Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/2/2015

The Islamic State has issued a fatwa banning the practice of pigeon-breeding. Violators will face possible flogging. Islamic theologians say the sight of the birds’ genitals as they fly overhead offends Islam. Devout Muslims possess a special visual lobe that allows them to see the genitals of birds, which are not normally visible to kuffar.

In other news, a 23-year-old “Dane” has been jailed in Copenhagen for supporting the Islamic State.

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

Thanks to Fjordman, JD, MC, Papa Whiskey, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

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

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

Financial Crisis
» France: Hollande Entering ‘Money Time’ Over Jobless Pledge
» French Unemployment Rises 0.7% in April to Historic High
» Greece Debt Crisis: Could it All Fall Apart for Tsipras?
» Is This Greece’s Last Month in the Eurozone?
 
USA
» Cassini Sends Final Close Views of Odd Moon Hyperion
» ‘Diet Coke’ Muslim Discrimination Passenger Has Ties to Radical Imams
» Environonsense — Eco-Faithful Rant; DOD Enforces EPA Swiping Water Rights
» FBI Behind Mysterious Surveillance Aircraft Over US Cities
» FBI Flying Surveillance Aircraft Over US Cities; Planes Traced to Fake Companies
» FIFA Sponsor Coke Welcomes Sepp Blatter’s Resignation
» Florida Court Rules “Off Grid” Living Illegal
» Friend of Boston Marathon Bomber Jailed for Six Years
» Investigation: Undercover Agents Snuck Fake Explosives, Banned Weapons Past TSA
» Justice Department Funding Study on ‘Far-Right’ Social Media Use
» NASA Chief Wants to Cut Mars Travel Time in Half
» New FBI Official: Terror Threat in Ohio is Surprising
» Obama: I’ve Restored the US as the ‘Most Respected Country in the World’
» Pataki: Rand Paul Made ‘Terrible Mistake’
» Rule by the Corporations
» Sepp Blatter, Under Investigation, To Resign as FIFA President
» Shooting Victim’s Family Begs De Blasio: ‘We Need Stop-and-Frisk’
» Supreme Court Rules for Muslima Denied Abercrombie Job Over Hijab
» The Military is Sending Live Anthrax Around the Country
» Trans-Pacific Partnership is About More Than Trade
» US Muslim in Abercrombie Hijab Court Win
» US Senate Passes NSA Reform
» Why America is in Generational Demise
 
Canada
» Tobacco Firms to Pay Billions in Damages in Canada
 
Europe and the EU
» Belgium Muslim Official Says He’d “Slaughter Each and Every” Jew
» Bulgarian Police Recover Looted Krater
» Dane Jailed for Supporting IS
» Dane Jailed for Supporting ISIS
» Eerie Comet Landscape Revealed by Rosetta Spacecraft Photos
» France Says Climate Deal Must Avoid US Congress Vote
» French Red Cross Faces €11 Million Bill for Overworked Staff
» Full Reboot Allows Large Hadron Collider to Hunt New Particles
» Germany: British Army Tank Crushes Learner’s Car
» Germany: Rights Groups Critical of Egypt President’s Visit
» Goodbye Sweden
» Greece to Support Turkish Stream Pipeline
» ISIS Bombard French With 40,000 Tweets Each Day
» Le Pen Sues Over National Front Expulsion
» Norwegian FM Tells UK: You Have More Influence Inside EU
» ‘Snowden Could Come to Norway to Collect Prize’
» Sweden: One Wounded in Police-Station Shooting
» Tank Crushes Learner Driver’s Car in Germany, Causing Almost £9,000 Worth of Damage
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Archaeologists Restore Early Islamic Caliph’s Palace on the Shores of the Sea of Galilee
» British NGO Threatens Legal Action Against Israel Over Claim That it Has Hamas Link
» Islamic State Supporters in Gaza Give Hamas 48 Hours to Halt Crackdown
» Narendra Modi to Become First Indian PM to Visit Israel
» Op-Ed: Blood Sacrifice
 
Middle East
» Crackdown on Christianity: Iran Sentences 18 to Prison Over Faith
» Defection of Tajik Commander PR Coup for ISIS, Say Experts
» Iraq: The Monk Who Saved Thousands of Manuscripts From is Jihadists
» Is Closes Iraq Dam Gates, Sparking Humanitarian Fears
» ISIS Bans Pigeon Breeding — Punishable by Public Flogging — Because Seeing Birds’ Genitals Overhead Offends Islam
» ISIS’ Frightening Arsenal: Remote-Controlled Sniper Rifles, Steel Plated Suicide Trucks
» ISIS’s View of Christians Echoes That of Official Saudi Fatwas
» Turkish President: Country Not Sending Arms to Terrorists in Syria
» U.S. Bombers Hold Fire on Islamic State Targets Amid Ground Intel Blackout
 
Russia
» Czechs and Slovaks Protest ‘False’ Russian Documentary
» Hacked Emails Expose George Soros as Ukraine Puppet-Master
» MH17 Crash: ‘Old Buk Missile Used’ — Russian Firm
» Russian Missile Maker: MH17 Shot Down by Ukrainian Missile
» The Agency: From a Nondescript Office Building in St. Petersburg, Russia, An Army of Well-Paid “Trolls” Has Tried to Wreak Havoc All Around the Internet — and in Real-Life American Communities.
 
South Asia
» Malaysia Airlines ‘Technically Bankrupt’
» Muslim Cleric: Women Who Wear Jeans Are to Blame for Earthquakes, Terrorism
» Pakistanis Respond After ‘Spy Pigeon’ Detained in India
» Pakistani Politican Blames Women Wearing Jeans for Earthquakes
 
Far East
» A Look at the US Stance on the South China Sea Dispute
» China Ship Capsize: ‘Race Against Time’ In Yangtze Rescue
» Chinese Dog-Eating Festival Outrages Foreigners
» Cries for Help Heard From Capsized Boat in China’s Yangtze River
» Gas Buildup Under Fukushima Threatens Hydrogen Explosion, Warn Nuclear Officials
» It’s Official: China, South Korea Sign Free Trade Agreement
» New ATMs in China Recognize Your Face
» Sorcery and Sexism in Papua New Guinea
 
Immigration
» ASEAN’s Response to Rohingya Crisis Falls Short
» EU Ready to Discuss Terms of Asylum Sharing, Says Avramopoulos
» France: Under the Paris Metro
» French Police Clear Migrant ‘Slum’ In Heart of Paris
» French Police Pull Down Paris Migrant Camp
» French Police Clear Migrant Camp in Paris
» French Border Police Have Stopped Migrants Trying to Sneak Into Britain 18,000 Times This Year — Four Times the Figure for the Whole of 2013
» Lampedusa in the Alps
» Merkel: Germany is Becoming a ‘Country of Immigration’
» Migration Could Change Face of European Civilisation, Says Orban
» Migration Threatens European Civilisation: Hungary PM
» Migration Threatens European Civilisation, Says Hungary PM
» Record Number of Unaccompanied Minors Seek Asylum in Sweden
» Rise in Migrant Babies Means UK Will Have a Bigger Population Than Germany by 2060
» Sweden: As Summer Comes, Asylum Seekers Make Way for Tourists
» UN Refugee Agency Picked Islamic State Terrorists for Relocation to Norway
 
Culture Wars
» Google Preaches Diversity But Hiring Numbers Still Lag
» Liberals Worship Caitlyn Jenner as Transgender “Goddess”
 
General
» Contact Lenses May Alter Bacteria in the Eye
» Global Ranking on Corruption and Justice Aims to Promote Good Governance
» Hyper-Precise Atomic Clocks Face Off to Redefine Time
» Laser Weapons Get Real
» The Babylon Code: Key to Understanding the Coming One World Economic, Governmental, And Religious Sytem
 

France: Hollande Entering ‘Money Time’ Over Jobless Pledge

François Hollande’s gamble of stating publicly that he won’t stand for re-election in 2017 if he can’t stem rising unemployment is looking increasingly like it won’t pay off.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

French Unemployment Rises 0.7% in April to Historic High

Despite some modest signs of economic recovery, French unemployment figures climbed to a historic high of 3.53 million people in April, according to official figures released on Monday.

Unemployment rose by 0.7 percent in April, meaning an additional 26,200 people joined jobless queues, France’s labour ministry revealed.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Greece Debt Crisis: Could it All Fall Apart for Tsipras?

This could be a crucial week for Greece.

You’ve probably read that sentence somewhere every week since the end of January.

And yet it still holds true. Because this really could be a crucial week for Greece, as the money continues to run out and further payments to the International Monetary Fund loom large. The next one — €300m; £215m — is due on Friday.

Furthermore, at the end of this month, Greece’s current disputed bailout agreement with its international creditors expires.

And without some kind of deal, there won’t be another one.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Is This Greece’s Last Month in the Eurozone?

Another crucial week for Greece goes by, yet nothing has changed. The need for financial aid combined with left-wing phantasies heightens the tension in the European tragedy, says DW’s Bernd Riegert.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Cassini Sends Final Close Views of Odd Moon Hyperion

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has returned images from its final close approach to Saturn’s oddball moon Hyperion, upholding the moon’s reputation as one of the most bizarre objects in the solar system. The views show Hyperion’s deeply impact-scarred surface, with many craters displaying dark material on their floors.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

‘Diet Coke’ Muslim Discrimination Passenger Has Ties to Radical Imams

By Jordan Schachtel

A Muslim woman who claimed over the weekend—in a social media post that has since gone viral—that United Airlines discriminated against her because of her faith, has a history rife with deep connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Imams.

31-year-old Tahera Ahmad, who serves as the Muslim chaplain at Northwestern University, claimed over the weekend that she was discriminated against because a United Airlines flight attendant allegedly refused to give her a full can of unopened Diet Coke. When asked for an explanation as to why she had been refused her unopened Diet Coke, the flight attendant allegedly told her that the Coke can could be used as a “weapon on the plane,” Ahmad stated in a Facebook post. After she complained, a passenger told her, “You Moslem you need to shut the f—k up,” according to Ahmad’s recounting of what happened on board. Ahmad’s Facebook page was taken down this afternoon.

Without any evidence (but for her firsthand account) that the incident ever occurred, many in the mainstream media have taken to reporting on Ahmad’s account as a case of “Islamophobia.”

Islamic supremacist groups such as CAIR (Council on American-Islamic relations) have condemned United, telling Al Jazeera that they have taken an interest in filing a lawsuit on behalf of Ahmad.

Ahmad’s claims of discrimination have not been corroborated by any passengers, and United Airlines rejects that any wrongdoing or acts of discrimination occurred.

[…]

Ahmad has shown to have an affinity for radical Islamist groups that seek to employ deceptive tactics in order to advance Sharia law, Breitbart News has found. Ahmad has attended and participated in multiple conferences over the past couple years which were hosted by alleged Muslim Brotherhood front groups. She has also proudly written about, and has happily posed in photos with radical Imams.

In late December, Ahmad attended the MAS-ICNA (Muslim American Society- Islamic Circle of North America) conference, which featured prominent leaders within the global Muslim Brotherhood network.

One month earlier, Ahmad posted a picture to Facebook of her standing next to Suhaib Webb, who is the Imam of the Islamic Society of Boston, an outfit run under the same umbrella organization as the mosque attended by Boston Marathon bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and a plethora of other convicted terrorists. Webb has a demonstrated history of radical connections, including him being a close confidant of Al Qaeda mastermind Anwar al Awlaki prior to the 9/11 attacks.

Ahmad is “well-known” to Yasir Qadhi, a cleric who she has frequently invited to speak to the student body at Northwestern. An audio tape of one of Qadhi’s sermons revealed that he once called for Muslims to wage holy war against non-Muslims.

[This calls to mind the notorious “Flying Imams’ shakedown several years ago, in which several Islamic preachers put off a flight because their behavior was scaring passengers sued the airline, which eventually settled out of court. That will probably also happen in this case. — PW]

           — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey [Return to headlines]
 

Environonsense — Eco-Faithful Rant; DOD Enforces EPA Swiping Water Rights

Washington State, overflowing with climate change worshippers, experienced a blockade of a Seattle port terminal in mid-May as Royal Dutch Shell attempted to load a floating oil rig bound for Alaskan seas. Fearing the balance of nature in the Arctic would be upset, kayakers on the water and dancing protesters on land had the City of Seattle’s collaboration as it issued the oil company a fine for lacking the proper permit to use the terminal. It appears that none of the eco-advocates had read lead IPCC Author Dr. Philip Lloyd’s article that climate change is a natural, cyclical phenomenon, anything but human-caused.

And while President Obama can’t manage to devise a strategy to combat ISIS, the EPA is fast producing a strategy to fight the decline of the honeybee, the first front of which is to adjust land use to be bee friendly. The problem with this tactic is that bee specialists don’t actually know what’s caused the bees’ demise and are stymied as to how to increase bee propagation. Presuming that the answer lies in more inevitably wasteful studies and guessing that regulating crop cultivation might work, government will speculate with $82 million more tax dollars.

Moving from the moronic, environonsense enters the realm of wanton excess with the EPA claiming ownership (in the name of the United States, mind you) of everything from the earth’s atmosphere to rainwater runoff that puddles in the backyard. Hardly a frivolous statement as the Waters of the United States rule joins the myriad of other administrative rules regulating exhalations to passing gas, whether by a moose, cow or other living being.

The name of the rule alone states exactly what the Administration expects to enforce: government ownership of every drop of water flowing throughout this land by definition:…

After visiting the links regarding EPA rules, please note the obvious that the EPA regulations are implemented through the Department of Defense, the military.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

FBI Behind Mysterious Surveillance Aircraft Over US Cities

By Jack Gillum, Eileen Sullivan and Eric Tucker

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI is operating a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology — all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government, The Associated Press has learned.

The planes’ surveillance equipment is generally used without a judge’s approval, and the FBI said the flights are used for specific, ongoing investigations. In a recent 30-day period, the agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states across the country, an AP review found.

Aerial surveillance represents a changing frontier for law enforcement, providing what the government maintains is an important tool in criminal, terrorism or intelligence probes. But the program raises questions about whether there should be updated policies protecting civil liberties as new technologies pose intrusive opportunities for government spying.

U.S. law enforcement officials confirmed for the first time the wide-scale use of the aircraft, which the AP traced to at least 13 fake companies, such as FVX Research, KQM Aviation, NBR Aviation and PXW Services. Even basic aspects of the program are withheld from the public in censored versions of official reports from the Justice Department’s inspector general.

“The FBI’s aviation program is not secret,” spokesman Christopher Allen said in a statement. “Specific aircraft and their capabilities are protected for operational security purposes.” Allen added that the FBI’s planes “are not equipped, designed or used for bulk collection activities or mass surveillance.”

But the planes can capture video of unrelated criminal activity on the ground that could be handed over for prosecutions.

Some of the aircraft can also be equipped with technology that can identify thousands of people below through the cellphones they carry, even if they’re not making a call or in public. Officials said that practice, which mimics cell towers and gets phones to reveal basic subscriber information, is rare…

[Return to headlines]
 

FBI Flying Surveillance Aircraft Over US Cities; Planes Traced to Fake Companies

The FBI is operating a small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the country carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology — all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government, The Associated Press has learned.

The planes’ surveillance equipment is generally used without a judge’s approval, and the FBI said the flights are used for specific, ongoing investigations. In a recent 30-day period, the agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states across the country, an AP review found.

Aerial surveillance represents a changing frontier for law enforcement, providing what the government maintains is an important tool in criminal, terrorism or intelligence probes. But the program raises questions about whether there should be updated policies protecting civil liberties as new technologies pose intrusive opportunities for government spying.

U.S. law enforcement officials confirmed for the first time the wide-scale use of the aircraft, which the AP traced to at least 13 fake companies, such as FVX Research, KQM Aviation, NBR Aviation and PXW Services. Even basic aspects of the program are withheld from the public in censored versions of official reports from the Justice Department’s inspector general.

[…]

Details confirmed by the FBI track closely with published reports since at least 2003 that a government surveillance program might be behind suspicious-looking planes slowly circling neighborhoods. The AP traced at least 50 aircraft back to the FBI, and identified more than 100 flights since late April orbiting both major cities and rural areas.

One of the planes, photographed in flight last week by the AP in northern Virginia, bristled with unusual antennas under its fuselage and a camera on its left side. A federal budget document from 2010 mentioned at least 115 planes, including 90 Cessna aircraft, in the FBI’s surveillance fleet.

[…]

During the past few weeks, the AP tracked planes from the FBI’s fleet on more than 100 flights over at least 11 states plus the District of Columbia, most with Cessna 182T Skylane aircraft. These included parts of Houston, Phoenix, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis and Southern California.

[Technotyranny on a grand scale. J. Edgar’s ghost walks. — PW]

           — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey [Return to headlines]
 

FIFA Sponsor Coke Welcomes Sepp Blatter’s Resignation

Fifa sponsor Coke has welcomed Sepp Blatter’s decision to resign, describing it as “a positive step” for football.

Mr Blatter has said he will resign as president of football’s governing body Fifa amid a corruption scandal.

Last week, Fifa was hit by the arrests on charges of racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering as part of a US prosecution that also indicted 14 people.

Mr Blatter was subsequently re-elected, but on Tuesday resigned, saying that his mandate “did not appear to be supported by everybody”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Florida Court Rules “Off Grid” Living Illegal

Robin Speronis had been living in an off-grid home for many years without incident, until she was interviewed by a local FOX affiliate in November of 2013. Shortly thereafter, the city of Cape Coral tagged a “notice to vacate” on her property, due to multiple code violations, all of which stem from the fact that her home isn’t connected to water, sewage, or the electrical grid. The city has tried to argue that she is in violation of the International Property Maintenance Code for relying on rainwater and solar panels, instead of utilities.

Since that time, Speronis has been fighting the courts for her right live off the grid. Magistrate Harold Eskins recently ruled that she can live without using water or electricity, but she still has to be connected to these utilities no matter what. Despite his ruling, Eskins admitted to the press that the code may be unfair, “Reasonableness and code requirements don’t always go hand-in-hand.” Despite his supposed sympathies, he still feels compelled to enforce the code.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Friend of Boston Marathon Bomber Jailed for Six Years

A friend of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been given a six year jail sentence for obstruction of justice. Dias Kadyrbayev used his court appearance to apologize to the victims and their families.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Investigation: Undercover Agents Snuck Fake Explosives, Banned Weapons Past TSA

Undercover agents were able to sneak fake explosives and banned weapons through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, in an investigation that revealed a massive, system-wide security failure at America’s airports.

The findings were part of a DHS inspector general probe. The report is still classified, but Fox News has confirmed the investigation found security failures at dozens of airports.

Homeland Security officials confirmed to Fox News that TSA screeners failed 67 out of 70 tests — or 96 percent — carried out by special investigators known as “red teams.”

In one case, an undercover agent with a fake bomb strapped to his back set off a magnetometer — but the screener still failed to find it.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Justice Department Funding Study on ‘Far-Right’ Social Media Use

The Department of Justice is concentrating on “far-right” groups in a new study of social media usage aimed at combating violent extremism.

The Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) awarded Michigan State University $585,719 for the study, which was praised by Eric Holder, the former attorney general, earlier this year.

“There is currently limited knowledge of the role of technology and computer mediated communications (CMCs), such as Facebook and Twitter, in the dissemination of messages that promote extremist agendas and radicalize individuals to violence,” according to the NIJ grant. “The proposed study will address this gap through a series of qualitative and quantitative analyses of posts from various forms of CMC used by members of both the far-right and Islamic extremist movements.”

The study draws more upon right-wing forums than upon the corners of the web inhabited by Islamist extremists.

“We will collect posts made in four active forums used by members of the far-right and three from the Islamic Extremist community, as well as posts made in Facebook, LiveJournal, Twitter, YouTube, and Pastebin accounts used by members of each movement,” the grant said.

[Given the lawless environment now prevailing in Baltimore, where the murder rate is spinning out of control and where mobs of 30-50 activists gather whenever police respond to a call, one might think they’d research black racist social media use as well. But don’t expect the Holder-Lynch DoJ to do any such thing. — PW]

           — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey [Return to headlines]
 

NASA Chief Wants to Cut Mars Travel Time in Half

Getting astronauts to Mars will take all the spacefaring expertise the United States can muster, including advanced propulsion technologies such as solar-electric engines and perhaps even nuclear rockets, according to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden.

“Right now it’s about an eight-month mission; we’d like to cut that in half,” Bolden told reporters after speaking to Aerojet Rocketdyne workers for 30 minutes or so.

Superfast propulsion tech would help limit astronauts’ radiation exposure during the trek to Mars and reduce the amount of water, food and other “consumables” such a mission would require, NASA officials have said.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

New FBI Official: Terror Threat in Ohio is Surprising

By Dan Sewell

CINCINNATI — The new head of the FBI’s wide-ranging Cincinnati division says the threat of homegrown terrorists in her native state is surprising and scary.

Angela Byers became special agent in charge of the office that covers 48 of Ohio’s 88 counties in late February, just after back-to-back arrests of young men in Cincinnati and Columbus in separate cases alleging they were plotting attacks in the United States. Both have pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Byers told The Associated Press in an interview she was surprised at the threat level in Ohio, and she suspects many people in the Midwest don’t realize that “violent extremists” can pop up anywhere.

“It’s scary. And it’s scary to us. I’m not sure the general public quite gets the gravity of it,” she said.

[Since the Bureau expunged all “Islamophobic” content from its training materials in 2011 at the command of Barry Hussein’s White House, her surprise is hardly to be wondered at. Same with the “general public,” which gets its information from a mass media establishment marching in lockstep to the “Islam is a religion of peace” beat. — PW]

           — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey [Return to headlines]
 

Obama: I’ve Restored the US as the ‘Most Respected Country in the World’

Monday while President Barack Obama was answering questions at a town hall with YSEALI Fellows, an exchange program for community leaders from ASEAN, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, he said his administration has restored the Untied States as the “the most respected country on earth.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Pataki: Rand Paul Made ‘Terrible Mistake’

Sen. Rand Paul’s efforts to force the expiration of the PATRIOT Act were “irresponsible” and “dangerous,” Republican presidential candidate George Pataki said Tuesday.

“Right now we have no ability to monitor people we think are terrorists, potentially terrorists in this country. We have no ability to have roving wiretaps,” the former governor of New York said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” after a news report that several bomb threats had been called in on American domestic flights on Tuesday morning, including one that had landed safely in Philadelphia.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Rule by the Corporations

The Transatlantic and Transpacific Trade and Investment Partnerships have nothing to do with free trade. “Free trade” is used as a disguise to hide the power these agreements give to corporations to use law suits to overturn sovereign laws of nations that regulate pollution, food safety, GMOs, and minimum wages.

The first thing to understand is that these so-called “partnerships” are not laws written by Congress. The US Constitution gives Congress the authority to legislate, but these laws are being written without the participation of Congress. The laws are being written by corporations solely in the interest of their power and profit. The office of US Trade Representative was created in order to permit corporations to write law that serves only their interests. This fraud on the Constitution and the people is covered up by calling trade laws “treaties.”

Indeed, Congress is not even permitted to know what is in the laws and is limited to the ability to accept or refuse what is handed to Congress for a vote. Normally, Congress accepts, because “so much work has been done” and “free trade will benefit us all.”

The presstitutes have diverted attention from the content of the laws to “fast track.” When Congress votes “fast track,” it means Congress accepts that corporations can write the trade laws without the participation of Congress. Even criticisms of the “partnerships” are a smoke screen. Countries accused of slave labor could be excluded but won’t be. Super patriots complain that US sovereignty is violated by “foreign interests,” but US sovereignty is violated by US corporations. Others claim yet more US jobs will be offshored. In actual fact, the “partnerships” are unnecessary to advance the loss of American jobs as there is nothing that inhibits jobs offshoring now.

What the “partnerships” do is to make private corporations immune to the laws of sovereign countries on the grounds that laws of countries adversely impact corporate profits and constitute “restraint of trade.”

For example, under the Transatlantic Partnership, French laws against GMOs would be overturned as “restraints on trade” by law suits filed by Monsanto.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Sepp Blatter, Under Investigation, To Resign as FIFA President

Sepp Blatter, who was re-elected last week for a fifth term as president of world soccer’s governing body, said Tuesday that he would resign his position as law enforcement officials confirmed that he was a focus of a federal corruption investigation.

Mr. Blatter had for days tried to distance himself from the controversy, but several United States officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that in their efforts to build a case against Mr. Blatter they were hoping to win the cooperation of some of the FIFA officials now under indictment and work their way up the organization.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Shooting Victim’s Family Begs De Blasio: ‘We Need Stop-and-Frisk’

By Aaron Feis, Jennifer Bain, Aaron Short and Laura Italiano

A surge in New York City murders — including four people slain in just five bloody hours as the weekend began — has grieving family members begging Mayor de Blasio to bring back the NYPD’s right to search for guns.

“We need stop-and-frisk,” Stacey Calhoun, the devastated uncle of one of the four fatalities, said Saturday afternoon, tears filling his eyes over the nephew he had just lost.

Jahhad Marshall — a charismatic 23-year-old with a promising future as a chef — had died of a stray bullet to his back early that morning outside the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City, police said.

“Somebody has to put their foot down,” the anguished uncle said.

“A lot of people would agree with stop-and-frisk if it’s for the safety among us,” he said.

“They used to fight with their hands, he said. “It seems like all these kids have guns these days.”

[…]

“It’s scary how many guns are out here now,” said a resident of the Brownsville project, who gave her name as Ann and her age as 72.

“They shouldn’t just stop and frisk any of our young black men — but they need to do something about these guns,” she said.

As another woman at the Marcus Garvey Houses said of stop-and-frisk, “They need to target it. With all these shootings, people getting killed, do it, but stop and frisk the guys you know from experience might have a gun, and not some kid who’s trying to better his life and get out of here.”

[Of course, the guys they “know from experience might have a gun” are your “young black men.” In times past, the cops did “target it” — that is, them — and the snivel-rights groups set up a squeal and Bill De Blasio got elected. So don’t hold your breath waiting for the return of stop-and-frisk, black folks — it ain’t gonna happen. — PW]

           — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey [Return to headlines]
 

Supreme Court Rules for Muslima Denied Abercrombie Job Over Hijab

By Robert Spencer

The real question is, Why would a Muslima want to work at Abercrombie & Fitch in the first place? Wouldn’t she find the clothing line, the advertising, and the whole atmosphere objectionable on moral grounds? Shouldn’t she prefer to shun such an environment rather than want to work there at all, especially if she is pious and observant enough to want to wear the hijab?

Unless, of course, the real point of her getting hired in the first place was to compel an American business to change its practices in order to accommodate Islamic norms, and thereby to assert once again that Islam must dominate and not be dominated.

Hamas-linked CAIR was also involved — a clear sign that this was not about religious freedom but about Islamic supremacist strongarming for special privileges for Muslims. The involvement of Hamas-linked CAIR alone indicates that this is not analogous to refusing a job to a Jew wearing a kippah — this is part of a larger program.

“Top US court rules for Muslim woman denied Abercrombie job over hijab,” by Jana Kasperkevic, Guardian, June 1, 2015:

The US supreme court on Monday ruled in favor of Samantha Elauf, a Muslim woman who was denied a job at an Abercrombie & Fitch clothing store in Oklahoma because she wore a headscarf for religious reasons.

[Not for religious reasons, but to flaunt her allegiance to an odious creed. The hijab is analogous to a swastika armband. SCOTUS is wrong, as it has been so many, many times. — PW]

           — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey [Return to headlines]
 

The Military is Sending Live Anthrax Around the Country

(NaturalNews) Don’t look now, but there is a new anthrax outbreak set to take place. Perhaps most surprisingly, it is the U.S. military that is at fault.

According to reports by CNN and others, four lab workers in the U.S. and as many as 22 more overseas have been confined to post-exposure treatment after the military inadvertently shipped live anthrax samples using shipping company FedEx, defense officials said.

CNN reported that the network learned on May 27 that a lab based in Maryland had been sent live samples, which triggered an across-the-board urgent review to see if other live anthrax samples had also been shipped.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Trans-Pacific Partnership is About More Than Trade

Most common sense people rightly assume that reducing trade barriers is good in and of itself. But it’s a mistake to think that the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) involving the U.S., Canada and ten other countries that is close to being concluded after six plus years of negotiation under the Obama administration is primarily a free trade pact. It’s also a misstep to grant the Obama administration with fast-track authority and the attendant secrecy on all details of this trade pact.

The experience with Obama’s Affordable Care Act, his Executive Order on Immigration, and his ongoing nuclear agreement negotiations with Iran remind us that the devil in the details once passed and implemented can be harmful and problematic to correct.

TPP has beneficial objectives such as opening up Japan’s highly restricted agricultural markets to more imports from the U.S. But, as details of the trade pact get leaked, it is becoming apparent that trade liberalization may be a small part of TPP. Much of the agreement’s language appears to be devoted to establishing global authoritarian decision-making on environmental, energy, labor, immigration and even intellectual property policy.

As for trade policy, TPP would give multinational corporations new powers that would circumvent American sovereignty and transfer the negotiation and implementation into the hands of stateless and faceless regulators and bureaucrats and away from Congressional representatives and state legislators. Trade policy would then become more remote and opaque, with new legal impediments blocking American prerogatives in regulating and controlling U.S. markets…

Make no mistake; the longstanding goal of globalists is international rule by bureaucrats unencumbered by fickle and changing democratic rule by sovereign states. No doubt some multinational corporate leaders embrace TPP because of their success with regulatory capture, finding bureaucrats relatively easy to control—helped by the revolving door between regulatory bodies and the corporations they regulate.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

US Muslim in Abercrombie Hijab Court Win

“I was a teenager who loved fashion and was eager to work for Abercrombie & Fitch,” said Ms Elauf in a statement after the court released its decision.

Ms Elauf was 17 years old when the discrimination occurred during a job interview at a shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 2008.

“Observance of my faith should not have prevented me from getting a job. I am glad that I stood up for my rights”, she said after the ruling.

In an 8-1 verdict, the court ruled that Abercrombie had violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on religious beliefs and practices.

Groups representing Jews, Sikhs, Christian, gay, and lesbian rights organisations filed papers in court in solidarity with Ms Elauf, who told reporters she sought to protect the rights of people of all faiths at work.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

US Senate Passes NSA Reform

The US Senate has authorized a bill capping domestic surveillance by the NSA. The vote came after weeks of heated debate over how to balance privacy and security, and the lapse of key counterterrorism laws on Sunday.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Why America is in Generational Demise

At the end of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall where Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Without hesitation, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Indeed, as time passed, the greatest challenge for the American people would become their ability to protect, defend and uphold the Constitutional Representative Republic their Founders had created and millions of Americans before them had fought and sacrificed to preserve. (Republic vs. Democracy)

228 years after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, less than ten generations later, Americans would find themselves essentially at war with their own government, for sake of national and state sovereignty, security, independence, liberty and freedom. The ability of the American people to keep what the Founders had provided is now in great question.

Millions of Americans stand openly opposed to nearly everything happening in Washington D.C. today, and although millions are awake and engaged in trying to live up to Franklin’s challenge, they appear incapable of doing so… the question is, why?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Tobacco Firms to Pay Billions in Damages in Canada

A Canadian court has ordered three tobacco companies to pay C$15.5bn (£8bn; $12bn) — the largest award for damages in the country’s history.

The plaintiffs were Quebec smokers who said the firms failed to warn them of health risks associated with smoking.

Imperial Tobacco Canada, Rothmans Benson & Hedges and JTI-MacDonald vowed to appeal against the decision.

The class-action lawsuits were filed in 1998, but only recently went to trial in the courts.

The firms argued that Canadians have had a “high awareness” of smoking health risks since the 1950s.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Belgium Muslim Official Says He’d “Slaughter Each and Every” Jew

A Belgian municipal security officer is facing dismissal after saying he would kill “each and every Jew” during a debate on Facebook this past Friday.

“The word Jew itself is dirty. If I were in Israel, frankly, I would do to the Jews what they do with the Palestinians — slaughter each and every one of them,” wrote the officer, who was only referred to as Mohamed N. in Belgian media.

The officer was going by the pseudonym Bebeto Gladiateur.

According to Belgian media the man was a “guardian of the peace” — an official force dedicated to maintaining security and serving as a deterrent to neighborhood crime, but one that does not wield police powers.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Bulgarian Police Recover Looted Krater

SUSAM, BULGARIA—A Thracian krater, or vessel made for mixing water and wine, was recovered by Bulgarian police officers from the car of a 33-year-old man accused of treasure hunting. The rare krater dates to the fifth century B.C. “Over the centuries, the baked clay has been severely cracked, and a botched attempt at restoration (of the vessel) appears to have been made,” archaeological consultants to the Bulgarian police told Archaeology in Bulgaria. The vessel is thought to have been taken from the burial of a Thracian aristocrat.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Dane Jailed for Supporting IS

Pizzeria owner held in custody since March

For more than two months, a Dane has been held in custody suspected of directly supporting the jihadist organisation Islamic State (IS).

The man, who is 23 and of Turkish heritage, is a resident of Ishøj and owns a pizzeria, according to Politiken newspaper. He is currently being held at Vestre Fængsel prison.

It’s the first time that anyone has been jailed in Denmark on suspicion that they are directly supporting IS.

The police were unable to provide many more details due to security reasons.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Dane Jailed for Supporting ISIS

Unbeknownst to the public, a man has been behind bars since March as the first Danish citizen to be jailed for supporting the Islamic State.

A 23-year-old Danish citizen who was the first person to have his passport seized under Denmark’s new anti-terror laws has now become the first to be jailed for supporting the terror group Isis (also known as the Islamic State), Politiken reported on Tuesday.

The man is a Dane of Turkish heritage identified as ‘EC’. He lives in the Copenhagen suburb of Ishøj and according to Politiken’s sources runs his own pizzeria.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Eerie Comet Landscape Revealed by Rosetta Spacecraft Photos

A deluge of newly released photos from the Rosetta mission reveals the haunting alien landscape on the surface of a comet as it orbits the sun.

Over the last few weeks, the European Space Agency (ESA) has released over 1,700 new images of the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, taken by the Rosetta spacecraft during its closest approach to the 2.5-mile-wide (4 kilometers) space rock. The photos emanate an eerie stillness on the rocky, lifeless surface.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

France Says Climate Deal Must Avoid US Congress Vote

The global climate agreement being negotiated this year must be worded in such a way that it won’t be shot down by a hostile US Congress, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius warned on Monday.

Fabius, who will host a high-stakes UN climate summit in Paris later this year, made the remarks at preparatory talks in the German city of Bonn. “We know the politics in the US. Whether we like it or not, if it comes to the Congress, they will refuse,” he told African delegates at the talks.

If negotiators follow his advice, any deal reached in Paris in December would exclude legally-binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions — something many countries insist on but which would have no chance of being ratified by the Republican-controlled Congress.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

French Red Cross Faces €11 Million Bill for Overworked Staff

The French branch of the Red Cross could be facing a huge fine and compensation payout after falling foul of the country’s strict rules on working hours, French media reported Sunday.

According to a report by the French Labour Inspectorate, the humanitarian organisation made some 3,800 violations of working hours regulations, involving 480 employees at its Paris headquarters, Le Parisien newspaper reported.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Full Reboot Allows Large Hadron Collider to Hunt New Particles

Prepare for a voyage into the unknown. Experiments are about to restart at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, near Geneva in Switzerland.

Months of tests mean the LHC is now ready to look for brand-new particles as protons begin regularly colliding at record energy levels this Wednesday for the first time in two years, says David Newbold of the University of Bristol, UK, part of the CMS experiment at CERN.

Test collisions at 13 teraelectronvolts could already have produced exotic material like dark matter, which is thought to make up nearly 85 per cent of the matter in the universe but has never been directly seen. But detecting new particles at the LHC requires sustained collisions in order to build up enough data.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: British Army Tank Crushes Learner’s Car

Oops! A British army tank drove over an oncoming Toyota on a public road on Monday, crushing the bonnet in the process.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: Rights Groups Critical of Egypt President’s Visit

Five prominent rights groups on Monday urged German Chancellor Angela Merkel to press for an end to human rights abuses in Egypt when she meets President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi this week.

Sisi, the former army chief who ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013 and launched a deadly crackdown against his supporters, begins Tuesday a visit to Germany at Merkel’s invitation.

He will meet the chancellor on Wednesday and other officials, but German parliament speaker Norbert Lammert has called off a meeting he was due to have with Sisi citing human rights abuse.

The five human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, highlighted violations in Egypt in a joint statement addressed to Merkel.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Goodbye Sweden

This is the last post on this blog. I am leaving Sweden for good shortly, and will no longer be following its descent from what was once the third most prosperous country in the world. Frankly, it’s just too damn depressing.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Greece to Support Turkish Stream Pipeline

Greece will sign a memorandum of understanding pledging support for the Turkish Stream pipeline, the Greek energy minister said Monday according to Russian media. RT reported Greece will invest $2 billion in the gas pipeline, which will carry Russian gas to Europa via the Greek-Turkish border instead of through Ukraine.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS Bombard French With 40,000 Tweets Each Day

Alarming figures revealed in France on Tuesday showed exactly why French authorities are taking the fight against online jihadist networks so seriously.

The extent of Isis’s desire to target potential French jihadists was revealed in figures obtained by French daily Le Monde on Tuesday.

There are over 2,600 websites in French run by backers of the Islamist extremist group, according the data obtained by the newspaper from sources in the Ministry of Defence.

The French government has been growing wary of Isis’s presence on social media channels and their concern is not misplaced.

“Propaganda cells linked to Isis produce around 40,000 tweets in French each day,” Le Monde writes.

It’s no surprise that France is taking the the jihadist recruitment seriously. Senators revealed recently that 45 teenage French girls are waging jihad in the Middle East as well as a worrying trend that has seen a 203 percent rise in the number of its nationals heading to the region.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Le Pen Sues Over National Front Expulsion

Jean-Marie Le Pen on Tuesday announced he was taking France’s Front National to court over his spectacular expulsion from the far-right party he founded more than 40 years ago.

“I am contesting my exclusion as a member,” said the veteran Le Pen who said he was suing the FN at a court in Nanterre, close to Paris.

The 86-year-old was suspended from the party, now led by his daughter Marine, after comments he made playing down the Holocaust.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Norwegian FM Tells UK: You Have More Influence Inside EU

Non-EU member Norway’s foreign minister Borge Brende told the BBC Monday that Britain “can have more influence inside the EU than outside”. As a member of the European Economic Area, Norway has to implement EU directives, but “we’re not around the table when they’re discussed in Brussels”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

‘Snowden Could Come to Norway to Collect Prize’

The Norwegian Bjørnson Academy is pushing to bring Edward Snowden to Norway to receive a prize in September, which, if they were successful, would be the first time the NSA whistleblower had left Russia since claiming asylum there in 2013.

The institute, also known as The Norwegian Academy of Literature and Freedom of Expression, on Monday sent a letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg and Justice Minister Anders Anundsen asking them to allow Edward Snowden to come to Norway to receive the award, giving assurances that he would not be extradited to the US, where he is accused of spying.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Sweden: One Wounded in Police-Station Shooting

One or several gunmen fired shots at the police station in the western Swedish town of Borås on Monday evening.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Tank Crushes Learner Driver’s Car in Germany, Causing Almost £9,000 Worth of Damage

Learner drivers have a lot to be nervous about when they first hit the road — but having their car crushed by a tank is unlikely to be high on their list of worries.

But an 18-year-old in Lippe, west Germany was faced with this unusual problem, after she inadvertently drove into the path of a convoy of British tanks.

Lars Risserbusch, a spokesman for Lippe police, said the teenager had not seen the fleet when she turned left in front of it.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Archaeologists Restore Early Islamic Caliph’s Palace on the Shores of the Sea of Galilee

The Department of Ancient Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) is to receive EUR 30,000 through the Cultural Preservation Program of the German Federal Foreign Office to help with the restoration of a caliph’s palace on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The palace complex covers a site of about 5,000 square meters and was uncovered from 1932 to 1939 by German archaeologists from the Catholic Görres Society and the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin. It sits on land that today still belongs to the German Holy Land Association (DVHL) and is managed by the Israel National Parks Authority.

The palace was constructed from white limestone on a lower course of black basalt and includes one of the oldest mosques in the Holy Land. It was built by Caliph Walid I (705 to 715 A.D.) of the Umayyaden dynasty, which established the first caliphate in the Holy Land from 661 to 750 AD.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

British NGO Threatens Legal Action Against Israel Over Claim That it Has Hamas Link

UNITED NATIONS — A British non-governmental organization is threatening legal action against the Israeli government over its accusation that the organization is linked to the militant group Hamas.

The Palestinian Return Center this week was granted consultative status at the United Nations, prompting Israel’s U.N. mission to protest that the organization is associated with Hamas and “promotes anti-Israel propaganda.”

The NGO says the claim that it is affiliated with Hamas is unfounded. The group says it defends the right of return for Palestinian refugees and has existed for almost two decades.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Islamic State Supporters in Gaza Give Hamas 48 Hours to Halt Crackdown

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Islamic State supporters in Gaza have given the ruling Hamas movement a 48-hour deadline to halt its crackdown on them.

It’s unclear how many IS supporters are in Gaza, or if any have operational links to the extremist group.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Narendra Modi to Become First Indian PM to Visit Israel

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to become the first prime minister of India to visit Israel. He will travel there later this year and will discuss strategic and economic cooperation with the Israeli leadership.

The specific date of Modi’s visit remains uncertain, but, according to statements by India’s external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, the visit will come at some time after July, after preliminary high-level bilateral diplomatic talks with the Israeli government. Swaraj served as the head of the Indo-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group from 2006 to 2009, and has long seen Israel as a “reliable partner” for India. Ahead of Modi’s visit, Swaraj will visit Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories.

Modi has had somewhat of a storied personal political history with Israel, even before he became prime minister. He visited Israel as the chief minister of Gujarat, back in 2006. Back then, Modi had promised to return should he become the country’s prime minister. In 2015 — nine years later — he’s keeping that promise.

When India went to the polls in 2014, Modi was seen as “Israel’s best friend in South Asia.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Op-Ed: Blood Sacrifice

By: Prof. Louis René Beres

Supporters of peace plans and a “Two-State Solution” refuse to understand the core origins of Arab terrorism against Israel. Projecting their own very generic conceptions of Western history upon the contemporary Middle East, these supporters of “peace” are still imprisoned within standard explanatory frameworks of economic disenchantment and rising expectations. Clinging stubbornly to what they had first learned in Political Science 101, they ignore what is already right before their eyes; explicit, stark, and thoroughly unambiguous:

Palestinian Arab terrorism is ultimately a conscious and current expression of primal blood sacrifice, the blood of “The Jews.” For these terrorists, violence against “The Jews” is always an expression of what must be held sacred.

Among Arab terrorists, violence and the sacred are inseparable. To understand the rationale and operation of Palestinian terrorism against Israel, therefore, it is first necessary to understand PLO/Hamas/Islamic Jihad conceptions of the sacred. From these pertinent ideas, it will become clear that Arab terror against “The Jews” is, at its heart, always a primitive or primal form of religious worship…

           — Hat tip: MC [Return to headlines]
 

Crackdown on Christianity: Iran Sentences 18 to Prison Over Faith

“The cruelty of Iran’s dictatorial leaders knows no limits,” Saba Farzan, the German-Iranian executive director of Foreign Policy Circle, a strategy think tank in Berlin, told FoxNews.com.

The Christians, many of whom were arrested in 2013, were sentenced in accordance with Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, a vague law used as a catch-all criminal statute to penalize threats to Iran’s clerical rulers. According to the law, “Anyone who engages in any type of propaganda against the Islamic Republic of Iran or in support of opposition groups and associations, shall be sentenced to three months to one year of imprisonment.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Defection of Tajik Commander PR Coup for ISIS, Say Experts

The defection to ISIS of the U.S.-trained commander of Tajikistan’s special forces is a major public relations coup for the terrorist army, but likely not an immediate threat to coalition forces, experts said.

Last week, ISIS released a video featuring the defector, Col. Gulmurod Khalimov, saying he underwent training under U.S. Special Forces and the now-defunct private security contractor Blackwater. The State Department reportedly confirmed that Khalimov participated in the training through its Diplomatic Security/Anti-Terrorism Assistance program, and was taught crisis response, tactical management of special events and tactical leadership training.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Iraq: The Monk Who Saved Thousands of Manuscripts From is Jihadists

Najeeb Michaeel is a Dominican monk who used to live in the Iraqi city of Mosul. His days at the monastery were spent digitising rare historical manuscripts. Less than a year ago, as the Islamic State group was about to take over Mosul, Najeeb knew that these artefacts would be destroyed if they fell into the jihadists’ hands. He tells us how he managed to smuggle thousands of the precious documents out of the city before fleeing himself. Some of them are now on display in Paris.

Several manuscripts can be seen at the National Archives in Paris until August 24.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Is Closes Iraq Dam Gates, Sparking Humanitarian Fears

Baghdad (AFP) — Islamic State group jihadists have closed the gates of a dam in the Iraqi city of Ramadi which they seized last month, posing a humanitarian and security threat, officials said Tuesday.

IS fighters have repeatedly attempted to control dams in Iraq, in some cases reducing the flow of water to areas under government control or flooding swathes of land to impede military operations.

Anbar provincial council chief Sabah Karhout said IS “closed all the gates” at a dam in Ramadi, capital of Iraq’s largest province.

The move lowered the level of the Euphrates River and cut water supplies to the areas of Khaldiyah and Habbaniyah to the east, which are some of the last held by pro-government forces in Anbar.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS Bans Pigeon Breeding — Punishable by Public Flogging — Because Seeing Birds’ Genitals Overhead Offends Islam

By John Hall and Robert Verkaik

Senior clerics fighting for the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq have issued a diktat banning pigeon breeding as they claim the sight of the birds’ genitals as they fly overhead is offensive to Islam.

Jihadis operating in the group’s ‘Euphrates province’, which stretches from Anbar in Iraq to Dier ez Zour in Syria, told pigeon breeders they had one week to stop the practice or face public flogging.

The announcement isn’t the first time ISIS has targeted the apparently blasphemous practice of pigeon breeding — a popular pastime in the Middle East.

Earlier this year it was claimed that 15 boys had been arrested and at least three of them executed by ISIS militants in Iraq’s eastern Diyala governate after fighters took exception to their pigeon breeding hobby on the grounds that it stopped them spending their time worshipping Allah.

[Allah preserves us from the perils of pigeon booty! — PW]

           — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS’ Frightening Arsenal: Remote-Controlled Sniper Rifles, Steel Plated Suicide Trucks

KIRKUK, Iraq — Captured ISIS weapons show the black-clad militants are developing an arsenal of sophisticated arms, and Kurdish fighters told FoxNews.com they fear the terrorist force’s expanding manufacturing capability is making it more formidable by the day.

In a dusty outpost near the Kurdish-held northern city of Kirkuk, a Peshmerga commander recently displayed two weapons that show his enemy’s increasing adaptability on the battlefield. One was a scoped sniper rifle, customized and mounted on a welded steel platform and built to track targets by computer and fire by remote control. The other was a much different type of weapon — a truck reinforced with two-inch thick steel plates to ensure its load of explosives could crash through checkpoints and make it to its target before detonating.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS’s View of Christians Echoes That of Official Saudi Fatwas

By Alberto M. Fernande

The April 19 ISIS video showing the killing of 30 Ethiopian Christians in Libya by the Islamic State (ISIS) received extensive international coverage. Media outlets showed edited portions of the killings or screenshots of the now-familiar images of bound men in orange jumpsuits with masked jihadists ready to kill.

Strangely enough, there was very little press coverage on the bulk of the 29-minute video — 24 minutes of it — that focused not on the killings themselves but on ISIS’s view of Christianity and Christians and how they should be treated. While their actions may be different, an analysis of the content of this video and an analysis of fatwas featured on the Saudi government’s official website government show considerable overlap in views on Christians and how they should be treated.

The video, titled “Until There Came to Them Clear Evidence” (taken from Surat Al-Bayyinah, 98:1), the video opens with the traditional polemical view of Christianity buttressed by Koranic quotes: a restating of strict monotheism, how the faith and practice of Christians are lacking, how they corrupted the Gospel (the Injil) delivered to the “last prophet to come from the children of Israel” Isa Ibn Maryam (Jesus the Son of Mary), how Christ was not really crucified but a substitute was crucified in his place, and how Christians are “mushrikeen” who “associate partners with God.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Turkish President: Country Not Sending Arms to Terrorists in Syria

(CNN) The Turkish president says a journalist will pay “a high price” for publishing leaked video footage that purports to show the country’s intelligence agency sending weapons to Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday called out the head of Cumhuriyet — a secularist pro-opposition newspaper — in a live broadcast for publishing the footage.

“The person who published this story as an exclusive story will, I believe, pay a high price for this. I will not leave him be,” said Erdogan, speaking to state broadcaster TRT.

Many in Turkey view this as a thinly veiled threat against Can Dundar, the editor in chief of Cumhuriyet. The newspaper published video that purports to show ammunition being sent to anti-regime rebels in Syria. Dundar is facing an investigation under Turkey’s anti-terror law for “treason and revealing state secrets” in publishing the footage.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

U.S. Bombers Hold Fire on Islamic State Targets Amid Ground Intel Blackout

By Jacqueline Klimas

Nearly 75 percent of U.S. bombing runs targeting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria returned to base without firing any weapons in the first four months of 2015, holding their fire mainly because of a lack of ground intelligence and raising questions about President Obama’s key tactic in pushing back an enemy that continues to expand its territory in the war zone.

Key lawmakers are growing increasingly frustrated by the slow rate of U.S. bombing sorties, a frustration shared by a former Navy pilot who said in an interview that U.S. forces are clearly needed on the ground in Iraq to help provide targets for these pilots to hit.

Without ground forces, argues Cmdr. Christopher Harmer, a retired Navy helicopter pilot, U.S. airmen are essentially flying half-blind and, as a result, are returning to base with their bombs still in the bay.

“As long as the body politic or president or whoever is making decisions absolutely refuses to put American air controllers on ground, essentially pilots are flying with one eye closed,” Cmdr. Harmer said. “It’s almost impossible for pilots to designate between [Islamic State] fighters and coalition fighters.”

The U.S. conducted 7,319 sorties over Iraq and Syria as part of Operation Inherent Resolve in the first four months of 2015. Of those, only 1,859 flights — 25.4 percent — had at least one “weapons release,” according to data provided by United States Air Force Central Command. That means that only about one in every four flights dropped a bomb on an Islamic State target.

[Yet another consequence of Barry Hussein’s refusal to leave a residual force over there. — PW]

           — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey [Return to headlines]
 

Czechs and Slovaks Protest ‘False’ Russian Documentary

Czech FM Lubomir Zaoralek has summoned the Russian ambassador to protest against a documentary, broadcast on Russian state tv, which argued that the 1968 Soviet-led invasion in Czechoslovakia was meant to quell a Western-backed coup. Slovakia called the documentary “false and truth-distorting”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Hacked Emails Expose George Soros as Ukraine Puppet-Master

Just days after George Soros warned that World War 3 was imminent unless Washington backed down to China on IMF currency basket inclusion, the hacker collective CyberBerkut has exposed the billionaire as the real puppet-master behind the scenes in Ukraine. In 3 stunning documents, allegedly hacked from email correspondence between the hedge fund manager and Ukraine President Poroshenko, Soros lays out “A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine,” expresses his confidence that the US should provide Ukraine with lethal military assistance, “with same level of sophistication in defense weapons to match the level of opposing force,” and finally explained Poroshenko’s “first priority must be to regain control of financial markets,” which he assures the President could be helped by The Fed adding “I am ready to call Jack Lew of the US Treasury to sound him out about the swap agreement.”

The hacking group CyberBerkut claims it has penetrated Ukraine’s presidential administration website and obtained correspondence between Soros and Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko. It has subsequently posted all the intercepted pdfs on line at the following location. More details as RT earlier reported:

The hacktivists have published three files online, which include a draft of “A short and medium term comprehensive strategy for the new Ukraine” by Soros (dated March 12, 2015); an undated paper on military assistance to Kiev; and the billionaire’s letter to Poroshenko and Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, dated December 23, 2014.

According to the leaked documents, Soros supports Barack Obama’s stance on Ukraine, but believes that the US should do even more.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

MH17 Crash: ‘Old Buk Missile Used’ — Russian Firm

A Russian defence firm says an old Buk missile it used to manufacture brought down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014.

The statement is in line with previous Russian claims that Ukrainian forces, not the rebels, fired the missile.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Russian Missile Maker: MH17 Shot Down by Ukrainian Missile

MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian maker of the Buk air defense missile system said Tuesday that it has concluded that Malaysian Airlines flight 17 was downed by an older version of the missile, which isn’t in service with the Russian military but is in Ukrainian arsenals.

Controversy continues over who shot down the plane last summer over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people aboard. Ukraine and the West suspect it was destroyed by a Russian surface-to-air missile fired by Russian soldiers or Russia-backed separatist rebels fighting in the area. Russia denies that.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The Agency: From a Nondescript Office Building in St. Petersburg, Russia, An Army of Well-Paid “Trolls” Has Tried to Wreak Havoc All Around the Internet — and in Real-Life American Communities.

By Adrian Chen

Around 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 11 last year, Duval Arthur, director of the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness for St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, got a call from a resident who had just received a disturbing text message. “Toxic fume hazard warning in this area until 1:30 PM,” the message read. “Take Shelter. Check Local Media and columbiachemical.com.”

St. Mary Parish is home to many processing plants for chemicals and natural gas, and keeping track of dangerous accidents at those plants is Arthur’s job. But he hadn’t heard of any chemical release that morning. In fact, he hadn’t even heard of Columbia Chemical. St. Mary Parish had a Columbian Chemicals plant, which made carbon black, a petroleum product used in rubber and plastics. But he’d heard nothing from them that morning, either. Soon, two other residents called and reported the same text message. Arthur was worried: Had one of his employees sent out an alert without telling him?

If Arthur had checked Twitter, he might have become much more worried. Hundreds of Twitter accounts were documenting a disaster right down the road. “A powerful explosion heard from miles away happened at a chemical plant in Centerville, Louisiana #ColumbianChemicals,” a man named Jon Merritt tweeted. The #ColumbianChemicals hashtag was full of eyewitness accounts of the horror in Centerville. @AnnRussela shared an image of flames engulfing the plant. @Ksarah12 posted a video of surveillance footage from a local gas station, capturing the flash of the explosion. Others shared a video in which thick black smoke rose in the distance.

Dozens of journalists, media outlets and politicians, from Louisiana to New York City, found their Twitter accounts inundated with messages about the disaster. “Heather, I’m sure that the explosion at the #ColumbianChemicals is really dangerous. Louisiana is really screwed now,” a user named @EricTraPPP tweeted at the New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter Heather Nolan. Another posted a screenshot of CNN’s home page, showing that the story had already made national news. ISIS had claimed credit for the attack, according to one YouTube video; in it, a man showed his TV screen, tuned to an Arabic news channel, on which masked ISIS fighters delivered a speech next to looping footage of an explosion. A woman named Anna McClaren (@zpokodon9) tweeted at Karl Rove: “Karl, Is this really ISIS who is responsible for #ColumbianChemicals? Tell @Obama that we should bomb Iraq!” But anyone who took the trouble to check CNN.com would have found no news of a spectacular Sept. 11 attack by ISIS. It was all fake: the screenshot, the videos, the photographs.

In St. Mary Parish, Duval Arthur quickly made a few calls and found that none of his employees had sent the alert. He called Columbian Chemicals, which reported no problems at the plant. Roughly two hours after the first text message was sent, the company put out a news release, explaining that reports of an explosion were false. When I called Arthur a few months later, he dismissed the incident as a tasteless prank, timed to the anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “Personally I think it’s just a real sad, sick sense of humor,” he told me. “It was just someone who just liked scaring the daylights out of people.” Authorities, he said, had tried to trace the numbers that the text messages had come from, but with no luck. (The F.B.I. told me the investigation was still open.)

The Columbian Chemicals hoax was not some simple prank by a bored sadist. It was a highly coordinated disinformation campaign, involving dozens of fake accounts that posted hundreds of tweets for hours, targeting a list of figures precisely chosen to generate maximum attention. The perpetrators didn’t just doctor screenshots from CNN; they also created fully functional clones of the websites of Louisiana TV stations and newspapers. The YouTube video of the man watching TV had been tailor-made for the project. A Wikipedia page was even created for the Columbian Chemicals disaster, which cited the fake YouTube video. As the virtual assault unfolded, it was complemented by text messages to actual residents in St. Mary Parish. It must have taken a team of programmers and content producers to pull off.

And the hoax was just one in a wave of similar attacks during the second half of last year. On Dec. 13, two months after a handful of Ebola cases in the United States touched off a minor media panic, many of the same Twitter accounts used to spread the Columbian Chemicals hoax began to post about an outbreak of Ebola in Atlanta. The campaign followed the same pattern of fake news reports and videos, this time under the hashtag #EbolaInAtlanta, which briefly trended in Atlanta. Again, the attention to detail was remarkable, suggesting a tremendous amount of effort. A YouTube video showed a team of hazmat-suited medical workers transporting a victim from the airport. Beyoncé’s recent single “7/11” played in the background, an apparent attempt to establish the video’s contemporaneity. A truck in the parking lot sported the logo of the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

On the same day as the Ebola hoax, a totally different group of accounts began spreading a rumor that an unarmed black woman had been shot to death by police. They all used the hashtag #shockingmurderinatlanta. Here again, the hoax seemed designed to piggyback on real public anxiety; that summer and fall were marked by protests over the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. In this case, a blurry video purports to show the shooting, as an onlooker narrates. Watching it, I thought I recognized the voice — it sounded the same as the man watching TV in the Columbian Chemicals video, the one in which ISIS supposedly claims responsibility. The accent was unmistakable, if unplaceable, and in both videos he was making a very strained attempt to sound American. Somehow the result was vaguely Australian.

Who was behind all of this? When I stumbled on it last fall, I had an idea. I was already investigating a shadowy organization in St. Petersburg, Russia, that spreads false information on the Internet. It has gone by a few names, but I will refer to it by its best known: the Internet Research Agency. The agency had become known for employing hundreds of Russians to post pro-Kremlin propaganda online under fake identities, including on Twitter, in order to create the illusion of a massive army of supporters; it has often been called a “troll farm.” The more I investigated this group, the more links I discovered between it and the hoaxes. In April, I went to St. Petersburg to learn more about the agency and its brand of information warfare, which it has aggressively deployed against political opponents at home, Russia’s perceived enemies abroad and, more recently, me.

[The KGB used to call this sort of thing aktivniye meropriyatiye (active measures) back in the Soviet day. — PW]

           — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey [Return to headlines]
 

Malaysia Airlines ‘Technically Bankrupt’

Malaysia Airlines is “technically bankrupt”, its chief executive has said, as he announced a restructuring programme and plans to cut about 6,000 jobs.

The announcement follows the twin air disasters which forced its nationalisation last year.

In March last year, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared with 239 passengers and crew aboard. The plane is still missing.

Four months later, flight MH17 was shot down by a suspected ground-to-air missile while in Ukrainian airspace, with the loss of 298 passengers and crew.

The two disasters proved to be the final straw for the already struggling business, which had reported losses for several years as a result of strong regional competition.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Muslim Cleric: Women Who Wear Jeans Are to Blame for Earthquakes, Terrorism

A Pakistani Muslim cleric has become an online laughing stock after claiming that women wearing jeans are to blame for devastating earthquakes, acts of terrorism and rising levels of inflation.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who is also leader of the junior party in Islamabad’s ruling coalition, said ‘immodest women’ are responsible for a whole host of recent disasters around the world.

The hardline politician — who reportedly described the Taliban as ‘our brothers’ — went on to compare women who do not fully cover their bodies in robes to weapons of mass destruction, before urging Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to carry out a military operation against women who wear jeans.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Pakistanis Respond After ‘Spy Pigeon’ Detained in India

The news of a pigeon detained in India on suspicion of being used to spy for Pakistan was met with amusement on both sides of the border — and encouraged Pakistanis to share memes and jokes making fun of their neighbours.

It all started when a 14-year-old boy in an Indian village close to the border with Pakistan found a white pigeon with a message written partly in Urdu, the language widely used in Pakistan, and some numbers in on its feathers. The bird was taken to police who ordered the bird to be X-rayed. Nothing suspicious turned up, but the pigeon was registered in police logs as a “suspected spy” according to reports.

The area where the bird was found is close to Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan and the scene of cross-border military confrontation.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Pakistani Politican Blames Women Wearing Jeans for Earthquakes

A Pakistani politician says women wearing jeans can be blamed for earthquakes, inflation and natural disasters. Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the chief of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islami Fazl political party, made the comments during a press conference Saturday and called for Pakistani armed forces to launch a military operation against the women, The New Indian Express reports.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

A Look at the US Stance on the South China Sea Dispute

Amid rising tensions in the South China Sea, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has said the US will continue to play a “pivotal” role in Asia. DW spoke to analyst Ernest Bower about Washington’s role in the dispute.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

China Ship Capsize: ‘Race Against Time’ In Yangtze Rescue

China’s transport minister says rescuers are in a “race against time” to find survivors among the hundreds missing after a cruise ship capsized in bad weather on the Yangtze River.

Thousands of rescuers worked through the night around the upturned hull of the Eastern Star in Hubei province.

Five people are confirmed dead and 15 more have been found alive from a ship that was carrying 456 people.

Frustrated relatives have been venting their anger at the lack of information.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Chinese Dog-Eating Festival Outrages Foreigners

Outrage on social media over an annual dog-eating festival in China has been growing every year — and this year it’s trended across the world. Will the anger eventually end the practice of eating dog meat in China?

Each year during summer solstice, it’s thought that 10,000 dogs are cooked and eaten in Yulin, in Guangxi province in southern China, as part of the city’s yearly dog meat festival. Although it’s not illegal to eat dog meat in China, opinion is divided on how deep the “tradition” really runs.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Cries for Help Heard From Capsized Boat in China’s Yangtze River

Rescuers in southern China were racing to rescue people Tuesday after hearing cries for help from the wreckage of a passenger ship that capsized in a storm the previous night with 458 people, many of them elderly, on board.

Five passengers were confirmed to have died and hundreds more were feared dead in the accident, which occurred at approximately 9:38 p.m. local time Monday (9:38 a.m. ET) during a a cruise from Nanjing to the southwestern city of Chongqing.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Gas Buildup Under Fukushima Threatens Hydrogen Explosion, Warn Nuclear Officials

(NaturalNews) It is estimated that at least 130 storage containers holding radioactive waste at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility in Japan are now leaking, according to new reports. The result is a continuous hydrogen gas buildup that nuclear experts say could one day trigger a cascade of devastating explosions potentially unlike anything the world has ever seen.

The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) discovered the leaks during a recent inspection, observing that hydrogen and other gases are accumulating in the sediment at the bottoms of many of the storage tanks onsite. The buildup from this is causing contaminated water inside the tanks to expand, blowing off their lids and spilling their contents.

An official from the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA), which was given the bad news during a recent study group meeting with TEPCO, reportedly told the media that this constantly accumulating gas buildup is an imminent danger and that something needs to be done to contain it.

“If the concentration level is high, a spark caused by static electricity could cause a container to explode,” stated one unnamed government official about the situation, as quoted by the news source The Asahi Shimbun.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

It’s Official: China, South Korea Sign Free Trade Agreement

Three years after negotiations started, China and South Korea officially signed a landmark new free trade agreement.

Seoul’s trade ministry estimates the the deal will boost China-South Korea trade to over $300 billion a year, up from $215 billion in 2012, when the negotiations began. It’s also projected to lift South Korea’s GDP by roughly 1 percent over the next ten years. China, meanwhile, is expected to see its GDP rise by 0.3 percent during the same time frame thanks to the FTA. And we could see more benefits in the future, as the two sides are expected to begin negotiation over removing barriers to the service sector in 2017.

Though both China and South Korea have other FTAs in the books, this deal is uniquely significant. China is already South Korea’s largest trading partner, and Seoul expects this deal to produce unique dividends on par with the size of the overall trade relationship. The FTA with South Korea is also China’s largest such deal in terms of the trade volume affected.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

New ATMs in China Recognize Your Face

Facial-recognition cash machines were designed to cut down on fraud

Withdrawing cash in China just got a lot more personal. The International Business Times’ Hannah Osborne reports that the world’s first facial-recognition ATMs will soon be available in China — and that officials hope the machines will help cut down on financial fraud.

To take out cash using the new ATMs, users will stand in front of a camera that compares the facial features of the would-be withdrawer with a photo database, reports Osborne. No match? No cash. The machines will reportedly even be able to identify facial features that have changed, writes Osborne.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Sorcery and Sexism in Papua New Guinea

Witchcraft killings are proving to be one of the country’s most persistent problems.

One of Papua New Guinea’s most persistent problems is not its possibly overheated resource sector nor allegations of corruption. It’s witchcraft. More specifically, the vicious murders of women accused of sorcery. This a complex problem that involves violence against women, land reclamations, and a rapidly developing nation.

“The enforcement of legislation that prohibits all forms of gender-based violence is the key to ending sorcery-related violence,” United Nations, 2013

A May 26 press release from Amnesty International called on the government to do more to protect women in the nation after a woman known as Mifla was hacked to death by a group of men in mid May. Two other women were also threatened and only just escaped. The trio, along with their children, were first accused in January.

A longtime Papua New Guinea resident and land rights activist, Lutheran missionary Anton Lutz, had been documenting the attacks and told the Australian Associated Press (AAP), “They believed she was a Sanguma (sorcerer), that she was responsible for deaths and misfortune in their world.” A witness apparently heard one killer say, “I’m sorry sister, I guess this is your day to die.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

ASEAN’s Response to Rohingya Crisis Falls Short

Two recent meetings fail to address some crucial issues.

On May 20, the foreign ministers of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand met in Putrajaya to discuss the region’s refugee crisis. This was followed on May 29 by a Special Meeting on Irregular Migration in the Indian Ocean was held in Bangkok, attended by 20 governments and international agencies.

Many expected that these emergency meetings would immediately translate into concrete resolutions to rescue the refugees, mostly from Myanmar and Bangladesh, who are still stranded at sea. The International Organization for Migration estimated that 4,000 refugees are still lost, while 3,200 have already landed in Malaysia and Indonesia.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

EU Ready to Discuss Terms of Asylum Sharing, Says Avramopoulos

The European Commission is ready to discuss new ways to admit and distribute asylum seekers in the EU, its top migration official said Tuesday, after Paris and Berlin urged it to rethink its plans.

Migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said the plan included steps aimed at “a better sharing of responsibility and solidarity” within the European Union to cope with growing numbers of migrants arriving on its shores.

Last week it asked member states to admit 20,000 Syrian refugees from outside Europe and process another 40,000 asylum seekers from Syria and Eritrea landing in Italy and Greece.

Their distribution would be worked out according to factors such as national economic output, population, unemployment rates and the number of refugees already admitted to an individual country.

But France and Germany Monday made a joint call to the EU to revise its plan, saying there was insufficient “balance” and that efforts by countries in welcoming asylum seekers should be “better taken into account”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

France: Under the Paris Metro

Under the La Chapelle metro station in Paris there has been a vibrant and creative life flourishing in the shadows. They come from Somalia, Eritrea, Morocco, Tunisia, etc. They demand the protection of the French State; some of them already have it, having received refugee status in their own homeland. This bustling encampment under the subway will soon be dismantled. The authorities are attempting to find suitable housing for the hundreds who regard France as a type of YMCA for those who want civilization so long as someone else builds it. Those of you who live in Paris should hurry to La Chapelle for one fond last look before they are removed to elegant quarters.

Below, three scenes of occupation. For more photos, see the slideshow at Le Monde.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

French Police Clear Migrant ‘Slum’ In Heart of Paris

French police on Tuesday moved to dismantle a months-old migrant camp in north-central Paris where some 400 people lived in cramped and squalid conditions.

Police started rounding up the migrants — most of them Sudanese, Somalis and Eritreans — at the site, located under the metro tracks at La Chapelle subway station, a stone’s throw away from the Eurostar terminal linking Paris to London, early Tuesday, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

French Police Pull Down Paris Migrant Camp

Dozens of police launched an operation on Tuesday morning to dismantle a makeshift camp in central Paris that had become home to around 350 migrants.

Police began to clear out the migrants at around 6.30am with buses lined up to away most of the migrants to a temporary transit centre outside the capital.

Later on Tuesday morning French police also cleared out two migrant camps in Calais that were located close to the Eurotunnel terminal, where many of the refugees try to board trains to the UK.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

French Police Clear Migrant Camp in Paris

French police officers have cleared hundreds of African migrants from a camp below elevated metro tracks in northern Paris. Health Minister Marisol Touraine stated sanitary reasons for the evacuation.

Law enforcement officers began clearing the migrant camp in Paris on Tuesday morning. About 350 people, most of them from Sudan, but also from Eritrea, Somalia and Egypt, were living in the makeshift camp below the elevated metro tracks between the stations La Chapelle and Barbes-Rochechouart in the north of the French capital.

Authorities put up signs over the weekend ordering them to leave within 48 hours. On early Tuesday morning, police surrounded the camp, which initially sprang up in the summer of 2014.

France’s minister of social affairs and health, Marisol Touraine, stated that the operation was necessary for sanitary reasons. “Such camps are places that pose a great risk in terms of epidemics and sanitary problems, first and foremost for those living there,” she told radio station France Info, adding that the migrants must be accommodated in shelters with better conditions.

More than half of the migrants in the camp want to leave France

Buses are to take the migrants to various shelters across the Paris area. However, less than half of the migrants from the makeshift camp wish to stay in France.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

French Border Police Have Stopped Migrants Trying to Sneak Into Britain 18,000 Times This Year — Four Times the Figure for the Whole of 2013

French border police have stopped migrants trying to sneak into Britain 18,000 times so far this year — more than four times the number stopped in the whole of 2013.

The figures reveal that the number of migrants attempting to reach British shores is more than double than that for the whole of last year, the border police report said.

Most of the migrants stopped were found stowed aboard lorries boarding Channel Tunnel shuttle trains in Coquelles and ferries at Calais port, police said.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Lampedusa in the Alps

“We came to Bolzano this morning,” says Dawit*, an Eritrean whose ship was rescued by Italian marines two weeks ago. He was brought to Lampedusa and has since travelled through Sicily, Arezzo and Rome towards Germany, where his uncle lives.

But in Bolzano, Italian policemen blocked all doors of the IC train to Munich, asking black passengers for passports. White people were waved through without having to show either passports or tickets.

Bolzano train station in northern Italy. About 15 people sleep every night on the station floor. During daytime, this figure can rise to several hundred people.

In the run-up to a G7 summit in Elmau on 7 and 8 June, Germany has reintroduced border controls. Passports will be checked over a three week period, from 26 May to 15 June.

It justifies the measures by referring to the recent terrorist attacks in Brussels, Paris and Copenhagen as well as the riots which marked the opening of ECB’s new headquarters in Frankfurt.

“Potential perpetrators of violence should be prevented from travelling to the venue in Germany, to help ensure that the summit passes without incident”, the German authorities said.

The measure means that the border is shut for migrants — not only in Germany, but already at Italy’s border with Austria.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Merkel: Germany is Becoming a ‘Country of Immigration’

A number of crises have driven people to seek refuge in Germany, prompting backlash from worried citizens. Now Chancellor Merkel is calling on them to welcome the diversity, saying Germany is a “country of immigration.”

Merkel also emphasized the need for concrete job offers for refugees from Africa, especially in professions where there was a demand for more skilled workers.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Migration Could Change Face of European Civilisation, Says Orban

“Mass migration is taking place around the world that could change the face of Europe’s civilisation,” Hungarian PM Viktor Orban said Tuesday, reports the MTI news-agency. This process would be “irreversible”, he said. Following recent controversial comments on the matter, he also said Hungary will not re-introduce the death penalty.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Migration Threatens European Civilisation: Hungary PM

BUDAPEST (AFP) — Mass migration threatens European civilisation, Hungary’s controversial Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Tuesday.

“Today mass migration is taking place around the globe that could change the face of Europe’s civilisation. If that happens, that is irreversible,” Orban said at a conference in honour of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who recently turned 85.

“There is no way back from a multicultural Europe. Neither to a Christian Europe, nor to the world of national cultures,” Orban added.

He insisted that migration needs to be addressed seriously.

“If we make a mistake now, it will be forever,” Orban, 52, said.

Orban was recently criticised for a questionnaire sent out to Hungarian citizens that linked migrants and asylum seekers with terrorism, which EU Commission vice president Frans Timmersmans slammed as “malicious and wrong”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Migration Threatens European Civilisation, Says Hungary PM

Mass migration threatens European civilisation, Hungary’s controversial Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Tuesday.

“Today mass migration is taking place around the globe that could change the face of Europe’s civilisation. If that happens, that is irreversible,” Mr Orban said at a conference in honour of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who recently turned 85.

“There is no way back from a multicultural Europe. Neither to a Christian Europe, nor to the world of national cultures,” Mr Orban added.

He insisted that migration needs to be addressed seriously.

“If we make a mistake now, it will be forever,” Mr Orban, 52, said.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Record Number of Unaccompanied Minors Seek Asylum in Sweden

Sweden saw a record number of unaccompanied minors apply for refugee status during the first five months of the year, according to the Swedish Migration Agency.

The number of young asylum seekers reached 3,109 in Sweden between January and May 2014. Most of the applicants came from Afghanistan and Somalia.

Richard Svangård, who works with unaccompanied children at the migration agency, said the figure represents a 79 percent increase when compared to the same period last year, which was also a record number at the time.

He said the growing number should prompt the nation’s municipalities to consider their housing needs.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Rise in Migrant Babies Means UK Will Have a Bigger Population Than Germany by 2060

Britain’s population will overtake Germany’s in the next 50 years, according to a new study.

Germany currently has the EU’s highest population, with 81million inhabitants, compared with 64million in the UK.

But a baby boom in Britain — due largely to soaring immigration — means the UK’s population will top 77million by 2060, according to predictions.

The number of people living in Germany — which the new study found now has the lowest birth rate in the world — is meanwhile expected to drop to 67million over the next 45 years.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Sweden: As Summer Comes, Asylum Seekers Make Way for Tourists

With its sandy beaches and numerous camping sites, Öland is a popular destination for tourists during the summer months. But during the island’s off-season, many of the camping grounds are used as temporary housing for asylum seekers.

Right now, refugees reside at 16 campgrounds but soon the sites will only be welcoming vacationers.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UN Refugee Agency Picked Islamic State Terrorists for Relocation to Norway

They were chosen by the UN to come to Norway as refugees but in reality they were terrorists from the Islamic State and the Al-Nusra Front.

During two trips to the Middle East the Politiets sikkerhetstjeneste (Norwegian Security Service) revealed that out of the 1000 refugees which had been picked out by the UNCHR 10 were terrorists.

Unfortunately there is someone who tried to exploit and abuse the UN agency, says Svein Erik Molstad with the Norwegian police to Norska Dagbladet

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Google Preaches Diversity But Hiring Numbers Still Lag

Google’s workforce is still dominated by white and Asian men even after the Internet company hired a woman to fill one out of every five of its openings for technology jobs last year. The ongoing lack of diversity emerged in a demographic breakdown that Google released Monday. Just 18 percent of Google’s technology jobs were held by women entering 2015, up a mere percentage point from the previous year. The rest of them were filled by men who were mostly white or Asian.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Liberals Worship Caitlyn Jenner as Transgender “Goddess”

Many liberals reacted to the Vanity Fair cover featuring Bruce Jenner’s transition into Caitlyn Jenner by proclaiming Jenner to be a Goddess and ordering everyone to bow down and worship her…

As Brendan O’Neill writes, “There is a palpable religiosity to the wild hailing of Bruce/Caitlyn as a modern-day saint, a Virgin Mary with testicles. Within four hours, more than a million people were following Bruce/Caitlyn’s new Twitter account, hanging on her words like the expectant horde waiting for Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai. Her every utterance, all banal celeb-speak, was retweeted tens of thousands of times. Celebs and commentators greeted her as a kind of messiah.”

Those who dared blaspheme the new “Goddess” were the victim of swiftly organized witch hunts, with Twitter users targeting anyone who still had the temerity to address Jenner by her former name.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Contact Lenses May Alter Bacteria in the Eye

Wearing contact lenses may change the community of bacteria living in your eyes, according to a small new study. In the study, the surface of the eye in the people who wore contact lenses had triple the proportion of certain bacteria species, on average, compared with the people in the study who did not wear the lenses, researchers found. Moreover, the researchers found differences in the composition of the bacterial community on the surface of people’s eyes.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Global Ranking on Corruption and Justice Aims to Promote Good Governance

Denmark topped the list in a new study ranking countries on how the rule of law is experienced by citizens. Britain came 12th and Venezuela trailed in last place.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Hyper-Precise Atomic Clocks Face Off to Redefine Time

Happy birthday, caesium clock. Now move over. As the atomic clock used to define time itself turns 60, tests are set to begin on a new generation of clocks that are designed to give the caesium version a run for its money.

Such timekeepers would enable a variety of experiments, including testing whether the fundamental constants of nature really are constant over time, and, eventually, a more precise official definition of the second.

Atomic clocks track the frequency of electromagnetic waves emitted by atoms as they change energy states. First demonstrated by British physicist Louis Essen in June 1955, the caesium clock became the world’s official timekeeper in 1967 — defining the second as the time it takes for the microwaves that are absorbed or emitted when caesium atoms switch between states to cycle through 9,192,631,770 oscillations.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Laser Weapons Get Real

Long a staple of science fiction, laser weapons are edging closer to the battlefield, thanks to optical fibers

Laser weapons are a staple of modern video games, and ray-guns of various sorts were common in science fiction for decades before the first real-life laser was demonstrated in 1960. But they are not a fantasy anymore. The Boeing prototype is just one of several such weapons developed in recent years in both the United States and Europe, largely thanks to the advent of relatively cheap, portable and robust lasers that generate their beams using optical fibers.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The Babylon Code: Key to Understanding the Coming One World Economic, Governmental, And Religious Sytem

Our entire planet is convulsing from the massive changes coming to our economic, political, and religious systems. Watching our television news and social media, millions of people are simply overwhelmed by events; it is as if our collective unconscious is being infected with dread and despair.

Images of ISIS terrorists wearing black robes and masks beheading journalists and innocent women in their attempt to establish a new Islamic caliphate are both horrific and barbaric. In response to this terrorist threat from an extreme Islamic religious sect, Pope Francis and the Vatican and a rising number of “Evangelical’ churches are calling for a more inclusive one world religion where all faiths merge.

Economic news of the potential for Greece to default on its loans and the rising practice of “bank bail-ins” where banks are now seizing the deposits of the common man in order to pay off their debts, threatens to move across the EU like falling dominoes and eventually into the U.S. To prevent the possibility of a global economic collapse a New International Economic Order is being set in motion where the dollar will not be the de facto world’s currency, but something like the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) proposed basket of competing currencies, which would constitute a new one world currency.

Simultaneously, Denmark is its way on to being the world’s first cashless society, as the government proposes new laws that will allow retailers to refuse cash payment.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

2 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/2/2015

    • The ban on pigeons may be to prevent their use for clandestine communications.

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