Maroc : Une mosquée s'effondre: un mort et trois blessés
20MINUTES.ch: Une personne a été tuée et trois autres blessées dans l'effrondrement samedi de la coupole d'une mosquée près de Nador, dans le nord du Maroc.

L'accident a lieu une semaine après la chute du minaret d'une mosquée de Meknès (centre), qui avait fait 41 morts le 19 février. >>> afp | Dimanche 28 Février 2010

Bittere Armut: Die EU kämpft gegen Migrationsstrom
20MINUTEN.ch: Eine unvorhergesehene Welle Asylsuchender vom Balkan macht nach Angaben aus Belgrad der Europäischen Union zu schaffen. Seit der Aufhebung des Visazwangs vor zwei Monaten beantragten allein aus Südserbien bis zu 10 000 Albaner in EU-Ländern Asyl. Jetzt handelt die EU.

Die Armut zwingt sie zur Auswanderung. Die EU kämpft mit vielen Asylbewerbern. Das sagte der Albaner-Vertreter im serbischen Parlament, Riza Haljimi, am Samstag. Nicht nur aus Südserbien reisen sie ins übrige Europa. Tausende weitere Albaner aus Mazedonien und dem Kosovo versuchten, in EU-Ländern politisches Asyl zu erhalten, berichteten die örtlichen Medien. Besonders [be]troffen sei Belgien. >>> sda | Samstag, 27. Februar 2010

Affaire Khadhafi : L'ambassade de Suisse sous haute protection
NAME: Des forces de sécurité libyennes ont été déployées ce week-end dans les environs l'ambassade de Suisse à Tripoli.

Selon le Département fédéral des affaires étrangères (DFAE), cette mesure a été prise en prévision d'une manifestation qui devait avoir lieu près de la représentation diplomatique.

L'agence de presse italienne a indiqué que des dizaines de policiers avaient été déployés devant l'ambassade ainsi que deux ambulances. La manifestation, dont le but était d'exprimer l'hostilité à l'égard de la Suisse, a finalement été annulée, selon la même source. >>> ats | Dimanche 28 Février 2010

In Polyglot Lebanon, Arabic Falls Behind
MIDDLE EAST ONLINE: Many university students are not able to recite Arabic alphabet as youths consider language not very ‘cool’.

Lebanon, a tiny, vibrant Mediterranean country, prides itself on its polyglot society but for the country's youths native Arabic is not very "cool."

"Hi, kifak? Ca Va?" -- or "Hi, how are you doing? Okay?" -- is a typical multi-linguistic Lebanese greeting so popular it now appears on bumper stickers and teeshirts sold around the world.

English and French often replace the local dialect in conversation, especially among the urban youth, and one organisation has launched a campaign to preserve Arabic in Lebanon.

"Arabic is still very much alive as a language, but young people are moving farther and farther away from it," said Suzanne Talhouk, who heads the organisation "Fael Ummer" (Imperative) which is running the campaign.

"Some of our youngsters are incapable of writing correctly in Arabic, and many university students we interviewed were not even able to recite the alphabet," Talhouk said.

Urban youths are often unable to hold a conversation in one language, causing amusement but also irking those around them with such home-grown expressions as the popular farewell: "Yalla, bye."

"At my school it's more cool to speak French. Arabic is looked down upon," said high school student Nathalie. >>> Rana Moussaoui, Beirut | Sunday, February 28, 2010

CIA Suicide Bomber Calls for Jihad Against Jordan
MIDDLE EAST ONLINE: Jordanian double-agent Balawi accuses Amman of being behind death of two top militant leaders, including Zarqawi.

A Jordanian double-agent who blew himself up in Afghanistan, killing seven CIA officers, called for jihad against his homeland in a video made before his death in the suicide attack, monitors said Sunday.

Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi accused Jordan of being behind the death of two top militant leaders, according to the report by IntelCenter, a US group that monitors Islamist websites.

"There is no solution to the situation in Jordan other than mobilising to the land of jihad to learn the arts of war and train in them, then return to Jordan and begin operations," Balawi was quoted as saying.

"Kill them with knives and swords. Lure them, trick them, use their own methods against them -- use counter-intelligence," he said. >>> W. G. Dunlop, Dubai | Sunday, February 28, 2010

Israeli Police Clash with Palestinians in Jerusalem's Old City
THE TELEGRAPH: Violence erupted at Jerusalem's holiest site on Sunday when Israeli riot police clashed with stone-throwing Palestinian protestors.

The most serious unrest in Jerusalem's sacred Old City in five months came after days of disturbances in the West Bank triggered by a declaration that two Jewish shrines on Palestinian territory would be declared Israeli heritage sites.

At least 14 protestors and four policemen were hurt during the clashes as battles raged both in the winding alleyways of Jerusalem's walled Old City and at the hilltop compound of the al-Aqsa mosque where the trouble first started.

According to Israeli police, Palestinian protesters inside the al-Aqsa mosque, held by Muslims to mark the spot that the Prophet Mohammed ascended into Heaven, threw stones at a group of tourists visiting the compound.

The youths believed the tourists to be Jewish radicals intent on reclaiming the compound, which also houses the Dome of the Rock, for Israel.

Marking the spot where the two Hebrew temples of antiquity once stood, the compound is venerated by both the Jews, who call it the Temple Mount, and by Muslims, for whom it is the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary.

The clashes erupted on the Jewish holiday of Purim, which commemorates the deliverance of the Israelites from the Persian vizier Haman. >>> Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem | Sunday, February 28, 2010

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Death Threats and Islamic Doctrine

Ayaan Hirsi Ali on death threats and Islamic doctrine from The Badger Herald on Vimeo

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Slaps Down Tariq ‘Taqiyya’ Ramadan

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Slapsdown Tariq 'Taqiyya' Ramadan from Tundra Tabloids on Vimeo

Griechenland: Verbraucher rufen zum Boykott deutscher Produkte auf
ZEIT ONLINE: In Griechenland wächst die Wut auf Deutschland: Auf Flugblättern wird zum Boykott deutscher Produkte aufgerufen, Abgeordnete fordern gar Kriegsreparationen.

In Griechenland herrscht Wut auf Deutschland: Die Tageszeitung Eleftheros Typos veröffentlichte gar eine Fotomontage mit einem Hakenkreuz auf der Berliner Siegessäule. Eine Reaktion auf ein Titelbild des Focus, das die "Venus von Milo" mit einem Stinkefinger zeigt. Bild: Zeit Online
In Griechenland breiten sich anti-deutsche Emotionen aus. Im Parlament in Athen forderten Abgeordnete der kommunistischen und der ultra-konservativen Opposition, die griechische Regierung müsse Deutschland zu Reparationszahlungen für den Zweiten Weltkrieg auffordern. Vize-Regierungschef Theodoros Pangalos hatte Deutschland bereits vor einigen Tagen vorgeworfen, im Zweiten Weltkrieg griechisches Gold gestohlen und damit die Wirtschaft ruiniert zu haben.

Sein Chef, Ministerpräsident Giorgios Papandreou, versuchte zu beruhigen. Auf die Frage von Oppositionspolitikern, ob er bei seinem Besuch in Berlin das Thema Reparationszahlungen ansprechen werde, sagte Papandreou im Parlament, das werde er nicht tun. "Wir haben unsere Forderungen nie aufgegeben", fügte er hinzu. Aber die Gelegenheit, dies anzusprechen, sei angesichts der augenblicklich schwachen Position Griechenlands nicht opportun. "Wenn wir dies (die Reparationen) heute auf die Tagesordnung setzen würden, dann würden viele es als eine neue Ausrede, einen neuen Versuch interpretieren, von unseren Problemen abzulenken." Griechenland müsse seine Probleme mit Hilfe seiner Partner in der EU lösen. Die Bundesregierung wies die Vorwürfe zurück, die Entschädigungszahlungen Deutschlands seien nicht vollständig geklärt. >>> Zeit Online, dpa, Reuters | Freitag, 26. Februar 2010

Teacher Barack Obama Could Be a One-term President
THE TELEGRAPH: Barack Obama's health care summit was a sham and a failure, argues Toby Harnden in Washington, and the President could be heading for defeat in 2012

Barack Obama was in his element as he addressed the bipartisan health-care summit he had convened for the principal purpose of shaming the recalcitrant Republicans.

His preferred lectern had been taken away and he had been forced to agree to remain seated but it was nevertheless a cherished opportunity for him to scold, patronise and peevishly disdain his opponents – and to pontificate for nearly six hours.

To be fair, Obama spoke for a mere 119 minutes, as opposed to the 110 minutes he deigned to allocate to the Republicans and the 114 minutes he gave to his fellow Democrats. When challenged about the two-to-one imbalance between the parties, Mr Obama shot back: "I'm the President."

Again and again, he put Republicans down with sarcastic asides, berating them like naughty schoolboys for bringing in a copy of the 2,400-page Senate health bill as a "prop" and informing them of the need to "get our facts straight".

The televised event, dreamt up by the White House to create the desired "atmospherics" for an attempt to push his health-care bill through Congress by Easter, underlined the reality that Obama is not a leader or even really a politician – he is a professor.

Professor Obama is convinced of his own intellectual superiority. When his pupils fail to realise that he knows what is good for them, he simply repeats himself in the expectation that the simpletons will eventually understand. >>> Toby Harnden's American Way | Saturday, February 27, 2010

Obama Whistles Dixie
BBC: Two days after the White House hosted an inconclusive summit on healthcare reform, President Barack Obama has urged Americans to find common ground.

In his weekly radio address, Mr Obama said tens of millions of Americans could not afford to wait another generation for change.

He said it was time to move past the bickering and game-playing which was blocking progress on reform.

The White House said he would announce "the way forward" next week. President Obama urges US healthcare action >>> | Saturday, February 27, 2010

Barack Obama, the One-Termer
Obama is fixated on health reforms but voters' chief worry is jobs. Photograph: The Sunday Times
THE SUNDAY TIMES: WHEN Barack Obama took office last year he was compared to Superman, even joking at a dinner that he had been “born on Krypton and sent here ... to save the planet Earth”. Last January he appeared on the cover of Spider-Man.

Now, with his legislative agenda in tatters, the president has moved from comic-strip hero to comparisons to one of the great flawed figures of American literature. Ten days ago Charlie Cook, a leading election analyst, compared Obama and his battle to push through healthcare reform to Captain Ahab and his suicidal hunt for the great white whale.

Despite poll after poll showing that Americans’ main priority is jobs, the president has focused on reforming the US healthcare system and extending coverage to the 40m citizens with no insurance.

“I think choosing to take a Captain Ahab-like approach to healthcare — I’m going to push for this even in the worst downturn since the Great Depression — is roughly comparable to Bush’s decision to go to war [in Iraq],” Cook told Politico. “It basically destroyed the first year of a presidency.” Barack Obama ‘destroys first year in office’ >>> Christina Lamb in Washington | Sunday, February 28, 2010

New Dark Age Alert! Islamic Radicals 'Infiltrate' the Labour Party
This is all happening because NO POLITICIAN has the BALLS to deal with the issues at hand; and worse things will get! It is a disgrace that we have allowed this group of TRIBAL SAVAGES to infiltrate our once civilized government! – © Mark
THE TELEGRAPH: A Labour minister says his party has been infiltrated by a fundamentalist Muslim group that wants to create an “Islamic social and political order” in Britain.

Jim Fitzpatrick, the Environment Minister. Photo: The Telegraph
The Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE) — which believes in jihad and sharia law, and wants to turn Britain and Europe into an Islamic state — has placed sympathisers in elected office and claims, correctly, to be able to achieve “mass mobilisation” of voters.

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Jim Fitzpatrick, the Environment Minister, said the IFE had become, in effect, a secret party within Labour and other political parties.

“They are acting almost as an entryist organisation, placing people within the political parties, recruiting members to those political parties, trying to get individuals selected and elected so they can exercise political influence and power, whether it’s at local government level or national level,” he said.

“They are completely at odds with Labour’s programme, with our support for secularism.”

Mr Fitzpatrick, the MP for Poplar and Canning Town, said the IFE had infiltrated and “corrupted” his party in east London in the same way that the far-Left Militant Tendency did in the 1980s. Leaked Labour lists show a 110 per cent rise in party membership in one constituency in two years.

In a six-month investigation by this newspaper and Channel 4’s Dispatches, involving weeks of covert filming by the programme’s reporters:

IFE activists boasted to the undercover reporters that they had already “consolidated … a lot of influence and power” over Tower Hamlets, a London borough council with a £1 billion budget. >>> Andrew Gilligan | Saturday, February 27, 2010

Zwischen den Religionen: Islamisierung – das Ringen um die türkische Seele
WELT ONLINE: Die Massenverhaftungen hoher Militärs zeigen, dass die Türkei weiter nach einer gesellschaftlichen Balance sucht. Einer der wichtigsten Gründe für das Ringen um die türkische Seele ist, dass sich die strategische Bedeutung des Landes für die USA im Kampf gegen Terror geändert hat.

Seit Jahren ringen die neuen und die alten Eliten der Türkei um die Macht. Ein langsamer Regimewechsel findet statt: An die Stelle der säkularen, antiklerikalen Republik des Staatsgründers Mustafa Kemal Atatürk – formal demokratisch, aber orientiert an autoritären und militaristischen Mustern – tritt etwas Neues, dessen Umrisse erst klar hervortreten müssen.

Optimisten dürfen hoffen, dass es ein nach Europa strebendes, demokratisches, modernes, pluralistisches Regime sein wird, dessen offen islamische Sympathien nicht stören, sondern beweisen werden, dass Islam, Toleranz und Demokratie kompatibel sind. Pessimisten fürchten, dass es genauso autoritär sein wird wie das vorangegangene, nur unter religiösem Vorzeichen und mit einer offensiveren Außenpolitik, die jenseits von EU und Nato nach einer Vormachtstellung in der islamischen Welt strebt und sich als Gegengewicht zu Europa versteht. Der Wert der Türkei für die USA >>> Von Boris Kálnoky | Samstag, 27. Februar 2010

Décryptage – Turquie : l'inexorable déclin de l'une des meilleures armées au monde
LE POINT: Un mois de perquisitions, des dizaines de militaires arrêtés, un vaste complot révélé... L'armée turque vient de subir l'un des pires revers de son histoire en ce début d'année 2010. La police a mis à jour un gigantesque projet de conspiration visant à renverser, en 2003, le gouvernement du Parti de la justice et du développement (AKP), au pouvoir depuis 2002. Piqué au vif, l'état-major s'est défendu de toute "action illégale" le 22 janvier dernier. Les faits sont pourtant avérés et le Premier ministre turc n'a pas caché sa colère : "Ceux qui préparent des plans en secret pour écraser la volonté du peuple doivent se rendre compte qu'à partir de maintenant, ils devront affronter la justice. (...) Personne n'est au-dessus des lois", a prévenu Recep Tayyip Erdogan vendredi. Des positions tranchées qui témoignent de l'acidité des relations entre les militaires turcs et les membres de l'AKP. >>> Par Cyriel Martin | Vendredi 26 Février 2010

Does “Daughters of Allah” Insult Islam?

Pastor Sees Pure Evil in Obama

Sharia Courts Conquer UK

Austria Plagued with Islamic Controversy

Polish Jews Want Compensation for Nationalized Property