A Muslim passenger flying into San Francisco caused a bit of trouble by becoming drunk and belligerent and locking himself in the restroom. He had had five drinks, and was angry that he couldn’t have #6. He claimed that he wasn’t being shown “respect”. In a separate incident, four Saudi men on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit became unruly and alarmed their fellow passengers. Evidently they also said something alarming in Arabic, but because the air marshals on board understood Arabic, the men were detained when the plane landed.In other news, Google has decided to stop censoring its internet searches in its Chinese branch, and may even pull all its business out of China.
Thanks to Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, Esther, Gaia, Henrik, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JD, LN, Takuan Seiyo, TV, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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Qatar House Prices Seen Falling 4% in 2010
(ANSAmed) — DOHA, JANUARY 7 — Qatar’s real estate sector is expected to “remain weak” over the next two years due to a problem of oversupply, a new report has said. Samba Financial Group said that given the volume of new housing supply expected to come on stream in the Gulf state in 2010/11, prices are expected to remain deflated. “The correction in real estate will continue to dampen the overall inflationary outlook,” the report, cited in an article by Gulf Times, said. Prices are expected to decline by an annual average of 4 percent this year, mainly as a result of a sharp drop in rents. This reflects the downturn underway in the real estate sector which will probably linger well into 2010, dampening overall inflation prospects, the report said. The Qatar Statistics Authority said last month that rents decreased by 2.8 percent in November and were, on average, 16.3 percent lower than prices in January 2009. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Ultimate Shell Game: The Federal Reserve Funds 91% of 2009 U.S. Deficit
In the current hodge podge of abstract finance, it is easy to get lost in the numbers and lose sight of the forest for the trees. Which is why we provide the ultimate simplification: In calendar (not fiscal) 2009, the US grew its budget deficit by $1.47 trillion. In the same time, the Federal Reserve grew its securities holdings from $500 billion to $1.85 trillion, a $1.34 trillion increase. Keeping it simple: 91% of the budget deficit increase in 2009, under the authority of President Obama, was funded by the… United States.
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Charges Filed in Ruckus Aboard S.F.-Bound Jet
An allegedly drunken, belligerent passenger who authorities say locked himself in a bathroom on a San Francisco-bound plane — prompting the military to scramble fighter jets — was charged Monday in federal court with disrupting the flight and forcing an unscheduled landing.
Muhammad Abu Tahir, 47, of Glen Allen, Va., was arrested Friday after the AirTran Airways flight landed in Colorado Springs. He will appear Wednesday before a federal magistrate in Denver on charges that he assaulted, intimidated and interfered with a flight crew.
Tahir downed five glasses of wine after boarding the flight in Atlanta, authorities said. He became abusive when flight attendants refused to serve him a sixth drink, federal prosecutors said in a criminal complaint.
Tahir allegedly began yelling and marched into the lavatory. At one point, he took off his shoes and socks and placed them outside the door, all the while accusing crew members of disrespecting him, according to the complaint.
When the senior flight attendant arrived to try to calm Tahir, he grabbed her arms and hands, but released his grasp when a passenger interceded, prosecutors said.
Flight attendants armed themselves with a fire extinguisher and positioned beverage carts in the aisles, in case Tahir tried to charge the cockpit, prosecutors said.
Two F-16s were launched by the North American Aerospace Defense Command Region to intercept and escort the plane to Colorado Springs, where police pulled Tahir from the lavatory.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Clinton’s Stand Alone
A new book is out with a highly critical but unsourced portrait of Hillary Clinton. This familiar occurrence — it’s happened too many times to count over the years — has usually been greeted with an equally familiar response: A fast and furious counterattack from the Clinton inner circle.
What’s notable about the highly publicized release of “Game Change,” however, is the virtual silence from the Clinton camp. The lack of public outrage seems to mark the sputtering end of what was once known as the Clinton political machine and underlines a fact that onetime Clinton loyalists acknowledge: The book’s primary sources about the former candidate and current secretary of state are her own former staffers and intimates.
As a result, there is no campaign of veteran Clintonites spinning the press corps and trying to pre-emptively discredit the book’s scathing depiction of Hillary Clinton as a rudderless candidate and a cheerleader for vicious tactics against eventual winner Barack Obama. There is no team of Clinton proxies going on cable television to denounce authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann as scurrilous and unworthy of belief.
This time, Bill and Hillary Clinton are virtually alone.
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Coakley in Trouble? Pharma and HMO Lobbyists to the Rescue
With Democrat Martha Coakley in trouble in the Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat, Democrats could lose vote No. 60 for President Obama’s health-care bill. In response, an army of lobbyists for drug companies, health insurance companies, and hospitals has teamed up to throw a high-dollar Capitol Hill fundraiser for Coakley next Tuesday night. The invitation is here.
Of the 22 names on the host committee—meaning they raised $10,000 or more for Coakley—17 are federally registered lobbyists, 15 of whom have health-care clients. Of the other five hosts, one is married to a lobbyist, one was a lobbyist in Pennsylvania, another is a lawyer at a lobbying firm, and another is a corporate CEO. Oh, and of course, there’s also the political action commitee for Boston Scientific Corporation.
All the leading drug companies have lobbyists on Coakley’s host committee: Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, Sanofi-Aventis, Eli Lilly, Novartis, Astra-Zeneca, and more. On the insurance side of things, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Cigna, Humana, HealthSouth, and United Health all are represented on the host committee.
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Code Pink to Muslims: ‘Help US Cleanse Our Country’
As Americans keep a wary eye on Muslim radicals in Yemen, little attention is being given to a far more dangerous enemy right in our own backyard. Under the banner of ‘anti-war’ activism, the radical group Code Pink is running banner advertisements on the English language version of the official Web site of a terrorist sympathizing group, the Muslim Brotherhood, one of which invites the Muslim Brotherhood to “join us in cleansing our country.”
The ad is entitled ‘Arrest The War Criminals.’ Only problem is, Code Pink believes the war criminals are none other than George W. Bush and Co. And they’re actively recruiting radical Muslim terrorists to help them in their cause.
A link on the ad goes to a web site that actually calls for the kidnapping of former President George W. Bush, his wife Laura, his family, and various former administration officials. To date, not a peep has been heard from the Secret Service.
Maybe that’s because Jodie Evans, the co-founder of Code Pink was a top fundraiser for Barack Obama. Or maybe not.
This isn’t the first time the rabid feminist anti-war group has had amicable ties with terrorists. As Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government reports…
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Giving Corporations an Outsized Voice in Elections
Voters stand to lose out if the Supreme Court treats political spending by businesses and other big-money players as protected speech.
Corporations are pitching a bizarre product — a radical vision of the 1st Amendment. It would give corporations rather than voters a central role in our electoral process by treating corporate political spending as protected speech. If this vision becomes reality, businesses and other big-money players will spend billions either hyping their preferred candidates or running attack ads against elected officials who don’t support their preferred agenda. Voters will be forced into a couch-potato role, mere viewers of the electoral spectacle bought and paid for by wealthy companies.
The Supreme Court’s decision in the hotly anticipated campaign finance reform case Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission — which may be announced as early as Tuesday — will show whether a majority of the Roberts court is buying their argument.
The case may be the turning point in a concerted, decades-long ideological campaign — the “corporate free speech movement,” as Robert L. Kerr and other scholars have chronicled. As far back as 1971, Lewis F. Powell Jr. (whom President Nixon would shortly nominate to the Supreme Court) sent a confidential memorandum to his friend Eugene Sydnor Jr. at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce arguing that corporate interests needed to take advantage of a “neglected opportunity in the courts.” Because “the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change,” the memo said, the chamber and other corporate interests should develop a cadre of constitutional lawyers to file lawsuits and amicus briefs to push a corporate-friendly legal agenda in the Supreme Court.
Corporations heeded this call to arms, generously funding the chamber’s litigation arm and founding other think tanks. In hundreds of lawsuits and briefs, the chamber and corporations such as Exxon-Mobil and Nike have drilled in the pro-business party line that 1st Amendment protection should extend to corporate political spending — such as the corporate-funded movie about Hillary Rodham Clinton that is at issue in Citizens United. The case, which began on narrow grounds (did restrictions on corporate campaign ads apply to this film?) has become a test of whether restrictions on political speech by corporations should be ended altogether.
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Hidden Key to Last Decade’s Disasters: Dubya’s Commitment to “Diversity”
By Steve Sailer
All those boring end-of-year / end-of-decade articles that journalists phone in so that they can take the last week of the year off are finally over.
But here’s something that was missing from all of those summaries: a hidden key to understanding the two seminal events of the last decade—9/11 and the economic collapse.
The factor linking the two big stories of the 2000s: George W. Bush’s sizable degree of culpability in both disasters:
Bush had Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta eradicate the airport security ethnic profiling system before 9/11. (Then he reappointed Mineta, a Democrat, for his second term!).
Bush repeatedly signaled the mortgage industry in 2002-2004 that zero down payment home purchases would be A-OK with his federal regulators.
Of course, those are by no means the only causes of the subsequent disasters. But shouldn’t we at least talk about them?
And what links Bush’s two blunders?
George W. Bush’s Commitment to Diversity.
Bush explicitly articulated that he was fighting airline security and traditional credit standards in the sacred cause of fighting discrimination.
Was he lying? I’ve never seen any evidence that Bush wasn’t the truest true believer in Diversity. His immigration bills, No Child Left Behind—it all testifies to his naiveté. Compared to Bush, Obama is practically Lee Kwan Yew for worldliness.
Republicans don’t want to talk about Bush’s blunders because Bush was a Republican. Democrats don’t want to talk about Bush blunders because they want to make more blunders like them.
Yet how are we supposed to learn from our mistakes if nobody will mention them?
Quoting Bush is always a struggle because his transcripts usually make it sound like he had a secret stroke at some point in the 1990s and can’t speak straight anymore. But, we’ll just have to put up with his oral artlessness if we want to understand the last decade.
Here’s Governor Bush during his second debate with Al Gore on October 11, 2000…
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Michael Moriarty: Forebodings of the New World Order
While sitting for a Christmas Eve photo-taking session expressly designed to magically deliver our Christmas in Canada to my adoptive parents in Italy, I could see within the “rushes,” so to speak, that our early attempts at a celebratory impression were failing.
I just couldn’t get “happy enough.”
Well, that morning I had read this article. [Link]
Hmmm — a few, rather seminally important New World Order measures have already been taken. Though this ruling by Obama hasn’t given a United Nations police force a white flag of complete surrender, it has virtually liberated what may prove to be a central recruiting station for a UN invasion of our rights. This Obama-approved invader is the European Union’s Interpol, and given its carte blanche immunity from any restrictive limits to its behavior within the United States, I do believe we’re in even further and faster trouble than anyone could possibly have thought … as a result of the Obama idea of “Change.”
These actions by the President, which I personally consider beyond unconstitutional, the utter desecration of America’s national sovereignty, placing no restrictive limits around an international body of not only law enforcement officials but an actual spying organization dedicated to the enforcement of what amounts to European socialism?
[Comments from JD: Michael was the actor who played the assistant DA in the TV show “Law and Order”.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Scares Another Plane
J. Grant Swank, Jr.
Muhammad Abu Tahir, 47, of Glen Allen, Virginia, put crew and passengers into a fright spin Tuesday while aboard AirTran Airways headed for San Francisco.
It is becoming increasingly unpleasant to fly anywhere because of the Muslim teaching that all infidels must die. This baseline of Islam has become well enough known, prompting the free world to conclude it has no idea when or where the next strike will be.
Therefore, when this Muslim threatened everyone on the aircraft, no one had a clue as to how the disruption would end, especially considering the pants bomber Christmas scare.
Muhammad ordered drinks, became drunk, then locked himself in a bathroom, putting his shoes and socks outside the bathroom door.
“He became abusive when flight attendants refused to serve him a sixth drink, federal prosecutors said in a criminal complaint” per Peter Fimrite, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
Muhammad yelled in defiance of the crew, then “marched into the lavatory.” With that, he shouted accusations against crewmembers, claiming they were not respecting him.
Muhammad manhandled a senior flight attendant. A passenger intervened, releasing the attendant.
Muhammad caused so much ruckus that flight attendants had to jam beverage carts in the aisle to prohibit the Muslim from getting to the cockpit. Attendants “armed themselves with a fire extinguisher” just in case they had to quell Muhammad’s further intrusions.
“Two F-16s were launched by the North American Aerospace Defense Command Region to intercept and escort the plane to Colorado Springs, where police pulled Tahir from the lavatory.
“‘He did not obey commands given to him by the flight crew. He was assaultive,’ said Jeff Dorschner, the spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Denver.”
| — Hat tip: heroyalwhyness | [Return to headlines] |
Tea-Party Convention Website Attacked
Comments flood feedback forum with obscenity, insult, pornography
As buzz builds over the upcoming National Tea Party Convention, so has the backlash.
The convention’s organizer, the Tea Party Nation, reports word of the convention has hit “the liberal blogosphere,” prompting a blast of feedback filled with hate, derision and obscenity.
“We had heard a few days ago that the left was going to hit TPN. Today they did,” TPN President Judson Phillips told WND last week. “Wave after wave of liberal joined TPN and began posting inappropriate content.”
Phillips said TPN has been forced to take the only action available, banning troublemakers from posting on the organization’s website and limiting comment privileges to administrator-approved members.
“We banned over 100 liberals from the site today who came in just to make trouble,” Phillips said. “We received a large number of very obscene emails from these people.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Unruly Passengers Disrupt Northwest Flight 243
MyFoxDetroit.com — Sources tell Fox 2 that a flight from Amsterdam into Detroit Metropolitan Airport was held on the tarmac after landing because of unruly behavior by some of the passengers.
The source says four men from Saudi Arabia were saying something in Arabic that alarmed four on-board Federal Air Marshals. The Marshals speak Arabic. A decision was made to stop the plane on the tarmac away from the passenger terminal and remove the men from the plane.
Once the men were removed, the rest of passengers were then taken to the terminal for deboarding.
The Transportation Security Administration says the unruly passengers were interviewed by Customs and Border Protection officials.
But the TSA says the passengers were released and no arrests were made.
Delta Air Lines spokeswoman Susan Elliott says the crew of Northwest Flight 243 requested that authorities meet the plane Tuesday after it landed because four passengers didn’t follow their instructions. She says nobody was injured but wouldn’t describe what the passengers were doing.
Tuesday’s disturbance comes less than a week after a Nigerian man pleaded not guilty to trying to blow up a Northwest flight from Amsterdam as it was preparing to land in Detroit on Christmas.
Fox 2 has a crew at Metro Airport and more information will be posted as soon as it becomes available.
| — Hat tip: Takuan Seiyo | [Return to headlines] |
France: Fast Food Chain Goes Halal
The Belgian fast-food chain Quick is experimenting with halal restaurants in France (see also here). Those branches serve only products which comply with the Islamic food requirements. Since mid-December, eight France Quicks changed over completely to halal food: Toulouse, Marseille (2), Roubaix, Villeurbanne, Argenteuil, Garges-le’s-Gonesse and Buchelay.
A notice at the door informs the visitors of the Islam-law abiding character of the place. The meat is approved by experts linked to the local mosque and the Great Mosque in Paris.
Halal meat must be bled out meat from a restricted number of permitted animals, which are slaughtered without stunning and according to the Islamic requirements. Meat from carnivores or animals which died on their own, as well as pork which is mentioned explicitly in the Koran, are forbidden. The whole production chain where the meat is processed must also comply with the ‘purity requirements’.
The circumstances in which the animal was bred, the quality of its food and shelter, the manner and distance of transport could all play a role in the decision whether the meat is halal.
The news about the French Quick branches was reason enough for the Belgian Vlaams Belang to sound the doomsday alarm, since “if it rains in Paris, it drips in Brussels”.
“This issue is not as innocent as it looks at first sight,” responds Vlaams Belang. “Big warehouses, stores and restaurants who sale or serve halal products are giving in to the pressue of radical Islam, which demands blind adherence to Shaira. Just by offering these products, people are giving radical Muslims the opportunity to further force their strict Islamic laws.”
“By opening Islam-correct halal restaurants, Quick stimulates the rising Islamization,” says the pary in a presss release. “If Flemish branches would also give in to the pressure of Sharia law, Vlaams Belang and Steden Tegen Islamisering (cities against Islamization) will no question act.”
It seems that Quick isn’t going to do so. “We’re certainly not going to open any halal restaurants in Belgium in this fashion,” says operational manager Dorian Verfaille of Quick. “The situation in France with its suburbs is socially and economically completely different than by us. What eventually might happen, dependent on the success in France, is that in existing restaurants we will add one or two halal dishes to the menu. Just as we now already offer vegetarian burgers. But certainly not in the short term.”
Verfaille admits that halal branches can expect a lot of approval. “The first, in Toulouse, seem to run very well. We nevertheless had no publicity for it, everything happened via word-of-mouth advertising.”
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
Islam Divides Us, Say the Majority of Britons
More than half the population believe Britain is deeply divided along religious lines, according to an official survey.
A majority would also strongly oppose the development of a mosque in their neighbourhood, the research into social attitudes found.
Almost half — 45 per cent — say they do not believe that diversity has brought benefits to the country and that religious diversity has had a negative impact.
The government-backed inquiry revealed that only one in four people in Britain feel positively about Islam.
The warnings on the extent of the divide between Muslims and much of the rest of the country come in the annual British Social Attitudes survey, produced with funding from Whitehall.
It found that 55 per cent of people would be ‘bothered’ if a large mosque was built in their locality. Only 15 per cent said they would have similar qualms about a church.
Some 52 per cent think Britain is deeply divided along religious lines. The findings, following worrying signs in other government research that tension over religion is increasing, emerged in the wake of the furore over an attempt by Islamic extremists to march through Wootton Bassett.
And the Christmas Day jet bomb plot, involving a man suspected to have been radicalised while he was president of the Islamic Society at University College London, has led to a new and disruptive wave of security checks for airline passengers.
The social attitudes survey is produced by leading academics from interviews with 4,486 people. Its findings, to be published in full later this month, will raise concern that the Government’s policy of producing ‘social cohesion’ by backing moderate Islam and isolating extremism is not working.
Professor David Voas, who analysed the findings, said many people believe the size and nature of Britain’s Muslim population presents a threat to national identity.
Professor Voas, head of population studies at Manchester University, said there was growing intolerance because of ‘the degree to which Islam is perceived as a threat to social cohesion’.
He added: ‘Muslims deserve to be the focus of policy on social cohesion, because no other group elicits so much disquiet. This apparent threat to national identity or even, some fear, to security, reduces the willingness of the majority to accommodate free expression.
‘Opinion is divided, and many people remain tolerant of unpopular speech as well as distinctive dress and religious behaviour, but a large segment of the British population is unhappy about these subcultures.’
The survey said those with no educational qualifications were twice as likely to have negative attitudes towards Muslims as university graduates.
Ministers have been anxious to reduce negativity towards Muslims and minority groups among poorer and less-educated white people in recent months, fearing an election backlash from one-time core Labour voters.
However, the survey suggests that unhappiness over the influence of Islam has spread beyond poor white areas and now concerns a majority of people.
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Italy: Wind: 1,100 MW Installed in 2009, Record for Italy
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JANUARY 8 — The year 2009 was closed with wind energy totalling 4,850 MW in effective capacity, of which more than 1,100 MW installed in that year, an absolute record for Italy. This figure shows the substantial contribution of wind energy to power generation, with growth surpassing 30% on the year. The wind sector’s growth rate hasn’t changed significantly from previous years, despite the financial crisis hit the national and international economy in 2009. In 2009 more wind power than ever was installed in Italy, confirming the fact that the country, though it hasn’t reached the level of the main European markets yet, has surpassed the rest of the world, and that the growth rate is in line with reaching the EU 2020 renewable energy targets. “Last year the Italian wind sector recorded an absolute record, both in terms of new capacity that was installed, 4,850 MW, and in terms of power generation, around 6.7 TWh, more than 2.1% of Gross Domestic Consumption”. ANEV, ENEA, APER and ISES Italia were pleased to announce that the forecasts they made earlier were accurate once again, and that this important result has contributed to a reduction of emission and a substantial increase of renewable energy production. The result has also created jobs and contributed to Italy’s industrial and economic development. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: New San Sebastian Bishop, Mass Curia Resignation
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JANUARY 11 — The strong position taken by the parish priests from the diocese of Guipuzcoa, in Basque Country, after the nomination of Mons. José Ignacio Munilla as bishop of San Sebastian in the place of the nationalist supported Juan Maria Uriarte, gives no sign of being withdrawn. The members of the diocese of Guipuzcoa delivered their resignations en masse, after Mons. Munilla officially took the role on Saturday. Sources from the bishop’s office, quoted by the EFE agency, highlighted that the vicariate bishops, Patxi Azpiarte and Felix Azurmendi, had announced their resignation “weeks ago”. Resignation was also announced by the secretary general of the diocese, Luzia Alberro, nominated by Uriarte in 2001, who, at 25 years old, was the first woman to occupy the role. The person in charge of communication, the treasurer’s office and religions also resigned. Resignation was also announced by the person in charge of Caritas at San Sebastian, Jose Carlos Olano. The arrival of Munilla to the diocese of San Sebastian was preceded by heated controversy, given that 77% of the diocese’s parish priests signed a document refusing the new nomination. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Iberdrola to Build Largest Wind Park in England
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JANUARY 8 — Spanish renewable energy company, Iberdrola, in a consortium with Vattenfall, won a competitive bid in the United Kingdom to build one of the largest wind parks in the world, with 7,200 megawatts of power, according to a statement today made by the company to the national market commission. The complex, according to sources in the sector, could attract investments of about 20 billion euros until 2020. The bid is part of the British government’s large-scale offshore wind energy programme, estimated at 112 billion euros. However, according to Ibedrola sources, the investment is currently small, since the marine wind project requires an initial study phase before building the installations, which is expected to happen in 2015. The power won by Iberdola in Great Britain in the bid equals 72% of the over 10,000 megawatts that the company has at its disposal in the world. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: A Fifth of Britain’s Infantry is Unfit for to Serve on the Front Line, MOD Reveals
A fifth of Britain’s infantry are unfit to fight on the frontline, it was revealed this morning.
Damning new figures revealed nearly 5,000 troops are not healthy enough to be sent on the gruelling mission against the Taliban.
In total 4,764 infantrymen — or 20.7 per cent of the total number of 22,987 — are ‘not fully deployable’, according to the Ministry of Defence.
This means they are either barred from combat operations or can only serve in military bases with medical facilities to care for them.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Do New Airport Body Scanners Violate Child Porn Laws?
Brits Balking at US Security Demands
NEW YORK (CBS/AP) British airports are largely in a holding pattern over the introduction of full body scanners, amid concerns the technology may breach child pornography and child protection laws, which ban the creation of indecent images of children, according to UK paper The Guardian.
Photo: An employee of the Schiphol airport in the Netherlands stands inside a body scanner during a demonstration on Dec. 28, 2009.
Privacy advocates are balking at the scanners, which generate naked images of passengers including their genitalia and breast enlargements.
They liken the security scanners to a “virtual strip-search,” the paper writes.
The Guardian claims airport officials and ministers may have to exempt flyers under the age of 18 from using the scanners or be delayed by new legislation “to ensure airport security staff do not commit offenses under child pornography laws.”
Despite the concerns, British airports may soon rely on this new technology in the wake of the bombing attempt on a jetliner bound from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says the incident was a “wake-up call.”
He announced Sunday that full body scanners would be introduced in British airports.
However, according The Guardian, airport body scanners also create an additional huge privacy concern, because semi-nude images from the devices could wind up on the internet. Civil liberties groups are demanding safeguards to ensure that never occurs.
In Manchester airport, 200 miles from London, a 12-month trial of the scanners began last month after those under 18 were exempted.
An airport spokesman told the Guardian that for now only passengers over 18 will be scanned until the legal situation with children is clarified.
Five hundred people have volunteered to take part in the Manchester trial.
Airline passengers bound for the United States faced a hodgepodge of security measures across the world Monday, but most European airports did not appear to be following a new U.S. demand for increased screening of passengers from 14 countries.
U.S. officials said the new security measures would be implemented Monday but there were few visible changes on the ground in Europe, which sends thousands of passengers on hundreds of daily flights to the United States.
In addition, few if any changes in airline procedures were reported in the 14 countries named by the U.S. as security risks, although officials in Saudi Arabia said extra security personnel had been placed at the airport.
| — Hat tip: LN | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Shovels at the Ready! Residents Defy ‘Crazy’ Health and Safety Advice to Clear Vital Road Ignored by Council
They had been told their local council couldn’t help. So more than 100 snowed-in residents decided to take matters — or shovels — into their own hands.
Digging their way through three inches of ice and snow, they defied health and safety warnings to clear their street themselves.
The group of 120, ranging in age from three to 80, took just over an hour to clear 400 yards of Galt Road in Farlington, near Portsmouth, after the local council decided it was not a high priority.
The clearing was organised by Wing Commander Paddy O’Kennedy, 45, who dismissed warnings from the authorities that residents could be sued if someone slipped on a public path they had cleared themselves.
‘I mean, there’s health and safety and there’s just plain old commonsense,’ he said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Section 44 Stop and Search Illegal
The government’s powers under the Terrorism Act to stop and search people without grounds for suspicion are illegal, a European court has ruled.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Agreement for Cities Festival Signed
(ANSAmed) — NAPLES, DECEMBER 23 — Minister for Economic Development, Claudio Scajola, President of the Campania Region, Antonio Bassolino, and President of the Sicily Region, Raffaele Lombardo, have signed an agreement to create the “Festival of the Cities of the Mediterranean” over the next two-year period from 2010-2012. The planning of the festival and all the cultural, educational and social initiatives connected to it will take place mainly in Naples and Palermo, involving the other main cities of the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean as well (Morocco, Lebanon, Tunisia, Turkey, Spain, France, Greece, Egypt, Cyprus and Syria), with activities and demonstrations representing the individual countrie’s production, economic, cultural and artistic systems. These are the details of the initiatives to be put in place: — Partnership: the creation of exchange networks between the cities of the southern and northern shores of the Mediterranean — Development: a comparison of the production systems and methods and typicality of local crafts production; promotion and exploitation of reciprocal agro-food systems; initiatives for comparing innovations and the different areas of production activities and economic development, with special attention towards energy and environmental policies. — Training: initiatives for exchange and comparison of methodologies and know-how belonging to various contexts. — Promotion of tourism: co-marketing activities and activities for integrating tourist flows, with particular attention to exploiting structures for tourist reception. — Internationalisation: creation of opportunities for international relations and comparison between local businesses, directly activating or incrementing the flow of dialogue and international relations between subjects, institutions and city/countrywide systems. — Communication: publicising of successful initiatives in the Euro-Mediterranean basin. Promotion of the values of collaboration and cooperation between regions, international and Mediterranean for which the project is the author. The authors of the Festival will be the Fondazione Campania dei Festival (Campania Festivals Foundation), previously in charge of the National Theatre Festival in Naples, and the “Riso” Contemporary Art Museum of Palermo . 6 million euros will be assigned for the start-up of the project. The Minister for Economic Development will participate in financial terms once the Fas national resources 2007/2013 are made available, with possible savings from the previous programme. The Campania and Sicily Regions, along with other administrations interested in taking part in the initiative, will co-finance the Festival activities using their own resources. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jordanian Masadeh Appointed as Secretary
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, JANUARY 12 — Ahmad Khalaf Masadeh, Jordanian ambassador to Brussels, has today been appointed as secretary general of the Mediterranean Union. The decision, report diplomatic sources, has just been made by acclamation during the meeting of high-ranking officials of the Mediterranean Union underway in the Belgian capital. A statement will be circulated tomorrow amongst the 42 Foreign ministers of the countries which make up the Mediterranean Union, with any comments to be made within 15 days. With the exception of surprise opposition, today’s appointment will be definitively approved by a process of tacit consent. “Today we have made history,” commented Masadeh, present at the meeting. The appointment of the secretary general, whose HQ will be in Barcelona, will allow for the preparation of a second Mediterranean Union summit, scheduled for June in the Catalan city, in the framework of Spanish presidency of the European Union. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mayor of Cosenza: Unical Should Set Up History Teaching
(ANSAmed) — COSENZA, JANUARY 7 — Mayor of Cosenza, Salvatore Perugini, has written to Chancellor of the University of Calabria (Unical), Giovanni Latorre, and the head of the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy, Raffaele Perrelli, supporting a proposal by President of the Fondazione Carical, Mario Bozzo, to introduce a course on the history of the Mediterranean at Unical which could be taught in the historic centre of Cosenza. The interesting proposal made by President Bozzo to institute the teaching of the History of the Modern and Contemporary Mediterranean — said Perugini — is in keeping with the projects and actions aimed at optimising the role which our territory could have in the Mediterranean basin in promoting contact between peoples, inter-cultural processes, and policies for peace and development. The institution of a specific course on the Mediterranean in the modern and contemporary age, which could be taught in the historic centre of Cosenza, would undoubtedly contribute towards offering even more solid cultural bases to a process which is already under way, which could must be further developed, and in which we all feel that we are called to do our bit. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Human Rights League Condemns Attack on Church
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, JANUARY 12 — Last Saturdays attack on a Protestant Church in Tizi Ouzou, in Cabilia, “is the alarming sign of a feeling of intolerance that is emerging with so many excuses”. In a statement appeared on Algerian newspapers, the Algerian Human Rights League (Laddh) condemned “this illegal and violent act aimed at preventing Algerian Christians from professing their faith”. ‘The freedom of worship is guaranteed by the Constitution Laddh explained. “The State is responsible for making sure that this right is exercised freely and in proper conditions”. According to witnesses, on January 9, a group of people from Tizi Ouzou, led by some fundamentalists, plundered and set on fire the Protestant Church of ‘Tafat’ (which means ‘Light’ in the Berber language). (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Killing of Christians, Solidarity March in Rome
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JANUARY 11 — In a demonstration called yesterday morning in the capital by the patriarchate, Monsignor Barnaba El Soryany (bishop of the Rome diocese of the Coptic Orthodox Church) asked the Italian state to help defend Christians in Egypt and prevent other innocent people from dying as they did on Christmas Eve (January 6) in Naga Hammadi. The demonstration was held to show solidarity with the families of the eight people killed on leaving an Orthodox Christmas mass by a shower of bullets shot from a car, which then drove off. “We have had enough of excuses invented by Egyptian authorities, we have had enough of supporting the theory that the killing of Christians is not part of inter-religious conflict and hatred of the Coptic minority,” Monsignor El Soryany told ANSAmed, noting that “the Egyptian government cannot deny the evidence: it is not a matter of occasional incidents or hardened criminals, but of violence perpetrated voluntarily against our community.” The bishop went on to say that “the authorities knew what was happening. They had asked religious leaders to hold the traditional mass by 10pm in order to avoid going past midnight, as would usually have been done. However, no security measure was taken, and the only policeman present — a Muslim — died in the attack.” Yesterday morning in the Bocca della Verità square, European Parliament member of the UDC, Magdi Cristiano Allam, was also present to recite an “Our Father” with the about 300 believers attending, as well as a number of local politicians. The bishop concluded by saying that over the next few weeks the Coptic communities living in Austria, the Netherlands, Greece and France would be holding more demonstrations. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Protestant Church Burned in Algeria
ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Islamists looted and burned a Protestant church in Algeria, the congregation’s leader said Monday, suggesting they were inspired by a recent spate of religious intolerance in the Arab and Muslim world.
The church — hosted in an apartment block in the city of Tizi Ouzou some 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Algiers, the Algerian capital — was ransacked and set ablaze on Saturday night, several Algerian newspapers said..
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
US Controls: Algeria Joins in Protest
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, JANUARY 11 — Algeria’s Foreign Minister, Mourad Medelci, called for the presence of the US ambassador to Algiers, David D. Pearce, to express “the vivid protest” of the government regarding the new security measures which include very restrictive controls on passengers arriving from 14 countries, including Algeria itself. “They are unjustified and discriminatory measures”, a statement from the Foreign Ministry reads. “This summons”, the statement continued, “follows diverse previous actions begun by the central administration and by the Algerian embassy in Washington towards the American authorities”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israel: Hebrew Text From 1000 BC Deciphered
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, JANUARY 8 — A scholar from the University of Haifa, Professor Gershon Galil, has managed to decipher what is believed to be the most ancient Hebrew writing ever recovered, dating back to the era of the Kingdom of David in the tenth century BC. According to the University of Haifa, the text was traced with ink on a piece of earthenware, a fragment of which came to light a year and half ago in Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Elah Valley, south-west of Jerusalem. Having examined the composition of the words (some of which typically Hebrew) and in the content of the text (an exhortation for social support for the weakest, including widows, orphans and slaves), Professor Galil concluded that the author was using Hebrew. The daily paper Maariv noted that the conclusions of professor could have important repercussions on the study of the Old Testament, the central core of which many scholars believe was written in the third century BC. However, the deciphering of the ancient text has raised the theoretical possibility that some of the Old Testament may have been written several centuries before.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Approves Border Wall With Egypt
Jerusalem, 11 Jan. (AKI) — Iraeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has approved plans to erect a wall along part of Israel’s border with Egypt. Announcing his decision which includes advanced surveillance equipment, Netanyahu said it would keep “infiltrators and terrorists” out.
“This is a strategic decision to secure Israel’s Jewish and democratic character,” Netanyahu said in a statement released on Sunday.
Thousands of African and other migrants have come to Israel through its desert border with Egypt over the last few years.
At least 17 migrants, mostly African, have been killed since May by Egyptian police, who said they were trying to stop people smuggling.
According to Israeli police estimates between 100-200 illegal immigrants cross into Israel from Egypt a week.
Netanyahu stressed his country would continue to accept refugees from conflict zones.
However, he said Israel could not let tens of thousands of illegal workers infiltrate into Israel through the southern border and inundate our country with illegal aliens.
The controversial project will cost 270 million dollars and take two years to complete, but the barrier will not span the total length of the 260 km border.
Photo — Xinhua
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: New Book Recalls Exploits of WWII Hero
Verona, 11 Jan. (AKI) — Giorgio Perlasca was an Italian hero who saved the lives of thousands of Jews in Hungary during World War II. But few of his countrymen had ever heard of him when he died in 1992.
Now a new book to be published in Italy this week not only sheds light on Perlasca’s wartime achievements, but raises questions about why he never gained much recognition at home, while being lauded in Israel, Spain, Hungary and the United States.
The book entitled, ‘Giorgio Perlasca: Un Italiano Scomodo’ , (Giorgio Perlasca: An annoying Italian), is based on interviews conducted by Australian journalist and author Dalbert Hallenstein shortly before Perlasca’s death at the age of 81.
Perlasca, a former Fascist who fought in the Spanish Civil War, posed as the Spanish consul-general to Hungary in 1944 and 1945 under the name of Jorge Perlasca. He used his position to help hide, feed and protect Jews in Budapest.
“He was an incredibly impressive person, the most impressive person I have ever interviewed,” Hallenstein told Adnkronos International (AKI) in an interview.
Hallenstein, who has lived in Italy for more than 20 years, wrote the book with his Italian collaborator, Carlotta Zavattiero.
In the book the authors document Perlasca’s life in Budapest, his dangerous masquerade as a Spanish diplomat and the many courageous actions he took to save the lives of at least 5,200 people.
“He was probably protecting a lot more,” Hallenstein told AKI. “He wasn’t someone who boasted.”
In fact Perlasca himself told Hallenstein he had letters of protection approved during the Nazi occupation for at least 5,200 people but he may have saved many others from deportation or death during the Holocaust.
“In reality I think the number of people under our protection was much higher because one letter could provide for five individuals,” Perlasca told the author.
In one moving account, Perlasca said in December 1944 he had heard the Jewish ghetto which housed around 70,000 people was to be burnt down and its inhabitants exterminated.
A month later, just before the massacre was about to take place, he claimed to have had a two-hour talk in which he successfully convinced Erno Vajna, then commander in chief of Budapest’s Hungarian Nazis, to change his mind and save the inhabitants of the ghetto.
“Perlasca’s advantage was that he was ‘representing’ a Fascist state, Spain,” he said.
After the war Perlasca returned to a life of obscurity. As a former Fascist’ his wartime achievements attracted little attention in Italy until 1990 when a television documentary was made about him.
“He was quite bitter about that,” said Hallenstein. “He was given a medal (from the Italians) and informed he had to pay for it.”
Despite a brief appointment with the then Italian president Francesco Cossiga at the Quirinale palace in Rome, Perlasca believed he was the victim of official indifference.
“He felt that he never got the recognition he deserved”, said Hallenstein. “He had been through hell in war.”
“Not only were the German Nazis appalling but the Hungarian Nazis were equally ferocious.”
Hallenstein said although Perlasca was a former Fascist he never supported anti-Semitism and even before the war many of his friends were Jews.
“By the time he was helping Jews he was no longer a paid up Fascist,” Hallenstein said. “After his experience in Spain , he was fed up with the alliance with Hitler.
“When he realised the full impact of the racial laws against the Jews in Italy for him it was totally incomprehensible.”
Hallenstein, an Australian Jew whose family migrated from Germany in the 1840s, has published several books in Italy and lives in the northern city of Verona.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Bomber Could be Author of Madrid Attack Claim
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JANUARY 12 — The Jordanian triple agent who blew himself up two weeks ago on a US base in Afghanistan, causing the deaths of seven CIA agents, could be the author of a message claiming responsibility for the attacks in Madrid on March 11, 2004, by Al Qaeda. According to documents published on the internet which incite jihad, quoted today by the radio station, Cadena SER, Abu Dujana al-Khorasani said he was responsible for several actions carried out by Al Qaeda. Western secret services are currently investigating if Abu Dujana could have been the author of a message claiming responsibility for the March 11 attacks, which was delivered to daily newspaper Abc shortly after the attacks. According to data released by US Intelligence, the double agent was one of the last ideologists of Al Qaeda, a member of the jihad, the holy war, and author of hundreds of documents attributed to the terrorist network. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Arab World: Battleground Yemen
by Jonathan Spyer
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently described the current situation in Yemen as “a threat to regional stability and even to global stability.” She was referring to the fact that Yemen is the latest failed state to become a haven for elements of the Sunni global jihad. Like Afghanistan and Sudan before it, Yemen is becoming a key regional base for al-Qaida.
Unlike in the other two countries, in Yemen this has come about not because of an agreement reached between the jihadis and the authorities; rather, the inability of the Yemeni authorities to impose their rule throughout their country, coupled with the close proximity of Yemen to Saudi Arabia — a key target for al-Qaida — has made the country a tempting prospect for the terrorists.
Al-Qaida is not the only major problem facing Yemen. In fact, it could be argued that the country manages to encapsulate in acute form the three main causes of political turmoil in the Middle East: a dictatorial government, vulnerability to Iranian subversion through local jihadis and the presence and activity of the Sunni global jihad.
Last January, the hitherto little-heard-of Yemeni franchise of al-Qaida merged with the Saudi franchise to form the so-called “al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula” (AQAP). The Saudi jihadis were facing an increasingly effective counterterror campaign by the Saudi authorities, and therefore decided to shift focus to lightly-governed Yemen, where proper security fails to extend much beyond the capital city of San’a.
Through its organizing of the failed attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253, AQAP has now entered the major leagues of the global jihad…
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Bahrain: Investment in Industrial City to Reach USD 8 Bln
(ANSAmed) — MANAMA, JANUARY 7 — Senior figures attending a foundation-laying ceremony at Bahrain’s Salman Industrial City said that investment in the zone was expected to more than double to almost $8 billion in the next few years, Arabian Business online reports. As part of Bahrain’s Vision 2030 economic plan, the site is earmarked to bring industry, services and business logistics together close to major transport arteries. Salman Industrial City includes several key areas in the Hidd area, such as Bahrain International Investment Park, Bahrain Investment Wharf and Hidd Industrial Zone. The location is also adjacent to the country’s newest port, Bahrain Gateway, which opened last year, and close to both Bahrain International Airport and the proposed Qatar-Bahrain causeway. Around 15,500 people are already employed in the area, a number which is expected to grow to around 34,000, claimed a senior official, who added that the amount of investment already received had reached $3.5 billion. “We believe that this growth will continue and reach more than $7.6bn in the next few years,” said Industry and Commerce Minister Dr Hassan Fakhro. Fakhro added that around 156 companies are currently based in the area, with the number expected to rise to around 210 in the future. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Black Iraqis Claim Discrimination
Black Iraqis in the southern province of Basra are complaining of discrimination, saying they are not fairly represented in the state.
African Iraqis have lived in the country for centuries and now number more than one million.
Many of them are descendants of African slaves brought to Iraq. Many Iraqis still refer to them by their ancestral name, abeed — meaning slaves.
Salem Shaaban is a member of the Free Movement of Iraqis, advocating more rights for African Iraqis.
He says black people in Iraq feel there is a tradition of discrimination against them in the society.
“For example when two people fight in the street and one is black and the other is white, they say X had a fight with the slave. It really hurts.”
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Intel Agents: 20 Bombers Ready to Strike
Yemen bases producing Muslims prepared to blow up jets
LONDON — Suspected Detroit bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab reportedly has told authorities there are others like him prepared to strike against the United States, and now agents from the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, have confirmed 20 more young Muslims are in Yemen in the final stages of attack preparations, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
Some are believed to be female students, chosen because al-Qaida believes it is easier for them to avoid detection.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Blames ‘U.S. And Zionists’ After Top Nuclear Scientist is Killed by Remote-Controlled Motorcycle Bomb
Iran has blamed the U.S. and Israel for the assassination of one of the country’s top nuclear scientists.
Massoud Ali Mohammadi was killed this morning by a bomb-rigged motorcycle parked outside his Tehran home.
He has just left the house on his way to work when the remote-controlled explosion went off.
Websites linked to the country’s clerical leadership blamed the killing on an armed Iranian opposition group under the direction of Israeli agents.
But Massoud Ali Mohammadi was a vocal supporter of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi after the disputed presidential election result last June.
The blast shattered the windows of Mohammadi’s home in northern Tehran’s Qeytariyeh neighborhood and left the pavement outside smeared with blood and strewn with debris.
It is unclear whether the 50-year-old was actively involved in the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, which controls the country’s nuclear programme.
‘Signs of the triangle of wickedness by the Zionist regime (Israel), America and their hired agents, are visible in the terrorist act,’ the Foreign Ministry said.
‘Such terrorist acts and the apparent elimination of the country’s nuclear scientists will definitely not obstruct scientific and technological processes,’ it added.
A US government spokesman described the accusations as ‘absurd’.
Another Iranian nuclear scientist, Shahram Amiri, disappeared in June while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.
Amiri’s disappearance raised questions about whether he defected and gave the West information on Iran’s nuclear program, but Iran’s foreign minister accused the U.S. of helping to kidnap him and asked for his return.
Amiri worked at a university linked to the elite Revolutionary Guard military corps and his wife said he was researching medical uses of nuclear technology at a university.
In 2007, state TV reported that another nuclear scientist, Ardeshir Hosseinpour, died as a result of gas poisoning.
A one-week delay in the reporting of his death prompted speculation about the causes, including that Israel’s Mossad spy agency was to blame.
The United States and its allies in Europe have been pushing Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program, a technology that can be used to make fuel for power plants but which also offers a possible pathway to weapons development.
Israel has threatened to take military action if diplomatic efforts fail.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday said the Obama administration has concluded that the best way to pressure Iran to come clean on its nuclear ambitions is to impose sanctions aimed at the country’s ruling elite.
‘It is clear that there is a relatively small group of decision makers inside Iran,’ Clinton told reporters traveling with her on the first leg of a nine-day trip across the Pacific.
‘They are in both political and commercial relationships, and if we can create a sanctions track that targets those who actually make the decisions, we think that is a smarter way to do sanctions. But all that is yet to be decided upon.’
Iran is already under three sets of U.N. sanctions for refusing to freeze its enrichment work.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Ramin Mehmanparast, told reporters that sanctions would not work.
‘This is not a constructive attitude,’ he said. ‘I do not think the issue can be solved this way. Instead, our nuclear rights should be respected.’
Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi confirmed that Ali Mohammadi had been killed and added that there had been no arrests.
Iran denies having any intention to produce weapons and insists its nuclear work only has peaceful aims, such as energy production.
Mohammadi was the author of several articles on quantum and theoretical physics in scientific journals.
He also was a member of some academic associations focusing on experimental science, but he did not appear to have any high-profile role in promoting Iran’s nuclear programme.
He received his doctorate in 1992 from the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait’s First Women-Only Taxi Service Launched
(ANSAmed) — KUWAIT CITY, JANUARY 11 — Kuwaiti entrepreneur Bedoor Al-Mutairi has launched the country’s first women-only taxi service, it has been reported. The bright pink taxis cabs, which are driven by women for female customers only, offer women a secure mode of transport, she told the Kuwait Times. The business, called Eve Taxis, follows in the footsteps of other successful women-only firms in the UAE, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Bangladesh. Al-Mutairi was helped by the Kuwait Small Projects Development Company, a governmental body of the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA), to start-up her business, she told the paper. The taxis service will operate from 8am to 8pm, Al-Mutairi told the paper. All cabs will be fitted with a GPS system and the female drivers all have a good local knowledge. Prices will be set by the Interior Ministry. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tourism: Club Med to Open Luxury Village in Oman
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, JANUARY 11 — Club Mediterranean is to open a new luxury village in Oman, a first for the Arab peninsula, the only part of the world in which the French operator does not yet have a presence. The luxury village will be at Salalah beach, about twenty km from the airport, according to the terms of agreement signed today between Club Med and the Muriya Tourism Development company which is 30% owned by the Sultanate of Oman and 70% owned by the Egyptian tourism and telecommunciations group Orascom. The opening date for the resort was not announced in the statement by President and Director General Henri Giscard d’Estaing, who said that the village will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the club and will be one of the most beautiful and successful of the new Club Med, whose strategy since 2004 has been to improve standards. As well as Club Med, other hotel chains such as Rotana and Movenpick Hotels and Resorts have been chosen by Muriya to develop Salalah Beach. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Transport: Dubai Metro Firm Confirms Work Slowdown, RTA Talks
(ANSAmed) — DUBAI, JANUARY 7 — One of the Japanese firms working on the Dubai Metro said on Thursday that the pace of construction has been slowed down while they negotiate with the Dubai government over delayed payments. An official from Obayashi Corp — part of a consortium working on the Red and Green Lines — told Arabian Business that earlier reports that work had been suspended were “untrue”. The Dow Jones newswire reported, citing Japan’s business daily Nikkei, that a consortium, including Obayashi Corp, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, Mitsubishi Corp and Kajima Corp, had decided to halt work for the time being, placing priority on talks with the Dubai government. However, an official from Obayashi Corp said: “What we told is that we are in negotiations with the client, the RTA of the Dubai government and we just slowed down the pace of the construction. “We have been in negotiations for a long time. The slowdown is part of the strategy,” the official added. The consortium received roughly $5.3billion worth of orders to build the metro from Dubai’s Roads & Transport Authority, with the work starting in 2005. But the actual construction expenses are expected to total almost twice as much, the newswire reported. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Georgia: The President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili Awarded Senator John McCain With the Order of Georgian National Hero
The President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili awarded Senator John McCain with the Order of Georgian National Hero at Sheraton Hotel in Batumi.
“This is the person, who has lived all his life as a hero. He accomplished much heroism for the United States and for Georgia as well. On behalf of Georgia, on behalf of today’s Georgians and Georgians of free future, I award Senator McCain with an award of Georgian National Hero”, stated the President of Georgia.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Jihad Remarks Infuriate India Muslims
CAIRO — Union Home Minister Shri P Chidambram’s remarks linking jihad to terrorism are infuriating Indian Muslims for misinterpreting the true meaning of the Islamic term.
“It is a gross misrepresentation of ‘Jihad’ and also betrays sheer ignorance on the part of your speech writer,” the All India Muslim Majlis-E-Mushawarat, an umbrella body of Indian Muslim organisations, in a statement mailed to IslamOnline.net on Monday, January 4.
Addressing an intelligence lecture on December 23, Minister Chidambram linked jihad to terrorism.
“Just as the Cold War came to an end, we witnessed the emergence of another kind of war, namely, jihad,” he said.
“Unlike the original Crusades, jihad is not fought like a conventional war. Jihad employs terror as an instrument to achieve its objectives.”
The Muslim umbrella organization said the controversial remarks demonstrate ignorance of the true meaning of Jihad.
“Jihad is a defensive war against invaders and occupiers like the one our forefathers fought against the British occupiers of India.”
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
NATO Chief Wants Muslims to Serve in Afghanistan
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) — NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Friday urged Muslim nations to contribute troops for service in Afghanistan to help avoid the appearance of a religious war.
“Active participation by Muslim nations would underscore that NATO’s effort in Afghanistan is not about religion, but a struggle against extremism and terror,” Rasmussen said in an interview with the Danish daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende.
“And so in talks with a number of Muslim nations I have encouraged them to consider positively a contribution to the mission in Afghanistan,” said Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister who took over as NATO’s top official in August 2009.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Google to End Censorship in China, May Pull Out
Google no longer intends to censor search results in China, and if the Chinese government balks, it may take its servers and go home.
The stunning change in Google’s policy toward doing business in China—which was always a complicated dance—came after Google discovered that it and other businesses were the victims of “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack” aimed at gathering information about human rights activists. It is not clear whether the Chinese government was behind the attacks, which Google said in a blog post were also directed against other U.S. companies.
Google released a lengthy blog post authored by David Drummond, senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer, Tuesday afternoon, discussing the decision to review its policy toward China.
“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered—combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web—have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”
Google entered China in 2006 with the launch of Google.cn. It knew at the time that it would be forced to censor search results in accordance with the policies of the Chinese government, but believed it could live up to its famous “don’t be evil” pledge without passing up the business opportunity in the fast-growing Chinese market by notifying Web searchers that their results had been censored due to local laws.
However, in practice that has been a tricky balance between Google’s desire to spread information around the world and the Chinese government’s desire to limit the amount of information available on sensitive topics, such as the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. The Chinese government is believed to issue very vague guidelines as to what type of content is permitted, and what is not. The end result is that many Internet companies in China censor far more than the government would actually deem offensive.
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
Detaining Children in Britain: No Place for the Innocent
The thundering knock came early in the morning. It was 6.30am. Without waiting for an answer the security chain across the door was smashed from its fittings. Feet thundered up the staircase. The five children, all under the age of 10, were alarmed to be woken from their sleep by the dozen burly strangers who burst into their bedrooms, switched on the lights and shouted at them to get up.
This is not a police state. It is Manchester in supposedly civilised Britain in the 21st century. There is a clue to what this is about in the names of the children: Nardin, who is 10; Karin who is seven; the three-year-old twins Bishoy and Anastasia, and their one-year-old baby sister Angela.
Their parents, Hany and Samah Mansour, are Coptic Christians who fled to the UK after a campaign of persecution by a group of Islamic fundamentalists in Egypt whose friends in the secret police tortured Hany. But even though six Coptic Christians were shot dead by Muslim extremists only last week in a town not far from their home, the British Government has decided that it does not believe them. And so Britain’s deportation police have launched another of their terrifying dawn raids on sleeping children.
Neighbours, awoken by the noise, tumble out bleary-eyed into the street, to find out what is going on. They look on, visibly shocked, as the family they have come to regard as friends in the tight-knit community of Moss Side over the past four years are bundled into vans and taken away.
“They woke the children up; they didn’t even allow my wife to do it,” says Hany Mansour. “They gave her a few big laundry bags and told her she had 30 minutes to pack. She and I were not allowed to talk to one another. They kept me downstairs. When she was brought down they took me upstairs. The most scary thing as that when we were put in the vans my wife and I didn’t even know if we were being taken to the same place.”
No one knows how many children have been snatched from their beds in this way in Britain in the past year. But the Immigration Minister Phil Woolas admitted in a letter to a concerned MP recently that more than 1,300 children were detained at three immigration removal centres in the UK during the 15 months between July 2008 and September 2009.
Some 889 children have been detained for more than 28 days in the past five years. In each of those cases an immigration minister or a judge had to sign a new authorisation every four weeks for their continued detention. The UK now has one of the worst records in Europe for detaining children.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Frattini Tour to ‘Root’ Of Migrant Problem
Seven-nation talks after violence in southern Italian town
(ANSA) — Rome, January 11 — Foreign Minister Franco Frattini sets off Monday on a week-long tour of Africa that has taken on new meaning after Italy’s worst racial unrest in years.
In a newspaper interview Monday, he said he meant to “get to the root” of the problem highlighted by riots and clashes in the Calabrian town of Rosarno after some locals attacked migrant labourers.
The seven-nation trip, Frattini told Rome daily Il Tempo, was part of Italy’s efforts to “solve, at the roots, the problem of illegal immigration which has re-emerged in all its dramatic force in the tragic events in Rosarno”.
“Italy has always been a tolerant and hospitable country which does not have the baggage of the great colonial powers in its DNA, but we have a duty, through our friendship and partnership with African countries, to…regulate to our mutual interest the phenomenon of immigration (and) to safeguard the welfare and safety of our citizens and of African citizens, whom we respect”.
Some 53 people including 18 police were injured in the unrest at Rosarno, a part of southern Italy dominated by Italy’s most powerful mafia, ‘Ndrangheta.
At least one clan-linked man was among those arrested for the attacks, which broke out after immigrants torched cars and litter bins in response to an initial air-rifle shooting.
Hundreds of illegal migrants, mainly day labourers from sub-Saharan Africa, were bussed out to migrant centres at the weekend and their makeshift dwellings bulldozed while many legal immigrants left the area to escape further reprisals.
The government, which taken a hard line on illegal immigrants through its controversial ‘push-back’ policy on boats of migrants and asylum seekers, aims to move illegals out of other high-crime areas near Naples and in Sicily. Frattini told Il Tempo that Italy wanted the European Union to take a “more incisive role” in Africa.
“Europe, more than any other continent, is exposed to the dangers of systemic instability in Africa created by the threats of terrorism, illegal trafficking and global warming which, unless they are resolved, will increase the flows of economic migrants towards our continent”.
Africa, he said, was “a central and complex challenge which we cannot afford to underestimate”.
Italy has already helped Libya set up stiffer border controls, along with the EU’s border agency FOREX, as part of an accord which allows it to return migrants caught in international waters to Tripoli — a policy decried by the Catholic Church and the United Nations.
During his trip, Frattini said he also means to “defend national interests, boost opportunities for Italian firms, and help the fight against terrorism and piracy”.
SECURITY, IMMIGRATION, TERRORISM AND PIRACY ON AGENDA.
On Friday a foreign ministry spokesman, Vincenzo Morabito, outlined the agenda.
Morabito, department chief at the ministry for sub-Saharan Africa, stressed that “Africa is no longer just a continent of wars and other problems but also one of opportunity”.
Frattini’s talks will range from bilateral relations to foreign aid, stabilizing areas of conflict like the Horn of Africa and the Middle East to economic investment opportunities, Morabito said.
Ample attention will obviously also be paid to the fate of two Italian national kidnapped December 19 in Mauritania by a group claiming to be Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), he added.
The first stop on Frattini’s tour will be Mauritania on Monday where Italy is already involved in innovative development programs and cooperating with local authorities to combat illegal migration and drug trafficking.
Tuesday will see the foreign minister pay a brief visit to Mali before he heads to Ethiopia for talks the following day focusing on conflicts in the Horn of Africa, starting with the situation in neighboring Somalia.
Italy, Morabito recalled, is backing the provisional government in Somalia and its efforts toward national reconciliation “which need to benefit from the international spotlight”.
On a bilateral level, talks will center on Ethiopia’s desire to attract foreign investment.
Frattini on Thursday will be in Kenya, a country with a strong Italian presence, where talks will again centre on regional security with special emphasis on Somali piracy.
The foreign minister on Friday will be in Uganda to boost economic relations, especially in the field of agriculture.
On the same day Frattini will fly to Egypt for a two-day visit including talks on the Middle East with Amr Moussa, the secretary of the Arab League.
On January 16 and 17 Frattini will be in Tunisia where he will take part in ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of the death former Italian premier Bettino Craxi, who died there in self-imposed exile to avoid prosecution in Italy on corruption charges.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Rosarno: Egypt Condemns Violence Against Immigrants
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, JANUARY 12 — Speaking about the revolt in Rosarno, the Egyptian Foreign Minister has condemned “the campaign of aggression” and “the violence” suffered by “immigrants and Arab and Muslim minorities in Italy” and called on the Italian government to “take the necessary measures to protect the minorities and immigrants”. In a statement, the Foreign Ministry informed that the issue will be raised by minister Aboul Gheit during the January 16 meeting with his Italian counterpart Franco Frattini.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican: Italians Accused of Racist ‘Hatred’
Vatican City, 11 Jan. (AKI) — The Vatican launched a scathing attack on Italian racism on Monday condemning the violent attacks against immigrants in the southern town of Rosarno late last week. In an article in the semi-official church newspaper, the Osservatore Romano, the Vatican denounced what it called the persistence of “hatred” in 2010.
“More than disgusting, the racism that has ricocheted around the media take us back to the mute and savage hatred towards those with another coloured skin that we thought we had overcome,” the article said.
The attack was issued as residents in the southern Italian town of Rosarno conducted a street protest late Monday to counter perceptions they were “xenophobic, mafiosi, and racist” after violent clashes with immigrants last week.
Several African immigrants joined local residents who carried a single banner stating: “Abandoned by the state, criminalised by the mass media, 20 years living together (with immigrants) is not racism”.
“With this peaceful and silent protest we want to refute the inflammatory label of ‘mafiosi, racist and xenophobic’ city that has been spread about Rosarno,” the protesters said.
Italian authorities evacuated more than 1,200 immigrants, many of them African farm workers, from the town at the weekend after dozens were injured in two days of violence.
On Sunday Pope Benedict XVI denounced the violence while Italy’s hardline interior minister Roberto Maroni from the anti-immigrant Northern League pledged to deport any illegal immigrants involved in the violence.
“The immigrant is a human being, different in culture and tradition but one who should be respected all the same,” the Pope said.
“And violence should never be used as a way to resolve difficulties.”
Hundreds of immigrants, most of them Africans employed illegally as labourers for less than 25 euros a day, took to the streets in a violent rampage after two of them were shot at with air rifles by unidentified gunmen on Thursday.
Demonstrators set fire to cars, smashed windscreens and attacked local shops before police intervened, leading to further clashes on Friday that left several of the demonstrators wounded.
At least 65 residents, police officers and immigrants were injured. Five immigrants were seriously injured and are now recovering in hospital in nearby Gioia Tauro.
The riots were among the worst seen in Italy in recent years and provoked a fierce political debate across the country.
They also raised serious questions about the role of the powerful Calabrian Mafia, ‘Ndrangheta, in the exploitation of illegal immigrants.
In September 2008, Italy sent 400 members of the National Guard to Castelvolturno, outside Naples, after violent protests broke out over the shooting deaths of six African immigrants in clashes with the Camorra, the Neapolitan Mafia.
Last February, immigrants set fire to a detention centre on the island of Lampedusa where many had been held awaiting deportation.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Democrat Assault on Homeschoolers Looming
Vote pending on new demands for tests, reviews
The homeschool community is reacting with alarm to plans for a vote in the New Hampshire legislature as early as this week that could create restrictive new testing and reporting requirements for homeschoolers in the state.
“Trying to sneak through massive changes in the New Hampshire homeschool law by manipulating the system is unacceptable. The Democratic leadership and the chairman of the education committee know that if they allowed an open process the overwhelming majority would vote [against the plan],” said Mike Donnelly, a staff attorney for the Home School Legal Defense Association.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Naturalist Looks at Avatar
Maybe you’ve seen the first billion dollar movie. Maybe you saw it in 3-D, at an IMAX theater, with Dolby Surround Sound. Maybe you saw that movie and wondered what James Cameron was trying to say, if anything, and whether it was just another popcorn matinee movie with little substance behind the special effects.
Avatar might be one of those movies discussed in film and video classes in the future. Or maybe not. I asked a couple of twelve-year old kids—immersed in the spin off Avatar game—what the movie meant to them. No answer. Armed only with a bow and arrow, the Avatar warrior in their video game was busy slaying faceless soldiers armed with superior firepower.
Yet Avatar resembles a subversive movie. The indigenous people of the planetoid Pandora live in surreal harmony with the plants and animals. No towering skyscrapers, no sprawling concrete super cities ringed with twelve lanes of traffic-clogged freeways for these thong-clad bluemanoids. Instead they live in an enormous tree. Unfortunately that tree sits atop the largest deposit of a mineral called “Unobtanium.” Somehow that mineral is necessary for the life on good old planet Earth and is so scarce that a kilo sells for $20 million, which doesn’t really seem like a lot of money in the year 2154.
Cameron sides with the indigenous people, the underdogs. Early on we witness a former US Marine, in the ultimate outer body experience, sharing the life of a Pandoran, as a native Na Vi. As a moviegoer you are struck immediately by a feeling of déjà vu. Avatar is a futuristic version of that Disney story of Pocahontas with more impressive special effects, complete with a wise old chieftain, not unlike Powhatan.
Through his “avatar” the former soldier, Sully, experiences forest life, village life, young warrior life among the Afghanistan—I mean Na Vi tribesmen and women. His mentor, the Pandoran Pocahontas, scolds and berates him like a lumbering child until he finally sees the light. To live well and wisely on Pandora, one must live in harmony with nature. The natives become so connected they possess a fiber-optic tail that can plug into plant or animal and become compatible enough with the inner computer system of any living entity. Even compatible enough with ferocious predators or ancient trees that they may commune with them through thought waves.
Imagine that concept: We are all connected. The planetary biosphere is alive and attuned. The electro-magnetic pulse, the harmonic convergence, the huge reservoir of untapped energy surrounding us all on Earth or the universe is available to download! At no extra charge! Talk about a subversive idea.
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How Terahertz Waves Tear Apart DNA
A new model of the way the THz waves interact with DNA explains how the damage is done and why evidence has been so hard to gather
Great things are expected of terahertz waves, the radiation that fills the slot in the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and the infrared. Terahertz waves pass through non-conducting materials such as clothes , paper, wood and brick and so cameras sensitive to them can peer inside envelopes, into living rooms and “frisk” people at distance.
The way terahertz waves are absorbed and emitted can also be used to determine the chemical composition of a material. And even though they don’t travel far inside the body, there is great hope that the waves can be used to spot tumours near the surface of the skin.
With all that potential, it’s no wonder that research on terahertz waves has exploded in the last ten years or so.
But what of the health effects of terahertz waves? At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss any notion that they can be damaging. Terahertz photons are not energetic enough to break chemical bonds or ionise atoms or molecules, the chief reasons why higher energy photons such as x-rays and UV rays are so bad for us. But could there be another mechanism at work?
The evidence that terahertz radiation damages biological systems is mixed. “Some studies reported significant genetic damage while others, although similar, showed none,” say Boian Alexandrov at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and a few buddies. Now these guys think they know why.
Alexandrov and co have created a model to investigate how THz fields interact with double-stranded DNA and what they’ve found is remarkable. They say that although the forces generated are tiny, resonant effects allow THz waves to unzip double-stranded DNA, creating bubbles in the double strand that could significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. That’s a jaw dropping conclusion.
And it also explains why the evidence has been so hard to garner. Ordinary resonant effects are not powerful enough to do do this kind of damage but nonlinear resonances can. These nonlinear instabilities are much less likely to form which explains why the character of THz genotoxic
effects are probabilistic rather than deterministic, say the team.
This should set the cat among the pigeons. Of course, terahertz waves are a natural part of environment, just like visible and infrared light. But a new generation of cameras are set to appear that not only record terahertz waves but also bombard us with them. And if our exposure is set to increase, the question that urgently needs answering is what level of terahertz exposure is safe.
| — Hat tip: LN | [Return to headlines] |
‘Muslims Would Not Stand for Any Widespread Use of Full-Body Scanners’
That might not matter to some religious groups.
Isaac Yeffet, former head of Israel’s El-Al airlines, said Muslims would not stand for any widespread use of the device since it would, to some, represent a dishonor to women and their families.
“Realize that a Muslim will know that his wife was seen naked in this machine,” Yeffet said. “You know what would be the reaction? …. Terrible.”
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Norway Time Hole “Leak” Plunges Northern Hemisphere Into Chaos
Russian scientists are reporting to Prime Minister Putin today that the high-energy beam fired into the upper heavens from the United States High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) radar facility in Ramfjordmoen, Norway this past month has resulted in a “catastrophic puncturing” of our Plant’s thermosphere thus allowing into the troposphere an “unimpeded thermal inversion” of the exosphere, which is the outermost layer of Earth’s atmosphere.
To the West’s firing of this ‘quantum’ high-energy beam we had previously reported on in our December 10, 2009 report titled “Attack On Gods ‘Heaven’ Lights Up Norwegian Sky”.
| — Hat tip: Esther | [Return to headlines] |
Pagan “Avatar” Peddles Nature Worship
Avatar has apparently broken the $ one billion mark in ticket sales in record time and is on its way to becoming the highest grossing film of all time.
For a film that is short on story and long on running time, this is a truly Orwellian achievement; less has proven to be more. I saw some glowing reviews prior to the release and decided to see it with my 12-year-old nephew, who had already seen it once but was gung ho to go see it again.
I am thankful that I happen to be in India at the moment where the ticket costs only about $3 and the total venture including popcorn and all cost me only about $10 (for two); so the pain of having to pay to have my senses assaulted, both spiritually and intellectually, was somewhat mitigated.
First of all the title of the film, ‘Avatar’ is a Hindu word that means ‘god incarnated’ or god in the flesh. ‘God’ is not capitalised in the previous definition since in the Hindu pantheon any number of creatures can be termed god.
The film’s avatars are blue, genetically modified creatures that are feline / simian / satyrs or something and not at all not easy on the eyes to behold. They also stand about 10 feet tall and the best way to describe them is— not human.
The whole movie is a high tech exercise to condition the masses to accept that Pagan ‘nature worship’ or pantheism is good. ‘Pandora’ where the movie is situated is a moon of a giant Saturn like gaseous planet. It doesn’t seem to have dawned on any movie critics …that the name ‘Pandora’ itself is a reference to a mythical story of all the evils that have befallen mankind by the opening of Pandora’s Box.
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2 comments:
"A Muslim passenger flying into San Francisco caused a bit of trouble by becoming drunk and belligerent and locking himself in the restroom. He had had five drinks, and was angry that he couldn’t have #6."
Believe it or not...
"Narrated Jabir bin Abdullah: Some people drank alcohol in the morning of the day of the battle of Uhud and were martyred on the same day."--Sahih Bukhari Volume 4 Book 52 Number 70
Consuming intoxicants is, of course, haram; however, such a sin is effaced if and when a mu'min becomes a mujahid, engaging in a ghazwa against the kuffar. Jihad b'il Saif atones for all and any sins...slay the rebellious kaffir who, by refusing the "divinely-ordained" status of Slave of Allah, spreads heresy and misbehavior through the land and thus forfeits his life and property, and a reward awaits the slaughterer...
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