The London School of Economics asked the BBC not to air its new documentary about North Korea. The footage was obtained by reporters who went undercover on a tour with LSE graduate students, and the university is afraid that the film has put those students at risk, as well as endangering possible future tours of the Hermit Kingdom.
In other news, a notorious criminal mastermind dynamited his way out of a high-security French prison and is now at large.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, DS, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, Mary Abdelmassih, 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.
I was the first to point out that the Federal Reserve was rigging all markets, not merely bond prices and interest rates, and that the Fed is rigging the bullion market in order to protect the US dollar’s exchange value, which is threatened by the Fed’s quantitative easing. With the Fed adding to the supply of dollars faster than the demand for dollars is increasing, the price or exchange value of the dollar is set up to fall.
A fall in the dollar’s exchange rate would push up import prices and, thereby, domestic inflation, and the Fed would lose control over interest rates. The bond market would collapse and with it the values of debt-related derivatives on the “banks too big too fail” balance sheets. The financial system would be in turmoil, and panic would reign.
Rapidly rising bullion prices were an indication of loss of confidence in the dollar and were signaling a drop in the dollar’s exchange rate. The Fed used naked shorts in the paper gold market to offset the price effect of a rising demand for bullion possession. Short sales that drive down the price trigger stop-loss orders that automatically lead to individual sales of bullion holdings once their loss limits are reached.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Black Employment Golden Days: Pre-1960
Walter E. Williams stresses ill effects of minimum wage laws, labor unions
A couple of weeks ago, Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson, speaking at the National Press Club, said the nation “would never tolerate white unemployment at 14 and 15 percent.” Black unemployment has been double that of white Americans for more than 50 years. The black youth unemployment rate is more than 40 percent nationally. In some cities, unemployment for black working-age males is more than 50 percent. Let’s look at this, but first let’s look at some history.
— From 1900 to 1954, blacks were more active than whites in the labor market. Until about 1960, black male labor force participation in every age group was equal to or greater than that of whites. During that period, black teen unemployment was roughly equal to or less than white teen unemployment. As early as 1900, the duration of black unemployment was 15 percent shorter than that of whites; today it’s about 30 percent longer. To do something about today’s employment picture requires abandonment of sacred cows and honesty.
The typical answer given for many black problems is racial discrimination. No one argues that every vestige of racial discrimination has been eliminated. But the relevant question is: How much of what we see can be explained by discrimination? I doubt whether anyone would argue that the reason for lower unemployment, higher labor force participation and shorter duration of unemployment among blacks in the first half of the 20th century was that there was less racial discrimination. I also doubt whether anyone would argue that during earlier periods, blacks had higher education and greater skills attainment than whites. Answers must be sought elsewhere.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Economy Worse Today Than in 1929
(AGI) — Venice, Apr 12 — The negative impact of the crisis is worse today than in the Thirties. This is the conclusion reached by the Association of Crafts and Small Businesses, Mestre CGIA, after comparing certain economic indicators recorded in the years 1929-1934 and 2007-2012. This analysis highlighted a significant investment profile. In the ‘30s, investment dropped 12.8 percent whereas today’s contraction has more than doubled, reaching 27.6 percent. GNP data showed a similar tendency. An actual 1929 contraction of 5.1 percent pales by comparison with today’s 6.9 percent reduction, while the per capita portion of GNP shrunk 8.6 percent in 1929 as against today’s 9.4 percent drop. Mestre CGIA secretary, Giuseppe Bortolussi commented, “The seriousness of this situation requires a strong and authoritative government, set to quickly reverse the economic and fiscal policies enforced during the last year-and-a-half. We’ve had enough of austerity and the zeal that are causing a dreadful increase in unemployment!”, Bortolussi added, concluding: “We need to lower taxes and encourage consumption at the family level, or most small businesses will have no future.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Yields Decline as Investors Shrug Off Political Crisis
Rome, 11 April (AKI/Bloomberg) — Italian borrowing costs dropped at an auction of 7.17 billion euros of bonds Thursday as investors shrug off risks tied to the country’s political crisis.
Italy sold 4 billion euros of a new 2.25% 2016 bonds at 2.29 percent, down from the 2.48 percent on similar maturing debt March 13. Investors bid 1.40 times the amount of the new three-year bond offered, up from 1.28 times last month.
The Rome-based treasury also sold longer-term debt, placing 1.67 billion euros of 4.75% 2028 bonds and 1.5 billion euros of floating-rate 2017 bonds to yield respectively 4.68 percent and 2.74 percent. Italy sold a total of 7.17 billion euros of debt, near the 7.5 billion-euro maximum target.
“The auction was smoothly absorbed,” Annalisa Piazza, a fixed-income analyst at Newedge Group in London, said by e-mail after the auction. “That said, markets are currently not pricing in domestic risks on the political side.”
Italy’s February election failed to produce a parliamentary majority, leaving Prime Minister Mario Monti as a caretaker until a new administration can be formed. Monti said yesterday Italy’s debt will reach a post-war record of 130.4 percent this year as the euro region’s third-biggest economy borrows to help contribute to bailouts and pay arrears to government suppliers.
Monti said undoing his economic policy would be a mistake and the country’s improved credibility “can be undermined quickly.” The government managed to keep its budget deficit within the EU’s limit of 3 percent of GDP, easing some of the concern over the debt level.
Even if the rise of the debt-to-GDP ratio may be a concern for markets, “the increase in the debt does not reflect a genuine deterioration of the fiscal stance and should not come as a surprise,” Loredana Federico, a Milan-based economist for UniCredit SpA (UCG), wrote in a note this week.
Italy sold one-year bills yesterday at the lowest rate since January and paid a record low yield to place three-month debt. Today’s sale was probably helped by 16.7 billion euros of bond redemptions due on April 15.
Italian government bonds stayed little changed after the sale, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year bond at 4.31 percent.
While Italy awaits a new government, talks between political parties are focusing on the election of the successor to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano. Parliamentary voting for the presidency starts as soon as 18 Apri.l
A possible compromise on Napolitano’s successor between former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Liberty Party and Pier Luigi Bersani’s Democratic Party may be the first step in forging a coalition government.
Bersani won a majority in the Chamber of Deputies in the Feb. 24-25 vote, while falling short in the Senate, where Berlusconi has a blocking minority.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
All Three Mainstream News Networks Are Little More Than Shameless Parrots for White House Propaganda
Most Americans know that the three major broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — are well-oiled echo chambers and propaganda arms of the current White House regime, but more are likely to become convinced by this latest example of what I like to call “talking points reporting.”
You may have heard that the U.S. economy is in trouble. In fact, it is continuing to flounder under the policies of Barack Obama (no, it is no longer the “Bush economy”), a fact reflected by the still-anemic job growth (only 88,000 new jobs were created in March, while 495,000 Americans simply dropped out of the workforce completely) [http://www.foxnews.com].
‘Solidarity’
In response to this, our chivalrous president, claiming “solidarity” with struggling workers, announced April 3 that he would take a 5 percent pay cut. While we can debate the impact of that cut — the president lives, eats and travels and the expense of the U.S. taxpayer — the real “story” here is how the three major broadcast networks framed the announcement.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bill Maher: ‘The Second Amendment is B******t’
On his Friday HBO program, “Real Time” host Bill Maher said what many people on the left have been reluctant to say: that he opposes the Second Amendment guarantee of the right to bear arms.
Maher complained his side would not come out and say that, making the argument a “constant center-right debate.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Moral Relativism and Jihad
Two events happened on Wednesday which should send a shiver down the spine of everyone concerned about the future of the American Jewish community. But to understand their importance it is important to consider the context in which they occurred.
On January 13, The New York Times reported on a series of virulently anti-Jewish comments Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi made in speeches given in 2010. Among other things, Morsi said, “We must never forget, brothers, to nurse our children and our grandchildren on hatred for them: for Zionists, for Jews.” He said that Egyptian children “must feed on hatred; hatred must continue. The hatred must go on for God and as a form of worshiping him.”
In another speech, he called Jews “bloodsuckers,” and “the descendants of apes and pigs.”
Two weeks after the Times ran the story, the Obama administration sent four F-16 fighter jets to Egypt as part of a military aid package announced in December 2012 entailing the provision of 20 F-16s and 200 M1-A1 Abrams tanks.
The Anti-Defamation League, AIPAC, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and other prominent American Jewish groups did not oppose the weapons transfer.
With the American Jewish leadership silent on the issue, Israel found its national security championed by Sen. Rand Paul. He attached an amendment to a budget bill that would bar the US from transferring the advanced weapons platforms to Egypt.
Paul explained, “Egypt is currently governed by a religious zealot… who said recently that Jews were bloodsuckers and descendants of apes and pigs. This doesn’t sound like the kind of stable personality we [sh]ould be sending our most sophisticated weapons to.”…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Democrats Call for Door to Door Gun Confiscation (Video)
Democratic Austin City Council member and potential next mayor Mike Martinez also admitted during a speech that the Obama administration’s long term gun control agenda is focused on banning firearms altogether. Watch the clip below.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
DOD Issues Instructions on Military Support of Civilian Law Enforcement
Military commanders have “emergency authority” to use military forces in civilian law enforcement functions.
The Department of Defense has issued an instruction clarifying the rules for the involvement of military forces in civilian law enforcement. The instruction establishes “DoD policy, assigns responsibilities, and provides procedures for DoD support to Federal, State, tribal, and local civilian law enforcement agencies, including responses to civil disturbances within the United States.”
The new instruction titled “Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” was released at the end of February, replacing several older directives on military assistance to civilian law enforcement and civil disturbances. The instruction requires that senior DoD officials develop “procedures and issue appropriate direction as necessary for defense support of civilian law enforcement agencies in coordination with the General Counsel of the Department of Defense, and in consultation with the Attorney General of the United States”, including “tasking the DoD Components to plan for and to commit DoD resources in response to requests from civil authorities for [civil disturbance operations].” Military officials are to coordinate with “civilian law enforcement agencies on policies to further DoD cooperation with civilian law enforcement agencies” and the heads of the combatant commands are instructed to issue procedures for “establishing local contact points in subordinate commands for purposes of coordination with Federal, State, tribal, and local civilian law enforcement officials.”
[Comment: check out the picture of the military training to “respond to an escalating civil-disturbance situation caused by unhappy simulated hurricane victims.” You’ll notice the “practice protestors” (wearing black t-shirts) are slightly outnumbered.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How’s the Seventeenth Amendment Working Out for You?
Gun owners all over the country — including law enforcement who take their oath of office seriously — are shocked by the level of attack against the Second Amendment since the horrendous tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary school last December.
“Gun control” is chanted a hundred times a day by members of the Democratic/Communist Party USA and their sycophants. The useful fools in print and electronic media, as well as barkers on the boob tube, make sure Americans get daily mega doses of carefully crafted propaganda. The families of children and teachers killed in Newtown have allowed themselves in their profound grief to be used as tools for tyrants and they’re very serious about it:
Newtown families: Victims turn lobbyists
“When a lobbyist for families of Newtown shooting victims called the office of Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to set up a meeting, the first response was a standard D.C. offer. They could get a meeting with her staff, and Collins would stop by, they were told. The families’ answer: not good enough. According to their lobbyists, the families have a rule against staff-only meetings: They won’t do them. They insist on sitting down with the senators themselves. The families wound up getting more than 15 minutes with Collins.
“That rule is just one of the ways that the Newtown families, political novices just a few months ago, are proving to be savvy, effective advocates as they promote the gun legislation that has finally begun to move through the Senate. The families are well-educated, and many are well-off. They have been polished and sharp on TV. They’re mostly non-political, but quite accomplished in their own fields. With access to money and media, they’re using persistence, visibility — and, most all, their unique moral authority — to help prod Senate action. They also have their own lobbyists — several of them, in fact.”
I won’t use the over-used “we cannot imagine their pain”. We can’t. However, those families have no right to demand the Second Amendment be infringed, altered or amended, period.
For those who might not be familiar with the issue of the Seventeenth Amendment and the point I’m making in this column, here’s a short refresher:
[…]
What we’ve seen with NYC, Colorado and the State of Connecticut isn’t gun control. It’s a major step towards amending and eventually nullifying the Second Amendment, which no government, state, local or federal has any legal right to do. You couldn’t pay me to go to NYC or the State of Connecticut and spend a dime.
Colorado’s major population centers like Denver and Boulder were long ago taken over by socialists and communists who call themselves liberals or progressive liberals. They infest the state capitol and governor’s mansion like the vermin they are in their quest to destroy freedom and liberty.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
John Locke, Freedom of Religion & America
Englishman John Locke (1632 — 1704) is arguably our most influential modern thinker. He is regarded as the leading light of several signal movements, without which the modern era would be inconceivable, including — Classical Liberalism (aka modern Conservatism), Property Rights, the Enlightenment, Libertarianism, Empiricism, Natural Rights, and Freedom of Religion, etc.
Locke enjoyed notable friendships and debates with some of the leading figures of his day, including Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, the 1st Lord Shaftesbury Ashley Cooper, etc. Locke was also deeply religious, considering himself a Christian, and undertaking a lifelong study of theology and biblical commentary. One author describes his influence:
“John Locke was a 17th-century English philosopher whose ideas formed the foundation of liberal democracy and greatly influenced the American Revolution. He taught all people are born equal and education can free people from the subjugation of tyranny. Locke believed government was morally obligated to guarantee individuals always retained sovereignty over their own rights, including property ownership resulting from their own labor.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Now Your iPhone Can Read Fingerprints, Scan Irises and ID Your Face
Cops and soldiers may soon be able to pull out their iPhones to track the eyes, facial features, voice and fingerprints of suspected criminals and combatants.
The California-based company AOptix rolled out a new hardware and app package that transforms an iPhone into a mobile biometric reader. As first reported by Danger Room in February, AOptix is the recipient of a $3 million research contract from the Pentagon for its on-the-go biometrics technology.
Opting for what it considers ease of use, the company decided to build its latest biometrics package, which it calls Stratus, atop an iPhone. A peripheral covering wraps around the phone — it’s an inch and a half thick, three inches wide and six inches tall — while the AOptix Stratus app presents a user interface familiar to any iOS user. Except you’re not going to be recording Vine videos, you’re going to be recording the most unique physical features of another human being.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
To call Obamacare “socialist” is to do it an injustice. It is pure communism.
Obamacare — the Affordable Care Act — is both imploding from its own dead weight and conversely exploding in the face of the Democratic Party as we head toward the 2014 midterm elections. You remember the Democrats? They were the ones who, on Christmas Eve 2009 passed Obamacare in the late hours. It’s the bill Nancy Pelosi told us had to be passed “so we can find out what’s in it.”
The bad news for Democrats and worse news for Barack Obama is that, since it was signed into law on March 23, 2010, Americans have had three years to learn what a total socialist time bomb Obamacare is. If you wanted to destroy the nation’s economy, you could not have chosen a better way.
The crescendo of the backlash is slowly mounting. Writing in The Hill on April 6th, Sam Baker reported that “Delays in implementing popular pieces of Obamacare are hurting it with Democrats”, referring to policies they believe “could help build support for the unpopular bill.” Oh? It’s unpopular? Who knew?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
San Diego County Considers Forcing Residents to Take Psychiatric Medication Under Laura’s Law
(NaturalNews) San Diego County in California is considering implementing Laura’s Law, which would give the state’s second most populous county — home to over three million people — the uncontested right to force psychiatric medication upon its residents.
Funds for the forced inpatient or outpatient psychiatric incarceration, known as “assisted outpatient treatment” are to be provided by taxpayers. Other bills under consideration would extend Laura’s Law to schoolchildren, at the discretion of school administrators…
The bottom line is this: Someone in authority needs to decide that you are a “danger.” That’s it. Then, they can lock you up and medicate you into oblivion. Case closed.
But wait, it says that you have to have a hard history of hospitalization and violence in order to qualify. Not so! All you need to qualify to lose your physical and mental freedom is, at any time during the last four years, to act/threat/attempt violence to self/others. An “act/threat/attempt” of violence, by the way, could be ANYTHING. Giving someone a dirty look could be interpreted as a threat of violence.
Finally, authorities have put themselves in a position to predict whether or not you are “likely to benefit” from assisted treatment. And the clause, condition likely to substantially deteriorate, suggests that they can take over your life if they feel you may do something wrong in the future.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) In a move to gain total control of the farming industry, three resolutions have been proposed in the state of Missouri. Saint Louis, Missouri is the home of biotech giant Monsanto’s headquarters. These laws have been deceitfully written to appear to support modernization and progression in farming, while in reality their passage will severely limit the rights of small farmers to reuse organic seeds and preserve livestock lines. Small farmers provide consumers with their primary source for local, non GMO, organic foods. It is essential to take action to protect small farmers in individual states, particularly in light of the recent signing of the Monsanto Protection Act by President Obama
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Continued Push for the Socialization of America, Part 1
Looking at America today we no longer see the nation that our Founders gave us. They gave us a nation where if you worked hard, you could succeed. They gave us a nation that any person could rise to the top and was even encouraged to. But today we penalize success via taxes and our president vilifies people who do make a lot of money. He should encourage them to make a lot!
Just recently the Obama administration decided that a person can have too much in their retirement account and they will now decide how much you need and tax the rest. Here is a comment from a senior administration official said that wealthy taxpayers can currently “accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving.” I would like to know when the federal government was given the right and the authority to determine how much we need for a retirement account.
One of the biggest problems in America is the destruction of the family. Welfare encourages the break up of the family. It rewards promiscuity and penalizes marriage. Now we have a fool from MSNBC, Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry, that stated that “We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had kind of a private notion of children: your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children.”
“So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.” The destruction of the family is one of the 45 goals the Communists set up to destroy America. I believe that this is the most important factor to the success of America. Their number 40 goal is Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce. The fight to redefine marriage to include male/male and female/female as well as male/female and who knows what else that want is breaking down the institution of marriage. The claim that a child ‘belongs to the whole community’ is another of their goals; 41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents. By declaring that kids don’t belong to their parents is simply an attack on the family itself but the institution of marriage itself.
When you look at the 45 goals they have set there are very few that they have not accomplished!
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
China: Ferrari Lures Elite With $970,000 Luxury Cars Despite FI Apathy
Bejiing, 12 April (AKI/Bloomberg) — Bernie Ecclestone is struggling to get the Chinese interested in Formula One even as Italy’s Ferrari, which runs the auto-racing series’ most-successful team, is expanding and lures the country’s elite with $970,000.
Formula One said it trails Italian soccer’s Serie A and the National Basketball Association in popularity in China, and the state-run broadcaster cut its coverage of the 2012 championship by almost one-third amid an audience share of 4 percent. The 10th edition of the Chinese Grand Prix is April 14 in Shanghai.
Ecclestone, Formula One’s chief executive officer, said the audience in China is “disappointing” given the size of its population. “We decided to go to China because we’re a world championship and it’s part of the world,” he said in an April 5 interview. “The organizers are doing their best.”
Formula One, which persuaded state authorities to build a $240 million racetrack outside Shanghai a decade ago, has had little success attracting local sponsors in China, said Mark Gallagher, a former Red Bull Racing team board member. The 11 teams currently count one Chinese company between them as an official partner. UBS AG (UBSN), Switzerland’s biggest bank, took over as the race title sponsor in 2011, two years after China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (386) cut its ties.
“In downtown Shanghai on the Friday or Saturday before the race, you don’t get the impression Formula One is in town,” Gallagher said. “There’s no buzz.”
Formula One gets most of its $1.5 billion of annual income from Europe, where all the teams and more than two-third of drivers are based.
Seven races in Asia, the Middle East and Australia generated $402 million in 2011, compared with $902 million from nine European events, according to a prospectus for Formula One’s initial public offering that was postponed in June because of market conditions.
As Formula One faces indifference, Ferrari — the only ever-present team since the series began in 1950 — is expanding in China. The carmaker opened its first showroom in mainland China in 2004. It now has 25 with plans to add another five by the end of the year, Ferrari spokesman Stefano Lai said.
A dealership in Shanghai, Ital Automotive Co., said this week it’s selling a Ferrari FF for about 6 million yuan ($970,000). That’s as much as three times more expensive than in the U.S. because of higher taxes.
Ferrari, which sold 784 cars in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong last year, uses the Shanghai race to entertain Chinese clients, Lai said.
London-based Formula One doesn’t have a marketing budget and relies on race organizers, teams and TV companies for promotion. It may need a team such as Ferrari or Red Bull to help generate interest by developing a “superstar” Chinese driver, said Gallagher, a former general manager of engine maker Cosworth Group’s Formula One operations.
When Li Na became the first Chinese to win a tennis Grand Slam singles title at the 2011 French Open, the television audience in China soared to 116 million. According to Formula One’s latest Global Broadcast Report, races in 2012 averaged about two million viewers in the country.
Formula One’s champions include title-holder Sebastian Vettel of Germany, who leads the standings after two races, and Spain’s two-time winner Fernando Alonso. The series this year has no drivers from Asia for the first time in more than a decade. The path to Formula One is “more sophisticated” in Europe, starting at age 7, making it hard for Asian drivers to compete, said Force India deputy team principal Robert Fernley.
Ecclestone says repeated changes to the schedule by China Central Television are limiting local audiences. In a “troubled year” for the sport in China, the state broadcaster cut coverage by almost one-third in 2012 and didn’t show races held in Japan, Canada and Hungary, the Global Broadcast Report said.
“Normally you’d rely on television, but the CCTV people do what they like,” Ecclestone, 82, said by telephone last week.
For this season, Ecclestone said he has arranged to switch the series to a network of regional broadcasters. An e-mail sent to CCTV’s English-language website seeking comment about the reduction in Formula One programming wasn’t returned, while calls to two CCTV offices were answered by people who said its sports channel doesn’t have a spokesman.
Many fans who attend the Shanghai event, where tickets were listed at between $61 and $4,600 on a race website, are expatriates or wealthy Chinese who are among Ferrari’s target audience, Gallagher said. The gross national income per capita in China was $4,940 in 2011, according to the World Bank.
An e-mail to Jiang Lan, general manager of local race organizer Shanghai Juss Event Management Co., seeking comment about the popularity of the race wasn’t answered.
Nine months ago, Ma Qing Hua became the first Chinese-born driver of a Formula One car in a practice session with the now defunct HRT team, according to Formula One’s official website. He’s now a test driver for the Caterham team.
While competent, he’s unlikely to be good enough to attract attention in China, Gallagher said.
To be sure, Ecclestone has had more success igniting interest in Asia with the Singapore Grand Prix, the sport’s first night race, which has sold out each year since joining the series in 2008.
Jenson Button, the 2009 world champion, said in September there was a “really good fun, party atmosphere” at the event, which offered 2012 race goers access to a Katy Perry concert.
For now, the Shanghai event may continue to get a lukewarm response, according to Gallagher.
“It’s not going to be heaving,” he said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
French police contaminated vital evidence from the Alpine beauty spot where four people including members of a British family were gunned down in cold blood, it emerged today.
It is the latest in a catalogue of disastrous blunders which have prompted senior investigators to admit that the case may never be solved.
Detectives initially thought ‘mystery DNA’ found at the site of the quadruple murder might lead to the identification of the killer.
It was found in the isolated layby near Lake Annecy where Saad Al-Hilli, 50, died alongside his wife Ikbal, 47, and his mother-in-law Suhalia Al-Allaf, 74, in their BMW car on September 5th. Sylvain Mollier, a 45-year-old French cyclist was also killed in the bloodbath, which is believed to have been carried out by at least one gunman brandishing a pistol.
But Eric Maillaud, the Annecy prosecutor who is leading the enquiry, now admits that an ‘expert’ working for a police forensics team ‘accidentally contaminated’ crime-scene material with his own DNA.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Renzi Polling Twice as High as ‘Big 3’ Leaders
‘More than half Italians want Florence mayor to lead PD’
(ANSA) — Rome, April 12 — Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi’s popularity is twice that of the three leaders who emerged in a virtual tie from February’s inconclusive general election, the SWG polling agency said Friday. Renzi, the rising star of the Democratic Party (PD) that narrowly won the election but failed to get a majority in the Senate, clocked a rating of 56% compared to 27% for centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi, the close runner-up, and anti-establishment comedian Beppe Grillo, also on 27%.
Grillo’s M5S movement holds the balance of power in a hung parliament while Bersani and Berlusconi have been shadow-boxing for 45 days over the ex-premier’s proposal for a left-right ‘grand coalition’.
Renzi’s standing has grown since he publicly urged the PD and Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party to strike a deal or go back to the polls, while Bersani has been hurt by a perceived insistence on wanting a precarious PD-led minority government, amid rising tensions within the centre-left party.
More than half of Italians, 55%, now want Renzi to take over from Bersani as PD leader, SWG said.
Some 40% of PD voters said the same thing.
Only 10% of the general electorate and 29% of the party think Bersani, leader of the old guard Renzi has openly campaigned to “scrap”, should stay on as PD leader.
Amid media speculation the PD might split, Bersani has denied meddling with Tuscan PD voting to deny Renzi a post as one of the electors of the next Italian president starting next Thursday.
Party ‘old guard’ figurehead Massimo D’Alema, an ex-premier, met with Renzi Thursday and said it was a “mistake” to stop the mayor becoming a ‘grand elector’.
Bersani, D’Alema and Renzi have insisted the PD will not break up.
Renzi said Thursday night he would not form his own party and would not leave the PD, “not even if they try to kick me out”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: PD Opposes Eliminating Parliament Seats for Expat Italians
Debate begins over long list of reform proposals from ‘wise men’
(ANSA) — Rome, April 12 — Reaction was swift and negative to a proposal Friday to eliminate Italian parliamentary seats for citizens living abroad.
That proposal was contained within a long list developed by a group of 10 “wise men” appointed by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano as part of a program to capture cross-party support and lead to a new government. Expat voters are an “untapped resource” for Italy’s development and their voices must be heard, said Eugenio Marino, the center-left Democratic Party (PD) representative on the issue.
One of the priorities of the so-called “wise men” was to find a proposal for a new electoral law to replace the much-criticized current system that failed to produce a clear winner nearly two months ago.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi Says Next President Could be Centre-Left
‘Ready to discuss it’ with Bersani, ex-premier says
(ANSA) — Rome, April 12 — Ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi has said he might be willing to consider backing a candidate from the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) for president if it drops its refusal to form a broad government coalition with his People of Freedom (PdL) party.
Italy has been in a state of political deadlock since February’s inconclusive general election because centre-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani has rejected the PdL’s calls for it to form a grand coalition.
Bersani, whose alliance finished ahead of Berlusconi’s coalition in the vote but did not win a working majority in the Senate, failed in a bid to win support from the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) that holds the balance of power in parliament.
As well as working out a way to break the impasse, the parties must also choose a successor to President Giorgio Napolitano, whose seven-year term ends next month.
“We are certainly ready to discuss it,” Berlusconi said in an interview published in Friday’s edition of Rome-based daily La Repubblica when asked about the possibility of a PD member being the next president.
“When we spoke to the (PD) secretary (Bersani this week), we did not name any names.
“But if we agree on a road for the Quirinale (presidential palace), on the other hand we also have to find a agreement for a broad coalition executive with ministers chosen together.
Otherwise nothing”. Bersani has repeatedly said he is willing to talk to the PdL and the other parties to try to reach a consensus candidate to be Napolitano’s successor, while stressing the negotiations should remain separate from the issue of forming a new executive.
On Thursday Bersani scoffed at talk he was among the possible candidates to replace Napolitano. “The only hills I have in mind are those in the province of Piacenza,” said Bersani in reference to his native Emilia Romagna.
The seat of the president of the republic on the Quirinale hill in Rome is commonly referred to simply as ‘Il Colle’, meaning ‘The Hill’. Names for a future president touted on left and right include former centre-left premier Romani Prodi, Berlusconi aide Gianni Letta and Radical Party heavyweight Emma Bonino — who topped a poll Friday — but no consensus candidates have yet to emerge.
Italian media have said two figures on the centre left, ex-premier Giuliano Amato and ex-Senate Speaker Franco Marini, are more palatable for the centre right.
Amato was a long-time economic advisor and highly regarded aide to late Socialist premier Bettino Craxi, a close friend of Berlusconi’s who protected his media empire. The controversial Craxi bestrode the Italian political landscape in the 1980s despite the dominance of the Christian Democrats before becoming the chief culprit in the Bribesville scandals that brought the establishment parties crashing down in the early 1990s.
Craxi eventually fled from an arrest warrant to his Tunisian villa and died there in self-imposed exile, amid belated calls for a pardon, in 2000.
Marini is seen as being more acceptable to the centre right because he comes from the Catholic or Christian-Socialist wing of the PD, and is a former Christian Democrat. Some would like to see Napolitano serve a second term in office but the incumbent president has repeatedly ruled out this possibility.
Many observers expect the next president to call fresh elections unless the PD and PdL can come to an accommodation over the government.
Media pundits say the two parties want a government capable of lasting long enough to let M5S leader Beppe Grillo’s star wane.
Grillo, on the other hand, who has refused to do deals with the PD or PdL, is banking on public perceptions of their alleged “backroom deal” boosting the M5S past the established parties.
A joint parliamentary session to elect the president will start on April 18, also including three representatives from most of Italy’s 20 regions, making a total of 58.
With 945 parliamentarians and four Life Senators, the total of grand electors is 1007. A two-thirds majority is needed in the first three ballots, and then a simple majority is enough.
Tensions within the PD rose this week when Florence mayor Matteo Renzi, a rising force in the PD, was not named as one of the party’s two Tuscan ‘grand electors’.
In the La Repubblica interview Friday, Berlusconi added that he would not seek an “amnesty” that would free him from legal problems.
These include a four-year prison term he is appealing for fraud at his media empire and a trial into allegations he paid for sex with an underage prostitute.
He said he did not need any such measure as he was confident of acquittal on all counts even if the cases reach the supreme court.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Minister Unveils Blueprint for PD Renewal
Barca seen as offering hope for change
(ANSA) — Rome, April 12 — Italy needs not only a new government, but a new form of government, says Fabrizio Barca, an outgoing cabinet minister who has just joined the Democratic Party (PD).
Barca, who has won praise for targeting funds as minister of territorial cohesion since his appointment in November 2011 in the emergency technocrat government of Mario Monti, on Friday unveiled his manifesto for a renewed party and government. “Every single experience of my 16 months of work…leads to this dry political conclusion: without a new form of (political) party, none can govern Italy”.
The public distrusts the mainstream political parties and their “persistent failure of good government,” he said, in introducing the seven-chapter document that he has developed for a left-wing party that would be anchored in Italy’s Constitution.
Barca’s vision of the new party would be one that promises to make better use of public funds, instill stronger civic virtues, and would commit to urban renewal.
The Italian media have speculated that Barca, a long-time economy ministry advisor who first made his name in the early 1990s as one of then-premier Carlo Azeglio Ciampi’s young gurus, might provide an alternative to Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi as future PD leader.
Barca, the son of a heavyweight in the old Italian Communist Party (PCI), one of the precursors of the PD, joined the PD Thursday night.
For now he has said he is only aiming to become a voice on the party executive.
But observers see him as a possible alternative successor to leader Pier Luigi Bersani, who is being increasingly challenged by the younger, more dynamic, media-savvy and centrist Renzi. Barca’s announcement came as Italian President Giorgio Napolitano said that the 10 experts he asked to prepare a government programme capable of winning cross-party support had found “common ground”.
The head of state added that it is now up to the political parties to make a “similar effort of good will for an agreement” to break the deadlock Italy has endured since February’s inconclusive general election.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi Calls for Strong Government or June Elections
(AGI) Bari, Apr 13 — Silvio Berlusconi said that unless a strong government could be formed immediately, elections must be held in June. Speaking at an election meeting in Bari, he was greeted by cries of “Silvio, Silvio” as he went on stage after the National Anthem. Organisers said at least 150,000 people had gathered for the meeting. Mr Berlusconi compared the current situation to 1994, when he took on the Communist party and won. “We must win again this time,” he said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Public Sector Debt Decreases by €5.2bln in January
Rome, 12 April — (AKI) — Italy’s public sector debt fell 5.2 billion euros in February to 2,017.6 billion from 2,022.7 billion in January, the Bank of Italy said on Friday.
Tax revenue increased 2.3 percent to 27 billion euros, said the central bank.
On Wednesday, the technocrat government led by prime minister Mario Monti raised its forecast for Italy’s public debt, saying this would reach 130.4 per cent of gross domestic product in 2013 compared with September’s forecast of 126.1 per cent.
Factoring out support for the European Union bailouts of four other countries, public debt this year would amount to 124 per cent of GDP, the government said
The public debt, which hit 127 percent of GDP last year, is the second highest in the eurozone after Greece’s. The government predicts it will fall to 129 percent in 2014 and 125.5 percent in 2015.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Notorious French Armed Robber Blasts Himself Out of Prison Using Dynamite
The criminal mastermind behind a notorious armed robbery in which a policewoman was killed dynamited himself out of a high-security prison today.
Redoine Faid, one of the most feared armed robbers in France, broke out of Sequedin jail, near Lille.
The 40-year-old is armed and dangerous, and police have issued an all ports alert which includes the Channels one from which Faid could reach Britain.
Faid took four prison wardens hostage early on Saturday morning and then blew up five heavy doors.
Police believe that his wife may have smuggled explosives wrapped in handkerchiefs into the prison.
Once outside, Faid released the guards and was driven away at high speed in a car which was later found burned out near the town of Ronchin.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Dead Party Founder Wins Election in Lugano
The Lega dei Ticinesi (League of Ticino) emerged triumphant from municipal elections in Lugano in the canton of Ticino on Sunday with three of its candidates winning election to the seven-person administrative council, including the party’s dead founder and former president.
The Lega, a right-wing nationalist party, picked up an extra city council seat at the expense of the Liberal party, as voters cast 9,001 votes for Giuliano Bignasca, who died at the age of 67 on March 7th.
The Lega decided to leave Bignasca’s name on the ballot, a decision that was backed by a court although criticized by opponents as a cynical ploy geared to cash in on the colourful politician’s popularity.
Under the proportional representation system in Lugano, the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino’s largest city, Bignasca will be replaced by Lega candidate Michele Foletti, who received 8,875 votes.
Former national and Ticino MP Marco Borradori, another Lega candidate, won the most votes (14,212) outpacing incumbent mayor Giorgio Giudici, of the Liberal party (12,725).
Giduici is to decide in the coming days whether to seek a runoff vote for the mayor’s position, the SDA news agency reported.
The results left the Liberals with two seats (down from three), while the Socialists and the Christian Democrats each have one seat.
Hundreds of people greeted the Lega victory with applause and fire crackers outside the city hall, SDA said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Hidden Fuel Costs of Wind Generated Electricity
Summary
Wind generated electricity requires back-up capacity of conventional power stations. This capacity is required to deliver electricity to consumers when wind supply is falling short. To have the non-wind power stations ramp up or down to compensate for the stochastic wind variations causes extra efficiency loss for such power stations. How much efficiency is lost in this way and how much extra fuel is required for this extra balancing of supply and demand is unknown. In this article we attempt to make an educated guess.
The extra fuel required for the efficiency loss must be added to the fuel required for building and installing the wind turbines and the additions to the power cable network. While these extra requirements may be too small to notice when the installed wind power is a small fraction of the total capacity, matters change when wind capacity becomes significant. Based on the German situation with 23 GW of installed wind power, we show that it becomes doubtful whether wind energy results in any fuel saving and CO2 emission reduction. What remains are the extra investments in wind energy.
| [Return to headlines] |
A Christian worker who claims she was sacked from her job at Heathrow following a ‘race hate’ campaign by ‘Muslim extremists’ today vowed to take her unfair dismissal case ‘all the way to Luxembourg’ to the European Court of Justice.
Nohad Halawi allegedly weathered cruel rumours that she was ‘anti-Islamist,’ on top of a systematic catalogue of intimidation that included telling the 48-year-old that she would go to Hell if she did not convert to Islam.
Halawi, previously a beauty consultant for luxury cosmetics brand Shiseido, was then booted out of her 13-year-long job in Heathrow Airport’s World Duty Free shop, after going to her seniors with concerns about the verbal tirades she was subjected to.
She also claims ‘extremist’ colleagues brought the Koran to work to try and convert people to Islam and even handed out leaflets promoting terrorism, as well as declaring that it was ‘a shame’ the failed July 21 London bombings did not go off.
Having taken her tribunal case to the courts in 2011, Halawi lost after it was ruled that as a part time and commissioned-based freelance she was not a staff employee.
Today, however, she won the right to appeal…
She also revealed insider knowledge on life within Heathrow: ‘They keep coming to the airport and many of them work in security. It is terrible there. If they see that you are a Muslim they wave you through. One time they thought my husband was Muslim and said ‘don’t worry he is one of us’ and let him through without checking him. And you’re telling me this is safe security.’
[…]
Mrs Halawi said she once found extremist leaflets in one of her Muslim colleague’s drawers but the airport turned a blind eye. She said: “Management told him to throw them away. I later found out he had been sacked from other terminals for handing them out and inciting religious hatred, but duty free covered it up as they are scared of labelled Islamophobic.“
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The architect of David Cameron’s policy on gay marriage is leaving Downing Street after losing a power battle with the Prime Minister’s new Election supremo.
Andrew Cooper, Mr Cameron’s personal polling guru and a key modernising figure at No. 10, is returning to his private business after being usurped by outspoken Australian ‘fixer’ Lynton Crosby.
Mr Cooper, who became Director of Government Strategy two years ago, is a former member of the now defunct Social Democratic Party and lobbied Mr Cameron to ditch traditional Right-wing Tory values and policies on Europe, tax and crime in a bid to ‘detoxify’ the Conservatives’ ‘Nasty Party’ image.
In contrast, Mr Crosby, who took charge of the Tory campaign machine in January on a £200,000-a-year deal, specialises in ‘dog whistle’ tactics — subtle appeals to voters’ underlying prejudices over issues such as immigration — which are designed to appeal to core Conservative voters.
Defiant Mr Crosby denies using ‘dog-whistle’ tactics to send surreptitious messages, saying: ‘It was more like a foghorn.’
He is understood to have been critical of Mr Cameron’s policy on gay marriage for alienating grassroots supporters…
Last night, a Tory source said: ‘There was never going to be room for both Andrew and Lynton. Andrew is a fully paid-up Conservative moderniser and believes that the party will never win a governing majority again unless it distances itself from its Thatcherite past. Lynton is an old-fashioned Thatcherite who thinks traditional values and policies are more important than modern fads.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A four-year-old boy yelled ‘Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead!’ to cheers from the hundreds of people who celebrated the death of Baroness Thatcher in London’s Trafalgar Square yesterday.
The boy, named Jack, also yelled: ‘Thatcher’s dead!’ with his father, who gave his name as Howard.
‘I don’t see it as brainwashing,’ Howard, from Islington, north London, told the Sunday Express.
‘It is just learnt behaviour.’
Crowds gathered to protest against Baroness Thatcher’s legacy and mark her death with a party.
[Comment: “Learned behaviour”…Communists always begin brainwashing kids at an early age…even the kids in public schools.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Fraud victims complain they are being denied justice as police no longer routinely investigate the crimes.
As of this month, anyone who walks into a police station or rings 999 to say they have been scammed is told to ring a Government-funded call centre or visit a website instead.
The Action Fraud phoneline is not manned by police or civilian staff, but by employees of a private firm that also runs hotlines for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and BBC.
Operators take down the victim’s details, give them a crime reference number and then decide if there is enough evidence for police to investigate properly.
Last night credit card fraud expert Andrew Goodwill told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Police are putting themselves at arm’s length from the public.
They’re hiding away behind a phone number and internet form. The vast majority of these crimes are not going to be looked into.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A young mother suffered a massive stroke after she was wrongly sent home from hospital because there were no specialists on duty over the weekend to assess a brain scan.
Ruth Stanton was aged just 30 when she was admitted to hospital after suffering two mini-strokes over 48 hours.
Doctors carried out two brain scans, but failed to give her a diagnosis because it was a Friday evening and the specialist neurologist was not on site.
Instead they sent the mother-of-two home without treatment and that night she suffered a massive stroke in bed.
Her husband, Kerry, 47, discovered his wife, who worked in a building society, slumped on the floor of their bedroom, unable to speak or move.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
It was the searing pain between her legs that jolted the 14-year-old Somali schoolgirl from her sleep.
Terrified, Asha Hassan opened her eyes expecting to see an intruder. But, in the dim light of the early morning, she could see the person standing over her was her mother. And she was smiling. Asha soon realised why.
In her right hand her mother was holding a pipette that was dripping sulphuric acid… acid which she had just emptied into her daughter’s vagina.
As Asha writhed in agony, she remembers looking into her mother’s eyes. “They were triumphant,” she says. “Bits of my insides were falling out of me in blackened strips of flesh and my mother was standing there smiling. I’ll never forget that look in her eyes. It was like she was saying, ‘I got you my girl. I got you’.”
The attack on this young girl didn’t happen in some mud hut in the wastes of war-torn Somalia. It didn’t happen in North Africa or Saudi Arabia, where genital mutilation for girls as young as six is the norm. This happened in a small semi in North London.
Asha’s crime? She’d refused, as is the Somali custom, to be “cut”, i.e. to have her clitoris cut out and her labia hacked off. And so her mother had decided to take matters into her own hands.
And while the method of Asha’s mutilation is unique, female genital mutilation (FGM) is happening on kitchen tables all over Britain with girls as young as four being cut with scissors, knives or razor blades… NOT by doctors but by family members, and often without anaesthetic. All in the name of “culture”.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Copts in Cairo Reject ‘Reconciliation Meeting’
by Mary Abdelmassih
(AINA) — A customary “reconciliation” meeting took place yesterday in Al-Khosous in Qaliubia after the sectarian violence which took place there on April 4 and 5 and 7, resulting in the death of six Christians and one Muslim (AINAÂ 4-6-2013). The meeting was organized by the regime and was attended by the governor of Qaliubia, Mr. Abdel-Ghafour, the assistant to the Egyptian President for social outreach, top ranking security personnel, representatives from Al-Azhar and two priests from St. Georges church in Al-Khosous. The government delegation was met with anger and outright rejection from Copts, believing as they have learned from the past that such “reconciliation” meetings are useless in resolving problems. The Copts stressed the need to apply the rule of law to all — Christians or Muslims.
Medhat Kelada, head of the European Union of Coptic Organizations for Human Rights, accused the Copts who attended the meeting of being “traitors” and said “all who deal with this current regime and agree to be its tool have their hands stained with the blood of the Khosous Coptic victims.”
Dr. Emad Gad, a member of the Salvation Front and Coptic former MP, described the Khosous meeting as different from reality, and that these meetings were a part of the old regime, adding that the current regime uses the same technique to avoid enforcing the law and to enable criminals to escape justice. Gad stressed that the church has nothing to do with these meetings and the priests of the Church of St. George were pressured by the regime and the existing leadership in the area to participate.
Former Acting Patriarch, Bishop Pachomios of Beheira, said the reconciliation meeting is acceptable “provided the assailants are brought to justice and punished by the government” to ensure the safety and stability of the community. He said that “our Christian faith is based on peace and reconciliation.”
Yesterday saw a turbulent meeting which took place at the Egyptian Shura Council to discuss the events of Al-Khosous and the attack on the Coptic Cathedral on April 7 (AINAÂ 4-7-2013), where unknown persons pelted the mourners of the Al-Khosous victims’ funeral and St. Marks cathedral and papal residence with Molotov cocktails and bricks. Security forces themselves fired tear gas on the Copts inside and outside the cathedral, holding nearly 2000 mourners inside the cathedral “gasping for air,” according to an eyewitness. These events lead to the death of one Copt, who was shot in the head; another was hospitalized. One Muslim died when he fell off a ladder as he was trying to vandalize the cathedral’s security cameras.
During that meeting several disputes broke out between Coptic Shura representatives and top ranking officials from the ministry of interior, who seemed to the Copts to be taking the position as the government, of holding the Copts at the funeral services for being responsible for the attack on themselves and the St. Marks Cathedral by vandalizing the cars parked near the cathedral, which prompted the local residents to attack them. On the other hand, the Copts accused the interior ministry of “collusion with the assailants” as videos and photos have shown that armed masked perpetrators driving police armored vehicles. It was reported that the interior ministry officials apologized for firing tear gas at the cathedral, causing over 80 people to be hospitalized.
Two days ago the Coptic Congregational Council issued for the first time in its history a strongly worded statement, holding the President and the government fully responsible for the absence of justice, security, and of keeping silent about what it called a “suspicious complicity “ of some workers of the state executive not to protect citizens, their property and their houses of worship, and demanded an independent investigation of the events.
“Repetition of sectarian events is because of the lack of law enforcement. This created an atmosphere of bullying the Copts and treating them as if they were subordinates of the community,” said Makari Habib, personal secretary to Pope Tawadros II, in an interview with Anadol Press Agency on April 10. “Copts make up a fifth (20%) of the Egypt’s 90 million people, which means they have the right to get 100 seats out of 500 in the parliament, and the same percentage in the ministries, governors, presidents of universities, as well as the army, police and high ranking organs,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih | [Return to headlines] |
England footballers Rio Ferdinand and John Terry are among hundreds of Britons who face losing millions of pounds after investing in a holiday villa project in Morocco.
They and other star players, including Joe Cole, Michael Carrick and football pundit Gary Neville, ploughed money into the £200million project believing they would now have the keys to stylish beachside homes — but nothing has been built at the site for four years.
What they were assured would be a luxury resort featuring 1,342 properties, three golf courses and a sports complex is today an abandoned building site. Investors fear there is little prospect of it ever being completed.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“Blood of the Maccabees” — Yom HaZikaron in Israel
A one minute siren will sound throughout Israel at 8:00PM Israel Time Sunday, beginning a day long observance of Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memmorial day for more than 23,000 fallen IDF soldiers. Thursday night prior to Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, Israel PM Netanyahu and his wife Sara visited the grave of his heroic brother IDF Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu on Mount Herzl. His brother Yonatan was killed by a sniper at Kampala Airport during the 1976 Entebbe Rescue of over 100 Jewish hostages on board an Air France Flight from Israel to Athens sky jacked by Popular Front for Palestine and German Bader- Meinhof terrorists in Uganda. To gain some perspective of the sacrifice that Israel has sustained in maintaining its security, 23,000 fallen IDF personnel would be equivalent to more 115,000 US military personnel fallen based on the percentage of the more than six million Jews in Israel. Lest we forget, Israel lost more than 6,373 in its War of Independence in 1948 to 1949, more than one percent of the 600,000 Jews in the country at the time. Ultimately it sustained 23,000 casualties, both military and civilians in this conflict. They were the valiant defenders against the invasion of the new born sovereign Jewish nation by five Arab Armies. The toll of dead and injured rose with several subsequent conflicts and terrorist operations against Israel perpetrated by both Arab countries and jihadi terrorists. The next worst conflict in terms of the toll of Israel’s war dead next to the War of Independence was the October War of 1973 with Egypt and Syria. The IDF sustained more than 2,656 dead and more than 11,656 casualties. Israel Hayom in an article, “We are still here thanks to our fighters”, chronicled the commemoration events of Israel’s Remembrance or Memorial Day:…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Mysterious Stone Structure Discovered Beneath Sea of Galilee
A giant “monumental” stone structure discovered beneath the waters of the Sea of Galilee in Israel has archaeologists puzzled as to its purpose and even how long ago it was built.
The mysterious structure is cone shaped, made of “unhewn basalt cobbles and boulders,” and weighs an estimated 60,000 tons the researchers said. That makes it heavier than most modern-day warships.
Rising nearly 32 feet (10 meters) high, it has a diameter of about 230 feet (70 meters). To put that in perspective, the outer stone circle of Stonehenge has a diameter just half that with its tallest stones not reaching that height.
It appears to be a giant cairn, rocks piled on top of each other. Structures like this are known from elsewhere in the world and are sometimes used to mark burials. Researchers do not know if the newly discovered structure was used for this purpose.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Two Italian Troops Slightly Injured in Afghanistan Bombing
(AGI) — Herat, Apr 14 — Two Italian soldiers were slightly injured in the explosion of a makeshift bomb in Afghanistan.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
London School of Economics Asks BBC to Cancel Programme
(AGI) — London, Apr 14 — The London School of Economics, one of Britain’s most prestigious universities, asked the BBC to cancel a programme in which reporters infiltrated a group of students on a study trip in North Korea in March in order to film an under-cover report on the country. According to the University, the trick not only put a group of graduating students in a dangerous situation but could also put at risk future trips to other countries.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Mixed Strategic Message on Korea
A U.S. defense official says the Obama administration and Pentagon sent a dangerous mixed strategic message during the current showdown with North Korea. The apparent softening of U.S. resolve in the standoff is increasing the chance of a military miscalculation leading to war, the official told Inside the Ring.
After dispatching nuclear-capable B-52 and then B-2 bombers to South Korea last month as part of exercises meant to signal “extended deterrence” nuclear protection for South Korea, the administration backed down. Instead of continuing the pressure on North Korea with a test launch of a Minuteman 3 missile that had been set for this week, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered the launch scrapped.
The defense official said the Minuteman 3 flight test from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., was meant to further signal U.S. strategic resolve in the face of unprecedented threats by North Korea to attack the United States with nuclear missiles.
Compounding the messaging problem, the test cancellation followed China’s suggestion that both the United States and North Korea take steps to reduce tensions. At the same time, Beijing has refused to pressure its fraternal communist ally in North Korea into reducing its bellicosity.
“The test was to signal the reliability of U.S. nuclear capabilities,” the official said. “This is another example of U.S. government doing as China suggests.”
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, New Hampshire Republican, said on MSNBC on Tuesday that she was worried about the signal sent by the cancellation of the missile test.
“I am a little concerned that that could send the wrong message to the new young leader there that what he is doing is actually going to get us to take actions that he would appreciate,” she said, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un…
| — Hat tip: DS | [Return to headlines] |
Comprehensive Immigration Reform to Include American Right to Work in Mexico?
The long awaited comprehensive immigration reform — said to be 1,500 pages long — will be unveiled on April 16, according to AP. On April 17, Vermont Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy will hold hearings with one witness, Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano…
The Washington Times reported on May 3, 2010 that illegal immigration is a felony in Mexico, with a punishment of up to two years in prison. If an immigrant is deported and is caught re-entering Mexico, the punishment is 10 years in jail. Those who violate visas by over-staying, are sentenced to six years in prison. Any Mexican aiding or abetting an illegal immigrant is a criminal.
[…]
Moseley commented that “we are gullible suckers.” While a record 89 million people are either unemployed, underemployed, or out of the labor force, and the Black population experiences 14.1 percent unemployment in the U.S., Mexico’s unemployment rate averaged 3.68 percent from 1994-2012.
“Adjusting for purchasing power — converting dollars into pesos — the average salary in Mexico is $49,574 per year. According to the IMF, $1 USD converted into pesos will buy the equivalent of $8.07 within Mexican society. So the nominal average Mexican salary of $6,143 per year in pesos actually can purchase as much in goods and services in Mexico as a $49,574 per year salary in the U.S. economy.” (Jonathon Moseley)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Animal Rights/Bioethics/Transhumanism to Converge at Yale
The animal rights, mainstream bioethics, and the transhumanist movements each want to destroy society’s belief in the unique value of human life:…
These allies are coming together in a big conference at Yale in December, co-sponsored by the animal rights group Nonhuman Rights Project, the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and the Yale Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics (as well as the Yale Animal Ethics Group, about which I am unaware). From the Website of “Beyond the Human:”…
Among the speakers are Peter Singer (of course!) — supporter of the morality of infanticide, non voluntary euthanasia, personhood theory, and “animal liberation.” Also, Steven M. Wise, animal rights absolutist who plans to bring lawsuits in states to have some animals declared persons. In addition, the transhumanist radicals George Dvorsky — who I once saw advocate uploading animal consciousnesses into computers to avoid the suffering caused by predation — and James Hughes, who has yearned for the creation of a human/chimp hybrid to prove that humans are not special.
Anti humanism is pouring out of the academy and radical think tanks like a pyroclastic flow. If we are not careful, it will destroy the universal human equality backbone of Western Civilization just as surely as Vesuvius did Pompeii.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day.” — Dr. Jacques Cousteau
“Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.” — Professor Maurice King
“I’ve been a cancer doctor for over 30 years, and I think the proper role for a doctor is to take care of the patient. Assisted suicide should not be in the realm of medicine.” — Dr. Kenneth Stevens
Living Wills
The first living will was conceived in 1967 by Luis Kutner, a human-rights lawyer in Chicago, and cofounder of the pro-abortion Amnesty International, in conjunction with the Euthanasia Society of America. The living wills were distributed by the Euthanasia Society.
Luis Kutner’s musings about death anticipated the day when medicine would cross the line from prolonging life to prolonging dying. In 1967, he wrote his first “living will,” a document that allows a person to specify under what conditions life-support systems should be discontinued. In 1930 Mr. Kutner helped found an American chapter of the Euthanasia Society, modeled after an English counterpart that included, playwright and eugenic extremist, George Bernard Shaw and Julian Huxley (the first Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and a member of the Eugenics Society).
The idea did not catch on, but in 1938 the Rev. Charles Potter founded the Society for the Right to Die. In April, 1984, a team of prominent doctors published in the New England Journal of Medicine a set of guidelines for treatment of gravely ill patients, concluding it was ethical to withhold nutrition and even medicine if it only prolonged a painful death.
Anyone who doubts that the Living Will, which is urged upon all Americans, comes from the Euthanasia Society can read the main article proposing its adoption written by attorney, Luis Kutner in 1969 entitled, “Due Process of Euthanasia: The Living Will, A Proposal,” [Indiana Law Journal v. 44, 1969, p. 549] The Living Will was written to create a due process of euthanasia. In addition, in 1970, the Euthanasia Society of America distributed 60,000 living wills. They knew where they were leading American society, but the misguided, trusting Americans couldn’t see it.
Kutner’s intention in creating the Living Will was to provide a way that governmental authorities could allow a form of euthanasia. The living wills were “sold” to the public as patients determining what type of care they would or would not want, but their main effect is to limit care that might allow them to live longer, an incremental step toward open euthanasia.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
MSNBC Host: Kids Do Not Belong to Their Parents; They Are Owned by the Collective
(NaturalNews) It’s bad enough that big government statists are trying to take away your Bill of Rights, hide what goes into your foods, poison you with vaccines, run your healthcare, tax you into poverty, spend the country into oblivion and micromanage virtually every aspect of your life. Now, they think your kids belong to them also.
At least, that is the opinion of MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, who taped a commercial for the network in which she says your kids don’t belong to you, but rather are wards of the common collective…
Tim Graham, the Media Research Center’s director of Media Analysis, called Harris-Perry’s statement “frightening.”
“It’s bad enough that ‘Lean Forward’ already sounds like an ad for Mao’s Little Red Book, then to have your network’s hosts talk about your children being part of the Collective is just spooky,” he said. “I think most parents disappoint MSNBC with their traditional beliefs that their children are theirs to love and raise as they feel is best. They don’t want to surrender their parental rights to the ‘village.’ It’s this same contempt for education beginning in the home that spurs many parents into home-schooling.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ron Paul Home School Curriculum Under Attack
If you haven’t heard he recently just announced from his brand new radio platform the Ron Paul Homeschool Curriculum. In his genius he is starting a schooling alternative that totally bypasses the establishment indoctrination camps, mislabeled as public education in here in America.
It is no secret he opposes public education as being unconstitutional and a dismal failure. In fact in the 2012 Presidential Debates he put forth a proposal to cut spending by 1 Trillion Dollars, and in that proposal right at the top was ending the Department of Education. Ron Paul is a purest in every since of the word and his congressional record proves it…
Essentially the tactic is this, we have major media going after some of the writers, mainly Gary North, Tom Woods and obviously Ron Paul for their Christian beliefs. For example the article in the Guardian is insinuitating that they are embedding Christian fundamentalist beliefs into the educational curriculum, in the form of Reconstructionalism
“Paul’s advocacy of home-schooling is not just about getting kids out of what home-schoolers disparagingly call “government schools”. It’s not just about teaching them that government should be small and largely inconsequential. It’s based on the idea that the government is largely illegitimate, and that one must create a society in which the populace will follow “moral” (that is, biblical) laws, rather than the laws created by an overzealous, tyrannical government.”
This approach is clever because it indicates a thorough understanding of the demographic of the Liberty movement and the people who have aligned themselves ideologically with Ron Paul. Most of them are avowed Atheists and hate Biblical Christianity as the internet flavor of the month…
So what the elite are doing is exploiting this ignorance with in the movement. It is nothing more than a divide and conquer tactic. If they can get libertarians to reject Ron Paul’s curriculum on the grounds it has a religious bent then they win and prevent this remarkable idea from taking root as a very real way to assure that liberty principles are taught inside the family for generations to come.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
By Johnnie Ham, MD, MBA
Many women are completely unaware that the science backing the use of mammograms is sketchy at best. As was revealed in a 2011 meta-analysis by the Cochrane Database of Systemic Reviews, mammography breast cancer screening led to 30 percent overdiagnosis and overtreatment, which equates to an absolute risk increase of 0.5 percent.
There’s also the risk of getting a false negative, meaning that a life-threatening cancer is missed.
Unfortunately, even though some high-profile people agree that mammography has limitations as well as dangers, others prefer to ignore the science and continue to campaign for annual screenings without so much as a hint at the risks involved.
Now, they’ve unrolled “new and improved” 3D TOMOSYNTHESIS mammogram, which still requiring mechanical compression, and delivers 30 percent more radiation.
[…]
The Industry of Cancer
Breast cancer has become big business, starting with the multi-billion dollar goliath, mammography. No other medical screening has been as aggressively promoted. My passion is providing integrative primary care as an MD for hundreds of patients. I also have over 23 combined years of military experience as an OB/GYN, trauma surgeon, experimental test pilot, and master army aviator.
My training prepared me to navigate through challenging, and sometimes life threatening situations. Unfortunately, most women do not have the training I received, yet they could certainly use some of it to help navigate through the fear-based methods of the breast cancer industry.
The tide of thought on mammography’s benefits is rapidly changing as evidenced by recently published studies in the Archives of Internal Medicine,1 the Lancet Review,2 the British Medical Journal3 and the Nordic Cochrane Center;4 and the fact that the US Preventative Services Task Force5 and the Canadian Task Force on Preventative Health Care.6
Why are Nearly All Health Care Professionals Not Following Current Mammogram Recommendations?
Nearly every woman age 40 and older continues to be told by their primary care physician, their gynecologist, the media, self-proclaimed advocacy groups, and even their medical insurance carrier, “get your annual mammogram!” despite the fact that nearly every recent authoritative study concludes that women should know all of the facts before agreeing to a mammogram screening. Yet nearly all health care professionals insist on mammograms. If a woman dare refuse, she may be chastised or worse, threatened. These efforts have gone beyond persuasion to guilt and even coercion, “I can’t be your doctor if you don’t get a mammogram.” Women need to stop this runaway train, not only for their sake, but for the sake of their daughters.
In November 2012, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study by Dr Archie Bleyer, MD from The Oregon Health Sciences Center, and his co-author, Dr H. Gilbert Welch, M.D., M.P.H., from Dartmouth, challenging the validity of mammogram screenings and concluded that mammograms have little to no influence in the reduction of the number of women who ultimately die of breast cancer.7
Thirty years of US government data studied found that as many as 1/3 of cancers detected by mammography may not have been life threatening, and that over 1 million women have been over-diagnosed; leading to unnecessary treatments involving disfiguring surgeries; radiation and chemotherapy. They also showed that mammogram screenings have increased from about 30 percent of women 40 and older in 1985, to about 70 percent of women screened, proving how effective we have been at convincing women they need to get a mammogram.
I have witnessed this strategy for decades and I have seen the profound psychological effect it has had on many of my patients. This paradigm has seriously misled women regarding the actual effectiveness, and the benefits vs. potential dangers of mammograms. They also have women confused about the erroneous belief that mammography is their only tool. Some women actually believe mammograms can prevent cancer, or do not realize they have the right to say, no!
Most women comply with the current “gold standard” in fear of the ravages of breast cancer, convinced their annual mammogram will save their life through early detection. It is nearly impossible for them to negate decades of slick marketing, annual reminders from radiology imaging centers and the exploitation of October’s Breast Cancer Awareness month blitz. All of these efforts beautifully packaged, tied up with a pretty pink ribbon.
I take my oath to do no harm very seriously. After many years of research, clinical practice; and due to my wife’s personal experience with mammography, I cannot in good conscience recommend mammograms. I inform my patients that mammograms are considered the current “gold standard”, but I also make certain they know the facts about the screening and that there are other screen tools available.
Facts and Persisting Concerns: Mammograms
More women are refusing mammograms. This is reflected in the dramatic decline of 4.3 percent in 2010. Previously, mammography use had increased annually by 1 percent between 2005 and 2009. Mammograms:
| 1. | Are incorrect 80 percent of the time (providing a false negative or false positive) | |
| 2. | Require repeated ionized radiation that can cause cancer | |
| 3. | Use compression, which can damage breast tissue or potentially spread cancer | |
| 4. | Are not effective for up to 50 percent of women (women with dense breasts or implants) | |
| 5. | Can lead to over-diagnosis and over-treatment of non-invasive cancers | |
| 6. | Can lead to the disturbing practice of “preventative” double mastectomies |
What is Mammography Industries’ Solution?
The “new and improved” 3D TOMOSYNTHESIS mammogram, still requiring mechanical compression, and 30 percent more radiation. We know all levels of ionizing radiation can cause cancer but, astonishingly, radiologists still want you to have your traditional mammogram screening first, followed by tomosynthesis mammogram for those with dense breasts or an area of suspicion. When my local Radiology Community approached me in an effort to disprove my concerns, I posed one simple question: Can you show me, one well-designed study that proves screening mammography has improved ultimate survival rates? I am still waiting for their answer.
We cannot prove that screening mammography improves the ultimate survival rate. A quick look at the SEER data would suggest treatment has improved, by a decline in the death rate since 1998 of 1.9 percent.8 For every 1,000 women in this country, today 125 will ultimately be diagnosed with breast cancer. Of those 125, over 40 will be over-diagnosed, and receive treatment they never needed, and suffer the potential psychological consequences of a cancer diagnosis. That leaves about 80, of which 28 will die of breast cancer. The decline since 1998 in the death rate means that for our 28 women who would have otherwise died from breast cancer, 2 more out of 1000 women diagnosed with breast cancer survived due to over a decade of treatment advances.
But, we really don’t know what actually saved those 2 women, of the 125 diagnosed with breast cancer for every 1,000 women in our group. If we attribute anything to lifestyle changes we have emphasized recently (which has been shown repeatedly to work), then either we wipe out any improved survival rate from decades of treatment advances, or worse, we cause death to some of those 40 women who were over-diagnosed.
Basic Cancer Prevention Strategies
As mentioned above, many women are completely unaware that the science backing the use of mammograms is sorely lacking, and that more women are being harmed by regular mammograms than are saved by them. Many also do not realize that the “new and improved” 3D tomosynthesis mammogram actually delivers even MORE ionizing radiation than the older version. This is not a step forward…
Please understand that there are other screening options, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and you have a right to utilize those options. Also remember that in order to truly avoid breast cancer, you need to focus your attention on prevention.
A few simple, yet great options to assist in your efforts to avoid breast cancer are: making sure you are getting enough vitamin D, K2 and iodine; that you utilize lymphatic massage; use stress management techniques, exercise often, and balance your hormones naturally. It is also wise to eat a Mediterranean diet consisting of organic foods. Avoid processed and GMO foods; and toxic environments.
[…]
The advice I give all of my patients is to be your own health advocate, do your own research and always ask questions before agreeing to any therapy or treatment, screening and/or procedure.
| [Return to headlines] |
A German historian confessed under oath at a court in Luxemburg on Wednesday that the NATO stay behind secret army committed the bomb at Munich´s famous OKTOBERFEST in 1980 killing 13 people and also was involved into the Bologna train station bomb killing 85 people, also in 1980.
I did not find any English site about this sensation, but only from Luxemburg and Switzerland. There is also no news article in the mainstream German media about this sensational confession.
http://www.tageswoche.ch/de/2013_14/international/530669/es-war-nato-gegen-nato.htm
Stay behind is the name in Germany (!!!) for what was called GLADIO in Italy.
gladius was the sword of the ancien Roman Empire´s soldiers.
Rolf: ONLY perpetrators can ‘confess.’
All others, including historians, can only allege/ posit/ claim/ assert…
Assertions are inadmissable under English common law as a general rule.
Expert testimony is permitted — but it must always be buttressed by fact/ interviews with principals.
As for a stay-behind force: since there was no war, no retreat and no lost territory — how does this story ‘work.’
Beyond that, two different countries would’ve been involved — with two entirely separate armies.
It doesn’t pass the smell test: too complicated, pure tabloid.
This is not the point.
The point is that the German mass media did not report the news at all.
How this is possible?
The Swiss media made this a top news, and in German media it is just not happening at all?
Ok, let us discuss about words like “confession”. Never mind the facts.