Gates of Vienna News Feed 2/25/2013

A Saudi cleric has insulted the first group of women appointed to the country’s shura, or government advisory council. The imam referred to the thirty woman as “prostitutes” in a number of messages spread via social media.

In other news, six Birmingham men (Mohammed Coefficient: 50%) have pleaded not guilty to charges of planning a terror attack last summer against the English Defence League.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, Lurker from Tulsa, Nick, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Financial Crisis
» Cyprus Bailout Could Cost 9 Bln Euros, US Pimco Says
» Fed Split Over How Long to Keep Cash Spigot Open
» Federal Gov’t. Spends Over $2 Million on Bike Trails in Colorado
» Portugal: Troika Starts Controls
 
USA
» A Spate of Jihad Murders in America?
» Anti-Sharia Law Makes Its Way Through the Florida Legislature
» ‘Green’ Energy Company Paid Workers in Pesos
» Mars May be Habitable Today, Scientists Say
» Obama’s New Head Boy
» Republican Think Tanks — Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing
» Three Sisters Found Guilty of Corruption in Their Roles as Supreme Court Judge, State Senator and Court Aide
» What We Must Do When Facing Martial Law
 
Europe and the EU
» Cyprus: Barroso Vows ‘Unshakeable Support’ For Reunification
» Denmark: Facing Uncomfortable Truths
» Dianette: Acne Pill Banned in Parts of Europe Linked to Deaths of Seven British Women Over Three Years
» France: Embrace Moderate Muslim Leaders
» Get Out of Jail Free Card for Muslims in Spain
» How Electrodes in the Brain Block Obsessive Behaviour
» Iran Investigates Norway Diplomat Defection
» Italy: Berlusconi’s Alliance Projected in Front in Senate
» Italy: Exit Poll Shows Lombardy Governor Race Neck and Neck
» Kierkegaard, Hedegaard, Magaard, And Islam
» Norwegian Guerrilla Warfare in the Iron Age
» Sweden: Ikea Stops Meatball Sales After Horsemeat Report
» UK: Aaron, 9, ‘Bullied to Death for Being White’
» UK: Bullfinch Trial: Day 24
» UK: Boy, 9, Found Hanged ‘Was Bullied for Being White’
» UK: British Gas Owners Face Backlash After Reports Suggest They Will Announce 15% Surge in Profits
» UK: Cops Halt Hate Preacher Choudary’s Rally Over Jihad Call
» UK: How Did Modern Islam Become So Intolerant?
» UK: Hate Preacher Abu Qatada’s Family Wins ‘Anti-Harassment’ Injunction Against People Wanting to Protest Outside Their Home
» UK: How Many Convicted Paedophiles Have Police Lost Track of in Your Area? Map Shows Where 137 Have Gone Missing
» UK: How MPs in the Pay of Subsidised Eco-Firms Set Insane New Carbon Targets That Send Your Heating Bills Sky-Rocketing
» UK: Khalid Al-Fikri and the East London Mosque
» UK: King’s College London: Top University Asks for Volunteers to Take Cocaine for Study of Class a Drug’s Effects on Men
» UK: Marc Glendening: Invasion of the Euro-McCarthyites — — EU Sceptics Should be Prepared to be Smeared.
» UK: Police Arrest Woman, 21, And Man, 20, Over Acid Attack on Victoria’s Secret Worker ‘Hurt’ By Claims She Disfigured Herself
» UK: Speakers Announced for Conference [Unite Against Facism, And Others, 2 March 2013]
» UK: Six Men Plead Not Guilty to Plotting Terrorist Attack Against EDL
» UK: The BBC Rot Starts at the Top, With the Elusive Lord Patten
 
North Africa
» Egypt: Tahrir Protesters Block Govt Office, Calling for Civil Disobedience
» Jihad Mafia Kills Tunisian Youths
» Tunisia: Coalition to be Extended From Three to Five Parties Ghannouchi
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Israeli Army Bracing for Third Intifada
» Palestinian Muslims Planning “Mini-Intifada” For Obama Visit
 
Middle East
» Qatar: 15 Years to Poet Over Verses Considered Subversive
» Saudi Arabia: Religious Insults to Shura Women, ‘Prostitutes’
» Syria: EU and UNRWA Join Forces for Palestinian Refugees
 
Caucasus
» Depardieu Parties With Chechen Strongman
 
South Asia
» Afghanistan Government Accuses US Special Forces of Civilian Death and Torture
» Ancient Continent Hides Beneath Indian Ocean
» Bangladesh: Govt to Guard Devout Muslims: Minister
» India: Hyderabad Blasts: Police Taking Away Innocent Youth, Say Muslims
» Indonesian Wins Rare Victory Against Noisy Mosque
 
Far East
» China Admits Pollution Brought About ‘Cancer Villages’
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» French Family Kidnapped by Islamic Militants in Cameroon Last Week Appear in YouTube Video
» Leader of Al-Qaeda in Sudan Killed in Mali — Reports
» Namibia: Protesters Defend the Mini
» Nigeria: Gunmen Kill Gulak District Head in Adamawa
» Nigeria: Aliyu — Boko Haram Not the Face of Islam
» Nigeria: Five Persons Killed, Hundreds Injured as Christians/Muslims Clash in Wukari
 
Immigration
» British Primary School Where Every Single Pupil is ‘Foreign’ And Speaks English as a Second Language (But it Still Received a Glowing Report From Ofsted)
» Immigrant Candidate Seeks to Ease Citizenship in Italy
 
Culture Wars
» The Satanic Roots of Rock
 
General
» Monsanto Further Unveils Its True Evil Nature by Signing on to UN Agenda 21 ‘Sustainability’ Scam

Cyprus Bailout Could Cost 9 Bln Euros, US Pimco Says

(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, FEBRUARY 25 — As Cypriots were heading to the polls yesterday to elect Conservative Nicos Anastasiades as new President of the Republic, the cost of a bailout to save the island’s economy from collapse was rising. Cyprus’ banks, along with other investors holding Greek bonds, took 74% losses last year under a Greek scheme to reduce its debt, and the bill is mounting as an American consulting firm, Pimco, said as much as 9 billion euros is needed in rescue monies, GreekReporter website writes quoting the news agency CNA. But it could get even worse. Pimco submitted its report this month but the Central Bank said the amount would not be made public until it signs a bailout with the Troika of the European Union-European Central Bank-International Monetary Fund. In a draft agreement with the troika of lenders, the amount for the banks had been set at up to 10 billion euros as part of a total package which could reach 17 billion euros, matching the island’s Gross Domestic Product, making it unlikely the loans could ever be repaid, some analysts have said. The government said that international lenders should adopt Pimco’s baseline scenario — reported to be 5.98 billion euros — as it would ease the terms of the loan. But a Pimco document leaked in the Cypriot media week showed the US firm expects the island’s economy to worsen as it slides deeper into recession. Its adverse scenario predicts higher unemployment, bigger wage cuts and falling property prices — which all have a knock-on effect on people’s ability to pay bank loans. “We do believe it reasonable to expect significant wage reductions for public sector workers which could have a material impact on borrowers’ ability to meet debt service payments,” Pimco said in a leaked letter to the Central Bank. The bank said it “strongly disagreed” with the methodology Pimco used to discount future bank revenue inflows.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Fed Split Over How Long to Keep Cash Spigot Open

Federal Reserve officials, uneasy with potential risks springing from the central bank’s low-interest-rate policies, are split over an early retreat from the experimental programs created to revive the U.S. economy.

Minutes released Wednesday from the Fed’s January policy meeting show officials concerned that the current easy-money policies could lead to excessive risk-taking and instability in financial markets. The Fed is buying $85 billion in mortgage and U.S. Treasury securities a month to drive down long-term rates and has promised to keep short-term rates near zero until unemployment improves.

The program hasn’t fueled inflation, as many feared, and many officials are inclined to stay the course. But some said the Fed might have to taper its controversial bond buying before the job market fully recovers, according to the January minutes. The Fed has previously allowed bond buying programs to end in this recovery and then restarted them. It will review the programs at its next meeting, March 19-20, setting the stage for another high-stakes debate.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Federal Gov’t. Spends Over $2 Million on Bike Trails in Colorado

(CNSNews.com) — The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced two separate grants totaling over $2 million in federal tax dollars to expand bicycle and pedestrian trails at two different locations in Colorado.

One of the grants amounting to $1,735,000 will go towards the completion of a pedestrian and bicycle trail called the Rocky Mountain Greenway.

The Rocky Mountain Greenway, first proposed in May 2011 by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Democratic Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, will link wildlife refuges with existing trails in the Denver metropolitan area, as well as to Rocky Mountain National Park.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

Portugal: Troika Starts Controls

Negative deficit forecast from 4,5% to 4,9% GDP

(ANSAmed) — LISBON, FEBRUARY 25 — Representatives of the troika — the European Union, European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) started to examine on Monday the state of Portugal’s economy to determine how a bailout programme for which the country received a 78 billion loan in 2011 is progressing.

Meanwhile the outlook on 2013 has worsened with the economy expected to shrink by 1,9% against the 1% announced at the end of 2012 by the government of Passos Coelho. Brussels has also revised its forecast and estimated the deficit will touch 4,9% of GDP against the 4,5% estimated by the troika.

The situation in Portugal is extremely critical with unemployment affecting 17% of the workforce — 40% among youths — and daily protests against the government’s austerity plan.

Last Wednesday, Finance Minister Vitor Gaspar had anticipated a request to postpone by a year the correction of the country’s deficit saying he was confident the application would be accepted ‘due to the confidence which Portugal is obtaining from international partners’. What appears certain is that the country will not be able to reduce the public deficit to 4,5% of GDP and 2,5% in 2014.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

A Spate of Jihad Murders in America?

Daniel Pipes article on “Jihad and Criminality?” in National Review Online’s blog, The Corner draws our attention to the grisly and savage spate of recent Jihad by Muslims against non-Muslims. The immoral imperative for this barbaric conduct can be found in Qur’anic Sura 8:12, “I shall cast terror into the hearts of Infidels. Strike off their heads strike off the very tips of their fingers”. The murder, grisly beheading and mutilation of the remains of two Coptic Christians immigrants in Jersey City by Indiana resident and wanted criminal Yusuf Ibrahim didn’t crack the pages of the New York Times. It jarred our memories of the massacre of the Coptic Arminius Family in Jersey City eight years ago in January 2005 amidst allegations that all five members of the family, trussed up in Jihad fashion, were murdered by a tenant, a drug dealer and a parole violator Edward McDonald and an accomplice, Hamilton Sanchez who used an ATM card of one of the victims and withdrew $3,000. It took the Hudson County prosecutors three years to bring the case to trial, McDonald the perpetrator was sentenced in 2008 to 5 consecutive terms of 75 years each for a total of 255 years. . . .It is not lost on many of us who wrote about the Arminious Massacre and this latest episode of Jihad against Copts in America that Hudson and Passaic Counties in New Jersey had radical Mosques with Imams preaching Jihad including one, Mohammad Qatanani, praised by Governor Chris Christie. Note what Pipes concludes: Because the media, law enforcement, and elected officials are so reluctant to give out information about the attackers’ religion, much less their motives, it’s basically impossible to tell from the outside if they represent a wave of jihadi attacks by Islamists or are just a bunch of criminals who happen to be Muslim, or a bit of both. The most the media will concede is that in the Ibrahim case “privately some wonder if it had something to do with the victims’ [Christian] religion.” When will journalists, police, and politicians end their efforts to hide key information that the public needs and deserves?

           — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon [Return to headlines]

Anti-Sharia Law Makes Its Way Through the Florida Legislature

In a re-run from last year, the Florida House Judiciary Committee gave its approval Thursday to HB 351, the “Application of Foreign Law in Certain Cases,” according to the Florida House website. The bill’s proponents simply call it the “Anti-Sharia Law.” The vote followed the Civil Justice subcommittee’s approval earlier this month…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

‘Green’ Energy Company Paid Workers in Pesos

What would you do to a couple of rich guys who brought workers in from Mexico illegally to work in their state of the art manufacturing plant and paid them only $2.66 an hour? What if they brought them in on a travel visa, not a work visa, making it illegal for them to work in this country? What if they paid them by direct deposit into a bank in Mexico, as opposed to an American bank subject to American regulators?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

Mars May be Habitable Today, Scientists Say

LOS ANGELES — While Mars was likely a more hospitable place in its wetter, warmer past, the Red Planet may still be capable of supporting microbial life today, some scientists say.

Ongoing research in Mars-like places such as Antarctica and Chile’s Atacama Desert shows that microbes can eke out a living in extremely cold and dry environments, several researchers stressed at “The Present-Day Habitability of Mars” conference held here at the University of California Los Angeles this month.

And not all parts of the Red Planet’s surface may be arid currently — at least not all the time. Evidence is building that liquid water might flow seasonally at some Martian sites, potentially providing a haven for life as we know it.

“We certainly can’t rule out the possibility that it’s habitable today,” said Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona, principal investigator for the HiRise camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Obama’s New Head Boy

As John Kerry, America’s new secretary of state, arrives in London, what does his appointment mean for Anglo-US relations — and for peace in the Middle East? Peter Foster and Jon Swaine report from Washington

When John Kerry, America’s new secretary of state, sits down to breakfast with David Cameron this morning, one overriding question will hang unanswered above the teapots and the toast racks. It is one too delicate to ask, but too important to ignore: after a first Barack Obama term marked by conspicuous US foreign policy disengagement, does the appointment of Mr Kerry herald significant change?

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Republican Think Tanks — Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing

Far worse than any overt enemy, is a covert enemy operating within… The one thing that is worse than the known enemy down the street is finding out that your wife has been sleeping with that enemy, feeding them information, while misdirecting and undermining your efforts to defend the family against that enemy.

Operating as public policy research centers, these organizations were developed and formed by inside the DC beltway power-brokers, with the aim and intent of influencing public policy at the national level. Today’s most influential Republican Think Tanks are Heritage Foundation and evangelical Christian David Barton’s Wall Builders.

Each of these organizations claims to be “conservative” policy research centers, and each has been increasingly influential in Republican Party policies for several years now.

Yet, most conservatives across the country agree that the Republican Party no longer represents the true will of American conservatives, those who still revere our Founding documents, principles and values as the key to freedom and liberty via a Constitutional Republic. How did this happen, with “conservative policy research centers” like Heritage Foundation and Wall Builders advising inside the DC beltway Republicans and the Republican National Committee?

[…]

Why are state-level Republicans like Michigan Speaker of the House Jase Bolger, also hiding behind false history and anti-state interpretations of constitutional right, essentially proclaiming that states’ and individual rights are “unconstitutional” as long as the despots in Washington DC say so.

How did the DC beltway think tanks reach the state legislators? It was much easier than you think.

They formed another think tank called ALEC, which stands for American Legislative Exchange Center. ALEC claims to be for “smaller government, free markets and federalism.” In other words, it is e legislative think tank aimed at influencing state level Republican legislators.

Using the same false history and anti-state propaganda from Heritage Foundation and Wall Builders, the RNC is influencing state level Republican lawmakers through ALEC.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

Three Sisters Found Guilty of Corruption in Their Roles as Supreme Court Judge, State Senator and Court Aide

A Supreme Court justice, a court aide and a former state senator — all three sisters — were convicted on Thursday of public corruption charges for using state employees in political campaign work.

Justice Joan Orie Melvin and her older sister Janine Orie were convicted of theft-of-service charges and other crimes in Pennsylvania.

Former senator Jane Orie, the youngest of the three siblings, was convicted last year and is serving up to ten years in prison.

The staunchly Republican, Catholic sisters from a Pittsburgh suburb say the charges were overblown or outright lies whipped up by a Democratic prosecutor.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

What We Must Do When Facing Martial Law

It is time to get serious. Martial Law is the system of rules that become reality when the military takes over the regular administration of justice in a land. That is to say, Martial Law means the “suspension” of the Constitution. Curfews, rationing of basic goods, enforced relocations, confiscation of firearms and supplies, and summary arrest/execution by soldiers and paramilitary police wielding assault rifles.

Now you have seen scenarios on the news, on commercials, and maybe they all seem like crap to you. However, working in this business, I have many connections, and I have seen with my own eyes officers training for this kind of procedure. Unfortunately, it is just a matter of time. Hopefully, you are reading this before MARTIAL LAW is imposed, and hopefully, you are reading this while you are still nominally under Constitutional Law, so as to appreciate the opportunities you currently have not only to protect yourself and yours but to attempt to stop all of this from ever happening.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

Cyprus: Barroso Vows ‘Unshakeable Support’ For Reunification

In congratulatory phone call to newly elected president

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, FEBRUARY 25 — In a phone call yesterday to congratulate newly elected Cypriot President Nikos Anastasiades, European Commission President Jose’ Manuel Barroso expressed his “unshakeable support of efforts to arrive at a lasting solution on the reunification of Cyprus”, the EC made known in a note released today.

Barroso spokesperson Pia Ahrenkilde repeated the EC president’s message to reporters on Monday.

“The Cypriot people have given Anastasiades a strong mandate for reform, and to do what is necessary to ensure fiscal and financial sustainability,” Barroso said.

Before wishing him “every success during his mandate”, Barroso assured the newly elected Cypriot president that “he can count on the European Commission’s ongoing commitment to aid Cyprus in overcoming the challenges ahead.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Denmark: Facing Uncomfortable Truths

by Douglas Murray

In a recent Al-Jazeerah interview, Richard Dawkins was asked his views on God. He argued that the god of “the Old Testament” is “hideous” and “a monster”, and reiterated his claim from The God Delusion that the God of the Torah is the most unpleasant character “in fiction”. Asked if he thought the same of the God of the Koran, Dawkins ducked the question, saying: “Well, um, the God of the Koran I don’t know so much about.” How can it be that the world’s most fearless atheist, celebrated for his strident opinions on the Christian and Jewish Gods, could profess to know so little about the God of the Koran? Has he not had the time? Or is Professor Dawkins simply demonstrating that most crucial trait of his species: survival instinct.

To answer the question, it is worth considering recent events in Denmark. In Copenhagen, on 5th February, a well-known critic of Islam — in the same way Professor Dawkins is a critic of Judaism and Christianity — narrowly survived an attempted assassination. Lars Hedegaard is a journalist, historian and founder of the Free Press Society. After the worldwide uproar caused by the Danish Mohammed cartoons in 2005 he became the foremost defender of the rights of Danish writers and artists to express their opinions without fear of intimidation and murder…

The attack was fleetingly mentioned on the BBC’s website, by the Associated Press and a few other outlets. But otherwise there was silence. That is, apart from the Scandinavian media who have in substantial parts — especially in Sweden — managed to blame Hedegaard for the attack. Hedegaard was repeatedly described simply as “a critic of Islam”. So he brought it on himself, you see. Should have known better. Ought to have learned the cartoonist’s lesson. One Swedish paper — sounding more Saudi or Iranian than Swedish — even called Hedegaard “an enemy of Islam”. Who knew that this was already a crime?

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Dianette: Acne Pill Banned in Parts of Europe Linked to Deaths of Seven British Women Over Three Years

An acne pill banned in parts of Europe has been linked to the deaths of seven British women. Dianette is still prescribed to thousands of women in the UK for severe skin conditions. Yet an investigation has been launched in France after four women who took it died.

The latest data from the UK’s medicines regulator reveals that during the past three years, seven women in the UK have died while taking the drug, and there have been 83 reports of suspected side effects such as depression and hair loss.

Dianette, which is prescribed only to women because of the hormones it contains, is known to increase the risk of blood clots. However, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has insisted it has ‘no new concerns’ and that women should continue taking it.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

France: Embrace Moderate Muslim Leaders

Op-ed: Prominent rabbi says increased willingness of European Muslim leaders to denounce attacks on Jews mustn’t be overlooked

The delegates to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations deserve our united applause for travelling to Paris last week to express solidarity with French Jewry, which has endured a rising number of violent anti-Semitic attacks in recent years, including the horrific incident in Toulouse last March in which an Islamist extremist opened fire at a Jewish day school, killing three schoolchildren and a rabbi…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Get Out of Jail Free Card for Muslims in Spain

by Jean-Pierre Maeli

Ever since the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon drove out the Muslim Moors in what is properly named the Reconquista (The Recapturing) Muslim groups have been longing for the moment when they finally reclaim what is rightfully theirs. This is especially true when it comes to the former Cordoba mosque, which is now a cathedral…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

How Electrodes in the Brain Block Obsessive Behaviour

Deep brain stimulation helps some people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), but no one was quite sure why it is effective. A new study offers an explanation: the stimulation has surprisingly pervasive effects, fixing abnormal signalling between different parts of the brain.

A small number of people with difficult-to-treat OCD have had electrodes permanently implanted deep within their brain. Stimulating these electrodes reduces their symptoms.

To work out why stimulation has this effect, Damiaan Denys and Martijn Figee at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and colleagues recorded neural activity in people with electrodes implanted into a part of the brain called the nucleus accumbens. This region is vital for conveying motivational and emotional information to the frontal cortex to guide decisions on what actions to take next. In some people with OCD, feedback loops between the two get jammed, leading them to do the same task repeatedly to reduce anxiety.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Iran Investigates Norway Diplomat Defection

Iran has confirmed that it is investigating reports that one of its diplomats has sought political asylum in Norway, with a spokesman citing “personal problems”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Italy: Berlusconi’s Alliance Projected in Front in Senate

Ex-premier’s alliance on course to win 31% in Upper House

(ANSA) — Rome, February 25 — Ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right coalition is set to win the most votes in the Italian Senate, according to projections for state broadcaster Rai. The projections gave the centre right 31% in the Upper House, compared to 29.5% for the centre left, 25.1% for the anti-establishment M5S and 9.6% for premier Mario Monti’s ticket.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Italy: Exit Poll Shows Lombardy Governor Race Neck and Neck

Centre-right and centre-left candidates with 42-44% vote each

(ANSA) — Rome, February 25 — A first exit poll in Lombardy showed centre-left and centre-right governor candidates running neck and neck on Monday.

A poll by the Piepoli Institute for the public broadcaster RAI found the centre left’s Umberto Ambrosoli and the centre right’s Roberto Maroni with 42-44% of the vote each.

Ex-mayor of Milan and centre candidate Gabriele Albertini garnered an estimated 6-8%.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Kierkegaard, Hedegaard, Magaard, And Islam

by Andrew Bostom

Erudite, honest Danish intellectuals, and academics, spanning 176 years, from Søren Kierkegaard, to, at present, Lars Hedegaard and Tina Magaard, have openly expressed forthright truths about Islam. It is only now, in our sad era, that the free expression of such honest wisdom has been threatened by the mutually abetting totalitarian scourges of cultural relativism, and Islamic supremacism.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Norwegian Guerrilla Warfare in the Iron Age

At the same time the axe became a weapon of choice among Norwegian warriors, society collapsed and warfare became a free-for-all.

This is the crux of a doctoral dissertation that researcher Ingrid Ystgaard will defend this spring at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

She has studied weapons found in graves and the battle techniques they suggest during the transition from the early to the late Iron Age. The division between these periods was around 500 AD.

This was the time when the Western Roman Empire collapsed, and the warfare practices of Southern Europe lost their foothold, even in the High North.

Major alliances were splintered and smaller bands of men started warring against one another. And significantly, the battle axe became a favoured weapon.

Ystgaard has studied and written about the simple stone fortifications that were built for protection on hilltops or other sites that were easy to defend.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Sweden: Ikea Stops Meatball Sales After Horsemeat Report

Ikea has stopped sales of its Swedish meatballs in at least 15 countries after reports that Czech inspectors found horsemeat in the iconic in-store restaurant fare, which would mark the first time the scandal has reached food produced in Sweden.

“We have today been informed that our meatballs could contain traces of horsemeat, based on a test done in the Czech Republic,” the company said in a

statement.

“Considering the possible concern among our customers, we are now stopping all sales and serving of our meatballs across the country.”

According to Ikea, its own tests have not revealed any traces of horsemeat in its meatballs, but it promised to “investigate further”.

“We take this very seriously and have withdrawn one-kilo bags of frozen meatballs from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, France, Britain, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Cyprus, Greece and Ireland,” in addition to Sweden, company spokeswoman Ylva Magnusson told the AFP news agency.

The product had also been removed from shelves in Denmark, according to Dorte Hjorth Harder, spokeswoman for Ikea Denmark.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

UK: Aaron, 9, ‘Bullied to Death for Being White’

Family blames Asian yobs for suicide

THE devastated family of a nine-year-old boy who hanged himself say he took his life after racist taunts by Asian bullies.

Aaron Dugmore — thought to be one of Britain’s youngest suicides after bullying — was found in his bedroom after months of jibes at school, they claim. His family say that Aaron was threatened with a plastic KNIFE by one Asian pupil — who warned him: “Next time it will be a real one.”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

UK: Bullfinch Trial: Day 24

1105 am. Oxfordshire County Council leader Ian Hudspeth is at the Old Bailey for day 24 of the Oxford sex exploitation trial. Updates to follow…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

UK: Boy, 9, Found Hanged ‘Was Bullied for Being White’

[WARNING: *** VERY DISTURBING ***]

A boy of nine who was found hanged is believed to have killed himself after he was ‘bullied for being white’ by an Asian gang at school.

Aaron Dugmore — thought to be one of the youngest children in the UK to commit suicide — was discovered in his bedroom after being tormented for months, his parents said.

They said Aaron was threatened with a plastic knife by one Asian pupil, who warned him: ‘Next time it will be a real one.’

He was also allegedly told by another pupil that ‘all the white people should be dead’ and he was forced to hide from the bullies in the playground at lunchtime…

Aaron had recently started in Year Five at Erdington Hall Primary School in Birmingham, a school where 75 per cent of pupils come from ethnic minority backgrounds.

According to staff at the school he had already ‘settled in quickly’ with his classmates after he joined the school last September when his family moved nearby.

The school, which caters for 450 pupils aged three to 11, received an ‘inadequate’ rating by Ofsted inspectors last year…

Mr Jones said that from Aaron’s first day of joining the school he had noticed a change in him.

‘He became argumentative with his brothers and sisters, which wasn’t like him at all,’ he added.

‘Eventually he told us that he was being bullied by a group of Asian children at school and had to hide from them in the playground at lunchtime.’

His mother claimed she went to see the head teacher of the school several times only to be told: ‘You didn’t have to come to this school, you chose to come here.’

A neighbour of the boy’s grandmother earlier told how ‘he had been targeted by a gang of older bullies at the school’.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

UK: British Gas Owners Face Backlash After Reports Suggest They Will Announce 15% Surge in Profits

The owner of British Gas faces a consumer backlash amid reports it is about to announce a 15 per cent increase in profits, taking the figure to some £2.8billion.

Figures to be announced by Centrica on Wednesday point to a profits bonanza on the back of spiralling bills for struggling customers.

The profits at British Gas, which put up prices by six per cent in the teeth of the winter chill, are predicted to be up by some 10 per cent to around £580million for 2012.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

UK: Cops Halt Hate Preacher Choudary’s Rally Over Jihad Call

ANTI-terror cops broke up a rally by vile hate preacher Anjem Choudary after one speaker called for a holy war.

Convicted terrorist Abu Izzadeen ranted that anyone who was not part of jihad was “nothing”.

As up to 150 people roared their approval, Choudary was seen arguing with cops. Saturday’s rally in Birmingham was stopped soon after.

The rally took place three miles from the district where three British terrorists plotted to bomb last year’s Olympics and Jubilee celebrations.

Rabble-rousing Choudary sought to whip up the crowd over the trio’s conviction last week. He said: “If you have a beard as a Muslim you’re a terrorist.”

Last night it was revealed the cops were West Midlands Police “security partnership officers” attached to the counter-terrorism command. A spokesman said no arrests were made.

The Sun told this month how jobless Choudary urged fanatics to live off benefits dubbed the Jihad Seekers Allowance.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]

UK: How Did Modern Islam Become So Intolerant?

by Yasmin Alibhai Brown

Israel’s occupation of Palestine, Islamophobia, and disastrous Western interventions all create grievance. But no injustice can excuse or explain the rise of brutal Islamicists

In Allah’s name, what is wrong with us Muslims? And why do we find it so hard to ask that question of ourselves? What will it take to break the heavily curtained window of denial?

The beardy jihadists convicted in Birmingham last week were incompetents; hard to distinguish, for many Britons, from the hilarious boneheaded fantasists in Chris Morris’s Four Lions

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

UK: Hate Preacher Abu Qatada’s Family Wins ‘Anti-Harassment’ Injunction Against People Wanting to Protest Outside Their Home

The family of radical preacher Abu Qatada has won an injunction preventing protesters from demonstrating outside their home.

His wife and five children were granted an ‘anti-harassment’ order by a High Court judge in London.

Mr Justice Silber also granted them an injunction against various protest groups preventing them misusing private information about the family — such as their names and address.

The judge stressed that his decision did not prevent organisations from protesting against Qatada, provided demonstrations take place more than 500 metres from the London house where they are living.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

UK: How Many Convicted Paedophiles Have Police Lost Track of in Your Area? Map Shows Where 137 Have Gone Missing

Police have lost track of almost 140 paedophiles, sparking fears many may have left the country, it has been revealed.

Government figures show a total of 137 child sex offenders have disappeared after signing the sex offenders’ register, which requires them to inform police of their whereabouts or any changes to their details.

The shock figures show the Metropolitan Police has lost by far the most paedophiles, with 40 on the run from the authorities in London.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

UK: How MPs in the Pay of Subsidised Eco-Firms Set Insane New Carbon Targets That Send Your Heating Bills Sky-Rocketing

Like all MPs, Tim Yeo is paid £65,000 a year. But he never has to make do with just that. Last year alone, three ‘green’ companies paid the Conservative MP for South Suffolk £135,970.

For this, he usually did just a few hours’ work a month. Yet he may be the firms’ most valuable asset, as Mr Yeo is chairman of the Commons Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change, and so plays a key role in shaping the green economy in which his sometime employers — AFC Energy, Eco City Vehicles and TMO Renewables — operate.

And he may be about to perform his most valuable service yet.

Mr Yeo has moved an extraordinary amendment to the Energy Bill that would set a crippling and binding target for the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by generating power in 2030. It would transform the electricity industry and bring huge benefits to the business sector, which has so generously rewarded Mr Yeo.

For the rest of us, however, the effects will be very different. It will cause already high energy bills to soar further and could lead to more power cuts. The effect on business is likely to be even more dramatic.

Yet despite the considerable drawbacks, the amendment is likely to be passed into law. Following intense campaigning by an alliance of dozens of green pressure groups and renewable-energy firms, the move has won the support of Labour, many backbench Liberal Democrats and some Tories, which may be enough to push it through Parliament.

‘Even without the amendment, the long-term consequences of the Bill will be horrible,’ said Professor Gordon Hughes of Edinburgh University, one of Britain’s leading experts on energy economics. He issued a strong warning the ‘surreal’ amendment could spell the end of British industry. ‘It’s a recipe for deindustrialisation,’ he said.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

UK: Khalid Al-Fikri and the East London Mosque

by Lucy Lips

Khalid Al-Fikri is an Egyptian Islamist preacher who has found refuge in the UK. He has abused his new home by spreading hatred and intolerance wherever he can. This makes him a perfect guest for the East London Mosque’s London Muslim Centre, where he is due to speak on the 16th of March…

The mosque should be shunned, yet many still court it. In fact it is an honoured partner of the next meeting [Unite against Facism conference on 2 March 2013] of far left “anti-racists” and trade unionists. Andy Slaughter MP will be one of the speakers at that event.

[Reader comment by Fasdunkle]

Khalid Al-Fikri is an Egyptian Islamist preacher who has found refuge in the UK. Of course he did — we welcome all those who hate us — I trust he is receiving all the benefits our government can throw at him.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

UK: King’s College London: Top University Asks for Volunteers to Take Cocaine for Study of Class a Drug’s Effects on Men

A top London university has asked its students to snort cocaine as part of a clinical trial into the effects of the Class A drug.

In an email to hundreds of students sent last week, a professor at King’s College London seeks ‘healthy male volunteers, 25-40 years of age, to take part in a clinical study involving nasal administration of cocaine’.

The university wants to better understand how the Class A drug effects the body, calling it an ‘important scientific study’.

[Comment: This is a setup. Probably, his so called “study” will find cocaine is not dangerous and should be de-listed as class A. Another assault on the culture of common sense.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

UK: Marc Glendening: Invasion of the Euro-McCarthyites — — EU Sceptics Should be Prepared to be Smeared.

Marc Glendening is Political Director of Democracy Movement.

One week ago, at the Fabians’ Why Europe? The Left’s Answer, sponsored by the European Commission, Labour MEP Richard Howett said that those opposed to the EU were ‘racists and xenophobes’. I asked him from the floor if he included in that category Tony Benn, as well as Labour MPs Graham Stringer, John Cryer, Kelvin Hopkins and Kate Hoey? He refused, revealingly to answer this inconvenient question and instead said: “Mark Reckless, Bill Cash, William Hague, Nigel Farage and Nick Griffin are racists”. Mr Howett then said defiantly, playing to the Fabian audience: “I will not back down and apologise.”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

UK: Police Arrest Woman, 21, And Man, 20, Over Acid Attack on Victoria’s Secret Worker ‘Hurt’ By Claims She Disfigured Herself

[WARNING: *Disturbing Content*]

Police have arrested two people after a Victoria’s Secret worker was left with horrific burns when acid was thrown in her face

A 21-year-old woman and a 28-year-old man were held on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm to Naomi Oni, 20, who was attacked in Dagenham, Essex, on December 30.

Naomi spent a month in a burns unit and has been left partially blinded from what she claimed was an unprovoked assault by a woman wearing an Islamic niqab.

The part-time model said she feared an unknown enemy was ‘out to kill her’ and wanted to die when she first saw the way her face had been disfigured.

To add insult to injury, reports over the weekend claimed police were looking into the possibility that she may even have deliberately disfigured herself.

Speaking today she said she was ‘hurt and angry’ that she was being accused of attacking herself.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

UK: Speakers Announced for Conference [Unite Against Facism, And Others, 2 March 2013]

A great line up of speakers have confirmed for the joint UAF and One Society Many Cultures conference.

Speakers include:

  • Diane Abbott MP
  • Jeremy Corbyn MP
  • Andy Slaughter MP
  • Claude Moraes MEP
  • Christine Blower NUT General Secretary
  • Hugh Lanning PCS Deputy General Secretary
  • Chris Keates NASUWT General Secretary
  • Farooq Murad Muslim Council of Britain Secretary General
  • Leslie Mercer TUC President
  • Symon Sentain Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust Chair
  • Azad Ali Engage Head of Community Development
  • Helen Shaw Inquest Co-Director
  • Dr Omar Hamdoon Muslim Association of Britain
  • Aaron Kiely NUS Black Students Officer
  • Omar Ali FOSIS President
  • Gerry Gable Searchlight
  • Paul Jenkins “Nick Griffin Must Go”
  • Campaign John Campbell UAF Chair Yorkshire
  • Weyman Bennett UAF Joint Secretary
  • Sabby Dhalu UAF Joint Secretary

Themes at the conference include:

  • Austerity and the rise of Le Pen and Golden Dawn
  • Euro 2014: stop Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons
  • Mobilising against the English Defence League
  • Policy, media and the impact on Briatin’s Muslim communities
  • Preventing, racism, Islamophobia and homophobia on the streets and in the workplace
  • The truth about immigration, integration and multiculturalism
  • Policing and institutional racism
  • Why we must defend “No platform for fascism”

The conference will feature the Islamophobia Awareness exhibtion.

The conference is hosted by: Unite Against Fascism, One Society Many Cultures, NUT and PCS and supported by: the Muslim Council of Britain, Engage, London Muslim Centre, East London Mosque, Islamic Forum of Europe and the British Muslim Initiative

[JP note: A fine collection of ne’er do wells.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

UK: Six Men Plead Not Guilty to Plotting Terrorist Attack Against EDL

The six men are due to face trial in May for terrorism charges

Six men have pleaded not guilty to allegations they were planning a terrorist attack against the English Defence League last year.

The men, from Birmingham. are accused of preparing acts of terrorism between 1 May and 4 July against the pro-English and anti-Islamic organisation.

Mohammed Hasseen, Jewel Uddin, Omar Mohammed Khan, Anzal Hussain, Zohaib Ahmed and Mohammed Saud all appeared via prison video link at Woolwich Crown Court in London to enter their not guilty pleas.

The six are charged under the Terrorism Act 2006, accused of preparing for an act or acts of terrorism with the intention of committing such acts.

They are accused of manufacturing an improvised explosive device, as well as acquiring firearms and other weapons, and vehicles connected with their alleged plans.

Uddin, Khan and Hasseen were arrested in June after police allegedly found guns, knives, machetes and a home-made bomb in a car during a routine stop.

It is alleged police also discovered a note a note addressed to the EDL, who had held a rally in Dewsbury earlier that day…

           — Hat tip: Steen [Return to headlines]

UK: The BBC Rot Starts at the Top, With the Elusive Lord Patten

by Peter Oborne

The chairman emerges smelling of roses, even as he sticks the knife into his juniors

The late Frank Johnson, my former Telegraph colleague and inventor of the political sketch, loved to regale me with his theory about why so many Left-wing Conservative politicians enjoyed such a warm public profile. They would go out to lunch with The Guardian and the BBC (or so Frank claimed), where they would convey the impression that they regarded the majority of their colleagues with horror and distaste. Their disloyalty would soon be rewarded with glowing profiles in which the treacherous lunch guest would find himself written up as a civilised and compassionate influence in an otherwise barbaric and heartless political party.

One of the earliest beneficiaries of this tacit deal was Rab Butler, far more highly regarded on the Left than in the Conservative Party, in part because he loved to disclose juicy Cabinet secrets to press allies. Butler’s disgraceful background — he was an appeaser who entered into secret negotiations with Nazi Germany via Sweden during Britain’s darkest hour in June 1940 — was overlooked as a result…

With or without Entwistle, Lord Patten’s BBC has been a shambles. Still dysfunctional, still disorganised, and run by the same self-serving and self-appointed Left-leaning metropolitan clique, it is conducting itself as if it actually wants to be broken up and privatised. This would be a great national tragedy, but that moment will come if the BBC carries on in its feckless, arrogant, greedy and deeply irresponsible way.

[Reader comment by MoralVacuum on 24 February 2013 at 4:55 pm.]

Patten continues to marinade and ooze toward retirement. The BBC continues to advance toward self destruction. Only the former is irritating.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Egypt: Tahrir Protesters Block Govt Office, Calling for Civil Disobedience

Protesters on Sunday blocked Tahrir’s Mugamaa — Cairo’s largest bureaucratic office — amid calls for civil disobedience by different political movements. Calling for civil disobedience, protesters forcibly prevented government employees from entering the premises, leading to verbal confrontations…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Jihad Mafia Kills Tunisian Youths

Radical imams and online salafists are pushing Tunisian young people to answer the call for jihad. Now they’re dying by the hundreds in Syria.

By Monia Ghanmi and Yasmine Najjar in Tunis for Magharebia — 22/02/13

Young Tunisian Abdelkarim Jdirine is among the missing. “One day, he went to the mosque but never returned,” his sister Izdihar says. “A few days later, we found a message under our house door telling us that he went to seek martyrdom in Syria.” It is a growing phenomenon: Tunisian jihadists who embrace al-Qaeda ideology and travel abroad to Mali and Syria. And it is starting to kill off a generation…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Tunisia: Coalition to be Extended From Three to Five Parties Ghannouchi

Tunis — Ennahdha Leader Rached Ghannouchi said that the government coalition will be extended from 3 to 5 political parties after Wafa Movement and parliamentary group Liberty and Dignity had joined the ruling Troika (Ennahdha, Ettakatol and Congress for the Republic party). In a statement to TAP news agency, he said that consultations are underway between the five members of the coalition on the line-up of the next cabinet, adding that the neutrality of sovereign ministries (the Interior Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and the Justice Ministry) and whether the new government members should stand for next elections have not been settled yet…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Israeli Army Bracing for Third Intifada

JERUSALEM, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) — The Israeli military is gearing for the prospect of a new Palestinian uprising, after violent clashes between security forces and Palestinians in Jerusalem and across the West Bank peaked over the weekend, local media outlets reported on Sunday. Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz convened a special situation assessment with top brass on Saturday night and instructed to complete preparations for “grave developments,” meaning large-scale confrontations that could spark a third intifada, the Yediot Aharonot daily said…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Palestinian Muslims Planning “Mini-Intifada” For Obama Visit

A “Mini-Intifada” is more environmentally conscious because it has a lower carbon footprint and is therefore more likely to meet with Obama’s approval…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Qatar: 15 Years to Poet Over Verses Considered Subversive

Sentence reduced after appeal in Al Ajami after life sentence

(ANSAmed) — DOHA, FEBRUARY 25 — An appeals court in Doha sentenced Qatari poet Muhammad al-Ajami to 15 years in jail, cutting down a life sentence previously issued by magistrates over poetry considered hostile to Qatar’s regime, pan Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera reported on Monday.

Al-Ajami’s attorney said no motivation was given for the verdict and announced he will file an appeal with Qatar’s Supreme Court, the country’s highest appeals court, in three weeks.

The 36-year-old poet was arrested for a poem called ‘jasmine’ in which he stated that ‘we are all Tunisia in front of a repressive elite’. Al-Ajami was found guilty on charges that he had incited the revolt against Qatar’s emir.

International human rights organizations condemned first the poet’s arrest and then the sentence. Amnesty International had slammed the first life sentence in 2012 as an outrageous violation of the freedom of expression.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Saudi Arabia: Religious Insults to Shura Women, ‘Prostitutes’

Appointed by king, just sworn in with men colleagues

(ANSAmed) — ROME — Insults ranging from ‘prostitutes’ to ‘waste of society’ were delivered on Twitter by a Saudi cleric to the 30 women who were sworn in last week as the first female members of the Shura, the Saudi consultative body, Al Arabiya reports. The tweets were condemned by many, including religious leaders.

On February 19, the 30 women were officially appointed by King Abdullah in a ceremony at the royal palace in Riyadh. The debut of women as members of the Shura is unprecedented in the history of the ultra conservative kingdom where the proximity between men and women in public places is banned.

In order to be sworn in by the king, the new councilors, many of whom were wearing the niqab, were in the same room with their 130 male colleagues. However the new members will have to observe the limitations imposed by Sharia (Islamic law) demanding that they wear the Islamic veil and banning all contacts with male members.

The Shura Council is a sort of parliament without legislative power whose role is limited to propose legislation which only the monarch has the right to approve.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Syria: EU and UNRWA Join Forces for Palestinian Refugees

Agreement of 2.5 million euros for emergency shelters

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, FEBRUARY 25 — A Contribution Agreement has been signed between the European Union and UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) for an amount of 2.5 million to provide Palestinian refugees from Syria with emergency shelter assistance.

According to the Enpi website (www.enpi-info.eu), this new funding brings to 43.5 million the EU funding allocated to Lebanon targeting the needs of Syrian refugees and Lebanese host communities.

Moreover, the European Union is currently planning with the Lebanese Government and UN agencies an additional contribution for Lebanon. “This new measure also confirms the EU full support to UNRWA, and provides it with additional resources to assist the Palestine refugee community in Lebanon which has been uprooted twice,” said Ambassador Angelina Eichhorst, Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Lebanon.

The contribution to Lebanon is part of a total amount of 7.5 million to UNRWA to assist the most vulnerable Palestine refugees in Syria and those refugees who have fled Syria to Lebanon. 5 million will assist UNRWA in Syria in providing alternative education modalities for conflict-affected children, maintaining inclusive microfinance outreach, and enhancing the security of UNRWA frontline staff to improve delivery of emergency services. The number of beneficiaries in Lebanon and Syria will total 80,000 refugees.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]

Depardieu Parties With Chechen Strongman

French star and newly-registered Russian citizen Gerard Depardieu on Monday visited his “friend” the controversial Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, after partying into the night and vowing to make a film about the Muslim region.

The French actor, who was given Russian citizenship by President Vladimir Putin amid a tax row with Paris, arrived in Chechnya’s main city Grozny on a private jet after touring dairy factories in Saransk, the city in central Russia where he took residence at the weekend.

The actor toured sights in Grozny Monday after dancing the night away with Chechnya’s leadership. He visited several museums and the city’s giant mosque, where he “was shaken by its grandeur and beauty,” the Chechen government website said.

Russia’s state-controlled channels followed spellbound as Depardieu was hosted by a tracksuited Kadyrov in his vast residence, where entertainment

included a children’s folk dancing troupe in national costumes and a female singer in a hijab who performed a French hit song “Je t’aime”.

Footage showed Depardieu eventually breaking into a dance at the party late Sunday, attempting to do the Chechen lezginka (national dance) alongside a

young woman in a coloured scarf, as his host and other officials clapped with contented smiles.

“This is a visit to see my friend,” Depardieu was quoted as saying Monday by the Chechen government press service.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Afghanistan Government Accuses US Special Forces of Civilian Death and Torture

Hamid Karzai orders US elite force to leave Maidan Wardak province after local reports of disappearance of nine people

The Afghan government has ordered US special forces to leave one of Afghanistan’s most restive provinces, Maidan Wardak, after receiving reports from local officials claiming that the elite units had been involved in the torture and disappearance of Afghan civilians. US military officials have rejected the allegations but President Hamid Karzai, who convened a meeting of the Afghan national security council on Sunday, appears to believe the evidence was strong enough to demand US special forces leave Maidan Wardak within two weeks…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Ancient Continent Hides Beneath Indian Ocean

The sands of Mauritius are hiding a secret: deep beneath them lurks an ancient continent.

Trond Torsvik and colleagues at the University of Oslo, Norway, analysed grains of zircon found on the island’s beaches, measuring the balance of lead and uranium isotopes to work out their age. This showed some formed almost 2 billion years ago — although the volcanic island is no more than 65 million years old.

So where did the grains come from? Torsvik thinks they are from fragments of continental crust beneath Mauritius that melted as the volcanic island formed. The team have named the proposed continent Mauritia.

It’s a reasonable idea, says Michael Wysession at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. “It’s hard to imagine how zircons could be there any other way.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

Bangladesh: Govt to Guard Devout Muslims: Minister

The Awami League-led government will take every possible step to uphold the sanctity of mosques, and protect devout Muslims and Alems of the country, State Minister for Religious Affairs Shahjahan Mia said Sunday.

“The whole nation is shocked at the mayhem in the name of Islam under the banner of 12 like-minded parties including the Jamaat-e-Islami,” he told a press briefing at the Islamic Foundation in the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque. Stressing that Bangladesh is a country of “communal harmony”, the minister alerted the Alem-Olemas and faithful Muslims against efforts to “convert the country into an extremist state”. Shahjahan Mia said the shutdown of YouTube proves that the Awami League-led government was determined to honour the religious sentiments of the people…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

India: Hyderabad Blasts: Police Taking Away Innocent Youth, Say Muslims

“Come near Chandrayangutta bridge. Thoda baata karne ka hai (We need to talk to you),” ordered the voice in Hyderabadi Urdu on Sunday morning. The man who identified himself as an officer from Hyderabad police’s East Zone was in fact calling Dr Ibrahim Ali Junaid from Mohammed Rayeesuddin’s phone. Rayeesuddin had been called for questioning and the police wanted to quiz Junaid as well. When Junaid told the officer he was caught up with some other work, the cop said he would call again on Monday…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Indonesian Wins Rare Victory Against Noisy Mosque

Banda Aceh. An elderly Indonesian said Monday he had won a rare victory against a noisy mosque, despite being forced to withdraw legal action after an angry mob threatened to kill him. Complaints against the loud speakers issuing the call to prayer have been met with extreme opposition in Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation that is home to about 800,000 mosques…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

China Admits Pollution Brought About ‘Cancer Villages’

The Chinese government has admitted for the first time that so called ‘cancer villages’ exist, as decades of pollution take their toll on the health of Chinese citizens.

For years environmental campaigners in China have said that cancer rates in villages near factories and polluted rivers are far higher than they should be.

Now China’s Environment Ministry has admitted their existence and has called for greater transparency on environmental issues.

“In recent years, toxic and hazardous chemical pollution has caused many environmental disasters, cutting off drinking water supplies, and even leading to severe health and social problems such as ‘cancer villages’,” the document says, which was published in the 12th five-year plan for tackling pollution.

The plan also outlines a clampdown on the use of 58 types of toxic chemicals. Many chemicals are produced and consumed in China, which are banned in many developed nations.

The document continues to warn that China is facing a grave situation in terms of chemical pollution control, including a lack of pollution risk control by enterprises, a lack of policies to stop the use of highly toxic and dangerous chemicals and insufficient pollution monitoring by the authorities, the state news agency Xinhua reported on Friday…

           — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa [Return to headlines]

French Family Kidnapped by Islamic Militants in Cameroon Last Week Appear in YouTube Video

[WARNING: Disturbing content.]

A video appearing to show seven members of a French family, including four children, kidnapped in Cameroon last week has been posted on YouTube.

The video shows an armed man reading a statement in front of two men, a woman and four children.

‘We have been taken by Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad,’ one of the male hostages said in the video…

The family lives in the Cameroonian capital, Yaounde, where the father worked for the French gas group Suez.

They had been returning from a visit to Waza National Park when they were kidnapped.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

Leader of Al-Qaeda in Sudan Killed in Mali — Reports

Khartoum — The leader of Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Niles, Sudan, Abu Hazim was killed in an airstrike carried out recently by French warplanes on the positions jihadists in northern Mali. Abu Hazim, whose real name is Eman Mahmoud, was born in the northern Sudan town of Dongola in 1964. He was married with two women one of them from India.

The SITE Intelligence Group, a website specialised on the activities of jihadist groups , was the first to reveal the news saying it obtained a statement announcing his death on al Qaeda-linked Internet forums…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Namibia: Protesters Defend the Mini

WHAT started with a controversial statement by the Inspector General of the Namibian Police ended with a protest by a large crowd of women, and even some men, dressed in miniskirts. In last week Tuesday’s edition of The Namibian, Lieutenant General Sebastian Ndeitunga was quoted as saying that women must stop wearing skimpy miniskirts and hot-pants or face arrest. Ndeitunga was said although the police do not want to interfere in citizens’ constitutional freedom, skirts that are too short and revealing “are not acceptable in African culture” and amount to public indecency…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Nigeria: Gunmen Kill Gulak District Head in Adamawa

The district head of Gulak in Madagali local government area of Adamawa State, Alhaji Sa’adu Danburam, has been shot dead in his office in Maiduguri by unknown gunmen.

The slain district head, a veterinary doctor, was the younger brother of the medical director of Federal Medical Centre, Yola, Dr. Aliyu Damburam. Sources close to the family told LEADERSHIP that the assailants trailed the district head to his office in Maiduguri where they shot him to death…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Nigeria: Aliyu — Boko Haram Not the Face of Islam

Chairman, Northern Governors’ Forum and Niger State governor, Alhaji Muazu Babangida Aliyu, Saturday said the Boko Haram insurgency was unnecessary as he attributed the problem bedevilling the North to ignorance about Islam…

[JP note: For many it undoubtedly is.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

Nigeria: Five Persons Killed, Hundreds Injured as Christians/Muslims Clash in Wukari

Five persons were killed Saturday in the ancient town of Wukari in Taraba State while several others sustained varying degrees of injuries as Christian and Muslim religious adherents engaged themselves in violent and bloody clash. Besides, hundreds of houses and business premises, including places of worship were razed down by the warring groups who engaged in a gun duel, thereby rendering thousands of people homeless and striped of their means of livehood.

The crisis, which erupted in the early hours of Saturday, THISDAY gathered, was ignited by an argument between some youths during an early morning football training session at a football pitch located in the town which later snowballed into a bloody clash following the killing of one of the youths in the course of the argument. In the ensuing mayhem, dangerous weapons were freely used by the youths who later engaged each other in gun battle while residents were forced to flee their homes to take refuge in nearby bushes just as some had to flee to neighbouring communities…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]

British Primary School Where Every Single Pupil is ‘Foreign’ And Speaks English as a Second Language (But it Still Received a Glowing Report From Ofsted)

A primary school with more than 400 pupils has become the first in the country where no children speak English as their mother tongue.

Punjabi Urdu, Portuguese, Czech, Polish, Russian and several African dialects are among the 20 foreign languages spoken at Gladstone Primary School.

But it has thrived in the face of adversity. Only 14 months ago the school was rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted, the lowest of four ratings. Last month it was upgraded to ‘good’, the second highest.

The different language groups are accommodated using 28 teaching assistants, ten of whom speak Urdu.Mrs Parker, who speaks some Urdu after living in Pakistan with her teacher husband Stephen in the 1990s plus some French and German, said: ‘Some children like to start trying out what they have learned straight away.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

Immigrant Candidate Seeks to Ease Citizenship in Italy

By Christopher Emsden

ROME—It took Khalid Chaouki 14 years to become an Italian citizen after he arrived in the country from Morocco as an 8-year-old. Today, he wants to use his likely election to Parliament to make it easier for others.

Mr. Chaouki, 30 years old, is favored to be elected in Campania with Italy’s center-left Democratic Party, which opinion polls show has more votes than the next two parties combined in the Feb. 24-25 general election.

Among the proposed changes, Mr. Chaouki said in an interview, will be giving immediate citizenship to all people born in Italy. “Currently, citizenship is a concession, not a right, and we need to change that,” said Mr. Chaouki, who is his party’s point man on immigration policy.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]

The Satanic Roots of Rock

[WARNING: Disturbing content.]

The so-called “rock stars” are pathetic puppets caught in a much larger scheme. From the moment they receive their first recording royalties, the groups are heavily immersed in drugs. For example, much-admired “stars” such as John Lennon of the Beatles and Keith Richard of the Rolling Stones, were heroin addicts. Richard had to obtain blood transfusions, replacing his entire heroin-laced blood supply, in order to get a visa to enter the United States. (Tony Sanchez, Up and Down With the Rolling Stones, p.319)

The “rock stars” are also totally artificial media creations. Their public image, as well as their music, is fabricated from behind the scenes by controllers. For example, when the Beatles first arrived in the United States in 1964, they were mobbed at the airport by hundreds of screaming teenage girls. The national press immediately announced that “Beatlemania” had besieged the U.S.A. But the girls had all been transported from a girl’s school in the Bronx, and paid for their screaming performance by the Beatles’ promoters.

The money of the 1960s rock groups, which in some cases mounted to hundreds of millions of dollars, was also totally under the control of mob-connected promoters. From 1963 to 1970, the Rolling Stones made over $200 million, yet the group’s members were all nearly bankrupt. None of them had any idea of where their money went.

Between 1963 and 1964 the Beatles and the Rolling Stones laid siege to Western European and American culture. This two-pronged invasion from England was well-planned and well-timed. America had just suffered the shock of the assassination of President John Kennedy, while in the streets the mass-based civil rights movement had just held a Washington, D.C. rally, led by Martin Luther King, of 500,000 people. The rock counterculture would be used as a weapon to destroy such political movements.

Later in 1968 and 1969, years which saw a mass strike of students and workers in the United States and Europe, huge, open-air rock concerts were used to head off the growing discontent of the population. The rock concerts were devised as a means for mass recruitment to the drug-saturated, free-sex counterculture. For the millions who came to these concerts, thousands of tablets of the hallucinogenic drug, LSD, were made freely available. These drugs were secretly placed in drinks such as Coca-Cola, turning thousands of unsuspecting victims into raving psychotics. Many committed suicide.

Less than a half century ago, our young children studied violin and piano, learning about the great classical composers such as Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. As will be shown, the same record companies who today promote Satanic “heavy-metal” rock have run covert operations to destroy the musical heritage of these great classical composers.

For the past thirty years, Western society has been under the gun of a deliberate plan of cultural warfare, with the purpose of eliminating Judeo-Christian civilization as we know it. These plans must not succeed. So that the reader can better combat this evil, we’ll go back nearly thirty years, when those four innocent lads from Liverpool, England, the Beatles, were just starting out.

[Comment: Interesting article on the 60s rock and drug culture (and disturbing article — especially part about the murder of the black man at Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Racetrack). Note that many of those in positions of authority today (teachers, judges, politicians, etc.) were followers of this 60s drug culture. Ex: “…yes, but I didn’t inhale.”]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

Monsanto Further Unveils Its True Evil Nature by Signing on to UN Agenda 21 ‘Sustainability’ Scam

(NaturalNews) A United Nations (UN) scheme to surreptitiously seize property rights from people worldwide and pack the world’s populations into tiny micro-cities controlled by a centralized government has a new ally, Monsanto, which recently joined the so-called World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) in pushing for the widespread implementation of the infamous “Agenda 21.”

According to The New American, Monsanto joins a cohort of major banks, oil companies, and other powerful corporate players in pushing the UN Agenda 21 scam, which plans to eliminate national and social sovereignty, and enslave humanity under the guise of “sustainability.” Personal property ownership, the ability to travel freely, the ability to live without government intrusion in every area of your life — these and many other liberties will all disappear if Agenda 21 is fully implemented as intended.

But these concepts of complete tyranny are “values” that Monsanto fully embraces, as the corporate monolith has already been actively trampling personal property rights for decades. Monsanto’s genetically-modified (GM) terminator seeds and accompanying chemical technologies, for instance, have been contaminating and destroying non-GM and organic crops for years, and the company has actually sued hundreds of farmers whose land was illegally trespassed by the company’s patented “Frankencrops.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]

4 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 2/25/2013

  1. [insult redacted]

    Why is the federal gov’t spending $1.7 million on pedestrian and bike paths a waste of money, but the federal highway system isn’t?

  2. I wonder if the British establishment is afraid of the EDL because it may encourage the Mohammedans to behave as Mohammedans and thus spoil the cosy little joys of diversity fantasy.

    • Makes more sense than just about anything else. Watch out for these guys, they will try and kill you if you make to many waves. Not everyone has the security with machine guns like President Obama has.

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