Written on 05 July 2015.

   In an article in Breitbart, Amra Bone - the UK's only female sharia 'judge' - has stated that Muslims "cannot" be asked to have only one wife.  In other words, the law of the land should not apply to Muslims. 

   Bone goes on to say that "people have a right to decide for themselves" and in doing so, evokes the language of freedom that is so manipulated by Islamists.  One does, and should, have personal freedom in Britain, but what Islamists like Bone don't appear to understand is that this doesn't include the freedom to break or live outside of the law of the land. 

   Sharia Watch has stated many times that a parallel system of family law is alive and kicking in Britain - and much of it is at odds with the UK's laws.  Domestic violence is permitted, women have no unilateral right to divorce, and child custody is to fathers only - regardless of circumstances or the well-being of the child.  The British Government must start taking this seriously.  The sharia system in this country is being run by jihadists and Islamists, and if the Government is serious about fighting extremism, this is the place to start.  A clear message that all who live in the UK must live by the UK's laws is long overdue.

   Here is the article in full:

"Britain’s first female sharia law judge has issued a brazen warning that flies in the face of UK law, stating that the “government cannot ask Muslims not to have more than one wife”.

   The news comes on the back of a report by the Times newspaper which claims that Britain is experiencing a “surge” in Sharia marriages, as young British Muslims adopt a more hardline religious stance than their parents.

   The Times reports:

“As many as 100,000 couples are living in such marriages, which are not valid under UK law, experts said. Ministers have raised fears that women can be left without the right to a fair share of assets if the relationship ends, while others are forced to return to abusive “husbands”.”

A leading Islamic family lawyer warned that the increase in Sharia ceremonies among the 2.7 million-strong Muslim population in Britain was also behind a growth in “secret polygamy”.

“Probably a quarter of all couples I see involve polygamy issues,” Aina Khan told The Times. “There has been a huge rise in recent years because people can have a secret nikah [Islamic marriage] and no one will know about it.”

The growth in a parallel marriage system that bypassed the register office was being driven by Muslims aged below 30, who were becoming more religious, she said. Other factors include finding a way around the expectation of no sex before marriage and a fear of British family courts, which presume that assets should be split equally.

   Muslim Arbitration Tribunals, colloquially known as Sharia courts, have existed in the United Kingdom since 1996, when the Arbitration Act began to allow for different religious laws to be applied in cases such as divorce.

   While the tribunals are supposed to work within UK law, recent reports suggest that young Muslims are not registering their marriages with the government under UK civil law, instead simply using nikha ceremonies, which can lead to men having a number of wives, and none of the legal responsibility towards them usually afforded to spouses under the 1949 Marriage Act.

   Now, Amra Bone, who is the UK’s first female Sharia council judge, has said that “the government cannot — ask Muslims not to have more than one wife. People have a right to decide for themselves,” implying that British Muslims are free to operate outside UK law, as a rule unto themselves and the Sharia courts they feel are legitimate.

   Muslim women who enter into marriage in Islamic ceremonies are often duped into thinking that the marriage under Islamic law is enough to protect them under UK law. As such, they receive none of the usual protections under UK law, such as assets being divided in cases of divorce.

Sharia Watch

Written on 30 June 2015.

  The Washington Post is getting around to a story that both Mother Jones and the New York Times have covered: Jeb's dicey business deals.

   What's striking is that all three publications have essentially come to the same conclusion, reporting that Jeb routinely traded on his family name at inappropriate times in order to open doors. Here's a revealing passage from the Post about Jeb leveraging his status as the son of a sitting president on a business trip to Nigeria in 1989:

   “My father is the president of the United States, duly elected by people that have an interest in improving ties everywhere,” he told a group of dignitaries in a private meeting, according to a video documenting the visit. “The fact that you have done this today is something I will report back to him very quickly when I get back to the United States.”Just days after Jeb Bush returned home, President George H.W. Bush sent a note to Nigerian President Ibrahim Babangida, thanking him for hosting his son. “We are grateful to you,” President Bush wrote on White House stationery. MWI eventually got the deals it was seeking. Former employees said Bush’s participation was crucial. “There’s no question about it: ‘Here is the son of the president of the United States.’ It was a big deal,” Cornelius Lang, MWI’s former controller, told The Washington Post in a recent interview. “He could open doors we couldn’t.”

   MWI, Corp., the water pump company Jeb was promoting, was ultimately investigated by the Department of Justice for fraud. Although Jeb was not named in the lawsuit against the company, the Post reports:

   Five of his business associates have been convicted of crimes; one remains an international fugitive on fraud charges. In each case, Bush said he had no knowledge of any wrongdoing and said some of the people he met as a businessman in Florida took advantage of his naiveté.

   Holy Schnikes, to quote Bush himself.  Whether Jeb cynically used his father's presidency to grease the skids for a bad deal or he was the victim of his own naiveté, the pattern does not bode well for the judgment he would employ as an occupant of the Oval Office.

Kerry Eleveld -- Daily Kos

Written on 02 July 2015.

Even as the group has publicly celebrated its work, insider accounts detail a string of failures 

   The neighborhood of Campeche sprawls up a steep hillside in Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince. Goats rustle in trash that goes forever uncollected. Children kick a deflated volleyball in a dusty lot below a wall with a hand-painted logo of the American Red Cross.

   In late 2011, the Red Cross launched a multimillion-dollar project to transform the desperately poor area, which was hit hard by the earthquake that struck Haiti the year before. The main focus of the project — called LAMIKA, an acronym in Creole for “A Better Life in My Neighborhood” — was building hundreds of permanent homes.

   Today, not one home has been built in Campeche. Many residents live in shacks made of rusty sheet metal, without access to drinkable water, electricity or basic sanitation. When it rains, their homes flood and residents bail out mud and water.

   The Red Cross received an outpouring of donations after the quake, nearly half a billion dollars.

   The group has publicly celebrated its work. But in fact, the Red Cross has repeatedly failed on the ground in Haiti. Confidential memos, emails from worried top officers, and accounts of a dozen frustrated and disappointed insiders show the charity has broken promises, squandered donations, and made dubious claims of success.

   The Red Cross says it has provided homes to more than 130,000 people. But the actual number of permanent homes the group has built in all of Haiti: six.

   After the earthquake, Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern unveiled ambitious plans to “develop brand-new communities.” None has ever been built.

   Aid organizations from around the world have struggled after the earthquake in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. But ProPublica and NPR’s investigation shows that many of the Red Cross’s failings in Haiti are of its own making. They are also part of a larger pattern in which the organization has botched delivery of aid after disasters such as Superstorm Sandy. Despite its difficulties, the Red Cross remains the charity of choice for ordinary Americans and corporations alike after natural disasters.

   One issue that has hindered the Red Cross’ work in Haiti is an overreliance on foreigners who could not speak French or Creole, current and former employees say.

   In a blistering 2011 memo, the then-director of the Haiti program, Judith St. Fort, wrote that the group was failing in Haiti and that senior managers had made “very disturbing” remarks disparaging Haitian employees. St. Fort, who is Haitian American, wrote that the comments included, “he is the only hard working one among them” and “the ones that we have hired are not strong so we probably should not pay close attention to Haitian CVs.”

   The Red Cross won’t disclose details of how it has spent the hundreds of millions of dollars donated for Haiti. But our reporting shows that less money reached those in need than the Red Cross has said.

   Lacking the expertise to mount its own projects, the Red Cross ended up giving much of the money to other groups to do the work. Those groups took out a piece of every dollar to cover overhead and management. Even on the projects done by others, the Red Cross had its own significant expenses – in one case, adding up to a third of the project’s budget.

Where did the half billion raised for Haiti go? The Red Cross won’t say.

 

In statements, the Red Cross cited the challenges all groups have faced in post-quake Haiti, including the country’s dysfunctional land title system.

   “Like many humanitarian organizations responding in Haiti, the American Red Cross met complications in relation to government coordination delays, disputes over land ownership, delays at Haitian customs, challenges finding qualified staff who were in short supply and high demand, and the cholera outbreak, among other challenges,” the charity said.

   The group said it responded quickly to internal concerns, including hiring an expert to train staff on cultural competency after St. Fort’s memo. While the group won’t provide a breakdown of its projects, the Red Cross said it has done more than 100. The projects include repairing 4,000 homes, giving several thousand families temporary shelters, donating $44 million for food after the earthquake, and helping fund the construction of a hospital.

   “Millions of Haitians are safer, healthier, more resilient, and better prepared for future disasters thanks to generous donations to the American Red Cross,” McGovern wrote in a recent report marking the fifth anniversary of the earthquake.

   In other promotional materials, the Red Cross said it has helped “more than 4.5 million” individual Haitians “get back on their feet.”

   It has not provided details to back up the claim. And Jean-Max Bellerive, Haiti’s prime minister at the time of the earthquake, doubts the figure, pointing out the country’s entire population is only about 10 million.

   “No, no,” Bellerive said of the Red Cross’ claim, “it’s not possible.”

Justin Elliott -- ProPublica,  Laura Sullivan -- NPR

See the full report here

Update

Sen. Charles Grassley is demanding the American Red Cross explain how it spent nearly half a billion dollars raised after the 2010 Haiti earthquake. In a letter to Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern, the Iowa Republican gave the venerated charity until July 22 to answer 17 detailed questions, many of which it has never addressed publicly.

by Justin Elliott, ProPublica, and Laura Sullivan, NPR

Written on 29 June 2015.