A gunfight erupted between two Egyptian families when a young male in one family complimented a young female from the other family on her appearance. The young lady is a Muslim and the young man is a Christian, so his behavior generated tensions that led to the violent conflict. Two people were injured in the incident, and six were arrested.In other news, a comprehensive report on the University’s response the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre revealed major administrative errors which made the death toll higher than it might otherwise have been.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Henrik, Insubria, JD, JP, Nilk, TB, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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Dubai: Minor Upset in Playground of the Rich — or First Domino of New Crash?
After a traumatic year, markets were breathing a sigh of relief. Then the emirate’s bubble burst, raising fears of a new meltdown
While Iceland’s transformation from fishing nation to financial powerhouse — and back — became a potent symbol of the banking boom and bust of the past few years, the Middle Eastern emirate of Dubai was where the global property bubble was taken to its glitziest extreme.
Without the oil reserves of many of their neighbours, Dubai’s rulers hatched a hubristic plan to turn their city-state in the sand into a glamorous playground for the rich, enthusiastically bankrolled by western investors.
Now, with the state-owned builder of many of Dubai’s most extravagant projects struggling to repay its debts, the world’s financial markets have been forced to wake up to the idea that they may have declared an end to the turmoil of the credit crunch too soon.
Stock markets have soared over the past eight months as investors shrugged off fears that the near-death experience of the world’s financial system when Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers collapsed in October 2008 would lead to a 21st-century great depression. But Dubai’s woes this week were a sharp reminder that there may be plenty more unexploded bombs hidden in the world economy. First, Dubai’s authorities are not alone — a string of other states, including Greece, Ukraine and Ireland, face severe debt problems in the months and years ahead as they tackle the costs of the worst recession in a generation at the same time as clearing up the debris from a rampant credit boom.
The International Monetary Fund has already stepped in to bail out several struggling states, including Iceland, Hungary and Pakistan, but Dubai World’s announcement raised the fear of a new wave of victims emerging.
Second, the economic slump is not over. While many major economies, including the US, Germany and Japan, have come out of recession, recovery has so far been aided by vast emergency infusions of taxpayers’ cash. No one is sure what will happen when those life-support measures are removed next year and central banks begin to shut off low-cost lifelines to banks and raise interest rates.
And third, if Dubai World does default, it will send fresh shockwaves through the world’s financial system. International banks — including the UK’s — have lent Dubai and its firms billions of dollars to fund its glittering glass towers and indoor ski slopes in the desert. The risk that many of those loans may now go sour has reawakened nagging concerns that even after government-backed rescue packages worth trillions of dollars, the worst may not be over for the bombed-out banks. Germany’s Bundesbank warned earlier this week that its banks may face a further €90bn in writedowns on bad loans before the crisis is over.
Uncertainty about whether Dubai World would actually be forced to default, and how much of their money lenders would get back, were exacerbated by the fact that financial markets in Dubai were closed for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. To complicate matters further, the debts were taken out as Islamic bonds, known as sukuks, and the rules about what happens if the borrower fails to pay them back are hazy.
Investors hope Dubai will be bailed out by neighbouring Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates capital — though it is not clear what that might mean for the autonomy of Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid al-Maktoum, famous for breeding and racing thoroughbred horses, and for his £10bn fortune.
But whether Dubai is the first domino to fall in a new wave of the global financial crisis or, as some commentators argued today, just a small city-state whose struggles have few implications for the rest of the world, its frozen cranes, empty skyscrapers and bankrupt expatriates are a powerful parable of what happens when a property boom gets badly out of control.
Dubai’s romantic past as a sleepy fishing and pearling port has all but gone and nowadays the wooden abras that ferry passengers across its famous creek are dwarfed by banks and investment companies in what is the most populous of the seven states of the United Arab Emirates (whose collective economy is superseded only by that of Saudi Arabia among the Arab states of the Gulf).
Footballers and film stars have sprinkled stardust on its arid landscape, buying up villas on exclusive developments such as the extraordinary Palm Jumeirah, a lagoon of man-made islands surrounded by an azure sea. Owners there include David Beckham and a clutch of Premier League stars, Afghan president Hamid Karzai, Russian oligarchs, many rich Indians and some well-connected Iranians.
Leisure opportunities in the “Paris of the Middle East” include some of the biggest and busiest shopping malls on the planet. Westerners enjoy a far freer lifestyle than elsewhere in the Gulf, though the recent experience of the British couple caught having sex was a reminder that there are still cultural taboos to be observed.
Parts of the city have a distinctly subcontinental feel that recalls the old joke about the UAE: “Emirates stands for English-Managed, Indian-Run, Arabs Taking Enormous Salaries.”
In the good years, the cash poured in, spilling over from the oil-rich states of the Middle East, as sky-high oil prices and strong global growth created windfalls for many of its Gulf neighbours, and from the frenzied deal-making in the international financial markets.
The scale of the resulting building boom was extraordinary, sucking in hundreds of thousands of poorly-paid foreign workers and sending property prices in the desert playground sky-high. Long after the sub-prime crisis began in the United States and spread to much of the rest of the world, the emirate responded with its trademark self-confidence — reckless over-confidence to its critics. It was just over a year ago, as the global financial shadows began to lengthen, that Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, the DW chairman, boasted: “Dubai has a vision like no other place on Earth.”
The claim came as Nakheel, the DW property arm, unveiled plans to build the world’s tallest tower, with more than 200 floors — beating its nearest rival, the existing Burj Dubai tower, still under construction and due to open next January.
Nakheel, represented by a slick international PR team, was quick to brush aside fears that the emirate would be infected by the coming recession, insisting that fundamentals remained sound and that returns from overseas investment funds would perform better than oil revenues.
So instead of retreat, Dubai carried on partying. And some even saw a silver lining in the gathering clouds, predicting that leaner times for Dubai would reduce the number of expatriates and help re-establish a sense of national identity.
“We have been bombarded with the tallest, the best, the largest, for the past few years,” said Professor Abdelkhaleq Abdullah of Emirates University. “The novelty has gone.”
But over the past year it has become increasingly clear that the party is over: property prices have fallen by 40-50% from 2007-08 highs and are expected to slide by another 20%. Unemployed Indian workers have left in their tens of thousands while stories of expensive new cars abandoned at the airport by bankrupt foreigners have become the stuff of folklore.
• This article was amended on 27 November 2009. The original described Dubai as the richest of the UAE states and said Dubai’s economy was second in size only to that of Saudi Arabia in the region. This has been corrected.
Holiday homes
Many high-profile celebrities have holiday homes in Dubai. The actors Brad Pitt and Denzel Washington as well as the supermodel Naomi Cambell (below), are all rumoured to own properties on Dubai’s super-exclusive Palm Jumeirah, one of the three constructed Palm Islands in the Persian Gulf.
The developer behind the Palm Jumeirah scheme is Nakheel, whose parent company is Dubai World.
Residents saw their investments collapse this year as Dubai’s property bubble burst and now they could be fearing their properties will be devalued yet further.
Investors are also concerned that Nakheel will not be able to afford to finish work on Palm Jumeirah and its other projects, which will leave a lot of Dubai resembling a building site.
A number of footballers have invested in the area. David Beckham, Michael Owen, David James and Kieron Dyer have reportedly got homes there. The Chelsea and England player Joe Cole had a villa but he sold his property for about $3.5m in the summer, just before Dubai’s property bubble burst.This will also be bad news for a number of UK engineering consultants who are owed money in Dubai. Nelson Ogunshakin, head of the Association of Consulting Engineers (ACE) says UK engineers working in the UAE are owed around £250m.
Banks have also invested heavily in the area. According to the Emirates Bank Association, HSBC has $17bn invested in UAE, Standard Chartered has $7.8bn, Barclays has $3.6bn and has . RBS $2.2bn. Citigroup also has $1.9bn in the UAE whilst BNP Paribas $1.7bn and Lloyds has $1.6bn.
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
France: Champagne Sales Down 7%
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, NOVEMBER 26 — There has been a sharp drop, in line with the economic crisis, in sales of champagne in France where a reduction of 7% in the first half of the year (compared to the same period in 2008) has been recorded. According to a note from the Italian Trade Commission (ICE), the main causes include the price perceived by consumers as too high, above all for luxury champagnes, that has caused a significant drop in the volume sold in the first 9 months of the year (-23%). Operators in the sector are waiting for the festive period, in which they normally make 40% of their sales, and which should see a proliferation of promotions and special offers. On the other hand, sparkling wines, long considered to be second rate, are showing a good increase in terms of sales. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UAE the World’s Biggest Islamic Bond Issuer
MANAMA, Jan 17 (Reuters) — The United Arab Emirates was the world’s top issuer of Islamic bonds during the last seven years, contributing 36.2 percent of global sale value, Kuwait’s Global Investment House (GLOB.KW) said in a report on Thursday.
Malaysia, which along with the Gulf is one of the world’s Islamic banking hubs, came second, contributing 32.1 percent of Islamic bonds by value, though Malaysia issued far more individual bonds, Global said.
The world’s largest Islamic bond or sukuk, worth $3.52 billion, was sold in 2006 by Dubai property developer Nakheel.
The Islamic banking industry has boomed as more of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims seek financial services that comply with their beliefs, especially since Sept. 11 2001, Global said.
“As a result of the U.S. policy towards certain financial organisations and charitable foundations, the Muslim world has reacted by expanding the demand for more Islamic banking,” the investment house said in its report.
Gulf investors are also attracted by higher returns from Islamic over conventional banking, while Western investors are drawn to Islamic investment products as a way to diversify their portfolios, Global said.
There are now at least 300 Islamic financial institutions spread among 75 countries compared with almost none 30 years ago, Global said.
Management consultants McKinsey & Co in December predicted the assets held by Islamic banks would hit $1 trillion by 2010.
The main obstacles to the growth of the industry are a lack of awareness among Muslims of the products and services on offer, and a lack of standardisation of the laws governing Islamic banks, Global said.
“Unless there is a general consensus among the major players of Islamic banking on creating a universally accepted set of regulations that are clear to the masses … the popularity of this concept will become a lingering challenge.”
Islamic law bans interest and instead pays a return derived from underlying physical assets. (Writing by Mohammed Abbas: Editing by David Holmes)
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
Western Investors Watch Nervously as Worth of Islamic Bonds is Tested to Limit
A DEFAULT by Dubai will put the world of Islamic finance to the test at a time when hard questions are being asked by bankers and lawyers about the protection afforded by financial instruments that are Shariah compliant.
The bond that lies at the heart of the threat of default and financial ignominy for Dubai is a sukuk, an instrument invented by bankers and Islamic scholars to comply with a Shariah (Islamic law) prohibition against the payment of interest on money.
Islamic finance has five pillars: a ban on interest, a ban on speculation, a ban on haram (forbidden) investments, such as pork or gambling, the requirement of partnership or sharing of profit and loss and the requirement of asset backing. Getting round the ban on interest is the problem and opportunity of Islamic finance.
A bond that doesn’t (in theory) pay interest sounds unattractive but in the Gulf and Malaysia, Islamic finance has flourished over the past decade.
Typically, interest is expressed as a share in a profit, such as the rent paid for use of a property or asset. According to estimates by HSBC Amanah, the Islamic arm of the British bank, outstanding Islamic finance debt is worth $US822 billion ($902 billion).
Even Western investors have been persuaded to dip their toes in the exotic financial tool, tempted by the deep pool of petrodollars available in the Gulf. Only days before Dubai revealed its bombshell — a threat of possible default on Nakheel’s $US4 billion sukuk — GE Capital, the American financial services group, issued the first sukuk by a Western company, raising $US500 million. The underpinning of a sukuk with assets makes it attractive for use in property lending or asset leasing. The sukuk issued by GE this week was a loan for aircraft leasing.
GE’s decision to use the Islamic finance market for funds reflected renewed confidence in a market that had almost collapsed after expansion in 2007 when the Gulf was awash with money fuelled by high oil prices.
Demand shrivelled after the collapse of Lehman Brothers with only $US16 billion issued last year. More importantly, fears surfaced that sukuk failed to provide the same legal protection as conventional bonds. To date, the legal structure of sukuk has never been tested in a court.
There have been high-profile defaults, including the Saudi Arabian Saad Group and Investment Dar, a Kuwaiti Islamic Investment Fund. Investment Dar owns half of Aston Martin, the luxury British car company, and the fund failed to make a payment in April on a $US100 million sukuk issue. In June, Golden Belt, a $US650 million issue by Saad Group, the investment house controlled by Maan al-Sanea, was downgraded to default status.
The concern is that sukuk creditors may not be protected. According to Neale Downes, a Bahrain-resident partner at Trowers & Hamlins, the law firm, it is not clear how creditors will rank in an insolvency.
In some cases, he said that investors have found themselves competing against other creditors, rather than being able to enforce their claim on the underlying asset supporting the sukuk.
But the repeated declarations of support by Dubai’s ruler gave the market confidence that the sovereign would stand behind its debts. Only a month before the Nakheel shock, Dubai raised $US2 billion in sukuk issues.
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
Judge: State Can Take, Keep Newborns’ Data
‘Blood samples are biological, not genetic, information’
A judge in Minnesota has ruled the state can routinely collect, analyze, store and retrieve biological samples that include DNA from all newborns even though a state law specifically requires prior written authorization.
The decision from Hennepin County District Judge Marilyn Rosenbaum dismissed a case brought by members of nine families who alleged the state was going beyond what it was authorized to do.
Although not part of the lawsuit, Twila Brase, president of the Citizens’ Council on Health Care, has been monitoring the dispute since its beginning, battling the state Department of Health, which reportedly has been taking and warehousing newborns’ genetic makeup for years but not following “written consent requirements.”
The group has cited a number of cases in which the state’s genetic privacy act law apparently was ignored, or there was an attempt to ignore it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Report on Virginia Tech Shooting Finds Notification Delays
RICHMOND, Va. — During the worst campus shooting spree in American history, Virginia Tech officials locked down some administrative buildings and warned their own families more than an hour and a half before the rest of the campus was alerted, according to revisions made in the state’s official report on the tragedy.
The report indicates that students who were initially locked down at West Ambler Johnston residence hall, where the first two victims were killed, were later released from the building by the police and allowed to attend their 9 a.m. classes. Two of those students then went to class in Norris Hall, where they were killed by the shooter.
At least two members of the university’s Policy Group, which was assembled to manage the crisis, let their own families know of the first two shootings, in the residence hall, more than 90 minutes before the group warned the rest of the campus, the report says. The report also says that the university president’s office was locked down about 30 minutes before a formal warning was issued to the rest of the campus.
The original report, issued in 2007, concluded that university officials could have saved lives by notifying students and faculty members earlier about the killings on campus, which left 33 dead, including the shooter.
But the new report said the local police took more than half an hour longer than was initially believed to begin looking for a suspect, a fact first reported by The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
The new report also said university officials failed to contact the family of the shooter’s first victim, Emily Hilscher, for more than three hours, until after she had died. Ms. Hilscher survived for some time after being shot and was taken to two hospitals before she died.
Mark Owczarski, a spokesman for the university, said the revised report was inaccurate and lacked context.
“The revised report describes the two people who alerted their families as Policy Group members, and they were not,” he said. “It also inaccurately describes the actions of those two individuals who alerted their families as though it occurred with approval of senior officials. It did not.”
Mr. Owczarski said he could not elaborate further. But a university official, who requested anonymity because of pending litigation, said that the two people who alerted their families were secretaries for university officials.
One secretary mentioned that there had been a shooting while calling her son to wake him up for class, the official said. The other secretary was visiting her mother when she was called by campus officials and told to get to work right away because there had been a shooting. Before leaving, that secretary informed her mother of the situation, the official said.
The new revelations come more than two and a half years after the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 students and faculty members at the university on April 16, 2007, before taking his own life.
The parent of a victim expressed mixed emotions about the new details.
“The new report contains good information that is relevant,” said Lori Haas, the mother of Emily Haas, who was wounded in the shootings. “But it also points out the fact that the university was not concerned enough with the students and their safety.”
She added, “These were serious mistakes, and we still don’t feel like everything that should be known has been revealed.”
In pending lawsuits, the families of two slain students fault the campus police and university officials for delaying a campuswide warning that a shooter was on the loose. They argue that the campus police advised the university’s Policy Group that the first two shootings at West Ambler Johnston Hall were probably the result of a “lover’s quarrel,” thereby delaying a response that might have prevented the subsequent Norris Hall shootings.
All but two of the families of those killed and injured agreed in 2008 not to sue in exchange for an $11 million state settlement. The lawsuits, on behalf of the slain students Julia Pryde and Erin Peterson, seek damages of $10 million; oral arguments are scheduled for Dec. 14.
Although the new report does not reverse any of the state’s most important initial findings, it includes a more detailed timeline of the actions of the local police and university officials. The report, which was released by Gov. Tim Kaine on Friday, was provided to The New York Times on Thursday night by the family of one of the victims.
Governor Kaine had resisted calls from the families to reopen the investigation, but he agreed to have the report revised to include corrections requested by families of the victims.
TriData, a division of System Planning Corporation, coordinated the original investigation and report for the state, and prepared the recent revisions, which were provided to family members Thursday night.
Calls by victims’ families to reopen the investigation grew stronger in July, after some of Mr. Cho’s missing mental-health records were discovered in the home of the former director of the university’s counseling clinic. The discovery raised new questions about the rigor of the state’s investigation into the shootings.
But an official from the governor’s office said the new report did not alter the state’s initial findings.
“While the addendum corrects and clarifies facts found in the original report,” Kate Paris, an executive assistant to the governor, said in an e-mail message to victims’ families, “the review and revision process tended to reinforce the original recommendations of the panel.”
TriData officials echoed this conclusion.
“While some of the findings have been modified slightly and one added,” TriData said in the new report, “none of the new information merited changes to any recommendations in the original report.”
In a news release on Friday, Governor Kaine said many of the recommendations in the original report were enacted during the 2008 session of the General Assembly, including the clarification of information-sharing procedures and involuntary commitment criteria, mandatory creation of emergency plans for colleges and universities, restrictions on firearm access for those adjudicated mentally ill, and the investment of $41 million in the state’s mental-health operations.
The revised report added to the picture of Mr. Cho’s mental-health problems. Mr. Cho was interviewed several times by Virginia Tech health officials more than a year before his attack, but in each instance, he denied homicidal thoughts and was not admitted for treatment, the report says.
Health officials on campus spoke to Mr. Cho three times in 2005, twice by phone and once in person, after concerns were raised about his behavior.
| [Return to headlines] |
Books: Suburban French Suffer as Much as Arabs
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, DECEMBER 1 — French youths in Paris suburbs too suffer from the social situation like Arabs and Blacks. It is nothing new, even banal, if it wasn’t stated and told of in a small, fun but intense novel, “Mon pere est femme de menage”, written by the 29 year-old Moroccan writer Saphia Azzeddine, attractive and many-sided former companion to the comedian and actor Djamel Debbouze (“Indigenes”, by Rachid Bouchareb, but above all “The Fantastic World of Amelie”). Her first novel, “Confidences a Allah”, in 2007 — the life of a young Moroccan prostitute who becomes the wife of an imam — enjoyed success at the Avignon festival in a theatrical adaptation, in 2008, and will soon become a film. The main character of this second book is a French youth, Paul, nicknamed Polo, who is 13 when the story of his difficult life begins, with an infernal family which lives in an ugly building, with the stairs that stink of urine and a “cleaning lady” father, the ugly and paralyzed mother, the sister that dreams of becoming a miss who he hates. Paul dreams of having a different family, that of his friend Marwan to pass the summer in the country with, because Arabs never attach the first person singular to anything, preferring the plural. He would like to be Jewish or Muslim because the community is reassuring, he loves his father, but not being able to respect or admire him weighs on him: “Often, when I look at him, I see him on all fours cleaning the floor, then I definitely…”. Loving when you cannot respect is pain, and the youth discovers a weapon, words. With words he attempts to remove himself from destiny and with those that the author uses, through Polo, of the marginalised, of the dramas and hopes of adolescence, of the hypocritical middle class. Born in Morocco to a French-Moroccan mother and Moroccan father, with a French degree in sociology, Saphia worked in Geneva in the precious stone sector, made mannequins and was an actress, she is also preparing for her first experience as a director: she will make a film of her first book “Confidences a Allah”:: “a new indispensible adventure”, she says, “because I don’t want it to be filmed by someone else and it is too delicate to speak of the character without falling into clichés”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Parliamentary Speaker: Climate Debate Derailed?
The Speaker of the Danish Parliament has issued a damning criticism of the climate debate, saying politicians gullibly turn theories into facts
As the world prepares to converge on Copenhagen for the COP15 Climate Summit, Denmark’s Speaker of Parliament has expressed serious doubts as to the way in which the climate debate has developed.
“The problem is that lots of people go around saying that the climate change we see is a result of human activity. That is a very dangerous claim,” Parliamentary Speaker and former Finance Minister Thor Pedersen (Lib) tells DR.
“Unfortunately I seem to experience that scientists say: ‘We have a theory’ — then that crosses the road to the politicians who say: ‘We know’. Who can be bothered to hear a scientist who says ‘I have a theory’ when politicians go around saying ‘I know’“ Thor Pedersen says.
No temperature rise
Thor Pedersen adds that the temperature has not risen in the past decade.
“I’m not saying that in the decade that the temperature has fallen or stagnated is enough to evaluate developments. But one should only say what one knows,” the Speaker adds.
“You should say that although we believed in our models, that the temperature would rise from 1998 to 2008, we have to admit that it has not risen. We cannot explain why it has not risen, but we believe we still have a problem. I’m just asking that people say what they actually know,” Pedersen tells DR.
Pedersen says that a major challenge is how to ensure energy and food to cater for the major population growth the world will be experiencing, and that the COP15 Climate Summit could result in an agreement that reduces the pressure on the Earth.
“We should all shake hands and agree to do everything possible to create good living conditions. That has nothing to do with the climate debate, in which we try to determine the globe’s temperature. It is common sense,” Thor Pedersen says in his interview with DR.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Fr. Samir: The Refusal of the Minarets, An Opportunity to Rethink Islam and Europe
Opinion polls in Europe show that the Swiss referendum would have also won in France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Germany, Austria. The no to the minaret is a no to the increasing (and never satisfied) Islamist demands. The European population thinks differently and wants its leaders to reaffirm its identity. The no to the minarets is an invitation to true dialogue.
Paris (AsiaNews) — The outcome of the Swiss referendum has aroused a wave of inquiries and questions on the Internet and in print, with reactions, sometimes very violent, sometimes more favourable. Typically politicians have reacted negatively, criticizing this vote. Instead, people in Europe have been in favour of the outcome.
Some sites and European newspapers have thus voted:
Polls in Europe
In France, the newspaper Le Monde carried out a survey: “To hold a referendum like that of Switzerland is a sign of democracy or irresponsibility? 61.5% said it was a sign of democracy, 33.2% said it was irresponsible, to 5.3% no opinion.
L’Express posed another question: If the same referendum was held in France what would you answer? 86% answered yes, against the minarets, 11% no, 2% did not respond.
Le Figaro, which leans to the right: 77% yes to the ban, 23% no.
BFM, a television, reported these results: 75% yes, 25% no.
Radio Montecarlo 83% yes, 17% no; Euronews, which is to the left, 70% yes, 29% no, 1% do not know.
Le Soir in Belgium: 63.2% yes, 34% no; 2.8 without opinion.
In Spain,”Twenty minutes”: 94% yes, 6% no. El Mundo: 79% yes, 21% no (with 25 thousand people surveyed).
In Germany, Die Welt online: 87% yes, 12% no, 2% do not know. In Austria, Die Presse: 54% yes, 46% no. Is the closest of all surveys.
In Italy I have seen only “Leggo” that gives 84.4% to the yes vote; 13.6% no, 2% do not know.
Nando Pagnoncelli, IPSOS director, said however that “in general the issue of Islam and immigration is causing concern and in some cases social alarm, because there is a perception of fanaticism”. If there were a referendum like the Swiss, the voices are largely in favour of the ban.
In Holland Elzevier reported 86% yes, 16% no.
This gives a picture — perhaps not a perfect one but certainly an interesting one — of a reaction of fear widespread across Europe in the face of danger that comes from Islam. And there is also an act of courage of those who dare to say “enough” despite the propaganda of politicians and the threat of divisions that it has revealed. Commenting on the vote, Dr. Issam Mujahid, spokesman for the Muslim community of Brescia, said: “It ‘a vote of fear,” but he also added, “and we are all responsible.”
Some thoughts on these data
This referendum can become a positive opportunity for us to reflect together. “Now, says Issam Mujahid, we must and we can assume our responsibility to work for dialogue among civilizations and reject the thesis of a clash of civilisations”.
1. People in Europe do not reject the minaret to defend Christianity. Is not a religious problem: it is a problem of culture and visibility.
2. People feel that if they says yes to the minaret, tomorrow the call to prayer will also become widespread, then the microphones, then there will be requests for halal meat in school cafeterias or hospitals, then working breaks for the five prescribed daily prayers (as they tried to do with me at the University of Birmingham in 1991 when I taught there) …. Every now and then Muslims make fresh requests, which grow more and more insistent in places and countries, bringing new demands. And once they obtain a license to behave as they want they never turn back. Muslim groups have yet to be seen stopping their requests at some point. And that makes the Europeans think.
3. If we look at the situation of immigrants, only a little more than a third come from Muslim regions. Two thirds from other areas (Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America). Yet this third is the most discussed because it continually makes religious-cultural demands: The Vietnamese, Chinese, Indians, non-Islamic Africans, Latinos do not stake these claims or have this cultural visibility.
What is the problem?
4. Europe is discovering, with the presence of other cultures that itself has its own culture. The Italian reaction against the Strasbourg decision to abolish the crucifix in public places emphasizes the defence of an element of culture (as well as the religion of many). This rediscovery of culture is essential for dialogue. Muslims come with a strong sense of religious cultural identity because these two fields are not divided in the Islamic world. Europeans, who are the majority, however, find it difficult to say what their identity is. Now, there can be no real dialogue if a partner has a strong identity and the other weak one, or even if both partners are weak. Dialogue may be harder when both have a strong identity, but it is also richer and more valid!
5. On the other hand, Issam Mujahid says, “the culture of Muslim civil society organizations is lacking in Europe. In Europe, Islam is only represented by mosques. And this is wrong”. Integrated Muslims in Europe do not help the immigrant Muslim community to integrate the values of European culture. For their part, imams are often not able to transmit these values, because they themselves have not received them.
6. The sense of the Swiss vote could be summed up as’: “We no longer want to protect cultural diversity and guarantee religious freedom by submitting ourselves to the intolerance of Islam …. which in turn does not tolerate cultural diversity and religious freedom”. Establish a true inter-cultural dialogue
This is an opportunity for Muslims to say what is really important in their faith and their culture and what is missing here in Europe. Certainly, the Muslim can not demand everything he had at home because he is living in another country that has its own laws, rules, customs, etc.. In doing so, we will see if it is possible to establish some directives at national, private or individual levels.
On the European side is time to ask ourselves what defines us and makes us who we really are.
Islam must renew itself, trying to distinguish between the essential and the occasional, and the West must also deepen its own sense of self and see what is essential to their own identity.
Take for example the veil
It is a precept, but it does not mean that it is essential. Many great Muslim authors have written about this. Gamal al-Banna, the younger brother of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, has written a book and several articles to say that the veil is not a requirement. It was at first a council given to wives of Muhammad, it is not clear whether this was for all women. Neither is it clear whether it is called for in a given situation or forever.
This is why up to 50 years ago in the Islamic world, the veil was almost disappeared from countries such as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, etc.. and no imam ever cried shame. Over the past 30 years it has started to come out again and today it has almost become an obligation. Muslims, throughout the course of history have made the distinction between what is fundamental and what is secondary. Even regarding prayer: very few Muslims pray 5 times a day. Increasingly we are seeing that the Muslim community is rejecting imposed religion and respects those who, while believers, do not practice. Religious freedom is the foundation of all freedoms, and if the Muslims demand it for themselves, and rightly so, in Europe, then they must give it to non-Muslims in Muslim countries.
The effort of exegesis and hermeneutics lies in discerning whether something is important or if it is something special, valid only for that time. Many Muslims attempt this exegesis, but the problems are many: there is no established doctrine, there is no teaching authority, an authority that decides and settles controversial issues … T
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Knox ‘Like Wound Spring’
Kercher ‘killed in drug-fuelled rage’
(see previous). (ANSA) — Perugia, December 2 — Amanda Knox was “wound up like a spring” because of house-mate Meredith Kercher’s complaints and “unleashed” her anger in a drug-fuelled rage, the prosecution told the Kercher murder trial Wednesday.
Knox was fed up of Kercher moaning about her bringing boys into the house and having to clean up after her, prosecutor Giuliano Mignini said in his final arguments.
Co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito “always followed Amanda and tried to keep her happy,” he claimed, saying the pair were “full of drugs and alcohol”.
Amanda was “incompatible” with Meredith and with the way the British exchange student expected to run the house, the prosecutor said.
He said Sollecito, Knox’s former boyfriend, was “dependent” on her.
Mignini wound up his case by calling for life imprisonment for Knox and Sollecito.
Mignini’s co-prosecutor Manuela Comodi will deliver her final arguments Thursday. The defendants’ lawyers will then make their final statements. The eight members of the jury will retire on Friday morning, making it likely that a verdict will be handed down on Friday evening or Saturday morning, legal sources say.
Prosecutors say Knox, 22, killed Kercher, 21, with Sollecito and an Ivory Coast man, Rudy Guede, 30, after a sex game went wrong.
Guede was convicted in a fast-track trial last year and is appealing his 30-year sentence.
The defendants deny the charges.
Kercher was found dead in her room with a knife wound to the throat on November 2, 2007.
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Italy: MP Probed for Suspected Mafia Links
Bari, 2 Dec. (AKI) — Prosecutors in the southern Italian city of Bari are investigating a young conservative MP with suspected links to local mafia. Elvira Savino, 33-year-old from the ruling conservative People of Freedom party, is among 129 people under investigation in an anti-mafia operation centred on Bari.
Police on Tuesday arrested at least 83 people and seized assets worth 220 million euros.
Prosecutors suspect Savino of involvement in money laundering for members of Bari’s Parisi crime family, by allowing the clan to open a bogus bank account in her name.
In exchange, Savino received “numerous gifts and favours,” according to prosecutors.
Savino has denied any wrongdoing and said she was prepared to resign if necessary to clear her name.
“I am prepared to resign from my parliamentary seat in order to make it clear that I have no ties to the mafia…it’s all a misunderstanding,” she told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Wednesday.
In the interview, Savino claimed the suspect bank account was her personal account and said that her brother had deposited a 3,000 euro cheque in the account.
“Those are hardly sums of money that indicate money-laundering ,” she stated.
Savino allegedly helped launder cash from a company owned by mafia-linked local businessman Michele Labellarte, who was convicted of fraudulent bankruptcy. He died in September.
In one tapped telephone conversation between Labellarte and Savino, he reportedly told her: “Come on Elvira, don’t be a gossip. Keep quiet!”
Savino told the newspaper that Labellarte was a “friend” and did not believe he had links to the mafia.
She admitted having met Gianpaolo Tarantini, the Bari-based businessman currently under investigation for procuring prostitutes — some of whom allegedly attended Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s parties — drug trafficking and corruption.
“I knew Tarantini, but I never attended any of the parties he organised,” she said.
Lawyers, bank officials, a notary and public administration officials were among those arrested by anti-mafia investigators in Bari on Tuesday. Fifty-three are in prison and 30 were put under house arrest.
Prosecutors are investigating members of the Parisi clan for attempted homicide, extortion, auction rigging, international drug trafficking and money laundering in the Puglia region surrounding Bari.
The raids were carried out in conjunction with special investigators from Italy’s tax police, the Guardia di Finanza, from Bari.
Piero Grasso, a national anti-Mafia prosecutor, said the operation “showed the true face of criminality” in the southern Puglia region.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Relations Between PM and Key Ally Under New Strain
Rome, 2 Dec. (AKI) — Gianfranco Fini, the main political ally of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, has refused to comment about explosive comments he made about the premier. Fini, whose formerly neo-fascist party merged with Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party in March, said that the prime minister “confuses leadership with absolute monarchy” in a conversation published by the media.
The Italian daily La Repubblica published on its website a recording of a conversation between Fini, speaker of the lower house of parliament, and a prosecutor at an event in the eastern city of Pescara on 6 November.
“Regarding the ‘stolen’ video, I have nothing to say,” Fini said on the TV chat show, Ballaro. “I should not have to give any explanation.”
Fabrizio Alfano, Fini’s spokesman, said the video that had appeared on several websites that the microphone had recorded a private conversation that reflected what he said publicly.
In the conversation, Fini also said that Berlusconi was unable to distinguish between “popular consent, which he obviously has and which gives him a mandate to govern, and a sort of immunity from any other authority [such as] the magistracy, the audit court, the [top appeals court], the head of state or parliament”.
But Fini’s comments have provoked widespread concern in Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party and leaders met at the party’s headquarters.
A statement released by party spokesman Daniele Capezzone called for an explanation.
“We are not commenting on off the record comments,” the statement said.
“It is up to the president of the lower house to explain the meaning of the words published by La Repubblica TV and if he still agrees with them,” the statement said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
OIC Group in Geneva Condemns Minaret Ban
In a letter to the Swiss authorities, the OIC Group in Geneva has strongly condemned the decision to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland
Following the result of the referendum to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland, and at the behest of the member states, the OIC Ambassadorial Group in Geneva communicated to the Swiss Government a letter in which the discriminatory decision to ban constructing minarets was strongly condemned. The letter which was forwarded to the Swiss Government on the 3rd of December stated that “the decision was a manifest attack on an Islamic symbol which could only serve to spread hatred and intolerance towards Muslims in general and those living in Switzerland in particular.”
The OIC Ambassadorial Group in Geneva drew the attention of Swiss Government to the fact that “Muslims in Switzerland were peaceful and law abiding citizens. The ban was, therefore, a discriminatory measure that would lead to intolerance towards this community”.
The OIC Group in Geneva welcomed the balanced and constructive statement made by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on 1st December in which she described the vote as “a discriminatory, deeply divisive and thoroughly unfortunate step” that risked putting Switzerland “on a collision course with its international human rights obligations”. She also stated that “politics based on xenophobia or intolerance was extremely disquieting, wherever they occurred” and that “they were corrosive, and — beyond a certain point — could become highly disruptive and even dangerous”. The OIC Ambassadorial Group believed that the High Commissioner was correct to point out that “if allowed to gather momentum, discrimination and intolerance not only do considerable harm to individual members of the targeted group, but they also divide and harm society in general”.
This ban also stands in sharp contradiction to Switzerland’s international human rights obligations concerning freedom of expression, conscience and religion. It adds to the danger that this trend could spread to encompass other areas and activities related to the Muslims in Switzerland. There are reports that the Swiss Peoples Party is now planning further referenda to ban the headscarf among other measures.
The OIC Group has consistently pointed towards the xenophobic and Islamophobic trends in Western societies. The Swiss ban should serve as a warning sign and a wake-up call for all Western countries where calls are being made for similar policies, as it would lead to divisive and discriminatory practices against their Muslim populations.
The OIC Group has taken note of the opposition by the Government of Switzerland to this ban but regrets that “the absence of a more pronounced and concerted campaign against the ban gave its proponents a heavy margin in the referendum. It is hoped that the Swiss Government would do all in its powers to rescind this decision through appropriate parliamentary and judicial measures.
The OIC Ambassadors further hope that sustained efforts would be made by the Swiss authorities in particular and western authorities in general including the civil society, to fight the scourge of discrimination and xenophobia.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Search Engine Lists Netherlands’ 314,000 Different Surnames
AMSTERDAM, 04/12/09 — The University of Utrecht and Amsterdam’s Meertens Institute yesterday opened the Netherlands Family Names Bank. The institutes have registered 314,000 family names occurring in the Netherlands.
The most frequently occurring surnames among the indigenous Dutch are De Jong, Jansen and De Vries. The three fast-growing surnames are logically those of immigrants: Yilmaz, Nguyen and Ali.
The databank also shows the geographical distribution of surnames. For example, names ending in -sma or -stra, such as Terpstra, originate from Friesland. Names ending in -ink, such as Wellink, have their roots in the Twente region.
In total, supplementary information has been added to over 100,000 names, such as genealogical changes, variants on the name and likely origin. The Netherlands Family Names Bank can be found at www.meertens.knaw.nl/nfb.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Congress Approves Removal of Crucifixes From Schools
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, DECEMBER 3 — The Spanish Congress of Deputies yesterday approved a motion which commits the government to removing crucifixes from public schools, in agreement with the decision of the European Court of Human rights in Strasbourg. The motion, presented by the independent republicans of ERC, obtained votes in favour from the PSOE, the radical left IU-ICV and the Galician Nationalist Bloc. Votes against the motion came from the People’s Party and the Christian democrats of the CiU. The motions, quoted today by the media, commits the government under social PM Zapatero to transfer into the national legal order the sentence passed on November 2 by the court in Strasbourg, following an appeal by a female citizen against the Italian state over the presence of religious symbols in schools. The motion is however not binding. The approved text refers to school buildings, without specifying that it is referring to public ones. Commenting on November 5 on the sentence by the Strasbourg court, Justice Minister Francisco Caamao assured that it would be taken into account by the government in the drafting of the law on religious freedom, frozen by the government pending a more opportune political moment. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Judge Upholds Saharawi Activist’s Complaint
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, DECEMBER 2 — Yesterday Audiencia Nacional judge Eloy Velasco upheld the complaint made by the human rights activist for the Saharawi populace, Aminatou Haidar, who has been on a hunger strike for the past 18 days to protest against her forced transfer from El Aiuun to Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. According to judiciary sources quoted by the media, Velasco has requested that the prosecution state whether it intends to begin criminal proceedings. The complaint filed by Haidar is against Morocco for illegal expulsion as well as against Spanish authorities and the Civil Guard for sequester and maltreatment. Concerns are growing over the health of the activist, who is a well-known figure in the cause for the rights of the Saharawi population in the Western Sahara and who has been awarded with numerous international prizes for her work. She has always turned down all the offers made by the Spanish government: Spanish nationality, political asylum and the request for a new passport from Morocco. Premier José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said yesterday that the government would present her with new proposals, while the head of the Foreign Ministry Cabinet, Augustin Santos, has asked for the help of UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon. At the centre of Haidar’s protest is Morocco’s refusal to grant the Saharawi populace the right to a referendum on self-determination of the Western Sahara, over which Morocco imposed its rule in 1975 when Spain gave up its former colony. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Muslims Urged to Seek Removal of Ban on Minarets
Qatar’s prominent Islamic scholar and chairman of the International Federation of Ulema (IFU) Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi has urged the Muslims of Switzerland to seek the annulment of the ban on the construction of minarets on mosques in that country, according to reports published in the local Arabic press.
Addressing a message to the Muslims of Switzerland in the context of the referendum in which 57.5% of the Swiss people voted for the ban, Sheikh Qaradawi said:
“Consider yourself as an integral part of the society you live in; be loyal, honest and sincere to your country of domicile. You should work hard and be perfect in whatever work you do for the sake of the progress and betterment of that country. Do not be upset by those who want to antagonise and frustrate you. Indeed you should try to reason with them in a calm and composed manner. Be tolerant and patient whenever you feel hurt and let down. The IFU is of the view that this decision, irrespective of the fact that it has been taken on a majority vote, is a new form of animosity against Islam and Muslims in Switzerland. The rest of Europe may perhaps follow suit as indicated by Denmark. It has hailed this vote and announced that it will make a similar move. It is obligatory on the part of the Swiss government to take necessary measures to safeguard the lives of the Muslim minority against this animosity. The IFU urges the Muslim minority in Switzerland to be calm and restrain from emotional reactions. They should seek to have this decision annulled through legal and democratic channels. And work in co-ordination with all those local and international organisations that have deplored this decision. The IFU also calls upon the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) to launch an international campaign against this decision and to expose the double standards practised by the Western countries.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Legal Questions Raised Following Minaret Vote
After Switzerland’s vote to ban the construction of minarets, a plan to build such a tower in the town of Langenthal could provoke an international conflict.
One possible scenario is that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) could force Switzerland to lift the ban, with Langenthal being a test case.
The Muslims of Langenthal are standing behind their minaret plans, despite Sunday’s vote. “We will fight, if necessary before the Federal Court in Lausanne or in Strasbourg,” commented local Muslim leader Mutalip Karaademi.
Local minaret opponents, however, consider this as a plan that’s being forced on them and say the construction of the minaret would constitute “Islamic power expansion”.
For most legal experts, the case is clear: The minaret ban runs contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights. It contravenes both the clause in the convention on the prohibition of discrimination and the guarantee of religious freedom.
“There is hardly an objective reason why the minaret ban can stand up against the convention,” Rainer Schweizer, a professor of criminal law at St Gallen University, told swissinfo.ch.
That means that the ECJ in Strasbourg could one day severely reprimand Switzerland and force it to withdraw the minaret ban, which is now anchored in the Swiss constitution.
Such a change of the Swiss constitution would have to be accepted by a vote and that would very probably lead to a politically crucial nationwide test.
Religious freedom
The local Islamic community — 130 members from Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo — handed in plans to renovate their meeting place in 2006, which included construction of a six-metre-high minaret.
The project has since been an issue for both planning and cantonal authorities. After the town’s authorities gave planning permission, protests were lodged; a revised project was put forward and once again there were objections. It’s now in the hands of the cantonal authorities.
After the approval of the minaret ban on Sunday, the future of construction is unclear. The question is whether the Langenthal minaret falls under the ban or not. Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf says the situation is unclear because the local authorities had already approved it twice.
Schweizer told swissinfo.ch he does not exclude the possibility that the minaret plan falls under Bernese legislation, which stipulates that the law in force on the day of the planning application applies.
“Complex case”
The president of the European Court of Human Rights, Jean-Paul Costa, has described the minaret ban as a “complex case” and said that it was unlikely that an appeal against the result would end up before the court.
Costa noted that it was not clear who would bring the case to the Strasbourg court because they would have to be a direct victim of the ban.
The rightwing Swiss People’s has already said that if the Strasbourg court turns against Switzerland, Bern should pull out of the human rights convention.
According to the leading supporter of the initiative to ban minarets, Ulrich Schlüer of the People’s Party, Switzerland also has to be prepared to be thrown out of the Council of Europe.
If this were the case, Switzerland would be “totally isolated”, according to constitutional law expert Jörg Paul Müller.
But Swiss legal scholar and professor Walter Kälin, feels Switzerland would not want to abandon the convention on account of the minaret issue.
Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has also said that terminating international treaties is no option: “Building a wall behind our mountains cannot be a solution.”
Andreas Keiser, swissinfo.ch (Adapted from German by Robert Brookes)
SWITZERLAND AND MINARETS
Switzerland is the first European country that has forbidden the construction of minarets.
On November 29, 57.5% of voters were in favour of a people’s initiative that said quite simply: Against the construction of minarets.
Several plans for the construction of 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.
————————————————————————————————————————
KEY FACTS
The Muslim community accounts for about 4.5% of the Swiss population.
Most Muslims resident in Switzerland come from countries of the former Yugoslavia and Turkey. The majority are moderate Sunnis.
There are an estimated 200 mosques and prayer rooms in Switzerland, but only four have a minaret.
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Wines: France Top Producer Again
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, DECEMBER 2 — According to the International Wine and Vineyards Organisation (OIV), in 2009 France regained its position as top wine producer at the world level after having been overtaken by Italy in 2007. according to OIV data, 2009 French production reached 45.7 million hectolitres against Italy’s 45.5. At a global level production remained stable compared with 2008 (and is estimated at between 262.8 and 273.1 million hectolitres), while consumption is expected to continue dropping due to the current world crisis (with 2009 consumption estimated at between 241 and 251.5 million hectolitres). Despite good production levels, French wine producers are concerned, since exports of French wine dropped by 12% in volume and 26% in value in the first six months of the year. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Bosnia: Religious Leader Deplores European Stance on Muslims
Sarajevo, 2 Dec. (AKI) — Bosnian Muslim spiritual leader Reiss-ul-Ulema Mustafa Ceric has criticised European policies towards Muslims, claiming they are treated as second-class citizens. His comments came days after voters in Switzerland opposed the building of minarets in a controversial referendum.
The Swiss minaret ban and the European Union’s exclusion of Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina from a recent visa waiver were two poor messages for European Muslims, Ceric said ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
“Unfortunately, the message from Brussels that we are less worthy than our neighbours Serbs, Montenegrins, Macedonians and Croats, and the one from Switzerland that our cultural and religious symbols are unwelcome, are discouraging,” Ceric said.
The EU this week abolished visas to the three Balkan countries of Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro but said Muslim-majority Albania and Bosnia had failed to qualify for the waiver.
Ceric said the minaret ban was important for Bosnian Muslims.
“But it is more important to secure the right to life in Europe and to be freed of fear for the future of their children,” he stated.
“Obviously, Europe is not only in economic, but in a moral crisis as well,” Ceric said.
“If it is aware of that, instead of sinking further into the crisis Europe should see in European Muslims partners for economic and moral recovery,” he concluded.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria-Egypt: Khelil in Cairo, Taking Stock After Tension
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, DECEMBER 3 — The Algerian Energy Minister, Chakib Khelil, will be in Cairo starting on December 5 to take part in the OPEC meeting. It is a visit that, in the Algerian press, represents a true test of relations between Algeria and Egypt, after the ‘football’ tensions last month during the qualifying matches in the North African country for the 2010 World Cup. Khelil also announced that “discussions will be set in motion between Sonatrach (Algerian state-owned hydrocarbons agency) and the Egyptian company GPC for the organisation and creation of a joint company to operate in both countries in the energy sector. Egypt is “an important country” added the minister, “to which we sell a million tonnes of LPG every year.” During his visit, a number of decisions will be made as concerns Egyptian workers employed in various work sites in Algeria, who over the past month have left the country tension and violence arose following the last two football matches between the two. If the workers do not go back then they will be replaced, said Khelil, since the projects must be completed by their agreed deadlines. Egypt’s Orascom, owner of the telephone company Djezzy, is building — along with France’s Alstom — an electricity plant in Terga, and is also involved in the building of the petrochemical complex in Arzew (west Algeria). Sonatrach is instead active in Egypt with two offshore fields which it obtained in 2007 along with Statoil.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
As Muslims Bash Swiss Minaret Ban, Egypt’s Christians Cry Foul
By Joseph Mayton
CAIRO — As Egypt’s Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa lashed out at Switzerland voters’ decision to ban minaret construction in the European country on Monday, Christians in the Arab country have voiced their concern of what they are calling the “hypocrisy” of Egyptian society. They question whether Egypt, which has been forceful in its refusal to allow the construction of churches in recent years, is in a position to criticize the Swiss move.
“We received this initiative in sorrow and it is considered as a humiliation for the Muslim community in and out of Switzerland,” Gomaa said in comments published by daily newspaper Al-Akhbar.
The Mufti expressed his concerns about the decision which he said would deepen Muslims’ feeling of discrimination and is an insult to the faith.
“This proposal…is not considered just an attack on freedom of beliefs, but also an attempt to insult the feelings of the Muslim community in and outside Switzerland,” Gomaa added.
But, for Christians in Egypt, they are demanding honesty as critics asunder argument upon argument against the Swiss move, which was not supported by business circles, the government or religious leaders.
“I was shocked to hear of what happened in Switzerland, but to be honest, I find it even more strange that Muslim leaders are saying what they are saying when almost the exact same thing happens in Egypt,” said Maged Idris, a local pharmacist in Cairo. “They should not be so quick to judge that’s all.”
57 percent of Swiss voters supported the referendum to ban Islamic minarets in the country. The direct democracy referendum inspired by the right-wing movement in the country, with opposition being led by the German-speaking portion of the country. There was sense that in the cities, especially Geneva, home to the United Nations offices, voters rejected the ban by nearly 60 percent.
Turnout in the vote was at 53 percent, a low number by Swiss standards. Those against the measure said this was a reflection of the apathy of young people in caring about the future of the country. But for the conservative segments of society, the vote galvanized a massive turnout, which ultimately voted for the ban.
Amnesty International said in a statement shortly after the vote on Sunday that the banning of minarets in the European country is a violation of freedom of religion and should be overturned immediately. They said that it violates the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of religious belief as established by a number of international human rights agreements to which Switzerland is a party to.
“The yes vote comes as a surprise and a great disappointment. That Switzerland, a country with a long tradition of religious tolerance and the provision of refuge to the persecuted, should have accepted such a grotesquely discriminatory proposal is shocking indeed,” said David Diaz-Jogeix, Europe and Central Asia Deputy Programme Director at Amnesty International.
Coptic lawyer Naguib Gobrail, a firebrand leader, has voiced his concern over Gomaa and others’ statements over the Swiss vote. He said that Egyptians should see the realities of their own country before criticizing the European nation. He argued that until Egypt makes it nearly impossible for new churches to be built, “so why should they have any right to say the things they are saying.”
He added that their statements are an “insult to Christians” living in Egypt who have been forced to face “injustice upon injustice over their basic rights.” He continued to say that no matter what leaders in the country say, Christians know the truth.
“We have lived under constant threat for a long time and have been unable to even build our places to worship because the government won’t give us the proper permission. Now, Switzerland does something very racist and stupid, but Muslims in this country must understand that they do the same thing to us,” Gobrail argued.
Permission for churches is controversial in Egypt, where by law the president must give final say in the use of a certain space for religious purposes. Rights groups argue that because the president delegates authority in the matter to local officials, Copts have been forced to use illegal places for worship.
Many activists and rights groups have called on the government to install a unified building law for religious groups in order to end these spates of violence, but Cairo is dragging its feet, argued Gobrail.
“The unified religious building law has been stalled for over 15 years in the Parliament. Three Parliamentary terms and nothing has happened,” the lawyer added.
A number of activists on the social-networking site, Twitter, agree with Gobrail’s sentiments. They said that if a vote were to be had in Egypt, a vast majority of Egyptians would vote against allowing churches to be constructed.
For now, at least, Arabs and Europeans are again at odds over the path of development on the continent. Although it is likely to create more tension between the Muslim minority in Europe and the majority, most agree it will pass quickly.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Compliments to Muslim Girl, 2 Injured and 6 Arrested
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, DECEMBER 3 — Further tension between different religious groups has been seen in Upper Egypt, where an argument between a Christian family and a Muslim one degenerated into a shootout in which two were injured and six arrested by the police. Reports were in the local press today. According to witnesses, it is believed that the entire incident arose when a young Christian man complimented a Muslim girl on her appearance. Tensions between the two families got worse when a few shots were fired by a member of the Christian family, injuring two of the Muslim girl’s relatives. Members of both families, six overall, were arrested. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: NGO Report Cites Torture
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, DECEMBER 3 — The human rights situation in Egypt is not good, becoming a “police state” where torture has become “systematic” and “routine”. Reporting the fact are 16 Egyptian NGOs, which have already called for the attention of the UN Human Rights Council. According to the report, published on the site of the Cairo Center for Human Rights, the prerogatives of the security apparatus have increased over the years ensuring it a central role in all areas of public life. Among the tortures practiced, electric shocks to the feet, head and genitals, and for women threatened or enacted sexual violence. Torture, the report reads, is practiced for different regions: from the intent of recruiting police informers to that of renouncing an apartment. The law moreover, it is highlighted, does not guarantee the right to report the events to the victims of the abuse, as the penal action comes from the same state prosecutor. In the report it is stressed that 1 Egyptian out of 5 lives in poverty, according to the data from the UN and World Bank, and that about half of the population is not covered by health insurance and that the state did not spend more than 3.6% of the 2008-09 budget on public healthcare. Steps forward have been recorded however, the report concludes, in the field of women’s rights, even if there is still widespread discrimination in the judicial system as in everyday life. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Elbaradei, Conditions to Run for Presidency
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, DECEMBER 4 — Mohamed ElBaradei has announced his willingness to run for president in Egypt’s next elections, but said that he would do so only on a number of conditions concerning changes to the constitution. According to Egyptian papers (especially Al Masri El Yom), the former secretary general of the International Agency for Atomic Energy asked that an independent committee supervise the elections and that voting be watched over by the judiciary and international bodies. In a statement published in the independent daily paper Al Masri Al Yom, ElBaradei has requested an independent and neutral national commission to ensure transparency in the lections, supervision by the judiciary, international UN observers, the “purification” of electoral lists (meaning the cancellation of those who have died from the list of voters) and the assigning of equal space within the media for all the candidates who would like to present their ideas and programmes. These guarantees, say ElBaradei, are important to ensure the authenticity of the elections and to clearly show the world that true reform is underway in Egypt. However, if he decided to run for president, the former IAEA secretary general of (whose term ended a few days ago) will do it in response to demand by a wide majority of citizens, whether party members or independents. As concerns the constitutional reform proposed, he said that it must ensure freedom and human rights for all. It must also ensure a precise balance and reciprocal checks between legislative, judicial and executive powers. He added that the new constitution must ensure participation by all social classes and categories in the democratic process. And everyone must take part — concluded ElBarardei in noting that for the time being it is not necessary to worry about the past — in creating a society marked by freedom of expression and religion and respect for minority groups.
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Swiss Minarets: No Change in Relation With Islam, Ambassador
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, NOVEMBER 30 — Swiss relations with the Islamic world will remain distinguished even after the minaret ban, Swiss Ambassador in Cairo, Swiss Ambassador to Cairo Dominik Furgler said as Mena reports. Commenting on statements by Egyptian Mufti Ali Gomaa that the ban is an attack on religious freedom and reflects disdain to the Islamic world, Furgler said there is religious freedom in Switzerland and Muslims will continue to perform their rituals and prayers. The ban does not mean refusing the presence of Muslims in the country, he stressed. Even after the ban, Muslims can build more mosques, he said, noting that there is a large number of mosques in Switzerland. Switzerland is holding dialogue with the Islamic world to explain its decision, he said, highlighting the importance of dialogue among cultures and religions. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: Zidane to Visit for UNICEF, Criticises Israel
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, DECEMBER 3 — France’s former world champion Zinedine Zidane, the hero of football fans the world over, will soon be visiting the Gaza Strip (the part of Palestinian territory controlled by the Islamic Hamas) as special ambassador for UNICEF, the UN agency for children’s rights. Reports have appeared on the Israeli site Ynet a few weeks before the first anniversary of the beginning of the military operation Cast Lead, which was conducted last winter and which — according to local estimates — resulted in the deaths of about 1,400 Palestinians, including many children and youths. According to Ynet, the former Juventus and Real Madrid star — an Algerian-born Muslim — is expected to visit Gaza by the end of March for a “mission of peace and solidarity”. “I am excited to have been chosen by UNICEF as envoy to the Gaza Strip,” said Zidane, “and will do all I can to bring some smiles to the faces of those living there.” The people there, said the French-Algerian champion, “have suffered enormous losses, injuries and damage due to the acts of violence committed by Israel.”(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Officials Step Up Monitoring of Jews
‘They come out and try to interact with our leadership’
TEL AVIV — The Obama administration in recent weeks has stepped up its monitoring of Jewish construction projects in eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, WND has learned.
Obama has called for a complete halt to what he calls settlement activity, meaning Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a 10-month freeze on new Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank.
[…]
Ha’ivri said the consular officials present themselves as advisers to the U.S. consul-general.
“But we know they are really spies for the Obama administration,” he said.
Jerusalem officials affirm the consular staff report to Obama’s envoy, Mitchell.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Shalit: Lieberman Rules Out Barghuti Freeing
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM, DECEMBER 3 — Israel’s foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, has categorically excluded any possibility that the al-Fatah leader, Marwan Barghuti, one of the symbolic leaders of the Intifada, who is serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison, may be freed in exchange for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who is being held in Gaza. “I can guarantee that Barghuti will not be freed,” Lieberman said in an interview on ‘Radio 103’, which was re-broadcast on state TV. “We do not have any intention of releasing him because this is not just a murderer, but the head (of a gang) of murderers,” Lieberman added. Nonetheless, in exchange for Corporal Ghilad Shalit, who was captured by Hamas in 2006, Israel would appear to be willing to free one thousand Palestinians who have been involved in Intifada-related acts of violence.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Anti-MacArthur Moment
Tom Engelhardt: How The Generals Outflanked Barack Obama To Score Their Triumph
Let others deal with the details of President Obama’s Afghan speech, with the on-ramps and off-ramps, those 30,000 U.S. troops going in and just where they will be deployed, the benchmarks for what’s called “good governance” in Afghanistan, the corruption of the Karzai regime, the viability of counterinsurgency warfare, the reliability of NATO allies, and so on. Let’s just skip to the most essential point which, in a nutshell, is this: Victory at Last!
It’s been a long time coming, but finally American war commanders have effectively marshaled their forces, netcentrically outmaneuvering and outflanking the enemy. They have shocked-and-awed their opponents, won the necessary hearts-and-minds, and so, for the first time in at least two decades, stand at the heights of success, triumphant at last.
And no, I’m not talking about post-surge Iraq and certainly not about devolving Afghanistan. I’m talking about what’s happening in Washington.
A Symbolic Surrender of Civilian Authority
You may not think so, but on Tuesday night from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, in his first prime-time presidential address to the nation, Barack Obama surrendered. It may not have looked like that: there were no surrender documents; he wasn’t on the deck of the USS Missouri; he never bowed his head. Still, from today on, think of him not as the commander-in-chief, but as the commanded-in-chief.
And give credit to the victors. Their campaign was nothing short of brilliant…
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Minarets: Fears Not Anger in Gulf Press
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, DECEMBER 1 — Worry more than fear has been expressed after the vote expressed by Swiss voters against the construction of minarets in Switzerland in the editorials of newspapers from the countries of the Gulf. The news, which found little space in papers yesterday probably due to time differences, jumped with vigour from the pages of the papers today. For Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Gazette, the result is “disorienting and causes fear” and represents “an incredible discrimination in a nation otherwise rich and educated”. The Swiss vote is a “sad sign of fear and xenophobia” for the Emirate publication Gulf News which criticises the decision as “myopic” and warns of “negative implications for economic relations between Switzerland and Muslim nations”. Even the Qatar Peninsula stressed the concept of fear insisting that the choice is the result of “anti-Islamic hysteria spread by rightwing groups and some media that depict Islam as the erosion of European values. “That the anti-referendum campaign instituted by the government failed”, the paper concluded, “highlights the level of psychosis that the fear has reached”.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland May Have Acted Badly, But is the Church Truly Free in Turkey, Turkish Journalist Asks
Turkish leaders react to Swiss referendum that bans minarets. Muslims are asked to withdraw their money from Switzerland. But some wonder whether the Turkish government should look into its own “nasty little secrets” to see the denied permits to build or restore churches and the promises made but never kept with regards to Saint Paul’s Church in Tarsus and the Orthodox theological school in Halki.
Ankara (AsiaNews) — Amidst the noise caused in Turkey by the Swiss referendum on minarets, some courageous voices can be heard questioning how real is religious freedom guaranteed by the Turkish government. Turkish journalist Serkan Ocak, writing on Radikal yesterday, notes with extreme lucidity that whilst Switzerland acted badly, “is the Church in Turkey truly free?”
Turkey is among the first Muslim countries to react to the outcome of the Swiss referendum. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, head of the moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party, had harsh words, calling the outcome a “sign of an increasing racist and Fascist stance in Europe.” Turkish President Abdullah Gul said the vote was a “disgrace” for Switzerland. Turkey’s Minister for EU Affairs Egemin Bagis made an appeal to Muslims on Hurriyet in which he asked them to withdraw their money from Swiss banks, and urged his compatriots to choose Turkish banks.
“The doors of Turkish banks are wide open,” he said. Switzerland should “backtrack on this wrong decision” to ban minarets. “We need to empty Swiss banks coffers,” he said
As opposed to such heated reactions, other voices in Turkey have called on Turks to look into their own nasty little past. “Switzerland may have acted badly, but . . . is the Church truly free in Turkey?” Turkish journalist Serkan Ocak titled his article in Radikal yesterday. In a clear analysis, he raised questions about religious freedom in his country, showing that, despite angry words by Turkish authorities about the racist scandal in Switzerland, it is practically impossible to build a new church in Turkey, or even return an old unused church to its original use.
“Since 2003 in accordance with a European Union directive and Turkey’s building code, it is possible to open a new church,” Serkan said. “In practice however, it is not easy to do.”
In his in-depth article, he gave an example of the situation. “The Protestant Church of Salvation applied for a permit to build ten religious buildings seven years ago, and is still waiting for one. The law says that authorisation can be granted to build churches but the power to grant the permit is left to district prefects, who are not inclined to issue any. Even in Ankara, the prefect turned down an application for a Protestant place of worship in Cankaya neighbourhood on the ground that “there is not enough space”.
In Turkey, a great number of restrictions apply to religious freedom. Serkan cites another example. In 2003, lawyer Orhan Kemal Cengiz obtained the authorisation for one or two buildings. However, even though “a right is recognised and granted to a minority, certain conditions are imposed that make it virtually impossible for that right to be exercised.”
Some time ago, “a circular was issued, saying that places of worship must cover at least 2,500 m2. It is obvious that this creates huge difficulties. The same applies to restoration work or architectural changes. According to the law, only foundations are entitled to carry out such work. Thus, using certain technicalities, issues are never solved. Because of this, the Catholic Church is still not recognised as a legal person.”
The situation concerning Saint Paul’s Church in Tarsus is also at an impasse. The building was turned into a museum years ago, but Christians want it back to use as a place of worship. Whilst pilgrims who visit the church for mass are no longer required to pay an entrance fee, problems remains and are quite real.
Mgr Luigi Padovese, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Turkey and apostolic vicar for Anatolia, explains, “In addition to the practice adopted by Turkish authorities at the end of the Pauline Year, which forces groups to reserve at least three days ahead of time for any Eucharistic celebration, uniformed police have now begun entering the church during functions; ostensibly for “security reasons”. If at least they would come in plain clothes to avoid causing any alarm among pilgrims. Turkish minister of Culture and Tourism had raised hopes when he said that this “museum” in Tarsus could become a church again, but now no one knows when the situation will actually change.”
Many promises were also made to the Orthodox Church, but nothing has been done. Despite Erdogan’s nice words when he met on 15 August of this year the Greek Patriarch Bartholomew I and the heads of other religious minorities, the Orthodox theological school of Halki has still not reopened after it was shutdown in 1971. More importantly, there is no sign it will be reopened anytime soon.
The problem in Turkey runs deeper than seeing parallels between the fate of minarets and Church bell towers. Since 2002, the Turkish government has been reassuring the Vatican and the Orthodox Patriarchate that steps would be taken towards respect for religious freedom.
Even though Turkey’s secular constitution guarantees everyone complete freedom of worship irrespective of religion, Christians continue to have a hard time finding a church that is open. Many of them also continue to experience social discrimination and so choose not to show their religious identity in public.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Blast: Minister, Three People Died, One is Iranian
(ANSAmed) — DAMASCUS, DECEMBER 3 — Only one Iranian citizen, the driver of the bus, died in this morning’s explosion in the Damascus suburb of Sayda Zeinab. He was killed along with two Syrian workers at a petrol station, Syrian state TV claims. Citing the country’s interior minister, Said Sammur, the broadcaster gave a definitive toll of the number of casualties: three dead and four injured, from the “incident” which caught up a bus full of Iranian pilgrims. According to the Minister it was caused “by the bursting of a tyre”. Previously, pan-Arab satellite TV stations had spoken of a bomb attack and the deaths of at least five persons and the injuring of dozens of others. Sources in the Iranian press had initially spoken of the deaths of “Iranians” from the blast. After more than four hours, Syrian state TV showed pictures “of the incident”. Close-up video shots show a yellow coach with its rear motor end seriously damaged and burnt, with clear signs of an explosion. The pictures also show all the windows shattered and the windscreen completely destroyed. Interview by the broadcaster on the scene of the “incident”, Interior Minister Said Sammur spoke of how the coach had been empty at the moment of the explosion, parked in a workshop for repairs. The images shown on TV focus on very restricted views of the scene, showing only details of the damaged bus, without an overall view of the explosion site.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Italy ‘To Send Extra 1,000 Troops’ In 2010
Rome, 3 Dec. (AKI) — Italy will send around 1,000 extra troops to Afghanistan next year. The country’s defence minister Ignazio La Russa announced the move in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera published on Wednesday.
“The extra Italian troops will be sent in the second half of 2010, and will be redeployed from other missions,” La Russa said.
“The exact number of troops to be sent will be agreed in the next few days at a meeting between Italy’s foreign minister Franco Frattini and US secretary of state Hillary Clinton. But the figure will be around 1,000.”
US president Barack Obama on Wednesday announced the US would send 30,000 more soldiers to fight the worsening insurgency in the war-torn country and called on NATO allies to boost their deployments.
NATO foreign ministers were due to meet on Thursday to discuss the number of additional troops to be sent by its various member states to boost the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan.
NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Wednesday non-US members would contribute at least 5,000 extra troops next year and probably “a few thousand in addition”.
Italy currently has around 3,500 troops serving in Afghanistan, mainly in the west of the country.
La Russa said around 1,000 Italian troops would be re-deployed to Afghanistan from the Italian mission in Kosovo, and at least 200 from Lebanon.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladesh: Police Abuse Family in Dhaka in Order to Throw Them Out of Their House
About 30 police agents try to rape a woman’s daughter and kill her son. They beat the whole family with rifle butts and rods. The woman is forced to sign a statement pledging to leave her home. All this is done because a couple of officials want the land on which her house is located.
Dhaka (AsiaNews) — Ayesha Begum, a Muslim mother living in Sonir Akhra, a Dhaka neighbourhood, told AsiaNews that tens of police officers tried to rape her daughter and kill her son. They also beat up her entire family with rifle butts and rods in order to force her to sign a statement declaring that she would vacate her home. The leader of a local clan, Mohammed Shajahan, and a government official, Bashir, are behind the attempt to strip the woman of her property.
The complaint came during a meeting with journalists yesterday. According to the woman, on 22 November, a “group of 30 to 35 plainclothes policemen” got into her house and began breaking everything they found. They were led by Chief Inspector capo Moniruzzaman and Deputy Inspectors Jiarat Hossain and Mazharul Islam.
“They broke in at around 11 pm,” Ayesha Begum explained, and told everyone to leave the premises. When she refused, they began to beat up the family “with rifle butts and rods”. They then “half stripped Putul,” the woman’s daughter who had tried to protect her mother, and tried to “rape her.” They also hit her younger daughter Janatul, who lost a lot of blood, and threatened to kill her brother Tarim. Finally, the police forced the woman to sign a paper in which she pledged to vacate the house (which she has owned for the past 14 years) before 1 December.
“I tried to file a complaint before the courts,” Ayesha Begum said, ‘but I cannot go out [because] I am under constant threat. I am afraid police might kill us all.”
Contacted by AsiaNews, deputy Inspector Jiarat Hossain said he was “not concerned” about the allegations and that the matter was before the courts. He denied any allegation of torture.
The family (pictured) claims that a specific plan is behind the raid. For two years, two powerful public officials in the capital have been trying to get the land where the woman’s house stands.
“Police got 100,000 taka (US$1,500) from Mohammed Shajahan e Bashir to throw us out and take over our land,” Putul said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Foreign Minister Backs US Troop Deployment
Rome, 2 Dec. (AKI) — Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini on Wednesday backed US president Barack Obama’s plan to increase troop numbers in Afghanistan and his call for NATO allies to also send reinforcements. In a televised speech broadcast across the US on Tuesday, Obama said 30,000 extra troops would start to be deployed in the first part of next year.
“Now is not the moment to specify how many extra troops should be deployed. But Italy shares the strategy outlined by Barack Obama in his speech last night,” Frattini stated.
“We agree with his military but also his political strategy, and for a gradual military withdrawal, so that Afghanistan will be able to ensure its own security, something that needs to happen in a short period of time.”
NATO’s secretary general said non-US members would contribute at least 5,000 extra troops next year.
Frattini said: “There will be a contribution from Italy.”
Italy currently has around 3,500 troops serving in Afghanistan, mainly in the west.
It could contribute an extra 1,500 troops according to unnamed diplomatic sources quoted this week by French daily Le Monde.
There are currently over 100,000 international troops deployed in Afghanistan, of which 68,000 are US soldiers.
“The latest date for the withdrawal of international troops should be 2013,” Frattini stated.
He was speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a conference on dialogue between Italy and Russia organised by the Milan-based ISPI think-tank.
NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters on Wednesday that 5,000 extra troops would be sent in 2010, and “probably” a few thousand in addition.
“This is our fight together,” he said. “We must finish it together.”
The Afghan government said it supported the new US strategy, but the Taliban has vowed to put up “stronger resistance” to the new US troop surge.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Gunmen Kill Worshippers Then Blow Themselves Up
Suicide attackers stormed a mosque close to Pakistan’s army headquarters, killing 35 people during Friday prayers as they sprayed gunfire at worshippers and threw grenades before blowing themselves up, officials said.
The strike by at least two gunmen was part of a wave of bloodshed that has killed more than 400 people in Pakistan since October. It was a bloody reminder of the resilience of militant networks despite army offensives against the Taliban in the northwest regions bordering Afghanistan.
Two hours after the attack began, occasional gunshots were still being heard from inside the heavily fortified area in the garrison city of Rawalpindi just a few miles from the capital. Reporters were kept away from the scene.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
China: Five More Christian Leaders Sentenced
Arbitrary administrative decision sends church leaders to re-education labor camp.
Bypassing the court system, China arbitrarily sentenced five more leaders of the Fushan Church in Linfen City, Shanxi Province, on Monday (Nov. 30), this time to re-education labor camps for two years, according to China Aid Association (CAA).
A Chinese court last week sentenced five house church leaders to three to seven years in prison after they were arrested en route to Beijing to file a complaint about an attack on their church, according to the advocacy organization. The five leaders sentenced to labor camps this week were accused of “gathering people to disturb the public order” after they organized a prayer rally of 1,000 people the day after military police and others attacked their church members and building on Sept. 13.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Philippines: Fresh Troops Sent to Stop Maguindanao Massacre Culprits
A 400-men battalion brings troop level to more than 3,000. Soldiers are to prevent members of Ampatuan clan from fleeing. Andal Ampatuan, the current provincial governor, is accused of ordering the 23 November massacre of 57 people.
Manila (AsiaNews/Agencies) — In Maguindanao Province (Mindanao), the Filipino army sent in an extra 400-strong battalion, which brings to more than 3,000 the number of soldiers now guarding government offices and the home of the Ampatuan clan. The governor and his clan are accused of killing 57 people on 23 November.
“Our forces are now stationed in the area. They are restricting their movement within the compound [home],” military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Romeo Brawner said.
“Right now the security is very tight in the area. We are stopping their supporters from entering their home,” Brawner said. The latter have private armies who could go on the offensive.
On 23 November, about 100 gunmen attacked a convoy carrying 57 people, including members of Ishmael “Toto” Mangudadatu’s clan.
Mangudadatu is the deputy mayor of Buluan and Ampatuan’s main adversary in next May’s provincial elections. Everyone in the convoy was killed, including Mangudadatu’s wife.
On Tuesday, police arrested Andal Ampatuan’s son, Andal Ampatuan Jr, on charges of murder.
Until his arrest, he was mayor of Datu Unsay and with his father backed incumbent President Arroyo in the upcoming presidential elections.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Rotting Camel Carcasses Poison Australian Water Supplies
The rotting carcasses of thousands of wild camels who have died of thirst in Australia’s desert outback are polluting vital waterholes and sacred sites, officials said on Thursday.
The Central Land Council, which administers Aboriginal land in the nation’s arid centre, said the corpses were poisoning water supplies, describing scenes of mass carnage.
“Some fall into waterholes and won’t be able to get out so they’ll rot within the water, others will chase the last remains of any water in these areas and start to compete with each other,” said the council’s land management chief David Alexander.
“We’re ending up with these grisly scenes of camels in every stage of life, death and decay around waterholes,” he added.
[…]
Camels were introduced into Australia as pack animals for the vast outback in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but were released into the wild as rail and road travel became more widespread.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Three Kidnapped in Mauritania, Al Qaeda Link Emerges
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, NOVEMBER 30 — Three Spanish aid workers of whom nothing has been heard since yesterday may have been kidnapped by the group, Al Qaeda for the Maghreb, says Spain’s interior minister, Alfredo Rubalcaba, according to a report in the online edition of El Mundo. Rubalcaba stated it was likely that “we are faced with a kidnapping by an extremist group”. The circumstances of the disappearance of the three aid workers: Albert Vilalta, Roque Pascual and Alicia Gamez, members of the humanitarian Catalan NGO, Barcelona Acciò Solidaria, are still unclear. According to a note issued today by the Spanish foreign ministry, the three were part of a humanitarian convoy of 13 vehicles heading towards Dakar, in Senegal, with 20 tonnes of material. The kidnapping came about when their vehicle, “for reasons still unknown, separated from the convoy”. Madrid has called on Mauritania to initiate searches in the area.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: National Anthem Part of Integration Course
The Dutch national anthem, the Wilhelmus, should become part of the compulsory integration course for new immigrants to the Netherlands, MPs agreed on Tuesday.
A majority voted in favour of the proposal drafted by the fundamentalist Christian party SGP and integration minister Eberhard van der Laan said he liked the idea.
Immigrants will not have to learn all 15 verses of the anthem because ‘most native Dutch people couldn’t do that,’MP Kees van der Staaij said. The first and sixth verses are used most often.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘Gays Won’t Go to Heaven’
Your heaven is ‘unjust’, gays tell cardinal
(ANSA) — Rome, December 2 — Gays and transsexuals won’t go to heaven, a top Roman Catholic cardinal said Wednesday.
“Transsexuals and gays will never enter the heavenly kingdom,” said Javier Lozano Barragan, until recently the Vatican’s ‘health minister’.
“It’s not me who says so, it’s St Paul,” he said, referring to the saint credited with forging the early Church.
St Paul (5 BC-67 AD) wrote many epistles (letters) to the rapidly spreading early Christian community.
In one of them, to the Romans, he said about unbelievers: “God gave them up to degrading passions. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error”.
Barragan, who still holds positions on various Church bodies, added that people were not born gay but became so.
“Perhaps they aren’t guilty but by acting against the dignity of the body they will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven,” he repeated.
Barragan’s remarks drew a prompt reaction from the Italian gay association Arcigay, which said “yes, it’s true, we won’t ever get into your heaven, which is a murky and unjust place”.
It added that Barragan’s statement came in the wake of a spate of attacks on gays and “a media campaign against the dignity of transsexual persons,” referring to unflattering portraits of prostitutes involved in a Rome sex scandal. In its teachings, the Catholic Church describes homosexuality as a “disorder” which bars active gays from taking part in the Church.
The Vatican sparked polemics last December when it opposed a proposed United Nations declaration to decriminalise homosexuality in the world.
But in July the Holy See said it agreed that homosexuality should be decriminalised and backed the Council of Europe’s plans to prepare a measure on the issue.
At least 86 countries ban gays and many others approve their torture and imprisonment.
The seven Islamic-led nations of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Nigeria and Mauritania mandate the death penalty for gays.
Cardinal Barragan, 76, resigned in May as head of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Workers, because of his age.
photo: Barragan
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Judge: Parents Bigots for Opposing ‘Gay’ Lessons
Families grilled about religious beliefs, church sermons against homosexuality
A judge has attacked parents, suggesting they are bigots for seeking to opt-out their elementary-age children from a mandatory controversial pro-homosexual curriculum, according to a non-profit law firm.
The parents were represented in California’s Alameda Superior Court by Pacific Justice Institute. On Dec. 1, Judge Frank Roesch denied a motion to allow them to have their children excused from the lessons.
According to the group, Roesch blasted the parents for seeking enforcement of a provision of the California Education Code that gives parents a right to opt their kids out of health education.
Education Code Section 51240 allows a parent to have a student excused from instruction, “If any part of a school’s instruction in health conflicts with the religious training and beliefs of a parent or guardian of a pupil.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Religious Leader Tells Planned Parenthood Rally Abortion a “God-Given Right”
During the rally yesterday sponsored by the Planned Parenthood abortion business and other leading pro-abortion groups, Rev. Carlton Veazy told the small gathering of hardcore activists that abortion is a “God-given right.” Veazy is the head of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
The rally was a time for abortion advocates to rally together to press for taxpayer funding of abortions and saw a small crowd of just a few hundred people — compared to the 100,000 or more who attend the March for Life.
Veazy was the closing speaker for the Stop Stupak rally and he told the activists they had more than merely a so-called constitutional right to an abortion.
“Don’t let anybody tell you that religious people don’t support choice,” Veazy said, according to CNS News. “You not only have a constitutional right for abortion, but you have a God-given right.”
Veazy went as far as calling on the abortion advocates to “take on” the nation’s Catholic bishops, who have pressed for removing the abortion funding from the congressional health care bills.
[…]
The “God-given rights” comment is already drawing guffaws across the Internet, but it comes as no shock to longtime pro-life advocates.
The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice represents such denominations as the United Methodist Church, Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Church of Christ that have promoted abortion for decades.
Veazy himself has not only sponsored letters calling for forcing taxpayers to fund abortions, but his pro-abortion position is so extreme that he criticized pro-abortion President Barack Obama for supposedly seeking common ground on abortion.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Defending Free Speech at the United Nations
Freedom of speech is under physical and legal threat not only from terrorists but also at the UN. Two US-based Islamists planned to kill a cartoonist and the editor of Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten responsible for publishing cartoons depicting Muhammad in 2005, it was revealed a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, at the UN, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) delivered another blow with a resolution on “combating defamation of religion,” which was passed by a committee of the UN’s General Assembly on 12 November.
While the tactics employed by terrorists and the OIC are obviously different, the purpose is essentially the same: to ensure that criticism of Islam is censored. And it is working.
Following news of the foiled attack against Jyllands-Posten, leading Danish newspapers refrained from reprinting the Muhammad cartoons despite doing so last year when another attack on the cartoonist was foiled. While the editors have explained this omission as a matter of “responsibility,” fear would seem more likely. That was, after all, the reason why Yale University chose to omit pictures of Muhammad in a book called The Cartoons That Shook the World. Thus, grotesquely, a book dedicated to investigating “the conflict that aroused impassioned debates around the world on freedom of expression, blasphemy and the nature of modern Islam” does not contain the very cartoons which were at the core of the book’s subject matter.
From Salman Rushdie to Jyllands-Posten, death threats have had a chilling effect on discussion, let alone criticism, of Islam.
The efforts to ban criticism of Islam through human rights law at the UN are not yet legally binding but they are making progress.
The OIC has been successful in passing numerous resolutions on defamation of religion at the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council. The latest from March 2009 states that “defamation of religions is a serious affront to human dignity leading to restriction on the freedom of religion.”
IN GENEVA, the OIC is working on the adoption of a legally binding instrument that would oblige member states to prohibit criticism of religion. In an explanatory letter of October 29 the OIC said that in Denmark and the Netherlands the personality of Muhammad had been ridiculed with intent to “violate Muslim sentiments” and, therefore, “the contention that human rights standards should apply only to individuals is not credible.”
The concept of defamation of religion thus turns human rights on their head by protecting abstract religions and ideas from criticism by individuals, rather than protecting individuals from oppressive dogmas. While the Western states at the UN have weakly complained about the concept of defamation of religion, the relentless efforts of the 57-member OIC and its allies have got the votes. Too often Western states have entered into seemingly harmless compromises that really serve as a way of chipping away at the concept of free speech bit by bit.
The latest example is the Obama administration’s co-sponsoring at the UN of a resolution on freedom of speech with Egypt — of all countries. But this resolution of October 2009 also condemns “negative religious stereotyping.” This concept is not included as one of the permissible restrictions of free speech under international human rights law, so it suggests a protection of religions and religious symbols, not just individuals.
That very interpretation was emphasized by the OIC, which at the vote stated that “negative stereotyping or defamation of religions was a modern expression of religious hatred and xenophobia. This spread not only to individuals but to religions and belief systems.” Accordingly the US-Egyptian compromise may help repression of dissenters such as the Egyptian blogger Kareem who has been imprisoned for four years for insulting Islam — by criticizing religious intolerance.
With protection for a loosely-defined concept like religion, the self-proclaimed victims will be the ones who can determine when they feel offended. That is particularly dangerous in countries where the state is the guardian of religion — such as Iran and Saudi Arabia — since the prohibition will affect not only the ability to freely discuss religion but also the ability to criticize the government.
Instead of being on the defensive and compromising free speech, Western states should go on the offensive and strengthen it. That would not only give an important morale boost to the victims of death threats from terrorists but also to the many oppressed citizens of Muslim countries who cannot speak their minds or question the dominant religion.
So far the most vocal opponents of the OIC have been an impressive alliance of NGOs and human rights activists including some from Muslim countries such as Indonesia, Bahrain and Egypt.
If a number of brave Muslims have the courage to defend free speech against the nefarious agendas of their own governments and the repressive interpretations of their own religion, so should the political leaders of the West.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Which Set of Scientists Do You Trust?
Also contradicting Gibbs’ pronouncement are Craig Idso, S. Fred Singer and dozens of their scientific colleagues, who authored the scholarly 2009 report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered.”
The NIPCC was established “to examine the same climate data used by the United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” in support of its three-volume report alleging the catastrophic effects of global warming.
The NIPCC rejected the IPCC’s finding that “most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” The NIPCC, like professor Plimer, concluded just the opposite — that “natural causes are very likely to be the dominant cause.”
None of this would be that newsworthy but for the fact that the left, including the Obama administration, is trying to make fundamental changes to our political system and our economy based on this highly disputed, secular, faith-based alarmist “science.”
Indeed, the Copenhagen summit seeks to secure what the Kyoto treaty could not: a binding commitment of the United States to forfeit and delegate its sovereignty through international treaties that would require us to radically reduce our CO2 emissions and damage our economy more than Kyoto would have while exempting major developing countries and producing negligible environmental benefits. (The Heritage Foundation reports that an Energy Information Administration study projected costs of U.S. compliance with Kyoto to be between $100 billion and $397 billion annually. Heritage also reveals that since Kyoto in 1997, its signatory countries have increased their emissions faster than the U.S., which declined to ratify it.)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
1 comments:
Looks like Colorado State University is determined to follow in Virginia Tech's footsteps.
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