A quote from Karen Chouhan, chairperson of the Black Londoners’ Forum (BLF), 3 January 2007

Simone Clarke’s membership [of the British National Party] and views represent an affront to multiculturalism and is inconsistent with the [English National Ballet]’s statutory race equality duty. We should not forget the central role that culture and the arts played in the ideology and propaganda of National Socialism during the early years of Nazi Germany, right up until the fall of the Third Reich in 1945.

Last week, the Paris police issued a prohibition on the distribution to the homeless of soup containing pork meat or fat. According to the police authorities – the same ones who are incapable of restoring law and order in the Paris suburbs – distributing soup containing pork or lard is a racist offence since some people in need might be Muslim and hence not allowed to eat pork. Yesterday, however, an administrative court of first instance in Paris ruled that distributing pork soup is not racist. Today Bertrand Delanoë, the Mayor of Paris, told the Paris police to appeal the court ruling.

Two local Liberal Party politicians in Malmö, Sweden’s third largest city, want to ban the use of languages other than Swedish in school classrooms. Allan Widman, one of the politicians, said “In Malmö we have a very unique situation: we are close to the point where a majority of pupils have a foreign background, which is to say that either they or their parents come from a country outside Sweden,” Some schools in Malmö have as few as 5 percent ethnic Swedes in their classrooms.

One of my duties as Director of the Libertarian Alliance is to defend the right to free expression of people whose views I do not share. Just before last Christmas, a journalist called Ian Cobain published a series of articles in The Guardian newspaper, revealing how he had joined the British National Party (BNP) and been made its Central London Organiser. In this capacity, he got hold of the Party’s membership list. His articles were essentially a listing of names of middle class members. Further news reports in the same newspaper and in others detailed the actual and suggested persecution of these members.

A quote from Deadbrain, 1 January 2007

The British National Party is facing calls to expel one of its members over allegations that she is a ballerina. Simone Clarke, a BNP supporter, was recently ‘outed’ by the Guardian as being a member of the English National Ballet. […]

Doug Ramsbottom, a local BNP organiser in Bootle, said he was appalled by Ms Clarke’s behaviour. Speaking shortly after getting his head shaved, he told DeadBrain: “I’ve always believed that what someone gets up to in the privacy of their own home is their business, so long as they’re not a Paki or a poof. But prancing around in a tutu in front of people? She’s an embarrassment to the party.”

A quote from al-Guardian, 1 January 2007

Officials from the English National Ballet [ENB] faced calls to sack one of their leading dancers yesterday after Simone Clarke defied criticism and gave a detailed interview defending her support for the British National party. Two weeks after she was named by the Guardian as a card-carrying member of the far right group, the ballerina hit out at her critics, voicing her belief that the BNP seemed to be the only party “willing to take a stand” against immigration.
 
[...] Clarke, 36, who will take the lead in the ENB's production of Giselle at the London Coliseum next week, said she had been called a “racist and a fascist” since her decision to join the BNP 18 months ago became public. One report claimed that following the Guardian’s revelations, fellow dancers confronted her before a matinee performance of The Nutcracker. She told the Mail on Sunday: “Everything will be different now. I will be known as the BNP Ballerina. I think that will stick with me for life.” But she added: “I don’t regret anything. I will stay a member.”

A quote from The Sun, 29 December 2006

SOME Muslims are undermining the battle to rid Britain’s hospitals of killer infections by refusing to wash their hands when visiting sick relatives. Dispensers containing anti-bacterial gel have been placed outside wards at hospitals all over Britain in a bid to get rid of superbugs like MRSA and PVL. It prevents people bringing in more infections. But some Muslims refuse to use the hand cleansers on religious grounds because they contain alcohol. Health watchdogs are so concerned they intend to meet with NHS bosses in the New Year to try and hammer out a solution.

1,600 years ago today, on December 31, 406, the Vandals invaded France. Europe was going through a minor ice age. The Rhine had frozen over. Several Germanic tribes, the Vandals, Suebians, Alamannians, Alans and Burgundians, fleeing the Huns, crossed the river near Mainz and invaded Gaul.

Heads:

On January 1 2007, Europe celebrates the fifth anniversary of the launch of euro notes and coins by welcoming a 13th member of the eurozone – Slovenia, the tiny former Yugoslav republic. But the eurozone’s geographical expansion is modest in comparison with the rapid growth in euro notes in circulation within the region and beyond. Earlier this month the value of euro notes pushed through the €600bn (£402bn, $787bn) level – roughly double the value of the then-national currencies in circulation at the end of 2001. The signs are that in December the currency came of age by overtaking the US dollar in terms of the value of notes in circulation.

A quote from Xinhua, 30 December 2006

About 200 pairs of shoes imported from the European Union have been burned in Hangzhou, eastern China province of Zhejiang, after the local market watchdog said they had failed quality checks. The amount of shoes destroyed made up nearly 70 percent of the shoe imports inspected by the Zhejiang Industrial and Commercial Administration in the third quarter.