Dorrie's Picks: 2/14/09

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090213/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan_kidnapped_american
Kidnappers threaten American abducted in Pakistan
QUETTA, Pakistan – Kidnappers threatened on Friday to kill an American employee of the United Nations within 72 hours and issued a grainy video of the blindfolded captive saying he was "sick and in trouble." A letter accompanying the video delivered to a Pakistani news agency said the hostage, John Solecki, would be killed unless authorities released 141 women it said were being held in Pakistan

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/02/12/uss-cole-families-press-obama-open-commission-investigate-attack/
USS Cole Families Press Obama to Open Commission to Investigate Attack
Bereaved families asked President Obama to open a 9/11 Commission-like investigation of the USS Cole attack during a closed-door meeting in Washington Friday.

President Obama was pressed by families of the sailors killed in the terrorist strike on the USS Cole to establish a 9/11 Commission-like panel to investigate the attack, FOX News has learned.

Obama met with relatives of Cole sailors and 9/11 victims Friday in the wake of three executive orders he signed last month ordering the closing of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, where the alleged mastermind of the attack is being held.

The deadly strike is considered a seminal event in the days leading up to 9/11. Seventeen American sailors were killed off the coast of Yemen Oct. 12, 2000, when a suicide bomber rammed his boat into the hull of the Cole.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25052549-23109,00.html
Italy might take Guantanamo inmates
An Italian Government minister has said his country is willing to accept some Guantanamo Bay detainees from the US.

Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa was quoted by Italian media as saying both he and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had "accepted this invitation." He said it should be seen as recognition of Italy's part in the war on terrorism.

http://www.radionetherlands.nl/news/zijlijn/6175108-Few-attend-UK
Few attend UK screening of Wilders' film
Lia Bekhoven went to Westminister to see if Mr Wilders really was famous in London

The film Fitna was shown in the British upper house of parliament on Thursday despite the British authorities' refusal to allow its maker, Dutch rightwing [they could drop that appellation just any time, and I wouldn't miss it] populist MP Geert Wilders, into the United Kingdom.

Only around 30 people attended the screening, five of them members of the upper house.
All 743 members of the upper house were invited, as were the 646 members of the lower house, none of whom attended.

None of whom have the slightest bit of backbone, I'm thinkin'. Nor will they have a country in which to be scairdy-cats, soon. ---DOB

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/4615504/Banning-Wilders-plays-into-the-hands-of-our-Islamist-enemies.html
Banning Wilders plays into the hands of our Islamist enemies
The Home Secretary should instead stop the advocates of violence from entering Britain, argues Charles Moore

'The Secretary of State is satisfied" would be a good title for a satirical television drama. It is the favourite bureaucratic phrase used to convey a ministerial decision.

This week, the office of the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith wrote to Geert Wilders, the Dutch MP who had been invited to the House of Lords to present his anti-Muslim film Fitna to MPs and peers there. Miss Smith, said the letter, was "satisfied" that what Mr Wilders said "about Muslims and their beliefs… would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the UK."

So the Flying Dutchman reached Heathrow on Thursday, but was put on a plane back to Holland straightaway.

It is extremely unusual that an elected member of a European legislature is banned from this country when invited by members of our own Parliament. It contravenes a key democratic principle about the power of legislators to talk to one another, whether governments like it or not.

http://news.parliament.uk/2009/02/geert-wilders/
A Private Notice Question - urgent question to the Government - was asked in the Lords Chamber on 12 February on the Government's justification for denying Dutch MP, Mr Geert Wilders, entry into the UK.
Lords Hansard: Geert Wilders
Video and Audio: Geert Wilders
Companion to the House of Lords: Private Notice Questions

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129932
BBC Fights to Hide Report on Anti-Israel Bias
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is fighting a court order that would force it to reveal an internal report on anti-Israel bias. The media giant has reportedly spent 200,000 British pounds (roughly $280,000) on the case.

The legal battle was started by attorney Steven Sugar of London, who contends that the report on bias in its coverage must be made public under the Freedom of Information Act. The 20,000-word report is rumored to have concluded that the BBC's coverage was biased against Israel, a conclusion that Sugar says is of public interest.