50,000 angry Irish citizens took to the streets today to protest the huge bank bailouts that have thrown the country’s economy into stagnation and loaded it down with massive debt. 25,000 people marched in Dublin alone, with other demonstrations taking place in Limerick and Galway.
In other news, violence continued in Egypt as a mob of protesters threw rocks and firebombs at Mohamed Morsi’s presidential palace.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Hermes, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, McR, 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.
Italy: European Stock Markets Rise on Bullish Wall Street
Italian spread closes at 294 basis points
(ANSA) — Milan, February 8 — The major European stock exchanges rose on Friday, helped up by Wall Street bullishness.
Wall Street rallied on news that the U.S. trade deficit in December sharply declined, giving hope that the U.S. economy may have grown in the last quarter.
Madrid’s IBEX 35 led the rallying among European stock indices, rising 2% to 8,174 points. Milan’s FTSE MIB gained 1.4% to close at 16,630 points, despite news on Friday that Italy’s industrial production levels had dropped to their lowest in 22 years.
Italy’s industrial production was at its lowest level since 1990, falling 6.7% in 2012 — its worst annual change since 2009, according to national statistics agency Istat.
The Paris CAC 40 rose 1.35%, Frankfurt’s DAX closed up 0.81%, London’s FTSE-100 rose 0.57%.
The spread between 10-year Italian bonds and the German benchmark closed at 294 basis points after touching a high of 303 points during the day. The yield on 10-year Italian treasury bonds was 4.55%.
The bond spread is a key measure of Italy’s borrowing costs.
At the start of the week the spread was just over 260 points. Some analysts have suggested the markets are spooked by the rise in opinion polls of Berlusconi’s centre-right coalition, which is narrowing the gap behind Bersani’s centre-left alliance before parliamentary elections February 24-25.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Now Euro MPs Want a Secret Vote to Block Budget Deal and Defy the 27 Leaders
Euro MPs prompted uproar last night by plotting to try to block the budget deal using a secret ballot so voters cannot hold them to account.
It emerged that they are planning to use a little-understood procedure to allow them to vote in private and defy the 27 EU leaders.
Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament and former leader of its socialist group, suggested a vote on the budget should be conducted in secret to allow MEPs to break away from prime ministers and party leaders and maximise the chances of it being rejected.
A vote behind closed doors would also spare Euro MPs’ blushes ahead of European elections in 2014, when voters seeing austerity imposed at home might punish their profligacy.
If a fifth of MEPs — 150 — declare that they want the budget vote to be a secret ballot, that is how it will be conducted under the European Parliament’s rules.
A senior British official described the idea as a ‘shocking subversion of democracy’.
[Comment: When will people of Europe realize this is a coup d’etat in slow motion…Bukovsky was not joking when he said the EU structure was identical to a communist structure.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Strong Franc Melts Swiss Chocolate Sales
Swiss chocolate makers were left with a bittersweet taste in their mouths last year as a strong Swiss franc melted away the appetite for their products, the top industry body said Friday.
Switzerland’s 18 chocolate manufacturers, including such brands as Lindt, Frey and Faverger, sold 4,000 fewer tonnes last year than in 2011 as an “overvalued Swiss franc . . . made Swiss chocolate products more expensive abroad and made imported chocolate cheaper,” Chocosuisse said in a statement.
The chocolate makers saw their sales fall 2.2 percent in terms of quantity to 172,376 tonnes, while their turnover fell 3.4 percent to 1.6 billion francs ($1.8 billion), it said.
More than 60 percent of Swiss chocolates are exported, and foreign sales were hit especially hard, Chocosuisse said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Thousands Protest in Ireland Against Bank Bailouts
In Ireland, tens of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets to protest against the cost of their country’s bank bailouts. Police said some 50,000 people participated in the marches nationwide.
Some 25,000 people marched through the streets of national capital, Dublin, on Saturday, in protest against the costs of a banking crisis that has buried Ireland in debt.
According to police figures, some 6,000 people also demonstrated in Cork and Sligo respectively. Meanwhile, crowds of 2,000 also turned out in Limerick, Galway and Waterford.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) estimated that some 110,000 people demonstrated nationwide. The ICTU, which represents nearly a fifth of Ireland’s 3.1 million person electorate, had organized the demonstrations under the slogan “Lift the Burden.”
On Thursday, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny had clinched a long-awaited deal with the European Central Bank (ECB), which eased a 48-billion-euro (64-billion-dollar) debt burden from the bailout of Anglo Irish Bank.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: They Squeal About Cuts But the Truth is Town Halls Are Spending More Than Ever — by Fleecing You
The hue and cry over the town hall cuts demanded by the Coalition government might give the impression that councils across Britain are on their last legs.
Warnings of libraries closing, services being slashed to the bone and waves of redundancies come repeatedly from the mouths of Labour politicians and the unions, all of it reverentially reported by the BBC.
Anyone listening to this relentless message of doom could be forgiven for thinking that councils are actually being forced, in this age of austerity, to impose drastic curbs on their spending.
Look at the official figures, however, and you will be shocked to see that, far from overall council spending being cut, it is actually still racing upwards by billions of pounds a year.
[…]
The fact is that our bloated local authorities, with so many of their senior officials now being paid far more than the Prime Minister, have been cunningly devising every kind of new way to take money off us.
It is one of the best-kept secrets in British politics, costing us all ever-more billions of pounds every year. Yet we are scarcely aware of what a revolution it represents in the way we are governed. The truth is that these new money-grabbing ploys earn councils as much every year as they get from council tax itself…
But in a rare flash of official honesty, the chief spokesman for our councils recently admitted to MPs that this law is simply not being obeyed. Giving evidence to the Commons Public Accounts Committee, David Sparks, the chairman of the Local Government Association, confessed that councils were increasing their parking charges simply to boost their income.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bloody Hands: The Southern Poverty Law Center
Exclusive: Matt Barber asks if SPLC isn’t intentionally inciting anti-Christian violence
I no longer believe the SPLC has a sense of goodwill. In fact, based on FBI evidence and the group’s own actions (and inaction), I and many others are left with no other inference but this: The SPLC — a left-wing extremist fundraising behemoth — may be intentionally inciting anti-Christian violence.
Here’s why, to my own aghast bewilderment, I’m left with little choice but to believe the SPLC may be intentionally inciting anti-Christian violence. As noted by the FRC, “Even after an attempted mass murder of the FRC staff, the ‘hate map’ is still prominently featured on the SPLC website today — which shocks most conservative pundits.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Councilman Asks Man to Turn in His Weapon… Look What Happens Next!
During a city council meeting in Oak Harbor, Washington, a veteran was testifying against the city’s ban against guns in their public parks. The citizen who was testifying was asked by one city councilman to remove and turn in his legally concealed weapon. When the citizen refused, the councilman walked out. But that’s only the start. It’s the next city council meeting that became really interesting.
Here’s what happened at the next meeting:
The council was met by 160 people Tuesday night, many who were packing heat.
There were handguns in holsters and rifles slung over shoulders and an unknown number of people concealing their weapons as the Oak Harbor City Council met. Many attended the meeting to show support for veteran Lucas Yonkman who Councilmember Almberg tried to have kicked out of City Hall last month, including Joe Hawkins who openly mocked him. “Mr. Almberg I just want you to know that I have a concealed ham sandwich right here I don’t want you to get up and walk away,” he chuckled.
Most attended the meeting to oppose the city’s ban on guns in parks and the marina. The Second Amendment Foundation had threatened to sue if the ordinance wasn’t overturned.
The Whidbey News-Times that the ordinance that put the city in an uproar was voted down by the same city council that put the ban in place the first time.
But on Tuedsay the council avoided the spectacle of drawn-out public comments by quickly passing the ordinance and only allowing the audience to speak during a half-hour comment period; they made it clear that it was a threat of a lawsuit, not public pressure, that pushed them to act.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In November, 2012, HSBC, Europe’s’ biggest bank, agreed to pay a $1.92 billion fine to US authorities, settling a 10-year investigation into the banks’ money laundering for Mexican Drug Lords, terrorist organizations and rogue states. A report compiled for a US Senate committee detailed how HSBC subsidiaries transported billions of dollars of cash in armored vehicles, cleared suspicious travelers’ checks worth billions, and allowed Mexican drug lords to buy planes with money laundered through Cayman Islands accounts. Other subsidiaries moved money from Iran, Syria and other countries on US sanctions lists, and helped a Saudi bank linked to al-Qaida to shift money to the US.
[…]
Carl Levin, who led the US Senate investigation of the bank stated: “The HSBC settlement sends a powerful wakeup call to multinational banks about the consequences of disregarding their anti-money laundering obligations.”
One has to wonder who Levin thinks he is fooling. HSBC laundered over $670 Billion in Mexican drug cartel money alone. The profits from just those transactions would dwarf the $1.92 billion settlement they paid. Ultimately, the prosecutors’ office came to believe the case was “the tip of the iceberg” in terms of suspicious transactions conducted through HSBC. Not only this, HSBC was also caught money laundering in 2003 and 2010. But this time they’re “sorry?” The settlement removes any fear of prosecution for the employees of HSBC. As Analyst Jim Antos of Mizuho Securities said, the settlement costs were “trivial” in terms of the companys’ book value. So a “too big to fail” bank gets a slap on the wrist and is sent on its way to launder some more money.
[…]
Manal Mehta, a partner at the hedge fund Branch Hill Capital, spent two years studying the fraud Bank of America pulled on investors and had this to say of it: “it’s one of the biggest reverse transfers of wealth in history — from pensioners to financiers”. What the 99 percent should understand is that Wall Street knowingly inflated the bubble by engaging in rampant mortgage fraud — and then profited from the collapse of their own exuberance by devising a way to shift the losses to countless pension funds, endowments and other innocent investors.”[16]
[…]
It gets worse. Last fall, some of the banks’ biggest creditors and counterparties started to get nervous about the mountain of toxic bets still sitting on Merrill Lynch’s books. Nobody felt good lending Bank of America money with those dangerous debts still on the books. So they asked the bank to move a chunk of that mess from Merrill Lynch onto Bank of Americas’ own balance sheet. Why? Because Bank of America is a federally insured depository institution and Merrill Lynch is not. This means that the FDIC is now on the hook for some $55 trillion in potential losses. William Black, a former regulator, calls the transfer an “obscenity. As a regulator, I would have never allowed it. Transferring risk to the insured institution crosses the reddest of red lines.” But that is just another example of the US Government shielding irresponsible businesses and sticking it to the taxpayers. This brings us to LIBOR, which besides the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, is the biggest bank scandal of all time
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Frances Farmer & America’s Psychiatric Gulag
In May, 1930, an International Congress on Mental Hygiene was held in Washington, D.C. Four thousand psychiatrists from 53 countries were welcomed by the President of the United States, Herbert Hoover. The new masters drafted a charter stating that they alone had the knowledge to “understand and control human behavior… Psychiatry must now decide what is to be the immediate future of the human race.”
The new pronouncement also boasted that “Psychiatrists alone possess the superior intelligence and knowledge to alter materially and permanently human behaviors.” Many of the bureaucrats got the message, and promptly signed up for lengthy series of “analysis”.
Soon afterwards, a number of Communist cells were established in the government bureaus, chief among them the Harold Ware cell. Ware was merely the office boy for Felix Frankfurter, left, who masterminded this Communist group, placing Communist agents high in the official levels of every government department in Washington.
One of the principal speakers at the Washington Congress of Psychiatrists was Dr. Donald A. Nicholson, a psychiatrist from Seattle who was the president of the Washington State Medical Assn. He committed thousands of Americans to mental hospitals, all of them on his unsupported testimony that they were “insane”. Few of them ever saw freedom again.
FRANCES FARMER
His most famous victim was the great Hollywood actress Frances Farmer.
Frances who? A curtain of silence has been rung down on one of America’s greatest talents. When she flashed across the Hollywood screen, she became known as “the American Garbo”. Today her movies are never shown on television or in the theatres. Those Hollywood figures who knew her refuse to mention her name. They are terrified that they, too, might have to endure the sufferings visited on her. What happened to Frances Farmer? A reporter spent five years investigating her story, which he recently published, Shadowland [by William Arnold, 1978)
| [Return to headlines] |
Fremont Mosque to Host Interfaith Event
FREMONT — Members of the East Bay Muslim community are reaching out to other faiths with an open house Feb. 16 at a Fremont mosque to commemorate World Interfaith Harmony Week. The annual event, initiated by the United Nations General Assembly in a 2010 proclamation, is celebrated in the first week of February as a way to promote harmony between all people regardless of their faith. The open house is being hosted by the Islamic Society of East Bay, at 33330 Peace Terrace. It is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 16…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
From Watchdogwire — Florida — American Law for American Courts Bill Advances
My colleague, Dr. Rich Swier of Watch Dog Wire filed this report from the Florida Family Association on the success of the first reading of HB-351 — Application of Foreign Laws in Certain Cases, American law for American Courts. A hearing was held on Thursday, February 7th before the Civil Justice Subcommittee of the Florida House Judiciary Committee. Rep. Larry Metz, sponsor of this third time at bat for ALAC did a masteful job in presentation and debate with Democrat minority members.. A contingent of ex-General officers, Veterans and ACT! chapter leaders testified in favor of the measure. A representative of the ACLU in Florida testified in opposition. The vote was 9 to 4 in favor, split on party lines . Most importantly, the Republican majority on the Subcommittee cast a unanimous vote. You can watch the proceedings at the 2 Hour 18 minute mark on the Florida Channel video embedded in the FFA article. The Florida activist network is a buzz about pulling out the stops to help get HB 351 sponsored by Rep. Larry Metz and its companion S 058 in the Senate sponsored by Sen. Alan Hays. I had the pleasure of meeting with Sen. Hays on ALAC and the Stand for Israel Resolution in the 2012 Legislative Session. Let’s see how we can get past the hurdles in both chambers in the 2013 Florida Legislative session in Florida with the goal of passage and enactment into law. That would mark the first major jurisdiction to enact ALAC. It would add luster to the quartet of pioneering States that have already done so; Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana and Tennessee.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Gun-Rights Supporter? Now You’re Crazy
Exclusive: Patrice Lewis warns of the state using ‘mental health’ to deny firearms
In a sobering essay on the subject of the dangers of Obama taking over psychiatry, Dr. Lee Hieb reminds us of one the major human rights scandals in the 1970s and 80s: the use of psychiatry against dissidents in the Soviet Union. Bottom line, if you disagreed with the government, you were ipso facto crazy.
What allowed dissidents to be classified as mentally ill, Dr. Hieb points out, “was the total nationalization of the psychiatric profession. In other words, the psychiatrists all worked for and were paid for by the government. They no longer were employed by their patients.“ [Italics added.]
The Obama administration is pushing to implement a national registry system which, among other things, would require that the names of people who seek counseling be sent to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Should this registry be implemented, massive numbers of people would be disqualified from owning firearms merely for seeking counseling.
Can you see where this is heading? If mental health experts and physicians are required to report to the government everything regarding their patients, how fast do you think “everything” will be classified as a mental problem whenever the government deems it convenient? Overeating, shyness, unhappiness, too much happiness, too much faith … anything and everything can be twisted to suit the agenda of a government hell-bent on disarming the American people.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
He Hideth My Soul (And Gun) In the Cleft of the Rock
“Civil war is about to explode in America as a result of the congress and the president’s efforts to disarm the civilian population, bankrupt the citizens and pull the word freedom forever from our lives.” — G. Evensen
There are two compelling reasons we are now facing what I said would occur five years ago as a result of our ignorance of history and an evil in the land so great it is palpable.
The first cause of Civil War II is our collective national addiction to really bad legislative choices. America has progressively and purposefully become “the land of the stupid and the home of the coward.” Many do not know nor care, that freedom has vanished and tyranny is in control of the nation that freed most of the world in the 20th century from brutal oppression. The service veterans who paid for that freedom with their blood are now classified as terrorists by the Gestapo organizations established and funded by congress. Not one American in 100,000 knows of the armed struggle that took place in Athens, Tennessee in 1946, as returning WWII veterans were banned by a corrupt county sheriff and courthouse judge from auditing the election results that had been hidden from view for years. ARMED citizens took on the dirty officials and won. It was about FIGHTING tyranny and oppression, not target shooting or hunting rabbits. It was about FIGHTING for freedom then, as it had been in 1776 and 1861, and is at this moment again pushing and shoving Americans that HAVE NO CHOICE but to FIGHT for freedom and our children’s future yet again.
When I witness the smug arrogance and utter lies of Barack Obama, how he double talks, creates endless bad budgets, taxes, health care, or exhibits the absolute incompetence of his and his wife’s past as “activist lawyers” who lost their licenses to practice, I am confounded that Americans would vote this calculating Muslim communist into another term.
[…]
Ten years ago I suggested that the American people create a 500 pound gold coin, stamp 100 trillion dollars on it, take it to the Fed, tell them our debt is paid, they get no more, board up the windows and doors, kick them out, bulldoze the Federal Reserve building and start over.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Imagine if Christopher Dorner Was a Tea Party Member
Media censors Obamanoid cop killer’s manifesto
Imagine if a Tea Party member had written a hate-filled manifesto, killed three people, gone on the run, and then declared “asymmetrical warfare” against a major police department while threatening to slaughter entire families — do you think the mainstream media would be interested in what that manifesto had to say about such an individual’s political beliefs?
Without a doubt, the press would be affording obsessive coverage to the fact that this cop killer was a dangerous right-wing extremist, a violent domestic terrorist whose behavior vindicated all those warnings from the federal government about how “liberty lovers” need to be surveilled and silenced.
What if this same individual had expressed vehement support for the second amendment in this very same manifesto? His savage actions would be a poster child for the urgent need to enforce strict gun control measures in the name of public safety.
Now compare that likely reaction to how the media responded to the story of Christopher Dorner, the individual currently the target of a huge LAPD manhunt following a double homicide last weekend and the fatal shooting of a police officer yesterday morning.
As Twitchy reports, “Most news outlets are publishing a censored version that is only 11 pages long,” leaving out Dorner’s political stance.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Man Attempts to Rob Gas Station; Owner Brandishes Pistol
A man who attempted to rob a convenience store left empty handed after a clerk surprised him with a gun.
According to charging documents, Luis Guiterrez Gonzales entered the Tesoro convenience store at 12 W. 3900 South at 11:47 a.m. Monday brandishing a knife.
Gonzales demanded money from the clerk, who in turn produced a pistol, police said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
No Suspicion Necessary: DHS Can Still Seize Belongings Without Reason
The Fourth Amendment no longer means what you once thought it did: A new report reveals that the government has shrugged off concerns over the alleged constitutional infringements of its own citizens near international crossings.
An internal review of the US Department of Homeland Security’s procedures regarding the suspicionless search-and-seizure of phones and laptops near the nation’s border has reaffirmed the agency’s ability to bypass Fourth Amendment-protected rights [.pdf].
In a two page executive summary published quietly last month to the official DHS website, the agency explains that a civil rights and civil liberties impact assessment of the office’s little-known power to collect personal electronics near international crossings has passed an auditor’s interpretation of what does and doesn’t violate the US Constitution.
Since 2009, the DHS has been legally permitted to seize and review the contents of personal electronic devices, including mobile phones, portable computers and data discs, even without being able to cite any reasonable suspicion that those articles were involved in a crime.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obamacare and the DSM-5: Be Afraid; Be Very Afraid
In the case of those who pose the most dire threat to Obama’s designs — Christians — these will certainly be targeted.
In May of this year the APA (American Psychiatric Association) will release its fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), which will supersede the DSM-IV, last revised in 2000. These manuals are essentially the yardstick for what is and what is not “mental illness” in America.
Now, while the APA is the premier psychiatric association in America, driving what passes for all conventional wisdom with regard to mental illness, in recent years it has been accused of being more agenda-driven than representing hard, scientific and medical assessments of mental disorders. Decidedly liberal-leaning, in recent decades it has essentially redefined such things as homosexuality, gender identification disorder, and pedophilia to reflect what pressure groups and the liberal intelligentsia wish, rather than continuing to describe them as psychologically aberrant.
[…]
In the area of mental illness, given the administration’s totalitarian bent, this could mean an era of atrocities galore. Have you ever suffered from anxiety? Depression? Had “anger issues?” Have you ever been treated for drug addiction or alcoholism? Had trouble sleeping? Any of these and a host of others might be used as a pretext for one’s designation as a mental defective. One might suddenly discover that due to some benign neurosis or psychological episode, perhaps in their distant past, their constitutional rights have been nullified overnight.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Exclusive: Tom Tancredo says BHO cares nothing about jihadists crossing into U.S.
But what really worries me is not so much the use of drones to target terrorists as the use of drones to distract Americans from the cascading failures of Obama’s policy toward radical Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Think about it: Which is more important to the national security of the United States, killing some jihadist leader hiding in some village in Pakistan — someone who will be replaced the following week from the swelling ranks of jihadist recruits — or withholding F-16 fighters from the Muslim Brotherhood rulers of Egypt?
[…]
Obama’s deafness to most Americans’ concerns about border security goes deeper than the political opportunism of an amnesty bill. He simply does not care about border security and would not care about it even if amnesty were not a political priority. He is not even aware that each year, hundreds of “OTMs” (Border Patrol jargon for Other Than Mexican) of Arabic and Middle Eastern origin cross our porous borders and enter the U.S. unlawfully. He does not know those numbers because he does not care — and therein lies the danger.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Rove Never Worked for Reagan!’
Angry campaign staffers refute claims by longtime operative
Fact-checkers have confirmed they have been unable to find any documentation Rove ever was in any Ronald Reagan election campaign or in the Reagan administration.
It’s just the latest red flag for members of the conservative wing of the GOP, who for some time have been suspicious of Rove’s organization, the Conservative Victory Project. It was created under the auspices of Rove’s American Crossroads Super PAC.
Their worry has been that Rove’s intent with the outreach is to solicit donations from top-dollar Republican Party contributors by suggesting he is promoting successful conservative candidates in primaries. They fear he actually wants to promote moderate Republican candidates acceptable to the GOP establishment.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Special Report: 30 Year CIA Vet Admits West Runs Al-Qaeda
In a recent article published on the website of the Brookings Institution, 30 year CIA veteran and current Brookings senior fellow, Bruce Riedel talks false flag ops in relation to Algerian counter-terrorism units.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Shocking Story of How Aspartame Became Legal
Did you know that Aspartame was banned by the FDA twice? How is this product legal now?
The bittersweet argument over whether Aspartame is safe or not has been going on for a long time. On one side we have medical evidence that suggests we should avoid using it and on the other side we lean on the FDA’s approval that suggests it is safe. Since generally that seems to be the factor that many continue to hold trust based upon, I thought we could look into the Aspartame story to find out how it came to be accepted as safe by the FDA. You would think that something so widely used and so well accepted would have quite the pristine story leading to its acceptance. I imagine one will discover otherwise after reading this post.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
First, lets look at what cannot work. When considering how to avoid massacres like what occurred at Sandy Hook elementary school in the future I was shocked by the suggestion we are hearing. They have already prohibited people from legally carrying guns at schools and campuses and some are also creating Gun Free Zones at malls and theaters.
How is that working out for you?
Well it is not working out because that is where these mass murders seem to want to go. They never go to gun shows or the shooting range. They go to where people do not have guns. Was the prohibition of alcohol or the war on drugs effective or did they create an underworld of violent crime?
Samuel L Jackson recently said concerning these shooting: “I don’t think it’s about more gun control. I grew up in the South with guns everywhere and we never shot anyone. This [shooting] is about people who aren’t taught the value of life.” I have to agree with him on that but I am including the people who have taken common sense out of the equation of safety in society…
We are not talking about “more weapons in schools” we are talking about a practical means of self defense in the hands of responsible and honorable people so they do not have to die unnecessarily in the presence of menacing forces. This is what the right to bear arms is all about. Yet, some people cannot see it.
Gun Free Zones are a death trap for your children. As long as the foolish, irrational, unthinking people are going to continue to promote this failed policy of zero tolerance there will be more killings. There are lots of reasons to take your children out of public school. This insanity alone should convince you to get your children out of public school. If you need help home schooling gather with others in a living network that cares about you and your rights as much as their own.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Uncensored Copy of Rogue LAPD Officer’s Manifesto
Mainstream media has a censored version on their websites. Here are some excerpts from the complete text of the manifesto (at url above):
[WARNING: Disturbing content.]
“I know most of you who personally know me are in disbelief to hear from media reports that I am suspected of committing such horrendous murders and have taken drastic and shocking actions in the last couple of days…
“Why didn’t you charge me with filing a false police report when I came forward stating that Evans kicked Mr. Christopher Gettler? You file criminal charges against every other officer who is accused and terminated for filing a false police report. You didn’t because you knew I was innocent and a criminal court would find me innocent and expose your department for suppressing the truth and retaliation, that’s why.
“This department has not changed from the Daryl Gates and Mark Fuhrman days. Those officers are still employed and have all promoted to Command staff and supervisory positions. I will correct this error. Are you aware that an officer (a rookie/probationer at the time) seen on the Rodney King videotape striking Mr. King multiple times with a baton on 3/3/91 is still employed by the LAPD and is now a Captain on the police department? Captain Rolando Solano is now the commanding officer of a LAPD police station (West LA division). As a commanding officer, he is now responsible for over 200 officers. Do you trust him to enforce department policy and investigate use of force investigations on arrestees by his officers? Are you aware Evans has since promoted to Sergeant after kicking Mr. Gettler in the face. Oh, you Violated a citizens civil rights? We will promote you. Same as LAPD did with the the officers from Metro involved in the May Day melee at MacArthur Park. They promoted them to Sergeant (a supervisor role).
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants-TJ. This quote is not directed toward the US government which I fully support 100%. This is toward the LAPD who can not monitor itself. The consent decree should not have been lifted, ever.
“Sen. Feinstein, you are doing the right thing in leading the re-institution of a national AWB. Never again should any public official state that their prayers and thoughts are with the family. That has become cliche’ and meaningless. Its time for action. Let this be your legacy that you bestow to America.
“Sure, many of you “law enforcement experts and specialist” will state, “in all my years this is the worst…….”, Stop!!! That’s not important. Ask yourselves what would cause somebody to take these drastic measures like I did. That’s what is important…
“Mr. Vice President, do your due diligence when formulating a concise and permanent national AWB plan. Future generations of Americans depend on your plan and advisement to the president. I’ve always been a fan of yours and consider you one of the few genuine and charismatic politicians. Damn, sounds like an oxymoron calling you an honest politician. It’s the truth.
“Hillary Clinton. You’ll make one hell of a president in 2016. Much like your husband, Bill, you will be one of the greatest. Look at Castro in San Antonio as a running mate or possible secretary of state. He’s (good people) and I have faith and confidence in him. Look after Bill. He was always my favorite President. Chelsea grew up to be one hell of an attractive woman. No disrespect to her husband.
“Gov. Chris Christie. What can I say? You’re the only person I would like to see in the White House in 2016 other than Hillary. You’re America’s no shit taking uncle. Do one thing for your wife, kids, and supporters. Start walking at night and eat a little less, not a lot less, just a little. We want to see you around for a long time. Your leadership is greatly needed.
“Wayne LaPierre, President of the NRA, you’re a vile and inhumane piece of shit. You never even showed 30 seconds of empathy for the children, teachers, and families of Sandy Hook. You deflected any type of blame/responsibility and directed it toward the influence of movies and the media. You are a failure of a human being. May all of your immediate and distant family die horrific deaths in front of you.”
“Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Pat Harvey, Brian Williams, Soledad Obrien, Wolf Blitzer, Meredith Viera, Tavis Smiley, and Anderson Cooper, keep up the great work and follow Cronkite’s lead. I hold many of you in the same regard as Tom Brokaw and the late Peter Jennings. Cooper, stop nagging and berating your guest, they’re your (guest).
“Revoke the citizenship of Fareed Zakaria and deport him. I’ve never heard a positive word about America or its interest from his mouth, ever. On the same day, give Piers Morgan an indefinite resident alien and Visa card. Mr. Morgan, the problem that many American gun owners have with you and your continuous discussion of gun control is that you are not an American citizen and have an accent that is distinct and clarifies that you are a foreigner. I want you to know that I agree with you 100% on enacting stricter firearm laws but you must understand that your critics will always have in the back of their mind that you are native to a country that we won our sovereignty from while using firearms as a last resort in defense and you come from a country that has no legal private ownership of firearms. That is disheartening to American gun owners and rightfully so.
“The honorable President George H.W. Bush, they never give you enough credit for your successful Presidency. You were always one of my favorite Presidents (2nd favorite). I hope your health improves greatly. You are the epitome of an American and service to country.
“General Petraeus, you made a mistake that the majority of men make once, twice, or unfortunately many times in a lifetime. You are human. You thought with your penis. It’s okay.I personally believe you should have never resigned and told your critics to shove it. You only answer to two people regarding the affair, your wife and children, period. I hope you return to government service to your country as it is visibly in your DNA.
“General Colin Powell, your book “My American Journey” solidified my decision to join the military after college. I had always intended to serve, but your book and journey motivated me. You are an inspiration to all Americans and influenced me greatly.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Video: Dr. Benjamin Carson Tears Into Obama Policies at National Prayer Breakfast
And Obama does not look pleased….
In case you missed it, or just haven’t had a chance to watch it, here’s Dr. Benjamin Carson’s complete speech from yesterday’s prayer National Prayer Breakfast.
Dr. Carson spends 30 minutes tearing into the idiocy of the progressive agenda, our floundering education system, the way we punish success, and our fiscal irresponsibility. He laments our decision to abandon our founding principles and our reliance on a lawyer-driven, win-at-all-costs, government.
….and he does it all while the President sits there and watches.
In short, it’s utterly brilliant. Obama is all smiles at first, but watch his face as Carson rips into his $16 trillion deficit and the guaranteed failure of Obamacare.
This is a long one, but it’s well worth your time.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Berlusconi Win Would be Bad for Europe, Says D’Alema
(AGI)- Turin, Feb. 9 — A Berlusconi victory would be bad for Europe, not just for Italians, said former centre-left leader Massimo D’Alema. “Our elections don’t concern us alone. Our colleagues from all over Europe are not here just out of solidarity, they understand the situation,” D’Alema said today in Turin during his speech to Renaissance for Europe, a two-day meeting of European progressives. “Our destinies are closely associated with them and we feel part of common political drama and history. That’s why it is important for Europe that the Italian centre-left takes the reins in the country. It is important that Bersani speaks for Italy in Europe,” D’Alema added.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Are Muslims in Alsace Better Off Than Those in the Rest of France?
The French region of Alsace-Moselle, near the German border, has its own specific legislation concerning religions. For historical reasons, local authorities are allowed to finance religious groups, unlike in the rest of the country. Do Muslims in Alsace have a better life than those who live elsewhere in France? Our reporter went to investigate.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Danish Diplomats Charged 600 Euros for Meal in Venice
Restaurant said additional prawns drove up bill
(ANSA) — Venice, February 7 — A Danish couple filed an official complaint with the Italian embassy in Copenhagen after returning from a vacation in Venice where they were charged 600 euros for a meal of fried fish and prawns.
The couple, who are both diplomats, said that the cook at the pizzeria-restaurant in the central Santa Maria Formosa neighborhood of Venice offered to add a few prawns to their fried fish plate as they were dining. According to the couple, the restaurant explained that the prawns are what drove the final bill up to a whopping 600 euros.
Police in Venice are now investigating the incident.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: More on Lars Hedegaard
by Sarah AB
I was shocked to read (via Alan) about the recent attack on Lars Hedegaard, who seems to have narrowly escaped being assassinated on account of his views on Islam/Muslims. You can hear a recent interview with Hedegaard here. As Ben Six notes:
Opinions can be ignored and gunmen can’t, and when you are in the vicinity of both it is not hard to judge which should be your priority.
It is clear that the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the West (including theocrats and extremists) wouldn’t support murderous responses to people such as Hedegaard. In fact, the next person I noticed talking about the attack, after Alan, was Raquel Saraswati. But it’s equally clear that this attack is part of a chilling pattern — one would be much more surprised to read of an attack on, say, Gilad Atzmon — which may drive some to defiance, but probably leads to many small acts of unreported self-censorship from others…
[JP note: Also note the comments section of a Douglas Murray piece on Lars Hedegaard blogs.spectator.co.uk/douglas-murray/2013/02/the-far-left-and-the-attempted-assassination-of-lars-hedegaard/ where Sarah AB is outed by Petra Thompson as a modest financial backer of the neo-socialist far-left Hope Not Hate.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: The Cowardly and Hypocritical Media Abandons Lars Hedegaard
It is now three days since a European journalist was visited at his door by an assassin. For three days I have waited for any response to this. The BBC reported the story in brief, as did the Mail and the Guardian posted the Associated Press story. But where are all the free-speech defenders? Where are all those brave blogs, papers and journals who like to talk about press freedom, human rights, freedom of expression, anti-extremism and so on? Where are all the campaigners? I have been scouring the internet and apart from Mark Steyn at National Review and Bruce Bawer at Frontpage, and a few other US conservative blogs, hardly anybody seems willing even to report events in Copenhagen on Tuesday. What explanation can there possibly be for this silence? Allow me some guesses
[…]
Well to hell with them all. We live in a culture of cowards and hypocrites. Our public squares are packed with grandstanders who talk of human rights and freedoms, but when an assassin comes to a journalist’s door they can’t even lift their fingers to their keyboards.
I am now going to take out a subscription to Dispatch International and hope people will join me in doing so here. If that is indeed why the assassin called, then let’s spread the risk around a bit. Let’s make it the most gloriously widely-read publication out there. Since the attempt on his life, Lars has invited me to write pieces for Dispatch International and I have already told him that it will be a pleasure and an honour to do so. What has happened to Lars Hedegaard was an attempt at the ultimate form of censorship. Many people have already shown that they take these lessons to mean they should be silent. I suggest we go the other way. Solidarity used to be a virtue of the left. In the left’s absence I suggest we simply make it a virtue of the remaining free.
[Reader comment by Jonas]
This is truly saddening. The Swedish media (my home country) has shamefully buried and misrepresented this story. Mr Hedegaard was in all papers and tv-channels, except one, portrayed as “hostile towards islam” and as an extremist. They were even smug about it. As if he brought this upon himself and had it coming! The one Swedish journalist who defended Mr Hedegaards right to free speech — and the right to walk the streets safely — was denounced by his fellow “journalists”. It makes me feel ashamed of my country — we should stand by our fellow Scandinavians. The left-wing muppets are in total control of our public discourse, and only because we are allowing them to be! But conservative winds are blowing and I think this cabal of gender-certified, multi-cultural-approved and isolated journalists know this too. Thanks to Mr Murray for taking a clear stand!
[Reader comment by Petra Thompson]
The news report on Danish TV makes it increasingly likely it was a Danish-born muslim. He’s described as of southern-mediterranean appearance, but speaking fluent Danish. https://gatesofvienna.net/2013/… What is really shocking is that the TV journalist seems to think that Lars should have just allowed the assassin to kill him. She seems more shocked that Lars fought back than that someone should try to kill a journalist for an opinion.
[Reader comment by Radford_NG]
Douglas Murray:…The web-site ‘gatesofvienna.net’ on Tue 5 Feb reported the attempted murder of Lars Hedegaard;one of the first to do so. You may care to look-up this site.[1683 (11/12 Sept.) king Jan Sobieski of Poland came to the rescue of Vienna against the Terrible Turks:their last incursion into Chrisiandom.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Flaws Found in US Missile Shield
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secret Defense Department studies cast doubt on whether a multibillion-dollar missile defense system planned for Europe will ever be able to protect the U.S. from Iranian missiles as intended, congressional investigators say.
Military officials say they believe the problems can be overcome and are moving forward with plans. But proposed fixes could be difficult. One possibility has already been ruled out as technically unfeasible. Another, relocating missile interceptors planned for Poland and possibly Romania to ships on the North Sea, could be diplomatically explosive.
The studies are the latest to highlight serious problems for a plan that has been criticized on several fronts. Republicans claim it was hastily drawn up in an attempt to appease Russia, which had opposed an earlier system. But Russia is also critical of the plan, which it believes is really intended to counter its missiles. A series of governmental and scientific reports has cast doubt on whether it would ever work as planned.
At a time that the military faces giant budget cuts, the studies could prompt Congress to reconsider whether it is worthwhile to spend billions for a system that may not fulfill its original goals. The classified studies were summarized in a briefing for lawmakers by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ nonpartisan investigative and auditing arm, which is preparing a report. The GAO briefing, which was not classified, was obtained by The Associated Press.
Military officials declined repeated requests to discuss the studies on the record, noting they were classified. Even speaking on condition of anonymity, they declined to say whether the GAO had accurately reported its conclusions. But the GAO briefing had been reviewed by several Defense Department officials and the revisions they requested were incorporated. There was no indication they had objected to how the studies had been described…
| — Hat tip: Hermes | [Return to headlines] |
The Party of “In-nocence” congratulates France 2, which, to believe the astonishing report broadcast in the 8 o’clock news on Wednesday, 6 February 2013, has in some form resolved all on its own the question of the Great Replacement and the various harms linked to it. First of all this brief documentary evoked the impressive series of violent acts and aggressions which results, in a district called ‘sensitive’, in a no less impressive series of closures of all types, shopping centres, chemists, tobacconists, grocer’s shops, butcher’s shops and supermarkets.
Then comes the admirable solution noted in the report and implicitly praised by it, based on the example of a supermarket founded, owned and managed by a young entrepreneur of Turkish origin: no more attacks, this business is not threatened at all and prospers in peace. The young entrepreneur explains, with admirable candour, that insofar as the various shops and commercial premises are owned, managed and held by people of the same origins (or the same religion? since he himself is of Turkish origin) as the majority population, there will be no more violence and the risk of closure is removed: “We looked at all the robberies, the thefts and the attacks that took place, that’s when I said to myself that if it had been me that had had them, we wouldn’t have had all these problems”.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
German Visitors Turn Their Back on Greece, Survey
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, FEBRUARY 7 — German tourists will be in short supply in Greece this summer as less than 1% have made plans to visit the debt-hit country this season, as Kathimerini online reports citing a survey released Wednesday in Hamburg.
Only 0.8% of respondents said they intend to visit Greece this year, Ulrich Reinhardt of the Foundation for Future Studies who carried out the study, told Deutsche Welle. In 2012 the percentage of Germans who spend their holidays in Greece was 1.7%, Reingardt said. In 2009, before the debt crisis broke out, the figure was 3.3% he said. Greece’s tourism industry, crucial to its ailing economy, has been hit hard by political turmoil and economic uncertainty. German tourists are put off by reports of anti-German sentiment in some places and television images of strikes and anti-austerity riots, tour operators have said.
Greece’s “image problem,” Reinhardt said, is driving tourists to alternative tourism destinations such as Turkey, Italy and Spain. “Greeks must make it clear to the Germans that they are welcome in the country. It is very important that there is less news about strikes in Greece and more positive reports about the economy,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
German Education Minister Resigns Over Plagiarism Ruling
(AGI) Berlin — German education minister Annette Schavan has resigned after being stripped of her doctorate on plagiarism charges ..
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
German Voters ‘Won’t Accept’ Asian Politician
Comments by an FDP politician suggesting his party’s dismal approval ratings may be linked to party leader Phillip Rösler’s ethnic Vietnamese background have kick started yet another debate about underlying racism in German society.
“In the case of Phillip Rösler I’d like to know whether our society has come far enough to accept an Asian-looking vice chancellor for much longer,” deputy state premier of Hesse Jörg-Uwe Hahn, told the Frankfurter Neue Presse on Thursday.
Immediately his comment was jumped upon by members of the opposition Social Democrats (SDP) and Green party and decried as racist. Rösler, who was born in 1973 in Khanh Hung, Vietnam, and was adopted by German parents, is the first German cabinet minister to have a completely foreign ethnic background.
“It’s scandalous,” head of the SPD fraction Frank-Walter Steinmeier told ZDF television and added he expected Hahn to step down in light of his comments about his party leader.
Hahn, who is known in the party for inelegant formulations and unfortunate remarks, said he had been misunderstood. He had been taken for a racist, but had actually been referring to “widespread, often underlying racism” in German society, explained Hahn in a written statement on Thursday afternoon.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Islam in Britain — The Importance of Staying Angry.
Day-after-day there are news stories illustrating the folly of letting Muslims reside in a free society. So frequently do these stories arrive that one could be forgiven for ceasing to pay attention to them. When reading the endless reports of terrorism, pimping, drugs, and fraud involving Muslims, the stories eventually run into each-other, blending into a single, undramatic hum. Few people are shocked by these things anymore.
As understandable as this is, it is also a travesty. Relaxing even psychologically into this sick routine is a betrayal of the country: its past and future.
It would serve us better to remember a few fundamental things…
| [Return to headlines] |
Italian Defence Minister Urges Reform Within NATO
Di Paola says European Union members must make voices heard
(ANSA) — Rome, February 5 — Member states of the European Union must make themselves heard within NATO as part of a renewed political commitment to the defence organization, Italian Defence Minister Giampaolo Di Paola said Tuesday.
“So, in the future, Europeans must make their voices heard, they have to feel a renewed political commitment,” Di Paola told the 58th General Assembly of the Atlantic Treaty Association (ATA) at the NATO defence college in Rome.
“We should not be afraid of a process of balancing and re-balancing the alliance”. ATA General Assembly meetings are organized every year in a different member country. The most recent meetings were held in Ottawa, Canada (2007), Berlin, Germany (2008), Kiev, Ukraine (2009), and Tirana, Albania (2011).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Finance Police Probe Previous Pompeii Restoration Work
Investigations into ex-special commissioner for excavations
(ANSA) — Naples, February 5 — Police are investigating the former special commissioner for excavations as part of a larger probe into an eight-million euro restoration project at the Pompeii archaeological site.
Marcello Fiori is under investigation for abuse of office, and goods valued at about 810,000 euros were seized as part of the investigation, according to the prosecutor in the southern city of Torre Annunziata.
A legal representative of the Caccavo Srl contracting company is under house arrest and several engineers have been sanctioned, according to reports. This follows an investigation into contracts tendered and work performed at the UNESCO world heritage site after a state of emergency was declared there.
Authorities allege that contracts were rigged and granted to companies without the required specifications.
Possible criminal charges range from corruption, abuse of office, public-contract fraud and fraud against the state.
There was no word on whether this will affect this week’s commencement of a larger Grande Progetto Pompei or Great Pompeii Project designed to secure and improve access to the ruins of Pompeii.
The project has more than 100-million euros in financial backing from the European Commission, as well as the Italian government.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Man Fakes Paralysis: Collects Benefits of 700,000 Euros
Investigators probe medical certificates and claims
(ANSA) — Sanremo, February 7 — A 37-year-old man in the Ligurian city of Sanremo was cited Thursday for falsely claiming health benefits from the State worth 700,000 euros.
The man said that he was confined to a wheelchair after a highway accident.
Investigators said that the man falsified certificates to receive 3,000 euros a month in assistance funds.
He also received a one-time payment of 600,000 euros designated for victims left handicapped by traffic accidents.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Soccer: Balotelli Has Run-in With Traffic Police
Tempestuous Italy striker angry about parking fine
(ANSA) — Milan, February 7 — Tempestuous Italy forward Mario Balotelli had a run-in on Thursday with Italian traffic police who were in the process of giving him a parking fine at Milan’s Linate airport.
The 22-year-old AC Milan striker was reportedly asked to move his car from a no-parking zone by the traffic police, but cheekily moved it to another off-limits area instead of putting it in a car park.
When the officers then decided to give Balotelli a ticket, the row got so bad-tempered that members of another police force, the Carabinieri, came to support the traffic police.
The officers then ran checks and Balotelli was fined for not having his insurance document with him and not putting his insurance ticket on show.
But, in the end, he was not given a parking fine.
The player, who played in Italy’s 1-1 draw in the Netherlands on Wednesday and scored a double to help Milan beat Udinese 2-1 in his debut with the Serie A giants on Sunday, was at the airport to pick up some friends.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Antitrust Authority Examines Alitalia Ticketing System
Carrier accused of commercial fraud in separate probe
(ANSA) — Rome, February 7 — Italy’s antitrust authority (AGCM) on Thursday opened investigations into Alitalia after a flight operated by a partner carrier skidded off a Rome runway on Saturday. Separate criminal probes into the incident involving the Romanian carrier Carpatair are already underway. Now AGCM wants to establish whether Alitalia infringed the national consumer code in relation to information given to passengers on the stricken Saturday flight and other services operated by partner carriers or in code-sharing. The probe follows complaints by consumer watchdog association Codacons and internal checks.
“Simulations (have shown that) information concerning the carrier that effectively operates a flight is only provided at the third stage of on-line booking and in very small lettering,” the antitrust authority said in a statement. In addition AGCM will also look into the promotion and sale by Alitalia of certain products and services.
Three passengers were injured on Saturday when a Carpatair flight skidded off the runway during landing at Rome’s Fiumicino airport en route from Pisa. Alitalia is now under investigation for commercial fraud after allegedly deceiving customers by selling tickets marked Alitalia which were in fact for a foreign company.
The Italian carrier has denied the charges.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Monti Introduces New Dog Empatia on Twitter
Outgoing premier given dog on TV program
(ANSA) — Rome, February 7 — Outgoing Premier Mario Monti on Thursday posted a picture of his newly adopted dog, Empatia (Empathy). Monti was given the small, white dog of no particular breed that was introduced as Trozzy on the La7 television program ‘Invasioni Barbariche’ during Wednesday evening’s transmission.
TV conductor Daria Bignardi first showed Monti a photo of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi kissing his new puppy named Vittoria and asked if the premier would be willing to adopt a dog as well.
After taking Empatia, Empy for short, in his arms, Bignardi asked how it felt to hold the fluffy puppy.
“Magnificently good,” Monti said.
“Want to feel how soft she is?,” Monti asked.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Di Pietro Says His IDV Party Raised MPS Alarm ‘Long Ago’
Tells ANSA forum ‘Bersani snubbed alliance offer’
(ANSA) — Rome, February 7 — Antonio Di Pietro, head of the Italy of Values (IdV) party, on Thursday said his anti-corruption party had long ago reported irregularities at troubled Italian lender MPS in both the House and Senate hearings and said that there are “institutional responsibilities which must be revealed and denounced”.
In an open forum held at ANSA earlier, Di Pietro spoke on various topics, including the unfolding MPS scandal, the Italian presidency and upcoming elections.
Answering a question on the MPS case, Di Pietro said how in his days as a public prosecutor, when he gained fame during the “Bribesville” scandals, bribes were paid “with cash hidden in rolls of toilet paper in the bathroom”. Nowadays, Di Pietro said, “there is the broker who gets a commission because he is trading and gets his royalties. But it’s always 5%, it’s always a bribe” even though it has been “cleansed” from its association with crime. With reference to the February 24 vote, Di Pietro said he had written to the head of the Democratic Party (PD), Pier Luigi Bersani, to offer an alliance but never got a response.
“I made a written offer to make a left-leaning coalition, but never got an answer from Bersani,” Di Pietro said while speaking at an ANSA forum.
Responding to another question, Di Pietro said that he would be “very happy” to see a woman elected to Italy’s presidency.
“I would be happy to vote for a woman as president of the Republic, but I wouldn’t vote for her only because she is a woman, rather on the basis of her personal and political history and for the prestige she would be able to give the institution”.
In Italy, the largely ceremonial president is elected every seven years by the parliament.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Schulz Says He Will Support Bersani
(AGI) Rome, Feb 9 — Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, said he would support Pier Luigi Bersani as premier. “On January 27, Remembrance Day, our thoughts were with the victims, whilst others thought of the dictators. The latter are not worthy to guide our future,” Schulz said at the conference of European Progressives in Turin.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘Satisfied’ Monti Says Italy’s Net EU Contribution Cut
New European budget ‘significant improvement’ says premier
(ANSA) — Brussels, February 8 — Italian Premier Mario Monti said Friday’s deal on the EU’s budget for the next seven years was “satisfying” because it featured a “very significant improvement” in Italy’s contributions.
He said Italy’s net contribution — the difference between what it pays into the bloc and receives from it — will be 3.8 billion euros for the 2014-2020 period.
The net contribution was 4.5 billion in the 2007-2013 period, although it reached six billion in 2011, when Italy was the biggest contributor to the EU budget in relation to the size of its gross domestic product. “We negotiated very hard,” said Monti.
“I think it’s a significant, concrete start towards a reversal of the trend, but there will certainly be further battles”.
European leaders agreed to set a new budget ceiling of 960 billion euros, down from 1.03 trillion euros, in the first-ever reduction to the EU’s multi-annual budget.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Soccer: Maradona Pleads to Italian Politicians Over Tax Case
Former Argentina great laments inability to return to Naples
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 5 — Former Argentina soccer great Diego Maradona has appealed to Italy’s politicians to intervene in his dispute with the Italian tax authorities.
The Italian inland revenue agency says Maradona owes around 40 million euros for unpaid taxes on off-the-books earnings in sponsorship and merchandising deals during his 1984-1991 sting at Napoli.
Last week the ex-player’s lawyer said a tax commission had cancelled the debt, but the inland revenue agency subsequently said this was not true. Maradona, who is revered in Naples for helping the city’s soccer team to win two Serie A titles and the UEFA Cup, had a diamond-studded earring and a Rolex watch seized, among other assets, on past visits to Italy.
“I’m not a tax evader. I never have been because I only played soccer,” Maradona said in a video message released by his lawyer.
“I cannot freely return to Naples with peace of mind and this is not right,” he added, appearing close to tears. “I appeal to the politicians. I didn’t steal anything. If I did things wrong, it was about other stuff. I want to return to Naples freely.
“They haven’t got evidence to come after me or to persecute me. I ask all the Italian politicians to look closely at who is behind all this.
“They are robbing me of the chance to see again the people of Naples, who I love”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
TAV Money Included in EU Budget Deal, Says Hollande
Controversial high-speed train part of transport funds
(ANSA) — Brussels, February 8 — Funds for the high-speed TAV railway are included in those allocated for European transportation, French President Francois Hollande said on Friday following the announcement of the EU 2014-2020 budget deal.
The controversial TAV rail link project between Turin and Lyon has led to violent protests in Italy, but is considered by both countries as a “strategic” and “priority” piece of infrastructure for the entire European Union. Italy has also said the high-speed rail project, known in Italy as the TAV, is an important driver of economic growth.
Opponents of the project contest its high cost and impact on the environment.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: *** Disturbing content.*** ]
On the rare occasions that 19-year-old Michael Fergus goes out with his friends on a Saturday night, his mother Denise is never far from his thoughts.
He knows she worries, so he sends countless text messages, telling her where he is, who he’s with, that he’s safe and what time he’ll be home.
‘I hate seeing my mum upset, that’s the worst thing. I don’t like it at all,’ says Michael. ‘If I stay out a bit later than I said I was going to, I feel guilty.’
Denise, 45, adds: ‘He’ll text me to say, “I’m all right Mum, don’t worry”, but I can’t sleep until he comes in. If he’s ten minutes late, I start to panic.’
[…]
It sounds a rather claustrophobic existence — but Michael accepts it without complaint. ‘I understand why my mother is the way she is,’ he says simply.
This is because Michael is the younger brother of murdered toddler James Bulger. His protected existence is the legacy of a childhood spent in the shadow of one of the most disturbing murders in British history.
Having lost one child in incomprehensibly brutal circumstances, Denise Fergus has made it her mission to make sure it can never happen again.
Listening to Michael describe his life in his first ever interview — which he has given to mark the 20th anniversary of his brother’s murder — it seems the cruellest of ironies, that it is he who has paid for James’s death with his freedom, rather than the two ten-year-old schoolboys who killed him.
The original trial judge ordered Thompson and Venables to be detained until adulthood. This was later increased by the then Home Secretary, Michael Howard, to 15 years, but a European Court upheld the original eight-year sentence, ruling the juveniles had been denied a fair hearing in an adult court.
“I remember this appalling case as if it was yesterday. In common with so may people I cannot understand how those two boys could be released, they had after all tried to take another toddler earlier.“ — Poppy , Malaga United Kingdom,
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Disturbing content.]
A judge has told two hitmen who brutally murdered a 17-year-old schoolboy in a bungled contract killing they deserve to die in jail as he sentenced them to a minimum term of 40 years in prison each.
Ben Hope, 39, and Jason Richards, 38, stabbed Aamir Siddiqi, 17, in a frenzied attack in front of his parents who were also injured as they tried to save their son’s life.
The drug-addled pair, who had taken heroin, had mixed up the address of their planned £2,000 hit.
They had each been paid £1,000 in ‘blood money’ to kill a middle-aged man who owed money to a businessman.
But the balaclava-wearing assassins went to the Siddiqi family home by mistake.
Aamir’s parents, Iqbal and Parveen, fought to save their son but were also stabbed by his ‘howling’ killers.
[…]
The man who paid Hope and Richards cannot be named for legal reasons.
The intended target was father-of-four Mohammed Tanhai, who had unwittingly become indebted to the killers’ employer.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Yet again, an Israeli-owned company is being prevented from carrying out its lawful business by a racist mob. Previously, such outbreaks of antisemitism masking as anti-Israel protests have galvanized the community into a response. But because the latest victim, EcoStream, is in Brighton, the issue seems to have fallen off Anglo-Jewry’s radar. Only a few dedicated souls are able to man the pavements week in, week out. It is time some of our community leaders joined them at the seaside to show solidarity. And we need to think about a fundamental question: how far away are we from a situation in which mob-rule means that no Israeli-owned company can comfortably operate on a British high street?
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Neo-Nazi Former BNP Members Launch New Far-Right Party
They hope the new British Democratic Party will kill off the BNP, while security for the launch meeting will be provided by EDL activists.
Andrew Brons, a former Chair of the National Front and until recently one of the British National Party’s MEPs, will launch a new far-right party this weekend — one he and his supporters hope will finally kill off the BNP. The British Democratic Party (BDP) launches tomorrow in a village hall in Leicestershire, as the hardline alternative for disillusioned BNP members and supporters. Security for the meeting is being provided by EDL activists, bussed into the area from as far as Newcastle, to provide protection from the possibility of attack — not from antifascists, but from the rival BNP who are meeting in nearby Leicester…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Pickpocket Caught With 44 Mobile Phones Stashed in His Cycling Shorts After Targeting Nightclub
A pickpocket who targeted young clubbers in a popular nightspot was found with more than 40 mobile phones stashed down his trousers.
Club bosses at Warehouse Project in Trafford Park, Manchester, were tipped off that a number of revellers had lost their phones and arranged for police to search everyone leaving the venue.
They were astonished to find Iulian Cojocaru, 28, with 44 phones stashed in a pair of Lycra cycling shorts under his trousers, including iPhones, Androids and BlackBerry handsets.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Recycling Con: Millions of Tons End Up in Landfill as Officials Admit Success is Exaggerated
Millions of tons of rubbish carefully sorted by families for recycling has been buried in landfill.
After years of denials, officials admitted yesterday that much of the waste councils claim to have recycled is turned away by depots.
A paper from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs revealed that most managers at plants that recycle rubbish for industrial use say that at best ‘some’ — and in other cases ‘hardly any’ — of the waste sent to them is usable.
The news confirms the fears of many householders — forced to comply with fortnightly collection rules and bin police regulations — that the painstaking recycling process ends when the dustmen have finished their round.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Stafford Scandal: Let’s Face the Truth About Our Uncaring, Selfish and Cruel NHS
by Charles Moore
We don’t want any Mid Staffs ‘scapegoats’ — just the people who are actually to blame
It is officially calculated that, between 2005 and 2009, up to 1,200 patients at Stafford Hospital died needlessly. Let us imagine that a comparable disaster occurred in any other institution or enterprise in this country. Suppose that hundreds of customers of the cold food counter at Sainsbury’s or Tesco died of food poisoning. Suppose that, at an army barracks, large comprehensive, steelworks, bank, hotel, university campus or holiday theme park, people died, and went on dying for years, at rates that hugely exceeded anything that could be attributed to the normal course of nature…
[Reader comment by sid on 9 February 2013 at about 9 am.]
Mr Moore, you point out that the conservatives have been curiously prim about pointing out that all the deaths took place under Labour. Have you any idea as to the other great mystery as to why they have been silent on the revelations by Andrew Neather, that Labour deliberatly chose mass immigration as a political weapon against the democratic opposition.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Liverpool View: Islamophobia in Contemporary Britain
Dr Leon Moosavi is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Liverpool
In January 2011, Baroness Warsi claimed that Islamophobia had ‘passed the dinner-table test’, meaning that prejudice against Muslims was commonplace in British society. This unique intolerance of Muslims can involve stereotyping, discrimination and even harassment of the significant number of Muslims that now live in Britain. Even though two years have passed since a high-profile politician like Warsi highlighted the problem, it appears little has changed, which is why in January 2013, she again made public comments explaining that Muslims are still marginalised in British society…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The £14m New Police HQ Stalled by an Endangered Newt Found Hibernating on the Site
The construction of a new multimillion-pound police headquarters has been halted to protect a newt that is hibernating on site.
Durham Constabulary began work on their new base last October but work has come to a standstill after a great crested newt was found.
The endangered creature’s population has dramatically declined during the last century and it is protected by law.
The new site, in Aykley Heads, Durham, is expected to cost £14 million to complete and was given the go-ahead last June.
But Natural England, the body that seeks to protect the nation’s environment, has said that no work to move the newts could take place until May, when the creatures come out of hibernation…
‘It is an iconic native species whose numbers have plummeted across Europe in the last century, resulting in their protection under European law.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Any magician worth his salt must master sleight of hand.
But when Amit Gadhia, an in-store entertainer at Harrods, abused his talents to pilfer cash, he wasn’t quite clever enough.
Gadhia, 35, saw his opportunity after being moved to a job on the cheese counter…using one hand to slip money from the till and the other to conceal it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Why Have So Many Nurses Stopped Caring? An Investigation Into the Crisis-Hit NHS
[WARNING: * Disturbing case studies * ]
Evidence has been piling up recently to suggest that something is seriously, and systemically, amiss in our hospitals. This week, the scathing report on the Stafford Hospital Scandal — after abuse and neglect led to the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of patients — said ‘fundamental change’ was needed in the NHS. It condemned ‘failings at every level’ and contained 290 recommendations for reform. However, Robert Francis QC’s report was merely the latest damning indictment of the health service.
In November 2012 the Care Quality Commission found that ten per cent of hospitals and 15 per cent of care homes weren’t treating their patients with respect. Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, warned that cruelty and neglect had become normal in some hospitals and care homes.
So endemic is the problem that the country’s chief nursing officer, Jane Cummings, has been forced to tell nurses that they must put patients first, releasing guidelines which remind them that compassion and care are part of the job. As shocking — and ineffectual — as this may seem, the comments are long overdue.
[…]
Liz Pryor witnessed the appalling treatment of her 79-year-old mother, Anne Robson, in West Suffolk Hospital after a minor fall. She believes her mother died because of the neglect she experienced in hospital, and thinks that the failings there come from a failure at a deep social level — from a failure of kindness. ‘Care and compassion for the vulnerable’, she says, ‘are no longer instilled in our upbringing.’
[…]
Elaine blames the official performance targets introduced by the last government. ‘Matrons today will not necessarily be concerned with the basics but with admissions, turn-over and discharges, care plans and staffing rotas,’ she says.
[…]
In order to find out the answers to these questions, I spent three months looking into the NHS’s problems. In this three-part investigation for the Daily Mail, I document a ward culture that puts bureaucratic targets before care — and where a gulf is opening up between university-trained nurses and unregulated healthcare assistants.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Al-Barr: Muslim Brotherhood Urges Political Forces to Compete in Service of All Egyptians
Muslim Brotherhood leader Al-Barr invites all opposition forces to shun mindless violence and engage in community service competition.
Dr. Abdul-Rahman Al-Barr, member of the Muslim Brotherhood Guidance Bureau, urged all political forces to compete in the service of the Egyptian citizen, pointing that the Brotherhood has already organized charity markets in which foods and goods are sold at discounted prices to help low-income people…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Benghazi — Where Was the Commander-in-Chief?
After the testimonies of Secretary Panetta, General Dempsey, and Hillary Clinton on the Benghazi tragedy, it appears the Commander-in-Chief, Barack Obama was off duty and not available to make a hard decision to press the military Chain of Command to rescue Americans under attack. The cover up appears to be a White House order to “Stand Down” and not issue a rescue mission operational order. For over seven hours he did nothing; no communications with his National Security team, and then he flew to Las Vegas for a campaign stop. “Weakness and dithering and flying to Las Vegas the next day for celebrity fund-raising parties are somehow better.”
The testimony revealed that Obama stated to Panetta and Dempsey, “Do what you have to do.” Where was the order to execute a rescue mission NOW Mr. President? The investigation regarding the 9/11 al Qaeda raid on Benghazi and the deaths of four brave Americans began, but to date it has no end or acceptable findings, and provides no answers for the families of the four murdered Americans.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Violent protests in the cradle of Arab Spring have flared up as tens of thousands of youths battle with police in Tunisia during the funeral procession for secular opposition leader Chokri Belaid and Egyptians fire-bomb the presidential palace.
Tunisian police fired teargas at demonstrators who threw stones and set cars ablaze and stole from mourners as at least 50,000 people turned out to honour Belaid in his home district of Jebel al-Jaloud in the capital.
In Egypt, at least 45 people were hurt during the day across the country with some of the most violent clashes today in the Nile Delta town of Tanta, hometown of an activist, 23-year-old Mohamed el-Gendi, who was buried there this week after being beaten to death by security men in Cairo. Protesters also attacked the presidential palace, throwing homemade bombs and stones.
Two years after autocratic rulers have been swept from power, many in Egypt and Tunisia are angry over what they see as an attempt by Islamists to hijack their revolutions without improving their prospects for a better life.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: YouTube Faces Ban for Hosting Anti-Islam Film
A Cairo court has ordered that the website YouTube be banned in Egypt for 30 days for carrying an anti-Islam film that caused deadly riots across the world.
Judge Hassouna Tawfiq ordered the government to block YouTube because it carries the amateur film produced by an Egyptian in the United States.
The film caused uproar for denigrating Islam and the Prophet Muhammad.
Lawyer Mohammed Hamid Salim, who filed the lawsuit last year, alleges the film constitutes a threat to Egypt’s security.
The ruling can be appealed. Past verdicts ordering the blocking of websites deemed offensive in Egypt have not been applied.
The film sparked demonstrations last September that spread to more than 20 countries, including Egypt.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Jonathan, Morsi Renew Ties
President Goodluck Jonathan has pledged to renew the strong ties that existed between the country and one of its African ally; Egypt. He made this pledge to Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, yesterday when he attended the opening of the 12th session of the summit of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Cairo…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: One Million People at Belaid Funeral, Nationwide Unrest
PM Jebali moves forward with his new gov’t, ‘almost ready’
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS — Thousands of people (one million, according to the Interior ministry) — gathered in the Djellaz cemetery on Friday to attend the burial of assassinated opposition leader Chokri Belaid. Amid the clapping of hands and yelling of slogans praising the politician and against government majority party Ennahdha, an imam chanted Koranic verses in honour of the dead.
However, as the army vehicle bringing his coffin entered the cemetery, tear gas filled the air after police clashed with vandals ransacking and setting fire to a number of vehicles. It was a sign of the dual nature of the day, midway between mourning and rage over the death of the politician and the unrest which continues throughout the country.
A gesture of high symbolic value, Belaid’s coffin was transported in an army open truck. Of those taking part in Friday’s demonstrations to commemorate Belaid, hundreds not only chanted the victim’s name but also that of General Rachid Ammar, head of all of Tunisia’s armed forces, with protestors calling on him to intervene. Ammar is well known in Tunisia for his refusal to comply with Ben Ali’s order two years ago to deploy the army against those demanding the end to his regime.
Out of respect for the Koran, no women were allowed to take part in his funeral — not even Belaid’s wife, Bassma, who followed the coffin in a car. They will instead be able to visit the tomb tomorrow. A symbolic funeral was held for Belaid on Friday in Sfax, with thousands of others who shouted out slogans against the government and Ennahdha as they followed an empty casket covered by a Tunisian flag and a photo of the politician assassinated. Online media and social networks with links to the Islamist party in the government claimed that the mass participation in the funerals had been manipulated by the media and the opposition. Clashes and unrest were seen in the streets throughout the day. The Jendouba governor’s palace was attacked by hundreds of people, though organisers of the demonstration tried to stop the crowd from breaking into it. The Hammam-Lif (a municipality not far from Tunis) police station was attacked by a group which tried to set fire to it. The police, however, were able to prevent them from doing so.
Tunisia’s prime minister, Hamadi Jebali, has reiterated his intention to dissolve the government he leads despite opposition from his party, Ennahdha. The government is to be replaced by a technocratic one. Jebali was quoted by the TAP news agency as saying that “I will not go through the Constituent Assembly for voting”. He added that the formation of the new government “is almost ready”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: The Poet and Politician — Who Was Chokri Belaid?
The assassination of the highly respected opposition figure Chokri Belaid has thrown Tunisia into turmoil and could mark a turning point in Tunisian politics. Since opposition figure Chokri Belaid was assassinated yesterday morning, Tunisia has been thrown into total turmoil. Political violence is rare in Tunisia, so the assassination targeting a household name and performed in such spectacular style — Belaid was shot four times at point blank range by an unknown gunman outside his home — shook Tunisians to the core…
[JP note: Islam is terror and the assassination serves a useful purpose as a sign of things to come.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: “Ghannouchi Assassin”
by Hugh Fitzgerald
That was the cry at the cemetery in Tunisia. Wouldn’t it be something if Rachid Ghannouchi from now on would have to worry that a Tunisian, determined to evenge not just for Chikri Belaid, but for other secularists killed, might now kill him? From now on, wouldn’t it be something if the man who had gone into exile in London and then returned triumphantly to Tunisia to plot and scheme (he was caught on tape urging his followers to have patience, as Ennahda apparatchiks determinedly infiltrated into all the areas of Tunisian politicial, economic, and social influence), would now find that he couldn’t walk the streets, he couldn’t address crowds, he couldn’t allow anyone to suddenly come up to greet him or to hand him a gift or a petition, because of fear that he, Rachid Ghannouchi, would be killed because he is regarded by many as an assassin, and by many Tunisians is now Wanted For Murder?
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
El Al Shareholders Say Saturday Flights Necessary
‘Kosher’ airline may do away with weekly day of rest
(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 8 — Abide by religious precepts or pay off its debts: this is the dilemma before Israel’s flagship carrier El Al As a matter of tradition, the airline does not offer Saturday flights, in line with Jewish religious precepts prohibiting travel on the Sabbath, the weekly day of rest. However, the economic straits the company finds itself in may lead to a change in policy. According to Izzy Borovich, majority shareholder in the company, “El Al must fly on the Sabbath.
This is the only way to survive in the world of global aviation”. “There is the need to change company culture,” the businessman was quoted by the Israeli economic news site Globes as saying, “this is what is most important.” The company management has reportedly begun preliminary talks with employees, aiming to draw up a new labour contract. But the move is likely to meet with staunch opposition, and not only among El Al employees. The proposed change will inevitably be anything but approved of by the airline’s ultra-Orthodox (regular or potential) customers, who may call a boycott.
A number of precedents exist. In the past, several rabbis spoke out about the flagship carrier’s stratagem to get around the weekly day of rest by setting up another company, the Sun d’Or International Airlines. Sun d’Or used El Al planes and crew to fly during the Sabbath and religious holidays, but issued its own code. The ultra-orthodox were not the only ones to protest against the stratagem, and El Al was also criticized by Europe.
Eventually Sun d’Or had its license revoked.
The airline then decided to lease out its aircraft to two charter companies, Israir and Arkia. This move enabled the carrier to continue boasting of its title as ‘kosher airline”, but from an economic standpoint it proved insufficient. This time round El Al may give way under the weight of its debts, which total tens of millions of euros.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Deadly Attack on Iranian Refugee Camp Near Baghdad
At least six people were killed and dozens were wounded at a camp that houses Iranian exiles opposed to the government in Tehran, but there were conflicting reports on the nature of the deadly assault.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
How Jihadist Group Jabhat Al-Nusra is Taking Over Syria’s Revolution
by Ruth Sherlock
Aleppo has been plunged into despair. Riven with war, life in Syria’s most populous city has become a dog-eat-dog existence: a battle for survival in a place where the strong devour the weak.
Its luxuriant history is lost beneath uncollected litter on its pavements and streets. Feral children play beside buildings shattered by shelling and air strikes. There is no electricity, no heating; gunmen prowl the streets as night falls. Some are rebels searching for government loyalists; others are criminals looking to kidnap for ransom. Looting is rife. It is here, behind the front lines of the war against Bashar al-Assad that a new struggle is emerging. It is a clash of ideologies: a competition where rebel brigades vie to determine the shape of post-Assad Syria. And in recent weeks it is Jabhat al-Nusra, a radical jihadist group blacklisted by the US as terrorists and a group that wants Syria to be an uncompromising Islamic state governed by sharia, that is holding sway…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: At Least 5 Killed, 40 Wounded in Rocket Barrage on Iran Exile Camp Near Baghdad
BAGHDAD, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) — At least five were killed and some 40 others wounded in a rocket barrage which targeted the Iranian exiles in a base near Baghdad airport on Saturday morning, an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua. The attack occurred when some 20 Katyusha rockets struck Camp Hurriya (or Liberty), which is a former U.S. military base, located near the Baghdad airport in the southwest of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the source said on condition of anonymity…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Look Out! ‘Islamists Kidnapped the Revolution’
Middle East expert: Arab Spring is certain to implode
A recognized expert on Islam who is director of the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies says that the Arab Spring — the surge of Islamist influences in nations throughout the Middle East and across North Africa — eventually will implode.
There are several reasons for this, but a primary factor is that Islamic factions will not join together, said Meir Litvak, who is an associate professor at the Department of Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University in addition to his other duties.
“We may see a more Islamist Middle East but not a unified Middle East,” he said, “because of the local identities and local agendas of each local Islamist agendas … this is an illusion.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Spy Chief: Dutch Citizens Fighting in Syria
Dozens of Dutch citizens are fighting with rebels in Syria and could return home battle-hardened, traumatized and even further radicalized, the chief of the Netherlands’ top intelligence agency has warned.
In a rare interview with Dutch television aired late Thursday, Rob Bertholee, head of the General Intelligence and Security Service, said the number of Dutch nationals heading to Syria is growing fast and he is concerned about their return home after fighting with radical Islamic rebels in the civil war.
“In my view that is very worrying because of the combat experience they acquire, the ideological convictions and the fact that they could become traumatized there,” Bertholee told Dutch current affairs show Nieuwsuur.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Moscow Patriarchate: Progress in Relations With Catholics, Increased Distances With Protestants
The Council of Russian Orthodox Bishops concludes confirming the alliance with the Catholic Church for the defence of Christian values and against aggressive secularism. But, the bishops ask for “greater transparency” on theological dialogue with Catholics.
Moscow (AsiaNews) — Relations between the Russian Orthodox and Catholic Church in recent years are experiencing a “ positive trend,” due to the “clear recognition of the need to join forces in defence of traditional Christian values ??and counter some threats of modernity, such as the ‘aggressive secularism which threatens the moral basis of social and private life, the crisis of family values ??and the persecution and discrimination of Christians in the world”. This overview of inter-Christian dialogue, and in particular with the Catholic Church, was given by the Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill, as he opened the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church on February 2nd.
In his speech, published on the Patriarchate website, Kirill recalled some of the events in ecumenical dialogue with Catholics. Among these, the work of the the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, that aims to outline “a common position on a number of topical issues including family, church and state relations, the moral and spiritual reasons for the economic crisis. “
Kirill highlighted his visit to Poland in August, the first as head of the Russian Orthodox Church and the ‘historical’ signature together with the President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, Msgr. Jozef Michalik, of a joint statement. The document is defined by the Patriarch as “the reflection of a mutual desire to forgive offenses and heal past wounds that have obscured relations between the Russian and Polish peoples.” The two churches have thus traced a common path with respect to issues such as secularism, abortion, euthanasia and the family.
In his message, the Patriarch hopes for continued good relations with the ancient Churches of the East, “especially at a time like this where countries once considered Christian are turning in a hostile manner on Christians themselves.” The reference is to the situation of the community in the Middle East and Africa, victim of targeted attacks by Islamic fundamentalism. Kirill has thus called for “solidarity between Christians in protecting the dignity of believers and to condemn hatred and vandalism against places of worship.”
Finally, in his message to the Council, the Patriarch criticized the Protestant communities, which “continue on the path of liberalization, especially in ecclesiology and moral teaching.” His criticisms are directed at the “blessing of homosexual unions and ordination of people who have openly admitted a non-traditional sexual orientation” that is becoming “the norm for several Protestant communities in the West”. For this reason, he said, trying to achieve a common doctrinal position with these churches “has lost its meaning.”
In the final resolution of the Council of Bishops, which ended on Feb. 5, the orthodox bishops subscribed to these positions, however, they also raised “concerns” regarding the theological Orthodox-Catholic dialogue. The Council notes “differences of approach” in the dialogue itself and expresses “doubts” regarding documents produced on the theme of Primacy in the universal Church, conciliarity (sobornost), orthodox doctrine and canonical tradition. The bishops stressed the need to make the process “more transparent.” They propose the inclusion of all bishops in the discussion of documents prepared by the committees responsible for the theological dialogue with Catholics. This consultation is justified, by “the primary importance of these decisions and the responsibility of bishops to preserve the purity of the Orthodox faith and the peace and unity of the Church.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Govt. Arrests 271 Muslims Suspected of Terrorism
(AGI) St. Petersburg, Feb 9 — An anti-terrorism roundup in Russia led to the arrest of hundreds of Muslims from former U.S.S.R. nations and others. At least 271 people were arrested in St. Petersburg. The suspects, “from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, one Egyptian and an Afghan,” the FSB stated, “were arrested because they were suspected of terrorist activity”.
The operation was carried out in St. Petersburg’s central market of Apraskine Dvor, which is popular with Muslims.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Clashes, Protest in Indian Controlled Kashmir Over Guru’s Hanging
SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) — Violent clashes and protests broke out in Indian-controlled Kashmir Saturday over the execution of Indian parliament attack convict Mohammed Afzal Guru, officials said. The clashes broke out in Sopore and Baramulla towns, northwest of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Delhi Parliament Attack Plotter Hanged in India
A Kashmiri separatist was executed on Saturday over his role in a deadly attack on parliament in New Delhi in 2001, an episode that brought nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
Mohammed Afzal Guru, a former fruit seller, was hanged at Tihar Jail on the outskirts of the capital after his final appeal for mercy was rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee.
He is only the second person to be executed in India in nearly a decade. With authorities fearing a backlash over the execution, a curfew was imposed in parts of Indian-administered Kashmir and the centre of the main city was sealed off. While India’s main opposition party welcomed the execution, one of Guru’s co-accused who was later cleared said it was a travesty of justice. “Afzal Guru was hanged at 8:00am. All legal procedures were followed in the execution,” Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde told reporters…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: *** Extremely Disturbing Content. ***]
Dozens of women were abandoned unconscious in a field after being sterilised at a rural health centre in India.
Two doctors carried 106 sterilisation operations in a single day at government-run Manikchak Rural Hospital in West Bengal as part of mass ‘health drive’.
The patients should have been kept under observation for at least three hours, but with only 30 beds at the hospital reserved for women, they were left on the pavement with no medical assistance or protection against infections.
The doctors at the government-run hospital are now under investigation and at least one health officer has been suspended.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
India: Orissa: Police Corruption Aggravates Violence Against Christians and Minorities
The Global Council of Indian Christians raises the issue after police officers kill five farmers, mistaking them for Maoist fighters. Meanwhile, seven innocent Christians continue to languish in prison, accused of causing the 2008 anti-Christian pogroms.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) — Corruption in the police force and local government in Orissa favours violence against the poor as well as ethnic and religious minorities, this according to Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC). He spoke as violence against Dalits, Tribals and minority groups, especially Christians, gets worse and the prospects for justice get dimmer.
The latest episode occurred in Gajapathi when police on 14 November gunned down five people, four men and a woman, whom they mistook to be Maoist rebels. Since then, the victims’ families have tried to obtain justice and compensation, to no avail.
The people killed were all farmers. Three of them-Aiba Padra, 35, Shyamason Majhi, 50, and Sanatan Mallick, 27-were adivasi, from the aboriginal Khondh tribe. The other two, Ghasiram Bagsingh, 33, and Laxmi Kanta Nayak (the only woman), were Pano Dalits.
Aiba, Syamason and Ghasiram were also social activists working on behalf of their respective community.
Although the victims were well known and no weapons were found at the site where they were killed, police said they opened fire when they came under attack.
A month later, on 12 December, another anti-Christian episode was reported in Raikia (Kandhamal). Acting on behalf of the local mafia, local authorities tore down 12 houses, forcing the residents, poor families headed by widows, into the streets without compensation or alternate housing.
Meanwhile, seven innocent Christians are still in jail after four years. In calling for their release, Sajan George noted that they were not involved in the killing of Laxamananda Saraswati, a Hindu leader, whose death sparked Orissa’s anti-Christian pogroms of 2008.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Schoolgirl, 14, Is Gang-Raped in India Yet Ten Days Later No One Has Been Arrested
[WARNING: *** Extremely Disturbing Content. ***]
A 14-year-old schoolgirl is on life support in hospital after being brutally gang-raped in rural India.
Police have failed to make any arrests since the horrific attack in the Jalandhar district of Punjab ten days ago.
Yesterday Punjab Congress president Capt Amarinder Singh condemned the attack and expressed his concerns over the ‘rising incidents’ of rape in the state.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
This Before and After Image of Afghanistan is Hard to Believe
This image of Afghanistan might be hard to wrap your head around, but it’s totally accurate. Prior to three-plus decades of war, Afghanistan, and Kabul in particular, had a pretty solid setup, one that westerners would often visit.
Sadly, the image on the right is likely to remain a reality for the foreseeable future.
Taken by amateur photographer Dr. William F. Podlich in the 1960s, the two women are his daughters (Afghan women, even most men, don’t bare arms or legs in public), this and other pictures show westerners and Afghans in western-style clothing, clean streets, and buildings without any bullet holes.
[Comment: More photos at: //blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2013/01/28/podlich-afghanistan-1960s-photos/5846/]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
To Survive, More and More Nepali Families Force Daughters Into Prostitution
Traffickers promise good money to convince parents to let go of their daughters, especially in rural village where unemployment is high. Once sold, girls are taken to India, China or Arab countries. A 19-year-old former prostitute tells her hellish life in a Delhi brothel.
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) — Trafficking in Nepali women and girls towards India, China and Arab countries is a growing problem. Unemployment in the Himalayan nation is high and many families, to survive, end up selling their daughters to traffickers who force the latter into prostitution. With promises of US$ 40-55 a month, traffickers induce parents to hand over their children. Brothel owners pay them US$ 40-65 a month.
“In remote villages, more and more families are forced to sell their youngest daughters in exchange of a monthly payment,” said Parbati Budathoki, a former prostitute in Surkhet District (northern Nepal), told AsiaNews.
“Most of the victims are used by their parents or blood relatives as a source of income,” the 19-year-old explained. She herself was sold to a brothel in Delhi (India) when she was only 16 for 15,000 rupees (US$ 280).
“In Delhi, I received up to 25 customers a day,” she remembers. “If I did not work, my masters would beat me, burn me with cigarettes. The same would happen to other young women.”
During her captivity, she tried to escape four times, unsuccessfully. She only got out because of a customer who married her in order to free her from her slave status.
Parbati said that she and six other girls from her village ended up in the same place. Many of those who make it to 25-30 years go into business and open their own brothel.
This is the worst part of the story because often former prostitutes return to their home village to recruit, contributing to trafficking.
Surkhet Police Chief Biswa Niranjan Pradhan said that after Parbati’s case, the authorities decided to launch an investigation into the sale of young women by families. In her case, they arrested her father Parshuram Budathoki Mizar, and three other men.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Censorship? Never, This is Human Rights Watch
by Orlando Radice
There is a respectful hush among the journalists. This is the launch of Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) World Report 2013, and executive director Kenneth Roth is at the podium. “The media is key to what we do,” he tells the press. The compliment is returned. Admiring questions bubble up from the floor. “Tell us about China,” asks one journalist. “What’s your view of the situation in Russia?” asks another. All is serene at the high church of human rights. Except that it isn’t…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Year of Snake Sees Serpent Sales Soar in Hong Kong
As Hong Kong prepares to usher in the Year of the Snake, an increasing number of the reptiles are slithering their way into local households, with sales of the uncuddly pet rocketing.
Keeping snakes has become increasingly popular in the densely-populated city in recent years as animal lovers seek out less space-hungry pets.
And with the spotlight firmly on the reptile in the lead-up to the Lunar New Year on Sunday, sales have surged.
At Reptile Paradise, a store which first opened its doors in Hong Kong’s Mong Kok neighbourhood in 1994, dozens of baby snakes, not more than a few weeks old, frantically try to climb their way out of small plastic boxes.
As well as turtles and lizards the shop sells milk snakes, corn snakes, king snakes and ball pythons, plus containers of live white mice to feed them.
Its director Vincent Cheung said snake sales have been rising steadily for several months prior to the arrival of the new year.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France ‘Paid $17 Million’ Ransom for Mali Hostages
According to a former US ambassador to Mali, France paid 17 million dollars in 2010 to free four French hostages still being held by their Salafist kidnappers, probably in the county’s northeastern Ifoghas mountain range.
Paris paid a ransom in 2010 of some 17 million dollars to free four French hostages — who are still being held by al Qaeda-linked militants, probably in northern Mali, according to a former US ambassador to Mali.
“Two years ago, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) kidnapped a number of French citizens at a uranium mine in Niger,” Vicki Huddleston, who was US ambassador to Mali from 2002 to 2005, told French news channel iTélé late on Thursday.
“To get them freed, France paid a 17-million-dollar ransom. Like all ransoms, it was paid indirectly, through the Malian government, which forwarded at least some of the funds to the Salafists (Islamists).”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya: Cattle Raid Leaves Seven Dead
Nairobi — Seven people were killed and several others wounded during a cattle raid in Turkana on Friday. The incident occurred at a remote village in Kaptiri at dawn where bandits attacked a manyatta. “The attack left seven people dead and we have others who have been wounded,” a senior police officer told Capital FM News from Turkana. “We have been told of more deaths, but we are yet to confirm this.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya: Explain Exactly What Makes Hate Speech
THE National Cohesion and Integration Commission has produced a useful study of coded language in Kenyan society. Some of the stereotypes that tribes have of each other are positive and some are negative. The Kikuyu, for instance, are simultaneously admired and attacked for their business prowess. Tribes that practise circumcision have derogatory names for the uncircumcised, and by implication the Luo. The NCIC wants to discourage use of these negative words through a massive public education campaign. This is all well and good but the NCIC still needs to properly define hate speech for Kenyans. A word like ‘uncircumcised’ can be neutral or negative. It all depends on the context…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Young Girls Testify to Human Rights Abuses in Northern Mali
World Vision is extremely concerned about the plight of girls and young women in Northern Mali, amid growing reports of young women being beaten, sexually assaulted and forced to become ‘brides’ for armed opposition groups. “The stories we are hearing from these girls are truly horrifying,” said Chance Briggs, World Vision County Director for Mali. “Those who have escaped with their families have suffered severe traumatic experiences. Some of those who did not flee will have even worse stories to tell.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Permanent Legal Immigration vs. Amnesty
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security have an annual maximum of legal permanent residents of 675,000 — 480,000 comprise family immigration, 140,000 employment-based immigration, and 55,000 diversity immigrants. These people follow the law, the complicated and lengthy maze of bureaucracy, legal documents, fees, and other requirements they must fulfill and pay for in order to become eligible, and then must wait patiently inside or outside of the U.S. at least five years for the resolution of their cases.
[…]
Meanwhile, 11-12 million (the numbers change constantly, depending on the source) illegal aliens who just crossed the border illegally via Mexico or Canada establish residence here, have children, take advantage of our free schools, social services and programs in this country, including the upcoming Obamacare for which they are not required to pay the minimum $20,000 a year premium for a bronze level insurance but have full medical benefits.
These people are what the liberals lovingly call “undocumented workers,” “citizens in the shadows,” “Americans without papers.” I would argue that they do have papers, the passports and I.D.s from their respective countries whose flags they so devotedly respect and pin on their vehicles while burning, spitting, and trampling on the American flag. And Democrats tell us that they must immediately get amnesty and the right to vote.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Employment Office to Open in Ethiopia
The Swedish Public Employment Service (Arbetsförmedlingen) plans to open an office in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in an effort to prepare emigrating Somalis for life in Sweden.
The purpose of the pilot project is to assist Somalis who have received a Swedish residence permit on family reunification grounds but who have not yet arrived in Sweden.
In 2012, a Swedish Migration Court decision opened the door for many Somalis to join family members who have permission to stay in Sweden. The Swedish embassy in Addis Ababa processes these applications.
By mapping out the residency applicants’ professional and educational backgrounds, the Public Employment Service hopes to find suitable places in Sweden where they can apply for work.
“If we can help prepare them we believe we can win time, quite simply, when it comes to their establishment in Sweden,” Mattias Wahlsten, operations coordinator at the Public Employment Service, told Sveriges Radio (SR).
Participants in the project will not receive any financial compensation and the time spent in the preparation training will not be deducted from the total two-year establishment period which awaits them in Sweden.
There is no start date for the new initiative but Wahlsten said the Public Employment Service hopes to get going as soon as possible.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A rapid increase in nursery places has led to a generation of violent ‘little savages’, psychologist Oliver James has warned.
Mr James, the best-selling author of books on child-rearing, said ministerial proposals to allow childcarers to look after more youngsters would fuel aggression in the under-threes which would have lasting effects.
Shoving youngsters in to nurseries was simply ‘warehousing’ them so that the government could push mothers back to work to reap income for the Exchequer, he argued.
Nursery places in Britain have expanded at the same time as a rise in violence in primary school classrooms.
[…]
Mr James pointed to a study in America which tracked youngsters for 15 years. It showed a correlation between the hours placed with nursery to increased aggression and bad behaviour, reported by both parents and nursery workers.
‘Studies show there is a direct link between how many hours you spend in daycare up to the age of four and a half and how aggressive you are.’
[…]
‘No one can deny that daycare increases aggressiveness of toddlers. A toddler raised at home with a single carer is six times less likely to be aggressive than one enduring more than 45 hours a week daycare; and the more daycare a child has, the greater the aggression. This aggression is sustained and predicts greater problems in primary schools.’
[Comment: Massive increase in nursery places is designed to take kids away from any parental guidance and upbringing from an even earlier age; and to block the generational transfer of culture and morals. Your children belong to the State and must be reared to be good little comrades. As part of a family it is difficult to indoctrinate an individual. Alone, that individual becomes easier to indoctrinate. From the article it is clear that nurturing, loving parent (s) is essential for development mental stability of youngsters, especially under 5 years old.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Feminine Mystique: Why Bell Jar Cover Obscures Real Women
Faber’s new Sylvia Plath edition has been ridiculed for its coy chic, but many publishers are similarly shy of the second sex
Faber has rightly taken stick for the chick-litstyle jacket of its anniversary reissue of Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, with some moved to tweet furiously, others to produce parody covers suggesting further ways it and other well-known novels might be repositioned to boost sales…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Every Western Country Has Been Guilty of Aiding and Abetting the Forces of Islam
by Hugh Fitzgerald
France boosted al-Qaeda in Mali by paying £11m in ransoms, says US … “Almost a month after France went to war against AQIM in northern Mali, Vicki Huddleston, who served as US ambassador to the country from 2002-05, accused Paris of building up the very threat its soldiers are now fighting against.” Daily Telegraph
And France, in turn, could denounce the United States, for sending weapons to the mujahedin in Afghanistan, which weapons were then of great use to the Taliban. And it could denounce the United States for supporting, for many decades, with money and military aid, the endlessly meretricious Muslim state of Pakistan, which used that American money to pay for A. Q. Khan and the military projecte.
And both France and the United States could accuse Great Britain of giving asylum to many well-known Muslim fanatics, fanatics who are then impossible to dislodge. And every government in the Western world should issue a je m’accuse, and beg forgiveness of those whom in presumes to instruct and protect, for having over the past decades allowed so many carriers of Islam to settle in their countries, where their deep behind what Muslims themselves are taught to regard as enemy lines, and where their large-scale presence has led to a situation, for the indigenous Infidels, that is more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous than would be the case without that large-scale Muslim presence.
It’s not just the ransoms, that the French and others have paid. And not only in money: sometimes they have paid in the coin of appeasement. Think of how many “Palestinian” terrorists have been freed prematurely, in order to “avoid trouble” — by France, by Italy (the Klinghoffer killer), by Germany. There’s been several decades of wilful ignorance about Islam, and idiocy in the Western response. Isn’t that enough?
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
I’ve heard about the outrageous treatment of Frances Farmer before but this is the first time I’ve read about the supposed “illuminati Jews” plot. I can read that kind of garbage elsewhere if I wanted to do so. I am surprised to find it at GoV.
Sigmund Freud’s approach is not as fashionable today as it was years ago.
For the record, he never advocated shock treatments and he did not advocate lobotomies. His approach was called “the talking cure.”
Again, just for the record, here’s a link to the real Frances Farmer story. Farmer’s mother remained her guardian during her years of treatment and had to approve her treatment. Other members of her family were also involved.
http://jeffreykauffman.net/francesfarmer/sheddinglight.html
Here’s a link to the real Frances Farmer story. Farmer’s mother remained her guardian during her years of treatment and had to approve her treatment. Other members of her family were also involved.
http://jeffreykauffman.net/francesfarmer/sheddinglight.html
Quote:
They hope the new British Democratic Party will kill off the BNP, while security for the launch meeting will be provided by EDL activists.
end
I’m having a hard time believing that, considering that the EDL is formally allied with British Freedom.
Ugly lie, stupid story.
Quote:
Even though two years have passed since a high-profile politician like Warsi highlighted the problem, it appears little has changed, which is why in January 2013, she again made public comments explaining that Muslims are still marginalised in British society…
end
My dear Baroness, Muslims are marginalized in British society.
What do you want them to be?
Prominent in British society?
Central in British society?
Dominant in British society?
What you say means little.
What you imply is conquest and colonization.
I think that ransoms and Jizyah should be paid in full . . . with counterfeit bills.