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  • The rise of mosques creates tension across Europe

    The rise of mosques creates tension across Europe

    Posted: 2007/10/11
    From:     Source
    ”Culture clashes” over Muslim religious buildings have erupted in Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands.

    by Ian Traynor in Wangen, Switzerland
    (The Guardian)

    North of Berne in an idyllic Alpine valley cowbells tinkle, a church steeple rises, and windowboxes tumble with geraniums. It has always been like this.

    But down by the railway station the 21st century is rudely intruding and the villagers of Wangen are upset.

    “It’s the noise, and all the cars. You should see it on a Friday night,” complains Roland Kissling, a perfume buyer for a local cosmetics company. “I’ve got nothing against mosques, or even against minarets. But in the city. Not in this village. It’s just not right. There’s going to be trouble.”

    The target of Mr Kissling’s ire is a nondescript house belonging to the region’s Turkish immigrant community. The basement is a prayer room where hundreds of Muslims gather every week for Friday rites.

    And in a case that has gone all the way to Switzerland’s supreme court, setting a keenly watched precedent, the Turks of Wangen have just won the right to erect a six-metre-high minaret.

    “We’ll build it by next year. We’re still deciding what colour and what material,” says Mustafa Karahan, the sole person authorised to speak for Wangen’s Turkish Cultural Association. “We don’t have any problems. It’s the other side that has the problems. We’re not saying anything else until the minaret is built.”

    If Ulrich Schlüer has his way the Wangen minaret will be toppled. An MP from the rightwing Swiss People’s party (SVP), the country’s strongest, Mr Schlüer has launched a crusade to keep his country culturally Christian.

    “Unlike other religions,” he argues, “Islam is not only a religion. It’s an ideology aiming to create a different legal system. That’s sharia. That’s a big problem and in a proper democracy it has to be tackled. If the politicians don’t, the people will.”

    Switzerland’s direct democracy rules require referendums if there is enough public support. Mr Schlüer has launched a petition demanding a new clause in the Swiss constitution stating: “The building of minarets in Switzerland is forbidden.” He already has 40,000 signatures. If, as expected, he reaches 100,000 by this time next year a referendum is automatically triggered.

    “We’ve got nothing against prayer rooms or mosques for the Muslims,” he insists. “But a minaret is different. It’s got nothing to do with religion. It’s a symbol of political power.”

    In a country with more than 300,000 Muslims, mainly immigrants from the Balkans, there are only three minarets in Switzerland. Wangen would be the fourth and the first outside the cities.

    Backlash

    The native backlash has begun. And not just in Switzerland. “It seems our experience here is resonating across Europe,” says a Swiss official in Berne.

    “Culture clashes” over Muslim religious buildings have erupted in Italy, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands.

    “Christian fundamentalists are behind this,” says Reinhard Schulze, professor of Islamic studies at Berne University. “And there’s also a lot of money coming in from the Gulf states.”

    From London’s docklands to the rolling hills of Tuscany, from southern Austria to Amsterdam and Cologne, the issue of Islamic architecture and its impact on citadels of “western civilisation” is increasingly contentious.

    The far right is making capital from Islamophobia by focusing on the visible symbols of Islam in Europe. In Switzerland it is the far-right SVP that is setting the terms of the debate.

    “This is mainly about Swiss politics,” says Prof Schulze, “a conflict between the right and the left to decide who runs the country … Islam [is] a pretext.”

    Next door in Austria the far right leader Jörg Haider is also calling for a ban in his province of Carinthia, even though there are few Muslims and no known plans for mosques. “Carinthia,” he said, “will be a pioneer in the battle against radical Islam for the protection of our dominant western culture.”

    In Italy the mayors of Bologna and Genoa last month cancelled or delayed planning permission for mosques after a vociferous campaign by the far-right Northern League, one of whose leaders, Roberto Calderoli, threatened to stage a “day of pork” to offend Muslims and to take pigs to “defile” the site of the proposed mosque in Bologna.

    While the far right makes the running, their noisy campaign is being supported more quietly by mainstream politicians and some Christian leaders. And on the left pro-secularist and anti-clericalist sentiment is also frequently ambivalent about Islamic building projects.

    Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne has voiced his unease over a large new mosque being built for the city’s 120,000 Muslims in the Rhineland Roman Catholic stronghold. A similar scheme in Munich has also faced local protests.

    The Bishop of Graz in Austria has been more emphatic. “Muslims should not build mosques which dominate town’s skylines in countries like ours,” said Bishop Egon Kapellari.

    This opposition is on a collision course with an Islam that is now the fastest-growing religion in Europe and which is clamouring for its places of worship to be given what it sees as a rightful and visible place in west European societies.

    “Islam is coming out of the backyards. It’s a trend you see everywhere in Europe,” says Thomas Schmitt, a Bonn University geographer studying conflicts over mosques in Germany.

    Estimated at about 18 million and growing, the Muslims of western Europe have long worshipped in prayer rooms located in homes, disused factories, warehouses or car parks, hidden away from public view. Their growing self-confidence, though, is reflected in plans for the Abbey Mills mosque, Britain’s biggest, in east London, which is intended to have a capacity of 40,000.

    Last month there were scuffles at the site of the Westermoskee in west Amsterdam. A Dutch government minister broke ground for building one of the Netherlands’ biggest mosques last year. But the project is mired in controversy and may not be completed.

    Confidence

    “The whole idea of having these huge mosques is about being part of Europe while having your religion,” says Thijl Sunier, a Dutch anthropologist. “You have young Muslims showing their confidence, stating we are part of this society and we want our share. And you have growing anxiety among many native Europeans.”

    In Berne, the Swiss capital, the city authorities have just denied building permission for turning a disused abattoir into Europe’s biggest Islamic cultural centre, a £40m complex with a mosque, a museum on Islam, a hotel, offices and conference halls. Organisers are looking for an alternative site.

    Dr Schmitt says that by hiring leading architects to build impressive mosques that alter the appearance of European cities Muslims are making a commitment to the societies in which they live. “They are no longer guests. They are established. This is a sign of normalisation, of integration,” he says.

    But in Wangen, that message falls on deaf ears. “First it was a cultural centre, then a prayer room, and now a minaret,” says Mr Kissling. “It’s salami tactics. The next thing it will be loudspeakers and the calls to prayer will be echoing up and down the valley. Our children will ask ‘what did our fathers do’, and their answer will be – they did nothing.”

    		  
     

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      → Spreading awareness or smearing a religion?
    → ‘Black sheep’ cartoon ignites row over racism before Swiss election
    → Opposition to East Berlin’s First Mosque
  • No Caucasian Ceasefire until Russia Achieves its Aims

    No Caucasian Ceasefire until Russia Achieves its Aims

     

    DEBKAfile Special Report and Analysis

    August 11, 2008

    Prime minister Vladimir Putin toys defiant Georgia

    By Monday, Aug. 11, the fourth day of the Caucasian conflict, which first erupted over the breakaway province of South Ossetia, the pro-American Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili sounded hopeless in the face of overwhelming Russian might.

    International condemnation of Russian behavior as “unacceptable and disproportionate” did not ease his country’s plight or stop the continuing violence.

    Saakashvili’s third commitment to a ceasefire, signed in the presence of the French and Finnish foreign ministers, was brusquely rejected by the Kremlin before the would-be mediators had a chance to present it later that day. The Russian NATO ambassador said his government would not deal with the “war criminal” Georgian president, confirming Saakashvili’s charge that one of Moscow’s objects was to oust him as president.

    DEBKAfile’s military analysts reported Sunday, Aug. 10:

    Russian president Dimitry Medvedev said Sunday, Aug. 10, the war would go on until Tbilisi withdrew its forces unconditionally from South Ossetia and pledged never to attack the region again. This would mean Georgia’s acceptance of its truncation and its surrender to Russian hegemony.

    The gap between the claims of both sides attested to the war of words accompanying the battles on the ground. While the Georgians claimed to have killed “several hundred” Russian troops and downed “80 planes,” Moscow admitted to the loss of 18 soldiers and four warplanes.

    Civilians, especially in South Ossetia and at least three Georgian towns pummeled by Russian jets, are bearing the brunt of this conflict. Saturday and Sunday, they pounded Gori, the Black Sea naval, military and oil port of Poti, and Zugdidi on the Abkhazian border.

    The Red Cross reports that the conflict has displaced at least 40,000 people from their homes. The South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, now a ghost town, is controlled by Russian forces.

    That the Georgian town of Gori was pounded from the air for three days is attested to by witnesses. The numbers of the city’s dead and displaced certainly run into hundreds.

    DEBKAfile reports that the Russians pulverized Gori to punish Georgia for invading the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali last Thursday, Aug. 7.

    Sunday night, Russian planes dropped bombs near Tbilisi’s international airport and a nearby military air installation shortly after the US began flying hundreds of Georgian troops home from Iraq. The intention appeared to be to leave the Georgian reinforcements nowhere to land.

    During the day, too, the Russian navy imposed a sea blockade on Georgian’s Black Sea ports and later claimed to have sunk a Georgian vessel during an attack.

    In the face of President George W. Bush’s demand for an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops and support for international mediation, Moscow poured an additional 10,000 men and armor into South Ossetia Sunday as well.

    DEBKAfile’s military analysts: By flouting US demands to accept mediation, Moscow highlighted America’s lack of leverage for helping its embattled Georgian ally.

    The Bush administration finds itself trapped in its foreign policy commitment to dialogue and international diplomacy for solving world disputes, but short of willing opposite numbers.

    Russia is following Iran’s example in exploiting Washington’s inhibition to advance its goals by force. Therefore, the Caucasian standoff has profound ramifications for the Middle East and Persian Gulf. Moscow’s disdain for Washington’s lack of muscle will further encourage Tehran and its terrorist proxies to defy the international community and the United States in particular.

    DEBKAfile’s military analysts reported Saturday, Aug. 9:

    Tiny Georgia with an army of less than 18,000, having been roundly defeated in South Ossetia, cannot hope to withstand the mighty Russian army in Abkhazia.

    Therefore, President Saakashvili, whose bid to join NATO and the European Union infuriated Moscow, will have to write off both breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as lost to Russia.

    This is Moscow’s payback for the US-NATO action to detach Kosovo from Serbia and launch it on the way to independence. It is also a warning to former Soviet bloc nations, Ukraine, the Caucasian and Central Asian peoples against opting to join up with the United States and the NATO bloc in areas which Moscow deems part of its strategic sphere of influence

    After severing South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia, four follow-up Russian steps may be postulated:

    1. The two separatist provinces will proclaim their independence, just like Kosovo.

    2. Russia will continue to exercise its overwhelming military and air might to reduce the pro-American Saakashvili to capitulation.

    3. The Georgian president will not be able to face his own nation after losing two regions of his country and causing its humiliation. Moscow will then make Washington swallow a pro-Russian successor.

    4. Moscow’s trampling of Georgia will serve as an object lesson for Russia’s own secessionist provinces, such as Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, and a warning not to risk defying Russian armed might.

    4. Western plans to develop more oil and gas pipelines to bypass the Russian network to the West, in addition to the Caspian line which carries one million barrels a day from Baku through Georgia to Turkey and out to the West, will be held in abeyance pending an accommodation with the rulers of the Kremlin.

  • Russia, China, Germany reject US evidence of Iran’s covert nuke program

    Russia, China, Germany reject US evidence of Iran’s covert nuke program

     

    DEBKAfile Special Analysis

    September 20, 2008, 1:30 PM (GMT+02:00)

     

    Euphrates pipes for destroyed Syrian reactor designed to be part of Iran’s military program

    Russia, China and Germany refuse to countenance tougher sanctions against Iran notwithstanding the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report from Vienna that its inspections of suspect activities and covert projects were stalled by Tehran’s non-cooperation. Diplomats for the five permanent Security Council members and Germany, meeting at the State Department Friday, Sept 19, therefore failed to agree on a new round of sanctions ahead of their foreign ministers’ meeting at UN Center next week.

    The meeting avoided discussing the timing and content of a fourth round of sanctions, only broadly calling on Iran – for the umpteenth time after numerous rejections – to accept the incentives on offer for halting uranium enrichment and cooperating with UN inspections.

    The nuclear watchdog reported that Tehran had stalled its efforts to establish whether or not Iran was developing nuclear warheads, enriching uranium for military purposes, testing nuclear explosives or building nuclear-capable missiles.

    Tuesday, Sept 16, the UN watchdog gave a closed meeting of the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency photos and documents proving Iran had tried to refit a long-distance Shehab missile to carry a nuclear payload. The also produced calculations and diagrams from Iranian missile and nuclear experts’ computers on nuclear detonations and how to build nuclear-capable missiles.

    The next day, Wednesday, CIA chief Michael Hayden disclosed that the destruction of the Syrian reactor – as a result of intelligence collaboration with a “foreign partner” who first identified the facility’s purpose – spoiled a project “that could have provided Syria with plutonium for nuclear weapons.”

    He did not name the foreign partner, but the reference to Israel was obvious. He also said the reactor was similar to the North Korean model.

    “We were able last year to spoil a big secret, a project that could have provided Syria with plutonium for nuclear weapons,” Hayden said, adding: “When pipes for a massive cooling system were laid out to the Euphrates River in the spring of 2007, there would have been little doubt this was a nuclear reactor.”

    The Bush administration released all this data in order to back up the IAEA report and tell the international community that the US and Israel were furnished with more intelligence confirming Iran’s covert nuclear projects and the clandestine partnershipn between Tehran, Damascus and Pyongyang. North Korea was also made aware that Washington had not missed its preparations for re-activating its nuclear reactor.

    Nuclear watchdog officials asked Tehran to explain why its experts were busy making calculations for military projects, claimed to be non-existent. No answer has been forthcoming as yet. The Iranian representative only said the materials had been forged by certain parties as a provocation.

    Nonetheless, Russian, Chinese and German diplomats attending the IAEA board meeting last Tuesday insisted that the evidence they saw did not prove Iran was engaged in developing nuclear weapons.

    Despite the fact that leading world powers have tied themselves in knots to avoid keeping nuclear weapons out of Iran’s hands, Israel’s prime minister Shimon Peres plans to deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly next week announcing that Israel is against resorting to military action against Iran and relies on sanctions.

    DEBKAfile’s political circles stress that the Israeli government has never confirmed the position embodied in his address.

    Ahead of his address to the General Assembly, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, grandstanding as always, challenged the American presidential candidates to a public debate “over global issues, in the presence of the media at the UN. He also said that while “some say the idea of Greater Israel has expired, I say the idea of lesser Israel has expired, too.”

  • DEBKA:Russia lines up with Syria, Iran against America and the West

    DEBKA:Russia lines up with Syria, Iran against America and the West

    Summary of DEBKAfile Exclusives in Week Ending Sept. 18, 2008
    Russia lines up with Syria, Iran against America and the West

    Sept 12.: Moscow announced renovation had begun on the Syrian port of Tartus to provide Russia with its first long-term naval base on the Mediterranean.

    As the two naval chiefs talked in Moscow, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki in the Russian capital for talks on the completion of the Bushehr nuclear power plant by the end of the year.

    DEBKAfile’s military sources report Russia’s leaders have determined not to declare a Cold War in Europe but to open a second anti-Western front in the Middle East.

    In the second half of August, DEBKA file and DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s analysts focused on this re-orientation (Russia’s Second Front: Iran-Syria), whereby Moscow had decided to use its ties with Tehran and Damascus to challenge the United State and the West in the Middle East as well as the Caucasian, the Black Sea and the Caspian region.

    In aligning with Tehran and Damascus, Moscow stands not only against America but also Israel. This volatile world region is undergoing cataclysmic changes at a time when Israel is without a fully competent prime minister.

    Missile alert is revived on Israel-Gaza border

    12 Sept.: DEBKAfile’s Palestinian sources report that the leaders of the Iranian-backed Jihad Islami terrorist group in Gaza have warned they will go back to firing missiles at neighboring Israeli towns and villages unless the ruling Hamas stops persecuting them.
    Our military sources report that Israeli forces securing the Gaza border went on missile alert Thursday, Sept 11, when Hamas heavies continued their crackdown.

    Hamas gunmen are systematically bulldozing the Jihad bases, built over the ruins of the former Israeli Gush Katif villages, and flattening the sites. They have seized control of Jihad mosques in the southern part of the Gaza Strip and are making arrests.

    Syrian commandos invade 7 Greater Tripoli villages of N. Lebanon
    DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

    13 Sept.: Two Syrian commando battalions accompanied by reconnaissance and engineering corps units have crossed into Lebanon in the last 48 hours and taken up positions in seven villages, most of them Allawite Muslim, outside Tripoli, DEBKAfile’s military sources reported Saturday, Sept. 13. They are the vanguard of a large armored force poised on the border.

    Damascus has signaled to Washington and Paris: Don’t interfere.

    The Syrian incursion coincided with the expected arrival of Russian naval and engineering experts for renovating Tartus, the Syrian port 40 kilometers north of Tripoli, to serve as the Russian fleet’s first permanent Mediterranean base.

    Seen from Israel, once Assad’s army completes its advance on Tripoli, he will control the full length of the military supply route for Hizballah from the Syrian ports of Latakia and Tartus. The Russian presence will add a new and troubling dimension to this development.

    Russia, US pull further apart over Iranian nuclear activities

    13 Sept.: Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said Friday a military solution to the standoff over Iran’s nuclear ambitions is unacceptable and there is no need for new sanctions. At the same time, Washington has imposed new sanctions on Iran, blacklisting a main shipping line and 18 subsidiaries. The US government accuses the maritime carrier of ferrying contraband nuclear material, which Tehran denies.

    Washington sources predict this may be the prelude to more serious actions, such as a naval blockade to choke off Iran’s imports of fuel products.

    Moscow continues to support the European Union’s diplomatic drive to trade incentives for Iran’s consent to curb “some of its nuclear activities.”

    The nuclear watchdog has asked Tehran to account for 50-60 tons of missing uranium from its main enrichment site at Isfahan. It is enough to produce five or six nuclear bombs and is suspected of having been diverted to secret sites to boost the covert production of weapons-grade uranium.

    Terror suspected in Aeroflot crash which killed all 88 people aboard
    DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

    14 Sept.: DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources report from Moscow that three Jewish families, two Habad students and a Russian general were among the 88 passengers and crew killed in the Aeroflot Boeing 737 crash at Perm, Siberia, Saturday, Sept. 13. The plane was in flight from Moscow.

    Russian authorities reported the plane’s sudden disappearance off the radar at the moment cockpit communications shut off. This indicated the craft may have exploded in mid-air. They suspect terrorism as the cause of the crash because –
    1. At least five passengers bought tickets but did not turn up for the flight. Security officials are trying to locate their addresses and sifting through the wreckage for unaccompanied luggage.

    2. One of the passengers has been identified as Gen. Gennadiy Troshev, a Russian hero for quelling the Chechen rebellion.

    3. Our sources name one of the Jewish – or possibly Israeli – families aboard the doomed flight. They have been named as Ephraim Nakhumov, 35, his wife Golda, 24, and their two children, Ilya, aged 7, and Eva, aged four.

    Thirty-four people die in Iraq Monday

    15 Sept.: At least 22 people were killed and 32 wounded by a female suicide bomber who blew herself at a police gathering in Iraq’s Diyala province.

    The guests were attending an Iftar banquet, when Muslims break their fast during the month of Ramadan, in Balad Ruz, 70km (45 miles) north of Baghdad.

    Earlier, two car bombs exploded in central Baghdad, killing 12 people.

    In show of bravado, Iran launches “air defense exercises”

    Iranian official sources report that the air force drill began Monday, Sept. 15, in half of the country’s 30 provinces. They gave out no details of which provinces or how long the exercise would last. The commander of Iran’s aerial defense, Brig. Gen. Ahmed Mighani said that any enemies attacking the Islamic Republic would regret it.

    The exercise was launched on the day the UN nuclear watchdog reported that non-cooperation from Tehran had stalled its efforts to establish whether or not Iran was developing nuclear warheads, enriching uranium for military purposes, testing nuclear explosives or building nuclear-capable missiles.

    Tehran is not deterred by sanctions or tempted by international diplomacy to give up its nuclear aspirations, especially since the Georgia conflict with the United States has presented Iran with Russian backing for its nuclear program and opposition to sanctions.

    Iran’s defense minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said scornfully Monday: “Threats by the Zionist regime and America against our country are empty” – showing that Tehran feels free to go forward with its nuclear plans.

    Gates arrives in Baghdad unannounced

    15 Sept.: Gates arrived in Baghdad to supervise the handover of the Iraq command from Gen. David Petraeus to Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno. Petraeus moves on to lead the Central Command overseeing Middle East, Afghanistan, Horn of Africa.
     

    		 France wants more sanctions on Iran for stonewalling UN nuclear probe

    16 Sept.: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report that for lack of Tehran’s cooperation, it has made no progress in establishing whether or not Iran is developing nuclear warheads, enriching uranium for military purposes, testing nuclear explosives or building nuclear-capable missiles..

    Furthermore, despite three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions, Iran has not stopped nuclear enrichment. At present, 4,800 centrifuges are operating and another 2,000 are getting read to start work in the near future.

    DEBKAfile’s Iranian sources report that the Tehran administration shows more contempt than ever before toward the UN, international diplomacy and potential sanctions, certain that the prospect of a US and Israeli military strike on its nuclear facilities recedes further day by day.

    “Threats by the Zionist regime and America against our country are empty,” said defense minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar,”

    Ex-PMs Barak and Netanyahu in secret power-sharing talks
    DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

    16 Sept.: Defense minister Ehud Barak of Labor and opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu of Likud are in advanced negotiations to rotate the premiership between them in order to cut the ground from under Kadima’s winner as leader. The ultra-religious Shas is in on the plan.

    This is reported by DEBKAfile’s political circles.

    Barak’s Labor and Netanyahu’s Likud combined with Eli Yishai’s Shas hold more Knesset seats – 43, than Kadima’s 27. They are in a position to prevent the winner of the Kadima primary from automatically taking over from Olmert as head of the incumbent government coalition. Without Labor, Kadima lacks the numbers to form a viable coalition government.

    DEBKAfile’s sources report that Netanyahu and Barak are close to accord on the general principles of their partnership but are still working on details. Netanyahu would go first up until a general election because Barak, who is not a member of Knesset, cannot become prime minister. Barak believes he can use his pact with Netanyahu to push Kadima’s buttons and at the right moment, take the party over and form a left-of-center Labor-Kadima bloc to fight his current partner, head of the right-of-center Likud.

    North Korea conducts long-range missile engine ignition test

    17 Sept.: The test at the new Tongchang-ri site was detected by the U.S. KH-12 spy satellite. The base is located 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the North Korean border with China,

    At least 11 killed in bloody Hamas crackdown on Doghmush clan militia in Gaza

    16 Sept.: The dead included Momtaz Doghmush, head of Army of Islam and co-kidnapper with Hamas of Gilead Shalit, and in infant. Hamas battled the militia for five hours with mortar fire on its base at the Sabra district of Gaza City, losing one of its gunmen.

    Sixteen killed in al Qaeda attack on US embassy in Yemen

    17 Sept.: Eight Yemeni soldiers, six assailants and 2 civilians were killed in an al Qaeda suicide car bombing, RPG rocket and shooting attack on the US embassy in Sanaa, Wednesday, Sept. 17. No embassy staff members were harmed in the five explosions reported by a US official.

    DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources disclose that Yemeni president Abdullah Salah, formerly a US partner in the war on terror, recently began working with al Qaeda to win their help for quelling plots by army dissidents to overthrow his regime and for beating back an Iran-backed Shiite rebellion.

    In March, al Qaeda mounted a mortar attack which missed the US embassy but injured 13 girls at a nearby school; other attacks targeted the Italian mission and Western tourists. Non-essential US staff were ordered to leave Yemen in April.

    CIA chief: Al Qaeda greatest security threat to US

    17 Sept.: Speaking in Los Angeles, CIA director Michael Hayden said Osama bin Laden has said repeatedly that he considers acquisition of nuclear weapons a religious duty and he intends to attack America “in ways that inflict maximum death and destruction.”

    North Korea and Iran were also threats. Hayden confirmed that the nuclear reactor Israel destroyed in Syria last year was similar to one in North Korea. Iran, he, has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons.

    DEBKAfile notes: This comment contradicts the US intelligence assessment last year that Iran had discontinued its military nuclear program in 2003.
    Tuesday, diplomats said that the UN watchdog had intelligence showing Iran had tried to refit a long-distance Shehab missile to carry a nuclear payload.

    Israeli banks hammered on Tel Aviv stock exchange

    17 Sept.: In Tel Aviv, prices plunged across the board, with the major banks taking an extra beating. The public voted no-confidence in the leading banks (Bank Hapoalim plunged 12.5 percent) and disregarded the finance minister, Ronnie Bar-On’s assurances that the Israeli economy is insulated from the global crisis.

    After meeting bank heads Wednesday, Bank of Israel governor Stanley Fischer issued a statement that Israel banks are “relatively well run.”

    Economic experts foresee an Israeli recession around the corner. Lehman Brothers is a major player in Israel’s structured-products market and options market. Personal savings schemes, exports to the United States and Europe and foreign investment are also susceptible.

    As foreigners employed on Wall Street, Israelis are second only to Canadians.

    Thousands have been thrown on the job market. Aside from those recalled by Lehman Brothers after the Barclays buyout, many will return home adding to the pressures on the job market. Israel’s hi-tech industry, second only to the US in annual start-ups, was already facing difficulties before the current crisis, as export orders began drying up.

    After her narrow win, Livni’s ability to form government in doubt
    DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

    18 Sept.: Foreign minister Tzipi Livni scraped through to victory in the Kadima party’s first leadership primary Wednesday, Sept. 17.although her win was challenged by transport Shaul Mofaz, one percent behind her (43 to his 42 percent). Early Thursday, Mofaz finally called Livni to congratulate her. Later, he announced he was quitting politics, including the party and government.

    The real results differed dramatically from the three TV exit polls which wrongly awarded Livni a landslide victory and were up to 10 percent wide of the mark. Throughout the campaign the foreign minister was a media favorite and inaccurately described as unchallenged successor to Ehud Olmert both as party chair and prime minister.
    Kadima comes out of the primary bitterly divided.. Livni faces the daunting dual challenges of uniting the party and persuading all the government coalition parties to accept her as prime minister.
    Kadima’s two senior partners, Labor and Shas, are already looking at alternatives.

    The low Kadima turnout, according to DEBKAfile’s political analysts, was a public vote of non-confidence in the party. At the Tel Aviv stock exchange Wednesday, another popular vote of no confidence took place – this one against the economic system ruled by Kadima ministers and the banks
  • Police Break Up Mosque Protest in Germany

    Police Break Up Mosque Protest in Germany

    German police broke up a protest on Saturday in Cologne, Germany at the moment it was about to start. The protest was organized by far-right parties and individuals from across Europe.

    The goal of it was to make their opposition to the approval of the region’s municipality to Moslems to build a mosque, clear.

    Thousands of left-wing protesters heard about the upcoming protest and traveled to Cologne, where they started a counter-protest. They argued that the right-wing protest was racist in nature. Police felt forced to interfene after the left-wing protesters started using violence and it had become clear that if the right-wing protest would proceed as schedulled all hell would break loose.

    The far right group Pro Koeln had organized the protest, but it was supported by right-wingers from across Europe. They went to Cologne to protest the ‘Islamification’ of Western Europe, and to celebrate the continent’s “shared, 1,000-year history of Western values and Christian traditions.”

    Germany is home to three million Moslems, who form 4% of the German population. Many of them are not well integrated, which increases anti-Moslem feelings. Many others, however, are integrated and function in German society like any other ‘born’ German.

    Sadly, the anti-immigration feeling is rapidly developing into an anti-Moslem feeling in Germany and in other European countries. This anti-Moslem attitude is becoming increasingly clear. The result of this will not be that Moslem immigrants and their children will integrate better, of course; it will be that Germany will be divided among ethnic and religious lines, with both groups distrusting the other.

    Immigrants and authentic Germans both play a role in this process. Both, it seems, refuse to take responsibility for the situation, and for the problems they have caused. Immigrants pretend that all problems are caused by racism – not true – born Germans all too often claim that immigrants are the root of all major problems – not true either. Both sides have to take responsibility. If they refuse, the problems will continue to exist.

    PoliGazette » Police Break Up Mosque Protest in Germany.

  • 10 Russian warships deployed in Syria

    10 Russian warships deployed in Syria

    Ten Russian warships have been deployed at the Syrian port of Tartus based on an accord reached by the two sides after the August south Caucases conflict.

    Rear Admiral Andrei Baranov, head of the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s operations directorate, said Friday the Russian engineering crew was at Tartus to expand the capacity of the harbor to host additional fleet vessels.

    The teams will also be working on expanding Latakia, another Syrian port, possibly for aircraft carriers or guided missile cruisers, said Baranov.

    On Sept. 12, nearly one month after the south Caucases conflict broke out, Russia and Syria reached an agreement that would provide Moscow with a long-term base rights at Syrian ports.

    Military sources reported that Israeli military leaders were stunned at the news of the Russian fleet being deployed near Israeli shores.

    Source: www.daily.pk, 20 September 2008