Friday, November 12, 2010
BBC: Thilo Sarrazin is not charismatic, but he has become a man of influence. He has changed the debate over immigration in Germany.
In his view "suppressing emotion is even more dangerous" than broaching subjects that were recently largely off-limits.
Others, like analyst Prof Klaus Kocks, have issued a note of caution. "As a German," he told me, "you have to be more careful than others. You have to accept our history."
I met Thilo Sarrazin at his old school in Recklinghausen. He was there to promote his book, Germany Abolishes Itself. He is both reviled and admired for its controversial thesis.
Outside the school were a handful of protesters. One banner accused Mr Sarrazin of acting like the Nazis. There were many more, however, who had bought tickets to hear him. His book has sold close to a million copies.
His essential message is that Muslims are either "unwilling or unable to integrate" into Western society. "If the majority of migrants from non-Muslim countries don't have any obvious problem integrating," he told a packed hall, "then the failure to integrate on the part of migrants from Muslim countries can't be due to a fault on our side - because all are treated equally. It has to be because of a characteristic of Muslims themselves."
He is not a great speaker. He deals in statistics. He recognises that some Muslims have integrated, but he believes Germany has gone too far in trying to accommodate them. "People who obey laws are welcome to live here," he told me, but he wants to end Muslim immigration.
For those already in Germany, welfare payments would be dependent on learning German and acquiring language skills. Parents who do not send their children to school (for religious reasons) should be fined. Forced marriages should be forbidden. His message is that Muslim migrants must accept German laws, the constitution and the values of their new society.
His comments have set off a huge debate. "We have a very serious shift in discussion," Prof Kocks told me. What makes his book sales all the more extraordinary is that Thilo Sarrazin said, as part of the publicity for the book, that Jews had a certain gene. He was condemned by mainstream politicians and the remark led to his resignation from the board of the Bundesbank. Even so, the public made his book a best-seller. (+ video) >>> Gavin Hewitt | Sunday, November 07, 2010
FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: Seit Monaten machen sich Anleger Sorgen um die finanzielle Stabilität Irlands. Jetzt haben die fünf größten EU-Staaten versucht, die Gläubiger Irlands und anderer finanzschwacher Euro-Staaten zu beruhigen: Der gegenwärtige Rettungsschirm beteilige private Investoren nicht an den Kosten einer Rettungsaktion.
Führende Politiker großer Staaten der Europäischen Union haben am Freitag die Gläubiger der finanzschwachen Euro-Staaten beruhigt. Die Finanzminister Deutschlands, Frankreichs, Großbritanniens, Spaniens und Italiens teilten gemeinsamen mit, dass der gegenwärtige europäische Rettungsschirm private Investoren nicht an den Kosten beteilige. Ein Mechanismus, der auch die Gläubiger heranziehen könnte, wenn ein Land in Zahlungsschwierigkeiten gerate, werde nicht vor Mitte 2013 in Kraft treten. Bis dahin gelte der im Sommer beschlossene europäische Rettungsschirm. >>> Von Carsten Germis, Manfred Schäfers und Stefan Ruhkamp | Freitag, 12. November 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The muscular figures in Michelangelo's Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel were based on male prostitutes he encountered in homosexual bathhouses and brothels, an Italian art historian has claimed.Elena Lazzarini, a researcher from Pisa University, believes the enormous fresco is replete with homosexual imagery, including a man being dragged into Damnation by his testicles and kisses and embraces between male figures.
She has explored the theory in a new book, claiming that Michelangelo drew much of his knowledge of male anatomy from his frequent visits to gay brothels and 'Turkish baths' in 16th century Italy.
"The virile male bodies are inspired by the physiology of labourers engaged in physical exertion, with taut muscles, strenuous exertion and pain etched into the expression on their faces," said Miss Lazzarini.
She said it was well documented that Michelangelo, who is believed by many historians to have been homosexual, frequented bathhouses and steam rooms tucked away in Rome's maze of cobbled alleyways.
"The bathhouses had many rooms where people could take hot and cold baths and massages. "And then there were other, secluded rooms, places of promiscuity and both male and female prostitution." >>> Nick Squires in Rome | Friday, November 12, 2010
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: GRANDE-BRETAGNE | La police a annoncé vendredi avoir procédé à 55 arrestations après les violences survenues mercredi en marge d'une manifestation d'étudiants contre le triplement du plafonnement des frais d'inscription à l'université.
La dernière interpellation en date est celle d'un étudiant de 23 ans soupçonné d'avoir jeté un extincteur sur des policiers du haut d'un immeuble abritant le siège du parti conservateur, que des étudiants avaient pris d'assaut.
Le jeune homme étudie à la célèbre Université de Cambridge. La police n'a pas précisé son identité.
Les images le montrant jetant l'extincteur avaient fait le tour des chaînes de télévision et avaient été un moment-clef dans le face-à-face entre forces de l'ordre et étudiants, qui avait duré une bonne partie de la journée. >>> AFP | Vendredi 12 Novembre 2010
LE POINT: L'otage française malade d'Al-Qaeda au Maghreb islamique (Aqmi), qui souffre d'un cancer et est détenue depuis mi-septembre avec quatre autres Français, un Malgache et un Togolais dans le nord-est du Mali, "a reçu des médicaments", a-t-on appris vendredi de source malienne très bien informée. "Je peux vous dire que l'otage française a reçu, grâce à une intervention du Mali, des médicaments. Les médicaments sont bien arrivés à destination", a affirmé cette source malienne proche du dossier. "Ces médicaments vont lui faire du bien. Les ravisseurs ont pris l'engagement de lui remettre le colis envoyé, et je sais que ça a été fait", a-t-elle ajouté. >>> Source AFP | Vendredi 12 Novembre 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Around 20 Italian models drank warm camel's milk and stargazed in the Sahara Desert on a two-week all expenses paid trip to Libya which was hosted by Muammar Gaddafi, it emerged on Friday.
The women said they were treated "like queens" by the Libyan leader but encountered no evidence of so-called "bunga-bunga" sex parties.
The phrase has become part of Italy's national vocabulary after it was claimed that Silvio Berlusconi learned of the "harem-style rituals" from his friend, Col Gaddafi, and hosted similar soirées at his mansion near Milan.
The aspiring starlets stayed in five-star hotels and resorts, riding on camels and posing for pictures in front of giant posters of Col Gaddafi and the Italian prime minister. They were among several hundred showgirls who were recruited over the last 12 months by a Rome-based agency, Hostessweb, to meet Col Gaddafi during his visits to Italy.
He subjected them to rambling lectures on the superiority of Islam and the wisdom of the Koran before issuing an open invitation to visit Libya.
The women who took up the offer said they shared a breakfast of camel's milk and palm dates with the Libyan leader and that sex games were definitely not on the agenda. "The truth is that he treated us as queens," said Clio Evans, 24, an Anglo-Italian actress who has visited Libya on several occasions. "We sat in a tent and joked and laughed for ages." Miss Evans' father is from Yorkshire. >>> Nick Squires in Rome | Friday, November 12, 2010
CHICAGO TRIBUNE: 'This was not my idea,' says Rob Halpin
There's a new twist in the effort to stop Rahm Emanuel from becoming mayor of Chicago: Rob Halpin, businessman, cigar smoker, man of destiny and potential mayoral candidate.
"This has nothing to do with Rahm Emanuel," Halpin told me Tuesday.
Really?
"This was not my idea," Halpin said. "I'm outside the mainstream. I'm not a professional politician. … I was approached by some businessmen who asked if I would be interested in running for mayor. And they explained to me why they thought I'd be a good candidate and a good mayor."
I figure that the guys thinking about Halpin as a candidate aren't interested in his taste in cigars.
They're interested because he's Rahm Emanuel's stubborn tenant.
Halpin's the guy who's been renting Rahm's North Side home. When Rahm was about to leave the White House, he asked Halpin to move out. Amazingly, Halpin refused the Rahmfather.
Now Emanuel's campaign is expected to be challenged in the courts, a legal maneuver backed by guys on the South Side who are part of the stop-Rahm movement. And Halpin's talk of candidacy highlights the argument that Rahm is not a resident.
In a city famous for political shenanigans, this one is downright shenaniganlicious (just try pronouncing it). >>> John Kass | Wednesday, November 10, 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Rahm Emanuel's awkward tenant may run against him in Chicago: Rahm Emanuel's tenant has announced he is considering running for mayor of Chicago. >>> Alex Spillius in Washington | Friday, November 12, 2010
MAIL ONLINE: Hate cleric Omar Bakri has been sentenced to life in prison by a military court in the Lebanon for allegedly helping to train members of Al Qaeda at a terror camp in Tripoli.The Syrian-born preacher, who was not in court when the punishment was handed out, was also accused of fund raising for Osama Bin Laden's fanatics in the middle eastern country.
He described the charges as 'absurd' and said they were politically motivated after the Lebanese government came under pressure from Britain and the US.
Speaking from a hide out where relatives are putting him up in a bid to escape jail, Bakri said: 'It was a military court and the judge was General Mizar Khalil who is a Shia Muslim, whereas I am a Sunni scholar.
'They say I have been training people in weapons in Tripoli. I have never held a weapon in my life. There were 54 brothers' names read out in court, and I was one of them.
'They gave 25 of us, including me, a life sentence, which is the maximum because we were absent. It was simply because we are Sunni Muslims. The whole thing is absurd. I did not even receive a summons. The first I knew about it was from media reports.
'I rang the court this morning and they said I have fifteen days to challenge the decision. But I am not going to court. It is against my religion. I do not believe in any man made laws be they in the UK or the Lebanon.
'God is my protector and I do not want to go to prison. But if it is his will that I spend the rest of my life behind bars, then so be it. I have no passport, no documents, I cannot go anywhere so they will find me. Read on and comment >>> Daily Mail Reporter | Thursday, November 12, 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A German-made film about the horrors of the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz is so horrific that many critics have already said they will boycott it when it is released next year.
A clip of Uwe Boll's film entitled Auschwitz is already on the internet, showing disturbing images of naked victims dying in gas chambers.
Mr Boll, a filmmaker who has made it his life's work to shock, said he wanted to present to the world "a movie about the Holocaust that tells it like it really was".
Tom Goldman, from videogame magazine the Escapist, said the film was "disturbing and gruesome and likely to push moviegoers over the edge". >>> Allan Hall in Berlin | Friday, November 12, 2010
NZZ ONLINE: Wenige Wochen nach der Freigabe des islamischen Kopftuches an den Universitäten der Türkei flammt der Streit um die Grenzen der Kopftuch-Freiheit im Land neu auf.
Oppositionschef Kemal Kilicdaroglu warf der religiös-konservativen Regierung nach Presseberichten vom Freitag vor, sie wolle das Kopftuchverbot für Grundschülerinnen als Wahlkampfthema ausbeuten. Anlass für die Kritik war die Weigerung von Ministerpräsident Recep Tayyip Erdogan, die Zulassung von Kopftüchern für minderjährige Schülerinnen klar auszuschliessen. >>> afp | Freitag, 12. November 2010
NZZ ONLINE: Wien wird weiter links regiert, jetzt aber rot-grün, nicht mehr bloss rot. Die erdrückende Allmacht der Sozialisten ist nach mehreren Jahrzehnten beendet. Die Opposition wird von der ausländerfeindlichen Rechten geprägt.Wien wird künftig von den Grünen mitregiert. Damit wird die Alleinherrschaft der Sozialisten (SPÖ) beendet, die seit der Neugründung des Staates Österreich als zweite Republik die Stadt fest im Griff hielten. Die sozialdemokratische SPÖ einigte sich am Freitag mit den Grünen auf eine Koalition, rund einen Monat nach der Wahl, wie die österreichische Nachrichtenagentur APA berichtete. >>> sda/dpa | Freitag, 12. November 2010
BBC: Reports are coming out of Burma saying the military authorities have signed an order authorising the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.The Nobel laureate has been detained for 15 of the past 21 years, and her house arrest term expires on Saturday.
There has been increased police activity outside her house in Rangoon, but as yet no official confirmation.
However, Ms Suu Kyi is not expected to accept a conditional release if it excludes her from political activity.
She was originally due to be released last year, but a case involving an American who swam across Inya Lake to her home, claiming he was on a mission to save her, prompted the latest 18-month detention.
'Significant impact'
The BBC's Alastair Leithead in Bangkok says a number of sources inside Burma have told the BBC that documents authorising Ms Suu Kyi's release have been signed.
There has been increased police activity outside her home in University Avenue in Rangoon, Burma's biggest city.
Her supporters, who have been publicly counting down the days to the end of her current term of house arrest, have been gathering at the headquarters of her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), in anticipation of her release. >>> | Friday, November 12, 2010
LE TEMPS: Aung San Suu Kyi est libre >>> | Vendredi 12 Novembre 2010
LE TEMPS: Aung San Suu Kyi, icône de l’espoir démocratique : Sa frêle silhouette symbolise depuis plus de vingt ans la résistance à la junte. Mais si son aura a résisté au temps en Birmanie comme à l’étranger, l’opposante Aung San Suu Kyi n’en est pas moins devenue une figure marginalisée, une icône à l’avenir politique incertain >>> AFP | Vendredi 12 Novembre 2010
LE FIGARO: Menacé par la fronde de l'establishment religieux, le «guide» iranien est parti à la reconquête de Qom.
Le guide suprême iranien n'est pas un adepte des voyages. Encore moins des bains de foule. Pourtant, événement sans précédent, l'ayatollah Ali Khamenei est resté, le mois dernier, pendant dix jours d'affilée à Qom. Un choix stratégique: c'est au cœur de la ville sainte, berceau de la révolution islamique de 1979, qu'il fait aujourd'hui face à la fronde la plus redoutable - celle des membres d'une partie de la nomenklatura religieuse qui n'a jamais autant mis en cause son pouvoir.
Les discours qui ont ponctué le déplacement du numéro un du régime iranien se lisent comme autant de mises en garde à leur attention. «L'ennemi a décidé de transformer Qom en quartier général des contre-révolutionnaires», s'est-il insurgé dans une de ses nombreuses interventions retransmises à la télévision d'État, en référence au mouvement de contestation qui sévit en Iran depuis la réélection controversée d'Ahmadinejad, en juin2009.
Quand il succède à l'ayatollah Khomeyni, en 1989, Ali Khamenei n'a ni le charisme ni les compétences a priori requises pour remplacer le «père» de la révolution islamique. L'ex-président de la République islamique n'a pas rédigé le fameux resaleh, ce traité portant sur des questions de jurisprudence lui permettant d'accéder à la dignité d'ayatollah - même si, plus tard, il sera élevé à ce haut rang. Choisi par un collège de 80 religieux, il est régulièrement chahuté par ses adversaires, mais s'attelle à son rôle d'arbitre, au-dessus de la mêlée. >>> Par Delphine Minoui | Mercredi 10 Novembre 2010
THE SUNDAY EXPRESS: ISLAMIC fanatics are mutilating themselves at a British mosque in a bloody ceremony carried out only yards from a busy high street.Shia Muslims use a five-bladed chain called a Zanjeer to whip their own backs and make cuts in their foreheads with razor blades in homage to their faith.
Bare-chested men were left bleeding heavily during the ritual known as Matam – self-flagellation – which a witness described as being “like a scene from a horror film”.
The Sunday Express found that up to 800 men performed the bloody ceremony in secret at the Imamia Mosque in Forest Gate, east London, last year.
The Matam takes place during the annual Shia Ashura ceremony and commemorates the death of Husayn, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad. It is practised largely in Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and India as well as Yemen and Afghanistan but this is the first time it is known to have taken place in Britain.
Huge wooden screens were put up around the mosque to keep the event secret and prevent passers-by on busy Romford Road seeing the bloodletting.
The Sunday Express visited the mosque last week and learned that the ceremony took place last December and is due to be repeated next month. One man who witnessed the ceremony last year was so alarmed by what he saw he nearly passed out. He said: “There was blood everywhere. There were pools of blood on the ground and my clothes were splattered with blood. It was very scary. >>> David Jarvis and Shekhar Bhatia: Exclusive | Sunday, November 07, 2010
HT: Pastorius >>>
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Lecturers at one of the country’s leading universities were roundly condemned last night for praising students who rioted at Conservative Party headquarters.
Academics at Goldsmiths, University of London, justified the violence by saying it had brought the tuition fees row “media attention across the world”.
In a statement branded “irresponsible” by Downing Street, they said they wished to “congratulate staff and students on the magnificent anti-cuts demonstration”.
It was signed by John Wadsworth, the president of Goldsmiths lecturers’ union, and its secretary Des Freedman, a lecturer in communications and cultural studies.
It also emerged that a lecturer from the University of Sussex who was among the protestors is a prominent member of the left-wing socialist group Revolution, which began planning “direct action” weeks ago. >>> Gordon Rayner and Laura Roberts | Friday, November 12, 2010
Who are the student rioters? >>>
Thursday, November 11, 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: David Cameron has flatly contradicted George W Bush and said he does not believe that waterboarding, the controversial interrogation technique, saves lives.
The British prime minister, speaking at the G20 summit in South Korea, repeated the official British line that torture was wrong, and he went further, attacking policies pursued by the Bush administration on the detention and treatment of prisoners which he said had helped to radicalise people and made the West "less safe".
Mr Bush memoirs, which were published this week, asserted strongly that the waterboarding of prisoners had averted huge terrorist attacks on key London targets. The former US president also said that he did not believe that waterboarding constituted torture. >>> Andrew Porter in Seoul | Thursday, November 11, 2010
* This man is turning out to be a naïve fool! – Mark
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Five terror suspects arrested in Paris this week are suspected of conspiring to launch an attack in France and one of them was prepared to die, according to Brice Hortefeux, the interior minister.France is on heightened alert for a terror attack after Osama bin Laden targeted the country for the first time in a recent speech and endorsed the capture of five French nationals by the group's North African wing.
Mr Hortefeux said the terror threat remained "real" and "elevated" following the arrest on Monday and Tuesday of five suspects, all of whom were French including one woman, at Charles de Gaulle airport and in the greater Paris region.
"What we can say is that, over the last few days with these arrests ... there was what we call a conspiracy (to) prepare a terror attack," he told reporters at a Paris train station.
"Some of them were ready to die in their fanatical act," he said, later clarifying only one appeared willing to die. >>> | Wednesday, November 10, 2010
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