Many Europeans believe the Jews dictate US policy in the Middle East, wield disproportionate global economic influence and talk too much about the Holocaust, according to a report released Monday by the Anti-Defamation League. The report’s findings found that significant numbers of people in five European countries continue to hold anti-Jewish stereotypes, said Abraham Foxman, national director of the US group. ‘A large number of Europeans continue to be infected with anti-Jewish attitudes, holding on to classical anti-Jewish canards and conspiracy theories,’ Foxman said at a news conference where he presented the report. The survey of 2,714 people in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland found that 51 percent of respondents believed that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the countries in which they live. In the Spanish sample, the figure was 60%. In France, only 39% agreed. Foxman said the widely-held belief in dual allegiances was particularly troubling. ‘Disloyalty is a classical canard of anti-Semitism,’ Foxman said. ‘Hitler did not begin with Aryan supremacy. Hitler began with charging the Jews of not being good Germans, of selling out Germany for their own interest.’ The statement that ‘Jews still talk too much […]
WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs has habitually exaggerated the record of its medical system, inflating its achievements in ways that make it appear more successful than it is, a McClatchy Newspapers study shows. While the VA’s health system has gotten very good marks for a transformation it’s undertaken over the past decade, the department also has a habit of overselling its progress in ways that assure Congress and others that the agency has enough resources to care for the nation’s soldiers. The assurances have come at a difficult time for the agency, as a surge in mental health ailments among returning veterans over the last few years has strained the system and a spate of high-profile problems with caring for veterans in the VA and the Department of Defense’s Walter Reed Army Medical Center has provoked heightened public scrutiny. A review by McClatchy of the quality measures the VA itself commonly cites found that: -The agency has touted how quickly veterans get in for appointments, but its own inspector general found that scheduling records have been manipulated repeatedly. -The VA boasted that its customer service ratings are 10 points higher than those of […]
In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York. Stopping the loggers is the fastest and cheapest solution to climate change. So why are global leaders turning a blind eye to this crisis? The accelerating destruction of the rainforests that form a precious cooling band around the Earth’s equator, is now being recognised as one of the main causes of climate change. Carbon emissions from deforestation far outstrip damage caused by planes and automobiles and factories. The rampant slashing and burning of tropical forests is second only to the energy sector as a source of greenhouses gases according to report published today by the Oxford-based Global Canopy Programme, an alliance of leading rainforest scientists. Figures from the GCP, summarising the latest findings from the United Nations, and building on estimates contained in the Stern Report, show deforestation accounts for up to 25 per cent of global emissions of heat-trapping gases, while transport and industry account for 14 per cent each; and aviation makes up only 3 per cent of the total. ‘Tropical forests are the elephant in the living room of […]
WASHINGTON — Now that moderate Republicans have told President Bush that time is running out on his Iraq policy, he’ll have to demonstrate real progress in a matter of months or face choices that range from the highly unpleasant to the nearly unthinkable. September, only four months away, is increasingly looking like a deadline. By then, it should be known whether Bush’s ‘surge’ strategy of increased U.S. troops in Iraq is having an impact and whether Iraqis have undertaken long-promised changes to ease sectarian warfare. The 2008 U.S. presidential election will be in full cry. After more than four years of conflict in Iraq, analysts say, there aren’t many options left. As former U.S. officials Carlos Pascual and Kenneth Pollack, now scholars at the Brookings Institution, wrote recently: ‘The four basic options facing this – and the next – administration are victory, stability, withdrawal and containment. Victory, as defined by President Bush, is not currently attainable.’ Here is a look at some of the American options: STAYING THE COURSE The president has never wavered from his belief that ‘failure is not an option’ in Iraq, and he may well try to stick to […]
At a special cabinet meeting on Jerusalem Sunday, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced plans to channel NIS 5.75 billion worth of benefits into the capital over the next five years, in an attempt to reverse the capital’s demographic trends which Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski warned could lead to Hamas taking over the city without firing a shot. ‘Jerusalem could, God forbid, end up not under Jewish sovereignty, but rather that of Hamas,’ Lupolianski said at the meeting, held at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center overlooking the Old City walls in honor of the 40th anniversary of the unification of the capital. Hamas, Lupolianski said, ‘knows that it is possible to capture Jerusalem through demography within 12 years. We need a plan, and not crumbs, so that Jerusalem will remain Israel’s capital forever.’ A recent study carried out by Hebrew University demographer Prof. Sergio Della Pergola predicted that if the situation – and Jerusalem’s borders – remained unchanged, only 60% of Jerusalem’s residents would be Jews by 2020, with the remaining 40% Arab, while another survey predicted that the number of Jews and Arabs living in the city would reach parity within a quarter century. The cabinet […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
