Radical Islamists aim to infiltrate Hamburg mosques

Radical Islamists from a shut down Hamburg mosque linked to the September 11 attacks on the United States are now trying to infiltrate other mosques in and around the German city, according to officials and Muslim leaders.

Small groups of radicals have turned up at several mosques trying to establish a new meeting place since the Taiba Mosque, where the 9/11 leader Mohammad Atta once prayed, was raided and closed by police in August, they told Reuters.

With radicals no longer grouped around one mosque near the city’s main train station, security services have stepped up their observation of Islamists around the city and Muslim associations are on the lookout for suspicious newcomers.

“There are small groups of three to five people from the former Taiba Mosque who have gone to other mosques,” said Ralf Kunz, internal affairs spokesman for the city government.

Individual radicals have turned up “at lots of mosques, both in Hamburg and the surrounding region,” he said. “They have not been able to assemble at any mosque.”

People walk past the entrance of the Taiba Mosque in Hamburg October 6, 2010.






Hamburg police shut down the Taiba Mosque, formerly known as the Al Quds Mosque, in August, saying it had links with armed Islamist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

A so-called “Hamburg Travel Group” of 11 radicals linked to the mosque left Germany in March 2009 to fight against the US and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

Muslim organisations in the city said they had stepped up their vigilance. Schura, Hamburg’s largest Muslim group, said it had no evidence of any problem at its mosques.

But Schura head Mustafa Yoldas, referring to an ultra-conservative brand of Islam, added: “The salafis are trying to get a foothold in some other congregations. I know of two mosques where they meet and give lectures... They are and will remain a fringe group, they will never be mainstream here.”

At Ditib, a German-Turkish association linked to Ankara’s Religious Affairs Ministry, regional chairman Zekeriya Altug said his group’s structure made it harder to infiltrate.

“I know that the (Taiba Mosque) congregation has been split up and is seeking refuge elsewhere,” he said. “Our imams are university graduates who are competent to counter them.”

Radicals trying to infiltrate a congregation usually seek out small mosques with weak leadership and start meeting and preaching there, hoping to attract young Muslims.

Norbert Mueller, a German convert on Schura’s board, said weakly managed mosques did not always notice what was happening.

“These young people don’t come wearing a label saying ‘I’m from the Taiba Mosque’,” he said. “They say they want to start a youth group. But their thinking becomes obvious after a while and one realises where they come from.”

Recent reports of planned al Qaeda attacks on landmark targets in Europe have turned the spotlight back on Hamburg, a major port city where 27 per cent of the population is foreign or has an immigrant background.

One member of the “travel group” was seized by US troops in Afghanistan this summer and has revealed details of the planned attacks, intelligence sources say. That prompted the US, Britain and France to issue travel warnings in Europe.

Kunz said the “travel group” consisted of nine men and two women, who he said had little to do with the men’s radical activities. Three were now back in Hamburg under police observation, one was jailed here and one in US custody.

Some others were apparently killed in a US drone attack, but their identities have not yet been confirmed, Kunz said.

“The travel group has been broken up,” he said.

Kunz gave no details of new security measures against mosque infiltration but said: “It has created a lot more work for us.”

He said Hamburg authorities had expected Islamists to fan out to other mosques if they closed the Taiba Mosque, but shut it down anyway because it had become a magnet for radicals.

“The Taiba Mosque had a cult status,” he said. “People came from all over Germany and from abroad to pray there. We wanted to stop that.”

Two of four trapped Ecuadorean miners found dead

Two of four men trapped in an Ecuadorean mine cave-in were found dead on Saturday in the latest accident to hit the industry in Latin America.

Contrasting with the jubilation at this week’s rescue of 33 miners in Chile, the two Ecuadorean miners’ bodies were brought out to disconsolate relatives and officials at the small gold mine in Portovelo near the Peruvian border.

The miners were trapped some 500 feet (150 metres) underground when a tunnel collapsed early on Friday. Officials blamed the accident on water leaks.

“We have found two bodies. The rescue operation continues and we think the other two have a good chance of being alive,” government mining official Jorge Espinosa told Reuters. “They were working in the part above the collapse.”

About 100 rescuers were at the scene, trying to remove rocks and insert a small probe with a camera inside to determine the two men’s fate.

In Chile the 33 miners survived for two weeks on limited rations until rescuers made contact. Their rescue, after more than two months deep under remote desert, triggered euphoria across the continent.

It also put a spotlight on mining safety in Latin America where there are still many accidents, though standards have improved dramatically in recent decades compared to the horrors of past centuries.

One of the worst accidents of recent times took place in Colombia in June, when more than 70 miners died after a gas explosion at a coal mine.

Japan PM wants China to ensure citizens’ safety

Japan’s prime minister on Monday urged China to ensure the safety of Japanese citizens and firms and called for calm after Chinese protesters took to the streets over a territorial feud straining ties between Asia’s top economies.

Sino-Japanese relations deteriorated sharply last month after Japan detained a Chinese trawler captain whose boat collided with Japanese patrol ships near the disputed islands -- called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s comments to parliament were followed by remarks from Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara that China’s actions in the dispute were “extremely hysterical,” underlining the difficulty of putting a quick end to the spat.

Kan has come under fire domestically for appearing to cave in to Chinese demands to release the captain. On Saturday, thousands marched in Tokyo to assert Japan’s claim to the rocky isles, which re near potentially huge oil and gas reserves in the East China Sea.

“Regarding the Chinese protests against Japan on the 16th and 17th, we will tell the Chinese authorities that it is regrettable and ask them to ensure the safety of Japanese nationals and Japanese companies in China,” Kan told a parliamentary panel.

“Both sides need to work hard (on the matter) in a calm manner,” Kan added. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said Japan had already conveyed its message to Beijing.

The feud has raised concerns about fallout for business given deep economic ties between the two Asian giants. China replaced the United States as Japan’s biggest trade partner last year.

China cancelled diplomatic meetings in protest over the trawler captain’s detention, and concerns have been simmering that Beijing is holding back shipments of rare earth minerals that are vital for electronics goods and auto parts.

“The countersteps that China has taken are extremely hysterical,” Maehara said.

“When it comes to rare earth (export stoppages), while China’s commerce ministry is denying any such steps, things have not really returned to normal yet, creating a situation that does not fit well with the spirit of the WTO (World Trade Organisation).”

Yesterday, China called on its people to stay within the law in their “understandable” anger at Japan.

An estimated crowd of 2,000 gathered in downtown Chengdu, capital of China’s southwestern Sichuan Province, from early afternoon on Saturday, unfurling banners and shouting: “Defend the Diaoyu Islands,” “Fight Japan” and other slogans.

In Tokyo on the same day, more than 2,000 protesters marched to the Chinese Embassy, waving flags and chanting in opposition to China’s claim to the uninhabited islands.

Sino-Japan ties have long been plagued by China’s bitter memories of Tokyo’s past military aggression, rivalry over resources and mutual mistrust about military intentions.

But relations had until recently been improving after deep strains sparked major anti-Japan protests in China in 2005.

Japan and China are trying to arrange a formal summit meeting between the two countries’ leaders at the end of October on the sidelines of a regional summit in Vietnam.

Kan and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao both called for better ties at an informal meeting in Brussels earlier this month, but they also stressed their claims to the uninhabited islands.

Australia’s first saint: Nun who exposed sexual abuse

Pope Benedict today gave Australia its first saint, a 19th century "whistleblower" nun who activists say should be the patron of victims of sexual abuse by priests because she was punished for exposing it.

At a solemn ceremony in St Peter's Square, the pope canonised Mother Mary MacKillop as well as five other church figures from Poland, Canada, Spain, and Italy who lived in the 15th to 20th centuries.

A boy holds a book showing new Australian Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop as Pope Benedict XVI leads a solemn mass for the canonisation of six new saints in Saint Peter's square at the Vatican October 17, 2010.




Tens of thousands of Australian pilgrims travelled to Rome to attend the mass where the pope read a sainthood decree for MacKillop, one of the few saints in Church history who were excommunicated and later rehabilitated.

A maverick and feisty upstart in the spirit of her young nation, MacKillop, the daughter of Scottish immigrants, founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart in 1867 to help the poor and educate their children.

Independent-minded, she regularly clashed with the church's male hierarchy and the tensions led to her excommunication — the Catholic Church's harshest penalty, which denies the sacraments to a person — in 1871. The order was later lifted.

Documents recently uncovered in Australia showed that MacKillop was banished from the Church in part because her order uncovered a case of sexual abuse of a boy by an Irish priest.

In his homily at the mass, the pope did not mention any of MacKillop's travails with the male Church hierarchy but spoke of her "saintly example of zeal, perseverance and prayer" and the many challenges she faced.

In the wake of the new documents, some activists in the Church have called on the Vatican to declare her the patron saint of those who suffered sexual abuse by priests.

"WHISTLEBLOWER" SAINT

The Rev. James Martin, a prominent Catholic commentator, wrote recently in America, the journal of the Jesuits in the United States, that such a designation would be appropriate for a person he called a "whistleblower" saint.

"Only recently has the Church begun to see whistleblowers as necessary — and holy," wrote the influential commentator. "Victims and victims' families now have someone new to pray for them in their struggles for justice and reconciliation."

The Catholic Church has been rocked by scandal involving the sexual abuse of children by priests over a period of decades. The Pope met with victims of sexual abuse on most of his recent foreign trips, including in Australia in 2008.

The Catholic Church has credited MacKillop for interceding with God in what the Church considers two miracle cures, the latest that of Kathleen Evans, who was cured of lung and brain cancer in 1993 after praying to MacKillop.

Another Australian woman, Veronica Hopson, 72, was inexplicably cured of leukaemia in 1961 after praying to MacKillop.

The order founded by MacKillop, who died in 1909, now has more than 850 members, who run schools, care homes for the aged and do community work in Australia, New Zealand, East Timor, Ireland, Scotland, Peru and Brazil.

More than a century after her death, she remains one of Australia's most revered figures, honoured even by declared atheists such as the country's Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

The pope also canonised two Italian nuns, Giulia Salzano and Battista Camilla da Varano, Spanish nun Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriola, Brother Andre Bessette of Canada, and Stanislaw Kazimierczyk of Poland.

Eight virus types cause almost all cervical cancer

Scientists have identified the eight human papillomavirus (HPV) types responsible for more than 90 per cent of cervical cancer cases worldwide and say they should be the targets for the next generation of vaccines.

Drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline and Merck & Co. already make vaccines against HPV strains that cause many cases of cervical cancer, which is the second most common cancer in women worldwide and is expected to kill 328,000 this year.

In a large study looking at 60 years of data from 10,575 cases of invasive cervical cancer across 38 countries, an international team of scientists led by Silvia de Sanjose of the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Barcelona examined which types of HPV contributed most to the global incidence of the disease.

Their results, published in the Lancet medical journal on Monday, showed that eight HPV types — types 16, 18, 45, 33, 31, 52, 58, and 35 in descending order of frequency — were responsible for more than 90 per cent of cases.

GSK’s vaccine Cervarix and Merck’s Gardasil protect against HPV types 16 and 18, and, through cross-protection, partially also against HPV types 31 and 45.

Many wealthy countries have started HPV immunisation programmes with these shots for girls before they become sexually active, but the vaccines are generally too expensive and inaccessible for most people living in poorer nations.

De Sanjose said the study’s findings reinforced “the rationale for prevention of cervical cancer through use of existing vaccines” and would aid the development of second-generation vaccines against multiple HPV types.

Around 80 per cent of the world’s cervical cancer cases now occur in developing countries and the disease is caused by high-risk and sexually transmitted types of HPV.

Of the more than 118 different HPV types that have been identified, about 40 infect the genital tract and 12 are known to be cancer-causing, the scientists explained.

In their study, which involved cancer cases from Europe, North America, central South America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania, the researchers also identified several rare HPV types — types 26, 30, 61, 67, 69, 82, and 91 — which can also cause cervical cancer but account for only one per cent of cases worldwide.

In a commentary about the study in the Lancet, Cosette Wheeler of the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in the United States described the research as “a Herculean effort that might be the benchmark for all time”.

The results “clearly support future directions for cervical screening and type-specific triage, establish the potential worldwide impact of current HPV vaccines, and set priorities for next-generation vaccines”, she wrote.