Remember: there are too many news stories here for all of them to have headlines at the top. So scroll through everything if you’re a hard-core news junkie.
Thanks to A_Nonny_Mouse, C. Cantoni, Darrin, DB, Dymphna, Erick Stakelbeck, Fjordman, Henrik, Insubria, JD, Steen, TB, The Observer, VH, and all the other tipsters who sent these in. Details are below the fold.
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Why Words Matter in the War on Terror
By Erick Stakelbeck
CBNNews.com — Terms like “radical Islamist” and “jihadist” have dominated headlines and speeches since 9/11, with the Bush administration using them frequently to describe America’s enemies.
But that language may be about to change.
Although Al-Qaeda and other terrorists identify themselves as jihadists — holy warriors—some feel we make a mistake by calling them what they call themselves.
“It makes sense why they would want to be called it. It makes no sense why we would want to call them that,” said Peter Singer, a national security expert with the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Singer co-wrote a recent New York Times op-ed that argues against the use of words like “jihadist” to describe Islamic terrorists.
“This feeds into their idea that this is a religious war, and it’s not.,” he said. “They want it to be a war of religions, but we have said very clearly that this is not a war on Islam, it’s not Christianity vs. Islam in some way. It’s about radicals, it’s about extremists who are using violence.”
U.S. government agencies agree with Singer’s view.
The State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counterterrorism Center have all released controversial internal memos recommending that workers avoid mentioning Islam or Muslims when discussing the War on Terror.
According to the memos, terms like “jihadist” and “mujahideen,” both of which mean holy warrior, should be dropped. So, they say, should “Islamofascism,” “Islamic terrorist” and “radical Islamist” — all previously favorite terms of the Bush administration. The documents recommend that terms like “violent extremist” or simply, “terrorist,” should be used in their place.
The government’s reasoning here is twofold. Officials say holy warriors are viewed as men of honor in the Muslim world. Therefore, the thinking goes, referring to Al Qaeda as jihadists or mujahideen only legitimizes their cause.
Second, they say, linking Islam to terrorism alienates average Muslims by suggesting that the War on Terror is really a war against Islam.
But one native Arabic speaker we talked with says the government has it all wrong.
Islam expert Raymond Ibrahim is author of The Al-Qaeda Reader. It translates previously undeciphered statements by the group’s leadership into English.
“The fact is, the Muslim world isn’t waiting around holding its breath to hear the U.S. Government — an infidel entity — define Islamic terms for them,” Ibrahim said. “This seems to me unprecedented. When we fought the Japanese and we fought the Nazis, we called them what they called themselves.”
“If Osama bin Laden calls himself a mujahid, we should understand what a mujahid is. And we should understand that that is, in English, a holy warrior who’s fighting on behalf of Islam,” he said.
“You want to know your enemy: how they think, what they call themselves, what those terms mean,” he added.
Singer says Western governments and media should avoid using these theological terms because they could offend Muslims.
He suggests using “muharib” or “hirabist” to describe Al Qaeda. These terms mean “barbarians” or “pirates” in Arabic.
“A term like “hirabi” or “muharib” is a term that’s inherently negative within the teachings of the Muslim world,” Singer said.
But according to Ibrahim, these terms are not widely used or understood in the Muslim world, while the concept of jihad is well-known and historically prevalent.
“According to Islamic law, offensive jihad—offensive, not just to defend yourself, but offensive, to go out and invade—is as codified and is obilgatory,” he said.
To understand this enemy, Ibrahim says, you can’t separate its ideology from its theology.
“You trace it to Islamic doctrine and law, jihad is simply warfare to subjugate the infidel world to Islamic rule.”
The debate over language has also reached Capitol Hill. Last month, the House passed an amendment to an intelligence bill that would deny funding for any government measure to ban words like jihadist.
Republican Congressman Peter Hoekstra, who introduced the amendment, says governnment agencies shouldn’t be hampered by political correctness when fighting the War on Terror.
| — Hat tip: Erick Stakelbeck | [Return to headlines] |
Freedom of Press Within Limits: Lawyer
A candidate for one of the top jobs at the new Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario told a government committee yesterday he thinks print journalism should be subject to racial discrimination complaints.
Alan Whyte, a veteran employer-side labour lawyer, told an all-party panel vetting the two dozen government nominees that he supports the media’s broad freedom to report stories “as they see fit.”
“Having said that, if there is some sort of discrimination that comes out in the reporting that is arguably contrary to the code, then I would also feel that it would be open to a complainant to challenge the reporting as being discriminatory on the grounds of race,” said the candidate for vice-chair.
His statement seems to contradict a high-profile clarification by Barbara Hall, chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, in the case of an Islamophobia complaint against Maclean’s magazine, that the Ontario Human Rights Code “cannot be interpreted to include the content” of print journalism.
Controversially, Ms. Hall added that OHRC’s educational mandate empowered her to denounce Maclean’s anyway for publishing Islamophobic articles.
Mr. Whyte was one of four people interviewed yesterday by a panel of five Liberals, three Progressive Conservatives, including the non-voting chair, and one NDP, for nomination to the new Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. Under a wholesale restructuring of the human rights legal bureaucracy, complaints will no longer go to the Commission for approval or mediation, but straight to the Tribunal, whose case load is projected to increase.
Not all nominees are to be interviewed in the process that ends on Wednesday.
Lisa MacLeod, who led the Tory questioning, said in an interview she has been inspired by the recent failed human rights case against Ezra Levant and the Western Standard for publishing the Danish Muhammad cartoons.
“I’m of the opinion that even if I don’t like what you have to say, I have to accept it. There’s lots of times I don’t like what I read, but I’m not the judge of that,” she said. “I’m having a real philosophical problem with Barbara Hall recognizing freedom of expression and at the same time telling the media what their responsibility is.”
“I wanted to call every single one of [the nominees] in, because if we’re going to have a human rights system in Ontario, I think we deserve as Ontarians to know what the individual philosophies are of these tribunal members,” she said. Procedural restrictions dictated she could not.
The nominees also included Andrew Diamond, a lawyer in the public service. Ms. MacLeod pressed him on whether he agreed with Ms. Hall’s statement that “for a province as large and as diverse as Ontario, to have 2,500 formal complaints a year, that that’s a very low level.”
Fewer complaints are better, he said, “because it means that as a society, we are treating people fairly and equally, and that members of society don’t feel the need to complain about their treatment.”
He added that, as a student, he wrote a paper for the philosopher Charles Taylor about “a hate law and where it crosses over. It is the most difficult area, about inciting hatred versus someone’s right to say what they feel and think.”
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Iraqis in Suspected Repatriation Grant Racket
A financial incentive scheme encouraging asylum seekers to return to their homelands has been abused by hundreds of Iraqi refugees, Swedish authorities believe.
The Swedish Migration Board suspects that Iraqis who never intended staying in the country have been exploiting the asylum seeker repatriation grant introduced by the government last year.
The board has written a letter to the justice ministry explaining that “it is relatively clear that the foreigners are not seeking asylum to stay in Sweden but to receive financial support.”
Iraqi asylum seekers in particular have taken back their applications after a short period and instead applied for grants intended as an aid for people wishing to move back to their home countries.
The record was set by a man who cancelled his asylum application after just eight days and put in a request for a repatriation grant.
Of the 685 Iraqi who have applied for the repatriation grant this year, 291 did so after their asylum applications were rejected, while 385 canceled their asylum requests and applied for the grant instead.
On August 1st last year the government earmarked 27 million kronor for repatriation grants. Currently the grant amounts to 20,000 kronor ($3,000) for an adult with a cap of 50,000 kronor per family.
So far the authorities have paid out 5.5 million kronor in repatriation grants.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Left Extremists Offer Reward for Assaulting Swedish Nazi Teen
An extreme left wing group in has offered a cash reward to anyone who assaults a notorious Nazi teenager in Uppsala in eastern Sweden.
At least this is what ‘Antifascistisk Aktion’ (Afa) promises on flyers posted all around the university town.
Afa’s website also encourages people to assault the 18-year-old Nazi, and promises 500 kronor ($90) to anyone who carries out the attack and can provide photographic evidence.
The flyers were put up in the beginning of August.
According to TV4, the campaign is part of an ongoing feud between Afa and an extreme right-wing group also present in Uppsala.
The Uppsala police have reported the posters as an incitement to grievous assault and the Swedish Security Police (Säpo) have also been called in.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Immigrant Traders Shun Banks
Small business owners in Sweden with an immigrant background avoid taking out bank loans when setting up their own businesses, according to a new report from the Swedish Trade Federation.
Eight out of ten trading companies use money they have either saved or borrowed from family and friends when starting out in business in Sweden.
“A lot of people have discovered gaps in the Swedish market, which has led them to introduce products or services they have experience of from their home countries,” said federation spokeswoman Margareta Ternell in a statement.
Of the traders questioned in the survey, 70 percent said their business was very strongly influenced by their background.
Some 65 percent of the companies imported goods from the owners’ home regions. These products include food, clothing, cosmetics, furniture, gold and textiles.
55 percent said the products they sold were not previously available on the Swedish market.
The Swedish Trade Federation is to be present the study in its entirety at a seminar in Stockholm on September 23rd.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Making a Caricature of a Nation’s Fears
Note from TB:
Omar Marzouk is sometimes very funny. And pay attention to the fact that he actually acknowledges the DPP. Some of his other statements though are nonsense and incorrect in my view. As an example: nothing is being debated more than the chances of terror in Denmark etc etc etc.
COPENHAGEN — Osama is a businessman who sees terrorism as a profit center, selling terrorism-themed T-shirts, caps and ballpoint pens. Abdul, a convert to Islam, acts as if he cannot kill enough people, or make bombs big enough. Ali, a Pakistani, has won a competition for the honor of avenging the cartoons published in Denmark that disparaged Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.
Despite the threat they seem to present, the four men have so far eluded the Danish police — not because they run such a sophisticated operation, but because they are the principal characters in a situation comedy, “The Terror Cell.”
The show, about a bunch of losers in a gang that can’t shoot straight, is scheduled to make its debut on Danish television next year. Its creator, principal writer and star is Omar Marzouk, a Muslim and one of Denmark’s best-known stand-up comics.
“There’s a lot of interest, but at the same time it’s Danish, there are the cartoons,” said Mr. Marzouk, 35, munching on a club sandwich (no bacon, he tells the waitress). “It’s not about being blasphemous, though; it’s about things that make both sides have a laugh. That’s more difficult than being provocative.”
The terrorists lurk in an apartment in downtown Copenhagen. Their closest neighbor, a polite and elderly lady, will not betray them. She believes that World War II has not yet ended, that the boys are hiding from the Germans.
Mr. Marzouk’s show, which will be broadcast on Kanal 5, the Danish channel of a German network, is not the only recent entry in the developing category of disarming prejudice about Islam with a laugh. “The Little Mosque on the Prairie,” following the antics of a Muslim community in Saskatchewan, was taken to Canadian television in 2006.
In the United States, the CW network’s comedy series “Aliens in America” is based on the comic relationship between a Muslim exchange student and a Midwesterner.
But what gives “The Terror Cell” its edginess is the cartoons that first appeared in a Danish newspaper in 2005, provoking violent protests across the Middle East and Asia. The cartoons were published again in January, and in June eight people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack on the Danish Embassy in Pakistan.
Mr. Marzouk, who was born in Copenhagen in 1973, is much the self-made man. In addition to Danish, he speaks fluent English and Arabic, yet he was dismissed from a private school for supposedly being dyslexic, so he skipped college and opened a business importing computer parts.
In the mid-1990s he learned that the European Union was sponsoring a competition to combat racism. He decided to enter with a stand-up comedy routine. “Until then, understanding between Danes and Muslims meant, ‘Come on, eat some hummus and see some belly dancing,’ “ he said. “I thought stand-up was a great way to talk about these things.”
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic Terror Cell ‘May Have Been Plotting to Attack Queen’
A terror cell caught with details of bomb-making and suicide vests may have been plotting to attack the Queen and members of the Royal family, it can be disclosed.
Aabid Hussain Khan: gathered details of Royal residences Photo: PA The cell, which included Britain’s youngest ever terrorist, arrested on his way home from his GCSE chemistry exam, was found with information about the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh along with the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the Earl of Wessex and the Princess Royal.
Also on the list were Princess Michael of Kent, The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and The Duke and Duchess of Kent.
Aabid Hussain Khan, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, had compiled pictures, maps and details of the opening hours of official residences from information available on the internet.
There were also details of London landmarks including the Houses of Parliament, Tower Bridge and the underground as well as the New York and Washington metros and a home-made video of the Washington Memorial and World Bank in the US.
A counter-terrorism source said: “They had details of explosives and poisons along with information about London landmarks and a computer folder on Royal residences. We would be foolish to rule out the fact that they may have been planning an attack.”
Detective Chief Superintendent John Parkinson, Head of the Counter Terrorism Unit in Leeds, said the men posed a “very real threat”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Copenhagen Shootings on the Rise
The leap in the number of shootings in Copenhagen has lead experts to compare the situation to that of many US cities
Gangs are threatening to make Copenhagen’s streets into a war zone, as the number of shootings in the city has escalated over the past year.
Three shooting episodes last week brought this year’s total in Copenhagen to 20 — twice as many as during the same period last year. Most recently, a 19-year old man was shot dead last Thursday in the Brønshøj district. The young man was himself found to be armed.
While police are denying a gang war is taking place, many social and crime experts are concerned the situation is beginning to resemble that of major US cities, where gun-related crime is an everyday occurrence.
‘It’s very much like the American condition — a development we’ve also seen in other countries,’ Michael Hviid Jacobsen, sociologist at Aalborg University, told Nyhedsavisen newspaper. ‘We’re now seeing visible frustrations where people are shooting at each other across the street.’
Especially the use of automatic weapons has upped the stakes for both the gangs and the police. And while motorcycle gangs such as the Hells Angels and Banditos were the original adversaries, many gangs with members of Arab or Asian origin have now joined the fold.
‘Although it’s taboo to say it, it’s a simple fact that many of the shooting episodes involve people with another ethnic background than Danish,’ said Jacobsen. ‘We have to acknowledge that this is an especially problematic group.’
Jacobsen said the only way to deal with the situation is by adding more police.
But Kim Kliver, head of the National Police’s investigative division, said the current violence is not necessarily a gang war needing large police units to cover it. He said many incidents are between local groups.
‘The violence occurs because a person wants to show he’s tough,’ said Kliver. ‘And when the media writes about it, then it gives them even more respect.’
Black Cobra and the Borhan group are two of the most prominent non-ethnic Danish gangs, with around 50 and 15 members, respectively.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Malaysia Condemns Holding of Anti-Islamization Congress
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) — Malaysia strongly condemns the holding of Anti-Islamization Congress as it blatantly depicts insensitivities and a sheer act of provocation to Islam and the Muslim world, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday.
“Malaysia is shocked and expresses its disappointment over the intention by the Pro-Koln Group to host an Anti-Islamization Congress in Cologne, Germany, proposed to be held on Sept. 19 and 20, 2008,” the Ministry said in a statement.
Malaysia demands that the organizer of this Congress, in particular the Pro-Koln Group, to re-consider their intention and weigh the consequences of their action as nothing positive can be achieved through this event but would only incite violence and hatred and result in adverse consequences, the Ministry said.
“Malaysia wishes to emphasize the importance that all efforts are necessary to be taken by Governments and responsible organizations to build and promote interfaith relations, dialogue and understanding between different religions and cultures,” the statement said.
“These efforts stand to be compromised if certain parties such as the organizers of this Anti Islamization Congress choose to resort to spreading lies and insults in the name of freedom of speech, which will indeed reflect their sheer ignorance,” it added.
| [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: Controversial Book Divides Muslim Groups
Belgrade, 19 August (AKI) — Serbia’s two main Muslim organisations are divided over a controversial book that has been withdrawn from sale.
‘The Jewel of Medina’ written by Sherry Jones has been withdrawn from bookshops after the Islamic Community organisation complained about its content.
The group’s mufti Muamer Zukorlic said the book was an insult to Muslims and asked the Belgrade publisher Beobuk to withdraw it from the market.
Beobuk’s director Aleksandar Jasic later apologised and the book was withdrawn.
However, The Islamic Community of Serbia, mufti Adem Ziklic on Tuesday said Zukorlic just wanted to represent himself as the sole representative of all Muslims in the country.
“This way Zukorlic has imposed himself as the only protector of Islam and causing this much stir over the book will only result in a bigger demand for the novel.
“I doubt that the mufti has read the book and it seems he is acquainted only with the parts which directly refer to scenes from the Koran (the Muslim holy book),” Ziklic said.
Even though Zukorlic asked Beobuk’s director to repent for what he had done, he consulted with the Centre of Islamic Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina and stated on Monday evening that Muslims were satisfied with his apology.
“I expect that no one will ever again with any publication insult Muslim sanctity. The Jewel of Medina will not have its second edition,” Zukorlic said.
Publishers and writers from Serbia disagree over the decision to withdraw the book from sale.
Belgrade publicist Teofil Pancic told local media that no religious community should be able to intervene in this kind of issue.
“If someone regards the prophet Mohammed as a saint, one cannot force others to have the same symbol of faith,” he said.
“Literature is fiction and if someone does not want to read the book, it should just be his choice and nothing more.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Don’t Forget What Happened in Yugoslavia
Even as Blair the war leader was on a triumphant tour of “liberated” Kosovo, the KLA was ethnically cleansing more than 200,000 Serbs and Roma from the province
The secrets of the crushing of Yugoslavia are emerging, telling us more about how the modern world is policed. The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in The Hague, Carla Del Ponte, this year published her memoir The Hunt: Me and War Criminals. Largely ignored in Britain, the book reveals unpalatable truths about the west’s intervention in Kosovo, which has echoes in the Caucasus.
The tribunal was set up and bankrolled principally by the United States. Del Ponte’s role was to investigate the crimes committed as Yugoslavia was dismembered in the 1990s. She insisted that this include Nato’s 78-day bombing of Serbia and Kosovo in 1999, which killed hundreds of people in hospitals, schools, churches, parks and tele vision studios, and destroyed economic infrastructure. “If I am not willing to [prosecute Nato personnel],” said Del Ponte, “I must give up my mission.” It was a sham. Under pressure from Washington and London, an investigation into Nato war crimes was scrapped.
Readers will recall that the justification for the Nato bombing was that the Serbs were committing “genocide” in the secessionist province of Kosovo against ethnic Albanians. David Scheffer, US ambassador-at-large for war crimes, announced that as many as “225,000 ethnic Albanian men aged between 14 and 59” may have been murdered. Tony Blair invoked the Holocaust and “the spirit of the Second World War”. The west’s heroic allies were the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), whose murderous record was set aside. The British foreign secretary, Robin Cook, told them to call him any time on his mobile phone.
With the Nato bombing over, international teams descended upon Kosovo to exhume the “holocaust”. The FBI failed to find a single mass grave and went home. The Spanish forensic team did the same, its leader angrily denouncing “a semantic pirouette by the war propaganda machines”. A year later, Del Ponte’s tribunal announced the final count of the dead in Kosovo: 2,788. This included combatants on both sides and Serbs and Roma murdered by the KLA. There was no genocide in Kosovo. The “holocaust” was a lie. The Nato attack had been fraudulent.
That was not all, says Del Ponte in her book: the KLA kidnapped hundreds of Serbs and transported them to Albania, where their kidneys and other body parts were removed; these were then sold for transplant in other countries. She also says there was sufficient evidence to prosecute the Kosovar Albanians for war crimes, but the investigation “was nipped in the bud” so that the tribunal’s focus would be on “crimes committed by Serbia”. She says the Hague judges were terrified of the Kosovar Albanians — the very people in whose name Nato had attacked Serbia.
Indeed, even as Blair the war leader was on a triumphant tour of “liberated” Kosovo, the KLA was ethnically cleansing more than 200,000 Serbs and Roma from the province. Last February the “international community”, led by the US, recognised Kosovo, which has no formal economy and is run, in effect, by criminal gangs that traffic in drugs, contraband and women. But it has one valuable asset: the US military base Camp Bondsteel, described by the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner as “a smaller version of Guantanamo”. Del Ponte, a Swiss diplomat, has been told by her own government to stop promoting her book.
Yugoslavia was a uniquely independent and multi-ethnic, if imperfect, federation that stood as a political and economic bridge in the Cold War. This was not acceptable to the expanding European Community, especially newly united Germany, which had begun a drive east to dominate its “natural market” in the Yugoslav pro vinces of Croatia and Slovenia. By the time the Europeans met at Maastricht in 1991, a secret deal had been struck; Germany recognised Croatia, and Yugoslavia was doomed. In Washington, the US ensured that the struggling Yugoslav economy was denied World Bank loans and the defunct Nato was reinvented as an enforcer. At a 1999 Kosovo “peace” conference in France, the Serbs were told to accept occupation by Nato forces and a market economy, or be bombed into submission. It was the perfect precursor to the bloodbaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Police Trainees Targeted in Deadly Bomb Blast
Issers, 19 August (AKI) — At least 43 people were killed and another 38 wounded when a bomb exploded at a police training school in eastern Algeria on Tuesday.
The Interior Ministry said the attack occurred in the town of Issers, in the Kabylie region of Algeria, 60 kilometres east of the capital, Algiers.
The bomber reportedly drove a car full of explosives to the main entrance of the school as potential recruits waited outside to sit an entry exam. Police and civilians were among the victims.
The final number of casualties was not clear. But Tuesday’s attack was the deadliest attack in the country this year.
In December 2007 at least 41 people were killed and many others were injured in a bomb attack that struck government and United Nations offices.
No militant group has yet claimed responsibility for the latest attack, but some media reports said that the attacks were carried out by the Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb.
The Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb evolved from the Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat, initially formed to create an Islamic state in Algeria, but now believed to have more widespread goals.
Tuesday’s attack came as 11 members of Algeria’s security forces and a civilian were killed in an ambush by armed rebel groups in the east of the country.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: 14 Muslim Brotherhood Members Arrested in Nile Delta
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, AUGUST 18 — Police in the province of Menufia, in the Nile Delta, arrested yesterday a group of 14 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, an outlawed Egyptian political organisation but tolerated and represented in Parliament by 88 MPs elected as independent, the Muslim Brotherhood and security sources said. According to a spokesman, the police arrested the 14 people while they were holding a meeting in a mosque after the dawn prayer. Members of the brotherhood, however, said that the men were arrested in their homes. The arrests of the members of the organisation followed one after the other in various periods of the year, with a particular intensity in times of forthcoming elections or in coincidence with meetings of the members. Set up in Egypt in 1928 by reformist politician Hassan al-Banna, the movement has always had the objective the Islamization of the Arab states with non-violent means. The organisation has active groups in other countries too, such as Syria and Jordan, and is reportedly close to Palestinian extremist movement Hamas. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mideast: Son of Hamas Leader Confirms He is Christian
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, AUGUST 18 — The son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, one of the founders of Hamas on the West Bank, converted to Christianity. Last month Israeli daily Haaretz spread the news, but Hamas immediately denied it. But now, in an interview with Fox News, Masab Yousef confirmed the information of his conversion to Christianity. He said also he has taken a new name, Joseph. “I pray for the Lord to open the eyes of my father too,” Masab-Joseph Yousef (30) said from California (U.S.). Answering a question, the young man did not rule out the danger he is in. “They can kill my body, but they can’t kill my soul,” he told the interviewer. Hamas has so far made no comment on the son of Sheikh Yousef. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Gives Flak Jackets to Terrorist-Saturated Forces
Part of multimillion dollar taxpayer-funded training program
JERUSALEM — U.S.-provided bullet-proof vests have reached Palestinian security forces in the West Bank, including units in which known terrorists serve, WND has learned.
The U.S. last week received a green light from the Israeli government to provide standard-issue police flak jackets to security forces from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah organization, which has had many members undergo advance U.S. training in recent months.
Israel had delayed the transfer of the flak jackets for almost a year, with defense officials here citing concern the protective gear could fall into the hands of terrorists.
Many Israel Defense Force soldiers and Israeli policemen operating in the West Bank don’t wear flak jackets. The vests could provide Fatah gunmen cover to shoot at Israeli forces while deflecting return fire, Israeli defense officials said.
A senior Palestinian security official told WND the U.S. flak jackets have been delivered to Fatah’s Preventative Security Service and Force 17 forces in the northern West Bank and should reach forces in southern West Bank areas, such as Hebron and Bethlehem, by next week…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Saudis Call for Interfaith Dialogue Hypocritical
Saudis’ Call for Interfaith Dialogue is like the Nazis calling for Dialogue with the Jews during and after the Holocaust
Uninvited and curious, I attended the latest Saudi sponsored conference on “interfaith dialogue”, July 16 in Madrid/Spain. A Spanish former colleague, Professor Raphael Redondo facilitated my attendance.
In his inaugural speech, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called on of the world’ major faiths “to run away from extremism and seek reconciliation”.
King Abdullah said:
I’m bringing you a message from Saudi Arabia, the land of the Two Holy Mosques. This message declares that Islam is a religion of moderation and tolerance, a message that calls for constructive dialogue among followers of all religions, a message that promises to open a new page for humanity in which, Allah willing, concord will replace conflict.
This is laughable and ludicrous. What and whose extremism and tolerance is Abdullah talking about? It is his country that is fostering extremism and intolerance. Till this day, Saudi schoolbooks, the local media, and mosques daily preach hatred and violence against other faiths. For example, Lorenzo, a Philippine worker who was carrying a cross around his neck was jailed and tortured for six years, then, a month ago, he was deported.
Besides, “unlike synagogues, mosques rarely require armed guards — much of the violence directed against Jews actually emanates from Muslims, (Muslim extremists).” Isi Leibler said in the JP (July 29).
Abdullah should have named things by their real name. It is Saudi Arabia that is cultivating extremism and it is the West and other religions that are tolerant…
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Accord Between Hezbollah, Sunni Extremists Signed
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, AUGUST 18 — Pro-Iranian Shiite Lebanese movement Hezbollah and the Salafi group in Lebanon, a coalition of Sunni extremist groups, signed today in Beirut a memorandum of understanding to “reconcile the Muslims” and “avoid the recurring of the misunderstandings and tensions of the past”. The news was reported today by TV channel al-Manar of the Party of God. The broadcaster specified that the memorandum was signed in a luxury hotel on the capital’s seafront, by the president of the political office of Hezbollah, Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed, and the representative of the “Salafi forces in Lebanon”, shaykh Hasan Shahhal. In the memorandum, the two parties condemn “every Islamic group which attacks another Islamic force” and promise not to “instigate their followers to violence”, to “oppose the U.S. project in the region” and “to set up a joint religious committee to discuss the Shiite-Sunni controversies”. Shiite militants of Hezbollah and others among its pro-Syrian allies carried out a military blitz in May against some Sunni districts in Beirut, targeting in particular strategic centres of the al-Mustaqbal party, leader of the anti-Syrian parliamentary coalition. During the clashes, which expanded also to other areas of the country, over 60 people were killed. “Our action is coordinated with al-Mustaqbal, which approved this memorandum”, shaykh Shahhal assured during the ceremony for the signature of the document. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: President Gul Pardons Former Islamic PM Erbakan
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, AUGUST 19 — Turkish President Abdullah Gul pardoned today former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan — ousted by a military coup in 1997 for being too pro-Islamic — who was in house arrest after found guilty of fraud in a scandal on the public financing of the parties which burst out six years ago. The news was reported by Turkish Anatolia agency according to which Gul pardoned the historical leader of the Turkish radical Islam due to his age, 84, and his precarious health. Two years ago in March then Turkish president Ahmet Necdet Sezer refused to sign a law which would have allowed to Erbakan — who was in the past mentor of many of the incumbent leaders of the Islamic-roots Justice and Development Party (AKP) including Gul himself — to serve with the house arrest a sentence of two years and four months inflicted upon him for embezzlement of public funds. The affair dates back to January 1988 when the Islamic Refah (Welfare) Party was declared illegal and closed down by the Turkish judiciary. The party was chaired by Erbakan who had to resign as prime minister in June 1997 after the pronouncement of the Turkish military the previous February. Except for the fact that the state contribution of some $2.7 million was withdrawn from the bank by Erbakan and distributed by him to various members of the party, while it had to be returned to the Treasury. The trial “of the lost trillions” as they call it in Turkey, lasted four years and ended on February 19, 2006 with the sentencing of Erbakan to two years and four months, while another 50 leaders of the same dissolved party Refah were sentenced to one year. Later the Parliament approved a law from which the clause of restitution of embezzled money as condition to obtain pardon from house arrest was cancelled. (ANSAmed).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Chain Wrapped Around ‘Old Man’s Body’ Found in Mosque
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) — “There are the bloodstains on the wall, and here it is dried on the floor,” Abu Muhanad said as he walked through a torture chamber in a Baghdad mosque where more than two dozen bodies have been found.
Two women clutch photographs of loved ones believed killed by the Mehdi Army.
“And here, a woman’s shoes. She was a victim of the militia. We found her corpse in the grave.”
Chunks of hair waft lazily across the floor in the hot Baghdad breeze.
“This was the torture room,” said Muhanad, the leader of a U.S.-backed armed group that now controls the mosque.
“This is what they used for hanging,” he said, pointing to a cord dangling from the ceiling. “Here is a chain we found tied to an old man’s body.” Go inside the mosque’s torture chamber "
The horrific scene at this southwestern Baghdad mosque is what officials say was the work of a Shiite militia known as the Mehdi Army. Residents who live near the mosque say they could hear the victims’ screams.
| — Hat tip: DB | [Return to headlines] |
‘Zohan’ Banned in Arab Cinemas
Egypt, Lebanon, U.A.E. censors block Sandler film
Arab auds won’t be getting the chance to mess with Adam Sandler after his laffer about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan” was blocked from Arab cinemas.
Pic, in which Sandler plays a former Mossad agent who escapes to New York and ends up working in a Palestinian-American woman’s hair salon, has been banned by censors in Egypt, Lebanon and the U.A.E.
Pic’s Mid East distrib, Circuit-Empire, is still circulating a print around the region’s remaining censorship boards but aren’t holding their breath.
“It is 99% likely that the film will be banned in all Arab countries,” says Circuit-Empire’s Bassam Eid.
“Zohan” has already been released in Israel through local distrib Matalon, where it has been one of the year’s biggest hits bringing in over 200,000 admissions. “There wasn’t any controversy over the subject matter,” says company topper Amnon Matalon. “Israelis like to laugh at themselves.”
While censorship has eased slightly across the Arab world in recent years, a number of subject matters remain taboo. Anything attacking religion is generally a no-no everywhere in the region, while sex is a problem in the more conservative Gulf states, although not an issue in socially liberal Lebanon. The country, for example, was the only Arab country to allow the theatrical release of “Sex and the City.”
Politics also remains a perennial bug bear.
Morgan Spurlock’s doc “Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?” has been blocked theatrically in the U.A.E. Distrib Front Row Entertainment is still looking to get an approval for a DVD release, as well as trying to get the pic, which sees satirist Spurlock venture off to Afghanistan in search of Osama Bin Laden, released in other Arab countries. But, notes Front Row topper Gianluca Chacra, “We are also passing through a very hard time in the rest of the Middle East.”
Read the full article at: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117990666.html
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia Disrupts Planned Terror Attacks on Oil Facilities — Arrests Hundreds
During the last six months, Saudi security forces have arrested 701 militants for allegedly plotting to carry out terrorist attacks on oil facilities and other vital installations across the Kingdom, the Interior Ministry announced yesterday.
“Some of the arrested suspects were planning to stage terrorist attacks on oil fields and installations,” Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, spokesman for the ministry told Arab News.
He said the militants — Saudis and foreigners — were trying to regroup and strengthen the Al-Qaeda terror network in Saudi Arabia.
| — Hat tip: A_Nonny_Mouse | [Return to headlines] |
Report: This Sparked Russian-Georgian War
Was response a calculated attempt to win Western help?
Sources in Georgia say the massive Russian onslaught into South Ossetia was prompted by Georgian snipers who apparently were picking off separatists in response to the killing of seven Georgian peacekeepers, then ran into a team of Russian peacekeepers and killed all but three, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
It happened in the days before Aug. 7, when Russian forces penetrated sovereign Georgian territory, the highly reliable sources said. South Ossetians, under fire from Georgian snipers, were not aware of where the shots were coming from and began shelling Georgian positions outside South Ossetia.
But the fleeing Georgians killed a number of Russian peacekeepers, triggering the conflict, according to the Georgian sources.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Ready to Put Muslim Countries’ Satellite in Orbit
TEHRAN: Iran said yesterday it was ready to help fellow Muslim states launch satellites into orbit after it successfully put a dummy satellite into orbit — a move that may increase Western suspicions over its atomic ambitions.
Iran said on Sunday it had put the homegrown dummy satellite into orbit on a domestically made rocket for the first time. The long-range ballistic technology used to put satellites into space can also be used for launching weapons. Iran says has no intention to do so.
Head of Iran’s Aerospace Organization, Reza Taghipour, said Iran wanted to help Muslim countries to launch satellites. “I am announcing now that Iran is ready to launch satellites of friendly Islamic countries into space,” Taghipour told state television.
Embroiled in a standoff with the West over its nuclear ambitions, Iran in February tested another domestically made rocket as part of its satellite program. Washington, accusing Iran of aiming to equip missiles with nuclear warheads, called the February test “unfortunate”. It cites Iran’s missile potential, among others, as the reason why it needs to install an anti-missile defense system in Eastern Europe.
France and Russia both said the February test raised the suspicion that Iran was seeking to develop nuclear weapons. The United States and its European allies fear Iran is trying to obtain nuclear arms under cover of a civilian program. Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil producer, insists it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Christian Conversions Irk Bangladeshis
Dhaka — Many in Muslim-majority Bangladesh accuse Christian groups of exploiting the need of underprivileged people to lure them into Christianity with money and jobs.
“Every year a large number of poor people, caste Hindus, Buddhist, Muslims and tribal people, convert to Christianity through financial support,” a senior official of the Ministry of Religious Affairs told IslamOnline.net, requesting anonymity for the sensitivity of the issue.
Mainly tribal people, low caste Hindus and Buddhists were the usual target of conversion motivated by cash and jobs.
Now Muslims are also converting.
“Poverty and economic problems are the main causes of conversion to Christianity,” says Abdullah Al-Faruque, the press manager of a leading daily newspaper.
He notes that a visit to any church on Sunday would show that most of the devotees are poor people.
“Christian missionaries and NGOs are working to convert people in the name of social service and development works,” says Abdur Rahman Mallick, an educational consultant.
He claims hundreds of NGOs, including World Vision, CARITAS, Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) and Rangpur Dianjpur Rehabilitation Sangha (RDRS), have been involved in preaching activities for long.
“I have no information about increasing Christian population in Bangladesh,” Ataur Rahman, Secretary of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, told IOL.
“Because there is no department in the Ministry of Religious Affairs to look into how many people convert into Christian.”
Muslims make up 85 percent of Bangladesh’s population, making it the third biggest concentration of Muslims in the world.
Hindus, Buddhists and Christians constitute the remaining 15 percent.
| — Hat tip: TB | [Return to headlines] |
Musharraf an Enemy of Islam: Zawahiri
Al Qaeda’s number two Ayman Al-Zawahiri slammed Pakistan’s embattled [now former] President Pervez Musharraf as an enemy of Islam, in a first English audio message posted online on Saturday.
In the message, excerpts of which were aired by Pakistan’s ARY One television last week, Zawahiri also dismissed the Pakistani army as a “band of mercenaries” controlled by the US administration.
“Musharraf has proven himself to be one of the biggest enemies of Islam, if not the biggest,” Zawahiri said in the purported message, which was posted on a website usually used by Islamist militant groups.
He chided Musharraf for offering “all support to topple the Muslim emirate in Afghanistan. […] It is evident that during the past years, the Pakistan Army’s primary duty has been to take part in the killing of Muslims from Kabul to Islamabad,” he charged.
English: Zawahiri said he chose to speak in English against his wish in order to address the people of Pakistan in a language they can understand, saying he would have spoken in Urdu had he mastered the “charming” language. […]
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
300,000 Flee as Jihadis Attacked
A human tide of more than 300,000 civilians has fled the al-Qa’ida badlands, amid indications that the fighting there has reached unprecedented levels, with the Pakistani army using massive firepower to attack jihadi militant strongholds.
Helicopter gunships, fixed-wing strike aircraft, tanks and heavy artillery have been used in the onslaught that followed the visit last month by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to Washington, where he was berated for Pakistan’s failure to wipe out the militants.
The offensive runs counter to perceptions that Pakistan’s new civilian Government is “soft” on Islamic extremism.
This will reassure Washington, whose ally in the war in terror for the past nine years, President Pervez Musharraf, was given by the Coalition Government until midnight last night (4am today AEST) to resign or face impeachment proceedings beginning tonight in the National Assembly.
Pakistani television showed thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire streaming out of the Bajaur, Mohmand and Kurrum agencies during the fighting estimated to have killed more than 500 militants. Tens of thousands of people are camping on the perimeter of Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, and some have reached Rawalpindi, the garrison city adjoining Islamabad.
New security tsar Rehman Malik, the architect of the get-tough policy against the militants who have over-run the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, said at least 220,000 civilians had been displaced. But welfare agencies said the figure was probably well in excess of 300,000.
The offensive, launched without fanfare to avoid conveying the notion it was done at the insistence of Washington, is targeting primarily Bajaur, slated as the most likely hiding place of Osama bin Laden. Fierce fighting is also under way in areas of the NWFP where many of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are believed to be based. […]
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: More Than Two Years in Limbo for Islamic Sect Refugees
Mataram, 19 August (AKI/The Jakarta Post) — After more than two years as refugees, the fate of hundreds of members of an Islamic sect remains uncertain, with Indonesia’s provincial government of West Nusa Tenggara failing to take decisive action to resolve their situation.
Jamaah Ahmadiyah is a minority Islamic sect dubbed “heretical” by a government panel, which has also recommended banning it altogether.
Forty-eight families, or 194 people, have been living in temporary shelters at the transmigration building in the city of Mataram in the island of Lombok, and in a disused hospital since 2006, when their homes were destroyed and they were forced out of their villages in Lingsar and Praya districts.
The forced evictions occurred after the Islamic Ulema Association (MUI) declared Ahmadiyah “heretical”.
Nur said the government had provided counselling for refugees so that they might accept mainstream Islamic teachings and live together with other Muslim people, but had made no effort to change public views or to reconstruct their damaged homes.
The refugees need intensive counseling and guidance before they can be sent home, head of the provincial religious office Lalu Suhaimi said.
“The evaluation will determine whether or not the followers have truly adhered to the items (in the decree). We are considering whether to return them to their home villages, but it all depends on the community there,” he said.
The Indonesian administration’s failure to act is despite a joint ministerial decree recognizing Ahmadiyah followers’ freedom to practice their faith but barring them from propagating their faith to others.
It is up to the refugees to help themselves by accepting the decree because they had been forcibly evicted from their homes by local communities, head of the nationhood and security affairs at the governor’s office, H.M. Nur said.
“The government cannot work alone to resolve the issue. The initiative must also come from the Ahmadiyah followers. They must be able to assimilate into society before we can return them to their homes,” he told Indonesian daily The Jakarta Post.
Ahmadiyah sect followers are not recognised as Muslims by the religious authorities in the Islamic world because they deny the fundamental Islamic belief that the Prophet Muhammad was the last Prophet, although they accept him as a prophet and God’s messenger.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
North Korea Declares Sweden an Enemy
The Communist North Korean government has declared Sweden their enemy and a US war puppet.
According to information from the Swedish Armed Forces, this brusque message was first conveyed in a North Korean radio broadcast, then printed as an official document and distributed to the United Nations.
The North Koreans’ attack is not directed against the Swedish government as such, but against Sweden’s and other neutral countries’ military observation missions on the border between North and South Korea.
Sweden is active in the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (NNSC) present in the area. Following the end of the Korean War in 1953, the NNSC’s task is to keep the peace with the help of the Swedes and the Swiss in demilitarized zones.
According to the Swedish Armed Forces, this latest North Korean ouburst comes just when the NNSC is observing an autumn maneuver between the US and South Korea. In this case the NNSC is in charge of making sure that the maneuver is for defensive reasons.
According to Bengt Carlsson, one of the Swedes active within the NNSC, the tasks they are carrying out in North Korea are completely within the Armistice Agreement.
But according to the North Korean radio broadcast, the Swedish supervision mission is a charade and a remnant of times past when Sweden and Switzerland let themselves be manipulated to aid the US in its preparations for war.
North Korea’s position on this issue is not new. According to Paulo Beijer, Swedish ambassador in Pyongyang between 2001-2005, the North Koreans have always been critical of the NNSC’s activities.
North Korea has long wanted to replace the truce agreement of 1953 with a peace agreement, and has criticized the co-operation between South Korea and the US.
In September 2005 the countries of North and South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the US agreed to start negotiations to replace the truce agreement with a regular peace agreement. Since then North Korea has continued to attack US and South Korea’s policy as well as the NNSC’s mission.
| [Return to headlines] |
Judge Tells Terror Trial Religiously Motivated Violence Illegal
Religiously motivated violence was against the law, no matter which religious group was behind it, the judge in Australia’s largest terrorism trial said today.
During his final directions to the jury, Justice Bernard Bongiorno said it did not matter whether the supposed justification for such violence came from the Bible or the Koran.
“Religiously motivated violence is illegal,” he told the Victorian Supreme Court jury. He said the term “violent jihad” had been used by the prosecution in the case, despite the fact it had never actually been said by any of the 12 accused.
The prosecution has claimed that the 12 Melbourne Muslim men allegedly led by self-proclaimed cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika plotted to wage violent jihad on Australian soil, including attacking sporting events.
Justice Bongiorno said there had been a variety of definitions provided to the jury about the meaning of the term jihad. But the only definition that was relevant was the one the jury decided to place on ‘violent jihad’. “It doesn’t matter what jihad means,” Justice Bongiorno said. “It’s what violent jihad means.”
| — Hat tip: VH | [Return to headlines] |
Near-Riot at Hospital After Fatal Shooting
VIDEO: Bullets and bedlamPolice have been forced to avert a near-riot outside a western Sydney hospital after a critically wounded man was dumped at the front door.
The 25-year-old died shortly after being discovered with a gunshot wound by Auburn Hospital staff at around 7pm.
It is alleged he and two masked accomplices had earlier tried to rob an armoured truck that was parked outside a supermarket in George St, Parramatta.
The two guards allegedly saw one of the men had a firearm and opened fire on the trio, who are said to have escaped in a white Mitsubishi with stolen plates.
As the dead man’s family arrived at the hospital they were followed by a crowd of up to 100 young men who at one stage tried to storm the front door.
| — Hat tip: Darrin | [Return to headlines] |
Endangered Species
In Cuba, researchers have just discovered that 33% (yes 33%, one third) of the DNAmt (maternal) of Cubans is of Amerindian origin. That is a considerable posterity for Indian populations that were supposed to have been massacred more than five centuries ago by European colonists! On the other hand, concerning chromosome Y (paternal), not a trace of Amerindian genes (0%). History is unforgiving. The Amerindian men of the island were killed in combats against the conquerors, by illnesses imported from Europe and in forced labor camps on sugar plantations. The men left no trace, not even in the blood of their enemies. But their women married the invaders, thus ensuring the perpetuation of their genes.
France at the beginning of the 21st century, while not (yet) having reached the cataclysmic state described above, is experiencing nonetheless a similar evolution. Although we do not have any official figures, you have only to walk down the street to verify that in the immense majority of mixed couples, it is the man who is foreign and the woman European. As in war, the winners seize the indigenous women all the while protecting their own. The whole rhetoric that aims to debase the European woman or France (“I screw France like a whore” says rap group Sniper) is a part of the feminization of the white race, of the idea that Europe is a land to be conquered, a habitat open to all forms of pillage. Are not the notorious “gang rapes” another example of collective violence to European women, just as Russian soldiers did when they seized German women in a devastated Berlin in 1945.
It all holds together. A tribe that does not protect its women is behaving as if they have already lost the war. Many of us don’t know this. But our enemies do.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
What Elite Liberals Think About Life
Liberals want people to be secure, but only within the context of a leftist utopian therapeutic state administered by them. That requires first wiping out Western Civilization, destroying the particular things which allowed people to be secure in the past. They thus import hundreds of millions of people from alien races and religions. They then demand that the traditions which historically made us feel secure be obliterated to accommodate our new fellow citizens. Add in the demands of feminism, and the insistence that deviant sexual minorities be accommodated, and the population loses any link to the past. Our traditions and accomplishments going back hundreds or even thousands of years are dismissed as racist, sexist, and homophobic. Our present status is seen as a constant quest to undo what we once were.
The idea is to create so much discord, despair, rootlessness, and lack of tradition in society that people will eventually beg for a dictatorship, which the left feels quite qualified to administer. Witness Obama’s empty-eyed college student supporters, who have no sense that they are a part of any particular nation or civilization. They just want to be part of The One, an amorphous Shangri-La where everyone is happily taken care of, and from which no one can escape or even dissent.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Credit Suisse Targets Same Sex in the City
Credit Suisse has become the first major bank to target the pink pound with a bespoke private banking service provided by gay advisers.
The Swiss banking giant’s new service will cover all the traditional aspects of private banking, alongside tailored services to deal with events such as civil partnership and adoption.
Credit Suisse said that gay role models — such as Boris Johnson’s chief of staff Nicholas Boles — have helped boost the confidence of the younger gay community — leading to an increased desire to be dealt with by those that understand their lifestyle.
Many of the bank’s rivals, including HSBC, Barclays and UBS, offer no specific service or products for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. UBS said that it does not “segregate clients in this way”, while HSBC offers other dedicated services such as a diamond and jewellery arm and a family office within its private banking business.
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
Savings Sports by Rolling Back Title IX
Sign the petition!
The issue:
Thirty six years is long enough to prove that Title IX college sports rules are a big, fat failure.
The group, Saving Sports, wants your signature on a petition so Congress can get a clue:
The College Sports Council is devoted to protecting opportunities for students to participate in sports.
Title IX is a law that forbids discrimination based on gender.
The College Sports Council fully embraces the intent of the law as it was originally written. However, current regulations governing Title IX have created a quota system that arbitrarily limits participation in sports which harms men and does not benefit women.
The CSC seeks regulatory reform of Title IX so that the law can continue to protect women without harming men.
| — Hat tip: Dymphna | [Return to headlines] |
17 comments:
Hello, I am a long-time reader and first time commenter on this blog or any other for that matter.
These news stories really open the eyes toward how backward the Elites in Europe really are. They are more concerned with the banking comfort of gays in Switzerland than the minarets popping up all around them.
I just hope that this will not spread to North America (i.e. The United States and Canada, NOT Mexico).
Unfortunately, here in Canada, people seem to think (and Want) our future to be along the lines of what Europe is now. One hundred years ago, that would have been great, but not now. They point to Scandinavia in most cases without knowing the chronic problems of the nanny-state, the self-flagellating White males, and the mass importation of foreign peoples who for the most part will never share Western values.
We need a fortress North America.
Why Israel and "the Palestinians"? Why do you insist on repeating and thereby legitimising the Muslim Arab political nomenclature? There has never been a "Palestinian people". This is a fiction concocted and perpetuated by all those who would destroy the state of Israel and the Jewish people. May I suggest, as an alternative sub-heading for your highly useful News Feed, "Israel and the Arabs of Judaea and Gaza"?
About the "endangered spieces".
You can't run, can you?
I am on vacations, I woke up some thirty minutes from now, it's already 11:30. Before I read the article, my eyes gcould not distract from the television. Why?
I was seeing for the first time the videoclip of a song called "I kissed a girl", I think from "Katy Perry" or something. A girl sings this music! I think she's American. However the videoclip was a very good one featuring the girl, in her best positions in a somehow erotic way. Then as figurants there were four blondes. The one who sings is a burnette and look very beautifull. The blondes were also very beautifull but not on the same level. The videoclip represents Europe as it is now...
The videoclip continued with this five white very beautifull girls in a never offensive but somehow erotic poses and then another figurant apears: a black women. I was not expecting this last one to be as beautifull as the others, not even a half of it but it could for sure be part of that "televisive beautifull". She was not. The black girl apears only in 10% of the video while the singing burnette apears with two or three blondes singing "I kissed a girl and I liked it..." during all the video. I was enjoying the videoclip and even the music... Then in the end, the singer seems to wake up of her dream... it focus her beauty for some 10 or 20 seconds and then, suddently, she is lying next to what seems to be a black man in her bed and she makes a face like: "Oohh, I am not lesbian, I'm "normal""
Why that end? To me it passed the message:
These are those men concubines...
And that's how Europe is going... it's degrading to the extreme.
But again, I think America is to blame. Who else would make something like "Heros". I can not watch it! A stupid fat Japanese as a hero and a hot blonde woman with a black son? F-U!!! These are the moments in which I start to doubt if I am an anti-American racist or what...
----------------------------
But what shall people do concerning it? Do you people think violence against "ethnics" would be apropriate? I personally would give 5€ if someone violently behaves against modernism in front of me...
Degrating.
Sorry for the terrible English.
Trophonius --
These are news clips, and the Muslim Arabs of Judaea and Samaria will be referred to as "Palestinians" in them. It makes no sense to use a different word or phrase, when most of the audience would not know what it meant.
For myself, I often put "Palestine" in scare quotes when I use it.
The Guardian Online also has a section entitled "Israel & the Palestinians", where one can read most enlightening articles about the "struggle" of the "Palestinian people". Perhaps you should put the "Palestinians" part of your news feed sub-heading in quotation marks to indicate that the term is in fact (ideologically loaded) jargon, rather than a neutrally descriptive word. Or why not "Israel and the Arabs", plain and simple?
@Afonso Henriques
The girl is a pastor's daughter - Moslem's breed Moslems but Christians don't breed Christians - that belongs to the Holy Spirit.
The singer is referring to lesbian sex: giving it beauty, glamor and risque attraction. She wakes up to find herself laying next to her black boyfriend: this places her within the anti-white male rebellion; then, the next rebellion that is against the male sex: the dream defines the next glamorous step: experimental lesbianism. So what do women do who want to be "with it"; to be numbered among the "beautiful people": They first reject their own race if its white - doesn't work the other way; and then they reject the male sex - "playfully" of course.
The anti-Christian comments on youtube are ignorant blathering; yet they demonstrate a seething cultural hatred for Christians: the left has done a fine job is removing any knowledge or love of righteousness from the young.
NJ,
Thanks for the info. I will only add that while muslims breed muslims, Christians do not breed Christians, Christians raise up Christians. I don't know her father, but maybe he is to blame by his daughter's behaviour. Well, maybe he is for it, I don't know. The holly spirit is too sacred, in my opinion to be brought about in education (I thought that the holly spirit was what makes young boys refusing sex and go to priestdon, at least in Catholic theology).
I was just... I have no words... it was the first thing I saw on television today, I saw it from the beggining... I was really enjoying it, why that end? Why did I became so upset about it, am I a racist? Isn't this the XXI century?
"this places her within the anti-white male rebellion" "So what do women do who want to be "with it"; to be numbered among the "beautiful people": They first reject their own race if its white"
How's that? How's that to do with beautifull people? Let's imagine she produces a human beeing with that individual that was next to her, imagine that what she produces is a girl. It is impossible that the girl produced would be half as desirable or have half the beaut of her mother. So, if beaut is the point, its a loss right?
It's not nothing so futile as that, beauty? What is it then?
Why destroy what Humanity has best? I can't...
There's something odd about the story out of Australia -- "Near-Riot at Hospital After Fatal Shooting".
Back in January of this year, Jihad Watch posted an allegation of the same event in the same city (Sydney), then Spencer yanked the story due to insufficient evidence.
The story you have today allegedly takes place in "Auburn Hospital", while the incident reported in Jihad Watch in January was in "Liverpool Hospital", but both in Sydney.
At the time, as I reported
on my blog,
"I sent off a polite e-mail approximately 24 hours ago (late morning Monday, Australian time) to Michael Sugrue, Director of the Trauma Department at Liverpool Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales. I did not even mention the “M” word. I just asked him whether or not the incident had happened.
So far, he has not replied."
I suppose it's possible that two different hospitals in Sydney have been swarmed by a mob of over 100 angry Muslim relatives that required police action to subdue -- but surely that would have registered on the mainstream Australian media by now.
Trophonius --
I have given “Israel and the Palestinians” their own special section of the news feed, on a par with the USA and Canada. Britain doesn’t get its own section, nor does Iran. If I wanted to be “fair”, I would lump Israel in with the “Middle East”, where it rightfully belongs.
The header for each section is an image file, and it would be time-consuming to change it. I’m going to leave it as is.
Sometimes I feels as if I’m being nit-picked to death.
@ Afonso
The phrase "beautiful people" refers to the social elites - the haute narines - who flit from party to party; who are seen in all the right places.
Trophonius: There has never been a "Palestinian people". This is a fiction concocted and perpetuated by all those who would destroy the state of Israel and the Jewish people.
This cannot be sufficiently overstated. Here are some money quotes from "The communist roots of Palestinian terror":
Even Yassir Arafat, from his earliest terrorist days until 1967, used the term 'Palestinians' only to refer to the Arabs who lived under, or had fled from, Israeli sovereignty; and the term 'Palestine' only to refer to Israel in its pre-1967 borders.
In the PLO's original founding Charter (or Covenant), Article 24 states: "this Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the west Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in the Gaza Strip or the Himmah area."
For Arafat, 'Palestine' was not the west Bank or the Gaza Strip, which after 1948 belonged to other Arab states. The only 'homeland' for the PLO in 1964 was the State of Israel.
However, in response to the Six-Day War and Arafat's mentoring by the Soviets and their allies, the PLO revised its Charter on July 17, 1968, to remove the language of Article 24, thereby newly asserting a 'Palestinian' claim of sovereignty to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Part of the reframing of the conflict, along with adopting the identity of an 'oppressed people' and 'victim of colonialism', then, was the creation, ex nihilo, of 'historic Palestine' and the ancient 'Palestinian people' who had lived in their 'homeland' from 'time immemorial', who could trace their 'heritage' back to the Canaanites, who were forced from their homeland by the Zionists, and who had the inalienable right granted by international law and universal justice to use terror to reclaim their national identity and political self-determination.
That this was a political confection was, perhaps inadvertently, revealed to the West by Zahir Muhse'in, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, in a 1977 interview with the Amsterdam-based newspaper Trouw:
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism."
Arafat himself asserted the same principle on many occasions. In his authorized biography he says, "The Palestinian people have no national identity. I, Yasir Arafat, man of destiny, will give them that identity through conflict with Israel." [emphasis added]
There you have it, straight from the horse's ass himself, terrorist maggot Yasser Arafat. The "Palestinians" are a complete fiction woven out of whole cloth. They exist for one purpose only and that is to wage a low-intensity terrorist war upon Israel in the absence of any Arab ability to field an effective military.
The "peace process" is a complete and total sham. Any peace with Israel would involve recognizing Israel's right to exist and that would be the true naqba (disaster). The Arabs want only one thing and that is genocide against the Jews. Nothing else is deemed acceptable and that is why Israel has every right to flush these Palestinian vermin into Egypt, Jordan and Syria.
The ongoing feud between Hamas and Fatah is ample proof that no "two state solution" can possibly succeed. Forcing Islrael to harbor their very worst enemies within its own borders isn't just criminal, it's insane.
It's long past tea for Israel to simply walk a concentrated artillery barrage through Gaza and the West Bank, forcing all occupants to flee before it. The rubble should be bulldozed into the Mediterranean and a permanent end put to this diplomatic farce.
Anyone who doubts this need only watch the video ""Relentless". It is a nauseatingly exact account of how the Palestinians have systematically and intentionally broken every single promise they have ever made during the "peace process".
All that these terrorist scum deserve is the back of everybody's collective hand and yet foreign aid continues to pour in by the MILLIONS for these treacherous rutbags. Modern history can provide few other examples of perfidy on such a consistent and uniform basis. Only Islam itself can compete with such duplicity.
Baron: Sometimes I feels as if I’m being nit-picked to death.
You are and it's grossly unfair. In order to effectively communicate with the widest possible audience, ordinary and accepted terminology must be used. Quibbling over such minutae is both unproductive and childish when dealing with such a vital topic as jihad.
Why Words Matter in the War on Terror
“This feeds into their idea that this is a religious war, and it’s not.,” he said. “They want it to be a war of religions, but we have said very clearly that this is not a war on Islam, it’s not Christianity vs. Islam in some way. It’s about radicals, it’s about extremists who are using violence.”
This is where Singer and his ilk aren’t doing any favors for those who wish to survive Islam’s assault upon the West.
This is a “religious war” and the issue is not about “radicals” and “extremists” but solely about Islam and the need to crush it like the spiritual cockroach that it is. All other religions will perish at the hands of Islam and they had damn well better set about creating an alliance of non-Islamic faiths against this murderous Muslim attack upon them. It doesn’t mean Jack $h!t if we do or do not think that this is a “religious war”. Islam has declared religious war upon the entire world and only an idiot doesn’t understand this.
Islam expert Raymond Ibrahim is author of The Al-Qaeda Reader. It translates previously undeciphered statements by the group’s leadership into English.
“The fact is, the Muslim world isn’t waiting around holding its breath to hear the U.S. Government — an infidel entity — define Islamic terms for them,” Ibrahim said. “This seems to me unprecedented. When we fought the Japanese and we fought the Nazis, we called them what they called themselves.”
“If Osama bin Laden calls himself a mujahid, we should understand what a mujahid is. And we should understand that that is, in English, a holy warrior who’s fighting on behalf of Islam,” he said.
“You want to know your enemy: how they think, what they call themselves, what those terms mean,” he added.
I hope people are listening very closely to what Ibrahim is saying. Words most certainly do matter in the Global War on Terrorism and the more often we connect them directly with Islam the faster our progress will be in dismantling this theocratic war machine.
Singer says Western governments and media should avoid using these theological terms because they could offend Muslims.
Bzzzt!!! Sorry, wrong answer. Thank you for playing, please try again.
MUSLIMS ARE SKINLESS PEOPLE LIVING IN A SANDPAPER WORLD.
Everything we do offends them, even surrendering to Muslims offends them by exposing them to such abject cowardliness. Once the Western world understands that giving continuous and grievous offense to Muslims on a uniform basis is the only way to bring about their defeat, perhaps then some progress will be made. You DO NOT make accomodations with a serial killer and you most certainly DO NOT make accommodations with a megalomaniac terrorist ideology that wants to enslave the entire world.
“According to Islamic law, offensive jihad—offensive, not just to defend yourself, but offensive, to go out and invade—is as codified and is obilgatory,” he said.
To understand this enemy, Ibrahim says, you can’t separate its ideology from its theology.
End of story.
Has anyone read the book "The Hunt: Me and War criminals" written by Carla Del Ponte as cited in the news article above?
Is it worth tracking down and reading?
Nobody seems to have picked up on my comment the other day. Perhaps I was too verbose. My point was: the news story of the "near-riot" of nearly 100 Muslims at a hospital in Sydney, Australia is likely a false news story. GOV editors should consider taking it down, or at least linking to my summary of the whole problem of that news story.
http://hesperado.blogspot.com/2008/08/something-strange-down-under.html
Erich --
The news story doesn't mention Muslims. I have no way of corroborating its truth or demonstrating its falsity. Perhaps an Australian who lives in or near Sydney can visit Auburn hospital and ask whether the incident really happened.
All readers are welcome to post comments about it or links to articles that refute it.
You may link your own articles by using the HTML hotlink method as detailed on the full post page.
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