Obama – ein Jahr später: Der politische Wind wendet sich in den USA gegen die Demokraten
NZZ ONLINE: Selten war der Amtsantritt eines amerikanischen Präsidenten mit ähnlich hohen Erwartungen verknüpft gewesen wie Barack Obamas Einzug ins Weisse Haus an jenem denkwürdigen 20. Januar 2009. Dass sich in der Zwischenzeit Ernüchterung eingestellt hat, ist kein überraschendes Fazit nach einem Jahr. Denn schon an dem strahlenden Wintertag, als Obama auf den Stufen des Capitols seinen Amtseid ablegte, liess sich erahnen, dass der neue Präsident mit unerfüllbar hohen Erwartungen konfrontiert war. Zwei Kriege und die schwerste Wirtschaftskrise seit mehr als einem halben Jahrhundert nagten an der Zuversicht der Nation. Die Hoffnung auf Wandel und Erneuerung nach Jahren der republikanischen Dominanz hatte den jungen Senator zum Sieg getragen; doch ein Rezept zum Regieren war dies noch nicht. Einmal an der Macht, musste Obama sein vages Wahlprogramm konkretisieren und einen Teil seiner Anhänger, die ganz anderes auf ihn projiziert hatten, unweigerlich enttäuschen. >>> Neue Zürcher Zeitung | Samstag, 16. Januar 2010

Vatican : Juifs d’Italie sur la défensive
LE TEMPS: Le grand rabbin Di Segni maintient son invitation dimanche malgré la polémique au sujet de la volonté du pape de béatifier Pie XII, controversé pour son silence sur l’extermination des juifs

La traversée du Tibre, de la basilique de Saint-Pierre au vieux ghetto juif, devait s’effectuer dans le sillage lumineux de Jean Paul II, le premier pape de l’histoire à se rendre, en 1986, à la synagogue de Rome. Dimanche soir, la visite de Benoît XVI dans le grand temple de la capitale italienne sera, au contraire, entourée de l’ombre sulfureuse de Pie XII. La décision de Joseph Ratzinger de proclamer, le mois dernier, «vénérable» Eugenio Pacelli (en même temps que Karol Wojtyla) et d’en célébrer les «vertus héroïques» pour franchir une étape supplémentaire dans la cause en béatification du pape controversé pour ses silences durant la guerre a en effet relancé incompréhensions, polémiques, à la limite du courroux. >>> Eric Jozsef | Samedi 16 Janvier 2010

Iran will Protestaufrufe per SMS bestrafen: Schwester von Nobelpreisträgerin Ebadi freigelassen
NZZ ONLINE: Die iranischen Behörden wollen künftig mit drastischen Strafen gegen Protestaufrufe der Opposition über E-Mail und SMS vorgehen. Auf Druck der Öffentlichkeit wurde dagegen die Schwester von Nobelpreisträgerin Ebadi freigelassen.

Polizeichef Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam sagte am Freitag, Mobilfunk und Internet würden vollständig überwacht. «Diese Individuen sollten nicht davon ausgehen, dass sie ihre Identität verbergen können», wurde der General von der halbamtlichen Nachrichtenagentur ISNA zitiert. >>> ddp | Freitag, 15. Januar 2010

Melanie Phillips: The UK Will Be an Islamic State
Part 1:



Part 2:

Islam4UK’s Radical Spokesman Anjem Choudary Pledges to Keep Preaching
Anjem Choudary, Islam4UK's spokesman, sips a latte and talks about the creation of an Islamic state of Britain. Photograph: Times Online
TIMES ONLINE: Anjem Choudary sits in a North London café, sips on a vanilla latte and then launches into a tirade about the decadence of the West.

With machinegun delivery, he expounds on numerous themes: British Muslims are suffering persecution because the Government rules by division; Sharia will solve all Britain’s ills; Western governments are carrying out terror attacks in the Middle East so they can be blamed on extremists.

His propaganda is peppered with colourful analogies. Moderate Muslims, for example, have lost their values and are like “vegetarians who eat beefburgers”. Holding court, with three young supporters hanging on his every word, it appears like business as usual for Mr Choudary. Except for one matter: we met on Thursday morning, when the Home Office ban on Islam4UK, Mr Choudary’s controversial group, had just come into effect. He and his supporters, dressed in traditional Islamic fashion, are defiant nonetheless.

Mr Choudary, a former solicitor whose plans to stage an anti-war protest in Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire caused widespread furore, told The Times: “Unless the Government can prove that you are ostensibly exactly the same organisation, doing the same things at the same time, it’s very difficult to clamp down.

“I’m not going to stop propagating Islam. I can still talk with journalists ... we can still go out publicly and talk about Islam. I could write a leaflet now ... and I could invite people to Islam.” The question he was unable to answer, however, was whether many people would actually be interested. >>> Fiona Hamilton, London Correspondent | Saturday, January 16, 2010

Anjem Choudary on the Islam4UK Ban
Watch BBC video here | Thursday, January 14, 2010
Islam4UK Founder: 'We Will Prevail'
Listen to BBC audio here | Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Islam4UK Spokesman Challenged on Ban and Apostasy
Watch BBC video here | Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Islam4UK Islamist Group Has Right of Appeal
Watch BBC video here | Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Senior Member of Extreme Islamist Group Hizb ut-Tahrir Teaches at LSE
Reza Pankhurst, now an LSE teacher, greets his wife in 2006 after four years in an Egyptian jail for promoting the Hizb ut-Tahrir movement. Photo: Times Online
TIMES ONLINE: A senior figure in Hizb ut-Tahrir, a hardline Islamist group that the Government keeps “under continuous review” and the Conservatives want to ban, is teaching and preaching at a top university.

The Times has learnt that Reza Pankhurst, who was imprisoned in Egypt for membership of the group, is a teacher at the London School of Economics and regularly preaches to students at Friday prayers.

The group is supposedly barred from organising and speaking on campuses under the National Union of Students’ policy of “no platform” for racist or fascist views. The presence of one of its prominent members as a university teacher raises new concerns about Islamist radicalisation on campus.

A new review of campus extremism began last month after it was discovered that the alleged Detroit airline bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was a former president of the Islamic Society at University College London.

The Times understands that at least two London university lecturers are either supporters or members of Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Mr Pankhurst is a postgraduate student in the LSE’s government department and teaches classes for the course “States, Nations and Empires”. >>> Sean O’Neill, Crime and Security Editor | Friday, January 15, 2010

The Bloviator-in-Chief Doesn’t Have to Shut Up; So Why Should We?

Surprise! Surprise! So Obama Couldn’t Walk on Water After All!
THE TELEGRAPH: President Barack Obama has admitted he failed to unite Americans and change the way Washington works during his first year in office.

With his approval ratings falling below 50 per cent, Mr Obama confessed his disappointment at not delivering key pledges of his campaign.

"What I haven't been able to do in the midst of this crisis is bring the country together in a way that we had done in the inauguration," he told People magazine. "That's what's been lost this year ... that whole sense of changing how Washington works."

Mr Obama, who will mark a year in office next Wednesday, came to power amid a surge of optimism that he could unify Democrats and Republicans at a time of national distress, and reverse the bitter polarity of the George W Bush era.

Instead, there has been little collaboration between the parties in Congress while floating voters who turned out en masse for Mr Obama have deserted him in opinion polls. His approval ratings have tumbled down from the mid-to-high 60s when he took over.

In a Quinnipiac University poll, there was even a narrow margin among respondents of 35 to 37 per cent on whether the United States would have been better off had Obama's Republican opponent John McCain won the 2008 election. Barack Obama admits failure to unite the US >>> Alex Spillius in Washington | Thursday, January 14, 2010

La burqa fait gonfler les voiles du Front national
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: FRANCE | Débat à grand spectacle, hier soir, entre Marine Le Pen et le ministre Eric Besson.

La Suisse a ses minarets devenus les «marronniers» de son identité nationale. La France, elle, a sa burqa pour agiter le débat sur cette question. Pour l’instant, la polémique sur le port du voile intégral dans la République voisine fait gonfler les voiles du Front national.

En effet, hier soir, Marine Le Pen – qui s’impose pour remplacer son père à la tête de la formation d’extrême droite – s’est mesurée au ministre de l’Immigration, Eric Besson, invité principal de l’émission A vous de juger sur France 2, avec l’eurodéputé socialiste Vincent Peillon comme troisième personnage. Mais au dernier moment le socialiste a renoncé à participer à ce qu’il appelle un «piège» qui ferait le lit du Front national.

Quant aux dérapages de son grand débat sur l’identité nationale, le ministre Besson s’est caché derrière… notre pays: «Je ne pouvais pas prévoir le vote suisse sur les minarets qui a provoqué une onde de choc dans toute l’Europe et pas seulement en France.»

Marine Le Pen reprend la balle au bond: «Même si ce n’était pas votre but, les Français se sont saisis de ce débat. Ils ont exprimé un véritable appel au secours en vous disant, nous sommes bousculés dans nos habitudes par une immigration massive. L’intégration est un échec total. Nous souffrons. Et vous n’entendez pas cette souffrance.» Zizanies >>> Jean-Noël Cuénod | Vendredi 15 Janvier 2010

Séisme en Haïti : les images vidéo de la catastrophe


Haïti Appel Séisme: Votre aide est nécessaire >>>

'Allah' By Any Other Name
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: The government's censorship has only compounded Malaysia's troubles.

Religious violence is rare in Malaysia, and so its people are rightly alarmed at the current spate of attacks on churches, which can conjure up memories of the 1969 race riots. The government has strongly condemned the attacks, but its policy of trying to coddle its Muslim population undermines its stated goal of an open Islam and stokes the very religious tension that it wants desperately to avoid.

The violence is the latest consequence of attempts to ban the use of the word "Allah" by Christians. In 1986, the Interior Security Ministry barred the word from non-Islamic publications on the grounds that it could confuse Muslims, but the ordinance was usually not enforced. However in December 2007, the Malaysian Chinese Muslim Association and the Islamic religious councils of seven states invoked it in a lawsuit against the Malay language weekly, the Catholic Herald. The government sided with the councils, saying that Christians' use of the term "could increase tension and create confusion among Muslims." Authorities also asked the Herald to put on its front page the word terhad, "restricted," meaning solely for distribution to Christians.

Christians and others responded that "Allah" has been used by Christians for centuries to refer to God, including in Malaysia. No other country has such a ban; even the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) says it opposes one. "Allah," the Arabic word for God, is used by Christians in Egypt and Syria, and, of course, neighboring Indonesia. On Dec. 31, 2009, the High Court ruled that Christians had a constitutional right to use "Allah." The government called for calm, but quickly said it would appeal and, on January 6, the judge suspended her ruling pending an appeals court decision. Subsequently, nine churches have been attacked, most of them firebombed. There have also been attacks on the Catholic Herald's legal team, whose offices were vandalized yesterday.

This is not the only federal government attempt to repress anything that could be perceived as deviating from the state-sanctioned version of Islam. In 2005, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi proposed that Malay-language bibles have "Not for Muslims" on the front. In 2003, the government banned publication of a Bible in Iban, an indigenous language, although the ban was later lifted. In March 2009, customs officials seized Christian books and other materials containing "Allah," and now some 15,000 volumes have been impounded. Since Indonesian Christian books in Bahasa contain the word "Allah" they cannot be imported. The government has also rebuffed calls for a state interfaith advisory council. >>> Paul Marshall* | Thursday, January 14, 2010

*Mr. Marshall is senior fellow at the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom in Washington.

Haiti Survivors Desperately Wait for Aid


Haiti Earthquake Appeal: YOUR HELP Is Needed! >>>

Livni: Turkey Must Choose Between ME Moderates and Fundamental Islam
THE JERUSALEM POST: As the most recent confrontation with Turkey began to abate, Kadima and opposition leader Tzipi Livni said Thursday that Ankara would have to decide which side to align itself with.

"Every country in the region must decide which side it is on. This goes for Turkey, too," Livni said. "The choice is not between Israel and the Palestinians or the Jews and the Arab but between Israel, the legitimate Palestinian Authority, Egypt, and Jordan and the world of fundamental Islam."

Livni was adamant that Valley of the Wolves, the Turkish TV series depicting Mossad agents as kidnappers and baby-killers, could only serve to incite violence. "Erdogan's words are also very worrying," she said.

"If anyone thinks that games of [musical] chairs are the way to defend Israel's interests ... they are making a strategic mistake," Livni concluded. [Source: The Jerusalem Post] JPost.com Staff | Thursday, January 14, 2010

Gay Marriage: Courtroom Drama
THE ECONOMIST: A vital case gets under way in California

LOS ANGELES – THE venue, gay-friendly San Francisco, is a predictable one for a legal challenge that may lead to the legalisation of gay marriage in America. But that hardly detracts from the drama of the trial of Perry v Schwarzenegger, which began on January 11th. Pitting two gay couples (including Kristin Perry) against the state of California (represented by its governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger), it is a federal review of whether Proposition 8, a Californian voter initiative of 2008 that outlawed gay marriage in the state, is constitutional.

Whatever the outcome, the case is likely to end up in the Supreme Court. But first the trial will do two things: it will establish for the first time a body of expert evidence which appellate courts can use to evaluate claims by supporters and opponents of gay marriage. And it will blur the existing partisan divide on the issue between conservatives and liberals.

This is thanks to the unusual pairing of lawyers who are arguing in favour of gay marriage for the plaintiffs. David Boies, a well-known liberal who acted for Al Gore in his 2000 court fight against George Bush over the presidency, is an unsurprising choice. But his partner, Theodore Olson, is a prominent conservative and was Mr Boies’s courtroom adversary in 2000. Now he has teamed up with Mr Boies to argue for legalising gay marriage based on what he considers an arch-conservative interpretation of the constitution. >>> | Thursday, January 14, 2010

Giacomo Puccini: O mio babbino caro

Supermarkets Criticise Government Plans to Raise Cost of Alcohol
Socialist governments just can’t help themselves, can they? They believe that for every societal ill, there is a tax that will solve the problem. Either that, or they come with an outright ban, as has been done for all smoking in public places, and fox-hunting.

Now they come with this hare-brained idea to put even more tax on alcohol in order to combat the ugly binge-drinking ‘culture’ if culture it can indeed be called!

Binge-drinking has its causes deeply-rooted in the way we bring up our children today. We in the West have forgotten that children need to be raised by full-time mothers, not part-time ones. A part-time mother is as much use as a part-time lover!

If this government is really serious about tackling binge-drinking, it needs to find a way to encourage mothers to return to being there full-time for their children in the formative years. The government also needs to find a way of reversing the trend of the break-up of the family, for without a strong family unit, there is no sanction on dreadful behaviour by our young people.

It’s time that we stopped deluding ourselves. Good, responsible behaviour is learnt in the home, and from good, solid mothers and fathers. No tax from a socialist government wll ever be a substitute for that! – © Mark

THE TELEGRAPH: Britain’s biggest supermarkets have criticised Government proposals to introduce a minimum price for alcohol saying it will fail to curb the country’s binge drinking culture.

They are outraged at the plans which they claim will end up targeting the wrong people and penalize middle-class consumers who drink responsibly instead.

A spokesman for Sainsbury’s said: “We believe that minimum pricing will unfairly penalise our shoppers, the vast majority of whom buy alcohol as part of their weekly shop and drink responsibly in their own homes.”

And a spokesman for Tesco agreed, saying: “We accept that the country has a binge drinking problem, but the vast majority of alcohol bought at our stores is by responsible people who enjoy a bargain.”

Yesterday, the Daily Telegraph revealed the Government was planning to fight the next election on proposals to cut alcohol abuse with a staged scheme including tougher warnings on labels and bans on discounting drinks which would culminiate in minimum prices.

But the price-fixing scheme could lead to a doubling in price of the cheapest alcoholic drinks sold in supermarkets.

Tesco said the doubling of prices would not stop alcohol abuse and would just encourage consumers to buy elsewhere.

The British Retail Consortium said cheap alcohol sold by supermarkets was not to blame and described the introduction of minimum prices as “unfair”.

Andrew Opie, food director at the British Retail Consortium, said: “Any change in alcohol policy must be based on evidence and not disadvantage the millions of people who drink responsibly and would be unfairly affected by price hikes.

“Simply putting prices up will not tackle problem drinking. It has cultural causes and they are what must be addressed. The UK already has some of the highest alcohol taxes in Europe. >>> Myra Butterworth, Rosa Prince and Simon Johnson | Thursday, January 14, 2010

Barack Obama Imposes Tax on Big Banks
THE TELEGRAPH: President Barack Obama has unveiled a new tax on the country's biggest banks to recoup the money spent bailing the system out, putting the administration on a collision course with Wall Street.

Barack Obama, the US president, is imposing a levy on banks to recoup bail-out costs. Photograph: The Telegraph
The plan, if approved by Congress, would levy the tax on up to 50 financial services companies based on the total size of their liabilities. White House officials estimates it will raise at least $90bn over the next decade and wrest back for the taxpayer the money given the banks as part of the $700bn Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP).

Mr Obama said the move is aimed at preventing Wall Street firms from going back to "business as usual" and resuming high-risk lending practices and huge bets on mortgages and other instruments he blames for igniting the financial crisis.

"My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed," said Mr Obama.

"My determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people – have not been made whole, and who continue to face real hardship in this recession."

His announcement comes amid rising public anger in America at the prospect of the titans of Wall Street handing out multi-million dollar bonuses to staff little more than 12 months after the financial system was rescued by the brink. >>> Telegraph Staff | Thursday, January 14, 2010

Islam in Poland

Dark Age Alert! Poland: Gay Discrimination
Watch YouTube video: >>> AFP | Saturday, May 16, 2009
European Parliament Debate on Homophobia in Poland