Thousands of Muslims in Moscow rioted during the Eid al-Adha holiday after a Muslim fatally stabbed a man. Russian police arrested at least 1,600 Muslims during the riot.
In other news, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad said he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, since it was his chemical weapons arsenal that was being dismantled by the UN weapons watchdog agency. Mr. al-Assad said he was joking, but some people were upset that he could joke about such a sensitive topic.
In shutdown news, Congressional Democrats and Republicans were once again unable to reach agreement on a funding bill to stave off a default on U.S. government debt, which will begin two days from now.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, JP, Papa Whiskey, 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.
Troika Tells Greece it Needs 2bln More Next Year
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 15 — Greece’s lenders are demanding that Athens will have to produce an extra 2 billion euros in savings in 2014 following a Eurogroup meeting in Luxembourg on Monday, as daily Kathimerini reports today adding that Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras was told he will have to take more measures next year despite the government’s hopes that it would avoid such a move. Following the talks, Stournaras insisted that Athens would not opt for any more “horizontal” cuts, affecting pensions and wages. The Greek finance minister also challenged the assertion made by European Central Bank executive board member, Joerg Asmussen, that Greece faced a “significant fiscal gap” in 2014. “There is no significant fiscal gap,” Stournaras told reporters. “We do have fiscal challenges — always.” Asmussen also said a financing gap of 5 billion euros to 6 billion euros has opened in the second half of 2014 under Greece’s international rescue program and euro-area central banks wouldn’t roll over Greek debt to fill the hole. “We must find a way to close this financing gap and there is absolutely no way that it can be done in a way of roll-over bond or whatsoever which results in monetary financing,” he said. “This is not possible for the ECB and not for the whole euro system.” Stournaras said the financing gap in the second half of next year is around 5 billion euros and the euro-area finance ministers had an initial discussion about it at today’s gathering. He also said all options are being considered to plug the gap and a decision would come in late December.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
US Government Shutdown: Doing Away With the Dollar
What would the world look like without the dollar supremacy? US officials are hammering out a deal to end the government shutdown and increase its debt limit, hoping to avoid a global financial meltdown. Meanwhile, some eyed alternatives to the US dollar to avoid a repeat.
China, the largest foreign owner of US treasury bonds, would feel much of the pain. Earlier this week, an editorial from its state news agency, Xinhua, called for a new international reserve currency to replace the dollar. “It is perhaps a good time for the befuddled world to start considering building a de-Americanized world,” it said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
House Outlines Alternative to Senate Deal on Spending and Debt Limit
House Republicans on Tuesday put forward the outline of a response to a Senate proposal that would end the government shutdown and raise the debt limit into next year, but would also make some changes to the health care law.
Under their plan, members of Congress and the cabinet would be compelled to obtain health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, but would not receive the employer subsidy from the government. Further, the deal would suspend a medical device tax for two years, something that was dropped from a Senate compromise in the making.
The plan would reopen the government with a spending plan that would last through Jan. 15th and increase the debt limit through the beginning of February.
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House Republicans’ Fiscal Plan Collapses
House Republican leaders struggled on Tuesday to craft a new proposal to re-open the government and alter parts of the president’s health care law after a plan presented behind closed doors to the Republican rank-and-file failed to attract enough support immediately to pass.
After more than two hours, Republican leaders walked back from a plan that had emerged this morning. Speaker John A. Boehner told reporters there are “no decisions about what exactly we will do.”
“We’re trying to find a way forward in a bipartisan way that would continue to provide fairness to the American people under Obamacare,” he said, but acknowledged “there are a lot of opinions” among his fractious troops.
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Now that we have affirmation on WHY the website does not work. Lets take a look at how it’s put together and follow the network.
ometimes looking into the engineering side of the new Obamacare Cyber Construction (Rabbit Hole) makes you wonder…..
In 2010 when the ACA (Obamacare) was passed it was 2,700 pages, 381,517 words, formulating a bill that no one read before it was voted on; and “we’d have to pass it to see what’s in it”.
In 2013 Obamacare, and the accompanying regulation which compromise its construct, is now 10,535 pages long (11,588,500 words). Thirty times larger than the initial construct and so massive that no one knows what it all means in totality.
So a website to sign people up for it needed to be constructed.
Where did the feds turn? To a previously authorized cyber engineering firm, CGI, who held a very special status — “Indefinite Delivery and Indefinite Quantity.” As the Washington Examiner outlined:
Federal officials considered only one firm to design the Obamacare health insurance exchange website that has performed abysmally since its Oct. 1 debut.
Rather than open the contracting process to a competitive public solicitation with multiple bidders, officials in the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid accepted a sole bidder, CGI Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian company with an uneven record of IT pricing and contract performance.
CMS officials are tight-lipped about why CGI was chosen or how it happened. They also refuse to say if other firms competed with CGI, or if there was ever a public solicitation for building Healthcare.gov, the backbone of Obamacare’s problem-plagued web portal.
Instead, it appears they used what amounts to a federal procurement system loophole to award the work to the Canadian firm. […]
In awarding the Healthcare.gov contract, CMS relied on a little-known federal contracting system called ID/IQ, which is government jargon for “Indefinite Delivery and Indefinite Quantity.”
CGI was a much smaller vendor when it was approved by HHS in 2007. With the approval, CGI became eligible for multiple awards without public notice and in circumvention of the normal competitive bidding procurement process.
[…]
NOTE: There is lots more at the Tree House. Read on…Wait! A Canadian company??
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On Tuesday, Muslims Observe a Day of Charity and Giving
Charity and care for those in need will be the central focus Tuesday morning as Muslims from across the midstate observe Eid Ghorban — the annual feast of sacrifice. Hundreds of faithful are expected to attend a morning prayer gathering at the In The Net Sports Complex in South Londonderry Township. The holiday, also known as Eid-al-Adha across the Muslim world, commemorates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son to God and marks the end of the haj pilgrimage to Mecca…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Seattle Bowing to Islamic Supremacists
Exclusive: Pamela Geller asks, ‘Why isn’t Muslim community trying to reform Islam?’
Last Thursday, my law firm, the American Freedom Law Center, or AFLC, on behalf of my organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, or AFDI, filed a motion asking the federal court in Seattle, Wash., to order the King County transit authorities to run our anti-terrorism advertisement featuring photos of 16 of the world’s Most Wanted Terrorists. The link to the motion is here…
The money quote in this piece comes from Siddiqui: “Freedom of expression is the fig leaf that most hatemongers hide behind these days.” Actually, restriction of freedom of speech and freedom of conscience is the club that tyrants wield to enslave and destroy the people.
Siffiqui is the hater. He hates truth and freedom.
We can’t run faces of the world’s worst terrorists because Muslims will get offended? Rational folks will see through this, no matter how slickly packaged the propaganda.
Levi Pulkkinen’s story in the Seattle PI was even worse. Check out the unqualified smear in the headline: “‘Hate group’ sues to re-run controversial FBI ads on Metro buses.”
Are news organizations incapable of reporting a news story without inserting their agenda-driven bias and propaganda? My organization is running the exact same ad as the FBI ran last month. Is the FBI a “hate group,” too? Did this vicious troll who fancies himself a “journalist” call me for comment? Of course not. And his entire article regurgitates the same libel and defamation provided to tools in the media by Hamas-linked/Muslim Brotherhood groups who work feverishly to destroy any and all opposition to jihad and sharia.
No research, no balance, no reportage. Just poison. According to the mainstream media, it’s “hate” to fight against jihad terrorism. That is the road to national suicide. On Friday, Muslim convert Hasan Abu Omar Ghannoum was taken off a terror-bound bus in California and arrested for aiding and abetting the jihadi group, al-Qaida. Another Muslim busted for jihad in America. This is hardly new or unique. We see these reports daily. Muslims and converts to Islam wage jihad in the cause of Islam. They cite the Quran, chapter and verse. Muslims worldwide continue the 1,400-year-old war to impose Islam across the world — all citing the same Islamic texts and teachings.
There is a problem in Islam.
So what is the response of the Muslim community? Is it to call for the expunging of the Quran of the violent texts that call for jihad? No.
What we do see is the Islamic pattern of stealth jihad. Muslim Brotherhood groups issue pro-forma, fill-in-the-blank condemnations after jihadi attacks or arrests (i.e., the Boston bombing), but they never address the Islamic texts that inspire jihad; nor do they attempt to organize programs that intervene in the recruitment of young Muslims or Muslim converts to jihad. What are the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, CAIR, ICNA ISNA, et al, doing to stop the mosques preaching and teaching jihad? Nothing. Instead, these Muslim groups urge Muslims not to talk to law enforcement (as with the notorious CAIR poster telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI), and they seek to dismantle counter-terror programs in the U.S.
Why isn’t the Muslim community trying to reform Islam? Why aren’t Muslim groups shutting down mosques that teach and preach jihad? What mosque did Hasan Abu Omar Ghannoum attend? AFDI has issued an 18-point platform for defeating jihad in America. The Muslim response to the arrest of California Muslim convert Hasan Abu Omar Ghannoum is obfuscation, cover-up and deceit. The bottom line is that they know exactly what Ghannoum is doing and why. And it needs to stop — but it never will until we speak honestly about it. Help us fund this fight. Donate here.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Senators Glum About Debt-Deal Prospects
Grim-faced senators left their party lunches Tuesday fearful that Washington was poised to do the unthinkable: Blow past the Thursday deadline to avert an unprecedented default on the U.S. debt.
After House Republicans drew a stern rebuke from the White House for moving their own proposal, Senate leaders abruptly broke off their talks, leaving Washington with no clear path to avert a growing national crisis. Even if the House fails to pass a bill and a deal is eventually reached in the Senate, any one senator can object and delay a final resolution until after the Thursday deadline when the Treasury Department warns the country will start running out of cash to pay its bills.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Why I Will Never, Ever, Go Back to the United States
After a year of traveling, I had planned a last, short trip. I was going to take the train from Montreal to New Orleans.
[…]
The first part of the trip, from Montreal to New York, is known to be one of the world’s prettiest train routes. When we had just passed the sign ‘Welcome to the State of New York,’ the train pulled over for a border check.
[…]
“So… what’s the verdict?”
“We are under the impression you have more ties with more countries we are not on friendly terms with than your own. We decided to bring you back to the Canadian border.”
They brought me back. In the car, no words were said. It was no use. I was defeated. To the Canadian border they said:
“We got another one. This one is from the Netherlands.”
The Canadian officer looked at me with pity. She asked if there was anything I needed. I said I could use some coffee and a cigarette. She took my passport to a back room and returned within five minutes, carrying an apologetic smile, a freshly stamped passport, coffee, a cigarette, and a ticket to the next bus back to Montreal.
I have been cursed at a Chinese border. In Dubai, my passport was studied by three veiled women for over an hour and my suitcase completely dismembered. In the Philippines I had to bribe someone in order to get my visa extended for a few days. Borders, they can be tough, especially in countries known for corruption.
But never, ever, will I return to the United States of America.
[This guy got hassled unmercifully. But Tamerlan Tsarnaev, on his way back from Dagestan, got waved right through. Your tax dollars at work. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
One police office is seriously injured after a riot in the Meulenberg area of the Limburg municipality of Houthalen-Helchteren on Friday evening. The trouble started after police tried to arrest a local man. During the riot, a car was driven into a police road block and police vans were pelted with stones.
The police had tried to arrest a man. However, he was able to escape handcuffed after a number of his friends came to his aid and fought with the police.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: Somali Pirate Arrested at Brussels Airport
Belgian police arrested Mohammed Abdi Hassan at Brussels Airport on Saturday. The man, who also goes by the name Afweyne or ‘Loud Mouth’, is thought to be one of the most notorious pirate leaders that Somalia has produced.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: Greater Eid: Random Checks on Sheep Transports
Police in the municipality of Sint-Pieters-Leeuw have launched a series of inspections at sheep farmers in the area outside Brussels. The Sint-Pieters-Leeuw force hopes to obtain information about members of the public who plan to kill a sheep in their own home as part of celebrations to mark the Muslim feast of Greater Eid.
Slaughtering sheep at home is a criminal act in Belgium. The act can only be carried out in an abattoir. Mark Crispel, the head of the Sint-Pieters-Leeuw force: “We’re going to do a few random checks targeting people who drive off with a sheep in their vehicle.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Free-Spending’ German Bishop in Vatican for Talks
German government says bishop’s case of great concern
(ANSA) — Vatican City, October 14 — An allegedly free-spending German bishop who has come under fire for what many are calling a lavish lifestyle is at the Vatican for talks on his future.
Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the bishop of Limburg, arrived in Rome on Sunday and headed to Vatican City for meetings concerning reports that his spending on renovations to his residence was excessive.
The case seemed especially sensitive given Pope Francis’s emphasis, since becoming pope in the spring, on simple and frugal living.
Tebartz-van Elst was expected to discuss his situation on Monday with the head of the German Bishops Conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, who has already written a letter to Pope Francis on the issue.
It was not clear if Tebartz-van Elst would meet with the pope while in Vatican City.
The BBC has reported on its website that Tebartz-van Elst — dubbed the “Luxury Bishop” — is facing calls for his resignation after spending 31 million euros on his residence.
He is also accused of lying about the property.
A commission has reportedly been established to investigate the case, including who approved what renovations and in what amount.
Zollitsch said he would like conclude the matter very quickly.
In Berlin, a spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the situation was of great concern in the diocese.
The bishop is also in hot water concerning a lawsuit against German newsmagazine Der Spiegel over an earlier article about his spending.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Golden Dawn Member Suggests Party’s MPs Involved in Gun Smuggling
A convicted member of Golden Dawn has told magistrates that he believes some of the Neo-Nazi party’s MPs were involved in gun smuggling. The 46-year-old, who is already in custody on separate charges, was a secretary at one of Golden Dawn’s offices in southern Athens.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Human ‘Mad Cow Disease’: 1 in 2,000 Brits Carry Abnormal Protein
One in 2,000 people in the United Kingdom carry a variant of a protein associated with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human version of mad cow disease, a new study finds.
[Maybe that explains Tony Blair?]
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Rescue Package Put to Alitalia’s Shareholders
Competitors say EU must halt state aid for Italian carrier
(ANSA) — Fiumicino, October 14 — As shareholders met Monday to vote on a financial aid package for the troubled Italian airline Alitalia, competitors called on the European Union to halt any government aid and rumours circulated about potential new partnerships.
The shareholders’ vote centred on a financial package that includes a 300-million-euro capital increase for the loss-making Italian flag-carrier.
Alitalia had been narrowly saved from the danger of defaulting on its big debts last Friday when its board members approved a major government-led bailout, featuring the capital increase and loans worth 200 million euros.
One of the lead players in the capital increase is Italy’s state-owned postal company, Poste Italiane, which is reportedly making a 75-million-euro contribution.
The capital increase met with wide approval, including the endorsement of Alitalia’s largest shareholder, Air France-KLM, according to other board members.
“We have approved the increase (of capital), according to plans”, said board member Maurizio Traglio following Friday’s board meeting.
According to Traglio everyone present at that meeting approved the measure, including Air France-KLM, which holds 25% of shares in Alitalia.
It was not clear what the next step will be for Air France-KLM and its involvement with struggling Alitalia.
But on Monday, British Airways cried foul and demanded that the EU intervene in the capital plans, saying that state aid for Alitalia would contravene regulations governing state assistance to businesses.
“We expect the European Commission to take action to suspend such aid (which is) manifestly illegal,” said International Airlines Group (IAG), the holding company that owns British Airways, Iberia and Vueling.
It also claimed to be historically opposed to public involvement in the private sector, saying it amounts to protectionism which it said “undermines competition and encourages those airlines… that are not in step with economic reality”.
British newspaper the Financial Times sounded a similar note earlier in the day when it wrote that a better solution would be to let the Dutch-French company Air France-KLM take outright control.
“Industrial protectionism is back in vogue in Rome. It is not a pretty sight,” read the editorial in the FT. However, Premier Enrico Letta’s office said those allegations were untrue.
“It’s not protectionism, it’s the opposite,” government sources told ANSA. “The Alitalia operation aims to get to negotiations for a merger with an international partner in conditions for it to be possible to have positive outcomes”. Meanwhile, Russian carrier Aeroflot said Monday that it is not interesting in buying a stake in Alitalia.
“Currently, we are not investigating any possible purchase of shares in Alitalia,” said Irina Dannenberg, a spokeswoman for Aeroflot. However, the Russian carrier could be interested in some other form of partnership with Alitalia, sources told ANSA.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Ex-Barracks Can be Used to Ease Jail Overcrowding’
Amnesty should apply ‘to everyone’ says justice minister
(ANSA) — Rome, October 14 — Army barracks no longer in use after Italy downsized its military could house prisoners who have committed non-serious crimes and help ease the chronic overcrowding of the Italian jail system, Justice Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri said Monday.
Parliament is divided over an amnesty to cut the prison population which is way over capacity and has brought repeated calls for action from the EU.
President Giorgio Napolitano said Friday an amnesty was the best way to improve “disgraceful” conditions which have been linked to a high suicide rate among inmates.
Napolitano was irked by suggestions the amnesty might apply to ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s recent tax-fraud conviction, for which he is set to do a year’s community service after a looming ejection from the Senate.
Cancellieri initially said an amnesty should not cover financial crimes but later said she agreed with Institutional Reform Minister Gaetano Quagliarello that it should apply to everyone.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Lazio Governor Calls for ‘Italian Solution’ For Concordia
Calls on government to help keep salvage deal going to Turkey
(ANSA) — Rome, October 14 — The governor of Lazio, the central Italian region around Rome, on Monday called for an “Italian solution” for the dismantling the Costa Concordia shipwreck after press reports that Costa Cruises may choose to tow it to Turkey next year.
Nicola Zingaretti also said the Italian government should get involved.
“I think the Letta government should move,” Zingaretti said, referring to Italian Premier Enrico Letta. “Italy needs to move, otherwise the ship risks ending up in Turkey,” Zingaretti went on.
Zingaretti said Lazio was ready to help with an “Italian solution” after Tuscan Governor Enrico Rossi and Palermo Mayor Leoluca Orlando expressed similar sentiments against letting the ship be towed out of Italian territory.
Last month, the massive cruise ship was turned upright in a 19-hour operation carried out by the Italian-US consortium Micoperi and Titan, making to ready it to be floated and dragged away to be broken up for scrap during the warm season next year.
The ship had sat lurching on its side, semi-submerged, since it crashed against a rock formation on the Tuscan island of Giglio on January 13, 2012 in a disaster that took 32 lives. “We are respectful of everyone’s prerogatives, and we absolutely do not want to reduce everything to a fight between regions,” Zingaretti said.
“But press leaks have confirmed our fears. It is tragically true that today a credible destination for the Costa Concordia appears to be Izmir,” complained Zingaretti. “We are ready and willing…to advance an Italian proposal, which attempts…to build an appetizing offer for those who, in the end — the businessmen — have to take a decision,” Zingaretti said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Beppe Grillo Launches Attack on TV Presenter Fabio Fazio
(AGI) Rome, Oct 15 — Beppe Grillo wrote an attack on RAI for buying Fabio Fazio’s Sunday evening entertainment show from a company one third owned by Mediaset. “The ‘Che tempo fa’ programme by Fazio, the doormat of the PD-minus-L, is produced by Endemol, 33 percent owned by Mediaset. RAI is buying a programme from Berlusconi instead of producing it internally.
It would not take much for the public broadcaster to do so, as RAI has 10,476 employees. When Fazio says ‘I earn money for my company’, who is he referring to? To Endemol?”, Beppe Grillo writes on his blog.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Mainstream Baffled as French Turn to Far Right
AFP — France’s mainstream political parties were Monday scratching their heads over what to do about a surge by the Front National (FN) after a breakthrough by-election win for the far-right party.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A married physics teacher blackmailed schoolgirls and young women into sending him sexually explicit photos of themselves, a court heard.
Father-of-two Zahid Akram, 37, would persuade his victims to send him pictures in their underwear and then threaten to forward them on to their family if they did not send more.
Detectives believe Akram may have contacted hundreds of youngsters on Badoo while posing as a schoolboy.
The teacher was warned he faces a long spell behind bars by a judge at Exeter Crown Court after he admitted four charges of blackmail and one of causing or inciting a child aged 13-17 to prostitution or pornography.
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OSLO, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) — Norwegian King Harald V accepted on Monday the resignation of the government led by the country’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. The coalition government of the Labor Party and two other left-centre parties, who lost the majority in the September parliamentary election, will stay as the caretaker pending a new government is formed. King Harald V is now expected to contact Conservative party leader Erna Solberg ask her to form the new government…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Revisionist View of Munich, Launched in Aid of Obama, Fails the Test of History
Historical revisionism is always in season and is generally a useful, or at least diverting, activity. But Nick Baumann’s effort, in Slate Sept. 28, to resuscitate the strategic reputation of Neville Chamberlain (British prime minister, 1937—40), on the 75th anniversary of the Munich Agreement, was a bridge too far in historical myth-making.
It is correct that Britain and France could not go to war to prevent Germans in Czechoslovakia, especially concentrated in Sudetenland, from becoming Germans in fact; and that, as a practical matter, this meant conceding Sudetenland to Germany, as the Czechs could not deport a million Germans without justifying and bringing down on themselves an irresistible German invasion…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: “No Reason” To Appeal Gang Rape Verdict
The Swedish Prosecution Authority has determined that there is no reason for a court verdict in a Stockholm gang rape case to be appealed, Swedish Radio’s local P4 Stockholm station reported.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Major London Terror Plot’ Foiled by Police in Dramatic Armed Raids Across the Capital
Police smashed a suspected Islamist terror plot to attack London after four men were held by heavily-armed officers. The Met acted on intelligence that the men may have had access to firearms, prompting fears of an attack similar to the Kenyan mall atrocity.
Two men aged 25 were arrested in a “hard stop” in Mansell Street near Tower Bridge last night after officers blew out the tyres of their car with shotgun rounds and rammed the vehicle. One man, aged 29, was held at his home in Peckham after a stake-out by undercover officers. Police also seized a 28-year-old man outside an Iranian restaurant in Westbourne Grove. Around eight police cars surrounded the Alounak restaurant as the suspect came out…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Buckingham Palace Security Breach: Man Arrested for Trying to Get Into Palace With Knife
A man has been arrested after police found him trying to enter Buckingham Palace with a knife. The 44-year-old was held at around 11.30am when he attempted to get through the north centre gate and was stopped by police. He was arrested on suspicion of trespassing on a protected site and possession of an offensive weapon and is in custody at a north London police station. Buckingham Palace said that the Queen was not in the building when the man tried to get in, but would make no further comment. No one was injured in the incident…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Shammi Atwal, 44, died after being pushed under a moving lorry as he chased a smash-and-grab gang that tried to rob his cash and carry.
The brave father-of-two confronted the mob of 10 who were armed with metal bars and a sledgehammer, when they tried to raid his property in broad daylight yesterday morning.
His wife, Deepa, 37, who witnessed the raid, suffered minor injuries and was said by family to be devastated.
Mr Atwal’s uncle Tarsem Singh, 65, said his nephew would be terribly missed by the Sikh community.
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Three masked intruders broke into a man’s home and threw acid at his legs leaving him with serious injuries, police said today.
The men broke into the terraced home in Bradford, West Yorkshire, before setting upon the 50-year-old victim in an upstairs bedroom.
They then threw a ‘dangerous chemical’ over him in what police believe was a targeted attack.
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Jimmy Savile dismissed allegations that he had sexually assaulted youngsters at a children’s home, telling detectives he had not done anything wrong in 83-years, transcripts of his final police interviews have revealed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: More on the Luton Islamic Centre
by Sarah AB
There’s a whole range of people campaigning against phenomena and groups associated with Islam/Muslims. Some of these are either wholly Muslim or have Muslim supporters — Quilliam is one example, and One Law for All another. But other campaigners are anti-Islam, even anti-Muslim. Some want to stop all immigration from Muslim countries. This position might be identified as far-right or extreme, but it’s not so extreme as the position taken by former Swedish Democrat, Par Norling, who would like Islam banned, and those who persist deported…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Foil ‘Mumbai-Style’ Terrorist Plot in London, Say Security Sources
Four men held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism after surveillance operation
A suspected terrorist plot to launch a Mumbai-style attack in Britain has been foiled after police swooped on four men, firing shots as they stopped a car in central London.
The arrested men had been under MI5 surveillance for some time after intelligence was received that they were plotting attacks in Britain, according to security sources…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Terror Raid: Police Continue to Quiz London Suspects
Four British men being held over an alleged terror plot are continuing to be questioned by detectives.
The men — arrested in a series of raids in London on Sunday — are being held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Searches are continuing at six addresses and on two vehicles. Whitehall officials said the alleged Jihadist plot was “serious” and intended to use firearms in the UK…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Laboratory of Violence: Egypt Struggles for Control of Sinai
The Sinai Peninsula is both a vacation paradise and a haven for jihadists and gangs of thugs. The military and the police are trying to regain control over the region. But a new class of haughty warlords and a resentful public mean the state’s chances are remote.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Marzotto Reportedly Leaves Tunisia for Lithuania
Due to ‘climate of uncertainty’, Lithuanian paper reports
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, OCTOBER 14 — Italian textile manufacturer the Marzotto Group is shutting down its Tunisia operations and moving them to Lithuania, where Marzotto company Liteksas manufactures furniture textiles and blankets for the Lanerossi brand, African Manager economic website reported Monday.
Marzotto, which is expected to make an official announcement soon, will base its new plants in the city of Kaunas, Lithuanian business newspaper Verslo Zinios explained.
The Italian group is pulling out of Tunisia because of the persisting climate of uncertainty there, according to the Lithuanian daily.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Could Israel’s Discovery of Hamas Tunnels End the Cease Fire?
This week, the IDF discovered a tunnel replete with electrical and telephone lines and ventilating systems with walls finished in concrete. The tunnel has been estimated to have cost Hamas millions of shekels to build. This comes at a time when the Egyptian interim regime under Gen. al-Sisi has virtually closed down over 80 percent of tunnels under the Gaza /Egyptian frontier putting a major squeeze on cash drawn from taxes on smuggled goods. One of Israel’s first reactions was to shut down the Kerem Shalom crossing delivery of construction materials. Clearly, any such construction materials are not being used for civilian infrastructure projects. Rather they have been diverted to construct tunnels to launch possible snatch and grab kidnappings akin to the one that captured Gilad Shalit in 2006.
There is also the likely threat of attacks on Israeli communities in the Eshkol region on Israel’s Southern border. These discoveries come as the anniversary of the Hamas-Israel cease fire nears…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Must Recognise Palestine, Says PNA Ambassador
(AGI) — Rome, Oct 14 — The Palestinian National Authority’s ambassador to Italy, Mai Alkaila, urged Italy to recognise Palestine’s statehood officially “as soon as possible”, and not only implicitly as it did by allowing it to establish an embassy. Italy, Alkaila said, plays “a key role” in peace negotiations in the Middle East. The President of the PNA, Mahmoud Abbas, who chose Italy as his first destination in a diplomatic tour to raise awareness of Palestine’s cause, will arrive in Rome on Wednesday, where he will meet with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, as well as Pope Francis on Thursday. “He will tour various countries to know their position in this stage of negotiations; he will begin with Italy and then proceed to Poland and Germany”, Alkaila told AGI. “The visit to the Pope is one of peace”, she added, “because Pope Francis speaks and motivates people to live in peace. We expect that he too will be supportive of our cause”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iran: Timeline of Key Moments in Iran’s Nuclear Program
TEHRAN, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) — This timeline delineates key moments in a decade-long standoff over Iran’s nuclear program:
2002 August. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) learned via Iranian Paris-based exiled MEK organization that Iran had engaged in a host of undeclared nuclear activities in its two nuclear facilities of Natanz and Arak…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nuclear Talks With Iran Launch in Geneva
World powers opened nuclear talks with Iran on Tuesday in Geneva with Tehran set to unveil a roadmap for negotiations under new President Hassan Rouhani that it says could yield a deal in a year.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Bashar Al-Assad: The Nobel Peace Prize Should Have Been Mine
The president of Syria has said that he deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize — a comment likely to raise eyebrows around the world.
Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, has joked that he deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize after it was awarded to the international weapons watchdog currently destroying his regime’s massive chemical arsenal. The prize, which was given to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on Friday, “should have been mine,” he said.
The remark, which the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar quoted, was made “jokingly” during a recent meeting with visitors at the presidential palace, the newspaper said. However, it might be viewed as inappropriate when uttered by a president whose civil war has already cost more than 115,000 lives. A chemical weapons attack in Damascus in August, widely blamed on the Syrian government, reportedly killed more than 1,200 people.
The OPCW and the United Nations have a team of 60 experts and support staff, based in Damascus, working to destroy the country’s chemical stockpiles. The arsenal is reportedly the largest in the Middle East, and the OPCW hopes to destroy it all by 2014. It is the first time that the body has attempted such a project in a war zone…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
United Nations Covers Up Nude Male Sculpture to Appease Iranian Diplomats
A relief carving of a naked man at the UN’s Geneva headquarters was covered up on Monday, apparently to spare the blushes of Iranian diplomats ahead of fresh talks on the country’s nuclear drive.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Eid Al-Adha Riots in Moscow Mask Threat of Islamization to Russia’s Future
Muslim Mass Immigration will doom Russia with more than 25% already represented in its population. A riot in Moscow, resulted in arrests of 1,600 Muslim ethnics was caused by a fatal stabbing by an Ethnic Muslim, was reported by Reuters. The riot occurred on the cusp of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
It marks a surge in a restive internal Muslim emigration from Russia’s problematic Northern Caucasus region (Chechnya & Dagestan) and former Central Asiatic largely Muslim republics.
Putin’s crackdown on Muslims in Moscow will trigger other outbursts in both predominately Muslim areas of the Russian Federation and major cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg, among other non Muslim urban centers. His development efforts that requires lesser skilled and low paid workers may hasten Islamization of Russia. Putin’s foreign policy adventures in the Middle East in Syria and dalliance with Iran are evidence of a dangerous policy of buying time by selling weapons and nuclear technology to Islamist and failed Muslim states. That policy could boomerang against Russia by spawning extremist Sunni al Qaida groups infiltrating and arousing Muslim to Jihadi across the Russian Federation to establish regional Emirates.
Ponder those probabilities as you read betwen the lines of excerpts from the Reuters report, Over 1600 migrants rounded up after ethnic riots in Moscow…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Over 380 Detained After Anti-Migrant Riot in Southern Moscow
Moscow police detained some 380 people during the mass rioting in a southern district of the city. A mixed crowd of nationalists and locals attacked a warehouse run by natives of the Caucasus, blaming a migrant for the fatal stabbing of a local.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Official Rules Out Arafat Polonium Poisoning
(Reuters) — The head of a Russian forensics agency said on Tuesday that samples from the body of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had revealed no traces of radioactive polonium, a Russian news agency reported.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Bomb Attack South of Afghan Capital Kills Governor
(Reuters) — An attack on a mosque killed the governor of Logar Province south of the Afghan capital on Tuesday, officials said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on governor Arsala Jamal on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. Insurgents have stepped up attacks on officials linked to the government ahead of the withdrawal next year of foreign combat troops…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
‘Home Made Bomb’ Explodes at Luxury Hotel in Burma
One female American guest injured as explosion tears through hotel in Burma in latest in spate of bombings in the country in recent days
An explosion that struck one of the most prestigious hotels in Burma’s main city was caused by a small, homemade time bomb, police said on Tuesday. Police officer Myint Htwe said three suspects have been detained in relation to the blast, which went off just before midnight on Monday at the Traders Hotel in Yangon, ripping apart a guest’s room and wounding one American. It was one in a series of unexplained blasts to hit the country in recent days.
The hotel blast was followed by two small explosions before dawn on Tuesday in the Mandalay region, police said, adding that there were no reports of injuries. The blast at the 22-story Trader’s Hotel, located in the heart of the country’s commercial capital, blew out a window in the guest’s 9th floor room, shooting shards of thick glass more than 30 meters (yards) into the street, but there were no other visible signs of damage to the exterior of the building.
The device apparently went off in the guest’s bathroom, scattering towels, toiletries and a red purse across the entrance way floor. A chair was overturned and part of the wooden wardrobe lifted off its hinges and lying on the ground. A 43-year-old American woman was slightly injured and taken to a Yangon hospital, police and hotel staff said. Her husband and their two children, aged 5 and 7, were unhurt. “Our consular officers in Rangoon (Yangon) have visited the U.S. citizen and are providing appropriate consular assistance,” said Sarah Hutchison, the U.S. Embassy press officer, refusing further comment due to privacy considerations.
A dozen police and heavily armed soldiers with a sniffer dog entered the glitzy hotel soon after the explosion. Later, many of them crowded into the destroyed room, blocked off with yellow security tape, to inspect the damage. Others carrying assault rifles and wearing bullet proof vests strolled through the main lobby. Traders’ general manager Phillip Couvaras said in a statement that the hotel, part of the Shangri-La group, was working with authorities to investigate what happened. But “because this is an active police investigation we cannot comment further at this time,” he said. “The safety of our guests and staff are our highest priority and we are obviously monitoring the situation.”
Small explosions occurred frequently when Burma was under 50 years of military rule, most often blamed on anti-government student activists or armed ethnic insurgent groups. But such incidents have become rare in recent years. The country has undergone rapid change since 2011, when the former army junta ceded power to a quasi-civilian government led by retired military officers. Since then, President Thein Sein has embarked upon a series of major reforms, liberalising the economy and the political sphere, easing censorship and freeing political prisoners.
But many activists and rights groups have complained that country is still far from free, and dissent is frequently stifled. Thein Sein’s government has also struggled both to end a civil war with ethnic Kachin rebels in the north, and curb a rising wave of anti-Muslim violence that has killed hundreds of minority Muslims and displaced nearly 150,000 more in the predominantly Buddhist country since last year.
No one claimed responsibility for the recent blasts, which came as the country prepares to take over the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It will also host the Southeast Asian games in December, considered a showcase event by the government. Unidentified assailants have planted several homemade bombs in and around Yangon in recent days, reportedly killing two people and injuring three others.
The first bomb reportedly went off Friday at a guesthouse in Taungoo, a town 200 kilometres (125 miles) from Yangon, according to the independent media outlet, the Democratic Voice of Burma. It said two people were killed, but those casualties could not immediately be confirmed. On Sunday, two other homemade bombs went off in Yangon. One of the bombs, attached to the bottom of a truck parked outside a market on Yangon’s eastern side, wounded three civilians, according to a statement posted on Burma’s police Facebook page.
Another homemade bomb exploded one at a bus stop in the west of the city, but no casualties were reported in that blast, police said. The explosions Tuesday occurred at 3am and 5am in Sagain, in Mandalay region. No further details were available. Police called on the public to be vigilant and report any suspicious packages found at bus or train stations, or at the seaport.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
India’s First Mission to Mars to Launch This Month
India’s first spacecraft bound for Mars is counting down toward a late October launch, a mission that — if successful — could make the country’s space agency one of the elite few of space powers to have explored the Red Planet.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mosque Bomb Kills Afghan Governor
A bomb planted inside a mosque killed the governor of Afghanistan’s eastern Logar province as he was delivering a speech to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, officials said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Björn Borg Set to Drop Undies on North Korea
Residents of Pyongyang may soon find themselves taking cover as Swedish underwear brand Björn Borg prepares to ‘love-bomb’ the North Korean capital with 450 pairs of underwear as a part of its ‘weapons of mass seduction’ campaign.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China Looms as Main Launch Competition, SpaceX Says
As the private spaceflight firm SpaceX works to bring more commercial rocket launches back to the United States, it anticipates some stiff competition from the burgeoning Chinese space program.
The U.S. dominated the commercial launch market in the first half of the 1980s but lost most of that ground to Europe and Russia over the last two decades. China remains a minor player in this arena now, but that won’t be the case for long, said SpaceX vice president for government affairs Adam Harris.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
London to Become Next Offshore Yuan Trading Centre After Hong Kong
China will give London-based investors the right to buy up to 80 billion yuan (HK$101.2 billion) worth of mainland stocks, bonds and money market instruments, making it the next offshore yuan trading centre after Hong Kong.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya Terror Suspect Made Calls to Norway
The 23-year-old Somali Norwegian suspected of involvement in last month’s terror attack on Kenya’s Westgate Mall made several phone calls to Norway while he was participating in the attack, Norway’s TV2 network has reported.
Norway’s intelligence services PST last week disclosed that they were investigating the role a Norwegian citizen played in the attack, after receiving information on the 23-year-old.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
South Africa: Red Tide: From ‘Economic Freedom’ To ‘White Genocide’, Extremism Grabs the Spotlight
The past few days have seen activity on opposite ends of the political spectrum, agitating and enticing diverse constituencies disgruntled with the ANC government. The Red October marches last week played up fears about supposed targeted crime against white Afrikaners. The launch of the Economic Freedom Fighters on Sunday at Marikana, the site of a bloody massacre carried out by the police, ensconced the red berets as a radical left-wing party fighting against what Julius Malema says is an unjust, corrupt and murderous state. It would seem that playing on people’s fears and anger is as much a campaign tool in SA politics as free t-shirts and sloganeering. By RANJENI MUNUSAMY…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Sudan: Ban Condemns Attack That Killed Three Peacekeepers in Darfur
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today condemned the attack in Darfur on an African Union-United Nations convoy, which resulted in the death of three Senegalese peacekeepers. According to the joint AU-UN Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), this morning the Mission’s formed police unit was escorting a water convoy from El Geneina town to the Mission’s regional headquarters in West Darfur when it was ambushed by an unidentified armed group…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Bungling Bureaucrats Dole Out Billions in Tax Credits to Illegal Immigrants
Billions in payments overlooked by agency’s leaders, Congress
The federal government’s decision to pay out billions of dollars in tax credits to illegal immigrants likely was made by midlevel bureaucrats and has never received full congressional scrutiny, according to a study that the Center for Immigration Studies is releasing Monday.
The report, written by CIS fellow David North, says the Internal Revenue Service doled out $4.2 billion in what is known as the “additional child tax credit” in 2010 to those using an individual taxpayer identification number, or ITIN, which is usually a signal of an illegal immigrant.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Danes: We Are Too Tolerant of Muslims
After numerous heated debates over whether Muslims are imposing their culture upon Denmark, poll shows most think too many concessions are made for the minority
The public debates over banned Christmas trees, halal meat at schools and cashiers wearing headscarves appear to have made the Danish population more wary about giving their Muslim neighbours cultural concessions.
According to a new survey by market researcher TNS Gallup, carried out for Berlingske newspaper, every third non-Muslim Dane is under the impression that Denmark is too tolerant of its Muslim minority population.
Jens Peter Frølund Thomsen, a political science professor at Aarhus University, said that the most surprising thing about the survey was how little the Danish mentality has shifted, even though the Muslim immigrants arrived years ago.
“The demands of assimilation weigh heavily on the Danish public,” Thomsen told Berlingske. “We have a very ethnocentric culture and when people speak of integration in Denmark, they’re really talking about assimilation.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy to Bolster Patrols After Migrant Disasters
5 ships, drones, aircraft to stop Med being ‘sea of death’
(ANSA) — Rome, October 14 — Premier Enrico Letta met ministers on Monday to launch a major Italian “air and naval package” aimed at averting more disasters in the southern Mediterranean, with over 500 feared dead in two migrant wrecks so far this month.
“It is intolerable that the Mediterranean should be a sea of death,” Letta said after meeting with defence, interior and navy chiefs.
“We have launched operation Mare Nostrum (Latin for ‘our sea’, what the Romans called the Med),” Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, “to mark a sea change in coping with these continual tragedies”.
“Mare Nostrum will be a significant deterrent for those who think they can act with impunity in human trafficking,” the interior minister said.
Rescued migrants would not necessarily be brought to Italy, he said.
“This will be evaluated on the basis of the place where the rescue takes place”.
Alfano said the operation would essential pay for itself because the cost would be split among the competent ministries and “we have to think about what the huge cost would be if we did not put this plan into action”.
Defence Minister Mario Mauro said Mare Nostrum, marshalling five ships — including the huge amphibious transport ship San Marco — and an unspecified number of drones and aircraft, would be “a military and humanitarian operation strengthening surveillance and rescue forces at sea to increase safety levels for human lives”.
“We will use for the first time an amphibious craft with the capacity to exercise command and control, with long-range helicopters, hospital capacity, and ample space for rescued migrants,” Mauro said, adding that the San Marco will be ready to go into action on October 18.
“We will have four other Navy ships: two patrol boats and two frigates.
“We will also use drones as well as helicopters with special optical and infra-red instruments,” Mauro said. The operation would set a “strong and clear example,” Mauro said, in the first substantive implementation of the EU’s Frontex agency’s new southern border policy, Eurosur.
Alfano said “what we are doing is in addition to Frontex’s task — and Frontex must do more itself”. “We are ready to play our part,’ said Navy spokesman Alessandro Busonero.
“The chief of staff has already provided for the measures already in force to be boosted after last Friday.
“Right now the patrol vessel Libra, the frigate Espero and the corvette Chimera are patrolling the sea, with a helicopter and pilot and the San Marco regiment on board”.
The official death toll from a migrant-boat disaster on Friday is 38 after the body of a three-year-old child was recovered, but 150-250 more may be be missing after a boat thought to be carrying over 400 people capsized between the Sicilian island of Lampedusa and Malta.
There were 212 survivors.
On Sunday six bodies were recovered from the October 3 boat wreck off Lampedusa, raising the death toll from that disaster to 364. Nevertheless, more boats packed with refugees with nothing to lose continue to arrive in Lampedusa, the main port of entry into Europe for migrants smuggled by boat from Libya or Tunisia.
The government is organising the new ‘safe sea’ mission independently in response to the migrant crisis.
But it is also calling on the European Union to provide more assistance, stressing that Lampedusa is the border of the whole continent, not just of Italy. Letta said he will make the case for more assistance at a summit of EU leaders October 24-25. “Everything should be ready between Monday and Tuesday (for the safe sea mission). It will be an all-Italian initiative which will be in addition to existing European initiatives like Frontex,’ Mauro stressed.
“We want Europe to understand clearly that we want a voice in the matter — we don’t want to disengage, we want to be more involved. “This way we will be able to ask the EU to do the same”.
The minister added that the objective is to “boost three-fold our presence with men and means in the southern area of the Mediterranean for a military-humanitarian mission with the aim of containing the current crisis which is partly due to the ‘non-state’ situation of Libya”.
Mauro admitted the cost of the operation has not been estimated yet and that talks are focusing on avoiding “an excessive expenditure and to provide for the necessary (financial) coverage”. “The problem is not how much it costs — it is necessary to do it to confront the ongoing humanitarian emergency,” the minister said.
He said Italy was already spending 1.5 million euros a month on migrant-rescue efforts, a figure which will “inevitably rise”.
The migrant emergency was high on the agenda of Rome talks Monday between Letta and Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen.
The two countries said they would work jointly and with EU border control agency FRONTEX on the plight of migrants at sea.
“We discussed the need for closer contact on the EU level to reinforce FRONTEX, and we also talked about bilateral aid from Finland”, Katainen told reporters after meeting with Letta.
“It is good news that we want to work together to change European policies to make FRONTEX more effective”, Letta said. “The conclusion we arrived at in order to help Italy immediately is also good news, because it shows there is solidarity among European countries”.
The Italian government is in talks to reform its so-called Bossi-Fini anti-immigration law. “We are at an epochal change in immigration, and this requires a radical change in legislation and of approach on the national and European level”, Letta went on.
“But we can’t wait for institutions and the European Parliament to go through their process when there are lives at stake. We must act right away, and this is why the government has decided on a humanitarian mission,” the Italian premier concluded.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: All Means Deployed to Halt Migrant Disasters
5 ships, including amphibious vessel, helicopters, planes, radar
(ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 15 — A major Italian ‘air and naval package’, the so-called Mare Nostrum operation, aimed at preventing more disasters in the southern Mediterranean, will deploy ships, helicopters, planes, drones and radars, Defence Minister Mario Mauro said on Tuesday. The package will ‘boost surveillance and rescue measures already in place on the high seas’, the minister said.
Over 500 migrants are feared dead in two wrecks so far this month.
AMPHIBIOUS SHIP — The amphibious LPD San Giorgio vessel, with its San Marco and San Giusto ships and their helicopters, will be deployed for the first time in a surveillance operation. The San Marco, which will be deployed as of October 18, is 133-meter-long with a crew of 165 and has ‘the ability to exercise command and control, has long-range helicopters, a hospital, significant space for shipwrecked passengers and a landing platform dock for rescue dinghies on the high seas’.
TWO FRIGATES AND TWO PATROL BOATS — The Maestrale Navy frigates carry 225 troops. They are very versatile and have been deployed often for this reason. Each will carry an helicopter. Patrol boats are smaller and can also carry an helicopter and they are particularly useful for high sea patrol operations. Their role is to ‘make the area patrolled more accessible for those in need and more dangerous for ‘mother ships’ that create many problems’. The ships’ deployment, Mauro said, ‘will be alternated according to weather conditions’.
NAVY CARGO SHIPS — One cargo ship will be part of the Mare Nostrum package. These ships, like the Tremiti, have already been deployed in the past few days.
HELICOPTERS — Apart from those onboard ships, two Navy helicopters EH101 will be part of the operation. They have infrared devices and radars which can also be used from the Italian islands of Lampedusa or Pantelleria.
PLANES — A P180 aircraft with technology which can be used for overnight sightings will be used from Lampedusa while a maritime Atlantic patrol plane will be used on patrolling missions with a mixed Navy and Air Force equipage and will be based in Sigonella.
DRONES AND RADARS — In order to have ‘the highest level of surveillance possible in the area’, the operation Mare Nostrum will also use ‘remote-control flight systems’, a Predator unmanned aircraft. Further support to surveillance will be given by Navy and port authority radar networks.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Has Rescued 25,000 Migrants at Sea So Far This Year
Interior says 35,000 arrived on Italian shores
(ANSA) — Rome, October 15 — An interior ministry official on Tuesday said 25,000 migrants have been rescued at sea by Italian authorities since the beginning of the year.
The ministry said 35,085 migrants have arrived on Italy’s coasts this year, with about 24,000, or 73%, meeting the legal criteria for asylum.
Figures relating to Italian sea rescues and arrivals were released at a Rome meeting regarding refugees by Riccardo Compagnucci, deputy chief of the civil liberties and immigration department of the interior ministry.
Of the migrants, 9,805 Syrians were, 8,843 Eritreans, 3,140 Somalis, 1,058 Malians and 879 Afghanis. Roughly 21,000 departed from Libya and 8,000 from Egypt.
Over 500 people are feared to have died in two migrant-boat disasters near the Sicilian island of Lampedusa this month.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Rescues 370 Migrants, Steps Up Naval Patrols
(Reuters) — Italy’s navy rescued about 370 migrants in the waters between Sicily and Libya on Tuesday as the government deployed ships, helicopters and unmanned drones to help avert further shipwrecks that have already drowned hundreds this month.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 50 Syrian Migrants Detained on Bus Near Turin
Ivrea, 15 Oct. (AKI) — Fifty Syrian migrants were detained early on Tuesday aboard a bus near the northern Italian city of Turin, and are believed to to have been heading for the French or Swiss border.
Police detained the migrants in the early hours of Tuesday outside Ivrea, about 40 kilometres north of Turin.
All the Syrians have claimed political asylum and were in the process of being identified by police. Migrants are entitled to request asylum in the country in which they are identified, although many would prefer to reach northern Europe.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
More Than 400 Migrants Saved in Channel of Sicily
250 Eritreans rescued from spot of disaster on Friday
(ANSA) — Rome, October 15 — More than 400 migrants trying to reach Europe from North Africa were saved in the Channel of Sicily during the night between Monday and Tuesday in four separate rescue operations.
One boat was a motorized rubber dingy with 80 people on board, stranded in Libyan waters. Italian port authorities ordered a merchant ship in the area to take the passengers aboard and ferry them to Pozzallo, a town on the southern tip of Sicily. In the waters between Malta and Lampedusa — an area where over 200 people are feared to have died when a migrant boat capsized on Friday — the Italian coast guard and navy assisted a second boat with nearly 250 Eritrean passengers.
The Eritreans were taken to a holding centre on the island of Lampedusa, as were the 80 people rescued from a third boat.
Italian finance police also assisted a fourth boat with six Tunisians on board located 35 miles southwest of the Sicilian city of Marsala.
Friday’s disaster came just eight days after another wreck in which at least 364 people, mostly Eritreans and Somalis, died.
The incidents have prompted the Italian authorities to launch a new mission in the southern Mediterranean to avoid similar disasters.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian Refugees Smuggled Into Denmark
Smugglers take thousands of kroner to transport Syrian refugees into Denmark and provide an escape from the conflict that has displaced over two million civilians
According to Thomas Gammeltoft Hansen from the Danish Institute for Human Rights, Sweden is a particularly sought after destination both because of its long history of housing refugees and its current policy to grant all Syrian refugees asylum.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
“Sugary Drinks” And Public Health Utopianism
Andrew Bostom, MD, MS
Last year I became a Diplomate, American Board of Clinical Lipidology, having passed the rigorous certification exam by the National Lipid Association (NLA). This certification program was established for various specialists in cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention treating, in particular, more complex disorders of lipid metabolism, whose most common manifestation is excessively high blood levels of cholesterol, and/or triglycerides. Untreated, or inadequately treated, such lipid disorders put patients at increased risk for de novo or recurrent clinical CVD (such as heart attacks, certain kinds of strokes, and diseases of the large arteries of the abdomen, and lower extremities), and in some instances, pancreatitis (dangerous, and potentially debilitating, or even fatal inflammation of the pancreas).
The NLA publishes a peer-reviewed academic medical journal, The Journal of Clinical Lipidology, to which I have contributed original research. “Lipid Spin,” is a clinically-oriented, non peer reviewed ancillary publication of the NLA. As part of my professional commitment to the NLA, I was assigned to write a short review and analysis of the opinion editorial, “Limiting ‘Sugary Drinks’ to Reduce Obesity — Who Decides?”, which originally appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on April 13, 2013. The clinically relevant tie-in, from NLA’s perspective, was that obesity, and obesity-related development of (type 2) diabetes (i.e., the most common adult form of the disease) are associated with increased risk for CVD, and the presence of mixed lipid disorders.
Having (willfully) ignored such NEJM “policy” op-eds in the past—the only NEJM “perspective” essays I read accompany the peer-reviewed, published results of major clinical trials, or epidemiological studies—this novel experience is related in some 500 words, below, which may (or may not) appear someday in “Lipid Spin.” These words should prove more broadly edifying (or just validating?) appearing herein. Suffice to say, the same doctrinaire Left claptrap that effortlessly pervades the rest of the academy, is also found in one of the medical academy’s “flagship” journals.
Res ipsa loquitur…
| — Hat tip: Andy Bostom | [Return to headlines] |
The Nobel Peace Prize is a joke. Yasser Arafat, Kissinger & Obama!!
Hitler & Stalin have been nominated in the past.
“Thousands of Muslims in Moscow rioted during the Eid al-Adha holiday after a Muslim fatally stabbed a man. Russian police arrested at least 1,600 Muslims during the riot.”
WTF? It was ethnic Russians in the Moscow district of Biryulevo who rioted following this murder. Try to google it.