The Eurozone's Time Of Decision

Next week, there is a major summit of EU leaders scheduled. They're going to try to hash out some way of dealing with their ongoing fiscal crisis. Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti was fairly stark about what's at stake.

As I predicted earlier, Spain's bailout without the insistence of major austerity measures and reduced government spending had been the signal for what amounts to a 'gang bang' on German
Chancellor Angela Merkel. Not only does Italy expect a bailout on similar terms, but Portugal and Ireland now want their bail out agreements amended to cut back on mandatory austerity measures. And they now have another important player piling on Merkel - the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde:

IMF managing director Christine Lagarde warned that the euro is under "acute stress" and urged eurozone leaders to channel aid directly to struggling banks rather than via governments. She also called on the European Central Bank (ECB) to cut interest rates.

The stark message from Lagarde, delivered to eurozone finance ministers who were meeting in Luxembourg, will increase pressure to come up with a unified approach to tackle problems including Spain's struggling banks. She urged the 17 eurozone countries to consider jointly issuing debt and helping troubled banks directly. She also suggested relaxing the strict austerity conditions imposed on countries that have received bailouts.

"We are clearly seeing additional tension and acute stress applying to both banks and sovereigns in the euro area," Lagarde said after the meeting. {...}

One of Lagarde's recommendations for Europe was that eurozone leaders should consider issuing bonds or debt "in some form" backed by the governments of all member countries. Berlin opposes the idea because it would put German taxpayers on the hook for foreign debts and increase the country's cost of borrowing.

In addition, Lagarde said it was necessary to break "the negative feedback loop" that occurs when governments take on more debt to bail out their banks, and she called on Europe's two emergency bailout funds to shore up shaky banks directly.

Let's translate what 's going on here, and more importantly, who it's coming from.

This the head of the IMF, a crucial player in the world's financial order and a major potential source of funds for the EU's troubled economies. And what she's telling Angela Merkel and the Germans is that the IMF's support for the eurozone is questionable unless the Germans and other healthier members of the eurozone agree to purchase Greek, Spanish, Italian, Irish and Portuguese debt that the market has already decided are perfectly lousy investments. Moreover, she wants that debt purchased at at artificially lowered interest rates, and she wants the money to go directly to the banks, so the entire eurozone is on the hook for it rather than individual countries.

The idea here is simple. If the Germans bend over for it,the contagion from the affected countries will be spread throughout the entire system. At the same time, the 'purchase' of the debt plus low interest rates will allow the affected countries to chuck any ideas of fiscal austerity and engage in 'growth' - a euphemism for increased government spending.

If Angela Merkel agrees to this, she's likely to become history politically if the current polls are any indication of how the average German feels about this sort of arrangement.

Even if it goes through, it's a recipe for ruin, and I don't see how it can last for long.

Italian Supreme Court Rejects 'Cultural' Defense In Muslim beating Of Females

It may be sharia sanctified in the Q'uran,but it's not part of Italian law - at least not yet:

The Italian Supreme Court on Friday upheld a sentence for abuse and aggravated assault by a Moroccan father against his 12-year-old daughter.

Defense lawyers maintained that the father, who allegedly beat his daughter with a broom handle for "corrective" purposes after she could not properly recite the Koran, did so because of "cultural" reasons and should be given a lighter sentence accordingly.

Can you imagine what kind of creature this man's lawyer must be, to try and defend someone for beating his twelve-year-old daughter with a broomstick based on culture and sharia?

Thankfully, the judges treated this defense with the contempt it deserved, calling the defendant's actions "violent and unjustifiable" in anyone, Italian or foreign.

Could it be that Europe is slowly waking up to the monster they imported? Here's hoping they lock him up long enough for his wife ( or wives) and children to escape the religiously justified prison he had them caged in.

This is exactly why any hint of enabling sharia norms in western countries has to be fought tooth and nail.

French and British To Send Ground Troops to Libya; Obama To Give Rebels $25 Million

Talk about mission creep!

The Brits, the Italians and the French, seeing that the Libyan rebels are unable to seal the deal with Khaddaffi and preserve those lovely oil contracts have begun sending 'advisers' into Libya as ground troops to try and stem the tide and the rebels a victory, disregarding the ties of the rebels to al-Qaeda and Islamists.

President Obama, for his part is giving the rebels $25 million in foreign 'humanitarian' aid, but is explicitly excluding weapons - which is a ludicrous caveat, because the rebels are able to buy whatever they want from the Brits and the French.

Obama also is going to allow armed drones that could be protecting our men in Afghanistan to participate in Libya instead...and don't be surprised if ground troops are next, because the French and particularly the Brits have very limited resources and ground forces to take on Khaddaffi's troops.

I hear the dim echoes of crowds chanting 'No blood for oil' and wonder where all the anti-war protesters from the Angry Left went.

Or perhaps that sort of thing is a lot less anti-war than it was made out to be and has a lot more to do with how the people who organize and pay for the rent-a-mobs feel about who's in the White House and what party he belongs to.

please donate...it helps me write more gooder!

(Video) Telling Time In Italy....

Proof things are always more simple than they seem...

please donate...it helps me write more gooder!

Rome Hit By Embassy Bombings

Rome was hit today by three separate terrorist attacks that targeted foreign embassies.

All three attacks were made via parcel bombs.

The first one exploded at the Swiss embassy, seriously injuring an employee there who opened it. A second one exploded at the Chilean embassy, also injuring one employee there.

A third parcel bomb at the Ukrainian embassy failed to explode, and was later found to be a 'dummy' with no explosives inside of it.

No one has taken responsibility for the attacks, but the media is speculating that anarchists and student protesters are behind this. Rome was hit just last week with violent student protests over increased tuition fees and austerity budgeting.

I personally think that there may be jihadists at work since the bombs were sent to foreign embassies rather than Italian government buildings, and the choice of the Switzerland's embassy where the voters banned minarets and just recently adopted tougher rules on deporting immigrants (read 'Muslims') is a clue that adherents of the Religion of Peace might be involved.

The Italian Carabinieri and counter terrorism forces are said to be investigating what they term 'an international angle.'

UPDATE: According to Italian news sources, anarchist groups have claimed responsibility for the bombings and promise more to come 'until the system is brought down.'

please donate...it helps me write more gooder!

Europe's Lurch To The Right And What's Behind it

Europe's electorate has moved solidly to the Right, both in the EU elections to the European parliament and in a number of local elections.

In France, Germany, Italy, and Poland ruling center-right governments got unexpected endorsements from th electorate, while in two socialist ruled countries, Britain and Spain, leftist parties got creamed. So did socialists in Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, and elsewhere.

British PM Gordon Brown is so unpopular that his ministers are jumping off Labour's sinking ship so rapidly it's hard to keep track. Almost everyone concedes that if an election were held today, the Conservatives would win easily and Labour might actually fall to being Britain's third party. The British National Party, well to the right of center did extremely well in Britain's local elections...much better than anyone dreamed.

The parties of Germany's Angela Merkel and France's Sarkozy cleaned up at the polls , and in the Netherlands Geert Wilders and his Freedom Party ended up as the second strongest party in the country behind the ruling Christian Democrats.

After decades of socialist rule, what's behind Europe's right turn?

Aside from simple frustration with the existing order and its encouragement of multiculturalism and unlimited immigration from the Muslim world, the reason can be summed up in one word: Obama.

For years, Europeans had the privilege of living in a bubble. Those primitive, childish Americans spent billions of dollars to protect Europe from the Soviets, allowing Europe the luxury of not having to spend money to provide for its own defense. And the booming American free enterprise economy and favorable trade agreements allowed Europe to build its own economy by selling exports to America, and to fund an outrageous socialist welfare state built on the ponzi scheme of high taxation and the expectation that this pleasant status quo would continue.

Then along came Barack Hussein Obama.

Europeans might have originally loved the idea of someone like Obama to replace that despised cowboy George W. Bush, because just like American voters, they simply didn't know much about Obama. But after six months, they've seen him working hard on wrecking the American economy, tripling our deficit and doubling down with massive spending . Even worse, he wanted the Europeans to embrace the same madness, calling for the EU to initiate 'stimulus packages' with borrowed money, just like the US. They turned him down flat, and a collective shudder ran through Europe when they realized how badly Obama was managing the US economy and what that meant for Europe's prosperity.

Obama's economic policies have shown the Europeans the ugly side of the end result of the socialist nirvana their politicians on the left have been bamboozling them with for decades, and the realization has set in that without the US economy as the driving engine, it's a recipe for ruin.

Obama then increased that angst by sharply cutting America's defense budget, reneging on planned missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic provided for in treaties signed by the Bush Administration, promising a 'reset' with an increasingly aggressive Russia, and talking openly about cutbacks in American forces stationed in Europe.

He then sent things into overdrive with his non-policy on Iran's nuclear weapons ( at precisely the time when Europe was gearing itself up to get a little tougher with the mullahs) , by publicly calling for Turkey's admission into the EU and by his Islamist and pro-sharia rhetoric in places like Cairo.

What Obama's antics have done, along with the financial crisis, is to bring Europeans back to reality as they understand that Obama's America is not going to be there to bail them out of trouble. And that the US is likely to have a huge task just repairing the damage occurring on Obama's watch after he's gone.

It's a strange paradox that the man so many Europeans hailed as a fresh beginning when he got elected has turned into exactly that...in a way many of them never anticipated. And it's equally odd that th eman who campaigned on improving relations with our European allies has ended up doing exactly the opposite.

Telling Time In Italy...

Proof things are always more simple than they seem...

The Worst Airline In The World?

As regular members of Joshua's Army know, I'm a huge fan of blogger/war correspondent/photojournalist Michael Totten.

And he has an alternately hair raising and comic( at least from a safe distance) story on his encounter with what he calls the worst airline in the world.

Was it some Middle Eastern antiquated national airline? Some hell hole in Africa? Some primitive carrier in Central Asia?

Nope.

Alitalia, the Italian national airline..and in Rome, of all places.

After spending several weeks each in Iraq and Lebanon at the end of 2008, I bought a plane ticket to the U.S. from Beirut on December 22 and figured I had plenty of time to get home for Christmas. I had no idea, though, that I had purchased my ticket from the worst airline company in the world – Italy’s national carrier Alitalia – and that a two-hour layover in Rome would turn into an ordeal that lasted longer than a week.

I placed my most critical and expensive items in my carry-on bag so they wouldn’t get damaged or lost. Yet the woman at the Alitalia check-in counter in Beirut’s international airport said my bag was too large and would have to be checked. I wasn’t happy about that, but I did as I was told and surrendered my luggage. She neglected to tell me that Alitalia’s baggage handlers were on strike and that it would be a very long time before I would see my property again – if I ever would see it again.

My flight left Beirut on time, and I had no idea what I was in for in Italy.

After I landed in Rome, the Departures board said my flight to Chicago was delayed two hours. I didn’t mind. I had a 24-hour layover there, so I could wait patiently. But an angry stirring of passengers at the flight counter caught my attention.

“What’s going on?” I asked an American woman who looked concerned yet approachable.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “But somebody told me the baggage handlers on are strike and that we might not be going anywhere.”

A few moments passed before I absorbed what that meant. My laptop was in my carry-on bag that Alitalia had forced me to check. My work from Iraq and Lebanon was on that machine. My Nikon camera was in that bag. I didn’t want to hand it over, but the airline forced me to hand it over and didn’t tell me what was happening in the bowels of the company.

At least I had the presence of mind to make backup copies of my recorded interviews and place them on a flash memory stick that I carried around in my pocket. My hand-written notes and my photographs, though, were not in my pocket. Alitalia’s baggage handler’s union was holding much of my Middle East work hostage.

The man and woman working at our Alitalia flight counter wouldn’t tell us what was going on, and I assumed it was because they didn’t know. They looked slightly stressed, and I felt bad for them. They weren’t on strike, but they had to deal with the fallout. And that fallout was about to get nasty.

A fifty year-old Italian man in a fedora started screaming at both of them.

A man standing next to me chuckled.

“Do you understand what he’s saying?” I said.

“I’m from Argentina,” he said, “but I speak Italian. That man is cursing like you wouldn’t believe.”

Mr. Enraged was screaming like you wouldn’t believe – wild-eyed, nostril-flared, spittle-flecked screaming.
Listening to him and imagining which curse words he used he was entertaining, but mostly the guy came across like a belligerent jerk. The two Alitalia employees on the receiving end of his tirade weren’t responsible for our predicament. The baggage handlers were on strike, but the counter employees were still on the job.

Later, though, I realized that Mr. Enraged was just ahead of everyone else. The rest of us booked on the flight to Chicago would learn soon enough that a huge number of Alitalia's employees absolutely deserved to be screamed at.

Our flight was delayed another four hours. Almost every other Alitalia flight in the airport had been cancelled. You might think we were lucky that our flight hadn't been cancelled. That's what I thought at the time, but I was wrong.

“I live in the UK,” a man said, “but I was born here in Italy. They will not fly us to Chicago. They will do nothing but lie. Trust me. I know how this country works.”

Our flight was delayed again another three hours, and the man and woman and the flight counter put on their coats and walked away. Several passengers impotently screamed at their backs in Italian. Two hundred of us were left stranded alone.

No one had screamed at them in English. Not yet.

European Union regulations required the airline to book us with another company so we could get home. But they refused to book us with another company. Word slowly trickled into the crowd from passengers who had been stranded in Rome’s airport for days. Alitalia hadn't booked any of them on flights with other airlines, nor did the company reserve or pay for hotel rooms as the law required.

Certainly there were worse fates than being stranded in Italy. Daniel, the Italian-speaking man from Argentina, knew that better than most of us. He lives in the Indianapolis now and works as a professor of Social Work.

“Indiana is a big change,” he said, “but I like living there.” He has fond memories of his hometown of Buenos Aries, but also terrible memories. “There were leftist terrorists and right-hand terrorists killing people all over the country. When the army took over, everyone cheered. But the army was no better, and they went after the intellectuals. 30,000 people were killed or disappeared. It was a horrible fascist regime.”

Daniel managed to remain calm even after order and civility in the airport later disintegrated. His American friend and traveling companion Greg was about a disgruntled as I was. “No one is coming back here,” he said. “They’re supposed to rebook us, but they’ve abandoned us.”

“I think we should get some people together and go to the office,” I said, “since they refuse to rebook us. Ten people should be enough to put pressure on them.”

He agreed, and we asked others standing next to us if they wanted to join us. Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea. I had only been stranded in Rome for a half day so far, but some of those who had been marooned for days looked like they were ready to punch somebody.

Believe it or not there's a lot more to the story..kinda reads like a libretto for one those operas where everybody dies.

Uhh, welcome home Michael!

Hello Berlusconi, Bye Bye Prodi

There some good news out of Italy today, as Silvio Berlusconi, a conservative and a good friend of America has been re-elected Prime Minister of Italy for the third time, scoring a crushing victory over the Socialists.

This very much ties in with general trends elsewhere in Europe.

Projections showed that Berlusconi's coalition won 163 seats in the Italian Senate, compared to 141 seats for Leftist candidate Walter Veltroni, the ex-mayor of Rome.

In Italy's lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, the count was 332 seats to 215.

The election was largely a referendum on Roman Prodi's left wing government,which ended up doing a pretty fair job of damaging Italy's economy with repressive economic policies and high taxes in the 20 months it lasted.

From the US standpoint, we can no doubt expect an Italy with a much different outlook than the Prodi government.And the Italains, if Berlusconi keeps his word about cutting taxes, putting Italy's fiscal house in order and cracking down oncrime and illegal immigration will be much better off.

Interesting sidelight...Silvio is 71,around the same age as a certain Arizona senator..

Viva Il Berlusconi! Basta La Bandera Rossa!

Italy To Expel Immigrants Without Trial..Another Look At The Future

Yet another sign that the European worm is turning....Italy,with its socialist left EU friendly government has passed an emergency decree allowing the expulsion of immigrants considered `a menace to society' by police prefects without trial.

The catalyst for this is a major crime wave in Italy by immigrants, highlighted by a brutal assault on an Italian Naval officer's wife that made headlines throughout the country.

The accused perpetrator,a 24-year-old Romanian gypsy (Roma) named Nicolae Romolus Mailat, was arrested for the assault, robbery and murder of Giovanna Reggiani, who died last week after two days in a coma.

The Romanians have apparently become a problem in Italy since Romania joined the EU in January of this year.

EU citizens are allowed to travel freely in all EU countries, and Romanians have flocked to Italy and now make up the biggest foreign community there.

Romanians top recent crime statistics for serious crimes like murder, rape and robbery.Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni said Romanians accounted for 75% of the city's arrests on those charges from January to September.

The emergency decree allowing the expulsion of potentially dangerous EU immigrants was issued Wednesday night and has already been signed by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.

This became something of a political football in Italy, with conservatives like ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his Forza Italia (FI) party and Gianfranco Fini of the National Alliance (AN) heavily criticizing the Prodi government for being soft of crime. In response, a shaken Premier Romano Prodi pledged such incidents would "never happen again".

According to Italian Police Chief Antonio Manganelli,Italian authorities already have lists drawn up of immigrants whose criminal record makes them likely candidates for expulsion. And remember, police prefects will be able to do this without trial.

Manganelli was quoted as saying that the roundups and expulsions would be done "with absolute respect for human dignity, avoiding a witch-hunt and without criminalizing ethnic groups".

But meanwhile, Gypsy (Roma) encampments are being bulldozed all around Rome, and the Police Prefect of rome, Carlo Mosca said that the rest of the would "soon be evacuated."

Even more interesting, in response to the hard line Italian stance, Romania is cooperating...partly because wages sent by Romanian immigrants back to their home country are a significant source of earnings. Italian Justice Minister Clemente Mastella and his Romanian counterpart Tudor Chiuariu agreed on Thursday that most of the convicted Romanians, who now form a large part of Italy's prison population, will be sent back to serve out their sentences in Romania, and that Romania will honor the verdicts of the Italian criminal courts.

Two points come to mind. First, Americans might consider this, like the recent French policy on illegal immigrants as an interesting model to study in dealing with our own illegal alien problem (and yes,I know...these are legal immigrants Italy is dealing with, but the other parts of the story closely parallel our own).

And second, don't be surprised to see other EU countries doing exactly the same thing in the future...to a lot of Europe's Muslims. There's a very strong nativist wind blowing on the continent these days.

Ralph Peters may have a point when he says that many of Europe's Muslims may be lucky if they just end up being deported, if current trends continue.

CounterJihad Conference in Brussels

There was a major convention October 18 and 19th in Brussels, Belgium for one express purpose - to oppose the increasing Islamization of Europe:

On October 18 and 19, over 70 organizations and individuals joined together in the European and Flemish Parliaments to create a European network of activists from 14 nations to resist the increasing Islamisation of their countries. Keynote speakers included Bat Ye’or, author of Eurabia and Dhimmitude and Robert Spencer, author of Religion of Peace, Why Christianity is and Islam Isn’t. Additional speakers included David Littman, Dr. Arieh Eldad, member of the Israeli Knesset, Dr. Patrick Sookhdeo, Director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity, Sam Solomon, Director of Fellowship of Faith for Muslims and author of the Charter of Muslim Understanding, Dr. Marc Cogen, Ghent University, Dr. Andrew Bostom, author of The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, and Laurent Artur du Plessis, author of a forthcoming book on shariah finance. Many participants worldwide also attended the first day of presentations online through webex conferencing.

Armando Manocchio of the Italian organization Una Via per Oriana (“A Way For Oriana”) presented an award to Bat Ye’or in honor of Oriana Fallaci, including a 5,000 Euro scholarship for young journalists.

counter_jihad_brussels_015b.jpg

Additional anti-islamisation experts and activists from the fourteen European countries presented reports on the current state of Islamisation and jihadism in their nations, and citizen efforts to mount a defense of constitutional liberties and national sovereignty, including:

Austria: Elizabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff

Belgium: Filip Dewinter

Czech Republic: Matyas Zmo

Denmark: Lars Hedegaard

Finland: Not disclosed publicly

France: Nidra Poller

Germany: Stefan Herre

Italy: Adriana Bolchini Gaigher

counter_jihad_brussels_004_.jpg

Netherlands: Dr. Johannes J.G. Jansen

Norway: Jens Anfindsen

Romania: Traian Ungureanu

Sweden: Ted Ekeroth and Reinhard

Switzerland: Dr. Arnaud Dotezac

United Kingdom: Gerard Batten

The worm is beginning to turn....

On a side note, it's important to note that not all of the above have the most honorable of motives...Flip Dewinter, for example, of the ultra-nationalist Vlaams Belang part. But this is an important first step in organizing what I can only characterize as resistance.

OH NO!!! There's a global champagne shortage!!!

You want crisis, we got crisis...according to the Daily Mail, we're in the midst of a global champagne shortage .

The problem is that vineyard owners in the Champagne district in eastern France are refusing to sell tens of millions of bottles stocked in their cellars because they see them as their retirement "nest-eggs"(vintage champagne, like most vintage wines fetches a handsome premium).

That's coupled with increased demand from places like Russia, India and China, and the result is that the most prestigious French champagne houses are having trouble supplying the market.

There are only 32,600 hectares of vineyards authorized to produce the grapes needed for champagne, which by French law must be either the white Chardonnay, or the black Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier.

Experts say the maximum number of bottles that can be wrung out of the current vinyards is 350million....and planting more vinyards and allowing time for them to mature properly is going to take some time n'est pa?

I predict increased sales of champagne type wines from Australia, Italy California and Spain..which, depending on brand can be damned decent.

In the meantime, a client of mine just gave me a bottle of vintage Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin as a present, and I plan to savor it.

Italy stops major black market shipment of weapons to Iraq

Italian police broke up a huge black market operation today involved in an attempt to ship more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into Iraq.

The $40 million dollar deal involved Iraqi government officials, who first claimed that the deal was done with US approval.That story fell apart when the Italians, suspicious over why the Iraqi government would resort to the blackmarket queried US officials and were issued a firm denial.

"Iraqi officials did not make [the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq] aware that they were making purchases," said Lt. Col. Daniel Williams of the transition command in Baghdad, which oversees arming and training of the Iraqi police and army.

Another interesting bit..the go-between for the Iraqi government officials and the Italian arms sellers was none other than the al-Handal General Trading Co. in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Al-Handal was also fingered for this sort of thing before, having been identified by U.S. investigators three years ago as a "front company" in Iraq's oil-for-food scandal.

This follows on the heels of a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report that the Pentagon has lost track of 30% of the weapons transferred to Iraq from the United States. About 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi forces have not been accounted for.They've simply vanished.

In view of that, audits an dinvetigations are taking place to find out where the weapons might have gone, and things are being watched more closely.

Now, other reports,like the recent interim report given to Congress mention that infiltration of local police and military by Shiite militias is widespread and remains a significant problem.

So,let's see here..we have subtantial amounts of weapons missing through the interior ministry, a lot of infiltration by the Iran backed Shiite militias to the police forces and military under its jurisdiction and a black market deal for arms that surfaces just when things have tightened up...involving that same Iraqi Interior Ministry!

Any guesses as to where the missing arms probably went and whom the blackmarket arms were intended for?

Mosque Used as Jihad Training Camp in Italy

Italian police arrested three Moroccans—an imam and two of his aids—on charges of using the Ponte Felcino mosque in Perugia as a jihad training camp.

There were a number of educational opportunities available for members of the Religion of Peace...courses on hand-to-hand combat and weapons training as well as films and documents downloaded from the Internet teaching how to prepare and use poisons and explosives, pilot a Boeing 747 and send encrypted messages.

Police identified the imam as 41-year-old Korchi El Mostapha, and his two aides as Mohamed El Jari, 47, and Driss Safika, 46. A fourth Moroccan suspect is still being sought,but is believed to be out of the country.

Police also said in a statement that the suspects had contacts with two members of the Moroccan Islamic Combat group arrested around two years ago in Belgium. The Islamic group — known by its French acronym, GICM — has ties to al-Qaida and has been linked to the 2004 Madrid train bombings and 2003 attacks in Casablanca, Morocco.

The Italians have recently tightened their anti-terrorism laws and stepped up surveillance at mosques and Islamic centers.

Money Quote: Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato : "...the Perugia case confirms the need to always maintain high surveillance in locations where only religious activities should take place."

An interesting use of the term `places where only religious activities should take place'. One hears about churches, abbeys, synogogues and Buddhist temples as being hotbeds of terrorism nearly every day, right?

Just a little something to remember the next time you hear one of the mouthpieces from CAIR or the MPAC ranting about the notion of the US government putting mosques and Islamic centers under surveillance.

Sometimes these places aren't used for religious activities..and even more often, many of them have a very different definition of what constitutes `religious activities' than we would think.

Italy's Prodi headed back in government

Italy's beleagured PM Romano Prodi looks to be headed back to the PM's office, one week after he resigned over a defeat on foreign policy.

Last night, he won a vote of confidence in the Senate 162 to 157, allowing him to stay in office.

Prodi is juggling a very narrow nine party coalition which is a real mixed bag, ranging from hard line communists and Greens to centrist Catholics. The crux of the matter was Prodi had them sign on to a 12-point 'non-negotiable' agreement that supports Italy's international commitments, especially the 1,800-strong NATO peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.

Disagreement over that little item is what sparked the crisis in the first place.

The next step will be a vote of confidence in Italy's lower House, where Prodi has more of a majority.

Prodi resigns, Italian government falls

Italian Premier Romano Prodi resigned after just nine months in office Wednesday, after his leftist government lost a major Italian Senate vote on foreign policy, including Italy's military mission of 1,800 troops in Afghanistan, as a bill for refinancing the Afghan mission failed to get parliamentary approval. There was also vast discontent among Italy's anti-US left, as I mentioned, over the proposed US base expansion in the North Italian city of Vicenza.

Apparently Prodi had the Hillary Clinton disease - he wasn't left or anti-US enough for some of the parties in his coalition....che lastima.

The government lost the Senate motion on its foreign policy by two votes, although Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema made a speech calling for the coalition partners to close ranks and support the government's foreign policy.

"Foreign policy involves the role and image of Italy in the world and the life of our soldiers committed to international peace mission," said conservative opposition leader Berlusconi, whom Prodi had defeated in April elections before taking office on May 17.

Berlusconi, a staunch US ally, originally deployed the Italian troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan. The troops in Iraq were withdrawn long ago. Prodi's government had agreed to maintain the troops in Afghanistan, which didn't sit well with the anti-US Communists and Greens that were part of Prodi's coalition.

It remains to be seen whether Berlusconi gets back in or if Prodi or somebody else can put together another leftist coalition to govern.

Another European minister weighs in on the Islamic femme mask

Swedish Integration Minister Nyamko Sabuni











First Britain, than Italy..and now Sweden.

Today, Sweden's new Minister of Integration Nyamko Sabuni said that Islamic headscarves had the effect of “isolating” Muslim schoolgirls.


"Where in the Muslim scripture does it say that children shall wear a headscarf? Nowhere. The purpose of a headscarf is for a woman to hide her charms from men whom she could marry," said Sabuni, who fled to Sweden from Burundi when she was 12.

"The headscarf is a means of isolating the girl from her surroundings," she said.

There are over 400,000 Muslims now living in Sweden in a population of 9 million, or about 4.4%.

Sabuni, interestingly is an apostate ex-Muslim who was raised in Islam. She became Sweden’s first black cabinet minister after the September elections that brought a center-right government to power in Sweden after 12 years of Social Democratic rule.

As Integration Minister, she's been rather controversial so far. She backs compulsory genital exams for high-school girls to prevent or find evidence genital mutilation. She also supports a required level of Swedish before citizenship and a ban on religious schools. And she wants the hijab and the full veil banned until after age 15, the Swedish age of consent.

Groups like Sweden's Muslim Association are, of course, agin' all this, screaming Islamophobia.

"I am convinced that with better proficiency in Swedish language and more jobs, the feelings of being discriminated against will diminish," Sabuni said.

Oriana Fallaci has left the building..but her words remain

Oriana Fallaci has died at age 77 of cancer in her home city of Florence Italy. She'd been living in Manhattan for several decades, but returned to Florence to spend her last days there.

Small, beautiful, brilliant and incredibly tough, Oriana packed at least three lifetimes into those 77 years.



Fallaci was an Italian resistance fighter who became a war correspondent in the 1950s and 1960s, covering the Vietnam War and conflicts in the Middle East and Latin America. She was shot three times and beaten by Mexican police while covering the student riots in Mexico City in 1968.

Her one-on-one interviews with politicians, generals and religious leaders, conducted, as she said "with a thousand feelings of rage" made her famous and were translated and published all over the world, and she was noted for her blunt and soemtimes acerbic interview style. Nothing and nobody intimidated her. Unlike many of today's journalists, she was much more interested in truth than in entertainment..with the result that her interviews were frequently entertaining.

Among her subjects were a virtual who's who of politics and the arts in the 1960's and `70's - Nguyen Cao Ky, Yasir Arafat, the Shah of Iran, Henry Kissinger, Walter Cronkite, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, Nguyen Van Thieu, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Willy Brandt, the Aytollah Khomeini, and Mu'ammar Muhammad al-Gaddafi.



She was living a fairly quiet life in Manhattan and doing occasional interviews when the 9/11 attacks hit. As with many others that event changed her profoundly..and brought her out of semi-retirement.

She wrote `The Rage and The Pride' at high speed in the autumn of 2001, which sold sold more than one million copies in Italy alone and was one of the first books to raise alarm at the Islamization of Europe and radical Islam's alliance with the Left. The book brought her fatwas, death threats and widespread noteriety...and a new generation of fans.

Typical of her outspoken attacks on Islam was an article she wrote for the Corriere della Sera newspaper in July last year, where she described Islam both as "an enemy in the house" of the West and "incompatible with democracy."

"We are at war: do you accept that, yes or no?" she wrote, adding that the integration of Muslims into western society was a "nightmare."

Her subsequent book, `The Strength of Reason', argued that Europe was being attacked by an Islamic invasion from without and rampant spiritual decay from within and that the Catholic Church was not providing an adequate response to the religion. Last year she was granted an audience with Pope Benedict XVI at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo after his essay 'If Europe Hates Itself' attracted her attention. Fallaci always descibed herself as `an atheist Christian'.

She went out they way she lived..fighting what she perceived as injustice and totalitarian tyranny to the last.

R.I.P., Orianna. You'll be missed.

Viva Italia...Italy wins World Cup on penalty shootout!

Italy are the world champions.They beat France 5-3 in the final match of the 18th FIFA World Cup 2006 in the penalty shoot-out. The match was played at Berlin Olympic stadium on Sunday.

This is Italy's the 4th World Cup title.

Instead of enjoying another World Cup victory, a red penalty card sent French star Zinédine Zidane into retirement after 19 minutes of overtime. In the closing match of his career the veteran captain of France was sent off for getting too physical in a dispute with Italy's Marco Materazzi by turning and butting the defender in the chest.

The match was a real cliffhanger and remained tied 1-1 after extra time. This is the second time a World Cup final match was decided on penalty kicks. The first time,in an interesting coincidence had Italy on the losing end when they were beat by Brazil in 1994.

The key moment in the shoot-out came when David Trezeguet missed France's second kick, the ball crashing down off the bar and on to the line and out.

With successful kicks from Andrea Pirlo and Marco Materazzi already in the bank, Italy finished with successful kicks from Daniele de Rossi, Alessandro del Piero, and finally, Fabio Grosso.

It ain't baseball...but well done, Raggazzi!