Macedonia has charged thirty people with terrorism offenses after last weekend’s attacks, which left eight policemen and fourteen terrorists dead. Experts warn that the country’s political stability is at stake, and may deteriorate to the point of civil war.
In other news, the European Union is planning to implement a policy of mandatory refugee quotas for member states in order to reduce some of the migration burden on Italy. Meanwhile, the European high representative for foreign policy, Federica Mogherini, says that no migrant will be forcibly repatriated against his will.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Papa Whiskey, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
“This is a New World Order” — NATO Will Not Allow Greece Leave EU — Faber
Dr. Faber — who edits the Gloom, Boom and Doom report — is in no doubt that Greece will not be allowed to default because of both economic and geo-political considerations.
“It’s about the ECB and European banks that have lent money to Greece and if Greece defaults would have to take a huge loss and write-off. So they will lend more money and kick the can down the road.”
Of even greater significance is Greece’s strategically vital location as a gateway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. It is this geo-political factor which Faber believes will ensure that Greece is kept within the EU fold at any cost. For this reason he insists that Russia will never cede Crimea to the western powers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Economic Collapse, WWIII, Martial Law, Or Mass Awakening?
Tomorrow morning you could wake up and see anarchy, riots in the streets, banks closed, and war breaking out between Russia and NATO, or a major conflict in the Middle East. Once the American people see mass lootings of stores, millions of other Americans will succumb to the herd mentality and join the looters in order to get food, medicine, and other items in order to survive.
When the average American fully realizes that the money he deposited in the bank is no longer legally his and that he has been reclassified as a creditor due to new regulations implemented at the recent G20 meeting of the world’s top twenty economies, widespread panic will set in. The new banking laws legally block people who have placed their retirement funds, savings, and pension funds in banks from withdrawing their money. In an economic crisis, the banks would close and hard working Americans would have to wait in line for their money after the giant financial institutions that are first in line get theirs. Obviously, by the time the financial institutions get their money, there will be nothing left for ordinary working people.
Many people falsely believe that their money is insured by the FDIC through the full power of the American government for up to $250,000.00. But if there is a major economic crisis the government will not be able to pay out that kind of money. This is what happened in Greece when the government closed the banks in a process called “bank bail-ins.” The government and the banks blocked people from withdrawing their savings, pensions, and other funds so that the people’s money could be used to pay off the bank debts. The people of Greece were starving and destitute, which resulted in riots and threats of a violent overthrow of the government.
If you connect the dots, then the increase of massive government surveillance on the American people, the widespread use of drones, the eliminations of due process, and martial law exercises like Jade Helm where U.S. soldiers, helicopters and armored vehicles will be sent into states and cities all begin to make sense.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Eurogroup Lauds Greek Progress in Bailout Talks
Greece has earned the commendation of its European peers as it negotiates an extension to its bailout agreement with its international creditors, but the cash-strapped country still has a way to go.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Orders Handover of 750m Euros to IMF
Greece’s cash-strapped government has begun the transfer of €750m (£544m, $834m) in debt interest to the International Monetary Fund.
The move was carried out as eurozone finance ministers met in Brussels in a bid to unlock the final €7.2bn tranche of Greece’s €240m EU/IMF bailout.
Ministers said Greece had made “progress” but more work was needed.
Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said the country faced a cash crisis within a “couple of weeks”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Schäuble: Euro-Meet Won’t Reach Greece Deal
Greece pushed Europe on Monday to back its reform plans and free up cash before a huge repayment to the IMF, but foreign minister Wolfgang Schäuble warned there would be no bailout deal yet.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
2nd Amendment Advocates Push to Repeal Switchblade, Other Knife Laws
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
Once overshadowed by the hot-button gun rights debate, laws restricting knife sales and possession are the new “second front” in the battle to preserve Second Amendment rights.
The issue has gained more attention in recent years — most recently in Baltimore, where obscure knife laws have surfaced at the center of the Freddie Gray death case. Well before that case, though, the nonprofit advocacy group Knife Rights has been steadily working in state capitals across the country to roll back or repeal longstanding knife bans and restrictions.
And they’ve seen a string of successes.
[As well they should. Bans on automatic (“switchblade”) knives are an outmoded relic of 1950s hysteria over juvenile delinquency. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Gun Lawmaker Arrested for Allegedly Shooting Girlfriend’s Car With Shotgun
Democratic Sen. Virgil K. Smith is currently being questioned by Detroit police after allegedly firing multiple rounds into his girlfriend’s vehicle during a domestic dispute Sunday.
Police Chief James Craig stated Monday that Smith, who fired 10 rounds at the woman’s 2015 Mercedes Benz, has been charged with aggravated assault with a gun and malicious destruction of property.
Despite being held by police, the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office has yet to authorize the charges according to the Detroit Free Press, raising questions on preferential treatment of city officials.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
At Least 10 Missing After Deadly Tornadoes Hit Arkansas, Texas
Emergency crews were searching through wreckage Monday in parts of Texas and Arkansas and were attempting to contact relatives after a line of tornadoes battered several small communities, killing two people and leaving at least 10 missing.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Bill O’Reilly: ‘Jesus Would Not Have Sponsored’ A ‘Draw the Prophet’ Contest
Bill O’Reilly said Thursday that the “Draw the Prophet” event that was attacked last Sunday in Garland, Texas, was wrong in part because “Jesus would not have sponsored that event.”
The “O’Reilly Factor” host has repeatedly criticized the event, which was targeted by Elton Simpson, 31, and Nadir Soofi, 34. Both men died in a shootout with police on April 3.
“The goal of every decent person in the world should be to defeat the jihad. And in order to do that you have to rally the world to the side of good — our side. The emotional displays, like insulting the Prophet Muhammad, make it more difficult to rally law-abiding Muslims,” Mr. O’Reilly said, Mediaite reported Thursday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Black, Democrat Sheriff: Obama Fueling Racial Division for Federal Takeover of Police
President Obama is fueling racial tensions between African-Americans and the police to justify a federal takeover of local law enforcement, warned Milwaukee’s Democratic Sheriff David A. Clarke.
Sheriff Clarke, an African-American who’s been in office since 2002, sent out a series of tweets warning that the Obama administration was exploiting recent police shootings, including the deaths of two Hattiesburg, Miss., police officers on Saturday, to incite racial division so the Justice Dept. could expand federal control over local police.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Boehner and McConnell Working to Kill Off America as We Know it: TPP
Yet another destructive “free” trade treaty — this one secret — Republicans are trying to shove down our throats.
I’ve already written many columns about the massive destruction to America because of NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO/GATT . No need to recycle here.
For over a year the criminal impostor in the White House has been trying to put another gigantic nail in our coffin for his new world order bosses with the very secretive “free” trade treaty called the Trans Pacific Partnership. Members of the Outlaw Congress are only allowed to view the details of this latest toxic treason in secrecy. They cannot remove or copy any documents. Stench of the old Soviet Union and secrecy that should never, ever be practiced by a legitimately seated U.S. president or the U.S. Congress.
Off all the articles I’ve read which full explain this monstrosity, I encourage you to read the ones below:
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP): Bigger and More Dangerous Than ObamaCare — “Like the infamous NAFTA trade agreement passed in the ‘90s, the TPP would usher in another wave of outsourcing, as the remaining manufacturing and technology bases would be given incentives to move to Pacific Rim countries, resulting in millions more American job losses.”
[…]
As Joseph Farah, WND, pointed out this past February, the TPP will: “Surrender U.S. sovereignty to an international tribunal with authority higher than the U.S. Supreme Court; Put American companies at a competitive disadvantage to foreign firms; Give up 544 million acres of public land, one-quarter of the entire U.S. land area, to UN and World Bank judges who will decide how our lands are used; and Ban “Buy American” policies.”
[Comment: Read it all.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Breaking: Famous American Muslim Claims Pam Geller is “Worse Than ISIS” On Air
By Steven Crowder
This weekend, video from a news program out of Michigan surfaced featuring a prominent Muslim American businessman and publisher making outrageous claims about Pamela Geller, her “Draw Muhammad” event in Texas, and ISIS. Watch the clip first. You won’t believe your ears. Then, when you read up on the context … you won’t believe your eyes.
Did you catch that? Plain as day, that man just said:
She is a hatemonger. She is drawing incitement and violence. … Let me talk a little bit about ISIS. ISIS is a hate group exactly like Pamela Geller. She is drawing killers, she makes killers, she is inviting killers to come in. … She is worse than ISIS. She is worse than ISIS.
Worse. Than. ISIS. Unbelievable. Although he did get one thing right. He said “she is drawing killers.” That’s true. They were definitely drawing that. (Link to Bosch Fawstin’s winning cartoon.)
Now, this guy isn’t some lone-wolf extremist. That was Osama Siblani, publisher of “Arab American News,” the largest and most widely circulated Arab American publication in the United States. He’s been editing/publishing the publication out of Dearborn Michigan since 1984. Dearborn boasts the highest concentration of Arab Muslims in the United States… and Osama Siblani is the editor of arguably their most emblematic publication in the country.
My show is based out of Detroit/Ann Arbor, and I’m quite familiar with Dearborn. One of my favorite restaurants ever was caught funneling money to Hezbollah. We were literally discussing it and laughing about it on the air this week. “Yep, those terrorists sure make good food though,” is an exact quote. This is par for the course for Dearborn, and everyone in eastern Michigan knows it.
Allow me to re-iterate: This man, is not a lone-wolf, he has acted as a widely accepted ambassador for Arab-American Muslims since 1984. He not only blamed Pamela Gellar for the terror attempt in Garland, but he flat-out said that she, as an American exercising her free speech… was worse than ISIS. Worse than ISIS.
Muslim Americans, we await your grand protest, and your demanding of his immediate resignation.
[We should live so long! — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Ceres Animation Showcases Bright Spots
The mysterious bright spots on the dwarf planet Ceres are better resolved in a new sequence of images taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft on May 3 and 4, 2015. The images were taken from a distance of 8,400 miles (13,600 kilometers).
In this closest-yet view, the brightest spots within a crater in the northern hemisphere are revealed to be composed of many smaller spots. However, their exact nature remains unknown.
“Dawn scientists can now conclude that the intense brightness of these spots is due to the reflection of sunlight by highly reflective material on the surface, possibly ice,” said Christopher Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission from the University of California, Los Angeles.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Cities on Fire — Dallas/Garland
How very appropriate that on May Day, May 1st (Commie Day), protests were staged in Dallas, Texas against immigration and police brutality. Two groups joined forces for the protests: Mothers Against Police Brutality and the Texas Organizing Project. Their common stated goal was an end to law enforcement terrorizing their communities. Translation… the federalization of our police forces. The protests in Dallas were only violent in message, not deed, but they are setting the country on fire Constitutionally and figuratively. This is not grassroots — it’ s staged. Things are never ever what they seem anymore.
Let’ s have a look at exactly who was behind the protests in Dallas on May Day…
We’ ll start with Moms Against Police Brutality. I’ m sure all of you have heard of the various Mom’ s groups out there: Moms Against Drunk Driving, Moms Against Guns, Moms Against Knives and now Moms Against Police Brutality. There are a number of others as well out there. I suspect they all have similar roots…
In the end — what their mission is boils down to the nationalization of our police forces. Plain and simple. Brought to you by Barack Obama and his wing man, Al Sharpton.
[Comment: Article lays out all the communist subversive groups. The picture is not pretty. Black people are being played by the communists.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Court Hearing Today for ‘Off Grid Family’ Who Had 10 Children Seized by CPS
The ‘off grid family’ who had their ten children seized by police and CPS last week face a court hearing later this morning which will determine whether they get their kids back after almost $40,000 was raised for the family in just the last few days alone.
As we reported on Friday, Joe and Nicole Naugler had their children taken after cops arrived at their 27 acre rural property in Breckinridge County, Kentucky following an anonymous tip about the kids living in “squalor”.
“A couple faces a hearing Monday to regain custody of their 10 children, whom Child Protective Services put into foster care Wednesday following a confrontation between their mother and a Breckinridge County sheriff’s deputy,” reports KMOV.
Audio from the arrest of Nicole Naugler highlights the anguished confrontation she had with law enforcement officers before her children were taken…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Curiosity Rover Sees Stunning Blue-Tinted Sunset on Mars (Video)
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has snapped some beautiful photos of a blue-tinged sunset on the Red Planet.
Curiosity captured the images, which mission team members combined into a brief video of the Martian sunset, with the rover’s Mast Camera between dust storms on April 15, NASA officials said. The photographs record the first sunset Curiosity has observed in color on the Red Planet, they added.
“The colors come from the fact that the very fine dust is the right size so that blue light penetrates the atmosphere slightly more efficiently,” Curiosity science team member Mark Lemmon, of Texas A&M University, said in a statement.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ex-CIA Leader Morell: US Facing More Threats Than Any Time in ‘History of Our Country’
The United States faces unprecedented national security challenges and terror threats on American soil will “remain significant for a long time,” former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell said in an exclusive interview with Fox News’ “Special Report.”
“I’ve never seen more threats to our country at any one time in my 33 years in the business … I think in the history of our country,” Morell said, in an interview set to air Monday evening. “These are very dangerous times. … I think we are at risk of another attack here, and I want Americans to know that.”
Morell cited a range of global threats, from cyber-attacks to terror strikes to nuclear proliferation, emanating from China, Russia, the Middle East and elsewhere.
However, he argued, they are “first and foremost” intelligence issues and that having superior information-gathering capability will be “absolutely vital to the future of this country.”
[Also information processing. To wit, acknowledging the extent of the alien-inspired domestic jihad threat. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Haroon Moghul: Geller & Spencer Are “The Anwar Al-Awlakis of Anti-Muslim Terrorism”
By Robert Spencer
Haroon Moghul, fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, Fellow at the New America Foundation, perennial Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University, energetic purveyor of the propaganda fiction “Islamophobia,” and defamation peddler, attended Pamela Geller’s recent talk at Brooklyn College, where she was set upon by Islamic supremacist thugs who demonstrated their contempt for free and open discourse by shouting her down, ridiculing her, taunting her, and praising the Islamic State, instead of engaging her on substance.
Instead of being embarrassed by this, as he should have been, and writing a defense of the freedom of speech and Pamela Geller’s write to exercise it, and the importance of rational discussion and debate, Moghul then wrote this vicious, narcissistic and self-pitying screed before the jihad terror attack against our AFDI/Jihad Watch free speech event in Garland, Texas. He published it, however, after that attack, and after the Islamic State vowed to murder Pamela Geller — making it clear incitement to violence.
The charge that Pamela Geller and I are “the Anwar al-Awlakis of anti-Muslim terrorism” is a breathtaking smear even in a week crowded with them. Let’s examine it up close. Awlaki was actively involved in planning jihad terror attacks. How many “anti-Muslim” terror attacks have Geller and I been involved in planning? None. Awlaki was in contact with the Fort Hood jihad murderer, the Detroit underwear jihadist, and several 9/11 jihadis. How many “anti-Muslim” terrorists have Geller and I been in contact with? None.
Awlaki praised the Fort Hood jihad murderer: “Nidal Hasan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people. My support to the operation was because the operation brother Nidal carried out was a courageous one.” How many “anti-Muslim” terror operations have Pamela Geller and I praised? None. Awlaki said: “I pray that Allah destroys America.” How many Muslim countries have Geller and I prayed would be destroyed? None.
Awlaki called for jihad terror in America: “To the Muslims in America, I have this to say: How can your conscience allow you to live in peaceful coexistence with a nation that is responsible for the tyranny and crimes committed against your own brothers and sisters? I eventually came to the conclusion that jihad (holy struggle) against America is binding upon myself just as it is binding upon every other able Muslim.” Have Pamela Geller and I ever called for any violence anywhere? No.
[The truth is simply not in these creatures. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Hersh: The White House is Lying About the Killing of Osama Bin Laden
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has a startling new article claiming the White House fed the public lie after lie.
While Obama touted bin Laden’s capture in a Pakistani compound as an “all-American affair” as Hersh puts it, US officials got assistance from upper-level Pakistani officials, according to Hersh. Moreover, he writes, bin Laden wasn’t “hiding” in Pakistan when Navy Seals found him like the US government claimed.
Rather, Hersh alleges, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was holding bin Laden as a prisoner. A former senior Pakistani intelligence officer tipped the US off about bin Laden’s whereabouts in exchange for $25 million, Hersh writes in his article, which has attracted wide attention in just a few hours.
Hersh says his main source inside the US is an unnamed senior intelligence official with knowledge about the raid that killed bin Laden. Hersh also says he got corroborating information from two longtime consultants to Special Operations Command in the US, and that he spoke to sources “inside Pakistan.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hispanic-Owned Restaurant Retracts ‘White Appreciation Day’ Plans After Threats
A Hispanic-owned barbecue restaurant in northern Colorado has retracted to its plan to offer a “White Appreciation Day” discount after receiving widespread criticism and even a bomb threat.
Antillon, who was born to Mexican parents, defended his idea, pointing to Black History Month and Hispanic Heritage month as examples. He said he figured “the least we could do is offer one day to appreciate white Americans.”
“We need to end the white guilt because they’re included in this American history and they should be included just like everybody else,” he said.
Ricardo Romero, a civil rights activist in northern Colorado, called the plan “a perpetuation of racism.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
NSA Director Says ISIS Ideology ‘Increasingly Resonating’ With Americans
The head of U.S. Cyber Command said Monday that the ability of ISIS to recruit adherents online is “a trend that is clearly increasing, not decreasing” and that the terror group’s ideology is “increasingly resonating” with Americans.
Adm. Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, also said that the terror group’s recent efforts to use cyber capabilities as a weapons system rather than only for recruiting and spreading ideology is a “great concern” to the NSA.
When it comes to responding to cyber breaches by terror groups as opposed to countries, such as North Korea and China, Rogers said that “every scenario is different.”
“I don’t have an easy answer,” he said. “The mechanisms of what you use to apply that pressure, I think, varies by the entity you’re trying to shape and let them know, ‘hey, you don’t want to go down this road, and when you do, you need to know there is a price you’re going to pay.’“
The challenge for the NSA, Rogers told a cyber security forum, is the balance between privacy and security. It’s a compromise Congress and the intelligence community must agree on by the end of the month, when the legislation that provides authority to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court expires.
“We have got to create a framework for this program that enables it to generate its capabilities and insights to defend the nation, but we’ve got to do it in a way that ensures the privacy of our citizens and engenders greater confidence in our nation about what [the NSA] is doing,” he acknowledged.
[The headline is in error. ISIS ideology is increasingly resonating with Muslims, not Americans. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Self-Driving Car Accidents Revealed in California
Four out of the 48 self-driving cars on public roads in California have been involved in accidents in the last eight months, according to the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.
The agency began issuing permits for the testing of autonomous vehicles in September 2014.
Three of the four cars belonged to Google, the fourth to parts supplier Delphi.
Both firms denied their vehicles had been at fault.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Texas Shooting Showed Radical Islam’s ‘Ugly Face,’ Ted Cruz Says
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Saturday said last weekend’s terrorist attack in his home state had made Americans more aware of the danger posed by extremist Muslims.
“We saw the ugly face of radical Islam in Garland, Texas, recently,” Cruz said of last Sunday’s shooting at a “Draw Muhammad” event there.
“Thankfully, one police officer helped those terrorists meet their virgins,” he quipped.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Average Age of a Minimum Wage Worker in America is 36
Did you know that 89 percent of all minimum wage workers in the United States are not teens?
At this point, the average age of a minimum wage worker in this country is 36, and 56 percent of them are women. Millions upon millions of Americans are working as hard as they can (often that means two or three jobs), and yet despite all of their hard work they still find themselves mired in poverty. One of the big reasons for this is that we have created two classes of workers in the United States. “Full-time workers” are entitled to an array of benefits and protections by law that “part-time workers” do not get. And thanks to perverse incentives contained in Obamacare and other ridiculous laws, we have motivated employers to move as many workers from the “full-time” category to the “part-time” category as possible. It may be hard to believe, but right now only 44 percent of all U.S. adults are employed for 30 or more hours each week.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Killing of Osama Bin Laden
By Seymour M. Hersh
It’s been four years since a group of US Navy Seals assassinated Osama bin Laden in a night raid on a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing was the high point of Obama’s first term, and a major factor in his re-election. The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan’s army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance. This is false, as are many other elements of the Obama administration’s account. The White House’s story might have been written by Lewis Carroll: would bin Laden, target of a massive international manhunt, really decide that a resort town forty miles from Islamabad would be the safest place to live and command al-Qaida’s operations? He was hiding in the open. So America said.
The most blatant lie was that Pakistan’s two most senior military leaders — General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chief of the army staff, and General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, director general of the ISI — were never informed of the US mission.
[…]
The major US source for the account that follows is a retired senior intelligence official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. He also was privy to many aspects of the Seals’ training for the raid, and to the various after-action reports. Two other US sources, who had access to corroborating information, have been longtime consultants to the Special Operations Command. I also received information from inside Pakistan about widespread dismay among the senior ISI and military leadership — echoed later by Durrani — over Obama’s decision to go public immediately with news of bin Laden’s death. The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
[…]
‘It didn’t take long to get the co-operation we needed, because the Pakistanis wanted to ensure the continued release of American military aid, a good percentage of which was anti-terrorism funding that finances personal security, such as bullet-proof limousines and security guards and housing for the ISI leadership,’ the retired official said. He added that there were also under-the-table personal ‘incentives’ that were financed by off-the-books Pentagon contingency funds. ‘The intelligence community knew what the Pakistanis needed to agree — there was the carrot. And they chose the carrot. It was a win-win. We also did a little blackmail. We told them we would leak the fact that you’ve got bin Laden in your backyard. We knew their friends and enemies’ — the Taliban and jihadist groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan — ‘would not like it.’
A worrying factor at this early point, according to the retired official, was Saudi Arabia, which had been financing bin Laden’s upkeep since his seizure by the Pakistanis.
[…]
Bargaining continued over the way the mission would be executed. ‘Kayani eventually tells us yes, but he says you can’t have a big strike force. You have to come in lean and mean. And you have to kill him, or there is no deal,’ the retired official said. The agreement was struck by the end of January 2011, and Joint Special Operations Command prepared a list of questions to be answered by the Pakistanis.
[…]
A Pakistani with close ties to the senior leadership of the ISI told me that ‘there was a deal with your top guys. We were very reluctant, but it had to be done — not because of personal enrichment, but because all of the American aid programmes would be cut off.
[…]
All units in the Joint Special Operations Command operate under stringent secrecy and the JSOC leadership believed, as did Kayani and Pasha, that the killing of bin Laden would not be made public for as long as seven days, maybe longer. Then a carefully constructed cover story would be issued: Obama would announce that DNA analysis confirmed that bin Laden had been killed in a drone raid in the Hindu Kush, on Afghanistan’s side of the border.
[…]
There was no firefight as they moved into the compound; the ISI guards had gone. ‘Everyone in Pakistan has a gun and high-profile, wealthy folks like those who live in Abbottabad have armed bodyguards, and yet there were no weapons in the compound,’ the retired official pointed out. Had there been any opposition, the team would have been highly vulnerable. Instead, the retired official said, an ISI liaison officer flying with the Seals guided them into the darkened house and up a staircase to bin Laden’s quarters.
[…]
Some of the Seals were appalled later at the White House’s initial insistence that they had shot bin Laden in self-defence, the retired official said. ‘Six of the Seals’ finest, most experienced NCOs, faced with an unarmed elderly civilian, had to kill him in self-defence? The house was shabby and bin Laden was living in a cell with bars on the window and barbed wire on the roof. The rules of engagement were that if bin Laden put up any opposition they were authorised to take lethal action. But if they suspected he might have some means of opposition, like an explosive vest under his robe, they could also kill him. So here’s this guy in a mystery robe and they shot him. It’s not because he was reaching for a weapon. The rules gave them absolute authority to kill the guy.’ The later White House claim that only one or two bullets were fired into his head was ‘bullshit’, the retired official said. ‘The squad came through the door and obliterated him. As the Seals say, “We kicked his ass and took his gas.”‘
[…]
‘Despite all the talk,’ the retired official continued, there were ‘no garbage bags full of computers and storage devices. The guys just stuffed some books and papers they found in his room in their backpacks. The Seals weren’t there because they thought bin Laden was running a command centre for al-Qaida operations, as the White House would later tell the media.
[…]
The backroom argument inside the White House began as soon as it was clear that the mission had succeeded. Bin Laden’s body was presumed to be on its way to Afghanistan. Should Obama stand by the agreement with Kayani and Pasha and pretend a week or so later that bin Laden had been killed in a drone attack in the mountains, or should he go public immediately? The downed helicopter made it easy for Obama’s political advisers to urge the latter plan. The explosion and fireball would be impossible to hide, and word of what had happened was bound to leak. Obama had to ‘get out in front of the story’ before someone in the Pentagon did: waiting would diminish the political impact.
Not everyone agreed. Robert Gates, the secretary of defence, was the most outspoken of those who insisted that the agreements with Pakistan had to be honoured. In his memoir, Duty, Gates did not mask his anger:
Before we broke up and the president headed upstairs to tell the American people what had just happened, I reminded everyone that the techniques, tactics and procedures the Seals had used in the bin Laden operation were used every night in Afghanistan … it was therefore essential that we agree not to release any operational details of the raid. That we killed him, I said, is all we needed to say. Everybody in that room agreed to keep mum on details. That commitment lasted about five hours. The initial leaks came from the White House and CIA. They just couldn’t wait to brag and to claim credit.
[…]
Gates wasn’t the only official who was distressed by Obama’s decision to speak without clearing his remarks in advance, the retired official said, ‘but he was the only one protesting. Obama didn’t just double-cross Gates, he double-crossed everyone.’
[…]
None of the Seals thought that Obama was going to get on national TV and announce the raid. The Special Forces command was apoplectic. They prided themselves on keeping operational security.’ There was fear in Special Operations, the retired official said, that ‘if the true story of the missions leaked out, the White House bureaucracy was going to blame it on the Seals.’
The White House’s solution was to silence the Seals. On 5 May, every member of the Seal hit team — they had returned to their base in southern Virginia — and some members of the Joint Special Operations Command leadership were presented with a nondisclosure form drafted by the White House’s legal office; it promised civil penalties and a lawsuit for anyone who discussed the mission, in public or private. ‘The Seals were not happy,’ the retired official said.
[…]
Within weeks of the raid, I had been told by two longtime consultants to Special Operations Command, who have access to current intelligence, that the funeral aboard the Carl Vinson didn’t take place. One consultant told me that bin Laden’s remains were photographed and identified after being flown back to Afghanistan. The consultant added: ‘At that point, the CIA took control of the body. The cover story was that it had been flown to the Carl Vinson.’ The second consultant agreed that there had been ‘no burial at sea’. He added that ‘the killing of bin Laden was political theatre designed to burnish Obama’s military credentials … The Seals should have expected the political grandstanding. It’s irresistible to a politician. Bin Laden became a working asset.’
[…]
The retired official said there had been another complication: some members of the Seal team had bragged to colleagues and others that they had torn bin Laden’s body to pieces with rifle fire. The remains, including his head, which had only a few bullet holes in it, were thrown into a body bag and, during the helicopter flight back to Jalalabad, some body parts were tossed out over the Hindu Kush mountains — or so the Seals claimed. At the time, the retired official said, the Seals did not think their mission would be made public by Obama within a few hours: ‘If the president had gone ahead with the cover story, there would have been no need to have a funeral within hours of the killing. Once the cover story was blown, and the death was made public, the White House had a serious “Where’s the body?” problem. The world knew US forces had killed bin Laden in Abbottabad. Panic city. What to do? We need a “functional body” because we have to be able to say we identified bin Laden via a DNA analysis. It would be navy officers who came up with the “burial at sea” idea. Perfect. No body. Honourable burial following sharia law. Burial is made public in great detail, but Freedom of Information documents confirming the burial are denied for reasons of “national security”. It’s the classic unravelling of a poorly constructed cover story — it solves an immediate problem but, given the slightest inspection, there is no back-up support. There never was a plan, initially, to take the body to sea, and no burial of bin Laden at sea took place.’ The retired official said that if the Seals’ first accounts are to be believed, there wouldn’t have been much left of bin Laden to put into the sea in any case.
[Walt Whitman: “The real war will never get in the books.” — PW
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Was There a Cover-Up in Bin Laden Killing?
By Peter Bergen
Seymour Hersh is one of the giants of investigative journalism. Early in his career he broke the story of the My Lai massacre during which hundreds of unarmed civilians were killed by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam in 1968.
Hersh was still going strong after 9/11, breaking (along with “60 Minutes”) the story of the prisoner abuses by U.S. soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq for The New Yorker in 2004.
Now comes another blockbuster from Hersh in which he asserts, “The White House’s story (about the 2011 U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden) might have been written by Lewis Carroll.”
Hersh’s article appeared in the London Review of Books, not in The New Yorker where he has been a contributor since 1993.
Because of Hersh’s stature his article about the bin Laden raid attracted so much attention Sunday when it first appeared that the London Review of Books’ website crashed.
[…]
Hersh’s account of the bin Laden raid is a farrago of nonsense that is contravened by a multitude of eyewitness accounts, inconvenient facts and simple common sense.
Let’s start with the claim that the only shots fired at the Abbottabad compound were the ones that killed bin Laden. That ignores the fact that two SEALs on the mission, Matt Bissonnette, author of “No Easy Day,” and Robert O’Neill have publicly said that there were a number of other people killed that night, including bin Laden’s two bodyguards, one of his sons and one of the bodyguard’s wives. Their account is supplemented by many other U.S. officials who have spoken on the record to myself or to other journalists.
I was the only outsider to visit the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived before the Pakistani military demolished it. The compound was trashed, littered almost everywhere with broken glass and several areas of it were sprayed with bullet holes where the SEALS had fired at members of bin Laden’s entourage and family, or in one case exchanged fire with one of his bodyguards. The evidence at the compound showed that many bullets were fired the night of bin Laden’s death.
[In the immortal words of Fats Waller: “One never knows, do one?” — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
White House Rejects Seymour Hersh ‘Baseless Assertions’ On Bin Laden Raid
The White House is dismissing as “baseless” a controversial report alleging President Barack Obama’s administration lied about the circumstances surrounding the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden.
“There are too many inaccuracies and baseless assertions in this piece to fact check each one,” White House National Security spokesman Ned Price said in a statement to reporters.
He took aim specifically at journalist Seymour Hersh’s assertion that the administration collaborated with Pakistani officials to kill the al Qaeda leader, saying that “the notion that the operation that killed Usama Bin Ladin was anything but a unilateral U.S. mission is patently false.”
“As we said at the time, knowledge of this operation was confined to a very small circle of senior U.S. officials. The President decided early on not to inform any other government, including the Pakistani Government, which was not notified until after the raid had occurred,” Price said.
[Can we keep our doctor if we like him? Is the tide of war receding? Was the Benghazi attack due to some rinky-dinky movie? — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Canadian Egyptian Journalist Mohammed Fahmy Files Lawsuit Against Al-Jazeera in Canada
Canadian-Egyptian journalist Mohammed Fahmy says he has filed a lawsuit against the Al-Jazeera network in Canada.
At a press conference Monday, Al-Jazeera English’s acting bureau chief in Egypt Mohammed Fahmy, who is facing terrorism-related charges in Egypt, accused the Qatari network of endangering him and his colleagues.
His lawyer Joanna Gialason told reporters that the lawsuit filed at the British Columbia Supreme Court seeks $100 million in punitive and remedial damages and accuses Al-Jazeera of negligence, negligent misrepresentation and breach of contract.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
1000s Protest Against Logging in Forest-Rich Romania
President Iohannis called protests ‘legitimate’
(ANSA/AP) — BUCHAREST — Thousands of people have protested against mass logging of forests in Romania, blaming politicians for allowing deforestation of the important European woodlands.
Demonstrators marched through Bucharest Saturday, carrying banners saying “United we can save the forests!” and “Deforestation is a crime!” They accused political parties of allowing the logging of large swathes of woodland for profit and for failing to control illegal cutting.
Under communism, which ended in 1989, Romania’s virgin forests were strictly protected, but in recent years illegal logging has become a big problem.
Romania has 6.6 million hectares (16.3 million acres) of forest, home to brown bear and wolves. President Klaus Iohannis called the protests “legitimate” and said illegal logging would be discussed at the country’s next national security meeting.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
China-Russia Drills in Med Show Shifting Strategies
The Russian and Chinese navies have begun their first joint exercises in the Mediterranean that will last for about a week. Though small scale, it is a signal of growing defence ties between Beijing and Moscow and a demonstration that China’s maritime horizons are broadening.
Over recent years, Russia has been seeking to restore its naval presence in the Mediterranean, which largely lapsed at the end of the Cold War. It retains a small foothold in the Syrian port of Tartus.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
David Miliband Criticizes Brother Ed’s Campaign; Won’t Run for Labour Party Leader in UK
David Miliband has criticized his brother Ed Miliband’s failed campaign to become Britain’s prime minister, but says he won’t run for Labour Party leader now that his younger brother has stepped down.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Must Do More to Tackle Xenophobia, Says EU Commissoner
The human rights commissioner of the Council of Europe has called on the German government to make more effort in the fight against xenophobia. Nils Muiznieks has said there are “clear signs” of increasing intolerance.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin Kicks Off Three-Day Germany Visit
The Israeli president has been received with military honors by his German counterpart Joachim Gauck in Berlin. His visit marks 50 years of diplomatic relations with post-war Germany.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Camusso Slams Boschi ‘Arrogance’ Over School Comments
Teachers tell Renzi he’s lost their vote on Facebook
(ANSA) — Rome, May 11 — CGIL trade union federation chief Susanna Camusso on Monday blasted what she said is the government’s “arrogance” in dealing with school employees.
Teachers and other school staff staged a nationwide strike with massive rallies in seven major cities last week to protest against Premier Matteo Renzi’s so-called ‘Good School’ reform bill.
“The government’s arrogance in negating the reasoning of school workers leads one to suspect that actually they are the ones without a plan,” Camusso said.
Her remarks came after Reform Minister Maria Elena Boschi said Sunday she did not think a school system in the hands of the unions could work. She also said that the government was willing to hold talks on its schools bill, which, among other things, increases the power of principals, while stressing that it would be “unacceptable to leave things as they are”. “I’d like to tell the minister that this idea of hers that the school system is in union hands is typical of a government that doesn’t want to take the country into account,” Camusso added.
Former education minister under the last Silvio Berlusconi administration, Mariastella Gelmini, said in her opinion not all the unions are “resistant to change”.
Also on Monday, dozens of people identifying themselves as teachers wrote on Premier Matteo Renzi’s profile that “we won’t vote for the Democratic Party (PD) anymore because we’re indignant over the ‘Good School’ reform bill”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Norway Charges Two Men Under Anti-Terror Law
Days after convicting the first three Isis supporters under its new anti terror law, Norway has charged a two more men, 24-year old Ishaq Ahmed, and a man in his 40s, who has not yet been named.
According to the indictment, released on Monday, Ahmed stands accused of pledging allegiance one or both of the terror groups Islamic State (IS) and Jabath Al Nusret.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Will Gaudi be Made a Saint?
The extraordinary basilica of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona has been under construction for more than 130 years — and there are those who hope that by the time of its completion, some 20 years from now, architect Antoni Gaudi will already be on the path to sainthood.
Every year, millions of tourists stop to gaze at an enormous tangle of arches and spires in the centre of Barcelona.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Surprising Result in Polish Presidential Election Could Signal Larger Power Shift
WARSAW, Poland — It’s being called the biggest shock in Polish politics in years: President Bronislaw Komorowski apparently lost the first round of the country’s presidential election to a previously unknown 42-year-old member of the European Parliament.
The defeat for the communist-era dissident, who has longed polled as one of the nation’s most trusted leaders, is a sign that parliamentary elections this fall could be unpredictable. And it could even signal a possible return to power for Law and Justice, the right-wing group backing Sunday’s winning presidential candidate Andrzej Duda. It favors a more confrontational attitude to the European Union and neighbor Germany than that of the ruling Civic Platform.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Green Leader ‘Sorry’ For Auschwitz Analogy
Green party co-spokesperson Åsa Romson has apologized after calling Roma people “zigenare” (gypsies) as well as comparing the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean to the Holocaust.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden’s Supreme Court Upholds Julian Assange’s Detention Order
Sweden’s highest court on Monday rejected WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s appeal of a pre-trial detention order in a nearly five-year-old investigation of alleged sex crimes.
The Supreme Court in Stockholm upheld rulings by lower courts ordering the detention for Assange, saying there is no reason to rescind it as the investigation continues.
Since 2010, prosecutors have sought to interrogate Assange over allegations of rape, sexual molestation and illegal coercion made by two women after his visit to Sweden that year. Assange denies the allegations and has not been formally indicted.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: David Miliband Criticises Brother’s Election Approach
Ex-Foreign Secretary David Miliband has criticised his brother Ed’s leadership of the Labour Party, saying voters “did not want what was being offered”.
He told the BBC the leadership had allowed itself to be portrayed as “moving backwards”.
There was “absolutely no point” blaming voters for Labour’s defeat, he added.
But Mr Miliband, who was beaten to the job of leader by his younger sibling in 2010, also said the two of them would “remain brothers for life”.
He ruled himself out of becoming the party’s next leader, which would not be possible as he is not an MP.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Philip Palmer, 29, followed the child into McDonald’s, watched him buy dinner for his family and then lurked in a nearby alleyway on Gosport High Street, Hants, where he waited for his victim to emerge.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Huge crustacean weighing over 9lbs caught in the English Channel has claws so big they could crush a man’s wrist
The giant crab (pictured) was found off the coast of Portsmouth by an unidentified fisherman. It weighs more than 9lbs, has claws the size of fists and is four times stronger than most humans.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
After Kumanovo: Growing Fears for Macedonia’s Stability
In the former Yugoslav Republic political crisis deepens
(ANSA) — TRIESTE — Endless months of political crisis. The Social Democrats (opposition party) continues to accuse the Conservative government of having created a police state and of having illegally wiretapped for years thousands of journalists, diplomats, religious, politicians, and, moreover, of committing electoral fraud. Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski replied accusing the Social Democrat leader, Zoran Zaev, of planning a “coup d’etat”. But anger is growing in street protests and incidents occurred in Skopje during the ongoing demonstrations against the government, with stones and bottles thrown into the air, while the police responded with tear gas and water cannons. And now, even the clashes between police, special forces, and a mysterious group of armed men in Kumanovo, northern Macedonia, an area affected by the Albanian insurgency in 2001.
These are days and weeks of growing tension in Macedonia, facing what seems to be the most serious ‘domestic’ crisis in its recent history. But how unstable is the Balkan country? What can happen in the small former Yugoslav republic in the light of recent events? “The situation is alarming, because on the one hand we have the opposition protests, and on the other hand the anti-terror operation in Kumanovo. If we take into account the dangers of Albanian nationalism and the protests of civil society, then we are to face a dangerous cocktail”, professor Zhidas Daskalovski, political scientist at the Center for Research and Policy Making in Skopje explains to ANSA New Europe. According to Daskalovski, the only viable solution at the moment could be “a truce in the opposition protests” and Kosovo’s and Serbia’s governments “constructive attitude” (both have expressed concern about the recent events). Daskalovski is then hoping “that at the end of the anti-terror operations in Kumanovo, the tensions will be easing and there will be a resumption of political negotiations”. For sure today “it is impossible for the government to resign, because this would complicate the situation. We need a peaceful transition, an agreement on the next steps to take in order to overcome the crisis”, including institutional reforms, towards “general election, even early voting”.
“We are facing the most serious crisis since Macedonia independence”, political analyst Biljana Vankovska says. “This time — Vankovska adds — there are serious clashes within single ethnic groups”, not between different ethnic groups as it happened in 2001, and the “two major political parties are blaming each other” all the time, thus increasing tensions. “At the moment, the most important political parties — the Social Democrats led by Zoran Zaev and the conservatives of Gruevski’s VMRO-DPMNE — show no signs of working to come to an agreement”, the analyst continues. “None of these parties seems ready to sit down at the table, in the right place, the parliament, where the opposition should return instead of accusing the government of being behind the incidents in Kumanovo”. Even “the international community and the EU underlined, on several occasions in the past few weeks, that the country’s institutions are the right place to resolve the ongoing crisis and that the opposition’s isolation does not help at all”, Vankovska says.
Meanwhile, the chaos in Kumanovo, explosions and gunfire threaten to plunge the situation into fresh crisis, and concerns are growing about the big street demonstration planned by the Social Democrats and scheduled for May 17, in Skopje. And there’s something else going on. Political tension in the near future could reverberate on the delicate political balance between ethnic groups in the Balkan country — two million inhabitants, Albanian minority makes up 30% of the population — thus increasing the risk of a ‘worst-case scenario’. Moreover, Macedonia is suffering from ‘frozen’ Euro-Atlantic integration, due to the name dispute with neighbouring Greece, and the whole country is still threatened by internal political conflicts.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Croatia: Controversy at 70th Anniversary of End of WW2
Divisions on Marshal Tito’s role and profile
(ANSA) — ZAGREB — Croatia is celebrating the 70th anniversary of End of WW2 and the victory over fascism, but there are many divisions and controversies about the role and the historical interpretation of the anti-fascist partisans led by Yugoslav Communist leader, Marshal Josip Broz Tito.
Today in Pazin, Istria — a region which was liberated by Tito’s partisans in the last days of the war — during the celebrations organized by the Region, the Anti-fascist Istrian association did something very provocative in defiance of Croatian President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, putting a bust of Tito next to her podium, while she was speaking.
The new president, in fact, after her election in March, had ordered the removal of the bust of the undisputed leader of the socialist federation until his death (1980), explaining that Tito was a “communist dictator”.
The President has however reiterated that the “anti-fascist movement in Croatia was politically and morally right, being today one of the foundations of the modern Croatian state”.
Then she recalled with “pride” that “even my grandparents have contributed” to the victory over fascism . “But we have a duty to say — she added — that unfair and unjustifiable acts against members of the defeated armies and against civilians have been committed”. At the end of the celebration, a choir sang the famous old partisan song “Bella ciao”.
Meanwhile, Grabar Kitarovic’s office announced that the President will not take part tomorrow in the Victory Day celebration in Zagreb. This event is traditionally held under the patronage of the President of Croatia, but the organizers, the Croatian antifascist fighters association, have nnounced the ban on Kitarovic’s participation in the event, due to her ambiguous statements regarding Tito’s role and the historical interpretation of the partisan movement in general.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Expert Altmann Warns of ‘National Catastrophe’ In Macedonia
Macedonia is grappling with its deepest political crisis since its independence from the former Yugoslavia. It could turn into a civil war, Eastern Europe expert Franz-Lothar Altmann warns.
Franz-Lothar Altmann: The deterioration in fact increases the fear that things might completely get out of control, which will end up in civil war. In such a situation, extremist forces among the Albanians might feel encouraged to undertake terrorist action in order to further destabilize the country, opening the option for a complete collapse of the country and thus a final secession of the Albanian part. The EU, and in particular Germany, which still has substantial influence as an alleged neutral broker with its much-declared sympathy for the country, must urgently address the government in Skopje and call for unconditional talks with the opposition. Otherwise, Macedonia´s democracy, weak as it already is, will end up in a national catastrophe.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Macedonia Charges 30 With Terrorism After Kumanovo Clashes
Prosecutors in Macedonia say they have charged 30 people with terrorism-related offences following deadly clashes in the northern town of Kumanovo.
Some have also been charged with illegally possessing arms and explosives, a statement quoted by AFP news agency said.
Eight police officers and 14 gunmen were killed in the weekend clashes.
On Sunday, Macedonia said the armed group had been led by five Kosovans.
The interior ministry said they were members of the now dismantled Kosovo Liberation Army.
About a quarter of Macedonia’s population of two million are ethnic Albanians.
The clashes in Kumanovo, about 40km (25 miles) north of Skopje, destroyed several houses, and schools remain closed.
BBC Balkans correspondent Guy De Launey says the violence has revived uncomfortable memories of an insurgency 14 years ago that resulted in greater rights for Macedonia’s large ethnic-Albanian minority.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Thirty Charged With Terrorism in Macedonia
Residents in the northern Macedonian town of Kumanovo have begun to return home following a weekend of violence in which 22 people were killed. Thirty gunmen have been arrested on terrorism-related charges.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Algeria: Violence Rages in Schools, 40,000 Cases in 2014
Bullying against students and teachers
(by Diego Minuti) (ANSAmed) — ROME, MAY 11 — In 2014, over 40,000 cases of violence were reported in Algerian schools. However, experts from the education ministry admit many cases could go unreported over fear.
Violence in schools is becoming a problem in Algeria, though the country boasts one of the most advanced education systems in the region. However, it is evidently not able to avoid violence not just amid students butt also against teachers, who are exposed to bullying without being able to avoid it.
The data was released by a high-ranking official, the general inspector of the national education ministry, Mejadi Messeguem, who did not try to downplay the phenomenon in an interview with national radio, given it has been reported in each province and in a great number of cities.
Messeguem also said that not only cases of violence are being reported but also episodes of vandalism, drug and alcohol abuse and rackets in which students threatened colleagues.
The education ministry had thus decided to act while seeking to understand the reasons behind the mounting violence — whether it is only due to the difficult social and family background of violent students or whether schools are also responsible. This could be due to poor security checks at the entrance of schools or to school programs (and professors who have to teach them) that are not adequate to counter the phenomenon.
The ministry will shortly approve a prevention program, training teachers. But this will not be useful if students and pupils will not acknowledge the gravity of their misdeeds, not just from a practical point of view (lawsuits, arrests, trials) but also morally — making them understand evil before it destroys them.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt’s Justice Minister Resigns After Saying a Cleaner’s Child Could Never be a Judge
Egypt’s justice minister has resigned after raising an uproar by saying in a TV interview that the children of sanitation workers are too lowly to become judges. Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab said in a statement that Justice Minister Mahfouz Saber resigned out of “respect for public opinion.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Journalist Fahmy to Sue Al-Jazeera for Egypt ‘Negligence’
An Al-Jazeera journalist on trial in Egypt is suing the Qatar-based network for negligence, his lawyer says.
Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian citizen, filed a lawsuit at a court in Canada last week seeking 100m Canadian dollars ($83m; £53m) in damages, Joanna Gislason said in Cairo.
Mr Fahmy and two other journalists were jailed last year for spreading false news to help a terrorist group.
But their convictions were overturned on appeal and a retrial was ordered.
The journalists strenuously deny collaborating with the banned Muslim Brotherhood after the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi by the military in 2013. They say they were jailed simply for reporting the news.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Families Give Young Girls as ISIS Brides in Exchange for Protection
Islamic State militants in their Libyan stronghold of Derna are forcing girls as young as 12 into marriage in exchange for protecting their families, doctors in the city have reported.
In 2013 they recorded one under-age marriage every three weeks. Since foreign fighters have flooded the city and jihadists pledged allegiance to Isis in October, the numbers have increased fifteenfold.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish Cargo Ship Attacked in International Waters Near Libya
A Turkish cargo ship was hit by artillery fired off Libya’s coast late on Sunday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. The ministry condemned the attack in a statement released on Monday, which resulted in the killing of the third officer of the ship, caused injuries to the staff and material damage to the ship.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Israel to Buy Four German Warships
Israel’s defence ministry said on Monday that it had a signed a contract worth €430 million to buy four German corvettes.
Andreas Burmester, boss of shipbuilder ThyssenKrupp, flew to Tel Aviv to participate in the signing ceremony.
The deal has been concluded one day after the 50th anniversary of Germany and Israel establishing diplomatic relations.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Arab Men Flock to Refugee Camps to Buy Little Syrian Girls
by Ali Sina
The Middle East refugee camps have become shopping centers for rich men, where young girls are being sold for a cheap price.
Arab men buys Syrian teen girls for marriage and sex, and according to Arab media most of the Syrian refugee girls are being sold to Saudi Arabia.
— The only thing we currently hear about is that one can get a Syrian wife for 100 dinars (about $140), writes the Jordanian commentator Maher Abu Tair.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Conflicts Threaten Food Security in All the Region
(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, MAY 11 — As record-high food prices and the ongoing influx of Syrian refugees have become outstanding political issues before the upcoming elections in Turkey, United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General José Graziano da Silva has warned that escalating conflicts in the neighborhood have threatened food security in the entire Middle East. “A reliance on imports for staple food commodities poses its own problems, especially during rising or volatile international prices,” Graziano said in an interview with Hurriyet Daily News on the sidelines of the G-20 Agriculture Ministers Meeting, which opened in Istanbul last Friday. “However, the main threat to food security in the region stems from the protracted and escalating conflicts — mainly in Syria, Iraq and Yemen — and the spill-over effect on neighboring countries,” he added. In Turkey, where the number of Syrian refugees has approached two million, food inflation rose to 14% in April, as world prices saw five-year lows, according to the FAO.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Gulf Leaders Back Out of Camp David Summit in ‘Snub’ To Obama
Many Gulf heads of state have said they will not attend the summit of US and allied Arab leaders at Camp David later this week.
Their substitution with more junior leaders is being seen as a rebuff to President Obama’s negotiations with Iran over its nuclear ambitions.
King Salman of Saudi Arabia announced on Sunday that he would not attend.
The White House, which has not publicly commented, previewed the king’s visit as recently as Friday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq Begins Training Sunni Tribesmen to Battle ISIS With US Backing
Iraq’s Shiite-led government has begun training Sunni tribal fighters here in the western province of Anbar, in an urgent U.S.-backed initiative to stem recent advances by Islamic State.
The setbacks in Anbar have exposed the need for trusted and equipped Sunni fighters to help turn momentum against Islamic State and dry up the extremists’ pool of potential recruits.
“When the government fails, people turn to Islamic State,” said Mohammad Abu Risha, a young tribal sheik from Anbar who commands 150 fighters. “The tribes don’t trust the government, and the government doesn’t trust the tribes.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Rulers of Most Gulf Nations to Miss US Summit, Administration Denies ‘Snub’
The White House was scrambling Monday to put a positive face on an upcoming summit of Persian Gulf states after learning leaders from four of the six invited nations are expected to skip.
While those nations are still sending representatives to the summit being hosted by President Obama later this week at Camp David, the absence of crucial heads of state — notably, Saudi Arabia’s new king — could present an awkward situation for the administration. But State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf rejected the notion this was a “snub,” and White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest likewise said the administration is “confident” that Saudi Arabia and other nations will be “ably represented” at the summit.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Army Strike Force Arrives on Yemen Border in Preparation for Land Invasion
One week ago when news hit that Houthi rebels had launched a rocket attack on a Saudi border town in what may be described as an act of sheer irrationality and one which like Assad’s “chemical attack” of 2013 was almost certainly staged not so much by the Yemen rebels to provoke just the desired media response, we said that “a Saudi response now appears just a matter of time, and one which the oil-trading algos are eagerly expecting, pushing Brent to within two dollars of $68.” By response, we of course meant a land invasion since Saudi Arabia has already been bombing Yemen for nearly a month (a campaign focused on the Yemen rebels which mysteriously destroyed the residence of Yemen’s former anti-Saudi president Saleh).
That “time” may have arrived, because as Al Arabiya reports, Saudi Arabia has announced that a “strike force has arrived on the border with Yemen, as the operation to quell Houthi militias in the country continues.” Which is ironic considering it was just a few days ago that Saudi Arabia declared a 5 day ceasefire, one which was promptly accepted by Houthis, and one which appears to have been taken straight from the Ukraine civil war “ceasefire” playbook.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi King Skips Meeting With Obama
Gulf countries also absent from meeting. NYT, snub about Iran
The king of Saudi Arabia, Salman bin Abdul Aziz al Saud, will not be present at a scheduled meeting at the White House with American President Barack Obama, nor will he attend a Camp David summit with other Gulf leaders, the Saudi Press Agency reported adding that the Kingdom will be represented by crown prince, Mohammad bin Nayef and deputy crown prince Mohammad bin Salam.
According to the Saudi outlet, the decision was motivated by an overlap with the five-day cease-fire in Yemen, set to begin on Tuesday.
The absence of the Saudi King is a “signal of his displeasure towards the US-Iran relationship” wrote the New York Times, according to which, King Salman will call Obama in the next few hours to talk about his decision not to attend the meeting.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Selfie-Taking Ottoman Prince Statue Vandalised
A statue of a selfie-taking Ottoman prince has been vandalised just hours after being erected in a Turkish city. The life-size statue was unveiled in the northern city of Amasya on Saturday, but only a day later it was already missing a crucial gadget for any selfie-taker — a mobile phone. The prince is still standing, grasping the remnants of his phone in one hand, and his sword in the other.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US “Operation Rooms” Backing Al Qaeda in Syria
The involvement of FSA groups, in fact, reveals how the factions’ backers have changed their tune regarding coordination with Islamists. Several commanders involved in leading recent Idlib operations confirmed to this author that the U.S.-led operations room in southern Turkey, which coordinates the provision of lethal and non-lethal support to vetted opposition groups, was instrumental in facilitating their involvement in the operation from early April onwards.That operations room — along with another in Jordan, which covers Syria’s south — also appears to have dramatically increased its level of assistance and provision of intelligence to vetted groups in recent weeks.However, for those following the conflict closely, it was clear from the beginning and by the West’s own admissions that success hinged on covertly providing arms, cash, equipment, and both political and military support to Al Qaeda and other sectarian extremists, not opposed by Saudi Arabia, but rather by using Saudi Arabia as the primary medium through which Western material support could be laundered.
And this fact is now confirmed in a recent article published on the Brookings Institution’s website titled, “Why Assad is losing.” It states unequivocally that (emphasis added):
Whereas these multinational operations rooms have previously demanded that recipients of military assistance cease direct coordination with groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, recent dynamics in Idlib appear to have demonstrated something different. Not only were weapons shipments increased to the so-called “vetted groups,” but the operations room specifically encouraged a closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline operations.
[Comment: Banksters want to create an Islamist Crescent. This will be the enemy for the west in ww3. Humanity is being “played”.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
US Still Lags Behind ISIS in Social Media Fight, Experts Warn
New warnings from U.S. officials and lawmakers over tactics used by Islamic State online are putting renewed focus on the terror network’s activities.
FBI Director James Comey warned Thursday that ISIS is increasing their reliance on social media to spread their “poison” message.
This shows ISIS still remains unchallenged online, cybersecurity experts tell FoxNews.com.
“ISIS is just leveraging what is available today…what they have found is a virtual safe haven in the Internet … they use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube to get their message out,” said Jeff Bardin, chief intelligence officer at the cyber intelligence firm Treadstone 71.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Putin’s Victory Day, Not My Grandmother’s
By Masha Gessen
As my grandmother lay dying in Moscow last month, her live-in caretaker, a former math instructor from Ukraine who had come to love my grandmother in the six years she had been with us, wrote in a Skype message to me: “The ambulance comes really fast now and doctors are under orders to pay special attention to veterans so they live to see Victory Day.” She seemed almost convinced that the Kremlin’s expressed will to keep veterans alive meant I didn’t have to schedule a flight from New York to Moscow quite yet. On some level of the caretaker’s imagination, deathless Putin himself would be keeping my grandmother alive.
My grandmother, who had never liked taking orders from the Kremlin, died one month before Moscow convened its celebration of the seventieth anniversary of victory in what Russia calls The Great Patriotic War, which in Russian historiography began in June 1941, when Germany broke its non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, which had been its ally for the first two years of World War II. This year, for the first time in my life, I had no phone calls to make on Victory Day.
For decades, I called or visited on May 9 and said, “Happy Victory Day,” and grandmother would have said, “This is the one holiday no one can doubt and everyone can agree on.” Coming from my grandparents, this meant that the victory over Nazi Germany was so huge and joyous an occasion that they had been willing to celebrate it with the Soviet regime, which they hated, and, now, with the Putin regime, which they despised.
This year, those words would have been difficult to say. The holiday, which has taken a variety of shapes and sizes in the last seventy years, has finally turned into a war-mongering orgy of such proportions that even the memory of triumphing over Hitler might pale in comparison.
[At least Russia is now a regional nuisance rather than a existential threat. For that, in no small measure, we can thank Ronald Reagan. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Afghan Clerics Uneasy as Civil Rights Movement Gains Momentum
Powerful religious leaders in Afghanistan are growing uneasy about the challenge to their authority posed by rare civil rights protests in Kabul and widespread anger over the lynching of a young woman wrongly accused of burning a Koran.
The highest religious authority, the Ulema Council, exerts considerable influence in a country that remains deeply conservative despite significant changes since the hardline Islamist Taliban fell in 2001.
But a series of demonstrations in the capital Kabul promoting women’s rights has prompted the clerics to threaten to withdraw support for President Ashraf Ghani in a challenge to his new government.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
India: Thirteen People Convicted of Mutilating Christian Professor
After TJ Joseph was accused of blasphemy in 2010, a group of Muslims cut off one of his hands. A court in Ernakulam handed down an eight-year sentence to ten defendants, two years for the other three. The prosecutor had demanded life imprisonment. The main suspect is still at large.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) — “We are pleased with the verdict. No one can resort to barbaric and violent actions for an alleged insult to Islam. This cruel and gruesome act was one of the most depraved I ever saw,” said Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC).
The Christian activist spoke to AsiaNews after a court convicted the people charged with attacking TJ Joseph, a Christian professor, and cutting off his right hand and part of his right arm cut off in 2010, after he was accused of blasphemy.
On Friday, the special court in Ernakulam (Kerala) found 13 people guilty in connection with the incident. Ten defendants were sentenced to eight years in prison, the other three got two years. In addition to jail time, the culprits will have to pay the victim damages of 800,000 rupees (US$ 12,500).
The National Investigation Agency (NIA), India’s federal police, led the probe. The prosecutor accused the defendants of murder, conspiracy and sedition, and asked for a life sentence for all of them.
The court found the accused guilty, but significantly reduced the sentence. For this reason, the prosecutor said he was “not satisfied” with the verdict and said he planned to appeal to a higher court.
In the past, the court had acquitted 18 other defendants for “lack of evidence”. Five other suspects — including the main accused — are still at large.
Popular Front of India activists attacked TJ Joseph, a Malayalam literature professor at Newman College in Thodupuzha in July 2010 as he made his way home after church with his mother and sister.
The attackers claimed they cut off his right hand and part of his right arm to punish him for the “sacrilegious undertones” of an item on a questionnaire he had submitted to his pupils.
At the time of the attack, the teacher was out on bail. He had been arrested in April 2010 because of the questionnaire, which some Muslim groups deemed offensive to the Prophet Mohammed.
“TJ Joseph’s attackers followed the ‘Taliban model’ of cutting off the hand,” the GCIC president told AsiaNews. “They also wanted to strike at knowledge and development, represented by his work as a teacher.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist has claimed that Barack Obama lied about the killing of Osama bin Laden for his own political advantage, and that the former al-Qaeda leader was in fact an unarmed “invalid” when he was shot by US Navy Seals in 2011.
President Obama was accused of making up a number of key details that were fed to the public in the wake of the assassination, including that Bin Laden died in a fire-fight and that the Pakistani government had no role to play in the mission.
Writing in the London Review of Books, Mr Hersh claimed that rather than hiding out in a compound in Abbottabad, Bin Laden was in fact being held prisoner by the Pakistani intelligence services when he was killed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistani Christian Leader Receives Threats, Told to “Stop Building Churches or We Will Kill You”
Since February, “unknown extremists” have threatened Javed David, of the ‘Hope for the Light Ministries’. Since 2013, he and his associates have been helping poor Christian communities build places of worship.
Lahore (AsiaNews) — For the past three months, Javed David, a Christian leader in Lahore, has been receiving death threats from a group of unidentified people because of his involvement in the construction of several churches in the area.
Three of his associates — John Akram, Ata-ur-Rehman and Saman Joy Alexander — have also been threatened. David is president of a Christian association, ‘Hope for the Light Ministries’.
The latest incident occurred on 4 April, the day before Easter, but the Christian leader spoke to AsiaNews about only today.
“I had been to church in Sheikhupura to attend a meeting with colleagues,” he said. “It was 8 o’clock in the evening when we left to return to Lahore. We were about to reach the main road when a motorbike drove up and blocked the way. Maybe they were following us. The two bikers were wearing a helmet. One of them came up to my window and spoke to me. ‘We know what you are doing here,’ he said. ‘Stop building churches. Convert to Islam, which is the true religion. Otherwise we will make a horrible example of you.”
A similar incident occurred on 22 February, after he visited another church under construction. “On that occasion too, I was going home,” he noted, “when a motorcycle stopped in front of me. The driver knocked on the window and threw in a piece of paper. I did not open it before I got home. It said, ‘This is an Islamic nation. We cannot allow church building. Either you convert to Islam or you leave this country! Stop building churches or you’ll pay the consequences!”
Since 2013, David and his associates have helped poor communities build churches. The first one was erected in a village in Shekhupura district. In 2014, they built a second one in Jaranwala district, near Faisalabad. This year, another one is being built, also in Jaranwala district.
“Right now we were shocked and frightened,” Ata-ur-Rehman Saman said. “Previously, when we bought land to build the church in Sheikhupura, we met resistance from some members of the local Muslim community, but then it all worked out. The head of the local madrassa laid the first brick. Both communities live in peace there, although we have seen rising religious intolerance.”
“My family and I are scared and worried because I continue to receive threats,” Javed David said. “Where can we go to enjoy religious freedom? This is our country; we have lived here for generations.”
“After the tragedy in Youhanabad, circumstances have changed and now there is more fear,” he added. “Still, I dedicated my life to Christ and I shall continue to serve His people, no matter what happens.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Edward Snowden Warns Data Retention Laws Are ‘Dangerous’
Former US National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden has delivered a damning verdict on Australia’s new data retention laws, saying they are “radical” and “dangerous,” telling Australians “regardless of whether or not you’re doing anything wrong, you are being watched.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mandatory Vaccines and the Secret Treaty
Globalism is the New World Order. There is no mystery about it.
The alliance between mega-corporations, banks, and governments is ever-growing, as they extend their power over populations.
In this article, I use the example of Australia to illustrate a hidden point that applies to nations all over the world:
The medical cartel is “a compliance arm” of the New World Order.
The principle is simple: expand the degree of citizen-obedience in one area, and you expand it in all areas.
You create the core habit of obedience. That habit extends down into the subconscious mind.
Globalism and the New World Order need that obedience, because its methods are often so outrageous only robots would fall into line.
For an example of outrageous lunacy, take the upcoming Globalist treaty, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). When ratified by 12 nations (Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam), it will establish the right of corporations to bypass national courts and demand that their products be sold, without tariffs, without concern for workers who are paid slave wages, without concern for poisoning the environment with toxic chemicals.
This is a secret treaty. In Australia, it will be signed by the cabinet before any supporting legislation is considered.
Here is a brief quote from tppaustralia.org:
“It [the TPP] has over 20 chapters which include everything from labour and the environment, to intellectual property and telecommunications. The negotiations have been kept secret even from our own Parliamentarians and Senators, but from leaked drafts of the TPP text, we know that there is legitimate reason for concern.”
Did you catch that last part? Australia’s own elected legislators haven’t read the treaty. They’re not permitted to. In the US, legislators have only had access to limited sections.
A secret treaty deeply affecting the lives of all people in those 12 countries, and only a chosen few know exactly what’s in it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
At Least Two Children Killed, 37 Sickened After Reactions to Vaccine in Mexico
So doctors with a public safety brigade are given the job of bringing in vaccines to these communities.
At least two children died and another 37 were sickened after babies were vaccinated in a remote village in southern Mexico, officials said Saturday.
The Chiapas state government said the dead children were both just a year old. One of the sick is in critical condition and 14 others are in serious condition.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Castro Thanks Pope for Helping US and Cuba Patch Up Relations
After a 55-minute private meeting with Pope Francis on Sunday, Cuban President Raúl Castro said he was grateful for the pontiff’s brokering of a behind-the-scenes agreement that has led to the re-establishment of bilateral relations between Washington and Havana.
At a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Castro said he was “very impressed” with the pope’s “wisdom, his modesty, and all the virtues that we know he has.”
“I read all of the pope’s speeches,” Castro said. “If he keeps talking like this, I will start to pray once more and I’ll come back to the Catholic Church. And I’m not joking.”
The pope is planning on visiting Cuba in September.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France’s Hollande Urges End to US Embargo During Cuba Visit
French President Francois Hollande has called for the US embargo Cuba to be lifted completely during an historic trip to Havana. Hollande is the first European leader to visit Cuba in nearly 30 years.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Luis Fleischman: New Evidence of Iran’s Presence in Latin America
A new book written by Emilio Blasco, Washington correspondent for the newspaper, ABC Spain, confirms many points about Iran’s penetration into the Western Hemisphere. The book is written is Spanish but its title in English would be translated as “Boomerang Chavez”.
Among other things Blasco points out the existence of fraud in the elections via electronic manipulation. Likewise, the author also stresses the fact that 95% of the Colombian drugs bound for Europe and the U.S. depart from Venezuela. Blasco also confirms the point that I raised in my book “Latin America in the Post Chavez Era”, which has been brought first by the scholar Max Mainwaring (and most recently by Ari Chaplin), that drug trafficking is a form of asymmetric war against Washington. Diosdado Cabello, currently the President of the National Assembly along with the current Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, directed these drug operations.
Cabello has worked in close cooperation with Hugo Carvajal, a top military officer, former director of military intelligence whose extradition to the U.S. from Aruba, was recently denied by the Dutch government. Likewise, Tareck Al Assami, a former Venezuelan Minister of Interior and current governor of the State of Aragua, was part of this nefarious drug operation.
More worrisome is the information the author obtained from Rafael Isea, a former deputy minister of Finance and president of the Bank of Economic and Social Development. According to Mr. Isea, it was Maduro, then Venezuela’s foreign minister, who travelled to Damascus in 2007 to meet with Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in order to negotiate the installation of Hezbollah cells in Venezuela.
| [Return to headlines] |
EU Plans Mandatory System for Relocating Refugees: Draft
The European Commission plans legislation by the end of the year that would oblige EU nations to share the burden of housing immigrants, with binding quotas based on criteria such as economic health and population.
The EU executive will ask member states by the end of this month to back an emergency relocation of refugees who have already arrived.
The relocation strategy is part of a wider overhaul of laws on migration, much of it in response to appeals from Italy and other southern EU states for help dealing with thousands of migrants reaching Europe by boat from North Africa.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Seeks UN Support to Tackle Migrant Smuggling
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini has pleaded for UN help to dismantle criminal groups smuggling migrants into the European Union.
“We need to count on your support to save lives,” she told a Security Council briefing on EU plans to use force against smugglers.
Libya, where many smugglers operate, has objected to the EU proposals.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU to Propose ‘Binding’ Quotas for Migrant Relocation
The European Commission’s European Agenda for Migration, to be unveiled later this week, will include politically sensitive proposals on possible binding rules to distribute asylum seekers and refugees among member states.
EU leaders had largely sidelined both issues in an emergency summit on migration last month following the drowning of over 1,700 migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.
But leaked documents, seen by EUobserver, indicate that both ideas are now back on the table in an effort to help ease pressure on select member states.
“The EU needs a permanent system for sharing the responsibility for large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers among member states,” notes the draft document.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU to Propose Mandatory Migrant Settlement Quotas: Report
The executive body of the European Union will propose that countries share responsibility for housing thousands of refugees arriving in Europe from across the Mediterranean, The Times reported on Monday. European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday will propose a “mandatory migrant quota system” under which the EU’s 28 member states will share responsibility for migrants during times of emergency, the British newspaper reported.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Urges UN to Back Migrant Crisis Plan
EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini on Monday appealed for UN backing for Europe’s plan to confront the Mediterranean migrant crisis by using military force against smugglers.
Mogherini addressed the UN Security Council as it prepares to endorse a controversial European Union plan aimed at stemming a record tide of refugees making the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.
“Our first priority is to save lives and prevent further loss of lives at sea,” Mogherini said.
“We cannot do it alone. This has to be a common global effort.
“That is why we count on your support to save lives and dismantle criminal organizations that are exploiting people’s desperation.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France, Allocation Between EU States Normal
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, MAY 11 — France considers “an allocation of migrant-quotas among different EU countries” “normal” said French Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve during an interview broadcast on radio RTL. The minister talked about the quota-system for asylum-seekers the EU is aiming to introduce and stressed that “these proposals are partially drawn from proposals formulated by France in August”.
Europe — added Cazeneuve “must do what it can to save lives”, in particular strengthening the Frontex system tasked with managing external borders: “we have to work with the countries of origin in order to distinguish between unlawful migrants and asylum seekers”. The French Senate will debate a bill seeking to reform the right of asylum today. “All of those who qualify for asylum must be accepted — said Cazeneuve — those who do not will be accompanied to the border”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Juncker Wants Migrants-Quota System — Spokesperson
Italy has called for fairer sharing of refugee burden
(ANSA) — Brussels, May 11 — European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker wants a system of quotas for a fairer sharing of the burden of hosting migrants among EU member States, EC spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said Monday. “Juncker said what he wants to do with the agenda on migration in his (April 29) speech at the European Parliament,” Bertaud said. “Reinforcing (border agency) Frontex for search and rescue, hitting the traffickers, introducing a system of quotas for the redistribution of asylum-seekers in the EU and for the resettlement of those from outside the EU who need protection, and the opening of legal channels for qualified migrants”. In his speech to the European Parliament, Juncker had blasted the response to the Mediterranean migrant crisis that came out of an extraordinary EU summit the previous week as “insufficient”.
Italian Premier Matteo Renzi has lobbied for that summit after a migrant-boat accident in which over 700 people are feared to have died — the latest in a long series of such disasters amid a big increase in the flow of migrants from North Africa to southern Europe.
Italy has been shouldering much of the burden of handling the migrants and the government has repeatedly called on the EU to do more.
At the summit, EU leaders agreed to triple funding for Mediterranean rescue operations, but there was no consensus on fairer sharing of the migrants that arrive.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mattarella Says EU Can Absorb Migrants
President says ‘forward action’ needed on Libya
(ANSA) — Madrid, May 11 — Italian President Sergio Mattarella said Monday that European Union members are capable of absorbing migrants arriving on the shores of Italy and Spain, which he described as “the shores of Europe”.
“No one can ignore the fact that refugees who arrive on our shores are seeking (life) in the EU and no one can deny that the Union can absorb them,” the president said.
Mattarella said that he was “confident” that heightened world attention to the plight of migrants would be helpful in focusing EU attention.
“All this international activity bodes well: it has increased the collective consciousness and I am confident that we will see the EU take its proper role”.
He also said that Europe must take “forward action” on Libya now to avoid greater problems in the future.
Libya has become a launching ground for human traffickers launching migrants across the Mediterranean.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Migrants Will Not be Sent Back Against Will: EU Top Diplomat
The European Union’s top diplomat has assured the U.N. Security Council that under a proposed EU maritime operation against the growing wave of migrant smuggling, “no refugee or migrant intercepted at sea will be sent back against their will.”
Federica Mogherini addressed the council Monday as the 28-member EU prepares to start making decisions next week on an operation to identify, capture and destroy boats before they are used by migrant smugglers.
Concerns remain even among some council members that the migrants themselves will be harmed, sent back or not be allowed to seek better lives.
The U.N.’s special representative for international migration says about half of the people who reach Europe qualify as refugees.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mogherini at UN Today to Present EU Plan on Migrants
BRUSSELS — The EU Commission is at a turning point in its strategy to tackle immigration and European High representative for foreign policy, Federica Mogherini, will present the plan today before the first UN Security Council meeting in an attempt to raise awareness about the issue in permanent members of the Security Council whose role could also prove pivotal during upcoming UN discussions on the scope of the mission in Libyan waters. The mandate could entail the fight against traffickers and, possibly, also the permission to destroy vessels “before they are used” as indicated by the extraordinary EU summit.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saving Migrant Lives is ‘First Priority’ : EU Foreign Policy Chief
The EU’s foreign policy chief has told the UN Security Council that the first priority in confronting the Mediterranean migrant crisis is to save lives. Some 5,000 refugees have died in the last 18 months.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
[Note: The situation in Baltimore looks like the Alinsky Model. Hillary Clinton wrote her senior thesis at Wellesley College on Saul Alinsky, and Barack Obama became a community organizer as a follower of Alinsky. There is an Acknowledgement to Lucifer at the front of Alinsky’s RULES FOR RADICALS, and in that book, Alinsky says the community organizer should “rub raw the resentments of the community” and “fan the latent hostilities.” Isn’t that what occurred in Baltimore?]
In the early 1970s, Michael Lerner (who would become an important adviser to Hillary Clinton) authored THE NEW SOCIALIST REVOLUTION, in which he proclaimed: “Education will be radically transformed in our socialist community…the main emphasis will be on learning how to… live and work collectively…The next level is learning some series of skills, for one’s first set of jobs.” And in Vladimir Turchenko’s THE SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION AND THE REVOLUTION IN EDUCATION (1976) imported into the United States is described “linking instruction with productive labor” (this is similar to plank 10 of the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO mentioned earlier).
The year after Turchenko’s book appears in the United States, on November 17, 1977 U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education Mary Berry delivered an address, “The Chinese Experience in Education: What America Stands to Learn,” at the University of Illinois. She revealed that the U.S. Office of Education was developing Lifelong Learning programs modeled after the Communist Chinese programs. Two years later, the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) was established under President Jimmy Carter, fulfilling a promise he had made to the NEA.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ocean on Saturn Moon Enceladus May Have Potential Energy Source to Support Life
Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus is looking better and better as a potential abode for alien life.
Chemical reactions that free up energy that could potentially support a biosphere have occurred — and perhaps still are occurring — deep within Enceladus’ salty subsurface ocean, a new study suggests.
This determination comes less than two months after a different research team announced that active hydrothermal vents likely exist on Enceladus’ seafloor, suggesting that conditions there could be similar to those that gave rise to some of the first lifeforms on Earth.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Truly, we live in an age of madness, for surely no other word so describes the situation where over 450 million people are ruled in an increasingly vicious police state by an unelected gang of avaricious megalomaniacs.
That these self important, navel-gazing, overpaid buffoons now see fit to institute a policy of mandatory ‘refugee’ quotas for member states, thereby worsening an already impossible situation just beggars belief, and if any of us had the slightest doubt that their ultimate aim is to bring to an end the apex of western civilization, then surely we wonder no longer, for a pre-teen child could see that the end result of this disastrous decision to keep dragging into Europe millions of people who have been our enemies for 1400 years must end in chaos and ruin.
Add to that the recent decisions by the Swedes and British to continue with ‘more of the same’, Australia seemingly intent on becoming the world’s first halal country, and Americans ruled by a ‘Christian’ President who wants to re-settle Somalia in the USA and finds the call of the muezzin the ‘most beautiful sound in the world’, and I don’t see much to cheer about. Quite simply, I’m glad to be old.
Well said.
Peter35, don’t write this country off so easily as far as Halal certification goes. There is an ongoing case in the New South Wales Supreme Court concerning the Halal racket and the Muslim racketeers operating it. You may obtain more info on this by logging onto; The Pickering Post blog.
You may be old and so am I, but never stop fighting for what you know is right.
Nemesis, no I’m not writing OZ off, it just annoyed me that Australia of all countries should succumb to that revolting protection racket, as rightly or wrongly I’ve always felt we Australasians were a bit different, and wouldn’t stand for that nonsense.
Silly of me, as some time ago we stopped buying ‘down under’ lamb which is clearly labelled halal–a no-no in our household, but we are all in the same boat it would appear, as just today I bought some feta cheese; you guessed it, halal! Back it went!
Now going to the Pickering Post blog, thanks!
Peter35, and for your info, my wife and I, and extended family refuse to buy any product that has Halal certification. And just when those who cottoned onto this scam thought that by refusing to buy such labelled goods would have an effect on the Muslim racketeers, the companies now paying into this racket have decided that Halal labelling need not be displayed to the buyer!
Talk about a racket! However, a list of those companies can be accessed by applying to the Larry Pickering blog for an app which exposes all products Halal certified via the use of a mobile phone.
“At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe.
We are in a new phase of a very old war.”, unbelievable that politicians never learn from history.
Muammar Gaddafi had warned EU once that they don’t need any army to conquer Europe.
Without firing a bullet they will conquer Europe, it will be done by just send in an army of refugees…
why did Muammar Gaddafi warn?
Muslims don’t need an army to conquer EU. EU is using its own army and stupidity to conquer itself.
He knew, or noticed that EU politicians and EU parliaments meant nothing. Decisions taken by EU rulers were stupid, confused, confusing, antiwhite, anti state, anti church, anti-Jews. . .
America pays money to facilitate Muslim meetings where they concluded a memorandum, where they said:
The Ikhwan must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization
from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and
the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion
is made victorious over all other religions.
Go down to English pages.
http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/case_docs/445.pdf
Quite apart from considerations about the effects multi-kulti may have on new parts of Europe, it seems that the EU bigwigs are now deciding that countries all over Europe must accept newcomers who entered illegally… surely
A) that’s not what they signed up for when they agreed to Schengen?
And B) anyone who thinks this will reduce illegal immigration should see a doctor?
And when the illegal immigrants’ cousins and brothers get word that they’re being redistributed at EU taxpayers’ expense, and also decide to make the trip, will this increase or decrease the risk of more people dying at sea?
Who did Jesus call a “brood of Vipers?” Was that ‘Hate’ speech Mr. O’Reilly? Was it the Pharisees like yourself?
I suspect Jesus would have outed Islam and muslims for exactly what they are – Children of AntiChrist.
I bet he isn’t going to write a “Killing Mohammed” book.
>> The emotional displays, like insulting the Prophet Muhammad, make it more difficult to rally law-abiding Muslims,” Mr. O’Reilly said, <<
O'Reilly assumes the laws Muslims abide by are U.S. laws. He should stick to selling auto parts.
>> The human rights commissioner of the Council of Europe has called on the German government to make more effort in the fight against xenophobia. <<
This makes perfect sense if you understand that white Germans are now foreigners in their own country. More must be done to protect these foreigners. I completely agree.
“Truly, we live in an age of madness” — Peter you are absolutely right. What is the solution?
“Quite simply, I’m glad to be old.” Me, too. But I feel very sorry for my children and grandchildren.
I certainly didn’t sign up for Dearbornistan as I didn’t sign up for 1,000 immigrant children flooding the school district of Long Island, NY.
I also didn’t sign up for 1,000 immigrants flooding the services of Spartensberg TN
It makes one think “What the hell is going on?”
What the hell is going on? Write to your congressman and your senator and ask them straight out what the obligation is for your community and your state to accept foreign “refugees” that hate our way of life. How about we send the $76,000/yr that we spend “settling” these people to their home countries and STOP the massive economic refugee resettlement FROM TAKING PLACE?
Much of this is coming straight from Obama who is bypassing Congress. Congress by law has the ability to stop him in his tracks(by cutting off funding to DHS, HUD, DOJ) or impeaching him but Boehner is a staunch puppet and globalist who cares nothing for the country or it’s people.
McConnell in the Senate is no better and Reid is still running the Senate for all intents.
Thanks to them and a obedient MSM, Obama has as much power as a Roman emperor.