'Luton police in talks over Sikh protestIt's that description of the person who will appear in court simply as 'a 19-year-old man'. So I did some digging and found this article in Luton Today that included a piece of video. Do watch the video and see if you can spot a clue as to the background of the '19-year-old man'... The key moment comes at around 1:20. Why would some 'Muslim lads' come and taunt the Sikhs protesting at the alleged sexual assault on one of the young women in their 'community'. Is the accused 'a 19-year-old' Muslim man? Why is the victim's racial background relevant but not the accused attacker's? Why does the BBC seem to go out of its way to protect the Muslim 'community' from criticism?
Police have said they are talking to community leaders following a protest by hundreds of Sikhs at a Luton police station.
About 250 people gathered at Buxton Road at 21:00 BST on Tuesday over an allegation that a young Sikh woman had been sexually assaulted.
Police said the report was being investigated.
A 19-year-old man charged with common assault in connection with the allegation is due in court later.
'Aired responsibly'
Before the protest, senior officers had attended the Gurdwara in Dallow Road to meet Luton Sikh community leaders to explain the investigation into the report of an assault on Monday, a police spokesman said.
"This concluded satisfactorily and the officers left," he added.
"An hour later a wider group, including Sikhs from outside of the town, arrived at the Buxton Road police station to discuss the issues further.
"After considerable negotiation with representatives from the group, who were invited into the police station to talk, the protesters left at 11pm."
Ch Supt Mike Colbourne said: "Obviously we have a duty to facilitate lawful, peaceful protest and if people have concerns it is right they are aired responsibly.
"Our priority first and foremost, however, is with the victim in this matter and her family."'
This slideshow from Honest Reporting is well worth watching. I wonder if I should send a copy to the BBC's Middle East editor...
http://www.slideshare.net/HonestReporting/defending-israel-against-claims-of-excessive-force
'The simple fact is that the people of the Developed Nations have selfishly continued to vote for politicians who promise to give them more of other people's money.Does anyone seriously disagree? if so, why?
The Western social democratic model is bust—but there is no shortage of ideological idiots and selfish morons who think that things can carry on as before.
This is dangerous stupidity.
A step change in the attitude of the Western demos is required—for it is, let us to beat about the bush, they (we) who are at fault.
I propose that the first start should be an attitudinal change: whenever someone receives benefits, they should also get a covering letter with the following inscribed in large, red, block type:
This money was stolen by force from your neighbours. You are a thief and an extortionist. Enjoy!
It's a small thing, but might be a first step in to pointing out the intrinsic truth of our benefits system.'
'The Telegraph's Rowena Mason writes:Is Tony Blair admitting that his Downing Street spokesmen lied in 1998?
Tony Blair has admitted “intervening” on Rupert Murdoch’s behalf with the Italian Prime Minister when the media tycoon was trying to buy a multi-billion pound business.
The former Prime Minister said he took his Cabinet Secretary’s advice on “propriety” before raising the issue of whether Mr Murdoch would be allowed to acquire part of the Mediaset Group.
At the time in 1998, Downing Street furiously denied media reports that Mr Blair had brought the deal up during a telephone call with Romano Prodi, the Italian leader.
In evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, Mr Blair said there was nothing wrong with asking his Italian counterpart about the possibility of a deal and betrayed frustration at the furore about the call at the time.'
The UNITED has just announced that African megalomaniac, Robert Mugabe, and his Zambian sidekick, Michael Sata, have been appointed United Nations international tourism ambassadors in recognition of the promotion and development of tourism. The UN through the United Nations World Tourism Organisation will officially confer
the status to the two presidents at a function to be held in Victoria Falls this week and officiated by the UNWTO secretary general Mr Talib Rifai. The honour comes even though the European Union and U.S. have imposed travel bans on Mugabe and many of his senior government officials due to widespread human rights abuses.
Much attention has been paid to the plight of Zimbabwe's terrorized mostly Anglo farmers whose fields were seized under President Mugabe's ill-conceived and disastrous land appropriation program. But the abject ruination the Mugabe regime has wrought on the small landlocked country has affected all of its citizens regardless of race or tribal affiliation. Mugabe's fight to convert white-minority-ruled Rhodesia into the modern African state of Zimbabwe was once considered a noble cause but under his despotic rule, Zimbabwe's decline has been absolute and has effectively turned this relatively wealthy functioning model of black-white co-existence into an impoverished country that now has one of the lowest life expectancy rates and one of the worst HIV/AIDS infection rates in the world.
The United Nations is a sock joke. They honour murderers and vile regimes the world over but attack one of the few true democracies, Israel. The UN is dominated by Islamic states and other nasty regimes - true democracies should leave the UN.
'Mali Tuareg and Islamist rebels agree on Islamist stateDo read the whole article and wonder at the desire for Islamic states amongst so many people and how many non-Muslim Mali people will have to flee from The Islamic Republic of Azawad to escape persecution for being non-Muslims.
Two rebel groups that seized northern Mali two months ago have agreed to merge and turn their territory into an Islamist state, both sides say.
The Tuareg MNLA, a secular rebel group, and the Islamist group Ansar Dine signed the deal in the town of Gao, spokespeople said.
Ansar Dine, which has ties to al-Qaeda, has already begun to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, in towns such as Timbuktu.'
'In the besieged towns, drinking, smoking, listening to music, watching soccer on TV and playing video games have been banned in what now seems to be a preparation for the creation of an Islamic state.'So another African country succumbs to Islam, and violent Islam at that. Who's next?
"There is a small minority of Pakistani men who believe that white girls are fair game... and we have to be prepared to say that. You can only start solving a problem if you acknowledge it first... This small minority who see women as second class citizens, and white women probably as third class citizens, are to be spoken out against."From the moment she said that, she moved near the top of the BBC hit list; now they think they have 'got her' and they won't let up until she's gone.
'Islamo-Christian violence in Minya: life imprisonment for 12 Copts, eight Muslims acquittedAt some time maybe people will realise that to be anything other than a devout Muslim (of the correct sect) in much of the Middle East and beyond is to be, at best, a second class citizen and at worst to be at risk of imprisonment or death.
The conviction for the death of two Muslims, during the assault on a Christian village. At the base of the fighting, a street brawl, which ended with a beating. Activists and legal experts criticized the ruling, which is not appealable. Only the military council has the power to seek a new trial.
Cairo (AsiaNews/Agencies) - An Egyptian court has sentenced 12 Coptic Christians to life imprisonment and acquitted eight Muslims, in a trial heavily criticized by human rights activists and legal experts. The ruling came yesterday, at the end of a trial called to shed light on the sectarian violence last year in the province of Minya, in the southern part of the country, about 220 km from Cairo. Ishak Ibrahim, a researcher and expert on Egyptian law, emphasizes that "the acquittal of the eight Muslim defendants" shows that "the investigations started from the beginning by the attorney general are unfair and wrong" because there was "clear evidence of guilt against them, for having set fire to Christian properties."
The accused Christians were sentenced for inciting public disorder, possession of illegal weapons and the murder of two Muslims. The incident happened in April 2011 and has helped to exacerbate a situation of deep inter-religious tension in the area of Upper Egypt, which then continued in the following weeks (see AsiaNews 06/27/2011 Upper Egypt, violence against Christians on the rise. Eight houses burned).
The violence erupted when a Muslim minibus driver, angered by the presence of a speed bump outside a house owned by a wealthy Christian, got into a fight with the house's security guards. Upon returning to his home village, the Muslim driver assembled a group of people to get revenge for the alleged wrong and the violence suffered.
The retaliation squad was joined by groups of Islamic extremists, who surrounded the homes of Coptic Christians, intending to launch an attack. In fear of being overwhelmed, the inhabitants opened fire from the roofs of buildings, killing two people in the crowd and wounding two others. In the days following, Muslim groups torched dozens of Christian houses and shops to avenge the dead.
The eight Muslims on trial were accused of illegal possession of weapons and having burned the Christians' buildings. However, the court ruled for aquittal of the charges.
The judgment delivered by the judges of the State Security Court is not appealable and the 12 Christians risk spending the rest of their lives in prison. Only the military council could - in what is a very remote hypothesis, moreover - request a retrial. '
'A collapse in the eurozone would create the “ideal recipe for an increase in extremism and xenophobia”, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has warned.No. Not quite. It is the imposition of an anti-democratic organisation, the pressure exerted on national governments to adopt the single currency and the promises of jam today and jam tomorrow that has put in place the conditions for extremism and xenophobia.
Your organisation, Mr Clegg, and let us not pretend that you are anything but an EU placeman, has ridden roughshod over the national identities of most of Europe. You have swept away history and heritage continent-wide. You have lied to and continue to deceive millions, you have denied them a voice. You have chivvied them, nagged them, and badgered them into putting your plans into place. Now your plans are bearing the fruit that so many predicted they would, you turn once again to the little people and warn them that if they don’t vote in line with your wishes that the bad people will get in.'
'Greek exit from the euro could set off a "chain reaction of uncertainty" which would result in a "grinding slowdown in economic activity" across Europe, including the UK, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has warned.When I read this why do the words 'EU pension' come to mind? And why do I remember the fact that EU pensions are paid on the understanding that the EU can remove this pension, if in the view of the Commission or the Luxembourg Court, they "fail to uphold the interests of the European Communities".
Mr Clegg dismissed arguments that Greece's economic woes and the instability in the single currency could best be served by a swift return to the drachma, insisting that "no-one rational" could want such an outcome.'
'Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has warned that any attempt to attack his country's nuclear programme will meet a forceful response.Why are the BBC so keen to hide the Iranian regime's plans for Israel? Is it because they secretly would quite like to see Israel 'taught a lesson'?
His comments come a day after Israel's defence minister told a security meeting that time was running out to halt Iran's nuclear ambitions.
American officials, including the defence secretary, Leon Panetta, have expressed concern that Israel may be positioning itself for an early attack on the Islamic Republic.'
'Al Qaeda group wants to recover Al-AndalusThe best part of four years ago Militant Islam Monitor was reporting in great detail, here'sa short extract:
The group, Ansar Al Din, talks about its plans in an internal document intercepted by the Spanish State Security Forces.
Granada, Valencia, Sevilla and Córdoba, are named as terrorist objectives for Al Qaeda.
The Jihadist group, Ansar Al Din, has released an internal document which said the cities ‘which were governed by the Muslims’ must be liberated and Al-Andalus must be restored.
Spanish State Security Forces are giving credence to the threat after they intercepted the internal communication. After study they concluded that Spain remains one of the main targets of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.'
'It is in Southern Spain, though, that one can really speak of a trend of rapid "re-Islamization." For a period of about 800 years Southern Spain was ruled by Muslims and this vast area was then known as "Al-Andalus." (At one stage, Muslims even occupied nearly two-thirds of Spanish territory.) The Muslim rule came to an end on January 2, 1492, when Granada, the last Muslim stronghold, capitulated to the Roman Catholic kings. But even after the victories of the "Reconquista" ("reconquest"), a demographical problem continued to play a part in 16th and 17th century Spanish politics. The birthrate among Muslims ("Moriskos") was much higher than among Christians ("Cristianos"). In the Kingdom of Valencia, for example, the Muslim population saw an increase of about 70 percent between 1563-1609. The Catholic Spanish rulers decided to expel large numbers of Muslims many of whom settled in Northern Africa.3
There is now a widespread feeling among Muslims that the territories they lost during the Spanish "Reconquista" still belong to them. That they have a right to return and establish their rule there. This is based on the Islamic idea that terrorities such as "Palestine" and Southern Spain which were once occupied by Muslims must remain under Muslim domination forever. This also applies to individuals: once a Muslim, always a Muslim. The Koran says that "apostates" must be killed. In Muslim lands Christians are not allowed to make any converts among Muslims whereas Muslim missionary activities are not restricted at all.
There are two ways to achieve the goal of re-conquering lost territories: by holy war ("jihad") or by massive emigration to the areas from where Muslims were once evicted.
Al-Qaida's claim to "Al-Andalus"
A Syrian immigrant named Mustafa Setmarian Nasar ("Abu Musab-Al-Suri") arrived in Spain in early 1985. He was a member of the outlawed Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. He joined the jihadists in Afghanistan and would later become a close associate and friend of Osama bin Laden's. Al-Suri first lived in Madrid, later he moved to Granada, a city which he liked to call "the last Muslim stronghold in Andalucia."
...
It is not just the extremists and the terrorists who lay claim to parts of Spanish territory. In a recent article the German weekly "Focus" pointed out that Muslim immigrants in Southern Spain become increasingly assertive. Muslim businessmen now own whole streets in the city of Granada. They invest large sums of money in private property and are willing to pay much more than the market price. A local butcher no longer sells traditional "Serrano ham" but "halal sheep meat." In Granada there are now parallel societies and Muslims demand that traditional Sharia law be applied there instead of Spanish law. They also demand Muslim education and special Muslim schools for their children. They even want an equal share in the money made with ticket sales for the Alhambra which they regard as part of the cultural heritage of their Muslim ancestors.
A growing number of women wear the veil or even the gloomy black "niqab" which covers most of their face. A huge new mosque has been built recently, largely paid by money donated by Muslims from Morocco, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. Muslim couples are rumored to receive extra money for children born during the marriage. The more children the more money. In this way Muslims will sooner or later demographically outweigh the Spanish population of the city. 14
It was in October 2007 that Amr Moussa, the Egyptian Secretary-General of the Arab League made a special request to the Spanish government: why should not Muslims be allowed to also worship in the cathedral of Córdoba? This building was a mosque in the times of "Al-Andalus," it later became a Roman Catholic cathedral. The Arab League now proposes that the original functions of the cathedral be partly restored and Muslims be allowed to worship there with a view to introducing the Friday afternoon prayer service. The "mosque-cathedral" should then be used jointly by Catholics and Muslims. Remember, the same Arab League showed a lot of understanding for Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir after he was charged with war crimes and genocide by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Now the Arab League uses the fine Western forum of a "Conference on Intolerance and Discrimination" in Córdoba to launch a proposal for Muslim Friday afternoon prayers in Córdoba's cathedral. This conference, by the way, was sponsored by the Spanish socialist government which, apparently, regard "Islamophobia" as a mortal danger to society.'
'RE: Complaint
NewsOnline Complaints
Dear Mr MaybeaGoat,
Thank you for your comments regarding
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18149573
The report never led the BBC News site or the Middle East page. It was a
feature by-lined by a correspondent in Jerusalem.
There is a great deal of violence by Palestinians, settlers and soldiers
that we do not report unless it causes serious injury or death.
In this case, we had detailed and revealing video footage of the
incident. It involved firearms aimed and fired at unarmed people while
IDF soldiers were on the scene. As you say, we reported that the
violence has disputed causes - all parties were given a say. What is not
disputed is that settlers fired on unarmed Palestinians, though they
were throwing stones, while IDF soldiers stood by.
Best regards and thanks,
Tarik Kafala
Middle East editor
BBC News website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/handle.shtml'
'Nota Sheep
07:57
to NewsOnline
Dear Mr Kafala,
Thank you for your prompt response.
I never said that the report was 'the lead story' but that it was 'a lead story'. The report sat for some time on your Middle East News front page in the section that comprises just headlines rather than headline and short summary.
Is your explanation that: 'There is a great deal of violence by Palestinians, settlers and soldiers that we do not report unless it causes serious injury or death.' BBC policy? Is all violence that leads to 'serious injury or death' in Israel/Palestinian territories reported by the BBC? Will it be in the future?
I understand your point re your coverage of this incident, my complaint is not simply that you reported this incident but that you fail to report others.
I do understand the importance, to deciding whether to run a story, of the availability of good video of the event. Is the availability of video of an attack very important in deciding whether or not the BBC cover a story in Israel / Palestinian Territories?
Kind regards
NotaSheep MaybeaGoat'
'why do some people hate Jews?'
Nota Sheep
07:17
to: mailbox@aqa.org.uk
I understand that the above was a question on a recent religious studies GCSE exam paper. Leaving aside the reasons why this question appeared on an examination paper, I would be interested to see the suggested marking guidance for this question. In other words, what constitutes a correct answer. Could you provide this please.
Regards
NotaSheep MaybeaGoat'
'Education Secretary Michael Gove has strongly criticised an exam board over a GCSE religious studies question in which pupils were asked: “Explain, briefly, why some people are prejudiced against Jews.”I would like to see the marking scheme for this question. What are 'acceptable' answers? As this is a religious studies question is quoting from the Koran as an explanation allowed?
Last Thursday more than 1,000 students — including pupils at JFS — sat the paper, which was set by one of the three major English exam boards, AQA.
Mr Gove declared: “To suggest that antisemitism can ever be explained, rather than condemned, is insensitive and, frankly, bizarre. AQA needs to explain how and why this question was included in an exam paper.”
He said that it was “the duty of politicians to fight prejudice, and with antisemitism on the rise we need to be especially vigilant”.
A spokesperson for AQA said: “The board is obviously concerned that this question may have caused offence, as this was absolutely not our intention”.
But, she added, the question “acknowledges that some people hold prejudices; it does not imply in any way that prejudice is justified”.'
Type of complaint: BBC News (TV Radio Online)What is your complaint about: BBC News OnlineURL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18149573Complaint category: BiasContacted us before: NoComplaint title: Bias in the way the BBC report attacks
Complaint description:The BBC coverage of the alleged shooting by 'Jewish settlers' at Palestinians was front page news for the BBC news website and only today has it stopped being a lead story on the Middle East News page. No deaths and only a few injuries were the result of this incident, an incident which even the BBC have to report has disputed causes. Here is a list of the attacks by Palestinians on Israelis over the two days leading up to this story being headline news for the BBC. None of which have been reported by the BBC: May 20, 2012 Rock attacks at the Shoafat checkpoint cause moderate injuries to an Israeli policeman’s leg. Rock attacks near Adam cause heavy damage to vehicles. May 21, 2012 Border police near Issowiya are subjected to rock attacks. 2 rock attacks on Israeli vehicles near the Arab school in Tekoa cause damage to car windshields. Rock attacks between Bet Umar and El Arub on the Gush Etzion-Hebron Highway. Border police located at the A-Tur neighborhood near Jerusalem are attacked by dozens of Arab terrorists. Israeli Security forces arrest 5 of the agitators.' Am I right in assuming that to the BBC attacks by Israelis on Palestinians are newsworthy but attacks by Palestinians on Israelis are not? If I am not right then why the disparity in coverage?
Am I right in assuming that to the BBC attacks by Israelis on Palestinians are newsworthy but attacks by Palestinians on Israelis are not? If I am not right then why the disparity in coverage?
'May 18, 2012
1. A border policeman is injured after rocks were thrown by Arab terrorists near Nebe Zalach.
May 19, 2012
1. A border policeman is injured from a rock attack by Arab terrorists near the Shoafat checkpoint.
May 20, 2012
1. At the Gush Etzion Junction, an Arab terrorist attempts to stab an IDF officer but stabs himself in the struggle.
2. Near Chirbat Adir on the Efrat-Tekoa Road, Israeli vehicles are damaged by rock attacks.
3. Near Na’alin on Road 446, rock attacks on Israeli vehicles cause damage to car windshields.
4. Rock attacks at the Shoafat checkpoint cause moderate injuries to an Israeli policeman’s leg.
5. Rock attacks near Adam cause heavy damage to vehicles.
May 21, 2012
1. Border police near Issowiya are subjected to rock attacks.
2. 2 rock attacks on Israeli vehicles near the Arab school in Tekoa cause damage to car windshields.
3. Rock attacks between Bet Umar and El Arub on the Gush Etzion-Hebron Highway.
4. Border police located at the A-Tur neighborhood near Jerusalem are attacked by dozens of Arab terrorists. Israeli Security forces arrest 5 of the agitators.'
'The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state. It was captured by Israel from Jordan in 1967. Israel subsequently annexed the land and declared all of the city its undivided capital. The move is not recognised by the international community.'This makes it seem as though pre-1967 East Jerusalem was, and always had been, under Jordanian control and that Jerusalem had always been split into a Jewish West and Muslim East. This is of course a lie. East Jerusalem had been under Israel control from 1948 and was only captured by Jordan in 1967. Whilst under Jordanian control, East Jerusalem was barred to Israelis, synagogues were destroyed and the Western 'Wailing' Wall, the holiest remaining site in Judaism was used as a toilet. Contrastingly, since 1967 Muslims are allowed to pray in their mosque on top of the Temple Mount, and indeed Israel has ceded control of this site to Islam.
'I would advise anyone reading this extraordinary piece of propaganda in the Failygraph to also read the comments section on the website. Here you will learn that this "perk" has actually existed since 1973. Scarcely a current news item! Why haS this suddenly become "controversial" after 40 years?
The article has been so phrased as to give the impression that we Civil Servants are being given three free days off a month. Hardly.
All flexitime means is that we can take up to three "flexi" days a month off if we have worked that extra time over and above our contracted hours. What on earth is wrong with that? If you worked overtime would you not expect either to be paid for it or given time off in lieu?Good grief.... OK so the perks have existed for even longer than I thought, that makes it worse not better that they exist at all. But the passage that annoyed me most was this one:
It is one of the few remaining privileges in a Civil Service which is completely unrecognisable from the tea-swilling days of the past. Our call centres operate until 8pm each evening not 5.30 and are extremely pressured environments in which to work. And anyone taking more than 8 days sick a leave in my department would likely be disciplined. Notch that up to 12 and you have a good chance of being out of the door.
I wouldnt mind following a Failygraph journalist around for a day to find out how stressful his job truly is...'
'All flexitime means is that we can take up to three "flexi" days a month off if we have worked that extra time over and above our contracted hours. What on earth is wrong with that? If you worked overtime would you not expect either to be paid for it or given time off in lieu?'In the private sector I know people who regularly (more than twice a week) work more than an hour extra a day. They do not get paid overtime or receive time off in lieu. In the private sector we have to work hard to try and keep our jobs, in the public sector the position is somewhat different.
'This is how I stood by the roadside, Inge Telhaug (56) says. The police took the flags from him and arrested him.Norway's oftentimes enthusiastic cooperation with the Nazi occupiers in the rounding up of Jews during the 1940s is well documented. It seems that such attitudes still prevail in Norway, maybe helped by the recent influx of Muslims into Norwegian cities and towns and the coming to power of a leftist government that seems to follow the evil Israel doctrine so prevalent amongst Europe's left. As Israel National News mused earlier this year:
By: Amund Sveen Horse
Published: May 17. 2012 (13:48) Updated: 17 May. 2012 (13:49)
On the 14th of May Israel friend Inge Telhaug (56) marched by the roadside of E39, carrying a large Israeli flag and a Norwegian flag. The purpose was to celebrate the date of Israel’s declaration of independence
14 May 1948, fvn.no writes.
The police stopped the man from Søgne three times, telling him leave the road side; the third time he was taken to jail and locked up on a bare cell.
- In addition, I was fined NOK 10,000, – he says.
- Was not in the road
Telhaug now protests the police allegations, which fvn.no wrote about on Monday.
The police stopped and talked to Telhaug at 16.06, 17.13 and again at 18.52, all the time alleging he was “disrupting traffic walking in the middle of the road “, “waving flags”.
- Firstly, I was not waving the flags, I kept them right up when I was walking along the roadside. There I stood, safely behind the barrier, resting the flags on the right shoulder, across the creek away from the road as you can see in the picture, says Telhaug.
He tells his version because he wants to emphasize that he acted restrained and calm.
- Secondly , I was not in the middle of the road, as the police told Fædrelandsvennen. I was only on the road itself as I crossed to the other side something you need to do to get where you’re going. There’s no walking and cycling out here. I went off the asphalt edge, and stood whole time behind the barrier, where such barriers were present, he said.
The police, however, maintains that Telhaug represented an obstacle and a danger to the traffic.
- He was told not to walk in the middle of the road as he celebrated, operations manager Børge Steinsland said to Fædrelandsvennen Monday.
Stripped of flags and pocket knife
As the police reiterated their requests to Telhaug stay off the road with his flags, the police frisked him, seized his pocket knife and took the two flags away from him.'
'“The current Labor/radical left Norwegian government is promoting an extreme one-sided and negative stance toward Israel. It is responsible for creating a politically-correct hatred of Israel among many people in the country. This has made Norway, in my view, the most anti-Semitic country in the West. In Norwegian history, there has never been such an anti-Israeli attitude.”
Hanne Nabintu Herland is a Norwegian academic and a historian of religion. She has authored several successful books. The latest one, Respect, published in February 2012, received a lot of publicity and tops the country’s best seller list.
Yet, there has been complete public silence regarding the sharp criticism she poses in the book against the current leftist government for its biased view on Israel.
Herland says, “Control on public opinion is so strong in Norway that it is questionable whether it can be considered a free democratic state. The Labor Party has widely used the terror attack by Anders Breivik against it on 22 July 2011 to further discriminate against any opposition and shut down public debate.”
She adds: “The Norwegian government indirectly accepts the Hamas agenda where its main goals include ethnic cleansing, terror, and genocide against the Jews. Labor Party Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre regularly defends Hamas in newspapers abroad. In February 2011, he did this in the International Herald Tribune, for instance.
“Last year Støre was caught lying on a live program on Norwegian TV2. There he denied that he held continuous talks with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. Yet Stǿre had to admit this when the reporter told him that Meshaal had mentioned these conversations. What initially may have been an act of naiveté is by now suspect of deliberate malice. In the long term, Støre is tarnishing Norway’s international reputation by acting as a Hamas defender.
“The way Norway funds Hamas with hundreds of millions of Norwegian kroner taxpayer’s money, is pure corruption. When African states buy their way to influence, we call it corruption. But in essence, the Labor Party is practicing the same - billions leave the country in order for Norway to buy friends in foreign states where they otherwise would have little or no influence.'
'Within the next few weeks the BBC, which is funded by British taxpayers through revenues derived from the television licence fee, will take a decision directly affecting the lives of, if not all British Jews, then certainly those living in the North-West. Of comparatively minor not to say peripheral importance in itself, this matter strikes me as being of major significance for the whole of British Jewry.The BBC's attitude to Jews stinks.
The decision involves the fate of a radio programme that has been aired weekly on BBC Radio Manchester for 21 years. Jewish Hour was launched (under the title It's Kosher) in 1991. The launch was assisted by a small grant (£1,500) from the Manchester Jewish Representative Council. Originally a half-hour radio magazine, the programme was an instant success, and has for some time been allotted an hour of broadcasting time. The BBC generously donates the magnificent sum of £70 per week to cover the programme's expenses. Everyone involved in its presentation gives their services free. Now the BBC is threatening to axe it.
Ostensibly, the threat has come about as a result of a cost-cutting exercise ("Delivering Quality First") and - ostensibly - is without sinister intent. The BBC has already taken the decision in principle to scrap its regional weekday evening radio programmes. Instead, it will launch a "syndicated" radio magazine entitled All Around England, which local stations can air if they wish. This magazine will be produced by an independent contractor and will have a professional, salaried presenting team. BBC regional offices are (so I'm assured) under no obligation to "buy into" this magazine but they are clearly under pressure to do so. If, within the next few weeks, BBC North West decides to invest in this package, Jewish Hour will cease to be broadcast with effect from later this year. Should that happen, the Beeb will henceforth offer no regular programme dedicated to its Anglo-Jewish audiences and licence-payers.
This strikes me as scandalous on several grounds. The BBC is surely obligated, under the terms of its Royal Charter, to address the needs of local communities. The awkwardly titled "purpose remit" of the BBC Trust insists that "BBC viewers, listeners and users can rely on the BBC to reflect the many communities that exist in the UK. These communities may be based on geography, on faith, on language, or on a shared interest…"
But how can that insistence be genuine if Jewish Hour is given the chop? As one enthusiast put it to me, Jewish Hour "is the only Jewish interest programme on the BBC… [its abolition] would mean that the BBC is entirely devoid of any programme specifically devoted to matters of Jewish interest."
If the argument in favour of abolition was exclusively economic even I might have some sympathy with it. But it isn't. In the first place I should like to know how the replacement of a programme delivered through the services of unpaid volunteers by one delivered by an external contractor employing a salaried presenter can amount - in any meaningful sense - to "cost-cutting". In the second, I need to ask (and so do you) why Jewish Hour is under threat but not programmes dedicated to the needs of other ethnic minorities in the north-west.
For the unpalatable fact is that Indus, a two-hour magazine programme broadcast by BBC Radio Manchester and Radio Lancashire and featuring news, comment and entertainment for the Asian communities of North-West England, is reportedly under no threat at all. Taxpayers' money (in short) will continue to support the radio needs of Manchester's Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Jain communities, but not of its Jews.
This threatened act of palpable discrimination by a publicly funded body must be challenged. Those learned in the law will doubtless be reaching for their law books.
But even if you are not a lawyer, there is something you can do. And that is to contact the BBC's director-general, Mark Thompson (mark.thompson@bbc.co.uk), whose salary you help pay, and ask him (as I shall be doing) for an assurance that Jewish Hour will survive no matter what "cost-cutting" policies he is minded to implement.'
'A growing number of officials are understood to be working nine-day fortnights by cutting short their lunch breaks and extending normal hours by staying in their offices until 6pm. Civil servants are also allowed to count delays in arriving for work because of late trains or traffic congestion towards their contracted working week.'The majority of the private sector workers that I know usually work through part or all of their lunch breaks and for most leaving on the dot of 5:30pm is but an idle dream.
'"Some of what people are saying in this mosque controversy is very similar to what German media was saying about Jews in the 1920s and 1930s" Imam Abdullah Antepli, Muslim chaplain at Duke University, told the New York Times. Yes, we all recall the Jewish suicide bombers of that period, as we recall the Jewish yells for holy war, the Jewish demands for the veiling of women and the stoning of homosexuals, and the Jewish burning of newspapers that published cartoons they did not like.'Don't anyone else dare to tell me that Muslims in Europe or America are persecuted in a similar way to the way Jews were in Nazi Germany. It's not true and it's frankly offensive.
'Breitbart News has obtained a promotional booklet produced in 1991 by Barack Obama's then-literary agency, Acton & Dystel, which touts Obama as "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii."Was Barack Obama born in Kenya or Hawaii? Very probably Hawaii but it is fascinating how many oddities and inconsistencies there are in the reporting of the life of Barack Hussein Obama.
The booklet, which was distributed to "business colleagues" in the publishing industry, includes a brief biography of Obama among the biographies of eighty-nine other authors represented by Acton & Dystel.
It also promotes Obama's anticipated first book, Journeys in Black and White--which Obama abandoned, later publishing Dreams from My Father instead.
Obama’s biography in the booklet is as follows (image and text below):
Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii. The son of an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, he attended Columbia University and worked as a financial journalist and editor for Business International Corporation. He served as project coordinator in Harlem for the New York Public Interest Research Group, and was Executive Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago’s South Side. His commitment to social and racial issues will be evident in his first book, Journeys in Black and White.'
Response to grumpyoldman, 16 May 2012 8:41PM
'According to one survey, 20 percent of history teachers have abandoned certain, ah, problematic aspects of the Second World War because, in classes of a particular, ahem, demographic disposition, pupils don’t believe the Holocaust happened, and, if it did, the Germans should have finished the job and we wouldn’t have all these problems today. More inventive instructors artfully woo their Jew-despising students by comparing the Holocaust to “Islamophobia” — we all remember those Jewish terrorists hijacking Fokkers and flying them into the Reichstag, right? What about gangs of young Jews preying on the elderly, as Muslim youth do in Wilders’ old neighborhood of Kanaleneiland?From this comment on Jihad Watch.
As for “Islamophobia,” it’s so bad that it’s, er, the Jews who are leaving. “Sixty per cent of Amsterdam’s orthodox community intends to emigrate from Holland,” says Benzion Evers, the son of the city’s chief rabbi, five of whose children had already left by 2010. Frommer’s bestselling travel guide to “Europe’s most tolerant city” acknowledges that “Jewish visitors who dress in a way that clearly identifies them as Jewish” are at risk of attack, but discreetly attributes it to “the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” “Jews with a conscience should leave Holland, where they and their children have no future,” advised Frits Bolkestein, former Dutch Liberal leader. “Anti-Semitism will continue to exist, because the Moroccan and Turkish youngsters don’t care about efforts for reconciliation.”
If you’re wondering what else those “youngsters” don’t care for, ask Chris Crain, editor of The Washington Blade, the gay newspaper of America’s capital. Seeking a break from the Christian fundamentalist redneck theocrats of the Republican party, he and his boyfriend decided to treat themselves to a vacation in Amsterdam, “arguably the ‘gay-friendliest’ place on the planet.” Strolling through the streets of the city center, they were set upon by a gang of seven “youngsters,” punched, beaten, and kicked to the ground. Perplexed by the increasing violence, Amsterdam officials commissioned a study to determine, as Der Spiegel put it, “why Moroccan men are targeting the city’s gays.”'
'Rebekah Brooks has revealed that David Cameron signs off some of his texts with LOL, in the belief the acronym means "Lots Of Love". She told the Leveson Inquiry that she explained to him it actually means "Laughing Out Loud". In fact, they're both right and they're both wrong, as it means both. '
'the PM had signed off text messages to her in this way, apparently believing it to be an acronym for "lots of love".'The BBC will push the Labour line, heaping ridicule on the Prime Minister, for as long as it takes to ensure a return to a Labour government. The BBC's bias is ever more obvious but the weak and cowardly David Cameron will do nothing to reign the BBC in. David Cameron was elected leader of the Conservative party partly because of the BBC's preference for an easy Eton-educated, rich target rather than a harder to attack working class Tory like David Davies. I worry that David Cameron still believes that he can make the BBC like him by pushing the Conservative party to the left and adopting as many trendy metrosexual, liberal lines as possible. I hate to beak it to him but the BBC will never love you David, you are a rich, an old-Etonian but worst of all you are a Tory and thus hated by the BBC. Be a man for once and take on the BBC before it's too late. Will he? What do you think? personally... LOL.
'The Labour leader Ed Miliband has joked in the Commons about the prime minister's text correspondence with former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks.Listening to 5-Live after PMQs, even the presenter (Shelagh Fogarty?) and John Pienaar agreed that David Cameron had won that exchange of pre-scripted jokes. However the BBC line must always be of Labour success and Tory disaster.
He suggested that after failing to meet with the new French president Francois Hollande last month, Mr Cameron should simply text him the message "LOL".
It comes after Mrs Brooks revealed during her evidence to the Leveson Inquiry last week that the PM had signed off text messages to her in this way, apparently believing it to be an acronym for "lots of love".
However, David Cameron reminded the House that former PM Gordon Brown had his own mobile phone issues, which some newspapers suggested he threw his at staff.'
"We're now at the Golan Heights border (inside Israel). We are at the exact border between Palestine and Syria."There are more examples on this website and also in this Jihad Watch article.
'Bill Clinton thought so little of President Obama — mocking him as an “amateur” — that he pressed his wife last summer to quit her job as secretary of state and challenge him in the primaries, a new book claims,I believe that Bill Clinton is disputing that he ever said what he is quoted as having said. Odd, it would be one of the few times he's been so on target for years.
……
The title of [Ed] Klein’s explosive, unauthorized bio of Obama, “The Amateur” (Regnery Publishing), was taken directly from Bill Clinton’s bombshell criticism of the president, the author said.
“Barack Obama,” Bill Clinton said, according to book excerpts, “is an amateur.”
The withering criticism is incredible, given the fact that Bill Clinton is actively campaigning for Obama’s re-election.
But according to the book, Bill Clinton unloaded on Obama and pressed Hillary to run against her boss during a gathering in the ex-president’s home office in Chappaqua last August that included longtime friends, Klein said.
“The economy’s a mess, it’s dead flat. America has lost its Triple-A rating . . . You know better than Obama does,” Bill said.
……
Obama, Bill Clinton said, “doesn’t know how to be president” and is “incompetent.”'
"The BBC is unlike any other media organisation in the free world, in that it levies billions from British households whether they want to watch it or not. No wonder its employees have an innocent belief that everything in life should be “free”. No wonder – and I speak as one who has just fought a campaign in which I sometimes felt that my chief opponent was the local BBC news – the prevailing view of Beeb newsrooms is, with honourable exceptions, statist, corporatist, defeatist, anti-business, Europhile and, above all, overwhelmingly biased to the Left."
“They have a respectable life in the community and then they have their night life.Mr Shafiq was appalled that the oldest defendant in the Liverpool trial was set free by police soon after one of his victims came forward.
“Asian girls are not available to them and so they look to Western girls. They think they’re easy. They see them as tarts who are there to be used.”
“He was released and they just carried on,” said Mr Shafiq. “They got more girls and they thought `The police can’t touch us`. That’s a scandal.'
“If there’s even a suspicion of child abuse it’s not good enough to say she’s not a credible witness.
“This gang was the talk of the town among the taxi drivers. People were appalled because it’s nothing to do with faith, nothing to do with Islam.
“For all that people like the BNP might want to stir things up, it’s a fact that the vast majority of British Pakistanis find these crimes disgusting. They will be as pleased as everyone else in society to have seen these men convicted.”
"There is very troubling evidence that Asians are overwhelmingly represented in prosecutions for such offences,’ he said. Mr Narey added that ‘vulnerable girls on the street at night are generally white rather than more strictly-parented Asian girls".
"This is an absolute scandal... They (the police and CPS) were petrified of being called racist and so reverted to the default of political correctness. They had a greater fear of being perceived in that light than in dealing with the issues in front of them."Indeed Greater Manchester Police investigated a complaint by a 15-year-old victim that she had been raped in 2008, but prosecutors opted not to press charges and the abuse continued.
"I believe one of the factors which led to that (treating their victims "as though they were worthless and beyond all respect") is that they were not of your community or religion."
'Some of the girls were beaten and forced to have sex with "several men in a day, several times a week", the jury was told.Yet the BBC and the police seem more concerned with trying to snuff out the idea that this case is anything to do with Islam. The BBC do manage to quote Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of of the Ramadhan Foundation, who accused Pakistani community elders of "burying their heads in the sand" on the issue of on-street grooming. and said:
One teenager told the jury she was forced to have sex with 20 men in one night.
Another recalled being raped by two men while she was "so drunk she was vomiting over the side of the bed".'
"There is a significant problem for the British Pakistani community...There should be no silence in addressing the issue of race as this is central to the actions of these criminals.... They think that white teenage girls are worthless and can be abused without a second thought; it is this sort of behaviour that is bringing shame on our community."
Why does Mohammed Shafiq understand what Assistant Chief Constable Steve Heywood of Greater Manchester Police (GMP) does not. He denied that the ethnicity of either the defendants or the victims was a factor:Strange how in the North of England this is so often the case.
"It is not a racial issue," he said. "This is about adults preying on vulnerable young children.
"It just happens that in this particular area and time the demographics were that these were Asian men."
'Our border staff must be allowed to discriminate over which travellers they check
Blanket checks of pensioners and school children only result in long queues and bored officials.'
'the government are to consider allowing the security services to use racial profiling in the fight against terrorists getting onto a plane, exploding a device and killing a couple of hundred or more people. ApparentlyI presume that fears of upsetting the 'Muslim community' prevented the introduction of such profiling in 2010 and will prevent it in 2012.
'Passenger profiling would see selected travellers given tougher security checks before a flight.
Those behaving suspiciously or having an unusual travel pattern could be picked out
'"This has sparked concern Muslims will be disproportionately targeted." - Disproportionate to what? Disproportionate to the number of Muslims in the UK population? Probably. Disproportionate to the number of Muslims flying out of the UK on any particular day? Probably. Disproportionate to the proportion of terrorists who are members of the 'religion of peace'? Probably not.
Racial profiling is not racist, it simply recognises who are likely to pose the greatest threat to the population in general. Racial profiling does not mean only searching Muslims, it does not mean ignoring the threat posed by such as Richard Read. It does mean concentrating more resources on the six young nervous looking Muslims sitting together with one way tickets to Detroit, Chicago and New York and less on the family of four flying to Alicante for a week's package holiday. Yes it also means not concentrating on searching the two eighty year old nuns flying to Rome but maybe giving the two Imams flying to Washington DC a second look.
Yes this may mean that totally innocent Muslims get searched more often and/or more thoroughly than totally innocent non-Muslims. It may mean that totally innocent Muslims find travelling by air more onerous than do totally innocent non-Muslims. But I am afraid that whilst a sizable proportion of Muslims both within and without this country are fixated on killing as many Westerners, including Muslims, as they can; security needs must be prioritised.
I presume that totally innocent Muslims would rather be subjected to stricter security checks than risk dying in an Islamic terrorist attack.
'The first layer of actual security that greets travellers at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport is a roadside check. All drivers are stopped and asked two questions: How are you? Where are you coming from?
"Two benign questions. The questions aren't important. The way people act when they answer them is," Sela said.
Officers are looking for nervousness or other signs of "distress" — behavioural profiling. Sela rejects the argument that profiling is discriminatory.
"The word 'profiling' is a political invention by people who don't want to do security," he said. "To us, it doesn't matter if he's black, white, young or old. It's just his behaviour. So what kind of privacy am I really stepping on when I'm doing this?"
Once you've parked your car or gotten off your bus, you pass through the second and third security perimeters.
Armed guards outside the terminal are trained to observe passengers as they move toward the doors, again looking for odd behaviour. At Ben Gurion's half-dozen entrances, another layer of security are watching. At this point, some travellers will be randomly taken aside, and their person and their luggage run through a magnometer.
"This is to see that you don't have heavy metals on you or something that looks suspicious," said Sela.
You are now in the terminal. As you approach your airline check-in desk, a trained interviewer takes your passport and ticket. They ask a series of questions: Who packed your luggage? Has it left your side?
"The whole time, they are looking into your eyes — which is very embarrassing. But this is one of the ways they figure out if you are suspicious or not. It takes 20, 25 seconds," said Sela.
Lines are staggered. People are not allowed to bunch up into inviting targets for a bomber who has gotten this far.
At the check-in desk, your luggage is scanned immediately in a purpose-built area. Sela plays devil's advocate — what if you have escaped the attention of the first four layers of security, and now try to pass a bag with a bomb in it?
"I once put this question to Jacques Duchesneau (the former head of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority): say there is a bag with play-doh in it and two pens stuck in the play-doh. That is 'Bombs 101' to a screener. I asked Ducheneau, 'What would you do?' And he said, 'Evacuate the terminal.' And I said, 'Oh. My. God.'
"Take Pearson. Do you know how many people are in the terminal at all times? Many thousands. Let's say I'm (doing an evacuation) without panic — which will never happen. But let's say this is the case. How long will it take? Nobody thought about it. I said, 'Two days.'"
A screener at Ben-Gurion has a pair of better options.
First, the screening area is surrounded by contoured, blast-proof glass that can contain the detonation of up to 100 kilos of plastic explosive. Only the few dozen people within the screening area need be removed, and only to a point a few metres away.
Second, all the screening areas contain 'bomb boxes'. If a screener
"This is a very small simple example of how we can simply stop a problem that would cripple one of your airports," Sela said.
Five security layers down: you now finally arrive at the only one which Ben-Gurion Airport shares with Pearson — the body and hand-luggage check.
"But here it is done completely, absolutely 180 degrees differently than it is done in North America," Sela said.
"First, it's fast — there's almost no line. That's because they're not looking for liquids, they're not looking at your shoes. They're not looking for everything they look for in North America. They just look at you," said Sela. "Even today with the heightened security in North America, they will check your items to death. But they will never look at you, at how you behave. They will never look into your eyes ... and that's how you figure out the bad guys from the good guys."
That's the process — six layers, four hard, two soft. The goal at Ben-Gurion is to move fliers from the parking lot to the airport lounge in a maximum of 25 minutes.'
It is incredible how some people seem to be able to forget that Labour were in power during the biggest expansion of credit, but that's the joy of being a Labour supporter and/or a Socialist...