Monday, December 14, 2009
PINK NEWS: The Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has made his first public statement on the proposed anti-gay bill passing through Uganda's parliament.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph on Saturday, presumably taken before reports that Uganda would remove the most drastic elements of the bill, Williams said he did not see how any Anglican could support it.
He said: "Overall, the proposed legislation is of shocking severity and I can’t see how it could be supported by any Anglican who is committed to what the Communion has said in recent decades.
“Apart from invoking the death penalty, it makes pastoral care impossible – it seeks to turn pastors into informers.”
He added that the Anglican Church in Uganda opposes the death penalty but added that its archbishop, Henry Orombi, who boycotted the Lambeth Conference last year, “has not taken a position on this bill”.
The private members' bill originally sought to impose the death penalty or life imprisonment on those who have gay sex. After it was condemned by countries such as the UK, US and France, along with human rights groups, the country's minister for ethics and integrity, James Nsaba Buturo, reportedly said a more "refined" set of punishments would be favoured instead of execution. >>> Staff Writer, Pink News | Monday, December 14, 2009
ADVOCATE.COM: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laid out the Administration's vision for human rights in a wide-ranging speech Monday at Georgetown University and specifically referenced the antigay Uganda bill that would carry a death sentence for committing certain acts of homosexuality.
"We cannot separate our democracy, human rights, and development agendas," Clinton said, "they are mutually reinforcing and united in service of a common purpose - to create a world where all people have the opportunity to fulfill their God-given potential."
In reference to Uganda, Clinton said, "Governments should be expected to resist the temptation to restrict freedom of expression when criticism arises, and be vigilant in preventing law from becoming an instrument of oppression, as bills like the one under consideration in Uganda to criminalize homosexuality would do. " >>> Advocate.com Editors | Monday, December 14, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: The members of the Chilcot Inquiry have a choice: they can be loyal to the Establishment or they can expose the subterfuge
The degree of deceit involved in our decision to go to war on Iraq becomes steadily clearer. This was a foreign policy disgrace of epic proportions and playing footsie on Sunday morning television does nothing to repair the damage. It is now very difficult to avoid the conclusion that Tony Blair engaged in an alarming subterfuge with his partner George Bush and went on to mislead and cajole the British people into a deadly war they had made perfectly clear they didn’t want, and on a basis that it’s increasingly hard to believe even he found truly credible. Who is any longer naive enough to accept that the then Prime Minister’s mind remained innocently open after his visit to Crawford, Texas?
Hindsight is a great temptress. But we needn’t trouble her on the way to a confident conclusion that Mr Blair’s fundamental flaw was his sycophancy towards power. Perhaps this seems odd in a man who drank so much of that mind-altering brew at home. But Washington turned his head and he couldn’t resist the stage or the glamour that it gave him. In this sense he was weak and, as we can see, he remains so. Since those sorry days we have frequently heard him repeating the self-regarding mantra that “hand on heart, I only did what I thought was right”. But this is a narcissist’s defence and self-belief is no answer to misjudgment: it is certainly no answer to death. “Yo, Blair”, perhaps, was his truest measure.
How effectively the Chilcot Inquiry, to which Mr Blair will give evidence in the new year, can expose any of this remains to be seen. Ominously for the former Prime Minister, his growing distance from power appears to be loosening some well-placed Whitehall tongues. It seems that the contempt felt by some mandarins for his fancier footwork around the weapons of mass destruction is finally showing in a belated settling of scores. Discretion is fading like toothache and the feast of revenge is as tempting as it is cold. Yet the position of the inquiry panel is uncertain. … >>> Ken Macdonald | Monday, December 14, 2009
NZZ ONLINE: Die USA wollen im Streit über das iranische Atomprogramm den Druck auf Teheran verstärken. Nach den Worten von Aussenministerin Hillary Clinton sind die bisherigen Bemühungen der Regierung von Präsident Obama gescheitert, die iranische Führung zum Einlenken zu bewegen. Nun müsse der Druck auf den Iran erhöht werden.
Die USA schlägt gegenüber dem Iran schärfere Töne an. Aussenministerin Clinton kündigte am Montag vor Journalisten in Washington an, ihr Land wolle härter gegen die Atompläne der Iraner vorgehen.
Israel will mehr Härte
Auch der israelische Verteidigungsminister Ehud Barak forderte bei einem Besuch in Wien eine harte Haltung gegenüber dem Iran: «Es braucht starke, neue Sanktionen», sagte er. Eine iranische Atombombe würde ein regionales Wettrüsten nach sich ziehen. Deswegen dürfe niemand eine Option ausschliessen, sagte Barak am Montag mit Blick auf Militärschläge gegen die iranischen Atomanlagen. >>> ap | Montag, 14. Dezember 2009
GALA.fr: «Je suis mieux avec lui que seule» >>> | Lundi 14 Décembre 2009
WELT ONLINE: Die nordrhein-westfälische Vereinigung "Pro NRW" nimmt die Schweiz zum Vorbild: Die rechtspopulistische Organisation will eine große Kampagne gegen Minarette und Moscheen starten und so gegen "muslimische Landnahme" vorgehen. Dabei will "Pro NRW" auch eine Klausel im EU-Reformvertrag nutzen.
Nach der erfolgreichen Volksabstimmung für ein Minarett-Verbot in der Schweiz planen deutsche Rechtspopulisten eine groß angelegte Anti-Moschee-Kampagne. Die nordrhein-westfälische Vereinigung „Pro NRW“, deren Kölner Keimzelle vom Verfassungsschutz beobachtet wird, will bis zur Landtagswahl am 9. Mai 2010 mit anderen europäischen Rechtsparteien eine politische Strategie entwickeln, um Neubauten muslimischer Gebetshäuser zu verhindern.
„Wir werden einen dezidiert islamkritischen Landtagswahlkampf führen. Wir werden die Schweizer Plakate für das Minarett-Verbot verwenden. Wir sehen Moscheebauten als aggressive Machtsymbolik einer muslimischen Landnahme“, sagte der Generalsekretär von „Pro NRW“, Markus Wiener, WELT ONLINE. Die Schweizerische Volkspartei (SVP) hat nach seinen Angaben die Nutzung der Motive mit den schwarzen raketenähnlichen Minaretttürmen und der verhüllten Muslima erlaubt. >>> Von Kristian Frigelj | Montag, 14. Dezember 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: The Taliban can be admired for their conviction to their faith and their sense of loyalty to one another, the new Bishop for the Armed Forces has claimed.
The Rt Rev Stephen Venner called for a more sympathetic approach to the Islamic fundamentalists that recognises their humanity.
The Church of England’s Bishop to the Forces warned that it will be harder to reach a peaceful solution to the war if the Afghan insurgents are portrayed too negatively.
His comments came as the Prime Minister visited Afghanistan and warned that the Taliban was fighting a "guerilla war" aimed at causing "maximum damage". Gordon Brown said soldiers were discovering improvised explosive devices every two hours. >>> Jonathan Wynne-Jones and Duncan Gardham | Sunday, December 13, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: The Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was left bloodied and shaken after he was punched in the face as he left a political rally in Milan.
The 73-year-old premier collapsed after he was apparently struck in the face by a man who was clutching a small statue of the Duomo, the city's world-famous cathedral.
A shaken Mr Berlusconi was quickly dragged to his waiting car by his security guards and driven to hospital.
Doctors said he had not suffered concussion and had insisted "I'm fine, I'm fine, don't worry about me" as he was stretchered in from his car. But they said he had bled profusely from his mouth and two of his teeth were loose, one of them fractured. >>> Nick Pisa in Rome | Sunday, Decemebr 13, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, warned opposition leaders on Sunday to distance themselves from protesters he accused of acting against the Islamic regime's late founder Ayatollah Khomeini.
Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have faced mounting pressure since December 7 anti-government protests during which a poster of the late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was allegedly torn up.
"Those who shout slogans in the name of these people (opposition leaders), hoist their pictures and speak of them with respect are in a point which is the exact opposite of the Imam (Khomeini), revolution and Islam," the Supreme Leader said on state television.
"When you see this, step aside," he said in remarks addressed to the two opposition leaders, who he referred to as his "former brothers".
"I don't believe in purging, I believe in maximum attraction, but it looks as if some people insist on distancing themselves from the system and they have turned a family dispute into a battle against the system," the Ayatollah said. >>> | Sunday, December 13, 2009
THE SUNDAY TIMES: A third of Algerians are under 15 - inheritors of a brutal legacy of ancient and modern hatreds. Their country has suffered through civil war, terrorism and Islamic extremism. Is this uneasy peace what post-fundamentalism looks like?
"Is this your first time in Algeria?” everyone I meet asks me. It’s a polite inquiry, a courtesy veiling an admonishment, an accusation. “Where were you? Why did you take so long?” And with a weedy smile I reply, in geographic mitigation, that this isn’t my first time in the Maghreb. “Morocco,” they’d sigh. Yes, Morocco. “Ah, Morocco,” they’d repeat with a curl of the lip. “Disneyland.” And, compared to Algiers, it is.
Nobody’s been to Algeria for a decade unless they had a very pressing reason and some very secure connections. The last photographer I knew who tried to do a story here never got out of his hotel room. He went straight back to the airport, thoroughly scared. There were precious few news teams or foreign journalists — 11 years of civil war have been unforgivingly diligent and murderous and terrifying. Threats in Algeria are never empty. They come replete and fatty with promise, dripping with a brutal, dark efficiency.
“Zidane,” I say — Zinédine Zidane is the only contemporary Algerian anyone’s heard of. “Zidane,” they reply, “everyone was following him, looked to him for pride, for a sign.” Pity about the last match, though, that final head-butt in the 2006 World Cup. “What do you mean?” a man exploded at me, waving his hands. “We loved that! That moment! All his life Zidane was acquiescent, silent, a brown Frenchman, and then finally at the last he did something properly, authentically Algerian.”
Algiers curls like a sun-bleached spine around a great natural harbour. It is a city of lairs, of shadows. Up front is the icing, the promenade: unmistakably, vauntingly French. Tall white apartment blocks with beautiful Algiers-blue shutters and awnings hanging above shaded arcades of shops and deep, dark bars. There are broad, curving boulevards edged with ficus trees that have been pollarded and topiaried into a suspended, undulating green sunshade. It has that faded and dusty decrepitude that so suits colonial architecture, that lends a nostalgia to the bourgeois snobbery and imposed racism. The French city looks out across the Mediterranean towards Marseilles, its mirror. >>> AA Gill | Sunday, December 13, 2009
LE FIGARO: Des inconnus ont taggé sur les murs extérieurs de l'édifice situé à Castres des propos xénophobes et des croix gammées. Des pieds et des oreilles de cochon ont également été retrouvés.
La mosquée Bilal de Castres, dans le Tarn, a été profanée dans la nuit de samedi à dimanche par des inconnus. Après avoir franchi le portail de deux mètres, ils ont dessiné des croix gammées et écrit «Sieg heil» (slogan nazi, ndlr) sur les murs extérieurs de l'édifice, où ils ont également tracé des inscriptions telles que «La France aux Français» et «White power», a indiqué le président de l'Association islamique de Castres, Abdelmalek Bouregba, responsable du lieu de culte.
Des pieds de cochon ont également été suspendus à la poignée du portail. Sur la porte, des oreilles de cochon avaient été agrafées et des affiches placardées sur lesquelles étaient dessinés des drapeaux français, a-t-il précisé. Il a indiqué que les auteurs de la profanation n'avaient pas pénétré à l'intérieur de la mosquée. La police s'est rendue sur place pour procéder à des relevés d'empreintes, a ajouté Abdelmalek Bouregba, en précisant qu'il allait porter plainte.
Le responsable de la mosquée, ouverte en 1986 dans un ancien hangar et comportant une salle de prière de quelque 200 m2, s'est déclaré outré par la profanation, qu'il a qualifié d'«acte prémédité». «C'est un ensemble. Depuis un certain temps, on n'arrête pas de viser la communauté musulmane», a-t-il dénoncé, faisant notamment allusion à certains dérapages dans les débats sur l'identité nationale et au référendum pour l'interdiction de la construction de nouveaux minarets en Suisse.
«Aucune piste n'est écartée», a déclaré Paul Agostini, le directeur de la police départemental du Tarn, qui a précisé qu'aucun incident, ni litige n'avait été signalé les jours précédents autour de la mosquée. Une enquête est en cours. Condamnations unanimes >>> AFP | Dimanche 13 Décembre 2009
MAIL ON SUNDAY: David Miliband has secretly banned British embassy staff from giving help to BNP leader Nick Griffin.
The Foreign Secretary has also ordered diplomats not to assist the far-Right party’s other MEP, former National Front leader Andrew Brons.
A letter, entitled ‘Handling Extremist MEPs’ and marked ‘Restricted’, was circulated to the heads of Britain’s European embassies after the pair were elected to the European Parliament in June.
Written by Matthew Rycroft, the UK’s top European Union diplomat, it says far-Right MEPs, like other British members of the European Parliament, can be sent ‘factual written briefings’ on policy issues but nothing else.
British MEPs from mainstream parties can normally expect private briefings from officials and to be offered the chance to meet diplomats and Ministers.
Mr Rycroft wrote: ‘FCO Ministers have decided that there should be no other contact with MEPs of any nationality who represent racist or extremist views.’ David Miliband Bans Envoys from Helping the BNP >>> Jason Lewis, Mail on Sunday Security Editor | Sunday, December 13, 2009
LE TEMPS: La Constitution fédérale devrait contenir un article sur la tolérance religieuse plutôt qu’interdire les minarets, préconisent deux professeurs de droit renommés, Jörg Paul Müller et Daniel Thürer. La conseillère fédérale Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf veut rassembler les organisations musulmanes
Jörg Paul Müller, ensignant notamment à l’EPFZ, et Daniel Thürer, de l’Université de Zurich, proposent un article constitutionnel sur la tolérance. Il régirait non seulement la question des minarets, mais aussi des autres signes extérieurs jugés dérangeants par les partisants de l’interdiction, comme le port de la burqa ou les mariages arrangés, selon «Sonntag».
Le projet de texte stipule que «les communautés religieuses prennent garde à ne pas heurter les sentiments du public dans leurs manifestations extérieures, que ce soit par leurs immeubles, leurs prescriptions vestimentaires ou leurs symboles. Elles évitent tout comportement menaçant». Dans l’esprit des auteurs, les attitudes menaçantes peuvent inclure les vêtements «pouvant générer de l’angoisse».
Les constructions prohibées seraient celles qui «traduisent des prétentions au pouvoir ou des représailles de la part d’une communauté religieuse». Le respect des droits humains fondamentaux et de la démocratie de la part des groupes religieux serait aussi inclu. >>> ATS/LT | Dimanche 13 Décembre 2009
THE SUNDAY TIMES: EVERY evening before dinner, Mohsen Sazegara disappears into the basement of his cosy suburban house in Virginia and makes a 10-minute home movie to post on YouTube.
Far from showcasing the talents of his sons or pets, Sazegara’s videos are of protest tactics aimed at bringing down a regime. His house is the epicentre of what he hopes will be the world’s first technological revolution and his videos are watched more than 6,000 miles away in Iran.
Six months after the disputed presidential election in Iran, the opposition has refused to give up despite a crackdown that has seen arrests, beatings, torture and show trials. Co-ordination of the so-called green revolution has increasingly moved overseas, where exiles are using the new media to spread the message.
Last week, when tens of thousands of students took to the streets of Iran in some of the biggest demonstrations since the elections, Sazegara had been sending instructions via Facebook, YouTube and email.
He stands in front of a green baize screen decorated with a V for victory and the movement’s slogan, “Green means resistance until spring comes”. After a brief assessment of the day’s events, he offers Iranians new ideas for fighting the regime.
They have good reason to listen. Thirty years ago, as a young revolutionary, he helped to topple the Shah, putting today’s Islamic regime in power and working as a speechwriter for its founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Sazegara was one of the founders of the Revolutionary Guard. Now he is teaching protesters how to tackle the force.
“In one part of my life I was involved in creating something; now, after 30 years, I’m trying to destroy it,” he said. >>> Christina Lamb in Virginia | Sunday, December 13, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: Muslim population 'rising 10 times faster than rest of society': Professor Coleman said that Muslims would naturally reap collective benefits from the increase in population. “In the growth of any population ... [its] voice is regarded as being stronger in terms of formulating policy, not least because we live in a democracy where most people in most religious groups and most racial groups have votes. That necessarily means their opinions have to be taken and attention to be paid to them.” >>> Richard Kerbaj | Friday, January 30, 2009
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