Don Barnett writes in The Tennessean:

This fiscal year, the U.S. resettled almost three times as many refugees as all the rest of the countries in the industrialized world combined.

Despite the recession, growing poverty, unemployment and homelessness, the U.S. resettled 75,000 refugees, the highest number of admissions since 9/11.

This is possible only because what was once the calling of true sacrificial charity and private sponsors is now the responsibility of the American taxpayer. Traditional sponsor duties have been replaced by access to welfare upon arrival for refugees and an opaque stream of grant money from seemingly every government agency except NASA.

In recent years up to 95 percent of the refugees coming to the U.S. were referred by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or were the relatives of U.N.-picked refugees. Until the late 1990s, the U.S. picked the large majority of refugees for resettlement in the U.S.

Considering that the refugee influx causes increases in all legal and illegal immigration as family and social networks are established in the U.S., the U.N. is effectively dictating much of U.S. immigration policy.

A nonprofit nation of hundreds of taxpayer-funded organizations has grown up around refugee resettlement in the U.S. A government-funded study finds "U.S. resettlement communities are awash with ECBOs that exist in name only but provide little meaningful assistance." ECBO stands for Ethnic Community Based Organization, a government-defined category of grant recipients.

The expansion of the fraud-prone refugee program and the transformation of refugee resettlement into a federal contracting business have given birth to a global refugee industry well-adapted to the federal grant and contract environment.

Catholic Charities with its parent the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB ) is the largest refugee agency both nationally and in Nashville. It is neither a charity nor Catholic, but more an extension of a state welfare agency.

Sixty-five percent of Catholic Charities USA's $3.6 billion annual budget comes from government sources. Refugee resettlement, a relatively small portion of its services, is covered by the government at closer to 100 percent. For nonprofits, it is profitable to be in refugee resettlement, and the executive directors of some of the 10 major resettlement agencies make almost as much as the president of the United States.

Nashville Catholic Charities devotes about 26 percent of its budget to "immigrants and refugees," an amazingly high percentage considering most of that aid is going to recent refugee arrivals — a fraction of 1 percent of Nashville's population. Interestingly, Tennessee recently put Nashville Catholic Charities in charge of distributing and monitoring federal "refugee" grant money to other NGOs in the state.

The possibility of a generous reception in the U.S. has created a "magnet effect" for refugees deciding between resettlement in the U.S. and integration in the region where they reside.

The once-independent faith-based and civic organizations have suffered their own "magnet effect," causing a shift of efforts away from traditional works toward the more profitable refugee program. USCCB even lobbies for more business — that is, for higher refugee admission quotas.

Incentives built into refugee resettlement are behind much of its growth, especially as refugees themselves enter the federal contracting and lobbying business.

It is long past the time to lift the curtain of myth that protects this program from scrutiny.

From The Citizen
By Mike Mwaniki, Citizen Correspondent, Nairobi
Mosques have been advised to ignore a recent directive by the National Environment Management Authority on noise pollution and continue making calls for prayers.
Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims secretary general Alhaj Adan Wachu Tuesday said the Islamic call to prayer is usually transmitted through a loud speaker which is "controllable and unharmful to human health and environment".
In the new rules, Nema will be seeking to curb noise pollution; loud and unreasonable noise that disturbs the comfort and safety of others and the environment.
The new rules, known as the Noise and Excessive Vibration Pollution (Control) Regulations, 2009, will affect individuals, firms and organisations carrying out activities that produce noise and excessive vibration within a town's central business district, a residential area, a silent zone, or any other area declared a silent zone.
They also apply to street preachers, touts and those who promote or sell anything by shouting.
However, Mr Wachu said for Muslims and Islam, a call to prayer cannot be under any "circumstance or instances be equated to a sound or noise that is undesirable or nuisance."

From The Copenhagen Post
The suicide bombing that killed 23 people in Somalia last week was carried out by a man who grew up in Copenhagen.
A suicide bomb that killed 23 people in Mogadishu last week was detonated by a young Danish-Somali man, reports Berlingske Tidende newspaper.
Close friends have confirmed Somali police’s identification of the 24-year-old man from pictures taken after the blast, which devastated a hotel ceremony for newly educated doctors.
The suspect lived 20 years in Denmark, growing up in the city district of Brønshøj and later living in the suburb of Rødovre.
Danish intelligence service PET has not released the name of the man, nor has it yet made a positive identification. But yesterday the agency reported that the bomber was ‘a Somali citizen who had residence in Denmark’.
According to a PET press release, the 25-year-old man is one of many people with connections to Denmark who are being trained as terrorists abroad.
‘As PET has indicated numerous times in the past, there are people with ties to Denmark who have gone through militant Islamic training and radicalisation and who are involved in terror-related activities in several countries, including in Somalia.’
According to his friends he was also a charming and likable footballer. Over here son! On me head!

Well, apart from the hookers and the gigolos, it works pretty much as most things organised by governments work: scarcely at all, that is, and with a deep and sleazy feel.

Haaretz:

Egypt has begun the construction of a massive iron wall along its border with the Gaza Strip, in a bid to shut down smuggling tunnels into the territory. The wall will be nine to 10 kilometers long, and will go 20 to 30 meters into the ground, Egyptian sources said. It will be impossible to cut or melt.

The new plan is the latest move by Egypt to step up its counter-smuggling efforts. Although some progress had been made, the smuggling market in Gaza still flourishes.

Egyptian forces demolish tunnels or fill them with gas almost every week, often with people still inside them, and Palestinian casualties in the tunnels have been steadily rising.

Recently, Egypt examined several possibilities of blocking the tunnels, and joint American-Egyptian patrols have been seen in Rafah attempting to detect tunnels using underground sensors.

Construction of the wall has already begun. It will be made of enormous slates of steel, reaching deep into the ground. However, it is not expected to stem smuggling completely...

A Christian couple accused of insulting a Muslim woman at their Liverpool B+B hotel have been found not guilty of racially aggravated harassment.
Devout Christians Ben Vogelenzang, 53, and his wife Sharon, 54, were cleared after a two-day trial at Liverpool Magistrates Court.
They had been charged with causing religiously aggravated harassment, alarm or distress, under the Public Order Act 1986.
Liverpool Magistrates Court heard allegations that the couple's behaviour was threatening, intimidating, and abusive towards the pensioner during a row in a dining room.
Defence counsel, Mr Hugh Tomlinson QC, challenged Ms Tazi had dismissed her allegations against the hotelier and his wife as "grossly exaggerated".
District Judge Richard Clancy found the couple not guilty saying that the evidence was not conclusive and cited the couple's right to freedom of expression under the European Human Rights Act.
He also criticised Mrs Tazi and referred to evidence that she had made crass remarks during a row and had said "Do you want me to walk round with my tits out and arse on show?"
Mrs Tazi, a married woman from Warrington, Cheshire, converted to Islam in June 2008 but until the last day of her stay at the hotel, had not worn the Hajib.
The writers at Click Liverpool seem to be getting their hijabs and hajj pilgrimage mixed up here, but they are reporting this with more detail than the BBC so good on them.
The BBC  did report some of the evidence given earlier today.
A devout Christian hotelier has told a court that a guest he allegedly insulted over her Muslim faith is trying to ruin his business.
Benjamin Vogelenzang, 53, scolded Ericka Tazi from the witness box at Liverpool Magistrates' Court.
His wife Sharon, 54, also told the court that takings were down by 80% at the Bounty House Hotel, Aintree.
The court previously heard allegations the 60-year-old was asked if she was a "terrorist and a murderer" because she was wearing Islamic dress.
But the couple have claimed that Mrs Tazi, a white British Muslim convert, told them that Jesus was a "minor prophet" and that the Bible was untrue.
Mr Vogelenzang told prosecutor Anya Horwood in cross examination: "At the time I was persuaded she (Ericka) was quite a nice person.
"I was mistaken, you know why? She wasn't a nice person, she wasn't a loving person, she ratted to the police and is trying to make us lose our business."
Upon hearing his comments, District Judge Richard Clancy told him: "Behave yourself please."
When Mr Vogelenzang returned to the dock to sit alongside his wife he bowed his head and began to cry.
Mr Vogelenzang told his defence counsel, Hugh Tomlinson QC, that, on the morning of 20 March he overheard Mrs Tazi talking to his wife.
He said: "Her wording was, in essence, 'I've tried all the religions, I've tried Jesus, it didn't work for me but the Bible is untrue anyway and Jesus is a minor prophet'.
"She called Our Lord a minor prophet. My reaction was 'You haven't prayed alone and asked God to prove himself to you'.
Mr Vogelenzang said: "She took the examples of history and she started provoking me by saying 'Oh, will you tell me then that I'm a murderer, that I'm a Nazi? You're telling me I'm a terrorist?' I never meant it this way."
He denied shouting or referring to the Prophet Muhammad as a warlord, and claimed Mrs Tazi left the hotel "as cool as a cucumber".
The main business of the hotel was referals from the local hospital, from whose list of approved hotels they were removed when these allegations were made. Their aquittal, while excellent news, does not mean that they will necessarily be restored to that list. Tazi may still succeed in her vindictive ploy.
Update - The Times has still more detail.
Hugh Tomlinson, QC, the couple’s counsel, suggested that Mrs Tazi was no “shrinking violet” and that she had also become angry during the exchange.
It could not be objectionable under the laws of England for a person to believe that women in Islam are oppressed, he said. Even if it was said that Muhammad was a warlord, this also could not be deemed offensive.
Freedom to be inoffensive was not a freedom worth having, he said.
He said: “The fact that someone is upset or offended is not a reason for criminalising the speech used by the other person.”
Dismissing the case, Mr Clancy questioned Mrs Tazi’s version of events, which amounted to “fairly big differences as to what happened”.
Mr Clancy also referred to her conversation with an ambulance driver in which she said: “They were taking the p*** out of me.” He said: “It does not quite form the same religious view that was put to me on the stand.”
Outside the court Nicky Inskip, senior crown Prosecutor, defended the Crown Prosecution Service decision to bring the case under the banner of hate crime.
She said: “We were satisfied that there was sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction that a religiously aggravated offence should be charged. In considering the public interest factors in favour of a prosecution, we took into account the impact that the incident had on the victim.”
There has so far been little evidence that Mrs Tazi’s experience has echoed within the wider Muslim communities, especially across the northern conurbations. But a group of young female Muslim students, who attended the trial, said this may now only be a matter of time.
One 18-year-old medical student at Liverpool University, who asked not to be named, said: “People are shocked and angry. This decision is going to make them even more upset. Mrs Tazi just comes down for breakfast wearing a head scarf and they start racially abusing her. They have just dismissed it as if it is nothing.”

A Muslim man has been found guilty of conspiracy to murder by plotting with Abdulla Ahmed Ali, the convicted ringleader of the foiled plan to blow up passenger jets.
Adam Khatib, 22, of Walthamstow, east London, was convicted by a majority of 11 jurors to one following an eight-week trial at Woolwich Crown Court.
Ali was jailed for a minimum of 40 years in September after a jury found him guilty of conspiracy to murder by planning suicide attacks on transatlantic aircraft.
Three other men, Assad Sarwar, Tanvir Hussain and Umar Islam, were also convicted in September of playing key roles in the plot.
Co-defendant Mohammed Shamin Uddin, 39, of Stoke Newington, north London, was found not guilty of preparing for terrorism by meeting Ali on July 19 2006 and of researching or permitting to research being carried out into the use and purchase of hydrogen peroxide. He was also found not guilty of possessing materials, namely a CD, which could be used for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism.
However, the jury of seven women and five men unanimously convicted Uddin on the alternative count of possessing materials, namely a CD, likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.
Co-defendant Nabeel Hussain, 25, of Chingford, east London was found guilty by an 11-1 majority of preparing for terrorism
Mr Justice Calvert-Smith adjourned sentencing at Woolwich Crown Court.

Steve Altman reviews Ares Demertzis' short story, "The Conversation," first published in 2006:

Are you up for a 7,500-word short story about the meaninglessness of life?

I guess that would depend.

Well, how about if it had no plot, but consisted only of the bitter, half-dreamt complaints awhirl in the mind of a dying old man? And if it contained no paragraphs or sentences as such, no punctuation, not even capital letters?

Okay, ready?

It’s “The Conversation,” by sculptor, cinematographer, and New English Review contributor Ares Demertzis. No walk in the park, this story of his. If you’re intrigued, click here, although you may first want to put away your belt and shoelaces and lock up any sharp objects.

Lying abed, waiting, the old man wants some answers. What’s it all mean? Where’s God? But he gets no reply. The whole point of the story is that no one’s there to hear him: the title is ironic. I remember one of the characters in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, who says “Give ‘em irony and give ‘em pity.”

But no pity here. To the extent there are two parties to this “conversation,” one is the old man and the other is his own death.  He imagines death as a beautiful whore—unseen, implacably silent, and essentially indifferent to him except that she’s been with him his whole life and will be with him when it ends. He tells her:

i cant stand your insufferable silence   all this waiting without a single word   i have known you all my life yet you have never spoken to me   at least you have never spoken to me whereby i can hear your profound voice your cynical laughter your compassionate tears   oh   you do cry don’t you   you will cry when i leave and you cant follow me around wont you   when im gone will we ever see each other again or is this our one time affair   will you have others after me or will you also cease to exist like the parasite that invades a body only to die after eliminating the host   are you listening to me   stop this ridiculous silence and answer you elusive bitch   time for a cigarette

This is no life-affirming tale, but rather a long howl at the human condition—as perceived, that is, by a man perhaps too smart and certainly too embittered for his own good. Just before he dies, his mind unraveling at last, it may just be that he glimpses “the meaning the rationalization for life.” But when at last he's dead he is so definitively dead—read the unforgettable ending and you will understand—that any consolation is impossible.

And when it comes to difficult works like “The Conversation”—which is, in literary terms, what’s called an interior monologue—the very difficulty of the storytelling can make the reader’s experience richer than it might otherwise be. That’s my argument for it—assuming, of course, that the story at its heart has things to say. When we have to engage strenuously with a work of fiction, when we have to virtually dig our way into and through it, sometimes in the end it can feel as if we have reached a vein of feeling in ourselves, some capacity for understanding, that might otherwise have been left undiscovered.

In which case, as with "The Conversation," we feel that we have come to understand not just the meaning of the story, but a new thing or two about ourselves.
 

Among the five most popular stories from the Wall Street Journal being read, this fleeting minute (as fleeting as that everlasting minute with which, discussing life's brief minuterie within the theme of mutability,  John Donne opens his "Devotions": "This minute I was well, and am ill, this minute.") is the following:

• Opinion: Jenkins: The Rabbit-Ear Wars

I should have expected it. The Internet is just like that bridge across the Bosporus where, it is said, if you stand at one end long enough,  everyone in the world will pass you by.

And if you read on-line long enough, every possible combination and permutation of famous phrases will, in  monkeys-banging-on-typewriters fashion, make an appearance.

And so today -- cometh the minute, cometh the man -- to cheer us up, is a good example: Jenkins On The Rabbit-Ears Wars, which is to say, The War of Jenkins' Rabbit-Ears.

Made my day. A day otherwise snowy, with wind gusts from the south.

A Binghamton University graduate student was arrested and charged with murder in the second degree Saturday, after allegedly stabbing an anthropology professor to death.

Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani, a 46-year-old Saudi national, is accused of stabbing 77-year-old Richard Antoun, professor emeritus at BU, four times with a 6-inch kitchen blade Friday in Science I at 1:39 p.m.

Antoun died at Wilson Memorial Hospital later that afternoon. Based on a press release from Broome County District Attorney Gerald Mollen, Al-Zahrani was arraigned in the Town of Vestal Court and was remanded to the Broome County Jail without bail.

According to Joshua Price, the director of the Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture (PIC) program at BU, Al-Zahrani had been having financial difficulties and was looking to transfer out of the anthropology department and into PIC. Price had first met with Al-Zahrani about those concerns Nov. 10, and had continued communication via e-mail.

"He was eager to see if he could get financial aid through our department," Price said.

Price said he sent an e-mail about Al-Zahrani's concerns to PIC's Graduate Director Bill Haver at 1:15 p.m. Friday, to inquire about office policies regarding mid-semester transfers and financial aid.

After sending the e-mail, Price left the office, went to the Library Tower elevator, and came across Al-Zahrani, who had been looking for him. Price suggested Al-Zahrani accompany him down the elevator and discuss his situation. Price informed Al-Zahrani that he believed it was unlikely that he would be able to receive financial aid, but that he was not sure.

"The interaction was normal," Price said. "He came to me, he seemed very intent and focused, but I didn't have any cause for alarm."

After they exited the elevator, the two went different ways. Less than half an hour later, Antoun had been stabbed.

Other incidents

Al-Zahrani lived with two other BU graduate students, Souleymane "Jules" Sakho and Luis Pena, on Main Street in Binghamton for the past three weeks.

According to Sakho, a Senegal native who came to BU this past August as a Fulbright scholar, the landlord of the first-floor unit in which he lived rented out a room to Al-Zahrani without discussing it with the tenants.

"Since there was a spare room [the landlord] didn't ask for our opinion," Sakho said. "I am usually in my room, so I didn't think it would be a problem."

Sakho said that Al-Zahrani had complained of financial difficulties and that he had tried to help him by providing food and cigarettes. According to Sakho, Al-Zahrani began to take advantage of the situation. When Sakho broached the subject, Al-Zahrani became disgruntled.

"He began to threaten me and he used to make silly comments that he was being persecuted," Sakho said.

Sakho said that he began trying to avoid Al-Zahrani, but that one night Sakho had been drinking and in his frustration exchanged words with Al-Zahrani, who felt threatened and called the Binghamton Police. Officials investigated but took no further action against Sakho, he said.

Sakho, a PIC student studying the abolition of capital punishment, discussed his concerns with Price on Dec. 1. Price suggested Sakho speak to an official at the University Counseling Center, who then advised Sakho to avoid Al-Zahrani when possible.

Sakho said that this experience has made him rethink his study somewhat, though it has not changed his impression of the country.

"Americans, they are wonderful people. This is the only bad experience here," Sakho said.

Motive

A motive for the crimes alleged against Al-Zahrani is still unknown.

"He [Al-Zahrani] didn't speak of his relationship to Professor Antoun at all, though he mentioned several [anthropology professors] he worked with," Price said.

Sakho echoed Price's statement.

"[I] never heard about that professor."

According to Sakho, a Christian converted from Islam, Al-Zahrani confronted him about his change of religion.

"I refused to discuss it with him," Sakho said.

According to the Press & Sun-Bulletin, Antoun attempted to eliminate stereotypes of various cultures and had been scheduled to take part in a seminar Sunday at Temple Israel in Vestal, which would explore a variety of religious practices.

Based on a press release from DA Mollen's office, "there is no indication of religious or ethnic motivation" behind the crime.

Price was unsure whether Al-Zahrani had planned the incident.

"It may not have been premeditated," Price said. "Why else would he have been asking [me] those questions?"

Quotes around "Americans" added to respect the views and loyalties of the missing.  From AP:

WASHINGTON – Five young Americans captured in Pakistan are under investigation for possible links to terrorism after their families found a disturbing farewell video the missing men left behind showing scenes of war and casualties and saying Muslims must be defended.

Frantic relatives and worried FBI agents have been searching for the five men for more than a week, since their disappearance in late November. The missing men, ranging in age from 19 to 25, have family roots in the northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., area. One, Ramy Zamzam, is a dental student at Howard University.

Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said the five are believed to be under arrest in Pakistan.

On the heels of charges against a Chicago man accused of plotting international terrorism, the case is another worrisome sign that Americans can be recruited within the United States to enlist in terrorist networks.

Leaders of an Islamic American group said the families of the five men asked the FBI for help and were particularly disturbed to see the video message.

"One person appeared in that video and they made references to the ongoing conflict in the world, and that young Muslims have to do something," said Nihad Awad, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.

"The video's about 11 minutes and it's like a farewell. And they did not specify what they would be doing. But just hearing and seeing videos similar on the Internet, it just made me uncomfortable," Awad said. The video has not been made public.

Before they left, they did not seem to have become militant, a local imam said.

By whose definition of "militant"?  This local imam's?

"From all of our interviews, there was no sign they were outwardly radicalized," said Imam Johari Abdul-Malik.

In Pakistan, police officer Tahir Gujjar said five Americans were picked up in a raid on a house in Sarghoda in the eastern province of Punjab. He did not identify them, but said three are of Pakistani descent, one is of Egyptian descent and the other has Yemeni heritage.

S.M. Imran Gardezi, press minister at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington, said the men "are under arrest in Pakistan. The investigation is to see whether they had any links to any extremist groups." No charges have been filed.

What did they do, search their pockets for official laminated Al Qaeda ID cards?

[...]

Samirah Ali, president of Howard University's Muslim Student Association, said the FBI contacted her last week about Zamzam, and told her he had been missing for a week.

Ali said she's known Zamzam for three years and never suspected he would be involved in radical activities.

"He's a very nice guy, very cordial, very friendly," Ali said, adding that he has a bubbly personality.

Listen here.

From The New York Times:

Detainees Say They Planned Sept. 11

The five detainees at Guantánamo Bay charged with planning the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have filed a document with the military commission at the United States naval base there expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting full responsibility for the killing of nearly 3,000 people.

The document, which may be released publicly on Tuesday, uses the Arabic term for a consultative assembly in describing the five men as the “9/11 Shura Council,” and it says their actions were an offering to God, according to excerpts of the document that were read to a reporter by a government official who was not authorized to discuss it publicly...