More than 1,800 would-be migrants were rescued yesterday in the Strait of Sicily in an operation coordinated by the Italian coast guard. Multiple rescue ships, including EU vessels, were involved in separate rescue operations involving eight migrant boats, some of them inflatables.
In other news, after a video of a “citizens’ arrest” of migrants went viral in Bulgaria, the Bulgarian government says it will crack down on volunteer civilian patrols that have been interdicting migrants on the borders and along the coast.
Posting has been light today because I was out for a number of hours on various errands and chores. Normal service will resume tomorrow.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, C. Cantoni, Dean, Insubria, JD, Mike, 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.
$3 Trillion Black Hole Could Destroy Economy: “True Extent of Pension Problem Has Been Obscured”
Yet another reason why taxes are going up, cities and states are going broke, and the world is approaching financial implosion…
As if the world needed another dangerous and volatile factor in the mix of looming economic downturn.
Unfunded liabilities for pensions have been a problem for a while now, but as investors continue to face fleeting returns, many states and cities are facing the music… and when it stops, there won’ t be enough money to go around.
Someone will lose their savings, their standard of living, their retirement and maybe their future. Others will be taxed to death to clean up the mess of the many places were the system is cracked, fissured and falling apart.
According to FT:
The US public pension system has developed a $3.4tn funding hole that will pile pressure on cities and states to cut spending or raise taxes to avoid Detroit-style bankruptcies.
[Comment: This was a goal of the communists running the unions of government workers. Overload the system with massive debt.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Govt to Set Up 5bn-Euro Fund for Banks
Limited backing from CDP State lender
(ANSA) — Rome, March 11 — The government is setting up a five-billion-euro fund to shore up Italy’s banks, sources said Monday. The fund with limited participation from Italian state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) will back capital increases for troubled banks and help clean up non-performing loans, according to participants at a meeting between the treasury ministry and executives from Italy’s leading banks. The stock market closed in positive ground earlier as investors snapped up bank shares ahead of the meeting.
The CEOs of Banco Popolare, Banca Popolare di Milano, Intesa Sanpaolo, BNL, Popolare Emilia Romagna, Credito Emiliano and Credito Valtellinese were seen going in to the meeting.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The War on Savings: The Panama Papers, Bail-Ins, And the Push to Go Cashless
Exposing tax dodgers is a worthy endeavor, but the “limited hangout” of the Panama Papers may have less noble ends, dovetailing with the War on Cash and the imminent threat of massive bail-ins of depositor funds.
The bombshell publication of the “Panama Papers,” leaked from a Panama law firm specializing in shell companies, has triggered both outrage and skepticism. In an April 3 article titled “Corporate Media Gatekeepers Protect Western 1% From Panama Leak,” UK blogger Craig Murray writes that the whistleblower no doubt had good intentions; but he made the mistake of leaking his 11.5 million documents to the corporate-controlled Western media, which released only those few documents incriminating opponents of Western financial interests. Murray writes:
Do not expect a genuine expose of western capitalism. The dirty secrets of western corporations will remain unpublished.
Expect hits at Russia, Iran and Syria and some tiny “balancing” western country like Iceland.
Iceland, of course, was the only country to refuse to bail out its banks, instead throwing its offending bankers in jail.
Pepe Escobar calls the released Panama Papers a “limited hangout.” The leak dovetails with the attempt of Transparency International to create a Global Public Beneficial Ownership Registry, which can collect ownership information from governments around the world; and with UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s global anti-corruption summit next month.According to The Economist, “The Panama papers give him just the platform he needs to persuade other governments, and his own, to turn their tough talk of recent years into action.”
The Daily Bell suspects a coordinated global effort linked to the push to go cashless. It’s all about knowing where the money is and who owns it, in order to tax it, regulate it, “sanction” it, or confiscate it:.
Without privacy, authoritarianism flourishes because it is impossible to build and expand private networks that would act as a deterrent . . . . A worldwide transparency regime virtually guarantees abuses and corruption from those in power.
This is a reason why the “cashless society” idea is such a bad one. When no one is able to use cash, financial histories will be easily available via electronic bank records.
Michael Snyder of InvestmentWatchBlog.com also links the Panama Papers with the push to go cashless:
. . . [W]ith this Panama Paper leak and all its pre-conditioning against tax havens, people aren’t realizing yet that very soon, once Negative Interest Rates and Bail-Ins are being openly discussed and prepared for implementation, the whole tax haven or tax dodger discussion in the media will quickly switch from talking about corrupt billionaires and shell companies half way around the world, and instead will be talking about something much closer to home . . . .
In my strong opinion this whole thing is all part of the coming capital control war, which ties directly in with the coming transition to a biometric digital currency, the implementation of Negative Interest Rates, the rollout of large scale systemic bail-ins, and the demonization and eventual criminalization of physical assets that are outside of direct taxation control (which again would be done using the pre-conditioned guise of “tax havens”, with physical precious metals and physical cash being the main targets).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Are State Attorneys General Attacking Climate Change Critics Engaging in a Conspiracy?
Glenn Reynolds, who teaches law at the University of Tennessee and runs Instapundit.com, suggests in USA Today that the subpoeana aimed at the Competitive Enterprise Institute related to climate change may be evidence of an illegal conspiracy among state-level attorneys general:
Federal law makes it a felony “for two or more persons to agree together to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of the Unites States, (or because of his/her having exercised the same).”
I wonder if U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker, or California Attorney General Kamala Harris, or New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman have read this federal statute. Because what they’re doing looks like a concerted scheme to restrict the First Amendment free speech rights of people they don’t agree with. They should look up 18 U.S.C. Sec. 241, I am sure they each have it somewhere in their offices.
Here’s what’s happened so far. First, Schneiderman and reportedly Harris sought to investigate Exxon in part for making donations to groups and funding research by individuals who think “climate change” is either a hoax, or not a problem to the extent that people like Harris and Schneiderman say it is.
This investigation, which smacks of Wisconsin’s discredited Putin-style legal assault on conservative groups and their contributors, was denounced by the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Hans Bader as unconstitutional…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Immigrant Arrested — Spying for China
A Chinese immigrant, naturalized as an American national in 2008, and serving in a sensitive post in the US Navy has been arrested for spying for China, the United States Naval Institute has revealed.
Lt. Cmdr. Edward C. Lin, who served on some of the Navy’s most sensitive intelligence gathering aircraft, faces several counts of espionage and other charges outlined during a recent hearing in Norfolk, Va., USNI News reported.
Lin, originally a Taiwanese national before his family moved to the US, had a career as a signals intelligence specialist on the Navy’s Lockheed Martin EP-3E Aries II reconnaissance aircraft.
Several sources familiar with the case told USNI News the country to which Lin passed secrets was China, however, few other details are known about the case given much of the evidence is classified.
The redacted charging documents say Lin allegedly transported secret information out of the country without permission and then lied about his whereabouts when he returned to duty. The charging documents allege he successfully committed espionage twice and attempted espionage on three other occasions.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Donald Trump: Colorado ‘A Fix, ‘ ‘We Have a Rigged System’
GOP frontrunner Donald Trump said what happened with the delegate-selection process in Colorado was “a fix” and called both Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton liars during his campaign rally in Albany, New York on Monday night.
GOP frontrunner Donald Trump said what happened with the delegate selection in Colorado was “a fix” and called both Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton liars during his campaign rally in Albany, New York on Monday night.
“We have a rigged system,” Trump said, referencing Cruz’s sweep of Colorado delegatesover the past weekend. “In Colorado, they were going to vote … it’s a fix.”
“We thought we were having an election and a number of months ago they decided to do it by delegate,” he added, referencing to the #NeverTrump tweet sent out by the Colorado GOP official Twitter account, saying, “It’s a crooked, crooked system.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Here’s Why the GOP Wants to Stop Trump by Cancelling Elections
The truth about the cancelled Colo. caucus
The GOP establishment sees themselves as part of the “specialized class” responsible for making political decisions because they believe the public’s “too stupid” to make decisions for themselves.
This “spectator democracy,” first described by political insider Walter Lippmann in the 1920s, reduces voters into mere spectators — not participants — in public policy managed by a tiny elite, in this case the GOP establishment.
“The compelling moral principle [behind it] is that the mass of the public are just too stupid to be able to understand things,” Noam Chomsky wrote in describing Lippmann’s views.
This is the core principle of the GOP establishment: to them, only the elite have the intellect and rationality to decide the public’s best interests.
The public at large, on the other hand, cannot manage their own affairs and therefore must be lead like cattle towards the future world envisioned by those in control.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
High Levels of Heavy Metals Found in Popular Chocolate Brands
Companies claim heavy metals are “naturally occurring”
As You Sow, a California-based health watchdog group, has just warned that some of our favorite chocolate treats contain unsafe levels of heavy metals, including lead and cadmium. Results are below.
According to the group, chronic exposure to cadmium is known to cause kidney, liver, and bone damage, and some of the top brands in the U.S. contain far too much of it — up to 7 times as much as the daily limit allowed in California. As You Sow states in its updated survey that some chocolates contain 9 times the daily amount of lead the state considers safe to avoid reproductive harm. Lead exposure can also reduce IQ and cause neurological damage. There is no safe level of lead for children.
Fifty different cocoa samples were obtained by the group and analyzed by an independent lab. More than half contained lead and cadmium levels exceeding California’s limits, which are more stringent than federal guidelines.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Phyllis Schlafly Faces Coup Over Trump Endorsement
Just one month after she endorsed Donald Trump for president, conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly says she is facing down an attempt to oust her from Eagle Forum, the grass-roots organization she founded 44 years ago.
“At 2 p.m. today, six directors of Eagle Forum met in an improper, unprecedented telephone meeting,” Schlafly said in a curious and specific statement sent to reporters Monday evening. “I objected to the meeting and at 2:11pm, I was muted from the call. The meeting was invalid under the bylaws but the attendees purported to pass several motions to wrest control of the organization from me. They are attempting to seize access to our bank accounts, to terminate employees, and to install members of their own Gang of 6 to control the bank accounts and all of Eagle Forum.”
Ed Martin, who Schlafly elevated to president of Eagle Forum in 2015, told The Washington Post that Schlafly had not been ousted yet, but that it was clearly the plan of Eagle’s board. In an interview with WorldNetDaily, which publishes her work, the 91-year-old Schafly speculated that her Trump endorsement and opposition to the idea of a National Convention of States had roiled her opponents.
If so, the evidence had been building for months. After Schlafly made a surprise appearance at a Trump rally in Missouri, some Eagle Forum leaders criticized her; Cathie Adams, who runs the group’s Texas branch, flatly speculated whether she could make a sound decision at her age.
[Comment: Phylis Schafly is an Americna icon and American needs more people like her. Directors of Eagle forum clearly work for somebody else…]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rich Flee Chicago Amid Racial Strife, Civil Unrest: “Turning Into a Crime Infested Hell Hole”
Editor’s Comment: Those who pull the strings are apt to push racial division and general chaos, as the economic avalanche falls in on the population at large. Uncertain about why finances and money become so difficult, most will fall into the trap of faction-vs-faction on the streets, as the elite helicopter away on profits derived from our general demise.
Taxpayer bailouts, harsher regulations, and more and more policing of every aspect of life would soon follow. If Chicago goes the way of Detroit, it will be not only because of crime and racial tension, but because the jobs, the opportunity and the future have all been shipped overseas and sold off to the highest bidder.
Millionaires Fearing Civil Unrest Are Fleeing Chicago By The Thousands by Joshua Krause
As time goes on the city of Chicago is rapidly turning into a crime infested hell hole, rife with poverty, debt, and racial tension. The city is well on its way to joining the likes of Detroit, and there may be no escaping that eventuality. That’s why many of the city’s wealthy elites are getting the hell out of there.
The Chicago Tribune reports that roughly 3,000 millionaires have left the city over the past year alone, which amounts to about 2 percent of their wealthy population. This is the largest exodus of wealthy people in the United States, and one of the largest in the world. Paris and Rome are the only cities that lost more millionaires than Chicago in the same time period.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Windows 10 Debuts Blue QR Code of Death — and Why Malware Will Love it
Interesting idea but we can imagine the downside
Microsoft has added a QR code to its infamous Blue Screen of Death in Windows 10.
As of Windows 10 Insider Preview build 14316, when the operating system falls over, you get not only the sad ASCII smiley but also a QR square that contains an encoded URL that leads you to a webpage about your problem. Scan it with a smartphone or other handheld and your browser will be taken to the embedded web addresses.
Right now, it just points to windows.com/stopcode, which explains typical Blue-Screen-of-Death causes, but in future it could contain detailed information about the crash — or something a little more user-friendly than something like MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION.
The QR code feature isn’t mentioned in build 14316’s release notes, although it hasn’t escaped people’s attention. The version was emitted last week to testers.
Here’s what the QR Code of Death looks like:…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A woman lost in an Arizona forest with her dog for nine days survived by drinking pond water, eating plants and spelling out ‘HELP’ on the ground with sticks, authorities said on Tuesday.
The sign helped lead rescuers to Ann Charon Rodgers, 72, and her dog in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona earlier this month, the state Department of Public Safety (DPS) said.
Rodgers went missing on March 31 as she headed to visit her grandchildren in Phoenix.
Authorities said she got lost and her hybrid vehicle ran out of gas and electric power.
While she and her dog were stranded on a remote stretch of back country road near Canyon Creek on the White River Indian Reservation, she became disoriented, authorities said…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Canada’s Military Slow to Act on Sexual Abuse of Afghan Children, Report Says
OTTAWA—Canada’s military has changed how it trains soldiers for overseas deployments, with more focus on ethical issues, cultural differences and addressing human rights violations — all resulting from the fallout of its mishandling of child abuse reports in Afghanistan.
The defence department on Tuesday released the results of a long-awaited investigation examining the response of the Canadian military to reports of sexual abuse of boys by Afghan soldiers and interpreters.
The board of inquiry report — almost eight years in the making — concludes that at no time did commanders order troops to turn a blind eye to suspected abuse.
But it does note that the military could have acted on the abuse of minors in 2006 but didn’t because of breakdowns in communications between soldiers in the field and commanders.
Instead, the military took action only after a soldier told the Toronto Star in 2008 that he had witnessed abuse. Other stories said soldiers had been told by commanders to ignore incidents of sexual abuse.
Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of defence staff, said he’s confident that soldiers would take action today if confronted with allegations or evidence of abuse…
| — Hat tip: Mike | [Return to headlines] |
EP Rejects UK’s ‘Traffic Light’ Food-Labelling System
Italian among critics of system
(ANSA) — Strasbourg, April 12 — The European Parliament on Tuesday voted against Britain’s so-called “traffic light” food-labelling scheme. The parliament approved a motion questioning the scientific basis of the nutritional profiles at the heart of the system with 402 votes in favour, 285 against and 22 abstentions.
The system is designed to help consumers make healthy choices, by labelling food items red, amber or green according to their fat, salt and sugar contents.
But it has come under fire, including from Italy, which is concerned about the repercussions it will have on exports, such as its olive oils, salamis and cheeses.
Critics have said the system creates many paradoxes, such as having a red label for extra-virgin olive oil, which is widely acknowledged to have many benefits as part of a balanced diet, and a green one for diet sodas.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Insulting Erdogan: Merkel Falls Flat Over a Satirical Poem
A Commentary by Stefan Kuzmany
A satirical poem targeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become an affair of state. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s handling of the crisis has been abysmal and shows that she is losing her grip on power.
The man has been penalized enough already. If you have to rely on support from Mathias Döpfner, head of the Springer Verlag publishing house, and Dieter Hallervorden, who leads a cabaret theater in Berlin, you’re not in great company. If you become famous, if you make history, with a few repugnant lines of clumsy poetry and not with your significant television skills, you have lost control over the popular interpretation of your own work. If the high point of your fame consists of calling the Turkish president a goat f***er and triggering an affair of state, you are not to be envied.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Wines Better Than French Says Renzi
‘Ours more expensive’ says Hollande
(ANSA) — Verona, April 11 — Italy beats France when it comes to wine, Italian Premier Matteo Renzi said Monday while visiting the 50th edition of the Vinitaly wine fair in Verona.
“Our wine is better than French wine,” Renzi said.
Renzi said that when he told French President Francois Hollande the same thing, Hollande replied “ours is more expensive”.
“Game, set, match to him,” Renzi joked about the traditional rivalry with France, which was outstripped by Italy in 2015 as the world’s biggest producer of wine.
Italy harvested the equivalent of 48.8 million hectoliters of wine, up 13% on the previous year, while French vintners harvested 46.45 million, down 1% on 2014.
During his visit to the exhibition, the premier told ANSA that Italy’s goal is to reach 50 billion euros in food and wine exports by 2020, up from 36.9 billion today.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Admiral De Giorgi Allegations ‘Non-Existent’, Navy Says
Claims against chief of staff contained in anonymous dossier
(ANSA) — Rome, April 12 — The Italian navy has denied all allegations contained in an anonymous report published by media on Tuesday accusing chief of staff Admiral Giuseppe De Giorgi of “crazy spending and parties” on a ship he commanded, private use of a navy jet, the transfer and removal of officers who opposed his requests and other allegedly illicit conduct.
“The facts contained in the anonymous dossier that has appeared in the press…are totally non-existent,” the navy said in a statement. The dossier was allegedly sent to prosecutors in Potenza, where De Giorgi is under investigation in relation to a southern Italian oil probe into alleged waste trafficking and graft. The report was also sent to the military prosecutor’s office, the government and other recipients.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Leo Zagami’s Norwegian Experience
Although quite unknown to the public, even in Norway, the Norwegian government has a tradition of widespread use of mental ward confinement towards individuals that are considered being “obstacles” for the norwegian authorities and their shady puppet masters.
This happened to a brilliant lawyer named Synnove Fjellbakk Tafto, who worked in the norwegian ministry of foreign affairs during the membership negotiations with the EU. After she had made it clear for the politicians taking part in the negotiations that the legal framework she was presented implied a breach of the norwegian constitution and nothing was done about it, she was about to blow the whistle.
But before she was allowed to speak into a TV microphone she was taken away on the order of a norwegian politican with much power at the time. She was put into a mental hospital where she has spent lots of years since. This shame has never been mentioned in norwegian media…
Zagami managed however to escape by fleing from the mental ward confinement. Having checked in and passed the security control at the Oslo Airport and heading for London, he was arrested by the Norwegian police and brought back to continued confinement at the mental institution. After lots of hassle and uncertainty Zagami was finally released from the ward after having been there for 4 weeks.
In connection to this it can be mentioned that the following year, a mentally disturbed asylum seeker from Africa stabbed 5 persons at an Oslo tramcar, one of which was killed. This dangerous mentally disturbed man was rejected psychiatric ward confinement on the grounds that all ward institutions were so full that not a single solitary room was available for this serious emergency situation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Romania: 85% of Exporters Are Foreign Companies
Export activities amount to 30% of Gdp
(ANSA) — TRIESTE — Only 15% of exporters from Romania are companies founded by Romanian investors, while the remaining 85% is represented mainly by local subsidiaries of foreign companies, Romania Insider reported quoting a statement by the economy minister, Costin Borc.
“Only 22,000 out of 750,000 registered companies in Romania engage in the activities of export”, Borc underlined.
“Furthermore, there are only 50 companies founded by Romanian investors with a turnover of more than 100 million euros”. “Romania is a not a weak exporter, Romania is a country with few exporters,” the minister said, suggesting the rise of the number of exporters as key to increasing the export activities, which currently represent 30% of the country’s GDP.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Shock Report: ‘Only S**gs Don’t Cover Their Head’ Muslim Boys Bring Sharia Into Schools
A TEACHER called “a s**g” by a young Muslim boy for not covering her head routinely saw young girls attacked for showing their hair in school, a film about a shock report will reveal.
Findings in the feature about an investigation, which is to be fully released by Channel Four this week, have shown there is a “nation within a nation” emerging in Britain, made up of Muslims who have no intention of living by UK social standards.
The report, What British Muslims Really Think, has been described as the most detailed and comprehensive survey of the group ever carried out.
Ahead of the full release, which is set to shock the nation, former chairman of Equality and Human Rights Commission Trevor Phillips described the findings as “astonishing”.
He said: “On certain key issues Britain is nurturing communities with a complete set of alternative values.
“None is more alarming than attitudes towards women.”
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Gentiloni Meets Sarraj, Says Libyans Must Lead Agst ISIS
Minister meets Cairo ambassador to discuss Regeni measures
ROME — Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni on Tuesday met Libyan Premier-designate Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli and said Libya must take the lead in fighting Islamic State (ISIS) militants.
Also Tuesday, Gentiloni was set to meet ambassador to Egypt Maurizio Massari, recalled from Cairo last week after the breakdown of judicial cooperation on Giulio Regeni’s murder, to discuss fresh measures to up the pressure on Egypt to collaborate in a probe into the Cambridge doctoral researcher’s torture and death. Gentiloni said on a visit to Tripoli that “the Libyans and the national unity government must lead the fight against ISIS in the country”. He said Italy, and the international community, was ready to cooperate and give its contribution but the fight against terrorism was up to the Libyans before anybody else.
Italy has stressed that, if requested by the Libyan government, it is ready to play a role in helping Libya fight ISIS militants, who have gained footholds at several places along the Libyan coast.
Italy delivered humanitarian aid to Libya on a C-130 transport plane Tuesday, Gentiloni said, stressing the aid included medical kits for Tripoli hospital and that further aid would soon be destined for Benghazi. Italy has vowed to help the Tripoli government ease a humanitarian crisis caused by widespread fighting among militias and by ISIS.
Gentiloni was the first senior official of a foreign government to visit the Libyan capital after the installation of the presidential council two weeks ago for a United Nations-backed government of national unity.
Sarraj thanked Gentiloni for his visit and stressed the importance of strengthening ties with Italy. “With Italy there is a very deeply rooted relationship which we intend to strengthen” as regards fighting illegal immigration and terrorism,” he said.
Meanwhile international aid groups including Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders slammed a fence Austria is building at the Brenner Pass to keep an expected wave of migrants from Italy out.
The “commensurate” measures that Italy wants to adopt to pressure Egypt over the Regeni case were set to be evaluated during a meeting late Tuesday between Gentiloni and Ambassador to Cairo Maurizio Massari, who has returned to Rome for consultations after the failure of Egyptian investigations.
The head of Italian diplomacy has no intention of setting off “global wars” but the line of the government is to demand the truth from Cairo. Economic forms of retaliation are currently off the table because they are viewed as counterproductive and useless, especially if only at the bilateral level. A suspension of cultural agreements is being considered, and a warning for Italian researchers and students that are in Egypt or are planning to go there.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Netanyahu: This is Our Country, We Must Defend it, And No One Will Defend it for us Except Ourselves
Netanyahu visits Paratrooper unit during military drill in northern Israel; Addresses strikes preventing weapons transfers to Hezbollah; “This is our country, we must defend it, and no one will defend it for us except ourselves.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu confirmed that Israel has carried out dozens of strikes in Syria preventing weapons transfers to the terrorist organization Hezbollah.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Civilian Airliners Now Under Threat by Jihadists — Using US-Supplied Anti-Aircraft Missiles
Civilian airliners are now under threat of being shot out of the sky thanks to American-backed Islamist groups being supplied the portable Stinger surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS) by the U.S. and their Middle East allies, such as Saudi Arabia, in Syria.
Taking a page straight out of the 1980’s Afghanistan playbook, these strategic weapons were provided to extremist groups in an effort to assist in toppling the Assad government.
The truth was laid bare by Saudi Foreign Minister Abdel al-Jubeir, in an interview with German publication Der Speigel, when he said, “We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground … just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there.”
Confirming these reports, the U.S. and Turkish-backed Al Hamza brigade reportedly posted pictures showing off their new missile acquisition, while Ahrar al-Sham downed a Syrian Su-22 ground-attack plane with a MANPAD in southern Aleppo.
[Comment: In the desperate drive to overthrow Assad, US and allies gave what are bascially terrorists S-to-A missiles. Those SAME terrorists are now coming into the west as “refugees”.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Signs Deal for Two Iran High-Speed Rail Lines
Value close to 3 bn
(ANSA) — Rome, April 12 — State-controlled rail company Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) on Tuesday signed a deal with Tehran to build two high-speed rail lines in Iran.
A framework cooperation accord was signed in Tehran by FS CEO Renato Mazzoncini and the president of Iranian rail company RAI Pour Seyed Aghaei in the presence of Premier Matteo Renzi and President Hassan Rouhani. The deal for lines from Tehran to Hamedan and Qom is worth some three billion euros, sources close to the accord said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Russian Helicopter Crashes in Homs, 2 Dead
It was not hit by enemy fire, according to Russia authorities
(ANSAmed) — MOSCOW, APRIL 12 — A Mi-28N Russian military helicopter has crashed close to Homs in Syria, Russia’s defence ministry said. Two crew members are dead, news agencies reported. The crash happened overnight. The bodies have been recovered and are in the Latakia base. According to initial investigations it does not appear that the helicopter was hit by enemy fire.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
US Govt. Still Supplying Syria “Rebels”
The US government is still supplying Syrian “rebels” with millions of dollars of weapons even though that government supposedly brokered a cease fire in February. The latest shipment of arms-supposed to be secret-was revealed in a new article in the famous Jane’s Defence Weekly, and showed that the Central Intelligence Agency is still delivering thousands of tons of weapons to “rebels” linked to ISIS.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen: 5 Killed by Suicide Bomb in Aden, Al Qaeda Claims
Explosion among youth enrolling for army
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, APRIL 12- Five people died on Tuesday in Aden, in the south of Yemen, when a suicide bomber blew himself up near to a stadium where youths were queuing to enroll in the army. The attack has been claimed by Al Qaeda, according to Al-Jazeera TV.
The attack happened a day after a UN-backed ceasefire came into force in the country. Negotiations are planned for April 18 in Kuwait to find a solution for the civil war, which sees the forces of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi fighting against the Houthi Shia rebels, supported by Iran, and troops loyal to deposed President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Russian National Guard to Get License for Peacekeeping Operations Abroad
A draft presidential decree detailing the main tasks and functions of the recently established National Guard agency allows it to take part in international operations including peacekeeping missions.
The possible use of National Guard troops in operations in other countries radically distinguishes it from Interior Ministry troops that serve as the basis for the new force. Current Russian laws don’t permit sending Interior Ministry forces on foreign missions.
The document, published on the federal website on Tuesday, gives the new force the official name of Rosgvardia (short for “Russian Guards”), in addition to the National Guard name used by Vladimir Putin when he announced its creation earlier this month. It also officially establishes the previously announced scheme under which Rosgvardia is commanded directly by the president of the Russian Federation. According to the draft decree the new force will soon receive its own emblem and flag.
[Comment: You think the communists running the USA won’t hesitate to bring in foreign communist “peacekeepers” to try and crush any patriotic and pro-constituional revolution? Only a coup by the pro-constitutional military, naval and air force to remove banksters and ALL their puppets can stop the total civil war and destruction and breakup of the USA.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The West’s controlled media ignored yesterday’s commemoration of the 1940 Massacre at Katyn, despite the presence of the Prime Minister of Poland, senior government figures, families of the victims, and the Polish military-because the atrocity perpetrators were Communists and not Nazis.
The Katyn Massacre saw 22,000 Polish officers executed in a forest outside Smolensk, Russia, by the Soviet Secret Police.
The commemoration service-held in Russia at the massacre site, in full cooperation with the Russian authorities, saw Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo; Law and Justice Party Senator and Polish Foreign Minister Anna Maria Anders; the Polish ambassador to Russia, Catherine Pelczynska; family members of the victims, and a delegation of Polish army officers-take part in a moving service for the murdered soldiers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Malaysia: Sharia-Compliant Rayani Air Grounded for Failing to Follow Aviation Rules
Malaysian aviation authorities imposed a three-month suspension on the carrier for contravening “civil aviation regulations”. Launched in December, Rayani requires Muslim female crewmembers to wear the hijab, offers only halal food, and bans alcohol.
Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) suspended the country’s first Sharia-compliant airline company.
“Rayani Air has been suspended for three months,” said DCA director-general Azharuddin Abdul Rahman because “They contravened civil aviation regulations.
Launched in December 2015, the company requires Muslim flight crewmembers to wear the hijab whilst non-Muslim crew are forbidden from wearing revealing clothing. In-flight meals are completely halal and alcohol consumption is strictly banned.
In recent weeks, however, the carrier, which operates two Boeing 737-400s, has drawn increasing criticism from passengers and the government due to last-minute delays and cancellations. Its pilots have also gone on strike, further damaging its image.
The company on Monday said in a Facebook post that it was working hard to “to solve our internal matters and get Rayani back on track”.
Malaysia’s Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai tweeted on Saturday that the DCA would conduct a safety audit before allowing the airline to fly again.
The “DCA will undertake a full administration and safety audit to determine if Rayani is ‘fit’ for AOC (aviation operating certificate) after serving provisional suspension,” he wrote.
Liow also expressed disappointment at Rayani’s conduct despite previous warnings over “poor procedures and service level”.
The suspension comes two years after Malaysia faced twin aviation disasters.
In March 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing disappeared over the Indian Ocean with the loss of all 239 people on board.
A few month later, in July 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over rebel-held eastern Ukraine, near the Russian border, in a missile strike, killing 298 passengers and crew.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
E4E Carved in Australian Soldier’s Head During Alleged Attack by ISIS Supporter
Maximum security inmate Bourhan Hraichie, 18, is alleged to have carved ‘e4e’ into the head of 40-year-old Michael Sean O’Keefe on Thursday afternoon at Kempsey prison.
He belted the former digger with coaxial cable in their shared cell before choking him with it.
He then poured boiling water over his face, broke his sternum and carved the IS slogan into the front and back of his head.
That slogan is an apparent reference to Islamic State’s “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” mantra.
NSW Corrective Services Commissioner Peter Severin has since told media that Hraichie should have been in a high-risk management correctional centre and not sharing a cell with the low security inmate.
“If you are radicalised and at risk of engaging in violent extremism, you need to be locked up,” Mr Severin said.
“You need to be very highly controlled.”
The attack “appears to have had a strong fundamentalist element to it”, he said on Sunday, adding that it was a “serious mistake” for the two to have been paired up together.
“I am appalled that these two inmates were placed in the same cell.
A spokesman for the Public Sector Association said Hraichie should have been placed in segregation and the department had failed to take the extremist’s views seriously.
“The 18-year-old, in our belief, had presented enough information and bad behaviour to have been segregated, or at the very least, been put in a single cell,” spokesman Steve McMahon said.
“Had the information been passed on to senior officers and been dealt with correctly this would have been avoided.
“None of these things were done by management and he had certainly presented enough evidence he’s either a supporter or would be a participant.”
A full investigation into the management of radicalised prisoners will also be launched…
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Cartel Cover-Up: Mexican Authorities Claim They Can’t Distinguish Human Remains From Chicken Bones
MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas — Forensic technicians in this border state reached an unprecedented level of incompetence or complicity in helping the state government cover-up the discovery of a clandestine grave by claiming they are unable to distinguish between human bones and animal bones such as those of cows and chickens after the discovery of a clandestine grave less than 100 yards from the Texas-Mexico border. The same forensic techs are the ones that are tasked with going over violent crime scenes in this border state.
Despite claiming to have not found a clandestine gravesite, authorities confirmed that in seven of the digs they found bones, clothing, documents and ammunition. Authorities also claimed to have found a 55-gallon drum filled with ashes and bones.
Despite having a large team of Mexican soldiers and forensic technicians with the Tamaulipas government comb the area and go over the findings, the government claims to not be able to tell the if the bones found at the digs are human or form animals such as those from cows or chickens.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Arab/Refugee Crime Swamping Berlin
Extended criminal Arab families dominate entire neighborhoods in Berlin, and are now recruiting new members from the “refugee camps”-and the German capital city’s underworld is now “lost” to them, the German Die Welt newspaper has reported.
Die-Welt-Berlin
According to the article, police have started putting special surveillance teams outside the “refugee homes” to try and spot the recruiters and the new recruits.
“It is an amazing sight,” Die Welt reported, describing the appearance of “luxury sedans outside refugee camps. They certainly don’t belong to the refugees. . . .[but the] refugees have been discovered by Berlin’s infamous Arab crime families.”
Police told Die Welt that the criminal clans are selectively recruiting in the refugee camps, and are on the lookout for “young and physically strong men” who are then used for “dirty work” such as burglaries, trafficking in drugs, and violence against competitors…
One of the latest tricks being employed by these criminal Arabs is to run smaller car rental companies, which lease vehicles from major manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz or BMW. Then, after a few months, the companies “close suddenly, and the leased vehicles are stolen.”
Many of these high-horsepower cars are then used for robberies and other crimes, and if their registration numbers are noted, they lead nowhere because the care hire company no longer exists.
Another “business opportunity” seized upon by these criminal Arabs, the police added, was to buy or lease properties and convert them into “refugee shelters,” for which they are paid exorbitant rentals by the government.
Prosecutor Kamstra revealed how much some “refugees” are already earning from the criminal clans, saying that it was not uncommon to find €150,000 Euros in the possession of “asylum seekers” who have a welfare payment of less than €1,000 per month.
[Comment: As planned by puppet Merkel and her handlers. Are you really so naive that you think the mass migration was a “misjudgement”? — no — it is an intentional plan to deconstruct and dissolve nation states prior to a global NWO. Just because you could not conceive of doing such an evil and traitorous thing does not mean others would not hesistate to do such things.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bulgaria: Row Over Video Showing Citizens Arresting Migrants
Prosecutor:’Illegal detention punishable with up to six years’
(ANSA) — TRIESTE — A video showing the act of ‘arrest’ of migrants by a squad of civil volunteers is causing contrasting reactions by the public opinion and Bulgarian institutions. Published two days ago, the video shows three migrants, of probable Afghan origin, lying on the ground with arms tied on their backs. In the comment below it is stated — “the detention of migrants and return to Turkey — no 112, no police traitors, we are acting on our own!”. For the prosecutors of the town of Malko Tarnovo, in the Burgas region near the Turkish border, this is an act of illegal detention, punishable with up to six years of jail according to the national laws. The Minister of interior affairs, Rumyana Bachvarova, also criticised the video, by writing on her Facebook page that the authorities now had to pay attention “not only to those who try to cross the border illegally, but also to those who want to take advantage of the migrants — for money, or for cheap, and dangerous, fame”.
The Novinite portal refers that the episode has resulted in a change of rhetoric by the authorities regarding the voluntary patrols along the border, a recent phenomenon, initially supported both by the Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and by the border police.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Barack Obama’s Executive Action on immigration, which provided a free break for nonwhite invaders who entered the US before January 1, 2014, created an “open border” situation with Mexico, the head of the National Border Patrol Council (NPBC) told the US Congress.
NPBC president Brandon Judd told the House Judiciary Committee that Border Patrol agents were instructed to take invaders’ “word for it” that they had been in the US before that date, even though they were dripping wet after just having crossed the Rio Grande River.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Rescues 1,850 Asylum Seekers in Med
Eight different ops in Strait of Sicily
(ANSA) — Rome, April 11 — Italy’s Coast Guard on Monday coordinated the rescue of 1,850 asylum seekers off vessels in distress in eight different operations in the Strait of Sicily.
The multiple rescues involved a Coast Guard ship, a Navy ship, a merchant marine ship, and a ship from the EU EUNAVFOR Med mission to combat people traffickers.
The asylum seekers were rescued off at least eight different boats, including inflatables.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
No Walls, Barbed Wire at Brenner Pass Says Austria
Barrier being built as of today
(see related)(ANSA) — Bolzano, April 11 — The Brenner Pass barrier will not include a wall or barbed wire, Austrian President Heinz Fischer said Monday. “We need more checks on those wanting to enter Europe,” he said. Austria has said it will take in 35,000 refugees this year but this is just a ballpark figure to prevent another 80,000 people from claiming protection as happened in 2015.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
On the subject of the ‘Katyn forest massacre’ …
The Brenner Pass doesn’t need walls or razor wire. It is one of the most daunting mountain passes in the world. You cannot walk around it unless you are a trained mountain climber, mountain goat or sheep. Human traffickers can only try to sneak through it and Austria is putting a stop to it.
You can go under it, either by train (as I had the good fortune to do in 2013, a beautiful run from Munich to Venice) or road. Maybe the authorities are there to prevent its becoming another Channel Tunnel?
I find this ‘rescue’ of ‘migrants’ curious. What are the ships doing there? What is their function and who defined it?
I’ve just seen Trevor Phillips’ Channel 4 documentary, “What British Muslims Really Think”. Considering the sources, it was remarkably realistic, even if apparently unaware of Islam’s core teachings. Not a giant step in the right direction, but at least a step.
“We are preparing to meet our heroes,” Ramzan Kadyrov says
“Chechen special forces used Longyearbyen airport on Svalbard for transportation of personnel and equipment for an airborne drill close to the North Pole.”
“The paratroopers were dropped onto the ice from an Il-76 airplane on March 29. They jumped out from a height of 2500 meter, and started their exercise, which included a 20 kilometer long hike and an attack on an ‘enemy command post’”
I wonder why there are not people along the coastlines firing upon the invaders before they try to come ashore. Has there been any such resistance?