"Esposas temporárias ou prostitutas?" in El Pais, 1 de Julho de 2007

Mehdieh y Siavosh se han prometido amor... por un mes. Así se lo permite el matrimonio temporal (sigheh) que contempla el islam chií. Pero ni siquiera su incorporación a la ley tras la Revolución Islámica ha logrado vencer los recelos que suscita en la sociedad iraní, tal como ha probado la polémica desatada por las recientes declaraciones de un ministro partidario de promoverlo. Dado que en Irán las relaciones sexuales fuera del matrimonio están prohibidas y penadas, el sigheh ofrece una cobertura legal a jóvenes como Mehdieh y Siavosh que no pueden afrontar una boda. Sin embargo, muchos iraníes temen que sirva para promocionar la prostitución.

Maryam hace un gesto de desconfianza cuando la periodista le menciona el matrimonio temporal. "Sí, en el islam existe esa posibilidad, pero en nuestros días las mujeres lo rechazan", explica. Más allá de cuestiones religiosas, el énfasis que la sociedad iraní pone en la virginidad de las novias (con chequeo ginecológico incluido) convierte la opción en una hipoteca de su futuro. Aunque nadie hace alarde de ello, el sigheh es aceptado para viudas y divorciadas, pero una virgen necesita el permiso de su padre, algo altamente improbable.

"Nosotros hemos sorteado esa dificultad porque mi padre está enfermo", confía Mehdieh, de 23 años y a punto de concluir sus estudios universitarios. "De acuerdo con el islam, basta con nuestro compromiso personal; es la sociedad la que nos exige firmar un documento", añade Siavosh, de 28, un hombre muy religioso que parece bastante incómodo con el arreglo. Su trabajo en un puesto de kebabs no le da para alquilar un piso, una condición sin la cual no puede pedir la mano de Mehdieh. "Si tuviera el dinero, iría ahora mismo a hablar con su familia", asegura. De momento, mantienen su matrimonio en secreto.

Su angustia es compartida por millones de jóvenes. Por un lado, la ley islámica vigente en Irán prohíbe las relaciones sexuales fuera del matrimonio. Por otro, el paro (que oficialmente ronda un 10%, pero que muchos economistas sitúan en un 30%) y las dificultades económicas han retrasado la edad de la boda. Según las autoridades la media es de 23 años para las mujeres y de 26 para los hombres, pero un reciente estudio del Comité de Ayuda Imam Jomeini afirma que en las zonas rurales, sacudidas por una fuerte emigración masculina a las ciudades, las mujeres se están casando a los 30. La mitad de la población está por debajo de esa edad.

Con ese trasfondo, el ministro del Interior, el hoyatoleslam Mustafa Purmohamadi, sugirió a principios del mes pasado promover el sigheh entre los jóvenes para evitar "los problemas sociales que se derivan de la imposibilidad económica para contraer matrimonio". Su propuesta desató tal polémica que el portavoz del Gobierno, Gholamhosein Elham se vio obligado a tomar distancias. "No es una idea de la administración. El ministro se expresó en su calidad de clérigo", dijo. Hace 15 años ya hubo un intento oficial de promover el matrimonio temporal como alternativa a las relaciones extramaritales, pero la reacción social obligó a retirarlo.

"Quienes lo critican es por falta de conocimiento", asegura el hoyatoleslam Ali Teimuri, un clérigo autorizado a firmar contratos matrimoniales, que señala las condiciones de la costumbre. "El hombre no puede desatender a su esposa, si ya está casado, y debe contribuir al pago de los gastos corrientes de su nueva pareja". El islam permite el matrimonio hasta con cuatro mujeres, algo cada vez más infrecuente en Irán. No hay limitación para el número de sigheh, una institución que sólo acepta la rama chií de esa religión.

¿Y si una joven universitaria virgen a la que su novio ha propuesto un matrimonio temporal le pide consejo? "Le preguntaría si ve un futuro en esa relación, si cree que puede desembocar en algo permanente y la formación de una familia", responde. "Pero si el chico sólo pretende disfrutar de su cuerpo, entonces le aconsejaría que no destruya su vida". No sólo la suya. Los posibles hijos de esas relaciones quedan a expensas del reconocimiento paterno, a falta de lo cual se les considera ilegítimos y carecen de derecho a la herencia.

"Renovamos nuestro compromiso ante Dios de mes en mes para no olvidarnos de nuestro acuerdo", interviene Siavosh cuando se menciona esa posibilidad. "Somos adultos, pensamos en el futuro". Mehdieh confía en Siavosh y la actitud cariñosa y protectora de éste, que en todo momento se refiere a ella como "mi mujer", parece respaldarla.

Otros han buscado una aplicación más utilitaria del sigheh. Una agencia de viajes ha anunciado vacaciones en el Mar Caspio para las parejas que deseen un matrimonio temporal. El paquete incluye alojamiento y un clérigo para registrar el contrato. Y es que ocasionalmente algunas jóvenes liberadas también utilizan la fórmula para viajar con sus novios y poder dormir en la misma habitación de hotel, o evitarse problemas con la policía moral

Pecados legalizados
El hoyatoleslam Ali Teimuri, clérigo autorizado a firmar contratos matrimoniales, trata de explicar las bondades de esta polémica entre los iraníes. "Si uno pasa delante de las universidades, los institutos o los parques, ve a chicos y chicas que hablan y se tocan. No sólo pasa en Irán sino en todas partes. El islam dice que hay que legalizar esa relación para que no sea pecado (haram)", expone, "no podemos castigar a los jóvenes por esa necesidad".

Teimuri compara el sigheh con una medicina. "Al enfermo no le gusta tomarla, pero ve que le ayuda", argumenta. En su opinión, "las mujeres están sensibles al respecto; tenemos que trabajar para que lo acepten sin que ninguna se ofenda". Para él, se trata de una forma de matrimonio tan legítima como el convencional.

"No se trata sólo de que el hombre siga sus impulsos sexuales, sino también de atender las necesidades afectivas de la mujer y de ayudarla en sus necesidades económicas", precisa el religioso. Teimuri rechaza además un sigheh por horas. "Eso no es aceptable. No les daría tiempo ni a salir de mi despacho; para una semana, no tendría problemas, pero por dos horas no es lógico".
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/Esposas/temporales/prostitutas/elpepuint/20070701elpepisoc_6/Tes
JPTF 2007/07/01

"O meu apelo aos meus companheiros muçulmanos: devem renunciar ao terror" in Observer, 1 de Julho de 2007

por Hassan Butt

As the bombers return to Britain, Hassan Butt, who was once a member of radical group Al-Muhajiroun, raising funds for extremists and calling for attacks on British citizens, explains why he was wrong.

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy. By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology. Friday's attempt to cause mass destruction in London with strategically placed car bombs is so reminiscent of other recent British Islamic extremist plots that it is likely to have been carried out by my former peers. And as with previous terror attacks, people are again articulating the line that violence carried out by Muslims is all to do with foreign policy. For example, yesterday on Radio 4's Today programme, the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: 'What all our intelligence shows about the opinions of disaffected young Muslims is the main driving force is not Afghanistan, it is mainly Iraq.' He then refused to acknowledge the role of Islamist ideology in terrorism and said that the Muslim Brotherhood and those who give a religious mandate to suicide bombings in Palestine were genuinely representative of Islam. I left the BJN in February 2006, but if I were still fighting for their cause, I'd be laughing once again. Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the 7 July bombings, and I were both part of the BJN - I met him on two occasions - and though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many of my peers to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain, our own homeland and abroad, was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world. How did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting this (flawed) utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. There is no 'rendering unto Caesar' in Islamic theology because state and religion are considered to be one and the same. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war. What radicals and extremists do is to take these premises two steps further. Their first step has been to reason that since there is no Islamic state in existence, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr. Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. Many of my former peers, myself included, were taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians. This understanding of the global battlefield has been a source of friction for Muslims living in Britain. For decades, radicals have been exploiting these tensions between Islamic theology and the modern secular state for their benefit, typically by starting debate with the question: 'Are you British or Muslim?' But the main reason why radicals have managed to increase their following is because most Islamic institutions in Britain just don't want to talk about theology. They refuse to broach the difficult and often complex topic of violence within Islam and instead repeat the mantra that Islam is peace, focus on Islam as personal, and hope that all of this debate will go away. This has left the territory of ideas open for radicals to claim as their own. I should know because, as a former extremist recruiter, every time mosque authorities banned us from their grounds, it felt like a moral and religious victory. Outside Britain, there are those who try to reverse this two-step revisionism.

A handful of scholars from the Middle East has tried to put radicalism back in the box by saying that the rules of war devised by Islamic jurists were always conceived with the existence of an Islamic state in mind, a state which would supposedly regulate jihad in a responsible Islamic fashion. In other words, individual Muslims don't have the authority to go around declaring global war in the name of Islam. But there is a more fundamental reasoning that has struck me and a number of other people who have recently left radical Islamic networks as a far more potent argument because it involves stepping out of this dogmatic paradigm and recognising the reality of the world: Muslims don't actually live in the bipolar world of the Middle Ages any more. The fact is that Muslims in Britain are citizens of this country. We are no longer migrants in a Land of Unbelief. For my generation, we were born here, raised here, schooled here, we work here and we'll stay here. But more than that, on a historically unprecedented scale, Muslims in Britain have been allowed to assert their religious identity through clothing, the construction of mosques, the building of cemeteries and equal rights in law. However, it isn't enough for Muslims to say that because they feel at home in Britain they can simply ignore those passages of the Koran which instruct on killing unbelievers. By refusing to challenge centuries-old theological arguments, the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern world grow larger every day. It may be difficult to swallow but the reason why Abu Qatada - the Islamic scholar whom Palestinian militants recently called to be released in exchange for the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston - has a following is because he is extremely learned and his religious rulings are well argued. His opinions, though I now thoroughly disagree with them, have validity within the broad canon of Islam. Since leaving the BJN, many Muslims have accused me of being a traitor. If I knew of any impending attack, then I would have no hesitation in going to the police, but I have not gone to the authorities, as some reports have suggested, and become an informer. I believe that the issue of terrorism can be easily demystified if Muslims and non-Muslims start openly to discuss the ideas that fuel terrorism. (The Muslim community in Britain must slap itself awake from this state of denial and realise there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our families, communities and worldwide co-religionists.) However, demystification will not be achieved if the only bridges of engagement that are formed are between the BJN and the security services. If our country is going to take on radicals and violent extremists, Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence. And when this new theological territory is opened up, Western Muslims will be able to liberate themselves from defunct models of the world, rewrite the rules of interaction and perhaps we will discover that the concept of killing in the name of Islam is no more than an anachronism.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2115832,00.html
JPTF 2007/01/07

"Ameaça terrorista ‘crítica‘ na sequência do atentado em Glasgow" in Guardian, 1 de Julho de 2007

Britain was braced last night for a fresh wave of terrorist attacks as the national threat level was raised to 'critical' following an attempted car bombing of Glasgow airport.
Just four days into his premiership, Gordon Brown was dealing with the most dangerous situation facing Britain since the attacks on London in July 2005. Police and intelligence officers confirmed that there was a direct link between the Scottish attack and the attempting car bombing of London on Friday - confirming the reality of a renewed UK offensive by Islamic extremists. Last night the Prime Minister summoned intelligence chiefs and ministers to a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee in Whitehall to discuss the deteriorating security situation. It was agreed to raise the threat level to the highest degree possible, a decision that confirmed another attack is expected imminently. In a televised address from Downing Street, a sombre-faced Brown urged people to be 'vigilant' and support the police and security services. He said: 'I know that the British people will stand together, united, resolute and strong.' As night fell, armed police began stopping vehicles entering airports throughout the UK after warnings were circulated that a nationwide terror cell is preparing more attacks. Liverpool and Glasgow airports were closed down. At 3.11pm, a Jeep Cherokee wreathed in flames crashed into the doors of the main terminal building at Glasgow. Driven by two 'Asian-looking' men, it came to a halt as they threw petrol over it and appeared to try to detonate the vehicle. With the help of bystanders, the two men were overpowered and arrested. One was fighting for his life last night, after throwing petrol over himself and setting it alight. There was a further twist last night as the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, where the man was being treated, was evacuated after a suspect device was found. Strathclyde Police later said that the man had possibly been wearing a suicide belt.

The Jeep attack, bearing the hallmarks, police said, of an al-Qaeda plot, came 36 hours after extremists attempted a double car bomb attack in the heart of London's West End using two Mercedes packed with petrol, nails and 'patio gas' canisters. The attacks appeared to have slipped completely under the radar of the security services. Amid concern over further attacks, police also said that they were stepping up the hunt for five terror suspects who have evaded control orders. In a day of dramatic developments, intelligence sources confirmed the attack on Glasgow airport appeared to be aimed at killing passengers setting off at the start of the Scottish school holidays. The British attacks prompted the White House to tighten security at US airports. As with the failed London attack, the explosives and gas canisters which appeared to be in the Jeep did not detonate, a stroke of fortune that may again have saved the lives of hundreds. Witnesses described chaotic scenes as the Jeep sped towards the terminal entrance. Robin Patterson, 42, of Rochester, Kent, saw the car burst into flames. 'There was an enormous explosion and it really was a big explosion,' he said. 'The guy next to the car, his skin and clothes just fell off him. He was like an absolute lunatic.' Another described one of the men throwing punches at police while screaming: 'Allah, Allah.' The Prime Minister's new terrorism adviser, Lord Stevens, said last night: 'Make no mistake, this weekend's bomb attacks signal a major escalation in the war being waged on us by Islamic terrorists. Now it is clear a loose but deadly network of interlinked operational cells has developed.' Meanwhile in London, a massive investigation into what could have been Britain's most deadly terror attack widened last night. Police and intelligence sources told The Observer that they were now investigating the existence of an Islamic terror cell in the capital. One major branch of the inquiry is tracking down a number of terror suspects who have slipped their control orders, a development that raises fresh questions over their effectiveness. One man being sought is Lamine Adam, 26, who, in evidence at the recent Crevice terror trial that saw five jailed for plotting fertiliser bomb attacks in the UK, allegedly boasted of targeting nightclubs. One of the Mercedes cars involved in the attack was left outside the busy Tiger Tiger nightclub in Haymarket, in the centre of the West End. The other Mercedes was found in a nearby street. Other men urgently wanted by police are his brother Ibrahim, 20, and Cerie Bullivant, 24, who have also evaded control orders. The government's independent reviewer of anti-terror legislation, Lord Carlile, has said that there is 'solid evidence' that the trio had wanted to join insurgents abroad and attack British troops serving in Iraq. Security sources said it remains 'possible' that the men were involved in the attempt to bring carnage to London.

After being briefed on the progress of the police investigation, the new Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, released a statement urging greater vigilance. It read: 'The police are clear that the most important contribution that the public can make is to carry on reporting anything suspicious and to remain vigilant. I must stress we must not let the threat of terror stop us getting on with our lives.' The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, reiterated that the capital faced 'a very real threat' and called on Londoners to be 'vigilant'. Hundreds of extra police were drafted on to the streets to step up security and to reassure the public. The Gay Pride Festival, which saw hundreds of thousands of people making their way from Baker Street to Trafalgar Square, was accompanied by 350 officers, while extra police were drafted in for the Wimbledon tennis championships and the Diana concert at Wembley. Among other terror suspects police want to track down are former tube worker and 26-year-old Londoner Zeeshan Siddiqui. Court evidence has heard how he trained with a London suicide bomber in Pakistan. Another individual police desperately want to track down, even if only to eliminate him from their investigation, is Bestun Salim, who disappeared from his Manchester home last year, and is alleged to have links to Ansar al-Islam, a group linked to the terrorist network of the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's notorious insurgent leader who was killed last year.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2115693,00.html
JPTF 2007/07/01

"Isto vai acabar mal (3)" in Abrupto 30 de Junho de 2007

por Pacheco Pereira


- Qual é (foi) a posição portuguesa em relação ao novo tratado europeu?
- Por que razão o governo não informou os portugueses das suas posições na Cimeira Europeia, para que estes pudessem confrontar as posições com os resultados?
- Por que razão o governo não entendeu comunicar ao Parlamento em sessão plenária a sua análise da situação europeia?
- Por que razão a oposição se basta em ter audiências privadas e em participar no Conselho de Estado e não exige o conhecimento público de qual é a posição portuguesa em todo este processo?
- Por que razão, ingleses, polacos, holandeses, dinamarqueses, franceses e alemães, entre outros tem direito a conhecer a posição dos respectivos governos, e os portugueses não tem?
- O governo português fez qualquer reivindicação, defendeu qualquer interesse, mostrou qualquer incómodo, em relação ao texto e ao conteúdo do novo tratado?
- Existiram (existem) verdadeiras negociações, tradeoff, entre Portugal e as outras nações da União, em particular, as mais poderosas, ou Portugal abdica de qualquer posição própria a favor de se colar a uma posição (da Alemanha? Da França?) para obter assim “simpatias” futuras noutro tipo de matérias (financeiras)?
- Favorece ou desfavorece o peso relativo de Portugal no conjunto da União Europeia, a existência de um Presidente em vez das presidências nacionais rotativas?
- Favorece ou desfavorece o peso relativo de Portugal no conjunto da União Europeia, o fim do princípio “um comissário-uma nação” na Comissão Europeia?
- Favorece ou desfavorece o peso relativo de Portugal no conjunto da União Europeia, o novo sistema de votos que será implementado depois de 2017?
- Vê Portugal vantagens ou inconvenientes na moratória garantida pela Polónia em atrasar o novo sistema de votação para 2017?
- Defendeu Portugal o reforço do poder dos Parlamentos nacionais exigido pela Holanda, ou opôs-se-lhe?
- Sente-se Portugal confortável com a perda do poder de veto que o anterior sistema de votação virtualmente garantia para os “interesses vitais” de cada País?
- Defende Portugal, ou sente-se confortável, com um sistema de votação que dá na prática à Alemanha o poder de vetar qualquer decisão europeia?
- Sente-se Portugal confortável com o aumento de matérias que passam da unanimidade para maiorias, mais ou menos qualificadas, com o correlativo enfraquecimento da posição de países como Portugal no processo de decisão?
- Está Portugal de acordo com o reforço de poderes e competências do Parlamento Europeu, assente numa lógica demográfica onde Portugal conta muito pouco, posição até agora considerada negativa para um país que sempre defendeu apenas e essencialmente o reforço dos poderes da Comissão?
- Aceita Portugal sem problemas o caminho de subsumir a sua diplomacia e a sua política externa progressivamente numa política “europeia” cada vez mais feita em Bruxelas?
- Será que Portugal, ao aceitar o aparecimento de uma diplomacia própria da UE, está de acordo com a tendência crescente para que deixe de haver representação nacional, embaixadas, por exemplo, em muitas partes do mundo, a favor de representações comunitárias?
- Fez o Primeiro-ministro qualquer compromisso secreto para que em Portugal não haja referendo no Conselho Europeu?
- Foram, esse compromisso, ou outros do mesmo teor, tomados por outros países mantido em segredo para tentar fazer passar “por cima” as soluções da Constituição Europeia, desrespeitando a vontade expressa de holandeses e franceses (e outros mais se tivessem que votar em referendo) que lhe disseram “não”?
- Sente-se Portugal bem com uma “democracia” em que apenas se pode responder que “sim”?
Etc., etc, etc.
- Não seria melhor, mesmo que as respostas fossem muito más e retratassem uma impotência generalizada de Portugal na União Europeia, que se soubesse com clareza as linhas com que nos cosemos nesta nova realidade política da União Europeia, em vez de estarmos a enganar os portugueses?
http://abrupto.blogspot.com/
JPTF 2007/06/30

"O plano de fazer explodir carros-bomba em Londres foi anunciado na Internet?" in CBS News 29 de Junho de 2007

Hours before London explosives technicians dismantled a large car bomb in the heart of the British capital's tourist-rich theater district, a message appeared on one of the most widely used jihadist Internet forums, saying: "Today I say: Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed." CBS News found the posting, which went on for nearly 300 words, on the "al Hesbah" chat room. It was left by a person who goes by the name abu Osama al-Hazeen, who appears regularly on the forum. The comment was posted on the forum, according to time stamp, at 08:09 a.m. British time on June 28 -- about 17 hours before the bomb was found early on June 29. Al Hesbah is frequently used by international Sunni militant groups, including al Qaeda and the Taliban, to post propaganda videos and messages in their fight against the West. There was no way for CBS News to independently confirm any connection between the posting made Thursday night and the car bomb found Friday. Al-Hazeen's message begins: "In the name of God, the most
compassionate, the most merciful. Is Britain Longing for al Qaeda's bombings?" Al-Hazeen decries the recent knighthood of controversial author Salman Rushdie as a blow felt by all British Muslims. "This 'honoring' came at a crucial time, a time when the whole nation is reeling from the crusaders attacks on all Muslim lands," he said, in an apparent reference to the British role in Iraq. "We say to Britain: The Emir of al Qaeda, Sheikh Osama, has once threatened you, and he carried out his threats. Today I say: Rejoice, by Allah, London shall be bombed," the message reads. Speaking at a news conference Friday after the bomb scare in central London, the Metropolitan Police force's Counter-Terrorism Commander Peter Clarke said that officials had "no indication that we were going to be attacked this way". Prior to the Thursday night posting by al-Hazeen, there had been no specific allusions to threats against London or Britain seen on al Hesbah, or any other major jihadist forums in recent weeks. Several responses to the posting by other forum members expressed hope that an attack against London would be realized in the near future. In response, al-Hazeen urges patience, saying, "Victory is very close, but you are just rushing it." Reached by CBSNews.com Friday, the Metropolitan Police's media office could not confirm whether investigators were aware of the Internet posting on al Hesbah. Intelligence sources who spoke to CBS News Friday morning seemed to express surprise at the discovery of the device, suggesting there had been "no warning, no intel, no smell" as a prelude to the plot — a vacuum of information which reportedly had Britain's domestic intelligence agency "very, very worried". The attempted bombing in London's Haymarket area came one week before the second anniversary of the July 7 bombings that killed 52 people on London's transportation network. Also Friday, a London jury was expected to hand down a verdict in the case against five young men who were charged with trying to blow up city buses and trains in 2005. The men, all from London, were arrested after police found homemade devices on trains and buses that had failed to detonate properly — sending puffs of smoke from backpacks that frightened commuters, but injured no one. Early reports from law enforcement officials indicate that the car bomb found Friday morning may also have failed to detonate properly — causing smoke to appear in the passenger area. It was the smoke that prompted people to call explosives officers to the scene. One explosives expert told the British Broadcasting Corporation that the device — comprised of gas canisters and nails — appeared to be a fairly crude construction, and not the work of anyone with an extensive knowledge of weaponry. Britain has wrestled since the July 7, 2005, over how to deal with the threat of "homegrown" terrorism. Young men from the country's large Muslim population are easy prey for radical clerics and propaganda campaigns propagated on Internet forums such as al Hesbah. In addition to messages calling for jihad in Britain, detailed video demonstrations of how to construct bombs using gas canisters are readily available on the forums.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/29/terror/main2997517.shtml?source=mostpop_story
JPTF 30/06/2007

"A polícia esperava ataque ao estilo de Bagdade" in Times 29 de Junho de 2007

This is what has been expected and feared for some months - that terror tactics honed on the streets of Baghdad would be visited on London and other Western targets. The police and security services have been preparing for a vehicle-borne attack using either a car or, in the worst case scenario, a hijacked petrol or chemical tanker. Earlier this year Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner warned that “vehicle borne weaponry is the greatest danger that we can face”. Counter-terrorism Command confirmed recently that it has been conducting security spot checks on tanker vehicles entering London for more than a year. There was no specific intelligence that a car or lorry bomb attack was imminent - hence the UK threat level remained at “severe” rather than “critical” - but the expectation has been that al-Qaeda cells in Britain would attempt to explode such a device. The incident, which despite some early reports does not appear to have been a suicide bomb attempt, copies tactics used by two previous terrorist gangs. Omar Khyam, jailed for life in April, discussed attacking the Ministry of Sound nightclub while Dhiren Barot, imprisoned last year, wanted to use stretch limousines packed with gas cylinders and explosives to blow up London landmarks. The automatic assumption in the wake of this failed attack was that there are other devices yet to be discovered. The enduring hallmark of al-Qaeda is that it attacks multiple targets without warning with the aim of maximising casualties and publicity. London faces a day of disruption while suspicious vehicles are cordoned off and examined. Compared to the days of the IRA’s British bombing campaigns, the car bomb at Haymarket appears amateurish. The Mercedes contained several propane gas cylinders, large containers of petrol, a huge number of nails and some means of detonation to turn this cocktail of ingredients into a huge fireball. But al-Qaeda is trying to operate in a climate in Britain which is more hostile to terrorist activity than ever before. High-strength hydrogen peroxide, which was used to make the 7/7 suicide bombs, is much more difficult to purchase than it was before July 2005. The terrorists, however, are adept at finding ways - sometimes crude, sometimes quite ingenious - of turning everyday materials, cheaply and easily obtained, into bombs. The devices may be amateurish but security experts have no doubt that they are still lethal. And the lessons these ruthless, ideologically-driven young men are learning in Iraq can only serve to make their future efforts more professional.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2005228.ece
JPTF 2007/06/29

"Uso da raça para colocação de alunos nas escolas limitado pelo Supremo Tribunal" in New York Times 28 de Junho de 2007

In a decision of sweeping importance to educators, parents and schoolchildren across the country, the Supreme Court today sharply limited the ability of school districts to manage the racial makeup of the student bodies in their schools.

The court voted, 5 to 4, to reject diversity plans from Seattle and Louisville, Ky., declaring that the districts had failed to meet “their heavy burden” of justifying “the extreme means they have chosen — discriminating among individual students based on race by relying upon racial classifications in making school assignments,” as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the court.

Today’s decision, one of the most important in years on the issue of race and education, need not entirely eliminate race as a factor in assigning students to different schools, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in a separate opinion. But it will surely prompt many districts to review and perhaps revise programs they already have in place, or go back to the drawing boards in designing plans.

The opinion’s rationale relied in part on the historic 1954 decision in Brown vs. Board of Education that outlawed segregation in public schools — a factor that the dissenters on the court found to be a cruel irony, and which they objected to in emotional terms.

Chief Justice Roberts said the officials in Seattle and in Jefferson County, Ky., which includes Louisville, had failed to show that their plans considered race in the context of a larger educational concept, and therefore did not pass muster.

“In the present cases,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote, recalling words from an earlier Supreme Court ruling, “race is not considered as part of a broader effort to achieve ‘exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints.’ ”

“Even as to race,” he went on, “the plans here employ only a limited notion of diversity, viewing race exclusively in white/nonwhite terms in Seattle and black/other terms in Jefferson County.

“Classifying and assigning schoolchildren according to a binary conception of race is an extreme approach in light of this court’s precedents and the nation’s history of using race in public schools, and requires more than such an amorphous end to justify it.”

In the now familiar lineup, Justices Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. sided with the chief justice on most points.

Rather than working toward a level of diversity and its “purported benefits,” the chief justice wrote, the school had “worked backwards to achieve a particular type of racial balance.”

“This is a fatal flaw,” the ruling said. “When it comes to using race to assign children to schools, history will be heard.”

The four dissenters wrote, in effect, that the majority was standing history on its head. Justice Stephen G. Breyer said that today’s result “threatens to substitute for present calm a disruptive round of race-related litigation, and it undermines Brown’s promise of integrated primary and secondary education that local communities have sought to make a reality.”

“This cannot be justified in the name of the Equal Protection Clause,” Justice Breyer went on, alluding to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which bars states from denying people “the equal protection of the laws.”

Justice Breyer’s dissent was joined by Justices David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens, the tribunal’s longest-serving member, who wrote a separate dissent that was remarkable for its feeling.

“While I join Justice Breyer’s eloquent and unanswerable dissent in its entirety, it is appropriate to add these words,” Justice Stevens wrote. “There is a cruel irony in the chief justice’s reliance on our decision in Brown vs. Board of Education.”

Today’s ruling breaks faith with the 1954 ruling, Justice Stevens asserted. “It is my firm conviction that no member of the court that I joined in 1975 would have agreed with today’s decision,” he wrote.

Justice Kennedy’s opinion concurring in part with Chief Justice Roberts, and with the overall judgment, agreed that the Seattle and Louisville plans went too far. However, in language that some people on the losing side found heartening, he said that race may still be a component of plans to achieve diversity in the schools.

“Diversity, depending on its meaning and definition, is a compelling educational goal a school district may pursue,” he wrote.

But Mark Rahdert, a Temple Law School professor and a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, said that today’s ruling means that “racial balance” will be “the new catchphrase conservatives will use to attempt to eradicate any form of affirmative action.”

As for Justice Kennedy’s “willingness to leave the door open to some forms of affirmative action,” it will be impossible as a practical matter, Mr. Rahdert said.

The decision today, in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, No. 05-908, and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, No. 05-915, runs to some 180 pages, including the dissents. It was eagerly awaited by the National School Boards Association and by the Council of the Great City Schools, representing 66 urban districts, which had filed briefs on behalf of Seattle and Louisville and had warned of disruption if the justices overturned lower court rulings upholding the diversity plans.

The Bush administration participated as a “friend of the court” on behalf of the plaintiffs who challenged the diversity plans.

One plaintiff was a white woman in Louisville whose son was denied a transfer to attend kindergarten in a school that needed more black pupils to keep its black population at the district’s required minimum of 15 percent.

The other plaintiffs were Seattle parents who opposed the district’s “tiebreaker” system, which applies only to the city’s 10 high schools and is aimed at keeping the nonwhite proportion of their student bodies within 15 percentage points of the district’s overall makeup, which is 60 percent nonwhite.

Harry Korrell, lead attorney for the plaintiff-parents in Seattle, said his clients were “very pleased” with today’s decision. “This case was about protecting all children — regardless of skin color — from race discrimination,” he said.

Unlike the Seattle district, the Jefferson County school system was once segregated by law. Its current diversity plan was adopted in 2000, after the district emerged from 25 years of federal court supervision.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/28/us/28cnd-scotus.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
JPTF 28/06/2007

"À procura das raízes num Chipre dividido" in Turkish Daily News, 26 de Junho de 2007

Armed with vague childhood memories, printouts of Google Earth maps and hand drawings of streets that might no longer exist, I crossed into north Cyprus in search of my grandmother's home town.
It was a journey to the birthplace of a larger-than-life woman whose memory I cherish, to the house my besotted grandfather built for his 17-year-old bride in 1928.
"When you marry, find someone handsome because you'll have to look at him for the rest of your life," my barely literate but very practical grandmother advised me when I was 10.
She died aged 90. That was before 2003, when the crossing points on the U.N.-patrolled green line that splits the Mediterranean island opened, allowing Greek and Turkish Cypriots the first glimpse of each other in nearly 30 years.
The Nicosia checkpoint was not the busy spot I remembered from previous trips. Lethargic officials now sat in white booths, waiting for the occasional car to pass.
"The honeymoon is over," said Mete Hatay, a Turkish Cypriot researcher for the Oslo-based International Peace Research Institute, my companion on this trip. "Fewer and fewer people cross over every day. Reality has overtaken curiosity."
I've lived my adult life away from this island and this journey is not hard for me. But I know that people on both sides of this divide, which has defied decades of international peace efforts, still nurse open wounds.
For many of the 160,000 Greek Cypriots who fled in 1974 when Turkey launched a military operation in reaction to a Greek Cypriot coup, it is a heart-breaking experience, especially when they find their ancestral homes occupied by Turks.
"For the Turkish Cypriots, moving to the north was more like migrating to freedom, not the tragedy it was for the Greek Cypriots," said Mete, whose grandmother comes from the south.
About 40,000 Turkish Cypriots were also displaced after inter-communal fighting in the 1960s, shortly after Cyprus declared its independence from the British.

Worlds apart:
As we drove through the divided capital had seen few benefits from Cyprus's accession to the European Union in 2004.
In the south, luxury showrooms, hotels and restaurants abound in a tourism-driven economy. In the north, shops sell fashions of past decades and provincial casinos are the main attraction for the few foreigners who venture here.
Star-and-crescent flags are everywhere. One is painted on the mountain, its huge form outlined with flashing lights.
We reached the town of Kythrea, 15 km northeast of Nicosia. It's known in Turkish as Degirmenlik -- water mills.
The bleak, crumbling town was foreign to me. Gone were the animals grazing in green fields and farmers picking oranges and olives that impressed me as a suburban child visiting relatives.

Most houses appeared deserted and the land abandoned.
The large Church of Holy Mary Chardiakiotissa was built with the island's trademark yellow sandstone in a gothic-orthodox style mix. The bell tower is now adorned with speakers for the muezzin's call to prayer.
Nearby stands the simple, white, two-storey house where my grandmother arrived as a bride, where my mother and her siblings were born.
I knocked on the door but there was no answer.
"The people who live there are Turks from the Aegean coast," said a friendly neighbour, Ramazan Kaldirim, 23, whose family came here from a village near the Black Sea in 1976.
I told him I have no claim on this house, sold after my grandfather died in the 1950s. I am connected to it only through stories of happy matchmakings and tragic deaths, of children's mischief and friends' kindness during hard times.
We also stopped at my uncle's 19th century house to admire its carved stone entrance, now padlocked. He lived here until 1974 and he drew for me the maps of my mission.
Back in Nicosia, he asked me if his house was still standing but barely looked at the snapshots I show him.
"I know what my house looks like," he told me.
JPTF 26/06/2007
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=76710

"Montagem de Angela Merkel nua faz levantar as... sobrancelhas" in Der Spiegel online, 26 de Junho de 2007

It's not exactly how one expects to see German Chancellor Angela Merkel: The broad, friendly smile seems completely at odds with her open blouse, two bare breasts spilling out. On each breast, one of Poland's governing Kaczynski twins is affixed - Prime Minister Jaroslaw is suckling on the left, President Lech has attached himself to the right. One of them is holding up the "victory" sign right in Merkel's cleavage. The image is on the cover of this week's Wprost, a conservative Polish newsmagazine that has not shied away from firing barbs at Germany in the past. The headline reads: "Europe's Step-Mother." As current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, Merkel, the magazine seems to be saying, is treating the rest of Europe like her step-children. And during last week's EU summit in Brussels, the article inside makes clear, she has been particularly condescending to the Poles. The magazine writes of Germany's "post-colonial reflexes" and says that six decades after the end of World War II, "the Germans still aren't able to treat Poles like partners." "The cover's message," Stanislaw Janecki, editor-in-chief of Wprost, told SPIEGEL ONLINE, "is that Germany, especially Ms. Merkel, was trying to treat Poles and the Polish leaders as small children completely unable to act on their own and somehow dependent on Germany.... There is the impression that Germany, being more powerful, wants to dominate Poland and that the Kaczynski brothers want to stand up to this domination."

Merkel's Head with a 21-Year-Old Body
"We imagined it to be a little funny," Janecki says. "The stepmother is often more sexy and more friendly that the real mother is. The body is of a young, 21-year-old model. I would say it is quite a nice body, and we didn't want to say anything bad about Ms. Merkel." He says they got the image from a model agency the magazine works with and they were looking for somebody "who was not so thin but someone who also has a good body." It's not the first time the Polish weekly Wprost has gotten in trouble in Germany. This week, the cover depicts Chancellor Angela Merkel breast-feeding the Kaczynski twins. But it could have been worse, the editor-in-chief points out. At least they used a 21-year-old model.

Relationship 'Clearly Not Working'
German reactions to the cover photograph have been predictably shrill. News agency dpa called the image "drastic." Many papers, including the Cologne daily Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, wrote of the Chancellor being "mocked" and "ridiculed." Tabloid Bild dove into its Rolodex and quotes a number of German politicians angrily denouncing the image's "tastelessness." The Wprost cover is just the most recent salvo fired in an ongoing media war (more...) between the two countries. Janecki's weekly has attracted unwanted attention for its covers on more than one occasion, the most offensive being a 2003 cover showing then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder being ridden dominatrix style by Erika Steinbach - head of a group representing Germans booted out of Poland following World War II - clad in Nazi garb. More recently, Germany's Die Tageszeitung has printed images of the Kaczynskis with potatoes as heads. And DER SPIEGEL recently switched around the Wprost cover by depicting Merkel being ridden by the Polish leaders. But reaction in the Polish press this week to the EU summit, which saw Merkel pushing through an 11th hour compromise deal (more...) after threatening to isolate Poland, has been far from universally critical of Germany. Daily Dziennik criticized Prime Minister Jaroslaw's pre-summit suggestion that Poland would have more influence in the EU had 6 million Poles not been killed in World War II (more...). And the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza said that the Kaczynskis had "crossed the line of European good taste."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,490795,00.html
JPTF 26/06/2007

"Debate público sobre a Europa: escasso e manipulado" in Público, 23 de Junho de 2007

por Pacheco Pereira

Uma das matérias sobre as quais em Portugal não temos um verdadeiro debate público é a Europa. Pode parecer estranho que tal debate não exista, com os jornais cheios de anúncios de colóquios, conferências, mesas-redondas, seminários sobre a Europa, e televisões, rádios, jornais com maior peso de artigos, programas e debates sobre a mesma matéria. Se se olhar com atenção, muitas destas actividades são financiadas, ou co-financiadas ou apoiadas de alguma maneira pelos gabinetes nacionais das instituições europeias, Comissão Europeia e Parlamento Europeu.

Estas instituições e outras que lhes são subsidiárias mantêm igualmente programas regulares de televisão e rádio, actividades escolares, prémios e concursos, publicações em número considerável, desde banda desenhada a ensaios, discos com orquestras "europeias" juvenis, que, aliás, também são subsidiadas, um canal de televisão "europeu", a Euronews, e mil e uma iniciativas menos conhecidas e pouco transparentes, dirigidas em particular aos jornalistas e aos "fazedores de opinião". Digo pouco transparentes, porque muitas vezes os resultados de iniciativas "jornalísticas" pagas com dinheiro europeu acabam por ser publicados em jornais e passados nos outros media, sem se perceber a diferença entre essas encomendas e um trabalho jornalístico ou de reportagem normal. Até os deputados europeus têm uma verba para convidar jornalistas e só quem saiba do que se trata, uma ínfima minoria de directamente interessados, é que consegue perceber por que razão de vez em quando obscuros deputados têm direito a artigos sobre a sua actividade europeia. Trata-se no seu conjunto da mais gigantesca máquina de propaganda existente na Europa, muito eficaz em muitos países como Portugal, exactamente porque não é vista como tal.

Como qualquer outra máquina de propaganda, ela selecciona o que é "positivo" e tenta minimizar e ocultar o que é negativo. Ela fornece uma imagem doce, altruísta, pacífica, progressista, moralmente superior e intangível da construção europeia, completamente higienizada dos factos problema e que faz uma política que nunca nomeia, para poder demonizar todos os que entendem que, tratando-se de políticas, de decisões e escolhas políticas, elas não podem ser apresentadas sem se perceber a política, ou seja, não devem numa democracia ser servidas aos cidadãos como "pensamento único", liofilizado da política, ou seja, como propaganda. Uma das razões pelas quais se nota que se trata de propaganda está no apagar das fracturas estratégicas de pensamento político sobre a Europa a favor de um debate que se pretende interno, meramente táctico, de discussão apenas de nuances dentro de um consenso artificial.

No caso português esta imposição do "consenso" é tanto mais grave quanto no sistema partidário não existe oposição ao europeísmo constitucional dos últimos anos, com PS, PSD e PP do mesmo lado, apenas com o PCP como oposição consentida, porque inócua. No último Prós e Contras, a mesa que é suposto representar uma contradição, lá tinha de um lado o poder europeu, Durão Barroso, solitário na sua representação institucional majestática, logo acima do debate, e do outro Mota Amaral e Carlos Carvalhas, nenhum dos quais interessado em obrigar Barroso a ter que responder a perguntas que não fossem ou "de dentro" ou de cartilha, nenhum com o animus que é necessário ter para um debate ser a sério.

Há muitos exemplos de como se cria um "pensamento único", o ideal da propaganda. Darei apenas um: a afirmação mil vezes repetida, como se fosse um facto inquestionável, de que foi o voto "não" dos franceses e holandeses à Constituição europeia que criou o "impasse europeu". Nunca, jamais, em tempo algum, se diz que foi uma má "Constituição", um mau tratado, uma construção de engenharia política sem pés na realidade e sem cabeça na prudência dos pais fundadores, que provocou o "impasse europeu". Logo, como não se pode mudar os povos, há que os afastar do processo de decisão para impedir que eles produzam ruído "populista", de ser "contra a Europa por questões mesquinhas de política interna", de ter "medo", mais uma série de coisas menores, que justificam que se esteja a preparar uma versão do mesmo tratado que recebeu o "não", apresentado como um remendo de somenos que não precisa de ir a referendo, mas pode ser decidido apenas num Conselho Europeu e ratificado sem grandes ondas pelos governos e parlamentos "consensuais" sobre a Europa.

Veja-se o caso português, ainda mais exemplar pela debilidade da vida pública nacional. Há uns meses que se ouve falar vagamente de um "tratado abreviado", de um "minitratado", de um acordo institucional para substituir o tratado de Nice. O que acontece com o tratado de Nice é já exemplar do mecanismo de esquecimento e apagamento da história típico da propaganda. Quando se nomeia Nice, o que aliás acontece raras vezes para acentuar o esquecimento, parece que esse tratado foi feito por algum ET, não tem autores, nem responsáveis e ninguém parece ter votado o seu texto. Ora o tratado de Nice, que também Portugal aprovou sem reservas, foi feito pelos mesmos autores da Constituição europeia, e tinha sobre ela o grande mérito de ser mais despido de retórica e mais atreito à "nudez forte da verdade": era um compromisso de hard power puro e duro, que traduziu uma conjuntura europeia e que todo este mambo-jambo do "minitratado" quer alterar. É essencialmente isto que está em causa: quem manda na Europa, sob a forma moderna do direito de bloquear, mais do que sobre a forma antiga do direito de decidir.

Nada há de mais político do que isto, nada há de mais decisivo para as nações europeias do que a medida institucional do seu poder, e é por isso que nações como a Polónia e o Reino Unido são contra e são demonizadas na propaganda por o serem. Os motivos ingleses são sempre apresentados como sendo fruto de uma excentricidade qualquer, do seu eurocepticismo, ou seja, do facto de eles terem uma ideia sobre a construção europeia que não é a do gaullismo, reconstruído no eixo França-Alemanha e hoje ultrapassado pela crescente aisance alemã, libertada das sombras que menorizavam a sua política externa. Ora é exactamente o facto de o tratado que se prepara garantir que a Alemanha tem um poder de veto virtual sobre tudo que preocupa a Polónia. Isto é apenas o emergir mais visível do mapa dos conflitos europeus da primeira metade do século XX que está à tona, com todos a olhar para o lado como se não estivesse lá. Lá nos países bálticos, na República Checa, na Roménia, lá na pacífica Dinamarca, nos Balcãs, e não é com uma demonização dos motivos polacos que se resolve o problema e se enterra a história.

O que a propaganda nunca quer admitir é que todo este processo dos últimos dez anos europeus foi mal conduzido e levou naturalmente aos impasses actuais, nunca quer admitir que existe um fosso crescente entre o "europeísmo" de engenharia política supranacional vertido na Constituição e a vontade política de povos e nações, e quer impedir a todo o custo um maior controlo da burocracia de Bruxelas pelos parlamentos e eleitores. O que é que aconteceria se os eleitores europeus entendessem que não tem qualquer sentido haver um Euronews, gabinetes nacionais da Comissão, agências europeias inúteis e burocráticas distribuídas como benesses pelos diferentes países, e considerassem uma patetice haver legislação europeia sobre os implantes mamários e máquinas de jogo nos casinos? A verdade é que a burocracia de Bruxelas não é uma invenção dos eurocépticos ingleses, mas um problema da democracia na Europa.

Ora, no meio disto tudo, muito pouca gente em Portugal questiona o que o Governo pode ou deve fazer sobre esta matéria, mesmo que se admita que seja pouco, e a oposição basta-se em ter umas audiências privadas e vir depois anunciar uma moratória absurda sobre a discussão quando ela é mais necessária, como se estes assuntos europeus estivessem acima da política vulgar e não devessem ser discutidos pelos cidadãos, a quem não se dá, aliás, sequer o direito de saber o que é que se anda a decidir sobre esta matéria. É por isso que o défice democrático é maior em Portugal do que no resto da Europa.
http://abrupto.blogspot.com/
JPTF 2007/06/25

"Aprendamos com a intransigência dos polacos" in Times 22 de Junho de 2007

The Brits and the French know how to play the game, a German diplomat embroiled in the European Union treaty negotiations told me last week. “We know we can rely on them. But the Poles, they are something else. I am not sure they understand the game at all.” Well, bravo for the Poles. They come fresh to the labyrinthine process of EU negotiations with a firmer grasp of their national interest than the current occupant of 10 Downing Street. Their reluctance to let Germany grant itself significantly greater voting power makes it Warsaw 1, Berlin 0, as today’s EU summit kicks off. Intransigent? Yes. Unacceptable? No. Look at France’s beloved Common Agricultural Policy. While EU leaders congratulate themselves on creating a foreign aid programme, recently branded one of the most wasteful and inefficient in the world, 40 per cent of the EU’s entire budget is still spent subsidising European farmers to keep African food out of the market. What hypocrisy. On Tuesday, José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, told Poland that it risked losing money and support if it blocked a deal to reform the EU’s institutions. What, for exercising its democratic right to object? That is blackmail. Unlike Lech Kaczynski, the President of Poland, Mr Barroso is not elected. The money he threatens to remove belongs primarily to British, Dutch, French, Italian and German taxpayers. What do those who foot the EU’s bills think about a new voting system that will not only change the relative voting power of different countries, but also dramatically reduce the power of individual nations to stop legislation, by raising the threshold for a blocking coalition? Do they agree with Brussels that we must make it easier for the EU to pass more laws? The Dutch don’t. Their perfectly reasonable “red card” proposal, which would allow a majority of national parliaments to block legislation that they did not like, has been dismissed out of hand. “The Dutch climbed a few trees and we now have to get them back down again,” an EU ambassador in Brussels said this week.

That is how Europe’s political elite views its citizens: they don’t know what’s good for them. Best to keep them out of it. As Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has said, better to use “different terminology without changing the legal substance” of the old constitution, then present it to the public as an “amending treaty” that no longer requires a referendum. What fools they take us for. Do they really think that they can sustain the fiction that this “treaty” is essential for the EU to function, and yet so unimportant as to not be worth us bothering our little heads about? Do they expect us to believe that a document cleansed of the word “constitution”, but that still incorporates a full-time EU president and foreign minister, gives the power to make international treaties, and overrides national parliaments on criminal law, employment law, social policy and immigration (to name but a few), is so different from the one that Dutch and French voters rejected two years ago? Britain has pushed through the enlargement of the Union, it must therefore accept a change in voting weights. But it need not accept the higher thresholds for blocking legislation that could prevent us keeping out measures such as the Working Time Directive. Claims of gridlock are much exaggerated. Since the constitution was voted down two years ago, the EU has created the world’s first emissions trading scheme and the European Defence Agency. Sciences Po, the Paris institute, says that the EU has been adopting new rules and regulations 25 per cent faster since enlargement. But clearly not fast enough for those who fear that the federalist project may falter if anyone has time to think. In Britain, no one under 50 has had a chance to vote in a referendum on the direction of the EU. Yet those whom we elect as temporary holders of political office blithely continue to hand power permanently to unelected institutions. Whether this treaty ends up being a giant leap towards greater integration or just another step on the way is a less important distinction than it may appear. Each step hands power to the European Court of Justice, which seizes every opportunity to expand its domain, including slowly eroding national vetoes on tax. Our leaders give away more power then they realise. Unlike most MPs, I read every page of the original constitution. The loopholes are legion. Take the charter of fundamental rights, which Tony Blair has said Britain will never sign up to. It enshrines employment and social rights that would turn our clock back 30 years and grant workers co-decision powers in the businesses that employ them. Germany wants to leave the charter out of the new treaty but to include a reference that will make it legally binding nevertheless. Mr Blair wants a paragraph to exempt Britain. But lawyers tell me that it would be almost impossible to make the wording watertight. Oh, and the charter could come in by the back door, through powers to coordinate member states’ “economic and employment policies”. The EU should have grown out of trying to define national issues as European. It should be focusing on the few big challenges, such as climate change and trade, that are truly international. As Ed Balls, Gordon Brown’s confidant, put it in a recent pamphlet, we must stop doing “ ‘more EU’ for the sake of it”. Mr Brown himself must not condone the arrogance of those who act as though the Dutch and French had never voted. He must promise a referendum. It would not be a referendum on his premiership, as he may fear, but a chance to restrain an EU elite that has proved its total disregard for democracy.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/camilla_cavendish/article1963916.ece
JPTF 22/06/2007

"Os polacos são os verdadeiros europeus?" in Der Spiegel Online, 21 de Junho de 2007

If Germany had never invaded Poland, there would be no need to talk about EU voting rights today, says Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. In Brussels there is irritation that Poland is playing the "history card" once again. But Germans in particular should be wary of being too quick to judge. Warsaw was destroyed during World War II, and over 6 million Poles were killed. The Poles are playing the history card in their current dispute with the EU, but with reason. In the dispute over the voting rights in the European treaty, the Polish Prime Minister Jarolsaw Kaczynski has now come up with an argument that any German would find it difficult to contradict. "If Poland had not had to live through the (World War II) years of 1939-1945, Poland would today be looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million." The Polish leader was attempting to justify his demands for an alternative voting rights system, rather than the one proposed by the German rotating EU presidency. There is no question that not only the history of Poland, but that of every European country, would have been much happier without the German invasion of Poland and its monstrous consequences. It should be remembered that during World War II there were an estimated 6 million Polish victims of the German occupation -- of which 5.7 million were civilians. In Poland alone, 2.4 million Jews were murdered. Kaczynski made the statement on Polish radio on Tuesday but otherwise it didn't really resonate at home. However in Brussels and Berlin the comments were registered with concern and were seen as an indication the Polish government is now doing what it often does when it runs into trouble: plays the history card. And this Thursday evening, when the Polish square-root idea is broached, one can expect this kind of reminiscing again. Warsaw is isolated and is threatening to use its veto. But anyone who thinks that a hopeless cause would make the Polish prime minister or president break out in a sweat doesn't know the Polish mentality. When there's nothing more to be done, that's when things really get going for people like the Kaczynskis.

Caught in the Amber of History
The Catholic twins are caught up in the amber of history. But what we might consider isolationism, and even parochialism, the Kaczynskis and most Poles see as a political defensive fortification. While amber conserves, it also protects from outside blows. Luxembourg's Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker has called on the Kaczynskis to make a "leap into the present." "You will not be happy in the long-run if you are always looking in the rearview mirror." Juncker is right. But it is worth looking in the Kaczynskis' rearview mirror. Because what the Polish president and his brother, the prime minister, see there is not the same thing that Tony Blair or Jean-Claude Juncker, Angela Merkel or Jose Manuel Barroso see. For the Kaczynskis objects in the mirror appear closer than they really are. In their rearview mirror, for example, it is the end of August 1939, a few days before the German invasion of Poland and a man by the name of Jozef Beck appears in view. He is Poland's foreign minister and he is receiving the US diplomat Joseph K. Davies in his office in Warsaw. The two are discussing the danger of war breaking out. Davies, previously US ambassador to Moscow, is pretty pessimistic, but Beck sees things differently. The Germans should come! If the Wehrmacht attacks, Polish troops will be in Berlin within three weeks. Davies thought Beck was completely crazy. And he turned out to be right. The Wehrmacht marched into Warsaw four weeks later, and the biggest ever program of destruction in the history of mankind got underway. Davies urged Beck to form an alliance with Moscow. That was out of the question for the Poles, just as, in all their quarrels with Brussels, it would be out of the question for the Kaczynskis today. The pattern of thought is certainly similar: Before, it was the Germans and the Russians who occupied us, now the EU wants to pull a fast one on us. But how did the Kaczynskis come to this conclusion? A look in their rearview mirror provides some answers.

No New Beginning, Rather Soviet Occupation
The Kaczynskis' father was badly injured fighting in the Warsaw uprising, while their mother joined the anti-German resistance at the age of 14 and worked as a medic. Several of their uncles died in Nazi concentration camps, on the way to Russian deportation, or in the Soviet mass shootings. For the Kaczynskis and their countrymen there was no new beginning in 1945. Instead, they were occupied by the Soviets. On Stalin's orders the Polish borders were shifted and millions of people were resettled. The suffering of these millions of Poles also belongs to the history of the expulsion of Germans from Polish lands, though it is often forgotten. A country that was on the brink of civil war fell under the Soviet yoke, but the Polish desire for freedom was never broken. And the fierce courage that was fired up during the Warsaw uprising against the Nazi occupation in 1944, came back to life in 1980 with the founding of the independent Solidarity trade union. In the end, despite martial law and all that went with it, the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union broke apart. Without the courage of the Poles, there would never have been a new Europe, the constitution of which is being fought over so fiercely today. These facts could have been emphasized, for instance, in an historical preamble to the European constitution -- something that could have possibly avoided the current conflict. The Poles are not just concerned with the specific voting rights, and that they will lose influence in the future (which is difficult to deny), but -- perhaps above all -- about the recognition of their services to history. The bravery paired with obstinacy of people like Beck and the Kaczynskis spawned both: The Warsaw Uprising, Solidarity -- and the blockade in Brussels. For the Poles these all go back to the same unbending attitude. In German sitting rooms people like to hang pictures of a stag in the morning dew -- but over Polish sofas there is an image of the Polish cavalry in 1939, attacking German tanks with raised sabers. Kitschy? Sure. But it causes any German who sees it to go red with shame and be moved to tears.

Poles Are the True Europeans
The martyr-like pose of the Poles has started to get on the nerves of many Europeans -- most of all, because they always adopt it whenever the going gets tough on the international stage. That was the case during the negotiations for Poland's EU membership, it's the case now during the treaty debate, and it will be the case in the future too. Whoever is concerned about this or whoever -- like Jean-Claude Juncker -- cheerfully tells the Warsaw brothers to stop moaning, should definitely bear in mind that the Poles live a more European life, and in particular work in a more globalized way, than most Europeans. While the euros are counted in Luxembourg, tens of thousands of Poles travel by bus every day from Warsaw, Krakow, and Wroclaw to other European countries to find work. Practically every pub in Ireland has Polish staff. No nation is as cosmopolitan as Germany's eastern neighbor. While the Germans regard foreign countries from the comfort of a hotel bar or beach, the Poles are busy cleaning rooms or plucking strawberries. Is this historically just, bearing in mind recent German-Polish history? No. In actual fact, it should all be the other way round. For this reason, the Poles are allowed to be annoying. They have their reasons. And they secretly know that they now have a glowing future in Europe anyway.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,490014,00.html
JPTF 2007/06/21

"‘Queremos a catedral, não minaretes‘. Extrema-direita mobiliza-se contra a mega mesquita de Colónia" in Der Spiegel Online, 19 de Junho de 2007

The Pro Cologne citizens' initiative wants to prevent the construction of Germany's largest mosque in Cologne. The group, which held a rally in Cologne last Saturday, is drawing support from right-wing activists across Europe. It's a sunny Saturday in the German city of Cologne and the Ehrenfeld district is witnessing a showdown. The Social Democratic member of parliament Lale Akgün, Cologne's mayor Elfi Scho-Antwerpes and Mehmet Yildirim, the general secretary of the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), are standing next to a Shell gas station. They are holding red roses and flyers featuring Cologne's famous cathedral, a synagogue and a drawing of a mosque. Fifty meters (164 feet) away, about 150 demonstrators from the citizens' initiative Pro Cologne (Pro Köln) stand waiting. They have assembled on the other side of Venloer Street, not far from the premises where DITIB currently operates a mosque on the site of a former factory and where a new, larger mosque with a dome and minarets is to be built soon. That's what Cologne's politicians have decided, in any case -- all political parties voted in favor of the project. Only Pro Cologne stands opposed. A man in a black suit flits past Scho-Antwerpes. "That's someone from Pro Cologne," the mayor mumbles. "Unfortunately he always says hello to me. It's terrible."She doesn't want to have anything to do with the citizens' initiative, which is under observation from the North Rhine-Westphalia branch of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, because its "generalizing and sweeping defamation of foreigners is suspected of violating human dignity." The citizens' initiative, which is listed as a far-right organization in the Office for the Protection of the Constitution's annual report, has held five seats in Cologne's city council since 2004.

At this rally, Pro Cologne has recruited help from the far-right fringe of the political spectrum in Austria and Belgium: the leader of Austria's populist right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ) Heinz-Christian Strache, and Bart Debie from the extreme right Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) party in Antwerp. Standing behind the police barriers are Pro Cologne members with very short hair, salon-tanned faces and white armbands designating them as security personnel provided by the organizers of the rally. Several dozen citizens wait for their prominent visitors, armed with German flags and wooden crosses. A few adolescents with Iron Cross necklaces and Pitbull sweatshirts have joined the throng. Asked why they are here, they decline to reply. Others, however, are more than happy to air their views. Pro Cologne's Bernd Schöppe sees the construction of the mosque as "one more step towards the Islamization of Europe." Fellow demonstrator Thomas Bendt also believes the mosque is intended as a symbol of Muslim fundamentalist power. The mosque won't act openly, he believes. "If men and women are going to pray separately in the new mosque, that's not the kind of freedom we want," he says. A woman who prefers to remain anonymous even believes that once the Muslim community has grown sufficiently large, it will attack Cologne's cathedral. She wants to feel at home somewhere, she says, without feeling she is in a foreign city.

'We Want the Cathedral Here, not Minarets'
Ehrenfeld residents watch the activities on the street from their balconies above the demonstration area, which has been closed off by the police. The residents have suspended signs that read "Red Card for Racists." Left-wing counter-demonstrators from an anti-fascist group bellow "Nazis out!" Suddenly the anti-mosque demonstrators grow restless. Smoke rises in the air shortly before Strache, the Freedom Party leader, reaches the rally and walks with swift steps through the crowd of Pro-Cologne sympathizers. The police suspects a smoke bomb at first, but cannot clarify where the smoke is coming from. Round signs showing a red line across a stylized mosque are unpacked, and loud classical music is heard from within the Pro Cologne ranks. The protesters begin marching. Those at the front of the silent march carry a large banner featuring a quote from German writer Ralph Giordano: "There is no fundamental right to the construction of a large mosque." The Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor Giordano has sharply criticized the construction of the mosque - and now the right-wingers have co-opted him for their cause. Giordano, however, is vigorously resisting Pro Cologne's efforts to enlist him for their cause. He has dubbed the right-wing citizens' initiative the "local variety of Nazism."

"We want the cathedral here, not minarets."
Roughly 1,000 policemen are out in force, and the situation remains mostly calm. Later, it transpires that other right-wing demonstrators organized their own "spontaneous" demonstration. The demonstration was broken up and about 100 people were taken into custody, according to a police spokesman. In contrast, several hundred citizens followed the call from trade unions, political parties and associations to rally in favor of the construction of the mosque. "Freedom of religion means that Muslims are allowed to build a representative mosque in Cologne," says Wolfgang Uellenberg van Dawen, the leader of the Cologne branch of the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB). But a different tune can be heard in front of Ehrenfeld's local town hall, where Strache is giving a speech. "We want the cathedral here, not minarets," he shouts, adding that "the left-wing counter-demonstrators live off our welfare contributions." Björn Clemens, a Pro Cologne sympathizer from Düsseldorf, also makes his views clear. "Whoever believes himself to be in the grip of Islam should go back to his home country," he shouts. "Pack your bags and go home."

Fear and Loathing
The domed structure, which is to have two 55-meter (180-foot) minarets, will be Germany's largest mosque, with room for about 2,000 believers to pray in. Ever since Giordano has made his views on the mosque public, the issue has been attracting attention in Germany's national media. Most recently, Cologne-based writer Dieter Wellershof weighed up the arguments on both sides in an article entitled "What Does The Mosque Stand For?" published in the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Many citizens who feel skeptical about the mosque, but who don't want to have anything to do with Pro Cologne, seem to be asking themselves the same question. The feeling of fear and uncertainty has increased among the local population, says one Ehrenfeld resident, who is herself in favor of the mosque. But Pro Cologne is inciting people to hatred, she adds. "And yet people in Cologne aren't like that. They want to live in a multi-cultural city." "I feel afraid," confesses one elderly woman with carefully curled hair. "I'm not sure exactly what of - probably the right-wingers most of all." She says she is not opposed to the Muslims receiving a new mosque, but adds that, as a local resident, she is concerned about the "traffic problems" that would result. "I'm just afraid of fundamentalist Muslims gaining more and more ground," says one female shop assistant. But it's hardly possible to voice this fear because of the risk of immediately being labeled right-wing, she says. "I think Pro Cologne is horrible," she adds. Only the two extremes, "the young, far-left demonstrators and the right-wingers from Pro Cologne," are attracting attention, and that's sad, she says. "It's like an absurd carnival," she says.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,489257,00.html
JPTF 20/06/2007

"A honra ‘justifica‘ ataque suicida contra Salman Rushdie" in Telegraph 19 de Junho de 2007

Sir Salman Rushdie, the author, was facing fresh threats to his life yesterday following his knighthood. A senior minister in the Pakistani government said that the decision was a justification for suicide bombing, after the parliament in Islamabad condemned the honour as "blasphemous and insulting" to the world's Muslims. As Pakistani MPs issued a demand for the award to be immediately withdrawn, the religious affairs minister, Mohammad Ejaz-ul-Haq, said: "The West always wonders about the root cause of terrorism. Such actions [giving Sir Salman a knighthood] are the root cause of it. "If someone commits suicide bombing to protect the honour of the Prophet Mohammad, his act is justified." The parliament passed a unanimous resolution deploring the honour as an open insult to the feelings of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, the minister for parliamentary affairs who tabled the motion, said that the knighthood was "a source of hurt for Muslims" and would encourage people to "commit blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammad". Mr ul-Haq then called on Pakistan and all other Muslim states to "break off diplomatic relations with Britain" if the knighthood was not withdrawn. The minister was later forced to clarify his potentially highly inflammatory statement, saying that he was speaking about the wider causes of terrorism and not of Sir Salman specifically. Pakistan's condemnation came after Iran expressed similar sentiments at the weekend and will again raise concerns for Sir Salman's safety almost 20 years after the publication of The Satanic Verses. Pakistan's religious parties ordered supporters on to the streets of two provincial cites yesterday. Effigies of both the Queen and Sir Salman were burned while some protesters chanted "Kill him! Kill him!" Sir Salman, 59, who said he was "thrilled" to be knighted, was forced to live in hiding for nine years after Iran's late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill him for allegedly insulting Islam's holy Prophet in The Satanic Verses. It was not until 1998, when the Iranian government said that it would not support the outstanding fatwa, that the author took the decision to return to public life. Last night British officials were waiting nervously for further reaction to the award at a time when Pakistani society is becoming increasingly radicalised. At the Multan protest, Asim Dahr, a student leader from the group Jamiat Turaba Arabia said that Sir Salman should face Islamic justice. "This Queen has made a mockery of Muslims by giving him a title of 'sir'. Salman Rushdie was condemned by Imam Khomeni and he issued a decree about his death. He should be handed over to the Muslims so they can try him according to Islamic laws." Robert Brinkley, Britain's High Commissioner to Pakistan, said: "It is simply untrue to suggest that this in any way is an insult to Islam or the Prophet Mohammed, and we have enormous respect for Islam as a religion and for its intellectual and cultural achievements." However, the Muslim peer, Labour's Lord Ahmed, told BBC Radio 4's PM that he was "appalled" to hear of a knighthood for "a man who has not only been abusive to Muslims, but also to Christians".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=2HH4IZMPU21T3QFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/2007/06/19/wrushdie119.xml
JPTF 2007/06/19

“Milhares de Igrejas vão fechar nos próximos anos Reino Unido” in Times, 15 de Fevereiro de 2007

Thousands of churches face closure, demolition or conversion in the next decade with experts warning of the imminent demise of some branches of the Christian religion in Europe. In some parts of the country, the closing churches are even being turned into centres of worship for other faiths. A disused Methodist chapel in Clitheroe on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, is the latest, just granted planning permission to become a mosque for the town’s 300 Muslims. There are more than 47,000 churches in Britain today. More than seven out of ten of the population, 42 million people, count themselves Christian. It sounds a lot. But behind the figures lies a story of apparently irreversible decline in the country’s established religion. Where Christianity is growing, on the Pentecostal and evangelical wings, worshippers often prefer modern, functional warehouse-style buildings to the traditional neo-Gothic landscape of British ecclesiastical architecture.

Just one-tenth of the nation’s Christians actually goes to Church, a trend that is seeing churches are closing at a rate even faster than new mosques are opening. Latest figures show that practising Muslims will in a few decades outnumber practising Christians if current trends continue.

A generation ago, the churches in Britain seemed unassailable. Although the first mosques in Britain opened at the end of the 19th century, by 1961 there were just seven mosques, three Sikh and one Hindu temple in England and Wales. This compared with nearly 55,000 Christian churches. Sometimes, with denominations such as the Methodists split into three different types, there could be as many as seven or eight churches in one small town to cater for all the Catholics, Anglicans and different groups of Protestants.

By 2005, churches had plummeted 47,600. According to latest data from the organisation Christian Research, another 4,000 will go in the next 15 years.

In the Church of England alone, still with 16,000 churches on its book, 1,700 churches have been made redundant since 1969 when the Pastoral Measure enabling this process came into effect, although the Church is anxious to emphasise that more than 500 have also opened during that time. The new Fresh Expressions initiative is also having a dramatic impact, and although Sunday attendance is under one million, monthly attendance figures give the established Church 1.7 million regular worshippers. Since the 1960s however, the number of mosques now active in Britain has grown to equal almost exactly the number of Anglian churches closed in Britain. The Islamic website Salaam has 1,689 mosques in its data base.

Anglicans distressed about their church’s decline can take heart from the fact that none of these is in one of their churches. Covenants attached to redundant Anglican churches makes it almost impossible for them to be used by another faith. None have become mosques and just two have become Sikh gurdwaras. Also, the Church of England has opened more than 500 new churches since 1969.

Redundant Anglican churches tend to get turned into houses, offices or restaurants instead. In Cheltenham, 19th-century St James’ is now Zizzi’s, an Italian pizza restaurant, with an enormous pizza oven in the sanctuary.

But Methodist churches, down from 14,000 in 1932 to 6,000 at present and closing at the rate of 100 a year, are often sold with no restrictive covenant attached. Even where one is attached, it can be reversed by appeal to Methodist head office.

Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “In 1990, when I left had just left university, there were about 400 mosques in the UK. In the last 17 years it has gone up three-fold. Many existing mosques are also being refurbished and enlarged. In Bolton where I was born, the mosque we used to go to was a converted church.”

Belgium-based Chris Gillibrand, a regular commentator here and who campaigns against the closures of Roman Catholic churches throughout Europe on his weblog, said: “On present demographic trends, the self-destruction of European Catholicism will be complete in twenty years. Priests and laity share responsibility. In stark contrast to Muslim communities, Catholic families are smaller and the fullness of the faith has not been passed to their children, who are often lapsed.”

He continued: “It is ironic when so many churches are being transformed into cultural centres that real culture is so endangered. Living culture is much more than a half-remembered history and exhibitions of meaningless modern art, whose main purpose is often just to shock.”

According to Peter Guillery of English Heritage, the trend is not new. Brick Lane’s 18th century Huguenot church in London’s East End became a Methodist chapel in 1819. It was converted into east London’s main Orthodox Jewish synagogue from 1898 and then into a mosque in 1976, this last adaptation staving off demolition after a ten-year search for an alternative use.

Multi-faith use is growing. Art and Christianity Enquiry, a Christian arts trust, is next month planning a seminar on how many buildings in Britain are actually being shared by different faiths groups.

And pockets of Christianity are still surging ahead. London’s TA Property Consultants has more than 300 evangelical and pentecostal churches on its book, looking for premises that can accommodate congregations of 500 worshippers or more.

But overall the present growth in places of worship for other faiths is unprecedented, for new builds as well as conversions.

Oxford professor Ceri Peach has recorded how town and city planners are becoming more flexible. From demanding that temples and mosques were hidden away, behind factories or rows of trees, some are starting to allow discreet pinaccles and minarets. Others are even permitting “the bold and the magnificent”. In a recent paper for The Geographical Review, he warned: “The new cultural landscape of English cities has arrived. The homogenised, Christian landscape of state religion is in retreat.”

There is an interesting case study we looked at in Clitheroe in Lancashire. When the small Muslim community that has been settled in this small town on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales for 40 years sought permission to turn a derelict Methodist chapel in the town into a mosque, the letters page of the Clitheroe Advertiser was flooded for weeks with protests. Ribble Valley council finally approved it at the end of December, but it will be years before the battle is forgotten. In many respects, the story of this chapel’s decline as a Christian centre of worship and renaissance as a Muslim one encapsulates the difficulties facing both the Muslim and the Christian communities in Britain.

Mount Zion Methodist Chapel survived for 55 years but was closed as a church way back in 1940. It was then made over to industrial use, and the choir stalls made way for Singer sewing machines. From 1992 it was used by Lappet Manufacturing, making 40,000 high-quality headscarves a week for export to Muslims in Saudi Arabia. They moved out in 2004. Meanwhile, Clitheroe’s Muslims tried for years to establish a place of worship in the town, but never got their plans approved. At one point, the council was even criticised for maladministration by the Local Government Ombudsman for the way it reached a decision not to sell land for a mosque.

When the chapel proposals came up before the council, nearly 1,000 people signed letters objecting, compared to 429 who supported it. Members voted eight to five in favour last December.

The chapel, which will take about 18 months to restore and convert, will become a community centre as well as a mosque. Ironically, when LS Lowry painted the chapel in his picture A Street in Clitheroe, he embellished it with a few fancy pinnacles of his own. As one local told The Times: “If it was good enough for Lowry, why can’t it be good enough for us?”

Registered mosques in UK (figures from Christian Research)
2005 - 635
Projections
2010 - 685
2020 - 800
Many mosques are not registered however.
The website Salaam.co.uk has 1,689 mosques in its database.
Churches in the UK
2005 -47,635
Projections
2010 - 46,735
2020 - 43,890
Alternative uses found for the 1,696 Church of England churches made redundant since 1969 include:
Civic, cultural or community - 245
Residental - 223
Arts, crafts, music and drama - 38
Light industry, office, shopping - 62
Demolition - 374
Worship by other Christian bodies - 121 (Source: Church Commissioners)
JPTF 2007/06/18
http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2007/02/thousands_of_ch.html

“Não haverá diálogo com a Fatah, apenas a espada e a espingarda” in Times 15 de Junho de 2007

Triumphant Hamas fighters are planning to celebrate their final Gaza victory with Friday prayers today in the captured administrative compound of the routed secular President.The pledge came from a leading preacher as the Islamist forces overran the last Fatah strongholds. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President and Fatah leader, declared a state of emergency last night and dissolved the Hamas-led Government. He said that he would call new elections “as soon as the situation allows”. The President cut an increasingly weak figure, however, and such orders appeared simply to acknowledge the realities of the unfolding chaos. Ismail Haniya, the Prime Minister, shrugged off his dismissal, insisting that his Government remained in place. His defiance was echoed by senior Hamas figures. “There will be no dialogue with Fatah, only the sword and the rifle,” declared Nezar Rayyan, a top Hamas leader, on the Islamist movement’s radio station as Fatah broadcasters were bombed off the air. “God willing, I will deliver the next Friday prayers sermon in the Muntada (presidential compound) and we will transform the al-Saraya security compound into a big mosque.” Within hours of that pledge, both compounds were in Hamas’s hands. Fatah leaders, fearing the fighting was about to spread to the West Bank, ordered their militias there to start arresting Hamas members, although some rank-and-file Fatah gunmen said that they would go even further and kill their rivals if they caught them. Hamas activists were being detained across the West Bank, in the towns of Jenin, Nablus, Jericho, Ramallah and Bethlehem, even as the green flags of Hamas appeared on more captured Fatah security compounds in Gaza City after heavy fighting. Mr Abbas has found his leadership skills called into question during the crisis, with Fatah fighters complaining that they had received no directions from the top. After five days of fighting, Mr Abbas finally ordered his men in Gaza to fight back yesterday, but too late. More than 110 people have been killed this week, including four children who were blown up while playing with an unexploded bomb in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. The heaviest fighting focused on the Fatah-run preventive security compound — once a British Mandate fortification inherited from the Ottoman Empire, and known as the al-Saraya building — and the military intelligence base in Gaza City. Both were pounded by mortar, rocket and machinegun fire before surrendering to the withering onslaught. “What happened today in the preventive security headquarters was the second liberation of the Gaza Strip,” Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said. “This time it was liberated from the herds of the collaborators” with Israel, he said, referring to the common Hamas charge that Fatah has fatally compromised itself by seeking peace with the Jewish state, something the Islamists refuse to do. “Last time, it was liberated from the herds of the settlers” during the Israeli pullout of 2005. Hamas called for Fatah fighters to surrender, assuring them that they would not be harmed as long as they had not “collaborated” with Israel. “We are very close to you, closer than you know. Put down your arms and come out,” Hamas radio stations said.About 100 Fatah fighters fled to Egypt yesterday. There was growing concern both in Israel and the US at the level of violence and the prospect of a new Islamist state wedged under Israel’s southern border. “It has to be defined as a hostile and dangerous entity and be treated as such, because it is,” said Amos Gilad, a senior Israeli defence official. Washington also expressed its concern at the prospect of an outright Hamas victory. “It’s obviously a source of profound concern,” Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, said. Israel sealed the border it controls all around Gaza, wary that the firing would wash up on its doorstep. The Fatah police commander at the Erez crossing point on the northern border yesterday sent his men home without uniforms or weapons, after their relief shift simply failed to materialise. On the Israeli side a border guard confirmed that his Fatah counterparts were still nominally in control of the Palestinian section of the border. Asked what would happen if Hamas showed up on the other side, he shrugged and said: “I don’t know, maybe there will be war.” In the nearby Israeli town of Sderot, which has borne the brunt of Hamas missile attacks in recent months, the prospect of the Islamist movement forming a state so close was met with grim resignation. “That means things will be very difficult for us, it will get worse,” said Shula Almog, a librarian in Sderot.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1935047.ece
JPTF 2007/06/15