A quote from Ian Traynor in The Guardian, 17 September 2007

The Walloons want to keep Belgium because they get much more out of it. The public sector is twice as big in Wallonia as in Flanders, unemployment at 17% is also double the Flemish rate. Flanders is wealthy, successful, bigger and votes for the right, complaining endlessly that it is being hobbled by transfers of public money to Wallonia, which is smaller, poorer and tends to vote for the left.

Carolyn, a reader from Detroit, wrote me an email, asking

“Would you, please, provide follow-ups on what happened to the politicians so brutalized [by the police during the 9/11 demonstration in Brussels]? What happened to others, and what, if anything, transpires in Belgian Parliament, and the EU Parliament? Will anyone bring a lawsuit against the police? […] Who gave the original orders? From where in the government is this all coming? What happened to the young German woman with the Israeli flag and your friend who was arrested? What is the reaction in the press, both local and national? Was anyone in Italy outraged by their politician being beaten and arrested? Who is buying off the Belgian, or Brussels, police and politicians? Have there been any counter-protests against the police? Are churches being attacked? What can be done? What is the position of the Banking, Financial, and Corporate leaders? Where is the Jewish Community in all of this?”

Alpbach, Austria. Nestled in the middle of the Alps, this is about as scenic as a place can be. The homes and lodges, all of which have the distinctive Alpine architecture, are graced with lovely hanging red and white flowers. There is no crime, no graffiti, no litter and no apparent poverty.

In short, it is the perfect place for the 63rd annual Alpbach European Forum, where many European opinion leaders gather each summer to discuss the problems of, and opportunities for, Europe.

The United States, the EU and Israel are determined to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. If Iran cannot be compelled to abandon its nuclear program through diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions, one or more of them may resort to military force. In my view, the threat posed by a nuclear Iran has been greatly exaggerated: Even if Iran does develop nuclear weapons, it can be deterred from ever using them or sharing them with terrorists.

The following witness account by a Hajo J., a German Christian, was published on the Politically Incorrect blog [in German]. This is an English translation:

On 11 September 2007, at 11.30 o’ clock, I arrived at Place du Luxembourg. There were lots of policemen and armoured vehicles. I met an acquaintance with two other like-minded people at a pub. There was only meant to be a “meeting of tourists” and no coordinated action. I then went to another part of the square. Stephen Gash of SIOE was giving many interviews as he sat quietly in a pub, i.e. he was not demonstrating.

A short while later several people were taken away in a prison-van, without there having been any indication that they had “demonstrated” or done anything in particular (I was to hear the same observation again and again). It was almost 12 o’ clock. A murmuring went through the crowd, we had to do something , now was the remembrance moment for the 9/11 terror victims in the USA.

I decided there and then to take out the wooden cross I had brought and to hold it high – defying any kind of unknown. In remembrance of the victims, as a sign of protest against the threatening, creeping islamization of Europe, the lack of resistance and the increasing appeasement. And of course in spontaneous protest against the unjust banning of the demonstration by the mayor of Brussels, Mr. Thielemans. All this accompanied by a prayer and in remembrance of many Catholic saints, who resisted the same danger of Islamic rule centuries ago. Think only of Saint Marco d’Aviano, a Capuchin friar who encouraged the troops as the Muslim hordes of the Ottoman Sultan descended upon them at the battle of Vienna on 12 September 1683.

The Belgian government has offered formal apologies to Italy for last Tuesday’s brutal arrest of Mario Borghezio, an Italian member of the European Parliament (MEP). The Belgian Ministery of Foreign Affairs assured the Italian ambassador to Brussels that in future it will do “everything possible to guarantee the immunity of MEPs.” How Belgium can give this assurance without punishing those who are responsible for last Tuesday’s police violence is not clear. Brussels is the capital of the European Union and houses the EU institutions.

The Belgian authorities have so far not offered apologies to Belgian MEP Frank Vanhecke, the leader of the Flemish-secessionist Vlaams Belang, which is the largest party in the Flemish Regional Parliament. Borghezio and Vanhecke were arrested together, but Vanhecke was publicly humiliated by policemen subjecting him to a genital hold. This is police behaviour which as The Washington Times wrote yesterday “would get any American policeman thrown off the force.”

People who have been molested and/or arrested by the Belgian police last Tuesday and want to press charges can contact Belgian lawyer Hugo Coveliers (in Dutch, English, German or French) who will press charges on their behalf.

A few months ago, the EU's Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini worried about what to do with illegal immigration. To no-one's surprise, he appears to have settled for surrendering and making it legal. The skilled glossocrat Frattini has already banned the use of the phrase Islamic terrorism: "You cannot use the term 'Islamic terrorism,'" he insisted. "People who commit suicide attacks or criminal activities on behalf of religion, Islamic religion or other religion, they abuse the name of this religion." He now thinks we shouldn't use the word "immigration," either, we should talk about "mobility." Moreover, the "Asian" and "African" immigrants in this case generally come from the predominantly Muslim countries of North Africa and the Middle East, with some additional ones from Pakistan and similar nations. The EU has thus decided to flood Europe with tens of millions of Muslims, at the same time as peaceful Europeans demonstrating against the Islamization of Europe were brutally harassed by the police in the EU capital of Brussels.

A quote from Diana West in The Washington Times, 14 September 2007

In a photo that should be titled The New Face of Fascism, we see black-clad Belgian policemen brutalizing a man in a light-colored suit and tie. His hands are cuffed behind his back, his right elbow is clasped in what is known as an arm-bar hold, and he is also being subjected to a genital hold – a vicious grip that, a retired cop friend of mine tells me, would get any American policeman thrown off the force.