THE TELEGRAPH: Yemen has blamed al-Qaeda for a failed assassination attempt on the country's British ambassador, which took place yesterday. It's another example, the Telegraph says, "of the escalating terrorist threat posed by Islamist militants based in the Arabian Peninsular". How should Britain prepare for this threat? And is military action inevitable? Join the debate >>>
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Yemen has blamed al-Qaeda for a failed assassination attempt on the country's British ambassador, which took place yesterday. It's another example, the Telegraph says, "of the escalating terrorist threat posed by Islamist militants based in the Arabian Peninsular". How should Britain prepare for this threat? And is military action inevitable? Join the debate >>>
THE TELEGRAPH: The suspect in the failed car bomb attempt on Times Square was allowed to board a plane and almost make it out of the country despite being on a no fly list, it has emerged.
Faisal Shahzad had boarded a jetliner bound for the United Arab Emirates before federal authorities arrested him. Although under surveillance since midafternoon, he had managed to elude investigators and head to the airport.
The night's events, gradually coming to light, underscored the flaws in the nation's aviation security system, which despite its technologies, lists and information sharing, often comes down to someone making a right call.
As federal agents closed in, Mr Shahzad was aboard Emirates Flight 202. He reserved a ticket on the way to John F. Kennedy International Airport, paid cash on arrival and walked through security without being stopped.
By the time Customs and Border Protection officials, using a no-fly list updated on Tuesday, spotted Mr Shahzad's name on the passenger list and recognised him as the bombing suspect they were looking for, he was in his seat and the plane was preparing to leave the gate.
At the last minute, the pilot was notified, the jetliner's door was opened and Shahzad was taken into custody.
After authorities pulled Mr Shahzad off the plane.
He later claimed to have been trained at a terror camp in Pakistan's lawless tribal region of Waziristan, according to court documents. That raised increased concern that the bombing was an international terror plot.
New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said that Mr Shahzad was cooperating with investigators and had waived his Miranda rights, which grant him the right to a lawyer and full US constitutional legal rights. >>> | Wednesday, May 05, 2010
*But Bloomberg wants Americans not to connect the dots! Fighting the Jihad this way, the West is going to need infinite resources, to say nothing of immeasurable patience and understanding. He wants the people of New York – and the rest of the West, I suppose – to “turn the other cheek”, indefinitely! So keep on turning that cheek folks! – © Mark
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Terrorism Suspect, Charged, Said to Admit to Role in Plot : A Pakistani-American man arrested in the failed Times Square car bombing has admitted his role in the attempted attack and said he received explosives training in Pakistan, the authorities said Tuesday. >>> Mark Mazzetti, Sabrina Tavernise and Jack Healy | Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Related:
Obama appoints two devout Muslims to Homeland Security posts. Presumably to keep Americans safe! Go figure! >>>
Statement by Secretary Napolitano on President Obama's Intent to Nominate David Heyman as Assistant Secretary for Policy and her Appointment of Arif Alikhan as Assistant Secretary for Policy Development >>>
THE GUARDIAN: Ferocious attack on Lib Dems by former prime minister / Tony Blair accepts poll is also referendum on his own record
Tony Blair has flatly rejected calls for Labour supporters to vote tactically to prevent the Tories getting into power, insisting that people should make up their own minds and back the party they believe in.
Speaking on a day when several cabinet ministers suggested that Labour voters should cast their ballot for the Liberal Democrats in some seats, the former prime minister set himself against the tactic, and was contemptuous of Nick Clegg's party and its claim to represent real change. He described the Lib Dems as "the old politics masquerading as the new", and said their entire history as a party showed them incapable of facing up to hard choices.
Voters, he said, should follow their instincts. "It is simple," he told the Guardian. "Vote for what you believe in. If you think their polices are good, vote for them, but if you don't, don't. The Lib Dems are not going out to people and saying 'vote Labour' – they are trying to take seats off us." >>> Patrick Wintour, political editor | Tuesday, May 04, 2010
THE GUARDIAN: Bita Gheadi fled from Iran to escape forced marriage / Fears of 'honour killing' from own family or state execution
An Iranian civil rights activist who is due to be deported from the UK tomorrow could face the death penalty and fears being murdered by her family in an "honour killing" if she is sent back to Iran, according to her British partner.
Bita Ghaedi, 34, fled Iran to the UK in 2005 to escape a forced marriage and in fear of her family discovering she had a secret lover. She has since spoken out against sharia law, forced marriage and human rights abuses in her homeland and has been filmed criticising the regime for TV channels widely available across the Middle East. She is currently in Yarl's Wood detention centre awaiting deportation, which is scheduled for 7pm tomorrow following the failure of a fresh asylum claim.
Her partner, Mohsen Zadshir, from Barnet, a member of the Iranian opposition who gained political asylum in 1999, said that if deported, her life is "finished".
Ghaedi has transgressed the strict traditional code under which Iranian women are supposed to adhere. Not only has she brought "shame" on her family by having a relationship with a man who was not her husband, but she has participated in the anti-government protests which have grown more vociferous after the disputed 2009 presidential election result. Each of these transgressions would be enough to put her life in danger if she is deported, according to Zadshir, a former Iranian politician who is now a British citizen. >>> Karen McVeigh | Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: FRANCE | Dans une réponse à son collègue Brice Hortefeux, le ministre de l'Immigration propose ses solutions. Radicales.
Le ministre de l’Immigration Eric Besson propose de faire évoluer le droit français afin de pouvoir déchoir de sa nationalité les coupables d’«atteintes caractérisées aux valeurs fondamentales de notre République», comme la polygamie ou l’excision, dans une lettre à son collègue de l’Intérieur Brice Hortefeux, rendue publique mardi par «Le Figaro».
Le 23 avril, le ministre de l’Intérieur Brice Hortefeux avait écrit à son collègue de l’Immigration pour lui demander d’étudier l’éventuelle déchéance de sa nationalité française du conjoint de la femme verbalisée en niqab au volant à Nantes, le soupçonnant de polygamie et de fraude aux aides sociales. >>> AP | Mardi 04 Mai 2010
WELT ONLINE: Die griechische Regierung lässt sich von den gewalttätigen Protesten nicht abschrecken – und setzt bei der eigenen Bevölkerung die Daumenschrauben an. Die Mehrwertsteuer wird erhöht, Firmen zahlen eine einmalige Krisen-Sondersteuer, frei werdende Beamtenstellen werden kaum mehr besetzt. Und das ist längst nicht alles.
Griechenlands Regierung beginnt trotz anhaltender Proteste mit Maßnahmen zur Sanierung der Staatsfinanzen. Während vor dem Parlament in Athen streikende Beamte demonstrierten, reichte das Finanzministerium drinnen einen Entwurf ein, der Einschnitte bei Gehältern und Renten und zahlreiche Steuererhöhungen festschreiben soll. Spätestens am Donnerstag soll das Gesetz beschlossen werden. >>> Von Florian Hassel | Dienstag, 04. Mai 2010
LE POINT: Le plan d'aide à la Grèce à peine bouclé, la crainte d'une contagion de cette crise de la dette au reste de l'Europe, et particulièrement à l'Espagne, a entraîné un mardi noir sur les Bourses européennes et fait rechuter l'euro. Des rumeurs selon lesquelles d'autres agences de notation allaient dégrader la note de l'Espagne et selon lesquelles Madrid pourrait demander une aide financière colossale au FMI ont fait plonger les places européennes. À la clôture, la Bourse de Madrid a lâché 5,41 %, Lisbonne 4,21 %, Milan 4,70 %, Dublin 3,97 %, Amsterdam 3,19 %, Paris 3,64 %, Londres 2,56 % et Francfort 2,6 %. La Bourse d'Athènes a, elle, cédé 6,68 %. Avec le Portugal, l'Espagne est l'un des pays de la zone euro qui inquiète le plus les marchés. >>> AFP | Mardi 04 Mai 2010
NZZ ONLINE: Griechenland-Krise belastet die Börsen weltweit: Bankentitel stark unter Druck - Unsicherheit um Spanien >>> chs./(sda/Reuters/afp/dpa) | Dienstag, 04. Mai 2010
THE GUARDIAN: The Liberal Democrat leader keeps his options on his political rivals and possible coalition partners open
Attacking Labour
25 April 2010: "It is just preposterous the idea that if a party comes third in the number of votes, it still has somehow the right to carry on squatting in No 10 ... I think a party which has come third – and so millions of people have decided to abandon them – has lost the election spectacularly [and] cannot then lay claim to providing the prime minister of this country."
27 April 2010: "I think, if Labour do come third in terms of the number of votes cast, then people would find it inexplicable that Gordon Brown himself could carry on as prime minister. As for who I'd work with, I've been very clear – much clearer than David Cameron and Gordon Brown – that I will work with anyone. I will work with a man from the moon, I don't care ... with anyone who can deliver the greater fairness that I think people want." >>> | Tuesday, May 04, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: The reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is expected to arrive in Beijing later today for talks with China's president Hu Jintao as he seeks to shore up his country's bankrupt economy and negotiate a way out of the international diplomatic isolation of recent months.
Neither Beijing or Pyongyang has confirmed the visit, but Mr Kim, with his easily recognisable sunglasses and frizzy hair, was photographed in the port city of Dalian where he arrived on Monday from North Korea in his 17-carriage armoured train.
This visit came as South Korea moved closer to blaming the Pyongyang for the sinking of one of its warships last March in an incident that has further raised tensions between the two Koreas in recent weeks.
The South's president Lee Myung-Bak told a televised meeting of his chiefs of staff that it was clear that the sinking was not a "simple accident" and ordered a thorough review of Seoul's military readiness in light of the apparent attack on the 1,200 tonne corvette Cheonan.
Analysts said the sinking, which Pyongyang has denied, was expected to be on the agenda of talks with Chinese leaders along with the North's desperate need for economic aid, including food and fuel.
A disastrous attempt to reform the North Korean currency last November is thought to have deepened the country's economic woes, raising the threat of a repeat of the famines of the mid 1990s. >>> Peter Foster in Beijing | Tuesday, May 04, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Boarding schools have entered an ''Age of Measurement'' where only results are valuable, the headmaster of Eton has suggested.
Areas of schooling that cannot be measured are seen as worthless, Tony Little said.
Addressing the Boarding Schools' Association (BSA) annual conference in Torquay, Mr Little said: ''It is a sad thing, it seems to me, that where once men were able to speak of sweeps of history such as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason, we now seem to inhabit the Age of Measurement.
''Our day-to-day lives are circumscribed by a variation of the McNamara fallacy: only that which can be measured has worth, if it cannot be measured it can have no worth. This kind of thinking cuts to the heart of everything I believe in as the head of a boarding school.'' >>> | Tuesday, May 04, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: France to build £3.8bn super university: France is spending 4.4 billion euros (£3.8bn) on a new modern university campus designed to rival Cambridge and Harvard as one of the world's best. >>> | Tuesday, May 04, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: A Muslim woman in Italy has been fined 500 euros (£430) for wearing a burka in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.
The Tunisian immigrant, Amel Marmouri, 26, was fined by police in the city of Novara, in the north-eastern Piedmont region.
The town council is controlled by the right-wing Northern League, which has pushed for much tougher immigration controls and at a national level forms part of Silvio Berlusconi's coalition government.
Mrs Marmouri was in a post office when police officers stopped her and issued her with the fine.
"As far as I know this is a first in Italy," said police officer Mauro Franzinelli.
Her husband, Ben Salah Braim, 36, said the family would struggle to pay the penalty.
He said his wife would continue to wear the full-length item of clothing because he did not want her to be seen by other men, but in future she would be forced to stay at home most of the time.
Novara introduced an ordinance in January that prohibits the wearing of burkas. The regulation invokes a 1975 anti-terrorism law, which prohibits people from wearing anything that obscures their faces and impedes identification. >>> Nick Squires in Rome | Tuesday, May 04, 2010
RUSSIA TODAY: Muslim immigrants make anti-Semitism an issue for Sweden: Sweden is normally considered to be a peaceful haven in Europe. But this Scandinavian stability is being shaken up by a wave of anti-Semitic attacks. >>> | Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Related:
THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Welcome to Ramallmö >>> By Paulina Neuding | Friday, March 13, 2009
STOCKHOLM NEWS: New Report about Islamism in Sweden >>> Tommie Ullman | Friday, January 30, 2009
RUSSIA TODAY: Austria plagued with Islamic controversy: Austrian authorities have prosecuted the leader of the right-leaning Freedom Party of Austria for inciting religious hatred, but some say the move sacrifices people’s freedom of speech. >>> | Wednesday, August 05, 2010
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