Amnesty International is hard at work discovering “invisible racism” in Spain, and The Washington Post has discovered something similar in all of those waycists who are virally spreading the poster of Obama the Socialist Joker.In other news, the Obama administration is launching a media campaign on Arab/Israeli TV to tout its “peace plan” for the Middle East.
Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, Diana West, Gaia, Insubria, JD, Lurker from Tulsa, Sean O’Brian, Zonka, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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Fannie Mae Suffers Huge Loss, Looking for More “Help”
The mounting price tag for the rescue of Fannie and its goverment-sponsored sibling, Freddie Mac, is surpassed only by insurer American International Group Inc., which has received $182.5 billion in financial support from the government so far.
Fannie Mae’s new request for $10.7 billion from the Treasury Department will bring the total for Fannie and Freddie to nearly $96 billion. Freddie is expected to report its quarterly results on Friday.
The government has pledged up to $400 billion in aid for the two companies, which play a vital role in the mortgage market by purchasing loans from banks and selling them to investors. They have been under government control since last September, when their near-collapse helped set off the financial crisis.
Together, Washington-based Fannie and McLean, Va.-based Freddie own or guarantee almost 31 million home loans worth about $5.4 trillion. That’s about half of all U.S home mortgages.
With assets of that size, “it’s hard for their problems to be small,” said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics, a consulting firm that advises financial institutions.
Fannie Mae posted a second-quarter loss of $15.2 billion, or $2.67 per share, including $411 million in dividend payouts. That compares with a loss of $2.6 billion, or $2.54 per share, in the year-ago period.
“We are dependent on the continued support of Treasury in order to continue operating our business,” Fannie Mae said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late Thursday…
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Spain: Med Coast Cemetery of Unsold Houses
(by Paola Del Vecchio) (ANSAmed) — MADRID, JULY 27 — Over a half million of the 997,652 unsold houses in Spain are located on the Mediterranean coast, which has been reduced to an enormous cemetery of reinforced concrete by the collapse in the market following a decade-long real estate boom, aggravated by the economic recession. Entire housing complexes and blocks of flats built by Spanish and foreign real estate developers, which for years took advantage of building speculation, have completely changed the face of the main Mediterranean tourist destinations in Spain, where over 47% of unsold houses are concentrated according to a report by the Housing Ministry cited today by El Pais. With construction at a halt, skeletons of iron and concrete where building has been stopped due to a lack of funds dot the countryside of the various coastal towns in the regions of Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, Murcia, and Andalucia. Spain is expected to take between two and three years to sell off the empty houses, two-thirds of which have already been built — but only if 350,000-400,000 per year are sold. The latter is a highly optimistic hypothesis in times of economic crisis and reduced consumption, according to Pedro Perez, the president of G-14 (lobby representing the main Spanish real estate firms). In the last nine years, 4 million houses have been built along the Spanish coast according to a Greenpeace report entitled ‘Complete Coastal Destruction 2009’, which for years has been reporting the destruction of valuable landscapes. While an average of 8-10 houses per 1,000 residents are being built in the EU, in Spain reports show that 20-30 per 1,000 residents have been built. “They were built for no reason,” according to Pilar Marcos of Greenpeace, cited by El Pais. “In Spain there is land designated for 20 million houses. Real estate promoters forecast demand for 300,000 houses per year and instead they built triple that amount.” According to Greenpeace, the building craze has changed the features of the landscape: many urban areas that have been built with terraced houses or unsold complexes are now ‘cathedrals in the desert’, with no infrastructure, transport, or communication, and are unsustainable from an economic and environmental standpoint. However, the coastal areas are not the only ones to pay for the price for the real estate crisis. According to data from the consulting firm CB Richard Ellis, in Madrid about 10% of the designated office space is not occupied, adding up to about 1.07 million empty square metres, to which another 290,000 metres will be added in the coming two years. In Barcelona the rate is 8.3%, equivalent to 434,000 square metres designated for offices that are currently empty and for which there is no demand, and to which another 182,000 square metres will be added over the next two years. Important projects for the city, such as the shopping centre designed by architect Richard Rogers in the old Plaza de Toros, currently being built by Metrovacesa, are at a standstill due to difficulties in the industrial sphere. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
‘Castroturfing’ America
Most Americans — even if they did not support Obama for president — are not yet prepared to believe that he is telling lies of the magnitude that he indeed is telling about the health care reform bill; perhaps most do not believe he is capable of doing so, or that so many would stand idly by while such a calamity transpired. But that is just what is happening, and Obama’s haste has been to ensure that as much of his agenda is manifested before too many do discover that he is essentially “Castroturfing” America.
For Obama’s part, much of his duplicity has been overlooked because he is black; the motives and integrity of black Americans — and our illustrious “first black president” in particular — have been considered beyond reproach for reasons I have previously elucidated in this space. Other of Obama’s shortcomings and designs are being deftly spun by the establishment press, which is essentially an arm of the administration.
The president’s dedicated Marxism is overlooked for an additional reason, itself being twofold: Many Americans simply aren’t aware of his historical political leanings. Some don’t have a working knowledge of what Marxism is, regarding its inherent and profound evil as an ideology. Ergo, they know little and suspect less regarding what this administration really has up its sleeve, that being the installation of a Marxist oligarchy comprised of politicos, activist ideologues and former titans of industry.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Congressman Wants Government GPS in Cars
Proposes mileage-based gas tax that would monitor travels
An Oregon congressman says he wants to test having a government GPS unit in every car so a tax could be imposed on the miles driven.
The proposal, H.R. 3311, which calls for a test project costing $150 million-plus, was introduced by Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cornyn Accuses White House of Compiling ‘Enemies List’
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, accusing the White House of compiling an “enemies list,” has asked President Barack Obama to stop an effort to collect “fishy” information Americans see about a health care overhaul.
Cornyn, who leads the Republicans’ Senate campaign effort, said Wednesday in a letter to Obama that he’s concerned that citizen engagement on the issue could be “chilled.” He also expressed alarm that the White House could end up collecting electronic information on its critics.
“I can only imagine the level of justifiable outrage had your predecessor asked Americans to forward e-mails critical of his policies to the White House,” Cornyn wrote.
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Dissing Constituents Called Strategic Plan
‘That protester right there is holding a Bible’
Demeaning protesters who confront their members of Congress at town hall meetings over the health care plan and other concerns appears to be part of a strategic plan by Democrats and their allies to “dehumanize” them, according to a psychiatrist.
Keith Ablow, a New York Times best-selling author and Fox News Channel contributor, told the Glenn Beck television show that calling opponents of the legislation promoted by President Obama and the Democratic majority “a mob” classifies them as subhuman.
“This sounds familiar,” he said, describing it as sounding a little like “that slope to totalitarianism.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
House Orders More Jets to Fly Government Officials Around
The House is ordering up three Gulfstream jets to fly Pentagon and other top government officials—including members of Congress—around the globe in conditions far cushier than coach class.
The almost $200 million appropriation to buy three C-37 jets, the military version of the Gulfstream 550, is buried in a $636 billion Pentagon budget passed by the House last week. It’s not as fancy as the version sold to private customers, but still is a very nice ride.
The Pentagon asked for only one of the $65 million planes as part of an ongoing effort to replace aging jets such as the C-20, an older Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. plane that costs about $6,100 an hour to operate, compared with less than $2,700 for the C-37, according to department figures.
The move raised eyebrows from some Congress-watchers since the planes are sometimes used to ferry lawmakers on overseas trips. And the House measure directs that two of the aircraft be located at Andrews Air Force Base in the Washington suburbs—a favored departure point for congressional trips.
“Congress decided, ‘No, no, you’re going to buy two more—and those two are going to go to those units right here at Andrews,’“ said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group.
“The Air Force is planning to replace these planes,” said House Appropriations Committee spokesman Ellis Brachman. “The question is whether to do it sooner rather than later.”
Among the members of Congress who fly on the planes is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who generally flies Pentagon aircraft between Washington and her home in San Francisco. The Pentagon began supplying the planes to her predecessor as Speaker, Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., as part of beefed-up
post-Sept. 11, 2001 security steps.
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How is America Going to End?
Who’s most likely to secede?
In the American end times, our government will take one of two forms. One possibility is that federalism will give way to an all-powerful central government. (In yesterday’s global-warming thought experiment, this was the climate strongman scenario.) The other option is decentralization—in the absence of a unifying national interest, the United States of America will fragment and be supplanted by regional governance.
America was designed to avoid these two extremes—to keep the states and the national government in balance. The United States will end when the equilibrium mandated by the Constitution no longer holds. Tomorrow, I’ll look at how the country might transition from democracy to totalitarianism. Today, I’ll focus on America’s disintegration.
Predictions of modern America’s collapse usually say more about the speaker than about the country’s condition. Igor Panarin, the Russian political scientist who believes the United States will break into six pieces in 2010, seems to be extrapolating from what happened to the Soviet Union. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who paid lip service to secession at a tax-day rally earlier this year, was less predicting America’s downfall than feeding chum to a riled-up, “Secede!”-chanting crowd. “[I]f Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people,” Perry said, “you know, who knows what might come out of that.”
[…]
If taxation doesn’t cause a mass revolt, economic polarization could yank everything apart. “The Sun Belt states and the interior West are growing faster than the Midwest,” says secession scholar Jason Sorens. “If they get rich enough, they might see their membership in the U.S. as burdensome if they have to support dying industries in Ohio and New York.” (Sorens apparently hasn’t considered the possibility that Cleveland and Buffalo will become America’s oases thanks to global warming.)
A place like Texas has the means to support itself as an independent country. What it needs is an ideological spark. Northern Italy’s Lega Nord could be a potential model. Rather than emphasize a linguistic or ethnic difference, the political party has espoused independence for economic reasons. In Italy’s 1996 general elections, the political party won 10 percent of the vote nationwide by calling on rich, conservative northerners to go it alone in a state called Padania. In the last eight years, Lega Nord has moderated its separatist rhetoric as it’s become a part of Silvio Berlusconi’s coalition government. (Still, the party is regularly accused of xenophobia.)
For secession to tear the United States to pieces, somebody has to jump first. “As states leave, more states want to leave,” Schiff says, “which is why the government will try to say you can’t leave, or we’ll invade you.” The Second Vermont Republic’s Thomas Naylor agrees that someone has to set a secessionist example. But Naylor doesn’t believe that the U.S. would try to “enslave free Vermont.” (His farcical suggestion: “They could burn all the maples and destroy all the black-and-white Holsteins.”) If American troops did invade Montpelier, he says, it would destroy America’s moral authority just as attempts to stamp out anti-Communist movements in the Soviet Bloc eventually undercut the USSR.
[…]
Charles Truxillo, a professor at the University of New Mexico, says it’s too late to save the United States we know today. Truxillo believes this century will see the birth of La República del Norte, a sovereign “Mexicano nation” in what’s now the American Southwest. “The U.S. ripped these areas off from Mexico in 1848,” he says, and the debt has come due. Rather than fight what’s inevitable, Truxillo says North America should toss out the melting pot and learn to love “autonomous sovereign zones”—a French-speaking nation for the Quebecois, a Spanish-speaking nation for the Latinos, and an English-speaking nation for the Anglophones.
It’s no accident that, when you ponder both secession and climate change, the most convincing end-of-America scenarios involve Canada and Mexico. For the last 160 years, America has been the hemisphere’s alpha dog. But the United States is not a closed system—we’re tightly integrated with our neighbors, and the forces that might crush the U.S. will also affect them. One conspiracy theory, pushed by loony swift-boat-truther Jerome Corsi, has it that the U.S., Canada, and Mexico will soon share a common passport, currency, and military. While the propaganda about the looming North American Union is completely bogus, it’s certainly true that we are not alone. Take away the artificial borders and we’re all just North Americans, clinging to each other for life. If America ends, so will Canada and Mexico. And if Canada or Mexico goes down the tubes, we won’t be long for this continent either.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
‘Obama as the Joker: Racial Fear’s Ugly Face’
[The Washington Post is obviously scared of the national change in sentiment re Obama — ed.]
President Obama made up as the Heath Ledger-era Joker, with the word “socialism” emblazoned below. The new poster has two basic thrusts: Obama is a socialist, or a crypto-socialist; and he’s somehow like the Joker, unpredictable and dangerous. The anonymous poster, found in Los Angeles, has been the talk of the blogosphere.
[…]
Comparisons to Shepard Fairey’s Obama posters, which rendered the president’s face a boldly contrasted palette of red and blue above the blunt message “hope,” generally tend to favor Fairey’s artistry. The exhausted icon of last year’s political campaign, now falling off bumpers and fading on T-shirts, had both a subtlety the current poster lacks and a simplicity that it desperately needs. Fairey’s image included a clever visual play on red- and blue-state political values (a windmill rendered in red, a tank and dollar sign sketched in blue), but it required only one step of mental grammar: Obama is hope.
The new Obama poster has two basic thrusts. Obama is a socialist, or a crypto-socialist. And Obama is somehow like the Joker, unpredictable and dangerous. But joining these two messages together yields more questions and contradictions than good poster art can sustain. The Joker is violent and dangerous, but a socialist? And didn’t we see George W. Bush depicted as the Joker not so long ago?
Yes, in an image by Drew Friedman published online by Vanity Fair on July 29, 2008. That drawing at least played into a view of Bush popular among his detractors, that the former president was unpredictable and fast on the draw when it came to geopolitics. But the danger many of Obama’s detractors detect is more of calculating, long-standing deception, that he is quietly and secretly marshaling a socialist agenda, a view that would be better served by imagery that recalled “The Manchurian Candidate.”…
[…]
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Refrigerator Recycling Programs Take Off
By Sara Peters
Fridge Rebate programs for old refrigerators, like this one in Sacramento, are proliferating.
Programs that allow homeowners to trade in their old refrigerators and scoop up a rebate — a sort of “cash for clunkers” system for the fridge — are spreading quickly across the country.
Last week, New Jersey began a statewide program that offers residents a $30 rebate by recycling eligible refrigerators or freezers. Old refrigerators and freezers in Vermont also fetch $30, under a program begun last month.
Pickup is free in both states.
National Grid began a similar program in June, in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
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Throw Mama From the Train
This clip of Obama offered by BreitbartTV contains the following quote from the SEIU Health Care Form on March, 24, 2007:
“I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. … A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”
Most of us don’t want a panel of unelected bureaucrats deciding what treatments our doctor can and cannot offer us. That is why President Obama is now hiding behind meaningless rhetoric, while some of his Democratic colleagues in Congress have been much more candid.
Obama’s initial plan is to lure us into an HMO, or the “government option,” which will hamstring your physician and put a gatekeeper between you and every specialist on the planet.
Initially, you will have plenty of choices, or so it will seem, but there is a catch. If the government is allowed to dictate what insurance companies can offer us, plans A through Z are all going to be different shades of the same color.
At some point you will discover that the private plan you have is exactly the same as the government-run plan, but guess what? The government-run plan will be cheaper. The government-run plan doesn’t have to show a profit. It has unlimited resources — our tax dollars — and it will use those resources to drive the private plans out of business.
Once the door slams shut, the cost-cutting will begin in earnest, and Mama goes under the train.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Top Democrat Denounces Health Care Protests
The Senate’s most powerful Democrat on Thursday scolded health care protesters dogging his party’s lawmakers at local meetings, arguing that some critics on the political right have run out of ideas—and ditched their civic manners. Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada accused the protesters of trying to “sabotage” the democratic process.
A small group of lawmakers blocked out the fevered rhetoric and vowed to keep pursuing an elusive bipartisan deal on a broad remaking of the health care system. With encouragement from President Barack Obama and business leaders, the group reported progress on financing an overhaul. But as polls show Obama’s approach losing favor with voters—particularly independents—Democrats are talking more openly about the possibility of moving legislation without Republican support.
Energized conservative activists said they’ll keep up their fight against Obama’s effort. The president wants to use the government’s clout to subsidize coverage for millions now uninsured, regulate insurance companies more closely and attempt to slow the rise of medical costs. The protesters’ shouts and chants, captured on amateur video, went viral on the Internet.
The Republican Party says it’s not behind the protests, but Reid scoffed at the notion that the protesters reflect grass-roots sentiment. He held up a piece of artificial turf during a session with reporters.
“These are nothing more than destructive efforts to interrupt a debate that we should have, and are having,” Reid said. “They are doing this because they don’t have any better ideas. They have no interest in letting the negotiators, even though few in number, negotiate. It’s really simple: they’re taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor-mongerers … and insurance rackets.”
Republicans answered back.
“All the polls show there is serious concern, if not outright opposition, to the president’s health care plan,” said Antonia Ferrier, spokeswoman for House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio. “Democrats are ginning up this cynical shell game.” …
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Tulsa Dealers Worry About Clunker Reimbursement
TULSA, OK — While the Cash for Clunkers Program is driving up auto sales, it may be too successful, creating a backlog for dealers who say cars continue to fly off of their lots. Dealers like Henry Primeaux aren’t exactly complaining. They love the program, but they would also love to see a check from the government.
Customers continue to flood showrooms, determined to take advantage of a deal they say sounds too good to be true.
“If you only knew my clunker, you would know I’m telling you the truth. You could never get $4,500 out of it. Never. I’d be lucky if I got $800 and it has good tires,” said car shopper Jamie Davenport.
Auto dealer Henry Primeaux has already nearly filled an entire level of his garage with trade-ins.
Sales with the program aren’t an issue. Primeaux’s lot is already full of clunkers. But, he says the paperwork involved is becoming a nightmare.
“I just look like this because we did a spot this morning. I don’t sleep at night. I wake up thinking about what we’re going to do today, and where’s the money coming from?” said Henry Primeaux of Primeaux Kia.
Primeaux estimates he’s handed out $700,000 in clunker rebates, but is still waiting to be reimbursed by the government.
The Secretary of Transportation says that process was started Wednesday, and dealers should have their money by the end of next week.
“They told me it’s going to take 10 days. My question is when’s the last time you got your income tax return in ten days. They don’t want to hear that,” said Henry Primeaux of Primeaux Kia.
That doesn’t mean Primeaux and other dealers are going to quit participating in the program. He says it’s the greatest boon to sales he’s seen in 35 years of selling cars, and the reimbursement is well worth the wait.
The debate over adding $2 billion to the Cash for Clunker fund stalled in the Senate on Wednesday. If the fund is not replenished, President Obama says it could go broke as early as Friday.
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
Why Pennsylvania Boos Obamacare
POLITICS rarely gets more personal than this.
On Sunday, furious Philadelphians shouted down Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius at a health-care town-hall meeting.
The anger wasn’t simply over the threat of ObamaCare. Both Specter and his colleague, Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr., have had to struggle with well-publicized health-care issues — crises resolved by lifesaving treatments that simply wouldn’t be available to average Americans under an Obama “public option.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Danish People’s Party Ready to Rule
Political influence, not cabinet seats, will determine if the Danish People’s Party joins the government The power behind the throne in Danish Politics for the past eight years is ready to take on a more formal role, Pia Kjærsgaard, leader…
The power behind the throne in Danish Politics for the past eight years is ready to take on a more formal role, Pia Kjærsgaard, leader of the Danish People’s Party, has announced.
Kjærsgaard’s comment came after justice minister Brian Mikkelsen said he was open to the inclusion of the party, known for its ‘Denmark first’ policies, in the government.
‘There is absolutely no reason why the party can’t enter into a government one day,’ Kjærsgaard said.
Since 2001, the Danish People’s Party’s votes in parliament have provided the minority Liberal-Conservative government with its majority.
Those votes have earned it a say in the formulation of most legislation, particularly in national budgets focusing on social welfare and tighter immigration laws.
Kjærsgaard said any decision to enter into the government would depend on whether it gained more political power than it currently has.
‘It’s going to happen one day, but right now cabinet members have less power than I do, so we’ve got plenty of influence as it is right now.’
| — Hat tip: Zonka | [Return to headlines] |
‘Dog Lard Sale’ Probed in Poland
Polish police are questioning a woman suspected of fattening up dogs and slaughtering them to sell the lard as a health supplement, reports say.
The police said 28 well-fed dogs, including St Bernards and puppies, were found in cages on a farm, along with bottles of lard, AFP news agency said.
An animal welfare group tipped off the police after buying some lard at the farm near Czestochowa, southern Poland.
It said some dogs “were overfed to the point of no longer being able to walk”.
New homes
The For Animals group’s undercover inspector, Renata Mizera, said the farmer had stressed the health benefits of the lard and told her that she herself added a spoonful to her daughter’s evening meal, Agence France-Presse reported.
“Half a litre of fat was being sold for 37 euros ($53, £31),” said Ms Mizera.
The police are checking whether the lard — which was found in bottles in a refrigerator at the woman’s farm — comes from dogs.
The 37-year-old farmer could face up to two years in jail for animal cruelty and distributing an unsafe substance, Poland’s TVN24 reported.
The dogs are being cared for by the For Animals group, which is looking for new homes for them.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
EU Countries Ranked for ‘Influence Potential’
Germany is over-represented in the European Parliament, giving it a correspondingly high potential to influence EU policies, while other countries are at disadvantage, according to a recent report by a Romanian think-tank. EurActiv Romania reports.
The European Institute for Participative Democracy (Qvorum) in Bucharest has published a study comparing the ‘influence potential’ of the 27 EU member countries in the European Parliament.
Qvorum, a non-partisan think-tank which aims to stimulate citizens’ and social partners’ involvement in the policymaking process, discovered that a number of countries have won privileged representation in the assembly’s governing bodies, while other nations are clearly under-represented.
A ranking is established according to the top positions that each country secured in the Parliament’s numerous structures: presidencies and vice-presidencies, committees and delegation chairs, as well as within party structures.
Germany tops the list with 146.8 points, some distance ahead of second-placed France, which has 119 points. In fact, the report found that Germany is over-represented vis-Ã -vis France, Italy and the UK, as these countries currently hold the same voting weight under the qualified majority voting (QMV) rules of the Nice Treaty.
Indeed, Germany has secured an unprecedented four committee chairs and eight vice-presidencies, and holds three political group presidencies and another three group vice-presidencies.
Clear examples of under-representation vis-Ã -vis member countries with similar populations are Spain (in comparison to Poland) and the Netherlands (which is at a disadvantage compared to Belgium, Portugal, Hungary, Sweden and Austria).
As for East European countries, the two biggest newcomers, Poland and Romania, apparently have no reason to complain. However, Eastern Europe remains at a disadvantage overall (EurActiv 23/07/09). Three countries — Slovenia, Estonia and Latvia — have zero points, as they have not obtained any important positions in the new assembly.
Last but not least, Ireland, which is set to hold a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty on 2 October, is clearly under-represented, compared to Denmark, Slovakia, Finland, Cyprus, and even Luxembourg and Malta.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
EU Prisons: Spanish Paradox, More Prisoners Fewer Crimes
(by Paola Del Vecchio) (ANSAmed) — MADRID, AUGUST 5 — There are currently 76,485 prisoners in Spanish jails, 40% of them serving sentences for minor crimes. The figure is rising steadily, compared to 63,800 in prison in 2006, and according to sources from prison authorities cited today in El Pais newspaper, confirms Spain’s position as the highest in Europe for its prison population, compared to one of the lowest crime rates, 20 points lower than the EU average of 15. The rate of detention in Spain is 166 for every 100,000 citizens, compared to Great Britain (153), Portugal (104), France (96) and Italy (92). There are several reasons for the paradox of full prisons with a low crime rate, according to the sources, above all harsh penalties for crimes such as theft and drug trafficking; the continued toughening up of the Penal Code and the inclusion of new crimes; the full serving of sentences and a resistance to using alternatives to prison. “Spanish prisons are full of poor people, sick people and drug-addicts, who make up almost 70% of inmates” explains the Secretary General of the Penitentiary Institutions, “prison is becoming the sole resource for assistance and this is not its function”. According to the Chair of Criminal Law at the University of Malaga, José Luis Diez Ripolles, the increase in the prison population is not linked to criminality, but to prison policy: “What is happening in Spain is not the judges sending more people to prison, but the fact that inmates are staying there longer”, he maintains. Women make up 8% of the prison population, and 48.8% are serving sentences for drug trafficking. The 1995 Penal Code removed the option of “alternative sentencing” with study or community service, and introduced the full serving of sentences. This has resulted in only 15% of prisoners serving sentences in open prisons and only 11% gaining suspended sentences. 7 out of 10 of people in prison are awaiting appeals against their sentence. “An intolerable situation”, according to lawyer Luis Galan, who urges “a legislative change against the increase of recent years”. This is a “punitive policy” which Galan is challenging the PSOE party over, but which “coincides in a significant way with the policy of the PP”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Bosnian Subjected to ‘Inhuman’ Prison Term
Strasbourg, 6 August(AKI) — Italy has been found to have violated the human rights of a Bosnian man imprisoned at Rebibbia prison on the outskirts of Rome between 2002 and 2003. The European Court of Human Rights ruled by five votes to two that Izet Sulejmanovic had been subjected to “inhuman or degrading treatment” during his detention from November 2002 to April 2003.
The court ruling was issued amid growing concern about Italy’s overcrowded prison system. More than 63,500 people were imprisoned in Italy at the end of July and the government has promised another 5,000 new cells within the next two years.
The European court said between 1992 and 1998 Sulejmanovic, 36, had been convicted several times for robbery, attempted theft, handling stolen goods and forgery and sentenced to two years in prison.
He was arrested on 30 November 2002, while making an application for a resident’s permit and imprisoned in Rebibbia jail. He was given a prison sentence of nine months and five days.
Sulejmanovic told the court that he had spent more than eighteen hours a day in a small cell with several other inmates and could only go out for four and a half hours.
The court said the six inmates, each had approximately 2.70 square metres of available personal space.
“The applicant complained about his conditions of detention, in particular prison overcrowding and insufficient daily exercise outside his cell,” the court said in a statement.
“The court took into consideration the various factors of the detention and did not give a definitive indication of the amount of personal space that should be afforded to prisoners, “it said.
“It found that the flagrantly insufficient amount of personal space available to Mr Sulejmanovic until April 2003 had in itself constituted inhuman or degrading treatment,” the court said.
The Court noted that while the alleged prison overcrowding at Rebibbia prison was extremely regrettable, it had not reached alarming proportions at the time of his detention.
Lastly, in accordance with the prison regulations, the total time an inmate could spend outside his or cell was 8 hours and 50 minutes per day, the court said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Muslims in Democracy School. With Television as Teacher
While at the Vatican they are discussing whether or not democracy is compatible with Islam, the Arab television channels are dominated by reality shows and soap operas. A major survey analyzes their messages. And ambiguities
by Sandro Magister
ROME, July 27, 2009 — Just as Great Britain is giving the go-ahead in its territory, in the name of multiculturalism, to about eighty Islamic alternative tribunals that are adopting not British common law but sharia — with everything that entails in matters of polygamy, divorce, the subordination of women, and lack of religious freedom — at the Vatican they are discussing whether or not democracy is compatible with Islam.
The news coming from Great Britain would seem to prove the pessimists right. But at the Vatican, there is a predominantly positive view about the possibility that Muslim states could evolve into fully formed liberal democracies, with the recognition of fundamental liberties and of equal rights for men and women.
This is what can be gathered from the lead article of the latest issue of “La Civiltà Cattolica,” the journal of the Rome Jesuits that is printed after review by the Vatican secretariat of state.
The article was written by Jesuit historian Giovanni Sale, and is entitled “Islam and democracy.”
After positing that as of today there are only two Islamic countries, Lebanon and Turkey, in which elements of democracy can be seen, Fr. Sale systematically surveys the competing viewpoints in the West:
“On this delicate matter, Western analysts are divided into three categories: the so-called optimists, who are further divided into ‘gradualists’ and ‘realists’, (the proponents of the demands of Realpolitik on the international level), the pessimists, and the skeptical-possibilists.”
In Fr. Sale’s view, the gradualist optimists have their leading representative in Bernard Lewis, a historian at Princeton.
The realist optimists are the neoconservatives who came into prominence with the Bush presidency, determined to transplant democracy to Muslim countries but also ready to ally themselves with friendly despotic regimes…
English translation by Matthew Sherry, Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Unicredit Denies Any Wrongdoing
Dealings with Barclays said to be ‘correct and legitimate’
(ANSA) — Milan, August 5 — Italy’s biggest bank on Wednesday denied it had done anything wrong by using a financial product created by the British bank Barclays.
Unicredit issued its statement after it was confirmed in Milan that a probe had been opened to determine whether Unicredit, and possibly Italy’s second-biggest bank Intesa, had been able to avoid paying taxes by taking part in ‘Project Brontos’, which Barclays created for the Italian market two years ago.
In its statement, Unicredit said its dealings had been “correct and legitimate from every point of view” and that it would fully cooperate with investigators.
The bank added that reports in the press in regard to the Milan probe were “totally unfounded” and had damaged Unicredit’s “image and reputation” which it intended to defend in court, if necessary.
Police have searched Unicredit offices in their probe and are reported to have obtained electronic data from Barclays.
The investigation is focusing on Barclays complex scheme, known as a “profit participating investment”, which allegedly was able to turn pre-tax earnings into a tax-free investment.
The probe, however, had little effect on Unicredit’s performance Wednesday on the Milan stock exchange where it was the floor’s best performer with gains of over 6%, taking it to a 10-month high, thanks to better-than-expected results for the second quarter.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
No Justice in EU Extradition System
European arrest warrants are issued with no regard for the human cost to those caught up in spurious requests
At a gut level, I’ve long associated extradition with injustice. No doubt this is because I grew up amid the repression of 1980s Ireland, where there was a widespread fear that political prisoners transferred to Britain would not receive a fair trial. Given the conviction of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four for crimes they had not committed, this fear was far from groundless.
Having analysed the subject as dispassionately as I can, I fully accept that extradition is necessary in certain cases. But I still have a sense that it’s the little people who are at greater risk of being tried in a foreign court than those with serious questions to answer. How can it be reasonable that the US authorities are insisting that Gary McKinnon, a Briton with Asperger’s syndrome, is handed over to them because he hacked into military computer systems from his bedroom? His treatment seems all the more cruel when you consider that US-based executives from Union Carbide have not been sent for trial in India over the toxic pollution disaster at Bhopal, which killed between 8,000 and 23,000 people.
I’m left with a similar sense of unease sifting through the latest data (pdf) collated by Brussels officials on the application of the European arrest warrant. Though the arrest warrant was initially presented as a response to the horrors of September 11 and as a fillip for cross-border police and judicial co-operation, the execution of this system has been a shambles.
Last year, the Guardian reported that the British court system had to deal with a sharp increase in extradition requests made under this system from Poland. Many were for offences as trivial as the theft of a dessert and a carpenter’s removal of a wardrobe door from a client who wouldn’t pay him. Even more comical (for everyone other than the people directly affected, of course) was an earlier request from Lithuania relating to a case of piglet-rustling.
The new figures — covering 2008 — indicate that Poland may continue to consider the pilfering of custard as a fundamental threat to civilisation. Out of almost 12,000 arrest warrants issued by all EU countries that provided statistics (Britain was among those that didn’t), the Poles easily came first with 4,829. Just 617 of the suspects sought by Poland were actually extradited, though.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Northern Ireland: Dup’s Wilson Accuses Anti-Racism Groups of Exaggeration
The North’s controversial finance minister, Sammy Wilson of the DUP is accusing anti-racism groups of exaggerating the problem in order to get public funding.
Wilson also said it was strangely coincidental that, just as some anti-racism groups ran short of money, there was an attack causing a furore over racism in the North.
He said there needed to be an open and honest debate about the pros and cons of immigration without accusations of racism being bandied about.
The Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities says its “very disappointed” at his comments while the SDLP says they are “manna from heaven” for the racists.
Patrick Yu of the Council for Ethnic Minorities called the comments political ranting.
The SDLP assembly member for East Derry, John Dallat, said it seemed the DUP were chipping away at any group set up to protect human rights and equality.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Spies in Madrid Council, 3 Ex Civil Guards Investigated
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JULY 28 — The preliminary hearing judge in Madrid has accused three former agents of the Civil Guard in the investigation of an alleged political espionage case in the Madrid municipality. The guards were employed in the residences of the Regional councillor for Internal Affairs, Francisco Granado. The news was reported by the media, quoting legal sources. The accused (José Luis Caro Vinagre, José Oreja Sanchez and Antonio Coronado Martinez) are to appear before the judge on Thursday July 30. The regional government led by Esperanza Aguirre (PP) had opened an investigation into the internal espionage network. The case was subsequently filed when the case was considered to be unsubstantiated. The judge is investigating the tailing that the Justice councillor of the Regional government, Alfredo Prada, and the deputy mayor of Madrid, Manuel Cobo, underwent between March and May 2008. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Amnesty International Reports Invisible Racism
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, AUGUST 3 — The head of the Spanish section of Amnesty International, Esteban Beltran, spoke about “invisible racism” in Spain, criticising the fact that xenophobic episodes “are not officially documented” by the government in Madrid, reports the online edition of El Pais. In a speech to the summer courses at the Complutense University in San Lorenzo de l’Escorial, Beltran said that Spain is one of the few EU countries in which racist and xenophobic episodes occurring in schools, bars, discotheques, or police stations are not officially registered. In the latest data provided to Amnesty International, according to Beltran, Madrid reported 12 cases, while London reported 55,000 episodes in the same timeframe. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How Families Who Overfill Their Bins Are Getting Bigger Fines Than Shoplifters
Shoplifters are getting lighter punishments than families who overfill their bins, the country’s prosecutions watchdog said yesterday.
The comments by Stephen Wooler, the Chief Inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service, will inflame the row over the march towards ‘soft justice’ under Labour.
More than half of all crimes are now dealt with outside court as hundreds of thousands of offenders escape with cautions or on-the-spot fines for theft, loutish behaviour and smoking cannabis each year.
But at the same time, otherwise law-abiding citizens who commit bin ‘crimes’ or stray into bus lanes are being hit with fines of up to £120.
In evidence to a committee of MPs, Mr Wooler said: ‘I could point to parts of the country where you might attract a £60 fine or fixed penalty for shoplifting or criminal damage and yet from the local authority a large fine if you overfill your wheelie bin or in London, if you are in a bus lane, it would be even more.’
He said he was ‘not satisfied that the level of checks and balances’ on the issuing of on-the-spot fines for crimes such as shoplifting is ‘ sufficient to retain public confidence’.
His comments were made to Westminster’s Justice Committee as part of an investigation into the way offenders are prosecuted by the criminal justice system.
The MPs concluded that the increase in so-called out ‘of court disposals’ such as shoplifting fines had led to a ‘fundamental shift’ in the way justice is delivered.
They are demanding ‘systematic scrutiny’ of the new regime, which has also been criticised by magistrates for allowing offenders to escape a chastening day in court.
Last year, only 48 per cent — or 673,227 — of the criminals supposedly brought to justice were actually charged or summonsed.
The remainder ended with the suspect getting an on-the- spot fine, caution, cannabis warning or other type of sanction. Last year, the number of on-the-spot fines was an all-time record 207,500.
The Magistrates’ Association believes the number of criminals being punished outside the courts may now have reached 55 per cent.
But Keir Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, said: ‘If you take together fixed penalty notices for traffic, for disorder, cannabis warnings, cautions and conditional cautions, you are talking about a huge number of cases.
‘Therefore, I think it is wrong to assume these are cases which would otherwise have gone to court because there are over a million cases going to court and the system could not cope if all of those cases were being put into the system.’
The on-the-spot fine for theft and other crimes can range from £60 to £80. But for environmental offences they can be much higher.
On-the-spot fines of up to £110 have been introduced by councils — with Government backing — for those who overfill their bins, leave them out too early, or put out extra sacks of rubbish alongside them.
In some parts of the country, including London, the fine for driving in a bus lane is £120.
The Justice Committee report also says Government claims that crime victims are at the centre of the criminal justice system, and that prosecutors will act as ‘ victims’ champions’, are a ‘damaging misrepresentation of reality’.
It said: ‘The prosecutor is not able to be an advocate for the victim in the way that the defence counsel is for the defendant, yet Government proclamations that the prosecutor is the champion of victims’ rights may falsely give this impression.
‘Telling a victim that their views are central to the criminal justice system, or that the prosecutor is their champion, is a damaging misrepresentation of reality. Expectations have been raised that will inevitably be disappointed.’
The Ministry of Justice said: ‘ Punishing offenders and protecting victims is central to the justice system.
‘The Government takes retail theft very seriously and a shoplifter can be prosecuted and could be imprisoned or receive a hefty fine. A person would not be imprisoned for driving in a bus lane or over-filling their wheelie bin.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Undercover Care Reporter Arrested
A BBC journalist who went undercover to expose failings in care for the elderly has been arrested, it has emerged.
Arifa Farooq was detained on Wednesday and held in a police cell in the wake of a Panorama investigation into care providers in South Lanarkshire.
It is believed her arrest is related to an alleged failure to provide accurate personal details to the employer.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) expressed concern at the police action, and called for “common sense”.
The programme, Britain’s Homecare Scandal: A Panorama Special, centred on an in-depth investigation of domiciliary care, provided in Harrow, York and South Lanarkshire.
Ms Farooq, 30, went undercover as part of a two-month investigation to work for Domiciliary Care, which had won the South Lanarkshire contract by bidding £9.95 an hour in an online auction.
The journalist, who works with the BBC Scotland investigations unit, was arrested after voluntarily attending an interview at Maryhill police station in Glasgow.
It is understood police received a complaint about her securing employment with Clydebank-based Domiciliary Care using a false identity .
Ms Farooq was said to have been held in a cell for about an hour, before being released.
The Panorama programme, broadcast in April, found carers employed by some companies on minimum wages, often with very little training and frequently frustrated by poor management.
It also uncovered evidence of missed and curtailed visits and failure to keep proper care plans.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Croatia-Slovenia: Towards Solution to Border Dispute
(ANSAmed) — ZAGREB — Slovenia and Croatia have agreed on “a rough plan” to resolve the maritime border dispute in the Gulf of Piran, in the northern Adriatic, an issue that has caused Slovenia to insist with its veto on the continuation of negotiations with Croatia for adhesion to the European Union. Slovenian Prime Minister, Borut Pahor, said as much to journalists at the end of a meeting with the new Croatian Prime Minister, Jadranka Kosor, at Trakoscan Castle in northern Croatia. “We have laid out the road that is necessary to follow”, Kosor said, specifying that the solution to the dispute could be agreed on this autumn and implemented at the end of the year. The dispute has existed since 1991 when the two countries gained independence, and the border between the two parts of what was the same state still had to be drawn. Slovenia has always insisted on the right of access to international waters due to the strategic importance that the port of Koper would gain, while Croatia sustained that according to international law, a border of the kind would not be possible. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: Gay Pride March Will be Protected, Authorities Say
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, JULY 31 — The State Prosecution will undertake all measures within its powers to protect participants of the Pride Parade, spokesman Tomo Zoric said, reports radio B92. He explained that both the Serbian police (MUP) and the Prosecution will do everything to prevent violations of public order and peace and attacks on those who will be taking part in the event. The parade is scheduled for September 20, with many graffiti in the city expressing opposition to the event and hatred for the homosexual community. Ministry of Human Rights State Secretary Marko Karadzic condemned hate graffiti that appeared in Belgrade. “It’s horrible that in our society there are organized groups that without any fear call for death of a part of the population and are directing their work toward violations of human rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution and all international convention Serbia has joined.” said Karadzic. He also said that MUP started an investigation, and brought several persons in for questioning. Karadzic welcomed this move, but said he believed that the Prosecution and courts must react more firmly. Member of the Pride Parade 2009 organizing committee Dragana Vuckovic said she condemned the graffiti in the strongest terms. “The truth is that the Pride Parade will be a high risk event, but it can go completely safely with good preventive measures by police and their professional conduct during the parade, which we don’t doubt they will do.” Also several human rights NGOs asked the authorities to investigate all the circumstances of the graffiti case in line with the law, and find and punish the perpetrators, preventing them from carrying out their threats.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt Orders Re-Export of 45,000 Tonnes of Wheat
(ANSAmed — CAIRO, JULY 30 — Egypt’s public prosecutor has ordered the re-export of 45,000 tonnes of Ukrainian and Australian wheat found to be unfit for human consumption, state news agency MENA said. Egypt, the world’s top wheat importer, has been locked in a row over grain quality since an investigation was ordered into Russian wheat imported by an Egyptian firm in mid-May. The Ukrainian and Australian wheat will be re-exported from the Mediterranean port of Alexandria after investigations showed a company had imported poor quality wheat, the agency said. The wheat was found to be unfit even after undergoing fumigation and sieving, it added. The shipment was imported by a private company and was not destined for the main state wheat buyer the General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC). Egypt had previously ordered the re-export of slightly over 100,000 tons of Russian wheat in June citing poor quality and failure to meet contract terms. In an effort to fix this the Trade Ministry announced new wheat-buying measures, including state quality certificates and higher financial sureties for inspectors on June 23. Egypt had not bought Russian wheat since the start of the dispute, but GASC made its first Russian wheat purchase on July 21 when it booked 60,000 tons from Glencore at the price of $178.05 a ton, free-on-board. Egypt imports around half of its wheat needs and has a bread subsidy program on which the poor depend. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: King is Untouchable, Survey Banned
(by Antonella Tarquini) (ANSAmed) — PARIS, AUGUST 3 — It was supposed to be the first national survey of this kind ever conducted in Northern Africa, by two of the big names in journalism, French Le Monde and TelQuel, the biggest and more important weekly magazine in Morocco. But testing the popularity of King Mohammed IV after ten years of reign, a standard procedure in the West, is a deadly sin in the reign of the Moroccan Alaouite Dynasty, in which the king, supreme leader of the believers, is sacred. For this reason the axe of censorship has fallen on the French-language weekly and its Arabic version, Nichane. All 100 thousand copies have been destroyed by order of the Minister of the Interior. It is of no importance that the survey, published today by Le Monde as well obviously as an act of protest and condemnation, was in fact positive about the young sovereign, showing that the overwhelming majority of Moroccans interviewed judged his first ten years in power to be a success, despite some reservations regarding poverty and women’s rights. Le Monde spoke of “damage to Morocco’s image”. In Morocco, where the dark years of Hassan II’s reign can still be remembered, despite the obvious progress made, democracy is still not first nature to everyone. “The monarchy must be not discussed, not even by means of a survey,” said Khalid Naciri, government spokesman and Minister for Communication. He promised that whoever published the survey would be subject to the same treatment. Le Monde, which should probably arrive on shelves in Morocco tomorrow, will almost certainly be seized as well. TelQuel had printed on their front cover, “The people judge their king, his actions, his sacredness, the prodigious protocol of the Palace and his work,” and this was reproduced in Le Monde, who said that Rabat’s decision was questionable, arbitrary, incomprehensible and absurd, emphasising that TelQuel had “not committed high treason”. The fact that Moroccans agreed to talk about what was once a taboo was also noted, showing that confidence in the new king has come out of the shadows of the past. Another possible reason for this inexplicable censorship, which may not have been intended directly by the king, was also hinted at by the newspaper. The survey on the first decade of Mohammed VI’s rule is quite or very positive for 91% of Moroccans, and so supports his function, damaging the cause for, “those who would like a truly democratic, modern Morocco.” For 49% of Moroccans however, the current monarchy is a democratic one, for 33% is it “fortunately an authoritarian monarchy because it is best that power is in the hands of the king than in corrupt elected representatives,” and 69% of people are happy with the fact that Mohammed VI (the seventh richest monarch according to Forbes) is the first actor in the country’s economy. The only criticisms concerned poverty, which has only improved according to 37% and the new family codes (mudawana), the most progressive in the whole Arab world: 49% of respondees felt that it gave too many rights to women, 30% thought that it gave them enough and that no additional rights should be given to them and just 16% wanted women’s rights to be improved further still. Almost 50% of Moroccans think that the king has gone too far in his desire to liberate women… (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Alfa Romeo Back on the Market
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, AUGUST 4 — The marketing of Alfa Romeo cars will soon be resumed in Tunisia, as a result of the agreement signed in Turin by the general director of the Tunisian Italcar and the Fiat group. Italcar already represents Fiat, Iveco and Iribus in Tunisia. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Remittances Sent Back by Migrants Rise
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, AUGUST 5 — Remittances sent back by Tunisians living abroad last year increased to 2500 million Tunisian dinars (around 1300 million euros), or 5% of Tunisia’s GDP. Despite the crisis this year at the end of May the total sum of remittances received increased by 6%. If this trend continues, by the end of the year the total is estimated to be around 2700 million dinars (approximately 1400 million euros). The figures were released during the conference of Tunisian associations abroad, held in Tunis. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Fatah Congress, Tension Between Delegates
(ANSAmed) — BETHLEHEM (WEST BANK) — AUGUST 5 — Behind closed doors Fatah’s congress battle has begun. Meetings held by the historic Palestinian party Fatah, the first for 20 years, have now reached their second day. Tension increased today in particular due to the protest of one group of delegates who rebelled, asking administrative leaders for transparency regarding the movement’s accounts and its management of resources. Some participants spoke of the disagreement as they left the building and problems were only resolved with the arrival of the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen), who had been absent when discussion flared up. Abbas placated the dissidents by admitting that the party was not “without fault or sin”, but he said that specific question regarding accounts would be answered by those directly in charge. After further uproar, resulting in two of the most agitated of the delegates being removed from the room, proceedings continued as normal. The mayhem forced Ahmad Ghneim, the central committee’s number two to stop reading his speech and leave the room, visibly irritated. Ghneim is a former party leader who returned to the West Bank from Tunisia a few days ago for the congress after having made peace with Abbas. He has always opposed the peace agreements of the 1990s. The congress was opened yesterday by Abbas, with a speech in which he repeated his commitment to relaunching the peace process with Israel. He also claimed that the Palestinian people had a “right to resist” however. Meetings will continue behind closed doors tomorrow. It was announced yesterday that members would vote on the party’s governing bodies on Friday, a day later than originally intended. Expectations are that the balance of power within the party will change and there are prospects of reform. Five years have now passed since Arafat’s death, whom Abbas had also preceded as president. Abbas spoke of the errors made by the party in recent years and the bad reputation that many important figures now had with the people, making it obvious that a visible change was necessary in order to “put Fatah back in charge of the politics” of the Palestinian cause, in competition with rivals Hamas, the radical Islamic faction which came to power in the Gaza Strip after a violent break with Fatah. The Israeli media seems sceptical so far, although Haaretz, a liberal newspaper accused Israeli premier Benyamin Netanyahu of obstructionism and Abbas of weakness and warned of the danger of a lasting stalemate in negotiations. On the political front, the cautious line favoured by Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who suggests waiting until the end of the congress to evaluate its progress) is a contrast with the controversial reactions espoused by the right ever since the start. Today they were particularly incensed by Ahmed Tibi, Arab-Israeli MP in the Knesset, who was present at the Fatah talks in Bethlehem, who spoke of a future Palestinian state “free from Jewish settlements”. Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Leiberman, radical right, replied saying that “Tibi and those like him” were “more dangerous than Hamas and Hezbollah put together.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Fatah Congress: Peace as a Very Low Priority
by Barry Rubin
As so often happens, the debate over Fatah’s policy misses the point. The central issue has become Fatah’s theme of saying it wants peace but it is ready to go to resistance, that is, armed struggle.
Those who want to stress how moderate and ready for peace Fatah is, dismiss this as sheer rhetoric, a terrible mistake. Those who wish to point out Fatah’s continued extremism suggest that the group is about to return to battle.
The problem, however, is not that Fatah retains the option of armed struggle but a policy which makes it far more likely that violence will return or, at best, stagnation will reign. In other words, when the PA or Fatah say they want peace it is less a trick than it is an extremely low priority.
After all, it is possible to argue honestly—though it is still debatable—that Fatah is now a status quo power, happy to rule the West Bank and to get massive amounts of aid money to enrich its leaders. What is not possible is to argue honestly that Fatah is an active force for obtaining a comprehensive peace.
But before discussing these points, recall a famous moment that the Fatah Congress and the speech of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority (PA) leader echoes.
November 13, 1974, PLO leader Yasir Arafat addresses the UN. ending his speech with what became his most famous line: “I come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.”
Another leader might have said, “Help me to succeed with the olive branch so that I can put down the gun.” But Arafat was stating his belief that diplomacy was not an alternative to violence but only a supplement to it.
Thirty-five years later, that same basic view continues to prevail in Fatah and the Palestinian movement. The threat posture rather than the peace posture pervades the movement.
The idea which still underpins Fatah, PLO, and PA thinking is to demand everything they want, to back that up with intransigence, and if they don’t get it to resort to violence. Missing are all the other tools of international negotiations: compromise, trading off, confidence-building, recognition of the other side’s humanity and interests.
Or to put it simply, as we constantly see—often excessively—in Western diplomacy, you can try to get a mutually beneficial deal by making it seem so sweet and profitable to the other side. Or you can merely say: give me what I want or I will bash you, and what I want is a lot, beyond my capabilities to obtain, and non-negotiable.
This leads to the first problem of Fatah’s stance…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Hezbollah Threatens Tel Aviv With Thousands of Rockets
(ANSAmed) — LONDON, AUGUST 5 — Three years after Israel’s war against Hezbollah the Shiite militia has accumulated an arsenal of some 40,000 rockets and is training its troops to be able to target Tel Aviv, the London Times reports, citing Israeli sources and others in the United Nations and Hezbollah itself. According to Israeli Brigadier General Alon Friedman, the deputy commander of Israel’s northern region, the fragile peace that has held over the past three years “could explode at any minute.” His concern derives partly from the threats by the Hezbollah leadership — Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the head of the Lebanese movement, has warned that if the southern suburbs of Beirut are hit, as happened in 2006, the response would be to strike directly at Tel Aviv. Images obtained by the Times show Hezbollah fighters trying to salvage rockets and other weapons from a large deposit that exploded last month at the village of Khirbet Slim, 12 miles from the border with Israel. Soldiers from the Unifil peace-keeping force who tried to approach the area to investigate were prevented from arriving. The re-armament, the United Nations noted, is in violation of resolution 1701 which imposed a cease-fire and arms ban in 2006.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Knesset Approves Two Controversial Laws
(ANSAmed)- JERUSALEM, AUGUST 3 — The Knesset, Israel’s parliament, approved to very controversial laws today after the push from Premier Benyamin Netanyahu with severe contestation from the opposition. The first reduces from a third to seven the minimum number of representatives in a party with at least 21 representatives that want to leave their party to form an autonomous parliamentary group. The amendment has the transparent end of encouraging a group of dissident representatives to leave the relative majority party, Kadima, now at the opposition, to go on to a government coalition. Kadima has in fact 27 representatives and with the previous law the exiting representatives would have had to be a minimum of 9 (a third). The second law, passed with 61 votes in favour and 44 against, reforms the authority responsible for state-owned land. Following the law, 80,000 hectares of state land will be sold to private entities in two phases, both before and after 2014. In Israel, most housing is built on state land for which the occupants pay the authority a monthly rent that usually lasts for 49 years, that can be renewed. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Labour Congress Opens Amid Divisions
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, AUGUST 5 — The Labour Party Congress opened today in Tel Aviv, where members will vote over a controversial reform to the party constitution which, if passed, will greatly increase the power of the party leader, currently Defence Minister Ehud Barak. The reform, which was proposed by Barak, is opposed by a group of four out of the thirteen Labour party MPs: the so-called ‘rebels’. The threat of a split is hanging over the congress, although it appeaars to have faded following the announcement of a last-minute compromise over the date of the elections for the new Party leader, which has been scheduled for October 2012 and not autumn 2013, as Barak had requested. Thanks to this compromise Barak seems to have guaranteed his place at the head of the party for the next thirty months. An opinion poll carried out on a sample of Israel’s Jewish population has confirmed the collapse of Labour’s popularity among voters. If there were early elections the party would not win more than six seats, and this is a party which always considered itself ‘born for power’, which was always at the centre of the political life of the country during the country’s first decades in terms of forming a relative majority. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Spies Monitoring Jews House-to-House
‘They try to mingle with us to get more information on what we’re doing’
JERUSALEM — The Obama administration has set up an apparatus to closely monitor Jewish construction in Jerusalem and the strategic West Bank to the point of watching Israeli moves house-to-house in certain key neighborhoods, WND has learned.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama to Launch Media Campaign on Arab/Israeli TV
(ANSAmed) — WASHINGTON, AUGUST 3 — In order to support its Middle East peace plan, the White House is set to launch a large-scale media campaign in the coming weeks. The campaign will be a sort of ‘popularity operation’ in order to better explain America’s peace efforts to Israel and Arab nations. This was announced by the New York Times, which underlined that interviews of US President Barak Obama with major Israeli and Arab television networks will be at the centre of this operation. This represents an important initiative by the US, which is aiming to reduce Israeli scepticism in the US President after his criticism of settlements in the West Bank. Barak Obama still does not have an official visit to Jerusalem on his agenda. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Summons Israeli Ambassador Again
Washington protests enforcement of property rights in Jewish state’s capital
JERUSALEM — For the second time in the past few weeks, the Obama administration today summoned Israel’s ambassador to Washington to protest Israel asserting its municipal rights in eastern sections of Jerusalem.
[…]
Even though documentation shows the complex is owned by Jews and that Arabs have been squatting on it illegally for almost a century, Jewish groups say they still legally re-purchased the property from the Hejazi family.
Following pressure from the Palestinian Authority, however, the family later denied selling the complex back to the Jews despite documentation and other evidence showing the sale went through.
The PA in April warned Palestinians against selling their homes or properties to Jews, saying those who violate the order would be accused of “high treason” — a charge that carries the death penalty.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
West Bank: Work to Begin on Palestinian Model City
(ANSAmed) — RAMALLAH, JULY 30 — Following years of planning, in a few weeks work will get underway for the construction of Rawabi, a modern Palestinian city designed for 40,000 inhabitants north of Ramallah. Reports were from the Israeli daily Haaretz, which said that entrepreneurs had signed agreements with Israelis authorities for hook-up to the power and water grids of the zone. A final problem to get past is for the building of access roads, which require further talks with Israeli premier Benyamin Netanyahu and his defence minister, Ehud Barak. Taking an active part in the consultations is the EU envoy, Tony Blair. If this obstacle is removed, the first bulldozers are expected to arrive in the area around October. Rawabi — ten kilometres from Ramallah and 70 from Amman — was designed as city allowing for a modern lifestyle while retaining Palestinian traditions. It is to have a large shopping centre, a boulevard and cafe’s, but also large public spaces between buildings to allow inhabitants to spend part of their free time in the open air. Investment in Rawabi — which is to have 6,000 housing units — totals 800 million dollars, part of which from Qatar.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Yishai Defends Immigration Officer From Onslaught Over Remarks
(IsraelNN.com) Col. (res.) Yitzhak ‘Tziki’ Sela, Commander of the Interior Ministry’s ‘Oz’ Unit which arrests illegal immigrants and deports them, gave an interview to Ma’ariv Wednesday in which he slammed the organizations that have been protesting against the government’s intention to crack down on illegal foreign labor.
“These groups, those who protest against us, the ones that call me ‘Goebbels’ and a Nazi, are anarchists who want the destruction of the state of Israel, with three exclamation marks,” Sela said. “They should be condemned. This is criminal behavior, pure and simple.”
“As for the children,” Sela said, “in the end the result will be that with all due sorrow and pain, there is no choice. There is a sizeable group of 1,200 children who do not have a legal permit and that is it. They are just guests here.”
‘We mean business’
When asked again about the decision to deport foreign workers’ children he asked: “What do you mean children? Where does the line pass, I want to know. This is a painful and complex issue but the public pressure that has been brought to bear here is unbelievable.”
Asked if the deportation of children was ‘inhuman’ Sela answered: “The State of Israel has made a decision. These are people who knew the law that says they cannot have children. They are adult people and they came here of their own free will. Nobody is forcing them to be here. I carry out policy. If every child receives (legal) status, we will find ourselves with a million and a half foreigners in a few years. That is the watershed from our point of view.”
“We mean business,” he stated. “I am telling the illegal migrants, take yourselves from here and go away willingly. We will give you the plane tickets. Get out of here.”
Daily media attacks
The Oz authority has come under daily attacks from the media and leftist social organizations over the past weeks over its stated intention to crack down on illegal immigration to Israel and to begin deporting more illegal workers than it did before. In a seemingly coordinated PR blitz, the media have been featuring large-scale photos and prominent interviews of cute immigrant children who are due to be deported, and have extensively covered the demonstrations by leftist social groups calling for allowing the illegal immigrants to stay in Israel.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Gas: Berlusconi to Attend Turkey-Russia Agreement Ceremony
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA — Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will attend the ceremony of an agreement which will be signed between Turkey and Russia in Ankara on June 6, sources close to the Turkish premier told ANSAmed. The agreement will be signed within the scope of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s one-day visit to Turkey. Turkish Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, will meet with Putin at Prime Ministry residence and the agreement will be signed after the meeting. Berlusconi will also attend the ceremony. Erdogan and Putin will discuss economy and energy topics and ways to boost cooperation as well as enhance relations between the two countries. Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu earlier paid visits to Russia. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Bans Mecca Visits Over Flu
Iran has banned all pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in an attempt to contain the spread of swine flu.
Health officials said no Iranians would remain in Saudi Arabia after 22 August.
Mecca is a popular destination for Muslims undergoing the spiritual experience of fasting during Ramadan.
Arab health ministers have already agreed to prevent vulnerable groups of people from joining the larger Hajj pilgrimage, taking place in November.
“We will have no pilgrims in Saudi Arabia during the month of Ramadan,” Health Minister Mohammad Bagher Lankarani was quoted as saying by the Isna news agency.
He said the high numbers of people travelling to the holy places during the holy month, beginning on about 22 August, increased the risk of the virus spreading and being brought back to Iran.
Iranian state media said health officials were also setting up a system of checks for pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia.
In July, Arab health ministers said people aged over 65 and under 12, and those with chronic diseases, would be excluded from the main Hajj pilgrimage this year.
Saudi Arabia has itself also asked elderly and sick Muslims not to participate.
The World Health Organization says Iran has so far reported 144 cases of swine flu but no fatalities. Iran says 50% of cases were in people who had recently returned from Saudi Arabian pilgrimages.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq Proposes Public Smoking Ban
The Iraqi cabinet has agreed a draft law to restrict smoking in public places and ban tobacco advertising, a government spokesman has said.
If the law is approved by parliament, smoking would be banned in all government and public sector buildings.
It would also be outlawed in theatres, clubs, offices and on the public transport network.
Smoking is widespread in Iraq and it is unclear whether the ban will apply to cafes, bars and restaurants.
“The purpose behind approving the draft law to fight smoking is to protect the people from the social, health, environmental and economic risks of smoking,” said government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh in a statement.
‘Not a priority’
The bill would also ban the sale of cigarettes to anyone under the age of 18 and fine anyone who is caught selling them to young people 5 million Iraqi dinars ($4,300; £2560).
Baghdad resident Mohammed Hussein, 45, an oil ministry worker who has smoked for 25 years, told the Associated Press news agency that banning smoking should not be a priority.
“The smoking law is not as important as many other laws with a higher priority for Iraqis.”
The draft bill would need to be approved by parliament which is in recess until September.
The World Health Organization estimates that more than 41% of Iraqi men and nearly 7% of women are smokers.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Putin Seals New Turkey Gas Deal
The prime ministers of Turkey and Russia have signed a series of agreements regarding co-operation on major oil and gas projects.
One deal is for the construction of a pipeline through Turkish waters in the Black Sea.
Moscow hopes the South Stream pipeline will become a viable new route to supply Russian natural gas to Europe.
Vladimir Putin sealed the agreement with Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a one-day visit to Ankara.
Among the other accords signed at the meeting was an agreement on peaceful nuclear co-operation, which included a push towards building Turkey’s first nuclear power station.
Strategic position
The Russian prime minister said the negotiations would “open the road to new major projects in the energy sector”.
“Such strategic projects as South Stream… and the construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant can play a key role in promoting co-operation in this sphere,” he was quoted as saying by Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency.
“It is very important for the reliable supply of gas to the whole of Europe and for the further development of our co-operation with Turkey.”
The South Stream pipeline, which will run from Russia to Bulgaria, will give Moscow another supply route for its gas exports to Europe. At least twice in recent years these have been disrupted by disputes with Ukraine.
Turkey is expected to benefit from Russian help with building gas storage facilities, and the increased influence that comes with being an energy hub.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Earns USD 1.1 Bln From Hazelnut Exports
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, AUGUST 4 — Turkey, one of the leading hazelnut producers of the world, has earned $1.1 billion from hazelnut exports over the past 11 months, daily Today’s Zaman reported. Turkey shipped more than 230,000 tons of hazelnuts to almost 90 countries, Association of Black Sea Hazelnut Exporters said. One quintal of decorticated hazelnut was traded approximately at $562 over the past 11 months since 1 September when hazelnut export season started while 181,000 tons of hazelnut exports were made to EU countries, the Association revealed. Last year, Turkey shipped 201,000 tonnes of hazelnut and earned $1.55 billion in return. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Should Continue Reforms on Headscarf Freedom, Amnesty
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, AUGUST 4 — Amnesty International said Turkey should continue to make reforms especially on pluralism, freedom of expression, judicial independence and headscarf freedom, local press reported. In the framework of a conference held in Ankara, the group’s secretary-general, Irene Khan, told Amnesty International’s stance over the headscarf issue and said it was a matter of freedom of expression. According to Khan “The women have the right to choose whether or not to wear a headscarf and the State’s responsibility is to ensure an atmosphere for a woman to make a choice without facing violence or compulsion”. Turkey still insists on imposing headscarf ban as a country whose population is 99% Muslim and majority of women wear headscarf as a religious practice. Turkish Education Ministry wanted to lift the ban on headscarf during the school tests but an “education union” took the amendment to the Council of State which halted the reform, arguing that this change ignores the applicable provisions of other legislation and judicial decision of dress regulations. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Zawahri: Obama Like a Ferocious Wolf Seeking Peace
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, AUGUST 3 — Al Qaida second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri said in an interview on an Islamic website that Barak Obama’s attempts to ease relations with the Muslim world are just attempts to “sell illusions”, comparing the US President to a ferocious wolf asking for peace while tearing Muslims to bits, digging in with his “teeth and claws”. “Obama is trying to sell naive illusions… he is trying to tell you not to hate them while they continue to kill you,” said Al-Zawahri in an interview with Al Qaida’s media production house. Al Qaida’s second-in-command also said that the truce offered by Osama bin Laden to America is still valid, but that Obama has to meet their requests and withdraw its troops from Muslim countries and end Washington’s support for “corrupt and apostate” regimes of the Muslim world. In the same interview, Al-Zawahri also spoke about wiping Israel off the map and said that the Palestinian state the US would like is an “extension of the CIA”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Diana West: The War on Civilian Casualties
Saw some fresh figures on 2009 civilian casualties in Afghanistan this week from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). They are, I’m betting, on the generous side both when it comes to counting casualties as “civilian,” and counting “civilian casualties” as American-caused.
The underreported news is, air strikes in Afghanistan, widely depicted as indiscriminate American causes of Afghan outrage, account for only 20 percent of the total. Suicide attacks and roadside bombs, attributable to jihadists, killed 39 percent. Assassinations — another Taliban specialty — claimed 11 percent, while “other,” divided between pro- and anti- government forces, was responsible for 29 percent. In its own reckoning, UNAMA states that “59 percent of civilians were killed by AGEs (Anti-Government Elements) and 30.5 percent were killed by PGF (Pro-Government Forces).”
This is an important finding. Civilian casualties have been widely, if not exclusively, portrayed by U.S. military leadership as the stumbling block to our winning “hearts and minds” — a.k.a. “trust” — in Afghanistan. Winning “hearts and minds,” in turn, is widely portrayed by U.S. military leadership as the key to victory.
A question for our brass: If the Taliban is responsible for disproportionately more casualties than the United States — and purposely so where ours are inadvertent — shouldn’t, by our brass’ own reckoning, all those Afghan hearts and minds already belong to us? Could there be something else — such as the Islamic religion — causing Afghans to reject our infidel “hearts and minds” pathetically pressed on them, along with grotesque sums of money, like hopeless valentines?
These are questions the brass can’t answer, can’t even think about, because the answers would upend America’s entire Afghan strategy…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
India: Three Sentenced to Death for Bomb Attacks
Mumbai, 6 August(AKI) — An Indian court on Thursday sentenced to death three people for the bombings that killed at least 50 people in Mumbai in 2003. Haneef Sayyed, his wife Fahmeeda and Ashrat Ansari were convicted last month of murder and conspiracy.
The bomb attacks at the Gateway of India landmark and a jewellery market were reportedly in retaliation for the deaths of Muslims during riots in Gujarat state the previous year.
The blasts were blamed on Pakistan-based Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), which New Delhi also blamed for the November attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people and raised tension between India and Pakistan.
Last week, Ansari, Sayyed and his wife were found guilty of conspiring with LeT in the two blasts in Mumbai in August 2003.
“The court has awarded the death sentence to all three found guilty in this rarest of rare case,” said Ujjwal Nikam, the public prosecutor, who had pressed for the death penalty.
Hundreds have been killed in attacks in Mumbai in recent years.
Judge MR Puranik, sitting at a special anti-terrorism court, ordered that all three people convicted “should be hanged by the neck until dead”.
Lawyers have indicated that they will appeal against the death penalty, which is given rarely in India and is often delayed indefinitely or commuted by the president.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Islamabad Seeks $2.5bn for Swat
Islamabad, 6 August (AKI/DAWN) — Pakistan will seek 2.5 billion dollars from international donors for the troubled northwestern Swat region’s reconstruction in the Turkish city of Istanbul next week.
World Bank and Asian Development Bank officials are assessing the damage to infrastructure in the Malakand division surrounding Swat caused by a three-month-long military offensive against Islamist militants which displaced over two million people.
A comprehensive one-year reconstruction plan for Malakand will be presented at the Istanbul meeting, Lt-Gen Nadeem Ahmed, chief of the Special Support Group for Internally Displaced Persons told journalists on Wednesday.
Economic opportunities should be created in the region so that young people are diverted away from extremist activities, Ahmed said.
The Pakistani government is also studying the root causes of extremism and militancy in the northwest, he said.
Poverty reduction, creation of economic opportunities and the provision of resources and social services in the region are essential, according to Shaukat Tarin, financial advisor to Pakistan’s prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Deciphering Korean Propaganda on the Clintons
For those not accustomed to pronouncements by North Korea’s official news agency, the contrast seemed dizzying.
On Tuesday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) trumpeted the arrival of former President Bill Clinton, noting that he “courteously” conveyed a message to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il from President Obama and held a “wide-ranging exchange of views on matters of common concern.”
Less than two weeks earlier, KCNA derided Mr. Clinton’s wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, as a “funny lady” who at times “looks like a primary schoolgirl” or “a pensioner going shopping” and makes “vulgar” remarks.
No one, except maybe North Koreans, ever accused KCNA of fairness or objectivity.
But Pyongyang’s official mouthpiece also can provide valuable clues about the secretive, totalitarian state.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In China, DNA Tests on Kids ID Genetic Gifts, Careers
At the Chongqing Children’s Palace, experts are hoping to revolutionize child-rearing with the help of science. About 30 children aged 3 to 12 years old and their parents are participating in a new program that uses DNA testing to identify genetic gifts and predict the future.
For about $880, Chinese parents can sign their kids up for the test and five days of camp.
When Director Zhao Mingyou first heard about the technology earlier this year, he instantly knew it could be a success in China.
“Nowadays, competition in the world is about who has the most talent,” said Zhao. “We can give Chinese children an effective, scientific plan at an early age.”
The test is conducted by the Shanghai Biochip Corporation. Scientists claim a simple saliva swab collects as many as 10,000 cells that enable them to isolate eleven different genes. By taking a closer look at the genetic codes, they say they can extract information about a child’s IQ, emotional control, focus, memory, athletic ability and more.
“For basketball, we can test for height and other factors,” said Dr. Huang Xinhua, a leading scientist on the project. “We also test listening ability so that can tell us if (the child) might be talented at music.”
DNA testing has been used more widely to determine susceptibility to genetic disease. The test can identify mutations in the genetic code that lead to certain disorders, allow patients to assess risk levels and decide whether they want preventative treatment.
For example, the test can identify cancer genes that may make a woman more likely to develop breast or ovarian cancer. Some women have decided to have a mastectomy based on DNA test results and family history.
But according to Chinese scientists, this is the first time the test is being offered to children in China to help discover their natural talents.
For about $880, Chinese parents can sign their kids up for the test and five days of summer camp in Chongqing, where the children will be evaluated in various settings from sports to art. The scientific results, combined with observations by experts throughout the week, will be used to make recommendations to parents about what their child should pursue…
| [Return to headlines] |
Australia: Indian Minister Deflects Racist Attacks
Sydney, 6 August (AKI) — Indian students face no threat in Australia which is not a racist country, a senior Indian government minister said on Thursday.
India’s external affairs minister SM Krishna is visiting Australia — the first visit by a senior Indian minister since a row over the treatment of Indian students in May.
He is seeking reassurance from Australian leaders about the security of Indian students in the country after several violent attacks.
Krishna met the leader of the state of New South Wales Nathan Rees to discuss the violence and difficulties faced by Indian students.
“Indians by and large are by and large are most welcome in Australia,” Krishna said.
There has been intense anger in India about the treatment of the country’s students who study in Australia.
Violent incidents, college closures and other allegations have taken their toll and Indian students protested against alleged exploitation.
Dr Yadu Singh, a representative for Indian students, said Indian students in Australia should be protected from exploitation.
“It’s about making sure that the quality of education given to those students has improved,” he said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Farcical Security Breach at Lavarack Barracks
SECURITY at Queensland’s largest army base is so lax that would-be terrorists could drive through the front gate under the guise of playing golf.
The ease at which the Lavarack Barracks in Townsville can be entered comes as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd yesterday ordered an emergency review of security weaknesses at all of the nation’s army bases.
Concerns have been raised that Australian troops are at risk because facilities are protected by private unarmed security guards.
Five suspected terrorists, with alleged links to Somali group al-Shabaab, have been arrested in Victoria after police foiled an alleged plot to launch a Mumbai-style suicide attack on Sydney’s Holsworthy Army Base.
The accused men allegedly wanted to open fire on as many soldiers as possible.
In Queensland, holes in security allowed The Courier-Mail to infiltrate the Lavarack Barracks without a security pass and then take photographs of sensitive key installations, troops in training and soldiers’ accommodation.
Over 90 minutes, this newspaper was not challenged or questioned by civilian security guards.
The Courier-Mail was waved through the main gatehouse under the ruse of going to playing a round of golf at Lavarack Golf club in the heart of the military complex.
The base, an open military facility fronting a 4km stretch of a main highway, is protected only by a waist-high wire fence.
Townsville-based Liberal MP Peter Lindsay yesterday said the police swoop on Tuesday and the threat to army bases called for an immediate upgrade of security.
“It is true you can jump the fence and walk on the base,” he said.
Speaking in Cairns, Mr Rudd said he had been told that security on army bases was adequate but he had ordered Defence to “undertake an immediate and comprehensive review”.
“What I want to be confident of is that the security at each installation is right and that it’s calibrated to our security needs,” he said.
The Courier-Mail has found that an aerial view of Queensland’s military bases is readily available online using the “Satellite” view in Google Maps.
The more intrusive “Street View” is not available within the base itself.
Mal Wheat, from Queensland’s Vietnam Veterans Federation, said: “We are deeply concerned at untrained, unskilled, unarmed guards manning primary entry points of significant military bases.
“What we’ve got is an absolute wake up call — we need to beef up our security if we’re going to be serious about combating terrorism,” he said.
Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the thinking of the previous government was to dedicate soldiers to more highly trained work and contract out jobs such as security to “put more teeth” on the frontline.
“We moved in this country to having jobs in defence contracted out, including having security jobs contracted out, because the drive then was to put more teeth at the front, was the terminology used,” Ms Gillard told Macquarie radio yesterday.
She said reports of lax personal identification and vehicle security checks at Holsworthy, including the case of one person who was granted access after producing an old library card, were “disturbing”.
“It’s very good that the chief of our defence force Angus Houston is now going to review this matter,” she said.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Clinton Threatens Eritrea Action
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned that the US will “take action” against Eritrea if it does not stop supporting militants in Somalia.
She said after talks with Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, that Eritrea’s actions were “unacceptable”.
She also said the US would expand support for Somalia’s unity government.
Eritrea denies supporting Somalia’s al-Shabab militants, who are trying to overthrow Somalia’s government.
Al-Shabab is growing in strength and 250,000 Somalis have fled their homes in fighting between militants and government forces over the past three months.
Wreath-laying
Mrs Clinton was holding the talks with the UN-backed Somali leader, a moderate Islamist, on the second day of her African tour.
At a joint news conference with him after the meeting, she said: “It is long past time for Eritrea to cease and desist its support of al-Shabab and to start being a productive rather than a destabilising neighbour.
“We are making it very clear that their actions are unacceptable. We intend to take action if they do not cease.”
She added: “There is also no doubt that al-Shabab wants to obtain control of Somalia to use it as a base from which to influence and even infiltrate surrounding countries and launch attacks against countries far and near.”
Mrs Clinton said if al-Shabab obtained a haven in Somalia “it would be a threat to the United States”.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
The Immigration Question
American attitudes toward immigration are hardening, according to a new Gallup poll. Half of all Americans say immigration should be “decreased” — up 11 points from 39 percent last year.
Anti-immigration sentiment is growing across all major political groupings. Some 61 percent of Republicans say they would like to see immigration decreased, up from 46 percent in 2008, compared to 46 percent of Democrats, up from 39 percent; and 44 percent of Independents, up from 37 percent. Southerners show the greatest anti-immigration sentiment with 54 percent saying they would like to see immigration decreased, followed by easterners (51 percent), midwesterners (48 percent), and westerners (44 percent).
The poll also saw a shift in American attitudes toward whether “immigration is a good or a bad thing for the country” with more than a third (36 percent) saying it is a bad thing.
Gallup notes that this marks “a return to the attitudes that prevailed in the first few years after 9/11.”
Immigration in America has gone in great cycles over the past century or two. While immigration has typically fallen during economic crises, the U.S. has prospered from its relative openness to global talent. America saw an influx of leading scientists, entrepreneurs, artists, and musicians during the Great Depression which helped bolster its position at the frontiers of science, technology, entrepreneurship, and the arts during the long post-war boom.
Economic crises are transformative periods when talent flows can be reset and countries and regions rise and decline. The future belongs to those countries and regions that can attract the best and brightest across the entire world.
Growing anti-immigrant sentiment, should it continue, is bad news for American technology, entrepreneurship, and the economy in general. Let’s hope it turns around.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Tax Breaks Needed to Keep Brightest Immigrants, Report Says
The UK is failing to retain “super-mobile” workers as immigrants move on because of the economic downturn, according to a report to be published today.
Super-mobiles are the brightest of the foreign workers who arrive in Britain and stay for less than four years, the study says. They move several times in their lifetimes to take advantage of globalisation. The study suggests that tax breaks be introduced to encourage talented workers to stay and that efforts be made to persuade Australians and New Zealanders who arrive in Britain as part of the “Big Overseas Experience” to remain permanently.
About half the six million immigrants who arrived here in the past 30 years have since left, according to the report by the Institute for Public Policy Research. Tim Finch, from the think-tank, said: “The migration debate is fixated with the idea that immigrants come to settle and not enough attention has been paid to the fact that more and more are spending only short periods in the UK.
“Migrants are coming to study and work for short periods and then moving on. As global competition for highly skilled migrants increases in future years, schemes to retain migrants may become as important as attracting them in the first place.”
Migration in which people remain for less than four years doubled between 1996 and 2007; most were students or from countries that joined the EU in 2004. Only a quarter of migrants who arrived in 1998 were still here in ten years later, the report says.
The report warns of increasing competition from other EU countries also keen to attract bright migrants. It recommends that schemes to help students find work be extended and that highly skilled migrants who are committed to remaining here be given extra points. It also suggests that it be made easier for skilled migrants to renew their visas or work permits and for their families to join them in the UK.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Murdoch Signals End of Free News
News Corp is set to start charging online customers for news content across all its websites.
The media giant is looking for additional revenue streams after announcing big losses.
The company lost $3.4bn (£2bn) in the year to the end of June, which chief executive Rupert Murdoch said had been “the most difficult in recent history”.
News Corp owns the Times and Sun newspapers in the UK and the New York Post and Wall Street Journal in the US.
‘Revolution’
Mr Murdoch said he was “satisfied” that the company could produce “significant revenues from the sale of digital delivery of newspaper content”.
“The digital revolution has opened many new and inexpensive methods of distribution,” he added.
“But it has not made content free. Accordingly, we intend to charge for all our news websites. I believe that if we are successful, we will be followed by other media.
“Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalising its ability to produce good reporting,” he said.
In order to stop readers from moving to the huge number of free news websites, Mr Murdoch said News Corp would simply make its content “better and differentiate it from other people”.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Why Shariah Must be Opposed
Those of us who argue against Shariah are sometimes asked why Islamic law poses a problem when modern Western societies long ago accommodated Halakha, or Jewish law. In fact, this was one of the main talking points of those who argued that Shariah should become an accepted part of dispute resolution in Ontario in 2005.
The answer is easy: a fundamental difference separates the two. Islam is a missionizing religion, Judaism is not. Islamists aspire to apply Islamic law to everyone, while observant Jews seek only to live by Jewish law themselves.
Two very recent examples from the United Kingdom demonstrate the innate imperialism of Islamic law.
The first concerns Queens Care Centre, an old-age home and day-care provider for the elderly in the coal town of Maltby, 40 miles east of Manchester. At present, according to the Daily Telegraph, not one of its 37 staff or 40 residents is Muslim. Although the home’s management asserts a respect for its residents’ “religious and cultural beliefs,” QCC’s owner since 1994, Zulfikar Ali Khan, on his own decided this year to switch the home’s meat purchases to a halal butcher.
His stealthy decision meant pensioners at QCC could no longer eat their bacon and eggs, bangers and mash, ham sandwiches, bacon sandwiches, pork pies, bacon butties, or sausage rolls. The switch prompted widespread anger. The relative of one resident called it “a disgrace. The old people who are in the home and in their final years deserve better. … [I]t’s shocking that they should be deprived of the food they like on the whim of this man.” A staff member opined that it’s “quite wrong that someone should impose their religious and cultural beliefs on others like this.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
2 comments:
"An Oregon congressman says he wants to test having a government GPS unit in every car so a tax could be imposed on the miles driven."
Congratulations, Baron ! This squarely beats France in the department of crazy socialist regulations, and let me tell you : that's no small feat...
Amnesty International is sniffing for invisible racism in Spain but apparently cannot smell the stench of genocidal racism coming from Sudan, courtesy of Muslim Arabs.
So why would anyone take this fraud AI seriously?
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