US: Gadahn is back!

Gadahn “cautioning” infidels with love about their future if they don’t convert to Islam

American al-Qaida spokesman urges Muslims to carry out attacks in US, Europe | StarTribune.com:

“An American spokesman for al-Qaida is urging Muslims in the United States and Europe to carry out attacks there.

In a video posted on militant websites Saturday, Adam Gadahn directed his appeal to Muslim immigrants in what he called the ‘miserable suburbs’ of Paris, London and Detroit as well as those traveling to the West to study or work.

Gadahn grew up on a farm in California and converted to Islam before moving to Pakistan in 1998 and reportedly attending an al-Qaida training camp. He has been wanted by the FBI since 2004.”

Anglican Church: Williams on burqa ban, secularism and Europe

Rowan Williams

Episcopal Life Online – WORLD REPORT:

“Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has deplored attempts by governments in Europe to prohibit Muslim women from publicly wearing the burqa, a garment that covers the entire body.

‘Governments should have better things to do than ban the burqa,’ Williams, the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, told an interfaith meeting organized by the National Council of Churches in India at its headquarters in Nagpur, during a visit to India.

…”I believe that the state ought not to be addressing issues like these. Instead, it should leave such concerns to the religious communities,” stated Williams at the Oct. 14 meeting in Nagpur. He described the French ban as “a sign of being overanxious.”

More than 100 church leaders, led by the NCCI’s president, Methodist Bishop Taranath Sagar, and Bishop Purely Lyngdoh, moderator of the Church of North India, attended the meeting alongside Muslims and Sikhs, and members of the Hindu community.

“We are glad that the archbishop spoke out clearly on the burqa controversy. He is very objective and respects other faiths,” A. Majid Parekh, a Muslim leader in Nagpur, told ENInews after listening to the Anglican leader.

Williams told ENInews that the controversy generated by bans on the burqa, the Sikh turban and the Christian cross in some European countries, “shows the extension of secularism too far. This ought to be resisted. The communities should have the right to decide on such issues.” Williams said he had protested when a British Airways employee was told she should not wear her necklace cross visibly while at work.

He told the meeting that attacks against migrants in Europe were not the result of Christian prejudice against non-Christians but a “crude nationalist prejudice against migrants and outsiders.”

On the link between religions and terrorism, the head of the worldwide Anglican Communion said that terrorism is a product of “bad” religion. “The positive affirmation of faith in God and respect for one another is the solution for it,” he stated.”

Morocco: security services dismantle drug ring linked to AQ

Moroccan security services today dismantled a drug ring that did get cocaine and cannabis resin to Europe by land, sea and air and had branches in Latin America, Africa and Europe.

According to the note, the network had its headquarters in Mali, from where they carry out their activities “in collusion with terrorists belonging to the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).”

The Moroccan Interior Ministry said in a statement that the operation resulted in seven arrests, two of whom are Spanish, and the seizure of “significant sums” in Moroccan and foreign currency, vehicles and tear gas, in addition to caches. Drug Investigations reveal that the network could have introduced the drug in Morocco from Mali, and other quantities of the same substances would have been transported to European countries, which also would have to spend large sums of money in foreign currency.

The detainees have been brought to justice and have already begun investigations under the supervision of the prosecution, the statement said.

Source.

(Translated T&P).

Narco-terrorism: FARC and Al-Qaeda inSouth America

Three suspected al-Qaeda associates who were apprehended in West Africa by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents during an international anti-drug operation, were extradited to New York and appeared in federal court in Manhattan earlier this year, according to reports obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police’s Terrorism and Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs committees.

The operation confirms the suspicions of terrorism experts that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups are involved in narcotics trafficking to fund their terror operations.

The suspects — Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure and Idress Abelrahman — were charged with conspiracy to commit acts of narco-terrorism and conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization after they allegedly agreed to transport as much as 1,000 kilos of cocaine. Allegedly, the drugs were earmarked for western European countries and the United States.

The cocaine interdiction and arrests occurred along the traffickers’ favorite route through West Africa to North Africa that serves as a launch point for export to Europe. The suspects were taken into custody after an intense undercover investigation in which informants and agents posed as Colombian narco-terrorists who claimed they shared hatred for the United States with the African suspects.

According to the NACOP report, Colombian drug kingpins use the same transshipment techniques in Africa that they’ve successfully used in Latin America. The Colombian traffickers’ utilized al-Qaeda’s protection services in order to make certain shipments arrived at their destinations.

DEA officials report that in this case they were able to infiltrate the drug operation during the negotiations phase. The undercover DEA agents and informants indicated they were associated with the Colombia terrorist group FARC and could protect the shipment from West Africa to North Africa and ultimately to Spain.

Issa, Toure and Abelrahman claim to be from Mali, but their nation of origin is yet unknown.

Source (found).

Background:
Venezuela-Sahel: international net of drug trafficking and terrorism.
US charges 3 Al Qaeda men with drug trafficking to finance global terror.
Report: Hizbullah’s drug trafficking.
Drug Trafficking: More on “Air Al-Qaeda”.
More on the links between South American drug traffickers and AQIM.
Northern Europe: Somali Muslim Khat-sale finances Islamic terrorism.
Spain: NC judge accuses Venezuela of ETA/FARC terrorism.
US: indictment links Hezbollah with Mexican drug cartels.
US: Walid Phares on Jihadist-Drug Cartels’ links.

Spain: Platform for Catalonia’s leader is not Wilders

Whatever Mr. Anglada says about it:

One thing is that we agree with some statements from the anti-Islamic leader of Platform for Catalonia, Josep Anglada, and quite another that we have to swallow the rest of his anti-libertarian message. In case anyone does not know what the fuss is about, here I copy a few excerpts from PXC’s political program, which is available on its website:

“The market’s despotism consists in the exploitation of everything without limits and in considering the meaning of life the accumulaton by consumers of goods of all kinds. It is also clear that this project is doomed due to its materialistm because the planet’s resources are limited and life as we know it will have to change, whether we like it or not.

Traditional politicians, bound hand and foot to the economic powers, can not stop this train of consumption that advances unstoppingly towards nothingness. The ecological problem demonstrates the radical difference between consumerism and the welfare state. Or  we stop uncontrolled consumption or we end up welfare, which is a complex concept that also encompasses the spiritual life of man as inseparable from nature.

The liberal rule of the labor market, with unstable and precarious contracts, prevents the access to housing for many young people who aspire only to raise a family and educate their children. (…)

Therefore, it is the economic liberalism which promotes the inability of founding families and the consequent decrease in the birth rate, which is then offset by importing immigrants. “

This is obviously a Falangist ie fascist (the organic ingredient is very characteristic) speech, which shows that, in fact, Anglada has not budged from when he was the man of Blas Pinar (a Franco staunch supporter) in Catalonia.

And incidentally, it also shows that, definitely, Enrique de Diego has lost its way, to join him.

Let us leave aside for now the treatment of the news that lends El Mundo, always wanting to be more politically correct than El País. The truth is that, for once, the prevailing political correctness is right when he branded as Josep Anglada of far-right extremer, but as usual, they do so strictly for wrong reasons. The pseudoprogresism rejects what it calls Islamophobia, which is precisely the only part of speech PXC space, with relevant qualifications. But is unable to recognize the anti-libertarian core of its ideology, because the right-wing socialism is a mirror too uncomfortable for left-wing socialism, whether or not it is implicit.

Geert Wilders, which condemns the expansion of Islam in the Netherlands since the beginning clearly from a libertarian perspective, is the very opposite, to our knowledge, of Josep Anglada, who denounces immigration from the most shameless populism, resorting to the fallacy that foreigners steal jobs to the locals, but incidentally he also spell out some truths. When from certain discourses (both left and right collectivist) people put them in the same bag, they make the same gross pseudoprogresism maneuver, which ranks within the extreme right people like Esperanza Aguirre (President of Autonomous Community of Madrid) and José María Aznar. And this confusion only benefits, as always, the illibertarian of all parties.

Source.

These guys are basically Franco supporters who have found a “market segment” in attacking Muslims, more than Islam. This is another difference with Wilders. The latter has been a very hard critic of the Qu’ran and Islam but has always said that he doesn’t have anything against Muslims. But PxC leaders are asking for the expulsion of all Muslims in Spain, whether they are actually extremists or not. In fact, De Diego, a journalist with a curious way of always being in the wrong place at the wrong time, has actually given a speech (it is now an “only invited” readers’ blog) which ends “For a Christian Spain“, something which doesn’t seem very accurate to me.

Some readers will tell me that I’m naive and that all Muslims are a sort of covered traitors. Well, we have here several extremist imams, who have been investigated by the police for years. They are supporting jihad, punish little girls if they don’t get covered, have Islamic police to prevent Muslims from selling alcohol in their shops, hate non-Muslims, etc. It would be actually very accurate to ask for the immediate expulsion of these guys and supporters, who are most of them “Maghrebies” (Moroccan or Algerian) and some of them had gone to Saudi Arabia to “study”.

But there are Spanish “original” people who have converted to Islam. They can’t be expelled even in the case that they are actually preaching all those things (they are none of the main Islamist  imams who are doing this to my knowledge). And the same that in other famous cases (Abu Hamza, to name one), there are others who are living under threat from those “imams” because they dared to tell the police what was going on in their mosques.

The problem, from my point of view (and I can be wrong, of course), is that Western countries should be very firm in applying the law, but can’t leave the laws aside. Stopping Muslim immigration could be a solution but actually the only solution is to show extremists (whatever their number or their basis), that the law is going to be applied fully and without hesitation, something that now is not done (i.e.: polygamy, for example, had been accepted by Govts despite it is a crime in European legislations).

Background:
Far-right Platform per Catalonia announces they will take part in local elections in Catalonia.
(Far-right, ultranationalist) Platform for Catalonia presents its candidacy for Catalan Government.

Blogosphere: Why Europe still doesn’t get Islam?

Sultan Knish a blog by Daniel Greenfield:

As Americans are blinded to the dangers of Islam by their experience with multiculturalism, Europeans are blinded to the dangers of Islam by their inexperience with multiculturalism. Both make the mistake of assuming that Islamic violence is part of the multicultural norm, rather than the resumption of an old invasion of Europe. The chaos and confusion in a multicultural society can make it hard to spot real threats against the background noise, frustrations and raw nerves of cultural friction. It becomes easy to lump in complaints about too many Indian restaurants, with complaints about angry mosque worshipers. And it becomes all too easy for authorities to tell people to just make the best of it, while ignoring the situation. The authorities are certain that eventually a natural balance will arise a generation or two down the road. The slow realization that the native born Muslims are actually more radicalized than their fathers and grandfathers is worrying them, but not in a particularly constructive way. Instead they are torn between England’s accommodation policies and France’s integration policies, neither of which get at the heart of the problem.

Debates over swimming classes or a radical mosque here and there are only the smaller branches of a fast growing tree. Because the problem is not merely cultural differences, those can be and have been accommodated. The problem is that Muslims believe that their way of life is morally superior, and that any system or institution that does not follow those laws, is invalid. Furthermore they believe that they have a duty to impose their laws on others in the name of their religion or honor.

Right on target. I don’t know what proportion or what is the number of Muslims who actually believe that, but certainly there is an important number who consider that they are morally superior.

Terrorism: Concern about terror cells’ being ready to strike in Europe

The Blotter:

Intelligence and law enforcement officials have information that the teams could at any time launch a “Mumbai style” terror attack that targets civilians for death or hostage taking. The 2008 Mumbai attack used small arms and explosives to kill 175 people and paralyze the Indian city for days.

The current concerns are for scenarios that include opening fire at airports in Europe as well as executing similar attacks at “soft” targets like tourist attractions or hotels.

According to ABC News sources, the terror plotters have moved through the surveillance stage, checked back in with al Qaeda in Pakistan, and have received the go-ahead to strike.

Background:
US: Europe can be attacked Mumbai style.
Credible threat to Europe.
Sweden  raises terrorism threat level.

US: Europe can be attacked "Mumbai-style"

CNN:
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=world/2010/09/29/lok.pakistan.terror.plot.mov.cnn

A German citizen of Afghan descent was the source of much of the information on a potential “Mumbai-style” terror plot in Europe, a German counterterrorism official said Wednesday.

The man, Ahmed Sidiqi, was detained in Kabul in July and transferred to U.S. custody where he has “revealed details about the terror plot,” said the official, who did not want to be named because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

The man and several other Germans traveled from Hamburg to the Afghan-Pakistan border area in 2009, where he joined the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an extremist group allied with al Qaeda, German intelligence officials said.

Sidiqi, once captured, “started to talk a lot,” and detailed a “Mumbai-style” attack in Europe, the German official said.

…The intelligence indicates there is interest in using people with Western passports in an attack, that official said. This source says the potential operatives may be a mix of Europeans and others possibly including North Africans, Pakistanis, Turks, Uzbeks, and Tajiks.

There is concern about an “active shooter” scenario that would create as many casualties and as much chaos as possible in a short period of time.

The Mumbai attacks showed how effective this kind of an attack can be in drawing attention.

According to this source, economic targets in Europe could be possible targets, including institutions such as banks and stock exchanges.

A separate law enforcement source said “the belief is” that Osama bin Laden signed off on a European attack plan, and that source confirmed the intelligence related to a Mumbai-style attack.

The German government is increasingly concerned about the number of Germans becoming jihadists. According to a senior German counterterrorism source, some 200 individuals have traveled to train with Jihadist groups in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region since the 9/11 attacks.

Europe: Indonesian cleric comes to Europe to give voice to "great silent majority" of peace-loving Muslims

VOA NEWS:

A prestigious Indonesian Islamic theologian is traveling to Europe to promote the country’s tolerant, pluralist interpretation of Islam and counter the violent ideology of radical extremists. The tour is organized by groups that promote pluralism and is part of a plan to develop a network of Muslim leaders to give voice to what they call the “great silent majority” of peace-loving Muslims.
Kyai Haji Achmad Mustofa Bisri, an influential Islamic cleric and member of the supreme council of Nahdlatul Ulama, an Indonesian Muslim organization with 40 million members, has preached tolerance and moderation for over 30 years. Now he has agreed to travel to Europe to help reconcile what he describes as growing animosity between Muslims and Christians there.
He says his perception of the world that we live in is that it is like very dry grass that is easy to catch fire and burn.
Islam, the cleric says, is a religion that promotes love, peace and tolerance.
He says if one misreads the message of love to give rise to hatred, then clearly there is a failure to understand.
And Bisri says that both Islamic extremists and those who hate Muslims share the misguided view that Islam sanctions violence.

I wonder where people have learned that “misunderstanding” from… And, wouldn’t it be more practical if they would just convince violent Islamic guys of this “loving and peaceful nature of Islam“?

Erdogan Calls Israel 'Principal Threat' to Middle East Peace

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Relations between Turkey and Israel, already at a low point, took a further battering Wednesday when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described Israel as “the principal threat to peace” in the Middle East.

…Mr. Erdogan’s clashes with Israel and rapprochement with Iran and Syria have led some analysts to believe Turkey is making a fundamental foreign-policy shift away from its Cold War partners in the West, in particular the U.S., and toward Middle Eastern powers such as Iran. At a recent meeting of foreign-policy analysts in Istanbul held by the Turkish Policy Quarterly, Israeli and Turkish analysts agreed on one point—the alliance those two countries built on shared security concerns in the 1990s is probably unsalvageable.

But a 38-page report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank on Turkey’s new role in the Middle East, released Wednesday, said the belief Turkey is turning away from the West is “incorrect.” The report noted that Turkey’s trade with Europe continues to outweigh its trade with the Middle East by a wide margin, and European Union membership remains its core goal. But the report also warned that Mr. Erdogan risks losing the trust of Western allies.

via Erdogan Calls Israel ‘Principal Threat’ to Middle East Peace – WSJ.com.

And… Turkey is going to raise the subject of the (alleged) Israeli nuclear arsenal on the next Washington meeting. We’ll see what happens…

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• Turkey’s Diplomatic Sparring with Israel (time.com)

UK: Charity praised by PM and Prince Charles, linked to Hamas

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A CHARITY praised last week by Gordon Brown and the Prince of Wales has channelled hundreds of thousands of pounds to groups linked to Hamas, the banned terrorist organisation, according to security sources.The Prime Minister and the heir to the throne personally praised Muslim Aid, whose own accounts show it has paid at least £325,000 to the Islamic University of Gaza, where leading Hamas figures teach, and £13,998 to the al-Ihsan Charitable Society, designated by the US government as a “sponsor of terrorism” and a front for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group.

Security sources also claim that Muslim Aid has helped channel a further £210,600 to six other organisations in the Gaza Strip since July 2009, all of which they say are linked to Hamas.

Muslim Aid is banned from the West Bank by the Israeli government, which says it is a member of the Union of Good, an alliance of charities that raise money for Hamas. Hamas is banned throughout the EU as a designated terrorist organisation.

… Muslim Aid, based at the hardline East London Mosque, has close links to the Islamic Forum of Europe (IFE), a fundamentalist Muslim group based in the same offices.

Muslim Aid raised more than £24 million last year and has been given at least £830,000 of public money. It claims to serve humanity “regardless of political affiliation” and only supports lawful organisations.

via Muslim Aid: the Hamas connection – Telegraph Blogs.

IFE is the organization which boasts of having penetrated Labour party in Tower Hastings (more here), a borough near London (see Channel 4’s Dispatches program here).

Spain: the Interior Ministry's analysis on Muslims

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I read it first on Barcepundit but Islam in Europe had it translated. So I am going to draw some conclusions, considering the percentages that the Govt’s poll has shown.

The poll was done with the interviews to 2,000 foreign Muslims living in Spain of about 767, 784 people. So, this is the first flaw I see on the poll. There are Spanish converts to Islam and some of them can be much more radical than the people who have been Muslims since their birth. For example, in the documentary Generation Jihad (1, 2, 3), portraiting the radicalisation of young UK Muslims, two of the Muslims who had been condemned by terrorist attacks were converts, who weren’t adapted to their surroundings (they critisized the “degenerated Britons”). The reason is that the converts should prove their real compromise with their new religion, so if they are introduced in it by someone who is an extremist, they are going to be extremelly radicalised.

Barcepundit has made some calculations:

1. 5% of the Muslims express “radical views“. 5%(767,784)=39,389.
2. 2% (15,356) don’t agree or disagree with the statement “violence can never be used to defend or spread religious beliefs”. Don’t agree or disagree? Are we insane? How on earth can you “don’t agree or disagree” (that is, not have an opinion…) about such an statement?
3. 1% (7,678) does not agree at all or agrees very little with the statement “violence can never be used to defend or spread religious beliefs”.

But, being violence a most important thing, I don’t think it’s the only interesting thing:

1. Firstly, the number of Muslims who define themselves as very religious Muslims “has increased slightly”. We see the “slight increase” and it’s not so slight: the percentage has risen from 41% to 52% in three years. There is no mention to what they define as “very practising Muslim” but it would be really useful to know.
2. In the same period of time, the percentage of adapted Muslims has decreased (from 86% to 81%) and has increased the one of Muslims who are not adapted (from 17% to a 12%). That is, nowadays there are 130,523 Muslims who consider themselves as not adapted to Spanish lifestyle.

Normally, adaptation to a country, in the matter we are speaking here, means that you consider yourself as any other citizen, with rights and obligations before the law, whatever their ideas, beliefs or creed. But a growing trend in un-adapted people means precisely that they consider themselves as not supporting that same lifestyle or values, which the perceive as “alien”. A 5% rise in 3 years, even when the Government has been pushing their “Alliance of Civilizations”‘ agenda, is not precisely something to be happy about. Because those people are normally the ones who consider that they don’t have to adapt or that their own religious regulation should be enacted, because they are not like the rest. In this case the Sharia Law.

I’m not saying that all those un-adapted are pushing for Shariah Law. But that an important number of them can consider that possibility that I do say.

Note that there is no question about this in the poll. Even when extremists are  not only the ones who support violence, but also those who support Islamization and the enactment of Sharia Law in Western countries, the poll does not contain any question regarding this matter. It’s true that there have been no calls for Sharia enactment here, except when Mansur Escudero asked the Government to introduce polygamy in the Civil Code, with a reference to the Qu’ran (so if you weren’t Muslim and you wanted to marry more than one wife, you were bound by the Islamic regulation). But the countries where that calls for Sharia are going on, had a much more important tradition of Islamic immigration than Spain.

Anyway, cases like the Sharia illegal tribunal set up in Catalonia which condemned a woman to stoning on adultery charges (and whose “judges” have been freed after she hasn’t been found) or the imam who tried to force the hijab on a woman of his mosque, even if isolated incidents, should have been reason enough to add that question.

There are also no indications about the geographics on this subject. We know that Salafists have an important presence in several regions (particularly in Catalonia, where HuT has a growing “fan club” and when they recruit Al-Qaeda, for example), so it would have been also interesting to know the precentages about this in the poll. Specially because if the interviewed are from regions where radicalization is lower, then the results are going to be much more favourable.

Anyway, it’s good to hear that they consider themselves as good Muslims and good Spanish nationals in an important majority.

US: Tariq Ramadan allowed entry

Ramadan believes that Islam can infiltrate and conquer the West by initially peaceful means, continuing immigration, and the “duty for Muslims … to take Islam from the periphery of European culture to the centre,” to cite from an interview in the New Statesman. The warrant here is clearly Koran 9:33 in which Allah sends forth his apostle “to make the true faith supreme over all religions” — a mandate which may be dissembled but cannot be go unheeded. Ramadan coquettishly advances toward his goal of disarming resistance via the rhetoric of ethical harmony and doctrinal alignment between the various faith communities. He even goes so far as to refer to Islamic philosophers like Avicenna, Averroes, and Ibn Khaldun as “European Muslim thinkers … who … confidently [accepted] their European identity” — a proposition as staggering as it is absurd. A cursory perusal of Robert Spencer’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam, a kind of Islam for Dhimmis, would quickly torpedo Ramadan’s strange notion of cultural, religious, and jurisprudential consonance. (In her last book, The Force of Reason, Oriana Fallaci also calls attention to the new and concomitant Islamic “design based on gradual penetration rather than brutal and sudden aggression.”)

Germany: intelligence warns of "terrorist families"

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German intelligence is warning of a new breed of terrorist – whole family groups travelling to training camps on the Afghan-Pakistan border where they learn how to use explosives and raise funds.

Parents travelling with children have in the past raised less suspicion than single men or women travelling to and from Germany.

…Authorities say the new breed of terrorist – including Germans who have converted to Islam – even travel with babies to the ‘bandit country’ of Waziristan.

‘Authorities are also concerned by the sheer speed with which this third generation are radicalised and their abrupt readiness to disappear and start a new life in a terror training camp,’ said a report in Der Spiegel magazine on Monday.

Jihadi families! Isn’t this gorgeous?

The report by Der Spiegel can be read here.

Turkish PM Erdogan: Sooner or later Turkey will become a full EU member

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If Turkey is not included into the European Union as a full member, then the EU itself will suffer, but not Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a press conference in Sarajevo, CNN Turk reported.

“I am sure that sooner or later Turkey will become an equal member of the European Union. This day is near. The EU will only be a Christian club without Turkey,” Erdogan told media.

via Today.Az – Turkish PM Erdogan: Sooner or later Turkey will become a full EU member.

Well, does it have to be other thing that a Christian club? Is there something wrong in that?

And yet, he maybe right thanks to the Lisbon Treaty:

Do you remember the promise made by the EU in 2004 to end the isolation of northern Cyprus by allowing direct trade between the Turkish part of the island and the member states of the EU? It was meant as a reward for the Yes-vote to the Annan-plan by the Turkish Cypriots. Unfortunately, the EU was not able to deliver on that promise because the Greek Cypriots used their presence at the EU table to block the adoption of the trade agreement. The proposal is still there, it was never withdrawn but politically it was dead because of the Cypriot determination to use their veto.
But that is no longer possible under the new rules of the Lisbon Treaty. Trade agreements have to receive the approval of the majority in the EP and of a so-called qualified majority (that means, roughly speaking, a two-third majority) among the EU member states. All pending trade agreements have automatically been transferred to this new decision mechanism. Including the free trade proposal with northern Cyprus.

Meanwhile, Turks are not assimilating in Austria, where more than half a million live, specially in Vienna:

They are here to dominate,” said Vienna-based counter-jihad acticist Harald Fiegel. “And of course, knowing a little bit about Islam, you can read it there. They are are here to dominate all the world, not just Europe.”

Fiegel monitors Islamic growth in Austria. He says Turkish Muslim immigrants are not assimilating.

“What they are trying to do is segregation,” he told CBN News. “To maintain Turkish national and religious identity.”

The same happens in Germany as we have seen lately.

Arab League summit: Pro-Israel Berlusconi kisses Ghaddafi's hand

The fiercely pro-Israeli Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi was among the guests at the controversy-filled Arab League summit in Libya with the supposed aim of forming a unified strategy against Tel Aviv’s illegal settlement plans in Palestinian territories.

At one point, according to reports, Berlusconi, whose country ruled Libya for over three decades after 1911, stooped to kiss Gaddafi's hand upon arrival at the summit.

Fourteen Arab leaders and three foreign quests attended the two-day summit, which kicked off on Saturday in the Mediterranean city of Sirte.

Italy has become a firm European supporter of Libya since a 2008 formal apology to Tripoli for the decades of colonial rule. The apology led to a number of accords which has cemented bilateral ties.

via Pro-Israel Berlusconi kisses Ghaddafi at Arab meet.

I thought that Moratinos was going to be noticeable for fooling himself.

Is this the result of old age or what? 😯

(via).

Photo | Press.tv.

Russia: Dozens killed in Moscow subway blasts

Explosions rocked a pair of central Moscow subway stations during morning rush hour Monday, killing at least 37 people and wounding 10 others, Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry said.

The first blast occurred about 8 a.m. at Lubyanka subway station. That explosion killed 14 people aboard the train and 11 on the platform.

The Lubyanka station is near the Kremlin and the nation's intelligence service, the Federal Security Bureau.

Another blast happened about 30 minutes later at Park Kultury station, on the same train line. The Emergency Situations Ministry reported 12 dead in the second explosion. Russian TV said the blast killed 15 people.

via Russia: Dozens killed in Moscow subway blasts – CNN.com.

According to Moscow’s Major, there had been two female suicide bombers (skynews.com).

Russia Today:

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Foreign policy: EU Spanish Presidency and the Maghreb

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I read this interesting topic in an article by the Portuguese Institute of International Relations and Security (IPRIS.org), thanks to Delito de Opiniao.

Little comment: I believe that the EU–Morocco Union is not very beneficial for EU. Firstly, because Morocco has not obliged itself to anything on Human Rights inside its territory or about the illegal immigration business that crosses the country from South to North. Censorship is regularly applied to MSM or publications discussing the Monarchy role, Islam or the territory of the Kingdom. I have spoken about this before. There is also a worrying trend of arresting Christians, a trend explained here.

Secondly, because the EU-Morocco means basically the creation of a United Economic Space between the EU and Morocco, something tremendously beneficial for the Maghreb country but not so ideal for Europe. That Space means that Moroccan citizens will be given freedom to stablish their own businesses in Europe, in fact meaning they can enter without the normal obligations of every other foreign citizen.

Of course, this relates specially with Morocco. I agree more or less with the rest of the article.

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Bulletin of the Oppression of Women March 10 – March 25, 2010

This is a blogpost written by Political Islam.com ®. I have only added links to the posts written by me.

March 10, 2010Saudi Arabia
This report reviews the current attempts to reduce escalating conflicts over child bride marriages and in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Egypt
In Egypt religious conservatism is growing.

March 11, 2010
Canada
Federal immigration officials say there’s little they can do to stop “child brides” from being sponsored into Canada by much older husbands who wed them in arranged marriages abroad.
Palestine
There have been over thirteen honor killings in two months in Palestine. (T&P post on this here).
Pakistan
A Christian girl working as housemaid was raped by the son of her Muslim employer. When she threatened to report him to police, she was burnt by the rapist and his sister. Also HERE.

CIA Expert: 'Headley plea revealed Qaeda's European links'

Well, at least some information Headley has given is, apparently, being useful:

Pakistani-American terrorist David Headley‘s plea bargain, under which he confessed to plotting the Mumbai terror attacks, throws light on close links between the Al Qaedaand the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, according to former Central Intelligence Agency expert Bruce Riedel.

Headley’s story showed in clear contours the close relationship between Al Qaeda and the Pakistani militant group LeT, Riedel, who led the review of the Obama administration’s Af-Pak strategy, was quoted as saying by The New York Times.

Revelations in Headley’s plea agreement around Al Qaeda’s European cell were particularly disturbing, said Riedel, who was also a member of the National Security Council in the Clinton administration and is now at the Brookings Institution.

They showed that “Al Qaeda still has a significant operational infrastructure somewhere in Europe,” he said.

The paper said the plea agreement released last week showed that Headley moved effortlessly between the US, Pakistan and India [ Images ] for nearly seven years, training at a militant camp in Pakistan on five occasions.

via ‘Headley plea revealed Qaeda’s European links’: Rediff.com India News.

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The United States said the Mumbai attacks had shown that the Lashkar-e-Tayiba was out to “fill the gap” created by a “diminished Al-Qaeda” and a “decisive” action was needed from all countries of South Asia, including Pakistan, to defeat it.

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