Gates of Vienna News Feed 11/26/2015

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told a German newspaper that EU countries have reached their limit in the number of “refugees” they can absorb, and cannot take any new arrivals. He said that the EU must impose tighter controls on its external borders.

In other news, masked men set fire to a Christian television station in the Pakistani city of Karachi, causing the building to collapse. The station had been repeatedly threatened, and had requested police protection, but none was provided.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, 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.

USA
» Big Blue’s Big Iron Daddy Gene Amdahl Dies Aged 92
» Claim: Obama Hid ‘Gay Life’ To Become President
» Coming Mass Casualty Attack Against the U.S.
» Italy Invests 60 Mn for Awareness of 100% Italian Food in US
» PETA Sued for Kidnapping Dog Off Porch, Killing it
» Police Officer Threatens to Arrest American for Calling Politician a “Liar”
» The Ignored Story of Bailey Banks: Injured by the MMR Vaccine
» ‘Thousands’ Of ISIS Fighters Now Inside U.S. Cities
» White US Senator: Terrorists ‘Look More Like Me’
» Why Black Friday is a Complete Scam
 
Europe and the EU
» 405,000 Italians Need Help in Obtaining Medicines in 2015
» Britain Fines Barclays £72m Over ‘Elephant’ Deal
» Cries of ‘Inquisition’ As Vatican Puts Journalists in Dock Over Leaks
» EU-Turkey: Brussels: Summit Will Decide Negotiations Relaunch
» Finland Can Introduce Criminal Penalties for Terrorism-Related Travel
» Google Scours 1.2 Million URLs to Conform With EU’s “Right to be Forgotten” Law
» Hollande ‘Depressed’ By Obama’s Lack of Anti-ISIL Resolve
» Italy: Renzi Mayoral Expenses Case Shelved
» Italy: Man Killed Robber Near Milan in ‘Self Defence’
» Italy: Whole of FS Board Quits — Sources
» Italy Monitoring 1,000 ‘Potential Jihadists’ — Magazine
» Italy Judge Orders 10 Alleged Jihadists to Remain in Prison
» Italy: Antitrust Probes Big Cement for ‘Price Cartel’
» Merkel Vows More Support for France During Paris Visit
» Millionaire British Estate Agent Who Beat German ‘Paedophile’ To Death After He Took Photos of His Children in Spanish Resort is to be Spared Jail
» Offenders Face $10,000 Fines as Burka Banned in Swiss Region of Ticino
» Paris Attacks Victims’ Relatives Boycott France’s Day of Mourning Over ‘Government Fault’
» Poland Snubs EU Flag in Sign of Defiance of Brussels Powers
 
Middle East
» “War is Likely” After Turkey Shoots Down Russian Jet, Ignores Putin’s Warning
» 95% of Foreign Fighters Who Join ISIS Are Recruited by Friends and Family
» Ankara Demands Arrest of Journalists for Publishing Weapon Convoy to Syria
» Drudge Sends the Biggest Secret Viral: “America Has Been Arming ISIS”
» Everything This President Does Benefits ISIS
» Footage Reveals Who Shot Down Russian Rescue Helicopter at Syrian Border — and it Looks Pretty Bad
» German Vice-Chancellor on Su-24 Crash: Turkey is Unpredictable, Not Russia
» Here is What Turkey’s Erdogan Fears Most
» John Bolton: To Defeat ISIS, Create a Sunni State
» Jordan: Aqaba Awaits Influx of Russian Tourists
» Lest You Forget: Lavrov Reminds Turkey of Its Involvement in ISIL Oil Trade
» Matt Drudge: ‘America Has Been Arming ISIS’
» NATO’s Dirty Secret: Why the Alliance Abhors Russian Involvement in Syria
» Not Mosques, But Friends & Family to Blame for ISIL Radicalization — Expert
» Reports That Quds Force Commander Gen. Suleimani Injured in Syria
» The Plight of Emad Tayefeh
» ‘They Know How it’s Done’: Turkey Violated Greek Airspace 2,244 Times in 2014 Alone
» Turkey Aims to Turn Su-24 Incident Into Russia-NATO Row
» Turkey-Russia Turmoil
 
Russia
» Iran Interested in Entire Range of Russian Arms Supplies — Putin’s Aide
» Italian Lawmaker Offers to Lift Sanctions to Make Up for Su-24 Downing
 
Caucasus
» Two Police, Four ‘Radical Islamists’ Killed in Azerbaijan Raid
 
South Asia
» Bangladeshi Inter-Faith Forum Leader Attacked
» Pakistan: Karachi: Masked Men Set Christian Television Station on Fire
» Pakistan: Sialkot: Muslim Kidnaps 13 Year Old Christian Girl and Forces Her to Convert to Islam
 
Far East
» Obama’s Climate Negotiator: China’s CO2 Output Can Keep Rising Because Their Economy Needs to Grow
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Germany Will Send Up to 650 Troops to Mali, to Support France
 
Latin America
» Mexicans Lay Flowers at Russian Embassy After Downing of Su-24 in Syria
» Oil Giants Venezuela, Qatar Sign Deals
 
Immigration
» Aid to Rural Poor Needed to Stem Migrant Crisis, UN Says
» Barack Obama: It’s Illegal for States to Refuse Syrian Refugees
» EU to Deport Thousands of Pakistanis to Make Way for ‘Legitimate’ Migrants
» French PM Valls Says ‘No Room for More Refugees’ In Europe
» Germany Admits Migrant Crisis is Our Fault as Asylum System is a ‘Magnet for Refugees’
» Muslim Invasion of European Union is the Price of Politically Correct Policing
» Over 950,000 Refugees Have Registered in Germany in 2015
» ‘Staggering’: 680,000 Muslims to U.S. Under Obama
» Tolerant Nordic Countries Catch Eastern European Anti-Migrant Bug
» Washington Informs American States on Refugee Resettlement Inevitability
» Winter is Coming: Along With More Refugees… To Germany
 
General
» Report Calls for Meat Tax to be High Priority at Paris Climate Change Conference
 

Big Blue’s Big Iron Daddy Gene Amdahl Dies Aged 92

Computer pioneer behind sequential vs parallel processing law passes away

IBM’s mainframe systems’ trailblazer, Gene Amdahl, has died at the age of 92.

His wife Marian said he had passed away on Tuesday, after suffering from pneumonia. Amdahl was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease five years ago, she said.

Amdahl was born in Flandreau, South Dakota in 1922. He joined IBM in 1952, immediately after graduating from university with a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics and a masters and PhD in theoretical physics.

The Computer History Museum said Amdahl had “an immediate impact” as Big Blue’s chief architect, overseeing the development of its 704 mainframe computer. “This far outsold initial predictions, cementing Amdahl’s reputation as a rising star,” it said.

After a stint away from IBM, Amdahl returned to the firm in 1960, when he became chief architect of the System/360 big iron, which cost Big Blue an eye-popping $5bn to develop.

By 1965, Amdahl had been crowned an IBM Fellow and headed up the company’s Advanced Computing Systems Lab, based in Menlo Park, California. He went on to develop “Amdahl’s Law”, which is regularly used in parallel computing to help estimate speed-up on multi-processor, or even core, systems.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Claim: Obama Hid ‘Gay Life’ To Become President

Chicago homosexual community shocked he could keep it secret

A prominent member of Chicago’s homosexual community claims Barack Obama’s participation in the “gay” bar and bathhouse scene was so well known that many who were aware of his lifestyle were shocked when he ran for president and finally won the White House.

“It was preposterous to the people I knew then to think Obama was going to keep his gay life secret,” said Kevin DuJan, who was a gossip columnist in Chicago for various blogs when Obama was living in the city as a community organizer and later a state senator.

“Nobody who knew Obama in the gay bar scene thought he could possibly be president,” said DuJan.

DuJan, founder and editor of the Hillary Clinton-supporting website HillBuzz.org, told WND he has first-hand information from two different sources that “Obama was personally involved in the gay bar scene.”

“If you just hang out at these bars, the older guys who have been frequenting these gay bars for 25 years will tell you these stories,” DuJan said. “Obama used to go to the gay bars during the week, most often on Wednesday, and they said he was very much into older white guys.”

Obama, DuJan said, is “not heterosexual and he’s not bisexual. He’s homosexual.”

Investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, who worked with the National Security Agency from 1984 to 1988 as a Navy intelligence analyst, confirmed DuJan’s claims.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Coming Mass Casualty Attack Against the U.S.

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.” — Hermann Goering, German military commander and Hitler’s designated successor.

The recent ISIS attacks in Paris, France have caused an eruption of fear and chaos throughout Europe. Brussels is under military lock down as an ISIS threat was issued against Belgium. Literally within an hour after the news of the ISIS attacks against a Paris theatre government leaders and the media cried out for a more powerful surveillance state and for even more Orwellian measures to combat terrorism. Every television news network repeated the mantra of the need for more government surveillance and police power to fight this new war against terrorism. Video from France, Brussels, and other European nations showed armed troops and militarized police patrolling the streets.

The mass media in both Europe and the U.S. is the creation of an Orwellian Big Brother state and that is why the message, point of view, and talking points of the broadcasters and their guests are largely the same. Every single global news media network repeated the talking point that the largely militant Islamic Syrian refugees pouring into the Europe and now the U.S. were not the problem despite the fact that the alleged “master mind” of the Paris terrorist attacks came from Syria. It is not that the global media did not cover the Syrian refugee problem; it is how they covered it. The regular presentation of what is called “the news” employs cognitive dissonance, which simply means that they present information in a way that causes the viewer to embrace two or more entirely conflicting viewpoints on any given subject, without allowing the average viewer to step back and objectively and rationally look at the big picture. If the average viewer were able to analyze the big picture, they would see the total irrationality and conflict in the messages they are being given.

The global news media are controlled by less than ten major international corporations, which are owned by the same international banking families, which control the European central banks and the Federal Reserve Bank in the United States. The so-called news that is disseminated is little more than propaganda and social engineering, and irrational and conflicting information is broadcast on a daily basis. It is like Alice in Wonderland confronting the Cheshire cat who tells her to go “this way” and “that way” at the same time.

The most glaring and obvious facts regarding the terrorist attacks are how they are directly connected to the Syrian refugee and migrant crisis. The recent terrorist attacks in Paris and the ISIS threats to Brussels, the rest of Europe, and the U.S. are all directly connected to the migration of Syrian refugees, many of them militant Muslims; most are males between the ages of 21 to 25. Yet the media is hiding this. Essentially, these male migrants constitute a militant Islamic army, and reports have been pouring in through the alternative media of entire villages being taken over in Germany, France, and other nations by these Muslims. But the Orwellian media is spinning the lie that the majority of these Syrian migrants are doctors and other very affluent people escaping ISIS.

This lie is compounded by another lie, that all these Syrian migrants are being properly vetted. It should be obvious to any rational, thinking, and intelligent person that the very politicians and governments who are demanding new police-state powers and surveillance laws to stop ISIS are the very same politicians and governments which have created the terrorist problem by continuing to invite the migrants in and keep the borders wide open. The obvious conclusion is that the entrance of these individuals into Europe and the United States guarantee more terrorists attacks.

[Comment: Politicians are puppets following orders by banksters in their drive to destroy nation states and trigger WWIII. Think about it — if politicians were idiots then they would occasionally make a mistake in the publics favour. But all the public get is more globalization and more Orwellian policies. So it is obviously a larger plan being implemented by politicians in their respective countries. They don’t work for the public. What do you think they do at places such as Bildeberg? That’s where they get they marching orders for the upcoming year and report on how successful they’ve been in implementeing banksters plans for the past year.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Italy Invests 60 Mn for Awareness of 100% Italian Food in US

To counteract boom in ‘Italian-sounding’ foods, up 180%

(ANSA) — Rome, November 25 — Italy will invest 60 million euros in a public awareness campaign to promote original Italian food products in the US, Canada and Mexico, in light of a 180% increase in “Italian-sounding” foreign food products between 2001-2010, said Italy’s Deputy Industry Minister Carlo Calenda on Wednesday.

Calenda said the campaign aims “to bring original Italian products to the shelves of large retail distributors, especially American and Canadian, and explain to the American consumer the value of authentically Italian food”.

“In the past adequate money wasn’t invested, but this year we’re investing 60 million euros, around 11 times what’s been invested in the past,” he said, adding that the campaign will peak during Christmas in Times Square and also include a video filmed by actor Silvio Muccino.

“For the first time we’re doing things in earnest, in a structured way, without wasting resources,” Calenda said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

PETA Sued for Kidnapping Dog Off Porch, Killing it

Livid family seeks $9 million for trespassing, emotional distress

A spokesman for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is calling it a “tragic mistake,” but when one of the organization’s former workers took Maya, a Chihuahua, from a Virginia family’s front porch and euthanized it, it was not out of character with what the charity has been doing for years.

Maya, a Christmas gift for Wilber Zarate’s daughter four years ago, was last seen in October 2014 when a PETA worker was observed on the Parksley, Virginia, family’s surveillance video, coming onto the property and taking the dog. Court documents said that on the day Maya was taken, the family had gone to the store to purchase her a pillow, but couldn’t find her when they returned, reported WAVY-TV.

When Zarate checked his security camera, the video showed a van with “PETA” on the side parked in his driveway. Two women exited the van and one walked up his porch, took Maya, and put her in the back of the van. The dog was put down shortly after that…

According to data submitted to the Virginia Department for Agriculture and Consumer Services, PETA killed almost 90 percent of dogs and cats placed in the care of the shelter at its Norfolk, Virginia, headquarters in 2012. The charity, known for provocative publicity campaigns such as the “I’d rather go naked” anti-fur campaign, euthanized 1,647 cats and dogs that year and only placed 19 in new homes.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Police Officer Threatens to Arrest American for Calling Politician a “Liar”

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A former city councilman who won summary judgment after a police chief threatened to arrest him for criticizing a public official has settled with the police chief and the Northern California City of Cotati.

George Barich, who describes himself as a former newspaper editor, attended an April 2014 City Council meeting where he called city Planning Commissioner Neil Hancock a “liar,” to which Hancock retorted, “You’re the liar,” according to Barich’s January lawsuit in Federal Court.

Barich, a former city councilman, told Courthouse News on Friday that despite Hancock’s contradicting report, the exchange was civilized, and he did not exhibit any expressions of physical aggression, but was nonetheless stopped by Cotati Police Chief Michael Parish after the meeting.

“When the meeting was over, I walked by Neil (Hancock) and called him a liar again, and he said ‘No, you are the one who is a liar,’“ Barich said. “Everyone was leaving, but Chief Parish said, ‘George, hold it!’ and told me to go outside. When we got out there, he told me he would arrest me if I tried to record him with my phone. Then he told me if I ever called anyone from the city a liar during or after a council meeting again, he’d arrest me. He asked me, ‘Do you understand me?’ and I said, ‘I understand, but I don’t agree with you.’“

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Ignored Story of Bailey Banks: Injured by the MMR Vaccine

Bailey, born October 26, 1998, received an MMR vaccination on March 14, 2000 which led to him having a seizure and ADEM, and later caused Pervasive Developmental Delay (PDD).

According to his official medical record, Bailey had normal childhood development before receiving the vaccination and had no health issues. Sixteen days after his vaccination he had a seizure and was taken to the emergency room, where he had an MRI scan and neurological examinations in the next few days. According to his radiologist Dr. Bret Sleight, the MRI showed that his brain was “most consistent with a demyelinating process of immune etiology such as may be seen with ADEM or perhaps post-vaccination.”

A Demyelinating process is a condition that damages the protective shield of the nerves and leads to a variety of neurological problems. A Neurologist Dr. Frank Berenson noticed that Bailey had global developmental delays: speech problems, difficulties interacting, and poor eye contact. He also noted that the child walked “somewhat puppet-like.”…

Since the creation of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, over $3 billion has been paid for childhood vaccine injury compensation.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘Thousands’ Of ISIS Fighters Now Inside U.S. Cities

Report rips Obama for adding Muslim refugees while ‘downplaying’ threat

The Islamic State has recruited thousands of supporters in the United States, far more than previously thought, according to a scathing new report, raising the likelihood that supporters of the terrorist army could be plotting attacks similar to those carried out in Paris.

And the “challenges of screening incoming refugees” from Muslim countries may be adding fuel to the fire, according to the report, authored by national security experts at the Threat Knowledge Group.

The report accuses Obama of “downplaying” the threat of ISIS while adding to the threat by importing Muslim refugees that are difficult to screen.

The U.S. has imported 70,000 refugees per year for many years, more than half of them from Muslim-dominated countries such as Somalia and Iraq with active jihadist movements, and President Obama has pledged to increase that number to 85,000 this year and 100,000 the following year.

[Comment: Planned chaos by banksters and their America hating puppet Obama.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

White US Senator: Terrorists ‘Look More Like Me’

Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio told WAKR radio he doesn’t approve of the tendency among Republican presidential candidates to say only Christian refugees should be allowed in America. The US should be more concerned about domestic extremism, Brown insisted.

Senator Brown condemned Republicans’ anti-Muslim rhetoric, saying that America is a country of many religions, not just “Christians and the others”.

What’s more important: there have been no major terrorist attacks in the US organized by foreign extremist groups since September 11. But there were quite a few instances of extremists murdering children in schools and shooting parishioners in churches, and most of them were white.

“Normally, they look more like me than they look like Middle Easterners,” the senator said. “They are generally white males, who have shot up people in movie theaters and schools.”

As for Syrian refugees, they are very rarely single males, the senator added; most of them are children and families who have good reason to leave their home country. And it is essential to do everything right, without taking political advantage of the situation.

“The federal government and local communities have done a pretty good job at keeping us safe. Not keeping us safe from crazy gunmen coming into schools and movie theaters sometimes but certainly keeping us safe from foreigners attacking this country” Brown said.

According to several recent studies, white men account for far more mass murder cases than radical Islamists in the US.

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

Why Black Friday is a Complete Scam

Black Friday is a complete scam based around the manifestly provable hoax that consumers are getting huge discounts on products that would normally be more expensive at any other time of year.

In reality, stores enjoy higher profit margins during the holiday period because retailers artificially inflate prices of goods in the months before Black Friday in order to make the subsequent discounts look good in comparison.

As Bloomberg Businessweek reports, “Among the 15 largest U.S. retailers, operating margins in the holiday quarter last year (2013) were 11 percent, compared with 9 percent in the preceding nine months. Amid the year-end shopping frenzy, these companies padded their bottom lines, on average, by roughly one-quarter.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

405,000 Italians Need Help in Obtaining Medicines in 2015

55% are foreign, percentage of Italians on the rise

(ANSA) — Rome, November 26 — In 2015 some 405,000 Italians have needed help in obtaining medicines they couldn’t otherwise afford, Italy’s Medicines Bank Foundation said Thursday.

This is 6.4% up over last year, the foundation added. Foreign residents have accounted for 55% of requests so far this year, although the quota of Italians seeking help is on the rise. Northern Lombardy collected the biggest percentage of medicines at 18.9% followed by Emilia Romagna and Veneto at 11.1%. The greatest number of requests for medicines comes from people suffering from respiratory problems, followed by people suffering from cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems. “These people are invisible to all of us but not to disease,” said Luca Pani, director general of the Italian medicines agency AIFA. “In this sense disease is the last bastion of democracy.

Often these people don’t even know treatment exists and often they are patients with serious diseases,” he added. “Unfortunately the 400,000 people we manage to reach represent just 10% of Italy’s poor,” said Medicines Bank Foundation president Paolo Gradnick.

“A lot still has to be done.” photo: Pani

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Britain Fines Barclays £72m Over ‘Elephant’ Deal

Britain’s financial regulator on Thursday fined Barclays bank £72 million ($109 million, 102 million euros) for failing to carry out proper checks on a vast so-called “elephant” deal for ultra-wealthy clients.

The Financial Conduct Authority said Barclays rushed through a huge £1.88-billion transaction in order to secure fees from a number of very rich customers.

“The clients involved were politically exposed persons and should therefore have been subject to enhanced levels of due diligence and monitoring by Barclays,” the FCA added in a statement…

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

Cries of ‘Inquisition’ As Vatican Puts Journalists in Dock Over Leaks

Two journalists and three Vatican officials go on trial Tuesday over the publication of classified documents in a case critics have attacked as having a whiff of the inquisition.

All five accused face potential jail time of up to eight years for obtaining and disclosing confidential papers “concerning the fundamental interests of the Vatican State”.

The unprecedented prosecution of journalists — who say they were only doing their job — is being pursued under punitive legislation introduced in 2013.

The law was rushed through a year after Pope Benedict XVI’s butler leaked damaging information about Vatican in-fighting which plunged the Holy See into crisis and, it is widely believed, contributed to the pontiff’s decision to retire…

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

EU-Turkey: Brussels: Summit Will Decide Negotiations Relaunch

Spokesperson does not confirm nor deny statements by Ankara

(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 26 — The summit between EU leaders and Turkey, scheduled in Brussels on Sunday, will determine the possibility of initiating a chapter 17 opening of negotiations, an event which would mark a relaunch of Turkey-EU accession talks, said Margaritis Schinas, EU Commission spokesperson, without confirming nor denying the statement made by the Turkish minister of European Affairs in Ankara.

The likelihood of opening the chapter on economic relations is indicated in Turkey’s annual report. “There are two days left until the summit, we must resist the temptation of holding talks in the Commission’s press room or encouraging temporary positions, because issues must be addressed at the Council”said the spokesperson responding to questions about Minister Volkan Bozkir’s comments. “This one as well as other issues will be covered at the Council” he added, specifying: “As far as pre-accession procedures go, everything the Commission had to say is stated in the enlargement report”.

As far as the “parameters for the summit go — he concluded — the Commission indicated its priorities in the joint action programme that will be presented to the heads of state and that has been supported by the effective work of vice-president Timmermans”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Finland Can Introduce Criminal Penalties for Terrorism-Related Travel

Finland’s Ministry of Justice is working on legislative amendments that would classify terrorism-related trips to other countries as a criminal offense, local media reports.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Criminal liability will apply to all attempts to travel to another country with the aim of conducting a terrorist act, as well as financially supporting potential jihadists, including Islamic State radicals, Lännen media said.

The legislative amendments will be up for parliamentary review next spring.

They come in the wake of the November 13 Paris terrorist attacks that left over 120 people dead and over 300 injured.

The attacks were conducted at several different locations in the French capital, including a stadium and a music hall. ISIL claimed responsibility for the attacks.

France announced a three-month state of emergency following the tragic events. Security measures were enhanced in a number of other countries, including Finland and Belgium.

France’s Minister of Ecology Segolene Royal said in a Tuesday statement that security gates were planned to be installed at cross-Europe trains operating in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany.

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

Google Scours 1.2 Million URLs to Conform With EU’s “Right to be Forgotten” Law

According to a Google report the company has evaluated 1,234,092 URLs from 348,085 requests since the EU’s May 2014 “right to be forgotten” ruling, and has removed 42% of those URLs. Engadget reports: “To show how it comes to its decisions, the company shared some of the requests it received and its decisions. For example: a private citizen that was convicted of a serious crime, but had that conviction overturned during appeal, had search results about the crime removed. Meanwhile a high ranking public official in Hungary failed to get the results squelched of a decades-old criminal conviction. Of course, that doesn’t mean the system is perfect and the company has already been accused of making mistakes.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Hollande ‘Depressed’ By Obama’s Lack of Anti-ISIL Resolve

US President Barack Obama believes that there is no need to build a new antiterrorist coalition now that 65 countries are already fighting terrorists in Syria.

President Obama made this point very clear when meeting the press in Washington after two-hour talks with his visiting French counterpart Francois Hollande.

The French leader had come to Washington determined to persuade his American colleague to ramp up the war on Islamic terrorists, but his initial resolve all but evaporated the moment he entered the White House…

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

Italy: Renzi Mayoral Expenses Case Shelved

PM denied suggestions of impropriety

(ANSA) — Florence, November 25 — The Tuscany Audit Court on Wednesday shelved a probe into expenses by Florence city council when Premier Matteo Renzi was mayor of the Tuscan capital.

Renzi has always denied suggestions of impropriety.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Man Killed Robber Near Milan in ‘Self Defence’

Shopkeeper attacked outside home, forced to open door

(ANSA) — Rodano, November 25 — Investigators believe a shopkeeper who shot dead a robber at his home in the province of Milan late on Tuesday acted “within the realm of self-defence”, ANSA sources said on Wednesday. The dead man, 36-year-old Albanian Valentin Frrokaj, was a fugitive murder convict and considered extremely dangerous. He was part of a gang of three that attacked Rodolfo Corazzo outside his home in Rodano and forced him to open the door, according to initial reconstructions. “I did it all to defend my family, my daughter, my wife,” a clearly shaken Corazzo told reporters in the office of his lawyer on Wednesday.

“I did not intend to kill but to send them packing.

“Thank God I had a weapon on me. If I had not been armed, I’m certain they would have killed us”. The two other bandits are on the run and a manhunt is on for them throughout northern Italy. They could be armed as one of the guns that Corazzo owns, and has permits for, a Smith&Wesson 357 Magnum, is missing.

Colazzo said the three spoke Italian with foreign accents.

Frrokaj was sentenced to life in prison for stabbing to death a fellow Albanian in July 2007 in Brescia.

He escaped with a compatriot from prison in Parma in February 2013, but was tracked down by Carabinieri, packing a loaded Beretta gun, in August that year.

He made a second prison break from a jail in Palermo in May 2014 — reportedly using the traditional method of cutting through the bars and tying sheets into a rope to climb down from the cell. The gang he was part of is said to have hit Corazzo from behind, forced him to shut down his two-storey home’s closed-circuit video system and let them in.

A shootout is thought to have taken place after Corazzo fired into the air in an attempt to scare the robbers away. Frrokaj was hit and is thought to have died immediately. “I’d given them everything,” Corazzo said. “I didn’t have anything in the house but they insisted, threatening me and they even tried to intimidate my 11-year-old daughter, taking her upstairs and saying they’d cut off her finger if I didn’t say where the money was.

“They kept us there, threatening us with guns, for an hour and a half. “They fired six shots with a gun that I had in the safe. “I fired only three. The first two didn’t hit anything.

The third hit one of them, but I didn’t aim”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Whole of FS Board Quits — Sources

Govt planning to sell up to 40% of rail company

(ANSA) — Rome, November 26 — All of the members of the board of directors of Italian railway company Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane (FS) have quit, ANSA sources said Thursday. The government has announced plans to sell a stake of up to 40% in FS.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy Monitoring 1,000 ‘Potential Jihadists’ — Magazine

Authorities do not expect Paris-style attack in Italy

(ANSA) -Rome, November 26 — There are about a thousand “potential jihadists” in Italy that police and intelligence authorities have been continually monitoring over the past five years, a preview of an article by L’Espresso magazine showed on Thursday.

According to the article, investigators do not think an assault on the scale of the November 13 attacks in Paris is possible in Italy but they are “worried about the risk of attacks in cities that are under lesser surveillance”.

Authorities are concerned that “lone wolf” attackers could target churches or historical monuments in smaller cities in the centre and the north of the country.

The magazine’s investigation found that militant Islamists find it difficult to get hold of weapons in Italy, because the majority of the clandestine weapons trade is in the hands of organised crime and mafia groups who “avoid relationships with these individuals”.

This is one of the reasons why a planned attack like the one in Paris, which involved a large number of accomplices, would be unlikely to go unobserved in Italy.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy Judge Orders 10 Alleged Jihadists to Remain in Prison

Group suspected of planning terror attacks across Europe

(ANSA) -Trento, November 26 — An Italian judge has signed an order to keep in prison 10 alleged jihadists who are implicated in the police investigations that busted an international terrorism ring on Nov. 12.

The 10 suspects include Faraj Ahmad Najmuddin, alias Mullah Krekar, who is alleged to have been the ideological and strategic leader of the group while he was in a Norwegian jail, according to investigative sources.

Abdul Rahman Nauroz, another suspect, is accused of being the head of a jihadist cell in Merano, in Alto Adige.

Following an investigation by Italian police, forces launched raids across Europe on Nov. 12, arresting 17 people a day before the terror attacks in Paris. The operation was conducted with the help of the authorities in Britain, Norway, Finland, Germany and Switzerland.

The preliminary judge has accused the suspects of wanting to replace the elected government in Kurdistan with a caliphate, or Islamic government, and of aiming to achieve this goal by launching terror attacks in Europe.

The judge’s decision confirmed a request by Trento prosecutors to keep the 10 suspects in prison. It follows the release of the seven other people who were also originally caught up in the investigation.

The 10 suspects are to remain in prison due to the “extreme danger” posed by the group, the judge said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Antitrust Probes Big Cement for ‘Price Cartel’

‘Coordinated price hikes’

(ANSA) — Rome, November 26 — Italy’s Antitrust Authority on Thursday opened a probe into four of the country’s top cement firms — Buzzi Unicem, Cementir Italia, Industria Cementi Giovanni Rossi and Holcim Italia — on suspicion they agreed price increases together. The four companies are suspected of coordinating price levels, the antitrust said. The authority said it had carried out inspections in the offices of the four firms on November 25 and 26.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Merkel Vows More Support for France During Paris Visit

Chancellor Angela Merkel says Germany will do more in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group, and that her country will do everything it can to prevent attacks such as that in Paris on November 13 from occurring again.

“We are stronger than any terrorism. Nevertheless, terrorism must be fought with all possible force. And here we want to stand by France’s side,” Merkel said ahead of a working dinner with French President François Hollande in Paris.

“When the French president asks me to think about what more we can do, then it’s our task to think about that and we will act quickly,” she said, adding that the IS group “can’t be convinced with words, it must be fought with military means”…

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

Millionaire British Estate Agent Who Beat German ‘Paedophile’ To Death After He Took Photos of His Children in Spanish Resort is to be Spared Jail

A millionaire British estate agent who punched to death an alleged German paedophile after he took pictures of his children is set to be spared jail.

Devinder Kainth, 39, was given a six-month prison sentence after admitting the manslaughter of German PR man Sandro Rottman at a restaurant in the upmarket Spanish resort of Sotogrande.

Kainth, who was out for a meal with his partner Gemma Hawkins and their three young children, went ballistic after spotting pictures of his children on his victim’s iPad.

It was later revealed the German, who also worked as a computer programmer, was being investigated by a judge over vile images on his computer. Police found them after being called to his house to investigate a burglary.

Judge Raquel Gomez Sancho ruled heavy-drinking Rottman’s alcohol-related health problems had contributed to his death.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Offenders Face $10,000 Fines as Burka Banned in Swiss Region of Ticino

There has been heated public debate in Switzerland after the region of Ticino voted to ban women from wearing full-faced Islamic veils such as burkas or niqabs in public, with anyone caught breaking the rules at risk of facing fines up to US$10,000.

Parliament passed the law, which came into effect this week, after more than 50 percent of the population in the largely Italian-speaking region voted in favor of the changes in 2013.

Initially, the plan would have excluded people from wearing balaclavas and masks during protests, however it was reported that lawmakers restricted the ban to religious veils to avoid comparing people who wear the garments to masked hooligans.

The ban will apply to both tourists and locals, with anyone caught breaking the rules facing fines of in between US$100 and US$10,000.

Giorgio Ghiringhelli, who drew up the proposal, said it would send a message to “Islamist fundamentalists” who he said were operating in the region:

“Those who want to integrate are welcome irrespective of their religion. But those who rebuff our values and aim to build a parallel society based on religious laws, and want to place it over our society, are not welcome.”

However, many were heavily critical of the developments, saying that it discriminated against the religious beliefs of some people, while Amnesty International said the result was a “black day for human rights in Ticino.”

The Swiss region isn’t the first to implement such a ban, after France became the first country to ban people from wearing the burka and all other forms of covering of the face in 2010.

The law was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights in 2014, while similar forms of legislation have been passed in Belgium.

Syria, Senegal, Chad, Niger and Cameroon are among other countries who have banned religious veils that cover the whole face over fears extremists may be using them to hide their identity before carrying out attacks.

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

Paris Attacks Victims’ Relatives Boycott France’s Day of Mourning Over ‘Government Fault’

Families of those slaughtered during the Paris terrorist attacks today called for a boycott of a day of mourning after accusing the French government of allowing the murders to happen.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Poland Snubs EU Flag in Sign of Defiance of Brussels Powers

The new Polish Government, under Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, has removed all EU flags from official meetings and photo calls and replaced them with the Polish flag, in a clear sign of a change of policy over its membership of the EU.

Although the governing Law and Justice Party is pro-EU, there are growing calls for more powers to be repatriated from Brussels to Warsaw. Ten years ago, when the party was last in power, it did its utmost to hold up the Lisbon Treaty and EU officials fear a similar reticence to toe the line will now follow.

At a press conference Tuesday, journalists noticed that the EU flag, which usually stood opposite the Polish flag, had been replaced with the country’s red and white colors. When asked about it, Szydlo said:

“We’re an active EU member… but we adopted the approach that statements after government meetings will take place against a backdrop of the most beautiful… white-and-red flags.”

“We’re going to pursue a policy that, while appreciating our EU membership, secures maximum benefit for our Polish citizens, for Poland’s economy and for our homeland,” she added, surrounded by a dozen large Polish flags.

Officials in Brussels — aware of the two years the Law and Justice Party was last in power — is bracing itself for a difficult relationship with Warsaw. It could become a real problem for Brussels for two more reasons.

European Disunion

The UK is set to hold an In/Out referendum on its membership of the European Union by the end of 2017 — although it is likely to be in 2016. Prime Minister David Cameron is calling for Britain’s membership to be re-negotiated and for some powers to be repatriated back to London, as well as for fundamental change to the Brussels machine.

In this, he is joined by Szydlo, although there is a sticking point over access to in-work benefits in the UK, with Cameron calling for a delay in EU citizens being able to claim them, but Poland arguing against it.

The second problems for Brussels is that Poland is not the only country to have turned Eurosceptic. Even in the Netherlands, 83 percent of Dutch voters want more influence over future transfers of power to the EU and 61 percent of the population want a referendum on any further enlargement of the EU.

Many countries have seen a rise in Euroscepticism, spurred on by the way people have seen Greece bullied into submission over the euro and the refugee crisis caused by a dysfunctional system of border security brought about by the Schengen Agreement.

As Brussels struggles to cope with the crises it is already handling, Poland’s decision to drop the EU flag at ceremonial occasions will be the least of its troubles.

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

“War is Likely” After Turkey Shoots Down Russian Jet, Ignores Putin’s Warning

It seems like full-blown war is only two seconds away with the wicked brew boiling in the Middle East. The latest?

Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Turkish-Syrian border yesterday, claiming it did so after the plane violated Turkish airspace and was given ten warnings to leave which were ignored. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said they decided to shoot it down because the plane “did not answer our warning”…

However, the other pilot did survive, and he said that no warnings were received from Turkey before the plane was hit.

In response, Putin shot back with some pretty harsh language, saying this was a “stab in the back” by the “terrorists’ accomplices”:

The shooting of the plane, Putin said, “represents a stab in the back by the terrorists’ accomplices. I can’t describe what has happened today in any other way. Our plane was downed over Syrian territory by an air-to-air missile from a Turkish F-16 jet.

“The plane fell on Syrian territory 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) away from the Turkish border. It was flying 1 kilometer away from the Turkish border when it was attacked. In any case, neither our pilots nor our jet posed any threat to Turkey. That is obvious. They were carrying out an operation fighting against ISIL in Northern Latakia.” (ISIL is another acronym for ISIS.) (source) Putin also said this would have “serious consequences for Russia’s relationship with Turkey”.

And, to sum it up, you know what Turkey said back?

“Warning ignored.”

NATO then called an emergency meeting, as Obama, Hollande, and others publicly called for de-escalation.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called Turkey shooting down the plane “a planned provocation” and an “obvious ambush”.

Analysts are already saying this could potentially lead to not only war, but nuclear war because Russia is being told they cannot fly near the Syrian-Turkish border where all the terrorists are hanging out.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

95% of Foreign Fighters Who Join ISIS Are Recruited by Friends and Family

Scott Atran a terrorism expert from Oxford University said that ISIS recruits see joining the terror group as a ‘call to glory’ and that jihad ‘offers them a way to become a hero.’

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Ankara Demands Arrest of Journalists for Publishing Weapon Convoy to Syria

A Turkish prosecutor has requested an Istanbul court to arrest Cumhuriyet newspaper Editor-in-Chief Can Dundar and the daily’s Ankara representative Erdem Gul on charges of espionage and treason after the outlet published photos of intelligence trucks with weapons bound for Syria, local media reported Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, both journalists went to Istanbul Courthouse to testify after being summoned there.

“We came here to defend journalism. We came here to defend the right of the public to obtain the news and their right to know if their government is feeding them lies. We came here to show and to prove that governments cannot engage in illegal activity and to defend this,” Dundar told reporters as quoted by Today’s Zaman.

The article and footage released by Cumhuriyet on May 29 claimed that the trucks were carrying containers with artillery shells, machine gun rounds, and mortar shells to Syrian rebels fighting against the government forces.

Ankara refuted the media reports, insisting that the vehicles were delivering aid to Syrian Turkmens and the allegations were nothing but insinuations.

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

Drudge Sends the Biggest Secret Viral: “America Has Been Arming ISIS”

The biggest open secret in the world has just been tweeted by the world’s biggest news aggregator.

Matt Drudge drives so much web traffic that he basically has his own gravity, and now the often-reclusive figure has sent out a message that should be a wake-up call for those who have been broadcasting news about the threat that ISIS poses.

Following their mass murder spree in Paris, the terrorist group is supposedly planning attacking inside America, all while taking supposedly also taking on the biggest military powers in the world during their protracted struggle for an Islamic State caliphate inside Syria and Iraq.

What would the world do if it realized the truth — that ISIS is the creation of Western forces, and that the United States has in fact been arming and supporting their own worst enemy?:

A shocking truth is unfolding: America has been arming ISIS…

— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) November 24, 2015

This bombshell tweet echoes numerous reports from inside the alternative media pointing out the sick truth behind the shocking resurgence of terrorism.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Everything This President Does Benefits ISIS

“The system of ‘terror’ was essential to Stalinism. … Terror was the creation to mold politically the control that they wanted.” — Condoleezza Rice, “Joseph Stalin: Red Terror”

I see that the state-controlled narrative is changing a bit due to the fact that the “Useful idiots,” who have been playing the stooge for this administration, are now coming to the realization that the game that they seemed to be playing is not a game at all. It appears that the lawless in America, who have been cheering on this administration through tolerance and apathy, are now beginning to see the severity of this criminal administration and they now know that they had better get on the right side of Heaven, or the game will soon be over (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Politicians are now calling “ISIS a creation of Obama,” and that this president, through his actions, is benefiting ISIS.

After the Paris attacks, what did America hear from this treasonous President Barack Hussein Obama (His Muslim name)? (Luke 3:19) America heard a dictator, who was angry and agitated with those who were comparing ISIS to the Muslims…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel went so far as to call for “tolerance of Muslim migrants” following Paris attacks.

These are those who are responsible for advocating these advancing armies to plunder their respective countries which they are entering.

Mark Dayton, the worst sitting senator in the history of America and now the incumbent governor to the shame of all Minnesotans told the people he represents to find another state if they do not want Muslim refugees in Minnesota.

In the background, these Muslims, if they are not in Germany plundering churches, schools and raping women, then they arepraising the Paris jihadists as martyrs during a moment of silence at Turkish and Greece soccer game.

[…]

Political author Gearoid O Colmain discussed the Paris attacks with RT International. He brought out several important points that must be considered. Here’s what he laid out:

  • How the war is being waged against civilian populations which aims to divide and conquer all that would oppose a global tyrannical governance.
  • How there is no such thing as ISIS. ISIS is a creation of the United States, known to us by official military sources and declassified documents.
  • How terrorists are coming into countries disguised as refugees to destabilize those countries.
  • How this is being used to create “civil war” and social unrest.
  • How the media propaganda campaign is used to promote fear to paralyze the people.
  • How there may be a new campaign against dissidents. How they are worried about the alternative media who question the state-controlled narratives. Attacking alternative media as “theorists” and a crackdown on those who report rational questioning of the established order.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Footage Reveals Who Shot Down Russian Rescue Helicopter at Syrian Border — and it Looks Pretty Bad

Footage provided by the FSA purportedly shows Syrian rebels using a U.S.-made TOW missile to finish off a rescue helicopter sent to secure pilots ejected from a downed Russian Su-24 fighter jet. While Russian fighter pilots descended by parachute from a plummeted Su-24, footage allegedly shows Syrian rebels shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ and trying to kill them in the air — a violation of the Geneva conventions.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

German Vice-Chancellor on Su-24 Crash: Turkey is Unpredictable, Not Russia

German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel has lashed out at Turkey for this week’s downing of a Russian bomber over Syria close to the Turkish border, German media reported on Wednesday.

“This incident showed that, based on statements from other countries in the region, there is a player in the region who is unpredictable and that is Turkey and not Russia,” Gabriel told the weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel.

He added that “Turkey has played a difficult role’ in the Syrian conflict.”

On Tuesday a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 bomber crashed on Syrian territory four kilometers from the Turkish border.

President Vladimir Putin later said that the plane had been shot down by an air-to-air missile fired by a Turkish F-16.

The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the Su-24 had not violated the Turkish border.

Ankara, for its part, insists that the Russian plane had indeed strayed into the country’s airspace.

Many leading European politicians have criticized Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over Tuesday’s incident with the Russian military jet.

On Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged Turkey and Russia to exercise restraint and act in a rational and prudent manner in the wake of the incident which he labeled as “serious.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Here is What Turkey’s Erdogan Fears Most

As Erdogan attempts to use the military to resolve a policy course in Syria previously accomplished through intelligence agencies, here is the biggest issue he may encounter, and it’s not Putin.

Russia’s Putin stepped up criticism of Turkey’s leadership on Wednesday, saying that it was encouraging the Islamization of Turkish society.

Although Islamization in Turkey usually refers to such measures as limits on alcohol sales, it is actually at the core of Erdogan’s conflicts with the military and civil society, the roots of which go into the foundation of modern secularist Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Critics have also accused Erdogan of wishing to revive the territorial and diplomatic accomplishments of the Ottoman Empire.

“The problem [behind Russia’s travel warning] is not the tragedy we faced yesterday, the problem is much deeper. We observe, and not just us, but the entire world, that today’ leadership has in a considerable number of years conducted a targeted internal policy to support and Islamize their country,” Putin said.

Military Watchmen

Erdogan has been careful to purge the military of secularist officers who may pose a threat to his rule. Turkey’s military has historically been a vanguard for protecting the country’s secular constitution, formed under the principles laid out by the country’s modern founder Mustafa Kemal.

The constitution has been watered down several times, most recently in 1982, becoming increasingly tolerant of Islamist political movements and reducing the military’s influence in government affairs. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) seeks to amend the existing constitution or replace it with a new one.

The Turkish military has traditionally repelled such attempts by warning civil rulers against moves to change the constitution, which led the country into military rule. Such moves are often preceded with “memorandum” warnings from the military against rulers.

“In Turkey there is a marriage between Islam and democracy. The child of this union is secularism. Sometimes the child becomes ill, and the Turkish army is the doctor who saves it. Depending on the disease’s severity we administer the right medication to cure the child,” a 1997 military memorandum authored by General Cevik Bir said.

Erdogan has been careful to avoid such a scenario, purging the military of hundreds of officers, most famously in 2013, when it arrested 275 people, including senior generals for a conspiracy to overthrow the government.

Former Associates

Erdogan’s foray into Syria also serves to strengthen his rule, by both abandoning Turkey’s Western outlook and gaining power over the military. While Turkey previously avoided strong ties with the Middle East, Erdogan ended this policy, most significantly by first aiding Syria’s Bashar Assad, and then opposing him after Syria’s internal conflict began in 2011.

Turkey’s participation in the conflict appears to have been done without the army’s knowledge. In a May 2015 arms-trafficking incident, 17 soldiers were arrested for stopping an arms shipment heading to Syria by the country’s MIT intelligence agency.

Erdogan has blamed the arrested officers for being part of a “parallel state” set up by preacher Fethllah Gulen, who initially supported Erdogan, but parted ways with him in 2013. Erdogan and Gulen have major disagreements, as Gulen came out strongly against Turkey’s involvement in the Syrian crisis.

Triggering a crisis by shooting down a Russian plane could then help Erdogan secure support from the military, with any opposition to his rule seen as high treason to the country’s interests rather than the interests of Erdogan alone.

Moderate Opposition

In addition to the military, Erdogan has pursued a crackdown on opposition to his policy courses, labeled as Islamization and Neo-Ottomanism by critics.

Most recently, the leader of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) narrowly escaped assassination on Monday, one day before the Russian plane was shot down.

The party opposes Erdogan’s policies in Syria, particularly its operations against Kurds.

Erdogan also initiated a crackdown on his opponents following the elections, which secured an all-but absolute majority, allowing the party to form its own government but not change the constitution.

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

John Bolton: To Defeat ISIS, Create a Sunni State

America is debating how to respond to the terrorist attacks in Paris. Unfortunately, both President Obama’s current policy and other recent proposals lack a strategic vision for the Middle East once the Islamic State, or ISIS, is actually defeated. There are no answers, or only outmoded ones, to the basic question: What comes after the Islamic State?

Before transforming Mr. Obama’s ineffective efforts into a vigorous military campaign to destroy the Islamic State, we need a clear view, shared with NATO allies and others, about what will replace it. It is critical to resolve this issue before considering any operational plans. Strategy does not come from the ground up; instead, tactics flow deductively once we’ve defined the ultimate objectives.

Today’s reality is that Iraq and Syria as we have known them are gone. The Islamic State has carved out a new entity from the post-Ottoman Empire settlement, mobilizing Sunni opposition to the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and the Iran-dominated government of Iraq. Also emerging, after years of effort, is a de facto independent Kurdistan.

If, in this context, defeating the Islamic State means restoring to power Mr. Assad in Syria and Iran’s puppets in Iraq, that outcome is neither feasible nor desirable. Rather than striving to recreate the post-World War I map, Washington should recognize the new geopolitics. The best alternative to the Islamic State in northeastern Syria and western Iraq is a new, independent Sunni state.

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

Jordan: Aqaba Awaits Influx of Russian Tourists

Airport capacity increased as security tightened in port city

(ANSAmed) AMMAN, NOVEMBER 26: Jordan’s port city of Aqaba is embracing itself for an influx of Russian tourists, as up to 91 charter flights scheduled arrive in the city in the coming months, officials said today. According to Munir Asad, general manager of Aqaba Airports Company and director of King Hussein International Airport (KHIA) each Russian flight will bring around 200 passengers until next March. In the aftermath of the Russian plane crashing in Sharm al Sheikh in Egypt, Jordanian officials were quick to offer an alternative destination for Russian tourists, hungry for sunshine and relaxed atmosphere on the shores of the Red Sea.

Up to 18,000 passengers are expected to spend time in the city over the next months, amid expectation of more visitors from other countries.

Officials at Aqaba airport said they are working on improving capacity and handling rising volume of traffic in the coming months.

The port teamed up with a Hungarian low-cost carrier to operate regular flights to Aqaba as of February. Meanwhile, officials at said security procedures are expected to increase in the city in order to guarantee safe stay for tourists from around the world.

The targeting of Russian plane last month, could be a bless in disguise for Aqaba and other parts of Jordan, where tourism industry has plummeted to an all time low. The political turmoil and concern over attack on foreigners has pushed tourism to the edge of catastrophe, but officials at Jordan tourism board hope the kingdom’s stability and competitiveness could offer a new lease on life.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Lest You Forget: Lavrov Reminds Turkey of Its Involvement in ISIL Oil Trade

Turkey’s decision to shoot down a Russian bomber involved in an anti-terror mission against the self-proclaimed Islamic State terrorist group means that Ankara has effectively sided with IS.

Heading off any denial of this fact, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated Turkey’s role in the terrorist group’s illegal oil trade.

Discussing the downing of the Russian Su-24 bomber on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had harsh words for his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu.

According to a press release from Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Lavrov pointed out that, “by shooting down a Russian plane on a counter-terrorist mission of the Russian Aerospace Force in Syria, and one that did not violate Turkey’s airspace, the Turkish government has in effect sided with ISIS.”

“…Turkey’s actions appear premeditated, planned, and undertaken with a specific objective.”

Lavrov also pointed to Turkey’s role in the propping up the terror network through the oil trade.

“The Russian Minister reminded his counterpart about Turkey’s involvement in the ISIS’ illegal trade in oil, which is transported via the area where the Russian plane was shot down, and about the terrorist infrastructure, arms and munitions depots and control centers that are also located there,” the statement read.

“Sergei Lavrov specifically said that this act by Turkey will have serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations and will not go unanswered.”

Retired French General Dominique Trinquand made similar statements when speaking to Sputnik earlier on Wednesday.

“[Turkey is either not fighting ISIL at all or very little, and does not interfere with different types of smuggling that takes place on its border, be it oil, phosphate, cotton or people,” he said.

Turkey downed a Russian Su-24 bomber Tuesday, claiming that the aircraft violated Turkish airspace. The Russian Defense Ministry has released flight path data proving that Russian remained aircraft never left Syrian airspace.

The incident left one of the pilots dead, shot by militants on the ground after ejecting. The other, Captain Konstantin Murahtin, was rescued.

Russian President Vladimir Putin described the incident as a “stab in the back by accomplices of terrorists.”

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

Matt Drudge: ‘America Has Been Arming ISIS’

Rare tweet by media giant alludes to sinister Obama policy

Matt Drudge’s first tweet in months came with a cryptic message: “A shocking truth is unfolding: America has been arming ISIS.”

The Obama administration has been plagued for weeks over news U.S. weapons supplied to Syrian rebels were inadvertently winding up in the hands of terror groups. The media giant’s tweet on Tuesday alludes to something far more sinister.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

NATO’s Dirty Secret: Why the Alliance Abhors Russian Involvement in Syria

NATO’s defense of Turkey, after it shot down a Russian jet which was fighting terrorism, is testament to the fear in the alliance that Moscow’s involvement in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria will lead to the discovery of Turkey’s links to the terrorist organization, the German press wrote on Wednesday.

The NATO alliance sees the Russian campaign to defeat terrorism in Syria as an unwelcome development because it reveals the extent of its collaboration with the terrorists, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN) wrote on Wednesday.

“NATO is extremely nervous, because it has realized that in the event of a Russian victory in Syria, the truth about the relationship between NATO member Turkey and the Islamic State will come to light,” wrote DWN.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Not Mosques, But Friends & Family to Blame for ISIL Radicalization — Expert

The vast majority of people who join jihadist groups like ISIL are recruited by family and friends, while radicalization hardly ever occurs in mosques, a leading Oxford University academic has told the UN, in a stinging critique of western understanding of the group.

In an address to a UN-hosted panel in New York, leading Oxford University academic Scott Antran said that according to research, three quarters of people who join ISIL were encouraged to do so by friends and peers.

On top of that, family members were responsible for recruiting a further 20 percent of people to ISIL, with Mr Antran’s research revealing a serious misunderstanding from governments about the group’s recruitment powers.

ISIL Using ‘Revolutionary Pull’

Following the Paris attacks a fortnight ago, there have been renewed calls for Islamic communities to do more to discourage extremism and radicalization in structured settings.

However, according to Mr Antran, “radicalization rarely occurs in mosques” and even less so through strangers or anonymous people.

According to Mr Antran, jihadist group ISIL offers the same kind of “revolutionary pull” that occurred times of dynamic social instability, such as the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

He said many western governments have underestimated the recruitment powers of jihadist groups, pointing out that they appear to be far more appealing to young people and can attract supporters “much better than the governments that are fighting against it.”

West Needs to Change Tack

Far from being a problem isolated to the Islamic community in the West, research has found that a significant number of ISIL recruits come from Christian or non-religious families, with Antran pointing out that “it is the call to glory and adventure that moves these young people to join the Islamic State,” with jihad offering them a way to become “heroes.”

He said the West’s depiction of the group as evil and brutal doesn’t seem to be working, based on his experience interviewing captured ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra fighters. Antran said:

“The Islamic State represents the spearhead of the most dynamic counter-cultural revolutionary movement since World War II with the largest volunteer fighting force since World War II.”

Antran warned that unless the West learned how to “figure out how to have ideas from youth bubble up and be used to attract other youth, I think we’ll be lost for the coming generations.”

It’s estimated that there are between 20,000 and 30,000 foreigners fighting alongside ISIL in Syria and Iraq, with estimates suggesting 5,000-7,000 have come from Europe.

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

Reports That Quds Force Commander Gen. Suleimani Injured in Syria

US Amy Brig. Gen. (ret.) Ernie Audino, former Combat Adviser to the Kurdish Peshmerga, brought us interesting news. Kurdish sources reported Iranian Quds Force commander, Gen. Qasem Suleimani has been wounded in action near Aleppo, Syria and evacuated to Tehran. If confirmed this is a stunning development as Suleimani was de facto commander of combined Iranian, Syrian national and Hezbollah forces propping up the Assad regime and directing Shiite militias in Iraq. This news comes following reports of IRGC heavy casualties in Syria. This will not be good news for the alleged interests of Putin in Syria. The issue is who caught Suleimani and his security unawares in Syria, Was it the Free Syrian Army, ISIS, al Nusrah, or the Syrian Kurdish YPG?

Here is the Kurdish BASNews report…

           — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon [Return to headlines]
 

The Plight of Emad Tayefeh

A young Iranian filmmaker named Emadeddin (Emad) Tayefeh was forced to flee his homeland earlier this year after its totalitarian regime grew suspicious of his latest documentary project that focuses on political repression in that country.

In early August, Tayefeh hopped on a bus bound for the Turkish border, following beatings and imprisonment at the hands of the Islamic regime for shooting video footage for his anti-government film, the Guardian (UK) reports.

“My heart was beating so fast,” he said. “I wasn’t allowed to leave the country, and I’d bribed the border police to get an exit permit. I had to cross the border without wasting time.”

He left Iran with a backpack containing footage of interviews with dissidents—and not much else.

The 30-year-old grew up in Tehran in a family that backed the 1979 Iranian revolution that ousted the Shah. His neighborhood was filled with like-minded people, including documentary director Ebrahim Hatamikia, journalist Hossein Shariatmdari, and filmmaker Mohammad Nourizad, a friend of Tayefeh’s father who later became Emad’s mentor.

“Back then, the regime would give free housing and land to close allies and supporters,” Tayefeh said. “So we had land there, too.”

College made Tayefeh think differently about Iranian politics. “Take the 1980s executions of political dissidents,” he said. “Prior to college, like all other people raised in the same environment, I used to think all those stories about executions were false. But when I went to college, I started to change.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘They Know How it’s Done’: Turkey Violated Greek Airspace 2,244 Times in 2014 Alone

Turkish claims that the downed Russian Su-24 jet “violated” its airspace have sparked outrage among Greeks, who took to social media to say it is a clear-cut case of double standards as Turkish jets breached Greek airspace 2,244 times in 2014 alone.

They wondered what would happen if Greece had authorized engagement of Turkish aircraft, which breach the country’s borders on a regular basis.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Turkey Aims to Turn Su-24 Incident Into Russia-NATO Row

Ankara strives to channel tensions with Moscow over the downing of a Russian Su-24 bomber jet in Syria into a NATO-Russia confrontation, but the attempt will most probably fail, the head of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs (ECFA) told Sputnik on Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Tuesday, the Russian Su-24 jet came down in Syria, 2.5 miles away from the Turkish border. Russia President Vladimir Putin said it was hit with an air-to-air missile launched from a Turkish F-16 jet.

“Turkey is trying to convert its conflict with Russia into the NATO-Russia conflict, but I think that the alliance understands this and will not yield,” Amin Shalabi said.

According to Shalabi, the incident looks more like a provocative move staged by the Turkish side.

“The incident is strange, since the aircraft crashed on the territory of Syria. It means that if it entered the airspace of Turkey, then just for several seconds, which definitely did not require such a response,” Shalabi noted.

He also noted that the plane crash coincided with the time when the international community had reached compromise on the coordination of anti-IS fight in both Syria and Iraq.

Immediately after the incident, Turkey held an emergency meeting of NATO’s decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council (NAC), on Tuesday.

Commenting on the Su-24 downing, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg offered support for Ankara saying that the allied assessments of the event were consistent with information provided by Turkey, which claimed that the Russian warplane had briefly violated Turkish airspace.

The Russian General Staff and the Syrian Air Defense Command confirmed that the Su-24 had never crossed into Turkish airspace and had been downed on Syrian territory.

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

Turkey-Russia Turmoil

Leading from behind, or more accurately, failing to lead at all, has its consequences. Turkish jets shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter jet Turkey claimed was over its airspace, and both pilots were reportedly killed. In addition, American-backed Syrian rebels shot down a Russian rescue helicopter, killing one crew member. Russian guided missile cruiser Moskva will now be deployed off the Syrian coast, with Lieutenant General Sergey Rudskoi warning that “every target posing a potential threat will be destroyed,” and all military contacts with Turkey “will be suspended.” As PJ Media’s Richard Fernandez deftly explains, the latest turn of events is “a clear sign of how dangerous Obama’s Syria policy has become. The vacuum left by his policy has not only engendered a chaos which has destroyed whole countries, but it has drawn in great powers whose armed forces are operating in dangerously close proximity.” In short, this is how wars begin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned Turkey there will be “significant consequences” for what he characterized as a “stab in the back” committed by “accomplices of terrorists.” The Turkish military insists that two jets approached their border and were warned “10 times” before one of the planes was shot down. Putin disagreed. “The Russian bomber was shot down over Syria by an air-to-air surface fired from a Turkish F-16 plane when the bomber was at an altitude of 6,000 meters at a distance of 1 km from the Turkish bomber,” he stated.

Army Col. Steve Warren, the top military spokesman in Baghdad, backed Turkey’s version of the event, but hedged in the process of doing so. “The incident happened at the border,” Warren said. “These things are not as clean as they are in the movies.” He further explained command was studying radio chatter, radar images and other data before making a definitive conclusion. Later, however, a U.S. official reported to Reuters that the Russian jet did appear to have been shot down over Syrian airspace after briefly entering into Turkey.

Regardless, this is the first time a NATO member’s military has shot down a Russian or Soviet aircraft since the 1950s.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Iran Interested in Entire Range of Russian Arms Supplies — Putin’s Aide

Iran is interested in the entire range of Russian arms, Vladimir Kozhin, Russian presidential aide on military-technical cooperation, said on Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Iran is interested in the entire range of Russian arms, with talks between the two sides currently underway, Vladimir Kozhin, Russian presidential aide on military-technical cooperation, said on Wednesday.

“They are interested in the whole range or our weapons, because they have a large army, significant armed force, but due to the sanctions and all the other events you know about, they have not been rearmed for some time,” Kozhin told reporters.

Iran has already renewed S-300 anti-aircraft missile system deliveries from Russia. On November 9, Russia signed a new contract to supply Iran with the systems by the end of the year for the first time since the 2010 freeze on supplies under the 1929 UN Security Council resolution.

“Talks are underway, and more are expected. The Iranian side is very interested in military-technical cooperation,” Kozhin added.

Russia’s S-300 deal became possible again after Iran reached a deal on its nuclear program with the P5+1 group of international mediators on July 14. Iran agreed to ensure the peaceful nature of its nuclear program in exchange for easing of the sanctions imposed against the country.

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

Italian Lawmaker Offers to Lift Sanctions to Make Up for Su-24 Downing

Italy should help to de-escalate a potentially dangerous situation between Russia and NATO following the downing of a Russian bomber by the Turkish Air Force in Syria by lifting sanctions against Russia, Alessandro Di Battista, a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, told the TV channel Rai Uno.

On Tuesday, the Turkish Air Force downed a Russian Su-24 bomber, engaging in anti-ISIL strikes in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin described the incident as “a stab in the back by accomplices of terrorists.”

Ankara claimed it shot down the Russian bomber because it had allegedly violated Turkish airspace. Both the Russian General Staff and the Syrian Air Defense Command confirmed that the Su-24 never crossed into Turkey and was downed in Syrian airspace.

Italy is in a tough situation, being between the United States and Russia. Italy is akin to a “clay vase caught between the hammer and the anvil,” Di Battista said.

That’s why it’s in the interest of the Italian government should try to defuse the political tension between the two major superpowers, Di Battista explained.

What Italy should do now is to lift sanctions against Russia. It would be a gesture of friendship and would help to alleviate a tense situation between Russia and NATO, the Italian politician argued.

Italy imposed anti-Russian sanctions only because they a subject of the United States. These sanctions have hurt the Italian economy and at the same time have put fuel to the fire that’s going on in the Middle East, Di Battista said.

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

Two Police, Four ‘Radical Islamists’ Killed in Azerbaijan Raid

Two policemen and four alleged members of a radical Islamist group were killed in a shootout during a raid against the group in a village in Azerbaijan, the interior ministry said Thursday.

The ministry said in a statement that four alleged Islamists and two policemen were killed after the suspects opened fire with grenades and automatic rifles as police attempted to arrest “leaders of an unregistered radical Islamist group” called the Movement for Muslim Unity in the village north of Baku.

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

Bangladeshi Inter-Faith Forum Leader Attacked

Alok Sen is the secretary of the Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Parishad, a forum that brings together Hindus, Buddhists and Christians. He was attacked as he left home. The reasons for this remain unknown but some fear it might be in retaliation to the hanging of two opposition political leaders.

Dhaka (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Two men armed with kitchen knives attacked the leader of a forum that supports inter-faith dialogue in Bangladesh.

Alok Sen, a Hindu, was attacked as he left home in Faridpur District, Dhaka Division. Nazim Uddin, a local police officer, said that Sen’s shouts attracted his wife’s attention, which prompted his attackers to flee.

Such an act of violence is nothing new. Last week Fr Piero Parolari, a missionary with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), survived a serious attack in the diocese of Dinajpur.

Sen heads the Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Parishad, an organisation that brings together Hindus, Buddhists and Christians.

The group is considered to be close to the political positions of the Bangladesh Awami League, the party of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The religious leader said that he did not have any enemies and did not know those attacked him.

The motive in fact remains unclear. However, some fear that it might be in retaliation to last week’s execution of two political opponents, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mujahid, of the Islamic party Jamaat-e-Islami, and Salahuddin Quader Chowdhury, a leader in the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Both had been accused of war crimes dating back to the 1971 Indo-Pakistani conflict.

Recently, Catholic sources told AsiaNews that the country’s tense political situation could explain the attack against Fr Parolari.

Now the Hindu leader’s attempted murder could further aggravate an already tense situation, marked by continued violence against minorities, secular thinkers and intellectuals.

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

Pakistan: Karachi: Masked Men Set Christian Television Station on Fire

Arson attack occurred at 2.30am local time. Gawahi TV was born three years ago from donations of Catholics and Protestants to “spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people of all faiths.” The station was destroyed by the flames. The broadcaster had received threats but the authorities had denied any security measures.

Karachi (AsiaNews) — A group of masked men set fire to Christian broadcaster Gawahi TV Karachi overnight. The building collapsed due to the fire. According to employees, the arson attack occurred at 2.30am (local time), and the men were seen as they fled from the place, having set fire to the entire complex.

Gawahi television was established in February 2013 in a joint collaboration between Catholic and Protestant communities, to “spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to people of all religions who live in Pakistan.” The channel broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week. As reported by the television website, about 12 million people watched it on a regular basis.

The station management had denounced past threats and despite many requests, police and authroities did not provide the necessary security. Some members of the Catholic Church, including several priests, visited the scene of the fire, expressing disappointment at what happened. Fr. John Arif, of the Diocese of Karachi, said: “It was disheartening to see the entire building and all equipment burned. The channel was set up to communicate the word of God. There have been threats and now the matter is under investigation. We hope to soon see the channel on air again. We pray for peace and tolerance. “

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

Pakistan: Sialkot: Muslim Kidnaps 13 Year Old Christian Girl and Forces Her to Convert to Islam

Sana John, aged 13, was kidnapped on her way to school. The family reported her disappearance, but police and the courts fail to intervene. Local Muslim mafia threaten family. The father tells AsiaNews: “I wander from office to office in search of justice, in vain.”

Sialkot (AsiaNews) — Yet another case of the kidnapping and forced conversion to Islam of a young Christian girl in Pakistan. The kidnapping dates back to November 9; the victim is 13 year old Sana John, who until a few days ago lived with her family to Haji Pura, in the city of Sialkot, Punjab province. Yesterday the family demonstrated in front of the Press Club to protest the authorities inaction, despite numerous complaints filed by the parents of the victim.

Shahid John is the father of six children, three boys and three girls. On November 9, he left home at 7.45 am, for work. A little later, around 8 o’clock, the two daughters (Sana, the eldest and her sister Hina) started walking towards the school. Hina tells AsiaNews: “On the way to school a guy named Rambo, the son of a rich local Muslim, stopped us and took Sana by the hand, dragging her away”.

“He turned to me and told me to go to school. Sana tried to rebel, saying she wanted to go to school too. Rambo, dragged her with him, and ordered me to leave. I was afraid, and I ran immediately to the school. I haven’t seen my sister since she never came back”.

Initial reports reveal that Rambo has forcibly converted the girl and threatened her father, Shahid, not to report the case to police or another of his daughters will be kidnapped. In addition, the family of the young Muslim has called on local Islamic leaders who have deployed the local mafia against the Christians.

Despite the threats, the Sana’s parents lodged complaints with the police. However, police have taken no action, not even the district judges have moved to return the girl to her family. “Sana was a lovely girl,” says the father, who had dreams of “becoming a doctor. I haven’t slept since her kidnap. I wander from office to office in search of justice, in vain. “ Police and judges seem inert. “In Pakistan — he adds — there is no justice for the poor and the underprivileged,” especially if “they are Christians.” Her mother remembers how Sana was “a brilliant student” ready to help “in the household”.

One of the organizers of the protest at the Press Club of Sialkot, in support of the kidnapped girl and her family, was Fr. Zeeshan Alam who explains that “it is not the first time that such a thing has happened”. “Thousands of underage girls — he adds- are taken by force and forced to convert to Islam, while authorities turn a blind eye. And, even worse, the political leadership, even Christians in this Parliament, who live in luxury, do nothing to address events of this kind and help families in difficulty”.

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

Obama’s Climate Negotiator: China’s CO2 Output Can Keep Rising Because Their Economy Needs to Grow

Let’s not forget the other travesty going on in Paris at the moment — the one Obama thinks will really show ISIS that we mean business. That’s the one in which elected officials from nations across the globe conspire to raise taxes and put crushing new controls on industry using the pretext of global warming — oh, sorry, “climate change — because the public won’t support these policies they’ve wanted to impose all along if not for some scare scenario about a looming global ecological disaster.

Actually the public doesn’t support it even with that pretext because they can detect Bolshevik more easily than politicians think, but Obama and his counterparts going ahead with the charade anyway. And as they do, here’s an interesting detail to chew on: According to the agreement Obama wants to put in place, the U.S. would have to reduce its carbon emissions immediately, while China can continue to increase its carbon emissions until reaching “peak” in 2030. India’s emissions will be allowed to triple between now and 2030.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Germany Will Send Up to 650 Troops to Mali, to Support France

Defence Minister, greater commitment to training Peshmerga

(ANSA) — BERLIN — The German government will send up to 650 soldiers to Mali to ensure peace and support France in the fight against Isis, according to Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who spoke during a session of the Defence Committee of the Bundestag. At the same time, German army’s commitment to training Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in Iraq will be exhanced, by increasing the number of soldiers from 100 to 150. The two proposals made by the government must now be passed by the Bundestag. German intervention in Mali consisted, so far, in the deployment of 200 soldiers in the southern African country, a relatively peaceful area.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Mexicans Lay Flowers at Russian Embassy After Downing of Su-24 in Syria

Russian Ambassador to Mexico Eduard Malayan said that the Mexians are bringing flowers at the Russian Embassy in Mexico City.

MEXICO CITY (Sputnik) — Flowers at the Russian Embassy in Mexico City appeared on Wednesday in the wake of Turkey’s downing of a Russian military aircraft over the Syrian territory, Russian Ambassador to Mexico Eduard Malayan told RIA Novosti.

On Tuesday, a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 jet crashed in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the plane was downed by an air-to-air missile launched by a Turkish F-16 jet over Syria, falling 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Turkish border. Ankara claimed it downed the Russian aircraft because it violated Turkish airspace. Moscow has firmly denied the allegations.

Putin described the Turkish attack as a “stab in the back” carried out by “accomplices of terrorists.”

Earlier in the day, some 500 people assembled in front of the Turkish Embassy in Moscow to protest Ankara’s downing of the Russian warplane.

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

Oil Giants Venezuela, Qatar Sign Deals

The leaders of major oil producers Qatar and Venezuela signed cooperation agreements and promised to strengthen ties during a visit Wednesday by the ruler of the Gulf State to Caracas.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who faces a challenge from the opposition in December legislative elections, hailed ties with Qatar in a meeting with Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.

ADVERTISINGHe gave no details of the agreements they would sign but said Qatar had been a “partner” of Venezuela “for many years in defense and oil and now too in gas.”

“This visit and the agreements we are going to sign are a clear, firm step to progress towards close cooperation ties,” Maduro said as he welcomed the emir to his presidential palace…

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

Aid to Rural Poor Needed to Stem Migrant Crisis, UN Says

Fixing the migrant crisis requires rich nations to invest in rural areas and agriculture in the world’s poorest countries, the UN said Wednesday.

“There can be no sustainable solution to the migration crisis without a poverty eradication-oriented strategy to transforming rural economies” in least-developed countries (LDCs), the head of the UN’s Conference on Trade and Development, Mukhisa Kituyi, said in a statement.

The UNCTAD’s annual report on the 48 economies categorised as LDCs detailed the extent of rural poverty afflicting many areas, including incomes languishing as low as $0.10 (0.09 euros) per day in parts of Africa.

The report said that raising those incomes, and improving economic prospects more generally for the rural poor could help contain unsustainable migration flows because it would force less people to leave their home areas to find work…

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

Barack Obama: It’s Illegal for States to Refuse Syrian Refugees

Obama doesn’t care. He’ll do what he damn well pleases.

This comes from the administration that is forcing poverty nuns to provide contraception and ignoring court orders to halt illegal immigration policies.

** The US House voted to halt Obama’s Syrian “refugee” program last week with a veto proof majority.

Obama doesn’t care. He’ll do what he damn well pleases.

Arutz Sheva reported, via Free Republic:

The Obama administration on Wednesday reminded state officials across the country that states do not have legal authority to refuse to accept Syrian refugees, reports The Associated Press (AP).

The reminder from the White House came amid a growing controversy over the plan to accept Syrian refugees, in the wake of the discovery of a Syrian passport near the body of one assailant in the Paris attacks.

No less than 24 states announced earlier this week they would block the program to resettle Syrian migrants within their borders, though White House officials defended the current refugee program.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

EU to Deport Thousands of Pakistanis to Make Way for ‘Legitimate’ Migrants

The EU plans to accelerate the removal of tens of thousands of illegal Pakistani immigrants, in an attempt to make more room for the continuing exodus of people fleeing violence in the Middle East.

The decision has raised questions about how nations quantify who is a legitimate refugee, and where to draw the line between who is allowed leave to stay and who is deported.

This year’s migrant crisis has put enormous strain on many countries in Europe. Politically, it has exposed the significant differences in opinions within the bloc on how to manage so many new immigrants.

During a visit to Islamabad earlier this month, European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said that Pakistan is not considered a dangerous country to return migrants to:

“Pakistanis will not qualify as political refugees. Pakistan is under a democratic process… It is not a country where its citizens are persecuted, and great progress has been done by authorities in Pakistan in order to pave a democratic perspective for their country.”

However, some Pakistani officials are unhappy with the way the EU is handling the situation.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan accused EU states of not confirming the nationalities of those being deported.

He also alleged that some Pakistanis were being deported on false suspicions that they had connections to terrorist groups.

“This is tantamount to insulting Pakistanis and humanity,” Mr Khan said.

The EU’s assertion that there isn’t persecution in Pakistan will also be news to the families of an estimated 60,000 people who have been killed in religious violence in the country over the last 20 years. Pakistani Christians, in particular, continue to be vulnerable to attacks from hardline Islamists.

Pakistan is subject to restrictive blasphemy laws, banning misusing religious epithets, defiling the Holy Quran and using derogatory remarks in respect of the Prophet Muhammad.

However, in 2012 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers found that the country’s laws were being used by extremist groups to persecute and kill those who had different religious views.

The EU, however, has now turned its attention to violence closer to its shores.

There have been nearly 800,000 migrants, in certain instances, making perilous journeys across the sea to reach Europe this year. And with unrest continuing to plague Syria and Iraq, this number is expected to rise.

So, even if the EU is able to deport all the illegal Pakistanis on its territory, is this a sustainable solution to the migrant crisis?

Many migration experts fear not, saying that any relief would only be temporary.

There are calls for EU states to agree on a consensus on how to share the migrants fairly across the continent.

But with many countries now vehemently closing their borders to new arrivals, like Hungary, Norway and Sweden, such an arrangement seems increasingly unlikely.

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

French PM Valls Says ‘No Room for More Refugees’ In Europe

European countries are stretched to their limits in the refugee crisis and cannot take in any more new arrivals, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls was quoted as saying in a German newspaper on Wednesday.

Europe is grappling with its worst refugee crisis since World War Two. Germany so far has taken in the bulk of some 1 million people expected to arrive this year.

“We cannot accommodate any more refugees in Europe, that’s not possible,” Valls told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, adding that tighter control of Europe’s external borders would determine the fate of the European Union. “If we don’t do that, the people will say: Enough of Europe,” Valls warned…

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

Germany Admits Migrant Crisis is Our Fault as Asylum System is a ‘Magnet for Refugees’

Günther Oettinger branded Germany’s asylum law a ‘magnet’ for refugees and called for a change to the law. He also wants to send billions of aid to refugee camps in countries neighbouring Syria.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Muslim Invasion of European Union is the Price of Politically Correct Policing

“He it is who has sent His Messenger (Mohammed) with guidance and the religion of truth (Islam) to make it victorious over all religions even though the infidels may resist.” —Koran 61:9

Democratic Party presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton claims there is absolutely no connection between the Muslim terrorist networks, including Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), who are seeking to replace what they believe are infidel governments with their own caliphates that promote strict adherence to the Koran.

The leftist political party’s front-runner said on Friday, “Let’s be clear: Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.” However, Mrs. Clinton, whose mendacity is well documented, failed to acknowledge the latest attack by Muslims on a Christian man in Great Britain this week. The victim was attacked on the streets of Bradford, England, by men using a pickaxe handle. Police believe the attack was jihadist in nature because the victim converted from Islam to Christianity more than 10 years ago.

The police said the victim survived that attack but suffered a broken kneecap, a fractured forearm and a concussion. Police claim they are investigating the incident as a religious hate crime, but privately law enforcement officers concede that they have been told to use “kid gloves” when dealing with Muslim suspects.

[…]

Recently, a French woman using crutches was set on fire and sprayed with gasoline by Muslim teenagers and young adults who just laughed as the poor woman burned to death screaming for mercy.

[…]

According to former counterterrorism police unit member, Joel Tessier, Islam appears to own the suburbs of Paris and it’s unlikely it will give them back to France. “Yet, the French government is loath to admit it. What’s even more disturbing for the French people is that it’s very unlikely that France’s government will demand the suburbs be returned to French control.” In fact, the French in 2005 and beyond appear unwilling to allow police to regain control of streets of the country, preferring to allow riots and urban destruction. “ This is what Islamists were hoping would happen.

Now the French and the world are shocked when a handful of Muslims create havoc in an entire city and kill more than 140 people and wound more than 400 people. French authorities seem bewildered and unable to deal with the attacks. “What did they expect? When a country opens its borders and allows Muslims to pour in without demanding that they accept the local culture, riots should not have been a surprise,” said Tessier, who now advises U.S. corporate executives on self-protection in Muslim nations or Central and South America.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Over 950,000 Refugees Have Registered in Germany in 2015

More than 950,000 refugees have been registered in Germany since the beginning of 2015, Die Welt reported Thursday, citing police data.

BERLIN (Sputnik) — Germany still remains one of the main migrants’ destinations in the European Union, the newspaper said.

Europe is currently dealing with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa in search of safety and shelter.

Germany expects over a million refugees during the course of 2015, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In October, in an attempt to reduce the number of refugees, the German parliament approved a package of immigration measures, including further restrictions to asylum seeker acceptance. The legislation acknowledges Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro as safe countries of origin, free of political repression and armed conflicts, and thus, under German law, migrants from these states are no longer entitled to apply for asylum in Germany.

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

‘Staggering’: 680,000 Muslims to U.S. Under Obama

Green-card totals over 5 years enough to populate D.C.

The U.S. issued 680,000 green cards to migrants from Muslim-majority countries in the five-year period encompassing 2009 through 2013, according to Department of Homeland Security data.

This Islamic “invasion,” as some are calling it, occurred on the Obama administration’s watch, with plans for 10,000 Syrian Muslims grabbing much of the headlines. But the actual number is many times higher with a refugee program that is rooted in the 1980s and has the support of both parties.

The U.S. has brought in more than 1.5 million Muslims through the refugee program since the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980. They have been coming from Islamic states with active jihadist movements such as Somalia, Bangladesh, Burma, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Bosnia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

To put this five-year tally — 680,000 — in context, it surpasses the total population of Washington, D.C., which is 660,000.

Yet, the Gang of Eight immigration “reform” bill co-sponsored by GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio would have tripled the number of green cards being issued.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Tolerant Nordic Countries Catch Eastern European Anti-Migrant Bug

Concern over the numbers of refugees arriving in Eastern Europe is spreading north. First Denmark announced a renege on its promise to resettle 1,000 refugees and then Norway announced it would increase border controls. Now Sweden is introducing tough new laws to deter asylum seekers from coming to the country in the first place.

Sweden had previously said it would do all it could to help people from the Middle East and Africa fleeing conflict, now it intends to only offer resettlement to refugees according to the minimum level required by the European Union.

In order to do this, Sweden has amended its Aliens Act to only offer the number of temporary residence permits to asylum seekers that it is obliged to for the next three years, according to EU rules and United Nations conventions.

ID checks will be implemented on all of Sweden’s public transport systems, including ferries; the right to reunite with family members will be subject to a strict time limit and ages of unaccompanied children will have to be verified by medics.

The toughened stance on asylum seekers announced by Sweden could see people turned away at its borders.

Denmark has refused to voluntarily rehouse 1,000 refugees, citing a failure to implement proper systems in Greece and Italy as a reason for backtracking on its promise.

Following Sweden’s stricter rules, Norway is set to increase border controls and checks on ferry arrivals from Sweden, Denmark and Germany.

The country’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg told broadcaster NRK:

“We are implementing border controls at all ferry points. That means that people will have to document who they are when they come.

“What Sweden is now threatening will quickly have repercussions for Norway and therefore, I have asked the justice minister to begin initiatives”, Solberg said, who suggested stricter border check in Sweden could lead to a new influx point with more people coming to Norway on boats from Germany and Denmark.

The EU has still failed to agree and implement an agreement on how to resettle the numbers of people entering Europe, while thousands continue to arrive every day. Eastern European countries have taken matters into their own hands by building unofficial metal fences on their borders, stopping refugees in their tracks and leaving them stranded in no-man’s land.

Northern European countries condemned the decision by Hungary to build a razor wire fence which prompted Croatia and Serbia to follow suit. But the anti-refugee sentiment, whether driven by fear or intolerance appears to be trickling through the rest of Europe and into Nordic countries.

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

Washington Informs American States on Refugee Resettlement Inevitability

The US federal government warned the states that they have no authority to reject refugee resettlement on their territory, local media reported citing an official document.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to a letter from the US Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), cited by the Houston Chronicle newspaper on Wednesday, states may not deny ORR-funded benefits and services to refugees basing on a refugee’s country of origin or religion.

“Accordingly, states may not categorically deny ORR-funded benefits and services to Syrian refugees,” Director of the ORR Robert Carey said in a letter adding that the states not complying with the law “could be subject to enforcement action, including suspension or termination.”

However, a spokesman for the Texas authorities overseeing refugee resettlement asked by the media stressed that the letter would not change their position on not participation in the Syrian refugees resettlement.

Last week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told US President Barack Obama in a letter that his state would not accept any Syrian refugees after the terrorist attacks in Paris.

Abbott’s withdrawal from the resettlement program came after governors from the US states of Michigan and Alabama also announced they would halt bringing refugees in line with Obama’s plan to allow some 10,000 Syrian refugees “anywhere” in the United States over the next year.

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

Winter is Coming: Along With More Refugees… To Germany

The number of refugees arriving daily in Austria en route to Germany has reached 4,122, according to a new report. The government predicts the number to fall during the winter months as harsh weather conditions hamper the journey across the high seas. However, according to reports in German media, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s predictions are wrong.

The Welt am Sonntag newspaper cites “intelligence services” for the reason why Germany is wrong and the numbers of refugees arriving in the country will in fact rise over the coming months. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) told the newspaper it predicted an increase rather than a decrease.

Around 7.6 million people have been internationally displaced outside Syria, with 4 million having left the country so far. The UN Refugee Agency concurs and believes more people will be forced to flee Syria and travel to Europe.

The cold winter weather, hoped by many European countries to stem the influx of refugees also poses new problems. Temperatures on Germany’s border with Austria have dropped below zero. Migrants are arriving unprepared for sub-zero conditions in countries equally unprepared to house them humanely.

Around 42,000 refugees are still being put up in temporary tents. Relief organization Caritas has issued a warning that refugees could freeze to death.

According to Welt am Sonntag, the tents on the Austrian-German border are unsuitable but authorities have said they intend to improve conditions and house people in larger tents with heating and hot water “in the next weeks.”

The DPA news agency reported that there were still shortcomings in the accommodation being made available for refugees while snow falls in many parts of Germany, including Bavaria.

Further east, where wintry conditions arrived earlier, asylum seekers and migrants have found themselves stranded in no-man’s land on Slovenia’s border with Austria — meaning they are stuck in freezing conditions, whilst waiting to be allowed to continue their journeys.

The cold may last for what feels like a life-time for refugees and migrants, with many others following in their footsteps, whether the weather. However once in Europe, many are faced with an equally chilly reception.

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

Report Calls for Meat Tax to be High Priority at Paris Climate Change Conference

Slashing meat eating should be one of the central pillars of the global warming agenda when world leaders meet in Paris to discuss climate change Nov. 30, according to a new report.

The London-based Chatham House think tank says cutting down on meat consumption is essential to prevent warming by two degrees by the end of the century. Cultivating animals is responsible for around 15 percent of the world’s carbon emissions, according to the report…

The more draconian part of Chatham House’s recommendations centers around using taxes to discourage meat eating. “Interventions to change the relative prices of foods are likely to be among the most effective in changing consumption patterns,” says the report.

[Comment: Goal: Keep the useless eaters weak and in poor health — less chance of revolution. Global warming scam is used as the excuse to achieve the real goal. East India Company did the same thing in India — push for vegetarianism.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

4 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 11/26/2015

    • Please give us the original wording that you’ve put in quotes as though this German politician actually used the word you employed – a term we don’t allow (along with any number of other epithets) anymore.

      We’ve learned through sad experience that epithet usage increases the heat and reduces the light. Those names lower the tenor of any given comment thread and thus begins the slippery slide down to the bottom where wait the mud-slingers. We’d rather stick with y’all – with the proviso that language be employed wisely. Done correctly, words are a good weapon. Done carelessly, they are self-inflicted wounds.

  1. Meat tax: this is such nonsense in countries where grass grows easily, but the terrain is too hilly and rough for other agriculture. I live in New Zealand: growing meat makes great sense here.

Comments are closed.