Gates of Vienna News Feed 10/12/2015

United States military aircraft dropped fifty tons of ammunition to the Syrian “rebels” today. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia sent 500 TOW anti-tank missiles to the Free Syrian Army to help them in their fight against the Russians and the Assad regime.

In other news, twenty “asylum-seekers” filed a lawsuit against Berlin’s main refugee registration center for taking too long to register them. The plaintiffs asserted that they waited more than a week without being registered, and were therefore unable to collect essential social benefits.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, DarLink, Insubria, JD, Nick, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

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

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

Financial Crisis
» EU Orders Spain to Submit New Budget as Election Nears
» IMF Says Iceland Repays Remaining $332 Million in Debt
» Italy: Rate Drops to 0,023% at 1-Yr Bond Auction
» Spain Risks Missing 2015 and 2016 Deficit Targets — Brussels Report
» The G-30 Group of Central Bankers Warn They Can “No Longer Save the World”
 
USA
» Armed Citizen Shoots and Kills Waffle House Robber
» Ben Carson Goes to National Press Club and Tells Media How Awful They Are
» Dozens Protest Islam Outside of Phoenix Mosque as Part of Nationwide Rally
» EPA Spends Millions on Military-Style Weapons, Watchdog Group Reports
» Networks Hype ‘Potential Nightmare’ From ‘Well-Armed’ Anti-Obama Protesters
» No Correlation Between Gun Ownership, Mass Shootings, & Murder Rates
» School Suspends Student Over Pro-Veteran Shirt
» Sheriff Clarke: If Obama Wants to Disarm People, ‘He Should Start With His Security Staff’
» Special Report: ‘Strong Cities Network’ Euphemism for NWO Global Police Force
» Tennessee Gun Shop Offering Discount to Christians
» The Media’s Predictable (And So Far Laughably Inept) Attempt to Tear Down Ben Carson
» Yes, Facebook is Stalking You
 
Europe and the EU
» German Anti-Islam Protesters Slam ‘Dangerous’ Merkel
» Italy: Mother ‘May Have Let Herself Die’ After Son
» Italy: Women Born in 1953 Face Huge Discrepancy in Retirement Age
» Italy: Marino Supporters Protest at PD Headquaters
» Italy: CGIL’s Camusso Blasts Renzi Delay on Pensions
» Italy: Prosecutors Order Marino Credit Card Records Seized
» Italy: Bankruptcy Probe Extended Into Renzi’s Father
» Italy: Tourists Stopped With Pompeii Wall Fragments in Bags
» Police Called to Meeting of Beard Fans in Sweden After Passer-by Confuses Them With ISIS Terrorists
» Police End Guard at Assange Refuge in London
» Poste Italiane IPO Hailed as ‘Biggest Privatisation in Decade’
» Rebel Cardinals Accuse Pope of Stacking Synod Cards
» Socialists Hold Off Right-Wing Party to Win Vienna Vote
» UK: Cops Wearing Union Jack Badge in Tribute to Dead PC ‘Ordered to Remove Them in Case They Offend’
» UK: ISIS Followers Plotted Remembrance Sunday Terror Attack, Court Hears
» UK: Julian Assange: Police End Guard at WikiLeaks Founder’s Embassy Refuge
 
North Africa
» Egypt Orders Mubarak’s Sons Released in Graft Case
» Libya Rival Forces Oppose UN-Proposed Peace Deal
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Four Separate Stabbing Attacks Hit Jerusalem Amid Ongoing Tensions
» Netanyahu: This is Our Home. This is Our Homeland. Our Will to Live Will Defeat Our Enemies’ Desire to Kill.
» Palestinian Authority Murder Incentive Fund in Full Swing
 
Middle East
» Avoiding Crisis: US Aircraft Ordered to Make Way for Russian Jets in Syria
» Grief-Stricken Turks Bury Ankara Victims, Venting Anger at Erdogan
» Intercepted ISIS Comms Show ‘Growing Panic’ After Russian Airstrikes
» Military Intervention in Iraq Not on Agenda Says Renzi
» Obama Drops 50 Tons of Ammo to Jihadists Fighting Russia and Syrian Army
» Obama: Increased US Military Presence in Mideast Could be Shameful Mistake
» Obama Felt ‘Skeptical’ About Training Syrian Rebels From the Beginning
» Report: Islamic State Seizes U.S. Missiles in Iraq
» Russian Air Force Destroys 29 ISIS Camps in Syria in 24 Hours
» Saudi Arabia Delivers 500 TOW Antitank Missiles to Free Syrian Army
» Thousands of Iranian Soldiers Arriving in Syria, Israeli PM
» U.S. Delivers 50 Tons of Ammunition to Syria Rebel Groups
» UK MOD Denies Tabloid Reports RAF ‘Ready to Shoot Down’ Russian Planes Over Iraq
» Washington’s Allies in Syria Are ‘Endangered Species Soon to Go Extinct’
 
Russia
» Italian Tire Producer Pirelli to Boost Investments in Russian Economy
» Russia Says Islamic State Implicated in Foiled Terror Plot
 
South Asia
» Indonesia: Papua: Release of Franciscans and Augustinians Arrested During a Peaceful Protest
» Nepal Elects Communist Sharma Oli as Prime Minister
» Resurgent Taliban Threaten to Overrun Another Afghan City
 
Far East
» Myanmar Detains Activist’s 16-Year-Old Son on Behalf of China
» Philippine Firms on Billion-Dollar Global Shopping Spree
 
Latin America
» US Brings Drug Charges Against Powerful Honduran Family
 
Immigration
» 20 Migrants Take Berlin’s Refugee Registration Centre to Court
» Cubans Retire to Florida — With Help From U.S. Taxpayers
» Greece to Open Up to 5 Migrant Processing Centers
» Insider: EU-U.S. Must Take More Refugees, Get Rid of Sovereignty
» Mexican Killer of ICE Agent Extradited to U.S. Linked to ATF’s Fast & Furious
» Refugee Reception Centres in Affected Areas Mooted in EU Draft Doc
» Video: Irate Germans Attempt to Block Buses Full of Migrants
 
Culture Wars
» Forget ISIS; Navy Gives Members New Foe to Combat: “Male Privilege”
» Indonesia: Central Java: Surprise Gay Marriage Not Legal
» MTV: Saying “No Can Do” Or “Long Time No See” Is Racist
» No Whites Allowed
 

EU Orders Spain to Submit New Budget as Election Nears

The European Commission on Monday ordered Spain to submit a new draft budget with lower deficit estimates to avoid violating the bloc’s tough spending rules, in a blow for the government ahead of Spanish elections.

The official warning from Brussels comes ahead of Spain’s December 20 general election, in which the economy is expected to be a key issue for the conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

The Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said that Spain’s draft budget for 2016 was “at risk of non-compliance” with rules brought in following the global financial crisis, adding that it “invites the national authorities to present an updated draft budgetary plan.”…

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

IMF Says Iceland Repays Remaining $332 Million in Debt

The International Monetary Fund says Iceland has repaid all of its remaining obligations — ahead of schedule — as the island nation presses on with its recovery following its economic collapse seven years ago.

The IMF said Friday that Iceland repaid $332 million, ending the rescue program that began in the 2008 financial crisis when the overly-leveraged economy collapsed under the strain of a worldwide credit squeeze.

The small north Atlantic nation had borrowed a total of about $2.1 billion, and the repurchase consolidates 11 repurchases that would have fallen due by Aug. 31, 2016.

[Comment: Iceland handled their banksters correctly.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Rate Drops to 0,023% at 1-Yr Bond Auction

Spread steady at 108 points

(ANSA) — Rome, October 12 — The Treasury on Monday sold all of the seven billion euros’ worth of one-year BOT State bonds that it put up for auction at an average interest rate of 0.023%, down from 0.028% at an equivalent sale in September. The spread between the 10-year BTP bond and the German equivalent, a key measure of investor confidence and of Italy’s borrowing costs, was steady at around 108 basis points after the auction.

The yield on the 10-year BTP stood at 1.68%.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Spain Risks Missing 2015 and 2016 Deficit Targets — Brussels Report

Pierre Moscovici, the European commissioner for economic and financial affairs, was very clear on Monday: Spain runs a serious risk of missing its deficit target this year and the next, and whatever government emerges from the general election on December 20 will have to adjust the budget accordingly.

But less than 24 hours after Moscovici’s department issued its report, the European Commission gave him a symbolic slap on the wrist by pointedly failing to take any decision regarding the 2016 Spanish budget.

Instead, Europe’s executive body will make a decision “in the coming days,” which in European Union jargon means that some of the 28 Commission members likely oppose Moscovici’s negative verdict on Spain.

Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos and his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, accused Moscovici of being too tough on Spain

On Tuesday, the commissioner was criticized by Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos and by his German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, who accused Moscovici of being too tough on Spain.

EL PAÍS has obtained a copy of Moscovici’s report, which shows that Spain’s budget proposal for 2016 elicits serious questions from the Commission’s economic and financial services.

The following are some of the major points contained within the document:

1. Regional governments: The Spanish budget was adopted on July 31 but it does not include specific measures to be taken by regional governments, which makes the bill seem incomplete.

2. Different growth forecasts: Brussels believes that Spain will grow 3.1% in 2015 and 2.7% in 2016 — in line with the IMF, which offers figures of 3.1% and 2.5%. Meanwhile, the Spanish government is talking about GDP growth of 3.3% this year and 3% in 2016. The document finds these figures optimistic, and underscores the risks posed by outside factors such as a slowdown in the emerging economies. Spain’s exposure to the Latin American market is of particular concern to Brussels.

3. Criticism from Airef. The report echoes criticisms voiced by the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (Airef) to the effect that the proposed budget could be different from the final version, with more of an accent on consumption and less on investment, and less job creation than expected. The latest modifications to the budget already show that regions will play a bigger role in the deficit than the national and local governments.

4. Risks of missing deficit targets. The document notes that Spain missed its 2014 target. This year, Moscovici’s department believes that the Spanish deficit will reach 4.5% of GDP — compared with the target of 4.2% — and 3.5% in 2016, seven tenths of a point above the target of 2.8%.

5. Sky-high debt levels. Spain says the public debt burden will stabilize at 98.7% of GDP in 2015 and fall to 98.2% in 2016, thanks to strong GDP growth and reduced borrowing costs. But the Commission is expecting higher debt levels due to different GDP growth forecasts.

6. Spending. The report highlights public savings stemming from pension reform and spending cuts at the local and regional levels. But it sees “implementation risks” in some of the measures, with a net effect lower than what the Spanish government is predicting.

7. Structural deficit. Spain expects an improvement of 0.8 percentage points in the structural deficit — which adjusts for business cycle swings and temporary measures. But Brussels believes that there will be a 0.5% deterioration as a result of a different assessment of some one-off operations, such as losses caused by the financial bailout. The report asks Spain for a greater effort after falling short of the target for two years in a row.

8. Reforms. Spain has made progress on issues such as mechanisms to cap regional health spending. But Brussels states that the design of incentives is still incomplete and that regional governments have yet to subscribe to this tool.

9. Verdict: risk of non-compliance and necessary measures for 2016. The document states that Spain runs the risk of failing to comply with the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), a set of rules for sound public finances and coordinated fiscal policies. This is exactly the opposite of what the Spanish and German economy ministers said on Tuesday. The report asks Spanish authorities to execute the 2015 budget strictly and to adopt the necessary measures to ensure that the 2016 budget complies with the SGP.

10. Corrections in 2016. The report criticizes the lack of specific measures regarding regional government action in the 2016 budget proposal. It also urges the new government that comes out of the December 20 elections to correct this shortcoming next year.

English version by Susana Urra.

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

The G-30 Group of Central Bankers Warn They Can “No Longer Save the World”

In a detailed report by the Group of Thirty, central bankers warned that ZIRP and money printing were not sufficient to revive economic growth and risked becoming semi-permanent measures. As Reuters reports, the flow of easy money has inflated asset prices like stocks and housing in many countries but have failed to stimulate economic growth; and with growth estimates trending lower and easy money increasing company leverage, the specter of a debt trap is now haunting advanced economies. “Central banks have described their actions as ‘buying time’ for governments to finally resolve the crisis… But time is wearing on,” sending a message of “you’re on your own” to governments around the world.

The G30 begins their report rather pointedly…

Central banks worked alongside governments to address the unfolding crises during 2007—09, and their actions were a necessary and appropriate crisis management response. But central bank policies alone should not be expected to deliver sustainable economic growth. Such policies must be complemented by other policy measures implemented by governments.

At present, much remains to be done by governments, parliaments, public authorities, and the private sector to tackle policy, economic, and structural weaknesses that originate outside the control or influence of central banks. In order to contribute to sustainable economic growth, the report presumes that all other actors fulfill their responsibilities.

Roughly translated… central bankers are saying “you are now on your own.”

[Comment: The PLANNED and ORCHESTRATED collapse on schedule. Now they have looted the countries real wealth and saddled countries and moronic gleftist governmetns with massive debt.”you are now on your own”… hard assets will be picked up by banksters for cents on the dollar when countries collapse…all intentional. Basically the Economic Hitman tactics on a global scale.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Armed Citizen Shoots and Kills Waffle House Robber

The Waffle House crew was busily going about its typical early-morning ritual — smothering and scrambling breakfast, clanking through the dirty dishes — when a robber jolted them out of their routine.

A customer decided he was having none of that and opened fire in the North Charleston eatery, thwarting the holdup Saturday by fatally shooting the suspect.

The young man who tried to rob the restaurant was rushed to Medical University Hospital, but he later died, police spokeswoman Angela Johnson said.

The intervening customer, who has not been identified, had a permit to carry a pistol, authorities said.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Ben Carson Goes to National Press Club and Tells Media How Awful They Are

The press are your enemy. Treat them that way and don’t back down. Not only is it the way to get elected, it’s the way to govern too.

Last week Rob explained one of the main reasons Donald Trump continues to lead the Republican nomination race, in spite of having spent only $2 million on his campaign so far. In essence, Trump understands what traditional Republican candidates don’t about how to deal with the media: Don’t take their crap, don’t let them intimidate you and don’t be afraid to call them on their idiocy and dishonesty.

Perhaps you’ve noticed that Ben Carson is in second place. And in case you haven’t noticed that Carson has learned the exact same lesson and is applying it well, behold. You’ve rarely seen a more beautiful take-down of the news media than this — and in their house, no less — and it simply comes from understanding what they do and not being afraid to call them out:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Dozens Protest Islam Outside of Phoenix Mosque as Part of Nationwide Rally

200 protesters gathered outside the Islamic Community Center near Interstate 17 and Northern Avenue Saturday to protest the Islam religion as part of a nationwide rally.

The rally coincides with protests at mosques in over 20 cities across the country for what is called The Global Rally for Humanity.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

EPA Spends Millions on Military-Style Weapons, Watchdog Group Reports

The Environmental Protection Agency has spent millions of dollars over the last decade on military-style weapons to arm its 200 “special agents” to fight environmental crime.

Among the weapons purchased are guns, body armor, camouflage equipment, unmanned aircraft, amphibious assault ships, radar and night-vision gear and other military-style weaponry and surveillance activities, according to a new report by the watchdog group Open the Books.

“Protecting the environment just got real. With millions of dollars spent on military style weaponry, the EPA is now literally ensconced with all institutional force,” said Adam Andrzejewski, founder of Open the Books and the author of the report.

“Our report discovered that when the EPA comes knocking they are armed with a thousand lawyers, arrest/criminal data, credit, business and property histories, plus a ‘Special Agent’ with the latest in weaponry and technology,” Mr. Andrzejewski added.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Networks Hype ‘Potential Nightmare’ From ‘Well-Armed’ Anti-Obama Protesters

ABC, CBS, and NBC’s Friday evening newscasts all spotlighted how “gun rights supporters, many of them openly armed” protested President Obama as he visited Roseburg, Oregon to comfort family members of the victims of the recent mass shooting there.

CBS’s John Blackstone played up how “the protesters gathered at the Roseburg airport carried both signs and guns — a potential nightmare for the Secret Service.” NBC Nightly News featured footage of a Confederate flag flying from pickup truck of one of the protesters — something ABC and CBS didn’t do.

[Comment: Demonizing opponents…propagands designed to create impression opponenets are less than rational humans…all preparation for assault on patriots and constituionalists…]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

No Correlation Between Gun Ownership, Mass Shootings, & Murder Rates

While I was fact checking my previous article, I checked some correlation coefficients of my own so I didn’t have to rely on Volokh’s numbers as my only source.

I approached the data a little differently than Volokh did and instead of using a subjective ranking by an organization like the Brady organization, I just looked at the rate of gun ownership in the state. After all, the argument is often that more guns and more gun owners leads to more violence.

So, I looked at the correlation between the gun ownership rate (a percentage on the x axis) and the murder rate (n per 100,000 on the y axis) in each state. The visual result is this:

As you can see, there is no correlation. In fact, if you run the numbers, the correlations coefficient is 0.1, which suggests a negligible correlation, or none at all. The murder data is 2012 data from the Justice Department. The gun ownership rate data is from a 2015 report called “Gun ownership and social gun culture.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

School Suspends Student Over Pro-Veteran Shirt

An Oregon middle school suspended an eighth-grader for wearing a pro-veteran shirt with the phrase “standing for those who stood for us.”

School officials at Dexter McCarty Middle School in Gresham, Ore., demanded Alan Holmes change his shirt which also featured a battlefield cross consisting of a soldier’s rifle stuck into a pair of boots with a helmet on top to show respect for soldiers killed in action.

“They won’t let me wear a shirt that supports the people that keep us free, I’m not going to support them,” Holmes told Fox 12. “I was nervous and kind of heartbroken because I feel like I should be able to support the troops that have died for us.”

The 13-year-old also said he wore the shirt to show support for his older brother who served in Iraq with the Marines.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Sheriff Clarke: If Obama Wants to Disarm People, ‘He Should Start With His Security Staff’

On the Saturday broadcast of “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” host Judge Jeanine Pirro asked Milwaukee County, WI Sheriff David Clarke if he was surprised that President Obama announced that he wanted to politicize the Oregon shooting.

Clarke stated that the president “never misses an opportunity to politicize something.” and that if he wants to take away guns he needs to start with his armed security staff.

“You know, [President Obama] never misses an opportunity to politicize something. Any time there’s a tragedy that happens in the United States, he goes into his political bag of tricks to see what he can accomplish on his agenda and it’s sad that he exploits these people and I’m glad they saw through it. When he takes advantage and uses them to achieve a political agenda, I’m glad to see that they slapped back. This is a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ president and he speaks as he is surrounded by this protective bubble, which he should have. If he wants to disarm people, he should start with his security staff.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Special Report: ‘Strong Cities Network’ Euphemism for NWO Global Police Force

Attorney General Loretta Lynch bypassed the American people to bring a vile congregation before the Islamic High Council, AKA the United Nations — entitled the Strong Cities Network.

This global police force was dreamed up by professors from the halls of Oxford and spearheaded by the New World Order think tank, the Institute of Strategic Dialogue.

Now launched as of September 29, 2015, it is described on the Strong Cities Network website as “a global network of local authorities united in building resilience to prevent violent extremism.” The Strong Cities Network will be spearheaded by an International Steering Committee of cities and local authorities selected from different regions across the globe.

Of course Muslim-Americans are complaining they will be targeted, but most Americans are well aware of who the real target is.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Tennessee Gun Shop Offering Discount to Christians

An east Tennessee gun shop is making headlines after offering Christians a discount on firearm purchases.

Frontier Firearms says people who say they are a Christian will get a five percent discount at the store.

Owner Brant Williams decided to offer the discount after the deadly mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon.

Survivors reportedly told authorities that the gunman demanded at least some of the victims state their religion before shooting them.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Media’s Predictable (And So Far Laughably Inept) Attempt to Tear Down Ben Carson

This has a familiar feel to me, as you might imagine. Ben Carson is a black conservative who is not part of the political establishment, and is running quite strong in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. That has the media in a snit for all kinds of reasons. They don’t like black conservatives (OK, any conservatives, but especially blacks who dared to venture off the liberal plantation). They don’t like people who aren’t part of the political class daring to operate on their turf.

And on top of all this, they just like to tear people down who are doing well, especially those they disagree with ideologically. So it’s no surprise that they’re doing everything they can think of to destroy Dr. Carson. And it’s fantastic to see him thwarting them at every turn.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Yes, Facebook is Stalking You

Facebook is following you around the Web. You knew that, right?

How else would Facebook know to serve that panda video straight into your news feed, and leave your college friend’s ill-informed rant about Pacific trade deals in the dark bowels of its servers? How else would it know to serve you with 7,000 ads for wedding dress vendors the very day you announce your engagement?

Facebook knows what you like. It knows what you don’t like. It probably knows whether you have been naughty or nice, and will be selling that data to Santa this Christmas season.

This bothers many people, especially since Facebook keeps expanding the list of things it knows about you, and the ways it is willing to use that data to make money.

The recent announcement that Facebook would soon target ads using your “likes” and “shares” has triggered some Olympic-level teeth- gnashing from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, because Facebook will get information from you not just when you actually like, “like” something, but when you load a page that has a “like” button on it.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

German Anti-Islam Protesters Slam ‘Dangerous’ Merkel

Germany’s anti-Islam party PEGIDA stepped up its attacks on Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday, slamming her as “the most dangerous woman in Europe” and demanding she resign.

PEGIDA leader Tatjana Festerling told a rally of thousands of supporters in the eastern city of Dresden that Merkel’s policy of welcoming refugees had turned Germany into a “gigantic camp in the jungle”.

Festerling, who came fourth in Dresden’s mayoral elections in June with 10 percent of the vote, denounced Merkel as “irresponsible” describing her as “the most dangerous woman in Europe”…

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

Italy: Mother ‘May Have Let Herself Die’ After Son

Mother and son found dead in house near Milan

(ANSA) — Milan, October 8 — Carabinieri military police said Thursday an elderly woman who was found dead in a flat last week may have let herself die after discovering the lifeless body of her son.

The remains of Anna Grazia Del Turco, 76, and her veterinarian son Leonardo Vitartali, 50, were found in a flat in the town of Binasco near Milan on October 1.

There was no blood and no signs of a struggle at the scene, and an autopsy revealed the mother died 48 hours after the son.

Vitartali was ill with diabetes, and Del Turco was in the terminal stages of cancer.

Police are speculating she may have decided not to call emergency services after finding her son had died on the sofa, preferring to let herself die instead.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Women Born in 1953 Face Huge Discrepancy in Retirement Age

Some women able to claim ‘baby pensions’, others must await 2020

(ANSA) — Rome, October 12 — Some women born in 1953 could be allowed to retire up to 30 years before their peers due to a delay in reforming Italian pension law.

Changes had been planned for the so-called Fornero Law, which was introduced in 2011 and outlined that pensions should be calculated based on the number of social security payments made, and no longer on the average salary earned in the last years before retirement. The retirement age for women was raised.

But a delay in changing the law means that the retirement age for women will climb in 2016 from 63 years and nine months to 65 years and seven months.

A further increase to kick in in 2018, will penalise women born in the year 1953 in particular, who risk having to wait until 2020 to claim their pensions.

However, an anomaly in the system means that there could be a woman born that year who, if she immediately began work in the public sector after she graduated in 1975, and then took advantage of the so-called baby pension system, she would have been eligible for retirement aged 36.

However, one of her peers who may have started work in 1978 in the private sector will have to wait until 2020 — when she’ll be 67 years old — to receive her pension.

This means that, in theory, one woman born in 1953 would have worked 27 years more than the other.

Under the baby pension system, employees have the right to retire after contributing 14 years and six months’ worth of social security contributions.

The Italian system is also producing significant differences in retirement age for those who worked in the private sector, even for those of a similar age. A woman born on December 31, 1951 who began working in 1978, would have been eligible for retirement on January 1, 2013, aged 61. However, a woman born only a year and a day later on January 1, 1953, and who began working in 1978, may only be eligible for retirement in 2020.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Marino Supporters Protest at PD Headquaters

Voter disenchantment with ruling party after Marino debacle

(ANSA) — Rome, October 12 — Supporters of resigning Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino gathered Monday at the national headquarters of Premier Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD).

Marino resigned Friday under pressure from his own PD party in what supporters say was an orchestrated attack because the mayor prosecuted corrupt officials and angered the Vatican with his stance in favor of gay marriage.

Protesters carried signs saying “Rome wants its mayor back”, “Rome Mafia thanks the PD and the Vatican”, “Marino, honest Rome wants you” were among other expressions of support for Marino, who was elected in 2013 with 64% of the vote and who is set to make his resignation official today.

“They took our vote away from us,” said one woman. “The PD drove out Marino, who was elected by us citizens. In two and a half years, he did what these guys over here haven’t done in 40 years”.

“He took on the powers that be,” agreed another protester.

“This way the PD has lost a lot of votes,” said another woman supporter of Marino.

“They can forget about my vote now”.

A fellow protester agreed.

“I’m a PD voter,” he said. “If the mayor (Marino) runs again on a PD ticket I’ll vote for the PD, if — as we hope he does — Marino stays in office as a PD mayor I’ll vote PD, but if the mayor runs again on a civic list, I will vote for him and not the PD”.

“Marino was fired by the Vatican,” argued another supporter.

Marino technically has 20 days to withdraw his resignation or make it permanent.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: CGIL’s Camusso Blasts Renzi Delay on Pensions

Renzi says flexibility measures coming next year

(ANSA) — Rome, October 12 — Susanna Camusso, the leader of Italy’s largest trade union federation CGIL, said Monday that Premier Matteo Renzi was wrong to delay changes to Italy’s pension system. On Sunday Renzi announced that measures to add flexibility to the pension system to enable people close to retirement age to quit work would be passed next year and not in the 2016 budget law. “It’s wrong to delay the decision and consider it an adjustment, offloading the burden onto the workers,” said Camusso. Renzi told State broadcaster RAI on Sunday that it was necessary to wait on the pension moves until 2016 “when the numbers will be clearer”. He said otherwise there was a risk that any action could actually cause “damage”. The government had said that it would address the unwanted aftereffects of a 2011 pension reform, which raised the retirement age and increased the years of contributions needed to take early retirement, in its 2016 budget law.

The 2011 law, among other things, created the problem of the ‘esodati’ (exiled ones) — people who were left without pay or a pension after leaving jobs, as under the old rules, they were eligible to retire.

There have been six interventions on behalf of the 250,000 or more esodati but an estimated 50,000 have still not been helped.

On Sunday Renzi also said that the famous 80-euro-a-month tax bonus he introduced last year for low earners will no longer feature in people’s pay packets, but will instead be transformed into an extra form of tax deduction. He added that the 2016 budget law will feature a move to try to reverse the brain drain by bringing 500 Italian university professors currently working abroad back home.

The premier confirmed that the IMU property tax and the TASI local-services tax will be scrapped for household’s primary homes in the budget law and that the IRES business tax will be cut. “We are the first government to really cut taxes,” renzi said. The budget will also feature measures to help some one million Italian children living in poverty.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Prosecutors Order Marino Credit Card Records Seized

Resigning Rome mayor probed for possible embezzlement

(ANSA) — Rome, October 12 — Prosecutors on Monday ordered the finance police to seize all records of expenses resigning Mayor Ignazio Marino made using the city’s credit card.

The investigation was sparked by a formal report from two opposition parties — the small rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, currently the second-largest party in Italy after Marino’s Democratic Party (PD).

The mayor, who is to hand in his formal resignation today, could face embezzlement charges if evidence is found to support opposition allegations he spent some 20,000 euros of taxpayers’ money on private dinners.

Investigators are also looking into why the limit on the mayor’s city-issued credit card, which is supposed to be used for diplomacy and public relations, was raised from 10,000 to 50,000 euros.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Bankruptcy Probe Extended Into Renzi’s Father

Tiziano Renzi probed for bankrupt newspaper distribution firm

(ANSA) — Genoa, October 12 — A preliminary hearings judge on Monday ordered the extension of a probe into Tizano Renzi, father of Italian Premier Matteo Renzi, in a case of suspected fraudulent bankruptcy.

The judge disagreed with the prosecutor in the case, who had asked for the probe to be shelved.

The elder Renzi is under investigation in the north-western city of Genoa.

The probe into the 2013 failure of the Chil Srl newspaper distribution and advertising firm, which was founded by the premier’s father, was opened in 2013.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Tourists Stopped With Pompeii Wall Fragments in Bags

French visitors cited for aggravated theft

(ANSA) — Naples, October 12 — Four French tourists of North African origin were cited by police at Pompeii Monday after being found with fragments of non-frescoed wall material in their backpacks at the ancient Roma site. They had picked up the fragments, between two and three centimetres in length, from the ground rather than detaching them from walls, officials said.

The four have been cited for aggravated theft.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Police Called to Meeting of Beard Fans in Sweden After Passer-by Confuses Them With ISIS Terrorists

Terror police in Sweden have been called to reports of a group of bearded men in dark clothes raising a black flag above a remote castle.

But instead of Isis militants, officers responding to the scene stumbled across a meeting of an international organisation of beard aficionados.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Police End Guard at Assange Refuge in London

Officers pulled from Ecuador embassy

(ANSA) — Rome, October 12 — Police will no longer be stationed outside the Ecuadorean embassy in London where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has sought refuge since 2012, the Metropolitan police said Monday.

Officers had been there since Assange sought asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden over a rape allegation, which he denies.

The Met said the guard had cost 12.6 million pounds and was “no longer proportionate”.

But it will still try to arrest Assange, the Met said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Poste Italiane IPO Hailed as ‘Biggest Privatisation in Decade’

CEO Francesco Caio says sale will help modernise Italy

(ANSA) — Milan, October 12 — The partial sale of up to 40% of Poste Italiane, Italy’s national postal service, is being hailed on Monday by The Financial Times as “the biggest privatisation in more than a decade” — one on which the government of Premier Matteo Renzi has “staked its reputation”.

In the article, Poste Italiane CEO Francesco Caio said the privatisation is “very large by Italian standards” and “opens up the privatisation window after a long freeze”, adding that it provides “the opportunity and the challenge to show what we are capable of as a company and a country”.

On Monday, at the presentation of the IPO, Caio said the privatisation “surely has financial and economic importance, but also has an industrial policy importance and will contribute to the modernisation of the country”.

Fabrizio Pagani, head of the office of Italy’s Minister of Economy and Finance, called the IPO a “historic privatisation”.

“If you believe in the Italian recovery then you have to also believe in Poste, because a great company that represents Italy is going on the stock market,” he said.

Caio confirmed Monday that the postal company is taking on 8,000 new workers. “We confirm (the hiring of 8,000 people). It has already started,” Caio said. “They are needed to change and reinforce the professional profile of the postal service to better serve the public”. As well as running Italy’s postal service, Poste Italiane also has a thriving banking arm.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Rebel Cardinals Accuse Pope of Stacking Synod Cards

Conservative cardinals have accused Pope Francis of stacking the cards against them in an ongoing battle over issues including the Church’s approach to gays and to divorced and remarried believers, it emerged Monday.

In a letter sent to the pontiff on October 5, the opening day of a Church synod on the family, a group of 13 cardinals described procedures for three weeks of discussions as “designed to facilitate predetermined results on important disputed questions.”

The ostensibly private (but quickly leaked) letter was delivered to the pope by Australian Cardinal George Pell and signed by 12 of his peers, including the archbishops of Toronto and New York, Thomas Collins and Timothy Dolan, and two of the Vatican’s arch-conservatives, Hungarian cardinal Peter Erdo and Carlo Caffarra, the archbishop of Bologna…

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

Socialists Hold Off Right-Wing Party to Win Vienna Vote

But the win was coupled with a loss in support

(ANSA) — VIENNA (AP) — The Socialist party held on to Vienna city hall in a municipal election on Sunday, fighting off a challenge from a right-wing populist party campaigning on Austrian concerns over mass migration.

But the win was coupled with a loss in support. With all votes except absentee ballots counted, the Socialists received 39.44 percent of the ballot, down nearly five percentage points. The Freedom Party had 32.26 percent, up more than six percentage points from the last election five years ago.

The result leaves the Socialists in position to continue governing the Austrian capital in coalition. Still, they give the Freedom Party its best ever result in Vienna. They also reflect voter anxiety about the thousands of migrants entering Austria daily as they flee conflict in the Mideast and elsewhere.

The preliminary results showed the Green party with 11.14 percent. That would leave them in position to remain as the Socialist coalition partners. Losing significant backing was the centrist People’s Party at 8.7 percent, more than 5 percentage points below their 2010 showing.

Also clearing the 5 percent hurdle needed to gain seats in the Vienna legislature were the liberal NEOS, according to the preliminary results. Contesting their first Vienna election, they won 5.95 percent of the vote.

With another five-year term for his Socialists a certainty, Vienna Mayor Michael Haeupl said he “could live well” with the results. Alluding to the Freedom Party’s anti-immigrant message, he said he remains convinced that people fleeing terror and hunger have to be helped, adding “that’s what I have stood for in my whole political life.” Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache also said he was satisfied.

“You cannot dismiss” the party’s best-ever showing, he told reporters.

Polls ahead of the vote had shown the Socialists in front with more than a third of the vote, but with the Freedom Party close behind and concerns about the uncontrolled daily influx of thousands of migrants fleeing violent world regions the top concern of the electorate.

While 67.6 percent of the electorate voted five years ago, the estimated turnout for Sunday’s vote stood at 74 percent, including still to be counted absentee ballots.

Analysts said Strache’s portrayal of the election as a “revolution” and a “duel” with Haeupl, as well as his party’s anti-migrant message, helped the Socialists win by a larger-than-projected margin. Even as many traditional Socialist voters turned to the Freedom Party to further erode traditional blue-collar Socialist support, many people who normally don’t vote Socialist — or don’t vote at all — did so this time to prevent a Freedom Party triumph.

The Freedom Party already has made huge gains in several provincial elections this year, at the expense of the Socialists and the centrist People’s Party, but it hasn’t won outright.

Those establishment parties have governed on all levels in Austria with few exceptions since the end of World War II.

Runoff mayoral elections also were held Sunday in 44 communities in Upper Austria province. But “Red Vienna” was a special prize.

The city has been governed by the Socialists since the end of World War II.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Cops Wearing Union Jack Badge in Tribute to Dead PC ‘Ordered to Remove Them in Case They Offend’

Police officers wearing Union Jack badges in tribute to PC David Phillips who was killed on duty were allegedly ordered to remove them — because they might cause “offence”.

Metropolitan Police officers were reportedly told not to wear the ‘thin blue line’ badges — a Union jack flag with a blue line through it — because it “could cause offence to some within certain communities”.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: ISIS Followers Plotted Remembrance Sunday Terror Attack, Court Hears

Three Islamic State supporters arrested days before Remembrance Sunday last year were plotting a terror attack at the commemorations to emulate the killing of soldier Lee Rigby, a court has heard. They were acting on a “truly chilling” fatwa, or religious edict, issued by Isis to “rig the roads with explosives” and to cut off the heads of members of the public, police officers or security services, said the prosecution.

“This fatwa … inspired the defendants to plan their own attack in this country, emulating the attack on Lee Rigby,” Max Hill, QC for the prosecution told the court.

The prosecution alleged that the three men, who were “unnaturally interested in murders and beheadings”, were plotting an attack around Remembrance Sunday with a self-made phone video showing their alleged contempt for the poppy as the symbol of war commemoration.

In the five weeks prior to their arrest on 6 November, they became increasingly obsessed with Islamic State beheadings, storing gruesome images of victims including those of British taxi driver Alan Henning and US journalist James Foley. Most of the images were heavily sanitised when played for the jury. They purchased knives including a “Rambo-style” hunting knife online and from a shop in Ealing, which the prosecution believed were to be used in an attack on a member of the public.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Julian Assange: Police End Guard at WikiLeaks Founder’s Embassy Refuge

Police will no longer be stationed outside the Ecuadorean embassy in London where Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has sought refuge since 2012.

Met Police officers had been there since Mr Assange sought asylum to avoid extradition to Sweden over a rape allegation, which he denies.

The Met said it had cost £12.6m and was “no longer proportionate” — but it would still try to arrest him.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt Orders Mubarak’s Sons Released in Graft Case

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, OCTOBER 12 — A court in the Egyptian capital on Monday ordered the release of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s two sons, Gamal and Alaa.

The two men had already served three years in jail and had been sentenced in May as part of a trial for embezzlement of public funds allocated for the renovation and maintenance of the presidential palace. Alaa and Gamal were arrested in 2011. In May of 2014 a court sentenced them to four years in jail and their father to three years. On January 13, 2015, Egypt’s highest court upheld an appeal, annulling the sentence and resulting in their release. The court called another trial in May 2015, after which the two were imprisoned once more.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Libya Rival Forces Oppose UN-Proposed Peace Deal

Libya’s rival parliament and government both showed opposition to a UN-proposed peace deal installing a unity government Monday, with one lawmaker saying it would deepen rifts in the country.

“This government is rejected… it will deepen differences between the Libyan people,” said Mahmud Abdel Aziz of the General National Congress, which has yet to vote on the plan.

The Tripoli-based GNC is refusing to discuss the proposed government until its demands are met for amendments to the UN-proposed plan for Libya, which plunged into chaos after the 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

In the aftermath of his fall and murder, the country has been ruled by powerful armed militias and has had two governments and two parliaments since August 2014…

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

Four Separate Stabbing Attacks Hit Jerusalem Amid Ongoing Tensions

Five suspects were shot in four separate attempted stabbing attacks in Jerusalem on Monday, Israeli police said.

Extra police were deployed around the Old City as the latest wave of violencesweeping Israel and the West Bank showed no signs of abating.

Jerusalem’s Mayor Nir Barkat urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take “more severe” measures in wake of the most recent attacks and asked the public to stay vigilant.

“To our shock and horror, the cruelty of murderers who attack innocent civilians and children on their way home from school knows no limit, confronting us all with a shocking form of evil,” Barkat said in a statement. “We must act swiftly and decisively.”

His comments came after a spate of incidents earlier in the day in and around Jerusalem.

On Monday night a man on a bus at the entrance to Jerusalem stabbed an Israeli passenger and tried to snatch a rifle from a soldier, police told NBC News. Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said that the “terrorist” was shot and killed and a “lightly injured” soldier was transported to a hospital.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Netanyahu: This is Our Home. This is Our Homeland. Our Will to Live Will Defeat Our Enemies’ Desire to Kill.

Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) winter session Monday evening, calling for coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Israel while calling on Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas to “fight incitement being employed to bring a religious conflict to Israel”.

Netanyahu stated, “There is no way to stop the Zionist enterprise. This is our home. This is our homeland. Our will to live will defeat our enemies’ desire to kill.”… Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat released the following statement after the [recent] attacks: To our shock and horror, the cruelty of murderers who attack innocent civilians and children on their way home from school knows no limit, confronting us all with a shocking form of evil. This cruel and merciless terrorism is the result of incitement and inflammatory lies. We must act swiftly and decisively against the terrorists as well as against those who are spreading this incitement. I call on Prime Minister Netanyahu to implement more severe means and to take strong action against those who are inciting terrorism with their inflammatory statements and messages.”

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Palestinian Authority Murder Incentive Fund in Full Swing

On October 8, 2015, six Arabs either murdered or tried to murder Jews, in six different locations in the country. As these attacks occurred, Arabs rioted in every nook and cranny of Israel, on both sides of the 1949 cease fire line. Yet at the same time, while the Israel Broadcasting Authority announced one Arab attack and Arab riot, one after another on the news, The Israel Defense Establishment trotted out spokespeople, every hour on the hour, to assure the people of Israel that the Palestinian Authority will most certainly work to calm down the atmosphere of violence.

Yet the PA plays an insidious role, as it provides gratuities to any Arab who will murder or attempt to murder a Jew.

Every month, according to the bylaws of the Palestinian Authority, the PA transfers 17 million shekels to those who have been convicted of first degree murder or attempted murder who now serve their sentences behind bars.

The PA also allocates funds to families of killers, with special grants for families of killers who die as while committing an act of murder.

According to the PA distribution formula, the more severe the attack conducted by the killer and the longer the prison sentence, the stipend is increased proportionately.

Maher al-Hashlamon Hamdi, who was convicted to two life sentences for the murder of Dalia Lemkus in a car-ramming and stabbing attack exactly one year ago, started receiving monthly stipends from the PA as soon as Mahdi Hamdi was arrested.

Hamdi now receives 1,400 NIS a month. These payments will increase over time, and in the future, his monthly stipend will reach no less than 10,000 shekels.

Zaid Awad, who murdered Baruch Mizrachi on Passover Eve 2014 has received stipends from the PA totaling about 30,000 shekels. These stipends followed those he received for his previous imprisonment before he was released in the Gilad Shalita prisoner exchange, when he received about 300,000 shekels.

Amad Awad and Hakim Awad, who brutally murdered five members of the Fogel family in Itamar, have so far received almost 75,000 shekels each. According to the PA’s fund distribution formula for murderers, they’ll continue to receive stipends that will even reach 12,000 shekels a month. When calculating the total sum throughout their lives, they will each receive 2.4 million shekels for the multiple murders they committed.

As mentioned, every month, the PA allots 17 million shekels to funding those who are convicted of murder and attempted murder€¦in addition to grants to the murderers’ families. More than a few murder convicts admit during interrogation that they want to commit terror attacks in order to receive the payment.

In other words, you could call this an incentive to murder…

           — Hat tip: DarLink [Return to headlines]
 

Avoiding Crisis: US Aircraft Ordered to Make Way for Russian Jets in Syria

In the wake of US-Russian discussions on preventing accidental collisions between each others’ aircraft while operating in the sky over Syria, the American side issued a special rule, prohibiting US jets from closely approaching Russian planes.

Defense representatives of both nations conducted a video conference on safe flight operations over Syria on Saturday, CNN reported.

During the negotiations, they discussed ways of avoiding any possible incidents between Russian and American air forces during air raids in the sky over Syria.

The US has implemented a decree that forbids American pilots from getting any nearer than 32.2 kilometers (20 miles) to Russian jets while flying over Syria. Moreover, if Russian aircraft is detected in the area of US military operation, any American forces are obliged to cancel their operations in the area. Several US air raids have already been cancelled under that rule.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Grief-Stricken Turks Bury Ankara Victims, Venting Anger at Erdogan

Grieving loved ones on Monday laid to rest some of the victims of the double suicide bombings in Ankara that left 97 dead, denouncing the government in the first funerals from modern Turkey’s worst attack.

The bombings targeted a peace rally Saturday organised by trade union, leftist and Kurdish groups that had mobilised activists from across the country.

After being identified at the Ankara morgue, the victims’ bodies were sent to their home regions for burial.

Funerals were held Monday in Ankara and Istanbul as well as in cities in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast…

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

Intercepted ISIS Comms Show ‘Growing Panic’ After Russian Airstrikes

Russian Air Forces have extended the range of their airstrikes on Islamic State positions in Syria to four provinces, focusing primarily on demolishing fortified installations and eliminating supply bases and the terrorists’ infrastructure.

Over the last 24 hours Russian aircraft have attacked terrorist positions in the Hama, Idlib, Latakia and Raqqa provinces of Syria. In total, 64 sorties targeted 63 Islamic State installations, among them 53 fortified zones, 7 arms depots, 4 training camps and a command post.

The airstrikes were carried out by Sukhoi Su24M and Su-34 bombers and Su-25SM assault aircraft, with Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets ensuring air escort for the assault groups.

“Having accomplished combat assignments, all aircraft of the task force operating in Syria successfully returned to the Khmeimim airbase,” said the spokesperson for the Russian Defense Ministry, Igor Konashenkov.

Radio intercept data has revealed “growing panic” among Islamic State militants, according to Konashenkov. He added that IS field commanders have urged senior staff to expedite supply armament and military equipment, as well as to redeploy reinforcements from Raqqa province as a result of Russia’s air bombardment.

In the vicinity of the city of Saraqib in northwest Syria, an artillery position known for inflicting strikes on the nearby residential areas has been exposed and eliminated.

A group of Sukhoi Su-24M bombers attacked a terrorist field headquarters near the village of Salma in northwest Syria. This command post has been coordinating operations of the militants in whole of the Latakia province.

“A direct hit of a guided KAB-500 air bomb completely destroyed a building with militant commanders inside,” the Defense Ministry’s spokesperson reported. “The airstrike also eliminated five SUVs with ZU-23 double-barreled 23mm anti-aircraft guns mounted on them that were parked nearby.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Military Intervention in Iraq Not on Agenda Says Renzi

Need overall strategy against ISIS

(ANSA) — Rome, October 12 — Italy will not participate in anti-Islamic State (ISIS) coalition bombings in Iraq, Premier Matteo Renzi told a talk show on RAI public broadcaster at the weekend.

“That decision is not on the agenda,” he said. “It is a fact that in principle we can intervene militarily in some situations, but the Iraq situation does not have those characteristics, at least for now”.

Renzi went on to say that the fight against ISIS must include Turkey and Russia.

“Either we come up with an overall strategy, or we are all victims of a strategy that continues on a day by day basis,” he said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Obama Drops 50 Tons of Ammo to Jihadists Fighting Russia and Syrian Army

U.S. officials confirmed on Monday the Obama administration has air dropped 112 pallets of ammunition to jihadist fighters in Syria.

CNN reports:

C-17s, accompanied by fighter escort aircraft, dropped small arms ammunition and other items like hand grenades in Hasakah province in northern Syria to a coalition of rebels groups vetted by the US, known as the Syrian Arab Coalition.

The Syrian Arab Coalition consists of Jaysh al-Thuwar, Euphrates Volcano, Al Sanadid Forces, Brigade Groups of al Jazira and other groups said to be associated with the Free Syrian Army (FSA)…

In September, 2014 a commander with the FSA admitted cooperating with ISIS and the al-Nusra Front.

“We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in … Qalamoun,” Bassel Idriss said. “Let’s face it: The Nusra Front is the biggest power present right now in Qalamoun and we as FSA would collaborate on any mission they launch as long as it coincides with our values.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama: Increased US Military Presence in Mideast Could be Shameful Mistake

An increase in the US military presence in the Middle East would be a “shameful” mistake, US President Barack Obama said in an interview with local media Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Currently, a US-led coalition of 60 countries has been bombing the positions of the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria and Iraq since 2014 without the approval of the UN Security Council or the Syrian authorities.

“There are factions inside the Middle East and factions inside the Republican party who think that we should send endless numbers of troops into the Middle East… If in fact the only measure is for us to send another hundred thousand or two hundred thousand troops into Syria or back into Iraq or perhaps into Libya, our goal is that we are now going to be not just the police but the governors of this region, that would be bad strategy. If we make that mistake again, then shame on us,” Obama said during CBS’ 60 Minutes program.

Libya is currently facing its worst wave of violence since the beginning of a civil war prompted by the 2011 overthrow of long-standing leader Muammar Gaddafi.

After the 2003 US invasion toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the country has been engulfed in ongoing violence. Large areas of Iraq are currently controlled by the Islamic State extremist group.

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

Obama Felt ‘Skeptical’ About Training Syrian Rebels From the Beginning

US President Barack Obama said in an interview with the American channel CBS that he was initially skeptical of the program to train the ‘moderate opposition’ in Syria. He also admitted that the program has failed.

Earlier, the New York Times reported that Obama administration had decided to terminate the training and arming program of the Syrian opposition fighters. The Pentagon had planned to allocate 500 million dollars for the continuation of the training. This decision, as reported by the representatives of the Obama administration, was made in connection with the program’s failure.

“From the beginning I was skeptical about the idea that we are going to create the quasi-army in Syria. My goal was to test the idea of whether we can teach and provide (arming) to the moderate opposition, who wanted to fight with Islamic State. Consequently, we realized that while Assad is in power, it is very tough to get these guys to focus on ISIL,” Obama said during the ‘60 Minutes’ show on CBS.

Talking about why the United States did not gave up on the idea immediately; Obama said that it was important for them to consider all the available options.

Pentagon chief Ashton Carter said on Friday that the United States may decide to revise training programs for opposition fighters opposing President Assad in Syria.

The White House then made it clear that the US’ strategy had been revised and it will work with those groups that are already at war with ISIL. This means the US will provide the Syrian opposition with military equipment that will allow them to operate more efficiently, with the support of US air strikes.

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

Report: Islamic State Seizes U.S. Missiles in Iraq

The Pentagon acknowledged on Monday that Iraqi forces could have discovered a cache of U.S. weapons and missiles seized by Islamic State (IS) militants operating in the country, according to U.S. officials and regional media reports.

[Comment: “seized”…yeah, the weapons were “seized” by ISIS as they were being prachuted down to ISIS.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Russian Air Force Destroys 29 ISIS Camps in Syria in 24 Hours

Russian warplanes in Syria have bombed 29 terrorist field camps and other facilities of the militant group Islamic State in the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry reported.

“Our aviation group over the past day has destroyed two militant command centers, 29 field camps, 23 fortified facilities and several troop positions with military hardware,” ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Saturday.

[Comment: Demonstrates the US/NATO were never really serious about “destroying” ISIS. Why would they destroy their proxy army?]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Saudi Arabia Delivers 500 TOW Antitank Missiles to Free Syrian Army

A Saudi Arabian official has reportedly disclosed that the Sunni kingdom sent Syrian rebels a new batch of one of the most effective weapons for battling against the Assad regime this week.

BBC correspondent Frank Gardner tweeted that a Saudi official confirmed the delivery of 500 TOW antitank missiles to the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

The FSA is currently being squeezed from all directions by the Syrian military, Russian airstrikes, and competition from jihadist fighters, including ISIS.

The delivery of the TOW missiles — which have also been provided by the CIA — will increase the capabilities of the FSA against Syrian armor, and it would enable them to more effectively battle against Assad’s recent military advances.

[Comment: “Free Syrain Army” …no such thing…all swallowed up by ISIS.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Thousands of Iranian Soldiers Arriving in Syria, Israeli PM

‘Prevent them from sending advanced weapons to Hezbollah’

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, OCTOBER 12 — Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset on Monday that thousands of Iranian soldiers were in the process of arriving in Syrian territory. He added that Israel would prevent them from threatening the border with the Golan Heights and from sending advanced weapons to Hezbollah.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

U.S. Delivers 50 Tons of Ammunition to Syria Rebel Groups

U.S. military cargo planes gave 50 tons of ammunition to rebel groups overnight in northern Syria, using an air drop of 112 pallets as the first step in the Obama Administration’s urgent effort to find new ways to support those groups.

Details of the air mission over Syria were confirmed by a U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly because the details have not yet been formally announced.

C-17s, accompanied by fighter escort aircraft, dropped small arms ammunition and other items like hand grenades in Hasakah province in northern Syria to a coalition of rebels groups vetted by the US, known as the Syrian Arab Coalition.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

UK MOD Denies Tabloid Reports RAF ‘Ready to Shoot Down’ Russian Planes Over Iraq

UK media allegations that RAF pilots in Iraq had been authorized to shoot down Russian fighters in case of imminent threat have prompted a response from Moscow. Britain’s military says there is “no truth” in the reports.

The initial report was published by The Daily Star and The Sunday Times. It claimed that an “unidentified source” in the British military told the media that Royal Air Force’s Tornado GR4 involved in Operation Shader in Iraq against Islamic State from now on are going to be armed with ASRAAM (AIM-132) short range air-to-air heat-seeking missiles to be prepared to “to shoot down Vladimir Putin’s jets,” The Sunday Times reports.

So far, the RAF jets took off armed with “500lb satellite-guided bombs only,” but as the source in British Defense Ministry put it, “in the last week the situation has changed. We need to respond accordingly.”

British pilots have been allegedly instructed to avoid contact with Russian aircraft.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Washington’s Allies in Syria Are ‘Endangered Species Soon to Go Extinct’

As Russia continues its military engagement in Syria assisting Bashar al-Assad in his fight against the Islamic State, Washington’s allies in the Middle East will likely increasingly support other radical groups trying to remove Assad from power, the National Interest observed.

In the process, the United States will lose all of its Syrian allies, who will turn from “an endangered species into an extinct one,” the bi-monthly magazine is convinced. Meanwhile, “the rubble of America’s failed policy” towards the war-torn country will continue to grow.

The US did not and does not have many allies in Syria to begin with since two American programs aimed at training so-called moderate fighters turned out to be a total failure. With additional support from the oil kingdom and others, they have zero chance of survival.

“Washington’s trickle of anti-tank missiles and field rations will be no match for Jabhat al-Nusra’s overwhelming firepower and armor. Al-Qaeda will be able to destroy the small Free Syrian Army factions if it deems them a threat or merely finds them a nuisance,” the National Interest explained.

By supporting extremists in Syria, King Salman, according to the magazine, wants to weaken Iran, whose growing power he views “as the greatest threat his kingdom faces.”

The magazine suggests that Washington should begin supporting those who have shared interests with the US, namely moderate Islamist rebels. But doing so will likely increase bloodshed in the country torn apart by a years-long war that has already claimed over 300,000 lives.

For its part, Russia’s airstrike campaign is aimed at defeating any group employing terrorist tactics, be it the Islamic State, al-Nusra Front or anyone else. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov put it: “If it looks like a terrorist, if it acts like a terrorist, if it walks like a terrorist, if it fights like a terrorist, it’s a terrorist.”

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

Italian Tire Producer Pirelli to Boost Investments in Russian Economy

The major Italian auto tire producer Pirelli will increase investments in the Russian economy, Pirelli CEO Marco Tronchetti Provera said Sunday.

SOCHI (Sputnik) — Currently, Pirelli facilities in Russia are working at full capacity and have means to export stock in trade to other countries, according to Provera.

Earlier in the day, Putin said the Russian economy would be stable and maintain a good development potential despite a decline in domestic demand.

“We have already invested 450 million euros ($511 million) in the Russian economy and intend to continue,” Provera said during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi.

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

Russia Says Islamic State Implicated in Foiled Terror Plot

Less than two weeks after Russia carried out its first airstrikes on Syria, Russian officials announced that they have foiled a terrorist plot, detaining men trained in Syria by the Islamic State group.

Russia’s counterterrorism agency on Sunday raided a Moscow apartment and arrested several Russians who allegedly were preparing to carry out an attack in the capital. The FSB intelligence agency said in a statement on Monday that an improvised explosive device with five kilos (11 pounds) of unidentified explosives was found in that apartment.

The FSB said several men were detained, including two who said they had been trained by Islamic State militants and were plotting a terrorist attack on Moscow’s public transport.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Indonesia: Papua: Release of Franciscans and Augustinians Arrested During a Peaceful Protest

About ten religious were detained by police in front of the Good Shepherd Catholic Church. They were demanding justice for a young student murder victim. Their action “was designed to give a voice to our heart and conscience,” a clergyman said. “The Franciscans came to Papua in 1936 out of love for the people, not the state.” A few hours after their arrest, they were released.

Jakarta (AsiaNews) — The authorities released a group of Franciscan and Augustinian monks detained last Friday (9 Oct) at a peaceful protest in Abepura, Papua. The religious had been taken into custody at 2.40 pm in front of town’s Good Shepherd Catholic Church.

Scores of religious as well as human rights advocates were demonstrating to demand justice for a student from Painai, whose murder on 8 December 2014 remains unsolved. When police intervened, they took away a dozen people.

Abeth You, a Catholic journalist who was covering the protest, said that police seized his camera when he was taking pictures of Fr Dorman Skukubun OFM’s arrest.

In addition to Fr Skukubun, police took into custody Fr Sorefus Pangguem OSA as well as other Franciscan novices, namely Frs Benyamin Tanang, Gaspar Bahala and Didimus.

The protest took place because the demands made to the government by the Justice and Peace Commission and human rights lawyers had fallen on deaf ears.

A few hours after the arrest, all the religious were released. Fr Yulianus Pawika OFM told journalists that protesters came from many walks of life, and had no “political intentions”. Instead, their action “was designed to give a voice to our heart and conscience. The Franciscans came to Papua in 1936,” he added, “out of love for the people, not the state.”

Indonesia proclaimed its independence from the Netherlands on 17 August 1945. Papua was the only province to remain under Dutch control. In 1969, Indonesia annexed it following a referendum.

Although acknowledged by the United Nations, the referendum remains controversial among Papuans with many convinced that the voting process was rigged by the Indonesians. Local separatist movements do not recognise the result.

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

Nepal Elects Communist Sharma Oli as Prime Minister

He stood against outgoing Prime Minister Sushil Koirala. During his campaign, he pledged to lead the country’s reconstruction following its recent earthquake and resolve the diplomatic and economic crisis with India. India and China sent congratulations.

Kathmandu (AsiaNews) — Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli is the new prime minister of Nepal. The head of the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist (CPN-UML) was elected yesterday by Nepal’s unicameral Parliament with 338 votes against outgoing Prime Minister and Nepali Congress leader Sushil Koirala, who received 249 votes.

Oli is the first prime minister chosen after the constituent assembly adopted Nepal’s first republican constitution last month. In his campaign for the post, he pledged to promote the country’s development as well as lead it reconstruction following April’s earthquake. Likewise, he said he would work to reduce tensions with India over the latter’s unofficial embargo on its exports to Nepal.

Nepal’s parliament elected the country’s new prime minister in accordance with the constitution promulgated on 20 September, which gives the legislature the power to elect the president, the prime minister as well as its speaker and deputy speaker.

The veteran Communist leader, 63, was sworn in today by President Ram Baran Yadav. He was elected with the support of a number of smaller parties, including the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Hindu-based Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal and the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Loktantrik (which represents the Madhesi minority).

All three parties decided to reward the candidate for his political stance. He has opposed India’s de facto embargo on exports to the mountain nation, which is having a serious impact on people’s daily lives and could lead to civil war.

By contrast, the Nepali Congress and other parties representing the Madhesi minority in the Terai region backed Koirala. The aforementioned region has been shaken in recent weeks by violent protests against the new constitution, which protesters oppose for ignoring local demands.

Immediately after his election, Oli declared that he would work with all the parties in Parliament to resolve the problems facing the country.

“The country is in need of development,” he said. “I will take a lead in resolving problems including those in Tarai-Madhes and the transit points on the southern border”. At the same time, “I expect support from all the parties.”

Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Nepal’s new head of government within a few hours of the vote, and invited him for an official visit to Delhi.

Other political leaders also sent their well wishes, including Chinese Ambassador Wu Chuntai.

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

Resurgent Taliban Threaten to Overrun Another Afghan City

Fighting flared in eastern Afghanistan Monday as Taliban insurgents threatened to storm another provincial capital, two weeks after their lightning capture of northern Kunduz city which marked their biggest military victory in 14 years.

The attempt to seize Ghazni city was repelled by Afghan forces but it raised security alarm bells as the resurgent militant group pushes to expand beyond its rural strongholds in the south of the country.

The violence, which prompted local shops and schools to close, follows the Taliban’s three-day occupation of Kunduz and an attempt by the militants to capture the capital of northern Faryab province…

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

Myanmar Detains Activist’s 16-Year-Old Son on Behalf of China

Working with Myanmar authorities, China gets Bao Zhuoxuan as he tries to flee the country. His “fault” is that he is the son of Wang Yu, one of China’s foremost human rights lawyers. Meanwhile, the crackdown against China’s legal profession continues, but some members are still holding their head high, demanding justice in an open letter.

Beijing (AsiaNews) — China, with Myanmar’s help, has been able to seize the 16-year-old son of a lawyer who went missing on 9 July after she was summoned by the authorities.

Bao Zhuoxuan, also known as Bao Mengmeng, and two men helping him were taken away by local police from a guesthouse in Mong La, a Myanmar border town, said activist Fengsuo Zhou.

“The plan was for him to travel to Thailand and I would meet him there and help him seek refugee entry into the United States,” said Zhou who lives in San Francisco.

The two men helping him were Tang Zhishun, an engineer from Beijing, and Xing Qingxian, a human rights activist in the southwest city of Chengdu.

“We know that the [Chinese government’s] intention is to use him as a hostage against his parents, both of them famous human rights defenders,” Zhou added.

Chinese authorities routinely put pressure on activists by targeting their family members.

Bao’s mother is Wang Yu, a lawyer who disappeared during a government crackdown against lawyers known for their work on behalf of ordinary citizens, religious minorities and political dissidents.

Starting in July, police took into custody some 300 lawyers “for questioning” in various cities, with many of them still in prison. Wang is among those still in detention.

Zhang Kai, a Christian lawyer, was also picked up during the crackdown, along with a number of fellow lawyers, as they tried to stop through the courts a campaign of cross removal in the southern province of Zhejiang.

Police detained Bao and his father at Beijing’s international airport on their way to Australia, where the boy was to attend high school. Bao was released after two days, but his passport was seized, Zhou said. Now both of his parents are still missing.

Wang Yu is “very courageous, outspoken, one of the best human rights lawyers in China,” Zhou said; “she was arrested exactly for that reason.”

Despite great pressure from the government on lawyers, some members of the profession seem bent on still speaking out.

A group of 68 Chinese lawyers issued an open letter to the government, calling on the authorities to protect the teenager, and bring to justice those who violated the law by arresting him.

“Chinese police,” the letter said, “should immediately cease the harassment of Bao Zhuoxuan and the family members of other lawyers [who] disappeared during the ongoing crackdown on lawyers that began on July 9.”

Likewise, “They should also cease illegally obstructing Chinese human rights lawyers and activists, and their family members, from leaving the country, and guarantee the right of Chinese citizens to exit and enter their homeland.”

Last but not least, the statement calls on the international community to express “strong concern” about what is happening in China.

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

Philippine Firms on Billion-Dollar Global Shopping Spree

Philippine firms are on an unprecedented global shopping spree, spending billions on everything from vineyards to food manufacturers and casinos, reflecting the nation’s recent economic rise.

A combination of strong domestic growth, bargain prices in retreating economies abroad and rock-bottom borrowing rates have fuelled the acquisitions, analysts said.

The Southeast Asian nation has for years exported shopping malls and junk food to the region, but cashed-up Filipino firms have diversified in recent years with acquisitions around the world and in many sectors.

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

US Brings Drug Charges Against Powerful Honduran Family

US prosecutors on Wednesday indicted three members of an influential family from Honduras on charges of laundering the proceeds of narcotics through bank accounts in the United States.

The indictment, which was unsealed in the federal court for the Southern District of New York, also accused Rosenthal family members of using their US bank accounts to commit foreign bribery offenses.

The indictment charged Jaime Rolando Rosenthal Oliva; his son Yani Benjamin Rosenthal Hidalgo; and his nephew Yankel Antonio Rosenthal Coello.

The charges have shaken the political scene in Honduras, where the Rosenthal family has close ties to the opposition Liberal Party (PL).

They are the owners of the daily Tiempo, the Canal 11 cable television network, the Banco Continental bank, sugar plantations and manufacturing companies. Most of their businesses are concentrated in the northern city of San Pedro Sula — the second largest in the Central American nation.

Yankel Antonio Rosenthal Coello, 46, was arrested by US federal authorities in Miami on Tuesday night, the day before the grand jury indictment was unsealed in New York. He is the owner of Deportivo Marathón, one of the biggest soccer teams in Honduras.

US Treasury chart showing how the Rosenthals allegedly laundered drug proceeds.

Arrest warrants have been issued for Rosenthal Oliva, 79, and his 50-year-old son Yani Benjamin. Their associate, Andre’s Acosta García, 40, has also been charged in the case. All three are thought to be in Honduras.

“As alleged, Yankel Rosenthal Coello and his co-defendants used the banking system and their businesses to launder proceeds of narcotics trafficked to the US,” said Manhattan’s US Attorney Preet Bharara in a press release that was obtained by EL PAÍS from the US Embassy in Honduras.

In a statement signed by Rosenthal Oliva and Rosenthal Hidalgo and their Grupo Continental holding company, the defendants claim that they are being “falsely” accused of money laundering.

“We will demonstrate at the upcoming trial that we are innocent of all charges,” they said.

In a separate action, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) put the Rosenthals and their companies on its “drug kingpin” list for “playing a significant role in international narcotics trafficking.”

As a result of OFAC’s action, all assets held by these individuals under the jurisdiction of the United States or in the control of US persons have been frozen, this agency said in a statement.

In Honduras, the country’s financial institution watchdog, the National Banking and Insurance Commission, announced on Wednesday that it would intervene in Banco Continental to ensure that its daily operations run smoothly and added that it would review all accounts.

English version by Martin Delfín.

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

20 Migrants Take Berlin’s Refugee Registration Centre to Court

Twenty asylum-seekers on Monday filed suit against Berlin’s main refugee registration centre for failing to register them promptly so they could get essential benefits including a roof over their heads, a court official said.

Local authorities have been struggling to cope with a record influx of refugees, and asylum seekers in Berlin have often had to wait days if not weeks to be registered at the centre, known as Lageso.

On Monday, a group of them decided to take their case to the social court, complaining that despite waiting for a week, they were still not registered.

As a result, they were unable to receive any social benefits, including a bed in refugee centre — an urgent need as the winter cold sets in…

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

Cubans Retire to Florida — With Help From U.S. Taxpayers

More Cubans are coming to Florida in their golden years to retire, able to tap U.S. government assistance even though they never lived or worked here.

The number of Cubans arriving over the age of 60 grew fivefold since 2010, according to state refugee data. At least 185 made the crossing in their 80s or 90s.

Unlike most other immigrants, Cubans qualify immediately for food stamps and Medicaid. If they are over 65 with little or no income, they also can collect a monthly check of up to $733 in Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

“They’re getting cheap apartments, food stamps,” said Cuban-born attorney Pedro Fuentes-Cid of Tampa. “They tell their friends in Cuba, and they come over.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Greece to Open Up to 5 Migrant Processing Centers

First center will open on the island of Lesbos

(ANSA) — ATHENS (AP) — European Union officials say that Greece’s first migrant processing center will open over the next 10 days, allowing migrants and refugees to be flown to other EU countries — mostly of their preference — and have their asylum applications processed there.

Dimitris Avramopoulos, European Migration and Home Affairs Commissioner, said the first center will open on the island of Lesbos, with up to four more on other Greek islands. Tens of thousands of people fleeing war or poverty have landed in Greece, the main gateway of migrants crossing into the EU from neighboring Turkey. Most want to travel on to other European countries like Germany.

Luxembourg Minister for Foreign Affairs Jean Asselborn, who traveled to Italy and Greece with Avramopoulos, said it was extremely important to strengthen Europe’s external borders.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Insider: EU-U.S. Must Take More Refugees, Get Rid of Sovereignty

Peter Sutherland, the United Nations special representative of the secretary-general for international migration, is hopping from one pulpit to the next, preaching the message that the refugee tsunami proves national sovereignty is an “illusion,” a mere shibboleth” that must be done away with.

Moreover, says Sutherland, the United States and the European Union “have not merely a moral but a legal obligation to protect refugees.” And that means, he makes quite clear, that the United States and EU are obligated to take in an unspecified quota — but potentially millions — of refugees and migrants, most of whom are currently streaming out of the Muslim countries of the war-decimated Middle East and Africa.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Mexican Killer of ICE Agent Extradited to U.S. Linked to ATF’s Fast & Furious

One of the prime suspects in the murder of a member of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Special Agent Jaime Zapata, and the attempted slaying of his partner, Special Agent Victor Avila was extradited to the United States by the Mexican government for his part in the drug-cartel’s ambush. U.S. Department of Justice officials said that although 34-year-old Jose Emanuel Garcia Sota (a/k/a Juan Manuel Maldonado Amezcua, Zafado or Safado), of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, had been charged on May 6, 2013, he made his second U.S. court appearance on Friday more than two years later. The case is believed to have been linked to the botched Fast and Furious operation run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

[…]

Five months following the drug cartel members gunning down Agents Zapata and Avila, the White House reported that Agent Zapata’s family were demanding the government investigate the firearms used by the suspects during the attack on the two unarmed law enforcement officials. To this day, no American official has been implicated or charged for the questionable operation many believe was conducted to show the need for more gun control laws in the United States.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Refugee Reception Centres in Affected Areas Mooted in EU Draft Doc

Document also calls for joint plan of action with Turkey

(ANSA) — Brussels, October 12 — European Union leaders “will explore” the possibility of “developing safe, sustainable refugee reception centres” directly “in the affected areas”, according to draft of the document for this week’s summit of heads of state and government, which ANSA has seen. The draft document also calls for swift work for the “adoption of a joint plan of action with Turkey” based on “reciprocal commitments”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Video: Irate Germans Attempt to Block Buses Full of Migrants

A video shows irate Germans attempting to block buses full of arriving migrants as police force them off the streets.

The clip begins with police officers pushing back German citizens who are preventing the buses from entering the town.

“You go against your own people, you go in front, we pay your money, our children — their future is ruined — you are ruining this country. Do you have any honor left in your bodies?” says one of the men as the police get more aggressive.

Some of the citizens begin chanting, “Our own people should come first,” before openly goading the police by yelling, “Go ahead and shoot — shoot your own people.”

The officers again order the citizens to get off the street before threatening to get their batons out.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Forget ISIS; Navy Gives Members New Foe to Combat: “Male Privilege”

The U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery aims to excise a foe — one that supposedly exists within the service itself: “male privilege.” The endeavor is outlined in a new Navy document on healthy vs. unhealthy male-female relationships, which includes charts called the “Power & Control” wheel (shown below the quote) and the “Equity Wheel.” It’s the latest in the military social engineering that critics warn is transforming our armed forces into a wheel of misfortune.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Indonesia: Central Java: Surprise Gay Marriage Not Legal

Ratu Airin Karla and Dumani, two men, invited relatives and friends to a party to celebrate their long friendship. Participants found themselves instead at a real wedding, celebrated according to the Javanese tradition. The union was not recognized by the government, because it lacks the necessary blessing of religious authority.

Jakarta (AsiaNews) — For the first time, two Indonesians gay men celebrated their marriage in public, masquerading it as a party to celebrate their long friendship. The event, which took place in the village of Cluntang, province of Boyolali (Central Java), was held according to local rules, with both spouses dressed in traditional Javanese wedding costume, a large number of guests and a banquet.

The couple had also sent invitations to friends and family, asking for their “blessing”. The marriage has not yet been legally registered. In Indonesia, in fact, the legalization of a union (between men and women) can take place only if first authorized by a religious authority, and then registered at the local Civil Record Agency.

One of the “spouses”, Ratu Airin Karla, has been known by the local community since he was a child. During his sixth year of primary school (11-12 years) he completely changed behavior “from that day began to wear only women’s clothes,” says a villager. Nevertheless, Karla has always socialized with friends and with the locals. During the “wedding” she wore a traditional wedding dress.

Family members and participants at the celebration were shocked when they discovered that the feast of “thanksgiving” was actually a real marriage. The local community expressed disappointment and will not recognize the union.

The village chief, Suryati said that the couple did not send any letter of request to the authorities for the wedding celebration. According to Indonesian law, the government must first ensure that the spouses do not already have a partner or have “serious obstacles” to the union.

Suryati said that he would never give permission to Karla and Dumani (the “groom”), because their relationship is “abnormal”, the wedding illegal and against Islamic religious teachings.

Last September, another union between people of the same sex (a man of Bali and an American tourist) was celebrated in Ubud, the most popular resort on the island, triggering the reaction of rejection of civil society.

Last year the Catholic University Sanata Dharma had to cancel a seminar on “diverse” sexual orientation, after receiving threats from Islamic extremists.

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

MTV: Saying “No Can Do” Or “Long Time No See” Is Racist

According to MTV News, using the phrases “long time no see,” “peanut gallery” and “no can do” is offensive because the terms have “racist beginnings.”

Host Franchesca Ramsey begins by claiming that the term “peanut gallery” is offensive because it was once the place where black people were “forced” to sit at the theater during segregation, despite the fact that the phrase has no racial connotations today whatsoever.

Saying “no can do” is also racist because it was used as pidgin English by Chinese immigrants in 1920’s America and subsequently “mimicked” by westerners. Ramsey provides no evidence at all that Chinese people are even remotely bothered by this, but gets offended on their behalf anyway.

Similarly, saying “long time no see” is also a “mimicry of pidgin English” and therefore represents a “nasty joke” aimed at Chinese people, despite the fact that virtually nobody using that phrase in the 21st century is even aware of its origins and has never used it in that way.

[Comment: MTV, a pschological social re-engineering program for todays youth. Unlike Orwell’s “1984” when people are forced to the reconditioning centres, kids watch this rubbish voluntarily and are indoctrinated in what to think and feel. Too young to understand they are being played…]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

No Whites Allowed

When it was written in 1986, a children’s book entitled Living in Two Worlds attempted to highlight the various attitudes that reflect what biracial children might encounter growing up. Pictures of biracial children abound in the book. In fact, there was an honest attempt to portray the intricacies of being born to parents of different religious, cultural, and racial backgrounds…until we get to page 27, where the reader learns:

Toah thought that the teacher in her ballet class, where all the other students were white, went out of her way to be nice to her. ‘I guess she meant well, but she made me feel I was different.’ Even though Toah’s white heritage is important to her, she feels she fits in better with kids whose coloring is more like her own. ‘I’m happiest when I don’t stand out — like in school,’ she says. ‘I’m friendly with everyone, but my best friends are brown, like me.’

Herein lies the never-ending emphasis on race rather than the individual characteristics of people. We have no idea what the ballet teacher did or what white heritage even means, but to a child reading this book, the balkanization of the races is implanted. Instead of race being one component of a person, it becomes the overarching theme.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

13 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 10/12/2015

  1. I hope someone has placed Peter Sutherland of the United Nations on the Traitors list!

    His lunatic rant is just another reason for when Western countries regain their sanity to dissolve the criminal organization that is now the United Nations.

  2. ” The plaintiffs asserted that they waited more than a week without being registered, and were therefore unable to collect essential social benefits”

    This is not fair: Waiting for a week without getting the entitled jizya.

    Saudi Arabia considers Shiite Syrians as “worse than the People of the Book.” ISIS and other Al-Qaida affiliates fighting for the power, have something in common with Saudis: Both are strict muslim Salafists. Ergo Saudis want Salafis to thrive: and USA supports every Saudi desire and whim.

  3. “…twenty “asylum-seekers” filed a lawsuit against Berlin’s main refugee registration center for taking too long to register them.” Traitor lawyers will be rubbing their hands with glee.

  4. Is the Eunited Studs of Europia and the United States of America Hell bent on starting WWIII? It sure looks that way. They’re beginning to look worse than Islam and amazingly dense. What do I know?

  5. Living in Two Worlds – for as long as skin color is considered more than it actually is – i.e. MELANIN, then it will be a source of division. It is not melanin that divides people. It is their cultural values which depend on where and into which culture they were born.

    By 2015 there are enough second generation European citizens who have embraced European culture, from places like India, Vietnam, China and Africa, (some of whom are the products of intermarriage) to make this obvious.

    Which cultures are the ones that do not integrate? Islam is the foremost, followed by all migrants with low education. People who have only a few years schooling in their native countries find it extremely difficult to integrate into Western urban society. They are more culturally hidebound and they have inadequate analytical skills to negotiate a sophisticated environment. They also have weak learning skills and are therefore unable to become fluent in the host language or learn a profession which will lift them out of their low socio-economic status.

    This is not rocket science! If you invite Muslims with low education into your country, then you are begging for trouble!

    • Muslims are colonists not immigrants, they do not assimilate they come to conquer via demographics. Their culture/religion precludes assimilation and impels them to dominate the native culture.

      They must be forever at war with the rest of humanity until they are obliterated or they conquer us.

      The fact that over three quarters of them are single men is worrisome. This is a a invading army and all it needs to be active is its marching orders.

  6. “United States military aircraft dropped fifty tons of ammunition to the Syrian “rebels” today.” No barrel-bombs I suppose?

  7. Prof. Legutko Polish speaker talking directly to Merkel and Hollande.

    Communism is a system which courageously solves the problems itself created. This can also be said about the Euro system. We created the system and since day 1 we have been wrestling with the problems it’s generated…….

    Challenges the arrogance of turning the tap on for migration and the schengen border system.
    He remarks thatMerkel and Hollande represent just 2 of 28 EU countries, apparently parts a democratic body, but making decisions which put the other nation states at risk, as well as their own.
    Almost inferring that it is all very well to suicide Germany and France, but is it an act of aggression to enable Hijrah – the duty of a Muslim to migrate for Allah..?
    Water of a ducks back I would expect.

    All in English speaking
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=364&v=Fs9yDN9K7J0
    6 minutes 4 seconds

  8. How many European lawyers are on retainer for how many “refugees”? If it works in Europe anything like the United States, those lawsuits were detailed months ago over the T-Mobile network.

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