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| Recent Publications by New English Review Authors |
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In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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Defending The West:
by Ibn Warraq |
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Nations, Language and Citizenship:
by Norman Berdichevsky |
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Romancing Opiates
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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Which Koran?
by Ibn Warraq |
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Our Culture, What's Left of It
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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What The Koran Really Says
by Ibn Warraq |
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Life at the Bottom
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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The Origins of the Koran
by Ibn Warraq |
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Why I Am Not Muslim
by Ibn Warraq |
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Spanish Vignettes: An Offbeat Look Into Spain's Culture, Society & History
by Norman Berdichevsky |
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Leaving Islam
Edited by Ibn Warraq |
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Here are the Blogs in the Esmerelda Weatherwax category.
Saturday, 17 May 2008
Lord Carey and Canon White call for release of ‘forgotten’ British hostages
 From The Times. I had not forgotten these men.
The former Archbishop of Canterbury has broken a year-long government news blackout to appeal directly to the group holding five “forgotten” British hostages who were abducted in Baghdad last May.
Lord Carey of Clifton released a video statement through The Times in which he greeted the hostage-takers as “honourable men” and “men of faith”.
The former Archbishop recorded his address yesterday at the House of Lords, accompanied by Canon Andrew White, his former Middle East envoy and now Anglican chaplain to Iraq. Canon White has devoted much of the past year to working with Iraqi religious and tribal leaders to try to open lines of communication and engage in dialogue with the hostage-takers.
He addressed the kidnappers on camera, speaking in English and Arabic, and emphasised that the men held captive were devoted to the rebuilding and restoration of Iraq.
The hostages, four security guards and the IT consultant they were protecting, were abducted at the Iraqi Ministry of Finance on May 29 last year. They were taken by a large group of armed men, many of whom were wearing Iraqi police uniforms. The five hostages are reportedly being held in Iran.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said that work was going on behind the scenes and asked news organisations not to publish details of the men’s identities. It also urged the missing men’s relatives not to speak publicly.
In a video released by the kidnappers in December 2007, one of the hostages said: “I feel like we have been forgotten.”
The Times has chosen not to report certain details of the hostages’ current plight because of the sensitivity of the situation.
Canon White said: “We are working hard to make serious contacts. There are positive developments and we really hope we can get our people back. We are told that they are all OK, that they are good.
“It is really difficult, really painful for their families. It is a year now and they wonder when are they going to get their people back –
“What we are doing is separate from everything the Foreign Office, the Government of Iraq and the embassy is trying to do. We are working as religious leaders.”
The captors are understood to be seeking the release of two members of a breakaway Shia faction currently being held in Iraq by US forces.
Lord Carey, 73, is patron of the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East of which Canon White is president. The former Archbishop spent more than a year in Iraq when he did his National Service in the 1950s.
He said he hoped that the captors “share with me a belief in God who is all-compassionate – this is one of the great values of God in Islamic faith”.
A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: “We are doing everything that we can to try and secure the safe return of the hostages. We welcome the support being provided to back up those efforts and we remain in close contact with members of all the men’s families.”
Muslims do keep telling us that Allah is “All compassionate” – no harm in challenging them to live up to it. Posted on 2:27 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Saturday, 17 May 2008
126th FA Cup Final Cardiff City v Portsmouth
Things are going to be very quiet round here for the next 3 hours.
The FA Cup Final kicks off in about 15 minutes at Wembley.
Cardiff City v Portsmouth.
Two teams with an interesting history but these days from the lower divisions. Which is the joy of the FA Cup being a straight knock out competition, that it can and does throw up final matches of teams not in the tiny enclave of big rich clubs.
If you do not get the match on television where you are then you can follow it through live updates here via the FA website
Back at half time. Posted on 8:41 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Saturday, 17 May 2008
Cardiff City 0 Portsmouth 1
Portsmouth are leading nil 1 at half time, Kanu having scored in the 37th minute. The teams are fairly evenly matched at the moment, in my opinion.
As well as the football Kathryn Jenkins and Lesley Garrett sang Abide With Me as a duet and Land of My Fathers and God Save the Queen individually beautifully.
And The Telegraph is doing a better update minute by minute from a blogger. Posted on 9:49 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Saturday, 17 May 2008
Pompey lift the FA Cup
There were no further goals so Portsmouth won the cup this year.
The last time they won the cup was in 1939. There was no more professional football and thus no FA Cup competition for the next 7 years.
Posted on 11:49 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Saturday, 17 May 2008
Ten detained in Europe for suspected Islamist links
Police in Germany, France and the Netherlands arrested 10 people on Friday suspected of providing funding to Islamic extremists in Uzbekistan, officials said.
The 10 men arrested after a yearlong investigation are suspected of belonging to a network involved in funding the Islamist terror organization Islamic Jihad Union, German press agency DPA reported. The group is believed linked to Al Qaida.
Eight arrests took place in France, one in the Netherlands and one in Germany. In Germany, prosecutors said the man arrested in Weil am Rhein in the country's southwest was a 35-year-old of foreign nationality and that he was not wanted by local authorities.
The man is a Turkish immigrant, radio station Südwestrundfunk reported. In France, a source close to the case told news agency Agence France-Presse that eight suspects of Turkish origin thought to have ties to Al-Qaeda were arrested in a suburb of the eastern city of Mulhouse - around 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Weil am Rhein - and in the central Rhone region.
The source said anti-terrorism units moved in on the group as a "pre-emptive" measure and that none of the suspects had committed attacks.
The group "is linked to the Pakistani-Afghan" area, the source added. In the Netherlands the state prosecutor's office said that the man arrested was a 48-year-old Turk in the southern town of Tilburg.
The arrest followed a request from French authorities who have applied for him to be extradited to France, a statement said.
"The French police and intelligence services have over these past months launched a probe into the funding of a Turkish Islamist group"
NB Alan has directed me to the International herlad Tribune which has some background information here.
Posted on 12:46 PM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Friday, 16 May 2008
Gaza: Bomb explodes at Christian school
Unknown assailants detonated a bomb outside a Christian school in Gaza City before dawn Friday, causing no injuries.
The powerful explosion was heard in surrounding neighborhoods at around 4 a.m. Damage was visible at the entrance to the Zahwa Rosary School, which is run by Catholic nuns but caters mainly to Muslim students.
Police officials from Hamas said they were looking into the incident. A school official declined to comment.
The bombing was the latest in a string of attacks on Christian institutions in the overwhelmingly Muslim territory. In the most serious attack, a local Christian activist was murdered in October. His killers have not been found.
Friday's bombing was not the first attack on the school run by the Rosary Sisters. The school was ransacked in June, 2007, along with the nuns' adjacent convent, during a week of intense fighting that ended with Hamas' seizure of power.
Posted on 2:41 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Friday, 16 May 2008
Islamists top threat to Germany
Presenting the government's annual domestic intelligence report, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble on Thursday said Islamic fundamentalists posed a bigger threat to Germany than neo-Nazis, anarchists or other extremist groups.
Islamist terrorism "continues to be the greatest threat to stability and security in Germany and Europe," Schäuble said in Berlin.
It is only thanks to hard work from German intelligence services and their partners in other countries that there have as yet been no serious terrorist attacks in Germany, Schäuble said. He said Germany continues to be a target for terrorists because of its growing military engagement in Afghanistan and the strengthening of the terrorist network Al Qaida.
Intelligence services must develop their ability to gather information in order to prevent future attacks, Schäuble said.
The interior minister also said neo-Nazis continued attempts last year to infiltrate mainstream German culture . . . The government report tallied 4,400 neo-Nazis in Germany in 2007, an increase of 200 people over the previous year. Some 6,300 potentially violent leftists were tallied in 2007. . . formed in part from the ashes of the East German communist party.
Posted on 3:30 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Friday, 16 May 2008
Danish People's Party more 'anti-Islam' than 'anti-Muslim'
The deputy head of the nationalist Danish People's Party said his comments that the party was anti-Muslim were taken out of context.
Kristian Thulesen Dahl, group chairman for the Danish People's Party, sent out a press release Thursday saying he regretted his comment the previous day that the party was 'anti-Muslim', but added that the phrase was taken out of context.
Hornbech's comments were made in response to Dahl's party's campaign against judges wearing headscarves. Dahl said he was using Hornbech's terminology for his own explanation Wednesday and the words were therefore misconstrued.
'We are in many ways anti-Muslim because we can see some deeply problematic things about the way Islam functions,' he said Wednesday. 'When we fight against 10-year-old girls being castrated (how refreshing to hear it called that) or are against segregated swimming classes, then it is those types of examples I think of when I say we are anti-Muslim.'
In the press release Thursday, Dahl denied that the party was against individuals who were Muslims.
Dahl's explanation was backed up by party MP Jesper Langballe, who said the party was more 'anti-Islam' than 'anti-Muslim'.
Posted on 3:38 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Friday, 16 May 2008
Calling a spade a bleeding shovel
I have just posted a piece from the Copenhagen Post, in the course of which a Danish politician speaks of his opposition to an ideology which can involved “10-year-old girls being castrated”. And I commented how refreshing it is to hear it described so.
The practice is still sometimes called “female circumcision” which sounds like the practice which all Jewish boys have done at 8 days old and many (although not so much in the UK and less so these days) non Jewish boys also.
To which, of course, it bears no comparison.
I have heard the practice described as “excision” which sounds totally innocuous and what one has done to a wart or mole.
Even the preferred phrase, Female Genital Mutilation or FGM, could sound to the naive like the sort of punk piercing enjoyed by those of, shall I say, an adventurous nature.
No, castration may not be technically quite accurate but the word expresses the horror very nicely indeed. Posted on 3:56 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Friday, 16 May 2008
1982
This is my 1982nd post. Quite soon there will not be a year in history for me to be reminded of. Hugh, more prolific than I, reached this point a very long time ago.
I found something similar last year at work. I was looking for a old file, and couldn’t quite remember its number, only its name. As Janis Ian sang, “If I treat you as a number it’s because I can’t remember your name” but I had the opposite problem. My colleague looked it up on the computer – "Its DLBC/1250/Z" she called.
“There we are” I said, “I knew it was some time during the reign of Henry III”. He had a very long reign.
I should have thought of this yesterday – in my opinion 1973 was a much better year for music. However from 1982 we could have Computer Love by Kraftwerk, Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder, separate songs by the England and Scotland World Cup squads, Private Investigation by Dire Straits, or some rather good stuff in retrospect by Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and the Stranglers. I like you all too much to inflict John Wayne is big leggy by Haysi Fantayzee on you – we really don’t want to go there.
26 years later they are still performing it live. Posted on 9:10 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Email claims responsibility for Jaipur blasts
A mysterious email by an outfit known as "Indian Mujahideen" has claimed responsibility for Tuesday's blasts in Jaipur. The central security agencies and Rajasthan Police are now trying to work out the source of the mail which has warned about more such attacks in the country.
The email, which was sent Wednesday night to various television channels, has given the frame number (129489) of the bicycle which was planted at Choti Chaupad near Kotwali in the Pink City.
The frame number of a bicycle recovered by the Rajasthan Police from the spot is same, informed sources said, adding the email was written Wednesday from a cyber cafe in Sahibabad in the outskirts of the capital.
The email said India should stop supporting the US in the international arena, "and if you do continue then get ready to face more attacks at other important tourist places...".
Posted on 2:21 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Thursday, 15 May 2008
France jails seven for recruiting Iraqi fighters
PARIS (AFP) — Five French men, an Algerian and a Moroccan were sentenced to between 18 months and seven years in jail on Wednesday for running a network that recruited young Muslims in Paris to fight in Iraq.
A Paris court found the seven men, aged between 24 and 40, guilty of travelling to Iraq to fight US-led forces or recruiting young men in Paris' heavily-immigrant northeast to be fighters from 2004 to 2006.
Frenchmen Farid Benyettou, 27, and Boubakeur El Hakim, 24, considered the ringleaders of the recruitment ring, received a sentence of six years and seven years respectively.
The court ruled that Benyettou had sent young men "to fight in Iraq, possibly carry out suicide attacks, after joining the troops of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi," Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq killed in a US air strike in 2006.
At least a dozen youths from the Paris region, either foreign or of North African descent, many of them friends since childhood, are known to have travelled to fight US-led forces in Iraq. Posted on 2:28 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Police apologise for 'fake' claim over Channnel 4 mosque documentary
The press seems unanimously in agreement of approval that Channel 4 is vindicated in their reporting. This is The Times
The Crown Prosecution Service and West Midlands Police will apologise in the High Court today for wrongly accusing a Channel 4 film of faking an exposé of Islamic extremism.
The producers of Undercover Mosque, a Dispatches investigation that showed preachers predicting jihad and calling for the murder of non-believers, have also accepted a six-figure libel settlement.
The programme, screened last January, showed footage gathered at a number of mosques in the West Midlands using hidden cameras. It included one preacher who praised the Taleban for killing British soldiers.
Another, Abu Usamah, a preacher at the Green Lane mosque in Birmingham, was filmed saying: “If I were to call homosexuals perverted, dirty, filthy dogs who should be murdered, that is my freedom of speech isn't it?”
However, instead of pursuing a prosecution of the preachers, police and the CPS began an investigation into the producers, accusing them of selective editing and distortion. The film-makers were accused of undermining community relations.
The police took the highly unusual step of referring Dispatches to Ofcom, the media watchdog.
Ofcom threw out the complaint. It found that the programme had “accurately represented the material it had gathered and dealt with the subject matter responsibly and in context”.
It was a “legitimate investigation, uncovering matters of important public interest”. Each quote was “justified by the narrative of the programme and put fully in context”.
Hardcash Productions, which made the film, joined Channel 4 in a libel complaint against the police and CPS over the “distortion” claim.
David Henshaw, the managing director of Hardcash Productions, said: “They [the preachers] later claimed they had been taken out of context — but no one has explained the correct context for arguing that women are 'born deficient', that homosexuals should be thrown off mountains, and that ten-year-old girls should be hit if they refuse to wear the hijab.”
West Midlands Police and CPS will apologise unreservedly for comments that they accept were incorrect and unjustified. They said that there was “no evidence that the broadcaster or programme-makers had misled the audience or that the programme was likely to encourage or incite criminal activity”.
MPs criticised the police and the CPS, which dropped any prosecution of Channel 4 because of “insufficient evidence”, for trying to censor television producers.
A spokesman for West Midlands Police said: “We have paid a sum agreed with the programme-makers into a charity of their choice.”
The substantial damages will be donated to the Rory Peck Trust, which supports the families of journalists killed in the line of work. The CPS declined to comment.
If ever there was a department not fit for purpose it is the Crown Prosecution Service. The regional prosecution services (like the Metropolitan Police Solicitors or MPS) which conducted prosecutions for each Police force prior to the early 80s were more efficient, better able to respond to local need, more flexible, quicker, than the inefficient, arrogant and self serving monolith that has responsibility currently. Posted on 2:47 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Thursday, 15 May 2008
Synagogue walls daubed with anti-Jewish graffiti
London's Jewish community has been targeted by a wave of anti-Semitic graffiti.
Residents were today warned to look out for suspicious activity following the racist attack in north-east London.
Vandals sprayed shops, pavements and walls outside four synagogues in Clapton Common and Stamford Hill on Tuesday night. Worshippers were yesterday confronted with slogans such as "Jihad to Israel" and "Jihad to Tel Aviv".
David Greenwald, 20, who visits the Chasidey Belz Beth Hemedrash synagogue in Clapton Common, said the close-knit community was shocked.
"This morning I went to synagogue to pray and saw the writing all over everywhere - walls, shops, traffic lights," he said. "Everyone feels scared. Here we do not have any problem with Arabs - there has never been anything like this before, but now we are worried."
Another worshipper said: "It makes us feel that we are in exile. It could be kids doing it but even so, it shows something." The other synagogues were Satmar Beth Hamedrash Yetev Lev, Atereth Zvi Beth Hamedrash, and the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations. Yesterday further racist graffiti appeared in Bethnal Green.
A spokesman for the Community Security Trust, an organisation which looks after the safety of British Jews, said: "We are already on a relatively high state of alert due to pronouncements by pro-al Qaeda supporters relating to attacks on Jews, and this adds to the picture of threat."
This is a bad business coming so soon as it does after the desecration of Plashet Cemetery. I grew up on my parent’s tales of Blackshirts in the East end pre war. I personally never expected to see anti Jewish grafitti in England, certainly not 200 yards from the spot where I was born. I fearthis will not be the last.
Posted on 11:23 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Thursday, 15 May 2008
'Banned' Islamic group fights for positive outlook
A HIGHLY controversial Muslim political organisation, under constant watch by the Home Office, met in Ilford to discuss ways of responding to attacks on its religion.
About 250 people joined the Stand for Islam gathering at the Ilford Community Centre, Eton Road, Ilford to hear speakers from the local branch of the Hizb ut-Tahrir (Liberation Party).
Hizb ut-Tahrir is banned in some countries, and in 2005, then Prime Minister Tony Blair announced he planned to outlaw the organisation - a threat never carried out.
But the group officially rejects violence and denies critics' claims it is a "conveyer belt" for terrorism by encouraging people to believe they cannot be both British and Muslim.
Spokesman Mobeen Anway said the meeting in Ilford was designed to dispel some of the myths surrounding Islam.
Mr Anway said: "In the face of negative publicity about Islam, we want to create a more positive impression of our faith."
Hizb ut-Tahrir aims to establish an Islamic state across the Middle East . . .
Speaking of the decision to allow the meeting, Bashir Chaudhry, founder of Ilford Community Centre, said: "In the past, we have stopped them from holding meetings.
"If they are planning to discuss controversial issues which we don't agree with, or which could be damaging to the wider Muslim community, then we won't allow it. But if they are just wishing to hold a meeting to discuss non-controversial issues like this, then who are we to stop them?"
A Home Office spokesman said: "Hizb ut-Tahrir remains a group of real concern and as such is kept under constant review.
A few years ago this sort of group would have gone un-mentioned - now even local papers make their aims clear, are aware of their reputation and question their legitimacy.
Posted on 12:40 PM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
RDX used in Jaipur blasts
Sources in the police told CNN-IBN RDX was packed on bicycles that were used as carriers to trigger off the blasts.
So a common military explosive then and not something mixed in the kitchen and bathroom from a recipe off the internet. RDX has been used by the group Lashkar-e-Toiba in the Mumbai train bombings of 2006 and is believed to have also been used in the 1993 bombs in Mumbai. These bombs seem to have been working from timers or remote control not suicide operatives.
All the blasts that took place in Jaipur on Tuesday were in affluent and predominantly Hindu localities.
This tallies with the pattern of community targeting that, beginning with the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, was evident in 2006 when terrorists attacked first-class train compartments preferred by rich Gujarati businessmen in Mumbai and crowds that had gathered in front of Varanasi's Sankatmochan temple. Those who struck in Jaipur not just chose Tuesday but also a Hanuman temple while selecting the sites to plant explosives, timing the blasts to coincide with aarti.
Recognizing this, the Centre lost no time in asking all states to step up vigil in areas with a history of communal tension, and, fearing that terrorists might take advantage of a distracted security establishment, at vital installations.
The attackers were not looking just for a higher death toll, but also wanted to advertise their religious identity as part of their diabolic plot to pit communities against each other.
The Telegraph reports that Four people have been questioned by police in connection with seven bomb blasts that killed 80 people and injured 200 in the crowded markets of Jaipur in India.
The suspects were detained as police sifted through mutilated bodies and the remains of buildings following a series of bombs, which are thought to have been planted in rickshaws, bicycles and cars by Pakistani or Bangladeshi Islamist militants.
“We have picked them up for questioning in regards to the attacks last night, but we have not booked them on any charge,” a police spokesman said.
Authorities today announced a nationwide security alert and a day of mourning across the western desert state of Rajasthan as the full extent of the carnage emerged.
Shopping bags, bloodied sandals and shoes were strewn across the popular Johri bazaar where one of the bombs exploded.
Pools of blood stained the street outside Hanuman temple, dedicated to the Hindu monkey god. A bride in a red saree still wearing marriage bangles was among the dead. As was a 10-year-old boy.
The first explosion happened in a popular vegetarian restaurant in a crowded bazaar shortly after 7.30pm.
One suspect was detained and was being questioned, police said, adding that an eighth bomb that did not explode was found attached to a bicycle and defused.
While Indian officials did not immediately openly blame Pakistan-based militants for the attack, Sriprakash Jaiswal, the junior home minister, suggested the bombings were connected to previous explosions.
"The blasts are part of a big conspiracy," he said. "Obviously, it’s a terrorist plot," said A.S Gill, the local police chief. "The way it has been done, the attempt was to cause the maximum damage to human life."
The nearly simultaneous blasts bore the hallmarks of an attack by terrorists based in neighbouring Pakistan.
Indian intelligence sources said the bombs could have been the work of Islamist radicals who have been trying to infiltrate the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistani territory in the last two days.
Posted on 2:30 AM by Esmerelda WEatherwax
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
Saudis to boycott Danish drugs
Saudi Arabian importers have ordered customers of Danish medicines to boycott the products due to the reprinting of the Mohammed cartoons in February.
The fallout from the media’s reprinting of the Mohammed cartoons in February has not yet subsided in the Middle East, made apparent by yet another probable boycott of Danish products – this time medicines from Danish pharmaceutical companies, according to Saudi Gazette newspaper.
Saudi Arabian importers and retailers have ordered the nation’s hospitals and pharmacies to boycott all Danish drugs, e-mailing a list containing 41 medicines produced by companies such as Novo Nordisk, Lundbeck and Leo Pharma to those facilities and to the Saudi health ministry.
Dr. Abdul Moiz Shams, one of the physicians supporting the boycott, wrote to the Saudi Gazette that boycotting insulin was the most effective means of economically hurting the Danish economy.
’I would advise the world’s Muslims to consider just one product to boycott – insulin. It earns billions of dollars in profit for Denmark and is distributed all across the Gulf region,’ he said.
Who else produces insulin? Other pharmaceutical companies should stand firm and refuse to supply Saudi Arabia on the grounds that they are not proving to be a reliable customer and one with a dubious human rights record. I expect China will supply them, but with the quality of some Chinese drugs being questionable the Saudis might come to realise their mistake. One can hope.
Posted on 6:55 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
. . . aliens would still be God's creatures, however 'HM Government has never been approached by people from outer space'
Is there anybody out there? The Ministry of Defence, it seems, is taking no chances. Files containing hundreds of previously classified reports are being released today in the hope of persuading ufologists that there has been no cover-up regarding the existence of visitors from outer space.
Yet the files do show that the MoD conducted a rigorous investigation of every alleged sighting of a UFO until well into the 1980s. I can vouch for that! In a briefing note in 1979 the MoD wrote: “Her Majesty’s Government has never been approached by people from outer space.”
Preparing a draft speech for a minister who had to give the Government’s response to a debate on UFOs in the House of Lords in 1979, the MoD wrote: “There is nothing to indicate that ufology is anything but claptrap [but ]the subject will not go away.”
Lord Clancarty, who had asked for the debate, believed that a famous Norfolk regiment had disappeared into a cloud in the Gallipoli campaign in the First World War and put it down to UFO activity. The MoD briefing note had in brackets, “checking with Army Historical Branch”.
The MoD draft went on: “Not a single artefact has been produced, not a single extraterrestrial chap has dropped an extraterrestrial spanner . . . [but] Lord Clancarty has the answer — the CIA has hidden them all.”
However, the MoD acknowledged: “Intelligent life could exist elsewhere in the universe. With 100,000 million stars in our own galaxy alone, it’s probable that there are many planets capable of supporting life
A Doctor Who fan who created knitting patterns for the programme’s monsters and gave them away online has been told by the BBC to stop or face the threat of court action.
The action against the licence fee-payer who had produced patterns of the squid-faced Ood and the short, fat, white Adipose for members of her knitting circle has rapidly become a cause célèbre on the internet.
The 26-year-old woman, who uses the name Mazzmatazz because she does not want to be identified, said that she was “just an ordinary person who likes knitting” who had been caught up in “a bit of whirlwind”. Lawyers argue that her case shows that trademark and copyright law should be changed.
Becky Hogge, the executive director of the Open Rights Group, which helped to publicise the case after trying to advise Mazzmatazz, said: “We need to recognise that there is a difference between selling knock-off hand-bags in the market, and fans who are making tributes and contributing to creativity in the future.”
Because of possible legal action, the knitting patterns have been withdrawn from the internet, although satisfied knitters have taken many pictures. Particularly popular is the blob-like Adipose a creature made from human fat and introduced in the current series. Actually that adipose looks crocheted to me, in plain doubles or trebles.
Andres Gudamuz, a law lecturer at Edinburgh University, believes that the act of creating a knitting pattern could be enough to give Mazzmatazz copyright, which could be a defence if she did not use the Doctor Who name. “For more than a decade fans kept Doctor Who alive when it was off air. The BBC should recognise that,” the laywer added.
Posted on 9:10 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Wednesday, 14 May 2008
New Tower Hamlets leader feared to be overly influenced by the Islamic Forum Europe
ATTEMPTS to choose a new cabinet for Labour-run Tower Hamlets council have sparked a political bloodbath.
Last night's meeting of Labour's 28 councillors was also an effective vote of 'no confidence' in the man they picked to run the Town Hall just two weeks ago, Lutfur Rahman.
A majority of 15 councillors to 13 rejected his list of proposed cabinet appointees after concerns it was not "representative" enough of the East End community.
The Advertiser understands that Cllr Rahman had proposed including Marc Francis, Alibor Choudhury, Anwara Ali, Shiria Khatun, Abdal Ullah, Rofique Ahmed, Motin uz-Zaman, Clair Hawkins and Deputy Leader Sirajul Islam in his cabinet.
Sources told the Advertiser that there was concern that Cllr Rahman's list was being influenced by the Islamic Forum Europe, an organisation based at the East London Mosque he has long had links with.
The rejection provoked uproar.
Rahman's opponents then put forward an amended list that included councillors Abbas, Jones, Heslop, Hawkins, Khatun, uz-Zaman, Abdul Asad and Josh Peck.
When that amended motion was voted through, effectively ousting Raman as leader, councillors agreed to adjourn the meeting and work towards "a negotiated solution."
Posted on 11:04 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Queen embarks on Turkey visit
The Queen and Prince Philip are travelling to Turkey for a four-day state visit, their first to the country since 1971.
During the trip, they will lay a wreath at the tomb of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern, secular Turkey.
They will also be guests at a state banquet hosted by President Abdullah Gul and his wife Hayrunnisa.
She is likely to wear an Islamic headscarf despite a ban on them in public and governmental buildings.
The BBC's royal correspondent Peter Hunt said the controversial issue of the headscarf would confront the Queen as soon as she stepped off the plane.
My first reading of this was that the Queen was being required to wear a headscarf. She didn’t wear a scarf or veil in the Gulf, just a somewhat larger and more hideous hat, which was still very much a queenly and British hat, even if it did cover more of her than usual.
But it is Mrs Gul who is causing the trouble by wearing one.
Posted on 2:46 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Christians and polygamy in Nigeria.
I meant to post this over the weekend but I forgot. From the BBC
Nigeria's Anglican leader has told the country's many Christian polygamists to give up their extra wives.
In a letter to the faithful, Archbishop Peter Akinola warned the issue could "make a mockery" of the church.
Until now, converts to Christianity have been allowed to keep their polygamous relationships.
Bishop Ali Buba Lamido told the BBC that it was difficult to convert polygamous Muslims to Christianity unless they could keep their wives.
Bishop Ali Buba of the Wusasa diocese in northern Kaduna State, said that as much as 10% of some congregations in the north can be in polygamous marriages.
The problem of extra wives in families converting to Christianity is not a new one. Bishop Colenso explored the situation in Natal in the 19th century. The Ancient Church encountered polygamous societies. Even King Canute who was a second generation barely Christian had to juggle two wives, Aelfgifu of Northampton and Emma of Normandy. Although the situation was generally dealt with by downgrading Aelgifu’s status to that of mistress; he entered into the relationship with her first but Emma had royal rank and was harder to downgrade.
The BBC goes on to emphasis that the Nigerian Church fears that the presence of polygamous marriages will weaken their opposition to homosexual clergy.
I think the main interest of the story which the BBC doesn’t emphasis is that there are sufficient converts to Christianity in northern Nigeria for their family setups to be any sort of issue. If 10% of congregations in some areas are polygamous converts, then, as some will be individuals or not polygamous, the proportion of converts from Islam must be over 10%. I knew the church in Nigeria was growing; this suggests to what extent. Posted on 3:29 AM by Esmerelda Weatherwax
Tuesday, 13 May 2008
Six months after he nearly killed an Arsenal supporter, police ask, Have you seen this man?
This description and CCTV picture of the man wanted for a serious knife attack has just been released to the Hackney Gazette by the local police, nearly 6 months after the event. This comes after what passes for a description (a youth) of the man witnessed murdering 16 year old altar boy Jimmy Mizen in the local bakers on Saturday morning only being released today, with the information that he is believed to have absconded to Northern Cyprus already.
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