A quote from the BBC, 17 April 2008

Almost two-thirds of people in Britain fear race relations are so poor tensions are likely to spill over into violence, a BBC poll has suggested. Of the 1,000 people asked, 60% said the UK had too many immigrants and half wanted foreigners encouraged to leave. […] Equality and Human Rights Commission head Trevor Phillips said the findings were “alarming”. […]

A quote from The Economist, 17 April 2008
 
The idea of a permanent president of the European Council was resisted by many smaller countries. But now it is being created, it would be ludicrous to fill it with a minor figure; a Juncker or a Schüssel. To the outside world – India or China, say – the president will speak for Europe. If the EU wants to be a serious global actor, that points to a world figure. Unless Ms Merkel steps forward, which is improbable, the only such person in the running is Mr Blair.

A quote from Corriere della Sera, 15 April 2008

[T]he radical Left has disappeared. Communists and greens have vanished, at least from parliament. They do not have a single senator or deputy [in the Italian parliament]. In the stunned eyes of the Rainbow people, the night was made even blacker by the triumph of Silvio Berlusconi, the impressive gains of the Northern League and the hard-to-refute claim of its secretary, Umberto Bossi: “The workers have voted for the Northern League”. Pause for effect: “The workers don’t vote for the Left any more. The Northern League is the new workers’ party”.

As we approach the anniversary of May 1968 the websites are posting more and more articles about the on-going after-shocks of that disastrous decade. The leaders of the student revolt had more or less disappeared from the headlines, or were no longer wielding the influence they once did, but as time went on they returned front and center. Yesterday, Nicolas Sarkozy met with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, of all people, at Elysée Palace. Dany the Red, now known as Dany the Green for his interest in ecology (which includes one would presume the greenhouse gases that emanate from his mouth), made it to the big time again.

A quote from a communiqué of the French Federation of Le Droit Humain, one of France’s major anti-Christian [“liberal and adogmatic”] Masonic lodges, 11 April 2008 [English translation here]

The French Federation of Le Droit Humain represented by its president, Michel Payen, met on April 8, 2008 with the president of the European Commission, José-Manuel Barroso, [...] This meeting constitutes a major event regarding the place of Freemasonry in the construction of Europe; this place was underscored not only by the interest and attentiveness that President Barroso showed to the delegation and the time he accorded them, but also by the commitments he made to the values espoused by liberal and adogmatic Freemasonry, its positions and its opinions on subjects of concern. It was the first time that Freemasonry, as such, was able to express itself to such a high level European institution.

An article from David Lindsay

Forty years ago, Enoch Powell delivered his Rivers of Blood speech. Powell knew and loved the Indian sub-continent, where he observed that all politics was communal. One party was Hindu, one Muslim, one Sikh, one Untouchable, and so forth. As a result – and this is the crucial point – people who lost elections or other votes did not accept the result and get on with things. They rioted, or worse. Sometimes a very great deal worse.

A quote from the Dutch press agency NIS, 16 April 2008

Marriage registrars [in the Netherlands] who refuse to perform same-sex marriages must also be denied from performing marriages between men and women, the Equal Treatment Commission (CGB) ruled yesterday.

This Sunday it will be exactly 40 years ago that Enoch Powell, a then 55-year old Conservative member of the British Parliament and a former government minister, gave a speech in Birmingham. It became know as the “Rivers of Blood speech” because it referred to a verse from the Roman poet Virgil prophetizing “wars, terrible wars, and the Tiber foaming with much blood.” The Tiber is the river that runs through Rome.

Of all the great misquotations in political history, none can surely be more persistent that the use of the phrase “rivers of blood” in reference to the speech given by the controversial British politician, Enoch Powell, forty years ago on Sunday (on 20 April 1968).
 
What Powell in fact said was, “As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see ‘the River Tiber foaming with much blood’.” He did not talk about “rivers of blood” as such. A classical scholar, Powell perhaps thought that people would understand his reference to Book 6 of the Aeneid, in which the Sibyl recounts a prophecy of terrible wars to come. No doubt the vision was supposed to be of the Tiber actually foaming with blood, but Powell was some way from predicting actual bloodshed in Britain. Instead, he was using the quotation to communicate his sense of terrible foreboding.

If Brigitte Bardot (73) had been fifty years younger, French President Nicolas Sarkozy might have made her France’s First Lady and her nude pictures might have been sold to help charities in Cambodia. Now, instead, the French are taking her to court.

The former French sex symbol stood trial in Paris today for “inciting racial hatred” against Muslims. The public prosecutor demanded that the former filmstar be given a two-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 15,000 euros.