A classmate of Mohammed Emwazi, a.k.a. “Jihadi John”, says the ISIS beheader’s behavior was never the same after he ran head-first into a goal post. Mr. Emwazi’s closest relatives have left their London home and say they want to change their names. Meanwhile, the former head of MI6 says there are thousands of potential jihad terrorists in Britain. Special Forces are reportedly on standby in case of an ISIS terror attack in the UK.
In other news, another wave of suicide bombings has killed at least 35 people in Nigeria.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, K, 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.
AP Interview: Greek Finance Minister Says Country Intends to Seek Talks on Debt Rescheduling
Greece intends to start discussions with its creditors on debt rescheduling in order to make the country’s massive debt sustainable, at the same time as working on reform measures that need to be cemented by April, the finance minister said Saturday.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Yanis Varoufakis also said Athens will prioritize debt repayments to the International Monetary Fund, some of which come due in March, but that repayments to the European Central Bank are “in a different league” and will need discussion with Greece’s creditors.
Greece faces IMF repayments in March of about 1.5 billion euros ($1.69 billion), and about 6.7 billion euros ($7.5 billion) to the ECB in the summer. But it is facing a cash crunch and will struggling with scheduled repayment of its debts.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
In “Paranormal” Europe, Banks Will Pay You to Borrow, And Charge You to Save
In short, this is what Europe has become: savers — those who diligently put away the fruits of their labor — are now forced to pay, using banks as an intermediary, and subsidize the the debtor: spenders, who live beyond their means, and who in increasingly more frequent situations are now paid to take out even more debt! Call it monetary socialism.
Which is probably why with a one month delay, none other than the NYT decided to cover precisely this topic with “In Europe, Bond Yields and Interest Rates Go Through the Looking Glass”
Here is the story in a nutshell, shown with pictures so even central bank idiots and other economist PhDs will get it:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“Cap and Trade” is Alive and Well, Despite Having Never Passed Congress
Remember “Cap and Trade?” The anti-market allegedly “market-based” “solution” to man-faked global warming climate change?
A central authority (usually a governmental body) sets a limit or cap on the amount of a pollutant that may be emitted.
The limit or cap is allocated and/or sold by the central authority to firms in the form of emissions permits which represent the right to emit or discharge a specific volume of the specified pollutant.
Permits (and possibly also derivatives of permits) can then be traded on secondary markets.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
10 Reasons Washington Has War Fever
Of course, conspiracies exist and thanks to Edward Snowden’s publicity, America does indeed operate a global police state with intelligence gathering, torture and spying everywhere in the world. While I believe this effort is more directed toward controlling foreign and domestic politicians and powerful individuals than targeting helpless Americans who disagree with policies, this is a frightening situation for what once was the symbol of freedom and liberty for the entire world.
But as Dorothy told her dog, Toto, in the classic “Wizard of Oz” movie, “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” we’re also not in the America of our Founding Fathers any more, either. Real capitalism and free markets simply do not exist any longer. A few powerful interests manipulate all markets, unlimited fiat money is a profitable franchise and we are attempting to police and control the entire world to maintain our leadership position held since the end of World War Two.
Today you are a fool to trust what the government or press claims is true, fair and balanced, as it’s all just propaganda. Regulatory organizations exist only to protect the favored industries not the public, our legal system is a joke and all wars fought for democracy against evil are just looting expeditions against other nations out for profits, gain and natural resources.
All governments issue propaganda and mainstream news organizations sell the secret agendas and policies to the people. But the world today and especially the United States faces new challenges not even war-gamed or focus-grouped a few years ago and here lies the problem and risks for the nation and citizenry.
As Clausewitz so clearly stated, “War is merely the continuation of policy by other means,” and our leadership and the special interests behind them want to continue the policies and actions that have created so much wealth and world power for them. Think for a moment about the threats they are facing at home and abroad and how a major but limited war could solve or postpone most of their problems and threats to their powerbase.
There are two problems with the war solution. First, while it may be in their best interest to guarantee their survival, war would be bad for our military, soldiers and civilians as well as our economy, private wealth and remaining liberties. Second, there is no guarantee that a real war once started would remain limited in nature. I think both world wars are historical examples of how plans for limited wars can turn into major wars killing tens of millions and all of this for power hungry politicians and vested economic interests…
But a real war would provide the crisis excuse to confiscate your gold and “excess” retirement plan and IRA assets, reduce or curtail your social security benefits, dramatically raise taxes and institute total exchange controls while curtailing your remaining freedoms and ability to resist for the duration of the crisis.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Celiac Disease in Children Nearly Tripled in Two Decades as Roundup Spraying Increased Over 300%
(NaturalNews) The missing link behind what causes gluten intolerance and celiac disease, and why prevalence of these two autoimmune conditions has risen dramatically over the past several decades seemingly without cause, may have more to do with how conventional wheat is grown in the U.S. today rather than what it contains naturally.
Like with the massive rise in autism spectrum disorders, the scientific community is trying to explain away the near-tripling of celiac cases over the past 20 years as being a result of improved detection and diagnosis techniques. Many people simply weren’t aware that the condition existed back in the 1990s, some scientists claim, dismissing any other outside causes.
But the evidence increasingly points to the chemicals applied to modern wheat crops, primarily in the U.S., as a major driver behind this epidemic of supposed gluten allergies. Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, which contains glyphosate, is often applied to conventional wheat crops at the end of their life cycle, leaving behind residues of the chemical formula on the wheat consumed by millions.
This little-known process, which was recently brought to light by The Healthy Home Economist, allows farmers to harvest wheat early and produces a slightly higher yield. But the consequence is contaminated wheat, which ends up being made into breads, cakes, crackers and other consumer products.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
CNN, DHS & SPLC’s Blame Righty Hit Job; Updated
By Michelle Malkin
The Department of Homeland Security refuses to release a report on “right-wing” terrorism that somehow found its way into CNN’s hands last week during the farcical White House summit on Don’t Say Islamic Extremism.
Your tax dollars are once again hard at work — defaming conservatives, deflecting from worldwide murderous jihad and denying the public access to information they funded.
CNN splashed the big scoop on its website: “DHS intelligence report warns of domestic right-wing terror threat.” The fear-mongering piece featured a huge map of 24 alleged acts of “violence by sovereign citizen extremists since 2010.” CNN’s Evan Perez and Wes Bruer prominently quoted Mark Potok of the widely disgraced propaganda outfit the Southern Poverty Law Center. Potok claimed that “there are as many as 300,000 people involved in some way with sovereign citizen extremism.”
[…]
When I asked DHS public affairs officer S.Y. Lee for the document, he told me it’s “not for public release” because it’s “an FOUO document (for official use only). Same as many DHS products to law enforcement.” I asked whether CNN now qualifies as “law enforcement.”
No response.
***
UPDATE 2pm Eastern 2/25: Well, lookee here! Reason’s Jesse Walker obtained the DHS document, which…doesn’t even mention ISIS or “right-wing” and lumps together a whole bunch of random people.
Funny how DHS doesn’t bother to correct the misperceptions its media lackeys created, isn’t it?
[As Molly used to say on the old radio show, “T’ain’t funny, McGee!” — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
County Uses MRAP to Train Cops
For the past year, Braden Bunch with the Sumter County Sheriff’s office says they’ve had a Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle or MRAP in their fleet.
“The beauty of having this vehicle here at the sheriff’s office is that while there are other agencies like SLED or what-have-you across the state that have these types of vehicles that could help us respond to certain situations, this gives us a quicker response time,” said Bunch.
Acquired for free through a federal program, Corporal Jeffrey Hofer says the vehicle allows his team to safely respond to dangerous assignments.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Exclusive: Here is the New Homeland Security Report on ‘Sovereign Citizen Extremist’ Violence
By Jesse Walker
Reason has obtained the federal government’s recent report on the sovereign citizens, a largely unorganized subculture whose elaborate legal theories say they do not have to follow most laws. Members of the movement are infamous for filing nuisance lawsuits, making their own drivers’ licenses and license plates, and sometimes attempting to form their own parallel institutions of government. Some of them are also prone to violence, and it is this hotheaded subgroup that is the subject of the report.
The intelligence assessment, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) prepared in coordination with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was circulated to law enforcement on February 5 but was not released to the public. (DHS did not respond to repeated requests from Reason for comment.) CNN revealed its existence last Friday, but the network quoted only a couple of lines from it and did not post the full document for everyone to see.
We’ve posted it here. If you’ve seen the sensationalized coverage the sovereign citizens have been getting in some quarters—CNN announced its find with the front-page headline “Bigger threat than ISIS?”—the report’s rather measured contents might surprise you.
The document declares on its first page that most sovereign citizens are nonviolent, and that it will focus only on the violent fringe within a fringe—the people it calls “sovereign citizen extremists,” or SCEs. It describes their violence as “sporadic,” and it does not expect its rate to rise, predicting instead that the violence will stay “at the same sporadic level” in 2015. The author or authors add that most of the violence consists of “unplanned, reactive” clashes with police officers, not preplanned attacks.
[But it sure was handy for DHS to use during the “violent extremism” summit, to get the focus off Barry Hussein’s Muslim pets. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
In Case You Missed Him — Trevor Loudon on the Radio
In case you missed this critically important broadcast with Trevor discussing The Betrayal Papers — Under Obama: The U.S. Captured by the Muslim Brotherhood:
soundcloud.com/the-john-mcculloch-show/jmsair021915thu
Please share this with your friends and family and offer comments. Watch for next week’s Part 2 of the Betrayal Papers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Man Suffers Third-Degree Burns When His iPhone Explodes in His Pocket
[WARNING: Graphic Content.]
Erik Johnson, from Long Island, New York, spent ten days at a specialist burns unit after his iPhone 5C (left) exploded during his cousin’s wake. The mobile melted his trousers and stuck to his skin.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
More Hipster Harf: “We Can’t Stop ISIS by Killing Them; We Need to Give Them Jobs”
For many years now I have said the State Department needs to be cleaned out from top to bottom. And I’m not alone in that opinion, either. The U.S. Department of State has a long history of working against the best interests of the United States, consistently shilling for all things socialist. Those who have looked into tax-exempt foundations like the Carnegie Endowment, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Consortium, Guggenheim Fellowship, etc., and the subsequent investigation by the Reece Committee, might know what I’m talking about.
The first U.S. Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal, once said, “Consistency has never been a mark of stupidity. If the diplomats who have mishandled our relations with Russia were merely stupid, they would have occasionally made a mistake in our favor.”
State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf recently told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews ISIS could be stopped if we could just create jobs for them.
At first blush, for those ignorant of Marxist ideology, this sort of thinking seems preposterous. Well, I am strongly inclined to agree. But I digress.
For dyed-in-the-wool Marxists and their fellow travelers (sympathizers), it makes perfect sense. This is why I believe it so important more Americans gain a better understanding of Marxism — since it is lauded and approved of by so many American universities and the liberal media, not to mention those in positions of power within our own government.
Karl Marx believed our view of history needed to be changed (cf. “hope and change”). Cleon Skousen wrote in his book The Naked Communist about the central importance economics plays in the Marxian religion. Marx believed history should be changed to “a fixed, undeviating, pre-determined course of progress which could be charted in the past and predicted for the future on the basis of a single, simple criterion — economics.”
[Comment: Old news but still recommended reading. Check out the table comparing leftists with islamists. The US State Dept. appears to work for the same people that own the Federal Reserve]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
More Smoking Guns Confirm Benghazi Cover-Up
We have repeatedly exposed how the mainstream media consistently ignore the “phony scandal” of the multiple terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya in 2012, and the unnecessary deaths of four brave Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Indeed, the mainstream media shy away from covering this scandal or, alternatively, dismiss efforts to expose the ongoing government cover-up as an attack on Hillary Clinton’s presidential chances.
But the media should be furious because they — alongside of the American public — were sold a lie by the Obama administration. And the media became one of the tools through which that lie was disseminated. The latest disclosures have come to light thanks to the ongoing efforts of Judicial Watch.
Document after released document shows that the Secretary of State, the Defense Secretary, the head of AFRICOM, and the President of the United States himself, were informed, shortly after the attack began, that Benghazi was an attack by terrorists. Yet most of the media, such as New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick, defensively maintain the official narrative years later that the attack “was fueled in large part by anger at an American-made video denigrating Islam.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
New Jersey Muslim Guilty of Murder That Was Initially Blamed on “Islamophobia”
By Robert Spencer
When this murder initially happened, I received this Tweet from a certain Jawad Rasul. It said:
Thank You @pamelageller and @jihadwatchRS, If you have any humanity, you might ponder over this! nyp.st/phBJuX via @newyorkpost
The link went to a story about a murder in New Jersey. Why were Pamela Geller and I being blamed for a murder when we obviously had nothing to do with it or any other murder? The answer was obvious: Islamic supremacists never miss a chance to position Muslims as victims so as to deflect attention away from jihad terror and try to place Islam and the Muslim community beyond reasonable scrutiny. Not only did I receive Jawad Rasul’s Tweet, but also a well-placed source told me that Ibrahim Hooper, Honest Ibe himself, of Hamas-linked CAIR was “salivating and waiting to jump all over” the murder story. “They are waiting to blame you for everything.”
In CAIR’s world, as I noted here, my work exposing the activities of Islamic jihadists and the ways in which they use Islamic texts and teachings to justify violence and supremacism constitutes “hate” and “incitement to violence.” The goal of Hamas-linked CAIR and other Islamic supremacists is to demonize us and thereby shut us up, so that the jihad can proceed unchallenged. The unscrupulousness and mendacity of such charges only indict those who make them.
Anyway, in the New Jersey case, the Muslim who initially blamed the murder of his wife on “Islamophobia” has just been found guilty of that murder.
“Husband who tried to claim racist gunmen killed his wife in front of their son while yelling ‘terrorist’ is guilty — after cops found his MISTRESS was the gunman,” Daily Mail, February 26, 2015:…
| — Hat tip: K | [Return to headlines] |
NSA Spying Wins Another Rubber Stamp
A federal court has again renewed an order allowing the National Security Agency to continue its bulk collection of Americans’ phone records, a decision that comes more than a year after President Obama pledged to end the controversial program.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Stealth AR-15 Gun Ban Targets Ammo: “No One Can Import, Sell or Even Produce it”
If nothing else can be said about President Obama, he has adamantly stuck to one key promise — the one he made to the Brady Center to pursue gun control ‘under the radar.’
The AR-15 is America’s most popular sporting rifle, and it has been falsely mischaracterized as an “automatic” firearm and an “assault” weapon. It has been demonized as a monstrosity via the Sandy Hook shootings. Bans on it and other so-called “assault weapons” have been attempted from every possible angle.
And now that those measures have failed to accomplish total gun control, the Obama Administration, hungry to undermine the 2nd Amendment and restrict gun ownership, is using backdoor regulations through the BATFE to ban the sale, import and manufacture of the most affordable ammunition for the AR-15. Melissa Melton writes:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The FBI is Amazingly Good at Halting Terror Plots Dreamed Up by the FBI
(NaturalNews) The Justice Department announced again recently that the FBI had managed to thwart yet another domestic terrorism scheme, but a closer examination of the plot reveals, once more, that the nation’s top federal law enforcement agency is pretty good at disrupting self-made plans.
As reported by investigative news site The Intercept, a recent Justice Department press release stated that “the Joint Terrorism Task Force has arrested a Cincinnati-area man for a plot to attack the U.S. Capitol and kill government officials.”
The alleged terrorist was furthered identified as 20-year-old Christopher Cornell — an unemployed, lives-at-home young man who spends the bulk of his time playing video games in his bedroom, still calls his mother “mommy” and considers his cat his best friend.
The release also described Cornell as “a typical student” and “quiet but not overly reserved” by the principal of a local school from where he graduated in 2012.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Tom Schweich, Republican Candidate for Governor 2016 “Commits Suicide”
Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich, who had recently launched a Republican campaign for governor, fatally shot himself Thursday in what police described as an “apparent suicide,” minutes after inviting reporters to his suburban St. Louis home for an interview.
Schweich’s death stunned many of Missouri’s top elected officials, who described him as a “brilliant” and “devoted” public servant with an “unblemished record” in office.
Just 13 minutes before police got an emergency call from his home, Schweich had a phone conversation with The Associated Press about his plans to go public that afternoon with allegations that the head of the Missouri Republican Party had made anti-Semitic comments about him.
The state GOP chairman denied doing so in an interview later Thursday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Virginia to Compensate Victims of Eugenics Sterilization Program
Virginia lawmakers have approved a measure seeking to financially compensate victims of its 50-year long, state-sponsored eugenics sterilization program.
On Thursday, the Virginia General Assembly voted in favor of paying out $25,000 to each of the 11 remaining victims who were forcibly sterilized under the state’s “Eugenical Sterilization Act.”
Passed in 1924, the Act led to the involuntary sterilization of anywhere between 7,300 and 8,300 people until it was repealed in 1974, and is said to have partly inspired Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s dream to create a master race.
Under the Act, leaders of colonies and physicians at mental health institutions across the state identified individuals deemed “undesirable,” “defective” and feeble-minded and made the case to hospital boards to prevent those individuals from having children.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Semitism Spreading Across Europe, Says Study
Jews were the target of harassment in more countries across the globe in 2013 than at any time in past seven years, a study released Friday showed, with hostility towards the religious group higher in Europe than any other world region.
The report by the US-based Pew Research Center combined the results of two separate indexes — one measuring government actions that curb religious beliefs and practices and another measuring acts of social religious hostility by private individuals or organisations.
It found that harassment and hostility against Jews, either by the government or members of the public, were recorded in 77 of 198 countries surveyed in 2013, up from 71 in 2012 and the highest number since Pew first began recording figures in 2007…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Austria Passes Reforms to 1912 Islam Law
by Soeren Kern
The new law, which the Austrian government says could serve as a model for the rest of Europe, seeks to reduce outside meddling by prohibiting foreign funding for mosques, imams and Muslim organizations in Austria. It also stresses that Austrian law must take precedence over Islamic Sharia law for Muslims living in the country.
The Turkish government has expressed outrage at the financing ban, which it says amounts to “Islamophobia.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Brother of Copenhagen Synagogue Gunman Arrested
Danish police said they arrested Friday a third alleged accomplice in the Copenhagen shootings who was identified by the media as the gunman’s brother.
The suspect is “charged with complicity in the perpetrator’s actions” and will appear before a judge on Saturday for a custody hearing, police said in a statement.
The man was identified by public broadcaster DR as the 18-year-old brother of gunman Omar El-Hussein, who killed two people in twin attacks in the Danish capital this month.
Two other men were arrested in the immediate aftermath of the February 14-15 shootings accused of aiding the attacker and have been remanded in custody until March 26.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Defers Greece to ECJ for Poor Treatment of Waste-Waters
A danger for health, inland waters and marine environment
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, FEBRUARY 26 — The European Commission deferred Greece to the European Court of Justice for the “poor treatment of waste-waters” which “represents a health hazard as well as a danger for inland waters and the marine environment”. Greece was already cautioned about its non-enforcement of 1991 directive on the treatment of waters in 2010, the Commission recalled. An appropriate system is still lacking in five areas and for other three the documentation needed is either incomplete or provides proof that the required standards have not been met.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gentiloni Says Marines Issue ‘Open Wound’ For Italy
Comments on Indian case now three years old
(ANSA) — Rome, February 27 — The plight of two Italian marines under suspicion in India in the deaths of two fishermen three years ago remains “an open wound” for Italy, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told the Lower House Friday.
“The government is working without fanfare …. to set about solving this crisis,” he said.
The two marines Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone have been detained for long stretches in the case that occurred while they were on anti-piracy duty. Girone had been barred from leaving India, while the Indian Supreme Court has allowed to Latorre to return to Italy for a limited period for health reasons.
Rome requested an extension after Latorre had heart surgery last week.
India granted Latorre four months of leave last year after he suffered a stroke.
Rome has protested the many delays in the case. Formal charges have not yet been presented.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Thousands March in Dresden Pro-Refugee Demonstration
Thousands of people have demonstrated in favor of refugees in the German city of Dresden. Organizers aim to make the Saxon capital, which is also the home of anti-Islamization group PEGIDA, appear more welcoming.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Detentions, Arrest in Connection With Islamist Threat in Bremen
Fearing an Islamist attack, police in Germany’s northern port city of Bremen have swooped after adopting “security measures in the public arena.” Apart from detentions and an arrest, an Islamic center was searched.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hundreds of ISIS extremists like Mohammed Emwazi have been free to leave Britain because they were not being properly monitored by the security services, the Government has admitted.
Young men on the fringes of terror groups were not investigated thoroughly by the police and intelligence agencies, allowing them to leave for Syria, a report has revealed.
It has also been revealed that MI5 and Scotland Yard are observing 3,000 people in the UK that they fear could become another Jihadi John.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Bears Prowling, Not Hibernating
Experts say warm weather, climate change, food affecting bruins
(ANSA) — Rome, February 2014 — An unusually warm winter in parts of Italy may be one of the reasons that bears have been spotted out of their dens and on the prowl, experts said Tuesday.
While bears should be hibernating this time of year, employees at a ski resort in Campo di Giove in the central Abruzzo region warned visitors after a large brown bear was spotted near ski lifts.
Forest rangers were called in to help.
Meanwhile, bears have been spotted in the Molise area of southern Italy.
Experts say that bears don’t automatically hibernate in the winter months, if they are disturbed, the weather is too warm, or something they ate or did not eat has affected their rest.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Anti-Northern League Protesters Block Rome Traffic
Carry inflatable boat in solidarity with migrants and refugees
(ANSA) — Rome, February 27 — Anti-Northern League protesters blocked traffic in Flaminio square, a busy tram and bus stop area just outside the capital’s central Piazza del Popolo.
The protesters lit flares, unfurled banners saying “We Reject Salvini”, and are carried an inflatable boat in solidarity with refugees and asylum seekers sailing across the Mediterranean in unsafe boats.
Matteo Salvini, the head of the anti-immigrant, regionalist and anti-euro Northern League party, will attend a party rally in Piazza del Popolo on Saturday.
This has sparked a mobilization from leftwing grassroots movements, unions, and opposition parties, who vowed to march tomorrow under the banner “Never With Salvini”.
Police in riot gear have encircled the protesters and blocked access to Piazza del Popolo.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Bersani Snubs Renzi on Jobs Act, Constitutional Reform
Former PD secretary to boycott meeting with premier
(ANSA) — Rome, February 26 — Former Democratic Party (PD) secretary Pier Luigi Bersani told L’Avvenire newspaper in an interview to be published Friday that he will boycott a meeting of party MPs with Premier Matteo Renzi due to deep disagreements on the government’s Jobs Act and Constitutional reforms.
“I’m not even considering it,” Bersani said of the meeting scheduled for Friday. “I don’t agree to party executives becoming movie extras”. The former party chief also threatened to pull his support for the premier’s so-called Italicum electoral law reform.
“If Constitutional reform continues in this way I will never agree to vote for the electoral law,” he said.
Bersani charged that Renzi’s Jobs Act labour reform “places the worker in a pre-70s relationship with the power structure” and is therefore “outside the Constitutional order”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Paris Attacks: Coulibaly Siege Video Transcript Emerges
Details have emerged of footage filmed by Paris gunman Amedy Coulibaly during a bloody rampage inside a Jewish supermarket, a French website says.
He delivers an anti-Semitic rant and shouts “Stand up or I’ll kill you” at hostages, according to a transcript obtained by Le Nouvel Observateur.
During the seven-minute video he shoots dead three of his four victims.
[…]
Investigators are examining seven minutes 45 seconds of footage apparently filmed by Coulibaly on a GoPro camera worn during the siege, according to reports.
It shows him shouting “Nobody move”, before grabbing hold of a customer, asking his name, and then shooting him dead.
He asks another man what origin he is. And when the hostage replies “Jewish”, he kills him too.
[The correct answer to such a question would have been: BANG … pause … “Jewish.” — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Special Forces on Standby for Rapid Response to Attack by ISIS in UK
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said Britain needed “to do something about” the spread of Islamist extremists as he revealed fresh details about how the government was looking to step up defence at home.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Merciless killer Jihadi John was ‘never the same’ after suffering a serious head injury when he ran into a goal post as a child, a former classmate has claimed.
The executioner — this week unmasked as Londoner Mohammed Emwazi — agreed with Hitler’s massacre of Jews and called them ‘f***king pigs’, another has revealed.
While some former peers say they are struggling to believe the quiet boy they knew turned into one of the world’s most notorious killers, others have spoken of a boy with extreme beliefs and a thirst for blood.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Jihadi John’s Relatives Flee Home and Want New Identities
Mohammed Emwazi’s relatives have left their home in Maida Vale, west London, for fear of reprisal attacks and his parents and five siblings say they want to change their names.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Kebab Shop Robbery Trial Collapses After Muslim Witness Takes Oath on the Bible, Not the Koran
A trial collapsed when a Muslim swore an oath on the Bible instead of the Koran.
Michael Davies was accused of attempted robbery until it emerged a witness had taken the oath on the wrong book.
The judge, Recorder Patrick Thompson, said the trial at Liverpool Crown Court could not proceed, adding: ‘It is probably best if a fresh jury who doesn’t think we’re all totally incompetent hears this case.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Ministers Order Inquiry Into Jihadi John’s School
Nicky Morgan, Education Secretary, has ordered an investigation into the school attended by “Jihadi John” after it emerged a third Islamist fighter was taught at the same north London academy.
Choukri Ellekhlifi, a contemporary of Jihadi John at Quintin Kynaston academy, was killed fighting with terrorists in Syria in 2013 after joining up with an al-Qaeda group.
The disclosure comes after The Telegraph reported that another former pupil at the St John’s Wood school, Mohammed Sakr, had died fighting for al-Shabaab, an affiliate of al-Qaeda in Somalia.
Their deaths and the fact Mohammed Emwazi, the true identity of ‘Jihadi John’, attended the school, will raise questions over what measures had been put in place to tackle the radicalisation of Muslim teenagers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Nauseating! An Odious Press Conference, Apologists for Terror and the Do-Gooders Who Fund Them
“A sophisticated organisation that knows how to exploit a free speech and human rights to support terrorists”
For three years, campaign group Cage had been in contact with Mohammed ‘Jihadi John’ Emwazi, but its bosses did not offer any regret or apology for failing to prevent his barbarism.
Held at an ‘art gallery’ near London’s Euston station, it was one of the most extraordinary and nauseating press conferences of recent times.
It had been convened at 3pm on Thursday by the ‘human rights’ organisation Cage following the identification of masked killer Jihadi John as the Kuwaiti-born Londoner Mohammed Emwazi.
For three years, the campaign group had been in close contact with and offered support to Emwazi before he left Britain to fight in Syria in 2012.
But rather than express an apology — or even a smidgen of regret — for having failed to turn him away from the path to barbarism, what we witnessed was almost an hour of excuses, accusation and invective against Britain, British society and the British state.
Broadcast live for 52 minutes on the BBC and 58 on Sky News, the men from Cage described Jihadi John as an ‘extremely kind’ and ‘beautiful young man’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK’s First Anti-Islamization Rally Dwarfed by Counter-Demo
By Robert Spencer
Britain is finished. When defenders of free society against Islamization are dismissed as “right-wing nutters” and “fascists,” and the counter-demo is over five times larger, and when the government routinely allows foreign jihadis to enter the country but bans counter-jihadis solely for the crime of speaking the truth about Islam and jihad (as it did with Spencer and Pameal Geller — PW), Britain as a free nation is in its last days. Will there be a mass exodus of non-Muslim refugees from Britain when Sharia supremacists really start to flex their muscles? And where will they go?
“UK’s first ‘anti-Islamisation’ rally dwarfed by counter-demo,” AFP, February 28, 2015 (thanks to Bill):
An estimated 375 people turned out for the Germany-based PEGIDA movement’s first demonstration in Britain on Saturday, but were outnumbered by a 2,000-strong crowd of counter-protesters, police said.
[…]
PEGIDA — which stands for the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West — drew up to 25,000 people in German street rallies last month.
[“Where will they go?” To war. Winston Churchill once wrote that “tyrannies cannot persist except among servile races,” and when all is said and done, Britons are not a servile race. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
The former head of MI6 today warns there are ‘several thousand’ individuals of concern in Britain as he demands tougher anti-terror powers to prevent a ‘ghastly 7/7-style attack’.
Sir John Sawers also speaks out against the criticism of security services over their handling of Mohammed Emwazi — unmasked as Jihadi John — who is known to have been on their radar for at least six years.
He will tell Radio 4’s Today: ‘The threat that we face from terrorists here has gone up over the last three years and there has to be some response to that.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Relentless Fight Against Jihadists
Interior Minister meets Alfano. Monitoring of Mosques and Ngos
(ANSAmed) — ROME — The relentless fight against terrorism, Islamic radicalism and the new phenomenon of foreign fighters was at the heart of the meeting held in Rome between Kosovar Interior Minister Skender Hyseni and his Italian counterpart Angelino Alfano, on Friday. “Kosovo is on the frontline to curb the phenomenon of foreign fighters and extremism” said Hyseni. “No one can sleep peacefully any longer”. Kosovo has been the target of Islamic proselytism for a long time and a number of citizens of the small Balkan state have climbed Isis’s command-ladder. “Our fight is relentless” stressed the minister. “In the space of a year we have arrested approximately 300 people, recruiters and preachers” who championed jihad “while 70 people are currently in jail facing terrorism-related charges. Dozens of Arab Ngos have also been targeted by Kosovar authorities because, as well as financing the construction of mosques, they promoted Wahabi Islam in Kosovo and the rest of the Balkans. “We know how many they are and where they operate and we have stripped several of the right to operate and get established in our country”.
Another important facet of the struggle against extremism is the surveillance of mosques and the training of imams. In European countries the debate has focused for some time on the education of prayer-leaders, their enrolment into a specific registry and the language in which they preach. According to Hyseni, these measures take far too much time to be implemented.
“We can’t afford to wait 5-6 years for a new generation of imams and we can’t oblige anyone to preach in one language rather than another. It would be a serious violation of a fundamental right”.
It’s not an issue of form but one of substance — he added — what they say must be carefully scrutinized. “The Kosovar police is constantly monitoring what happens in religious schools and religious institutions in our country”.
In the last few hours, Kosovo has had to face another serious problem: the forced repatriation of hundreds of Kosovar migrants of Albanian ancestry, fleeing misery and unemployment, who entered EU countries illegally and whose asylum requests were rejected by Hungary, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Finland and Belgium. This failed search for better living conditions evoked the scenario of a mass exodus and frightened many European countries. “The real problem is the liberalisation of visas”said Hyseni. “ Kosovo is the only country in Europe that has been cut out — he repeated more than once — We have met all of Brussels’ requirements and do not understand what stands against the decision to liberalise visas with regard to our citizens”.
Seven years after the independence of Kosovo the country is facing dire economic circumstances and many wonder whether the Balkan state will be able to stand on its own feet for much longer. The Kosovar minister retorted forcefully: “Our country is capable of standing alone”. It’s true — he added — that “according to unemployment data over 30% of the population is unemployed, but at the same time, over 50% of those trying to migrate illegally to neighbouring countries are after a better salary. They’ve already got a job”. The government, he said “cannot increase salaries. We don’t have even one euro of public debt, but this tight restriction does not allow us to increase spending”. What Kosovo needs “is foreign investment to exploit its natural resources. There’s no difference between us, Albania and Serbia”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait-Serbia: Cooperation in Battle Against Terrorism
(ANSAmed) — BELGRADE, 27 FEBRUARAY — Kuwait’s newly appointed Ambassador to Serbia Yousef Ahmed Abdulsamad invited Serbia’s Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic to visit the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry and sign an agreement on cooperation against terrorism and organised and cyber crime.
The agreement would open up new possibilities for cooperation between the two countries’ ministries, according to a statement from the Serbian Interior Ministry.
“Serbia wants to improve its EU integration and be a good and reliable partner in the battle against terrorism, which poses a great threat to the whole world today,” Stefanovic said.
Abdulsamad, who discussed improvements to cooperation between the two interior ministries with Stefanovic, commended the decision to allow visa-free stay in Serbia of up to 90 days for foreign citizens who have a valid Schengen, UK or US visa.
This decision will encourage more Kuwaiti citizens to come to Serbia, thereby improving the economic and cultural cooperation between the two nations, the two officials agreed.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
NATO Action in Libya Not on the Agenda, Says Stoltenberg
(AGI) Rome, Feb 26 — NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday during an official visit to Italy that military intervention by NATO in Libya is not on the agenda at the moment. “Rather, it’s about supporting the mediation efforts currently underway through the UN and special envoy Leon,” Stoltenberg said after meeting the president of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies, Laura Boldrini. “Military interventions, like the one carried out by NATO in Libya in 2011 on the grounds of a UN mandate, can have limited effects. It’s vital that such interventions be followed by actions directed at political reconstruction, which, in Libya’s case, were not pursued strongly enough by the international community.” Meanwhile, during a telephone conversation with EU Foreign Affairs chief Federica Mogherini, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave assurances that Moscow supports the renewed attempt by UN envoy Bernardino Leon to bring the various parties in the Libyan conflict to the negotiation table. Lavrov not only agrees with Leon’s efforts towards dialogue, but also said he would support him when the issue reaches the UN Security Council, Mogherini said after the talk. The Libyan crisis, Brussels said, will be the first item on the agenda at the Informal Meeting of EU foreign ministers (Gymnich) scheduled for March 6 and 7 in Riga, leaving enough time to ascertain whether Leon’s last attempt will bear fruit. Building dialogue between the protagonists in the Libyan crisis will be the first step in launching concrete measures against Islamic State (IS) militants in the country, and is therefore an objective that the EU and Mogherini are intensely pursuing by pressing all four sides — the governments in Tripoli and Tobruk, and the two militant groups in Misrata and Zintan that helped bring about Gaddafi’s downfall — to communicate. Europe, however, also has a “plan B” should these efforts fail, starting with taking over management of Libya’s central bank before a possible round of sanctions. Ministers at the Gymnich will therefore establish the EU’s policy for Libya depending on the outcome of the next few days. A Foreign Affairs Council and a summit between EU leaders will be held in Brussels the following week, and Libya will once again be high on the agenda.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Vote on Palestine Disappoints PLO
Calls for parliament to recognize state without conditions
(ANSAmed) — RAMALLAH, FEBRUARY 27 — Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) official Hanan Ashrawi called it ‘unfortunate’ that the Italian parliament voted on Friday for a resolution on recognizing the Palestinian state that contained conditions. Ashrawi said that the PLO called on the government to recognize the State of Palestinian without any conditions.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Amid Killings and Kidnappings, Can Christianity Survive in the Middle East?
(CNN) Christianity was born in Bethlehem, in what’s now the West Bank. It took root among people like the Assyrians, who flourished in ancient Mesopotamia. It soon found a home in places like modern-day Turkey.
In other words, Christianity traces its past squarely to the Middle East.
But do Christians have a future there?
Recent headlines provide ample evidence for skepticism. It’s hard to ignore the depravity of ISIS beheading 21 Egyptian Christians on a beach in Libya. Nor can one shake off stories of women and children among the 262 Christians captured by ISIS in Syria, one of several horrors faced by Christians in that nation and neighboring Iraq.
[…]
While no one is saying what’s happening — especially given the savagery of ISIS — isn’t alarming, that doesn’t make it surprising. The Middle East has changed a lot since the first millennium A.D. for Christians. It has also changed a lot over the past century: The percentage of Christians relative to the Mideast’s overall population has gone from 13.6% in 1910 to 4.2% in 2010, and it’s expected to drop even further, according to religious demographers Todd Johnson and Gina Zurlo.
“What we’re seeing right now,” said Baylor University historical theologian Philip Jenkins, “is the latest phase of something that has been going for 100 years, pretty much.”
[It’s been going on a lot longer than that. See Bat Ye’or’s book, “The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude: Seventh-Twentieth Century.” — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic State have released new shocking photos of a ‘gay ‘man being thrown off a roof and stoned to death.
Following a trial in an Islamic State court, the man was taken to the roof of the building and thrown to his death in front a large crowd below.
The horrific act was carried out in Tel Abiad in the Islamic State capital of Raqqa in Syria.
The man is described as a ‘child of Lot’ and accused of committing acts of sodomy.
Lot is referred to in the Bible and the Qur’an, where it is claimed the people of Sodom and Gomorrah carried out sinful acts and were severely punished by God.
It is not the first occasion that Islamic State have published photos of such persecution. Another man accused of committing homosexual acts was thrown off the same building last month.
[Bound and brutalized — Fifty Shades of Islam. Beaucoup pix in this story. The stone-throwing scene calls to mind Shirley Jackson’s story “The Lottery.” — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
From Iraq to New York, Here’s a Look at Islamic State Group Developments This Week
Little known to the wider world 18 months ago, the Islamic State extremist group has muscled its way into the international spotlight by carving out a self-declared caliphate in the heart of the Mideast, beheading its opponents and foreign journalists, and attracting radicalized youth as far afield as Paris, London and New York.
The militants’ once seemingly unstoppable push across Syria and Iraq has slowed to a crawl in recent months as the United States, its Arab allies and even rival Iran work to roll back the group and ultimately defeat it. Despite those efforts, the extremists show little sign of crumbling under the weight of international efforts to crush it.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
In Algeria, Women ‘Imams’ Battle Islamist Radicalisation
Hundreds of female religious guides have been at the forefront of Algeria’s battle against Islamic radicalisation since the civil war that devastated the North African country in the 1990s.
Their aim is to steer women away from false preachers promoting radical forms of Islam.
The surge of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq, and even in Libya next door, as well as the growing influence of Al-Qaeda-linked militants and Salafists, has them working around the clock.
Known as “mourshidates,” their goal is to spread the good word of Islam and a message of tolerance, helping those who have strayed from it.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Throw ‘Gay’ Man in Syria Off Roof Before Mob Swarm to Pelt the Corpse
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
Islamic State have released new shocking photos of a ‘gay ‘man being thrown off a roof and stoned to death
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israel and Jordan Sign ‘Historic’ Agreement on Water
Worth EUR 780 mln; to share water from planned desalinization
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, FEBRUARY 27 — Israel and Jordan have signed a ‘historic’ bilateral agreement for water exchange. The agreement, worth an estimated 780 million euros, will make it possible for the two countries to share drinking water produced in planned desalinization facilities in the Jordanian Red Sea port of Aqaba, while a conduit will provide salty water to the Dead Sea. In exchange for its portion of desalinized water in the south, Israel will double its water supply to the Jordan River starting at Lake Tiberias (Sea of Galilee). The agreement was the result of a December 2013 Memorandum of Understanding between Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority signed in Washington DC. It was made official by the ministers Silvan Shalom and Hazim Al-Naser.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Official Yemen News Agency Says Sanaa, Iran Sign Agreement to Open Direct Flight Routes
SANAA, Yemen — Yemen’s official news agency is reporting that rebels who control the country’s capital have signed an agreement with Iranian authorities in Tehran to set up direct flights between the two countries.
The SABA news agency, controlled by the Shiite rebels known as Houthis, says the memorandum of understanding between aviation officials from the two countries calls for 14 flights per week from each side.
The rebels, who stormed into the capital, Sanaa, last September, are widely believed to have support from regional Shiite power Iran. Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi managed to escape Sanaa and house arrest at the hands of the rebels and has established a base in the southern city of Aden.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Opponents of New Turkish Laws Fear Police State
The Turkish government has proposed new legislation to give police heightened powers to break up demonstrations. Opposition parties and human rights groups worry that the measures will turn Turkey into a police state.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Westerners Journey to Iraq and Join Christian Militia to Fight ISIS
When one hears a story of Western civilians heading to the Middle East to volunteer for combat duty, one thinks of the hideously successful ISIS recruiting drive. However, as Reuters reports, “a handful of idealistic Westerners are enlisting” with a Christian militia group called Dwekh Nawsha, “citing frustration their governments are not doing more to combat the ultra-radical Islamists or prevent the suffering of innocents.”
This could lead to some legal entanglements for the volunteers, who are generally either skirting around the laws of their mother countries or flagrantly violating them…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Mom of Murdered Russian Opposition Leader: Putin Will ‘Kill You for That’
The murder of prominent Putin critic Boris Nemstov in a gangland-style killing steps from the Kremlin came just weeks after the dissident told a magazine his mother worried the Russian leader would have him bumped off for his outspokenness.
“‘When will you stop cursing Putin? He’ll kill you for that.’ She was completely serious,” Nemstov told Sobsesdnik earlier this month, according to the Wall Street Journal. The paper added that the former Deputy Prime Minister under Russian president Boris Yeltsin expressed some worry about his safety but not as much as his mother.
The Boston Globe reported that Nemstov also told the magazine in reference to his 86-year-old mom, “She is truly scared that he (Putin) could kill me soon for all of my statements, both in real life and on social networks. This is not a joke; she is a smart person.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Could Cut Off Gas to Ukraine by ‘End of Week’
Russia could cut off supplies to neighboring Ukraine by the end of the week if it does not get further payments from the country, a spokesman for the gas company Gazprom said Thursday.
Sergei Kupriyanov said in televised remarks that “if no new funds are received from Kiev, then naturally we cannot continue delivering gas to Ukraine.” He did not specify the sum.
Following a bruising dispute over prices and debt that raised fears of supply disruptions in Europe, Russia and Ukraine signed a deal in October requiring Kiev to pay in advance for gas shipments.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
North Korean Father-and-Son Spy Team Discovered Working in UN Agencies in Rome and Paris
A father-and-son spy team from North Korea’s version of MI6 managed to infiltrate two United Nations agencies. The duo were exposed in a report for a UN panel of experts.
Kim Su Gwang, 38, was working at the headquarters of The World Food Programme in Rome while his father Kim Yong Nam, 67, was based in Paris for the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco).
Kim Young Nam’s daughter, Kim Su Gyong, who was based at the Korean United Development Bank in Pyongyang, was also identified as ‘engaged in financial activities under false pretences in order to conceal the involvement of her country.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sierra Leone Registers Rise in New Ebola Cases
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — President Ernest Bai Koroma reinstated restrictions in Sierra Leone in response to the rise in confirmed cases of Ebola.
Sierra Leone recorded 18 new cases of Ebola in the week ending Saturday, up from 16 new cases last week. This breaks the trend of declining cases in Sierra Leone. There were clusters of new cases with many related to fishing.
The measures re-imposed include a nighttime ban on all boats launching from shore and from commercial vehicles off-loading goods in western market areas. Naval vessels will patrol the shore and wharves.
In addition there will be restrictions on ferries and health checkpoints by the police will be strengthened.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
South Africa Man Becomes Stuck Inside His Married Lover After Suffering ‘Penis Captivus’
[WARNING: Graphic Content.]
Local media said that unfaithful Sasha Ngema, had reportedly been romping with toy boy Sol Qoboza at an apartment in the city of Johannesburg in South Africa when they became stuck.
Police had to be called in to restore order after a crowd gathered to see a cheating wife and her lover locked together during sex after the rumour spread that her husband had asked a witch doctor to put a curse on her private parts.
And although medical experts say the embarrassing experience was more likely a case of ‘penis captivus’, in which the woman’s vagina had contracted too much and trapped the man’s penis, they were unable to stop the rumour and the mob had quickly assembled.
According to the story that spread like wildfire through the neighbourhood, they found they could not separate afterwards apparently because suspicious hubby Neill, 42, had gone to a witch doctor who put the curse on his wife’s private parts before he left.
The spell, known as a muthi, is designed to make sure that if someone other than the husband tries to have sex with the woman in question, he will remain stuck until the husband returns to extract his revenge.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Wave of Suicide Attacks Leaves 35 Dead in Nigeria
(AGI) Kano, Feb 26 — Eighteen people, including three women, were killed on Thursday in a suicide bombing at a bus station in Biu, in north-east Nigeria. A guard, Babagana Kyari, reported that numerous bystanders were also injured in the blast. The attack was carried out by two suicide bombers; one was killed before he could detonate his belt. Two more suicide attacks, one at the university and the other once again at a bus station, killed at least 17 people in Jos. The two cities are over 400 km apart.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Colleges Using Coffers for Financial Aid to Illegal Immigrants Stirs Debate on Immigration Reform
Several U.S. colleges are giving financial aid directly to students who are young illegal immigrants, extending the debate about helping people in the United States illegally at the expense of Americans who are in need of similar opportunities.
Such opportunities have opened up since President Obama’s 2012 executive action that deferred deportation to millions of young people brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents. However, they still are largely ineligible for state or federal student aid.
New York University — which receives federal, state and city money — says the aid given to illegal immigrants is not at the expense of American students.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Govt Decree Moves 15mn From Asylum to Anti-Terror Fund
‘You don’t fight terror by undermining integration’ says SEL
(ANSA) — Rome, February 27 — The government is taking almost 15 million euros from its national fund for asylum seekers to finance new measures in its anti-terror decree, sources said Friday.
The decree extends Italian military missions abroad and beefs up the so-called Safe Streets operation at home.
Safe Streets sees military personnel deployed at government buildings and monuments, in the Campania region where it is fighting environmental crimes by the Camorra mafia, and in Milan ahead of the Expo world’s fair opening May 1.
The decree increases the Safe Streets troops from 3,000 to 4,800.
The opposition leftwing Left Ecology Freedom (SEL) party protested the move.
“You don’t fight terrorism by taking money away from…integration,” said SEL Lower House whip Arturo Scotto.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jeb Bush Stands Firm on Controversial Immigration, Education Policies at CPAC
Jeb Bush stood firm at the Conservative Political Action Conference Friday, defending his position on immigration reform and Common Core before a sometimes skeptical crowd of voters who don’t always see eye to eye with his policies.
Energetic and composed, Bush also defended his record on granting drivers licenses to illegal immigrants while he was governor of Florida.
“The simple fact is there is no plan to deport 11 million people,” he said. “We should give them a path to legal status where they work, where they don’t receive government benefits … where they learn English and where they make a contribution to our society.”
His comments were met with a mix of applause and scattered boos from the crowd — a change from earlier in the day when just the mere mention of his name triggered a chorus of boos.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Jeb: ‘We Should Give Them a Path to Legal Status’
(CNSNews.com) — Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush told a CPAC audience today that illegal aliens should be put on a path to legal status in the United States. “There is no plan to deport 11 million people. We should give them a path to legal status,” Bush told Fox News’s Sean Hannity during the on-stage interview at CPAC.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Migration Board Needs 18 Billion SEK More
Because of the higher than expected number of people applying for asylum in Sweden, the Migration Board is requesting a 18 billion SEK increase in their budget for the next five years.
Approximately 10,000 more people per year are expected to apply for asylum in Sweden than earlier predicted in July 2014. The total now expected to apply for asylum in the next five years is 350,000.
The Migration Board now says their costs will amount to around 157 billion SEK, an 18 billion SEK increase from the previous prognosis.
The majority of the extra money will go to help municipalities with costs for housing and health services.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Why Should We Pay for Gays to Have Unsafe Sex?
More than 8,000 NHS cancer patients are being denied life-extending treatment after the Government’s Cancer Drug Fund warned it had to take “difficult decisions” to prioritise drugs that give the “best value”.
As of April, no fewer than 25 cancer drugs that prolong life will be withdrawn by the fund.
Imagine how these cancer patients and their families must have felt this week when, following a major trial on a £12-a-day drug which helps prevent people catching HIV, they learned researchers were recommending that healthy gay men should be given it free on the NHS at a cost of almost £5,000 a year per person.
All so that the lucky recipients can have unprotected sex with less chance of catching HIV.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Self-censorship in the face of intimidation has another name: cowardice.
By Ronald Bailey
No human right is more important than free speech. Without it no other rights can be asserted and defended. Free speech—the right of anyone to criticize and evaluate the claims of anyone else—is the best environment for discovering political, social, economic, and scientific truths. Political, religious, and ideological absolutists cannot tolerate criticism that punctures and wounds their delusions and dogmas. They look for ways to shut the offensive speakers up, including murder.
In addition to killing specific critics, such murders also terrorize others into self-censorship. That was the aim of the assassinations earlier this year at Charlie Hebdo in Paris and at the Krudttonden Café in Copenhagen.
Any attacks on free speech and the free press must be fiercely rejected, Flemming Rose argues in his passionate new book, The Tyranny of Silence. Rose knows whereof he speaks. He is the editor who commissioned drawings of Muhammad to illustrate an article on free speech for the Danish newspaper the Jyllands-Posten in 2005. Rose was inspired by the news that several illustrators had declined to draw Muhammad for a children’s book out of fear of violent Muslim reprisals. His aim was to “highlight self-censorship and its effects on cultural life” and “to fight fears that underlay self-censorship.” Rose further argued that it was condescending and even racist to presume that Muslims were intolerant and would react violently to cartoons depicting their prophet.
Sure enough, while many Muslims found the illustrations offensive, most did not react violently. But some Islamist extremists did issue death threats, and several have attempted to murder some of the cartoonists. For example, a Muslim named David Headley was arrested in 2009 for planning an attack on the Jyllands-Posten offices that eerily parallels the later assault on Charlie Hebdo. Offended Islamists have twice tried to kill cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who drew the famous image in which Muhammad’s turban contained a lit bomb.
[…]
[Be it noted that “David Headley,” a Muslim born Daood Gilani who took his white-girl mommy’s maiden name as a camouflage measure, was later convicted of carrying out five recces in Mumbai for Pakistani intelligence and Lashkar-e-Taiba for the 2008 massacre in that Indian city that left 166 people dead. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Tropical Forest Losses Outpace UN Estimates
The rate of forest loss across much of the tropics increased by 62% in the first decade of the millennium compared to the 1990s, according to an analysis of satellite data.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
It’s going to take more than brain damage to explain Jihadi John.
Britain is lost. One must first hate one’s own culture before embracing multiculturalism. To see a once mighty nation fall without a shot being fired is sad and disheartening. My family left 300 years ago for the New World. They forged a free nation based on the ideas of my ancestor. How long will it be such? I fear not long.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2014/08/15/muhammad-is-britains-most-popular-boys-name/
“Britain is finished.”
I reached the same conclusion about the USA when Barack Obama was re-elected.
Git your best holt.