Monday, November 09, 2015
Russia's Syrian Intervention Has 'Given Hope' - Patriarch of Syriac Orthodox Church
UK Volunteer Who Fought ISIS in Syria Barred from Speaking at London University
Andrew Marr Presents the 1939 Register on Findmypast: Eve of War
Islam Is a Religion of Violence
In the past few weeks, both Russia and the United States have escalated their military campaigns against the Islamic State. As the brutal jihadist group continues to wreak havoc in Syria and Iraq, Foreign Policy asked Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now, and United States Institute of Peace acting Vice President Manal Omar, one of the foremost voices on peace and Islam, to debate what is behind this newest breed of extremism, and how can it be defeated. In the age of al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and Boko Haram, is there a link between the violence these groups perpetrate and the faith they profess?
In the 14 years since the attacks of 9/11 brought Islamic terrorism to the forefront of American and Western awareness and then-President George W. Bush launched the “Global War on Terror,” the violent strain of Islam appears to have metastasized. With tracts of Syria and Iraq in the hands of the self-styled Islamic State, Libya and Somalia engulfed in anarchy, Yemen being torn apart by civil war, the Taliban resurging in Afghanistan, and Boko Haram terrorizing Nigeria, policymakers are farther away from eliminating the threat of violent Islamism than they were when they began the effort. In fact, Western countries are increasingly witnessing domestic attacks such as the murder of British military drummer Lee Rigby and the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, the shootings at Parliament Hill in Canada in 2014, the attacks at satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and at a Jewish supermarket in Paris this past January, and most recently the terrorist attack in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on a military recruiting center and Naval compound.
But does this violent extremism stem from Islam’s sacred texts? Or is it the product of circumstance, which has twisted and contorted Islam’s foundations? » | Ayaan Hirsi Ali | Monday, November 9, 2015
German Teachers Union Warns Girls to Stay Away from Refugee Men
"An immigrant invasion is spilling over in Germany," said an article in a recent teachers union magazine, which went on to recommend girls stay away from "often attractive Muslim men."
The statement from the "Journal of the Philologists' Association of Saxony-Anhalt" that young women should be dissuaded from relationships with Muslims drew ire from state politicians on Saturday.
According to a report by German daily "Mitteldeutsche Zeitung," the original article by the teachers group, signed by leaders Jürgen Mannke and Iris Seltmann-Kuke, told instructors to warn their students of the risk of being molested by refugees and to resist the temptation to engage in "a superficial sexual adventure with the often attractive Muslim men."
The newspaper also reported that the article alleges that these "young, strong, mostly Muslim … often uneducated men" are entering the country "under dubious pretenses." Mannke and Seltmann-Kuke then go on to describe how innocent conversations in public transportation and in supermarkets can lead to sexual assault. » | Elizabeth Schumacher | Saturday, November 7, 2015
Germany: PEGIDA Make Human-wall to 'Stop Migrants' at Czech Border
Europe Must Push Families to Have Children and Not Take Migrants, Says Hungarian PM
Viktor Orban waded into the crisis as he spoke of the dangers Europe could face if it tries to solve its demographic and economic problems by taking in large swathes of refugees.
Addressing crowds at a conference in Budapest this week, the outspoken leader said the continent must instead push families to have more children because "the survival of our civilisation and our culture is at stake". » | Levi Winchester | Friday, November 6, 2015
Sunday, November 08, 2015
The Most Important US Election in a Generation – and for Britain Too
Exactly a year from today – how could we forget? – the United States of America will elect its 45th President. Sometimes it is hard to believe the 44th, Barack Obama, is still extant. He does a better impersonation of a nonentity that any president in living memory, quite an accomplishment when one recalls Jimmy Carter.
I covered Obama’s 2008 campaign and watched with dismay as America, wounded and humiliated by the pratfalls and absurdities of the George W Bush years, fell for the smooth, stage-managed articulacy of the vacuum that Obama, even then, was. His record of unachievement should have come as no surprise.
Our Prime Minister says our future lies in Europe, so we may think it of little consequence that Mr Obama has detached America so much from the rest of the world, and that the so-called special relationship between Britain and the United States is, for now, little more than a figment of the imagination. If you seek a monument to US foreign policy look no further than the intervention of Russia in the mess in Syria and Iraq; a mess Mr Obama may not have caused, but which he has contrived to do absolutely nothing to resolve.
Given the unintended consequences of American foreign policy under George W Bush it is tempting to rejoice that America is so disengaged from international relations. But there is such a thing as a world balance of power, and America, by its inertia and (whether it admits it or not) perceived isolationism has altered it. Vladimir Putin now prevails, which, given the true state of Russian power, is preposterous and shameful: and the most pre-medieval variant of Islam imaginable stalks what we once thought of as Western civilisation. » | Simon Heffer | Saturday, November 7, 2015
Kaiser Franz Josef und der Erste Weltkrieg 1914 - 1916
Der Krieg könnte zum Sargnagel für die Monarchie werden" meinte der österreichische Generalstabchef Conrad von Hötzendorf im Herbst 1914 im Gespräch mit Kaiser Franz Joseph. Wenn die Monarchie schon zu Grunde geht, dann soll sie wenigstens anständig zu Grunde gehen." antwortete Kaiser Franz Joseph in einer Mischung aus Resignation und Fatalismus. Anständig zu Grunde gehen bedeutet im kaiserlichen Weltbild „am Feld der Ehre".
Am 28. Juli 1914 unterzeichnet Franz Joseph die Kriegserklärung an Serbien. Am Anfang steht eine Mischung aus Kriegslust, politischem Leichtsinn, fatalen Fehleinschätzungen und konstruierten Fakten. Die gewünschte Begrenzung auf einen lokalen Konflikt erfüllt sich ebenso wenig wie der erwartete rasche Sieg im Blitzkrieg. Während das mit Österreich-Ungarn verbündete deutsche Heer gegen Frankreich vorrückt, kämpfen die kuk.-Truppen nicht nur erfolglos gegen die kleine serbische Armee, sondern verlieren auch die ersten Schlachten gegen die Zarenarmee im Osten. Ohne militärische Unterstützung deutscher Truppen wäre die Niederlage Österreich-Ungarns bereits Ende 1914 besiegelt gewesen.
In den tschechischen, ungarischen und kroatischen Heeresverbänden sollten schon bald nationalistische Strömungen die Kampfmoral unterminieren „Für Kaiser, Gott und Vaterland", dieser alten Doppeladler-Devise setzten Frankreich, England und Russland eine gezielt in die Kaiserarmee hineingetragene Freiheits- und Nationalstaatenpropaganda entgegen.
Die Schlachtfelder des Ersten Weltkrieges wurden erstmals zu Schauplätzen breiter optischer Dokumentation durch Film und Photographie. Nicht nur in Österreich wurde die Bedeutung dieser beiden Medien als Propaganda-instrumente erkannt und genutzt. Film und Photographie verdeutlichten auch die völlig neue und schreckliche Form des Krieges: den ersten technisierten und industrialisierten Krieg der Menschheits-geschichte. Die Zeiten auf wenige Tage begrenzter Infanterie und Kavallerieschlachten waren vorbei.
Nun traten, von moderner Kriegstechnik unterstützte Millionenheere zum Massenschlachten gegeneinander an. Fronten die sich früher auf Waldstücke, Dörfer oder einzelne Städte reduzierten, waren nun auf mehrere hundert Kilometer erweitert. Franz Joseph hatte über den Einsatz mörderischer Kampfmittel wie Giftgas zu entscheiden, über Kriegstechnik die seinen im 19.Jahrhundert geprägten militärischen Ehrenkodex zum tragischen Anachronismus machten.
Steigende Engpässe bei der Nahrungsmittel und Rohstoff-versorgung reduzieren spätestens ab 1916 die Kriegsbereitschaft an der „Heimatfront" dramatisch.
Als Franz Joseph am 21.November 1916 stirbt wird das folgende Staatsbegräbnis zum symbolischen Vorboten des Unterganges der Donaumonarchie.
Italy: Clashes Break Out between Leftists & Police during Anti-Lega Nord Demo
Un homosexuel change de religion pour pouvoir devenir prêtre
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| Yves Samson croit qu'il est possible de faire ce vers quoi on est appelé, homosexuel ou non. |
Yves Samson a toujours su qu’il était gai et qu’il souhaitait devenir prêtre.
Alors qu’il était au début de la vingtaine, il a fait des démarches pour devenir prêtre au sein de l’Église catholique romaine. L’ancien évêque de Nicolet, Jean-Marie Fortier l’a alors questionné sur son homosexualité.
Yves Samson, qui était alors célibataire, avait admis son homosexualité. «À cause de la réponse honnête à cette question, tout s’est arrêté là», relate-t-il. Il ne comprenait pas puisque, comme prêtre, il n’aurait pas pu avoir de conjoint ni se marier de toute façon. » | Par Caroline LePage | samedi 7 novembre 2015
Berufsverbot vom "Islamischen Staat": Waschen, schneiden, flüchten
Catholic Schools to Ban Islam from Religious GCSE Studies: Senior Muslim Readers Brand Decision 'Very Disappointing' after Church Intervention
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| Former secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain Sir Iqbal Sacranie said the decision to ban Islam from religious studies undermined greater tolerance between the faiths |
The Roman Catholic Church is at the centre of a row after ordering its schools to teach Judaism alongside Christianity in GCSE religious studies – ruling out Islam or other faiths.
The edict was described as ‘very disappointing’ by senior Muslim leaders. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, former secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the decision undermined Pope Francis’s message of greater tolerance between the faiths, and urged Catholic leader Cardinal Vincent Nichols to think again.
The Church’s move follows last year’s reforms to the GCSE exam. Under the new rules, schools are required to teach two religions rather than one.
The change was designed to drive extremism out of the classroom following the ‘Trojan Horse’ plot, in which individuals were found to have been introducing fundamentalist Islamic teaching into Muslim schools in Birmingham. Read on and comment » | Jonathan Petre for ‘Mail On Sunday’ | Saturday, November 7, 2015
In Memory of the Fallen: Remembrance Sunday 2015
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Saturday, November 07, 2015
Panorama - The Battle for British Islam
UAE: Ferraris Fill Dubai as Enthusiasts Show Off Their Supercars
Germany: Riot Police Battle with Counter-demo Trying to Confront AfD Supporters
Niall Ferguson: The Rise (and Fall?) of the West
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