Denmark: 18% of Muslims want to see Sharia law implemented

Throughout the Islamic world wherever Sharia law is upheld harsh punishments are introduced. I think in Europe we have decide which way we want to go!! Flogging – an everyday occurrence in Saudi Arabia – but it seems no cameras are allowed. 

Close to a fifth of Muslims in Denmark want to see Sharia law implemented in Denmark. A study conducted by analysis institute Capacent for DR news shows that 18% of Muslims in Denmark declare they ‘agree’ or ‘completely agree’ with the statement: “Sharia law should be integrated into Danish law”.

Sharia legislation is several hundred years old and built on principles from the Koran and report of the Prophet Muhammad’s life.

But the notion of what sharia is, is interpreted very different by Muslims round the world.

In countries like Sudan, Nigeria and Iran sharia law means that adultery or stealing can lead to cutting off of hands or whipping. At the same time, there are laws which considerably place women worse off than men, which means that women can be refused the right to a divorce.

In several Western countries, some Sharia law is implemented. Here in Denmark it’s possible to receive a so-called sharia-loan without interest, and in Great Britain there are so-called sharia councils which can solve private conflicts between Muslims.

Source: Jihad Watch, Europe News

Video: Pakistan’s Refugee Crisis

WHO to stop using term ’swine flu’ to protect pigs: Egypt

An Egyptian butcher controls a pig as a medical team member examine it at the slaughter house in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, April 30, 2009. Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precaution against swine flu even though no cases have been reported here, infuriating farmers who blocked streets and stoned vehicles of Health Ministry workers who came to carry out the government’s order. (AP Photo/Nasser Nouri)

They are supposed to be killing the pigs to ‘protect’ the population from the H1N1 flu – but look at how these men are dressed – no protective gear on!! This just shows you that it is all about religion – unfortunately the Islamic world is some years behind the Western world – in most things.

Places like Egypt are clearly where Europe was several hundred years ago – he is walking through the streets openly and without gloves holding a pig about to be culled to ‘protect’ the Egyptian population from a virus – that does not emanate directly from pigs. This is a farce!!

GENEVA (AP) — The World Health Organization announced Thursday it will would stop using the term “swine flu” to avoid confusion over the danger posed by pigs. The policy shift came a day after Egypt began slaughtering thousands of pigs in a misguided effort to prevent swine flu.

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said the agriculture industry and the U.N. food agency had expressed concerns that the term “swine flu” was misleading consumers and needlessly causing countries to ban pork products and order the slaughter of pigs.

“Rather than calling this swine flu … we’re going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A,” Thompson said.

Egypt began slaughtering its roughly 300,000 pigs Wednesday even though experts said swine flu is not linked to pigs and not spread by eating pork. Angry farmers protested the government decree.

In Paris, the World Organization for Animal Health said Thursday “there is no evidence of infection in pigs, nor of humans acquiring infection directly from pigs.”
Killing pigs “will not help to guard against public or animal health risks” presented by the virus and “is inappropriate,” the group said in a statement.

China, Russia, Ukraine and other nations have banned pork exports from Mexico and parts of the United States, blaming swine flu fears.

Most in the Muslim world consider pigs unclean animals and do not eat pork because of religious restrictions. The farmers in Egypt raise the pigs for consumption by the country’s Christian minority.

WHO also reported the number of confirmed swine flu cases rose to 257 worldwide Thursday, with cases in Mexico rising to 97 from 26, with seven deaths. The WHO confirmed tally from the United States now stands at 109, with one death.

Other confirmed cases include 19 in Canada, 13 in Spain, eight in Britain, three each in Germany and New Zealand, two in Israel and one each in Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Thompson told reporters in Geneva that at least one of the Spanish cases involved a person who had not traveled to Mexico. Spanish officials said that was a man who apparently got the virus from his girlfriend, who recently returned from Mexico.[..]

Pakistan: Taliban seize Sikh houses, shops in Fata after Islamic jizya tax is not paid

In the Sikh religion boys and girls are often dressed the same when they are young. 

ISLAMABAD: The Taliban has forcibly captured three houses and ten shops belonging to people of the Sikh community in the Orakzai Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) after they failed to fulfil their demands of huge protection money (the Islamic Jizya tax levied on non-Muslims living in Muslim regions).

According to the sources, Taliban gunmen forced all the 24 family members of one Kalyan Singh out of their houses and shops. Singh, a cloth merchant, was kidnapped by extremists a fortnight ago, and was released when he paid 3.5 million rupees out of the 13 million rupees which was demanded as protection money. After Singh failed to arrange the rest of the amount, the Taliban occupied the properties.

Source: Times of India

Pakistan army pushes Taliban back

Displaced women to the Pakistan military offensive on Taliban hold their infants at repatriation centre Peshawar, located in the North West Frontier Province April 30, 2009.

BUNER VALLEY, Pakistan (Reuters) – The Pakistan army battled through mountain passes on Thursday in a third day of fighting to evict Taliban fighters from a strategic valley, after U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed its newfound resolve.

The militants were still controlling parts of Buner valley, just 100 km (60 miles) northwest of the capital, Islamabad, though troops had secured the main town of Daggar on Wednesday after helicopters dropped them behind enemy lines.

Obama told a news conference in Washington on that Pakistan’s army had begun to realize that homegrown militants and posed a bigger current threat to the Muslim nation’s stability than India, despite three wars between the two old rivals.

“On the military side, you’re starting to see some recognition just in the last few days that the obsession with India as the mortal threat to Pakistan has been misguided, and that their biggest threat right now comes internally,” Obama said.

“And you’re starting to see the Pakistani military take much more seriously the armed threat from militant extremists.”

The Taliban’s creeping advance from their stronghold in Swat valley, unnerved many Pakistanis and raised fears in Washington that its nuclear-armed ally was becoming more unstable.

Obama said he was confident about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal.

SWAT NEXT?

On Thursday troops used helicopter gunships and artillery to target militants hideouts in Buner, and hundred of families were seen streaming out of the valley, their vehicles laden with whatever belongings they could carry, including cattle.

“We are leaving but we don’t know where we will be going. There was shelling over my village the whole night,” said an old woman, her head and face covered, as she sat on the back of a pick-up truck.

Military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said security forces has won control of at least two passes on Thursday, but were having to move carefully because of roadside bombs.

He also delivered a warning to the Taliban in Swat for failing to keep their side of the bargain after the government accepted demands to establish Islamic sharia courts across the Malakand Division of North West Frontier Province, which includes Swat, Buner and several other districts.

“The terrorism, terrorizing of people of the area is continuing unabated and this we consider a gross violation of peace deal,” Abbas told a news conference in Rawalpindi, the garrison town neighboring Islamabad.

Abbas said the militants had refused to disarm, had abducted security forces personnel and killed policemen and civilians.

U.S. officials have urged Pakistan to follow through on this week’s offensives in Dir and Buner rather than let the enemy regroup, and speculation was mounting that once the army has secured Buner it will turn its attention to the Taliban in Swat.

Abbas gave no casualty update from the fighting in Buner and Lower Dir, where an operation began on Sunday, but as of Wednesday more than 120 militants had been killed.

OBAMA “GRAVELY CONCERNED”

Before the military offensive in Buner, Western allies, who need Pakistan’s support to defeat al Qaeda and stabilize neighboring Afghanistan, were worried the government seemed too willing to appease militants.

“I am gravely concerned about the situation in Pakistan, not because I think that they’re immediately going to be overrun and the Taliban would take over in Pakistan,” Obama told a news conference in Washington on Wednesday.

“I’m more concerned that the civilian government there right now is very fragile and don’t seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services: schools, health care, rule of law, a judicial system that works for the majority of the people.”

UN agency slams Egypt order to cull up to 400,000 pigs

Clearly religiously motivated and that’s unfortunate – as the virus is a mixer of pig, bird and human – likely the Egyptians won’t kill all the birds in the country (or all the humans). Let’s hope someone can talk some sense into this lot.

ROME, April 29 (Reuters) – Egypt’s order on Wednesday to cull all the country’s pigs is “a real mistake” and another reason why the world needs to rethink using “swine flu” to describe a virus affecting humans, a U.N. agency official said.

Egypt, where pigs are mainly raised by the country’s Christian minority, described the order to slaughter the animals as a precautionary measure in a country hard hit by bird flu. Up to 400,000 pigs could be culled, a cabinet spokesman said.

Joseph Domenech, the chief veterinary officer at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, told Reuters his staff were trying to reach Egyptian authorities to correct any confusion about a virus that has killed humans but not been found in pigs.

“It’s a real mistake. There is no reason to do that. It’s not a swine influenza, it’s a human influenza,” said Domenech, adding the FAO had been trying to reach Egyptian officials but has so far been unsuccessful.

“There is certainly no support from FAO for that decision.”

The new H1N1 flu strain — a mixture of swine, human and avian flu viruses — has killed up to 159 people in Mexico and a 23-month-old boy in the United States.

But since no pigs have been found with the disease, groups like the FAO and the Paris-based Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) are lobbying for a name change.

“This is one of the results of this strange way of defining the disease as a swine influenza. That’s why the FAO and OIE are fighting to get that name changed because it’s a totally undue focus on swine,” he said.

Egypt, harder hit by the H5N1 bird flu virus than any other country outside Asia, is deeply worried about the effects of another flu virus after extensive damage to its poultry industry and economy.

Egypt’s al-Ahram newspaper said owners of culled pigs could receive 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($177) per animal in compensation, although an Egyptian cabinet spokesman said the issue was still under discussion.

“Allah will conquer” ‘Barbarian’ defies court in trial of torture and murder of French Jew

A self-proclaimed Muslim barbarian shouted his contempt for his judges yesterday at the start of his trial for the torture and murder of a young Jewish man.

Youssouf Fofana, 28, who led a loose-knit gang of youths from an immigrant housing estate, swaggered into court and shouted “Allah will conquer” as the court began hearing a case into a killing that horrified France and the world Jewish community in 2006.

Mr Fofana and most of his 26 alleged accomplices have admitted their roles in the kidnapping of Ilan Halimi, 23, an assistant in a Paris telephone shop, who was held for ransom for 24 days in the suburb of Bagneux.

Mr Fofana, whose parents came to France from Ivory Coast, denies killing the victim, who was tied up in a cellar and tortured with acid, cigarettes and knives. He died in an ambulance after Mr Fofana dumped him by a railway line and allegedly set him alight.

The crime symbolised the casual and violent anti-Semitic culture among the young on the immigrant estates. It shocked France because many residents, including parents of gang members, were alleged to have been aware that Mr Halimi was being held. Some allegedly took turns in guarding the captive for a few euros. Half the defendants, mainly teenagers at the time, face charges of failing to render assistance or alert police.

The racially charged trial proceeded in camera because two of the accused were minors in 2006, including Emma, 19, of Iranian background, who is alleged to have lured Mr Halimi to his doom by visiting his shop and inviting him on a romantic date.

Ruth Halimi, the victim’s mother, has accused the police of bungling the inquiry. She initially attacked the Government, including Nicolas Sarkozy, then the Interior Minister, for playing down its anti-Semitic aspect.

After thousands demonstrated, Mr Sarkozy promised Jewish leaders that everything would be done to bring all those involved to justice.

Mr Fofana faces life imprisonment if convicted of kidnapping, torture and murder, aggravated by anti-Semitic motives, a specific charge in French law.

Mrs Halimi sat apparently praying in court as Mr Fofana, bearded and in a white tracksuit, grinned at her and jokingly told the judges that his name was “Arabs African revolt barbarian Salafist army”. Salafism is a fundamentalist movement espoused by many young immigrant radicals.

Mrs Halimi has been waging a campaign to keep the spotlight on the anti-Semitic motives behind the crime. Mr Fofana’s accomplices are alleged to have said that he picked the victim because he was Jewish and “Jews have money and they stick together”.

Source: Times Online

Muslims are cool to pope’s Holy Land pilgrimage

It is looking like there will be few – left who Muslims are not upset with.

Pope Benedict is a man who seems to understand Islam – to reference that Muhammed did preach violence to convert – is also backed up not only by Muslim text – such as the Koran – but also by Muslim actions – and from its start wars were waged – with Dar al Harb –  or the unconquered lands – Al Harb originally was an Arabian relative of Muhammed – who he sought to conquer and bring under his own rule – hence the name Dar al Harb – meaning realm of war and Dar al Islam meaning lands of Islam or realm of ‘peace’. For those who say Islamic means peace – peace can only be gained in Islam – through either waging wars with those in Dar al Harb and bringing them under Islam – or subjugating those who do not wish to convert – making them pay the harsh jizya protection tax – in order that their lives are spared. One Islamic radical preacher called Europe – Dar al Fitna or land of temptation – of course which would under fundamentalist Islamic law – have to be brought under Dar al Islam.

The Pope was correct – there were wars to convert and there are Koranic verses to back that up! Not PC but true!

I think the difference is that Muslims are very proud of their conquests – for some Muslims killing 80 million people in India – was justified – in the name of Islam. The period after the conquest – is referred to as taking the sword out. But unfortunately this also demonstrates how many are not prepared to change – at this time!

NAZARETH, Israel — A banner across the main square in Jesus’ boyhood town condemns those who insult Islam’s Prophet Muhammad _ a message by Muslim hard-liners for Pope Benedict XVI during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land next month.

The pontiff may have to tread carefully with his visit to Nazareth. Many Muslims are still angry over a 2006 speech in which Benedict quoted a medieval text depicting the prophet as violent.

Even some Christians are nervous that Benedict could stir up trouble for them. They worry that if he says anything contentious about Islam again, Muslims might lash out.

“He must know that every word he will utter will have an impact on Christian Palestinians and religious relations,” said Naim Ateek, an Anglican reverend and director of Sabeel, an ecumenical Palestinian Christian group that includes Catholics.

The banner was put up by followers of Nazem Abu Salim, a radical Muslim preacher, right next to the Church of the Annunciation, where tradition says the Angel Gabriel told Mary she would give birth to Jesus.

It is there for the pope, Abu Salim said. “He is not welcome here.”

The banner _ clearly visible from the church, which Benedict is to visit _ trumpets a verse from the Quran declaring, “Those who harm God and His Messenger _ God has cursed them in this world and in the hereafter, and has prepared for them a humiliating punishment.”

Municipal official Suheil Diab wouldn’t say if the banner, along with a small sign in English with the verse, would be removed before the pope arrives May 14.

Benedict plans to meet with Muslim leaders, though not Abu Salim, throughout his May 8-15 tour of the Holy Land, which includes stops in Jordan, the West Bank, Jerusalem and Nazareth, one of Israel’s largest Arab cities.

Islamic leaders in Israel are divided over the visit.

One of the leading Muslim groups in Israel, the Northern Islamic Movement, is calling for a boycott of meetings unless Benedict apologizes for his 2006 remarks, said a spokesman, Zahi Nujeidat. The movement, which has not been invited to meet with the pontiff, can marshal thousands of supporters, but has not yet decided whether to stage protests.

Other Muslim clerics said they would sit down with Benedict but ask for an apology. One of those is Sheik Taysir Tamimi, a leading cleric in the Palestinian Authority, which has welcomed the pope’s trip.

Muslims are a growing and increasingly assertive majority in Nazareth, which is 70 percent Muslim but has a communist mayor from the city’s Christian community.

A decade ago, brawls erupted over Muslim attempts to build a mosque beside the Church of the Annunciation. The project was eventually thwarted. What remains is a stone-paved square and a small mosque, headed by Abu Salim.

Nazareth is one of the main cities for Israel’s Arab minority, who make up around 20 percent of the country’s 7 million people. Christians number around 120,000 of the Arab community, roughly half Catholic, half Eastern Orthodox.

Benedict’s 2006 speech citing obscure medieval text that characterized some of Muhammad’s teachings as “evil and inhuman” sparked protests in the West Bank and Gaza _ though not in Israel. Attackers fired guns and threw firebombs at Palestinian churches.

Benedict later said the text did not reflect his views, but many Muslims believe he did not apologize properly.

In Nazareth, the pontiff is to visit the Church of the Annunciation, host an interfaith discussion and meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He’ll also celebrate Mass on nearby Mount Precipice, where many Christians believe a mob pursued Jesus and tried to throw him from a cliff.

The pope will strive to improve interfaith relations throughout his tour, said Wadi Abunassar, a spokesman for the pontiff’s visit.

Nazareth’s local government has set aside $5 million to spruce up the crowded, shabby city overlooking the Galilee hills, hoping the papal visit will boost tourism, Mayor Ramiz Jaraisy said.

Few in Nazareth’s bazaar show any excitement, however. Many remain bitter over Israel’s offensive in Gaza against Hamas militants, which killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in December and January.

“People here are tired and exhausted from this situation,” said Amin Ali, 72, an antique seller who described himself as a secular Muslim. “And nobody likes this pope, anyway.”

Benedict should use his visit to censure Israel over Gaza and the lack of progress in reaching peace with the Palestinians, said Ateek, the Anglican reverend.

“If the pope is brave enough to do that, people will respect him more,” Ateek said.

Source: AP

Palestinian sentenced to death for selling land to Israelis

HEBRON: A Palestinian court on Tuesday sentenced to death by hanging a man convicted of selling land in the occupied West Bank to Israelis.

A court in the West Bank town of Hebron sentenced Anwat Breghit, 59, to death by hanging after finding him guilty of treason and of “selling Palestinian land to Israelis.”

According to the indictment, Breghit sold property belonging to his village of Beit Omar near Hebron to Israelis from the nearby Jewish settlement of Karmei Tzur.

The sentence still requires the approval of president Mahmud Abbas in order to be carried out.

Dozens of Palestinians have been sentenced to death since 2000 over charges of collaboration with the Israeli authorities. Only two people have seen their sentences carried out, but many others were summarily executed over similar suspicions.

Source: Times of India

Talibanization: Lahore women college bans jeans in an "atmosphere of fear"

To ward off attack – Pakistan now goes through the process of proving – just how Muslims they are.

LAHOREl A prominent college for women in Lahore, Pakistan has barred students from wearing jeans or figure-hugging clothes in the wake of a reported terrorist threat.

Kinnaird College, which is among Lahore’s oldest educational institutions, has imposed the strict dress code according to which students can attend classes in shalwar kameezes or loose trousers.

Wearing a dupatta has also been made mandatory. The college’s Vice Principal Nikhat Khan told the Daily Times newspaper that the measures were in line with a government notification and had no connection with rumours about burqa-clad women issuing warnings to students.

Khan said jeans and tight dresses were banned at the college several years ago but the new principal was unaware of the ban and girls were using this to their advantage.

However, students said there was an “atmosphere of fear” after the introduction of the rules.

Source: Times of India

Beheaded Polish Engineer’s Body Returned From Pakistan [Video]

Piotr Stanczak’s message before he is beheaded begins at about 4 mins in.

Piotr Stanczak’s message before he is beheaded begins at about 4 mins in.

WARSAW, Poland — The remains of a Polish geologist beheaded by Islamic militants in Pakistan were returned Wednesday to Poland in a casket draped in the two countries’ flags and covered in flowers.

Piotr Stanczak’s body was flown to Warsaw’s military airport on a Pakistani air force plane. In a short ceremony on the tarmac, a Roman Catholic priest prayed over the white casket.

Dressed in black, Stanczak’s son and girlfriend stood briefly by the casket, their heads bowed.

The geologist was one of a handful of foreigners kidnapped in Pakistan in recent months as the country witnessed a deterioration in security along with a rise in al-Qaida and Taliban-led violence.

Stanczak was kidnapped Sept. 28 close to the Afghan border while he was carrying out a project for a Krakow-based geophysics company that surveys oil and gas fields.

He was held hostage for several months before his captors beheaded him in February, a killing that they videotaped.

On Sunday, a car dropped the casket near a paramilitary camp in Razmak, Pakistan. Officials then confirmed the remains were those of Stanczak.

Source: AP

Well Done!! Egyptian kid praised for Islamic Koran hate speech [Video]

No wonder they hate us !!

We continuously see evidence of Muslims macabre prayers for destruction and harm to come to non-Muslims – but then look around the world – and notice who are the ones being killed.

The former German Chancellor is said to have warned Muslims – ‘Be careful those who wish death upon others – as it may be yours that you get!’

Video: Muslim Demographics and Analysis

I think what this video is good demonstration of what could take place – but it doesn’t take into account a couple of things – is mixed marriages – Muslims marrying those from within their adoptive countries – and conversions from Islam. In Europe there are very few marriages between Muslims and others – and one of the reasons for this is the arranged marriage – for passport system (or scam) – something which the Americans haven’t clued into yet.

The arranged marriages between those of the home country and the adopted – are one of the foremost reasons for the disproportionate increase in Muslim numbers – dubbed ‘fetching marriages’ – and even ‘forced marriages’ – most cases of honor killings in the West – if they are not about Islamic clothing – are almost always about marriage – and marriage – not just to anyone – marriage to a cousin – from the family’s homeland – in exchange for a Western passport.

Muslims across Europe – were taking advantage of this immigration loophole – so much so that almost no one marries the girl or boy they met down the road – as their parents had arranged for them – a marriage – to someone from their homeland – in Norway ‘I believe’ – in one year – a study showed – there was only 4 marriages between the Muslim immigrants and the native Norwegians – and in 20 short years – 1000 Muslims – who wittingly or unwittingly became a part of this study – had increase their numbers to over 20,000.

The fact is that no nation can support that type of population grow – especially when it is those who – largely have little or no respect for democracy and rule of law – by the people.

What this study found – was that each of the Islamic immigrants given refuge – married a person from their homelands – in this case – Turkey – and in some cases the men would divorce and remarry up to three times – each time choosing a partner from Turkey. Demonstrating how one man could become 4 without even making a single child. If every Muslim (theoretically) marries a person from the old country every time – then every person doubles – without producing a single baby. And if all family members work this system – for three generations – which many are doing – then you not only have to take into account – the number of children per couple – but that for each person – the marriage partner must be added to the growth equation.    

Norway has now outlawed the practise outright – but only recently – the Leftist government – had to admit the practise of ‘family reunification’ was being abused. Holland has placed restrictions on the practise and significantly reduced the numbers taking part in these marriage for passports arrangements. France – will allow these marriages – if the person has a job and can demonstrate they can support the person – and then the newcomer is watched for eight years to see if they have embraced the French value system – in other words if they want Shari’a they can go home – as happened to one Moroccan immigrant – who had children while in France – but this was before her trail period was up – and she was deported back to Morocco – for rejecting French values – which her immigration to France was based on her acceptance of.

Several EU countries have introduced a test – to determine whether Muslim visa applicants – are willing to accept that – the countries they wish to migrant to – are the free world a place where Islamic values and belief system become personal. Germany and Holland are most notable. Germany has made efforts to take Iraqi refugees – who are ‘most in need’ – i.e. Christians, single mothers and the elderly or sick. 

Apostacy – Once Muslim, not always a Muslim

Muslims have this clause – most don’t fully understand when they sign up – and that is – no one is allowed to leave the religion (shot in the back) !! In Europe and America there are Muslims who have converted to Christianity – and other religions – or just chosen none – atheism – and their numbers are growing – along with organizations which represent their issues (being attacked and maligned by Muslims who reject their apostasy), because of the threat of attack – immigrants from Islamic countries – are often reluctant to openly express a change in their religious beliefs.  

In this respect even the Islamic world is changing – Christians broadcasters are talking of the level of mail they are receiving from with the Islamic world – the Middle East and Egypt – of people who are saying they have secretly converted. In Iran there are an estimated 1 million – according to the Iranian parliament – so frightened – they have introduced – or voted for – the death penalty for apostates from Islam. 

The reality is that in the Islamic world – most people are stifled – they have to ask permission to do almost everything – which stifles natural genius and innovation – in some of these countries you have to ask the Imam or religious authority first for approval for your ideas – and ………if ……its……. Islamic…….enough…… then ……..it… can…… go……. ahead…… you (may) will be granted permission. Can you see a Bill Gates (Microsoft)or Steve Jobs (Apple) emerging from that environment. And this has been going on in the Islamic world – for 1000 years – where they have systematically killed off their genius.

What most are afraid of is being overrun by backward people – who have no intention of modernizing – and eager to destroy all culture, art and learning that is not considered ~ well Islamic. This is why we need to work against those that would introduce Islamic laws – supposedly to help Muslims – as one day we all may be forced to follow these laws and adhere to these Taliban-like restrictions – out of respect for Islam. Know that to attend to all of Muslim sensibilities – is to become an Islamic Republic – we have to know that for the most part – at least at present – our societies and those of the Islamic world are on two different paths – we don’t want to live in a theocracy and they do – or as it goes Muslims don’t have the choice – the state or government makes religious decisions for them – and seeks to punish them for free religious conscience.

There are Muslims immigrants – who have made the decision – to work within Western society to support it – and even those who work against Islamization and innocuous attempts to introduce Islamic laws – as they know better than most what this could turn into – rather than an open mind ( as a westerner trying to help Islam would take) – they have seen the reality back in their own countries and are gradful for their freedom.

Though most Muslims – will try to make the world – like it was back in the old country – are willing to destroy the free world and the things in it – to achieve that – this is where we have to stick to our guns – freedoms have to be paramount – freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience – all the things that don’t exist in the Islamic world – besides sensible immigration policy – this is our garlic to this vampire.

SWINE FLU: Egypt To Slaughter All Pigs

Funny how I was just joking yesterday saying that Islam’s prefers to eradicate problems – and in a world under Muslim rule all pigs and dogs would (and possibly Infidels) world be eliminated. Today we hear that Egypt is to wipe out ALL its pigs !!

DID EGYPT KILL ALL THE BIRDS  WHEN THERE WAS AN EVEN DEADLIER BIRD FLU? THEN ITS DECISION TO KILL THE PIGS IS RELIGIOUS AND THESE FARMERS ARE RIGHT TO PROTEST!! MAYBE THEY WILL SHOOT THE FARMERS TO KILL THE PIGS!!

Here is some background – the farmers seem to be blocking Egypt’s attempts to kill their livestock!!

Egyptian farmers block the street to prevent vehicles of the Egyptian Health Ministry workers who came to slaughter the Swine, forcing them to leave without carrying out the government order to cull the animals at the site of one large pig farming center north of Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday April 29, 2009. Egyptian authorities began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precaution against swine flu even though no cases have been reported here, infuriating farmers who resisted the move and demanded compensation.

Farmers block vehicles of the Egyptian Health Ministry workers, who came to slaughter the Swine, forcing them to leave without carrying out the government order to cull the animals at the site of one large pig farming center north of Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday April 29, 2009.

The Egyptian government began slaughtering pigs today as a preventative measure to stop the spread of the swine flu, reports the AP. Over 300,000 pigs will be killed immediately despite no reported cases of the pandemic in the country.

The state news agency MENA reported to AFP yesterday about the passage of the measure in lower parliament:

“The People’s Assembly urged the government to immediately start culling pigs and not to relocate pig-breeding farms away from residential areas for fear of the spread of swine flu,” MENA said.

Egypt’s 80-million population consists mainly of Muslims, whose religion forbids them from eating pork, as well as an estimated six to 10 percent Christian Copts who may eat pig meat.

CNS News explains that the Egyptians are nervous about a possible swine flu outbreak because of another unrelated illness in the country:

The Egyptian parliament wants all pigs in the country – where they cater largely to the non-Muslim minority – to be slaughtered. Egypt already is on edge because of a surge in cases of unrelated bird flu, which last week claimed a 26th fatality.

Source: HuffPost

Video: Muslim Protest Prompts ‘Faith Fighter’ Developers to Take Down Game

Picture Faith Fighter 2 seen here
Play Faith Fighter – video game here - censored and uncensored versions

A team of game developers has removed from their Web site a video game that pit major religious figures such as Jesus, Muhammad and Buddha against one another in all-out combat.

Italy-based Molleindustria took down “Faith Fighter” after the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC)* issued an official statement Tuesday calling the game “incendiary in its content and offensive to Muslims and Christians.” 

* OIC – the  same organization which is trying to curtail freedoms around the world through the UN – by criminalizing all criticism of Islam.  

“The game would serve no other purpose than to incite intolerance,” the group reported an OIC spokesman as saying.

In their response Tuesday, the team at Molleindustria said they took down the game for their Web site, bud did so as a “symbolic act” and not because they were “bowing to the foundamentalists (sic).”

“We have no sympathy for any religion but we are aware that muslims are victim of widespread racism in the western world,” they stated.

Molleindustria claims that its mission has been to spur serious discussion about the social and political implications of videogames and that its fighting game “depicted in a mildly politically incorrect way all the major religions as a response to the one-way islamophobic satire of the Danish Mohammad cartoons.”

“If a established organization didn’t understand the irony and the message of the game and is claiming it is inciting intolerance, we simply failed,” they added.

Though the game was released more than a year ago and has reportedly been played by millions of players on the internet, OIC said they came across the game through an article on Metro UK, which Molleindustria said had “successfully manufactured this controversy.”

In their closing remarks, Molleindustria said they hope that people who are hearing about the game for the first time will check it out themselves before making a judgment, as copies of the game still can be found across the internet.

“Hopefully this will help people to make their judgments by examining the actual work and not the sensationalist accounts spread by mass media,” they concluded.

“Faith Fighter” featured six characters, including God, Jesus, Buddha, the Hindu deity Ganesha, the Taoist deity Budai, and Muhammad.

Source: Christian Post

Video: Six arrested in Paris suburb gang-related violence

French police arrested six people late Tuesday in the French town of Villemomble in gang-related violence.

The arrests come after a bus carrying 30 passengers came under fire in Villemomble, north-east of Paris. An eyewitness, one of the passengers, told FRANCE24 that a car approached the bus and then he heard several gunfire shots.The bus windows were shattered in the firing, according to the witness, but no one was injured.

Police suspect the attackers were settling scores with a rival gang in Villemomble.The men in the car were gang members from the neighbouring town of Bondy . They were looking for Villemomble gang members, who are believed to have been among the bus passengers.

The men (likely North African immigrants) from Bondy were caught carrying sharp weapons and baseball bats.

A member of the Bondy gang was allegedly attacked by the Villemomble group on Monday.

Source: France 24

Pakistan: Christian Boy wounded in Taliban attack near Karachi dies

Irfan Masih, 11, (not pictured) succumbed to gunshot wounds he suffered to the head. Five other people were also injured in the attack during which Islamists set fire on Christian homes and Bibles. Activists complain about police inaction.

Karachi (AsiaNews) –Irfan Masih, the 11-year-old boy wounded on 22 April during a Taliban attack against Christians in Tiasar Town near Karachi, has died. In critical conditions from the start, the boy slipped away after five, agonisingly long days.

Fr Emmanuel Yousaf Mani, the director of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), led a delegation to the site of the attack. The group, made up of clergymen and lay people, visited the wounded in hospital and then met leaders of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), the only Pakistani party that is opposed to the introduction of Sharia in the Swat Valley.

On 22 April a gang of armed extremists attacked a group of Christians in Tiasar Town, a Karachi suburb, setting six homes on fire and seriously injuring three Christians. One of them was Irfan Masih, whose conditions were serious from the beginning.

Father Mani urged the local Christian community to “remain united”, reassuring them that the NCJP would provide them with free legal aid when matters reach the courts.

According to NCJP activists, the Taliban attacked the Christians because they were wiping off insulting graffiti from the walls of local homes and the local church. The Taliban had scribbled words that incited hatred and violence, like ‘Taliban are coming’, ‘Long live Taliban’ and ‘Be prepared to pay Jizia (Tax for non-Muslims) or embrace Islam’.

The Taliban in question are ethnic Pathan who live opposite the Christian settlement.

The attack took place in two stages. In the second one, around 3.30 pm, Irfan Masih was hit to the head by a gunshot.

The Muslim attackers also stormed several Christian homes and destroyed many copies of the Bible.

Only when Pakistani paramilitary forces moved in a few hours later did things get back to normal.

Christian activists have complained that police from the nearby Surjani station stood idly by when the attack took place.

As an explanation of their inaction, the agents said that both Christians and Muslims opened fire.

However, only Christians were hurt or killed. Five Muslims were arrested, caught brandishing weapons used during the attack.

Taiser Town is home to some 700 Christian families; 300 of them are Catholic from the St Jude Parish Church (Karachi Archdiocese). Their parish priest is Richard D’Souza.

The families used to live in a more central area of Karachi but were evicted and forced to move to the outskirts of the city.

Pakistan says 50 Taliban killed in Buner operation

The Pakistan army is facing stiff resistance in Ambela…militants are using the area people as human shields, Athar Abbas said.

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan: Pakistani security forces have killed 50 Taliban and lost one soldier in an operation to drive the militants out of the strategic valley 100 km (60 miles) northwest of Islamabad, a military spokesman said on Wednesday.

Major-General Athar Abbas told a newsconference in Rawalpindi, the garrison town next door to the capital, that forces in Buner has also freed 18 of some 70 police and militiamen kidnapped by the militants on Tuesday.

Pakistani soldiers had earlier occupied the main town of Daggar, but hundreds of Taliban remain in the valley.

A Taliban militant smiles as he holds his weapon outside the mosque where tribal elders and Taliban met in Daggar, Buner’s main town – AP

A member of the Pakistani Taliban offers prayer as his gun lies in front him at a mosque in Buner district – Reuters

Burqa-clad Pakistani school students walk home after a day at school in Buner district – AFP

A Pakistani elderly man offer prays at a shrine of saint Pir Baba after Taliban vacated it in Buner district – AFP

A view of the Buner district – AFP

Source: Times of India

Cricket World Cup base shifts from Lahore to Mumbai

The World Cup secretariat was shifted from Lahore to Mumbai, while the Indian cricket board official Ratnakar Shetty was appointed the event’s managing director in place of Pakistani banker Salman Butt. —AP/File Photo

MUMBAI: India will organise a major part of cricket’s World Cup in 2011 after Pakistan were stripped of co-hosting rights, the International Cricket Council said on Tuesday.

The showpiece event awarded to South Asia was thrown into turmoil earlier this month after the ICC removed Pakistan as a host nation due to security concerns, following the attack on the Sri Lankan team in Lahore in March.

The ICC moved swifty to put the tournament back on track, giving India a majority of matches with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh retained as co-hosts.

‘We are confident of organising a very successful World Cup,’ ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat told reporters after a meeting of the tournament’s organising committee here.

The World Cup secretariat was shifted from Lahore to Mumbai, while the Indian cricket board official Ratnakar Shetty was appointed the event’s managing director in place of Pakistani banker Salman Butt.

India will host 29 matches at eight venues, including one quarter-final, a semi-final and the final, Lorgat said.

Sri Lanka will organise 12 matches at three venues, including a quarter-final and semi-final, while Bangladesh gets eight games at two venues.

The Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka will host the opening ceremony on February 18 and the tournament opener the next day, besides two quarter-final matches.

The organising committee, headed by ICC vice-president Sharad Pawar of India, will include an operations and planning group comprising Bangladesh official Mahboob Alam, Indian board secretary N. Srinivasan, Sri Lanka’s Duleep Mendis and Shetty.

Lorgat swept aside questions on whether Pakistan would boycott the World Cup in protest at being denied hosting rights, saying ‘we will cross the bridge when we come to it.’

Source: Dawn

Ahmadinejad Borrows Obama’s "Yes We Can" For Iranian Election

Ahmadinejad writes in Farsi ‘Ma Mitavanim’ or ‘We Can’ on the blackboard. Unbeknown to everyone else Ahmadinejad seems to be inspired, as well as in competition with Obama.

Ahmadinejad it seems has pulled out all the stops for this year’s election – he has been handing out truck loads of potatoes to the poor – in an attempt to sway the election in his favor – where his chief rival wants to bring ‘rationality’ back to Iran. I’m with the ‘rational’ guy !!

Nik Ahang, an Iranian leading cartoonist and blogger, has published a cartoon (below) where  the potatoes say ‘Ahmadinejad: We Support You!’

This cartoon lampooning Ahmadinejad scheming – could be called the potato trap!

Barack Obama’s offer of a hand of friendship to Iran after 30 years of hostility may have met with a sceptical public response from Tehran. But now a rapprochement of sorts may be under way amid evidence that the US president’s can-do electioneering tactics have struck a chord with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Obama’s signature campaign slogan, Yes We Can, has been replicated by the Iranian president in a promotional video issued for Iran’s presidential poll on 12 June, when Ahmadinejad is seeking re-election.

The video features a cover picture of Ahmadinejad wearing his trademark white jacket and pointing to the Farsi phrase Ma Mitavanim (We Can) on a blackboard. The film is aimed at students and capitalises on his former status as a university lecturer.

Its release coincides with that of another campaign video apparently attempting to trump Obama by recounting Ahmadinejad’s visit to Turkey.

Obama won international acclaim during a visit to Turkey this month for declaring that the US was “not at war” with Islam and stressing that there were Muslims in his family.

Ahmadinejad’s visit last August was arguably less successful. The Islamist president was deprived of full state honours after declining to pay homage to the tomb of Turkey’s secular founder, Ataturk, in Ankara. He also endured the indignity of Turkey withdrawing from an anticipated lucrative natural gas contract, partly because of American pressure.

There was further discord when Istanbul residents complained of huge traffic jams caused by security measures for the visit.

The films have been distributed during Ahmadinejad’s recent public appearances in and around Tehran. Another video focuses on his provincial trips across Iran, a hallmark of his presidency.

Ahmadinejad’s surprise election win four years ago was partly attributed to a promotional film that depicted him as a humble man who empathised with the poor.

Source: The Guardian, France 24, HuffPost

Taliban still occupying parts of Buner: Frontier Corps

The District Police Officer of Buner said a number of foreign and local Taliban militants were still present in the area despite claims by the militants that they had withdrawn.—AP

PESHAWAR: Taliban militants have refused to leave Buner completely and are coercing the local population to support them.

The Frontier Corps (FC) Commandant says the Taliban occupy at least 10 to 15 per cent of Buner.

Citing intelligence reports, senior security officials have said the Taliban coerced local tribal elders in Buner to announce support for the outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

Security officials told DawnNews that even though not displaying weapons, militants were present during a meeting of the local council of elders on Sunday to announce conditional support for the TTP.

Earlier, the District Police Officer of Buner also said a number of foreign and local Taliban militants were still present in the area despite claims by the local militant leadership that they were withdrawing from Buner.

Officials say the Taliban had moved into Buner from Swat, and they continue to take violent action against the people in at least two villages who had initially formed an armed lashkar to resist their advances.

Source: Dawn

Up to one million displaced in northwest Pakistan

Local residents flee from a troubled area in northwest Pakistan where the military has launched an operation against the Taliban. -AFP Photo

GENEVA: Up to one million people are displaced in northwestern Pakistan where militants are feeding on local discontent and strife, humanitarian and local officials from Pakistan warned on Tuesday.

Officials from Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province appealed for international relief aid at an unprecedented meeting with relief agencies and donor countries in Geneva.

‘We are hearing a lot of pledges and promises made from the international community to Pakistan, and many of them are for security, for the police and the army, but the civilians are not getting what they are supposed to,’ said Sitara Ayaz, minister for social welfare and development in the province.

‘In our province we need more support and help from the international community,’ she said after the two-day meeting in Geneva.

The UN’s World Food Programme is working on an estimate of about 600,000 people for food aid in the area, spokewoman Emilia Casella told AFP.

Local officials put the figure at closer to one million, with about 80 per cent of them housed with friends or relatives, sometimes five or six families to a home.

‘It is a serious humanitarian situation of major magnitude,’ warned Dennis McNamara, an adviser at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, which organised the meeting.

‘The registered UN figure for displaced civilians is over half a million. The NWFP relief commissioner says if we get registration completed it may be closer to a million in total.’

‘It is a certainly a major displacement, one of the world’s biggest if these figures are right,’ added McNamara, a former senior UN refugee official.

Source: Dawn

Iran’s judiciary denies journalist in spy case is on hunger strike

If everyone is saying that there is something wrong – then likely there is – Roxana Saberi – a former beauty queen – whose mother is Japanese and father of Iranian descent – attempted to prove the world wrong – only ending up proving the world right – there is something wrong – terribly wrong with Iran – and no amount of open-minded free-kumbaya-thinking will change that – as it is not up to us.

Tehran – The Iranian judiciary on Tuesday denied that the Iranian-American journalist who was convicted of spying for the United States was on a hunger strike in prison, the ISNA news agency reported.

Roxana Saberi’s father, Reza, had told the foreign press in Tehran that his daughter embarked on a hunger strike last Tuesday and planned to continue until her release. He voiced deep concern over he deteriorating physical condition.

‘She is not on hunger strike and her health condition is good,’ judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi said.

‘Her father visited her on her birthday (Sunday) and gave her a present,’ he added.

Tehran revolutionary court judge Hassan Hadad has also categorically denied that Saberi was on a hunger strike.

‘There is no hunger strike and those who raised the issue just want to misuse the case for propaganda purposes,’ Hadad said on Monday.

The 31-year-old reporter for US National Public Radio, was sentenced to eight years in prison last week on charges of spying for the US government. She is appealing her conviction.

Confirming that the appeal had already been submitted, Hadad said: ‘If the initial verdict was modifiable, then it will be modified.’ He gave no further details.

Both Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the head of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, have indicated their opposition to the rather harsh sentence and called for a fair appeal court, reportedly to be presided over by three judges.

Tehran has however stressed that the Saberi case was an internal matter and any interference by foreign states was therefore irrelevant.

‘Saberi has herself confirmed her Iranian nationality and will therefore be treated as Iranian and according to Iranian laws,’ Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi said Monday.

In Iran, dual nationality is not acknowledged but is tolerated. In official cases, however, only the nationality of the subject’s father is taken into account.

Saberi is a US citizen. Her father is Iranian and her mother, Japanese.

‘The case has therefore nothing to do with foreign states and any interference in the local legal procedures would be against international norms,’ Ghasghavi said.

Saberi’s lawyer, Abdolsamad Khoramshahi, is to be assisted by Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi and two more attorneys who have, however, not yet been allowed to visit her in jail to get the signature for the mandate.

She has been in Tehran’s Evin prison since January, following her arrest on charges of buying a bottle of wine.

Saberi, originally faced less serious charges of buying alcohol and of working without a valid press card. Both buying and consuming alcohol is forbidden in Islamic Iran.

But the judiciary later charged her with espionage, and the Tehran prosecutor’s office announced last week that Saberi’s case was sent to a revolutionary court which decides in cases involving offences against national security.

Source: Monsters and Critics

Ahmadinejad election challenger calls for a "return to rationality"

Tehran – The main challenger of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12 presidential election called Tuesday for a ‘return to rationality’, ISNA news agency reported.

‘For me the first task of the new government should be return to rationality,’ Mir-Hossein Moussavi said in a speech in the western city Kermanshah.

Moussavi, in line with the country’s opposition, has blamed Ahmadinejad for having pushed Iran towards international isolation with uncompromising policies in the dispute over Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, his anti-Israeli tirades and his doubts over the historic dimension of the Holocaust in the Second World War.

‘In an atmosphere of confusion and insecurity, we can hardly deal with the country’s development. What we need is a policy with the world powers based on a correct and deep approach and at the same time maintaining (Iran’s) principles,’ Moussavi said.

Moussavi had earlier criticized Ahmadinejad for having ’severely harmed national interests and caused heavy costs for Iran’ with his radical and extremist policies.

The 68-year-old Moussavi, former prime minister from 1981 to 1989 during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-88), is considered a moderate technocrat with close links to the labour unions.

In 1989 the prime minister portfolio was scrapped from the constitution and since then Moussavi has largely withdrawn from politics, having only acted as an advisor to former president Mohammad Khatami from 1997- 2005.

Asked by a reporter whether he would meet and shake hands with US President Barack Obama at a UN meeting in New York, Moussavi said: ‘I would welcome anything which would serve the national interests, as the main task of the diplomatic apparatus is assessing costs and merits of every foreign policy move.’

Former Iranian presidents Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi- Rafsanjani have already voiced their support for Moussavi and reiterated their opposition to Ahmadinejad’s policies.

Besides the former premier, the moderate cleric Mehdi Karroubi and conservative Mohsen Rezaei have confirmed their candidacy for the June 12 presidential election. But the main duel is expected to be between Ahmadinejad and Moussavi.

Observers however believe that turnout will prove a more important factor in June’s elections than the candidates themselves.

Amid widespread dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad’s economic policies, a high turnout would bring many protest votes in favour of Moussavi.

A low turnout, however, would offer Ahmadinejad better chances, as his supporters are expected to go to the polls anyway.

Source: Monsters & Critics

Swine flu: Italian Imam claims virus backs Koran belief that pigs are unclean

And what about the flu that is passed on from birds such as chickens – never mind !! The response was almost predictable – but people have survived for millennia eating pork; all of China, South America and many native tribes – I suspect this outbreak will change very little – just as bird flu – did not stop people from eating chicken. Muslim have a kind of eradicate the problem idea – dogs and pigs (and possibly the Infidel) would probably be completely wiped out in a world controlled by Islam. Though I am sure the Imam is one of many Imams throughout the world – who knows little about science or anything for that matter outside of the Koran.

 

Salerno, 28 April (AKI) – The global spread of the deadly swine flu virus affirms Islam’s teachings and its holy book, the Koran, according to imam Amadia Rachid based in the Italian city of Salerno. “We believe that what is happening shows the truth of our faith,” said Algerian-born Rachid in an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI).

Pigs are considered unclean animals in the Muslim and Jewish religions and eating pork is proscribed.

“Even Muslims who live in Italy are talking about swine flu at the moment,” Rachid said.

Most Muslims are not worried by the disease, as they don’t eat pork and don’t work with pig livestock, he said.

“But many believe the disease confirmed the teaching of the Koran.”

The Koran orders Muslims to avoid close contact with pigs, as well as not to eat pork, Rachid noted.

“The Islamic faith doesn’t explain exactly why pigs should be considered unclean animals,” he said.

“But it’s clear that for most theologians, it is precisely to avoid the spread of disease that Islamic tradition tends to keep men away from pigs,” he added.

Scientific truths lie behind the teachings of the Koran that has taken many centuries for man to discover, Rachid claimed.

The number of probable deaths from swine flu in Mexico – the epicentre of the virus – has risen to 152.

A total of 26 cases have been confirmed there and at 79 cases have been confirmed worldwide across several continents.

Although the World Health Organization has not yet declared a pandemic of swine flu – warning it is a virus with “pandemic potential.”

WHO said the flu was being spread by human-to-human transmission but has not yet recommended travel restrictions or border closures.

How Durban II Undermined Human Rights

Western diplomats walk out past Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, top right at the podium, as he slams Israel during a speech at a UN conference on racism

By Anne Bayefsky, for Forbes

Durban II, the U.N. conference in Geneva that ended on Friday, will forever be remembered for handing a global megaphone to genocidal hatemonger Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the name of combating racism. By the end of the week-long jamboree, even the South African ambassador insisted that participants stop referring to the meeting as Durban II because “it is maligning my country.”

But the facts aren’t stopping the U.N. apparatus from already attempting to rewrite history. Navanethem Pillay, U.N. high commissioner for human rights and secretary-general of Durban II, called a news conference on Friday hours before the adoption of the final declaration to claim Durban II was “a celebration of tolerance and dignity for all.” Well, not quite all.

Pillay was open about her intentions to the press corps: “I’m jumping the gun … the Durban Review Conference is technically not over until later this afternoon. But I know you have deadlines.” Rather than changing perceptions, however, her heavily-orchestrated plea confirmed that neither she nor the U.N. understood what had hit them.

The high commissioner bragged: “… a few states disengaged from the process … they are not part of the consensus that adopted this text … and Iran is part of that consensus. When the final call came, Iran did not oppose the text.” She didn’t seem to have a clue that a result approved by Iran–but not by the U.S., Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, New Zealand, Poland, the Czech Republic (currently head of the European Union) or Israel–reflected on the merits of Durban II rather than on these leading democracies.

Pillay is no stranger to double-talk. Since taking office last September, she has repeatedly claimed that the 2001 Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (the DDPA)–which singles out only Israel of 192 U.N. member states, saying that Palestinians are victims of Israeli racism–”transcended divisive and intolerant approaches.” She has alleged that back in 2001 “abusive or hurtful remarks against Israel” were confined to “a small section of the NGO parallel forum.” In a last-ditch effort to avoid a boycott of Durban II, she told reporters on April 2 that the language on Israel had been removed from the Durban II draft outcome document.

When it was over, however, she evidently felt the need for subterfuge was gone. Her audience had changed, and she noted both that Israel had been singled out and demonized by the DDPA, and that Durban II had done the same by reaffirming the DDPA in its opening paragraph. In her words: “The DDPA includes … one paragraph which mentions the suffering of the Palestinians … Palestine is mentioned … in the DDPA, and the word “reaffirm” carries those paragraphs into this document.”

By comparison, the U.N.’s highest human rights officer had no problem with the silence of Durban I and II on the plight of Israelis, or any other specific victim of discrimination or intolerance in the Arab, Islamic and developing world. She had no comment on the fact that the transatlantic slave trade was highlighted in Durban II, while the slave trade and slavery in Arab and Muslim states was deliberately omitted. She said nothing about the fact that ongoing genocide in Darfur was again totally ignored.

Durban II, therefore, revealed a startling development in the world of human rights. Since the position of U.N. high commissioner for human rights was created in 1993, there has never been an incumbent so obviously in the pocket of Arab and Islamic countries. These states invented the global conference formula years ago in an attempt to isolate Israel, curtail free expression, manufacture victimhood that would offset concern with anti-Semitism, and prevent any mention of the racial and religious intolerance and discrimination rampant in their own backyards.

And yet, the high commissioner took the unusual step of singling out these states for praise in her closing remarks. She claimed Arab countries had made “extremely difficult” “political concessions” in not insisting on even more condemnations of Israel, while the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) “was also very cooperative.” In fact, it was the stubborn refusal of Arab and Islamic states to agree to any U.N. “anti-racism” declaration that did not allege Israel is racist, which kept the U.S. and other states away.

The Geneva venue for the Durban Review Conference, deliberately chosen to allow the U.N. greater control over events, makes it impossible to pin the blame for what occurred on anyone but the U.N. and governments themselves. The proceedings were entirely conducted in an oppressively controlling atmosphere. Pillay acknowledged, for example, the nexus between the U.N. and the press corps (which have permanent offices inside U.N. premises). On the final day, she said, “I want to say at this point particularly to you that the Geneva press corps has been terrific during the later stages of this process. You have seen through the propaganda. … So on behalf of my entire office, I would like to extend you a very warm thank you for that. I believe you have played an exceptionally important role. I know that some of you have had to argue with editors who, like so many others, have succumbed to the mythology.”

Congratulating the Geneva-based press for telling tales her way was a fairly accurate reflection of what transpired. A news conference, called to respond to Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitic tirade featuring, among others, Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, Academy Award-winning actor Jon Voight and prize-winning author Shelby Steele, was dominated by U.N. talking points and a list of falsehoods the high commissioner had been peddling for months. Pillay’s press corps was more interested in alleged Israeli atrocities than in the fact that Ahmadinejad had been promoting genocide from a U.N. “anti-racism” soapbox.

Non-governmental organizations also became victims of Durban II’s official line. Some NGOs representing Dalits, Tamils and Tibetans were denied accreditation to attend the conference at all. Cameras and film crews were prevented from recording selected NGO panels that took place on U.N. premises. The final declaration was adopted two days before NGOs were permitted to make a single comment. Allowed to speak with only 24 hours left in the proceedings, NGOs mentioning Ahmadinejad or Tibetans or Berbers were constantly interrupted and silenced by spurious points of order from Libya, China, Iran and South Africa.

The chair announced the governing rule was that “proper language must be used with respect and dignity at all times,” and then proceeded to let speeches likening Israelis to Nazis and claiming “9/11 is an unexplained mystery blamed on Arabs” go unchallenged. By Friday afternoon, the voices of NGOs were so obviously censored or irrelevant that many who had signed the speakers’ list didn’t bother to show up to deliver their statements.

The U.N.’s NGO liaison officer, Ricardo Espinosa, harassed me for 15 minutes following a speech I delivered condemning the proceedings. When I insisted on having someone with me, or a tape recording of whatever it was he was intending to communicate, he objected, “this is not the United States, this is the U.N.”–a fact with which I was only too familiar. When I finally found colleagues and offered to speak to him in the presence of others and a recorder, he suddenly fell silent, said nothing and left with the words “you’ll be hearing from us.” It remains to be seen whether he or his U.N. bosses are prepared to put their unidentified threat in writing.

Manufacturing a Durban success story is now the primary goal of all the participants–some of whom began to speak of the next conference, “Durban plus 10 years,” in the typical U.N. mode of perpetual self-reproduction. In the final minutes on Friday, India (on behalf of the Asian regional group of states), Sweden (on behalf of the remaining E.U. states), Switzerland (the host country) and the Kenyan chair declared NGOs had played an “important role” and “all participated actively.” Brazil, Pakistan and Cuba, speaking on behalf of larger regional and political groups, lined up to declare that Durban II’s outcome represented a “consensus in international politics” that “makes us all happy.” Particularly preposterous was the final comment of the U.K., which “welcomes the adoption by consensus of the outcome”–a very odd description of a product adopted without the approval of key members of the E.U.

The U.K. also claimed that its support for the Durban II outcome was conditional “on the clear understanding that it does not single out any country for consideration.” Given that foreign office lawyers know full well that Israel was singled out when Durban II reaffirmed the Durban I Declaration, issuing an interpretive declaration saying the opposite looks like a cynical attempt to deceive the British public. British voters will also be interested to know that their government “was disappointed not to have seen the program budget implications”–meaning the dollars and cents associated with all the undertakings in the document–before it was adopted. But being kept in the dark about the financial implications of Durban II for British taxpayers was still not enough to prevent Britain from jumping on board.

Cuba, on behalf of the 117 member Non-Aligned Movement, best illustrates the Durban fiction that the U.N. hopes will now take hold. It called the Durban document and its reaffirmation the “most far-reaching and transcending document of the international community in the struggle against racism.”

A closer look at the final product, however, reveals a variety of troubling provisions rammed through in 15 minutes on the conference’s second day. There are a dozen references to cultural diversity, cultural identity and cultural respect aimed at threatening universal human rights standards; new reliance on the U.N. Human Rights Council (a body dominated by human rights abusers); a new provision on racism and foreign occupation written for a party of one, various actions demanded for “victims as defined by the DDPA” (which means Palestinians); and a commitment to grant Durban declarations I and II biblical-like status and implement them throughout “the whole U.N. system.”

In her final press conference, Pillay singled out an article I had written last December for Forbes entitled, “The U.N.’s Dangerous High Commissioner for Human Rights.” She made light of the title, but having watched her Durban II performance, she is probably the only one laughing. The United Nations and its high commissioner cajoled, pressured and threatened states to legitimize a campaign to undermine the universal values at the heart of the genuine protection of human rights. In so doing, they had no qualms about making promises they had no intention of keeping. Before the conference, on April 15, U.N. spokeswoman Marie Heuze announced: “Hate speech and ethnic insults will be barred at next week’s United Nations conference on fighting racism and intolerance.” Pillay’s post-conference claims of “a celebration of tolerance and dignity for all” show the same disdain for honesty.

Durban II does not represent tolerance and dignity for all, or a consensus in international politics, or restraint by Arab and Islamic states that seek the destruction of the Jewish state. It represents the corruption of the U.N. human rights system itself.

Taliban impose Islamic jizya tax on Sikhs, under required subjugated status of non-Muslims in Shari’a law, Christians openly attacked

In the Federally Administered Tribal Area adjacent to the NWFP, the Taliban this month demanded a jizye payment of 50 million rupees (US$625,000) from Sikhs living in Orakzai Agency. Those who did not flee paid a combined total of 2 million rupees (US$25,000), and Christians worry they could be next.

The payment of the jizya tax amounts to protection money – and it gives you a good example of who Muhammed was. The jizya tax was one of the main reasons why vast stretched of India were not forcibly converted – the Islamic rulers found it more profitable to govern over Hindus and Buddhists who paid the extortionate jizya – than to rule over and be impoverished by converts to Islam – who paid no such tax. In Egypt and places in the Southern Mediterranean – Jews (and likely Christians) who were made to pay the jizya – had a symbolic cut to the neck – made by the tax collectors hand – to remind them that under Islamic law they should be killed – this is where no compulsion to Islam fits in – if you don’t willingly convert – you have to pay – or you die.

In other parts of the Taliban controlled areas Hindus are made to wear red (many have fled to India), to indicate they are non-Muslims – there is some suggestion that the yellow band worn by the Jews in Europe in the WW2 – came from Islamic law. Just a few years ago Iran was debating whether or not to make its Jewish citizens wear something yellow to indicate their faith.

ISTANBUL, April 27 (Compass Direct News) – As Taliban control hits pockets of Pakistan and threatens the nation’s stability, Christians worry their province could be the next to fall under Islamic law.

Violence on Tuesday night and Wednesday (April 21-22) near the port city of Karachi – some 1,000 kilometers (nearly 700 miles) from the Swat Valley, where the government officially allowed the Taliban to establish Islamic law this month – heightened fears. Christians in Taiser town, near Karachi, noticed on the walls of their church graffiti that read, “Long Live the Taliban” and calls for Christians to either convert to Islam or pay the jizye, a poll tax under sharia (Islamic law) paid by non-Muslims for protection if they decline to convert.

As members of the congregation erased the graffiti, armed men intervened to stop them. Soon 30-40 others arrived as support and began to fire indiscriminately at the crowd, leaving several injured. Among those seriously injured were three Christians, including a child, according to a report by advocacy group Minorities Concern of Pakistan: Emrah Masih, 35, Qudoos Masih, 30, and Irfan Masih, 11. A Pashtun named Rozi Khan was also among the injured.

Policemen and military forces arrested seven suspects at the scene and recovered an arms cache of semi-automatic pistols and a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

The Taliban is an insurgent movement of primarily Pashtun Islamists ousted from power in Afghanistan in 2001. Pakistani media portrayed the Karachi violence as a sectarian clash between Christians and Pashtuns that escalated into a gunfire exchange and that Christians committed arson attacks. The Daily Times claimed that the Christians protested the graffiti by setting ablaze some shops, including roadside stalls and pushcarts.

But a legal advocacy worker told Compass that police scattered the Christians when they began their protests and stood by as a Taliban-assembled mob attacked them.

“The Christians do not have guns, they do not have weapons, but only a little bit of property and the few things in their houses,” said Sohail Johnson, chief coordinator of Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan. “They are poor and have no courage to fight them. How can Christians, who lived like animals here, stand against them?”

Johnson said that local Christians, terrified over recent Talibanization campaigns, may not pursue legal action against the arrested men, although Asia News reported that Qudoos Masih filed an initial report at the Sarjani town police station. The Christians fear inciting violence by taking a stand against elements connected with the Taliban, Johnson said.

Eyewitnesses to the attacks against Christians in Karachi said they were religiously motivated. A representative of the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) regional party told Compass that after firing on the crowd, the Taliban went through Christian houses, ransacked them and burned one down. He said they also burned Bibles and beat women on the street. Reports of two execution-style killings of Christians could not be verified.

Karachi police and administration reportedly claimed that the Karachi attack came not from the Taliban but from Pashtuns who resettled in the area from the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The MQM, however, has long suspected Taliban presence in Karachi.

Expanded Campaign of Violence

Local officials are worried that the Taliban is making inroads into Karachi, the financial center of Pakistan, in the same way it did within the Swat Valley in the NWFP.

In mid-February Pakistan’s fertile Swat Valley turned into a Taliban stronghold ruled by sharia under a “peace agreement,” but instead of honoring the accord with an end to bombings and other violence, the Islamic militants have expanded their campaign to outlying areas and other parts of the country. Of the 500 Christians remaining in Swat Valley when sharia was initially established in February, many have migrated to other provinces while those who stayed live in fear of a rise in violence against non-Muslims.

In the Federally Administered Tribal Area adjacent to the NWFP, the Taliban this month demanded a jizye payment of 50 million rupees (US$625,000) from Sikhs living in Orakzai Agency. Those who did not flee paid a combined total of 2 million rupees (US$25,000), and Christians worry they could be next. Relegating non-Muslims to dhimmi status – the second-class state of those subject to an Islamic administration and its jizye tax in exchange for protection – is part of the writings of the founder of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Assembly of Islamic Clergy), one of Pakistan’s main Islamic parties with ties to the Taliban in Afghanistan and similar parties in Bangladesh and Egypt.

Last week the Taliban effectively took control of Buner district, just 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad, and it has begun battling government soldiers in Malakland Agency.

Non-Muslims make up 3 percent of the population in the Muslim-majority nation of 176 million. They are frequently marginalized, particularly in the sharia-influenced justice system that gives precedence to Muslims. But they fear Taliban infiltration will accelerate their marginalization in a stealth manner, as they cannot tell the difference between a Taliban fighter and a community member.

“We cannot identify who is a Taliban fighter because there are an uncountable number of people who have a beard and wear a turban,” Johnson said. “We cannot recognize who belongs to the Taliban because they penetrate every corner of Pakistan.”

The MQM official in Karachi said many of the Christians in the area are poor and illiterate. They are on the lower rungs of the social ladder and have nobody to protect their interests except for the church.

“Nobody is going to help them,” he said. “The church can help them get education, but they are not also able to give them [security] help.”

His statements were backed by MQM leader Altaf Hussein, who called on Pakistan’s Interior Ministry to take emergency preventative measures to ensure the safety of minorities against the “rising activities of armed lawless elements,” according to The News International.

A local teacher said that during the looting police only stood by, making no effort to stop the Taliban as they ransacked Christian houses.

“Rather than stopping them, they allowed them to burn the houses, [harass] the Christian women and burn Bibles,” he said.

Although Pakistani politicians and security forces have said openly in recent weeks that the Taliban was closing in on Islamabad and could trigger a government collapse, they claimed the pro-Taliban slogans in Karachi were scrawled not by the Taliban but conspirators wanting to incite violence.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman, an Islamist party leader, said talk of the Talibanization of Karachi was merely a ruse to allow the United States to invade Pakistan as it had done to Afghanistan.

“Those raising this slogan are trying to create another Osama for America in this part of the world,” he said, according to The News International.

The Karachi attacks were part of escalating violence throughout the country. The government informed the National Assembly on April 20 that 1,400 people had been killed in terrorist attacks in the last 15 months.

UK: Labour Party candidate told she was ‘too white and Jewish’ to be selected

Row: Elaina Cohen, pictured in 2001, claims she was told she was ‘too white and Jewish’ to be selected as a Labour candidate in Birmingham

The Labour Party has become embroiled in a race row after a prospective female councillor was allegedly told she was ‘too white and Jewish’ to be selected.

Elaina Cohen claims that Labour councillor Mahmood Hussain said he would not support her application for an inner-city ward because ‘my Muslim members don’t want you because you are Jewish’.

Mrs Cohen, 50, has made an official complaint about the alleged remarks made by Mr Hussain, a Muslim and former lord mayor of Birmingham.

She said: ‘I am shocked and upset that a member of the Labour Party in this day and age could even think something like that, let alone say it.

‘People should not be allowed to make racist comments like that. If someone in the party feels I cannot represent them because of my colour or religion, that’s ridiculous.

‘I felt particularly aggrieved because I have worked across all sections of the community, particularly with the Muslim section, and have been on official visits to Pakistan.’

Mrs Cohen had applied to stand as a Labour councillor for the Birmingham ward of East Handsworth and Lozells, which has a high Asian and Afro-Caribbean population.

As one of Labour’s safest seats on Tory-led Birmingham city council, the final candidate would be almost certain of victory at the June 4 by-election.

But when Mrs Cohen telephoned 57-year-old Mr Hussain for his support, she was astonished to be told that she was too ‘white and Jewish’ to be considered.

Lorraine Briscoe, who runs a local community association, was sitting next to Mrs Cohen when the conversation took place on speakerphone last Tuesday.

‘I was disgusted that a councillor could make comments like that in 2009,’ she said.

‘He told her, “They will not vote for someone who is white and Jewish. My Muslim members don’t want you because you are Jewish”.

‘Elaina then asked him if he had talked to his Muslim members about it and he said, “I don’t want to talk about it with you” and hung up.

‘Elaina does a lot of good work in this community and she does not see race or religion, she just sees people.’

Two days after the alleged conversation, Mrs Cohen and another candidate were rejected by a pre-selection panel after failing to gain the support of the local party.

Instead, members were presented with one candidate, black South African Hendrina Quinnen, who was selected by an almost unanimous vote.

Mrs Cohen has now sent an official complaint to Labour Party general secretary Ray Collins and Birmingham city council accusing Mr Hussain of improper conduct.

Mr Hussain said yesterday: ‘I would not make those sort of comments. The allegations are not true.’

Source: Daily Mail

Saudi Shari’a: Divorce by text message [Video]

Saudi man on Jihad in Iraq, divorces wife by text message

UK: Pakistani Cousin Marriage; 3.1% Births; 30% Recessive Genetic Disorders [Video]

Spend enough time in the Islamic world – and you can see the results of these cousin marriages _ most common is to see children that look like exact clones of children from their relatives family – and there is likely one child that looks slightly addled or with an inbred look. Most new people who join Islam – don’t realize that this may be required of their offspring.

Pakistani women, salon stylist faced honour killing ‘for styling men’s hair’ if deported – allowed to stay in Canada – for now [Video]

Bizarre goings on in the Islamic world. Though I think this was inevitable – we were going to have women refugees seeking asylum from the Muslim world – to gain protection from the harsh realities of the Islamic treatment of women. In this case a woman works to save some money in a unisex hair salon – her husband finds out and promises to kill her on her return to Pakistan. Whereas a western woman would think – well I’ll just move to a different area of Pakistan where no one knows me and start a new life. I know the woman is in danger – but it does demonstrate something of the helplessness – instilled into many Muslim women’s psyche. They believe they are helpless and therefore they are.

An ecstatic Roohi Tabassum wept yesterday after learning a federal court judge stopped her removal from Canada just hours before she was to be deported to face her ex-husband and possible death by honour killing in Pakistan.

“I feel alive that I can now carry on with my new life,” Tabassum said yesterday. “This is one of the best days of my life.”

Tabassum, 44, was to be driven to the U.S. border today at Niagara Falls and turned over to U.S. immigration officials. She entered Canada from the U.S. in 2001 and filed a failed refugee claim. She faced deportation from the U.S. to Pakistan.

“I am crying because I am so happy,” she said. “No one can imagine how great I feel not to be facing death for once.”

Tabassum claimed she couldn’t return to Pakistan because her ex-husband, Faisal Javed, threatened to kill her.

STYLES MEN’S HAIR

He was angered because she works in a salon where she styles men’s hair, she said, and also suspected she had a boyfriend, which she denies.

Madame Justice Anne Mactavish said Tabassum would likely be deported back to Pakistan from the U.S., where she has no status.

“The applicant has established that she will suffer irreparable harm” if she is removed from Canada,” Mactavish ruled.

She allowed Tabassum to remain in Canada until a pre-removal appeal can take place, which can take about nine months.

Her lawyer Max Berger told court that 1,200 to 1,500 women were killed in 2007 from honour killings in Pakistan, according to U.S. Department of State statistics.

“Honour killings continue to be a problem with women in Pakistan,” he said. “Cases go unreported because women are reluctant to press charges because of a stigma involved.”

The case has caught the attention of hundreds of Toronto Sun readers and those who saw her video on torontosun.com.

Meanwhile, in Parliament yesterday NDP MP Irene Mathyssen demanded that Immigration Minister Jason Kenney halt the deportation.

“She is begging for her life,” Mathyssen told the House of Commons. “Will the minister ensure that Roohi is not deported?”

Kenney said he “would be happy to review the case as it relates to an apparent application on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.”

Sun Media

Pakistan fighter jets attack Taliban hide-outs near capital Islamabad

A Pakistani army soldier is seen with heavy artillery at their post on the outskirts of Timargarh, the main town of Pakistani district Lower Dir, where security forces launched an operation against militants, Tuesday, April 28, 2009. Pakistan warned militants Tuesday to leave a district just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the capital or face military action, an indication that the government may be willing to expand an offensive in the Afghan border region covered by a much-criticized peace deal. (AP Photo/Ruhullah Shakir) 

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A military spokesman says fighter jets are attacking Taliban hide-outs in a district near the Pakistani capital in an apparent expansion of an offensive against the militants.

Maj. Nasir Khan says ground troops also are preparing to enter Buner district Tuesday.

Taliban from the neighboring Swat Valley alarmed the world when they recently entered Buner.

Buner and Swat are covered by a controversial peace deal between the government and the Swat militants.

Pakistani officials have warned the Swat militants to get out of Buner. The district is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Islamabad.

Pakistani troops fix fuses on heavy artillery at their post on the outskirts of Timargarh, the main town of Pakistani district Lower Dir, where security forces launched an operation against militants, Tuesday, April 28, 2009.

The military this week also launched an offensive in Lower Dir, another area covered by the deal. (…)

Still, it appeared to have emboldened the Swat Taliban, who forayed south to Buner, a district just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Islamabad. The militants began pulling out of Buner on Friday, but Malik said many had remained.

“Some 450 militants have been seen in Buner,” he said. “I warn them to leave immediately. If they are spotted again and resist the government’s effort to establish its authority and maintain order then we will take action.”

Pakistani troops are seen with heavy artillery at their post on the outskirts of Timargarh, the main town of Pakistani district Lower Dir, where security forces launched an operation against militants, Tuesday, April 28, 2009.

On Sunday, the military began an operation in Lower Dir, saying it was prompted by militant attacks on security forces and the abductions of prominent people for ransom. Malik said Tuesday at least 70 militants had been killed.

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, downplayed the military action in Lower Dir, saying it was merely a short-term response to insurgent ambushes of security forces.

Analysts have said the offensive in Lower Dir is probably just a signal to the militants to stay confined to Swat and would likely be a limited operation.(…)

Pakistan: Military offensive displaces 30,000 in Lower Dir

Thousands of terrified women and children left after troops and helicopter gunships launched Operation Black Thunder. — AP

PESHAWAR: Around 30,000 people in Lower Dir have been displaced by a military offensive to flush out Taliban militants, a provincial minister said Tuesday.

‘Up to 30,000 people have left Maidan in Lower Dir district over the past few days,’ Iftikhar Hussain, the NWFP information minister, told a news conference.

A family flees from the troubled area in Lower Dir on April 27, 2009. – AFP

‘We are making arrangements for them in Peshawar, Nowshera and Timargarah districts.’ Residents said thousands of terrified people, mostly women and children, left the area with their belongings after Pakistan troops and helicopter gunships launched the operation over the weekend.

One local charity said it had registered 2,241 displaced families so far.

The NWFP information minister has justified the Dir operation saying it was a consequence of the Taliban challenging the writ of the government.

‘The government will defend its writ but won’t make the first move,’ Hussain said.

Local residents flee from the troubled area along with their families as operations against militants continue. – AFP

He says the NWFP government is committed to the peace deal. Even though there are certain militants who want to sabotage the Nizam-i-Adl agreement.

‘The government needed to deploy security forces in Buner because the militants were challenging its writ,’ he added.

Pakistani troops take position at a troubled area in Lower Dir. Taliban have suspended talks with the government, a negotiator said as helicopter gunships pounded suspected militant hideouts in the northwest of the country. – AFP

Around 50 insurgents were killed in the operation in Lower Dir, near the Taliban-held Swat valley, officials said.

The military said eight paramilitary soldiers had also been killed since it launched Operation Black Thunder on Sunday.

Pakistani security personnel search a passenger van as troops look on at a check point at a troubled area in Lower Dir. – AFP

Heavy artillery shelling by the paramilitary Frontier Corps troops continued in the Maidan area of Lower Dir overnight, a senior military officer said Tuesday.

‘We destroyed several militants hideouts in heavy artillery shelling of suspected bases in the area,’ the officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Source: Dawn

Video: Pakistan is a litmus test for NATO_ Russian view

Video: Women submit to Sharia law in the Swat valley

Fight Escalates Between Pakistani Military, Taliban

Some of the up to 20,000 refugees fleeing Pakistan’s Lower Dir district cross a bridge, above, to escape fighting between Taliban and government paramilitary police, which is backed by army helicopters, below. The military said it is screening refugees to keep Taliban fighters from slipping out.

While fleeing notice all the women in conformist dress – 250,000 plus have fled the SWAT Valley.

The Taliban controlling Pakistan’s Swat Valley declared a peace deal with the government there “worthless” Monday amid a second day of clashes with troops in a neighboring district seen as a possible route for militants to Afghanistan.

But government officials gave mixed signals on whether they would abandon the truce in Swat, as the military made its first sustained response to militants’ move out of the valley over the past week, which has stoked fears of an Islamist push to dominate the nuclear-armed nation.

Pakistan faces intense pressure from U.S. officials to abandon the pact and take stronger action against the Taliban, including in Swat. The truce, which allowed the Taliban group that controls Swat to impose Islamic law there, was supposed to end fighting and lead to the militants laying down their arms.

Instead, Swat has become a major militant base since the accord was struck in February, and Pakistani officials estimate there are now 8,000 militants in the valley.

In the neighboring Lower Dir district, the scene of the fighting Sunday and Monday, the military said that at least 47 people, mostly militants, had been killed. A Taliban spokesman said nine troops and two militants had been killed, the Associated Press reported.

The fighting pits militants against the Frontier Corps paramilitary police unit backed by army helicopter gunships and artillery.

Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said the district had been cleared of militants, but residents said clashes were still taking place.

Lower Dir bridges the mountains between Swat and the Afghan border. U.S. officials say that Taliban domination of Lower Dir could create a pipeline for fighters from Swat to reach the battlefields of Afghanistan. Pakistani officials fear the same route could be used in reverse, to move Taliban fighters from bases in the mountains near the Afghan border to within striking distance of Pakistan’s plains, where most of its 170 million people live and its industry is concentrated.

Pakistani media reported that as many as 20,000 people had fled the fighting in Lower Dir. A senior official said only women, children and elderly men were being allowed to leave the district to keep Taliban fighters from slipping out with the refugees.

It remained unclear whether Pakistan’s military was engaged in a limited operation or preparing for a broader campaign to battle the Taliban in Swat, where 1.5 million people reside. It has already failed once to dislodge the Taliban from the valley before the peace deal was signed.

On Monday, both Taliban and government officials insisted they were committed to the peace accord. But both sides also said they were ready to fight.

President Asif Ali Zardari, speaking to reporters, called for Pakistan’s allies to provide more aid on top of the more than $5 billion pledged at a donor conference earlier this month, saying the country needs money to safeguard its nuclear arsenal.

Top Pakistani officials have insisted in recent days that the nuclear arsenal is secure, despite U.S. concerns that some weapons could be at risk if the Taliban pushes deeper into the country.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, visiting Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Monday the U.K. would give Pakistan a £10 million ($14.6 million) package of counterterrorism support. Aid, he said, would focus on education in the border areas, which he called a “crucible of terrorism,” the AP reported.

The Taliban, meanwhile, decried Pakistan’s reliance on the U.S. and other Western allies.

“We can have no agreements with the government because it is not a government for Pakistani people. It is a government for the Americans,” Muslim Khan, a spokesman for the Taliban in Swat, said in a telephone interview.

The agreement, he declared, was “worthless if we are being attacked.”

Mr. Khan said his forces were on alert and waiting for word from a hard-line cleric who negotiated the deal, Sufi Mohammed.

“If he says the deal is finished, it is finished,” Mr. Khan said. That decision could lead the militants to fully engage Pakistani forces in and around Swat.

A spokesman for Mr. Mohammed said the cleric was trapped in Lower Dir, where he lives, and couldn’t be reached.

“We will not hold any talks until the operation ends,” the spokesman said, according to the AP.

The government agreed to the introduction of Islamic law in Swat and the surrounding areas in the hope it would undercut support for the Taliban, who have rallied the poor in rural areas by promising to upend Pakistan’s often corrupt courts. The Taliban rose to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s making a similar commitment to impose rule of law.

But the details of the Swat pact have been murky. Taliban forces in the past week began pushing into adjacent areas, such as the Buner and Shangla districts, saying those too fell under the accord’s terms.

Source: WSJ 

‘Iran arms ship bound for Gaza downed near Sudan’

An Iranian vessel laden with weapons bound for the Gaza Strip was torpedoed off the coast of Sudan last week, allegedly by Israeli or American forces operating in the area, the Egyptian newspaper El-Aosboa reported on Sunday.

Anonymous sources in Khartoum told the newspaper that an unidentified warship bombed the Iranian vessel as it prepared to dock on Sudan before transferring its load for shipment to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

These sources said they suspects U.S. or Israeli involvement in the attack, but neither Washington nor Jerusalem have released a statement yet on the matter.

The Israel Air Force, meanwhile, is suspected of attacking a convoy of Iranian arms that passed through Sudan en route to Gaza in January, according to reports released in March.

American officials confirmed the IAF involvement in that attack, The New York Times later reported, abd said they had received intelligence reports that an Iranian Revolutionary Guards operative had gone to Sudan to help organize the weapons convoy said the report.

Israel has neither denied nor confirmed involvement in that incident.

Meanwhile Hamas resumes training in the Gaza strip – for the first time since the Israeli offensive.

In February, Cypriot authorities detained an Iranian arms ship en route Iranian arms ship en route to Syria, apparently upon request of the U.S. and Israel.

A search of the ship, which was sailing from Iran to the Syrian port of Latakia, found ammunition for T-72 tanks, used by the Syrian army, as well as various types of mortar shells, said a senior Israeli official.

The United States has claimed that the ship was carrying weapons from Iran to Hamas or the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah.

Source: Haaretz

Video: Pakistan Taliban execute couple for having a ‘relationship’

Most graphic content removed – not suitable for children!

More on this story here

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Girls collapse after suspected poison attack on Afghan school

Afghan girls look eager to learn at school back in 2001 – where learning is a matter of life and death.

Five teachers and 40 pupils were overcome by fumes during a school ceremony in the capital of northern Parwan province.

Afghan officials said they were awaiting the results of blood tests to determine what had happened, but there were unconfirmed local reports a bottle had been thrown into the playground beforehand.

Dr Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the public health ministry, said: “For the time being, it seems to be airborne poisoning. But it’s not confirmed yet what the actual reason is.”

One teacher at Sadiqi Padshah School in Charikar, who did not wish to be named, said the whole school had been standing in the playground listening to staff speeches when students began to collapse.

“We didn’t know what was happening, all the children just went down and we took them to hospital.” Victims were treated for severe headaches and streaming eyes after the attack on Sunday morning, 40 miles north of Kabul, but the provincial governor said all had made a full recovery.

Police said they had made no arrests and did not know who was responsible. While the growth of the Afghan school system is seen as one of the successes of the past seven years, Taliban-led insurgents opposed to the central government or girls’ education continue to attack schools and teachers.

In 2008, there were 292 attacks on schools, with 92 people killed and 169 injured.
Last year in the southern city of Kandahar, men on motorbikes threw acid in the faces of girls walking to school.

However, Parwan, a Tajik-dominated province immediately north of Kabul, is considered relatively safe, with little Taliban activity.

Source: Telegraph

ANALYSIS – Indonesian leader woos Islamists, upsets minorities

Islamism through the back door – in underhanded (or otherwise)  deals with more extreme Islamic factions – to shore up the fledging support for the ruling party that would otherwise be voted out – Pakistan did this and look at the success they have had with it – the Islamist have taken control of around 25% of that country – and the Pakistani’s (voodoo-like) fear of offending Islam – almost renders them powerless to act against it.

JAKARTA (Reuters) – As Indonesia’s president courts Islamic parties to form a new coalition, religious and ethnic minorities fear this may undermine a tradition of tolerance in the mainly Muslim but officially secular Southeast Asian nation.

Such a shift could have far-reaching social and economic consequences, potentially stoking tensions between the majority Muslims and the minority Christians and Hindus, as well as prompting the mainly Christian, ethnic Chinese who dominate the business sector to park more of their assets offshore.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s reliance on a large, unwieldy coalition of Islamic and secular parties in his first term, including the Golkar Party which dominated politics during the Suharto era, made it much harder for him to tackle reform.

But in parliamentary polls this month, Yudhoyono’s Democrat Party tripled its share of the votes to about one fifth, putting him in a stronger position to form a more manageable coalition of parties with a common platform.

Already, Yudhoyono, or SBY as he’s often known, has said he may ally with the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), an Islamist party which lifted its share of the vote slightly to 8 percent, causing alarm among some Indonesians.

“The possibility that SBY will join with PKS makes us nervous,” said Sofjan Wanandi, Chairman of the Employers’ Association of Indonesia, citing concerns that the PKS might push to create an Islamic state once they had power.

“There is a lot of uncertainty around this. We don’t know if we can believe them,” he said.

“I don’t mind if we have a few ministers from PKS, but if they start to implement really nationalist policies then it could lead to something negative. Political stability is the most important thing to have to avoid capital flight.”

WIDER APPEAL?

The PKS’s push for reform and a crackdown on graft fits with Yudhoyono’s platform, but in other areas there is less of a fit.

Its network of cadres hold weekly study sessions to discuss Islam and while the party has tried to play down its Islamist reputation to widen its appeal, many Indonesians are skeptical, fearing it will push for more sharia-type laws.

Its economic policies veer towards the nationalist, and it has said it would push for the renegotiation of contracts in the energy and mining sector, which could deter foreign investors.

“PKS have a conservative ideology but are portraying themselves as open and moderate because they are also pragmatic,” said Mohamad Guntur Romli, a religious freedom activist.

“Right now, because the Democrat Party is winning, they will adapt because they want to get into the coalition. They will be careful about what they say.

Tifatul Sembiring, PKS chairman, told Reuters earlier this month that his party supported sharia principles, rather than sharia law, and wants all Indonesians to obey their respective religious teachings.

A close alliance between the Democrats and PKS would give the latter much greater influence and perhaps more cabinet posts, at a time when support for most other Islam-based parties — as well as for the two more established secular parties, Golkar and Megawati Sukarnoputri’s PDI-P — has declined.

Indonesia’s minorities — Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, as well as the ethnic Chinese who dominate the business sector — have already had a taste of what this conservative Muslim influence could mean in terms of policies.

As Yudhoyono’s relations with Golkar, his main coalition partner, soured last year, he backed policies favoured by the Islamist parties, passing an anti-porn law that upset Christians, Hindus, and liberal Muslims, and issuing restrictions on the Ahmadiyah, a minority sect that some Muslims consider heretical.

INFILTRATION

Earlier this month, a report backed by former President Abdurrahman Wahid warned that extremists and hardliners including the PKS were infiltrating moderate Muslim groups and institutions to press a more radical agenda.

The PKS denied having a secret agenda.

Even so, some moderate Muslims feel that Indonesia’s centuries-old form of Islam, influenced by mysticism, is under threat from a more conservative form of Islam, noting that polygamy is on the rise, more women and even small children wear the jilbab, and conversions to Islam have increased.

About 85 percent of Indonesia’s population of 226 million profess Islam, and the vast majority are considered moderate.

“Religious consciousness has been rising for the last five years. But that is (true) for other religions too,” Nasaruddin Umar, Director General of the Office of Islamic Guidance in the Department of Religion.

At the same time, an economic migration from predominantly Muslim areas to minority areas is sowing the seeds for religious and cultural conflict.

Thousands of Indonesians from the poorer parts of Java and Sulawesi islands have been lured by the prospect of jobs in the resource-rich areas of Papua and Kalimantan, which have large Christian and animist populations, and in the resort island of Bali, which is mainly Hindu.

In Papua, where a secessionist conflict has brewed for decades, analysts warn of the potential for religious-based clashes following an influx of Muslims to the mainly Christian, tribal areas at the easternmost extreme of Indonesia.

“The potential for communal conflict is high in Papua,” International Crisis Group warned in a report last year.

“Many indigenous Christians feel they are being slowly but surely swamped by Muslim migrants at a time when the central government seems to be supportive of more conservative Islamic orthodoxy, while some migrants believe that they face discrimination if not expulsion in a democratic system where Christians can exercise “tyranny of the majority”.”

Outlook: The Taliban Gains Strength in Pakistan

A Disquieting Acceptance of the Inevitability of the Taliban’s Claim to Power

Mohammed Hanif

Special Correspondent for the BBC’s Urdu Service and Novelist

Mohammed Hanif, special correspondent for the BBC’s Urdu service and author “A Case of Exploding Mangoes,” a novel that skewers the Pakistani military and intelligence infrastructure, was online from Karachi on Monday, April 27, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss his Outlook article about how the Taliban insurgency is gaining strength in his counrty.

____________________

Bucharest, Romania: What could the West do in order to change the current status of things in Pakistan, to boost the Islamabad control inside FATA and to ultimately consolidate the Weberian monopoly on violence of Islamabad?

Mohammed Hanif: Hi, it’s nice to see people as far as in Bucharest interested in what is happening in parts of pakistan.

I think the West can do a number of things: They should stop believing that one hundred and seventy million people who live in this country are card carrying Alqaida members. they should also try and resolve Afghan problem, Kashmir problem and compensate people who have become collateral damage in this war

_______________________

Bucharest: Is Pakistan really on the brink of failure (as a state) or of an extremist takeover of a nuclear state? Dave Kilcullen said recently in an interview for Washington Post that “We’re now reaching the point where within one to six months we could see the collapse of the Pakistani state. . . The collapse of Pakistan, al Qaeda acquiring nuclear weapons, an extremist takeover — that would dwarf everything we’ve seen in the war on terror today”.

washingtonpost.com: A Conversation With David Kilcullen (Post, March 22)

Mohammed Hanif: Another one from Bucharest. I don’t really know where Mr. Kilcullen got his timeline from. Also it’s not possible for a state the size of Pakistan to just collapse. There are lots and lots of people who will resist this, who will fight in every street. I live in Karachi, a city of about twenty million and our elected government has taken a very tough stand against everything that is associated with Taliban. So yes, the dangers are very real but if I believe Kilcullen I should pack up and leave. But I have no such intentions.

_______________________

Arlington, Va.: The U.S. is now bombing targets inside Pakistan with unmanned drones. Is this campaign hurting the Taliban’s efforts, or just helping their recruiting?

Mohammed Hanif: It’s definitley helping them recruit. It’s targeting people who are very very impoerished(they have the misfortunate to be in the same areas where some of the US targets might be). It’s displacing lots of people. And it’s making it very very diffuclt for Pakistani government to deal with homegrown militants

_______________________

Woburn, Mass.: What is going on with the military in Pakistan? It’s large, modern and seemingly incapable of stopping the Taliban? Is the Intelligence Service still funding their Taliban creation? Is this really an internal coup against the civilian and all democratically elected governments? How can an Islamic Group which is far to right of the Domestic Islamic Parties gain so much ground when the Domestic Islamic Political Parties can get 20 percent of the vote?

Mohammed Hanif: that is a question that every one is asking in pakistan. Imagine this: here’s an army which was trained to defend us against the infidel. Now they are expected to fight people who claim to fighting the infidels. So my guess is that pakistan army has the capacity but it’s not sure about it’s will. I am not sure the army itself is sure which side they are on.

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London, U.K.: When you say Kasmir problem, what would your solution be? How would you settle the Hindu refugees back into their homeland who have been massacred and driven out of Kashmir by Islamic terrorists?

Mohammed Hanif: I wish I had a solution but Man Mohan Singh is a wise old man, Zardari has occasionally shown some political acumen. they should try and work it out and listen to the kashmiris…muslim and hindu kashmiris

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Boston, Mass.: Is fighting the Taliban in Pakistan a question of will or ability with the Pakistani military and intelligence service?

Mohammed Hanif: flesh is willing but the spirit is week

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New Delhi, India: How can Pakistan effectively defeat the threat from Taliban when they are still viewed by the establishment in Pakistan as an effective weapon to bring parity with a militarily superior India and when the army wants to keep Afghanistan in turmoil as a part of ’strategic depth’ doctrine, for which Taliban were created by Pakistan in the first place? Does it not leave a big question over the commitment of Pakistan?

Mohammed Hanif: I think if some how we started looking at it as Indo-Pak problem rather than yet another opportunity to settle old scores we might move forward.

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Ann Arbor, Mich.: There has been speculation in certain quarters that the Pakistani army is reluctant to confront the Talibans because the higher echelons are not sure of the loyalty and commitment of the rank and file (bulk of which comprises of Pushtoons)who have gradually been Islamized since the Zia regime.

How well-founded are such speculations and do you think that the possibility of desertion among the lower-ranks in case of an operation is indeed genuine?

Mohammed Hanif: This really is speculation at this stage, the reality, like always, is a alot more complicated. Firt of bulk of Pakistan army is Punjabi and not Pushtun although there are lots of Pushtuns in the army. Yes there was Islamisation under Zia bankrolled by the then US adminsteration. Then under Musharraf there was pseudo-deislamisation again made possible by the US support for a miliatry dictator. I think most armies in the world will have a problem when confronting their own citizens.

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Woburn, Mass.: Does the military seriously believe that India would invade Pakistan, why on earth would India want to invade Pakistan, except to stop terrorist attacks. The only case where an invasion seems likely is if the Taliban takes over, and then there will be an invasion of Pakistan backed by the Indian and the West, and maybe preceded by a large scale Nuclear attack. No one is going to let the Taliban get nuclear weapons.

Mohammed Hanif: The army not only believes there will be an Indian ivasion they believe it’s already underway; through insurgency in Balochistan and Indian influence in afghanistan. of course they might be completely deluded. And let’s hope the Army will realise that Taliban take over is a more real threat than their traditional enemies

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Rockville, Md.: Is there something about Islam that is incompatible with democracy? Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Palestine have recently either voted to prefer hard-line Islam to western-style freedoms, or degenerated into warlordism after elections. The most western of Muslim countries, Lebanon and Turkey, have also moved backwards using the ballot.

There is no more important democratic principle than free speech, and we’ve seen in Danish cartoon incident, hate speech laws in Western Europe, and the UN blasphemy ordinance, that many Muslims do not think that the right to oppose Islamic beliefs is worthy of protection.

Is Islam inherently fundamentalist in that no human knowledge can ever supercede anything in the Quran? And if so, can we do anything but write those countries off as too backward to modernize?

Mohammed Hanif: I am not an Islamic scholar or a historian but didn’t INdonesians just voted AGAINST islamists. Pakistanis have definitley always voted AGAINST the islamists. But the west somehow feels more secure when we DON’T have elections.

as for free speech, i think every single voice of opposition is worth protecting. and i am a muslim and there are many more where i come from

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Wokingham, U.K.: Will the much-publicized restoration of the Chief Justice really help to stabilize Pakistan?

Mohammed Hanif: Ah. That was our national fantasy. It was a heroic struggle. The nation spoke with one voice: We want rule of law. And as soon as we scored a victory we are sitting here wondering hmmmm which law? Taliban law or our garden variety secular law?

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Richmond, Va.: The Taliban seem like a bunch of rogue bullies. Why are they so popular in parts of Pakistan?

Mohammed Hanif: Rogues have always had their appeal. But trust me nobody has done a poll to guage their popularity. They have guns and they make the most dramatic and gruesome video content so it just seems they are popular

_______________________

Lahore, Pakistan: I just read your editorial in The Times newspaper in Lahore. What’s oddly disconcerting about events here in Pakistan is the surreal mix of radical and western attitude. Lahore is a thriving metropolis with a healthy middle/upper class — not just the supremely wealthy landlords, but also doctors and lawyers and many businessmen. The attitudes of the Taliban could not be further from most people’s lives, yet in our midst women are nervous about what they wear to the market. Most newspapers are undeniably secular and western — printing daily editorials like yours. It feels inconceivable that the Taliban should have power here, so we go about our daily lives, even though in the back of everyone’s head is the equal feeling that something terrible has already arrived. It’s a schizophrenic way to live.

Mohammed Hanif: I agree with you. it’s a bit schizo. I don’t agree with you about the newspapers and TV. yes the English newspapers are a bit rational. Read op-eds in Urdu papers, watch some of our current affairs TV shows and you’ll realise how Schizo the society is.

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Washington, D.C.: I’m amazed that Mr. Ten Percent is running Pakistan and more surprised speculation is Musharraf will come back. Is that likely?

Mohammed Hanif: I think Pakistanis will rather have ten Zardaris than Musharraf. Musharraf again? well only in his own fantasies

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Chennai, India: Mr. Hanif, isn’t it true that after having created a nation based on religion, one cannot hope to bottle the genie because there will always be a new group after some time that will seize control claiming that they practice a purer brand of the religion? Won’t the people also support this newer group because of their purported purity especially when the nation itself is already known as the Land of the Pure?

Mohammed Hanif: i think the big debate in Pakistan still is whether it was country created for Muslima or whether it was supposed to be an Islamic country. You are right in one way, there is always someone with a purer brand of religon. A majority has resisted their influence so far though.

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Burbank, Calif.: Isn’t a main fault of the central government that in many villages the central government is mostly irrelevant? It is more critical who controls each village and the battles are determined within each community. The Taliban seems well organized to win regions and communities. Thus, what should the national leadership be doing to win back certain communities, and does the strategy vary from village from village?

Mohammed Hanif: the olution is a bit old fashioned: we need to have an uninterrepted democratic process. and our well wishers in the world should stop supporting any military dictatorships

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Munich, Germany: What is the prevailing opinion about the Pakistani military? Are they capable of taking on and defeating the Taliban in Pakistan?

Mohammed Hanif: The prevailing opinion is that they are definitley capable of defeating Taliban. IT’s just that they haven’t made up their mind as yet

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: If Islam is a moderate and secular culture, then how come Pakistan has only about 2 percent minority and it is called an Islamic republic?

Mohammed Hanif: I don’t think anyone is saying that Islam is a secular culture. At the time of the partition their was a mass movement of Hindus and Siks towards India and Muslims towards Pakistan( a couple of million people died), that’s who we have such overwhelming muslim majority. If some how people from other religons had stayed on it might have been a better place

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Washington, D.C.: In terms of numbers, how many Taliban members are there? Can you break this down between Afghanistan and Pakistan (that is, how many are located in each country)? By comparison, how large are the Afghan and Pakistani security forces?

Mohammed Hanif: very valid question but I am not sure anyone has the stats. Pakistan’s regular army is more than half a million strong. Taliban in Pakistan can’t be more than 30/40 thousand but they are a flexible force with lots of non-combatant supporters.

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Woodbridge, Va.: It seems Pakistan forces are now taking action after the prodding from the USA and the threat of withholding billions of dollars.

Does Pakistan still consider India the arch enemy? Has India ever attacked Pakistan? It seems the last attack generated from Pakistan into India when 10 Islamic terrorists went into Mumbai to kill 200 civilians.

Mohammed Hanif: I think they are taking action because Taliban didn’t lay down their arms after the peace deal and instead started moving towards Islamabad. Pakistanis don’t consider India the ENEMY anymore. they consider the Electricty comanies thei Enemy No 1 as we have daily power break downs. Some parts of our establishment and Jihadists still want us to worry about India though.

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Chicago, Ill.: Most of Muslim nations have very little or no non-Muslim population and they severely restrict minority rights (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran…) and women have to cover up and some can not even drive.

Why does Islam treat minorities and women this way?

Mohammed Hanif: I have only read a bit of Islam and am no scholar but all the prcatices and the countries you mention are abhorrent to me and millions of other Muslims. I was asked what the West can do to help? Well most of them are good friends with Saudi Royals. Next time they are over for a state visit or a gambling holiday try and convince them to let womn drive…

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Karachi, Pakistan: What solution do you see for Swat?

Mohammed Hanif: Sufi Mohammed should be sent back to the prison where he was til recently. Maulana Fazal should be put on a trial in an independent Qazi court. The civil society which came out on streets for Chief Justice should take their summer holiday in Mingora

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Mohammed Hanif: Thank you all for talking to me. A Case of Exploding Mangoes is out in paperback on May 5.

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Source: Washington Post

Kirkuk: commando brigade attacks two Christian families, three killed

Kirkuk (AsiaNews) – Iraqi Christians are again in the sights of the Islamic fundamentalists. At 7:30 yesterday evening in Kirkuk, an armed commando brigade stormed two Christian homes, killing three people in cold blood. Yussef Saba, an employee of the Northern Oil Company, was killed in the first attack; the brigade also wounded two relatives of the victim, Bassel and Samer, who do not seem to have been seriously injured. Seven minutes later, the group broke into a second house, killing two women: Munna Dauod and Susan Latif.

The funeral for the victims was held today in the cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Kirkuk, and was celebrated by Louis Sako, the archbishop of the diocese. The prelate emphasizes that “the entire community of Kirkuk” participated in the funeral: “the authorities were present”at the ceremony, in addition to ordinary citizens, as well as “many representatives of the Muslim community,” who demonstrated “their repugnance” for the new violence. The prelate condemns the terrorist attacks, which are aimed solely at “creating confusion” in the city, and “fostering a climate of fear” among Christians.

Adnan Abdullah, an Iraqi police official, explains that the attacks “took place a short distance from each other.” Solidarity with the Christian community is being expressed by Iraqi vice president Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite Muslim, who calls upon Christians “not to leave the country,” and asks the international community for “help and protection” against the extremists.

“Investigators are maintaining strict confidentiality on the proceedings,” says an anonymous source for AsiaNews, and nothing has emerged “about the motives behind the attack.” “The families did not have any special problems,” the source continues, “and the way in which they were attacked looks like an execution. Nothing was stolen from the homes.” According to the source, the Iraqi Christian community is “again in the crosshairs of the Islamic fundamentalists,” who are planning and carrying out “premeditated attacks.”

From Kirkuk, they explain that the families were already the victims of an attack, on the evening of Sunday, April 19. Exactly one week before yesterday’s deadly raid. “It is a murder with a confessional backdrop,” the source concludes, “in order to send a warning to the Christian community in Iraq.”

Protestant clergyman and wife killed with machetes

Local police find the bodies of Rev Frans Koagow and his wife, slaughtered in their home in Manado, capital of the province of North Sulawesi. Investigators exclude theft as possible motive. Two men who came to the clergyman’s home early in the morning are the main suspects.

Jakarta (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Police found Rev Frans Koagow, 64, and his wife Femy Kumendong, 73, at their home, dead, killed with machetes. The couple lived in Manado, capital of North Sulawesi province, where a majority of Sulawesi Island Christians live. Most local Christians are Protestant.

Malalayang Police Chief Anthony Wenno said the murderers had not yet been identified but that they were looking for two men who came to Reverend Koagow’s home on a motorbike around 7 am.

Police also said that nothing was stolen from the two murder victims so theft or extortion can be ruled as possible motives.

Some witnesses said that when the suspects came to Rev Frans Koagow’s home, they were told that he was not there but in a nearby kiosk.

The two men met their victim there and after eating together they accompanied him home where they killed him.

Tensions between Christians and majority Muslims on Sulawesi Island have been high and over the past few years clashes and violence have become commonplace.

In several of the island’s provinces Christians have been murdered.

Ankara Shows Its Hand: Turkey’s scheming at the Strasbourg summit proves it doesn’t belong in the European Union

Christopher Hitchens argument was that because of Turkey’s behavior during the NATO summit – it acted as a wake up all to many in Europe – who were once supporters of Turkey’s EU membership. But anyone who has been paying close attention to Turkey – could see this is nothing new. To support Turkey’s EU bid you had to be prepared to overlook these things – even Obama in his address to the Turkish Parliament – tactfully used the example of the progress that Americans had made in guaranteeing rights and freedoms for all its citizens – implying that Turkey could also make changes – needed changes. There has been a gulf between how the Americans view Turkey versus how the Europeans view them. The Americans’ view Turkey purely as a military alliance which can host its military bases – but also allow transnational gas pipelines through its country. And for these reasons (and chucked in with this the – reaching out to the Islamic world) – it believes Europe should accept Turkey’s bid. But as the NATO summit exposed Turkey’s other agenda – these are the things that go to the heart of EU concerns about Turkey’s EU bid. Islamization and human rights being top of the agenda – and more telling was how it intends to act once it is in Europe – once Turkey has what it wants – it could easily become the tail that wags the dog – as special compensation is made for its Islamist demands.

The most underreported story of the month must surely be the announcement by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner that he no longer supports the accession of Turkey as a full member of the European Union. His reasoning was very simple and intelligible, and it has huge implications for the Barack Obama “make nice” school of diplomacy.

At a NATO summit in Strasbourg in the first week of April, it had been considered a formality that the alliance would vote to confirm Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the prime minister of Denmark, as its new secretary-general. But very suddenly, the Turkish delegation threatened to veto the appointment. The grounds of Turkey’s opposition were highly significant. Most important, they had to do with the publication of some cartoons in a Danish newspaper in 2005 lampooning the Prophet Mohammed. In spite of an organized campaign of violence and boycott against his country, and in spite of a demand by a delegation of ambassadors from supposedly “Islamic” states, Rasmussen consistently maintained that Danish law did not allow him to interfere with the Danish press. Years later, resentment at this position led Turkey—which is under its own constitution not an “Islamic” country—to use the occasion of a NATO meeting to try again to interfere with the internal affairs of a member state.

The second ground of Turkey’s objection is also worth noting. From Danish soil a TV station broadcasts in the Kurdish language to Kurds in Turkey and elsewhere. The government in Ankara, which evidently believes that all European governments are as untrammeled as itself, brusquely insists that Denmark do what it would do and simply shut the transmitter down. Once again unclear on the concepts of the open society and the rule of law—if the station is sympathetic to terrorism, as Ankara alleges, there are procedures to be followed—the Turkish authorities attempt a fiat that simply demands that others do as they say.

The implications of all this, as Kouchner stated in an interview, are extremely serious. “I was very shocked by the pressure that was brought upon us,” he said. “Turkey’s evolution in, let’s say, a more religious direction, towards a less robust secularism, worries me.” This is to put it in the mildest possible way. It’s not just a matter of a Turkish political party undermining Turkey’s own historic secularism. It is a question of Turkey trying to impose its Islamist and chauvinist policies on another European state—and indeed on the whole NATO alliance. And if this is how it behaves before it has been admitted to the European Union, has it not invited us all to guess how it would behave when it had a veto power in those councils?

For contrast, one might mention the example of reunited federal Germany, easily the strongest economic power in the European Union, which painstakingly adjusted itself to its neighbors—to the extent of giving up even the deutsche mark for the euro—and adopted the slogan “not a Germanized Europe but a Europeanized Germany.” With Turkey, it seems the reverse is the case. Its troops already occupy one-third of the territory of an EU member (Cyprus), and now it exploits its NATO membership to try to bully one of the smaller nations with which it is supposed to be conjoined in a common defense. For good measure, it continues to be ambiguous about its recognition of the existence of another non-Turkish people—the Kurds—within its frontiers.

President Obama’s emollient gifts were on display at the NATO summit, where he eventually persuaded the Turks to withhold their veto on the appointment of Prime Minister Rasmussen. Accounts differ as to the price of this deal, but a number of plum jobs and positions now appear to have been awarded to Turkish nominees. Much more important, however, the foreign minister of France has reversed his previous position and has now said: “It’s not for the Americans to decide who comes into Europe or not. We are in charge in our own house.” Put it like this: Obama’s “quiet diplomacy” has temporarily conciliated the Turks while perhaps permanently alienating the French and has made it more, rather than less, likely that the American goal of Turkish EU membership will now never be reached. And this is the administration that staked so much on the idea of renewing our credit on the other side of the Atlantic. This evidently can’t be done by sweetness alone.

On the question of Turkey’s accession, I used to be able to make either case. Admitting the Turks could lead to the modernization of the country, whereas exclusion could breed resentment and instability and even a renewal of pseudo-Ataturkist military rule. On the other hand, admission would put the frontiers of Europe up against Iran and Iraq and the volatile Caucasus, so that instead of being a “bridge” between East and West (to use the unvarying cliché), Turkey would become a tunnel.

The Strasbourg crisis clarifies the entire picture and should make us grateful to have been warned in such a timely fashion. Turkey wants all the privileges of NATO and EU membership but also wishes to continue occupying Cyprus, denying Kurdish rights, and lying about the Armenian genocide. On top of this, it now desires to act as a proxy for Islamization and dares to waste the time of a defensive alliance in trying to censor the press of another member state! Kouchner was quite right to speak out as he did, and the Turkish authorities will now be able to blame the failure of their membership scheme not on the unsleeping plots of their enemies, but on the belated awakening of their former friends.

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the Roger S. Mertz media fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif.

Source: Slate

French Foreign Minister withdraws support for Turkey’s EU bid

Turkish behavior around NATO upsets a few of its supporters for EU membership.

Turkey opposed Rasmussen’s appointment at a NATO summit last weekend until US President Barack Obama intervened to broker a deal. President Abdullah Gül, representing Turkey at the summit, was under intense pressure from European members of NATO to accept Rasmussen’s nomination. Turkey argued that Rasmussen was not a good choice to lead NATO at a time when the alliance is preparing to expand its mission in Afghanistan.

“I was very shocked by the pressure that was brought on us,” Kouchner told RTL radio on Tuesday. Kouchner also claimed Turkey was moving in a more religious direction. “Turkey’s evolution in, let’s say, a more religious direction, towards a less robust secularism, worries me,” he said.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has long been opposed to Turkey’s EU bid and that has been official French policy, but his left-wing foreign minister had been more open to the idea, though he said this was no longer his stance after the NATO summit.

Kouchner made the comment as Obama reiterated his call to the European Union to accept Turkey as a member in a meeting with university students in İstanbul right before wrapping up a landmark visit to Ankara and İstanbul.

Kouchner echoed Sarkozy and said it was not for the Americans “to decide who comes into Europe.” He said, “We are in charge in our own house.”

Kouchner’s Austrian counterpart, Michael Spindelegger, also rejected Obama’s call. “It’s not new. The Bush administration also tried to convince us,” said Spindelegger. “But it is clear that the European Union and its member states will alone decide,” he told the Austrian public station Radio Öl. [..]

Source: Zaman

Osama may be dead: Zardari

Islamabad: Pakistani intelligence believes Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is dead, President Asif Ali Zardari said Monday, but also admitted that he did not have any evidence of this.

‘The Americans tell me they don’t know, and they are much more equipped than us to trace him. Our own intelligence services obviously think that he does not exist any more, that he is dead,’ APP quoted Zardari as telling a group of international journalists.

‘But there is no evidence, you cannot take that as a fact,’ he said, adding: ‘We are between facts and fiction.’

‘The question is whether he is alive or dead. There is no trace of him,’ Zardari maintained.

The Taliban, who control much of Swat and six other districts of the restive North West Frontier Province (NWFP) that is collectively known as the Malakand division, had last week invited Osama to visit the area.

Source: Sify News

‘300 Taliban suicide bombers on way to Islamabad,’ claim Pakistan officials

300 suicide bombers are on their way to Islamabad, Pakistan and plan to attack the capital and certain local officials of foreign embassies there, Interior Ministry sources said.

The suicide bombers also plan to attack Rawalpindi and Lahore and are being led by five top Taliban commanders who are close aides of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the country’s unified Taliban movement, according to the sources.

Troops of Airport Security Force stand on alert at Islamabad airport. Interior Ministry sources said 300 suicide bombers are on their way to the capital

The commanders have left North Waziristan for Islamabad and would supervise the terrorist operations planned by Baitullah  Mehsud in these cities, the sources added.

Pakistan’s Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah confirmed the report, saying that  security measures had been adopted to thwart such  threats. The law enforcement agencies have planned counter strategies to deal with the situation, the secretary said.

Kamal Shah added that the Northern Areas Scouts (NAS), a paramilitary force under the Army  command, would reach Islamabad within a couple of days to help the civil administration in maintaining peace in the capital. 

The sources said an intelligence agency provided information to the government regarding the Taliban activities, alleging that simultaneous suicide bombings followed by sniper attacks could occur.

The five Taliban commanders are identified by intelligence agencies as Shikaari, Inayatullah,  Walid, Mujahid and Abdali, Interior Ministry sources said. They said all the  terrorist commanders were close aides of Baitullah Mehsud.

Pakistan’s Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah (R) said security measures had been adopted to thwart the Taliban threat

A security officer said the Taliban commanders had left North Waziristan on April 11 for Islamabad, along with an  explosives-laden Toyota Corolla. But the law-enforcement agencies were totally unaware whether they had reached their destination or postponed their operation, the officer said.

Quoting the intelligence report, the source said about 300  terrorist shooters and suicide bombers would reach Islamabad, along with the five commanders.

To counter serious threats to Islamabad, the federal government has called  troops of the NAS to assist the civil administration to protect prominent personalities as well as sensitive installations of the capital city, the Interior Ministry  sources said.

‘At least 20 companies of the NAS are required to deal with the possible untoward situation,’ the source said.

Outside the Red Mosque in Islamabad

Source: Daily Mail

Chilling footage of couple executed by Taliban for having affair [Video]

Horrifying footage has emerged of a couple being executed by the Taliban after conducting an alleged affair in a Pakistan village near the Afghan border.

A local journalist captured the footage on his mobile telephone, which showed a gunman shooting the couple after they attempted to escape.

The man and woman, who have not been named, were both shot in the back, and left bleeding in a field until observers noticed that they were still alive.

Distress is evident on the woman’s face before the brutal execution, both she and the man can be seen attempting to escape before they are shot

The film, which aired on Pakistani channel Dawn News, shows the gunman return moments later to shoot them dead.

The killings, which took place in Hangu District, a violent militant-controlled frontier region two hours from Peshawar, is further indication of the spread of the Taliban in Pakistan.

The horrific punishment was carried out by a local group of Pakistani Taliban militia which is currently sweeping towards the country’s capital, Islamabad.

The woman is shot, but not killed. The Taliban gunman returns after onlookers shout that the victims are still alive

The horrific killing is an indication of the Taliban’s spread in Pakistan

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called on the people of Pakistan to defy their government, after it signed a deal with Taliban in the neighbouring Swat Valley, shocking the West.

‘They need to speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents,’ she said.

Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy, of the Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad said: ‘The Taliban are steady and confident, the government is weak and faltering.

‘A Taliban victory will enslave our women, destroy Pakistan’s rich historical and cultural heritage, make education and science impossible, and make the lives of its citizens impossibly difficult. Some are already contemplating exodus.’

The man is gunned down by a member of the Taliban. The shooters returned a few minutes later to ensure the couple were dead

The Swat Valley deal, which was signed earlier this month, now looks set to fall apart after reports emerged that the Taliban had assumed total control of the Bahrain region of Swat.

An army convoy driving into Swat yesterday was turned away, and a local, who declined to be named, told how check points had been set up, and that the Taliban had been kidnapping residents, including young women.

He told how local schools had been forced to stop teaching girls, ‘yet the government says its writ is in Swat,’ he said.

Military analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi said: ‘The Taliban will not stop at Swat. They will come towards Islamabad.’

‘If the army is going to take action against them, it is goimg to be a really bloody battle. And then civil government will be knocked out.

‘Extremist groups based in Islamabad will move from within, and the Taliban will build pressure from outside,’ he said.

Source: Daily Mail

Clones from Rome III: EU judges want Sharia law applied in British courts

Something from the Clones from Rome III

EU politics needs to change and it needs to change quick !! 

Judges could be forced to bow to Sharia law in some divorce cases heard in Britain.

An EU plan calls for family courts across Europe to hear cases using the laws of whichever country the couple involved have close links to.

That could mean a court in England handling a case within the French legal framework, or even applying the laws of Saudi Arabia to a husband and wife living in Britain.
The Centre for Social Justice think tank today attacked the so-called Rome III reform as ludicrous.

It warned it would slow down cases, increase costs and lead to unjust results.
However, in a report it says existing arrangements are ‘anti-family’.

Currently, a couple from different EU states can have their divorce heard in the first country where one of them files divorce papers.

Because different states offer varying financial advantages to spouses in terms of division of wealth, the resulting ‘race to court’ in the best jurisdiction discourages couples from trying to save their marriage, it says.

The report calls for a simpler solution, with each country applying its own laws and cases being heard in the country where the couple have the closest connection.

At least nine EU states – not including the UK – are said to want to push ahead with the Rome III plan.

Source: Daily Mail

Pakistan’s alphabet: “A” stands for “Allah”, "J" for "Jihad", "B" for "Bandook" or Gun

A shortened version of a much longer article ~ the original was written by a Muslim outraged at what is going on. It seems almost unbelievable.

Blueprint for a religious fascist state

Pakistani children are taught that even the alphabet is to further Islam World Rule.

From news sources in Islamabad, scores of Pakistani youngsters learn that the Udu equivalent of A stands for Allah.

B stands for “bandook” which in English is “gun.”

J stands for “jihad.”

And so forth. This is in line with the Middle East youngsters shown videos on how to behead a Jew—the “monkey.”

It is also in keeping with those same boys and girls garbed in Muslim militia uniforms, taught how to shoot guns, and instructed on how to strap on a suicide belt.

Why then all the Muslim pleas for peace in Gaza so that their Islamic households can find tranquility? The facts are that those households are laden with techniques in how to murder and maim, beginning with the smallest child.

“The three examples of Allah, ‘bandook’ and jihad are not the only ones which sound like a ‘blueprint for a religious fascist state.’

“The Urdu letter for the T sound stands for ‘takrao’ (collide), K for ‘khunjar’ (dagger), H for ‘hijab’ (veil) and Z for ‘zunoob’ (sins) – which includes watching television, playing musical instruments and flying kites.

“According to the National Bureau of Curriculum and Textbooks, Class 5 children are expected to ‘acknowledge and identify forces that may be working against Pakistan, make speeches on jihad and shahadat (martyrdom), understand Hindu-Muslim differences and the resultant need for Pakistan, India’s evil designs about Pakistan and demonstrate by actions a belief in the fear of Allah,’” per a report in Newsline magazine.

Source: Canada Free Press