Gates of Vienna News Feed 8/17/2008

This news feed is extra long because half of yesterday’s entries had to be included with today’s. That means that a lot of the news stories don’t have headlines, so check below the fold and scroll through everything if you want to see them all.

•  Obama Confirms Relationship With CPUSA Member
•  War Between the FBI and US Drug Enforcers That Left the Taliban’s Leader at Large
•  UK: One in Eight Children Don’t Speak English As First Language
•  Netherlands Extradites Terrorist Suspect to Spain
•  “I Don’t Allow Fanatics to Intimidate Me”
•  Vandalism Against Pro-Köln
•  Berlin: Arabic Mag Sparks Outrage by Labelling Gays as Diseased
•  Kosovo: We Confirm Appeal to the Hague, Serbian President
•  Egyptian Women Switch Veil With Bikini
•  Tunisia: Home Violence, 1 of 5 Married Women Abused
•  Iran: Kurdish Student Sentenced to Death
•  Syria: Life of Last Jew in Damascus Souk Flourishing
•  Musharraf May Deliver the Nuclear Secrets to Saudi Arabia Before Exiling to the Oil Kingdom
•  Quds, Hezbollah Training Iraqi Militia in Iran
•  ‘Brain’ Behind the Ahmedabad Blasts Held
•  Islam Not on Trial, Australian Jury Told
•  White South Africans Desperate to Leave
•  20 Muslim Nations Ban Us Religious Workers

Thanks to Amil Imani, C. Cantoni, Henrik, Insubria, Steen, TB, turn, VH, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Details are below the fold. In order for the headline links to work, the full post must be open.
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Harrold, TX School Officials Right on Change in Campus Gun Policy, Says CCRKBA

Harrold, Tex. School district trustees and Supt. David Thweatt deserve accolades for changing school policy to allow staff and teachers to carry concealed handguns to protect against school shootings, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

“When classes open August 25 in Harrold, school buildings will be safer than normal, thanks to this decision,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Critics of the plan will argue about liability, or suggest that the school could have hired a security officer or off-duty policeman. But we all know that such officers can’t be everywhere, and in an emergency, every second counts.”

— Hat tip: Henrik

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Obama Confirms Relationship With CPUSA Member

With the release of a 40-page “Unfit for Publication” report attacking Jerome Corsi’s new book, The Obama Nation, it should be obvious that the media-backed presidential candidate, Barack Obama, is terrified of having his carefully concealed communist and foreign connections exposed to public view.

However, the Obama campaign’s attack on Corsi’s book and Corsi personally acknowledges on pages 9 and 10 of its report that the mysterious “Frank” in Obama’s 1995 book, Dreams From My Father, is in fact the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) member Frank Marshall Davis. This identification by AIM and others hasn’t been disputed by the media, which has desperately tried to ignore the Obama-Davis relationship, but the Obama campaign has not responded to it until now.

The admission that Obama’s mentor was Frank Marshall Davis, an identified CPUSA member, can only add to growing public concern about Obama’s relationship with a Communist pawn of Moscow who was the subject of security investigations by the FBI and various congressional committees which examined Soviet activities in the U.S.

— Hat tip: turn

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Salman Rushdie Condemns Cancellation Muhammad-Aisha Novel

Salman Rushdie strongly criticized his publisher for pulling a historical novel about the prophet Muhammad and his child bride [by Sherry Jones] over concerns about angering Muslims.

Rushdie, whose “The Satanic Verses” led to a death decree in 1989 from Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and forced the author for years to live under police protection, said the Random House Publishing Group had allowed itself to be intimidated.

“I am very disappointed to hear that my publishers, Random House, have canceled another author’s novel, apparently because of their concerns about possible Islamic reprisals,” Rushdie said Thursday in an e-mail to The Associated Press. “This is censorship by fear, and it sets a very bad precedent indeed.”

Random House has acknowledged pulling Sherry Jones’ debut novel, “The Jewel of Medina,” about Muhammad and his child bride, Aisha. The publisher, which had planned to release the book this month, said in a recent statement that “credible and unrelated sources” had warned that the book “could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment.”

On Thursday, Random House spokeswoman Carol Schneider said, “We certainly respect Mr. Rushdie’s opinion, but we stand by our decision, which we made with considerable deliberation and regret.”

Rushdie’s last several books, including “Fury” and “Shalimar the Clown,” have been released by Random House. He was published by Viking Penguin at the time “Satanic Verses” came out, in 1988.

“The Satanic Verses” referred to a legend — about Muhammad being tricked by agents of the devil — that enraged some Muslims. The book was banned in India, and burned by demonstrators in England. The novel’s Japanese translator was murdered, the Italian translator stabbed.

Viking Penguin, which received numerous bomb threats, continued to publish the hardcover but hesitated to release the paperback, eventually put out by a coalition of writers, publishers and human right organizations.

— Hat tip: VH

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War Between the FBI and US Drug Enforcers That Left the Taliban’s Leader at Large

The abject failure of America’s intelligence services to broker a deal that could have led to the capture of the leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan can be exposed for the first time today. The US had persuaded a high-ranking Taliban officer to turn informer — a move that could have led to the elimination of insurgent chief Mullah Mohammed Omar.

However, infighting between the White House, FBI and US drug enforcement agents meant that the potential ‘supergrass’ is instead facing life imprisonment for heroin smuggling. The lives of British troops could have been saved if the deal had gone through because Haji Bashar Noorzai was leader of the second biggest tribe in Helmand province, where our soldiers are fighting against insurgents he once controlled.

Noorzai — known to the security services as HBN — was introduced to two US private investigators in 2004.

The men, one a retired FBI counter-intelligence agent and the other a former US Special Forces officer, were put in touch with him through an Afghan intermediary in London. The private eyes, known for security reasons only as Brian and Mike, had been commissioned to investigate terrorist finance networks in the wake of the September 11 attacks on New York, and HBN was of special interest.

As a member of the Taliban central council, HBN had become its ‘treasurer’ and reportedly received at least £10million in cash for safe-keeping. He also had links to Taliban leader Omar, one of the world’s most wanted men, who is thought to be hiding in Pakistan. HBN’s tribe had played a major role in keeping him safe from capture.

But HBN’s allegiance to Omar was questionable and, after being briefly detained by US forces in 2001, he ‘bought’ his freedom by leading them to a cache of deadly Stinger missiles. Believing HBN was prepared to negotiate another deal, the two private investigators met senior officials from the FBI and Department of Justice in Washington and received assurances that he would be immune from prosecution if he turned informer.

After more months of negotiations, HBN flew from Pakistan to New York on April 13, 2005. Dressed for the first time in Western clothes, he was greeted by senior officials from the FBI, the CIA and the US Department of Justice. He was taken to a five-star hotel near Wall Street.

Documents seen by The Mail on Sunday state that the deal provided HBN with legal immunity on the condition he provided vital intelligence about the Taliban infrastructure, persuaded his tribesmen to lay down their arms and gave the US the means to capture Omar.

But just ten days after his arrival in America, the deal was in ruins. Unknown to HBN, nine months earlier the White House had named him as one of the world’s top ten drug barons. So, despite his huge potential intelligence value, the Drug Enforcement Administration demanded his immediate arrest.. HBN, 44, has since been languishing in a cell at New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Centre. […]

— Hat tip: VH

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UK: One in Eight Children Don’t Speak English As First Language

One in eight schoolchildren do not speak English as their first language, a Government survey shows.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families said 240 languages are currently spoken in British schools with some schools having to cope with 50 different dialects.

And in areas like Tower Hamlets in east London, more than 70 per cent of pupils do not have English as their mother tongue.

Now MPs and unions have called for action warning teachers cannot work under such pressures.

Damian Green, Tory Immigration spokesman, said: “In the long run we have to get proper control of our immigration system.”

Mick Brookes, of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said schools welcome new arrivals but often lack the resources to integrate student.

“Unless this is addressed some schools could reach breaking point.

Figures showed that 815,450 schoolchildren or 12.5 per cent did not speak English as the first language as of January this year. For primary schools the proportion was 14.3 per cent or one in seven. Punjabi is the most common language after English, followed by Urdu and Bengali.

Some schools have launched drives to recruit bilingual teachers to help out.

Schools minister Jim Knight said: “It is fatuous and completely out of touch to claim that this is causing rifts in the classrooms. School will always have and always will teach in English.

“There is record investment going into schools, so every child gets up to speed quickly in reading, writing and speaking.”

— Hat tip: Steen

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Freedom of Expression in the Visual Arts

Since artist-filmmaker Theo van Gogh was stabbed to death by a Muslim extremist in Amsterdam in 2004, there appears to be a new edginess in the Netherlands about art that could be provocative or offensive to certain groups in society.

A major museum in The Hague recently removed from its walls photographs considered highly insulting to Muslims, claiming that a museum has a public function. A few weeks ago, a painting of bare-breasted women was removed from the main public area of the town hall of Huizen.

At about the same time, a controversial Dutch cartoonist who goes by the name of Gregorius Nekschot (whose alias means ‘Shot in the back of the neck’) was arrested by a team of no fewer than ten agents and jailed for a night. What is going on in the land of Rembrandt and Van Gogh? Artist Jonas Staal, who himself has been jailed and taken to court for his art, says:

“People are somehow being censored and the government is engaged in keeping people from expressing themselves outside of governmentally approved structures, such as my work.”

Two years ago, Mr Staal set up imitation memorials in several places around Rotterdam of the kind that appeared spontaneously after the violent deaths of Princess Diana, political candidate Pim Fortuyn, and Theo van Gogh: impromptu arrangements of candles and stuffed animals and flowers around the image of the victim. Except that Mr Staal placed photographs of Dutch populist politician Geert Wilders at the centre of his ‘memorials’, and Mr Wilders, who is very much alive, has taken him to court. Mr Staal says:

“He felt threatened and went to the police twice, and when I made it public that I was the creator I was arrested for two days and have been prosecuted since for threatening a Dutch politician with death.”

— Hat tip: TB

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Netherlands Extradites Terrorist Suspect to Spain

THE HAGUE, 16/08/08 — The Netherlands has extradited to Spain the Pakistani suspected terrorist who was arrested in March. He is charged with helping to prepare attacks on the public transport system in Barcelona.

The man, Aqueel Ur Rehman Abbasi, is suspected by the Spanish authorities of being a member of the terrorist cell that was rounded up in Spain in January. The organisation allegedly intended to carry out attacks in the Spanish city of Barcelona and in France, Portugal, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The Pakistani was arrested in the Netherlands in March, but a Dutch court ordered his release due to lack of evidence. After being released, he was handed over to the Dutch aliens police, who placed him in detention for being in the country illegally. He has now been handed over to Spain, a spokesman for the Public Prosecutors’ Office (OM) reported on Friday.

A Spanish magistrate who handled the case against ten fellow-suspects of the Pakistani (9 Pakistanis and one Indian) issued a European arrest warrant for the man. On the grounds of this warrant, he was again arrested by the Netherlands in June.

The presence of the alleged terrorist in the Netherlands contributed strongly to the decision of the National Anti-terrorism Coordinator (NCTb) to raise the threat level in the Netherlands in mid-March. Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin explained at that time that there was no indication that the man was involved in preparing attacks in the Netherlands.

— Hat tip: TB

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“Terrorist MP” Resigns; Political Death May be a Coma

THE HAGUE, 16/08/08 — Wijnand Duyvendak has resigned as MP. His position became untenable following the disclosure that he was involved with an attempt to set fire to the home of top civil servant George Verberg. But attempts to rehabilitate Duyvendak have already begun.

Leftwing Green (GroenLinks) leader Femke Halsema has accepted Duyvendak’s decision to resign “with pain in my heart.” She stressed that she found him a politician of “integrity.”

Halsema suggested that Duyvendak would return again to the Lower House after the next elections. “I am not responsible for the candidates committee, but I cannot imagine that GroenLinks has no place for people that give such an account of their past.”

Halsema was referring to Duyvendak’s disclosure two weeks ago that he was one of the perpetrators of a break-in to the economic affairs ministry in 1985. The confession was in a press release that his publisher issued to attract publicity for an autobiography by Duyvendak, due to appear on 20 August. But the publicity it attracted was not the kind he had expected.

Led by De Telegraaf, the pressure on Duyvendak mounted. Remarkably, the leftwing newspapers did not spare ‘their’ GroenLinks either. Thus, De Volkskrant last week described the party as a rehabilitation centre for political delinquents. And it was reporting in NRC Handelsblad — arguably the most leftwing paper — that eventually compelled Duyvendak to resign…

— Hat tip: TB

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“I Don’t Allow Fanatics to Intimidate Me”

After drawing a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad with a lit bomb in his turban in 2005, Kurt Westergaard has lived under constant police protection. Now Jordan wants to prosecute the Dane. In a SPIEGEL ONLINE interview he discusses the legal summons and his anger.

— Hat tip: TB

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“Anti”-Fascist Protesters Clash With Riot Police Outside British National Party (BNP) Festival

Officers arrested six demonstrators as they tried to barricade a road and prevent British National Party members from attending the annual Red, White and Blue Festival in Denby, Derbyshire. Police were pelted with stones by a breakaway group of protesters during the clashes.

Officers with batons, supported by dogs and a helicopter, quelled the disturbance. Earlier, some 700 demonstrators from Unite Against Fascism and the TUC (Trades Union Congress) and Unison (public sector union) unions took part in a rally in nearby Codnor.

Extra officers were drafted in to control the rally as protesters tried to march along a road leading to the festival, which is being held in a field. Peter Goodman, assistant chief constable of Derbyshire Police, said: ‘A small group attempted to barricade the road. We responded quickly and efficiently and they were not successful in creating the barricade.’ Police said 250 officers were involved.

Bob Crow, of the RMT union (National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers), was at the rally. He said: ‘The BNP stands for everything that we are not.’ The BNP said about 4,000 are attending the festival, at which its leader Nick Griffin will speak.

— Hat tip: VH

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Vandalism Against Pro-Köln

The German citizen-movement Pro Köln (Pro Cologne), which, like the Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) is cooperating in the project Cities against Islamisation, reports that vandals have seriously damaged one of its buildings Tuesday night. Several windows were smashed and the facade shelled with paint bombs. The damage was considerable.

It is a miracle there were no injuries as a result of this cowardly act.. Pro Köln Tuesday evening had a meeting there and on another floor of the building a tenant was sleeping in her apartment. Pro Köln is convinced that this act of vandals is the result of the smear campaign in media and politics against the anti-islamizaoins-congres the German citizens movement organizes form19 till 21 September, at which also the Vlaams Belang will be present.

Our party has been victim of several attacks. On May 1 this year, the Antwerp secretariats office in the “Van Maerlant straat” was smeared with a swastika. Leftists time and again call for ‘tolerance’, but by continuously diabolising the Right, stimulates certain individuals to use violence instead.

— Hat tip: VH

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Adding, Re: Pro-Köln:

“The Pro Cologne citizens’ initiative wants to prevent the construction of Germany’s largest mosque in Cologne. The group, which held a rally in Cologne last Saturday, [see picture] is drawing support from right-wing activists across Europe.”

— Hat tip: VH

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Berlin: Arabic Mag Sparks Outrage by Labelling Gays as Diseased

Two sensitive subjects have crashed into each other in Berlin, with a row over an article in a German Arabic language magazine warning readers that shaking the hands of gay men can transmit diseases.

The article, in the free magazine al-Salam which is distributed to restaurants and cafes around the German capital, is couched in pseudo-scientific language, and accompanied with graphic photos of skin diseases.

Titled “A flesh-eating bacteria and sexual abnormality,” the article claims that gay men are hit by deadly diseases and that Muslim “brothers” should not shake their hands as “one never knows what kind of bacteria and germs are found on them.”

The Lesbian and Gay Association of Berlin-Brandenburg (LSVD) reported the article to the police this week, spokesman Alexander Zinn told The Local.

“We have reported it as a crime to the police and it is now being examined to determine whether it should be dealt with as defamation or incitement,” he said.

— Hat tip: Steen

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Kosovo: We Confirm Appeal to the Hague, Serbian President

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, AUGUST 14 — The new pro-European government of Belgrade will not step back from his plan to appeal to the International Court of Justice of The Hague about the legitimacy of the secession from Serbia unilaterally proclaimed on February 17 by the province with Albanian majority of Kosovo. The announcement was made yesterday by Serbian President Boris Tadic, talking about the issue on the background of the crisis triggered in Georgia by the independentist ambitions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. “Our initiative will address the UN, through the International Court of Justice, with the purpose to obtain an undisputed opinion from the highest judicial institution in the world about the proclamation of independence of Kosovo, which for Serbia is an absolutely illegal act”, Tadic said while visiting the editorial office of a Belgrade newspaper which celebrated yesterday 90 years of activity. The President also remarked that he informed many foreign leaders (both in favour of the Kossovar secession, like U.S. George W. Bush, and against it, like Chinese Hu Jintao) of his position, during the meetings which he had in Beijing on the occasion of the opening of the Olympic Games. Tadic also added that he found support and understanding in ¿many¿ interlocutors. So far the independence of Kosovo has been recognised by some 40 governments (including the USA and the majority of the EU member states), but not by Serbia or by other 150 countries represented at the UN, or by the Security Council, where the support of Russia and China to Belgrade carries a weight. This situation, according to almost all the Serbian politicians and observers, offers still room for diplomatic manoeuvres to Belgrade, all the more after the contradictions which emerged in the past few days on the western front: ready to approve a few months ago the secession of Pristina and defending instead today, in the case of Georgia, the principle of territorial integrity always claimed by Serbia for Kosovo.

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Egyptian Women Switch Veil With Bikini

Islamic hymns fade out giving way to Arabic pop music as women remove their veils to reveal bikinis or one-piece swimsuits at a religiously correct beach for women only in Egypt.

Welcome to “La Femme”, French for “The Woman”, in the posh resort of Marina, where women can lounge on sunbeds, tan, join in a daily belly-dance contest or breastfeed their babies shielded by barriers of palm tree branches from the prying eyes of men.

The branches even stretch into the Mediterranean sea to give maximum shelter to the women, who have faced the constraints of growing conservatism in the previously liberal Muslim country.

— Hat tip: TB

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Tunisia: Home Violence, 1 of 5 Married Women Abused

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, AUGUAT 12 — In Tunisia, which mostly takes into consideration the women’s role in the active life among the Arab countries, it might seem controversial but the statistics are merciless: 20% of the married women are victims of violence on the part of their spouse. According to the statistics announced by daily Le Temps, many of them become disfigured, handicapped, receive psychological traumas and in various cases end up committing suicide. And all this, or almost all this, happens in silence between the home walls. For fear of further retaliation, and in order not to allow showing that the marriage has been ruined, due to a psychological and physical subjection which have lasted for centuries, such as that for example which requires that the wife should always walk two steps behind her husband. Feminist organisations have been leading for a long time a campaign to raise the awareness aimed at convincing the victims of this violence to at least trust them and the social workers. However, the fact that the first step has to be made by both spouses in the family remains unchanged. The law, obviously, also punishes this kind of violence. However, the feminists observe that the law is totally dissatisfying. Because if the victim intends to file a complaint, they must present a medical certificate issued by a public hospital certifying injures curable in 21 days. In case the prognosis results lower, the complaint will not be accepted. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Israel’s Welcome for Ethiopian Jews Wears Thin

Sitting in a leaky, flyblown hut, a few dozen Ethiopian villagers are anxiously waiting to be transported to another world. They have just been given word that their years of waiting are over, and that soon they will make a 2,000-mile journey by land and air with what is probably the last wave of Ethiopian immigrants to Israel.

In doing so, they join generations of Jews who have immigrated to the Promised Land. But they are flying into the teeth of a dilemma that touches the heart of Israel’s founding philosophy.

For people like 48-year-old Abe Damamo, his wife and eight children, wrenching change awaits. […] He is moving to an industrialized democracy where he will have to learn Hebrew, master a cell phone, commute to work and find his place in a nation of immigrants from dozens of countries ranging from Argentina to Yemen, Australia to the United States.

[…] “When I left my village, I didn’t think I would be here for 10 days,” he says, adding that he has close relatives in Israel who he feels are a part of him. “How can you split a man into two halves?”

Israel’s Law of Return guarantees citizenship for any Jew in need, and these days the country is especially concerned about boosting its Jewish population to compete with the Arabs. But the Ethiopians have proved the hardest immigrant group to absorb, and the Falash Mura, some critics feel, is pushing the limits.

Like every other immigrant group, Ethiopian-Israelis have made their mark on the human mosaic of Jewish nationhood giving it top-notch soldiers, funky musicians, world-class athletes and two members of parliament. […]

But as a whole they are poor, plagued by crime, violence and substance abuse, feeling shut out of a world very different from rural Africa. […]

— Hat tip: VH

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Iran: Kurdish Student Sentenced to Death

Tehran, 13 August (AKI) — An Iranian court has sentenced to death a Kurdish student, Habibollah Latifi, his lawyer Nemat Ahmadi announced late on Tuesday.

Latifi is the third Iranian Kurd to receive a death sentence in less than a month in hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ongoing campaign against ethnic minorities.

In late July, two teachers, Anwar Hossein Panahi and Arsalan Oliaii were also handed death sentences.

Six Iranian Kurds are now on death row, including award-winning journalist Adnan Hassanpour.

All have been convicted of ‘endangering state security’ and ‘relations with illegal political organisations’.

Prominent Arab journalist Yousef Bani Azizi on Monday was sentenced to five years in prison and last week a young Baloch journalist, Yaghoub Mehrnad was hanged.

Four female Kurdish activists are currently in prison.

— Hat tip: C. Cantoni

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Iran Mullahs’ Blame Game

by Amil Imani

It is a fundamental human trait to locate the source of anything bad happening and try to neutralize it. There are, however, times that the source of the harm cannot be pinpointed or when successfully recognized it cannot be eliminated. Failure to recognize the source or neutralize it is frustrating. And frustration triggers a variety of emotions and reactions. The feeling of victimization is one possible reaction that frequently goes hand-in-hand with displaced aggression on a convenient safe target. The aggression can be verbal, physical, or a combination of the two.

— Hat tip: Amil Imani

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Syria: Life of Last Jew in Damascus Souk Flourishing

(by correspondent Elisa Pinna) (ANSAmed) — DAMASCUS, AUGUST 14 — In the heart of the chaotic souk of Damascus, everybody knows him: he is the Jew, the latest important representative of the community of Jewish traders who, until the 90s, was dominating the lively market close to the Omayyadi Mosque. When the President at the time, Hafez Assad, father of the current Bashir, liberalised all the visas, all his friends, relatives and acquaintances left: the Jewish district emptied completely, 30,000 people took off. They did not have any particular problem in Syria, but the state of permanent conflict in the Middle East gave them an unbearable sense of precariousness and anguish. Selim Hamademi was 20 years old and made a different choice: to stay. He never changed his mind and he is happy about it: today his carpet, silk and antiquities emporium is one of the most well-known in the city and he, a Syrian Jew, would never choose a different kind of life. “Why did I stay? Because each one of us has only one life and not two. My life is here in Damascus: I tried also for some time to live with my relatives in New York, but I did not like it and I came back here,” Selim, 42, with a smiling and warm face, explained to ANSAmed. No fear of living in a country which Israel accuses of financing the enemies Hezbollah and which the USA have classified for a long time as “a scoundrel state”? “Absolutely not”, he answers with an amused smile. “Syria is my country, my homeland. My family arrived in Damascus 600 years ago. Nobody here ever created problems for me; I can travel freely, my relatives come to see me whenever they like. And also, the business is going very well,” he adds cunningly. In order to find his shop, it is sufficient to ask any trader of the al-Hamadiyya souk and follow the directions for “the Jew”, in the labyrinth of small covered streets, where there are shops for cloth, spices, coffee, olive oil, darkened objects in brass and copper, wooden furniture, colourful Aladdin’s lamps. The sign, next to one of the most sumptuous buildings in Damascus, the Azem palace, has remained the same of the previous owner, a Christian Orthodox: “George Dabdoub”. Selim’s father, Joseph, one of the most skilled copper craftsmen in Syria, bought it in 1970. In the shop, beautiful tablecloths embroidered by Muslim women from the nearby village of Doma, are piled up with kilim rugs and old carpets, hookahs and wooden and mother-of-pearl inlaid boxes are showcased next to antiquities and precious objects. Here, western travellers and rich sheikhs from the Gulf come to shop. In Selim’s emporium, Armenian, Jewish, Syrian and Indian objects are mixed up in an almost symbolic chaos of the kaleidoscope of cultures, ethnic groups and religions which are still coexisting in Syria. His brother David, who emigrated to New York, is working instead as a supplier of frozen foods for fast food chains, something which Selim, proud of being a Syrian citizen, cannot even consider. “The only problem is that I am still single. I must hurry up and find myself a wife”, he jokes. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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Musharraf May Deliver the Nuclear Secrets to Saudi Arabia Before Exiling to the Oil Kingdom

Saudis are eager to get hold of Musharraf and his nuclear blueprints before any one can understand the fact. Saudi Arabia on Saturday rushed its intelligence chief to Pakistan to broker a deal between embattled President Pervez Musharraf and the ruling coalition.

While the cover of the media news is that Saudis are looking for a safe exit for Musharraf, in reality it is somewhat different. Prince Muqrin bin Abdul-Aziz met Musharraf and leaders of the Pakistan People’s Party-led coalition to discuss the possibility of the President being given a “safe exit” if he steps down, TV channels quoted sources as saying..

But sources from Pakistan point out that Musharraf is not that anxious to leave the Presidential position. What he might to is to insure his safe heaven with the Saudis. Some also argue that he gave the nuclear ‘key’ to United States long time back in exchange for a security guarantee. No one knows if that security is for Pakistan or Musharraf himself or both!

— Hat tip: VH

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Quds, Hezbollah Training Iraqi Militia in Iran

Iraqi Shiite explosive and assassination teams are being trained in at least four locations in Iran by Tehran’s elite Quds force and Lebanese Hezbollah, according to intelligence gleaned from captured militia fighters and other sources in Iraq. A senior US military intelligence officer in Baghdad also said the fighters planned to return to Iraq in the next few months to kill specific Iraqi officials as well as US and Iraqi forces.

The officer on Wednesday provided Iraq’s national security adviser with several lists of the assassination teams’ expected targets. The country’s intelligence service is now preparing operations to determine where and when the specially trained fighters will enter Iraq and will provide an assessment to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, the intelligence officer said.

Iran, Hezbollah’s mentor, denies giving any support to Shiite extremists in Iraq. The US official disclosed the information in an attempt to create political pressure on Iran to suspend the training and prevent the militia fighters from returning to Iraq. […]

Many of the fighters fled to Iran this spring after Iraqi government forces cracked down first on militia sanctuaries in Basra and Sadr City in Baghdad, then Amarah, and now in Diyala province, the military officer said. One of the reasons the US believes the special groups moved out during that period is the sharp decline in the number of deadly roadside bombs using explosively formed penetrators. […]

The officer said training is going on in at least four locations in Iran: Qom, Tehran, Ahvaz and Mashhad. The elite Quds Force is a branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The Islamic militant group Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, is believed to receive weapons from Syria and Iran. […]

According to the officer, the training camps are operating under the direction of Quds force commander, Brig. Gen. Ghassem Soleimani, with the knowledge and approval of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The training includes how to conduct reconnaissance to pinpoint targets, small arms and weapons training, small unit tactics, and terrorist cell operations and communications.

They are also learning how to use explosively formed penetrator bombs and other improvised explosive devices and rocket propelled grenades, including the RPG-29, a signature weapon of Lebanese Hezbollah and the Quds force.. Lebanese Hezbollah conducts much of the training in the camps because its members speak Arabic, the dominant language in Iraq. […]

— Hat tip: VH

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‘Brain’ Behind the Ahmedabad Blasts Held

With the arrest of Abul Bashar Qasmi [aka Mufti Abu Bashir], alleged mastermind behind the July 26 Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts, in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, the Gujarat police said they had unravelled the conspiracy that led to the bombings. With this, they hoped to unravel the mystery behind similar blasts in other parts of the country, particularly in Jaipur and Hyderabad and the Faizabad court-room blasts in Uttar Pradesh.

Announcing the breakthrough at a hurriedly-convened press conference here, Director-General of Police P.C. Pandey said Qasmi was arrested from a village in Azamgarh by a joint team of the U.P. and Gujarat police. He said it was perhaps the first time in the investigations into the recent serial bomb blasts that the police had been able to “reach right up to the mastermind.”

Before Qasmi’s arrest, nine persons were nabbed from Ahmedabad and Vadodara, all activists of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). “We now have the entire details of how and where the plans for the Ahmedabad blasts were chalked out, who were the people involved and how the entire plan was operationalised,” Mr. Pandey said. All the 10 were actively involved in the planning and execution of the Ahmedabad blasts.

Though a native of U.P., Qasmi was known to have spent plenty of time in Karnataka, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and several other places and could have had a hand in the terror operations in those areas, he said.

— Hat tip: VH

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Mastermind Mufti Abu Bashir and Nine Others Simi Terror Operators? How They Got the Isi Help?

Gujarat police on Saturday arrested SIMI (Students Islamic Movement of India) terror cell mastermind Mufti Abu Bashir and nine others for the Ahmedabad serial bomb blasts that killed 55 persons. India security forcers and intelligence agencies are finally uncovering the secret SIMI-ISI (Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence) connection. “We believe that the netwrok of SIMI was behind the blasts…. Indian Mujahideen, which claimed the responsibility of the blasts, is connected to SIMI,” Gujarat DGP P C Pande said.

The officials secretly expressed astonishment as they uncovered the depth of ISI terror cells in India. Most of the people arrested in the blasts case are active workers of the banned organisation SIMI. The arrest of Bashir and nine suspects was done with the help of Central Intelligence agencies and police of other states. The bigger question is how SIMI got the ISI help. RAW (Research and Analysis Wing, India’s foreign intelligence agency) is in the process of finding the same.

— Hat tip: VH

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Islam Not on Trial, Australian Jury Told

A Judge has told a jury that the Muslim religion is not on trial, after a man pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges. Bilal Saadallah Khazaal today pleaded not guilty to making a document connected with assistance in a terrorist act knowing of that connection, between September 20 and September 23, 2003 in Sydney.

The document is titled Provisions on the Rules of Jihad — Short Judicial rulings and organisational instructions for fighters and Mujahideen against infidels. He also has pleaded not guilty to attempting to urge the commission by others of a terrorist offence, in Sydney and elsewhere in the world.

A jury of seven men and five women was empanelled at the start of Mr Khazaal’s trial in the New South Wales Supreme Court today. Justice Megan Latham told the jury: “The Muslim religion is not on trial here, ladies and gentlemen”.

Her address was continuing.

— Hat tip: VH

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White South Africans Desperate to Leave

1% of all white people have been murdered in South Africa since the ANC took power. 6,500 people in Johannesburg, almost all of them white, paid about $20 to attend an expo on immigrating to New Zealand. Expos for Australia, England, and Canada will also be held in the near future.

Despite the genocide against South African whites, the US government makes it extremely difficult for them to immigrate to the United States even though they tend to be well educated and skilled. Instead, tens of thousands of black Africans are granted asylum and refugee status to come to the United States each year. Examples include the stone-age Somalians who have unleashed an unprecedented crime wave in cities like Columbus, Ohio; not to mention the fact that millions of third worlders are allowed to enter the US illegally each year.

Left-wing Republican and illegal alien amnesty advocate Sen. Sam Brownback was asked by a CofCC member if he would support granting political asylum to white South Africans, since he is such a fan of immigration. Brownback replied that granting whites asylum would be a bad idea, because they “might bring racist attitudes to the United States.”

— Hat tip: VH

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Tunisia: 41% Unemployed Would Emigrate Illegally, Study

(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, OCTOBER 18 — Among Tunisian unemployed young people, at least 41.1% is ready to risk in order to emigrate illegally, a United Nations report affirms. According to the report, young people have less trust in the future, a comprehensible inclination considering the fact that young people represent two thirds of the unemployed people and for those who have a degree from high school the percentage reaches 81%. Boys are most tempted by the idea to emigrate illegally, 52.7% compared to 30% of girls. Married men are more ready to risk, 55% compared to 22.1% of the single men. The study has taken for basis a report from 2005, which showed that 15% of young people wanted to emigrate, 20% of boys and 9.5% of girls. ‘Daily Le temps’ launches the alarm affirming that the phenomenon of illegal emigration is ‘becoming ever more worrying’ and ‘the attempts of youths to leave are increasing’. (ANSAmed).

— Hat tip: Insubria

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20 Muslim Nations Ban Us Religious Workers

A new congressional study has found that more than 20 Muslim nations deny entry to American and other foreign religious workers, WND has learned, even as the U.S. State Department grants entry to hundreds of clerics from their countries each year.

The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and most other Middle Eastern countries still refuse to offer religious visas, they and deny entry to U.S. clergy as official policy, according to a report by the Law Library of Congress, the foreign legal research arm of the U.S. Congress. In a shocker, U.S. allies Afghanistan and Iraq also made the list of religious refuseniks.

“Of this group, the vast majority constitute Arab or Muslim states,” said Wendy Zeldin, senior legal research analyst for the Library of Congress.

“Since Islam prohibits proselytism by other religions, foreign religious workers will in effect be denied entry to conduct religious work,” Zeldin wrote in the three-page report, a copy of which was obtained by WND.

— Hat tip: Steen

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