Wednesday, March 06, 2013
CBC NEWS (MONTREAL): Son, now in Syria, on Canadian spy agency's watch list
The mother of one of the 50 to 60 Canadians being monitored by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) because of alleged terrorist activities abroad says she no longer recognizes her own son.
The Quebec woman, who agreed to speak to CBC News on condition she remain anonymous for her own safety, said she wants to warn other parents about the risks awaiting young Muslims like her son.
She said after her son converted to Islam, he was recruited online by a radical Islamist group.
'An easy target'
The woman said her son was by nature a pacifist but was perhaps an easy target.
"They played on his generous nature," she says, adding she watched her son change gradually after he converted.
"He stopped listening to music because it was a sin," she says. "He started to cut off contact with girls, then later, with boys who didn't share his vision."
She said he became more and more critical of Canadian society, saying, "Canadian laws are not good. It's Sharia law that should be applied."
"He is convinced that jihad is a part of the religion," she said, adding he told his parents he wanted them both to "burn in hell" if they did not convert as well. » | CBC News | Monday, March 04, 2013
HT: Roberts Spencer @ Jihad Watch »
Tuesday, March 05, 2013
FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG: Der venezolanische Präsident Hugo Chavez ist tot. Dies teilte am Dienstag sein Stellvertreter Nicolas Maduro mit. Chavez hatte an einer Krebserkrankung gelitten.
Der venezolanische Präsident Hugo Chavez ist tot. Dies teilte am Dienstag sein Stellvertreter Nicolas Maduro in einer Fernsehansprache mit. Chavez hatte an einer Krebserkrankung gelitten. » | Quelle: Reuters | Dienstag, 05. März 2013
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THE GUARDIAN: UK to follow example of Australia, where cigarettes must be sold in drab packets with graphic health warnings
Ministers are to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes along the Australian model with legislation this year, after becoming convinced that the branding is a key factor in why young people start to smoke.
The legislation, to be announced in the Queen's speech in May, is also expected to ban smoking in cars carrying anyone aged under 16 years. Ministers acknowledge that the ban is likely to be difficult for the police to enforce, but they believe peer group pressure will have an impact similar to the ban on drivers using mobile phones.
David Cameron referred to the possibility of introducing plain packaging last week, without putting a timetable on it. Ministers are convinced that the ban is necessary to take the next step to reduce smoking in the UK.
"We are going to follow what they have done in Australia. The evidence suggests it is going to deter young smokers. There is going to be legislation," said a senior Whitehall source said. » | Patrick Wintour, political editor | Tuesday, March 05, 2013
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Saudi Arabia's royal family has issued a last-minute stay of execution to a jewellery thief sentenced to be crucified after an outcry from human rights groups.
Sarhan al-Mashayekh was one of seven men whose death sentences were confirmed by King Abdullah on Saturday. The other six were due be shot by firing squad on Tuesday. Mashayekh would have been executed at the same time and then, to fulfil his additional sentence, his body displayed to the public in a cruciform position for three days.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other human rights groups all exressed outrage at the sentences, partly because of their severity, partly because the defendants claimed confessions had been extracted under torture, and partly because at least two of those condemned were minors at the time the crimes were committed.
On Tuesday afternoon the sentences were put on hold, local officials and relatives said. The delay was ordered by Prince Faisal bin Khaled al-Saud, the governor of Asir province, where the case took place, one official said. » | Richard Spencer, Middle East Correspondent | Tuesday, March 05, 2013
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Britain was today defeated after being outnumbered 26 to one over controversial European Union proposals to impose caps on bonuses paid to bankers.
EU finance ministers overruled British opposition to the banking remuneration caps and "technical negotiations" over the detail of regulations to begin next week ahead of a final decision next month.
Michel Barnier, the European Commissioner for financial services, hailed a "crystal clear" deal allowing the EU to impose a bonus limit of 100 pc of salary, or a maximum 200pc after agreement with shareholders, from January 2014.
"The caps are fixed," he said. "These caps will be the basis of our work from now on. All the main points have been approved and will not change."
The caps will also apply to all European bankers working in New York, Hong Kong, Singapore or other overseas branches, again overriding British concerns.
Mr Barnier insisted that the EU was confident that the caps would survive the threat of legal challenges by banks because the legislation specified bonus ratios to existing salaries rather than setting precise ceiling figures for payments. » | Bruno Waterfield, Brussels | Tuesday, March 05, 2013
THE GUARDIAN: George Osborne rebuffed by rest of EU on bank bonuses: Britain left isolated as 26 European finance ministers agree to a clampdown on executive pay targeted at the City » | Ian Traynor in Brussels | Tuesday, March 05, 2013
NEW MUSLIM: “I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger”
By this phrase the ex-member of Geert Wilders’s right-wing anti-Islam Freedom Party, Arnoud van Doorn, surprisingly declared his conversion to Islam.
Via his account on the famous social networking site,Twitter, Arnoud announced in Dutch his ‘Nieuwe start’ (New start) as a Muslim. The news was confirmed in Dutch news as well.
The news is one of the latest breaking in the Netherlands.
Till the end of 2011, Arnoud van Doorn was a member of the fiery, far-right, anti-Islam, anti-immigration Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) Dutch party.
On February 27, 2013, Arnoud posted a tweet in Arabic declaring his Shahadah (Testimony of Faith): Ashhadu an-la ilaha illallah, wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan abduhu wa rasuluhu (I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger).
The phrase is known as the First Pillar of Islam that in order for a person to be a Muslim this conviction is firstly needed.
Given his previous explicit views on Islam, Arnoud’s story was a shock to many who doubted and harshly criticized the announcement, which is still a subject of debate on twitter. In another tweet, he expressed his grief and discomfort with ‘the many hateful comments on social media’.
Arnoud account was deluged with hundreds of followers and positive comments backing and congratulating his choice. To them he posted a late tweet in both English and Arabic expressing his gratitude: ‘Thanks for all the support!’
In face of strong attacks on Twitter, Arnoud declined to comment on the reasons or circumstances behind his conversion, confirming that the choice is his own and that his religion was ‘a matter of privacy’. » | Monday, February 04, 2013
ON ISLAM: Far-right Dutch Politician Finds Islam: AMSTERDAM – A leading member in far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ party has reverted to Islam after an extensive study about the Islamic religion and Muslims. ¶ “I can understand people are skeptic, especially that it is unexpected for many of them,” Arnoud Van Doorn told Al-Jazeera English satellite channel. ¶ “This is a very big decision, which I have not taken lightly.” » | Tuesday, March 05, 2013
AMSTERDAM HERALD: From Wilders to Muhammad: Former Freedom Party vice-chairman converts to Islam: A former member of Geert Wilders’s anti-immigration Freedom Party has converted to Islam. » | Friday, March 01, 2013
BBC: Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal has accused Forbes magazine of understating his wealth.
In its 2013 list of the world's richest people, Forbes estimated Prince Alwaleed's net worth at $20bn (£13bn), putting him in 26th place.
However, the prince's office said the magazine used flawed valuation methods.
According to some reports, the prince estimates his net worth to be $29.6bn, a figure that would put him in the top 10 of the magazine's latest rich list.
The list, published on Monday, saw Mexico's Carlos Slim retain the top slot for the fourth straight year with a net worth of $73bn.
The 10th spot on the list went to Bernard Arnault and family of the luxury goods group LVMH, with a net worth of $29bn. » | Tuesday, March 05, 2013
FORBES: Prince Alwaleed And The Curious Case Of Kingdom Holding Stock » | Sunday, March 03, 2013
THE GUARDIAN: Britain's most senior judge Lord Neuberger says policy would mean pulling out of UN and European court of human rights
Britain will have to withdraw from the United Nations as well as the European court of human rights if it wants to deport terrorist suspects to states that carry out torture, the country's most senior judge has warned.
In his first interview since becoming president of the supreme court, Lord Neuberger launched a sustained attack on "slanted" coverage and "one-sided" portrayals that misrepresent the way the human rights court operates.
The UK's supreme court is "not subservient" but works "in a dialogue" with the judges in Strasbourg, he insisted. Pulling out of the Council of Europe body – which the home secretary, Theresa May, and the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, both contemplate – would "certainly send an unfortunate number of messages", Neuberger added.
The judge's comments, timed for publication on Tuesday, were made before the two ministers' views were published in Sunday papers. Neuberger also talked about the lack of diversity in the upper reaches of the judiciary, suggesting that appointment panels could be suffering from a "subconscious bias" against women.
"Human rights excite great emotion," the 65-year-old judge said. "The concerns that people have about human rights are, generally speaking, exaggerated … [although] sometimes courts get it wrong. » | Owen Bowcott, legal affairs correspondent | Tuesday, March 05, 2013
GUARDIAN EDITORAL: Human rights laws: supremely serious judgment: The Tories are living in a fantasy land if they think lawmaking in their Little England could ignore international human rights » | Tuesday, March 05, 2013
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Spain's interior minister faced calls to resign after declaring that "the survival of the species" was at stake after wading into the debate over same-sex marriages.
Jorge Fernandez Diaz, interior minister in Spain's conservative government argued that "religious reasons" were not arguments against a law allowing gay marriage.
Instead, he insisted: "There are rational arguments to back the idea that these marriages shouldn't have the same protection under the law as normal ones. For example, the survival of the species is not guaranteed." » | Fiona Govan, Madrid | Monday, March 04, 2013
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Barack Obama is a "dithering" president whose controlling tendencies and extreme risk-averse attitude to foreign policy has damaged US interests in the Middle East, according to a new book by a senior former State Department adviser.
The insider-account of the damaging divisions between the White House and the State Department comes as diplomats around the world wait to see if John Kerry, the new US secretary of state, can persuade Mr Obama to greater engagement on Syria, Egypt and the wider Middle East.
Vali Nasr, a university professor who was seconded in 2009 to work with Richard Holbrooke, Mr Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, records his profound disillusion at how a "Berlin Wall" of domestic-focused advisers was erected to protect Mr Obama.
"The president had a truly disturbing habit of funnelling major foreign policy decisions through a small cabal of relatively inexperienced White House advisers whose turf was strictly politics," Mr Nasr writes in The Dispensable Nation: America Foreign policy in Retreat.
The book sets out in detail how Mr Holbrooke, appointed with great fanfare in 2009, was systematically cut out of decision making as both he and Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, tried to argue the merits of engaging with the Taliban and the dangers caused by the overuse of drones.
"The White House seemed to see an actual benefit in not doing too much," Prof Nasr writes, "The goal was to spare the president the risks that necessarily come with playing the leadership role that America claims to play in this region." » | Peter Foster, Washington | Monday, March 04, 2013
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Gay marriage will further destabilise marriage and family life in Britain, a leading sociologist has warned Parliament.
Dr Patricia Morgan told the House of Commons that same-sex marriage reinforced the idea that marriage is irrelevant to parenthood.
This was the principle factor, she said, that has caused the collapse in marriage rates between heterosexuals in countries where gay marriage had been introduced - as well as a sharp rise in cohabitation and the numbers of children born out of wedlock.
She said there was no evidence whatsoever to prove the Coalition Government’s assertions that gay marriage would bolster the institution.
She made her claims in a 22-page paper submitted at the Committee Stage of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill.
It contained a detailed analysis of marriage trends in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Belgium, Canada and some U.S. states w[h]ere gay marriage has been legalised.
“From what we know about demographic trends, it is preposterous to argue that people suddenly somehow embrace marriage and slow or reverse its decline because homosexuals can have it,” Dr Morgan said.
“We can be certain that same sex marriage will do no such thing as encourage stable marriage whether for heterosexuals and/or homosexuals. Marriage in Scandinavia, Spain, Netherlands and elsewhere is in deep decline.”
She continued: “Same sex marriage is both an effect and a cause of the evisceration of marriage - especially the separation between this and parenthood.” » | Monday, March 04, 2013
Monday, March 04, 2013
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Die Schweiz stimmt für ein Anti-Abzock-Gesetz, Brüssel will eine Obergrenze für Boni - in Europa zeichnet sich ein radikaler Stimmungswechsel ab. Bisher galten Gehaltsexzesse als notwendiges Übel im Kampf um die besten Manager. Jetzt setzt sich der Ruf nach mehr Regulierung durch.
Für Spitzenverdiener in Europa war es keine gute Woche. In der EU wird es voraussichtlich bald eine gesetzliche Obergrenze für Bonuszahlungen in der Finanzbranche geben. Allein in der Londoner City könnte dies mehrere tausend Banker treffen. Und in der Schweiz sollen künftig Aktionäre über die Managergehälter ihres Unternehmens entscheiden können (dazu hier ein Kommentar, hier eine Augstein-Kolumne und hier ein Interview mit dem Schweizer Ex-Botschafter Thomas Borer). Gehaltsexzesse sollen so vermieden werden.
Die beiden Entscheidungen der vergangenen Tage spiegeln eine neue Stimmung auf dem Kontinent wider: Die Millionengehälter in einigen Branchen, die früher als unvermeidlicher Preis der Marktwirtschaft galten, werden nun nicht mehr einfach hingenommen. Nicht einmal der Neidvorwurf scheint die Kritiker noch aufzuhalten. » | Von Stefan Simons und Carsten Volkery, Paris und London | Montag, 04. März 2013
Verwandt »
THE NEW YORK TIMES: THIRTEEN years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the grim task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout Europe.
What they have found so far has shocked even scholars steeped in the history of the Holocaust.
The researchers have cataloged some 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe, spanning German-controlled areas from France to Russia and Germany itself, during Hitler’s reign of brutality from 1933 to 1945.
The figure is so staggering that even fellow Holocaust scholars had to make sure they had heard it correctly when the lead researchers previewed their findings at an academic forum in late January at the German Historical Institute in Washington.
“The numbers are so much higher than what we originally thought,” Hartmut Berghoff, director of the institute, said in an interview after learning of the new data.
“We knew before how horrible life in the camps and ghettos was,” he said, “but the numbers are unbelievable.”
The documented camps include not only “killing centers” but also thousands of forced labor camps, where prisoners manufactured war supplies; prisoner-of-war camps; sites euphemistically named “care” centers, where pregnant women were forced to have abortions or their babies were killed after birth; and brothels, where women were coerced into having sex with German military personnel.
Auschwitz and a handful of other concentration camps have come to symbolize the Nazi killing machine in the public consciousness. Likewise, the Nazi system for imprisoning Jewish families in hometown ghettos has become associated with a single site — the Warsaw Ghetto, famous for the 1943 uprising. But these sites, infamous though they are, represent only a minuscule fraction of the entire German network, the new research makes painfully clear.
The maps the researchers have created to identify the camps and ghettos turn wide sections of wartime Europe into black clusters of death, torture and slavery — centered in Germany and Poland, but reaching in all directions.
The lead editors on the project, Geoffrey Megargee and Martin Dean, estimate that 15 million to 20 million people died or were imprisoned in the sites that they have identified as part of a multivolume encyclopedia. (The Holocaust museum has published the first two, with five more planned by 2025.) » | Eric Lichtblau | Friday, March 01, 2013
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