Mohammed — in pictures

The Spectator
The Koran has no injunction against depicting Mohammed. In fact, within Islam, there’s a rich tradition of painting the Prophet "

Whatever the heritage of their medieval past, Sunni Islam — in the Arab-speaking Middle East — had decisively turned its back on depictions of the Prophet well before the 18th-century emergence of Wahhabism. Once again there are no definite answers. It may have been a gut reaction to the magnificent art produced by their Iranian Shiite rivals but it also reflects a very real fear that Mohammed was slowly being turned into a demi-god and that in the process his actual prophetic message would be ignored. This was especially true in the far eastern frontiers of Islam, such as India and Indonesia (numerically the two largest Muslim nations in the world) with their ancient syncretic traditions. So the attack on imagery can also be seen to have a constructive element embedded within it, concentrating all attention on the text of the Koran and reinforcing the Arab nature of that revelation. "

Cheap central bank cash won't save the euro

Telegraph
QE will solve the eurozone crisis: For most part, this is a case of “let’s do something” amid political stalemate – rather than a remedy for any of the eurozone’s fundamental problem such as lagging competitiveness, unemployment and political backlashes. Cheap central bank cash cannot paper over deep economic and political cracks "

ECB unleashes €60bn-a-month quantitative easing package - live

Telegraph

Krone's euro peg comes under pressure as all eyes are on Frankfurt where the ECB looks ready to pull the trigger on bond-purchases. Follow the latest here  "

 

The euro has tanked:

13.40 BREAKING: ECB announces €60bn a month purchases to be conducted until the end of 2016.

Grace gives us the bad news on Obamacare and our friends at the IRS

Junk Science
By Grace-Marie Turner
Forbes
Millions of Americans who received subsidized health insurance under ObamaCare will find a new wave of frustration this tax season.
After losing their health insurance because it was not ObamaCare compliant…after slogging through the healthcare.gov website to get enrolled in a new policy…after losing their doctors…after learning that they must pay thousands of dollars in deductibles before they can get medical care…now they must face the IRS. ...."

It is time Britain stopped being such a soft touch !

Daily Mail

It has been revealed that the wife of the Al Qaeda fanatic believed to have mentored the terrorists involved in last week’s Paris massacre is living on benefits in a council house in Leicester.

Djamel Beghal, currently awaiting trial in France, was once one of Captain Hook’s chief cronies at Finsbury Park. His wife, Sylvie, who has four children, decided to move to Britain from France because she wanted to live in a more ‘Islamic environment’. Tells you all you need to know, really, doesn’t it? Most people in search of an ‘Islamic environment’ would look first to Saudi Arabia or Pakistan. Not Sylvie. She chose Leicester, where she was welcomed with open arms and showered with money courtesy of the mug British taxpayer."

The week the dam broke in Russia and ended Putin's dreams

Telegraph

This was the week when the country’s long-festering crisis turned virulent. A last-ditch attempt to defend the exchange rate by raising interest rates to 17pc failed within hours, yet the shock is surely enough to set off a chain of corporate failures and push banks over the edge. Traders in the City watched open-mouthed as the dam broke on Black Tuesday. The event exposed the awful reality that the Kremlin does not have the infinite foreign reserves that many had supposed. “What is happening is a nightmare that we could not even have imagined a year ago,” says the central bank’s deputy chief, Sergei Shvetsov. The currency has since stabilised at 60 to the dollar. But it has lost half its value in a year. Russia’s $2.1 trillion (£1.3 trillion) economy has shrunk to $1.1 trillion, half the GDP of California. The external debt of Russian banks and companies has by mathematical effect ballooned to 70pc of total output. “A Russian downgrade to junk is only a matter or time,” says Tim Ash, from Standard Bank."

Russia is heading for a 'full-fledged economic crisis' warns former finance minister, with the country's output expected to fall by 3.6%

Daily Mail

Russia's government has pushed the country into an economic crisis by not tackling its financial problems fast enough, former finance minister Alexei Kudrin has said.  His comments came as the central bank bailed out its first victim of the collapsing currency and authorities announced a tax on grain exports to protect domestic stocks. A poll of 11 economists also predicted that Russia's gross domestic product would fall 3.6 per cent next year. Russia has been hit by what Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev recently called a 'perfect storm' of plummeting oil prices, sanctions related to its military action in Ukraine, and a flight of investors' capital. A lack of structural reforms has compounded the problem, making the economy overwhelmingly dependent on oil revenues."

Tony Blair gets sweaty over Wendi Deng question

Telegraph
Tony Blair has said he will never discuss the nature of his relations with Wendi Deng, the ex-wife of Rupert Murdoch. The former Prime Minister lost his cool when questioned on the subject in a recent interview, banging his coffee cup “so loudly into its saucer that it spills and everyone in the room jumps.”

Revealed: Hundreds of thousands of immigrants 'waved through' UK border with no checks... including convicted KILLERS

Daily Mail

In one case, an applicant disclosed to UK Visas and Immigration they had fled their country of nationality after stabbing someone to death. When asked why this had not been considered, managers said the information was recorded in a paper file which was not routinely checked. In another case, officials made the ‘very poor decision’ not to revoke the British citizenship of someone who used forged documents. There was ‘far too much reliance’ on self-declaration so, unless an applicant revealed their financial problems or offences such as tax avoidance or benefit fraud, no other checks were made, the report added. No evidence was found of any consideration given to prosecuting applicants who used deception to obtain British citizenship, apart from a small number of cases involving organised crime, the inspector revealed."

Zoella quits internet after Girl Online ghostwriting row

Telegraph
Zoella has announced she is quitting the internet after admitting that she did not write her best-selling novel Girl Online. .....It emerged this weekend that a ghostwriter, Siobhan Curran, was responsible for Girl Online.   .....

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Some bloggers claimed to have found an archived, deleted post on Curham's website about being asked to write a novel in six weeks, which could in theory fit with the timeline from Zoella announcing her novel to its release.
Despite chronicling much of her life on social media and in her YouTube vlogs, Sugg rarely mentioned working on her novel, which is about a teenage girl whose blog goes viral after she meets a rock star, before publication.(Telegraph)

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EU Wankers gone mad…

E.M.Smith
I really have to wonder just how long the strain between the EU and the UK can stand before the UK says “Chuck it all, you wankers” and goes their own way (as they always have).
The Brits have an astounding ability to ‘tolerate’ and put up with shite… but at some point, it goes all Celtic on your arse and I suspect that point is near."

How Norway beats the EU

CapX
The EU is a child of its time, reflecting the corporatist assumptions of the 1950s, when the future was thought to lie with large conglomerates. In the Internet age, geographical proximity barely matters. Euro-scepticism is in tune with the spirit of the age. Look upon Norway, all you Euro-nostalgics, and see what you might be if only you would embrace the modern world."