Headlines:
- Italy Creating Italian Islam by Making New Religion in Line with Christian Tradition
- Zombie Ships Send Maritime Freight into Worst Crisis in Living Memory
- Closer Pakistan-China Military Ties Irk West
Italy Creating Italian Islam by Making New Religion in Line with Christian Tradition
Italy is setting up a council of “Italian Islam” that claims to be bringing the religion into compliance with the country’s “Christian and humanist tradition”. The reason for the controversial creation was not made clear in a statement by Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, although he did say provinces “concerned with immigration” would be involved. Announcing the move on Tuesday, he said the Council of Relations with Italian Islam would be an advisory body aiming at furthering integration. “The Council will be responsible for providing opinions and making proposals on issues concerning the integration of people of Islamic culture and religion in Italy,” Mr Alfano said. “Respect and co-operation between cultural and religious identities in Italy must constitute the basis for a dialogue that enriches democracy, promoting the aims of peace, social cohesion and unity, and that fosters a community of those who…intend to contribute to the peaceful development and prosperity of our country, in full compliance with our laws and our Christian and humanist tradition.” The Interior Ministry said Islamic leaders, experts and professors would be working towards “the formation of an Italian Islam”. A spokesperson said the religion would be “law-abiding and compatible with Italian regulations”, without saying what rules, if any, Muslims were currently believed to be breaking in the country. It comes as migrants and refugees from Africa and the Middle East continue to arrive on Italy’s shores, mainly on the southern island of Sicily. More than 320,000 asylum seekers have arrived in the past two years, mainly on rescue ships deployed by a Europe-wide mission in response to successive boat disasters that have killed thousands of men, women and children. Mr Alfano said local authorities and immigration councils would be consulted alongside Muslim leaders to improve social inclusion, taking into account the principles of the Constitutions and laws of the Republic”. [Source: The Independent]
Across Europe, governments are engaged in creating their own versions of Islam in a desperate bid to assimilate Muslims. However, none of these governments is looking at the failures of secularism in making people of all religious beliefs feel wanted and respected.
Zombie Ships Send Maritime Freight into Worst Crisis in Living Memory
The shipping industry is facing its worst crisis in living memory as years of rapid expansion fueled by cheap debt have coincided with an economic slowdown in China. “We are now at the stage where people are struggling to remember an era when it was this difficult, we’ve gone through what it was like in the 90s, the 80s and the 70s, so expressions like ‘living memory’ start to apply,” said Jeremy Penn, the chief executive of the Baltic Exchange in London. The Baltic Exchange has set shipping rates for more than two-and-a-half centuries and the situation its members now face is grim. “Ship owners are facing the tough decision of whether to just drop anchor and hope it gets better,” added Mr Penn. Fears about the global economy have seen the Baltic Dry Index fall by more than 20pc this year, to 369 – its lowest level since records began in 1985. The Baltic Dry, which is compiled by the exchange, gives an indicator of the cost of shipping dry bulk goods such as coal, iron ore, grains, and finished goods such as steel, but it is feted for its apparent ability to predict the world’s financial fortunes. The immediate problem has been the slowing of the Chinese economy; the world’s largest consumer of commodities has been the driving force behind the shipping trade for the past two decades. “What is damaging shipping is a zombie fleet, which accepts freight at maverick prices just to keep going,” said M. Kidwell. A zombie ship is one that can just about repay interest on its debts, but has no hope of repaying the capital. The situation might be about to get a lot worse for loans to the shipping industry. The calculation of loan repayments and the rate of interest depend on the historic residual value of the ship at the end of the life of the loan. The Baltic Dry Index, which predicted the economic collapses of 1987 and 2008 when it fell in both years, is now at an all-time low. The index tracks the cost to ship various commodities across the world and thus is frequently used to gauge the health of the economy. When the cost to ship goods declines, it indicates international trade is slowing down, and there does appear to be an unusual amount of container ship simply anchored in the open ocean outside Shanghai, China, the world’s busiest cargo port, according to MarineTrack.com. [Source: The Telegraph and Infowars.com]
Eight years after the last global financial crisis the world is now on a cusp of another economic catastrophe. Simply put capitalism has no answers, and it perpetuates the concentration of wealth into the hands of the super-rich. Today 62 people have as much wealth as 3.2 billion people. The present system is no longer sustainable.
Closer Pakistan-China Military Ties Irk West
When Pakistan’s military claimed its first attack in October using a home-built drone to hit a Taliban stronghold, western officials were quick to search for clues to a Chinese connection. Experts say Pakistan’s “Burraq”, one of the first two indigenously built armed drones, bears a striking resemblance to China’s CH-3. Officials lauded the drone that equipped Pakistan with a technology that has been denied them by the US in 15 years as a key Washington ally in the campaign against terror. “The Americans have given us billions of dollars and military equipment like F-16s since the 9/11 attacks,” says one senior Pakistani foreign ministry official. “But whenever we asked for armed drones, we were refused and the Americans always told us that was sensitive technology.” Though Pakistani officials deny suggestions of Chinese involvement in the country’s drone programme, western officials remain unconvinced as military links between Beijing and Islamabad tighten. Earlier this year, China confirmed an agreement to sell eight submarines to Pakistan in Beijing’s largest ever single defence export order. Rana Tanveer Hussain, Pakistan’s minister of defence production, has confirmed that half of the eight submarines will be built at the Karachi shipyard and engineering works, boosting Pakistan’s shipbuilding capacity. “The two projects [building four submarines in China and four in Pakistan] will begin simultaneously,” he said, while commending China as an “all-weather friend”. Analysts say Pakistan is seeking to make China its main supplier of military hardware, partly due to the looser financial terms offered by Beijing, replacing traditional suppliers from the west.. “The gap between Chinese capabilities and those of the west have been narrowed, except in a few areas such as the production of aero-engines, for which Chinese-built platforms remain dependent on Russian imports.” Pieter Wezeman of the SIPRI says Chinese military equipment is at a disadvantage for not having been used in conflict situations, unlike hardware from western suppliers which comes with a combat history. “The only place where Chinese equipment is known to have performed alongside equipment from other suppliers is Pakistan,” he notes. In the case of Pakistan’s use of its first armed drone, Mr Wezeman says it is important to remember that it was used against Taliban targets in a remote region along the Afghan border, and it was not challenged by enemy aircraft. “One has to be careful before one sees this as a breakthrough,” he adds. Still, western defence officials say Beijing’s strategy of offering significantly lower prices and a virtual absence of political strings gives China a rising presence in international markets. [Source: Financial Times]
The civil and military leadership of Pakistan is so incompetent, that they are unable to play China and the West against each other to liberate Pakistan from foreign domination. Only the Khilafah State (Caliphate) upon the method of the Prophethood will liberate Pakistan by setting a new benchmark for conducting relations with foreign powers that returns dignity and honour to the Ummah.