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Friday, December 31, 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Barack Obama's family holiday in Hawaii is reportedly costing at least $1.5 million (£1 million) as mainland America is battered by storms.
The calculation of Mr Obama's holiday costs included $63,000 for his wife's early flight out, and $16,800 to house Secret Service agents and Navy Seals in beach front accommodation for two weeks.
There will be a further hotel bill estimated at $134,400 for 24 White House staff staying in the Moana Hotel at a rate of $400 a day.
The estimate, by the Hawaii Reporter, also included $250,000 for local police overtime, $1 million for the president's own round trip flight to Hawaii on Air Force One, and $10,000 for a local ambulance to accompany the presidential motorcade. >>> Nick Allen, Los Angeles | Thursday, December 30, 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: At least two Christians were killed and 12 people wounded in a series of attacks on Christian homes in Baghdad, according to Iraq's interior ministry.
The worst attack was in the central Baghdad district of Al-Ghadir, where a homemade bomb exploded around 8pm (1700 GMT), killing the two Christians and wounding three others, including one Christian, an official from the ministry said. >>>Telegraph’s Foreign Staff | Thursday, December 30, 2010
AFP: TANGIERS, Morocco — Novelist Abdellah Taia, who has won acclaim in France and readers abroad, has challenged a taboo in his native Morocco and won't back down: he is the first writer to come out as gay in a country that bans homosexuality.
For 37-year-old Taia, who has lived in Paris for the last decade, being homosexual and Muslim are not mutually exclusive. He "feels Muslim" and is from a country where Islam is the state religion.
"I am the first Moroccan writer who has spoken openly about his homosexuality, to acknowledge it, but without turning my back on the country I'm from," he said."My homosexuality, I already felt it from the age of 13, at school.
"But despite this, I feel Muslim. There is no incompatibility between Islam and choices of sexual identity," he told AFP on a recent visit back to Morocco. >>> Omar Brouksy | Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A Moscow judge ignored pleas for leniency on Thursday evening and handed Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oil tycoon, a 14-year sentence for embezzlement.Judge Victor Danilkin gave the former head of oil group Yukos exactly what the prosecution had asked for. The sentence will be counted from Mr Khodorkovsky's 2003 arrest, meaning that he and business partner Platon Lebedev could be released in 2017.
The Russian prison service said it had not yet been decided where the two men would serve the sentence. Both were due to finish eight-year sentences for tax evasion next year.
Defendants' lawyers immediately blamed Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, for the harsh sentence. Mr Putin, who as president turned against Mr Khodorkovsky, said in a reference to the former oligarch that "thieves should sit in jail".
In a statement read out by his lawyer, Mr Khodorkovsky said: "You cannot count on the courts to protect you from the whim of bureaucrats in Russia."
International reaction was again damning. Mr Khodorkovsky is widely viewed as a political prisoner and symbol of a corrupt Russian judicial system. A senior official from the US administration said that the sentencing would complicate Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organisation. Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, said: "The impression remains that political motivations played a role in this trial. This contradicts Russia's frequently repeated intention to pursue full adoption of the rule of law." >>> Roland Oliphant in Moscow | Thursday, December 30, 2010
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ZEIT ONLINE: Das ungarische Mediengesetz tritt pünktlich zur EU-Ratspräsidentschaft des Landes in Kraft. Berlin hofft auf Änderungen, doch Ungarn gibt sich unbeeindruckt.
Wenn die konservative Regierung in Ungarn am kommenden Samstag die protokollarische Führungsrolle in Europa übernimmt, dürften die Staats- und Regierungschefs in so mancher europäischer Hauptstadt zutiefst beunruhigt sein. Grund sind die reichlich unorthodoxen Maßnahmen, die das Kabinett unter Führung von Ministerpräsident Viktor Orbán jüngst erlassen hatte. Dazu gehören neben einer Sondersteuer für Unternehmen auch ein neues Presserecht, das europaweit für Empörung gesorgt hat. >>> dpa, Reuters, AFP | Donnerstag, 30. Dezember 2010
LE TEMPS: Le mouvement islamiste, qui dirige la bande de Gaza d’une main de fer, est de plus en plus critiqué par les Palestiniens du territoire sous blocus israélien. Mais le dire ouvertement peut mener à la prison
Des drapeaux verts, celui de l’islam et… du Hamas, par milliers: de Beit Hanoun, dans le nord, à Rafah, au sud, personne, dans la bande de Gaza, ne peut ignorer que le mouvement islamiste palestinien qui domine le petit territoire côtier a célébré le 14 décembre ses 23 ans d’existence. On en était, en 1987, aux frémissements initiaux de la première Intifada. Que d’eau a coulé depuis lors…
Le Hamas contrôle le territoire d’une main de fer. Tout le monde le dit ou, en tout cas, le pense. Car une chape de plomb a recouvert les esprits. «Si la moindre critique peut vous mener en prison parce que vous avez été dénoncé par un voisin que vous croyiez votre ami, eh bien! la plupart des gens choisissent de se taire, résume un habitant de Nusseirat, dans le centre de la bande. Ils veulent contrôler nos vies, jusqu’à nous empêcher de boire de l’alcool. Ils mettent leurs hommes à tous les postes. Alors, la population fait le gros dos, affecte de s’islamiser, tout le monde va à la mosquée le vendredi, prie tous les jours. Les gens s’adaptent.» >>> Baudouin Loos envoyé special du Temps à Gaza | Mardi 28 Décembre 2010
BBC: Three men have been charged in a Danish court with attempting to carry out an act of terrorism.
They were arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of plotting to attack the offices of a newspaper which printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
A fourth man has been released while a fifth, arrested in Sweden, is still being held in Stockholm.
The three men were remanded in custody for four weeks by a court in Glostrup, west of Copenhagen.
For the first two weeks they will be held in isolation, according to Lykke Soerensen, who heads the legal department of Danish intelligence agency PET.
She told the TV2 channel that isolation was necessary because of concerns that the three men might try to "affect the investigation and affect the witnesses". >>> | Thursday, December 30, 2010
BBC: A Polish judge has jailed a Swedish man for two years and eight months for plotting the theft of the "Arbeit macht frei" Auschwitz entrance sign.
Anders Hoegstroem, a former neo-Nazi leader, admitted theft under a plea bargain last month and will be moved to Sweden to serve his sentence.
The infamous sign was stolen in December last year and recovered in three pieces three days later.
The judge in Krakow also jailed two Poles for up to two-and-a-half years.
One of the pair, named as Andrzej S, apologised in court for the offence, Polish media report.
The 5m (16ft) wrought-iron slogan which translates as "Work sets you free" is a potent symbol of many of the Nazi-era atrocities. During the Nazi Holocaust, 1.1 million people - most of them Jews - were murdered at Auschwitz. >>> | Thursday, December 30, 2010
TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Un restaurant de l’archipel des Maldives qui avait accroché des décorations de Noël a provoqué des manifestations d’hostilité parmi la population de cet archipel où l’islam est la seule religion officielle, a indiqué jeudi la police. Les guirlandes incriminées ont été retirées et le restaurant a présenté ses excuses. Le Jade Bistro, situé dans la capitale Malé, était orné de boules et de guirlandes de Noël pour mettre en avant «des dîners de fêtes». Il avait également proposé un menu spécial Noël - sandwiches à la dinde et bûche - mais selon les autorités locales, ce sont les décorations qui ont provoqué la colère de la population.
Aux Maldives, une destination touristique de l’océan indien prisée des Occidentaux, les autres croyances en dehors de l’islam sont interdites aux citoyens et les étrangers ne doivent pas les exhiber en public. >>> ATS/AFP | Jeudi 30 Décembre 2010
THE NEW YORK TIMES: JIDDA, Saudi Arabia — It is an architectural absurdity. Just south of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the Muslim world’s holiest site, a kitsch rendition of London’s Big Ben is nearing completion. Called the Royal Mecca Clock Tower, it will be one of the tallest buildings in the world, the centerpiece of a complex that is housing a gargantuan shopping mall, an 800-room hotel and a prayer hall for several thousand people. Its muscular form, an unabashed knockoff of the original, blown up to a grotesque scale, will be decorated with Arabic inscriptions and topped by a crescent-shape spire in what feels like a cynical nod to Islam’s architectural past. To make room for it, the Saudi government bulldozed an 18th-century Ottoman fortress and the hill it stood on.The tower is just one of many construction projects in the very center of Mecca, from train lines to numerous luxury high-rises and hotels and a huge expansion of the Grand Mosque. The historic core of Mecca is being reshaped in ways that many here find appalling, sparking unusually heated criticism of the authoritarian Saudi government.
“It is the commercialization of the house of God,” said Sami Angawi, a Saudi architect who founded a research center that studies urban planning issues surrounding the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, and has been one of the development’s most vocal critics. “The closer to the mosque, the more expensive the apartments. In the most expensive towers, you can pay millions” for a 25-year leasing agreement, he said. “If you can see the mosque, you pay triple.” Read on and comment >>> Nicolai Ouroussoff | Wednesday, December 29, 2010
HUDSON NEW YORK: The city of Barcelona, widely known as a European Mecca of anti-clerical postmodernism, has agreed to build an official mega-mosque with a capacity for thousands of Muslim worshipers. The new structure would rival the massive Islamic Cultural Center in Madrid, currently the biggest mosque in Spain. An official in the office of the Mayor of Barcelona says the objective is to increase the visibility of Muslims in Spain, as well as to promote the "common values between Islam and Europe."
The Barcelona mosque project is just one of dozens of new mosques that are in various stages of construction across Spain. Overall, there are now thirteen mega-mosques in Spain, and more than 1000 smaller mosques and prayer centers scattered across the country, the majority of which are located in Catalonia in northeastern Spain.
The Muslim building spree reflects the rising influence of Islam in Spain, where the Muslim population has jumped to an estimated 1.5 million in 2010, up from just 100,000 in 1990, thanks to massive immigration. The construction of new mosques comes at a time when municipalities linked to the Socialist Party have closed dozens of Christian churches across Spain by way of new zoning laws that several courts have now ruled discriminatory and unconstitutional. It also comes at a time of growing anti-Semitism in Spain.
The Barcelona mosque project was announced during a weeklong seminar titled " Muslims and European Values," jointly sponsored by the European Council of Moroccan Ulemas [Muslim religious scholars], based in Brussels, and the Union of Islamic Cultural Centers in Catalonia, based in Barcelona. A representative of the Barcelona mayor's office who attended the conference told the Madrid-based El País newspaper that the municipality would get involved in the mosque project because "although religion pertains to the private realm, this does not mean it does not have a public role." >>> Soeren Kern | Thursday, December 30, 2010
NEW YORK POST: If 2010 was the year America finally woke up to political Islam's ne farious reach on US soil, with luck 2011 will be the year we launch an offensive against it. One way to begin that process is through hearings that Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the new chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, plans to hold on American Muslim radicalization.
Attention to this issue offers an opportunity for American Muslims to confront the radicalization problem and provide solutions -- as only they can.
My group, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, believes these hearings will shed light on the diversity of American Muslims, giving our community a chance to step from behind the veil of Muslim victimization and address head-on the need for long-overdue ideological reforms. >>> M. Zuhdi Jasser * | Thursday, December 30, 2010
* M. Zuhdi Jasser, a physician and a former US Navy lieutenant commander, is the founder and president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. info@aifdemocracy.org
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A number of palaces of Russia's super-rich have been revealed by the magazine Forbes, including a mysterious 18th century style estate built since the mid-2000s which is standing empty and no one knows who built it.
Hundreds of palaces have been built in the Russian countryside in the last 15 years when newly rich oligarchs began looking for ways to display their stupendous – and often ill-gotten – wealth. The village of Zukovka, on the Rublovka highway west of Moscow, is dotted with immense country residences: mock medieval castles, imitation 19th century mansions, and huge Swiss chalets crouch behind three meter high fences and security cameras. But their owners are secretive and hide their mansions inside exclusive settlements screened by trees and guarded by police. >>> Roland Oliphant in Moscow | Wednesday, December 29, 2010
By contrast, for this former oligarch, life isn't quite so rosy:
THE TIMES: Brutal gulag and hard rations await tycoon found guilty twice >>> Tony Halpin, Moscow | Wednesday, December 29, 2010 (£)
THE GUARDIAN: Mikhail Khodorkovsky sentenced to 14 years in prison: Jailed former oligarch given six more years for theft and money laundering after widely condemned trial >>> Mark Tran and agencies | Thursday, December 30, 2010
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Russian Judge Extends Term for Tycoon by 6 Years: MOSCOW — Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, the Russian tycoon who was imprisoned after defying Vladimir V. Putin, was sentenced to another six years behind bars on Thursday. It was a stiff term that was considered an unambiguous signal that Mr. Putin was not loosening control over the country in advance of presidential elections that he might enter. >>> Clifford J. Levy |Thursday, December 30, 2010
ZEIT ONLINE: So wie der Urteilsspruch ruft auch das Strafmaß für Chodorkowskij massive Kritik hervor. Die Bundesregierung und die USA zweifeln am Rechtsstaat in Russland.
Die Hoffnung von Michail Chodorkowskij auf eine baldige Freilassung hatte sich spätestens am vergangenen Montag verflüchtigt: Da wurde er von einem Moskauer Gericht erneut für schuldig gesprochen, schuldig des Betrugs und der Geldwäsche. Seit wenigen Stunden ist auch klar, wie lange er dafür noch hinter Gitter verbringen muss: Wie sein ebenfalls verurteilter früherer Geschäftspartner Platon Lebedjew wird auch der frühere Öl-Unternehmer vermutlich erst im Frühjahr 2017 wieder auf freiem Fuß sein. Weiter lessen und einen Kommentar schreiben >>> dpa, AFP | Donnerstag, 30. Dezember 2010
FOX NEWS: MOGADISHU, Somalia -- A leader of Somalia's Islamist insurgency threatened to attack America during a speech broadcast Monday.
"We tell the American President Barack Obama to embrace Islam before we come to his country," said Fuad Mohamed "Shongole" Qalaf.
Al-Shabab has not yet launched an attack outside Africa but Western intelligence has long been worried because the group targeted young Somali-Americans for recruitment. About 20 have traveled to Somalia for training and at least three were used as suicide bombers inside Somalia. Al-Shabab holds most of southern and central Somalia and has the support of hundreds of foreign fighters, mostly radicalized East Africans.
It seeks to overthrow the weak U.N.-backed government, which is protected by 8,000 Ugandan and Burundian African Union peacekeepers. >>> Associated Press | Monday, December 27, 2010
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