Saturday, February 21, 2015
German Anti-Islam Group Pegida Marches in Britain
The cameras are still rolling at Byker Grove. These days, though, they are set high above the security fence at the edge of the grounds, next to signs warning off intruders. When the children’s soap finished its run, in 2006, producers abandoned the Victorian mansion where it was filmed.
Children will soon be running around the grounds again. Not PJ and Duncan, the youth club teenagers played by Ant and Dec, but students of an Islamic academy that is planned for the site, Benwell Towers.
Not everyone is happy with the proposal, however. In fact, when the Bahr Academy bought the property two years ago, the English Defence League, a far-Right group that has often clashed with police, staged its biggest-ever demonstration. It claims 5,000 members marched through Newcastle that day.
As tensions rose, someone hung a pig’s head from the gates, a calculated attempt to offend. The protesters seemed to favour an empty shrine to Nineties television over a faith school. Work on the site has now begun but it remains controversial, hence the security cameras.
So it was not such a surprise to learn that another march was planned for the city, next weekend. That is, until Geordies discovered the identity of the group behind the demonstration: Pegida, a populist anti-Islam movement – in Germany. It only held its first march against the “Islamisation of the West” in the German city of Dresden last October; now, it seems, it is ready to spread its message internationally.
Branches have been set up in several other countries, including France and Spain, and the Newcastle demonstration next Saturday will be its first in Britain. If it is successful, more marches are planned, for Birmingham and London, as well as Bathgate in Scotland. Read on and comment » | Tom Rowley | Saturday, February 21, 2015
French Icon Brigitte Bardot On Trial Again For Blasphemy Against Islam
Now, the prosecutor, Anne de Fontette, wants a heftier fine and a tougher sentence: the equivalent of $24,000 and a two month (hopefully) suspended jail term.
What crimes has Bardot committed in the land without a First Amendment, in the land of Hate Speech laws that are being slickly exploited by non-persecuted Muslims?
Bardot has written: “I am fed up with being under the thumb of this population which is destroying us, destroying our country.”
Bardot, seventy[-]nine, is an avid animal rights activist and abhors the slaughter of animals for any purpose, including religious ones. But mainly, she laments “the Islamization of France.” » | Dr. Phyllis Chesler | Friday, February 20, 2015
Hass auf Muslime erreicht neuen Höhepunkt
Es ist eine schöne Geste. In Oslo wollen morgen Samstag über achthundert junge Muslime eine menschliche Schutzkette um eine Synagoge errichten. Die Idee des erst 17-jährigen Initiators kommt nicht von ungefähr. «Wir sind nicht alle Terroristen», lautet die Aussage, die dahintersteckt. Denn das ist im Volk und bei Toppolitikern aus der Mitte nicht mehr selbstverständlich.
Rechtspopulisten vor Sieg
Die Stimmung gegenüber Muslimen hat sich in Skandinavien und ganz besonders in Dänemark seit den New Yorker Anschlägen von 2001 und der Mohammed-Karikaturen-Krise mit Ausschreitungen in der islamischen Welt gegen Dänemark 2006 erheblich verschlechtert. … » | Von André Anwar | Stockholm | Freitag, 20. Februar 2015
Friday, February 20, 2015
Obama’s Elementary Errors on Islam
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| President Barack Obama addresses the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism on Feb. 18. |
The three-day White House conference on “violent extremism” exposed anew Obama’s inability or unwillingness to understand the challenge of Islamist terrorism, let alone to lead the fight against it.
The conference was billed as a global event bringing together people of different views from more than 60 countries. In practice, however, it acted more as an echo chamber for Obama’s politically correct approach.
“Violent extremism” is misleading, to say the least. (Is there extremism without violence?) The generic term obscures the fact that we face a specific form of terrorism rooted, nurtured and waged in the name of Islam.
Obama did defend his evasion: “Al Qaeda and ISIL [a k a ISIS] and groups like it . . . try to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam,” he said. “We must never accept the premise that they put forward, because it is a lie.” Operatives of al Qaeda and ISIS “are not religious leaders — they’re terrorists,” he said.
In fact, these terrorists now call their outfit the Islamic State, or IS, under a caliph. And no higher authority has the legitimacy and power to challenge their claim.
Islam has no mechanism for excommunication. Individuals can leave the ummah and be regarded as apostates (murtad). But no one who swears he is a Muslim can be excluded.
Even very bad Muslims are still Muslims as long as they haven’t thrice publicly rejected the two testimonies. (The two testimonies are accepting the oneness of God and that Muhammad is His Prophet.) Thus, neither Obama nor anyone else is qualified to decide who is a Muslim — or what is “true Islam.” » | Amir Taheri | Friday, February 20, 2015
Hitler's Hidden Drug Habit: Secret History
Putin's Growing Tensions With The West
Putin-Rede: "Niemand ist Russland militärisch überlegen"
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| Russlands Präsident Putin: Militärische Stärke als Argument |
Moskau - Russlands Präsident Wladimir Putin hat eine deutliche Warnung in Richtung Westen ausgesprochen. "Niemand sollte die Illusion haben, dass er eine militärische Überlegenheit gegenüber Russland erreichen könnte", zitiert ihn die Agentur Interfax. "Wir werden immer eine passende Antwort auf sämtliche solcher Abenteuer haben", sagte er demnach in einem Grußwort anlässlich eines Feiertags für die "Verteidiger des Vaterlandes" in der kommenden Woche. » | mxw/Reuters | Freitag, 20. Februar 2015
Russian Tensions Could Escalate into All-out War, says Nato General
Tensions with Russia could blow up into all-out conflict, posing “an existential threat to our whole being”, Britain’s top general in Nato has warned.
Gen Sir Adrian Bradshaw, deputy commander of Nato forces in Europe, said there was a danger Vladimir Putin could try to use his armies to invade and seize Nato territory, after calculating the alliance would be too afraid of escalating violence to respond.
His comments follow a clash between London and Moscow after the Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, said there was a "real and present danger" Mr Putin could try to destabilise the Baltic states with a campaign of subversion and irregular warfare.
The Kremlin called those comments “absolutely unacceptable". » | Ben Farmer, Defence Correspondent | Friday, February 20, 2015
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Britain cannot defend itself against Putin's military might, top brass warn: Former RAF chief says that Britain's defences have been 'decimated' and would not survive a Russian air attack » | Camilla Turner | Friday, February 20, 2015
Saudi King Salman Showers His People with Cash
Riyadh: European leaders are still battling over austerity. The US Congress is gearing up for another fight over the budget. But in Saudi Arabia, there are no such troubles when you are king - and you just dole out billions and billions of dollars to ordinary Saudis by royal decree.
Not surprisingly, Saudis are very happy with their new monarch, King Salman.
"It is party time for Saudi Arabia right now", said John Sfakianakis, the Riyadh-based Middle East director of the Ashmore Group, an investment company, who estimates that the king's post-coronation giveaway will ultimately cost more than $US32 billion or $41 billion.
Since Salman ascended the throne of this wealthy Arab kingdom last month, he has swiftly taken charge, abolishing government bodies and firing ministers. But no measure has caused as much buzz here as the giant payouts he ordered to a large chunk of the Saudi population.
These included grants to professional associations, literary and sports clubs; investments in water and electricity; and bonuses worth two months of salary to all government employees, soldiers, pensioners and students on government stipends at home and abroad. Some private companies followed suit with comparable bonuses for their Saudi employees, putting another few billion dollars into people's pockets. » | Ben Hubbard | Friday, February 20, 2015
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