Category Archives: Global Politics

Masked gang threatens attacks against asylum seekers in Stockholm – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Dozens of masked, black-clad men believed to belong to neo-Nazi gangs rampaged through the streets of Stockholm on Friday night handing out leaflets threatening to attack migrant street youths “to make a statement”, with police saying two arrests have been made.The incident highlights the growing tensions over immigration in Sweden, a country of 10 million which received 163,000 asylum seekers last year, and comes days after a 22-year-old female worker was stabbed to death in a centre for unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors in south-western Sweden.As many as 100 people with their faces covered descended on the Sergels Torg pedestrian square, a popular meeting point for young people, including migrant youths.Police had beefed up their presence in the city centre, deploying anti-riot and helicopter units after learning that extremists were planning “aggression on unaccompanied migrant minors”.By midday police had not received any complaints of assault but one 46-year-old man was arrested after striking a plainclothes officer, police spokesman Towe Hagg said.The leaflets handed out on Friday night, which were confirmed by police as being the same as those posted on Swedish social media, said:”When Swedish streets are no longer safe for ordinary Swedes it is our DUTY to fix the problem … Today, therefore, 200 Swedish men gathered to make a statement against the North African ‘street children’ who are ranging around the capital’s central station.”The police have amply shown that it lacks the means to rein them in and we now see no alternative than for us to mete out the punishment they deserve.”Swedish Interior Minister Anders Ygeman condemned the “racist groups which threaten and spread hate in the public space”, adding: “One must respond strongly.”

Source: Masked gang threatens attacks against asylum seekers in Stockholm – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Nomination – The New York Times

Hillary Clinton is the right choice for the Democrats to present a vision for America that is radically different from the one that leading Republican candidates offer — a vision in which middle-class Americans have a real shot at prosperity, women’s rights are enhanced, undocumented immigrants are given a chance at legitimacy, international alliances are nurtured and the country is kept safe.

Source: Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Nomination – The New York Times

ASIA/PHILIPPINES – Muslims fighting Isis: “sign of sincerity” says a missionary

Zamboanga – “It is a very positive step. It demonstrates the sincerity of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the search for peace”: this is how Fr. Angel Calvo, a Claretian missionary, for several decades in Mindanao, who today lives in the city of Zamboanga, in the extreme south of the Philippines, judges the public statement of the Islamic movement that has decided to actively cooperate with the government to stop the spread of the Islamic State in the southern Philippines.In the southern Philippines, where there is a large Muslim community, Isis is trying to recruit new fighters and contaminate local groups.”Today, Isis is the brand that works. Small local radical groups like the ideology of Isis, although I do not believe this is an alarming situation, because these are small isolated incidents”, said Fr. Calvo. “The position taken by the formations that historically represent Islam Filipino, such as the MILF, and by many other Islamic leaders, makes it clear that the Muslim community in the southern Philippines rejects the poisoning that Isis tries to accomplish”.”MILF is fully committed to the peace process. It is a long, slow process, and you have to have patience. After the agreement signed with the government of Benigno Aquino, the present Parliament has not ratified it yet. The issue has been postponed to the new government that will take office after the elections of May 2016″, concludes the missionary.

Source: ASIA/PHILIPPINES – Muslims fighting Isis: “sign of sincerity” says a missionary

Welcome To America — Now Spy On Your Friends

One of the agents told Osman they had a deal for him. A “good deal,” Osman recalled: The FBI could help him with his green card application and even help some of his family immigrate to the United States.But something changed, he said, when she called and said, “I want to ask you where Osama Bin Laden is.”“That was when I got shocked,” he recalled. “I was really scared, and I was not feeling comfortable. She was giving me so much pressure. I think she was trying to scare me.” But he did not dare tell anyone in his community, lest someone think he was cooperating.Immigration records indicate that right around that time, and again in March and May of 2010, the Joint Terrorism Task Force — a partnership of law enforcement agencies led by the FBI — requested information about Osman’s immigration files from USCIS.In March 2011, Osman was informed that his claim to be a member of Somalia’s persecuted Tuni clan “may have” been false. He tried to fight the charge, but lost. First his refugee status was revoked. Then, six years after filing an application for a green card, Osman finally got an answer: No.An immigration lawyer did eventually get him in front of a judge, who ruled that the government had acted improperly. Osman’s refugee status was reinstated, and he even got a green card.But when, encouraged by those developments, he applied to become a full citizen, he ran into the very same kinds of delays. FBI agents don’t show up at his door anymore, but he worries that he might still find himself searching for a country to call home. “I believe I’m already an American,” Osman said one recent night, sitting in a hotel lobby.“I mean, I am an American!” he exclaimed, with his hands in the air. “This is my home. They might believe something else, but of course I am.”

Source: Welcome To America — Now Spy On Your Friends

Marrakech Declaration looked to the Charter of Medina – eliminate any topic that incites aggression and extremism, bringing war and chaos

Rabat (Agenzia Fides) – An appeal to develop an Islamic jurisprudence on the concept of citizenship, that is inclusive of all groups, was signed on January 27 by 250 leading Islamic scholars gathered in Marrakech, at the invitation of the Ministry of Promotion and Islamic Business of Morocco and the Forum for the Promotion of Peace in Islamic societies, based in the United Arab Emirates. According to a statement sent to Agenzia Fides, the Marrakech Declaration looked to the Charter of Medina. This year marks the 1,400 anniversary of the Charter of Medina, “a constitutional contract between the Prophet Muhammad and the people of Medina, which guaranteed the religious liberty of all, regardless of faith”. Besides asking scholars and Muslim intellectuals to develop the concept of citizenship in Islamic jurisprudence, it launches an appeal to educational institutions for “a courageous review of educational curricula, to eliminate any topic that incites aggression and extremism, bringing war and chaos”; and to politicians to “establish a constitutional contractual relationship among its citizens”. It finally calls upon the various religious groups bound by the same national fabric to address their mutual state of selective amnesia that blocks memories of centuries of joint and shared living on the same land, and to reject any form of denigration of the other. The Marrakech Declaration concludes that it is “unconscionable to employ religion for the purpose of aggressing upon the rights of religious minorities in Muslim countries”. At the meeting in Marrakech fifty leaders of other religions were present who expressed their gratitude for the Declaration. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 28/01/2016)

Source: Agenzia Fides News

Denmark faces backlash over ‘despicable’ ‘jewellery law’ – The Local

Legislation agreed in Denmark to seize the valuables of refugees in the hope of limiting the flow of migrants is “despicable”, US-based rights watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday. “I think it’s despicable that Denmark and also in a sense Switzerland are moving to seize the last remaining assets of people, who by virtue of their movement and vulnerability tend to be impoverished and have very little on them,” the executive director of HRW, Kenneth Roth, told a news conference in Istanbul, referring to a Swiss law that since the 1990s has required asylum seekers to contribute to the costs of hosting them in the wealthy Alpine country. “Does a rich country like Denmark really need to strip the very assets of these desperate asylum seekers before providing them basic services?” asked Roth, who was presenting HRW’s annual report in Istanbul.

Source: Denmark faces backlash over ‘despicable’ ‘jewellery law’ – The Local

Quote of the Day: We are “destroying” our “white culture” with abortions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsuNP5uZhsc

The 1920’s were in full effect at a Florida state House subcommittee meeting on Monday where an anti-abortion activist insisted that “white culture” is being destroyed because white women are “outside the home, not having babies.” The House Criminal Justice subcommittee discussed HB 865, which would essentially ban all abortions except in cases where the health of the mother was at risk and could punish anyone who performs abortions or operates an abortion clinic with up to 30 years in prison.In support of this legislation, the activist in question went on a rant about the moral obligations of lawmakers to act in accordance of his interpretation of the Bible’s views on family and children. He also thinks the fact that the United States is “so fat and sick” is evidence that we are “under judgement.” His final statement was “It’s either repent or perish America. That’s the way it is.”But what stood out the most was this activist’s not-so-subtle dive into eugenics thinking when he made the bold claim that the United States is a “white culture” and is under attack when white women are choosing not to carry their pregnancies to term. To make his point, he said: “The Muslims, they don’t kill their babies,” and the Mexican race “is through the breeding of having families, children.”If you think these are just the ramblings of an extreme religious fanatic that don’t hold much weight, you should know that the subcommittee passed the bill 8-3.

Source: Quote of the Day: We are “destroying” our “white culture” with abortions

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Fraud | Inter Press Service

The modest benefits projected make it crucial to consider the nature and scale of costs currently ignored by all available modelling exercises. The TPP will impose direct costs, e.g. by extending IPRs and by blocking or delaying generic production and imports.The TPPA’s investor state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions will enable foreign investors to sue a government in an offshore tribunal if they claim that new regulations reduce their expected future profits, even when such regulations are in the public interest. As private insurance is already available for this purpose, ISDS provisions are completely unnecessary.Jagdish Bhagwati, a leading advocate of free trade and trade liberalization, along with others, have sharply criticized the inclusion of such non-trade provisions in ostensible free trade agreements. Instead of being the regional free trade agreement it is often portrayed as, the TPP seems to be “a managed trade regime that puts corporate interests first”.The TPP, offering modest quantifiable benefits from trade liberalization, is really the thin edge of a wedge package which will fundamentally undermine the public interest. Net gains for TPP partners seem doubtful at this stage.Only a complete and proper accounting based on the full text can settle this key question. The TPP has, in fact already been used to try to kill the Doha ‘Development’ Round of multilateral trade talks, but may well also undermine multilateralism more broadly in the near future.

Source: The Trans-Pacific Partnership Fraud | Inter Press Service