EU in Kosovo rules Serbs by diktat

State Secretary in the Serbian Ministry for Kosovo Oliver Ivanovic said that the EU representative in Serbia’s Kosovo province, Peter Feith, does not listen to the ethnic Serbs but only tells them what must they obey.
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Berlinollywood? New Polanski Thriller Backed by German Government

by John Rosenthal
The propaganda value of Polanski’s The Ghost Writer is obvious at first glance. One need only consider the film’s official synopsis:
When a successful British ghost writer, The Ghost, agrees to complete the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang, his agent assures him it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. But the project seems doomed from the start — not least because his predecessor on the project, Lang’s long-term aide, died in an unfortunate accident. The Ghost flies out to work on the project, in the middle of winter, to an oceanfront house on an island off the U.S. Eastern seaboard. But the day after he arrives, a former British cabinet minister accuses Lang of authorizing the illegal seizure of suspected terrorists and handing them over for torture by the CIA – a war crime. … As The Ghost works, he begins to uncover clues suggesting his predecessor may have stumbled on a dark secret linking Lang to the CIA — and that somehow this information is hidden in the manuscript he left behind. Was Lang in the service of the American intelligence agency while he was prime minister? And was The Ghost’s predecessor murdered because of the appalling truth he uncovered?
The Ghost Writer is presently opening in cinemas all across Europe. It has thus far had only a limited release in the USA. As virtually all the advance publicity for the film in the European media makes clear, any apparent resemblances between Pierce Brosnan’s “Adam Lang” and a certain living former British prime minister are entirely intended.
Contrary to a popular misconception, Germany was not merely part of the self-styled “axis of peace” that opposed the Iraq War. Under then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Germany — not France — led the opposition to the war.
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pajamasmedia.com

Germany starting to grasp nature of modern anti-Semitism

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
Analysis: Does the confluence of three seemingly coincidental events across four German cities represent a refreshing pocket of pro-Israel support?
The removal of a longstanding anti-Semitic “Wailing Wall” exhibit in front of the Cologne Cathedral, the decision by government-funded foundations to uninvite anti-Israel academic Norman Finkelstein from speaking in Berlin and Munich and the resignation of a Frankfurt imam who participated in a pro-Iran rally calling for Israel’s destruction.Does the confluence of three seemingly coincidental events across four German cities in February represent a refreshing pocket of pro-Israel support?According to critics, Walter Herrmann, a hard-core hater of Israel, mounted a permanent anti-Semitic exhibit entitled “Cologne Wailing Wall” five years ago on the bustling, pedestrian-filled cathedral square in Cologne, attacking the Jewish state with inflammatory language, cartoons and photographs. One cartoon (picture) shows a man sporting a Star of David on his bib as he devours a young Palestinian boy with an fork draped in an American flag and a knife with the word “Gaza.” A glass filled with blood stands next to to his dinner plate.“If that [cartoon] is not incitement to hatred, Paragraph 130 of the German criminal code can be abolished,” Gerd Buurmann told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. He filed a criminal complaint against Herrmann for violating Paragraph 130, an anti-hate-crime law that bars incitement against minority groups. The complaint apparently led Cologne authorities to shut down the exhibit.Buurmann, who serves as director of the Severins Burg Theater, said Herrmann propagates “a radical expression that Jews are not welcome in Cologne.” He termed Herrmann’s exhibit “anti-Semitic” because it shows Israel “in the tradition of the National Socialists,” adding that the cartoon recalls the anti-Jewish propaganda of the Nazi Der Stürmer newspaper.The Cologne City Council and the mayor have over the years largely remained passive and tolerated the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel exhibit. With the exceptions of a small anti-fascist group called Mad Cologne, Buurmann and the Jewish community, the overwhelming majority of citizens in Cologne have either remained indifferent to the anti-Israel spectacle in the heart of their city or expressed satisfaction with vitriol against the Jewish state. According to Herrmann, roughly 100,000 people have signed his petition supporting the political content of his exhibit.Meanwhile, Norman Finkelstein announced on Sunday that he plans to cancel a series of anti-Israel lectures in Germany. After foundations affiliated with the Green Party, the Left Party, and the Amerika House pulled the plug on their support for his talk, Finkelstein capitulated. When asked about the organizations’ decision to discontinue their aid, Alex Feuerherdt , a journalist and keen observer of German-Israeli relations, told the Post it remains unclear “whether that is progress.” He argued that the foundations initially invited Finkelstein.“Anti-semitism is not an opinion but a crime,” said Feuerherdt, adding that the Left Party’s Rosa Luxemburg Foundation maintains that Finkelstein’s anti-Semitic theses form the basis for an ongoing discussion.However, the Finkelstein dispute is child’s play compared to the EU’s reaction to Israel and Iran. Feuerherdt criticized Germany and the EU for promoting dialogue with a murderous regime in Teheran while at the same time seeking to curtail diplomatic relations with Israel because of the reported involvement of the Mossad in the killing of Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh.There is a bitter irony when the EU, which conducts approximately €14.1 billion worth of annual trade with Iran, threatens not to upgrade Israel’s EU diplomatic status for possible complicity in the death of al-Mabhouh, a murderer and smuggler of Iranian arms destined for Hamas to be used to kill Israelis.Iran’s call to obliterate Israel spilled over into the Frankfurt mosque Hazrat-Fatima. Public pressure forced the anti-Israel imam Sabahaddin Türkyilmaz to resign his post because he participated in an Al-Quds Day march, which Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established in 1979 to purge Jerusalem of Israel’s presence.While there was a growing awareness among politicians in Frankfrut that Türyilmaz, who insists he has the backing of his community, is spreading modern anti-Semitism, huge gaps in knowledge about combating new forms of anti-Semitism still remain.The controversial director of the Berlin Center for Research on Anti-Semitism, Wolfgang Benz, told the Frankfurter Rundschau that the sacking of the imam was justified as a result of the Holocaust and Germany’s responsibility toward Israel’s right to exist.
What Benz fails to see is that the resignation was justified because the imam spreads anti-Semitism. According to Benz’s bizarre logic, it seems he might entertain the idea of not supporting Israel’s right to exist if the Holocaust had not taken place.Critics view many of the academics at the Berlin Center and Benz as intellectual lightweights because they largely ignore modern anti-Semitism – bias and hatred of Israel – while remaining preoccupied with antiquated forms of anti-Semitism that represent no overriding threat to Jews and Israelis.While many observers argue the “special relationship” between Germany and Israel is chiefly a government-driven project that finds only scattered support within civilian population, a breathtaking series – by German standards – of mainly non-Jewish initiatives is confronting expressions of hatred against Israel.
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jpost.com

German dhimmi politician Schavan wants Islamic scholars for universities

Guest Islamic scholars will be brought from overseas to teach at German universities in an effort to foster a home-grown theology for the religion followed by more than 4 million people here, Schavan told weekly Die Zeit the shortage of Islamic academics meant they would have to be imported from abroad to ensure imams and other Islamic leaders could be educated within the German educational system.“There are very few leading Islamic scholars in Germany,” Schavan said.With an additional €12 billion for education and research announced by the federal government, there was also money available for additional Islamic professorships, Schavan said.She added that Christian theology had benefited from being developed at German universities and that Islamic theology would be helped by the “same academic approach.”The German Council of Science and Humanities – an advisory body to the government – recommended at the end of January that in future, imams and Islamic religious teachers should be educated at German universities.The council also called for major Islamic studies institutes to be established at two or three of Germany’s universities.It is one of several new ideas to improve integration. Late last year, the cultural organisation Auslandsgesellschaft announced a programme to help 17 Turkish imams learn German. Most of the religious leaders have recently come from Turkey and have no German skills.
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Germany: Court suspends Kurdish TV ban

A Kurdish satellite television channel won its court case Thursday against the German government, which had tried to close down the channel, Roj TV, after a request from the Turkish government. A tribunal in Leipzig effectively suspended the ban, asking the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg to rule on the case instead. Roj TV is based in Denmark, but its main audience comprises immigrants in Germany.Germany's Interior Ministry had earlier warned Roj TV it had no legal right to beam its satellite broadcasts down into the country because it backs the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), a group defined as terrorist under both Turkish and German law.The tribunal said those allegations were valid - but it transpired Germany had no power under European Union law to interfere in operations of a broadcasting enterprise incorporated in Denmark.Judges said EU broadcasting law meant that it was up to Denmark to supervise Roj, which means "day" in the Kurdish language. Germany could only have shut down the channel if it had issued the broadcast licence in the first place.
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Matthias Küntzel: The Berlin-Dubai-Tehran Axis

The German-Emirati Joint Council for Industry & Commerce seeks new business in Iran even as Merkel promises additional sanctions. Hundreds of German manufacturers remain determined to continue doing business as usual with Tehran.
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Germany: Court installs foot-washing basins

Foot-washing basins for Muslims have been installed in the high-security wing of the Düsseldorf court. This would enable the followers of the Koran to follow their religious rituals during the trial.By request of a weekly newspaper , court spokesperson Ulrich Eggert confirmed the report in the Rheinischen Post. He justified it saying that in the past toilets have been stopped up with toilet paper and used for feet washing.Eggert says that in order to remedy the situation, the new court building has special foot washing basins in the bathrooms. The Düsseldorf court was in the over the past week, when Christian crosses were taken down due to the neutrality requirement.The German Islamic Council has spoken out against the removal of crosses from German courts. Chairman Ali Kizilkaya said that the Western traditions which have developed over millennium all deserve the respect that people give their symbols. He said he was convinced that a cross on the wall does not prevent any judge from judging according to German law.

3 Croatian Nazis sentenced

Croatian court in the city of Krizevci sentenced 3 young Croatians to 10 days in jail for promoting intolerance and discrimination. The 3 men were arrested for attempting to organize a concert of a German band Blue Max.
Although banned in Germany, Blue Max has a cult following among neo-Nazis and the gig in Croatia, where Nazis are adored by many young Croatians, was to headline them along with a local Croatian “swastika-lickers called Strong Survive” or The SS. Video of the SS song called San (dream) is also available on the YouTube and is filled with Croatian Nazi imagery that follow the singer’s shouting about the ancestor dreams etc…
Incidentally, to avoid having the Nazi stuff delisted from various search engines, the word Nazi is spelled as “nutsi” or a variation thereof.
Anyway, the 3 young jailed Croatians are part of the Croatian Nazi organization called Hrvatski Nacionalisti (Croatian Nationalists) whose web site, http://www.hrvatskinacionalisti.org/, appears to have been blocked although a view of it can be gotten via Google cache.
The website pays tribute to various Nazi sympathizers, pays anniversary to various Croatian Ustasha WWII offensives while Hitler’s allies, and on a more modern tone, promotes the fashion look for the “holiness of Aryan blood”.
The Hrvatski Nacionalisti movement is completed with their own YouTube channel. Below is a group of some of the Croatian Nationalist members.
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serbianna/bozinovich

Germany: Wife of accused jihadist arrested on suspicion of fundraising for jihad group

The wife of a well-known German Islamist has been arrested in connection with fundraising activities on behalf of the Islamic Jihad Union. Police have also held two other suspected terrorism supporters.
The members of the German homegrown terrorist group known as the Sauerland Cell are currently on trial in Düsseldorf, accused of plotting to bomb American targets in Germany. Now it has been revealed that the wife of the alleged ringleader has been arrested on suspicion of supporting a foreign terrorist group.
The woman, who has not been named, was one of three suspected terrorism supporters who were arrested in Germany on Saturday. The 28-year-old woman and the two men, aged 20 and 31, are accused of having assisted the foreign terrorist group called the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), federal prosecutors in Karlsruhe announced on Monday.
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jihadwatch.org

Germany: Jewish leader warns of Muslim antisemitism

In a related story, Imam Sabahattin Türkyilmaz of the Shiite Hazrat Fatima Zehra mosque in Frankfurt resigned all his positions in the mosque this week, saying he did so in order to protect the community, the blessed mosque, to protect all the families involved, the Muslims of the city and to protect - although now damaged - dialog. The Christian Democrats in the city said they thought it was the logical step, since the Islamic community was not in a position to refute the allegations against their imam.The resignation followed a TV report about the imam's participation in an anti-Israel demonstration in Berlin on al-Quds Day several years ago, where he marched with demonstrators who cried "Death, death to Israel". In a speech he gave at a different demonstration he called in Arabic that "we belong tot he community of Hezbollah", and he expressed anti-Israel sentiments in a Friday sermon, quoting the Ayatollah Khomeini's speech against Israel.The imam had accused the news program of conducting a smear campaign against him. (DE, DE)
The vice chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, warns of increasing antisemitism among Muslim immigrants. Especially among youth of Arab origins it's 'frightfully high', says Graumann in the latest edition of the German magazine 'Focus'. There's no point in denying it or in sidestepping the issue.It's particularly the Muslim communities who would be served by curbing the anti-Jewish sentiments among Muslims, according to Graumann. Although their representatives make official statements against antisemitism, they don't do enough among their own people."If they'll make more of an effort, the Muslim communities would win much more credibility," according to the vice chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
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The American World War II Film: Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas (1943)

by Carl Savich
One of the most successful and critically acclaimed wartime movie was on the Balkans, the former Yugoslavia, on the resistance movement headed by Draza Mihailovich. Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas was both a box office and critical success. Chicago Mayor Edward J. Kelly made a public appearance for the movie in April, 1943 and The Ink Spots and Lucky Millinder performed on stage before it was shown in theaters.
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Pandering to subtle German anti-Semitism

BY BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
BERLIN - Remember the late British Jewish actor Marty Feldman's role in the 1974 comedy film Young Frankenstein? He plays Dr. Frankenstein's hunchback assistant Igor and moves his hump from shoulder to shoulder to deliberately perplex his boss.The controversial American Jewish political scientist Norman Finkelstein's attempt to secure locations last week in Munich and Berlin to deliver anti-Israel lectures recalls Feldman's shifting hump.Finkelstein, whose scheduled talk ­ "One year after the invasion of the Israeli army in Gaza and the responsibility of the German government in the starvation of the Palestinian population"­ generated protests and cancellations last week, resulting, like Igor's hump, in a perpetual shift of venue. Initially, he was scheduled to speak in the Trinitatis evangelical church in Berlin, with organizational and financial support from the political foundations of the Green Party, Left Party, German-Palestinian organizations, and a fringe group of anti-Zionist Jews.Finkelstein was denied entry to Israel in 2008 because of his pro-Hizbullah solidarity activity in Lebanon. According to a February New York Times review of a documentary on Finkelstein, he waved a banner during a protest against the First Lebanon War in 1982, urging "Israeli Nazis" to "stop the Holocaust in Lebanon."The Heinrich Böll Foundation, affiliated with the Green Party, pulled the plug on its involvement and said in a statement: "We regret our decision... and because of careless, insufficient research we made a fiercely bad decision. Finkelstein's behavior and his theses take place, in our view, not within the framework of justified criticism."
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jpost.com

German documentary "The Turban and the Swastika"

The State That’s Still A Lie -- 'Independent' Kosovo Turns 2

by Nebojsa Malic
Two years have passed since the Albanian provisional government in the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo declared independence, and was quickly recognized by the Empire and its clients. The powers that have invoked the specter of Munich 1938 to justify their aggressive interventions in the Balkans had engaged in a little Munich of their own.
Kosovo was occupied by NATO in June 1999, following a 78-day air war against what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (composed of Serbia and Montenegro). The occupation was formally sanctioned by the UN Security Council resolution 1244, which was never fully adhered to by neither NATO nor the UN mission in the province (UNMIK). Even though 1244 guaranteed Serbia’s territorial integrity in language that clearly precluded the province’s separation without Belgrade’s consent, supporters and sponsors of ethnic Albanian separatists in the West would advocate precisely that for years. Following the 2004 pogrom of Serbs, described by one observer as a repeat of Kristallnacht, their agenda was finally adopted by official Washington.
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Munich Re to stop doing business in Iran

Munich Re, the world's biggest reinsurer, on Friday became the latest German firm to pull out of Iran as pressure grows for new sanctions against the Islamic republic over its nuclear programme. The company said in a brief statement that due to the "political situation" it has decided not to renew any existing contracts when they expire or to write any new business.For a firm generating close to €40 billion ($54 billion) in premiums each year, the loss of an estimated €10 million is small, but the move is politically significant.The announcement follows a similar move by German engineering giant Siemens last month, and comes amid pressure from Germany's partners to cut its business ties with Iran.Germany, which recently lost its crown to China as the world's top exporter, exported almost €4 billion worth of goods to Iran in 2008, mainly machine tools and industrial equipment, a rise of nearly nine percent.
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Yet another Bosnian terror veteran free

Saudi Arabia is set to release Ahmed Zaid Salim Zuhair a member of Bosnian Muslim Army unit El-Mujahid. Zuhair was nabbed then sent to Guantanamo for killing an American librarian working for the UN in Bosnia. Obama released Zuhair to the Saudi’s so he can be “rehabilitated”.
The continuing Bosnian irony where Zuhair was arrested for killing one American and not for killing many Serbs as part of the Bosnian Muslim El-Mujahid soldier is fully looped with the decision by the Saudis to exonerate Zuhair for any murders he’s done.
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serbianna/bozinovich

Captain Renault Is Shocked, Once Again

European leftists frequently declare the empty slogan of “never again fascism,” while championing anti-Semitic despotic groups and regimes such as Hamas, Hezbullah and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Witness the example of the vice president of the German Left Party, Sahra Wagenknecht, and her fellow party members of the parliament.
When Israeli President Shimon Peres indirectly referenced the Iranian threat and the need to stop the Islamic Republic’s drive to go nuclear during his speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day to the German Parliament, Wagenknecht and fellow German Left Party members Christine Buchholz, Heike Hänsel and Sevim Dagdelen refused to participate in a standing ovation. They justified their protest because Peres warned about the dangers of the Iranian regime and because he participated in Israel’s self-defense wars.
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achgut.com

Islamophobia and Antisemitism: Holocaust Revisionism in Germany

by Benjamin Weinthal
The debate has been raging for weeks in the major German media about whether anti-Semitism can be compared with Islamophobia. Advocates of the parallel see a mirror image of hate. Wolfgang Benz, the controversial Director of the Berlin Center for Research on Anti-Semitism , ignited the debate in early January , and argues that "The fury of the new enemies of Islam parallels the older rage of anti-Semites against the Jews." Benz's credibility has taken a beating, however, after it was disclosed in late January that he honored his Nazi doctoral supervisor, an energetic ideologue of the Hitler movement.
Yet the affinity for the anti-Semitism-equals-Islamophobia equation still has a devoted mainstream following. On the other hand, critics of the parallel see a playing down
of lethal anti-Semitism, a marginalization of the Holocaust, and an excuse to justify radical Islamic terror. The debate carries enormous currency in this country, largely because Germany employed eliminationist anti-Semitism to obliterate European Jewry. The marriage between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia is part of a larger trend of obfuscation. As was previously argued by Professor Dovid Katz in the Guardian the efforts to conflate the Holocaust—the end result of revolutionary anti-Semitism—with the former Soviet Union's occupation of Eastern Europe, is a form of historical obfuscationBenz and his journalistic fans fail to see that their defense of Islamophobia insulates political Islam against sharp criticism and creates political obfuscation. The term Islamophobia" emerged from the Islamic Republic of Iran following the revolution in 1979 and was introduced as a response to international criticism of such practices as the forcing of women to wear headscarves, persecution of gays and other violators of "Islamic morality."By lumping anti-Semitism with Islamophobia, the proponents have put the issue of their motivation in the public eye. The Israeli psychoanalyst Zvi Rex neatly captured the state of post-Holocaust anti-Semitism with his sharp sarcasm: “The Germans will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.” That helps to explain the drive to water down the crimes of the Shoah by pooh-poohing the murderous nature of anti-Semitism.
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thejewishweek.com

Slowly but Surely, Europe Rises Against Islam

Germany has found itself involved in a scandal similar to the one which took place in Switzerland in the fall of 2009. The population of Germany’s Saar province decides whether or not the Muslim community of the province can build a minaret near the mosque in the town of Volklingen. It is not ruled out that the question will be solved at a referendum since opinions are different. The story started in January when the Muslim community of the town addressed to the municipal administration with a request to build a minaret near the mosque. The story bore a striking resemblance to what happened in Switzerland last year.
Switzerland ’s ultra-right People’s Party stated that minaret was a symbol of Islamisation of the country. The construction of minarets in the European nation was banned as a result of the referendum.
Let’s get back to Germany. The town of Volklingen with its 40,000-strong population is a special place on the map of the country. Muslims, presumably the Turks, make a third of the town’s population. The mosque was built there a long time ago, but it raises concerns with many people.
Rightist organizations of Germany share the views of Switzerland’s ultra-right activists, who believe that minaret symbolizes the Muslim aspiration to power.
Spokespeople for leftist political organizations claim that a prohibition will trigger massive protests. A local priest said that minaret was not a symbol of opposition between two cultures. Quite on the contrary, it represented peaceful integration of Muslims into the German society, the priest said.
An opinion poll conducted among the local population showed that the adversaries of minarets outnumber their supporters. Thus, it is not ruled out that a small town in Germany’s Saar will become the first place on the map of the European Union where the construction of such religious objects is officially prohibited (Switzerland is not a member of the European Union).
The story in Saar may echo in other regions of Germany. The Muslim population of Germany makes up over 4 million people; Turks make two-thirds of the number. Arabs, Kurds, Muslim Bosnians and Albanians have large communities in the country.
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english.pravda.ru

German MEPs Lead Euro-Revolt Against Terrorist Finance Tracking Program

by John Rosenthal
The German opposition seems particularly ironic — and the reasons given for it ring particularly hollow — in light of the German government’s recent decision to purchase stolen Swiss bank data in the name of fighting tax evasion. (See my Pajamas Media report here.)
The German opposition is particularly troubling in light of the fact that several of the terror plots cited in the Bruguière report are known to have had a connection to Germany. This is the case not only for the “Sauerland cell” plot, but also for the foiled UK-based transatlantic airliner plot, and the 2002 Bali bombings. The presumed al-Qaeda financier of the Bali bombings, Reda Seyam, remains, to this day, a free man in Germany. (On Seyam, see my article in Policy Review magazine here.) As recently discussed by Stefan Frank on Pajamas Media here, the al-Qaeda financier Mamoun Darkazanli likewise remains a free man in Germany.
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pajamasmedia.com

Germany: Lawmakers wants laws against FGM, forced marriage

Members of the Bundesrat wants tough jail sentences for individuals found guilty of female genital mutilation.The upper house has decided that the practice should constitute a specific legal crime under German law.Under current legislation, genital mutilation is merely classed as aggravated assault with a maximum prison sentence of six months. The Bundesrat now wants to raise that to a minimum of two years.Thousands of women in Germany, most of them immigrants, have suffered genital mutilation, which is still an active ritual in some parts of Africa and, to a lesser extent, Asia and Latin America. High numbers of victims meant that Germany had to take action said the justice minister for the state of Hesse, Joerg-Uwe Hahn."The victims suffer all their lives from the physical and psychological effects of female genital mutilation," Hahn said.The women's rights organization Terres des Femmes says some 20,000 cases of genital mutilation are known in Europe, with between 4,000 and 5,000 of these in Germany.If written into law, the rules would also allow German prosecutors to punish genital mutilation abroad where the victim is a resident in Germany."The respect for foreign culture cannot mean that we here in Germany will allow physical and emotional injury to go unpunished," Hein said.The Bundesrat has also repeated its commitment to make the arranging of forced marriages a criminal offense. The Bundestag has failed to make a decision on the issue in the past.

Balkan Death: The Albanian Narco-Mafia

By Marko Lopusina
The network among ethnic Albanian clans, maintained by ancient codes of cruel vendettas, spans the world and equally involves unknown local Albanian clansman as well as the Albanian nobility and the pretender to ...
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Iran Nobel winner seeks Nokia Siemens sanctions

"My question to America is this: why don't you impose the same kind of heavy punishment on corporations that provide Iran with equipment that can be used to suppress the people?"
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AS IRAN IS REVIEWED AT THE HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL, MASS RALLY OF COALITION PARTNERS IS HELD OUTSIDE

Geneva, Switzerland -February 15th, 2010. Today the Islamic Republic of Iran's controversial human rights record came under scrutiny during the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review.
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Germany: Conservative Mayor Rejects Minaret

by sheikyermami
Oye, what’s happening here?
Völklingens conservative mayor Klaus Lorig, contrary to other parties who will never speak up about these issues, comes out in support of his citizens. They don’t want a minaret for the mosque (pictured is the planned mosque roof with minaret in a computer animation), although the enlightened progressives from Die WELT tell us its “only a tiny little decorative rocket launcher”, (Ziertürmchen) from which the Muezzin will never call.
An additional note: Völklingen is a rather impoverished area. The coal mines are long closed and no new industries are emerging. There is no reason for the mostly Turkish Mohammedans in this area to remain. Obviously scrounging off German welfare is preferable to them to going back to Turkey. A repatriation program is long overdue.
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“German Bakery” Blown Up

PUNE: In a suspected terror attack, eight people were killed and up to 40 injured in a bomb explosion in a popular bakery near a Jewish prayer house here in the first major strike after the 26/11 carnage in Mumbai.The blast occurred in the German Bakery, an old business establishment in the Cantonment area of the city, at around 1930 hours. ( Watch Video )
The famous Osho Ashram, frequented by foreigners, is also located in the vicinity of the blast site. US terror suspect David Headley is believed to have stayed at the Ashram during his visit to the city.
“It’s most probably a terror attack. We are sending a forensic team of CBI and personnel of National Investigative Agency (NIA)”, Union Home Secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai said in New Delhi.
Official sources said an Improvised Explosive Device was used to trigger the blast….
Sheik sez:
Many young Israeli’s travel around India after military service. There have been frequent warnings about an imminent attack on places that cater to them. The place of this attack is Poona, (spelled Puna) in this article, near the ashram where Rajneesh ‘Baghwan’ used to fleece mostly devoted German losers (or should I call them seekers of enlightenment?) in the seventies. Looks like India has a lot of dirty work to do to sort out the jihadists from their midst.
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sheikyermami.com

Story of a Turkish apostate of Islam in Germany

Nazi Bosnian Pride Movement formed

Bosnian neo-nazi organization was birthed today that insists that Bosnia belongs to the Bosniaks, an invented nationality with which Bosnian Muslims identify in order to avoid their religious background when talking to the Western press.
The new Nazi Bosnian Pride Movement (Bosanski pokret nacionalnog ponosa) believes that Serbs and Croats have no right to the state and that the state belongs exclusively to Bosnian Muslims, aka Bosniaks. The Pride’s insignia is pictured on the left.
The Nazi Bosnian Pride Movement has expanded its enemy list from their WWII predecessors, the Handzar Division and the Young Muslims.
As their enemies, Nazi Bosnian Pride Movement includes the usual ones they were exterminating in WWII – Jews, Gypsies and Serbs – but have expand the list to include Chetniks, Tito, communists, homosexuals, blacks and Croatian separatists.
The group plans to spread nazi leaflets very soon in the cities of Sarajevo, Zenica, Bihac, Tuzla and Mostar, all cities with substantial Muslim and Croat population that will find the message appealing.
The group’s a notoriously slow to load web site, bosnacenter.com, serves up a blank page but with little googling their moderated chat room appears with postings on Zionism, Serb Republic, Truth and 5 questions for perspective members.
One can also sport some of their multimedia courtesy of the YouTube.
serbianna/bozinovich

Bosnian Imam: “With infidels we are never at peace”

Bosnian Imam Bilal Bosnic (Picture), who podcasts his hutba’s or spiritual teachings for pious Muslims has said that Muslims are not at peace with infidels but that they have signed a temporary cease fire.
“With infidels we are never at peace, instead we signed a cease fire,” said Imam Bosnic in his spiritual teaching published via hs web site http://www.n-um.com/.
The web site is ran by Bosnian Muslims from Sweden.
In this same audio, Imam Bosnic condemns recent arrests of Wahhabis in Bosnian village of Gornja Maoca calling the raid “xenophobia” that was ordered by the power brokers in the “homosexual” town of Berlin.
“There are more martyrs today then during the war,” said Bosnian in that spiritual teaching and urged more Bosnian Muslims to become shahids, or martyrs in the cause of Islam.
serbianna/bozinovich

Al-Qaeda Financier Remains a Free Man in Germany

by Stefan Frank
Last month, the Domestic Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag announced that it will hold inquiries into an alleged CIA plan to kill Mamoun Darkazanli (Picture), a German-Syrian resident of Hamburg. The German federal prosecutor’s office is reportedly likewise considering opening an investigation into the matter.
The moves were prompted by a Vanity Fair profile of Erik Prince, the founder and chairman of the private military contractor Blackwater. It is mentioned in passing in the article that the company, at one point, received a commission from the CIA to track Darkazanli and possibly to kill him. The supposed plan, however, was never carried out due to a “lack of political will.” “Frankly, I’m speechless,” Darkazanli told the popular German tabloid Bild. “That’s a contract for murder.”
There are numerous reasons to treat the report with caution: among others, the fact that the only source given for it is anonymous. Nonetheless, when the story first began making the rounds in early January, politicians from all of Germany’s major political parties reacted with outrage. Since, however, there is nothing to discuss but an unsubstantiated claim, the Bundestag’s inquiries can be expected to end quickly and without any notable result.
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pajamasmedia.com

To Obtain Swiss Bank Data, Germany Breaks the Law

by John Rosenthal
Der Rechtsstaat. The term is a favorite of German politicians and editorialists — especially when it comes to bashing the USA and measures taken by the USA in its war with Islamic terror organizations. Literally, it means the “state of law” or “legal state.” But the closest common English expression would be rather the “rule of law.” According to the virtually unanimous opinion of the German political and chattering classes, the United States is supposed to have betrayed the Rechtsstaat and its principles by, for example, establishing the Guantánamo Bay prison camp and refusing to offer foreign terror suspects access to civilian courts and their due process protections. Never mind that war is by definition the absence of law in the ordinary sense of the term and hence necessarily involves extra-legal measures. It is indeed precisely for this reason that there are a special set of so-called “laws and customs of war” to regulate its conduct among civilized nations. Never mind that America’s enemies in its current war make no pretense to respecting even the latter.
But now we know — in case there was ever any doubt — that the whole German hue and cry about the Rechtsstaat was never serious anyway. Thus, last week, the German government announced that, in the name of combating tax evasion, it was going to purchase personal account data stolen from Swiss banks. German authorities will reportedly pay the data thief some €2.5 million. The purchase will be made by the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia, with the federal government’s blessing. With the help of the stolen data, authorities hope to be able to recover up to €400 million in lost tax revenues according to the latest estimates. (The latter have been notably inflated by a factor of four as compared to the initial reports.)
Germany is thereby not only fomenting crime abroad. As it so happens, paragraph 259 of Germany’s own criminal code prohibits the purchase of stolen goods. It is specified that in order for it to count as criminal, the purpose of the purchase must be the “enrichment” of the purchaser or a third party. But arguably this condition is in fact fulfilled in the present case, as the widely cited monetary cost-benefit analysis of the purchase makes clear.
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Jon Stewart takes on Hamas TV

Spies, Lies, and Fear: The Bosnian "Threat" to Empire

by Nebojsa Malic
Bosnia was in the headlines again this week. On Monday, police from both the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation raided a Wahhabi village in the north of the country. And on Tuesday, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair spoke of Bosnia as one of the "principal challenges to stability in Europe" in 2010.
While Blair’s description of the conditions in Bosnia was more or less accurate, he never explained why Bosnia’s inner turmoil is considered a threat to Europe (much less the U.S.). It wouldn’t be the first time Washington or Brussels got Bosnia wrong, of course, but the way Blair’s remarks were reported is nothing short of scandalous. Same can be said about reports of Monday’s raid.
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German Cultural Appeasement

The country's art pages consider not Islamists but their critics as the real 'preachers of hate.'
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
Berlin
Just when the murderous lessons of political Islam—from the numerous terror attacks to "honor killings" and hate preachers—were thought to be inculcated into Germany's media, a wide swath of journalists and academics suffered a collective relapse into appeasement.
Commentators ranging from the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) to the left-liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and the liberal weekly Die Zeit recently identified not radical Islam but its critics as the real problem. They are "our holy warriors," (Claudius Seidl in the FAZ) "our preachers of hate" (Thomas Steinfeld in the SZ) who represent "enlightened fundamentalism" (Thomas Assheuer in Die Zeit).
The specific targets of this vitriol are Necla Kelek, a German-Turkish sociologist and author, Henryk M. Broder, a Polish-born Jew and Der Spiegel columnist, and Seyran Ates, a German-Turkish lawyer and author who has been subjected to death threats because of her legal activities opposing honor killings and forced marriages among Muslims. The Kelek-Broder-Ates troika employs a lively and confrontational verbal posture to jolt German society out of its complacency vis-a-vis the Islamist threat. In their writings, the three "holy warriors" show little patience for political correctness and demand that Europe's Muslims accept liberal society's views on gender equality, free speech and religious freedom. Instead of cultural relativism, the three believe Western culture embodies universal rights and values that cannot be withheld from the peoples of the Muslim world.
For the custodians of Germany's cultural pages that's too much (Western) cultural confidence. Mr Steinfeld from the SZ went as far as to pooh pooh the recent murder attempt against Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard by a 28-year-old Somali with links to the Islamist al-Shabab militia as another bogus excuse to pounce on Islam: "All we need is for something to happen, a failed attack, for example, like the one at the beginning of the month, and the debate will start all over again, with the same arguments-no, what's being offered there are not arguments, but slogans." It is as if the Somali's radical Islamic ideology, which animated his plan to murder Mr. Westergaard, was non-existent.
The assault on the three Islam-critical authors is par for the course for a media that also excels in playing down the Iranian threat while bashing Israel. Take Katajun Amirpur, a German-Iranian academic of Islam who frequently writes for the SZ. In 2008, she wrote a widely read essay in the SZ rejecting the standard translation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that "Israel must be wiped off the map." Ms. Amirpur argued inconceivably that the Iranian President merely meant "The occupation regime must become history." One of the only voices of dissent who confronted Ms. Amirpur's distortion and her attempt to deny that the Islamic Republic threatened Israel with another Holocaust was Henryk M. Broder.
In January, the SZ sought another academic crutch to shield radical Islam from criticism. In a story headlined "Anti-Semites and Enemies of Islam—Incitement With Parallels," Wolfgang Benz, the controversial Director of the Berlin Center for Research on Anti-Semitism, claims to see eerie similarities between Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Instead of shining light on the growing anti-Semitism among Islamists, Mr. Benz draws hysterical comparisons between legitimate criticism of radical Islam and the sort of Jew-hatred that has led to genocide. That the head of Germany's only federally funded anti-Semitism research institute would thus belittle the Holocaust became particularly suspect after it was disclosed in late January that Mr. Benz has repeatedly honored his deceased doctoral supervisor Karl Bosl, who was a committed Nazi and energetic ideologue of the Hitler movement.
Mr. Benz, by the way, has a history of rationalizing the violence of political Islam against the West. A few days after 19 Islamic terrorists brought down the Twin Towers, Mr. Benz said the buildings "are symbols of pride and wealth and arrogance...And that provokes the drastic and dramatic reactions and the martial reactions."
Where "Islamophobia" is compared with anti-Semitism, it's only a small step to compare Israelis with Nazis. Patrick Bahners, the editor of the FAZ arts sections, for example, defended in 2008 critics of Israel who liken the West Bank security barrier with the Warsaw Ghetto. According to the European Union, such comparisons are manifestations of modern anti-Semitism. Mr. Bahners countered that "this comparison cannot be eliminated by forbidding speech or insults," somehow missing the point. The question is not whether his speech should be censored but whether it constitutes anti-Semitism. The problem is that such views are not just held among Germany's cultural elite. A 2004 Bielefeld University survey showed that 51% of Germans believe Israel's treatment of the Palestinians "is essentially no different from what the Nazis did to the Jews."
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online.wsj.com

Buried Alive In Turkey—and Under the Burqa

by Phyllis Chesler
In Turkey—a country which was nearly accepted as a member by the European Union—a father and grandfather recently buried Medine Memi, a sixteen-year-old girl, alive—and all because she was seen talking to boys. Medine was repeatedly beaten. The police did not help her. When the men buried her she was “alive and fully conscious.”
This savage, heartless, primitive act is the ultimate, logical consequence of burying women alive—shrouding them–while they still roam the earth. One becomes claustrophobic under the burqa, until one gets used to being seen as a ghost, invisible, non-human, dead.
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Kosovo and the Crisis of Ignoring International Law

By Lee Jay Walker
Kosovo obtained part independence when America and many European nations gave the go ahead for the creation of this new nation. However, it is clear that things are not plain sailing because many other nations did ...
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German Honor Killings

by sheikyermami
The 37-year-old Ebtisam M., a mom of four, was beheaded in Kerpen-Horrem (in Northrhein-Westphalia, Germany). Her children (6, 11, 14 and 16 years old) found the body in a pool of blood. In addition, the fingers were cut off the victim. Judging according to the Arabic name of the victim, it deals possibly with an “honor” beheading with amputation.
District Attorney Alf Willwacher, however, wishes to render “no commentary regarding the kind of injuries.” The Cologne Homicide Commission is still groping in the dark in their search for the brutal murderer, even though the 41-year-old husband, S., was coincidentally found cleaning out the apartment, and then he was picked up by a friend: “He is considered a witness, not a suspect.” There is still no suspect, and the weapon still hasn’t been found either.
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Pat Condell: The Crooked Judges of Amsterdam

Germany: Orthodontist refuses to treat teen named 'Jihad'

An orthodontist in the state of Baden-Württemberg has reportedly turned a 16-year-old boy out of her practice because she was offended by his name – “Cihad,” an alternate spelling for “Jihad,” which she interpreted to mean “holy war.” The doctor in Donaueschingen told local daily Schwarzwälder Bote on Friday that she believed his name was a declaration of war against all non-Muslims and refused to treat him. According to the paper, the boy’s parents were shocked, saying they had chosen the name simply because they liked it, and not for religious reasons.Islamic scholars say the word “jihad” means “striving for God,” but it has been co-opted by Islamists for their purposes of “holy war,” the paper reported. In hindsight the doctor said she regretted sending the boy away.“He can’t help it that his parents named him so,” she said. The state medical association told the paper that the law does not require doctors to treat patients except in the case of an emergency.
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German historians plan reprint of Hitler's 'Mein Kampf'

Edith Raim at the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich said Thursday it plans to issue an annotated version of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle) with editorial comments once the copyright expires at the end of 2015. Banned since World War II, the anti-Semitic political work first published in 1925 became a school textbook after Hitler seized power in 1933. The Bavarian state government, which has held the copyright since the war, said it had no intention of relaxing its restrictions on the book's publication for now.
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Vienna: NO SUPPORT FOR THE IRANIAN REGIME! Protest rally against the celebrations for the 31st anniversary of the "Islamic Revolution" in Iran

Wednesday February 10th, 6 pm
In front of the residence of the Iranian ambassador to Vienna, Lainzer Strasse 28, 1130 Vienna (Tram 60)
On February 11th, the Iranian regime celebrates the 31st anniversary of the "Islamic Revolution". As each year the Iranian regime will use that day to celebrate itself – also in Vienna. On February 10th, the Iranian ambassador will host an official reception at his residence. In our opinion, however, there is nothing to celebrate on this day apart from 31 years of resistance against this inhuman regime. 31 years of the "Islamic Republic" mean 31 years of internal and external terror: Persecution of unionists, of national and religious minorities, of student activists, homosexuals, women and oppositionists. Tens of thousands have been killed; millions have been forced into exile. "Death to Israel" has been a core slogan of the regime for 31 years, not just since president Ahmadinjead took office in 2005. And today, the regime is just about to develop nuclear and missile programs to carry out these threats. The Iranian regime denies the Holocaust and brutally cracks down on the freedom movement in the country. In fear of renewed protests at the anniversary of the Islamic revolution, the rulers in Tehran started executing opposition figures to intimidate the people who – at the risk of their lives - are currently engaged in a revolt against the regime. We clearly want answers: Will Austrian diplomats participate in the regime’s reception? Will representatives of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce and Austrian entrepreneurs raise glasses together with the regime’s henchmen to ensure a continued successful cooperation? Will Austrian politicians serve as a willing decoration for the regime’s self-promotion? We demand the support of all forces in Iran and in exile who fight for individual freedom, gender equality and for a secular constitutional state. And we demand to cease all supportive measures for the Iranian regime:
- the suspension of diplomatic ties- tough and immediate economic sanctions against the regime
- the inclusion of the Revolutionary Guards in the EU terror list
Organizer: STOP THE BOMB (http://www.stopthebomb.net/)Supported by: Democratic party of of Kurdistan Iran, Liberal Forum, Aktion gegen den Antisemitismus in Österreich, Vereinigung kurdischer Frauen in Wien, Verein der Demokratischen StudentInnen aus Iranisch Kurdistan, ZPC der B'nai B'rith, etc.

Ethnic Albanian arrested in Wahhabi village

Authorities in Bosnia have arrested an ethnic Albanian in a raid on an extremist Islamic Wahhabi stronghold in Bosnia. A 28-year old ethnic Albanian, Adnan Rustemi, is one of the other 7 extremist Bosnian Muslims arrested during a raid by ...»
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SERBIANNA

Ankara reaffirms support for Pristina

Full state honours and pledges of support greeted Kosovo president Fatmir Sejdiu on arrival on a visit to Turkey, media reports said. In Pristina, media said that Sejdiu was assured of Turkey’s continuing support for Kosovo. Turkish president Abdullah Gul said that Turkey supported the efforts of Kosovo authorities to reestablish law and order in the north, and called on the countries of the Balkans region to build good neighbourly relations. “Turkey sees Kosovo as its sister because we have a strong Turkish community there, and this plays a bridging role between the two countries,” Gul said. “We believe that, when the time comes, Kosovo will strongly take its place in the European and Atlantic structures, Nato and the EU,” Gul said, according to Turkey’s Hurriyet website. Gul said that stability and security in the Balkans are of importance to Turkey, Serbian news agency Beta said. Sejdiu said that Turks living in Kosovo and Kosovo citizens in Turkey are the golden bridge of co-operation and friendship between the “two countries”. At an opening ceremony for Ankara University’s Research Centre on Southeast Europe, Sejdiu urged Turkish investors to take part in various sectors of Kosovo’s economy “and to do business in Kosovo without hesitation,” he said.
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serbianna.com/michaletos

Geert Wilders: No Fair Trial

The Amsterdam District Court apparently doesn’t want to hear the truth about Islam. Nor is it interested to hear the opinion of top class legal experts in the field of freedom of expression. In one swift move, the Court brushed aside fifteen of the eighteen expert-witnesses the defence had requested to be summoned. Only Hans Jansen, Simon Admiraal and Wafa Sultan were allowed to be heard as expert-witnesses. Their testimony ...
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Wuff changes flyers after IKG criticism

Austrian dog magazine Wuff is to change controversial flyers after protests from Jewish groups.The magazine said it is now using red circles instead of yellow stars on its flyers protesting against a proposal to make owners of fighting breeds of dogs acquire permits.The Austrian Jewish Community (IKG) had said yesterday that Wuff’s flyers with a picture of a dog with a yellow star with the inscription "Böse" (evil) showed "a complete lack of taste."IKG claimed the use of a yellow star to protest so-called "dog racism" might even constitute a crime. "Putting the examination of certain breeds of dogs on the same level as the persecution, torture and murder of millions of people shows the mentality of whoever is responsible for the use of such material," it added.The Nazis forced Jews to wear yellow stars on their clothing to identify them as Jews, and yellow stars are seen as a symbol of Jewish persecution.Wuff publisher Gerald Pötz said today (Thurs): "We hope the change will contribute to calming the situation down."He added that new flyers would have a red circle with the word "Böse" (evil) on the breast of a pit-bull puppy.He added the flyers had not constituted a deliberate attempt to link Wuff’s campaign to persecution of the Jews by the Nazis. "If IKG feels hurt, we feel really bad," he said.Pötz noted that the purpose of the flyers was to draw attention to the fact that Vienna might start to stigmatise certain breeds of dogs.The magazine is also campaigning against mandatory permits for owners of breeds of so-called fighting dogs. A referendum on the issue is to be held next week in Vienna.
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Austria: Muslim prison chaplains to be standardized

Following an agreement reached between the justice minister, Claudia Bandion-Ortner and the president of the Islamic Religious Community, Anas Schakfeh, Muslim chaplains in prisons are to be standardized across the country. At around 1300 Muslim inmates, Islam has come to represent the second largest religion in Austrian penal institutions. Earlier religious services had been the result of local and regional cooperation, which meant regular visits by Muslim chaplains had been limited to ten prisons. The goal of the agreement is that such regular visits be possible in all prisons where a demand exists.The agreement also lays out a number of minimum standards for the chaplains and conditions for the prisons visits. This includes a high school diploma; good knowledge of German, in order to hold religious services in German; and basic knowledge of the prison system, so as to ensure an optimal balance between safety and religious practice.
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In Response to Iran’s Nuclear Program, German Firms Are Slowly Pulling Out

The New York Times on STB: "Vocal pro-Israeli and Iranian exile lobbies are active asking questions at the annual general meetings of those German companies doing business with Iran."
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German Prosecutor:The accused have damaged Islam. They have given new nourishment to the reservations held against the world’s second largest religion

by sheikyermami
How so, mister prosecutor?
The prosecutor, like many non-Muslim officials before him, took it upon himself to defend something he clearly knows nothing about — Islam.
The prosecutor continued, adding that “few people shared their fundamentalist Wahabi views….”
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Germany: Three arrested in nation-wide raids for terrorist recruitment

German police have arrested three people they suspect recruited Islamists to fight abroad in a nationwide swoop in which documents and computer hardware were also seized.Some 300 police participated in raids of 43 premises in the German states of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria, Berlin, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, prosecutors in the southern city of Stuttgart said.They believe the suspects, aged 24 to 59, ran recruitment networks that sent over 100 Islamists to fight on foreign battlefields.The recruits were radicalised in Germany with Islamist ideology before being sent to a Koranic language school in Egypt, where they were urged to attend militant training camps, the prosecutors said.
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Kurdish-German fights Iranian Interpol listing

An Iranian-born German citizen is fighting to have his name removed from Interpol’s most-wanted list after allegedly being placed there by Iran for his work with Kurdish activists opposed to the regime in Tehran.
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Mainz: Muezzin-Bell ringing exhibit

Loud muezzin calls alternating with bell-ringing puzzled passers-by in Mainz, Germany. The nationally unique sound installation "ON AIR" in the pedestrian area would call for peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Christians, said the Berlin concept artist Mirial Kilali (44).The increasing "resentment against Muslims" were the cause for this musical intrusion into public space, she says. The Muezzin call and the bells were sounded by loudspeakers from the room of the St Anthony's Chapel in the center of the city on Friday and Saturday at 10AM, 2PM and 5PM for six minutes.
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Winter of Discontent: The Balkans Get Worse

by Nebojsa Malic
Serbian president Boris Tadic, normally all too willing to put up with abuse from Zagreb, had little choice but allow official criticism of Mesic’s statement, and snub Josipovic’s inauguration. Though organized political opposition to his rule is feeble to nonexistent, his approval ratings are low. His surprise proposal to adopt a parliamentary resolution condemning the "genocide" in Srebrenica looks likely to further deplete Tadic’s political capital. It is unclear why Tadic, usually obsessed with his public image, would embark on an adventure that would score him no political points. His explanation that "policies of recognizing the suffering of others and respecting the victims of others can gain credibility on the international scene" (B92) rings hollow. For almost a decade, Serbia has wallowed in self-abasement and issued apologies for the suffering actually or allegedly caused by Serbs. It did nothing to lessen the demonization of Serbs, both in the West and in the immediate neighborhood, nor did anyone else issue similar apologies for the suffering of Serbs. In fact, everyone has taken Serb groveling as vindication of their own policies, from Croatia’s Mesic and the Muslims of Bosnia, to Washington, Brussels, and the KLA in Kosovo.
Serbian media have quoted several European officials — notably Jelko Kacin and Doris Pack — who not only strongly endorsed the Srebrenica resolution, but also dismissed the demands of several Serbian parties to include the condemnation of crimes against the Serbs, whether in the same resolution or separately. Could it be that the resolution is being pushed not because of Tadic’s sense of morality, but to please the EU and NATO?
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War and Youth: A World War II Novel on the Balkans

By Carl Savich
The power of history and tradition were enduring in Spalato, a port city which became a part of Yugoslavia after the war, as Split. The palace of Roman Emperor Diocletian, completed in 305 AD, still stood after 1,700 years. Originally a Greek colony, Spalato became part of the Roman Empire. After 476 AD, the city became part of Byzantium, the Eastern Roman Empire. During the medieval period, the Republic of Venice gained control of the city. From 1806 to 1813, the city was under Napoleonic control, then was ceded to Austria, becoming a part of Austria-Hungary. Spalato had been a part of Dalmatia, a province that was a separate administrative unit, the Kingdom of Dalmatia. After World War II, Spalato became a part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, which became Yugoslavia in 1929. In May, 1941, the city was annexed to Italy after the Axis invasion, occupation, and dismemberment of Yugoslavia. After the surrender of Italy in September, 1943, the Germany Army re-occupied the city and placed it under the control of the Ustasha NDH regime. German forces had evacuated the city by October 26, 1944.
The novel is a study of wartime occupation and resistance. The people of Spalato, the largest city on the Dalmatian coast, accepted the Italian and German occupation of the city. The people resorted to stoicism and spiritualism. . A character in the novel, Professor Vukov, who teaches at the Spalato Academy, noted: “In a thousand years of history, a generation is a fleeting moment.”
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