Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has promised that the United States will contribute towards an international fund that would amass $100 billion every year to help poor countries cope with the effects of climate change.In other news, Islam is the growing religion among Native Mexican tribes in the restive state of Chiapas.
And don’t miss the report from New Zealand on the semi-lascivious holiday billboard of Joseph and the Virgin Mary that aims to “challenge stereotypes” about the birth of Jesus Christ…
Thanks to C. Cantoni, CSP, Esther, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, KGS, Lurker from Tulsa, Sean O’Brian, TV, VH, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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Jobless Jordanians Exploited by Organ Traffickers
So he flew to Egypt earlier this year, had a kidney removed, and was paid 5,000 dollars. But it was a Faustian bargain.
“I regret it with all my heart. I don’t know what I was thinking,” Ali told AFP. “I got all 5,000 dollars after I donated the kidney, but I did not see or know the person I gave my kidney to.
“Now I know I made a bad mistake out of ignorance. I don’t have a job, and poverty and hard conditions blinded me to what I was doing.”
Ali was just one of dozens of cash-strapped people in Jordan who sold a kidney to brokers who prey on the poor.
Mohammed, 29, said he too was promised 5,000 dollars for a kidney, but after the operation he was given less than half of the money in late 2008.
“I couldn’t do anything about it. They told me ‘take it or leave it’,” said the father of two.
“I still can’t find a job, I’m still poor and now all the money is gone. My life did not improve.”
Ripped off and deceived
Mohammed said he was deceived into thinking he would “still have a normal life” after the operation.
“I’ve been feeling exhausted since my kidney was removed. I know I am not well but I don’t know what’s wrong. I can’t see a doctor because I hear police are looking out for people like me,” he added in a hoarse voice.
“My life has changed. I can’t even sit and talk comfortably with my wife and children. This is always on my mind.”
Reliable data on organ trafficking is not available, but Jordanian officials insist it is not a pressing issue. Organ trafficking is banned, with penalties of up to five years’ jail and 28,000 dollars in fines.
In September, 11 Jordanians were extradited by Cairo and charged in Amman with trafficking in human organs, mainly kidneys, and selling them illegally in Egypt for up to 30,000 dollars each.
Other suspects are being interrogated and seven more are on the run, police said.
In the tiny desert kingdom, official figures show that 70 percent of the nearly six-million population is under the age of 30 and that unemployment is running at 14.3 percent.
However, independent estimates put the jobless figure more than double, at 30 percent.
In 2007, a year in which more than 80 cases of trafficking were uncovered, Jordan created a National Commission to Promote Organ Donation in a bid to end illegal trafficking and encourage people to donate their organs.
Everything is for sale, including human organs
“Traffickers work on commission, preying on poor people to convince them to sell their kidneys and then facilitating their travel to a third country for the operations,” said state coroner Momen Hadidi, the commission’s rapporteur.
“More than 800 people die every year in Jordan in road accidents. We should be encouraging the relatives of these victims to donate the organs of their loved ones. That way we can begin to reduce the demand,” he said.
According to a recent government study of 130 cases in which kidneys were sold, nearly 80 percent of “donors” were Palestinians from Baqaa in northwest Amman, the largest refugee camp in the country.
Most were under the age of 31, lived in absolute poverty and had no criminal record.
The study said operations to remove the kidneys used to take place in Iraq, but since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, young men are now sent to Egypt, India and Pakistan.
A senior doctor and scientific adviser to the queen played down the extent of the problem.
“There is no organ trafficking problem in the kingdom. Such things are simply small scale improprieties,” nephrologist Mohammed Lawzi said.
“Most people who sell their kidneys cite poverty as a reason but they don’t use the money to improve their financial situation.”
Lawzi advises King Abdullah II’s wife Queen Rania, who heads the Jordan Society for Organ Donation.
“Many donors are drug addicts seeking an easy way to get money,” he said. “This happens all over the world, not just in Jordan.”
A problem and a crime
But University of Jordan sociologist Seri Nasser disagreed.
“It’s a problem and a crime in Jordan, just like it’s a problem and crime all over the word,” he said.
“Materialism rules these days and everything is for sale, including human organs, and for some people that means profit,” said Nasser, who felt that tackling unemployment and poverty would help in the fight against such trafficking.
“People sell their organs mostly because they are poor and jobless. They think ‘it’s my kidney and I can sell it’,” he said.
The World Health Organization believes that organ trafficking is increasing, with brokers reportedly charging wealthy patients between 100,000 dollars and 200,000 dollars for a transplant.
Donors, often impoverished and ill-educated, may receive as little as 1,000 dollars for a kidney although the going price is more likely to be about 5,000 dollars, it said.
A recent joint study by the United Nations and the Council of Europe called for a new international convention to stop trafficking in organs, tissues and cells.
The study pointed to a high number of unreported cases of trafficking because of low risks and huge profits for perpetrators.
It stressed the need to collect reliable data and called for an internationally agreed definition of trafficking in human body parts.
Between five and 10 per cent of kidney transplants performed annually around the world are estimated to be the result of organ trafficking.
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20 Senators Demand Probe of Health-Care Vote ‘Threat’
Did White House say it would close Air Force base if Nelson didn’t play?
Twenty senators are demanding an investigation into reports the Obama administration threatened to close Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska if that state’s Democratic senator, Ben Nelson, didn’t join other Democrats in voting for health-care reform.
The group of 20, all Republicans, today called for a hearing in a letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and the committee’s top Republican Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Air Force Academy Says Religious Climate Improving
AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. — The Air Force Academy says religious tolerance has improved dramatically since allegations five years ago that evangelical Christians harassed cadets who didn’t share their faith. Even the school’s most vocal critic agrees.
“This is the first time we feel positive about things there,” said Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which battled the academy in court over claims that evangelicals at the school were imposing their views on others.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Less Health Care for More Money: What’s the Catch?
The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof recently wrote a column about John Brodniak of Oregon, who developed a cavernous hemangioma, causing him great pain as blood leaks into his brain.
According to Kristof, Brodniak can’t get medical help because we don’t have universal health care. Senators who vote against Obamacare, Kristof said, are morally equivalent to someone who would walk past a man “writhing in pain on the sidewalk.”
In another article in the Times, William Yardley wrote about Melvin Tsosies — also of Oregon — who ended up with $200,000 in medical bills after having a heart attack.
As of March 2008, Yardley reported, Tsosies was waiting to find out if he would win the Oregon lottery for health insurance. But with 600,000 uninsured state residents and a “universal” health care program with only enough money to pay for about 24,000 of them, Tsosies is more likely to win a Powerball lottery.
How can this be happening? Oregon already has “universal health care”! (Probably just a coincidence, but isn’t Oregon also the only state with physician-assisted suicide?)
Once again forgetting about the existence of the Internet, the Times neglects to mention its own erstwhile enthusiasm for Oregon’s universal health-care plan, introduced back in 1990.
Back then, the Times published an editorial titled “Oregon’s Brave Medical Experiment,” hailing this technocratic monstrosity as an example of “hardheaded compassion” designed to make “health coverage available to many more families.”
Ron Wyden — then a congressman from Oregon, now a U.S. senator at the forefront of pushing “universal health care” onto the nation — said: “This is a strong dramatic step toward universal access of health care.” He predicted, “this is going to be copied everywhere.”
No wonder Wyden is such an ardent proponent of national health care — it will force states that didn’t adopt these idiotic universal health-care schemes to bail out the ones that did.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Congregation to Sue Lilburn Over Mosque, Attorney Says
The attorney for a local Muslim congregation said he will file federal and state lawsuits on Thursday against the Lilburn City Council after it rejected plans for a giant mosque in a city neighborhood, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.
Doug Dillard, who represents the congregation of Dar-E-Abbas, said he will appeal under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act and four constitutional amendments in lawsuits against the Gwinnett County municipality.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Pepsi Not Advertising in Super Bowl Next Year
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Pepsi will not advertise its drinks in next year’s Super Bowl, ending a 23-year run so the company can focus on a new marketing effort that will appear mostly online.
Pepsi beverages have been advertised in the Super Bowl since 1987. Frito-Lay, a unit of parent company PepsiCo Inc., will still advertise.
The company, which is based in Purchase, N.Y., wouldn’t say how much it spent last year on Super Bowl ads, but it was one of the biggest advertisers, buying several minutes of commercial time. Ad time last year cost about $3 million for 30 seconds, on average.
The Feb. 7 NFL championship game will be televised on CBS. Package delivery company FedEx also said Thursday it will not advertise again in the Super Bowl due to costs, the same reason the company gave last year for sitting it out.
Pepsi recognizes Super Bowl ads can be effective for marketing, spokeswoman Nicole Bradley said, but the game doesn’t work with the company’s goals next year.
“In 2010, each of our beverage brands has a strategy and marketing platform that will be less about a singular event and more about a movement,” she said.
Notable Super Bowl ads from Pepsi over the years have included celebrities such as Cindy Crawford, Britney Spears and Will.i.am.
The nation’s second-biggest soft drink maker is plowing marketing dollars into its “Pepsi Refresh Project” starting next month as its main vehicle for Pepsi. The project will pay at least $20 million for projects people create to “refresh” communities.
A Web site will go live Jan. 13 where people can list their projects, which could range from helping to feed people to teaching children to read. People can vote starting Feb. 1 to determine which projects receive money.
Pepsi estimates the effort will fund thousands of projects and says other businesses will pledge money, too.
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
US Would Contribute to $100bln Climate Fund: Clinton
COPENHAGEN — The United States would contribute towards a fund worth 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 to help poor countries cope with climate change, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday..
She said the contribution would be “in the context of a strong accord in which all major economies stand behind meaningful [greenhouse-gas] mitigation actions and provide full transparency as to their implementation.”
In such circumstances, “the United States is prepared to work with other countries toward a goal of jointly mobilizing 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 to address the climate change needs,” she said.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Blizzard Dumps Snow on Copenhagen as Leaders Battle Warming
Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) — World leaders flying into Copenhagen today to discuss a solution to global warming will first face freezing weather as a blizzard dumped 10 centimeters (4 inches) of snow on the Danish capital overnight.
“Temperatures will stay low at least the next three days,” Henning Gisseloe, an official at Denmark’s Meteorological Institute, said today by telephone, forecasting more snow in coming days. “There’s a good chance of a white Christmas.”
Delegates from 193 countries have been in Copenhagen since Dec. 7 to discuss how to fund global greenhouse gas emission cuts. U.S. President Barack Obama will arrive before the summit is scheduled to end tomorrow.
Denmark has a maritime climate and milder winters than its Scandinavian neighbors. It hasn’t had a white Christmas for 14 years, under the DMI’s definition, and only had seven last century. Temperatures today fell as low as minus 4 Celsius (25 Fahrenheit).
DMI defines a white Christmas as 90 percent of the country being covered by at least 2 centimeters of snow on the afternoon of Dec. 24.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Brussels Stays Out of Crucifix Controversy
The European Commission yesterday steered away from the controversy over the Italian crucifix issue, saying it had no competence to give its opinion or challenge a decision of a court outside its jurisdiction.
The Commission’s position was made clear by Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot in reaction to a resolution in the European Parliament calling on the EU to challenge the recent judgment handed down by the Council of Europe’s Court of Human Rights.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Church of Sweden Pastor Accused of Rape
A 60-year-old Church of Sweden pastor faces a remand hearing this Friday for the alleged sexual abuse of two children during an overseas trip with a group of candidates for confirmation.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Muslim TV Recognises Ahmadiyya Sect
A Dutch Muslim broadcasting company which applied for airtime has recognised the Ahmadiyya sect as a major current in Islam. Such a recognition is unique in the world.
Ahmadiyya is a sectarian movement within Islam which is not recognised as Islamic by the main institutions of orthodox Islam. Many Dutchmen of Surinamese origin belong to Ahmadiyya.
Its recognition by the aspiring broadcaster (SMO) was revealed in a leaked e-mail message of which Radio Netherlands Worldwide possesses a copy. In the message SMO expresses its willingness to share its hoped-for broadcasting licence with another company, provided that it too recognises Ahmadiyya.
The Dutch public radio and tv system allots time to one religious broadcaster per denomination. The previous Muslim licence holder is to cease transmissions after internal strife between groups representing differing approaches to Islam.
SMO is one of five broadcasters having applied for the Islamic airtime slots. It is expected that the Dutch broadcasting authorities will announce next week which of them will be licensed and hence subsidised.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
France: Halimi’s Photo Used for Muslim Dating
From French: The Qiran.com site used a picture of Ilan Halimi — a French Jew tortured and killed by Muslims in 2006 — in its Google AdSense advertising. A British surfer discovered the picture on news sites, most notably France Soir. Qiran.com acknowledges the error and said the ad was immediately removed. The site sends it most sincere apologies to Ilan Halimi’s family. According to Qiran.com, the photo was used by one of the members, and the company uses member photos in it advertisements.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland: Bishop Resigns Over Child Sex Abuse
Msgr Donal Murray cited in Irish ‘cover-up’ report
(ANSA) — Vatican City, December 17 — An Irish bishop resigned on Thursday after being criticised in a report that found the Irish Catholic Church covered up the sexual abuse of children in Dublin for decades.
Pope Benedict XVI has accepted the resignation of Bishop Donal Murray, former auxiliary bishop of Dublin, the Vatican said.
Msgr Murray, 64, who came to the Rome last week and offered his resignation, is the first official to resign since the publication last month of the Murphy report.
In a statement to his parishioners, Murray said: “I know full well that my resignation cannot cancel out the pain that the surviving victims of abuse suffered in the past and continue to suffer every day”.
“I humbly ask for forgiveness once more from all those who were abused when they were little children”. The Murphy report, released November 26, found that four former archbishops of Dublin failed to report child sex abuse to the police from the 1960 to the 1980s.
It listed 320 people who complained of abuse between 1974 and 2004 and said a further 130 complaints against priests in Dublin had been made since May 2004.
The archdiocese only started notifying civil authorities in 1995, it found.
The pope discussed the Murphy report last Friday in the Vatican with Cardinal Sean Brady, head of the Irish Church, and the archbishop of Dublin, Msgr Diarmuid Martin.
There had been speculation that Murray, currently bishop of Limerick, would resign at the meeting.
Instead he stayed on in Rome as the Vatican weighed his fate for shunting around a paedophile priest, Father Thomas Naughton, instead of reporting him in the 1980s.
Naughton, 78, was jailed Wednesday for three years for abusing a boy at least 70 times between 1982 and 1984. The Murphy report found that Msgr Murray, who tendered his resignation as archbishop of Limerick earlier this month, had acted “inexcusably”. After his meeting with the bishops and the heads of the relevant Vatican departments on December 11, Benedict vowed to get to the bottom of the scandal and make sure abuse can never happen again.
In a statement issued by the Vatican, he noted that one of the crucial aspects of the report was the role played by the leaders of the Irish church, “who bear the ultimate responsibility for the pastoral care of children”.
Speaking out for the first time in the wake of the report, the pope said he was “shocked and anguished”.
He expressed his “deep regret for the actions committed by some members of the clergy who betrayed their solemn promises to God as well as the trust placed in them by the victims, their families, and society in general”.
“The Holy Father shares the sense of outrage, betrayal and shame felt by so many of the faithful in Ireland.
The pope asked Catholics in Ireland and around the world to pray for all those affected by these “hateful crimes”.
He vowed “to find the best way to develop effective and sure strategies to prevent (such events) recurring”.
In the wake of the report, the head of the Irish Survivors of Child Abuse group urged Benedict to go to Ireland and apologise for his clergy’s behaviour.
The Murphy report was the second of two detailing abuse this year.
In May the Ryan report published records of 70 years of abuse at orphanages and industrial schools run by Catholic religious orders across Ireland.
Ireland, a nation that once looked to the Church for leadership, has seen increasing numbers turn from it.
Calls for criminal cases against priests have been made by the country’s top politicians including President Mary McAleese.
YEARS OF SCANDAL IN FOUR COUNTRIES.
Since the mid-1990s the Catholic Church has been hit by child abuse scandals in the United States, Australia and Canada as well as Ireland.
The Church says some 80% of the estimated 5,000 priests involved acted in the US, where huge settlements have been made to victims.
In April 2008 Pope Benedict made a six-day tour of the US, visiting Washington and New York but not Boston, the epicentre of America’s clergy sex abuse scandal. However, he met and prayed with six Boston victims in Washington, saying “no words” could convey his shock and regret.
During the visit, victims’ groups reiterated their criticism of the Church’s treatment of former Boston archbishop Cardinal Bernard Law who resigned in December 2002 when unsealed court records revealed he had moved paedophile priests among church assignments without notifying parishioners.
After his resignation, he was transferred to Rome where he now holds several authoritative posts including archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome.
The abuse scandal led to the bankruptcy of several US dioceses including Washington, Arizona and California.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Bomb Explodes at Top Milan University
Milan, 16 Dec. (AKI) — A partially exploded bomb was found at a university in the northern Italian city of Milan on Wednesday. Early reports say the bomb was left by an anarchist group at Bocconi University just outside the city.
The anarchist group, which calls itself “Sisters of Freedom” claimed responsibility for having placed the bomb in a corridor with a timer, after making an anonymous phone call to Italian daily Libero.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Proposed Web Bill Sparks Censorship Row
Online fanclubs for Berlusconi attacker ‘show new law needed’
(ANSA) — Rome, December 16 — Proposed legislation against hate speech on the Internet sparked a heated debate about censorship and the freedom of expression on Wednesday amid controversy over online groups applauding the attack on Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi.
The proposal, by Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, came amid outrage over a dozen or more groups on the popular social networking site Facebook praising a man who hurled a statuette at the premier, breaking his nose and two of his teeth.
A number of the groups contained overtly violent messages directed at the premier, prompting the interior ministry to demand the California-based website take the groups down.
Facebook administrators agreed saying the content would eventually have been removed anyway as a violation of the website’s user agreement.
But Maroni said the incident demonstrated the need for legal guidelines “allowing prosecutors and police to intervene when online content constitutes a crime”.
The statement caused alarm among free speech advocates on both sides of the political divide who feared the measure could pave the way for online censorship.
The interior minister promised that was not what he had in mind.
“Right now, prosecutors can identify a crime on the Internet, but they can’t do anything about it,” he said.
“What we need is a legal framework for enforcing Italian laws online”.
Maroni said he would welcome input from the opposition, where most of the criticism for the initiative has come, “to arrive at a bill we can both agree on in parliament”.
The interior minister added that the government would abstain from rushing the law through as a decree law, provided the opposition agreed to put it on the fast track.
He said he would discuss the issue during a visit later in the day with President Giorgio Napolitano, and that more details about the proposal would become available after the government’s cabinet meeting on Thursday.
But the leader of the Catholic-centrist opposition group UDC, Pier Ferdinando Casini, said “any attempt to censor the Internet is absurd and undemocratic”.
“It’s like wanting to stop people from using the telephone, because they might say ugly things to each other,” he said.
“The Internet is a means of communication and the government needs to understand that people use it today just like they used to use the telephone”.
But Telecom Italia CEO Franco Bernabe’ said “I don’t think the government wants to censor the Internet so much as prosecute people for using it to commit crimes like slander and instigation, which are already against the law”.
Public response to the news included an online petition on Facebook asking the government “not to gag the Web”.
The largest online community in the world with over 350 million users, Facebook was the center of a prior free speech controversy in October over a group called “Let’s Kill Berlusconi”.
The group agreed to change its name under pressure from Facebook administrators, but was eventually removed altogether when users tried to change it back.
As of Wednesday, the website said its European office had already removed a handful of groups espousing violence against the premier.
But it said a number of “non-threatening” pages dedicated to his attacker would be left up, “because controversial and even offensive content isn’t reason enough to remove them”.
According to a recent study, one in four Italians has an account on Facebook making it the second most visited website in Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
MEPs to Receive Extra £32,000 a Year on Top of Pay Rise
MEPs are to receive an increase to their staff allowance that will see it climb to £220,000 a year to help them implement the EU Lisbon Treaty.
The European Parliament was forced to clean up the rules over the payment of staffing expenses last February following press exposure of MEPs misusing or abusing the allowance.
Despite the high-profile scandals, an internal document seen by The Daily Telegraph has proposed a nine per cent increase in the parliamentary assistance allowance “following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty”.
“With more power comes more work,” said a parliament official.
Marta Andreasen, a UKIP MEP and member of the European Parliament’s budgetary control committee, said: “It is disgraceful that MEPs have just awarded themselves an extra 1,500 euros per month. When the political class is held in such contempt to be awarding themselves extra money is incomprehensible.”
MEPs can use the extra cash to employ extra staff or increase the salaries of existing assistants. The increase, which comes at a time of swingeing cutbacks and austerity in national public sectors, will take the annual allowance to £203,000 in 2010.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Minaret Appeal Filed With Strasbourg Court
An appeal against the decision by Swiss voters to ban the construction of minarets has been submitted to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
It was lodged on Tuesday afternoon, said Pierre de Preux, a lawyer acting for Hafid Ouardiri, the former spokesman of the Geneva mosque.
Ouardiri wants the Strasbourg court to rule that the ban is incompatible with the European human rights convention.
De Preux told the AP news agency that a letter had been sent to the federal government and to all the members of the Council of Europe to inform them of this step.
The chairman of the Strasbourg court, Jean-Paul Costa, earlier this month described the case as “legally complicated”. Plaintiffs must have exhausted the legal system in their home country before going to Strasbourg, but Switzerland’s highest court cannot hear cases that result from a popular vote.
In a national vote at the end of November, 57.5 per cent of those taking part voted in favour of an initiative to ban the construction of minarets.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims Mull Mosque Debate After Swiss Vote
The Swiss vote to forbid the construction of mosques with minarets has sparked calls for a similar ban in Germany. Robert Rigney samples the mood of the country’s Muslim community.
Most people wouldn’t consider Switzerland a very trendy place, but Meho Travljanin worries the small, alpine nation’s xenophobia could soon become fashionable throughout much of Europe.
“My fear is that the discussion has spread from Switzerland to all of Europe,” says Travljanin, referring to the country’s controversial referendum in November banning the building of mosques with minarets.
An official at the Bosnian Cultural Centre in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district, Travljanin believes other countries including Germany could now attempt similar bans as the Swiss vote helps fan fears of a growing Islamification of Europe.
“Over time of course mosques will be built,” says Travljanin. “The fact is that there are more and more Muslims in Germany and in Europe. And it is also a fact that that these people are here to stay and that these people are going to want their places of worship.”
Prior to the Swiss referendum, Germany was already in the midst of a debate about the nearly 200 mosques which are currently being planned. If all are built, they would double the existing number of Muslim houses of worship in the country.
Although Germany has had a sizeable, mostly Turkish, Muslim community since the sixties, the building of mosques in Germany is a relatively new phenomenon. Up until now most Muslims in Germany have prayed hidden from view in old factory buildings, basements, converted offices and garages.
“We say that one should not be afraid of a minaret,” says Ender Cetin, spokesman for the Turkish —Islamic Union. “We ask the question is it better to have a courtyard mosque where the normal citizen might be afraid to enter? Or is it better to have a familiar mosque with dome and tower?”
Cetin’s office in the Sehitlik mosque in Berlin, a four-year-old traditional Ottoman style construction complete with marble façade, dome, and twin minarets. It is located on land that has been linked to Turkey for 140 years, since the Ottomans were present in Prussia.
He sees the Swiss vote and reactions by some German politicians as putting considerable pressure on the Muslim community.
“It pushes us into the corner a bit,” says Cetin. “Of course a minaret is not necessary. We don’t need a minaret for prayer. It just shows that we have arrived.”
The mosque that has garnered much attention in Germany recently is being built in Cologne. A 2,000-capacity building with twin minarets that will reach 170 feet high, the house of worship was designed by German architect Paul Böhm, who is not Muslim. Construction on the mosque began last year, causing an outcry among locals who described the structure as too big and affront to the city’s Christian traditions. One critic went so far as to describe the mosque as a “declaration of war” culturally.
In response to the vehement opposition encountered in Europe, some Muslims in Germany are rethinking how a mosque should look.
Alen Jasarevic is a Bosnian-German architect of a critically acclaimed new mosque in the town of Penzberg in Bavaria. At first glance it doesn’t look like a mosque at all: it is modest, unassuming, disarming, modern, transparent and discreet.
The façades, which are clad in pale sandstone, give a little indication of the building’s function. But the entrance features two concrete slabs that swing out of the wall like open gates, inviting visitors into the house in German and Arabic script. Most remarkable is the minaret, a tall column illuminated from within with words in Arabic calling the faithful to prayer visually.
“I want to show the society here that we can keep up, that we can be innovative, that we understand our faith as not merely something from the past, but rather something that continuously develops and which can create such buildings,” says Jasarevic.
He explains he wanted to create a building that could be accepted by the German public, something that was open to everyone, “not like an Ottoman mosque which lands like a UFO” in Germany.
Travljanin from the Bosnian cultural centre agrees innovation could be the answer to Europe’s mosque debate.
“I think that Muslims, no matter where they live in Europe, of course have to try to fit in with the architectural structure of cities,” says Travljanin. “And this is in keeping with Islam. There were no minarets in the beginning of Islam.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Koran School Beating Claims Investigated
The Hague city council has launched an investigation into a number of cases of alleged physical child abuse during Koran lessons at the city’s mosques.
The claims came to light during the routine health check on 10-year-olds and child social workers have drawn up a list of 49 potential cases. Sources within the Moroccan community have also told officials that children have been beaten, the city council says.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Severely Cold Across Europe
A severely cold day to come across Europe with temperatures will below freezing all day across central and eastern parts of Europe. An area of snow is forecast across England, northern France into Belgium, Holland into Denmark and Sweden and some of this will be heavy.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Nine Arrested in Tarragona for Ordering Woman Executed for Adultery
The woman managed to escape after an Islamic Sharia court sentenced her to death
December 6 — The Catalan autonomous police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, have revealed details of an operation in Tarragona where nine men were arrested for kidnapping and plotting to kill a woman who an Islamic Sharia court had found guilty of adultery. The suspects were arrested last month after a lengthy investigation, and seven were remanded to custody, charged with kidnapping, attempted murder and illicit association.
The woman in question was kidnapped in March and held in a house in countryside outside Valls, to the west of Barcelona, and told police that she would have been executed if she had not managed to escape her captors.
The police investigation resulted in raids on three properties in Reus and Valls in the early hours of 14th November. It’s understood from El País that the suspects taken into custody are from the Maghreb area of North Africa and are followers of the ultra-conservative Salafist movement. As leading members of the local community, they are believed to have set up the Sharia court when the woman was accused of adultery by her husband’s family after she was seen in the company of another man.
Sources quoted by El País said the local community had accepted the Sharia court’s decision to order the woman’s execution.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Sharia Law in Tarragona
A woman was sentenced to death by stoning for committing adultery
December 11- A TARRAGONA court has sent seven man to prison without bail and released two others with charges, accused of judging a woman according to Sharia law and planning to kill her for adultery.
They are charged with illegally holding the woman, criminal association and attempted manslaughter. The nine men were arrested in November after a secret operation which began in March and saw several homes in Valls and Reus searched. They were taken to different police stations so they had no way of communicating with each other.
They are believed to belong to a Salafist movement, an orthodox sector of Islam which has a great following in the area. The detainees had created an Islamic Tribunal and illegally tried the woman for adultery, which according to Sharia law is punished with death by lapidation.
They were keeping the woman, who is married to a Moslem man and had fallen pregnant by another man, in a local farmhouse, from which she was able to escape and call the Catalan police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, who made her a protected witness. They had previously kidnapped her from her home in Tarragona. If they are found guilty at trial, they could face more than 23 years in prison.
The two who have been released with charges have had their passports taken away, are forbidden from leaving the country and have to appear in court twice a month. The victim has been taken to an unknown location to prevent attacks from her husband’s relatives
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Diplomat and Wife Jailed for Smuggling Cigarettes
A North Korean diplomat and his wife have been sentenced to eight months in prison by a court in Stockholm for attempting to smuggle more than 230,000 cigarettes into Sweden.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Half-Naked MP Makes Indecent Christmas Party Proposal
A Social Democrat member of the Swedish parliament awoke shamefaced this week after making lewd advances in a state of undress to a female colleague at a Riksdag Christmas bash.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: “National Muslim Body is Not a Priority”
Better ties between Muslims and the Swiss population should be a priority, and not the creation of a national Muslim umbrella organisation, says an Islamic expert.
The idea of a single body representing the country’s diverse Muslim groups is one of a number of hot topics doing the rounds in Switzerland, which is still reeling from the surprise anti-minaret vote two weeks ago.
For Stéphane Lathion, head of a research group on Islam in Switzerland at Lausanne University, focusing on a national Muslim umbrella organisation right now would be like “putting the cart before the horse”.
“The priority is building ties on a daily basis between Muslim associations and the Swiss population at the local level; not just annual open-door events or inter-religious dialogue, but getting people to talk together more and for associations to take position on specific Muslim issues as well as on social issues regarding the whole of society,” Lathion told swissinfo.ch.
Hafid Ouardiri, general secretary of the Geneva-based interfaith foundation Entre-Connaissance, echoed this sentiment.
He felt a Muslim umbrella organisation in Switzerland “was a dream shared by many”, but said “you can’t put in place an umbrella organisation without working on the grassroots and communal ties in order to become credible”.
On Sunday Hisham Maizar, president of the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Switzerland, one of the largest groups, called for the creation of a single umbrella organisation in an interview in the French-language Le Matin Dimanche newspaper.
“We would all benefit by being united at the national level,” he said, but admitted that it was a “slow and difficult” ongoing process.
The alpine country of nearly seven million people is home to 350,000-400,000 Muslims, mainly from Bosnia, Kosovo and Turkey, but also from North Africa and the Middle East.
They are represented by a myriad of diverse organisations, from secular to conservative, which are mostly present at the cantonal level. But uneasiness about exactly what they all do — providing Arabic or Qur’an lessons, or other things — needs to be overcome via greater transparency, said Lathion.
Post-vote talks
In the absence of a national body, Ouardiri and Maizar will be two of a handful of Muslim representatives taking part in post-vote talks with Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf on December 22. The groups already had a discussion in September about integration.
In the wake of the minaret ban, the former spokesman for the Geneva mosque felt both the Swiss authorities and the Muslim community now had a “huge task” before them.
“The authorities are aware of the delays that have occurred,” Ouardiri said. “We kept drawing their attention to integration problems, but we were forced to focus on security issues.”
Ouardiri said whether they liked it or not, both groups now faced an emergency situation that would last for some time and would be difficult to manage.
“We have to retake control of the debate, reassure people and move forward; we have to live together,” he said.
Peaceful rally
On Saturday a peaceful rally in front of parliament in Bern against the “false perception of Islam in Switzerland” attracted around 700 people. The rally was not endorsed by any of Switzerland’s main Muslim groups.
“It’s not the best way to reach those who think differently or to reduce their fears and prejudices,” Taner Hatipoglu, president of the Zurich Association of Islamic Organisations, told Swiss television.
But Melanie Muhaxheri, president of the Organisation of Muslim Women in Switzerland, who was present at the rally, disagreed.
“As a Muslim I intend to stand up for my rights,” she said. “First minarets, then talk about burkas. What next?”
“I am a Swiss citizen and this is my home, so I want the same religious freedoms as Christians, Jews and Buddhists.”
Muhaxheri felt an umbrella group was a sensible but difficult idea to achieve: “They have always talked about it, but nobody could ever agree.”
For Lathion the next steps are clear: “Muslims need to continue their explanatory work, to try to explain to people that their fears are ill-founded and that they are Swiss citizens and not dangerous.”
“And Swiss politicians need to make a public mea culpa, admitting they did not do their work correctly.”
But he is concerned as this hasn’t happened over the past two weeks.
“I thought that after the salutary vote Swiss people would wake up and we would finally have a real debate on the issue, but in fact we are witnessing extremely dangerous populist one-upmanship by pseudo-centrist parties.”
Simon Bradley, swissinfo.ch
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Muslims and minarets in Switzerland
Switzerland is the first European country to forbid the construction of minarets.
On November 29, 57.5% of votes cast were in favour of a people’s initiative entitled quite simply: Against the construction of minarets.
Several plans for building minarets in the German-speaking part of Switzerland were the catalyst for the initiative. Local residents collected signatures against the planned towers.
They were supported by the rightwing Swiss People’s Party and the Federal Democratic Union, which coordinated efforts.
The Muslim community accounts for about 4.5% of the Swiss population.
There are about 200 mosques and prayer rooms in Switzerland, but only four have a minaret.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Linguists Unite Against English Invasion
Largely unnoticed by English speakers, our fellow Europeans are sullenly suffering the colonisation of their native languages by Anglo-American terms.
Linguistics experts met in the Swiss capital Bern on Tuesday to share ideas on how to deal with the growing language divide within French, German and Italian-speaking communities.
Who can get by these days without knowing the meaning of whistleblower, laptop, roaming or task force? They are all words that have entered into common usage in Swiss national languages.
Behind the laughter at the many comic examples of pseudo-English which have popped up, there is dismay at the unstoppable stream of borrowings and fear for the very survival of the continent’s languages.
Guest speaker Alfred Gilder, terminology chief at the French finance ministry, captured the mood of the conference with the battle-cry “modernise or die!”.
“If a language is not capable of creating new words to describe new advances, it will die,” he warned.
Gilder summed up his philosophy of linguistic integrity by using a drinking metaphor. “I like Bordeaux very much and I like whisky too but I would never mix the two!”
Beginning of the end
A point echoed by several speakers was that English has become so dominant in certain fields, such as finance and science, that courses in some disciplines are now exclusively being taught in English in some countries. The beginning of the end, as Gilder sees it.
The conference, attended by some 200 delegates, was organised by the Swiss Federal Chancellery.
Vice-chancellor Thomas Helbling told swissinfo.ch that Switzerland, with its tradition of language diversity had possibly less to fear from the influence of English. But he stressed that the home languages needed to be preserved.
“I definitely think that we should learn a second national language before English. It is part of our tradition and culture to speak to each other, as you can see at today’s conference where three languages are in use on the floor.”
Global dominance
Of course borrowing words and expressions from other languages is a natural function of language development and English itself has absorbed countless influences in its history — from Latin, French and Hindi, to name but a few.
What is different about the current dominance of English is that it is the first truly global language and it is spewing out words at a pace that other languages have no chance to compete with.
This rapid evolution favours those who can ride the English wave but creates a language divide, akin to the digital divide, for those who are poor in English.
Germanic expert Jürg Niederhuaser illustrated this problem neatly by quoting the head of a research department in a Basel pharmaceutical company, who said:
“In the section I lead, people like to joke that without English you won’t get so much as a cup of coffee.”
“ What must be avoided is that the lingua franca becomes lingua unica. “
Bénédicte Madinier, French Ministry of Culture
Uniformity
Bénédicte Madinier, another guardian of the French language who works for the French Ministry of Culture, spoke of the linguistic uniformity that is fast becoming established worldwide.
“It is not a question of denying the interest, the necessity of an international language of communication, a lingua franca, …. What must be avoided is that the lingua franca becomes lingua unica,” Madinier said.
Madinier has a role in the French establishment’s complex system of screening new English words and either approving them for adoption into French or coming up with a new French form.
The French can boast to have possibly the only language on the planet which put forward its own version of the word computer which is still in popular usage — “ordinateur”. But such victories are few and far between.
False friends
The English influence is so pervasive now that languages are cobbling together words that either exist in a different form or mean something quite different in English.
So you want to get your hair done? In French-speaking Switzerland you have to ask for a “shampooing” followed by a “brushing”. Those crow’s feet bothering you? It might be time for a “facelifting”.
Or perhaps you want to order an overhead projector for your speech? That will be a “beamer” to your Swiss hosts. And if you happen to point out a vintage car to a German-speaker, don’t forget to call it an “oldtimer”.
Last but not least is “last but not least”, the most overused English expression among the Swiss, which pops up without fail in every speech and presentation, as any English speaker living here will testify.
Clare O’Dea, swissinfo.ch
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: 3,000 Victims of Home Snatchers: Record Numbers of Elderly Are Forced to Sell Their Homes to Pay for Care
The scale of Labour’s betrayal of pensioners was laid bare tonight as it emerged that every year at least 3,000 elderly people are forced to sell their homes to pay for residential care.
The scandal of Britain’s crumbling care system has reached such proportions that a third of all those paying the cost of their care end up without their house.
Critics say it is appalling that, after more than a decade of Labour promises, a record number of people who have saved all their lives are still having to put their houses up for sale, while those who have squandered their money get free care.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: 4,000 Prisoners Given ‘Absolutely Revolting’ Perk of Having Satellite Television in Cells
More than 4,000 prisoners are being allowed to watch free satellite television in their cells.
Robbers, burglars and other criminals are able to tune in to their favourite shows in return for ‘good behaviour’, with one in 20 prisoners having access to Sky TV from their bed.
Tory MP Philip Davies, who uncovered the figures, said: ‘No end of my constituents would love to have Sky TV but they cannot afford it, so it is a bit galling for them — through their taxes — to be paying for prisoners to be watching it in their cells.
[…]
The news will fuel concerns that prisons are too soft. Earlier this year, the Prison Officers Association warned that conditions in jail were so good many inmates did not want to leave.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Climategate Goes Serial: Now the Russians Confirm That UK Climate Scientists Manipulated Data to Exaggerate Global Warming
Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages.
Feast your eyes on this news release from Rionovosta, via the Ria Novosti agency, posted on Icecap. (Hat Tip: Richard North)
[…]
The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.
[…]
What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock.
As Richard North says: This is serial.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Council Snoopers Watch US on 60,000 CCTV Cameras
The number of town hall-controlled Big Brother CCTV cameras has trebled in a decade, it emerged last night.
There are now 60,000 cameras trained on members of the public by council snoopers — one for every 1,000 people in the UK.
The huge increase has cost hundreds of millions of pounds, including at least £170million in Home Office grants — although there are doubts over whether the cameras actually help catch criminals.
[…]
Director Alex Deane said CCTV was seen as a ‘cheap alternative to policing’ but its ‘ability to deter or solve crimes is sketchy at best’.
‘The quality of footage is frequently too poor to be used in courts, the cameras are often turned off to save money and control rooms are rarely manned 24-hours-a-day,’ he added.
‘We would all feel safer with more police on the beat, there would be fewer crimes and those crimes that do occur would be solved faster.‘
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Father Found Guilty of Honour Killing of Daughter, 15, After She Fell in Love With Man From Different Branch of Islamby Daily Mail Reporter
Mehmet Goren murdered 15-year-old Tulay for her doomed ‘Romeo and Juliet’ romance with Halil Una, an older man from a different branch of Islam.
After the teenager lost her virginity to her lover she was viewed as a ‘valueless commodity’ by her father — and had to be killed to restore the family’s reputation.
Mr Unal was a Turkish Sunni Muslim but the Gorens were from the Alevi branch of the faith and an Alevi-Sunni relationship ‘would not have been tolerated’, the Old Bailey heard.
Sentencing, Mr Justice Bean, said Goren’s attempts to appear a ‘thoroughly modern and enlightened family man’ failed to deceive the jury.
‘The reality is that your enigmatic smile conceals a violent and dominating personality,’ he told the killer, who showed not a flicker of emotion.
‘Your wife Hanim has finally had the courage to break free of the domination and reveal what she knew of what you did in January 1999.’
He said Goren planned the murder of his daughter with ‘considerable care’, even forcing her to write a letter relating a false account of what had happened to her to try to throw police off the scent.
Goren disposed of the schoolgirl’s body ‘with such ingenuity that it has never been found’, he added.
‘You did all this simply because you regarded it as unacceptable that she, rather than you, should choose the man she wanted to marry.
‘The term “honour killing” is a convenient shorthand, but it is a grotesque distortion of language.
‘There is nothing honourable about such a hideous practice or the people who carry it out.’
The judge made clear Goren would not be eligible for parole until 2030, when he will be nearly 70.
The Old Bailey had heard how Tulay — who had told a friend she might be pregnant — vanished from the family home in north London in January 1999.
The day before she disappeared, her mother Hanim returned home to find her daughter trussed up so tightly her hands and feet had turned purple and black.
In harrowing evidence, Mrs Goren told the court how she had tried to untie Tulay but her daughter told her ‘Mum don’t untie me, I want to die.’
The case ground to a halt for several moments after the anguished mother, 45, screamed across the court at her husband.
‘Look at my face. Tell me what you did to Tulay,’ she demanded, adding in Turkish: ‘Tell me where her bones are.’
Jurors also heard how Goren, 49, ordered his eight-year-old son Tuncay to kiss Tulay goodbye as he would never see his sister again.
The day afterwards she vanished. Police believe she was drugged, tortured and stabbed to death by her father who then temporarily hid her body in the back garden.
The jury cleared Goren’s two brothers Ali, 56, and Cuma, 43, of Tulay’s murder. All three men were also found not guilty of conspiring to murder Tulay’s boyfriend.
Thirteen days after Tulay’s murder, Goren attacked Mr Unal — who reported Tulay missing — with an axe in a pub car park in Leytonstone.
He recovered from his injuries and Goren — who was described as a ‘psychotic bully’ — was jailed for GBH.
It emerged that Goren had once tried to gas his whole family to death and on another occasion to inject his wife with rat poison.
The attack and Mr Unal and Tulay’s disappearance were treated separately and it was two months before detectives began to suspect Tulay had been murdered.
Police submitted a file to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in 2000 but on advice from a senior prosecution barrister no one was charged over her death.
Goren, of Woodford Green, had been arrested shortly after his daughter’s disappearance but was arrested again in 2008, along with his two brothers, after a review.
All three were charged and brought to trial.
But it was the bravery of Mrs Goren, who had endured 30 years of torment at the hands of her husband, which eventually led to his conviction.
Breaking the conspiracy of silence which has often thwarted honour cases, she took the stand to give damning evidence.
Police and lawyers praised both her and Tulay’s sister Nuray and lover Halil Unal for their courage in speaking out.
Scotland Yard and the CPS today admitted past gaps in their knowledge and understanding of domestic violence in British Muslim families.
But a senior detective today pledged: ‘No victim will be turned away on the basis that honour-based violence is nothing to do with the police.’
Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw QC described the murder as ‘truly shocking’ and ‘a wake up call to the British authorities.’
Police had become involved in the weeks leading up to the murder when Mehmet beat up Mr Unal, then complained about the relationship to officers and demanded his daughter take a virginity test.
Tulay ran away and told them he had beat her, and that she would rather be taken into care than return home, before being persuaded to go back by her mother.
After the case, Nuray Guler, Tulay’s older sister, called on her father to tell the family where she was buried.
She said: ‘For my father, I have only one request. I ask that he finally discloses the whereabouts of my sister.
‘I wake up at night wondering where Tulay may be. In quiet moments during the day I ask myself if she suffered or knew what was in store for her.
‘I ask that he put an end to the nightmares that haunt us and allow us to retrieve Tulay in order that she may rest in peace alongside her sister Hatice.’
Hatice died in a car crash seven years after her sister went missing.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Identity Minister Forgets ID Card
Identity minister Meg Hillier arrived at a photocall to promote identity cards, but then realised she left her own at home.
She travelled to Liverpool to announce a further roll-out of the controversial identity cards across the North West.
Ms Hillier checked her handbag for the card before putting the slip-up down to the demands of looking after her baby.
Residents of Lancashire, Merseyside, Cheshire and Cumbria can now apply for the ID card.
The cards cost £30 each and enable the holder to travel across the EU without their passport.
Passport offices
They were made available to people living in Manchester at the end of November.
After Ms Hillier realised she was without her card she posed empty-handed in front of the Liver Building.
The MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch made the journey from London to Liverpool by train on Monday, ahead of an official announcement made by the Home Secretary.
Applications for the cards will open on 4 January. From February, applicants will be able to enrol at passport offices in Liverpool and Blackburn.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Met Office ‘Manipulated Climate Change Figures’ Says Russian Think Tank Linked to President Putin
An explosive new claim that the Meteorological Office in Britain ‘manipulated’ climate change figures has come from a leading Russian think-tank founded by a former adviser to Vladimir Putin.
As the Copenhagen summit comes to a climax on Friday, it was alleged that Siberian weather statistics were selected in a way that masks evidence not showing global warming.
The think tank strongly disputes the use of data from the Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change which were released in a bid to diffuse the recent row over hacked emails from the Climate Research Unit in East Anglia.
The emails were seized upon by global warming sceptics as evidence that academics were massaging the figures.
The Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) claimed the Hadley Centre used statistics from weather stations in Russian and Siberia that fitted its theory of global warming, while often ignoring those that did not.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Once a Crook, Always a Crook: 12 Years on, Canal Boy Jailed as Serial Burgler
It was 12 years ago when social workers sent teenager Clinton Bowen on a three-month canal holiday in an effort to wean him from a life of crime.
Not surprisingly, the ‘punishment’ caused a furore. Even less surprisingly, it doesn’t appear to have worked very well.
Now 28, he’s grown up to be a serial burglar who specialises in raiding the homes of the old and vulnerable.
Canal Boy, as he became known, has just been jailed for five years after targeting the elderly in a series of burglaries to fund his drug addiction.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Tulay Murder ‘A Wake-Up Call’ Over ‘Honour Killings’
Mehmet Goren, the father of 15-year-old Tulay Goren, has been found guilty of murdering her after she fell in love with the wrong man. Tulay’s death serves as a “wake-up call” over the issue of such “honour killings”, a jury at the Old Bailey heard.
[…]
Tulay’s case is far from being an isolated incident, however. Police believe that about 12 women a year are the victims of “honour killings” in the UK. Many more suffer violence.
Honour killings have mostly occurred in families of South Asian and Middle Eastern origin. None of the world’s major religions condone honour-related crimes.
[…]
“In every case we have looked at, there’s always a conspiracy,” said Commander Steve Allen, the Association of Chief Police Officers’ lead on honour-based violence and forced marriage.
“There will be a meeting of the family, potentially involving other members of the community, to discuss and decide when the killing is going to be carried out, where, how and by whom,” he told the BBC.
In Tulay’s case, the Old Bailey jury also heard from Professor Yakin Erturk, a sociology professor at Ankara University and expert on “honour killings”. She was the first to give expert evidence at a case of this kind in the UK.
She said it was only in the past 15 years that such killings had become a recognised problem in Turkey, although there are an estimated 200 cases a year.
Prof Erturk, who is also the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women, described a culture where a cousin slit a woman’s throat in the street for requesting a song on a radio station.
Since Tulay’s death 10 years ago, police have made “remarkable” progress, said Cdr Allen.
Officers are now taught to recognise the risks of “honour-based violence” from the moment a report is made.
There is an awareness that some victims may be taken abroad, that the risk of violence against other family members exists and that some families will go to considerable lengths to find those who “escape”.
But the need to challenge “perverted” notions that a woman can compromise the “honour” of a family or community because she keeps the “wrong company”, has a boyfriend or is “too Western” in her dress or appearance remains, said Cdr Allen.
“There’s an absolutely crucial issue about the need for leadership within affected communities. There’s no middle ground here, you either condemn these practices or you collude with them.”
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
UK: You’re Not Worthy: Council Snubs Move to Honour British Army’s Most Decorated Regiment
They have fought bravely in Iraq and Afghanistan and count Victoria Cross hero Johnson Beharry among their number.
But the troops of the most decorated regiment in the British Army are the victim of an extraordinary snub by a council in Surrey, which says they are not ‘appropriate’ recipients of a public honour.
More than 2,000 people in Epsom have signed a petition to hand the freedom of the borough to the soldiers of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment, which has won 57 Victoria Crosses in its 350-year history.
But a furious row has erupted after Liberal Democrats and independent councillors united to block the move — which would not cost taxpayers a penny — because the regiment, based in nearby Guildford, is ‘not local enough’.
The regiment said it would be a ‘huge honour’ to have the freedom of the borough and march through the streets of the town when they come home from fighting the Taliban.
More than 30 other councils have bestowed the same honour on the regiment, including Tunbridge Wells in Kent, 50 miles away.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bosnia: Council of Europe, Warning Over Lack of Reforms
(ANSAmed) — STRASBOURG, DECEMBER 17 — The Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly at the Council of Europe launched a warning today over the lack of progress by Bosnia Herzegovina in carrying out the constitutional reforms necessary for giving stability to the country. Commenting on the report approved today by the Committee, which will be discussed and voted on during the next Assembly session (January 25-29 2010), the parliamentarians charged with drawing up the document said that because of the lack of reforms the country is not able to keep step with the neighbouring countries in the process of integration into the EU and NATO, and is less able to fulfill the commitments undertaken as a member of the Council of Europe. Because of the continued conflict and obstructions put in place by various bodies and political parties, the gap between Bosnia Herzegovina and its neighbours is growing day by day, says the report. A strong warning is made in the document, with an invitation to introduce the necessary reforms in time for them to go into effect before the elections set for next October. The Committee also believes that broad dialogue should be begun immediately over the challenges that the country must face in order to gain stability. This dialogue must also include the other local players in the European Union and neighbouring countries. Lastly, the report strongly condemns the statements and actions of politicians in the Republika Srpska who are undermining the institutions and placing the authority of the High Representative in doubt. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Ten Arrested in Anti-Terror Operation
Algiers, 16 Dec. (AKI) — Algerian authorities have arrested ten suspected members of an Al-Qaeda cell in an anti-terrorism operation in the past two days, news reports said on Wednesday. The suspects were arrested in separate raids in the Algerian capital, Algiers, and in the east of the country, according to reports.
In the anti-terrorism operation in Algiers, police arrested six suspected members of cell linked to the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb — the terror network’s African branch.
The suspects allegedly gathered “large” sums of money for Al-Qaeda which they had extorted from small businesses on the outskirts of Algiers.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Drugs: Moroccan Hemp Fields Cultivation -60%
(ANSAmed) — RABAT, DECEMBER 17 — In 2009, the total surface area on which hemp was grown in the country dropped by 60% from 134,000 to 56,000 hectares, according to Khalid Zerouali, head of emigration and border control for the Moroccan Interior Ministry. Saying that he was satisfied with the results achieved, Zerouali cited the case of Larache in north-western Morocco, which has been declared “hemp-less city” for the fifth year in a row, as well as the 18 town councils of the Chefchaouen (north-west) province in which hemp growing has been entirely eradicated. According to Zerouali, also the struggle again trafficking networks is one of the main pillars of the Morocco’s strategy against drugs. He added that in 2009 a total of 1,345 people had been arrested, 50% of whom foreigners, and 180 tonnes of hashish seized.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Exorcism and Apparitions in Cairo’s Poor Areas
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, DECEMBER 16 — Exorcisms and alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary are occurring in Cairo, in two of the city’s poorest neighbourhoods, and the two phenomena are drawing in throngs of the faithful, mostly Christian Copts but Muslims as well. The most recent event is the one which occurred last Friday in the El Waaraq neighbourhood, located in the Giza area. The Egyptian Gazette reports that many claim to have personally witnessed the Virgin Mary on the roof of St. Michaels church with her arms opening in their direction, while the smell of incense and a flock of doves surrounded the area. This event allegedly occurred at least twice, but a Church appointee was unable to capture it on video. People are now awaiting for the return of Copt pope Shenouda III to return to Cairo from the USA on the day after tomorrow. He is expected to set up a committee that will look into the alleged apparitions, and to decide on the now sizeable amount of money offered by the faithful. Independent newspaper Al Masri El Yom reports that the hundreds of people that gather in front of the church every night have now been joined by street vendors who sell food, drinks and cigarettes, while a nearby bar has taken advantage of the situation to offer its chairs for the price of five liras (slightly more than 50 cents). Some people are even lighting fires for warmth, seeing that the temperature at night drops down to 9 degrees. Another independent paper, Al Dostour (which speaks of thousands of Copts drawn in by the alleged apparitions) pointed out that even Muslims worship the Virgin Mary insofar as mother of the prophet Jesus. It also revealed that president Nasser, coming out of the heavy defeat during the 1967 Six-Day War, personally showed up to witness another apparition of the Virgin Mary that occurred in the Heliopolis area the following year. Daily News Egypt reported that exorcisms have instead been taking place for some time every Thursday in the Copt monastery of St. Simon on Moqattam Hill, in the squatter settlements area of Mansheryet Nasser. The exorcisms are carried out by father Ibrahim, who draws in many Christians and Muslims who are eager to receive his help. The ritual is apparently similar to the classic one provided by the Catholic church in such cases, and the possessed apparently behave as stated by tradition: forceful attempts to escape exorcism, screams and inhuman sounds, loathing of the holy, words spoken in other languages. In other words, the repertoire which repeatedly occurred through the centuries in the West until positivist psychiatry made its appearance, and which still occurs and is certainly not foreign to the Muslim culture. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Algerian Artist Complains Exclusion From Biennial
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, DECEMBER 16 — Algeria is not among the countries included in the Biennale opening in Alessandria tomorrow. At fault are the political and diplomatic tensions with Egypt following that fateful World Cup qualifying football match. It is the artists who bear the brunt, and in this specific case Zineb Sedira, who, as AFP reports, has expressed “consternation” at being caught up in theis “soccer-based affair” between the two countries. During the hottest days of the crisis — following acts of violence on the part of Egyptian fans, which were met in more than ample measure by their Algerian counterparts to the cost of Egyptian businesses in that country — even the union organisations representing artists and musicians took nationalistic stances, announcing that there would be no more collaboration with their foreign colleagues. And the person in charge of fine arts, Mohsen Shaalan, who also chairs the Alexandria Biennale, announced on November 21 that Algeria’s attendance had been cancelled. “It was my opinion that we shared the same values,” the artist wrote in an open letter to the high commission of the Biennial for Mediterranean Countries, “and that we celebrated the same artistic virtues in overcoming national barriers other nationalistic trivia”.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Minarets: Egypt, Swiss Banks Could Lose Fund if Ban Enforced
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, DECEMBER 17 — A joint committee of religious affairs, human rights and foreign relations of the People’s Assembly has recommended forming a parliamentary delegation to head for Switzerland to meet members of the Swiss parliament to warn of the gravity of a referendum held weeks ago on banning new mosque minarets. During a meeting on Wednesday, the committee called on Arab and Muslim businessmen to withdraw their assets from Swiss banks if the ban becomes law, MENA reports. MP Moustafa el-Feqi called for legislating an international law prohibiting any form of prejudice against religions, especially Islam, after the result of the recent referendum. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco: Italy Commemorates Elisa Chimenti in Tangiers
(ANSAmed) — RABAT, DECEMBER 17 — Forty years after her death, yesterday evening in Tangiers Italy commemorated Elisa Chimenti, the writer who — alongside her doctor father — lived her entire life in Morocco and Tunisia. The evening in honour of ‘Elisa Chimenti, Mediterranean Woman’ was organised by the Italian consulate in Casablanca by the Casa Italia association in Tangiers, and was a chance to illustrate the plan for a foundation dedicated to the writer with offices in the Italian Institutions building, where she taught for many years. Re-launching the figure of Elisa Chimenti is intended as a way to analyse the relations between those living on the two shores of the Mediterranean while moving beyond existing stereotypes, and to show Italians and Moroccans how Mediterranean they are. It is significant that this happens in Tangiers, a cultural crossroads in which Elisa Chimenti highlighted Arab, Jewish and Berber roots. Ileana Marchesani and Karine Joseph, heads of the publishing houses Senso Unico and Sirocco, have announced an upcoming publication of an anthology on the writer’s works. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Christmas: Gaza Christians to Bethlehem, Israeli Go-Ahead
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, DECEMBER 16 — According to reports in the country’s media, Israeli authorities have today announced their intention, during the Christmas period, to open the passes from the Gaza Strip to its tiny Christian community to allow them to celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem, which lies in the West Bank. The Gaza Strip has been under an Israel blockade since the fundamentalist party Hamas seized power there. The decision also bears the hallmark of the urging of the Catholic hierarchy, as of other Christian churches. The Palestinian Christian minority, while sizeable in the West Bank, number no more than a few hundred in the Gaza Strip (which has a total population of around one and a half million). In all their numbers there are estimated by different sources at between 300 and one thousand. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
PNA: PLO Extends Abbas Mandate, Elections Off
(ANSAmed) — RAMALLAH, DECEMBER 16 — As widely anticipated, the Executive Committee of the PLO has decided to extend the mandate of Mahmoud Abbas as President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), reaffirming its decision indefinitely to postpone the presidential and political elections called for January 24. The news has come on the margins of the two-day meeting underway in Ramallah. Speaking to ANSA, Nemer Hammad, a member of the executive committee and advisor to Mahmoud Abbas, said that the postponement also affects the Legislative Council (the parliament) and will hold until it is once more possible to call the elections which were cancelled due to the lack of an agreement with Hamas, the fundamentalist faction in control of the Gaza Strip. The election have been informally set for June 28 20120, but on condition that “national reconciliation” is achieved in the meantime. The Executive Committee also outlined a document approving the policy line presented by Mahmoud Abbas himself just yesterday: this subordinates a re-start of the peace process with Israel to a complete freezing of building activity in the settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. At the same time, any “return to violence” as an arm in political struggle was renounced. The PLO decision in effect deepens the split between Al Fatah (the lay party under Mahmoud Abbas which dominates the executive committee, but whose sway does not extend beyond the West Bank) and its Hamas rivals, who today confirmed through their leader in Gaza, Mahmud A-Zahar, that they do not recognise the legitimacy of decisions taken by the PLO, nor the role of the President of the PNA, “in the absence of a popular vote”.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Rare Gender Identity Defect Hits Gaza Families
There are an unusually high number of male pseudohermaphrodite births in the Gaza neighborhood of Jabalya, where Nadir and Ahmed live.
Dr. Jehad Abudaia, a Canadian-Palestinian pediatrician and urologist practicing in Gaza, says he has diagnosed nearly 80 cases like Nadir’s and Ahmed’s in the last seven years.
“It is astonishing that we have [so] many cases with this defect, which is very rare all over the world,” Abudaia says. He attributes the high frequency of this birth defect to “consanguinity,” or in-breeding.
“If you want to go to the root of the problem, this problem runs in families in the genes.” Abudaia says. “They want to get married to cousins… they don’t go to another family. This is a problem.”
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
UK-Livni: A Blunder for Peres But Storm Settling
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, DECEMBER 16 — The President of Israel, Shimon Peres, today added his voice to the wave of protest coming from Israel at the arrest warrant issued, and then retracted by a UK court, for the former Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni. Its agreement to the proceeding, which was issued on the basis of a statement made by a pressure group of Arab origins, accusing Israel of war crimes in connection with last winter’s offensive against the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, “was one of London’s worst political blunders of the past years”, Peres stormed. The co-founder of the centrist Kadima party, which is currently in opposition, was speaking to Israeli media before leaving to attend the climate summit in Copenhagen. On its breaking yesterday, the affair sparked off a minor diplomatic storm between Israel and the United Kingdom, leading to the summoning of the UK Ambassador to Tel Aviv, Tom Pillips, although the government of Benyamin Netanyahu today shows signs of softening its tones. A spokesperson for the Israeli foreign office told ANSA, that no “further comments” are expected following yesterday evening’s reassurances by the British foreign minister, David Miliband, on the desire of Gordon Brown’s cabinet to introduce reforms in the justice system of England and Wales which would exclude a repetition of episodes such as this. Livni was indeed forced to postpone a planned visit to London: reforms would allow “political leaders of a friendly country” to visit the United Kingdom freely. The spokesperson also confirmed the telephone clarifications that have come in the past hours from Miliband to his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, as well as with Livni herself. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
A Policy of “Ethnic Cleansing” Against Christians Under Way in Mosul, Mgr Sako Says
The archbishop of Kirkuk says security measures will be strengthened during Christmas for fear of new attacks. Two attacks are carried out in Mosul yesterday; two churches are hit, one baby girl is dead and 40 people are wounded. Source tells AsiaNews that the Christian community is “destined to die” in the city.
Kirkuk (AsiaNews) — A policy of “ethnic and religious cleansing” is underway in Mosul; in fact, it has worsened as Christmas approaches, Mgr Louis Sako told AsiaNews. For the archbishop of Kirkuk, this means that “security measures must be strengthened or the holiday season”. Meanwhile, tensions and fear are palpable in the city, made worse by a new attack against two places of worship, killing one person and wounding 40 more. A Christian source, anonymous for security reasons, said that the “community is destined to die”.
In the late morning, a car bomb exploded in front of the Church of the Annunciation in the al- Mohandiseen neighbourhood, damaging walls and windows. The attackers also threw grenades against the nearby Christian school, killing a baby girl and injuring 40 more people, including five high school kids. Saad Younes, father of the 8-day-old child, said that the blast occurred when his daughter and sister-in-law were leaving the nearby hospital.
A second attack targeted the Syro-Catholic Church of the Immaculate in al-Shifaa, a neighbourhood in northern Mosul. An explosive device went off in the street in front of the building’s gate. No one was killed or injured.
Yesterday’s attacks are the latest episodes in a series of violence against Christian places of worship. On 26 November, terrorists razed to the ground the Church of Saint Ephrem and the Mother House of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine. A source told AsiaNews that most nuns left; only a few have remained but “are afraid of going out”.
Such attacks are a “warning” for Christians to leave en masse. Many “families have fled north, into Kurdistan, but are jobless and have no hope for the future. The Christian community is destined to die,” the source said.
Mgr Louis Sako shares this concern. For the archbishop of Kirkuk, “ethnic and religious cleansing” is underway in Mosul. The central government and parties are concerned only about the elections, scheduled for 7 March 2010, especially about “sharing the oil”.
The city’s political situation is complex. Arabs control local power; Kurds do not participate in the municipal council; and there is a strong presence of fundamentalist groups and members of Saddam Hussein’s old regime.
“The situation is very tense,” Mgr Sako said. “Just last week to Christian brothers were killed and two more were abducted. Where was the local government? And the Central government? Where are the representatives of the ruling parties?” the prelate asked.
Nevertheless, he said he hopes to see the Christian community achieve greater cohesion within to build a “strong power base” that can reject violence.
For the prelate, one possible response is for “Churches and Christian parties to make a strong statement, reiterating their steadfastness, and their commitment to Iraq, peace and coexistence between ethnic groups and religions. [. . .] To destroy this mosaic is to destroy Iraq,” he said. (DS)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Dubai: Wife of Qaeda Number 2 Urges Women Not to Join Jihad
DUBAI — The wife of Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has appealed to Muslim women not to join the jihad themselves but to support their menfolk in holy war, US monitoring groups said on Thursday.
In a letter released by Al-Qaeda’s media arm As-Sahab entitled “A Message to the Muslim Sisters,” Omayma Hassan Ahmed Mohammed Hassan also called on the female faithful to resist Western pressure to shun the hijab, or headscarf, the monitors said.
The SITE group said that Zawahiri’s wife discouraged women from pursuing an active role in fighting, calling on them instead to support their husbands and male mujahedeen, and properly rear their children.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Dubai: Teachers Urged to Adopt Modern Methods
DUBAI — His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has urged education officials and experts to have students as the focus of the process of education as well as to avoid dictation in the teaching process.
He made these remarks at a two-day workshop organised by the Ministry of Education at Bab Al-Shams resort to develop a long-term education plan for the country’s schools. Present at the meeting was Minister of Education Humaid Mohammed Obaid Al Qattami.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Dubai Records 6,000 Offences on Its Beaches
More than 6,000 people have been stopped by the police for offences on Dubai’s beaches, records show.
Infractions range from ogling women, to kissing, to people swimming fully clothed or in their underwear.
Dubai’s authorities have stepped up their policing of what they regard as offensive behaviour.
The Gulf emirate is popular with tourists and Western expats. But most of the people stopped are workers from developing countries.
The police records detail offences logged in the first 10 months of 2009.
[…]
The country might have boomed on the back of it foreign workers and tourists, but many locals resent their behaviour.
Undercover police patrols of its packed beaches were initiated several years ago. Floodlights expose misbehaviour at night.
Couples kissing or touching, men watching women or taking photographs, and topless sunbathers can be stopped, questioned and even charged if they are repeat offenders.
The police say they have taken legal action against people accused of drinking, taking drugs and homosexuality.
But police statistics also reveal that the majority of those caught are from developing countries. The people who have largely built Dubai — but remain unwelcome on its beaches.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
In Baghdad, Hemlines Rise as Violence Falls
At the height of Iraq’s sectarian violence, being covered up in public was a matter of life and death for women. The dangers from Islamist fanatics were too great for women to dare to go without a headscarf or wear tight jeans or a short skirt. But times are changing in some parts of Baghdad. Some say it is a sign of greater freedom and security.
The hot fashion items for this season? Short skirts, tight jeans with long boots, and short jackets for cold days.
That may not sound exceptional, or even very trendy, but this is the fashion forecast from Baghdad, where the climate for more revealing women’s wear has been steadily improving. Many Iraqi women say it is a sign of returning security and freedom after years of war and sectarian tensions.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Insurgents Hacking U.S. Drones
[Translated by VH]
Shi’ite insurgents in Iraq have managed with cheap software to intercept video images transmitted from unmanned U.S. aircraft, known as predator drones. The rebels may therefore be better able to predict attack plans of the Americans and know which routes are under strict surveillance.
The successful hacking by insurgents is reported by The Wall Street Journal. High placed Americans have stessed to the newspaper stressed that the insurgents did not manage to take over the control of the unmanned aircraft. But the action does show that the strategy whereby the Americans in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq increasingly rely on drones is coupled with great risks.
The hacked video images prove that the insurgents by simple means already are able to formulate a response to the advanced American technology. The video images were hacked with software programs like SkyGrabber, that are sold for $25. The Americans were alarmed after a video from the drones was found in computers of Shi’ite insurgents. There is evidence that Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan have managed to hack video from the drones.
The Americans increasingly rely on unmanned aircraft, in an attempt to reduce casualties among their troops. Over a third of the budget for the U.S. Air Force is reserved for drones.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones
WASHINGTON — Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.
Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes’ systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber — available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet — to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.
U.S. officials say there is no evidence that militants were able to take control of the drones or otherwise interfere with their flights. Still, the intercepts could give America’s enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under U.S. surveillance.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Test-Fires Advanced Missile
TV pictures showed the launch of the Sajjil-2 rocket, which experts say has the range to be able to hit Israel and US bases in the Gulf.
Correspondents say it is not the first time this missile has been tested, but the timing is likely to add to current tension over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The West says Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons, a charge Iran denies.
The US said the test “undermined Iran’s claims of peaceful intentions”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Tehran Tests ‘Long Range Missile’
Tehran, 16 Dec. (AKI) — Iran has successfully test fired its longest range missile, according to state television. The Sajjil-2 missile test fired on Tuesday has a longer range than previously tested missiles which could travel 2,000 kilometres, Iran’s Arabic language satellite channel said.
The missile would put be capable of reaching targets in the Middle East as well as Israel and US bases in the Gulf.
The latest test came on the same day that Iran’s judiciary announced it had evidence against opposition leaders claiming that they had stoked anti-government tension on the streets after disputed elections in June.
The announcement by judiciary chief Sadeq Larijani may be a sign that opposition leaders are about to be arrested.
“We have enough proof about the leaders of this plot against the system,” Larijani said.
The announcement of the test came only hours after the US approved legislation to impose sanctions on foreign companies that help to supply fuel to Iran.
In September Iran was heavily criticised after testing its Sajjil and Shahab missiles.
At the time, the White House called them “provocative”, and reiterated demands that Iran come clean on its nuclear programme.
Neither Israel nor the United States have ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve their differences.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanese Woman Opens Bank Account in Rights Precedent
A Lebanese woman opened a bank account in the name of her underage children on Thursday, setting a precedent in a country where females often face legal discrimination.
“I’ve been trying to open a bank account for my two sons for 10 years now, but I was continuously told that only my husband could sign the papers,” Lebanese-American Barbara Batlouni told AFP.
“It’s unfair. They’re my children too and I don’t see why I cannot, as their mother, teach them to manage their finances,” she said at the headquarters of Bank of Beirut and the Arab Countries (BBAC).
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Plot Targeting Turkey’s Religious Minorities Allegedly Discovered
CD indicates naval officers planned violence against non-Muslim communities.
ISTANBUL, December 16 (Compass Direct News) — Chilling allegations emerged last month of a detailed plot by Turkish naval officers to perpetrate threats and violence against the nation’s non-Muslims in an effort to implicate and unseat Turkey’s pro-Islamic government. Evidence put forth for the plot appeared on an encrypted compact disc discovered last April but was only recently deciphered; the daily Taraf newspaper first leaked details of the CD’s contents on Nov. 19.
Entitled the “Operation Cage Action Plan,” the plot outlines a plethora of planned threat campaigns, bomb attacks, kidnappings and assassinations targeting the nation’s tiny religious minority communities — an apparent effort by military brass to discredit the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The scheme ultimately called for bombings of homes and buildings owned by non-Muslims, setting fire to homes, vehicles and businesses of Christian and Jewish citizens, and murdering prominent leaders among the religious minorities.
Dated March 2009, the CD containing details of the plot was discovered in a raid on the office of a retired major implicated in a large illegal cache of military arms uncovered near Istanbul last April. Once deciphered, it revealed the full names of 41 naval officials assigned to carry out a four-phase campaign exploiting the vulnerability of Turkey’s non-Muslim religious minorities, who constitute less than 1 percent of the population.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Mosques Told to ‘Ease Off’ Mayor
JEDDAH — The Ministry of Islamic Affairs has warned imams and those giving Friday sermons to refrain from apportioning blame over the Jeddah floods and to instead concentrate on “consoling bereaved families” in this and coming Friday sermons.
“A lot of families of victims are going through a terrible time at the moment because of the disaster and the emotional, physical and financial tragedies it has left in its wake, so the ministry has advised that sermons keep to consolation and care from the aspect of Shariah,” said the Manager of the Ministry’s Endowments and Mosques in Jeddah, Sheikh Faheed Al-Barqi..
“This is part of the ministry’s continuous program of the state’s involvement in helping the public tackle problems of all types, as the Friday sermon is the pulse of the people,” Al-Barqi said.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen: Up to 34 Al-Qaida Militants Killed
SAN’A, Yemen — Security forces struck several al-Qaida hideouts and training sites in Yemen on Thursday, killing up to 34 suspected militants, including four would-be suicide bombers who planned attacks at home and abroad. At least 17 suspected militants were arrested.
The operations against al-Qaida in the San’a area and a southern province came as Yemen is under U.S. pressure to act more vigorously against the terror network on its territory.
An impoverished nation in the Arabian Peninsula’s southwestern corner, Yemen has struggled in its efforts to deal with al-Qaida’s growing presence as well as its homegrown Islamic extremism.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Azerbaijan: Discontent Over Mosque Demolition Continues in Baku
After last week’s clampdown of demonstrations in Baku to object a bid which allows the demolition of an iconic mosque, Azeri intellectuals have condemned the government.
Residents of the Azeri capital of Baku took to the streets last week after Baku’s Second Economic Court, in what is widely believed to be a politicized verdict, ordered the Fatemeh Zahra Mosque in Baku to be razed.
To break up the demonstrations, police and security forces attacked protesters with clubs and batons, leaving some in a critical state.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Revival Brings Polygamy, Camels to Chechnya
GROZNY, Russia (Reuters) — Adam, 52, keeps his three wives in different towns to stop them squabbling, but the white-bearded Chechen adds he might soon take a fourth.
“Chechnya is Muslim, so this is our right as men. They (the wives) spend time together, but do not always see eye to eye,” said the soft-spoken pensioner, who only gave his first name.
Hardline Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov is vying with insurgents for authority in a land ravaged by two secessionist wars with Moscow. Each side is claiming Islam as its flag of legitimacy, each reviles the other as criminal and blasphemous.
Wary of the dangers of separatism in a vast country, Moscow watches uneasily as central power yields to Islamic tenets. It must chose what it might see as the lesser of two evils.
Though polygamy is illegal in Russia, the southern Muslim region of Chechnya encourages the practice, arguing it is allowed by sharia law and the Koran, Islam’s holiest book.
By Russian law, Adam is only married to his first wife of 28 years, Zoya, the plump, blue-eyed mother of his three children, with whom he shares a home on the outskirts of the regional capital Grozny.
His “marriages” to the other two — squirreled away in villages nearby — were carried out in elaborate celebrations and are recognized by Chechen authorities.
The head of Chechnya’s Center for Spiritual-Moral Education, Vakha Khashkanov, set up by Kadyrov a year ago, said Islam should take priority over laws of the Russian constitution.
“If it is allowed in Islam, it is not up for discussion,” he told Reuters near Europe’s largest mosque, which glistens in central Grozny atop the grounds where the Communist party had its headquarters before the Soviet Union fell in 1991.
“As long as you can feed your wives, and there’s equality amongst them, then polygamy is allowed in Chechnya,” he added.
Islam is flourishing in Chechnya which, along with its neighbors Dagestan and Ingushetia, is combating an Islamist insurgency which aims to create a Muslim, sharia-based state separate from Russia across the North Caucasus.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Suicide Bomber Wounds 18 People in Russia’s South
NAZRAN, Russia — A suicide car bomber struck a group of policemen in Russia’s restive North Causasus on Thursday, killing himself and wounding at least 16 officers and two civilians, officials said.
The bomber attacked the group of policemen at a checkpoint in the city of Nazran in the province of Ingushetia, said Madina Khadziyeva, a spokeswoman for the Russian Interior Ministry’s branch in the province. Ingushetia neighbors Chechnya to the west.
The explosion wounded 16 officers and two civilians, many of whom are in critical condition, said Svetlana Gorbakova of Russia’s top investigative body.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Christian Members of Heed Bangladesh Accuse Director of Corruption
More than US$ 300,000 has been embezzled. Employees sound the alarm. Projects to benefit 8.5 million poor are in jeopardy. Elgin Saha is said to have turned NGO set up to “bear witness to the Christian message” into a “family business.” Donations from around the world dry up.
Dhaka (AsiaNews) — Christian members of Heed Bangladesh, an NGO involved in healthcare, education and economic development, have accused Elgin Saha, the organisation’s executive director, of turning the charity into a “family business”, putting more than US$ 300,000 of donations in his own pockets.
Speaking at a press conference held on Monday in Dhaka, employees of the NGO said they want to see “justice” done and have the money returned. They supported their claim with evidence of illegalities in how the organisation’s funds were managed.
The charges are very serious indeed. Elgin Saha (pictured here with his family) is accused of placing his wife Teresa Saha, son Timon Saha, sisters and other relatives in key positions within the association in order to siphon money donated by Christians around the world.
Between July 2007 and June 2008, Heed Bangladesh received about 53,000,000 taka (US$ 770,000) from Christian-based donor associations in Australia, Switzerland, Netherlands and Great Britain.
One of the employees, David Biswas, said that the NGO was created in order to “bear witness to the message of Christ before the nation.” However over time, it has become a “family business” for Elgin Saha, and this is jeopardising projects that would benefit “8.5 million poor people.”
Another employee said that “some projects have [already] been cancelled” after donors began complaining.
“Christmas is coming and our future is in danger. We could end up in the street,” he said.
Elgin Saha has denied the allegations of corruption, blaming instead the employees of being involved in a “conspiracy” against him.
Meanwhile, the NGO Affairs Bureau is looking into the case after receiving formal complaints alleging corruption, saying that the government will take proper action shortly.
In order to make their point, Heed Bangladesh employees began a protest outside the organisation’s offices, which they say would continue until “justice is done.”
“Let us hope that Jesus will bring us good news for Christmas and save our lives,” they said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Club Promotes Polygamy in Indonesia
It is a scene of peaceful serenity. Rows of men kneel in deep prayer inside a large hall on the outskirts of Jakarta. The women sit just behind them, their heads bowed in quiet contemplation.
It could be afternoon prayers anywhere in Indonesia, a vast Muslim-majority archipelago, but this scene happens to be inside the sprawling headquarters of Jakarta’s newest club — the “Global Ikhlwan” polygamy club.
Tucked away in a leafy suburb a few hours out of Jakarta, the club was set up in Indonesia earlier this year, but has its origins in Malaysia.
It says it has more than 1,000 members worldwide — as far away as Australia and the United States.
In Indonesia, the law allows men to marry more than one woman — but only under strict conditions, which makes the practice of polygamy less common here than in other Muslim nations.
But that could change if the controversial new polygamy club is a success.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Faisalabad: Two Christians Imprisoned for Blasphemy Released
Gulsher Masih and his daughter Sandal were indicted for allegedly ripping some pages of the Koran. The story fabricated by a group of extremists, incited by mosques in the village. Human rights activist: discriminatory laws and the mentality of people need to be changed.
Faisalabad (AsiaNews) — Gulsher Masih and his daughter Sandal, from a village near Faisalabad, indicted and arrested on charges of blasphemy against Islam in October last year, were released on December 14. Khalil Tahir, Gulsher and Sandal’s lawyer, confirmed the ruling of the court in Faisalabad to AsiaNews.
The two Christians were accused of blasphemy under Article 295 paragraph B of the Pakistan Penal Code October 9, 2008. They were charged with having torn some pages from the Koran in the village of Tehsil Chak Jhumra, located in the district of Faisalabad.
Some Muslims who were walking near the Gulsher home accused Masih and his daughter Sandal of “having torn pages of the Koran and thrown them on the street”. The story spread among the mosques of the village, sparking the revolt of an angry mob. Residents of neighbouring villages also took part in the assault, marching with torches to the village, shouting “Death to blasphemers”.
The crowd began throwing stones at the walls of the Gulsher house and hit doors and windows with sticks. They also hurled rocks at an adjacent Protestant church. After months of suffering, the two Christians were declared innocent: the judge Raja Mohammad Ghazanfer dropped all charges and ordered their immediate release.
Khalil Tahir, a Christian MP and lawyer, told AsiaNews that “although it is very difficult to defend Christians accused of blasphemy in Pakistan, thank God I was able to successfully demonstrate their extraneousness to the facts. All charges against them were groundless, because based on personal disagreements. “
Tahir is the director of Action Against Discriminatory Laws (Adal), non-governmental organization that provides free legal assistance. He adds that “the problem is not only the discriminatory laws,” but also “the use of the norm for personal purposes, we must work hard — he concludes — in both directions, to eliminate discriminatory laws and to change people’s mentality”.
According to data collected by the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) of the Catholic Church of Pakistan, from 1986 to August 2009, at least 964 people have been charged under the blasphemy law: among these 479 were Muslims, 119 Christians, 340 Ahmadis , 14 Hindu and 10 of unknown religion. There have been at least 33 extra-judicial killings, committed by individuals or angry crowds. Last on this sad list is Fanish, who died last September, for whom Christians are still waiting for justice.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
French, US Troops in Major Operation East of Kabul: Military
UZBEEN VALLEY, Afghanistan — More than 1,100 soldiers, including 800 French legionnaires as well as US and Afghan commandos, launched a major operation Thursday east of the Afghan capital, military officials said.
Five US special forces were wounded, in the fighting in the Uzbeen Valley, a Taliban stronghold where 10 French soldiers were killed in an ambush in August 2008, the officials said.
The operation, codenamed “Septentrion”, was aimed at “reaffirming the sovereignty of Afghan security forces in the north of the Uzbeen Valley,” Colonel Benoit Durieux of the French Foreign Legion said.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Get Out of Afghanistan Now
I’ll say it, again.
It’s time to bring all U.S. soldiers home from Afghanistan now.
I don’t know where Code Pink is these days.
I don’t know where that anti-war movement went.
I don’t understand why the escalation of a war by leadership that cannot define victory is not a problem for more Americans.
This week WND reported the details of America’s new rules of engagement in Afghanistan. The situation is much worse than I imagined.
In effect, the war against al-Qaida and the Taliban has deteriorated into a police action not much different than the one cops in America wage every day against common criminals at home.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
India: How Christian is Sonia Gandhi?
Hindu extremists accuse her of being a “Vatican spy,” but the chairperson of the ruling UPA party coalition is very reserved about her religion. Unlike other women who were widowed by terrorism, she has rejected vengeance against those who killed her husband Rajiv; like Gladys Staines who forgave Dara Singh, the extremist responsible for burning her husband and two children to death.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) — To ask how Christian is a person is surely a provocative and impertinent question. First of all, because nobody has the right to judge another person and second, because there are hardly any criteria to measure the religiosity of a person. Nevertheless, recent and past events give us a chance to look into this question.
Sonia Maino, born and grown up in Italy, a Catholic country, met in England her future husband, Rajiv Gandhi, student and the first son of Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India. While she was simply one of the daughters-in-law of the Prime Minister, nobody bothered to remark her origin and her religious connections. However, when Rajiv Gandhi became Prime Minister, after the assassination of the mother in1984, then the Sangh Parivar started worrying about the possible religious connections of Sonia and her influence on Indian affairs. They called her the spy of the Vatican and saw in her the beginning of the conversion of the whole India. This aggressiveness made her over-conscious of the implication of her Italian and Catholic origin and she never appeared practicing any Christian devotion in public or making any religious statement. Also at the state funeral of Mother Teresa, when Communion was offered to all the Catholics, she abstained.
On the contrary, LK Advani, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), freely proclaims his esteem of Jesus Christ. Invited in November for the Golden Jubilee of the Archdiocese of Delhi he said, “I revere Jesus Christ for his message of universal peace and brotherhood. I deeply value the contribution of our Christian brethren”
The situation of Sonia became more difficult after the assassination of her husband by the Tamil terrorist in 1991. Immediately after that, she refused to enter the political arena and left the government in the hand of Narasihma Rao, a Congress leader, which was followed by the government of opposition party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Then she accepted the chairmanship of the Congress Party and was able to bring it back to govern India in 2004.
Rajiv and Sonia got two children: Raul, that seems to be the natural political heir of the dynasty, he is still bachelor, and Priyanka who got married to a Protestant Christian and they have two children.
The recent events that can make us think happened on the anniversary of terror attack in Mumbai. Three days before the first anniversary, Kavita Karkare and Smita Salaskar, wives of the slain Mumbai Anti-Terrorism Squad chief Hemant Karkare and encounter specialist Vijay Salaskar respectively, met UPA (United Progressive Alliance, the coalition at the government) chairperson Sonia Gandhi at her residence. After the meeting, the two widows told the media that Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving captured terrorist, should be hanged.
“It was difficult to overlook the paradox of that meeting, wrote Monobina Gupta. Here were three widows — wives of two policemen and Sonia Gandhi herself- each had been a victim of unbridled violence fuelled by revenge. Each had suffered tragically. Karkare and Salaskar said the conversation was personal and they reiterated to Gandhi that ‘families of the victims and those of the martyrs wanted Kasab hanged’.
Few will forget how Sonia Gandhi, after losing her husband in a cold-blooded terrorist assassination, granted clemency to Nalini, the assassin. She had Nalini’s death sentence commuted to life imprisonment. Like Kasab, Nalini was the sole surviving conspirator of the five-member squad responsible for the Rajiv Gandhi’s murder. Compassion for Nalini’s five-year-old daughter had clearly taken precedence over Sonia’s personal longing for retributive justice.
Priyanka Gandhi was in her teens when her father was blown up. Seventeen years on, treading in her mother footsteps, she went to meet Nalini in the prison to “come to term with the violence haunting the entire family”. Later she said, “I don’t believe in anger, hatred and violence. And refuse to allow it to overpower my life.”
Another beautiful example of Christian forgiveness is the one of Gladys Staines who forgave Dara Singh, the man who torched to death her missionary husband Graham Staines and their two young sons while they were asleep in the jeep.
“Was it her religious faith or her gender that made her so brave?” asks Monobina Gupta. Gladys gave the answer on several occasions, saying that Christians can be recognized when, like Jesus on the cross, they forgive their tormentors.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
India: Muslim Leaders Exhort Youth to Join Civil Services
MUMBAI: Muslim community leaders are trying to inspire the youth to aim for the civil services. Three days after the Haj Committee of India launched its coaching centre for civil services exams at Haj House near CST, another initiative kicked off on Wednesday. The community leaders presented some IPS officers as role models.
The officers, who lauded the efforts of civil society in motivating youth, asked students to shed their defeatist mentality and try to crack the civil services exams.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Code Broken, Al-Qaida Attack Feared
Terrorists reportedly use wedding invitations to deliver instructions
LONDON — Officers for Britain’s Security Service, MI5, have discovered that a top al-Qaida terrorist in Pakistan has been using invitations to Muslim weddings as a code to launch attacks, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
It’s feared that recent references to a “wedding” could refer to a forthcoming attack in the United Kingdom, even though no actual location is specified in the message.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sarkozy Accused of Corruption in Karachi Bomb Scandal
A lawyer has accused French President Nicolas Sarkozy of being “at the heart of the corruption” which allegedly led to the deaths of 14 people in a bomb attack in the Pakistani city of Karachi in 2002. Families have started legal action against former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur in the case.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Socialist Kim Jong-Il Bans ‘Capitalist’ Hairstyle
[translated from the Dutch by VH]
The North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has banned silly hairstyles. The idea for the ban arose because Jong-il had was annoyed by the “capitalist style” hairdo of one of his employees.
“Is she a real Korean woman? Why has she traded in our traditional beauty for bad foreign habits of capitalists?” the leader of the Socialist police-state Kim Jong-il said. From now on men have to wear their hair short cut, women may have long hair but it must be tied up.
The new rules for the Korean population are not only confined to the hairstyle of the men and women. Western clothing like short skirts, tight trousers and wide pant legs are not allowed to not be worn anymore.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Bias Denied as Swan Valley Mosque Rejected
PLANS to build a mosque for the Bosnian Muslim community of Perth’s Swan Valley have been almost unanimously rejected by the local council on the grounds it would not fit in with the area’s rural character.
The proposal for the two-storey mosque with a 21m-high minaret had been strongly opposed by the community, with the City of Swan receiving 139 objections from 143 submissions during a public comment period last year.
Opposition to the building also drew support from the anti-immigrant Australian Protectionist Party. Eleven out of 12 councillors present at a meeting on Wednesday night voted against the development.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
New Zealand: Poor Joseph. God Was a Hard Act to Follow
An unholy row has broken out in New Zealand over a church billboard aimed at “challenging stereotypes” about the birth of Jesus Christ.
The mischievous biblical bedroom billboard was defaced just over five hours after it was erected. The controversial billboard, erected by St Matthew-in-the-City Church about 11am, shows Joseph looking down dejectedly and Mary looking sad. Underneath is a caption, “Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow.” The church has said it erected the billboard to inspire people to talk about the Christmas story. The church’s archdeacon said its mischievous biblical bedroom billboard had provoked support and disapproval in about equal measures. Archdeacon Glynn Cardy said the church had received emails and phone calls since it made the public aware of the billboard yesterday.
The billboard has already raised the wrath of the traditional values pressure group Family First. “The church can have its debate on the Virgin birth and its spiritual significance inside the church building, but to confront children and families with the concept as a street billboard is completely irresponsible and unnecessary,” Family First national director Bob McCoskrie said. “The church has failed to recognise that public billboards are exposed to all of the public including children and families who may be offended by the material.” Catholic Church spokeswoman Lyndsay Freer said the image was inappropriate and disrespectful.
The archdeacon said the plan behind the billboard was to lampoon the literal interpretation of the Christmas conception story.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
New Zealand: Semi-Nude Mary and Joseph Spark Outrage
Anglican church defends Christmas billboard campaign showing couple in bed together
A New Zealand church has sparked outrage by erecting a billboard depicting Mary and Joseph lying semi-nude beneath the sheets.
In an unorthodox take on the Christmas tale, the billboard depicts a forlorn Joseph and Mary looking to the sky with a caption which reads: “Poor Joseph. God is a hard act to follow.”
The St Matthew-in-the-City church said it wanted to inspire people to talk about the Christmas story.
But within five hours of the billboard going up in downtown Auckland a man was standing on his car roof painting over the raunchy image.
Archdeacon Glynn Cardy said the church meant to challenge a fundamentalist interpretation of Christ’s birth.
“What we’re trying to do is to get people to think more about what Christmas is all about. Is it about a spiritual male God sending down sperm so a child would be born, or is it about the power of love in our midst as seen in Jesus?”
Cardy said one person had threatened to tear down the billboard but that of the 20 odd emails and phone calls he had received “about 50% said they loved it, and about 50% said it was terribly offensive”.
The Catholic church joined those on the attack, accusing the Anglican church of disrespect.
“It’s flying in the face of our 2,000-year-old beliefs,” a Catholic church spokesman, Lyndsay Freer, said.
The conservative Family First organisation said the Anglican church could debate the Bible story away from the public eye. “To confront children and families with the concept as a street billboard is completely irresponsible and unnecessary,” Family First’s national director, Bob McCoskrie, said.
A complaint has been lodged with New Zealand’s advertising watchdog, the Advertising Authority, but Cardy was unrepentant.
“I don’t see why one person’s protest should deny other people the enjoyment of the billboard.”
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New Zealand: Christians Outraged by Poster Showing Mary and Joseph After Sex
A risque church billboard showing the Virgin Mary and Joseph in bed apparently after having disappointing sex has caused outrage among Christians in New Zealand.
The large poster depicts a dejected-looking Joseph lying next to Mary, whose eyes are turned heavenwards, under the words: “Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow.”
Both figures, painted in classical fresco style, appear to be naked.
Within hours of the billboard being erected outside the Anglican church of St Matthew’s in the City, in central Auckland, it had been attacked by a man who clambered on to the roof of his car to smear brown paint over it.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
‘Somali Pirates’ Held by Dutch Freed: Defence Ministry
THE HAGUE — A band of suspected Somali pirates captured by the Dutch navy after a failed attack on a cargo ship are to be freed after no country would agree to prosecute them, Dutch officials said Thursday.
“The European Union has decided… that the (Dutch warship that captured the pirates) Evertsen must let the 13 Somali pirates go,” the Dutch defence ministry said in a statement.
“The European Union has tried in vain since their arrest to find a country which would agree to prosecute them,” the statement added.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Islam is the New Religion in Rebellious Mexican State Chiapas
More and more Mayan and Tzotzil people in the Mexican state Chiapas are becoming Muslims. It’s fifteen years since the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas and the region has undergone some profound changes. One of them is the emergence of Islam as a new religion in the state. The Muslim community, dominated by converted Mayans and Tzotzils , is slowly gaining ground.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Nicole Ferrand in the Americas Report: Pro-Iran Chavista Daniel Ortega Overturns Term Limits
In recent years, we have been witnessing a pattern in Latin America, where Presidents are elected democratically and then abuse their powers to extend their time in office. Coincidently, these new caudillos are all leftist populists and followers of Hugo Chavez from Venezuela, who started the trend. After 10 years in power, the controversial leader won a referendum in February that abolished term limits for presidents — a move he says is critical to carrying out his “Bolivarian Revolution.” His allies Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador have followed suit, each winning the right to consecutive reelection through constitutional reform, after illegally appointing people of their own political parties to key justice positions.
Most recently, former Honduran President and Chavez’s ally, Manuel Zelaya, was close to securing an indefinite time in power, when he was stopped in his tracks by a resilient opposition who, in spite of being pressured by the OAS and the United States to reinstate the former leader, has stuck to its democratic principles. This loss was almost too much for Chavez, who wants to have control over Latin America to carry out his “Revolution of the XXI Century.” Luckily for him, Daniel Ortega from Nicaragua whose first five-year term began in 1985 has stepped to the plate and has won a Supreme Court ruling last month that paves the way for his reelection in 2011. And he did it in the right moment too, just when the focus of the US administration and the OAS has been on Honduras. Few have paid attention to Nicaragua’s alarming situation that affects both regional and US national security…
| — Hat tip: CSP | [Return to headlines] |
Venezuela’s Chavez Sees US Threat in Dutch Islands
COPENHAGEN — Hugo Chavez accused the Netherlands on Thursday of allowing the United States to use Dutch islands off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast to prepare a possible military attack against his country.
The Venezuelan leader said the U.S. military, to prepare for a possible offensive, has sent intelligence agents, war ships and spy planes to Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire, which are self-governing Dutch islands.
“They are three islands in Venezuela’s territorial waters, but they are still under an imperial regime: the Netherlands,” Chavez said during a speech at a climate change conference in Denmark. “Europe should know that the North American empire is filling these islands with weapons, assassins, American intelligence units, and spy planes and war ships.”
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
International Deal to Resettle 78 Tamils in Several Countries
AUSTRALIA is on the verge of clinching a deal with New Zealand, Canada, Norway and possibly the US to help resettle the 78 Tamil asylum-seekers rescued by the Australian Customs vessel the Oceanic Viking.
The Australian understands a number of countries have indicated a willingness to take some of the Sri Lankans, who were rescued in October after their boat foundered.
However, while sources say “a significant” number of the Sri Lankans are expected to be resettled in third countries, Australia is still set to take the majority.
News of the expected breakthrough came as a boat carrying 55 people was intercepted off Ashmore Reef on Tuesday night.
The interception — the 54th this year — will push the immigration detention centre on Christmas Island to a boatload from breaking point.
According to an Immigration Department spokesman, there are currently 1443 detainees on the island.
But when the 55 intercepted on Tuesday arrive the number will jump to 1498, just 62 shy of the centre’s current capacity of 1560.
There is a growing expectation the government will begin transferring asylum-seekers to detention centres on the mainland, possibly as early as next week. At least three countries — New Zealand, Canada and Norway — are believed to have indicated to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees a willingness to take some of the 78 Tamils.
The US is also understood to be interested, although it is not clear if a formal offer has been made.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Shock for Worthing Day-Trippers After Illegal Immigrant Found
WORTHING day-trippers received a shock when a would-be illegal immigrant was found hiding in the wheel arch of their coach. Around 40 passengers on a Worthing Coaches trip to Cite Europe, in Calais, France, were left stunned when immigration officers at the ferry port found the hidden man, believed to be an Afghan national, during routine checks.
After the coach drivers were questioned by port officials for around an hour, the group were allowed to continue on their way.
Passenger Rod Melling, from Worthing, said the man was believed to have hidden on the coach when it was parked at Cite Europe.
He added: “The drivers said they could be in serious trouble for having not spotted this person when they left Cite Europe and that they had been told by the officials they could be liable for a fine of up to £2,000.
“However, after further delay they were apparently told they would not be prosecuted, at which news the passengers all applauded, as we liked the drivers and would not have wanted them to be held responsible for this incident.”
Paul Barringer, sales director of Lucketts Travel, the parent company of Worthing Coaches, said: “The drivers were spoken to by the authorities.
“They checked the circumstances and were perfectly satisfied the drivers and us had followed the normal procedures.
“Our coaches make the trip several times a week and it’s the first time in my three years with this company I’ve known it happen. It’s a very rare occurrence.”
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
UK: A Gaping Hole in Our £1.2bn ‘Eborder’ Net: Crackdown is Hopelessly Diluted to Meet EU Law
Labour’s £1.2billion ‘electronic borders’ scheme to protect Britain from illegal immigrants and terrorists descended into a shambles last night.
The project’s success depends on logging every passenger movement in and out of the UK so police, border guards and the security service know who is here.
But, in order for the scheme to be ruled legal by EU bureaucrats, the Government has been forced to make a raft of concessions to Brussels.
These include EU citizens and their relatives — regardless of nationality — being allowed to enter the UK even if they refuse to hand over their personal details in advance.
Effectively, the crucial compulsory element of the eborders scheme has been stripped away for millions of people.
Even non-EU citizens will be entitled to fly to Britain without providing the details in advance to eborders so they could be scrutinised. They could, however, then be refused entry.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
College Prof: Christian Crosses Like Swastikas
Student: ‘I felt humiliated and that my spirituality was being demeaned’
A student says a Dallas public community-college teacher compared crosses to swastikas while explaining a school ban on religious items made in ceramics classes.
[…]
Mitchell said she then asked him if he considered a swastika offensive.
He responded, “Of course.”
“She then proceeded to compare the cross to a swastika,” his complaint states. “She stated that many individuals view the cross as an offensive symbol in the same was that many people are offended by swastikas, and that his crosses would therefore not be fired by the department.”
Another student identified only as E.D., claims the department told her to “expand her horizons” when she constructed a cross in ceramics class. She said the adjunct professor teaching the course specifically said she could make any item except a cross.
E.D. said Watral phoned her and told her to “pick up her damn crosses” from the school. But she said when she went to retrieve them, they were destroyed.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Thousands Demand Obama Dump ‘Safe Schools Czar’
Jennings accused of promoting ‘explicit and vile sexual content’
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following includes descriptions of adult themes and objectionable subject material.
Demand for the removal of homosexual advocate Kevin Jennings from his position as chief of the Department of Education’s Office of Safe Schools is growing, with the Washington Post saying the appointment was wrong and thousands joining a petition.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Earth’s Upper Atmosphere Cooling Dramatically
SAN FRANCISCO — When the sun is relatively inactive — as it has been in recent years — the outermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere cools dramatically, new observations find.
The results could help scientists better understand the swelling and shrinking of our planet’s atmosphere, a phenomenon that affects the orbits of satellites and space junk.
The data, from NASA’s TIMED mission, show that Earth’s thermosphere (the layer above 62 miles or 100 km above the Earth’s surface) “responds quite dramatically to the effects of the 11-year solar cycle,” Stan Solomon of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said here this week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Knowing just how the energy flowing out from the sun naturally impacts the state of the thermosphere also will help scientists test predictions that man’s emissions of carbon dioxide should cool this layer. (While that may seem to contradict the idea of global warming, it has long been known that carbon dioxide causes warming in the lowest part of the atmosphere and cooling in the upper layers of the atmosphere.)…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Jihad Forbidden for Women
[Translated by VH]
Muslim women must stay home, support their husbands and take care of their children. It is not the purpose that they join fighting in the Jihad against the West. Says [one of the wives] of Ayman al-Zawahiri in a “press release” from al-Qaeda.
Al-Zawahiri’s wife encouraged Muslim women, despite everything, to continue to wear headscarves. They must resist attempts by Western countries to ban wearing the hijab.
The call is a setback for Hamas. The Palestinian terror organization regularly sends women on suicide missions.
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Real or Fake? “White People Stole My Car” Is Big on Google
For the past week, the phrase “white people stole my car” has been Googled like crazy.
Perplexingly, though, there were few results yielded by this popular search and most links lead to some fairly nasty malware. Finally, the above screenshot surfaced, which seems to at least solve the mystery of why the phrase was so popular on Google. As the screenshot above implies, Googling the term “white people stole my car” results in the search engine asking if black people stole my car. Well that’s… really not cool, Google!
But is it real or fake? As of now, Google does not correct the phrase in a racially insensitive way. And while it does appear that at one time Google did, it’s entirely possible and plausible that someone misspelled “black people stole my car,” got the correction shown, and altered the search text as a prank.
I tried to re-fake a screenshot, but it seems that Google is not correcting any searches to say “black people stole my car” anymore. Bummer.
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Reuters Plans Islamic Finance Portal
CAIRO — Realizing its importance and potentials, the international financial services information company Thompson Reuters is planning to launch a news portal covering information about the Islamic financial industry in early 2010.
“At present there is no global connectivity for the industry and this platform will be able to connect up players from across the globe,” Rushdi Siddiqui, Thomson Reuters global head of Islamic finance, told Gulf Daily News on Wednesday, December 16.
“It will help to increase work flow in the industry with real time news across developments in all asset classes as well as provide data and analytical tools.”
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Sea Rose Eight Metres in Warmer Age: Study
Sea levels were likely eight metres higher around 125,000 years ago when polar temperatures were 3-5 degrees C warmer, says a new study published Wednesday to show the effects of global warming.
The research by the US universities of Harvard and Princeton was released in the journal Nature as the world’s nations met in Denmark to forge a strategy to head off harmful effects of global warming blamed on greenhouse gases.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
1 comments:
"The European Commission yesterday steered away from the controversy over the Italian crucifix issue, saying it had no competence to give its opinion or challenge a decision of a court outside its jurisdiction."
But
"An appeal against the decision by Swiss voters to ban the construction of minarets has been submitted to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg."
Of course Brussels will keep out of the Italian crucifix issue, as it is the "correct" decision. And of course the ECHR will interfere with the Swiss minarets ban despite the legal hurdles, because that was the "wrong" decision.
Please be aware that democracy only counts in the EU when it can be used as a fig leaf by the Kommissars to justify their decisions or actions. Our "leaders" will readily undergo "cold turkey" if democracy shows that the people do not wish to go in the direction their "leaders" have decided.
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