Four young female suicide bombers exploded themselves in a market in the Nigerian town of Chibok, killing thirteen people and wounding thirty others. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the kinetic activists of Boko Haram are the main suspects. The incident had nothing to do with Islam.
In other news, a schoolteacher in a northern Austrian town has caused controversy by rewriting the lyrics of a traditional song for a school performance, replacing the word “Gott” (God) with “Allah”. She said she did it because most of the 10-year-olds in her class are Muslims.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Dean, Diana West, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, MC, Nick, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Dombrovskis Says Italy-EC Banks Deal ‘Important Step’
EC vice president says accord will improve economic growth
(ANSA) — Brussels, January 27 — European Commission Vice President for the Euro and Social Dialogue Valdis Dombrovskis said on Wednesday that the EC “favorably welcomes the accord reached by Vestager and Padoan”, referring to a mechanism to manage over 200 billion euros in bad loans that are weighing on the balance sheets of Italian banks, agreed upon late Tuesday evening between Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan and European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
“It’s an important step that, together with other reforms, will improve the capacity of banks to take back loans and will improve economic growth,” Dombrovskis said, adding that “guarantees must be priced at market conditions” in order to avoid State aid.
Dombrovskis said “it’s too early to understand the budget implications” of the new guarantee mechanism, but that “press articles today talking about a very dramatic impact are highly exaggerated”.
Vincenzo Boccia, president of the credit and finance technical committee of employers group Confindustria, said the group took news of the accord “positively”.
“To understand, however, if it actually represents a step forward and if it is able to have a concrete impact, there will have to be a verification of whether the introduced rules, particularly with reference to the cost of the guarantee, will make the mechanism advantageous for banks and potential investors,” Boccia said during a joint hearing before the finance and industry committees of the Lower House.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Economic Activity is Slowing Down Much Faster Than the Experts Anticipated
We have not seen global economic activity fall off this rapidly since the great recession of 2008. Manufacturing activity is imploding all over the planet, global trade is slowing down at a pace that is extremely alarming, and the Baltic Dry Index just hit another brand new all-time record low. If the “ real economy” consists of people making, selling and shipping stuff, then it is in incredibly bad shape. Here in the United States, the dismal economic numbers continue to stun all of the experts. For example, on Monday we learned that the Texas general business activity index just hit a six year low…
Economic activity in Texas keeps getting worse.
The general business activity index out Monday from the Dallas Federal Reserve for January was -34.6, a six-year low and much worse than economists had expected.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Spain’s Abengoa Plans to Discard Biofuels to Avoid Bankruptcy
The board of Spain’s troubled flagship renewable energy giant Abengoa has approved a recovery plan to avoid bankruptcy by selling assets in the biofuels sector, the group said Tuesday.
One of Spain’s leading lights in sustainable energy, Abengoa has been racing against the clock to avoid one of the country’s biggest ever bankruptcies amid reports it needs 90 million euros ($95 million) of emergency liquidity by the end of the month.
The world player in solar and wind power, biofuels and water management filed for protection from creditors in November and has until March 28 to find a solution to its colossal debt, which stands at nine billion euros at least…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Too Corrupt Not to Fail: Ukrainian Economy Won’t Recover Soon
Despite its free trade agreement with the EU, the Ukrainian economy remains in a dire state, mostly due to rampant corruption and widespread tax evasion.
Even though the free trade agreement between the European Union and Ukraine came into force on January 1, EU ambassador to Kiev Jan Tombinski has remarked that the country’s economy is unlikely to recover anytime soon, according to WirtschaftsBlatt, an Austrian financial newspaper.
Speaking at the Europe-Ukraine forum, an event held in the Polish city of Lodz and organized by the local Institute of Oriental Studies, the ambassador remarked that the situation in Ukraine is unlikely to improve over the next two years.
Head of the Poland’s Supreme Audit Office Krzysztof Kwiatkowski also pointed out that a staggering 97% of all of Ukrainian exports are being directed to so-called ‘tax havens’, resulting in a significant decrease in tax revenues.
Apparently, while the EU association agreement does offer Ukraine a hope for new investments that may reinvigorate its economy, it also raises concerns in Kiev that Ukrainian companies may not be able to endure the competition with the European business ventures.
“There’s at least one thing that everyone agrees upon: Ukraine must enact reforms and exterminate the rampant corruption within the country,” WirtschaftsBlatt adds.
Dominique Menu, chief of the BNP Paribas Representative Office in Ukraine, said that 98 percent of US companies believe that corruption in Ukraine is widespread, with the judicial branch of the Ukrainian government — namely the courts and the prosecutor’s office — being especially corrupt.
The economic situation in Ukraine has been steadily deteriorating as the country’s GDP fell by 6.8 percent in 2014, while inflation soared to 24.9 percent. According to IMF projections for 2015, Ukraine’s GDP was expected to contract by 9-11 percent with inflation amounting to 46 percent.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Americans Really, Really Hate the Government
If there is one thing that Americans can agree on these days, it is the fact that most of us don’t like the government.
CBS News has just released an article entitled “Americans hate the U.S. government more than ever”, and an average of recent surveys calculated by Real Clear Politics found that 63 percent of all Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction and only 28 percent of all Americans believe that the country is heading in the right direction. In just a few days the first real ballots of the 2016 election will be cast in Iowa, and up to this point the big story of this cycle has been the rise of “outsider” candidates that many of the pundits had assumed would never have a legitimate chance. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders have all been beneficiaries of the overwhelming disgust that the American people feel regarding what has been going on in Washington.
And it isn’t just Barack Obama or members of Congress that Americans are disgusted with. According to the CBS News article that I referenced above, our satisfaction with various federal agencies has fallen to an eight year low…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ammon Bundy Arrested With Protestors, One Dead in FBI Shootout
Several members of the protest were accused of being agent provocateurs
One person is dead and Oregon protest leader Ammon Bundy, along with several others, were arrested after a highway confrontation with the FBI and state police on Tuesday.
Shots were reportedly fired after authorities stopped the protestors on U.S. Highway 395 while they were headed to a community meeting in John Day, Ore., on the 24th day of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Base Policies on Reality, Not Deceit
Dangerous manmade global cooling, global warming, climate change and extreme weather claims continue to justify what has become a $1.5-trillion-per-year industry: tens of billions spent annually on one-sided research and hundreds of billions sent to crony corporatists to subsidize replacing dependable, affordable carbon-based fuels with unreliable, expensive “renewable” energy.
Some 50 million acres of US crop and habitat land (equal to Wyoming) have been turned into corn-for-ethanol farms, biofuel plantations, and wind and solar installations. American forests are being converted to fuel for British power plants. Towering turbines butcher birds and bats, while Big Wind is exempted from endangered species rules that would cost fossil fuel companies billions in fines and send their execs to jail for such carnage. (But if you’re saving the planet, what’s a few million birds and bats a year?)
Climate chaos is likewise the foundation for endless, punitive government policies and regulations intended to keep oil, gas and coal “in the ground.” Crony politicians pass laws and unelected bureaucrats impose rules that transfer taxpayer and consumer wealth, decide which companies, industries and workers win or lose, and control people’s lives, livelihoods, liberties and living standards…
Climate Crisis, Inc. jealously guards this power and money train. The IPCC, EPA and NOAA spend billions in tax dollars to publish horror stories about runaway temperatures and looming disasters. Mike Mann sues anyone who disparages him or his work. Sheldon Whitehouse and Jagedish Shukla demand that anyone who disputes manmade disaster claims be prosecuted for “climate denial.”
Now a new Paris climate treaty says the “ultimate goal” is to stabilize atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gas concentrations at levels that will “prevent dangerous [human] interference with the climate system”—under the assumption that CO2 now drives climate change and weather events.
The Paris accord stipulates that developed nations must reduce their emissions, regardless of impacts on economies, employment or families. This means they must de-carbonize, de-industrialize and de-develop—while they give trillions of dollars in cash and free technology to developing countries like Brazil, China, India and Indonesia, for climate “reparation” and “mitigation.”
[Comment: Lie of global warming used to implement global communism and redistribution of wealth.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Eyewitness: Oregon Militiaman Murdered by Cops; “He Had His Hands in the Air”
The daughter of LaVoy Finicum, the Oregon militiaman shot dead by police during a traffic stop on Highway 395 yesterday, claims that her father was “murdered” execution-style with his hands in the air, an account backed up by an eyewitness to the incident.
Protesters involved in the weeks-long occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, including leader Ammon Bundy, were apprehended by law enforcement as they traveled to the city of John Day to attend a community meeting set up by local residents.
“Everyone obeyed orders to surrender except two people: LaVoy Finicum and Bundy’s brother, Ryan Bundy,” a law enforcement official told CNN.
Media reports about the incident simply state that “shots were fired,” although Finicum’s daughter Thara Lynn Tenney posted a message on her Facebook page last night asserting that her father had already surrendered before he was gunned down.
“I want the world to know how my father was murdered today. His hands were in the air and he was shot in the face by the American authorities. Ammon Bundy reported there are 6 witnesses to this evil,” wrote Tenney.
Her testimony was echoed by another eyewitness, Victoria Sharp, who was in the car with Finicum when the group were pulled over by cops and federal agents.
Sharp claims that Finicum put his hands out of the car window and asked the police to allow the women to leave the car.
“They shot at him, but they missed him,” said Sharp, adding that the group then attempted to drive away in the car but were shot at again by police.
“When we crashed and stopped for a second, he got out of the car, he had his hands in the air, he’s like ‘just shoot me then’….and they did, they shot him dead,” said Sharp.
“He was just walking, with his hands in the air, I swear to God, and they shot him dead and after he was down on the ground, shot him three more times,” said Sharp, adding that the vehicle was again “bombarded with bullets” as well as tear gas rounds.
Sharp says that the group tried to “find something white” so they could display it as a sign of surrender. She challenges news reports that only six shots were fired, asserting, “they shot at least 120 shots altogether.”
Sharp also claims that none of the individuals in the car pulled out a gun at any point and that the incident was an “ambush” with “FBI snipers in the trees” surrounding the vehicle.
“They had their hands out of the window to show they were not firing, nothing, we showed no aggression at all,” said Sharp.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary Clinton Faces Legal and Political Obstacles in Presidential Bid
It was recently reported that the emails that crossed Mrs. Clinton’s unsecured “home brew” server included those with the Top Secret classification of SAP, or Special Access Programs, including “‘dark projects,’ such as drone operations,”according to The New York Post. In addition, Paul Sperry reports, “at least one of Clinton’s emails included sensitive information on spies.”
To date, at least 1,340 emails that went through Mrs. Clinton’s server have been deemed classified. Clinton’s defense is that none of these emails were marked classified when she sent or received them. Yet, “An intelligence official familiar with the matter told NBC News that the special access program in question was so sensitive that [Inspector General Charles] McCullough and some of his aides had to receive clearance to be read in on it before viewing the sworn declaration about the Clinton emails.”
In other words, this information was too important for the intelligence community’s inspector general to view it without special access, yet it made its way freely through an unsecure server almost certain to have been hacked by foreign nations. If the CIA were to ever have such access to the Russian foreign minister’s email server, it would be considered a bonanza for them.
Even if Mrs. Clinton’s claims were true, it would make no difference. It doesn’t matter if the material was “marked” classified. What matters is if the content was, in fact, classified. It was her responsibility as secretary of state to know the difference. Marc Thiessen, a former speechwriter for President Bush, spelled it out: “Having any classified information on your private server is against the law. But Special Access Programs contain information so sensitive, it is given a secret ‘codeword’ and placed into a ‘compartment’ to which only a small number of specially cleared people have access. To see this information, it is not enough to have Top Secret security clearance; you have to be cleared for that specific compartment.”
The truth is that as secretary of state, Clinton showed blatant disregard for the security of our nation. When her aide Jake Sullivan said that aides were having trouble sending information via secure fax, Clinton wrote back, “If they can’t, turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure.”
“This is gigantic,” argues former federal prosecutor Joe diGenova. “The removal of the classified marking is a federal crime. It is the same thing to order someone to do it as if she had done it herself.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Test Pilot: The F-35 Can’t Dogfight
A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can’t turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy’s own gunfire, the pilot reported following a day of mock air battles back in January. And to add insult to injury, the JSF flier discovered he couldn’t even comfortably move his head inside the radar-evading jet’s cramped cockpit. “The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft.” That allowed the F-16 to sneak up on him. The test pilot’s report is the latest evidence of fundamental problems with the design of the F-35 — which, at a total program cost of more than a trillion dollars, is history’s most expensive weapon. Your tax dollars at work.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Big Conservative Dictionary of Donald Trump
by Diana West
Unveiling a work in progress, The Big Conservative Dictionary of Donald Trump.
The fun part about The Big Conservative Dictionary of Donald Trump is that it is brought to you by those erudite conservatives who, some even between birthing the stink bombs below, endlessly deplore crudeness and “tone” in simply scads of elevating sermons and television lecture-bytes. (See “Rudeness Is not a Conservative Value,” “Against Trump,” etc.).
Here we go — so far…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
The Power of the Purse: The Subsidy Plan
Little remembered today outside of a few scholars, James T. Young was a progressive Professor of Administration for the University of Pennsylvania at the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. He wrote what would become one of the most important text books on the American Government for over fifty years. His “The New American Government and Its Works” is cited by many of the most influential teaching and scholarly organizations for decades as one of two of the most recommended books for American students on the purpose of government. His work touched the lives of countless millions of Americans and even though his name is lost in the pages of time, his mantra lives on today under the guiding hands of Barack Obama.
Young’s book was originally published in 1915, later revised in 1923 and again in 1933. In it he documents the Bills passed by Congress, the decisions handed down by the Supreme Court and the actions taken by the Executive Branch of the US government to expand the power of the Federal Government over the local and state government as well as the progressive move to change Americans view of government form one that believed citizens could best pursue happiness if government was limited to protecting the life, liberty, and property of individuals to one that the government or “the community,” has “an absolute right to determine its own destiny and that of its members.”
Young then goes on to explain the best way to replace the “Old” government with the “New” government is “Whenever it appears that the Constitution hinders a transfer of power from the States to Congress, those interested seek some expedient by which to evade this obstacle…”. He then cites “judicial interpretation” and “commerce regulating power” as two methods and continues, “The third, and at present most promising way is the subsidy plan. Congress grants to the States a fund under its power to tax and to appropriate for the general welfare. This fund is given only on condition that the States appropriate a similar sum and that the total amount be used for a definite purpose fixed in the Federal Law. This purpose may be, and often is, entirely outside the regulating authority of Congress.”
[…]
But for Obama, this is just standard operating procedure as he proved in early February 2015 when the head of the Department of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson sent out a press release to all local public safety agencies stating serious “consequences” if Congress did not pass the DHS funding bill before Congress. Nestled in that Bill was the funding for Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty for illegal aliens here in the US.
This letter was revealed by Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith who said the letter he received, was addressed to “all police chiefs and sheriffs around the country,” was little more than a “very interesting veiled threat.”
Sheriff Smith explained that the stated: “local and state public safety agencies would not receive federal grants they were counting on” if they didn’t lobby Congress on behalf of the president to support his amnesty agenda.
Smith continued, “Let me get this straight, — the president believes he has the authority to nullify federal laws that don’t serve his personal agenda, but if Congress dares to exercise it’s (sic) responsibility of controlling the purse strings, he will willingly hold public safety grants hostage just to get his way?”
As dangerous as these moves to further erode federalism in this country they are minor when compared to the Strong Cities, Strong Communities Initiative launched in with great fanfare by Obama in 2011. The press release touted:…
Who is the Strong Cities Network? It is a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), London based “think and do tank” run by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) that has the stated:
“The Strong Cities Network is the first global network of cities and other sub-national entities working together to build social cohesion and resilience to prevent violent extremism in all its forms.
“The Strong Cities Network provides a global platform to support local authorities to systematically share lessons learned, pool resources and build a community that can mobilize local action on a global scale.”
An interesting side note on their website is how they actually define “violent extremism:”
“The blurred relationship between violence from the extreme right and broader trends of Islamophobia and anti-immigration sentiment poses several challenges for policy makers seeking to address the increasing risk of violent right-wing extremism…In 2012, ISD launched a new program of work to enhance understanding of the threat from the far right, and help policy makers to develop effective responses to these violent and non-violent movements.”
[Comment: Strong Cities Network is the sledgehammer that will be used to intimidate, threaten, harass, imprison the countries own citizens to meekly accept the destruction of their nations.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
US to Lack Full Space Launch Capability Beyond 2019 Without Russian Engine
US Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said that the US industry could replace Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines by 2019.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Full US space launch capability may be delayed beyond 2019 if it cuts its supply of Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines, US Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.
“Industry tells us… [they can] make 2019 for an engine, but I must say an engine alone will not get us to space. It needs to be integrated with a rocket, it needs to be tested, it needs to be certified, and to get all of that done, to have a launch capability will be longer than 2019,” James said.
The United States currently relies on the Atlas V rocket powered by Russia’s RD-180 engine for its national defense space launches. In 2014, the Congress instituted a law requiring the Pentagon to cut its reliance on the RD-180 after the downturn in US-Russia relations.
US companies are currently competing to produce engines to replace the RD-180, but the full flight certification process and focus on a single component of the space launch platform would result in delays and higher costs, James noted.
Only two families of launch vehicle, the Atlas and the Delta rockets, are able to reach the full range of orbits and carry the heaviest payloads for the United States. In January, the US Air Force awarded contracts to Orbital ATK and SpaceX to develop prototypes of US-built rocket engines to replace the RD-180.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Union ‘Greed’ Helps Close 16 Goodwill Stores, 10 Donation Centers in Toronto
Goodwill is a non-profit organization that helps the impoverished in the city of Toronto. Everything from second-hand shoes to used jackets, the impecunious can get some pretty cheap stuff — let’s not forget that it’s a paradise for hipsters.
This week, many were shocked to find the closure of 16 stores, 10 donation centers and two offices in southern Ontario. Keiko Nakamura, CEO of Goodwill Industries of Toronto, Eastern, Central and Northern Ontario, who is being paid $220,000 per year, blamed the closure on a low cash-flow, expensive rent and union rules.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Au Revoir and Shalom: Jews Leave France in Record Numbers
By Oren Liebermann
Ashdod, Israel (CNN)Yoav Krief remembers the day he knew it was time to move to Israel: January 9, 2015.
It was a Friday. Four Jews had just been killed in the Hyper Cacher, a kosher supermarket in Paris, two days after the Charlie Hebdo attack. One of them was Krief’s friend.
“I was not good, really not good,” Krief says of how he felt at the time. “I talked to my mom, and I said, ‘We must go to Israel. We need to go to Israel.’“
Krief, a French Jew who had just finished high school, moved to Israel with his family six months later, as part of the largest migration of Jews from Western Europe to Israel since the modern state of Israel was created…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Austrian Parents Shocked After Deity Name Switched to Allah in School Song
Parents in an Austrian town are outraged over a word switch in a traditional children’s song, after a teacher thought it appropriate to replace the word “God” with “Allah.”
A popular Christian song called “Gottes Liebe ist so wunderbar,” the title of which translates to “God’s love is so wonderful,” was performed at the school. A teacher in the town of Wels in northern Austria decided that she would replace the word “God” with “Allah,” writing it in by hand. She reasoned that a greater part of the 10-year-old students in the class were Muslims.
“It isn’t just about the use of the word Allah. You just can’t go about rewriting text like this,” a father of an Austrian girl who brought home the edited version of the song lyrics said, according to The Local.
He, alongside other Christian parents, complained to a school inspector. An investigation is ongoing.
“I did not realize that the teacher was planning this. Songs like this in future have no place outside of the religious class,” Ulrike Fellinger, the head of school, commented.
Traditionally, people in Austria and Bavaria greet each other with ‘Grüss Gott’, which translates to ‘God Greet,’ instead of the more common German ‘Guten Tag’ (‘Good day’). Roman Catholics make up some 62% of the Austrian population. According to recent estimates, Islam is practiced by some 7% of residents.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Former defence secretary Liam Fox said the New Year’s Eve crime spree in Cologne revealed the ‘real security issue at risk’ when voters decide if they want to sever the UK’s ties with Brussels.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Facebook Building World’s ‘Most Advanced’ Data Center in Irish Village
Facebook has announced it is building a new data center in Clonee, Ireland, a small village close to Dublin. The facility, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg claims will be one of the “most advanced and energy efficient data centers in the world,” will be the social network’s second outside of the U.S., and its sixth globally. The new center will be located just a 30-minute drive from Facebook’s international headquarters in the country’s capital. It is expected to cost €200 million and employ around 2,000 people during the construction phase. The company hopes to open the facility in early 2018.
[Comment: Face-Build-Your-Own-Dossier-Book is expanding their dissident information collection system.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
German Police: Enemy of the People
The activities of the German police over the past few weeks have clearly shown that their political leadership regards native Germans as the enemy, and the nonwhite invaders as “protected species” who must be defended at all costs—even to the point of outrageous lying.
Although long suspected, the police’s lies about the true nature of the nonwhite invasion was first dramatically proven when the first Cologne police report for the now world-famous events on New Year’s Eve described the situation as “relaxed” and failed to mention the more than 500 sex and criminal attacks upon German women which had been reported to them before midnight that night.
Now, however, a series of reports in the Bild newspaper have revealed that this malaise of deliberately covering up the nonwhite criminality runs far deeper than just that night.
The Bild reported that police are under official orders not to investigate or even report “offenses by criminal suspects who have a foreign nationality which are reported in a reception center [a ‘refugee’ camp].”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Bans Far-Right Internet Platform, Arrests 2
BERLIN (AP) — The German government on Wednesday banned a far-right Internet platform that it accused of spreading “racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, homophobic and anti-Islamic content,” and federal prosecutors said two people were arrested.
The ban on the Altermedia Deutschland platform is “a clear sign that the rule of law doesn’t allow hate crime,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said.
The prosecutors’ office said that two Germans, identified only as Jutta V. and Ralph Thomas K. in line with German privacy rules, were arrested on suspicion of founding a criminal organization and incitement. Three other suspects weren’t arrested.
Raids were conducted in homes in four German states and the northeastern Spanish town of Lloret de Mar…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Mario Mantovani Indictment Asked With 14 Others
Lombardy ex-deputy governor accused of graft
(ANSA) — Milan, January 27 — A Milan prosecutor on Wednesday requested the indictment for graft of former Lombardy deputy governor and ex-health councillor Mario Mantovani and another 14 people including regional economy councillor Massimo Garavaglia.
The charges are corruption, extortion, bid rigging and abuse of office. Former Senator Mantovani, also former mayor of Arconate and regional coordinator for Silvio Berlusconi’s now-defunct People of Freedom party, was arrested with others including close aide Giacomo di Capua on October 13 and is now under house arrest.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Kids of Tax Dodgers Banned From Park
Also barred from free school meals near Vercelli
(ANSA) — Vercelli, January 27 — Parents who dodge taxes won’t be able to take their kids to play in the municipal park, a small town near Vercelli has ruled. The kids will also be barred from free school meals, the council at San Germano has decided.
Mayor Michela Rosetta explained: “Taxes are used to fund services and those who don’t pay them are not entitled to them”.
Tax dodgers will also be banned from getting free bags for rubbish collection, free access to the municipal theatre and free access to sports facilities, Rosetta said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Superintendency Says Ask Premier Office About Statues
Rome dept says it didn’t organise Rouhani visit
(ANSA) — Rome, January 27 — Rome’s Culture Superintendency on Wednesday said it was not behind the controversial decision to cover up nude statues at Rome’s Capitoline Museums during a visit this week by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. “You must ask the premier’s office about the covered statues at the Capitoline Museums during Iranian President Rouhani’s visit,” the Superintendency said. “The move was not decided by us. It (the visit) was organised by the premier’s office, not by us”.
The move to cover up the nudes was apparently made as a form of respect for Iranian culture. It has hit the headlines worldwide and prompted astonishment and ridicule within Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Net Neutrality-Lovin’ Sweden Mulls Law to Censor the Internet
Huge policy U-turn has ISP up in arms
The Swedish government is considering overturning its long-held opposition to internet filtering — so says one of the country’s most high-profile ISPs.
According to Bahnhof and its CEO Jon Karlung, the ISP received an email from an investigator who said he had been appointed by the government to look into regulating the Swedish gambling market.
The investigation is looking into a new licensing system that would require any gambling site to get a license from the government. Critically, however, in order to make the system enforceable, gambling websites that did not have a license to operate in Sweden would be blocked. And ISPs of course would be responsible for blocking off access to their websites, right down to the IP level.
Even though the investigation is clearly in its early stages, the fact that it is being considered at all has come as a shock to Swedes and the broader internet policy community. Sweden has maintained a firm line against any form of filtering or blocking, even when under intense pressure from other countries…
Give the Swedish government’s repeated and determined efforts to find a way around its current laws however, some suspect it is now trying to find a different way to bring in laws that enable it to enforce internet filtering — and has hit on the regulation of gambling websites as a possible route to do that.
[Comment: Looks like Sweden’s “government” is ultimately seeking to suppress the citizenry from speaking their mind about the invasion and organizing against the “government”. These other “reasons” are just a smoke screen.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A bingo worker who had no pulse for almost an hour after suffering a massive heart attack says her late husband visited her and said ‘it’s not your time’.
Sonia Burton was ‘dead’ for 56 minutes following her heart attack at the bingo hall in Ashington, Northumberland, but paramedics refused to give up on her.
The mum-of-four said: ‘The only thing I remember is my late husband coming to me and saying “it’s not your time, Sonia, go back to the children”. Then I woke up in hospital.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Masked Thug Attacks Victim With Machete in Birmingham Attack
The man was attacked by the masked assailant who allegedly sliced and ‘chopped up’ his victim in front of shocked commuters near a bus stop on Tile Cross Road in Birmingham at about 8am.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Tory Fury as School Uses Hitler to Define Being Right-Wing
A LESSON for young teenagers that linked Right-wing politics to Germany’s wartime dictator Adolf Hitler and “helping people less” than Left-wingers was condemned yesterday by a senior Conservative MP.
Former police and criminal justice minister Damian Green is calling on Education Secretary Nicky Morgan to investigate urgently.
Mr Green, who was alerted to the issue by an outraged parent, said: “I cannot believe that material with this sort of glaring bias is being used in our schools.
“It is shocking that no one has questioned it.
“I have asked Nicky Morgan to investigate quickly so that it can be rewritten at once.”
The offending item was a work book for Year 10 pupils, aged 14 and 15, at a school in Kent.
It invited pupils to match pictures of British political leaders with their parties and explain the difference between parties and the views they hold.
On a page about what was Left and Right-wing, the Right-wing column was illustrated with a photograph of Hitler and the statements: “Hitler; less help to the people; more help to businesses; we are not equal.”…
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Official ‘Traitors List’ Contemplated in EU, First in Modern History
A minister in the new right-wing Croatian government is lobbying to create a register of traitors to the nation.
Retired Colonel Mijo Crnoja, the current Minister of Veteran Affairs of EU member state Croatia, proposed last week to create a register of “traitors of Croatian national interests” and “aggressors against the Republic of Croatia,” the local daily Jutarnji List reported.
The proposal has sent shockwaves among citizens in the country and throughout the region, with many condemnations of the initiative, and even some in support.
“To make it to (traitors’ list), one can assume it will be enough for some pen pusher at the Ministry of Veteran Affairs to conclude that somebody was, or is working against the state’s non-existent interests,” the Croatian news outlet Index stated, adding that this could easily turn the register into “a powerful weapon in dealing with political opponents,” with “a vast space to expand.”
Along with a list of traitors and aggressors Crnoja announced a plan to create a list of “illegally-done privatization,” “lustration on all levels,” and the inclusion of 1990s war veterans “into all institutions and bodies of the government.”
The proposed traitor register “would have to be based on imprecise rebel documentation and would serve only one purpose — to incite to lynching those who were amnestied according to the Law on Abolition as far back as during (President) Franjo Tudjman’s rule (in late 1990s),” Index highlighted.
“(Crnoja’s) proposal for the traitors registry is presented as a reaction to policies of former government which published a Registry of Croatian Homeland War Veterans, as a way to find out which of the over 500,000 people who have veteran status in Croatia are real veterans, and which are those who illegally acquired their status just for the benefits which it brings,” Vedran Pavlic, a Croatian political analyst, commented.
When asked for a reaction, First Deputy Prime Minister and president of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union party HDZ, Tomislav Karamarko, said it is necessary to understand the veterans “and their sensitivity.” “For a while, veterans were subjected to a witch-hunt, they were humiliated and called liars. In response to this, let us see who were the aggressors and I think it is legitimate to ask such questions. This is not a hunt against people, but a hunt for the truth,” he said. He stressed that Crnoja was a “war hero of the Homeland War.” “We support him,” said Karamarko, who leads a party that won 33 percent of the votes in the November 2015 elections and has four seats in the European Parliament.
In a 1999 report by Human Rights Watch, Serbian citizens who stayed in Croatia were described as “second-class citizens” in their own homeland. They had nowhere to go after thousands of their nationals had been massacred or expelled in 1995’s Operation Storm and other Croatian military actions. Denial of past genocidal actions and discrimination policies was characteristic of HDZ for many years. The party was also reluctant to process war crimes committed by Croats, or condemn the Holocaust and ethnic cleansings of Serbs and Romas during WW2 in the Hitler puppet nation Independent State of Croatia.
In response to Crnoja’s modern-day traitor list proposal, a group of Croatian artists has posted online their own mock “traitors’ list,” where anyone who doesn’t support the initiative can register themselves. Thousands of people, including leading intellectuals, have added their names.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
EU Donates 158 Vehicles to Bolster Tunisian Health Services
Two health service support programmes for disdvantaged regions
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, JANUARY 27 — The European Union has donated 125 motor vehicles to the Tunisian health service for medical transport including 10 super equipped ambulances, soon to be followed by 33 others, earmarked for the governorates of Béja, Gabe’s, Gafsa, Jendouba, Kairouan, Kasserine, Kebili, El Kef, Médenine, Sidi Bouzid, Siliana, Tataouine and Tozeur.
The donation is just one part of an EU support project (PAZD2) for more disadvantaged areas of Tunisia aimed at reducing social inequalities in the north African nation and will be followed by the handover of large quantities of medical equipment.
The support is designed to supplement reforms introduced by the Tunisian health ministry including adoption of a health charter, free medicine for chronic illnesses, health education and infectious disease outbreak surveillance.
The EU also is committed to another important infrastructure programme in favour of disdvantaged regional governorates including the construction of 13 intermediary health centres and the creation of 60 new basic health centres.
EU delegation head in Tunisia Laura Baeza said at a donation ceremony that “improving the supply and quality of health care is at the heart of regional concern and a priority for the health ministry. From this viewpoint this donation is perfectly related to needs and I am proud that the EU is contributing to bring a positive response to the expectations of Tunisians”.
In all the EU commitment in favour of the health sector in disdavantaged regions is worth some 22 million euros.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Ban Ki-Moon Accused of War Crimes
Gershon Horowitz, a longtime Likud functionary and retired army major who writes in leftist newspaper Haaretz, proclaimed Tuesday that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is a “war criminal.”
Horowitz relied on the newly published Amnesty International report, which confirmed Israel’s longstanding accusation that some of the rockets Hamas fired at Israel in the 2014 Gaza war were launched from UN-controlled facilities.
The UN should have known that its facilities were being used for war crimes, he argued, and noted that ammunition, too, was stored in UN schools.
When Ban told Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu that he insists that the UN investigate suspicions of Israeli war crimes, he was simply going on offense because that is the best defense, Horowitz surmised.
“As the head of the organization that allowed rockets to be fired on peaceful civilians from its facilities, Ban Ki-moon must stand trial as a war criminal,” he stated.[…]
[Maybe his sins will be found out]
| — Hat tip: MC | [Return to headlines] |
Bethlehem University Offers a “Friendship” Programme for Christians and Muslims
Fr Iyad twal heads the Religious Studies Department. The interreligious dialogue programme creates a space where students and teachers can create bonds of friendship, showing how religion can be “a tool of peace.” Fr Twal hopes to expand the programme to all the universities in the Holy Land, involving Christians, Muslims, and Jews to highlight the “human side” of religion.
Bethlehem (AsiaNews) — Fr Iyad twal has been the head of the Religious Studies Department at Bethlehem University for the past three years. The 42-year-old spoke to AsiaNews about its interreligious dialogue programme, which is open to Christian and Muslim students.
Speaking about the latter, he noted that “when they register, their first goal is marks, high marks to get their degree. However, over time, they realise that their degree goes beyond marks, and becomes a lesson for life. In class, we want to provide a better understanding of the other, with a positive outlook, so that both Christians and Muslims can speak truly and honestly.”
As a private Catholic college, Bethlehem University is the only institution of higher learning that offers this kind of programme. For students and their families, if offers “a step forward towards co-existence and mission. This means that religion can become part of the solution and a tool of peace in this land.”
Established in 1973 on the initiative of Pope Paul VI, the university has welcomed thousands of students over the past 40 years. The latter can choose among five faculties, including Business Administration and Nursing and Health Sciences.
In the past few years, interreligious dialogue has been offered to Christian and Muslim students, from various faculties and departments, interested in learning the basics of these two great religions. The goal is not academic per se, but is meant to highlight the human side, the contact points, and the elements in both on which peace and coexistence can be built.
The programme has five sessions per semester, three hours a week for 16 weeks. Open to a maximum of 45 students, it is divided into two parts, one taught by a Christian faculty member, the other by a Muslim.
The two courses on Christianity and Islam are separate but joint meetings are held to discuss common topics. For example, “Before Christmas,” Fr Iyad said, “we had a public meeting with all the students, and addressed the issue of peaceful resistance in Islam and Christianity.”
Everyone can enrol but most of those who register are university students even though the courses are optional for graduation. Students coming from outside the Religious Studies Department “include nursing and science students, both male and female.”
The idea, first broached 12 years ago, is to help Christians and Muslims “ know each other better,” said Fr Iyad, so that they can overcome the mutual “prejudice and ignorance” that often hampers contact.
The two groups face concrete problems because Christians tend to live in the larger towns and cities, whereas Muslims are more rural; hence, they do not have many opportunities to meet, which limits interaction.
“We want to give young people of both faiths the ability to understand the other’s religion, not with a desire to evangelise or compare, but only to explain and show, so that each can describe their own faith as they wish, i.e. bearing witness!”
For the head of the Religious Studies Department, the courses are instrumental in overcoming prejudice and ignorance. For instance, “Muslims wonder how Jesus can be the Son of God, and as God have sex with Mary . . . They do not understand.”
“What we do is illustrate the concept of the Immaculate Conception of the Trinity,” Fr Twal explained. “This way they understand the dogma, things are clearer in their minds, and the walls of ignorance fall. Muslims also like the idea of a God who is love.”
Another recurring element in the programme is the sense of community in the Holy Land. “All of us are citizens of this land. Being one of its citizen means accepting that all three monotheistic religions belong to this land. People must know history and in history are the three religions. There are no infidels, no anomalies.”
According to a pre-Christmas survey among students, the programme “has changed people’s lives”. Today, various young people, including Muslims, “come to me for spiritual guidance,” Fr Twal said. They come “to confide in me, call me abouna, father, because they feel close to us. Initially, they were cold, but as the course unfolds connections are made.”
Fr Twal now hopes that the programme “will not be limited to Bethlehem but will be extended to all of the universities of the Holy Land, in Palestine and Israel.”
“I hope that it will not be too academic,” he added, “but centred on the human side, open to all three religions and attended by Christian, Muslim and Jewish students”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Backtracks on Condemnation of Saudi Executions, Agrees to Sell Arms
Despite its threat earlier this month to restrict arms exports to Saudi Arabia, the German government has nevertheless given permission for the construction of boats for the Saudi navy, Der Spiegel reported.
Despite threats from the German government to restrict arms sales to Saudi Arabia, including the delivery of defensive armaments, Germany’s Minister for Economic Affairs Sigmar Gabriel has nevertheless agreed to the sale of arms to Riyadh, Der Spiegel reported on Monday.
The newspaper reported that Gabriel, who doubles as Germany’s vice-chancellor and head of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), has been vocal in his criticism of Riyadh but has recently proved reluctant to match his decisions to the rhetoric.
“Only in December he (Gabriel) caused a small diplomatic scandal when he made a public accusation against the major partner in the Syrian talks, saying that mosques in Germany financed by Saudi Arabia are focal points for potential terrorists,” Spiegel wrote.
Regarding arms sales, Gabriel told Spiegel on January 4 that “now we need to check if also we need to assess more critically the future sale of defensive armaments to Saudi Arabia, which so far we have been supplying.”
“This shows that it was right to deliver neither battle tanks nor G36 assault rifles to Saudi Arabia,” declared Gabriel.
On January 5 the German federal government stated that it “noted with dismay” Saudi Arabia’s execution of 47 prisoners on January 2, a move which inflamed sectarian conflict in the Middle East.
The German government said the execution of prominent Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr “could also worsen religious and political tensions in the region,” and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for “deescalation” and “dialogue.”
The government “noted with great regret” that Saudi Arabia had broken off diplomatic relations with Iran.
“Relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, however turbulent they may be, are fundamental to resolving the crises in Syria and Yemen and to achieving stability across the entire region,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert said.
The statement also mentioned the possibility of greater restrictions on arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and cited the example of the G36 assault rifle, which it has refused to sell to Saudi Arabia.
“Exports of military equipment are one instrument in foreign and security policy … the German government takes a restrictive approach to any exports of military equipment to the Gulf region.”
However, despite the announcements, last week the Minister for Economic Affairs admitted that a 1.5 billion euro deal between Germany and Saudi Arabia for the construction of 15 patrol boats for the Saudi navy is nevertheless going ahead, and that construction of the boats has begun at the Lurssen shipyard in northern Germany.
The revelation came in response to a question in the Bundestag from one of the Green Party’s representatives, Agnieszka Brugger.
“Instead of making ever more big media announcements, the vice-chancellor should finally end irresponsible arms deals with Saudi Arabia,” Brugger told Spiegel.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iran is Top Child Executioner: Rights Group
Iran is the world’s most prolific executioner of children, Amnesty International said on Tuesday, accusing the Islamic republic of using torture and ill-treatment to extract confessions from minors.
The rights group said Iran “tops the grim global table of executioners of juvenile offenders” with 73 recorded child death sentences between 2005 and 2015, including at least four last year.
ADVERTISING”Iran is one of the few countries that continues to execute juvenile offenders in blatant violation of the absolute legal prohibition on the use of the death penalty against people under the age of 18 years at the time of the crime,” said Amnesty’s Middle East deputy director, Said Boumedouha…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Video Shows Paris Attackers Carrying Out Beheadings
ISIS have released a barbaric propaganda video showing the Paris attackers beheading prisoners and training with weapons before they carried out the city massacre which left 130 people dead.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Islamist Fighters in Aleppo, Syria, Got Reinforcements From Turkey — Russian Foreign Ministry
The increased activity of the terrorists was witnessed in several suburbs of Damascus
Terrorists have increased their activities ahead of the next week’s inter-Syrian talks, with insurgents in the Syrian province of Aleppo receiving reinforcements from Turkey, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.
The much-anticipated talks between the Syrian government and different opposition groups are scheduled to take place in the Swiss city of Geneva on January 25.
“Unfortunately, in recent days, it’s especially noticeable that ahead of the planned start of the inter-Syrian negotiations in Geneva the activities of terrorist groups have intensified. Obviously, they’re trying to turn the tide in their favor on the battlefield,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said during a briefing in Moscow.
According to Zakharova, Attempts to launch counter-attacks against the government forces were performed by Al-Nusra Front and Ahrar ash-Sham groups, which “got serious reinforcements from Turkey.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Defence Minister Accuses Turkey of Buying IS Oil, Funding Militants’ Activities
Moshe Yaalon said IS had “enjoyed Turkish money for oil for a very, very long period of time”. It’s up to Turkey “to decide whether they want to be part of any kind of cooperation to fight terrorism” he added. Ankara permitted jihadists to move from Europe to Syria and Iraq and back.
Jerusalem (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Israel’s defence minister has accused Turkey of buying oil from the so-called Islamic State group, thereby funding the militants’ activities.
Speaking in Athens, Moshe Yaalon said IS had “enjoyed Turkish money for oil for a very, very long period of time”.
Turkey denies permitting IS smuggling, and the US recently rejected Russian allegations that Turkish government officials were in league the militants.
IS has captured swathes of Syria and Iraq, including operational oil fields.
“It’s up to Turkey, the Turkish government, the Turkish leadership, to decide whether they want to be part of any kind of cooperation to fight terrorism,” Mr Yaalon told reporters after a meeting with his Greek counterpart.
“This is not the case so far. As you know, Daesh [Islamic State] enjoyed Turkish money for oil for a very, very long period of time. I hope that it will be ended.”
Mr Yaalon also alleged that Turkey had “permitted jihadists to move from Europe to Syria and Iraq and back”.
US state department officials last month rejected Russian allegations of Turkish government involvement but a state department spokesman said IS oil was being smuggled into Turkey via middlemen.
Efforts by Israel and Turkey to repair damaged ties already hit a setback this month over demands for compensation for the deaths of 10 Turkish activists on an aid ship in 2010.
The Israeli navy had raided a flotilla of ships trying to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
Senior Israeli and Turkish officials met in December to try to repair relations, raising hopes of progress in negotiations to import Israeli natural gas.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Defence Minister Accuses Turkey of Buying Oil From IS
Israel’s defence minister Moshe Yaalon has accused Turkey of buying oil from the so-called Islamic State group, international media report.
Speaking in Athens, Yaalon said IS had “enjoyed Turkish money for oil for a very, very long period of time”.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS executioner Jihadi Sid has praised Hitler in a shocking anti-Semitic rant filmed shortly before he fled Britain for Syria.
Father-of-four Siddhartha Dhar, who left Walthamstow in north east London for ISIS in September 2014, expressed his hatred of ‘Zionism’ in vile video footage recently uploaded to YouTube.
Speaking to the camera, the Hindu-born 32-year-old extremist says: ‘Other people were aware of this evil doctrine and they did things to stop it. Like Adolf Hitler.’
He also makes reference to the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ — a 1909 text claiming to describe a Jewish plan for global domination that has since been found to be fabricated.
He says the document ‘exposes their (Jews) hatred of humanity’, adding: ‘They have no qualms with wanting to subjugate them (other religions), oppress them and exploit them.’
Dhar, a former Arsenal supporter who now also goes by the name Abu Rumaysah, also praises the ‘Khalifah’ in Syria and Iraq and claims it will convert everyone in the world to Islam…
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Life After Sanctions: Iran Signs Spate of Hefty Deals With Italy
Several multibillion-dollar deals were clinched during the Iranian President’s visit to Italy, just ten days after the lifting of Western sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Iran and Italy inked a wide selection of business contracts worth 18 billion dollars during the first day of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Rome, media reports said.
The deals include a series of commercial agreements between Iranian companies and Italian steel firm Danieli worth at least 6 billion dollars, a 4-billion-dollar contract between Tehran and the Italian infrastructure development firm Condotte, and a 5.4-billion dollar deal that Tehran signed with the Italian company Saipem.
Rouhani’s two-day visit to Rome is his first foreign trip since the European Union and the United States lifted economic sanctions against his country.Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, for his part, touted the conclusion of bilateral agreements as just the beginning of cooperation between the two countries.
“This is just the beginning of a journey. There are economic sectors where we must work together much closer,” Renzi said.
His remarks came two days after Rouhani held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tehran, during which the sides signed a total of 17 agreements, including on the construction of two nuclear power plants in southern Iran and on the long-term supply of Iranian oil to China.
Rouhani’s visit to Rome will be followed by a visit to France, where the sides are expected to announce a major deal on Iran buying more than 100 Airbus planes.
Experts have, meanwhile, predicted that Western trade with Tehran could rise from current annual levels of around 8.2 billion dollars to pre-sanction levels of 30 billion dollars, which would see a range of international products and services enter the country.
Additionally, Iranian products and resources, such as the country’s oil, would also become available on the global market.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish Prosecutor Asks Life Term for Cumhuriyet Editors
Editor-in-chief, news editor in jail for arms export story
(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, JANUARY 27 — The Istanbul prosecutor has demanded life prison sentences be handed down to Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, the jailed editor in chief and news editor of the opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper, on charges of espionage and “terrorist propaganda” for publishing an investigative report on presumed trafficking of weapons from Turkey to Syria.
The court has to approve the prosecutor’s request before the trial of the two journalists begins. After the publication of the report on the eve of June elections the journalists were denounced by the Turkish secret services and by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who threatened that they would pay “a heavy price” for their reporting.
The case has fuelled protests internationally, rekindling alarm over the worsening press freedom situation in Turkey.
Dundar and Gul were arrested November 26. They then were held in solitary confinement for 40 days before being put in the same cell in Istanbul’s Silivri prison.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan Orders 400,000 Porn Sites Blocked
Pakistan has asked Internet companies to block more than 400,000 pornography websites, officials said Tuesday, as part of a crackdown on what the top court calls “offensive content” in the Muslim-majority nation.
The move follows a Supreme Court order this month to ban online material considered blasphemous or objectionable in socially conservative Pakistan, where pornography is illegal and considered un-Islamic.
Major pornography website are already barred in Pakistan, though hundreds of thousands have fallen through the cracks of Internet censors…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Some 200 Indonesians Join Islamic State as the Authorities Continue Hunt for Jakarta Bombers
Army and Navy Special Forces have joined the police to hunt for suspected mastermind, Bahrum Naim, and Santoso, the country’s Most Wanted, who is hiding in the jungle near Poso among friends.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — At least 200 Indonesians have joined the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria in recent days, this according to Police Chief General Badrotin Haiti, who spoke before the Third Commission (Legal affairs and laws, human rights and security) of Indonesia’s lower house (People’s Representative Council).
The estimate comes from the intelligence services, who followed suspects and their attempt to promote the caliphate in Indonesia. This is a sign that IS has been already operating in the country for some time.
Bahrum Naim, a terrorist who wants to prevail over other South-east Asian terrorist groups, has been blamed for the attacks on 14 January in Jakarta.
Security forces have launched a manhunt to capture him as well as Indonesia’s Most Wanted, Santoso, also known as Abu Wardah. The latter is hiding in Poso, Central Sulawesi.
Army and Navy Special Forces have joined the police in the hunt for Santoso. However, the area where he is hiding is hard to reach because it is mountainous and tropical nature.
Complicating matters, General Badrotin Haiti noted that much of the local population is sympathetic to the group, which makes operations harder to conduct.
Poso has seen conflict before pitting radical Muslims against Protestants in 1999-2001. The authorities convicted and quickly executed three Christian men on false murder charges. Muslim extremists also attacked and beheaded three young female students.
Indonesian authorities estimate that IS has about a thousand active supporters, a very small number considering that the country it is the most populous Islamic nation in the world with 250 million people (87 per cent Muslim).
So far, some 600 Indonesians have reportedly gone to Syria to join the caliphate. Fifty are said to have died.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China State Media Accuse Soros of ‘Declaring War’ On Yuan
Chinese state media stepped up a salvo of biting commentaries Wednesday against George Soros and other currency traders as the yuan comes under pressure, with the billionaire investor accused of “declaring war” on the unit.
At the annual World Economic Forum in Davos last week Soros told Bloomberg TV that the world’s second-largest economy — where growth has already slowed to a 25-year low according to official figures — was heading for more troubles.
“A hard landing is practically unavoidable,” he said…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Total Nuclear Power Capacity in China to Double by 2020
The total capacity of China’s nuclear power units will double by the end of the decade, reaching 58 gigawatts (GW), local media reported Wednesday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — While the world took a step back from nuclear power in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima tragedy in 2011, mostly coal-powered China remained committed to developing the technology. The total capacity of the country’s nuclear power units is set to double by the end of the decade to 58 gigawatts (GW), local media reported Wednesday.
China’s state news agency Xinhua news agency reported the figure, citing a nuclear white paper published by the Chinese government; the estimate reflects the addition of 30 GW in generating capacity.
China, in a move to foster the development of clean, reliable energy sources, has established mid- and long-term goals calling for the enhancement of the country’s nuclear energy sector by 2030, according to Xinhua.
As of the end of October 2015, the total capacity of the country’s 27 nuclear power units accounted for 25.5 GW. Another 25 units with a total capacity of 27.51 GW are under construction, the news agency reported.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Suicide Bombers Kill 13 in Chibok Home of Kidnapped Girls
Blamed on Boko Haram
(ANSA) — Rome, January 27 — Witnesses say four female suicide bombers have killed 13 civilians and wounded 30 in explosions at a market in the Chibok hometown of Nigeria’s kidnapped schoolgirls.
A man at the scene says the blasts began Wednesday when soldiers tried to search a young woman covered in a hijab in the northeast Nigerian town. Then three women inside the market exploded in quick succession. The man insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisals.
A Chibok community leader in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, said another blast occurred at a military checkpoint in Chibok. Tsambo Hosea Abana says relatives called to tell him his uncle and 15-year-old niece are among the wounded.
He blamed Boko Haram Islamic extremists who kidnapped nearly 300 Chibok schoolgirls in April 2014 of whom 219 remain mi
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jeremy Corbyn Calls for Falklands Powershare in Northern Ireland-Style Deal
Claims about Mr Corbyn’s talks with Argentine diplomats have emerged just days after he sparked outrage with his intervention on the future of the islands.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“Immigrants” Come From Zika Alert Nations
The ongoing flood of invaders pouring across the Mexico-US border are coming from nations that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has officially warned of being the center of a Zika virus outbreak, which has been linked to the awful microcephaly deformity.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A gun was waived at rampaging UK-bound refugees as they fought with local residents in Calais during a pro-immigration rally.
The ugly scenes happened as two shaven-headed men appeared to goad the marchers next to a council estate close to the town’s port on Saturday afternoon.
British anarchists took part to the invasion of the ferry port by some 500 migrants.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Dead Swedish Refugee Worker Alexandra Mezher’s Mum Says Sweden is No Longer Safe
Chimene Mezher described her daughter Alexandra (pictured), 22, as an ‘angel’ devoted to helping some of the hundreds of migrant youths who have come to Sweden
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU Chief Says Six Out of Ten Migrants Have No Right to Refugee Status
Frans Timmermans, the first vice president of the European Commission, has said that 60 percent of so-called refugees arriving in the EU are economic migrants not fleeing persecution or warzones and are not entitled to asylum.
His comments — based on statistics from the EU border agency Frontex — once again hammer home the chaos of the refugee crisis in Europe, with many countries unable to process the sheer volume of those seeking asylum and a very low level of deportation of economic migrants.
“More than half of the people now coming to Europe come from countries where you can assume they have no reason whatsoever to ask for refugee status. More than half — 60 percent,” Timmermans said.
He said most were from Tunisia, Morocco, Kosovo, Nigeria, Albania and Pakistan — none of which make them eligible for asylum status as genuine refugees.
‘Fiasco’
EU member states have been struggling to deal with the migrant crisis, which has developed over several years, but came to a head in 2015 when the floodgates were opened after German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared her country’s doors open to refugees.
According to her own interior ministry, the majority of the 1.1 million migrants in Germany are genuine refugees from war-torn nations such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan and are therefore eligible for asylum. However, she is facing increased criticism for not putting a cap on the number accepted as well as for presiding over a chaotic bureaucracy that is failing to deport — in sufficient numbers — those refused asylum.
Meanwhile, a plan by Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission President to relocate 160,000 refugees in Italy and Greece has stalled because of a lack of resources to process the migrants — and determine their asylum status — has stalled. Only around 200 have been relocated.
Timmermans said an EU scheme to deport failed asylum seekers had also collapsed into chaos, after it emerged only 683 people have been deported from Europe so far — including 153 from Italy, but none from Greece — the two countries which bore the brunt of the initial flights across the Mediterranean in search of refuge.
Robert Fico, the Slovakian prime minister, said the EU is committing a “ritual suicide” by letting in so many people, condemning Juncker’s plan for a mandatory quota system to share out migrants as “nonsense” and a “complete fiasco.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
EU Finds ‘Serious Deficiencies’ In Greek Border Control
Commission approves report, step towards Schengen suspension
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, JANUARY 27 — Following lengthy debate, EU commissioners on Wednesday approved a report on its external borders in Greece, where it found “serious deficiencies”. The announcement was made by EU Commission vice president Valdis Dombrovskis. The approval is the first of four steps in a procedure moving towards a possible activation of Article 26 of the Schengen Code, which foresees the extension of internal border control for one or more countries for up to two years.
Over the coming days, the document will go to the Schengen assessment committee for final approval, after which the European Commission will put forward an action plan with recommendations to resolve the deficiencies. If after three months Athens has not yet brought in the required corrections, the Commission will ask the EU Council to activate Article 26, which calls for the extension of internal border controls for one or more countries for up o two years. The assessment was made on the basis of unscheduled visits by experts sent to Greece by the Commission in November. Dombrovskis acknowledged that Greece had “started undertaking efforts towards rectifying and complying with the Schengen rules” since the report was undertaken in November, but said that “substantial improvements” were needed.
The report found failures to register, check and fingerprint migrants arriving in November in line with the Schengen Information System (SIS), as well as problems with the migrant reception standards and deportation.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
EU Mulling Growth Plan in Migrant Origin Countries
Says Katainen
(ANSA) — Brussels, January 27 — European Commission Vice-President for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness Jyrki Katainen on Wednesday said he was ready to “forcefully support the idea” of a Juncker plan for growth in the countries of origin of refugees. But he said “there wasn’t any discussion (about this) in a meeting of EU Commissioners” Wednesday. EU sources explained that the idea is one of the ways being considered to contribute to stability. EC Vice President Frans Timmermans had spoken about it in recent days. The EU wants to encourage economic growth in origin countries to help stem a tide of arrivals of migrants and refugees into Europe.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Feminized Males Will Allow Muslims to Conquer Europe
Danish journalist Iben Thranholm told RT feminized males in Europe will not be able to protect women and children from the onslaught of rapacious and violent Muslim migrants.
Feminism, Thranholm argues, has taken a toll not only in Europe but the United States:
Since the 1960s, modern mothers have raised their sons to be women, soaking them in feminine values like accepting responsibility for household chores, being caring, understanding and attentive, and bend to every wish of the woman. This has produced a generation of soft, insecure men, who are out of touch with their masculine nature, identity and strength.
She believes the politically correct ideas pushed by EU apparatchiks and social scientists are making Europeans vulnerable:
Instead of a single-minded focus on imposing liberal feminist values on Muslim males, it might well be much more beneficial for Europeans to consider if the feminist war on masculinity might be the underlying cause of the weakness of European culture—feeble and defenseless as it is—against the culture of immigrants and refugees. The irony is that the vacuum feminism has created means that women become victims of an aggressive male culture.
Thranholm cites feminist writer Camille Paglia who believes a lack of people with military experience in important positions will result in disaster.
“The entire elite class now, in finance, in politics and so on, none of them have military service—hardly anyone, there are a few. But there is no prestige attached to it anymore. That is a recipe for disaster,” Paglia told the Daily Mail in 2013.
“These people don’t think in military ways, so there’s this illusion out there that people are basically nice, people are basically kind, if we’re just nice and benevolent to everyone they’ll be nice too. They literally don’t have any sense of evil or criminality.“
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Freiburg, Germany: “Refugees” Barred From Nightclubs
All nightclubs and discotheques in the supposedly liberal city of Freiburg, Baden-Württemberg, have taken a joint decision to bar all “refugees” from their premises after endless criminal and sex attack incidents, a local newspaper has reported.
According to a report in the Badische Zeitung, all of the nightclub managers got together after a series of nonwhite sex attacks and other crimes to agree that the only solution to the problem was to simply refuse all “refugees” admittance to the clubs.
The owner of one of the clubs (the “White Rabbit”), sent an email last week to its events organizer saying that they had decided that “we will no longer grant admittance to people who have only a temporary residence permit. This was not an easy step, but we currently see no other way to get a grip with the problems caused by the refugees.” The email was leaked to the Badische Zeitung.
Incidents at the club included pickpocketing, a knife attack on a bouncer, and numerous sexual harassment cases. Included in the latter were several forcible entries into the cubicles of the women’s toilets, the administering of “knockout drops” in women’s drinks, and even an attempted rape.
Club-visitor “Annika” told the Badische Zeitung that she had attended a concert after-party held at the White Rabbit in December, and “A large group of African men come in and harassed the dancing visitors,” she said. “We were surrounded and felt up.”
Soon, violence broke out, with guests and staff coming to the women’s aid and forcibly throwing the nonwhites out. Outside, the mob waited for the women to leave, and forced them to “run a gauntlet” through them to get away.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Heavily Pregnant Woman Sexually Assaulted by Migrants in Germany
“Cultural enrichment” of Europe accelerates
A heavily pregnant woman was attacked by six migrants in Germany as reports continue to flood in of “refugees” sexually assaulting women following the mass molestation in Cologne on New Year’s Eve.
The incident occurred last week in the Germany town of Lübben, which has a population of just 14,000 people.
The 18-year-old woman was walking down the street near a retirement home at around 9:30am when she was surrounded by the six “foreign looking men” and “touched inappropriately,” according to a report by Lausitzer Rundschau.
The woman, who was injured during the ordeal, was able to escape when a man who saw the assault stepped in and distracted the attackers.
Police are looking for witnesses and the culprits have not been apprehended.
The incident is just the latest example of Muslim migrants importing a stone-age belief system that treats women as second class citizens.
Sexual assaults on women and even children are now becoming so common that some swimming pools in Germany are placing a blanket ban on migrants using the facilities. However, such bans are being quickly revoked after left-wing pressure.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How 3,000 Indians Got Into UK With Fake Papers Sold by Portuguese Gangs
Forged papers entitle holders to obtain EU passports using a bizarre but entirely legitimate back door which gives those living in former Portuguese colonies the right to come to Europe.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ISIL Exploiting Migrant Routes to Smuggle Jihadists Back to Britain Using Fake Documents
Intelligence officials fear terror groups are increasingly exploiting the huge migrant flows to set up jihadist sleeper cells throughout Europe Isil jihadists are exploiting the migrant crisis to smuggle terrorists into Europe with fake passports they can then use to travel to the UK, British intelligence …
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Jeremy Corbyn is Mobbed by Migrants Wanting Selfies in Dunkirk
Migrants posed for a selfie with the Labour leader (pictured) during his visit to the Grand-Synthe settlement, in Dunkirk, which is home to around 2,500 refugees.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
London Crashing Into Nonwhite Nightmare
The British capital city of London is rapidly crashing into a nightmare, filled with Third World criminals: Turkish gangsters, African crime gangs, Gypsy vagrants, Vietnamese and Caribbean drug dealers—and where white people are now a minority.
The decline is so marked and obvious that even establishment news media like the Daily Mail have taken note—even if only to incorrectly blame Britain’s Labour Party for the mess (in reality, all the establishment parties, Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat, have been promoting and supporting Third World immigration for decades, and all are equally to blame)…
The Daily Mail goes on to detail how the whites in London have been ethnically cleansed from the city:
In this new London, increasingly there is one nationality significant for its absence—white, British-born. Nearly all the migrants comment on this phenomenon.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Migrants Bringing Infectious Diseases Back to Europe: Tuberculosis, Diptheria and More
(NaturalNews) As part of the Global North, Europeans have been living in first-world comfort since the continent was rebuilt from the ashes following the end of World War II. But a massive new influx of migrants and refugees from third-world countries in the war-torn Middle East and North Africa are reigniting outbreaks of contagious diseases that had been long eradicated from the continent.
As reported by RT.com, unvaccinated migrants have brought diphtheria to Denmark, stunning health officials and leaving the government scrambling to contain the outbreak.
“The infection can be very dangerous if one isn’t vaccinated against it. The dangerous type is very rare and we last saw it in Denmark in 1998,” Kurt Fuursted, spokesperson for the Danish State Serum Institute (SSI) told Metroxpress in reference to the likely return of the disease, which was last seen in the country 20 years ago.
“There is no doubt that infectious diseases are coming in with the refugees that we aren’t used to. There have been discussions on whether all refugees who come to Denmark should be screened,” Fuursted added.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
German police have recorded hundreds of cases of sexual assault and robbery on New Years Eve, reportedly carried out by ‘gangs of foreign men’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Patron Saint of the Balkans’: Viktor Orban Sends Barbed Wire to Macedonia
Hungary has exported rolls of razor wire and concrete pillars to Slovenia, Macedonia and Bulgaria while European leaders continue to argue over a solution to the refugee crisis.
It’s estimated that 45,361 migrants and refugees have arrived in Greece this year. The International Organization for Migration says this is almost 31 times as many as the 1,472 who traveled to the European country in January 2015.
Thousands have been left stranded on the country’s border with Macedonia.
Dubbed the “patron saint of the Balkans” in a German news article, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has sent 16,000 concrete pillars and 10,000 rolls of barbed wire to help Macedonia and Bulgaria barricade their borders after Macedonia asked for EU help with managing the refugee situation.
In 2015, Hungary built razor wire fences on its border with Serbia and Croatia to stop the 1,500 refugees and migrants from arriving into the country on a daily basis. Viktor Orban believes Macedonia and Bulgaria should do the same and has called for the creation of a fence between the two countries.
“If we cannot secure the outer border [of the EU], regardless of how costly or demanding that is, we will destroy the Schengen regime by ourselves,” Orban said.
Miro Cerar, Slovenia’s prime minister, has joined the calls for more support from the EU for Macedonia.
“With an effective border management system in Macedonia it would not be necessary to close the borders within the Schengen area between Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Austria,” he told German newspaper, Welt am Sonntag.
Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, has responded to the request from the Slovenian prime minister for more support to reinforce Macedonia’s borders in a letter seen by the London newspaper, Financial Times.
“Although legally, Brussels itself cannot currently send such aid to a non-EU member,” Juncker writes and states that individual member states should “support controls on the border with Greece through the secondment of police/law enforcement officers, and the provision of equipment.”
The Republic of Macedonia or, as the European Union call it the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, has been a candidate for accession to the EU since 2005; negotiations with Brussels haven’t started yet.
The Visegard Group, which brings together four central and European countries, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia appear to be united in their approach to the refugee crisis. They want fences, not quotas.
And Viktor Orban, “patron saint of the Balkans” appears to be leading the support for Macedonia by sending barbed wire and concrete to reinforce its borders — while other EU leaders discuss what should be done.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘Serious Shortcomings’ At Greek Borders — EC
First of four possible steps in activating Article 26
(ANSA) — Brussels, January 27 — A meeting of European Commissioners on Wednesday highlighted “serious shortcomings” in a new report on the state of Greece’s external borders, European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said. This was the first of four possible steps in a procedure preparing the possible activation of Article 26 of the Schengen accords, which envisages the extension of controls on the internal borders for one or more countries for up to two years. Some EU members have asked that the article be activated.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK’s Cameron Under Fire for ‘Bunch of Migrants’ Comment
British Prime Minister David Cameron came under fire in parliament on Wednesday for referring to “a bunch of migrants” in Calais, with opposition MPs condemning his words as “divisive” and “shocking”.
Cameron was speaking about a visit last week by opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn to migrant camps in Dunkirk and Calais in northern France.
ADVERTISING”They met with a bunch of migrants in Calais. They said they could all come to Britain,” he said…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘US Destabilized Europe’: Austrian Record-Holding Athlete Lashes Out at ‘Idiotic’ Refugee Policies
Washington is destabilizing Europe “on purpose.”
Austrian athlete and daredevil, Felix Baumgartner, known for his super-sonic leap from the stratosphere, has bashed EU politicians for their “idiotic” refugee policies in a lengthy post. He added that Washington is destabilizing Europe “on purpose.”
Baumgartner, the first human to break the sound barrier without a plane and holder of records for the highest balloon ascent and highest parachute jump, made several posts criticizing Western politicians on his Facebook page.
Baumgartner, who is Austrian by birth, but has been living Switzerland since 2012, lashed out against Vienna’s policies, chiding local politicians for their failures in leading the country.
“A country where you are fined for fishing without a license but where people cross the border without passports is run by idiots,” he wrote. According to the Local, this quote, which was posted by Baumgartner in a separate picture, is not new and has been attributed to Czech Republic President Milos Zeman.
Nonetheless, the athlete went further in a follow-up post criticizing German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her “disastrous ‘welcome’ policy,” which he said is not a solution to the refugee crisis, but rather the source of the “problem”.
He elaborated on the issue, saying that police and security forces are “prohibited to talk to the press and express their views on current issues.”
Baumgartner then confronted the “political correctness” perceived in the authorities’ actions, questioning the term itself:”Politics and correctness are as antithetical as Islam and Christianity.”
The people are “righteously angry” with the migration policies as the future Austria “won’t be the same” as a result of the crisis, the athlete argued.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Waitress Becomes Austria’s First to Press Charges Over New Year Sex Attacks
A waitress at a bar in Austria, which controversially banned asylum seekers after some of them sexually harassed the female clients there, is pressing charges after migrants sexually assaulted her on New Year’s Eve, she told Sputnik.
Steffi G, a 19 year old waitress at Charly’s Bar in the Austrian town of Bad Ischl, told Sputnik German that she is pressing charges after migrants sexually assaulted her on New Year’s Eve.
Charly’s Bar attracted attention earlier this month when it banned asylum seekers from entering its premises because some had attacked staff and patrons.
Owner Karin Siebrecht-Janisch inspired a heated reaction on social networks when she posted that “we are now again asylum seeker free,” after some committed attacks on women in her bar on New Year’s Eve.
“Asylum seekers began visiting my bar as guests in November, and there were many who, more and more, harassed my female guests. They groped, grabbed, they stared, followed them to the toilet or outside the front door,” Siebrecht-Janisch explained the ban.
On New Year’s Eve, waitress Steffi G alleges she was sexually harassed by five men, who touched her breasts and bottom, and has now officially complained to police.
Security guard Peter G, who was working in the bar that night, told Sputnik that unfortunately the attack was not an isolated incident.
“Everyone is focused on New Year’s Eve in Charly’s, but such incidents happened here before. Fighting, groping of staff and guests. On New Year’s Eve drinks were just taken from guests, they would take them from the table without asking and pour it out for themselves,” Peter said.
After Steffi G informed the police about the assault she was taken to the Altenheim Sarsteinerstiftung asylum reception center, where 80 asylum seekers are housed. When she was there, she felt her complaint was not taken seriously, until she produced a photo of the men who assaulted her.
“Luckily I had a photo on my mobile phone,” Steffi told Sputnik.
“And there were the five from New Year’s Eve. Earlier I hadn’t been able to identify their faces, unfortunately. The supervisor had laughed and thought then that nothing would come out of it.”
“When I showed her the photo she was embarrassed that five refugees from her establishment were in it.”
Steffi G said that the bar was used to having foreign guests, but that recent newcomers are different to those who came before.
“We have a lot of foreigners in our bar — Turks, Albanians, all sorts. And we are not in any way xenophobic. It’s not about that. I’m not saying that all asylum seekers are like that.”
“It’s just about the people in question. These asylum seekers soon started coming often, and from the beginning behaved badly and drew attention. It began with ‘I love you,’ and handholding. But then they started grabbing girls’ butts.”
“I hope that those five individuals admit what they did and for example get a curfew. These five need to see that in Austria they can’t just do whatever they want,” said Steffi, who has spoken to other women assaulted the same night and urged them to come forward and report assaults.
“I am not xenophobic, nor racist. But I have been attacked personally, that’s why I have made a complaint.”
Bar owner Karin Siebrecht-Janisch said that not only has Steffi G had to endure sexual harassment, she has also been attacked for speaking out over the attacks.
“My waitress had her tire slashed. She went to the garage and they said to her no, you didn’t just run over something, someone definitely put a knife or screwdriver into the tire.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Biological Men Can Now Compete Against Women in the Olympics by Claiming They’re Women
(NaturalNews) It has just gotten easier for Olympic-caliber male athletes who always found themselves just a couple ticks away from winning a medal, to finally bring home the gold, silver or bronze: Just deny your gender.
That’s right. As noted by Breitbart News, all male Olympians have to do is declare that they’re women, and get some medical treatments that will allow them to reduce their testosterone levels to under 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months, before they will be permitted to compete.
And then they’ll be able to take on the real female athletes.
But wait. As they say, there’s more: As per transgender guidelines recently OK’ed by the International Olympic Committee, formerly male athletes won’t have to go through the expense of losing their “parts,” so to speak.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: LGBT Groups Not Allowed on Campus Because They Are Against the National Culture
The Support Group and Resources Centre (SGRC) wants to an office to engage in Sexuality Studies at the University of Indonesia. “Members of the LGBT community are not authorised to engage in cultural activities on any university campus run by Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education,” said the minister. However, “Their rights as citizens must be protected by the state.”
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — “Members of the LGBT community are not authorised to engage in cultural activities on any university campus run by the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education,” said Muhammad Nasir, the minister in charge.
For him, the idea of setting up a Support Group and Resources Centre (SGRC) devoted to Sexuality Studies on the campus of the University of Indonesia (Universitas Indonesia, UI) is out of the question. “LGBT people do not correspond to Indonesian behavioural morality,” he explained, “I personally forbid them.”
Zulkifli Hasan, speaker of the People’s Consultative Assembly (parliament), also spoke out against the request made by some UI students on behalf of LGBT people. For Hasan, who also heads the National Mandate Party (Partai Amanat Nasional, PAN), a moderate Muslim party, “the SGRC should be banned because it goes against our national culture.”
When the UI logo recently appeared on the SGRC website, and in the group’s leaflets, Minister Nasir spoke with the university’s dean who told him that the use of the university symbol was not authorised and that he did not give the SGRC the right to operate on campus. “Hence, the group is illegal”.
The SGRC was set up in May 2014. Two UI students, Nadia Karima Melati and Firmansyah are among its founders.
“What we offer,” Melati said, “is education and advocacy on gender issues.” For her, “The idea was simple, namely to establish a research centre and support the neglected people from LGBT community.”
A former economics student, Firmansyah is openly gay. He wants the government to address the issue of LGBT rights. Speaking to AsiaNews, the activist said that Indonesia has ignored the issue for far too long.
After his statement, Nasir’s Twitter account was flooded with protest messages from members of the LGBT community.
For the minister, these people must be studied in a God-believing country like Indonesia. At the same time, “Their rights as citizens must be protected by the state;” yet, “this does not legitimise LGBT status.”
In Indonesia, most people do not accept LGBT people. Muslim extremists have frequently and violently disrupted symposia dedicated to gender issues.
In Aceh, the only Indonesian province that enforces Sharia, practicing homosexuals can be caned up to 100 times.
Elsewhere in the country, same sex relations are not illegal since the country’s civil code is based on legal practices introduced at the time of the Dutch East Indies.
Last December, the first same-sex “marriage” was performed, but the authorities refused to recognise its legality.
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| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Emerging Giants Plagued by Corruption: Transparency International
The world’s “up and coming economies” are struggling to shake off corruption, an anti-graft watchdog warned Wednesday, citing massive scandals in Brazil and Malaysia as cause for concern.
In its “Corruption Perceptions Index 2015”, Transparency International (TI) said the Latin American country showed the biggest decline in its ranking of 168 countries, slumping seven notches to 76th position over a kick-backs scandal engulfing state oil giant Petrobras.
ADVERTISINGOn the other side of the globe, graft allegations surrounding Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak also laid bare corruption dogging the Asian state, it noted…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
“A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can’t turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy’s own gunfire, the pilot reported following a day of mock air battles”
Is this a case of trying to build too much capacity into one craft. Like a “jack of all trades” the F-35 may be a “master of none.”
The f-35 has more to do with corporate contracts than what is actually the most effective warplane. If there is a real war then lots of A-10s and F-16s will get built.
The Austrian children’s song has lyrics which couldn’t *possibly* apply to Allah, Whose commandments are set forth in the Koran/Quran.
“God’s love is so wonderful… (3x)
“So wonderfully great.”
Then
“It’s so tall that there’s nothing taller… (3x)
“So wonderfully tall.”
Then God’s love is “so deep that there’s nothing deeper”; his Truth; then God’s grace is “so wonderful.”
There’s a link to a simple recording (for children to learn the song, maybe? the text is provided) in the story. The singing and text are so clear that even those not familiar with German will understand the song. 🙂
Now we think about “Allah’s love / truth / grace”?! Uh, no.
Teenage-terror-suspect-discussed-packing-kangaroo-with-explosives-for-attack-on-police! To us Aussies this is hilarious. To attempt to catch a kangaroo is fraught, then if you don’t get kicked to death whilst trying to pack something in a female kangaroo’s pouch, they are notoriously unpredictable and can spontaneously change direction as Aussie motorists know to their cost. As we say – you can’t put brains in statues.
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/28/australian-teenage-terror-suspect-discussed-packing-kangaroo-with-explosives-for-attack-on-police/
Saw some news about “kangaroo – explosives”, but didn’t read it. Immediately thought, how would anyone think about using a kangaroo for that purpose, knowing the force of a kangaroo kick?