Hat tip: Europe News >>>
Friday, January 22, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: My colleague Nile Gardiner is absolutely right to criticise the counter-evidence given to the Parliamentary committee investigating extremism by the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP). How can NAMP claim that Islamist extremism is not the main security threat to this country? Gardiner says NAMP is “in denial”. I’d put it a lot more strongly than that.
On its website NAMP recommends that British Muslims reporting crimes should also “report any such actions to the Islamic Human Rights Commission”. Why on earth should a police organisation in the UK suggest that British Muslims report crimes to such a group? Why on earth would anyone go to them as an authority?
And NAMP has been here before. In November 2007, only a few months after the organisation was launched, NAMP gave evidence to a House of Commons committee. There it argued for a loosening of the vetting procedures for people from Pakistan who want to join the UK police. According to NAMP, unless security vetting procedures were made less strict then terrorism would rise:
The NAMP believes the current vetting system is putting obstacles in the way of recruiting and promotion of BME [Black and Minority Ethnic] officers. This may result in low morale and feelings of structural obstacles to promotion, which will have an adverse effect on retention. Furthermore, it is likely to impact on the operational ability of the police service and its capabilities within counter-terrorism operations.NAMP is clearly more interested in pressurising the Government than it is in helping it. In a way you can’t blame it for offering advice to ministers so eager to take it. But you do have to wonder about the long-term future of a country that works like this. Being so sectarian as to have different police associations for different “communities” is one thing. To take advice from them that jeopardises our security strikes me as suicidal.
NAMP should never have been created. But, as I hope this latest episode demonstrates, there is no reason to listen to it. Let’s hope no one does again. [Source: Telegraph Blogs: The Government should ignore the National Association of Muslim Police] Comment here | Thursday, January 21, 2010
lePARISIEN.fr: Un an jour pour jour après son élection à la Maison Blanche, Barack Obama avait sans doute rêvé meilleur anniversaire. Pour la première fois depuis des décennies, dans l'Etat traditionnellement démocrate du Massachusetts (nord-est), un candidat républicain, Scott Brown, a en effet remporté un siège de sénateur.
Conséquence, les démocrates ont perdu la majorité qualifiée de 60 voix qu'ils détenaient au Sénat grâce à l'apport de deux indépendants.
Cette forme de « super majorité » (60 voix sur 100) permettait aux démocrates et à Barack Obama de passer outre une obstruction républicaine à la chambre haute du Congrès américain. Cette défaite dans le Massachusetts hypothèque ainsi l'avenir des réformes. >>> Leparisien.fr avec l‘AFP | Mercredi 20 Janvier 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Muslim clerics in Indonesia have demanded a ban on women having perms or straightening their hair, which they described as 'inviting moral danger'.
An Islamic body which has issued fatwas on inappropriate behaviour from practising yoga to failing to vote in elections said it is now considering a request to tackle the craze among pupils in religious boarding schools.
Clerics from East Java have also requested a fatwa banning dreadlocks, punk haircuts and "funky hairstyles". >>> | Thursday, January 21, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Wall Street was rocked today as President Barack Obama declared war on the US financial sector with plans to break up banks.
Mr Obama said he would rein in excessive risk taking by banning banks from running proprietary trading desks, hedge funds or private equity units.
In a raising of the US Government’s rhetoric against Wall Street, Mr Obama said of the financial sector: “If these folks want to fight, it’s a fight I’m ready to have.”
The news sent US shares sharply lower with the Dow Jones index falling 198 to 10404.54, led by the banking sector.
Goldman Sachs was off 8.42 at $159.37, JP Morgan fell 2.51 to $40.89 and Citigroup was 14 cents lower at $3.32.
Mr Obama said the state funded rescue of the banking sector in the credit crisis was “deeply offensive” but “necessary” as he set out reforms he claimed would ensure the taxpayer never again had to pick up the bill for failures on Wall Street.
The reforms follow proposals made by Paul Volcker, the White House adviser and former Federal Reserve chairman, who has been calling for regulation in “the spirit of Glass-Steagall”, the US act which saw investment banks broken up from retail banks. Barack Obama calls for limits to size and trading activities of banks >>> Jonathan Sibun, Assistant City Editor | Thursday, January 21, 2010
BRUSSELS JOURNAL: In the summer of 2008, as many readers know, I traveled to six European countries to interview politicians dedicated to breaking, halting and/or reversing the Islamization of their countries (here is a collection of some of the writings inspired by the trip).
One of those politicians was Geert Wilders, then the little-known (outside of the Netherlands) leader of a very small party, PVV, the Party for Freedom. Only a year and a half later, Wilders is the most famous Dutchman in the world, and his party rivals the current ruling party in popularity. Wilders is also now on trial for his political life and liberty – hardly a coincidence.
But Wilders is not the only politician in Europe fighting Islamization. In my travels, I learned there were other countries where extremely courageous men and some notable women had entered the democratic arena to defend Western liberties against the onslaught of sharia (Islamic law), and with electoral success. In interviewing such politicians, I was much impressed with their political and, in these times of jihad violence, physical courage. Sadly, it remains the case that no US politicians speak with either the candor or understanding of the Islamic threat besetting the West that at least some of their European counterparts do.
With Wilders' trial begining today, I contacted three of the politicians I interviewed on my trip and asked them for their thoughts today. They have obliged – and in English, which is worth noting. In alphabetical order, they are Filip Dewinter, leader of the Vlaams Belang party in Belgium, Oskar Freysinger, a member of Swiss parliament for the Swiss People's Party (lately in the news for the recent victorious Swiss referendum banning minaret construction in Switzerland), and Morten Messershmidt, a member of European Parliament for the Danish People's Party. >>> Diana West | Wednesday, January 20, 2010
ATLAS SHRUGS: Muslims might feel insulted by Geert Wilders’ opinions on Islam. However, Geert Wilders and non-Muslims feel insulted – threatened — by the hostile and negative opinions on them enshrined in Muslim holy books, laws and customs. These are not hidden or dismissed as outdated, but continuously and proudly published, taught and publicly expounded throughout the world — without being opposed by Muslim leaders. Westerners have been conditioned by their governments, their media, the Palestinisation of their culture and societies, to be the culprit and to accept without a murmur the continuous harassment of the permanent terrorist threat. Such terrorism has taken already many innocent lives and wounded countless others since it started, in the 1960s, in Europe with the collaboration of Palestinians and Nazi groups murdering Jews and Israelis.
In view of an aggressive indigenous and foreign terrorism within the Netherlands itself, it is clear that Geert Wilders is answering a provocation against him that obliges him to live under permanent security controls. How is it possible that in the XXIe century, in a democratic and peaceful Europe, some people, politicians, intellectuals, cartoonists or others, need 24-hour security when they have done nothing but lawfully express themselves ? Will self-censorship define our culture? >>> Bat Ye’or | Wednesday, January 20, 2010
NEW YORK POST: How do you say "free speech" in Dutch? Apparently, you don't.
Dutch MP Geert Wilders appeared yesterday in an Amsterdam court to face criminal charges for, essentially, criticizing Islam.
The hate-speech charges stem largely from Wilders' film warning of the Islamization of Europe, which connected verses from the Koran with scenes of Islamist terror.
If convicted, he faces up to two years in jail.
Actually, he might consider such a sentence a lucky break: In 2004, Islamist assassin Mohammed Bouyeri gunned down Theo Van Gogh, one of the last Dutchmen to make a movie critical of radical Islam.
After the shooting, Bouyeri used a knife to affix a five-page note threatening Jews -- and the West in general -- to Van Gogh's dead body.
Add to that, say, the attempts on the life of Danish "Muhammad cartoonist" Kurt Westergaard and the creeping reach of Sharia law in Britain, and you have ample grounds for a hard look at the impact on Europe's political and cultural fabric of a growing and assertive Muslim population. >>> | Thursday, January 21, 2010
TIMES ONLINE: Fear and recrimination ricocheted through the Democratic Party today after the loss of a safe Senate seat left Congressmen feeling none of them was secure in the upcoming midterm elections.
Barbara Boxer, a Democratic senator for California, confirmed the sense of alarm spreading through the party. “Every state is now in play,” she told Politico.
Tuesday night’s Massachusetts by-election defeat, in one of the most liberal states in America, stripped President Obama of his 60th, filibuster-proof vote in the US Senate.
Claire McCaskill, senator from Missouri, said: “If there’s anybody in this building that doesn’t tell you they’re more worried about elections today, you absolutely should slap them.”
Mr Obama was scrambling yesterday to save his entire domestic agenda after losing the late Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat, a defeat that dealt a devastating blow to hopes of reforming the US health system.
The loss of an almost sacred Democratic seat, which Mr Kennedy had held for 47 years, was a humiliating upset that showed Mr Obama how the popular mood has turned against his policies and his party, a year to the day after he took office. >>> Tim Reid in Washington and Times Online | Thursday, January 21, 2010
DIE PRESSE: Der niederländische Rechtspopulist Wilders muss sich ab heute wegen Volksverhetzung vor Gericht verantworten. Ihm drohen 16 Monate Gefängnis. Seine Anhänger demonstrieren gegen das Verfahren.
In Amsterdam hat am Mittwoch der Prozess gegen den niederländischen Islam-Gegner Geert Wilders begonnen. Der populäre Politiker ist wegen Volksverhetzung angeklagt. Die Staatsanwaltschaft wirft ihm die Beleidigung von Muslimen und ihrer Religion sowie Aufstachelung zum Hass gegen Anhänger des Islam vor. Es drohen 16 Monate Gefängnis sowie eine Geldstrafe von bis zu 10.000 Euro.
Wilders wies vor Gericht alle Vorwürfe zurück. Seine kritischen Äußerungen über Anhänger des Islam und über den Koran als "faschistische" Anleitung zum Terrorismus seien "ein substanzieller Beitrag zur öffentlichen Debatte" und keineswegs strafbar. >>> Ag. | Mittwoch, 20. Januar 2010
TIMES ONLINE: Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-Right MP, has demanded that his race hate trial should hear evidence from the fanatic who used the Koran to justify killing the director of an anti-Islamic film.
It marked an incendiary opening to the landmark case that has divided the Netherlands over the limits of freedom. Mr Wilders, 46, who is accused of incitement and discrimination, asked for 18 witnesses to be called in his defence, including Mohammed Bouyeri, the man who stabbed and shot Theo Van Gogh in an Amsterdam street in 2004.
The Van Gogh murder left a deep scar on the national conscience. It helped to change the mood of tolerance of Islam, and boosted Mr Wilders’s popularity.
Mr Wilders, whose Party for Freedom came second in the European elections last summer, faces a 70-page charge sheet covering five counts of breaking Dutch law in more than 100 public statements — for example, by likening the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and calling for an end to the “Islamic invasion”. He could be fined or jailed if convicted.
The alleged offences include Mr Wilders’s film Fitna, which shows images of 9/11 and beheadings interspersed with verses from the Koran. It ends with a clip of the controversial Danish cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.
At the opening day of the trial the prosecution objected to the request to hear from Bouyeri, and the panel of four judges adjourned until February 3 to consider which witnesses to call. “This case is about more than Mr Wilders,” Bram Moszkowicz, his lawyer, told the court. “It touches us all. It is such an important and principled question that could have far-reaching consequences.”
Mr Moszkowicz argued that the witnesses Mr Wilders wanted to call would prove that what he said was not simply inoffensive but true. He suggested that Bouyeri, a dual Moroccan-Dutch national, would be key to the case because he was a fervent Muslim who carried a Koran during his trial and defended his crime by claiming that Islam permitted violence against unbelievers. >>> David Charter in Amsterdam | Thursday, January 21, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Senator John McCain has been forced to issue a statement clarifying his position on gay marriage after his wife Cindy and daughter Meghan posed for campaign posters.
Cindy and Meghan McCain, posed for photos endorsing pro-gay marriage forces in California.
Mrs McCain appears with silver duct tape across her mouth and "NOH8" written on one cheek. The photo was posted on Wednesday on the NOH8 campaign's website.
The homosexual rights group opposes Proposition 8 - the ballot measure passed by Californian voters in 2008 which bans same-sex marriage.
Cindy McCain contacted NOH8 and offered to pose for the photo endorsement, the website said.
John McCain's office said in a statement that the Arizona senator an 2008 Republican presidential candidate respects the views of members of his family but remains opposed to gay marriage. John McCain's Wife Cindy Becomes Poster Girl for Same-sex Marriage >>> | Thursday, January 21, 2010
Meghan McCain on Twitter >>>
If this is so, then what the hell has the Labour Party been doing all these years? It's the Labour Party which has reduced this once great nation to scrubberdom! – © Mark
THE GUARDIAN: Labour deputy leader to make inequality a key dividing line with Conservatives
Harriet Harman will reopen the politically explosive debate over class tomorrowby insisting that it remains the single biggest factor in determining individual achievement.
In a speech designed to put the fight against inequality at the heart of the general election campaign, the Labour deputy leader will unveil a new "inequality bible" which admits that the government has merely slowed the trend in rising inequality despite more than 12 years in office.
The 420-page report, commissioned by the government, has been written by a panel chaired by Professor John Hills.
In her speech, Harman will say the report, to be published next week, makes uncomfortable reading for Labour, and sets out home truths about the scale of the challenge.
But she will also seek to create dividing lines with the Tories by arguing that the evidence shows socio-economic background, not parental warmth, is the main determinant of an individual's success.
The report's findings are politically sensitive since they may revive accusations – furiously denied by Gordon Brown – that Labour is embarking on a "class war". >>> Patrick Wintour and Amelia Gentleman | Wednesday, January 20, 2010
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