Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/5/2013

According to the latest figures, a full 24% of the Greek economy is in the “shadow”, that is, the black market and unofficial employment. Part of the shadow economy is driven by an influx of undocumented migrants, but it also includes people who are evading onerous government taxes, and long-term unemployed people who can’t find legitimate jobs.

In other news, attendees at the June 17 G-8 conference in Northern Ireland will see a “Potemkin village” of fake shop fronts and pretend businesses in a small village gussied up by the government to disguise its deterioration during the recession and project a false image of prosperity.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, McR, Steen, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

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

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

Financial Crisis
» Crisis Puts Italian Manufacturing in Peril
» Greek Shadow Economy at 24% of GDP, New Study Says
» Italy: Indesit Company to Layoff 1,425 Employees
» Italy: Tax Revenues Rise by 533 Million Euros in First Four Months
» Italy, France, Germany and Spain to Hold Jobs Summit
» More Signals of Slumping Manufacturing
» Treasury, UAW Health Care Trust Will Sell 50 Million Shares of GM Stock
» UN Sets Italy Target of Creating 1.7 Million Jobs
 
USA
» Bombshell: ‘Proof’ IRS Committed Felony
» Boston Marathom Bombing: Dzohkhar Tsarnaev Tells Mother He is ‘Doing Fine’
» Careless People is the Biography the Great Gatsby Deserves
» Donated Spy Satellite Telescope Would Suit NASA Dark Energy Mission, Report Finds
» EPA Accused of Singling Out Conservative Groups, Amid IRS Scandal
» Excuse Me… Did You Just Say Gun?
» Farmers Begin Suing Monsanto Over Genetic Pollution of Wheat Crops
» Gun Control Lawmaker Facing Recall
» Mosque Plan Hit With Higher Parking Edict
» North Carolina Law Would Make it Illegal to Expose Monsanto
» Obama’s Years of Collaboration With Terror Supporters
» Pete Santilli Interviews Pennsylvania Police Chief Kessler: “Lt Zullo Opened My Eyes — This is the Real Deal”
» Tom Donilon to Resign as Obama’s National Security Adviser
» U.S. Gives Saudi Airlines ‘Unrestricted’ Access to American Skies
 
Europe and the EU
» Berlusconi Tells Letta Not to Let EU Push Italy Around
» Fake Villages Will Greet President Obama and Other G8 World Leaders in County Fermanagh Northern Ireland
» French Far-Right as Popular as Major Parties
» Germany: Deutsche Bahn Plans to Use Drones to Catch Graffiti Artists
» Google to Power Data Centre With Swedish Wind
» Greek Coalition Split Over Racism
» Italy: Taranto Judge Permits Operation of ILVA Smelting Areas
» Italy: 30.9 Million Euro Damages Ordered in Asbestos Trial
» Italy: Bossi Calls Maroni ‘Traitor’, Sparks League Uproar
» Italy: Berlusconi Colluded in Wiretap Publication, Says Court
» Italy: Opportunities Minister Calls for Action Plan Against Racism
» Netherlands to Support Local Engineering Industry, Train Exporters
» Netherlands: ‘Tripling Wind Energy Capacity a Big Mistake’
» Northern Ireland: Stormont Bars Convicted Terrorists From Special Advisor Positions
» Scotland: Teenager Threatened With Knife by Her Muslim Father Appeals for Calm Over His Crime
» Spanish Police Nab Six Nigerian Women Over Voodoo Prostitution Ring
» Strauss-Kahn Accused of Sexual Assault at Davos
» Sweden: Ikea Founder Steps Down From Key Board Post
» UK: ‘Give Woolwich Angels Top Civilian Honour’
» UK: £15m for Just One Firm on Legal Aid Gravy Train
» UK: Curry Club Conservatives Can Spice Things Up
» UK: Don’t ‘Monitor’ Him. Lock Him Up and Throw Away the Key
» UK: East Lancashire Pays Tribute to Murdered Soldier Lee Rigby
» UK: Gilligan and the Reductionists
» UK: Gang Preyed on Young Girls Who Were ‘Starved of Affection’, Court Told
» UK: Judge Frees Artist Who Sexually Abused Three Children as Young as Six While They Posed for His Paintings
» UK: Lamborghini Aventador for Sale, 870 Miles on the Clock (But Does the Chelsea Owner Think Only People Who Can Read Arabic Could Afford it!?)
» UK: Met Uni’s Islamic Society Says Sorry Over Woolwich ‘Hoax Killing’ Video Link
» UK: Man Due in Court Accused of Woolwich Murder
» UK: Man Found Guilty of Rape After Attack on Bucks Teenager
» UK: Pictured: Horrific Injuries of Elderly Grave Digger, 74, Who Was Badly Beaten and Mugged as He Set Off Home for 50th Wedding Anniversary
» UK: Woolwich Attack: ‘2,500 Pieces of Evidence’
 
Balkans
» Kosovo: Serbian Orthodox Church Criticises Brussels Talks
» New Criminal Package Takes Effect in Albania
 
Mediterranean Union
» EU: Egyptian Activist Says No Rights, No Relations
 
North Africa
» Al Qaeda Weapons Expert: U.S. Ambassador to Libya Killed by Lethal Injection
» Egypt: Ashton (EU): NGO Law Still Hinders Capacity of Donors
» Egypt: A Court Sentences 43 Foreign NGO Workers to Prison
» Egyptian Court Convicts at Least 16 American NGO Workers of Involvement in Illegal Activity in the Country
» Tunisia’s Hezbollah Changes Name to Obtain License
 
Middle East
» Army Troops to Retake Al-Qaida-Seized Village in Yemen
» China Nudges US Out of Iraqi Oil Boom
» New SARS: 25 Die in Saudi Arabia, Fears for Mecca Pilgrims
» Syrian Rebels Leave Qusair, Hezbollah Shows Footage
» Syria: Assad Forces Take Control of Qusayr in Major Breakthrough
» Turkey: The Strange Silence of Ataturk’s Military
» Turkey: 24 Arrested in Smyrna for Pro-Protest Tweets
» Turkey: Thousands Order Food to Support Gezi Park Protesters
» Turkey: Protestors Want Ankara and Istanbul Police Chiefs Removed
» Turkey: Erdogan-Gul Ambitions Behind the Curtains
» Turkey: Resistance in Istanbul With 140 Characters
 
South Asia
» 18 Militants Killed in Operations in Afghanistan: Gov’t
 
Far East
» China Launches Anti-Dumping Probe Against EU Wine
» Forging the New ‘Big Power’ Relationship
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Asia’s Run on African Resources
» Nigeria: Jonathan Clamps Down on Terrorist Groups, Proscribes Boko Haram, Ansaru
» Nigeria: Boko Haram — Catch Shekau, Get N1.1 Billion — U.S.
» South Africa Urged to Protect Foreign Nationals From Further Attacks
» The Covert Op to Destroy the Word “Freedom”
» Uganda: Muslims Mark Isra Wal Mi’raj
 
Latin America
» Uruguay’s High Rate of Gun Ownership Causes Concerns, Says NGO
 
Immigration
» Greece: Far-Right Golden Dawn Submits Own Anti-Racism Bill
» Sailboat With 121 Migrants Arrives in Calabria
» UK: John Bercow: Migrants Are Better Workers
» UK: Theresa May Launches New Push on Immigration Today
 
Culture Wars
» Baptists Plan Exodus From Boy Scouts
» Boy Scouts Waste No Time — March in Gay Pride Parade
» Germany: Uni Switches to Feminine Professor Titles for Men
» The Ongoing Battle for Free Speech on Campus: Greg Lukianoff at the Museum of Sex
 
General
» Alien Life Unlikely Around White and Brown Dwarfs, Study Finds
» It’s Time to Tackle Insterstellar Spaceflight, Experts Say
» The Legacy of Bilderberg’s Elite Criminals
 

Crisis Puts Italian Manufacturing in Peril

Confindustria report points to grim numbers, but huge potential

(By Kate Carlisle) (ANSA) — Rome, June 5 — The credit crunch in Italy has created a “tragic” hole of 50 to 60 billion euros for the country’s businesses over the last 18 months, the head of Italian industrialists’ confederation Confindustria, Giorgio Squinzi, said on Wednesday. “This is a problem that has to be tackled, because once (businesses are) closed, there is no re-opening,” he said commenting on a Confindustria report saying that an alarming 15% of Italian manufacturing capacity has been destroyed by the economic crisis. Around 55,000 manufacturing companies closed down in recession-ravaged Italy in the 2009-2012 period, Confindustria said. “Italy remains the (world’s) seventh top industrial power, but its production base is at risk because of the depth and duration of the drop in demand,” it said.

The country’s manufacturing is in peril, Confindustria warned, while stressing that helping the sector capitalise on its huge potential would contribute to emerging from the country’s longest recession in over 20 years.

The report said 539,000 Italian manufacturing jobs were lost between 2007 and 2012, adding that there is a danger that the current crisis could end up claiming more than the 724,000 jobs lost in the 1980-85 period.

“The number of people employed in manufacturing has fallen by 10%,” read a report by Confindustria’s research centre. “Italian companies will probably be forced to cut more jobs in the coming months,” Squinzi said. “But Italy has excellent cards to play… The lesson of the best advanced and emerging countries is that more manufacturing equals more growth”.

Confindustria’s chief emphasized that “we are living in difficult times, but as long as we are united and convinced of our possibilities, I will continue to have the utmost faith that we are strong enough to confront and overcome this period”. However, Squinzi warned that “when the recovery starts, Italy might not be able to take part because its motor has been broken”.

Banks cut 44 billion euros’ worth of credit to Italian companies in 2012, according to a report by rating agency Standard & Poor’s released on Wednesday. A comprehensive strategy that looks to the “long-term…must be launched immediately on several fronts, otherwise what we take with one hand we lose from the other,” the Confindustria chief said.

Squinzi emphasised that “those who are determined to grow will grow” by entering the global market — “something Italy absolutely needs”. “The country needs to roll up its sleeves,” Squinzi said.

Following the release of its report filled with grim economic figures for manufacturing in crisis-ridden Italy, Confindustria presented a list of five proposals for the government to revive the economy.

Confindustria’s research center vice president, Fulvio Conti, said that they are measures “a responsible government should promptly translate into action”. The points outline “a mission for which the new government can count on the support of industry,” but that require “courageous decisions and a strategy for more growth through a robust industrial policy,” Conti said.

To start with the program recommends the “mother of all reforms” that would create “less bureaucracy” and a simplification of procedures. The next steps recommended are cost cuts for businesses and labor through “lighter taxation”. For society as a whole, Confindustria calls for a cuts to “restore liquidity to the economy” by paying public sector debts to private companies and support for access to credit for small-medium enterprise.

The fourth point calls for reforms to make the labor market less cumbersome and inefficient, with “an agreement between generations”, incentives and tax breaks for young people, women and the less developed south.

For the fifth recommendation, Confindustria proposes a reduction of taxes on investments in research and innovation and stimulation of public and private investments in infrastructure “even by the means of tax credit”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Greek Shadow Economy at 24% of GDP, New Study Says

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, JUNE 5 — Shadow economic activity in Greece is equivalent to almost a quarter of national output, Kathimerini online reports today citing a new study by the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs. The research, published on Tuesday, found that Greece’s shadow economy was equivalent to 24% of GDP last year, which was one of the highest rates in Europe but lower than a decade earlier when it surpassed 28%. Greece also had one of the highest rates of self-employment among EU countries with 48% of the active labor force working for itself. Among OECD members, Greece also had the highest rate of illegal migrants in work, the report said.

Illegal migrants account for 4.45% share of total employment. “The causes of the shadow economy include tax and social security burdens, tax morale, the quality of state institutions, labour market regulation, the level of transfer payments and the quality of public services,” the IEA said in its conclusions.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Indesit Company to Layoff 1,425 Employees

Restructuring plan focuses on low cost manufacturing abroad

(ANSA) — Ancona, June 4 — Italian home-appliance maker Indesit Company told unions on Tuesday of plans to layoff 1,425 people, the FIM-CISL metal mechanics union said.

Indesit told unions that 25 managers, 150 white collar staff and 1,250 factory workers across three Italian manufacturing plants will be let go due to production and financial woes triggered by falling sales.

The company faced unions on Tuesday also with the aim of smoothing the transition by coming up with adequate safety net solutions for redundant workers.

Indesit plans to keep only high-end appliance manufacturing in Italy, and to concentrate low-cost appliance manufacturing in Poland and Turkey.

The restructuring plan foresees an investment of 70 million euros.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Tax Revenues Rise by 533 Million Euros in First Four Months

Despite recession, government says revenues in line with 2012

(ANSA) — Rome, June 5 — Despite a serious and lingering recession, Italian tax revenues rose by 0.5%, or about 533 million euros, in the first four months of 2013, the department of finance reported Wednesday. Revenues between January and April totaled 117.56 billion euros, the department noted.

Direct taxes rose by 4.5%, or about 2.7 billion euros more than the total reported during the same period in 2012. “Revenue from the first (four months) of 2013, in spite of a negative economic situation, remains broadly in line with the corresponding period of the previous year,” the finance department said.

Tax revenues collected as part of the government’s fight against tax evasion totaled 2.1 billion euros, a roughly 5% increase compared with the same period last year.

Despite the economic downturn, value-added tax revenues rose by 2% in the retail sales sector.

Revenues from gaming were more stable, slipping by just 0.6%, representing about 28 million euros.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy, France, Germany and Spain to Hold Jobs Summit

Ministers to meet in Rome June 14

(ANSA) — Rome, June 5 — The economy and labour ministers of Italy, France, Germany and Spain will meet in Rome on June 14 to discuss measures against soaring unemployment, the Italian premier’s office said on Wednesday. The summit is part of the Italian government’s efforts to promote a joint European strategy to tackle unemployment, especially among young people, Premier Enrico Letta’s office said in a statement.

The jobs summit has been scheduled ahead of a European Union summit on June 27-28 which is expected to have the employment crisis high on its agenda; as well as a youth unemployment conference in Berlin on July 3; and a G20 ministerial meeting in Moscow in mid-July. The gathering was first proposed by Italian Labour Minister Enrico Giovannini last week in Paris. Ministers are expected to discuss measures to improve the coordination of financial and labour policies both at a national and European level, and make the fight against unemployment more effective, especially among youths. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said last week that it expects unemployment in Italy to rise from 10.6% in 2012 to 11.9% this year and 12.5% next year. Unemployment for youths under 25 hit a record 41.9% in Italy in the first quarter of this year, according to data from national statistics agency Istat.

The overall first-quarter jobless rate was 12.8%, Istat said.

Both were the highest figures since the first quarter of 1977.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

More Signals of Slumping Manufacturing

Trouble in the manufacturing sector has been mounting for months, and several signals this week indicated the pain could continue into the summer.

The latest data Wednesday showed that the manufacturing sector entered the spring on weaker footing even before the Institute for Supply Management’s factory-sector gauge, released Monday, indicated contraction last month.

Apart from the volatile transportation sector, new orders for factory goods fell 0.1% in April, after falling 2.8% in March, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Among the biggest slumps was demand for computers, which dropped more than 9%.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Treasury, UAW Health Care Trust Will Sell 50 Million Shares of GM Stock

Washington — The U.S. Treasury said Wednesday it plans to sell 30 million additional shares of General Motors stock in a new public offering in conjunction with GM’s return to the S&P 500 index on Thursday.

The United Auto Workers Retiree Medical Benefits Trust — which holds about 14 percent of GM — will also participate by selling 20 million shares, making the total offering size 50 million shares. It represents about 12 percent of Treasury’s outstanding GM stock.

The move may mean that Treasury completely exits in 2013, rather than by the end of March 2014. The return to the S&P will prompt significant demand for GM shares and the stock has recently traded near its highest level since February 2011. GM is filing a new prospectus ahead of the sale.

The Treasury sold nearly 20 percent of its remaining shares in General Motors Co. in the first three months of the year, the Detroit automaker disclosed Thursday.

The Treasury, which initially held 60.8 percent of GM as part of the U.S. $49.5 billion bailout, now owns just 16.4 percent, or 241.7 million shares. In December, the Treasury sold GM 200 million shares of its stake for $5.5 billion to reduce its stake to 300 million shares.

In total, Treasury has recouped $30.6 billion. At current trading prices, Treasury would lose around $10 billion on its GM bailout.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UN Sets Italy Target of Creating 1.7 Million Jobs

Economy has lost 600,000 jobs since start of economic crisis

(By Paul Virgo) (ANSA) — Rome, June 3 — Italy needs to create 1.7 million jobs to be able to return to the employment levels it had before the global economic crisis started in 2008, the International Labour Organization said Monday. “Since the second quarter of 2008, the Italian economy has shed roughly 600,000 jobs,” read the Snapshot of Italy in the ILO’s World of Work Report 2013.

“Given that the working-age population has grown over this period by approximately 1.1 million, Italy needs to create roughly 1.7 million jobs to restore employment rates to pre-crisis levels”.

The United Nations agency pointed out that unemployment in Italy, which is enduring its longest recession in over 20 years after seven straight quarters of negative growth, has increased sharply since the beginning of the crisis. It was 6.1% in 2007 but stood at 11.2% in the last quarter of 2012 after climbing “almost uninterrupted”. Unemployment reached 12% in April, national statistics agency Istat said last week, with around four in 10 people aged 15 to 24 on the dole. Istat also said recently that Italy has Europe’s highest proportion of young people doing “nothing”, with almost a quarter of 15-to-29-year-olds not in education, employment or training (NEET).

“The challenge of finding employment in Italy has been particularly acute for young persons aged 15-24,” the ILO report said.

Premier Enrico Letta has said fighting unemployment, especially among young people, will be a priority of his left-right coalition government, which was sworn in late in April.

He successfully pushed for unemployment to be the focus of this month’s summit of European Union leaders and has said his government will have a national action plan against youth unemployment in place before that meeting.

But the ILO report said Letta should work to improve the quality of jobs on the labour market, not just the quantity. “Precarious employment (either involuntary fixed contracts or involuntary part-time), has also become widespread,” read the Snapshot of Italy. “Since 2007, the number of precarious workers increased by 5.7 percentage points, reaching almost 32% of those employed in 2012… “It will be important to monitor and evaluate the recent proposal of reducing by one-third the time period in-between two consecutive fixed-term contracts. “As precarious employment continues to rise, greater efforts may be merited to incentivise the conversion of fixed term contracts to permanent ones”. The report said temporary employment had become more widespread in Italy following controversial labour-market reforms introduced last year by ex-premier Mario Monti’s emergency technocrat administration that, among other things, made it easier for firms in financial trouble to dismiss staff.

The ILO also warned Rome not to try to generate jobs for young people with schemes that encourage companies to simply replace older workers.

“When considering the recent proposal of job-sharing among youth and older workers it is important to note that youth and adults are not substitutes in the labour market,” the report said. “Indeed, contact with more experienced workers can provide mentoring, instil good workplace practices, and help to dispel misconceptions regarding the attitudes of youth”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Bombshell: ‘Proof’ IRS Committed Felony

WASHINGTON — A witness at a congressional hearing today on IRS targeting of conservative organizations claims he has proof the agency illegally leaked confidential information.

“I would call the disclosure of our donor lists by the IRS a felony,” charged John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage, or NOM, in Washington, D.C., in emotionally charged testimony Tuesday before the House Ways and Means Committee.

Eastman testified that the organization’s IRS Form 990 tax return, which lists its donors, was published on the website of the Human Rights Campaign, a “gay-rights” advocacy group.

He claimed to have proof the IRS leaked his organization’s confidential donor list under questioning by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Eastman said “forensic” specialists within his organization had stripped layers from the document posted on the HRC website to identify “meta-data,” or unseen embedded code, that identified the document as having originated from within the IRS.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Boston Marathom Bombing: Dzohkhar Tsarnaev Tells Mother He is ‘Doing Fine’

Boston Marathon bomb suspect Dzohkhar Tsarnaev has told his mother that he is receiving thousands of dollars in support from unnamed sources.

Zubeidat Tsarnaev replayed a recording of the conversation with her son, who is being held in Fort Devens prison in Massachusetts, in which he says “everything is fine” ahead of his trial. “I’m already eating and have been for a long time,” he said in the message, which was recorded last week according to Channel 4 News…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Careless People is the Biography the Great Gatsby Deserves

by Scott Jordan Harris

Sarah Churchwell’s Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and the Invention of The Great Gatsby is the second-best book I have read this year. The best is The Great Gatsby, which Careless People inspired me to re-read, and which it opened up and improved for me in ways that make much literary criticism seem shallow.

Careless People is something new, or at least something rare: it mixes literary criticism with biography, modern history and a true crime murder mystery to create a collage of impressions of the Jazz Age and of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the writer who Christened it. Even better, it is written in prose that is always a joy, and never a chore, to read…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Donated Spy Satellite Telescope Would Suit NASA Dark Energy Mission, Report Finds

INDIANAPOLIS — NASA could use a donated spy satellite telescope to carry out a high-priority mission that would hunt for alien planets and mysterious dark energy, a new report found.

Not only would one of two donated U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) telescopes suit the mission of NASA’s proposed Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) — it would boost the mission’s capabilities without much exceeding its expected $1.63 billion budget, according to a study released on May 23.

The results of the study, known as WFIRST-AFTA (Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets), were presented here today (June 4) at the 222nd meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

“For approximately the same cost … the use of these telescope assets would enable a WFIRST mission that has significantly improved scientific capabilities,” Paul Hertz, the director of the astrophysics division of NASA’s science mission directorate, said during the conference.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

EPA Accused of Singling Out Conservative Groups, Amid IRS Scandal

It’s not just the IRS.

A second federal agency is facing a probe and accusations of political bias over its alleged targeting of conservative groups.

The allegations concern the Environmental Protection Agency, which is being accused of trying to charge conservative groups fees while largely exempting liberal groups. The fees applied to Freedom of Information Act requests — allegedly, the EPA waived them for liberal groups far more often than it did for conservative ones.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Excuse Me… Did You Just Say Gun?

As reported by WMAL in Maryland, “the father of a middle schooler in Calvert County, Md. says his 11-year-old son was suspended for 10 days for merely talking about guns on the bus ride home.”…

Fox News’ Todd Starnes reports that the deputy sheriff of the county was also called in and said “he would need to search their home.”

“I said, by what authority and he said that he had to make sure the house is clear of guns,” he said.

The deputy arrived at their home 15 minutes later armed with a four-page questionnaire.

“I was uncomfortable answering the questions,” he said. “But I was told if I don’t fill this form out — he would not be allowed back in school.” The questions covered topics ranging from mental health to how many guns and weapons the family owned.

“They were very intrusive questions,” he said.

Following the questionnaire, the deputy started to search the home, until the boy’s father finally had enough and asked the deputy to leave.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Farmers Begin Suing Monsanto Over Genetic Pollution of Wheat Crops

(NaturalNews) The next wave of farmer backlash against Monsanto has just been unleashed by Ernest Barnes, a wheat farmer in Morton County, Kansas. He filed suit this week in the U.S. District Court in Wichita, Kansas, alleging that Monsanto’s genetic pollution has financially damaged himself and other farmers.

Barnes’ case appears to be well supported by the facts: Last week the USDA announced the shock discovery that genetically engineered wheat strains from Monsanto’s open-field experiments had escaped and spread into commercial wheat farms. Almost immediately, Japan and South Korea cancelled wheat purchase contracts from the United States, and more cancellations are expected to follow. The more countries reject U.S. wheat due to GMO contamination (genetic pollution), the lower wheat prices will plunge and the more economic damage will be felt by U.S. farmers.

GMO wheat (i.e. “GE wheat”) has never been commercially grown in the United States… at least not on purpose. Experimental fields were approved by the USDA and planted across 16 U.S. states. Until now, it was not known that these GE wheat experiments escaped their designated field plots and began to spread as a form of self-replicating genetic pollution.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Gun Control Lawmaker Facing Recall

The organizers of an effort to recall Colorado Senate President John Morse turned in Monday more than twice the number of signatures required to force a special election, possibly setting the stage for an expensive, national battle over gun control.

If the signatures are determined to be valid and survive a court challenge, it’s likely voters in Morse’s Senate district will decide at a special election in September whether to oust the Colorado Springs Democrat.

Morse’s support of gun-control legislation in the 2013 session as well as his leadership style sparked the recall effort.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Mosque Plan Hit With Higher Parking Edict

BERNARDS TWP. — A proposed mosque in Liberty Corner faces a tougher road after the Planning Board voted minutes past midnight on Wednesday, June 5, to require far more parking space than the plans provide. The board, after hearing dueling traffic experts for the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge (ISBR) and a neighborhood opposition group, agreed that a plan for 50 stalls is insufficient and should be raised to 107. The new number was a clear setback but apparently not a fatal blow to the project…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

North Carolina Law Would Make it Illegal to Expose Monsanto

North Carolina’s SB 648 is appropriately named the “Commerce Protection Act.” The bill makes it illegal to obtain employment in order to “create or produce a record that reproduces an image or sound occurring within the employer’s facility, including a photographic, video, or audio” or “to capture or remove data, paper, records, or any other documents…”

It goes on to say that “any recording made or information obtained… shall be turned over to local law enforcement within 24 hours.”

The proposal is one of a dozen “ag-gag” bills that have been introduced across the country this year. Tennessee’s Governor Bill Haslam recently vetoed a similar proposalafter a national outcry from groups like the Humane Society, ACLU, labor unions, the Sierra Club, and others.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama’s Years of Collaboration With Terror Supporters

by Arnold Ahlert

As the Obama administration seeks to move beyond a welter of scandals, a new report by investigative journalist Patrick Poole reveals that the frenzy isn’t quite over yet. On top of the IRS’s targeting of conservatives, the DOJ’s seizure of reporters’ phone records and the coverup surrounding the murder of four Americans in Benghazi, the White House’s years-long collaboration with supporters of terrorism is finally getting the scrutiny it deserves. Poole’s comprehensive GLORIA Center article, “Blind to Terror: The U.S. Government’s Disastrous Muslim Outreach Efforts and the Impact on U.S. Policy,” details the Obama administration’s extensive relationship with accomplices to terrorism and how these associations have shaped administration policy — and endangered the American public in the process. As Middle East expert Barry Rubin commented on the report, “[Y]ou may think that you know this story — but it is far more extensive than has ever before been revealed.”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Pete Santilli Interviews Pennsylvania Police Chief Kessler: “Lt Zullo Opened My Eyes — This is the Real Deal”

Pete Santilli’s interview with Chief Kessler of the Gilberton, PA police department will get your attention. The interview takes place at the beginning of Hour 2 of the June 3 show, running from 1:15 to 11:30:

Here are the highlights of Chief Kessler’s remarks concerning the presentation by Lt Zullo at the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association convention last weekend in St. Louis:

I had no idea about Mike Zullo and what he was doing with the Obama forgery investigation…

I am not a ‘birther’, I am not a conspiracy theorist, my head was in the ground, I drank the KOOL-AID… There has been a complete media black-out on this subject.

Lt Zullo’s presentation opened my eyes, especially the information presented in the closed-door session (which I cannot discuss). Mike did a great job, he weeded out the garbage, he compressed the results of a twenty-one month investigation into a one hour presentation.

Lt Zullo presented rock-solid evidence to an audience of about 300 constitutional peace officers. The birth certificate displayed on the internet and represented as Obama’s original birth certificate is unquestionably a forgery. However, the fraudulent birth certificate is just the tip of the iceberg.

The information Mike presented will make your skin crawl when it comes out. If you are not enraged when this becomes public knowledge, you are not an American.

The issues are so serious that our country’s future is at stake.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Tom Donilon to Resign as Obama’s National Security Adviser

In a major shakeup of President Obama’s foreign-policy inner circle, Tom Donilon, the national security adviser, is resigning and will be replaced by Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, White House officials said on Tuesday.

The appointment, which Mr. Obama plans to make on Wednesday afternoon, puts Ms. Rice, 48, an outspoken diplomat and a close political ally, at the heart of the administration’s foreign-policy apparatus.

It is also a defiant gesture to Republicans who harshly criticized Ms. Rice for presenting an erroneous account of the deadly attacks on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya. The post of national security adviser, while powerful, does not require Senate confirmation.

A central member of Mr. Obama’s foreign-policy team since he first took office, Mr. Donilon, 58, has exerted sweeping influence, mostly behind the scenes, on issues from counterterrorism to the reorientation of America to Asia from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[Return to headlines]
 

U.S. Gives Saudi Airlines ‘Unrestricted’ Access to American Skies

(CNSNews.com) — The United States and Saudi Arabia have signed an Open Skies agreement that will “permit unrestricted air service by the airlines of both countries between and beyond the other’s territory.”

The agreement means Saudi airlines may fly from any point in the kingdom to any point in the United States, and that U.S. airlines may fly from any point here to any airport in Saudi Arabia.

The deal was signed May 28 in Jeddah by U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James B. Smith and Dr. Faisal bin Hamad Al-Sugair, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Director of the General Authority of Civil Aviation.

In addition to permitting each nations’ airlines to provide unrestricted air service to any point in the other country, the agreement also eliminates restrictions on how often the carriers can fly, the kind of aircraft they can use and the prices they charge…

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]
 

Berlusconi Tells Letta Not to Let EU Push Italy Around

Says ‘civil war’ with left is over, coalition govt strong

(ANSA) — Rome, June 5 — Silvio Berlusconi told Premier Enrico Letta not to let Italy get pushed around by the European Union on Wednesday, while reaffirming the support of his People of Freedom (PdL) party for the left-right coalition government.

“What we need is for this government to go to Brussels and I say ‘I’m doing things this way’. We can no longer accept certain diktats,” former premier Berlusconi told T9, a Rome-based local TV channel. “We are the ones who have to decide what is necessary to put our economy back on its feet”.

In the campaign for February’s general election, Berlusconi blasted Letta’s predecessor Mario Monti for allegedly being too compliant to the EU in pushing through austerity policies that eased investor concerns about Italy’s debt crisis, but also deepened the long recession the country is currently enduring.

Letta’s government, which is backed by a seemingly unnatural alliance of the centre-right PdL and the centre-left Democratic Party, was formed in April to end two months of deadlock after February’s vote produced no clear winner.

The administration looks unsteady and may be short-lived as PdL and PD politicians, bitter rivals since media magnate Berlusconi moved into politics 20 years ago, continuously bicker over a range of issues.

But three-time head of government Berlusconi said Letta’s administration was “strong” as the PD-PdL agreement sealed the end of two decades of a “long cold war, a civil war”. He added that the government must focus on reforms to make Italy easier to govern, including changes to the much-criticised electoral law and a new set-up in which getting laws through parliament would be less arduous.

He said these reforms should include changes that would make the Italian president directly elected by the people, rather than voted in by regional representatives and lawmakers of the Lower House and the Senate.

“It’s important that both sides support the government and that it can pass a reform of the Constitution that can bring direct elections to the head of state,” said Berlusconi, who is thought to hold ambitions of becoming president. Letta’s PD is divided over whether having a president elected by the people is a good idea.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Fake Villages Will Greet President Obama and Other G8 World Leaders in County Fermanagh Northern Ireland

Fake shop fronts and derelict buildings covered in billboards disguise economic plight

When the G8 world leaders fly into Northern Ireland for their major summit there on June 17, they will see a vista of progress that has been created to deceive them.

According to Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTE, local councils have hired workers to paint fake shop fronts stocked with attractive but illusory produce.

They have also been contracted to cover derelict buildings with colorful billboards, the better to hide the real economic hardship being felt in towns and villages close to the five star golf resort where G8 leaders will meet this month.

Critics have called the move a Potemkin village charade, named after the fake village created by Russian minister Grigory Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II about the state of locality during her visit to Crimea in 1787.

Northern Ireland’s government has spent reportedly $3 million tackling dereliction over the past two years, the environment department said, which led to some buildings being demolished whilst others have been given a facelift in a bid to take the look off increasingly derelict shopping streets.

There’s no question where most of the money has been directed. Almost a quarter of so-called dereliction funds were supplied to local councillors in the hard hit County Fermanagh region in anticipation of Britain hosting the annual G8 summit there on 17-18 June.

In the one-street town of Belcoo, the changes haven’t just been cosmetic. A grand deception has been crafted to fool the eye of any passing stranger. At a former well known butcher’s shop, colored stickers applied to the windows show a packed meat counter and suggest that business is booming.

Across the street another empty shop has been set up to look like a supply store. From the window of a speeding limousine it’s sure to make a favorable impression. But the locals aren’t so generous in their take.

“The shop fronts are cosmetic surgery for serious wounds. They are looking after the banks instead of saving good businesses,” Kevin Maguire, 62, an unemployed man who has lived all his life in Belcoo, told RTE.

“Where would you see a shop front in Northern Ireland like this anyway? It’s more like something you’d find in Belgravia or Chelsea,” he said, referring to the London boroughs.

It’s not the first time Northern Ireland has indulged in deceptive window dressing to mask the challenges beneath. Last year a series of eye-catching shop fronts appeared along the main route from Belfast city centre to the grand Stormont parliament building. They were designed to hide the derelict stores that they only temporarily covered.

“Northern Ireland is in the international spotlight so it is entirely right that we should portray it in the best light possible,” Northern Ireland Environment Minister Alex Attwood said in a statement. He did not add that it was entirely right to make up a thriving economy that existed only in pictures, however.

           — Hat tip: McR [Return to headlines]
 

French Far-Right as Popular as Major Parties

The far-right, anti-immigration National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, would match France’s mainstream political parties if European elections were held this weekend, according to a poll published on Wednesday.

The survey revealed that the far-right National Front, the governing Socialist party, and the main centre-right opposition UMP were neck-and-neck on exactly 21 percent each of public support.

Public opinion firm Ifop, along with right-leaning weekly magazine Valeurs Actuelles asked respondents to choose from a series of party lists, with specific named leaders, “if the European elections were to take place next Sunday.”

Some 21 percent chose the Socialist Party, led by Party President Harlem Désir, the same percentage of support given to both the UMP, led by Jean-François Copé and the National Front, led by Marine Le Pen.

Just nine percent chose the ‘Front de gauche’ (Leftist Front), led by 2012 presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

EELV (Europe Ecology — the Greens), led by current French housing minister Cécile Duflot, got 7.5 percent support, and the centrist Modem (Democratic Movement), led by repeat presidential candidate François Bayrou, got seven percent support.

The UDI (Union of Democrats and Independents), a splinter party formed during the UMP’s fraught leadership battle last autumn, and led by Jean-Louis Borloo, polled at 6.5 percent.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: Deutsche Bahn Plans to Use Drones to Catch Graffiti Artists

Germany’s national railway is testing the use of mini-drones to curb damage to its trains from graffiti. Experts call the move pointless and excessive, saying that varnish for trains could solve the problem instead.

“In ten years, we’re going to have a sky full of drones,” predicts Wolfgang Wieland of Germany’s Green Party. The party’s speaker on domestic security issues warns that people need to be giving serious thought to how the process can be reined in.

But Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s national railway, maintains it is doing the right thing with its plans to employ drones to prevent graffiti. The company said in a press release that more than 14,000 cases of graffiti were discovered in 2012, resulting in more than 7 million euros ($9.09 million) in damages. Now Deutsche Bahn is investigating whether drones could be used to curb sprayers. A Deutsche Bahn spokesman said that in the coming weeks, mini-helicopters will be tested only above property belonging to the company.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Google to Power Data Centre With Swedish Wind

Google said Tuesday it had entered a ten-year deal with a Swedish wind farm developer to power a data centre in Finland.

The US search giant said it would buy the entire electricity output of a new wind farm to be operated by Swedish firm O2 in Maevaara in the north of Sweden, to cover the energy needs of its data centre in Hamina, south Finland.

No financial details were provided.

Google said it expected to reduce its electricity bill by an amount “depending on the evolution of the market,” according to Francois Sterin, a senior manager at the company’s infrastructure team.

The 24 wind turbines, with a total capacity of 72 megawatts, would become operational in 2015, and construction on the project would begin “in the coming months”, the company said.

The wind power plant will be owned by German insurer Allianz, which is funding the project.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Greek Coalition Split Over Racism

As racist violence surges in Greece, the parties in the coalition government are further apart than ever on the way forward. Under pressure from the EU and rights groups which way will MPs jump?

In the last twelve months there has been a surge in anti-immigrant violence in Greece, with three deaths due to racist attacks and more than 150 injured.

In early May, unknown assailants attacked a 14-year-old Afghan boy on the streets of Athens with a broken bottle and caused him serious injuries. Just a few days earlier, three foremen at a strawberry farm shot and wounded unarmed immigrant workers from Bangladesh as they refused to return to work in a dispute over unpaid wages.

Meanwhile, the extreme right is increasingly represented in Parliament: the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party has 18 out of a total of 300 members in the Greek parliament. Last Wednesday night (29.05.2013) several thousand party supporters attended a rally in central Athens chanting, “Foreigners out of Greece.”

In the sixth year of recession, Greece has more illegal immigrants than any other European Union country. As right-wing sentiment soars, the coalition government is under increasing pressure from both the EU and human rights groups to toughen anti-racism laws.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Taranto Judge Permits Operation of ILVA Smelting Areas

Upholds court seizure, subjects plant to tight monitoring

(ANSA) — Taranto, June 3 — A judge in the southern Italian city of Taranto has granted permission to the troubled ILVA steelworks to use its confiscated smelting areas, the company and police were informed on Monday.

The ruling made by Patrizia Todisco also confirms the legitimacy of the court-ordered seizure made on July 26, and subjects the plant to close environmental monitoring and tight deadlines as it operates.

The ruling marks a partial victory for the government in a row with the court over whether the plant — accused of damaging health and the environment with billowing toxic emissions — can continue to run as it undertakes major clean-up measures the government agreed would permit it to continue operating.

The Taranto judge had challenged the constitutionality of the so-called “Save Ilva” decree, passed in December, which the Italian government amended specifically to overrule a court-ordered partial shutdown.

The judge’s constitutional challenges were found to be in part inadmissable and in part unfounded.

A long-awaited decree to salvage the Taranto plant, save thousands of jobs and 40% of the country’s steel production will be proposed by June 5, the government said Friday. Premier Enrico Letta’s government may also appoint a special commissioner for the plant’s cleanup and management.

ILVA has been at the centre of a political and legal battle since July when local magistrates ordered the partial closure of its Taranto plant due to serious health concerns.

Saving ILVA, a plant that produces almost all of the country’s steel for the automotive, shipping and domestic appliance industries, as well as provides jobs for around 20,000 workers, has become a priority for Letta’s government.

The company is also plagued by probes into the Riva family, whose holding controls the plant, for suspected fraud against the State and fake money transfers.

Last week government officials tried to reassure tens of thousands of workers at the troubled company that ILVA workers would be taken care of after police seized 9.3 billion euros worth of assets belonging to the steel group’s owners and ILVA’s board of directors resigned en masse, including the company’s chairman and its CEO.

The Riva group is the biggest iron and steel producer in Italy, the fourth-biggest in Europe and the 23rd-biggest in the world.

The Taranto plant is the biggest in Europe.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: 30.9 Million Euro Damages Ordered in Asbestos Trial

Eternit owners ordered to compensate hard-hit Casale Monferrato

(ANSA) — Turin, June 3 — A Turin appeals court on Monday ordered compensation of 30.9 million euros be paid by the former owners of a disastrous cement company to the hard-hit community of Casale Monferrato.

The compensation came as the court also extended jail terms for executives of Eternit for contributing to asbestos-linked health problems among its Italian workforce.

Prosecutors said that around 2,100 people have died from asbestos-linked tumours among Eternit staff, their families and people living near the factories affected by asbestos dust in the air, while hundreds more are ill.

One of the the company’s two major plants was located in Casale Monferrato.

Employees and their families have long claimed that Eternit did little or nothing to protect its workers and residents living around its factories from the dangers of asbestos.

Stephan Schmidheiny, former owner of the plant, was sentenced to 18 years after being found guilty of failing to ensure adequate safety measures at two asbestos-cement plants the now-defunct Eternit ran in Italy.

At the original trial Schmidheiny was convicted along with former Eternit managing director and Belgian executive Baron Louis de Cartier de Marchienne, who has since died.

Schmidheiny was found guilty for the conditions at the plants Eternit ran in Casale Monferrato and at Cavagnolo near Turin.

He can now take an appeal to Italy’s supreme Court of Cassation.

Jail sentences in Italy are not usually served until the appeals process has been exhausted.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Bossi Calls Maroni ‘Traitor’, Sparks League Uproar

Founder’s remarks ‘hurt movement’ say party leaders

(By Christopher Livesay) (ANSA) — Rome, June 4 — The founder of the Northern League sparked a party uproar Tuesday when he said he should return to lead the regionalist movement after calling party head and Lombardy Governor Roberto Maroni a “traitor” for allying too closely with ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi and the center right. “He doesn’t share our ideals,” said Umberto Bossi in an interview with Italian daily La Repubblica. “I must absolutely come back to lead the party”.

Bossi, who in the 1980s spearheaded the movement that eventually became the Northern League, stepped down from the helm in April, 2012 when it was announced he was being probed for alleged corruption. Maroni then took over, and signs of a strained relationship soon surfaced.

That July, Maroni said Bossi only played an “emotional role” in the party, to which the party founder took offence. “I’m the boss. There are many small dogs who bark very loudly but don’t frighten anyone,” said Bossi. On Wednesday he directed his ire at Maroni for “fooling himself into thinking he’ll become Berlusconi’s plenipotentiary in the north”. A long-time ally of Berlusconi, the League broke from his People of Freedom (PdL) party when the center-right bloc first backed the unelected technocrat government of Mario Monti in 2011. Divisions between the parties persisted until January when the PdL reached a deal to resume its alliance with the League, which stated that Berlusconi would not become Italian premier for a fourth time if the centre-right coalition won. In exchange, the PdL backed Maroni in his successful election bid to become governor of Italy’s richest region, Lombardy. The PdL went on to win substantial votes in general elections, albeit slightly fewer than the center-left Democratic Party (PD), forcing the two blocs to eventually forge a fragile left-right coalition headed by the PD’s Enrico Letta. The League founder blasted Maroni for giving into Berlusconi, “who doesn’t believe in (northern) independence”. Regional independence for northern Italy was once a cornerstone of the League’s ideology, but in recent years the party has softened on the issue, even with Bossi at the reins. Bossi’s remarks were met with unanimous rebuke from high-ranking Northern League members who chided the party founder for “hurting the movement”.

“Umberto Bossi, whom I respect and will always recognize for what he’s created, is making a mistake,” Northern League Deputy Secretary Matteo Salvini told ANSA. “Saying such things hurts the movement”.

Verona Mayor Flavio Tosi, the head of the League’s Veneto region chapter, said Bossi’s comments were “deleterious” and were sure to further damage the party, which has suffered fallout from accusations tied to former League treasurer Francesco Belsito, who was arrested in April on charges of alleged criminal association and aggravated fraud.

Investigators say some of the money embezzled money went towards a 2.5-million-euro yacht allegedly bought by Bossi’s son Riccardo.

The Bossi family has denied all wrongdoing. Tosi said Bossi’s remarks were especially harmful given they came five days before runoffs in local elections. “He’s shooting off (his mouth)” without “any ability to create consensus,” he added. Veneto Governor Luca Zaia said the remarks hurt “a party whose true strength has always come from its monolithic unity (and) washing its dirty laundry in house”. Maroni avoided comment. “I’m even working today to solve citizens’ problems,” he posted on Twitter.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Berlusconi Colluded in Wiretap Publication, Says Court

Clear political motive, says explanation of one-year conviction

(By Paul Virgo) (ANSA) — Milan, June 4 — Silvio Berlusconi had a decisive role in the publication of an illegally obtained wiretap in his brother Paolo’s conservative newspaper Il Giornale, according to a Milan court’s explanation of its decision to hand the ex-premier a one-year jail term in relation to the case.

The wiretap concerned a conversation in 2005 between one of Berlusconi’s political opponents, Piero Fassino, the then head of the former centre-left Democratic Left (DS) party, and Giovanni Consorte, the former chairman of Unipol, an association of insurers historically linked to the DS, the heir to Italy’s Communist Party.

At the time Unipol came close to taking over one of Italy’s leading banks, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), and Fassino was recorded as saying “we have a bank!”.

Fassino, now mayor of Turin, was widely criticised for the comment, especially among the rank and file of the DS, which has since turned into a larger centre-left group, the Democratic Party.

The Milan court’s explanation, which was released Tuesday, of its March ruling said that without Berlusconi’s “support in terms of moral complicity… the publication would not have taken place”. It added that centre-right leader Berlusconi had clear political motives to give a green light to the publication late in 2005, months before the 2006 general election that his alliance narrowly lost to Romano Prodi’s centre left. “The period of the publication should be considered, (it was) four months from the elections and in the middle of the Christmas holidays, a period with low amounts of important political news,” the explanation said. “So the political interest of the wiretaps was evident, as was the desire to give the prominence”. The court also sentenced Paolo Berlusconi to two years, three months in jail and ordered the brothers to pay 80,000 euros in damages to Fassino.

In Italy prison sentences for non-violent crimes do not usually become effective until the two-tier appeals system has been exhausted.

Berlusconi’s lawyers, Niccolo’ Ghedini and Piero Longo, said the explanation was bereft of any “legal logic”.

Before being indicted, Berlusconi told a Milan court that he had never heard the wiretap, adding “otherwise I would have remembered”.

Prosecutors said Paolo Berlusconi was allowed to hear the tape, before it was even logged in as evidence, by Roberto Raffaelli, the head of the firm Research Control System (RCS) which had been contracted by criminal investigators to make the wiretap.

They said that several weeks later Raffaelli and a businessman friend, Fabrizio Favata, went to Berlusconi’s private mansion in Arcore, outside Milan, and played it for the premier and, again, his brother before handing over a copy.

A transcript of the Fassino-Consorte conversation was published several days later in Il Giornale.

The court’s explanation said claims that Berlusconi fell asleep while the recording was played at Arcore was not credible.

Berlusconi is also on trial in Milan for allegedly paying for sex with an underage prostitute and for allegedly abusing his office to try to hush up the affair. Prosecutors have requested a six-year prison term and a verdict is expected on June 24.

The ex-premier is appealing against a four-year conviction for fraud at his media empire too.

He also faces indictment for allegedly buying a Senator to help topple a Prodi’s 2006-08 government.

In his current and previous trials, Berlusconi has always denied wrongdoing, claiming he is the victim of a minority group of allegedly left-wing prosecutors and judges who he says are persecuting him for political reasons.

Members of Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party rallied to his defence, saying the explanation was an example of the judicial persecution the three-time premier allegedly suffers.

PdL MP and former education minister Mariastella Gelmini said the sentence and the explanation were “paradoxical” given that Berlusconi has been badly hit by the publication of wiretaps in a series of sex scandals.

“Even to the eyes of someone who is not a lawyer, the absurdity of the arguments contained in the explanation of the sentence is clear,” added Gelmini. “There is no logic in saying that, as Berlusconi is the leader of the PdL, he must have given the authorization for the publication of the telephone call, as the judges maintain… to convict a person you need proof, not suppositions. “But for a long time this has not been the path taken by a minority in the judiciary who tear up everything, including the law, to weaken their political enemy, without succeeding”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Opportunities Minister Calls for Action Plan Against Racism

Government asked to make diversity a high priority

(ANSA) — Rome, June 5 — The Italian government must make it a top priority to develop a national program to combat the “odious phenomenon” of racism, Equal Opportunities Minister Josefa Idem said Wednesday.

“I think a priority, in agreement with the Minister for Integration Cecile Kyenge, is the processing and implementation of a National Plan of Action against racism, xenophobia and related intolerance,” said Idem.

The plan should be implemented over three years, beginning immediately, and include “the systematic application of the principle of equal treatment and non-discrimination,” in compliance with United Nations standards on human rights.

The issue of racism has been making headlines recently in Italy, particularly since the cabinet appointment in April of the Congo-born Kyenge.

As the country’s first black cabinet minister, Kyenge has suffered racist attacks from the anti-immigrant Northern League and anonymous bigots but she has also taken the opportunity to make a prominent stand against racism.

Black soccer players, such as Milan star Mario Balotelli, have also been standing up against racial slurs and pushing back against bigoted fans.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Netherlands to Support Local Engineering Industry, Train Exporters

ISLAMABAD — Centre for Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries (CBI), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Netherlands will provide training to exporters and support local engineering industries to enhance Pakistan’s exports to European Union (EU) countries.

The Engineering Development Board (EDB) and the CBI, in this regard have signed a partnership agreement to support private and public sector exports from the country. EDB Chief Executive Officer Qazi Ebadullah Khan and Ambassador of the Netherlands to Pakistan Hugo Gajus Scheltema signed the agreement on behalf of their respective countries.

The purpose of the partnership is to create economic prosperity through direct support to private and public export sectors and their intermediate support organisations in Pakistan.

The partnership also aims at creating synergies between the two organisations for the benefit of their clients to promote bilateral trade between Pakistan and Netherlands. Under the partnership agreement, local engineering industries of Pakistan will be supported by CBI in different fields including training of exporters.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Netherlands: ‘Tripling Wind Energy Capacity a Big Mistake’

THE HAGUE, 04/06/13 — The Netherlands is making a big mistake by putting a big emphasis on wind energy, warn Labour (PvdA) economists Willem Vermeend and Rick van der Ploeg.

The Netherlands is targeting an enormous expansion in the number of wind turbines. This is an important part of the national energy accord on which the Socio-Economic Council (SER) is currently negotiating, it emerges from a draft accord obtained by various media.

Plans for tripling the power generated by wind on land were already known. In the draft accord of the SER, on which government representatives as well as employer organisations and unions sit, it says however that another 3,200 megawatts (MW) should be generated offshore in 2020, growing further to 5,000 MW by 2023.

This means that a big wish of environmental organisations appears to be coming to fruition. Currently, there are just two wind parks producing a combined 228 MW, with another twin in the pipeline for a combined 750 MW.

In exchange for the gesture to the environmental movement, the coal tax (130 million euros per year) will be abolished in 2014 and energy companies will be subsidised to use biomass in coal-fired plants up to a maximum of 8 percent of Dutch electricity consumption. They will however voluntarily close the five oldest coal-fired plants.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Northern Ireland: Stormont Bars Convicted Terrorists From Special Advisor Positions

By Henry Hill. Henry Hill is a British Conservative and Unionist activist, and author of the blog Dilettante.

Serious offenders barred from being Stormont special advisors

Northern Ireland continues to demonstrate how balancing the integration of convicted terrorists into democratic politics with respect for their victims is a very difficult, often downright miserable business. The Northern Ireland Assembly has passed a law banning people convicted of serious crimes — marked by having served more than five years in prison — from serving as ministerial advisors in the province’s administration.

The bill was moved by Traditional Unionist Voice MLA Jim Allister after Sinn Fein started appointing people convicted for participation in IRA murders to the highly-paid positions. One advisor to Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness is set to lose his job, having served 14 years for killing three people in a mainland bombing campaign in 1981…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Scotland: Teenager Threatened With Knife by Her Muslim Father Appeals for Calm Over His Crime

IN the wake of Drummer Lee Rigby’s murder, Shyvonne Ahmmad, 18, fears her father’s crime could spark a blacklash by racists against the vast majority of decent muslims.

A SCOTS teenager threatened with a knife by her Muslim father has appealed for calm over the case. Shyvonne Ahmmad, 18, fears her dad’s crime could spark a backlash by racists against the vast majority of decent Muslims in her community.

She is concerned that tensions are already running high after the terrorist murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in London. And she said yesterday: “It’s important that everyone stays calm. I wouldn’t want this to turn into a thing about Islam because people can be very small-minded. My father has a very warped sense of what Islam is.”

Shyvonne’s father Regime, 49, escaped jail this week for pulling a knife on her and threatening to kill her after she shared a bed with a male friend at her mother’s house. Perth sheriff Valerie Johnston said her instinct was to send him to prison but sentencing rules meant she could not give him long enough to make it worthwhile. She gave him a two-year community payback order instead…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Spanish Police Nab Six Nigerian Women Over Voodoo Prostitution Ring

More than 12 years after the Idia Renaissance group in Benin-City led by Mrs Eki Igbinedion, wife of former governor of Edo State, led a spirited campaign against human trafficking especially to Italy and other parts of Europe, the Spanish police have revealed they have broken up a ring that smuggled women from Nigeria into Spain and forced them into street prostitution by burning them with irons and using voodoo rituals…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Strauss-Kahn Accused of Sexual Assault at Davos

Disgraced former International Monetary Fund director Dominique Strauss-Kahn is facing fresh allegations of sexual assault — this time in Switzerland.

Italian journalist Myrta Merlino claims she was assaulted by Strauss-Kahn at the World Economic Forum in Davos more than a decade ago, French magazine Le Point reported on Wednesday.

Merlino, now aged 44, made the accusations in a Youtube interview with Italian journalist Klaus Davi.

She claimed Strauss-Kahn, known as DSK in France, sexually assaulted her in his swanky hotel suite on the fringes of the annual Davos event on an unspecified date in the “late 1990s”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Sweden: Ikea Founder Steps Down From Key Board Post

Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad is leaving one of his most influential roles with the furniture giant he started as a teenager in southern Sweden as World War II raged.

The move comes amid a number of changes to the board of Inter Ikea Group, the holding company that manages the Ikea brand, retailing concept, and franchising operations.

“I see this as a good time for me to leave the board of Inter Ikea Group. By that we are also taking another step in the generation shift that has been ongoing for some years,” the 87-year-old Kamprad said in a statement.

At the same time, Per Ludvigsson, the chairman of Inter Ikea Holding, the holding company of Inter Ikea Group, is stepping down with the Ikea founder’s youngest son, Mathias Kamprad, taking over.

The elder Kamprad said his son is “well-prepared” for the new assignment, and that, despite his decision to leave the board, he would remain engaged with the company he started in 1943.

“My passion and engagement for the many people, the Ikea concept, simplicity and cost consciousness is as strong as ever,” he said.

“I will continue to share ideas and views. And I will continue to spend time in the stores and in the factories to work with people and help achieve constant improvement. Our journey has just started.”

Ingvar Kamprad stepped down as CEO Ikea in 1986 and has lived in Switzerland since the 1970s, but has remained one of the most influential names in the Swedish business world for decades.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK: ‘Give Woolwich Angels Top Civilian Honour’

The three women dubbed the “Woolwich Angels” for their bravery in the aftermath of the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby should receive Britain’s highest civilian honour, the public have called for. More than 50,000 people have signed a petition in the past six days asking for the trio to receive the George Medal. Woolwich rector Rev Jesse van der Valk, 54, is leading the campaign to recognise “brave heroines” Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, Amanda Donnelly and her daughter Gemini Donnelly-Martin. The clergyman said he had been overwhelmed by the “phenomenal” level of support since the petition was launched on Friday and expected hundreds of thousands of more people to sign it…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: £15m for Just One Firm on Legal Aid Gravy Train

Scale of taxpayers’ bill revealed as Coalition vows to save £200m

One firm of solicitors was paid almost £15million in taxpayer-funded legal aid in a year, while 20 individual barristers each raked in more than £300,000, startling official figures reveal.

In a graphic illustration of the legal aid gravy train, the Ministry of Justice released a breakdown of payments to lawyers.

Among them was that to London-based firm Duncan Lewis, which deals with immigration and asylum cases and topped the payout list for 2011/12.

Only established in 1998, Duncan Lewis, which has become one of the country’s fastest growing firms of solicitors, billed taxpayers for a total of £14.63million in civil legal aid.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Curry Club Conservatives Can Spice Things Up

by Isabel Hardman

Why are Tory MPs who can help win the next election ignored by the party leadership?

The Tory party is famed for its secret dining societies. They legendarily meet in fine clubs and are packed with influential members toasting themselves as yet another one of their bright ideas becomes official party policy. The most important supper club today, however, has a very different membership, and it’s tikka masala they tuck in to, not haute cuisine…

[Reader comment by willpenny on 5 June 2013 at about 10 am.]

And the Conservative party leadership club rules: Legalise Gay Marriage and build as many Mosques as possible. Yea .! real smart move .! And in the event of anyone complaining, go on holiday to Ibiza .!

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Don’t ‘Monitor’ Him. Lock Him Up and Throw Away the Key

Douglas Murray on why police need to act now against Britain’s most reviled man

How is it that the most infamous hate preacher in Britain is still free? A fortnight after one of his former associates slaughtered Drummer Lee Rigby in South London, Anjem Choudary is still at large to spew his message of hate.

In the hours immediately after the Woolwich attack, Kent police arrested, handcuffed and charged an 85-year-old woman alleged to have made abusive remarks near a mosque. At the same time, police in Bristol arrested two men in their 20s alleged to have made offensive comments of a racial or religious nature on social media.

If such people can be found in breach of the law, how on earth can Britain’s most high-profile hate preacher not be?

After all, this is a man who said that Drummer Rigby deserved to ‘burn in hell’ after his murder.

Scotland Yard’s top counter-terrorism officer Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick says Choudary is being monitored ‘constantly’ to see if his preaching breaks the law. But monitoring is not what people want. They want him locked up.

The story of Anjem Choudary is both simpler than our officials like to admit and more complex than some people realise…

           — Hat tip: Steen [Return to headlines]
 

UK: East Lancashire Pays Tribute to Murdered Soldier Lee Rigby

VOLUNTEERS took to the streets to hand out roses as symbols of peace following the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby.

Representatives from Connect UK and New Muslims Lancashire gave out more than 650 roses on Saturday morning in the Church Street area of Blackburn.

In Nelson, Inspiring Grace, a predominantly Muslim organisation, distributed the flowers to members of the public.

Coun Salim Sidat, who represents Audley and is Connect UK chairman, said: “It went fantastically well. We thought we might get the odd problem, but everyone was brilliant and it gives us so much encouragement to have such a welcome response. A lot of our volunteers were new converts to Islam and they were really well received.”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Gilligan and the Reductionists

Context

We received a call at around 5 pm on Friday the 31st of May by Andrew Gilligan, the Telegraph journalist and the Mayor’s cycle ambassador. He asked the Director of TELL MAMA a number of questions and was provided with a range of responses, some of which were simply not included in the article.

We will go through the key elements of the article and provide some context and explanations which are sadly missing from Gilligan’s article. Also, it should be noted that throughout the last week and a half, the Director of TELL MAMA and Faith Matters — Fiyaz Mughal, was one of the first people to condemn the brutal murder of drummer Lee Rigby and to state that a ‘no holds approach’ be taken against those who seek to murder people on the streets of our country. Those comments have been reported on widely in various media sources…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Gang Preyed on Young Girls Who Were ‘Starved of Affection’, Court Told

Men from Chadwell Heath, Newham, Barking and Dagenham were all part of an east London child prostitution ring that preyed on vulnerable teenage girls from a care home, a court heard today. The group are accused of a range of offences, including attacking a girl at a hotel in Ilford last year. Nabeel Ahmed, 24, of Chadwell Heath Lane, is charged with three counts of rape and denies all the offences. His brother Jameel Ahmed, 25, of Neville Road, Dagenham, denies two counts of rape…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Judge Frees Artist Who Sexually Abused Three Children as Young as Six While They Posed for His Paintings

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

An internationally renowned artist who molested young girls he used as models walked free from court yesterday.

Child abuse campaigners said the suspended sentence on 70-year-old Graham Ovenden was ‘outrageous’ and sent out the message that such crimes are not taken seriously.

But the judge said he had taken account of the artist’s age and his ‘irreversibly tarnished reputation’.

Ovenden, whose work has been exhibited at major galleries including The Tate in London, invited girls as young as six to sit for portraits and photographs.

He would blindfold his victims and make them wear Victorian nightwear before removing the clothing and committing indecent acts, a jury heard.

The artist was found guilty in April, but left court yesterday after he was sentenced insisting arrogantly that he had been the victim of a ‘witch-hunt’ and had ‘been through considerable hell’.

Asked if he thought everybody was wrong apart from him, he replied: ‘Since I’m probably 20 times more intelligent than most people I think that would be a very reasonable assumption.’

His self-assessment does not match the description of him in court as ‘a paedophile, a sexual abuser of children’.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Lamborghini Aventador for Sale, 870 Miles on the Clock (But Does the Chelsea Owner Think Only People Who Can Read Arabic Could Afford it!?)

The owner of a Lamborghini Aventador has advertised his car for sale but only those who can read Arabic need apply.

The two-door, two-seater sports car, worth around £320,000, has been spotted parked in wealthy Sloane Street, West London, with a ‘for sale’ sign in the front window.

But maybe the owner thinks us Brits can’t afford it because the sign has been written in Arabic.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Met Uni’s Islamic Society Says Sorry Over Woolwich ‘Hoax Killing’ Video Link

A student Islamic society has said sorry over the link to its Facebook site to a video claiming the killing of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich was “a government hoax”.

London Met University’s student-run Islamic Society, which has a Muslim prayer room at the City campus’s Calcutta House in Old Castle Street in Whitechapel, has removed the link from the site. A six-minute clip on YouTube showing the suspects involved in last month’s stabbing of the 25-year-old Army drummer had added captions alleging conspiracy and claiming he may not even have died.

The video, viewed by 300,000 people, was linked “by an individual” to the Islamic Society’s Facebook page showing one of the suspects before police arrived, with a caption asking: “Where is the blood on his hands that is seen on most of the other videos?”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Man Due in Court Accused of Woolwich Murder

One of the men accused of murdering soldier Lee Rigby will appear at the Old Bailey today for a bail hearing. Michael Adebolajo, 28, from Romford, Essex, is charged with murdering Drummer Rigby, 25, near Woolwich barracks in south east London on May 22. He is also accused of the attempted murder of two police officers and possession of a firearm, a 9.4mm KNIL model 91 revolver, with intent to cause others to believe that violence would be used.

The defendant, who is due to appear before Mr Justice Sweeney via video-link, is listed as Mujaahid Abu Hamza AKA Adebolajo by the court, after asking to be referred to by the name when he appeared before magistrates on Monday.

He was charged with the four counts on Saturday, having been discharged from hospital on Friday after spending just over a week there. Co-accused Michael Adebowale, 22, from Greenwich, south east London, appeared at the Old Bailey on Monday and is due to appear at the court again for a preliminary hearing on June 28.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Man Found Guilty of Rape After Attack on Bucks Teenager

A RAPIST who had already been jailed for five years was found guilty of another attack after targeting a 17-year-old girl from Bucks. Arshad Arif, 28, randomly selected a teenager the same age as his previous victim, before taking her to a park in Slough where he raped her twice…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Pictured: Horrific Injuries of Elderly Grave Digger, 74, Who Was Badly Beaten and Mugged as He Set Off Home for 50th Wedding Anniversary

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

Eric Hicks, 74, was attacked by heroin addict Jamie Evans, 32, outside cemetery where he volunteered on day of his Golden Wedding anniversary.

A man who left an elderly grave digger with horrific facial injuries after mugging him has been jailed for 10 years.

Eric Hicks, 74, was on his way home to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary with wife, Doreen, when he was set upon by Jamie Evans.

He had just completed a day of voluntary work at Atherton Cemetery in Greater Manchester when he was repeatedly punched, leaving him with a fractured cheek bone, cuts and bruises.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Woolwich Attack: ‘2,500 Pieces of Evidence’

One of Scotland Yard’s most senior police officers is quizzed by MPs over the investigation into the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby.

The assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has outlined to MPs the scale of the force’s inquiry into the murder of soldier Lee Rigby. Giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, Cressida Dick said 600 officers were involved in the police operation at its peak, including 100 counter-terrorism officers. She told the group of cross-party MPs that 17 addresses had been searched, 12 arrests made and six cars seized as part of the Met’s investigation into the shock killing of the serving British soldier. In addition, some 2,649 pieces of evidence have been uncovered.

Father-of-one Drummer Rigby was hacked to death in broad daylight near Woolwich barracks in south-east London on May 22. Ms Dick also defended the Met’s response to the attack, saying both the unarmed and armed response times were within what she would expect. But she added: “I cannot possibly put myself in the shoes of people who were at that horrific scene, many of them completely traumatised I’m sure by what had happened, waiting for police to arrive.”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Kosovo: Serbian Orthodox Church Criticises Brussels Talks

‘Serbs continue to suffer’

(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, JUNE 5 — The Serbian Orthodox Church has criticised the negotiations process between Belgrade and Pristina which led to the Brussels accord, saying that it had failed to solve the problems in Kosovo, where Serbs continue to suffer. At the end of a two-week meeting in Belgrade, the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church issued a statement saying that the international protectorate, NATO forces in Kosovo and the recent high-level talks in Brussels had failed to result in greater justice or a solution to the country’s problems in the country. The statement went on to say that, after the “destruction and profanation of Orthodox churches and monasteries, the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, the trafficking of human organs and other such crimes in Kosovo, Serbs are now being subjected to an even worse form of violence: the barbaric destruction of graves, killings, attacks on property, ghettoization and daily threats”. The Synod then went on to reiterate that it firmly rejected the direct or indirect recognition of the “ghost state of Kosovo outside Serbian territory”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

New Criminal Package Takes Effect in Albania

TIRANA, June 4 (Xinhua) — The new criminal package which enters in effect on Tuesday is the strictest in Albania of the past two decades, according to Minister of Justice Eduard Halimi. At a news conference, Halimi stressed that this package offers one more guarantee for the citizen’s life and public security. The attack against police forces and blood feud killing carries a minimum penalty of 30 years to life in prison. The crime of domestic violence carries a minimum penalty of 20 years to life in prison. With this criminal package in effect, the minimum penalty will be 10 years for illegal possession of arms without the possibility of parole and 38 years without parole compared to the previous sentence of 25 years for murder.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

EU: Egyptian Activist Says No Rights, No Relations

Desire to be president to prove women can, Dalia Ziada says

(ANSAmed) — Brussels, June 5 — Egyptian blogger Dalia Ziada says the European Union should not have relations with Egypt unless fundamental rights were respected in the country.

“There must be clear conditions from the EU,” said Ziada, the leading civil rights and women’s rights activist at a conference on the Arab spring at the European parliament. Winner of several international awards, including the journalism award of the Euro-Mediterranean Anna Lindh Foundation, Ziada spoke about Egypt’s “great shame” — the fact that the Constitution has only one article that mentions women and “only their role as mothers and wives”.

Tenacious and combattive, Ziada is only 31 but when she is 40 she wants to become president to “demonstrate that a woman who took part in the revolution can achieve the highest level in the country and that an Egyptian woman deservest o be at the top”.

Her battle began at the age of eight when she was subjected to female genital mutilation, which is common in Egypt.

“It was then I decided no-one else in my family should live through this experience,” she said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Al Qaeda Weapons Expert: U.S. Ambassador to Libya Killed by Lethal Injection

An al Qaeda terrorist stated in a recent online posting that U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens was killed by lethal injection after plans to kidnap him during the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi went bad.

The veracity of the claim by Abdallah Dhu-al-Bajadin, who was identified by U.S. officials as a weapons expert for al Qaeda, could not be determined. However, U.S. officials have not dismissed the terrorist’s assertion.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt: Ashton (EU): NGO Law Still Hinders Capacity of Donors

It has to be in line with international standards

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, JUNE 04 — EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton underlined in a statement issued by her spokesperson that the draft of the NGO law submitted by the Egyptian Authorities to the Shoura Council “still contains elements that can unnecessarily constrain the work of NGOs in Egypt and hinder our capacity as a foreign donor to support their work”, highlighting that the draft law “has to be in line with international standards and obligations of Egypt.” “The EU High Representative wishes to reiterate the EU’s firm commitment to supporting civil society in Egypt, which has a crucial role to play in the ongoing transition towards democracy”, affirmed the statement, recalling that the EU engaged with the government and provided technical advice to the authorities in the process of drafting the NGO Law in a spirit of true partnership. “The EU remains fully committed to working closely with all stakeholders to ensure that an NGO law, fully in line with best regional and international practice is adopted in Egypt”, concluded the statement.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt: A Court Sentences 43 Foreign NGO Workers to Prison

Sentences range from five to two years in prison. 27 foreign nationals also involved, including 17 Americans, tried in absentia. They are charged with having received illegal funding. For the U.S. the verdict is contrary to the democratic transition of the country.

Cairo (AsiaNews / Agencies) — An Egyptian court has sentenced to prison 43 operators of non-governmental agencies, including 27 foreigners, for having received illegal funding from abroad. The penalties range from a maximum of five years in prison for 17 U.S. citizens, tried in absentia, to a minimum of one year. The verdict, announced last night by the judge Makram Awad, has sparked strong reaction from the United States. John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State, said the trial was “incompatible with the democratic transition in Egypt.” The United States is the main partner of the Egyptian army, which receives each year from Washington a total of 1.3 billion dollars. The diplomat said the convictions are a serious attack on Egyptian civil society, which bring the country back to the period of the Mubarak regime.

The crackdown by the Egyptian authorities against foreign NGOs began at the end of 2011 during demonstrations against the Army High Council (SCAF) headed by General Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. At the time the court had ordered the closure of a number of organizations charging that, under the pretext of supporting the transition to democracy, they fomented riots against the military government by illegally receiving money from abroad. The process continued under the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood and has led to the expulsion of several American organizations including the International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Freedom House (FH).

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Egyptian Court Convicts at Least 16 American NGO Workers of Involvement in Illegal Activity in the Country

More than a dozen American aid workers have been sentenced to prison in Egypt after a court convicted them of stirring up unrest in the country.

At least 16 Americans were among the 43 NGO workers who were today found guilty of illegally using foreign funds and given jail sentences of up to five years.

Most of the Americans left Egypt last year, and are extremely unlikely to serve any prison time.

The convicted aid workers include Sam LaHood, son of the U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison.

The court in Cairo also issued judgements against the U.S. non-profit groups where the defendants worked, including the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House.

The organisations have had their Egyptian offices closed and their assets in the country seized.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Tunisia’s Hezbollah Changes Name to Obtain License

Tunis — Tunisia’s interior ministry last month rejected the legal license for Hezbollah on the grounds that it contradicted democratic values and sought to establish a caliphate. But party leader Seifeddine Laajili is still determined to win approval. He told Magharebia that he would change the name of his party and give up on a number of goals to obtain a license. “We’ll change it to Hezb al-Oumma, and we’ll explain several issues, including the establishment of the caliphate, which we’ll stop promoting,” he said…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Army Troops to Retake Al-Qaida-Seized Village in Yemen

ADEN, Yemen, June 5 (Xinhua) — The Yemeni forces launched on Wednesday an assault against an al-Qaida-seized village in the southeastern province of Hadramout, a government official told Xinhua. The counter-terrorism forces backed by several armored vehicles and military warplanes carried out an operation to retake the al- Qaida-seized village in Ghayl Bawazir, near the port city of Mukalla, the local government official said on condition of anonymity…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

China Nudges US Out of Iraqi Oil Boom

After hundreds of thousands of deaths and a decade of US military presence, could China be the ultimate winner of the Iraq War? The Asian giant is expanding its share of the Iraqi oil market at the expense of US firms.

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraq has become one of the world’s top oil producers, and China, which already buys nearly half the oil the country produces, is currently vying for an even bigger share. State-operated oil companies are now bidding for a vast stake in one of Iraq’s largest oil fields currently owned by US multinational Exxon Mobil.

According to market analysts, it is a further sign that China is capitalizing on the political situation in Iraq to edge out US competitors.

“Though the Americans technically won the war there, as you know it was a catastrophic blunder,” said Mamdouh Salameh, international oil economist and oil market consultant for the World Bank. “They went for oil, but the winner actually is China.”

China was among the first to seize the opportunity created by the fall of Saddam by pouring vast finances and thousands of oil workers into the country. That preparation was augmented two years ago when the new Iraqi government began negotiating oil concessions. The immense southern Iraqi oilfield at Rumaila was allocated to BP and the China National Petroleum Corporation. Rumaila, straddling the border with Kuwait, is thought to have one of the biggest oil reserves in the world.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

New SARS: 25 Die in Saudi Arabia, Fears for Mecca Pilgrims

Appeal for Italian and Saudi co-operation, AMSI

(ANSAmed) — Rome, June 5 — By Elisa Pinna — Medical authorities across the Arab world are on alert particularly in Saudi Arabia, where the victims from the new SARS virus have reached 25.

Another 39 cases have been confirmed and another 1300 suspected cases have been reported.

Foad Aodi, president of the association of foreign doctors in Italy ( AMSI) and Comai, which represents the Arab world in Italy, are both concerned.

Two deaths have been reported in Jordan, another in the United Arab Emirates, one in Tunisia and one in London. Now there are concerns about the threat to the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca and fears that further contagion could become an epidemic.

“The most worrying aspect is that we still haven’t identified the means of contagion of the virus and we have serious fears about the next haj that will bring millions of Muslims from around the world to Mecca the most holy place in Islam in October,” said Aodi. Around 2,000 Muslim pilgrims are expected to go to Mecca from Italy.

The greatest risk will be at the Eid festival which marks the end of Ramadan with a feast including the killing of an animal that is shared among the poorest families in the Arab world.

Even though there is still a great deal of uncertainty, Aodi says like the Chinese version of SARS it is widely believed that the origin of the virus is linked to contact with animals.

Unlike the Chinese strain, the new SARS particularly strikes the kidneys, even though it moves through the respiratory system and particularly strikes people who are already weak.

Aodi said Saudi Arabia is launching a plan for information and prevention with the aid of the World Health Organization.

In the Arab countries, he said there was great admiration for the way in which Florence had treated and cured cases of the new SARS.

He proposed major co-operatino between Italian and Saudi authorities to fight any future emergencies.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Syrian Rebels Leave Qusair, Hezbollah Shows Footage

Regime general underscores strategic value of city

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT — Syrian rebels have withdrawn from the city of Qusair after a violent onslaught by regime troops. The Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah have confirmed the regaining of the city — a rebel stronghold in central Syria near the Lebanese border — by Bashar Al Assad’s forces, using their television broadcaster Al Manar to show exclusive footage of regime troops entering the city centre. The images focus on the retaking of the town council offices and Clock Tower Square.

Hezbollah’s broadcaster went on to report that “the (rebel) combatants have fled in large numbers towards eastern Buayda and Dbaa”, locations east of Qusair. Al Manar said that the regime attack enjoying support from Hezbollah militants had been from the northern areas of the city, which had managed to resist the joint attack since January. A general of the Syrian army under President Assad underscored Wednesday morning the importance of regaining Qusair. Quoted by Beirut-based Iranian television broadcaster Al Mayadin, General Yahya Sulayman said that “whoever controls Qusair controls the centre of the country. And whoever controls the centre of the country controls all of Syria.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Syria: Assad Forces Take Control of Qusayr in Major Breakthrough

The Syrian army has seized control of the strategic border town of Qusayr, in a major breakthrough for Bashar al-Assad’s forces.

Syria’s rebels conceded that they had lost the battle for the strategic town. At the same time, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said fighters from the Lebanese Hizbollah movement, were in control of the town. The breakthrough came as a British Government spokesman said samples from Syria have tested positive for sarin gas and there is growing information that the regime was using chemical weapons…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Turkey: The Strange Silence of Ataturk’s Military

Some protesters call on army to defend the people

(by Francesco Cerri) (ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JUNE 4 — In a country in which tens of thousands of demonstrators have been taking to the streets for a week, clashing with Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s police as they lay claim to the inheritance of the nation’s secular founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the silence of the army has been deafening.

This would be normal in a consolidated European democracy but not in Turkey, where the military has been the defender of the country’s independence and its secular nature since Ataturk founded the republic on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.

Since then, the Turkish military has taken power four times, while in 1997, the generals forced then-Islamic premier Nekmettin Erbakan, political guide to Erdogan, to resign.

“Where is the military?” ask some anti-Erdogan demonstrators while denouncing “ferocious” police violence. “Why doesn’t the army intervene to defend its people”, @SimonekeNaomo tweeted today at 4:26pm. “Forget about the bombs and stand up for the people at last”, @Freiravmpazer agreed. It has only been 10 years, but today’s Turkey seems light years from 2002, when Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power and the Islamic premier and the army engaged in a struggle for power, which Erdogan won.

With support from the EU, which posited a military well confined to its barracks as a precondition for talks, the generals gradually abdicated their role as guarantors of Ataturk’s secular values. Erdogan’s special tribunals, which the opposition denounced as a witch hunt and which sent hundreds of high ranking officers to prison on charges of plotting to overthrow the government, appear to have given the coup de grace.

One in five generals of what is the second-strongest NATO army is now behind bars. Three of them were sentenced to life in prison in September, while prosecutors asked for life sentences against another 113 officers in April.

Crushed, demoralized, stripped of their prestige and their privileges, the generals have not so far reacted. But the backbone of the Turkish military remains fundamentally secular and Ataturkian. Many of them voted AKP in the last elections, not because of religious faith but because, as one high-ranking officer explained, Erdogan “put the economy back on track, tripled per capita income, made Turkey the 17th world economy, a regional power”.

But the army’s secular soul remains. “If he tries to institute an Islamic republic, we will stop him”, the officer promised.

This is exactly what the demonstrators are denouncing: the risk of a slide towards an authoritarian Islamic regime. The army has kept silent, for now. But not all the protesters are unhappy about this.

At 4:29pm, @Fulyacandas tweets back at @SimonekeNaomo: “We don’t want the military to intervene. This is a civil protest. The army is no solution”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Turkey: 24 Arrested in Smyrna for Pro-Protest Tweets

14 others wanted by police

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JUNE 5 — Police arrested 24 people Tuesday night in Smyrna on charges of “incitement to disorder and propaganda” for tweeting support for nation-wide protests against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erodgan, say Turkish media outlets. Fourteen others are being sought by the police. According to local sources from the main opposition party CHP, those arrested had encouraged participation in the protests. On Monday Erdogan called Twitter a “a curse on society”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Turkey: Thousands Order Food to Support Gezi Park Protesters

(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, JUNE 5 — Turkey’s leading food ordering chain, yemeksepeti.com, received more than 1,000 orders to be delivered to Gezi Park in Taksim Square, in an act of solidarity with the protesters in central Istanbul. More than 1,000 people ordered food from their home computers to send lunch to protesters in the area, including pizzas, hamburgers, and wraps as daily Hurriyet reports. “We have received orders from all over the country and even from outside Turkey,” Nevzat Aydin, CEO of Yemek Sepeti (“Food Basket”). Aydin said those ordering had written locations near to the park as the delivery addresses. He admitted that there had been delays in deliveries, but said eventually there were no problems at all. Activists have been staging sit-in events at Gezi Park, which was subject to a renovation plan that requires the trees to be cut down for the building of a shopping mall. After the initial protests were intervened with police attacks, the events snowballed into anti-government protests across the country.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Turkey: Protestors Want Ankara and Istanbul Police Chiefs Removed

Night of clashes despite government ‘apology’

(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, JUNE 5 — The representatives of anti-government protestors who met with Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, Wednesday demanded the removal of the police chiefs in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities. The police chiefs are held to be responsible for the brutality used by anti-riot squads. Arinc is acting head of government during Prime Minister Erdogan’s official visit to North African countries, set to end on Thursday.

“The heads of police who ordered this violence must be removed from their positions,” a spokesman told journalists after the talk with Arinc. Despite the partial ‘apology’ Arinc issued Tuesday concerning police brutality, demonstrators and police clashed again over the night, while in Smyrna dozens accused of using Twitter to encourage protest have been arrested. The country’s major cities experienced relative, precarious calm during the day Tuesday, with thousands gathering in the afternoon in Istanbul’s Taksim Square and in Ankara’s Kizilay, the two centres of the uprising against Islamic prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. No incidents were reported until the evening, however. Over the night clashes occurred in the two cities near the prime minister’s offices. In Antakya near the Syrian border, where tens of thousands of people took part in the funeral of a young protestor killed on Monday, violent clashes also occurred over the night.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Turkey: Erdogan-Gul Ambitions Behind the Curtains

‘Good cop, Bad cop’ game in different response to clashes, press

(by Francesco Cerri) (ANSAmed) — Ankara, June 5 — The Turkish government’s response to the clashes that have emerged on the streets of Istanbul has exposed divisions within the ruling party of premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to pundits.

It has been described as ‘good cop, bad cop’ as Erdogan and president Abdullah Gul who are members of the same AKP have responded to the conflict on the streets.

As members of the core group that founded the AKP, Erdogan and Gul have been longtime political partners, working collaboratively in the party’s early days to overcome the Turkish secularists’ disquiet over the rise of the moderate Islamist party.

After the AKP’s first electoral victory in November 2002, Gul briefly held the prime minister’s post since Erdogan was banned from public life and in March 2003, Gul handed over the premiership to Erdogan after the new AKP government succeeded in overturning the ban.

In relation to the latest clashes, the Turkish media have accused Erdogan of inflameing the conflict with his outspoken rhetoric and pejorative comments about the protesters, while the president adopted a more moderate tone of a leader ready for dialogue with the rebels.

According to analysts, the 2014 presidential election is the real issue as the two leaders jockey for position and are on track for more conflict.

Early friction was seen last summer when Erdogan made it known he had an eye on Gul’s position after a constitutional review.

In other words, Erdogan wanted to become head of state — also because the rules of the AKP do not allow him to remain prime minister after 2015.

But the plans of the premier provoked a reaction from the president who wants to remain in office for another five years.

Gul made his irritation known and since then tension between the two former friends has grown.

Gul, considered a ‘hawk’ 10 years ago, has transformed his image and become a man of consensus and moderation.

Erdogan, convinced he had no other rivals on the horizon, since the election victory of 2011 ( his 3rd with 50%)adopted a more authoritative approach and accelerated the ‘Islamic’ change of the country.

During the long hunger strike by thousands of Kurdish prisoners last year, Gul called for moderation and put pressure on the justice minister, and won.

Erdogan then wanted to cut immunity for MPs belonging to the Kurdish BDP party.

Gul opposed the move in the name of democracy and Erdogan changed his mind.

Erdogan, the ‘sultan’, banned the opposition from celebrating the anniversary of the republic and sent police to tanks to impose the ban. Gul called for the governor of Ankara to withdraw the police.

Now Erdogan has labelled as “vandals” the thousands of protesters that are calling for his resignation.

The president said it is legitimate to protest peacefully and as soon as the premier left for three days in the Maghreb agreed with his deputy on a means to negotiate.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Turkey: Resistance in Istanbul With 140 Characters

With continuing protests against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government in Turkey, there has been sharp criticism that traditional media have largely been silent. But what role have social media been playing?

In Turkey, where the redevelopment of Gezi Park in Istanbul’s main Taksim Square has turned into huge protests against the government, the young activists who once were criticized for being “apolitical” are using a world-famous weapon against the security forces: Twitter.

The government’s decision to build barracks and a shopping center in Gezi Park and the police’s tough action against the mostly peaceful demonstrators seem not to be serious enough to warrant coverage by the Turkish media.

But as social networks Twitter and Facebook are overwhelmed by videos and photos of clashes between the activists and security forces’ excessive use of tear gas, until recently the news channels broadcast either talk shows or documentaries about penguins.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

18 Militants Killed in Operations in Afghanistan: Gov’t

KABUL, June 5 (Xinhua) — Eighteen militants have been killed in a series of military operations in different Afghan provinces, the country’s Interior Ministry said Wednesday. “Afghan National Police (ANP) in coordination with the army, intelligence service and the NATO-led coalition forces conducted several military operations in Helmand, Zabul, Nangarhar, Kunduz and Ghor provinces over the last 24 hours. As results 18 armed Taliban were killed, six wounded and two other armed Taliban were arrested,” the ministry said in a press statement…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

China Launches Anti-Dumping Probe Against EU Wine

China has launched an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy probe against wine imported from the European Union (EU).

The move comes a day after the EU imposed anti-dumping levies on Chinese solar panel imports.

Dumping refers to a practice where firms sell goods below their fair value. The EU alleges that such practice by China’s solar panel makers has hurt the region’s manufacturers.

However, China said it “resolutely opposes” the “unfair” levies by the EU.

“The Chinese government and industry have shown great sincerity and made enormous efforts in resolving the issue via dialogues and consultations,” Shen Danyang, a spokesman for China’s commerce ministry said in a statement.

“We hope the European side will show further sincerity and flexibility and find a solution that is acceptable to both sides via consultations.”

The commerce ministry gave no immediate details about the scope or timeline of its EU wine investigation.

China is the world’s largest producer of solar panels and exported 21bn euros ($27bn; £18bn) worth of panels to the EU in 2011.

However, its success has been marred by allegations that it had been unfairly undercutting the local manufacturers.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Forging the New ‘Big Power’ Relationship

US President Obama and Chinese President Xi are to meet in California to talk about the future of US-China relations. But the two-day summit may be clouded by growing concerns about cyberattacks, human rights and piracy.

There will be none of the pomp associated with US-Chinese summits when US President Barack Obama meets his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the Sunnylands Estate in Southern California this week. In an unprecedented move, both parties agreed to ditch the ties and break from diplomatic protocol. In the private retreat the leaders of the top two economic and trading nations will be holding a shirt-sleeves summit.

The global balance of power has been shifting over the past few years. While the US ranks amongst the world’s most indebted countries, China has become one of its biggest lenders. By the next decade China is expected to overtake the US as the largest economy on earth. At the Sunnylands residence Obama will be meeting with an assertive Chinese leader seeking a bigger place at the global table.

The real essence of the talks scheduled for this Friday and Saturday (June 7-8, 2013) was summed up a year ago by former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “The United States and China are trying to do something that is historically unprecedented, to write a new answer to the age-old question of what happens when an established power and a rising power meet.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Asia’s Run on African Resources

In a bid to counter China’s rising global influence, rival Japan has pledged billions in aid to Africa. Tokyo is seeking to tap into the continent’s vast resources and secure contracts for energy and mineral rights.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Nigeria: Jonathan Clamps Down on Terrorist Groups, Proscribes Boko Haram, Ansaru

President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the proscription of Boko Haram and authorized the gazetting of an order declaring the group’s activities illegal and acts of terrorism. In a statement by Dr Reuben Abati, Special Adviser to the President on Media & Publicity, said the order which has been gazetted as the Terrorism (Prevention) (Proscription Order) Notice 2013, was approved by President Jonathan.

According to the statement, the order affects both Jamaatu Ahlis-Sunna Liddaawati Wal Jihad, popularly called Boko Haram and Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina Fi Biladis Sudan, also referred to as Ansaru , with a 20 years term of imprisonment prescribed for persons who solicits or renders support for the groups…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Nigeria: Boko Haram — Catch Shekau, Get N1.1 Billion — U.S.

Lagos — THE United States took an unprecedented step, yesterday, when it posted a price tag of $23million, an equivalent of N3.3 billion on the head of top Al- Qaeda-linked terrorists in Nigeria and West Africa. Nigeria’s Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, attracts the highest reward of $7 million (N1.1 billion) for anybody that can provide information that can lead to his capture…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

South Africa Urged to Protect Foreign Nationals From Further Attacks

The South African government has been urged to protect citizens of other countries residing in that country in the wake of renewed xenophobic violence against foreign nationals. A wave of attacks against foreign owned shops reverberated across the country last week with widespread looting. The violence against foreign nationals started with a flare up in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg. A Somali national, Bishar Isaack, allegedly shot dead two Zimbabweans outside his shop when they allegedly tried to rob him…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

The Covert Op to Destroy the Word “Freedom”

These are actual modern definitions of freedom. Many people understand freedom in these terms and only these terms.

Here’s an example: people in poor countries have a right to food; they have a right to eat, not to starve; how can you be free if you’re starving?

That is very convincing to those who can’t think their way out of a wet paper bag.

A correct analysis would go this way: people in Uganda are starving. They have no right to food. This isn’t about food aid to Uganda. That isn’t a right, and it doesn’t solve the problem. People in Uganda have a right to fertile land, because it was stolen from them by their government and by mega-corporations and bankers. The theft was a crime. If we focus on the right to eat, then we end up supporting food aid from the outside as the big solution, and this plays directly into the hands of the thieves who stole the land. The thieves keep the land. The people of Uganda get a handout. And nothing is solved.

But that’s too on-target. It exposes the criminals. Therefore, these criminals relentlessly promote food aid as the altruistic thing to do, because it will keep them hidden and in control.

Mega-criminals twist the meaning of freedom to suit their purposes, and they succeed because they appear to be humanitarians. They are humanitarians in the same way that Stalin was a generous loving papa.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Uganda: Muslims Mark Isra Wal Mi’raj

Isra wal Mi’raj, also known as the night journey and ascension to heaven, is a single night journey that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) took from Mecca to Jerusalem and then to heaven to receive divine instructions from God (Allah)…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Uruguay’s High Rate of Gun Ownership Causes Concerns, Says NGO

MONTEVIDEO, June 4 (Xinhua) — Uruguay has the world’s highest per capita rate of gun ownership, with one out of three Uruguayans owning a firearm, according to figures released Tuesday by the Institute of Legal and Social Studies (IELSUR), a non-governmental organization (NGO).

Up to December 2012, 584,112 guns were registered in Uruguay, and the number of unregistered firearms is expected to double, in a country of just 3.4 million people, the NGO’s Luis Pedernera told a local radio station. The rate is almost as much as in “countries such as Iraq, where there is a latent armed conflict,” said Pedernera, adding the prevalence of guns puts Uruguay in the same position as “Colombia and Brazil, where firearms are highly used.”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Greece: Far-Right Golden Dawn Submits Own Anti-Racism Bill

‘To protect Greeks’ by jailing illegal immigrants

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS — Greece’s far-right Golden Dawn party hit back at plans for an anti-racism law on Tuesday by submitting its own draft bill to fight “racism against Greeks” by jailing illegal immigrants convicted of crimes for up to 10 years as daily Kathimerini reports. Members of Greece’s ruling coalition have been squabbling for days over the details of legislation aimed at curbing a rise in attacks on migrants. The law is widely seen as an attempt to rein in Golden Dawn, which has tapped into widespread anger against austerity and corruption to become the third most popular party in the country. Golden Dawn emerged from obscurity and entered Parliament for the first time last year, winning supporters with its free food handouts only for Greeks and fierce rhetoric blaming migrants for crime. It has denied having any involvement in the attacks. Golden Dawn said its bill proposed jailing anyone who entered the country illegally — even if they later obtained a legal permit — for at least three months and a sentence of at least 10 years if they subsequently committed a felony.

The ruling coalition’s junior partners — the Socialist PASOK and the Democratic Left — have jointly submitted a draft anti-racism bill that toughens penalties for inciting racial hatred, denying the Holocaust or carrying out attacks. The conservative New Democracy party says it plans to amend existing racism laws. Parliament will vote on those and any other proposals in the coming weeks. Golden Dawn has 18 seats in the 300-member Parliament, meaning its bill has virtually no chance of passing.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Sailboat With 121 Migrants Arrives in Calabria

Group of Syrian and Afghan adults includes 49 children

(ANSA) — Reggio Calabria, June 5 — A sailboat carrying 121 migrants arrived on Wednesday morning in the Calabrian port town of Bianco, near Reggio Calabria. The Afghan and Syrian nationals included 49 men, 23 women and 49 children of whom two are newborns. They are reportedly in good health and have been taken to a local rescue centre in Roccella Jonica.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

UK: John Bercow: Migrants Are Better Workers

Eastern European immigrants to Britain show more “aptitude and commitment” to work than British people, the Commons Speaker has said.

The arrival of thousands of workers from eastern Europe has had “great advantages” for Britain, John Bercow said. In remarks that have raised questions about his political neutrality, the Speaker also attacked British critics of recent trends in immigration for their “bellicose and strident tone”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Theresa May Launches New Push on Immigration Today

Later this morning, Theresa May will send an email to Conservative Party members drawing the dividing lines with Labour on immigration. We have a sneak preview in the form of the infographic which will be sent out with her message

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Baptists Plan Exodus From Boy Scouts

Baptist churches sponsor nearly 4,000 Scout units representing more than 100,000 youths, according to the Boy Scouts of America.

That number could drop precipitously.

The Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, will soon urge its 45,000 congregations and 16 million members to cut ties with the Scouts, according to church leaders.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Boy Scouts Waste No Time — March in Gay Pride Parade

This past weekend, uniformed boy scouts and leaders touted their open homosexuality by taking to the streets in Salt Lake City, Utah, and marching in the state’s largest Gay Pride Parade. (Associated Press photo at right)

Although it violated current policy, a BSA spokesman said the national headquarters would not take any action against the scouts. Instead, it will leave any discipline to the Great Salt Lake Council.

Just ten days after the BSA voted to accept open and avowed “gay” scouts, the Scout Oath and Law are already falling apart. The first to fall was the pledge to be “morally straight.” By defiantly marching in the parade, the BSA has now lost “trustworthy” and “obedient.”

Immediately after the historic vote, activists were already screaming that the new policy doesn’t go far enough. They have vowed to continue their bully tactics until homosexual adults are openly accepted.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: Uni Switches to Feminine Professor Titles for Men

The University of Leipzig has voted to adopt the feminine version of the word for “professor” as its default. In German Professorin refers to a female professor while Professor is the male equivalent.

Under the new measures, written documents will use the term Professorinnen when referring to professors in general. A footnote is to explain that male professors are also included in the description.

Physics professor Dr Josef Käs suggested the change as a joke because he was becoming weary of extended discussions about gendered language.

To his surprise, the university board voted in favour of the idea. The university’s president Beate Schücking approved the changes in early May and they are due to come into effect in the coming months.

However the move has not been welcomed in all circles.

“It’s a feminism which does language no good and doesn’t achieve anything concrete,” Professor of Law Bernd-Rüdiger Kern was quoted as saying by the online edition of Der Spiegel.

But Professor of Economics Friederike Maier, who is also a member of the EU Commission’s Network of Gender Equality and Employment has backed the change.

“When we women complain of being sidelined, as a rule our colleagues respond with a faint smile. Now that it’s the other way around, the men are grumbling. Maybe we’ll ultimately achieve a culture of gender equality,” she told duz Magazin.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The Ongoing Battle for Free Speech on Campus: Greg Lukianoff at the Museum of Sex

“The U.S. Department of Education just redefined harassment to make every single man, woman, and child arguably guilty of harassment in one fell swoop,” says Greg Lukianoff, who is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which advocates for free speech rights on campus. Lukianoff is referring to a recent letter sent by the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice to the University of Montana that redefined harassment as “any unwelcome sexual speech.” The letter also stated that it’s intended as a “blueprint for colleges and universities throughout the country.”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Alien Life Unlikely Around White and Brown Dwarfs, Study Finds

The dead and failed stars known as white dwarfs and brown dwarfs can give off heat that can warm up worlds, but their cooling natures and harsh light make them unlikely to host life, researchers say.

Stars generally burn hydrogen to give off light and heat up nearby worlds. However, there are other bodies in space that can shine light as well, such as the failed stars known as brown dwarfs and the dead stars known as white dwarfs.

White dwarfs are remnants of normal stars that have burned all the hydrogen in their cores. Still, they can remain hot enough to warm nearby planets for billions of years. Planets around white dwarfs might include the rocky cores of worlds that were in orbit before the star that became the white dwarf perished; new planets might also emerge from envelopes of gas and dust around white dwarfs.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

It’s Time to Tackle Insterstellar Spaceflight, Experts Say

If humanity is serious about traveling to other star star systems in the foreseeable future, it needs to get the ball rolling now, say experts who have organized an upcoming conference on the subject.

Pulling off our species’ first interstellar spaceflight will require many decades of hard work by some of the planet’s best minds. Some scientists and engineers are pushing for that work to begin now.

“An interstellar mission will be a pan-generational initiative requiring an immense investment of intellectual and financial capital, and so the necessary programs need to begin today,” Richard Obousy, president and co-founder of Icarus Interstellar, a nonprofit group devoted to pursuing space travel to another star, said in a statement.

“It’s time to take action so that our children and grandchildren look back upon this era as the time when we made the decision to work together instead of against one another,” Obousy added. “And as the time when true human history began.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The Legacy of Bilderberg’s Elite Criminals

If you want to see the real consequences of Bilderberg, look at its plans that have come to fruition — austerity and loss of national sovereignty and democracy in Europe, and the massive transfer of wealth and manufacturing from American to the communist elite in China.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

4 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/5/2013

  1. According to a listener to Romanian TV News this morning some UN guys want Romania to increase their military weapons force massively.

  2. Quote:
    The three women dubbed the “Woolwich Angels” for their bravery in the aftermath of the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby should receive Britain’s highest civilian honour, the public have called for.
    end

    Is this really a sentence?

    How about …
    The public have stated that the three women dubbed the … should receive Britain’s highest civilian honour.

    How does the public “call for” or “state” anything though?
    Unclearly written story.

  3. Do we really know who is behind the UAF?

    Everyone knows Tommy Robinson! He is the brave and self-sacrificing hero behind the EDL, if you support them. Or a racist, criminal thug, if you don’t. But we all know his face. We all know his recent history. And he regularly appears on TV so that left-wing commentators, and BBC presenters (often the same people) can attempt to cut him down to size. They don’t always succeed.

    But what do we know about the UAF, the Unite Against Fascists organisation which sprang into existence in 2003 and counts on the support of all manner of celebrities and politicians, and politicians who want to be celebrities? Would you recognise any of their leaders if you passed them on the street? And what of their backgrounds and motivations? Shouldn’t they come under the same searching investigation which the EDL seems to face? Do we really know who is behind the UAF?…..

    Read it all..

    • We know that the United Nations special envoy – or whatever – for migration, Peter Sutherland, told a House of Commons committee that the United Nations is fully committed to further mass third world immigration into Europe with the aim of destroying her homogeneous nation states – what is left of them – so as achieve the aim of making the EU one borderless, ethnically diverse entity.

      So we must assume that behind the EU is the United Nations and that is why their Agenda 21 binding European nations to such further mass immigration was included in the Lisbon Treaty which all their governments signed without telling their electorates.

      But Peter Sutherland also just happens to be on the board of Goldman Sachs. So can some wise person tell me if there is indeed a connection between the EU, the UN and Goldman Sachs? Or is this just another example of a paranoid conspiracy theory?

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