American Gun Laws: Viewpoints from Germany
In response to the horrific Virginia massacre in recent days, the following comments by SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL’s readers give an insight of how the Germans view US gun laws. Be sure to click on all the links. They are very interesting, and enlightening to a degree.

SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: The debate about gun control in the United States that began in Europe immediately after Monday's shootings at Virginia Tech angered many of our American readers. We published their letters, and now we're posting some of the responses we've received here in Germany.

"Everyone here in Europe feels sympathy for the victims of the shootings," writes Volker Lauterbach. "The press reports are not expressing any Schadenfreude, quite the opposite. But what constantly astonishes us is the vehemence with which the right to own a gun, even after such a crime, is defended. The arguments that are constantly produced (people, not guns, kill people) disguise the fact that it is people with guns who kill people. The statistics on murders with firearms repeatedly show that making it more difficult to gain access to guns significantly brings down the number of deaths due to gun violence, in both percentage and absolute terms. Cases like the one in Erfurt represent a truly terrible exception, but don’t change the facts. As friends of the US we have a duty to constantly point these kinds of things out. That is not meant to be anti-American or hostile. It is always in the hope that these kinds of incidents will not occur again, whether it be in Germany, the US or any other country, so that we don’t have to mourn more victims. There is great sympathy in Europe and all of us mourn with you."

"It's very interesting how conservative bloggers and pundits in the US have such a thin skin: they perceive lectures and humiliation at the slightest attempt of analysis when debating the issue of gun control, which has been successfully turned into a word with entirely negative connotations like "cancer" or "terrorist," writes Christian Habeck. "The gun control debate is driven by pure ideology and a severely skewed, context-free interpretation of the 2nd amendment. Why can't hand guns and assault weapons be banned, while issuing permits for rifles and shotguns for hunters? Why can't this even be debated?"

"It is unfortunate that the loudmouth arch conservatives have access to so much money to propagate their agenda of guns for 'law abiding' citizens," writes George Hunziker. "They are in absolute denial of the consequences of guns and crime. Evoking the 'Founding Fathers' as justification of such reactionary thinking shows the absurdity of their thinking process. That opinion, formed at a time when gunslingers and 'savage indigenous' people roamed much of this vast land, has no place in a modern society and the wise Founding Fathers they like to quote, would be the first one to declare, 'thank God, the society has evolved to a more civilized level.' In an age of of cell phones and high speed police responses in an emergency, these 'self defense' weapons are purchased mostly by criminals, not the average citizen. The gun lobby abuses words like 'freedom,' 'individualism,' 'manhood,' and 'independence' as slogans to market their 18th century ideas. Never mind that these ideals are in direct opposition of these killing machines: automatic handguns and submachine guns with armor penetrating bullets."

"I think that the way that Spiegel is portraying the gun control debate as left vs. right is too simplistic," writes Holly Nazar of Montreal, Canada. "I am a Canadian, and a social democrat, but I do believe that every regulation or restriction of a citizen's freedoms should be weighed very carefully against the danger of giving the government too much power. It seems that Europeans are not as sensitive to this danger as North Americans are. In this case there is very little evidence that gun control leads to less violence, and so the balance is not in favor of tight gun controls. That said, there is no reason for anyone to own some of the sophisticated assault weapons that American law still allows."

"Your article says that you are receiving many messages from the conservatives in the US denouncing European criticism of our worship of guns," writes Philip Hefner of Chicago. "Millions of us here are just as critical of the gun lobbies and the widespread glorification of guns as any Europeans. For us, Charlton Heston and his ilk are an embarrassment. It is a travesty to place the so-called 'right to bear arms' on a par with the other freedoms of the Bill of Rights. Some of the European criticism is off the mark and just as extreme as Heston's, but we need the reality checks that international voices give us." [Source of ALL comments: SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL]

Post from Germany: “America Has Lost Touch with Reality”

Mark Alexander

First Muslim and first non-American to head up the World Bank?
TIMESONLINE: The future of Paul Wolfowitz, the embattled President of the World Bank, was in further jeopardy last night after it emerged that the White House was drawing up a list of candidates to succeed him.

Most prominent on th list is Ashraf Ghani, the man credited with overhauling the economy of Afghanistan after September 11, The Times has learnt. Such an appointment would mark the first time a nonAmerican has held the position in the 60-year history of the global lender. Bush draws up list of candidates to replace Wolfowitz by Gabriel Rozenberg

Mark Alexander

The rise and rise of the BNP?
“The vast majority are entirely decent Muslims, but the better Muslims they are, the less good they are as British citizens. The Koran orders them to obey the word of God, he says, not infidel governments: 'Democracy and Islam are absolutely incompatible.'" - Nick Griffin

As a Government minister warns of the dangers of immigration, Martin Fletcher finds a swath of middle England ready to vote for BNP leader Nick Griffin — a convicted racist who favours birching delinquent teenagers and paying immigrants to leave

TIMESONLINE: It is, at first sight, a vision of rural bliss — a cream-coloured cottage high in the hills of Mid Wales and two miles from the nearest road. The daffodils are out. Lambs gambol in the fields. Chickens peck around the yard. In the side garden, beyond the rabbit hutch and fishpond, two blonde girls are playing in the sun. Look closer, however, and you spot the incongruities: the two rottweilers in their caged kennel, security cameras, the burglar alarm. You begin to suspect that the owner has chosen this house precisely for its inaccessibility. He has reason to.

Nick Griffin is leader of the whites-only British National Party and one of the most hated — and, to his many detractors, hateful — men in the country. He is a former National Front member, convicted of inciting racial hatred against Jews in 1998 and acquitted of similar charges against Muslims in two high-profile trials last year. He is a man who has called Britain a “multi-racial hellhole”, Islam a “wicked, vicious faith”, British Muslims “the most appalling, insufferable people to have to live with”, overt homosexuality “repulsive” and the Holocaust “the hoax of the 20th century”. He has declared that “nonwhites have no place here at all and [we] will not rest until every last one has left our land”.

I am about to spend two days with Griffin before next month’s local elections. Anti-fascist groups insist that the BNP should be denied the proverbial oxygen of publicity, but as the party gains strength with each successive election that stance becomes increasingly untenable. Nearly a quarter of a million people voted BNP in last May’s local elections and elected 49 councillors. The party is putting up 750 candidates on May 3, double last year’s tally, and may gain dozens more seats. The BNP is Britain’s fastest-growing party and it is absurd to hope that it will go away if ignored.

The self-styled champion of indigenous Britons greets me in a T-shirt and green wellies. He is a youthful-looking 48 with a plastic left eye (he lost the real one when a shotgun cartridge exploded in a fire) who has spent the morning working on his two acres. As he goes inside to change, I chat to his wife Jackie, a specialist nurse in Powys.

She and their four children — three daughters and a son, ages 14 to 21 — are BNP members, but she makes clear that she does not share all her husband’s views. “There’s some things you have common ground on and others you don’t agree on,” she says, refusing to elaborate. She clearly adores him, however. She frets about his safety. She calls him a “hopeless romantic” but merely giggles when I ask for examples. Griffin reappears in a purple shirt and suit — he disapproves of politicians dressing down, though he does wear a gold ear-stud. He poses for pictures in his tiny office. The wallpaper on his computer screen reads: “Haha, Dad you don’t know how to change this back!!” There are trophies from his days as a Cambridge boxing Blue. There is also a framed Kipling poem which starts: “It was not part of their blood/ It came to them very late/ With long arrears to make good/ When the English began to hate.”

Griffin kisses Jackie goodbye, reminds her to water his newly planted aubretia, and we head off in his Ford Mondeo estate for the fertile BNP territory of West Yorkshire, with its immigrant populations of 10, 20 or even 30 per cent. In the back is a book recording the Scottish National Party’s transformation from an extreme to a mainstream party.

Griffin’s inspiration, however, is Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of France’s far-right National Front, who turned “a bunch of crazies into a serious political force”. White mischief (Read on)

BBC: Are BNP set for Sandwell gains? (”No to Asylum Seekers, No to the Council Tax, No to Anti-Social Behaviour, No to the Veil”) (Read on)

BBC VIDEO: BNP pushes for local gains

DAILY MAIL: Half a million migrants flock to UK in a single year by Steve Doughty

MIGRATION WATCH: Click here

Mark Alexander

Incitement to Racial Hatred to Become EU-Wide Crime, But Holocaust-Denial Is Spared
Photo courtesy of Google Images
BBC: European interior ministers have agreed to make incitement to racism an EU-wide crime, but have stopped short of a blanket ban on Holocaust denial.

The agreement makes it an offence to condone or grossly trivialise crimes of genocide - but only if the effect is incitement to violence or hatred.

The deal follows six years of talks, and will disappoint Germany, which pushed hard for a Holocaust-denial law.

Berlin has also had to drop a proposal for an EU-wide ban on Nazi symbols. EU Agrees New Racial Hatred Law >>>

French Muslim Graves Desecrated >>>

Mark Alexander

Archbishop of Canterbury has stern words for conservative Christians
DAILY MAIL: The spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans has said conservative Christians who cite the Bible to condemn homosexuality are misreading a key passage written by Saint Paul almost 2,000 years ago.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, addressing theology students in Toronto, said an oft-quoted passage in Paul's Epistle to the Romans meant to warn Christians not to be self-righteous when they see others fall into sin.

His comments were an unusually open rebuff to conservative bishops, many of them from Africa, who have been citing the Bible to demand that pro-gay Anglican majorities in the United States and Canada be reined in or forced out of the Communion. Anti-gay Christians 'misread the Bible', says Archbishop of Canterbury

Mark Alexander

How much more proof do we need that Turkey does not belong in the EU? Now, throats have been slit at a Christian publisher’s office
BBC: Three people have been killed at a publishing house in Turkey that produced bibles, in an apparent attack on the country's Christian minority.

The victims were discovered at the Zirve publishing house in the eastern city of Malatya.

They were bound hand and foot and their throats had been slit, officials said. Three killed at Turkish publisher (Read on)

FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: Bei einem bewaffneten Überfall auf ein christliches Verlagshaus in der osttürkischen Stadt Malatya ist am Mittwoch auch ein Deutscher getötet worden. Das sagte der Gouverneur der Provinz, Halil Ibrahim Dasöz, dem türkischen Nachrichtensender NTV. Die Angreifer hätten den Opfern die Kehlen durchgeschnitten, nachdem sie an Händen und Füßen gefesselt worden seien. Im Haus seien drei Tote gefunden worden. Ein vierter Mann, der laut Berichten entweder aus dem Fenster gesprungen oder aber gestoßen worden sei, liege schwerverletzt im Krankenhaus. Die Polizei hat inzwischen sechs Personen festgenommen.

Ziel des Überfalls war der christliche Zirve-Verlag, der nach Angaben des Besitzers Hamza Özant in der Vergangenheit mehrmals von Nationalisten bedroht worden war. Demnach protestierten diese dagegen, dass der Verlag die Bibel verteile. Dies werde in der Türkei oft als Beweis für vermeintliche missionarische Tätigkeit und damit als Versuch zur Unterwanderung der Einheit der Türkei bewertet. Deutscher bei Überfall auf Bibel-Verlag getötet (mehr)

FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: Bizarre Furcht vor Missionaren

Mark Alexander

A belated recognition of how unsettled the British people feel about mass, uncontrolled immigration to this, our small island
DAILY MAIL: Mass immigration into Britain in recent years has left the country "deeply unsettled", Labour's immigration minister has admitted.

Writing in a think tank report Liam Byrne openly acknowledged that the pace of immigration was causing problems for some public services in the UK and said "laissez-faire immigration" risked damaging communities. Immigration has unsettled the country, says minister (Read on)

Mark Alexander

Virginia Massacre
The following is an excerpt from Matt Frei’s Washington Diary - Virginia shootings:

”Yes, this tragedy has sparked a debate about gun control but mostly outside America. Even Australian Prime Minister John Howard, that stalwart friend of George W Bush, was quick to blame "the US gun culture".

But on Capitol Hill, the Democrats, who have sunk their teeth into every other aspect of the administration, have remained largely silent on the issue. Gun control puts voters off in swing states, their research has discovered. Best to say little about it especially with an election approaching.

Remember Howard Dean, the country doctor turned governor, turned Presidential candidate, turned Chairman of the Democratic Party? He railed against George W Bush "shooting from the hip" but he never really spoke out for gun control.
Why? Because his liberal home state of Vermont hates fast-food as much as it likes hunting.

Despite this week's bloodbath there will be no overwhelming demand for gun control in this country. Like evangelical Christianity, baseball and a love of Pumpkin Pie it is just one of those things that separates Europeans from Americans.

Will the next shooting take place at another university, a high school, a nursery or a secretarial college?” - Matt Frei

Mark Alexander

’Wird der Islam den Westen erobern’?
WELTONLINE: In den Augen fanatischer Muslime ist der Krieg gegen die Christenheit und Europa in eine neue Phase getreten. Die entscheidende Frage lautet: Wird der Islam den Westen erobern oder erliegt er am Ende der Verlockung der Freiheit?

In den Augen einer fanatischen und entschlossenen Minderheit von Muslimen hat die dritte Angriffswelle auf die Christenheit und Europa begonnen. Die erste Welle ist auf den Anfang des Islam zu datieren, als der neue Glaube von der Arabischen Halbinsel, wo er geboren wurde, auf den Nahen Osten und darüber hinaus überschwappte. Damals eroberten die Muslime Syrien, Palästina, Ägypten und Nordafrika – die damals alle noch zur christlichen Welt gehörten – und überschritten die Grenze nach Europa. Dort eroberten sie einen beachtlichen Teil Südeuropas, Spanien, Portugal und Süditalien inbegriffen, die alle Teil der islamischen Welt wurden, und sie überquerten sogar die Pyrenäen und besetzten eine Zeit lang Teile von Frankreich.

Die zweite Angriffswelle wurde nicht von Arabern und Mauren durchgeführt, sondern von Türken und Tataren. In der Mitte des 13.Jahrhunderts wurden die mongolischen Eroberer Russlands zum Islam konvertiert. Die Türken, die schon Anatolien erobert hatten, rückten nach Europa vor, und 1453 besiegten sie die alte christliche Zitadelle Konstantinopel. Sie eroberten einen Großteil des Balkans und regierten eine Weile halb Ungarn. Zweimal marschierten sie sogar bis nach Wien, das sie 1529 und dann wieder 1683 belagerten. Muslimische Korsaren aus Nordafrika erreichten Island – die äußerste Grenze – und verschiedene Orte in Westeuropa; das schloss einen bemerkenswerten Überfall auf Baltimore ein (das ursprüngliche, das in Irland liegt).

Terror und Einwanderung

Die dritte Angriffswelle nimmt eine andere Form an: Terror und Einwanderung. Das Thema „Terror“ ist oft und in vielen Details erläutert worden, ich möchte mich hier dem anderen Aspekt zuwenden, der für Europa heute größere Relevanz besitzt: der Einwanderung. Früher war es undenkbar, dass ein Muslim freiwillig in ein nicht muslimisches Land geht. Muslimische Juristen haben in den Lehr- und Vorschriftsbüchern der Scharia ausführlich darüber debattiert, ob es für einen Muslim gestattet sei, in einem nicht muslimischen Land zu leben oder es auch nur zu besuchen. Dies wurde unter verschiedenen Aspekten beleuchtet. Ein Verschleppter oder Kriegsgefangener hat offenkundig keine Wahl – aber er muss seinen Glauben bewahren und so bald wie möglich heimkehren. Der zweite Fall ist der eines Ungläubigen im Lande der Ungläubigen, der das Licht sieht und den wahren Glauben annimmt – der, anders gesagt, Muslim wird. Auch er muss das Land der Ungläubigen möglichst schnell verlassen und in ein muslimisches Land gehen. Der dritte Fall ist der eines Besuchers. Lange Zeit galt als einzig legitimer Grund für den Besuch eines nicht muslimischen Landes die Auslösung von Gefangenen. Später wurde dies um diplomatische Missionen und Geschäftsbesuche erweitert.

Wir haben es nicht nur mit einer anderen Religion zu tun, sondern auch mit einer anderen Vorstellung dessen, womit sich die Religion beschäftigt; gemeint ist damit speziell die Scharia, das heilige Gesetz des Islam. Die Scharia befasste sich mit einem weiten Feld von Angelegenheiten, die in der christlichen Welt sogar im Mittelalter als säkular galten, und das gilt heute umso mehr in der sogenannten postchristlichen Epoche der westlichen Welt. Die dritte Angriffswelle auf Europa rollt (mehr)

Mark Alexander

For God's sake, call it by its real name: ‘War on Jihad’
Democrats move to restrict the use of the term ‘War on Terror’, as the British government has done, hoping to sanitize the reality of the situation. The sanitization of the reality we are facing will do nothing to help us win the war we are engaged in; on the contrary, it will only hinder our eventual victory. War isn’t about making people feel good, it’s about victory, and victory alone.

Iraq might turn out to be a lost case; though one hopes, of course, it will not. But the ‘War on Jihad’ is something else. This is one war we have to win. It is a question of victory or dhimmitude. Western leaders must not, can not, shy away from this enormous task. Indeed, we must redouble our efforts; otherwise that New Dark Age will be upon us sooner than we might think.

Step up to the plate! We have a task of enormous proportions on our hands. It is a war that no sweet words will, or can, minimize. We are in it to the death. It’s our civilization or theirs. I know which one I would choose.

©Mark Alexander

BBC: As Britain's Secretary for International Development Hilary Benn says that the UK government no longer uses the phrase "war on terror", BBC News website world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds looks at the use and now the disuse of this phrase.

"War on terror" is both a defining and declining phrase.

Its simple, some argue its simplistic, directness has come to represent the post 9/11 age and the worldwide campaign against al-Qaeda. But it was never accepted without qualification by many outside the Bush administration, especially when its meaning was extended to the counter- insurgency campaign in Iraq as well.

Now Mr Benn has gone public with a ban quietly initiated last year by the British government, one of President Bush's closest allies in this "war".

And in the US Congress, the Democrats, who triumphed in the elections in November, are moving to restrict and even ban its use as well. Declining use of 'war on terror'

Mark Alexander

Gunman was a South Korean
BBC: Police have named a student who shot dead at least 30 people at a US university as Cho Seung-hui, a 23-year-old from South Korea. S Korean named as campus gunman

WATCH BBC VIDEO: Police name university killer

Mark Alexander

Weak Governance
DAILY MAIL: All around us are unmistakable signs of a Government imploding before our eyes - leaderless, utterly incompetent, morally bankrupt and adrift.

For the past two weeks, Britain has suffered abject humiliation at the hands of a fanatical Iranian regime, with consequences that will damage our national interests for years to come.

In the hostages crisis, no Prime Minister with any vestige of will or authority would have surrendered as meekly as Tony Blair to an act of war by a third-rank power.

Nor would any Foreign Secretary worthy of the title have allowed it - but then wasn't Margaret Beckett chosen for the job precisely because she was so pliant that she would stand up to nobody? For the nation's sake, the PM must go... (Read on)

Mark Alexander

Isn’t it high time the British got over their snobbishness and concentrated on the main event?
”If it is true that the royals were shocked by Kate Middleton’s mother’s use of the word ‘toilet’ rather than ‘loo’, then it's such a pity that members of the Royal Family haven't got more important things to think about. This is banality taken to its very extreme. If members of the Windsor family cannot think about more important matters in a world that is in turmoil, and in a world in which Islam is encroaching upon our freedoms, then maybe it's time they were sent out to work.” - Mark Alexander

THE TELEGRAPH: “It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him."

So ventured Shaw in Pygmalion, and, if reports are to be believed - and perhaps we should not take them too seriously - Prince William's now ex-girlfriend, Kate Middleton, must have, on occasion, been made to feel rather like Shaw's Covent Garden flower seller ensnared on the thorns of polite society.

For just as Eliza was lampooned for her non-U utterances, so apparently was Miss Middleton - although not for any society gaffes of her own but for those apparently made by her mother, a former air stewardess, who not only, we are told, addressed the Queen with the phrase "Pleased to meet you" rather than the accepted "How do you do?", but was also known to have let slip a word toffs consider quite the ghastliest blasphemy: toilet. Was it 'Toiletgate' that done [it] for Kate?

What does 'Toiletgate' say about Britain's class divide?

Noblesse Oblige

Mark Alexander

The US’s “lethal commitment to its own freedoms”?
TIMESONLINE:

”Perhaps of all the elements of American exceptionalism – those factors, positive or negative, that make the US such a different country, politically, socially, culturally, from the rest of the civilised world – it is the gun culture that foreigners find so hard to understand.

The country’s religiosity, so at odds with the rest of the developed world these days; its economic system which seems to tolerate vast disparities of income; even all those strange sports Americans enjoy – all of these can at least be understood by the rest of us, even if not shared.

But why, we ask, do Americans continue to tolerate gun laws and a culture that seems to condemn thousands of innocents to death every year, when presumably, tougher restrictions, such as those in force in European countries, could at least reduce the number?” - Gerard Baker Only the names change. And the numbers (Read Gerard Baker's comment)

LE FIGARO: Abasourdis par le pire carnage qu'ont connu les États-Unis, les médias américains s'interrogent sur le manque de réactivité des responsables de l'université de Blacksburg et relancent le débat sur le contrôle des armes à feu. Virginia Tech : l'université critiquée

WELTONLINE: Immer wieder kommt es in den USA zu Bluttaten an Schulen und Hochschulen. Eines der bisher schlimmsten Massaker ereignete sich 1999 in der Columbine High School in Colorado, wo 15 Menschen ums Leben kamen. AMOKLAUF: Bluttaten an amerikanischen Schulen und Hochschulen

FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: Der schlimmste Amoklauf Amerikas

FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: Prävention: Wie lassen sich Amokläufe verhindern?

DIE PRESSE: Bush betont Recht auf Waffenbesitz

DIE PRESSE: Der Täter: Hinweise auf Motiv

“Amerika schützt seine Kinder nicht - so lautete zusammengefasst der Kommentar der französischen Tageszeitung "La Republique du Centre" am Dienstag nach dem blutigsten Amoklauf in der Geschichte der USA. "Man muss schon mit aller Bitterkeit unterstreichen, dass die USA zwar paradoxerweise dermaßen um die Weltordnung besorgt sind, andererseits sich aber nicht in der Lage sehen, ihre eigenen Kinder dort zu schützen, wo sie sicher sein sollten", heißt es in dem Blatt.” - [Quelle: Die Presse]

Mark Alexander

Mayhem, Tragedy and Massacre on US University Campus
TIMESONLINE: A lone gunman has killed at least 30 people at an American university today in the bloodiest campus shooting in US history.

Police said there had been "at least 20 fatalities" in two locations at Virginia Tech university but government officials later told American news outlets that death toll could be as high as 32.

Describing the killings as a tragedy of "monumental proportions", the university said that a lone gunman killed one person and wounded several others at a dormitory shortly after 7am this morning before going on to kill the rest of his victims in the engineering department more than two hours later.

Reports from the scene said 28 students and teachers had been wounded in the attacks, including some who leaped from windows to avoid the shooter, who was reportedly killed by police. Lone gunman kills at least 30 in US campus massacre by Sam Knight

Why are there so many shootings in America?

Gun laws back in the spotlight

WATCH BBC VIDEO: Many shot dead in US university

Mark Alexander

The Holocaust must be taught and remembered
TIMESONLINE: One of the world's leading Holocaust education centres has accused British school teachers of committing an "offence" against the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis by failing to teach the genocide properly due to political correctness.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre used Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is today, to write an open letter to Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, claiming it is "horrified" by a report funded by his department which revealed that teachers often avoided dealing with the Holocaust because they did not want to cause offence to children from other races or religions. Holocaust group slams British schools by David Byers

Mark Alexander

Le Pen seems to have lost none of his appeal for the French voter

Photo courtesy of the BBC

BBC: Jean-Marie Le Pen has been in politics for more than 50 years, but at his rally at Porte de Versailles in Paris the crowd greet him as if he was the hottest new act in politics.

Some 5-6,000 people waving flags crammed into the stadium on Sunday to cheer on the National Front leader. The overspill who could not fit in still screamed their approval through the open doors.

"I'm voting for the first time," 19-year-old Frederic told me. "And I'm voting Le Pen because immigration is a serious problem in France - that's not racist, it's realistic and Le Pen will deal with the problem, while candidates like Sarkozy and Royal just pretend it's not happening." Le Pen urges halt to immigration (Cont'd) by Emma Jane Kirby

BBC: A French voter's viewpoint

Mark Alexander

Happy Birthday, Holy Father!

Photo of Pope Benedict XVI courtesy of Google Images

Although I am not a Roman Catholic, I would like to take this opportunity to wish Pope Benedict a very Happy Birthday. Pope Benedict XVI was born in Bavaria on Holy Saturday, April 16, 1927. It is hard to believe, but his parents' names were Joseph and Mary. There is no doubt that Pope Benedict is a wonderful man. He is intelligent and erudite, understanding and compassionate, gracious and elegant. He is also a true aesthete. What more could we wish for in a pope? One can only wish him all the very best for today and for always. May he be blessed with a long and healthy life. Long live Pope Benedict!

Sun shines on Vatican for Pope’s birthday

Kardinal Meisner vergleicht Papst mit Jesus

Der Stilist Benedikt XVI.

Foto dank der FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG

Georg Gänswein: Der Diener zweier Herren

L'Église catholique fête les 80 ans de Benoît XVI

©Mark Alexander

Rücktritt für Wolfowitz kommt nicht in Betracht
Amerikanischer Sukkurs für den Weltbank-Chef
NEUE ZÜRCHER ZEITUNG: Der in die Kritik geratene Weltbank-Präsident Paul Wolfowitz will im Amt bleiben. «Die Bank hat wichtige Arbeit zu tun, und ich werde sie weiterhin tun», sagte Wolfowitz nach einer Sitzung des Lenkungsausschusses der Bank am Sonntag in Washington. Wolfowitz lehnt Rücktritt ab

WATCH BBC VIDEO: Defiant Wolfowitz ‘to stay’ in job

But the BBC says:

"The future of beleaguered World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz remains in the balance despite a defiant statement that he intends to stay." Wolfowitz future still in balance

Mark Alexander

And still Europe contemplates Turkey’s accession to the EU
TIMESONLINE: Hundreds of thousands of Turks took part in two days of protests hoping to persuade the Prime Minister against running for president, amid concerns that his election would put at risk the separation of religion and state in the predominantly Muslim country.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to decide this week whether to stand for president next month. Since his Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has roots in political Islam, has a substantial parliamentary majority, its candidate is assured of succeeding Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the President, who is a staunch secularist.

Mr Erdogan, who has presided over strong economic growth and has worked hard to secure Turkey’s European Union candidacy, presents himself as a conservative democrat. But opponents remain suspicious of his Islamist past. Mr Erdogan has served a prison term for sedition and his wife covers her head in the Islamic manner. During his leadership his party has attempted to criminal-ise adultery, banish alcohol from some establishments and relax restrictions on religious education and headscarves.

His opponents, who include top bureaucrats, academics, judges and generals, believe that he has a hidden Islamist agenda to undermine the strict separation of religion and state, which he could put into practice if AKP held all the top government and state posts. Turks protest amid fears of ‘secret plan’ to overturn secular state (Cont’d) by Suna Erdem

Merkel trifft Erdogan: Der EU-Beitritt der Türkei soll Gesprächsthema bleiben

Mark Alexander