Former RBS Chief Exec Fred Goodwin Stripped of His Knighthood
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Fred Goodwin, the disgraced former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive, has been stripped of his knighthood.

Government officials confirmed the award has been "cancelled and annulled" because the bank's former chief executive had "brought the honours system into disrepute".

The Forfeiture Committee met last week to consider the issue. Its recommendation to strip Mr Goodwin of the honour was conferred to the Queen by Prime Minister David Cameron, the Cabinet Office said.

The announcement that Mr Goodwin has been stripped of the honour for "services to banking" will shortly be announced in the [The] London Gazette.

"The scale and severity of the impact of his actions as chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland made this an exceptional case," a spokesman for the Cabinet Office said. » | Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Cameron Says Fred Goodwin May Lose Knighthood
THE TIMES: Sir Fred Goodwin could be stripped of his knighthood, David Cameron signalled today, as he vowed to take on an “out of control” City bonus culture. The Prime Minister said that the honour awarded the former RBS chief would be examined by a senior Whitehall committee with the power to revoke it. He also said that the cash element of bonuses paid this year to staff at RBS, which is 83 per cent owned by the taxpayer, would be restricted to £2,000, the same as last year. Mr Cameron’s comments followed a speech in which he sought to champion the moral power of markets, insisting that the Conservatives were best placed to re-shape the economy from “this crisis of capitalism”. Sir Fred’s knighthood, which was awarded by Gordon Brown, has attracted increasing ire from MPs of all parties since… » | Roland Watson, Jenny Booth and Patrick Hosking | Thursday, January 19, 2012 [£]

Knighted – for Services to High Gas Prices and Cadbury's Demise?
THE INDEPENDENT: Roger Carr, the tycoon who saw through the sale of the 200-year-old British company Cadbury to the US multinational Kraft in February, has been knighted for services to industry in today's New Year Honours list.

Sir Roger was praised by the City for getting a good deal for shareholders when the Cadbury sale went through in February. Since then Kraft has announced that it is moving the firm's headquarters to Switzerland to avoid UK tax, at a probable cost of thousands of UK jobs.

The award is doubly controversial because Sir Roger also chairs Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, which recently announced a 7 per cent price hike. Soon after that announcement, Centrica raised its full year profit forecast to more than £2.2bn. The regulator, Ofgem, is holding an inquiry into whether major energy companies are "lining their pockets". >>> Andy McSmith | Friday, December 31, 2010

Rushdie’s Knighthood: Christopher Hitchens on Rushdie and Tony Blair
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Muslim Fanatics Use Internet to Spread Terror in UK
Allowing all these people into the UK has turned
into a nightmare for us. And things will only get
worse as their population swells. Where is all the
money, and manpower, going to come from to
police them and their dangerous activities?

A far better solution would be to kick these
people out. We have to get tough with them. Our
politicians and leaders today seem never to have
learnt the art of being tough. It's no good being
'touchy-feely' when one is dealing with the likes
of these fanatics.

We had better get used to the fact that we are in
a fight to the death with these people: They want
our land, our country, our nation; and they're
going to get it, too, if we go on pussyfooting
around as we have been doing. - ©Mark Alexander
THE TELEGRAPH: It is 11pm on Tuesday and Omar Bakri Mohammed's loyal band of followers hunch over computers and laptops at secret locations across Britain to listen to his defiant message to the west.

Many are hoping that the Muslim cleric, who lives in the Lebanese capital Beirut after being banned from the UK, will spell out his views on the Government's decision to give Salman Rushdie a knighthood. Bakri does not disappoint them.

After listening to Bakri's lecture for more than two hours on a secretive internet chat room, one participant asks in a written question: "Is there a new fatwa against salman and the queen for giving [the knighthood]?"

Speaking with a heavy middle eastern accent, Bakri responds: "Salman Rushdie, no doubt what he did was an apostasy… not because he get knighthood but because he insulted the honour of the prophet Mohammed (with his book The Satanic Verses)… He is murtadd (a traitor for rejecting Islam) anyway so there isn't any need for a new fatwa… People like him deserve to get the capital punishment." Internet spreads terror to Britain (more) By Andrew Alderson and Miles Goslett

Mark Alexander

Reid Stands By Government's Decision to Knight Salman Rushdie

Photo of Sir Salman courtesy of the BBC

BBC: Britain stands by its decision to honour author Salman Rushdie, despite protests by Pakistan and Iran, Home Secretary John Reid has said.

While agreeing it was "sensitive", the right to express opinions was "of over-riding value" to society, he said.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said the knighthood was "untimely", but a matter for the British government.

Mr Rushdie went into hiding after an Iranian fatwa ordered his execution, over his 1988 book The Satanic Verses.

Mr Reid told an audience in New York that many Christians had been offended by Monty Python's Life of Brian, while some Jewish people were offended by Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. Reid defends Rushdie knighthood (more)

Mark Alexander

Our Turkish ‘Friends’
IRNA: Ruling party representative at Turkey's National Parliament Professor Nouzad Yalchin Tash here Friday called British Queen's donation of a knight title to apostate Salman Rushdie an "antagonist move by Britain against Islamic World." Turkish MP says calling Rushdie a knight a move against Islam (more)

Mark Alexander

British Muslims Join In the Protests Against the Knighthood of Salman Rushdie

”This honour will have ramifications here and across the Muslim world”, said Anjem Choudray, protest organiser and former head of the banned radical group, Al-Muhajiroun

MAIL & GUARDIAN ONLINE (SOUTH AFRICA): Muslims angered by Britain's decision to honour author Salman Rushdie with a knighthood were rallying in London on Friday, warning that anger over the award could match the fierce reaction to publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark last year.

Organisers of a protest outside Regent's Park Mosque in London claimed several hundred demonstrators planned to denounce the decision to reward Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses led to a death threat from Iran in 1989.

"This knighthood is just another example of [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair and his government's attempts to secularise Muslims and reward apostates," said Anjem Choudray, protest organiser and a former head of the British wing of the banned radical group al-Muhajiroun.

"Rushdie is a hate figure across the Muslim world because of his insults to Islam," Choudray said. "This honour will have ramifications here and across the world" just as with the protests over the Danish cartoon. British Muslims join in global Rushdie protests (more)

Mark Alexander

”Go to Hell, Britain!”
THE TELEGRAPH: Mounting Muslim protests over Salman Rushdie's knighthood led to an embarrassing Cabinet split last night plunging the Government into disarray.

As anger spread across the Islamic world, one hardline Pakistani cleric openly said the author of The Satanic Verses should die, while demonstrators in Malaysia chanted "go to hell, Britain!"

Abdul Rashid Ghazi, one of two brothers who run a mosque in Islamabad, said: "Salman Rushdie deserves to be killed and anyone who has the power must kill him." Cabinet split over Rushdie knighthood (more) By Brenda Carlin, Political correspondent

TIMESONLINE:
Blog: Faith Central

NZZ:
Neue Proteste gegen Rushdies Ritterschlag

Mark Alexander

Great Britain Will Not Apologize for the Knighthood for Salman Rushdie
THE JESUSALEM POST: Britain will not apologize for its decision to bestow a knighthood on writer Salman Rushdie, UK Home Secretary John Reid said Wednesday, highlighting the need to protect freedom of expression in literature and politics.

"We have a set of values that accrues people honors for their contribution to literature even when they don't agree with our point of view," Reid said in response to a question after a speech to US business leaders in New York.

"We have a right to express opinions and a tolerance of other people's point of view, and we don't apologize for that," Reid said. Britain defends Salman Rushdie knighthood (more)

Mark Alexander

Muslim World Inflamed Yet Again! Calls for the Death of Sir Salman Are Renewed by Hardline Adherents of the 'Religion of Love and Peace and Tolerance'
TIMESONLINE: Sir Salman Rushdie celebrates his 60th birthday today in familiar circumstances: he is once again the subject of death threats across the Islamic world.

Eighteen years after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill him, a government minister in Pakistan said yesterday that Rushdie’s recent knighthood justified suicide bombing.

The question of blasphemy in The Satanic Verses, Rushdie’s 1988 tale of a prophet misled by the devil, remains a deeply sensitive issue in much of the Muslim world and the author’s inclusion in the Queen’s Birthday Honours last week has inflamed anti-British sentiment.

Gerald Butt, editor of the authoritative Middle East Economic Survey, told The Times: “It will be interpreted as an action calculated to goad Muslims at a time when the atmosphere is already very tense and Britain’s standing in the region is very low because of its involvement in Iraq and its lack of action in tackling the Palestine issue.”

Hardliners in Iran revived calls for his murder yesterday. Mehdi Kuchakzadeh, a Tehran MP, declared: “Rushdie died the moment the late Imam [Ayatollah Khomeini] issued the fatwa.”

The Organisation to Commemorate Martyrs of the Muslim World, a fringe hardline group, offered a reward of $150,000 (£75,000) to any successful assassin. Muslim world inflamed by Rushdie knighthood (more) By Ben Hoyle

THE DAILY MAIL:
Muslim fury grows over Rushdie knighthood

Mark Alexander

Muslim World All Het Up Over Knighthood for Salman Rushdie

Photo of religious students burning effigies of the Queen and Salman Rushdie courtesy of Times Online

TIMESONLINE: Salman Rushdie should be denied his knighthood because it is an insult to “the sentiments of Muslims across the world” and is creating religious hatred, the Pakistani parliament said today.

Muslim hardliners burnt effigies of the Queen and Rushdie and shouted “Kill him, kill him”, when news of a knighthood for the author of ‘The Satanic Verses’ in the Queen’s Birthday Honours reached the Pakistani city of Multan.

Iran - which forced the writer into a decade in hiding after issuing a fatwa against him in 1989 - has also condemned the honour. Strip Rushdie of his honour, demands Pakistan (more)

THE GUARDIAN:
Rushdie knighthood ‘justifies suicide attacks’

Mark Alexander

Sir Salman “Thrilled and Honoured” to Receive the Knighthood
THE GUARDIAN: Salman Rushdie has amassed for himself a fair number of distinctions over the years, among them the Booker of Bookers prize, the Whitbread novel award (twice), the James Tait Black memorial prize, and a fatwa from the Ayatollah Khomeini calling for his immediate assassination.

Yesterday, however, came the big one: a knighthood recognising the services to literature of one of the world's most lauded - and most divisive - literary grandees. "I am thrilled and humbled to receive this great honour, and am very grateful that my work has been recognised in this way," the newly-minted Sir Salman said in a statement. Literary world applauds Rushdie knighthood By Esther Addley

Mark Alexander

The Queen Knights Salman Rushdie
TIMESONLINE: Salman Rushdie, the author who spent almost a decade in hiding after an Iranian religious death threat, is knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours today. Queen’s Birthday Honours include Rushdie, Botham and Dame Edna (more) By Fran Yeoman

Mark Alexander