LE POINT: Israël était sous le choc dimanche au lendemain du meurtre barbare d'un père de famille qui voulait protéger son épouse et sa fille contre une bande de jeunes en état d'ébriété dans un quartier huppé de Tel-Aviv. L'affaire faisait la une de tous les médias israéliens, certains évoquant la violence gratuite d' Orange mécanique , le film culte de Stanley Kubrick. Ces deux dernières semaines, dix personnes ont été assassinées en Israël dans des conditions particulièrement horribles, les corps de plusieurs victimes ayant été mutilés ou jetés à la poubelle et incendiés. La police israélienne a recensé 204 meurtres au cours de l'année écoulée. >>> AFP | Dimanche 16 Août 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
LE POINT: Israël était sous le choc dimanche au lendemain du meurtre barbare d'un père de famille qui voulait protéger son épouse et sa fille contre une bande de jeunes en état d'ébriété dans un quartier huppé de Tel-Aviv. L'affaire faisait la une de tous les médias israéliens, certains évoquant la violence gratuite d' Orange mécanique , le film culte de Stanley Kubrick. Ces deux dernières semaines, dix personnes ont été assassinées en Israël dans des conditions particulièrement horribles, les corps de plusieurs victimes ayant été mutilés ou jetés à la poubelle et incendiés. La police israélienne a recensé 204 meurtres au cours de l'année écoulée. >>> AFP | Dimanche 16 Août 2009
THE GUARDIAN: Iranian president's move could result in country's first female ministers for more than 30 years
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said today he would nominate three women to join his new cabinet.
The nominations could lead to the appointment of the first female ministers in Iran for more than 30 years.
They appear to be an attempt by Ahmadinejad to win the support of Iranian women as he fends off opposition claims that his re-election to the presidency in June was fraudulent.
However, the appointments seem unlikely to appease reformists because two of the three women are fellow hardliners.
Speaking on state television, Ahmadinejad said he would nominate Marzieh Vahid Dastgerdi, a 50-year-old gynaecologist, as health minister and Fatemeh Ajorlu, a 43-year-old MP, as minister of welfare and social security.
He did not name the third woman, but said he would nominate at least one more female minister to his cabinet. >>> Associated Press | Sunday, August 16, 2009
THE SUNDAY TIMES: The American man jailed in Yangon for swimming to the house of Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has flown out of Burma after being released to US officials earlier today.
Authorities in Burma handed over jailed American citizen John Yettaw to US embassy officials earlier today, ahead of his departure from the country with US senator Jim Webb.
The US embassy said Mr Yettaw is now headed to Bangkok, Thailand, on a military plane with Senator Webb.
The senator secured his release on Saturday with a plea to Myanmar's ruling junta.
Mr Webb thanked the government for the release of Mr Yettaw at a brief news conference just prior to their departure this morning. Mr Yettaw was sentenced last week to seven years at hard labour for breaking the terms of Ms Suu Kyi's house arrest in early May.
Senator Webb met Myanmar’s top military leader Than Shwe and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday, and announced the release of the American who was jailed for visiting the Nobel peace laureate.
Mr Webb, a Democrat who is chairman of a Senate subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific, is the first member of Congress to travel in an official capacity to Myanmar in more than a decade and is also believed to be the first senior American official ever to meet Than Shwe. >>> | Sunday, August 16, 2009
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Elizabeth Turner was pregnant with her son when she lost her husband in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre
I woke up on my own on Tuesday September 11, 2001. It was a beautiful autumn day with a bright blue sky, sunshine and a riot of colours that cascaded over the road. I looked at my tummy. It felt huge and I gently rubbed it. I felt very peaceful and happy with my place in the world.
Seven months pregnant, I would have preferred to spend the day in bed, but I had to get to work at Channel 4 Television where I was the senior human resources manager. I had a month to go before maternity leave.
I rolled over and grabbed my mobile from the bedside table. My husband, Simon, was in New York on a business trip and I liked to know that his plane had landed safely. I listened to the message. Of course he was okay. He was always okay.
On my way to work I could smell the beginning of autumn in the air and the blue of the sky was spectacular. It hinted of wonderful things. I suddenly felt a “what a fabulous life this is” moment. I was pregnant, I loved my husband deeply and everything was perfect.
At midday, just as I was collecting my things to go for lunch, Simon rang. He had showered and was ready to leave for a conference. It was in the Windows on the World restaurant at the World Trade Center.
My mind was on other things: “I need to talk to you about the Mamas & Papas buggy we want. I phoned John Lewis and it’s not in stock and I’ve looked on the internet and I can’t find anywhere that sells it ...”
Even I could sense my irrational panic. Simon calmed me down. Simon always calmed me down. I trusted him to take care of me.
This was no mean feat for any man, as I had a scary independent streak that made me feel I had to face the world on my own all the time. We chatted some more. I loved the feeling I had when I connected with him.
At about 1.45pm I walked into my office after lunch and saw on Sky News that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.
I couldn’t take it in. I saw my TV screen, the image of the twin towers with smoke billowing out of one of them and the “breaking news” tag line. I tried to absorb what it was telling me.
Quickly my logical mind jumped in and told me all the statistics, facts, figures, numbers and calculations that prove bad things are rare. I knew Simon was in the twin towers, but I reminded myself that I lived a normal life, I was pregnant and everything would be fine. We were about to have our first child and fathers don’t die just before a baby is born.
Jane Jordan, a human resources colleague, walked in. “This is unbelievable!” >>> © Elizabeth Turner | Sunday, August 16, 2009
Extracted from The Blue Skies of Autumn by Elizabeth Turner to be published by Simon & Schuster on August 20 at £9.99. Copies can be ordered for £8.99, including postage, from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0845 271 2135
L’EXPRESS.fr: Dans un entretien au Financial Times, la secrétaire d'Etat à la Ville s'en prend au voile intégral, reflet de "la manipulation politique d'une religion".
La secrétaire d'Etat à la Ville Fadela Amara estime que l'interdiction de la burqa en France permettrait d'enrayer le cancer que constitue, à ses yeux, l'islam radical.
Dans le quotidien britannique Financial Times, daté de samedi, elle assure que "la vaste majorité des musulmans sont contre la burqa", vêtement couvrant l'ensemble du corps et le visage.
"La gangrène de l'islam radical"
"La burqa ne représente pas simplement un morceau de tissu mais la manipulation politique d'une religion qui réduit les femmes à l'esclavage et va à l'encontre du principe d'égalité entre les hommes et les femmes", déclare-t-elle.
La France, havre d'un islam progressiste, se doit de "combattre la gangrène, le cancer que représente l'islam radical qui déforme complètement le message de l'islam", ajoute Fadela Amara.
Le débat sur le voile intégral a repris récemment en France à l'initiative d'un député communiste, qui a obtenu la création d'une mission parlementaire sur le sujet.
En juin dernier, Nicolas Sarkozy avait déclaré que le voile intégral n'était "pas le bienvenu sur le territoire de la République".
Selon une estimation des services de renseignement récemment évoquée par le quotidien Le Monde, seules 367 femmes porteraient la burqa dans le pays, dont nombre de Françaises converties à l'islam, dans une "démarche provocatrice." [Source: L’Express.fr] Par LEXPRESS.fr avec Reuters | Samedi 15 Août 2009
THE SUNDAY TIMES: The uproar over healthcare reforms is a symptom of how Americans are falling out of love with the new president
Arriving in Montana to join battle with his critics on Friday, President Barack Obama stepped from Air Force One, stripped off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Little more than six months after he swept into office with some of the highest approval ratings recorded, he is fighting to save his historic presidency from turning into a one-term wonder.
Obama was ready for a vigorous defence of the healthcare reforms that have spawned verbal fisticuffs at public meetings across the country. In the event, the Montana meeting unfolded with a subdued politeness that left some White House aides wishing it had been a little more feisty, so their champion could have shown off his sparring skills.
Yet for all the heat that has recently been generated by the healthcare debate, amid wild accusations about euthanising granny and manipulating mobs, it became clear last week that medicine is far from the president’s only problem, and there may be no early cure for the economic ills that are crippling his promises of change and hope.
Speaking in an aircraft hangar moments after a hailstorm had passed over Bel-grade, Montana, the 48-year-old president attempted to calm the confrontational climate that has soured debate about his attempts to overhaul an expensive and inefficient US healthcare establishment.
Sticking to time-honoured presidential tradition, he blamed the media for getting his message wrong, and for focusing on a minority of angry protesters. “TV loves a ruckus,” he added. “What you haven’t seen on TV . . . are the many constructive meetings going on all over the country.”
Yet in one sense that ruckus has spared the White House closer scrutiny of a stuttering economy that may yet prove Obama’s ruin. Recent optimism that the worst of the recession may be over has failed to make an impact on key areas of American life, and Obama last week endured one of the toughest weeks of his presidency in terms of bad economic news.
“The rapid deterioration of the economy has slowed down,” said Alice Rivlin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office. “But if you have lost your job, the worst may not be over for a long time. If you have a job, you may still lose it.”
The main problem for the president is that economic data suggesting improvements in growth and productivity are not yet translating into benefits for victims of recession. Mark Vitner, an economist at Wells Fargo bank, last week summed up future prospects as “a recovery only a statistician can love”.
Obama insisted earlier this month that “actions we’ve taken in the first six months have helped stop our economic freefall . . . we’re losing jobs at half the rate we were at the beginning of the year”.
That boast was promptly undermined when a barrage of negative reports was released last week, showing that personal bankruptcies surged 34% in June compared with last year; the number of homes subjected to foreclosure proceedings rose 32% as against a year ago; the number of people out of work for 27 weeks or longer reached a record 5m; and retail sales dipped in July despite a big boost from a popular secondhand car trade-in programme. Barack Obama catches cold as economic virus spreads >>> Tony Allen-Mills | Sunday, August 16, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: British swimming pools are imposing Muslim dress codes in a move described as divisive by Labour MPs.
Under the rules, swimmers – including non-Muslims – are barred from entering the pool in normal swimming attire.
Instead they are told that they must comply with the "modest" code of dress required by Islamic custom, with women covered from the neck to the ankles and men, who swim separately, covered from the navel to the knees.
The phenomenon runs counter to developments in France, where last week a woman was evicted from a public pool for wearing a burkini – the headscarf, tunic and trouser outfit which allows Muslim women to preserve their modesty in the water.
The 35-year-old, named only as Carole, is threatening legal action after she was told by pool officials in Emerainville, east of Paris, that she could not wear the outfit on hygiene grounds.
But across the UK municipal pools are holding swimming sessions specifically aimed at Muslims, in some case imposing strict dress codes.
Croydon council in south London runs separate one-and-a half-hour swimming sessions for Muslim men and women every Saturday and Sunday at Thornton Heath Leisure Centre.
Swimmers were told last week on the centre's website that "during special Muslim sessions male costumes must cover the body from the navel to the knee and females must be covered from the neck to the ankles and wrists". >>> Patrick Sawer | Saturday, August 15, 2009
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH: Police doubt city man a threat to teenage Christian convert
A Northeast Side 17-year-old who ran away, saying that her father would kill her for leaving Islam, is in state custody in Florida.
But Sgt. Jerry Cupp of the missing-persons unit of the Columbus police special-victims bureau, disputes Fathima Rifqa Bary's allegation. He said her father, Mohamed Bary, appears to be a loving parent who knew about her conversion to Christianity months ago.
The New Albany High School cheerleader, who goes by Rifqa, disappeared on July 19, prompting fears that she had been abducted, Cupp said.
Authorities soon found that she was staying with a married couple who pastor a church in Orlando.
"She was petrified that her dad would kill her," said the Rev. Beverly Lorenz, who leads Global Revolution Church in Orlando along with her husband, the Rev. Blake Lorenz.
Mrs. Lorenz met the girl through a Facebook prayer group. Lorenz barely knew the girl, she said, but took her in when she called from a borrowed cell phone in Florida. >>> Meredith Heagney | Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Read the story at Pamela Geller’s website, Atlas Shrugs >>> | Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Hat tip: Robert Spencer
DAILY EXPRESS: Australia is planning to broadcast a Burmese language radio service into the south-east Asian nation to promote democracy and human rights.
The military junta which rules Burma heavily censors the nation's media and limits the population's communications with the outside world.
But foreign radio remains popular among locals, including US Government-funded Radio Free Asia and Democratic Voice of Burma, a Norwegian-supported operation.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said the Burma service would become the eighth language broadcast by state-owned Radio Australia, which focuses on Asia and the Pacific.
Mr Smith said the service would "open up a new channel of international contact for the people of Burma".
It would also show Australian solidarity with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, he said. >>> | Wednesday, August 12, 2009
LE FIGARO: Au moins six personnes ont été tuées et cinquante blessées à Rafah dans des combats entre la police du Hamas et un groupe salafiste pro-al-Qaida qui voulait instaurer un «califat» dans la ville.
De violents affrontements interpalestiniens ont fait au moins six morts et cinquante blessés vendredi dans le sud de la bande de Gaza, sous le contrôle du Hamas.
La police du mouvement islamiste s'est opposée aux membres d'un groupuscule salafiste radical, Jund Anslar Allah («les guerriers de Dieu»), basé à Rafah, près de la frontière egyptienne.
Ce groupe, qui a fait part de son existence voilà deux mois en lancant une attaque ratée contre Israël, soutient al-Qaida et juge la politique menée par le Hamas trop modérée. Vendredi, il a tenté de décréter un «califat islamique» dans la ville. Plusieurs centaines d'hommes armés de fusils mitrailleurs et de lance roquette ont défilé dans Rafah[.] >>> S.L. (lefigaro.fr) avec AFP, AP | Vendredi 14 Août 2009
TIMES ONLINE: The retired coal miner queuing in the midday sun has come to the town hall meeting with heavy political baggage. “I’ll keep my money and guns — you keep the change,” warns the badge pinned to Carl Anderson’s chest. In his hand is a banner that states simply: “Revolution is Brewing.”
He is here to protest against health reform. Mr Anderson, 70, has travelled 65 miles with seven of his friends and family to add his booming voice to the pensioners’ revolt that has shaken America in the past two weeks.
Convinced that President Obama wants to turn the country into a socialist state, starting with a nationalised health service, he hopes to hijack the political agenda.
Arlen Specter, the local Democratic Senator, is about to get an ear-bashing; his fourth in four days. Mr Anderson obliges: “I have no problem with my healthcare,” he says. “We have the best healthcare in the world. If there is anything I need, I get it.”
Mr Obama’s $1 trillion (£600 billion) health reform Bill would end that, he fears. There will be rationing of treatment, and the old will bear the brunt. “They are going to start evaluating people at the age of 55,” Mr Anderson says.
Most of the roughly 1,000 people outside the community hall of Kittanning, a mining town in the Appalachian hills 50 miles north of Pittsburgh, seem to share Mr Anderson’s views, to judge by their banners. “Nobama,” says one, adorned with the skull and crossbones. “Obama lies, grandma dies,” proclaims another. >>> Imre Karacs, Kittanning, Pennsylvania | Saturday, August 15, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
THE GUARDIAN: Rehashed legislation allows husbands to deny wives food if they fail to obey sexual demands
Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands' sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.
The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.
"It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying 'blood money' to a girl who was injured when he raped her," the US charity Human Rights Watch said.
In early April, Barack Obama and Gordon Brown joined an international chorus of condemnation when the Guardian revealed that the earlier version of the law legalised rape within marriage, according to the UN.
Although Karzai appeared to back down, activists say the revised version of the law still contains repressive measures and contradicts the Afghan constitution and international treaties signed by the country.
Islamic law experts and human rights activists say that although the language of the original law has been changed, many of the provisions that alarmed women's rights groups remain, including this one: "Tamkeen is the readiness of the wife to submit to her husband's reasonable sexual enjoyment, and her prohibition from going out of the house, except in extreme circumstances, without her husband's permission. If any of the above provisions are not followed by the wife she is considered disobedient."
The law has been backed by the hardline Shia cleric Ayatollah Mohseni, who is thought to have influence over the voting intentions of some of the country's Shias, which make up around 20% of the population. Karzai has assiduously courted such minority leaders in the run up to next Thursday's election, which is likely to be a close run thing, according to a poll released yesterday.
Human Rights Watch, which has obtained a copy of the final law, called on all candidates to pledge to repeal the law, which it says contradicts Afghanistan's own constitution.
The group said that Karzai had "made an unthinkable deal to sell Afghan women out in the support of fundamentalists in the August 20 election". >>> Jon Boone in Kandahar | Friday, August 14, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: Police in riot gear used tear gas yesterday against Venezuelan demonstrators angry about a law that they believe could lead to the "socialist indoctrination" of the nation's schools.
Officers fired tear gas into crowds who were protesting in Caracas against President Chávez's plans to broaden state control over the education system.
Scuffles broke out as clouds of caustic, white gas wafted through the air outside the predominantly pro-Chávez National Assembly.
Inside, legislators began debating a Bill which would order schools to base the curriculum on "the Bolivarian Doctrine" - a reference to the ideals of the 19th-century independence hero Simon Bolivar.
After a marathon ten-hour session, the assembly — where Mr Chávez's party commands a majority — approved the Bill in the early hours of today.
But close to a dozen members sided with the opposition and walked out of the assembly in protest against the ruling party’s refusal to compromise on the Bill’s most contentious articles. >>> | Friday, August 14, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: Despite nine weeks of savage repression since Iran’s hotly disputed presidential election, opponents of the regime refuse to accept defeat. They accuse the Government of torturing political detainees. They spread samizdat DVDs, use paintball guns to obliterate government posters, and attack government websites.
Mehdi Karroubi, one of the defeated presidential candidates, kept up the public pressure this week by claiming that male and female detainees have been raped in the Evin and Kahrizak prisons in Tehran, and that political prisoners were being tortured to death.
“We observe that in an Islamic country some young people are beaten to death just for chanting slogans,” Mr Karoubi wrote on his website.
Other detainees “were forced to take off their clothes. Then they were made to go on their hands and knees and were ridden [by prison guards]. Or the prison authorities put them on top of each other while they were naked... Do such treatments conform with Islam, which is a religion of mercy?”
Mr Karoubi’s allegations, which are supported by Western human rights organisations, seemed designed to deepen rifts within the conservative establishment over the way detainees have been treated.
They certainly appeared to strike a nerve. The regime has denounced them as baseless, and demanded Mr Karoubi produce proof. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a hardline cleric, used his sermon at Friday prayers to demand that Mr Karoubi be prosecuted. He said that the accusations were “full of libel, a total slander against the Islamic system” that helped Iran’s enemies.
With the security forces brutally suppressing any street demonstrations, grassroots activists are adopting subtler methods of resisting a regime that they consider illegitimate.
They still chant “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest) from the rooftops every night, and write anti-regime slogans on banknotes, but they are also daubing graffiti (“Death to basiji”, “Death to the dictator”) on walls across the capital and using paintball guns to obliterate posters of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, with green paint. Sometimes they simply paint a black X across his portrait. >>> Martin Fletcher | Friday, August 14, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)