Iranian Bloggers Write Letters to Christ!
GLOBAL VOICES: It may seem surreal, but several Muslim bloggers have written letters to Jesus Christ in their blogs complaining about Western insults against Muslims, and particularly Dutch MP Geert Wilders‘ anti-Islamic film, Fitna. Meanwhile, young Islamist Basij paramilitaries demonstrated in front of the Netherlands embassy in Tehran condemning Wilders' film.

Kosoof, a leading Iranian photoblogger, has published several photos from this demonstration. One of the slogans in the photo above means “If carrying no veil means civilization, then animals are the most civilized.” Iranian Bloggers Write Letters to Christ >>> By Hamid Tehrani | April 10, 2008

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Indonesia Ends Ban on YouTube over Geert Wilders’ Film, Fitna
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE: JAKARTA, Indonesia: Indonesian Internet providers have stopped blocking YouTube and other file-sharing Web sites showing an anti-Islam film made by a Dutch politician after complaints from Web users.

The online service providers said Friday they will instead try to block access to individual pages on the sites carrying Geert Wilders' short film.

"It is like removing cancer from the body without making the patient die," Information and Communication Minister Mohammad Nuh told reporters.

On Tuesday, the government in the world's most populous Muslim nation ordered Internet service providers to block YouTube, MySpace and other sites, but savvy surfers had little trouble circumventing the ban.

In an editorial, The Jakarta Post newspaper said the ban "sent a disturbing sign that the president and his advisers are not only dumb, but also dangerous. It shows a mind-set that takes us back a decade to the era of censorship." Indonesia Ends Ban on YouTube over Anti-Islam Film >>> Associated Press | April 11, 2008

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Iran: Top Shia Cleric Says Unveiled Women Turn Men into Beasts
AKI: Mashad - A top Shia cleric in Iran has said that unveiled women are a serious danger to Iranian society as they cause men to be "transformed into beasts".

"Women without the veil are a danger that the authorities underestimate," said Hojatolislam Seyyed Ahmad Elmalhoda, a powerful cleric who leads the Friday prayers in Mashad, a site considered sacred for Shia Muslims as it houses the shrine of Imam Reza.

"This situation is very serious in that if men see these bad women, they will turn into beasts, and then the whole of society will have to pay the consequences."

According to the Shia cleric, women who do not respect conservative Islamic dress rules are "sources of all that is bad in society."

"Respecting the chador (a long, black cloak that covers the arms and legs and is usually worn with a hijab) is the law of the state and the authorities must severely punish anyone who does not respect this law, in the same way that they punish thieves and murderers," said Elmadhoda. Iran: Top Shia Cleric Says Unveiled Women Turn Men into Beasts >>> | April 10, 2008

Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch >>>

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
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Egypt Jails Five Homosexuals
KHALEEJ TIMES: CAIRO - A Cairo court on Wednesday jailed five men, four of them HIV positive, for three years on charges of ”debauchery” linked to homosexuality, a court official told AFP.

The men were arrested three weeks ago in a central Cairo restaurant following an argument after which a client accused them of practising homosexuality.

A police doctor carried out anal inspections on the men “which confirmed their homosexuality,” the court official said. Human Rights Watch said such examinations constitute torture and are medically spurious.

While homosexuality is not included in a list of sexual offences explicitly outlawed by Egypt’s Islamic-inspired legislation, it can be punished under several different laws on morality.

Besides facing widespread public prejudice, Egyptian homosexuals have in the past been jailed on charges ranging from “scorning religion” to “sexual practices contrary to Islam.”

Hafez Abu Saada, of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights, said the men were prosecuted under 1961 anti-prostitution laws which ”must be changed ... as it’s against the international convention of human rights which Egypt signed in 1986.

“This law is also against the Egyptian constitution which guarantees the right to privacy and individual freedom,” he said.
The men, who can appeal the verdict, were also ordered to pay a small fine. [Source: Egypt Jails Five “Homosexuals” for Three Years (AFP)]

Hat tip: Dhimmi Watch

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”Abject Surrender to a Blatant Threat” from Saudi Arabia
"This investigation was blocked supposedly to protect our security, but it looks increasingly like it was done to protect BAE sales by appeasing the Saudi government. - Mr Clegg
THE TELEGRAPH: A bribery investigation into the biggest arms contract in British history could be reopened after the High Court condemned the Government's "abject surrender" to pressure from Saudi Arabia in blocking the inquiry.

Gordon Brown must decide whether he will uphold the decision of his predecessor, Tony Blair, and block a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) inquiry into BAE's £43 billion contract to sell warplanes and weapons systems to the Saudis.

Under pressure from Mr Blair and Lord Goldsmith, his attorney general, the SFO decided in December 2006 to end its investigation into allegations that BAE illegally paid as much as £1 billion in kickbacks to a senior Saudi prince during the 1980s and 1990s as part of the al-Yamamah deal.

The Government intervened after the Saudi government threatened to stop sharing intelligence on Islamic terrorist groups.
Mr Blair said that would have put British national security at risk. The Saudis are also said to have threatened to cancel a contract to buy 72 Eurofighter jets from BAE, but Mr Blair has always denied basing his decision on commercial grounds.

Britain is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, whose founding treaty forbids halting criminal investigations for commercial reasons.

Lord Justice Moses and Mr Justice Sullivan have ruled that the SFO was wrong to drop the inquiry.

They condemned the Government's "abject surrender" to a "blatant threat" from a foreign country and ruled that Robert Wardle, the SFO director, had failed to satisfy the court that "all that could reasonably be done had been done to resist the threat". Brown Under Pressure to Re-Open Saudi Arms Inquiry >>> By Christopher Hope and James Kirkup | April 11, 2008

THE TELEGRAPH:
Extravagance Uncovered During Saudi Arms Probe: The Saudi princes and princesses were treated to every extravagance available when they were flown to the Hawaiian paradise island of Oahu in 1998 to enjoy the run of one of the world’s best hotels. The hotel had its own dolphins in a private blue lagoon, spas and “beach butlers” to provide face sprays, cooling drinks and sunshades By Christopher Hope and James Kirkup | April 11, 2008

THE GUARDIAN:
Listen to Guardian Audio - 'Brown Needs to Get the Locks Changed at Number 10': Simon Hill from the Campaign Against the Arms Trade wants the SFO to resume its investigation | April 11, 2008

THE GUARDIAN:
Cash, Contracts and Crown Princes By David Leigh | April 11, 2008

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”Kill the Bastards”, Says Susan Shabangu, South Africa’s Security Minister
Aiming her [Susan Shabangu’s] words at police chiefs, she said of criminals: "You must kill the bastards if they threaten you or the community. You must not worry about the regulations - that is my responsibility. Your responsibility is to serve and protect.

I want no warning shots. You have one shot and it must be a kill shot.

Criminals are hell-bent on undermining the law and they must now be dealt with. End of story. There are to be no negotiations with criminals."

DAILY MAIL: Police in South Africa were ordered yesterday to deal with criminals by "killing the bastards".

Susan Shabangu, the country's security minister, told officers not to worry about regulations, negotiations or warning shots.

Instead, police should use the guns given to them and go for the kill.

South Africa has become the murder capital of the world with more than 22,000 deaths a year.

Rape, pistol-whipping and torture are commonplace. Shoot the Bastards... and Shoot to Kill: South African Minister Tells Police to Show Criminals No Mercy >>> By Ian Evans

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Prophecy: Islam & Satan
Part I:

Part 2

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The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Pat Condell: The Religion of Fear

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Let's View Fitna the Movie Again: فتنة
View Geert Wilders’ Movie HERE
Hat tip: RayBoyd

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)

Is Barack Hussein Obama Really a Risk America Can Take?

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback)

Europas Rechte
Die Presse: Europas Rechte: "Patrioten aller Länder"
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The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback)

The Internet of the Future: The Grid
YAHOO NEWS (UK & IRELAND): The internet, as we know it, could be obsolete within a decade.

Forget dial-up; forget broadband: The future, it seems, is The [sic] Grid.

It's the brainchild of CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research based in Geneva.

It's there that Sir Tim Berners-Lee first invented the internet, so it's appropriate that the next stage in its evolution should emerge there.

But what is the Grid?

In fact, it is a spin-off from another major research project. For several years, the particle physicists at CERN have been building a device called the Large Hadron Collider.

Knowing they would need massive processing capability to cope with the data from the new device, the scientists set about integrating thousands of computers all around the world.

Professor Tony Doyle, technical director of the project, says: "We need so much processing power, if all the computers were here at CERN there would be a problem getting enough electricity to run them.

"We had to have a new network powerful enough to send the data instantly to research partners in other countries."

That network of linked computers - connected by superfast fibre-optic cable and combining together to act as one giant super-computer - is the Grid and, one day, it won't just be for scientists. We'll all be connected to it. Unlocking the Internet of the Future >>>

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback)
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Saudi Arabia, Al-Yamamah Contract and Corruption: The Serious Fraud Office Acted Unlawfully
The judges had harsh words for the attitude of the SFO and the Blair government in never even considering the option of telling the Saudis their threats would be ignored.

"No one suggested to those uttering the threat that it was futile, that the United Kingdom's system of democracy forbad pressure being exerted on an independent prosecutor whether by the domestic executive or by anyone else; no-one even hinted that the courts would strive to protect the rule of law and protect the independence of the prosecutor by striking down any decision he might be tempted to make in submission to the threat."

THE GUARDIAN: The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) acted unlawfully in dropping an investigation into alleged bribery in an arms deal between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia, the high court ruled today.

In a stunning victory for the activist groups that launched the legal challenge, the two judges said Tony Blair's government and the SFO caved in too readily to threats by Saudi Arabia over intelligence sharing and trade.

Lord Justice Moses and Justice Sullivan, using some scathing language, rejected the SFO's argument that it was powerless to resist the Saudi threats.

"So bleak a picture of the impotence of the law invites at least dismay, if not outrage," they said.

"Had such a threat been made by one who was subject to the criminal law of this country, he would risk being charged with an attempt to pervert the course of justice."

To give in so easily, the judges said, "merely encourages those with power, in a position of strategic and political importance, to repeat such threats, in the knowledge that the courts will not interfere with the decision of a prosecutor to surrender".

Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and Corner House Research had sought a review of the decision by the SFO director, Robert Wardle, in December 2006 to drop the investigation into allegations of bribery and corruption over the £43bn Al-Yamamah arms deal, agreed by the Thatcher government in 1985.

"No one, whether in this country or outside, is entitled to interfere with the course of our justice," Moses and Sullivan ruled. SFO Wrong to Drop BAE Inquiry, Court Rules >>> By Peter Walker and agencies | April 10, 2008

THE GUARDIAN: The Complete High Court Judgement

Summary of High Court Judgement

Cartoon

FINANCIAL TIMES: UK ‘Unlawfully’ Scrapped BAE Probe: ”No-one, whether within this country or outside, is entitled to interfere with the course of our justice,” Lord Justice Moses told the court. “We intervene in fulfilment of our responsibility to protect the independence of the director and of our criminal justice system from threat.“ By Megan Murphy, Law Courts Correspondent | April 10, 2008

BBC: SFO Unlawful in Ending BAE Probe

Cross-posted at The Shrewd Economist

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The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback)

Lapsus Infidelis
Photos of Jemimah / Haiqa Khan courtesy of the Daily Mail
The delectable Jemimah, now Haiqa, is committing sins in abdundance here: she is showing her hair, showing her arms, and revealing her boobs. She is also wearing tight-fitting clothes. What next? Allah will not be best pleased, to be sure.

Read the story HERE

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The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback)

Ahmadinejad: Gay, Perhaps? Or Does He Just Enjoy a Little Snog?
Photo of Ahmadinejad courtesy of Google Images
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The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback)

Sydney Priest Comes Down Heavy on High Court Judge: Repent about Your Gay Lifestyle, or Face the Wrath of God!
Photo of High Court Judge Michael Kirby courtesy of The Sydney Morning Herald
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: A SENIOR minister of a Sydney Anglican parish has made an extraordinary attack on the High Court judge Michael Kirby, warning he would face the wrath of God if he remained unrepentant as a gay man.

The rector of St Stephen's Church in Bellevue Hill, the Reverend Richard Lane, denounced the judge for calling himself a Christian Anglican while living in an openly gay relationship and warned as a "messenger, watchman and steward of the Lord in the Anglican Church of Australia", he faced God's judgment.

To call himself a Christian Anglican was a "perversion of truth" and to continue to do so without changing his lifestyle would brand him, like Herod, a "coward, a liar, a deceiver" and a "lawless one".

"I appeal to you to cast yourself on the mercy of Jesus … That is admit your sin, confess your wrongdoing and turn in humble repentance to the Lord Jesus, who alone can forgive you," Mr Lane said. Admit Your Sins to the Lord, Priest Tells Gay Judge >>> By Linda Morris, Religious Affairs Writer | April 10, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback)

The Weird World of the Mormon Polygamist Sect
DAILY MAIL: Children rescued from a polygamist sect had their first taste of the outside world yesterday, as details emerged of the life they had endured on the Yearning for Zion ranch.

Many of the teenage girls were pregnant and some already had babies. Few of the 416 youngsters brought out of the sect in the Texas desert knew their full names, their birth dates or could even identify their own mothers.

Some had been beaten so badly they suffered broken bones and younger girls, some as young as 12 and 13, had been expected to have sex with much older men.

Ominously, a disproportionate number of the children, ranging in age from toddlers to 17-year-olds, had the surname Jeffs, as in Warren Jeffs, the leader and self-styled prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, rumoured to have more than 80 wives and 250 children.

But yesterday, as the youngsters played with donated toys, social workers claimed the shadow of fear was finally lifting for the children of the Yearning for Zion Ranch.

A sinister picture of systematic underage sexual abuse and violence was emerging for the first time from interviews with the children and some of the 140 mothers with them following a police raid on the isolated compound in Eldorado, Texas. Inside the Weird World and the Palatial Churches of the Mormon Polygamist Sect By David Gardner | April 9, 2008

DAILY MAIL:
Hundreds of Women and Children in 19th Century Clothing Flee from Mormon 'Polygamy' Ranch of Dark Secrets By David Gardner | April 9, 2008

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD:
Young Girls in Sect Forced to Have Sex in Temple

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The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback)

Bedingung Sarkozys für die Reise nach Peking
Foto von Sarkozy dank der NZZ
NZZ Online: Präsident Sarkozy hat die Entscheidung über seine Teilnahme an der Eröffnungszeremonie der Olympischen Spiele in Peking von der Wiederaufnahme des Dialoges zwischen China und dem Dalai Lama abhängig gemacht. In einer Stellungnahme am Tag nach dem Fiasko der Olympia-Fackel-Stafette in Paris bedauerte der Staatschef das «für jeden etwas traurige Schauspiel» der Zwischenfälle. Zugleich bekundete er indes auch sein Verständnis für die Solidaritätskundgebungen zugunsten Tibets und des Dalai Lama. Die meisten Manifestanten hätten übrigens von ihrem in einer Demokratie selbstverständlichen Demonstrationsrecht in völlig korrekter Weise Gebrauch gemacht. Dass das olympische Feuer und einige der als Stafettenläufer mitwirkenden Sportler ausgepfiffen worden seien, bleibe indes zu bedauern. Bedingung Sarkozys für die Reise nach Peking: Forderung nach Dialog Chinas mit dem Dalai Lama >>>

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback)
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It’s Against My Faith, You Must Understand! It's Haram!
DAILY MAIL: Muslim sex offenders are asking to be let off a prison treatment programme on religious grounds.

Rapists, paedophiles and other dangerous attackers are expected to discuss their crimes with other inmates as a condition of release.

But Muslim prisoners complain that criminals should not have to talk about their offences - a "legitimate Islamic position", according to Ahtsham Ali, the Prison Service's Muslim adviser.

One thousand inmates were put on the Sex Offender Treatment Programme last year with places usually reserved for the most dangerous attackers.

Failure to complete the course can weigh against an offender at parole hearings.

The possibility of an exemption for Muslims came to light in a letter from an unnamed inmate to Inside Time, a newspaper for prisoners.

The convict said: "I have always insisted that it was against Islamic teachings to discuss your offence to anyone, let alone act it out within a peer group."

Experts said ministers, who have launched a review of the issue, could face a legal challenge from Muslims kept longer in prison because they had not undergone the treatment programme. Muslim Sex Offenders Could Opt Out of Treatment Programme 'Because It's against Their Faith' >>> By James Slack

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback)
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Mayoral Candidates Unite in Call for Illegal Immigration Amnesty
THE INDEPENDENT: Today, all four major candidates in London's mayoral election join religious and business leaders in proposing a radical solution for illegal immigrants

A formidable coalition of businessmen, politicians, religious leaders and community workers will pledge their support tonight for an amnesty for illegal immigrants who have been resident in the UK for several years and can pass strict tests to prove their contribution to British society.

All four of London's main mayoral candidates – including, against the official policy of his party, the Tory candidate Boris Johnson – will back the campaign to offer undocumented workers the chance to be integrated into mainstream society and obtain papers allowing them to work and pay taxes legally.

In an unprecedented move that will exert even more pressure on the Government to heed calls for an amnesty, they will be joined by an array of influential figures from outside the political world, including Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, leader of the Muslim Council of Britain and Stephen O'Brien, one of the City's leading businessmen.

"Enormous untapped potential and appalling waste is taking place right in front us," Mr O'Brien, chairman of the lobby group London First and former chief executive of Business in the Community, said yesterday. "Business leaders recognise that the case for an amnesty is both principled and pragmatic. The economic and moral case for liberating this army of workers from the underground economy is irrefutable." Mayoral Candidates Unite in Call for Illegal Immigration Amnesty >>> By Amol Rajan | April 9, 2008

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