Muslim Men Who Force Their Wives to Wear the Burkha Are Not Welcome in France, Says Justice Minister
MAIL ONLINE: Muslim men who force their wives to wear a burkha are not welcome in France, the country's justice minister has said.

Michelle Alliot-Marie said husbands making their wives wear a full body coverings did not 'share the nation's values'.

They would have their citizenship requests rejected, she said.

Her remarks come as a French government committee is considering whether to make it illegal to wear burkhas and niqabs on the streets of France.

The burkha is a full-body covering worn largely in Afghanistan with a mesh screen over the eyes, and the niqab is a full-body veil with slits for the eyes.

President Nicolas Sarkozy called them 'a sign of subservience and debasement that imprisoned women', saying they were not not welcome in France.

The country's immigration minister Eric Besson described them as 'an affront to national identity'.

Women's rights groups and left wing MPs went even further, describing them as a 'walking coffin'.

Mrs Alliot-Marie said today she would await the findings of the commission on the burkha, due later this month.

But she added: 'There are still a certain number of basics on which we must stand firm.

'The wearing of the niqab or burkha is a problem that affects our ability to live together, the values of the republic and in particular human dignity.

'For instance, someone who would be seeking French citizenship and whose wife wears the full veil is someone who would not appear to be sharing the values of our country.

'Therefore in a case like that one, we would reject his request.' >>> Ian Sparks | Thursday, December 10, 2009

A Case of Dogma Trumping Truth? Polar Bear Expert Barred by Global Warmists
THE TELEGRAPH: Dr Taylor, who has studied the animals for 30 years, was told his views 'are extremely unhelpful’, reveals Christopher Booker.

According to the world’s leading expert on polar bears, their numbers are higher than they were 30 years ago. Photo: The Telegraph
Over the coming days a curiously revealing event will be taking place in Copenhagen. Top of the agenda at a meeting of the Polar Bear Specialist Group (set up under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature/Species Survival Commission) will be the need to produce a suitably scary report on how polar bears are being threatened with extinction by man-made global warming.

This is one of a steady drizzle of events planned to stoke up alarm in the run-up to the UN's major conference on climate change in Copenhagen next December. But one of the world's leading experts on polar bears has been told to stay away from this week's meeting, specifically because his views on global warming do not accord with those of the rest of the group.

Dr Mitchell Taylor has been researching the status and management of polar bears in Canada and around the Arctic Circle for 30 years, as both an academic and a government employee. More than once since 2006 he has made headlines by insisting that polar bear numbers, far from decreasing, are much higher than they were 30 years ago. Of the 19 different bear populations, almost all are increasing or at optimum levels, only two have for local reasons modestly declined.

Dr Taylor agrees that the Arctic has been warming over the last 30 years. But he ascribes this not to rising levels of CO2 – as is dictated by the computer models of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and believed by his PBSG colleagues – but to currents bringing warm water into the Arctic from the Pacific and the effect of winds blowing in from the Bering Sea. >>> Christopher Booker | Saturday, June 27, 2009