ONEINDIA: Stockholm – A Muslim man has won the discrimination case against Sweden’s unemployment agency, for kicking him out of the job training program, after he refused to shake hands with a woman. >>> OneIndia News | Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
CNS NEWS: As the U.S. and European Union joined Monday in condemning “continuing human rights violations” by the Iranian government, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ratcheted up tensions ahead of Thursday’s anniversary of the Islamic revolution by vowing that the nation would deliver a “punch” to stun its enemies.
“Through its unity, the Iranian nation will by Allah’s favor stun the arrogant powers, including the U.S., Britain, and the Zionist regime on the 22nd of Bahman,” he said in a speech to air force personnel, using the Persian calendar date for February 11.
Khamenei’s remarks, in a speech to air force personnel, are the latest by top regime figures seeking to discredit opposition supporters ahead of the anniversary by accusing them of being agents or tools of hostile countries. >>> Patrick Goodenough, International Editor | Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Monday, February 08, 2010
MAIL ONLINE: The internationally celebrated historian and TV presenter Niall Ferguson has broken up with his wife of 16 years after a string of adulterous affairs.
The 45-year-old Harvard professor has left former newspaper editor Susan Douglas, with whom he has three children, for his mistress, the Somalian-born feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Ms Hirsi Ali, 40, is a lawyer and former Dutch MP who wrote the script for a controversial film that criticised Islam and resulted in the assassination of its director. She is currently living under police protection in America.
Professor Ferguson, whose books, television programmes and work with financial hedge funds earn an estimated £5million a year, is understood to have been in a relationship with Ms Hirsi Ali since last summer.
Today, The Mail on Sunday can reveal how Ferguson’s philandering behaviour – described by one confidante as ‘more akin to a Premiership footballer’s louche ways than an esteemed professor’s’ – wrecked his marriage to Ms Douglas, one of Tory leader David Cameron’s closest friends, a leading member of the Tory ‘A-list’ of potential parliamentary candidates and a former Fleet Street editor.
Ferguson, who also has high-level links to the Tory Party, with a seat on the board of the Right-wing think-tank the Centre for Policy Studies, has been seen with Ms Hirsi Ali at a number of high-profile events over recent months.
Just two weeks ago they attended the Jaipur Literary Festival in India where they were photographed kissing in the opulent surroundings of the spectacular Diggi Palace.
Ms Hirsi Ali had been flown to the event secretly. She has been the subject of threats from Muslim extremists since writing the script for the movie Submission, which was critical of Islam. The history man and fatwa girl: How will David Cameron take news that think-tank guru Niall Ferguson has deserted wife Sue Douglas for Somali feminist? >>> Katie Nicholl, Miles Goslett and Caroline Graham | Sunday, February 07, 2010
THE INDEPENDENT: Right-wing circles are transfixed by the relationship between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the neoconservative historian Niall Ferguson
The Time Magazine gala held in New York's Lincoln Centre last May was always going to be a high-octane affair. Billed as a celebration of The 100 Most Influential People in the World, it was a chance for the globe's intellectual and political glitterati to rub shoulders while making small talk about geo-politics and contemporary literature.
But amid the mingling of eminent grey matter – guests included Barack Obama's speechwriter and Oprah Winfrey – there was also a crackling of mutual physical attraction between two glamorous invitees with a shared taste for conservative politics and speaking their minds.
Yesterday, the affair sparked that night between the British historian and television presenter Niall Ferguson and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born feminist whose criticism of Islam provoked a fatwa which has left her living under police protection since 2004, was revealed – along with the news that the millionaire academic is to divorce his wife of 16 years.
Friends of the 45-year-old Harvard professor, whose books, media activities and work in high finance have made him one of the world's most bankable intellectuals with an estimated income of £5m a year, confirmed that he has left the former Fleet Street editor Susan Douglas and their three children for Ms Hirsi Ali.
A close friend of the former editor of the Sunday Express said that the split was due to Professor Ferguson "conducting a private life in a manner more akin to that of a Premiership footballer than a professor". >>> Cahal Milmo and Luke Blackall | Monday, February 08, 2010
BBC: A Yemen-based offshoot of al-Qaeda has called on Muslims in the region to wage holy war against the US and its allies.
A purported audio statement by Said al-Shihri, deputy leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, warned "American and Crusader interests are everywhere".
"Attack them and eliminate as many enemies as you can," Mr Shihri urged.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has said it was behind a failed bomb attack on a US passenger jet as it flew into Detroit on Christmas Day.
A Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, has been charged with attempting to blow up the Northwest Airlines Airbus A330.
He has allegedly said AQAP operatives trained him in Yemen, equipped him with a powerful explosive device and told him what to do.
'Glorious invasion'
In an audio message posted on a jihadist website, Mr Shihri praised the "glorious invasion" by Mr Abdulmutallab and said it had been carried out in co-ordination with al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
"We repeat what our Sheikh Osama said, that America will not dream of security until we live in security in Palestine," he said, referring to a purported audio statement issued by the Saudi militant leader last month.
Mr Shihri, a Saudi national who was released from the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in November 2007, urged Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula to "prepare and carry your weapons and to defend your religion and yourselves, and to join your mujahideen brothers".
"The Christians, the Jews and the treacherous apostate rulers have pounced on you," he said. "You have no other way out from this plight other than to wage jihad." >>> | Monday, February 08, 2010
VOICE OF AMERICA: Al-Qaida Threatens to Attack US Interests 'Everywhere' >>> | Monday, February 08, 2010
REUTERS INDIA: DUBAI - The Yemen-based wing of al Qaeda, in a recording posted on the Internet on Monday, called on Somali insurgents to help gain control over a narrow strait at the mouth of the Red Sea to block U.S. shipments to Israel.
The wing's deputy leader, Saeed al-Shehri, urged Somalia's al Shabaab Islamist insurgents to help return the Bab al Mandab strait, which separates Yemen from the Horn of Africa, "to the lands of Islam".
"At such a time the Bab (al Mandab) will be closed and that will tighten the noose on the Jews (Israel), because through it America supports them by the Red Sea," Shehri said in the audio recording posted on a website often used by Islamist groups. >>> Editing by Michael Roddy | Tuesday, February 09, 2010
20 MINUTES ONLINE: Le numéro deux d'Al-Qaïda au Yémen a appelé ses partisans à attaquer «partout les intérêts américains et croisés».
Saïd al-Shihri a affirmé l'ambition du réseau de prendre le contrôle d'un détroit stratégique commandant l'entrée de la mer Rouge.
Dans un message audio mis en ligne lundi sur un site islamiste, Saïd al-Shihri, recherché par les autorités yéménites, exhorte les musulmans à «proclamer le jihad».
«Les intérêts américains et croisés se trouvent partout, et leurs agents se déplacent partout. Attaquez-les et éliminez autant d'ennemis que vous pouvez», lance le numéro deux d'Al-Qaïda dans la péninsule arabique (Aqpa).
Il accuse «les croisés et les sionistes» de mener «une invasion haineuse du Yémen» et appelle les tribus, très influentes et qui contrôlent de vastes régions échappant au contrôle du gouvernement, à «attaquer les agents qui complotent avec les croisés contre les musulmans». >>> ats/afp | Lundi 08 Février 2010
NZZ ONLINE: Der Ableger des Terrornetzwerks al-Kaida in Jemen hat zu Anschlägen gegen die saudiarabische Herrscherfamilie und gegen US-Einrichtungen in der Region aufgerufen.
Die am Montag im Internet verbreitete Audio-Botschaft der Kaida stammt von Said al-Jiri und ist das erste Lebenszeichen des stellvertretenden Führers der Kaida auf der Arabischen Halbinsel (AQAP) seit dem 24. Dezember. >>> ddp | Montag, 08. Februar 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: The world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, has closed to the public due to technical problems just a month after it was formally opened.
The observation deck on the Dubai building's 124th floor, which had been open since the building was formally named on Jan 4, has been closed indefinitely because of unspecified technical problems.
At 2,716 feet tall, the tower contains a hotel, apartments and offices. The first occupants of the apartments were due to move in later this month.
But a statement from Emaar, the builders, said: "Technical issues with the power supply are being worked on by the main and sub-contractors and the public will be informed upon completion." >>> Richard Spencer in Dubai | Monday, February 08, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Sikh schoolchildren should be allowed to wear their ceremonial daggers at all times in all public places, Britain's first Asian judge has said.
Sir Mota Singh QC spoke out after a number of Sikhs were refused entry to schools and other venues because they were wearing the Kirpan or other religious artefacts.
Sir Mota, who received a knighthood in the 2010 New Year Honours list, said he had worn his Kirpan without problems for up to 40 years, in public buildings including Buckingham Palace.
"Not allowing someone who is baptised to wear a Kirpan is not right," Sir Mota told BBC Asian Network.
The sheathed scimitar, which is attached to a cloth belt and normally worn discreetly under clothes, is one of five "articles of faith" that baptised Sikhs must be carried [sic] at all times. The others are Kara (a steel bangle), Kesh (unshorn hair), Kanga (a comb) and Kacha (special underwear).
Last year, a 14-year-old Sikh boy was refused entry to the Compton School in Barnet after governors ruled his Kirpan was a health and safety risk.
The same year, a Sikh police officer won his case for discrimination against Greater Manchester Police after he was told to remove his turban during riot training.
And in 2008, 14-year-old Sarika Singh won a High Court case against Aberdare Girls' School in south Wales after it excluded her for breaking its "no jewellery" rule for wearing a Kara. The school was found guilty of indirect discrimination under race relations and equality laws. >>> Aislinn Laing | Monday, February 08, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Gulf nation is liberalising and the West needs to alter its outdated perceptions
If anything sums up the mystery of Saudi Arabia, it is the story of two women who "mingled" with members of the opposite sex.
One was Khamisa Sawadi, a 75-year-old grandmother sentenced to 40 lashes for being found in the presence of a man who was not a blood relative. It was her late husband's nephew, and he had called at her house to deliver a loaf of bread.
The other was Aisha Natto, a businesswoman from Jeddah, who was to be seen the other day "mingling" quite openly with a large number of men: Saudis, other Arabs and Westerners. Many of the women around her were not even veiled.
The very same government that has refused to intervene on behalf of Mrs Sawadi was hosting the Global Competitiveness Forum at Riyadh's Four Seasons Hotel, where Dr Natto received an award as founder of one of the country's fastest growing businesses.
The forum is one of a string of initiatives by which Saudi Arabia is trying to change its reputation as an inward-looking, conservative – and men-only – state whose economic policies revolve around deploying its oil wealth in the interests of its ruling family. >>> Richard Spencer in Riyadh | Sunday, February 07, 2010
*They’ll be telling us next that we can go skinny dipping there!
KHILAFAH (Caliphate): When one thinks of the Muslim world, it conjures up images of poverty, corruption and war. Many negative connotations exist about the state of the Muslim world which continues to occupy news space and newspapers. The global media tends to neglect the achievements of the Muslim world and the contributions it made to humanity. The Muslim world has a rich history of development and discovery, the results of which are being reaped today.
Over the last decade, the call for a united Islamic world i.e. the Khilafah has gained momentum and this momentum continues to grow. The possibility of a united Muslim world behind one ruler (Khaleefah) is something that the Muslim Ummah can achieve as this was achieved in the past and even western historians have testified to this fact. The Muslim lands currently posses:
• The Largest population in the world, 1.6 billion
• Largest army in the world
• Control of half of the world's oil and many other natural resources
• Control key strategic naval straits (A third of the world's oil travels through the straits of Hormuz which is between Iran and UAE) and airspace
• Largest land mass
• Nuclear weapons
The golden period of the Ummah saw many technological developments. Muslims utilised technology which Europe at that time could not even dream of. For example, some of the technology we take for granted today would not have existed if mathematical concepts such as algebra did not develop during the golden period of Islam. Computers which are used today would not have been possible if mathematical concepts such as algorithms did not exist. Many scholars such as Donald Routledge Hill express the view that Islam was the driving force behind the Muslim achievements while Robert Briffault even sees Islamic science as the foundation of modern science. >>> Amar Khan | Sunday, February 07, 2010
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Part 2:
INDEPENDENT WORLD REPORT: Maryam Namazie — rights activist, commentator, broadcaster, and spokesperson for One Law for All — on resisting the misogynist, medieval and barbaric Islamic code. There is a world of difference between sexists and bigots who believe religion gives them the go ahead to think that gays are perverts and unveiled women whores and a state that puts those beliefs into laws, under which gays are executed and badly veiled women are fined, imprisoned or have acid thrown in their faces by Hezbollah and Basiji thugs.
Sharia. Just the word to me is like a kick in the stomach, particularly when I hear it being mentioned favourably. I know in this day and age of multiculturalism, it is not surprising to find tolerance for even the most intolerable of things, but, I still have to catch my breath when I hear the very word.
I suppose it is because I can not hear it without remembering sixteen-year-old Atefeh Rajabi hung for crimes against chastity; mother of three Maryam Ayoubi stoned to death for sex outside of marriage; Shirin Alam-Hoei who was sentenced to life in prison for enmity against God; and Neda Agha-Soltan who was shot dead at a June 2009 protest in Tehran, and whose twentieth birthday would have been on January 23, 2010.
Now, I know there are those who will say that these examples I give, or the many others we have come to know so well, are merely harsh interpretations of Sharia law — that Sharia law is misunderstood, and that it is not entirely medieval and draconian. But, one need only take a glance around the world to see the extent of its brutality.
To say it is misunderstood is merely an exercise in PR, which aims to make Sharia more palatable to a western audience and pave the way for its, at least partial, implementation in places like the United Kingdom. The Islamists have no time for such niceties when you are living under their rule.
Of course Sharia law rulings on divorce and child custody are not the same as its rulings on stoning and amputation. Yet, even in civil matters, a woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man’s; she does not have the right to child custody after a prescribed age regardless of the child’s welfare. A woman has limited rights to divorce whereas men have unilateral rights to divorce. Men can marry up to four wives, and, in the Shia tradition, have as many temporary wives as they want as well. Women can not even sign their own marriage contract; a male guardian must sign it on their behalf and so on and so forth.
The misogyny behind a law that stones a woman to death, and one that denies her the right to divorce from a violent husband, is a matter of degree — the fundamentals are the same. In fact, the civil aspects of Sharia law are some of the pillars of women’s oppression and the reason why so many have fled their homes and sought refuge elsewhere.
Clearly, Sharia law is seen to be draconian because it is.
It is perceived to be misogynist, medieval and barbaric because it is. >>> Posted by IWR | Monday, February 01, 2010
Sunday, February 07, 2010
SUEDDEUTSCHE.de: Die Präsidentin des Zentralrats der Juden in Deutschland, Charlotte Knobloch, tritt nicht für eine zweite Amtszeit an. Ein Favorit für ihre Nachfolge steht bereits fest.
Die Präsidentin des Zentralrats der Juden in Deutschland, Charlotte Knobloch, verzichtet auf eine weitere Amtszeit. Das erklärte die 77-Jährige auf einer Direktoriumssitzung des Gremiums in Frankfurt am Main.
Knobloch sagte vor Journalisten, das Präsidium und das Direktorium hätten ihr "das volle und uneingeschränkte Vertrauen" ausgesprochen. Zuvor war spekuliert worden, dass Knobloch auf Druck aus den Gremien ihr Amt vorzeitig aufgeben würde. Die Zeit etwa berichtete diese Woche unter Berufung auf Zentralratskreise, die 77-Jährige reagiere mit ihrem Verzicht auf Kritik an ihrer Amtsführung im engeren Führungskreis des Zentralrats. >>> AP/dpa/hai/dmo | Sonntag, 07. Februar 2010
SUNDAY EXPRESS: BANNED Muslim hate preacher Anjem Choudary has sparked outrage after he was flown to Ireland to spout his bigoted views to 250 university students.
Choudary’s Islam4UK group and its parent organisation al-Muhajiroun were banned last month by Home Secretary Alan Johnson under legislation to outlaw the glorification of terrorism.
However, the student law society of University College Dublin paid for him to fly over to be a guest speaker at a debate with the motion that women’s rights should trump religious doctrine. The society also paid for his hotel.
Father-of-four Choudary opposed the motion, saying Muslim women were not suppressed or subjugated.
“There is nothing like Islam to emancipate women from slavery and servitude to men, from the cosmetics industry, fashion and pornography and all the other ways in which man tries to dehumanise women,” he claimed.
Maryam Namazie, who proposed the motion, hit back saying women’s rights were being denied under Sharia law, citing a woman’s inability to sign her own marriage contract and that women can be stoned for being unfaithful. >>> James Murray | Sunday, February 07, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH – BLOG: … Let me be open about where I stand. These islands are our islands. They do not belong to the political classes, the European Commission, the United Nations, nor the government of the day. We live here and it is we, the people, who have the absolute right to decide who may, and who may not, come here and upon what conditions they come.
That is probably enough to have me held under suspicion of racism and worse. But there is more to come.
Immigration can, and in the past often has, brought benefits to the host population and to the immigrants. I am not thinking just of the Huguenots, nor the Jewish refugees fleeing from Hitler’s national socialist persecution, nor the Poles, Czechs and Slovaks who played a critical if not decisive role in the Battle of Britain. More recently I have concluded that, although I was of the view that the Ugandan Asian refugees should have gone to India rather than come here, it is clear that they have been major contributors to the economy and society more generally.
Again, I have no problem with the recent wave of central European migrants. Overwhelmingly, they have come here to work. They mostly pay their taxes. Many will return home; those who stay will integrate into our society. I know few more British men than some of my old aircrew friends, Jasinski, Kryzanowski, Schermak, Gelbaur, Grzybowski, and more whose grandchildren are utterly British but bear their names with pride. Oh, and I had bettter declare an interest. I have employed quite a few central Europeans to care for my wife.
The characterisic that such immigrants have in common is at least an acceptance of our ways, and more often a sharing of the inheritance that has shaped our habits and culture here in this European offshore island. Read on and comment >>> Norman Tebbit | Sunday, February 07, 2010
MAIL ONLINE: A 40-year-old bus driver's son is poised to become the Tories' first Muslim MP after being selected for a safe Conservative seat yesterday.
Sajid Javid was chosen to succeed Bromsgrove Tory MP Julie Kirkbride - who has a 10,000 majority - after she was forced to announce she would not fight the seat at the next General Election following a scandal over her expenses.
English-born Mr Javid, who went to a state school and studied economics and politics at Exeter University, had a successful career as a banker. Bus Driver's Son Sajid Javid Set to Be Tories' First Muslim MP >>> | Sunday, February 07, 2010
THE NEW YORK TIMES: MEXICO CITY — Angela Alfarache and Ivonne Cervantes met at a party 16 years ago and have been a couple ever since, filling their lives with books and writing and friends. After their daughter, Constanza, was born six years ago, they became a family.
Mexican law never saw it that way. Only Constanza’s biological mother — the pair will not say which one gave birth to her because, as they explain, they are both her mothers — is her legal parent. The law does not recognize the other mother.
In a few weeks, that will change. A new Mexico City law goes into effect March 4 that will allow same-sex couples to marry and adopt children, propelling the city to the forefront of the global gay rights movement.
“We want society to change its chip that says there is only one kind of family,” said Ms. Alfarache.
But fierce opposition erupted almost as soon as the law was passed on Dec. 22. In his final homily of the year in Mexico City, Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera said, “Today the family is under attack in its essence by the equivalence of homosexual unions with marriage between a man and a woman.” Roman Catholic groups asked the conservative federal government to intervene.
President Felipe Calderón said the Constitution defined marriage as between a man and a woman, although legal experts disagree. His attorney general filed a challenge before the Supreme Court, arguing that the law violates a constitutional clause protecting the family. >>> Elisabeth Malkin | Saturday, February 06, 2010
DIE PRESSE: Zwei mit Ganzkörperschleiern Maskierte erbeuteten unerkannt 4500 Euro. Erst als sie die Waffen zogen und Geld verlangten wurde offenbar, dass es sich nicht um Frauen handelt.
Äußerst ungewöhnlich getarnt haben zwei Männer in der Nähe von Paris eine Postfiliale überfallen. Statt ihr Gesicht mit der in Gangsterkreisen üblichen Sturmhaube zu verdecken, hüllten sich die Räuber komplett in muslimische Ganzkörperschleier. Erst als sie eine Waffe zogen, bemerkten viele der Postkunden, dass es sich bei den beiden Burka-Trägern nicht um muslimische Frauen handelte. >>> DiePresse.com | Sonntag, 07. Februar 2010
MAIL ONLINE: Armed robbers disguised in burkhas have escaped with thousands in cash after carrying out a post office raid in Paris.
The crime – which took place yesterday in the suburb of Athis Mons – comes following calls for the controversial garments to be banned. President Nicolas Sarkozy himself has described them as a ‘security risk’, saying they provide the perfect cover for criminals or terrorists.
Now those fighting for the ban claim the robbery – which is the first of its kind in France – shows how useful the burkha is as a disguise.
It took place at around 10.30am, when two robbers carrying pistols entered the main post office bank building in Athis Mons, which has a large immigrant Muslim community, mainly from North Africa.
Once inside they ordered a bank clerk to take out the equivalent of £4,000 in cash by pointing a pistol at him. After ten minutes they fled to a nearby car park and escaped. >>> Peter Allen | Sunday, February 07, 2010
lePARISIEN.fr: Deux hommes, dissimulés sous une burqa, ont braqué le bureau de poste d’Athis-Mons (Essonne) pour un butin de 4 500 € .
Si le braquage n’était pas très juteux, le costume était insolite. Hier matin, vers 10 h 30, deux personnes vêtues de burqa et de baskets se sont attaquées à un bureau de poste à Athis-Mons (Essonne). Les malfrats sont repartis avec un butin estimé à 4 500 €. « J’ai d’abord cru que c’étaient des femmes, raconte Sonia, un témoin de la scène.
Je les ai vus traverser la route. Ils étaient grands et baraqués. Et en les voyant courir sous leur burqa noire, avec leurs baskets, j’ai compris que c’étaient des hommes. » >>> Céline Carez et Florence Mereo | Dimanche 07 Février 2010
NZZ ONLINE: Neue Wende im Atomstreit zwischen dem Iran und dem Westen: Der iranische Präsident Mahmud Ahmadinejad hat entschieden, dass sein Land niedrig angereichertes Uran selber auf 20 Prozent bringt.
Das teilte Ahmadinejad am Sonntag in einer Ansprache mit, die vom Staatsfernsehen live übertragen wurde. Er habe Ali-Akbar Salehi, den Direktor der iranischen Atomenergie-Organisation, angewiesen, mit der Produktion zu beginnen, sagte Ahmadinejad.
Noch vor wenigen Tagen hatte der iranische Staatschef angedeutet, im Atomstreit einzulenken und einen Vertrag zum Uran-Austausch mit den Nuklearmächten abzuschliessen. >>> sda/afp | Sonntag, 07. Februar 2010
ZEIT ONLINE: Der iranische Präsident lässt ab sofort auf 20 Prozent angereichertes Uran produzieren. Guttenberg sprach also zurecht von einer ausgestreckten Hand, die ins Leere greife. >>> Josef Joffe | Sonntag, 07. Februar 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Sarah Palin tried to rally conservatives on Saturday night at a national convention of the "Tea Party" movement, taking aim at President Barack Obama on everything from big government to teleprompters.
"I believe in this movement ... America is ready for another revolution," said Palin, former Alaska governor and Republican John McCain's running mate in the 2008 election won by Obama.
The Nashville convention brought together hundreds of activists from the "Tea Party" group, which hopes to make a splash in the 2010 congressional elections and beyond.
The three-day event had been plagued by infighting, pullouts and criticism of tickets costing more than $500.
But the appearance of Palin, the darling of the US conservative movement, raised its profile and gave her a national platform to appeal directly to an emerging base for the Republican Party.
In a speech that made frequent appeals to patriotism and faith, Palin used the folksy, Washington-outsider rhetoric to lambaste Obama and his Democratic Party.
"How's that hope-y, change-y stuff working out for you?" she asked, mocking the slogans of hope and change that swept Obama's campaign into to the White House. >>> | Sunday, February 07, 2010
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Tea Party Activists Ponder How to Win Elections: NASHVILLE—Tea Party activists gathered in Tennessee this weekend grappled with a central question looming over the burgeoning political movement: Where does it go from here?
The early consensus suggests the those most associated with Tea-Party activism might change their focus from staging political rallies like the one held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. last September, to attempting to win elections. >>> Susan Davis | Saturday, February 06, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Sarah Palin: it 'would be absurd' not to consider White House bid: Sarah Palin on Sunday set her sights on the White House, saying it "would be absurd" not to consider running against Barack Obama in 2012. >>> Alex Spillius in Nashville | Sunday, February 07, 2010
LE TEMPS: États-Unis – Nouvelle révolution conservatrice en marche? : Des centaines d’Américains représentant les «vraies valeurs de l’Amérique» se réunissent ce week-end à Nashville où se tient la première convention nationale du «tea party» >>> Luis Lema | Samedi 06 Février 2010
HAARETZ: Israel may have become a punching bag for much of the world, but 50 million Americans back the Jewish state 100 percent, no ifs, buts or maybes.
As portrayed in the striking documentary "Waiting for Armageddon," these supporters are Christian Evangelicals who are neither rural hicks nor ranting fanatics.
What they hold in common is an unshakeable faith that every inch of Israel/Palestine belongs to the Jews. "They want the Muslims to be evicted by the Jews, the Jews to rebuild the Temple of Solomon and then Christ to return and trump everyone," one analyst explains in the film. >>> | Friday, February 05, 2010
20 MINUTEN ONLINE: Deutschland spürt empfindlich den Abgang von Fachkräften, die sich bevorzugt in der Schweiz niederlassen. Besonders die dauerhafte Auswanderung macht Sorgen. Jetzt will die Bundesregierung Gegensteuer geben.
Der deutsche Wirtschaftsminister Rainer Brüderle (FDP) kündigt in einem Interview mit der Zeitung «Sonntag» an, Deutschland werde eine «Rückholpolitik» starten, um Landsleute aus der Schweiz zurück zu gewinnen. «Wir verlieren Fachkräfte, Wissenschaftler und andere Topleute», sagt Brüderle. Man müsse sie «als Wachstumspole zurückgewinnen». Brain-Drain: Berlin will die Deutschen zurückholen >>> | Sonntag, 07. Februar 2010
20 MINUTES ONLINE: Le chef de la diplomatie allemande Guido Westerwelle s'est fixé comme «objectif à long terme» la «mise sur pied d'une armée européenne sous plein contrôle parlementaire».
Il s'exprimait samedi devant la 46e Conférence sur la sécurité de Munich.
«L'UE doit assumer son rôle politique en tant qu'acteur mondial» et «réagir de manière souple et rapide» aux crises internationales, a-t-il souligné. «Nous voulons une gestion de crise européenne forte», a martelé M. Westerwelle.
Selon lui, le traité de Lisbonne a «ouvert un nouveau chapitre» d'une Union européenne «plus démocratique et parlementaire», mais «ne constitue pas une fin mais un début».
«Ce traité dessine une politique de sécurité et de défense commune» et «le gouvernement fédéral (allemand) veut poursuivre sur cette voie», a-t-il insisté. >>> Samedi 06 Fébruar 2010
THE GUARDIAN: Thirty-one years ago this week, Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Tehran after 15 years in exile. The anniversary is usually marked by triumphant rallies. Not this time: protesters are planning mass demonstrations against a regime they say has betrayed Islamic ideals.
For three decades, the image of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini arriving on Iranian soil to a tumultuous homecoming after 15 years in exile has been a centrepiece of Iran's revolutionary iconography.
It is an event best captured in a famous picture of the late spiritual leader being gently led down the steps of an Air France jet by a man dressed as a pilot or an air steward. The picture embodies the heady mixture of pride, compassion and religious hero-worship the revolution is supposed to evoke among Iranians.
Khomeini was returning to be hailed as a saviour by his fellow countrymen after a wave of popular uprisings that had toppled the regime of the western-backed shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His guide was playing a mere walk-on part in the historic drama that engulfed Iran that day in February 1979.
But last week, at the start of the annual Fajr festivities marking the revolution's anniversary, that image was the subject of a strange story that seemed symptomatic of the increasing uncertainty surrounding the country's revolutionary legacy, amid the continuing turmoil over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election.
The Islamic Revolution Documentation Centre, a state body linked to a pro-government MP, claimed on its website to have traced Khomeini's chaperone as one Gerard Jean Fabian-Bataouche, who it said was living almost destitute in Tehran. The report, based on an interview with Fabian-Bataouche, described him as a former French policeman of Algerian origin who had been Khomeini's personal bodyguard while he was living in the village of Neauphle-le-Château, outside Paris, waiting for the shah to fall in the months before the revolution.
Having taken a liking to the man after learning that he had an Iranian wife and spoke Farsi, Khomeini had invited him to be on board his triumphant flight to Tehran. Fabian-Bataouche had remained in Iran afterwards but had fallen on hard times. He was said to be homeless and forced to flit from one friend to another in an endless quest for a place to sleep.
It seemed an improbably shabby postscript to an association with the revolution's founding father. Predictably, the story was immediately denounced as a hoax and within a day, the Islamic Revolution Documentation Centre removed it, citing "serious doubts" about Fabian-Bataouche's authenticity.
True or false, the fact such a tale even saw the light of day betrayed an uncharacteristic lack of official sure-footedness as the revolution approaches its 31st anniversary. The prospect of revolutionary festivities is usually a cause for triumphalism among the Islamic republic's establishment. Instead, with the storm over Ahmadinejad's hotly disputed poll victory last June refusing to abate, it appears to be making them jumpy. >>> Robert Tait and Noushin Hoseiny | Sunday, February 07, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi has called on her fellow Iranians to defy the security forces and take to the streets this week on the anniversary of the revolution.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mrs Ebadi described her despair at the regime's brutality but urged Iranians to show peaceful defiance.
"I believe people should take part in the demonstration," she said. "They should ask for their rights, but they should do it peacefully. Obviously the regime wants people to be violent because it gives them an excuse to crack down. People must not give them that excuse."
Mrs Ebadi, 62, a revered human rights lawyer who was awarded the peace prize in 2003, fled Iran during the turmoil after last June's disputed election. She was speaking from London where she is in exile, ahead of planned opposition protests this week.
Democracy campaigners are preparing to hijack state-organised rallies on Thursday, traditionally a day for Iran's leaders to show their strength. Rattled hardliners within the regime are attempting to intimidate protesters to stay at home: 10 days ago they hanged two men for their supposed role in the post-election unrest, and another nine have been sentenced to die.
Mrs Ebadi also spoke of her frustration at the regime's brutal treatment of Iranian protesters and described its chilling threats against her. Her family have remained in Tehran and both her husband and sister have been arrested and briefly jailed.
She told The Sunday Telegraph that threats have been made against her by her enemies within the regime through her friends who are still in the country. >>> Angus McDowall | Saturday, February 06, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Shirin Ebadi, 62, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her long career as a human rights lawyer in Iran. She spoke to The Sunday Telegraph during a stay in London.
Sunday Telegraph: "Have you spent much time in London since fleeing Iran last summer?"
Shirin Ebadi: "Since the election I've almost been living at airports. Not because of my safety, but so I can travel to talk about Iran.
"I stay in hotels wherever I go because the people who invite me always put me in hotels. I have been living in hotels since I left Iran in June. Obviously I'm tired, but I don't let it affect my work."
ST: "Are you in any danger from the regime?"
SE: "I've never been contacted by the regime directly. But they contacted my family and friends and said 'wherever she is, we can get rid of her'.
"I don't take the threat seriously. If people want to do something they don't talk about it beforehand. Their main aim is to scare me off doing my work properly.
"Obviously, I don't want to make my enemies happy, so I continue with my work inside the law.
"They threatened my husband and my sister that if I continue with my work they will arrest both of them. My sister was detained for three weeks. They were not tortured physically, but to arrest people because of something someone else has done is a form of emotional torture." >>> Angus McDowall | Saturday, February 06, 2010
Saturday, February 06, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: A multi-millionaire British citizen is facing a potential death sentence in Indonesia on charges of corruption and fraud relating to the controversial collapse of one of the country's leading banks.
Rafat Ali Rizvi, 49, who grew up and went to university in the UK, has been accused of stealing assets from Bank Century after it was rescued from collapse by the state in November 2008 with $670m (£430m) of taxpayers' money.
Interpol has issued an arrest warrant for Mr Rizvi at Indonesia's request but he remains at large, splitting his time between the UK, where he has a property on London's Park Lane, and Singapore. Neither country has an extradition agreement with Indonesia.
Mr Rivzi, believed to be worth around $600m, protests his innocence but friends say he fears standing trial in Indonesia because the Bank Century case has become highly political. Investigations have been launched into the original bail-out as well as alleged corruption surrounding the case.
According to Mr Rivzi's lawyers, he believes he will be made a scapegoat for the bank's failure. >>> Philip Aldrick | Saturday, February 06, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: A conference designed to galvanise opposition to Barack Obama's "big government" agenda has hit controversy after racially-charged remarks by the opening speaker, a leading anti-immigration campaigner.
Tom Tancredo, who served for ten years as a Republican in Congress, said America's first black president was only elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country".
Such tests were used to prevent blacks from voting during segregation and were banned by the landmark civil rights legislation of 1964.
Speaking at the first National Tea Party convention, Mr Tancredo also denounced the "cult of multiculturalism". The 2008 election had "put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House ... Barack Hussein Obama," he said, using the president's Islamic middle name.
"This is our country," he told the audience. "Let's take it back." >>> Alex Spillius in Nashville | Friday, February 05, 2010
TIMES ONLINE: They will proudly boast of how they have galvanised ordinary Americans against runaway government spending, but a dark underbelly of xenophobia has been exposed at the first national gathering of the Tea Party movement.
Here in the vast Gaylord resort in Nashville, where 600 members of the conservative grassroots phenomenon that exploded in revolt against President Obama’s economic policies have gathered, it would be advisable not to wear a T-shirt declaring “I am an illegal immigrant”.
The anti-Government, anti-Establishment movement, which has splintered in the past week with many boycotting this gathering, has billed itself as a revolution born of the widespread disgust at Washington and the way that the nation’s politicians are bankrupting America’s future.
With its raucous protests it has undeniably become a political force that threatens to hand Democrats a disastrous midterm election night in November. Voter anger against spending and debt, of which the Tea Partiers are in the vanguard, played a significant role in the recent loss of the late Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat and could conceivably lead to Democrats losing the House and Senate.
Yet the speech that opened the Nashville event yesterday, an address greeted with whoops and cheers from the mainly white audience, reflects a movement that also appears to have a less attractive side to it.
Tom Tancredo, a former Republican congressman who ran for president in 2008 on an anti-illegal immigration platform, said of the voters who elected Mr Obama: “They could not even spell the word ‘vote’ or say it in English and they put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House — Barack Hussein Obama!”[.]
Decrying America’s multiculturalism, Mr Tancredo said that Republicans and Democrats had voted for a black man because they felt they had to. To a standing ovation, he shouted: “We really do have a culture to pass on to our children: it’s based on Judaeo-Christian values.”
“This is our country,” he declared. “Let’s take it back!” He added, to applause: “Cultures are not the same. Some are better. Ours is best!” The crowd, some wearing recently purchased T-shirts saying “Keep the change — I’ll keep my FREEDOM my GUNS and my MONEY”, loved it. >>> Tim Reid in Nashville | Saturday, February 06, 2010
WELT ONLINE: Griechenland steckt in einer schweren Finanzkrise, die Zahlungsunfähigkeit droht. In dieser Situation erweist sich der EU-Stabilitätspakt als Papiertiger. Die griechischen Politiker schrecken vor gravierenden Reformen zurück. Dabei gibt es nur einen Weg: Athen muss die Drachme wiedereinführen.
Stellen Sie sich vor, Sie haben sich in einem tiefen Tunnel verlaufen und stehen an einer Weggabelung. Sie wissen, dass die Tunnelröhre, die Ihnen offen steht, ins Verderben führt. Der Weg ins Freie ist hingegen versperrt, und Sie müssten ihn erst einmal unter größten Mühen frei schaufeln. Was würden Sie tun?
Ungefähr so stellt sich im Moment die Situation in der Eurozone dar. Sowohl für die Staaten Südeuropas, allen voran Griechenland, die darum fürchten müssen, kein Geld mehr am Kapitalmarkt zu bekommen. Als auch für die stabileren Länder wie Frankreich oder Deutschland. Denn deren Bevölkerung müsste die Zeche zahlen, wenn sie die Hellenen tatsächlich vor der drohenden Zahlungsunfähigkeit bewahren. >>> Von Jörg Eigendorf | Samstag, 06. Februar 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: One of the ironies of Barack Obama’s presidency is that he is increasingly distant from the world he promised to embrace, writes Toby Harnden in Washington
Europeans cheered Barack Obama every step of the way to the White House.
They swooned when the candidate took his stump skills to Berlin, where he spoke of "the burdens of global citizenship" and promised to "remake the world".
He had lived in Indonesia as a boy, travelled to Pakistan and Africa in his youth and came from a family that looked, as he liked to quip, "like the United Nations". Then, in his first year in office, he made 10 trips abroad to 21 countries, making him the most travelled of all United States presidents in their first 12 months.
So it came as a rude shock to Europeans last week when Obama decided not to bother with the European Union knees up Madrid in May - particularly miffing Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero of Spain, who, like the American president, campaigned on his opposition to the Iraq war.
American officials intimated that they were unimpressed by European bickering over who would sit next to the Obamas at the summit dinner and even over who would be the first leader to shake the hand of the person that Oprah Winfrey anointed as "the One" in Iowa back in 2008.
Perhaps Obama himself was a touch irritated by Nicolas Sarkozy's new habit of mocking him. "Obama has been in power for a year, and he has already lost three special elections," the French president said last week. "Me, I have won two legislative elections and the EU election. What can one say I've lost?" >>> Toby Harnden's American Way | Saturday, February 06, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Adolf Hitler took a primitive form of Viagra when he tried to have sex with Eva Braun, a new book on the Fuhrer’s fragile health has claimed.
Based on long-dormant medical archives and formerly classified military documents, it claimed the dictator was so afraid of pills that most of his medication was injected.
The authors of the book, titled Was Hitler Ill?, claimed he took 82 different sorts of medication during his rule of Nazi Germany including the primitive “Viagra”, which was a testosterone extract.
The book is largely based on papers from Dr. Theodor Morrell, regarded as a quack among many in the upper echelons of Nazism, who Hitler came to rely on with increasing urgency during the war.
The less-than-flattering nickname “Reich syringe master” was given to him by Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering, himself a morphine addict by war's end.
According to the book, in 1944, Morrell began giving Hitler injections of the testosterone and a cocktail made from the semen and prostate glands of young bulls into his bloodstream. >>> Andrew Hough, and Allan Hall in Berlin | Saturday, February 06, 2010
THE TELEGRAPH: Pope Benedict XVI has criticised the “increasing tide of secularism” in Britain, in his second comments on the country in a week.
The pontiff condemned support for euthanasia, which he said goes directly against the Christian understanding of the dignity of human life, and recent developments in embryo research.
He also said that too many people see the Roman Catholic Church in terms of “prohibitions and retrograde positions” but ignore its positive vision of the world.
The pope added that faith schools are a “powerful force” for improving society.
It comes just days after Benedict XVI made an unprecedented attack on Labour’s “unjust” equality laws, claiming that they restricted religious freedom. >>> Martin Beckford | Saturday, February 06, 2010
TORONTO SUN – Comment: Free speech is not merely an ornamental bauble found in liberal democratic societies. It is the well-fought ground upon which the structures of such societies have been constructed.
It is free speech in practice, or its ideal subscribed to, that has distinguished Europe and western civilization from all others past and present. Its absence or suppression is the main feature of totalitarian culture.
Yet free speech has never been entirely free from siege by special interests.
Except for the United States where free speech is constitutionally protected by the first amendment, the exercise of free speech can still be constrained by the guardians of public interests as we see in the case of the Dutch MP Geert Wilders, indicted and brought to court for offending Muslims in Holland.
The trial of Wilders is as much a step backward from the ideal of free speech as it is indicative of how free people willingly compromise their freedom by forgetting their history.
In indicting Wilders for hate speech, the Dutch, and their Western supporters, have turned their backs to the long line of defenders of free speech as the cornerstone of liberty, from Spinoza and Voltaire to Emile Zola. >>> Salim Mansur, QMI Agency | Thursday, February 4, 2010
Friday, February 05, 2010
Islam: The Enemy of Democracy and Freedom >>> Mark Alexander | Friday, April 20, 2007
TIMES ONLINE: “You don’t have to be straight in the military,” Barry Goldwater said in 1994. “You just have to be able to shoot straight.”
Sixteen years on, the conservative icon and former presidential candidate can look down from the hereafter on an American cultural scene where the President and his top commanders at last agree that gays should be able to serve openly in the armed forces.
They have been joined this week by General Colin Powell, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who once called homosexuality “a behavioural characteristic” unlike such “benign characteristics” as skin colour.
General Powell’s opposition to repealing the longstanding ban on gays in the military helped to produce the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, the death knell of which President Obama announced in his State of the Union address. With General Powell’s change of heart — which aides said came two years ago, even though he waited until Wednesday to announce it — the US Congress is the only remaining obstacle to ending the ban.
For decades, the status of gays and lesbians in uniform has created an apparently unbridgeable gulf between liberals who note that gays are allowed to die for their country but not to be open about their sexuality, and social conservatives who insist that lifting the ban would lead to sexual harassment cases and undermine the effectiveness of fighting units.
It is a potentially explosive political issue that President Clinton tried and failed to resolve in 1994, and that Mr Obama must still sell to Republicans and some Democrats in the centre. >>> Giles Whittell, Washington | Friday, February 05, 2010
KRONE.at: Griechenlands Kampf gegen seinen Ruf als Europas Raucher-Nation Nummer eins ist zumindest vorerst einmal völlig gescheitert: Sechs Monate nach der Einführung eines angeblich strikten Rauchverbots an öffentlichen Plätzen wird in Lokalen weiterhin gequalmt. Nur in Krankenhäusern und öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln wird das Verbot eingehalten. "Ansonsten wird überall geraucht", sagte Panagiotis Behrakis, Professor für Lungenheilkunde an der Universität Athen, am Freitag.
Grund des Fehlschlags sei die Tatsache, dass die zuständigen Ministerien nie richtig geklärt hätten, welche Ausnahmen es geben dürfe und wie die speziell für Raucher eingerichteten Räume aussehen müssten, hieß es in Medienberichten. >>> | Freitag, 05. Februar 2010
ICE NEWS (.is): The Danish parliament’s elected representatives for Greenland have declared that they are ready to begin negotiations aimed at discontinuing the semi-autonomous country’s involvement in Danish domestic politics.
“This is a process we need to get started,” said Greenland MP Sofia Rosssen. “This was something I said during the last election”. Rossen has not suggested a date for any withdrawal but claimed it would not happen until Greenland has been afforded full responsibility for the administration of its own domestic affairs. >>> | Wednesday, February 03, 2010
ICE NEWS (.is): Jewish residents in the southern Swedish city of Malmo are being increasingly targeted by anti-Semitic threats and harassment, causing many to flee the city out of safety concerns.
“Threats against Jews have increased steadily in Malmo in recent years and many young Jewish families are choosing to leave the city,” said Jewish Community of Malmo leader Fredrik Sieradzki in a report by The Local. “Many feel that the community and local politicians have shown a lack of understanding for how the city’s Jewish residents have been marginalised”.
In 2009 there were 79 crimes reported to Malmo police against Jewish residents, representing a 50 percent increase from the previous year according to media reports. >>> | Thursday, February 04, 2010
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