According to the BNP, after Hizb ut-Tahrir’s recent successes, the Muslim supremacist party is planning additional demonstrations in London.In other news, workers in a Lahore factory killed the factory owner because he allegedly “desecrated the Koran” by taking down a calendar that featured Koranic verses and putting it on a table.
Thanks to 4Symbols, C. Cantoni, DS, Gaia, Insubria, JD, Sean O’Brian, VH, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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France: Manufacturing Sector Making a Comeback
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, AUGUST 3 — Activity in the manufacturing sector continued to make a comeback in July, hitting 13-month highs, while manufacturing production recovered for the first time in 14 months. The SME index for the manufacturing industry published today by Markit hit 48.1 points in July compared to 45.9 in June, with a return to increases in production after a period of sharp contraction due to the financial crisis, explained Markit. Growth trends for production are due to increased volumes of new orders for the first time since May 2008, while French manufacturers continued with more personnel reductions in July resulting in falling employment numbers for 15 consecutive months. Howeven, employment figures are dropping at their lowest rate since October. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Merkel Moves on Failing German Banks
Angela Merkel would give the German banking supervisor unprecedented powers over struggling banks, including the capacity to dismiss executives, if re-elected chancellor next month, according to legislation being drafted by her economics minister.
According to the 28-page draft, obtained by the Financial Times, Bafin, the regulator, could be given sweeping powers to fire managers and restructure systemically important banks that are threatened with insolvency without the agreement of shareholders.
The legislation will not be adopted before next month’s general election because of opposition from Ms Merkel’s Social Democrat coalition partners. But it would become law if she obtained enough votes to form a coalition with the Free Democratic party, as polls suggest is likely.
The leaking of the draft may be partly political — designed to demonstrate the chancellor’s toughness vis-Ã -vis the banks and to pre-empt the expected publication of competing proposals by the SPD-led justice ministry in the coming weeks.
But it is also part of a broader effort to replace temporary laws, rushed through parliament last year to stabilise the banking sector following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, with a more permanent legal framework.
The government was concerned its €500bn ($717bn, £428bn) bailout of the sector could encourage a return to excessive risk-taking, said a Berlin official.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Watch Bernanke Go Into Panic Mode Over Congressman Ron Paul’s Bill to Audit the Federal Reserve System
by Gary North
I have two videos for you: one from 2009 and one from 1933. If you want to see how bad economics has a steady market, watch them both. Then download my free book, The Gold Wars: www.GaryNorth.com/GoldWars.pdf.
I have made this a public document. Pass it along.
First, Ben Bernanke is in panic mode over Ron Paul’s bill to let Congress audit the FED. Watch him stutter and stammer. The video is a delight. Never has the FED been under such scrutiny. This is unique.
Why the panic? He says the bill is about Congress auditing FED policy. It isn’t. It’s about letting the public see which crony mega-banks got how much money. That is why he is in panic mode: the mega-bankers are in panic mode. The big banks do not want Congress to see how much they are ripping off the public through the FED’s fiat money creation. They are all bordering on bankruptcy.
Barney Frank has the bill bottled up in committee, even though 64% of the House has co-sponsored it.
If the House’s members force it to a vote, it will go to the Senate. I think the Senate will back off and vote it down. If it doesn’t, then Obama will veto it.
This bill gets closer to exposing the power elite that runs this country than any other bill in history. The Establishment will do whatever is necessary to keep this spotlight from focusing on the FED’s accounts.
I don’t think we will win this one this time. But it’s nice to see the FED exposed in this way. The free ride is over. It will have to lie its way out of an audit from now on.
I hope the bill is introduced every term, or every year. Every time it does not become law, another million people will think this: “What has the Federal Reserve got to hide?” Answer: “Plenty!”
Second, for a list of Bernanke’s dead wrong public predictions, year after year, about the economy, click here.
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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.
“Oregon has successfully tested a Vehicle Miles Traveled fee, and it is time to expand and test the VMT program across the country,” he said in a statement on his website. “A VMT system can better assess fees based on use of our roads and bridges, as well as during times of peak congestion, than a fee based on fuel consumption.
“It is time to get creative and find smart ways to rebuild and renew America’s deteriorating infrastructure,” he said. His plan calls for the Department of the Treasury to study the idea with test GPS-equipped car projects in every state. […]
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
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.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mexican Trucks to Storm U.S.
Obama prepares to reopen nation’s roads to foreign long-haul rigs
The Obama administration fully intends to present Congress with another set of regulations allowing Mexican long-haul trucks to have free access to U.S. roads, Jerome Corsi’s Red Alert reports.
“The proposal [to get Mexican trucks back on U.S. roads] has been through the interagency process … and it is ready to go to the Hill,” Doug Goudie, trade director at the National Association of Manufacturers, told the Washington Times.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obamacare’s Real Price Tag
The funding gap is a canyon by year 10.
As ObamaCare sinks in the polls, Democrats are complaining that the critics are distorting their proposals. But the truth is that the closer one inspects the actual details, the worse it all looks. Today’s example is the vast debt canyon that would open just beyond the 10-year window under which the bill is officially “scored” for cost purposes.
[…]
ObamaCare’s deficit hole will eventually have to be filled one way or another— along with Medicare’s unfunded liability of some $37 trillion. That means either reaching ever-deeper into middle-class pockets with taxes, probably with a European-style value-added tax that will depress economic growth. Or with the very restrictions on care and reimbursement that have been imposed on Medicare itself as costs exploded.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
On Locational Privacy, And How to Avoid Losing it Forever
Over the next decade, systems which create and store digital records of people’s movements through public space will be woven inextricably into the fabric of everyday life. We are already starting to see such systems now, and there will be many more in the near future.
Here are some examples you might already have used or read about:
- Monthly transit swipe-cards
- Electronic tolling devices (FastTrak, EZpass, congestion pricing)
- Cellphones
- Services telling you when your friends are nearby
- Searches on your PDA for services and businesses near your current location
- Free Wi-Fi with ads for businesses near the network access point you’re using
- Electronic swipe cards for doors
- Parking meters you can call to add money to, and which send you a text message when your time is running out
These systems are marvellously innovative, and they promise benefits ranging from increased convenience to transformative new kinds of social interaction.
Unfortunately, these systems pose a dramatic threat to locational privacy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pelosi’s Plan: Wine, Dine Big Donors
Pelosi will spend next weekend quietly tending to top party donors and political allies at a series of private events in Northern California.
The two-day “issues conference” starts next Friday night with a dinner for roughly 170 guests on the back lawn of Pelosi’s multimillion-dollar home in the fashionable Pacific Heights neighborhood in San Francisco.
The following day, Pelosi will shepherd her guests to a Napa Valley winery with buildings designed by world-famous architect Frank Gehry; the speaker and her husband, investor Paul Pelosi, own a nearby vineyard worth between $5 million and $25 million, according to her annual financial disclosure report.
There’s nothing unusual about leaders using recess to fund- and friend-raise. Before leaving town last week, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor raked in $1.1 million for fellow Republicans at a lobbyist-heavy fundraiser on Capitol Hill.
And Pelosi’s staff notes that her California session will involve more than just schmoozing with the wealthy and well-connected. The speaker will lead policy discussions on health care, energy reform and the economy, among other topics. Scheduled to speak are Obama adviser David Axelrod, CNN commentator and former Clinton adviser James Carville and Mark Zandi, an economic adviser to Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign who has been providing advice to the Obama White House.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Snitch Switch: Turn Tables on Obama Rat Patrol
Tell president where you stand on socialized medicine
The White House calls it an effort to root out “disinformation.” Critics call it “Chicago thug politics” and “totalitarian tactics.”
“It” is the Obama administration’s call for Americans to snitch on their neighbors by e-mailing to the White House any communications they receive “about health insurance reform that seem fishy.”
[…]
The Liberty Counsel analysis said under Section 1308, the government will dictate marriage and family therapy as well as mental health services, including the definitions of those treatments, and under Section 1401, a Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research would be set up, creating a bureaucracy through which federal employees could determine whether any treatment is “comparatively effective” for any individual based on the cost, likely success and probably the years left in life.
It also, according to Staver, “covers abortions, transsexual surgeries, encourages counseling as to how many children you should have, whether you should increase the interval between children.”
The Liberty Counsel analysis also pointed out the government would be allowed to ration health care procedures, prevent “judicial review” of its decision, tell doctors what income they can have, impose new taxes for anyone not having an “acceptable” coverage, regulate whether seniors can have wheelchairs, penalize hospitals or doctors whose patients require “readmission,” prevent the expansion of hospitals and set up procedures for home visits by health care analysts.
Under Section 440, Liberty Counsel said, the government “will design and implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids and families that expect children.” And Section 194 provides for a program that has the government “coming into your house and teaching/telling you how to parent,” LC said.
[Comments from JD: Some alarming items. The last one — home visitation by government busybodies — is already being done in UK. ]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
White House Sought to Weaken Law on Whistleblowing
Despite its pledge to better protect federal employees who expose wrongdoing, the Obama administration privately sought to weaken protections for national security whistleblowers under legislation making its way through Congress, according to correspondence obtained by The Washington Times.
E-mails that documented the White House’s intervention show the White House counsel’s office provided its own drafts of the proposed legislation in late June and mid-July.
While strengthening protections for some whistleblowers, the drafts weakened protections for FBI employees and reduced access to jury trials for those national security workers who sue for protection from retaliation after blowing the whistle.
“Please find attached the documents the administration transmitted to the committee staff on Friday. Thanks for all your patience and help as we work together on this important legislation,” White House counsel’s office lawyer Blake Roberts wrote in one such e-mail on June 29 that accompanied marked-up copies of the bill. The e-mail and attachments were obtained by The Times from a congressional source.
Mr. Roberts declined to be interviewed Thursday. But White House spokesman Ben LaBolt described the language in the e-mails as “an early discussion draft that contained ideas advanced by various people involved in the negotiations including the Senate, the House, outside groups and others, which contained a variety of ideas advanced by various people involved in the negotiations.”
In fact, the language in the e-mails closely tracks the version of the bill passed out of a Senate committee. Nevertheless, Mr. LaBolt described the bill as a “historic breakthrough” and said, “We were very pleased that the leadership shown by the Senate and the House, not just now but over the years. … We look forward to working with both bodies of Congress as they continue to move forward on this legislation.”
Early this year, the House approved sweeping whistleblower protections similar to those promised by President Obama during his 2008 campaign.
But when the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee began considering its version of the bill in the spring, the White House proposed a number of changes that were incorporated into a bill passed unanimously by the committee on July 29.
The bill initially was widely praised by whistleblower advocates. But in recent days, as details about the weakened protections emerged, criticisms have been voiced by administration allies both in the House and the private sector.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat who co-sponsored the House whistleblower bill and serves as liaison to the White House for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said the Senate bill “falls short of what is needed to provide whistleblowers the protections they need.”
| — Hat tip: DS | [Return to headlines] |
Would-be Assassin ‘Squeaky’ Fromme Still a Threat
Prosecutor Who Imprisoned Charles Manson Says Fromme Should Remain in Prison
The prosecutor who put Charles Manson behind bars 40 years ago said the serial killer’s chief disciple and would-be presidential assassin, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme should not be released from prison next week.
Vincent Bugliosi, the former Los Angeles County assistant district attorney, said Fromme, who failed in her attempt to assassinate President Gerald Ford in September 1975, remained a threat and should be kept behind bars. “If you do something like that against the president of the United States, the need for deterrence increases when you’re talking about the most important person,” he said.
Fromme, now 60, was an underboss in Manson’s homicidal cult called the “Family” and ran things at the cult’s desert hideaway when Manson was away, according to Bugliosi.
“She was the main gal in the family. Once Manson left the ranch, if he was anywhere else she was in charge,” Bugliosi said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
French Farmers Blockade at Spanish Border
(ANSAmed) — PERPIGNAN, JULY 30 — Dozens of French fruit growers from the Pyrenees, the Gard and the Vaucluse, three regional departments from southern France, set up this morning a ‘targeted blockade’ at tollbooths on the A9 motorway at the border between France and Spain to stop fruit-carrying lorries from Spain. The demonstrators, numbering some 200 according to AFP, set up a blockade at the tollbooth made up of dozens of lorries to obstruct the passage of Spanish lorries, allowing other vehicles to pass. In addition to the banners explaining the reasons behind the protest, the farmers also distributed the fruit and vegetables that they produce, like tomatoes, peaches and melons. “Ours is a symbolic action against large-scale distribution and wholesalers that don’t buy French products as they have in the past”, Gerard Majoral, member of the labour group FNSEA and the National Fruit Growers Federation, explained to AFP. According to the labour representative, “large-scale distribution exploits the differences between Spain and France’s payroll taxes, and speculate with wholesalers against the producers causing a pseudo-crisis, while the amount of consumption is better this year than it was in 2008, which was also a positive year”. “We decided to protest today because Thursday is an important day for supplying supermarkets”, explained Majoral, who also denounced the scarce collaboration on the part of large distribution regarding supermarket parking lot sales, authorised during the weekend by the local authorities to allow producers to liquidate their excess stock. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Hungary Roma Mourn ‘Gang Victim’
The sixth victim of what police believe is an armed gang targeting members of Hungary’s large Roma (Gypsy) community is being buried in the country’s east.
Maria Balogh, 45, was shot dead at her home in the village of Kisleta early on Monday morning.
Her 13-year-old daughter, Ketrin, was also shot several times and remains in intensive care at Nyiregyhaza hospital.
Police are treating the attack as the work of a group believed responsible for several murders in the past year.
In April, a Roma man was shot dead in front of his home in north-eastern Hungary, two months after a Roma father and his five-year-old son were killed in front of their home south of Budapest, which was then set on fire.
Those deaths followed the murder of a Roma couple in north-eastern Hungary last November.
In each case, the victims have come from outlying houses in Roma settlements, although Monday’s shooting was the first time the killers had actually entered a house.
Other attacks where the apparent targets escaped injury have also been documented.
Police have set up a 100-member team and offered a large reward to catch the perpetrators, but so far to no avail.
Up to 7% of the Hungarian population are Roma, with the majority living increasingly segregated lives in the countryside.
Kisleta is a small community some 200 miles (320km) east of the capital Budapest.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland: Obama’s Uncle Flies in for Horse Show as Guest of Sheikh
THERE was no fanfare, no fussy entourage, and few noticed the discreet security when Said Obama touched down in Dublin last night.
The Kenyan uncle of the US president had never visited Ireland before, but he now intends to become a regular visitor and has got the use of a summer home in County Louth.
The ‘First Uncle’ is due to have lunch today with his host, Sheikh Samir Mirdad, before attending the Dublin Horse Show.
“I’m really looking forward to the horse show, I’m told it is the oldest and the best in the world; we have horses in Kenya but they are not for the ordinary people.”
“I am so glad to be here, I have met many Irish people who have visited my home village of Kongelo since Barack was elected president of the United States,” he said after a long flight from Nairobi.
“I am looking forward to seeing Sheikh Samir competing in the Horse Show and then relaxing for a few days by the sea,” he added.
An elegant man five years younger than his nephew, Mr Obama is here to relax for a few days and to talk about the Sarah Hussein Obama Trust of which here he is chairman.
‘Mama’ Sarah is Said’s mother and Barack’s grandmother; they are the president’s closest blood relatives in Africa. They travelled to Washington together for the inauguration in January and the family trust was launched at the end of May.
Multi-national companies offered millions for Mr Obama to be their spokesman but he turned them all down to concentrate on the trust.
“The trust was founded after Barack became president and we want to restore the family home in Kongelo where his family lived and Barack stayed, and we want to help the poor people of not just my country but other countries,” he said.
“Sheikh Samir suggested I come to Ireland for my first overseas trip as chairman of the trust and now he has offered me his home by the sea in County Louth every year when I visit the Dublin Horse Show.”
Royal families
Sheikh Mirdad is also introducing Mr Obama to philanthropists and the royal families in the Middle East (he is related to most of them) and Europe to raise funds for the trust.
Mr Obama (43) lives in the village of Kongelo on the shores of Lake Victoria with his wife Ome and his daughter Fatima (3). He is the brother of the US president’s late father, Barack Hussein Obama who died in a car accident in 1982.
He lived with ‘Mama’ Sarah in the little yellow house with the corrugated tin roof in Kongelo that was seen was on every television in the world during last year’s US election campaign, although the Obama family home had no television, no electricity or running water.
“I have a television now since I moved to another house in Kongelo with my wife and daughter but ‘Mama’ Sarah is still in the old family home,” he said. “And since Barack’s election, and the thousands of visitors who have visited since, the government has brought us electricity and running water.
“Barack first visited us in Kongelo in 1987, I think he was 25 at the time and had just graduated and I took him to where his father was buried,” he said.
Mr Obama’s visit was arranged by his friend Sheikh Samir Mirdad, a Saudi-born businessman who lived in Dublin as a child while his father attended the College of Surgeons and went on to become personal physician to the Crown Prince.
Although he is related to many of the royal families of the Middle East and brokered deals worth billions there, Sheikh Mirdad fell in love with showjumping and gave up months from his business to concentrate on winning a place in today’s competition.
He bought his home in Annagassan, one of three residences he owns in Ireland, on April 1 and yesterday builders were working around the clock for it to be ready when he brings Said Obama there on Sunday.
“Everybody is panicking about Said’s visit, the builders are working flat out to get it finished on time,” said Sheik Mirdad. “I love this house, it is by the sea and I want my friend Said to have it as his summer home so he can visit the Horse Show in Dublin every August.”
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Italy: Maroni: Patrols to Start on Aug. 8. Scajola? Request Denied
(AGI) — Rome, 4 Aug. — “We are ready. In a week I will sign the decree that establishes the regulations for the so-called civilian patrols and on August 8 they will begin,” announced Interior Minister Roberto Maroni in an interview with ‘Padania’, in newsstands today. The Northern League representative also rejected the request for an extension of an amnesty to other sectors including domestic help and caretakers by PdL Minister Claudio Scajola. “If this request by Scajola is the same as the one made by Epifani, the request is denied because there was a different agreement within the government”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
‘Mother Teresa’ Of Palestinian Women and Children in Italy
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JULY 30 — Even Palestine has its version of Mother Teresa, but she isn’t a nun. She is a 48 year old Catholic woman born in Jerusalem. Like the illustrious Mother Teresa, she wanders the streets of Bethany, gathering abandoned children, assisting desperate women, thousands of them in her 20 years of service to the community. “My only motivation is to serve God”, she says. It is a task oriented to peace and living together. For this reason Samar Sahar was a candidate some years ago with another Israeli teacher, Angelica Edna Calò Livné, for the Nobel Peace Prize. Samar is currently in Italy, guest of the city of Valmontone, in the province of Rome, and will receive honorary citizenship there tomorrow. Together with Samar are 17 small Palestinian orphans, she refers to them as “my children”, who will enjoy a vacation, get to know new places and new friends and forget about their routine difficulties back home until August 11. Some 12 years ago, Samar founded the first orphanage for the region’s children; which currently houses 31 children. The structure has an emblematic name, Lazarus House, trying to give “in this way”, Samar explained in an exceptional Italian (“I have had good Italian friends for the last 20 years”), “I hoped to give to the children the hope that Jesus gave to Lazarus with the resurrection. These children are my children”, she emphasised, “instead of one child I have hundreds. Instead of a little happiness, I have a world of happiness”. Before the children, she founded a facility for women in difficulty, those raped or abused by there husbands. “That was a struggle against a mentality” that emancipated women want nothing to do with. Samar, also known as “the courageous woman”, has received a lot of recognition for her work (she is financed by private funders from all over the world) but also many death threats. Her enemies are the husbands of the women she protects and the relatives of the children she houses. While the political authorities, both Israeli and Palestinian support her: “They come to visit me and are very satisfied”. If she is compared to the figure of Mother Teresa, she leaves it and stresses: “I don’t know anything about it, my strength comes from God. My task is to educate. If I receive awards they are not for me, but for my women and children. I think only of giving them hope and a future”. The honorary citizenship she will receive tomorrow in Valmontone is the sign of “deep friendship. It has a very important significance, above all for the children that don’t feel orphans any longer while they are here”. In the meantime the children have a rich programme of visits and games. For them, the city even organised an Italian course. In Bethany, the Valmontone city administration sponsored the opening of a pizzeria called ‘Valmontone’. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Trade: Italian Fruit and Vegetable Exports to France +22%
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JULY 30 — The Mediterranean area and France are one of the main markets for Italian fruit and vegetables, accounting for 15% of total sales, according to an Assocamerestero (Association of Italian Chambers of Commerce Abroad) statement announcing a meeting in Avignon on December 7-8 on technology and food safety and new investment opportunities in the Mediterranean. In the single month of April 2009, compared with January 2009, Italian exports to France saw an increase of over 22%, going from 21 to 25.7 million euros, while those headed for Mediterranean countries doubled. According to the statement, Italian exports in the sector to the French market do not seem to have felt any repercussions from the crisis in consumer spending, with a 13% increase over the first four-month period of 2008. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Transport: Messina Bridge to be Completed on Time
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JULY 24 — A bridge across the Messina Straits linking Sicily to the mainland will be completed by 2016 as planned, Economy Minister Giulio Tremonti and Infrastructure Minister Altero Matteoli reiterated on Friday. The ministers added that a measure tacked on to the government’s anti-recession bill, on which a confidence vote is expected on Friday, would help to cut red tape and keep the project to build the world’s longest suspension bridge on schedule. “The measure involves the appointment of a special commissioner who will approve all necessary acts, even of a transitory nature, with contracted companies and consortiums in order to start work on the project, using resources which have already been allocated,” the ministers said in a joint statement. The special commissioner will be Pietro Ciucci, CEO of the general contracting company Stretto di Messina SpA. The bridge was originally greenlighted by Premier Silvio Berlusconi eight years ago but shelved by an intervening centre-left government. Berlusconi revived the 6.5-billion-euro project when he returned to office in May of last year. The Messina Bridge has been hailed by Berlusconi’s government as a huge job-creation scheme that would give Italy’s image a major boost while bringing Sicily closer to the mainland in both physical, social and psychological terms. The project was originally presented by Berlusconi’s 2001-2006 government, after it had been a key campaign promise in the 2001 general election, but was shelved during the two-year centre-left government headed by Romano Prodi. According to Prodi’s transport minister, Alessandro Bianchi, the multi-billion-euro project, was “the most useless and damaging project in Italy in the last 100 years”. The project has been opposed by environmentalists and dogged by concerns over its safety and fears of potential Mafia involvement. When and if completed, the bridge would replace ferry services between Sicily and the mainland. The 3,690-metre-long bridge has been designed to handle 4,500 cars an hour and 200 trains a day. Work on the structure was originally scheduled to start in late 2006 and end in 2012. Current estimates are for getting construction started in mid-2010 and completing the bridge in 2016. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Robocop’ Who Targeted Drug Dealers Died at Home From Heroin Overdose
A Met police officer renowned as a scourge of London drug dealers was found dead in his flat from a heroin overdose.
David Pilling — who was known as “Robocop” for his efforts in tackling drugs — was found collapsed at his home in Camden earlier this year.
An inquest heard yesterday how the 47-year-old died from an overdose from a heroin injection while his body also had traces of cocaine and Ecstasy use.
His sudden death shocked friends, colleagues and family none of whom had any idea he took drugs.
Colleagues say the hugely popular officer may have been experimenting with drugs and died from an accidental overdose.
An investigation into his death found that the officer had been looking at websites dealing with drugs and how to take them in the weeks before his death.
Pc Pilling, who was originally from Canada, built up a reputation for tackling drug dealers on his beat in Holborn and Covent Garden.
A member of the local Safer Neighbourhoods Team he once chased a dealer down a flight of steps in Tottenham Court Road on his motorbike.
Camden borough Commander Dominic Clout, said: “PC Pilling was a truly valued member of staff who proved popular with colleagues and members of the local community.
“Clearly Pc Pilling displayed no signs of drug use whilst at Camden borough and his colleagues and supervisors were unaware of any issues relating to drugs.
“The Met does operate an alcohol and substance misuse policy which includes random screening of serving officers. Whilst we will always support colleagues through challenging or difficult times who alert us of potential problems and actively seek help we will never tolerate the use of drugs amongst officers and will deal with any reported cases severely.”
The inquest heard that tests showed the police officer was not a heroin addict.
There was evidence that he had used the drug before and some evidence that he had also tried cocaine and Ecstasy.
Colleagues said there was nothing in his behaviour to show that he had been using drugs regularly.
Detective Inspector Paul Clack of Camden Police said: “The whole thing has been a complete shock to everyone. This came out of the blue.
“There was no major incident in his life that might have prompted this. In fact he was always very active in arresting people in possession of drugs.”
More than 100 friends and colleagues have posted tributes to the officer on internet social networking sites
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hizb Ut-Tahrir Organise Further Demos in London (Saturday August 8th)
By TITVS ADVXAS — An Islamic extremist party, that the UK tried to ban, following the 7/7 bus and tube bombings in London in 2005, is calling all Muslims to attend a demonstration outside the Turkish Embassy, 43 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PA, Saturday August 8th 2009 at 1pm.
Hizb ut-Tahrir were due to be banned by Tony Blair’s government after the bombings, where 52 innocent commuters and the four suicide bombers all perished but, according to The Observer, the Home Office “believed any legal ban would not stick”.
Worryingly. this group will now have now organised three meetings on three consecutive weekends.
The group’s reasoning and agenda is copied from their website:
- On Friday morning, 24 July 2009, Turkish security forces began a campaign of raids on the homes of the activists of Hizb ut-Tahrir in 23 cities, arresting 200 of them.
- This occurred two days before the holding of Hizb ut-Tahrir — Wilayah of Turkey’s conference in Istanbul, and one day after the distribution of the Hizb’s statement on the occasion of the tragic anniversary of the destruction of the Khilafah at the hands of Britain and its agents from the Arabs and Turks, and two days after the holding of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s Muslim Ulema Conference in Indonesia.
- Insha Allah, in spite of the oppressive tyrants from the Turkish secularists, the puppets of the English, and those dressed in the garb of Muslims but who are enemies of Islam, the American agents, the Khilafah will be re-established.
- These arrests are in fact an act of desperation by the Turkish government and testament to the growing call for Khilafah in Turkey. Erdogan and his government should know that these arrests will not stop or delay the victory of Allah and the re-establishment of the Khilafah.
Remembering back to previous Islamic demonstrations on British soil about events both here and elsewhere, such as:
1. The publication in1988 of The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, where worldwide protests resulted in a fatwa, or official Islamic death threat, against him. There were also escalating protests in Cities throughout the land and specific violence against book stores that simmered on for ages, ultimately saw two London shops raised to the ground by fire.
2. The Jyllands-Posten Muhummad cartoons controversy on February 3rd 2006, where fanatics from all over Britain descended upon London and other cities and again made angry extremist anti Denmark and anti British threats, and worldwide there were many reported deaths and ‘honour’ killings citing the cartoons as the cause or reason.
3. The vicious anti troop demonstration in March this year where hoards of Muslims gathered to abuse the Anglian regiment on their homecoming march through Luton.
All three protest events were actually filmed and reported by the mainstream press yet little or no action was taken against the dissidents.
Following the recent meetings by Hizb ut-Tahrir, its fair to assume that the nature of their current protests will make Saturdays demonstration ‘unsuitable for reporting’, as the state controlled media bend over backward to avoid showing these invaders in any bad light.
Perhaps its time that we made the BBC et al aware of our feelings towards foreign demonstrations on British soil!
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Mosque Threat Man Avoids Prison
A Derbyshire man who threatened to blow up Glasgow Central Mosque has been sentenced to three years’ probation.
Neil MacGregor, 36, had also said he would execute a Muslim a day unless all of Scotland’s Mosques were closed.
He made the threats after watching an internet video of a British hostage being beheaded in Iraq.
Sheriff Andrew Mackie said he did not believe custody would help to address the root cause of MacGregor’s problem which was his mental health.
At an earlier hearing, MacGregor, from Melbourne, Derbyshire, admitted a racial breach of the peace.
He telephoned and e-mailed Strathclyde Police to make the threats from a flat in Glasgow, between 30 January and 15 February 2007.
The court heard that the e-mail read: “I’m a proud racist and National Front member.
“We as an organisation have decided to deal with the current threat from Muslims in our own British way, like our proud ancestors.
“Our demands are very small. Close all mosques in Scotland.
“If our demands aren’t met by next Friday, we’ll kidnap one Muslim and execute him or her on the internet, just like they did to our Ken Bigley.”
MacGregor then followed up the e-mail with a call threatening to blow up Central Mosque.
Different treatment
Sheriff Andrew Mackie said a custodial sentence had been uppermost in his mind given the nature of the offences.
But he added: “The psychiatrist considers that your condition at present, following the treatment you have received, does not require your immediate admission to hospital but does consider that you would benefit from ongoing treatment.
“The most up-to-date social enquiry report recommends that you be made the subject of a probation order with a condition that you attend for psychiatric treatment as directed by your supervising officer.
“I am prepared to make such an order to minimise the risk of you becoming involved in such behaviour again.”
Muslim leaders criticised the way MacGregor’s case was dealt with by the police and courts.
Osama Saeed, of the Scottish-Islamic Foundation, said he believed that if a young Muslim had similarly threatened violence after viewing videos from Iraq, he would have been dealt with completely differently by the police.
MacGregor’s defence lawyer Craig Dewar told the court that MacGregor had been in contact with figures from the mosque to personally offer his apologies.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
EU Gets Albanian Organ Traffic Evidence
Serbia has given an EU envoy what it regards as evidence that Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian guerrillas allegedly removed the organs of kidnapped Serb civilians and sold them, an official said Tuesday.
Swiss Senator Dick Marty is leading the Council of Europe probe into the allegations of trafficking in kidneys, livers and other organs during the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict. Marty ends a two-day visit to Serbia on Tuesday before travelling to Albania.
Serbian officials say hundreds of Kosovo Serbs vanished without a trace in the 1998-99 conflict. They claim at least some of them may have had organs removed and trafficked on the black market.
“We have presented Marty with analysis, investigation results, evidence, extensive material that backs our claims,” said Bruno Vekaric, the spokesman for Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor.
The Serb war crimes investigators have said they have concrete proof that at least 10 people were the victims of an international organ trafficking operation, but that many more may have been operated on in makeshift hospitals in neighbouring Albania before being dumped in mass graves.
The Kosovo Liberation Army, an ethnic Albanian rebel force, fought Serbian troops loyal to the late strongman Slobodan Milosevic in a conflict that claimed at least 10,000 lives. The bloodshed ended after NATO pummeled Serbia with airstrikes and sent in peacekeepers in June 1999. Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leaders declared independence in February 2008.
Kosovo and Albania have strongly denied the organ trafficking allegations, which were first made in a book by former U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte. In “Madame Prosecutor,” an account of her tenure as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, Del Ponte said her office was tipped to possible organ trafficking.
Although the information was “tantalizing,” Del Ponte wrote, “in the end, the attorneys and investigators on the KLA cases decided that there was insufficient evidence to proceed.” A United Nations inquiry into the issue in 2004 proved inconclusive. So did a recent investigation by The Associated Press.
After his fact-finding visits, Marty is expected to issue a report on “inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo,” according to a Council of Europe statement.
Vekaric said Serbia hopes Marty’s mission will result in the reopening of the investigations in Albania and Kosovo.
“We are convinced that he will do all he can to find out the truth,” Vekaric said.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Organ Trafficking, Marty on EU Mission
(ANSAmed) — STRASBURG/BELGRADE, AUGUST 3 — Swiss MP Dick Marty will be sent on a mission on behalf of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to Serbia and Albania to prepare a report on alleged organ trafficking in Kosovo. Dick Marty, who uncovered the truth about flights organised by the CIA to Europe to transfer alleged terrorists to Guantanamo or other countries where it was possible to act more freely, is expected today in Belgrade, where he will spend two days, followed by another two days in Albania. He will meet with the Interior and Justice Ministers, state prosecutors, MPs, NGO representatives, and representatives of the people who have disappeared in both countries. The spokesperson for the Serbia War Crimes Court, Bruno Vekaric, cited by Tanjug, said that he hopes that after Marty’s visit, “the truth emerges” about kidnapped Serbs and suspected organ trafficking in the north of Albania. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: Le Monde Publishes Survey on King Banned by Rabat
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, AUGUST 3 — According to a survey conducted by Le Monde-TelQuel and published today by the French daily newspaper, an overwhelming majority of Moroccans have a positive opinion of the first ten years of Mohammed IV’s reign, despite some having reservations as far as poverty and women’s rights are concerned. Despite these results, the Moroccan Minister of the Interior has seized and destroyed all copies of TelQuel, the Moroccan weekly which published it, in both its French and its Arabic version. His reasoning was that, “In Morocco we don’t discuss the monarchy, there can be no debate about it, not even through surveys.” Le Monde, who dared to publish these findings, will also very likely be removed from the shelves of Moroccan newsagents, as government spokesman and Minister of Communication, Khalid Naciri promised. TelQuel’s front cover stated, “The people judge their king, his actions, his sacredness, the Palace’s prodigious protocol and his work.” This was reproduced in Le Monde, which said that Rabat’s decision was questionable, arbitrary, incomprehensible and absurd, adding that TelQuel “had not committed high treason.” (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
EU Presidency, East Jerusalm Expulsions Unacceptable
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, AUGUST 3 — The Swedish presidency of the EU expressed “worry” over the continuing expulsion of Palestinian families from East Jerusalem, in a press release today from Brussels. The position taken by the EU presidency, which stressed “serious worry”, came after yesterday’s expulsion by Israeli authorities of two Palestinian families from their homes in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The Swedish presidency reiterated “that the demolishing of homes, expulsions and settlement activities in East Jerusalem are illegal according to international law” and warned Israel that “the actions taken by the Israeli government are in contrast with the repeated pleas of the international community, including the Quartet, to abstain from any kind of provocative actions in East Jerusalem”. According to the EU presidency, “these actions” are totally against the necessity of creating “an atmosphere able to bring a practicable and believable solution to the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Holocaust: Palestinians at Yad Vashem Learning of Israel
(by Giorgio Raccah) (ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, JULY 28 — Working on the principle that dialogue springs from knowing your interlocutor, a Palestinian student from a village on the West Bank took a group of 16 young co-nationals on a visit to the Yad Vashem, the museum in Jerusalem where documents and testimonies of the genocide of six million Jews during the Second World War are collected. Promoting the idea, which was welcomed with open arms by the Yad Vashem museum, was Palestinian Mujaied Sarsur from the village of Masha, not far from Nablus, who had studied as a student in the United States, where the large number of books and documents about the Holocaust stirred his interest. And as the largest centre for Holocaust studies is right in the Yad Vashem, Sarsur who used to spend his summer holidays in his native village, latched onto the idea of gathering a group of young fellow Palestinians, aged between 13 and 19, and taking them to the Yad Vashem museum, with the agreement of the museum itself, which was more than enthusiastic about this lively interest in opening dialogue. As Sarsur says, his idea met with resistance among his fellow country-folk, with some asking why it was necessary to learn about the sufferings of your enemy and whether it wouldn’t be better to go and view the suffering going on in Gaza. But having overcome initial resistance on the part of the military authorities to authorise this visit to Israel, the part of Palestinians was able to make its way to Yad Vashem where they were greeted by scholar Yacov Yaniv, an Arabic speaker who acted as their guide, explaining the exhibits to the youngsters and their record of the greatest criminal tragedy recorded by humanity. “During the entire four hours of the visit, they were attentive, serious and patient” Yaniv said, adding: “they came with very little knowledge of the Holocaust. They were unaware of the basic facts and what they knew was distorted”. The photo of the Warsaw ghetto brought forth comparisons with the separation barrier which Israel is building in the West Bank, Yaniv noted. (ANSAmed)
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israel: ‘Peace Partner’ Declares Every Israeli a Military Target
‘The only solution is for all the Jews to pack up and leave’
BETHLEHEM — Every Israeli is a legitimate military target, declared a senior delegate of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah organization in a WND interview.
“I don’t believe there are civilians in Israel. All of Israeli society is a military society and therefore a military target,” Rashideh al-Mughrabi said in an in-person interview.
Mughrabi is a senior deputy to the Fatah congress taking place this week in Bethlehem at which hundreds of voting Fatah members will discuss the future of their party and pass official resolutions outlining its major objectives. Mughrabi is one of six voting Fatah delegates from Lebanon.
She is the sister of Dalal al-Mughrabi, one of the most infamous anti-Israel terrorists in history. Dalal led an attack in March 1978 that killed 36 Israelis.
Rashideh said her only regret about her sister’s attack was that she herself could not participate.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Michael Freund: Staring Down Israel’s Segregationists
The Left, once again, is in an uproar.
Along with its international comrades, it is bristling at the recent court-approved move by Jewish families into homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem.
This is in addition to the fury it expressed previously over plans to build apartments for Jews at the site of the privately owned Shepherd Hotel in the eastern part of the capital.
Mustering all the righteous anger at its disposal, the Left has now launched into a heated round of pious pontification, hurling invective and frenzied rhetoric as if the world itself were coming to an end.
The Ir Amim organization, for example, recently warned that if the Shepherd Hotel plan moves forward, it might “deal a fatal blow not only to [US President Barack] Obama’s efforts but to the two-state solution.”
No less hysterical was the reaction of Robert Serry, the UN’s special envoy to the Middle East, who released a harshly worded statement saying: “I deplore the totally unacceptable actions by Israel in which Israeli security forces evicted Palestinian refugee families… to allow settlers to take possession of their properties.”
Calling the move “provocative,” Serry asserted that it will “heighten tensions” and “undermine international efforts” to bring about peace.
Have these people fallen on their heads?
The Left and its supporters repeatedly stress the need to end “settlement activity,” as though it is Jewish housing construction rather than Arab intolerance which lies at the root of the Middle East conflict.
But even more perplexing is the fact that they are willing to embrace an openly discriminatory stance — prejudiced against Jews — to advance their political agenda.
You see, once upon a time not very long ago, it was considered unacceptable to tell people where to live because of their racial or religious identity…
| [Return to headlines] |
Nazi Official Was Righteous Among the Nations, Rabbis
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, AUGUST 4 — The Jewish ultra-orthodox Chabbad movement yesterday formally asked the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem to recognise Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of military intelligence in Nazi Germany until 1944, as “Righteous Gentile”. The admiral reportedly has secretly saved the lives of hundreds of Jews risking his own life. Canaris was hanged in 1945 in the Flossenburg concentration camp on orders of SS leader Heinrich Himmler, for his involvement in the failed attack on Adolf Hitler. According to documents collected by Chabbad, Canaris himself organised the flight of the leader of the movement, Yossef Yitzhak Schneerson, from Warsaw in 1940. Without any financial reward and while risking his life, Canaris — according to the leaders of the Chabbad movement — also saved hundreds of Jews who were sent by train in 1941 from Germany to Spain and Portugal. Canaris explained in their travel documents that these Jews were “agents”, while he only put them on the train to save their lives. The management of Yad Vashem must now take a decision on the request of the Chabbad movement. According to today’s news, the decision will be a difficult one due to the important role Canaris has played in the German war machine during WWII. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Dubai Dream is Over as Thousands Rush Back Home
Thousands of young Londoners are returning from the Middle East as dreams of a six-figure salary and sun-soaked lifestyle turn to dust.
Experts today said professionals who moved to Dubai during the height of the boom are flooding home after losing their jobs — with some abandoning flats, cars and credit cards in the rush to return to the UK.
Richard Harlington, 33, came back to south London two weeks ago after four years in Dubai. It was a life of parties and flash hotel bars, one where the endless supply of credit allowed ex-pats to drive Porsches and employ live-in housekeepers and chauffeurs.
But Mr Harlington, a computer expert who worked in the property industry, lost his job and chose to return to Britain to renegotiate his mortgage as he faced jail for debts in Dubai.
Interest rates have soared in the city to around 8.75 per cent — having a huge impact on mortgage repayments. Meanwhile, falling house prices have put thousands in negative equity. Mr Harlington bought a buy-to-let flat for £200,000 in a futuristic project called Dubailand, which described itself as the “world’s most ambitious tourism, leisure and entertainment project”.
But the flat has lost around £60,000 of its value and he fears he may have to write off the £20,000 deposit and hand back the keys. Mr Harlington risked falling foul of a system used in Dubai where buyers have to hand over signed blank cheques as guarantees. If they default on a mortgage or loan, the lender cashes the cheque and contacts the police when it bounces — leading to the borrower being halted at the border and put in jail until the debt is paid.
“At the end, the roads were just like a ghost town,” Mr Harlington said. “The Dubai dream has just gone. I wouldn’t recommend anyone goes out there looking for work. If you bought [property] in the last 18 months there is a good chance you are in negative equity.”
Mr Harlington also rented a four-bedroom apartment for about £25,000 a year — his salary had been the equivalent of £120,000 a year in the UK.
Tory MP Brian Binley, who visited Dubai with the Commons business committee, said: “Dubai in 1988 was nothing more than a group of small buildings. It became one of the major cities of the world, but it was based on fantasy, on the continuation of the credit bubble that has come unstuck.” Some of Dubai’s immigrant workforce began “flipping” homes before they had been built — making massive gains by placing an order for a new apartment and selling it weeks or hours later, after the price had risen due to apparently insatiable demand.
One of Mr Harlington’s former colleagues, who returned to London after being made redundant, said Dubai police had found 1,500 cars abandoned at its airport. “The ex-pats have driven to the long-stay car park, got on a plane and gone home,” he said.
The 32-year-old man from east London, who asked not to be named, lost a £20,000 downpayment on a new home. He added: “As an ex-pat, you are a second-class citizen.”
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Double Standards in Pakistan’s Anti-Terror Campaign
NEW DELHI: Early this month, Pakistani prosecutors charged the head of a pro-Taliban group and seven of his associates with treason, incitement to rebellion, terrorism, waging war, and conspiracy against the country.
The charges are reported to centre around a speech made by Maulana Mohammad, often called Maulana Radio for his use of FM broadcasts to spread his message, on April 19.
Maulana Mohammad, the Pakistan government says, told followers in the town of Mingora that there “is no room for democracy in Islam.” He demanded that the entire nation be placed under the Shariah law.
Pakistan’s stern action against the Taliban-linked cleric stands in stark contrast to its refusal to prosecute Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, despite the fact that he used a near-identical language in several speeches made in recent years. Saeed’s speeches also contained attacks on Pakistan’s rulers, attacks on its anti-Taliban war and calls for violence against India.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Houses Are Not Being Sold to Muslims in Delhi and Mumbai
There is an insurmountable wall of prejudice, suspicion and ignorance that prevents members of the Muslim community from finding an accommodation of their choice in many cities of India. Living together is getting harder for the two communities.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) — Recently in Mumbai a famous Bollywood actor, after paying the earnest money for the purchase of a flat in fashionable locality, the deal was broken when the administrator of the cooperative society came to know that he was a Muslim. The actor, Emrann Hashmi, filed a complaint with the State Minority Commission, that has the statutory duty to defend the rights of minorities. But some political party blame Hashmi. Sanjay Bedia, worker of the BJP(Bharatiya Janata Party),the Hindu Nationalist Party, accuse him of prejudice and has filed a complaint against Hashmi for making offensive statements along communal lines.
The Muslim community in New Delhi says that what happened to Hashmi in Mumbai is a daily occurrence in the capital, a city that is otherwise a melting pot of regional and communal identities.
It is not just average Muslim but even well-placed professionals — engineers, doctors and journalists — can’t find a place in Delhi’s upscale residential colonies.
Old Delhi instead is a stronghold of the Muslim community but also there things are changing. The desire to live among one’s own community is showing up also in the Walled City where Hindu traders have lived for centuries along with Muslims. Many of them are selling houses to Muslims to move out. In situations like this it is difficult to decide who to blame and where the prejudice lies. Like in Hashmi’s case it is unclear whether there actually was religious prejudice
.
Whether Hashmi is right or wrong may be irrelevant; but it is significant the large reaction that the case had evoked in a larger context. The problem of religious bias cannot be wished away. What is needed is a constructive, mutually respectful public dialogue.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: in Lahore Workers Kill Factory Owner Accused of Blasphemy
According to an eyewitness, the owner was seen removing an old calendar with verses from the Qur’an and that was sufficient for workers to kill him and two other men. The enraged mob also assaulted management employees and set the factory on fire. Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani travels to Gojra today to express solidarity to Christian victims of the previous massacre.
Lahore (AsiaNews/Agencies) — A factory owner and two other men were killed when workers from his plant attacked them along the Muridke-Sheikhupura Road, not far from Lahore, for allegedly desecrating the holy Qur’an, a private TV channel reported on Tuesday. However, another TV station said the owner, identified only as Najeebullah, and the two other men were killed over the factory administration’s failure to pay workers.
The incident began when a worker came into the factory at around 2 pm and saw that the owner had taken down an old calendar, which had verses from the holy Qur’an written on it, and put it on a table. The worker accused the owner for what he thought was “desecration” of the holy Qur’an. When a guard tried to stop him, he ran out into the working area and started gathering his colleagues, claiming the owner had committed ‘blasphemy’.
When the group of workers surrounded Najeebullah, his guard tried to protect him by firing in the air, but this further enraged the crowd; shots were fired killing the owner and his guard.
In their rage workers attacked the factory administration, beat up several employees and set the plant on fire.
Police rushed to the site to bring the situation under control, but the angry mob turned on them and seized their weapons.
This incident follows a similar one in Gojra (Punjab) where a group of Christians was burnt alive just a few days ago for alleged blasphemy.
Today Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani visited the Punjabi town to express solidarity with the Christian community and reiterated his condemnation of the outrage which is currently under investigation.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pesantren [Madrassa’s] Seen as Key to Fighting Terrorism in Indonesia
The reluctance of Islamic boarding schools to focus on pluralism and tolerance is a major obstacle to changing the mind-set of their students, leaving open the road to radicalism and conservatism, an Islamic political observer said on Thursday.
“Anyone can become a terrorist if he or she is being indoctrinated into a certain perspective. Economics is not the only factor in the making of a terrorist,” Syafii Anwar, the director of the International Center for Islam and Pluralism, said during a discussion organized by the International Religious Freedom Consortium.
Syafii said including aspects of pluralism and human rights in the curriculum was important and needed to be done more often in the country. These issues, he said, should be given more emphasis at Islamic boarding schools, which are better known as pesantren .
“Such an educational focus would be very useful in changing the mind-set of the pesantren community,” he said.
Syafii said that many clerics at the helm of pesantrens were often resistant to attempts to teach pluralism at their schools, adding that these clerics frequently accused the Central Intelligence Agency of being behind efforts to introduce the subject.
“Radicalism can be brought about because of misleading perceptions of religion,” he said.
Sue Gunawardena, IRFC program manager, said the government had a huge role in educating its citizens about multiculturalism and religious tolerance.
If the government fails to uphold such issues, she said, then nongovernmental organizations and the media should take over the role of supporting pluralism.
Conservatism and radicalism have long been believed to be at the heart of terrorism, including the recent suicide bombings at two luxury hotels in Jakarta.
Many people have pointed out that the two suicide bombers and their suspected accomplices are thought to have graduated from a pesantren in Ngruki, Central Java, founded by hard-line Islamic cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist network.
Meanwhile, the Organization of Retired Army Soldiers (PPAD) demanded that the government step up efforts to root out terrorism in the country. Speaking at a news conference in Jakarta, Lt. Gen. (ret) Soerjadi, PPAD’s chairman, said terrorist attacks would not stop until the government successfully addressed the root causes of such attacks.
“The government should be more active in finding out the triggers behind such acts and how to solve the problem in the future,” Soerjadi said.
The retired general also voiced concern over the national security situation, adding that the recent bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels and the spate of armed attacks in Timika, Papua, were not merely part of some domestic conflict.
“There is foreign involvement,” Soerjadi said. He declined to point to any particular countries, saying only that these incidents should be handled simultaneously by the military and intelligence agencies.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Official: ‘Strong Indications’ Pakistani Taliban Leader Baitullah Mehsud is Dead
“There is strong indication” that Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a CIA drone strike that targeted a house Wednesday, a senior administration official told ABC News.
U.S. and Pakistani officials believe that a strike in South Waziristan yesterday “very likely” killed Mehsud. U.S. officials said they had visual and other “indicators” that it was Mehsud, and that there is a 95 percent chance that he is among the dead. Pakistani officials are trying to collect physical evidence to be certain.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK ‘May Have 40-Year Afghan Role’
The UK’s commitment to Afghanistan could last for up to 40 years, the incoming head of the Army has said.
Gen Sir David Richards, who takes over on 28 August, told the Times the Army’s role would evolve, but the process of “nation-building” would last decades.
Troops will be required for the medium term only, but the UK will continue to play a role in “development, governance [and] security sector reform,” he said.
“There is absolutely no chance of Nato pulling out,” Gen Richards added.
Gen Richards commanded 35,000 troops from 37 nations when he was head of Nato’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan between May 2006 and February 2007.
He will take over from Gen Sir Richard Dannatt as the UK’s chief of the general staff.
‘Campaign winnable’
Gen Richards’ comments come a day after it emerged that three servicemen, from the Parachute Regiment, had been killed north of Lashkar Gah, in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, on Thursday afternoon.
Their deaths — in an attack on a Jackal armoured vehicle which left a colleague critically injured — take to 195 the number of British troops killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
The Army has suffered its heaviest losses of the entire campaign in recent weeks, but its soon-to-be chief said he strongly believed the campaign was “winnable”.
“Demanding, certainly, but winnable,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Clinton’s North Korean Odyssey
The great powers of history understood the truth of Virgil’s dictum that “they have power because they seem to have power.” As much as soldiers and weapons, prestige and perception are critical for a great power’s ability to pursue and defend its interests. Both allies and adversaries must show by their behavior that they respect and honor a dominant state, and understand that consequences will follow the failure to do so. And to reinforce the perception of its power, a major power must be willing to take actions that demonstrate that is worthy of this respect. To do otherwise is to create a perception of weakness and to invite encroachments on the state’s security and interests. The decline of great empires like that of Rome or of England is in part a consequence of the loss of this respect on the part of enemies and rivals, and the perception that they were weak rather than strong.
Unfortunately, this is a wisdom that the United States has forgotten, as evidenced by former President Bill Clinton’s recent trip to North Korea to rescue two reporters who had been imprisoned for “illegally” entering North Korean territory. Many will no doubt praise Clinton’s “diplomacy” and hope that it may jump-start the languishing efforts to pry loose North Korea’s nuclear arsenal from Kim Jong-il’s dying grip. In fact, the whole episode is another in a series of humiliations, whether petty or serious, that have damaged America’s prestige and convinced its enemies that for all our power, we are weak and vulnerable.
How else can one understand the sorry spectacle of the one-time leader of the world’s most powerful state flying cap in hand to a dysfunctional country ruled by a psychopathic thug? Does anybody think it shows strength for Clinton to apologize to said thug on behalf of two Americans who had been wrongly arrested and jailed? Doesn’t it rather redound to North Korea’s prestige that it has compelled a representative of American power to solicit a favor, pose for photos, and chit-chat with one of the most brutal dictators of recent history? And who knows what other concessions were promised or implied.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Heavy Metals Scandal: Beijing Arrests Journalists Rather Than Help the Sick
For almost six years, the company hid the fact that it was making indium, a very lucrative but highly toxic metal, without a permit but with official protection. The authorities now want to prevent more protests instead of helping sick residents who lost their means of livelihood.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Tens of thousands of police officers were deployed in Zhentou, a township where people and land are heavily contaminated with heavy metals unloaded into the environment by the Xianghe chemical company. They want to prevented residents from staging more protests. Locals note that the authorities are not as concerned about providing them with medical treatment and a livelihood.
Since the scandal broke reports have indicated that more than 500 people have been poisoned by cadmium, with five deaths. But more are expected since only 2,888 residents were tested from a radius within 1.2 kilometres around the factory. In reality the contaminated area is much wider.
As a result of the pollution local farmland has become unfit to grow crops leaving residents without the means to earn a living.
But instead of helping the affected population the authorities have been trying to hide the scandal. At least eight journalists investigating the matter were taken away in a country that has been following developments in the matter, wondering how it could happen.
Liuyang mayor and township officials visited families in Shuangqiao village, the site of the factory, late on Monday to persuade them not to stage any public protests. Long hours of persuasion and intimidation worked for the moment, stalling the proposed protest, but villagers are still afraid that they will be forgotten by the government.
For years Xianghe claimed that it produced zinc sulphate when in fact it was churning out cartloads of indium, a key metal for making liquid crystal displays (for computers, television, mobile phones, etc.) and solar panels.
The metal is highly toxic and production requires a special permit for careful waste disposal. Yet the local Environmental Protection Bureau never lifted a finger to stop production. Instead it claims that indium was produced for only a brief period in 2006, and that the factory stopped refining the metal after being warned by the bureau in February 2007.
Workers employed at the factory have a different story to say. They told the South China Morning Post that the plant secretly produced indium from day one in 2004 until it was closed last June. Lun Shenqiao, who worked in the factory, explained that management was forewarned of pending inspections two weeks in advance and could thus hide indium production or switch to something else.
As a result of the scandal, former Deputy Township chief Xiong Zanhui was arrested, accused of taking bribes of 100,000 yuan from the plant owner in exchange for government support and help in the cover-up. Plant owner Luo Xiangping and four other senior factory managers were also detained.
Residents note that indium output was too high for just a few officials to cover up. They insist that they had already presented several petitions to the authorities about what it was doing. The company itself was fined 200,000 yuan for breach of regulations rather than shut down because it had promised it would take corrective measures.
In a recent letter the environmental protection bureau was still defending the factory’s operations, saying that it had spent 7 million yuan to build waste treatment facilities and that water samples taken from nearby areas showed “no signs of pollution.”
About 30 per cent of the annual worldwide demand for indium is met by China. Indium prices surged from less than US$ 600 per kilogram in 2003 to US $1,000 by 2006. Because of this rise Xianghe Chemical increased its output to 300 kilograms a month, bringing in up to 7,000 yuan (US$ 1,000) per month for the plant owner.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Ransom for an Enemy
WASHINGTON — Former President William Jefferson Blythe Clinton has returned from Pyongyang, North Korea, with Al Gore’s employees Laura Ling and Euna Lee. The two women, reporters for Gore’s Current TV operation, were seized by North Korean border guards March 17 along the frozen Tumen River — the border between North Korea and China. On June 8, following a five-day “trial,” Pyongyang’s Central Court convicted the women of “committing hostilities against the Korean nation and illegal entry” and sentenced them to 12 years’ hard labor.
On Tuesday, Aug. 4, Mr. Clinton, accompanied by a doctor and his former chief of staff John Podesta, arrived in Pyongyang aboard real estate mogul, Hollywood producer and Democratic Party donor Stephen Bing’s private jet. On arrival at Pyongyang’s nearly deserted Sunan International Airport, they were met by Kim Kye Gwan, North Korea’s longtime senior nuclear negotiator. Twenty hours later, after what the North Korean media described as “exhaustive” talks with “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il, the 68-year-old dictator issued a “special pardon,” and Mr. Clinton headed home with Ling and Lee.
It is good that the women are reunited with their families and loved ones. Their release is being hailed by the White House as a “great gesture,” and kudos is being showered on Mr. Clinton for his “initiative.” The Obama administration maintains that North Korean press reports that Mr. Clinton conveyed a message from Mr. Obama “expressing apologies … profound thanks … and ways of improving the relations between the two countries” are untrue. Though the Clinton aircraft was refueled at U.S. Air Force bases in Alaska and Japan, the O-Team insists that the former president and party were on a strictly “private humanitarian mission” and that “there was no quid pro quo” for the release.
We all know better. The smile pasted on Kim Jong-il’s face in the “official photographs” taken with Mr. Clinton tell the story. A price was paid. The North Koreans know what it is. The Obama administration knows what it is. But the American people don’t — and we won’t unless transcripts of the Clinton-Kim “conversations” are released. Don’t count on that happening soon. The administration that promised to be “the most transparent in history” has made secrecy in foreign affairs a way of life.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Recording Ethiopia’s Red Terror
In the late 1970s Ethiopia’s Marxist military rulers tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands in brutal repressions. Now, one survivor is trying to create a permanent online archive of the so-called Red Terror using the documents the Communist regime, known as the Derg, left behind, reports the BBC’s Elizabeth Blunt.
Hirut Abebe-Jiri was in her early teens when Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown.
She had had a happy and privileged childhood, part of a well-off and well-connected family.
But the revolution made people like them liable to be viewed as suspicious.
The revolutionary guards took her uncle first, then her father, then they came for her and her younger sister.
“I was shaking and my sister was holding my hand,” she says.
“They took us into a kind of office room, with two desks, and Kelbessa [a senior official] was there.”
They were greeted by a horrifying sight. An 11-year-old boy from their neighbourhood was trussed up on a broomstick and suspended between the desks.
He had been badly beaten and was bleeding and vomiting.
“When we saw him, we just froze. And they asked him a question, when he was like that, in that position, they asked him: ‘Which one?’ And he said, ‘Hirut’.”
With that, Ms Hirut’s sister was taken away, Ms Hirut was trussed up between the tables and the beating started.
“They were asking me about this gun which the boy said he had given me, and until this day I didn’t know anything about the gun, so honestly I couldn’t tell them,” she says.
“Finally they started putting water on me. Then after that when they hit you, your skin starts cracking, and the blood starts coming out. That was the painful time, and I was in and out of consciousness.”
The beating went on all night. It was daylight by the time they dragged her out of the torture room, and round to a cellar under the building where the women prisoners were kept.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Bolivia in Colombia Betrayal Jibe
Bolivian President Evo Morales has accused his Colombian counterpart of betraying Latin Americans with a plan to let US troops use Colombian bases.
Mr Morales said that Bogota’s plan was aimed at countering the efforts of left-wing governments like his.
He said those governments were fighting for greater social justice.
However, Brazil and Chile have said they will respect Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s sovereign right to carry out the plan.
Their acceptance came after Mr Uribe completed a three-day tour of the region in a bid to calm fears over his decision to open seven military bases to US forces.
Correspondents say this tacit acceptance sends a sign that most countries in the region are not prepared to follow the harder line taken against Colombia by countries like Bolivia and Venezuela.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez — who cut ties with Colombia last month — has said he fears the move amounts to preparation for an invasion of his country by US forces.
The US has been forced to look for a new base for such operations after Ecuador refused to renew the lease on its Manta base, which the US military was using.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Venezuela to Buy Russian Arms, Tanks: Chavez
President Hugo Chavez said Venezuela would purchase dozens of Russian tanks, in a move signaling growing military ties between the two countries that have frequently clashed with Washington.
“It will be a major arms agreement to increase our defense capability,” the Venezuelan leader told reporters, noting that he hoped to ink other agreements on agriculture, oil and mining during his visit to Moscow in mid-September.
Between 2005 and 2007, Moscow and Caracas signed 12 arms deals worth a total 4.4 billion dollars. Venezuela has acquired 24 Sukhoi fighter planes, 50 combat helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. In 2008, it secured a one-billion-dollar loan for the purchase of new weaponry.
Under the new deal, Venezuela would buy a modern battalion of “30 to 40” Russian-made BMP-3, T-72 and MPR tanks, Chavez said following a telephone conversation with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
“Our army will continue to grow,” vowed Chavez, who is leading a leftist surge in Latin America and repeatedly lambasts the United States for perceived “imperialist” policies in the region.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Debunking a Youtube Hit
A big YouTube hit makes startling predictions about the Islamification of Europe over the next few decades and has been viewed more than 10 million times. But can you believe what it says?
This seven-and-a-half minute video “Muslim Demographics” uses slick graphics, punctuated with dramatic music, to make some surprising claims, asserting that much of Europe will be majority Muslim in just a few decades. It says that in the past two decades, 90% of all population growth in Europe has been Muslim immigration.
In France, it says 30% of those aged 20 and younger are Muslim, with the birth rate for Muslim families massively exceeding that across all families. It says France will be an Islamic Republic within 39 years.
In the UK it says the Muslim population has risen 30-fold since the beginning of the 1980s.
But are any of the video’s statistics true?
Of the video’s claims that 90% of Europe’s population growth since 1990 is due Islamic immigration, only a fragment is true. Immigration is the main driver of population growth according to EU statistics and in some exceptional years, 90% of population growth has been down to net inward migration.
But that includes all immigrants coming into the EU, not just Muslims.
It is the claims made about individual countries that are most striking. The video says that a typical French family has 1.8 children but that French Muslim families have 8.1 children.
No source is given for this information and the French government doesn’t collect statistics by religion. So it is impossible to say what the precise fertility rates among different religious groups in France are.
But no country on earth has such a high fertility rate and in Algeria and Morocco, the two nations which send the largest numbers of Muslim immigrants to France, the fertility rate is 2.38, according to the UN’s 2008 figures.
In the Netherlands, according to the video, half of all newborns are Muslim, and in 15 years half the population will be Muslim.
But the Dutch office of statistics estimates that Muslims make up only 5% of the population. For Dutch Muslim women to produce half the nation’s babies, they would have to be giving birth at at least 14 times the rate of their non-Muslim neighbours.
Is 25% of the Belgian population Muslim, as the video asserts? No. The Belgian office of statistics points to a 2008 study which suggests the real figure is just 6%.
The video also states that the Muslim population of the UK has grown 30-fold in the past 30 years. They get the figure by estimating that the British Muslim population has risen from 82,000 to 2.5 million.
The firm data is in the 2001 census, which counted close to 1.6 million Muslims in England and Wales. That number will have risen since 2001 so 2.5 million is not impossible. The 2011 census will be looked to for clarification.
However, according to Dr Andrew Hinde, a demographer at Southampton University, the 82,000 figure is a gross under-estimate. “If you take the 1981 census there was no question asked on religious belief,” he says, “but if you take those born in Pakistan and Bangladesh as a minimum estimate of the number of Muslims in 1981, it’s about 300,000.”
That would mean the growth rate has been significantly slower than the video suggests.
But the video doesn’t just rely on statistics, it also uses an official Government statement. It quotes it as saying: “The fall in German population can no longer be stopped. Its downward spiral is no longer reversible. It will be a Muslim state by the year 2050.”
The statement in question was made by then vice-president of the Federal Statistics Office, Walter Radermacher, who is now chief statistician of the European Union. He says that while it is true he said Germany’s population was in decline, the last part of the quote [in italics] is just an invention. He said nothing about Germany becoming a Muslim state.
“The quotation which reads as if the German government believed that Germany will become a Muslim state is simply not true,” he says. “There is no source which can be quoted that the German government has published such an expression or opinion.”
Inexact science
The video also claims the German government believes the number of Muslims in Europe will double to 104 million.
Mr Radermacher adds: “That is not true. The German government does not believe that the Muslim population will double in the next 40 or 50 years. There are no reliable sources that give a proof for that assumption.”
Population projection is an inexact science. No-one knows how many Muslims will be living in Europe or anywhere else by 2050. The current trends suggest that by 2050 Europe will have a bigger proportion of Muslims, although nothing like the level suggested in the video.
But the big assumption here is current trends. Levels of immigration and fertility change over time.
It is certainly true that immigrant communities often have higher fertility rates but over time these usually fall into line with the indigenous population. This might not happen with Muslim immigrants. But nobody can know and that’s why, according to Dr Hinde, it is so hard to guess the future.
“In the 1930s there were population projections made of the UK that by the end of the century the UK population would be 20 million. Well, it turned out to be 50 million.
“That’s how far out you can get when you’re moving 40 or 50 years down the line and not taking into account the uncertainty.”
More or Less is produced in association with the Open University.
| — Hat tip: 4Symbols | [Return to headlines] |
New Study Shows True Cost of Illegal Immigration in Pennsylvania
WASHINGTON, Aug 06, 2009 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ ——A study released this week by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), documents the real cost of illegal immigration to Pennsylvanians. The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Pennsylvanians finds that providing education and health care to illegal aliens and their families, and incarcerating criminal illegal aliens, costs state taxpayers nearly $730 million annually.
The Costs of Illegal Immigration to Pennsylvanians reveals that taxpayers spend:
- $660 million a year to educate and provide special instruction in English to the children of illegal aliens.
- $50 million a year on unreimbursed health care for illegal aliens and their families.
- $17.5 million a year to incarcerate criminal illegal aliens
The cost study is based on an estimated illegal alien population in Pennsylvania of about 140,000 persons — nearly triple the 2000 population. While the native-born population has remained steady throughout the decade, the state’s foreign-born population grew by 34.5 percent.
“Voters in Pennsylvania, like voters everywhere, want their elected officials in Harrisburg and Washington, D.C., to protect their interests, their jobs, and their tax dollars from the impact of mass illegal immigration,” said Dan Stein, President of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). “Even as the state wrestles with a budget crisis that has brought it to the brink of being unable to pay its bills, illegal immigration is draining nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars from state coffers.”
While cash-strapped states like Pennsylvania face rapidly increasing costs associated with illegal immigration, policy decisions being made in Washington are compounding these burdens. “At a time when the Obama administration is intent on systematically dismantling interior immigration enforcement, and congressional leaders are considering providing health care to illegal aliens, voters in the Keystone State need to be aware of the heavy fiscal burden illegal immigration is placing on them. It is time political leaders stopped pandering to the illegal immigration lobby, and started enforcing laws that serve the interests of ordinary Americans.”
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Deportation Case Withdrawn Against Doctor Accused of London Bombings Link
The Government is no longer seeking to deport the doctor accused of involvement in the London and Glasgow bomb plots, sources said today.
The Home Office had maintained that despite Mohammed Asha being cleared at trial, he still presented a threat to national security.
The case against him was due to be heard by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (Siac) in October, but has been withdrawn.
At a Siac bail hearing in January, lawyers for the Home Secretary said Dr Asha was a threat to national security and should be sent back to Jordan.
But the panel, chaired by Mr Justice Mitting, ruled he could be released on bail on the condition that he reported to a police station near his Birmingham home once a week.
At the hearing, the Home Office maintained Dr Asha had provided “substantial funds” to Iraqi doctor Bilal Abdulla, who was sentenced to 32 years in prison for conspiracy to murder.
Abdulla, and Kafeel Ahmed who died in the attacks, plotted to kill hundreds of people by planting two bombs in the West End in June 2007.
When that failed, they drove a Jeep packed with petrol bombs and gas canisters into a terminal building at Glasgow Airport.
Dr Asha was accused of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions but was cleared by a jury at Woolwich Crown Court.
He told the tribunal he wants to stay in this country and continue his work as an NHS neurosurgeon, but officials are still examining his immigration status.
A Home Office source said Dr Asha’s application for leave to remain in the UK is still being considered by officials.
The source confirmed the Government was no longer seeking to deport Dr Asha on the grounds that his presence was “not conducive to the public good”.
“He has applied for leave to remain, which is being considered. A decision will be made in due course,” the source said.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Doctor Cleared of Plot ‘Can Stay’
The Home Office is no longer seeking to deport a doctor cleared of plotting terror attacks in London and Glasgow.
Mohammed Asha was found not guilty of conspiracy to murder, after a burning jeep was driven into Glasgow Airport and car bombs left in London.
Despite the verdict, the government immediately sought to deport Jordanian Dr Asha on national security grounds.
The BBC understands his case, due to be heard in October, is being withdrawn.
Burning jeep
Dr Asha was said in court to be a close friend of the bombers, Bilal Abdulla and Kafeel Ahmed, both of whom he had met in Cambridge.
Car bombs were left outside a nightclub and in a street in London’s West End on 29 June 2007, but they failed to detonate.
Abdulla and Ahmed were arrested at Glasgow Airport the next day, after they rammed the terminal building with the jeep, which was packed with gas canisters. Ahmed later died from his injuries.
Dr Asha was accused of funding the plot and playing a supporting role.
But at his trial, Dr Asha told the jury that his friendship with the men did not extend to supporting their violent aims.
He received the support of medical colleagues, one of whom supplied a glowing character reference, describing the Jordanian as having the potential to become the country’s top neurologist.
Decision welcomed
Tayab Ali, one of Dr Asha’s legal team, welcomed Friday’s decision.
“Dr Asha always said he was innocent and that he was not a threat to national security,” he told BBC News.
“His position is now entirely vindicated. He now hopes that he can resume his normal life as a family man and neurosurgeon.
“We hope that the Home Office grants him indefinite leave to remain so that he can continue to be of benefit to the UK population as a highly-skilled NHS doctor.”
Earlier this year lawyers for the Home Secretary told the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, which hears national security cases, that the doctor posed a threat and should be sent back to Jordan.
But Mr Justice Mitting bailed Dr Asha to a Birmingham address, pending a full hearing.
Mr Asha worked as a junior doctor at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford before moving to the University Hospital of North Staffordshire.
He was working at the latter hospital when he was arrested.
In July of this year the General Medical Council, responsible for approving doctors, reinstated Dr Asha to the medical register, meaning that he was free to practise again in the UK.
He is currently not working and his full immigration status is yet to be resolved.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Huck: Obama ‘Most Pro-Abortion’ President
In voicing his opposition to President Barack Obama’s bid to overhaul the nation’s health care system, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee charged on Wednesday that Obama is the “most pro-abortion president in U.S. history.”
“His position on this issue is far beyond most of the people in his own party. Most of the Democrats don’t support partial-birth abortion, he does. Most Democrats don’t support late-term abortion, he does,” the unsuccessful 2008 Republican presidential contender said in a Web video — “Health Care Reform = Elective Abortions” — posted on his political action committee’s website.
Huckabee said he opposes current health care legislation because of provisions “that guarantee that part of what will be covered will be elective abortions.”
“This is troubling to me,” Huckabee said. “I don’t want my tax dollars paying for the taking of the life of an unborn and perfectly innocent human being. That’s exactly what’ll happen.”
“There is almost no person I can think of in an elected position who has had a more radical view of liberalized abortion policies than Barack Obama,” Huckabee added.
The former governor also used the video to hit his main GOP rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, for instituting a universal health care program in his state.
“The Massachusetts model has been a total disaster,” Huckabee said. “It’s been a disaster from a financial standpoint, [and is] about to bankrupt that state.”
Huckabee added that “one of the most disturbing” aspects of the plan Romney instituted is that “it gives people the opportunity to have an abortion for a $50 co-pay.”
“That’s all that a human life is worth now in Massachusetts, $50,” Huckabee said.
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