French riot police and students fired tear gas and petrol bombs at each other while truckers blocked roads and almost 3,000 petrol stations ran dry, as nationwide protests intensified. Despite claims that it had petrol provision “under control”, the government said it had activated an emergency crisis cell charged with maintaining fuel supplies. The opposition Socialists criticised François Fillon,... 

German chancellor Angela Merkel addresses young members of Christian Democratic Union party. Chancellor’s assertion that onus is on new arrivals to do more to integrate into German society stirs anti-immigration debate. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has courted growing anti-immigrant opinion in Germany by claiming the country’s attempts to create a multicultural society have “utterly... 

Row: Jacinta Lal raised eyebrows at the Wellington leg of the MissIndiaNZ contest where some of the audience accused her of not being Indian enough. Her stunning looks won her a coveted title in New Zealand’s Miss India contest. But Jacinta Lal, 21, was today at the centre of a huge row after she was accused of not looking Indian enough. The blue-eyed blonde, whose father is Fijian-Indian and... 

Violence disrupts again in Paris at the Techno Parade 2010 which was supposed to be a peaceful street party.  Read More »

Tourists were asked to leave the Eiffel Tower on Tuesday after a bomb threat. The Eiffel Tower and the surrounding Champs de Mars park were briefly evacuated on Tuesday because of a bomb alert, the fourth in the Paris region in as many weeks, but a search turned up nothing, police said. The decision to evacuate came after the fire service received a call from a public telephone saying there was a suspect... 

Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germans have failed to grasp how Muslim immigration has transformed their country and will have to come to terms with more mosques than churches throughout the countryside, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily. “Our country continues to change, and integration is also the task for society to deal with immigrants,” Ms. Merkel told the daily newspaper.... 

Where is MSNBC? The Inter-Press Sevice (IPS) is reporting that the head administrator of the Mexican Superintendency of Tax Administration, Raul Diaz, has confirmed that his government is building a wall in the state of Chiapas, along the Mexican/Guatemalan border. The official reason is to stop contraband from coming into Mexico, but as Diaz admitted: “It could also prevent the free passage of illegal... 

Japan’s new foreign minister has taken tough stance toward China on territorial dispute. A security expert and China hawk, Japan’s new foreign minister has already taken a tough stance toward Beijing amid escalating diplomatic tension over a territorial dispute between the two Asian giants. Seiji Maehara, the former transport minister and most prominent symbol of change in Prime Minister... 

An Islamic revolution akin to the one that swept through Iran in 1979 could easily take place in Sweden, claims the second highest ranking member of the far-right Sweden Democrats. “It can happen really fast,” said Sweden Democrat party secretary Björn Söder to the TT news agency. Söder is number two behind party leader Jimmie Åkesson on the Sweden Democrat party list. As party secretary,... 

Mr Berlusconi, whose comments in support of Mr Sarkozy follow his stated opposition to a multi-ethnic Italy. Italy’s conservative premier Silvio Berlusconi has given his full support to France’s controversial decision to forcibly repatriate thousands of Roma people to Eastern Europe. And in an interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, he appeared keen to exploit the row by calling... 

Does America engage in massive and widespread violations of human rights? The Obama administration thinks so. That’s the takeaway of the “Report of the United States of America Submitted to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.” The introduction says it “gives a partial snapshot of the current human rights situation in the United States, including some of the areas where... 

Souvenir photos Nahal soldiers photograph themselves pointing rifles, making offensive gestures at blindfolded Palestinian detainee. Defense counsel: Many soldiers, officers have done the same. Controversial photos taken by Nahal unit soldiers on their cell phones were released Sunday evening. The four soldiers were pictured while directing their rifles at a bound Palestinian detainee in January this... 

The University of Victoria’s Zheng Wu is leading an important study into one of the most profound challenges facing Canada, which has the highest per-capita immigration in the world. How can waves of newcomers to Canada feel they belong here? That question, explored by Wu and his sociological team, is particularly crucial to cities such as Vancouver and Toronto, where about two out of five residents... 

While many European Catholic bishops often defend the rights of Muslims to worship publicly others are more keen to protect the Christian heritage of their continent. European Christians must have more children or face the prospect of the continent becoming Islamised, a senior Vatican official has said. Italian Father Piero Gheddo said that the low birth rate among indigenous Europeans combined with... 

Friday in Paris. A hidden camera shows streets blocked by huge crowds of Muslim worshippers and enforced by a private security force. This is all illegal in France: the public worship, the blocked streets, and the private security. But the police have been ordered not to intervene. It shows that even though some in the French government want to get tough with Muslims and ban the burqa, other parts...