Queen Sofia in Saudi Arabia

You can read about her in Barcepundit here and here. I am going to quote him when he says:

No headscarf, a bright red dress with -though you can’t see it in this picture- a skirt at half her royal calves. A message of solidarity with the oppresed Arabic women.

I wonder if she asked for a glass of wine with her meals… that’d have been cool.

 

Oh, yeah, that would have been cool.

And the contrast is evident between the Spanish Queen and the women that appear with her in the photo. I am not very monarchist but I admire her for long: I think she is a wonderful Queen, what I cannot say about the rest of the Spanish monarchy.

Cross-posted at TAJP in Blogger.

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The Social Characterisation of Jihadist terrorism in Spain

I quoted several months ago an article by Real Instituto Elcano about the Social characterisation of Global Jihadist-Salafist terrorism. Well, the same Institue now presents another article about the Social Characterisation of Jihadist terrorism in Spain. I quote only the conclusion, although it’s important to read it completely.

A pattern of characteristics emerges in regard to persons in some way suspected of involvement in Jihadist terrorism in Spain. They are predominantly men, born between 1966 and 1975, aged between 26 and 40 when arrested, basically North African immigrants and mostly without residence permits. They tend to settle in Madrid or Barcelona and other coastal locations. Despite some notable exceptions, they are generally individuals with low levels of education and generally low standards of professional skills.

This sociological profile provides certain guidelines for the prevention and containment of international terrorism in Spain, in addition to intergovernmental initiatives developed inside and outside Europe. First, material and human resources available for policing must be provided urgently, although not exclusively, for certain niches in the social structure in certain areas of Spain. It is also necessary to continue to strengthen antiterrorist cooperation with a series of Arab or Islamic countries, as is the case with Western nations who hold significant operating intelligence.

Secondly, since the Jihadists in Spain present themselves as Muslims and exercise proselytism, it is absolutely vital to promote further dialogue between government authorities and leaders of Islamic communities, who in turn must continue to be committed to delegitimising the terrorism which is practiced in the name of Islam. Just as it is important to develop effective social integration programmes which contribute to satisfying the expectations of North African immigrants with low education levels and scant professional qualifications, to lay the foundations for making their time in Spain more gratifying at a personal level, and to decrease the likelihood of their feeling individually frustrated and collectively slighted, and therefore turning to excluding Islamic subcultures and Jihadist movements.

Finally, the fact that most persons imprisoned in Spain for links with Jihadist terrorism come from North Africa and the Middle East suggests we define and coordinate public diplomacy that is focused, interministerial in dimension and includes the relevant players from civilian society. This public diplomacy must be part of a national strategy on international terrorism and be complementary to other collective programmes to which the Spanish government must either contribute or promote. Its purpose would be to convey not only to the political classes but also to public opinion in the Arab and Islamic world the meaning of the measures implemented to prevent this kind of terrorism in Spain, as well as less well-known or widespread aspects of Spanish immigration policy, religious matters, international cooperation and foreign intervention.

A public policy of this kind has nothing to do with appeasement towards Jihadists, but is action aimed at offsetting processes of nurturing hate and terrorist recruitment, such as those observed in Spain among Arab or Central Asian minorities in which global Jihadists see potential for mobilising militants. This is, let us face it, of undeniable importance when the al-Qaeda ideologues, such as Ayman al Zawahiri himself, insist again and again that followers of Islam are systematically offended and discriminated against in Western countries such as Spain simply because of their religion. This is how they try to make their Jihadist propaganda into a reference framework for those Muslims who perhaps feel slighted, frustrated or alienated, and how they turn a few of them to terrorism

Zapatero: in favor of the Iranian nuclear energy

The United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero here Thursday stressed Iran’s right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Addressing a joint press conference, Annan and Zapatero said negotiation is the best solution to Iran’s nuclear case.

It is quite right that Iran reminds the world of its right to access to peaceful nuclear energy, said Annan adding Tehran should fulfill its commitments within the regulations of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

He praised efforts made by Iran and the European states to resume talks and settle Tehran’s nuclear case, encouraging the sides to boost the move.

HT: Elder of Ziyon.

Well, the good thing here, is that Zapatero’s party, the Socialists are totally oppposed to Spain using nuclear plants to produce electricity. What is more, the Socialists’ program included a proposition to “dispense with nuclear energy”:

The substitution of the 9 nuclear reactors for renewable energies (7.900 W) that are functioning just now would cost between € 15.000 and 20.000 millions, depending on the chosen alternative. To this quantity, we should add the consequences in jobs, because the definitive shut will forze the sacking of 20.000 wordkers; the economic impact in zones where the nuclear plants are sited; and the lose of fiscal benefits for the municipalities. And lastly, the high cost of the dimantlement of the nuclear plants that would be shut.

So, he thinks it’s appropriate to deprive Spain of the only energy that it’s really ours, that reduces our dependence from foreigners. But yet he thinks that Iran, the forth producer of oil in the worls, and one of the first in gas, should have nuclear energy.

In fact, the link in which the Socialists said that they were going to subsitute nuclear energy for others, cheaper and environmental-friendly, has disappeared from its web page. But the Bitacora de Yok, has a very good comment about this:

If they have a better and cheaper energy, don’t they believe the greedy businessmen that are only searching for increasing their benefits would have begun to use it, without any need to force them?

A disaster very coherent. As everything our President is doing.

Technorati Tags: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, PSOE, Socialists, Koffi Annan, UN, EU, European Union, nuclear energy, nuclear crisis

The vote, the Communist and the apostates (UPDATED)

Drinking From Home: Italy: Muslims told to vote Communist

Rome, 5 April (AKI) – The secretary general of Italy’s largest Muslim organisation, the Union of Islamic communities in Italy (UCOII), has called on Italian Muslims to vote for the Party of Italian Communists at the general election… The leader of UCOII said that [the Communist leader] Diliberto’s willingness to accommodate the needs of the Muslim community was a good reason to vote for his party…

This reminds me of something I read the other day at NUEVO DIGITAL, an Spanish on-line newspaper about the United Left (Izquierda Unida in Spanish):

The Andalusian MP from Cordoba, José Manuel Mariscal, has joined the petition of the Islamic Council to open the Cordoba’s Cathedral to Muslim rites and has presented a proposition to let the controlled prayer of all religions in that Cathedral.
[…] His proposition also includes the consitutition of an adress to study, inside the Culture’s Commission, to promote the meeting of civilizations, According to Mariscal, this address will serve to “listen the worries of the different cultures that live in Andalusia or are part of its history, and those of the UNESCO and its homologue in the Arab countries, the ISESCO, and to propose measures to the Analusian Governement to promote the meeting of civilizations”.
Mariscal accused several MSM of promoting “a long-term campaign of islamophobia, that are rejecting the presence of Muslims in several cities and in protests against the opening of mosques, with the risk to push a great sector of inhabitants into marginality”-

Well, those protests against the opening of Mosques, are held mainly in Seville. A city where they are going to buid a magnificent mosque in a public soil with swimming pool, library, etc., inside it … in a community where they were demanding those services for long. Some time ago, they had a web page, titled, “Mezquita, no gracias” (Mosque, no thanks), but now it has dissappeared.

Afterwards they denied they were going to ask it:

Mariscal said that his intention, when he spoke about his initiative that was going to adopt IU (United Left), “was to throw an idea, that, as facts have shown, gives rise to a public debate, having as objective the promotion of understanding and the solidarity between religions, the mixture and the cooperation, and this goal is mantained in the proposition that we will take to the Andalusian Parliament”.
So it is not going to include the petition to the managing council of the Cathedral (Cabildo Catedralicio de Córdoba, which depends from the Archbishop) to study the possibility to let in a controlled manner all kind of prayers in that space”.

This last thing is very grave. The next news are hilarious. This same political party is intending to regulate the apostasy from the Catholic Church with all guaratees. BUT they have said NOTHING abouth Abdul Rahman, and of course, no one has critisized Afghanistan for his process (or Spanish Muslim for not commenting on this issue).

By the way, as I am not blogging very much these days, I have to say that Adbul Rahman is peacefully installed in Italy and that he has been given asylum in Italy. The Italians should be very proud of their Governement for this action. Liberale per Israele, Melone.org . As a result the Talibans have threatened with carrying Jihad attacks, the President Hamid Karzai, as culprit for not having put obstacles to the foreing meddling in the country politics. According to the fundamentalistic movement, the case of the Afghan convert to Christianity has proved that Karzai is a puppet in the hands of foreigners. (via No-Way).

UPDATE: Reading A New Dark Age is Dawning, I find this piece of news:

An Afghan man who could have faced the death penalty for becoming a
Christian has said he would probably have been killed had he remained
in Afghanistan.

Speaking to journalists in Italy, where he has
been given asylum, Abdul Rahman, 41, thanked Pope Benedict XVI for
leading the campaign to have him freed.

He said he never wanted to return to Afghanistan and was concerned for the safety of his family there.

Afghan MPs have condemned his release and said he should have not have left

Technorati Tags: Communists and Islam, Italy, Italian elections, Cordoba’s Cathedral, apostasy, Talibans, Adbul Rahman, Asylum, Hamid Karzai

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Looks like the March 11th bombings have another kind of authors

La nota que no llegó al juez: "ETA se encuentra detrás de la comisión de los atentados del 11 de marzo"

Dos años después de la matanza del 11-M, el juez Del Olmo ha exigido que se le remitan "cuantos efectos, objetos, vestigios, piezas de convicción o cualquier otro elemento que se haya obtenido en el curso de las investigaciones por los atentados del 11 de marzo y el 3 de abril de 2004". El Mundo desvela ahora que la Comisaría de Telesforo Rubio ha ocultado al magistrado una nota en la que un confidente desvela que un primo de El Chino dijo que "ETA se encuentra detrás de la comisión de los atentados acontecidos el pasado día 11 de marzo de 2004, al haber entregado cantidades de droga para que éstos a su vez pagaran al individuo que facilitó los explosivos". El primo de El Chino se encuentra detenido en Marruecos por lo que ha sido imposible poder verificar las confidencias de Omar. Pero este mismo confidente ha informado de otra serie de cuestiones relativas a los atentados que han sido verficadas y coinciden con otras pruebas del mismo sumario

The photo that appears above belongs to "the Chinese", one of the presumed terrorists of the March 11th bombings who presumably committed suicide in Leganes.

Translation: Two years after the March 11th attacks, the Judge Del Olmo has demanded the police to hand him over "any efects, objects, vestiges, conviction pieces or any other element that has been obtained in the investigations that are held about the March11th and April 3rd bombings". El Mundo [a Spanish newspaper very active in the investigation; article not free, in Spanish] now reveals that the Police Station of Telesforo Rubio [a policeman who prepared his declaration before the March 11th Parliamentary Comission in the Socialist's Gobelas seat] has concealed the Judge a note in which a confident assures that a cousin of The Chinese said "ETA is behind the March 11th terrorists attacks. It was ETA who supplied the drugs with which they were paying the people who supplied the explosives". The Chinese's cousin is now detained in Morocco so it has been impossible to verify the Omar's testimony. But he has informed about a lot of other relevant deeds related to the attacks all of which have been found to be true.

Spain charges 32 over terror plot

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Spain charges 32 over terror plot

The alleged plot involved ramming an explosives truck into the court [in the photo, below]

 A Spanish judge [Grande-Marlaska] has charged 32 suspected Islamic militants over an alleged plot to blow up the National Court in Madrid.

The charge sheet – published on Tuesday – included membership of a terrorist organisation, conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and forgery of documents.

Most of the 32 suspects were arrested in late 2004, the Spanish news agency Efe reported.

Madrid suffered train bombings in March 2004 which killed 191 people.
 ‘Martyrs for Morocco’

One of the men charged on Tuesday was the alleged mastermind of the court plot, Mohamed Achraf, the Associated Press news agency says.
Mohamed Achraf was extradited from Switzerland

Spanish authorities suspect Mr Achraf, a Moroccan national, of heading the plan to ram the court with a truck laden with 500kg (1,100lbs) of explosives.

No date has ever been given for the planned attack, nor any explosives found.

The Spanish judge delivering the indictment, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, said the attack could have killed 900 people [in fact, 980].

The court is the base for Spain’s anti-terrorist investigations.

Mr Achraf was held on immigration charges in Switzerland in August 2004 and extradited last April.

High-profile Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who headed the investigation, has alleged Mr Achraf set up the “Martyrs for Morocco” group in 2003 during time he spent in jail in Spain for fraud from 1999 to 2002.

Judge Garzon has said he thought the group had links to those responsible for the Madrid train bombings in 2004.

Technorati Tags: Grande-Marlaska, Audiencia Nacional,

Security Council Fails To Reach Accord on Iran

The Security Council’s five permanent members and Germany failed to reach agreement at a meeting Monday on how to respond to the Iranian nuclear crisis but said they would forge ahead in the coming days to break the impasse.
The deadlock comes as U.S. and European officials confirmed that Britain had presented the United States with a paper outlining a possible diplomatic strategy to resolve the crisis, including new talks and concessions. But the British representative at Monday’s talks, John Sawers, said Britain had not made such a proposal at the meeting.
Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns said the United States is not going to participate in direct negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue.
Top foreign policy coordinators for the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany issued a joint statement that echoed an agreement Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had reached with those five governments in January. The statement expressed “deep concern” that Iran has “failed to respond positively” to requests by the United Nations’ Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency to suspend its uranium enrichment activities and allow for more intrusive U.N. inspections of its nuclear energy program.

From the Washington Post

Iran must be very worried because of this “deep concern”.

At the same time, Victor Harel, the Israeli Ambassador in Spain has stated that

“Iran is an international danger” because of “its economic potential, the antisemitism of his President, Ahmadinejad, and its intentions of achieving nuclear weapons”.

He also added that is necessary that the EU, USA and Israel continue to be united in pointing Iran as an international danger and the “conclusive” diplomacy, because if that policy does not succed “we will enter a much more dangerous path”.

Accordingly to Iran Focus, not only Israel is going to be the target -being that grave enough-, but looks like Iran is making an alliance with the Al-Qaeda people living in Iran.

We should also read a very discouraging post from Sandmonkey. The comments are also worth reading.

And by the way, looks like BBC has signed a deal with Iran. In fact a HUGE ad campaign:

“The publicity campaign will be in the form of advertisements introducing cultural, historical and development attractions of Iran,” said Deputy Head of ICHTF for Cultural and Communication Affairs Alireza Sajjadpour.

Talking to IRNA, he referred to BBC, CNN, Germany’s ZDF, al-Jazeera and al-Arabia as the international TV networks selected for introducing the tourist sites.

“We have signed a huge agreement with BBC,” he added. He, however, declined to cite the contracts’ details.

Are they going to talk about the mullahs and the human rights abuses? Are they going to speak about the women’s situation? I think it’s good that the internal situation of Iran is known abroad. But really, an ad campaign paid the ayatollahs is going to really show the real Iran? I just doubt it.We have only good news about the dissident Akbar Ganji, who is home at last: although he is very frail, he is more determined now to say what he said 6 years ago.

technorati tags: nuclear crisis, Security Council, Akbar Ganji, BBC, Victor Harel, Iran, Germany