The massive and accelerating flood of immigrants crossing the Mediterranean is dominating the news. The European Commission says that the crisis is serious, and will get worse. Traffickers reportedly tip off the Italian officials to departures from North Africa so that their boats will be intercepted as early as possible, allowing them to use less fuel and save money.
Meanwhile, 12 Christian migrants were thrown off a boat by Muslim migrants, and drowned. 15 asylum seekers are being charged with murder by the Italian authorities.
In other news, Islamophobic attacks in France have increased by a factor of six since the Charlie Hebdo massacre in January.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Erick Stakelbeck, Fjordman, Green Infidel, Insubria, JD, Papa Whiskey, Steen, The Kafir, 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.
Bankruptcies Suddenly Soar Across Corporate America, Worst First Quarter Since 2009
“Come down to Houston,” William Snyder, leader of the Deloitte Corporate Restructuring Group, told Reuters. “You’ll see there is just a stream of consultants and bankruptcy attorneys running around this town.” But it’s not just in Houston or in the oil patch. It’s in retail, healthcare, mining, finance…. Bankruptcies are suddenly booming, after years of drought. In the first quarter, 26 publicly traded corporations filed for bankruptcy, up from 11 at the same time last year, Reuters reported. Six of these companies listed assets of over $1 billion, the most since Financial-Crisis year 2009. In total, they listed $34 billion in assets, the second highest for a first quarter since before the financial crisis, behind only the record $102 billion in 2009.
[Comment: The consumer is tapped out and so the fraud of a consumer driven economy is collapsing.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Would Struggle to Find Creditors Outside Europe, Says Schaeuble
Greece would struggle to find creditors outside of the EU and IMF, German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has said.
Greece would be welcome to try to find investment from Beijing or Moscow, but may have difficulties, he said.
His warning came after fears of a Greek debt default saw the country’s borrowing costs rise sharply by 3.5 percentage points to 27%.
On Wednesday, ratings agency S&P downgraded Greece’s credit rating.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Plans to Raid Coffers as Creditors Dash Hopes of Resolving Cash Crisis
Cash-strapped Greece is planning to resort to drastic measures to stay afloat, as the country’s bail-out drama moves to Washington today.
Finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is due to drum up support for his debt-stricken nation when he meets with President Obama at the White House later today.
The meeting with the world’s most powerful leader comes as a desperate Athens could raid the country’s pensions funds in order to continue paying out its social security bill.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A CIA-Backed Company May be Scanning All Your Facebook Chats
If you thought your Facebook chats are safe from prying eyes, you’re apparently wrong. Bosnadev says that Facebook’s chats are being scanned by a CIA-funded company, a discovery Bosnadev made after looking into some unusual activity on a website triggered by a link present in a Facebook chat.
“During the testing of an application we’ve set up in a non-published area we have noticed some unusual activity. The link for the app was sent via Facebook chat and afterwards comes the interesting part,” Bosnadev said, publishing a list of “lots of IPv6 for a single Facebook check” as the aforementioned interesting part.
Further investigating the matter, Bosnadev tracked logs for a new URL address that was sent over Facebook chat and discovered similar behavior.
Upon researching Facebook chat scans, Bosnadev discovered information about a third-party company called Recorded Future that’s received funding from Google Ventures and the CIA. Apparently, this company was the primary culprit for scanning Facebook chats.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Arizona Governor Signs Bill Making Ballot Access More Difficult for Libertarians
Amount of signatures necessary to get on the ballot will rise dramatically.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Black Judge Lets Black Armed Robber Go Free Because White Victim Was “Racist” — Video
Race war propagandists are all the rage these days — all people regardless of color should be held accountable for their actions.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Bloggers’ Compared to ISIS During Congressional Hearing
Bloggers, conspiracy theorists and people who challenge establishment narratives on the Internet were all likened to ISIS terrorists during a chilling Congressional hearing which took place yesterday.
The hearing, hosted by the House Foreign Relations Committee, was titled “Confronting Russia’s Weaponization of Information,” and accused Russian state broadcaster RT of weaponizing “conspiracy theories” to spread propaganda.
One of the speakers giving testimony was former RT host Liz Wahl, who made a public spectacle of quitting Russian state media last year in an incident stage-managed by neo-con James Kirchick, himself a former employee of Radio Free Europe — a state media outlet. Remarking that the Internet provided a platform for “fringe voices and extremists,” Wahl characterized people who challenge establishment narratives as a “cult”.
“They mobilize and they feel they’re part of some enlightened fight against the establishment….they find a platform to voice their deranged views,” said Wahl.
Referring to comments made in January by US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) chief Andrew Lack, who characterized RT as a threat on the same level as ISIS and Boko Haram, Wahl said the comparison was justified.
“By using the Internet to mobilize people that feel displaced, that feel like they’ve been on the outskirts of society, and give them a place where they can find a sense of belonging, and maybe make a difference in their own way, and it’s a problem,” she said.
Wahl went on to bemoan the fact that conspiracy theorists were “shaping the discussion online, on message boards, on Twitter, on social media,” before asserting that the web had become a beacon of “disinformation, false theories, people that are just trying to make a name for themselves, bloggers or whatever, that have absolutely no accountability for the truth, that are able to rile up a mass amount of people online.”
Committee Chairman Ed Royce then proceeded to accuse people on YouTube of using “raw violence” to advance conspiracy theories.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Clinton Foundation to Keep Accepting Donations From Foreign Governments
The Clinton Foundation said late Wednesday that it will continue to accept donations from foreign governments during Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, despite concerns that such gifts will create a conflict of interest for the Democratic front-runner.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Compulsory (Forced) Vaccination Bills: 110 Bills Across 36 States (Bills Included by State)
Total list (.doc format) of 110 bills being proposed.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
DHS to Purchase 62 Million More Rounds of AR-15 Ammo
The Department of Homeland Security is set to purchase over 62 million rounds of ammo typically used in AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, just weeks after the ATF was forced to back down on a ban on M855 bullets.
A posting on FedBizOpps.gov this week reveals that the DHS is looking to contract with a company to provide 12.6 million rounds of .223 Remington ammunition per year for a period of five years — totaling 62.5 million bullets.
The solicitation explains that the purchase is intended, “to achieve price savings over the current .223 Rem duty ammunition.” The bullets will be used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents nationwide for “training” purposes.
The .223 Remington is one of the most common rifle cartridges in use in the United States and is used both in bolt action rifles and semi-automatic rifles such as the AR-15 and the Ruger Mini-14.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) The personal decision to accept or reject medical treatment is at the bedrock of health freedom. But this freedom is under aggressive attack in the U.S. today, where both federal and state governments are colluding with private industry in an attempt to force you and your family to be vaccinated, without informed consent and against all recognized medical ethics.
You’ve probably heard a lot about the measles “outbreak” that authorities say began at Disneyland, and how some states have proposed eliminating philosophical and religious vaccine exemptions. Much of this has been aimed at childhood vaccinations, and specifically the freedom of parents to decide whether or not to jab their children in accordance with government recommendations.
Well, now adults are being pulled into the fray with a new plan by the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) to issue an official vaccine schedule for non-minors. A recent announcement put forth by the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) explains how the “National Adult Immunization Plan,” or NAIP, will focus on promoting adult vaccinations through people’s workplaces, places of worship, schools and elsewhere…
NVIC warns that, in time, the program will likely be used to force vaccines on people rather than just persuade through intimidation and coercion. This is already being seen with healthcare workers who are being fired from their jobs for not getting flu shots, for instance — eventually, employees in every sector could be given the same ultimatum.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Feds Investigating Nestle Over Reports of Long-Expired Water Permit Amid California Drought
Piping water through a national forest in California and then bottling it for retail purposes…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gourmet Lunch: No Restaurant Necessary
New York City street food once meant hot dogs, but today’s carts offer Indian, Halal, Chinese and other foods. Every day at about noon, there is a long line at the Biryani Cart on the southwest corner of West 46th Street and Sixth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. Sometimes it’s less a line and more a throng. It’s not hard to figure out why. A sampling of the cart’s Indian/Bangladeshi offerings shows why it has been singled out repeatedly as one of New York City’s best street carts.
Kati rolls — beautifully seasoned chicken or lamb chunks topped with a variety of sauces and wrapped in an Indian flatbread called paratha — has become an addiction for many midtown office workers ($6). The chicken tikka pita sandwich, at only $4, could be the city’s best lunch value.
The Biryani Cart won the “people’s choice” award in 2008 and 2009 at the annual Vendy Awards, which honor the best of the city’s street food vendors. It has also been visited by the celebrity chef Bobby Flay for a feature on “The Early Show” on CBS and by Andrew Zimmern of the Travel Channel.
There was a time when street food in New York City meant only the dirty-water dog, but the food offered these days in carts and trucks is light-years beyond that, often bordering on the upscale.
The variety of options is staggering. Moshe’s Falafel, across the street from the Biryani cart on the southeast corner of 46th and Sixth, serves excellent falafel balls that are crisp on the outside and moist and flavorful on the inside. They’re available alone or in a pita.
Chicken-over-rice Halal carts seem to be everywhere, with two of the most well-known (and competitive) ones on opposite corners at West 53rd Street and Sixth Avenue. The Kim’s Aunt Kitchen cart (also at West 46th and Sixth Avenue) offers great fish sandwiches. And among the excellent trucks are Schnitzel & Things, where all kinds of schnitzel can be had, and the Chinese Mirch truck, known for its dumplings.
Many food carts are open weekends as well as weekdays…
| — Hat tip: The Kafir | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary Has History of Iranian Fundraising to Explain
NEW YORK — As the U.S. presses for an agreement that could allow Iran to become a nuclear-weapons power, Hillary Clinton’s receipt of funds from the mullah-led Islamic regime and her hiring of a convicted Iranian-American multimillionaire with ties to Tehran as her national campaign finance director in 2008 could become an issue if she runs for president again.
The Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation accepted $30,000 between April 2005 and March 2006 and another contribution of between $25,000 and $50,000 in 2008 from the New York-based Alavi Foundation.
U.S. government prosecutors have identified the foundation as an arm of the Iranian government.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Holder’s Gun Ban List Targets Veterans
In 2009 the federal government said in the now infamous rightwing extremism document leaked to Infowars and others that “veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists” and that the government was concerned these extremists would “attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities.”
On Wednesday the Attorney General was grilled by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee about a list denying veterans their Second Amendment right under the Constitution. The Justice Department considers the former soldiers on the list to be “mental defective.”
“It’s disturbing to think that the men and women who dedicated themselves to defending our freedom and values face undue threats to their fundamental Second Amendment rights from the very agency established to serve them,” Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said in a statement Wednesday. “A veteran or dependent shouldn’t lose their constitutional rights because they need help with bookkeeping.”
The Justice Department has worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs to add “a disproportionate number of names” to the federal gun ban list.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Josephine County Sheriff Will Not Enforce New Oregon Gun Control Law
Josephine County, OR. —Joining the current trend of sheriffs refusing to cooperate with laws they believe are unconstitutional or frivolous, Oregon’s Josephine County sheriff’s department will not enforce (soon to become) a new state law that mandates firearms purchasers to undergo background checks for private sales, according to sources in Oregon on Tuesday.
Day before, on Monday, April 13, 2015 at 9 AM Josephine County Oathkeepers spearheaded by Coordinator Joseph Rice a veteran of Afghanistan set up a picket in front of the Sheriff’s office because Sheriff Dave Daniel did not answer Oathkeepers e-mail demanding to know his stance on SB911.
On Tuesday, Sheriff Dave Daniel announced to the media that he and his department won’t enforce a state law being passed by lawmakers that will expand background checks to include private sales of firearms even between family members and neighbors. Pictured below is Joseph Rice being interviwed by KDRV Ch. 12 Medford Oregon.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Publication of sensitive material blamed on right wing hackers.
[Comment: Looks like a state sponsored false flag op.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Man-Made Disaster’: Critics Say California Drought Caused by Misguided Environment Policies
The blistering drought that has Californians timing their showers, driving dirty cars and staring at brown lawns and empty swimming pools is a “man-made disaster,” according to critics, who say the Golden State’s misguided environmental policies allow much-needed freshwater to flow straight into the Pacific.
In an average year, California gets enough snow and rain to put 200 million acres under a foot of water, but environmental opposition to dams over the last several decades has allowed the majority of the freshwater to flow into the ocean, even as the state’s population exploded to nearly 40 million people. The current drought has left farms parched and residents under strict water consumption orders, but some say it didn’t have to be that way.
“This is a man-made disaster,” said Bonner Cohen, senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Measles Vaccine Far More Dangerous Than Measles Itself
(NaturalNews) If it isn’t completely obvious at this point that the Disneyland measles outbreak is the mainstream media’s latest propaganda false-flag attack, then you’re not paying attention. Like a calculated military mission, this coordinated attack against personal vaccine choice is deliberately misleading the public into believing that a vaccine will save them, when in fact the vaccine is more dangerous than measles itself.
Long before there even was a vaccine for measles, this typically mild disease was seen as a common rite of passage for young children, much like chickenpox still is today. Contrary to what you may be hearing in pop news, it was virtually unheard of in the U.S. for anyone to die from measles, and those who contracted it gained an immune advantage — after recovering, those who develop natural measles infection never again have to worry about contracting measles because they now have lifelong immunity.
It was actually in a child’s best interests to contract measles as early as possible, because the disease tends to be much more severe in adults. And again, if you naturally developed measles as a child, you gained lifelong immunity to all forms of the disease. The same cannot be said of those who receive the measles vaccine (administered today as MMR), which only provides temporary and incomplete immunity.
None of this is being reported by the mainstream media, of course, which is pushing everyone, both child and adult, to rush out and get an MMR shot, including boosters if necessary, based on the false notion that the vaccine provides complete protection. There are no warnings about the jab eliminating any chance for those vaccinated to develop lifelong immunity, or that the jab itself can spread measles and trigger outbreaks.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Memphis Mob Attacks Gas Station Customers
For the second time in eight months, an unruly teen mob has been caught on video attacking a defenseless victim, stirring outrage in Memphis and beyond.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
MIT Scientist: Glyphosate to Cause Autism in 50% of Children by 2025
Pesticide industry desperately trying to hide damning studies.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) Wal-Mart has suddenly announced it is shuttering five stores from Florida to California for a six-month period due to what the company claims are “plumbing problems.” Nobody except the ultra-gullible really believes the Wal-Mart cover story, however.
“The retail chain announced Monday that five stores are shutting down — one in Brandon, two in Texas, one in Oklahoma and one in California — due to clogging and drainage problems,” reports News Channel 8 in Florida.
The sudden closures were only announced five hours before they took place, thrusting thousands of employees out of work with little or no notice…
The geographic dispersion of the Wal-Mart centers being closed raises a lot of questions about the emptied stores possibly being used as “staging areas” for some other purpose that isn’t being communicated to the public. “Astute story commenters were quick to point out that any plumbing problem can be fixed in much less time than 6 months, even in such large supercenters, and to have several of these 6-month closings all at once in states tied to Jade Helm 15 and martial law exercises (Florida, Texas, California and Oklahoma) reeks of something much deeper than ‘plumbing issues,’“
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
New Mexico High School Seniors Vote for Communism Theme Prom
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (CBS Las Vegas/AP) — Seniors at a New Mexico high school have voted to hold a prom with a communism theme, which they’ve dubbed “prom-munism.”
KRQE-TV in Albuquerque reports that Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School students voted online this week for the theme.
Senior Sarah Zachary says many of her classmates are jokesters and they wanted the prom to be funny. But she says lots of students also are intense about politics.
“We have a lot of jokesters in our grade, so they wanted it to be funny and a lot of them are really intense with politics,” Zachary told KRQE.
Cottonwood executive director Sam Obenshain says the school’s students are in the International Baccalaureate program and are very academically focused.
[Comment: The International Baccalaureate “reprogram”. This explains everything. Research this insidious program yourself. Perhaps if they studied the book “The Black Book of Communism” written by French researchers they wouldn’t think Communism is so “funny”.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Next 9/11 Will be Caused by Hackers, Not Suicide Bombers, Cyber Expert Warns
Greater US-Israel cooperation urgently needed to counter threat of cyberterrorism infiltrating air traffic controls, says Dr. Gabi Siboni
An Israeli cyber expert warned Wednesday that “the next 9/11” will be carried out by computer hackers infiltrating air traffic controls, rather than suicide bombers.
Col. (res.) Dr. Gabi Siboni said the US and Israel must increase cyber-defense cooperation in preparation of future terror attacks, and said distrust is preventing greater collaboration between the two allies.
“Computer hackers have begun targeting electric and nuclear power plants and other critical operations around the world in audacious and continuous efforts to take control of them,” Siboni, the director of the Cyber Security Program at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies said. Siboni spoke ahead of a bilateral cybersecurity conference, set to take place in Washington, DC later this month.
According to Siboni, in the worst case scenario, terror groups could disrupt and possibly infiltrate critical air control infrastructure, causing deadly accidents and bringing flight systems to a standstill.
Although only developed states currently possess the capabilities needed to carry out such large-scale attacks, Siboni warned this may soon change.
“The next 9/11 will happen without suicide bombers aboard the plane with box-cutters but will occur because of a cyber incident perpetrated by a terror organization,” he said.
“Cyber aggression is widely utilized and has become a basic weapon used in international conflicts. Countries are responsible for attacks on most national infrastructure, and governments across the Western world have understood that they must allocate resources not only to purchase new tanks and aerial defense systems but also in defensive cyber infrastructure,” he added.
Despite the magnitude of these threats, Siboni said the strategic partnership between Israel and the US in the cybersecurity field has yet to be fully utilized.
[…]
“Cooperation in the field of cybersecurity has yet to overcome obstacles of suspicion mainly that countries will use newly acquired technology against them,” Siboni said.
Israel has become a center of cybersecurity research and development, with multinationals from the US, Europe and Asia setting up R&D labs to develop better and more effective cyber-defense strategies and technologies.
[Unfortunately, Israeli intelligence has caused this reticence with operations such as the recruitment and running of Jonathan Pollard. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Christianity: A Political Tool to Silence Christians
Here in the United States, where Americans are used to hearing their president always invoke Christianity in a manner that silences Christians, United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent Easter message was moderately refreshing.
Among other things, Cameron made it a point to say that “we should feel proud to say, ‘This is a Christian country.’ Yes, we’re a nation that embraces, welcomes and accepts all faiths and none, but we are still a Christian country.”
The context of Cameron’s statement, it should be recalled, is a UK with a large intolerant and aggressive Muslim populace—a populace that increasingly seeks to treat the UK’s indigenous Christians the way the Islamic world’s indigenous Christians are habitually treated, that is, subjugated, enslaved, raped, and murdered.
In fact, Cameron touched on the phenomenon of Christian persecution in mostly Muslim lands:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
PETA’s Dirty Little Secret: Shelter Puts Down 80% of Animals in Its Care
In a remarkable turn of events, Virginia legislators reportedly have had to step in to protect animals from PETA, which runs a gulag-style animal shelter at its headquarters on the banks of the St. Elizabeth River that euthanized over 80 percent of the animals in its care in 2014.
Virginia lawmakers found that rate so abnormally high that they passed a bill in February to redefine a private animal shelter as “operating for the purpose of finding permanent adoptive homes.” The law will squeeze PETA whose primary service to animals in Norfolk has not been adoption, but rather a quick exit from the world.
The bill, put forward by Sen. William M. Stanley Jr. (R-Franklin), passed the House of Delegates in a landslide 95-2 vote, after the Senate had approved the measure by 33-5. This despite the fact that PETA hired lobbyist Stephen Haner to try to kill the bill.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Population Control Advocate Falls in Love With Alex Jones
Caller “Smitty” talks about supporting Hillary Clinton and the need for population control on white people.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Signs That the Elite Are Feverishly Preparing for Something Big
What in the world are the elite up to? In recent days, we have learned that the New York Fed is moving a lot of operations to Chicago because of concerns about what a “natural disaster” could do, the federal government is buying 62 million rounds of ammunition commonly used in AR-15 semi-automatic rifles for “training” purposes, and NORAD is moving back into Cheyenne Mountain because it is “EMP-hardened”. In addition, government authorities have scheduled a whole host of unusual “training exercises” all over the nation. So are the elite doing all of this in order to prepare for something really BIG, or should we just chalk up all of this strange activity to rampant government paranoia?
First, let’s talk about what the New York Fed has been doing. What kind of natural disaster would be bad enough to completely shut down the operations of the New York Federal Reserve Bank? It would have to be something very unusual, and apparently the New York Fed is very concerned that such an event could happen. According to Reuters, the New York Fed has been transferring personnel to Chicago and building up its satellite office there just in case a “natural disaster” makes it impossible for normal operations to continue in New York…
The New York branch of the U.S. Federal Reserve, wary that a natural disaster or other eventuality could shut down its market operations as it approaches an interest rate hike, has added staff and bulked up its satellite office in Chicago. Some market technicians have transferred from New York and others were hired at the office housed in the Chicago Fed, according to several people familiar with the build-out that began about two years ago, after Hurricane Sandy struck Manhattan.
Officials believe the Chicago staffers can now handle all of the market operations that are done daily out of the New York Fed, which is the U.S. central bank’s main conduit to Wall Street.
This seems very odd.
In all of U.S. history, there has never been a natural disaster in New York City that would have been bad enough to totally shut down the operations of the New York Fed for an extended period of time.
So why are they so concerned?
Another very odd thing that we learned about this week is an absolutely massive purchase by the government of ammunition that is commonly used in AR-15 semi-automatic rifles. The following comes from an article by Paul Joseph Watson…
The Department of Homeland Security is set to purchase over 62 million rounds of ammo typically used in AR-15 semi-automatic rifles, just weeks after the ATF was forced to back down on a ban on M855 bullets.
A posting on FedBizOpps.gov this week reveals that the DHS is looking to contract with a company to provide 12.6 million rounds of .223 Remington ammunition per year for a period of five years — totaling 62.5 million bullets.
The solicitation explains that the purchase is intended, “to achieve price savings over the current .223 Rem duty ammunition.” The bullets will be used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents nationwide for “training” purposes.
Why in the world would U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents nationwide need such a massive amount of ammunition for “training” purposes?
That seems very odd.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Student Coalition at Stanford Confronts Allegations of Anti-Semitism
Molly Horwitz, a Stanford student council candidate, said she was horrified by questions asked of her by a student coalition. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times
LOS ANGELES — The debate over what constitutes anti-Semitism has spilled into Stanford University’s student government election, with a Jewish student claiming that she was asked how her Judaism affects her view of divestment from Israel, morphing what was a contest about campus issues into a fierce discussion on identity and loyalties…
| [Return to headlines] |
Supreme Court’s Supreme Problems
Americans have lost a lot of faith in government because government has become too big. The MSNBC article points out that only 23% of Americans have a great deal confidence in the court system. While the justices are supposed to be apolitical, we all know their political opinions influence their decisions a great deal. Conflicts of interest seem to not be a worry. Rather than apply the law, they are busy interpreting the law, and when they do that, the people in black robes have no problem manipulating the law, influencing the law, altering the law, and repealing the law — all functions, according to Article I, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, that solely belong to Congress.
So while the supposedly apolitical judges let their own personal or political views influence their decisions, we scratch our heads and wonder how it is that we gave these people so much power.
Justice Breyer’s solution to fix the waning confidence the public has in the courts is for the court to use modern technology to better inform the public about its activities. Electronic transparency. We’ve heard that offer before. The current President made that promise, and we saw how that worked out.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Climate Change War Heats Up
Failed “global warming” hoax is a war on our entire economic system, capitalism
There is so much at stake for the charlatans that have foisted the failed “global warming” hoax, followed by the equally dubious claims and predictions regarding “climate change”, that it should come as no surprise that they have begun to wage a propaganda war on the courageous scientists who led the struggle to educate the public about the truth and the organizations who supported their efforts.
Along the way, many groups and publications claiming scientific credentials abandoned those standards to pump out global warming and climate change propaganda. Scientists discovered they could secure grant money for “research” so long as it supported claims that the North and South Poles, as well as all the world’s glaciers were melting. “Research” that predicted vast hurricane activity or a massive rise in ocean levels became routine headlines. None of it occurred. Both the government and liberal foundations provided millions to maintain the hoax.
Now we have a President claiming that his daughter’s asthma was due to “climate change.” It is obscene nonsense. If this was just a disagreement between scientists, we could look on as the facts determine the outcome, but there are vast agendas as stake so we have to keep in mind that billions have been wasted on “renewable energy” alternatives to replace fossil fuels; the oil, coal, and natural gas that are the heart’s blood of modern nations and our lives.
We have to ask why the United Nations Framework on Climate Change takes such a dim view of the world’s population that it cites its use of energy and other resources as a reason to reduce it instead of celebrating it. Hard-core environmentalists do not like humans because they build houses, start businesses, need roads, and generally consume a lot and then create trash. Climate change is also the platform the U.N. is using to “transform” the world’s economy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Voting Machine Anyone Can Hack
Virginia election officials have decertified an electronic voting system after determining that it was possible for even unskilled people to surreptitiously hack into it and tamper with vote counts.
The AVS WINVote, made by Advanced Voting Solutions, passed necessary voting systems standards and has been used in Virginia and, until recently, in Pennsylvania and Mississippi. It used the easy-to-crack passwords of “admin,” “abcde,” and “shoup” to lock down its Windows administrator account, Wi-Fi network, and voting results database respectively, according to a scathing security review published Tuesday by the Virginia Information Technologies Agency. The agency conducted the audit after one Virginia precinct reported that some of the devices displayed errors that interfered with vote counting during last November’s elections.
The weak passwords—which are hard-coded and can’t be changed—were only one item on a long list of critical defects uncovered by the review. The Wi-Fi network the machines use is encrypted with wired equivalent privacy, an algorithm so weak that it takes as little as 10 minutes for attackers to break a network’s encryption key. The shortcomings of WEP have been so well-known that it was banished in 2004 by the IEEE, the world’s largest association of technical professionals. What’s more, the WINVote runs a version of Windows XP Embedded that hasn’t received a security patch since 2004, making it vulnerable to scores of known exploits that completely hijack the underlying machine. Making matters worse, the machine uses no firewall and exposes several important Internet ports…
It’s hard to find plain words that convey just how bad the security of this machine is. It’s even harder to fathom so many critical defects resided in a line of machines that has played a crucial role in the US’ democratic system for so many years. Jeremy Epstein, a security expert specializing in e-voting, summarized the threat brilliantly in a post published Wednesday morning to the Freedom to Tinker blog. He wrote:
As one of my colleagues taught me, BLUF—Bottom Line Up Front. If an election was held using the AVS WinVote, and it wasn’t hacked, it was only because no one tried. The vulnerabilities were so severe, and so trivial to exploit, that anyone with even a modicum of training could have succeeded. They didn’t need to be in the polling place—within a few hundred feet (e.g., in the parking lot) is easy, and within a half mile with a rudimentary antenna built using a Pringles can. Further, there are no logs or other records that would indicate if such a thing ever happened, so if an election was hacked any time in the past, we will never know.
[Comment: Remember those districts with over 100% turn out?]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
White Parents in North Carolina Are Using Charter Schools to Secede From the Education System
It is hard, at first, to find anything wrong with the idea that some public schools should have the freedom to be a little different. This was the original pitch for charter schools, as think-tank scholars Richard Kahlenberg and Halley Potter recount in their recent book A Smarter Charter.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Homeschooling Family Persecuted by Canadian Medical System Escaped to Freedom in Germany
(NaturalNews) When the Herrmann family decided to leave Germany eight years ago to come to Canada where homeschooling is more widely accepted, they thought they were making the smart choice for their children’s health and education. But the nightmare that would ensue for their precious son Marc, an identical twin born prematurely with serious health problems that almost killed him, eventually drove the family back to their native land in desperate pursuit of medical freedom.
Marc, or Marcky as he is affectionately known by his family and friends, became yet another victim of the corrupt child services system after doctors misdiagnosed his condition and put him on drug treatments that made him worse-off. Born prematurely along with his twin brother, Marcky suffered from extremely low lung capacity and eating abnormalities that the experts claimed offered him little chance of survival but that he miraculously overcame by being placed in the same incubator as his brother shortly after birth.
Marcky’s health was still questionable, though, and his parents decided that the best course of action was to homeschool him rather than send him to a germ-filled public school. Strict rules in Germany regarding homeschooling sent the family packing for Canada, where Marcky was eventually diagnosed with Miller Fisher syndrome, a variant of Guillain-Barre syndrome (which often results from vaccination; see MMR vaccine package insert[PDF]), resulting in him being prescribed intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Muslim Children Do Not Feel Welcome in Public School
Danish public schools, folkeskolen, are not very welcoming to Muslim children, according to some educators.
“Many children who come to us from a public school have felt left out, misunderstood and stigmatised,” Line Mansour, the headteacher at the Muslim school Nord-Vest Privatskole, told DR Nyheder. “They come to us because they are looking for community, security and identity.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Earthworms Rain From Sky Over Norway
Earthworms have been raining down from heaven over large areas of southern Norway, leaving biologists and meteorologists scratching their heads.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Says Eager to ‘Finalise’ Probe Into Google Market Abuse
The European Union said Thursday formal charges were filed in an anti-trust case against Google to speedily resolve allegations the tech titan abuses its search engine’s market dominance, and that the case could lead to further probes.
EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Google was a “very successful” company, but that preferential use of its own shopping product in its search engine could be harmful to consumers and competitors.
Vestager announced the charges Wednesday, five years after the case was initially launched.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Famous German Rapper Turned Jihadist ‘Threatens Charlie-Hebdo-Style Attacks’
By Justin Huggler, Berlin
A famous German rapper turned jihadist has reportedly threatened Charlie-Hebdo-style attacks in Germany in a new video released by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
Dennis Cuspert, better known by his former stage name of Deso Dogg, was identified as the voice featured in the propaganda video by German media and jihadist websites.
“In France deeds were done, in Germany the sleepers are waiting. We want your blood, it tastes so wonderful,” the voice says in the video, which features footage of the attacks in Paris earlier this year.
“Even if you’re in Europe, wage your jihad,” he sings. “Allah will reward you, put an end to the filthy ones.”
The video, which resembles a professional rap music video, also features footage of fighting in Iraq and Syria and what appear to be staged scenes of men preparing for shootings and suicide bombings.
Cuspert has previously appeared in an Isil video in which he took part in the beheading of several prisoners.
[This is the kind of creature that ISIS attracts: basically an overgrown juvenile delinquent. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
The slain editor of Charlie Hebdo has slammed his left-wing critics from beyond the grave for criticising publication of drawings of Mohammad.
In a book Stéphane Charbonnier, known as Charb, finished just two days before being murdered by jihadist gunmen he argued that left-leaning intellectuals who denounced the cartoons in the satirical magazine were ‘ridiculous demagogues’ for doing so.
In the short book, extracts of which are to be published today in weekly magazine L’Obs, he writes: ‘The suggestion that you can laugh at everything, except certain aspects of Islam, because Muslims are much more susceptible than the rest of the population, what is that, if not discrimination?
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France Sees Sixfold Rise in Islamophobic Acts
France saw a sixfold rise in anti-Muslim acts in the first quarter of the year, fuelled by the Paris jihadist attacks, the National Observatory against Islamophobia said on Thursday.
Using interior ministry figures, the body counted 222 Islamophobic acts compared to 37 in the first quarter of 2014.
Most of these acts, 178, were recorded in January after three Islamic extremists went on a three-day killing spree in and around Paris that left 17 people dead.
Abdallah Zekri, president of the observatory, said the recent rise in Islamophobia was unprecedented since the body was set up in 2011.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Human Trafficking in Norway is ‘Risk Free’
Organized crime groups involved in illegally bringing sex workers to Norway are so seldom caught or prosecuted that they view the activity as a risk-free business, according to the sex-worker support charity Rosa.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Primary School Pupil Tells Tristram Hunt He Backs UKIP ‘To Get All the Foreigners Out’
Primary school pupil leaves Labour shadow minister lost for words in classroom exchange caught on camera
Tristram Hunt, the shadow education secretary, had asked the year six pupil from Derby who he would vote for in next month’s election if he was allowed take part…
A Ukip spokesman today claimed the boy had been brainwashed by the media.
He said: ‘Sadly I suspect the child has been drinking in all the propaganda. This is the information that people are continually being told, but it’s not true.
‘I thought it was rather sad that he thinks that is what Ukip is for. But it is not a surprise because that is how we are portrayed in the media.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Queen Margrethe Still Beloved by Danes at 75
A vast majority of Danes said in a poll released the day before the queen’s birthday that they don’t want her to step down, even though they also express a readiness for Frederik.
As Queen Margrethe II prepares to celebrate her 75th birthday on Thursday, she has already been given a great gift from her people.
A new opinion poll released on Wednesday showed that the queen is still largely beloved by Danes and that they are in no hurry to see her abdicate the throne, which she has held since 1972.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Second Fatal Shooting in 12 Hours in Gothenburg
A man in his thirties has been killed in a parking lot in Gothenburg, just twelve hours after a fatal shooting at an apartment block in the city.
Police in the city have told The Local that the man was shot at while he was in a carpark Angered, about 13 kilometres north of the city centre.
The victim, who police say was “aged around 30”, was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Both attacks come just a month after Gothenburg made global headlines after two people were killed and eight others injured in a shooting at a restaurant, which also took place in Hisingen.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Toughen Rules on Lobbying or Risk Corruption, Watchdog Warns EU
The EU needs to beef up its regulation of the lobbying industry to curb the risk of corruption, a leading transparency watchdog has warned.
In a report published Wednesday (15 April), Transparency International (TI) urged the EU institutions to establish mandatory registers of lobbyists, recording detailed information on which clients lobbyists represent and who they target.
They also called for a “legislative footprint” to track how lobbying influences laws and to record contact between lobbyists and public officials.
It says governments should put in place minimum “cooling-off periods” before former politicians and civil servants can work as lobbyists.
“Unfair and opaque lobbying practices are one of the key corruption risks currently facing Europe,” said Elena Panfilova, vice-chair of Transparency International.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK Prison Service Allowing Jihadi Book to be Distributed to Inmates
The extreme views of a “racist, homophobe and anti-Semite”, who supports killing non-Muslims and “stoning adulterers” are being made available to prison imams and prisoners throughout England and Wales with the blessing of the authorities, according to a former adviser to the UK government….
Newsweek has discovered that hundreds of gold-laminated, hardback copies of Maududi’s analyses of the Koran were distributed last month at a training event for prison imams and chaplains held at the prison service college in Rugby. The books came from the Markfield Institute for Higher Education, part of the Islamic Foundation, a UK-based organisation that publishes educational materials on Islam.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
World’s Coolest Queen: Margrethe of Denmark Turns 75
She is the most popular regent in Europe. The Danes, and others around the world, appreciate Queen Margrethe for her unpretentious manner and the closeness to her subjects. Birthday celebrations run for more than a week.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
WW1 British Soldiers’ Remains Reburied Near Ypres
Six British soldiers have been reburied in Belgium with full military honours more than 100 years after they were killed in action in World War One.
Remains of the unknown soldiers were found in 2008 and 2010 in a farmer’s field near the town of Ypres.
Two of the men were from the King’s Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment and two from the Lancashire Fusiliers. The regiments of the other two men are not known.
The Ministry of Defence said it had not been possible to trace any relatives.
The men were killed in battle in October 1914, the MoD said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Eulex Report Exposes EU Failure in Kosovo
The EU has just published an independent report on its rule of law mission in Kosovo, Eulex. It concerns a scandal which erupted last year, when an official of the mission publicly accused it of having covered up a case of judicial corruption within its ranks.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kosovo: Country Important Source of IS Foreign Fighters
According to a report, 125 fighters per million inhabitants
(ANSA) — PRISTINA — In mid-January, the Islamic fighters who left Kosovo to join the IS jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq were 232. While reporting the news, the Kosovar Center for Security Studies (Kcss), quoted by the daily newspaper Koha Ditore in Pristina, pointed out that Kosovo is among the countries with the highest percentage of foreign fighters: 125 fighters per million inhabitants. Bosnia and Herzegovina is ranked second: 85 fighters per million inhabitants.
According to Kcss report, Kosovar fighters would be mainly prompted by the ‘takfirism’, extremist Islamic ideology which is headed by ISIS, emerged in 2005 from Kosovo, where it could have been brought in by some imams from Skopje (Macedonia) who would have learned it during their studies in Egypt. According to Kcss report, this is a small group of extremists, but it nevertheless represents a serious threat to Kosovo’s security.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Wants to Use Libya as a ‘Springboard’ For More Attacks
ISIS has taken control of a half-dozen private airstrips in eastern Libya.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Al Qaeda Captures Major Airport, Seaport and Oil Terminal in Southern Yemen
Al Qaeda seized control of a major airport, a sea port and an oil terminal in southern Yemen on Thursday, consolidating its hold on the country’s largest province amid wider chaos pitting Shiite rebels against forces loyal to the exiled president and a Saudi-led air campaign.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Al-Qaeda Captures Major Airport in Southern Yemen
Military officials and residents say al-Qaeda has taken control of a major airport in southern Yemen after briefly clashing with troops.
The officials say al-Qaeda fighters clashed Thursday with members of the infantry brigade in charge of protecting the Riyan airport in the city of Mukalla, a major port city and the provincial capital of Yemen’s largest province, Hadramawt.
Al-Qaeda overran the city itself earlier this month and freed inmates, including a militant commander, from its prison.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
First the Saturday People, Then the Sunday People
History repeats itself.
This morning, as I watched the lighting of the flame at Yad Vashem to begin Holocaust Remembrance Day, I couldn’t help but think of how the Jewish people remain under siege by dark forces committed to their destruction (if there’s one stubborn constant in human history, it’s that).
At the same time, my thoughts turned to the Christians of the Middle East, who are today being subjected to a genocidal campaign by ISIS and other jihadist groups dedicated to exterminating followers of Jesus in the very region where His teachings first blossomed.
In other words, first the Saturday people (Jews), then the Sunday people (Christians). That old jihadist rallying cry is literally playing out in real time today before our very eyes.
Just as up to 1 million Jews were chased out of Arab and Muslim lands during the 20th century, many times with nothing but the clothes on their backs (what about their “right of return?”), so, too, are Christians being liquidated from places like Syria and Iraq where they have lived for centuries.
Anti-Semitism is soaring in Europe—driven mainly by the continent’s growing Muslim population—at the same time that Christians are being slaughtered by jihadist barbarians, from the beaches of Libya to the university halls of Nairobi…
| — Hat tip: Erick Stakelbeck | [Return to headlines] |
How ISIS Created a Terrorist Art Market
The ideologically-driven destruction of priceless Iraqi artifacts by Islamic State may be a ruse that actually hides a much more cynical operation, in which fakes are smashed to pieces while real treasures are smuggled out of the country and sold on the black market to fund the terrorist army.
ISIS shocked the world last month with the public destruction of hundreds of seemingly priceless works of art at the Mosul Museum in Iraq. What is not clear upon first watching the devastation is that the bearded men wielding hammers and drills against copies of centuries’ old statues are already responsible for the world’s largest art sales of culturally plundered antique objects.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘I Grabbed My Children and Ran’ — Families Flee ISIS in Iraq
By Arwa Damon and Hamdi Alkhshali
West of Baghdad, Iraq (CNN)The call from Faleh Essawi, the deputy chief of the provincial council, who we were supposed to be meeting up with, came just as we were about to hit the bridge — the only safe route from Baghdad to neighboring Anbar province.
“ISIS has taken the east of the city, it’s not accessible,” he says, sounding frantic, rapidly rattling off the neighborhoods and areas ISIS fighters had just stormed into.
Moments later, we see the impact: An endless stream of humanity, shell shocked, and exhausted. Parents cradle babies in blankets, some struggle under the weight of their belongings, some carry small plastic bags, while others nothing but the children clutching at their hands.
Cars are not permitted to cross this bridge across the Euphrates. The government feels that restricting vehicles will decrease the likelihood of explosives making their way into Iraq’s capital.
Those too young or too tired to walk pile into metal carts pushed by boys or young men, normally used to carry produce to markets. An elderly woman sits in one, a child in her arms, a worn down plastic doll in her hand.
Many don’t want to talk, at least not for long. What they just went through is too raw, too painful.
One man we encounter describes how ISIS fighters commandeered his house.
“We heard clashes in the early morning, and we couldn’t see the security forces anywhere,” he recalls. “We saw the ISIS fighters, they just came into the house, they didn’t say a word. They just sent a sniper to the roof. I grabbed my children and ran.”
His wife bursts into tears, prompting him to apologize for not being able to talk anymore — they just want to keep going.
[History is not going to be kind to Barry Hussein for prematurely withdrawing American forces from this benighted country. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Nothing Sacred: ISIS Destroys Christian Grave Sites in Mosul
By Perry Chiaramonte
Even Iraq’s dead Christians aren’t safe from ISIS.
The Islamic State’s campaign of terror across the war-torn nation, which has already seen countless beheadings, destruction of priceless art and religious artifacts and insistence that Christians submit or die, now includes mass desecration of graves. Photos of the black-clad, extremist ghouls smashing headstones in cemeteries in the key northern city of Mosul were posted Thursday online under the title “Leveling Graves and Erasing Pagan Symbols.”
“The April 16 destruction of Christian graves in Mosul, Iraq by the Islamic State (ISIS) is part of the organization’s ongoing campaign against Christianity, in the Middle East and throughout the Muslim world,” said Steven Stalinsky, executive director of The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which flagged the photos.
The shocking images appeared on the Shomoukh Al-Islam jihadi forum and other various websites, according to MEMRI. They show ISIS militants shattering graves with sledgehammers and carving out the crosses that were engraved on the stones. The photos were released along with a statement claiming to justify the defacing. The “hadith,” or Islamic teaching, stated that any grave higher than ground level must be shattered. Any images on such graves must be erased as well, according to the twisted edict.
The hadith claims Prophet Mohammad told followers not to “leave an elevated grave without leveling it, nor an image without erasing it.”
[In their quest for purity these Muslim bullies will leave no stone unturned — or undefaced. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Reports: Germans Tortured ‘Islamic State’ Hostages
Germany’s federal public prosecutor is investigating reports that German jihadists were involved in torturing hostages of the “Islamic State” group, reports say. The claims are based on the claims of an ex-IS prisoner.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Rising Saudi ‘Spinsterhood’ Sparks Alarm
High dowries blamed
(ANSAmed) ROME — Though it may seem a somewhat derogatory joke, in Saudi Arabia the number of unmarried women over age 30 is a major concern to the kingdom’s institutions and public opinion. Numerous articles have appeared in local media on the issue recently and there is an ongoing, lively debate around it. There are currently some 1.5 million Saudi women of marriageable age, out of a total population of 27 million. This figure may rise to 4 million over the next few years, say experts and institutes that have studied the issue. One of the latter is the University of Qassim, in the province of the same name. Some of the professors claim that high dowries are the main cause, as the men are required to pay dowries for their brides that are set by the woman’s family. The amount usually runs into the tens of thousands of dollars and includes cash, jewels and gifts such as highly popular technological gadgets. A growing number of men seem to have instead decided not to pay. A few years back, a group of Saudi bachelors launched a campaign to ‘Boycott Girls to Lower Dowries’, complete with a Twitter hashtag. Behind anonymous online accounts, some women responded that ‘Saudi men prefer to pay for a car instead of a wife’ and ‘Saudi men hope to pay a dowry for one wife and get three others for free’. The trend has significant social and legal effects, including on the high and rising divorce rate in the country.
Official figures say that 4 out of every 10 marriages end in divorce and that 60% of those that do not work out fall apart in the first year. The news came out in March that Saudi courts received in only 7 months some 84,000 disputes to be solved concerning dowries and child custody. The Riyadh justice ministry recently said that it intends to analyze the phenomenon to understand it better and announced that a handbook was in preparation to inform newlyweds about problems that often arise in marriages.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
For Mgr Georges Abou Khazen, the situation is getting progressively worse as the fighting intensifies. At least 12 Christians died recently but more bodies are still “under the rubble”. Prelate calls for a stop to the fighting. Meanwhile, the Church has set up shelters “for Christian and Muslim” war victims.
Aleppo (AsiaNews) — The situation in Aleppo has “worsened”, and fighting is escalating in the city, Mgr Georges Abou Khazen, the apostolic vicar of Aleppo of the Latins, told AsiaNews. Civilians, Christians and Muslims, “are tired of war, tired of these terrible acts of violence;” however, “regional and international” powers and interests are fuelling the conflict by sending “heavier and more lethal weapons.”
Once Syria’s economic powerhouse, Aleppo is likely to be destroyed by the madness of a war that spares no homes, churches, schools or charitable organisations. The latest round of fighting left scores of Christians killed or wounded. Many others are still “trapped in the rubbles of the bombed out buildings,” the prelate said.
Two Christian men, Anwar and Misho Samaan, and their mother died in a rocket attack that hit their home last Friday, the local chapter of the Salesians Order reported.
Two days later, on Sunday, an air strike by government planes hit a school in a rebel-held neighbourhood, killing five children, three female teachers and a man. As a result of this, all 135 schools in rebel areas and local markets will be closed for the entire week.
Local witnesses report that people are “more afraid” than usual. Dozens of families have fled their homes for camps in Turkey; others have been displaced within the city of Aleppo itself.
As fighting has intensified, the Christian quarter has come under fire with many people killed and wounded. “Over night between Friday and Saturday, in the middle the Orthodox Easter, the Christian area was heavily shelled by heavy weapons, and rockets, which we never saw before, up to three metre long,” the vicar to Aleppo said.
For the prelate, this is “something new, with enormous destructive power”. Until now, “we had become used to gunfire and mortars.” Now, “five-storey buildings have been gutted, buildings razed to the ground. People are afraid to go out into the street and are trapped . . . [I have] never seen anything like it. “
Over the past few days, attacks have continued. “Last night, we lived terrible moments near the Bishop’s residence,” Mgr Abou Khazen said. Rebel “Militias and regular army fought each other. We do not know why they are now targeting civilians.”
In fact, churches and schools have been hit recently. Schools were closed because of the Easter holiday, but “Now they have reopened but the danger of fresh attacks remains,” the prelate added. “Even educational facilities are potential targets.”
Catholic bishops have appealed to the international community to stop the conflict. However, the major powers (United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and France) are “fanning the flames of conflict and supplying heavy and more lethal weapons to the fighters”.
“We wept when we saw the suffering in the eyes of the people, the scores of bodies under the rubble of collapsed houses,” Mgr Abou Khazen said.
“In the Christian quarter alone, we have already buried 12 people, including four from the same family. But there are still several bodies under the rubble, as well as people with serious injuries and we expect the toll to get worse in the coming hours.”
“We are tired of war,” the prelate said. “Do not send more weapons!” For the prelate, there is a plan to “uproot Christians” from Syria, Iraq, and the Middle East.
“Bombs and missiles are not meant to tease, but to kill,” he explained, to wipe out the mosaic of people that lived together and shared the same feelings in what was Syria before the war, where Christians and Muslims “lived together without sectarian tensions”.
In thanking Pope Francis for his appeals on behalf of persecuted Christians in the Middle East, the apostolic vicar said that in Aleppo, the Church continues its work on behalf of war victims, both Christians and Muslims, under increasingly difficult conditions.
“In the past, we handed out food and clothing. Now we are setting up shelters in the parishes for those who have fled their homes after they were hit by rockets,” he added. “As always, our doors are open to Christians and Muslims.
“This is the beauty of Syria — dialogue and acceptance by people of different religions — that ideologically driven foreign fighters want to destroy.”
Since the beginning of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al Assad in 2011, more than 3.2 million people have fled the country whilst another 7.6 million have become internally displaced.
At least 200,000 people have been killed in the fighting, many of them civilians. Last year was the worse in terms of casualties.
In the spring of 2013, the Islamic State group emerged out of the cauldron of Syria’s civil war, in all its violence and brutality. From that point, it advanced rapidly, seizing large swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory. (DS)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Tajikistan: Former Jihadist Escapes From the Islamic State: We Had to Kill Everyone, Without Pity
A young Tajik has managed to return home and tell how he was recruited by the militants of the Islamic State. The terrorists wanted to force him and his companions to kill children, women, Jews, Shiites. The government in Dushanbe has banned the pilgrimage to Mecca for citizens under the age of 35 years. The trips contribute to the spread of radical ideas among young people.
Dushanbe (AsiaNews) — “ They said: ‘You must kill children without compassion, you must kill women, Jews, infidels and Shiites’. This is the testimony of a young Tajik, recruited in Moscow by the militia of the Islamic State (IS) to fight in Syria and who managed to escape.
The man, fled to Turkey, and managed to return to his country of origin where he spoke to Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty about how the terrorists enticed him and other men through the internet: “There are websites that say: ‘This is the true path, the path of Allah’. But it wasn’t only that. We also heard lectures promising rewards from Allah if you become a martyr”.
Once he had left Russia, the man only realized the consequences of his choice when he arrived in Turkey. He said that he and other comrades thought they were going to Syria to study, not to fight. The militiamen instead incited them to brutally kill anyone they saw, even women and children. Moreover if they died as martyrs then, their wives “would be married to other jihadists.”
The recruiting foreign fighters by the Caliphate, is an obvious problem in several Central Asian countries, which have implemented initiatives to protect the territories that border with Afghanistan. Recently, the International Crisis Group (ICG) released a report in which it estimated that between 2 thousand and 4 thousand citizens of Central Asian origin have joined Islamic extremists in Syria over the past three years.
In December 2014, the Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon acknowledged that several young people had joined the ranks of the militia in the Middle East and described IS as “a modern plague that poses a serious threat to global security.” Rakhmon added that Tajik citizens who join the terrorists’ cause are a “source of instability in society”, because they are recruited in the country through new forms of communication.
On April13, the Commission for Religious Affairs and Cultural Rights has decided to respond to the president’s appeal — who last month called on all authorities to promote the development of a secular society — and banned pilgrimages to Mecca (hajj) to those under 35. The Committee argues that the ban is a useful attempt to prevent the formation of radical ideas among young people. In contrast according to experts this makes it a great opportunity for older Muslims to make the pilgrimage, since Saudi Arabia has limited the annual number of the faithful who travel to the holy sites.
The Committee has also added a series of measures implemented by the government in Dushanbe to spread the principles of the secular state, in a country where Muslims are 97% of 8 million inhabitants. The authorities have already banned the use of the veil for female students, admission of children to mosques and forced thousands of students who were studying in Islamic schools abroad to return home.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Marxist/Nazi/Ottoman/Islamist ISIS pogrom against Christianity continues to this day
“Around the world, Christians are facing violence, persecution, brutality in a way we have not seen in generations.” — Rey Flores, “The Wanderer”
The hypocritical “war on women” movement is deafly silent, no real effort to save the captives, and good men are doing nothing when faced daily with photographs of Christian hostages on their knees, clad in orange jumpsuits, about to be beheaded, when women and girls are kidnapped, raped, genitally mutilated by ISIS, and driven into a life of slavery as forced converts to Islam.
One year later, the Clarion Project says, “ #BringBackOurGirls” are still sex slaves to Boko Haram, sold into slavery for 2,000 rials each, about $12.
The Christian genocide continues unabated. ISIS is demanding $100,000 per hostage, for the 250-300 Assyrians who were captured in the Hasaka province…
Why were Armenians massacred by the Turks? To understand the reason, you must understand who the Armenians were, how, and why they lived under the Ottoman Empire, and their status as non-Muslims, “non-believers,” and second-class citizens.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Says EP Resolution on Armenia ‘Null and Void’
Turkey’s EU affairs minister Volkan Bozkir has said a European Parliament resolution urging wider recognition of the Armenian genocide is “null and void for Turkey and the Turkish nation … a slander”. Turks murdered 1.5 million Armenians in 1915, but Ankara says it happened when they “fell ill” during “deportations”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pro-Russian Journalist Oles Buzyna Gunned Down in Ukraine
A prominent pro-Russian journalist has been gunned down in Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said. Two masked gunmen shot Oles Buzyna, an editor and columnist for Ukraine’s Segodnya daily newspaper.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Putin Condemns Kiev Over ‘Blockade’ Of East Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin says Ukraine’s government is “cutting off” defiant rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine through an economic blockade.
He was addressing a huge Russian audience in a live televised phone-in.
He also insisted “there are no Russian troops in Ukraine”. Moscow denies Western charges that it is directly arming and reinforcing the rebels.
Later he said those who had ordered the murder of Boris Nemtsov — one of his leading critics — might never be found.
Mr Nemtsov, a prominent opposition politician, was shot dead on 27 February near the Kremlin.
Five suspects, all of them Chechens, are in custody. Mr Putin condemned the murder as “disgraceful”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia Bans Alcohol Sales in Small Shops
A new law banning the sale of alcohol in small shops has come into force in Indonesia.
Alcohol can still be sold in supermarkets, hotels and food outlets, but some 70,000 local stores will no longer be allowed to stock it.
The government says the restrictions are necessary to protect young people in the Muslim-majority country.
But the law has faced opposition from the tourist trade, particularly on the mainly Hindu island of Bali.
Bali relies heavily on tourism and there are concerns the ban could severely damage the industry, including by making it illegal for vendors to sell alcoholic drinks to tourists on beaches.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Radiation Measured at Deadly 9.7 Sieverts in Fukushima Reactor
Enough to kill a human within an hour…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Australian Model, DJ, Killed Fighting for ISIS in Syria, Family Friends Say
(CNN) A former model and DJ from Melbourne, described by his former agency as having a promising future, is the latest Australian believed to have been killed fighting alongside ISIS militants in Syria.
The parents of Sharky Jama, 25, were informed of their son’s death via a text message and phone call on Monday, said Hussein Harakow, president of the Somali Australian Council of Victoria.
“They’re very shocked and very disappointed,” said Harakow, who knows the Jama family.
He said Jama had disappeared along with another Somali-Australian, named in Australian media reports as former business student Yusuf Yusuf, in August last year.
[What kind of promising future would this guy have had if he’d gotten back into Australia as a battle-hardened jihadi veteran? — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Sydney Woman Praised for Defending Muslim Woman ‘Harassed on Train for Wearing a Hijab’
An Australian woman has been described as a “hero” for challenging a train passenger who was allegedly being abusive towards a Muslim woman sat in the same carriage.
Stacey Eden claimed an older woman was accusing the unidentified Muslim woman and the man sat next to her of being an Isis supporter because she was wearing a hijab.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mugabe Tells S.Africa Media: ‘I Don’t Want to See a White Man’
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe walked away from a group of journalists in South Africa commenting “I don’t want to see a white man”, television footage showed Friday.
Mugabe was visiting Soweto, heartland of the anti-apartheid struggle, on Thursday on the final day of his state visit to South Africa when he approached a group of reporters.
Mugabe, 91, regularly throws barbs at western nations and former colonial powers.
He used a press conference with President Jacob Zuma on Wednesday to attack the UN security council, the United States and Britain.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Colombia Truce Broken by Rebel Attack
Farc ‘kills 10 soldiers, wounds 17’
(ANSA) — Rome, April 15 — Ten Colombian soldiers were killed in an attack by left-wing Farc rebels Wednesday in the biggest recent violation of a ceasefire deal.
The government said 17 soldiers were also injured, four of them seriously, following an attack in the Farc stronghold of Cauca in the west of the country.
President Juan Manuel Santos said he would travel to the area as the two sides continue to hold peace talks in Havana.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Day After Obama Removes Cuba From Terror Sponsor List, Terror Group Sponsored by Cuba Kills 10
Cuba has been harboring FARC terrorists for years. This morning, FARC murdered 10 Colombian soldiers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Reporters Investigating ISIS Mexican Base
Watchdog group discovers base only miles from vulnerable border. Alex Jones talks with Infowars reporter Joe Biggs live on the ground at the Mexican border.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Taking Cuba Off State Sponsor of Terrorism List
Cuba is a longtime state sponsor of terrorism and has meddled militarily and otherwise in the affairs of its neighbors and in faraway countries such as the African nation of Angola. The State Department labeled Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism in 1982, citing “Fidel Castro’s training and arming of communist rebels in Africa and Latin America.” President Reagan ordered an invasion of Grenada after its Marxist dictatorship grew too close to Cuba and he struggled heroically to aid the anticommunist contras in their war against the Cuban-backed Communist regime in Nicaragua.
More recently Cuba has provided support to the Marxist narco-trafficking terrorists of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and has aided Venezuela’s communist dictators. FARC, in turn, reportedly has ties to al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The State Department acknowledged last year that Cuba has long been a haven for members of FARC and the Basque Fatherland and Liberty (ETA).
There was no official statement on the White House website heralding the administration’s new policy. There was only a brief statement on Twitter by an underling almost no one in America has heard of because President Obama is way too cool to condescend to speak to the American people or the media about such an important policy shift.
“Put simply, [President Obama] is acting to remove #Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list because Cuba is not a State Sponsor of Terrorism,” Obama’s foreign policy wunderkind Ben Rhodes, tweeted at 3:18 in the afternoon.
But just because Rhodes says it, that doesn’t mean it’s true.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ann Coulter’s Upcoming Book Directly Confronts Mass Immigration
By James Kirkpatrick
Ann Coulter, the queen of conservative commentary, is about to unleash a new book that slams liberals and elites in America for opening the floodgates of illegal immigration so they can have “cheap nannies and lawn boys” — and a devoted corps of voters.
Her upcoming ¡Adios America! The Left’s Plan To Turn Our Country Into A Third World Hell Hole is likely to play a role in the debate over immigration and the 2016 presidential race where the issue splits Democrats and Republicans.
While Regnery Publishing isn’t shipping the book until June 1, word about it is already out and Coulter’s book is climbing the Amazon ratings. She has been a New York Times best-seller 10 times.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dozens Die in New Mediterranean Migrant Shipwreck
More than 40 migrants have drowned after the small boat carrying them sank in Mediterranean, between Libya and Italy. Four survivors told Italian police that 45 people had been on board.
The International Organization for Migrants (IOM) based in Geneva said 41 migrants were feared drowned in a new Mediterranean shipwreck, citing survivors picked up by the Italian navy vessel “Foscari.”
The survivors, two Nigerians, a Ghanaian, and one Nigerien, were rescued after a helicopter spotted them floating in the sea. They arrived in the Sicilian port of Trapani on Thursday, together with 600 other migrants.
Roughly 10,000 people have been rescued trying to reach the Italian coast in recent days.
Earlier on Thursday, Italian police confirmed they had arrested 15 African Muslim migrants after witnesses said they had thrown 12 Christian passengers overboard following a brawl on a boat heading to the Italian cost.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Editorial: Europe Cannot Evade Its Humanitarian Obligations
[…]
Italy and Greece bear the brunt of the arrival of refugees who come by sea (while Spain has taken thousands of migrants from south-east Europe). The official line is that more must be done to stop them ever leaving Africa or the Middle East in the first place. That could be done by providing more support in the home country or just across the land border. For some, notably Syrians, facilities should be made available locally to apply for a visa. That would make it much easier to arrive safely and legitimately. In theory, the traffickers will be targeted, but their networks have become too sophisticated to make that an easy option. A European commission action plan will be launched next month that is likely to propose boosting the EU’s feeble frontier organisation, Frontex, and introducing a fairer system of distributing refugees around the EU. People who had hoped to join family in, say, Athens or London may end up in Estonia instead…
| — Hat tip: Green Infidel | [Return to headlines] |
EU Says Migrant Crisis is Serious, ‘Will Get Worse’
The European Commission said Thursday that the crisis caused by the flow of migrants from North Africa to southern Europe, especially Italy, is bad and is set to get worse. “The situation in the Mediterranean is serious and it will get worse in the coming weeks and months,” said European Commission Spokesperson Natasha Bertaud. Italy, which has seen a sharp increase this year in the already big flow of migrants heading to its coast, has repeatedly complained it is not getting enough help from Europe. (
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Europe Dithers in Face of Unprecedented Wave of Migrants
An unprecedented wave of migrants has headed for the European Union’s promised shores over the past week, with 10,000 people making the trip. Hundreds — nobody knows how many — have disappeared into the warming waters of the Mediterranean, including 41 migrants reported dead Thursday after a shipwreck.
Amid these scenes of desperation, the 28 nations from the world’s wealthiest trade bloc have largely looked on. No EU country has pledged a single ship, a single plane, a single cent to add to the rescue efforts. With the spring crossing season kicking off, the EU has no relevant legislation in the works, and no emergency meeting on the agenda.
The EU says it will unveil a migration agenda for discussions by the end of May and draw up a report by Christmas.
The most visible action this week has come from aid group Doctors Without Borders, which pledged to put medical workers on board a rescue ship beginning in May.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Feds Releasing Hundreds of Illegal Immigrant Rapists, Murderers
[…]And more illegals are coming.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Over 10,000 Migrants Arrived in 1st Quarter of 2015
Dramatic three-fold increase compared first three months of 2014
(ANSA) — ATHENS — About 10,445 migrants entered Greece illegally via sea, during the first three months of 2015 as daily To Vima online reports quoting new statistics published by the Hellenic Coast Guard. In March alone 6,498 migrants were found to have crossed over through the Eastern Aegean.
This marks a dramatic three-fold increase compared to the first three months of 2014, when a total of 2,863 migrants were documented to have entered the country illegally. The islands that have received the greatest waves of migration are Mytilene, with about 4,500 migrants currently held there, followed by Chios, Leros and Samos.
Migration via sea has surged since the construction of a fence on the border with Turkey in the north of Greece and the escalation of the ongoing conflicts and humanitarian crises in Syria and Iraq.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Overwhelmed by Influx of Refugees
The Greek government has surrendered in the face of a massive influx of refugees from the Middle East. It has even issued threats directed at the Europe Union, only to withdraw them hastily.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ICE Director: Agents Risk ‘Termination’ For Not Enforcing Obama’s Immigration Policy
“There are consequences for not following the rule of the employee’s status with the agency.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ignorant American Voters Now Greatest Threat to America?
Through illegal immigration and so-called refugee resettlement programs, both importing a new breed of American “citizen” and a new crop of voters, the U.S. elections are now heavily influenced by foreign anti-American interests. The voter demographics of our country are being intentionally and purposefully altered. But that may not be the greatest threat to American sovereignty, security and freedom.
Our nation’s Founders did their level best to create a system of self-governance of, by and for the legitimate citizens of the United States, establishing three co-equal branches of the Federal Government, each with their own set of limited duties and authorities necessary to execute those duties. In this extraordinary effort, they installed countless checks and balances to make possible the ongoing protection of all Natural Rights established for the people in our Charters of Freedom.
One of those measures was a set of few, but strict conditions for high political office, an effort to make certain that only True Americans with no foreign entanglements or allegiances would hold the reins of political power in America. A different set of requirements were created for each branch, two chambers of the legislature, the judiciary and the executive branch.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Police: Muslim Migrants Threw Christians Overboard
Rome (CNN) Muslims who were among migrants trying to get from Libya to Italy in a boat this week threw 12 fellow passengers overboard — killing them — because the 12 were Christians, Italian police said Thursday.
Italian authorities have arrested 15 people on suspicion of murdering the Christians at sea, police in Palermo, Sicily, said.
Why migrants are dying to get to Italy
The original group of 105 people left Libya on Tuesday in a rubber boat. Sometime during the trip north across the Mediterranean Sea, the alleged assailants — Muslims from the Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal — threw the 12 overboard, police said.
Other people on the voyage told police that they themselves were spared “because they strongly opposed the drowning attempt and formed a human chain,” Palermo police said.
The boat was intercepted by an Italian navy vessel, which transferred the passengers to a Panamanian-flagged ship. That ship docked in Palermo on Wednesday, after which the arrests were made, police said.
‘I enter Europe or I die’: Desperate migrants rescued this week off Italy
The 12 who died were from Nigeria and Ghana, police said.
[All in accordance with Qur’an 9:123: O ye who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto Him). — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Coast Guard Says 10,000 Migrants Rescued in Days
Fears growing of 400 sea deaths as rescue operations continue
(ANSA) — Rome, April — Almost 10,000 migrants have been rescued in recent days, Coast Guard officials said Wednesday as new waves of people continued to arrive on Italian shores triggering concerns that this spring could set new deadly records for both migrant crossings and deaths.
Some 1,511 people were rescued on Tuesday alone in 12 different operations coordinated by the national Coast Guard relief service.
That came after the 8,480 people reported rescued in the Mediterranean between Friday and Monday.
Among Tuesday’s operations, 503 migrants were plucked from five rafts while a patrol boat rescued another 131 people.
Merchant ships have been making a “significant” contribution to rescue efforts with one vessel, the Norman Corona, rescuing 95 migrants and transferring them to a patrol boat, the Coast Guard.
The rescues continued amid growing fears that about 400 migrants may have drowned in the sea off Libya after the NGO Save the Children said witnesses had reported a boat capsizing off the Libyan coast.
About 144 people were rescued by the Italian Coast Guard from that boat on Monday and nine bodies were recovered.
Rescuers were also put in danger as shots were fired, possibly at private tugboats assisting with the rescue of migrants.
State police were investigating reports that a Libyan patrol boat fired shots. Among Wednesday’s arrivals were 236 migrants including eight children and many pregnant women brought to Messina in Sicily.
Another 415 migrants were brought by rescue ships to the commercial port of Augusta along with two alleged human smugglers who were placed under arrest.
And the commercial vessel King Jacob brought another 480 migrants from rescues on Tuesday into port near Palermo. On Tuesday, a further 1,169 refugees arrived in the capital city of Sicily.
UN officials say more than 500 migrants have died so far this year — 30 times more than in the same period last year, BBC reported on its website.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Pleads for Aid to Cope With Migrant Influx
(REGGIO CALABRIA) — Italy pleaded for more help Thursday to rescue migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean, and demanded a “clear answer” from the European Union about where the refugees should be sent.
In the aftermath of the latest migrant tragedy that saw some 400 people drown on Sunday off Libya, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said Italy was shouldering nearly all of the burden for patrol and rescue.
“Ninety percent of the cost of the patrol and sea rescue operations are falling on our shoulders, and we have not had an adequate response from the EU,” he told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, adding that the EU was only spending three million euros a month on its Operation Triton sea patrols.
“And then there is the difficult issue of knowing where to send those rescued at sea — to the nearest port? To the country where their boat came from? The EU has to respond clearly to these questions,” Gentiloni said.
Following Sunday’s tragedy, rights groups lashed out at the bloc for scrapping Italy’s more proactive Mare Nostrum rescue operations.
Survivors told charity workers in Italy that the overcrowded vessel overturned with when refugees on board surged to see their rescuers approach.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Accused of Bringing in Islamist ‘Terrorists’ After Christians Thrown Into Sea
A dozen Christian asylum seekers drowned in the Mediterranean after they were thrown overboard by Muslim migrants in a furious row fueled by “religious hatred” on a smuggler boat sailing from Libya to Italy.
Conservative politicians accused the centre-Left government of Matteo Renzi of allowing “fundamentalists” into Italy and called for a blockade of the refugee boats.
“Intervention is now urgent because what has happened is extremely worrying,” said Maurizio Gasparri, a senator with Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party. “The Renzi government is bringing in Islamist fundamentalists and using Italian ships as taxis for potential jihadists.”
Ignazio La Russa, another centre-Right politician, said: “The government is not only bringing to its knees the social fabric of our cities (through immigration) but is allowing onto Italian soil fundamentalist terrorists.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Rescues 10,000 Migrants in Past Week
Italian authorities have rescued around 10,000 migrants in the past week, reports Ansa. Italy’s coastguard rescued 1,511 people on Tuesday (14 April) alone, on top of 8,480 people reported rescued in the Mediterranean between Friday and Monday. Some 500 have died so far this year.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mexican Town That Offers Tourists Experience of Simulated Border Crossing
The sirens wail in the darkness and the brakes bring the patrol vehicle crunching to halt. “Hey people, listen! We are the US Border Patrol. We’re here to help you. Why don’t you surrender?” Then what sound like gunshots are heard by the dozens of young Mexicans cowering amid the undergrowth.
But the man with the loudspeaker in the dead of night is only playing the part of a “migra” border guard, and the youths he is trying to find before manhandling them into his vehicle are tourists taking part in the Night Walk experience offered by a theme park four hundred miles south of the actual Mexico-US frontier.
Cirilo Jerónimo is ideal for the role of US anti-immigration officer as he had plenty of real-life experience before landing his theme park job.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Migrants ‘Throw’ 12 Overboard in Religious Row
Italian police said Thursday they had arrested 15 African migrants after witnesses said they had thrown 12 passengers overboard following a brawl between Muslims and Christians on a boat heading to Italy.
The victims were “of Christian faith, compared to their attackers who were of Muslim faith,” police in the Sicilian city of Palermo said in a statement, saying the 15 people were arrested on suspicion of “multiple aggravated murder motivated by religious hate”.
The incident aboard the rubber dinghy, which was carrying about 100 migrants, took place in the Strait of Sicily, between Tunisia and Italy.
According to a group of Nigerian and Ghanaian survivors, a fight broke out over religion, with a group of Muslim passengers threatening the Nigerians and Ghanaians after the latter — who were in the minority — declared themselves to be Christians.
“The threats then materialized and 12 people, all Nigerian and Ghanaian, are believed to have drowned in the Mediterranean,” the statement added.
The 15 migrants arrested over the attack on their arrival in Palermo were from Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Migrant ‘Invasion’ Shows Need for Italy to Quit EU — Salvini
Northern League leader claims premier ‘has deaths on conscience’
(ANSA) — Rome, April 15 — The upsurge in migrants trying to reach Italy is “just the latest proof that we don’t need this Europe and the sooner we knock it down the better,” Northern League leader Matteo Salvini said Wednesday.
“Europe remembers Italy when it wants to fine or tax us,” he told the lower house of parliament, “but when we need a hand to block an invasion, because it is an invasion, Europe couldn’t give a toss. We don’t need this Europe”.
The anti-immigrant party leader added that “the Renzi government and (interior minister Angelino) Alfano are complicit, co-responsible, this is a government that helps the smugglers, that finances the terrorists and that has thousands of deaths on its conscience.” “All we have to do is stop the departures, the landings,” he said, “the League is ready for everything to prevent Italians maintaining thousands of other immigrants”.
“Let’s go to north Africa to identify the real refugees who have the right of reception,” he continued.
Alfano is “the most incapable interior minister in history,” Salvini said in an interview, “there are 16th century hotels, farms with swimming pools and we will try to ensure that not even one of these places be put at the disposal of illegals so that we put first Italians, who deserve more than the robust, vaccinated adult migrant with an i-phone who swans around our cities laughing in the face of those who get up to go and work in the morning”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Migrants Killed in ‘Religious Clash’ On Mediterranean Boat
Italian police say they have arrested 15 Muslim migrants after they allegedly threw 12 Christians overboard following a row on a boat heading to Italy.
The Christian migrants, said to be from Ghana and Nigeria, are all feared dead.
In a separate incident, more than 40 people drowned after another migrant boat sank between Libya and Italy.
Almost 10,000 migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean have been rescued in recent days. Italy has called for more help from the EU to handle the crisis.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
More Than a Half Million Social Security Numbers Issued to Illegal Immigrants Granted Amnesty
The Obama administration has issued more than half a million new Social Security Numbers (SSN) to illegal immigrants granted amnesty under President Obama’s Deferred Actions for Childhood Arrivals program.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims, Christians Fought on Boat, 12 Dead (1)
Police nab traffickers, said to have thrown bodies overboard
(ANSA) — Palermo, April 16 — Migrants reported that 12 people were killed in a fight that broke out between Christians and Muslims on a boat fleeing from Libya as the European Commission admitted Thursday that the migrant situation is deteriorating. Police in Sicily subsequently arrested 15 people on suspicion of multiple murder based on information collected from other migrants.
In a separate situation, police said they arrested alleged human traffickers suspected of throwing migrants overboard in the Strait of Sicily as they fled North Africa for Europe.
It was not immediately clear if the victims were dead or alive, but earlier reports said one dead man was thrown to sharks to keep them away from a migrant boat.
Meanwhile, 41 bodies and just four survivors were found by Navy searchers who arrived Thursday morning in the port of Trapani.
The survivors said their group of 45 people had left Tripoli in North Libya on a raft.
War-torn Libya is a frequent embarcation point for migrants fleeing violence in parts of Africa as well as the Middle East.
Almost all are headed for different parts of Europe but Italy is the closest landing point. In recent days, some 10,000 migrants have been rescued from the sea, mostly between Libya and Italy. The EC admitted Thursday that the crisis is deteriorating quickly. “The situation in the Mediterranean is serious and it will get worse in the coming weeks and months,” said European Commission spokesperson Natasha Bertaud. Italy, which has seen a sharp increase this year in the already large flow of migrants heading to its coast, has repeatedly complained it is not getting enough help from Europe.
Authorities here are braced for arrivals to accelerate further as weather and sea conditions have been improving with the arrival of spring.
“We have to be frank,” added Bertaud. “The commission cannot do everything on its own. We don’t have the magic wand because we don’t have the funds or political support (to do more)”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims, Christians Fought on Boat, 12 Dead (2)
Raft found with just 4 survivors of 45 migrants in separate case
(ANSA) — Palermo, April 16 — Migrants reported that 12 people were killed in a fight between Christians and Muslims on a boat fleeing from Libya as the European Commission admitted Thursday that the migrant situation is deteriorating. Police in Sicily arrested 15 people on suspicion of multiple murder aggravated by religious hatred based on information collected from other migrants.
It is believed that a group of Muslim migrants from Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal had attacked a small number of Christians from Nigeria and Ghana.
Some of the Christians who survived were protected by other migrants on board who police said formed a kind of “human chain”.
Meanwhile, 41 bodies and just four survivors were found and brought Thursday morning to the port of Trapani by Navy vessel.
The survivors said their group of 45 people had left Tripoli in North Libya on a raft.
War-torn Libya is a frequent embarcation point for migrants fleeing violence in parts of Africa as well as the Middle East.
Almost all are headed for different parts of Europe but Italy is the closest landing point. In recent days, some 10,000 migrants have been rescued from the sea, mostly between Libya and Italy. The EC admitted Thursday that the crisis is deteriorating quickly. “The situation in the Mediterranean is serious and it will get worse in the coming weeks and months,” said European Commission spokesperson Natasha Bertaud. Italy, which has seen a sharp increase this year in the already large flow of migrants heading to its coast, has repeatedly complained it is not getting enough help from Europe.
Authorities here are braced for arrivals to accelerate further as weather and sea conditions have been improving with the arrival of spring.
“We have to be frank,” added Bertaud. “The commission cannot do everything on its own. We don’t have the magic wand because we don’t have the funds or political support (to do more)”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Muslims, Christians in Migrant-Boat Battle, 12 Dead
Raft found with just 4 survivors of 45 migrants in separate case
(ANSA) — Rome, April 16 — Terrified migrants reported that 12 people were killed in a fight between Christians and Muslims on a boat fleeing from Libya as the European Commission admitted Thursday that the migrant situation in the Mediterranean was deteriorating. Police in Sicily arrested 15 people on suspicion of multiple murder aggravated by religious hatred based on information collected from others on the overcrowded migrant boat.
It is believed that a group of Muslim migrants from Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal had attacked a small number of Christians from Nigeria and Ghana, throwing a dozen people overboard.
Some of the Christians who survived were protected by other migrants on board who police said formed a kind of “human chain”.
Meanwhile, at least 40 migrants were reported drowned with just four survivors found and brought Thursday morning to the port of Trapani by Navy vessel.
The survivors said their group of about 45 people had left Tripoli in North Libya on an inflatable raft.
In recent days, some 10,000 migrants have been rescued from the sea, mostly between Libya and Italy. It is estimated about 500 people have drowned so far this year in the dangerous sea crossing. War-torn Libya is a frequent embarcation point for migrants fleeing violence in parts of Africa as well as the Middle East.
Almost all are headed for different parts of Europe but Italy is the closest landing point. The EC admitted Thursday that the crisis is deteriorating quickly. “The situation in the Mediterranean is serious and it will get worse in the coming weeks and months,” said European Commission spokesperson Natasha Bertaud. Italy, which has seen a sharp increase this year in the already large flow of migrants heading to its coast, has repeatedly complained it is not getting enough help from Europe.
Authorities in Italy are braced for arrivals to accelerate even more as weather and sea conditions have been improving with the arrival of spring.
“We have to be frank,” added Bertaud. “The commission cannot do everything on its own. We don’t have the magic wand because we don’t have the funds or political support (to do more)”.
In 2014, a record 170,000 people fleeing poverty and war in Africa and the Middle East made the perilous crossing to Italy as a stepping stone to Europe.
Italy has called on the EU to do more to strengthen Operation Triton, a project of the European Union’s Frontex border security agency.
In November, it replaced Italy’s much larger but more expensive Mare Nostrum search and rescue program initiated after a series of migrant deaths in October 2013.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
‘Traffickers Alert Italy on Boats’ Arrivals’
Ex-British Frontex official tells Telegraph
Criminal organizations managing human trafficking rings in the Mediterranean alert Italian authorities ahead of the arrival of vessels packed with immigrants, Britain’s Graham Leese, a former special consultant for EU border agency Frontex, told the daily Telegraph. In the interview, Leeese alleged that traffickers don’t put as much fuel as they used to on boats as they know migrants will be rescued.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Trafficking gangs dispatching migrants on perilous journeys across the Mediterranean are tipping off Italian officials in advance so that their boats can be picked up by coastguard and naval vessels.
The gangs have become so confident that their boats will be picked up that they even reduce the amount of fuel each vessel has before it sets out from north Africa, a former manager in the UK Immigration Service has revealed.
The disclosure from Graham Leese, who was also a special advisor to Frontex, the European Union’s border control force, will add to concerns that “search and rescue” operations in the Mediterranean are encouraging traffickers by making their deadly trade easier.
On Wednesday, the United Nations urged European nations to increase such operations, following the deaths of more than 400 migrants on Sunday when their ramshackle, overloaded boat capsized off the coast of Libya.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary Clinton: Same-Sex Marriage Should be Constitutional Right
Hillary Clinton, the 2016 presidential hopeful, has urged the Supreme Court to rule to allow same-sex couples nationwide to marry.
“Hillary Clinton supports marriage equality and hopes the Supreme Court will come down on the side of same-sex couples being guaranteed that constitutional right,” a spokesman for the Hillary for America campaign said.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule on same-sex marriage in June.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) Every time you purchase mass-produced processed “food” from the likes of Kraft, PepsiCo, or Nestle, you’re choosing, whether you realize it or not, to feed your family not only genetically engineered poisons and chemical additives, but also various flavoring agents manufactured using the tissue of aborted human babies.
It’s true: A company based out of California, known as Senomyx, is in the business of using aborted embryonic cells to test fake flavoring chemicals, both savory and sweet, which are then added to things like soft drinks, candy and cookies. And Senomyx has admittedly partnered with a number of major food manufacturers to lace its cannibalistic additives into all sorts of factory foods scarfed down by millions of American consumers every single day.
Known as “HEK-293,” the aborted human fetal cell line used by Senomyx is manipulated to evaluate how the human palate will react to synthetic flavors used in the production of processed foods. Since most processed foods on the market today are hardly food to begin with, and typically lack any real flavor or appeal on their own, chemical companies like Senomyx are hired to develop artificial ones (which are often deceptively labeled as “natural flavors”) in order to make them taste like real food.
But because these ingredients can be legally disguised with vague descriptors like “artificial flavors” and even “natural flavors,” most consumers have no idea that these additives, in some cases, are actually made using the cell tissue of unborn babies that were murdered through abortion. It’s sickening but true, and people must learn the truth in order to avoid partaking in what EndAllDisease.com says amounts to a satanic ritual.
“What they don’t tell the public is that they are using HEK 293 — human embryonic kidney cells taken from an electively aborted baby to produce those receptors,” Debi Vinnedge of the pro-life group Children of God for Life said about the ugly truth of the flavoring chemical industry. “They could have easily chosen animal, insect, or other morally obtained human cells expressing the G protein for taste receptors.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: State-Funded LGBT-Organization Put on Golden Shower Show for 15 Year Old Students
Peeing on a naked woman. That’s the kind of show that the state-funded Swedish LGBT-organisation RFSL put on for 15 year old students in Stockholm to promote “love”.
The state funded organization RFSL (“The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights”) arranged, together with a few students, a “Pride Week” at Kungsholmen Gymnasium (Kungsholmen High School). The week was supposed to “spread a sense of openness and love in the school”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Museum Gets Gender Neutral Toilet Sign
Gender neutral toilet signs at a Swedish museum have sparked debate in the Nordic country, known for its openness and tolerance.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Now that the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts have been gutted in both Indiana and Arkansas, and it’s still a function of government to force Christians to take part in activities that outrage their consciences, the Loving Left seeks new worlds to conquer. They’ve tasted blood, and now they want flesh.
On just one day last week, Wednesday, these four stories were reported in the news.
The New York Times ran an op-ed, by a former food editor, demanding that Christianity be “made”—that is, forced—”to embrace the gay lifestyle.” Because “science” and “progress” totally invalidate Christian morality, you see.
*Other voices of organized sodomy demanded that all Christian churches be forced to perform “gay marriages” or else be taxed out of existence by the federal government.
*Not for the first time, Climate Change fanatics demanded that “Climate Change Deniers” be imprisoned for their crime of unbelief.
*And in Canada they’re talking about abolishing the exemption for doctors who, for reasons of conscience, will not perform abortions. For the sake of Choice, the Pro-Choice cr0wd wishes to remove the choice. But then who says these people are loaded down with sanity?
Not since Mao’s Cultural Revolution has tyranny been so triumphantly on the march.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
University Recruits Teens to Abort Their Babies in Name of “Scientific Research”
[WARNING: Distrubing Content.]
Oxytocin is that feel good hormone that bonds a child to his or her mother. But never mind that.
Researchers in Hawaii are recruiting girls as young as 14 to participate in second trimester abortions, where the preborn baby is 18-24 weeks gestation, in order to test whether or not oxytocin can reduce bleeding in mothers during and after abortion.
The study is being conducted by the University of Hawaii and the University of Washington in Seattle — both public universities, which leads to the obvious question: is the government funding this study?
A second trimester abortion is at least a two-day procedure, where the baby is given heart-stopping medication, then either is delivered the next day or is dismembered by the abortionist. Women have died from having legal abortions this late in pregnancy, such as Jennifer Morbelli, who died in 2013 as a result of a late-term abortion. Tonya Reaves died in 2012 after a dilation and evacuation second trimester abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Chicago. And Karnamaya Mongar was killed by late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell in 2009.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why White People Aren’t as Cool as Black People
by Dexter Thomas
Being cool is always going to mean reaching curiously towards something foreign and, as long as the right wing is focused on pushing the foreign away — whether that be immigrants, gay people, Muslims, women, or especially blacks — it will never be cool.
To be cool, you need to be part of a minority — not one so minor that it is invisible, but one that is easy for a lay person to imagine and understand. Also, it’s not enough that you reject the majority — it needs to reject you first.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Airbus Squeezing Extra Economy Seat Into A380 Superjumbo Aircraft
Flyers are already feeling the squeeze in coach class but it looks like things may get worse.
While Southwest is adding extra seat width on new aircraft to accommodate growing bodies, Airbus is continuing the trend of shrinking seats, announcing plans to offer an 11-across economy seat configuration on new A380 superjumbo carriers, reports Aviation Week.
Currently, the Airbus A380 seats 10 passengers in an economy row with a 3-4-3 configuration. The new layout would add an extra seat to the middle row, squeezing people into a too-close-for-comfort 3-5-3 configuration.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
And so it came to pass…….