I was going to start looking for updates on the slaughter of the Armanious family in New Jersey, but Michelle Malkin has already taken care of it. She makes some pointed observations in her link-rich post;

The brutal murders of the Armanious family, whose members were devout and outspoken Coptic Christians from Egypt, are getting scant MSM attention. The stories that do get published have a P.C., “can’t we all just get along?” bias:
“Killing of family shatters religious harmony,” reads one headline. What about the family that was shattered?
“Jersey City slayings spur new wave of anti-Muslim bias,” reads another headline. Yet, the anti- Christian bias that may reportedly be at the center of the slayings has been downplayed in favor of other motives and, some argue, whitewashed.

I’d like to know why this has received zero coverage by Canadian media.
What’s that you say? Oh. It’s just a local story.
As opposed to the “Canadian interests” served by the coverage of the Scott Peterson case?

Staying well below the media radar is another European state struggling with illegal immigration. I don’t know enough about Malta or the political climate to offer any opinion. But, I will offer that there is a pattern in the non-coverage given to these problems by western media. The issues facing the Dutch in the wake of the Van Gogh murder, “Action Sweep Out” in Germany and this incident all share a common theme. Times of Malta, Jan.19;

Malta came under intense international criticism yesterday following last week’s incidents between army personnel and illegal immigrants at the Safi Barracks.
Speaking to The Times while accompanying the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, in talks with the European Commission in Brussels, Raymond Hall, the UNHCR’s European Bureau director, said the UN agency was “deeply concerned about the apparent use of excessive force by Maltese soldiers when breaking up a peaceful demonstration by asylum seekers and irregular immigrants last week”.
[…]
Mr Hall said the UNHCR was shocked with the incidents especially since people had to be hospitalised following a peaceful protest. In the context of what happened, the UNHCR reiterates its advice that Malta should re-examine its detention policy, which involves mandatory detention for as long as 18 months and is by far the strictest in Europe.
He said: “The UNHCR is strongly opposed to the practice of mandatory detention, whereby asylum seekers are routinely detained until such time as they are recognised as refugees”.
[…] “The UNHCR has discussed Malta’s detention policies and conditions with the authorities on a number of occasions over the past couple of years. Last June, the UNHCR submitted a detailed report to the authorities which outlined a wide range of shortcomings in the four detention centres and contained numerous recommendations for changes.
“Despite a number of official letters requesting further dialogue, the UNHCR has to date received no official written response from the Maltese authorities.”
The UNHCR spokesman said his organisation fully appreciates Malta’s concerns that, given its proximity to major smuggling routes from North Africa, it risks being overburdened with asylum seekers and irregular migrants. However, he added, the High Commission does not believe such concerns warrant detention as a deterrent.

Keeping in mind my aforementioned disclaimer, I think that a country only 8 miles wide and 15 miles long, and within rafting distance of northern Africa, might be extended the benefit of the doubt for creating strong deterents to illegal immigration. CIA Factbook: Malta

Not that everyone is rushing to apologize;

Norman Lowell the fiery leader of the far-right Imperium Europa, said yesterday that illegal immigrants not only threatened Malta’s security, but also posed a “sanitary, cultural and genetic” threat to the country.
Mr Lowell was addressing a 200-strong crowd who gathered on Safi’s main square yesterday afternoon to “express solidarity” with the Armed Forces following the incidents at Safi Barracks on January 13, in which 26 irregular immigrants and two soldiers were reportedly injured.
Around 15 policemen placed barriers around the square before people gathered in front of St Paul’s band club, adjacent to the church, where electricity for the loudspeakers was provided. While it was evident that a few turned up out of curiosity, others seemed to be paying attention to Mr Lowell as he spoke. Mr Lowell started his speech by attacking the media for being “against the army and the boys in blue”. Waving a stick in the air from time to time, he said the media were controlled by “those who know where true power lies”.
“It’s the media which control and twist public opinion,” Mr Lowell claimed, adding that the media were responsible for painting a negative picture of him. “I am a libertarian and not a Nazi or a Fascist,” he said.
Mr Lowell said Malta is the only country that still had a “homogenous” race. The rest of Europe, from Ireland to Poland, was “contaminated” and it would not be long before Europeans would want to come here to experience the “real spirituality”.
“This is why we have to annihilate the black coal,” Mr Lowell said.
A group of men, who all wore sunglasses and caps, the collars of their jackets covering their chins, clapped heartily when Mr Lowell mentioned the Brigadier of the Armed Forces. Mr Lowell said that at this point, the AFM commander should not resign “even if he had the gravest of personal problems”.
Mr Lowell said the authorities were secretly going to change the law so that illegal immigrants would have a renewable visa to stay in Malta. He attacked Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini who said recently that an immigrants’ centre should be set up in Malta. “I will find Mr Frattini in Brussels and he will have to apologise publicly,” Mr Lowell shouted.
Immigrants entering Malta on boats should be stopped 14 miles offshore and warned not to come ashore, Mr Lowell said. The upcoming conference on illegal immigration would turn out to be yet another farce, with Government and Opposition on one side and the NGOs, who “have nothing better to do”, on the other, he said.
Mr Lowell finished his speech by raising his stick in the air and crying “Ave!”

Yeow.
More at the Maltese blogs Immanuel Mifsud and Toni Sant.

Passing along an Iraq election broadcast, via INDC; entitled “Heroes of Iraq”. (There’s also a transcript at the link.)
Milblogger “Adventures of Chester” looks at predictions by George Friedman (Stratfor) for post-election Iraq and the implications for the “insurgency”;

The Shia understand they cannot simply remain in a defensive mode. They have been passive in the run-up to the election, but after the election their credibility as the government of Irraq will depend on how they deal with the guerrillas. They must either suppress the guerrillas or negotiate a deal with them. Since a deal is hard to imagine at this time, they will have to act to suppress them. If they don’t, the government will either be destroyed by the insurgents, or Iraq will split into two or three countries, an evolution unacceptable to the Shia or to Iran.
Therefore, the Shia will fight. The Shiite leadership has made it clear it wants the United States to remain in Iraq for the time being. This does not mean it wants a long-term American presence. It means it wants US forces to carry the main battle against the Sunnis on its behalf. In the same way that al-Sistani wanted the Americans to deal with Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr during the An Najaf affair, he wants the Americans to carry the main burden now.
The United States is prepared to carry a burden, but it is not prepared to single-handedly deal with the Sunnis any longer. The Shi hav substantial armed militias. It is these forces — not the failed Iraqi army the US has tried to invent — that will be the mainstay of the regime. The Shia don’t want this force ground up because it is the guarantor of their security. The United States is not going to protect the regime without these forces engaged.
At this point, something interesting happens. The Shia have a greater vested interest in the viability of this government than even the Americans. The Americans can leave. The Shia aren’t going anywhere. For the first time, the United States has a potential ally with capabilities and motivation. Most important, it is an ally that is not blind on the ground. Its intelligence capability is not perfct among the Sunnis, but it is better than what the Americans have.

Chester considers the capabilities and challenges of incorporating existing and disbanded militias, and the implications for Syria – “if the Iraqis have good intelligence of Syria’s involvement, harboring, or support of the terrorist insurgency, it is entirely possible that the Iraqis will tell the US that Iraq will do something about Syria with or without the Americans . . .”.