Dutch Muslim Party Opposed Free Speech

Written by James Heiser

Thursday, 26 January 2012 14:34

The Dutch Muslim Party, an Islamist political party in the Netherlands, has announced its intention to compete for seats in the nation’s parliament. Given the success of the party in several smaller political campaigns — securing offices in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and other Dutch cities — it is possible that a party, which targets the approximately 6 percent of the nation’s population that identifies itself as Muslim, may find it has sufficient support to gain influence in the Dutch parliament.

An article by Michael Noer for Forbes.com highlights the Islamist agenda of the Dutch Muslim Party, and details the intended legislative agenda if any members of the party are elected to the parliament:

1. Criminalization of blasphemy
2. Free speech within limitations:  speech that can be seen as insulting or offensive on religious grounds will be prosecuted.
3. Damage or destruction of holy texts for any religion to be criminalized by law.
4. Members of the party can also be non-Muslims.
5. Women and men are to be seen as equal under the law.
6. The party is to be based on the Islamic principle of Shura
7. All troops must be withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan
8. Turkey must immediately be made a member of the EU
9. Support to Israel must be stopped
10. Zero-tolerance for all drugs, including marijuana (currently tolerated under Dutch law)
11. No bans shall be set against the current practice of importing poorly-educated women as brides for Dutch Muslim men

Certainly aspects of the party’s agenda — including a withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, reform of Dutch drug laws, and an end to support of Israel — might easily draw support from Dutch politicians who have little interest in supporting an Islamist agenda; the broader appeal of certain aspects of the party’s agenda is reflected in the declaration that “Members of the party can also be non-Muslims” and the party’s commitment to the “principle of Shura” — which may be interpreted as declaring the party will take the views of the governed into account while making its decisions. However, since the consultations implied in the “principle of Shura” are usually confined to those who adhere to Islam, it is difficult to interpret such a commitment as it would usually be understood in a representative form of Western government.

Last year, the Netherlands faced a series of controversies centering on the interplay between Islam and Dutch society. The trial of Geert Wilders — the leader of the Party for Freedom, the third largest political party in the Netherlands — on charges of “inciting hatred and discrimination” against Muslims drew international attention for months. Wilders’ acquittal in late June 2011 drew the ire of Muslims, even as it brought a measure of relief to free speech advocates. Around the same time, the Dutch parliament passed legislation requiring the humane slaughter of livestock — a move that drew criticism from Muslims and Jews living in the Netherlands; although the law specifically allowed for an exception from the law for religious groups “if they can scientifically prove their slaughter methods are less painful to animals than preliminary stunning,” the Dutch government faced accusations of antisemitism, based on possible bans on kosher butchering practices. However, as noted for The New American last June, the act affected vastly more Muslims than Jews:

Given the fact that a population of 30,000 Jews makes up less than one fifth of one percent of the population of a country of over 16.5 million people, it seems implausible to view antisemitism as the motivation for adopting the legislation. A far more believable argument can be advanced that the new legislation gained support because of its perceived impact on the Muslim community.
According to a 2008 briefing paper by The Institute for Multicultural Development FORUM in the Netherlands, despite the fact that only 6,000 native-born Dutch are Muslims, adherents of Islam now constitute 5.8% of the population of the Netherlands. …
The FORUM report notes that current research places the number of Muslims living in the Netherlands at 837,000 in 2006. Given a Muslim population which is at least 28 times larger than the Jewish community, it seems far more likely that any member of the Dutch parliament who was thinking of the potential for restricting the activities of a given religious group within the country was probably far more mindful of Muslim practices.

The agenda enunciated by the Dutch Muslim Party clearly articulate an Islamic response to such developments in Dutch society. The party’s commitment to several tenets clearly opposed to the understanding of free speech now known throughout the Western world delineate the organization’s Islamist agenda. “Criminalization of blasphemy” would certainly be a tool in the hands of those who would silence the likes of Geert Wilders; at the same time, however, several key beliefs proclaimed of any one of the three major religions under discussion in the Netherlands — Islam, Judaism, and Christianity — would be interpreted as blasphemy by the other two. For example, both Muslims and Jews would consider the declaration that Jesus is the Son of God to be “blasphemy”; certainly the Muslim claim that Jesus was only a prophet, and one of less significance than Mohammed, would be recognized by Christians as blasphemous. Certainly any expression of atheism would be interpreted by the Dutch Muslim Party as criminal blasphemy — a point made clear in Article 2.2 of the party’s “vision” statement.

The ability of the Dutch Muslim Party to implement its agenda — even if its adherents gain one or more seats in parliament — is, arguably, minimal at best. Nevertheless, the party’s anti-free speech agenda clearly brings the program of multiculturalism full circle: the ideological commitment to a doctrine of inclusion of all opinion has now given rise to the expression of a fundamental rejection of the very tolerance which afforded such opinions a public forum in the first place.

Photo: Mevlana Mosque in Rotterdam, Netherlands

Dutch Muslim Party Opposed Free Speech

Soros: euro crisis might wreck EU

Larry Elliott and Jill Treanor in Davos

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 January 2012 21.16 GMT

George Soros says Europe did too little, too late, and Nouriel Roubini says Europe needs 'less austerity and more growth'

George Soros addresses World Economic Forum Link to this video

The euro fell sharply on the foreign exchanges today after the legendary speculator George Soros said that growing economic and political tensions could destroy the European Union.

A hard-hitting attack by the billionaire financier on the ineptitude of European policymakers was backed by warnings from other economists on the first day of the World Economic Forum in Davos about the fragility of the single currency.

"Unfortunately, the European authorities had little understanding of how financial markets really work, and did everything wrong." Greece, Soros added, was on the edge of a default that could push it out of the euro. "The odds are in that direction." Following his remarks, the euro lost a cent against the dollar, falling below $1.30.

Nouriel Roubini, one of the few economists to predict the global financial crisis, said: "The policy response is making the recession worse. What Europe needs is less austerity and more growth."

Ken Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, added to the pressure when he said the euro was a "halfway house that doesn't work".

Soros proposed that Spain and Italy should be allowed to finance their deficits by issuing treasury bills with a 1% interest rate, and warned that the current policies were leaving the weaker eurozone nations "relegated to the status of third world countries that became highly indebted in a foreign currency.

"The trouble is that the austerity that Germany wants to impose will push Europe into a deflationary debt spiral."

He added: "The fact that an unattainable target is being imposed creates a very dangerous political dynamic. Instead of bringing the member countries closer together, it will drive them to mutual recriminations. There is a real danger that the euro will undermine the political cohesion of the European economy."

Soros said the architects of the single currency had always known it was incomplete, and intended to buttress monetary union with political union. Defects had been ignored, he added, which set in motion a process of disintegration that made union more difficult to achieve today than when the euro was introduced.

"The Greek crisis revealed two defects in the Maastricht treaty [that established the single currency] which could prove fatal. First, that when member countries become heavily indebted they become like third-world countries that have borrowed too much in a foreign currency. Second, that there are no provisions for correcting errors in the euro's design. There is neither an enforcement mechanism nor an exit mechanism, and member countries cannot resort to printing money."

What was needed, Soros said, was a comprehensive solution backed by ample financial resources. "But Germany did not want to become the deep pocket for bad debtors. Consequently, Europe did too little too late, and the crisis snowballed."

Italy and Spain had been hit by contagion, Europe was in the grip of a credit crunch, and there was a risk of economic deterioration and political and social disintegration feeding on each other.

The European Union, he said, was "undemocratic to the point where the electorate is disaffected, and ungovernable to the point where it cannot deal with the crisis that it has created".

His point about the governments of Europe was echoed by Philip Jennings, head of UNI, the Swiss-based international trade union federation, who was concerned about workers being stripped of rights they were accustomed to. "Technocrat governments are playing with political gunpowder," Jennings told the forum. "The eurozone is going too far."

Salil Shetty, London-based secretary general of Amnesty International, also warned of the possibility of "explosions" among groups of people disillusioned with their falling living standards.

Jennings stressed his concern extended beyond the eurozone. In the US, for instance, just 6% of w orkers are covered by collective bargaining. "If you take away a worker's voice from the table, don't be surprised by the consequences," he said.

As the first day of Davos got under way yesterday Portugal's borrowing costs were on the rise, hitting a record high amid market fears that the bailed-out country will not be able to break free of its financial crisis in the near future. The yield on three-year debt reached 19.4%, on 10-year bonds it was 14.6%. The economy is forecast to contract by 3.1% this year.

Soros: euro crisis might wreck EU | Business | The Guardian

Davos: a sanatorium for those in denial of capitalism's ills

 

Larry Elliott in Davos

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 January 2012 20.22 GMT

While the World Economic Forum's members sense all is not well with the world, they don't seem to be doing anything about it

Participants at the 42nd annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Photograph: Laurent Gillieron/AP

Before it became famous as the annual gathering place of the leaders of globalisation, Davos was where the well-heeled came to treat their TB. Last night Klaus Schwab, the man who set up the World Economic Forum in the 1970s, said the resort was in a sense reverting to its former use. "Davos will be the sanatorium for the world for the next five days," he said.

His remark summed up the mood at this year's gathering. There is a recognition that all is not right with the world. But after four years of stop-start recovery, rising unemployment, austerity, sovereign debt crises and growing social unrest, you don't need an eight-digit salary to work that out. What there isn't, is a plan for getting out of the mess, or even much of a desire on the part of those doing very nicely out of the current system to start drafting one.

As such there are plenty of doom-laden sessions in which panellists are asked whether the capitalism of the 20th century is failing 21st century society.

Schwab said that companies must constantly reinvent themselves and become socially responsible. The message he wanted the meeting to send out to the Occupy protesters huddling in their igloos was that Davos "gets it". But it doesn't: not really.

Whether by irony or not, the theme for this year's meeting is the Great Transformation, also the title of a famous critique of 19th century capitalism by Karl Polanyi, in which the argument was that the first stab at capitalism red in tooth and claw was utopian and unsustainable. The second attempt at a pure laissez-faire model, which became possible after the collapse of eastern bloc communism, has now run into problems too, as Polanyi would no doubt have predicted.

But most of those in Davos do not want to hear from trade unionists warning that capitalism will eat itself if workers are unable to buy the products they produce, if inequality is allowed to run unchecked, if global unemployment remains stuck at 200 million and ordinary taxpayers are forced to pay for the sins of the banks through blanket austerity programmes.

The sense among the chief executives is that income inequality is rather like the blizzard that has been raging in the high alps for the past week – a force of nature that cannot be controlled. This, though, was precisely Polanyi's point. He said laissez-faire capitalism was a political construct that had been shaped by those in power.

Ben Verwaayen, the chief executive of Alcatel-Lucent, said people should stop being nostalgic because there was no going back to the old world. Shape up, embrace change, get with the globalisation programme: that was his answer to those angry at corporate excesses, job insecurity, offshoring and banks deemed too big to fail.

That sort of talk failed to impress Amadeus Thiemann, an engineer from Zurich who was one of the protesters outside the Davos ring of steel. "We believe that the leaders of the World Economic Forum are just trying to implement new systems to maximise their profits, not to help the world."

Nor did it impress all those on the inside either. Salil Shetty, the London-based secretary general of Amnesty International, warned of "explosions" of people furious at the inequalities. "The biggest risk" was failed leadership, said Shetty. "Seems as if they've been sleeping at the wheel".

Peter Mandelson, meanwhile, was punting the need for a globalisation with the rough edges knocked off, a sort of third-way globalisation to "reduce the costs and ills [of the system] including the wide income disparities that have been generated over the last decade or so".

According to the former business secretary, the world is going through the third wave of globalisation, following the British-dominated model between 1870 and 1914 and the American-led system that emerged at the end of the second world war. Germany was the exemplar of the people-centric model of globalisation that was needed, he added.

With signs that this year's presidential elections in the United States and France will be coloured by increasingly isolationist and protectionist language, Mandelson said the economic crisis of the past four years could easily spill over into a strong anti-globalisation movement, which he said would have baleful consequences.

He said: "If we start closing markets or blocking trade, the prospects are that we would be pushed further into the downward economic spiral that we are in already."

Even stronger warnings came from a Davos old-stager, the investor George Soros, who stressed the self-defeating nature of the austerity being pushed on Europe by Angela Merkel, predicting that the inevitable result would be a Greek default, contagion, a vortex of economic failure and social unrest and eventually a threat to the European Union itself.

When she gave the opening address a couple of hours later, the German chancellor was nothing like as quotable – or as interesting. Her low-key speech stressed the need for budgetary discipline, competitiveness and solidarity. Bit by bit, Europe was getting there, Merkel said, even though the progress was perhaps not fast enough.

Her goal appears to be a United States of Europe, with the European commission acting even more like a government than it does now. David Cameron, who gives a keynote address on Thursday, may have a few problems with that.

Europe spent much of the last 12 months in denial about the extent of its problems. The same could be said of Davos, where a poll of chief executives a year ago predicted that 2011 would be a golden year. Instead, it was a stinker, at least for countries in the developed world.

Will 2012 be any different? On the evidence so far, fat chance.

Davos: a sanatorium for those in denial of capitalism's ills | Business | The Guardian

In Libya, a Salafi Campaign against Tombs and Heineken

By Steven Sotloff / Tripoli Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012

Libyans perform ritual prayers at a mosque in Tripoli October 24, 2011./ Marco Longari / AFP / Getty Images

The Libyan revolution has not been kind to Mahmud al-Arabi. Last March, forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ransacked his grocery store in Zuwara after he fled to Tunisia, stealing about $6,000 worth of supplies. When he returned in September, facing mounting debts, al-Arabi turned to selling beer and liquor — an illegal enterprise in a country where alcohol has been banned for four decades. His new business drew the attention of Islamist rebels who helped to overthrow Gaddafi. After they threatened the store's landlord, they blew up Arabi's shop. Out of money and out of work, Arabi spends his days in his trailer home lamenting the turn his country has taken. Says he, "I got nothing but suffering from this revolution."

Throughout this country, Libyans are discovering that their hard fought battle to win freedoms is at risk. Puritanical Muslims known as Salafis are applying a rigid form of Islam in more and more communities. They have clamped down on the sale of alcohol and demolished the tombs of saints where many local people worship. The small town of Zuwara near the Tunisian border, dominated by a heterodox Muslim sect despised by the Salafis, is quickly becoming the battlefield for competing visions of Libya's future.

(PHOTOS: Libya Celebrates Liberation)

Arabi's trailer sits on the outskirts of the town, surrounded by crushed Heineken beer cans. Inside, bowls strewn around the floor capture the rain drops that leak through the porous ceiling. "I prefer selling alcohol to begging," he says, explaining how he lost his entire savings during the revolution. After Gaddafi loyalists took the town, he was a wanted man for supporting the anti-regime fighters and had to be smuggled to Tunisia at a cost of 3,500 dinars. "I lost everything in my store and had no money. So I decided to sell alcohol."

He shows off a room with 3,000 small cans of Heineken beer and a dozen liquor bottles. "Business was very good," he boasts. "I had more than a hundred customers a day who bought Absolut [Vodka], J&B and [Johnny Walker] Red Label." But when the Salafis came knocking, Arabi knew his days as an alcohol vendor were numbered. "They said this was a Muslim village where alcohol is forbidden," he relates. "I didn't want any trouble with them and agreed to stop selling alcohol at the store. But the Salafis weren't satisfied with that and destroyed it."

 (VIDEO: Libya to Citizens: Give Up Your Guns)

It is not only Arabi who has faced the Salafis' wrath. The estimated 200-to-400 members of the local Salafi movement have demolished shrines belonging to adherents of the Ibadi sect, long considered heretics by orthodox Sunni Muslims. In the town's cemetery, large blocks of stone surround what was once a mausoleum. The large conical shaped structure that once adorned it now lies collapsed in the debris. Salafists are intolerant of other strands of Islam and have physically attacked Muslim minorities in other parts of the Arab world such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Many Muslims frequent the shrines of saints, believing they have powers of intercession with the divine. Salafis, however, believe these are pagan rites that must be obliterated from Islam. "The situation has gotten much worse lately," says Ibadi Sheikh Walid Darder. "We may have not had political rights under Gaddafi, but we did not live in fear of going to the mosque."

Throughout Libya, Gaddafi's fall has emboldened Salafis, who were persecuted and imprisoned under the now deceased leader. They have increased their public presence, taken over mosques, and even hoisted the flag of al-Qaeda over the courthouse in Benghazi where the revolution began eleven months ago. In the capital of Tripoli, Salafis have destroyed more than six shrines. In one incident, dozens swarmed mausoleums belonging to two Muslim mystics and dug up their bodies so that worshippers could no longer visit their tombs. They also burned the relics around the shrines.

Arabi however is not concerned with the destruction of obscure tombs he does not frequent. "I just want my life back," he pleads. "I fought in the mountains here against Gaddafi. My payback is blowing up my shop," he says, turning to dump a bowl full of rainwater on the soggy field outside his trailer.

MORE: Libya's Army Tries to Reassert Itself as Militias Have Their Way

VIDEO: Why They Protest: Egypt, Libya and Syria

In Libya, a Salafi Campaign against Tombs and Heineken - TIME

Graphic: How exchange rates could collapse after a Euro break-up

By Conrad Quilty-Harper 9:54AM GMT 16 Dec 2011

With the break-up of the Euro still a distinct possibility according to economists and companies, we take a look at what new currencies such as a new Greek drachma and Portugese escudo would be worth in a post-Euro europe.

View Graphic: Currency Values after Eurozone breakup

Forecasting the effects on exchange rates of a break-up of the Euro and what it would mean for new national economies has been attempted by economists at ING and Nomura.

Their studies collated the relative worth of potential new currencies five years after a theoretical collapse of the Euro.

Our charts show ING's forecast for 2012 based on their assumption of a dollar to sterling rate of 1.42. For 2016 the chart shows the average of their forecasts, converted to ING's guess of a dollar to sterling rate of 1.5.

ING sees an immediate fall in currencies in 2012, which is shown in the red bars, and a recovery over the four years running up to 2016. ING predicts that most of the new currencies will not reach Euro exchange rates, except for Germany which would see its currency appreciate by four per cent.

The weakest nations inside the Eurozone would rapidly devalue against sterling by 2016, with a new Greek drachma worth at least 44 per cent less against sterling by 2016, the Portugese escudo worth 28 per cent less and the Spanish peseta worth nearly 24 per cent less.

Both forecasters believe it would be a far from smooth ride if the Euro collapsed. There would be enormous uncertainty after a possible Euro collapse, with currencies liable to overshoot and be subject to high volatility.

In ING's complete break-up scenario, governments decide to convert all assets and liabilities into their new national currencies. Capital controls like transaction taxes are temporarily introduced in an effort to stop money leaving weaker members.

New notes and coins are introduced as quickly as possible, but in the transition Euro notes would likely be stamped to mark them as the new national currencies, and strict legal tender limits would be put on coins.

In the Eurozone ING sees GDP output falls ranging from seven per cent in Germany to 13 per cent in Greece.

The Nomura team base their analysis on current real exchange rate misalignments and possible future inflation risk.

Graphic: How exchange rates could collapse after a Euro break-up - Telegraph

Time to take control of the credit rating agencies

 

Aditya Chakrabortty

guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 January 2012 20.00 GMT

Credit rating agencies keep getting it wrong but still make billions. Why don't politicians stand up to them?

Sarkozy … vowed to do better with a flurry of economic reforms. Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features

One point of view has counted more than any other in Europe over the past few days. After deciding on Friday night that France should be stripped of its top-of-the-range AAA credit rating, the agency Standard & Poor's has faced a lambastin g from EU commissioners. It has heard wheedling from France's prime minister: "We will do everything to get [the triple A] back." Back it or attack it, no politician, economist or commentator has denied that S&P's verdict matters. So much for the death of the critic.

Sure, the carpers will bring up all the times the credit rating agencies have got it wrong in the past. Sophisticates might point out that America lost its triple-A last year and yet when the US Treasury now goes for a loan, panicky investors actually pay it to take their cash. A downgrade needn't spell disaster.

But this is to miss the big point. S&P and its rival Moody's have a power over governments and corporations that far outranks any influence you or I as voters or workers might have. What did Nicolas Sarkozy say after his downgrade? After the requisite few hours of stamping his platform shoes, he vowed to do better with a flurry of economic reforms. Likewise, a couple of years ago, George Osborne justified his planned spending cuts by explicit reference to the agencies: "Judge us … on whether we are able to protect our credit rating."

What gives S&P and Moody's such immense power is not their brilliant analysis: it is simply the function they perform. Whether prime minister or CEO, if you want to borrow from bond markets you need a credit report to show investors. Which means going to the two agencies every money manager has heard of, and getting a credit rating. For all the capital letters and "negative outlooks", the credit-rating agencies are the financial market equivalent of the DVLA in Swansea: the people who award you the necessary licence to get out on the open road.

It sounds boring and technical, which is why no one gets wound up about the credit rating duopoly. You could probably spot Bob Diamond's tan at 100 paces, but you've almost certainly never heard of Douglas Peterson, the former Citibank executive who runs S&P's ratings. Yet Peterson, as one of the two main gatekeepers to the world's credit markets, is far more powerful than Diamond. He's also head of a business that last year pulled in $1.7bn. These companies are big and they're powerful, yet their status is almost never questioned.

Why should S&P and Moody's earn such vast sums? Certainly not for their oracular genius – the agencies have as much foresight as Mr Magoo. In my working life, the credit-rating duopoly has failed to warn investors about the Asian financial crisis, Enron, the subprime crisis, Lehman Brothers – and Greece. My particular favourite, Moody's report dates from December 2009 and is titled "Investor fears over Greek government liquidity misplaced". Six months later, Athens received a $147bn rescue package.

Nor are they much cop at analysing corporates, either. Consider this statistic from Sukhdev Johal at Royal Holloway University of London: of the corporate debt rated by S&P as AAA, 32% has been downgraded within just three years, 57% within seven years. That is a huge discrepancy and one that you and I end up paying for through losses on our pension funds. But not the agencies: since every borrower still needs a rating, however offbeam, their pre-tax profits have barely been touched by the financial crisis.

Since they can't rest on their records, the dis-credit agencies prefer to drape themselves in the cloak of science, claiming the work they do is highly technical and independent. But the anthropologist Alexandra Ouroussoff has spent years studying the agencies; she remembers how in the middle of last January's turmoil in Tunisia, S&P issued a report warning of "downward ratings pressures" on neighbouring governments if they tried to calm social unrest with "populist" tax cuts or spending increases. That extraordinary intervention in the middle of a revolution amounted to one dictum: screw your people and screw political stability; to remain financially viable, you have to stick to your spending plans.

Rather than stick to obscure technicalities, the duopoly is not above meddling in politics: ask the state legislators of Georgia, in the US. In 2003, well before the sub-prime bust, it brought in strict new laws to clamp down on predatory lending. Other states were set to follow – until S&P retaliated by saying it wouldn't rate mortgage-backed bonds made in Georgia. The law duly torpedoed, other states warned off, the dis-credit agencies proceeded to carry on raking it in.

So, the agencies are neither accurate nor merely observers – yet they bully governments around the world and make billions doing so. The obvious solution would be to take this public service into public hands. Let's have a ratings agency run by the UN, funded by pooled contributions from both lenders and borrowers. It should be the only one to have preferential access to data from corporates and countries. Let's make the ratings business a utility, rather than a semi-cartel that intimidates elected politicians and rakes in excess profits. It's time to break up the bullying double-act.

Time to take control of the credit rating agencies | Aditya Chakrabortty | Comment is free | The Guardian

S&P downgrades European bailout fund

Phillip Inman, economics correspondent

guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 January 2012 19.19 GMT

Standard & Poor's cuts the European Financial Stability Facility's credit rating from AAA to AA+ following Friday's mass downgrade of nine eurozone countries

Charles Dallara, head of the IIF, said Greece is demanding 'completely unreasonable' interest rate cuts. Photograph: AP

Standard & Poor's, the credit ratings agency, has stripped Brussels' main bailout fund of its AAA status and challenged eurozone countries to increase their financial support for a collective rescue package or risk a further downgrade.

The move forced European leaders onto the back foot following the mass downgrade of nine eurozone countries by S&P last week.

S&P said the loss of France's AAA rating had forced it to conclude that the European Financial Stability Facility should be cut to AA+ from AAA, which could increase its borrowing costs.

Germany and Finland, the remaining AAA-rated countries in the single currency, are expected to come under pressure to increase their commitments to bolster the EFSF's funds to prevent a further downgrade and the likelihood that lenders will demand higher interest costs.

The blow to the EFSF came as bankers poured cold water on hopes for an early deal between Greece and its creditors after they accused Athens of making "completely unreasonable" demands for debt payment cuts.

Charles Dallara, head of the Institute of International Finance which represents Greece's private creditors, said talks had yet to reach agreement on any aspect of a deal following demands from Greek negotiators for ultra-low interest rates on its outstanding debts.

The warning will send a shiver through Europe's capitals, which are pinning their hopes on a private sector deal with Greece to cap the country's ballooning debt bill and prevent contagion to other southern European nations.

As George Osborne admitted he could be forced to give billions of pounds in extra funds to the IMF to prevent Europe's debt crisis from spinning out of control, Dallara warned the Greek government that demanding a 4% interest rate meant some banks would be forced to write-off three quarters of their loans.

"That is essentially the area where the differences are substantial," Dallara said ahead of a rescheduled meeting on Wednesday. "They are looking at the private sector to accept interest rates that they would not accept [themselves], which is completely unreasonable."

Greece has accused hedge funds and banks of undermining a deal following a collapse in talks last Friday. Sources close to Athens said creditors were using brinkmanship to extract a high interest rate on outstanding debts to offset losses from a cut in the value of loans.

Banks have proved adept in the last couple of years in appearing to offer debt forgiveness while imposing a higher interest rate that allows them to recoup much of their losses.

However, bankers have insisted they need to drive a hard bargain following pressure to build up their reserves amid concerns of a recession this year and the potential for a repeat of 2008's credit crunch. Eurozone banks must find an extra £120bn to bolster their capital under rules imposed by Brussels.

Some analysts expect banks to need in excess of €120bn (£100bn) to satisfy international investors that they could remain solvent in a difficult economic period.

Danny Gabay, a former Bank of England economist, said that the bill for recapitalising European banks was far in excess of Brussels' estimate and nearer €1.8 trillion.

Gabay, who runs Fathom Consulting, said: "There is a way out if policymakers across Europe, and most notably those in Frankfurt, come to their senses and do what needs doing. Both they and we have long known that a wholesale recapitalisation of the European banking system is the necessary first step in resolving this crisis."

Gabay said the European Central Bank would also need to follow the Bank of England and US Federal Reserve by pumping cheap money into the financial system using quantitative easing (QE).

The ECB has proved reluctant to begin QE without firmer agreement among eurozone nations over which countries will pay the costs of bailing out indebted member states. It is also concerned to see closer fiscal co-operation to prevent cheap money being used to avoid implementing tough austerity measures.

Speaking to a German newspaper, ECB executive board member Jörg Asmussen warned that a new fiscal pact under discussion was being softened. Eurozone nations agreed before Christmas to fashion a closer union that would involve increased oversight of national budgets.

But Asmussen, who formerly worked for Germany's finance minister, said a draft agreement that allowed countries to loosen the spending rules in extraordinary circumstances amounted to a "substantial watering down".

Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and Ireland have become dependent on the ECB to lend funds as private investors shun European debt markets. Spain will test market appetite for its short-term debt on Tuesday for the first time since a downgrade by ratings agency Standard & Poor's last week. Analysts said it faces a far bigger hurdle on Thursday at an auction of bonds with maturities of up to 10 years.

Despite the two-notch cut by S&P, Spain is tipped to draw solid demand at both auctions, benefiting from support from banks flush with ECB cash and market perceptions the new government is serious about addressing the country's economic woes.

S&P downgrades European bailout fund | Business | The Guardian

Al Qaeda takes Yemeni town

Posted January 17, 2012 09:38:39

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Map: Yemen

Al Qaeda militants swept into the Yemeni town of Rada overnight and overran it within hours, marking a significant advance by the extremists towards the capital, officials said.

Rada, 130 kilometres south-east of Sanaa, is the latest in a series of towns and cities - until now in the south and east - to fall as Al Qaeda takes advantage of a central government weakened by months of protests.

Several sources in the town said more than 1,000 gunmen invaded Rada, which is within striking distance of a strategic highway connecting Sanaa with the south and south-west.

"Al Qaeda has taken over the town and is now the de facto power there," a local official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"The government's security forces have retreated to their bases and militants are now manning the checkpoints in and out of the town."

The official said the militants had also seized Rada's central prison and police headquarters. The extremists also took over the intelligence HQ.

According to a local tribal chief, more than 100 prisoners were released, "including members of Al Qaeda."

Two soldiers guarding the prison were killed, officials said.

Yemen's defence ministry news website reported that "armed terrorist elements" broke into the Rada prison and helped people on criminal charges escape.

Two people were killed later during an exchange of fire between gunmen and Al Qaeda in a central market area, one official said.

A government official also said that "10 policemen" were abducted.

The takeover began late on Sunday (local time) and was completed by dawn on Monday without significant resistance from security forces, tribal officials said.

'Stronger than the state'

Tribesmen have accused president Ali Abdullah Saleh's government of complacency and said that despite repeated warnings, it did little to prevent Rada's fall.

"We've been warning the authorities about the Al Qaeda threat for months. We told them that their actions and behaviour pointed to their intentions to take over," tribal leader Sheikh Ammar Al-Teiri told AFP.

"The government has absolutely no role here any more."

He said local tribesmen decided to join forces and help protect the city from Al Qaeda, "but they showed up in such force it became clear that in this town at least, they were stronger than the state".

The takeover of Rada, in Al-Bayda province, was accompanied by what appears to be the formal appointment of a local "emir," or prince, to govern the newly-seized territory.

Tribal officials said the post went to Tareq al-Dahab, a brother-in-law of slain US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi who was killed in a suspected US drone strike in September.

Lengthy protests

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its local affiliates have taken advantage of almost a full year of deadly protests against Mr Saleh to bolster their presence in the south-eastern Shabwa province and nearby Marib.

Abyan province in the south has been the main target of Al Qaeda's growing strength, with militants seizing provincial capital Zinjibar in May and several other towns since.

News of Al Qaeda's victory quickly spread through Bayda, prompting thousands from the provincial capital - also named Bayda - to march in anti-government protests, demanding the governor's resignation and removal of regional security chiefs.

Opposition groups have repeatedly accused Mr Saleh of intentionally allowing militants to take towns and cities to convince Western leaders that a Yemen without him at the helm will fall to extremists.

Hundreds of militants and soldiers have been killed in battles between Islamist fighters and government forces.

AFP

Al Qaeda takes Yemeni town - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

UK condemns West Bank settlements as 'vandalism'

Updated January 17, 2012 08:59:02

Photo: Mahmoud Abbas speaks during a joint press conference with Nick Clegg in central London (AFP: Leon Neal)

Related Story: Israel approves settlements despite peace talks

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Map: Palestinian Territory, Occupied

Britain has condemned Israeli settlements as "deliberate vandalism" of efforts to establish a Palestinian state, warning that time is running out for the peace process in the Middle East.

The comments on Jewish settlements by deputy prime minister Nick Clegg bolster Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas' position as negotiators attempt to revive moribund peace talks.

Mr Clegg's comments were some of Britain's strongest yet on the Middle East's most intractable conflict.

"Once you place physical facts on the ground which make it impossible to deliver what everyone has for years agreed is the ultimate destination, then you do immense damage," he said during a visit to London by Mr Abbas, referring to settlements impeding efforts to create a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

"It's an act of deliberate vandalism to the basic premise upon which negotiations have taken place for years and that is why we have expressed our concerns as a government in increasingly forceful terms."

He prefaced his comments by saying there was "no stronger supporter" of Israel than himself.

British prime minister David Cameron also warned time was running out for the talks to succeed.

It's an act of deliberate vandalism to the basic premise upon which negotiations have taken place for years.

UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg

"We think that time, in some ways, is running out for the two-state solution unless we can push forward now," he said.

"Because otherwise the facts on the ground will make it more and more difficult, which is why the settlement issue remains so important."

Mr Abbas, who is also due to visit Berlin and Moscow, welcomed the comments, saying a halt in settlements was need for the the process to succeed.

"This is exactly what we had wanted to hear officially from the government of the United Kingdom," he said.

"Of course, time is of the essence; there must be speed... Settlements have to stop in order for us to be able to continue our negotiations, to come to some sort of solution."

Mr Clegg said the Arab Spring had ushered in a period of change that could make negotiations more fruitful: "If there was any time for real progress, then it is now."

Mr Abbas is on a tour of Europe while negotiators from both sides undertake initial discussions on resuming full talks.

The exploratory discussions began on January 3 and followed a long break in negotiations after Mr Abbas suspended talks 15 months ago over Israel's expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, where Palestinians want to found a state.

'Not willing to meet'

All parties to the talks have accepted the ultimate goal of a "two-state solution", which would see a Palestinian state established alongside Israel. The sides remain divided over its borders, the fate of Palestinian refugees and other issues.

Israel says such issues can be resolved only at talks with no preconditions and has accused Mr Abbas of squandering a previous, partial moratorium that it placed on settlement expansion.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli MPs in Jerusalem that Palestinians were not serious about the peace talks.

"I am willing to get into the car right now and travel to (the West Bank city of Ramallah), but the truth must be told, it is Abu Mazen [Mr Abbas] who is the one who is not willing to meet," he said.

Palestinians say settlement building moves the goalposts while talks are under way and gives Israel incentive to stall.

In February last year, Britain and almost all other members of the UN Security Council backed a resolution condemning settlement building as illegal and a major obstacle to peace.

The resolution was vetoed by the United States, which says it wants Israel to stop settlement construction but believes international condemnation is unhelpful.

Israel says it would keep certain settlement blocs under any peace deal in accordance with understandings reached in 2004 with then-US president George W Bush.

Mr Abbas said he had received no new proposals from Mr Netanyahu, but that Palestinian negotiators were still scheduled to meet their Israeli counterparts two or three more times.

The "Quartet" of international peace mediators - the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations - wants the two sides to state their positions on the borders and security arrangements of a future two-state solution by January 26.

Reuters

UK condemns West Bank settlements as 'vandalism' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Saudi Arabia: Racist society, terrorism exporter, nuclear weapons capable

05.01.2012

By John Stanton

Iran, Iraq and North Korea may have been labeled "the axis of evil" by President George W. Bush but it is Saudi Arabia that is the center of the Satanic universe here on Earth.

President Obama and the hounds from hell in the US Congress and various thinks tanks who seek to send Americans to fight and die in Iran should be targeting their wrath and the US Instruments of National Power at the House of Saud.

Fed incessant propaganda on the dangers of Iranian ownership of nuclear weapons-and still upset about the Shah's fall and the Iranian hostage crisis--Americans have long since forgotten just how brutal, conniving, and dangerous that Saudi Arabia actually is.

And as cunning and wealthy as the House of Saud is-and with nuke heavy Israel right down the street--it seems very likely that Saudi Arabia is in possession of nuclear weapons either provisioned by the United States or, more likely, Sunni Pakistan. Whatever the case, the US has always had the nuke umbrella open over Saudi Arabia. To put a fine point on that for all to see-mainly Iran---during joint exercises between American and Saudi forces in April 2010, the US decided to launch a nuclear capable TRIDENT ballistic  missile from a US submarine operating in Saudi territorial waters. 

It is Iran that has eleven operating Jewish synagogues in various enclaves in that country. And it is in Iran's Constitution that Christians and Jews are, by law, to hold one seat in Parliament. At least it is a start. Such activity is forbidden in Saudi Arabia.

The Economist's Intelligence Unit 2011 survey of democracy examined 167 countries based on the effectiveness of a particular government and its citizens to handle an open society with press freedoms and free and fair elections, among other categories. Saudi Arabia placed 161st and was tied with Equatorial Guinea and Myanmar for the honor (Iran was 159th).

Internal Terror

The Daily Mail in the UK reported in December 2011 this news: "Textbooks handed out in Saudi Arabian schools teach children how to cut off a thief's hands and feet under Sharia law, it has emerged. The shocking books, paid for and printed by the Saudi government, also tell teenagers that Jews need to be exterminated and homosexuals should be put to death. This is where terrorism starts in the education system...The textbooks were printed for the 2010-2011 academic year and translated from Arabic... Women are described as weak and irresponsible. In one, for ninth-graders, students are taught the annihilation of the Jewish people is imperative. One text reads in part: 'The hour (of judgment) will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. There is a Jew behind me come and kill him. If you teach six million children in these important years of their lives, if you install that in their brain, no wonder we have so many Saudi suicide bombers," said one commentator.

Then there is this forgotten gem from February 2002: "RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Saudi Arabia acknowledged for the first time that 15 of the September 11 suicide hijackers were Saudi citizens, but said Wednesday that the oil-rich kingdom bears no responsibility for their actions. Previously, Saudi Arabia had said the citizenship of 15 of the 19 hijackers was in doubt despite U.S. insistence they were Saudis. But Interior Minister Prince Nayef told The Associated Press that Saudi leaders were shocked to learn 15 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia."

In December 2011, the Daily Mail in the UK reported that "a woman convicted of practicing magic and sorcery has been executed by Saudi authorities. The Saudi Interior Ministry says in a statement that the woman was beheaded today, but gave no details of her crime. The London-based al-Hayat daily, however, quoted Abdullah al-Mohsen, chief of the religious police who arrested the woman, as saying she had tricked people into thinking she could treat illnesses, charging them $800 (£500) per session...In September, a Sudanese man, Abdul Hamid bin Hussain bin Moustafa al-Fakki, was also put to death in Saudi Arabia for sorcery. Amnesty International has called for the kingdom's government to establish an immediate moratorium on executions. The crime of 'sorcery' is not defined in Saudi Arabian law but it has been used to punish people for the legitimate exercise of their human rights, including their right to freedom of expression, the charity said."

Interview with an Executioner

The BBC interviewed a Saudi executioner in June of 2003. It's just business, so to speak." '...[I am] very proud to do God's work.' He does not lose sleep over beheading several people in one day. He said he sometimes shot dead women convicted under Sharia. 'It depends what they ask me to use. Sometimes they ask me to use a sword and sometimes a gun. But most of the time I use the sword.' B

Back in 1998, when he carried out his first execution in Jeddah, he was nervous, because many people were watching. But now he no longer suffers from stage fright, he explained. 'The criminal was tied and blindfolded. With one stroke of the sword I severed his head. It rolled metres away,' he said, recalling his first beheading. He  said his sword was a gift from the government. He keeps it razor sharp and sometimes his children help him clean it. 'People are amazed how fast it can separate the head from the body,' he said. Sometimes he also has to carry out amputations of hands or legs. 'I use a special sharp knife, not a sword. When I cut off a hand I cut it from the joint. If it is a leg the authorities specify where it is to be taken off, so I follow that.'"

Saudi Arabia, with American support, is fomenting religious civil war between the Sunni's and Shia in Iraq, Syria and much of the Middle East region. It was not enough that the United States kicked the middle east ant hill and, in the process, literally destroyed Iraqi society, to include a once flourishing Christian community. Thus the second phase of the second Iraq war continues on as a campaign of internal destabilization to fan the flames of sectarian conflict/civil war in which the adversaries on each side receive funds and support from the USA, Saudi Arabia and other interested governments. The US strategy seems to be one based on destroying annoying cultures from within rather than by overt invasion.

According to Patrick Cockburn writing in a September 2011 issue of Pakistan's The News, "Iranian influence is growing in Baghdad because of the escalating struggle between Sunni and Shia Muslims across the region. The Shia-dominated coalition government in Baghdad is worried that the Sunni uprising in Syria may displace Bashar al-Assad and his regime, whose leaders come mostly from the Alawite Shia sect. The Iraqi Shia also strongly sympathizes with the Shia majority in Bahrain, whose movement for democracy has been ruthlessly crushed by the Sunni al-Khalifa monarchy with the backing of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates."

US Committed to Lingerie and F-15's

Big news of change came recently from Saudi Arabia. 28,000 saleswomen are going to be hired to work in some 7,300 lingerie shops around the country. "Saudi Arabia on the Cups of Change: New rules say only women can sell lingerie, ending male monopoly," runs the headline in the January 2012 edition of the MidEast News Source. "The move is expected to boost employment for the country's women, even if they still have to be driven to their place of work because the country still bans female drivers...Saudi's top cleric, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, blasted the new ruling for contradicting Islamic law, or Shariah. He warned in his Friday sermon that employing women at shops where they interact with men is a crime. 'The employment of women in stores that sell female apparel and a woman standing face to face with a man selling to him without modesty or shame can lead to wrongdoing, of which the burden of this will fall on the owners of the stores,' the mufti thundered....

Right around the same time as "Saudi Arabia and the Cups of Change" came this story in the Ottawa Citizen: "F-15 Sale to Saudi Arabia Just Part of $60 Billion U.S. Sales of Aviation Capabilities to that Country." Dated January 2012, the article indicates that half of the $60 billion will be in the form of advanced F-15 aircraft. The entire package will help the Saudi's defend themselves in uncertain times,  American government officials intimated.

Really? Defend against what? All the men who are losing their lingerie sales jobs or women who want to drive? To blast to smithereens the majority Shia population in Bahrain, the rebels in Yemen, or the thousands of imported workers who labor in wretched conditions within Saudi Arabia?

"In announcing the F-15 sales agreement Dec. 29, James N. Miller, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, and Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, emphasized the close military-to-military ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia. The United States is firmly committed to the security of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as we have been for nearly seven decades, and ... more broadly, the United States and Saudi Arabia have a strong mutual interest in the security and stability of the Gulf," Miller said. The F-15s Saudi Arabia will receive under the agreement "will have the latest generation of computing power, radar technology, infrared sensors and electronic warfare systems," he added. This agreement reinforces the strong and enduring relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia," Shapiro said. "It demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a strong Saudi defense capability as a key component to regional security."

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in national security matters. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com

Saudi Arabia: Racist society, terrorism exporter, nuclear weapons capable - English pravda.ru

Egypt's New Political Equation: The Military, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis

By Abigail Hauslohner/ Cairo Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012

Mohamed Morsi, left, of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian presidential hopeful Amr Moussa, right, talk before Christmas Eve mass, led by Coptic Pope Shenouda III at the Coptic cathedral in Cairo, Egypt, Jan. 6, 2012. Maya Alleruzzo / AP

The new year in Egypt has ushered in a new parliament, dominated for the first time in Egypt's history by Islamists. And with that comes the question of just how those newly empowered Islamists — led by the Muslim Brotherhood with nearly half the seats — will run the country.

Some activists and politicians have predicted that a violent confrontation will ensue between the military and the Islamist bloc, as a tug-of-war for power and influence, particularly in the drafting of Egypt's new constitution, engulfs the months ahead. They say the Islamist parties, who together hold roughly 62% of parliament, will push forward with the implementation of Shari'a — Islamic law — as well as legislation to curtail the military's power and immunity. And they predict that the military will do everything in its power to stop them. "This would give us a new Algeria," says Islam Ahmed Abdallah, a follower of the ultra-conservative Salafi interpretation of Islam, who runs a center geared toward combatting "Christian evangelism." Egypt's Islamists have a history of violent struggle against the regime, he reasons. And if the military challenges their rightfully won authority, Egypt could deteriorate into the kind of violence that wracked Algeria in the 1990s after its military pre-emptively shut down a similar Islamist win.

But other analysts say that a dramatic power play simply isn't in the cards. Rather, argues Kent State University political scientist Joshua Stacher, the dynamic has already been drafted, and it has little to do with extremists like Abdallah, who, embodied in the Salafi Nour party, now control an estimated quarter of the seats in parliament. "The real negotiations will happen at the top of the regime between the Muslim Brotherhood and SCAF [the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces]," he says.

The Brotherhood spent decades organizing, despite the heavy-handed repression inflicted by the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. After participating in the uprising to oust him last winter, the Brotherhood quickly rose to become Egypt's most powerful political party. With their dominance in parliament solidified, the players who matter in charting Egypt's future have been whittled down to two big ones: the Muslim Brotherhood, and the powerful military that Mubarak left behind. Stacher is hardly the only observer to speculate that the two actors are already deeply engaged in closed-door negotiations for Egypt's future distribution of power. Egyptian liberals have warned of such a conspiracy since the spring, alleging that a negotiated partnership kept the Brotherhood out of Tahrir Square (where the liberals have directed their protests against the military council) and cemented the group's win in elections.

The Brotherhood has categorically denied any such backroom deals. But recent weeks of politicking suggest that they also have little intention of throwing their lot in a coalition with their fellow Islamists, the Salafis. Brotherhood officials made it clear this week that they have abandoned earlier calls for Egypt to become a parliamentary — rather than presidential — system, in a move that lifts pressure off the military, and will likely spark condemnation from the ultra-Islamists and liberals. A top Brotherhood official told The New York Times that the group would accept the leadership of military-appointed Prime Minister Kamal al-Ganzouri until July, by which point the military has already said an elected president will take power.

Brotherhood officials have also reached out to American and European diplomatic partners in recent weeks, and have assured both constituents and international partners of their commitment to moderate and inclusive policies in the months ahead. Over the weekend, Brotherhood leaders attended the Coptic Christmas mass at Cairo's main church in a gesture to the country's increasingly wary Christian minority, even as Salafi groups lambasted Christmas celebrations as haram — or un-Islamic. "My sense is that the Brothers feel like the Salafis are politically immature," says Stacher, who notes that the two Islamist blocs also have very different visions of an Islamic Egypt. And the Brotherhood, which as an organization is better acquainted with regime heavy-handedness than the rookie Salafi parties, also knows the military still has the upper hand when it comes to arms and resources. "The Brothers have never really gone for broke, and they're not going to go for broke now," Stacher says. "Now that the Muslim Brotherhood has had their little taste of freedom they're not going back to prison."

Still, the fast rise of the Brotherhood to political prominence doesn't necessarily write the smaller players out of the scene; it merely marginalizes them. Stacher predicts that violent confrontations between the military and liberals or other groups — like the security crackdowns on protesters in Tahrir Square that have left more than 80 people dead since October — will continue in 2012. "Now that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis both have seats, SCAF will try to use them against non-Islamist groups. They can kind of favor the Islamists to get the secularists all worked up," he says. "Or they can play the groups off one another."

Abdallah, the Salafi scholar, says the liberals' influence is on the wane. "Now we are going to control the country," he says. "America will support the liberals with money for a long time, but by the end, they'll be the second Karzai," he adds, comparing their inevitable decline to that of the U.S.-backed president of Afghanistan.

Abdallah's confident rhetoric also raises the specter of the Salafi wild card. Namely, what happens if the most extreme members of parliament find themselves sidelined, either by a Brotherhood seeking a more moderate politics, or by a military that slows — or even derails — their quest for pure Islamic law? (Shari'a law is already a basis of the current Egyptian constitution.)

Some Egyptians report that in Egypt's post-Mubarak security vaccuum, some Salafi groups have already started taking matters of Islamic jurisprudence into their own hands. Rumors abound about Salafis enforcing their interpretation of Shari'a on public spaces. In one Alexandria school, Salafis reportedly ordered the segregation of boys and girls; and a Cairo-based blog reported a Salafi attempt to shut down a women's beauty parlor in the Nile Delta. "I am not against living in a country with a religious background," says Marco Safa, a Christian university student in Cairo. "But they have to remember that they are not alone here. They need to respect the rest of the people, and private freedoms should be guaranteed."

A facebook group supporting the "Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice" — the shadowy organization that some Egyptians allege is behind the recent incidents, and which claims a connection to the Salafis' Nour Party — proposes nothing in matters of parliamentary legislation. Rather, it advises its thousands of facebook fans to "save the Shari'a of God in his lands, and to work according to what he has sent us in his beloved book."

Indeed, Abdallah says the ultra-Islamists, if sidelined, won't need to push legislation anyway; the people will enforce Islamist decrees on their own. "The Egyptians are not satisfied with living with wine in their streets," he says. "And the people, not Islamists [in parliament], are the ones who will stop this in the streets," he adds. "We just started in parliament. So give the sword to the people."

With reporting by Sharaf Al-Hourani/Cairo

Egypt's New Political Equation: The Military, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis - TIME

Europe's Vulnerable Democracy

By Paul Lay | Posted 10th January 2012, 8:25

Greek philosophers and thinkers assemble at Plato's Academy in the Renaissance fresco by Raphael, 1510, known as the 'School of Athens'

There are two fewer democracies in Europe than there were this time last year. The democratically elected governments of Greece and Italy have been replaced by ones made up of unelected ‘technocrats’. The reaction, within those countries and without, has been relatively muted. Though the political systems of both have become bywords for corruption, incompetence and, in the case of Italy, buffoonery, it is still worrying that true democracy can be shelved so easily to be replaced by a ‘managed democracy’, a euphemism employed chillingly by the authorities in China, whose lack of popular accountability combined with rising prosperity threatens to become some kind of model.

It is ironic that Greece and Italy should be the victims of the Eurozone’s economic and political crisis. Demokratia, meaning ‘rule of the people’, is a Greek word to describe the system of governance that emerged in Athens and other city states in the sixth century BC. The political ideas that originated there and spread to the wider Classical world were rekindled and developed in Italy during the Renaissance by the likes of the Florentine Niccolò Machiavelli and Paolo Sarpi, who defended Italian liberty during the Venetian Interdict of 1605-07.

That episode demonstrates that there is nothing new about struggles between the centre and the periphery in Europe. The conflict that led to Pope Paul V excommunicating the Venetian Republic arose when Venice sought to expand its control of church appointments beyond the city proper to its mainland possessions. Sarpi believed the papacy was in league with Spain and the Jesuits to destroy liberty in Italy and assert central control. His promotion of the ‘Myth of Venice’ as the best governed state in the world, a guarantee of the city’s extraordinary prosperity and providence, gained influence in another country suspicious of Spanish motivations and the ways of the papacy: England. Sarpi’s was a vision that inspired many English Republicans, most notably James Harrington, who in The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656) modelled his proposal for a perfect state on that of Venice, an oligarchy with an elected monarch and complex procedures of checks and balances.

Though not a democracy, the Venetian Republic inspired ideas of accountable governance. Democracies as we know them are recent, rare and are not, as some imagine, a natural state of affairs, being slowly attained and fragile. During the 20th century in Continental Europe dictatorship was the norm rather than the exception. Even in Britain, which regards itself as some kind of paragon of stability, universal suffrage at 18 and over began only with the General Election of 1970. After decades of advance, democracy, which should never be taken for granted, has begun to look curiously vulnerable.

Europe's Vulnerable Democracy | History Today

Hungary turns away from democracy

By Robert Marquand, Staff writer / January 10, 2012

Hungary has seen a stunning consolidation of power under President Orban. A new Constitution that took effect Jan. 1 appears to confirm a move toward more authoritarian rule.

A Hungarian police officer in riot gear closes a road during a protest in central Budapest, last week. The ruling Fidesz party has pushed through a Constitution that effectively puts all power into Fidesz’s hands, critics say.

Bernadett Szabo/Reuters Paris

By some estimates, Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orban is not just exiting the house of democracy. It has already left the building.

In the past year, Hungary has undergone an extraordinary consolidation of power by President Orban. No other nation in Europe has made such sweeping and overnight change in its basic laws and approach, and with little public consultation. The culminating event came Jan. 1 with a new Constitution that boldly favors the ruling party and has many European leaders shaking their heads. Coming at a time of economic crisis, the sudden shift is a challenge for democracy and rule of law in the heart of Europe, analysts say.

The protests of tens of thousands in Budapest Jan. 2 over the Constitution date to last March, when voters received an official questionnaire.

RELATED: How much do you know about Europe? Take our geography quiz.

Orban, with a supermajority in parliament, was preparing to rewrite the nation's governing document. Enclosed were 12 questions seeking citizen feedback. Should a constitution protect future generations and family values? One asked about life prison sentences, another about biodiversity. None dealt with basic questions about how power is ordered and checked in a modern democracy.

In the end, it didn't matter.

Two weeks after the mailing, a single-draft constitution emerged, written on an iPad, as the author – a member of the ruling Fidesz party – bragged. By April 19, without debate on any other draft, the parliament ratified a radical new charter, saying it would go into effect Jan. 1 as something demanded by the people.

The new document "transformed the legal landscape to remove checks on the power of the government and put virtually all power into the hands of the current governing party," says Kim Lane Scheppele, an expert on comparative constitutions at Princeton University in New Jer­sey who spent four years in Budapest as a legal adviser. "It violates about all the rules of a modern constitution.... It's a hit-and-run constitution. It went through with such speed … and misrepresentation, and so little public understanding, that most Hungarians have no awareness of what has happened to them."

Those changes went largely unnoticed last spring when Hungary, which held the rotating presidency of the European Union, was simultaneously implementing harsh media laws requiring "balance" in reporting. Since then, journalists in Budapest have gone on hunger strikes, the constitutional preamble was written to recognize the role of Christianity in preserving the nation, and gypsies and minorities have been attacked. Orban replaced the director of the national theater with a playwright who is professedly anti-Semitic and hails from the Jobbik party, which won 17 percent of the 2010 vote.

So far right is Jobbik – it supports illegal paramilitary units that target gypsy camps – that Orban's conservative politics looks tame by comparison. "The elimination of all the central features of a pluralistic system means we are moving toward a one-party ruling system in which the prime minister and his little circle are trying to sell 19th-century romantic nationalism," former Foreign Minister Peter Balazs told the Monitor. "Many people are buying that. It is true that normal national ideas were missing during the communist period. But the prime minister is now misusing the national card."

Hungary turns away from democracy - CSMonitor.com

Migrant comments earn MP a rebuke

Kirsty Needham January 11, 2012

 

Click to play video

Federal MP Teresa Gambaro is under fire after claiming new migrants should be taught to wear deodorant.

THE federal opposition's spokeswoman for citizenship, Teresa Gambaro, has been rebuked by her party for suggesting migrant workers should be taught to use deodorant and to wait patiently in queues.

Acting Opposition Leader Warren Truss said the Brisbane MP's comments on Monday went too far and were ''not in line with modern Australian attitudes''.

Ms Gambaro outraged groups, including the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils, saying new migrants on temporary 457 work visas weren't integrating and needed to be taught about Australian hygiene standards.

Teresa Gambaro.

Yesterday she ''unreservedly'' apologised - and said her comments had been taken out of context. But the Greens pointed out Ms Gambaro first called for migrant workers to be trained in Australian hygiene standards in a statement on September 7 last year.

Ms Gambaro told ABC radio yesterday there were a large number of temporary workers arriving who needed cultural awareness training, and ''certainly health and hygiene matters come into it''. She declined to comment to The Age.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said Ms Gambaro's comments were either dog-whistling or idiocy ''which are better placed in 1952 rather than 2012'', and bizarre.

His office said the top nationality for ''smelly'' 457 visa holders was in fact English workers (25 per cent), with Irish, American, Canadian and Europeans also in the top 10. Seventy-two per cent of 457 visa holders were managers or professionals with an average salary of more than $95,000.

''Her comments were unfortunate,'' Mr Truss said. ''Lets move on, to making sure we have an effective policy to address social integration.''

Mr Bowen's spokesman said the Immigration Department had advised it would cost an extra $100 million a year to extend settlement services including English classes to temporary workers as well as permanent migrants.

The deputy chairwoman of the Australian Multicultural Council, Gail Ker, said she was pleased by the apology, and said bipartisan leadership was needed on multiculturalism.

The chairman of the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils, Pino Migliorino, said Ms Gambaro's comments made Australia ''look like a joke'' to the international community and damaged efforts by employers to recruit overseas workers.

Migrant comments earn MP a rebuke

Jordan Allows Hamas to Take Up Residence on Its Soil

 

By Karl Vick | January 9, 2012

AFP / Getty Images

Exiled Palestinian Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal addresses a meeting with some 40 Palestinian prisoners who were freed by Israel but are to be deported overseas, in Cairo on October 18, 2011.

In what sure looks like further evidence of diminishing American influence in the Middle East, the country that summarily ejected Hamas a dozen years ago is opening its doors to senior leaders of the group Washington and Israel regard first and foremost as a terrorist organization.

Jordan kicked out Hamas way back in 1999 under pressure from the United States. The Palestinian organization had been anchored in Amman, but was forced to move its headquarters to Syria, where it officially remains. Life in Damascus has gotten mighty uncomfortable over the last year, however. Though the Islamic Resistance Movement has tried mightily to stay entirely out of the conflict between the Syrian government that is its host and the Syrian people that government has been shooting in the streets, it has not been a terribly comfortable neutrality, nor one that reflects well on a movement so proudly grassroots. Quietly, senior Hamas officials began moving their families out of Syria months ago, and despite routine denials, the organization has been looking for a new home for its headquarters, too.

Jordan will provide the former, but not the latter, Prime Minister Awn Khasawneh explains to TIME in an interview.

The idea is not to bring them back as a launching pad for jihad against Israel or whatever. But as individuals they should be allowed to come back. I thought from the very beginning that their expulsion was unconstitutional and it was the wrong move from the point of view that it stands to reason that if you have many alternatives for as long as possible, it’s the good sign of effective diplomacy.

Amman, the Jordanian capital, already provides a place for the leader of the other major Palestinian faction to rest his head. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who leads the secular Fatah party, regularly sleeps in Amman while traveling in and out of the adjoining West Bank, which has no working airport. On the range of “alternatives” to resolving the conflict with Israel, Abbas champions negotiating a solution, while Hamas armed resistance. In recent weeks, however, as the rival factions have sought to reconcile, Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal has said the organization will put aside military means in favor of unarmed “popular” resistance, saying it’s the method all factions can agree on.

Mashaal, who was nearly killed by Israeli agents in a botched 1997 assassination attempt in Amman, will be among those setting up housekeeping in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, roughly half of whose residents are Palestinians who made their way across the  Jordan either in 1948, in 1967, or in the steady flow of “soft immigration” that has gone on since.

“We will be finding modalities to bring back members of Hamas and their families to come,” Khasawneh says.  “We don’t want them to establish another organization here.”

As a new site for Hamas headquarters, Qatar is the nation most often mentioned. The petroleum-rich Gulf monarchy is both a U.S. ally and a longtime supporter of Hamas, a duality that clearly irked the Jordanian premier, given complaints from Washington over Jordan’s decision to renew hospitality. “I know that some people in the United States are against this,” Khasawneh says, “but Qatar, a much more erstwhile ally of the United States, enjoys their presence without anybody in Congress saying anything.”

Jordan Allows Hamas to Take Up Residence on Its Soil | Global Spin | TIME.com

Janet Daley predictions for 2012? Much of the same, sadly

 

The euro won't collapse, Barack Obama won't lose the White House - and Labour's lumbered with Ed Miliband.

What does the new political year hold? Let Mystic Janet reveal all... Photo: GETTY

By Janet Daley

9:00PM GMT 31 Dec 2011

It has become this column’s tradition to commemorate the start of a new year by making negative predictions. According to my own rules, I may only contra-predict events which seem, at the moment, to be reasonably likely to occur. So here it is – my list of Things That Will Not Happen in 2012 (even though you thought they would):

1) The euro will not collapse. That is to say, it will not cease to exist as a currency, despite the philosophy and the economic assumptions on which it rests being utterly discredited. As a consequence of the latter, the euro as an idea will have to be reinvented as a purely pragmatic way of avoiding a catastrophic banking collapse rather than as an idealistic solution to the historic mutual loathing of neighbouring European nations.

This downgrading of the single currency project from idyllic dream of eternal harmony to half-baked, impromptu rescue operation will create enormous bitterness and dissatisfaction. Accusations and recriminations will fly across borders, making last year’s preliminary skirmish between Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron look like a pillow fight. More important, what remains of the euro in the conceptual sense will become even less plausible: the suspension of disbelief required to sustain it will exhaust the moral resources of the European political class. So the currency will survive but credible democratic politics as we know it will largely be at an end.

2) A corollary to number 1): fully-fledged democracy will not return to Greece or Italy – whatever promises are now being made about elections in the coming months. If elections are held in the near future, they will involve the participation of caretaker candidates, whose “technocratic” function will be remarkably similar to the puppet regimes which have been put in place by the EU (which is to say, France and Germany). Indeed, they may be the very same people seeking the imprimatur of a popular mandate. This will not particularly worry the Italians, who are contemptuous of their own politicians, believing them to be either criminals or clowns, and whose social solidarity allows them largely to ignore national politics which they see as inherently ludicrous.

But the Greeks will rebel – and the disorder that results will make it impossible for the euro, even in its reconstructed form, to prevail in that country. So Greece will be ejected, perhaps from the EU as well as the euro, not for economic reasons but for political ones: because it will not embrace the deception of the new euro myth that it is only the survival of the single currency which can save us from hell on earth. Greece will be excommunicated and then quarantined so as to avoid the spread of its dangerous dissident views.

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3) Barack Obama will not lose the White House. His poll numbers may look pretty disastrous now, but there are small signs of recovery in the US economy, which is what this presidential election will be all about. It is generally regarded as fatal to his chances for a candidate to have “peaked” too soon, but Obama will have “troughed” too soon for the Republicans’ chances. His lowest point may have come and gone by the middle of summer.

If unemployment is falling, gradually but consistently, and growth is recovering, slowly but consistently, and if his healthcare programme has not been defeated in the Supreme Court, and he beats back any further challenge on tax cuts from the Republican Congress – well then, he will come through. It will be no landslide, and there will be none of the revivalist euphoria of the first win, but he will get his second term. It was almost certainly the suspicion that this would be the case which persuaded the most interesting Republicans (like Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey) not to run this year.

If I am right and the American economy recovers sufficiently to save Mr Obama from a graceful retreat into academic life, this will be pronounced (by some interested parties) a victory for the Keynesian economic stimulus policies which he espoused, as opposed to the European “austerity” programme which advocates cutting the deficit as a first priority. This will be entirely wrong as an interpretation of events. The American economy will recover from its current despond – as the American economy always does – because of the work ethic and enterprising spirit of its population. Its revival will have nothing to do with the spending projects of federal government.

Indeed, it is the relatively minimal influence (by European standards) of government intervention in the US which permits its citizens to reinvigorate their economic life by their own resources and efforts. The Obama second term will give the Republicans time to regroup behind a candidate less boring than Mitt Romney, and to formulate its arguments against Mr Obama’s march toward the social democratic neverland in which Europe is now trapped. Political discourse in America will be no less rancorous during the second term of the Obama presidency but it will be more coherent: not for the first time, the US will be engaging in the real argument about the size and power of the state that should be dominating discussion in all the Western economies.

4) Ed Miliband will not be replaced as Labour leader. However dismal the public’s perception of him, and however chaotic and self-contradictory his criticism of Coalition policies, Mr Miliband will survive. When he occasionally scores a point or lands a respectable blow, he will be greeted with deafening cheers from that cohort of activists whose loyalty to any Labour leader is of North Korean proportions. At the moments when his performance seems most ragged and confused, he will find a hand reaching down to him from media heaven to haul him back from the depths of despair. Perhaps out of sheer pity (or am I missing the joke?), a small clutch of defiant commentators will declare him to be really more clever and percipient than you might have thought, etc, etc.

But the real reason that poor Ed Mili will keep his job (God help him) is that, at this precise moment in time, nobody else wants it. The Coalition may have its own problems but it’s a bummer having to lead the fight against it: a government whose views are ambiguous and inconsistent cannot be opposed with a clear message. And an Opposition party without a clear message cannot make its mark.

So on to one last anti-prediction: this coming year will not be as bad for most people in Britain as it is being cracked up to be. And with that, may I wish you a very Happy New Year.

My predictions for 2012? Much of the same, sadly - Telegraph