Friday, January 27, 2012
AL JAZEERA ENGLISH: Minority government set to prohibit niqabs and burqas and other forms of clothing that cover the face.
The Dutch minority government plans to ban Muslim face veils such as burqas and other forms of clothing that cover the face from next year.
The ban would make the Netherlands, where 1 million out of 17 million people are Muslim, the second EU country to ban the burqa after France, and would apply to face-covering veils if they were worn in public.
"People should be able to look at each other's faces and recognise each other when they meet," the interior affairs ministry said in a statement on Friday.
The ban will also apply to balaclavas and motorcycle helmets when worn in in[f]appropriate places, such as inside a store, Deputy Prime Minister Maxime Verhagen told reporters, denying that this was a ban on religious clothing. » | Friday, January 27, 2012
REUTERS: (Reuters) - Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney took the fight to chief rival Newt Gingrich on Thursday in his most aggressive debate performance yet, five days ahead of Florida's primary vote.
A neck-and-neck race for Florida and its importance for the Republican presidential nomination made for a combustible atmosphere at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville as the candidates sparred repeatedly.
Gingrich, who has displayed a mastery of debating skills during previous debates, was frequently caught flat-footed under attack from Romney who went after his chief rival in an attempt to put his campaign back on track after losing South Carolina last Saturday.
Gingrich and Romney are running close in polls before next Tuesday's primary vote in Florida, the biggest state so far in the early voting for the Republican nomination to face President Barack Obama in November. The most recent polls put Romney ahead.
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, took umbrage at Gingrich's description of him as "anti-immigrant."
"That's inexcusable," Romney said, turning to his rival. "I'm not anti-immigrant. My father was born in Mexico. ... The idea that I'm anti-immigrant is repulsive. Don't use a term like that." » | Steve Holland and Ros Krasny | JACKSONVILLE, Florida | Friday, January 27, 2012
BBC: Mitt Romney Pulls Away from Newt Gingrich in Florida » | Friday, January 27, 2012
The Holocaust and the United Nations Outreach Programme »
WIKI: Raoul Wallenberg »
YNET NEWS: Speaking at European Parliament event for International Holocaust Remembrance Day EUP President says German people are responsible for 'keeping memory alive'
Iran and the current anti-Semitism in Europe were the main subjects at the official International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at the European Parliament in Brussels which launched the remembrance day's commemoration events.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked on January 27, the day when 67 years ago, the Red army liberated the Auschwitz extermination camp.
Speaking at the event, EU Parliament President Martin Schulz said “The German people of today are not guilty (for the Holocaust), but responsible for keeping the memory alive.
"For me, this means that whoever is representing the German nation has one important duty: to take into account our responsibility for the Jews in the world...The Holocaust must always be fresh in our minds and souls, in the conscience of humanity, and should serve as an incontrovertible warning for all time." » | Aviel Magnezi | Friday, January 27, 2012
YNET NEWS: Time to acknowledge that Norwegians took part in deportation of Jews, PM says
Norway apologized for the first time on Friday for the country's complicity in the deportation and deaths of Jews during the Nazi occupation in World War II.
"Norwegians carried out the arrests; Norwegians drove the trucks and it happened in Norway," Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said. "Today I feel it is fitting to express our deepest apologies that this could happen on Norwegian soil."
"It is time for us to acknowledge that Norwegian policemen, civil servants and other Norwegians took part in the arrest and deportation of Jews," he said in a speech marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Vidkun Quisling, the country's leader during the occupation whose name has become synonymous with traitor, ordered Norway's 2,100 Jews registered in 1942. More than a third were deported to death camps, while others fled to neighboring Sweden.
"I regret to say that the ideas that led to the Holocaust are still very much alive today, 70 years later," Stoltenberg said. "All over the world we see that individuals and groups are spreading intolerance and fear." » | Reuters | Friday, January 27, 2012
YNET NEWS: President pledges to ensure Shoah is never repeated; 'We dedicate ourselves to giving meaning to those powerful words: Never Forget. Never Again,' he says
WASHINGTON - Message to Iran? US President Barack Obama issued a statement on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day Friday, pledging to ensure that the Shoah is never forgotten or repeated.
"Together with the State of Israel, and all our friends around the world, we dedicate ourselves to giving meaning to those powerful words: 'Never Forget. Never Again,'" Obama said.
"Michelle and I join people in the United States, in Israel, and across the globe as we remember the six million Jews and millions of others who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis," the president said. "We commit ourselves to keeping their memories alive not only in our thoughts, but through our actions."
Obama pledged to fight Holocaust deniers, noting that "as we celebrate the strength and resilience of survivors, we pledge to stand strong against all those who would commit atrocities, against the resurgence of anti-Semitism, and against hatred in all its forms." » | Yitzhak Benhorin | Friday, January 27, 2012
VOICE OF AMERICA: Turkey's observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day began with a broadcast of a French documentary on the Holocaust on state run television.
Filmmaker Claude Lanzmann's “Shoah” [WIKI] was shown late Thursday, on the eve of the observance.
Lanzmann says the broadcast marked the first time a predominantly Muslim country has shown his 1985 biographical film of the Holocaust era.
The nine-hour film was aired to help build understanding between Muslims and Jews, and to combat denials that the Holocaust occurred. » | Friday, January 27, 2012
The president of the German parliament called on Germans to actively stand up to all forms of right-wing extremism, speaking on the 67th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
"It is these people who set an example and demonstrate courage," Bundestag President Norbert Lammert said in remarks commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Memorial Day falls on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet forces on January 27, 1945.
His comments follow a move to set up a parliamentary inquiry into a series of murders of nine foreign immigrants and a policewoman by an underground neo-Nazi gang. This week, a survey conducted in Germany also found that 20 percent of Germans had latent anti-Semitic feelings. "That is 20 percent too many," said Lammert.
The ceremony was also attended by Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Christian Wulff.
Norway on Friday also offered for the first time a long-delayed apology for the country's complicity in the deportation and deaths of Jews during the Nazi occupation in World War II.
A survivor remembers
In a moving speech in the Bundestag, the prominent Polish-born German literary critic, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, reminded parliament of the systematic torture and organized mass murder of European Jews launched by Germany under Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler.
Reich-Ranicki, who is 91 and frail, grew up in a Jewish family and later survived the Nazi purge of the Warsaw ghetto.
"They had only one goal; they had only one purpose - death," he said referring to Nazi claims at the time that they were simply resettling Jews. » | Author: Gregg Benzow (dpa, AP, AFP) | Editor: Nancy Isenson | Friday, January 27, 2012
THE GUARDIAN: Leftwing frontrunner in presidential race launches manifesto on how Socialist party would deal with financial crisis
François Hollande, the leftwing frontrunner in the French presidential race, has vowed to make the rich pay the highest price to help drag France out of its economic crisis, while promising to pump more money into schools and state-assisted jobs.
The Socialist rural MP, who recently declared "my real adversary in this campaign is the world of finance", launched his manifesto on Thursday, a road map of how the left would deal with the financial crisis. Hollande said he would raise taxes for banks and big companies as well as France's richest people, and use the money to help wipe out the nation's crippling public deficit.
By scrapping some €29bn (£24bn) worth of tax breaks for wealthier people introduced under Nicolas Sarkozy, he said he could find €20bn to deal with the corrosion of French society: record unemployment, soaring youth jobless figures and an education system that has been shamed as one of the most unequal in Europe, where one in six children leave with no qualifications. » | Angelique Chrisafis | Thursday, January 26, 2012
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: In the high-octane election-year atmosphere of US politics, and an acrid Republican Party nomination race, Tuesday's Florida primary is being hyped as make-or-break for the party's presidential aspirants.
The relative civility of campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire has long evaporated. And, while the heat rose in South Carolina, the intensity of an advertising war and rhetorical crossfire between the chief contenders, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, has become searing.
Getting a grip on such a big and diverse state is chief among the candidates' many challenges. Florida is not the Tea Party stronghold of South Carolina, and a standard joke is that the further south you travel the more north you get - a reference to number of sun-loving and wealthy retirees from north-eastern states who have moved there.
Still, some things reign universal in America right now - economic torpor, for one. Florida has been hit hard by the financial meltdown, the property crash in particular. Home foreclosure rates continue to exceed the national average, at 12 per cent of sales statewide versus 3.5 per cent. Of the 25 metropolitan areas with the highest foreclosure rates, 17 are in Florida, headed by Miami. Unemployment, at 9.9 per cent, is above the national average.
Mostly, the caustic exchanges between Romney and Gingrich - as well as their TV ads - have centred not on their prescriptions for economic revival but on the men's claims to authenticity.
Romney is the richest man ever to seek the presidency. His business record and private tax affairs are under fierce scrutiny. Gingrich's controversial term as Speaker of the House of Representatives and subsequent years as a Washington consultant, during which he advised the failed government-owned mortgage provider Freddie Mac, has been targeted by opponents. » | Simon Mann | Saturday, January 28, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Aborigine protesters have brandished the shoe lost by Julia Gillard as she was rescued from a violent rally, claiming they want it to be the symbol of a move to "give us back our country".
The shoe - a dark blue, size 36 Midas pump - has been handed to an Aboriginal elder, Pat Eatock, who says Ms Gillard should collect it within a week or it will be sold on ebay.
A shoe purported to be Ms Gillard's fetched bids of £1400 today before it was removed from sale.
"I see it sitting like Cinderella's shoe in a glass case in a museum 10 years from now as this is part of the history of race relations in Australia," said Ms Eatock, 75, who was the first Aboriginal woman to seek election to Parliament.
The ugly scenes in Canberra yesterday have caused a furore in Australia, prompting widespread media coverage, inflaming racial tensions and leading to the sacking of one of the prime minister's aides.
Protesters calling for Aboriginal sovereignty today burnt an Australian flag outside Parliament House, as indigenous leaders called for calm and some dismissed the recent violence as a disgrace. » | Jonathan Pearlman, in Sydney | Friday, January 27, 2012
Related video »
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: The spear of confrontation pays nation another visit: IN 1790, Bennelong, the Sydney-born Aboriginal friend to the colonisers, was present when Governor Arthur Phillip was speared at Manly Cove, demonstrating how much relations between the two peoples had soured. » | Debra Jopson | ANALYSIS | Saturday, January 28, 2012
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: PM accused of protest cover-up » | Dylan Welch | Saturday, January 28, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Mitt Romney asserted his authority over Newt Gingrich in a Republican presidential debate on Thursday night, aggressively turning the former House Speaker's own attacks against him in advance of the crucial primary election in Florida.
The former Massachusetts governor, who over the past 48 hours has pushed back a surge in support for Mr Gingrich across the state, slapped down his rival during bitter disputes over immigration policy, personal finances and the former Speaker's proposal to build a colony on the moon.
After losing the South Carolina primary last weekend, Mr Romney is seeking to stabilise his campaign to be the Republican candidate to face President Barack Obama in November. Florida is by far the biggest state to vote in the party contest so far and is expected to be crucial in the general election.
He hit out at Mr Gingrich in the debate's opening minutes for describing him “anti-immigrant”, calling the attack “simply inexcusable”. He pointed out that Marco Rubio, the popular Florida senator, had backed him and called the criticism “inexcusable and inflammatory”.
Mr Romney has proposed that America's 11 million illegal immigrants should “self-deport”. “Mr Speaker, I'm not anti-immigrant,” he said during the debate. “My father was born in Mexico, my wife's father was born in Wales. They came into this country. The idea that I’m anti-immigrant is repulsive.”
An animated Mr Romney drove the point home by saying that Mr Gingrich's remarks were “the kind of over-the-top rhetoric that has characterised American politics for too long”. » | Jon Swaine, and Peter Foster in Jacksonville | Friday, January 27, 2012
THE GUARDIAN: President says that whichever candidate the GOP chooses, they represent a 'fundamentally different vision of America'
Obama was speaking on the Univision Spanish-language television network, broadcast only hours before the Republican candidates were scheduled to meet in Jacksonville, Florida.
It is no coincidence that he chose to speak to Univision as the Latino vote in Florida is crucial not only to the outcome of next Tuesday's Republican primary but for Obama's re-election chances in November.
Obama, only two days after effectively launching his re-election campaign with a highly partisan state of the union address, was in Nevada and Colorado, following visits on Wednesday to three other swing states.
In Florida, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich battled it out over who should be the Republican challenger to Obama and the debate Thursday is one of the most important yet, with the two in a dead-heat in the polls. Rick Santorum, struggling to make an impact in Florida, may leave early to concentrate on other upcoming contests, as Ron Paul is doing.
Obama, asked whether Romney or Gingrich would be the tougher challenger, declined to answer directly. Instead, he said: "What I can say is this: that whoever their nominee is, they represent ideas that I think are wrong for America."
He added: "On a whole range of issues I think that whether it's Mr Romney or Mr Gingrich or Mr Santorum or whoever else they might decide to select, they represent a fundamentally different vision of America. And it's not the bold, generous, forward-looking, optimistic America that I think built this country." » | Ewen McAskill in Jacksonville, Florida | Thursday, January 26, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
TAGES ANZEIGER: Es hört sich an wie im Kalten Krieg: Der mögliche nächste US-Präsident Newt Gingrich schliesst einen Militäreinsatz in Kuba nicht aus. Er wirbt mit dieser Aussage um die Stimmen der Exilkubaner in Florida.
Der republikanische US-Präsidentschaftsbewerber Newt Gingrich hat für den Fall seiner Wahl eine harte Haltung gegenüber Kuba angekündigt. In einem Interview mit dem spanischsprachigen Sender Univision im US-Bundesstaat Florida schloss er einen Militäreinsatz gegen die kommunistische Regierung grundsätzlich nicht aus. «Wenn es einen echten legitimen Aufstand gebe, würden wir natürlich auf der Seite des Volkes stehen», sagte Gingrich auf die Frage, ob die USA nach Libyens Machthaber Muammar al-Ghadhafi auch Fidel und Raúl Castro angreifen sollten. » | bru/AFP | Donnerstag 26. Januar 2012
TAGES ANZEIGER: Gingrich verspricht dem Volk eine Mond-Kolonie – Der Republikaner packt die grossen Versprechen aus: Im Fall einer Wahl zum US-Präsidenten will Newt Gingrich bis 2020 eine dauerhafte Mondstation einrichten. » | kpn/dapd | Donnerstag 26. Januar 2012
Pour ses défenseurs et pour lui-même, le mal est fait. L'issue des trois procès dans lesquels est accusé le célèbre juge espagnol Baltasar Garzon ne changera rien à sa décision. Dans un entretien au Figaro, son avocat l'assure: «Garzon ne sera jamais plus juge en Espagne.»
Gonzalo Martinez-Fresneda défend Garzon dans le procès le plus emblématique, celui sur l'instruction des crimes du franquisme, qui s'est ouvert le 24 janvier au Tribunal suprême. Le magistrat s'est illustré notamment pour avoir poursuivi Augusto Pinochet et les responsables de la junte argentine. Dans son propre pays, assis sur le banc des accusés, il doit justifier son intention d'instruire les crimes de la dictature franquiste. En ouvrant le dossier, dit l'accusation, Garzon a sciemment violé une loi d'amnistie votée en 1977, deux ans après la mort du général Franco. Il risque une peine d'inhabilité de 20 ans. » | Par Mathieu de Taillac | mercredi 25 janvier 2012
NEWS 24: Kuala Lumpur - Malaysian authorities said on Thursday they were investigating whether a Muslim group violated religious laws with a morality campaign that describes the Prophet Muhammad as a role model for "sacred sex".
The group that calls itself the Obedient Wives Club is planning private talks for hundreds of its members in the campaign centred around the prophet, who is thought to have married about a dozen women in his lifetime, including widows in need of protection.
The campaign, which is scheduled to run for nearly two weeks, bears a title that calls the prophet a "role model for sacred sex" and urges members to follow his example and avoid sexual sins. » | AP | Thursday, January 26, 2012
Under siege from Mitt Romney and conservative elites who seem to be conspiring against his candidacy, Gingrich abandoned his stump speech on Thursday in favor of an angry tirade against his most daunting Republican rival and the Washington establishment. He isn’t the candidate who vowed to stay positive in Iowa, or the nose-to-the-grindstone guy he was in South Carolina.
As he took the stage before a tea-party crowd here, Gingrich seethed at Romney for the avalanche of negative ads blanketing the Florida airwaves and bashed the Beltway denizens for coalescing to obstruct his rise.
“There’s the Washington establishment sitting around in a frenzy, having coffee, lunch and cocktail hour talking about, ‘How do we stop Gingrich?’ ” he said, referring to a spate of prominent Republicans who painted him Thursday in as a philandering egomaniac comparable to Bill Clinton and not as close to Ronald Reagan as he would like to think.
The former House speaker told the tea-party crowd that they shouldn’t be confused by the attacks coming from the right as it’s still part of the scared establishment.
“Remember the Republican establishment is just as much as an establishment as the Democratic establishment, and they are just as determined to stop us,” he said. » | Ginger Gibson | Thursday, January 26, 2012
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