The states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar) have declared Hezbollah to be a terrorist organization. The GCC took this action in response to the recruitment of young men in their countries for acts of terror.
In other news, Jesse Matthew Jr. pleaded guilty today to the murder of two co-eds in Charlottesville, Virginia. He received four life sentences, in addition to the three he is currently serving for a rape committed in Northern Virginia.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, C. Cantoni, Dean, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, MC, Nick, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Plunging Manufacturing Numbers Mean That it is Time to Hit the Panic Button for the Global Economy
We haven’t seen numbers like these since the last global recession.
I recently wrote about how global trade is imploding all over the planet, and the same thing is true when it comes to manufacturing. We just learned that manufacturing in China has now been contracting for seven months in a row, and as you will see below, U.S. manufacturing is facing “its toughest period since the global financial crisis”. Yes, global stocks have bounced back a bit after experiencing dramatic declines during January and the first part of February, and this is something that investors are very happy about. But that does not mean that the crisis is over. All bear markets have their ups and downs, and this one will not be any different. Meanwhile, the cold, hard economic numbers that keep coming in are absolutely screaming that a new global recession is here.
Just consider what is happening in China. Manufacturing activity continues to implode, and factories are shedding jobs at the fastest pace since the last financial crisis…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Candidates Speak Only Somali at Minnesota Caucus
(GATEWAY PUNDIT) A reporter at a DFL caucus for Minnesota’s House District 60B could not report on the candidates’ speeches to caucus attendees because the speeches were only given in Somali.
Eric Roper with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune posted a series of tweets from the Brian Coyle Center in Minneapolis about the caucus. English speakers were in short supply in the area now populated by Somali refugees.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Guilty Plea Ends Case of 2 Slain Virginia College Students
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A hospital orderly pleaded guilty Wednesday to abducting and killing two Virginia college students, wrapping up a mystery that began in 2009 when one of the women disappeared from a Metallica concert. The other young woman, 18-year-old Hannah Graham, vanished five years later under similar circumstances, after a night of partying with friends.
Along the way, investigators solved a 2005 rape case and used DNA evidence to tie all three cases to Jesse LeRoy Matthew Jr.
In a plea deal, prosecutors dropped a capital murder charge that could have resulted in the death penalty and Matthew agreed to a sentence of four consecutive life terms. Those are in addition to the three life terms he was already serving for the rape.
A statements of facts filed with Matthew’s plea agreement said autopsies determined that Graham had a broken nose and likely died of suffocation or strangulation, while 20-year-old Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington suffered a broken arm, broken ribs and a skull fracture.
“We cannot comprehend the selfish and inhumane action that took place that evening and we anguish over the suffering Morgan experienced that night,” Morgan’s father, Daniel Harrington, said in court.
Matthew, 34, looked directly at family members during the hearing but showed no emotion — casting his eyes downward whenever the victims’ families referenced the brutality…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary Emails Betrayed Whereabouts of Murdered Ambassador Chris Stevens
An email containing the whereabouts and plans of murdered U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens passed through Hillary Clinton’s private server, dispatches released Monday in the final group of messages from Clinton’s emails reveal.
The email was actually first released last May but was contained in Monday’s batch as well, serving as a reminder that numerous emails sent to Clinton’s private address betrayed Stevens’ location while he was stationed in arguably one of the most dangerous zones in the world for an American diplomat.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Huckabee: Trump Phenomenon is a ‘Peaceful Overthrow of the Government’
Former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee told Fox News this morning that Donald Trump’s success represents a peaceful “overthrow of the government” and that the Republican establishment should be glad it’s being achieved with “ballots not bullets”.
Huckabee accused the Republican establishment of “bed-wetting” over Trump by treating his voters as stupid while trying to select a presidential candidate rather than let the American people elect one.
The former Governor said that Trump’s supporters were coming out in droves to support him because “they’re angry at the very establishment who is going nuts because Donald Trump is doing so well — and they don’t get it that they are the problem.”
[Comment: Huckabee hits the nail on the head. He is 100% correct. Public is waking up to the establishment’s machinations.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Man Sentenced to 2-Years of Probation, $1K Fine — For Peaceful Facebook Post About Corrupt Cops
Meridian, Idaho — Police accountability activist Matthew Townsend no longer faces a prison term over a Facebook post — but the Ada County Prosecutor’s Office may yet find a way to put him behind bars.
Roughly a year ago, as previously reported by The Free Thought Project, Townsend was charged with felony witness intimidation for a Facebook post in which he promised to wage a “non-violent and legal shame campaign” in the event a charge of resisting and obstructing was not dropped following a preliminary hearing on the following day. The March 18, 2015 Facebook post mentioned Corporal Richard Brockbank of the Meridian Police Department, the arresting officer, who had confronted Townsend while the latter was conducting a sidewalk protest in front of a tax preparation business.
Brockbank claimed that Townsend had been jaywalking, although his official incident report did not describe that offense. After a brief conversation in which the officer tried to browbeat Townsend into admitting to the offense, Townsend demanded that Brockbank either charge him or let him go. When Brockbank refused to respond, Townsend shrugged and walked away, as was his legal right. Without legal cause or justification, Brockbank arrested Townsend for “resisting and obstructing.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
New Emails Show Just How Bad Michigan’s Governor Failed the People of Flint
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder could have declared a state of emergency in Flint over its water contamination crisis months earlier than he did, according to new emails released Sunday that contradict the governor’s defense of his delayed actions.
Snyder, who declared a state of emergency in Flint and Genesee County on January 5 — months after acknowledging there was lead in the region’s public water supply — has repeatedly said he could not take action until local officials made a request, which Genesee County did on January 4.
However, a November 13 email sent to Snyder’s office from Michigan State Police (MSP) Captain Chris Kelenske, who also serves as the deputy state director of emergency management and homeland security, reads, “As you know, the Governor can declare at any time, for any reason.”
“The state will formally own the event if we put a Governor’s Declaration in place,” Kelenske wrote to Snyder’s deputy legal counsel, Paul Smith. “This could be viewed as the state having owned up to how the water issue was caused.”
Previously released communications suggest that Snyder told state officials to suppress lead testing results and that the governor knew the water was toxic as far back as October 2014.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Veteran pollster Pat Caddell thinks the nation is at “the tipping point” of political “revolution” in the 2016 election because the Washington establishment doesn’t understand the legitimate concerns motivating ordinary Americans. Caddell believes the establishment “empire is trying to strike back” against the populist movement challenging their power, but the American people have “left the building.”
Caddell explained to Breitbart News Daily host and Breitbart Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon that the rise of candidates like Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) reflects the sentiment of the majority of Americans “who feel the country is in decline, who feel that they are getting screwed, their children’s futures are at stake, and nobody gives a damn about it in Washington, which they’re correct [about], and the things that they believe in are mocked and ignored. This is the makings of a Jacksonian Revolution.”
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Sex Abuse Scandal: ‘The Vatican Needs to Hand Over All Files’
A day after a grand jury in Pennsylvania revealed that bishops had covered up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by at least 50 Catholic priests over four decades, FRANCE 24 spoke with clergy abuse expert, Patrick J. Wall.
The report found that former Altoona-Johnstown Diocese Bishop James Hogan, who died in 2005, and his successor, Joseph Adamec, who retired in 2011, worked to cover up for the pedophile priests and that some local law enforcement agencies also turned a blind eye to the abuse allegations, said state Attorney General Kathleen Kane.
“The allegations from [Altoona-Johnstown] are consistent with what we’ve been finding across the US and Ireland and various countries where we’ve worked on these cases — that six percent of Roman Catholic clergy in their lifetime will sexually offend against a minor,” Wall, who has worked on behalf of abuse victims since 2002, told FRANCE 24…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Heartland Institute Unveils the Andrew Breitbart Freedom Center
On March 1, 2016, the Heartland Institute announced that the event space in its new headquarters in Arlington Heights, Illinois will be known as the “Andrew Breitbart Freedom Center.” The center can comfortably hold more than 75 people for Heartland’s public events, with the purpose of advancing free markets and individual liberty.
The new Andrew Breitbart Freedom Center features state-of-the-art digital technology, including the ability to live-stream socially shareable and interactive events on Heartland’s YouTube page. In addition to hosting its own events on a weekly schedule, Heartland is making the meeting space available free of charge to conservative, libertarian, and other liberty-centric groups for organizing and training activists, speeches and panel discussions, public-speaking instruction and practice sessions, movie screenings, and more.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
The Kevin Trenberth Effect: Pulling Science Back to the Dark Ages. Part Two — the Big Snow Job
In 2011 Chris Mooney writing for the DeSmog blog noted heavy snowfall had become a “communications nightmare” for global warming theory and urged, “We need to move the public to a place where drawing a warming-snowstorm connection isn’t so challenging”. Kevin Trenberth was already on point. Just two weeks after the 2010 Snowmageddon, Trenberth appeared in a NPR interview flip-flopping to a new climate change framework in which a “Warming Planet Can Mean More Snow”. Now he argued, “The fact that the oceans are warmer now than they were, say, 30 years ago means there’s about on average 4 percent more water vapor lurking around over the oceans than there was, say, in the 1970s”. Thus “you can get dumped on with more snow partly as a consequence of global warming,” A year later the Union of Concerned Scientists held a press conference asserting global warming was no longer causing less snow, but causing heavier snow. And now, every year as heavy snowstorms approach, Trenberth and his well-groomed media outlets bombard the public, urging them not to be misled by their senses, but trust that cold and snowy days have worsened due to global warming.
So why does Trenberth persist in claiming extreme snowfalls are due to a warmer and wetter world. Trenberth betrays his intentions when he writes, “The main way climate change is perceived is through changes in extremes because those are outside the bounds of previous weather. Climate change from human influences is difficult to perceive and detect because natural weather-related variability is large. Even with a significant climate change, most of the time, the weather is within previous bounds.” So Trenberth has organized a media campaign to not only overturn the null hypothesis, but to reverse our understanding of the difference between climate and weather. He wants you believe every extreme weather event is worsened by CO2, whether or not there is any evidence.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Tuesday Means a Shift of Power for Establishment… and They Are Freaked
Today is a turning point in the election.
For months now, the globalists and the establishment factions in both parties have been on the offensive to try to stop Trump’s momentum.
But if polls hold, today they will become officially unable to stop him from the nomination through ordinary electoral means… though there are still other tools at their disposal.
Via Gary Franchi at the Next News Network:
Twelve US states and one territory will hold their primary contests known as “Super Tuesday” on March 1, to decide the candidates to represent the Republican and Democratic parties in the November 2016 general presidential election.
Americans are turning their backs on the puppet masters. Whatever Trump actually does, his message is a clear one — voicing the dissatisfaction with the status quo, the disappearing jobs, the crumbling economy and the willingness to destroy the country with unlimited immigration.
The elite have a real problem on their hands.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Faces Racial Reality in Texas
Some 75 percent of registered Republican “Latinos” voted against Donald Trump in the Texas primaries, providing a lesson in America’s shifting racial demographic realities-and a foretaste of the massive national election obstacle which awaits him should he succeed in winning the party’s nomination…
Some 35 percent of Republican-registered Latinos in Texas voted for Ted Cruz, while 27 percent voted for Marco Rubio, adhering to an expected racial divide based upon the facts that Trump’s competitors both have “Latino” backgrounds and that that Trump has run an anti-illegal immigration campaign-an issue which directly affects the vast majority of Hispanics currently in the US…
The US Census Bureau reports that on a national level, America is currently only 63.7 percent white. This means that, as happened in Texas, a combination of white liberals and racial block voting by nonwhites presents Trump’s most serious challenge.
This is particularly relevant, as Texas has demonstrated, in states which hold the largest number of Electoral College votes. These are the states with the largest populations-such as California-and which are also the most heavily nonwhite, and therefore the most anti-Trump.
Finally, it would be a mistake to presume that Trump has the Republican nomination in the bag after the Super Tuesday primaries. With 1,237 delegate votes needed to secure the nomination, Trump now has 285, compared to Cruz’s 161, and Rubio’s 87. (The other two candidates still in the race, Kasich and Carson, have 25 and 8 respectively.)
[Comment: Democrats support illegal immigration in order to build their voter base, which disenfranchising Americas of their won nation.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
We’re Winning: Rutgers University President Defends Free Speech Following Milo Yiannopoulos Visit
Robert Barchi, President of Rutgers University has issued a statement defending free speech and the right of student societies to invite controversial speakers to campus following the tumultuous visit of Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos.
In his statement, which can be read in full here, the President was unequivocal in his defence of free speech on campus:
While I will not defend the content of every opinion expressed by every member of our academic community, or of speakers who we invite to our campus, I will defend their right to speak freely. That freedom is fundamental to our University, our society, and our nation.
The President’s statement defended “controversial ideas” as fundamental to the intellectual life of a university.
Academic freedom—the right of our faculty in the discharge of their duties to express their ideas and to challenge the ideas of others without fear of retribution—is a cornerstone of American higher education. Our University is a community of diverse ideas; we value academic freedom’s protections that enable our faculty to state their views and engage in lively discourse. At Rutgers we encourage our faculty to explore new and sometimes controversial ideas and to subject assumptions to scrutiny, all within the boundaries of civil and respectful discourse, which academic freedom requires.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
A Channel Nine 60 Minutes crew working with reporter Liz Hayes has been attacked and injured while on assignment in Stockholm.
Sweden’s Avpixlat news service reports that the 60 Minutes team was interviewing residents about the European migrant crisis in the suburb of Rinkeby when they were set upon twice by ‘a group of young African masked men’.
‘When a cameraman got out of the car, a car drove up next to him and the African driver of the vehicle began to fight,’ the agency reported.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Itedi-Espresso Merger to Create 750-Mn-Euro Group
Among top in Europe
(ANSA) — Rome, March 2 — A merger between L’Espresso publishing group and FCA’s Itedi will create the “leading Italian publishing group and one of the top European groups” with earnings of 750 million euros, the highest profitability in the sector, and no debts, sources said Wednesday.
Carlo De Benedetti’s holding company CIR will have more than 40% of l’Espresso after its merger with FCA’s Itedi, the company said Wednesday. The two publishing companies together had earnings of 750 million euros in 2015. “The operation would unite the strength of authoritative historical dailies like La Repubblica, La Stampa, Il Secolo XIX and the numerous local papers of the Espresso Group, which in 2015 together reached around 5.8 million readers and over 2.5 million unique daily users on their websites”.
The merger “marks a major turning point for the Espresso Group and will … guarantee a solid future in a difficult market,” l’Espresso group President Carlo De Benedetti said. “The mission of this house has always been publishing, at the service of the country’s civil growth. With this operation the commitment is confirmed and increased”.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) said Wednesday it is divesting from Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera Media Group (RCS) as part of its merger with Editoriale L’Espresso group, owner of La Repubblica daily. “With this operation the role (we) played… out of a sense of responsibility for more than 40 years — which allowed us to save the publishing group on three different occasions, ensuring the necessary financial resources to guarantee its independence (and) authoritativeness — draws to a close,” FCA said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 22 Camorra Homicides in a Year Says DNA
New clans replacing old ones
(ANSA) — Rome, March 2 — There were 22 Camorra murders in the year between mid-2014 and mid-2015, the National Anti-Mafia Directorate (DNA) said Wednesday.
The rising number of homicides and of attempted homicides (23) showed the “persistent” threat of the Naples Mob, whose historical clans had been crushed but which was growing new offshoots all the time, the DNA said in a report to parliament.
There were also ever-closer links to crime groups in Spain, it said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Nestlé to Spend 60 Mn in 3 Yrs on Perugina
Official rules out redundancies at San Sisto plant
(ANSA) — Perugia, March 2 — Swiss food and drinks giant Nestlé will invest 60 million euros over three years “to strengthen the great Perugina brand in Italy and abroad”, according to the marketing head of Nestlé Italia, Leo Wencel. He was speaking after a three-hour meeting in which unions were shown an industrial plan for the historic Perugina plant at San Sisto on the outskirts of Perugia. Wencel ruled out redundancies. In a statement, Nestlé Italia said the plan would open up “new international horizons” for the maker of the famed Baci chocolate drops. It said it would focus on making Baci just as popular abroad as they are in Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Salvini Says Rooting for Trump
Praises ‘rigour, economic strategy, security policy’
(ANSA) — Rome, March 2 — Rightwing populist Northern League leader Matteo Salvini on Wednesday said he was rooting for Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump to get into the White House.
“His rigour, strategy for relaunching the economy, and security policy make me say Trump,” said the leader of the anti-immigrant and anti-euro party, the biggest on the right wing of Italian politics.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Newquay Beggar Who Implores People for Money is Seen Getting in to a Audi Tt Car
Matthew Brinton, who has for years asked for money in Bank Street, Newquay, Cornwall, with his border collie Hazel, was filmed climbing into his Audi TT in a local car park.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Rotherham Paedophile’s Son Found Guilty of Trying to Intimidate Witnesses
The teenage son of one of the men convicted of horrific child sex abuse in Rotherham has been found guilty of intimidating a female witness ahead of his father’s two month trial.
Kaleem Ali, 18, of Masborough, left the woman ‘shaking and crying’ after subjecting her to terrifying threats after Qurban Ali was charged for his role in the brutal sex ring.
He denied doing anything wrong but was found guilty at trial yesterday.
Rotherham Magistrates Court was told that Ali approached the abuse victim — who gave evidence in the recent crown court trial in which his father was convicted — in the South Yorkshire Town in March last year.
Detective Constable Carly Booth said: ‘Ali behaved in an intimidating and threatening manner towards one of the young women who courageously came forward to report years of sexual abuse.
‘Ali’s behaviour is inexcusable — he terrified this young woman, leaving her shaking and crying.
‘Her strength has continued throughout this separate investigation and I hope she views today’s result as another positive step forward.
‘I hope the successful conviction offers further reassurance to victims that we take offences of this nature incredibly serious.
‘Trying to scare or intimidate witnesses will absolutely not be tolerated and we will do whatever we can to bring these individuals before the courts.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Op-Ed: Is it the “Occupation?”
by: Paula R. Stern
On May 8, 2001, a Palestinian brutally beat to death two 13-year old boys exploring a cave — Koby Mandell and Yosef Ishran.
On August 9, 2001, a Palestinian walked into a pizzeria in Jerusalem with a guitar case loaded with explosives and blew himself up, killing 15 people, including 7 children and a pregnant woman. One victim is still unconscious.
On Octobr 7, 2004 32 people were murdered in two Sinai hotel resort hotels by Palestinian terrorists who knew that Israelis frequented the hotels. Among the dead, two brothers — Gilad, aged 11, and little Lior, aged 3.[…]
Two days ago, Arab snipers opened fire on a children’s playground. Thankfully, there were no injuries.
Last night, an Arab mob ambushed two soldiers who had taken a wrong turn. The soldiers were able to escape the mob and were finally extricated safely by a massive force of soldiers rushing in to get them. Their jeep was torched and destroyed.
Yes, I’m sure it’s because of the “occupation”…because sheesh, whenever I’m angry and think the world is being unfair, whether I am right or wrong, the first thing I do is pull out my rifle and fire at a playground with children in it, or pick up an axe and start stabbing a father of four children from behind, start up my car and ram it into innocent people. If I see people lost in my neighborhood, of course, I burn their vehicle.
It must be because of the “occupation”, right? The “occupation” that began in 1967, right?
Well, think again. It was happening before 1967. If it wasn’t, why did Palestinians attack a house and murder a woman and her two children in 1953?
Why did they open fire on a synagogue in Shafir in 1956, killing three children and a youth counselor?
Why did they murder a member of Kibbutz Beit Guvrin in 1957, and another from Kibbutz Bonen in 1958, and another from Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan in 1959?
And why did they shoot two hikers near Masada in 1959?[…]
Think again. It wasn’t only since 1948. It was happening before that, and if you don’t think so, explain why they murdered 67 people in Hevron, including their peaceful longtime neighbors, 46 yeshiva students and teachers in 1929?
And why did they loot, rape and murder Jews in 1834, in the city of Safed, because…because…because they could?[…]
What happened in 1066 wasn’t because of the “occupation,” just as it wasn’t because of the “occupation” in 1966 and it isn’t because of the “occupation” in 2016. Tzvika is in the hospital, fighting for his life for one reason. Those children were nearly murdered for one reason. My friend’s car was nearly hit with a boulder thrown at her as she made her way home last night, for one reason.
Then, in 1066 and then, in 1966, and now, in 2016 — there is one and only one reason.
We are Jews. We believe. We live our lives dedicated to our beliefs — in one God, in one land for this one people. And the hatred that drove the Cossacks to burn my grandmother’s synagogue in the Ukraine, and the hatred that drove the Nazis to murder my husband’s grandparents and my great-grandmother and great aunts and all of my father’s family that remained in Russia, and the hatred of the Arabs today, and the hatred we see in France and Germany and England and in the United States — none of it ever had anything to do with “occupation.”[…]
[Could it be that Satan hates Jews too?]
| — Hat tip: MC | [Return to headlines] |
Train Your Brain Not to be Upset or Anxious
New neurological findings from Israel show it is possible to self-teach a non-emotional way of putting the brakes on emotional reactions.
Brains can be trained to improve their ability to ignore irrelevant information, resulting in reduced neurological reactions to emotional events, according to an Israeli neuropsychologist whose collaborative PhD research is the first study to demonstrate that this effect is possible to achieve through non-emotional training.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘EU Bartering Away Democracy in Turkey Deal’, Dundar
‘Ankara wants to enter Syrian war’, Cumhuriyet editor-in-chief
(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, MARCH 2 — The editor-in-chief of a major Turkish newspaper, recently released from detention after a constitutional court ruling, criticized on Wednesday the EU’s dealings with Turkey.
“It was curious for us in prison to hear Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu say that there aren’t any journalists in prison.
And it was even more so to see (German, Ed.) Chancellor Angela Merkel nod. The negotiations between the EU and Turkey on migrants are dirty bargaining, since (Turkish president, Ed.) Erdogan manipulated the situation and unfortunately Europe has bartered away its values of democracy and freedom of expression in exchange for an agreement,” Cumhuriyet editor-in-chief Can Dundar said.
Dundar risks a life sentence in Turkey on charges of intentionally aiding an armed terrorist organization and publishing material in violation of state security for reporting on weapons transfers from Turkey to Syria.
The editor noted that he had sent a letter from jail on the issue EU leaders during talks with Ankara. “The latest developments show that Turkey wants to enter the Syrian civil war, and this explains why our investigation bothered the government so much,” Dundar said. He was released on Friday with his colleague Erdem Gul following three months in jail after the constitutional court ruled that holding them in pre-trial detention was a violation of their rights. President Erdogan reacted by saying that he did not agree with the sentence.
“I am convinced that the media,” he said, “should not be given unlimited freedom. Absolute freedom of the press does not exist anywhere.” “I would like to thank Erdogan,” Dundar commented ironically on Wednesday, “because if he had not threatened us, our case would not have become an international affair.” He noted that after the president’s words, “the media from across Europe — from Italy to Poland — covered the case. Without international solidarity, we would not be here.” The editor said that he had been barred from leaving the country ahead of the trial, scheduled for March 25 behind closed doors.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Hezbollah is ‘Terrorist’ Group for Gulf States
Over involvement of Lebanese group in ‘hostile actions’ in Syria
Doha Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa (C) attends the annual summit of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Doha, Qatar
ROME — Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States have declared the Shiite organization Hezbollah a “terrorist” group, Al Arabiya reports. The six members of the Council (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar) reached this decision due to the “hostile actions of the militia recruiting youth (from the Gulf) for terrorist acts”, said GCC secretary-general, Abdullatif al-Zayani.
The foreign minister of Bahrain, Hamad al-Amir, however told Al Arabiya, which first reported the news, that GCC members have not decided yet the “correct measures” to take to officially list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Bahrain included Hezbollah in its black list last April, thus becoming the first Arab State to take such an initiative after accusing the Lebanese group of supporting and training radical Shiite groups opposing Manama.
The decision take by the other Gulf countries follows Hezbollah’s military involvement in Syria alongside President Bashar al-Assad.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Finances Itself Via Oil Says Padoan
And selling stolen antiquities to Western buyers
(ANSA) — Rome, March 2 — Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said Wednesday that oil is a “significant” source of funding for the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) fundamentalist insurgency.
The minister said the oil market nets the terrorist group “an estimated $100 million a year”. The extremist organization also finances itself by peddling “antiquities sacked from occupied lands, which are being fenced on Western markets,” Padoan told a conference on money-laundering at Rome’s private LUISS business school. “The sale of antiquities is particularly significant, because it requires the complicity of Western buyers”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan: Government: 7 Extremists Dead in Commando Operation
Raid by special forces in various cities, 20 arrests
AMMAN — At least seven “criminals” were killed, together with an agent, in an operation by Jordanian special forces carried out today against an Islamic extremist group in Jordan, government spokesman Mohammad Mommani said. Authorities did not identify the organization of the suspected militants. Police sources quoted by Petra news agency said that 20 other suspected extremists were arrested while two people with no connection to the facts were injured in the operation. Eye witnesses told ANSA that helicopters were deployed to bring special forces to the location of the operation.
One of the raids was carried out in the town of Hanin, 60 kilometers north of Amman and others in the nearby Irbid. The witnesses said they heard gunshots for hours while police evacuated residents of the areas affected by the operation.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mosul Dam Engineers Warn it Could Fail at Any Time, Killing 1m People
Iraqi engineers involved in building the Mosul dam 30 years ago have warned that the risk of its imminent collapse and the consequent death toll could be even worse than reported.
They pointed out that pressure on the dam’s compromised structure was building up rapidly as winter snows melted and more water flowed into the reservoir, bringing it up to its maximum capacity, while the sluice gates normally used to relieve that pressure were jammed shut.
The Iraqi engineers also said the failure to replace machinery or assemble a full workforce more than a year after Islamic State temporarily held the dam means that the chasms in the porous rock under the dam were getting bigger and more dangerous every day. A contract with an Italian construction firm for carrying out urgent repairs has yet to be signed, but behind-the-scenes negotiations with Baghdad continue.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
NATO Commander: Russia Uses Syrian Refugees as ‘Weapon’ Against West
NATO’s top commander in Europe, Philip Breedlove, made the claim about the migration crisis during US Senate testimony. He also warned lawmakers that Russia posed a renewed existential threat to the US and its allies.
Philip Breedlove, the supreme allied commander in Europe for the 28-member military alliance, told US lawmakers on Tuesday that the mass bombing of civilian targets appeared to serve no other purpose than to weaken Europe by creating a massive, and continuous, wave of people desperate for food, shelter and safety.
“Together, Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponizing migration in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve,” Breedlove told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Pentagon OKs $683 Million Smart Bomb Deal for Turkey
Despite Turkey’s destabilizing influence in the region, Washington has chosen to award a $682.9 million contract which will provide Ankara with an undisclosed number of smart bombs.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Where is Saddam Hussein’s Bio WMD “Dr. Germ”, Rihab Taha?
Dr. Jill Bellamy, noted bio defense expert, member of the UN Counterterrorism Advisory Council and Founding Director of Warfare Technology Analytics was a featured guest on The Lisa Benson Show on Sunday, February 28, 2016. The subject of Saddam Hussein’s bio WMD came up. In response to that question she drew attention to one of the major figures in the late Ba’athist dictator’s bio-warfare program, Dr. Rihab Taha, a UK trained microbiologist and expert in plant toxins. Bellamy also addressed ISIS and their possible acquisition of scientists and technicians for creation of laboratories to weaponize viral agents. During the discussion she relayed the concern of western bio defense agencies about what possible ISIS bio laboratories might be engaged in. One possibility could be weaponizing Ebola. She also responded to questions from Benson, Advisory Board member Richard Cutting and this writer about the pandemic public health threat of the Zika virus. She suggested the virus could also be transmitted through sexual contact of returning service personnel from the Middle East and African conflicts.
Then she mentioned Dr. Rihab Taha as someone who was engaged in BW work for the late Saddam Hussein. She was released by the interim Iraqi government. The question arose as to what she was involved in as a devoted Ba’athist nationalist in Iraq and where she might be now.
Dr. Bellamy reached into the archives of the UK Independent circa 2005 and produced some fascinating, yet problematic background surrounding the release of Dr. Taha and a fellow female scientist Huda Salih Ammash. Note this from the UK Independent report:…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
$17 Smartwatch Sends Something to Random Chinese IP Address
Samsung Gear 2 also has some problems, researcher says
BSides SF A cheap smart watch often peddled on eBay uses a pairing app for Android or iOS that contains a backdoor that quietly connects to an unknown Chinese IP address.
The U8 watch sells for just US$17 and offers a 1.48” touch screen, Bluetooth to connect to either Android or IoS phones and the ability to make or answer calls. The Android companion app for the device can access contacts, call and SMS histories.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU’s Tusk Defends Use of Barbed Wire Against Migrants
EU president Donald Tusk on Wednesday defended the use of barbed-wire fences against migrants, saying that securing the outer borders of Europe’s passport-free Schengen area was a “pre-condition” to solving the refugee crisis.
“I’m convinced that… back to Schengen is a pre-condition for this European solution to the migration crisis,” Tusk said in Slovenia as part of a multi-country tour ending in Turkey later this week.
Asked about barbed wire fences, Tusk said: “I’m afraid that sometimes you need tougher measures if you, we want really to apply Schengen. Sorry but this is the reality.”
Schengen member Slovenia, which has built a fence along parts of its border with non-Schengen Croatia and limited the daily number of migrants entering to 580, is the “best example that a European comprehensive plan can really work,” Tusk said…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
First Invader Center Burns in UK
British police in Liverpool have confirmed that the first Molotov cocktail bombing of an invader center in that country has taken place. According to a police statement reported by the Liverpool Echo, an invader center in Church Avenue, Aintree, was firebombed just before two o’clock in the morning last Sunday evening. According to the police, the “petrol bomb” attack is being treated as a race-hate crime.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Risk of Terror Infiltration of Migrants in Balkans
Intelligence see no evidence of infiltration from North Africa
(see related) (ANSA) — Rome, March 2 — Italy’s intelligence services said in their annual report to parliament on Wednesday that there was a risk of Islamist terrorists infiltrating the flows of asylum seekers trying to enter Europe via the Balkans.
It said that no evidence had been found of infiltration of migrants and refugees reaching Europe from North Africa, but added that there was a “more concrete” risk with the Balkans route. The report said the Balkans was the region of transit favoured by foreign fighters, with over 900 leaving from it to reach theatres of war, and an area “consolidated extremist situations”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
This the terrifying moment a migrant was stabbed by a blade-wielding attacker as French authorities continued their attempt to clear the Calais Jungle.
A man in an orange hooded top could be seen lunging at a migrant with a kitchen knife as tensions boiled over in the slum in northern France today.
Onlookers try to intervene and drag the frightened victim away before the attacker himself is stripped of the blade and walks away from the scene.
Riot squad officers returned to the migrant camp for a third successive day of clearing the camp of makeshift homes.
It comes after the town’s Prefect blamed British anarchists for manipulating a ‘hardcore’ of 150 migrants into causing violence in the sprawling encampment.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Latino Invasion Set for New Record
More than 17,000 “unaccompanied alien minors” had invaded the US over the Mexican border in the past few months, and the number of “family units” has increased to 21,000, the US House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security has been informed.
The House was also told that if the present trends continue, there will be a 30 percent increase on the record number of 260,000 invaders who entered the US in 2014.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Terrorists ‘A Daily Part’ Of Refugee Flow Into Europe, NATO Commander Says
Violent extremists, criminals and foreign fighters are part of the daily refugee flow into Europe, the top NATO commander in Europe told lawmakers, “masking the movement” of these dangerous elements and heightening the potential for an attack.
In testimony Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove said ISIS is “spreading like a cancer” within this mix, “taking advantage of paths of least resistance, threatening European nations” and the United States.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Courageous Texas Passes Non-Transgender Rule for High School Sports
MADISON, Wis.,-By a vote of 586-32, Texas district superintendents voted to require student-athletes to provide a birth certificate to determine gender identification. The University Interscholastic League (UIL) will implement the new rule starting on August 1.
Steve McConkey of 4 Winds Christian Athletics, a ministry located in Madison next to the University of Wisconsin football stadium, took on the International Olympic Committee in 2003 for allowing transgenders in the Olympics. He was the only person publicly doing this at the time. Also, Steve recently opposed the homosexual agenda that the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic Committee, and the NCAA has promoted. Steve applauds Texas for standing up.
“Common sense is thrown out the window in our politically correct culture,” states Steve McConkey. “A 6-10 male basketball player who decides to play as a female has skeletal and muscular advantages that would take years to reverse by hormones. The PC advocates avoid this subject or give faulty research trying to prove their point.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Establishment Try to Bury “Rubio’s Gay Past” Reports
Rubio reportedly attended “gay foam” parties as a participant
Rubio and his neocon base are retaliating against the recent “Rubio’s gay past” reports.
The Daily Beast, a worthless and extremely slanted website that represents a bëte noire of political insider journalism, has come out swinging against websites that reported Marco Rubio’s all-but-certain gay past as a teen and college student in south Florida…
It now would appear that New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who recently endorsed Trump, had more in mind when he said of Rubio before dropping out of the presidential race: “Let’s get the boy in the bubble out of the bubble.” It is clear that WMR’s initial report on Rubio at gay foam parties entered the presidential debate discourse without the major corporate media even paying attention.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Antichrist is Already Among Us
The “deadly war against Christianity” is almost over since Nietzsche’s dreams are shaping and directing the governments of Christian (i.e. Western) nations and the United Nations. The West, with its deep Christian roots, considers itself free, secular, democratic, educated, sophisticated, and people-oriented; yet it has set out on a path, without realising it, that leads to nihilism, and the destruction of nature human and death.
Milan (AsiaNews) — The Antichrist is the Devil, as well as all the evil forces that oppose the coming of the Kingdom of God and Christ in the last days, but also in human history (Revelation, First and Second Letter of John, II Letter of Paul to the Thessalonians). But it is also the title of a book by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), which a Catholic layman, Agostino Nobile, has commented in a book he published in July 2014, titled Anticristo Superstar (Antichrist Superstar, Udine, Edizioni Segno, p. 120).
Agostino Nobile, married and father of two, is a professor of music history. Twenty-five years ago he decided to leave teaching to study non-Christian cultures and for ten years lived in the Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist worlds, an experience that strengthened his Catholic faith. Nobile now lives in Portugal with his family, where he has devoted himself to studies that deepen his faith and where he has worked as a pianist and singer up to a year ago.
Here are the starting lines of Anticristo Superstar: “When, years ago, I happened to read The Antichrist by Friedrich Nietzsche, I thought I found find myself before someone who was out of his mind. Today The Antichrist has become the indispensable Referent of all Western governments. If Friedrich Nietzsche had been told that in a little over a hundred years his “Antichrist” would have become a superstar, he would have considered it a ridiculous provocation (Nietzsche’s book was published in 1888). Nobile goes on: “The Antichrist has persuaded man that he can be happy only when he freely satisfies his instincts, eliminating the concept of good and evil, the concept of good and sin. Sin, as it were, is a burden, and the idea of getting rid of it once and for all has now become more than ever a real yearning. In the last century, The Antichrist convinced us that “God is dead”, and then eliminated millions of human beings (through ideologies inspired by this belief). Today we have been banded together into a new ideology, to cancel man’s very nature. Methods may change, but the end is always the same: to prove to God that his favourite creature is the most idiotic being of creation.”
Nobile’s booklet is not very long but is full of facts and ideas and is easy to read. It is an historical and current review of how Nietzsche’s central idea and its other subsequent expressions are being realised. The Nietzsche’s basic belief is “I defined Christianity as the one great curse, the one and only great intimate perversion, the one and only great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous, occult, subterranean, or small enough. I define it as humanity’s only imperishable mark of abomination.”
Agostino Nobile tackles Antichrist in a verbal crossfire. He took out of the German philosopher’s tome the many proposals and expectations about the “deadly war against vice and vice is Christianity”. With an historical sweep of 2,000 years, he shows with historical and current references, how Nietzsche’s dreams have been gradually fulfilled, in children’s education, the dominant culture, through customs and laws that are leading Christian nations back to paganism. The most provocative chapter for us, people of today, is the last one, titled ‘Antichrist Superstar’ (which is also that of the informative book), in which Agostino Nobile shows that in our time the “deadly war against Christianity” is almost over, since Nietzsche’s dreams are shaping and directing the governments of Christian (i.e. Western) nations as well as the United Nations and its agencies.
Here’s just one example of this current culture and of the legislation that is being imposed in our time. We seniors or middle-aged people have not seen this, but the world’s leading health authority wants to impose aberrations of this type on school children. The UN World Health Organisation sent all European governments a guide to promote sex courses in schools titled Standards for Sexuality Education in Europe (available online), where among other things one can read: “Educators must pass on information to children aged 0 to 4 about early childhood masturbation and about discovering the body and genitalia, enabling them to express their needs and desires, such as playing ‘doctor’ for example. [. . .] From 4 to 6 years, children should be taught about love and relations with persons of the same sex. [. . .] With children aged 6 to 12 years, teachers will hold classes on body changes, menstruation and ejaculation, informing them about different contraceptive methods. In the pubertal group between 12 and 15 years, teenagers have to become familiar with the concept of ‘family planning’ and know the difficult impact of motherhood at a young age, with the knowledge that they can receive assistance in the case of unwanted pregnancies and related decision-making.”
Reading this UN document, which arouses awe and fear, brings to my mind the many things John Paul II and Pope Benedict wrote on this issue. The “social question has become a radically anthropological question” (Caritas in Veritate, 75) in the sense that if in the last century the most serious “social problem” was the equitable distribution of wealth and welfare between rich and poor, today’s main “social problem” is the destruction of the natural family and pan-sexualism, which are rapidly reducing the world population by promoting abortions, same-sex marriage, euthanasia and eugenics and many other aberrations, including human cloning, which is now technically feasible and has already been tested. Benedict XVI writes (Caritas in Veritate, 75), “Yet we must not underestimate the disturbing scenarios that threaten our future, or the powerful new instruments that the “culture of death” has at its disposal. To the tragic and widespread scourge of abortion we may well have to add in the future — indeed it is already surreptitiously present — the systematic eugenic programming of births.”
If this happens, we would reach the final goal that Nietzsche dreamed about: “A world inhabited and dominated by Supermen who impose their will to power on lesser, mediocre and ordinary men,” in which it was necessary to “establish the values ??of society and the State in favour of the stronger individual, the Superman (the chosen man, brilliant, the creative artist who defeats the average man) and the superiority of race and culture “(Enciclopedia cattolica, Vatican City, 1952). No wonder that Nietzsche, once in the service of German nationalism, deeply influenced Nazism and its nefarious ideology!
Yet it is even more outrageous that our West, with its deep Christian roots, which considers itself free, secular, democratic, educated, sophisticated, and people-oriented, has set out on a path, without realising it, that leads to nihilism, and the destruction of nature human and death. As a people, we have removed God’s Sun from our human horizon. We want to do without God and Jesus Christ and we no longer have any light of hope in our future.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Climate Models Are Not Simulating Earth’s Climate — Part 4
The Peculiarity
In the real world, according to the hypothesis of human induced global warming, if the Earth had a negative energy imbalance (that is, the outgoing energy was greater than incoming), wouldn’t global surfaces be cooling? They aren’t in the 5 models with the negative energy imbalances. See Figure 4.
In fact, regardless of whether the climate models are showing the extremely high positive top-of-the-atmosphere energy imbalances or showing negative imbalances, all of the models show global surface warming. In other words, global surface warming is not dependent on a positive energy imbalance in 5 of the climate models used by the IPCC for their 5th Assessment Report.
Closing
Bottom line: According to some of the climate models used by the IPCC for their 5th Assessment Report, global surface warming for the period of 1955 to 2015 is NOT dependent on the simulated top-of-the-atmosphere energy imbalance. In other words, those climate models undermine the hypothesis of human-induced global warming.
If climate model drift is the reason for those odd relationships, the modelers need to fix the models, not adjust the outputs.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
“Italy: Risk of Terror Infiltration of Migrants in Balkans”
“Intelligence see no evidence of infiltration from North Africa”
The hell are they talking about??
Tunisia attack suspect ‘came to Italy by boat’
A Moroccan man suspected of being involved in the March attack on the Bardo National Museum in Tunis, which killed 21 tourists, arrived in Italy by boat, police said on Wednesday.
http://www.thelocal.it/20150520/italy-arrests-tunisia-museum-attack-suspect
And I know I read a few others in the Italian media who were nabbed crossing back and forth from North Africa
Italy: Risk of Terror Infiltration of Migrants in Balkans
“Intelligence see no evidence of infiltration from North Africa”
Lies!!
Tunisia attack suspect ‘came to Italy by boat’
A Moroccan man suspected of being involved in the March attack on the Bardo National Museum in Tunis, which killed 21 tourists, arrived in Italy by boat, police said on Wednesday.
http://www.thelocal.it/20150520/italy-arrests-tunisia-museum-attack-suspect
“The most alarming case of infiltration came in October, when jihadist veteran Ben Nasr Mehdi, a Tunisian explosives expert, was discovered on a boat bound from Libya to Italy with 200 migrants.”
http://www.voanews.com/content/jihadists-caught-posing-as-refugees-fuel-alarm/3173533.html
Perhaps a topic of interest:
[Bumped] ThoughtCrimes: “Why Women DESTROY NATIONS * / CIVILIZATIONS – and other UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS”
Difficult at first, but watch the entire video, you may miss the gist if you don’t. ***The title is controversial only if you don’t watch the whole of the video. “
Gulf Co-operation Council declares Hezbollah a terrorist organisation. They are correct in that, but most if not all GCC members support sunni terrorist organisations, like Muslim brotherhood and IS and others. Where is their moral authority to point the finger?
Moral authority?