The European Union has steadily moved forward in its attempt to unite Europe politically and economically. It has succeeded in creating a European parliament,
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Documents
Draft of European Union Constitution - The Constitution, and law adopted by the Union's Institutions in exercising competences conferred on it, shall have primacy over the law of the Member States.
Hungarian Jews Fleeing Into Austria - The leader of Vienna's Jewish community says anti-Semitism in Hungary is causing an influx of Jewish immigrants to Austria. Oskar Deutsch said he was pleased people were coming, but that the circumstances forcing Jews to leave Hungary were deeply troubling. Austria's Jewish community numbers approximately 8,000 people and is being joined in recent years by some 150 families annually fleeing from Hungary.
IMF Warns About Public Debt - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that the public debt in developed countries stands at "wartime levels" and poses a major threat to the global economy. "Without growth, the future of the global economy is in jeopardy, and perhaps the greatest roadblock will be the huge legacy of public debt, which now averages 110 percent in advanced economies, pretty much wartime levels," said IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Tokyo on Friday. "And this leaves governments highly exposed to subtle shifts in confidence," she added.
Germany Enjoys High Trade Surplus, Urged To Invest - Germany could register the world's largest trade surplus of up to 200 billion U.S. dollars in the fiscal year of 2012, a report by the Paris-based OECD showed on Monday. The overall advantage of the competitiveness and quality of German products exports remained intact against the chronic eurozone debts crisis, and its trade surplus would continue to increase - bolstered by the weakening euro exchange rate and falling commodity prices, according to Volker Treier, foreign trade chief of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (GCIC). The OECD report, meanwhile, advised Germany to address its trade imbalance by increasing its overall investment. "The investment rate in Germany is lower than in other major industrial countries," said Andreas Worgotter, an OECD expert on Germany.
Greek and Spain's Youth Job Crisis - Official figures last week showed eurozone youth unemployment worsened in May, with 3.4 million under-25s looking for jobs, an increase of 214,000 from the previous month. Employers are creating fewer entry-level jobs and young people are increasingly shut out of the labor market. Katerina Rudiger, skills adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, adds Greece has a real problem of "underemployment", with young people "stuck" in low-paid, temporary jobs because of the inflexibility of the labor market. "Older people in Greece tend to leave jobs less; if you've got a job you don't move because there's no flexibility," she says. "It used to be in Europe that you had a degree, you'd get a job. But that's not the reality anymore." This could explain many young Greeks and Spaniards are reluctant to accept temp jobs, as Rudiger says they often don't lead to higher-paid work and can "trap" people in low earnings for life.
Greeks Vote To Remain In EU, Despite Austerity Measures - Austerity-weary Greeks expressed relief on Monday that their votes have shown the outside world they want to stay in the euro, but many doubted the next government could solve their country's huge problems - or even last more than a few months. In the cafes and squares of Athens, people hoped for a brief respite from the chaos after the narrow victory in Sunday's election of conservatives, who want to secure Greece's future in the euro by largely implementing a bailout deal under which the EU and IMF have demanded punishing austerity policies. "I'm pleased because the Europeans will see that we want to stay in the euro," said 70-year-old pensioner Leon Antonakis. "The problem is, what happens now? Who will be able to live up to their demands?"
The strange thing about this “multicultural” society is that it can celebrate every imaginable culture except the one that allows all these cultures to co-exist alongside each other — and all the time with enthusiasm from pundits and politicians, busy trying to pretend that this is all the most wonderful result imaginable.
The national census for England and Wales has come out, and, as usual, this once-a-decade event has had all of its most significant points overlooked.
By any measure, what it reveals is a country undergoing seismic change. Over the course of a decade up to four million more people have entered the country to live. In the capital, London, people identifying themselves as “white British” have for the first time become a minority. Perhaps most strikingly, the national Muslim population has doubled.
This last fact is perhaps one of the least considered of the census so far. Doubled? Surely not. This has to be the claim of Mark Steyn or some other demographics-obsessed nut. Well no, it isn’t, and it is now official: between 2001 and 2011 the Muslim population of the UK rose from 1.5 million to 2.7 million. Otherwise put, that is an increase from 3 percent to 4.8 percent of the overall population.
If in 2001 the British Prime Minister had said to the British public that over the next decade he intended to double the number of Muslims in the country, he would most likely never have been returned to office. But of course he did not say that, any more than any of his successors or predecessors did.
For the last decade, every major politician has lied about this issue. While talking tough, about putting a cap on immigrant numbers, pushing people to assimilate and much else besides, they have done nearly nothing. For instance, ten years ago Home Secretary David Blunkett talked as tough as he thought he could, saying that migrants ought to learn English. His successor, Jacqui Smith, said the same thing five years later. As did immigration minister Phil Woolas a couple of years after that. Throughout the last decade the Labour government managed to do exactly what the Conservative and coalition governments before and after them have also managed to do: go as far as they thought they could in rhetoric while going wholly against what they said — and the wishes of the country — in actions.
Now we can see the fruits of their labors. The census reveals that three million people are now living in households where no adult speaks English as their primary language. As Labour’s Sadiq Khan has admitted, local councils have spent their money on translation services rather than language classes, thus actually dissuading people from learning the language. The result is communities with inter-generational language barriers. There are parts of London where a quarter of the people are in the same situation. They have created a society where many people can speak about each other but many cannot actually speak to each other. And all the while politicians and pundits are busy trying to pretend that this is all the most wonderful result imaginable.
The London Evening Standard welcomed the news that white British-born people had become a minority in their own city, and ran a lead opinion piece accusing anybody unhappy about the doubling of the number of Muslims of being “Islamophobes.” Since then, the comments have barely gotten more enlightened. The author Will Self declared on the BBC’s leading talk show Question Time that people unhappy about the direction Britain is going on are “racists.”
On the BBC’s Newsnight I sat alongside two very nice, wealthy, successful immigrants who explained how positive the census results were for Britain, showing a “diverse” and “multicultural” society. I was the only one of the four panelists to point out that this wave of immigration might have any negative effects. And the only one to point out that the strange thing about a “multicultural” society of this kind is that it can celebrate every imaginable culture other than the one which allows all these cultures to co-exist alongside each other. In other words, it is the center which is the only thing not being celebrated, and the center that is being consciously eroded. Worst of all is that this happened in defiance of the repeatedly expressed views – as tested time and again in nationwide polls – of the general public.
Of course much of this simply confirms what the last Labour government appears to have intended. Three years ago, in the same Evening Standard, Andrew Neather, a former adviser to the Blair government, said that the huge upsurge in immigration over the last decade was in part due to a politically motivated attempt by Labour ministers radically to alter the country and “rub the Right’s nose in diversity.’”
He went on to say that Labour’s relaxation of immigration controls was a deliberate plan to “open up the UK to mass migration,” but that ministers were nervous about discussing this move publicly because they feared that it would alienate their “core working class vote.”
Well, they have certainly managed to do what they wanted. The Labour government, like the Conservative governments before them, and the coalition government since, did everything it could to ignore the real concerns expressed by the majority of the public. But with no decent mainstream party to vote for, the public kept voting for the same parties as usual. Fooled by the occasional speech saying that there was going to be some”‘tough” new approach, the country got stuck in a debate that has been played on repeat. Yet all the time that debate-loop was going, the ground beneath us was changing unrecognizably.
Now, true to tradition, a couple of days after the census Labour Party leader Ed Miliband has come out to declare that immigrants to Britain should learn to speak English. It is exactly what all of his recent predecessors have also said, and it is exactly what none of them — any more than he — have done anything concrete about. Britain has been changed, and more change is on the way. Some of those changes might be good, and others are likely to be not as good. There are those who wanted this change to happen, and there are those who did not. The former now occasionally notice that their plan has caused troubles of which they were barely aware when they set out. The latter are reviled as backwards, racist, bigoted and out-of-touch with their new country. In reality they are simply people who once had a country and have seen it changed irrevocably, and simply hold on to a feeling of sadness that nobody thought about where this would take us, or whether we the people should ever be listened to in the little matter of our own future.
(Gatestoneinstitute)
Opinion polls consistently show that growing numbers of ordinary German citizens are worried about the consequences of decades of multicultural policies, as well the emergence of a parallel legal system based on Islamic Sharia law.
Post-Christian Europe became noticeably more Islamized during 2012.
As the rapidly growing Muslim population makes its presence felt in towns and cities across the continent, Islam is transforming the European way of life in ways unimaginable only a few years ago.
Some of the more notable Islam-related controversies during 2012 occurred in Germany, where the Muslim population has jumped from around 50,000 in the early 1980s to more than 4.5 million today.
What follows is a brief chronological review of some of the main stories involving the rise of Islam in Germany during 2012.
In January, German authorities welcomed the start of the New Year by officially confirming that they are monitoring German-language Internet websites that are critical of Muslim immigration and the Islamization of Europe.
In a January 4, 2012 interview with the Berliner Zeitung and the Frankfurter Rundschau, Manfred Murck, the director of the Hamburg branch of the German domestic intelligence agency (the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV)), said his organization was studying whether German citizens who criticize Muslims and Islam on the Internet are fomenting hate and are thus criminally guilty of “breaching” the German constitution.
The BfV’s move marked a significant setback for the exercise of free speech in Germany and came amid a months-long smear campaign led by a triple alliance of left-wing German multicultural elites, sundry Muslim groups and members of the mainstream media, who have been relentless in their efforts to discredit the so-called counter-jihad movement (also known as the “Islamophobes”) in Germany.
In a country stifled by decades of political correctness, the counter-jihad activists and bloggers have been giving a voice to millions of frustrated Germans who see the harm being wrought by the cult of multiculturalism.
Opinion polls consistently show that growing numbers of ordinary German citizens are worried about the consequences of decades of multicultural policies that have encouraged mass immigration from Muslim countries. Germans are especially concerned about the refusal of millions of Muslim immigrants to integrate into German society, as well as the emergence of a parallel legal system in Germany based on Islamic Sharia law.
Also in January, Muslims in Duisburg, one of the most Islamized cities in Germany, clamored for the right to turn empty churches into mosques. All of the churches are located in the gritty Hamborn and Marxloh districts in northern Duisburg where Islam has already replaced Christianity as the dominant religion, and where several Catholic churches have been abandoned.
In Germany as a whole, more than 400 Roman Catholic churches and more than 100 Protestant churches have been closed since 2000, according to one estimate. Another 700 Roman Catholic churches are slated to be closed over the next several years.
By contrast, Germany is now home to more than 200 mosques (including more than 40 mega-mosques), 2,600 Muslim prayer halls and a countless number unofficial mosques. Another 128 mosques are currently under construction, according to the Zentralinstitut Islam-Archiv, a Muslim organization based in Germany.
Meanwhile, on January 16 one of the oldest universities in Germany inaugurated the country’s first taxpayer-funded department of Islamic theology. The Center for Islamic Theology at the University of Tübingen is the first of four planned Islamic university centers in Germany.
The German government claims that by controlling the curriculum, the school, which is to train Muslim imams and Islamic religion teachers, will function as an antidote to “hate preachers.” (Most imams currently in Germany are from Turkey and many of them do not speak German.)
But the idea has been fiercely criticized by those who worry the school will become a gateway for Islamists who will introduce a hardline brand of Islam into the German university system.
In February, the interior minister of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Jochen Hartloff, said he favored the introduction of Islamic Sharia law in Germany. In an interview with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, Hartloff, a Socialist, said that using the Islamic moral code “is certainly conceivable when it comes to questions pertaining to civil law.” Hartloff said using Sharia law to resolve family law issues such as alimony, divorce or financial contracts “could have a pacifying effect” in Germany.
Hartloff’s comments were seconded by Michael Frieser, an expert on integration issues for the Conservatives in the German parliament. He told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that he has nothing against Muslim immigrants seeking judgments according to their own legal systems. “That can ultimately serve the cause of integration,” Frieser said.
In March, Muslim mobs in Berlin threatened to “burn down the neighborhood” after a German fatally stabbed an 18-year-old Muslim, in what police deemed was an act of self defence. The March 9 incident occurred in the heavily Islamized Berlin neighborhood of Neukölln, when the German, Sven N., tried to stop a fight between two groups of Turks over who should get a football that had been kicked over a fence. The Turks quickly turned their anger against the German. After a group of 20 Muslims armed with knives and daggers challenged Sven, he stabbed one of the attackers, Yusef Al-Abed, in the heart. More than 3,000 Muslims attended Yusuf’s funeral, evoking scenes of the Gaza Strip (photos here).
In April, Islamic radicals launched an unprecedented nationwide campaign to distribute 25 million copies of the Koran, translated into the German language, with the goal of placing one Koran into every household in Germany, free of charge.
The mass proselytization campaign — called Project “Read!” — was organized by dozens of Islamic Salafist groups located in cities and towns throughout Germany.
Salafism is a branch of radical Islam practiced in Saudi Arabia that seeks to establish a Sunni Islamic Caliphate (Islamic Empire) across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe, and eventually the entire world. The Caliphate would be governed exclusively by Islamic Sharia law, which would apply both to Muslims and to non-Muslims. Salafists believe, among other anti-Western doctrines, that democracy, because it is a man-made form of government, must be destroyed.
Although Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, regards the Salafist groups as a threat to German security, Salafists have free reign in the country, and Salafist preachers are known regularly to preach hatred against the West in the mosques and prayer centers that are proliferating across Germany.
In May, more than 500 Salafists attacked German police with bottles, clubs, stones and other weapons in the city of Bonn, to protest cartoons they said were “offensive.” Rather than cracking down on the Muslim extremists, however, German authorities sought to silence the peaceful critics of multicultural policies that allow the Salafists openly to preach violence and hate.
The clashes on May 5 erupted when around 30 supporters of a conservative political party, PRO NRW, which is opposed to the further spread of Islam in Germany, participated in a campaign rally ahead of regional elections in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW).
Some of those participating in the rally, which was held near the Saudi-run King Fahd Academy in the Mehlem district of Bonn, the former capital of West Germany, had been waving banners depicting the Islamic Prophet Mohammad (see photo here), to protest the Islamization of Germany.
The rally swiftly disintegrated into violence (photos here and here) when hundreds of angry Salafists, who are opposed to any depiction of their prophet, began attacking the police, whose job it was to keep the two groups apart.
In the final tally of the melee, 29 police officers were injured, two with serious stab wounds, and more than 100 Salafists were arrested, although most were later released. According to Bonn’s police chief, Ursula Brohl-Sowa, “This was an explosion of violence such as we have not witnessed in a long time.”
In June, German authorities launched a major crackdown on Salafists suspected of plotting against the state. In nation-wide raids on June 14, over 1,000 German police searched about 70 Salafist homes, apartments, mosques and meeting places in seven of Germany’s 16 states, in search of evidence that would enable the German government to outlaw some of the dozens of Islamist groups operating in the country.
In a June 8 interview with the newspaper Die Welt, Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said: “Radical Salafism is like a hard drug. All of those who succumb to her become violent.”
Also in June, German Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière announced his intention to “multiculturalize” the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) by recruiting more Muslims into its ranks.
Germany formally discontinued compulsory military service on July 1, 2011 as part of a comprehensive reform aimed at creating a smaller and more agile army of about 185,000 professional soldiers. But Germany’s new all-volunteer army has been unable to meet its recruiting goals, and military manpower prospects look dim for the foreseeable future.
In a desperate search for soldiers, German military officials have now identified Germany’s Muslim Turkish population (3.5 million and counting) as a new source for potential recruits.
In August, German Intelligence Chief Gerhard Schindler issued a warning saying that Europe is at great risk of terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists.
In a wide-ranging interview with the German newspaper Die Welt, Schindler said the German foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), is particularly concerned about the threat posed by homegrown terrorists, individuals who were either born or raised in Europe and who travel to war zones like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia or Yemen to obtain training in terrorist methods.
Schindler’s warning came amid the backdrop of a high-security court trial of four suspected Al Qaeda members, which began in the German city of Düsseldorf on July 25. German public prosecutors say the defendants — three homegrown Islamists born in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and one Moroccan national — were planning to stage a “sensational terror attack” in Germany.
Also known as the “Düsseldorfer Cell,” the defendants were also accused of plotting to assassinate the former commander of German Special Forces (KSK Kommando Spezialkräfte) as well as to attack the US Army base in the Bavarian town of Grafenwöhr.
Also in August, a new survey of Turkish-German mores and attitudes found that nearly half of all Turks living in Germany say they hope there will be more Muslims than Christians in Germany in the future.
The 103-page study, “German-Turkish Life and Values” (abridged version in German here), found that Islam is becoming an increasingly important component of the value structure of Turks in Germany, especially among the younger generation of Turkish-Germans, who hold religious views more radical than those held by their elders.
In September, a German court in Kassel refused to allow a Muslim student to skip co-ed swimming lessons based on her religious beliefs.
The closely watched case highlighted the growing number of conflicts between German school officials and Muslim parents who, for religious reasons, want to keep their children from participating in sports activities, biology classes and field trips.
The presiding judge, Hans Rothaug, declared: “The applicant should have attended swimming lessons. In this particular case, there are no grounds for exemptions.”
In October, a court in Bonn sentenced an Islamist radical to six years in prison for stabbing two German police officers during the protest against “offensive” cartoons in Bonn.
Murat K, a 26-year-old German-born Salafist of Turkish heritage from the western state of Hessen, openly admitted that he had attacked and wounded the two police officers with a kitchen knife during the cartoon riots in May. He showed no remorse during his trial, saying only that he had been morally obligated to follow Islamic Sharia law.
Murat, whose last name has not been made known to the general public due to German privacy laws, claimed that the attacks on the police officers were justified because the German state had allowed offensive images of the Prophet Mohammed to be shown in public.
Murat responded to the verdict by declaring German courts to be illegitimate. He said: “I do not accept this court as legitimate. I am not sitting here voluntarily. Only Allah alone has the right to decide what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil, what is moral and what is immoral.” Murat added: “I will answer only to Allah.”
In an October 19 interview with the German newsmagazine FOCUS, the Secretary General of the ruling Christian Democratic Party (CDU), Hermann Gröhe, said the conviction of Murat makes it clear that Germany will not allow radical Muslims to “lead a religious war on German streets.”
In November, Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany, concluded a “historic treaty” with its Muslim communities that grants Muslims broad new rights and privileges but does little to encourage their integration into German society.
The November 13 agreement, signed by Hamburg’s Socialist Mayor Olaf Scholz and the leaders of four Muslim umbrella groups, was praised by the proponents of multiculturalism for putting the northern port city’s estimated 200,000 Muslims on an equal footing with Christian residents.
The most controversial part of the accord involves a commitment by the city government to promote the teaching of Islam in the Hamburg public school system. The agreement grants the leaders of Hamburg’s Muslim communities a determinative say in what will be taught by allowing them to develop the teaching curriculum for Islamic studies.
On November 30, the northern German city of Bremen followed Hamburg’s lead by concluding its own treaty [Staatsvertrag] with the local Muslim community. The Socialist mayor of Bremen, Jens Böhrnsen, said the treaty reflects “mutual recognition and respect of mutual values.”
Critics, however, say the agreements, the first of their kind in Germany, will boost the growing influence of Islam in the country by encouraging the perpetuation of a Muslim parallel society.
Also in November, a new research survey found that Germans are overwhelmingly mistrustful of Islam and Muslim immigration.
The 28-page study, “Fear of the East in the West” (Die Furcht vor dem Morgenland im Abendland), was produced by the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research, and was published by the center-right German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on November 21.
The research showed that more than half of the German population believes that Islam is prone to violence (64%); has a tendency toward revenge and retaliation (60%); is obsessed with proselytizing others (56%); and strives for political influence (56%).
More than 80% of Germans believe that Islam deprives women of their rights, and 70% say Islam is associated with religious fanaticism and radicalism. By contrast, only 13% of Germans associate Islam with love for neighbors, 12% with charity and 7% with openness and tolerance.
The study concluded that the image of Islam in Germany is “devastating.” The findings — which corroborate the conclusions of other recent studies — underscore a growing divide between ordinary Germans, who are concerned about the consequences of mass immigration from Muslim countries, and Germany’s political elites, who are determined to build a “multicultural” society at any cost.
In December, German authorities said Islamic extremists were behind a botched bomb attack at the main train station in Bonn. In the December 10 incident, a man allegedly linked to Al Qaeda left a bag containing a bomb on a platform at the train station. Authorities say the detonator was activated, but failed to cause an explosion.
Also in December, a militant Salafist group released several videos calling on its followers to take German hostages in an effort to secure the release of Murat K, the Islamist who is currently serving a six-year prison sentence for stabbing two policemen in Bonn in May.
The videos promise that “we will not rest until we have freed you from captivity.” In one of the videos, a man speaking German with a foreign accent says: “Everyone who offends the Prophet will be slaughtered, whether near or far. And know this, brother, the Germans are easy enough to reach. We will take them prisoners, until you are free for your noble deed.”
(Gatestoneinstitute)
LONDON (Reuters) - The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has cancelled an experimental concert by extreme metal band Napalm Death, fearing the noise level could damage the 104-year-old building. Ceramic artist Keith Harrison from the V&A, the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, collaborated with Napalm Death on a set to be played through a sculptural sound system which would disintegrate under decibel stress. ...
LONDON (Reuters) - Sales of organic products continued to decline last year in contrast to continental Europe but the horsemeat scandal has sparked a revival, the country's main organic certification body, the Soil Association, said on Wednesday. "In the worst economic downturn in living memory, it's not surprising to find subdued sales of a wide variety of goods and services - and the UK organic sector is not immune to these," business development director Jim Twine said. Sales dipped 1.5 percent in 2012 to 1. ...
ROME (AP) — When a future pope needed new soles, he strolled to a shoe repair shop practically around the corner from the Vatican. When he was pope and nearing retirement, he had the same shoemaker craft a pair of comfy, calfskin slippers.
BERLIN (AP) — Germany's top security official says the government will support a bid by the country's 16 states to ban the country's biggest far-right party but will not file a separate request for a ban itself.
By William Schomberg LONDON (Reuters) - Chancellor George Osborne faces the daunting task on Wednesday of delivering another austerity budget to a country impatient with near-zero growth. The chancellor of the exchequer, as he is formally known, will make more cuts to day-to-day public spending as he tries to free up some cash for investment. He is also likely to announce another round of weaker economic forecasts which may push back further his targets for fixing Britain's fiscal problems. ...
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Nineteen miners trapped nearly a kilometer (half a mile) below ground by a cave-in at a copper mine in southern Poland were freed early Wednesday after a seven-hour search.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — After a week marked by acts of simplicity and openness, Pope Francis finally let his words do the talking as he officially began his stewardship of the Catholic Church on Tuesday.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Assailants on Tuesday fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the headquarters of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party and hurled two hand grenades at the Justice Ministry's parking lot, slightly wounding one person, officials said.
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Hungary's Minister of Human Resources has asked a journalist to return a state award he received Friday after Israel and the United States complained about disparaging remarks he had made earlier about Gypsies and Jews.
LONDON (Reuters) - Royal Opera House appointed a figure from one of the country's most prominent art galleries as its new head on Tuesday, filling a post left open when the last opera chief left to head the scandal-hit state broadcaster. Alex Beard, 49, deputy director of Tate, a family of four art galleries, was a surprise appointment as he has never worked in the performing arts. He will take up the 250,000 pound a year position at the start of the 2013/14 season. ...
PARIS (AP) — Tom Selldorff was 6 years old when he saw his grandfather's prized art collection for the last time in 1930s Vienna, before it fell into Nazi hands.
PARIS (AP) — France's budget minister, ensnared in a ballooning scandal over suspected tax fraud and money laundering, on Tuesday became the first resignation in President Francois Hollande's 10-month-old Socialist government.
By Kirstin Ridley LONDON (Reuters) - An English judge said oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov, who has been in hiding since he was sentenced to jail for contempt of court last year, organised a complex fraud to embezzle billions of dollars from Kazakh bank BTA. Judge Nigel Teare said on Tuesday that Ablyazov must have orchestrated or authorised false loans and "deceived" BTA's board by failing to disclose his interest in borrowers. ...
LONDON (AP) — Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot in the head by the Taliban, has returned to school for the first time since she was targeted.
LONDON (Reuters) - Determining how an assistant of renowned artist David Hockney died could take weeks, police said on Tuesday as pathologists carried out a post mortem on the body of Dominic Elliott. Elliott, 23, was rushed to hospital from his employer's home in Bridlington, east Yorkshire early on Monday and later died. A Home Office post mortem was not expected to end until early Tuesday evening, police said in a statement. ...
LONDON (Reuters) - A British court ruled on Tuesday that two Saudi princes involved in litigation in London over a business dispute did not have immunity from being sued, a new blow to the royal pair after they failed in an attempt to have the case heard in secret. The elderly Prince Mishal bin Abdulaziz al Saud, one of King Abdullah's many brothers, and his son Prince Abdulaziz bin Mishal, had argued that they had immunity as members of the monarch's household. ...
By Andrew Osborn and David Milliken LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will nudge government spending away from day-to-day expenditure and towards longer-term investment over the coming two years in a bid to spur faster economic growth, the government said on Tuesday. Speaking a day before the government presents its annual budget, Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman said most government departments would have to cut spending by a further 1 percent in each of the next two financial years. "That will save us cumulatively almost 2.5 billion pounds ($3.8 billion)," the spokesman said. ...
By Karolin Schaps and Henning Gloystein LONDON (Reuters) - EDF won planning approval from energy secretary on Tuesday to build the country's first new nuclear station in almost 20 years. The French company, which has dominated Britain's nuclear sector since taking over British Energy in 2009, plans to make its investment decision once it has reached agreement with the UK government on a guaranteed electricity price for the new project. ...
BORGLOON, Belgium (AP) — The church is made of rusty steel beams separated by gaps, and its austere beauty won it an international prize. Yet the eerie desolation of the see-through art installation has also turned into a reflection on the state of Roman Catholicism on a religion-weary continent where real churches, like the dozen dotting the hills of this verdant area, increasingly lose their flock and function.
By Estelle Shirbon LONDON (Reuters) - An Iranian bank appealed to Britain's Supreme Court on Tuesday against sanctions imposed on it by the British government in 2009 over alleged links to Iran's nuclear programme. Bank Mellat, Iran's biggest private sector lender, wants the sanctions lifted on the basis that the government has failed to provide evidence of a connection between itself and Tehran's nuclear activities. ...
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis laid out the priorities of his pontificate during his installation Mass on Tuesday, urging the princes, presidents, sheiks and thousands of ordinary people attending to protect the environment, the weakest and the poorest and to let tenderness "open up a horizon of hope."
MILAN (AP) — A judge in Naples has denied prosecutors' request for an accelerated trial against former Premier Silvio Berlusconi on charges of corruption.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey's prime minister said he hopes this week's spring festival, which is celebrated by Kurds, will herald the start of a peaceful resolution of the country's nearly 30-year-old conflict with Kurdish rebels.
The Crown Prosecution Service today announced that the deputy editor of The Sun, Geoff Webster, has been charged with authorising illicit payments to public officials.
Not content to simply suffer the scrutiny, ranting anger and mischief-making of the House of Commons, George Osborne has used Budget day to join Twitter - and has been immediately hit with a wave of insults.
Malala Yousafzai, the girl who was shot in the head by extremists in Pakistan after campaigning for education for girls, has returned to school after being treated for her injuries in the UK.
Celebrities and politicians were protected from child sex investigations because hundreds of police intelligence files were kept so secret that investigating officers could not access them, it has been reported.
Police forces across the country will change the way that they deal with missing people following failures in cases such as the Rochdale child sex ring.
Two severely disabled prisoners were locked in a cell designed for a single inmate for almost 24 hours a day, a damning inspection of an “overcrowded” Victorian jail reveals today.
Four British charities have publicly admitted for the first time that they are operating inside Syria on the eve of a major appeal for the stricken Middle Eastern nation which is being launched tomorrow by the Disaster Emergency Committee.
Attempts to appoint an ombudsman to hear grievances from members of the armed forces face strong opposition from the military chain of command who hold that the move would be ineffective, costly and blur lines on accountability.
If Monday’s Commons debate was post-Leveson showdown lite, today’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee hearing was the real thing. We had Max Mosley, who famously won a 2008 court action against the (late) News of the World after it turned over his private life. And we had at least three Tory MPs who could barely contain their fury at Hacked Off’s starring role in the Ed Miliband-hosted talks which secured the cross-party regulation deal with David Cameron.
Relations between the Education Secretary and Britain’s teachers are strained to breaking point. At the start of the week, two of the profession’s largest unions set out plans for the most prolonged period of industrial action for two decades. Meanwhile, the overhaul of the exam system is mired in controversy, as are aspects of the sharply accelerated academy programme. And now, 100 leading education academics have written to The Independent issuing a stark warning about proposals to re-shape the national curriculum.
Britain's reputation as an Internet-friendly creative hub was in jeopardy today as websites voiced their anger at “draconian” attempts to regulate online commentary and news.
Terror suspects continue to avoid prosecution because British security services fear their secret sources could be exposed by public trials, a Parliamentary committee heard.
A statue of Michael Faraday stands outside the Institution of Engineering and Technology in central London, but inside the atmosphere is not what you would call electric.
The controversial security firm G4S is facing new scrutiny of its government contracts after a senior executive admitted it is struggling to fulfil its obligation to house asylum-seekers.
Lord Ashcroft, the billionaire peer who made his fortune in Belize and elsewhere and who almost single-handedly kept the Conservative Party financially afloat during the lean years after Labour’s 1997 landslide, seems to be very cross that there is no escape from the House of Lords.
Perched on the edge of a residential street overlooking Bridlington Bay, the sturdy red brick house looks more like the retirement resting place of a successful bank manager from Leeds than the home of Britain’s greatest living artist.
The mother of six children who died in a house fire insisted she did not start the blaze but said she could not be sure her husband had not done so, a court heard.
Just a trickle of Romanians and Bulgarians could come to Britain when restrictions on them living and working in this country are lifted at the end of the year, previously unpublicised Whitehall research suggested tonight.
Labour has drawn level with the Government on economic competence but Ed Miliband may not reap the benefit from it at the next general election, according to a new study.
Outraged Oxford university students have called for a librarian to be reinstated after she was fired for letting students make a Harlem Shake video on her watch.
The war on drugs just took a pungent turn with the news that Crimestoppers, the independent crime-fighting charity, is sending thousands of rural homes a leaflet explaining how to recognise signs that someone nearby is running a marijuana farm.
In the face of hostility from Britain’s largest newspaper groups, David Cameron insisted today that cross-party plans for a press regulator would “work and endure”.
The singer Joss Stone today described to a court how “a really nice day” was spoilt by the arrival of a police officer at her Devon home to explain that two men had been arrested nearby on suspicion of plotting to rob and murder her.
Whitehall departments are to face fresh spending cuts over the next two years, with the money saved spent on infrastructure projects, Chancellor George Osborne told a pre-Budget meeting of the Cabinet today.
Coronation Street star Bill Roache today said he was "very sorry" over his controversial comments on the victims of paedophiles which seemed to suggest they were being punished for past sins.
Just one person in five believed they received enough information to cast an informed vote in last year’s ill-fated contests for the first Police and Crime Commissioners, the elections watchdog said today.
The state will hand 2.5 million families up to £1,200 a year towards the cost of looking after each of their children, under plans to be announced by David Cameron and Nick Clegg today.
“Too many twits might make a twat,” our Prime Minister once said of the Twitter website. His words evidently went unheeded by his friends at The Daily Telegraph, whose reporters have had Twitter unceremoniously thrust upon them.
Boris Johnson still greets fellow members of the Bullingdon Club, the notorious Oxford drinking society whose alumni include David Cameron and George Osborne, with a cry of “Buller, Buller, Buller!”, the Mayor of London has revealed.
A leading death metal band have been forced to cancel a one-off performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum amid concerns for the historic fabric of the building.
Oliver Letwin was heavily outnumbered when he entered Ed Miliband’s Westminster office at around 10pm on Sunday night. The Conservatives’ policy chief, wearing garish mustard-coloured corduroy trousers and a sky blue shirt, looked rather crestfallen to be greeted by such a crowd.
A man who died in prison, where he was being held after admitting to the theft of a gingerbread man during the London riots, was failed by a system of safety checks which had “fallen by the wayside” over the years, an inquest heard today.
The father of an Iraqi teenager claimed today that his son's body showed signs of torture after it was handed back by British troops following a brutal battle.
David Cameron has insisted the cross-party deal reached in the early hours of today on a royal charter on press regulation defends the principle of a free press.
The virus responsible for the “swine flu” pandemic of 2009 is becoming increasingly resistant to the main drug used to treat it, new research has shown.
In this segment, Ron Matsen discusses signs
of the end times. This segment comes from
the "Death of Deiscernment" briefing pack
published by Koinon...
Of all the end-time themes
discussed in the Bible—such as global disasters (Mt
24), the rise of the global super-state, the
identity of the Antichrist, the mark of the beast,
and the Magog invasion (Ezek 38-39)—“deception and
apostasy in the church” is listed more times than
any other end-time “sign of the times.”
Are we currently living in the Age of Apostasy? Ron
Matsen explores the evidence and causes of apostasy
and provides an antidote for apostasy in this timely
study
DVD PRICE R 159.00
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Please
note the size of this slide show, we
recommend that you download and save to a
file and dont try and watch onlie,
Due to the
urgency of this message you will have
some discerning to do before you get the
disc!
Are we now IN the Age of Apostasy?
Indicators of Decline
• Church Attendance: Church attendance in
England as a percentage of the population (both Protestant
and Catholics are included in these figures):
1970 13.3%
1980 11.1%
1990 9.4%
2000 7.2%
2010 5.3%
• Decline in Biblical Literacy: In England,
The Portsmouth News, 13 April 2001, asked 50 members of
church clergy about their congregation’s beliefs: 48% “Did
not believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus” and 60%
“believed that the spirit of Easter had been lost in favour
of bunnies and Easter eggs.”
Cause for this Decline?
We will examine three causes—all three have
an example in the history of Israel.
For whatever things were written before were
written for our learning, that we through the patience and
comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.
Romans 15:4
*** IN Stock ***
BOOK TRAILER
Price R
249.00
THE BOOK
Petrus Romanus: The Final Pope Is Here
(Paperback
Book)
By Thomas
Horn & Chris
Putnam
Pope
Benedict has
turned 85
and is
increasingly
showing
signs of
frailty and
fatigue.
These
observations
have
prompted
speculation
over whether
he will be
the first
pontiff in
seven
centuries to
resign. He
is the only
pope in
living
memory to
discuss
publicly the
possibility
of
resignation
and has
recently
said he
recognizes
he is now in
'last
stretch' of
his life'.
Benedict is
now the
oldest
reigning
pope since
Leo XIII,
who died
aged 93 in
1903.
For more
than 800
hundred
years
scholars
have pointed
to the dark
augury
having to do
with "the
last Pope."
The
prophecy,
taken from
St.
Malachy's
"Prophecy of
the Popes,"
is among a
list of
verses
predicting
each of the
Roman
Catholic
popes from
Pope
Celestine II
to the final
pope, "Peter
the Roman,"
whose reign
would end in
the
destruction
of Rome.
First
published in
1595, the
prophecies
were
attributed
to St.
Malachy by a
Benedictine
historian
named Arnold
de Wyon, who
recorded
them in his
book, Lignum
Vitæ.
Tradition
holds that
Malachy had
been called
to Rome by
Pope
Innocent II,
and while
there, he
experienced
the vision
of the
future
popes,
including
the last
one, which
he wrote
down in a
series of
cryptic
phrases.
According to
the
prophecy,
the next
pope
(following
Benedict
XVI) is the
final
pontiff,
Petrus
Romanus or
Peter the
Roman.
The idea by
some
Catholics
that the
next pope on
St.
Malachy's
list heralds
the
beginning of
"great
apostasy"
followed by
"great
tribulation"
sets the
stage for
the imminent
unfolding of
apocalyptic
events,
something
many
non-Catholics
agree with.
This will
give rise to
the false
prophet, who
according to
the book of
Revelation
leads the
world's
religious
communities
into
embracing a
political
leader known
as
Antichrist.
Throughout
history,
many
Catholic
priests—some
deceased
now—have
been
surprisingly
outspoken on
what they
have seen as
this
inevitable
danger
rising from
within the
ranks of
Catholicism
as a result
of secret
satanic "Illuminati-Masonic"
influences.
These
priests
claim secret
knowledge of
an
multinational
power elite
and occult
hierarchy
operating
behind
supranatural
and global
political
machinations.
Among this
secret
society are
sinister
false
Catholic
infiltrators
who
understand
that, as the
Roman
Catholic
Church
represents
one-sixth of
the world's
population
and over
half of all
Christians,
it is
indispensable
for
controlling
future
global
elements in
matters of
church and
state and
the
fulfillment
of a
diabolical
plan called
"Alta
Vendita,"
which
assumes
control of
the papacy
and helps
the False
Prophet
deceive the
world's
faithful
(including
Catholics)
into
worshipping
Antichrist.
As stated by
Dr. Michael
Lake on the
front cover
of this
unprecedented
report,
Catholic and
evangelical
scholars
have dreaded
this moment
for
centuries.
Unfortunately
- as you
will
discover in
the next 90
days - time
for avoiding
Peter the
Roman just
ran out.
PETRUS
ROMANUS: THE
FINAL POPE
IS HERE:
REVEALS FOR
THE FIRST
TIME...
* 2012 and
the end of
the Prophecy
of the Popes
-- behold
Petrus
Romanus.
* Revealed!
The secret
French codex
written by a
Jesuit
Mathematician
over 60
years ago
that
determined
his arrival
in the year
2012.
* Found! The
ancient
mysterious
'lost book'
that John
Hogue (The
Last Pope)
said was
gone
forever.
* What
Jonathan
Edwards
(America's
most
important
and original
philosophical
theologian
and greatest
intellectual)
believed
about the
year 2012
and the
coming of
the False
Prophet and
Antichrist.
* The
bizarre
occult
connection
to the
assassination
of Father
Edward
Kunz.
* From
Manning to
Malachi --
Catholic
seers who
warned of
his
coming...
and died
under
mysterious
circumstances.
* The secret
of Malachi
Martin and
Rosemary's (Petrus)
Baby.
* A Cryptic
2012 Poem:
When the
Pope walks
over dead
bodies of
priests...
the Woman
prepares to
ride the
Beast!
* The fourth
secret of
Fatima and
other
suppressed
Marian
texts.
*
Evangelical
Dominionists
and their
energetic
role in
paving the
way for his
coming.
* Uncanny
mystics and
the Keepers
of the
Hidden
Knowledge
* The
New-Old
Order of the
Quest and
'X' Marks
the Spot:
Find the
Head and the
Body will
follow!
* From the
very
beginning:
Seances in
the White
House?
* Other
Ancient 2012
'Strange
Attractors'
- Maya,
Aztec, Zohar,
Hindu,
Catholic,
Masonic,
Rosicrucian,
American
Indian and
many more.
* The openly
hidden
secret in
the US
Capitol
tying the
U.S. and
Vatican to
Mesoamerican
2012 and the
coming of
The Dragon.
* The secret
occult hand
guiding
America and
the Vatican
into the
year 2012.
* Get ready:
Will it be
black...
white... or
blood red
smoke?
Note: When
addressing
issues that
address
extra
Biblical
subjects
such as 2012
and the
Prophecy of
The Popes we
believe it
is important
to proceed
cautiously.
We have a
great deal
of respect
for Tom Horn
and Chris
Putnam and
believe they
have done an
excellent
job of
addressing
this subject
in bringing
a Biblical
perspective
to this very
intriguing
and
controversial
area of
study that
is sure to
interest any
student of
Bible
Prophecy.
When you have clicked on
the link, click refresh
for the latest updates
***NEW RELEASE***
Weathering the Coming
Storm
Price R399.00
Description
Dr. Chuck
Missler, an
internationally known
business executive,
outlines our current
economic predicament and
defensive steps you can
take to lessen the
impact of the impending
economic crisis. As a
Bible teacher for over
30 years with a ministry
reaching over 40
countries, Chuck shares
some key strategies to
prepare yourself
spiritually and
practically.
Is the World facing
another major economic
upheaval?
What is the best
strategy to protect your
family in times of
economic uncertainty?
The Church has enjoyed a
relatively peaceful
existence in the West
for a few centuries but
the with the coming
persecution, how do we
go about organizing home
study and home-church?
Soul Survival – Keeping
your “lamp full” during
the hard times ahead.
Join Dr. Chuck Missler
and Ron Matsen in the
Executive Brie fing Room
of
The River Lodge, New
Zealand, in an intensive
summary outlining what
lies
ahead and how we can
prepare for the coming
storm.
•3 Disks
•5 M4A Files
•1 PDF Notes File
•Color, 16:9, Dolby
Digital 2.0 stereo,
Region encoding (This
DVD will be viewable in
other countries WITH the
proper DVD player and
television set.)
"I know thy works, and tribulation and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan."
The most wealthy
bloodline in the
world bar none
and the leader
of the Ashkenazi
Jews in the
world today is
the Rothschild
family. As
you will see in
the timeline,
the Rothschilds
have obtained
this position
through lies,
manipulation and
murder.
Their bloodline
also extends
into the Royal
Families of
Europe, and the
following family
names:
Astor; Bundy;
Collins; duPont;
Freeman;
Kennedy; Morgan;
Oppenheimer;
Rockefeller;
Sassoon; Schiff;
Taft; and Van
Duyn.
Introduction:
