Thanks to the clever mosque occupation stunt a few weeks ago, Génération Identitaire has been given extensive coverage in the French media recently. Prominent in the coverage has been the intelligent and articulate Damien Rieu, one of the group's spokesmen.
Until a few days ago, he was working as a trainee at a publishing house in Lyon, responsible for communications. He has now been dismissed from this position as a result of his political activism.
A few days ago a documentary about Sharia4Belgium aired on Belgian television. In it the movement's spokesman Fouad Belkacem declared that they didn't feel an "ounce of respect" for non-Muslim Belgians. "We have our religion: superior to yours. We have our system: superior to your system. We have our values: superior to yours."
In response to this, Stéphanie Gilson, a student at the IPES college in Verviers, wrote on her Facebook page: "Superior to us? Excuse me? LOL and a big LOL". She also wrote that in her class at college there were two girls who said the same type of things and it scared her.
The following day the two girls mentioned, who had obviously read her Facebook page, attacked her in the college, throwing a bench and chairs at her face. All three girls were suspended from the college for one day, the management telling her that she had no right to express opinions about Muslims on her Facebook page. Refusing to accept this, Stéphanie quit the college and filed a complaint with the police. "I am the victim, and all I did was give my opinion."
Last week Jörg Uckermann, deputy leader of the anti-Islam party Pro-Köln, was arrested in Cologne. He is suspected of claiming payment for political party meetings that did not, in fact, take place. This follows the raids on the party premises that took place two weeks ago.
His family has issued a statement complaining about massively biased reporting in the locally-dominant Dumont press. They claim that the Dumont press is working with the police and political establishment to smear Uckermann, while they themselves have been denied information about what is happening to him. They have not been allowed to visit him and he is not being allowed access to the medications on which he is dependent. The family has set up a Facebook page to campaign for his release.
Uckermann was responsible for organising the anti-Islam cartoon contest earlier in the year, which so panicked the German government and resulted in a horde of Muslims attacking the German embassy in Sudan.
Greek lawmakers have approved the country's 2013 budget, which cuts spending and raises taxes in a bid to prevent the country from going bankrupt.
Next year's austerity budget reportedly includes $12 billion in pension, wage and spending cuts. Its approval comes days after parliament narrowly voted to proceed with other austerity measures.
The lawmakers are responding to international lenders who have required the measures in order for them to release some $40 billion in aid to Greece. Without the international loans, the country could default on debt due to be paid later this month.
On Sunday, thousands of protesters gathered outside of the Greek parliament as lawmakers prepared to vote. More than 13,000 people marched through the streets of the capital, Athens, in demonstrations that ended at the city's main square.
[Al Ahram] Thousands of protesters massed outside Greece's parliament Sunday as politicians prepared to vote on a 2013 budget that includes draconian cuts but needs to pass for vital foreign aid to be released.
Police estimated around 15,000 marchers joined two separate marches in the capital Athens.
"The measures will pass but we are here to prove that we are not resigned to it," said Olga P., 35, an English teacher in a public school.
The parliamentary vote, due to take place late Sunday or early Monday is the latest hurdle the government needs to clear in its bid to head off bankruptcy in the debt-crippled country.
The proposed budget includes another 9.4 billion euros ($12 billion) in cuts and paints a gloomy outlook for the country's economy and government finances.
But Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras, while acknowledging the sacrifices already endured by Greeks, told parliament on Saturday that 2013 would be crucial for the country's economy.
This latest vote comes just days after parliament narrowly adopted a separate austerity package on Wednesday.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Al Ahram] Thousands of protesters massed outside Greece's parliament Sunday as 
