There are a number of news stories tonight about immigration. Italy is taking the lead with its new policy of repatriating boatloads of illegal immigrants without ever processing them, while ignoring the complaints of human rights NGOs.In other news, further evidence has emerged that Chrysler dealerships targeted for closure by the Obama administration disproportionately supported Republicans in the last election. Also, the president’s pick for the Supreme Court is revealed to have been a member of La Raza.
Thanks to Amil Imani, C. Cantoni, Fausta, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, islam o’phobe, JD, The Frozen North, Tuan Jim, VH, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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Moroccans Abroad Remit 15% Less in 2009
(ANSAmed) — RABAT, MAY 27 — Because of the international financial crisis, remittances by the 3.2 million Moroccans who reside abroad are expected to drop by 15% in 2009, approximately 45 billion dirham in total (some four billion euros). This is the estimate offered by Finance Minister Salaheddine Mezouar during question time at session of the Assembly of Councillors (the upper chamber in the Moroccan parliament). The minister stated that “during the first quarter there has already been a 15.5% contraction in remittances because of the unfavourable economic conditions in EU countries”, adding that these figures, which are an important part of the State budget, “are still positive compared to the average of previous years”. In February, the government in Morocco set up a board to monitor the repercussions of the crisis on the country’s economy. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Singapore: ‘Intolerance’ is a Threat
That poses the biggest threat to S’pore, says Prof Koo in apparent reference to Aware saga
INTOLERANCE, not the economic crisis, poses the biggest threat to Singapore, Associate Professor Koo Tsai Kee (Tanjong Pagar GRC) warned in Parliament on Wednesday.
While the economic slump will pass, religious and racial bigotry could bring about Singapore’s downfall, he said during the debate on the President’s Address at the opening of the new session of Parliament.
‘This economic crisis cannot set us back permanently. It is a passing thunderstorm,’ he said.
‘But if we fall prey to religious and racial bigotry, then it will be a growing cancer in society.’
Although he did not state it explicitly, it was apparent that Prof Koo was referring in part to the recent leadership tussle at the Association of Women for Action and Research (Aware). The controversy sparked a divisive debate on issues such as religion and homosexuality.
‘I see an increasing number of Singaporeans identifying themselves with race and religion. That in itself is nothing wrong if seen in the right perspective,’ he said. ‘But I see small groups becoming self-righteous and becoming intolerant of diversity. This intolerance may be our downfall.’
Singapore has succeeded so far as it has a system of tolerance and meritocracy, one which embraces diversity and inclusiveness, he said.
Still, he warned that the country was not in the clear yet: ‘We are still a young country. In the history of nations, we are still a long way from proving that our success in peaceful co-existence can withstand the test of time.’
The Minister of State for Defence used the examples of Sri Lanka and the former Yugoslavia to show how multi-racial, multi-religious societies had fractured. He contrasted this against cities like New York and London which embraced diversity and tolerance ‘in huge doses’.
‘While we focus our energies on solving this economic crisis, we should never lose sight of the long-term challenge of building a tolerant, diverse and inclusive infrastructure where everybody has a private space within the bigger common space,’ he said.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Chrysler’s ‘Hit List’ Targets GOP Donors
Dealers who give to Republicans much more likely to be shuttered
As part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Chrysler is terminating one-fourth of its franchises — but some say its catalog of doomed dealerships looks more like a hit list that specifically seeks to put Republican donors out of business.
[…]
The first dealership on Chrysler’s list of facilities marked for termination by June 9 is located in Venice, Fla., and belongs to Republican Rep. Vernon G. Buchanan.
Buchanan gave $2,300 to John McCain in 2008 and has contributed nearly $150,000 to GOP candidates and organizations since 2007. He discovered that his location was scheduled for closure when he crossed paths with Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich.
According to the Associated Press, Miller told Buchanan, “I heard you’re going to lose your Dodge franchise.”
“Oh, really?” Buchanan said in a state of surprise.
The dealership’s operating partner, Shelby Curtsinger, said he was astonished by Chrysler’s decision because the location has been profitable — selling more than twice the stock of an average Chrysler dealership every year.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Couple: County Trying to Stop Home Bible Studies
SAN DIEGO — A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold bible studies in their home, 10News reported.
Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy was shocked with what happened to the pastor and his wife.
Broyles said, “The county asked, ‘Do you have a regular meeting in your home?’ She said, ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you say amen?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you pray?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you say praise the Lord?’ ‘Yes.’“
The county employee notified the couple that the small bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of county regulations, according to Broyles.
Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed “unlawful use of land” and told them to “stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit” — a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.
“For churches and religious assemblies there’s big parking concerns, there’s environmental impact concerns when you have hundreds or thousands of people gathering. But this is a different situation, and we believe that the application of the religious assembly principles to this bible study is certainly misplaced,” said Broyles.
News of the case has rapidly spread across Internet blogs and has spurred various reactions.
Broyles said his clients have asked to stay anonymous until they give the county a demand letter that states by enforcing this regulation the county is violating their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion.
Broyles also said this case has broader implications.
“If the county thinks they can shut down groups of 10 or 15 Christians meeting in a home, what about people who meet regularly at home for poker night? What about people who meet for Tupperware parties? What about people who are meeting to watch baseball games on a regular basis and support the Chargers?” said Broyles.
Broyles and his clients plant to give the county their demand letter this week.
If the county refuses to release the pastor and his wife from obtaining the permit, they will consider a lawsuit in federal court.
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Episcopal Church Fires 61 Central Valley Priests
The Episcopal Church has fired, or in its words “deposed,” 61 priests and deacons in the Central Valley who followed former Bishop John David Schofield when he rebuked the national church and aligned with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, a conservative group based in South America.
He and the various priests and deacons objected to the Episcopal Church’s ordination of gays to the priesthood among other things, “refusing to recognize the authority of the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church and of the Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church,” as the church puts it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
FCC’s Warrantless Household Searches Alarm Experts
You may not know it, but if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.
That’s the upshot of the rules the agency has followed for years to monitor licensed television and radio stations, and to crack down on pirate radio broadcasters. And the commission maintains the same policy applies to any licensed or unlicensed radio-frequency device.
“Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference,” says FCC spokesman David Fiske. That includes devices like Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, Fiske says.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hamas Backers Jailed in Texas
Two founder members of what was once the biggest Muslim charity in the US have each been jailed for 65 years.
Shukri Abu Baker, 50, and Ghassan Elashi, 55, were convicted of channelling funds to the Palestinian militant group, Hamas.
Three other members of the Holy Land Foundation were jailed for between 15 and 20 years by a Dallas court.
The charity was found guilty last year of sending $12m (£7.4m) to fund social programmes controlled by Hamas.
The five men were convicted in November on charges ranging from money laundering to supporting terrorism.
Hamas was designated a terrorist organisation by the US government 14 years ago, making it illegal to give the group money or other support.
I did it because I cared, not at the behest of Hamas Defendant Shukri Abu Baker
The defendants said they were only interested in helping the needy.
Their supporters said no money had been used to fund violence, and the case was a by-product of what it called the anti-Islamic sentiment following the 11 September attacks of 2001.
Shukri Abu Baker told the judge in Dallas on Wednesday: “I did it because I cared, not at the behest of Hamas.”
But prosecutors argued that the humanitarian aid sent by the charity allowed Hamas to divert money to militant activities.
Orphans
Jurors had reached their guilty verdict last year after eight days of deliberations following a retrial of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.
It was the largest terrorism financing trial since the 9/11 attacks.
The indictment against the group said it sponsored Palestinian orphans and families in the West Bank and Gaza whose relatives had died or been imprisoned as a result of Hamas attacks on Israel.
The charity was shut down and had its assets frozen in 2001.
| — Hat tip: islam o’phobe | [Return to headlines] |
New Book Offers Survival Guide for Conservatives in Blue States
Author Harry Stein has prepared a primer for people who are locked in political exile in their very own homes in his new book, “I Can’t Believe I’m Sitting Next to a Republican.”
If you’ve been booed, hissed, heckled or hollered at … scathed, scapegoated, scanted or screamed at … if you’re the bane of blue states and a gall to all the Greens … you may be feeling lonely, but you’re certainly not alone. Author Harry Stein has written a book for the elephant in the room. It’s called “I Can’t Believe I’m Sitting Next to a Republican,” and he calls it “a survival guide for conservatives marooned among the angry, smug, and terminally self-righteous.”
Which is to say: liberals.
“You deal with a lot of people who pretty much hate your guts” simply because you disagree with them, says Stein, who lives in a suburban liberal enclave a few miles north of Manhattan, which generally shades a deeper blue than the rivers that surround it
Stein, a lifelong New Yorker, traveled the country talking to other conservatives about their woes and prepared a primer for people who are locked in political exile in their very own homes. That ranges from parents worried about the education their kids are getting in elementary school (“always the Indians, everything the Indians”) to professors struggling to make it in the ivory tower.
The trouble can put relationships on the chopping block too. Stein, who details his own rocky relationship with his father in the book, found he wasn’t the only one suffering. “I sat down with a bunch of conservatives in San Francisco, (including) a gay man who was talking about what it was like being a gay conservative in San Francisco. “He said it’s a lot harder being conservative than it is to be gay,” Stein told FOXNews.com. “His friends all turned on him.”
To avoid that kind of reception, some secret right-wingers take the extra step of pretending to be in lock-step with those around them. One studio executive he interviewed posted Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama signs around his office, depending won which way the political winds were blowing during the presidential campaign. Advertising his actual beliefs would have been deadly, Stein says. “People out there understand that those positions are really dangerous — they jeopardize your livelihood.”
Stein, who has very harsh words for the left-wingers he calls narrow-minded and provincial, says he grew up inside the church of liberalism and knows it from the inside out. “Growing up liberal is kind of a birthright. You come of age with that, and everyone in your family feels the same way and everyone you know feels the same way — and to break apart from that is like leaving behind a religion.”
But a funny thing happened on the way to the ashram — Stein says he met a few conservatives and came to like them for their politeness and their personal values. “As a person on the left I never ran into people on the right. It was really a revelation, it was an eye-opener when I actually started getting to know conservatives, that they weren’t monsters.”
Stein’s survival guide is set to come out June 22, but the release party might have to be a little bit subdued. “We’ll see if I survive the book,” he told FOXNews.com. “My car was keyed once already during the campaign (because of a bumper sticker), so we have contingency plans for hiding it over the next few months.”
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
School District to Consider Muslim Holidays
A Connecticut school district is considering a proposal to close schools on two Muslim holidays. The Region 16 Board of Education is expected to take up the Student Council’s proposal this week. The board represents the towns of Prospect and Beacon Falls, Conn. The resolution asks the board not to hold classes on the day that marks the end of the fasting period of Ramadan and on the day that concludes the annual observance of the pilgrimage to Mecca.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sonia Sotomayor ‘La Raza Member’
American Bar Association lists Obama choice as part of group
As President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee comes under heavy fire for allegedly being a “racist,” Judge Sonia Sotomayor is listed as a member of the National Council of La Raza, a group that’s promoted driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, amnesty programs, and no immigration law enforcement by local and state police.
According the American Bar Association, Sotomayor is a member of the NCLR, which bills itself as the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S.
Meaning “the Race,” La Raza also has connections to groups that advocate the separation of several southwestern states from the rest of America.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
US Muslim Women: NY Synagogue Bomb Plan Was FBI Plot
The National Association of Muslim American Women (NAMAW) has charged the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with entrapping four New York City Muslims arrested for planning to bomb a synagogue.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Amnesty Criticises Denmark
Amnesty International’s annual report for 2008 criticises Denmark on several issues.
Amnesty International ‘s annual report on the state of human rights in 157 countries, criticises Denmark on several issues and calls for a global deal for human rights.
In its Denmark report, Amnesty questions the Danish government’s attempt to expel foreign nationals on the basis of ‘diplomatic guarantees’ from countries in which those in question would be in danger of torture.
“States such as Denmark, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, were prepared to allow unenforceable “diplomatic assurances” as a justification to deport terrorism suspects to countries where there was a real risk of torture and other ill-treatment,” Amnesty says.
In particular Amnesty points to the forced repatriation of Iraqis as well as the so-called ‘Tunisian case’ in which those involved have faced an uncertain future if they were returned to their country of origin.
Obligations The report calls on Denmark to make greater efforts to abide by and restore its respect for human rights.
“The serious violations of human rights and the killing of civilians in Iraq, Gaza, Sri Lanka and Pakistan have caused hundreds of thousands to flee. But it appears that the most important thing for the Danish government is to close its borders to refugees, forcibly repatriate 282 Iraqi asylum seekers to an insecure future and expel terrorism suspects to countries that use torture — without giving them a fair trial,” says Amnesty International Denmark Secretary-General Lars Normann Jørgensen.
Residency The Amnesty report also addresses the issue of tolerated residency in Denmark, under which those who cannot be deported must live in an asylum centre and report to police each day.
“This includes people whose return to their country of origin has been ruled to be unsafe by the Refugee Appeals Board. In November there were believed to be 18 people with a “tolerated residency” status,” Amnesty says adding that at least 11 Iraqis were forcibly returned to Iraq, contrary to the recommendations of the United Nations Hich Commission for Refugees.
“Some asylum-seekers who had been subjected to torture or other ill-treatment did not receive adequate medical treatment in Denmark,” Amnesty says.
Police The report also points to the Danish system of complaints about the police, suggesting it is inadequate.
“The system for resolving complaints against the police failed to ensure an effective remedy for allegations of ill-treatment. Very few complaints — between five and eight out of every 1,000 — were upheld by regional public prosecutors, and even fewer resulted in criminal charges being brought against the police,” the report says.
Rape It also said that there was a lack of legal protection and redress for survivors of rape.
“Only one in five rapes reported to the police resulted in a conviction. Sixty per cent of cases where charges were brought did not reach court due to lack of evidence,” the Annual Report added.
Global issues At the global level, Amnesty says that the world is in the middle of a human rights crisis.
“We are sitting on a social, political and economic time-bomb that will explode if human rights concerns are not addressed. Billions of people are suffering from insecurity, injustice and indignity around the world and while many aspects of this crisis pre-date the economic ‘downturn’, it is clear that the global financial situation is making the human rights crisis far worse,” Amnesty says.
It says that in the Middle East and North Africa, the financial crisis and rising food prices have affected those who are already in poverty and that in Europe, the gap between rich and poor remains ‘vast’.
“In Latin America and the Caribbean — where more than 70 million people are living on less than US$1 a day — poverty, inequality and discrimination have increased the numbers of Indigenous People denied their rights to health care, education, clean water and adequate housing,” Amnesty says.
Global deal It adds that a coordinated global response is needed based on human rights and the Rule of Law.
“World leaders must invest in human rights as purposefully as it invests in economic growth. It is incumbent on those sitting at the world’s table to set an example through their own behaviour. And it is incumbent on us, as citizens, as rights holders, to bring pressure to bear on our political leaders,” the human rights organisation says.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Austria: Security Increased at Sikh Sites After Deadly Conflict
Vienna, 26 May (AKI) — The Austrian government has increased security at Sikh temples and other sites in the Austrian capital, Vienna, after the violent attack that resulted in the death of a Sikh guru on Sunday. Foreign ministry spokesman, Peter Launsky, told Adnkronos International (AKI) on Tuesday that police were working to ensure there was no repetition of the violent conflict between two Sikh groups.
Austrian foreign minister Michael Spindelegger on Monday telephoned India’s external affairs minister SM Krishna to express his condolences about the death of Sant Rama Nan, the guru who died from his injuries in a Vienna hospital on Monday.
“It is a very sad incident for Vienna,” Launsky said. “Vienna is recognised as an international place for peaceful dialogue.”
Launsky said the foreign minister had assured his Indian counterpart that police and other officials would fully investigate the incident and work to ensure that the violence does not happen again.
“Everyone is trying to do his or her best to make sure that it does not happen again,” he said.
Launsky, who lives in India for eight years, said the Austrian embassy in New Delhi had received a memorandum from India’s Sikh community thanking the Austrian government for its response.
Meanwhile a second guru, 68-year-old Sant Niranjan Dass, has reportedly improved after surgery in Vienna.
Dass underwent surgery after Sunday’s attack at the Rudolsheim temple where Sant Rama Nan was killed.
Six people were arrested in connection with the attack on Sunday in Vienna’s 15th district. Police said six bearded, knife and gun wielding attackers entered the temple, shot the two visiting gurus and attacked worshippers.
Four of the wounded were suspects, two of them in a serious condition, according to police.
About 150 people were in the temple when the violence took place, police said. Authorities are investigating what triggered the attacks.
S.M. Krishna said on Monday that the Indian government would take all necessary steps to bring the culprits of the Vienna violence to justice.
The Indian embassy in Vienna was in close contact with the Austrian foreign ministry, the Viennese police and the Austrian authorities, he said.
“There is no excuse whatever for the violation of the sacred premises of the gurudwara (temple) to sub serve narrow sectarian interests and other purposes,” Krishna said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Barbaric European Food Practices, Part I: The Snail
[Comment from Tuan Jim: Reference to EU ban on seal products, etc.]
Photo: Terrified European snail flees heartless German snail-killers bent on ripping its life away. If you look closely, you can see the snail is crying.
The European Union is close to banning all Canadian seal products, and a grassroots campaign to boycott Canadian fish and seafood is gaining momentum. But what of Europe’s own barbaric culinary practices? In response, Full Commnet will call attention to European hypocrisy and demand an immediate end to the brutal slaughter of helpless creatures. Today’s poor victim of continental cruelty: snails.
To be a snail born in the EU is a very poor fate indeed. The terrestrial land snail, found throughout Western and Central Europe, is a harmless creature. Subsisting on a diet of algae and plant life, they pose no threat to anyone, and are certainly not hunters.
Practically defenceless, they rely entirely on their hard shell for protection from predators. When confronted by a hungry animal, all they can do is pull themselves into their armour, hunker down, and cower in terror, hoping for the best.
These helpless creatures’ defences have proven no match for the cruelty of man. For thousands of years, they have been hunted and subjected to bizarre tortures before being consumed as a delicacy by heartless and out-of-touch Europeans. Starting in Roman Times, this barbaric consumption of adorable snails has spread throughout the Eurozone, and is now concentrated most famously in France, where the French word for snail has become synonymous with the cruel preparation for the high-and-mighty — escargot.
To make proper escargot, the snails are first killed, then pried from their shells and gutted. Their remains are then cooked in butter, and — in a truly despicable step — are then poured back into their own hollowed-out shells, to be served with garlic and thyme. In order to avoid any toxicity, farm-bred snails are often starved several days before their slaughter, to purge their digestive tracts of anything which might be harmful or even unpalatable to humans. Prior to their culling, they’re often put on a diet of nothing more than ground cereal, to fatten them up and avoid impacting on their taste.
The torture and abuse of these blameless mollusks for the culinary pleasure of the European upper-crush must be stopped. The National Post calls on all Canadians to boycott not just snails, but all European appetizers, until such time that the European Union takes action to stop this barbaric practice.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Berlusconi Says Dirty Rome Looks More African Than European
Advice to Alemanno. Mayor replies that prime minister is mistaken and in any case was referring to the legacy of the Left
The Far East, especially Japan, is his model of urban cleanliness. And the model is even more appealing when contrasted with the “filth in the streets” of Italy’s cities, which look “more African than European”. In an interview with Radio Radio, Silvio Berlusconi reiterated his admiration for Japan, its capital Tokyo, and the cleanliness of towns over there.
“TOKYO AND BEIJING” — The Italian prime minister explained: “I’m not long back from Tokyo and Beijing, where you won’t find a cigarette end, a piece of plastic or a scrap of paper, nor will you see any graffiti. In fact there was a law, amended a few months ago, that used to prescribe strokes of the cane for anyone disfiguring the streets. I don’t want to go that far but we have to do something”. Mr Berlusconi pointed out that “our criminal code decrees imprisonment for those who disfigure buildings in historic town centres with graffiti or otherwise. But the article is no longer applied. We need to bring it back and start to make a few examples. It’s heart-breaking to see graffiti on the walls and filth in the streets of Italian cities like Naples, Rome and Palermo. They look more like cities in Africa than Europe”. Mr Berlusconi had some advice for Gianni Alemanno: “Take more care of green spaces and cleanliness. Takes steps to prevent graffiti on walls”.
ALEMANNO — “I have already spoken to Silvio Berlusconi and his words have been widely misinterpreted. He’ll soon be issuing a clarification”, said Rome’s mayor, Gianni Alemanno. “Clearly, the prime minister’s accusation is directed at the legacy of the Left, which is difficult to sort out in one year”. Mr Alemanno went on to say: “We still have a lot of work to do, but the situation on the cleanliness front is already changing”. Referring to graffiti, Mr Alemanno said that “a national law is needed because a municipal by-law is not possible. We have already tried that”.
SASSOLI — “Berlusconi is papering over the cracks but he can’t conceal the blunder of his attack on the municipal administration”, said the Democratic Party (PD) European election list leader for central Italy, David Sassoli. “In practical terms, the city’s liveability has deteriorated in the past year. No progress has been made on cleanliness, transport, security or quality of life, despite the 500 million euros the government has given this administration”.
English translation by Giles Watson
www.watson.it
Article in Italian
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Government Moves to Soften Finnish Aliens Act
The government has put forward a proposal to ease some restrictions under the Finnish Aliens Act. If approved, the bill will make family reunifications easier.
The amended law would make it easier for family members from a third country to join their family in Finland. The government is looking to align the Finnish Aliens Act more closely with rules of freedom of movement within the EU.
Under current law, a one-year residence permit is normally issued for family members, but the new bill would allow a five-year permit to be issued. The bill also raises thresholds for deportation.
A Parliament hearing is due to consider the proposal.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
FT Editorial Stirs Comment in Italy
Ministers defend premier, opposition compares him to Nero
(ANSA) — Rome, May 27 — Premier Silvio Berlusconi will probably laugh off an editorial by the Financial Times which accused the Italian right-wing leader of being a “danger to Italy and a malign example” to all, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said on Wednesday.
Maroni said he usually laughs at criticism and carries on with his life and Berlusconi “will do the same”.
Foreign minister Franco Frattini said the editorial was an example of a “bad” and “dishonest” press.
“The result of the Italian government’s work is in front of everyone,” referring to Italy’s diplomatic efforts as president of the Group of Eight this year. In an editorial published Wednesday entitled the Baleful Influence of Burlesque Cronies, the Financial Times said Berlusconi could not be called a fascist or compared to dictator Benito Mussolini.
“He has squads of starlets, not of Blackshirts,” said the London daily, referring to the media reports that Berlusconi had attempted to field television starlets for the upcoming European elections prior to a messy divorce spat with his wife Veronica Lario, who has accused him of consorting with teenagers.
“ The real dangers lie elsewhere,” said the daily.
“ Over the 15 years of his political career — always as prime minister, or as leader of the opposition — he has had a largely untrammelled opportunity to shift the national mood rightwards,” said the Financial Times.
“ This he has done not by crude propaganda but by a steady concentration on glitz, glitter and girls and a hyperbolic style of media-geared rhetoric that sees all opposition as communist and himself as a victim,” said the editorial.
The Italian premier has shown “belligerence towards magistrates”, calling them left-wing activists and has said that parliament is “useless”, saying it “should be drastically reduced to 100 members, while his powers increase”.
“That he is so dominant is partly the fault of a faltering left; of weak and sometimes politicised institutions; of journalism which has too often accepted a subaltern status. Most of all it is the fault of a very wealthy, very powerful and increasingly ruthless man. No fascist, but a danger, in the first place to Italy, and a malign example to all”.
Berlusconi’s office did not issue a comment on the editorial but the premier’s lawyer, MP Niccolo’ Ghedini, said it was “not so much an offense against Berlusconi but to Italians”.
“Berlusconi is certainly not dangerous, otherwise one would have to claim that the 20 million Italians who voted for him are completely insane”.
But Antonio Di Pietro, a former graft-busting magistrate and leader of the opposition Italy of Values party, compared Berlusconi to the ancient Roman emperor Nero who reportedly played the fiddle while Rome burned.
‘We’ve got a home-spun Nero who enjoys seeing our country burn economically, socially and at an institutional level”.
Di Pietro, whose party is attempting to file a no confidence motion against Berlusconi, urged other MPs to sign the document so that it can be debated in parliament.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Cleric Speaks Out About Berlusconi
Rome, 26 May (AKI) — A senior Italian cleric on Tuesday weighed into the controversy surrounding the Italian prime minister Silvio Berluconi’s embattled personal life and his business affairs. “We need to avoid hasty judgements,” the secretary-general of the Italian bishops conference, Mariano Crociata, said.
Crociata was responding to journalists’ questions about Berlusconi’s relationship with aspiring 18-year-old model and actress, Noemi Letizia, who calls him “Daddy”, and whose birthday party he attended outside Naples at the end of April.
Journalists also asked Crociata to comment on an Italian court finding that the prime minister bribed British lawyer David Mills to perjure himself in two separate trials to protect Berlusconi’s business empire.
“I don’t like oversimplifications of complex situations,” said Crociata. “There are many moral questions. We need to keep them all in mind and avoid hasty judgements,” he continued.
“Everyone has a conscience and the ability to make judgements,” he added.
The Catholic church previously urged more sober behaviour from Berlusconi after his wife Veronica Lario said she was filing for divorce over the “shameless rubbish” he had exposed her to by his connection to Letizia.
Lario also objected to him fielding several attractive showgirls as candidates for his conservative People of Freedom party in next month’s European Parliament elections.
Lario expressed anger that Berlusconi attended Letizia’s birthday party, saying he had never attended the 18th birthday parties of any of their three children.
She also implied that Letizia had a relationship with Berlusconi, and said: “I cannot stay with a man who consorts with minors.”
The premier has claimed he has nothing to hide and will clarify his affairs before the Italian parliament.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Euroscepticism and Populism Are Not a Bad Thing Per Se
The less-educated had lost their political representation, but now their concerns are being voiced by populist parties.”Highly-educated people can hire a Polish housepainter while the less-educated have to compete for jobs with those painters.”
Geert Wilders’ anti-Islam Party for Freedom is a healthy correction to the Dutch political system, says professor of public administration Mark Bovens. It appeals to an important part of the electorate, mostly the less-educated, that had lost its political representation in the past decades.
Mark Bovens doesn’t beat about the bush. Parties like Geert Wilders’ PVV, nationalist group Trots op Nederland (Proud of the Netherlands), or their forerunner the LPF party of Pim Fortuyn, who was assassinated in 2002, are often brushed aside as being “populist”, meaning: manipulative, simplistic, looking to score. “When you’ve categorised these parties as reprehensible, you don’t have to think about the underlying causes [of their success] anymore,” says Bovens about the political situation in the Netherlands.
Bovens sees a new divide emerge in the campaign for the European parliament elections next week — and not just in the Netherlands. Added to the traditional dividing lines between left and right, or labour and capital, and between religious and secular, is a new, cultural rift between what Bovens likes to call ‘cosmopolitans’ and ‘nationalists’.
Across traditional political lines
“On the one hand you have the cosmopolitan parties and citizens,” Bovens says. “They are in favour of globalisation and European unification and they support or accept immigration and the multicultural society. On the other hand you have the nationalist parties. They feel globalisation and European unification have gone too far too fast, and they emphasise national values and national identity.”
This new line cuts straight across the traditional political lines, Bovens says. “In the debate about Europe, you can see that the PVV has a lot in common with the [eurosceptic] Socialist party. They both have a more nationalist approach.”
The establishment’s suggestion that the voters of the PVV and the Socialist party simply “haven’t understood” the benefits that Europe offers, is too simplistic, says Bovens.
“After [the Dutch voted against] the referendum on Europe [in 2005], many people said: ‘We should have explained it better.’ This is underestimating what’s at stake here. To highly-educated people European unification is a blessing. They speak several languages, their job market now stretches across Europe, their kids can study anywhere in the EU without losing their scholarships.
“To less-educated people — especially those preforming manual labour and working in the services industry — European unification presents no advantages at all. What they see is increased competition in the job market. Highly-educated people can hire a Polish housepainter to redo their house; less-educated people find themselves living next to a pension for Polish migrant workers, or they have to compete with the Polish housepainter for the same job. Much of the industry in which they were employed has moved to low-wage countries in Eastern Europe or Asia. So it is no wonder that they object. That’s democracy.”
Electorate tossed out
Bovens sees parties like the PVV and the SP as the new mass parties. “They are populist in that they have charismatic leaders and there is an emphasis on the opposition between the elite and the people.”
The traditional parties — Labour, Christian democrats, liberals — increasingly came to represent only the well-educated. They tended to dismiss the concerns of the less-educated over issues such as European unification, immigration and globalisation as “xenophobic, racist, backward”. The mainstream parties were able to neglect what once were their traditional grassroots supporters because, for a long time, there was simply no competition on the political market. “So the concerns of 30 to 40 percent of the electorate were simply tossed out,” says Bovens.
But isn’t it a good idea to have well-educated people at the helm? “It’s always better to have a captain who knows what he’s doing,” says Bovens, “but everybody needs to have their say about where the ship is headed. Look at the way Europe has taken shape in the past forty years: it has been defined exclusively by academics — lawyers, professors, experts in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg. So it is only logical that Europe has headed in the direction that best suited the well-educated.”
In that respect, the 2005 referendum about the European constitution was a milestone, says Bovens. “Europe has become politicised; it is no longer the exclusive domain of lawyers and economists. That’s why I think the success of the PVV is not necessarily a negative thing. In the debate about Europe, the vote of the expert in European law now carries the same weight as the vote of the labourer who is competing with the Polish housepainter.”
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Stasi Stole West German Identities for Sabotage Ops
The feared East German Stasi secret police misused the identities of innocent Western German citizens as covers for secret agents, daily Berliner Zeitung reported on Wednesday.
Dozens of so-called “lone fighters” for the Stasi took on the identities of unsuspecting westerners for sabotage missions in West Germany that included murder, kidnapping, and robbery, the paper reported, citing evidence in files at the BtSU Stasi archive.
These doppelganger agents held passports under the names of their living West German counterparts, most of whom still have no idea that their identities were used in such a way.
The BtSU, also known as the Birthler Office after archive head Marianne Birthler, told the paper that files revealing this information are hard to come by because they are often hidden as loose collections of paper among records of other Stasi activities.
That means that even those who have inquired after whether they have Stasi records may falsely believe none exist.
| — Hat tip: islam o’phobe | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Knife Man Gets Reduced Sentence After Dog Bite to Testicles
[Comment from Tuan Jim: Great comments on this one again. Makes perfect sense that a criminal’s pain and suffering resulting in the course of a crime would be grounds for a reduced sentence…and no penalties at all for animal cruelty?]
A 32-year-old man in southern Sweden found guilty of assaulting his ex-girlfriend has been granted a lower than usual sentence because of the suffering caused when he was bitten in the testicles by the woman’s Rottweiler.
Helsingborg District Court sentenced the man to one and a half years in jail for aggravated assault after finding him guilty of stabbing his ex-girlfriend twice from behind with a knife. The court said he would have received a longer sentence had he not been severely bitten in course of the melee.
The attack took place on March 31st at an apartment in the southern Swedish city. According to the woman’s version of events, her Rottweiler snapped into action after her assailant had begun wielding a knife, local newspaper Helsingborgs Dagblad reports.
During the attack the dog was stabbed twice in the throat, but not before it had succeeded in inflicting serious damage on the 32-year-old’s scrotum.
The man in his turn claimed that his ex-girlfriend had set her dog on him and that he had acted in self-defence when he chose to stab the animal. He also denied stabbing his former girlfriend.
The court rejected both the self-defence claim and the assertion that he had not attacked the woman with a knife.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: A Home for the Family; a Church for the Parish Priest
Ticino emigrants made their mark in foreign lands — and when they returned home.
Many buildings were erected and changes introduced to Italian-speaking Switzerland by those who made their fortunes and returned home as men of wealth. Like in Someo.
Even now, people in the Valle Maggia village are reluctant to discuss certain things: family disputes that go back a hundred years, controversies over religion and secular matters.
According to one elderly woman I meet in front of the church, some of the villagers who emigrated to California returned to Ticino with pots of money.
Having seen the imposing tombs in American cemeteries, they wanted to build themselves big memorials in the modest cemetery at Someo. Delusions of grandeur that the simple peasant farmers of the valley found distasteful.
“My mother did not want my sister, who had returned from America, to erect a mausoleum among the family headstones. But you could hardly go to court over a cemetery!”, continued the sprightly 80-year-old.
“And this is partly why we now have two cemeteries: one for the poor and one for the wealthy, or the “Americans”, as we say in these parts…
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Philip Pullman Helps Understanding of Theology, Says Archbishop of Canterbury
Reading Philip Pullman can help people to understand theology, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said, despite criticism of the atheist author’s novels as a veiled attack on Christianity.
Citing Pullman as one of his favourite modern writers, Dr Rowan Williams said he liked his work because it took the church “seriously” at a time when theology was “drifting out” of mainstream thought.
Pullman has been castigated by parts of the Roman Catholic church, particularly in North America, as many consider the trilogy His Dark Materials to be a veiled attack on it.
But, speaking at the Hay Festival in Wales, Dr Williams defended Pullman.
He said: “First of all he takes the Christian myth, or a version of it, seriously enough to want to disagree passionately with it.
[Comment from Tuan Jim: Seriously, what’s Williams smoking? His pronouncements are getting more ridiculous by the day.]
“It’s not just dull or remote, it’s dangerous. You’ve got to tussle with it. It’s still alive.”
Although he stressed he disagreed with Pullman’s atheistic view, he commended his “search for some way of talking about human value, human depth and three-dimensionality, that doesn’t depend on God.”
Merely to ask the question was important, he said.
He agreed with the thrust of Pullman’s novels that religious authorities must not silence the “demons” that people carry with them — the essential “internal conversation” between good and evil.
He said: “The threat in Pullman’s novels is the Authority — people like me in his imagination — which wants to divide the human spirit and cut off and silence that demonic voice, that voice of the imagination.
“And so you end up with these unforgettably poignant pictures of children who have had their demons taken away, who are just lifeless automata.
“And that’s evil, that’s the essence of evil.”
He concluded: “I feel that that awareness of the inner conversation, the inner dialogue, that has to be part of a sensible, credible modern dialogue about the soul.”
In 2007 Roman Catholic groups called for a boycott of the film The Golden Compass, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, which was based on Northern Lights, the first book in the trilogy.
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League in the United States, described the books as “atheism for kids”.
Chris Weitz, the film’s director, responded by saying: “I think Philip Pullman takes issue with dogma. He is not anti-Catholic or anti-religion.”
Dr Williams made his comments about Pullman after telling the Hay audience that he thought theology had become less relevant to the “intellectual mainstream” since the 19th century.
Asked by the writer AN Wilson whether modern literature had “come adrift” from the worlds of philosophy and theology, Dr Williams admitted: “Theology has itself in some ways drifted out of the intellectual mainstream. On the whole theology doesn’t figure
[ends strangely…incomplete?]
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Sirens ‘Can Make Areas Seem Dangerous’ Says Scotland Yard Chief
Police sirens should be used only when “absolutely necessary” because the sound can make areas seem “more dangerous”, according to Sir Paul Stephenson, the chief of the Metropolitan Police.
[Comment from Tuan Jim: Never mind the reality…]
Sir Paul told members of the Metropolitan Police Authority that strict policies are in place on the use of warning sirens.
Speaking at City Hall, he said: “I do think that noise in London as a city can actually add to the whole perception that this is a violent and dangerous place. I discussed it a couple of months ago.
“The policy is we use sirens only when absolutely necessary. At all other times they should be turned off.
“I have nothing to tell me that is not complied with but we constantly go back to check and brief officers accordingly.
“We are not the only people who use sirens in the city and the total noise in London is a combination of factors. All we can do is put controls on our own people.
“Is there something we can do to reduce our contribution to the cacophony of noise in London? Because I do live in London and listen at night to all the sirens.”
He also said paramedics and firefighters must also bear responsibility for their contribution to the “cacophony”.
Sir Paul was speaking in response to criticism of the force’s use of helicopters and the disturbance they cause.
Julie Lawrence, who lives in central London, said there has been a marked increase in the number of circling helicopters.
She said: “I believe the operational considerations of the Met should be balanced against the considerable disruption caused to local people when deciding on the use of the helicopter.”
The meeting was told helicopters are used in searches for missing people and suspects, monitoring public order events and following vehicles.
Catherine Crawford, chief executive of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said these tasks are undertaken more effectively and more safely from the air.
Sir Paul said: “We have got three helicopters and we have seen they are a massively valuable operational tool and we want to maximise its use for the reason they were bought for.
“I almost want them to be used to the maximum but for the things that bring the most benefits to Londoners and perhaps noise is the price we pay for it.”
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
UK: When All Else Fails, Bash the BNP
In its phoney moral crusade to stop the British National Party, the elite has replaced politics with emotional blackmail.
Sometimes it seems that if the British National Party (BNP) did not exist, the political class might have to invent it.
Reactions to the expenses scandal have exposed mainstream politics at its lowest ebb. A New Labour government many thought had already reached rock bottom has got out its pickaxe and started digging down through the rock to unexplored depths. Yet the ‘new’ Conservative opposition is also in turmoil, standing embarrassed before the media ‘moats and all’. Self-flagellation is the political style du jour, as a New Labour cabinet minister endorses electoral reforms that would stop his party getting into government again while Conservative leader David Cameron assures us that we no longer need be a Tory or even interested in politics to stand as an MP for his party.
Faced with the growing cult of the ‘independent’ MP, spineless professional politicians can now be cowed by the spectre of the ridiculous Esther Rantzen considering standing against them, while the cry from the media goes up to make Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous prime minister by popular acclaim.
In these dark days, what is the one thing that politicians can try to use as a crutch to help them hobble upwards, if not exactly on to the moral high ground, then at least from the drain to the gutter? Bring on the BNP! By warning that the political crisis could lead to the rise of this small far-right party in the coming European and local elections, and calling on virtuous voters to support democracy against the ‘threat’ of neo-fascism, they hope to make themselves appear decent by comparison. It looks like the political equivalent of the morality of the jailhouse, which distinguishes between ordinary decent criminals and sex offenders: ‘However bad you might think we are, at least we are not like them.’ …
| — Hat tip: The Frozen North | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Non-Serb Minorities Fleeing Country, NGO Report
(ANSAmed) — PRISTINA, MAY 27 — Various non-Serb minorities who live in Kosovo are abandoning the fledgeling country because they feel discriminated against by the ethnic Albanian majority, the London-based International Minority Rights Group (MGI), says in a report published today. The report blames the ethnic Albanian Kosovar leadership for the exodus through lack of will to guarantee minority rights. Suffering from the discrimination are the Bosniacs, ethnic Turks, the Rom, the Ashkalis (a group of Egyptian origin resident for centuries in the southern Balkans), and the Gorans (ethnic Slavs who are Muslims), who together make up 5 % of the population of Kosovo. Many members of these groups, says the report, have long since left Kosovo. “The Albanian majority lacks political will and substantial investment in favour of minority rights. If one adds the bad condition of the economy, it means that many members of those communities must now leave the new state of Kosovo.” Says the report. The genesis of the discrimination is the impression that the minorities were allied to the Serb-dominated Yugoslav regime in the 1990s or did little to oppose it, the report adds. The report criticises the international community, accusing it of having devoted excessive time to relations between the Serbs and the ethnic Albanians while ignoring the other groups. “The international community should make it a priority to guarantee that there is some kind of international mechanism favouring the human rights of minorities in Kosovo,” the MGI’s director, Marco Lattimer, said in an interview. Protecting the minorities would help Kosovo move forward on its path toward joining the European Union, Lattimer said. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia-France: Education Ministers Met in Paris
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, MAY 26 — Serbian Education Minister Zarko Obradovic met his French counterpart Xavier Darcos within his official visit to France with the aim of establishing stronger cooperation in the area of culture and education, reports Tanjug news agency. This visit is a part of a broader policy of connecting the two countries, said Obradovic, the first Serbian Education Minister who came to a bilateral visit to France in the past twenty years. Darcos underscored that France is particularly interested in opening a French-Serbian lycee in Belgrade, and commended the initiative of the Serbian government which is committed to finding a site and funds for its construction. The ministers also discussed the harmonization of educational systems, particularly in higher education.(ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Seminar on Human Rights for Journalists Prohibited
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, MAY 27 — Algerian authorities have prohibited a seminar on human rights for Algerian journalists. According to the Algerian League for Human Rights (LADDH) in a statement entitled ‘Human Rights Repressed’, the event — scheduled for May 26-28 in Zeralda (Algiers) — has been banned by the prefect’s office of Algiers. “The decision to prohibit this training session for Algerian journalists,” continued a statement published today by the Algerian press, “is an attack on the freedom of assembly guaranteed by the Constitution and the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Abbas to Meet With Obama Today, Wants Assurances
(ANSAmed) — WASHINGTON, MAY 28 — U.S. president Barack Obama will be meeting with Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas today at the White House for talks bound to focus on the need for Palestinians to receive reassurances on the U.S. commitment to the “two-state” solution, and the pressure on Israel to stop its enlargement of settlements in the West Bank. The talks will inevitably be influenced by the negative outcome of the meeting at the White House a few days ago between Obama and Israeli premier Benyamin Netanyahu, which highlighted the differences of opinion between the two leaders on the direction to be taken to resume peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. On the eve of his meeting with Obama, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas reiterated that premier Netanyahu must agree to the principle of a Palestinian state before peace talks can resume. One of Abbas’s spokesmen has said that the Palestinian president intends to stress to Obama the need to “to move from speaking to acting” as concerns Tel Aviv’s promises to block the expansion of settlements. U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton reiterated yesterday that the Obama administration has asked Israelis to freeze their settlements in the West Bank “without any exceptions”. However, within the Palestinian delegation there is much scepticism over the ability of the United States to effectively intervene in the new Israeli government, which seems to have set aside for the time being the commitment made in Annapolis (by the previous government) to move in the direction of a two-state solution, one Israeli and one Palestinian, as the only way to peace.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netanyahu to Honour Deals Signed With Palestinians
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, MAY 27 — Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu said today that his government will honour all agreements signed in the past with the Palestinians, but that he will insist at the same time on the “reciprocity” principle in future peace negotiations with the Palestinians. In a speech to the Knesset the premier said that he is “eager to include the Arab states in the peace talks”. US President Barack Obama agrees on this goal, Netanyahu added. The Israeli prime minister said that the two have reached in agreement on key issues for Israel’s safety, like the Iranian nuclear programme. The premier also said that he is certain that his government’s peace policy, unlike previous policies, “will lead to quicker results” promoting economic initiatives for farming in the Palestinian territories and attracting investments from all the world to re-launch the Palestinian economy. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
PNA: Abu Ala, Israeli Settlements Allowed in Palestine
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM — As part of a peace agreement with Israel, the inhabitants of the major Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including Ariel and Maale’ Adumim, will continue “to stay in their homes under Palestinian sovereignty and laws,” said the head of the Palestinian negotiating group Abu Ala (Ahmed Qrea) in an interview appearing in Haaretz today. Abu Ala also said that a clear agreement on Israel’s borders with a Palestinian state “will resolve no less than 70% of the entire conflict in the region”. “We will not resume negotiations (with Israel),” he added, “without a complete stop to the (Jewish) settlements including what you call natural growth”. In Abu Ala’s view “the creation of a national unity government including Fatah and Hamas is a preliminary condition for peace with Israel. Much progress has been made in negotiations (between Fatah and Hamas) in Egypt”. There is already an agreement between the two rival Palestinian organisations, according to Abu Ala, on the PLO as the only legitimate representative of the Palestinians and on its reform. They also agreed that Palestinian presidential and legislative elections will be held on January 25 2010, even if there are disagreements on the electoral system. There are also disagreements about Hamas’ refusal to respect previous agreements with Israel. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Death of Israel
From Caroline Glick, deputy editor and op-ed writer for the Jerusalem Post, comes alarming news. An expert on Arab-Israeli relations with excellent sources deep inside Netanyahu’s government, she reports that CIA chief Leon Panetta recently took time out from his day job (feuding with Nancy Pelosi) to travel to Israel to “read the riot act” to the government warning against an attack on Iran.
More ominously, Glick reports (likely from sources high up in the Israeli government) that the Obama administration has all but accepted as irreversible and unavoidable fact that Iran will soon develop nuclear weapons. She writes, “…we have learned that the [Obama] administration has made its peace with Iran’s nuclear aspirations. Senior administration officials acknowledge as much in off-record briefings. It is true, they say, that Iran may exploit its future talks with the US to run down the clock before they test a nuclear weapon. But, they add, if that happens, the U.S. will simply have to live with a nuclear-armed mullocracy.”
She goes on to write that the Obama administration is desperate to stop Israel from attacking Iran writing that “as far as the [Obama] administration is concerned, if Israel could just leave Iran’s nuclear installations alone, Iran would behave itself.” She notes that American officials would regard any harm to American interests that flowed from an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities as Israel’s doing, not Iran’s.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
West Bank: Two Outposts Destroyed
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM — The Israeli Army and police demolished two illegal Israeli outposts in the West Bank this morning. The two outposts were not on the list of 26 outposts to be pulled down, and another, Maoz Ester, was destroyed about a week ago. At Givat 18 (Hill 18), the first outpost and close the urban settlement of Kiriat Arba near Hebron, soldiers demolished two shacks in the presence of six young settlers who did not put up any resistance. At the second outpost, Havat Federman (Federman Farm), a tent filled with supplies was removed. On the same site last year four large homes had been destroyed. Israeli Premier Benyamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak appear determined to remove the illegal outposts erected after March 2001, in compliance with a specific commitment made to the United States as well as to avoid pressure from the Obama administration, which would like to see goodwill gestures towards Palestinians. The destruction of the two outposts has led to harsh attack from the far right on Benyamin Netanyahu, whose government “has been called more dangerous than the previous one”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
If There’s a War, the Military Protects Everyone But NDP MPs
A bill that has been introduced over and over again since it first appeared in 1983, has been proposed by Burnaby-Douglas New Democrat MP Bill Siksay in British Columbia. The private member’s bill, which hasn’t a Toronto Maple Leafs hope of winning the Stanley Cup chance of passing, would see income tax paid by Canadians who “oppose war” be put into a special account that cannot be used by our military:
Burnaby-Douglas New Democrat MP Bill Siksay said he wants conscientious objectors to be able to register with the Canada Revenue Agency so their taxes can be diverted to a special peace tax account.
If Bill C-390 passes, the government would be able to access the account for anything except military spending.
“The reality is this would be a symbolic measure because the government still collects tax dollars from everybody and the government will still decide how they are spent,” Siksay said.
“But it makes a point about some people who believe that the government shouldn’t be spending money on making war or buying armament.”
I love it. Perhaps I can get a private members bill passed that says the government would be able to access the account for anything except giving it to the NDP. In fact it’s really a kind of Pandora’s Box of self-serving interests, isn’t it? If we began to pass bills which allowed taxpayers to reserve the right not to have their taxes go toward things they don’t like, we’d probably never have enough money for anything. Because let’s be honest here: how much of what the government spends your money on, do you actually approve of? Right about now I’d say they’re batting a Michael Jordan attempt to play Triple-A baseball.
You know, it’s times like this that I wonder if we shouldn’t instate mandatory military service so that people actually understand just what the hell it is that our soldiers do out there. If there were enough Bill Siksay’s out there, we’d be sitting on the world’s second largest land mass, with perhaps the largest untapped oil and mineral reserves, water, forestry, and nobody to defend any of it.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Ship Sinks Off Indonesia Coast
JAKARTA — A SHIP packed with Afghan migrants sank off Indonesia’s western coast early on Thursday, killing at least five people and leaving 17 others missing, the navy said. Al Muhfid, a second lieutenant, said fisherman rescued more than a dozen people from the water.
The men, including several who were badly hurt, told authorities they wanted to seek political asylum in Indonesia because of the security situation in their homeland, he said.
It was not immediately clear where the boat was headed.
Indonesia is increasingly being used as a transit point for illegal migrants from war-ravaged countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. They typically continue on to Australia aboard cramped, barely seaworthy ships.
The vast seas surrounding the archipelago are treacherous, particularly during high tides in the tropical rainy season.
Lt Muhfid said the five bodies recovered from the Malacca Strait were Afghans.
The 17 missing included two Indonesian crewmen, he said. — AP
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Please Uncover Your Face. It’s Our Custom
Why are women’s faces concealed in East London but not in Damascus?
By Matthew Parris
Funny to return from Lebanon, Syria and Turkey — where women go unveiled — and return to Britain, the land of the full hijab. I see more women with their faces covered in Tower Hamlets than I did in Damascus.
I used to think that covering the whole face except for the eyes was the normal Islamic custom (in a week in Afghanistan I hardly saw a woman’s face) and so was surprised to find that even in Syria, the most culturally conservative of the Middle Eastern countries I’ve just visited, not a tenth of the women seem to cover their faces. Most (by no means all) cover their heads, but you don’t get that closed, turning-away feeling you sense along the Whitechapel Road in the East End of London. In the Damascus streets, women in all-women groups, and women with men, chat and laugh; and I saw to be true (what some Muslims have already told me) that the full hijab cannot be considered a religious duty, but is simply a cultural feature of some societies that are Muslim, but not others.
If so, how far should we tolerate it? Spitting is a cultural feature in China but we discourage it here. In Syria I took my shoes off to enter mosques, though that is not in my culture; and wouldn’t have worn clothing like skimpy shorts or vests, or drunk alcohol in the streets: practices offensive not to me but to the mainstream culture where I was.
Knowingly to disturb people’s feelings is to be offensive. In Western European society, to go out in public with your face masked is (unless done for comic effect) disturbing. Hiding the face is felt to be threatening, and slightly scary, and subliminally this goes way back, and quite deep I think: it certainly frightens children…
| — Hat tip: Fausta | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Religious Police Want Cameras to Monitor Youth
Riyadh, 27 May (AKI) — Saudi Arabia’s religious police want to install surveillance cameras in shopping centres throughout the country in order to watch young people. “We will place surveillance cameras in all shopping centres and public places to monitor the behaviour of young people,” said General Abdel Aziz al-Hamin, chief of the committee for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice, quoted by Saudi daily Okaz on Wednesday.
“Our objective is to correct the mistakes made by some youths, in order to protect their moral integrity,” said al-Hamin.
However, Saudi Arabia’s religious police have been accused by many Saudis of violating young people’s privacy by providing the media with the names of those who are caught engaging in behaviour considered in breach of Islamic Sharia law.
Their names are then published in Saudi newspapers.
Al-Hamin, however, has denied the claims and said he never handed over the names of anyone to the media.
In a separate incident, a court in the holy city of Medina on Tuesday acquitted two religious police.
They were accused of having caused the death of four young people, two men and two women, who died in a car accident while they tried to escape from the religious police after being caught together.
Sharia law prohibits unmarried and unrelated men and women to travel together in a car.
The religious police or committee for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice is a government bureaucracy in charge of enforcing Sharia law. It has more than 3,500 members, as well as volunteers.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UAE: Burj Al Arab Hotel Escapes Crisis by Discounting
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, MAY 27 — Dubai’s Burj Al Arab Hotel — billed as the first seven-star hotel in the world — has escaped a room-discounting move by owner the Jumeirah Group to shore up demand during the global downturn, Middle East online reports. As a result, occupancy in the imposing 321-meter (1,053-foot) high building is “less than last year but within our expectations,” Jumeirah chief executive Gerald Lawless said Saturday on the sidelines of a world tourism conference in Brazil. He declined to give occupancy rates. But he said for the rest of Jumeirah’s properties, steep price cuts were being offered to maintain demand. “At the end of November, bookings were slowing down, so we started offering healthy discounts up to 30 percent for our source markets in the UK, Germany and Russia to stimulate demand,” he said. Despite the crisis, the group was maintaining client numbers from those three key markets, he said, though he noted that reservations were increasingly coming later in a bid to secure cheaper prices. He said: “The luxury sector is certainly resilient to the crisis but this is also motivated by promotions and prices.” Two of the group’s properties in Dubai, the Jumeirah Beach Hotel and the Madinat Jumeirah, are keeping occupancy high, with 90 to 95% of the rooms filled between February and April at an average price of 570 dollars per night, Lawless said. The group, which owns 11 hotels, in Dubai, Britain and the United States, plans to forge on with ambitious expansion plans that will see it running 60 properties by 2012. “Despite the global economic downturn we maintain our objectives,” Lawless said. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Extremist Preacher Abu Hamza’s Three Sons Jailed for Luxury Car Scam
Three sons of the extremist Muslim preacher Abu Hamza have been jailed for their part in a £1m luxury car scam.
The gang targeted makes including Mercedes, BMW and Range Rover which had been left in long-stay car parks.
They wrote to the DVLA to change their address and re-register the vehicles and when new log books were sent out they obtained a new set of keys from dealerships.
The cars were then sold on to unwitting third parties or used as collateral for loans.
Abu Hamza’s sons Hamza Kamel, 22, and Mohamed Mostafa, 27, helped run the two-year fraud with the hook handed cleric’s stepson Mohssin Ghailam, 28.
Martyn Bowyer, prosecuting, called the operation a “sophisticated, well-planned and professionally executed enterprise” that involved 32 vehicles which together were valued at more than £1m.
The court heard that Kamel admitted five counts of handling stolen cars and of laundering more than £14,000 of criminal money in relation to the scam was sentenced to two and a half years..
Mostafa, who lives with his brother in Acton West London, pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud by using false French passport to secure a £12,000 loan and to obtain keys for a BMW and was sentenced to two years.
Ghailan, from Shepherd’s Bush, West London, described as a “key player”, admitted conspiracy to defraud and was jailed for four years.
Mostafa served a three-year sentence in Yemen ten years ago for involvement with a terrorist group but Ben Brandon, for Mostafa, said there was no suggestion proceeds of the car scam were to be used for any terrorist group or activity.
He was said to have been taken to North Africa and Pakistan by his father and did not return to Britain until his early teens.
His lawyers said he suffered from psychological problems and his attempts to hold down cleaning and labouring jobs had failed.
He hit the headlines in 2006 for singing the praises of Middle East terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas with his rap group Lionz Of Da Dezert and created further upset by gaining a job on the London Underground soon afterwards.
Lawyers for Ghilam asked the judge to consider him as a “special case” who had suffered as a result of “dreadful adversity” thought to include his time spent in Yemen for the same offence as his half-brother.
Kamel, who has six GCSEs and three A levels, was described as a “bright young man” who hoped to go on to study computer science.
Mohammed Chiadmi, 31, another “key player”, received four years, his brother Abdul Chiadmi, 22, said to have played an “important role” received four years, Khalid Jebari, 22, the operation’s driver, received two years on handling counts plus two years for possession of Class A drugs with intent to supply, making a total of four years, and Hamza Mrimou, 27, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud, got three and a half years.
Hamza, 51, the former imam at Finsbury Park Mosque in North London, was jailed for seven years in 2004 for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred.
He is fighting extradition to the US for allegedly setting up a terrorist training camp.
Last year another of his seven sons, Yasser Mostafa Kamel, 18, narrowly escaped jail after admitting burglary.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
India: Gracias: Religious Freedom Has Won. Now Attention to the Poor and Dalits
The Archbishop of Mumbai is “proud” of the election results which reflect the “heart of the common people”. He asks the future government to “avoid populist measures” and to “fulfil their promises”. Most urgent needs: long term policies for the poor, women and minorities.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) — “I am proud of my country”. That is how the Archbishop of Mumbai and president of the Indian Bishops Conference (Ccbi), Oswald Gracias, comments the election results which are emerging from India.
The Mumbai prelate says the vote “is a clear mandate for religious freedom and India can only gain and prosper if the freedom of religion as enshrined by our founding fathers in the constitution is upheld and ensured”. It reflects “The common person in India has a heart, which naturally respects all religions and earnestly seeks to live in peace and harmony and unity”.
The archbishop of the Indian metropolis is satisfied that the elections “were conducted in a peaceful manner” and that “the people have shown a sense of responsibility”. The prelate sees the victory of the United Progressive Alliance “a certain degree of satisfaction in the governance of the incumbent government”, but immediately adds “this is now an opportunity for the government to fulfil their unfinished promises to the people of India”.
He expects renewed commitment from the incoming executive on issues such as “inclusiveness of all peoples, the minorities, the majorities, the tribal’s and dalits. All peoples add to the wealth and richness of our beloved motherland”.
“I strongly desire that the Government will now be able to take bolder initiatives and even implement programmes which may at first seem unpopular, but will be for the common good and for the nation”. The Cardinal is speaking of “urgent measure” that the government should focus on. “Basic primary health care and education for women, female children and the poor” Gracias considers priorities for the first five years of governance. “The government — stresses the cardinal — should refrain from populist measures but rather implement long term pro-poor policies which will benefit our common people and elevate poverty from our nation”.
“Our rural poor, our girl child, our women, our tribals and our dalits need basic primary health care and education”, says the Archbishop. “This government should initiate a social devolution” which would help India make great strides on the International Stage”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Headscarves ‘Help Top Yudhoyono Presidential Rival’
Jakarta, 26 May (AKI/Jakarta Post) — Indonesian presidential candidate Jusuf Kalla and his running mate former general Wiranto have gained ground against the current favourites president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his running-mate in July’s electoral race. This is due in part to their persistence in luring Muslim voters, thanks to their headscarf-sporting wives, according to pollsters.
Predominantly Muslim Indonesia holds its direct presidential election on 8 July.
An executive of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), one of the 23 parties committed to supporting Yudhoyono’s re-election in July, expressed his concern about the rising electability of the Kalla-Wiranto ticket
Kalla, Indonesia’s current vice-president, heads the Golkar Party, while Wiranto leads the National Conscience Party (Hanura).
“Despite our official allegiance to the (ruling) Democratic Party to support President SBY and his running mate Boediono during the election, our internal party survey shows the popularity of the Kalla-Wiranto duet has been increasing due to their wives wearing the jilbab,” PKS deputy secretary general Zulkieflimansyah said Monday, referring to the headscarf many Muslims believe is mandatory for women.
“Our party’s top brass are definitely loyal to our coalition deal with the Democratic Party, but we cannot fully control the hearts of our grass roots constituents. Therefore, we will do everything we can to help them understand the jilbab is not a big issue,” he added.
Kalla’s wife Mufidah and Wiranto’s wife Rugaya have always appeared in public wearing head-scarves, unlike First Lady Kristiani Herawati and former Bank Indonesia governor Boediono’s wife Herawati.
Zulkieflimansyah said the most recent internal survey the Muslim-based PKS condshowed although SBY had taken lead, Kalla was moving closer, with the other presidential candidate Megawati Soekarnoputri trailing a distant third.
Prior to the candidates’ official bids, a pollster predicted Yudhoyono’s unstoppable re-election.
Director of Indo Barometer survey institute Muhammad Qodari acknowledged Kalla and Wiranto appealed more to Muslim voters than the other candidates.
“Kalla is actively involved in Nahdlatul Ulama (the country’s largest Islamic organisation) and that can be used as a major drawing card for Muslim voters,” Qodari said.
“Symbolically, the jilbab is visually very attractive for conventional Muslim women. The clothes will do all the talking without Kalla and Wiranto needing to utter a single word.”
Qodari said had Yudhoyono chosen a more “Islamic” running mate, the jilbab would remain a non-issue.
“SBY should have picked Hatta Rajasa, who represents Muslim voters because of his background with the Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals Association (ICMI), he said.
Yudhoyono’s coalition bloc, which includes of a number of Islamic-based parties, had lashed out at his decision to name Boediono, an apolitical figure, as his running mate.
Kalla has visited a number of influential Muslim clerics across the central Indonesian province of Java recently, as well as top leaders of Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah — the country’s mainstream Islamic organisations.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Muslim Edict Issued Against Facebook
Jakarta, 27 May (AKI) — Around 700 ulama or Islamic religious leaders have issued an edict to limit use of the popular Internet networking site Facebook in Indonesia. However, it seems that many people from the country, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, use Facebook often and it is growing in popularity.
This is the case for Abdurrahman ‘Gus Dur’ Wahid, Hidayat Nur Wahid, Din Syamsuddin and Hasyim Muzadi.
Gus Dur, a former president of Indonesia and moderate voice of Islam, has 3,923 ‘virtual friends’, while Hidayat, leader of the largest Islamic party in the country, the Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) has 5,000.
Din Syamsuddin, leader of Mahamadiyah and Hasyim Muzadi, head of Nahdlatul Ulama — the two largest moderate Muslim organisations in the country with 30 to 40 million members — update their pages often.
Facebook has now become an important work and social tool for some religious leaders. Irrespective of the religious edict, Facebook has become the most visited website in Indonesia.
In 2008 the site registered a 645 percent increase in use, higher than China and India. According to Alexa.com, a site that monitors Internet traffic, there are around 830,000 Indonesians who have a profile on Facebook.
Iran’s official labour news agency ILNA said on Tuesday the country’s hardline authorities had restored access to Facebook’s website after it was blocked on 23 May.
ILNA claimed Facebook was disabled in a bid to prevent moderate presidential candidate and former prime minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi from using it to boost his electoral campaign. He is president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s main rival in the presidential election next month.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Singapore: Couple Guilty of Sedition
A CHRISTIAN couple have been found guilty in Singapore’s first sedition trial for distributing seditious and undesirable publications as well as possession. SingTel technical officer Ong Kian Cheong, 50, and his wife, UBS associate director Dorothy Chan Hien Leng, 46, were convicted on Thursday of four charges after an 11-day trial.
They were convicted of distributing seditious or an undesirable publication, The Little Bride, to two Muslims in October and March 2007; and sending out another seditious booklet, Who is Allah?, to another Muslim in December that year.
These two publications had the tendency to to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between Christians and Muslims.
The Little Bride was deemed objectionable as it dealt with matters of religion in such a manner likely to cause feelings of enmity, hatred, ill-will or hostility between the two religious groups.
On the day of the Protestant couple’s arrest on Jan 30 last year, police seized an assortment of items from their Maplewoods condominium, including 11 titles consisting of 439 copies of comic tracts which were seditious.
Their defence that they had no knowledge of the contents of the tracts they sent out was rejected by the court.
Judge Roy Neighbour also disbelieved Chan’s defence that her husband had no knoweledge about her tract orders and purchases.
‘I do not believe that the first accused (Ong) was merely the ‘postman’ in the distribution of the tracts having no knowledge of what was being distributed to members of the public,” he added.
The case was adjourned to June 4 for Deputy Public Prosecutor Anandan Bala to address the court on sentence. Mitigation will be presented by their lawyer Selva K. Naidu then.
The couple can be fined up to $5,000 and/or jailed for up to three years on each of the two Sedition Act charges.
For distributing an objectionable publication, they can be fined up to $5,000 and/or jailed for up to 12 months.
The possesssion charge is punishable with a fine of up to $2,000 and/or up to 18 months in jail.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
‘Tartan Taleban’ James McLintock Released From Pakistan Prison
A Scottish charity worker dubbed the Tartan Taleban has been released from a Pakistani prison where he has apparently been held without charge for three months.
James McLintock, who is known by his Muslim name Yakub Mohammed, was freed on Friday and has since returned to his wife and family in Pakistan.
No reason has been given for his arrest, although it has been reported that he was believed to have Al-Qaeda links.
Dundee-born Mr McLintock, 44, was arrested in Peshawar at the end of February. A former pupil of Lawside Academy in Dundee, he converted to Islam after dropping out of university. In the late 1980s he attended a training camp in Pakistan and later claimed in interviews to have fought as a jihadist.
It is the second time in a decade that Mr McLintock has been imprisoned in such circumstances. He was arrested on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border on Christmas Eve 2001 but released less than a month later, again without charge. That incident led to his Tartan Taleban nickname.
He has reportedly fought with the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and with the Serbian forces in the Bosnian war. In the 1990s, he moved to Bradford, where he met and married his wife, and worked for an Islamic charity.
His mother, Margaret, has always protested his innocence, insisting that he has been working with a legitimate aid agency.
From her home in Arbroath she said today she was glad he was safe but insisted that no one knew why he had been captured or by whom. She said: “I am pleased. He is safe at home in Pakistan. He has been grilled for 12 weeks so I’m not going to question him for another week or so.”
Mike Weir, the SNP MP for Angus, called on the Foreign Office to investigate the case. “They have had to be prodded all along over this matter,” he said. “I appreciate the situation in Pakistan is not fantastic at the moment but there are a lot of unanswered questions. He has been released without any charge against him.”
He said that, following his release, Mr McLintock was “apparently in reasonable spirits and had lost some weight”. However, he said, the family were “none the wiser as to why he was arrested three months ago. There was no explanation”.
And he said that the Tartan Taleban tag was “extremely unfair” as there was no evidence Mr McLintock had anything to do with the terrorist cell.
Mr Weir, who was contacted by Mr McLintock’s family and asked to pursue his case for them, added: “The real problem here was lack of any information and there was no official confirmation that he was being held, where he was being held and what, if any, charge he was held on.”
The Foreign Office confirmed that Mr McLintock had been released and reunited with his family. A spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that a British national has been released from custody in Pakistan and is back at home with his wife and children. Consular officials have been in touch with the British national since his release and we will consider any request for further action that the individual may ask of us.”
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Uzbekistan: Making Cotton as Homework for Uzbek Children
Students in Fergana province have to make 200 paper funnels each in which to plant cotton seeds. Uzbek authorities allow child exploitation in the country’s largest export earning industry.
Tashkent (AsiaNews/Agencies) — In Fergana province Uzbek children have odd school homework to do. Teachers recently gave them the assignment of making at least 200 paper funnels each, add soil and plant cotton seeds inside.
This is the latest experiment in cotton farming introduced by the government in a country where cotton is the main export product.
In fact schools and universities are closed from September to December, when cotton is picked, and students sent to the fields.
Last year some major Western retail store chains like Marks & Spencer and Wal-Mart boycotted products containing Uzbek cotton to protest the use of child labour in Uzbek cotton plantations.
But with pressure on farmers mounting as a result of unfavourable weather during the planting season, rights activists say kids will be back at work in the fields this year.
Uzbek bans child labour, but the cotton industry, which is owned by the government, is labour intensive and minors are cheaper than adults who are paid on average US$ 6-7 a day.
Karim Bozorboev, a human-rights campaigner in Uzbekistan’s Sirdaryo Province, said that even though the authorities has reassured the international community that it is opposed to child labour, the reality is that has done precious little, except perhaps to encourage it.
“During the 2008 cotton-harvest season, we had information that the deputy of the provincial governor, who is in charge of agricultural issues, told people that if you don’t send your children to cotton fields, you will be declared enemies of the nation,” he said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China: Nancy Pelosi Disappoints: Dialogue on Climate, Not Human Rights
Chinese demonstrators ask her not to forget human rights. Beijing leaders want a relationship with the US based on “harmony in diversity”. 3 protesters arrested.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Nancy Pelosi, once known as the “tiger” in defence of human rights, leaves Beijing today after a 4 day visit to the Chinese capital where she sought China’s collaboration on climate change and energy issues.
Speaking at the U.S.-China Clean Energy Forum, the Speaker of the House told her counterparts that collaboration on climate change “is an opportunity we cannot miss”.
The Chinese President Hu Jintao told Pelosi that “China is willing, along with the United States, to forge a positive, co-operative and comprehensive relationship” and premier Wen Jiabao asked the US to set the relationship on a footing of “harmony in diversity”.
Pelosi’s accommodating behaviour during the visit has shocked many. In past years she was one of the liveliest critics of human rights violations. In 1991, Pelosi unfurled a banner in Tiananmen Square to honour those who died for democracy in China. She opposed normal trade relations with China in the 1990s, and last year urged President George W. Bush to consider boycotting the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, after the bloody rioting in Tibet. She also met the Dalai Lama and called on the world to pressure China.
Pelosi clarified that issues linked to climate change are also part of human rights. But this has disappointed many in Beijing who had taken advantage of her presence to ask her to bring up the issue of human rights. Yesterday some of the protesters succeeded in spray-painting red slogans on the main gate of the State Council Information Office reading “Pelosi we love you,” “Warmly welcome Pelosi, pay attention to human rights” and “Down with corruption”. Police dispersed the crowd that had gathered outside the offices and arrested three demonstrators.
The current economic crisis is forcing the US and European Union to put aside its controversies surrounding Human Rights to focus on how to resolve the global financial meltdown, by seeking help from China and its gigantic deposits in foreign currency.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Canberra Missed in US Diplomatic Mix
THE Rudd Government’s hopes for a special relationship with Barack Obama have got off to a not-so-special start, with Australia missing out on getting an American ambassador, despite a global round of new nominations.
The US President yesterday announced a swath of new ambassadors, from Iceland to India.
Despite not having had a US ambassador in Canberra since Mr Obama’s inauguration on January 20, Australia did not figure in the 12 new US ambassadors nominated yesterday.
These included nominations to key posts such as Britain, France, India and Japan, as well as lesser posts such as Iceland, the Holy See and Kosovo. The US embassy in Canberra last night insisted the President’s actions, or lack of them, were not a snub.
“We’ve got a close relationship so the administration is looking to appoint someone who has the best fit as soon as possible,” an embassy spokeswoman said.
“The order in which nominations come out does not reflect which country is more important. Dozens of other posts around the world have not yet been filled.”
The spokeswomen said the US was “hopeful that a new ambassador would be appointed to Australia in a few months”.
Long gaps between US ambassadors in Canberra is becoming an uncomfortable trend with Australia’s closest ally. The post was left vacant for almost 18 months in 2005 and 2006 before former US president George W.Bush’s friend Robert McCallum took up the post.
The post was only filled after Washington realised the issue threatened to overshadow a planned visit to Australia by then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.
Since Mr McCallum left in January, the role has been handed to the US embassy’s charge d’affaires, Dan Clune.
Diplomatic sources last night warned against reading too much into Canberra’s exclusion from the latest round of US diplomatic appointments.
They said it was unlikely to be related to the controversy last year over claims that Kevin Rudd said Mr Bush did not know what the G20 was. The Prime Minister denied the claims, but Australia’s ambassador in Washington, Dennis Richardson, was reportedly called in to the US State Department to explain.
Sources said last night the delay could be largely administrative, reflecting the laborious US selection process for ambassadors.
Another said the US might be searching for an appropriate political appointment, which often takes longer than appointing a career diplomat.
The previous ambassador, Mr McCallum, said late last year it was important to the US-Australia alliance that the ambassador have a close relationship with the president.
A spokeswoman for Foreign Minister Stephen Smith did not return The Australian’s calls last night.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Asylum Seekers to be Extradited Back to Greece
The Netherlands will resume the extradition of asylum seekers who entered the European Union via Greece. In the coming months 1,100 people will be returned to Greece, following a Council of State decision that doing so is legal, Deputy Justice Minister Nebahat Albayrak told Dutch reporters in Rome.
Earlier this week, Ms Albayrak was on a visit to Athens where she said that the Netherlands will be helping Greece with its refugee problem. The deputy minister says that helping countries on Europe’s southern border cope with the influx of refugees is a prerequisite for solving the Netherlands’ own migration issues.
Refugees from Northern Africa regularly cross the Mediterranean on rickety vessels to land in European coastal countries like Italy and Greece. Because of the EU’s open border policies, refugees can travel on from their landing spot to other EU member states.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Captain Receives Award for Saving 650 Migrants
(ANSAmed) — MESSINA, MAY 26 — Pietro Russo, the captain of ‘Ghibli 1’, a fishing boat, which on November 28, 2008 with three other crew members from Mazara del Vallo and men from the harbour office of the port of Lampedusa, saved the lives of 650 migrants, will receive the ‘premio intercultura’ (intercultural award) tomorrow in Messina. “For a Sicily on the frontier of peace, people, and culture” is the slogan that the Messina chapter of the CISL labour union and the ANOLF, an association of unions protecting immigration and encouraging integration, chose for the third edition of the event. The director of the migrants office of the Diocese of Mazara del Vallo, Don Vito Calandrino, the provincial councilman for immigration, Pio Amadeo, the town councilman for immigration, Dario Caroniti, the Secretary General of the Messina chapter of the CISL union, Torino Genovese, and the President of ANOLF-CISL, Dino Calderone will all be present at the awards ceremony. On November 28 2008, Russo and the others involved in the rescue had to deal with storm conditions, wind gusts of up to 30 knots, and 10-metre high waves, putting their own lives at stake to save the 650 people who were trying to reach Sicily onboard two boats. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
EU Prepares Common Reaction to Emergency
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, MAY 26 — Immigration is affecting five countries in the Mediterranean in particular: Italy, Spain, Malta, Cyprus and Greece, and their management systems are under “exceptional” strain, and the EU must give a long-term response to this phenomenon with a “structural” reaction. This was the statement made in the working document which ANSA has seen a preview of. The document will be presented tomorrow on the EU commissioners’ table, ahead of next week’s Internal Council. In particular the Commission is proposing, apart from an optimal use of the various EU funds, an initiative to promote a coordinated “voluntary” effort of solidarity with the EU States which are most exposed to redistribute the people who have obtained international protection and is focused especially on relations with the southern Mediterranean countries, especially Libya. Brussels is proposing working with Tripoli on a programme of cooperation and promoting relations with the High Commission for Refugees to develop a reception system for people requesting asylum in line with “the highest international standards”.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Finnish Police to Discontinue Age Testing of Asylum-Seekers
The police has interrupted almost entirely the medical tests to ascertain the true ages of asylum-seekers who claim to be minors, reports the Finnish Broadcasting Company, YLE.
According to Deputy Ombudsman Jukka Lindstedt, such medical age determination tests could violate the fundamental rights of asylum-seekers.
At the beginning of the year, the use of age tests was increased when it turned out that many asylum-seekers had lied about their ages, claiming to be underage while they were actually adults.
“Such a test violates a person’s integrity and right to privacy. There are no regulations stating who is entitled to conduct such tests and what kind of methods are allowed. Some regulations are really needed”, outlines the Deputy Ombudsman in his decision.
Minister of Migration Astrid Thors (Swedish People’s Party) has taken the view that such tests do not violate the fundamental rights of asylum-seekers, if they are carried out with the applicant’s consent, reports YLE.
According to the minister, legislation on the age tests is to be drafted already by the autumn.
In early May, Thors said to Helsingin Sanomat that news about age tests has already begun to spread, which may have reduced the number of asylum-seekers arriving in Finland.
Moreover, the processing times of asylum applications have lengthened, and the fact that the use of age testing has come to a halt could lead to even longer handling times. At the same time, the refugee reception centres are likely to become over-crowded.
In 2008, the number of young asylum-seekers arriving in Finland was 706 — the highest on record.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Muslims Often Face Discrimination in Finland
Nearly half of Muslims living in Finland say they’ve experienced discrimination in the past year, according to an EU-wide survey. Foreign Muslims in Finland say their religious and ethnic backgrounds trigger discriminatory behaviour.
While respondents said they have been met with discrimination in matters related to housing, healthcare and access to services, they rarely report racist incidents because of a lack of trust in authorities.
Some 25 percent of Muslims in France say they have experienced discrimination. In neighbouring Sweden just over a third of those questioned said they had been met with discrimination.
The study is part of a broader research project, which investigates discrimination and racially motivated crimes in the EU’s 27 member states. The project is the first-ever EU-wide survey charting discrimination in the daily lives of immigrants in the union.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Holland Ready to Help Cyprus
(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, MAY 27 — The State Secretary for Justice of the Netherlands, Nebahat Albayrak, has expressed her readiness to help Cyprus to deal with illegal immigration and political asylum issues, daily Famagusta Gazette reported. After a meeting with Minister of Interior, Neoklis Sylikiotis, Albayrak said that Cyprus, Greece, Malta and Italy have the highest influx of immigrants. After Cyprus she will visit the remaining three countries to discuss ways to help resolve problems relating to illegal migration. According to Albayrak “Holland is one of the countries which has gained some experience with refugees seeking and getting protection. The applications for political asylum in Holland in 2008 reached 14,500”. The Dutch official referred to two strategies — the implementation of the legislation agreed in the EU and the cooperation in a more practical way — “not only to implement the laws that we pass but also to bring up the practical standards we have in all European countries”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: School Leaving Exam: Gelmini, Tax Code a Left-Wing Set-Up
(AGI) — Rome, 27 May — “A new left-wing set-up,” is how the Education Minister, Mariastella Gelmini, described controversy over reports that students will have to produce their tax registration codes before being allowed to do their school-leaving examinations. The opposition parties had described the measure as a way to keep tabs on and discriminate against immigrant students without residence permits. But Gelmini, speaking on the fringes of a presentation of an agreement between her ministry and the farmers’ cooperative Coldiretti, commented that “what the left claims is false. This is a norm that already existed in the past and there is no discrimination or wish to take a census of students who are not regular immigrants. It is just another set-up by the left. The school system in reality is committed to integration.” The root cause of the controversy, she said, is “a different concept of integration — ours is very different to that of the left. For us integration does not mean giving up our identity, our culture and our roots. The theme of integration is an educational problem for us and I find it silly to turn it into a subject for controversy.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
New Immigration Policy Effective Deterrent, Maroni Says
(ANSAmed) — ROME, MAY 25 — Italy’s new immigration policy of returning to Libya migrants rescued or intercepted at sea is an effective deterrent to illegal migration in the Mediterranean, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni told the Senate on Monday. Under the controversial initiative, which sees a key part of a landmark accord with Libya implemented for the first time, migrants are rescued in international waters and taken back to Libya where humanitarian organisations can vet their asylum claims. Providing figures on the so-called ‘push-back’ policy, Maroni said 471 migrants had been sent back to Libya from May 6 to 10, after the launch of the policy. The initiative has been contested by the centre-left opposition, the Catholic Church, humanitarian organisations and the United Nations. Boat migrations in the Mediterranean “have pratically come to halt,” Maroni said. The minister said Italy would persist with the initiative “without wavering” because “it is saving many lives at sea and is producing a drastic decline in arrivals” on its southern shores. Maroni also rebutted criticism, arguing that the initiative is “in line with existing legislation”. However, the UN refugee agency UNHCR says the initiative undermines access to asylum in the European Union and carries with it the risk of violating the fundamental principles enshrined in the 1951 (Geneva) Convention on refugees and other instruments of international human rights law. Non-refoulement is a principle in international law, specifically refugee law, that concerns the protection of refugees from being taken back to countries where their lives or freedom could be threatened. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Ruta Iberica; Journey for Cultural Tolerance
(di Paola Del Vecchio) (ANSAmed) — MADRID, MAY 27 — Echoes of the expulsion of the Moors from Spain on April 9 1609 continue to reverberate in Spanish tradition, particularly in the areas which were largely populated by Islamic turned Christian communities like come Valencia, Granada, Murcia or Aragon. King Phillip III’s edict led to the expulsion of around 300,000 ‘Moorish’ descendants, who had lived in Spanish territory for about 900 years. Many left their cities but tried to remain in the country clandestinely, without undergoing forced conversion to Christianity, by moving from Aragon to Castilla, or from Andalucia to the Algarve across the border in Portugal. Mostly though, the Moors left Spain in a dramatic exodus which saw them head to north Africa and put down roots in the mountainous region of Rif. Four centuries later, the “Ruta Iberica” expedition — which includes 155 Spanish between 16 and 17 years old from Spain, Portugal and Morocco — are to pay remembrance to the expulsion, by following in the footsteps of the ancient Moors. The expedition — which is organised by Caja Duero as part of the Ruta Iberica programme (which aims to strengthen ties between the peninsula’s towns) and has the backing of King Juan Carlos of Spain and President Silva of Portugal — will set out on the ‘Rumbo a las montañas del Rif’, the Rif mountain trail. The aim of the initiative is to give participants the chance to see the area that the Moors settled into in Morocco four centuries ago — the essence of their culture and traditions. The group will also visit the places which keep the long Muslim presence in Spain alive, so as to explore a shared history which is today renewed in new bonds of friendship and cooperation. Other than the sheer experience of the trip, the youngsters will also take lessons from experts in Islamic culture in general and on the period of history relating to the Ruta Iberica 2009 as they travel on both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar. The organisers hope that the communal life, cultural exchange and learning about their common histories will help the participants to erase common misconceptions and ease the tensions often caused by migration from Morocco to the Iberian peninsula. In the two previous times that the Ruta Iberica has been held, it only included Portugal and Spain, with themed expeditions on ‘A Portuguese-Spanish Cartographic Adventure: 1507-2007’ and ‘Iberian Rivers: water’s journey in the peninsulà, in 2008. However, apart from the expedition, Spain is marking the fourth centenary of the expulsion of the Moors with a real flood of events. In the last few weeks in Granada, an international conference involving more than 80 European, North American and Southern Mediterranean specialists, took a deeper look at the ‘Moorish Question’: the history of a minority, symbol of ideological plurality, historiography and geography which the tri-level culture of Spain still holds in its syncretistic DNA, despite the Catholic kings’ banishment of the Moors and the Jews. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: New Blow to Rejected Tamil Asylum Seekers
Switzerland should keep sending rejected Tamil asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka, the House of Representatives decided on Thursday. The House agreed with the Senate, which voted on the issue earlier this week. Both have followed the view of Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf that halting repatriation would send the wrong signal.
The 26-year conflict between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers rebel group seeking independence for the north came to an end earlier this month.
Switzerland, which already has a large Tamil community, is expecting more refugees. According to Widmer-Schlumpf, by mid-May there had already been 662 new asylum requests.
The minister said that all cases were considered carefully by the migration authorities. So far one quarter of applicants had not fulfilled the criteria for acceptance. But she said no one would be repatriated to the troubled northern and eastern areas.
The foreign affairs committees of both chambers of parliament had come out in favour of halting repatriation. Hans-Jürg Fehr, chairman of the House’s foreign affairs committee, said that although the civil war was over, any Tamil who was sent back risked being the target of revenge attacks and even assassination.
A number of international humanitarian organisations, including the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, have called on the Sri Lankan authorities to grant them full access to Tamils displaced from their homes by the fighting and now living in government-controlled camps.
However, a motion by European countries demanding that Sri Lanka investigate reports of human rights abuses committed by government forces was defeated at the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva on Wednesday.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Speak the Language, Then Get Swiss Passport
The government is facing calls by parliament to make knowledge of one of the four national languages a prerequisite for obtaining a Swiss passport. The House of Representatives on Thursday approved a motion demanding applicants for citizenship speak German, French, Italian or Romansh fluently.
Speakers said it was key for integration into society for foreigners to be fluent in a national idiom.
The proposal, which still has to be discussed by the Senate, stops short of supporting a call by the rightwing People’s Party that written skills should also be tested.
Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said the government would include the latest proposal in a legal amendment next year.
In a related move, the House of Representatives backed a crackdown on marriages of convenience.
Despite opposition by the centre-left, it decided to extend from five to eight years the period in which marriages entered into for social or economic benefit can be declared invalid.
Supporters argued the current statute was too short and was often undermined by lengthy legal procedures.
The Federal Migration Office investigates about 500 suspected marriages of convenience every year.
| — Hat tip: Tuan Jim | [Return to headlines] |
Amil Imani: Is Democracy the Killer of Liberty?
I repeat: Is democracy the killer of liberty? The dictionary defines democracy as the rule of the people. Even at its best, “democracy is the worst form of government except for all the rest,” according to Winston Churchill.
Is democracy a very bad form of government? Does it hold the threat of destroying humanity’s most precious right — liberty? Here are some things to think about.
| — Hat tip: Amil Imani | [Return to headlines] |
U.N. Red and U.S. “Progressives” Plan Socialist World Government
While meaningless United Nations hand-wringing over the North Korean nuclear weapons program garners the headlines, the world body is moving ahead with a global conference to lay the groundwork for world government financed by global taxes. The communist head of the U.N. General Assembly is leading the effort, but he is getting crucial support from “progressive” economists who advise the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party….
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
1 comments:
Pathetic how the media continually parrots the ECUSA's version that the split is completely due to gay ordination/marriage and has nothing to do with the [ultimately] more important doctrinal failings of Schori and other senior leadership. When the senior denominational leadership starts denying the divinity of Christ and expects to be taken seriously, there are some major issues at stake.
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