Netanyahu Cancels Obama Meeting Amid Raid Furore
TIMES ONLINE: Israel’s prime minister has cancelled a planned meeting with President Obama to deal with the escalating international crisis over an attack by the Israeli military on civilian aid ships that left at least 10 dead.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, is in Canada and had been due to visit the White House tomorrow after a series of increasingly fractious meetings with the US over the stalled Middle East peace process.

But after Israeli naval commandos stormed the ships of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla overnight, killing up to 19 according to some reports and leaving dozens wounded, Mr Netanyahu has found his country the target of international condemnation and protest.

He said he gave the Israeli military his “full backing” but after initially saying his trip would continue, his office said it had been cancelled. >>> James Hider, in Ashdod, and Judith Evans | Monday, May 31, 2010

Related article and video here

Memorial Day

America Is Still the Best Guarantor of Freedom and Prosperity
LOS ANGELES TIMES: The U.S. still possesses unprecedented power projection capabilities, and just as important, it is armed with the goodwill of countless countries that know the U.S. offers protection from bullies.

Much nonsense has been written in recent years about the prospects of American decline and the inevitable rise of China. But it was not a declining power that I saw in recent weeks as I jetted from the Middle East to the Far East through two of America's pivotal geographic commands — Central Command and Pacific Command.

The very fact that the entire world is divided up into American military commands is significant. There is no French, Indian or Brazilian equivalent — not yet even a Chinese counterpart. It is simply assumed without much comment that American soldiers will be central players in the affairs of the entire world. It is also taken for granted that a vast network of American bases will stretch from Germany to Japan — more than 700 in all, depending on how you count. They constitute a virtual American empire of Wal-Mart-style PXs, fast-food restaurants, golf courses and gyms.

There is an especially large American presence in the Middle East, one of the world's most crisis-prone regions. For all the anti-Americanism in the Arab world, almost all the states bordering what they call the Arabian Gulf support substantial American bases. These governments are worried about the looming Iranian threat and know that only the United States can offer them protection. They are happy to deal with China, but it would never occur to a single sultan or sheik that the People's Liberation Army will protect them from Iranian intimidation.

In the Far East, a similar dynamic prevails. All of China's neighbors happily trade with it, but all are wary of the Middle Kingdom's pretensions to regional hegemony. Even Vietnam, a country that handed America its worst military defeat ever, is eager to establish close ties with Washington as a counter to Beijing. Read on and comment >>> Max Boot*, Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times | Monday, May 31, 2010

*Max Boot is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a contributing editor to Opinion.

The New Poor: Blacks in Memphis Lose Decades of Economic Gains
THE NEW YORK TIMES: MEMPHIS — For two decades, Tyrone Banks was one of many African-Americans who saw his economic prospects brightening in this Mississippi River city.

A single father, he worked for FedEx and also as a custodian, built a handsome brick home, had a retirement account and put his eldest daughter through college.

Then the Great Recession rolled in like a fog bank. He refinanced his mortgage at a rate that adjusted sharply upward, and afterward he lost one of his jobs. Now Mr. Banks faces bankruptcy and foreclosure.

“I’m going to tell you the deal, plain-spoken: I’m a black man from the projects and I clean toilets and mop up for a living,” said Mr. Banks, a trim man who looks at least a decade younger than his 50 years. “I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. But my whole life is backfiring.”

Not so long ago, Memphis, a city where a majority of the residents are black, was a symbol of a South where racial history no longer tightly constrained the choices of a rising black working and middle class. Now this city epitomizes something more grim: How rising unemployment and growing foreclosures in the recession have combined to destroy black wealth and income and erase two decades of slow progress. >>> Michael Powell | Sunday, May 30, 2010

Recession’s Toll on Black Wealth in Pictures >>>

Prospective Catholic Priests Face Sexuality Hurdles
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Every job interview has its awkward moments, but in recent years, the standard interview for men seeking a life in the Roman Catholic priesthood has made the awkward moment a requirement.

“When was the last time you had sex?” all candidates for the seminary are asked. (The preferred answer: not for three years or more.)

“What kind of sexual experiences have you had?” is another common question. “Do you like pornography?”

Depending on the replies, and the results of standardized psychological tests, the interview may proceed into deeper waters: “Do you like children?” and “Do you like children more than you like people your own age?”

It is part of a soul-baring obstacle course prospective seminarians are forced to run in the aftermath of a sexual abuse crisis that church leaders have decided to confront, in part, by scrubbing their academies of potential molesters, according to church officials and psychologists who screen candidates in New York and the rest of the country.

But many of the questions are also aimed at another, equally sensitive mission: deciding whether gay applicants should be denied admission under complex recent guidelines from the Vatican that do not explicitly bar all gay candidates but would exclude most of them, even some who are celibate.

Scientific studies have found no link between sexual orientation and abuse, and the church is careful to describe its two initiatives as more or less separate. One top adviser to American seminaries characterized them as “two circles that might overlap here and there.” >>> Paul Vitello | Sunday, May 30, 2010

Italy's Coastal Palm Trees Under Attack by Army of Weevils
THE TELEGRAPH: They provide shade to sunbathers on scorching hot days and a stunning backdrop to some of Europe's most fabled coastal scenery, but Italy's palm trees are being devastated by a voracious bug.

Thousands of palm trees are dead or dying as a result of the insatiable appetite of an army of red palm weevils Photo: The Telegraph
From Sicily in the south to the Italian Riviera in the north, tens of thousands of palm trees are dead or dying as a result of the insatiable appetite of an army of red palm weevils.

The relentless advance of the tiny beetle is threatening parks, gardens and seafronts in Italy's best known tourist destinations, from the World Heritage-listed Cinque Terre villages of Liguria to the beach resorts of Tuscany, Sardinia and the Adriatic.

Palms are not indigenous to Italy, but were introduced in the 18th and 19th centuries by wealthy collectors and aristocrats keen to give their estates an exotic look.

The threat posed by the weevil in Italy is acute, because one of the country's most popular palms is a species native to the Canary Islands, Phoenix canariensis, which is particularly susceptible to the insect.

"It is really a disaster, there are tens of thousands of palms which are dead or dying," said Valeria Francatti, an entomologist who is researching ways of combating the weevils. >>> Nick Squires in Rome | Sunday, May 30, 2010

Related here, here, and here

Gay Couple Keep Low Profile After Release from Prison in Malawi
THE TELEGRAPH: A gay couple from Malawi have kept out of the public eye after being pardoned and freed from prison, in what a relative said was a deliberate decision prompted by the conservative view of homo-sexuality in the southern African country.

Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza were released on Saturday, hours after President Bingu wa Mutharika pardoned them without condition. But in giving his pardon, which he said was on "humanitarian grounds only," Mr Mutharika warned that homosexuality remained illegal in the country.

Activists said that they were searching for a safe house for the couple, fearing they could be attacked upon release.

The couple's lawyer, Mauya Msuku, said he had not seen either of the men since their release.

Maxwell Manda also said he had not seen Mr Chimbalanga, his brother-in-law. He said days earlier that Mr Chimbalanga wanted to leave Malawi upon his release. >>> | Monday, May 31, 2010

May 31 Declared 'Quit Facebook Day'

Bug Business Booms in Japan

A Bedbug Epidemic Bites New York
TIMES ONLINE: An epidemic of bedbugs in the Big Apple has brought panic, revulsion and a nasty little rash to rich and poor alike. Can the city cope

Photograph: Times Online
At first May thought that her husband had heat rash. “We were staying at a smart hotel in Cape Cod. Then I developed these hive-like welts on my back and legs.” May (not her real name; she is terrified of giving me that) is middle class, in her late fifties and lives on the Upper West Side, New York, in a well-maintained four-room apartment. When she and her husband returned to the city, one doctor prescribed antihistamines, surmising the couple had reacted to shellfish. She called a dermatologist. “He took one look and said, ‘You both have bedbug bites’. My husband turned our mattress over and we saw them. That’s when — no joke, no exaggeration, however ridiculous it may sound — our nightmare began.”

The infestation would last five months and cost May and her husband $15,000 (£10,200) to treat.

The cockroach has scuttled in retreat. Bedbugs have become New York, indeed America’s, latest bug noire. These tiny, yellowish creatures (which grow to 4-5mm long), fiendishly difficult to eradicate and understand, have become an obsession for landlords, renters, pest-control experts and scientists. Why do they feed so hungrily on human blood? Why have they proliferated? Why are they so hardy? How can you eradicate them?

“Don’t let the bedbugs bite” now has a particularly hollow ring to it: we are almost powerless to stop them. There has been a 71 per cent increase in bedbug infestations since 2001, according to the US National Pest Management Association. In 2004, there were a reported 537 complaints and 82 “violations” (verified infestations) for bedbugs in New York; in 2009, there were 10,985 complaints and 4,084 verified infestations. “That’s just the reported cases,” says Jeremy Ecker, of Bed Bug Inspectors, a firm that uses two specially trained dogs to sniff out the bugs in apartments before advising occupants and pest exterminators on the best action. “The problem is everywhere, it’s growing and it’s mostly invisible because of people’s embarrassment. People are too ashamed to say anything. If they admit to having bedbugs they’re frightened of losing their apartment, of being asked not to go into work, of getting rid of their possessions. We see people in extreme distress.” >>> Tim Teeman | Monday, May 31, 2010

The Bedbug Registry >>>

President Obama Is Right
YNET NEWS: Islam has indeed always been part of America’s story, when it comes to terror

More Muslim terrorist cells were exposed in the US in 2009 than in any year since 9/11. Islamic terrorism constitutes a real and present danger to the US in spite of – and inflamed by – President Obama’s appeasement of Islam, as demonstrated in his most significant speeches at the Turkish Parliament on April 6, 2010 and at Cairo University on June 4, 2009.

The intensification of the Muslim terrorist threat, despite Obama’s rough/critical/cold attitude toward the Jewish State, refutes the claim that the Arab-Israel conflict, the Palestinian issue or the US-Israel friendship are the root cause of anti-US Islamic terrorism.

Anti-US Islamic terrorism has been bolstered by the expansion of Hezbollah’s operational, financial and political infrastructures in Latin America, notwithstanding the contention by Obama and his advisors that supposedly there is no global Islamic terrorism (only Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorism), that ostensibly there is no Jihadist terrorism (“because Jihad means to purify oneself…”) and that terrorism has been seemingly a derivative of Western exploitation of the Third World.

President Obama was right when he declared – at Cairo University – that “Islam has always been part of America’s story.” Indeed, Islamic terrorism targeted US ships between 1776 and the beginning of the 19th century. In fact, John Quincy Adams, the 6th president of the USA, researched the causes of anti-Western Islamic terrorism, concluding that its core cause was endemic hostility toward the “infidel.” >>> Yoram Ettinger | Friday, May 28, 2010

Obama Bans Islam, Jihad from US Security Strategy
YNET NEWS: US president's aides to remove religious terms such as 'Islamic extremism' from document outlining national security strategy. 'Do you want to think about the US as the nation that fights terrorism or the nation you want to do business with?' National Security Council staffer Ramamurthy says

President Barack Obama's advisers will remove religious terms such as "Islamic extremism" from the central document outlining the US national security strategy and will use the rewritten document to emphasize that the United States does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terror, counterterrorism officials said.

The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war and currently states: "The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century."

The officials described the changes on condition of anonymity because the document still was being written, and the White House would not discuss it. But rewriting the strategy document will be the latest example of Obama putting his stamp on US foreign policy, like his promises to dismantle nuclear weapons and limit the situations in which they can be used.

The revisions are part of a larger effort about which the White House talks openly, one that seeks to change not just how the United States talks to Muslim nations, but also what it talks to them about, from health care and science to business startups and education.

That shift away from terrorism has been building for a year, since Obama went to Cairo, Egypt, and promised a "new beginning" in the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world. The White House believes the previous administration based that relationship entirely on fighting terror and winning the war of ideas. >>> Associated Press | Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Jeddah Coffee Shops Raided
SAUDI GAZETTE: JEDDAH – Truant schoolgirls in meetings with un-related males, large screens set up to show “scandalous films”, stages for music performances with light and lazer [sic] displays: Offenses too grave to be ignored by the authorities and too glaring to be continued on the sly for long.

It did not take much time for the Jeddah authorities to realize that a number of coffee shops were, in fact, places for dating and other offenses.

Officials from the Police, Passports Department, Civil Defense, the Labor Office, the Mayor’s Office and the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice raided suspect sites over recent days.

In one instance a 14-year-old girl was found in the company of two males in their twenties after reportedly sneaking out of her house without the knowledge of her family. In another, two sisters were found with six young men.

In a secluded corner of one coffee house a young man was found in the company of a woman with a computer screen before them displaying a pornographic website. The man confessed to officials that he hacked sites with the woman’s help and pirated material. >>> Ibrahim Alawi | Monday, May 31, 2010

Vatican Official Tells Paedophile Priests to Expect Damnation
THE GUARDIAN: Monsignor Charles Scicluna warns seminarians who exploit their office that their punishment in hell will be worse than death penalty on earth

Monsignor Charles Scicluna (centre) with Pope Benedict XVI. Photograph: The Guardian
The Vatican official in charge of catching paedophile priests has said their punishment in hell would be worse than receiving the death penalty on earth.

Monsignor Charles Scicluna issued the warning to seminarians at St Peter's basilica, in Rome, during prayers for abuse victims. >>> Tom Kington in Vatican City | Sunday, May 30, 2010

Israeli Troops Attack Ship Carrying Aid to Gaza Killing 16
THE TELEGRAPH: Israeli commandos have stormed a flotilla of ships carrying activists and aid supplies to the blockaded Palestinian enclave of Gaza, killing as many as 16 of those on board.



Fighting broke out between the activists and the masked Israeli troops, who rappelled on to deck from helicopters before dawn.

A spokeswoman for the flotilla, Greta Berlin, said she had been told ten people had been killed and dozens wounded, accusing Israeli troops of indiscriminately shooting at "unarmed civilians". But an Israeli radio station said that between 14 and 16 were dead in a continuing operation.

"How could the Israeli military attack civilians like this?" Ms Berlin said. "Do they think that because they can attack Palestinians indiscriminately they can attack anyone?

"We have two other boats. This is not going to stop us."
But an Israeli military spokeswoman said that there had been a planned and organised attempt to "lynch" the boarding party. She said the activists were armed with knives and guns.

The Israeli government's handling of the confrontation was under intense international pressure even as it continued. The Israeli ambassador to Turkey, the base of one of the human rights organisation which organised the flotilla, was summoned by the foreign ministry in Anakara, as the Israeli consulate in Istanbul came under attack.

One Israeli minister issued immediate words of regret. "The images are certainly not pleasant. I can only voice regret at all the fatalities," Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the trade and industry minister, told army radio. >>> Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent and Matthew Kalman in Jerusalem | Monday, May 31, 2010

THE TELEGRAPH: Turkey condemns Israel over deadly attack on Gaza aid flotilla: The decision by Israeli troops to storm a flotilla of ships carrying aid to the Gaza Strip, killing at least 15 people, was inhumane and unacceptable, Turkey has warned. >>> | Monday, May 31, 2010

Australians 'Don't Give a XXXX' as They Abandon Beer for Wine
THE TELEGRAPH: Beer consumption in Australia has dropped to a 60-year-low as the younger generation abandons the "amber nectar" in favour of wine.

Think of Australia and the immediate associations are beaches, kangaroos and, of course, beer.

The legendary love for lager Down Under has been perpetuated by cultural exports including Barry “Bazza” McKenzie and Paul “Crocodile Dundee” Hogan and reinforced by memorable marketing campaigns including the Castlemaine XXXX adverts featuring the tag-line: “Australians wouldn’t give a XXXX for anything else.”

But according to new statistics, the worship of the “amber nectar” has gone flat, as beer consumption has dipped to its lowest level in 60 years.

The party-loving nation has not gone teetotal, however. Instead, the younger generation has developed a more refined palate, swapping cans of lager for bottles of wine.

Australians drank 11.3 pints of lager per person in 1979, but last year consumption sank to just 7.9 pints, the lowest amount since the 1950s.

In contrast, wine consumption quadrupled between 1960 and 2000, and has maintained a steady increase of about four per cent per year since, according to the Wine and Brandy Corporation. >>> Bonnie Malkin in Sydney | Friday, May 28, 2010

Duty-free Cigarette Ban Is On the Cards
THE TELEGRAPH: CEO of World Duty Free reveals plans to remove tobacco from stores as airport retail chain endures a £250,000-a-day sales hit from British Airways strike

Cigarettes will disappear from Britain's duty free shops after a period of being sold from "behind closed doors" as the Government tightens anti-smoking laws.

Mark Riches, chief executive of World Duty Free, Britain's biggest airport shopping chain, expects to set up closed-off areas for cigarette sales from 2013, in which the brands won't be on display. The company aims to replace its most profitable product ahead of an expected total ban.

"We're not kidding ourselves that we'll have the business forever," Mr Riches said. While such a move is not imminent, "that's the direction we're heading in," he added.

Such a development would come as a blow to smokers as cigarettes cost £2.50 for a packet of 20 from tax-free shops compared with £6 on the high street. The new Government is expected to review Labour's plans for a ban on displaying tobacco in all shops from 2013. Mr Riches said his business will take a total ban in its stride. Airport shopping has already been transformed "out of all recognition" since the end of duty free limits within Europe in 1999, he said.

At that time tobacco was by far the biggest seller. Now World Duty Free's (WDF) biggest business is beauty products, which account for around 50pc of sales. Among its most popular products are Gucci aftershave and Chanel's Coco Mademoiselle perfume.

WDF's cigarette sales are falling by around 5pc a year, while the company's sales rose 6.4pc last year and 8.7pc in the first quarter of 2010, with revenues at £126m. WDF has 85 shops in the UK, with a flagship store at London's Heathrow Terminal 5 which takes in £100m a year. >>> Amy Wilson | Saturday, May 29, 2010

Barack Obama's Credibility Hits Rock Bottom After Oil Spill and Sestak Scandal
THE TELEGRAPH: The combination of Obama's passivity over the Gulf oil spill catastrophe and his cynical political manoeuvrings could spell disaster for him, argues Toby Harnden

The first thing Barack Obama probably should have done was to order the livestreaming Oil Spill Cam to be turned off. As the President insisted to Americans that he was "singularly focused" on staunching the flow, there was that mesmerising image on their television screens of plumes of hydrocarbons gushing relentlessly into the Gulf of Mexico.

When any political leader feels they have to declare that they are "fully engaged" in an issue, it is clear that they are in trouble. Talking about it undermines the very point you are trying to make - not to mention that pesky Oil Spill Cam showing that, 38 days into the Deepwater Horizon disaster, not a whole lot had been achieved.

Even judging Obama by his words, he has fallen woefully short over what has now eclipsed the 1989 Exxon Valdez wreck as biggest oil spill catastrophe in American history. He may have described it as an "unprecedented disaster" in last Thursday's press conference but a week into the crisis he was blithely stating that "this incident is of national significance" and rest assured he was receiving "frequent briefings" about it.

George W Bush's unpopularity and perceived incompetence was encapsulated by the way he dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Candidate Obama branded it "unconscionable incompetence".

Central to Obama's appeal was his promise to be truly different. His failure to achieve that is now at the core of the deep disappointment Americans feel about him. At the press conference - the first full-scale affair he had deigned to give for 309 days - he appeared uncomfortable and petulant.

His approach to the issue was that of the law student suddenly fascinated by a science project. He displayed none of the visceral indignation Americans feel about pretty much everything these days - two-thirds now say they are "angry" about the way things are going - resorting instead to Spock-like technocratic language and legalese. "I'm not contradicting my prior point," he stated at one juncture. During those 63 minutes of soporific verbosity, about 800 barrels of oil poured into the Gulf.

Obama engaged in the obligatory populist bashing of Big Oil and, of course, demonstrated the Obama administration's version of Tourette's Syndrome, blaming the previous administration for the situation when, by my reckoning, it's a full 16 months since Bush left office. Read on and comment >>> Toby Harnden in Washington | Saturday, May 29, 2010

HT: Pastorius

Related articles here

Von der Maske zum Gesicht – und umgekehrt: Nachdenken über die Burka
NZZ ONLINE: In der Diskussion um das Burka-Verbot prallen unterschiedlichste Argumentationsweisen und Interessenlagen aufeinander. Der auf beiden Seiten öfters spürbare missionarische Eifer droht den Blick dafür zu verstellen, dass ein Aufklärungsprozess nur wirksam sein kann, wenn er sich von innen heraus entwickelt.

Als Charles-Louis de Secondat, besser bekannt unter dem Titel des Barons de Montesquieu, im Jahr 1721 seine «Lettres Persanes» publizieren liess, leitete die europäische Aufklärung den Prozess ihrer kulturellen Selbstbefragung ein. Denn der Verfasser, der hier aus guten Gründen anonym bleiben wollte, richtete seinen kritischen Blick auf die Sitten und Gebräuche der Grande Nation, die sich damals schon gerne als den Nabel der Welt verstand. Montesquieus Kunstgriff machte Schule: Er bestand darin, dass zwei fiktive Perser in einer Reihe von Briefen untereinander und an Freunde in der Heimat darüber berichteten, was sie auf ihrer Reise erlebten. Die Route führte von Isfahan über Smyrna nach Italien und schliesslich rasch nach Paris. Rica und Usbek, begabt mit wachen Sinnen, fanden reichlich Stoff zur Verwunderung über das Leben der Franzosen wie über politische und religiöse Verhaltensweisen. Beiträge zur Selbstkritik >>> Von Martin Meyer | Samstag, 29. Mai 2010

Allah’s Displeasure*! Dr Zakir Naik: Minimum Length of the Beard


*I’m sure Allah will be devastated and very angry if you don’t grow your beard, especially to the right length! Question: If Allah is that small-minded, is he worth worshipping? – Mark

Dr Zakir Naik: Death Penalty for Apostates


Related article here

UK Chief Treasury Secretary Resigns Amid Scandal


Related here

MAIL ONLINE: Muslim hate preacher is let into Britain despite Tories' pledge to keep out radicals: Home Secretary Theresa May faces outrage after her officials allowed an Islamic hate-preacher to enter Britain.

Zakir Naik, who has said ‘every Muslim should be a terrorist’ and claimed Western women are easy rape targets because of their revealing clothes, is to speak in a tour of the country. >>> Daily Mail Reporter | Sunday, May 30, 2010