Turkey's Hidden Agenda...?

The Republic of Turkey almost at the point of celebrating its centennial, no longer quite resembles the Turkey that its founder, Kamal Ataturk, left behind, as a secularly governed country more closely aligned with the West than with its neighbours to the East. Ataturk, a member of Turkey's military, evoked huge admiration and resolute loyalty in the military which, long after his death, managed the country's political affairs to ensure it would never return to its former state as a backward-looking Islamic parochial nation mired in squalor and ignorance.

Galata Bridge in Istanbul, Turkey, taken between 1880 and 1900.

The Republic of Turkey turns 90 today. On October 29, 1923, the Turkey officially became an independent nation from the Allied forces that occupied the country after the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I.

The military did its work well, upholding Kamal Ataturk's standards and principles. Until the advent of a new political party taking inspiration from a huge movement erupting within the world of Islam of a purer form of Islam, hearking to the past, demanding of the faithful more stringent obedience to the precepts of original Islam. Now, where once any presence of symbolic Islamic cultural headgear was forbidden, Turkish women are once again cladding themselves in traditional garb and four members of the Turkish parliament appeared recently in headscarves.

Fellow MPs offered their support to the women wearing headscarves

The ruling Justice and Development Party, with its roots in political Islam, has overturned Turkey's 90-year-old secular tradition rooted in Kamal Ataturk's transformation of the country from an inward-looking to a Western-oriented country, bringing it to new standards of education, commerce, wealth, and connections to its European neighbours. Turkey is a member of NATO, and has been attempting for years, to be included in the European Union. It would be the only Muslim nation in the EU if it succeeded.

But Turkey has turned away under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, its Prime Minister under the AKP, from Ataturk's Turkey. He has recently scandalized NATO by seeking to purchase military equipment from China, an acquisition which would not permit Turkey to integrate its military communications with those used by other NATO countries. This, after Turkey had completely demoralized and truncated the power of Turkey's military by accusing senior officers of scheming to overturn the current government; placing them on trial and sentencing them to lengthy prison terms.

The European Union insists that before it can consider Turkey's wish for inclusion in the EU, it must see definite signs of improvement in its human rights record. Turkey has negotiated with its Kurdish population which has perennially been oppressed, its language suppressed and its culture denied; assaults committed against its people and the militants among them, killing thousands over the years, struggling to attain a country of their own; the largest ethnic group in the world without their own geography.

Turkey has sundered a decades-old friendship and cooperation with the State of Israel, favouring under the new Islamist government, re-awakening ties with the Muslim countries of the Middle East with whom formerly it had maintained a disinterested distance. It now supports the Hamas government in Gaza, and had rekindled ties with Syria and Iran. Since the Syrian conflict, however, Ankara has supported the Syrian Sunni rebels, while continuing to maintain arm ties of friendship with Shi'ite Iran, Syria's protector.

It has been recently revealed that hundreds of al-Qaeda recruits have settled temporarily in southern Turkey safe houses before moving on to fight as jihadists in Syria, against the Baathist Alawite Shia regime of President Bashar al-Assad, whom Turkey now fiercely opposes. As a member of NATO, Turkey's covert assistance to member of al-Qaeda represents a betrayal of its membership and its allegiance to Western values.

But there is a network of hideouts in place in Turkey enabling the transit of al-Qaeda members crossing the border to take part in Syria's brutally miserable civil war. "Every day there are mujahedeen coming here from all different nationalities", said Abu Abdulrahman, a Jordanian employed in managing the inflow and outflow of the foreign jihadists. The network of receiving centres for those aspiring to join al-Qaeda's Syrian branch are his business.

"We have to research you to make sure you are not a spy. If you are foreign, someone in our network needs to recommend you", he explained using Skype to communicate, and working with volunteers from countries including Britain. It is estimated that there may be around ten thousand foreign fighters now in Syria, some of them veterans of the Iraq war, others first-time jihadists from abroad, significantly from Western countries.

"When you see the women and children -- any human being -- being shot or raped or killed in front of their fathers and families, just because they pray to Allah, you have to be moved by the humanity of it. If just one person is injured and something goes against Islam, we must react", explained Abu Abdullah an Australian volunteer who came to fight in Syria because, he claimed "Western lifestyle stands against Islam".

Strange reasoning, that. Who is slaughtering the women and children of whom he speaks so movingly if not other Muslims? What has their slaughter to do with the West? It is the West that stands helplessly by, wringing its hands is misery over its inability to intercede between ferociously brutal strands of Islam; Sunni against Shia, tribal animosity against tribal vengeance. 

Ten thousand members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Syria, and fifteen thousand Hezbollah fighters newly revealed to be preparing for another Quyresh-type conflict. They meet on the field of battle and they alone are responsible for the incalculable damage to the lives of Muslim men, women and children. If only their joining in conflict against one another might result in their own annihilation, the world they claim to care for and fight for, would find salvation.

The Desperation of Survival

"The Syrians we work with, they talk to us about their neighbours and they tell us how helpful and friendly they are. The attitude seems to be, 'What else can we do but be hospitable?' It's amazing, really."
East Amman, Jordan, Care International's Syria centre director Matt Sugrue

"The Jordanians have gone shoulder to shoulder with us in places like Afghanistan and Haiti, and our relationship contains all the bells and whistles that you wouldn't normally associate with such a small country."
Canadian Foreign Affairs official

"Our treatment here is already starting to be awful. It is because we are considered people who are taking away people's jobs, and taking away their needs. Rents are going up, and people blame us. People need work, and clothes, and they are getting into debt.
"There is a pain in our hearts. We were peacefully living. Now our country is being torn apart. And there is nothing we can do."
Jihad Saleh, Syrian English teacher, refugee in Jordan

The number of homeless refugees, both those remaining within Syrian borders, forced to leave their homes, their towns, their city suburbs as a result of deadly attacks threatening their lives, and with the pain of having lost relatives, continues to grow. Currently that number, according to the United Nations, is seven million traumatized Syrian civilians, desperate and torn with the reality of their desperate situation.

That number can be compared with the number of Palestinians who originally fled when Israel declared itself a State with the blessing of the United Nations in 1948, and was immediately attacked by a combined Arab army determined to dislodge them from the Middle East. While the United Nations has kept the original 700,000 Palestinian refugees and their generational descendants on permanent refugee status, in 'refugee camps' which are really cities with all the amenities of city living in a permanent welfare state, ten times that number have been made homeless by a government willing to slaughter its own.

In Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon, millions of Syrian men, women and children have fled their country of birth to take refuge from conflict and deprivation, oppression and menacing government attacks. Jordan, whose population already consists of Palestinians who had migrated there in 1948 and never left -- though Jordan's military fought a brutal war to dislodge the PLO -- has taken in an estimated million Syrian refugees and is doing its best to manage their needs.

With the help of the United Nations, and with the willing assistance of other countries with which Jordan has agreements, Jordan is managing its burden. Canada is one of those countries, having signed a Canada-Jordan Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement, a free-trade agreement and a Canada-Jordan Nuclear Cooperation Agreement. Direct support to Jordan for assistance with budget relief and refugee care has come from Canada in the sum of $130-million.

AP Photo, Manu Brabo

Along with the Palestinians, the Hashemite Kingdom ruled by King Abdullah II, has also given refuge to Iraqis who fled their country after the U.S.-allied invasion to remove Saddam Hussein. Its ancient heritage included the capital Amman having been conquered by biblical King David before it was ruled by the Greek Ptolemies, then Rome, and its emergence as a Byzantine Christian city. The eighth Century saw it invaded by Islam, and that is its status to the present day, with Jordan being one of only two Islamic countries in the Middle East sharing a peace treaty with Israel.

Jihad Saleh, the refugee from Syria living in Amman, was once a man of modest substance in his home country. "Of course, we are beggars now. I brought my wife and five children here from Damascus because I had to, for their safety.  Now, all our savings are gone, and I do not know what we are going to do." Unlike the Syrians living in tented refugee camps with basic amenities, Mr. Saleh is among those Syrian refugees who were able to pay for rent, for food and other necessities.

AP Photo - Manu Brabo

Now, however, his family's savings have been depleted, and he is concerned about how they will manage to survive. Because of the huge influx of refugees, an influx that continues, the small country of Jordan is hard put to accommodate them all. It is not a wealthy country, and depends on the goodwill and understanding of the international community to aid it in meeting expenses relating to the refugees' needs. When goods and services are in high demand difficult to meet, stress occurs as prices rise and scarcity looms.

And while Jordanians have been helpful and accommodating, sympathetic to the plight of the refugees, they too are under everyday living pressures of providing for their own families. It is inevitable, always has been and always will be, that when a country is overrun with an overabundance of refugees fleeing war in nearby countries the first reaction is to help, before resentment at rising prices and employment challenges kick in.

Cantankerous Huffing and Puffing

"In the case of the leader of the NDP, it is my understanding and he can confirm not only has his party in the past paid for certain legal expenses, it even paid findings of wrongdoing against him by a court of law that the party paid almost $100,000 in damages on his behalf. Can he confirm that?"
Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Prime Minister Stephen Harper waits in the Senate for the Speech from the Throne recently. Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

"He's talking about something that happened almost 15 years ago with another party in another Parliament. It's all on the public record. I invite you to look it up."
Leader of the Official Opposition NDP Thomas Mulcair

This photo, taken last Thursday, of NDP leader Thomas Mulcair laughing at a response given by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the House of Commons has — as they say — gone viral.

Also on the public record is an event closer in time relating to the current party in this very Parliament, when the NDP paid for the legal civil defence costs of New Democrat MP Pat Martin
who took a personal loan from the NDP and received contributions to his legal defence fund from the Canadian Labour Congress, the United Steelworkers and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, along with 14 other unions or locals.

Despite that political contributions from unions at the federal level have been illegal since 2004; Pat Martin side-stepped that inconvenient issue by claiming the donations to his legal defence to have been personal "gifts", which he gratefully accepted. Admittedly, Senator Mike Duffy was anything but grateful to the PMO for paying his debts to the Canadian public, because he insists it is they who had lost their "moral compass", not he; because, in claiming expenses he was not entitled to, he had done nothing wrong.

Details, mere details, inconvenient nuisances at any time, a pain in the old wreckage-train on this occasion. There is great pain for Senator Duffy in false accusations besmirching his sterling reputation. He feels it should still shine bright and silver, and accuses the PMO of tarnishing it a bruised black-and-purple. All of which has caused him great untoward suffering. And, as he reminded sympathizers, he has a (sigh) heart condition.

He has testified, at length and heatedly, in an attempt to set the record straight. His intentions have always been impeccably true to the Conservative cause. And now that the Conservative cause has turned ugly on this most stout of honourable fellows, why then, he is prepared to divulge all the clumsy details of a party desperate to separate itself from the actions of someone who has always, he claims, been true to their principles of integrity and resolute honesty.

Senator Duffy is a heart patient. Senator Wallin is a cancer survivor. Have a heart. Suspending them without pay from the Senate cannot be tolerated. They have, after all, restored to the Senate and presumably the trust of Canadians, though they have done nothing whatever wrong, and resent the implications that they have, those funds claimed by their detractors to have been attained wrongfully. Their health insurance coverage and additional perquisites must not, repeat not, be withdrawn.



The national press which has outdistanced itself in effort and indignation and tireless digging on behalf of the public weal to reveal the sad machinations of the government in power to protect itself from revelations harmful to its reputation would take immense satisfaction if greater numbers of the public accepted their assumptions and putative revelations. And they write ever so admiringly of the astute and acute questioning of NDP leader Thomas Mulcair of the embattled Prime Minister.

Put a sock on it, Thomas. You too, news scribes.

The Newly Powerful and The Meek

Russia and Vladimir Putin are making waves. Mr. Putin has overtaken U.S. President Barack Obama as Forbes's candidate for top spot of the world's most influential individual. Perhaps Mr. Obama might consider trading in his Nobel Peace prize for a bare-chested photograph of himself to wow the world. He most certainly has not fulfilled the world's expectations of that fresh new face with his fresh new ideas of hope and audacity.

ALEXEY NIKOLSKY / RIA NOVOSTI / KREMLIN POOL/EPA 

Mr. Putin, on the other hand, the autocratic ruler of a renascent, oil-rich Russia, has restored pride in the country's Communist past, charging and incarcerating his political opponents, imposing a rigid law-and-order schedule, growing personally immensely wealthy and building sumptuous mansions for himself, while America groans under dysfunctional government closing down in a grudge match between political parties each opposing the aspirations of the other.

While the United States of America reels over revelations of spying both internal and external by their National Security Agency, Moscow welcomed Edward Snowden with open arms, offering him the clemency of their forgiveness and giving him haven from extradition to the U.S. to stand before a court of law charged with disloyalty to his country. The charged emotions of betrayal emanate from furious European allies of the United States, disappointed that the NSA has snooped on them.

But last month at the St. Petersburg Group of 20 summit meeting foreign delegations were given lovely gifts from the Kremlin. USB pen drives capable of downloading sensitive data from laptops, cellphone rechargers capable of tapping into emails, text messages and cellphone calls. President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy is reputed to have been the first to raise suspicions about Russia spying on foreign powers, but where's the outrage, pray tell?

President Putin prevailed upon President Obama to pedal back from his 'red line' intention to march on Syria to rescue the millions of Syrian civilians who have become refugees, and restore their country to them, wrenching it from the bloody control of the tyrant who bombs and strafes his population but who cannot any longer commit atrocities with chemical weapons. That's the smilin' work of clever President Putin, and the accompanying loss of prestige for President Obama.

Is the Kremlin in any measure responsible for President Obama's administration playing nicey-nice with the Islamic Republic of Iran, or has President Obama decided that he might just as well make a full sweep of the Middle East, having alienated America's long-time allies there by dumping former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in favour of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammad Morsi, then damning the Egyptian military, and abandoning its alliance with Israel and Saudi Arabia in favour of scowling Ayatollah Khamenei?

In 2008, researchers at the Citizen Lab of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs discovered that the Chinese version of Skype had been coded with a special surveillance system. That special coding sent data to China's security services in response to certain keyboarded key words. The server where the messages were stored was not password protected, giving access to millions of personal chats, credit card numbers, business transactions and a multitude of other private goodies.

Whatever happened to unique American enterprise?

Just Cause

"There are some people who believe that there should only be disciplinary action taken if a senator is found guilty or is charged with criminal wrong-doing. I don't think, and I don't think most Canadians believe, that that is an acceptable standard. It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that these senators collected up to six figures worth of ineligible expenses, did so willingly and over a long period of time. What I think most Canadians would say is that, if you did that in your work, your boss would not wait until you were convicted of a crime. Your boss would say that that alone requires that action is taken in terms of your job. To say, 'Just repay the money', we are way past that stage in these cases. What Canadians expect is that when people abuse a position of trust at this level over this time period and this clearly, there will be appropriate action taken that removes them from the public payroll."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Once news hounds grip a story that they feel has immeasurable traction they become bulldogs, unwilling to let it go, indulging in the giddy perception that they are performing a huge service to the country in revealing corruption where none should exist, betraying the Public Trust. No one within the public, on the other hand, unless they are perpetually in a state of self-delusion, believes that those elevated to political office whether by popular vote or appointment, is anything but human.

Those human beings for the most part think of themselves as decent people, as people who dedicate themselves to furthering the public weal, and in their belief in self, feel they are entitled to respect and to the emoluments that result from the office they hold. What greater respect than to sit in the House of Commons, or in the Senate; to be a part of the Parliament of Canada? Sometimes their situation simply is too much to bear and dreams of entitlements capture their spirits.

Government revenues represent a huge treasury, and it all too often seems impersonal, amorphous, there to be used, or to be taken for causes meant to further the agenda of government serving the public. That furtherance can be reflected in new services to the public, or it can be reflected, in the opinion of the entitled, in claiming greater entitlements. Three senators chose the last route, while convincing themselves they were creating the first route.

Within the general public people know that if an employer in private enterprise feels they have cause to be displeased with the performance of an employee, that employee can be dismissed. In the case of an employee being found engaged in activities useful to himself but injurious to the company, this is considered reason for discharge. Employers in Canada have the legal right to fire employees they feel do not serve the interests of the employer.

Due process can be served legally in Canadian law once an employee is fired if they seek redress for "wrongful" dismissal. If everyone who was ever let go from a job in the private sector made the kind of denials of wrong-doing and insistence on reconsideration that is being seen in the case of Senators Patrick Brazeau, Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy in the face of charges of feather-nesting, chaos would result.

But the three senators feel entitled in reflection of their Senate appointments. They are the elite within society.

Meriting public attention and the helpful scrutiny of the news media to uncover wrong-doing by their employers, while themselves insisting that fault lies not with them but with the actions of others. Their lack of meretricious judgement is what impaled them on the stake of restitution of what they wrongfully, unethically claimed, but with the skill of their former livelihoods they aid the very news-gathering-and-issuing community they were once part of.

Senators Wallin and Duffy in particular brazenly claimed a gaspingly large sum of money for themselves in recompense for situations they personally felt themselves imperiously entitled to receive. Yet Senator Duffy has the unmitigated gall to claim that he is innocent of suspicion that he bilked the taxpayer of considerable sums of treasury, and was forced to explain himself at the demand of the PMO. He will not go willingly into the dark night of infamy without besmirching Mr. Harper.



Everyone adheres to the valuable notion that justice must be done, and it must be seen to be done fairly. Although the actions and activities of the senators were not quite fair to those who trusted them, we can do better, and we await the formality of charge-and-trial before discipline may be enacted. But what is being considered as discipline is not the cessation of employment, but a hiatus and the punishment of the suspension being unpaid, for good measure.

If the three people involved in this imbroglio bent out of all proportions to the importance it has in the business of administering the affairs of the country were to see their demands met, why shouldn't all Canadians who are hired and fired demand equal treatment? Even ordinary Canadians who hold executive positions in companies are susceptible to being let go if they are suspected of having been dishonest; why should appointed senators who flagrantly abuse trust placed in them be treated differently?

They had the opportunity to intimately address their peers in the Senate, denying all charges of improper conduct, despite the clear and consistent evidence that has been revealed to the contrary. That the PMO staff made an attempt to protect the Prime Minister from a back-lash is understandable enough. That the Prime Minister of Canada was complicit in this whole unfortunate affair is a charge that cannot be seriously considered. His personal character flinches from any such association.

If ordinary Canadians must observe the norms of decent, honourable and trustful behaviour in the commission of their employment, why should those expectations be relaxed in relation to extraordinary Canadians given the opportunity to serve their country and choosing instead to immorally serve themselves at the expense of their country?

Britain: "A World Capital for Islamic Finance"

by Soeren Kern
October 31, 2013

"I want London to stand alongside Dubai and Kuala Lumpur as one of the great capitals of Islamic finance anywhere in the world." — David Cameron, Prime Minister, Great Britain.
But critics say that British ambitions to attract investments from Muslim countries, companies and individuals are spurring the gradual establishment of a parallel financial system based on Islamic Sharia law. The Treasury also said some sukuk Islamic bond issues may require the government to restrict its dealings with Israeli-owned companies in order to attract Muslim money.

The London Stock Exchange will be launching a new Islamic bond index in an effort to establish the City of London as one of the world's leading centers of Islamic finance.

Britain also plans to become the first non-Muslim country to issue sovereign Islamic bonds, known as sukuk, beginning as early as 2014.

The plans are all part of the British government's strategy to acquire as big a slice as possible of the fast-growing global market of Islamic finance, which operates according to Islamic Sharia law and is growing 50% faster than the conventional banking sector.

Although it is still a fraction of the global investment market -- Sharia-compliant assets are estimated to make up only around 1% of the world's financial assets -- Islamic finance is expected to be worth £1.3 trillion (€1.5 trillion; $2 trillion) by 2014, a 150% increase from its value in 2006, according to the World Islamic Banking Competitiveness Report 2012-2013, published in May 2013 by the consultancy Ernst & Young.

But critics say that Britain's ambitions to attract investments from Muslim countries, companies and individuals are spurring the gradual establishment of a parallel global financial system based on Islamic Sharia law.

British Prime Minister David Cameron announced the plans during a keynote speech at the ninth World Islamic Economic Forum, which was held in London from October 29-31, the first time the event has ever been held outside the Muslim world.

"Already London is the biggest center for Islamic finance outside the Islamic world," Cameron told the audience of more than 1,800 international political and business leaders from over 115 countries.
"And today our ambition is to go further still. Because I don't just want London to be a great capital of Islamic finance in the Western world, I want London to stand alongside Dubai and Kuala Lumpur as one of the great capitals of Islamic finance anywhere in the world."

UK Prime Minister David Cameron addresses the World Islamic Economic Forum in London on October 29, 2013. (Image source: 10 Downing St. Facebook page)

Cameron said the new Islamic bond index on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) would help stimulate fixed-income investments from Muslim investors -- especially investors from oil-rich Persian Gulf countries -- by helping them identify which listed companies adhere to Islamic principles.

Investors who practice Islamic finance -- which is said to be structured to conform to a strict code of ethics based on the Koran and Sharia law -- refuse to invest in companies that are linked to alcohol, gambling, pornography, tobacco, weapons or pork. Islamic finance also forbids collecting or paying interest and requires that deals be based on tangible assets.

Unlike conventional bonds, sukuk are described as investments rather than loans, with the initial payment made from an Islamic investor in the form of a tangible asset such as land. The lender of a sukuk earns money as profit from rent, as in real estate, rather than traditional interest.

Cameron says the British Treasury will issue £200 million (€235 million; $320 million) worth of sukuk as early as 2014. The objective is to enable the government to borrow from Muslim investors. The Treasury plans to issue fixed returns based on the profit made by a given asset, thereby allowing Muslims to invest without breaking Islamic laws forbidding interest-bearing bonds.

The Treasury also said some sukuk bond issues may require the British government to restrict its dealings with Israeli-owned companies in order to attract Muslim money.

Although Britain has already established itself as the leading secondary market for sukuk -- the LSE has listed 49 sukuk bonds worth $34 billion during the past five years -- such bonds have rarely been issued from local firms and never from the government.

"For years people have been talking about creating an Islamic bond, or sukuk, outside the Islamic world. But it's never quite happened," Cameron said. "Changing that is a question of pragmatism and political will. And here in Britain we've got both."

According to Cameron, this "pragmatism and political will" is being influenced by the fact that Islamic finance is "already fundamental" to the success of the British economy. Indeed, it is.

Britain is already the leading Western center for Islamic financial and related professional services. It is a leading provider of Sharia-compliant finance, with reported assets of $19 billion, according to Islamic Finance 2013, a new report published by The City UK, a financial sector lobby group.

Britain is home to 22 Islamic banks, of which six are fully Sharia-compliant. This is substantially more than in any other Western country or offshore center and is more than double the number in the United States.

In addition, 25 law firms are now supplying services in Islamic finance, which is increasingly being used for major infrastructure projects in London.

Islamic investment has financed London's Shard skyscraper -- the tallest building in the European Union -- and the 2012 Olympic Village. Middle Eastern investors own Harrods, London's most famous luxury department store, and the Manchester City football team.

Muslims also invested in projects such as the massive London Gateway port, the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station and Arsenal Football Club's Emirates Stadium.

Qualifications in Islamic finance are being offered by four professional institutes and at least 16 universities and business schools.

London is also a leader in Islamic retail banking services, with institutions offering a range of Islamic banking products, such as mortgages and car loans.

The growing demand for Islamic retail banking services is being propelled by the demographic transformation taking place in Britain. The Muslim population of Britain will top 3.3 million sometime before the end of 2013 to reach around 5.2% of the overall population of 63 million, according to figures extrapolated from a recent study on the growth of the Muslim population in Europe.

This demographic earthquake -- which is being attributed to large-scale immigration, coupled with high Muslim birth rates and growing numbers of British converts -- is transforming the country's business landscape.

More than one-third of all small- and medium-sized companies in London are believed to be Muslim-owned, and British Muslims contribute at least £30 billion to the economy, according to a new report published by the Muslim Council of Britain.

The demographic changes are also contributing to the establishment of parallel Islamic financial and legal systems in British public life.

In 2012, the British government began offering Muslim workers a Sharia-compliant pension fund in the public sector. A new government agency, the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST), will give Muslims who do not already have a company pension the option of investing in the HSBC Life Amanah Pension Fund, a Sharia-compliant pension scheme. The initial target market comprises some 200,000 Muslims in Britain.

In June 2011, Pointon York, an independent financial services company based in Leicestershire in central England, announced that it will begin offering four Sharia-compliant Self-Invested Personal Pensions (SIPP) products that comply with Islamic law.

Pointon York was the first specialist SIPP provider to receive Sharia-compliant accreditation by the Islamic Bank of Britain (IBB), which has pioneered Islamic retail banking in the United Kingdom. The IBB will supervise the entire life-cycle of Pointon York's pension funds to ensure full compliance with Sharia legal principles.

Muslim families in Britain can already acquire Sharia-compliant baby bonds under the British government's Child Trust Fund scheme. In 2008, Britain's Financial Services Authority (FSA) authorized the establishment of the country's first Islamic insurance company as well as the country's first Sharia MasterCard, called the Cordoba Gold MasterCard.

In addition, takaful, a type of Islamic insurance, reached a new high in 2012, with premiums estimated to have reached around $30 billion, according to The City UK, the financial services lobby group.

PM Cameron told the economic forum that Britain has also taken steps to ensure that Muslims are not discriminated against by implementing measures ending "double taxation" on Islamic mortgages and introducing alternative forms of student and start-up loans to comply with a ban on interest payments. "Never again should a Muslim in Britain feel unable to go to university because they cannot get a student loan simply because of their religion," he said.

But some are saying that Britain should go even farther in aligning its financial system with Sharia law. In an interview with the newspaper London24, Jodie Ginsberg of Demos Finance, a financial services research firm, said: "David Cameron is right to throw Britain's doors open to the Muslim world to showcase our trading wares. But we should also use this forum as an opportunity to consider how the principles of Islamic finance itself, not just the money generated in the Muslim world, might be applied in the UK. Islamic finance is one of the few models successfully to have weathered the 2008 credit crunch and its aftermath."

Speaking on a stage that included Jordanian King Abdullah and the Sultan of Brunei, Cameron dismissed criticism of increasing foreign ownership in Britain: "I know some people look at foreign companies investing in our businesses, financing our infrastructure or taking over our football clubs and ask, shouldn't we do something to stop it? Well, let me tell you, the answer is no."

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.

Related Topics:  United Kingdom  |  Soeren Kern

France: Anti-Semitism Now Mainstream

by Guy Millière
October 30, 2013

"You show that it is possible to be of the Jewish faith without being completely disgusting." — Standup comedian Sebastian Thoen introducing Elie Semoun on Canal Plus TV.
When a leading Jewish organization complained about "a dangerous trivialization of anti-Semitism," the President of the TV channel responded by saying that the Jewish community had "no sense of humor."

A few weeks ago, when French Jewish actor Elie Semoun was a prime-time guest on one of the main French television channels, Canal Plus, the words of Sebastian Thoen, a standup comedian who introduced him may have been meant to be to be laudatory, but took quite a different turn: "You never plunged into communitarianism [Jewish activism] ... You could have posted yourself in the street selling jeans and diamonds from the back of a minivan, saying 'Israel is always right, f*** Palestine, wallala.' You show that it is possible to be of the Jewish faith without being completely disgusting."

Semoun was obviously ill-at-ease, but did not react. A couple hours after the show, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) issued a statement denouncing a "dangerous trivialization of anti-Semitism." The President of the TV channel responded by saying that the Jewish community had "no sense of humor." The incident occurred, however, in a context where the French Jewish community has no reason to have a sense of humor.

Comedian Sebastian Thoen delivers his humorous anti-Semitic routine.

At the end of 2012, Jewish France was republished. The book is a tirade of extreme anti-Semitism, originally published in 1886 by the author Edouard Drumont, and reprinted repeatedly until after World War II and the fall of the Vichy regime.

The publishing company sent a press release for the latest book launch: "A classic of French literature is finally available again." When Jewish organizations protested, articles in Le Monde and Le Figaro (the two leading French daily newspapers) said that Jewish organizations had "overreacted." The publishing company that reprinted Jewish France issued or reissued other books at the same time, such as The International Jew by Henry Ford; The Controversy of Zion by Douglas Reed, the first anti-Semitic writer to deny Hitler's extermination of the Jews, and an Anthology of Writings Against Jews, Judaism and Zionism, including excerpts from the most libelous anti-Semitic writings of the last two centuries. These books are now available at all the most popular French bookstores.

Thousands of copies of each have been sold. The CEO of the publishing company Kontre Kulture [Counterculture, with a play on words] is a famous French anti-Semitic writer, Alain Soral; his last book, Understanding Empire, purports to explain the "Jewish hold" on the world; it has been on French bestsellers lists for more than two years.

In recent months, an openly anti-Semitic black comedian, Dieudonné, presented a series of shows in the main cities of France and Belgium before large and enthusiastic audiences. One of his greatest hits is a song ridiculing the Holocaust and the "chosen people" : Shoah-Ananas (Holocaust-Pineapple). He popularized a gesture of greeting which he dubbed "quenelle" (a French dumpling), which echoes the Nazi salute. The "quenelle" salute consists of extending the right arm and straightening the hand, but the arm is lowered, and not raised at eye level. "Quenelle" is now used by many young people all over the country when they want to show what they think of Jews and Israel.

Recently, pictures of French soldiers stationed outside a Paris synagogue and welcoming visitors with "quenelles" were published on several websites: a military investigation is now under way. The French Minister of Defense said that one should not attach "great importance" to what happened.

At the end of June, a documentary film, Oligarchy and Zionism, was supposed to be released nationwide. The movie poster, with a likeness to editorial cartoons from Nazi magazines at the time of the Third Reich, should have aroused suspicion: it showed a Jew turned into a spider crushing the planet with his crooked legs. The Jew wore a black jacket with the Star of David and the initials of AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] on his shoulders.

The film itself uses all the themes of "classical" anti-Semitism, with a modern twist. It is based on interviews with Shlomo Sand, author of The Invention of the Jewish People, and Thierry Meyssan, who wrote 9/11: The Big Lie, a book explaining that the September 11 terrorist attacks were organized by the CIA and Israel's Mossad. The film's director, Beatrice Pignede, had previously made ​​the film Snapping up the Memory, glorifying the Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, and she participated in the Fars film festival in Tehran in 2012.

The film was announced in various mainstream magazines as an "important event." It was not released because Jewish organizations threatened to picket movie theaters. It is available, however, on many websites, and has been widely circulated. Beatrice Pignede said she was a "victim of the Jewish lobby" and that the "fate" of her film is "proof" of what she wants to denounce.

To say that the majority of the French population is anti-Semitic would be going too far. Polls show that a favorite public figure this year is popular Jewish singer Jean-Jacques Goldman. But it is clear that anti-Semitism is rapidly gaining ground in France. It is clear there is a real trivialization of anti-Semitism that goes way beyond some ugly sentences uttered by a standup comedian during a prime time TV talk show.

A few years ago, anti-Semitism in France was still hiding behind the mask of "anti-Zionism" and hostility to Israel. It is still true, but more often now, the targets are the Jews themselves, and the mask of "anti-Zionism" has fallen away.

In a recently published book, Demonizing Israel and the Jews, Manfred Gerstenfeld explains that what happens in France is happening all over Europe. "Polls show," he wrote," that well over 100 million Europeans embrace a satanic view of the State of Israel (...) This current widespread...view is obviously a new mutation of the diabolical beliefs about Jews which many held in the Middle Ages, and those more recently promoted by the Nazis and their allies."

Seven decades after Auschwitz, the oldest hatred is slowly regaining its place on the continent, and it is no laughing matter.
Related Topics:  France  |  Guy Millière

Hezbollah deploys 15,000 troops for anticipated Qalamoun battle

Thursday, 31 October 2013 -- Al Aribaya

Lebanon's Hezbollah deployed 15,000 fighters on the mountainous al-Qalamoun area north of Damascus. (File photo: Reuters)

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Al Arabiya

Hezbollah has deployed 15,000 fighters for an expected offensive on the mountainous al-Qalamoun area north of Damascus, Syrian opposition sources told Al Arabiya.

The Syrian regime is also reportedly building up its forces in the area, located between Damascus and Homs, Syria’s third largest city to the north.

Hezbollah last spring helped the Syrian regime retake the town of Qusair on the border with Lebanon. Hezbollah said it interfered to “protect” Shiite Lebanese people living in the border area with Lebanon against alleged attacked by the armed Sunni rebels.

Hezbollah also justifies his involvement in Syria with the need to protect Shiite religious sites.

The Damascus-based Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas brigade, a close Hezbollah ally, said it will take part in the expected Qalamoun battle as a response to a recent attack on its headquarters in the capital’s Shiite district of Sayeda Zeinab.

Abbas’s brigade mainly constitutes Iraqi Shiite fighters who have been fighting alongside Assad’s army for months.

Many of the Syrian rebels who fled Qusair went to Qalamoun area and since then there has been talk that a joint Hezbollah and Syrian regime offensive was imminent.

But speculations about the battle have intensified ahead of the planned Geneva II peace conference. Another victory on the ground for President Bashar al-Assad is likely to strengthen his position in negotiations.

The London-based Asharq al-Awsat reported that both the United States and Russia, the main backers of the Geneva II conference, are trying to prevent al-Qalamoun battle from happening.

The newspaper quoted an unnamed Western diplomat as saying that the Syrian regime is pushing for the battle because “it does not want the Geneva conference to take place.”

“Assad now thinks that he has passed the danger, therefore, he is not ready to make concessions in Geneva II,” the diplomat said, adding that opposition Jihadist groups, like Assad, also refuse the talks.

A heavy military confrontation in Qalamoun is likely to have significant repercussions on the neighboring Lebanon, with observers predicting that thousands of refugees could flee across the border.

Hezbollah, which was once applauded by both Sunnis and Shi'ites for its battles against Israel, has lost support from many Sunnis since it started supporting Assad in Syria’s ongoing civil war.

Tags

hezbollah, syrian conflict, opposition fighters, syrian opposition, lebanon, damascus, al-qalamoun

Braced for imminent nuclear accord with Iran, US pulls away from military option, IDF stays on the ready

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 31, 2013, 9:52 AM (IDT)

Tags:  US-Iran,  Iran nuclear,  Israeli air strike,  Barack Obama,  nuclear negotiations,

Israeli Air Force on the ready for Iran

Israel’s high command, working on the assumption that an American-Iranian nuclear accord is near its final stage, plans to keep in place advanced preparations for a unilateral military strike on Iran’s nuclear program into 2014 – hence the IDF’s request for a supplemental NIS3.5bn (app. $1bn) defense budget this week.

debkafile’s military sources report exclusively that the main body of the accord is essentially complete. All the same, President Barack Obama plans to announce before Christmas that only partial agreement has been achieved and negotiations will continue.

He will be cagey in public – partly because not all parts of the accord have been finalized, although the pace of US-Iranian negotiations have been accelerated, and partly to avoid coming clean on the full scope of the deal with Tehran.

 The US-Iranian talks are being held at three levels:

1. American and Iranian diplomats and nuclear experts are discussing the technical aspects of the accord in Vienna. Some of these meetings - but not all - take place at International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in the city.

The talks in Vienna between IAEA chief Yukiya Amano and Iranian deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi on Oct. 29-30 in Vienna were held to review items already approved between the American and Iranian delegations. It remained for the two officials to consider how to integrate those understandings in the future IAEA inspections routine.

Araqchi reported he had brought new proposals to the talks, saying they were productive. Amano said more cautiously: “I am very hopeful that we can come out with a good result.”

2. Secretary of State John Kerry and Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, who is the senior US negotiator, are handling the second level of direct negotiations opposite Foreign Minister Mohammed Zarif and his deputy Abbas Araqchi.

Because of his direct involvement, Kerry sounded unusually impatient Monday October 28, when he said, “Some have suggested that somehow there’s something wrong with giving diplomacy a chance. We will not succumb to those fear tactics and forces that suggest otherwise.”

He did not name Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but clearly lashed out against what he regards as the prime minister’s “fear tactics.” Neither did he admit how much progress had been made in the direct US line with Tehran.

3. The third level deals with sanctions. It is run by officials of the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which oversees the sanctions regime, and senior staff from President Hassan Rouhani’s bureau.

They are working to determine which sanctions will be lifted and at which stage of the negotiations.
This process aims at lifting decision-making on sanctions out of the hands of Congress and transferring it to this secret negotiating mechanism. By this means, President Obama hopes not only to thwart Congressional calls for tighter sanctions against Iran, but also to forestall Netanyahu’s efforts to this end.

On Tuesday October 29, a group of Jewish leaders was invited to the White House to meet with members of the National Security Council for an update on the Iran negotiations and a bid to defuse tensions with them and Israel. But none of the above information about the accelerated progress of a US-Iranian accord was released to them.

Desperately Seeking Haven

"During the day we can't walk, because we are targeted by the planes. They fire rockets at us, and helicopters drop barrels of fuel. Sometimes, we carried our relatives on our shoulders.
"We took back roads. There were snipers all over the place -- sometimes we couldn't move, even at night. The Free Syrian Army helped us and guided us by the hidden routes. They worked as scouts. They have motorcycles on the roads.
"I am thankful to the Free Syrian Army and I ask God to protect them, and to protect the King of Jordan."
Najim Denden, Idlib dairy farmer

MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images     An aerial view shows the Zaatari refugee camp on July 18, 2013 

near the Jordanian city of Mafraq, some 8 kilometers from the Jordanian-Syrian border. The northern

Jordanian Zaatari refugee camp is home to 115,000 Syrians.

"I am asking for help only from God now.
"We are fed up with the international community. They have been giving us promises but nothing on the ground. If only they would put on a no-fly zone, because the regime targets people, animals, crops, everything. Why is there no help? We have been killed not just with chemical weapons but with knives, by mercenaries from Hezbollah, by bombs and guns. Still the international community does nothing to help us.
"Why?"
Esmak Ashar Khaled

Where once the West sympathized and promised backing and practical and arms assistance to the fledgling Free Syrian Army, and there were a mere several thousand Syrians seeking refuge outside the country, now the tide has turned. With the influx of foreign jihadists coming from Pakistan, Egypt, Algeria, Afghanistan and Libya among other sources, the number of Syrians whose exodus from the country has challenged the absorption-and-care capabilities of Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey has ballooned to over two million.

And the international community is no longer anxious to support the rebels for fear their support will validate the presence of Sunni Islamist terrorists like al Nusra and al-Qaeda in Iraq whose voracious appetite for slaughter seems unappeasable in its vast brutality. The silent anguished choice between the foreign jihadists of vicious temperament and the equally vicious regime and its Hezbollah terror allies give no comfort to any onlookers. Previous promises of support and weapons have vanished.

Where once the rebels had the government forces on the run, and the Syrian regime and the military were bleeding important government figures and the army its (mostly Sunni) generals, that has now been sorted out; the regime, with the formidable assistance of Hezbollah and Iran's al-Quds division of the Republican Guard has taken the upper hand, recovering from the hands of the rebel forces towns and villages and suburbs of Damascus. And the people of Syria continue to suffer.

Deprived of all means of existence when the regime withholds electricity, food, medicine and potable water, while incessantly bombing the rebel-held areas, Syrian civilians barely manage to hang on to their lives and their possessions, all too often losing both. Unable to escape the confines of the blockade keeping them starving prisoners in their former homes, they plead for mercy from an implacable government claiming they are harbouring rebels. When finally women and children are permitted to flee, their men are held in 'custody' for further examination.

Peace is not merely elusive in the chaos of this conflict leaving destruction and death to fog the atmosphere of hope, but those in the administration who imagine they are capable of leading the regime they represent toward reasonable accommodation leading to a cessation of violent hostilities are given instant notice. Deputy prime minister Qadri Jamil was dismissed for having "undertaken activities and meetings outside the homeland without co-ordination with the government", when he met with Western officials in Geneva to discuss potential negotiations.

And In Jordanian refugee camps, the country least able to financially and logistically manage the influx of desperate Syrians needing succour and haven from fear and death, the refugees must experience the hazards of attempting to cross remote border outposts without alerting government sharp shooters to their covert presence. The Syrian regime is attempting to prevent the escape of Syrians to safety, stationing soldiers to intercept their intentions. Unarmed civilians are gunned down as they flee toward the border.

"Yes, they do this. We have seen it. The regime is trying to prevent people from leaving the country", agreed Brig.-Gen. R. Al-zyoud Hussein, commander of Jordan's border security forces' Sixth Brigade. He spoke of two Syrian regime military vehicles giving chase to three freight trucks overburdened with mostly women and children refugees headed to the border firing on the trucks. Brig.-Gen. Hussein gave orders for a Sixth Brigade patrol to return fire in warning volleys. And the refugees managed to cross the border.

The rebels of the Free Syria Army have an established agreement with Jordanian border authorities where border force trucks are parked close to safe crossing points, leaving headlights on at night to guide FSA-escorted refugee groups to safety.

 Perspectives of Reality and Entitlements

Amazing. "Right-wing" Israelis are depicted in a photograph burning a Palestinian kefiyyeh in anger and the impression given by the description and their actions and their identification is one of utter condemnation. Their offence is unforgivable, mocking the most visible token of Arab dress, protesting the release of 'prisoners' held by the 'occupied' forces of the State of Israel.

And then there is the contrasting version of events, quite different from the Israelis' sense of being stricken at the release of Palestinians resulting from an agreement to release them as a 'good will gesture' leading to the resumption of peace talks. And while Gaza prepared itself to celebrate the restoration of six of their members freed from prison, two rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza.

Israeli youths wear keffiyehs, traditional Palestinian scarfs, as right wing Israelis demonstrate against the release of 26 Palestinian prisoners on October 29. Photograph by: Uriel Sinai, Getty Images

And there they are, scads of photographs of jubilant, triumphant Palestinians, families whose sons are finally being released from incarceration. Their joy is palpable through the photographs. It is not only mothers, wives, daughters, sons, cousins who are celebrating, playing joyous music, setting off celebratory firecrackers, handing out sweets in celebration of this wonderful event, but so too is their government parading itself proudly as the instrument by which they have managed to free prisoners.

And those photographs are of great happiness that the wicked Jews have finally relented, and after years of punishing incarceration, agreed to release the poor Palestinians who are heroes to their countrymen. Their crime is not that they are 'right-wing', nor that they burned the Star of David, or the Israeli flag, though they've done that too, but that they, each and every one of them, murdered Israelis by malevolent design, young and old.

Released Palestinian prisoner Mohammed Sabbagh, second left in white, surrounded by militants and relatives, greets the crowd upon his return to his home in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin after his release Wednesday.  Photograph by: Mohammed Ballas, AP

These are the returning heroes. Their plight is one that the outside world appears to have sympathy with. The anguish of the surviving members of a family whose dear ones were murdered by Palestinian terrorists balanced against the joy felt by the members of a family whose dear ones have been released from prison where they were sentenced to be incarcerated as punishment for planning and carrying out atrocities.

The man who took the place of Chairman Yasser Arafat, who found ongoing reasons why the PLO could never accept the presence of the State of Israel on land the Palestinians deemed their inalienable own, and which they insist the Jews illegally took from them on the pretense of it representing their heritage, and the curse of the United Nations ruling the land divided between Jews and Arabs, extols the virtues of "resistance", Palestinian-speak for terrorism.

Peace is not possible so long as there is even one terrorist prisoner still in an Israeli prison, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas declared on Tuesday night. "All 104 prisoners [that Israel has agreed to release] will be released, but the real joy will only come when all Palestinian prisoners are released. We undertake to continue the efforts to release all prisoners until they return to their homes", he exulted; the Palestinian Authority committed to efforts ensuring all terrorists serving time in Israeli jails be freed.


"Today is a day of joy for the family and for all of Palestine. My brother is a freedom fighter and we are proud of him and we thank the president for his effort to get him out", declared Tayser Shubair, whose brother Hazem had been jailed since 1994 for causing the death of an Israeli. Somehow, it escapes the imagination of Palestinians that peace could be achieved between the two countries, that they could learn to live in peace, side by side, with no rancour and violence, like decent civilized peoples.

They have for far too long been fed the fantasy of having full rights to possession of all the lands they claim, as Palestinians, to own by right of habitation. Overlooking historical fact that the first Palestinians were Jews. Their intention is to destroy Israel, and their activities to that end, and to continue to cause grief and prostration among Israelis is provoked by their governments, by both Fatah under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza, which encourage them to believe they will one day take full possession of the entire land, absent Israel.

The peace talks currently ongoing are destined to go the way of all previous such peace talks. For the simple reason that there remains an undercurrent of destroying any possibilities to arrive at an amicable settlement between the adversaries because every time Israel reluctantly agrees to ever starker demands, those demands continue to grow and expand and become more painful, to the extent of realization that their purpose is to destroy the potential environment to achieve peace.

The official line for public consumption outside the Middle East is that the Palestinians are fighting for 'independence', while the Israelis are loathe to grant it to them. That vaunted independence is as near to hand as surrendering the more outrageously impossible demands of the Palestinian Authority to the reality of accepting some measure of sacrifice on both sides.

Yet the PA insists it has the right to impose all conditions of a peace settlement,  uniquely endowed with an entitlement that will lead them to prevail in their final goal.

Saving The Planet, One Refusal After Another

"We are losing the war and we are losing the winning conditions that we have taken for granted for 100 years or more. [By] winning conditions I mean that you have a political culture and a political environment where your projects are welcomed and succeed subject to being good projects.
"We do not have those conditions in Quebec. Even a very good project three years ago was not welcomed. And I think we're seeing across the country some very good projects that are not welcome."
Michael Binnion, head, Quebec Oil and Gas Association

"Investors are very used to the risk of exploration. I mean often times you don't find the gas or oil. But we have never experienced this: That you find what  you are looking for [and then it doesn't get developed]. You find a pot of gold and you're not allowed to touch it."
Thomas Korsdalen, Norwegian investment bank Pareto Securities

Environmental intransigence, the pride of principle minus convincing scientific evidence leading to stubborn commitment? Might there be a slight psychological effluent of complacency; as long as the province's revenues are tidily kept to a threshold minimum, financial transfers known as 'equalization payments' will remain intact?

Whatever the reasons, and they could be a complex combination of various factors, including or excluding the above, the Province of Quebec is not open to investment in fossil fuel extraction.

This, despite that the geology of the province, a very large, expansive geographic area, is abundantly provisioned by nature with oil and gas, not a drop nor a whiff of it will be extracted by loathsome corporate profiteers if the province has any say in the matter. And it most certainly does.

Anti-hydrocarbon activism is alive and well in Quebec. The profit motive is not enough to persuade the province to cooperate with Quebec's Oil and Gas Association.

Social movements deploring growth in these sectors, declaring life far more beautiful when limits to growth are applied, appear to be winning the battle; industry is declaring itself stumped. "I think they are doing some good, getting us focused on what we could do better and should do better. But when we let the power to oppose become bigger than the power to propose, we have a problem in society. And [that is happening]", remarked a frustrated Michael Binnion.

"We have a real problem in our industry", he emphasized. Yes, we've noticed that. The global environment movement is thrilled with its successes and portrayals. It's difficult not to notice the lack of concordance between would-be developers and won't-be provincial profit. But it seems it is not to be. Strident environmentalism in the name of Holy Mother Earth has become the secular religion of Quebec, struggling against its deposed and forlorn Catholicism.

Strangely enough, Mr. Binnion's predecessor as president of Quebec Oil and Gas Association, formerly leader of the Official Opposition in the House of Commons with the separatist Bloc Quebecois, Lucien Bouchard himself said: "Society has invented a new religion". Billions of dollars of economic value and spin-off taxation through the mining and exploitation of the province's immense pools of ancient fossil fuel product is unrecoverable as a result of disinterest and refusals of the provincial government to give assent.

A moratorium on shale gas drilling and fracturing followed large public protest over safety and environmental concerns, and millions in market capitalization melted away.

Iraq violence: Fresh wave of bombings kills 20

BBC News online -- 30 October 2013

The number of bombings in Baghdad and across Iraq has escalated recently

Three separate bombings in Iraq have killed at least 20 people, officials have said.

In the deadliest attack north of Baghdad, two suicide bombers killed at least 11 military and police officers overnight on Tuesday.

Another suicide bomber drove his car into a checkpoint near the northern city of Mosul. A third hit near a policeman's car in Tikrit.

Violence in Iraq has reached its highest level since 2008.
Almost 1,000 people were killed and more than 2,000 wounded in September alone, according to the UN.
Hundreds more have been killed in October.

The violence is often fuelled by sectarian divisions between Shia and Sunni Muslims and much of it is blamed on al-Qaeda, who are known to target security forces and other government employees.

Barely a day goes by in Iraq without there being an insurgent attack

 

Since the beginning of 2013, there have been just 16 days in which there were no deaths from violence in Iraq, the most recent of which was 24 May, according to figures compiled by the AFP news agency.

AFP says that about 30 suicide bombers have managed to detonate explosives in attacks this month, while others were killed before they could do so.

The violence comes as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki departs for the US, where he will lobby for increased support for the fight against insurgents.

Experts say that the Iraqi government should pursue longer-term efforts to build trust among citizens, especially among members of the country's Sunni minority.

Police say that in the attack 50km (30 miles) north of Baghdad overnight on Tuesday, two suicide bombers detonated their explosives-laden belts among a group of soldiers and militiamen who had gathered in the orchard of a local Sunni leader, killing at least 11 people.

Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki wants increased US support for the fight against insurgents

 

Police told the AP news agency that the militiamen belonged to the Sahwa movement, also known as the Awakening Council, which was formed by US forces in 2007 to fight insurgents during the height of the Iraq war.

Correspondents say that ever since then it has been a target for Sunni hardliners who consider members of the movement to be traitors.

Police say that the bombers blew themselves up in sequence to maximise casualties - the first detonating his device among the group and the second at the gate of the compound as people tried to flee. At least 23 people were wounded.

In the Mosul attack 360km (225 miles) north-west of Baghdad, a suicide bomber drove his car into a checkpoint near a police station, killing three policemen and four civilians, police told AP.
When an ambulance arrived at the scene, gunmen opened fire on its crew, killing one and wounding three.

In the third attack, a roadside bomb on Wednesday exploded near a police captain's car in Tikrit, north of Baghdad, wounding him and killing a civilian, doctors said.

Cairo bids for brand-new Russian SS-25 ballistic missiles in major arms transaction with Moscow

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 29, 2013, 10:54 PM (IDT)

Tags:  Egyptian mililtary,  Russian arms deal,  missiles,  Bandar bin Sultan,  John Kerry,

Russia's SS-25 road mobile ICBM

Lt. Gen. Vyacheslav Kondrashov, Russian Deputy chief of staff and head of GRU military intelligence, spent the first day of his visit to Cairo, Tuesday, Oct. 29, with Egyptian military chiefs, going through the list of Russian military hardware items they want to buy in their first major arms transaction with Moscow in more than three decades, debkafile’s military sources report. The Egyptians asked Moscow to supply the sort of advanced weapons withheld by the United States, and topped their shopping list with medium-range intercontinental ballistic missiles that cover Iran and most of the Middle East.

They told the Russian general that Moscow’s good faith in seeking to build a new military relationship between the two governments would be tested by its willingness to meet this Egyptian requirement.

They are most likely after the brand-new SS-25 road-mobile ICBM which has a range of 2,000 km., which the Russians tested earlier this month.

Russia is not entirely comfortable with this demand, having signed a mutual agreement with the US to stop manufacturing medium-range ballistic missiles. And so the sale of SS-25 ICBMs to Egypt could get the Russians in hot water in Washington.

Gen. Kondrashov told his hosts that their list would receive serious scrutiny and, in the meantime, Moscow is prepared to offer Cairo long-term credit on easy terms to finance the package. This would relieve cash-strapped Egypt of the need to find the money to pay for the arms and save its leaders having to turn to Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates for funding.

The Russian general’s arrival in Cairo at the head of a large military delegation was the first in 35 years.  Since 1972, when Anwar Sadat expelled the Soviet advisers, Egypt has never acquired Russian weapons.

debkafile: Western sources are divided over the seriousness of the Saudi feud with the Obama administration and tend to minimize Riyadh’s shift away from its traditional ally, the US. But the Saudis are going full tilt to distance themselves from Washington and are meanwhile urging Egypt’s ruler Defense Minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi, to turn away from his country’s long dependence on America.  Hence the large arms transaction with Moscow, which was agreed as early as last July - and reported by debkafile at the time - when Saudi Intelligence Director Prince Bandar bin Sultan met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin.

Word of the arrival of the Russian GRU general in Cairo appears to have prompted US Secretary of State John Kerry to announce Tuesday that he planned to visit to Egypt in the coming weeks. He may be too late to stop Egypt’s drift out of the US orbit, especially since he made it plain that he would insist on meeting with representatives of all the country’s political factions. This was taken to mean the Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition groups.

The Russian delegation has no plans to talk to any non-military figures in Egypt, which means that its members will not step out of the loyal circle centering on Gen. El-Sisi.