Friday, February 27, 2009

The Dangers of Printing Money

TIME Photo Gallery: The Fed's doing it. The Bank of England says it plans to do it, too. With printing money back in fashion, TIME reflects on Germany's efforts in the 1920s — and the crisis that followed >>> | Friday, February 27, 2009

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Egypt: Islamic Lawyers Urge Death Sentence for Convert

COMPASS DIRECT NEWS: In case on whether he can legally change religion, Christian is accused of ‘apostasy.’

ISTANBUL – In the latest hearing of a Muslim-born Egyptian’s effort to officially convert to Christianity, opposing lawyers advocated he be convicted of “apostasy,” or leaving Islam, and sentenced to death.

More than 20 Islamic lawyers attended the hearing on Sunday (Feb. 22) in Maher Ahmad El-Mo’otahssem Bellah El-Gohary’s case to obtain identification papers with Christianity designated as his religious affiliation. Two lawyers led the charge, Ahmed Dia El-Din and Abdel Al-Migid El-Anani.

“[El-Din] started to talk about the Quran being in a higher position than the Bible,” one of El-Gohary’s lawyers, Said Fayez, told Compass. “[El-Din said] people can move to a higher religion but not down, so people cannot move away from Islam because it is highest in rank.”

Memos submitted by opposing lawyers asserted that cases such as El-Gohary’s form part of a U.S. Zionist attack on Islam in

Egypt, that Christianity is an inferior religion to Islam and that Copts protect and defend converts from Islam at their own peril.

“We received 150 pages from them that talked about religion,” said Fayez. “We are not in a position to talk about religion, we are only talking about the law.”

El-Gohary Beaten

El-Gohary was not present at the hearing, as attendance would put him at extreme personal risk. He had planned to obtain papers authorizing attorney Nabil Ghobreyal to act as his proxy representation in court, but staff members at the registry office swore at and beat him, lawyers said.

Judge Hamdy Yasin was forced to adjourn the case until March 28 because El-Gohary did not obtain the necessary proxy representation documents.

“I am now in a position where I can’t do anything else,” El-Gohary, who has been in hiding, told Compass. “I have to go [to court] despite the danger. I believe God will protect me. It’s a very hard decision, but I have to go.”

Copts and Christian converts have to face such systemic prejudice daily in the battle for their rights, he said.

“Our rights in Egypt, as Christians or converts, are less than the rights of animals,” El-Gohary said. “We are deprived of social and civil rights, deprived of our inheritance and left to the fundamentalists to be killed. Nobody bothers to investigate or care about us.”

El-Gohary, 56, has been attacked in the street, spat at and knocked down in his effort to win the right to officially convert. He said he and his 14-year-old daughter continue to receive death threats by text message and phone call.

But he also has received text messages, he said, of encouragement from other Muslim-born converts too fearful to take a similar stand.

“Everyday I get calls from people who have converted but are secret,” said El-Gohary. “They ask me every day about what is happening, because it affects their future.”

The danger to himself and his daughter has led El-Gohary to suggest that he will most likely leave Egypt, but not until the case is over. >>> | Thursday, February 26, 2009

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Liberals Are The True Heirs Of The Nazi Spirit

THE SPECTATOR: James Delingpole talks to Jonah Goldberg about his book on the affinities between the modern Left and the totalitarian movements of the 20th century

Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism is a conservative’s wet dream. No, it’s better than that. The moment you read it — presuming you’re right-wing, that is — you will experience not only a rush of ecstasy, but also a surge of revolutionary fervour and evangelical zeal. You’ll want to email all your friends and tell them the wonderful news: ‘I’m not an evil bastard, after all!’

What Goldberg very effectively does is to remove from the charge sheet the one possible reason any thinking person could have for not wanting to be right-wing: viz, that being on the right automatically makes you a closet fascist/Nazi scumbag. By accumulating a mass of historical evidence so extensive it borders on the wearisome, Goldberg comprehensively demonstrates that both Nazism and fascism were phenomena of the Left, not of the Right.

The book, a New York Times No. 1 bestseller has, needless to say, enraged lefties (‘liberals’ as they’re more usually known in the States) everywhere. ‘In the first week I had half a dozen emails from total strangers saying, “How dare you accuse us caring liberals of being fascists!” and then going on to say what a shame it was that my family hadn’t been sorted out once and for all a few years back in the concentration camps,’ he says.

Goldberg is a New York Jew and growing up as a conservative in Manhattan’s impeccably liberal, Jewish Upper West Side, he said he often felt like a Christian in Ancient Rome. At school and university, whenever he spoke in favour of tax cuts or a free market economy, the response was invariably the same. ‘Nazi’, he was called. Or ‘fascist’. By the time he was established as a contributing editor to National Review, he’d had quite enough of this. He spent four years researching and writing the book which would put the record straight.

What he found astonished him. Nazism and fascism, it turned out, were closer kindred spirits of Soviet communism than he could ever have imagined. The first expressed itself through ideas about racial purity and Jew-hatred, the second with ideas about the primacy of the nation, but in most other respects they were all remarkably similar: seizing the means of production; empowering the masses; rule by experts; the elevation of youth and brute emotion over wisdom, tradition and intellect; the submission of the individual to the will of the state. As Goldberg wryly puts it, ‘The Nazis were not big on property rights and tax cuts.’ >>> James Delingpole | Wednesday, February 25, 2009

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Thursday, February 26, 2009

Men of Custard

”Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains.” – Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, French political philosopher (1712 - 1778)

Politicians today are craven! They do NOT deserve our respect!

Politicians, at least in the United Kingdom, are career politicians who only rarely have pursued other careers before entering Parliament.

In years gone by, this was very different: Men, and I mean men, used to go into politics when they had achieved a great deal in the real world, and when they felt that they had enough money to spend the rest of their working lives in the pursuit of improving the lot of the people. They were beholden unto no one, because they had made their money before entering politics, and were thus prepared to work for a relatively modest remuneration in order to try and improve the lot of the masses. Because they were men of independent means, they could speak their minds.

What we have today is but a mere pathetic shadow of the politicians of yore. What we have today are ‘company men’, party men, if you will. They toe the party line; and are terrified of losing their positions. How many politicians have you heard of recently who have been prepared to resign on a point of principle? Few, I would wager.

We, at least in the UK, are all the poorer for this sad development. It means that our politicians are far more concerned about their next pay packet than they are about the real concerns of politics.

Recent events have shown us, and very, very clearly, that our politicians are craven, unprincipled, and weak. Weak beyond measure!

The Houses of Parliament are peopled not only by men, but they are peopled by women also. To a great extent, British politics has become feminized. Bringing women into the political arena is, in many ways, a great thing; but it can only be a great thing if the women coming into politics can take the tough decisions necessary to ensure that our Judeo-Christian civilization can survive and thrive. Of late, this has clearly NOT been happening. On the contrary, our Judeo-Christian civilization, a civilization which has given us so, so much, has been dangerously weakened.

Just observe what has been happening in the United Kingdom! Just observe the pathetically weak and craven way that this NuLabour government has dealt with the threat that Islam has posed this nation! The ministers and politicians, all of whom are running scared, have placated these Muslims, even to the point of banning Geert Wilders from entering the country to show his film, Fitna, in the House of Lords.

It is abhorrent, to say nothing of being craven, to say nothing of being unworthy, to have banned this courageous man from this country. The decision was as disgusting as it was undemocratic. We in the United Kingdom were raised to expect our freedom of speech, we were raised to expect liberty. Yet, what has this awful government given us? Nothing but surrender to the forces of evil, surrender to the forces of darkness, surrender to the Jihad being waged against us. How can our politicians expect us willingly to embrace Muslims when we can see so plainly – it is as plain as the nose on your face – that Muslims are the cause of our loss of freedoms? How can this bring harmony in the community? Of course, it cannot!

The war on Islamic terror over the past years has been fought by politicians hell-bent on taking away the freedoms of the innocent people upon whom the ‘war on terror’ has been waged – the victims. Instead of targeting the perpetrators of the crimes, our ‘leaders’ have chosen to bring hurt upon the innocent. Why? Because they lack the courage necessary to punish the people who are perpetrating the crimes. Why? Because they know that if they were to punish the perpetrators of the crimes, they would meet with fierce opposition, whilst they know that by punishing the innocent, they will meet with nothing but meek and mild opposition, if indeed they meet with opposition at all.

Our so-called leaders, craven leaders almost all, decided that the ‘war on terror’ would be waged by taking your freedoms away, and mine. They decided that they would take our freedom away to criticize religion in general, and Islam in particular. (Oh, for the love of Allah, don’t criticize Islam!) As a result of this, and other stupidities, we now find ourselves with our hands tied firmly behind our backs, we find ourselves with a pitifully weakened voice. That’s how stupid and craven the politicians are that now lead us.

But can I tell you this: It is our birthright to be able to criticize Islam; it is our birthright to be able to criticize the Prophet Muhammad.

This is why it is IMPERATIVE that we be given an ‘international first amendment’, which Geert Wilders has called for, and which the International Free Press Society has called for, too. No constitution that the EU will write will be worth a damn if there is within it no ‘first amendment’. The people need to be free to speak their minds; they need to be free to criticize religion, any religion, and they need to be free to criticize any prophets considered to be – at least by some – the expounders of those faiths. No prophet, no god, must be above criticism, for any god worthy of being worshipped will accept such criticism. A god which cannot accept such criticism, a prophet who cannot accept such criticism, cannot be worthy of being worshipped at all! NO religion worthy of its salt is above criticism!

But our politicians are weak and craven and lacking in spunk: they cannot find it within themselves to criticize those who perpetrate crimes in the name of their pathetic religions, still less to criticize the religions themselves.

This is why our politicians are not worthy of being followed. This is why our politicians are not worthy of the title of ‘leaders’. This is why there is need of change at the top, this is why we are in need of change in the establishment.

We need leaders of spunk, but all I see around me are leaders of custard!

©Mark Alexander

All Rights Reserved

Neo-Nazis Plotting 'Fourth Reich' in Germany

THE TELEGRAPH: A defector from Germany's hard-core neo-Nazi party the NPD has painted a chilling picture of the rise of new Hitler worshippers and their plans to build the "Fourth Reich".

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Photo of this extreme right-wing skinhead courtesy of The Telegraph

Uwe Luthardt was a senior member of the NPD but quit to inform on the party which Germany tried unsuccessfully to ban several years ago.

He told of weapons stores and how members greet each other with "Heil Hitler" salutes, sing the banned songs of the Third Reich and relish the idea of a new Holocaust against the Jews.

Last year neo-Nazi attacks in Germany reached an all-time high and authorities are battling to stop youngsters from being attracted to the politics of the right – particularly now that Germany is in a deep recession and jobs are being lost by the thousands every day.

Luthardt, a former board member of the party, said he was threatened that he could "disappear" if he informed on its inner workings.

"Someone who just quits usually gets a lot of problems, and can find himself waking up in intensive care," he said.

"It wasn't really my world. When you went along to evening meetings, you saw all the shaven heads, and a black sun or other Nazi symbols tattooed on arms. They usually just boozed or were abusive. If there's no opponent around, they just fight among themselves.

"Many have an IQ close to my shoe size. Most of them are simply failures: failed pupils, people who dropped out of school or their apprenticeships, alcoholics that can't find a foothold anywhere else, thugs. But every local organisation has three to five men who don't have criminal records. They're the ones sent to face the press or man information stands.

"I joined because I wanted to do something for Germany, I wasn't interest in a Greater Germany. And suddenly everyone was saying we'll take back Silesia in Poland and then we'll give the communists a thrashing."

He said old Nazis living in South America still donate to the party and other funds come from the staging of skinhead-music concerts.

He went on: "The simple aim is the restoration of the Reich in which a new storm trooper organisation takes revenge on anyone who disagrees with them. >>> By Allan Hall in Berlin | Thursday, February 26, 2009

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Saudi Lingerie Trade in a Twist

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Photo courtesy of Google Images

BBC: It would be bizarre in any country to find that its lingerie shops are staffed entirely by men.

But in Saudi Arabia - an ultra-conservative nation where unmarried men and women cannot even be alone in a room together if they are not related - it is strange in the extreme.

Women, forced to negotiate their most intimate of purchases with male strangers, call the situation appalling and are demanding the system be changed.

"The way that underwear is being sold in Saudi Arabia is simply not acceptable to any population living anywhere in the modern world," says Reem Asaad, a finance lecturer at Dar al-Hikma Women's College in Jeddah, who is leading a campaign to get women working in lingerie shops rather than men.

"This is a sensitive part of women's bodies," adds Ms Asaad. "You need to have some discussions regarding size, colour and attractive choices and you definitely don't want to get into such a discussion with a stranger, let alone a male stranger. I mean this is something I wouldn't even talk to my friends about."

In theory, it should be easy enough to get women to staff lingerie shops, but parts of Saudi society are still very traditional and don't like the idea of women working - even if it's just to sell underwear to each other. >>> By Stephanie Hancock, BBC News, Jeddah | Wednesday, February 25, 2009

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Is This $4 Trillion Dollar Man Arrogant and Delusional, or What?

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Photo of President Barack Hussein Obama courtesy of The Times

TIMES ONLINE: President Obama set up a long and bloody battle with Republicans today when he unveiled an almost $4 trillion budget that raises taxes, slashes military spending and increases the national deficit to its highest level since World War II.

Mr Obama's first budget included a series of contentious provisions that produced howls of protest from Republicans, triggering what will be a major fight on Capitol Hill where the president has to get it passed by both the House and Senate.

The 140-page budget outlines forecasts an enormous $1.75 trillion deficit for this fiscal year, which ends in October, in part because it makes clear that Mr Obama is anticipating yet another massive bailout for the banking sector, on top of the $700 billion package passed last October.

Such a move would be unpopular with the American public and strongly opposed by Republicans and some Democrats on Capital Hill, because the banking sector is widely blamed for the economic crisis. The document includes a $750 billion set-aside in case more rescue funds for Wall Street are needed. President Barack Obama Unveils $4 trillion Budget >>> Tim Reid in Washington | Thursday, February 26, 2009

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Lipstick Revolution: Iran's Women Are Taking on the Mullahs

THE INDEPENDENT: It started with a switch from hijabs to Hermès headscarves. Now, after 30 years of Sharia law, the fight for women’s rights is gathering pace. Katherine Butler meets the Iranian rally drivers, bloggers and film-makers demanding change

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Photo courtesy of The Independent

Zohreh Vatankhah slides into the driving seat of her BMW X3, flicks a switch to some pulsating Persian pop and we're soon zipping along the narrow lanes near her home in northern Tehran, almost in the foothills of the snow-capped Alborz mountains. Most Iranians behave in traffic as if they are in charge of dodgems, not potentially lethal vehicles: the traffic is heart-stoppingly dangerous, but with this woman I can relax. A professional racing driver, she's used to competing, and winning, at speeds of up to 180mph.

She's glamorous, too, wearing high-heeled boots over her jeans (a controversial look in the eyes of the Iranian morality police) and a Rolex on her wrist. When she's not confounding stereotypes of Iranian women by beating men on the rally circuits, she's climbing mountains (she recently conquered Mount Damavand, the highest peak in the Middle East), or, here, in the axis of evil, sworn enemy of the United States, watching US (banned but tolerated) satellite TV channels; 24 is one of her favourite shows.

"I LOVE Barack Obama," she says, "and Michelle, she's so stylish and so smart."

At 31, Vatankhah was born a year before Iran's Islamic revolution. In February 1978, Tehran had nightclubs and dancing and girls-about-town who dressed as fashionably as their counterparts in Europe. A year later, the Shah had fled from his Peacock Throne; Iran was reborn as an Islamic Republic and women, many of whom supported the overthrow, were waking up to find their lives drastically changed. Not only obliged to cover up from head to toe, and banned from singing or performing in public to conform with Ayatollah Khomeini's narrow interpretation of Sharia law, they were also, as Shirin Ebadi, Nobel prize winner and Iran's first woman judge, found to her cost, sidelined from senior jobs. Women, "too emotional", were no longer employed as judges.

The woman in the driving seat next to me looks anything but downtrodden. Yet, the tension between modernity and tradition that weighs heavily on women's lives in Iran is never far away. At one point she leans over to say: "Please, your scarf," when the bothersome piece of cloth on my head slips down.

But then something happens that could be a metaphor for the revolution that may be quietly taking place in contemporary Iran. Our drive stalls when an irate male motorist, assuming she's trying to enter a one-way road, hogs the intersection and waves at her to go back. Vatankhah doesn't budge – she knows she's in the right. She holds her ground, presses on, but when he passes he shouts an obscenity. She rolls down her window calmly and tells him whatever the Farsi equivalent is of shut up and get a life.

Iranian women, and not just the sporting queens or Nobel prize winners, are standing up to the mullahs. And some of them are experiencing a frightening political backlash. >>> | Thursday, February 26, 2009

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Free Speech Advocates Launch Campaign for ‘International First Amendment’

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Photo of Geert Wilders at Heathrow courtesy of CNS NEWS

CNSNEWS.COM: Troubled by attacks on free expression by groups wanting to shield Islam from criticism or scrutiny, free speech advocates are preparing to unveil a campaign for an “international First Amendment.”

The initiative will be launched by the International Free Press Society (IFPS) at an event in Washington, D.C., on Friday. Attending will be Geert Wilders, the Dutch lawmaker whose views on Islam have stoked controversy worldwide.

The event will incorporate a screening of Wilders’ short documentary, Fitna, which features passages from the Koran along with footage of terror attacks and jihadists extolling violence while quoting from Islam’s revered text.

The film has been viewed by millions online, but recent attempts to show it at the European Parliament ran into difficulties, and Wilders was refused entry into Britain earlier this month to attend a screening at the House of Lords. The British government said he “would threaten community security and therefore public security.”

A closed screening for U.S. lawmakers has been arranged at the Capitol building on Thursday, hosted by Republican Senator Jon Kyl.

Recent years have seen an escalating drive by Islamic countries, working through the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), to counter what they regard as blasphemy – anything calling into question the assertion that Islam is a peaceful and tolerant religion.

Seeking to make it more difficult for people to challenge or criticize Islam, the OIC is promoting resolutions at the U.N. against “religious defamation,” based in part on the argument that anti-Islamic sentiment is a “contemporary form of racism.”

In a number of Islamic countries, blasphemy laws are enforced, often targeting Muslims who convert to another faith and are considered apostates under Islamic law (shari’a), but also anyone who questions Islamic teaching or practices associated with Islam.

In non-Muslim countries, especially in the West, “hate speech” regulations are sometimes used to similar effect, and Wilders himself is due to stand trial in the Netherlands soon on charges of “inciting hatred and discrimination.” >>> By Patrick Goodenough, International Editor | Thursday, February 26, 2009

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Fanatics Are on Rise and Labour Let It Happen

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Cartoon courtesy of The Sun

THE SUN: BRITAIN recently disgraced itself by banning democratically elected Dutch MP Geert Wilders from entering the country.

His planned “crime” was to screen a short documentary at a private viewing in the House of Lords.

It’s worth raising today after the £2,500 hand-out to sinister Jordanian Abu Qatada and the imminent arrival of Ethiopian terror suspect Binyam Mohamed.

Wilders’ film links horrific acts of terror with verses from the Koran recorded in taped rants by terrorists before their slaughter of the innocents.

I haven’t seen the film because it has been blocked* on the internet.

But neither had Labour MP Keith Vaz when he went on TV to justify the veto.

Vaz said he didn’t need to. Nor did he need any precedent for such draconian censorship. Every decision should be considered on its “merits” — by people like himself, of course.

Our cringing surrender to this authoritarian, book-burning mentality was ordered by mealy-mouthed Home Secretary Jacqui Smith under pressure from Labour peer Lord Ahmed.

Lord Ahmed, who warned of mob demos, is the Pakistani-born Labour donor who once ignored protests and invited rabid anti-Semite Israel Shamir into the Lords.

Some extreme interpretations of the Koran teach that Jews and homosexuals are fit only for extermination — which is why Hitler was so popular in parts of the Arab world.

Wilders’ visit would have gone unnoticed but for Jackboot Jacqui, whose Government has prostrated itself to accommodate Islam’s nastier fringes.

She famously tried to detoxify events like 7/7 by describing them as “anti-Islamic activities” — as if the killers were shooting THEMSELVES in the foot!

Labour’s refusal to act against extremism allowed such vile religious perverts as Abu “Hookie” Hamza to flourish.

It gave oxygen to rabble-rousing imams who brainwashed thousands of young British-born Muslims, not least the 7/7 murderers.

It turned a blind eye to migrants who refuse to assimilate and instead colonise whole suburbs and cities where welfare has become a way of life.

It encouraged multi-culturalism which, far from spreading tolerance, has entrenched primitive tribal customs, including forced marriages and honour killings.

As a result, our security services are at breaking point keeping tabs on an army of shadowy troublemakers who flit back and forth to Pakistan — many to be trained in OUR mass murder.

Of course, Islam extremism is rife in all EU countries.

In Geert Wilders’ Holland, the penalty for criticising Islam is death — as filmmaker Theo van Gogh shockingly learned. >>> By Trevor Kavanagh | Monday, February 23, 2009

Hat tip: Winds of Jihad >>>

*You can view Fitna here:

VIDDLER: Fitna



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Schicksal der russischen Zarenfamilie geklärt

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Foto von der Zarenfamilie Rußlands dank dem Tages Anzeiger

TAGES ANZEIGER: Lange Zeit war unklar, ob einzelne der fünf Kinder von Nikolaus II. und seiner Frau Alexandra das Massaker in Jekaterinburg am Ural überlebt haben könnten. >>> sam/ap | Donnerstag, 26. Februar 2009

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Treasury Starts Legal Steps to 'Claw Back' Sir Fred Goodwin Pension Pot

TIMES ONLINE: Sir Fred Goodwin may be forced to give up some of his massive £650,000 pension if he refuses pleas to "do the decent thing" and surrender it voluntarily.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, today denied a suggestion from Sir Fred's successor at the Royal Bank of Scotland that the Government had known about the deal to top up the banker's pension pot when he left the ailing bank last year.

He also revealed that he had instructed a Treasury minister, Lord Myners, to contact Sir Fred and ask him voluntarily to give up some of his pension.

“I think people will find it very difficult to understand how you can get paid £650,000 a year for the rest of your life when just look at the state that RBS is in at the moment,” Mr Darling told BBC Radio 4. “You cannot justify these excesses, especially when you’ve got such a failure of this magnitude.” >>> Philip Webster, Political Editor, and Philippe Naughton | Thursday, February 26, 2009

BBC: RBS Reports Record Corporate Loss

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has announced the largest annual loss in UK corporate history.

RBS, which had to be bailed out by the government last year, said that its 2008 loss totalled £24.1bn ($34.2bn).

It also said it would put £325bn of toxic assets into a scheme that offers insurance for any further losses.

RBS is under fire over the pension of former boss Sir Fred Goodwin and the chancellor said the government had asked him to forego some of it.

Speaking at a news conference, RBS chief executive Stephen Hester said the bank was "under no illusions" about the scale of the losses.

He added that it was important "to think about the past, to know what went wrong, to disclose it and to address those issues". >>> | Thursday, February 26, 2009

Watch BBC video: Gordon Brown has said 'nobody can support very extensive pension arangements' at this time. >>>

Watch BBC video: Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman Vince Cable has launched a scathing attack on the government's scheme to insure banks against big losses. >>>

Watch BBC video: Chancellor Alistair Darling has spoken about the huge pension awarded to former Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) boss Sir Fred Goodwin.

RBS has come under fire, after it emerged Sir Fred, who retired at 50, is drawing a £650,000 a year pension.

Speaking in the Commons, Mr Darling said the government had no part in negotiating the agreement otherwise it would not have been approved. >>>


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Nicolas Sarkozy's Ex-wife Cecilia to Move to US to Campaign against Domestic Violence

THE TELEGRAPH: French President Nicolas Sarkozy's ex-wife Cecilia Attias is moving to the US to campaign against domestic violence.

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Photo of Cécilia Attias, ex-wife of Nicolas Sarkozy, courtesy of Gala.fr

Mrs Attias, who once complained to police about "brutal exchanges" with Mr Sarkozy before he was president, has set up a foundation with her new husband Richard Attias to promote women's rights.

But she revealed that she will not expect to see much of Mr Attias as he will continue to work largely in Dubai.

The couple lived together in New York when Cecilia, 51, was briefly separated from Mr Sarkozy before they finally divorced.

Mrs Attias told Gala magazine that she was leaving Dubai, where Mr Attias runs a successful public relations agency, because she wanted to "give everything" to her foundation.

She also said that her young son with Mr Sarkozy, Louis, 11, had always "dreamed of living" in New York, where "he has his friends".

Referring to her third husband, Cecilia said: "Richard will continue to work in Dubai, in the United States and elsewhere, but his little family will be based in New York."

At the time of her police complaint the glamorous former model was conducting an on-off affaire with the multi-millionaire businessman she finally married last March.

Mrs Attias plans to work an independent lobbyist, devoting herself to the newly formed Cecilia Attias Foundation for Woman.

Setting out its aims, the foundation's publicity reads: "In 2009, the cause chosen by Cecilia Attias is the fight against domestic violence, a terrible plague that is unfortunately increasing rapidly." >>> By Peter Allen in Paris | Thursday, February 26, 2009

GALA.fr: Cécilia Attias – Je quitte Dubaï avec mon fils: Elle s'installe à New York, son mari poursuit ses activités à Dubaï

Cécilia Attias surprend encore. La voilà qui abandonne Dubaï pour New York. L'épouse de Richard Attias souhaite s'investir totalement dans sa fondation et permettre à son fils de vivre dans cette ville américaine qu'il aime tant...

Richard ne l'accompagnera pas. Cécilia Attias a décidé de quitter Dubaï pour la Grosse Pomme avec son fils Louis. Des rumeurs évoquent une crise de couple, Cécilia Attias nous précise simplement que "Richard continuera à travailler à Dubaï, aux Etats Unis et ailleurs comme toujours; mais sa petite famille sera basée à New York."

Selon d'autres, il s'agirait plutôt d'une crise économique. Soulignant un problème financier, Richard Attias patron d'une société d'événementiels aurait perdu des marchés suite à la fragilité de l'économie à Dubaï. Selon Cécilia Attias encore, "les difficultés financières ne touchent à mon sens que ceux qui colportent de mauvaises rumeurs sur les autres. Personnellement nous, nous allons plutôt très bien..." >>> Valérie Domain | Mardi 24 Février 2009

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Staatliche Kontrolle: Obama will die Finanzmärkte weltweit regulieren

WELT ONLINE: Die Finanzmärkte müssen sich ändern, und zwar schnell und drastisch: US-Präsident Barack Obama forderte bei einem Treffen mit Wirtschaftsexperten des US-Kongresses eine stärkere Regulierung der Märkte. Bis zum G-20-Gipfel am 2. April in London soll ein Regelwerk ausgearbeitet werden.

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Scheinbar will Obama gar alles regulieren. Sicherlich wird er alles ganz anders machen als Reagan und Thatcher, die an die Macht gekommen waren, um die Leute zu befreien und die Wirtschaft durch Deregulierung einen Stoß vorwärts zu geben. Die Amerikaner sollten übers Wasser blicken, um zu sehen was Sozialismus mit sich bringt! Dann werden sie sehen können, was ihnen bevorsteht, und sie werden auch sehen können, was für Mist sie gebaut haben, in dem sie dieser Unerfahrene an die Macht gebracht haben! – ©Mark Foto dank der Welt

US-Präsident Barack Obama dringt auf eine zügige Reform der Finanzmarkt-Regularien. „Wir können die Märkte des 21. Jahrhunderts nicht mit den Bestimmungen aus dem 20. Jahrhundert aufrecht erhalten“, sagte er im Anschluss an ein Treffen mit Finanzminister Timothy Geithner und Wirtschaftsexperten des US-Kongresses.

Die aktuelle Finanzkrise sei nicht unvermeidbar gewesen, sagte Obama. Die gesetzlichen Regeln für den Banken- und Finanzsektor seien nicht den Änderungen der Branche angepasst worden.

Der US-Präsident kündigte strenge staatliche Aufsicht für Unternehmen an, deren Geschäfte die Sicherheit des Marktes beeinträchtigten. >>> Quelle: AFP | Donnerstag, 26. Februar 2009

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Militarisierung: Moskau rüstet aus Angst vor Krisen-Protesten auf

WELT ONLINE: Die Russen sind zunehmend unzufrieden mit ihrer politischen Spitze. In Zeiten der Finanzkrise schwindet das Vertrauen in Wladimir Putin und Dmitri Medwedjew. In dem Maße, wie sich die Krise in Russland verschärft, wächst die Nervosität in der Führung – und mündet in eine Militarisierung.

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Foto von einer Militärparade in Rußland dank der Welt

Das russische Macht-Tandem muss in diesen Tagen Popularitätsverluste hinnehmen, die es bislang so nicht gegeben hat.

Der jüngsten Umfrage zufolge sank die Rate derer, die Präsident Dmitri Medwedjew vertrauen, innerhalb einer Woche von 55 auf 50 Prozent. Die Zustimmung für Premierminister Wladimir Putin ging um drei Prozent auf 66 Prozent zurück, seine Partei Geeintes Russland würden gegenwärtig noch 51 Prozent der Russen wählen. So niedrig war die Zustimmung das letzte Mal vor über zwei Jahren. >>> Von Manfred Quiring | Donnerstag, 26. Februar 2009

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Obama veut lancer le chantier de l'assurance-maladie

LE FIGARO: Les tentatives de réformes ont maintes fois échoué. Obama propose de donner le choix à la population entre couverture publique et assurance privée.

Barack Obama veut que le Congrès adopte une réforme du système d'assurance-maladie dès cette année. «La réforme de la santé ne peut pas attendre et elle n'attendra pas encore un an», a-t-il martelé mardi soir sous les applaudissements des deux Chambres du Congrès.

L'objectif est très ambitieux car la réforme sera coûteuse : Obama prévoit la création d'un fonds de réserve de 634 milliards de dollars sur dix ans, a-t-il annoncé mercredi. Or, les finances fédérales sont gravement mises à mal par la récession et le plan massif de relance juste voté.

La semaine prochaine, à l'occasion d'un «sommet sur la santé», le président des États-Unis va réunir à la Maison-Blanche des experts du secteur privé et les élus les plus impliqués dans ce débat. Max Baucus, sénateur démocrate du Montana, un modéré qui pré­side la commission des finances, ainsi que Ted Kennedy, sénateur démocrate du Massachusetts, devraient jouer un rôle clé dans l'élaboration, d'ici à l'été, d'une proposition de loi. C'est en effet au Sénat, plus qu'à la Chambre, que le travail législatif délicat de compromis doit se faire.

Aucune loi ne peut être adoptée au Sénat sans que la majorité démocrate ne rallie à sa cause une poignée de voix républicaines. Les républicains partagent certains objectifs de leurs collègues démocrates. Ils veulent ainsi soulager les petites entreprises et les travailleurs indépendants du coût exorbitant des primes d'assurance privées. Ils souhaitent en outre promouvoir la concurrence entre assureurs privés. Entreprises asphyxiées >>> Pierre-Yves Dugua | Jeudi 26 Février 2009

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Ahmadinejad Urges Muslim Unity against Enemy

PRESS TV: Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called on Islamic countries across the world to build a united barrier against the 'enemy plots'.

"Unity and cooperation between Muslim states will thwart the enemy plot to sow discord between Muslims and spread hegemony over them," President Ahmadinejad said in a meeting with President of Djibouti Ismail Omar Guelleh on Tuesday.

President Ahmadinejad added that the tyranny of superpowers is at the root of regional conflicts, urging close relations among Muslim countries in face of foreign efforts to break their spirit of solidarity.

Ismail Omar Guelleh, for his part, hailed Iran's huge leap forward in scientific achievements and called the country 'self-sufficient' in modern technology. >>> SF/AR/DT | Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Hat tip: Jihad Watch >>>

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New Dark Age Alert! University of Maryland International Report: Muslims Say Yes to Shari’ah Law and Islamic Supremacy

Read the report here >>> | Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Hat tip: Jihad Watch >>>

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New Dark Age Alert! Polygamy UK: This Special Mail Investigation Reveals How Thousands of Men Are Milking the Benefits System to Support Several Wives

MAIL Online: He cut a smart figure in his grey suit and crisply ironed shirt. The 6ft tall Somalian bowed to the judge, calling him 'Sir', before begging for his wife, Fatima, and their teenage son to be allowed to stay in Britain.

Fatima, with a black khimar veil covering her hair and shoulders, sat quietly next to her husband.

In her late 30s and wearing open sandals, she lowered her dark eyes as the details of the unconventional life she and her husband, Abdi, led in the West London suburb of Shepherd's Bush unfolded at a busy immigration court.

The judge listened in silence. Perhaps he knew from past experience what was coming next. Abdi went on to reveal that Fatima was not his only wife.

Indeed, he was a self-confessed bigamist who had a second, much younger wife and a 13-year-old daughter by her. They both lived nearby.

'I visit them regularly,' said Abdi, 51, who arrived in Britain in the 1990s and works in an old people's home. 'I have done nothing wrong. In Somalia, it is normal to have two wives - even three or four. Fatima is still my wife and she should not be deported.'

He was unable to produce wedding certificates or valid official documents to prove where, or when, he had married both women, therefore raising questions over the validity of the unions, under either Somali or British law.

Yet his story, unravelling at an ordinary weekday hearing at Taylor House, an asylum appeals' centre in North London, is just one example of the growing phenomenon of multiple marriage in Britain.

Officially, such unions are punishable by up to seven years in prison. They were first declared illegal in England and Wales in 1604, when the Parliament of James I took action to restrain 'evil persons' marrying more than one wife. Parliament ruled that anyone found guilty of the crime would be sentenced to death.

In the four centuries since, bigamy (having two wives) and polygamy (more than two) has been frowned on by the state, the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church.

Yet it is clear that officialdom is turning a blind eye to such marriages.

A recent review by four Government departments - the Treasury, the Work and Pensions Department, the Inland Revenue and the Home Office - has concluded that 1,000 men in the United Kingdom are now polygamists, although some say the figure is higher.

What is more, the review found, a Muslim man can claim state support of more than £10,000 a year to keep his wives, if the wedding took place in one of those countries where polygamy is commonplace, such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia and across huge tracts of Africa.

For example, a man can receive &£92.80 a week in income support for wife number one, and a further £33.65p for each of his subsequent spouses.

Therefore, if he has four wives - the maximum permitted under Islamic teachings - he can claim nearly £800 a month from the British taxpayer.

Controversially, a polygamist is also entitled to more generous housing benefits and bigger council houses to reflect the large size of his family. He is also able to claim £1,000 a year in child benefit for each of his growing brood.

The Government insists that polygamy has declined in Britain since the 1988 Immigration Act, which made it harder for men to bring second, third or fourth wives to the UK.

However, it's little wonder that critics claim our generosity simply encourages more Muslim men to keep several spouses.

Supporters of polygamy claim the Koran states unequivocally that a Muslim man can marry up to four women so long as he treats them equally.

But the Taxpayers' Alliance, a lobby group, has complained: 'Polygamy is not officially condoned here, so why should British taxpayers have to pay for extra benefits for men to have two, three or four wives?' >>> Sue Reid | Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Hat tip: Jihad Watch >>>

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Sponsoring Geert

CAPITAL J | JTA: Daniel Pipes doesn't agree with Dutch politician Geert Wilders' view that the Koran should be banned. But he does believe Wilders should be able to publicly present that view. That's why the Middle East Forum's Legal Project is helping Wilders raise money for his legal defense and sponsored his appearance Wednesday evening at Ahavath Torah Congregation in a Boston suburb.



“I don't need to agree with him to see the importance of him making his arguments,” said Pipes, the director of MEF, about Wilders, who heads the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands and serves in the country's Parliament. Earlier this month, Wilder was not allowed to enter the United Kingdom due to his criticism of Islam, which included comparing it to Nazism, and last month a Dutch court ruled he could be prosecuted for hate speech.



Pipes said Wilders is an important figure who is part of the discussion about confronting and fighting radical Islam. “If our collective voice is impeded from speaking” or “shut down,” said Pipes, then “the way is paved for radical Islam to move ahead.” 


Pipes said he felt hate speech laws, which have also been used to prosecute Holocaust deniers in Europe, are a bad idea.



“I believe in the First Amendment,” he said. Read on & comment >>> Eric Fingerhut | Wednesday, February 25, 2009

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