The big news of the day for us is local: A man shot and killed eight people in Spout Spring, which is a tiny hamlet between Appomattox and Concord. The gunmen is still at large as of this writing, surrounded by police in a wooded area. Several people have written us to point out that Spout Spring is not very far from the Jamaat ul-Fuqra compound in Red House, which is true, but the Muslims in Red House don’t venture far beyond their home base except to go into town — they stick out like sore thumbs in the countryside. So my bet is that it’s a domestic incident, but we shall see.In other news, the Danish prime minister has made it known that he disapproves of the burqa as public apparel in Denmark.
Thanks to 4symbols, Barry Rubin, C. Cantoni, Diana West, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, KGS, Lurker from Tulsa, Sean O’Brian, Steen, TB, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Headlines and articles are below the fold.
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Japan Airlines Files for Bankruptcy Protection
TOKYO (AP) — Japan Airlines filed for one of the country’s largest bankruptcies ever Tuesday, entering a restructuring that will shrink Asia’s top carrier and its presence around the world.
Staggering under a $25.6 billion debt mountain, the carrier applied for protection from creditors under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law — Japan’s version of Chapter 11 — with the Tokyo District Court.
Japan’s flagship airline will slash nearly 16,000 jobs, reduce pensions for retired staff, cut routes and shift to more fuel-efficient aircraft as part of its restructuring.
Some $10 billion of government cash will keep JAL’s planes in the air during the reorganization. Lenders will forgive $8 billion in debt, and JAL shares will be removed from the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Feb. 20, wiping out investors.
There was no word on the outcome of a fierce tug-of-war between Delta Air Lines and American Airlines for a slice of JAL’s business. Despite its woes, the airline’s access to Asia is a mouthwatering prize for foreign airlines.
A state-backed turnaround agency pledged 900 billion yen ($10 billion) in financial support for JAL — 600 billion yen in credit lines and a 300 billion yen cash infusion. The bankruptcy is the fourth-largest in Japan, according to figures from Teikoku Databank, which tracks corporate failures.
“This is not the end of JAL,” transport minister Seiji Maehara told reporters. “Today is the beginning of a process to keep JAL alive.”
JAL President Haruka Nishimatsu resigned, bowing deeply as he apologized for the company’s troubles. Kazuo Inamori, a Buddhist monk and founder of Kyocera Corp. and Japan’s No. 2 mobile carrier KDDI Corp., has been tapped as its next leader.
“This is our last chance,” Nishimatsu said. “I believe we can be reborn as an airline that can represent Japan again.”
JAL said flights will continue uninterrupted and that frequent fliers would not lose their miles. Tokyo asked foreign governments for cooperation to keep JAL flying around the world.
The day’s events culminate a process that began in October when JAL — saddled with debts of 2.32 trillion yen ($25.6 billion) — first turned to the Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp. of Japan for help. Under the prepackaged reorganization, it will embark on a massive overhaul to shed the fat and inefficiency that hobbled its finances.
Maehara said the turnaround would involve 15,661 job cuts — a third of JAL’s payroll — by March 2013.
The carrier will retire all 37 of its Boeing 747 jumbo aircraft and 16 MD-90s, which will be replaced by 50 small and regional jets. As of March, JAL’s fleet consisted of 279 aircraft, mainly from Boeing Co. It served 220 airports in 35 countries and territories, including 59 domestic airports.
JAL shares, which have lost more than 90 percent of their value over the last week, tumbled another 40 percent Tuesday to 3 yen before finishing flat at 5 yen. The company is now essentially worthless, with a market capitalization of about 13.7 billion yen ($150 million) — the price of one Boeing 787 jet.
Nevertheless, American and Delta have continued to battle over JAL.
Delta and its SkyTeam partners have offered $1 billion, including $500 million in cash to lure JAL away from American’s oneworld alliance. American Airlines and its partners say they would inject $1.4 billion cash into the Japanese airline.
“Delta and SkyTeam fully support Japan airlines and stand ready to provide assistance and support in any way possible,” the Atlanta-based airline said in a statement following JAL’s bankruptcy filing.
Maehara declined to comment on which U.S. carrier the government preferred and said it is “not in a position to force any partners on JAL.”
The bankruptcy represents a humbling outcome for Japan’s once-proud flagship carrier which was founded in 1951 and came to symbolize the country’s rapid economic growth. The state-owned airline expanded quickly in the decades after World War II and was privatized in 1987.
But it soon became the victim of its own ambitions.
When Japan’s property and stock bubble of the 1980s burst, risky investments in foreign resorts and hotels undermined its bottom line. JAL also shouldered growing pension and payroll costs, as well as a network of unprofitable domestic routes it was politically obligated to maintain.
More recently, JAL’s passenger traffic has slowed amid the global economic downturn, swine flu fears, competition from Japanese rival All Nippon Airways Co. and a spate of safety lapses that tarnished its image. It lost 131.2 billion yen ($1.4 billion) in the six months through September.
Geoffrey Tudor, a principal analyst at Japan Aviation Management Research and former JAL employee, said the airline needs to be leaner and meaner.
“It wasn’t commercially brutal enough in dealing with the facts of economic life,” said Tudor, who spent 38 years at the Japanese carrier and now watches its collapse with a mixture of sadness and frustration.
Its four government bailouts since 2001 only exacerbated JAL’s problems, officials now say.
Passengers seemed to agree as much.
“I guess they did not work in earnest and so fell into this situation,” said Isao Sasaki, 72, who waited in line Tuesday at a JAL check-in counter at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. “Weren’t they spoiled as they always had protection from the government?”
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
Obama White House is Lying to You
Author, investor and longtime Wall Street observer James Dale Davidson says our government is lying to us: There is no genuine economic recovery happening.
“I think what we have seen … is a simulated recovery which has been generated by the government faking it in a lot of different ways,” putting out what he calls statistical falsehoods on economic numbers “to make it seem that the economy is stronger than it is,” Davidson told Newsmax.
For example, calculations for the recently released unemployment figures released failed to include the fact that the Bureau of Labor Statistics had undercounted the number of unemployed people in 2009 by 824,000 persons.
“They’re supposed to be doing a benchmark adjustment … and if they do, the unemployment rate will shoot up even higher,” Davidson says.
“A lot of the supposed improvements have been faked by the government,” Davidson says.
Davidson believes the government secretly used quantitative easing as an excuse to funnel money into U.S. capital markets.
“It’s not a coincidence that the market started to rally in March at the same time they announced they were going to do the quantitative easing,” he observes.
“In my view, it’s all created by the government as a hoax.”
The whole administration is based on one lie after another, he says.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Boys Should be Free to Walk Around During Lessons ‘To Boost Brainpower’
Boys should be allowed to walk around during lessons to boost their learning skills, an education expert said today.
Male children learn better when lessons are ‘hands-on’, based on activities and present ideas and concepts in a visual way, according to research by Abigail Norfleet James of the University of Virginia.
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CAIR ‘Fears Exposure’ In Teen Convert Case
Muslim group shaping Rifqa Bary story to protect Islam
Fearing harm to Islam’s image in the U.S., the Council on American-Islamic Relations is assisting the Muslim parents of an Ohio teen who claims she had to flee for her life last summer because she converted to Christianity, portraying her as a victim of brainwashing while moving to bar any mention in court of the religion’s mandate to kill “apostates,” according to an Ohio pastor who himself is a former Muslim.
Jamal Jivanjee, director of the non-profit ministry Illuminate, told WND he met 17-year-old Rifqa Bary before the current controversy over her conversion — which friends say took place four years ago — and is absolutely convinced the Sri Lanka native is a genuine Christian. He affirms Bary’s claim that her life is threatened by her father, due to his religious beliefs and the Columbus, Ohio, mosque that pressured him to punish her in accord with Islamic law.
[…]
Jivanjee says CAIR appointed a local lawyer, Omar Tarazi, to cast Bary as a victim of brainwashing by another Ohio pastor, Brian Williams, and the Florida pastors to whom she fled, Blake and Beverly Lorenz, while maneuvering to isolate and discourage her.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Manhunt on in Killings of 8 in Virginia
(CNN) — Police are searching for a 39-year-old man in the shooting deaths of eight people in central Virginia, authorities said Tuesday evening.
Seven of the victims were killed in and around a home in Appomattox, about 75 miles southwest of Richmond, and the eighth was gunned down along a street, according to Tom Molinar of Virginia State Police.
The accused gunman was identified as Christopher Speight. Molinar said authorities think Speight was acting alone.
The motive for the shootings was not immediately known.
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Rifqa Case Over!!!
Dependency case has been settled by Rifqa and her parents, and she will remain in state custody until her 18th birthday. My Pet Jawa will have more details later.
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State Police Confirm Eight Dead, Tighten Perimeter Around Appomattox Shooter
Suspect hits police helicopter, forcing it to make an emergency landing.
APPOMATTOX — Virginia State Police say eight people have been killed in an afternoon shooting and ongoing manhunt.
They have identified the lone suspect as 39-year old Christopher Speight, of Appomattox, which is located about 75 miles southwest of Richmond.
At a news conference at 10:10 Tuesday evening, State Police Sgt. Thomas Molnar said seven of the eight victims were Appomattox residents. He said police continue to use canine units and thermal imaging equipment to track the suspect who he said police believe was still within the perimeter they established in a wooded area.
Molnar said more than 100 law enforcement personnel had encircled the suspect by late afternoon in a wooded area in the town of Appomattox.
The shooting began just before 1 p.m. Tuesday afternoon. Molnar did not identify those killed or injured, but said three of the eight fatalities happened inside a residence and four were found dead outside the same home. An eighth victim died en route to Lynchburg General Hospital after being found wounded in the street. Molnar said the victims were both male and female.
Police are investigating whether the shootings may be domestic in nature. They consider Speight to be armed and dangerous.
CBS 6’s Jon Burkett tells us residents in homes in the mostly rural area have been told to stay inside and keep watch. Two families living in one house were evacuated to the State Police headquarters nearby.
Sgt. Tom Molnar said police found the injured Tuesday along a rural stretch of road in the central Virginia locality east of Lynchburg. He said they were taken from the scene by medical helicopter to be treated.
Molnar said Speight at one point fired at a police helicopter responding to the search, and a bullet struck its fuel line, forcing the chopper to make an emergency landing.
Molnar did not indicate what Speight’s relationship was to his apparent victims.
As a precaution, a Christian school within several miles was locked down during the afternoon hours and a state police officer was stationed there.
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The FBI Used Faked Terrorism Emergencies to Illegally Obtain Americans’ Phone Records: Report
The FBI faked terrorism emergencies to illegally obtain more than 2,000 U.S. telephone records between 2002 and 2006, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
FBI general counsel Valerie Caproni told the Washington Post that the FBI technically violated the Electronic Communications Privacy Act when agents invoked nonexistent emergencies to collect records.
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U.S. Military Weapons Inscribed With Secret ‘Jesus’ Bible Codes
Pentagon Supplier for Rifle Sights Says It Has ‘Always’ Added New Testament References
Coded references to New Testament Bible passages about Jesus Christ are inscribed on high-powered rifle sights provided to the United States military by a Michigan company, an ABC News investigation has found.
The sights are used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army.
U.S. military rules specifically prohibit the proselytizing of any religion in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn up in order to prevent criticism that the U.S. was embarked on a religious “Crusade” in its war against al Qaeda and Iraqi insurgents.
One of the citations on the gun sights, 2COR4:6, is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament, which reads: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
Other references include citations from the books of Revelation, Matthew and John dealing with Jesus as “the light of the world.” John 8:12, referred to on the gun sights as JN8:12, reads, “Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
Trijicon confirmed to ABCNews.com that it adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions “have always been there” and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is “not Christian.” The company has said the practice began under its founder, Glyn Bindon, a devout Christian from South Africa who was killed in a 2003 plane crash…
| — Hat tip: 4symbols | [Return to headlines] |
Christiane Amanpour, CNN: Why Choose Tariq Ramadan and Naser Khader for an Interview?
Dear Christiane Amanpour,
In your new interview programme at CNN it is usually you as a journalist who asks the questions. But for once on this blog I have decided to ask some questions to you. The reason is the fact that tonight January 19th 2010 you are going to broadcast an interview with Tariq Ramadan, Naser Khader and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Let me start by praising you for your commendable work done in Bosnia in general and Sarajevo in particular. You won the sympathy of a whole world when you showed the atrocity committed on innocent children and women in Former Yugoslavia. As part of my education in the European Master’s of Human Rights programme my whole class went to Sarajevo. We all lived with local residents and saw how the tragedy affected many families even years after the war had ended. Wars like the one in Bosnia have tremendously long-lasting effects on the people who lived through them. In 1998, the City of Sarajevo honoured you by bestowing you as a Citizen of City for your “personal contribution to spreading the truth” during the Bosnia war from 1992 to 1995. A well deserved title.
I personally think that you hit the nail on the head when you take up issues which are normally forgotten such as child prostitution or the situation of poor farmers in India as a result of Globalization. But I was surprised if not shocked to hear Danish media report that of all people you have invited Tariq Ramadan for a debate on “Europe and Islam” tonight on your programme.
I am not an expert on Tariq Ramadan. I have, however, gone an extra mile to understand three Danish scholars, Tina Magaard, Helle Merete Brix and Kirsten Sarauw, who have studied Islamism in detail for years. Tina Magaard is one of the finest scholars on Islam and Islamism in Denmark and is based at Aarhus University. Helle Merete Brix is a journalist and has written a book on the Muslim Brotherhood organization. And Kirsten Sarauw is a theologist who has written an extensive article on Tariq Ramadan.
These three women all conclude that Tariq Ramadan is not a proponent of Euro-Islam but of Euro-Islamism…
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Danish Prime Minister: Burkas Unwelcome
The Danish government is waiting for proposals on how to stop the use of the burka and niqab.
The Danish government and the majority of the Danish population do not approve of seeing women in the streets wearing the Muslim burka or niqab. Nor, according to Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen (Lib), is the dress code welcome in Danish schools.
Prime Minister Løkke Rasmussen told his weekly news conference that he is awaiting a report on how to avoid students, teachers and other public servants wearing the niqab or burka.
“Then there can be a discussion about how to rip the burka or niqab off women. Do we do it through legislation or by signaling our attitudes. Or do we do it by backing the leaders out in our institutions so that they take up the battle,” Løkke Rasmussen says.
“The important issue is that the view of women that this clothing represents is something that is anathema to us. Danish society rests on being a positive society in which we meet each other at eye level, in which we can see each other and in which we gesticulate with each other,” the prime minister adds.
“So neither the burka nor the niqab have their place in Danish society,” he says.
A report from Copenhagen University shows that only three women in Denmark wear the burka and a couple of hundred — many of whom are Danish converts — wear the niqab. Various politicians have questioned the figures presented in the report.
The prime minister, however, says the government’s view has nothing to do with numbers.
“To spell it out: If there was a situation in which my son was being taught in the public schooling system by a teacher in niqab, I couldn’t care less whether this was a fate he shared with three, or three hundred classes in Denmark. It would be one niqab too many,” Løkke Rasmussen says.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Charity Cartoon Rejected Over Terror Fears
Controversial cartoonist’s drawing in aid of Haiti relief is rejected from auction over fear of reprisals
TV2’s morning lifestyle programme Go’morgen Danmark was the latest in a long line of those trying to help the victims of the Haitian earthquake. The show organised an auction through auctioneers, Lauritz.com, and asked well known politicians and personalities to donate personal items for the charity fundraiser.
A signed copy of Bill Clinton’s book dedicated to the head of the Social Democrats, concert and sports events tickets and a porcelain doll owned by Pia Kjærsgaard, head of the Danish People’s Party, are already listed in the auction.
However, when cartoonist Kurt Westergaard — forever to be associated with the Mohammed cartoons and terror threats — was asked to submit a new drawing for the auction, the auctioneers refused to accept it.
According to Mette Jessen of Lauritz, the decision was taken because of the latest attempt on Westergaard’s life when an alleged assassin broke into his house on New Year’s Day.
‘We must recognise that the terror threat is still of such a character that we can’t predict the consequences of a sale. We value the safety of our employees quite highly, which is why an eventual risk assessment was used in our consideration,’ she said.
Westergaard was disappointed in Lauritz’s decision, saying it was just another example of how his name creates fear.
‘The drawing was in no way controversial, but it seems my name is. I’m sorry for the fear it causes people. When even my hairdresser, who is Muslim, told me with sadness that she didn’t dare keep me on as a customer for fear of reprisals, then there’s reason to be sad about this development,’ he said.
Lauritz has now come under fire from all sectors of the art and political world, even Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen highlighted the matter at his weekly press conference.
He outright criticised the decision taken by Lauritz and what it represents in Danish society.
‘I won’t dictate which auction house sells what and who should cut someone’s hair but I want to warn against the stigmatisation it creates,’ the prime minister said.
He continued by saying that the people should not live their lives ‘in the shadow of fear’.
Galleri Draupner in Skanderborg, Jutland, has previously displayed a collection of Westergaard’s drawings based on fairytale adventures and has offered to step into the breach.
The auction for Westergaard’s drawing, which he describes as much in the vein of his fairytale artwork, went live today on the gallery’s website and has already raised bids of 12,000 kroner. The auction will run until 23 January.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Auctioneer Rejects Westergaard Painting
Lauritz.com has declined to auction off a painting by Kurt Westergaard in favour of Haiti.
There has been widespread political criticism in Denmark of a decision by the Internet auctioneers Lauritz.com not to auction off a painting by cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, the proceeds of which were to go to earthquake relief in Haiti.
The auction is to allow TV2 viewers to bid on various works and artefacts, the proceeds of which are to go in relief funding.
Minister for Culture Carina Christensen says the move gives a wrong signal and has urged the company to review its decision, while Socialist People’s Party Leader Villy Søvndal says Lauritz.com’s decision is ridiculous.
He adds that Westergaard, like so many others, wants to help the victims of the Haiti earthquake and has therefore offered to place Westergaard’s painting on his party’s website. “The Danes can bid there and we’ll send the money to Haiti,” says Søvndal.
Danish People’s Party
The Danish People’s Party is prepared to offer a similar service.
“We’ll put a link to the gallery in Skanderborg that is auctioning off Westegraard’s watercolour and people can bid there,” Danish People’s Party Leader Pia Kjærsgaard tells Ritzau.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Son of BR Founder Arrested for Terrorism
Man suspected of conspiring to revive leftist group
(ANSA) — Rome, January 18 — The son of a 1970s leftist militant who helped found the notorious Red Brigades (BR) terrorist network was one of two men arrested on Monday on charges of trying to revive the leftist militant group.
Manolo Morlacchi, 39, is the son of the late Pierino Morlacchi, who co-founded the first BR ‘cell’ in 1972 together with the Renato Curcio, the group’s leader during its early years.
Morlacchi was arrested together with Costantino Virgilio, 34, with word files described as a “computer manual for revolutionaries”.
According to police, the file contained instructions for encrypting documents and avoiding police detection on the internet.
After a five-hour interrogation on Monday the suspects were taken to custody where they will await trial on charges of conspiring with terrorists.
Police said the two have been on their radar since June when they arrested five other BR revivalists allegedly planning an attack on the July Group of Eight summit in L’Aquila. While neither Morlacchi nor Virgilio were arrested in the June operation, investigators searched their homes and found large amounts of material suggesting that they were both core members.
Morlacchi is a well known figure in radical circles in Milan and came to national prominence in 2007 with the publication of his memoirs, entitled “Fleeing Forward” about his upbringing in a militant leftist family.
In addition to his father, his East German mother was also a BR member and likewise in and out of jail for much of his childhood.
His brother, Ernesto, is also suspected of collaborating with neo-BR groups and was among those investigated in June. After the 1999 and 2002 killing of two government aides, authorities have been on the alert against a resurgence of leftist terrorism, which culminated in 1978 with the kidnapping and murder of Christian Democrat leader Aldo Moro.
But Interior Minister Roberto Maroni hailed the arrests as “proof that law enforcement is on top of BR terrorism”.
Maroni vowed that the government would keep its “guard up” against a possible return to the kind of political violence which characterized the heyday of the BR in the late 1970s.
A Senator with the opposition Democratic Party Silvana Amati said the inter-generational aspect of Monday’s arrests should remind parents to teach their children just how bad that period really was.
“Helping children understand what it was like back then is the best way to keep them from being infected by the anger that made it all possible,” she said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Inflation, In 2009, Prices +0.8%, Low Since 1959
(ANSAmed) — ROME — The average inflation rate in 2009 was +0.8%, according to the National Statistics Institute (ISTAT). The figures are based on definitive data, making this the lowest rate of inflation in the past 50 years. On average in 2009, prices increased for alcoholic beverages and tobacco products (+3.8%), and other goods and services (+2.6%), as well as food products (+1.8%), and education (2.2%). Transport prices (-2.2%), communications prices (-0.3%), and housing, water, and electricity prices (-0.1%) were all in decline. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Fiat: Registrations Up 6.3% in Europe in ‘09
(ANSAmed) — ROME — In 2009, the Fiat group registered 1,254,829 new automobiles in Europe, a 6.3% increase on the 1,180,562 cars they registered in 2008. In December, the group sold 85,759 units in Europe, up 20.2% on December of 2008 when they registered 71,371 units. In November, Fiat Group Automobiles increased their sales in Europe by 27.7% to 97,074 units. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Police Rescue Abducted Pakistani Teen
Fano, 19 Jan. (AKI) — Italian police have rescued a 17-year-old Pakistani girl in the country’s northeast and arrested her father over her alleged abduction after a massive search operation. Police found Almas Mahmood in good health on a highway between Bologna and Ancona on Tuesday after her estranged father Akatar kidnapped her in front of her school in the town of Fano.
Almas, who has grown up in Italy, was removed from her family and placed in local care last April after her father savagely beat her for being “too westernised”.
Witnesses on Monday said they saw Almas being bundled kicking and screaming into a car by a man, believed to be her father.
She had tried to make an emergency call from her mobile phone, but dropped it in the commotion.
Almas’ mother, brother and sister were reportedly also inside the car, which drove off in the direction of Bologna.
Italian police were on Tuesday reportedly deciding whether to arrest Almas’ mother, who allegedly opposed her daughter’s “western” style of dress and friendships.
Her father, an immigrant street hawker, allegedly threatened social workers and staff at the children’s home where she was living, but Almas had pleaded with judges not to return her to her family.
Giuseppe Franchini, the headmaster at the technical school where Almas is a student, described her father as “integrated in Italy economically but not culturally.”
The issue of Muslim cultural integration in Italy has been brought into stark relief after several “honour” killings in recent years.
Last September, a Moroccan girl, Sanaa Dafani was murdered in northeastern Italy, allegedly by her father. She had a relationship with an older Italian man,
In 2006, in the northern town of Brescia in 2006 a 20-year-old Pakistani girl, Hina Saleem died after her throat was slit by male relatives after she wore jeans, worked in a pizzeria and went to live with her Italian boyfriend.
After the case, Italy’s previous centre-left Italian government issued a ‘charter of values’ for immigrants.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Honors Jews at Rome Synagogue, Church Criticised for Holocaust Silence
Rome, 18 Jan. (AKI) — Pope Benedict XVI sought to bridge differences between Catholics and Jews during his first visit to Rome’s largest synagogue amid contention whether the Church did enough to stop Nazi slaughter during the Holocaust.
The pontiff said on Sunday that during World War II, “the Apostolic See itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way.”
Benedict’s visit was boycotted by Italy’s top rabbi, Giuseppe Laras, the president of the Italian Rabbinical Council.
But Riccardo Pacifici, the president of Rome’s Jewish community, in an address to the synagogue in the former Jewish ghetto, tempered his praise of Catholic orders by criticising the “silence” of wartime pope Pius XII.
The papal visit has provoked a fierce debate since Benedict signalled in December he would advance moves to make wartime Pope Pius XII a saint.
Laras last week said he would sit out the pope’s visit because it would only benefit the Vatican. Holocaust survivor Piero Terracina and other Jews who survived Nazi persecution signalled they would shun pope’s visit.
Before entering the synagogue, Benedict stopped to lay a wreath at a plaque commemorating the 1943 deportation of more than 1,000 Jews.
“The Church has not failed to deplore the failing of he sons and daughters, begging forgiveness for all that could in any way have contributed to the scourge of anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism,” he said during his address inside the synagogue.
Rome’s chief rabbi, Riccardo di Segni, who presided over the visit, said that while “the silence of God” is difficult to understand, “the silence of man is on a different level, and “neither does it escape justice.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden to Tackle ‘Ticking Bomb’ Of Islamic Violence
Sweden needs to do more to help young “violence-affirming Islamists” turn their backs on extremist organizations, minister for integration Nyamko Sabuni said on Tuesday.
“Either society helps support their way back to a normal life, or we have a ticking bomb in our society,” Sabuni told Sveriges Radio (SR).
She added that she has tasked the Swedish National Board for Youth Affairs (Ungdomsstyrelsen) to survey the needs of people who need assistance quitting Islamic extremist groups.
Sweden has previously supported people’s efforts to leave neo-Nazi groups, but according to Sabuni, similar programmes need to be developed for young people who are drawn to violent Islamic extremism.
“We’ve identified a number of networks and organizations which primarily recruit young people who feel excluded from society,” Sabuni told SR.
“We also know that there are many who want to leave these organizations, but who don’t always have support from society.”
Sabuni has also called on the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) to get engaged in preventative work against extremism.
“All kinds of preventative work works best on a local level, so the municipalities are very important,” she said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Wilders Trial: Voices From Europe
by Diana West
In the summer of 2008, as many readers know, I traveled to six European countries to interview politicians dedicated to breaking, halting and/or reversing the Islamization of their countries (here is a collection of some of the writings inspired by the trip).
One of those politicians was Geert Wilders, then the little-known (outside of the Netherlands) leader of a very small party, PVV, the Party for Freedom. Only a year and a half later, Wilders is the most famous Dutchman in the world, and his party rivals the current ruling party in popularity. Wilders is also now on trial for his political life and liberty — hardly a coincidence.
But Wilders is not the only politician in Europe fighting Islamization. In my travels, I learned there were other countries where extremely courageous men and some notable women had entered the democratic arena to defend Western liberties against the onslaught of sharia (Islamic law), and with electoral success. In interviewing such politicians, I was much impressed with their political and, in these times of jihad violence, physical courage. Sadly, it remains the case that no US politicians speak with either the candor or understanding of the Islamic threat besetting the West that at least some of their European counterparts do.
With Wilders’ trial begining tomorrow, I contacted three of the politicians I interviewed on my trip and asked them for their thoughts today. They have obliged — and in English, which is worth noting. In alphabetical order, they are Filip Dewinter, leader of the Vlaams Belang party in Belgium, Oskar Freysinger, a member of Swiss parliament for the Swiss People’s Party (lately in the news for the recent victorious Swiss referendum banning minaret construction in Switzerland), and Morten Messershmidt, a member of European Parliament for the Danish People’s Party.
Filip Dewinter wrote…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Is Your Home Safe From the State?
A new bill restricting sweeping government powers of entry is desperately needed to restore the sanctity of our homes.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Teenage Laura Ashley Shop Assistant Stabbed to Death by Mugger as She Walked Home From Work
A teenage Laura Ashley shop assistant was stabbed to death on an unlit, isolated canal footpath last night by a thief who rifled through her handbag before fleeing.
A major murder hunt was underway today after the blood-covered 19-year-old woman was discovered sprawled on the towpath by a jogger at 8pm.
Eye-witnesses said that she was lying face down and had suffered multiple stab wounds to her head and body. The contents of her handbag were strewn nearby.
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Why I Stand With Geert Wilders
He represents all Westerners who cherish their civilization.
By Daniel Pipes
Who is the most important European alive today? I nominate the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. I do so because he is best placed to deal with the Islamic challenge facing the continent. He has the potential to emerge as a world-historical figure.
That Islamic challenge consists of two components: on the one hand, an indigenous population’s withering Christian faith, inadequate birthrate, and cultural diffidence, and on the other an influx of devout, prolific, and culturally assertive Muslim immigrants. This fast-moving situation raises profound questions about Europe: Will it retain its historic civilization or become a majority-Muslim continent living under Islamic law (the Shari’a)?
Wilders, 46, founder and head of the Party for Freedom (PVV), is the unrivaled leader of those Europeans who wish to retain their historic identity. That’s because he and the PVV differ from most of Europe’s other nationalist, anti-immigrant parties.
The PVV is libertarian and mainstream conservative, without roots in neo-Fascism, nativism, conspiricism, antisemitism, or other forms of extremism. (Wilders publicly emulates Ronald Reagan.) Indicative of this moderation is Wilders’s long-standing affection for Israel that includes two years’ residence in the Jewish state, dozens of visits, and his advocating the transfer of the Dutch embassy to Jerusalem.
In addition, Wilders is a charismatic, savvy, principled, and outspoken leader who has rapidly become the most dynamic political force in the Netherlands. While he opines on the full range of topics, Islam and Muslims constitute his signature issue. Overcoming the tendency of Dutch politicians to play it safe, he calls Muhammad a devil and demands that Muslims “tear out half of the Koran if they wish to stay in the Netherlands.” More broadly, he sees Islam itself as the problem, not just a virulent version of it called Islamism.
Finally, the PVV benefits from the fact that, uniquely in Europe, the Dutch are receptive to a non-nativist rejection of Shari’a. This first became apparent a decade ago, when Pim Fortuyn, a left-leaning former-Communist homosexual professor began arguing that his values and lifestyle were irrevocably threatened by the Shari’a. Fortuyn anticipated Wilders in founding his own political party and calling for a halt to Muslim immigration to the Netherlands. Following Fortuyn’s 2002 assassination by a leftist, Wilders effectively inherited his mantle and his constituency.
The PVV has done well electorally, winning 6 percent of the seats in the November 2006 national parliamentary elections and 16 percent of Dutch seats in the June 2009 European Union elections. Polls now generally show the PVV winning a plurality of votes and becoming the country’s largest party. Were Wilders to become prime minister, he could take on a leadership role for all Europe…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Sonatrach Corruption; Minister Announces New CEO
(ANSAmed) — ALGIERS, JANUARY 18 — Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil has broken his silence, which lasted until today on the scandal that overwhelmed the most important company in Algeria and Africa, state-run oil company Sonatrach. “Abdelhafid Feghouli was appointed Sonatrach’s interim-CEO,” announced Khelil. Until today Feghouli was Vice-President of the group’s Downstream Activities (AVAL), and according to the Algerian press, he is the only Sonatrach vice-president who is not under investigation. Sixty-year-old Mohamed Meziane, the company’s CEO since 2003, was put under pre-trial supervision as part of the corruption and embezzlement investigation associated with the assigning of contracts. “Arrest warrants have been issued for two Sonatrach vice-presidents and four are under judicial supervision,” added the minister, who specified that “the Sonatrach executives are presumed innocent until a decision is made by the judicial system.” There are reportedly around ten executives under investigation. In 2008, Sonatrach reported net profits of 9.2 billion dollars with annual turnover of 80.8 billion dollars. The top exporter in Africa and third gas supplier to Europe, Sonatrach produces 1.2 million barrels of oil per day. The Algerian economy is based exclusively on hydrocarbons, which represent 98% of the country’s total exports. Several foreign companies, including ENI, are associated with Sonatrach in their operations in Algeria. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egyptair Uses Jumbo Planes to Carry Workers to Libya
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, JANUARY 18 — EgyptAir decided to operate jumbo planes to absorb the huge numbers of Egyptian workers flying to Libya’s cities of Benghazi and Tripoli. The EgyptAir action comes in response to the large numbers of Egyptian workers trying to reach Libya before implementing the new rules set by Libyan authorities, which will come into force as of tomorrow, said EgyptAir official Salah Taher. The new rules prescribe that Egyptian workers must get authenticated work contracts to travel to Libya.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: First Statement of Mubarak on Christians Massacre
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, JANUARY 18 — For the first time, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has made a public statement on the massacre of Christian citizens in Nagaa Hamadi some ten days ago. He called for the national unity of Christians ands Muslims without directly mentioning the January 6 shootout which left six Coptic Christians and a Muslim police officer dead, according to official figures. In the aftermath of the massacre, several Christians expected an official statement from Mubarak as did the thousands of Coptic Christians who last Wednesday demonstrated outside the cathedral in Cairo which is the seat of Pope Shenouda III. “Mubarak, where are you? Are you on their side, too?” demonstrators kept chanting meaning that failing to intervene the president implicitly admitted to taking sides with the attackers. So far, statements were made only by MPs and the Minster for Legal Affairs, Mofeed Shehab, along the usual official lines of playing down the religious aspect and make general calls for national unity. Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit also publicly spoke about the incident only to refer to an argument (eventually settled) with his Italian counterpart Frattini. “We are a people” said Mubarak quoted by newspaper Al Ahram, during a rally in Kafr el-Cheikh, north of Cairo . “We are not extremists and there are no differences between Egyptian Muslims, Christians and Jews.” Mubarak also urged to “close ranks because disunion must not be taken as an excuse by those who want to sow discord among us”. Finally, he confirmed his refusal of any form of religious tension and fundamentalism, emphasising that someone abroad is trying to stress differences between Muslims and Christians. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Christians Hit by Random Arrests, Arson
Threats follow holiday attack that killed 8
Christians facing the prospect of random murder on the streets of their own communities now also are dealing with the additional intimidation from the threat of arrest, arson and looting, according to ministries working within Egypt.
Coptic Orthodox Christians there are reporting the attacks have been on the rise ever since a gun assault on a church earlier this month that left eight people dead.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: North Africa Poses ‘Greatest Terrorist Threat’
Rome, 19 Jan. (AKI) — Al-Qaeda linked terrorist groups based in North Africa pose the greatest threat to Italy and are infiltrating people smuggling gangs in the Mediterranean, according to the country’s foreign minister Franco Frattini. The minister made the comments in an interview with Italian magazine, ‘A’, due to be published on Wednesday.
“We consider these terror cells the real threat because the region is much closer than say Afghanistan and because they are infiltrating illegal immigrant trafficking with the greatest of ease,” Frattini said.
He gave the interview to the Italian weekly, ‘A’ , during his recent visit to Mauritania and Egypt.
Frattini especially targeted groups operating in the Sahara desert linked to the Algerian-based Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
The group has been held responsible for a string of deadly suicide bombings and kidnappings of westerners.
AQIM was formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which was believed to have around 500 fighters. In October 2003, it offered its support to the Al-Qaeda network.
“It has arrived in Italy and in Europe. In the past three to four years, we have repeatedly found evidence of its presence in Italy,” Frattini said.
He called for a united approach for defeating illegal immigration, calling it “terrorism’s new frontline.”
“We must move sooner rather than later. Italy and Europe have underestimated the threat or may not have understood it at all,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Gaza: Italian Cooperation Builds Garbage Dump
(ANSAmed) — GAZA, JANUARY 18 — A concrete garbage dump will help tackle one of the main emergencies in the Gaza Strip: the management of waste. According to Palestinian press, this is the latest project that the Italian Cooperation is working on in cooperation with the municipality of Gaza in Yarmuk (in western Gaza City). Project coordinator Yahaya abu Zubeida is convinced that the new dump will help get rid of the evil-smelling emissions throughout the whole area. The current dump is located just a few kilometres from schools and public buildings and daily garbage collection operations are made difficult by the huge amount of waste and the transport problems caused by the fuel shortage resulting from the Israeli blockade imposed here after Hamas took control of this area. The surplus waste can be stored in the new dump, Zubeida explained, before being taken to the main site of Juhr ad Deik. A recent report of the UN Humanitarian Affairs agency (Ocha), the initiative of the Italian Cooperation has already made it possible to dispose of 1,500 tonnes of solid waste in the cities of Gaza City, Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanun, Jabalia and Um an-Nasser.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jerusalem Vice Mayor: One Law for All — Raze EU Building
(IsraelNN.com) Jerusalem Deputy Mayor David Hadari says that if the authorities are so bent on razing the Jewish-populated Beit Yehonatan in the eastern Jerusalem “Yemenite Village” neighborhood, they must also demolish another illegal building: The European Union’s Beit Europa.
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat appeared at a Knesset Law Committee session last week, and presented his housing plans for eastern Jerusalem. In the knowledge that there are dozens, and possibly hundreds, of illegally-built Arab buildings there, and that destroying all of them is not feasible, Barkat wishes to retroactively permit buildings there to reach four stories high, instead of the currently mandated two.
Most of the buildings in question are Arab-populated, but one of them is none other than Beit Europa, used by the European Union for various activities.
This raises a red flag for people like Hadari, who is concerned about the ongoing legal proceedings against the Jewish-owned Beit Yehonatan. The building stands six stories high, and because the authorities are unable to find the owner, they are seeking to evict the families.
Named for Jonathan Pollard, Beit Yehonatan stands in the area of the Yemenite Village, below and just to the southeast of the Temple Mount. The area was owned by and home to many Jewish families, mostly from Yemen, from the 1880’s until 1938. On Aug. 11, 1938, following a long period of Arab riots, pogroms and looting, the British evacuated the last 30 families from the neighborhood. “The British gave assurances that the ‘Jewish refugees’ would shortly return,” according to Daniel Lurie, Executive Director of the Ateret Cohanim Jerusalem Settlement Foundation, “but of course, this never happened”- until April 2004, when several Jewish families moved back in.
They enjoyed about two years of peaceful residence, until legal proceedings against them began — on “charges” of living in a house with building irregularities. Hadari says that thousands of other Arabs are living in a similar status, and if the buildings are to be “kosherized,” then Beit Yehonatan must be as well.
“Illegal buildings must be destroyed, period,” Hadari says, “and we can’t overlook the illegality of Beit Europa just because we’re afraid of what the nations will say. The law must be fulfilled — though I am willing to make one exception: If Beit Yehonatan is legalized, then I am willing to accept the legalization of other buildings as well. One law for all. If all the buildings are deemed OK, then fine, but if not, then just as the others will have to be razed, then with great sorrow I would have to accept that Beit Yehonatan must be among them.”
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Pope in Synagogue: Israeli Headline, ‘Applause and Criticism’
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, JANUARY 18 — “Applause and Criticism”: it was with these words that Tel Aviv’s Haaretz newspaper described Benedict XVI’s visit yesterday to the Rome synagogue, while polemics over the planned beatification of Pope Pius XII still remain. The newspaper placed particular attention on the “highly emotional” words” used by the president of Rome’s Jewish community Riccardo Pacifici, and his denunciation of “Pius XII’s silence over the Holocaust”. His words were widely reported on military radio and Yediot Ahrot, which added that “only two kilometres separate Vatican City from the Rome Ghetto, on opposite banks of the River Tiber, but yesterday one could see the long and difficult road — given past hostilities between the two religions and with the horrors of the Holocaust as a backdrop”. In any case, the newspaper ended on an optimistic tone, saying that yesterday Benedict XVI had “managed to shorten the distance, or at least in part”. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Shin Bet Raid in Settlement, Three Arrested
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, JANUARY 18 — Last night, Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) officers and dozens of police officers belonging to a special unit raided the Jewish settlement of Yitzhar (Nablus) which is believed to be the stronghold of the militant right. At least three people were arrested, radio network Channel 7 reported. They are suspected of violent acts against Palestinians living in the surrounding areas and, in particular, of setting ablaze a nearby mosque last month. According to newspaper Haaretz, the violence committed by Israeli settlers against the Palestinian population are the subject of a report made public in the last few weeks by UN organization Ocha. The removal of illegal settlements by the Israeli army, Ocha reported, might cause extremist colonists to retaliate against the Palestinian population. This issue is perceived as especially urgent with regard to the 76,000 Palestinians living nearby 22 ‘militant’, one of which is Yitzhar.(ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Baha’i Leaders on Trial in Iran
“Using the courts as an instrument of religious persecution.” Islamic Tolerance Alert from the Islamic Republic of Iran: “Trial underway for Baha’i leaders in Iran,” from CNN, January 12:
(CNN) — Seven leaders of Iran’s Baha’i minority went on trial in Tehran Tuesday accused of spying for Israel, a charge their supporters say is motivated by religious discrimination.
Naaahh!! Couldn’t be!…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Four Arrested After Iran Prosecutor Assassinated
Four people have been arrested after an Iranian state prosecutor was shot dead outside his home in northern Iran.
Vali Hajgholizadeh, who officials say had a reputation for fighting corruption, was killed in the town of Khoy near the Turkish border.
Local officials said a Kurdish separatist group had claimed responsibility for the killing.
The region has been the scene of frequent clashes with Kurdish groups who want to establish their own state.
Two gunmen opened fire on Mr Hajgholizadeh outside his house late on Monday, and he died of his wounds in hospital.
The Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), a Kurdish militant group based in Iraqi Kurdistan claimed it carried out the attack, local government official Fakhrali Nikbakht told the Mehr News agency.
Four men were arrested on Tuesday, but no details have been given about their identities.
The Iranian state Press TV station reported Mr Hajgholizadeh had received death threats in the last few days.
A spokesman for the regional governor paid tribute to Mr Hajgholizadeh, saying he “had a brilliant record in battling land grabbing, moral corruption, and counter-revolutionaries”.
PJAK was formed in 2004 and is affiliated to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Gunmen in Northwestern Iran Assassinate Prosecutor
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranian state media say gunmen have fatally shoot a local prosecutor outside his home in northwestern Iran.
The state television on Tuesday identified the prosecutor as Vali Hajgholizadeh. It says two attackers opened fire at him outside his building late Monday in the town of Khoy, about 470 miles, or 780 kilometers, northwest of the capital, Tehran.
The report says the prosecutor died later of his wounds in a hospital.
The area is close to the Turkish border and has seen occasional clashes between security forces and separatist Kurdish groups.
Last week a Tehran University physicist was killed in a remote-controlled blast in front of his home. No group took responsibility for the assassination and no arrests have been made.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Islam, Middle East and Fascism
by Ibn Warraq
In a speech that he gave at Columbia University, Umberto Eco spelled out fourteen features that he considered were typical of Eternal Fascism (which he also calls Ur-Fascism ); adding however this explanatory detail: “ These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.”
Umberto Eco: [1] The Cult of Tradition. “Truth has already been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.”
Islam is the quintessentially tradition-bound religion. First, the Koran is the eternal and infallible Word of God, and contains the whole of God’s final revelation to man, and must be obeyed in all its details. “This day I have perfected your religion for you and completed My favour to you. I have chosen Islam to be your faith.” The Koran is immutable, “Say: ‘It is not for me to change [the Koran]. I only follow what is revealed to me. I cannot disobey my Lord, for I fear the punishment of a fateful day.” “Proclaim what is revealed to you in the Book of your Lord. None can change His Words. You shall find no refuge besides Him.” The Koran is a faithful and unalterable reproduction of the original scriptures which are preserved in heaven.
A Muslim’s wish is to establish a new life in accordance with a religious law willed by God and consonant with the Prophet Muhammad’s intentions. Clearly the Koran by itself (i.e. uninterpreted) did not furnish enough guiding principles to meet the changing requirements of the early Muslims. Thus, in all matters whether civil or religious, the will of the prophet had first to be ascertained and followed as a true guide to practical conduct. The Prophet’s Companions were considered the best source for learning the Prophet’s will ; that is, from people who lived their lives in his company, witnessed his actions, and heard his very words and pronouncements on every single aspect of daily life. After the passing of this first generation, pious Muslims had to rely on the members of the next generation who passed on what they had learnt from the first. Thus, transmission from generation to generation continued down to contemporary periods. Finally, conduct and judgment were accepted as correct and their legitimacy was established if a chain of reliable transmission ( isnad, in Arabic )ultimately traced them back to a Companion who could testify that they were in harmony with the Prophet’s intentions. On the strength of such traditions, certain customs in ritual and law were established as the usage of the authoritative first believers of Islam, and as having been practised under the Prophet’s own eyes. As such, they acquired a sacred character. They are called sunna, sacred custom. The form in which such a usage is stated is hadith, tradition. Sunna and hadith are not synonymous ; hadith being the documentation of sunna.
Sunna intimately reflects the views and practices of the oldest Islamic community, and thus functions as the most authoritative interpretation of the Koran. The Koran cannot answer every single problem that any morally sensitive Muslim is likely to encounter ; and it only comes alive and effective through the sunna. Furthermore the Koran, contrary to what many Muslims realize, is an extremely obscure text ; even Muslims exegetes acknowledge that they do not know the meaning of many words and whole passages. For instance, the exegetes have classified obscure or opaque sentences of the Koran into Zahir ( obvious ) or hidden ( Khafi ). The Khafi sentences are further subdivided into Khaji, Mushkil, Mujmal, and Mutashabih. In Khaji sentences the other persons or things are hidden beneath the plain meaning of a word or expression ; Mushkil sentences are ambiguous; Mujmal sentences have a variety of interpretations , while Mutashabih ones are intricate sentences or expressions, the exact meaning of which it is impossible for a man to ascertain until the day of resurrection. The Koran itself tells us that it contains ambiguous verses, and verses whose interpretation is only known to God ( sura iii.5 p .214 vol.1).
The Sharia or Islamic Law is based on four principles: The Koran; the sunna of the Prophet, which is incorporated in the recognized traditions ( hadith ); the consensus (ijma) of the scholars of the orthodox community ; and the method of reasoning by analogy (qiyas)
Many liberal Muslims ( if that is not a contradiction in terms) get excited by ijma, sensing that somehow therein lies their only hope of modernising Islam. However, historically, the notion of consensus (ijma) has nothing democratic about it ; the masses are expressly excluded. It is the consensus of suitably qualified and learned authorities. The doctrine of the infallibility of the consensus, far from allowing some liberty of reasoning as one might have expected, worked in favour of a progressive narrowing and hardening of doctrine. By the beginning of 900 C.E., Islamic Law became rigidly fixed because Muslim scholars felt that all essential questions had been thoroughly discussed and finally settled, and a consensus gradually established itself to the effect that henceforth no one might be deemed to have the necessary qualifications for independent reasoning in law, and that all future activity would have to be confined to the explanation, application, and, at most, interpretation of the doctrine as it had been laid down once and for all. This closing of the gate of independent reasoning, in effect, meant the unquestioning acceptance of the doctrines of established schools and authorities. Islamic Law became increasingly rigid and set in its final mould.
Liberal Muslims think they are more liberated than their “fundamentalist” cousins because they (the Liberal Muslims) believe that by some creative re-interpretation of the Koran they will thereby bring the Koran, albeit screaming and kicking, into the 21st Century. First, it does not seem to strike these misguided liberal Muslims that they are still prisoners to an obscure, incoherent, bizarre mediaeval text, a curious amalgam of Talmudic Judaism, apocryphal Christianity and pagan superstitions (especially in the rites and rituals of the Hajj), full of barbarisms. They have not cut their umbilical cords, and are still trying to make sense of an often senseless text, more than a thousand years old. Second this desire to re-interpret has led to some willful and intellectually dishonest “re-reading” of the Koran. Feminists pretend that the “real Koran” is progressive towards women, human rights activists pretend, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary that the “ real Koran “ is totally compatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The reality is that the Koran, and the Sharia derived from the Koran, are totalitarian constructs that try to control every single aspect of an individual’s life from the way he or she urinates and defecates, the way he/she eats, dresses, works, marries, makes love, prays, to the way he or she thinks on every conceivable subject. Finally, while the Koran is open to some re-interpretation, it is not infinitely flexible…
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
The Resistance Strategy: The Middle East’s Response to Calls for Peace and Moderation
by Barry Rubin
Have you heard from any of the Western mass media about the Resistance strategy of Middle East radicals? I’m sure you haven’t. Yet without understanding this powerful and widely accepted worldview how could anyone possibly comprehend events in the region?
“Resistance” is the slogan used by Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah especially but also is used by Iran’s regime, other Lebanese supporters of the Iran-Syria bloc, and assorted radicals throughout the region. While the word has echoes for any Western auditor of the French Resistance against the Nazis, this is not the origin of this Middle East usage.
Rather, it means on the one hand, Resistance to supposed U.S., European, and Israeli intentions to turn the Arabs into slaves and destroy Islam. It also signifies Resistance to Westernization and modernization. And then, too, of equal significance, it means Resistance to attempts to promote peace or even a peace process with Israel and moderation in general.
Most obviously, Resistance means rejection but it also implies the use of violence, to resist is to reject diplomatic solutions and to fight instead. No matter how many people die, how much destruction will hurt the societies of those resisting, how long bloody conflict will continue, and how remote the prospects for victory seem to be, this is the preferred option. In contrast, moderation, compromise, and negotiation are seen as cowardly and treasonous.
But those preaching Resistance also believe they will be victorious by dividing and wearing down their opponents. Indeed, they think-even though they are more wrong than not-that they are winning now. They think the West is weak and corrupt, while Israel is going to fall apart and give up. A lot of the arguments made and policies put forward in the West-apology, concession, misconception, self-criticism-feed this confidence and thus contribute to more violence and conflict.
In many ways, the Resistance philosophy is a close parallel to Arab thinking in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, a new version of what used to be proudly called Rejectionism by Arab regimes.
| — Hat tip: Barry Rubin | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: 60 Percent of Female Workers Unregistered, Survey
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JANUARY 18 — Approximately 60% of female workers currently employed in Turkey are unregistered, recent data has revealed as Today’s Zaman reports. The latest Household Labor Survey released by the Turkish Statistics Institute (TurkStat) showed that the number of unregistered female employees, whose social security contributions are not paid by employers, reached 3.6 million in October 2009. This number represents 59.8% of the total number of employed females. The TurkStat survey found that the share of unregistered employees in Turkeys total labor force reached 44.5% in October, a 0.2% increase over the same month of 2008. The number of unregistered male workers reached 6.1 million in the same period. The largest unregistered worker group was those individual workers who were engaged either in agriculture or a trade other than standard employment in a public or private workplace. Referred to as unpaid family workers, mostly youngsters who help their family businesses, this group represents 3.02 million people in Turkey. The survey found that 91.3% of these people are not registered in the social security system. The highest number of unregistered workers was in Turkeys agriculture sector, at 86.3%. This number is 30.4% for workers in non-agricultural industries. An interesting find by TurkStat was that some 28% of the employers, a total of 1.22 million, are also unregistered. The figures suggest that the government still has a long way to go in efforts to combat unregistered employment. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Anti-Terror Police Arrest 20 Al-Qaeda Suspects
Ankara 18 Jan. (AKA) — Turkish police Monday arrested twenty people in a raid on suspected Al-Qaeda operations. Around 300 anti-terrorism police raided about 25 locations this morning in the south Turkey city of Adana, according to Turkish news reports.
In the raids, which involved 300 officers, police confiscated weapons, ammunition and computers.
Turkish security forces have arrested dozens of suspected Al- Queda members in recent years.
A shootout in early 2008 between the police and militants in the city of Gaziantep, in southeast Turkey, left one policeman and two of the suspected Al-Qaeda members dead.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: A Free Ali Agca, Television Star and a Disgrace for Turkey
The man who attempted to assassinate John Paul II will be freed on 18 January. Promises, revelations, films, exclusive interviews, memoirs. He has also written to Benedict XVI and is masquerading as the new messiah. But for the Turkish people he is a disgrace, a symbol of a dark period in the nation.
Ankara (AsiaNews) — The name of Mehmet Ali Agca has rebounded in global media for days: on 18 January, the 52 year old Turk, ex Gray Wolf, the man who May 13, 1981 shot Pope John Paul II will be free again.
In media and international public opinion Agca’s name is associated with the attack on the Pope: for Turks, Agca is a symbol of the most dramatic period in the country’s recent history.
In Turkey, Mehmet Ali is known as “the nation’s greatest disgrace “, as co-author in 1979 of a political crime — the murder of Milliyet newspaper director, Abdi Ipekci — that bloodied the country’s political life and created the conditions for the coup of 1980. In the criminal history of Agca we meet a number of names that represented the point of contact between the extreme right, mafia groups, state apparatuses, among them the protagonists of darkest events of the time. Among these, there is Abdullah Catli, leader of the Gray Wolves in Ankara, accused in 1978 of being responsible for the murder of Prof. Bedrettin Comert, an excellent teacher of philosophy. The same year Catli was accused of being the instigator and organizer of the death of seven young militants of the TIP (Turkish Workers’ Party), strangled in a house in Ankara.
These days even Catli is in vogue in the Turkish newspapers: his brother Zeki reveals that was Abdullah obtained a false passport for Mehmet Ali which enabled him, once he had escaped from a Turkish maximum security prison, 25 November 1979, to enter Italy.
An enigmatic militant of a right-wing terrorist organization, Agca in fact has not yet explained the reasons for the attack on the pope; still today he tends to limit himself to sensationalistic “outbursts”.
In the eighties Ali Agca gave rise to the so-called Bulgarian track to explain the attack on the pope; while during his visionary deliriums he has claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus. Now, although he claims to have recovered his senses and to be “physically and psychologically healthy and strong” he also says he is ready to proclaim great revelations of the “true gospel” which he has yet to write and in which he will declare the Perfect Christianity which the Vatican has never understood.
In his many mystic delusions he has said he wants to be baptized, to marry an Italian Christian, to live in Rome, to visit and kiss the grave of the pope, who forgave him.
In a press conference, his lawyers showed a letter he wrote to Pope Ratzinger in which he declares his desire for a meeting during which he would make stunning revelations about the disappearance in 1983 of 15 year-old Emanuela Orlandi from the Vatican fifteen.
He has also promised the upcoming release of his next book-confession, “a moving account of his life” from the pen of the journalist Saygi Ozturk that reveals all the untold secrets of his past: how he escaped from prison in 1979; how he entered Italy, who commissioned the murder of the director of Milliyet and the assassination attempt on the pope. But already the title is emblematic: “Taseron Mesih (Subcontractor of Christ)”.
While Agca aims to play the role of the star enchanting the public with his improbable secrets, the on Turkish television channels, indignant comments of journalists, politicians and lawyers follow each statement. The people themselves are questioning how the murderer of journalist Abdi Ipekci can walk free, like a mystic hero, after less than 30 in prison.
In fact, in 1982, the Turkey’s National Security Council recognized his responsibility in the assassination of the journalist and sentenced him to death. But in 2002 the death penalty was abolished in Turkey and his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. A subsequent amnesty, the result of the mysterious Turkish judicial mechanisms, reduced the penalty to only ten years’ imprisonment.
In January 2006, Agca was released from prison for good behaviour. Shortly afterwards, on appeal by the Minister of Justice and as a result of the indignant reactions of the population, the Supreme Court, decided on his return to prison.
Even today, the angry public reaction to the release of the murderer is a symptom that the character Agca while arousing curiosity, does not provoke sympathy and has few friends at home. Ironically, on Star Television, journalist Nevin Bilgin said that Agca is apparently looking for a nation of refuge and has applied for citizenship to some 20 states, but all denied it to him. “I could go and live in the Far East, America and even in Africa” Ali Agca has said. The fact is that his brother Adnan, the only family that in all these years has visited him in jail, prefers not to say anything about the future of Ali: “Where he will go and what he will do is for him to decide and we will accept it without question.”
His two lawyers Özhan and Abosoglu clarify that after his release he will stop in Ankara for a few days and then decide what to do.
In reality Agca still has to do military service, but there are many who think that Turkey will be only too happy to exempt him from military service, for security reasons and for the disruption that would arise from having one of the most dangerous terrorists in a State military barracks.
His lawyers ensure that he is no longer a dangerous type. But many people think that justice has not been done, nor the murky past of the Turkish nation clarified.
A free Mehmet Ali Agca will continue to be a loose cannon, of unpredictable outbursts, a murderer, an uncomfortable failed assassin, and media personality. He knows this only too well and is taking advantage of this for films and exclusive interviews with billion dollar contracts. If, of course, he tells the truth.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Moscow Patriarchate to Boost Mission in Siberia, Far East and Europe
Kirill reshapes Missionary Department. A new college run by theologians and missionaries is created to serve foreign missions. There are concerns about the nature of the teaching provided and possible hostility towards sects, Protestants, Catholics and other religious minorities.
Moscow (AsiaNews) — The Russian Orthodox Church plans to revive its missionary activities both inside and outside the Russian Federation. Moscow Patriarch Kirill has taken personal charge and ordered the expansion of the Missionary Department of the Central Office of the Moscow Patriarchate.
The announcement was made on the Patriarchate’s official website last Sunday. Even though there are no details about the plan, Kirill’s new policy raises challenges for Russia’s “non-traditional” religions, this according to Paul Globe, a expert on religion in the former Soviet Union.
Kirill confirmed proposals made by Archbishop Ioann of Belgorod and Starooskol, who heads the Missionary Department, to expand and reorganise it. The revamped body will now include a central administration, a missionary foundation, an “anti-sect and spiritual security” section, as well as a publication and an education division. Above all, the new department will see the establishment of a college run by theologians, missionaries and division chiefs.
As of next summer, priests will be sent to Siberia and the Far East on mission.
Discussions on a number of religion-oriented websites and blogs suggest that most priests and students at the new college come from the missionary seminary of the diocese of Belgorod, considered the most conservative in Russia, known for its great hostility towards Protestants, Catholics and other religious minorities.
According to Mikhail Zherebyatyev, an expert at the Moscow International Institute of Humanitarian and Political Research, the new structure represents the end of the system of synodal management of departments, as it existed under the late Patriarch Aleksij in favour of a more centralised one. Some suggest that the changes within the Church represent the “verticalisation of power” that former President and current Prime Minister Putin has imposed on the Russian state.
Kirill’s new emphasis on the Orthodox mission has also led to the opening of the first new Orthodox seminary outside the former Soviet Empire. The seminary, which is located at Epinay-sous-Senart (France), has taken over a former Catholic convent and now has 12 students. Its goal is to recruit seminarians not only from the nations of the former Soviet Union, but also from Western nations.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Elite US Troops Ready to Combat Pakistani Nuclear Hijacks
The US army is training a crack unit to seal off and snatch back Pakistani nuclear weapons in the event that militants, possibly from inside the country’s security apparatus, get their hands on a nuclear device or materials that could make one.
The specialised unit would be charged with recovering the nuclear materials and securing them.
The move follows growing anti-Americanism in Pakistan’s military, a series of attacks on sensitive installations over the past two years, several of which housed nuclear facilities, and rising tension that has seen a series of official complaints by US authorities to Islamabad in the past fortnight.
“What you have in Pakistan is nuclear weapons mixed with the highest density of extremists in the world, so we have a right to be concerned,” said Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, a former CIA officer who used to run the US energy department’s intelligence unit. “There have been attacks on army bases which stored nuclear weapons and there have been breaches and infiltrations by terrorists into military facilities.”
Professor Shaun Gregory, director of the Pakistan security research unit at Bradford University, has tracked a number of attempted security breaches since 2007. “The terrorists are at the gates,” he warned.
In a counterterrorism journal, published by America’s West Point military academy, he documented three incidents. The first was an attack in November 2007 at Sargodha in Punjab, where nuclearcapable F-16 jet aircraft are thought to be stationed. The following month a suicide bomber struck at Pakistan’s nuclear airbase at Kamra in Attock district. In August 2008 a group of suicide bombers blew up the gates to a weapons complex at the Wah cantonment in Punjab, believed to be one of Pakistan’s nuclear warhead assembly plants. The attack left 63 people dead.
A further attack followed at Kamra last October. Pakistan denies that the base still has a nuclear role, but Gregory believes it does. A six-man suicide team was arrested in Sargodha last August.
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India: China Tried to Hack Our Computers, Says India’s Security Chief M.K. Narayanan
Chinese hackers are believed to have attempted to penetrate India’s most sensitive government office in the latest sign of rising tensions between the two rival Asian powers, The Times has learnt.
M. K. Narayanan, India’s National Security Adviser, said his office and other government departments were targeted on December 15, the same date that US companies reported cyber attacks from China.
“This was not the first instance of an attempt to hack into our computers,” Mr Narayanan told The Times in a rare interview.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kyrgyzstan Keeps a Tight Grip on Religion
Bolot, a young evangelical preacher in Kyrgyzstan, says he already been arrested twice this year after setting up a new church.
He says he is the victim of a new law on religion, which critics say severely restricts religious freedoms and is forcing some groups underground.
Under the law, new religious groups have to have at least 200 members before they can register with the authorities and operate legally — previously the figure was 10.
Kyrgyzstan is just the latest Central Asian republic to have been accused of curtailing religious rights.
“In our church we don’t have official registration because we have only 25 people, and we are banned from trying to convert people. We have lots of problems with the government,” Bolot says.
He says the police have been several times to his church, which is based in a house in the capital, Bishkek. Bolot, which is not his real name, says he fears further such visits.
“They asked me to stop the church because it’s against the law. Of course, it’s not comfortable but we will keep going.”
There are now at least 50,000 evangelical Christians in Kyrgyzstan, Bolot says, the majority of them converts from Islam like himself — although the government disputes that figure.
He says the authorities passed the law because they want to prevent Muslims converting to Christianity.
He adds that the government also feels threatened by radical Muslim groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, whose goal is to bring all Muslim countries together as a single state, ruled by Islamic law.
[…]
“People asked us to take measures because they were worried their families would be broken up by these groups,” he says.
“We haven’t reduced religious freedoms, we are just trying to bring some order to these organisations.”
He also denies the government has inadvertently created the conditions for radical groups to thrive, by failing to tackle corruption and improve the economy.
He says people may be drawn to religion when faced by difficulties, but not to radical groups.
“People are drawn to prayer, to a Protestant God, an Orthodox God, or Islamic God, but not Hizb ut-Tahrir,” he said.
Mr Osmonaliyev adds that Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned and does not enjoy widespread support. He says the government is taking strong measures to prevent further attacks by militants.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Nepal: Integration of Nepal’s Maoists Begins Amid Protests
Maoist militants are unable to go back to civilian life without active political involvement. They accuse the United Nations of bungling the reintegration process. Meanwhile, Kathmandu has decided to align itself with Beijing and is set to expel ten Tibetans.
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) — Former Maoist fighters have been released and charges against them have been dropped but many of these “new citizens” are unable to live without military and political confrontation. The new government decided to “clean up” the fighters after last year’s elections as part of a national reconciliation plan similar to that of South Africa,
Yesterday, 459 militants were released, but they accuse the United Nations have “done everything wrong.” According to Sita Thapa, 24, “the UN failed to understand our desire to protect the nation and secure the national interests. I cannot live without politics after years of militancy.”
Chandra Prakash Khanal, deputy commander of the (Maoist) People’s Liberation Army (PLA), said, “We have done everything possible, starting with the combatants who showed an honest desire for peace. But the package given to discharged PLA fighters is not satisfactory. The government should consider things seriously.”
Problems began when the Republic of Nepal was proclaimed in 2006. The United Nations and transitional government decreed that Maoist militias would be disarmed and absorbed into the army.
In 2008, Maoists won the election under their leader Prachanda. However, President Ram Baran Yadav, fearful of too much Maoist power, refused to have Maoist fighters integrated into the army. On 4 May of last year, Prime Minister Prachanda resigned over the matter. At present, he is leading protests around the country.
In the meantime, the Nepali government has become increasingly aligned with China’s positions. After backing the “One China” policy (which de facto excludes a free Tibet), Kathmandu is considering deporting ten Tibetans accused of illegal entry into Nepal.
In past decades, Nepal had allowed Tibetan exiles to go through its territory and often granted them asylum. At present in fact, the mountain nation is home to a community of 20,000 Tibetans.
A new political orientation and a financial crisis have pushed the small nation sandwiched between China and India to back diplomatically its huge northern neighbour.
Beijing has responded appreciatively by signing lucrative contracts worth billions of dollars with its southern neighbour.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Militants Blow Up Boys’ School in Northwest
Landi Kotal, 18 Jan. (AKI) — Militants on Monday blew up a government primary school for boys in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber tribal region, Pakistani media reported. The militants planted two powerful bombs which exploded simultaneously, destroying the school. No casualties were reported.
Security forces and political administration officials cordoned off the area after the attack, which local officials blamed on the militant group Lashkar-e-Islam (Army of Islam).
Lashkar-e-Islam is the main extremist group operating in Khyber, which has some ideological ties to the Pakistani Taliban.
So far, militants have destroyed more than 15 schools in Khyber agency.
Also on Monday, four militants were killed in an armed clash with Pakistani security forces in the District Char Bagh of North West Frontier Province’s troubled Swat district.
The Pakistani army says at least 2,150 militants were killed in Swat — a Taliban stronghold — and neighbouring Buner and Lower Dir districts in an offensive there between April and July last year.
The army claimed to have wiped out most of the insurgent strongholds during the three-month operation.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Faisalabad, Young Christian Sentenced to Life Imprisonment for Blasphemy
Imran Masih, a 26 year-old businessman, indicted for burning pages of the Koran. Before his arrest he had been tortured by a gang of Muslims. Catholic activists: artfully fabricated accusations, we will seek to “save his life”. Calls for reforms and constitutional bans on religious parties, the example of Bangladesh.
Faisalabad (AsiaNews) — A court in Faisalabad sentenced to life imprisonment Imran Masih, a young Christian, for having insulted and desecrated the Koran. Additional session judge, Raja Ghazanfar Ali Khan, handed down the sentence under Article 295-B of the Pakistan Penal Code — better known as the blasphemy law — because the 26 year old apparently burnt verses from the Koran and a book in Arabic “on purpose”, to “stir up religious hatred and offend the feelings of Muslims.” Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) of the Catholic Church, promises to “battle to save his life. “
On July 1, 2009 Masih, a shopkeeper by profession, was brutally tortured by a group of Muslims, then arrested by police on charges — perfectly fabricated — that he had burned pages of the Koran. On 11 January, the judge sentenced him to prison for life, which he will serve in the federal prison in Faisalabad where he is currently confined. The court also imposed an additional penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment and payment of 100 thousand rupees (just over 800 euro), under section 295-A of the Penal Code.
Peter Jacob, executive secretary of NCJP, while not openly criticizing the ruling, speaks of “ not a good verdict “ and “lack of freedom” of the judiciary. The Catholic activist announces appeal to the High Court and promises that “we will do our best to save his life”, because all these cases of blasphemy “are perfectly fabricated.”
The Catholic Commission also calls for “serious constitutional and legal reforms” to root out extremism and the abuse of religion in the politics of Pakistan. “Religion — reads a NCJP document — is the main pretext in the hands of Religio-political parties, who played a major role in bringing the country to this edge.”
Archbishop Lawrence John Saldanha and Peter Jacob, President and Executive Secretary of NCJP, stress that “ Pakistan should draw a lesson from Bangladesh”, referring to the recent verdict of Bangladesh court that barred religion in politics “The affairs of state and the politics — highlight the Catholic leaders — should be treated independently, not covered by the cloak of religion” because they end up isolating the minority and denied their rights.
The blasphemy law was introduced in 1986 by Pakistani dictator Zia-ul-Haq and has become an instrument of discrimination and violence. The norm is contained in Section 295, paragraph B and C of Pakistan Penal Code and punishes with life imprisonment those who offendsthe Koran and with the sentencing to death those who insult the Prophet Muhammad. Based on NCJP data there are nearly 1000 indictees. It also provides a pretext for attacks, personal vendettas or extra-judicial killings: 33 in all, made by individuals or angry crowds.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan — Afghanistan — Iran: Islamabad, Kabul and Tehran Against “Foreign Solutions” To the Afghan Conflict
In a meeting between the foreign ministers of the three countries a “common and local” strategy is sought to bring peace. Pakistan calls for greater cooperation. Iran and Afghanistan want more dialogue with the Taliban. Afghan Parliament Rejects 10 of the 17 nominations for the new executive.
Islamabad (AsiaNews / Agencies) — Islamabad, Kabul and Tehran are opposed to “foreign solutions” to the Afghan conflict and are promoting a “common strategy” to bring peace to the country. This is what emerged from a meeting between the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, which was held today in Islamabad. The Afghan parliament, meanwhile, has rejected 10 of the 17 candidates proposed by President Hamid Karzai to complete the formation of his new government.
The tripartite summit in the Pakistani capital brought together, Manouchehr Mottaki, Iranian Foreign Minister, with his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Afghan colleague Rangin Dadfar Spanta. The latter should be replaced in the next executive by Zalmay Rasul, whose appointment was approved by parliament in Kabul.
Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan will present a common agenda at the conference of donors for Afghanistan, scheduled for January 28 in London. The heads of diplomacy of the three countries — reports the website of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn — have reaffirmed their determination to promote a “regional” solution to the crisis, without “foreign” interference.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi points out that stability, peace and development in the region represent a “common goal” of the three countries and should be achieved through increased cooperation. Manouchehr Mottaki and Rangin Dadfar Spanta agreed on the need to “eliminate all terrorist elements” from their countries and seek to “accelerate” the process of dialogue with the Taliban.
Meanwhile, the Afghan Parliament, meeting today in Kabul, rejected the nomination of 10 of the 17 ministers proposed by President Hamid Karzai. Members complain of the “lack of jurisdiction” of some names proposed by Karzai, while others are too close to the warlords. However, Parliament has ratified the appointment of two key ministries: Zalmay Rasul for Foreign Affairs and Habibullah Ghalib for justice.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Al-Qaida Seeking Tools for Nuclear 9/11
Intel agents ‘certain’ terrorists will try for Pakistan’s bombs
Agents for Britain’s MI6 Secret Intelligence Service say they are “certain” al-Qaida is poised to try and grab some of the 80 nuclear weapons that Pakistan possesses, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The al-Qaida leadership — Osama bin Laden and Ayman a-Zawahri — are believed to have spent the winter months in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas finalizing their plans for an attack.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UN Afghanistan Survey Points to Huge Scale of Bribery
Afghans paid $2.5bn (£1.5bn) in bribes over the past 12 months, or the equivalent of almost one quarter of legitimate GDP, a UN report suggests.
Surveying 7,600 people, it found nearly 60% more concerned about corruption than insecurity or unemployment.
More than half the population had to pay at least one bribe to a public official last year, the report adds.
The findings contrast sharply with a recent BBC survey in which the economy appeared to top Afghan concerns.
The survey commissioned by the BBC and other broadcasters in December suggested that fewer Afghans (14%) saw corruption as the biggest problem than the economy (34%) and security situation (32%).
According to the UN survey, bribes averaged $160 (£98) in contrast to an average Afghan annual income of $425.
Bribes were most often paid to police, judges and politicians but members of international organisations and NGOs were also seen as corrupt, the survey said.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said corruption was contributing to drug-trafficking and terrorism in Afghanistan.
The UNODC said its report, Corruption in Afghanistan, was based on interviews with 7,600 people in 12 provincial capitals and more than 1,600 villages around Afghanistan.
The BBC survey, which was also nationwide, was based on a smaller number of people (1,534).
Explicit demands
According to the UN survey, 59% of Afghans said their daily experience of public dishonesty was a bigger concern than insecurity (54%) or unemployment (52%).
In 56% of cases, the request for illicit payment was an explicit demand by the bribe-taker, it said.
In three out of four cases, bribes were paid in cash.
Around one in four Afghans surveyed had to pay at least one bribe to police and local officials during the survey period while between 10 and 20% had to pay bribes either to judges, prosecutors or members of the government.
“The Afghans say that it is impossible to obtain a public service without paying a bribe,” said Mr Costa.
“Bribery is a crippling tax on people who are already among the world’s poorest,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
China Censors Pull ‘Avatar’ From Screens
By Jane Macartney
China plans to pull “Avatar” from most cinemas, despite the long lines for tickets, to make way for a more patriotic film the censors deem more appropriate — a biography of Confucius, the Times of London reported Monday.
The move comes amid government anxiety that many Chinese are making a link between the plight of the film’s Na’vi, who face being displaced from their homeland, and that of those in China who are subject to often brutal evictions by property developers.
Hong Kong’s Apple Daily said the state-run China Film Group had instructed cinemas nationwide to stop showing the 2D version of “Avatar” from January 23 on orders from Beijing’s propaganda czars.
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The newspaper said, “Reportedly, the authorities have two reasons for this check on ‘Avatar’: First, it has taken in too much money and has seized market share from domestic films, and second, it may lead audiences to think about forced removal, and may possibly incite violence.”
China’s favorite blogger, 20-something writer and race-car driver Han Han, was among those who quickly caught onto the resemblance of the plot to real life in China. He wrote, “For audiences in other countries, such brutal eviction is something outside their imagining. It could only take place on another planet or in China.”
Popular views of the film as an allegory for predatory property developers across China may not have gone down well with the Propaganda Department in Beijing.
Blogs are buzzing with the news of the imminent disappearance of “Avatar.”
The film opened on Jan. 4 and soon drew lengthy lines despite one of the coldest winters in years.
Box office takings hit a record 56 million yuan (approximately US$8.1 million) for a single day and IMAX cinemas are booked up for weeks.
The film had been due to play until February 28 — meaning it would be showing over the Chinese new year holiday that begins on Feb. 14.
In the southern city of Wuxi, a Cineplex posted a notice on its website warning that “Avatar” would now finish on Saturday and viewers with tickets beyond that date would receive a refund.
“We ask your understanding!” it urged. “To satisfy the viewing needs of the audience, the cinema will add midnight showings from the 21st and 22nd. Grab them quickly!”
That notice was swiftly removed from the internet by the officials and the cinema said only 2D screens would stop showing the film.
China has about 1,700 cinemas and 4,500 screens, of which only 550 are 3D — ensuring holiday audiences will flock to see “Confucius,” featuring Hong Kong star Chow Yun-fat as the sage.
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
British Captain’s Somali Pirate Nightmare
It began with a green blip travelling in the wrong direction.
Captain Peter Stapleton was chatting with his chief officer on the bridge of the 18,000 tonne cargo ship Boularibank when the green light on the radar caught their attention.
“It appeared to be putting itself in a good position across our stern about two miles [3km] away from which it would quite likely launch an attack,” he remembered.
[…]
Capt Stapleton told me he decided very early in the crisis that he did not intend to languish in some grim Somali port waiting for ransom negotiations to take place. His hardy Russian crew agreed.
“Russians are a tough bunch of guys anyway, they’ve had a hard life in their history and they are pretty tough… They were prepared to defend the ship as best they could. They knew that I wanted to defend the ship. I wanted to get back home and they want to go home.”
Operating on that unequivocal principle they set about repelling the boarders.
Shiver me timbers
By the time the pirates came close, and realised Capt Stapleton was not going to surrender, the bullets started to fly, ricocheting off the ship’s superstructure.
A rocket propelled grenade was fired and the blast was heard by the engineers in the bowels of the ship. Another followed soon after.
Luckily neither caused any injuries. The captain’s response was to “release the port-side battery” as he put it. This meant the crew tumbling 10-foot (3m) long pieces of heavy timber onto the attacking boat. It was a simple tactic but it drove the attackers back.
“My bottom line was I don’t want to kill anybody but I want to put them off boarding my ship so if you drop them in the water in front of a speed boat he has got to pull away from you, he cannot go over it. So that was the thinking all the time. Passive defence.”
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Gunfight Breaks Out as Somali Pirates Battle Over Tanker Ransom
A shootout between rival Somali pirate gangs over their biggest ransom ever threatened to turn an oil supertanker and the 28 hostages aboard into a massive fireball until bandits begged the international anti-piracy force for help.
A group of pirates showed up in two speedboats just before a $5.5 million ransom was to be dropped by parachute onto the Maran Centaurus, according to a Somali businessman responsible for the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals.
The crude oil onboard, estimated to be worth some $150 million at the time it was hijacked, is so flammable that smoking is forbidden on deck. Two helicopters chased away the attackers seeking a cut of the ransom after the pirates onboard called frantically for help.
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Somali pirates free oil tanker the Sirius Star”It’s really remarkable: You have the criminals calling on the police to come and help them,” said pirate expert Roger Middleton from London-based think tank Chatham House, who said it was the first time he could recall such a situation.
The stand off began on Sunday, nearly two months after the supertanker was seized on Nov. 29 about 800 miles off the Somali coast. After weeks of wrangling, the pirates had finally settled on a $5.5 million ransom for the tanker, the Somali businessman said.
Cmdr. John Harbour, the spokesman for the European Union Naval Force, said the arrival of the rival pirate gang prompted the pirates onboard the tanker to call for assistance from the anti-piracy force. He could not say whether assistance was provided or confirm the amount of the ransom, but said the Greek warship FS Salamis had been nearby monitoring the situation.
The Somali middleman said two helicopters from a nearby warship intervened in the dispute, hovering over the attacking skiffs. Just the powerful draft beating down from their rotors was enough to frighten off the attackers, he said, and the gunships did not fire.
He said the attacking gang had told him they were aware of the dangers of an explosion and that their arrival was more of a show of force designed to win a cut of the cash than a real attempt to storm the ship.
After the helicopters chased away the attackers, two planes arrived and the huge bundle of cash was pushed out the back of one with a parachute attached. Most ransoms for ships are now delivered by parachute, although brokers also have used bank transfers or speedboats.
The pirates left the ship on Monday morning, Harbour and the middleman said.
In a statement, the owner of the Maran Centaurus declined to give any details about how it negotiated the release of the tanker. The Maran Tankers Management Inc. said the crew members — 9 Greeks, 16 Filipinos, 2 Ukrainians, and a Romanian — are safe and well-
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Muslims Light Church on Fire With Christians Inside
Angry Muslim youths set fire to a church filled with worshipers, starting a riot that killed at least 27 people and wounded more than 300 in Jos, in northern Nigeria, officials said Monday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sudan Would Accept Separation, Says President Bashir
Sudan would accept the south’s secession if southerners were to vote for independence in a referendum next year, President Omar al-Bashir said.
Speaking at a ceremony marking five years since the end of the north-south war, he said his Northern Congress Party did not want the south to secede.
But he said the party would be the first to welcome such a decision.
Analysts say Mr Bashir struck an unusually conciliatory tone in the speech, which has been well received.
In recent months tension has been rising between the two sides.
Southern politicians have accused Mr Bashir and his allies of wanting to fix the referendum to ensure a “no” vote — to try to keep the south’s oil wealth to themselves.
Mr Bashir has denied the allegations.
Next year’s referendum was part of the 2005 peace deal which brought to an end more than two decades of civil war.
The agreement also stipulated that a national election must be held. The vote is due in April.
Scepticism remains
In a televised address, Mr Bashir promised that the north would act as “good neighbours” to the south.
“The National Congress Party favours unity,” he said.
“But if the result of the referendum is separation, then we in the NCP will be the first to take note of this decision and to support it.”
[…]
During the celebrations to mark the end of the war, Mr Kiir made a plea for southerners to accept the result of the referendum whatever it may be.
“The north and south will continue to be economically and politically connected whatever the choice of the people of Southern Sudan,” he said.
He stressed that oil, which makes up 90% of the south’s wealth, would still be pumped through the north for processing until the south could construct its own facilities.
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
Haiti: Italy Sending New Carrier
Italy earmarks aid, cancels debt
(ANSA) — Rome, January 18 — Italy’s newest aircraft carrier, the Cavour, will set sail Tuesday for Haiti to provide logistical and and operational support to relief efforts there, navy sources said on Monday.
Captain Gianluigi Reversi will command the mission which will see the participation of the military corps of engineers who will be bringing some 100 vehicles, including earth-moving and construction equipment. The mission is a joint one with Brazil which will provide doctors and nurses for the ship’s fully-equipped onboard hospital which has various operating rooms and wards for intensive care and first aid.
The hospital staff will be picked up when the Cavour makes a technical stop in Brazil after crossing the Atlantic.
This will be the maiden mission for the Cavour which entered service in June of last year. The ship has a crew of 530, although it can host up to 1,200 people, and carries up to 20 helicopters and aircraft.
Aside from its state-of-the-art medical facilities, the Cavour, which can cruise at 30 knots, can generate enough electricity for 6,000 homes.
ITALY CONFIRMS INTENTION TO CANCEL HAITI’S DEBT.
Italy has earmarked 5.7 million euros in aid for Haiti and intends to cancel the debt the Caribbean country owes it, valued at over 40 million euros, Foreign Undersecretary Vincenzo Scotti said on Monday. Speaking to the press after an emergency meeting of European Union foreign and development ministers on the crisis in Haiti, Scotti added that Italy was ready to send in members of its military Carabinieri police corps to Haiti to help ensure security for the distribution of aid. The Carabinieri would be part of an EU police force to restore order and end looting on the island, agreed on at Monday’s meeting. The EU decided at the meeting to allocate 122 million euros in emergency aid for Haiti, 30 million from the EU’s executive Commission and the rest from member states, plus another 100 million euros, all from the Commission, in non-humanitarian aid.
Also attending Monday’s meeting was Italy’s civil protection chief, Guido Bertolaso, who coordinated emergency and relief efforts after last April’s earthquake the central-southern region of Abruzzo which left some 300 people dead. According to Bertolaso, what is lacking in Haiti now is “a strong leadership” to manage the situation there. “What is needed is someone who gives the orders and tells the various countries which want to help what they can do,” he observed. One of the EU’s main problems, he added, is that its new executive has only just taken office “and a lot of people are not prepared, they don’t know what it means to manage an emergency like an earthquake”.
Also on Monday,it was confirmed that a United Nations official specialised in political relations was the second confirmed Italian casualty from last Tuesday’s devastating earthquake in Haiti. UN officials here said on Monday the body of Guido Galli, 45, was dug out of the rubble at what once was the Hotel Christopher, which served as the headquarters of the UN’s peace force in Haiti and that crumbled in the powerful earthquake.
The foreign ministry in Rome also confirmed Galli’s death.
A second Italian UN official, 39-year-old Cecilia Cornero, is also missing and believed to have been in the same hotel at the time of the quake.
Galli had been in Haiti since July 2008 and his sister Francesca said he as responsible for handling relations between the UN and Haitian government.
A native of florence, Galli worked with NGOs in Mexico and Guatemala and after joining the UN his first mission was in Afghanistan. The first Italian to be confirmed dead was 70-year-old Gigliola Martini, born in Port-au-Prince of Italian parents, who died of her injuries in hospital last week.
Seven other Italians have not been accounted for out of the 191 registered with the Italian consulate.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Haiti: Israel’s Disproportionate Response
Peggy Shapiro
In the midst of the tragedy and chaos in the Haitian capital, Israeli doctors, part of IsraAID -F.I.R.S.T. (the Israel Forum for International Aid), delivered a healthy baby boy in an IDF field hospital. When the baby’s grateful mother, Gubilande Jean Michel saw her newborn son, alive and well, she named him Israel in gratitude to the people and nation who brought her this blessing.
Little Israel is one of the hundreds who have been saved by Israeli doctors or rescue teams. A search and rescue team from the ZAKA Israel’s International Rescue Unit pulled eight Haitian college students from a collapsed eight-story university building. Despite its small size, Israel sent a large contingent of highly-trained aid workers to quake-stricken Haiti. Two jumbo jets carrying more than 220 doctors, nurses, civil engineers, and other Israeli army personnel, including a rescue team and field hospital, were among the first rescue teams to arrive in Haiti. In fact, they were the first foreign backup team to set up medical treatment at the partially collapsed main hospital in Port-au-Prince. Yigal Palmor, Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said, “It’s a large delegation and we’re prepared to send more.”
The international agencies that condemn Israel for its “disproportionate response” when it is attacked are not mentioning Israel’s disproportionate response to human suffering. The U.S. has pledged 100 million and sent supplies and personnel. The U.K. pledged $10 million and sent 64 firemen and 8 volunteers.China, a country with a population of 1,325,639,982 compared to Israel’s 7.5 million sent 50 rescuers and seven journalists. The 25 Arab League nations sent nothing.
Israel’s “disproportionate” response stems from Jewish memory and tradition. Mati Goldstein, head of the ZAKA International Rescue Unit delegation managed described the scene, “Everywhere, the acrid smell of bodies hangs in the air. It’s just like the stories we are told of the Holocaust — thousands of bodies everywhere. You have to understand that the situation is true madness, and the more time passes, there are more and more bodies, in numbers that cannot be grasped. It is beyond comprehension.” At the start of Sunday’s regular Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the Israeli team had already treated hundreds of patients. “I think that this is in the best tradition of the Jewish People; this is the true covenant of the State of Israel and the Jewish People,” he said. “This follows operations we have carried out in Kenya and Turkey; despite being a small country, we have responded with a big heart. The fact is, I know, that this was an expression of our Jewish heritage and the Jewish ethic of helping one’s fellow. “
In the rubble and suffering of Haiti, Israelis are relentlessly searching for and saving lives. It is this “disproportionate response” that rankles their enemies the most, for it shines a light on their failings.
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
IMF to Haiti: Freeze Public Wages
For Haiti, this is history repeated. As historians have documented, the impoverishment of Haiti began in the earliest decades of its independence, when Haiti’s slaves and free gens de couleur rallied to liberate the country from the French in 1804. But by 1825, Haiti was living under a new kind of bondage—external debt. In order to keep the French and other Western powers from enforcing an embargo, it agreed to pay 150 million francs in reparations to French slave owners (yes, that’s right, freed slaves were forced to compensate their former masters for their liberty). In order to do that, they borrowed millions from French banks and then from the US and Germany. As Alex von Tunzelmann pointed out, “by 1900, it [Haiti] was spending 80 percent of its national budget on repayments.”
It took Haiti 122 years, but in 1947 the nation paid off about 60 percent, or 90 million francs, of this debt (it was able to negotiate a reduction in 1838). In 2003, then-President Aristide called on France to pay restitution for this sum—valued in 2003 dollars at over $21 billion. A few months later, he was ousted in a coup d’etat; he claims he left the country under armed pressure from the US.
Then of course there are the structural adjustment policies imposed by the IMF and World Bank in the 1990s. In 1995, for example, the IMF forced Haiti to cut its rice tariff from 35 percent to 3 percent, leading to a massive increase in rice-dumping, the vast majority of which came from the United States. As a 2008 Jubilee USA report notes, although the country had once been a net exporter of rice, “by 2005, three out of every four plates of rice eaten in Haiti came from the US.” During this period, USAID invested heavily in Haiti, but this “charity” came not in the form of grants to develop Haiti’s agricultural infrastructure, but in direct food aid, furthering Haiti’s dependence on foreign assistance while also funneling money back to US agribusiness.
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US Accused of ‘Occupying’ Haiti as Troops Flood in
France accused the US of “occupying” Haiti on Monday as thousands of American troops flooded into the country to take charge of aid efforts and security.
The French minister in charge of humanitarian relief called on the UN to “clarify” the American role amid claims the military build up was hampering aid efforts.
Alain Joyandet admitted he had been involved in a scuffle with a US commander in the airport’s control tower over the flight plan for a French evacuation flight.
“This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti,” Mr Joyandet said.
Geneva-based charity Medecins Sans Frontieres backed his calls saying hundreds of lives were being put at risk as planes carrying vital medical supplies were being turned away by American air traffic controllers.
But US commanders insisted their forces’ focus was on humanitarian work and last night agreed to prioritise aid arrivals to the airport over military flights, after the intervention of the UN.
The diplomatic row came amid heightened frustrations that hundreds of tons of aid was still not getting through. Charities reported violence was also worsening as desperate Haitians took matters into their own hands.
The death toll is now estimated at up to 200,000 lives. Around three million Haitians — a third of the country’s population — have been affected by Tuesday’s earthquake and two million require food assistance.
While food and water was gradually arriving at the makeshift camps which have sprung up around the city, riots have broken out in other areas where supplies have still not materialised.
Haiti was occupied by the US between 1915 and 1935, and historical sensitivities together with friction with other countries over the relief effort has made the Americans cautious about their role in the operation.
American military commanders have repeatedly stressed that they are not entering the country as an occupying force.
US soldiers in Port-au-Prince said they had been told to be discreet about how they carry their M4 assault rifles.
A paratrooper sergeant said they were authorised to use “deadly force” if they see anyone’s life in danger but only as a “last resort”.
Capt John Kirby, a spokesman for the joint task force at the airport, said the US recognised it was only one of a number of countries contributing to a UN-led mission.
He also emphasised the US troops, which he said would rise to 10,000 by Wednesday would principally be assisting in humanitarian relief and the evacuation of people needing medical attention.
The main responsibility for security rests with the UN, which is to add a further 3,000 troops to its force of 9,000.
However, it was agreed on Sunday night that the Americans would take over security at the four main food and water distribution points being set up in the city, Capt Kirby said.
“Security here is in a fluid situation,” he said. “If the Haitian government asked us to provide security downtown, we would do that.” He played down the threat of violence, saying: “What we’re seeing is that there are isolated incidents of violence and some pockets where it’s been more restive, but overall it’s calm.”
| — Hat tip: Sean O’Brian | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How Teenage Access to Pornography is Killing Intimacy in Sex
Teenagers have such easy access to hardcore porn that a skewed view of sex is becoming the norm in society and the idea of intimacy is dying
[Comments from JD: Warning — graphic content]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Warns Against Using Microsoft Internet Explorer
The German government has warned against using Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to browse the web because of security flaws.
The Federal Office for Information (BSI) Security told Germans to avoid use of all versions of Explorer after a security hole led to attacks against Google and others by hackers in China.
Microsoft admitted last week that its browser was the weak link in recent attacks by hackers who pried into e-mail accounts of human rights activists. Following the attack, Google threatened to end its operations in China.
But Microsoft rejected the German government’s warning as too strong and sought to reassure general users that the security threat was low.
[…]
Microsoft claims the security risk can be limited by setting the browser’s security zone to “high”, although they admitted this limits functionality and blocks many websites.
But the BSI insisted that such measures were not sufficient and urged internet users to use alternative browsers.
“Using Internet Explorer in ‘secure mode,’ as well as turning off Active Scripting makes attacks more difficult, but cannot fully prevent them,” it said in a statement.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
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