Riots at Stoke-on-Trent English Defence League march

Fifteen people were arrested at an English Defence League (EDL) rally in Stoke-on-Trent after trouble broke out.were injured and vehicles were damaged when EDL supporters broke through police cordons. Two of the officers needed hospital treatment.

About 1,500 EDL supporters were at the rally in Hanley to protest about Islamic extremism, police said.

Up to 300 members from the group Unite Against Fascism gathered on the other side of Hanley centre.

Supt Dave Mellor of Staffordshire Police said more than 600 officers had been deployed to the rally and disorder had been "sporadic".

One officer needed hospital treatment for an arm injury, another needed a facial injury to be examined by doctors. The two other injured officers returned to duty immediately.

BBC Midlands Today reporter Matt Cooke said said there had been few problems with the Unite Against Fascism demonstration.

He said there was trouble as the EDL crowd dispersed.

Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Sikh faith leaders signed a pledge against all forms of racism, ahead of the event on Saturday.

original post
BBC

Rod Liddle puts potential editors job at The Independent at risk with another controversial blog post

Ron Liddle the Former BBC Radio 4 Today editor has once again drawn attention to himself through controversial views posted online.

In December 2009 he referring to the case where two teenage rappers tried to murder a pregnant 15-year-old, described the perpetrators as "human filth" before adding "It could be an anomaly, of course. But it isn't."

Then again he wrote in a blog for The Spectator
The overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community.

Diane Abbot, MP for Hackney North, stated at the time "It is obviously statistically false to say that the 'overwhelming majority' of the crimes listed by Rod are committed by young black men... The interesting thing is why he chose to post something which, if you chose another set of hysterical racial stereotypes and substituted Jew for Afro-Caribbean, would not have been out of place in a speech by Oswald Mosley.

On these occasions the has stated he was highlighting multi-culturism and not being racist.

Yet the following item was posted in the Guardian today.

Rod Liddle defends quip about Auschwitz on Millwall fans' forum

It began as a series of tasteless, vulgar conversations about race, religion and sex on a football fan website, but it could end with Rod Liddle, the former Today editor turned controversial columnist, being denied the chance to edit the Independent.

Liddle felt compelled to explain in the Jewish Chronicle today why he posted a comment on the fan forum Millwall Online complaining that he couldn't smoke at Auschwitz. In his article for the paper, Liddle described as "absurd" suggestions that he is anti-Semitic.

He has used Millwall Online, which has no official links to the south London club, to say: "It's fucking outrageous that you can't smoke in Auschwitz. I had to sneak round the back of the gas chambers for a crafty snout. Also, I wasn't convinced by the newish Auschwitz Burger Bar and Grill."

Liddle used the Chronicle to claim: "My point … was that I felt it had been stripped of its awfulness and bleakness … festooned with no smoking signs and disabled access ramps."

His intervention came at the end of a week when his credentials as a possible editor of the Independent had been called into question.

Alexander Lebedev, the Russian billionaire who last year acquired a controlling stake in the London Evening Standard, is in negotiations to buy the Independent from its Irish owners. He is thought to have lined up Liddle, who writes for the Spectator and the Sunday Times, to replace the incumbent editor, Roger Alton.

Liddle has posted dozens of messages on Millwall Online using the pseudonym Monkeymfc, including, allegedly, derogatory comments about Somalis, insulting references to the ITV newsreader Mary Nightingale and racist comments.

Posting under the user name of

'Monkeymfc'

Rod Liddle has been attacked for comments he posted on a Millwall supporters website under the moniker Monkeymfc. This is what he is quoted as saying and his response:

What "Monkeymfc" wrote about black people: "On average a little under 10 per cent thicker than whites; 15 per cent thicker than east Asians. I thought everyone knew, too." What Liddle says: "Someone's hacked in [using Liddle's password].

Monkeymfc on Swindon's black footballer Kevin Amankwaah: "**** off you spearchucking African ****." What Liddle says: "I was quoting what had been allegedly said to a black player from another team and JUSTIFYING why that player then said something very nasty indeed in return."

Monkeymfc on blogger Jo Owen. He wrongly assumes he is a woman: "Stupid bitch. A year eight sociology lecture from someone who knows fck all … Someone kick her in the cnt". Liddle [in reply to a blogger]: "I don't remember saying it and it certainly doesn't read like me, but it's quite possible that at some point I might use that terminology to make a certain point, perhaps the opposite to the one you imagine."

I let you be the judge of whether Mr Liddle is racist or not.

For the full story

The Guardian

BRITONS ARRESTED OVER ARSON ATTACK ON CRETE SYNAGOGUE (Greece)

Two British nightclub waiters have been arrested after arson attacks on a historic Jewish synagogue on the Greek island of Crete which have drawn condemnation from around the world. The men, aged 23 and 33, are in custody alongside a 24-year-old Greek man after the restored medieval in the port city of Hania, one of the most noted Jewish temples in Greece, was twice set alight this month. The fires, which destroyed 2,500 rare books and manuscripts, sparked alarm among the 8,000 Jews in Greece. The US state department said the attacks were "clearly intended to intimidate and terrorise Greece's Jewish community". The arsons were the latest of several incidents of antisemitic vandalism across Greece, including attacks on synagogues and cemeteries in Larissa, Volos, Thessaloniki, Ioannina and Athens. During the first fire, on 5 January, a bottle with flammable liquid was found, according to witnesses. That fire was extinguished. But another, on 16 January, destroyed books and computers as well as causing considerable damage to art work and to the interior of the building, which is Crete's only synagogue. The 33-year-old Briton, who has not been named, is accused of being the perpetrator of that second attack but denies the charges. The Greek man and 23-year-old Briton are accused of keeping watch. Two US citizens are being sought in connection with the first attack, with the three detained also accused of involvement, said local police.

The 15th-century synagogue was restored in 1999 after lying derelict since the Holocaust. By 1941 most of the Jews in Crete had emigrated, leaving only the Hania community of 269 people. They were deported by Nazi invaders in 1944 and died when their ship was bombed and sunk by the Allies. Now a cultural centre and museum as well as a house of worship, the building was renovated with help from the World Monuments Fund. As a derelict building it was seen by locals as "a monument to the success of the Nazis in obliterating 2300 years of Jewish life" but is now a "vibrant statement of Jewish life, vitality and values", according to its website. The men were reportedly arrested after the Greek co-accused confessed. Israel has called on Greece to better protect its Jewish heritage. Moses Constantinis, head of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, said: "We are worried, the Jewish community is worried."

Pope says Vatican helped Jews during Holocaust

Pope Benedict XVI has defended the Vatican against accusations of indifference towards the Nazis' annihilation of Europe's Jews in WWII. On a landmark visit to Rome's main synagogue, the Pope said the Vatican helped Jews and "provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way".
The pontiff responded after an Italian Jewish leader spoke of the painful "silence" of wartime Pope Pius XII.
It comes amid Jewish anger at Benedict's moves to beatify Pius.

The Pope conceded that "unfortunately, many remained indifferent", to the suffering of the Jews, six million of whom were killed in the Holocaust.

But he said "The Apostolic See [the Vatican] itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way," without mentioning Pius XII by name.

His remarks came directly after the president of Rome's Jewish community, Riccardo Pacifici, told him "the silence of Pius XII before the Shoah [Holocaust], still hurts because something should have been done".

"Maybe it would not have stopped the death trains, but it would have sent a signal, a word of extreme comfort, of human solidarity, towards those brothers of ours transported to the ovens of Auschwitz," he said.
Some in the Jewish community, including at least one senior rabbi and a Holocaust survivor, boycotted the event.
The BBC's Duncan Kennedy in Rome says some Jewish leaders have called on the Vatican to open up its secret archives to study the record of Pius XII in closer detail.
That this issue is souring otherwise increasingly healthy relations between the two religions will frustrate many on both sides, but it is an issue that is unlikely to go away whilst Pius' path to sainthood is under consideration, our correspondent adds.

The Far Right Rise In Austria & The BNP

"We want power. We want to be number one. Austria first!” Nearly hoarse after a two-hour speech, Heinz-Christian Strache ended the new year’s gathering of the Austrian Freedom party (FPO) on a high note. The party is one of the rising forces of Europe’s far right, credited with 22% to 24% support in the polls, twice as much as the Greens. Above all, the party once led by Jörg Haider is catching up with its main rival among working-class voters, the Social Democrat party (SPO), which has fallen below 30% in voting intentions. In the Vienna Congress Centre last week, some 4,000 supporters waved Austrian flags. The better to defend western civilisation, FPO militants are demanding a ban on the construction of minarets, as in Switzerland. Strache got a round of applause when he referred to playgrounds where the few Austrian kids “no longer even dare speak German”. It was time, he said, to put an end to this “counter-society”, which the city council, led by Social Democrat Michael Häupl, had allowed to flourish for 16 years. A third of the capital’s population comes from abroad, mainly Turkey, central Europe and the former Yugoslavia.

Should we be worried about this so called Austrian Freedom Party, like many far right groups on the rise is not as it try’s to appear?

Obviously they have an anti-Islamic ideology (all the far right groups in Europe have jumped on this issue) but they also have a desire to legalise Nazi symbols and Strache has links to far right extremists. The fact that Lutz Weinzinger, a leading member of Austria’s Freedom Party (FPO) attended a candle light vigil at a fallen SS officers grave which is eerily on the same date of Kristallnacht, the ‘night of broken glass’ that in 1938 the Nazi’s notoriously attacked property held by Jews and also killed 92 who happened to be in their way.

And its no accident that Former Waffen SS officer and unrepentant Nazi Herbert Schweiger was a leading founder in the political party is a friend of Strache.

Yet at a time in Austrial when Muslim graves are being daubed with Nazi symbols and a group of Neo Nazi’s hoisted the Swastika (banned in Austria) in Hilter’s birthtown as a tribute to their fallen Idol, Nick Griffin leader of the BNP has created a friendship with the Strache.

After the FPO’s election victory, Nick Griffin, leader of the British Nationalist Party (BNP), sent a personal message to Strache.

‘We in Britain are impressed to see that you have been able to combine principled nationalism with electoral success. We are sure that this gives you a good springboard for the European elections and we hope very much that we will be able to join you in a successful nationalist block in Brussels next year.’

The greatest propaganda gift the BNP could hope for was electoral success as they had in the EU elections. It has given them an edge of credibility and success. Unfortunately many of the far right groups in Europe have bought into that false façade and have embraced them openly.

Little do they know as the majority in Britain know, the BNP are really a joke and as the saying goes “couldn’t organise a pi** up in a brewery”