51% of the world is female; ok guys do the math ... you have less than a 50/50 shot at having a son!!!

Gender selection

Reshma Bano wails as she holds the body of her 3-month-old daughter Neha Afreen outside a hospital morgue in Bangalore, India, April 11. Afreen was admitted to the hospital on April 8 after being battered by her father for being born a girl. Police said the father confessed to the crime and was in custody, according to media reports.

iShares Human Rights Index Fund => nothing will drive responsible civilisation like money!!!

iShares has filed paperwork with the SEC for a “iShares Human Rights Index Fund.” 

Principal Investment Strategies
The Underlying Index aims to exclude companies that have economic associations with countries or regimes that are implicated in certain serious human rights violations, including, but not limited to, acts that result in widespread death, torture, rape, slavery, forced labor, and forced displacement of communities.

In addition, companies with substantial economic associations with repressive regimes with poor human rights records, such as Sudan, Iran and Burma, are excluded.

Further violations may also include, but are not limited to, actions taken by company employees, local military, security personnel, private military, or civilian contractors.

The selection universe for the Underlying Index is the MSCI All Country World Index. The Underlying Index is comprised only of equity securities. Companies are then excluded from this list based on MSCI ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) research data as of the end of January, April, July and October. As of December 31, 2011, the Underlying Index consisted of companies in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States (together, the “ACWI countries”).

Oh President Assad you seem to be missing a few Generals.....

Four more high-ranking officers have defected from the Syrian armed forces and joined the year-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's rule, two rebel groups said on Thursday.

The men fled over the past three days to a camp for Syrian army deserters in southern Turkey, according to Lieutenant Khaled al-Hamoud, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army (FSA). He told Reuters by telephone from Turkey the desertions bring to seven the number of brigadier generals who have defected.

The seven are the highest-ranking officers to abandon Assad, and the rank is the fifth highest in the Syrian armed forces. Mustafa Sheikh was the first brigadier general to announce his defection.

"We have six brigadier generals who are now in Turkey and another, who has stayed to lead some battalions inside Syria," Hamoud said. "We plan to form an advisory council to absorb these and any other high-ranking defections and this group will plan operations for the FSA."

A Paris-based spokesman for Sheikh's Supreme Syrian Military Council, Fahad al-Masri, said the four recent defectors were still under the observation of Turkish authorities and their names could not yet be released.

IRAN 60 days of change...آزادی

Iran announced on Friday new military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, but the West has readied plans to use strategic oil stocks to replace almost all Gulf oil lost if Iran blocks the waterway, industry sources and diplomats told Reuters.


They said senior executives of the International Energy Agency (IEA) discussed on Thursday an existing plan to release up to 14 million barrels per day (bpd) of government-owned oil stored in the United States, Europe, Japan and other importers.

The Combined Maritime Force protecting Gulf shipping also includes countries such as Britain, France, Canada, Australia and the Gulf Arab states, under the command of a U.S. admiral.

Most traders believe Iran will still be able to find buyers, at least for now, for its exports of 2.6 million barrels of oil per day (bpd). But it may have to offer steep discounts that reduce the revenue it needs to feed its 74 million people.

The sanctions are already hurting ordinary Iranians, faced with rising prices and a falling rial currency. They have been queuing at banks to convert their savings into dollars.

Iran holds parliamentary elections in two months, the first since a 2009 presidential election that led to nationwide mass street protests, put down by force. However, the Arab Spring has shown the vulnerability of authoritarian governments in the region to protests fuelled by anger over economic hardship.

Syria next unavoidable step = civil war...

Syria is at risk of civil war or foreign intervention if the mission can’t end the unrest, said Burhan Ghalioun, leader of the Syrian National Council, the umbrella opposition group that seeks to topple Assad. In Homs, 70,000 people rallied Dec. 26 and 50,000 marched in Duma yesterday, Merei said.

The delegation is getting the “needed cooperation” from all sides, including Syrian government, the Arab League said today in an e- mailed statement.

When will the Republican Freak Show End?

A direct-mail solicitation for Ron Paul's political and investment newsletters two decades ago warned of a "coming race war in our big cities" and of a "federal-homosexual cover-up" to play down the impact of AIDS.



The eight-page letter, which appears to carry Paul's signature at the end, also warns that the U.S. government's redesign of currency to include different colors - a move aimed at thwarting counterfeiters - actually was part of a plot to allow the government to track Americans using the "new money."


The letter urges readers to subscribe to Paul's newsletters so that he could "tell you how you can save yourself and your family" from an overbearing government.


The letter's details emerge at a time when Paul, now a contender for the Republican nomination for president, is under fire over reports that his newsletters contained racist, anti-homosexual and anti-Israel rants.


Reports of the newsletters' contents have Paul's campaign scrambling.

Among other things, the articles called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. a "world-class philanderer," criticized the U.S. holiday bearing King's name as "Hate Whitey Day," and said that AIDS sufferers "enjoy the attention and pity that comes with being sick."

Fight now or be a slave forever; Women of Egypt do not give up!!!

Egyptian police and soldiers fired guns and teargas to try to clear protesters from Cairo's Tahrir Square on Tuesday, the fifth day of clashes that have killed 13 people and drawn a stinging rebuke from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.



Clinton condemned as "particularly shocking" incidents such as one in which two Egyptian soldiers were filmed dragging a woman protester on the ground by her black full-body veil, exposing her bra, then clubbing and kicking her.


"Women protesters have been rounded up and subjected to horrific abuse. Journalists have been sexually assaulted. And now women are being attacked, stripped and beaten in the streets," Clinton said in a speech at Washington's Georgetown University on Monday.

"This systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonors the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform and is not worthy of a great people ...


"Women are being beaten and humiliated in the same streets where they risked their lives for the revolution only a few short months ago."

The Quran makes it clear women of Egypt = you are equal among men....

[3:195] Their Lord responded to them: "I never fail to reward any worker among you for any work you do, be you male or female - you are equal to one another. Thus, those who immigrate, and get evicted from their homes, and are persecuted because of Me, and fight and get killed, I will surely remit their sins and admit them into gardens with flowing streams." Such is the reward from GOD. GOD possesses the ultimate reward.

Where is the UN where you need them....silent again!!!

Hundreds of Bahrainis call on the UN to hear their words in what they say is an absence of human rights in the Gulf state.

Earlier in the year, thousands of mainly Shi'ite Bahrainis marched through the streets. They were demanding political change, to limit the power of the ruling Sunni Al-Khalifa family.

Bahrain called in troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as it cracked down on protests. There has been no progress in talks between the government and opposition groups on political reforms. In Maqshaa on Tuesday, people gathered in a demonstration organised by Bahrain's main opposition party. (

DIRECTOR OF WEFAQ SOCIETY WOMEN'S ASSOCIATION, AHLAM AL-KHUZAEI, SAYING: "There is no other solution but an elected government that represents the people's will instead of an appointed government, the national assembly must have the authority to question its members, ministers and officials, no one escape can questioning including the Prime Minister."

Bahrain has ordered an investigation into all deaths and torture cases implicating the police during the crackdown, as part of reconciliation efforts. A move commended by the United States. But the people on the streets feel more needs to be done.

Repression + Dictatorships + Human Rights Abuses = Lower Investment + Higher Insurance Costs

Arab states have suffered a slump in foreign direct investment of as much as 24 percent this year as political unrest sweeps the region, according to the group that insures such funding against non-commercial risks.

Foreign financing will shrink to between $50 billion and $55 billion in 2011 from $66.2 billion the previous year, the Arab Investment & Export Credit Guarantee Corp., known as Dhaman, said in an e-mailed response to questions.

The total value of insurance operations concluded by Dhaman in the first eight months was about $780 million, “a significant increase” versus last year, indicating heightened concern, Fahad al-Ibrahim, its director-general, said in the e-mail.


Egypt is worst affected, with foreign direct investment dropping an estimated 92 percent to $500 million, according to a report issued by Dhaman in October. Tunisia, where the so-called Arab Spring began, is estimated to have drawn $1.2 billion in funding this year, a decline of 20 percent, the report said.


Kuwait-based Dhaman’s figures, which have not been verified by individual governments, suggest Libya received about $500 million, down 87 percent, and Syria $484 million, where unrest continues, a decline of 65 percent. Bahrain, which witnessed anti-government protests by the majority Shiite population, may have suffered a 36 percent drop to $100 million.

First Mortgage Corp takes home from the handicapped at Christmas......

Lesliane Bouchard, a disabled teacher in California, may lose her home because her mortgage company, First Mortgage Corporation, refuses to participate in some of the federal programs that could keep her in it.



She has been *approved* for the federal government's Hardest Hit State Fund, which would pay down enough of her principal balance enough to keep her in her home. But First Mortgage Corporation refuses to participate in the program, which is only optional for lenders.


She is completely bedridden due to a spinal injury that left her in constant excruciating pain. She had to stop teaching last year as a result, and her income dropped by 40%. Programs like the Hardest Hit States Fund exist to help people just like her, but they won't work if lenders won't participate in them.


Her current home is about the same distance from all of her adult children, enabling them to share the responsibility of caring for her. If she loses her home, it will be impossible to split duties, making her care much more difficult, and more expensive.

Her home was in foreclosure until HUD put a 90-day hold on the proceedings. Now the time is just ticking away until she is once again at risk of losing her home. Lesliane Bouchard should be able to live out her life with access to appropriate care and all her children. Please join me in demanding that First Mortgage Corporation keep her in her home.

UAE President pardons bloggers; but misses a golden opportunity to lead his society forward.

The United Arab Emirates president on Monday pardoned five activists sentenced a day earlier to 2 to 3 years in prison on charges of publicly insulting the country's rulers and disrupting public order, one of their lawyers said, relieving them of multiyear prison terms and closing a case controversial in the oil-rich Gulf state.



The U.A.E. government said Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan ordered the release of the prisoners as part of a wider pardon issued on Sunday on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the U.A.E. Defense lawyers and the activists' families had anticipated the amnesty ahead of U.A.E. national day on Friday, when the president has in the past pardoned some prisoners.


"I am very happy and glad," said Mohammed al-Roken, an attorney for two of the activists. "I hope this is a page that has been turned in the history of the U.A.E., and they can continue to serve their country."

Civil-society and human-rights groups criticized the case—an unusual trial in a state-security court of well-respected Emirati writers, professors, and bloggers—saying the accused were unable to present a proper defense and arguing that the trial served principally as a warning against political expression, at a time when protests are sweeping the wider Middle East region. Within the U.A.E., the trial divided opinions on political participation and freedom of expression. Some of the activists and their lawyers complained of harassment and threats.

Where Freedom of Speech is denied; the seeds of revolution are sown...

UAE Bloggers for Democratci Change sentenced to prison for 2-3 years

The five-month-long trial of the activists has been seen as a gauge of how the Gulf state, the world’s No. 3 oil exporter, with no tradition of organised political protest, responds to hints of political dissidence in the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings.



Ahmed Mansoor, a communications engineer and poet, was the main defendant, accused of running a website that gave the other defendants a venue to express anti-government views. He was sentenced to three years in jail.


“The website included insults that diminished the standing of His Highness the president and His Highness the vice president,” the state prosecutor said in October when he presented his case, without specifying the insults.


The other four – Nasser bin Ghaith, Fahad Salim Dalk, Hassan Ali al-Khamis and Ahmed Abdul Khaleq – were sentenced to two years.


The court also ordered the closure of the website. The five, who were arrested in April for urging public protest and disrupting public order, had been on trial since June.


The five have been on hunger strike for almost two weeks, lawyers and relatives said.


“Their health is deteriorating and they lost a lot of weight,” Mohammed al-Roken, one of two lawyers defending the five activists, told reporters. “But I don’t know if they will continue or not.”

One of the defendants had written an essay describing that approach as buying off citizens to avoid political reform.


Prosecutors also said in October one of the activists published a petition urging a boycott of elections in September for half of a 40-seat consultative council. Prosecutors said they had evidence the defendants incited citizens to “breach public order and stage demonstrations against the state”.


Three rights groups, including Human Rights Watch (HRW), accused the UAE government last week of failing to investigate what they described as a campaign of death threats, slander and intimidation against the five.

Occupy Wall Street Vision Statement & potential Demands

We Envision:
[1] a truly free, democratic, and just society;
[2] where we, the people, come together and solve our problems by consensus;
[3] where people are encouraged to take personal and collective responsibility and participate in decision making;
[4] where we learn to live in harmony and embrace principles of toleration and respect for diversity and the differing views of others;
[5] where we secure the civil and human rights of all from violation by tyrannical forces and unjust governments;
[6] where political and economic institutions work to benefit all, not just the privileged few;
[7] where we provide full and free education to everyone, not merely to get jobs but to grow and flourish as human beings;
[8] where we value human needs over monetary gain, to ensure decent standards of living without which effective democracy is impossible;
[9] where we work together to protect the global environment to ensure that future generations will have safe and clean air, water and food supplies, and will be able to enjoy the beauty and bounty of nature that past generations have enjoyed.


10 Things We Want


A Proposal for Occupy Wall Street


Submitted by Michael Moore

1. Eradicate the Bush tax cuts for the rich and institute new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including a tax on all trading on Wall Street (where they currently pay 0%).

2. Assess a penalty tax on any corporation that moves American jobs to other countries when that company is already making profits in America. Our jobs are the most important national treasure and they cannot be removed from the country simply because someone wants to make more money.

3. Require that all Americans pay the same Social Security tax on all of their earnings (normally, the middle class pays about 6% of their income to Social Security; someone making $1 million a year pays about 0.6% (or 90% less than the average person). This law would simply make the rich pay what everyone else pays.

4. Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, placing serious regulations on how business is conducted by Wall Street and the banks.

5. Investigate the Crash of 2008, and bring to justice those who committed any crimes.

6. Reorder our nation's spending priorities (including the ending of all foreign wars and their cost of over $2 billion a week). This will re-open libraries, reinstate band and art and civics classes in our schools, fix our roads and bridges and infrastructure, wire the entire country for 21st century internet, and support scientific research that improves our lives.

7. Join the rest of the free world and create a single-payer, free and universal health care system that covers all Americans all of the time.

8. Immediately reduce carbon emissions that are destroying the planet and discover ways to live without the oil that will be depleted and gone by the end of this century.

9. Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job. (For any U.S. businesspeople freaking out at this idea because you think workers can't run a successful company: Germany has a law like this and it has helped to make Germany the world’s leading manufacturing exporter.)

10. We, the people, must pass three constitutional amendments that will go a long way toward fixing the core problems we now have. These include:

a) A constitutional amendment that fixes our broken electoral system by 1) completely removing campaign contributions from the political process; 2) requiring all elections to be publicly financed; 3) moving election day to the weekend to increase voter turnout; 4) making all Americans registered voters at the moment of their birth; 5) banning computerized voting and requiring that all elections take place on paper ballots.

b) A constitutional amendment declaring that corporations are not people and do not have the constitutional rights of citizens. This amendment should also state that the interests of the general public and society must always come before the interests of corporations.

c) A constitutional amendment that will act as a "second bill of rights" as proposed by President Frankin D. Roosevelt: that every American has a human right to employment, to health care, to a free and full education, to breathe clean air, drink clean water and eat safe food, and to be cared for with dignity and respect in their old age.

Hundreds of men and women chanted “Hamad must fall” during the demonstrations.

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Security forces in Bahrain used excessive force, including torture and the extraction of forced confessions, against detainees who were arrested in a sweeping crackdown early this year during protests that deeply polarized the country, according to a report by an independent commission that investigated the uprising and its aftermath.


The report, released on Wednesday, presented a devastating portrait of what it called disproportionate and indiscriminate force often used by the security forces to repress protests in February and March that were organized primarily by the Shiite Muslim majority in Bahrain, a tiny Persian Gulf state that is a prominent American ally.

“A number of detainees were tortured,” M. Cherif Bassiouni, an international law expert who led the inquiry, said at a news conference in Manama, the capital, as King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa listened. Mr. Bassiouni added that the dimensions of the torture “proved there was a deliberate practice by some.”

The report by the panel, known as the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry, also said there was no clear evidence that Iran had incited the unrest, as senior Bahraini officials have contended.

In Washington, the Obama administration welcomed the report, but said the onus was now on Bahrain’s government to hold accountable those responsible for abuses and to undertake reforms to make sure they do not occur again.

The commission found that Bahrain’s security services and Interior Ministry “followed a systematic practice of physical and psychological mistreatment, which amounted in many cases to torture, with respect to a large number of detainees.”

In the report, the panel called the government’s use of force and firearms excessive and, “on many occasions, unnecessary, disproportionate and indiscriminate.” It cited instances in which masked men broke into the homes of dissidents between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., “terrorizing” inhabitants.

The inquiry determined that 35 people died during the protests, including five security personnel. Five detainees were tortured to death while in custody, the panel concluded, and other detainees endured electric shocks and were beaten with rubber hoses and wires. Hundreds of people were also injured.

A total of 2,929 people were arrested during the protests, the report said, and at least 700 remain in prison. The commission urged a review of the sentences handed down to protesters.

The commission concluded that Iran did not play a role in the uprising.

“The report did not say the truth,” said Ali al-Aswad, a member of the Al-Wefaq party, the biggest legal opposition group, and a former lawmaker. “It did not say who was responsible for killing protesters and firing people from their jobs and universities and causing people to lose their homes. It failed to point the finger at senior officials.”

The opposition has insisted that the repression was in fact systematic, part of what it calls institutional discrimination against the Shiite majority. Although the report stopped short of naming names — as the opposition had demanded — it did say that the abuse of detainees originated at the highest levels of Bahrain’s security institutions.

“The very fact that a systematic pattern of behavior existed indicates that this is how these security forces were trained and how they were expected to act,” the report said. “This could not have happened without the knowledge of higher echelons of the command structure” of the Interior Ministry and National Security Agency.

In a grim reminder of the divisions that still beset Bahrain, the police clashed with protesters on Wednesday in at least two Shiite villages hours before the report was released. Activists said at least two people were killed in the violence. Residents and activists also said the security forces used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the protesters.

Hundreds of men and women chanted “Hamad must fall” during the demonstrations, the residents and activists said.

USA arms sale to Bahrain!!!

The U.S. State Department is coming under fire for considering a $53 million arms sale.



Why? Because since February of this year, the military, security and police forces of the prospective buyer -- Bahrain -- have used such weapons and military equipment to inflict deaths and injuries on protestors demanding greater political freedom.


Moving forward with this arms sale would provide more weapons and equipment to the very Bahraini security forces who have already shot protestors. It would also cross a clear line of U.S. responsibility to protect human rights.


That's why right now members of Congress, led by Senator Ron Wyden and Representative Jim McGovern, are drawing a sharp line with a resolution aimed at blocking this arms sale.


Urge your Senators and Representatives to join the call to stop the U.S. arms sale to Bahrain!

Bahrain's horrible record on human rights continues to this day. At the peak of the crackdown, President Obama condemned the "mass arrests and brute force" used by the Bahraini government.

So why is the State Department even considering selling Bahrain more weapons?


Fortunately, the U.S. State Department is showing some signs of responsiveness. Just last week, it agreed to delay the weapons sale until a commission in Bahrain finishes investigating the government's human rights abuses.

UAE a populace of prostitutes; or everyone has their price in case you missed my point.

Human Rights Watch urges Sorbonne University to break its silence about the trial of a lecturer at its Abu Dhabi branch, facing trial for insulting UAE leaders through his calls for democratic reform.


Nasser bin Ghaith published an article this year criticising what he called Gulf states’ attempt to avoid political reform by buying off their populations with generous government spending programmes.

Cecile Laborde, spokeswoman for the Sorbonne University in Paris, was not immediately available to comment.


Bin Ghaith is now one of five UAE nationals on trial for incitement and insulting the leadership of the UAE, a Gulf state that has been virtually untouched by protests that have swept through the Arab world this year.

The UAE is a close US ally in the Middle East and the world’s number three oil exporter.

“Despite mounting pressure from international rights groups and students at Paris Sorbonne University to speak up, Sorbonne has not only refused to criticize the UAE authorities but has also attempted to distance itself from bin Ghaith,” the New York-based rights group said in a statement late on Thursday.

UAE Think at your own peril; and in any case don't blog about it...

ABU DHABI: A hearing was held yesterday for six activists in the United Arab Emirates charged with incitement and insulting the Gulf country’s leadership, drawing criticism by a rights groups’ representative over the lack of transparency.

"Six men have been referred to the Federal Supreme Court over charges including perpetrating acts that pose threats to state security, undermining the public order, opposing the government system, and insulting the president, the vice president and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, the UAE Attorney, General Salim Saeed Kubaish, said yesterday."

The world’s No. 3 oil exporter has been virtually untouched by the unrest that has swept through the Arab world and toppled the leaders of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, but has been swift to silence any open political dissent.


“We were denied access today,” said Jennie Pasquarella, who flew in from the United States to observe the trial on behalf of four groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

“We’re concerned about the fairness of the trial. None of the hearings have been open in public, they’ve all been secret, in fact no reason has been given for making them secret.” Police arrested the political activists and intellectuals in April, and the attorney general later said the men were suspected of inciting “acts that threaten state security and public order”, and “insulting the president, vice president and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi.”


They pleaded not guilty in July at the Federal Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi, whose verdicts are final. Another hearing was scheduled for Sunday when the court will hear testimony from a final witness, a judge told lawyers outside the courtroom.


Among the defendants is Ahmed Mansoor, an outspoken rights activist who joined several dissidents this year to start an online petition demanding the country’s Federal National Council, an advisory body, greater powers.


Another defendant, Nasser bin Ghaith, a lecturer at the Abu Dhabi branch of France’s Sorbonne University, published an article criticising what he called Gulf states’ attempt to avoid political reform by buying off their populaces through generous government spending programmes.

UAE Sign an on-line petition and death by bunga bunga!!!! (Get Real!!!)

Five pro-democracy activists on trial in the United Arab Emirates returned to court yesterday, two days after the oil-rich Gulf nation held elections for an advisory council that wields no power.

The activists, including a blogger and an academic, were detained in April after they signed an online petition demanding constitutional changes and free elections.
They were charged in July with insulting the country's rulers and using an online
forum to conspire against the state.

Among the five, all of whom have pleaded not guilty, are blogger Ahmed Mansour and economics professor Nasser bin Ghaith, who lectured at the Abu Dhabi branch of Paris's Sorbonne university.

The five activists briefly attended yesterday's closed-door proceedings in Abu Dhabi's Federal Supreme Court.

Four of the defendants, including Mansour and bin Ghaith, walked out of the courtroom after the judges refused to consider their demand to open the hearing to the public and release them from custody on bail.

Political activity is severely restricted in the UAE, an alliance of seven semi-autonomous states, each ruled by a hereditary sheikh. There are no official opposition groups and political parties are banned.

For every mosque opened in the West; we should open a church, synagogue, & temple in Islamic nations = how's that for balance?

We the people of Earth will never win an argument with each other about whose imaginary friend is better.


Spain's National Intelligence Centre (CNI), which published a report in July, warning of tens of millions of dollars coming to Spain from Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to support Muslims, and calling for close monitoring of these funds. The CNI's report hinted that the money would be used to promote Islamic courts, remove girls from schools, and encourage forced marriages. The Spanish government's response was to call for all donations from the Gulf Arab states to be channeled through a government- controlled "Islamic Commission of Spain". The CNI pointed to the Kuwaiti government's funding of the construction of mosques in Catalonia, from which Islamic preachers are "spreading a religious interpretation that opposes the integration of Muslims into Spanish society and promotes separation and hate towards non-Muslim groups. Qatari donations are made through the Islamic League for Dialogue and Coexistence in Spain, a group the CNI says is "linked to the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria".

The Moroccan government is aggressively implementing "a strategy of great magnitude" to exert control over the religious and cultural beliefs and practices of the nearly one million Moroccan immigrants who reside in Spain.

The strategy involves establishing a parallel Muslim society in Spain by discouraging Moroccans from integrating into their host country, and by encouraging them instead to live an Islamic lifestyle isolated from Spanish society.

Rabat is also financing the construction of hundreds of mosques in Spain whose imams are directly appointed by the Moroccan government. Moreover, the North African country is attempting to impose Muslim religious instruction in Spanish public schools, and is pressuring Moroccan families to remove their children from those schools that fail to comply

According to Noureddine Ziani, a Barcelona-based Moroccan imam: “It is absolutely necessary to accept Islamic values as European values and that from now on, Europeans should replace the term "Judeo-Christian" with term "Islamo-Christian" when describing Western Civilization.

UAE Human Trafficking; Sexual Exploitation of Women

Human Rights Watch has praised a decision by the Philippines government that could ban domestic workers to three Gulf countries (UAE, Kuwait, & Qatar) and urged other labour exporting countries to follow suit.


The US-based watchdog said it remained concerned about the treatment of domestic workers in the GCC states and called for other governments to step up measures to better protect their nationals working abroad.

“Treatment of migrant domestic workers is a problem throughout the Gulf… It’s very encouraging that the Philippines would be considering such a move, it is steps like this that are essential in order to improve the situation for domestic workers generally,” Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa division, told Arabian Business.

“Other labour sending countries should be taking the same kinds of measures or certainly conducting the same kinds of investigations, and having the same kind of vigilance on the ground through the embassies and consulates as the Philippines does,” he added.

The United Arab Emirates [UAE] is one of the biggest destinations for men and women, predominantly from South and Southeast Asia, trafficked for the purposes of labor and commercial-sexual exploitation. Migrant workers, who comprise more than 90 percent of the UAE's private sector workforce, are recruited from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, China, and the Philippines. Women from some of these countries travel willingly to work as domestic servants or administrative staff, but most are subjected to conditions indicative of forced labor, including unlawful withholding of passports, restrictions on movement, non-payment of wages, threats, or physical or sexual abuse.

Legally, once a foreign female domestic worker enters her employer's house, she is totally under his/her control, since the employer is usually her visa sponsor. Even today, United Arab Emirates labour laws do not recognize domestics as part of the labour force. The employer bears total responsibility for his/her domestic workers and has total control over them.

The immigration regulations governing the status of domestic workers and the social practices towards foreign female domestic worker in the United Arab Emirates enslave them to their employers until the duration of their contract ends.

A significant portion of the foreign female workers in UAE as well as in other Arab countries are forced to offer sex to the employer, as well as many of them are even sold to the private brothels or sex rackets by the recruiting agents or pimps.