Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/21/2017

The news feed is extremely light tonight — very unusual. It’s like when you’re in a room full of people talking, and suddenly for no reason the voices stop. The hubbub is gone, and there’s an eerie silence.

In Detroit, two more doctors — a husband and wife team — have been arrested for performing female genital mutilations.

In other news, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, is planning to meet with George Soros to discuss legal action against Hungary for its new law that will effectively shut down Mr. Soros’ university in Budapest.

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

Thanks to Caroline Glick, Dean, LP, Reader from Chicago, SS, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

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

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

USA
» Husband and Wife Arrested for Performing Female Genital Manipulation at Detroit-Area Clinic
» Milo Unveils ‘Free Speech Week’ At Berkeley
» Power Outage Affects 88,000 PG&E Customers in San Francisco, Causes Transit Delays
 
Europe and the EU
» First Direct Freight Train From China Arrives in Hungary
» Jean-Claude Juncker — EU Chief to Meet George Soros to Discuss Hungary Legal Action
» Marine Le Pen Gets Poll Boost After Paris Attack as Donald Trump Says Her Chances of Victory Have Improved
» Paris Champs Elysees Attack Gunman Named as Karim Cheurfi
» Police Arrest Man Suspected of Attack on Dortmund Soccer Team’s Bus
» Two Northern Italian Regions to Hold Referendums on Autonomy This Year
» Wages Up in Poland
 
Middle East
» Caroline Glick: Turkey and Trump’s Unpredictability
» Do These Ancient Carvings Show a Comet Strike Hit Earth in 10950 BC and Began an Ice Age?
 
Australia — Pacific
» Teen Accused of Sending Thousands to Her ISIS Crush
» Waleed Aly and Wife Susan Carland Buy $2million Home in Upmarket Melbourne Suburb — Just a Year After He Complained He Could Only Afford to Rent Thanks to Sky-High House Prices
 
Latin America
» Venezuela: Ten People Killed in Caracas Looting Incident
 

Husband and Wife Arrested for Performing Female Genital Manipulation at Detroit-Area Clinic

A Detroit-area physician and his wife have been arrested and charged with conspiring to perform female genital mutilation procedures on girls as young as six, the Justice Department announced on Friday.

Dr. Fakhruddin Attar and his wife, Farida Attar, conspired with another doctor, Jumana Nagarwala, to perform the illegal procedures at Attar’s clinic in Livonia, the Justice Department said.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Milo Unveils ‘Free Speech Week’ At Berkeley

Conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos announced Friday he’s planning a “Free Speech Week” to take place at the University of California, Berkeley later this year.

Events will focus on various ideologies or movements that the former Breitbart editor has identified as enemies of free speech.

“Each day will be dedicated to a different enemy of free speech, including feminism, Black Lives Matter and Islam,” wrote Yiannopoulos in a Facebook post Friday.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Power Outage Affects 88,000 PG&E Customers in San Francisco, Causes Transit Delays

PG&E Scrambles to Restore Power After 95,000 Customers Left in Dark

A massive power outage struck downtown San Francisco, leaving at least 88,000 PG&E customers without electricity, snarling traffic as intersection signals went dark and stopping the famed cable cars for a time.

PG&E officials said an overloaded circuit breaker malfunctioned at the Larkin substation, sparking a fire in the insulation. The fire caused a series of outages beginning at 9 a.m. PT and left thousands without power in a massive swath of the central city.

The outages affected the Financial District and prompted the temporary closure of the Bay Area Rapid Transit’s downtown Montgomery Station. People used the lights of their cellphones to walk through the darkened station before BART stopped service there.

According to PG&E, residents and businesses in Western Addition, Pacific Heights, Japantown, Polk Gulch, Russian Hill, Marina, Richmond, Presidio, Laurel Heights, Sunset, Chinatown, North Beach and Fisherman’s Wharf also found themselves in the dark.

California Pacific Hospital and Saint Francis Hospital were in the affected area, but remained open by using backup generators. Public schools also were open, according to PG&E…

           — Hat tip: Dean [Return to headlines]
 

First Direct Freight Train From China Arrives in Hungary

The first direct freight train between China and Hungary arrived in Budapest on Friday, carrying more than USD 1 million worth of clothing, electronics, toys and steel, state news wire MTI reported.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Jean-Claude Juncker — EU Chief to Meet George Soros to Discuss Hungary Legal Action

JEAN-CLAUDE Juncker will hold a behind closed doors meeting with George Soros at which the pair will discuss legal action against the Hungarian government, EU officials announced today

The EU Commission chief will host the billionaire financier in Brussels as part of eurocrats’ preparations to take Budapest to court over a number of alleged breaches of EU law.

Brussels has been enraged by the actions of firebrand prime minister Viktor Orban, who has passed a new law in an attempt to close a university backed by Mr Soros.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Marine Le Pen Gets Poll Boost After Paris Attack as Donald Trump Says Her Chances of Victory Have Improved

Donald Trump has said the Paris terrorist attack would boost Marine Le Pen’s presidential chances after a last-minute poll gave her a modest increase in support.

The US president said the shooting would “probably help” Ms Le Pen in Sunday’s election, because she is “strongest on borders, and she’s the strongest on what’s been going on in France.”

“Whoever is the toughest on radical Islamic terrorism, and whoever is the toughest at the borders, will do well in the election,” he said.

US presidents typically avoid weighing in on specific candidates running in overseas election. But Mr Trump suggested his opinion was no different from an average observer, saying: “Everybody is making predictions on who is going to win. I’m no different than you.”

Cancelling visits and meetings on Friday, candidates traded blows across the airwaves as it emerged that the Isil-backed gunman had been kept in custody just 24 hours in February despite attempts to procure weapons to murder police…

           — Hat tip: LP [Return to headlines]
 

Paris Champs Elysees Attack Gunman Named as Karim Cheurfi

The gunman killed after shooting dead a policeman on the Champs Elysees has been named by the Paris prosecutor as Karim Cheurfi, a convicted criminal.

He used a Kalashnikov assault rifle to kill the police officer with two bullets to the head, François Molins told journalists in the French capital.

A note defending so-called Islamic State was found near his body.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Police Arrest Man Suspected of Attack on Dortmund Soccer Team’s Bus

German police have arrested a 28-year-old man suspected of being behind last week’s attack on the Borussia Dortmund soccer team. Greed, not ties to international terror, is thought to have motivated the suspect.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Two Northern Italian Regions to Hold Referendums on Autonomy This Year

Two of Italy’s wealthiest regions, Lombardy and Veneto, have announced plans for referendums aimed at obtaining greater independence.

The referendums will take place on October 22nd, the regions announced on Friday — and although the results of the vote will not be legally binding, they could have major implications for Italy’s general election next year.

At the heart of the issue is money: Grimoldi said the regions were fed up with “giving 80 billion euros [each year] to the state coffers”.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Wages Up in Poland

Average wages in companies employing more than nine people in Poland rose 5.2 percent year on year in March to PLN 4,577 (USD 1,155, EUR 1,072) a month, according to the country’s Central Statistical Office (GUS).

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Caroline Glick: Turkey and Trump’s Unpredictability

According to Michael Anton, one of President Donald Trump’s top foreign policy aides, the chief characteristic of Trump’s foreign policy is unpredictability.

On the surface, unpredictability is a great advantage.

Keeping US enemies guessing, at least to some degree, about how the US will respond to hostile acts expands Washington’s maneuver room.

But one of the consequences of Trump’s desire not to be locked into one pattern of behavior is that it is unclear how he thinks about the world, and the many threats facing the US and its allies. As a result, it is difficult to know whether he can be trusted to take the actions necessary to protect American interests and to stand by America’s allies.

Take for instance the administration’s actions this week in relation to the nuclear deal with Iran. On the one hand, on Tuesday the State Department notified Congress that Iran is in compliance with its obligations under the nuclear deal.

On the other hand, on Wednesday Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stood before the cameras and read Iran the riot act. Tillerson set out in detail all of the ways that Iran threatens the US and its allies and many of the reasons that the nuclear deal is a disaster.

He announced that the Trump administration was revisiting US policy on Iran and pledged that Trump will not leave the Iranian threat to his successors.

It is almost impossible to square this circle…

           — Hat tip: Caroline Glick [Return to headlines]
 

Do These Ancient Carvings Show a Comet Strike Hit Earth in 10950 BC and Began an Ice Age?

ANCIENT symbols carved into stone at an archaeological site in Turkey tell the story of a devastating comet impact that triggered a mini ice age more than 13,000 years ago, scientists believe.

Evidence from the carvings, made on a pillar known as the Vulture Stone, suggests that a swarm of comet fragments hit the Earth in around 11000 BC.

One image of a headless man is thought to symbolise human disaster and extensive loss of life.

The site is at Gobekli Tepe in southern Turkey, which experts now believe may have been an ancient observatory.

[Comment: I encourage people to read about Gobekli Tepe. The Wikipedia article is a good place to start. The archaeological discoveries at Gobekli Tepe are causing a rethink of human history. ]

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Teen Accused of Sending Thousands to Her ISIS Crush

A lovesick Sydney teen could face up to 15 years in the slammer for sending more than $13,000 to her ISIS sweetie, who promised to marry her.

Zemarai Khatiz, a lawyer for the now-17-year-old girl, insists that she was “brainwashed” and “manipulated” into becoming the militant’s “puppet,” he told the Parramatta Children’s Court on Friday, according to Australia’s Daily Telegraph.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Waleed Aly and Wife Susan Carland Buy $2million Home in Upmarket Melbourne Suburb — Just a Year After He Complained He Could Only Afford to Rent Thanks to Sky-High House Prices

Waleed Aly and wife Susan Carland bought a $2 million house in the trendy Melbourne suburb of Richmond, just a year after they revealed they rented as it was too expensive to buy there.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

Venezuela: Ten People Killed in Caracas Looting Incident

Ten people have been killed in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, during a looting incident at a bakery.

Footage recorded by residents showed heavy shooting and police in armoured vehicles trying to regain control of the situation in El Valle district.

In a separate incident, a man was shot outside the capital at the end of an opposition march.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

4 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/21/2017

  1. This meeting between an invertebrate traitor and a giant toad will take place in a known location? Sounds like a perfect opportunity to let the ummah know that a secret draw-a-picture-of-muhammed event is taking place behind closed doors. Would be the height of irony if those two slugs were salted by their own foot soldiers.

  2. Trump’s foreign policy is not to police the world. We have allies with soldiers to sacrifice, too, and who have money to spend on keeping the world under control.

    Let our allies carry the burden for the forseeable future while America licks its wounds for all the military actions it has lost since Herbert Walker Bush decided to defend Kuwait in that set up.

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