Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/15/2015

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve is defending his government’s policy of turning migrants back at the border with Italy. He says that Italy must abide by Schengen rules, and verify whether immigrants are legitimate asylum seekers or economic migrants, before sending the former on to France.

In other news, the Pentagon announced that the target of yesterday’s air sortie in Libya, the Al Qaeda leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar, was most likely killed in the strike.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Dean, ESW, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, K, Mithrandir, Phyllis Chesler, RL, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

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

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

Financial Crisis
» EU Needs to Prepare for ‘State of Emergency’ In Greece, Says German Commissioner
» EU Preparing for ‘State of Emergency’ After Greek Talks Collapse
» Greece Crisis: PM Tsipras Tells Creditors to ‘Get Real’
» UK: Business Tax ‘Could Close 80,000 Shops in Two Years’
» US Industrial Production Weakest Since January 2010, Flashes Recessionary Red Flag
 
USA
» After Long Wind-Up, Bush Set to Finally Make 2016 White House Pitch
» America Adrift
» Dallas Shooter Said He Attacked Police Because He Was Angry at Them for Taking His Child
» Hillary Clinton Campaigns to be Obama 3
» House Passes Part of Trade Package, But Game Not Over — Second Vote Expected Tuesday
» Hunting for Hackers, N.S.A. Secretly Expands Internet Spying at U.S. Border
» Irresponsible Drug Waste Dumping by Pharmaceutical Firms Found to Fuel Rise of Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs
» Jeb Bush: I’m Ready to Lead the US
» Lawmakers Seek Passage of ‘Hillary Law’ To Prevent Clintonesque Corruption
» Maryland: Witness to Slaying at Ice Cream Truck: No Argument; Man Just Pointed and Shot Driver
» Media Bias or Media Stupidity?
» Musk’s SpaceX to Build Hyperloop Test Track
» New York Prison Break: 9 Days Later, Convicted Killers Still Out There
» Obama Administration Incompetence Subjects Millions of Americans to Cyber Hackers
» Rachel Dolezal Resigns, According to Letter on NAACP Facebook Page
» Sex, Lies and Debt Potentially Exposed by U.S. Data Hack
» Spokane NAACP Leader Cancels Meeting Amid Furor
» TPP: Unconstitutional Tribunal for .01% Oligarchs to Dictate What is ‘Fair Trade’
» Vatican Speaker and California Governor in Push for Massive Depopulation… Talk of ‘Planetary Court’ And Removal of Six Billion People Under New ‘Earth Constitution’ And ‘World Government’
 
Europe and the EU
» As Spain Grants Exiled Jews Citizenship, Some Muslims Demand Return to ‘Al-Andalus’
» Belgian City Launches ‘Text Walking Lanes’ For Smartphone Addicts
» Bilderberg Group, Bride of Frankenstein, & Awakening From the Programmed Nightmare
» Bilderberg 2015: TTIP and a Travesty of Transparency
» British Boxing Champion Wanted to Join IS — Court Hears
» Bulgaria: Roma Pickpockets Live in Luxury Mansions
» EU Opens Antitrust Probe Into Amazon e-Book Distribution
» Europe’s Comet Lander Makes Contact Again, A Day After Telling Earth it’s Back in Business
» Finland: Horse Manure Plan to Heat Homes
» France Basilica Fire: Saint-Donatien in Nantes in Ruins
» Hate and Extremism ‘Not Islam’: French PM
» Infowars Reporters Thrown Out of Bilderberg Hotel
» Italy: Unemployed Man Hangs Self
» Italy: Renzi’s PD Loses Venice After Two Decades in Power
» Mother of British Muslim Convert Killed Fighting for Terror Group Al-Shabaab Says Her ‘Whole World Has Fallen Apart’
» Philae Awakes: What Next for Probe After 7 Month Nap on Comet?
» PVV ‘Near’ To Forming EU Alliance: Will Wilders Move to Brussels?
» Romania Prime Minister Attendance at European Games ‘A Foreign Policy Gaffe, ‘ President Says
» Rosetta Mission Control Head: ‘a Perfect Moment’
» UK: Bradford Man Arrested Over Nadia Khan Stabbing in ‘Domestic Incident’
» UK: Talha Asmal as a Schoolboy Before He Blew Himself Up in the Name of ISIS
» ‘We Can Not Imagine What Will Happen’
 
Balkans
» Srebrenica: Former Muslim Commander Oric Arrested in Bern
» Swastika Pattern Depicted on Pitch During Croatia vs. Italy
 
North Africa
» French President in Algeria to Discuss Terrorism, Regional Security Issues, The Economy
» ISIS Militants Seize Power Station Near Libyan City of Sirte
» Questions Shadow U.S. Strike on Veteran Algerian Jihadist in Libya
» Several Tunisian Policemen Killed in Two ‘Jihadist Attacks’
» Tunisia: Three Officers Killed, 10 Civilians Wounded
» US Confirms Target of Libya Air Strike Was Algerian Militant Belmokhtar
» US Says Airstrike ‘Likely’ Killed Al Qaeda Leader in Libya
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Greek PM Tsipras Supports Recognition of Palestine
» Israel Needs a Global “Iron Dome” — Against Defamation
» Michael Oren: US Altered 40-Year Policy on ‘67 Lines Without Consulting Israel
 
Middle East
» 400 Foreigners Fighting With Syrian Kurds Against ISIS
» Iran Plays Matchmaker to Fight Marriage Fatigue
» ISIS: Sources: Jihadists Move From Palmyra to Homs-Damascus
» Jihad on Churches: Muslim Persecution of Christians
» Oman: 1,000 Foreign Workers Arrested in Muscat
» Turkey: Trial Opens in Case of 19-Year-Old Killed and Burned
» Turkey’s Main Opposition Lays Out Coalition Terms: Erdogan Must Stop ‘Meddling’
» Video of French Woman Abducted in Yemen, ‘Bring Me Home’
» ‘What ISIS is Doing Should Not be Surprising’
 
Russia
» Poll: Americans and Europeans Differ on Aid to Ukraine
» Russian Pancake Czar Targets Manhattan With Mom’s Secret Recipe
 
Far East
» MERS Death Toll Rises to 16 in South Korea Outbreak
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Sudan’s Omar Al-Bashir Arrives in Khartoum to Triumphant Reception
 
Latin America
» Changes in Cuba? Don’t Hold Your Breath!
 
Immigration
» Ader: In Hungary Only Refugees
» EC ‘Not Aware of Renzi Plan B’ On Migrants
» France Says Won’t Let Asylum Seekers Through Border
» France and Italy Clash as Migrant Stand-Off Opens EU Rift
» France Says Italy Must Abide by EU Immigration Rules
» Migrant Bodies Found in Niger After Sahara Sandstorm
» Paris Wants EU Migrant Camps in Italy and Greece
» Parts of Rome ‘Turning Into No-Go Areas Due to Sanitation and Security Issues Caused by Migrants’ Claim Local Businesses
» Renzi’s Plan B
» Times: Record in UK From Romania and Bulgaria
» Tourists’ Terror at Calais: Coach Passengers Capture Shocking Footage as Migrants Surround Their Vehicle and Smash Their Way Onto a Lorry Heading to the UK
» UN Chief Says Britain Must Take in More Med Migrants
» UN Human Rights Chief Urges Europe to Accept More Migrants; Fight Prejudice and Discrimination
 
Culture Wars
» Homophobic Front Page Shocks Morocco
» I Don’t Teach Shakespeare Because He’s White
» Playboy and the (Homo) Sexual Revolution (Updated)
 
General
» Is the Universe Bubbly? Searching in Space for Quantum Foam
» The Sunday Times’ Snowden Story is Journalism at Its Worst — and Filled With Falsehoods
 

EU Needs to Prepare for ‘State of Emergency’ In Greece, Says German Commissioner

The European Commission needs to make plans for a ‘state of emergency’ in Greece from July 1 if Athens does not reach an agreement with its creditors, Germany’s EU Commissioner Guenther Oettinger said on Monday in Berlin.

“We should work out an emergency plan because Greece would fall into a state of emergency,” Oettinger, who is also a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats said, citing the need to ensure access to energy and medicine.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

EU Preparing for ‘State of Emergency’ After Greek Talks Collapse

Germany’s EU commissioner said on Monday it was time to prepare for a “state of emergency” after talks collapsed at the weekend to rescue Greece from default and ejection from the euro.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Greece Crisis: PM Tsipras Tells Creditors to ‘Get Real’

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has said his government will wait patiently for international creditors to become “realistic”, after talks on a debt deal in Brussels failed.

Mr Tsipras rejected demands for pension cuts, citing his country’s dignity.

Time is running out for Greece to unlock bailout funds from the EU and IMF and a European Commission spokesman said “significant gaps” remained.

One European Commissioner said it was time to plan for an emergency.

Guenther Oettinger, who is also a member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right CDU, said if negotiations with Greece failed and its government rejected a deal on pension cuts, then on 1 July Greece would have to be considered an “emergency area”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Business Tax ‘Could Close 80,000 Shops in Two Years’

Changing shopping habits coupled with the growing tax burden means almost two out of three town centre shops could shut by 2017 with the loss of a staggering 800,000 jobs, business leaders warn.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

US Industrial Production Weakest Since January 2010, Flashes Recessionary Red Flag

US Industrial production has missed expectations for 4 of the last 5 months (not seen outside recession) and has not seen notable MoM gains for 6 months in a row (not seen outside recession). Against expectations of a 0.3% gain, IP dropped 0.2% in May (not what the meteorconomists were hoping for). Without the over-stocking of motor vehicles, the number would have been a total disaster as Autos rose 1.&% MoM (the only industry to gain) but the 7.9% plunge in drilling/servicing at oil/gas wells is “unequivocally bad.” At 1.37% YoY growth, this is the weakest industrial production since January 2010. Minor upward revisions stalled the MoM drop streak but US factory output has now fallen YoY 6 months in a row (not seen outside recession) for the biggest drop in over 4 years.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

After Long Wind-Up, Bush Set to Finally Make 2016 White House Pitch

After months raising money and lining up support on the sidelines, Jeb Bush is preparing Monday to enter the Republican presidential race — aiming to regain the momentum after watching several other GOP luminaries seize the spotlight.

No longer the unquestioned front-runner, the former Florida governor has to contend with 10 other candidates who already have declared and several more expected to enter in the coming weeks. Lately, he’s been bunched at the top of national Republican polls with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has not yet declared, and home-state rival Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who has.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

America Adrift

Without roots that go deep into the ideological foundations of the American republic, no President and no candidate for President can be trusted to achieve the difficult task of restoring the republic and American greatness. We live in an age of superficial political understanding of liberty and the Constitutional safeguards designed by the founding fathers to protect it. Bit by bit from the 1930’s to the present, the limited federal republic that was the world’s best means to defend individual liberty has been replaced by a bureaucratic oligarchy that is among the greatest bastions of tyranny. The first order of business for any elected official sincerely committed to liberty and the Constitution is a dismantlement of the regulatory state in favor of a return to governance by the constitutional branches. Until the people’s elected representatives once again become the exclusive province for law making and the Article III courts the exclusive province for adjudication, the union of legislative, executive, and judicial in the single hands of the unelected heads of some 250 agencies will ensure perpetuation of raw will over justice, destruction of liberty, and deprivation of property.

Over three quarters of all federal law is today not the product of those we elect to office but, rather, the product of the unelected heads of the bureaucratic agencies.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Dallas Shooter Said He Attacked Police Because He Was Angry at Them for Taking His Child

Boulware’s father, Jim Boulware, said his son had been pushed over the edge.

In April, Boulware lost custody of his son. He said that CPS had taken them away and he said the police were responsible for the subsequent loss of custody.

Boulware had been involved in a number of domestic disputes and was eventually arrested and charged for assault and battery. However, many of the charges would later be dropped.

Boulware’s father, Jim Boulware, said his son had been pushed over the edge. “Every one of us has a breaking point,” said Jim Boulware explaining how his son had lost all hope.

Boulware had just left his father’s house only 3 hours before launching his attack. “He told me he was gonna be back in 10 days to mow my grass again,” said Jim as he choked back tears.

Whether or not the police were actually responsible for taking Boulware’s children is unknown at this moment. However, police taking children from otherwise completely innocent parents is an unfortunate reality in the United States.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Hillary Clinton Campaigns to be Obama 3

By John Podhoretz

Please welcome to the presidential race the latest version of the Democratic front-runner: Ms. Hillary Rodham Obama!

The speech Hillary delivered Saturday on Roosevelt Island made clear her presidency would be Barack Obama’s third term. The policies she would advance as president are intended to deepen Obama’s unprecedented enmeshment of the economy and the government.

Ms. Rodham Obama went through an exhaustive list of goodies her presidency would deliver to Americans. And when I say “exhaustive,” I mean exhaustive. The speech ran longer than 40 minutes, and despite the fact that she had been preparing to give it for weeks, Hillary also made it clear her rhetoric and her delivery are just not going to get much better. Ever.

Nothing she mentioned would be unfamiliar to anyone who has listened to an Obama State of the Union address every January. It’s the 21st Century Left Liberal Laundry List, down to the war she announced against “powerful forces” in hedge funds and on Wall Street who have brought “secret, unaccountable money” into the system — this from a woman who raised hundreds of millions from Wall Street and hedge-fund giants in 2008 and whose family foundation has become the poster child for secret and unaccountable money in American politics…

           — Hat tip: RL [Return to headlines]
 

House Passes Part of Trade Package, But Game Not Over — Second Vote Expected Tuesday

Washington, D.C. —Congressional Republicans and a handful of Democrats voted Friday to reauthorize the controversial Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) — also called “Fast-Track” — a mechanism that empowers President Obama and whoever succeeds him to negotiate “free trade” treaties and deals with foreign countries on behalf of Congress, but without congressional input or amendments. This would remain in effect for six years.

The count was 219 — 211, with 28 Democrats joining 191 Republicans to vote Yes Only 54 Republicans resisted pressure by the party’s leadership and voted No. (Roll Call 362)

Republicans applauded when the count was announced, but information following was confusing. Headlines stated the Obama administration had suffered a major setback and suggested the TPA was “dead in the water.”

“Key Obama-backed trade bill fails House Vote,” declared CNBC.

“Democrats Deal Obama huge defeat on Trade,” POLITICO announced, describing the event as a “staggering blow” to the president’s trade agenda.

And The Hill told the world: “House deals humiliating blow to Obama.”

The problem with the headlines is that they weren’t referring to the TPA, but to a companion bill, passage of which is crucial to the Obama Trade package. This is made clear by the articles themselves. The Fast-Track provision remains very much alive.

Here’s what happened…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Hunting for Hackers, N.S.A. Secretly Expands Internet Spying at U.S. Border

WASHINGTON — Without public notice or debate, the Obama administration has expanded the National Security Agency’s warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international Internet traffic to search for evidence of malicious computer hacking, according to classified N.S.A. documents.

In mid-2012, Justice Department lawyers wrote two secret memos permitting the spy agency to begin hunting on Internet cables, without a warrant and on American soil, for data linked to computer intrusions originating abroad — including traffic that flows to suspicious Internet addresses or contains malware, the documents show.

The Justice Department allowed the agency to monitor only addresses and “cybersignatures” — patterns associated with computer intrusions — that it could tie to foreign governments. But the documents also note that the N.S.A. sought permission to target hackers even when it could not establish any links to foreign powers.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Irresponsible Drug Waste Dumping by Pharmaceutical Firms Found to Fuel Rise of Antibiotic-Resistant Superbugs

Overuse of antibiotics involves more than just doctors overprescribing them or farmers giving them to their livestock. It also goes to the source itself—pharmaceutical companies—and the waste they dump into the environment. A new report (pdf) from the consumer advocacy group SumOfUs cites several examples of drug manufacturers contributing to the presence of antibiotics in the food chain, which has led to the rise of drug-resistant superbugs.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Jeb Bush: I’m Ready to Lead the US

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has pledged to fix America as he launches his bid to become the Republican nominee for president.

In a video released hours ahead of his official launch in Miami, the 62-year-old brother of ex-president George W Bush declared: “I’m ready to lead.”

He also promised to protect the country’s most vulnerable and remove the barriers to social mobility.

But doubts persist among conservatives in his party.

And early polling suggests that he has yet to dominate a wide field of Republican candidates.

He becomes the 11th Republican to declare, with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Florida Senator Marco Rubio among his biggest rivals.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is the clear frontrunner. This raises the possibility in 2016 of another Clinton-Bush race like that of 1992, when Mrs Clinton’s husband Bill beat Jeb Bush’s father, President George HW Bush.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Lawmakers Seek Passage of ‘Hillary Law’ To Prevent Clintonesque Corruption

In the aftermath of the Benghazi scandal, the report of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Internet server and private email account, and a number of other “irregularities,” several U.S. Senate lawmakers have proposed new legislation to bring President Barack Obama’s “scandal-ridden State Department” under greater scrutiny. The senators believe there must be more congressional oversight to make certain that politicized upper-echelon State Department members are prevented from hiding wrongdoing, according to a copy of the new legislation released on Monday. Some cynics are calling the proposed legislation “The Hillary Law.”

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, and David Perdue, R-Georgia, introduced a bill that if passed will force the State Department to increase what was promised by President Barack Obama in 2009: transparency. Also the new law would give oversight authorities more assistance in probing alleged malfeasance — or out-and-out criminal activity — by State Department employees.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Maryland: Witness to Slaying at Ice Cream Truck: No Argument; Man Just Pointed and Shot Driver

FREDERICK, Md. — A man who says he witnessed the fatal shooting of an ice cream truck driver tells police that no argument preceded the gunfire, and that the gunman just fired and shot as children were lined up for treats.

Brandon McIntosh is quoted in court documents released Monday. He told police he was helping 22-year-old Brandon Brown sell ice cream outside a subsidized housing complex Saturday afternoon in Frederick when a man he later identified as 27-year-old Larnell Lyles approached.

McIntosh says Lyles asked about types of ice cream, and McIntosh told him the truck had several kinds.

McIntosh says Brown then stepped outside the van to smoke and came face to face with Lyles. McIntosh says Lyles told several children to “watch it,” pulled a revolver from his waistband and shot Brown three times…

           — Hat tip: Dean [Return to headlines]
 

Media Bias or Media Stupidity?

NPR’s Diane Rehm was interviewing Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is seeking the Democrat nomination for president. Rehm didn’t ask but stated as a fact that Sanders, who is Jewish, is both a citizen of the United States and Israel.

Sanders responded he is not an Israeli citizen and has never lived in that country although he has visited there. According to Rehm, she has a “list” that clearly shows Sanders as well as other Jews are citizens of Israel.

The “list” Rehm spoke of was provided by an anti-Semitic group. It is nothing more than a Jew-hating conspiracy that every Jewish person is automatically a citizen of Israel and therefore should not hold elective office, especially the presidency, because they have divided loyalties.

Rehm’s excuse for her statement of fact about Sanders dual citizenship was shocking. She read the list on a Facebook post. Now we all know if something is on the Internet it must be true, but this alleged “journalist” was willing to accept something whose only source was Facebook.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Musk’s SpaceX to Build Hyperloop Test Track

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is sponsoring an open competition, geared toward university students and independent engineering teams, to design and build pods for the Hyperloop, his futuristic transit system.

A one-mile test track will be built adjacent to SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California, the company said Monday on its website.

“While we are not developing a commercial Hyperloop ourselves, we are interested in helping to accelerate development of a functional Hyperloop prototype,” SpaceX said. The knowledge gained will be open-sourced, the company said.

Musk, SpaceX’s founder and chief executive officer, first revealed plans for the Hyperloop in a 2013 white paper that he released on the SpaceX website.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

New York Prison Break: 9 Days Later, Convicted Killers Still Out There

(CNN) Nine days and hundreds of tips later, the convicted killers are still out there. Despite the efforts of 800 law enforcement officials, popping open trucks, peering into cars and scouring heavily wooded areas, authorities seem no closer to capturing Richard Matt and David Sweat.

New York’s governor acknowledged over the weekend that the pair could be almost anywhere, and on Monday, the prosecutor whose office brought charges against prison tailor Joyce Mitchell for allegedly aiding the escape said authorities can’t even say for sure if anyone else was involved.

“We have not cleared anyone at this point in time,” Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie told CNN.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Obama Administration Incompetence Subjects Millions of Americans to Cyber Hackers

Millions of American government employees, former employees, contractors and more have had their most personal and private information breached by hackers, because the government failed to take the necessary steps to protect those records. According to Politico, “Administration officials have said privately that signs point to the first hack having originated in China, and security experts have said it appeared to be part of a Chinese effort to build dossiers on federal employees who might be approached later for espionage purposes.”

It is an outrageous and unacceptable breach of trust. The federal government, through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), interviews everyone who requires any sort of security clearance, and asks the most detailed and personal questions about past associations, indiscretions and behavior, to make sure nothing in their past could subject them to blackmail or subversion. The interviews extend to friends and associates of those being vetted, and those people are also in the databases that have been breached. But now it has come to light that OPM failed to hold up the Obama administration’s end of the bargain by not doing everything they could to protect those records.

According to David Cox, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, in a letter to the OPM director, “We believe that hackers have every affected person’s Social Security number(s), military records and veterans’ status information, address, birth date, job and pay history, health insurance, life insurance and pension information; age, gender, race, union status, and more. Worst, we believe that Social Security numbers were not encrypted, a cybersecurity failure that is absolutely indefensible and outrageous.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Rachel Dolezal Resigns, According to Letter on NAACP Facebook Page

(CNN) The president of the NAACP Spokane, Washington, chapter Rachel Dolezal has resigned, according to a letter from her which was posted Monday on the NAACP Spokane Facebook page.

Dolezal did not address allegations that have landed her and her family in the national spotlight over the past several days. Her parents, who are white, allege that she has been lying and presenting herself as black when she is not.

The story ignited debate over race and identity and blew up on social media.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Sex, Lies and Debt Potentially Exposed by U.S. Data Hack

When a retired 51-year-old military man disclosed in a U.S. security clearance application that he had a 20-year affair with his former college roommate’s wife, it was supposed to remain a secret between him and the government.

The disclosure last week that hackers had penetrated a database containing such intimate and possibly damaging facts about millions of government and private employees has shaken Washington.

The hacking of the White House Office of Personnel Management (OPM) could provide a treasure trove for foreign spies.

The military man’s affair, divulged when he got a job with a defense contractor and applied to upgrade his clearance, is just one example of the extensive potential for disruption, embarrassment and even blackmail arising from the hacking.

The man had kept the affair secret from his wife for two decades before disclosing it on the government’s innocuously named Standard Form 86 (SF 86), filled out by millions of Americans seeking security clearances.

His case is described in a judge’s ruling, published on the Pentagon website, that he should keep his security clearance because he told the government about the affair. His name is not given in the administrative judge’s decision.

The disclosure that OPM’s data had been hacked sent shivers down the spines of current and former U.S. government officials as they realized their secrets about sex, drugs and money could be in the hands of a foreign government.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Spokane NAACP Leader Cancels Meeting Amid Furor

The leader of the Spokane NAACP, Rachel Dolezal, canceled a chapter meeting Monday where she was expected to speak about the furor sparked over her racial identity.

Her parents have said she has falsely portrayed herself as black for years.

Dolezal sent out an email Sunday cancelling the meeting “due to the need to continue discussion with regional and national NAACP leaders.” Some, however, questioned whether she had the power to do so.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

TPP: Unconstitutional Tribunal for .01% Oligarchs to Dictate What is ‘Fair Trade’

“The corporations have bribed the political leaders in every country to sign away their sovereignty and the general welfare of their people to private corporations. Corporations have paid US senators large sums for transferring Congress’ law-making powers to corporations.” — Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary to US Treasury, former editor of the Wall Street Journal

Trans-Pacific-Partnership (TPP) is “secret national security legislation” that President Obama and both parties’ “leaderships” refuse to disclose to the American public, and only visible from WikiLeaks. President Obama attempted “fast track” dictatorial power for Congress to vote for TPP without access to full text or public consideration. “Fast track” violates the US Constitution’s requirement for the Senate to ratify all treaties with 2/3 vote by claiming that 50% is somehow the same (a tie is broken by the VP, so 50% is enough). President Clinton’s justification of “fast track” is here.

TPP is Emperor’s New Clothes’ unconstitutional because it allows a foreign three-person tribunal chosen by the same .01% oligarch powers that created TPP to have power to tax Americans billions of our dollars for claimed “damages” of corporations. These three persons appointed by TPP interests would have dictatorial power to protect corporate claimed “future profits.” From Ellen Brown:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Vatican Speaker and California Governor in Push for Massive Depopulation… Talk of ‘Planetary Court’ And Removal of Six Billion People Under New ‘Earth Constitution’ And ‘World Government’

‘The depopulationists are on the move again, pushing hard for the elimination of six billion people on planet Earth in order to bring the planet down to what’s being touted as its “sustainable carrying capacity of one billion people.”

But this time, the depopulation agenda may be codified by the Vatican. Professor John Schellnhuber has been chosen as a speaker for the Vatican’s rolling out of a Papal document on climate change. He’s the professor who previously said the planet is overpopulated by at least six billion people. Now, the Vatican is giving him a platform which many expect will result in an official Church declaration in support of radical depopulation in the name of “climate science.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

As Spain Grants Exiled Jews Citizenship, Some Muslims Demand Return to ‘Al-Andalus’

by Phyllis Chesler

The Spanish government is offering citizenship to the descendants of formerly exiled Spanish Jews. No longer will such Jews actually have to travel to Spain; they need only “hire a Spanish notary and pass tests on the Spanish language and history.”

With Spain’s Jews offered a right to return, now Muslims are also demanding the same. Indeed, Morisco-Moroccan journalist, Ahmed Bensalh, has argued that the departure of Muslims who left for Muslim North Africa, and who now number up to five million, amounts to “flagrant segregation and unquestionable discrimination.”

Other Muslim journalists are demanding that Spain treat Muslims just as they are now willing to treat Jews. Jamal Bin Ammar al-Ahmar has written directly to the Spanish Monarch demanding an apology and a “full legal and historical investigation of the war crimes that were perpetrated on the Muslim population of Andalusia by the French, English, European, and papal crusaders.”…

           — Hat tip: Phyllis Chesler [Return to headlines]
 

Belgian City Launches ‘Text Walking Lanes’ For Smartphone Addicts

In an effort to put phone users on the right track and ease the stress of the disgruntled pedestrians that have to dodge them, a city in Belgium has created several “text walking lanes.”

Following in the footsteps of Washington, DC, and Chongqing in China, the special lanes have been painted onto a number of Antwerp’s busiest shopping streets. While the measure is, in reality, a marketing stunt by local mobile firm Mlab, it’s likely that many in the area wouldn’t mind keeping the markings.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Bilderberg Group, Bride of Frankenstein, & Awakening From the Programmed Nightmare

The Bilderberg Group 2015 meeting at the Interalpen Hotel in the mountains of Austria is like something out of a James Bond movie. In the Bond movies, SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) is a fictional global criminal and terrorist organization that was founded by former Nazis after World War II. SPECTRE first appeared in the James Bond movie Thunderball in 1961 and is the title of the latest Bond movie. In contrast, the Bilderberg Group was founded in 1954 by men like Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, a former member of the Nazi Party.

Prince Bernhard worked in 1934 for the German company IG Farben, which had links to the Nazis. In 1954 John Foster Dulles helped to establish the Bilderberg Group; his brother Allen Dulles had directed Operation Paperclip, which brought Nazi scientists into the United States. Another man deeply involved in Bilderberg from the beginning was Henry Kissinger. The Bilderberg Group used the façade of seemingly harmless trade treaties to undermine the national sovereignty of individual European nations and unite them under the European Union. Today Bilderberg continues to use that same strategy of trade treaties to undermine the sovereignty of the United States and create what Henry Kissinger has repeatedly called the New World Order.

The Bilderberg Group meeting is heavily guarded by a paramilitary organization called COBRA, which sounds like a name right out of a movie. However, despite the almost comic book nature that surrounds Bilderberg, this group is composed of the global elite who are very serious about ushering in a cashless society as soon as possible, distributing some kind of microchip or biochip so people cannot buy or sell without accepting the chip. It’s as if the Bilderberg Group read Revelation Chapter 13, which tells of a coming one world government, one world economic system, and one world religion in the last days, headed by the Antichrist. In Revelation 13 we read that no one will be able to buy or sell without receiving the mark of the beast, known as 666.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Bilderberg 2015: TTIP and a Travesty of Transparency

When it comes to transparency, this year’s Bilderberg summit fails in every way imaginable. Three prime ministers, two foreign ministers, one president, no press conference. No public oversight. Just a bunch of senior policymakers locked away for three days with some incredibly powerful corporate lobbyists, discussing subjects intimately related to public policy. Subjects such as “globalisation” and “current economic issues”, which in practical terms mean the giant trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

British Boxing Champion Wanted to Join IS — Court Hears

Three men from London, including a former British boxing champion, planned to travel to Syria to fight with Islamic State (IS), a court has heard.

Ex-boxer Anthony Small, 33, is accused of trying to go to Syria after spreading terrorist material online.

He was arrested after two other men — Michael Coe and Simon Keeler, both 34 — were found with false documents in the back of a lorry at Dover last year.

All three defendants deny the charges against them.

They are all charged with engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Bulgaria: Roma Pickpockets Live in Luxury Mansions

13 people were detained, investigations ongoing

(ANSA) — SOFIA — The Bulgarian private TV Nova Televizia revealed in a special report that many bag snatchers and pickpockets of Roma ethnic origin live in mansions with gardens and drive luxury cars in town of Ignatievo, near the Black Sea.

In an interview, the deputy prime minister and Interior Minister Rumiana Bachvarova did not rule out the possibility that there is a “political umbrella” that protects their criminal activities.

After controls of the financial police and of the service for the fight against organized crime, 13 people were detained and investigations are ongoing on the source of financing of 10 luxury properties.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

EU Opens Antitrust Probe Into Amazon e-Book Distribution

Online retailer under scrutiny for contract clauses

(ANSA) — Brussels, June 11 — The European Commission announced Thursday that it will open an investigation into online retail giant Amazon’s e-book distribution, in light of contractual clauses that will be examined for possible anti-trust violations.

The clauses in question require publishers to inform Amazon about agreements they have that could favor industry competitors, and to offer Amazon the same conditions.

While not calling into question Amazon’s service quality or success, EC competition policy chief Margrethe Vestager said “It is my duty to make sure that Amazon’s arrangements with publishers are not harmful to consumers, by preventing other e-book distributors from innovating and competing effectively with Amazon”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Europe’s Comet Lander Makes Contact Again, A Day After Telling Earth it’s Back in Business

The Philae spacecraft has been in touch with Earth from a comet for the second time since waking up, though it delivered less data than on its first contact.

Sylvain Lodiot, spacecraft operations manager for Philae’s mother ship Rosetta, said Monday that Philae sent back five packets of data on Sunday night — a day after it broke seven months of silence.

Philae became the first spacecraft to settle on a comet when it touched down on icy 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November, but managed to send data to Earth only for about 60 hours before its batteries ran out.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Finland: Horse Manure Plan to Heat Homes

Finland’s government wants the country to turn away from fossil fuels and look towards horse manure to heat its homes instead, it’s reported.

The new coalition’s manifesto sets out plans for the large-scale use of horse dung as a renewable source of energy, the national broadcaster Yle reports. One energy company is already trying out a biofuel made by mixing horse manure with a wood-based litter, which is then burned to create power. The Fortum group says the annual waste created by three horses would be enough to heat a family home for a year. And with about 77,000 horses in Finland, there’s the potential for more than 20,000 homes to become completely manure-warmed.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

France Basilica Fire: Saint-Donatien in Nantes in Ruins

A huge fire has destroyed part of the 19th Century basilica of Saint-Donatien in the French city of Nantes.

The blaze broke out on Monday after morning Mass, with worshippers evacuated from the building, Rev Benoit Bertrand told local media.

Around 40 firefighters worked to extinguish the flames, which are believed to have originated on the roof where work was being carried out.

Two workers escaped from the top of the building unharmed.

The Mayor of Nantes, Johanna Rolland, said the basilica was “an important symbol” for the Catholic community.

In a statement on Facebook (in French) she also thanked firefighters for their “rapid and brave action”.

The blaze broke out at around 10:30 local time (08:30 GMT) and may have been linked to “waterproofing work”, according to the city’s chief fire officer.

The roof and the back part of the basilica — where some wooden beams have given way — have been severely damaged and efforts are now under way to save several precious objects inside the basilica, most notably its organ…

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]
 

Hate and Extremism ‘Not Islam’: French PM

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls stressed on Monday there was no link between extremism and Islam, as he opened a conference aimed at improving ties with France’s large Muslim community.

“We must say all of this is not Islam,” said Valls. “The hate speech, anti-Semitism that hides behind anti-Zionism and hate for Israel… the self-proclaimed imams in our neighbourhoods and our prisons who are promoting violence and terrorism.”

Five months after the jihadist attacks in Paris that killed 17 people and shocked the world, the government will hold a series of meetings with top officials from the roughly five million-strong Muslim community, the largest in Europe…

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

Infowars Reporters Thrown Out of Bilderberg Hotel

Hotel manager says there will be “problems” if we return.

Despite there being no Bilderberg members remaining, the InterAlpen Hotel manager and police kicked out Infowars reporters Rob Dew, Paul Joseph Watson and Josh Owens, telling them they would have “problems” if they returned.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Unemployed Man Hangs Self

Was about to be evicted

(ANSA) — Genoa, June 11 — An unemployed 66-year-old man who was about to be evicted hanged himself in his home, police said Thursday.

The victim had been fired from his job two years ago and could no longer pay the rent.

He did not leave a note, police said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Renzi’s PD Loses Venice After Two Decades in Power

Centre-left party also defeated in Arezzo, Matera, Nuoro runoffs

(supersedes previous) (ANSA) — Rome, June 15 — Premier Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) was licking its wounds Monday after it lost its northern stronghold of Venice in a run-off vote on Sunday after two decades in power there.

Businessman Luigi Brugnaro, running on a center-right civic list with support from Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI) party, took 53% of the vote to beat former magistrate and Senator Felice Casson, who got 46.7%.

This was a reversal of the first-round results, which saw Casson taking 38% and Brugnaro 28.5%.

Analysts said the run-off outcome was due to a low turnout of 48%, in which PD voters essentially deserted Casson while the anti-immigrant, anti-euro Northern League electorate flocked to Brugnaro’s ticket after its own candidate ran alone and lost in the first round.

Also weighing in was center-left voter disenchantment after the arrest in June 2014 of former Venice mayor Giorgio Orsoni in connection with a corruption scandal involving the funnelling of 25 million euros of taxpayer money into political campaigns and away from MOSE, a 5.5-billion-euro system of retractable dikes set to become operational in 2016 after decades of delays.

Brugnaro, 54, is the son of a schoolteacher and a factory worker and in 1997 founded Umana SpA, one of Italy’s first temp agencies. Preliminary results showed the center-right candidate obtaining an absolute majority on the city council, garnering 17 members for his center-right civic list. FI has three council members, the League has two, the New Center Right (NCD) has one and other civic lists have two council members.

Casson’s list seated five councillors, while the PD came away with three and the anti-establishment, anti-euro 5-Star Movement (M5S) garnered three. Elsewhere in Italy, the ruling PD lost Arezzo, Matera and Nuoro amid low turnout of just 47.11%, and prevailed in Mantua and Lecco. The current round of voting is continuing in parts of Sicily on Monday, including the city of Enna, where the ballot boxes are open until 15:00 local time. Also on Monday, PD Deputy Secretary Lorenzo Guerini admitted that defeat in local run-off votes in Venice and other cities had “burned” the centre-left group. But he also argued that, despite the losses, the PD remained Italy’s most widely supported party. “The run-off featured areas of light and darkness,” Guerini said. “Precise analysis (of the results) shows that the PD is clearly Italy’s top party…the defeat in Venice and in other important cities such as Arezzo, Fermo, Matera and Nuoro burns”.

“The fact that we won back cities of symbolic importance like Mantua and Trani, while other good administrators held their positions, beginning in Lecco, is not enough for us to consider this result to be positive,” he said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Mother of British Muslim Convert Killed Fighting for Terror Group Al-Shabaab Says Her ‘Whole World Has Fallen Apart’

The mother of a British Muslim convert who was killed fighting for terror group al-Shabaab says her ‘whole world has fallen apart’ since hearing the news.

Thomas Evans, 25, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, is thought to be one of 11 militants who died after attacking a military base in northern Kenya over the weekend.

His mother Sally previously said she would rather see him jailed in the UK than die on a foreign battlefield after he fled his home to join the Islamist group in Somalia 2011.

Speaking to the BBC today, she said her son had met ‘some people with some very twisted, warped ideas of Islam’ in the local area initially, and was later influenced by material he read online.

She added: ‘I’m very angry that they were prepared to put my son on the line but they are still here. They are not brave enough to go out there themselves.’

Al-Shabaab confirmed the latest attack in Lamu County and said ‘many Kenyan soldiers were killed’ but did not mention the deaths of any of its own insurgents.

A spokesman for Kenya’s Defence Forces confirmed one of the dead militants could be Evans, who converted to Islam in 2010 aged 19, because all the information and previous images ‘point at him’…

           — Hat tip: Mithrandir [Return to headlines]
 

Philae Awakes: What Next for Probe After 7 Month Nap on Comet?

What a wake-up call. On Saturday night, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne received 85 seconds of incredibly good news: a data chirp from the missing European Space Agency lander Philae. Despite seven months adrift and alone on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko since its bumpy landing last year, Philae is back and ready for science.

“Philae is doing very well — it has an operating temperature of -35 °C and has 24 watts of power available,” said lander manager Stephan Ulamec. “The lander is ready for operations.” Here is what’s next:

Philae has finally made contact, but only intermittently, so the first order of business is establishing a better link. The lander speaks to Earth via the orbiting Rosetta satellite, meaning communication is only possible during certain windows when the spacecraft is overhead.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

PVV ‘Near’ To Forming EU Alliance: Will Wilders Move to Brussels?

The Dutch electoral council has named PVV leader Geert Wilders as the successor to Hans Jansen in the European parliament in what the Dutch media have called a ‘futile’ gesture. Wilders is technically entitled to the seat following Jansen’s surprise death earlier this year but will ‘naturally’ not make use of the offer, news agency ANP reported. After the European parliamentary elections last year, Wilders said he intended to take one of the PVV’s seats in Brussels but was prevented from doing so by EU rules which rule out a dual mandate. Wilders is an MP in the Dutch parliament. In addition, the PVV’s failure to form an alliance with six other parties made the option less attractive, commentators said.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Romania Prime Minister Attendance at European Games ‘A Foreign Policy Gaffe, ‘ President Says

BUCHAREST, Romania — Romania’s president says he didn’t know the Romanian prime minister would attend the European Games, which most European Union leaders have avoided because of concerns about host Azerbaijan’s human rights record.

Premier Victor Ponta traveled to Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, for the opening of the games Friday hours after he survived a no-confidence vote in Parliament. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko also attended the opening.

Protests against Azerbaijan’s human rights record took place in cities around the world Friday before the opening ceremony.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Rosetta Mission Control Head: ‘a Perfect Moment’

After seven months of hibernation, Philae is awake again! Finally! ESA’s Rosetta mission head, Paolo Ferri, tells DW why this surprise development could work out better than the team’s original plan.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Bradford Man Arrested Over Nadia Khan Stabbing in ‘Domestic Incident’

Nadia Khan and her unborn child died after she was stabbed in the chest at her home in Bradford yesterday.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Talha Asmal as a Schoolboy Before He Blew Himself Up in the Name of ISIS

Talha Asmal, from Dewsbury, is seen with good luck messages scrawled on his shirt and a school tie worn loosely around his neck as he celebrates the end of his GCSEs with friends.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘We Can Not Imagine What Will Happen’

World War III is already here. It takes place between the West and other states on one hand and terrorist groups and IS on the other hand — and it will only escalate, says peace and conflict researcher and professor of intelligence analysis, Wilhelm Agrell, to the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet.

– We are in something that can best be understood as a world war.

“When will World War III start”? “Was the question in the P1 radio program “Philosophical room” a few weeks ago.

Both Wilhelm Agrell, Professor of intelligence analysis and Kristian Gerner, a history professor, in the program agreed that the conflicts we now see in the Middle East, North Africa and terrorism in Europe should be designated as a world war.

“Some kind of global war is going on, but no declarations of war between the great powers,” said Kristian Gerner to P1.

To Aftonbladet, Wilhelm Agrell explains his reasoning…

           — Hat tip: ESW [Return to headlines]
 

Srebrenica: Former Muslim Commander Oric Arrested in Bern

He is suspected of committing war crimes against Serbs

(ANSA) — SARAJEVO — The former military commander in Srebrenica, Naser Oric, was arrested in Bern today. Against him an international arrest warrant was issued in February by Interpol Serbia, Bosnian media reported.

Oric and four other commanders responsible for the defense of Srebrenica are suspected of having committed war crimes in two villages in the area, Zalazje and Donji Potocari, where nine Serb civilians were killed on July 12, 1992.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Swastika Pattern Depicted on Pitch During Croatia vs. Italy

Match was being played behind closed doors

(ANSA/AP) — SPLIT — Croatia could face punishment by UEFA after a swastika pattern could be seen on the pitch during its European Championship qualifying match against Italy, which ended 1-1 on Friday.

It was unclear whether the symbol was mowed into the pitch or painted on the grass, but it was clearly marked in the middle of the half Italy was attacking in the first period.

Grounds crew attempted to cover it up during halftime, but to little avail.

The match was being played behind closed doors as punishment for racist chanting and other misconduct by Croatia fans during last month’s qualifier against Norway. The November qualifier at San Siro between Italy and Croatia — which also ended in a 1-1 draw — was temporarily halted by crowd trouble.

“It’s one of our problems and we are working to fix it,” said David Suker, the president of the Croatian football association.

“Unfortunately something happened tonight too, but we would prefer not to talk about it now, we’ll talk about it from tomorrow.” A spokesperson for the federation said they had indicated the matter to UEFA, adding “we apologize to Italy and to everyone.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

French President in Algeria to Discuss Terrorism, Regional Security Issues, The Economy

French President Francois Hollande is making a seven-hour visit to Algiers to discuss terrorism, regional security issues and economic partnership with Algerian authorities.

Hollande is meeting Monday with Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal and President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Algeria’s 78-year-old leader whose health is poor.

Bouteflika has been almost totally absent since his April 2013 stroke, yet was re-elected in April for a fourth term. The French presidency is denying any involvement in Algerian politics and the pending succession battle.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS Militants Seize Power Station Near Libyan City of Sirte

UN special envoy says unity government accord in Libya distant

(ANSAmed) — ROME, JUNE 9 — Militants of the Islamic State (ISIS) seized control of a power station west of the Libyan city Sirte after heavy fighting with Libyan militias from Misrata, ISIS militants announced Tuesday. The news was confirmed by Libyan media, citing Misrata militia sources. A message posted on the internet by Welayet Tripoli — or the “Islamic State” of Tripoli — states that “the soldiers of the Caliphate stormed the steam-powered central (electric) station that the atheists of Fajr Libya occupy west of Sirte.” Fajr Libya refers to the Islamic militias that control Tripoli.

“With all our weapons, the central station is completely under control, thanks to God and his power. Even the city of Sirte is totally liberated, thanks to God,” the message said. Sirte is an important port city on the Libyan coast. Meanwhile, the United Nations (UN) Special Envoy to Libya Bernadino Leon said, “More time is needed to continue contact with all the parties to reach an unanimous accord” regarding negotiations for the formation of a national unity government. “I have a hope, perhaps optimism,” said Leon.

“Perhaps we will be able to join the ranks, but we must be vigilant”. The UN mediator on Monday presented a fourth draft agreement to the parties that is being poorly received by the Islamic militias of Libya Fajr coalition, which currently control Tripoli and has influence in the parliament of Tobruk.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Questions Shadow U.S. Strike on Veteran Algerian Jihadist in Libya

He lost an eye in Afghanistan, was earlier reported dead in fighting in Mali and now Libya says he was killed in a U.S. air strike at the weekend. But is the Algerian jihadist dubbed “The Uncatchable” for his decades-long elusiveness really dead?

U.S. officials have yet to confirm Libyan reports that Mokhtar Belmokhtar was killed in eastern Libya, saying on Monday only that the F-15 jet raid appeared to have succeeded but stopping short of confirming his demise.

Doubts were well placed: Belmokhtar, who was in his early 40s, has been reported dead several times only to reappear in jihadist propaganda claiming responsibility for new attacks.

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What is undisputed is that the raid attested to a Libya sliding deeper into armed anarchy since the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi that Western nations fear is creating a jihadist safe haven just across the Mediterranean from Europe.

With two rival Libyan governments and their armed factions battling for control, Islamic State and other jihadist groups like Belmokhtar’s have exploited the chaos to seek refuge, train and expand their influence in the vast North African country.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Several Tunisian Policemen Killed in Two ‘Jihadist Attacks’

Three policemen have been killed and four injured in central Tunisia after suspected jihadists opened fire on them. In a separate incident, militants killed a police officer in clashes on the Algerian border.

The authorities have blamed al Qaeda-linked jihadists for the violence. Islamic extremist have repeatedly targeted Tunisia’s security forces.

The “Islamic State” (IS) jihadist group claimed responsibility for killing 21 tourists and a policeman in an attack on Bardo museum in the capital in March.

Tunisia has seen an increase in Islamist extremism since the 2011 revolution that ousted Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and began the Arab Spring.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Tunisia: Three Officers Killed, 10 Civilians Wounded

In two attacks by armed groups against soldiers

TUNIS — Three National Guard officers were killed last night in two separate attacks by armed groups, local media report. In the shootouts with terrorists at least 10 civilians were injured, according to medical sources. In the governorate of Sidi Bouzid, in a central-southern area of the country, a terrorist was killed and another seriously wounded and taken to hospital for treatment under arrest, according to a Tunisian interior ministry spokesman.

The 10 injured civilians are currently being treated at the regional hospital of Sidi Bouzid, medical sources report. According to the regional healthcare director, quoted by radio Mosaque Fm, the toll is still temporary.

In a first attack carried out by an armed group at a checkpoint in Bir Lahfay, two officers were killed while a third officer was ambushed at around 6 am on Monday morning in Sidi Ali Ben Aoun while he was going to work as security personnel at a school while ninth-year exam are scheduled to take place today.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

US Confirms Target of Libya Air Strike Was Algerian Militant Belmokhtar

Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the veteran Islamist militant behind the Algerian gas field attack in 2013, has been reported killed in Libya. The US has confirmed he was the target of airstrikes at the weekend.

Belmokhtar has been reported killed several times, including in 2013 when he was believed to have died in Mali.

The US military confirmed Belmokhtar had been targeted in the air strike on Saturday night, but did not say if he had been killed.

If confirmed, Belmokhtar’s death would be a major strike against al Qaeda linked groups in the region. Belmokhtar was the leader of the north African Al-Murabitoun militant group and a former chief of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

US Says Airstrike ‘Likely’ Killed Al Qaeda Leader in Libya

The U.S. military launched an airstrike that targeted and “likely” killed an Al Qaeda leader behind the attack on a gas plant in Algeria in 2013 that killed 35 hostages, including three Americans, a senior defense official told Fox News Sunday.

However, an Islamist with ties to Libyan militants told the Associated Press that the airstrikes missed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, instead killing four members of a Libyan extremist group the U.S. has linked to the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Greek PM Tsipras Supports Recognition of Palestine

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, JUNE 9 — Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras told Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki on Monday that he will support a Syriza initiative to propose the recognition of the Palestinian state by the Greek Parliament, as GreekReporter website writes quoting sources. The proposal will be submitted by Syriza’s parliamentary group, the sources added, without specifying a date. The same sources said that Tsipras has an open invitation to visit Palestine and that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas may visit Greece, possibly after an agreement has been achieved with Greece’s creditors.

Tsipras also expressed his support to the Palestinian people and stressed the need to restart negotiations with Israel.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Israel Needs a Global “Iron Dome” — Against Defamation

by Phyllis Chesler

Today, Israel, the Jews, and the West are up against dangerous demagogues who flourish on campuses and in the media. Would we allow a professor to teach that the earth is flat and reward him for teaching Junk Science? Imagine that this professor had a following which demonizes, intimidates, and death threatens all those who believe that the earth is round! Such behavior is typical of Islamists and Stalinists, but here I am describing the Western intelligentsia.

What is frightening about campus anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism is that the Israeli Apartheid Weeks and BDS campaigns have become such a familiar part of North American university life and the internet. Such Big Lie events have become normalized. They have been well-organized by the Muslim Brotherhood through its Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice in Palestine. Already, Jewish students have to be rescued by the campus police from Gaza-like mob attacks and riots. What next? Broken bones, a concussion, God forbid, a murder?

           — Hat tip: Phyllis Chesler [Return to headlines]
 

Michael Oren: US Altered 40-Year Policy on ‘67 Lines Without Consulting Israel

By Herb Keinon

President Barack Obama endorsed the Palestinian position on the 1967 lines in 2011 and by so doing altered more than 40 years of American policy without prior consultation with Israel, former ambassador to the US Michael Oren writes in a book to be published later this month.

Oren, in an account of the book that appeared Friday in The New York Jewish Week, wrote that the Prime Minister’s Office was outraged at the move, and instructed him to call congressional leaders.

“Israel felt abandoned, I was to say. And that is no way to treat an ally,” he wrote…

           — Hat tip: K [Return to headlines]
 

400 Foreigners Fighting With Syrian Kurds Against ISIS

Number reported after US citizen Broomfield died in combat

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, JUNE 11 — Some 400 foreigners from the US, Europe, Australia and Latin America are fighting alongside the YPG Kurdish militias in Syria, reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on Thursday. The figure was released after the news on Wednesday that US citizen Keith Broomfield had died in combat near the Kurdish city Kobane. A few “thousands” more Kurds from Iran and Turkey are also fighting alongside the YPG, SOHR said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Iran Plays Matchmaker to Fight Marriage Fatigue

Iran’s first official matchmaking site has gone online to encourage the country’s millions of singles to marry. It is part of an effort by Tehran to nearly double its population and stem a fall in marriages.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS: Sources: Jihadists Move From Palmyra to Homs-Damascus

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, JUNE 1 — Militants from the Islamic State (Isis) over the past 24 hours have advanced from Palmyra, central Syria, towards the regions of Homs and Damascus, gaining control of a government position near Busayr, sources in the region of Palmyra conquered 10 days ago by Isis told ANSA.

The sources said that gaining control of the Busayr checkpoint enables the jihadists to extend their area of influence around Qaryatayn, north-east of Damascus, already exposed to Isis fire and defended by local insurgents who oppose both the jihadists and government of Damascus.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Jihad on Churches: Muslim Persecution of Christians

by Raymond Ibrahim

“Destroying churches is permissible — as long as the destruction does not bring harm to Muslims, such as false claims that Muslims are persecuting Christians…” — Dr. Yusuf al-Burhami, leading Salafi cleric, Egypt.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Oman: 1,000 Foreign Workers Arrested in Muscat

Major construction sites need workers but few rights

(by Virginia Di Marco) (ANSAmed) — ROME, MAY 28 — Over 1,000 workers without a permit to work on construction sites have been discovered this week in Muscat, Oman, while they were working on the construction of a new international airport in the capital, a project worth several billion euros.

The illegal workers, including many Bangladeshi nationals, were admitted into the sultanate as house or restaurant help.

They will be soon expelled and the firms employing them — which have not been identified — will need to pay a hefty fine, said the director general for wellbeing in the labor market of the Ministry of human resources, Salim bin said al-Badi, in comments quoted by the local press.

But this is not just the story of a mass arrest. It is rather the umpteenth and clear sign of the contrasts registered in the country between immigration policies on one side and huge plans for infrastructural development which the government is bringing forward and means to complete in the near future.

Recently, Oman has started a sort of revolution, investing on transport and industrial projects with the final aim of diversifying the economy, up until now almost entirely based on oil sales.

In order to carry out this systemic plan, foreign workers are necessary while at the same time institutions want to limit and control their access. And by analyzing the demography of the country it is easy to understand why: today, foreign workers in Oman are some 1.5 million out of a total population with just over 3.6 million citizens. Since 2013, the government of Muscat has announced a crackdown on working permits for foreigners, sparking the protest of many companies — mainly in construction — that complain they are not able to recruit the workforce they need anymore.

Local media are reporting on a daily basis stories of illegal foreign workers who have been arrested: but security forces don’t seem to be greatly deterring the phenomenon. The dream of a job — even if it is illegal and poorly paid — continues to attract thousands and thousands of people from across the region. Just yesterday the Times of Oman published a story on how workers are recruited for the day at dawn on the country’s streets. Hundreds of desperate people, said the paper, queue on the street, hoping to work on the many construction sites. Some know they are breaking the law; others don’t think so, believing their ‘entry permit’ also enables them to work. But such a permit will not save them from prison, nor from deportation.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Turkey: Trial Opens in Case of 19-Year-Old Killed and Burned

Outside tribunal women demand justice for Ozgecan Aslan

(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, JUNE 12 — The trial into the brutal murder of Ozgecan Aslan, the 19-year-old killed and burned in February after she resisted rape, opened this morning in Mersin, in southern Turkey.

The defendant is Ahmet Auphi, Altindoken, a 26-year-old bus driver who confessed to the murder. He was driving the bus on which the girl was travelling. His co-defendants and alleged accomplices are his father, Ncmettin Altindoken and his friend Fatih Gokce.

They risk a life term. In a competition of solidarity, a thousand lawyers have offered to assist the victim’s family but only a few were admitted in court as it can hold a maximum of 100 people.

The local press stressed that two of the three judges in the panel are women. For security reasons, all other proceedings were suspended today in court.

The trial has been long-awaited in Turkey, where the case moved and enraged civil society. Women’s rights groups were demonstrating outside court on Friday, demanding justice for Ozgecan Aslan and the end of women’s murders in Turkey. Last year, 294 women were killed in the country.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Turkey’s Main Opposition Lays Out Coalition Terms: Erdogan Must Stop ‘Meddling’

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s largest opposition party has laid out terms for joining a coalition government, including forcing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan not to exceed his constitutional powers.

The ruling party, which Erdogan founded, lost its parliamentary majority in the June 7 elections. It is expected to enter a coalition with one of the three other parties represented in parliament or seek a fragile minority government.

Main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said Monday his party was not ruling out a coalition with any party.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Video of French Woman Abducted in Yemen, ‘Bring Me Home’

Isabelle Prime kidnapped on February 24 in capital Sanaa

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, JUNE 1 — French authorities have authenticated a video posted to Youtube featuring Isabelle Prime, the consultant of a Yemeni organization kidnapped on February 24 together with her interpreter in downtown Sanaa.

In the video, the woman is dressed in black and addresses French President Francois Hollande and Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour asking them to please take her back to France soon.

According to I-Télé, the 30-year-old World Bank advisor is allegedly held by Yemeni tribes. The video was allegedly filmed in April.

The footage shows the young woman in a Yemeni desert, she is kneeling and her face looks tired. Forced by her abductors, she addresses Hollande and the Yemeni head of State, Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi: “Please bring me to France, fast”. The video only lasts 21 seconds.

According to Ouest France, French diplomats are in talks with the Yemeni abductors. Chérine Makkaoui, Prime’s interpreter, was released on March 10 in Aden, in the south. From Bonn, Germany, where he is on a mission, French foreign ministry spokesman, Romain Nadal, told the associated Press that Isabelle Prime’s family will be received tomorrow by the ministry.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

‘What ISIS is Doing Should Not be Surprising’

Author and commentator Bat Ye’or says that what ISIS is doing is in line with what was done historically by radical Muslims.

Asked about radical Islam as we see it these days, Bat Ye’or told Arutz Sheva, “For those who know some Islamic history, there is no surprise, because what ISIS is doing is what you read all the time in the Muslim and Arab chronicles from the 7th century till the 20th century with the genocide of the Armenians in Turkey.”

“The conduct of the war, the jihadist ideology, the way it is perpetrated against those who are considered heretic Muslims or non-Muslims, these are very familiar things in Islamic history,” she continued, adding that this is done according to the Koran and jihadist laws, “so we don’t have to be astonished that it is done like that.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Poll: Americans and Europeans Differ on Aid to Ukraine

Yes to economic aid and no military force for Eu, contrary Us

(ANSA-AP) — MOSCOW — A new survey shows that Americans are less willing than Europeans to send economic aid to Ukraine, where the government is struggling to keep the economy afloat while battling Russian-backed separatists. At the same time, Americans would be more willing than Europeans to use military force against Russia if it were to attack a neighboring country that was a member of NATO, according to the survey released early Wednesday by the Pew Research Center. While Ukraine is not a NATO member, other former Soviet republics are and they worry that the Western alliance would not defend them if it meant military confrontation with Russia. The survey examined public opinion in eight NATO countries: the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain. The interviews were conducted in April and May among about 1,000 adults in each country, with margins of error ranging from plus or minus 3.4 to 4.1 percentage points. Of the eight countries, only Italy was less supportive of sending economic aid to Ukraine than the U.S., where 62 percent of those surveyed were in favor. Support was highest in Poland and Spain, at 77 percent. But when asked whether NATO should send arms to Ukraine, the U.S. and Poland were most in favor, at 46 percent and 50 percent, respectively.

Germany was at the bottom of the pack with only 19 percent support. Americans and Germans were also at opposite ends on the question of whether their country should use military force to defend a NATO ally if it were attacked by Russia. In the U.S., 56 percent surveyed said yes, while in Germany only 38 percent said they would support military action. In Italy and Poland, the interviews were conducted face-to-face; in the other six countries they were done over the telephone, on land lines and cell phones.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Russian Pancake Czar Targets Manhattan With Mom’s Secret Recipe

If you want to win the hearts and minds of Americans, start with their bellies.

That’s Mikhail Goncharov’s recipe. The founder of Russia’s largest chain of blini — thin, fried pancakes filled with everything from caviar to cheese — is kicking off the global expansion of his fast-food chain Teremok in Midtown Manhattan this fall.

While U.S. chains like Burger King and McDonald’s are thriving in Russia, nobody’s ever tried going the other way with a food similar to crepes.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

MERS Death Toll Rises to 16 in South Korea Outbreak

Another patient has died in South Korea amid an outbreak of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers), bringing total fatalities to 16. Officials also reported five new cases in South Korea, which has the largest outbreak outside the Middle East. Officials say 150 people have now contracted the virus in South Korea.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Sudan’s Omar Al-Bashir Arrives in Khartoum to Triumphant Reception

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has arrived in the capital Khartoum after he fled South Africa, avoiding arrest. He is wanted for war crimes during a conflict in the Darfur region, in which about 300,000 people died.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Changes in Cuba? Don’t Hold Your Breath!

The April 6, 2015, issue of CFR’s corporate member Time magazine showed a picture of a dilapidated house in Havana, with the text “Cuba: What Will Change When The Americans Arrive?” imposed over the photo.

Well, let me tell you what I think: Nothing will change in Cuba when the Americans arrive because in most things Castro’s Cuba is a country more advanced than the U.S. Actually, Americans have much to learn from Castro’s Cuba. No wonder David Rockefeller and other CFR honchos are convinced that Castro’s Cuba is “a model to follow.”

So, what can Americans can learn from the Castroist Cubans? Among other things, they can learn how to destroy the middle class. For more than a quarter of a century the CFR conspirators have been working hard to destroy the American middle class. Well, Castro did it in Cuba in just a few years.

Before Castro took power in Cuba in 1959 with the help of the Rockefellers and their CFR agents in the U.S. government, Cuba was one of the countries in the world with the most expansive middle class — only second to the U.S. Today, there are only two social classes in Cuba: the hyper rich, a small group composed of Castro himself, his relatives and close associates, and the hyper poor, consisting of the 99 percent of the population living in the most abject moral and material misery.

Even more important, Castro did it without the help of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. A true accomplishment.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Ader: In Hungary Only Refugees

For economic migrants to find solution in countries of origin

(ANSA) — GORIZIA — The Hungarian president, Janos Ader, stressed today that Hungary “is ready to accept only political refugees”, whereas “Europe should engage more in making better the life conditions of who is searching jobs in their respective countries”. Ader added that Italy is facing the migration from the South, Hungary is tackling the issue of the migrations from East and that, after Italy, Hungary is perhaps the country that suffers the most from the pressure of illegal immigrants.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

EC ‘Not Aware of Renzi Plan B’ On Migrants

Premier’s comments seen as challenge to other EU leaders

(ANSA) — Brussels, June 15 — European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said Monday that the EU executive was “not aware” of Premier Matteo Renzi’s plan B to tackle the migrant crisis. Renzi said at the weekend that Italy had a plan B ready if Italy did not get more support from the EU in managing the emergency. The Commission has proposed relocating 40,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece to other parts of the union. The EC plan has divided the EU, with many states, including France, coming out against the obligation to receive the asylum seekers. Renzi, on the other hand, says the proposal does not go far enough. “We believe we have found a good balance,” Bertaud said of the proposal, which will be examined by EU interior ministers on Tuesday before being discussed at the June 25-26 summit of European leaders. “We want the relocation system to be obligatory”. The EC proposal is part of its Agenda on Migration which also features the tripling of funding for migrant rescue operations in the southern Mediterranean and the launch of a naval operation to target human traffickers.

Renzi’s talk of a plan B was seen as a challenge to his fellow EU leaders, with the migrant emergency visibly becoming difficult to handle, with asylum seekers camped out at train stations in Rome and Milan and in the city of Ventimiglia on the border with France.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

France Says Won’t Let Asylum Seekers Through Border

Paris says Italy must process requests

(ANSA) — Paris, June 15 — French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Monday that France will not allow asylum seekers to cross its border with Italy, arguing it was up to Rome to process their requests. “We’ve made around 6,000 migrants return to Italy (since the start of the year),” Cazeneuve told BFM-TV the RMC radio station. “They must not pass through. It’s necessary to respect the Schengen rules”. He said Italy must “agree to set up centres” to distinguish legitimate refugees from undocumented economic migrants.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

France and Italy Clash as Migrant Stand-Off Opens EU Rift

Rome (AFP) — Italy and France engaged in a war of words Monday as a standoff over hundreds of Africans offered a graphic illustration of Europe’s migration crisis.

Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano described images of migrants perched on rocks at the border town of Ventimiglia after being refused entry to France as a “punch in the face for Europe.”

His French counterpart Bernard Cazeneuve hit back by insisting that France was fully within its rights to send illegal immigrants or asylum seekers back to Italy.

That prompted Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to weigh into the escalating row. “Europeans have a duty to address the problem of migrants together,” he said. “That is the plan A for us. The muscular approach of certain ministers of foreign countries is going in the opposite direction.”

The exchanges set the scene for further clashes when European Union ministers meet Tuesday in Luxembourg for talks on the crisis.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

France Says Italy Must Abide by EU Immigration Rules

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve hit back at Italy over responsibility for migrants on Monday, saying it must abide by European asylum rules and that France would continue to turn them back.

Hundreds of African migrants are stranded at a border crossing in northern Italy, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Sunday called for a change to regulations.

Italy has long complained that its European partners are shirking their responsibilities and leaving southern Mediterranean countries like Italy and Greece to handle the migrant emergency without effective support.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Migrant Bodies Found in Niger After Sahara Sandstorm

The bodies of 18 migrants, mainly West Africans who were trying to reach Europe, have been found in the Sahara desert in Niger, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) says.

Most died of dehydration after losing their way in a sandstorm, having set off from the desert town of Arlit.

The migrants came from different countries, including Niger, Mali, Ivory Coast, Senegal, the Central African Republic, Liberia, and Guinea, with one reportedly from Algeria, IOM says.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Paris Wants EU Migrant Camps in Italy and Greece

To sort refugees from economic migrants to be deported

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, JUNE 15 — France’s interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve has reportedly been trying to convince his Italian counterpart of the need to create EU-managed camps in Italy and Greece to distinguish economic migrants from asylum seekers on their arrival. “The former would immediately be deported back to their countries of origin,” reported Le Monde on Monday, while “the others will be distributed between European countries.” Le Monde describes the idea in a lengthy article, saying there would be “a European office for asylum, and the UNHCR would make the initial selection while (EU, Ed.) States will study the files.” The blocking of migrants between Ventimiglia and Menton was due — states the newspaper — mostly to an explosive situation in Paris, where in only a week hundreds of Africans have been evacuated three times from makeshift camps after an initial clearing out on June 2 from Pont de la Chapelle, which led to polemics and criticism of police methods. “A camp in Ventimiglia is less a media attraction than a makeshift camp in Paris…,” reports Le Monde.

President Francois Hollande — who on Sunday will be meeting with Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi in Lain — asked Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to work on a plan based on three essential points: how to propose better reception of migrants, how to the provide urgent housing to migrants and how to be more effective in their deportation. A series of proposals is expected to be announced in the coming days.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Parts of Rome ‘Turning Into No-Go Areas Due to Sanitation and Security Issues Caused by Migrants’ Claim Local Businesses

Parts of Rome are being turned into a ‘no-go area’ because of concerns about security and sanitation linked to the huge surge of migrants in the city, local businesses have claimed.

Migrants camping near Rome’s Tiburtina station have been forcibly cleared by police amid protests by local businesses.

As the build-up of refugees at the Italian capital’s train station increased, it led to ugly clashes with police, an outcry from the right and fresh calls from Rome for EU help.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Renzi’s Plan B

Time-limited permits and crackdown on shipping. Vessels assisting migrants will have to take them home. Charters for repatriations to Africa. President Mattarella opposes “less conventional” intervention in Libya

di Fiorenza Sarzanini

ROME — Time-limited permits to asylum seekers to allow them to cross the border and move around Europe. Negotiations with a number of EU countries for an anti-people trafficker police operation in Libya, seeking to involve Egypt. An obligation for non-Italian registered vessels assisting migrants in international waters to transfer them to their own countries with access to Italian ports denied. What Italy’s prime minister Matteo Renzi called “Plan B if Europe fails to choose the path of solidarity” in an interview with the Corriere della Sera yesterday is actually a palette of possible options should Italy fail to secure effective cooperation from the EU on migrant management. This resolute diplomatic action flanks the already planned technical moves to deal with the emergency at rail and road crossing points, triggered by Germany’s suspension of the Schengen agreement during the G7 summit and France’s blockade of Ventimiglia. But the action is also in expectation of more landings in the next few days. The Prime Minister’s Office has ruled out the floated tit-for-tat moves over sanctions against Putin’s Russia. But with efforts already under way to secure policing agreements with African nations and Bangladesh, to fast-track repatriations and to immediately set up distribution centres for migrants, more confidential, and hopefully more effective, negotiations are now under way.

Charters

If France continues to close the border crossing, provisional identity permits could be issued to allow migrants to use other routes. A more structured approach will be adopted by negotiators taking their cue from the agreement with The Gambia signed by chief of police Alessandro Pansa a fortnight ago. Provisions include the supply of SUVs and computers, and organising training courses for local police, in exchange for fast-tracked repatriation on charter flights. The list of countries to negotiate with has been drawn up: Ivory Coast, Senegal, Bangladesh, Mali and Sudan, although the last two have already indicated they are unfavourable. Diplomatic action will be required to unblock the situation. Finding a technical agreement with the other parties should make progress swifter as well as removing any political implications for the foreign states. Repatriations would be carried out on the format already in place with Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. Illegal immigrants identified with the cooperation of consulates would leave Italy on charter flights.

Libya

The UN is believed to be unlikely to authorise intervention in Libya and the UN representative Bernardino León is thought even less likely to be able to form a government. For that reason, the possibility of less conventional intervention is gaining ground. Italy’s president Sergio Mattarella has, however, always ruled out any possibility of Italy breaking step with the UN. A more plausible option is preventing non-Italian ships that have assisted migrants in international waters from docking in Italy, since maritime law treats vessels as part of the territory of the flag state…

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

Times: Record in UK From Romania and Bulgaria

Increase up to 220% of requests to work in the country

(ANSA) — LONDON — Record increase of immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria that want to work in the UK, after a year since the limits on freedom of movement for citizens of these two countries in Europe were canceled. The daily Times said that 152.000 Romanians (+220%) and 40.000 Bulgarians (+120%) are registered to get a working permit in the UK.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Tourists’ Terror at Calais: Coach Passengers Capture Shocking Footage as Migrants Surround Their Vehicle and Smash Their Way Onto a Lorry Heading to the UK

This is the shocking moment migrants surround a passenger coach as they tried to smash their way into the back of a lorry before it boarded a ferry at Calais bound for the UK.

The dramatic footage was filmed by a passenger, who was travelling from the French port town to Dover.

As vehicles begin to queue up as they enter the port, one of the passengers on the coach begins filming as a large group of migrants approach them and one of the lorries.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UN Chief Says Britain Must Take in More Med Migrants

In remarks strongly condemned by Tory MPs, Peter Sutherland suggested the UK was not housing its fair share of people fleeing turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UN Human Rights Chief Urges Europe to Accept More Migrants; Fight Prejudice and Discrimination

The United Nations’ human rights chief is urging European nations to accept more refugees and to do more to fight prejudice and discrimination against migrants once they arrive.

Zeid Raad al-Hussein told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday that he was “shocked and shamed by the frequent demonization of migrants that we see in many countries whose people benefit from prosperity, peace and ease.”

Zeid said the number of migrants dying in the Mediterranean is “cause for profound alarm” and commended the European Union’s intensified search-and-rescue effort. But he urged “far bolder steps” to push the message that the EU needs and should welcome more migrants of all skill levels.

He urged leaders to “counter the growing bigotry about migrants,” warning it could escalate into violence.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Homophobic Front Page Shocks Morocco

Cover of intellectual weekly sparks discussion

(ANSAmed) — RABAT, JUNE 12 — The homophobic front page of weekly Maroc-Hebdo has sparked a controversy in Morocco.

“Should homosexuals be burned?”, ran a headline with a homosexual couple in a swimming pool.

The health minister wants the decriminalization of homosexuality in Morocco and the weekly, which hits newsstands on Thursday night, focused on the issue, writing that “it is certainly an individual right. But where are morals and religious values?”.

The front page sparked a controversy and was criticized on the Facebook page of the weekly usually read by managers, intellectuals and students. The magazine has always watched carefully social changes since it was founded in 1991. Comments varied between insults, surprise and attacks.

Homosexuality is constantly at the center of debate. Placebo and Femen expressed support for gay rights last week.

In Morocco, homosexuality is a crime; article 489 of the criminal code provides for sentences of up to three years for those committing “acts against nature”. The health ministry report asking to scrap homosexuality as a crime has once again brought the issue at the center of political debate.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

I Don’t Teach Shakespeare Because He’s White

The Washington Post has published a guest article by a California teacher arguing that American high school students shouldn’t read Shakespeare because he’s a dead, white man.

Dana Dusbiber, who teaches English in Sacramento, says she avoids Hamlet and all the rest because her minority students shouldn’t be expected to study a “a long-dead, British guy” (Dusbiber herself is white). And while Shakespeare is widely regarded as the premier writer of the English language, able to timelessly portray themes central to the human experience, Dusbiber says he only is regarded that way because “some white people” ordained it and he can easily be replaced.

“Why not teach the oral tradition out of Africa, which includes an equally relevant commentary on human behavior?” She suggests. “Why not teach translations of early writings or oral storytelling from Latin America or Southeast Asia other parts of the world? Many, many of our students come from these languages and traditions … perhaps we no longer have the time to study the Western canon that so many of us know and hold dear.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Playboy and the (Homo) Sexual Revolution (Updated)

[WARNING: Graphic Content.]

Thanks to psychologist Dr. Judith Reisman, we now know that the “Kinsey Report” was a fraud. Alfred Kinsey, left, a Rockefeller-funded University of Indiana zoologist, pretended to be a Conservative family man. In fact, he was a child molester and homosexual pervert who seduced his male students and forced his wife and associates to participate in pornographic home movies.

Kinsey’s agenda, in Reisman’s words, was “to supplant what he saw as a narrow procreational Judeo Christian era with a promiscuous “anything goes” bi/gay pedophile paradise.” (Crafting Gay Children: An Inquiry, p.4)

More than 25% of his sample were prostitutes and prison inmates including many sex offenders. Kinsey, who died prematurely of “orchitis,” a lethal infection in his testicles that followed years of orgiastic “self-abuse”, said 10 per cent of American men were gay when, in fact, only two per cent were…

The Kinsey Report inspired Hugh Hefner to start PLAYBOY in 1953. Hefner said the Kinsey Report “produced a tremendous sexual awakening, largely because of media attention…I really view Kinsey as the beginning. Certainly the book was very important to me.”

With messianic fervor, Playboy took its message of sexual freedom to the American male who, in the 1950’s and 1960’s, still consecrated sex for marriage.

But the freedom was illusory. Playboy’s aim, the aim of all pornographers, was to hook men on the glossy fantasy. To do this, they had to prevent them from finding true satisfaction in marriage.

In Reisman’s words, “Playboy was the first national magazine to exploit college men’s fears of women and family commitment. Playboy offered itself as a reliable, comforting substitute for monogamous heterosexual love.” (Soft Porn Plays Hardball, p 47)

Thus “sworn enemies,” Playboy and feminists, found common ground in their hatred of healthy heterosexuality expressed in the nuclear family. As a result of the (homo)sexual revolution, society now suffers from epidemics of family breakdown, pornography, impotence, child sexual abuse, sado sexual violence, teen pregnancy, a cocktail of STD’s and, of course, AIDS. The birthrate has plummeted by 60% since 1960 and is now below replacement level.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Is the Universe Bubbly? Searching in Space for Quantum Foam

An incredibly small and fantastically strange theoretical feature of the universe is too microscopic to see directly, so a team of scientists has instead looked for it by studying some of the brightest galaxies in the universe.

As light travels to Earth from distant galaxies, its road through the cosmos may not be smooth. A theoretical characteristic of the universe called “quantum foam” could make space and time rough and chaotic at very small scales. Some models suggest that scientists could see the effect of this foam in a large group of photons that have traveled a very long distance.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The Sunday Times’ Snowden Story is Journalism at Its Worst — and Filled With Falsehoods

Western journalists claim that the big lesson they learned from their key role in selling the Iraq War to the public is that it’s hideous, corrupt and often dangerous journalism to give anonymity to government officials to let them propagandize the public, then uncritically accept those anonymously voiced claims as Truth. But they’ve learned no such lesson. That tactic continues to be the staple of how major U.S. and British media outlets “report,” especially in the national security area. And journalists who read such reports continue to treat self-serving decrees by unnamed, unseen officials — laundered through their media — as gospel, no matter how dubious are the claims or factually false is the reporting.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

8 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/15/2015

  1. NYPD creating new suspicionless checkpoint “revenue enhancement” stops

    wow, only on LI… NYPD stopped traffic on the LIE (I495) for over 30 minutes!! Just to see how many motorcyclists would sit in traffic for 30 minutes or drive in between the lanes, and ultimately end up being ticketed….

    These NYPD officers should be forced to pay out of their paychecks the gas wasted by all the motorists that were forced to idle for the 30 minutes. Plus have to pay every person their time and a half hourly-rate wage for the inconvenience!!

  2. >>The Justice Department allowed the agency to monitor only addresses and “cybersignatures” — patterns associated with computer intrusions — that it could tie to foreign governments. But the documents also note that the N.S.A. sought permission to target hackers even when it could not establish any links to foreign powers. <<

    The executive's power to search at and near the border has long been considered plenary. The SCt has properly not required probable cause for searches there. Many in the press like to pretend otherwise.

  3. Alert
    Terror in Scandinavia
    Anonymous mail to international media pointed at six embassies
    – We have put 1 ton of explosives at one of these addresses

    Mentioned
    – Swedish Embassy in Oslo
    – Spanish Embassy in Stockholm

    At the same time
    Afghan “Peace talks” in Oslo
    Who invited the Taliban for tea in Oslo these days? Formally, the Norwegian government? Courtesy of Norwegians?

    • As Steve Coughlin says in that presentation, this is the 10th year of the OIC plan for the terrorization of the West. Expect more of this, much more.

  4. Mrs O’s overseas visit

    What was that country she was visiting, again, today, with her mother and the O daughters…? Islamic symbols on every girl. Where were the boys?

    • Mrs O visiting – Third World

      “Yesterday the trio were seen arriving at Downing Street shortly before 5pm, accompanied by Mrs Obama’s mother, Marian Robinson.

      They were warmly greeted by David and Samantha Cameron who welcomed Mrs Obama with friendly hugs before posing on the steps of Downing Street.

      Once inside, it is understood they discussed Mrs Obama’s ongoing effort to improve education for girls across the third world.”

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