Skip's Clips

Auster: Key writings on immigration and multiculturalism

2008-07-17T06:20:00.000-07:00

Key writings on immigration and multiculturalism

by Lawrence Auster

A selection of my writings and speeches on immigration that have been presented in mainstream venues or in publications other than VFR.

We're doomed

2008-07-15T05:42:00.000-07:00

15/7/2008
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/poll/vote/total.htm

UK: Islam Movie Making

2008-07-14T09:26:00.000-07:00

http://www.farisqc.observationdeck.org/?p=579

14/7/2008

Men Plead Guilty to Lesser Charges

Five of eight men accused of plotting to detonate liquid explosives on board trans-Atlantic passenger jets — including some destined for Canada — pleaded guilty to lesser offences Monday.

Three men — Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, Assad Sarwar, 28, and Tanvir Hussain, 27 — admitted to conspiring to cause explosions.

The three men and two other defendants — Ibrahim Savant, 27, and Umar Islam, 30 — also admitted to “conspiring to cause a public nuisance” by creating videos threatening suicide bomb attacks.

The five men, along with three other defendants are accused of targeting at least seven airliners heading to Canada and the U.S. in 2006.

The two Air Canada flights were bound for Montreal and Toronto.

All of the men are British with ties to Pakistan.

Prosecutors say the group wanted to kill hundreds of passengers using bombs concealed in soft drink bottles.....

Ali said he hoped a small, non-fatal blast at Britain’s Houses of Parliament, an oil refinery, or at an airport would create attention for his film.

Seven in court over 'foot spa' drugs

2008-07-14T09:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.theage.com.au/national/seven-in-court-over-foot-spa-drugs-20080714-3ezs.html

* July 14, 2008 - 7:07PM

A Vietnamese organised crime syndicate was behind an attempt to smuggle $31 million worth of drugs hidden in foot spas and massage chairs into Australia, a court has heard.

Five men and two women, including a Qantas flight attendant, faced Melbourne Magistrates Court today after the Australian Federal Police raided a Sunshine West warehouse on Saturday........

Qantas flight attendant Angela Wong, 23, of Padstow, New South Wales, and her boyfriend Han Trung Trinh, 23, of Punchbowl, New South Wales were today denied bail by magistrate Jelena Popovic on three charges of attempting to possess a commercial quantity of a controlled drug in relation to the ice, ecstasy and cocaine.

Minh Quang Nguyen, 31, of Brooklyn faced the same three charges while Manh Le, 40, of Canada, Phousadeth Phommalysack, 24, of Preston, New South Wales, Hung Van Luong, 49, of Laverton and Phuong Bich Nguyen, 31, of Springvale, were charged with an additional three offences of attempting to import the drugs.

Russia: An Eye for an Eye, Islam on the Streets

2008-07-14T08:56:00.001-07:00

http://www.westernresistance.com/blog/archives/004056.html

July 14, 2008

The story below was told to me by a Russian friend, a most respectable and upstanding person, and so I have no reason to doubt its veracity.... I've typed it below pretty much as he told me over dinner a few nights ago... At the end, some readers might think, ``Well, whatever happened to `Turn the other cheek''... That's a valid comment; but when violent and fanatical Muslims take their malicious plans and aspirations into one's own front yard, the right to self defense is even more valid.

---

Once, two years ago, my 60-year old uncle was walking down Nevsky Prospect late at night. He was in a good mood. Now, I have to say that uncle is a big man, a geologist, and is used to living in rough conditions in Siberia.

There weren't many people on the street that night/ early morning. Uncle was enjoying the beauty of St. Petersburg's historical center when suddenly he came across a man brutally beating a young woman. He went up to the man and asked what he was doing. The man answered with curses, in a thick accent, telling him to get lost or his Chechen brothers would come and kill him.

Uncle thought to himself there was no way he would let a punk of any nationality or creed brutally beat a young Russian woman. So uncle set upon him and settled the matter quickly. Within seconds, however, four more Chechens drove up, got out of the car and jumped on uncle. Two guys held his arms behind his back while the other two punched. They punched him and kicked him, and told him to say, ``Allah Akhbar''.

Bloodied and semi-conscious, uncle thought to himself: ``there is no way I am going to praise a false Muslim god on the main street of MY city.'' Uncle did nto capitulate, and never said what the Muslims wanted of him. They beat him senseless and left him unconcsious and bloodied.

It was late night. Uncle lay there for some time. The few people who passed by didn't help. When he came to, he managed to get up and stumbled home. Like many Russians he rightfully fears doctors and hospitals, and having spent much time living in the wilds of Siberia, he began to heal himself. With the help of his son he bandaged his broken ribs, and other wounds. Days went by and uncle's condition worsened, and he called his family to say he was dying.

He wanted to die in peace, and realized there was something he had to do. The next day he asked his son to bandage his wounds again, and this time to make the layer thicker and tighter. He didn't tell his son Why... Without telling his family, the next day he left the house, and went back to the same spot where he had been beaten. Sure enough he recognized two of the Chechen thugs hanging out... this was their `territory'... Uncle went up to them and began to beat the crap out of them. He beat them repeatedly and mercilessly... until they screamed out: ``Jesus is Lord''...

Satisfied, Uncle left them, and went home. He requickly recovered from his wounds, and is alive and well today.

Nurses at work with bogus papers

2008-07-13T07:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2008/07/13/4664_ntnews.html

July 13th, 2008

NURSES coming to Australia on skilled migrant visas have come with suspect documents, it has been revealed exclusively to the Sunday Territorian.

In 2006, four Zimbabwean nurses working in Queensland were caught with falsified certificates of good standing, a document needed to apply for work in Australia.

The certificates were issued by the Zimbabwean Nursing Board.

Three were found to have been genuine nurses who received their certificate earlier than they should -- but one was not. That nurse was deregistered.

The Department of Immigration said the nurse had since left Australia.

It said Zimbabwean nurses had certificates of good standing "incorrectly'' issued over a two-year period.

The NT is suffering a severe nursing shortage with increasing numbers of nurses arriving on the 457 visa to fill the gap.

In 2003-04, 40 nurses arrived on the 457 visa.

But last year the number more than doubled to 90 nurses, from countries including India, the Philippines and China.

Zimbabwe has been the biggest provider of 457 nurses in the Territory with 90 coming in the past five years as the country has slowly fallen apart.

Australian Nurses Federation NT secretary Yvonne Falckh said Royal Darwin Hospital was about 60 nurses short and Alice Springs hospital down 20 -- with the positions unable to be filled

British government to use shock tactics over knife crime

2008-07-12T23:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.theage.com.au/world/british-government-to-use-shock-tactics-over-knife-crime-20080713-3ecl.html

* July 13, 2008 - 11:25AM

Britain's government today announced new shock tactics to tackle growing concern about knife crime, including forcing young people caught with weapons to confront stabbing victims.

The plans would also involve offenders being taken to hospital emergency rooms to see people being treated for knife wounds, meeting the families of stab victims and prisoners locked up for knife offences, the Home Office said.

The measures, to be outlined as part of a wider crime action plan on Tuesday, are part of her department's response to a spate of horrific attacks last week that saw four people killed in London in just 24 hours.

There is also wider concern about the increasing number of teenagers killed by knives in the British capital this year and fears about a growing violent gang culture among the nation's youth.

Some 20 teenagers have been killed already this year, the majority of them by knives. Last month, two French students were killed in a southeast London flat. They had been bound, stabbed more than 200 times, then set on fire. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith rejected opposition calls for anyone caught with a knife to expect to go to prison, describing such a response as "simplistic" and "wrong" to think that punishment behind bars could solve the issue.

Image: Resistance Is A Duty - Not An Option!

2008-07-12T23:15:00.000-07:00

Resistance Is A Duty - Not An Option!

Our country is in peril like never before.

Our very existence, as a free people within an independent sovereign nation, is under dire threat.

Jobs coup in 50,000 Filipino worker deal for SA

2008-07-11T21:43:00.001-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24006453-5006301,00.html
http://www.downundernewslinks.com/?p=3277

July 10, 2008

ADELAIDENOW SCOOP: AN IMMIGRATION agreement with the Philippines will deliver up to 50,000 skilled workers to South Australia over the next decade.

Deputy Premier Kevin Foley, who is on a nine-day trade mission to Malaysia and the Philippines, told The Advertiser yesterday a memorandum of understanding between the two governments would help streamline the immigration process.

A special program will be introduced by the Philippines, under its Labour and Employment Secretary Arturo Brion, for SA companies to employ "highly trained" Filipino workers....

Under the agreement, yet to be formally signed, registered employers are connected with licensed immigration agencies in the Philippines that will pre-screen and prepare skilled workers to move to SA.

'"We will work with industry and business to identify the skill gaps and the needs," Mr Foley said. "We would be the first Australian Government to enter into a formal relationship with the Philippines Government to bring in skilled Filipino labour....

Mr Foley predicted about 50,000 skilled Filipino workers would come to SA in the next five to 10 years, with most expected to become permanent residents. "That is what has happened in Manitoba, Canada, and they have a similar population to us," he said.....

Most Filipino workers were expected to travel to SA on a 457 visa. That will allow them to stay for between six months and four years for work.

May, 2008, Belgium: African v white soccer riots

2008-07-11T00:33:00.000-07:00

http://forum.stirpes.net/immigration-crime/18040-belgian-police-detain-nearly-200-after-riots.html

What happened was, North African youth attacked a supporter of Anderlecht with the intention of stealing his wallet last weekend during the final of the Belgian Cup. Those Northern Africans got beaten up by a group of supporters for doing so. During this week muslim youth called for a violent confrontation with the 'white supporters' of football club Anderlecht on internet blogs (Anderlecht being an area of Brussels with a very high concentration of non European immigrants, mostly Islamic) Anderlecht supporters agreed to that invitation and during Friday evening supporters from other Flemish football clubs came to Anderlecht as support for the Anderlecht fans, including supporters from Ajax Amsterdam and Lille in northern France.

The Separatist’s World Cup

2008-07-10T23:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.newsweek.com/id/142594?tid=relatedcl

Jun 23, 2008

Last month, a crowd thronged Milan's Arena Civica to catch an unusual match. Anthems filled the air and flags fluttered from the stands: white with a green star for the home team; for the visitors, a sun radiating from behind the Himalayas. The teams were fierce rivals: Padania versus Tibet.

Welcome to football for nation-state wanna-bes. Aspiring separatist regions no longer have to rue their exclusion from nation-biased tourneys like the World Cup and Euro2008. Now, the NF Board—a league for "unrecognized nations" that includes members like Zanzibar and Wallonia—has organized its own championship, the Viva World Cup. Kicking off during the second week of July in Gallivare (that's Swedish Lappland to you), it features showdowns between such autonomist hopefuls as the aforementioned Padania (northern Italy), Kurdistan and Provence. Political agitating is discouraged—but since football fans have been known to talk trash during heated matches, insults about a rival's oppressor nation could very well make an appearance ("Istanbul's your daddy"). The first game, between Samiland and Kurdistan, takes place on July 7.

NSW: Ambulance Service bullying because 'white'

2008-07-10T20:36:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/04/2294573.htm

(ABC never mentions race, except for career white guys: the three modern day evils)

Fri Jul 4, 2008

The chief of the New South Wales Health Department has admitted pockets of bullying and harassment exist within the Ambulance Service.

A State Parliament inquiry is examining the management and operations of the service. The inquiry's chairwoman, Liberal MP Robyn Parker, says most of the 150 submissions received concern complaints by ambulance officers of bullying and intimidation.......

"However, I do believe that there are pockets of bullying and harassment in that organisation and I believe we have to work diligently to stamp that out."......

She says the most common bullies are statistically likely to be white males aged between 30 and 50, who have been employed in one organisation for some time.

"Of note, the Ambulance Service staffing profile is predominantly white male," she said.

Professor Picone says that is slowly changing......

Sydney: 'Brazen' drive-by shooting

2008-07-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/brazen-driveby-shooting/2008/07/11/1215658080643.html

(no mention of race)

July 11, 2008

Shots were fired at a hair salon undergoing renovations in Brighton-Le-Sands yesterday for the second time in three weeks in what police are calling a "brazen" crime.

The business on Bay Street was first shot at on June 24. A white four-wheel-drive was seen in the area on that date and a vehicle matching that description was found torched in nearby Banksia three hours later....

The first shooting occurred about 9.30pm whereas yesterday's attack happened at 5pm in dwindling daylight.

Police believe yesterday's shooting was not random but have not disclosed any suspected motive for the crimes.

"It's brazen to do it at 5pm in the afternoon," Detective Inspector Bamford said....

Wollongong: murdered for calling parents 'wogs'

2008-07-10T20:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/uncontrollable-rage-killer-jailed/2008/07/11/1215658095843.html

July 11, 2008

The man who forced a set of keys down his elderly neighbour's throat and strangled him has been sentenced to almost 19 years' jail.

Michael Barbetta, 44, pleaded guilty to the murder of David Smedley at the 65-year-old's unit on the NSW south coast in March last year.

The NSW Supreme Court in Sydney heard Mr Smedley was killed at Tarrawanna, in Wollongong, after a racial argument fuelled by a cocktail of drugs and alcohol.

In sentencing today, Justice Roderick Howie said Barbetta had killed Mr Smedley in an "uncontrollable rage" after he had called his parents "wogs".

"The offender became enraged due to what he perceived to be racial prejudice," Justice Howie said.

"There had been simmering resentment built up over time.".........

Sydney Chicken shop blast: owner charged

2008-07-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/ultimo-blast-charges/2008/07/10/1215658010654.html

Flashback to the night of the explosion.
Photo: Jonathan Chan, smh.com.au reader

Latest related coverage

'A great big blast'
Video: The aftermath of the chicken shop explosion in Ultimo.

Ultimo explosion
Audio slideshow: Eyewitness account of the Ultimo blast and dramatic rescue.

Dylan Welch
July 10, 2008 - 4:11PM

Police have charged a Nandos chicken shop owner and his brother-in-law over an explosion at his Sydney business which caused the evacuation of about 1000 people and was felt up to five kilometres away.

Owner Stan Prsa, 49, and his brother-in-law David Djurovic, 37, were charged over the potent petrol explosion in Ultimo on February 4, which left Djurovic with critical burns and forced the evacuation of about 1000 people from nearby homes.

The chicken shop, part of a nine-storey commercial and residential building on Mountain Street, was completely destroyed in the blast and the damage was estimated to be about $3.5 million.

Police will allege Djurovic only meant to torch the shop but inadvertently caused the explosion when the fumes from the petrol he had spread ignited, gutting the shop and leaving him in a critical condition with burns to 63 per cent of his body. He was released from hospital a month ago.

Iraqi 'smuggled 900 people to Australia'

2008-07-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

http://news.theage.com.au/world/indonesia-will-extradite-people-smuggler-20080709-3cix.html

July 9, 2008

Indonesian authorities say they will move to extradite an alleged people smuggling ringleader who helped 900 asylum-seekers reach Australia.

Iraqi man Hadi Ali Asgar El Ahmadi, 38, was apprehended on his arrival at Jakarta's international airport last month, after Interpol issued a "red notice" requesting his arrest.

Indonesian Immigration Office director general for Investigation and Law Enforcement Syaiful Rachman described El Ahmadi as a "big fish". He said Australian authorities were not involved in his arrest.......

"He's now still under investigation by the police and according to the interpol, he (will be) be extradited to Australia.

Perth: Knife attack accused in court

2008-07-09T00:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=77&ContentID=83794

9th July 2008

A 30-year-old man charged over the alleged knife attack of a pregnant woman has appeared in the Perth Magistrate’s Court....

His lawyer told the court that the man would require a translator at his next court appearance as he speaks limited English...

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/09/2298419.htm?section=justin

Police say 29-year-old Joyce Laduku was walking along Nollamara Avenue yesterday afternoon when her former partner got out of a car and stabbed her in the stomach, arms and neck.

------
Yahoo7 video said the woman is sudanese.

Protectionist: Changing course a must for Australia

2008-07-08T23:54:00.000-07:00

http://business.theage.com.au/changing-course-a-must-for-australia-20080708-3by0.html

# Martin Feil
# July 9, 2008

WE ARE at a watershed in our lives. From the early 1970s until now, we have participated in an economic experiment that was intended to create an international economy without barriers......

This was the sort of language used by the economic rationalists who morphed into free market economists. The rusty sheds are long gone. But so has most of our manufacturing capacity. We have watched our manufacturers sell their brand names and move their businesses to Asia. The services industries have not filled the exports shortfall.

Our foreign debt has been increasing by $50 billion a year for the past three years, despite the mining boom. We owe $600 billion to the rest of the world. We owed $180 billion 12 years ago. We owed nothing in the '70s.

The grand experiment hasn't worked. We were supposed to create outward-looking industries that could compete on even terms with the rest of the world. This didn't happen........

Change will only occur if we acknowledge that what we have done in the economy has not been the most successful economic strategy we could have devised.

Our leaders need to stop ignoring the trade barriers that the rest of the world uses. There is no such thing as free trade. Every country uses non-tariff barriers and gives preference through procurement to its own industries. Tariffs are passe. Non-tariff barriers are used by every industrial nation. Subsidies are a fact of life in the European Union and the US. There are no Fiats in Paris or Toyotas in Seoul. Why is that? The tariffs are low. (Zero for Fiats in the EU). Education and labour mobility are all very well but they are long-term, indirect solutions. We need to do something now.

Those manufacturers who are left have had enough. The remnants are ready to go offshore now.

The services sector, the media and the bureaucracy need to stop criticising manufacturing. They are the recipients of a lot of protection themselves, which they do not acknowledge. It is hard to lose your job in the public service.

In the past 10 years, many Australians have believed that it is stupid to work hard. Easy money from ever-rising stock markets was the way to go.

Making things takes education, time and a never ending commitment to the people who work with you.

The refrain about turning back the clock by bringing back high tariffs is true. They are past their use by date. In contrast, non-tariff barriers such as subsidies, government preference and local design rules have never stopped being introduced and have increased in the rest of the world.

Free trade is an even more antiquated fantasy. We can't turn back the clock to the simple 18th century times of David Ricardo when Pax Brittanica was the prevailing force. Even then the world economy was a much more complex place than Ricardo ever dreamt.

We need to change our minds, our attitudes and our approach if Australia is to remain a small, rich, economy whose ownership is basically in the hands of its inhabitants.

We are truly at the point where what is left of Australian manufacturing (and these are the really good stayers who have survived the free market pogroms) think that they should move offshore and simply live off their intellectual property and market conduits. More of the same 1970s policy will convince them to leave.

They must be convinced to change their minds.

Martin Feil is a tax and industry policy consultant and a former director of the Industries Assistance Commission.

Mineral testing work forced offshore

2008-07-08T23:50:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/09/2298567.htm?section=australia

A shortage of staff in Australia's mineral testing laboratories is forcing mining and exploration companies to use offshore laboratories to test minerals ...

He says Australian laboratories may also be forced to look offshore for staff.

"We have strong anecdotal evidence that the delays are blowing out from what would normally have been a four-week time frame to an eight-week time frame and that's caused largely by the amount of activity in the industry but also because assay labs, like everyone else, are struggling with skill shortages," he said.

Auburn, NSW: Man's thumb cut off in knife attack

2008-07-08T23:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23986270-29277,00.html

July 08, 2008

A MAN'S thumb was cut off in a knife attack by a group of men in which he also suffered a cut scalp and hand.

The 18-year-old was attacked by of seven men armed with knives while standing outside shops at Auburn, west Sydney last night, police said.

The man fled his attackers and called police....

African couple accused of tying, beating teenage daughter

2008-07-08T23:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,23988381-2761,00.html
http://www.downundernewslinks.com/?p=3266

July 08, 2008

A PERTH man and his wife appeared in court today accused of tying up their 13-year-old daughter with electrical cable and beating her repeatedly with a stick.

Sebastian Mwana, 55, and his wife Clemensia Ngendakumana, 50, appeared in Perth Magistrates Court this morning charged with deprivation of liberty and unlawful assault causing bodily harm....

The couple, who are from Africa and cannot speak English, used an interpreter during the brief court appearance.

Immigration forcing down standards?

2008-07-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

http://ozconservative.blogspot.com/2008/07/immigration-forcing-down-standards.html

What are some of the consequences of Prime Minister Rudd pushing immigration to record levels?

Well, pity the first home buyer. According to the ANZ bank, housing prices are set to soar again due to pent up demand ...

There will be cultural changes as a result of this. Parents and grandparents will have to play more of a role in purchasing housing for younger people, as happens in some Asian countries with high property prices. It will be more difficult for young people to establish financial independence early in life; it will also be more difficult for women to choose to devote a part of their life to raising young children at home.

We're also more likely to get low quality housing options:

A radical plan to solve Victoria's affordability crisis by putting shipping containers in caravan parks has infuriated social welfare groups.

and...

A millionaire landlord has been stacking up to 48 Nepalese students in a single house in northern Melbourne and dozens in two other rundown properties, say council investigators.

In today's Age, writer Lea McInerney describes the difficulty of finding a flat to rent:

Constant, fruitless searching in this high-pressure rental market is crazing me ... I behave obsequiously toward agents ... They get to decide how long my life stays on hold. One day I'm sitting in a park, feeling glum ... A friend rings and I burst into tears, not sure I can go on ... The lowest number of people I count inspecting a flat was 11; at the busiest one, a quirky two-storey place, I stopped counting at 60 ... One agent I came across, from the kindly camp, said: "Don't take it personally; it's a nightmare for everyone."

Perth: pregnant Sudanese woman stabbed

2008-07-08T08:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.bigpond.com/news/national/content/20080708/2298129.asp

video at http://au.yahoo.com/

Man questioned over stabbing

July 8, 2008 - 8:26PM
Source: ABC

Nollamara crime scene

Photo: ABC

Police are questioning a 30-year-old man over the stabbing of his former partner.

The 29-year-old woman was walking on Nollamara Avenue at Nollamara this afternoon, when a car pulled up, and the driver got out and stabbed her in the stomach, arms and neck.

The woman was given emergency first aid until an ambulance arrived.

Police found a 20 centimetre knife at the scene.

2006: Ethnic crime: Somalian and Sudanese

2008-07-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.australian-news.com.au/Ethnic_crime_African.htm

2006

Although there are only about 3,500 Somalis in Perth, they are responsible for a mini crime wave. Numerous violent crimes committed by Somalis have hit the headlines over the past three years.

The Somalis have introduced violent car-jacking to Perth. The perpetrators, mostly with links to the African Kings, a dangerous criminal gang, have carried out a series of violent carjackings, assaults and robberies. Some examples:

* Somali refugee Abdirak Mohmd Hassan was jailed for seven years after being convicted in the Supreme Court of Western Australia on 28 May 2004 over a series of violent carjackings, including two knife-point attacks committed between October 13 and 25, 2002. In sentencing, Justice McKechnie said Hassan's carjacking crimes indicated a disturbing pattern of criminality "largely alien to our society".

* Then in August 2005, Hassan again faced a Supreme Court trial over another violent carjacking. The victim, a young student feared she was going to die after the car she was driving was hijacked by Hassan and another Somali.

* Somali refugee Dhaqane Alim, 19, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court of Western Australia on 6 February 2004 to charge of armed robbery with violence in company. The court was told that on 20 May 2003 Alim and two co-offenders followed the victim from the Burswood train station before mugging him. Alim's co-offender, Jye Horton, who also faces an armed robbery charge, threatened the victim with a 15 cm knife while Alim grabbed the man's arms and rifled through his pockets, stealing a mobile phone and a wallet. The court was also told that Alim was a member of the African Kings street gang.

* On 22 March 2004 five men were taken to hospital after a violent clash between Somali and Aboriginal groups armed with knives and clubs in Perth's Northbridge area. One Aboriginal man received seven stab wounds and a suspected punctured lung after being attacked by a group of Somali men.

* Police were called to break up a violent brawl between a large number of Africans and Aboriginals in the Perth suburb of Mirrabooka on 27 December 2005. Police Commissioner O'Callaghan said police were called out 14 times in the last 12 months to similar brawls between Africans and Aboriginals.

Free Trade vs. Small Farmers

2008-07-08T06:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4179

April 27, 2007

The 20th century was a terrible blight on small farmers everywhere. In both wealthy capitalist economies and in socialist countries, farmers paid a heavy price for industrialization. In advanced capitalist countries like the United States, a deadly combination of economies of scale, capital-intensive technology, and the market led to large corporations cornering agricultural production and processing. Small and medium farms were relegated to a marginal role in production and a minuscule portion of the work force.

The Soviet Union, meanwhile, took to heart Karl Marx's snide remarks about the “idiocy of rural life” and, through state repression, transformed farmers into workers on collective farms. Expropriation of the peasants' surplus production was meant not only to feed the cities but also to serve as the source of the so-called “primitive accumulation” of capital for industrialization.

Today, perhaps the greatest threat to small farmers is free trade. And the farmers are fighting back. They have helped, for instance, to stalemate the Doha round of negotiations of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This tug of war between farmers and free trade is nowhere more visible than in Asia. ......

In India, tariff liberalization, even in advance of WTO commitments, has translated into a profound crisis in the countryside. Indian economist Utsa Patnaik has described the calamity as “a collapse in rural livelihoods and incomes” owing to the steep fall in the prices of farm products. Along with this has come a rapid decline in consumption of food grains, with the average Indian family of four consuming 76 kg less in 2003 compared to 1998 and 88 kg less than a decade earlier. The state of Andra Pradesh, which has become a byword for agrarian distress owing to trade liberalization, saw a catastrophic rise in farmers' suicides from 233 in 1998 to over 2,600 in 2002. One estimate is that some 100,000 farmers in India have taken their lives owing to collapsing prices stemming from rising imports ...

The suicide of the Korean farmer Lee Kyung Hae at the barricades in Cancun in September 2003 was a milestone in the development of farmers' resistance globally. Committed under a banner that read “WTO Kills Farmers,” Lee's suicide was designed to draw international attention to the number of suicides by farmers in countries subjected to liberalization. He succeeded only too well. The event shocked the WTO delegates, who observed a minute of silence in Lee's memory.......

Many economists, technocrats, policymakers, and urban intellectuals have long viewed small farmers as a doomed class. Once regarded as passive objects to be manipulated by elites, they are now resisting the capitalist, socialist, and developmentalist paradigms that would consign them to ruin. They have become what Karl Marx described as a politically conscious “class-for-itself.” And even as peasants refuse to “go gently into that good night,” to borrow a line from Dylan Thomas, developments in the 21st century are revealing traditional pro-development visions to be deeply flawed. The escalating protests of peasant groups such as Via Campesina, are not a return to the past. As environmental crises multiply and the social dysfunctions of urban-industrial life pile up, the farmers' movement has relevance not only to peasants but to everyone who is threatened by the catastrophic consequences of obsolete modernist paradigms for organizing production, community, and life.

Child pornography binge Saddam Hussein's fault

2008-07-03T02:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23960034-2862,00.html
http://www.downundernewslinks.com/?p=3249

July 03, 2008 12:00am

A BROADMEADOWS man who said he was once ordered to carry out a terrorist car bombing by the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq has been released on bail pending an appeal against his conviction on child pornography charges.

Mohammad Ali Salih, 45, of Lahinch St, Broadmeadows, was convicted of possessing and making more than 430,000 pornographic images and movies of children.

He was sentenced at Broadmeadows Magistrates' Court yesterday to two years' jail, with a 12-month non-parole period.

Turkey rounds up secularists over coup claim

2008-07-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23959304-2703,00.html

July 03, 2008

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the detentions were linked to the investigation into Ergenekon, a shadowy hardline secularist group suspected of planning bombings and assassinations calculated to trigger an army takeover.

"It is not the AK party they cannot tolerate - what they can't tolerate is democracy, the national will, the people's feelings and thoughts," Mr Erdogan said.

Ankara police said 24 people had been detained, but the prosecutor's office later told the Anatolian state news agency 21 were in detention and three more were being sought.

Among those detained were prominent retired generals Hursit Tolon and Sener Eruygur, the former chief of paramilitary police and head of a powerful secularist association. The Milliyet daily said a retired brigadier general and a retired vice-admiral had also been detained.

"These are prominent people and their common point is their loyalty to secularism. The Government wants to turn society into an empire of fear," said Mustafa Ozyurek, a politician in the main opposition party CHP.

Ankara Chamber of Commerce chairman Sinan Aygun and the Ankara representative of the Cumhuriyet newspaper were also detained. ......

Analysts say Ergenekon is part of the shadowy "deep state" - hardline nationalists in Turkey's security forces and state bureaucracy who are ready to take the law into their own hands for the sake of the secularist agenda.

More than 40 people, including a retired general, lawyers and politicians have been arrested over the past year for suspected links to Ergenekon. The military, which has repeatedly criticised the Government, has denied any links to the group.

Half of those detained were members of the powerful Kemalist Thought Association (ADD), a group promoting the principles of modern Turkey's founder. ADD helped call millions of Turks on to the streets to protest against the election of former foreign minister Abdullah Gul as president last year, sparking an early election.

Shortly after the detentions, Turkey's chief prosecutor outlined the case in the Constitutional Court to close the AK party, re-elected last year.

USA: 'Black national anthem' stirs controversy

2008-07-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/010929.html
http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=94919&catid=339

Singer Rene Marie was picked to perform the National Anthem preceding Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's annual state of the city address. Instead, on her own, she sang "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing," which is also known as the "black national anthem."

Lawrence Auster:

Just as Muslims can't help asserting their desire to spread and subject the world to sharia, because as Muslims they are supposed to do that, blacks just can't help asserting their blackness in public settings that are supposed to be non-racial, because that is what the entire black culture (e.g., Trinity United Church of Christ) is constantly telling them to do. And the more they do it, the more they lose any moral claim on white America's respect, concern, solicitude, or guilt.
So I say to black America: Go on, make our day.
I am, of course, not speaking of all black Americans as individuals, but of black America as a self-conscious community expressing itself as a community. If blacks want to organize themselves around blackness as their highest political loyalty, then they're not loyal to America, and we owe them nothing.
It's the classic Atlas Shrugged situation, as applied to race. Whites don't need blacks in order to live in a decent prosperous society, but blacks need whites in order to live in a decent prosperous society. They need us. We don't need them. As soon as whites understand this fundamental fact of life, the white guilt and the black thing will both collapse, opening the possibility of returning to a racially sane society--or, as I put it recently, of setting race relations in America back by two generations.

2 Turkish ex-generals arrested amid power struggle

2008-07-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2008/07/02/2_turkish_ex_generals_arrested_amid_power_struggle/

July 2, 2008

ISTANBUL - Turkish police arrested two retired generals yesterday on suspicion of plotting against the Islamic-leaning government as the rift between the prime minister and the defenders of the country's secular principles widened.......

Erdogan denied yesterday that the police operation in which the two former generals and 18 other people were arrested was politically motivated or designed to silence government critics, even though it was carried out just before top prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya outlined his case against Erdogan's party.......

Dozens of people, including retired military officers, have previously been detained during the investigation against an alleged network of extreme nationalists called "Ergenekon."

But onetime generals Hursit Tolon and Sener Eruygur, who were detained yesterday, were the highest ranking former soldiers to be arrested so far. Eruygur was a major organizer in antigovernment rallies last year.

Charity used 'terror' group to distribute aid in Gaza

2008-07-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

http://australianidentity.net/index.php?topic=1155.0
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23955630-601,00.html

July 02, 2008

A SYDNEY charity has admitted channelling aid into the Palestinian territories through an Islamic organisation banned by Australia and the US for its alleged links to terrorism.

Muslim Aid Australia has used Interpal - an organisation proscribed by former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer and declared a "specially designated global terrorist" organisation by US President George W. Bush in 2003 - to distribute medical aid in Gaza.

Interpal is a British-based humanitarian group also known as the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund. It has been cleared of terror links by the British Charity Commission but failed three years ago to have itsproscribed listing revoked in Australia, when lawyers for the group unsuccessfully petitioned Mr Downer.

Danger in growth for growth's sake

2008-07-01T21:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22193118-7583,00.html

Barry Cohen | August 06, 2007

Scene: The House of Representatives
Date: 29-5-2007
Time: 2pm
Program: Question Time

IS the Prime Minister aware that the basic reasons for the introduction of Australia's excellent immigration policy by the Chifley government in 1946 and continued by successive Liberal governments are considered by many people to be no longer applicable? Does he realise that vast population increases, once considered highly desirable, are now being questioned due to the pressure it places on education, health and social welfare services, housing and land prices and the consequent diminution in the quality of life that overcrowded cities have on our environment? Will his Government bring down a white paper on immigration so that a cost-benefit evaluation can be made?

Good question isn't it? It shows that at least one backbencher is on the ball and understands the crisis Australia is facing. There's one problem. I lied about the date. The question was asked on June 10, 1970. Modesty prevents me naming the prescient backbencher.

The prime minister, who, at the time, happened to be John Gorton, was shocked at the question and appalled that it had been asked by a Labor MP. Fred Daly, then Labor's shadow immigration minister, was none too pleased either. Questioning Labor's sacred post-war immigration policy was not on his or his colleagues' agenda. .........

In the decades that followed nothing much changed and then suddenly the debate about climate change exploded. Headlines daily scream about greenhouse gases, global warming, water shortages, air and water pollution, urban congestion and so on. What had, for years, been primarily the concern of the dark greens overnight became mainstream. The worst drought in our history suggests the Cassandras might be right. Even the sceptics, agree that action must be taken.

What is bizarre about the debate is that rarely is the connection made between the apocalyptic scenario painted by eminent scientists and the demand for a greatly expanded population. Why is that?

In part because public figures are nervous that any call by them for a slowdown in population growth will be interpreted as less immigrants which the multicultural lobby will call racism. That is nonsense but it will bedevil any attempt to develop a concerted attack on the environmental catastrophe many believe Australia is facing.

If our population continues to expand over the next 40 years as it has during the previous 40, by 2050 Australia will have a population more than 40 million. If that happens, all the solutions now being proposed by politicians and public figures won't amount to a hill of beans.

Barry Cohen was a federal Labor MP from 1969 to 1990.

Sick of the congestion? Time to talk about immigration

2008-07-01T21:03:00.000-07:00

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/sick-of-the-congestion-time-to-talk-about-immigration/2008/06/27/1214472765343.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
http://www.downundernewslinks.com/?p=3244

Michael Duffy
June 28, 2008

The congestion problems in the news this week have the same cause as a lot of other problems that make the Herald's front page. They're due to our increasing population, or more precisely, our failure to make adequate provision for it.

This might seem obvious, but in fact Sydney is in a state of denial about population increase. We don't prepare for it adequately and seem constantly surprised that public services and infrastructure fail. When they do, we blame politicians, or climate change, or the greed of people (other people) for cars and houses and air conditioning. Anything but what is often the main cause, population growth.....

Another reason immigration has been ignored is because to question it is to be seen as politically incorrect, even racist. This could why the environmental movement has largely ignored it, despite its central role in the problems the movement talks about all the time.

The Australian Greens' record on this has been documented by author and conservationist William J. Lines. Writing with Natalie Stone in People and Place in 2003, he noted: "Originally promulgated in 1995, the [Green] party's population policy was revised in 1998 and again in 2002. With each revision the Greens altered their principles, lessened their commitment to limiting population growth … [and] replaced concern about population and environmental degradation with a social justice, global human rights platform.".........

Barry Cohen, the former Labor politician, noted recently that it is bizarre to hold apocalyptic beliefs about human-induced climate change while supporting near-record levels of immigration.

It's time for a national conversation about immigration numbers. We'll be starting from a long way behind. At the moment the Government doesn't even have an overall number for immigration for next year, which is strange when you consider the Prime Minister's belief in planning and targets.

The issue of population was treated in a trivial manner by the 2020 Summit, which arrived at the following vision: "By 2020 we will have a sustainable population and consumption policy: while the population grows, net consumption should decrease."

Let's get real......

6 killed in Chechnya clashes amid upsurge of violence

2008-07-01T00:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/06/29/news/Russia-Chechnya.php

June 29, 2008

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia: Two separate militant attacks in Russia's Chechnya region killed three police officers and three civilians, a law enforcement official said Sunday.

A fourth officer was seriously wounded in one of the attacks, the latest in a moderate upsurge in the violence clouding the predominantly Muslim province's recovery from two devastating wars, the official said........

Major fighting died down years ago in Chechnya, the site of two wars since 1994 pitting separatist rebels against government forces.

The province is being rebuilt under Kremlin-backed strongman Ruslan Kadyrov, the regional president whose methods of establishing order and neutralizing opposition have prompted allegations of human rights violations. An unknown number of rebels are still active, many of them based in the mountainous south, and the region remains plagued by violence.

Ireland: immigration debate? Not likely ...

2008-06-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

WA needs 7000 extra homes each year

2008-06-30T05:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.wabusinessnews.com.au/en-story/1/64194/WA-needs-7000-extra-homes-each-year-HIA

30-June-08

Western Australia will need to build an additional 7000 new homes above current production levels each year to meet growing population demands, according to research by the Housing Industry Association.

HIA today confirmed almost one million new homes will be needed across the country in five years with residential population growing by 332,000 or 1.6 per cent in 2007.

The association said that demand for housing is being driven primarily by two key factors; strong immigration and the decline in the number of persons per residential dwelling.

1 million homes to keep up with immigration: HIA

2008-06-30T05:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/30/2290169.htm?section=australia

June 30, 2008

The Housing Industry Association (HIA) says housing supply is not keeping pace with Australia's booming immigration intake and one million new homes will be needed over the next five years.

HIA says there has been record immigration growth but no accompanying increase in housing.

The head of the association's policy division, Chris Lamont, says the problem is exacerbated because there has been a decline in the number of people per house.

He says he doubts the demand for housing will be met.

"The skills shortages that are plaguing the industry, limited land release and the limited investment are playing havoc," he said.

Cairns Muslims win fight for mosque

2008-06-30T05:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23929426-2702,00.html

June 27, 2008

THE small but determined Muslim community in Cairns has finally won the right to build the city's first mosque after an eight-year battle against an at-times hostile community and claims the religion was trying to "spread its tentacles" to north Queensland.

Work is expected to begin on the mosque within weeks after the Planning and Environment Court dismissed the final group of objections, noting freedom of religion was part of the fabric of the Australian community.

"It is in the public interest that persons who choose that faith, just as those who choose any other faith, have access to a safe and reasonably comfortable place of gathering and worship," judge Keith Dodds said.

Teens bring Grand Theft Auto to life on crime rampage

2008-06-29T02:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23933866-2,00.html

June 28, 2008

* Grand Theft Auto IV contains break-ins, muggings
* Teen gangs decide to re-enact scenes in real life
* Police say they couldn't separate fact from fiction

THE world's top-selling video game has been blamed for a two-hour crime rampage by a gang of six teens in New York.

The gang decided to take Grand Theft Auto IV from the television screen to the streets of Long Island.

In the video game, which has sold more than 8.5 million copies worldwide, players shoot police, sell drugs and car-jack vehicles.

The game, released in Australia last month, is the No 1-selling game on the Xbox 360 console and is rated MA15+ in Australia,

In the real-life re-enactment of the game, the crazed youths' rampage involved mugging, several break-ins and an attempted car-jacking in Garden City.

"They decided they were going to go out to commit robberies and emulate the character Nico Belic in the particularly violent video game Grand Theft Auto," said Nassau County Police detective-lieutenant Raymond Cote.

"These teens have difficulty separating fact from fiction, fantasy from reality. It was quite alarming."

Police said that the rampage began at 11.30pm on Tuesday when teenagers Brandon Cruz, 15, Gurnoor Singh, 14, Samuel Philip, 16, and Jaspreet Singh, 17, were sitting in Memorial Park in New Hyde Park looking for something to do.

NSW police seek multicultural recruits

2008-06-29T02:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/29/2288983.htm

june 29, 2008

New South Wales Police Minister David Campbell is leading a push for people from multicultural backgrounds to join the police force.

Police will today hold an open day at the Cabramatta PCYC, aimed at recruiting officers from diverse backgrounds.

Mr Campbell says 76 countries are already represented as the place of birth for serving officers in the state.

QLD: Cubbie expansion sparks Murray-Darling fears

2008-06-29T02:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/28/2288704.htm

Posted Sat Jun 28, 2008 1:44pm AEST
The Murray-Darling River from the air

Environmentalists say plans to expand Cubbie Station to grow food crops will affect the Murray-Darling (pictured). (File photo)

The nation's biggest and best known cotton farm, Cubbie Station, polarises opinion like no other agricultural operation.

And that could be exacerbated by the latest news from the Cubbie Group's chairman Keith De Lacy who has announced plans to expand to grow food crops.

"We think there's a revolution coming in the soft commodity markets and we're looking to expand and to grow," he said.

Mr de Lacy, also a former Queensland Treasurer, wants to capitalise on world food shortages and high prices.

He says Cubbie is diversifying into grain and wheat on its southern Queensland properties and may rely on foreign investors to raise up to $200 million to fund the expansion.

"We are looking to raise some capital and there is a lot of interest offshore," he said.......

Such an investment would require the approval of the Foreign Investment Review Board, however the news from Australia's largest privately owned irrigation layout, worries the lobby group, Fair Water Use......

"One has to be fairly confident that if the money is forthcoming, that the amount of cotton they grow will increase and that has to have a direct and a very negative impact on the Murray-Darling Basin as a whole," he said.

Adelaide: Man stabbed in group attack

2008-06-29T01:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23940996-662,00.html
http://www.downundernewslinks.com/?p=3240

June 29, 2008

A MAN has undergone emergency surgery today after being stabbed during an attack in Adelaide's north-western suburbs.

Police said the man, aged in his 20s, was walking along Hanson Road at Athol Park about 1.30am today when he was attacked by a group of males with knives....

The only description the victim could give police was that he was attacked by a group of five or six males of Asian appearance.

Guildford: Teen stabbed in neck after row

2008-06-29T01:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23940755-1242,00.html
http://www.downundernewslinks.com/?p=3241

June 29, 2008

Police say the incident occurred about 6pm (AEST) yesterday at a property in Talbot Road, Guildford, and police are looking for two other men.

“An 18-year-old man was stabbed a number of times to the neck and arms during an argument,” a NSW Police Force spokesman says.......

Two men are sought, and they are described only as being of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern appearance.

Ordinary people pay big price for free trade

2008-06-27T09:44:00.000-07:00

http://business.theage.com.au/ordinary-people-pay-big-price-for-free-trade-20080626-2xkf.html?page=1

* John Legge
* June 27, 2008

Free trade is simply a mechanism to benefit a few at the expense of many.......

Economists' devotion to free trade is like the Pope's devotion to the Immaculate Conception: both beliefs start from rumours dating back hundreds of years and neither is based on anything resembling scientific proof. The truth or falsity of such beliefs is irrelevant. Their main purpose is to separate believers from the rest — free trade versus protection; Catholics versus protestants; Collingwood versus Carlton. These are matters of belief, not fact.

The RBA claims to be tackling inflation but only people out of touch with reality could believe that closing factories in Victoria will stop the Saudis charging $150 a barrel for oil. Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage is often described as a proof of the benefits of free trade. It was actually a specious attempt to justify the imposition of an unfair treaty on Portugal. It wasn't comparative advantage that made the Portuguese open their country to British manufacturers, but the threat that if they hadn't agreed, the Royal Navy would have withdrawn and allowed the Spanish to conquer their country.

Free trade is unpopular because it causes hardship without offsetting benefits while industry policies are popular because they work. A strong manufacturing sector does not only benefit manufacturing workers. The fact manufacturing workers can earn relatively high wages drags up the wages in low-technology manufacturing and the basic service industries. Conversely, weakening manufacturing industry does not only affect the workers who lose their jobs, other low-skilled and semi-skilled workers also suffer as their avenues to higher-paying jobs are closed........

John Legge teaches innovation and advanced finance at Chifley Business School and Swinburne University.

Three charged over alleged Islamic school fraud

2008-06-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/27/2288006.htm

Posted Fri Jun 27, 2008 2:33pm AEST
Updated 10 hours 51 minutes ago

Islamic College, Dianella (ABC News)

The Director and two Principals of Islamic Colleges in Perth have been charged with fraud offences totalling more than $3 million.

The charges follow a lengthy police investigation by the Major Fraud Squad, including raids at schools in Thornlie, Kewdale and Dianella in January 2007.

Police allege the men had been creating false student enrolments to secure State and Federal Government subsidies.

Inspector Arno Albrecht says the state and federal agencies seeking student numbers operated on an honesty system.

"The defrauding of the government agencies was simply putting forward false numbers of students and as a result of that they obtained the subsidised funding," he said.

The charges relate to the 2005 and 2006 student subsidised funding applications.

Oz: fastest-growing population in developed world

2008-06-25T20:13:00.000-07:00

http://reclaimingaustralia.blogspot.com/2008/06/unprecedented-immigration-fueling.html

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23918355-5013169,00.html

David Uren, Economics correspondent | June 25, 2008

A FLOOD of migrants and a continuing rise in the birth rate gave Australia its fastest population growth in almost two decades last year.........

The 1.6 per cent increase in the population lifted the national total to 21.2 million.

Australian National University demographer Peter McDonald said the rise made Australia the fastest-growing nation in the developed world.

"The United States has a slightly higher fertility rate but our migration rate is much higher," he said.

The population was boosted by an extraordinary influx of 410,900 migrants and long-term visitors from overseas, far in excess of the 226,400 long-term visitors returning and Australian residents leaving the country.

Fruit shortage forces export plan rethink

2008-06-25T07:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/25/2285252.htm
Wed Jun 25, 2008

A bold plan to export 40,000 tonnes of citrus to Asia this year by South Australian Riverland growers has been shelved because of a lack of fruit.

Working under Planearl Proprietary Limited, growers Bill Lekakis and Ros McLintock met Asian delegates earlier in the year to organise a deal.

Mr Lekakis says, despite interest from local growers, drought and low water allocations have meant there is not enough fruit to export.

He says the pair will now look over the South Australian border to achieve the export deal.

"We have to look at the other side of it and that is to then purchase fruit from interstate," he said.

"Unfortunately the Riverland hasn't got the fruit there, so it means that we'll have to just take it from interstate which is Victoria and New South Wales."

Man charged over $15m drug seizure

2008-06-25T07:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23919888-1702,00.html

June 25, 2008

A SYDNEY man has been charged after the seizure of 45kg of pseudoephedrine at Sydney Airport, which police say could have been used to manufacture $15.7 million worth of the drug ice.

Customs seized the pseudoephedrine at the airport's air cargo facility on June 10, after finding it hidden in a consignment of glass boxes from Lebanon.

The Australian Federal Police investigated the shipment, and subsequently arrested a 28-year-old Guildford man after a search of his home.

Trad: UK is right to recognise polygamy

2008-06-25T07:41:00.000-07:00

http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20080625-UK-is-right-to-recognise-polygamy.html

Recently, the UK government gave formal recognition to a human practice that dates back to the Old Testament. The Old Testament tells us that historical greats like David had as many as 99 wives, Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines and Rehoboam had 18 wives and three score concubines. These are only three of many people listed in the bible as providing marital support for numerous women........

In that sense, the moot point of the UK government giving formal recognition to women who make the decision to enter such relationships is welcome because it gives these women necessary protections to bring them on par with other women. I am NOT calling on the Australian government to do anything in relation to this matter, I know that people, Muslim and non-Muslims in this country are sick of hearing about what Muslims want and don’t want and I have no interest or intention to create controversy. Having said that, I believe that it is appropriate to congratulate the UK government for going beyond the hysteria and looking earnestly at the needs of those minority of women who enter such relationships...

In all, people grow through discussion of their thoughts, certainly this growth is most needed to protect existing family unions.

Tamworth crime rate up

2008-06-25T07:33:00.000-07:00

http://tamworth.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/woodley-out-to-fight-crime/796303.aspx

... concern at the increased level of petty crime and vandalism in the city’s central business district.

During the council’s strategy and finance committee meeting earlier this month Cr Kevin Tongue asked that the apparent surge in antisocial behaviour be referred to the working group for discussion with Tamworth police.

The working group also endorsed a request by Cr Woodley for an allocation of $100,000 from the 2008-2011 financial management plan for security cameras to be installed in the Tamworth CBD.

Cr Woodley has also appealed to business owners in Tamworth to report any incidents of vandalism or petty crime to police in an effort use the information to increase the allocation of funds to fight this kind of crime.

He said the trend among shop and business owners to not bother reporting crime, because of a perception that the police would do nothing, was wrong and was self-defeating.

“The statistics the police have been pulling out don’t always give us a guide to (what is happening) with street crime,” Cr Woodley said.

He said Tamworth’s residents and ratepayers could not continue to accept antisocial behaviour as “being normal”. It was time to take a stand.

“Cars are being scratched, windows being smashed. People who ring the police and who don’t hear back don’t think anything is happening,” Cr Woodley said.

Students rejoice in belonging to a place

2008-06-24T22:32:00.000-07:00

http://fairfield.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/students-rejoice-in-belonging-to-a-place/796765.aspx

25/06/2008

BY JOCELYN LY OF CABRAMATTA HIGH SCHOOL

Tradition: Berala Primary School's Afgahni dance performance.

SEVENTEEN south-west Sydney schools and refugee support groups attended the regional Refugee Week celebration hosted by Cabramatta High School on June 19.

The school's Intensive Education Centre (IEC) counsellor and refugee resettlement program co-ordinator Elizabeth Pickering said the event was held at the school because of its peace garden and its multicultural student body.

``This event is very important to Cabramatta High School because recently their IEC celebrated its 30th year of education,'' she said.

The Education Department's regional director Tom Urry said about 62per cent of south-west Sydney students come from a different culture.

``Refugees are a really big part of Australia,'' he said.

``They make up the tapestry of our region and we value them a lot.''

School groups performed traditional Chinese, Afghani and African dancing.

Woman fights back following assault

2008-06-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/woman-fights-back-following-assault/2008/06/24/1214073188346.html
http://www.downundernewslinks.com/?p=3223
June 24, 2008

A woman who was attacked while walking in Brisbane's south on Friday night fought back and punched her assailant in the face, say police.

The woman, 18, was walking with a female friend, also 18, along Underwood Road at Eight Mile Plains around 11.45pm between Levington Road and Franquin Street.

They were approached by a man who pushed one woman to the ground and sexually assaulted the other, who hit back and punched him in the face.

The second woman called for help and contacted a family member.

The offender ran off across Underwood Road toward Levington Road.

He was described as being of Islander appearance and in his late 20s, with a proportionate build and about 183cm tall.

Child sex crime skyrockets

2008-06-24T07:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/child-sex-crime-skyrockets/2008/06/24/1214073209189.html

June 24, 2008

Children are committing sex crimes in record numbers in Queensland, with figures revealing up to a 2000 per cent rise in the rate of juvenile sex attacks in less than 10 years.

A 16-year-old boy this week became the latest juvenile to be charged with rape over an alleged attack on two schoolmates in South-East Queensland.

An Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) report released yesterday found that the overall number of sexual assaults had increased by 20 per cent across the country over the past decade, but said it could be due to an increase in the reporting of assaults, rather than an actual increase of the crime.

Queensland Police statistics over the past decade confirm the findings that sexual assaults by teenagers have risen substantially.

Govt urged to include E Timor in Pacific visa scheme

2008-06-24T07:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/24/2283702.htm

Jun 24, 2008

Former Victorian premier Steve Bracks has urged the Federal Government to include East Timor in its proposed guest worker visa scheme.

Mr Bracks, who is now and adviser to East Timor Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, has told ABC Radio National it is essential for the future growth of East Timor that young workers can have more employment opportunities as he says the rate of unemployment among young people is at 60 per cent.

"[East Timor] is in a rebuilding phase and part of that rebuilding is making sure that young people have opportunities for work but not only work - accredited training, leading to lifelong skills which can assist their country on their return," he said.

Federal Cabinet is considering a guest worker scheme which would allow workers from certain Pacific Islands to do seasonal work in Australia.

About 5,000 visas may be granted, but East Timor has not been included among the list of countries eligible under the plan.

Legalise polygamy, says Islamic leader

2008-06-24T07:07:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/24/2284660.htm

June 23, 2008

An Islamic leader in Australia is calling on the Federal Government to recognise polygamous marriages.

Keysar Trad from the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia says there are polygamists in the Muslim community in Australia who would like their relationships to be legal.

He has told triple j's Hack program that the women are left in a vulnerable financial position if the man dies.

"If this woman has wilfully chosen to enter into this relationship and make a lifelong commitment to this person to be married, it shouldn't matter," he said.

"If it was a business and the business had four partners we'd recognise that, but why don't we recognise it when it comes to consensual relationships amongst adults?"

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23916410-2,00.html

Sheikh Khalil Chami of the Islamic Welfare Centre in Sydney's Lakemba today said polygamous marriages, although illegal, existed in Australia and should be recognised.

"... Not an open door but in a way everyone will have control," he told Triple J radio's Hack program.

"It's a bit hard, very difficult, but unless we face it, how (do) we overcome it?

"If you know there is law that will help you, there is community will help you. Why not? Why not change the law?"

Sheikh Chami said he was asked almost weekly to conduct polygamous religious ceremonies.

While he declined to perform such ceremonies, he said, other sheikhs did not.

"There are a lot of sheikhs here without any qualifications, without any place," he said.

"They'll conduct that marriage no problem at all."

Doubt cast over foreign workers scheme

2008-06-24T07:06:00.001-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/23/2282631.htm?site=riverland

June 23, 2008

The National Harvest Labour Information Service says there is no point bringing in Pacific Islanders to work in the Riverland because there would be nowhere for them to stay.

An immigration scheme for workers from the Pacific Islands to ease skill shortages in Australia has been discussed in Federal Parliament.

But the service's manager, Mary-Anne Maloney, says the Riverland's navel packers and growers cannot take any extra workers in peak harvesting times because of a shortage in accommodation and transport.

"The infrastructure is perhaps, you could argue, in place in other regions, but in the Riverland that all needs to be in place for a scheme from the Pacific Islands to be considered," she said.

Population sees fastest rise since 1988

2008-06-24T07:04:00.000-07:00

http://news.smh.com.au/national/population-sees-fastest-rise-since-1988-20080624-2w4z.html

June 24, 2008

A mini baby boom and high immigration has seen Australia record its fastest population increase in two decades, statistics show.

In 2007, the population grew by 1.6 per cent, or 331,900 people, pushing past the 21 million mark, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) says.

It was the most rapid rise since 1988.

The national birthrate increased from 1.8 babies per woman in 2006 to 1.9.

The Australian National University's head demographer, Professor Peter Macdonald, said the baby bonus introduced by the Howard government had helped achieve the increase, but not directly because of the financial incentive.

Bank to shift Queensland jobs offshore

2008-06-24T06:59:00.000-07:00

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/bank-to-shift-queensland-jobs-offshore/2008/06/24/1214073210526.html

June 24, 2008

The personal loan details from hundreds of thousands of National Australia Bank's Queensland customers are heading offshore to India as the bank prepares to axe more than 120 jobs at its Coorparoo lending centre.

Although NAB staff have rejected the bank's offer to train the foreign workers who will eventually take their jobs, the bank will push ahead with its plan next month.

The Finance Sector Union (FSU) is outraged at the move, predicting thousands of back office banking jobs will go offshore to India in the next two years.

Michael Clifford, the executive secretary of the FSU in Queensland said the union was horrified at plans by the banking industry in Queensland and was concerned at privacy issues involving the loan information.

He singled out the NAB's latest move as a sign of things to come across the sector.....

"Well, he might want Australia to become the financial hub, but we don't want Australia to simply become the shopfront as they outsource our jobs," Mr Clifford said.....

Man charged over undeclared cash import

2008-06-23T22:32:00.000-07:00

http://news.smh.com.au/national/man-charged-over-undeclared-cash-import-20080623-2vf4.html

June 23, 2008

A Chinese man has been charged with attempting to import more than $50,000 in undeclared cash into Australia.

The 28-year-old man arrived at Sydney's international airport on a flight from Beijing on Saturday, authorities said in a statement ...

There are no limits on the amount of currency that can be carried in and out of the country, but it is illegal to move $10,000 or more - or the equivalent in foreign currency - without declaring it.

Two jailed over fatal attack on refugee

2008-06-23T06:51:00.000-07:00

http://news.theage.com.au/national/two-jailed-over-fatal-attack-on-refugee-20080623-2v88.html

He came to Australia to escape war-torn Sudan, but Morgan Harris Morgan lost his life to drunken teenage violence in Melbourne.

What began as a night of drinking with friends near Crown Casino in March 2006, ended with Mr Morgan, 20, bleeding to death in a Southbank park from a neck wound inflicted by a broken scotch bottle.

On Monday, his two killers, one of whom is himself a refugee, were jailed over the attack...

In sentencing the men, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter, Justice King noted their families came to Australia as migrants.

Simpas' father was born in Greece, his mother in Egypt. The other man, who was a minor when Mr Morgan was killed, came to Australia as a refugee from the Middle East.

Symposium: A revised Qur'an?

2008-04-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/020710.php
http://frontpagemagazine.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=A00F3895-42BB-4A7D-9FA5-4A19F3286EAD

Symposium: A New Koran?

By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, April 18, 2008

The organization Muslims Against Sharia is creating a new Koran with the violent verses removed. How legitimate and wise is this action? There is an effort in Turkey, for instance, to also revise Islamic texts. What real hope can these acts offer to bring Islam into the modern and democratic world? To discuss this issue with us today, Frontpage Symposium has assembled a distinguished panel.

...........

Finally, Abul Kasem’s question is highly pertinent and brilliantly put: "Mr. Yuksel, please tell me why must I not trust the most celebrated exegetes of the Koran, such as Jalalyn, ibn Abbas, ibn Kathir, Maududi and so on? Are you claiming they are inferior to you, or that they did not understand the Koran?"

To this, Mr. Yuksel answers only by telling us that he has answered this question elsewhere. Great. But in a symposium discussing the reform of Qur’anic ideas and Islam in general, it would have been nice if he had deigned to favor us with his wisdom on this all-important question. And his ridiculous finger-pointing Bible quotes, which are used today by no Jewish or Christian group to justify violence, have already been well answered by Jamie Glazov. But they put the coup de grace to any hope I might have had that we will see any real reform effort coming from such quarters.

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/010398.html

Spencer's decisive rejection of Islamic reform

A symposium at FrontPage Magazine discusses an effort to create a new Koran with the violence removed. Robert Spencer, who participated in the symposium, rousingly rejects the notion that large numbers of Muslims would ever accept such a revised Koran. He writes:

Many strange things have happened in history and I would never say that Islamic reform is absolutely impossible, but Westerners are extraordinarily foolish when they harbor any hopes of it actually happening on a large scale. We need instead to focus on efforts to defend ourselves both militarily and culturally from the jihadist challenge, and to continue to call the bluffs of pseudo-reformers who intend ultimately only to deceive Western non-Muslims--many of whom are quite anxious to be deceived.

That we need to defend ourselves from the Muslims, not try to change the Muslims into something like ourselves, has of course been the central focus of my own writings on the subject.

UK: Top universities 'foster extremism', says academic

2008-04-14T23:42:00.000-07:00

http://sheikyermami.com/2008/04/14/uk-universities-for-sale/

Top universities 'foster extremism', says security studies academic

13th April 2008

British universities are fostering extremism through Islamic study centres which were set up to tackle that very same threat, an academic has warned.

The centres, funded by multi-million-pound donations from Saudi Arabia and Muslim organisations, have been earmarked by the Government as a key component in the drive to counter radicalisation.

But according to a report by Professor Anthony Glees, the director of Brunel University's Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, some are proving to be counter-productive.

Netherlands: “They want to simply have us dead.”

2008-04-14T23:39:00.000-07:00

http://sheikyermami.com/2008/04/14/netherlands-they-want-to-simply-have-us-dead/

Monday, April 14, 2008

“Islam is a peaceful religion. Who agrees with that?” barely anybody does. In a meeting this weekend in Barneveld many Reformed Christian youth were afraid of “all those Muslims” who will “murder if they get power.”

The fear of the unknown violent Muslim only increased Saturday evening among almost 700 Reformed youth. Breathlessly they listened to a heated debate between Islam critical Arabist Hans Jansen, Ayhan Tonca, CDA (Christian Democratic Appeal) member and former chairman of the Contact Organ Muslims and Government and SGP (Reformed Political Party) head Bas Van de Vlies.

A woman with darker, curled hair said to the crowd that she still thinks of the Biblical text that says foreigners will waste the land. “Really we are too late. Mosques sprout out from the ground, against our culture.”

Van der Vlies nods in agreement and says that when he said Wilders’ movie was stimulating and spurred to discussion, the entire country attacked him, but there were also people who agree. “You don’t want to know how many people in The Hague, politically correct as they are, just watch the 750,000 moderate Muslims.” ...

Tonca’s words don’t touch everybody. In the recess a nurse tells that her Muslim colleague, dead-serious, said he’ll murder her if Muslims get to power. “They want to simply have us dead.”

1999: RISE OF ISLAMIST MOVEMENT IN TURKEY

2008-04-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

http://meria.biu.ac.il/journal/1999/issue3/jv3n3a4.html

Volume 3, No. 3 September 1999

THE RISE OF THE ISLAMIST MOVEMENT IN TURKEY

By Nilufer Narli

Editor's Summary: The author analyzes the rise of the Islamist movement in Turkey and the bases of its popular support through four successive Islamist political parties-National Order, National Salvation, Welfare, and Virtue-which have tried to represent the Islamist cause. The author shows that, aside from the factor of religion itself, much of the party's appeal is based on specific socio-economic groups and regional factors, as well as strains arising from modernization.

This is a Saudi textbook (still) ....

2008-04-14T03:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901769.html

By Nina Shea
May 21, 2006

Saudi Arabia's public schools have long been cited for demonizing the West as well as Christians, Jews and other "unbelievers." But after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis -- that was all supposed to change.

A 2004 Saudi royal study group recognized the need for reform after finding that the kingdom's religious studies curriculum "encourages violence toward others, and misguides the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the 'other.' " Since then, the Saudi government has claimed repeatedly that it has revised its educational texts.......

The problem is: These claims are not true.

A review of a sample of official Saudi textbooks for Islamic studies used during the current academic year reveals that, despite the Saudi government's statements to the contrary, an ideology of hatred toward Christians and Jews and Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine remains in this area of the public school system. The texts teach a dualistic vision, dividing the world into true believers of Islam (the "monotheists") and unbelievers (the "polytheists" and "infidels")......

Hamid: mainstream Islam promotes violence

2008-04-14T02:43:00.000-07:00

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7216&page=2

Or listen to Tawfik Hamid, a former member of the Islamist terrorist group Jemaah Islamiya, who is now a Muslim reformer living in the West. In The Wall Street Journal of April 3rd, 2007 he wrote:

"It is vital to grasp that traditional and even mainstream Islamic teaching accepts and promotes violence. Shariah, for example, allows apostates to be killed, permits beating women to discipline them, seeks to subjugate non-Muslims to Islam as dhimmis and justifies declaring war to do so. It exhorts good Muslims to exterminate the Jews before the "end of days." The near deafening silence of the Muslim majority against these barbaric practices is evidence enough that there is something fundamentally wrong".

Vic: Teachers in bid to boost religious tolerance

2008-04-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/teachers-in-bid-to-boost-religious-tolerance/2008/04/11/1207856836923.html

April 12, 2008

TEACHERS from Muslim and Christian high schools are working on a shared curriculum to combat religious stereotypes and promote tolerance among students.

In what is believed to be the first such initiative in Victoria, 10 religion teachers — backed by the Catholic Education Office, Australian Catholic University and the Muslim-run Australian Intercultural Society — are producing a set of guidelines including a list of "balanced and useable" texts for teaching about the history and values of Islam and Christianity.

"We already have a level of religious intolerance in Australian society and we need to take steps to ensure that is challenged among young people — and I see this project as contributing to that in the long run," Kath Engebretson, of the Australian Catholic University, said.

S. Africa: Police given 'shoot to kill' order

2008-04-10T03:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23518173-1702,00.html

April 10, 2008

NEW DEPUTY MINISTER

On behalf of the SAPS Communication and Liaison Services, we extend a sincere word of welcome to the newly appointed Deputy Minister for Safety and Security, Ms Susan Shabangu.

SOUTH African police must shoot to kill and ignore regulations in the battle against one of the worst rates of violent crime in the world, a government minister says.

"You must kill the bastards (criminals) if they threaten you or the community. You must not worry about the regulations," said Deputy Safety and Security Minister Susan Shabangu.

"I want no warning shots, you have one shot and it must be a kill shot," she told police officers, according to the Star newspaper today.

South Africa suffers some of the highest levels of violent crime in the world, with murders, hijackings and rape an everyday occurrence.

Police figures show nearly 20,000 people are murdered a year, sparking public anger at the inability of authorities to ensure safety.

Denmark: Headscarves OK in parliament

2008-04-10T03:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.cphpost.dk/get/106578.html
09.04.2008

The long-standing conflict over whether an MP may wear a headscarf in parliament was resolved by the board of governors

It was a victory for the Red-Green Party's Asmaa Abdol-Hamid and a bitter defeat for the Danish People's Party on Tuesday when parliament's board of governors ruled that MPs may dress as they wish in parliament, so long as they can be recognised by their colleagues.

The decision was specific taken up in response to the issue of women wearing the traditional Muslim headscarf.

Abdol-Hamid is a parliamentary candidate for her party, and she said she would continue wearing her headscarf should she become an MP. The Danish People's Party (DF) sought to forbid headscarves in parliament and filed a complaint with the board.

Although the board approved the wearing of headscarves, its ruling means the Muslim burka, which covers all of a woman's body, is forbidden.

Abdol-Hamid was happy with the ruling.

'It's the decision I expected. Anything else would have been a blow against democracy and in conflict with the constitution,' she said.

Søren Espersen, DF's board member, was the only one voting against the headscarf in parliament.

'I'm saddened by the decision. It's a bow to the oppression the headscarf symbolises,' said Espersen.

Video of Arab gun-toting gang released

2008-04-09T05:43:00.000-07:00

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=443600

New footage of gun-toting gang released

http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/latest_releases?sq_content_src=%2BdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmViaXoucG9saWNlLm5zdy5nb3YuYXUlMkZtZWRpYSUyRjE0NjEuaHRtbCZhbGw9MQ%3D%3D

Tuesday, 08 Apr 2008 10:28am

Detectives investigating a potentially fatal shooting in Yagoona last year have established a link with an incident in Surry Hills almost three weeks earlier.

A 50-year-old man was sitting in his car on Rose Street, Yagoona, about 3.30am on Friday 21 September and was due to start work installing fiberoptic cable in the area.

‘Paul’ saw two men walking from the Hume Highway towards his workmate’s car, which was parked behind him. One of the men stood on the roadway and pointed a rifle at his workmate.

Paul started his car, with shots being fired as he tried to drive off. One of the bullets came through a window and struck him. He was hospitalised for two weeks before being released – with the bullet still lodged in the base of his skull.....

As a result of ongoing inquiries by detectives, a link has been established with a shooting in Surry Hills almost three weeks earlier, on Sunday 2 September.

CCTV has been released of an altercation outside a business about 3am on Blackburn Street involving two groups of men..........

Police are also appealing for help to identify up to four men of Middle Eastern/Mediterranean appearance involved in the fight, who are believed to have returned to the location 90 minutes later in a white hatchback.

The white hatchback was seen idling on Blackburn Street as three friends got into their nearby car about 4.30am. The hatchback pulled alongside the trio’s car and a number of shots were fired before the hatchback sped from the scene.

Parramatta station is a crime hot spot

2008-04-09T05:28:00.000-07:00

http://parramatta.yourguide.com.au/news/local/general/station-is-a-crime-hot-spot/1219639.html

09 April 2008

PARRAMATTA train station is one of the state's most dangerous places for assaults and robberies according to police statistics.

The figures from the police transport policy unit, published in The Sydney Morning Herald, showed Parramatta station was in the top five on a list of more than 400 rail facilities including trains, stations and station car parks with 43 assaults reported in the period from December 2006 to November 2007.

A total of 49 thefts was also reported at Parramatta station during the period.

Parramatta Council recently adopted a crime prevention strategy in which statistics from the Parramatta police command also suggested the the bus/rail interchange and surrounding areas were crime hot spots.

Vic: police fudging crime rate figures

2008-04-09T05:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23509393-5014265,00.html

April 09, 2008

PREMIER John Brumby has consistently praised Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon for cutting Victoria's crime rate by 23.5 per cent.

But many police responding to the Herald Sun survey said crime statistics were recorded in a way that means far more offences are committed than are ever made public.

And they said force hierarchy manipulated statistics to make it look as though there was no shortage of operational officers.

"There has to be an end to the manipulation and distortion of crime figures so that the people of Victoria have a realistic view of what crimes are being committed where, and so resources are allocated to where they are needed," one officer said.

Another called for less "fudging of crime statistics" by command.

"It is obvious that crime is not being reduced. However, police command continue to claim it is, in order to satisfy the requirements of their contracts," the officer said.

Bank employee, Asian, accused of $1.4m fraud

2008-04-09T05:22:00.000-07:00

http://news.theage.com.au/bank-employee-accused-of-14m-fraud/20080409-24ul.html

April 9, 2008

A Sydney woman accused of defrauding her bank employer of $1.4 million over eight years repeatedly bumped up her overdraft by thousands of dollars at a time, a court has been told.

Veronica Yee Fong, 45, of Redfern, appeared before Sydney's Central Local Court on Wednesday, charged with 22 counts of obtaining benefit by deception.

Expat firms in PNG need to combat crime

2008-04-09T05:15:00.000-07:00

http://news.smh.com.au/expat-firms-in-png-need-to-combat-crime/20080409-24sx.html

April 9, 2008 - 12:41PM

Expatriates seeking to run a business in Papua New Guinea have been told they need to be better prepared against crime than in the past.

Crimes such as sabotage, embezzlement, vandalism and burglaries appear to be on the rise, a new study suggests.

Cairns: $10,000 card spree, Asians wanted

2008-04-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2008/04/09/2965_local-news.html

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Wanted: Police say this Asian couple is responsible for a three-day citywide shopping spree using fake credit cards.

THIS Asian couple used fake credit cards to rip off at least 10 Cairns businesses in a $10,000-plus shopping spree, police say.

The pair bought liquor and gift vouchers during their three-day splurge at shops from Mt Sheridan to Smithfield last week.

Police suspect the young man and woman belong to an organised crime gang from Sydney and are linked to a similar scam on the Gold Coast where fraudsters racked up purchases totalling more than $70,000 using dodgy credit cards.

Fiji: another victim of immigrant colonisation

2008-04-08T20:31:00.000-07:00

http://sarahmaidofalbion.blogspot.com/2008/03/losing-paradice.html

Another reason for mentioning Fiji is that it provides us with a very good example of of how fragile an indigenous culture is, and how vulnerable an indigenous people can be when faced with an aggressive, or ambitious, immigrant race.

A great damage done to the Fijian people was partly due to a charming if unfortunate national characteristic, namely the total lack of the Puritan work ethic, and also due to one of the very few acts of Empire for which the sometime British Colonial rulers of Fiji could justifiably feel a pang of guilt.

Towards the end of the 19th century, having discovered that the average, culturally laid back Fijian will seldom do today what can be put off until tomorrow, the British imported a number of Asians to Fiji to work in the sugar cane and copra plantations (why does an image of a Pacific Empire Windrush spring to mind?) and set in motion an inevitable chain of events which led to the problems which now beset those troubled Islands.

As we have seen happen elsewhere in the world, not least in Britain, over the ensuing years, the Asian community in Fiji made heroic and spectacularly successful efforts in terms of increasing their numbers and producing a rapidly growing Fijian Asian population, which, according to the 2007 census now amount to almost 37% of the total Fijian population.

In common with their kin folk elsewhere in the world, the Fijian Asians are a very ambitious and industrious race of people, especially by comparison to the less driven Fijians, and consequently by the end of the 1990s, not only did they own and run most of the businesses in Fiji, but Fiji had an Indian prime minister and an Indian dominated parliament. This has led to considerable ethnic tension in Fiji, and has resulted in a series of no less than four coup attempts in the last two decades most famously the one in 2000 led by the charismatic George Speight which attempted to ensure that power remained in the hands of ethnic Fijians.

Ominously, given what we may soon see in Europe, this act of ethnic preservation was viewed as akin to heresy in the politically correct world of the 21st Century. International outcry followed, and Fiji found itself (albeit briefly) expelled from the Commonwealth as punishment for its inexcusable racism. George Speight, a man who, although flawed, had acted in defence of his own people, was (bizarrely) tried for treason and sentenced to death, although that sentence was later commuted. Speight's fate is a warning to national patriots elsewhere in the world that those who love their country and their people face a deadly enemy.

An uncomfortable truce now exists in Fiji whilst a resentful and nervous indigenous population watch helplessly as, month by month, year by year, they lose more and more power within their own land, in the full knowledge that any attempt to prevent the gradual theft of their homeland will instantly result in international condemnation.

This is not how the media have chosen to report events in Fiji, but it is what has actually happened, and we can see parallels to the Fiji experience all over the world, not least in Europe.

We in Britain would do well to note the fate of that tiny Island race, with a unique and vibrant culture , and wonder whether it delivers in a scaled down form, a warning of what could happen to us. The Fijians are black, we are white, but that is where the difference ends, Fiji is their land, Britain is ours and those who seek to deny those truths are liars.

Race Fears Still Haunt the US

2008-04-08T05:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/187950.html
April 6 2008

Yet, since 1968, much of black America has also been beset by disaster. A vast underclass inhabits America's ghettos, mired in joblessness, drugs and gang violence. In the inner cities half of all black males do not finish high school. Six in 10 of those will end up in jail by the time they reach their mid-thirties. These people grow up in an environment often more segregated, more hopeless and more dangerous than the Jim Crow era of the Deep South.

It is perhaps one of the greatest paradoxes facing modern American black leaders such as Charles Steele, now president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which King founded and used as his tool to bring civil rights to America. 'If Dr King was alive now, he would be distressed and disappointed in America,' Steele said. 'America is still racist to a large degree. More so perhaps. It's subliminal and embedded in the system.'

That is pretty much the view of Thelma Townsend, 68, who should be retired but still works as a nurse in the suburb of Orange Mound. The suburb is a landmark in Memphis, built for black Americans more than 100 years ago on the 5,000-acre site of a slave plantation. Once it rivaled New York's Harlem as a center of black culture and economic power. But now it has been hit hard by drugs and gangs and unemployment. Many houses are dilapidated and abandoned. Townsend snorts in disgust at the past 40 years in black America. 'It ain't changed for the better that I can see,' she said. 'Drugs are rampant, so killings are rampant. If anything, it's got worse around here.'

This is the bad side of black America since King died, and it exists in cities across the country. In Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Washington, Kansas City, St Louis and many other places, once proud black neighborhoods have fallen prey to the ravages of crime and drugs. Even King's hometown neighborhood of Auburn Street in Atlanta is a wreck and shadow of its former self. Orange Mound and other black Memphis inner-city suburbs are typical. Gangs with such names as Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples boss the local drugs trade. Killings and shootings are common. Drug addicts seem more common than jobs.

The roots of this decay partly lie in the fatal shot that felled King. His murder sparked race riots in 125 cities that left 46 people dead, 2,600 injured and 21,000 arrested. Entire black and inner- city neighborhoods were burnt down overnight. Many never recovered. The violence quickened the process of 'white flight', destroying the tax base of many city cores.

At the same time new civil rights laws allowed the black middle class to flee too. What was left behind became the underclass, deeply vulnerable to the wave of drugs such as crack and heroin that invaded in the Seventies and Eighties and hit by the decline in manual jobs as America's manufacturing industry disappeared overseas.

Statistics indicate that things are getting worse. More black people are being jailed than a decade ago. Only 31 per cent of black children born to middle-class parents earn more than their parents, compared with 68 per cent of white children. More than half of black workers are stuck in low-paid jobs..............

Memphis is a city much in need of such a project. The city is split almost 50-50 between black and white. Yet it feels like a segregated place whose two halves rarely meet, maintaining their own neighborhoods, schools and parks. It is a city where the issue of race lies constantly under the surface, boiling below a patina of tourist-friendly Southern charm. 'Race underlies everything in this community. We need to have these discussions, even though they are painful and messy,' Thomas said.

That is true. The fact remains that even middle-class black people and whites have fundamentally different perceptions of America. While many whites are flocking to Obama's campaign on the base of its post-racial appeal, that is not how many blacks see it. As he sweeps up more than 90 per cent of the black vote in the Democratic race, there is a clear feeling of racial pride in his candidacy. Indeed fervor and hope for Obama have become a keystone of black America in 2008. 'It is unreal. It is surreal. I hate to hope too much. But I genuinely think that King would be bursting with pride,' said Thomas.

But there are many other points on which black and white Americans differ. Many whites were outraged when Obama's former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, said the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington were 'chickens coming home to roost'. They saw his words as conspiracy-minded, unpatriotic and anti-white.

But many blacks reacted with a collective shrug, pointing out that much of what Wright said - even some outrageous claims about government conspiracies - were fairly common in some urban black churches and always had been.

The news would have come as less of a shock if black and white Americans (both of which groups are deeply religious) worshiped together. But they do not. Thomas, a Memphis native, has spent years looking for a racially mixed church to go to each Sunday. 'I still have not found one,' she said. That sort of de facto segregation has kept black and white America very much apart. After all, both have had such a different experience of the country. With the black middle class there is still a certain ambivalence about America; about whether they have truly been accepted. And there is a lot of evidence to say they have not been,' said Podair.

Ironically, one of the main reasons blacks and whites may start addressing race is in the growth of the Hispanic community in America. Hispanics are now America's largest ethnic minority, overtaking blacks, and numbering about 44 million people. They have pioneered communities all over the US, fundamentally changing the dynamics of race in a country that has long seen itself in terms of literal black and white.

Even in Memphis the issue has begun to appear. It is thought the number of Hispanics in the city could top 50,000 people. One in 10 babies in the city born last year was Hispanic. There is a Spanish-language local newspaper, Spanish radio stations and churches offer Spanish-language services. If black and white Americans really want to have a discussion about race, some think they need to hurry up and start talking before the conversation changes entirely.

Has America Overcome Segregation?

2008-04-08T05:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_nandinee_080405_has_america_overcome.htm
4/5/08

Has America really overcome segregation, in the same way as it has put a man on moon? Is it an achievement that is done and over with? In the 21st century, several cities and suburbs in America remain highly segregated. African Americans face, by far, the highest levels of residential segregation, and Latinos, especially lower income Latinos, live in segregated conditions too. U.S public schools are re-segregating to alarming levels throughout the length and breadth of the nation. Schools are re-segregating most rapidly in the South. In some parts of the country, Latino students today face higher levels of school segregation than even African American students did before the Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision of 1954 ........

The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world today, and segregated minority neighborhoods directly contribute to this. There are few employment opportunities available for residents of such neighborhoods and crime levels are high...........

If these trends are allowed to continue, the U.S. could easily become a place like or worse than Brazil, with a severe division between the mainstream and those who live in slums or favelas, and where brutality against poor, minority children is commonplace. Early symptoms of what is in Brazil a full-blown syndrome are already visible in the U.S. Our criminal justice system is increasingly putting children in prisons. The number of juvenile offenders in state prisons more than doubled between 1985 and 1997, at a time when the incidence of serious and violent crimes by youth was decreasing. The Children’s Defense Fund in the U.S. has termed these alarming trends “The Cradle to Prison Pipeline®.

Segregation in America must be overcome. For the sake of one nation with liberty and justice for all.

Mexico reconquers California? Absolut drinks to that!

2008-04-05T05:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/010301.html

The latest advertising campaign in Mexico from Swedish vodka maker Absolut promises to push all the right buttons south of the U.S. border, but it could ruffle a few feathers in El Norte.

The billboard and press campaign, created by advertising agency Teran\TBWA and now running in Mexico, is a colorful map depicting what the Americas might look like in an "Absolut" -- i.e., perfect -- world.

The U.S.-Mexico border lies where it was before the Mexican-American war of 1848 when California, as we now know it, was Mexican territory and known as Alta California.

UK: "no more mosques"

2008-04-04T07:48:00.000-07:00

"No More Mosques”

from Gates of Vienna by Baron Bodissey

A sane voice has been raised within the governing body of the Church of England.

Needless to say, the sane member of the General Synod is not a clergybeing, but a lay person. Unlike the clergy — who are susceptible to pressure from the PC Anglican hierarchy — lay people are harder to tamp down and keep under control.

Ms. Alison Ruoff is certain to bring down the wrath of — well, of someone, since Anglicans don’t really believe in God anymore — for speaking the plain truth. According to The Daily Telegraph:

Mrs Ruoff, speaking in an interview with Premier Radio, the Christian radio station, said: "No more mosques in the UK. We are constantly building new mosques, which are paid for by the money that comes from oil states.
"We have only in this country, as far as we know, 3.5 to four million Muslims. There are enough mosques for Muslims in this country, they don't need any more.
"We don't need to have sharia law which would come with more mosques imposed upon our nation, if we don't watch out, that would happen. If we want to become an Islamic state, this is the way to go.
"You build a mosque and then what happens?
"You have Muslim people moving into that area, all the shops will then become Islamic, all the housing will then become Islamic and as the Bishop of Rochester has so wisely pointed out, that will be a no go area for anyone else.
"They will bring in Islamic law. We cannot allow that to happen."

Men charged over stabbing - St Albans

2008-04-04T07:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.police.vic.gov.au/content.asp?Document_ID=14920

Fri 4 April 2008

Two men have been charged with attempted murder following a stabbing in St Albans yesterday.

A 30-year-old Keilor Downs man received two stab wounds to the upper and lower body after being attacked in his car on Main Road East around 2.40pm.

The man was taken to Royal Melbourne Hospital with life threatening injuries and is in a stable condition.

Phat Van, 50, of Springvale, and Jimmy Zainal, 24, of St Albans have been remanded in custody to appear at the Melbourne Magistrates Court later today.

Temp visa plan for 'labour drought'

2008-04-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2207510.htm

3 April , 2008

The National Farmers Federation today launched a 42-point action plan to try and fill what it calls the chronic labour shortage in agriculture.

The NFF says that if the drought breaks across the country, the sector will need 100,000 employees.

The organisation is calling for changes to the 457 visa legislation, and the creation of a seasonal visa programme targeting Pacific Islanders.

The government says it's assessing a temporary visa programme being tried out in New Zealand to see if it could work here.

NZ man extradited on Sydney murder charges

2008-04-04T07:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/04/2207839.htm

Fri Apr 4, 2008

A New Zealand national has been extradited to Australia to face a murder charge over the stabbing of another man in north-west Sydney earlier this year.

Relatives of the victim, Josef Maskiewicz, found his body outside his Castle Hill home on Friday, February 22.

Manly, NSW: asians assault man in take-away

2008-04-04T07:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/latest_releases?sq_content_src=%2BdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmViaXoucG9saWNlLm5zdy5nb3YuYXUlMkZtZWRpYSUyRjE0MjQuaHRtbCZhbGw9MQ%3D%3D

04 Apr 2008

Manly Detectives are appealing for public assistance in their investigation of a serious assault after a man was hit with a chair in a take-away store last month....

Both males are aged in their late teens and are of Asian appearance. The first man is described as being approximately 165cm in height, slim to medium build, black spiky hair wearing a black coloured t-shirt and jeans and white coloured shoes.

The second man is described as being 175cm in height, muscular build, black coloured hair with dyed blonde top and fringe. He has a tattoo on his left upper arm and was wearing blue pants and white shoes.

The 27-year-old man received lacerations to his head and was conveyed to Manly Hospital for treatment.

Real cost of tariffs aids case for cuts

2008-04-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23481620-2702,00.html

April 04, 2008

NEW evidence that tariffs cost Australians $9.1 billion a year while providing a net benefit to industry of just $1.4 billion will provide a powerful boost to Treasury arguments to wind back protection.

The future of tariffs is dividing the Government, with Industry Minister Kim Carr's push for continued support for manufacturers meeting resistance from Wayne Swan and Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner.

The Treasurer backs his department's view that tariffs impose a heavy cost on the economy. But Senator Carr believes tariff protection has an important continuing role, and has bypassed the Productivity Commission in setting up reviews for the motor vehicle and textile industries, as well as support for research and development.

Man taped organising 'mujahideen' walk

2008-04-04T06:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23484512-2702,00.html

April 04, 2008

AN alleged member of a Muslim terror cell was recorded organising a visit to bush near Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport to "be mujahideen".
In the intercepted telephone call played to a Victorian Supreme Court jury yesterday, Bassam Radd, 26, telephoned another alleged member of the group, Ezzit Raad, 26, to invite him on the “night walk”.

“We're gonna go into ... the bush where Tullamarine airport is,” said Bassam Radd. “We just gonna ... go there, run through there.”

When Ezzit Radd laughingly replied “you are psychos”, Bassam Raad responded: “I swear, but we have to be mujahideen, man.”

Ezzit Radd then warned that mujahideen was the wrong word to use over the telephone.

Bassam Radd replied: “I just thought that after I said it.”

Airliner Bomb Plot Trial Begins in UK

2008-04-03T20:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040301948.html

In this undated combination handout photo issued, Thursday, April 3, 2008 by the Metropolitan Police, the eight men on trial accused of planning to bomb airliners bound for the United States and Canada are seen,

Thursday, April 3, 2008; 9:14 PM

LONDON -- Eight British men planned to set off homemade bombs aboard at least seven airliners flying over the Atlantic to the United States and Canada, hoping to kill hundreds in a mammoth terror attack, a prosecutor said Thursday as their trial opened.

Prosecutor Peter Wright said the men had plotted coordinated strikes on United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada flights at the height of the summer vacation season in 2006.

Details of seven specific flights from London's Heathrow airport to Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Washington, Toronto and Montreal were stored on a computer memory stick, he said in the opening statements of a trial expected to last around six months.

Major disruptions were caused at British airports as hundreds of flights were ordered grounded when police arrested the suspects in August 2006 in the alleged plot to use explosive liquids to blow up planes.

"The attack they contemplated was not long off" when police swept in, Wright said......

He said the plot was intended to be a "violent and deadly statement of intent" and designed to "inflict heavy casualties on an unwitting civilian population all in the name of Islam."

British Muslims 'planned to kill thousands by bombing SEVEN transatlantic airliners in one go'

from Jihad Watch by Robert

This is why you can't carry your latte onto the plane anymore.

"It would have caused a civilian death toll on an 'almost unprecedented scale' and a 'global impact'." And they were ready to do it in the name of Islam -- yet peaceful Muslims have made no large-scale attempt to disabuse such Muslims of this theology that the peaceful ones say they reject, and all too many law enforcement and government continue to ignore or downplay the Islamic aspect of their motivation, central as it is, as irrelevant.

UK: Home Secretary needs flak jacket to walk street

2008-04-03T20:42:00.000-07:00

http://sheikyermami.com/2008/04/04/now-heres-a-mouthful-uk-labour-minister-well-break-up-islamic-ghettos/

The famously politically-correct deputy leader of the Labour Party, known to her detractors as Harperson, faced ridicule yesterday for the personal security measures she took on the mean streets of Peckham, South London. But her decision to wear the body armour was also seen as a sad reflection of a modern Britain where police feel they have to offer VIP guests “protection”…

UK: We'll break up Islamic ghettos

2008-04-03T20:34:00.000-07:00

http://sheikyermami.com/2008/04/04/now-heres-a-mouthful-uk-labour-minister-well-break-up-islamic-ghettos/

3/04/2008

Muslim ghettos which have become no-go areas for whites must be broken up, Labour will declare today.

In a speech which is set to spark a storm Communities Secretary Hazel Blears will say there is a need to take a hard look at the impact of immigration on cities.......

She will tell the Left-wing Fabian Society: "No neighbourhood should be dominated by one group in ways which make others feel alienated or unsafe.

"We must ensure community cohesion is maintained. No one faith or ethnic group can dominate a locality to the exclusion of all others."

She went on to say there was "nothing wrong" with unthreatening cultural enclaves, such as traditional China Towns.

Ministers are considering cutting funding to community groups based on religion or race and thinking of stopping councils allocating housing along ethnic lines.

Netherlands: Muslims destroy school cartoon exhibit

2008-04-03T18:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/020549.php

April 2, 2008

A school in Nijmegen yesterday cancelled a cartoon exhibition about discrimination following threats by Muslim pupils. Before this decision was taken, the exhibition was already literally destroyed.

Muslim pupils of the ROC Nijmegen, a large school with largely immigrant pupils, pulled cartoons from the walls shortly before these were to be presented officially. They also threatened to set the school alight. The school management decided to call off the opening.

In the exhibition, artists expressed their vision on discrimination in a humorist manner. "My expectation was that the pupils would be able to laugh about it", Ralph Sluis stated. He heads a local anti discrimination organisation. Sluis was the exhibition's coordinator.

Migrants contribute to rapid Australian population rise

2008-04-03T07:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/ra/news/stories/200803/s2203583.htm?tab=australia

Mar 31, 2008

New figures show that at least half of Australia's rapid population growth is accounted for by migrants.

Australia's population is growing at its fastest rate in almost 20 years, reaching 21 million last year.

While many of the new arrivals come from traditional sources such as Britain and New Zealand, migrants increasingly come to Australia from India and China........

With some Pacific nations already experiencing an increasing number of floods, which climate experts warn may be caused by global warming, Senator Evans says Australia will have a responsibility to look after so-called 'climate refugees' from the region.

"Australia as - if you like - the superpower in the area would have to take some lead responsibility in helping those island nations respond," he said.

"There's been very little in the way of detail worked out, but I think people are conscious that it may well emerge as an issue over the next 10 to 20 years."

Vic: Man stabbed saving ducks

2008-04-03T07:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23474086-2862,00.html

April 03, 2008 12:00am

Deep gash: Peter Dobson shows the bandaged stab wound he received beside the duck pond. Picture: Peter Ward

A MAN who was stabbed while trying to protect a group of ducks from rock-throwing teens, says he is shocked by the callousness of his attackers.

Peter Dobson, 37, said he took action after seeing a group of about six teens throwing rocks at ducks at a wetlands reserve near his home in St Albans. ........

Police are looking for three young men and two women of Asian appearance and a Caucasian man, believed to be about 18.

NSW: 100 in Easter show brawl, cop knocked out

2008-04-03T07:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23476333-5001021,00.html

April 03, 2008

THE final night of the sweetest show on earth soured last night when a girl-fight erupted into a all-out brawl, leaving one police officer hospitalised.

Up to 200 people and 25 police officers were involved in the scuffle at the Royal Easter Show, which started between two teenage Merrylands girls......

The 16-year-old Guildford girl was charged with assault police officer in execution of duty and was granted conditional bail to appear at Parramatta Children's Court on April 24.

Orange, NSW: 'harmony' day

2008-04-03T07:12:00.000-07:00

http://orange.yourguide.com.au/news/local/general/a-day-for-us-to-be-in-harmony/1215441.html

03 April 2008

IN HARMONY: Members of Orange's multicultural mothers group Ashan Ayuel with Chok Nyok, Alege Aogk with Pourice Abraham, Cicih Sumarsih, Angela Reyes and Seini Piei invite the community to celebrate

Orange's last census showed a significant change in the social trend of the city.

Post World War II there was a considerable influx of migrants from Europe and in particular for this area, from Italy. Indeed, our orchard industry owes much of its success and development to our Italian migrants.

However, our migrant and refugee landscape has changed considerably in the last 10 years.

Joining with our Aboriginal community in Saturday's celebration will be migrants from places such as the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Nigeria, and South Africa to name just a few.

Orange has proved itself to be a leader in encouraging migrants, often from war torn nations, to come to our city and make it their home.

WA: Cricket bat death now a murder case

2008-04-03T07:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23473049-29277,00.html

April 02, 2008 07:11pm

CHARGES against a teenage boy who allegedly hit a West Australian man over the head with a cricket bat have been upgraded to murder.

Jay Wragg, 32, from Halls Head south of Perth, died on Monday when his life support system was switched off more than a week after the attack.

(perp is an Abo)

Population influx boosting Alice crime

2008-04-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/03/2206593.htm

The Northern Territory Opposition says the NT Government cannot ignore the growing problem of violence and vandalism in Alice Springs, caused by the influx of people from remote communities.

The Opposition's justice spokeswoman, Jodeen Carney, has made the comments after a spate of deliberately lit fires, break-ins and disturbances, particularly in the town's north.

Iraq: Christianity in decline

2008-04-01T20:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/faced-deadly-threats-with-courage/2008/04/01/1206850909580.html

PAULOS FARAJ RAHHO — ARCHBISHOP
20-11-1942 — found dead 13-3-2008

THE death of kidnapped Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, leader of the Chaldean Catholic church in northern Iraq, will only deepen the insecurity felt by Iraq's Christian community, who increasingly see no future in the country........

Even before the US-led invasion in 2003, Christians in Iraq were becoming anxious about the rise of radical Islamic tendencies in both the Shiite and Sunni communities. In 2006, Rahho expressed disquiet at the inclusion of aspects of sharia law in the new constitution.

The targeting of Christian intellectuals, professionals and priests — and the bombing of churches — has been seen as an attempt to destabilise the community and encourage its exodus from Iraq.......

It is estimated that since the 2003 invasion, the percentage of Christians in Iraq has declined from about 7% (1.2 million) to less than 3% (perhaps less than 500,000) today........

Should Christianity disappear from Iraq, it would mean the end of the Syriac language (close to that spoken by Jesus) and a heritage of customs, rites and culture dating back to the first century AD

Book Review: Martin Amis - the Second Plan

2008-04-01T20:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.theage.com.au/news/book-reviews/the-second-plane/2008/04/02/1206850969063.html

This book is a series of articles, essays and short stories written by English novelist Martin Amis since the attacks of September 11, an event that Amis says goes on with all its mystery, its instability and its terrible dynamism.

"Geopolitics may not be my natural subject," he writes, "but masculinity is."........

Amis also declares that he is not an "Islamophobe" but an "Islamismophobe". I'm not sure what the distinction amounts to since he also declares that moderate Islam exists only on the opinion pages of newspapers such as this one. That is, it is a historically irrelevant force. In Amis' view, the Islamists are coming. They're outbreeding us not only over there (in their countries) but back here (in Europe)......

Clearly, Amis' is a British view. The Brits have had the bombings of July 2005 to contend with. To date, mercifully, Australia has been spared such attacks. No doubt if they occur, a lot more people will think as Amis does, but, basically, to me, his is a hopeless position.

What happened on September 11 so affected Amis he was unable to write. Somehow, it had stolen his narrative. My guess is that the sense of horror that has always lurked within his fiction, fuelling some of its best humour, suddenly became manifest in the outer world.

Essentially, Amis views September 11 and the conflict going on around it as a matter of pathology, not politics. One example is Palestinian suicide bombings. For Amis, there is no serious consideration of whether a just peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians is a prerequisite for peace, not only in the region but in the world. Suicide bombing is a pathological cult that glorifies death and violence through religion.....

But who knows? The future may end up being as awful as Amis predicts. What I do know is that, in tone, this book resembles material written about the IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. I don't say this to endorse the IRA's activities, merely to point out that in the end, peace was only attained in Northern Ireland through dialogue. What is shriekingly obvious about Amis' book is that the only piece of dialogue it contains is with Tony Blair.

UK: Stealth asylum amnesty

2007-12-20T06:20:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7149555.stm
http://www.themidnightsun.org/?p=1531

Immigration chiefs have denied a "stealth amnesty" of failed asylum seekers as it was revealed 19,000 had been allowed to stay in the UK.

They were part of a backlog of up to 450,000 failed asylum seeker cases discovered last year by officials.

The figures were in a leaked letter from immigration chief Lin Homer to home affairs committee chair Keith Vaz.

The Tories said it was a "stealth amnesty" but Ms Homer said each case was "judged according to the law".

Previous home secretary John Reid announced the scale of the backlog in asylum cases July last year, which he said was between 400,000 and 450,000.

He pointed out that the figure referred to case files, rather than individuals, and said they were "riddled with duplication and errors".

Kosovo: Civil War In The Balkans

2007-12-03T07:21:00.000-08:00

http://isupporttheresistance.blogspot.com/2007/12/one-for-christians.html
http://www.themidnightsun.org/?p=1388

The Green Arrow On The Civil War In The Balkans .....

Now that, with the aid of the European Union and our shameful actions in the 90's, Kosovo is now over 90% Muslim. The Christians have either been exterminated or forced to flee into Serbia for their lives. Those Christians unable to leave are murdered daily and all while Nato troops stand by and watch.

It does not matter what individual soldiers might think. The plan was always to hand Kosovo, the motherland and spiritual homeland of the Serbs over to the invading hordes of Islam from Albania. All part of the Grand Plan to destroy the Christian Nationalist in that part of the world and pave the way for Eurabia.

In previous posts I have mentioned our air forces shameful actions in the bombing of Belgrade. I wrote about America dictating to Serbia that her only choice was to give up her land and become part of Europe. All part of the plan to build the New World Order.

Now, within a week, the Kosovo Muslims, now that they have almost removed all traces of Christianity from their stolen land will declare Independence.

And what then? Will the proud Serbs who fought alongside us in the 2nd World War and suffered terrible reprisals from the Nazi SS Muslim divisions, fight or give up their most sacred hand to the Cult of the Dead Paedophile?

And if they choose death and honour, will we bomb Belgrade again? Would the Russians stand by and watch us bomb a country that they are friendly to?

Will the Balkans be the start of the Civil Wars that are shortly to erupt across the World?

We wait. And let us hope that the Christians in this Country see the evil of Islam and tell their pink frock wearing clergy where to go and like Paul, practise his teachings and question the things that they have been taught.

MegaMosqueNoThanks.com

2007-12-02T03:57:00.000-08:00

Welcome to MegaMosqueNoThanks.com

The purpose of this website is to provide information about Tablighi Jamaat the controversial Islamic sect which proposes to build the biggest mosque in Europe at West Ham in east London. The proposed mega-mosque would be less than a mile from the main 2012 Olympic stadium, and has generated opposition from many quarters.