Harry's Place

On Harry Hill’s TV Burp, it would be settled by a fight. But in the world of politics, such public battles are conducted by means of press release.
Hazel Blears has just issued the following statement:
STATEMENT FROM COMMUNITIES SECRETARY HAZEL BLEARS
We welcome the efforts made by parliamentarians to work with MCB in resolving this serious issue.  The statement [...]

Khaled Abu Toameh reports on his experiences of campus radicals in America:
What struck me more than anything else was the fact that many of the people I met on the campuses supported Hamas and believed that it had the right to “resist the occupation” even if that meant blowing up children and women on a [...]

This is a guest post by Garvan Walshe
International terrorism and the economic downturn have created a perfect storm for the BNP. The mainstream parties, and independent campaigns like Hope not Hate are doing battle with the fascists  in the upcoming local and European elections. Their work is crucial: a seat in the European Parliament can multiply [...]

Legislation to control the activities of paedophiles, is catching teenagers.
A 14-year-old girl has been accused of child pornography for posting nearly 30 explicit nude pictures of herself on MySpace.
[..]
The teen was charged with possession of child pornography and distribution of child pornography.
She was released to her mother’s custody.
If convicted of the distribution charge, she would [...]

In his blog on CiF yesterday, Professor Geoffrey Alderman had this to say of Hazel Blears’ intervention in the Daud Abdullah affair:
“All that she has achieved by her ill-considered letter is to give publicity to a document, crafted in Istanbul, that might otherwise have been consigned (along with numerous similar declamations) to the dustbin of [...]

I have a post up on CiF.

So, Daud Abdullah is on CiF, trying to get himself out of trouble.  His line is that this statement:
7. The obligation of the Islamic Nation to regard everyone standing with the Zionist entity, whether countries, institutions or individuals, as providing a substantial contribution to the crimes and brutality of this entity; the position towards him [...]

When Muslims are arrested and investigated, we’re told by Galloway, German and co, that they are just guilty of simply being Muslim – innocent victims of a paranoid ‘war on terror’. And when some are acquitted, this is cited as further evidence of mindless state victimisation…
A case in point. In January 2002, the BBC reported that 37-year-old [...]

Two highlights from President Obama’s news conference Tuesday.
QUESTION: Yours is a rather historic presidency, and I’m just wondering whether in any of the policy debates that you’ve had within the White House, the issue of race has come up, or whether it has in the way you feel you’ve been perceived by other leaders or [...]

File under both bad luck and good luck.
Japan has certified a man aged 93 as the only known survivor of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both hit by atomic bombs towards the end of World War II.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima on a business trip on 6 August 1945 when a US plane dropped the first atomic [...]