Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/25/2017

A vessel carrying “refugees” from Turkey to Greece sank, and at least sixteen people drowned. Two passengers were rescued, and a number of others are still missing.

In other news, Italian authorities deported two Tunisian members of the Islamic State, and also arrested a dangerous man of unspecified ethnicity who had planned Islamic terrorist attacks in Italy.

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

Thanks to Insubria, Reader from Chicago, RR, 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.

Financial Crisis
» Eurostat: Romania Had a Budget Deficit of 3% of GDP in 2016
 
USA
» Billionaire George Soros Now a Player in Philly DA Race
» Pamela Anderson Writes About Her ‘Special Relationship’ With Julian Assange
» What’s it Take to Charge Terrorism in South Dakota?
 
Europe and the EU
» German Nationalists Elect Top Duo for General Election
» Islam in the Heart of England and France
» Italy: 2 Tunisian ISIS Members Deported
» Italy: Berlusconi Bribing Senators Case Times Out
» Italy: PD Voices Satisfaction at Macron Showing
» Italy: Five Officers Sent to Trial in Afghan Armoured Car Case
» Italy Arrests Man Who Planned Attacks on ‘Non-Believers’
» Nigel Farage Claims Marine Le Pen Victory is in Brexit Britain’s Interest
» Spain Arrests 9 Suspects, Probes Ties to Brussels Attacks
 
Balkans
» Croatia: New Long Queue at Slovenia Border
» EU: No Incendiary Statements on “Greater Albania”
 
Middle East
» From Aspiring Stylist to Jihadist Widow: One Woman’s Syria Story
 
Latin America
» Death Toll Reaches 26 as Political Protests in Venezuela Continue
 
Immigration
» Boat Carrying Migrants From Turkey to Greece Sinks; 16 Dead
 

Eurostat: Romania Had a Budget Deficit of 3% of GDP in 2016

Among lowest level of debt aganist GDP (37.6%)

(ANSA) — BUCHAREST — Four EU Member States, including Romania, had a government deficit equal to or above 3% of GDP, according to a preliminary estimation published on Monday by Eurostat.

Spain recorded a negative balance of 4.5% of GDP, France a deficit of 3.4% of GDP and Romania and the UK a deficit of 3% of GDP.

On the other hand, by the end of 2016, Romania was among the EU Member States with the lowest level of government debt against the Gross Domestic Product (37.6%).

As for the estimates for this year, according to the winter economic forecast published at mid-February by the European Commission, in Romania the public deficit would reach 3.6% of GDP in 2017 against 3.2% as estimated last autumn.

According to The Romania Journal, earlier this month, Minister of Public Finance Viorel Tefan said that the ministry will draw up a convincing programme that he will send to the European Commission by April 25, explaining that Romania will meet the budget deficit target of 3% of GDP.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Billionaire George Soros Now a Player in Philly DA Race

The Democratic primary election for district attorney in Philadelphia, already crowded with seven candidates, added another significant player Tuesday.

Billionaire George Soros has arrived. And he plans to spend a significant chunk of change to support one of the seven candidates, civil-rights attorney Larry Krasner.

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

Pamela Anderson Writes About Her ‘Special Relationship’ With Julian Assange

Pamela Anderson has posted a bizarre poem about her “special relationship” with Julian Assange on her website.

The star shared the lengthy poem on Monday. In it, she discussed President Donald Trump’s relationship with Theresa May and suggested France, the U.S. and the U.K. have a “threesome.”

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

What’s it Take to Charge Terrorism in South Dakota?

The Sioux Falls man accused of making a terrorist threat is one of the first people to face the charge in state court.

Two weeks ago, Ehab Jaber was escorted out of an anti-Islam event, where he’d appeared with a legal firearm on his hip and attempted to live stream speeches before being escorted out.

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

German Nationalists Elect Top Duo for General Election

Likely to move the party even further to the right

(ANSA) — BERLIN — Germany’s nationalist party Alternative for Germany has elected two new top candidates for the September general election, after theparty’s best-known politician, Frauke Petry, said last week she wouldn’t be available, reported AP.

Members of the AfD elected the far-right politicians Alexander Gauland and Alice Weidel on Sunday at their party convention in Cologne.

Divisions erupted among the different factions of the German nationalists as delegates from the populist AfD rejected an appeal Saturday by Petry to seek a pragmatic political path instead of turning into a “fundamental opposition” party.

Gauland, 76, is one of the party’s most prominent members and considered one of Petry’s main rivals. Weidel, 38, is a consultant from southwestern Germany. The new duo is likely to move the party even further to the right.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Islam in the Heart of England and France

The city of Birmingham in the West Midlands, the heart of England, the place where the Industrial Revolution began, the second city of the UK and the eighth-largest in Europe, today is Britain’s most dangerous city. With a large and growing Muslim population, five of its electoral wards have the highest levels of radicalization and terrorism in the country.

In February, French journalist Rachida Samouri published an article in the Parisian daily Le Figaro, in which she recounted her experiences during a visit there. In “Birmingham à l’heure islamiste” (“Birmingham in the Time of Islam”) she describes her unease with the growing dislocation between normative British values and those of the several Islamic enclaves. She mentions the Small Heath quarter, where nearly 95% of the population is Muslim, where little girls wear veils; most of the men wear beards, and women wear jilbabs and niqabs to cover their bodies and faces. Market stalls close for the hours of prayer; the shops display Islamic clothes and the bookshops are all religious. Women she interviewed condemned France as a dictatorship based on secularism (laïcité), which they said they regarded as “a pretext for attacking Muslims”. They also said that they approved of the UK because it allowed them to wear a full veil.

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

Italy: 2 Tunisian ISIS Members Deported

36 extremists now expelled in 2017, 168 since 2015

(ANSA) — Rome, April 20 — Italy on Thursday deported two Tunisians residentin Sicily who had allegedly joined so-called Islamic State (ISIS).

The orders signed by Interior Minister Marco Minniti brought to 36 the number of extremists expelled this year, and to 168 since 2015.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Berlusconi Bribing Senators Case Times Out

Ex-premier, Lavitola got 3 yrs

(ANSA) — Naples, Naples 20 — A case in which ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi was convicted of bribing Senators to switch sides has timed out under Italy’s statute of limitations, a Naples court said Thursday. In the first-instance trial Berlusconi was sentenced to three years, as was his former associate Valter Lavitola. During the first trial a former Senator who claims he was bribed by Berlusconi to switch sides testified that the former premier failed to agree on an “exit strategy” with him once Naples prosecutors were about to uncover their alleged deal and fled “like Schettino”, referring tothe disgraced former Costa Concordia captain convicted of multiple manslaughter. “He ran away just like (Francesco) Schettino fled from his ship,” during the January 2012 wreck of the Concordia cruise liner, former Senator Sergio De Gregorio said at a the so-called ‘Senator-buying’ trial in Naples where Berlusconi was a defendant.

De Gregorio says the three-time premier and he had adopted a strategy of “urban warfare” against Romano Prodi’s shaky center-left 2006-08 coalition government and testified that he had agreed to “gradually” switch sides and involve other lawmakers in exchange for three million euros.

He said one million euros went to fund his movement “Italiani nel mondo”, Italians in the world, and the other two million were paid to him cash by the former editor of the Avanti! newspaper, Lavitola, who was also on trial in Naples.

He added that when payments were late he disobeyed orders by Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia party to vote against the government “to send out a signal” and that Lavitola would “run off to solve the problem and came back with the money”.

Lavitola was originally convicted of acting as a go-between in the caseof De Gregorio.

Prosecutors alleged that Lavitola tried to bribe other Senators who have not been identified.

Former premier and ex-European Commission president Prodi testified that he had no idea that Senators were allegedly bribed to topple his government in 2008.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: PD Voices Satisfaction at Macron Showing

Orlando hails pro-EU position

(ANSA) — Rome, April 24 — Members of Premier Paolo Gentiloni’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) on Monday expressed satisfaction that Emmanuel Macroncame top in the first round of the French presidential election ahead of Marine Le Pen.

“There is good news on two fronts from France,” said Justice Minister Andrea Orlando, who is challenging ex-premier Matteo Renzi for leadership ofthe PD. “In the first place, Le Pen did not break through and a para-Fascist party that would have thrown the process of European integration into crisis did not break though with her. “Secondly, we have the success of a candidate who is powerfully pro Europe”. Agriculture Minister Maurizio Martinavoiced satisfaction too. “Macron’s result is very important,” he said. “I think it’s a fundamental signal for all European progressive, reformist democrats”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Five Officers Sent to Trial in Afghan Armoured Car Case

After two suicides

(ANSA) — Rome, April 20 — A Rome military judge on Thursday sent five Italian army officers to trial June 12 for alleged fraud in allegedly ordering lighter and cheaper armour for vehicles in Afghanistan.

A sixth man, an army colonel, hanged himself on April 6.

The family of the colonel, who was not named, do not believe he committed suicide.

The probe started after the 2010 suicide at Kabul airport of another officer, Captain Marco Callegaro, who allegedly shot himself.

His family too have not accepted the suicide verdict and have been campaigning to shed light on the case.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy Arrests Man Who Planned Attacks on ‘Non-Believers’

Italian police on Monday arrested a man they described as “extremely dangerous”, who had reportedly already planned terrorist attacks in Italy and used social media to recruit potential accomplices.

The 29-year-old had promoted Islamist extremism online, calling in one message for “non-believers” to be “roasted on kebab skewers” and fed to dogs, according to a police report.

A judge for preliminary investigations described him as “an extremely dangerous subject” who posed a “very high risk of moving on to carrying out serious acts of violence”.

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

Nigel Farage Claims Marine Le Pen Victory is in Brexit Britain’s Interest

NIGEL FARAGE has hailed Marine Le Pen’s “clever” move to step down as president of the Front National after branding her election rival “the enemy of nation state democracy”.

The former Ukip leader said Emmanuel Macron wanted the European Union to be “even stronger” and said it was in the UK’s interest for Ms Le Pen to defy the polls and emerge victorious.

Speaking on his LBC show, the MEP said a victory for Ms Le Pen next month would be good for the UK with Eurocrats “lining up to try and punish Britain” over Brexit.

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

Spain Arrests 9 Suspects, Probes Ties to Brussels Attacks

Police in northeastern Spain arrested nine suspected members of a jihadi group Tuesday in raids that might help resolve recent deadly attacks in Belgium and France.

Police said the arrested were one Spaniard and eight Moroccans living in Catalonia between 30 and 40 years old.

A regional police spokeswoman said at least four of the detained are suspected of being linked to people arrested following the 2016 Brussels airport and subway attacks that killed 32 people and wounded 300 others. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with police regulations.

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

Croatia: New Long Queue at Slovenia Border

Because new Schengen measures against terrorism

(ANSA) — ZAGABRIA, 21 APR — Before the week-end new long queues formed at the border between Slovenia and Croatia, especially at Obrezje-Bregana on the highway Lubiana-Zagreb. At the moment, cars wait for one hour; buses for two, three hours.

Anyway, waits shorter in comparision to the ones during Easter holidays, when people had to wait for five hours.

Problems are caused bu new european measures against terrorism, that estabilish accurate controls at Schengen borders, also for Eu citizens.

Few days ago Croatia criticized Slovenia authorities because too much severe controls. Yesterday Croatia president, Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, asked toBruxelles to find a solution.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

EU: No Incendiary Statements on “Greater Albania”

Spokesperson, focus on reforms and European integration

(ANSA) — BELGRADE — Leaders of the Balkan countries, instead of making incendiary declarations that do not favour reconciliation, should focus on reforms and co-operation, according to Maja Kocijancic, EU Commission spokeswoman.

Speaking to Serbia’s Tanjug newsagency on recent statements made by Pristina and Tirana governments about the so-called ‘Greater Albania’ project, thespokesman recalled the repeated statements on this topic released by EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and the Commissioner for Enlargement Johannes Hahn.

Instead of incendiary declarations, “the EU expects everyone in the regionto continue building good and co-operative relations in order to take further steps towards European integration”, said Kocijancic. Serbian leadership has strongly condemned some recent statements made by Albania’s PM Edi Rama and Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci on a possible union between the twocountries in view of a single state for all the Balkan communities belonging to Albanian ethnicity.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

From Aspiring Stylist to Jihadist Widow: One Woman’s Syria Story

Twenty-three year old Islam Maytat from Morocco poses for a photo with her children Maria (L) and Abdullah in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli in northern Syrian on April 13, 2017, after she escaped from Islamic State (IS) group territory following three traumatic years living in the group’s so-called “caliphate”. Maytat thought marrying an Afghan-British businessman was her ticket to a new life as a fashionista in London. Instead, she ended up a widow under jihadist rule in Syria. —

QAMISHLI, Syria: Islam Maytat thought marrying an Afghan-British businessman was her ticket to a new life as a fashionista in London. Instead she became a widow living under jihadist rule in Syria. At just 23, the young Moroccan spent three traumatic years in northern Syria under the Islamic State group’s so-called “caliphate”. Tens of thousands of foreigners have joined jihadist groups in Syria, including women who are encouraged to marry and raise the children of IS fighters.

Some, like Maytat, have been lured unknowingly into marriages with would-be jihadists. Maytat spoke to AFP after fleeing IS’s northern stronghold of Raqa to territory controlled by a US-backed alliance fighting the extremist group. Now safe in the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli, Maytat holds her gurgling 10-month-old daughter Maria in her lap as she tells her story.

“Meeting my husband was one of the things that motivated me to study fashion design in Europe, but I had no luck. Everything went wrong,” she said. She first met Khalil Ahmed-an Afghan-British trader who worked in Dubai online in early 2014 and they married two months later. He flew to Morocco to marry her and they then went to Dubai, stepping into a complex web of lies and journeys across the Middle East that would eventually take her to Syria.

Going to the caliphate

Ahmed proved to be a strict, controlling husband who did not allow her to wear makeup or bright clothes. After a brief trip to Afghanistan to meet his family, Maytat was eager to get to London and start working as a stylist. Ahmed proposed travelling to Istanbul, convincing a reluctant Maytat that it would be easier to move to London from there. But as soon as they landed in Turkey, Ahmed immediately drove her to the southeastern city of Gaziantep near the border with Syria.

Ankara has long been accused of turning a blind eye to IS fighters using the porous Syrian-Turkish border to transport people, goods, and funds-allegations it vehemently denies. In Gaziantep, Maytat and Ahmed moved into a large house full of ecstatic couples from countries including Saudi Arabia, Algeria and France. “I asked them ‘Why are you here?’ And they told me they were there to migrate to the caliphate in Syria,” Maytat recalls…

           — Hat tip: RR [Return to headlines]
 

Death Toll Reaches 26 as Political Protests in Venezuela Continue

Two men have become the latest to die in political violence in Venezuela, bring the number of fatalities in recent weeks up to 26.

The state prosecutor’s office in the western state of Lara said Orlando Medina, 23, was gunned down in a protest against the rule of President Nicolas Maduro.

Meanwhile, 52-year-old Luis Marquez died in the Andean state of Merida in the early hours of Tuesday morning after being shot at a pro-Maduro rally, state ombudsman Tarek Saab said

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

Boat Carrying Migrants From Turkey to Greece Sinks; 16 Dead

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A migrant boat sinking in the eastern Aegean between Greece and Turkey left at least 16 people dead, including two children, Greek authorities said Monday, while two people were rescued. Patrol boats and helicopters were searching for several more people believed missing.

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

2 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/25/2017

  1. I’m worried that this whole Islamic invasion madness is turning me into a bad person. When I read that news item about the “refugee” boat overturning and drowning 16 people, my immediate reaction was, “good.” Immediately followed by, “why is it only the boats carrying dozens that sink? Why not the ones carrying hundreds?” That’s messed up! I didn’t used to be the kind of person who enjoyed hearing that other human beings have died. But considering who they were and what they would do, I can’t feel any other way. I hate this.

  2. Let me join you,Unsurprised! I have travelled to muslim countries,was a houseguest several times and even have long time friends there. But the third world scum flooding into my country made me hostile and even hateful, feelings I had never had in my life before.This makes me angry and like you,I hate it to hate.

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