The Dutch cabinet has backed a proposal by the country’s immigration minister to ban Muslim women from wearing the burqa in public places.

The burqa, a full body covering that also obscures the face, would be banned by law in the street, and in trains, schools, buses and the law courts.

The cabinet said burqas disturb public order, citizens and safety.

The decision comes days ahead of elections which the ruling centre-right coalition is expected to win.

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One of Britain’s most prominent speakers on Muslim issues is today exposed as a supporter of David Irving, the controversial historian who for years denied the Holocaust took place.
Asghar Bukhari, a founder member of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC), which describes itself as Britain’s largest Muslim civil rights group, sent money to Irving and urged Islamic websites to ask visitors to make donations to his fighting fund.

Bukhari contacted the discredited historian, sentenced this year to three years in an Austrian prison for Holocaust denial, after reading his website. He headed his mail to Irving with a quotation attributed to the philosopher John Locke: ‘All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good people to stand idle.’

In one email Bukhari tells Irving: ‘You may feel like you are on your own but rest assured many people are with you in your fight for the Truth.’ Bukhari pledges to make a donation of £60 to Irving’s fighting fund and says that he has asked ‘a few of my colleagues to send some in too’. He also offers to send Irving a book, They Dare to Speak Out, by Paul Findley, a former US Senator, who has attacked his country’s close relationship with Israel. Bukhari says Findley ‘has suffered like you in trying to expose certain falsehoods perpetrated by the Jews’.

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Zimbabwe has offered more than 1,000 white farmers compensation for property seized during controversial land reforms launched by Robert Mugabe’s government.

Ngoni Masoka, the secretary of lands, used a newspaper advertisement to urge more than 1,000 dispossessed farmers to contact the ministry.

At least 500 white farmers still remain in Zimbabwe while many others have emigrated to other countries in Africa such as Mozambique, Nigeria and Zambia.

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Turkey has suspended military relations with France in a dispute over whether the mass killings of Armenians in the last century amounted to genocide.

General Ilker Basbug, the land forces commander, was quoted on Wednesday by state-owned Anatolia news agency as saying in Ankara: “Relations with France in the military field have been suspended.”

On possible cancellation of military visits, Basbug said: “There are no high-level visits between the two countries.”

Such a law would make it a crime to deny that the 1915-1917 massacres of an estimated 1.2 million Christian Armenians by Ottoman Turks were an act of genocide.

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WHILE Israel fights Hezbollah with tanks and aircraft, its supporters are campaigning on the internet.

Israel’s Government has thrown its weight behind efforts by supporters to counter what it believes to be negative bias and a tide of pro-Arab propaganda. The Foreign Ministry has ordered trainee diplomats to track websites and chatrooms so that networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of Jewish activists can place supportive messages.

In the past week nearly 5,000 members of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) have downloaded special “megaphone” software that alerts them to anti-Israeli chatrooms or internet polls to enable them to post contrary viewpoints. A student team in Jerusalem combs the web in a host of different languages to flag the sites so that those who have signed up can influence an opinion survey or the course of a debate.

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The Arabic television news channel al-Jazeera has launched its new English-language station.
Al-Jazeera English began broadcasting from the station’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar, at 1500 (1200 GMT).

A screen graphic with a clock ticking down the minutes gave way to a photo montage of the biggest news stories of recent years, including 9/11.

Al-Jazeera in Arabic is known for its forthright style, frank journalism and willingness to discuss taboo issues.

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I interviewed Nick Griffin right after we came back from the pub, where we celebrated the his and Mark’s victory in court. The interview is quite short as Nick, his wife Jacky and their kids couldn’t wait to drive back to their home in wales.

The outcome of the trail against the leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, and his assistant, Mark Collett; was a great and maybe somewhat unexpected victory for free speech. The fact that the jury reached a not guilty verdict on all charges, for Nick Griffin and for Mark Collett, so quickly and unanimously can be viewed as a moral victory in addition to the legal one.

Some people claim this is a double standard, because at about the same time, another jury found Mizanur Rahman, one of the cartoon protesters, guilty of hate charges. However, there is a big difference. Mr Rahman had called for another 9/11, for the nuking of many European countries, for the killing of British soldiers and the annihilation of those who “insult” Islam. This is, the least one can say, incitement to hatered. However, had he said that Bush, Blair, all the Necons, their religion are evil and that British troops have to leave Iraq (like he should leave the UK and Europe), he would certainly have walked free. There is a subtle difference between the first and the later, between free speech and incitement to kill. A difference some people, because of their cultural background, cannot understand. I personally think speech should be free even for people like that, like in the US. In a way Mr. Rahman is kind enough to warn us what we will have to endure when he and his country men will be in power in our countries, because of our mad immigration policy.

This trial also reminds us that in Europe, we do not have free speech, that we have to be very careful about what we say and about the words we use. In most continental European countries, the verdict wouldn’t have been the same, because it would be to a politically appointed judge and not to a jury to decide. In the U.K. the law will certainly change very soon in order to try to shut up the most virulent opponents of the Multicultural religion. There is no doubt that from now on, the people of the Crown Prosecution Service will spend even more time trying to convict political opponents, instead of investigating real criminals (and check their spelling).

I have what none of the journalists of the controlled press did, followed the whole trial since day one. In the coming days, I will publish a full summay of the trial and several video clips.

E.d’Aubignosc

New South Wales Police are investigating claims a number of rocket launchers are available on the black market in Australia.

The Assistant Commissioner for Counter Terrorism Nick Kaldas says authorities are aware of claims made by a Sunday newspaper that a Sydney criminal gang purchased rocket launchers in 2002.

The article alleges the weapons were brought into Australia at the height of a feud between two Lebanese families in Sydney’s south-west.

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A total of 878 asylum seekers were discovered cheating the state’s welfare system in the past two years, it emerged tonight.

The Justice Department told the Public Accounts Committee that over six million euro in benefits was recouped during that period.

The department’s secretary general Sean Aylward said the €6.1m was recovered between August 2004 and May 31 last when 878 foreign nationals were found to be unlawfully resident in the state and illegally claiming benefits.

The Justice Department was backed by specialised officials from the Social & Family Affairs Department in the welfare clampdown.

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