance minister, according to the Politikerbloggen politics website.
According to Politikerbloggen, the envelope had not been x-rayed beforehand, as is standard practice for all letters and packages sent to Swedish ministers and government office employees.
In the letter to Borg, the group took issue with what it argued was the finance minister’s hypocritical approach to bonuses.
While the finance minister had spoken out against bonuses paid to the upper management of Sweden’s banks, he didn’t according to the Revolutionära Front “raise his voice about how the government last summer raised the bonuses for executives of state-owned companies”.
Specifically, the group expressed anger over higher bonuses for leaders of the country’s AP pension funds, which are charged with managing Swedes’ public pensions.
“The case of the AP funds is just like that of Volvo or Ericsson when the highest executives take home bonuses worth millions at the same they plan layoffs for tens of thousands of workers,” the Revolutionära Front said on its website.
The group explained that the letter was meant to “help our dear finance minister” out of a “slightly embarrassing situation” and that the bullet could help Borg “start the first purge free of charge”.
According to the Revolutionära Front, Borg was to use the bullet to shoot the head of one of the AP pension funds in order to “take back” his bonus and “symbolically return it to the country’s pensioners”.
A spokesperson for Sweden’s security police, Säpo, refused to comment on whether the letter was considered a threat against the finance minister.
“We don’t comment on the threats against those whom we protect and therefore don’t have any comment on this information either,” Säpo spokesperson Anders Tagesson told Politikerbloggen.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Cap-and-Trade Socialism
Cap-and-Trade has been tried in Europe by the signers of the Kyoto Protocol and according to the Heritage Foundation’s Ben Lieberman, “Nearly every European country participating has higher emissions today than when the treaty was first signed in 1997…emissions in many of these nations are actually rising faster than in the United States.” Yet perhaps the Obama Administration has its eye on something other than limiting emissions. Possibly it sees Cap-and-Trade as a great way to gain control of still more of the private sector.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Crisis: Anti-Sarkozy Strikes Held Across France
(ANSAmed) — PARIS — Protests began early this morning in Marseille, Grenoble, and Lyon, with demonstrators asking Nicolas Sarkozy’s government to commit to protecting jobs that are being lost due to the crisis, to take measures to relaunch purchasing power, and to defend public services. Over 200 protests have been organised across the country, and the most important is expected to take place this afternoon in Paris. The unions, who are responsible for organising the strikes, are trying to repeat the success of protests held on January 29, which involved almost two and a half million people. 30% of flights at the Paris-Orly airport were cancelled, and 10% were cancelled at Roissey airport. 36% of railway workers and 17.5% of France’s electricity company came out on strike, EDF, while levels are expected to reach between 35% and 65% for workers in schools and hospitals. The private sector has also been mobilised for the strike. Beyond those who are actually participating in the strike, demonstrations have already gained widespead support from the population. According to a survey, 78% of French people have described a day of protest as “justified”, and 62% have judged the government’s policies to combat the crisis as “bad”. President Sarkozy said that he understands “the worries of the French in this period of crisis”, but Prime Minister Francois Fillon has indicated that there will be no “additional initiatives” after the 2.6 billion euros in aid allocated to support struggling families after the January 29 demonstration. Siding with workers in the strike is also socialist and ex-presidential candidate Segolene Royal, who described the government as “arrogant and incompetent”. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Czech Rep: Mfd: Czech Cabinet’s Survival Largely Depends on Klaus
Prague, March 19 (CTK) — The rebels among the Czech senior ruling Civic Democrat (ODS) deputies will topple the coalition government of Mirek Topolanek (ODS) in the no confidence vote next week if President Vaclav Klaus says what would happen afterwards, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) wrote on Thursday.
The result of the lower house’s no confidence in Topolanek’s centre-right cabinet, initiated by the opposition and to be taken on Tuesday, will be largely influenced by what Klaus will do by then, MfD writes.
The opposition Social Democrats (CSSD) and Communists (KSCM) need at least 101 votes in the 200-seat lower house to topple the government.
As they have only 97 votes together, they need to win support of rebel deputies elected for the ODS.
The three deputies concerned, Vlastimil Tlusty, Juraj Raninec and Jan Schwippel, are waiting for a clear position of Klaus.
“I’m ready to support the no confidence proposal if I know that the president had outlined a scenario to follow [the government’s fall] and said what government would rule the country until early elections,” MfD quotes Raninec as saying on Wednesday.
Schwippel has indicated the same opinion, the paper adds.
The ODS rebels are known as supporters of Klaus, former ODS chairman who fell out with the party at its national congress last December over its alleged straying from its original programme.
A source from the ODS deputies’ group, however, told MfD on Wednesday that the rebels are unlikely to sink the government.
Fears exist that Klaus would otherwise let Topolanek’s cabinet rule as outgoing cabinet until the end of the Czech EU presidency at least. Afterwards, he would probably ask Topolanek, head of the election-winning ODS, to form a new government. Klaus assigned Topolanek with the task on both previous occasions, the source told MfD.
“The president will not disclose his next steps beforehand,” Klaus’s secretary Ladislav Jakl is quoted as saying.
This is no good news for CSSD chairman Jiri Paroubek, as it diminishes his chance of success with the no confidence vote, MfD writes.
Another daily, Lidove noviny (LN), mentions ODS deputy Jan Klas and two deputies elected for the Greens, Olga Zubova and Vera Jakubkova, as other rebels who could help the opposition topple the government.
Tlusty told LN that his final decision will depend on how PM Topolanek will dispel speculations that he tried to cover up suspected fraudulent deals of Petr Wolf, a former CSSD deputy who helps keep the government afloat in parliament.
Klas, on his part, said he considers the fulfilment of the ODS programme, the ODS’s “no” to the Lisbon treaty and its refusal to yield to the junior ruling Greens in the energy industry area as the most important matters to influence his position in Tuesday’s vote.
In an interview elsewhere in LN, CSSD deputy chairman Bohuslav Sobotka for the first time outlines his party’s idea of what would follow if the government fell on Tuesday.
If the CSSD managed to topple Topolanek’s cabinet, it would probably let it rule until the end of June when the Czech EU presidency ends. Afterwards a caretaker cabinet would be established and the general election would be held in the autumn, Sobotka told LN.
The regular general election is due in mid-2010.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Czech Rep: Czech Portal on Islam Danger Invites Fitna’s Author to Czechrep
Prague — The Czech operators of the eurabia.cz server have invited far-right Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders, the author of the anti-Islamic film Fitna, to visit the Czech Republic, web editor-in chief Edvard Steinsky told CTK today.
According to Steinsky, Czech MEP Vladimir Zelezny has also sent an invitation to Wilder.
“We have only sent an invitation letter and are waiting for an answer,” Steinsky, whose website allegedly wants to “inform people about the growing danger of the stealth penetration of Islam to Europe,” said.
The authors of the initiative are planning a joint event, Steinsky said. It should be a seminar connected with the screening of Fitna.
Dutch police have started prosecution of Wilders due to his film and his anti-Islamic statements.
On Thursday, the eurabia.cz editorial office allegedly recommended that all Czech deputies and senators see the film.
“The authors of the initiative firmly believe that after having seen the film Czech lawmakers will realise the scale of the problems with Muslim minorities that most European Union Western countries face at present,” Steinsky said in a statement he has released to CTK.
He said the invitation was sent to Wilders in reaction to his recent incident in Britain. Wilders was to present his film in the British House of Lords in February but upon arriving at London’s airport he was detained by the British police.
After the questioning the British authorities forced him to return back to the Netherlands.
The media then accused the British government of cowardice and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown of being servile towards Islam.
Wilders was invited to Britain by member of the British House of Lords Malcolm Pearson who represents in the House the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) that demands Britain’s withdrawing from the EU.
The Czech far right National Party also recently announced on its website that it would screen the controversial film Fitna on Prague’s open spaces.
The party said that by this step it wanted to express its disagreement with Wilders’ prosecution.
The 2008 short film Fitna shows selected excerpts from Suras of the Quran, interspersed with media clips and newspaper clippings showing or describing acts of violence and/or hatred by Muslims.
The film wishes to demonstrate that the Quran, and Islamic culture in general, motivates its followers to hate all who violate the Islamic teachings.
The eurabia.cz web says about itself that it distances from racism, xenophobia and religious and national hatred.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Fugitive Wanted in 186 Countries
A multi-lingual criminal involved in an eight figure robbery in 2007 is now on the Interpol wanted list
One of the men involved in the 11 million kroner heist of asset management and transport company Dansk Værdihåndtering in December 2007 is being sought by Interpol for his crimes, which also include the illegal import and sale of weapons.
Thomas Andy Sønderborg is now wanted in 186 countries worldwide, after police informed Interpol that he has probably left Denmark. Sønderborg escaped from a courthouse in Kolding during his trial earlier this month.
According to authorities, Sønderborg speaks Danish, English, German, Lithuanian and Spanish and likely has a large amount of cash on him to aid his flight. He is considered armed and dangerous.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Did Charles Manson’s Murder Gang Strike in Britain?
Manson has hinted he was responsible for many more deaths — including a dozen people who may have known too much about his grisly crimes.
Retired LA police sergeant Paul Whiteley, who investigated the Manson-ordered slaying of musician Gary Hinman in 1969, says: ‘I’m almost certain Joel Pugh was murdered in England by a Manson Family member called Bruce Davis.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
End Game: U.S. Supports Fogh for NATO
Senior NATO source says that Washington now supports Denmark’s Anders Fogh Rasmussen in the race for the secretary-generalship of NATO.
According to Politiken’s information, Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen is very close to becoming the next secretary-general of NATO, in a decision to be announced when NATO leaders meet at a summit in Baden-Baden in two weeks.
Decision at dinner
Although confidential negotiations are still continuing, NATO headquarters expects the decision to be announced at the dinner that will mark President Obama’s first NATO summit.
“That is the scenario we are working with now. Particularly if the new secretary-general is at the dinner as one of the heads of state or government,” a senior NATO source says.
So you reckon it will be Anders Fogh Rasmussen?
“Yes that is what we believe. There is progress in relation to him, particularly with the Americans. So my view is that we are very close,” the source says, adding that an informal consensus is expected to be reached among NATO’s ambassadors shortly before the summit.
The next two weeks will be spent trying to convince Turkey, which is still reported to be uncertain about Fogh Rasmussen.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen has refused to comment on the speculations about his NATO candidacy.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
EU: Emirates Slams Airbus Over A380 Defects
The Airbus executives could not have liked what they were told and shown by the Emirates representatives. In a 46-slide presentation, the aviation experts painstakingly listed what they viewed as the giant jet’s serious growing pains. To illustrate their points, they included snapshots of singed power cables, partially torn-off sections of paneling and defective parts of thrust nozzles in the engines as evidence of what they described as a shoddy work ethic at Airbus and its suppliers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Russian Nationalists Plan Helsinki Protest
Finnish Russia-expert Arto Luukkanen sees a planned protest in Helsinki by the Russian Nashi movement as an attempt by a marginal group to get publicity. “They are trying to cook a porride that nobody wants to eat, and for which there is no real reason”, Luukkanen says. The purpose of the demonstration by the group, which has also been called the “Putin Youth”, is to oppose the publication of a new book by Sofi Oksanen and Imbi Paju and an Estonia seminar to be held in connection with it. The book is about the Soviet occupation of Estonia, and supporters of Nashi see the book and the seminar as being anti-Russian. Members of Nashi were active in anti-Estonian protests in connection with the controversy over the relocation of a Soviet war memorial in Tallinn in 2007. Estonia has denied visas to some Nashi members, effectively preventing them from travelling to the Schengen zone…
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: One Step at a Time
Politics is like wine. It needs time to mature, and to turn sour. What you do today will repay you with interest in a few years’ time. Nothing happens by itself and there are few immediate returns. That is every politician’s dilemma — to do the right thing and have very few people realize it, or to do something spectacular and have everyone applaud.
The most effective policy in a democracy is to take one small step at a time. Problems aren’t solved by a decision or a law. It takes action, follow-up and persistence in implementation, making corrections where necessary and then taking further action. These might seem like small things to voters, but they have amazing consequences. Politics has many aspects and that is why the laws of chaos prevail. A small decision taken today could have extremely negative repercussions over time and in certain conditions.
For example, few people attached any importance to the appointment in 2000 of Panayiotis Fourlas as head of the fire department, or in 2006 when 70 percent of the senior officials he had promoted were dismissed. Yet that contributed to the destruction of half the Peloponnese.
No one paid much attention when officials of the successful counterterrorism team were transferred to the provinces or to lesser posts. Seven years after the November 17 terrorists were arrested, the country is once again facing a similar problem and the forces of law and order are in disarray.
This is why politics calls for long-term planning and consistent monitoring of things that now seem mere details. An accumulation of “minor” decisions can bring catastrophe. So the question remains as to whether the government has the will to appraise the situation calmly and whether it feels that it has time for those small steps that will pay off in the long term, but will make a very small impact on its public image — and initially perhaps even a negative one.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: New Round of Blasts Rock ND
A previously unknown terror group yesterday claimed responsibility for a firebomb attack on Wednesday night at the central Athens office of Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a New Democracy MP who is the brother of Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis.
Mitsotakis is believed to have been targeted due to statements he made criticizing rioters who wrecked stores and cars in Kolonaki last Friday. The attack, carried out using a homemade bomb comprising four gas canisters, was claimed by a group calling itself Revolutionary Liberation Action in telephone calls to Eleftherotypia and Skai. The explosion, which caused minor damage but no injuries, went unnoticed by police patrols in the area.
Late yesterday police in the central district of Ambelokipi were scouring the area around the Supreme Court and central headquarters of Attica police after reports of a strong explosion at around 9.30 p.m. Initial reports suggested that the blast had been caused by a car bomb.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: School: Gelmini, We Are Considering 30pct Cap on Foreigners
(AGI) — Rome, 19 Mar. — “We are considering to introduce a 30pct” cap on the number of foreign students” said Minister Gelmini during a press conference in the Prime Minister’s office. “I think next year will be too early. I am asking for an effort to resolve the most urgent cases already next year” she said, mentioning the “Pisacane” school in Rome. “That case makes you think” said the minister who believes teaching Italian to foreign children is very important. According to her, knowledge of the Italian language and of the Constitution are “two elements necessary for integration”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Two Train Conductors Assaulted in Almere
Two train conductors have been assaulted by a group of six men in the town of Almere. One of the conductors has been admitted to hospital with serious facial injuries.
On Thursday evening the conductors waited for a train at Almere Central Station following reports that a number of passengers were misbehaving. When the train stopped, six men got out and began to kick and punch the conductors without provocation. The six men then left the station. Two were arrested by police later on the basis of witness descriptions and camera footage.
The FNV Trade Union Federation has registered 300 complaints from bus drivers who have been victims of aggression. Aggression in public transport became an issue after bus drivers in Gouda refused to drive through certain areas of town because of attacks by Moroccan youths in October 2008. Last week bus drivers in Ede went on strike following a number of incidents.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Rotterdam Launches Investigation of Its Islam Advisor
THE HAGUE, 20/03/09 — Rotterdam city council is launching an investigation of alleged anti-gay and anti-woman statements by Tariq Ramadan. This Islamic scientist advises the city on integration policy.
Gay magazine Gay Krant yesterday published a translation of sound recordings of statements Ramadan is said to have made in a speech. He called homosexuality “a disturbance, a faulty functioning and an imbalance” and said on women that they must attract no attention by their appearance. “On the street, thus says the law, women must keep their eyes fixed on the pavement,” the magazine quotes him as saying.
Rotterdam says it wants access to the recordings as quickly as possible. This will allow the municipality itself to assess the statements of Ramadan, according to a spokeswoman of Participation Alderman Rik Grashoff.
“These statements raise questions about statements Ramadan has made as advisor to Rotterdam municipality and as guest professor at the Erasmus University Rotterdam,” according to the Gay Krant. Ramadan, “who charges an hourly fee of 290 euros,” was recently re-appointed for two years as advisor to Grashof, according to the magazine.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Police Seize 42-Piece Dinner Set Constructed Entirely From Cocaine
Police in Spain have seized a 42-piece crockery set with a difference — it’s made entirely out of cocaine.
The 20kg consignment — plates, cups, pots and saucers — was sent from Maracaibo, Venezuela’s second-largest city, to Barcelona, via London.
Police said that the suspect, known only by initials JVLL, had been recruited by Venezuelan drug gangs. He has appeared before a court in Barcelona charged with an offence against the public health.
The compressed cocaine was intercepted after a tip-off about a suspicious package which had been sent by recorded delivery last month from Maracaibo. Police said that the drugs were meant to have been reprocessed and sold in Catalonia, northeast Spain…
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: New Rosengård Fires ‘Revenge’: Police
Police in Malmö claim a recent wave of deliberately set fires in the city’s heavily-immigrant Rosengård neighbourhood constitutes an act of retaliation for recent arrests.
Almost every night this week, emergency services in Malmö have had to contend with young people throwing rocks, bottles, and eggs as crews ventured into Rosengård to put out fires set around the neighbourhood.
Late Thursday night into Friday, several dumpsters and a communal recycling station were set ablaze. Around 40 police officers were called in before firefighters could begin putting out the fire.
There were no injuries, although two young people were detained for refusing to move when instructed.
Police have made significant strides recently in neutralizing some of the more influential criminals in the crowded neighbourhood.
“According to our intelligence, the fires and stone throwing are directed toward us. The trigger is that we’ve succeeded in picking up five important figures from the criminal network which is ravaging the area. They are now being subject to a number of measures,” said Börje Aronsson of the Rosengård neighbourhood police force to the TT news agency.
Prior to Thursday night’s fires, people have set fire to cars, as well as rubbish bins in stairwells and basements, only to launch attacks on firefighters when they arrive to extinguish the flames.
In addition to firefighters, park and road workers and other contractors have also had rocks thrown at them.
Aronsson attributes the violence in part to the crowded living conditions in the area as well as the social exclusion that results.
“Rosengård is built for 5,400 people. But between 8,000 and 9,000 people live here. Children and young people don’t stay at home but instead are out late into the evenings and sometimes well into the middle of the night,” he said.
In the most troubled section of the area, Herrgården, adult employment stands at 86 percent, leaving most of the residents dependent on social welfare payments.
| — Hat tip: Reinhard | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden’s Baby Boom Hits New High
Swedish women are giving birth to more babies than at any point since the earlier nineties, new figures show.
The country’s fertility rate rose to 1.91 children born per woman in 2008, the highest rate since 1993, according to figures from Statistics Sweden (SCB) released on Friday.
“There were 109,301 children born in Sweden in 2008, which is 1,880 more than in 2007,” out of a population of around 9.2 million, SCB said in a statement.
While Sweden has one of the highest fertility rates in the European Union thanks to its generous parental leave for both mothers and fathers, the rate is not high enough to renew the population.
A rate of 2.1 children would be needed for that, SCB said.
France is the European Union champion, with a birthrate of 2.02 children per woman, while non-EU member Iceland has Europe’s highest rate of 2.14 children per woman.
SCB also noted that life expectancy was on the rise in Sweden.
“Average life expectancy also increased during the year,” it said, adding that “since 1900, the average life expectancy has increased considerably for both men and women.”
Girls born during the early decades of the 1900s could expect to live an average of 56.98 years, compared to 54.53 years for boys.
The agency said that girls born in 2008 would live an average of 83.15 years and boys 79.10 years.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Sharp Drop in Asylum Applications to Sweden
Fewer people are seeking asylum in Sweden, with the number of applications dropping 33 percent last year, according to new statistics.
“During 2008, 24,342 persons sought asylum in Sweden, which is a decrease of 11,865 applications compared to 2007,” Statistics Sweden (SCB) said in a statement on Friday…
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Council Forced to Give Squatters a List of All Its Empty Properties
A council has been forced to give details of every empty home in its area to squatters because of a legal loophole. Lambeth in South London had to hand over the list after squatters submitted a Freedom Of Information (FOI) request. The Labour-run borough provided details of an estimated 800 properties despite council officers’ fears that the move could lead to a marked rise in squatting in the borough.
Critics will ask whether the coup could be used as a precedent by other squatters’ groups. They accuse the local authority of ‘incompetence’ in the way it handled the request from the Advisory Service for Squatters, submitted in September last year. Liberal Democrat opposition leader Ashley Lumsden said a senior council source told him that housing officers had earlier committed ‘a grave error’ by publishing a list of all vacant properties in the appendix of a council document. When the squatters presented their demand, the information was already in the public domain so the request could not be denied. But the council said it had been forced to give out the information because of a legal precedent set by another council…
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Drip by Drip in This Country, We Are Losing the Respect for Life
Many who have seen loved ones suffer — including the distinguished broadcaster John Humphrys, whose powerful series we launch today — may have some sympathy with former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt’s call to allow Britons to help the terminally ill kill themselves.
But the Mail believes this is an icy downhill path, which we tread at our utmost peril.
[…]
This is already happening in the Netherlands, where assisted dying was effectively legalised in 1993 before being officially decriminalised in 2002. When the policy was originally proposed, the Dutch parliament stressed: ‘This is only for people who are in great pain and have no prospect of recovery.’
Today, some two per cent of all the country’s deaths — about 2,500 a year — are deliberately inflicted by doctors. Oh, and the requirement that only the terminally ill may be killed has been scrapped.
So it is that, drip by drip, respect for the sanctity of human life is being eroded.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Gordon Brown is Frustrated by ‘Psycho’ in No 10
Alas, when the PM settled down to begin watching them the other night, he found there was a problem.
The films only worked in DVD players made in North America and the words “wrong region” came up on his screen. Although he mournfully had to put the popcorn away, he is unlikely to jeopardise the special relationship — or “special partnership”, as we are now supposed to call it — by registering a complaint.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Government Breaks Promise to Shut Down Terror Websites
Not a single extremist website has been shut down since the July 7 terror attacks, the Tories said yesterday.
Under legislation introduced three years ago, the Government promised it would tackle extremist sites head on in a bid to ‘address the threat we face’.
But despite the pledge, Muslim radicals are still free to issue hate-filled messages on the internet.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Gordon Brown’s Dreams of a New Era of Nuclear Detente Will Go Up in Smoke
An deterrent remains vital as leading rogue states strive to acquire weapons of their own, writes Con Coughlin.
Gordon Brown’s offer to reduce the size of Britain’s nuclear arsenal is not dissimilar to throwing a very small pebble into a very large pond.
We may pride ourselves that Britain’s status as a leading world power is underpinned by the fact that we were one of the founder members of the elite nuclear weapons club after the Second World War. And our continued status as a nuclear power certainly helps to preserve our diplomatic standing as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
But compared with the firepower available to, say, the US and Russia, the Trident submarine-based system upon which we depend for our deterrent is very much the poor relation of the international nuclear weapons community.
Let’s set aside for the moment the embarrassing fact that no British government could fire one of these missiles without Washington’s consent, the legacy of our acceptance in the 1960s that we could no longer afford to fund an independent deterrent.
The 160 operational nuclear warheads that Britain currently has at its disposal is a minute number when set against the 10,500 warheads available to the Americans and the estimated 14,000 that the Russians could call upon. Even France, which has somehow managed to find the finance to fund its own independent force de frappe, has 300. In this regard, Britain has more in common with Israel than Washington.
But even though we cannot compete with our rivals in terms of capacity, our ability to influence the international debate on nuclear proliferation policy should not be underestimated. That is why Mr Brown deserves to be taken seriously over his commitment this week to put Britain “at the forefront of an international campaign to prevent nuclear proliferation and accelerate multilateral nuclear disarmament.”
In the clamour to combat Islamist-inspired terrorism and rogue states, it is often forgotten that one of the central pillars of President George W. Bush’s war on terror was to tackle the global menace of nuclear proliferation. In his 2002 State of the Union address, the American president stated unequivocally that America would not permit “the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.”
At the time it was generally assumed that Mr Bush’s comments were aimed directly at the so-called “axis of evil”, countries such as Iran and North Korea, which were thought to be actively developing nuclear capability.
Seven years later, the potential threat posed by a nuclear-armed Pyongyang or Tehran is still enough to give Western policymakers sleepless nights. But irrespective of whether those states achieve their goal, the debate, as Mr Brown’s intervention indicates, has broadened to focus on the wider challenge that proliferation poses to global security.
You have only to look at the comments made this week by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to see that, 20 years after the collapse of the Iron Curtain, the old Cold War tensions between East and West have still not been laid to rest. Announcing a major military rearmament for Russia’s armed forces, Mr Medvedev claimed it was necessary for Moscow to protect itself against Nato, which he said was still intent on expanding closer to Russia’s borders, and increased the risk of “significant conflict”.
With so much of the West’s resources and attention focused on resolving the security challenges posed by countries such as Afghanistan and Iran, the last thing anyone needs is a new East-West arms race, even if the prospect of a return to the Cold War principle of mutually-assured destruction is remote. Given America’s overwhelming military superiority, any conflict between Russia and the West is likely to be of the low-intensity variety — such as last year’s skirmish in Georgia — rather than a full-blown invasion of eastern Europe.
If that is the case then it makes perfectly good sense to resurrect the possibility of negotiating a multilateral deal involving all weapons-holding states. After all, what’s the point of having nuclear weapons if you have no intention of ever using them?
The other reason that Western politicians are keen to reduce the number of global warheads is the message it will send to those countries that are still believed to entertain ambitions of joining the international nuclear club. One of the main motivating factors behind Iran and North Korea’s quest for nuclear technology is the belief that acquiring such weapons will put them on an equal footing with the world’s leading powers.
But their nuclear ambitions could also be the main reason that Mr Brown’s proposal for a new era of detente is still-born. Will anyone want to give up their nuclear weapons just as two of the world’s leading rogue states prepare to get some of their own?
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Home Office Fails to Shut Down a Single Extremist Website in Two Years
The Home Office has failed to shut down a single terrorist website despite a pledge to do so from Tony Blair four years ago. Stopping extremist websites operating was one of the measures unveiled by Mr Blair in the aftermath of the 7 July suicide bombings in London in 2005.
Although the powers were enshrined in law with the Terrorism Act 2006, the Home Office has now admitted that not a single website has been shut down in the past two years.
The Tories said the news “smacks of dangerous complacency and incompetence”.
Under Section 3 of the legislation, a police officer can order that “unlawfully terrorism-related material is removed or modified within two working days”.
However, Vernon Coaker, a Home Office minister, said: “The preferred route of the police is to use informal contact with the communication service providers to request that the material is removed.
“To date no Section 3 notices have been issued as this informal route has proved effective.”
Last year a leaked report from the Security Service highlighted the importance of the internet in radicalising young people.
Mr Coaker insisted that some sites were shut down after informal contact with the sites’ hosts with the police. Yet the Home Office had no idea how many were shut down after the informal talks.
Mr Coaker added: “Statistics covering the number of sites removed through such informal contact are not collected.”
Patrick Mercer, the Conservative backbench MP who obtained the information, said he was shocked that despite spending over £100million on preventing radicalization, not a single extremist website had been closed down.
He said: “Websites are a crucial means of communication for the terrorist and unless the Government takes action against them, they will continue to be one of the terrorist’s most powerful weapons.”
Baroness Neville-Jones, the shadow Security Minister, added: “We have known for years that organisations like al-Qaeda are increasingly using the internet as a tool for radicalisation.
“So it is shocking that the Government has failed to shut down a single terrorist website, even though Parliament gave them the power to do so more than two years ago.
“They claim that they haven’t closed any down because they prefer to put pressure on internet service providers to remove dangerous material. But they’re not even able to tell us what they’ve achieved by this route.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “If material is hosted in the UK, informal contact between the police and the Internet Service Provider has, to-date, proven sufficient to have material removed from the internet. We hope that this continues.”
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Parents Given Hours to Appeal for Baby OT’s Right to Life
Parents battling to keep their baby son alive have lost their fight after a judge ruled the boy should be allowed to die — and gave medics the right to stop his treatment.
The parents of the nine-month old, who is known as OT, have until 2pm today to appeal against the decision, which was handed down by Mrs Justice Parker yesterday after a 10-day hearing.
The couple, who had pleaded with doctors to do everything in their power to keep the baby alive as long as he is not in intolerable pain, were said to be devastated by the ruling.
Christopher Cuddihee, Mr and Mrs T’s solicitor, said: “My clients love their son deeply. They accept their son is seriously disabled and at the moment is very ill. But they do not accept the court’s finding that as a result of medical treatment he suffers intolerable pain and suffering.”
Baby OT suffers from a rare metabolic disorder and has brain damage and major respiratory failure. He has been on a ventilator since he was three weeks old and is not able to breathe unaided. His parents do not believe medical treatment is futile and are considering goint to the Court of Appeal to challenge the decision to turn off their son’s ventilator.
The hospital trust where the baby is being treated, which cannot be named for legal reasons, say he has no possibility of recovery and is in unbearable pain. One doctor at the hospital said keeping him alive amounted to “torture”.
Mrs Justice Parker rejected the couple’s claims that stopping treatment would breach the baby’s “right to life” under the European Convention on Human Rights.
She said: “I bear in mind that OT is a unique human being. His life is valuable. But OT does not have the right to be kept alive in all circumstances. OT has the right to life. OT does not have the right to be kept alive.”
The judge said it was a “desperately sad and anguished case” and she could not begin to image what his “loving and devoted parents are going through”.
She put a temporary stay on the order, allowing the parents to make a last-minute appeal to get the decision overturned.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sri Lankan Postmaster Who Refuses to Serve Non-English Speakers Faces Calls From Muslims to be Sacked
The postmaster who banned customers who can’t speak English from his branch today faced calls for him to be sacked from angry local Muslims.
Sri Lankan-born Deva Kumarasiri introduced the ban this week because he believes all immigrants in Britain should learn the language and take pride in the new homeland.
Mr Kumarasiri, who runs Sneinton Boulevard Post Office in inner-city Nottingham, moved here 18 years ago and says everyone should embrace British culture.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: You Can Forget About Getting British Justice
To help fulfil the EU dream, you could end up in a foreign jail, says Alasdair Palmer.
It has often been claimed that the project of “ever-closer union” within the EU is over, killed when the Lisbon Treaty was rejected by the Irish, the only people who had the chance to vote on it. That’s a big mistake. The Eurocrats think integration is inevitable and essential — and they are certainly not going to let it be derailed by anything as vulgar as the fact that most of the EU’s citizens do not want it.
Perhaps the best example is an imminent change to the justice system, designed to make it easier for one state to imprison citizens who live and work in another. Under the present rules, the Government is not obliged to hand over a British citizen who has been convicted of a crime in another EU country. There are very good reasons for that. The procedures of justice are not of a uniformly high standard across the EU.
Organisations such as Fair Trials International have many examples of British citizens who have been convicted of crimes in countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and even Portugal, where the most basic elements necessary to a fair trial were absent, and where the defendant was not even present.
It is true that British judges do not always treat claims by, say, a Romanian court that a British citizen was given “a fair trial” in his absence with the scepticism they deserve. However, British courts do have the power, at present, to decide that it would not be in the interests of justice to extradite a Briton who was not present at his own trial to serve his sentence in a foreign jail.
Under the new regulations, we will lose that power: our courts will be compelled to order the extradition of British citizens to any EU country that wants them. The state that wants to extradite a Briton will simply have to sign a form which says that it told the Briton of his trial, and gave him some form of legal representation.
Such an assurance will, in many cases, be worthless — at least without independent investigation and verification.
Bulgaria, for example, is the only country in the EU that claims to have implemented “99 per cent of EU regulations”. In fact, even the EU recognises that almost none of its regulations is complied with in Bulgaria. That country is also universally recognised as being totally corrupt, with the police and judiciary being particularly rotten.
The EU enthusiasts, however, simply pretend that “variations in the standards of justice” do not exist. So once the forms have been received by the British government, that will be that — you will have to be packed off to serve the sentence imposed on you by a Bulgarian court, at a trial at which you were not present, and may not even have been told about. And it doesn’t matter what the offence is: it could be a traffic misdemeanour, it could be misuse of your credit card, or it could be murder.
Our Government has not just enthusiastically endorsed the new regulations: it has sponsored the legislation, passed by a huge majority in the EU Parliament last September. Why? No one seems to know.
The Ministry of Justice has said the change will “help our citizens”, but I cannot see how it will help anyone to lose any protection that the British government might have been able to provide against the injustices perpetrated by foreign courts. That, however, is the only “benefit” that this new regulation will deliver.
Do not be fooled by Labour’s weasel words. This is about showing the EU bureaucrats that we are committed to “ever-closer integration” — and if that means giving up our ability to protect British citizens from injustice, then that’s just fine by our Government.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Bosnia: ‘Islamisation’ Prompts Calls for Croat Entity
Sarajevo, 19 March (AKI) — Croat groups in Bosnia have denounced what they call the ‘Islamisation’ of the Muslim-Croat federation and have prepared a document demanding their own entity, local media reported on Thursday.
“Bosniacs (Muslims) are the main political problem in Bosnia-Herzegovina, because they openly strive for hegemony, counting on their majority, “ Croat activist Leo Plockinic told journalists.
Plockinic said Croats had the worst deal of all of Bosnia’s three main groups and were being subjected to assimilation by majority Muslims.
He is president of the ‘Alternative Government’ Croat association and the non-governmental organisation Croatia Libertas.
“One of the biggest problems in Bosnia is the unity of Bosniac politics and Islam which is turning Bosnia into a Sharia state,” Plockinic said.
“In Bosnia-Herzegovina and Sarajevo, Islamisation is being implemented at full speed,” he added, claiming this damaged Croats and Serbs as well as the country’s European integration bid.
Plockinic said the document prepared by the Croatian groups will be submitted to the parliament for approval. But most decisions in Bosnia’s institutions are made by consensus and could be blocked by any of its three main groups.
Under the Dayton peace accord that ended the 1992-1995 war, Bosnia was divided into two entities, each with most of the powers of a state — the Serb entity and the Muslim-Croat federation.
But Bosnia’s majority Muslims have been calling for the abolition of both entities and the creation of a single state.
Serbs, Bosnia’s second biggest ethnic group, have responded by threatening to hold a referendum on independence. Croats have complained of discrimination in the federation with Muslims and want their own entity.
The European Union has tied Bosnia’s entry into the European Union to constitutional and police reforms.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Two Arrested in Germany on Kosovo Espionage Charges
A German has been charged with espionage for allegedly passing on classified government information to organized crime and state contacts in Macedonia and Kosovo, federal prosecutors in Germany have said.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office in the German city of Karlsruhe alleges that Anton Robert K., 42, passed on the sensitive state data in 2007 and 2008 to a 28-year-old Macedonian man named Murat A.
The Macedonian is believed to have organized crime and “foreign intelligence” ties, German prosecutors said. They claim the data swapped hands while Anton K. was working at the German diplomatic mission in the Kosovo capital Pristina.
Prosecutors said Anton K. was aware of Murat A.’s alleged mob connections when he handed over the information.
The men were arrested in Stuttgart on Tuesday and brought before a magistrate’s court the following day.
Anton K. could face 10 years in prison if found guilty on charges of betrayal of state secrets, while Murat A. faces a possible five years for accepting state secrets.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: Minister, Additional Tax on the Rich
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, MARCH 19 — Announcements coming from Serbia Government indicate that additional taxation on the rich might be soon introduced so that the burden of crisis is equally divided depending on how thick one’s wallet is, reports daily Blic. Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic has not said much about this idea, but Finance Minister Diana Dragutinovic was more talkative and explained that “the Government is thinking about introduction of a temporary solidarity financing”. “It is not a tax on luxury or property but a tax on pays of people determined by some criteria to be rich. The idea is introduction of a two-system tax what means at least two tax rates for two groups of citizens’“, Minister Dragutinovic said. The Prime Minister said that pensions and pays of budget users shall not be cut by rebalance of the budget.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia Towards EU ‘Without Delay’, Frattini
(ANSAmed) — ROME, MARCH 19 — Serbia must step up reforms in its bid to join the European Union, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said in an interview with a Serbian daily. Frattini said Italy was fully behind Serbia’s bid to achieve candidate status, a “deserved target” which must be “swiftly reached”. “Serbia must continue on its European track without further delay,” the minister said, calling for the lifting of EU visa requirements for Serbs and adding that Fiat investments in Serbia would not be halted. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Chacon Tells Troops in Kosovo, You’re Going Home
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 19 — “Mission accomplished and now it’s time to go home”. During a visit to the Spanish contingent deployed in the KFOR mission in Kosovo, the Spanish Minister of Defence, Carme Chacon, today announced the withdrawal of Spanish troops before the end of the summer. Quoted by the EFE news agency, Chacon thanked those present for the action carried out by 22,000 troops deployed over the last 10 years by Spain in Kosovo and paid tribute to the 9 Spanish troops who lost their lives. It is the first visit by a Spanish government representative to the Balkan states since Kosovo unilaterally declared independence on February 17, 2008. Chacon explained that the withdrawal would be staggered and not unilateral, and that it would be coordinated with NATO allies. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: U.S. Surprised by Troop Decision on Kosovo
WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) — The United States said on Friday that it was surprised and “deeply disappointed” by Spain’s decision to pull troops out of Kosovo.
Spain said it intended to pull its more than 600 troops from the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo by the end of the summer.
“We are deeply disappointed by this decision taken by Spain,” State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.
The NATO-led peacekeeping mission was launched in 1999 after the end of the war between Serbian security forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas.
“In 1999 NATO allies agreed on a principle of ‘In together, out together’ and so we were surprised by this decision,” he said.
The United States does not share Spain’s view that the mission in Kosovo is essentially over, Wood said, “not at all, not at all.”
Spain is among five of the 27 European Union member countries that have refused to recognize Kosovo as independent.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Media Differ on Withdrawing of Soldiers From KFOR
The reason for the announced withdrawal of the Spanish troops from KFOR is the fact that Madrid does not recognize the unilateral independence of Kosmet, assess the Spanish media. Spanish Minister of Defense Carmen Chacon has announced yesterday during her visit to the units that the body of 620 Spanish soldiers within KFOR will be withdrawn by the end of summer. The Madrid EL PAIS daily comments that, even though Chacon did not say so explicitly, the motive is the independence of Kosmet. Spain is one of five NATO and EU members that still consider the Province part of Serbia, so Madrid does not partake in new KFOR missions, such as the forming of the Kosmet security Forces, since it is seen as a contribution to the creation of an independent state, reports EL PAIS. This paper reminds that the airplane with Chacon did not land in Pristina, as with all other officials, but rather in the NATO base in Djakovica, which is under control of Italian troops. Nemaly, the Spanish Minister of defense wanted to avoid the meeting with Kosmet Government leaders, reports EL PAIS.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
EU-Turkey: Rehn, Apply Reform on Women’s Rights
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, MARCH 19 — Women’s employment, violence against women, crimes of honour, forced marriages. These are the key issues in which Ankara must make progress according to European commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn, who pointed out the gap between reality and the legal reforms adopted. At a seminar in Brussels, Rehn stated that “Turkey needs to make a greater effort to guarantee the true observance of women’s rights in all of the country’s various sectors and areas”. According to Rehn the issue of women’s employment is “still a priority challenge for this country” where women represent a quarter of the entire workforce. The Commissioner said that “this is the lowest ratio among EU and OECD member countries”. Speaking about violence against women, which is still widespread in Turkey, Rehn remarked that the EU is financing 8 homes for women who fall victim to domestic violence. He thinks that “Turkey has made significant reforms to increase basic freedoms, but there is still a lot of work to do”. And women’s rights “constitute a priority for member States and for the Commission” in terms of Ankara’s future membership of the European Union. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Ferrero Waldner, Relaunch With Concrete Projects
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, MARCH 19 — Benita Ferrero Waldner, Commissioner responsible for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy, has underlined the commitment of the European Commission in carrying forward Nicolas Sarkozy’s political creation, “Now we are planning to move forward with the Mediterranean Union through the concrete projects that the Commission is working on”. According to Ferrero Waldner, who was speaking at the presentation in Brussels of the Book of Mediterranean Facts by the IEMed Institute in Barcelona, the political paralysis that followed the crisis in Gaza “can be overcome in practice with projects that have already begun, by the fight against the pollution of the Mediterranean, sea and land highways and a solar energy plan” for the southern shores. “The Commission has already invested 60 million euros [in these projects] and these are all public funds,” Ferrero Waldner added. “But through the Barcelona Secretariat, we would like to involve private funds as well, despite the impact of the financial crisis”. Ferrero Waldner believes the relaunch of the Union for the Mediterranean from a political point of view ‘could happen in a realistic way after the Doha meeting, which should unite the Arabs once again” for a new peace initiative for the Middle East. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: 40 Mln Euro for Energy-Saving Projects From France
(ANSAmed) — ROME, MARCH 19 — The French Agency for Development (AFD) has come to an agreement with Tunisia for a 40 million-euro credit line in order to co-finance energy-saving and renewable energy projects, reported the Italian Foreign Trade Commission (ICE) office in Tunis. According to the Tunisian Undersecretary for Renewable Energy at the Ministry of Energy and Industry, this line of credit will support a national energy-saving programme (2008-2011), which aims to reduce primary energy demand by 20% and increase the amount of renewable energy consumed to 13%. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Water: Forum; Libya Presents Great Man-Made River Project
(ANSAmed) — ROMA, 18 MAR — Libya shed light today, at the fifth Global Water Forum in Istanbul, on its 33-billion-dollar scheme to extract water from deep beneath the Sahara and pipe it across the desert to its coastal cities. For the first time in a major international forum, Libyan officials gave a presentation of the Great Man-Made River Project and defended it against charges of environmental vandalism and water theft, as reported by Middle East Online. The scheme, already some two-thirds complete, is economically viable and should not stoke any conflict with Libya’s neighbours, said Fawzi al-Sharief Saeid, director of the project’s technical centre for groundwater management. “Studies have shown that the Great Man-Made River Project is more economical than other alternatives,” being some nine to 11 times better value for money compared with desalination plants or water imported from Europe, he said. At predicted extraction rates, “recoverable reserves would last for 4,860 years” for all four countries — Libya, Sudan, Chad and Egypt — that can draw upon its source, he said. The project entails a network of 4,000 kilometres of pipes, which take water, sucked out from an ancient desert aquifer, to the northern coastal strip. Driven by Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi to promote food self-sufficiency, the Great Man-made River was hailed in leaflets as The Eighth Wonder of the World. But other experts shook their heads at the scheme’s astronomical cost and questioned the wisdom of mining ‘fossil’ water that will never be replenished by the Sahara’s rains. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: Hamas, 3,000 Dollars to Marry Widows of Martyrs
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, MARCH 19 — A 3,000 dollar reward is being offered to anyone who is willing to marry and take care of -as a second wife — the widow of a “shahid” (martyr) of Gaza, or in Islamic fundamentalist vocabulary, anyone who has been killed, regardless of whether it was in war or during terrorist actions. This is the offer that has been launched by Hamas, the radical Palestinian group in power in the Gaza Strip, according to reports today in Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot. The initiative is necessary due to the increased number of widows — underlined Yediot — after the recent military offensive ‘Cast Lead’, which ended on January 18 (after 22 days of war) with a total of about 1,400 victims, according to the latest estimates provided by a Palestinian human rights NGO. Due to the current mentality, the widows now risk embarrassment and being part of a minority in society in the Gaza Strip. For this reason, financial rewards have been offered to men who are willing to integrate these women into their families. Hamas, in line with Islamic guidelines, has placed several conditions on granting these incentives: the candidates must, demonstrate that they are able to maintain at least two wives, must be devoted believers and morally irreproachable, possess a respectable home, and must declare that they will treat the new wife with the same level of respect as other spouses. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
IDF Soldiers Refute Claims of Immoral Conduct in Gaza
‘It is true that in war morality can be interpreted in many different ways, and there are always a few idiots who act inappropriately, but most of the troops represented Israel honorably,’ soldier says in response to claims of immoral behavior during Operation Cast Lead. Reservist: Claims ‘fictitious’. ‘Free Gaza’ movement demands international investigation
IDF soldiers who took part in January’s offensive in Hamas-ruled Gaza refuted on Thursday claims of immoral conduct on the military’s part.
The claims were made by soldiers who took part in the war during a post-op conference at the military academy at Oranim. The conference protocol was published Thursday.
“I don’t believe there were soldiers who were looking to kill (Palestinians) for no reason,” said 21-year-old Givati Brigade soldier Assaf Danziger, who was lightly injured three days before the conclusion of Operation Cast Lead.
“What happened there was not enjoyable to anyone; we wanted it to end as soon as possible and tried to avoid contact with innocent civilians,” he said.
According to Danziger, soldiers were given specific orders to open fire only at armed terrorists or people who posed a threat. “There were no incidents of vandalism at any of the buildings we occupied. We did only what was justified and acted out of necessity. No one shot at civilians. People walked by us freely,” he recounted.
A Paratroopers Brigade soldier who also participated in the war called the claims “nonsense”. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said “It is true that in war morality can be interpreted in many different ways, and there are always a few idiots who act inappropriately, but most of the soldiers represented Israel honorably and with a high degree of morality.
“For instance, on three separate occasions my company commander checked soldiers’ bags for stolen goods. Those who stole the smallest things, like candy, were severely punished,” he said.
“We were forbidden from sleeping in Palestinians’ beds even when we had no alternate accommodations, and we didn’t touch any of their food even after we hadn’t had enough to eat for two days.”
According to a reservist who spent a week in Gaza during the offensive, the claims of immoral behavior on the soldiers’ part were “fictitious”.
“Wherever we were we tried to cause minimum damage,” said the paratrooper, who also asked to remain nameless. “We left some of the homes cleaner than they were before we occupied them. We even cleaned a refrigerator that really stunk.
“During one incident, we were informed that a female suicide bomber was heading in our direction, but even when women approached us and crossed a certain point we made do with firing in the air, or near the women,” the soldier recalled. “Even when we came across deserted stores, we didn’t even think of taking anything. One soldier took a can of food, but he immediately returned it after everyone yelled at him.”
Major (res.) Idan Zuaretz of Givati said “in every war there is a small percentage of problematic soldiers, but we must look at it from a broad perspective and not focus on isolated incidents.”
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Arrests Hamas Leaders After Talks Collapse
Ramallah, 19 March (AKI) — Israel arrested 10 Hamas leaders in the West Bank early Thursday, two days after indirect talks between Israel and the Islamic militant group on a prisoner swap collapsed.
Israeli media reports said four Hamas MPs, a university professor and a former deputy prime minister were among those detained in the arrests.
“These men have been the leaders of the ongoing effort to restore the administrative branch of the Hamas terror organisation in the region, while attempting to strengthen the power and influence of Hamas,” the Israeli Defence Forces said in a statement.
Hamas in the West Bank has been the target of a crackdown by Israel and the security forces of moderate Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in the past two years, since the militants seized control of the Gaza Strip.
The detentions seemed to be an attempt to pressure Hamas after the failure of recent efforts to win the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held captive in the Gaza Strip by Hamas since June 2006.
Ahmed Bahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza, denounced the arrests as “immoral blackmail by the Zionist occupation.”
In a separate incident on Thursday a strike by the Israeli Air Force killed two Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, a militant group said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Israel: Shalit; Hamas Agreement Fails, NGO Says No Revenge
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, MARCH 18 — The Israeli Anti-torture commission — a body which defends human rights — issued a warning today to the Israeli authorities not to carry out its threatened reprisals against Hamas prisoners following the failure of the hoped-for agreement with the radical Islamic Palestinian movement over the liberation of Ghilad Shalit, the young corporal who has been a prisoner in the Gaza Strip since 2006. The Commission says that any deterioration in the conditions of militants from Hamas and other Palestinian groups sentenced over acts of terrorism in Israel would be “a form of collective, unfair and illegal punishment” in a democratic State. The appeal was made to minister for Justice Daniel Friedman, and to national prosecutor Menachem Mazuz to refrain from endorsing such practices and take care to avoid them. The suggestion that “legal methods” be adopted to worsen conditions for the Hamas prisoners was put forward by government sources yesterday — along with an announcement to continue with the blocking of the crossings into the Gaza Strip until Shalit is freed — following the announcement made by Premier Ehud Olmert on the failed negotiations with Hamas, over a prisoner exchange. Hamas supporter Salah Al-Bardawil confirmed the “interruption of contact” today over the Shalit dossier, but laid the responsibility at Israel’s door. He confirmed that the conditions for the release of the soldier (the freeing of hundreds of Palestinians from Israeli prisons, including 450 sentenced for serious acts of terrorism) had not “softened, but not hardened either” on the part of Hamas during the final stages of the proceedings. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Palestinian Sources Say PNA-Hamas Talks Stalled
(ANSAmed) — RAMALLAH, MARCH 17 — The inter-Palestinian talks in Cairo have stalled and are one step away from collapsing. Talks on forming a government including the Al-Fatah moderates (the party of president Mahmoud Abbas still in power in the West Bank) and the Hamas extremists (who dominate the Gaza Strip). Sources close to Mahmoud Abbas confirmed the rumours that had been reported in the regional press. According to the sources, the recent talks have not been able to unblock the differences over the imbalances in a possible future national unity government, on the date and methods for new elections, on the reform of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) led by Mahmoud Abbas, on relations with Israel and the recognition, explicitly rejected by Hamas, of international treaties signed in the past. Both sides have turned to the Egyptian mediators for a further attempt at reconciliation, but according to the media, president Mahmoud Abbas, meeting with Fatah members, referred to the final “failure” of the negotiations. Mahmoud Abbas, who accused Hamas of having actually stiffened their position in the last few hours, is said to have definitively closed the door on the talks, particularly on the inclusion in a national unity government of Hamas leaders accused by Israel and other states of fomenting terrorism and not allowed to leave Gaza and the West Bank. Abbas confirmed his willingness to accept only technocrats acceptable to both sides. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UN Official Has Long History of Anti-Israel Bias
But world media parrot his claims of ‘war crimes’ in Gaza
A United Nations official accusing Israel of committing a “war crime of the greatest magnitude” in Gaza has a long history of anti-Israel bias and of siding with the Hamas terrorist organization.
Richard Falk, the U.N. special investigator on human rights in the Palestinian territories, in the past also has been part of investigations that determined Palestinian suicide bombings were a valid method of “struggle,” vocally supported the Islamic revolution in Iran and even has supported charges claiming the U.S. government was involved in plotting the 9-11 attacks.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
An Olive Branch for a Terrorist State
Is there some grand strategy behind President Obama’s “Happy Persian New Year” video message to Iran? Or is America embracing the naive notion that we can get the Islamofascists to like us?
As Mark Finkelstein’s “FinkelBlog” noted, there were no American flags visible in the background to ruffle the mullahs’ turbans in Obama’s Friday midnight video message. A wide shot featured on the White House Web site has the president sitting before Old Glory, but it turns out there is more than one edition of the video.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Douglas Stone: the Sanctions Chimera
Iran is determined to develop a nuclear weapon, and all evidence suggests that nothing short of force is going to stop it. That applies especially to the combination of low-level negotiations and economic sanctions, which, despite a history of failure, remain the preferred approach of the Obama administration, Congress and the mainstream media.
The mullahs in Tehran know that if they can just last another few months, not only will sanctions be moot, but their nuclear arsenal will give them dominance of the Persian Gulf and ironclad security for their regime — both of which will offer the additional advantage of allowing increased support for terrorist allies and the possibility of harming Israel and the United States…
| — Hat tip: CSP | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Executions Sought for Former Saddam Officials
Baghdad, 17 March (AKI) — The Iraqi government on Tuesday renewed its call for the execution of top officials from the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein despite objections from some of the country’s top leaders. “The cabinet appeals to the presidency council to approve the decisions issued by the Iraqi High Tribunal against criminals that were sentenced to death,” government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.
Saddam’s cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as ‘Chemical Ali’, former defence minister Sultan Hashem Ahmed and former army commander Hussein Rashid Mohammed have all been sentenced to death.
They were found to be responsible for the notorious Anfal military campaign, in which chemical weapons were used to kill ethnic Kurds in March 1988.
Majid has received two other death sentences, one for crushing a 1991 Shia revolt after the 1991 Gulf War and another for killing and displacing Shia Muslims in 1999.
Majid, a cousin of Saddam, earned his nickname for his role in using poison gas to kill thousands of Kurdish villagers.
Iraqi president Jalai Talabani and vice-president Tareq al-Hashemi are reportedly opposed to the execution of the former Baathist defence minister and have generated broad debate about it in political and judicial circles.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Islam: Turkey; Koran to be Translated Into Kurdish
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 18 — The Koran, Islam’s holy book, will be translated into Kurdish as part of Turkey’s efforts to boost the rights of Kurds and to meet EU political standards, Anatolia news agency reported. Turkey has some 12-14 million Kurds out of a total population of 70 million, but public use of the Kurdish language is still banned in certain areas, including giving political speeches and official correspondence. “We don’t want want to exclude Kurdish as we prepare translations of the Koran into other languages. Kurdish is widely spoken in Turkey”, Mehmet Gormez, deputy head of Diyanet (Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate), said. Turkish Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, is courting the support of Kurds ahead of 29 March municipal elections and an official translation of the Koran into Kurdish would likely to be well received. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Activists Protest Against Starbucks, Drive Off Customers
BEIRUT: About 25 young activists belonging to the Union of Lebanese Democratic Youth (ULDY) demonstrated outside a Beirut Starbucks Monday evening to protest the Seattle-based coffee shop’s ties to Israel. Members handed out leaflets and shouted slogans outside the store, catching the attention of passers-by and virtually ending all traffic heading in for a drink. A handful of police officers guarded the entrance of the store while two army trucks unloaded about a dozen soldiers across the street in anticipation of violence.
“It’s not just Starbucks that we’re demonstrating against,” 25-year-old ULDY member Hassan Zeitouny said. “It’s a demonstration against all that send aid to Israel, especially those that give money to Israelis to return back to Israel.”
ULDY — a leftist organization with ties to the Lebanese Communist Party — organized a similar demonstration outside the Hamra Starbucks during Israel’s devastating 22-day assault on Gaza in January. The group is also active in the larger campaign to boycott other American products and companies which it accuses of supporting Israel such as CocaCola and Phillip Morris.
The activists held signs up to the cafe’s windows with one displaying a drawing of a Starbucks’ cup overflowing with blood while another carried a mock-menu offering “coffee to kill my family,” and “espresso to knock down my house.”
Cheers were sung as each customer left the shop. After the last customers exited quietly, the cafe was left empty except for a few discouraged-looking employees sitting around a table drinking their own product.
“It’s good that people are leaving. I think they understood something — they understood this shop here is against Lebanon,” Zeitouni said. “Some citizens don’t know that Starbucks gives money to Israel while others know but don’t want to understand how much this flies in the face of what we stand for.”
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Singapore: SAF Troops Commended
A CEREMONY was held at the Ministry of Defence on Friday to mark the close of Singapore’s contributions to rebuilding war-torn Iraq. The 200 servicemen and women who had served on board the Singapore Navy’s Landing Ship Tank (LST) RSS Resolution were each honoured for their work with the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Overseas Service Medal, which they received from Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean.
The last batch of SAF personnel to serve in Iraq, they returned to Singapore at the end of last year following a three-month mission supporting multi-national reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
They were in the northern Arabian Gulf, where they undertook patrol and boarding operations, protected the waters around key oil terminals and gave logistics support to coalition vessels and helicopters.
The SAF has ended its deployments to the country because Iraqi security forces are now prepared to take over protecting their own country, said Mr Teo.
Since 2003, nearly 1,000 SAF servicemen have been sent to Iraq in 11 detachments, which were deployed with Landing Ship Tanks, KC-135 aircraft and C-130 transport planes.
Mr Teo commended those who have served in Iraq, and noted that their experiences there would serve the SAF well in its future missions overseas.
Operations in Iraq may have wound down, but the one in Afghanistan is still on; two more missions are coming up, one each in Afghanistan and the pirate-infested waters of the Gulf of Aden.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Rising Credit Card Debt May Lead to Social Disaster
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 18 — Credit card debt is on a steep upward trajectory, paving the way for a social disaster, Turkey’s Consumers’ Union President Nazim Kaya has said, adding that the government must find a solution to curb this problem before it grows worse. Speaking to the Anatolia news agency, Kaya responded to a recent remark by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan that people with high credit card debt should not be considered victims since they consciously allowed their bills to build up while aware of the possible consequences of extremely high interest rates if they failed to pay the amount due on time. Kaya noted that after receiving attachment of earnings orders from banks for workers’ outstanding credit card debt, employers sometimes fire workers without giving them any severance pay. Kaya said a growing number of consumers were knocking on the door of the Consumers’ Union each day asking what legal procedure they should follow in order to get their jobs back or at least receive compensation. Employers are simply taking advantage of every opportunity they get to fire their workers without having to pay them anything, Kaya noted. According to the latest figures, total credit card debt in Turkey has reached TL 36 billion, said Kaya, adding that banks have already started legal proceedings for the seizure of TL 3.6 billion in personal assets owned by credit card holders in arrears. He also quoted figures from the Central Bank of Turkey that showed that 1.56 million people were on banks’ blacklist for failing to pay their debt for three consecutive months. Once a person is put on the blacklist, all of his or her credit cards are cancelled and all credit card and loan applications are denied for up to five years. “We think 2.5 million people have failed to pay their credit card debt for three months. Banks do not initiate legal proceedings against them immediately because they want to earn more interest by letting the debt accumulate for several more months,” he said. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: State TV to Launch Broadcasting in Arabic, Erdogan
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, MARCH 19 — Turkey’s State-run TV channel will launch broadcasting in Arabic in the near future, Hurriyet Daily wrote quoting Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan. “Preparations for a TV channel in Arabic are about to be completed and the TV channel, under the auspices of the State-run Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), could start broadcasting at any time”, Erdogan told broadcaster TGRT. He also said the news channel that TRT would launch a radio station broadcasting in Kurdish. Turkey recently took steps to boost the cultural and democratic rights of Kurds with the 1 January launch of TRT-6, a TV channel that airs in Kurdish 24 hours a day. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladesh: Tour With Pakistan Cancelled Due to Security Concerns
Dhaka, 18 March (AKI) — Bangladesh has cancelled its home one-day international cricket tour against Pakistan due to security concerns, following last month’s mutiny in the capital Dhaka. “As of now the security people are busy we don’t think it is feasible to host any foreign team in the country,” said Bangladesh minister for youth and sports Ahad Ali Sarkar during a media conference.
At least 74 people were killed — 57 of them senior army officers — during a mutiny by border guards at a military base on 25 February in Dhaka.
Pakistan was supposed to tour Bangladesh starting on 7 March, but the visit was postponed following the terrorist attack against the Sri Lankan national cricket team in the Pakistani city of Lahore.
Six Pakistani police and two civilians were killed when gunmen fired on the men’s cricket team and officials during an ambush as the team was being transported to the city’s main stadium.
Seven Sri Lankan cricketers and a coach were among 19 people wounded in the attack.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Residence Permit, Asylum Applications Soared in 2008
The number of foreigners seeking asylum or residence permits rose briskly last year.
In 2008, nearly 23,000 foreigners applied for residence permits, while some 4,000 applied for asylum. The latter rose particularly steeply compared with 2007, according to figures released Friday.
Residence applications totalled 22,904, up by more than 2,300 from a year earlier. The most commonly cited reasons were family ties, work or studies. The biggest increases were in applications based on study or family ties, which were both up by about one fifth.
The largest numbers of applicants were from Russia, China and India. Residence permits were granted to 85 percent of applicants…
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Islamic Party Support Drop in Indonesia Vote: Poll
(AFP) — Support for Islamic parties is set to drop in Indonesia’s elections next month and secular parties will maintain their hold on the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, according to a new poll.
Only 24 percent of Indonesians say they will vote for an Islamic party in the April 9 election, a stiff drop from 38.1 percent who voted for Islamic parties in 2004 elections, the Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) found.
The survey, conducted among a sample of 2,455 voters, found 67 percent backed secular and non-Islamic parties, despite roughly 90 percent of the population being Muslim. Nine percent were undecided.
The poll also found support surging for the secular Democratic Party of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and that it was likely to secure 24.3 percent of the vote compared to 7.45 percent in 2004.
Golkar, the former political vehicle of ex-dictator Suharto, would win only 15.9 percent of the vote while the Democratic Party of Struggle of former president Megawati Sukarnoputri would win 17.3 percent.
“In the history of Indonesian democratic elections, Islamic parties have never been able to reach a national majority. That trend is still ongoing now and will likely continue in the 2009 general election,” LSI researcher Burhanuddin Muhtadi said.
Indonesian voters tend to prioritise bread-and-butter issues over religion and see non-Islamic parties as more competent and empathetic, Muhtadi said.
The poll backs findings in a joint survey by four other institutes last week that found support for Yudhoyono’s Democratic Party rising while Islamic parties struggled.
Analysts have partly blamed the Islamic parties’ poor showing on their championing of a contentious new anti-pornography law that has been criticised as a threat to cultural traditions and non-Muslim minorities.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Inexperience Deadly in South Asia
While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is still congratulating the Pakistani government for “resolving its crisis,” by which she means an internal political spat; the real crisis is only getting worse. The Taliban continues its march through Pakistan, imposing Sharia law and persecuting non-Muslims as it does, while President Barack Obama continues to happily search for the “moderate Taliban” among them. And that’s not all.
Yesterday, police here foiled an attempted terrorist bombing by a former member of the Pakistani Rangers paramilitary force…According to Indian intelligence, over 80 percent of the terrorists “used to work for the Pakistani army and paramilitary force.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Sharia Courts Begin Work in Swat Valley With Restrictions on Women
Women cannot go out unaccompanied or speak in public but must cover their heads. Girls’ schools could be closed for good. Local Catholics and Protestants fear for their future; some are starting to leave the region. Taliban militia leader threatens new judges; anyone not applying Sharia correctly will be removed from office immediately.
Peshawar (AsiaNews) — Sharia courts have begun to administer justice in the Swat Valley. With Sharia in place in Malakand area, women are no longer allowed to go out unaccompanied or speak in public. They must also cover their heads. Girls’ schools, essentially run by missionaries, could close for good, especially after recent bomb attacks. Although no one was injured in the blasts, about a thousands girls are now unable to go to class, about 95 per cent of whom are Muslim.
The future of the region’s Catholics and Protestants, who number around a thousand, is grim. Many of them are labourers and street sweepers, but some work in hospitals and a few teach in missionaries-run schools. All of them fear discrimination and many have begun packing up to move to areas where Sharia is not enforced. .
Since the start of the year the Taliban have carried out hundreds of attacks against schools, video and CD stores and barber shops and all other activities they claim to be un-Islamic.
With the implementation of Nizam-e-Adl Regulations 2009, civilian courts no longer have jurisdiction in this area and have been replaced by Qazi (Islamic) courts and Qazis (Islamic judges).
More specifically seven courts are now in place in the Swat Valley after Tehreek-i-Nafaz-i-Shariat-i-Muhammadi (TNSM) Taliban militias and the government of President Asif Ali Zardari reached an agreement to that effect. The Lower and Upper Dir districts, Buner, Malakand Agency, Shangla, Kohistan and Chitral districts are now under Sharia law.
North West Frontier Province (NWFP) Communication Minister Iftikhar Hussain said that the aforementioned courts will be the models other districts will follow when they will implement Sharia. This way the latter can come into effect without presidential approval.
In announcing the start of the new courts TSNM chief Maulana Sufi Muhammad said that Islamic courts will come under a new supreme court, the Darul Qaza. Two of its three qazis have already been selected; the third one will be designated in the near future.
Sufi Muhammad also said that if qazis do not correctly implement Sharia they will be replaced.
This has led the High Court in Peshawar to express concerns with respect to the TSNM chief’s threats, calling on NWFP authorities to ensure the safety of the judges.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China: Dozens of Policemen Injured in Clashes With 1,000 Workers in Shaanxi
The clashes broke out in the county of Jingbian because the police wanted to take 3 workers away, for reasons that are not very clear. Scuffles continue to increase between the police and exasperated workers. Meanwhile, independent labor union leader Yao Fuxin has left prison after 7 years.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Dozens have been injured, some of them seriously, and three police cars have been destroyed in the violent clashes that broke out on March 8 between 200 oilfield workers and about 50 policemen in the county of Jingbian (Shaanxi). But the authorities deny that they know anything about it.
The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reports that the clashes broke out when the police tried to take 3 workers away. More than 1,000 workers surrounded the police, and the first scuffles began. The fighting became more serious after this, and the police used tear gas. At least 26 police officers were seriously injured, and 20 of the demonstrators were wounded.
The local authorities have not confirmed the clashes, and there is no precise news about what the 3 workers apprehended by the police may have done.
The police in the country are frequently accused of arresting and beating workers because they defend their rights against companies, and the population is increasingly exasperated. In 2008, there were more than 87,000 public protests for economic reasons. On March 16, former labor union leader Yao Fuxin was released from prison after serving 7 years for “subversion against state power.” In March of 2002, he participated in a peaceful demonstration of at least 5,000 workers from 6 factories in Liaoyang (Liaoning), who were calling for back pay and retirement benefits. He was arrested on March 17, 2002, for organizing the demonstration and disturbing public order, and was then accused of subversion because he was believed to be involved in the prohibited China Democracy Party, and suspected of continuing to organize worker protests from prison.
In the past, Yao was very active in defending the rights of workers, and in 2002 he was the spokesman for the newly constituted All-Liaoyang Bankrupt and Unemployed Worker’s Provisional Union. The protest in March of 2002 was also a response to a statement by local political leader Gong Shangwu, who had said “there is no unemployment” in the city, while about 60% of workers were either unemployed or underemployed.
Now Yao will spend 3 years without any political rights or freedom of speech, and will be banned from participating in assemblies and associations.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Korea: N.Korea Border Shut Again
SEOUL — NORTH Korea on Friday again shut its border to traffic to and from a Seoul-funded joint industrial zone even though a US-South Korean military exercise has ended, officials said. When the exercise began on March 9, the communist state barred border crossings to and from the Kaesong estate in protest at what it called a rehearsal for invasion.
Amid media criticism that the North was taking South Koreans stranded at the complex hostage, it reopened the border the following day.
The North closed the frontier again on March 13, leaving 250 South Koreans stranded in Kaesong and starving factories of raw materials.
This week the frontier reopened — but on Friday crossings halted again.
‘The North keeps telling us to wait,’ said a Seoul unification ministry spokeswoman, Lee Jong Joo. South Korean officials were talking to North Koreans in charge of Kaesong but they gave no reason for the delay in approving crossings, she said.
South Korea was seeking approval for 667 northbound crossings and for 522 passages southbound on Friday.
Factory owners and Seoul officials say the uncertainty is damaging business prospects at Kaesong, which opened just north of the border in 2005 as a symbol of reconciliation.
About 39,000 North Koreans work for 98 South Korean firms there, producing labour-intensive items such as watches, clothes, shoes and kitchenware.
Raw materials are trucked north and finished products travel the other way.
Some analysts believe the North is prepared to jeopardise the project in order to press Seoul’s conservative government to drop its tougher policies, despite the almost US$27 million in wages it received last year.
South Korean President Lee Myung Bak has enraged Pyongyang by rolling back his liberal predecessors’ policy of reconciliation and exchange and by linking major economic aid to progress on denuclearisation. — AFP
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Taiwan: Former First Lady Wu Shuchen Denies Accusations of Corruption and Appropriation of State Funds
In a dramatic confrontation with the former accountant of president Chen Shuibian, Wu insists that all of the money withdrawn was used for legitimate purposes. The trial continues tomorrow.
Taipei (AsiaNews/Agencies) — On the first day of the trial before Taipei District Court, on charges of corruption and embezzlement, former first lady Wu Shuchen denied using public funds for personal purposes.
During a dramatic confrontation with Chen Chenghui, the former chief accountant for her husband, former Taiwanese president Chen Shuibian, Wu denied having embezzled a single cent, turning the accusation back against the accountant, who “did all the accounting.”
Chen Chenghui has already pleaded guilty to charges of embezzlement, money-laundering, and forgery during pretrial hearings, but said she had acted on instructions from Wu and two of the president’s former advisers, Ma Yungcheng and Lin Tehhsun. Again yesterday, Chen said that Wu had asked her “to send the money, sometimes NT$10 million [about 225,000 euros], to her at the presidential residence.” She added that Wu had repeatedly asked her to send her sums of 1 to 10 million Taiwanese dollars, and that either Ma or Lin was aware of all of the withdrawals.
Wun insisted that all of the money taken from public accounts “was handed to the president to cover public activities.” She also reiterated that all of the money she sent abroad was her own, and earned legally. In pretrial hearings, she admitted to money-laundering and forgery, but denied the much more serious charges of embezzlement and accepting bribes.
Wu is accused of, among other things, embezzling 104 million Taiwanese dollars in public funds, and receiving 498 million in bribes. The trial will continue tomorrow.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Africa: Pope Meets Muslim Leaders in Cameroon
Vatican City, 19 March (AKI) — Pope Benedict XVI told Muslim leaders that “true religion” rejected violence and noted the coexistence of Christianity and Islam in Cameroon. The pope met 22 Muslim representatives in the country’s capital, Yaounde, on Thursday on his first visit to Africa as pontiff.
“May the enthusiastic cooperation of Muslims, Catholics and other Christians in Cameroon, be a beacon to other African nations of the enormous potential of an inter-religious commitment to peace, justice and the common good,” Benedict said.
Benedict said “genuine religion” was at the base of any authentically human culture.
The pope was greeted in the capital of Cameroon by an enthusiastic crowd of 40,000 faithful at a football stadium where he celebrated mass.
In the morning meeting with 22 officials of Cameroon’s Muslim minority, Benedict said religion is the basis of human civilisation and returned to one of the key themes of his papacy, saying there is no incompatibility between faith and reason.
The pope said that “religion and reason mutually reinforce one another” and urged Catholics and Muslims to work together “to build a civilisation of love.”
According to figures released by the Vatican, the number of Catholics in Africa has been rising steadily in recent years.
Catholics made up 17 percent of the African population in 2006, compared with 12 percent in 1978.
The pope’s seven-day visit to Africa also includes a visit in Angola.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Colombia: Communists Killing Christians
Having been sentenced to die by leftist rebels for holding Christian worship services in 2006, a pastor in Colombia’s northern department of Arauca took seriously the death threats that guerrillas issued on Friday (March 13), according to Christian support organization Open Doors.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Fewer Landings, Clamp-Down on Flows, Minister
(ANSAmed) — ROME, MARCH 19 — The Italian government is preparing to clamp down on inflows of immigrants to the country. Having passed measures allowing immediate repatriations and the setting up of more Identification and Expulsion Centres, a new ‘inflow’ decree is in the pipeline which would, de facto, guarantee residence permits “exclusively and alone” to 80 thousand seasonal workers, granting them permission to remain in Italy for a maximum of nine months. So announced Italian Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, during the question time in Parliament. The minister took the opportunity to announce that the joint sea patrols by Italy and Libya aimed at discouraging illegal immigration will begin by May 15 and to stress how the clamp-down policy is paying off, given that numbers of boat landings have decreased by 15% compared to the same period of 2008. “This is thanks,” he noted, “to the work I have put in to keeping to the bilateral accords, especially with the Maghreb countries”. The decision to initiate a decree on inflows targeting seasonal workers, Maroni explained, is due to the economic downturn and the need “to safeguard workers at risk of losing their jobs”. Therefore, only 80 thousand seasonal workers working in the agricultural and tourism sectors will be allowed to benefit form the temporary permits, for periods ranging from 20 days to 9 months. Maroni’s announcement was criticized by social organisations ARCI and ADOC. ARCI’s head of immigration, Miraglia, said that ‘ a clamp-down of inflows has already been in place since 2007; the real problem is the regulation of contracts for existing workers”, while the managing director of ADOC said that the real sufferers will be the one million Italian families who depend on the constant support of a minder for their elderly relatives. Speaking to the Parliament during question time, Maroni said the number of illegal immigrants arriving on Italy’s southern coasts between January 1 and March 15 had dropped by 15% compared to the same period last year. Maroni stressed that the figure was impressive in view that the ‘deterrent’ patrols were not underway. The minister added that thanks to bilateral accords with the Libyan government, 3129 migrants had been repatriated in January and February, mostly in Tunisia. According to figures released by the interior ministry earlier this year, around 37,000 people landed on Italian coasts in 2008 — a 75% increase on 2007. This is over half the total number of migrants who arrived in Europe by sea last year, which totalled around 67,000. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Human Trafficking Gang Dismantled in Northeast
Udine, 18 March (AKI) — An investigation by police in the northeastern Italian city of Udine, the Slovak police and Interpol has smashed a criminal gang that allegedly trafficked hundreds of illegal immigrants from India and Pakistan into Europe.
The operation by the police, entitled ‘Goldfish-2’ led to nine arrests, two of them in the northern Italian city of Milan and in the central city of Terracina, six in Slovakia and one in the Czech Republic, however one suspect is still at large.
Investigators said the gang trafficked the illegal migrants into European Union countries, namely Romania, Hungary and Slovakia, via countries such as the Ukraine and Russia.
From those countries, the migrants would be mainly brought to the Italian region of Friuli Venezia-Giulia, as well as other Italian regions, but also other European countries such as Belgium, England, France and Spain.
Police authorities said the criminal organisations had established headquarters in the Russian capital Moscow, Italy and neighbouring Slovakia.
Indian immigrants would mainly come from the northwestern state of Punjab and would enter Russia with a valid visa.
The migrants would then be housed in apartments until their transfer to Ukraine, where they would stay at a refugee centre in the southwestern city of Mukacevo before being sent to three refugee camps located in Debrecen, Hungary, Samcuta Mare in Romania and Gabcikovo in Slovakia.
In other cases, the migrants would be housed in apartments run by other criminal gangs in the Slovakian capital Bratislava.
One of the alleged gang leaders was a Pakistani illegal immigrant, Saqlain Haider. Reports said he took residence in the northern Italian city of Vicenza, at his uncle’s house, but it is not clear whether he was arrested.
Udine’s investigating magistrate issued 10 European arrest warrants for association to commit immigration crimes.
According to 2008 figures released by Catholic charity Caritas, there are about 50,000 legally resident Pakistani nationals in Italy and 77,500 Indian nationals.
However, the number of illegal immigrants from India and Pakistan is thought to be higher.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Libya-Malta: Immigration, Memorandum for Search and Rescue
(ANSAmed) — TRIPOLI, MARCH 19 — Libya and the neighbouring island of Malta signed yesterday an agreement and cooperation Memorandum over the search and rescue of people at sea. The agreement was signed by Libya’s Body for ports and maritime transport, and by Malta’s Armed Forces. The memorandum allows for cooperation over the search and rescue operations in Mediterranean waters and the exchange of information, technology and know-how. The agreement also includes a cooperation agreement for developing search and rescue methods, mechanisms for advanced technology and the exchange of information between joint rescue coordination centres and sea rescue in both countries. The signing of the document is the result of the 1982 United Nations Convention of laws at sea which states in paragraph 2 of art. 98 ‘the obligation of all coastal States to programme and strengthen services and the functioning of an efficient search and rescue system to guarantee safety at sea”. There has been an steady increase in tragedies caused by boatloads of migrants along the stretch of sea south of Malta in recent years. The treaty joins other bilateral treaties signed by Libya which include regulations for the management of illegal immigrants. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: British Truckers ‘Being Attacked by Knife-Wielding Migrants Desperate to Get to Britain’
Truck drivers say they are being regularly attacked by migrants who are trying desperately to get into Britain from France. Dozens of hauliers claim they have been assaulted by the migrants — many armed with knives and batons — who react violently when they are discovered hiding in trucks bound for the UK. The British drivers are now calling on ministers to put pressure on the French government to take tougher action against those who are targeting them, sometimes on a nightly basis.
Mervyn Osgood, 54, a haulier from Maidstone, Kent, said: ‘I’ve been threatened with a Stanley knife — it’s happening once a week. ‘They’re not afraid to use violence — they’ve got nothing to lose. But I’ve everything to lose; this is my livelihood and I’ve been doing it for 35 years. ‘You’ve got to be a brave bloke to tackle them — they carry home-made batons as well. They get a length of hosepipe, shove metal bars down the end and start waving it at you — it’s a nasty piece of kit. ‘But the French police aren’t interested so you have to round up the fellas and get them out of your trucks yourselves.’ And he criticised the authorities for trying to pin the blame on drivers. ‘British immigration are worse than the French,’ Mr Osgood said. ‘They try and blame us for letting them on our trailers — they think we’re taking bribes.
‘I had four stow away with me in October and I was arrested and held for six hours. I’ve still got an £8,000 fine hanging over me.’ Gary Saunders, 50, a haulier from Basingstoke, Hampshire, who has been working the Dover to Calais route for 30 years, said: ‘There are hundreds of migrants trying to break into the trailers every night. ‘They wait for a back door to open if they think a truck is about to go and climb on board. And they hide in the bushes at the end of the road — the police know they’re there but nothing is done. ‘But if we don’t stop at the stop sign at the end of the road we get fined 40 euros. It’s a no-win situation.’
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Free Speech for Students… Unless You’re Christian, That is
Our institutes of “higher” learning are all about being inclusive. They are stridently for freedom of speech and stand 100% behind the concept of open political debate. Well, unless you’re a Christian, that is. Christians, you see, are the only group that our fetid colleges and universities have agreed to discriminate against.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Gay-Themed Film and Video-Arts Festival in Cordoba
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, MARCH 19 — For the third consecutive year, Cordoba will host a gay and lesbian-themed film and video-arts festival, ‘Idem’, which from today until Saturday, will host a contest including 82 works from 15 countries. According to sources from the organisation, various sections including full-length films, documentaries, photography, and video-art, will be presented by artists from Israel, Morocco, Egypt, Spain, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, Chile, Argentina, Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Among the full-length films on the bill are, ‘Jodiendo Warrick, by Fernando Gamero, ‘Il mobile delle fotò by Giovanni Mavvelli, and a new film by ‘Teddy’, the winner of last year’s Berlinale. Documentaries will include ‘A Jihad for love’, in which director Parvez Sharma confronts the theme of the complex relationship between Islam and homosexuality and ‘Homo baby boom’, in which Anna Boluda talks about the problems of children in families with homosexual parents. The first film on the bill will be Cuore di donnà by Kiff Kosooff. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Consensus Emerges Ahead of Racism Summit
Ahead of the United Nations racism summit in Geneva, Switzerland has joined other countries in backing a revised declaration aimed at avoiding a possible boycott. The Durban Review Conference has been under pressure with several countries and the European Union threatening to stay away over concerns the meeting could become an anti-Semitic forum.
Its draft declaration aims to become a global blueprint for addressing racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance.
A new version was circulated on Tuesday with the most controversial elements about the Middle East and the defamation of religions removed.
Direct references to Israel were taken out but the document does affirm support for the declaration of the first racism summit, the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in Durban in 2001, which linked the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the problem of racism.
In a show of support on Thursday, several countries from Europe and representing all of the UN’s regional groups adopted a declaration backing the new draft text. They also called for negotiations to continue.
Minor differences “The ball is now in the West’s court,” Geneva consultant Yves Lador told swissinfo.
Senior UN officials welcomed the revised declaration as an opportunity to salvage the conference.
“I believe there should now be no major barrier to reaching a successful outcome,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.
“I sincerely hope it is the breakthrough needed to reach a consensus on a text that can concretely help hundreds of groups and millions of individuals who are victims of racism and other forms of intolerance around the world.”
Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi, president of the UN’s 47-nation Human Rights Council, said he was confident that minor differences remaining in the draft could be resolved ahead of the meeting.
The United States and Australia have called for changes to the text and will not take part officially in the summit. Israel, Canada and Italy announced last year they were not participating.
“Unacceptable to Israel” Israel however rejected the amended version of the declaration and continued to call for a boycott.
The 17-page text does not mention Israel specifically, whereas the previous 60-page version devoted four paragraphs to Israel and the Palestinian question.
“In its very first paragraph, the current paper reaffirms the 2001 outcome document which singles out Israel and characterises the [Middle East] conflict as one of race,” ambassador Aharon Leshno-Yaar said.
“This is something that is totally unacceptable to Israel.”
Western countries’ other argument that religious defamation be excluded from the document as it could be used as a pretext to curb freedom of speech has also been accepted.
Demands for compensation for the slave trade and European colonisation were dropped.
Requests by the Vatican and African and Muslim countries that the issue of homosexual discrimination not be included in the draft declaration were also agreed.
Compromise “After a phase in which everyone raised the stakes, it’s time to compromise,” Adrien-Claude Zoller, the director of the non-governmental organisation Geneva for Human Rights, told swissinfo.
He expects the new document should prevent any further escalation of disputes during talks ahead of the conference.
It is a hope shared by Pillay, who has called on states not to adopt extreme, political or controversial positions but rather to work together to ensure the success of the meeting.
Lador added: “Now we will see if those backing the boycott are sincere in their criticism of the conference or if they want to sabotage it.”
He notes that the objective of a boycott is to undermine the UN and its multilateral negotiating framework and adds that authoritarian and dictatorial regimes will continue to chip away at declarations that involve human rights.
Zoller explains that at least two points have helped remove potential minefields from the negotiations: the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ strong commitment to a compromise, and the signals sent by the new US administration of its willingness to commit to a peace agreement in the Middle East.
“But as long as this [Middle East] conflict is not the subject of an international conference, it will pop up at any opportunity presented by the UN,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Why is the Newspaper Industry Really in Trouble?
Instead the big papers depreciated their content. They became even more shriller and partisan and broke fewer actual stories. Instead they let their Generation X and Millennials have free range. News stories became indistinguishable from editorials. Fact checking went out the window, creating the perfect environment for both fabulists such as the Times’ Blair and for biased reports to create stories that fit their own agenda.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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