Mais de 70 feridos noutra vaga de ataques aos cristãos do Egipto

Al menos setenta y ocho personas han resultado heridas en los últimos ataques sufridos por los cristianos coptos de Egipto en la noche del pasado sábado al domingo, según el ministerio de Salud egipcio. En un primer momento se informó también de dos muertos por arma de fuego, si bien parece que ambas se encuentran finalmente hospitalizadas, aunque en estado crítico.

Los heridos se produjeron cuando varios centenares de hombres atacaron a los manifestantes —en su mayoría cristianos, pero también algunos musulmanes— que, desde hace una semana, mantienen una acampada frente a la radiotelevisión egipcia en El Cairo, en la zona de Maspero, para protestar contra la indefensión que sufre la comunidad copta. Los motivos de los atacantes no están claros, si bien podría ser una represalia por un altercado sucedido un rato antes, cuando un motorista intentó atravesar de manera agresiva el cordón de seguridad establecido por los manifestantes, llegando a dispararles con una escopeta de perdigón. De acuerdo con algunos testimonios, el motorista habría sido atrapado por los jóvenes a cargo de la seguridad del campamento, y apaleado. [...]

Ver notícia no ABC 

A Grécia pondera a saída do Euro?

Greece's economic problems are massive, with protests against the government being held almost daily. Now Prime Minister George Papandreou apparently feels he has no other option: Spiegel Online has obtained information from German government sources knowledgeable of the situation in Athens indicating that Papandreou's government is considering abandoning the euro and reintroducing its own currency.

Alarmed by Athens' intentions, the European Commission has called a crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night. The meeting is taking place at Château de Senningen, a site used by the Luxembourg government for official meetings. In addition to Greece's possible exit from the currency union, a speedy restructuring of the country's debt also features on the agenda. One year after the Greek crisis broke out, the development represents a potentially existential turning point for the European monetary union -- regardless which variant is ultimately decided upon for dealing with Greece's massive troubles. Given the tense situation, the meeting in Luxembourg has been declared highly confidential, with only the euro-zone finance ministers and senior staff members permitted to attend. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Jörg Asmussen, an influential state secretary in the Finance Ministry, are attending on Germany's behalf. [...]

Ver notícia do Der Spiegel

A (falta) de solidariedade no espaço Schengen: cartoon de Glez para o Journal du Jeudi

Eleições na Finlândia: a ascensão dos nacionalistas eurocépticos

The cosy consensus of Finnish parliamentary politics was shattered yesterday, when the True Finns, a populist Eurosceptic party, emerged from near-obscurity to take third place in a closely run general election. The result will be carefully noted by European leaders as efforts continue to restore confidence in the euro.
The leader of the True Finns, Timo Soini (pictured), has pledged to veto future aid packages for struggling euro-zone countries, such as Portugal. (In an unfortunate irony of timing, Portugal's bail-out talks with European and IMF officials began earlier today.) But although the election catapulted the True Finns from just five seats to 39 in the 200-member parliament, their participation in the next government remains uncertain.
The National Coalition Party (NCP), a pro-EU member of the outgoing coalition, lost six seats but still emerged as the largest party. It will now lead negotiations on the composition of the new government. These talks will be fraught with difficulty. “Coalition talks are always a bit complicated in Finland, and this time it will be more difficult than usual,” says Pasi Saukkonen, a political scientist at Helsinki University.
Mari Kiviniemi, the prime minister, said her Centre Party would return to opposition after it lost 16 seats. This means that the NCP will likely seek to form a government with the opposition Social Democrats (SDP), which came second, with 42 seats. The pair would need to recruit at least one other party to gain it a majority. (Minority governments, although common in other Nordic countries, are frowned on in Finland and would only be considered as a last resort.) [...]

Ver artigo no The Economist

Como foi criado o posto de Presidente da UE

How did the post of European president get to be created? And how did someone completely unknown to most Europeans end up in it?
This is the story revealed in a new TV documentary, 'The President', a film by Danish director Christoffer Guldbrandsen.
Guldbrandsen and his crew travelled the continent for almost two years to gather material for the film.
They interviewed dozens of the key figures of the time, including former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, French president Giscard d'Estaing, German foreign minister Joschka Fischer and president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, as well as a number of civil servants.
The hour-long film presents the struggle by Europe's top politicians to get a president elected. The story begins in Copenhagen where the EU's 'big bang' enlargement towards the east was agreed in 2002.
 Ten new member states were taken onboard as a result. This created a need for more efficient decision-making structures including a president of the European Council to represent the EU abroad and build consensus among big-egoed national leaders.
Using footage from the time, the documentary takes the viewer through the drafting of the European Constitution, a document that was killed off by French and Dutch voters but later resurrected as the Lisbon Treaty.

Ver notícia no EUObserver

A crise financeira deixou Portugal de rastos: cartoon de Vadot publicado no jornal L'Echo

A Al-Qaida manifesta o seu contentamento com as revoluções no Médio Oriente

Al-Qaïda dans la péninsule arabique (Aqpa) se réjouit de la vague de révolutions que connaissent le Proche-Orient et l'Afrique du Nord depuis plusieurs semaines et salue "un tsunami de changements", a indiqué mercredi le centre américain de surveillance de sites islamistes (SITE).
Plusieurs articles dans le dernier numéro de sa cyber-revue "Inspire", rédigée en anglais, évoquent les révolutions de ces derniers mois -causées par un vif mécontentement de la population à propos du chômage ou de la corruption des dirigeants, et pas par un militantisme islamiste.
Mais ces révolutions, en Egypte ou en Tunisie par exemple, sont des bonnes nouvelles pour les mouvements extrémistes musulmans, estime l'islamiste américano-yéménite Anwar al-Awlaki, qui écrit dans cette revue sur internet destinée à encourager les musulmans anglophones à rejoindre le mouvement jihadiste international.
"La révolution détruit les barrières de la peur dans les coeurs et les esprits qui pensaient que les tyrans ne pouvaient pas être délogés", écrit-il dans ce numéro, accessible sur le site du SITE.
"Nous ne savons pas encore ce sur quoi cela débouchera (...) mais le résultat n'a pas besoin d'être un gouvernement islamiste pour que nous pensions qu'il s'agit d'un pas dans la bonne direction", ajoute l'islamiste.

Ver notícia no jornal La Libre Belgique

Irmãos Muçulmanos em ascensão no novo Egipto

In post-revolutionary Egypt, where hope and confusion collide in the daily struggle to build a new nation, religion has emerged as a powerful political force, following an uprising that was based on secular ideals. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group once banned by the state, is at the forefront, transformed into a tacit partner with the military government that many fear will thwart fundamental changes.
It is also clear that the young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force — at least not at the moment.
As the best organized and most extensive opposition movement in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was expected to have an edge in the contest for influence. But what surprises many is its link to a military that vilified it.
“There is evidence the Brotherhood struck some kind of a deal with the military early on,” said Elijah Zarwan, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group. “It makes sense if you are the military — you want stability and people off the street. The Brotherhood is one address where you can go to get 100,000 people off the street.”
There is a battle consuming Egypt about the direction of its revolution, and the military council that is now running the country is sending contradictory signals. On Wednesday, the council endorsed a plan to outlaw demonstrations and sit-ins. Then, a few hours later, the public prosecutor announced that the former interior minister and other security officials would be charged in the killings of hundreds during the protests.
Egyptians are searching for signs of clarity in such declarations, hoping to discern the direction of a state led by a secretive military council brought to power by a revolution based on demands for democracy, rule of law and an end to corruption.
“We are all worried,” said Amr Koura, 55, a television producer, reflecting the opinions of the secular minority. “The young people have no control of the revolution anymore. It was evident in the last few weeks when you saw a lot of bearded people taking charge. The youth are gone.”[...]

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Cartoon de Mix e Remix para o Hebdo: o que é um assunto ‘importante‘ para os media?

Conselho de Segurança das Nações Unidas aprova zona de exclusão aérea na Líbia

 A decisão foi recebida com alegria em Bengasi, berço da revolta líbia, onde os opositores do regime de Khadafi dispararam para o ar, saudando a medida.

Segundo as agências noticiosas, centenas de jovens concentraram-se frente à sede do Conselho Nacional de Transição, instância criada pelos revoltosos, e agitavam bandeiras da monarquia, usadas antes da tomada do poder pelo coronel Muammar Kadhafi, em 1969.

Numa primeira reacção, o regime de Kadhafi disse que a resolução das Nações Unidas "ameaça a unidade" do país.

A decisão de recorrer a "todas as medidas necessárias" - expressão que significa acção militar - foi aprovada por dez votos a favor, e cinco abstenções (Rússia, China, Alemanha, Brasil e Índia). Portugal esteve entre os dez membros a votar favoravelmente a resolução.

O Qatar e os Emirados Árabes Unidos vão participar nas operações militares contra Khadafi, no quadro do mandato das Nações Unidas, disse um diplomata. O embaixador líbio na organização, Ibrahim Dabbachi, que se afastou do regime, afirmara anteriormente à imprensa que "uns cinco" países árabes estava dispostos a participar na criação de uma zona de exclusão aérea na Líbia. [...]

Ver notícia no Público

A admninistração Obama e o trauma da revolução iraniana

Grandes donativos árabes a universidades britânicas levam a ensinamentos ‘hostis‘

Sir Howard Davies, the director of the London School of Economics, has at last done the honourable thing and resigned from the university’s governing council. The LSE’s shameless prostituting of its good name in return for Muammar Gaddafi’s blood money (as the Tory MP Robert Halfon has rightly called it) is as great a betrayal of the spirit of a university as there has ever been in Britain.

But while it will take the LSE quite some time to regain a seat at the table of respectability, it is not the only university that has reason to feel ashamed. The LSE is said to have received no more than £300,000 of the £1.5 million it was due from Libya.

Yet, on the most conservative estimate, other British universities have received hundreds of millions of pounds from Saudi and other Islamic sources – in the guise of philanthropic donations, but with the real intention of changing the intellectual climate of the United Kingdom.

Between 1995 and 2008, eight universities – Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, University College London, the LSE, Exeter, Dundee and City – accepted more than £233.5 million from Muslim rulers and those closely connected to them.

Much of the money has gone to Islamic study centres: the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies received £75 million from a dozen Middle Eastern rulers, including the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia; one of the current king’s nephews, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, gave £8 million each to Cambridge and Edinburgh. Then there was the LSE’s own Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, which got £9 million from the United Arab Emirates; this week, a majority of the centre’s board was revealed to be pushing for a boycott of Israel. [...].

Ver notícia no Telegraph 

Crescente deterioração das relações entre a Turquia e a União Europeia

Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused German society of "xenophobia" and the German government of "discrimination" ahead of a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel. The remarks follow an unfriendly encounter with French President Sarkozy.

Speaking to a group of ethnic Turks in Dusseldorf on Sunday (27 February) ahead of his meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Hannover on Monday, Mr Erdogan said: "We are observing the xenophobia in certain European countries, notably Germany, with great unease ... Islamophobia is a crime against humanity, just as anti-Semitism is."

He urged German politicians not to feed the fear of foreigners, but also called on the 2.5 million ethnic Turks in Germany to try to fit in.

"I want everybody to learn German and to get the best level of education they can ... I want Turkish people to be present at all levels in Germany, in the administration, in politics, in civil society," he added, the German press agency, DPA, reports.

A day on earlier on Saturday, in an interview with the regional daily, the Rheinische Post, the Turkish premier came close to accusing Ms Merkel's political party of racism. [...]

Ver notícia em EUObserver

As universidades ocidentais e os donativos de países árabes: lições do escândalo Kadhafi na LSE

A donation of €1.78 million from the Gaddafi family and a PhD granted to one of the Libyan dictator's sons has put the London School of Economics in a pickle, just as a fresh study on EU universities highlights the problems of dwindling public funds for education.

The London School of Economics, one of the top-ranking universities in Europe, on Monday (21 February) acknowledged it had received a gift of €1.78 million from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, chaired by Saif al Islam, one of the Libyan dictator's seven sons and a former graduate.

The university also admitted it had "delivered executive education programmes to Libyan officials", but said it had now decided to sever all those links "in view of the highly distressing news" about hundreds of protesters killed by armed forces.

"The school intends to continue its work on democratisation in north Africa funded from other sources unrelated to the Libyan authorities," it said in a statement published on its website.

Seen as one of the 'reformists' in the Gaddafi clan, Saif al Islam had spent four years at the LSE researching his PhD entitled "The Role of Civil Society in the Democratisation of Global Governance Institutions: From Soft Power to Collective Decision Making?"

But in a speech broadcast on Sunday on public television, the LSE graduate threatened demonstrators with "rivers of blood" and called them Western agents and drug addicts, warning about civil war, an Islamist take-over and the splitting of the country into a petro-rich east and a poor west.

One of his LSE mentors, David Held, a professor of political science, on Monday also dissociated himself from his former student.

"My support for Saif al Islam Gaddafi was always conditional on him resolving the dilemma that he faced in a progressive and democratic direction. The speech last night makes it abundantly clear that his commitment to transforming his country has been overwhelmed by the crisis he finds himself in. He tragically, but fatefully, made the wrong judgement," the professor said in an emailed statement. [...]


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‘Para qualquer parte do mundo que se olhe, a religião é importante‘ afirma Tony Blair

 “Do we want societies that are open to those who are different, who have different faiths and cultures than our own; or do we want, in the face of insecurity and economic crisis, to close down, to look after “our own” first and foremost? And if we want open ones, what are the conditions for such openness to prevail?
“It is true of Mexico...it is also true of the Middle East.  There are three elements in play.  However, they are operating within a region in which religion occupies a vital, if not determining space in society.  Ask how important is religion in the lives of people in Europe, and the answer is around 30-35%.  In the Middle East it is 90-95%.  If you don’t understand religion in the Middle East, you don’t understand the Middle East. So as these recent changes transform the Middle East region, the way religion affects that transformation is profoundly significant.
“The missing bit of Middle East policy is inter-faith.  Why?  Because if the concern is that Islam feels disrespected by the West, the answer is to engage in a dialogue that proves it isn’t. This begins in school, should be analysed and debated in university and should be grounded in political, social and cultural exchange.
“The reason religion is important is that it is about so much more than religion.  It is about history, culture, tradition, belonging, identity and meaning.  It is about the philosophy of life.  It is about the spirit not the flesh.  If the Middle East produces political change, without social change that is based on an open mind towards others, then it will have been a revolution half formed and unfinished and the economic change, so vital to advancing the position of the people, will likewise fall short.
“Globalisation is accelerating all these trends.  When I am asked to define the leading characteristic of today’s world, I say: its speed of change.  Movements, swirls of opinion, waves of change arise, build momentum and come crashing down against our preconceived positions or notions with bewildering velocity.  We adjust or we are swept away.”
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation partners with Tecnológico de Monterrey as part of its Faith and Globalisation Initiative which is a network of leading universities on every continent. The course at Tecnológico de Monterrey is now in its second semester, and the number of students has increased by nearly one hundred – from 195 to 284. The Initiative undertakes academic teaching and research to develop a deeper understanding of the relationship between faith and globalisation.  The results help emerging leaders understand how faith motivates people, and analyses the impact of religion on the modern world.

Ver artigo completo na TonyBlairFaithFoundation

Cartoon de Belibel: o novo Presidente do Líbano alimenta o jogo destrutivo da Síria e do Hezbollah

Uma quantidade de disparates sobre o Egipto

"David Cameron has criticized ‘state multiculturalism' in his first speech as prime minister on radicalization and the causes of terrorism.
 "At a security conference in Munich, he argued the U.K. needed a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to all kinds of extremism. He also signaled a tougher stance on groups promoting Islamist extremism. ... As Mr. Cameron outlined his vision, he suggested there would be greater scrutiny of some Muslim groups which get public money but do little to tackle extremism".
 ‘Ministers should refuse to share platforms or engage with such groups, which should be denied access to public funds and barred from spreading their message in universities and prisons,' he argued. ‘Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism,' the prime minister said."
For those of us who have been calling for years for the United Kingdom and Europe to become "intolerant" of the radical Islamist threat to our culture, this is a thrilling and gratifying moment.
It is the obligation of both citizen and statesman to avoid both illusion and self-delusion when considering national threats. And so it is ironic that on the same weekend that the British government finally removes the scales from its eyes and looks straight-on at the mortal threat that aggressively asserted Islamist values pose to our civilization, in Egypt - at the constant hectoring of Washington voices - the remnants of the Mubarak government begins its halting, perhaps inevitable march toward the illusion of Egyptian democracy. [...]

Ver artigo no Rear Clear Politics

Rebeldes em Armas! Cartoon de Hajjaj

A agenda Obama de ‘liberdade na Net‘ está a virar-se contra os EUA?

On Thursday, President Obama declared access to social networks to be a “universal” value, right alongside freedom of speech. But when those networks helped weaken Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, one of the U.S.’ strongest allies in the Middle East, the Obama team demanded Mubarak turn the Egyptian Internet back on — but didn’t abandon support for him, either. Maybe this “Internet Freedom Agenda” wasn’t so well thought out?
For more than a year, the White House has been pushing the idea that online connections are a good thing — no matter what’s said using those tools. It’s a way of signaling to wired people, not just governments, that the U.S. is on their side. The Obama administration called for Twitter to stay online during 2009 protests in Iran, and U.S. cash for new social networks like Pakistan’s Humari Awaz and SMS relief webs for Haitian earthquake victims. “The very existence of social networks,” State Department tech adviser Alec Ross said, “is a net good.”
Now comes the test. The Internet Freedom Agenda may have just undermined an ugly pillar of the U.S.’ Mideast strategy — supporting dictators — without doing much to aid the discontented millions that might replace it. While Obama tepidly calls on Mubarak to let people keep tweeting, Egyptian protesters may want the U.S. ”to completely get out of the picture,” as one told al-Jazeera. “Just cut aid to Mubarak immediately and withdraw backing from him, withdraw from all Middle Eastern bases, and stop supporting the state of Israel.”

Ver artigo na Wired