Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns

 James Kirkup

By James Kirkup, Deputy Political Editor

10:00PM GMT 25 Nov 2011

British embassies in the eurozone have been told to draw up plans to help British expats through the collapse of the single currency, amid new fears for Italy and Spain.

British expats braced for collapse of Euro

The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way Photo: BLOOMBERG

 

As the Italian government struggled to borrow and Spain considered seeking an international bail-out, British ministers privately warned that the break-up of the euro, once almost unthinkable, is now increasingly plausible.

Diplomats are preparing to help Britons abroad through a banking collapse and even riots arising from the debt crisis.

The Treasury confirmed earlier this month that contingency planning for a collapse is now under way.

A senior minister has now revealed the extent of the Government’s concern, saying that Britain is now planning on the basis that a euro collapse is now just a matter of time.

“It’s in our interests that they keep playing for time because that gives us more time to prepare,” the minister told the Daily Telegraph.

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Recent Foreign and Commonwealth Office instructions to embassies and consulates request contingency planning for extreme scenarios including rioting and social unrest.

Greece has seen several outbreaks of civil disorder as its government struggles with its huge debts. British officials think similar scenes cannot be ruled out in other nations if the euro collapses.

Diplomats have also been told to prepare to help tens of thousands of British citizens in eurozone countries with the consequences of a financial collapse that would leave them unable to access bank accounts or even withdraw cash.

Fuelling the fears of financial markets for the euro, reports in Madrid yesterday suggested that the new Popular Party government could seek a bail-out from either the European Union rescue fund or the International Monetary Fund.

There are also growing fears for Italy, whose new government was forced to pay record interest rates on new bonds issued yesterday.

The yield on new six-month loans was 6.5 per cent, nearly double last month’s rate. And the yield on outstanding two-year loans was 7.8 per cent, well above the level considered unsustainable.

Italy’s new government will have to sell more than EURO 30 billion of new bonds by the end of January to refinance its debts. Analysts say there is no guarantee that investors will buy all of those bonds, which could force Italy to default.

The Italian government yesterday said that in talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Prime Minister Mario Monti had agreed that an Italian collapse “would inevitably be the end of the euro.”

The EU treaties that created the euro and set its membership rules contain no provision for members to leave, meaning any break-up would be disorderly and potentially chaotic.

If eurozone governments defaulted on their debts, the European banks that hold many of their bonds would risk collapse.

Some analysts say the shock waves of such an event would risk the collapse of the entire financial system, leaving banks unable to return money to retail depositors and destroying companies dependent on bank credit.

The Financial Services Authority this week issued a public warning to British banks to bolster their contingency plans for the break-up of the single currency.

Some economists believe that at worst, the outright collapse of the euro could reduce GDP in its member-states by up to half and trigger mass unemployment.

Analysts at UBS, an investment bank earlier this year warned that the most extreme consequences of a break-up include risks to basic property rights and the threat of civil disorder.

“When the unemployment consequences are factored in, it is virtually impossible to consider a break-up scenario without some serious social consequences,” UBS said.

Prepare for riots in euro collapse, Foreign Office warns - Telegraph

Monday, November 28, 2011

Libya Rulers Vow “Integration” with Sudan Terror Regime

 

Written by Alex Newman

Saturday, 26 November 2011 18:30

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil Photo of Mustafa Abdul-Jalil: AP Images

The new Libyan regime has promised to pursue political and economic integration with Sudan’s genocidal “President” Omar al-Bashir, designated a state sponsor of terrorism by the U.S. government since 1993 and wanted internationally for war crimes. Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) chief Mustafa Abdul Jalil (left) arrived in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on November 25 for talks with the socialist, Islamist despot ruling Sudan. According to news reports, he was received with open arms.

The two neighboring rulers lavished praises on each other's regimes and promised to pursue close cooperation on everything from “security” to transportation. Al Bashir also emphasized his disdain for late Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, who supported various rebel groups in Darfur and South Sudan.
"The Libyan people have presented the greatest gift for the Sudanese people, that is, liberating Libya from Gadhafi and his regime," al-Bashir told Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) during a conference held while Jalil was visiting. "The biggest harm inflicted on Sudan was by Gadhafi's regime. It was bigger than any harm caused by any of the colonialist countries hostile to Sudan."
NTC boss Jalil, Gadhafi’s former “Justice Minister” who defected to the rebels early on, thanked the communist-backed regime in Sudan for its support of the Libyan revolution. Along with NATO and other foreign powers, al-Bashir provided massive stockpiles of weapons, ammunition, and military support for the Western-backed rebel cause throughout the civil war.
"We appreciate the Sudanese stance," Jalil told the NCP general conference. "If it had not been for Sudanese military assistance, the Libyan city of Kufra would not have been liberated from the hands of Gadhafi's forces. The weapons and ammunition which Sudan donated even reached the Western Mountains, by way of our sister Egypt."
After the official talks between the two rulers, al-Bashir announced to the world that the regimes would immediately begin forging closer ties. "The relations between Sudan and Libya are deeply-rooted and historical,” the Islamist despot told the media. “We have agreed to bolster the aspirations of the two peoples within these relations."
The regime in Sudan has been listed by the U.S. State Department as an official “State Sponsor of Terror” for almost two decades. It has hosted former al-Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden and other senior figures in the terror network, who were deeply hostile to Gadhafi‘s relatively secular iron-fisted rule. Sudanese rebel leaders, many of whom once had a safe haven in Gadhafi’s Libya, have now been forced out.  
Al-Bashir is also wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region and in South Sudan, which finally became an independent nation earlier this year. Most recently the mass murderer has taken to slaughtering civilians in the Nuba mountains, according to human rights groups.
Despite all of that, cooperation between al-Bashir’s dictatorship and the new regime in Libya — which was supposed to be an American ally — will be wide ranging. Jalil promised "high-level security cooperation." And according to the war criminal in Khartoum, the process will be expanding quickly as Sudan helps Libya build "state institutions." 
"It has been agreed on the establishment of a real integration between Sudan and Libya to begin with linking the two countries with paved roads and communications," al-Bashir said. "There will also be integration in the economic field to utilize the two countries['] capabilities for the interests of the two sisterly peoples."
After the "collapse" of the Soviet Union, the communist dictatorship ruling mainland China became a key source of support for the tyranny of al-Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 military coup. Earlier this year the Chinese regime was widely condemned for illegally arming and supporting the Sudanese dictatorship, but the relationship is so close that al-Bashir calls communist strongman Hu Jintao his “friend and brother.”
Ironically, despite the deep animosity between the Sudanese regime and Gadhafi, Beijing was also plotting to covertly arm the ex-Libyan despot in violation of international sanctions. Some analysts, however, speculated that the move was intended as a “hedge” in case the rebels, whom China was also supporting, ended up being crushed.
But after the Western-backed, regime-change operation succeeded in ousting Gadhafi, Libya and Sudan have much more in common. Both countries, for example, are governed by a hybrid of socialism and Sharia law — though Libya can thank the U.S. government for its help in creating the draft Constitution.
Both nations are also ruled by regimes that are — at the very least — sympathetic to Islamic terror and groups such as al-Qaeda. Despite reports of recent moderation, the Sudanese dictatorship has a long history of supporting terrorism — especially organizations such as al-Qaeda, which sought to overthrow Gadhafi. And after the late despot’s execution, al-Qaeda’s flag was spotted flying above Libya’s NTC headquarters at the Benghazi courthouse.
There are ongoing civil wars in both countries, too. Though South Sudan was finally allowed to secede after a two-decade civil war and a referendum, there are several conflicts still raging across the nation. And in Libya, militias have been fighting among themselves even as Gadhafi loyalists continue to stage deadly attacks.

Related articles:

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China Offered Gadhafi Arms Despite Libya Embargo
Communists Criticize Southern Sudan Referendum, Despite Its Success
Gadhafi’s Gold-money Plan Would Have Devastated Dollar

Libya Rulers Vow “Integration” with Sudan Terror Regime

Male Nurse Fired for Treating Muslim Women

 

Written by R. Cort Kirkwood

Sunday, 27 November 2011 16:00

star and crescentThey call it Dearbornistan, Michigan, for more than one reason. Yet another surfaced last week week when The Detroit News and the Associated Press reported that a male nurse, fired for treating women Muslim patients at a taxpayer-subsidized health clinic, has filed a lawsuit against Dearborn.

That’s right. According to the lawsuit, John Benitez, Jr. was terminated for doing his job because “conservative” Muslims complained about him treating women wearing the hijab, although he did so under the orders of a doctor.

Some 30 percent of Dearborn residents are Arabs, although it is unclear what percentage of those are Muslims. One indication is that Dearborn boasts the largest mosque in North America. Another is the mounting evidence of bias against Christians in such places as Fordson High School, where the student body is 80 percent Arab.

No Male Nurses for Women Muslims

A nursing as well as Army veteran, Benitez, 63, began working at the clinic in September 2010, AP reported, citing the complaint filed by his lawyer, Deborah L. Gordon.

Shortly thereafter, his boss, a Muslim, ordered him to stop treating women who wear the hijab because they are conservative Muslims who must not be treated by medical personnel of the opposite sex. Benitez would, instead, send those patients to the supervisor, a woman. Benitez complied until a doctor found out.

The complaint, AP reported, alleges that “Benitez complied until Nov. 17, 2010, when a doctor saw what he was doing and questioned him ‘about the cumbersome and unusual practice of taking women wearing a head scarf to the nursing supervisor for care,’ rather than going ahead and treating them.”

The doctor’s good sense didn’t matter. Benitez’ Muslims supervisors canned Benitez on Dec. 1, 2010. His attorney, Gordon, told AP that clinic officials admitted to Benitez that they fired him "not because of any performance problem, but ... because the clinic's conservative male Muslim clientele did not want a male treating female patients."

Benitez alleges sex discrimination. His attorney explained the lawsuit to the Detroit News: “When you get to the point that taxpayer-funded entities are having to comply with personal religious beliefs rather than letting people do their job you’re going down a road that does not end in a good place. If people don’t want to be treated, they can go find their own practitioner.”

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission gave Benitez the go-ahead for the lawsuit last month.

Other Problems in Dearborn

Islam is a major problem for Dearborn. Indeed, the city that sired Henry Ford and is headquarters for the Ford Motor Company has become something of a semi-Sharia state.

Thus, lawsuits from Christians seem to be a never-ending problem.

Blogger and lawyer Debbie Schlussel filed a federal lawsuit against Dearborn schools and Imad Fadlallah, former principal of Fordson High, on behalf of two teachers who allege that Fadlallah systemically harassed and fired as many Christian teachers as possible.

The complaint’s list of particulars in the lawsuit, if true, is frightening. Claims the lawsuit:

Though Fordson is a publicly-funded high school, upon taking over as principal at Fordson and throughout his six years at the helm thereafter, Defendant Fadlallah used his position to illegally promote Islam, assert organized Islamic religious observances upon students, and to use Islam and Arabic heritage for discriminatory and illegal preferences in hiring, promotions, and disciplinary actions with regard to Fordson employees and teachers.

The complaint charges Fadlallah with “weed[ing] out Christian teachers, coaches, and employees,” and claims he “terrminated, demoted, or reassigned them because of their Christian beliefs, expressions, and associations, and/or because they are not Muslims.”

Aside from harassing the plaintiffs, the lawsuit alleges, Fadlallah transferred three non-Muslim employees and replaced them with a Muslim and a teacher married to a Muslim. It alleges that “a Christian math teacher, whom Fadlallah wanted out of Fordson, was assigned the worst students behaviorally and academically, in order to drive her out. A Christian teacher’s assistant was harassed by Defendant Fadlallah, until she left Fordson and moved out of state to avoid the stressful situation.”

Fadlallah’s goal, the lawsuit alleges, was to “purge” the school of non-Muslims. The complaint also alleges that Fadlallah is closely tied and related to Hezbollah terrorists.

That lawsuit is pending. But such is the tenacity of the school system that it fired one of the teachers after Schlussel filed the lawsuit. Schlussel has appealed that decision as well.

Is Sharia Law Operative In Dearborn?

If the past is prologue, the school system may well settle. In July 2009, the Thomas More Law Center filed a lawsuit against the school system on behalf of Gerald Marszalek, a beloved wrestling coach who was fired because of his connection to a volunteer coach who is a Christian minister.

That case began after Fadlallah fired the volunteer coach because a Muslim student converted to Christianity at the volunteer’s summer wrestling camp, which was unaffiliated with the school. The lawsuit alleged that Fadlallah is so fanatical that he actually hit the new Christian convert. “In full view of students and faculty,” the lawsuit alleged, “Defendant Fadlallah approached the young Fordson student who had chosen to be baptized a Christian at Hancock’s summer wrestling camp, punched the student, and advised the student that he had ‘disgraced his family’ by converting to Christianity from Islam.”

Anyhow, after Fadlallah canned the volunteer, he fired Marszalek, which invited the lawsuit. That one cost the city $25,000.

And as The New American reported in June, the city lost another lawsuit, filed by the Thomas More Law Center just a month before its lawsuit on behalf of Marszalek, because Dearborn forbade a Christian pastor from walking about to distribute literature at the city’s Arab-American fair. The city wanted him confined to a booth, arguing that the festival is akin to state fair, which also confines exhibitors to booths, and that it had the right to forbid literature distribution to ensure public safety and avoid clogged streets.

But a federal court said the festival and state fair are different. Unlike a state fair, which charges admission, the festival is open to all, free of charge, and it may not, therefore, restrict those who wish to distribute leaflets. The court took note of the minister’s argument that Muslims would be reluctant to approach a booth, as opposed to accept a randomly distributed flyer, because Islam’s penalty for apostasy is death.

Andrew Bostom, a scholar of Islam, noted that Sharia law forbids the proselytizing of Muslims, the position taken by the city of Dearborn. He also pointed to polling data that shows that Dearborn's large Muslim population believes that Sharia should be the law of the land in Islamic countries. But how about Dearborn? Bostom explained:

Such data supposedly reflected the Detroit area (read Dearborn) Muslims views of “Islamic countries,” only. But given the intrinsic, universally supremacist nature of Islam and the global umma (i.e., as stated in Koran 3:110, and the Orwellian-named Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, “Ye are the best community that hath been raised up for mankind. Ye enjoin right conduct and forbid indecency; and ye believe in Allah”), once an area has a Muslim majority it is assumed by Muslims that Islamic Law should prevail — hence the “enclave” phenomenon, now evident in the United States.

The poll cited by Bostom found that 81 percent of mosque attendees in Dearborn either strongly or somewhat agree that Sharia law should be the prevailing legal code in Muslim countries.

Male Nurse Fired for Treating Muslim Women

In Russia, Putin’s Bid for Presidency Prompts Voter Ennui

 

James Hill for The New York Times / Vladimir V. Putin, running for president for a third time, at the United Russia Congress in Moscow. He is poised to win, but there is evidence of voter fatigue.

By ELLEN BARRY Published: November 27, 2011
    MOSCOW — Two months after Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin revealed his intention to reclaim the Russian presidency, he returned on Sunday to the same podium, facing the same sea of rippling flags, to accept his party’s nomination.

But something important has changed in the intervening time, leaving the impression that the day of Mr. Putin’s first announcement, Sept. 24, will be the dividing line between two distinct periods in Russian political life.

It is now clear that instead of restoring public confidence in the political system, the announcement that Mr. Putin and President Dmitri A. Medvedev would switch jobs annoyed many Russians. Mr. Putin’s approval rating briefly dipped to 61 percent this month, high by international standards but lower than at any point in a decade.

Meanwhile, the governing party, United Russia, has had to scale back its expectations for next Sunday’s parliamentary elections, when it is likely to lose the two-thirds majority it has held since 2007.

The announcement, in other words, seems to have had an unintended negative effect, a jarring outcome for a government that has proved itself adept at measuring and manipulating public opinion.

“They can’t be blamed, based on their past data, for getting it wrong,” said Fiona Hill, a Brookings Institution scholar who is studying the role of public opinion in Russian politics. “But something has changed. The biggest problem is that people have gotten fed up with them. If you look at long-serving leaders like Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher, you see that their ratings tank in the latter half of the decade. It’s like the seven-year itch of politics.”

The Putin era is in its 12th year. Mr. Putin, who first became acting president in 1999, was elected to the job in 2000 and re-elected in 2004. Constitutionally barred from a third consecutive term, he became prime minister in 2008 and was succeeded as president by his protégé, Mr. Medvedev.

But any suggestion of ennui was drowned out by lights and bunting at Sunday’s nominating convention, where an 11,000-seat hall rang with chants of “Pu-tin! Pu-tin! Pu-tin!”

Nominating him for a term that would end in 2018, speaker after speaker focused on Mr. Putin’s role in taming the economic and political disorder of the 1990s, a compelling but increasingly distant memory, especially for young voters. Voters complaining about the current system, Mr. Putin said, were forgetting how much worse things were before he came to power in 1999.

“When a regular person has to deal with financial problems or some other problems in his day-to-day life, when he faces corruption and other small problems, he doesn’t remember the massive problems” of the past, Mr. Putin said. “The indignation that person has is usually turned against the current authority.”

The convention was marked by ferocious attacks on the political opposition, including from Mr. Medvedev, who until recently had argued for greater political pluralism. Mr. Putin, for his part, suggested that signs of rising discontent were the result of covert meddling by Western governments.

“Representatives of some countries meet with those whom they pay money, the so-called grant recipients, give them instructions and guidance for what ‘work’ they need to do to influence the election campaign in our country,” he said.

These efforts, he said, were “money thrown at the wind, firstly, because Judas is not the most respected biblical figure among our people, and secondly, it would be better if they used this money to pay off their national debt and stop conducting an ineffective and costly foreign policy.”

Party officials seemed to hope that Mr. Putin would infuse the party with some of his own popularity by accepting its nomination, something he has never done before, preferring to run as an independent. His September announcement, intended to lay the groundwork for an easy campaign season, achieved nothing of the kind.

The backlash began within hours, when Finance Minister Aleksei L. Kudrin told reporters he would leave the government rather than report to Mr. Medvedev, whom Mr. Putin promised to install as prime minister. United Russia’s approval ratings, already in decline, began to fall faster, possibly because Mr. Putin’s name, long atop the party list, had been abruptly replaced by Mr. Medvedev’s.

And Mr. Putin, whose robust popularity is a cornerstone of his government’s claim on legitimacy, seems to be taking a hit himself. This has never been more apparent than it was a week ago, when mixed martial arts fans booed Mr. Putin when he climbed into the ring after a match to congratulate the victor, an incident that seemed to puncture some protective membrane around the prime minister.

Three days later, when Mr. Putin addressed Parliament, a number of opposition lawmakers remained seated, an unusual show of rebellion.

Ms. Hill, who is studying fluctuations in poll numbers, said that Mr. Putin’s lagging approval ratings were very unusual. In past political cycles, his popularity has always peaked just before Election Day; previous drops, meanwhile, have been associated with specific events, like financial setbacks or disasters. The current dynamic, she said, is reminiscent of the late years of Lady Thatcher or Helmut Kohl, who also enjoyed great popularity early on.

“By the end, the brand is shot; you can’t rebrand it,” she said. Russian authorities, she said, “seem too confident that they can pull it off.”

Another analyst, Aleksei Mukhin, said the September announcement was “an improvisation” and a tactical error.

The announcement displeased Mr. Medvedev’s supporters, who had hoped he would be allowed a second term, as well as those in Mr. Putin’s circle who did not want to report to Mr. Medvedev as prime minister, and members of United Russia, which needed him at the top of its parliamentary list, said Mr. Mukhin, director of the Center for Political Information, a research center in Moscow.

“Vladimir Putin has tried to create the illusion of stability and success, and warned others not to rock the boat,” Mr. Mukhin said. “In fact, it turned out the opposite way. He is the one who has rocked the boat.”

Many Russians were offended by Mr. Putin’s terse explanation that he and Mr. Medvedev had privately decided to switch places long ago, said Konstantin V. Remchukov, the editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a newspaper that is frequently critical of the government.

Since then, Mr. Putin has repeatedly explained that he needs to stay in power because Russia is entering a period of dangerous volatility that requires a steady hand. But that explanation is also meeting with skepticism, Mr. Remchukov said.

“We are coming to the point where people more and more often ask, ‘Are they really doing all this for stability, or is it that the year they leave power there would be some consequence, like a corruption investigation?’ ” Mr. Remchukov said. “It seems like they are pushed into a corner. Mr. Putin is pushed into a corner where he has no option but to preserve power.”

David M. Herszenhorn contributed reporting

In Russia, Putin’s Bid for Presidency Prompts Voter Ennui - NYTimes.com

Sunday, November 27, 2011

China's 'Princelings' Pose Issue for Party

 

China's 'princelings,' the offspring of the communist party elite, are embracing the trappings of wealth and privilege—raising uncomfortable questions for their elders.

By JEREMY PAGE

One evening early this year, a red Ferrari pulled up at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Beijing, and the son of one of China's top leaders stepped out, dressed in a tuxedo.

PARTYKIDS

Getty Images/ Bo Xilai, with his son, at a memorial ceremony held for his father in Beijing, in 2007.

Grandfather, Bo Yibo — Helped lead Mao's forces to victory, only to be purged in the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. Subsequently rehabilitated.

Son, Bo Guagua — Graduate student at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Father, Bo Xilai — Party secretary of Chongqing and Politburo member, likely to rise to the Politburo standing committee in 2012.

Bo Guagua, 23, was expected. He had a dinner appointment with a daughter of the then-ambassador, Jon Huntsman.

The car, though, was a surprise. The driver's father, Bo Xilai, was in the midst of a controversial campaign to revive the spirit of Mao Zedong through mass renditions of old revolutionary anthems, known as "red singing." He had ordered students and officials to work stints on farms to reconnect with the countryside. His son, meanwhile, was driving a car worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and as red as the Chinese flag, in a country where the average household income last year was about $3,300.

The episode, related by several people familiar with it, is symptomatic of a challenge facing the Chinese Communist Party as it tries to maintain its legitimacy in an increasingly diverse, well-informed and demanding society. The offspring of party leaders, often called "princelings," are becoming more conspicuous, through both their expanding business interests and their evident appetite for luxury, at a time when public anger is rising over reports of official corruption and abuse of power.

A Family Affair

A look at China's leaders, past and present, and their offspring, often known as 'princelings.'

View Interactive

State-controlled media portray China's leaders as living by the austere Communist values they publicly espouse. But as scions of the political aristocracy carve out lucrative roles in business and embrace the trappings of wealth, their increasingly high profile is raising uncomfortable questions for a party that justifies its monopoly on power by pointing to its origins as a movement of workers and peasants.

Their visibility has particular resonance as the country approaches a once-a-decade leadership change next year, when several older princelings are expected to take the Communist Party's top positions. That prospect has led some in Chinese business and political circles to wonder whether the party will be dominated for the next decade by a group of elite families who already control large chunks of the world's second-biggest economy and wield considerable influence in the military.

"There's no ambiguity—the trend has become so clear," said Cheng Li, an expert on Chinese elite politics at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "Princelings were never popular, but now they've become so politically powerful, there's some serious concern about the legitimacy of the 'Red Nobility.' The Chinese public is particularly resentful about the princelings' control of both political power and economic wealth."

The current leadership includes some princelings, but they are counterbalanced by a rival nonhereditary group that includes President Hu Jintao, also the party chief, and Premier Wen Jiabao. Mr. Hu's successor, however, is expected to be Xi Jinping, the current vice president, who is the son of a revolutionary hero and would be the first princeling to take the country's top jobs. Many experts on Chinese politics believe that he has forged an informal alliance with several other princelings who are candidates for promotion.

Among them is the senior Mr. Bo, who is also the son of a revolutionary leader. He often speaks of his close ties to the Xi family, according to two people who regularly meet him. Mr. Xi's daughter is currently an undergraduate at Harvard, where Mr. Bo's son is a graduate student at the Kennedy School of Government.

“Princelings were never popular, but now ... there's some serious concern about the legitimacy of the "Red Nobility." ”

Already in the 25-member Politburo, Bo Xilai is a front-runner for promotion to its top decision-making body, the Standing Committee. He didn't respond to a request for comment through his office, and his son didn't respond to requests via email and friends.

The antics of some officials' children have become a hot topic on the Internet in China, especially among users of Twitter-like micro-blogs, which are harder for Web censors to monitor and block because they move so fast. In September, Internet users revealed that the 15-year-old son of a general was one of two young men who crashed a BMW into another car in Beijing and then beat up its occupants, warning onlookers not to call police.

An uproar ensued, and the general's son has now been sent to a police correctional facility for a year, state media report.

Top Chinese leaders aren't supposed to have either inherited wealth or business careers to supplement their modest salaries, thought to be around 140,000 yuan ($22,000) a year for a minister. Their relatives are allowed to conduct business as long as they don't profit from their political connections. In practice, the origins of the families' riches are often impossible to trace.

Last year, Chinese learned via the Internet that the son of a former vice president of the country—and the grandson of a former Red Army commander—had purchased a $32.4 million harbor-front mansion in Australia. He applied for a permit to tear down the century-old mansion and to build a new villa, featuring two swimming pools connected by a waterfall. (See the article below.)

PARTKIDS2

Corbis/ BO XILAI waves a Chinese flag during a concert with revolutionary songs in Chongqing on June 29.

Many princelings engage in legitimate business, but there is a widespread perception in China that they have an unfair advantage in an economic system that, despite the country's embrace of capitalism, is still dominated by the state and allows no meaningful public scrutiny of decision making.

The state owns all urban land and strategic industries, as well as banks, which dole out loans overwhelmingly to state-run companies. The big spoils thus go to political insiders who can leverage personal connections and family prestige to secure resources, and then mobilize the same networks to protect them.

The People's Daily, the party mouthpiece, acknowledged the issue last year, with a poll showing that 91% of respondents believed all rich families in China had political backgrounds. A former Chinese auditor general, Li Jinhua, wrote in an online forum that the wealth of officials' family members "is what the public is most dissatisfied about."

One princeling disputes the notion that she and her peers benefit from their "red" backgrounds. "Being from a famous government family doesn't get me cheaper rent or special bank financing or any government contracts," Ye Mingzi, a 32-year-old fashion designer and granddaughter of a Red Army founder, said in an email. "In reality," she said, "the children of major government families get very high scrutiny. Most are very careful to avoid even the appearance of improper favoritism."

For the first few decades after Mao's 1949 revolution, the children of Communist chieftains were largely out of sight, growing up in walled compounds and attending elite schools such as the Beijing No. 4 Boys' High School, where the elder Mr. Bo and several other current leaders studied.

In the 1980s and '90s, many princelings went abroad for postgraduate studies, then often joined Chinese state companies, government bodies or foreign investment banks. But they mostly maintained a very low profile.

Now, families of China's leaders send their offspring overseas ever younger, often to top private schools in the U.S., Britain and Switzerland, to make sure they can later enter the best Western universities. Princelings in their 20s, 30s and 40s increasingly take prominent positions in commerce, especially in private equity, which allows them to maximize their profits and also brings them into regular contact with the Chinese and international business elite.

PARTKIDSjump

Landov/ In 2008, Bo Guagua invited Jackie Chan to lecture at Oxford—and sang with him on stage at one point.

Younger princelings are often seen among the models, actors and sports stars who gather at a strip of nightclubs by the Workers' Stadium in Beijing to show off Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Maseratis. Others have been spotted talking business over cigars and vintage Chinese liquor in exclusive venues such as the Maotai Club, in a historic house near the Forbidden City.

On a recent afternoon at a new polo club on Beijing's outskirts, opened by a grandson of a former vice premier, Argentine players on imported ponies put on an exhibition match for prospective members.

"We're bringing polo to the public. Well, not exactly the public," said one staff member. "That man over there is the son of an army general. That one's grandfather was mayor of Beijing."

Princelings also are becoming increasingly visible abroad. Ms. Ye, the fashion designer, was featured in a recent edition of Vogue magazine alongside Wan Baobao, a jewelry designer who is the granddaughter of a former vice premier.

But it is Bo Guagua who stands out among the younger princelings. No other child of a serving Politburo member has ever had such a high profile, both at home and abroad.

His family's status dates back to Bo Yibo, who helped lead Mao's forces to victory, only to be purged in the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. Bo Yibo was eventually rehabilitated, and his son, Bo Xilai, was a rising star in the party by 1987, when Bo Guagua was born.

The boy grew up in a rarefied environment—closeted in guarded compounds, ferried around in chauffeur-driven cars, schooled partly by tutors and partly at the prestigious Jingshan school in Beijing, according to friends.

In 2000, his father, by then mayor of the northeastern city of Dalian, sent his 12-year-old son to a British prep school called Papplewick, which according to its website currently charges £22,425 (about $35,000) a year.

About a year later, the boy became the first person from mainland China to attend Harrow, one of Britain's most exclusive private schools, which according to its website currently charges £30,930 annually.

In 2006, by which time his father was China's commerce minister, Mr. Bo went to Oxford University to study philosophy, politics and economics. The current cost of that is about £26,000 a year. His current studies at Harvard's Kennedy School cost about $70,000 a year.

“'The children of major government families get very high scrutiny,' says the granddaughter of a Red Army founder.”

A question raised by this prestigious overseas education, worth a total of almost $600,000 at today's prices, is how it was paid for. Friends said that they didn't know, though one suggested that Mr. Bo's mother paid with the earnings of her legal career. Her law firm declined to comment.

Bo Guagua has been quoted in the Chinese media as saying that he won full scholarships from age 16 onward. Harrow, Oxford and the Kennedy School said that they couldn't comment on an individual student.

The cost of education is a particularly hot topic among members of China's middle class, many of whom are unhappy with the quality of schooling in China. But only the relatively rich can send their children abroad to study.

For others, it is Bo Guagua's freewheeling lifestyle that is controversial. Photos of him at Oxford social events—in one case bare-chested, other times in a tuxedo or fancy dress—have been widely circulated online.

In 2008, Mr. Bo helped to organize something called the Silk Road Ball, which included a performance by martial-arts monks from China's Shaolin temple, according to friends. He also invited Jackie Chan, the Chinese kung fu movie star, to lecture at Oxford, singing with him on stage at one point.

The following year, Mr. Bo was honored in London by a group called the British Chinese Youth Federation as one of "Ten Outstanding Young Chinese Persons." He was also an adviser to Oxford Emerging Markets, a firm set up by Oxford undergraduates to explore "investment and career prospects in emerging markets," according to its website.

This year, photos circulated online of Mr. Bo on a holiday in Tibet with another princeling, Chen Xiaodan, a young woman whose father heads the China Development Bank and whose grandfather was a renowned revolutionary. The result was a flurry of gossip, as well as criticism on the Internet of the two for evidently traveling with a police escort. Ms. Chen didn't respond to requests for comment via email and Facebook.

More

A Home Fit for a Princeling : A $32.4 million harborside mansion in Sydney

Asked about his son's apparent romance at a news conference during this year's parliament meeting, Bo Xilai replied, enigmatically, "I think the business of the third generation—aren't we talking about democracy now?"

Friends say that the younger Mr. Bo recently considered, but finally decided against, leaving Harvard to work on an Internet start-up called guagua.com. The domain is registered to an address in Beijing. Staff members there declined to reveal anything about the business. "It's a secret," said a young man who answered the door.

It is unclear what Mr. Bo will do after graduating and whether he will be able to maintain such a high profile if his father is promoted, according to friends. He said during a speech at Peking University in 2009 that he wanted to "serve the people" in culture and education, according to a Chinese newspaper, Southern Weekend.

He ruled out a political career but showed some of his father's charisma and contradictions in answering students' questions, according to the newspaper. Asked about the pictures of him partying at Oxford, he quoted Chairman Mao as saying "you should have a serious side and a lively side," and went on to discuss what it meant to be one of China's new nobility.

"Things like driving a sports car, I know British aristocrats are not that arrogant," he said. "Real aristocrats absolutely don't do that, but are relatively low-key."

—Dinny McMahon contributed to this article.

China's 'Princelings' Pose Issue for Party - WSJ.com

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Divisions Unsettle Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt

 

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK Published: November 23, 2011
    CAIRO — New divisions in the Muslim Brotherhood appeared on Wednesday as a senior leader hinted that it might walk away from a deal struck with Egypt’s interim military rulers, reflecting signs of confusion and hesitation as the Brotherhood’s most viable bid for power in eight decades has become tangled in the uncertainty and anger gripping Egypt’s streets.

A day after the Brotherhood agreed to the deal with the military that would speed the transition to civilian rule while also enhancing the group’s own political prospects, the senior official said that the security forces had not fulfilled their promise to halt their attacks on protesters in Tahrir Square.

“The killing didn’t stop,” the official, Mohamed Beltagy, general secretary of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, said in a statement on the group’s Web site. “Will our slogan be, ‘No negotiation until after a cease-fire’?”

His warnings came as an increasingly violent uprising has left the group torn between preserving its credibility with protesters and securing the political advantages of cooperating with the ruling military council. Amid the confusion, the Brotherhood’s leaders issued a series of seemingly contradictory statements, culminating Wednesday with several defending the deal from the sharp criticisms of its members and liberals.

“The Islamists are playing politics,” said Mohamed Ezzat, 32, a store owner watching the battle of tear gas and rocks just off Tahrir Square as a short-lived cease-fire gave way. “They don’t realize that street politics is deciding the fate of the country.”

Many Egyptians rolled their eyes at what they described as the combination of political ambition and the Brotherhood’s tactic of accommodation that they said had historically been employed by the group.

“They are accommodationists, not radicals,” said Samer Shehata, an Egyptian scholar at Georgetown University who had returned for the parliamentary elections scheduled for Monday. “Middle class, professional, respectable, high achievers, self-help types,” he said. “The Brotherhood is always risk-averse.”

Now the group is facing questions with extraordinary stakes, for itself as well as for Egypt and the region. The first elections since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak are set to begin, though the violence has cast doubt on the voting. Through its new Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood is poised for the first time to win a dominant political role, potentially positioning itself as a central force in drafting the next constitution and establishing an Islamist-run government in the most populous and influential Arab state.

But the uprising against the military council has threatened to upend the group’s plans. The Brotherhood had reason to oppose the military rulers because they had plans to grant themselves permanent political powers and autonomy, promising to be a check against the possibility of an Islamist takeover.

The protesters’ calls for an immediate transfer to a civilian government, however, would probably mean postponing the elections, giving other political parties a chance to catch up to the Brotherhood’s commanding lead in organizing. Or, some fear, the violence of the uprising could provide the rationale for a military crackdown that would put off elections indefinitely.

The situation “created a major split with factions and individuals and even the youth,” said Emad Shahin, an Egyptian scholar at the University of Notre Dame who is now in Cairo.

Hints of the divisions first surfaced on Saturday as security forces cleared the square of a tent city and protesters fought back. Some of the Brotherhood’s leaders, including Mr. Beltagy, argued that the group should call its members to the square.

“I thought that we should go to the square in great numbers to protect the protesters, secure the entrances, ensure the peacefulness,” Mr. Beltagy said in an interview, “not to keep a distance from the crisis.” (Some people had lamented that five days of violence, more than 30 deaths and more than 2,000 injuries could have been prevented if the Brotherhood had organized a presence in the square as it had during the uprising against Mr. Mubarak.)

After Mr. Beltagy sent out a message on Saturday saying he was headed to the square, other Brotherhood officials issued a statement on the group’s Web page clarifying that the group had only one spokesman, and that it was not Mr. Beltagy.

But many members of the Brotherhood, especially from its youth wing, did follow Mr. Beltagy into the square. And on Sunday he returned to the front lines. Many there were openly angry at the Brotherhood for failing to turn out, and he told them, “You have a right to be angry,” he wrote on the group’s Web site, adding, “We have to reconsider our position.”

But as the weekend wore on, Mr. Beltagy acknowledged that he had met resistance from leaders of the Brotherhood who he said saw the protests and clashes as essentially “an attempt to draw it into a made-up crisis,” he said.

A statement from the group issued late Wednesday explained its view that its presence would have drawn harsher reprisals. “If we had participated in these protests, violence, killing and vandalism would have escalated,” the group said.

The conflict reached a climax on Tuesday as almost every other party or political group called supporters to Tahrir Square for a “million-man march” against military rule. The Brotherhood was the only major group to tell its members not to attend. Instead, the Brotherhood made a deal with the military. It would let the ruling military council remain in power until June and preside over the writing of a constitution. In exchange, the Brotherhood won an agreement to let parliamentary elections proceed on Monday while moving up the presidential vote to June from 2013, an early timetable allowing the Brotherhood to capitalize on its vast lead in organization.

Members of the Brotherhood Youth openly flouted their elders and joined the protests on Tuesday and Wednesday as well, though Mr. Beltagy insisted that they were free to do so.

As the violence continued on Wednesday, so did criticism of the Brotherhood’s deal. Ayman Nour, a liberal presidential contender, said he was considering withdrawing his party from a coalition with the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party. Two other liberal leaders who attended the meeting with the military council apologized for doing so.

Some analysts argued that the Brotherhood might have been betting that most Egyptians far from Tahrir Square — “the party of the couch,” as they are sometimes known here — were now more concerned about stability than civilian government. But Professor Shahin contended that if the elections were held Monday, the Brotherhood would probably suffer at the polls, losing voters outside its base. “They lost credibility,” he said.

Mayy el Sheikh and Dina Salah Amer contributed reporting.

Divisions Unsettle Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt - NYTimes.com

Virgin Mary’s Belt Draws Crowds in Moscow

 

Day and night, tens of thousands of Russians have been lining up outside the Cathedral of Christ the Savior for a glimpse of a religious relic. Misha Japaridze/Associated Press

By SOPHIA KISHKOVSKY Published: November 23, 2011
    MOSCOW — From morning all through the night, tens of thousands of Russians have been lining up since Saturday in the cold with just one aim: to kiss a glass-covered reliquary that they believe holds the Virgin Mary’s belt.

They shuffle along, waiting for up to 12 hours without complaint in a line that stretches for miles. Within a few days, the organizers say, the wait could reach 24 hours. At any given time there are about 25,000 people, according to news media estimates, and as of Wednesday morning, 285,000 true believers had earned their moment before the belt, said the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation, which organized the tour.

As befits his status as the arbiter of most things Russian, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin was the first to greet the holy relic when it arrived on Oct. 20 in St. Petersburg from a Greek Orthodox monastery on Mount Athos in Greece for a month long tour of Russia.

Of all the industrial nations, perhaps only Russia outdistances the United States in the religiosity of its people, two million of whom venerated the belt before its final stop in Moscow.

They wait here, within view of the Kremlin, snaking past the hulking Ministry of Defense building and billboards in support of United Russia, the pro-Putin governing party.

“We came so that we will live well, be happy and healthy, for the sake of our children,” said Anna Kozlova, 68, a pensioner who joined the end of the line late Tuesday night with her daughter Oksana Kulikova, a nurse, wrapped, like her mother, in fur against the cold.

She said she planned to head straight to work after venerating the relic at the towering Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which has been open around the clock.

“If a person believes, they come here,” Ms. Kulikova said. This, she stressed, is a matter of free will — in contrast to the long lines of the Soviet era for forced visits to Lenin’s mausoleum on Red Square.

Moscow’s city government closed streets around the cathedral — causing those Muscovites not so inclined to venerate relics to rant about the even-worse-than-usual traffic jams. Mobile canteens were set up to feed the pilgrims, and heated city buses lined the embankment to offer respite from the cold. A free bus service is shuttling provincial visitors to train stations.

Moscow’s mayor, Sergei S. Sobyanin, came to inspect the scene. The benefactor of the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation is Vladimir Yakunin, president of the Russian Railroads, who is close to Mr. Putin. At a news conference in October, Mr. Yakunin said the belt — usually kept at the Vatopedi Monastery on the Mount Athos peninsula in northern Greece, where women are not permitted — was known for promoting fertility.

“The belt of the Most Holy Virgin Mary possesses miraculous power,“ he said. “It helps women and helps in childbirth. In our demographic situation, this is in and of itself important.”

It also seems to attract people who, having forsaken Russia’s deteriorating health system, are looking for something else. In recent years, Russians have thronged to relics of numerous saints, hoping to be cured of ills like cancer, debt and drunken husbands.

“People come who apparently no longer have faith in medical care and await a miracle,” said the Rev. Mikhail Ryazantsev, the cathedral’s sacristan, who said the overwhelming majority were women.

The blogs and Facebook pages of Russian Orthodox intellectuals have overflowed with debates about whether hysteria over the belt was a disturbing sign that many Russians’ faith is based on superstition. Many noted that Christ the Savior Cathedral and the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra near Moscow, one of the most important monasteries in the Orthodox Church, have relics of the Virgin Mary that are just as precious.

At a bustling coffee shop near the cathedral that this week became an impromptu pit stop for the faithful, an excited young woman rushed in to tell waiting friends that she had venerated the Virgin Mary’s belt. Then she told them about her visit to a fortune teller.

For other people, excitement over the relics underscores that Russians are dissatisfied and searching for something.

“Faith helps us live,” Dmitry Gurov, 27, who works in a bank and would seem to live the good life, said as he joined the line on Tuesday night. Yet not many miles from Moscow people may live without gas or running water. “Life is hard in our country,” he said. “We don’t know what will happen next.”

Virgin Mary’s Belt Draws Crowds in Moscow - NYTimes.com

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Jibril Turns Against Foreign Powers That Aided Qaddafi Overthrow

 

By Flavia Krause-Jackson and Caroline Alexander - Nov 14, 2011 4:01 PM GMT+1100

    Former Libyan opposition Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril

Former Libyan opposition Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril. Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Former Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi died after being captured by forces led by the Misrata Military Council, the group said. Details of his detention and death will be announced today in a news conference, said the council in an e-mailed statement. Lara Setrakian reports on Bloomberg Television's "In the Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)

Former Libyan opposition Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril traveled the world to gather foreign supporters to oust Muammar Qaddafi. Now, he views those allied nations with suspicion.

As Libya moves through a post-Qaddafi phase and prepares for democratic elections, the U.S.-educated former professor sees ally Qatar meddling in domestic politics by supporting a prominent Islamist. He also has a “hunch” Qaddafi was “killed based on a request by a certain foreign power” that wanted the dictator to be “silent forever.”

Jibril said he regrets that Qaddafi wasn’t kept alive to face trial and suspects foul play. One or more “foreign powers” he declined to name had an interest in ensuring Qaddafi stayed quiet.

“Too many secrets could have been discovered,” he said in an Nov. 10 interview in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he attended a conference at Harvard University. “He was the black box of the whole country. He had too many wheelings and dealings with too many leaders in the world. With him, unfortunately, a lot of information is gone.”

While France, the U.K., Italy and the U.S. -- which had leading roles in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s bombing in Libya -- may have had compelling political reasons for preferring Qaddafi dead, the likeliest scenario is that dictator was murdered by an angry mob, according to Karim Mezran, a Libyan exile and a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy.

Who Killed Qaddafi?

Qaddafi died on Oct. 20 while trying to escape a NATO air strike on a convoy from his besieged coastal hometown of Sirte. French officials said it was a French Mirage jet that fired at the convoy, which was then attacked by local Libyan fighters.

The exact circumstances of his death remain unclear, with members of Libya’s National Transitional Council offering conflicting accounts. Videos surfaced on the Internet showing him first wounded yet alive and later lifeless with blood pouring from his head. An autopsy confirmed he died from a gunshot to the head.

Jibril, who was the international face of the rebel insurgency, has altered his views on the leaders from whom he won aid, recognition and access to frozen Libyan assets. He says his foreign allies are now pursuing their own interests in his country, which holds Africa’s largest oil reserves.

“Because of the lack of state apparatus right now, every foreign power you can think of is trying to look after its own interests in Libya. No one is excluded,” Jibril said. “This is the name of the game. This is politics. Countries have interests in Libya and everybody is looking out for their own.”

Oil Interests

Oil producers such as Italy’s Eni SpA (ENI) and France’s Total SA have rushed to resume operations in Libya. Libyan Oil Minister Ali Tarhouni predicted that production would reach 700,000 barrels a day by the end of this year. Output fell to 60,000 barrels a day in July from 1.7 million barrels in January, according to the International Energy Agency, after an uprising against Qaddafi.

Jibril identified Qatar, the most assertive Arab state in the struggle to unseat Qaddafi, as the “most obvious” example of foreign intervention. Qatar trained and supplied rebel fighters with weapons, provided humanitarian aid and least $100 million in loans, and its jets helped enforce the UN-imposed no- fly zone.

Former Terrorist

The Persian Gulf state has shown support for Abdel Hakim Belhaj, a veteran anti-Qaddafi fighter who heads the Tripoli Military Council. The most powerful military figure in Libya today, Belhaj is a former head of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, and joined the Taliban after Sept. 11. He was picked up and held by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 and sent to Libya, where he spent spent seven years in a prison until his release in 2010.

“The indicators on the ground say yes, that he is being supported by Qatar,” Jibril said.

When asked about the motivations for his resignation on Oct. 23, Jibril said that he had merely honored a commitment to step down once the regime fell. He was succeeded by Abdurrahim El-Keib, an engineer studied and taught in the U.S.

Jibril suggested that discord between the armed factions that fought to bring down the old regime also played a role.

“We used to have the same objective, we used to have Libyans as one hand,” Jibril said. “After the liberation, you know, things became completely different.”

Libyans started competing with each other and as a result, the country is divided, he said.

Legitimacy

“We are having two types of legitimacy: an official legitimacy, as represented by the National Transitional Council and its government, and the real legitimacy on the ground, as represented by those people who have arms in their hands,” he said. It will take some time for that to change, he added.

Jibril expressed concern about the direction taken by the newly liberated country, where militia groups have refused to lay down their arms and revenge killings of Qaddafi’s tribe continue unabated.

“We are still in the heat of the moment,” Jibril said.

In the absence of political parties and rules to govern the interaction between factions, anything can happen, Jibril said, adding “this is very dangerous.”

Under current plans, Libyans will choose a panel to oversee the writing of a new constitution within eight months. That will be followed by a referendum and presidential and legislative elections.

“I think this is a very long phase” said Jibril, who advocates a shorter timeline to get to elections. “I am not quite comfortable with this political vacuum.”

Asked about his political future, Jibril said his next role will probably be that of a mentor to “the young people and women” who want to help shape Libya’s future.

To contact the reporters on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at the United Nations at fjackson@bloomberg.net Caroline Alexander in London at calexander1@bloomberg.net;

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net; Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net

Jibril Turns Against Foreign Powers That Aided Qaddafi Overthrow - Bloomberg

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Obama “Misses the Point” of Anti-Christian Violence in Egypt

 

Written by James Heiser

Monday, 21 November 2011 16:50

The Obama administration has flaunted its advocacy of the Islamist parties that have been gaining power since the Arab Spring overturned several governments in the Muslim world the past year, and that skewed perspective is contributing to a misrepresentation of the violence that is now taking place in post-Mubarak Egypt. In the words of Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J., left), President Obama “seems to have completely missed the point” of the massacre of Coptic Christians. “This is not a situation of equal power and equal responsibility for violence," he points out. "The Copts called on the military government to treat the Copts as equal citizens and protect their rights; the government itself turned on them with a massacre.”

A story from CNSNews highlights the disconnect which is taking place in the policy of the Obama administration. As Lucas Zellers wrote on November 16:

President Obama "missed the point" about the shooting deaths of Coptic Christians on Oct. 9 in front of the Maspero television building in downtown Cairo, Egypt, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) said Tuesday at a congressional hearing on the violence in Egypt.

Referring to a statement released by the White House on Oct. 10, the day after the shootings, Smith said that President Obama was wrong — the shootings amounted to a one-sided “massacre” of  Coptic Christians by government forces and were not just “sectarian violence,” as the White House seemed to portray them. …

Smith, the chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Egypt, posed a tough question.

“The time has come to ask, is this government going to be better than the Mubarak thug regime?’ Smith said.

If the current policy enunciated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is any indication, the United States is likely to do very little to push the post-Mubarak regime to improve the treatment of Egypt’s Coptic minority. As reported for The New American on November 9, the administration is actively cultivating ties with the emerging Islamist parties, and thus has done very little to openly criticize the anti-Christian policies that are readily apparent in the new regime. Clinton’s criticism of the new government has been so mild as to simply observe that “Egyptians will have missed a historic opportunity” if “over time, the most powerful political force in Egypt remains a roomful of unelected officials.” Of course, given the Obama administration’s increasing reliance on “unelected officials” throughout the federal bureaucracy to legislate through increased regulation — a tactic which is often nothing more than an amplification of the practices of prior administrations — it is difficult for Clinton to criticize the Egyptian regime for a practice which is quite familiar to the Washington elite.

With anti-Christian violence on the rise in Egypt, the circumstances of daily life for Coptic Christians are rapidly deteriorating. Protests that have taken place since the October massacre have been greeted with continued violence; a November 21 story for Catholic.org reported that a march planned by two recently-formed organizations (the Free Copts and Blood of Martyrs movements) with the intention of commemorating the October massacre was greeted with new violence:

"We were marching peacefully with candles to commemorate the 26 martyrs of Maspero on the 40-day anniversary of the Maspero attacks, when several youth clashed," Sherif Doss, the head of the Egyptian Coptic Association said.

"Some residents started throwing rocks and glass bottles from the rooftops of buildings at the crowds, which left many injured," Doss added.

"Hundreds of police conscripts assigned by the ministry of interior to protect the march started firing tear gas canisters to stop the clashes between the unidentified men," Sameh Mina, a Coptic protester, told television reporters.

"The Copts defended themselves and threw rocks back at the attackers until the police intervened," Mina added.

It is an Egyptian tradition to commemorate the dead on the 40th day after death.

In other words, when Coptic Christians acted in accordance with tradition and sought to commemorate the deaths of over two dozen victims of anti-Christian violence, the response to those mourners was to afflict them with further violence. At least 32 of the marchers suffered injuries as a result of the attacks.

While the Obama administration lavishes praise on the rising Islamist parties, Christians find themselves on the political sidelines in Egypt in the wake of the Arab Spring. The Salafi Islamists believe that their hour has come for power in Egypt, and Al-Nour (the largest Salafi political party) is posturing itself for an expansion of Sharia law if it gains power in the parliamentary elections scheduled to start on November 28. A Reuters article (“Strict Muslims stake claim on Egypt’s political scene”) captures the change which the growing Islamic movement has worked in Alexandria, one of the strongholds of Coptic Christianity:

"What we want is the complete commitment to Islamic sharia law... The minimum is the constitution and then establishing a system of good governance," said Abdel Monem el-Shahat, a scholar and spokesman for Alexandria's leading Salafi body. …

"Alexandria isn't the same any more ... It's losing its character and it will be unfeasible for it to return as the center for political and cultural freedoms," said Sarah Hegazy, a Muslim woman who teaches at Alexandria University.

Salafis staged a show of strength in Cairo's Tahrir Square on July 29 when they appeared en masse chanting slogans such as "Islamic, Islamic, we don't want secular."

At the same time, Coptic candidates for office de-emphasize their Christian beliefs if they want to seek office; for example, the Jerusalem Post highlighted the example of Shaheer Ishak — a young Copt who was active in protests earlier this year, and who is now a candidate for parliament:

But as sectarian tensions have erupted in the weeks leading up to November 28 parliamentary elections, the young political economist is ignoring religion, both as part of his personal identify and as a campaign issue. He shares the liberal philosophy of the Egypt Freedom Party, which was founded last May by a group of activists from the revolution and to which he belongs.

“I don’t see myself as a Christian candidate,” he begins, able to multi-task at their downtown Cairo headquarters after a leadership meeting. He told The Media Line that for him, “this election is about creating national consensus and not about breaking the country into religious lines.”

With the Obama administration appearing to take it for granted that Islamist parties will continue to gain power in the wake of the Arab Spring, Coptic Christians take to the streets — and the ballot boxes — endeavoring to retain some of their political voice in the aftermath of a "revolution" in which American influence certainly has helped to tip the scales in favor of the Islamists. For those who must live with the implications of American foreign policy, the dangers of reckless interventionism may never have been so clear.

Obama “Misses the Point” of Anti-Christian Violence in Egypt

Monday, November 21, 2011

Ultra-Orthodox Jews In Jerusalem: When Women & Girls Are The Enemy

 

November 21, 2011

An Ultra Orthodox Jewish man walks past a vandalized poster showing a woman, in Jerusalem.

The face of extremism ... across Jerusalem posters featuring women have been defaced by ultra-Orthodox Haredim. Photo: AP

Gender is the new battleground as ultra-orthodox Jews try to impose their conservative values in Israel, writes Ruth Pollard in Jerusalem.

Imagine a world where all photographs of women and girls - on posters, advertising material, buses, billboards and shop windows - gradually disappear from public view; where supermarket lines are segregated and men and women sit in different sections of public transport: men at the front, women at the back.

This is Jerusalem in November 2011.

A torn poster of a woman is seen in Jerusalem. Images of women have vanished from the streets of Israel's capital.

A torn poster of a woman in the streets of Israel's capital. Photo: AP

Israel's ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, community may be just a large (and growing) minority, but the impact of its deeply conservative values is being felt strongly in the country.

Not content with segregated streets, queues and buses, extremist members of the Haredi have turned their attention to the city of Bet Shemesh, 30 kilometres to the west of Jerusalem.

Here, Jewish girls as young as six, wearing a conservative uniform of skirts below the knee and shirts to the elbow, are being targeted by the Haredi, called ''pritzas'' (prostitutes) for being ''immodestly dressed'' as they walk into Orot girls school, a state-funded religious-nationalist school. The Haredi are demanding the girls cover up. And, it doesn't end there. Fresh from their fight last month to segregate an entire street in the ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighbourhood of Mea Sharim during the religious celebration of Sukkot - the Haredi have set their sights on billboards and other advertising material that feature images of women.

So far the ultra-Orthodox have managed to ensure a public health campaign to attract organ donors only uses pictures of men, while an insurance company has removed images of girls from its child health promotional material.

Speaking to Israel's Army Radio about his company's organ donor advertisements, Ohad Gibli, deputy director of marketing for the Canaan advertising agency, said: ''We have learned that an ad campaign in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak that includes pictures of women will remain up for hours at best, and in other cases, will lead to the vandalisation and torching of buses.''

Indeed, as Chief Justice Dorit Beinisch was quoted as saying during a September High Court hearing over the segregation of the Mea Sharim street, gender segregation ''began with buses, continued with supermarkets and reached the streets. It's not going away, just the opposite.''

Orot girls school may be the focus of battle between Jews in Bet Shemesh but it is also a reflection of a wider battle across Israel between the the ultra-orthodox on one side and and the religious nationalist and secular Jews on the other.

Last week Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat publicly intervened in the growing dispute over the display of women's images, writing a letter to Police Commander Niso Shaham stating: ''We must make sure that those who want to advertise [with] women's images in the city can do so without fear of vandalism and defacement of billboards or buses showing women.''

On November 11, hundreds of demonstrators gathered in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Beersheba to sing in protest at the Haredi stance against women and an incident at an Israel Defence Forces event, where four ultra-Orthodox male cadets left a function because women were singing.

Describing itself as a ''society of scholars'', the Haredi community is one of the fastest growing in Israel. A November 2010 report by Haifa University demographers, Arnon Soffer and Evgenia Bystrov, estimates 30 per cent of all Jewish newborns in Israel are Haredi, while government statistics predict that by 2025 the Haredim will have jumped from 9 per cent of the population to 15 per cent.

Tensions are also exacerbated by the fact that, in a country that has compulsory military service for men and women, most Haredi do not serve in the military.

And because of their focus on religious study, most Haredi men do not work, relying instead on social welfare provided by the government, or the income earned by their wives, who also give birth to large numbers of children, often up to eight or nine per family.

Meanwhile, many extreme Haredi do not recognise the authority of the government, the police or the courts, and describe themselves as ''anti-Zionist'' - they are against anything that is privileged over the Torah.

Tamar El Or, a professor of anthropology and sociology at the Hebrew University has lived with Haredi families as part of her research into the community. For many years, she says, they felt as if their communities were marginalised, that they were living on the fringe of the Zionist project. Now all that has changed.

''They feel very safe and at home in Jerusalem,'' Professor El Or says. ''When you walk through the streets of Jerusalem you can feel that the majority of the public looks either ultra-Orthodox or Zionist orthodox, and if you want to find the non-orthodox cultural sites, the non-Kosher restaurants, you now have to make extra effort.

''The balance has tipped, and the non-orthodox people in Jerusalem are the minority, not just on the numbers, but on the cultural feeling, the atmosphere.''

Meanwhile, Jerusalem women are fighting back with a guerrilla campaign of their own - having their photographs taken and hanging them from buildings throughout the city with the slogan ''returning women to Jerusalem billboards''.

''Many of these women are modern, Orthodox women who care about the religion and know that it is possible to live a full religious life without these social restrictions, without also stepping outside beliefs or morals,'' Professor El Or says. ''They believe in religious life as well as gender equality.''

The rise of the Haredim has been disastrous for the country's economy, according to Gershom Gorenberg, author of The Unmaking of Israel.

Gorenberg writes that Israel's ultra-Orthodox community is becoming ever more dependent on the state and, through it, on other people's labour.

''By exempting the ultra-Orthodox from basic general educational requirements, the democratic state fosters a burgeoning sector of society that neither understands nor values democracy.

''And to protect their own growing settlements, Haredi parties are now essential partners in the pro-settlement coalitions of the right,'' he warns.

It is a subject close to the heart of Jerusalem's deputy mayor, Naomi Tzur, who describes the city as one of the country's poorest, partly because the growth of the Haredi community.

Yet despite the sustained Haredi campaign to impose their values on others, Tzur is optimistic about returning the city to a place where secular Jews feel comfortable.

The ''tide is turning'', she says. Previous Jerusalem city councils dominated by the ultra-Orthodox allowed new Haredi neighbourhoods to be built without sufficient infrastructure, such as kindergartens and medical clinics, to support them.

Instead these services were placed in the wider community, creating an opportunity for the closed religious communities to expand and then attempt to impose their restrictions on the secular residents, she says.

''We are saying 'no' to this,'' Tzur says. ''We are not allowing any new residential developments to go ahead without the appropriate institutions to ensure this imbalance is being redressed.''

She describes this expansion of ultra-Orthodox institutions into secular neighbourhoods as ''wicked'' and highlights the need to restore a ''demographic balance'' to the conflicted city of Jerusalem.

''And by that I do not mean a demographic balance of Jewish, Christian and Muslim … I mean getting a better balance of families where both parents are working and paying taxes,'' she says.

In September the city opened 30 new kindergartens in the ''general sector'' for about 900 children, she says. This indicates there has been an increase in secular and orthodox families moving to Jerusalem, who will contribute to life in the city, she says, as opposed to the many ultra-Orthodox who live on social security from the state and ''only take, never give''.

In the Haredi neighbourhood of Mea Sharim, a suburb close to Jerusalem's Old City, where ultra-Orthodox Jewish men dress in long black overcoats and large black hats, and where women cover up to ensure as little skin as possible is exposed, it is like taking a step back in time.

Large black and white posters are plastered throughout the neighbourhood urging women to dress appropriately, and the battle to guard its residents' morals is hard-fought.

''We beg you with all our hearts, please don't pass through this neighbourhood in immodest dress. Modest dress includes closed blouse, long sleeves, skirts - no pants,'' one poster reads.

Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath) is strictly observed - the streets are closed off with police barriers from Friday afternoon until Saturday evening, and there is a ban on driving and the use of electricity.

Gender segregation is extensive - the supermarkets have men-only and women-only queues, and the ice cream shop has separate entrances. The simple ritual of gathering for ice cream, along with a love of music and books, are three pastimes the extremist Haredi have tried to suppress.

Manny's book shop, a large, ultra-Orthodox book store brimming with texts in Hebrew and English, as well as an excellent selection of Hanukkah candles and other religious artefacts, is one of several businesses in Mea Sharim that has born the brunt of the Haredi fury.

Since it opened in March 2010, a small segment of the ultra-Orthodox community has criticised its customers (some of whom are not dressed modestly enough), its books (some of which are published by secular publishers in English), its signage (too colourful) and its advertising (which focuses on having a good time).

On many occasions Marlene Samuels and her husband Manny have arrived at work to find every single window of their shop smashed, their locks glued, the windows defaced with paint, and excrement strewn throughout the store. Other owners of the bookstore have been threatened and their homes vandalised.

But Marlene she says the group of 60 to 100 men who carry out these acts are on the fringes of the ultra-Orthodox community.

''They are a zealous group of extremists - they are not religious, they do not represent the religious community in Mea Sharim or the Jewish people at all … this is not Judaism,'' she says.

''They are thugs, hooligans and criminals, and like any criminal they have got to be arrested and put into prison.''

Frustrated by the lack of action by police, despite her constant reports and the provision of video evidence, Samuels went to the media.

''The police do not like to come into this area because of the violence they encounter when they do. These thugs throw stones at their cars, they break the car windows, they attack the police when they get out of the cars.

''But eventually the police did come in and make some arrests and things started to quieten down.''

''It is such a bad reflection on the religious community because people who are hearing the news are then going to feel negative against the Haredim. But this is a desecration of God's name.''

Other moderate Haredim, such as Jerusalem Post columnist Jonathan Rosenblum, agree ''the zealots'' are tarnishing the reputation of the entire community.

''A lot of religious movements give people license to unleash their psychopathic tendencies,'' he says. ''But they are a very small part of the picture. They are not socialised to live in a mixed community.''

It is wrong to ''impose religious rules'' outside Haredi communities, he says, while within these societies ''it is impossible to draw the wagons much closer.''

As the symbolic battle over women and the public display of their image continues, a new report from the World Economic Forum indicates women's status in Israel is deteriorating year by year.

On measures such as economic participation, health and education levels and political empowerment, Israel has fallen in the rankings on the Global Gender Gap index for the second year in a row, and now sits at 55 of the 135 countries measured for the report, down from 52 in 2010 and 45 in 2009.

It's hard to see how removing images of women from public life will improve the nation's performance.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews In Jerusalem: When Women & Girls Are The Enemy