The 20th century, especially the American Civil Rights movement, has directed a spotlight on disadvantages groups. Thus awareness rose concerning past and ongoing misdeeds committed at their expense. As an atonement, an effort emerged to compensate the living to right the wrongs committed against their ancestors. Paying now for mistreatment in the past on the basis of bona fide membership in groups to compensate wronged earlier generations has produced fall-out effects that transcend national boundaries thus establishing the global significance of the phenomena. Some of the cases from abroad provide perspectives that make absurdities close to home stand out the more.

In Britain, the New Labour and Conservative Party have enjoyed a happy consensus on one major issue for far too long: the drive to divorce the problems of radical Muslim integration from the equally contentious threat of the current immigration wave.

The number of rapes in the Norwegian capital Oslo is six times as high as in New York City. I’ve written about the issue of rape and Muslim immigration so many times that I am, quite frankly, a bit tired of the subject. But as we all know, problems don’t disappear just because you are tired of talking about them, so here goes.

While last week, Walid Shoebat, a former Jihadist, and now a passionate crusader against Jihad, was denied entry into Canada, a Canadian academic spoke at the despicable Tehran Holocaust denial conference.

Shiraz Dossa, who is identified with the University of Toronto on the conference’s schedule, spoke Monday on "Liberalism, Holocaust and war against Muslims." (Dossa’s web page, however, links him with the Political Science Department of St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.) Dossa is a critic of classical liberals, holding them "massively responsible for inventing the impoverished Third World." This last line comes from his essay on "Liberalism, Imperialism, Natives, Muslims and others." [pdf]

A quote from Simon Peres at the LeWeb3 conference in Paris, 12 December 2006 (audio, video):

A quote from Dominique de Villepin in The Daily Telegraph, 12 December 2006

We must clarify matters in exchange rate policy, which means taking back our sovereignty and our margin for action so the states can play their part. […] There are some states that are happy with the current situation, but for France it is not acceptable. This is a tough fight that we are going to have to carry out at a political level.

A quote from Gideon Rachman in The Financial Times, 11 December 2006

It has also become increasingly apparent that globalisation and Europeanisation are not the same things. One of London’s most fabled advantages is that it is in the right time zone to do business with Asia and New York during the course of a single trading day. And one of the City’s greatest boasts over the past couple of years has been its ability to poach Russian and Asian business from Wall Street. But the rest of the EU is simply fly-over territory when it comes to pitching for business in China or Russia. The only role for Brussels, as many City people see it, is as a potential impediment. For while a minority of City business is done with the rest of the EU, the whole of the City is bound by European regulations.

A quote from Gideon Rachman on his blog, 11 December 2006

For some on the right in Britain, America and parts of Europe, the Pinochet regime had a lot to be said for it. Not only did it prevent Chile “going communist”, it also served as a testing ground for important free-market economic reforms – such as the privatisation of pensions. The fact that Chile today is both democratic and more prosperous than the Latin American average is used to illustrate the argument that a “Pinochet period” might be necessary in some countries. [...] To the left, of course, any justification for Pinochet’s deeds is an abomination. [...] it was interesting that the White House spokesman also emphasised Pinochet’s victims – which shows that, these days, even a conservative America president is reluctant to go down the Kirkpatrick route on Latin American dictatorships.

This article...

Europe’s Alpine region is going through its warmest period in 1,300 years, the head of an extensive climate study said Tuesday. “We are currently experiencing the warmest period in the Alpine region in 1,300 years,” Reinhard Boehm, a climatologist at Austria's Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics said.

Boehm said the current warm period in the Alpine region began in the 1980s, noting that a similar warming occurred in the 10th and 12th centuries. However, the temperatures during those phases were “slightly under the temperatures we’ve experienced over the past 20 years.”

...leads to one question, what caused the global warming 1,300 years ago?

PHILADELPHIA - The Middle East Forum has appointed Dr. Paul Belien as director of Islamist Watch. Paul Belien has emerged as one of Europe's leading experts on lawful Islamism, particularly in his role as founder and editor of The Brussels Journal. He is also an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute.