Women Turn on ‘Traitor’ Oprah
THE SUNDAY TIMES: AMERICA’S favourite television presenter is paying a painful price for her intervention in the US presidential campaign last month. Oprah Winfrey has been dubbed a “traitor” by some of her female fans for supporting Barack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton.

Winfrey’s website, Oprah.com, has been flooded with a barrage of abuse since the queen of daytime chat shows joined Obama on a tour of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina in mid-December.

Her intervention was widely credited with broadening Obama’s national appeal - especially among women - and with helping him to an upset victory over Clinton in the first vote of the election year in Iowa.

Yet a backlash by Clinton supporters appears to have prompted a rethink by Winfrey, the African-American media titan who is routinely described as the most influential woman on television.

She did not reappear in the final days before the New Hampshire primary - which Obama lost to Clinton - and has been absent from the most recent campaigning in South Carolina, which votes next weekend. Women turn on ‘traitor’ Oprah Winfrey for backing Barack Obama: Oprah fans leave a barrage of negative messages on her official website in response to the talk show host's support of Obama >>> By Tony Allen-Mills, New York

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Hillary Wins Tight Nevada Caucus
BBC: Hillary Clinton has won a fiercely contested election in the US state of Nevada, according to projections based on 88% of the vote count.

Preliminary figures show Mrs Clinton with 51% of the vote, to 45% for Barack Obama. Both candidates have fought hard to win the support of Latino voters.

US TV networks project a big win in the state for Republican Mitt Romney.

The party's contest in Nevada has been overshadowed by a closely-fought primary being held in South Carolina.

Voting continues in the first southern state to hold a primary, where Republicans John McCain and Mike Huckabee, who appear to be the frontrunners in a very tight race, have focused their efforts.

But a win in Nevada for Mr Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, could give him a useful boost going into the next primary vote in Florida. Clinto wins tight Nevada caucus >>>

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The Problem of Militant Islam in Europe

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Islamic Extremism Growing in Britain

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Islamification of Britain

Part 1: Multiculturalism and Islamification

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Brigitte Gabriel, a Survivor of Islamic Terrorism Warns America
Part !:

Part 2:

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Wafa Sultan: Terrorism and Islam

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Globaloney
DEFENDING AMERICA FOR KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION (DAFKA): There is something surreal about the spectacle of President Bush touring the Persian Gulf. It calls to mind the signature line of Mad Magazine's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman: "What, me worry?"

Mr. Bush's trip is, after all, premised on the notion that the Arab leaders he is courting there are reliable allies. Such a proposition should be subjected to the closest of critical scrutiny by Congress, the press and the American electorate since a number of highly debatable, and increasingly portentous, policies are predicated on this assumption. These include:

--Saudi Arabia and the other, smaller desert principalities are "moderates" who are as opposed as we to the totalitarian political agenda of fanatical ideologues such as Osama bin Laden.

--The Gulfies share our concern about the rising power of Iran and therefore can be counted upon to join us in countering that region's would-be Islamofascist superpower. It follows not only that we can safely provide these autocracies with an array of advanced weapons, but we must do so.

--The Arab regimes in the Persian Gulf will help broker a peace between Palestinians and Israelis — if only the United States pressures the Jewish State to make territorial and other concessions that may imperil the latter.

--And the willingness of the Gulf's potentates to recycle the immense wealth they have accumulated in recent years — primarily through oil sales at exorbitantly inflated prices — to purchase big stakes in U.S. companies and capital markets is a welcome development. Such investment is to be encouraged, and those who say otherwise should be condemned as "Chicken Little xenophobes" in the words of former General Electric Chairman Jack Welch and his wife, Suzy.

In fact, the Welch tag-team used a Jan. 21 Business Week column to admonish a letter-writer worried about Arab and other sovereign wealth funds buying up American corporations: "In trying times, U.S. companies always attract opportunistic, activist shareholders. Sometimes they look like Carl Icahn or Nelson Peltz. Sometimes they look like shiny-faced hedge fund managers just out of Wharton or Harvard Business School. And sometimes — like now — they look Chinese or Saudi or whatever. It doesn't matter. They're all after the same thing: the opportunities in America's capitalistic market."

Unfortunately, this confidence in the inexorable forces of "globalization" is as misplaced in the case of the so-called "pro-Western" Arab states as are the other assumptions driving American policy towards the region at the moment. Globaloney >>> By Frank Gaffney (from The Washington Times)

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L'Espagne de nouveau face à la menace terroriste ?
LE FIGARO: 14 personnes supposées être en relation avec le «terrorisme islamique radical» ont été interpellées à Barcelone par la garde civile.

C'est une arrestation qui risque de réveiller le cauchemar des attentats du 11 mars 2004. Samedi matin, la garde civile espagnole a interpellé 14 personnes dans un quartier de Barcelone pour leur relation présumée avec le «terrorisme islamique radical».

Selon le ministre de l'Intérieur Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, il existe des preuves indiquant que les suspects, 12 Pakistanais et deux Indiens, font partie d'un groupe qui se préparait à commettre des attentats à Barcelone. D'après des informations fournies par des agences de renseignements européennes, une action violente était en cours de préparation. L'Espagne de nouveau face à la menace terroriste ? >>>

LE JOURNAL DU DIMANCHE:
Des terroristes visaient l'Espagne Par Sabrina Bestani

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Susanne Winter “wollte religiöse Gefühle nicht verletzen”
Foto von Susanne Winter dank Google Images
DIE PRESSE: In einem Zeitungsinserat gibt die Grazer Spitzenkandidatin der FPÖ zu, dass ihre Formulierungen "überspitzt" waren. Sie wollte die religiösen Gefühle der Menschen "auf keinen Fall verletzen".

Susanne Winter, FPÖ-Spitzenkandidatin bei der am Sonntag in Graz stattfindenden Kommunalwahl, hat öffentlich so etwas wie Bedauern nach ihren islamfeindlichen Aussagen gezeigt. In am Samstag in Grazer Tageszeitungen geschalteten Inseraten räumt sie ein, dass ihre Formulierungen "überspitzt" gewesen seien und sie "auf keinen Fall die religiösen Gefühle von Menschen verletzen" wollte. Winter: "Wollte religiöse Gefühle nicht verletzen" >>>

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Ashura: Shia Holy Day in Iraq – Violent
Photo courtesy of The Guardian
THE GUARDIAN: Around two million pilgrims today marched through the Iraqi city of Karbala in blood-soaked processions - beating their heads and chests in unison and whipping themselves with chains - to mark Ashura, one of the holiest events in the Shia Muslim calendar.

The processions were marred by violence with a deadly bombing in northern Iraq and clashes in the south involving members of a radical cult.

Shias across Iraq observed the Ashura holiday by marching, singing and beating their chests to honour the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, in 680 AD. Security was stepped up in Karbala with 30,000 policemen and soldiers deployed in the city, including reinforcements from Baghdad.

But street battles between a messianic cult, the Soldiers of Heaven, and Iraqi troops raged for a second day in two predominantly Shia southern cities. Iraqi authorities said at least 36 people were reported killed in Basra and at least 32 in Nasiriyah, including Iraqi security forces, civilians and gunmen. Seven Iraqis were killed in a rocket attack after observing Ashura in Tal Afar, 260 miles north-west of Baghdad, police Brigadier General Najim Abdullah said. Shia holy day in Iraq marred by violence >>> By David Smith and agencies

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Omar bin Laden Wants to Become ‘Ambassador for Peace’!
Photo of Omar bin Laden and his British wife courtesy of The Star
THE STAR: CAIRO, Egypt–Omar Osama bin Laden bears a striking resemblance to his notorious father – except for the dreadlocks that dangle halfway down his back. Then there's the black leather biker jacket.

The 26-year-old does not renounce his father, Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but in an interview he said there is a better way to defend Islam than militancy: Omar wants to be an "ambassador for peace" between Muslims and the West.

Omar – one of bin Laden's 19 children – raised a tabloid storm last year when he married a 52-year-old British woman, Jane Felix-Browne, who took the name Zaina Alsabah. Now the couple say they want to be advocates, planning a 5,000-kilometre horse race across North Africa to draw attention to the cause of peace.

"It's about changing the ideas of the Western mind. A lot of people think Arabs – especially the bin Ladens, especially the sons of Osama – are all terrorists. This is not the truth," Omar said last week at a café in a Cairo shopping mall.

Of course, many may have a hard time getting their mind around the idea of "bin Laden: peacenik."

"Omar thinks he can be a negotiator," said Alsabah, who is trying to bring her husband to Britain. "He's one of the only people who can do this in the world." Bin Laden's son an `ambassador for peace' >>> By Paul Schemm

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Michelle Obama Attacks Hillary Clinton
Photo of Michelle Obama courtesy of The Telegraph
THE TELEGRAPH: Michelle Obama, who could become America’s first black First Lady, has launched a scathing attack on her husband’s opponent Hillary Clinton, stating she represents "the same old thing over and over again".

Whereas Barack Obama preaches a message of hope and transcending differences that is more kumbaya than combative, his wife, like him a lawyer and a Harvard graduate, did not hesitate to take his main opponent on in an appearance at a Las Vegas.

On her 44th birthday, and less than 48 hours before today’s crucial Nevada caucuses, Mrs Obama spoke passionately about racial slurs against her husband and the symbolism of having a black family in the White House.

In a fiery comparison between his 2004 Senate campaign and this year’s presidential race, she said: "You know what they were saying about him then? They said he was too young. They said he was too inexperienced. They said he should wait his turn.

"They said he couldn’t build a political machine to match the might of a family in Illinois that had been running for years. They said he couldn’t raise the money. They said that he was too black. They said that he wasn’t black enough. Sound familiar?

"They said that his name was too funny. They said there was no way that white folks in downstate Illinois and vote for a man named Barack Obama. They said it because when power is confronted by change, they will say anything." Michelle Obama launches attack on Clinton >>> By Toby Harnden in Las Vegas

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Muzzled (Again) in Finland
GATES OF VIENNA: Tomashot is a Finnish blogger who has just been convicted of “incitement against a national group” (in Sweden it would be hets mot folkgrupp). I can’t link to his blog, since he was required as a part of his sentence to take it down.

The case seems to resemble that mounted against Mikko Ellilä last year, only in Tomashot’s case the government pushed it all the way through a trial.

Our Finnish correspondent Sludge reported the verdict in our comments this morning. I managed to find an online report in Finnish, and KGS of Tundra Tabloids translated it.

Tomashot is quoted by Turkkilaista Tuumintaa as saying:

Tuusula circuit court found me guilty today of incitement against a national group. My sentence was a fine of €850 and all of my web pages were ordered to be closed down. Even though I insisted that my pages which were part of the factually based “News From Finland”, which publishes news concerning the crimes committed by immigrants and should be spared, they were also ordered to be closed down as well.

Muzzled (Again) in Finland >>>

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Chinese Blogger Beaten to Death by Government Officials
TECH CRUNCH: A Chinese blogger has been beaten to death by Government authorities for the crime of attempting to record a protest on his mobile phone.

When Wei was present at some sort of confrontation or protest by local villages against municipal authorities when more than 50 municipal inspectors turned on him, attacking him for five minutes. Chinese Blogger Beaten to Death by Government Officials >>> By Duncan Riley

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Dynamite Radio Broadcast!
LISTEN HERE: The Gathering Storm Weekly Storm Report
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Bin Laden’s Son Seeks Life as UK Country Gentleman
WORLDNETDAILY: The fourth son of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who attended terror-training sessions in Afghanistan with his father, may soon take up residence with his British wife at her English country home, where the two plan to have a child with a surrogate mother and become peace activists, if his recent request for a visa is approved.

Omar Bin Laden, 26, who met Jane Felix-Browne, 52, in September 2006 when the Englishwoman was vacationing in Egypt, has been interviewed by British Embassy officials in Cairo, the London Daily Mail reported.

Felix-Brown, then a grandmother, surprised many last year when she announced she had become daughter-in-law to the mastermind of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, on New York City and Washington, D.C. The pair hid their marriage – the sixth for Felix-Brown and the second (concurrent) marriage for bin Laden – initially.

Last July, when interviewed by the Daily Mail on her way to rejoin her new husband in Egypt, Felix-Brown expressed skepticism over her father-in-law's role in the terror attack.

"I mean, do you know - beyond all doubt – that he did it? If so, I'd like you to show me the evidence. I don't think it's nice to make assumptions about someone when you don't know the facts," she said.

At the time, Felix-Brown – who has since changed her name to Zaina Al Sabah Bin Laden – expressed a desire to eventually settle in Saudi Arabia and said she had no problem with her husband having another wife and child.

"I'd set up another home nearby, and he would come and go between the two," she said. "It is quite normal, really. I don't mind at all – why should I? I'm not jealous of his wife. I have spoken to her. Lots of married men in this country have girlfriends. At least he is being honest."

Unfortunately for bin Laden's first wife, British immigration officials care less about "honesty" than polygamy and are requiring proof bin Laden has obtained a divorce in Saudi Arabia before allowing him to move to Felix-Brown's $1.1 million home in Moulton, Cheshire, in Britain's rural northwest.

"We have been told there will not be a problem as long as we can provide the original documents from his divorce from his first wife. And that should be done in a week," said the second Mrs. bin Laden. Bin Laden's son seeks life as UK country gentleman: Applies for visa to live with Brit wife, have child, become activist for peace >>>

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Amerika ist nervös
DIE ZEIT: Die USA nehmen zwar großzügig Immigranten auf, aber sie werfen sie auch ebenso leichtherzig wieder hinaus

Derzeit bereitet sich die amerikanische Immigrationsbehörde auf einen Großeinsatz vor: Rund 200.000 Ausländer, die in Haft sitzen, sollen in diesem Jahr abgeschoben werden, ein Viertel mehr als im Vorjahr. Der Großteil hatte eine Aufenthaltserlaubnis, einige sogar eine Green Card, die unbefristet gilt. Aber wer in Amerika für mehr als ein Jahr ins Gefängnis muss, wer Drogendelikte, Einbrüche, eine Vergewaltigung oder andere Gewalttaten begeht, der sitzt nach Verbüßung der Haftstrafe im Flugzeug.

Das dauert manchen Kommunen sogar zu lange, sie wollen nicht die Haftkosten für Ausländer tragen. Deshalb hat die Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, die dem Department of Homeland Security untersteht, das Verfahren beschleunigt: Wer wegen eines Verbrechens einsitzt, das nicht mit Gewalt verbunden war — Drogen, oder die Verletzung von Auflagen, die mit dem Immigrantenstatus einhergehen — dem sollen die letzten Haftmonate erlassen werden. Statt dessen geht es gleich nach Hause. Zwar wird die Abschiebewelle erst einmal 200 Millionen Dollar kosten, aber langfristig hofft die Agency, das mehrfache davon durch weniger Gefängniskosten zu sparen.

Öffentliche Empörung darüber, kriminelle Ausländer zu deportieren, ist in den USA undenkbar. Sogar eingebürgerte Amerikaner können abgeschoben werden, wenn sie bei der Einwanderung falsche Angaben gemacht haben. Amerika nimmt zwar großzügig Immigranten auf, es wirft sie aber auch ebenso leichtherzig wieder hinaus. Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts, als die Nordstaaten die Sklaverei abschafften, wollte die American Colonization Society sogar freie Schwarze nach Afrika ausbürgern, ins eigens dazu gegründete Liberia. Der erhoffte Massenexodus blieb jedoch aus. Hingegen schafften es die USA, 1882 die chinesischen und 1942 die japanischen Immigranten abzuschieben, und 1924 die Grenzen für Slaven und Juden weitgehend zu schließen. Nach den Attentaten des 9/11 ließ das Department of Homeland Security 5000 Moslems abschieben — auf Verdacht. Und im Moment gibt es eine starke Stimmung gegen mexikanische Zuzügler. Amerika ist nervös >>> Von Eva Schweitzer

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David Crossland, Editor of SpiegelOnline, Gives His Views on Integration
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Germany is doing a bad job of integrating its immigrants, argues SPIEGEL ONLINE editor David Crossland, who was born in Bonn to English parents. He argues that rather than rail against "criminal young foreigners," the country ought to be doing more to welcome its minorities. They are, after all, here to stay.

"Germany is not a country of immigration," Roland Koch said this month as he sought to revive his campaign for a third term as governor of the western state of Hesse by calling for a crackdown on "criminal young foreigners."

The statement, borrowed from former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, is untrue. Some 15 million people, or just under a fifth of the German population, have an immigrant background. The real message is: "We don't want Germany to be a country of immigration."

"Foreigners" -- they're often called that here even if they and their parents were born here -- get that message loud and clear in their everyday lives. That steely look of disapproval in shops when a customer expresses an enquiry in accented or broken German. The difficulty of finding an apartment to rent if your surname isn't Müller.

Just speaking English can get you into trouble on a Berlin S-Bahn train. A number of youths, presumably of far-right persuasion, glared at me during a recent ride through the east of the city. One muttered "piece of shit," while another shouted "nigger!" before rushing out -- and I'm white.

I'd hate to be living here if I had brown or black skin. Statistics on racist assaults prove that parts of eastern Germany are no-go zones for ethnic minorities. Germany’s Homegrown Intolerance >>> By David Crossland

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Saudi Arms Corruption Denied
DAILY EXPRESS: Claims British civil servants had "connived" in corrupt arms deals with Saudi Arabia for more than 30 years have been denied by Defence Secretary Des Browne.

But recently-discovered documents in the National Archives show Ministry of Defence officials made clear in 1976 the Saudis expected "appropriately discreet arrangements" to be made for payments.



The then head of defence sales at the MoD, Lester Suffield, said that although they were described as "technical consultancy" fees, they were designed to "sway" decisions on the award of arms contracts.



He warned the scale of the payments, which could account for 10% of the total value of a contract, would become "enormous" unless they could somehow be restrained. Saudi Arms Corruption Denied >>>

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This Stupid, Craven, Untrustworthy Government!
Jacqui Smith and her craven associates really are the giddy limit! She, along with her other ridiculous cronies in the cabinet, want to re-brand Islamic terrorism as “anti-Islamic activity”. This woman is out of her depth in her position. She clearly doesn’t understand the so-called religion of Islam – the old name for it, Muhammadanism, would be a more accurate term – since she doesn’t seem to understand that the correct term for ‘Islamic extremism’ / ‘Islamic terrorism’ is the JIHAD.

Surely this woman must know by now what the word ‘Jihad’ means ‘struggle in the way of Allah’ to conquer the whole world for him. In other words, it’s a ‘holy war’; and no amount of re-branding will change that FACT! Or could it be that Jacqui is practising a little dissimulation for the purpose of winning the Muslim voters over to NuLabour?

By the way Jacqui, there is absolutely NOTHING “anti-Islamic” about “Islamic terrorism”; indeed, the Jihad is the essence of Islam! - ©Mark

DAILY MAIL: Ministers have adopted a new language for declarations on Islamic terrorism.

In future, fanatics will be referred to as pursuing "anti-Islamic activity".

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said that extremists were behaving contrary to their faith, rather than acting in the name of Islam.

Security officials believe that directly linking terrorism to Islam is inflammatory, and risks alienating mainstream Muslim opinion.

In her first major speech on radicalisation, Miss Smith repeatedly used the phrase "anti-Islamic".

In one passage she said: "As so many Muslims in the UK and across the world have pointed out, there is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorise, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief.

"Indeed, if anything, these actions are anti-Islamic'.

Another section referred to enlisting the Muslim community against "anti-Islamic activity".

Her words were chosen to reflect new Government strategy on labelling the terrorists and their recruiting agents.

The shift follows a decision taken last year to stop using the phrase "war on terror", first adopted by U.S. President Bush.

Officials were concerned it could act as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda, which is determined to manufacture a battle between the values of Islam and the West.

The strategy emerging across Government is to portray terrorists as nothing more than cold-blooded murderers who are not fighting for any religious cause.

Al Qaeda inspired terrorism is instead being described by key figures as "more like a death cult". Government renames Islamic terrorism as 'anti-Islamic activity' to woo Muslims >>> By James Slack

THE TELEGRAPH:
Tories attack Islamic terrorism re-branding

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Political Correctness: An Australian Perspective

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Sarkozy Sparks French Debate over God and Faith
Hat tip to Always on Watch for drawing this story to my attention at Infidel Bloggers’ Alliance:

REUTERS: PARIS - President Nicolas Sarkozy's increasingly frequent and positive references to God and faith have drawn fire from critics who accuse him of violating France's separation of church and state.

Sarkozy, a taboo-breaker whose whirlwind love life has distracted the media for weeks, broke with traditional presidential reserve about religion to stress France's Christian roots in a speech in a Rome basilica just before Christmas.

In Riyadh on Monday, he hailed Islam as "one of the greatest and most beautiful civilisations the world has known" and described his Saudi hosts as rulers who "appeal to the basic values of Islam to combat the fundamentalism that negates them".

His praise for a kingdom that enforces and propagates a strict version of Islam, during a visit aimed at securing lucrative export contracts, was the last straw for his critics.

"This is not respect for the separation of church and state," Socialist opposition leader Francois Hollande said.

"This is an ideological stand that makes religion into an instrument to promote French products civilian nuclear plants for Muslim countries," he said. "Mixing religion and foreign policy is illogical and wrong."

Jean-Louis Debre, a leading Gaullist who is now head of the Constitutional Council, indirectly chided Sarkozy by saying the 1905 law separating church and state was a good one and that it was "opportune to make sure its balance is not upset". Sarkozy sparks French debate over God and faith >>>

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