[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
I recently happened to catch this Easy Jet commercial, the budget airline is celebrating 20 years of no frills travel and dubiously exploiting aviation legal loopholes to provide the masses with cheap flights and holidays. The advert deploys a clever metaphorical trick by using a ferris wheel to depict the wheels of time turning.
A handsome young white man and woman jump aboard, awkward, hesitant, they fall in love, the years pass. We witness their hairstyles and clothes change as they evolve from teenage dorks into their 20’s. The woman shows a bump, she’s pregnant, and soon our happy couple are joined by a lovely little white daughter. Mum and dad go through life’s changes, stressed, responsible, doting, dad appears with a neck injury, they’ve celebrated their first holiday. Our lovely little girl likewise grows, and the wheel of life goes round and round, as the years pass by. Sitting in between mum and dad our cherub progresses from baby to infant to pouting teenager.
It is the circle of life.
For countless generations this cycle of love and birth and death has repeated itself, the European genome is pass on down through the eons by white men and women, from the times which forged us, scratching out a living on tundra and ice fields, to masters of technology and civilization. Onward through time and entropy, the cycle repeats. Eventually the time has come for our little girl in the Easy Jet advert to leave the comfort of the ferris wheel seat between mum and dad and plant her family. The wheel turns yet again and this time our little angel is gone, and an older mum and dad sit alone once again. But wait, another turn of the ferris wheel, she’s back, sitting alone. Now comes the time for her to find her soul mate and life partner.
[...] It’s the offhanded manner in which these adverts endorse our dissolution which hurts the most.
The Social Democrat Prime Minister announced an initiative called ‘Sweden Together’ (‘Sverige tillsammans’) on Thursday morning.
He said that municipalities, religious groups, sports associations, unions and public sector employers would all be invited to a major conference in October to discuss how to help refugees better integrate into Swedish communities.
The Prime Minister told Swedish public broadcaster Sveriges Radio that he wanted a more even distribution of refugees across all 290 municipalities in Sweden, a policy that has been pushed by Sweden’s integration minister Ylva Johansson in recent months.
At a press conference in Stockholm at midday, ahead of cross-party talks on the refugee crisis, Löfven said there would be a large focus on getting refugees into schooling and the work force.
“This is about them having a speedy entrance into our society and getting a job, education, and housing,” Löfven told reporters.
“For us to be able to get through this demographic challenge, we need to get more working. This means we need to quickly get those who have newly arrived into the work force. This is what our investments are aiming for.”
One concrete change that was announced at the press conference was an increase in the compensation for municipalities per refugee, which will be raised from 83,100 kronor ($9,867) to 125,000 kronor ($14,873).
The government said it would earmark 1.8 billion kronor for the entire package to be spent over the next year. 870 million kronor of this will go into helping refugees find work quicker, offering speedier translation and validation of foreign education
The leaders of Sweden’s centre-right Alliance parties which made up former Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt’s previous government are set to attend discussions with Löfven later in the day, along with the leaders of the government’s coalition partners the Greens and the Left Party. The nationalist anti-immigration Sweden Democrat party has not been invited.
“We must have a political gathering, both about what we’re doing here at home in Sweden, but also what Sweden stands for in the EU,” said Löfven, adding that it was currently “unhelpful” that Sweden and Germany were currently sharing the bulk of responsibility for new arrivals.
Sweden’s Prime Minister met Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin earlier this week. Both leaders told a press conference that they backed the introduction of new quotas to force other European countries to take in more refugees, as is being proposed by the European Commission.
The Nordic nation currently takes in more refugees per capita than any other EU member state.
Sweden’s Migration Board (Migrationsverket) received a total of 11,743 applications for asylum last month, up from 6,619 in June and 8,066 in July, as an increasing number of refugees headed for Scandinavia over the summer.
Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 07 October 2015 09:12.
Seriously, Estonia, Luxembourg & Sweden are to be thronged within days, as invaders are directed northward from their Mediterranean beachheads:
(ANSA) - Brussels, October 2 - EU sources said Friday the relocation of asylum seekers from Italy to other EU nations including Estonia, Luxembourg and Sweden will begin “within days”. The idea is to get it done before the next EU summit on October 15, the sources said. EU interior ministers agreed in September to resettle 120,000 asylum seekers from Greece and Italy - where most refugees fleeing across the Mediterranean usually make first landfall - to other member States.
Of auguries, apparitions and specters.. .
With the help of the Swedish government, Barbara Spectre set-up a non-denominational institute of Jewish learning with the Greek name of Paideia -
She believes Jews have a key role to play in a country undergoing profound change:
“I think there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism because Europe has not yet learned how to be multicultural; and I think that we’re going to be part of the throes of that transformation, which much take place. Europe is not going to be the ‘monolithic’ ..uh, uh, societies they once were in the last century. Jews are going to be at the center of that - it’s a huge transformation for Europe to make. They are now going into a multi-cultural mode, and Jews will be resented because of our leading role.”
She adds….”but without that leading role and with out that transformation, Europe will not survive.” - ??
Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 03 October 2015 16:27.
Even where not required by EU quotas, Ireland’s Catholic bishops are calling for Irish parishes to accept and settle refugees who “will be arriving for months and years to come.”
Prelates seek reform of direct provision for asylum seekers to avoid two-tier system
The Catholic bishops have called on parishes throughout the island to mobilise resources to help with the resettlement of migrants who come to Ireland.
They have also called for urgent reform in direct provision for asylum seekers to avoid the emergence of an unjust two-tier system.
In a statement on Thursday afternoon, the bishops encouraged “all members of our parish communities to explore how they might offer their services, talents, time and commitment to supporting the resettlement of refugees through practical parish actions such as friendship and welcome schemes, English language classes, trauma counselling and medical services, as well as legal advice services”.
Demanding solidarity
They noted how “local communities across the island of Ireland have reacted to the worsening refugee crisis by mobilising to demand greater solidarity from European political leaders. The swift and enthusiastic response to Pope Francis’s appeal to parishes shows a ready willingness to help and a recognition that our parishes need to be places of welcome to all.
“Bishops are working with clergy and other diocesan personnel, as well as faith-based organisations, to assess our capacity to contribute to the national and international response.”
They said that “given the magnitude of the current crisis, refugees will be arriving for months and years to come, and it will be some years before they can safely return to their country of origin. Co-operation and clear sharing of responsibility across relevant Government departments, to address different types of need, is a necessary foundation for strategic planning.”
Move is aimed at atoning for the ‘historic mistake’ of forcing Sephardic Jews to leave on pain of death
October 2, 2015
Spain granted citizenship on Friday for 4,302 Sephardic Jews under a new law aimed at atoning for the expulsion of their Jewish ancestors five centuries ago in the Inquisition.
The law allowing dual citizenship for descendants of Jews who were forced to flee Spain in 1492 or face burning at the stake was approved by the Spanish parliament in June and came into force on Thursday.
But Justice Minister Rafael Catala said Friday the government had approved an extra measure to save paperwork for thousands who had already filed applications for nationality before the latest law came into force.
The new decree “has allowed us at one stroke to grant nationality to 4,302 people of Sephardic origin” whose applications under previous legislation were already pending, Catala told a news conference after a cabinet meeting.
“This is one more step in developing the law for granting nationality to the Sephardim,” he said in reference to the descendents of Spanish Jews forceed into exile.
“It seemed fair, rather than making them go through the process of filing their applications again, to speed up the process.”
The measure aims to correct what the Spanish government has called the “historic mistake” of the country’s Catholic monarchs sending Jews into exile in 1492.
Jewish groups welcomed the law in June, though some Jewish leaders complained the requirements are too burdensome.
Applicants do not have to be practising Jews but they must have their ancestry vetted by Jewish authorities and prove a “special connection” to and knowledge of Spain.
Historians believe at least 200,000 Jews lived in Spain before the monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand ordered them to convert to the Catholic faith or leave the country on pain of death.
Up to 3.5 million people around the world are thought to have Sephardic Jewish ancestry.
Posted by DanielS on Sunday, 27 September 2015 15:57.
Some were calling it ‘good news’ others were calling it ‘activism’
The Baitul Futuh Mosque in London caught fire. Half of its ground floor and first floor are in flames. Seventy firefighters and 10 fire engines are reported to be tackling the blaze.
A fire has broken out at the mosque located in London Road in Morden, in the south of the British capital, a London Fire Brigade (LFB) spokesman said on Saturday, according to local media.
Baitul Futuh mosque was completed in 2003, and its construction reportedly cost £5.5million ($83.5 million). It is believed to be the largest in Western Europe with a capacity to house up to 10,000 people.
Any man who causes the name of a website called “Gay Niggers of America” to appear on the front page of the website of US presidential candidate (and US president to be) Barack Obama, cannot be all bad. lolllzzzzllllolllzzzzzz indeed.
On February 11, 2007, an attack was launched on the website of US presidential candidate (and future US president) Barack Obama, where the group’s name was caused to appear on the website’s front page
Marine Le Pen, the president of France’s far-right Front National party, is to appear in court for allegedly inciting racial hatred over comments in which she compared Muslims praying in the streets to the Nazi occupation.
The FN leader made the comments in a speech during a party rally in Lyon in 2010. Asked on Tuesday about being summoned to appear in court on 20 October, Le Pen told Agence France-Presse: “Of course, I’m not going to miss such an occasion.”
Later, she told Europe 1 it was “scandalous to be prosecuted for having a political opinion in the country of freedom of expression.”
At the time she made the remarks, Le Pen was campaigning to become FN president, succeeding her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, himself no stranger to charges of provoking racial hatred.
At the rally, Le Pen made reference to “street prayers” after reports of Muslims praying in public in three French cities, including Paris, because of a lack of mosques or a lack of space in local prayer rooms. The French government later clamped down on the “illegal” use of the public space for prayers.
“I’m sorry, but for those who really like to talk about the second world war, if we’re talking about occupation, we can also talk about this while we’re at it, because this is an occupation of territory,” she told supporters, prompting waves of applause.
“It’s an occupation of swaths of territory, of areas in which religious laws apply … for sure, there are no tanks, no soldiers, but it’s an occupation all the same and it weighs on people.”
Despite numerous complaints from anti-racist organisations, a preliminary inquiry by the authorities in Lyon was dropped in 2011. However, one association pursued the legal complaint, and when the European parliament lifted Le Pen’s parliamentary immunity in July 2013, a preliminary inquiry was opened. In September 2014, the prosecutor’s office announced she would be sent before a judge.
As of 2011, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s speeches had led to 18 convictions, five for repeating that the Holocaust was a mere “point of detail” of the second world war.
Marine Le Pen has been credited with “de-demonising” the FN and throwing out its more xenophobic and extremist elements since taking control of the party in January 2011. Critics accused her of swapping the FN’s historic antisemitism for Islamophobia.
Le Pen’s deputy, Florian Philippot, reacted angrily on Twitter to her summons. “The only people who should be sent before the court are those who allow prayers in the street that are illegal and against the principle of secularism!” he wrote.
Philippot accused the French authorities of trying to smear Le Pen before regional elections to be held in December.
Le Pen also expressed her anger on Twitter. “We’re quicker to prosecute those who denounce the illegal behaviour of fundamentalists … than to prosecute the fundamentalists behaving illegally,” she wrote.
The penalty for inciting racial hatred in France is up to a year in prison and a €45,000 fine.
* France’s Front National has also been charged with fraud in an election finance inquiry.
