Immigrant entrepreneurs to create 150,000 jobs in 2010 (Germany)

Entrepreneurs with foreign roots will likely create 150,000 jobs in Germany this year, according to the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK).

The Berliner Zeitung reported on Monday that the DIHK was seeing a growing number of people from immigrant families willing to start their own business in recent years.

The DIHK last year advised some 11,000 such entrepreneurs – up from 8,300 only two years earlier – meaning 18 percent of those prepared to create a new business had foreign roots.

DIHK President Hans Heinrich Driftmann told the paper immigrants were "making an important entrepreneurial contribution to Germany."

“We will need even more of this sort of economic impulse to overcome the demographic challenges of the future,” he said.

The paper reported that if Germany’s population continues to shrink, the country will have 700,000 fewer self-employed by 2050.

Though immigrants were particularly well-represented in retail and gastronomy, the DIHK said they were starting new enterprises in all important sectors of the German economy.

The Local Germany

Jobbik MPs want prison for people who deny existence of certain crimes (Hungary)

Deputies of the radical nationalist Jobbik party are calling for people who deny the existence of certain crimes to be imprisoned, national daily Nepszabadsag said on Wednesday.

The paper said that the initiative of the three Jobbik deputies is clearly targeted at Gypsies.

The Jobbik initiative makes use of a term - "Gypsy crime" - which has caused outrage in some sections of the mainstream.

"Public discourse has for several decades prevented the solution of some pressing social problems, the exposition of well-known but officially non-recognised forms of crime, for instance Gypsy crime, and research into its roots," the document says.

It goes on to call for prison terms for anyone who denies that such crimes exists.

"Anyone who publicly denies, doubts or presents as insignificant any generally known fact concerning a criminally relevant social relationship, especially the state of public safety, forms of crime and scope of criminals, shall be punishable by up to three years in prison."

The Jobbik deputies demand five-year prison terms for public officials who do the same.

The three MPs accuse a "narrow but all the more violent" minority of imposing its "off-reality position" on the "silent majority".

Addressing Parliament on Monday, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said "we reject the politics and ways of thinking that denies reality". But he also made it clear that he protested against the idea of someone being identified as a potential criminal on the basis of their ethnic origin.

A poll conducted by Nezopont Institute two years ago and widely criticised showed that over 90 percent of respondents, irrespective of their political affiliation, considered "Gypsy crime" an existing phenomenon, and 77 percent said that the Roma had a greater tendency towards crime than the mainstream.

politics hu

BNP move into Stroud District (UK)

THE British National Party is setting up a new national communications and publicity department at Salmon Springs Trading Estate between Stroud and Painswick, the SNJ has learned.

Writing in an email sent to supporters, which is also available on the BNP's website, party leader Nick Griffin said that several of the party's top officers met earlier this year to discuss a reorganisation of its press operation.

He writes: "The communications department will soon be based at our new operations centre in Stroud.

"From here, the national team will coordinate our media efforts all under one roof."

It is understood that the operations centre, which will encompass media and communications, the BNP website and publicity and design, will be based at Unit 13 on the trading estate.

According to the email, the department will be run by Paul Golding, a close ally of Mr Griffin.

It is thought that three rooms were rented in the unit in spring 2009, which were originally to be used as a training centre but remained empty.

According to Mr Griffin, the BNP receives a 'huge number' of inquiries from the media.

"In the past the party only operated through two mobile phone lines to handle media inquiries but the new communications department utilises a dedicated 'media inquiries ticketing system'," he writes.

"All media interest in the party is funnelled into this system and inquiries from leftwing, hostile or freelance media sources are filtered out."

Stroud's independent mayor Andy Read said he was puzzled as to why the BNP would want to be based in Stroud.

"Whenever the BNP has put up candidates locally, it has had no support whatsoever," he said.

"However, history shows that censorship only plays into the hands of such groups.

"The best approach is to bring the BNP and their policies out into the open.

"I know many Stroud people feel strongly about the BNP and will relish this opportunity to expose and challenge its policies."

Stroud News Journal

Cuba's Fidel Castro says Nicolas Sarkozy going crazy

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has said French President Nicolas Sarkozy appears to be going "crazy", in an article published in Mexico.

Mr Castro also suggested Mr Sarkozy could not be trusted with his finger on the nuclear trigger.

In the article, Mr Castro denounces Mr Sarkozy for the expulsion of more than 1,000 Roma (Gypsy) migrants, over which France has been widely condemned.

At the weekend, Mr Castro accused Paris of carrying out a "racial holocaust".

In a comment piece published in La Jornada newspaper on Monday, the 84-year-old former leader points out that France is the world's third biggest nuclear power and says Mr Sarkozy carries around a briefcase with the launch codes for an arsenal of more than 300 atomic weapons.

"Suppose that Sarkozy suddenly goes crazy, as appears to be happening. What would the UN Security Council do in that case with Sarkozy and his briefcase?" he says.

In the tirade, entitled The Endless Hypocrisy of the West, Mr Castro adds: "What will happen if the far right forces Sarkozy to hold a racist policy in contradiction with the norms of the European Community?"

He also says: "Does it make any moral or ethical sense to launch an attack on Iran, which is condemned for its supposed intention to make bombs of this type? Where is the sense and logic of this policy?"

"Would the UN Security Council answer those two questions?" he added.

France said the holocaust comments over its expulsion of members of the Roma community were unacceptable and showed Mr Castro's ignorance of history.

On Tuesday, EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding urged the European Commission to take legal action against France over the deportations.

BBC News

Russian football is blighted by systematic racism, says FARE network

Russian domestic football is blighted by "systematic" racism that will take several years to root out if it is to host the 2018 World Cup, according to a leading European anti-racism campaign group.
Russia's World Cup bid has been dented by recent incidents including the unveiling of a banner featuring a banana with the words "Thanks West Brom" aimed at West Bromwich Albion striker Peter Odemwingie by fans of his former club Lokomotiv Moscow.

Russia 2018 chief executive Alexei Sorokin initially denied that the incident was racist, claiming that the phrase "to get a banana" meant to fail a test in Russian slang. "There was nothing racial in it," Sorokin said.

Sorokin's view has been challenged however by the FARE (Football Against Racism in Europe) Network, a coalition of football anti-racism campaigners that has run campaigns with Fifa and Uefa.

Piara Powar, executive director of FARE, said the banner was clearly racist in intention, and indicated that the Russian game faced wider problems.

"The context in which the banner was used was clearly racist in context, and to suggest otherwise is a nonsense," he told Telegraph Sport.

"Russian domestic football has a problem with racism that is quite systematic and insidious, it is linked to the activities of far-right groups that emerged after the collapse of the eastern bloc and have used football as a vehicle.

"Compared to the work that has been done in England, Russian football is on a different planet, and if it were to stage the World Cup in four years there is no chance racism would have been dealt with.

"But if it were to win the right to host the 2018 tournament there would be time to address the problem and I'm sure that they would do so.

"We are trying to get in touch with the Russian bid to start a dialogue about this."

The Telegraph

French Senate votes to ban Islamic full veil in public

France's Senate has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public.

The proposed measure was already backed by the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, in July.
The ban will come into force in six months' time if it is not overturned by constitutional judges.

The ban has strong public support, but critics point out that only a tiny minority of French Muslims wear the full veil.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has backed the ban as part of a wider debate on French identity but opponents say the government is pandering to far-right voters.
Spain and Belgium are debating similar legislation, and with such large-scale immigration in the past 20 or 30 years, identity has become a popular theme across Europe, correspondents say.


Council's warning
On Tuesday, the Senate voted 246 to 1 in favour of the bill.

It will be now sent immediately to France's Constitutional Council watchdog, which has a month to confirm its legality.


Another challenge is possible at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where decisions are binding.

There are estimated to be only about 2,000 women wearing the full veil in France.

The bill makes it illegal to wear garments such as the niqab or burka, which incorporate a full-face veil, anywhere in public.

It envisages fines of 150 euros (£119) for women who break the law and 30,000 euros and a one-year jail term for men who force their wives to wear the burka.

The niqab and burka are widely seen in France as threats to women's rights and the secular nature of the state.

The bill is also seen as a touchstone for the Mr Sarkozy administration's policy of integration. It is grappling with disaffected immigrant communities as it seeks to prevent a repeat of the mass unrest of 2005 on run-down French housing estates.

In March, the Council of State, France's highest administrative body, warned that the law could be found unconstitutional

BBC News

'Mate crime' fears for people with learning disabilities (UK)

Learning disabled people living in the community are increasingly finding themselves the victims  of so-called mate crime

Steven Hoskin had strong feelings about his killers. They had abused, exploited and humiliated him over a year, taking his money, treating him as their slave and making him wear his own dog's collar and lead. Eventually, having forced him to swallow 70 painkillers, they took him to the top of a railway viaduct and made him hang from the railings as one member of the gang, a girl aged 16, stamped on his hands until he fell 30 metres to his death.

Yet these were the people the 38-year-old, who had severe learning disabilities, had boasted excitedly of counting as friends. "He thought they were the cat's whiskers," says Morley Richards, who had known Hoskin before he met the group. "He would say, 'They're my mates, I've got my own mates now.'"

Hoskin's case is extreme, but the phenomenon of learning disabled people being groomed by those who pretend to be their friends before being exploited by them financially, physically or sexually – "mate crime", as it is sometimes known – is far from rare, experts say, and appears to be on the increase. As more individuals are given the chance to live independently, the unwelcome side effect is that they are more likely to fall prey to criminals. Hoskin was a case in point: he had left the tiny Cornish village of Maudlin, near Bodmin, where he had grown up, and was thrilled to have his own bedsit in the market town of St Austell, where he made his new "friends".

The Association for Real Change (ARC) has been researching mate crime for the past year in Calderdale, west Yorkshire, and in north Devon, after a groundswell of concern among its members who are service providers for people with learning disabilities. Examples it has been told about range from perpetrators routinely going to a victim's house and clearing their cupboards of food and alcohol before leaving them to clear up the mess, to instances of people being persuaded to part with their benefits.

Women can be sexually exploited by men who claim to be their boyfriend, says David Grundy, who runs the Calderdale project. "They might be told, 'We're a couple and we haven't got any money – if you sleep with my mate he'll pay us.'" In other cases, someone with learning disabilities may be asked to look after a package that contains drugs and end up being beaten up as a result, or go shoplifting with their new-found friends carrying a weapon, only to get caught by police.

The victim may not realise that what is happening is wrong. "There can be a feeling of, 'He's my friend, that's what friends do,'" says Grundy. "People with learning disabilities have fewer friends. For some, any friends is better than no friends, even if they're spending all your money.

"It involves a lot of issues [around] self-belief and self-worth: thinking it's all right for people to walk all over them all the time, because that's what's happened to them the whole of their lives."

Rod Landman, from the north Devon project, likens the situation to domestic violence. "The primacy of the relationship can be more important than what's happening inside it. People are prepared to put up with all sorts of crap to keep a relationship that may be the only one they have apart from with someone who's being paid to be with them." As a result, victims shy away from reporting such hate crime incidents to the police, or indeed anyone. Every service provider that Landman talks to will tell him of cases, he says, but no one with learning disabilities will do the same.

Some families and frontline social care staff are still unaware of what constitutes a disability hate crime and what to do when one happens, says Grundy. Abusive relationships may get flagged up to adult safeguarding teams, but their primary aim is to keep the individual safe by removing them from the situation, rather than report those committing the crimes. This means that perpetrators remain free to target others.

As cuts lead to the closure of day centres and potentially less support for vulnerable people, there are fears that the situation could get worse. Gavin Harding, vice-chair of the National Forum for People with Learning Disabilities, remembers the shock and anger he felt five years ago when he realised that someone he believed to be a friend had taken his cheque book and, together with another man, forged a cheque for £500.

"It was the fact they took advantage of me," he says. "It felt awful. You feel you can't trust people after that."

• Information on ARC's Safety Net project is at arcsafety.net.

The Guardian

CAIR director Dawud Walid: East Lansing Quran burning clearly hate crime not free speech (USA)

Dawud Walid, executive director for the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, takes exception to defenders who say burning a Quran and placing it on the steps of a mosque is an expression of free speech protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

East Lansing police say a burned Quran was found early Saturday on the doorsteps of a local mosque. Authorities initially believed the religious text was covered with feces, but Capt. Kim Johnson tells the Detroit News they no longer believe that to be true.

Regardless, Walid says authorities should treat the case as a hate crime.

Writing on his blog Monday, Walid compared the incident to burning crosses used to intimidate African Americans.

Sept. 13: The Supreme Court ruled in 2003 relating to cross burnings that acts that are meant to intimidate persons (minorities in particular) on their private properties are not protected under the 1st Amendment. Therefore, it is illegal to burn a cross in the yard of a Black man, for instance, or at a Black church because this is a clear act of intimidation. Likewise, to paint a swastika in the parking lot of a Jewish Temple would not be protected speech besides it also being trespassing.

And to burn the foundation of the religion of Islam, the Qur’an, at the entrance of a mosque on mosque property is also an act of religious hatred and intimidation.

...In short, if persons burn a cross or the Qur’an on their own private properties, that’s their right to freely express themselves. However, if persons go to others’ private properties or houses of worship and do such while trespassing, this goes outside the bounds of responsible free speech.

The East Lansing incident occurred shortly after Rev. Terry Jones backed off plans to hold a Koran burning in Florida. Jones' statements and Saturday's discovery of the burned Quran in East Lansing sparked outrage from Muslims around the world.

Here in Metro Detroit, a group of Dearborn Muslims led by attorney Majed Moughni on Friday burned effigies of pastor Jones and Osama bin Laden. Moughni, a Republican who lost his primary bid to take on Rep. John Dingell in November, held the rally on his own lawn and said the event was designed to show that "Islam is against terrorism."



Mlive

John Simm's shock at 'casual racism' in Nelson (UK)

NELSON-born actor John Simm has told of his 'shock' at the racism in his home town — and community  leaders admitted the problem needs to be tackled.

The star of Life on Mars, who spent his first 16 years in the town from 1970 to 1986, said he had difficulty dealing with attitudes in the town.

He said: “You do come across casual racism up there and I can’t really deal with it, whether it’s someone in the family or friends of the family.

“It jars, it’s shocking.”

Mr Simm, who has also featured in Dr Who, rarely talks about his Pendle upbringing. He made the comments in an in-depth interview with The Guardian.

Most community leaders agreed with Simm’s claims that the town suffered from casual racism, but were divided on potential solutions.

Coun Mohammed Iqbal, leader of the Labour group in Pendle, even said that he felt there wasn't much that could be done, although others believed great strides had been made in recent years.

The only criticism of Mr Simm was from council leader Mike Blomeley, who said he did not feel there was an issue.

Coun Iqbal said racism existed in the town from both white and asian people, but he believes it is no different to many other towns..

“You come across casual or serious racism in all communities,” he said.

“There are issues with a small minority of people but I think most people just rub along with each other.”

Coun Iqbal said casual racism was something that people in the town had to live with.

He said: “I grew up in Nelson and came across casual racism but you just take it on the chin.

“It is something that has always gone on. It hasn’t changed in recent years. There is no more or less racism than there was 30 years ago.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with split communities or large Asian communities.

"It is just how humans are and how we want to stereotype people. It happens on both sides.

“It is something that people will have to live with. There isn’t much that can be done to tackle it."

Pendle MP Andrew Stephenson said that the town had similar problems to others in East Lancashire or West Yorkshire, and blamed the straight talking attitudes of people in the area.

“There is a prevalence of casual racism in the area,” he said, “but that's the same in large parts of East Lancashire and West Yorkshire.

“It is the attitude of people to speak frankly and make comments that they don’t see as offensive.

“It is difficult for people to deal with casual racism. We need to do more to educate people, but I don’t think we need any big campaigns.

“I think the issue will resolve itself over time.

Coun Blomeley, leader of Pendle Council, told of his disappointment at Mr Simm’s comments.

“I don’t really think it is an issue," he said. "There will always be individual issues that crop up but we’ve not had anything serious happen in Pendle.

“I’m sure it does probably go on, but life is like that. People aren’t perfect, and it happens from both communities.”

Euro MP Sajjad Karim, who grew up Nelson and has been a councillor in Pendle, said he believed that the town had changed for the better in recent years.

“I would have grown up in Nelson at the same time as John Simm,” he said.

“I think there was a problem in those days. I witnessed violent racism as well as casual racism.

“It is much better now than it was. I am in and out of Nelson all the time and think it has changed a lot.

“The key is to get communities together and mixing. That didn’t happen in the 70s and 80s and there was a lot of overt and open racism.

Coun Tony Beckett, mayor of Pendle, said the solution was to talk to people to find out why it happened.

“Why do some people feel the need to insult someone who, in most instances, they have never met or spoken to before?

“It's better to say nothing that say something inflammatory.

“If we don’t speak to people to find out what causes this then we will never find the solution.”

Lancashire Telegraph

France to vote on Muslim veil ban

One woman says she will stay at home and pray, but other women may risk arrest to defy a ban on the burka-style veil if a bill to outlaw the Islamic garment becomes law in France.

The ban, being voted on in the French Senate, would affect only a tiny minority of Muslim women - estimated at less than 2,000 - making it far less controversial than France's 2004 ban on Muslim head scarves in classrooms, which proliferated in heavily immigrant neighbourhoods.

However, many Muslims believe the latest legislation is but one more blow to France's second religion, and risks raising the level of Islamophobia in a country where mosques, like synagogues, are sporadic targets of hate.

The proposed law was passed overwhelmingly by the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, on July 13.

The expected green light from the Senate would make it definitive once the president signs off on it - barring amendments and an eventual decision by dissenting MPs to seek the opinion of the Constitutional Council.

At least 60 are needed to ask the council to decide whether the bill meets constitutional muster.

The measure would outlaw face-covering veils on the street, including those worn by tourists. It is aimed at ensuring gender equality, women's dignity and security, as well as upholding France's secular values - and its way of life.

Backers insist it is not anti-Muslim but is aimed at getting all Muslims to integrate fully into French society. Ironically, the measure may keep some women cloistered in their homes to avoid exposing their faces in public.

Muslim leaders concur that Islam does not require a woman to hide her face. However, they have voiced concerns that a law forbidding them to do so would stigmatise the French Muslim population, which at an estimated five million is the largest in western Europe.

The Telegraph

Discontent fuels Mongolia's far-right groups

On a hillside high above the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator, the Zaisan Memorial commemorates the soldiers  who lost their lives in World War II.

Mongolians helped the Soviets defeat the Nazis and, for decades after, Moscow's influence was strongest here.
But these days China pours more money into this country than any other does. Some of it is aid. Some of it is investment.

China's People's Liberation Army has handed over nearly $3m (£1.95m) this year in aid to the Mongolian military.

At a signing ceremony at the defence ministry, senior officers from both countries toasted each other after two generals signed their latest agreement. Everyone smiled.

But some Mongolians are suspicious of these close ties. They want to know what China really wants.

They suspect their powerful neighbour is a bully, not a benefactor, and that such co-operation could, in time, start to undermine the Mongolian way of life.

'Just nationalism'
The signs of their resentment are not hard to find. Swastikas and slogans are daubed on walls across the city.

On the internet the groups show how they are fighting back against what they see as attempts to dilute the Mongolian race.

A YouTube video shows a man shaving the head of a Mongolian woman. Next to her a Chinese man sits with his hands over his face.

It is a very public warning to Mongolian women. This is what happens if you sleep with Chinese men.

It was posted by a member of a far-right group called Dayar Mongol.

Erdenebileg Zenemyadar is its founder. His group's website shows members carrying Nazi flags. The swastika is part of the group's logo.

However, he insists he is a nationalist, not a Nazi. He comes to meet us in traditional dress - the kind of outfit nomadic herders wear out on the steppes.

His organisation is blamed by human rights groups for dozens of attacks on women, foreigners and others they see as threatening the purity of their race.

Violence he condemns, but he defends the shaving of the woman's head.

"I think this is right," he says. "If you ask the Mongolian people what they think about it, the majority of people would support that act."

While he says his organisation does not order or sanction attacks, he offers this explanation for them.

"Young people see foreigners breaking the law and they're not happy," he says. "So they're threatening them, sometimes robbing them. It's wrong but it's happening a lot.

"Sometimes they are our members but the majority are not. Maybe they're our supporters but we don't know them."

One of his members joins our conversation. Soronzon Jamsran is 28 years old. He is an electrician and a new recruit to Dayar Mongol.

He is wearing combat trousers, a black t-shirt and, round his neck, a swastika on a chain.

"In Mongolian we call this the khas symbol," he says.

"Germany's nationalists tried to cleanse their nation, so for me [the swastika] stands for keeping our nation pure. It's not like I support Germany or I'm a Nazi. It's just nationalism."

'Scapegoats'
Robyn Garner, a gay activist in Ulan Bator, is sympathetic to the concerns many Mongolians have about the activities of foreign corporations here.

"You have a large section of the population watching resources, assets being sold off to foreigners," she says.

"I can understand that people are looking for scapegoats, for ideologies to channel their concerns."

But she is worried that the discontent is fuelling the violent agenda of the far-right groups who are targeting her community.

Two transgender women had to flee the country after they were assaulted.

A 19-year-old gay man was stripped and beaten in the suburbs after leaving a monthly gay party.

Otgonbaatar Tsedendemberel, another activist, says he has to be constantly on guard against the threat of attack when walking down the street.

"I'm in constant fear," he says, "and unless we do something it's just going to get worse and worse."

Luvsandendev Sumati, a Mongolian opinion pollster, points out that in the 2008 parliamentary elections, the party associated with these far-right groups won less than 1% of the vote.

They are still operating on the margins, he argues, although he does feel they reflect concerns that many share here.

"Small cultures are dissipating and disappearing," he said.
"It's a real threat. In some ways Mongolian society should react to that. The question is will it react in a civilised way or will it try to go to extremes?"

Some here argue these groups are adopting the symbols of the Nazis because they are not yet a strong enough political force to create their own ideology.

But those targeted by them feel they are a real threat and their influence is growing.

Perhaps that is no surprise. We found one city centre bar filled with Nazi memorabilia.

There were swastikas painted on the floor, reproductions of propaganda posters on the wall, even mannequins dressed in Nazi uniforms.

Inside there were not extremists, just girls on a night out, a couple drinking quietly in one corner - no-one, it appeared, giving a second thought to the idea that these symbols would provoke offence elsewhere.

The threats, the violence, the use of Nazi symbols all help to garner attention for the extremist groups here - Nazis or nationalists, the label does not really matter.

They seem to enjoy the notoriety it brings.

The challenge for Mongolia's authorities will be to address the concerns that fuel their anger and resentment and win them support, while limiting their opportunity to do real harm.

BBC News

Film Student Charged in Hate Crime Against Muslim Cabbie Denied Bail, For Now (USA)

The film student charged with slashing a Muslim cab driver in an apparent hate crime told police he stabbed  the man in self defense, prosecutors said Monday.

Michael Enright, a 21-year-old School of Visual Arts student from Westchester, told police that cabbie Ahmed Sharif, 43, of Queens, had tried to rob him after he got into his taxi following a booze-fueled night last month.

"That man just tried to rob me," Enright told police, prosecutors said at his bail hearing. "I had to defend myself."

Enright faces a minimum of eight years in prison on attempted murder and assault as a hate crime charges for allegedly stabbing Sharif after asking the driver whether he was a Muslim.

Lawrence Fisher, a lawyer for Enright, said that the SVA senior has been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic alcoholism after a trip to Afghanistan to work on a student film about a high school buddy serving in the Marines.

"Due to his various problems related to post-traumatic stress and alcoholism, the jail setting is not the most beneifical for him," Fisher said. He asked for his client to be released on bail and into medical treatment.

Fisher said community members from Enright's hometown of Brewster, N.Y., were "shocked and alarmed to hear the news" of Enright's arrest.

Ten family members and colleagues showed up at the hearing to lend their support.

"He's a young man who didn't quite understand what he was getting into when he went to Afghanistan," Reeves Lehmann, the chair of SVA's film and video department who came to the hearing to back Enright, told reporters after the hearing.

Lehmann said he would readmit Enright to the department if the were released on bail.

But prosecutors said Enright's alleged crime was too violent to consider releasing him on a $250,000 bail.

"What we have here is a very heinous, violent crime in which this defendant, in a very personal way, tried to end a life of this innocent cab driver," said Assistant District Attorney James Zaleta.


dnainfo

Possible hate crime, vandalism hit Oldham County (USA)

Racial slurs spray-painted on a Crestwood home were just the tipping point of what appears to be a rash of separate, unrelated bouts with vandalism in Oldham County.

Maria Mitchell says she and her husband were out of town Saturday when her son called her to say that someone had spray-painted a racial slur and the letters "KKK" on her garage.

Mitchell says her family has never experienced a racial incident in the nine years they've lived at their home along Hwy 22.

"I am kind of angry. But it's not an anger thing because I am a Christian. I am trying to look past it," Mitchell said in an interview Monday. "It's unfair to spray-paint our garage like this."

Mitchell says she is not scared to stay in her home, but says since the incident she's retained an attorney.

In a separate incident a mile away, caution tape lines the sand volleyball court at Briar Hill Park.

Tim Curtis, Director of Oldham Co. Parks and Recreation, says someone has intentionally buried broken glass in the sand on more than one occasion.

"Your standard vandalism in parks you are used to spray paint but this seems more like a malicious effort to hurt people."

The first complaints came to park officials in August from volleyball players who often use the courts on the weekends. Then last week, more complaints surfaced.

Curtis said the broken glass was placed in distinctive holes, which were then covered over with sand.

"Almost so you couldn't see it," he said, "You wouldn't know it til you hit it."

Park officials sifted through the sand again on Monday and discovered even more glass. Curtis says if more incidents occur, the county may have to close the courts for good.

Briar Hill Park is no stranger to vandalism. Three years ago, an arson fire destroyed the park pavilion. The Oldham Era newspaper reports that two men were indicted last week for that crime.

Fox 41

KYRGYZSTAN SYNAGOGUE ATTACKED ON ROSH HASHANAH

Unidentified attackers attempted to fire bomb the only synagogue in Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan last week. The congregation, headed by Chabad-Lubavitch emissary Rabbi Aryeh Reichman, is the only one in the entire country, in fact. No one was injured in the explosion, although the building was reportedly damaged, and the grounds outside were littered with bolts and nails from the makeshift bomb that was lobbed over the fence at the synagogue. Although a source in the Jewish community told the AFP news agency the attack occurred an hour before Rosh HaShanah services were scheduled to begin, Examiner.com reported the bombing took place while worshipers were actually praying inside the building. Kyrgyzstan, once a member of the Soviet Union, is currently home to some 2,000 Jews, most of who live in Bishkek.


The synagogue has been targeted before: in April, the same synagogue was fire bombed while rebels overthrew the government in a bloody uprising that left more than 80 people dead. The local Jewish school decided at the time to temporarily close its doors as a precaution. Media reports have said the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, linked with the international al-Qaeda terrorist organization, is active in the Muslim-majority nation. This year, the Islamic holy month of Ramadan ended with the Muslim holiday of Eid ul-Fitr, the day before Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by China to the south, and hosts both Russian and American military bases. The base closest to Bishkek – Manas – is allegedly considered crucial in supplying U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Isreal National News

NUMBER OF EXTREMIST ACTS RISES IN 2009 (Czech Rep.)

The police registered 265 crimes with an extremist motive in the 10.5 million Czech Republic last year, which was 0.07 percent of all crimes and 48 more than in 2008, according to a document the Chamber of Deputies defence and security committee discussed yesterday. The police cleared up 186 crimes last year, or 60 more than in 2008. A total of 293 people were prosecuted, which was about 100 more than in 2008, and courts convicted 103 people of racially motivated crimes. Deputy Interior Minister Zdenek Salivar said "the extremist scene is on the defensive" now. He said that is why rightist extremists have moderated their rhetoric. The militant wing is now trying to change the neo-Nazi label and focuses on environmental themes. Salivar said the abolition of the Workers' Party (DS) last year was a step of European importance. The party, however, practically continues its acitivities under a new name, the Workers' Party of Social Justice (DSSS). The number of neo-Nazi concerts roughly halved to 18 last year, and only one sole was held after last June's raid on rightist extremists, the report says. The concerts have been moved abroad, mainly to Poland and Slovakia, Police President Oldrich Martinu said. He said the concerts were a significant source of money for the extremist groups. The police inspection also checked six cases on suspicion of police involvement in criminal activity with an extremist subtext last year. The suspicion was not proved in three of them, another two continue to be checked and one case ended in a disciplinary punishment. A total of 24 police members were involved in the cases, the report said. It said the military police investigated ten cases, involving 12 soldiers. Salivar said everyone who seeks a job with security corps is checked for extremism now.

Prague Monitor

English Defence League members attend New York mosque protest

At least seven EDL supporters take part in demonstration after far-right group's leader  is  reportedly turned away at airport

Members of the far-right English Defence League protested in New York this weekend against plans for an Islamic cultural centre and mosque near Ground Zero.

The group's leader, who goes by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, and at least seven other EDL supporters flew to the US to oppose the plans on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Robinson was refused entry at JFK airport, taken into custody and flown straight back to the UK, according to a report published on the anti-Islam Gates of Vienna website sourced to EDL activists travelling with him.

The rest of the delegation joined far-right leaders including Geert Wilders, the Dutch leader of the Freedom party, at the demonstration in lower Manhattan.

The contingent was pictured holding banners incorporating St George's cross, Israel's flag and the US stars and stripes, as well as the slogans "No Mosque at Ground Zero", "The more Islam, the less freedom", "No Sharia", and "No Surrender". They wore EDL T-shirts sporting the group's crusader shield logo.

Over the past 18 months in town centres across England the group has protested against the spread of Islamic institutions and in support of the armed forces. EDL demonstrators have been heard chanting racist slogans and have clashed with anti-fascist activists, and marches have been banned for fear of violence.

The decision to send protesters to America reflects the organisation's self-proclaimed "new phase of international outreach and networking", which began in April when supporters attended a Berlin demonstration in support of Wilders. The Dutchman said yesterday that New Yorkers must defend themselves against "the powers of darkness, the forces of hatred".

In June, the EDL sent delegates to speak at a "counter jihad" conference organised by the International Civil Liberties Alliance in Zurich, where they gave a presentation entitled The Anatomy of an EDL Demo.

Nick Lowles, of Searchlight, the anti-fascist monitoring organisation, said: "The EDL operates on two levels. There are the street activists such as the 120 that demonstrated in Oldham and 100 in London this weekend. But then there is the political agenda driven by a group of leaders whose ideas come from Christian fundamentalism. They are running a dual strategy and they see an international aspect to their goals where the uniting issue is anti-Islam."

The EDL is planning to join a far-right demonstration in Amsterdam on 30 October under the banner of the European Freedom Initiative. Organisations from Austria, Germany, Italy and France are also due to attend.

The Guardian

Ground Zero mosque Imam blames Sarah Palin for 'growing Islamophobia'

The Muslim cleric behind plans to build a mosque close to the Ground Zero site has blamed politicians such as Sarah Palin for fuelling a "growing Islamophobia" that led to the burning of Korans on the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks

The Reverend Terry Jones abandoned his "international burn a Koran day" in Gainesville, Florida on Saturday but there were isolated instances in Tennessee and New York of the Muslim holy book being set alight.

"What has happened is that..certain politicians decided that this project would be very useful for their political ambitions," Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said, adding that this had prompted a "growing Islamophobia" in the US.
Imam Rauf's proposal for an Islamic Centre, containing a mosque, two blocks from the site of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre, has become embroiled in controversy.

Mrs Palin was the first major national figure to get involved in what had been a localised dispute when she sent a Twitter message in July stating: "Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing."

Imam Rauf said Mrs Palin's intervention had been "disingenuous" and played a part of the issue being "hijacked by the radicals" over the summer.

In Springfield, Tennessee, the Reverend Bob Old and the Reverent Danny Allen, both evangelical pastors, burned Koran to coincide with the anniversary of the September 11th atrocities.

"It's about faith, it's about love, but you have to have the right book behind you. This is a book of hate, not a book of love," said the Rev Old as he held up a Koran.

In New York, an unidentified man ripped pages from a Koran and lit them near the proposed site of the Islamic centre. "If they can burn American flags, I can burn the Koran," he said.

Imam Rauf said that he would not have proposed his Islamic Centre had he anticipated the furore that has resulted. "I would never have done it."

But he was reluctant to consider a different site because of how this would be interpreted by Islamic extremists. "My major concern with moving it is that the headline in the Muslim world will be Islam is under attack in America.

This will strengthen the radicals in the Muslim world, help their recruitment, this will put our people -- our soldiers, our troops, our embassies, our citizens -- under attack in the Muslim world and we have expanded and given and fuelled terrorism."

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has given his backing to the mosque proposal and President Barack Obama intervened to remind critics that religious freedoms in America allow anyone to open a holy place. But several senior Democrats including Harry Reid, the Senate Majority Leader, publicly distanced themselves from the presidents position.

Official commemorations for the attacks on the New York's Twin Towers and the Pentagon were solemn affairs but took place against a backdrop of fierce debate about the relationship between Islam and terrorism.

"As Americans we are not – and never will be – at war with Islam," said Mr Obama. "It was not a religion that attacked us that September day – it was al-Qaeda, a sorry band of men which perverts religion."

The Telegraph

Swedish PM candidates to keep far-right at bay

Sweden's two main prime minister candidates agreed in a debate aired Sunday, a week before elections, that they would not work with the increasingly popular far-right Sweden Democrats.

"We won't touch them (the Sweden Democrats) with pliers," Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt vowed on behalf of his four-party centre-right coalition during a long and heated debate broadcast live on Swedish public television.

Mona Sahlin, who is vying for his job at the front of the so-called red-green opposition coalition made up of her Social Democrats, the Greens and the formerly communist Left Party, agreed.

"The Sweden Democrats ... always make the immigrants the culprits, either for taking jobs or for not taking jobs. Such a party can only be met with a crystal clear message: that we will not touch them, not cooperate with them," she said.

There comments came as a Novus Opinion tally of five different polls published Sunday by Swedish public radio handed 4.6 percent of voter intentions to the far-right anti-immigrant party, which would be enough to secure them a place in parliament for the first time.

Observers have pointed out that if neither of the main political blocs, which been neck-and-neck in polls for months, manage to secure more than 50 percent of the vote on September 19, the Sweden Democrats could easily become the kingmaker in the parliament.

Reinfeldt's Moderate Party and its coalition members, the Liberal, Centre and Christian Democrat parties, have in recent polls taken a lead and in Sunday's tally scored 50 percent of voter intention, compared to 43.6 percent for the leftwing opposition.

The prime minister has in recent weeks met criticism for saying he plans to hold onto his job if his coalition wins most votes, even if it means creating a minority government, with critics saying he then could be open to pressure from the far-right.

On Sunday however, he stressed that if his bloc does not secure a majority, it will need to seek "a broader parliamentary solution," most likely looking to the Green Party for support.

Sahlin meanwhile reiterated in Sunday's debate that she will not create a minority government which could be open to influence by the Sweden Democrats, insisting that "Sweden needs a majority government."

She has in recent weeks said she may try to woo over the Centre and Liberal parties if the opposition wins most votes but not a clear majority, but both of those parties have said they would decline such an offer.


Swedish Wire

Marine le Pen: Mightier than her père? (France)

Daughter of the Right lays out for John Lichfield the future course of a party she says was 'misunderstood'

Marine Le Pen was late back from lunch. This is a common condition among French politicians but very  unusual for Marine Le Pen. She is known for being always on time and for being polite, charming and, unlike her father, difficult to dislike. She arrived "only" 20 minutes late. And she wanted the readers of The Independent to know that they had been misinformed for years about the National Front, which is, she says, not a racist party, or a xenophobic party, not even a far-right party but a "patriotic party" of neither left nor right.

If she takes over its leadership from her father in January (which she almost certainly will), she intends to "sweep away the caricatures" and transform the National Front from a party of protest into a "party of government". She said: "To exercise power is the objective of all politicians. The National Front is still a young party. We should now be ready to take a step upwards and have no fear of assuming responsibility. If the party does not want to win, I don't want to lead them. That wouldn't interest me. I'm not ready to settle for a permanent posture of complaint."
When she entered politics, Jean-Marie Le Pen's youngest daughter was a large and somewhat lumbering woman. She looked like Stephen Fry in drag. Ten years later, as she prepares to replace her father, 42-year-old Marine is slender, elegant and tanned. She wears a grey jacket, a grey blouse, tight blue jeans and high heels. Her supporters hope – and her enemies inside and outside the party fear – that she will achieve an equally startling transformation (or, in French, un re-looking radical) of the National Front.

Alain Duhamel, France's shrewdest political commentator, says: "Marine is just as demagogic as her father and even more dangerous. Jean-Marie Le Pen wanted only to be a player, to be noticed, to show off. Marine Le Pen wants to win and to rule."

Her 82-year-old father will retire as president of the National Front in January. A party conference will choose his successor from a short-list of two. The candidates are his bookish, grey, unreconstructed, hard-line deputy, Bruno Gollnisch, 60, and the youngest of his three, daughters, Marion Anne Perrine Le Pen, always known as "Marine". Jean-Marie, the founder and colossus of the party, has already made it known that he thinks that Marine will, and should, win.

Nicolas Sarkozy, who won the French Presidency in 2007 partly by reclaiming votes from the NF, is worried. His decision in July to make a theatrical link between foreigners and crime by declaring war on Roma immigrants from eastern Europe is admitted in the Elysée Palace to be part of an "anti-Marine" strategy.

But is her drive to "sweep away misconceptions" about theNF not, de facto, an attack on her dear old dad? She says that the media "demonised" the NF. But what about Jean-Marie Le Pen's own extremist statements over the years? (Too many black players in the France football team; immigration is a Jewish-led conspiracy to destroy France.)

That was then, she says. This is now. "It's true that, 30 years ago, Jean-Marie Le Pen maybe used a few provocative remarks to make himself heard when the political and media classes would give no space to our ideas. There is no need to use such methods today because, in so many areas, the facts have proved that the National Front was right. On uncontrolled immigration. On the EU. On globalisation. On ultra-capitalism. Even President Sarkozy seems to agree with us on a number of subjects. We are now in a position where we can offer solutions, not just try to convince people that we have identified the right problems. That changes everything."

Marine Le Pen believes that not only in France, but all across Europe, the time is right for a less histrionic, more pragmatic form of populist nationalism. This would be anti-immigration but "not racist"; anti-EU but not anti-European; anti-globalisation but not anti-market. Every country is different, she says (as a good nationalist should) but the rise of Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Gianfranco Fini in Italy and a middle class, populist right in Flanders, all point in the same direction.

"In many European countries, there is a growing tide of anxiety driven by uncontrolled immigration, globalisation and the rules of the EU," she says. "People feel pushed around, threatened with losing their identity, their traditions and their jobs."

In her quest to modernise, and "de-demonise" the Front, she says wants to "abolish a number of ambiguities linked to our past". What does she mean? "I will give you an example. People say we are a free-market party. Yes, we believe in free-enterprise but we are not an ultra-capitalist party. We believe in frontiers. We also believe that the state should have a strategic role in the economy. We fight against 'ultra-liberalism', which we consider to be a totalitarian system which insists on the free movement of people, goods and capital, something we reject." In American terms, she says, the NF, is not a right-wing party. It is certainly much less right wing, she says, than the Tea Party movement, which distrusts all government and hates all taxes.
OK, d'accord, lets consider another "ambiguity". Marine Le Pen insists that she is not a racist, that France is "not a racist country" and that the NF was "never a racist party". Why then, I asked, did she tell her first campaign meeting in the Var in southern France that all the other parties wanted to "Islamise" France and that they had plans to introduce "sharia law" into the country? How could a country which is about to ban the burka be said to be preparing to live under sharia law? In any case, France now has large black, brown and Islamic communities. Many of them are French citizens, born in France. Like it or not, multi-culturalism is a fact of French life.

Marine became a little heated for the first time. "We are are in a trial of strength between Islam and the secular values of the French republic, an insidious trial of strength and one that we are losing," she said. How so? The signs are all around us, she said. Her evidence scarcely seems overwhelming.

Several swimming pools have allowed women's-only times for Muslim bathers; 22 Quick burger restaurants (out of many hundreds) now sell only halal meat; pork has been taken off the menu in some schools, and a few streets are occasionally blocked to allow Muslims to pray in the open air.

"You say to me that a multi-cultural country can live in peace," she said. "I don't think that can ever happen. Anywhere that communities with different cultures have tried to live together in the same territory, we have had tragedies, we have had conflicts."

Marine is distrusted by many within the NF, a disparate coalition of mutually suspicious tribes from die-hard patriots, to Catholic fundamentalists, to pagan nature-worshippers. Her support for abortion and the rights of homosexuals angers social conservatives. Her arguments for the "secular values" of the French Republic irritate the fundamentalist Catholics.

Marine says she knows that she is not to everyone's taste in the party but she does not care. "That's the beauty of this [internal] election," she said. "It gives me the chance to be very clear about what I stand for. I don't want to seduce the National Front. I want to convince it. For nine years now I have been defending our values to my own music. Lots of factors, the polls, the anxiety within [President Sarkozy's centre-right party] the UMP [Union pour un Mouvement Populaure] suggest that I am the person best placed to take the Front's ideas as far as they can be taken."

On the door of her office are photographs of three beautiful children. She says, proudly, that she had them "all in one year", 11-year-old twins and a 12-year-old daughter, Jehanne, the original spelling for Joan of Arc. Marine has twice been married and twice divorced. Her parents divorced, spectacularly, when she was 19. She is a lawyer, a Euro MP and a town councillor in Hénin-Beaumont, near Lille in northern France.

A recent poll in the Nouvel Observateur magazine suggested that Marine would come third with 13 per cent of the vote in the first round of a presidential election. This is not an extraordinary breakthrough but it is better (by five points) than her father was polling two years before he took 17 per cent of the vote in the 2002 presidential election and reached the two-candidate run-off.

Marine says that a spectre is haunting Mr Sarkozy's UMP. What really worries them, she says, is that she will come ahead of Mr Sarkozy in 2012 and go into the second round against a candidate of the left. "In 2002, all the left-wing voters turned out to vote for Chirac in the second round and against my father. Faced with the same choice, would the great majority of UMP voters cast ballots for the left and not for me? I don't think they would. And many people in the UMP don't think they would."

During an hour of polite probing and pushing, Marine remained resolutely on-message. Only occasionally did she stray beyond what might have been repeated by a Conservative Party right-winger or an editorial in the Daily Mail.

But she did make one startling declaration. Seventy years ago, she said, she would have been on the side of Charles de Gaulle and les résistants". She would not have been on the side of Marshal Philippe Pétain and Vichy. This may seem like a banal statement. In the context of the tribal, history-soaked politics of France – and especially of the National Front – it is a striking declaration of who Marine Le Pen thinks she is. Or at least who she wants people to think she is.

Vichy-sympathisers, people who believe that Marshal Petain was a hero, not a Nazi collaborator, in 1940-44, are one of the many tribes of the NF. Jean-Marie Le Pen has always been morbidly obsessed by the Second World War. (The gas ovens, he famously said, were only a "detail" of history, and the occupying Germans behaved "on the whole correctly" in France.)

As far as I know, no one has ever publicly asked Marine a question about the war. So I asked her. Twice. She did not specifically repudiate Marshal Petain as a traitor but she did eventually say: "Many French people resisted. They were right to do so. They were only a minority. That doesn't mean that all the rest were collaborators. Most were neither. But my instinct would have been to be on the side of the Resistance."

So there it is. Marine Le Pen would have been wearing a beret and a trench-coat and planting bombs under German troop trains in 1940-44. Her statement will anger many Vichy sentimentalists within the NF Front. It remains to be seen, when (not if) she is elected, whether she can hold the disparate clans of the NF together.

Marine believes that she can put the nationalist-patriotic, anti-European, anti-immigration, anti-globalisation argument in ways that appeal to previously moderate voters of both the right and left. She believes that the populist far right (a term she rejects) can finally be on the right side of history. With President Sarkozy floundering and the French centre-left still muddled, in 2012 she could be a very dangerous opponent indeed.

The Independant

Wilders' New York speech passes off without incident

Geert Wilder's 15 minute speech to several hundred people at a protest against plans to build an Islamic  cultural centre close to Ground Zero in New York passed off without incident on Saturday.

In his address, Wilders drew a connection between New York and its Dutch roots. 'No mosque here,' he said. 'For their sakes, we must draw the line. So that New York, rooted in Dutch tolerance, will never become New Mecca'

Deviating from his written script, Wilders attacked the imam behind the cultural centre for his 'crazy and idiotic remarks'.

'The west has never harmed Islam before Islam has harmed us, over and over gain, for centuries,' he said.

Wilders also quoted US president Abraham Lincoln saying: 'those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.'

The rally's organisers claimed 40,000 people had packed in to the area close to Ground Zero to hear Wilders and other conservative US speakers.

Although few people in New York have heard of him, Dutch politicians awaited Wilders's speech because of its implications for the ongoing formation talks.

Coalition
His party, the PVV, is involved in negotiations on forming a new right-wing government with the VVD Liberals and Christian Democrats.

Wilders has already said he feels free to say whatever he likes about Islam, despite his association with the possible next government.

And the three parties agreed to 'respect' each others' position on Islam before sitting round the negotiating table.

Nevertheless, there were fears that Wilders' appearance could damage the discussions - particularly because the PVV leader is seen by some as a representative of the Netherlands.

Candidate prime minister
Caretaker foreign minister Maxime Verhagen stressed after the speech that Wilders was speaking personally. Like the US government, the Dutch government respects the right of everyone to chose their own religion, he said.

VVD leader Mark Rutte did not comment on the speech.

Alexander Pechtold, leader of the Liberal democrats D66 and a vocal Wilders' critic, said earlier he felt VVD leader Mark Rutte should comment on Wilders' performance because Rutte is 'candidate prime minister'.

'On the eve of the the next step in Wilders' domination of Dutch politics, the completion of his marionette cabinet, he is going international,' Pechtold said. 'Not as a minister of foreign affairs but as as a speaker in a planning issue in New York.'

According to a Maurice de Hond poll, 20% of Dutch voters support Wilders' appearance in New York, 39% are opposed and 41% are neutral.

In The Hague, up to 150 people gathered in the city centre to demonstrate against Wilders' appearance at the New York protests.

Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the anti-Islam campaigner and former Somali refugee turned Dutch politician who now now works in the US, said she felt Wilders should have stayed in the Netherlands.

'If I was Wilders I would have been at the negotiating table,' the Telegraaf quoted her as saying.

In the Netherlands, Wilders has called for a ban on new mosques, the closure of Islamic schools and a tax on headscarves worn by Muslim women

To read the full speech please click Here.

Dutch News