End of Issue #44 |

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Editorial and Rants
Is there anyone the Eurosavages are not in bed with?
Tough Iran Sanctions to Hit Germany Hard
November 24, 2007 - From: news.yahoo.com
By Noah Barkin
BERLIN (Reuters) - The adoption of tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program could cost the German budget 2 billion euros, according to Finance Ministry estimates cited in Der Spiegel magazine on Saturday.
Germany, Britain, France and the United States called this week for the United Nations to consider more severe sanctions because they say Iran has failed to allay concerns about its atomic work.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has also vowed to press German companies to reduce trade with Iran, which the West fears is trying to build nuclear weapons.
Der Spiegel reported that if Iranian Bank Melli, which handles most of Germany's trade with Iran, were placed on a European Union embargo list, it would cost the budget 700-800 million euros ($1-1.2 billion) next year because the government would be forced to pay damages to German firms.
Over the medium term, finance ministry experts believed tougher sanctions could cost Berlin 2 billion euros, according to the magazine.
Finance Ministry spokesman Torsten Albig declined to comment on the details of the report but said the estimates appeared to be based on data from Euler Hermes, which manages export credit guarantees for the German government.
"The logic (of the report) is correct," he said.
Germany is one of Iran's largest trading partners in the EU, although exports have fallen sharply this year amid pressure from the United States for German firms to cut their ties to the Islamic Republic.
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful civilian energy purposes.
More proof "open-minded liberals" are the real enemy.
Scientists Threatened for 'Climate Denial'
November 3, 2007 - From: www.discoverthenetworks.org
By Tom Harper
Scientists who questioned mankind's impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.
They say the debate on global warming has been "hijacked" by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.
Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.
One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming.
"Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened," said the professor.
"I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal."
Last week, Professor Ball appeared in The Great Global Warming Swindle, a Channel 4 documentary in which several scientists claimed the theory of man-made global warming had become a "religion", forcing alternative explanations to be ignored.
Richard Lindzen, the professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology - who also appeared on the documentary - recently claimed: "Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labelled as industry stooges.
"Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science."
Dr Myles Allen, from Oxford University, agreed. He said: "The Green movement has hijacked the issue of climate change. It is ludicrous to suggest the only way to deal with the problem is to start micro managing everyone, which is what environmentalists seem to want to do."
Nigel Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, said: "Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system."
Canadians are bat-shit crazy insane.
Father Killed Daughter for Not Wearing Hijab
December 11, 2007 - From: www.breitbart.com
Friends and classmates of a 16-year-old girl who police say was murdered by her devout Muslim father in a Toronto suburb told local media Tuesday she was killed for not wearing a hijab.
Police said in a statement they received an emergency call at 7:55 am local time Monday from "a man who indicated that he had just killed his daughter."
The victim, Aqsa Parvez, was "rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries, but tragically passed away late last night."
Her father, Muhammad Parvez, 57, was arrested at the scene and will be formally charged with murder when he appears in court Wednesday, said police.
The girl's friends, meanwhile, told local media she was having trouble at home because she did not conform to the family's religious beliefs and refused to wear a traditional Islamic head scarf, or hijab.
"She wanted to go different ways than her family wanted to go, and she wanted to make her own path, but he (her father) wouldn't let her," one of her classmates told public broadcaster CBC.
"She loved clothes," another of her friends, Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson, told the daily Toronto Star. "She just wanted to show her beauty... She just wanted to dress like us, just like a normal person."
According to her friends, Aqsa had worn the hijab at school last year, but rebelled in recent months.
They said she would leave home wearing a hijab and loose-fitting clothes, but would take off her head scarf and change into tighter garments at school, then change back before going home at the end of the day.
The victim's 26 year-old brother was also charged with obstructing police in the investigation.
Eurosavages are bat-shit crazy insane.
Dutch Woman Joins Guerrillas in Colombia
November 25, 2007 - From: ap.google.com
By Toby Sterling
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- The army stumbled on the handwritten diary during a raid on a guerrilla camp. It lay near the embers of a communal kitchen where fleeing rebels left their breakfast untouched.
"I'm tired, tired of the FARC, tired of the people, tired of communal living. Tired of never having anything for myself," wrote the author, a 29-year-old Dutch woman.
Colombia's government couldn't have hoped for better propaganda against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. It leaked excerpts from the diary found last June to the media, even making available an English translation of the Dutch entries.
The first known person from outside Latin America to join the region's largest rebel army wasn't just disillusioned. Like most FARC foot soldiers, Tanja Nijmeijer apparently wasn't permitted to leave.
"This would be worth it if I knew I was fighting for something. But I don't really believe that anymore," she wrote on Nov. 24, 2006, according to the excerpts released by the government.
What exactly impelled Nijmeijer, a child of Europe's bourgeoisie, to take a journey from peace activist to guerrilla fighter with the nom-de-guerre "Eillen" remains largely a mystery -- even to people who knew her well before she joined the FARC in early 2003.
More than a dozen friends, former colleagues and fellow peace activists interviewed by The Associated Press described a young woman deeply disturbed by social inequalities and guilt-ridden over her privileged life. Nijmeijer's family refused to discuss her plight, saying doing so could endanger her life.
Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos, meanwhile, was happy to use the case to counter "guerrilla chic" in Europe, where the FARC -- classified a terrorist group by both the United States and the European Union -- has a small but determined group of supporters who run pro-rebel Web sites.
In the diary, Nijmeijer abhors the strict discipline imposed by FARC's male commanders -- no smoking, no phone calls, no romantic relationships without their consent. She says the rank and file are hungry and bored, and describes FARC leaders as both materialistic and corrupt.
"How will it be when we take power? The wives of the commanders in Ferrari Testa Rossas with breast implants eating caviar?" she writes.
Santos told AP that the Nijmeijer case should help dispel foreign leftists of the notion that the FARC is heroic.
"In certain circles in Europe, there still exists the romantic image of the guerrillas as Robin Hood, or Che Guevara, fighting the bad guys for the benefit of the poor," he said. "Nijmeijer fell into this trap."
Nijmeijer wrote her thesis on the FARC at the University of Groningen in her homeland, then traveled to Colombia in 2000 on a work-exchange program.
She taught English to well-heeled children at a private school in the western city of Pereira, winning praise from fellow teachers for professionalism and a gentle classroom demeanor.
But Nijmeijer socialized little, and worried colleagues at the Liceo Pino Verde with her weekend excursions on Colombia's perilous highways, where rebel roadblocks and banditry were then frequent.
"I remember arguing with her that it was unsafe to travel by bus at night, but she was very independent and didn't listen," said Diana Angel, head of the school's English program.
One destination, Angel and other colleagues said, was the southern town of San Vicente de Caguan, at the center of a Switzerland-sized safe haven ceded to the FARC to facilitate peace talks that collapsed in 2002.
Nijmeijer's political education was also shaped by her experience volunteering almost daily in a poor shantytown near Pereira.
"Colombia was the turning point," said a college friend from Holland who worked with Nijmeijer in Colombia. "She was so shocked by the gap between the rich and poor and was determined to do something about it."
In August 2001, she got her chance, joining a humanitarian mission organized by leftist European groups to one of Colombia's most conflicted regions, southern Bolivar state.
The monthlong "International Caravan for Life" sought to deliver three tons of humanitarian aid on a barge to peasants caught in the crossfire between right-wing paramilitaries and leftist rebels.
At the steamy port of San Pablo, on the Magdalena River, the aid workers encountered resistance from local authorities. For two days, people believed to be acting on orders of paramilitaries detained the barge.
"We were all frightened," said Jacqueline Downing of Oakland, Calif., then an undergraduate at Oberlin College in Ohio. "But Tanja was very composed and helped others overcome their fear."
To ease the tension, Nijmeijer picked up her guitar and led 60 fellow activists in a sing-along of "One Love" by U2. The group later advanced into rebel-controlled territory, where their arrival was celebrated by guerrillas, and delivered the cargo.
What subsequently prompted Nijmeijer to join the FARC remains unclear.
"In February 2003 she sent an e-mail saying she was going to the jungle to teach indigenous people and couldn't be reached by phone or e-mail. I had my doubts, but no firm evidence she ran off to join the rebels," said the friend from Holland, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid causing problems with Nijmeijer's family by violating their wish for privacy.
Nijmeijer's parents, in a brief statement to Dutch media, said a faxed letter arrived in 2003 that "made it clear" their daughter had joined the FARC. They said the mother visited her daughter in a jungle camp but couldn't woo her back home: "Tanja's mind was not to be changed."
"By joining the FARC, she has gone extremely far in her idealism," the parents said. "The family has the strong impression that she has been influenced badly by certain contacts."
Dutch diplomats in Bogota would not discuss the case, citing the family's desire for privacy. Snapshots of Nijmeijer's family vacationing in Turkey -- without her -- were found stored in a laptop found by soldiers during the June 18 raid that yielded her diary.
Also on the computer, shown to AP by military intelligence officers, Nijmeijer appears in a photo holding what appears to be a rifle. Other files contain instructions on how to build bomb detonators with cell phones.
Nijmeijer has not been heard from since the diaries were found, which would not be unusual given the FARC's status as a clandestine rebel army. Former FARC members say they believe that whatever privileges Nijmeijer had, such as e-mail, have certainly now been rescinded.
Felipe Salazar, who quit the rebels last year, said Nijmeijer likely was severely punished for indirectly aiding the enemy -- forced to build trenches or demoted to cooking duty -- but not killed. He said Nijmeijer's only hope of being reunited with her family probably would be to embark on a risky escape.
But FARC spokesman Raul Reyes disputed that view during a recent interview with the Dutch network TV Nova, although he gave no details about Nijmeijer's location or health.
He said Nijmeijer was more than welcome to go on holiday with her family. "If she needs a month, then fine."
But... There is no bias in the media!
BBC 'Took Terrorist Trainers Paintballing'
December 5, 2007 - From: www.timesonline.co.uk
By Nasreen Suleaman & Adam Sherwin
The BBC funded a paintballing trip for men later accused of Islamic terrorism and failed to pass on information about the 21/7 bombers to police, a court was told yesterday.
Mohammed Hamid, who is charged with overseeing a two-year radicalisation programme to prepare London-based Muslim youths for jihad, was described as a "cockney comic" by a BBC producer.
The BBC paid for Mr Hamid and fellow defendants Muhammad al-Figari and Mousa Brown to go on a paintballing trip at the Delta Force centre in Tonbridge, Kent, in February 2005. The men, accused of terrorism training, were filmed for a BBC programme called Don't Panic, I'm Islamic, screened in June 2005.
The BBC paid Mr Hamid, an Islamic preacher who denies recruiting and grooming the men behind the failed July 2005 attack, a £300 fee to take part in the programme, Woolwich Crown Court was told.
It was alleged that Mr Hamid told a BBC reporter that he would use the corporation's money to pay a fine imposed by magistrates for a public order offence.
Nasreen Suleaman, a researcher on the programme, told the court that Mr Hamid, 50, contacted her after the July 2005 attack and told her of his association with the bombers. But she said that she felt no obligation to contact the police with this information. Ms Suleaman said that she informed senior BBC managers but was not told to contact the police.
Ms Suleaman told the court that Mr Hamid was keen to appear in the programme. She said: "He was so up for it. We took the decision that paintballing would be a fun way of introducing him.
"There are many, many British Muslims that I know who for the past 15 or 20 years have been going paintballing. It's a harmless enough activity. I don't think there is any suggestion, or ever has been, that it's a terrorist training activity."
The court was told previously that Mr Hamid taunted police on his return from an alleged terror training camp in the New Forest where exercises included somersaults, pole-vaulting and paintballing.
Ms Suleaman said she was not aware that Ramzi Mohammed and Hussein Osman, two of the July bombers, had joined Mr Hamid at the Tonbridge paintball centre on July 3, 2005.
Ms Suleaman said that Mr Hamid was agitated after the July attack. She said: "I think he was worried that perhaps the men might call him because they were on the run at the time. I think he was very, very shocked about the fact that the men he knew were accused of this."
Duncan Penny, for the prosecution, asked Ms Suleaman if she had told Mr Hamid to go to the police or contacted the police herself. Mr Penny asked: "Here was a man who told you that he knew those individuals who, as I understand it, were still at large for what on the face of it was the attempted bombings of the transport network a fortnight after it happened, and he was telling you he had some knowledge of them? There was a worldwide manhunt going on, wasn't there?"
She replied: "I got the sense that he was already talking to the police. I referred it to my immediate boss at the BBC. I wasn't told that there was an obligation. In fact it was referred above her as well. It was such a big story." She added: "I don't think it's my obligation to tell another adult that he should go to the police."
Mr Hamid had told her he had not spoken to Muktar Said Ibrahim, the ringleader of the 21/7 plot, since October 2004 and there was no suggestion that Mr Hamid knew anything about the attempted attack.
Phil Rees, who produced the show, told the court that he was impressed by Mr Hamid's sense of humour while looking for someone to appear in the documentary. He said: "I think he had a comic touch and he represented a strand within British Muslims. I took it as more like a rather Steptoe and Son figure rather than seriously persuasive. I saw him as a kind of Cockney comic." Mr Rees, who now works for the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera, gave Mr Hamid a signed copy of his book Dining With Terrorists.
Mr Hamid is charged with Mr al-Figari, 42, Mr Brown, 41, Kader Ahmed, 20, and Kibley Da Costa, 24. Atilla Ahmet, 43, has admitted soliciting murder.
Mr Hamid denies providing weapons training, five charges of soliciting murder and three of providing training for terrorism. The other men deny a series of charges related to training.


In Australia
