Archive for July 26th, 2008
Shariah Banking in UK: more investors thanks to crisis
Stable and conservative Islamic finance is attracting investors scared off by the global credit crisis, the chief executive of new UK Islamic bank Gatehouse said.
Islamic finance, which bans the payment of interest and restricts the use of some derivative instruments, has been growing rapidly in the past few years.
Islamic assets total around $1 trillion, the Asian Development Bank estimates, with annual growth of 10 to 15 percent a year.
Islamic bonds, or sukuk, are structured as profit-sharing or rental agreements which are underpinned by physical assets.
The lack of exposure to some of the riskier markets of which investors have fallen foul in the past year makes Islamic finance attractive, and not just to those investors requiring Islamic sharia-compliant transactions, Gatehouse CEO David Testa told Reuters in an interview.
“It’s actually quite old-fashioned banking. It’s asset-backed and asset-based, it’s not the infinitely leveraged model. It’s a good story in these stricken times.”
Gatehouse, a subsidiary of the Securities House of Kuwait, started operating in April and says it is the fifth Islamic bank to open in the UK, which market participants say has taken the lead in Europe in welcoming Islamic banking.
Business Feed Article | Business | guardian.co.uk.
You can also see this video which shows the Islamic Bank of Britain’s publicity, another of the banks which are practising Islamic banking.
Technorati Tags: Shariah+Law, Shariah+Law+in+Britain, economy, economic+crisis, Gatehouse, Securities+House+of+Kuwait
Germany charges alleged member of militant group over attacks in Turkey
German prosecutors said Thursday that they have filed murder and terrorism charges against a suspected member of a banned Turkish leftist group over his alleged role in a series of attacks in Turkey.
The 53-year-old of Turkish origin, identified only as Faruk E., is accused of being a co-founder of the outlawed DHKP-C group, which seeks to topple the Turkish government and replace it with a Marxist one. The defendant is not a citizen of any country, prosecutors said.
The charges, filed in a Duesseldorf court on June 24, include murder, attempted murder, explosives offenses and leadership in a foreign terrorist organization, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
They accused the man of ordering from Germany an April 1993 attack outside Istanbul, in which two Turkish police officers were killed, on behalf of the Devrimci Sol group.
Prosecutors said he co-founded DHKP-C, its successor, the following year, and was a member of its three-member central committee until his arrest in Germany last year.
So, Islamist, Kurds and also Marxists/Communists…
Technorati Tags: Turkey, terrorism, Germany, DHKP-C, Marxism, Communist+terrorism, Devrimci+Sol+Group
American Thinker: Breeding Evil: Hezb’allah’s Children
In an UN-brokered and decidedly unbalanced trade, Israel turned over the remains of 199 terrorists, the living Kantar and four others in exchange for the mutilated bodies of two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Captured by Hezb’allah inside Israel in 2006, the young Israelis did not long survive capture by Hezb’allah, certainly not long enough to be exchanged. Kantar, however, was healthy, even portly as he received a red carpet welcome, with speeches and songs of victory. A large photo of a weeping Israeli woman was featured on the stage; there are no innocents in the ideology of Hezb’allah. All Jews must die, even four-year-old little girls. Katyusha rockets are gleefully aimed at Israeli schools, hospitals and apartment buildings.
Kantar was embraced and applauded; afterwards he gave a stiff-armed Nazi salute. It is the common salute of Hezb’allah. Mein Kampf is a best seller in the Muslim world.
We have all seen the pictures of children dressed as suicide bombers, the toddlers holding Kalashnikovs, the grade school students happily reciting poems glorifying genocide. The masked gunmen strutting for the cameras are teenagers, the fighters who launch rockets are in their early twenties. Whole generations have come of age without education, indoctrinated in an ideology of Islamic fanaticism and blind hatred, kept destitute and embittered, the most efficient way to breed terrorists. With the help of Syria and Iran, funding from Islamic nations and charities, and aid from the ever-gullible West, the perpetual “refugees” never build schools and hospitals, but arsenals that become ever more sophisticated.
American Thinker: Breeding Evil: Hezb’allah’s Children.
Yeah, but that doesn’t worry a bit: they are far away…
Technorati Tags: Hizbullah, terrorism, Lebanon, Israel, Nazi+salute, Kantar, Syria, Iran,
Libya ‘halts Swiss oil shipments’
It appears Swiss police detained Ghadaffi’s son, Hannibal, and his wife because they were mistreating two people of theirstaff. So Ghadaffi Sr. has thought (does he do that?) that it was better to accuse the Swiss police, because his son hasn’t done anything like that… really.
Col Gaddafi’s government has recalled some of its diplomats from Switzerland, reduced flights between the countries, stopped processing visa requests from Swiss citizens, demanded the closure of Swiss firms in Libya and detained two Swiss citizens.
Swiss foreign minister Micheline Calmy-Rey has formally complained about the moves to her Libyan counterpart and has advised citizens not to travel to Libya.
This is shameful. What about the “dialogue”?
For a backgrond of this story, read this post by Esther.
Technorati Tags: Hannibal+Ghadaffi, Switzerland, Micheline+Calmy-Rey
Terrorist threat to airports over lax staff security – Telegraph
British Airways planes at Heathrow: Photo: PAThere are an estimated 200,000 staff in the “airside” parts of airports employed in shops, cafes or as cleaners in the departure lounge. Others may be employed as baggage handlers, security guards or driving buses between aircraft and the terminal.
It is feared that hundreds of foreigners are being allowed to work in high security parts of Britain’s airports without passing proper criminal record checks.
Despite warnings that terrorists have tried to place sleepers in jobs “airside” in terminals, no attempt has been made to check whether foreign workers have committed any offences abroad.
A Government-commissioned report today urged for foreign criminal record checks to be made compulsory for airport workers to combat the threat to security. But it called only for new staff to be checked and not those already in post.
The paper, written by former civil servant Stephen Boys Smith, warned that the greatest threat of terrorism in future may be from “internal attack” and added that the “threat is varied and unpredictable.” It said that “long term systemic changes” are needed to combat the threat from within.
Terrorist threat to airports over lax staff security – Telegraph. via National Terror Alert.
Meanwhile British police have disrupted 13 terror networks, in the last twelve months.
Technorati Tags: Great+Britain, UK, terrorism, sleeper+cells, UK+terror+networks
Fourteen Spanish tourists robbed and beaten in Senegal
Speaking about racism… oh, sorry, that the aggressors were Black people and the victims Spanish in Senegal. So no especial condemnation and of course, even less publicity in international news:
Fourteen Spanish tourists were attacked last Tuesday in a bus when they were travelling to the South of Senegal, in the region of Casamance, although they are recovering, according to the Spanish Embassy in Dakar. According to those sources, the tourists were attacked at 15:00 by an armed group. After stricking them, they robbed their money and other belongings.
The same source points out that the Spanish were not injured by the attack, whose responsibles fleed afterwards. The tourists were lodged in a hotel in Ziguinchor, capital of the southern region, during the night.
The Spanish group had recently arrived in Senegal and was travelling to the southern part, a place which was not recommended as a travel destination by Spanish Foreign Ministry, according to its web page.
At the same time, another 15 vehicles were also attacked by an armed gang which made the passengers give them all their belongings.
Among the attacked vehicles figures that of the Ziguinchor’s senator, Mouhammadou Lamine Sakho, who was not hurt. But one of the vehicles, whose driver didn’t stop when was ordered to, was shot repeatedly and one of its passegers was killed.
Catorce turistas españoles atacados en Senegal – 20minutos.es.
Very interesting that every attack happened at the same time.
Technorati Tags: Senegal, tourism, Zinguichor, Mouhammadou+Lamine+Sakho, Spanish+tourists+attacked+in+Senegal
