The Netherlands celebrated the accession of a new monarch to the throne today with the crowning of Prince Willem-Alexander. The new king succeeded his mother, Queen Beatrix, after her abdication.
In other news, six “British” Islamic terrorists from Birmingham admitted to planning an attack with guns and explosives — which was thwarted accidentally by routine police stop — on an EDL demonstration. The accused are expected to receive lengthy prison sentences.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Diana West, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, McR, Papa Whiskey, Steen, 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.
Cypriot Parliament Approves International Bailout
Cyprus’ parliament has voted in favor of a bailout from international lenders whose agreement terms have upset worried Cypriots. As part of the deal, depositors must help recapitalize their own banks.
The bailout passed 29-27 on Tuesday in Cyprus, finalizing the terms stipulated by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in order to receive billions in emergency funds.
By approving the terms needed to secure 10 billion euros ($13.8 billion) in May, Cyprus’ will require its largest bank, Bank of Cyprus, to absorb its ailing second-largest bank, Laiki. The government will also levy a tax on uninsured depositors at least 100,000 euros in their bank accounts.
Lawmakers also approved public sector pay cuts and a property tax in a separate measure on Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Eurozone Unemployment Inches Up to New Record
Jobless ranks in the crisis-plagued eurozone have swollen further as growth seems hampered by too much austerity in many nations. Youth unemployment has also reached a new record.
The unemployment rate in the 17-member currency union hit a record 12.1 percent in March, the European statistics agency Eurostat reported on Tuesday.
The new figures added another month of swelling jobless lines in the bloc where the number of people out of work has increased relentlessly since mid-2011. March saw another 62,000 people join the jobless ranks, bringing the total to 19.2 million in the eurozone, up by 1.7 million from a year earlier.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Insane’ Euro Departure ‘Would Cost 200,000 Jobs’
Ditching the euro would cost Germany at least 200,000 jobs and half a percentage point in growth, according to a new study which concluded that Europe’s biggest economy benefited from being within the eurozone.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble called the idea of Germany leaving the currency “economically insane”.
Even if Germany were to have to write off the majority of the money it has put into the various euro rescue packages, the study from the Bertelsmann Foundation concluded, it would still be better off sticking with the currency than bailing out.
It is not only the large economic figures which benefit from Germany being in the eurozone, the study suggested — the average benefit from having the euro for individuals worked out at around €1,100 a year between 2013 and 2025.
The only benefits to be had from a separate currency would be a lower interest rate and thus cheaper production and investment costs.
The Bertelsmann Foundation stressed the study was based on modelling — and did not take into consideration the fact that if Germany were actually to leave the euro, it would probably lead to the collapse of the currency union and a global economic crisis.
“Germany’s membership of the currency union reduces the cost of international trade and protects against severe currency exchange fluctuations,” said Aart De Geus, head of the foundation. “A return to the Deutschmark would cause significant damage. The Germans would lose income and jobs.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Unemployment Steady at 11.5% in March
Same as February, 1.1% higher than same month in 2012
(ANSA) — Rome, April 30 — Unemployment in recession-hit Italy was steady in March with respect to February at 11.5%, Istat said on Tuesday when it released seasonally adjusted provisional data.
The statistics agency said, however, that this jobless level was 1.1% higher than in March 2012.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Youth Unemployment Climbs to 38.4%
Around 635,000 15-to-24-year-olds on the dole
(see related story) (ANSA) — Rome, April 30 — Youth employment in recession-hit Italy reached 38.4% in March, 3.2% higher than the same month in 2012 and 0.6% higher than February, Istat said Tuesday according to seasonally adjusted provisional data.
The statistics agency said 635,000 15-to-24-year-olds were on the dole in March.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Inflation Drops to Lowest Level in Three Years
Rate down to 1.2% from 1.6% in March
(ANSA) — Rome, April 30 — Italy’s inflation rate fell to 1.2% this month, the lowest level since February 2010, Istat said Tuesday.
It was the seventh consecutive drop as Italy’s longest recession in 20 years continues to keep price increases low.
The national statistics agency said the sharp decrease in April with respect to the 1.6% inflation rate of March was caused primarily by falls in energy prices. Istat said its trolley of the most frequently bought products by households was down too, dropping to 1.5% from 2% in March.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: MPS Says May Not Repay Bailout
‘Nothing can be taken for granted’ says Profumo
(ANSA) — Milan, April 29 — Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), the world’s oldest lender, added a new twist to its saga of woes Monday when it said it might not be able to repay a controversial government bailout.
The president of the scandal-hit Tuscan bank, Alessandro Profumo said it was “not certain” that the troubled bank would be able to refund the four-billion-euro package. “I believe we can do it, but nothing can be taken for granted,” Profumo said.
Repaying the government bailout is “the main challenge” facing the bank, he said.
But if it succeeds, Profumo added, it will be “the only way to maintain (its) independence and headquarters in Siena”. However, Profumo, who previously served as chief executive of Italy’s biggest bank UniCredit, said the lender was on the right track. “The bank has totally turned a corner with respect to the past in terms of transparency and capital solidity.” MPS was in a good position, Profumo said, for its recent restructuring program put it on a good footing to compete with other lenders.
“We know that all other banks will have to go down the cost-containment road and on this aspect we will have a competitive advantage,” the executive said.
That said, Profumo signaled that “there is much more to be done in terms of profitability, even though we’re starting to see signals of an inversion”.
Italy’s third-largest lender, which recently revealed losses of more than three billion euros last year, is at the centre of a huge fraud probe after a scandal over shady derivatives operations exploded in January.
It has since emerged that a previously undisclosed series of derivative and structured-finance deals produced losses of around 720 million euros.
Senior officials from MPS are facing penalties totalling as much as five million euros from the Bank of Italy for alleged fraud and corruption.
On Saturday an Italian judge rejected a prosecutors’ order for 1.8 billion euros of assets held by Japanese investment bank Nomura to be seized as part of the probe into the scandal.
Prosecutors ordered the seizure earlier this month and said they had put Nomura’s former chief executive in Europe, the Middle East and Africa under investigation.
Nomura was involved in one of a series of suspect derivative and structured-finance deals involving MPS. Prosecutors said Sadeq Sayeed, the former head of Nomura International plc, was being probed along with another manager from the Japanese investment bank, Raffaele Ricci.
The prosecutors said the Nomura seizure regarded 88 million euros of hidden commissions received by Nomura and 1.7 billion euros of funds deposited with Nomura by MPS by way of collateral for a loan.
But on Saturday a judge said there was no urgent need to seize the assets.
The judge also overruled an order to seize 14 million euros belonging to former MPS chairman Giuseppe Mussari, former general manager Antonio Vigni and former finance chief Gianluca Baldassarri.
Sayeed, Ricci, Mussari, Vigni and Baldassarri are being probed for crimes including usury, aggravated fraud, obstructing banking watchdogs and issuing false statements.
The judge on Saturday expressed doubts about the validity of the possible charges of usury and fraud.
Mussari last year resigned from MPS and stepped down from his subsequent post as chairman of the banking association ABI after the scandal exploded in January.
Baldassarri is under house arrest.
There are also suspicions senior MPS managers were involved in alleged corruption in the nine-billion-euro acquisition of rival bank Antonveneta, at least two billion above its market value, in 2008.
David Rossi, MPS’s communications chief, committed suicide last month by throwing himself out of a window at the bank’s headquarters in Tuscany. He was not being probed.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Must Hit Budget Targets Even if IMU Scrapped Says EC
Berlusconi says property-tax abolition essential to back govt
(ANSA) — Brussels, April 30 — The new Italian government must still hit its EU-mandated budget targets if it scraps a property tax called IMU, the European Commission said Tuesday.
Asked if Brussels would accept the abolition of the tax, as demanded by ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi as a condition for supporting Enrico Letta’s government, an EC spokesman said: “Italy’s budget targets do not change and the new government will have to say how it plans to meet them without incurring new debt”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain’s Economy Shrinks in First Quarter
Spain’s economy shrank 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2013, official data showed on Tuesday, as a job-destroying recession gripped the struggling nation.
Weak domestic demand dragged down output in the eurozone’s fourth largest economy, which has been shrinking since mid-2011, the National Statistics Institute said.
The news confirmed that Spain is entrenched in a double-dip recession that sent the unemployment rate soaring to a record 27.16 percent in the first quarter.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government is battling to cut Spain’s annual public deficits with austerity measures that have prompted mass protests.
But his right-leaning government has offered little hope of a solid recovery, forecasting last week a 1.3 percent contraction in 2013, and only a feeble 0.5-percent rebound in 2014.
The government predicted that the unemployment rate — now the highest since Spain returned to democracy after the death of General Francisco Franco in 1975 — would not fall below 25 percent until 2016.
At the same time, despite biting austerity measures, Spain is struggling to meet European Union targets to curb the public deficit as tax revenues are squeezed by the slowdown and welfare costs rise to cope with a lengthening jobless queue.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Bilderberg Sleuth Jim Tucker Passes Away, Aged 78
James P. Tucker, Jr. (12/31/1934 — 4/26/2013), famed Bilderberg Hound, author of Jim Tucker’s Bilderberg Diary, passed away yesterday due to complications he suffered following a fall.
A proper tribute to Tucker will rendered next week when the front page of AMERICAN FREE PRESS newspaper will be dedicated to Jim.
The thoughts and prayers from all of us at AMERICAN FREE PRESS go out to his family and friends. Thank you, Tucker, for all that you did to shine the light on the “criminals” of Bilderberg…
Prior to coming to work in Washington, D.C. in 1975 as managing editor of the newly-launched national weekly, The Spotlight, Tucker had been, by his own admission, a conventional journalist with a wide range of experience in the mainstream press, largely confident that the big media in America was doing its job, bringing readers the news they needed to know. He was sports editor of the The Northern Virginia Sun, managing editor of The Daily Tifton Gazette in Georgia, managing editor of The Radford (Va.) Daily News, copy editor of The Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch; night editor of The Washington Daily News in the nation’s capital, managing editor of The Martinsville (Va.) Bulletin, and news editor of The Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal.
However, the day that Willis Carto, treasurer of Liberty Lobby, the populist institution that published The Spotlight, called Tucker into his office and described to Tucker the little-known history of the Bilderberg meetings, Tucker’s worldview — particularly from his perspective as a journalist — changed forever.
Despite all his years in the media, Tucker had never once heard of Bilderberg and he realized — as any real journalist should — that there was something wrong. As Tucker summarized it — all quite correctly — time and again, over the years, “If a hundred of the world’s best known sports figures or film stars were gathered at some exclusive resort behind closed doors for a private meeting, the entirety of the mass media would be on hand, clamoring for admittance and demanding to know what was going on. But when the world’s richest bankers, media barons, industrialists, members of royalty, and political leaders were meeting secretly and discussing public policy matters that impacted on the course of the world’s affairs, the establishment press never said a word.”
– From 1975 to 1982, as editor of The Spotlight, Tucker supervised a wide-ranging array of journalists who trailed the Bilderberg and Trilateral gangs here and abroad. But in 1983, Tucker himself went on the road as The Spotlight’s man on the scene and scorched the Bilderbergers and Trilateralists with blistering real news coverage, from Japan to Portugal to France, England, Germany — wherever and whenever the global intriguers met, even as the rest of the American media remained mum, despite the fact that, over and over again, over the next three decades, Tucker’s pioneering investigations unveiled Bilderberg-Trilateral plans that had a direct influence on public policy affecting every man, woman and child on the face of the planet.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Boston Marathon Bomb Suspects’ Family ‘Received $100,000 in Benefits’
The two brothers involved in the Boston bombings and their family received as much as $100,000 (£65,000) in government benefits from Massachusetts, according to reports.
In the documents yet to be released publicly, an anonymous source with direct knowledge of the details told the Boston Herald that the welfare payments received over a ten year period were “stunning” in their breadth. A full-scale investigation by a committee of the US House of Representatives is set be launched shortly to determine how the substantial sums involved were authorised and why they were granted over such an extended period of time.
David Linksy, a Massachusetts congressman told the Herald that the committee would thoroughly review all the details of the case and that the public has a “substantial right to know what benefits, if any, this family or individuals accused of some horrific crimes were receiving”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
FBI Did Its Job in Tsarnaev Probe, Obama Says
(CNN) — Federal intelligence officials are looking at whether more could have been done to prevent the Boston Marathon attacks, President Barack Obama said Tuesday.
“Based on what I can see so far, the FBI performed its duties. The Department of Homeland Security did what it was supposed to be doing,” Obama said. “But this is hard stuff.”
[Made that much harder by Barry Hussein’s orders that a critical approach to Islam be expunged from FBI and military terrorism training materials, as detailed in this story: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/23/blind-eye-conciliatory-fbi-policies-toward-islamis/ —PW ]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
FBI Seeks Those Responsible for Vandalism at Oklahoma City Mosque
(Newsroom America) — The FBI is seeking the public’s assistance in identifying individuals responsible for vandalism at the American Muslim Association of Oklahoma City in Oklahoma City. Special Agent in Charge of the Oklahoma City Field Office, James E. Finch, says the vandalism occurred shortly after 5:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, April 27th…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
GMO Multi-Toxin Crops Continue to Backfire as More Insects Become Resistant to Crop Chemicals
The study evaluated specific GM crops like corn and cotton that have been infused with a genetic mutation involving the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), as well as several other toxins that grow inside the plant to target pests. This so-called “pyramid” strategy, which involves using multiple GM toxins to target the same pests, is said to have been designed for the purpose of thwarting pesticide and insecticide resistance by targeting pests with two or three different toxins all at once rather than just one at time.
But according to the UA report, insects and other pests are outsmarting this approach. After evaluating a series of laboratory experiments they conducted, as well as various computer simulations and other published data on the subject, the team learned that multi-toxin GM crops do not necessarily kill pests redundantly — that is, if a pest is resistant to one toxic GM trait, it does not necessarily respond automatically to the other toxic GM traits. In fact, the pest response to multi-toxin GMOs is so complex and unpredictable that it is already shaping up to be a complete failure.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kansas Enacts Law to Nullify Federal Violations of Second Amendment
The state of Kansas has enacted legislation that essentially cancels out any future federal attempt to regulate guns or impose new gun control measures and restrictions in a move seen by supporters as protecting the integrity of the Second Amendment and Kansans’ right to bear arms without government infringement.
Senate Bill 102, which was signed by Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, April 24, was designed to push back against federal lawmakers and the Obama Administration, both of which are stumping for tighter gun control laws, shamelessly using the tragedy of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings for maximum political effect. The Kansas law, however, “nullifies any new limits on firearms, magazines and ammunition — whether enacted by Congress, presidential executive order or any agency,” WorldNetDaily reported.
For example, had Congress passed a recent Senate measure calling for expanded federal background checks of gun purchases, the Kansas law would nullify it in the state…
A key provision of the Kansas law provides that the state “would not be allowed to participate in any federal gun control measures that restrict the individual right to keep and bear arms as understood in 1861,” Boldin says. That is the year the state joined the union, and, he maintains, state officials would not have done so back then if there had been the kind of Second Amendment restrictions currently under consideration in Washington.
And here’s another thought. President Obama has chosen which federal laws he seeks to enforce and, more importantly, which laws he chooses not to enforce (the Defense of Marriage Act, and laws banning marijuana use, to name a few). There is nowhere in the Constitution that gives a president permission to do that; he/she is charged with seeing to it that the laws of the land are enforced, period.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ken Livingstone Blames the Boston Bombings on American Foreign Policy — on Iranian TV
by Tim Stanley
Ken Livingstone sure gets around. As Guido Fawkes reports, the former Mayor of London and newt fancier has appeared on Iranian state TV to discuss who was responsible for the Boston bombings. Ken points the finger at the Americans
[…]
[JP note: Toad.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Extolls Virtues of American Law for American Courts in Miami Herald
This is the final week of the Florida legislative session in Tallahassee. The Florida version of American Law for American Courts SB58 is bottled up in the Senate Rules Committee, a sort of legislative lethal chamber. A torrent of emails and call have inundated Senate leaders, Senate President Don Gaetz, Senate Majority Leader Sen. Lisbeth Benacquisto and Rules Committee Chair Sen. John Thrasher asking them to withdraw SB58, Acceptance of Foreign Law in Certain Cases, and bring the measure to the Senate floor for a hearing and vote. We understand that votes are in hand to assure passage of SB58. The companion House version was passed by a 79 to 39 vote on April 18th. Voting with the House majority was the son of Senate President Gaetz, Rep. Matt Gaetz who represents a Northwest Florida Panhandle district with an office in Shalimar. His father Don Gaetz’s district office is less than 11 miles away in Destin. Perhaps the father son team might meet over a cup of coffee to discuss getting ALAC passed in its third outing in the Sunshine State. These final days in the legislative session is when the Senate reviews measures passed in the House, one of them is the House version of ALAC, HB351. What’s the expression? Carpe Diem, Sen. Gaetz!! Perhaps the Senate leaders might find this post from Creeping Sharia of interest. Here we have a Muslim extolling the virtues of SB58 criticizing a Muslim author of an op ed opposing SB 58. Ironic? Or just someone who recognizes the merits and wisdom of ALAC protecting both the letter writer’s and critic’s human rights.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
National Security at Risk With Left at Helm
Last Thursday, adding insult to injury in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, the administration of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick stonewalled efforts by the Boston Herald to determine the extent of government benefits provided to the Tsarnaev brothers, particularly attack mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
The Patrick administration’s absurd stance, with its preoccupation with the “privacy rights” of non-citizen Tamerlan — an alien terrorist — is a reflection of the kind of inept leadership and dogmatic thinking that led to the success of the attack in the first place. The egregious intelligence failures and uniform chorus of jihad denial following the attack have left little question that leftist political establishment, from state agencies to the Oval Office, does not recognize the true nature of the threats America faces. Nor does it take them seriously.
Gov. Patrick was careful to ensured a united front of silence on the government’s potential role in subsidizing Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s lifestyle during the period he was becoming radicalized. Several different state agencies and others thwarted the Herald’s information-gathering efforts…
The refusal to release this information is typical of the left’s agenda to reduce Islamic terrorism to ordinary criminal misconduct — not outbreaks of the ongoing jihadist war against the U.S. According to this view, alien terrorists who live among us are not considered enemies of state, a part of a wider global war against the country, but common criminals. Most Americans intuitively understand how severely this mentality impedes our government’s ability to protect the homeland, putting innocent civilians at risk. Unfortunately, the litany of embarrassing intelligence and surveillance failures surrounding the Boston Marathon bombing also suggests that the reality of our national security challenges are not being taken seriously by the Obama-run counterterrorism community as well…
To support its narrative, the leftist establishment is justifying its lax concern for national security and incompetent oversight by trying hard to portray the bombers as “lone wolves.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama to Try to Close Guantanamo Detention Center
(AGI) — Washington, Apr 30 — President Obama continues to believe that the U.S. should close the detention camp at Guantanamo and says that he is “not surprised” that there are problems at Camp X Ray, where dozens of prisoners have been conducting a hunger strike over the past few days. Obama has promised he will try and close the center, as he said he would when he became president in 2009. Obama said the situation there is intolerable and said he will, with Congress, try again to find a solution to close the center.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Obama and Other Traitors Bring an End to Sanity and My Country
I have been watching my country be assaulted over and over again, with few to none-in-office coming to her rescue.
Other than two interviews, I have not written a column on the active continuing decline of all liberty in the USA since 12 March. The reason is that it is simultaneously depressing and enraging to view the intense damage that those elected to high office in my country are doing to both the country and its people.
Too many of those who have benefited the most from the United States of America’s Republic are now openly and actively participating in its destruction.
When a country’s leaders are hell-bent on destroying said country, nothing at all — save a real revolution brought on by the people — will ever save it. In fact, just the opposite will be proposed and passed into law with the government-paid talking heads redefining words and dutifully telling the populations that freedom is slavery, wrong actions are really right and good is bad. Note: The creation of a relatively insane and befuddled population is part and parcel towards overthrowing a nation. As one example, the ostensible “leaders” in and of Washington State have decided to rewrite language to remove any mention of “man” or “men” from multiple words (i.e. penmanship is now handwriting, fireman is now fire person, fisherman is now simply fisher etc.). Last year, this same State opted to remove “bride and groom” and “man and woman” from marriage certificates and officially begin its war against human genders. These words were racist or homophobic — or something — don’tcha’ know?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Police State Euphemism: “Shelter in Place”
Philadelphia, home of the Constitution, has issued instructions on how to “shelter in place” following the successful police state lockdown in Boston.
“During last week’s events in Boston, residents were told to ‘shelter in place,’ which raises the question, would you know what to do if a similar order was issued in Philadelphia?” CBS Philly asks.
The news article provides a link to a government web page containing instructions on how to “shelter in place.” The instructions are tailored for “emergencies involving contaminated air,” but may be used for a more generalized emergency such as an order for citizens to stay indoors after the city is locked down, possibly in response to an unarmed teenager on the loose.
The Boston police state lockdown was a beta test. It went over swimmingly. Residents obeyed orders and stayed in their homes. Grocery stores closed. Hospitals were inaccessible. Roads were empty. Schools closed down. Taxi cabs didn’t run. Local business lost millions of dollars in revenue.
Then the police conducted a Fourth Amendment busting door-to-door search looking for the teenager. People went along with this, largely without question. They obeyed orders to leave their homes with hands on their heads. It resembled something out of Nazi Germany, circa 1936. Its efficiency would have made the Gestapo proud.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pressure Coming Down on Benghazi Witnesses From Obama Administration
Now that we are getting closer to finding out what really happened on that fateful night in Benghazi, Libya which left four Americans dead, upcoming witnesses are starting to feel the heat. Officials who are set to give testimony regarding the Benghazi attack have come forward and said that Barak Obama’s administration has threatened them over their testimony.
The whole Benghazi affair just stinks. Americans died, and Barak Obama immediately tried to cover it up. Remember what he and his cronies said for a week? It was a spontaneous uprising due to Muslims being upset over an Internet video. They KNEW that wasn’t what was going on. They KNEW there was no activity going on outside the American consulate.
Now, more witnesses are being called before Congress, and those witness are being threatened. As Fox News reports, “at least four career officials at the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency have retained lawyers or are in the process of doing so, as they prepare to provide sensitive information about the Benghazi attacks to Congress.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Progressives Now Want “Psychedelic Medicine”
So-called “medical marijuana” apparently doesn’t cure all of their ailments. Now the progressives want easy access to “psychedelic medicine,” including LSD and Ecstasy.
Working with the George Soros-funded marijuana movement, which has achieved enormous “progress” in the various states, especially Colorado, a group called the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is demanding acceptance of “psychedelics,” or mind-altering drugs that create hallucinations, to be accepted as “legal prescription drugs.”
Don’t laugh. Powerful and wealthy supporters of Barack Obama such as the late Ashawna Hailey, a transgender woman, have been among the noted backers of MAPS. She left her fortune to a slew of left-wing groups, including MAPS, Code Pink, and the Soros-funded Drug Policy Alliance.
A report on a MAPS-sponsored conference has just appeared on a left-wing website called AlterNet under the uplifting headline, “The Enormous Promise of Psychedelics for Sustaining Health, Happiness and Sanity.” The conference was actually titled, “Psychedelic Science 2013,” to give respectability to the use of illegal drugs. The Drug Policy Alliance was a “promotional partner,” along with such groups as the Psychedelic Society of San Francisco.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
States Rights in the Spotlight
After four and a half years in fraudulent federal dictatorship, Barack Obama has managed to stimulate only a few things in America — race and class warfare battles, gun and ammo sales, a $17 trillion public debt, a mass exodus of business investors and jobs heading overseas to “free markets” and a growing fight to enforce States Rights.
As the democrats’ Global Agenda has driven the United States deeper and deeper into Democratic Socialism via federal tyranny, literally unchallenged by DC Republicans who have almost entirely abdicated all congressional authority to both the executive and judicial branches, state legislators are rushing to reclaim their constitutional powers through a plethora of states’ rights legislative measures.
Since the people have no influence in the government of, by and for the people in Washington DC, they are turning to state governments to protect their God-given and constitutionally protected rights. An increasing number of state legislatures are answering that call for action…
“We’re a country of citizens and not subjects,” said Oklahoma Republican Rep. Lewis Moore, chairman of the committee. “It is our fault for not acting as citizens all the time.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Taxpayer-Funded Assistance Paid for Terrorists-in-Training
The Tsarnaev family benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance.
“The Tsarnaev family, including the suspected terrorists and their parents, benefited from more than $100,000 in taxpayer-funded assistance — a bonanza ranging from cash and food stamps to Section 8 housing from 2002 to 2012, the Herald has learned.” (BostonHerald.com, April 29, 2013).
The taxpayer-funded assistance for the Tsarnaevs started in 2002, or one year after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Like poisonous mushrooms they had been growing silently in the shade ever since.
“The breadth of the benefits the family was receiving was stunning,” said a person with knowledge of documents handed over to a legislative committee today.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Florida Senate ALAC Bill Will be Heard and Voted on Before the 2013 Session Ends
You may have read all of the posts about the drama of the American law for American Courts bill, SB58 in the final days of the Florida Legislative session. As of this afternoon, the American Law for American legislation is on its way for a floor hearing and vote, most likely on Friday. Sen. Alan Hays, the Senate sponsor of SB58, Acceptance of Foreign Law in Certain Cases, wrote this encouraging note in an email he sent to Rabbi Jon Hausman and others. Hausman’s’ arguments, conveyed by the grass roots here in Florida and elsewhere in email campaigns of groups like the Christian Family Coalition, Florida Family Association, Act! For America and others, may have convinced the Florida Senate leadership to bring the matter to head that facilitated the successful vote for withdrawal from the Senate Rules Committee where it has languished since April 9th. We believe this Senate vote may have provided the requisite political cover for the Florida Senate leadership. As the baseball great and master of malapropisms, Yogi Berra might say: “it ain’t over till it’s over”. More to follow on this amazing turn in the life of American Law for American Courts in one of this country’s major state legislatures. There will be re to report over the next few days as the Florida legislative session ends on Friday May 3rd.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Could Picking Your Nose be Good for You? One Scientist Believes it Could Boost Your Immune System
A Canadian academic is encouraging his students to pick their noses in a bid to see if the habit has any health benefits.
Professor Scott Napper is requesting his pupils to investigate the possible health benefits of eating their mucous in a bid to understand the human immune system better.
He believes that eating mucous in the nose may boost the immune system by introducing small and harmless amounts of germs back into the body.
His theory follows others that suggest improved hygiene has led to an increase in allergies and auto-immune disorders.
His proposed study involves splitting his class into two. Half will eat their pickings whilst other will not engage in the antisocial behaviour.
They will then observe how the immune system responds to the new habit.
Professor Napper said: ‘All you would need is a group of volunteers. You would put some sort of molecule in all their noses, and for half of the group they would go about their normal business and for the other half of the group, they would pick their nose and eat it.’
‘Then you could look for immune responses against that molecule and if they’re higher in the booger-eaters, then that would validate the idea.’
Professor Napper added that the greatest value of the snot-eating question is that, when he brings it up with his first-year science students they are instantly engaged in the class.
‘Get the student to think, rather than just sitting there taking down notes,’ Napper said. ‘[Science] should be about the exchange of ideas.’
But the associate professor of biochemistry at the University of Saskatchewan is a firm believer in the powers of picking your nose.
He said: ‘Nature pushes us to do different things because it is to our advantage to have certain behaviours, to consume different types of foods.
Other bad habits such as nail biting may also help boost the immune system
‘So maybe when you have an urge like this to pick your nose and eat it, you should just go with nature.’
‘From an evolutionary perspective, we evolved under very dirty conditions and maybe this desire to keep our environment and our behaviours sterile isn’t actually working to our advantage,’ he told CBC News.
Experts such as Dr Hilary Longhurst, consultant immunologist from the Bart’s NHS Trust, believe a similar thing occurs when we bite our nails.
‘Unless your hands are filthy, the bugs we encounter when biting our nails could boost our immune system,’ she said.
The immune system works by developing a ‘memory’ and making a note of how to fight each bug it has ever encountered.
When a bug is encountered a second time, the immune system reaches into its ‘memory’ and releases weapons — called memory lymphocytes — that know how to kill it.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Hamilton Muslims Reach Out to the RCMP
In mid-April, members of Hamilton’s Muslim community, Kamran Bhatti and Hussein Hamdani, were driving to Toronto, called to an RCMP meeting. They would be briefed on an upcoming press conference to announce the arrests Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier. The suspects are accused of plotting to derail a VIA rail train in an al-Qaeda-supported terror plot.
The meeting was not just to alert members of Ontario’s Muslim communities, it was also to acknowledge that the key tip leading to these arrests came from an Imam. “The first part of the meeting was a thank you,” Hamdani said. “The RCMP thanked the Muslim community for providing them with this lead.” The RCMP heralded the connection they had with the Muslim community. And it was the same connection that brought Hamdani and Bhatti, both members of the Muslim Association of Hamiton, to this meeting…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) The working conditions, quality of care being provided, cleanliness, and overall operating procedures at Canada’s thousands of government-run healthcare facilities appear to be in major need of reform, according to the findings of a new investigative survey. As reported by Canada’s CBC News, roughly one-quarter of all registered nurses (RNs) now say they would not even recommend their own hospitals to family and friends, illustrating what some believe are the telltale signs of the decline of socialized medicine.
Compiled as part of CBC’s flagship investigative show the fifth estate, the survey asked more than 4,500 RNs from at least 257 hospitals throughout Canada to rate various aspects of their practice. Availability of resources, quality of care, number of staff, and degree of cleanliness are among the many issues the nurses were asked to consider and evaluate as part of their collective response to the survey.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Resistance Museum Fire Set, Investigators Say
Police searching for suspects and motive in blaze that destroyed one of Copenhagen’s most visited museums
Police said this afternoon that Sunday’s fire at the Resistance Museum, which they initially believed was likely an electrical fire, was apparently set.
“This seems to be arson,” Jens Møller, of the Copenhagen Police, told media.
Møller said that fire investigators had identified two sites, about ten metres apart, on the outside of the wooden building where the blaze appears to have started.
Yesterday investigators said the fire had started in a portable toilet, but concluded today that there was nothing to indicate that it began there.
The building, built in 1995 and which housed the country’s largest collection of Second World War items, was destroyed in the fire that took Copenhagen firefighters 10 hours to extinguish. Miraculously, most of the museum’s collection was removed from the building before suffering permanent fire or water damage.
Police have no suspects at this point and are asking anyone who may have information that could help lead to an arrest to contact them.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France Shows us How to Deal With Jihadis
by Philip Johnston
Why are our Gallic neighbours so much better at deporting terrorist suspects?
One of the great mysteries of the Abu Qatada saga is why this country finds it so difficult to deport suspected foreign terrorists while France has no such problem. Here are two nations, both Western liberal democracies, both in the EU, both signatories to the European human rights convention and subject to the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Both face threats from Islamist extremists; and yet their approach to dealing with them is dramatically different. Between 2001 and 2010, the UK deported nine alleged jihadis who were deemed to pose a threat to national security. Over the same period, France removed 129…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Unique Baroque Feather Room Opens for Visitors
Historians have put the finishing touches to one of Germany’s more unusual curiosities — a Baroque castle room with wallpaper made from feathers. Visitors will be able to look, but not touch, from Wednesday.
A room in the Moritzburg castle, Saxony, has been restored to its original glory after experts worked for nearly three years sticking on 24 kilogrammes of peacock, goose, pheasant and mallard feathers to its walls.
Thought to be one of the only feather-papered rooms in the world, the World Monuments Fund (WMF) and a regional Sparkasse bank donated €1 million in 2010 to make the project a reality.
The room is “a symbol of German cultural heritage,” said president of the WMF board Bertrand du Vignaud on Tuesday at its unveiling. And for Saxony’s head of state owned castles and gardens, Christian Striefler, “it is a dream come true.”
Visitors will be taken round by a guide, not only to the feather room but also to a newly restored bedroom, which has straw carpets and silk walls. Entrance is €5.50 for adults and €3.50 concession and tour groups are capped at 10 people.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
German Police Hope to Use New Spyware
German investigators are hoping to gain greater access to telecommunications data in order to combat terrorism. But there is controversy over the spyware they want to use to keep tabs on private computers.
The application can search a hard drive and download its contents in a matter of minutes. Pages viewed on the internet are saved as screenshots, webcams and microphones can be activated remotely, and all keystrokes are automatically logged. Every Skype conversation can be recorded before it can be scrambled. If necessary, access to the computer can be re-established at any time, in order for new spy Trojans to be downloaded onto it. And the computer’s owner will never be the wiser.
While the German police and intelligence agencies are keen to exploit the possibilities that the creators of such spyware offer them, data protection and human rights activists have already come to the conclusion that it goes too far. In 2008, the German Constitutional Court put strict limits on the use of this software, on the grounds that privacy is strictly protected by the constitution.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Athens to Crack Down on Illegal Use of Public Space
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, APRIL 29 — Athens municipal police will be intensifying inspections on cafes, kiosks and other businesses that use public sidewalks and squares for seating or to display their wares, following a crackdown in the popular central district of Gazi last week. According to City of Athens data cited by daily Kathimerini, in 2012 were filed 3,135 lawsuits against businesses for being in breach of zoning regulations with 42.2% of the suits relating to the illegal use of public space. Businesses can pay municipal authorities rent for the use of public sidewalks or squares, but need to abide by the exact area stipulated in their lease. In 2012, the City of Athens collected 3.7 million euros in rent from cafes, bars, kiosks and other businesses. Businesses found using more space than they’ve paid for face a fine of 200% of the initial charge.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
by Cheradenine Zakalwe
If the first round of the presidential election had taken place next Sunday, only 19% of French people would vote for François Hollande, 34% would give their vote to Nicolas Sarkozy and 23% to Marine Le Pen, reaveals a CSA poll for BFMTV. Consequently, the current head of state would not be present in the second round of the election.
One year on, this change in the balance of power is explained by a major drop in support for François Hollande. 41% of those who voted for him in the 1st round in 2012 would not vote for him again.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Police Dismantle Islamist Terrorist Cell
Group based in Puglia with international contacts
(ANSA) — Rome, April 30 — Italian police said Tuesday that they had dismantled an Islamic terrorist cell based in the southern region of Puglia with links to major international figures involved in terrorism.
Bari prosecutors said six people were being arrested in Italy and abroad on suspicion of international terrorism association and instigation of racial hatred.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: M5S Hurl Insults at Letta and Proposed Government
All a ‘family plot’ says anti-establishment MP
(ANSA) — Rome, April 29 — Members of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) hurled insults at Premier Enrico Letta and his newly formed government on Monday following his speech aimed at getting the confidence of the House. During a debate, M5S MP Andrea Colletti accused Letta’s left-right coalition of being “a stroke of paint (covering) an irreparably moldy wall”.
Colletti attacked Letta’s choice of Angelo Alfano from ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom Party (PdL) as interior minister, calling it “mafia negotiations and a gag to the judicial system”.
“It is all a family plot,” Colletti said, referring to Enrico Letta’s relation to his uncle, Gianni Letta, who has been Berlusconi’s longtime chief of staff.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi Says Letta Agreed to Scrap IMU Property Tax
Controversial PdL election pledge condition for govt
(ANSA) — Rome, April 29 — Ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi said Monday that new Prime Minister Enrico Letta has agreed to his demand for the IMU property tax to be scrapped as a condition for his centre-right People of Freedom’s (PdL) support of a new executive.
Scrapping the unpopular tax and returning the revenues gained from it in 2012 was Berlusconi’s key pledge in the run-up to February’s inconclusive general election, which was followed by two months of deadlock.
Letta’s Democratic Party (PD) said it would ease IMU — which was instituted among a series of austerity measures under former Premier Mario Monti’s emergency technocrat government — for the worse-off, but ruled out scrapping the tax, saying this would wreck the budget.
“For us, reimbursing the 2012 IMU and scrapping IMU for 2013 are a sine qua non,” Berlusconi said. “We told that to Letta, who gave us reassurances about this. Now we’ll see what happens”.
Letta, who was sworn in along with a cabinet that features a mix of politicians from different parties and some highly respected institutional figures, is set to illustrate his executive’s plans in a speech in the House later on Monday ahead of confidence votes in both chambers of parliament. Abolishing IMU and reimbursing the 2012 revenues from it would create a hole of around eight billion euros in this year’s budget.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy 2nd Highest Tax Burden in EU Says Eurostat
Only Belgium higher
(ANSA) — Brussels, April 29 — Italy’s tax burden in 2011 was the second heaviest among the 27 countries in the European Union, Eurostat reported on Monday.
The European statistics agency found Italians had to pay 42.3% of their earnings to the state in 2011.
The only country with a higher tax burden was Belgium, at 42.8%.
Italy’s tax burden edged slightly lower compared to 2010, when it tied with Belgium for the dubious distinction at 42.7%.
In France and Germany’s taxes took 38.6% and 37.1% of wages in 2011, respectively. In the United Kingdom, workers were docked over 26.0% in taxes.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Campania Regional Councillors Probed for Fraud
Members of We South party affiliated with ex-premier’s PdL
(ANSA) — Naples, April 22 — Two councillors are being probed in the southern Campania region suspected of making personal use of public funds, Italian finance said on Monday.
Campania regional council members Sergio Nappi and Raffaele Sentieri were placed under house arrest and obligation to remain, respectively.
Both face charges of aggravated fraud by the Naples prosecutor’s office.
Nappi and Sentieri are suspected of embezzling public funds allocated for communication and other institutional activities, in a probe that in recent months has led to the investigation also of other Campania regional councillors. The finance police found irregularities that led investigators to believe Nappi and Sentieri took 31,000 and 22,000 euros, respectively, including an invoice Nappi presented dated prior to his election.
The two councillors belong the the centre-right We South party, allied with Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: No June Property Tax: No December Increase, Says Alfano
(AGI) — Rome, Apr 30 — After the Senate’s vote of confidence, Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Angelino Alfano answered reporters’ questions about the property tax saying, “There is nothing to clarify. There is just a fact; in June the people will not pay.” Alfano said there would be no increase in the December rates.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Prosecutors Move to Seize Bossi Yacht in Tunisia
Boat worth 2.5 mln euros purchased by former League leader’s son
(ANSA) Milan, April 30; Milan prosecutors are taking measures to seize a yacht currently located in Tunisia purchased by the son of Northern League party founder and former leader Umberto Bossi, as part of a wider investigation into the alleged misuse of public funds which earlier this month saw the former treasurer of the separatist political group arrested. Italian authorities have contacted their Tunisian counterparts through a letter rogatory requesting they be permitted to gain control of the vessel that is currently moored in a local port. Former Northern League treasurer Francesco Belsito was arrested in April on charges of alleged criminal association and aggravated fraud. He had been under investigation since a probe into alleged misuse of public funding to the party broke last year in a scandal that led Bossi to quit.
Earlier this month, reports emerged of a 2.5-million-euro yacht that was bought by Riccardo, one of Bossi’s sons, as part of an alleged widespread embezzlement scheme that involved public funds.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Modern Monarch: Holland Crowns a Laid-Back King
For years, the Dutch doubted whether Willem-Alexander — the easy-going prince disparaged in the media as stupid, lazy and intemperate — had what it takes to rule. Crowned king on Tuesday morning, the 46-year-old will now attempt something his mother never did: to be a thoroughly modern monarch.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Most Swedes Doubt Sweden Can Defend Itself
A new Novus opinion poll showed that 83 percent of survey respondents doubted whether Sweden could defend itself. Ten percent said they did not know, leaving a slim sliver of six percent who trusted Sweden’s defence.
“Above all I think there is a misunderstanding about what Sweden needs to defend itself against,” Defence Minister Karin Enström told TV4 news channel.
“There is no direct threat to Sweden.”
Recent revelations in the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper that Russian military aircraft have performed fly-bys in close proximity to the Swedish border has stoked the debate of whether Sweden’s defence capabilities are adequate.
A Good Friday military exercise saw Russian bombers fly past Gotska Sandön in the Baltic Sea, prompting Nato jets to set off to trail them while Sweden’s air force remained mute, according to SvD’s source.
The Armed Forces (Försvarsmakten) have come under increased scrutiny since Supreme Commander Sverker Göransson said in January that Sweden could only defend itself for one week.
It coincided with the annual Swedish defence conference Folk och Försvar in the northern ski resort of Sälen, where high-profile guest speaker and Nato Secretery-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said there was no guarantee of help from the military alliance while Sweden chose to remain a non-member.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Six Arrested From Islamist Cell in Southern Italy
(AGI) Rome, Apr 30 — Italian carabinieri remanded into custody six suspects in an investigation into international terrorism and incitement to racial hatred. The Bari public prosecutor’s office issued the arrest warrant targeting an Islamist cell operating in Italy’s Apulia region and abroad. The cell was found to have close links to international terrorists and is characterised by keen antisemitism and a bitter dislike for “infidel” countries such as Italy and the United States. The raid carried out by a special task force in Apulia yielded evidence of “widespread proselytic activities and the indoctrination of new members”, including audiovisual material inciting jihad and suicide attacks in the West and in “war zones”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Netherlands Celebrates Its New Monarch
The rather reserved queen Beatrix of the Netherlands has handed over her crown to her son Willem-Alexander. He’s somewhat closer to the people, and people across the country are celebrating their new king.
When Beatrix became queen in 1980, the ceremony was marred by violent demonstrations of squatters and anarchists. During the celebration in the “New Church,” Beatrix, who took over on the throne from her mother Juliana, was able to hear the anti-royalist protests outside.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Attack on EDL Rally: Concerns Over Gym Associated With Terrorists
A Birmingham gym fuelled fresh concerns it is being used as a recruiting ground for extremists after being associated with a second terror gang.
The Darul Ihsaan centre, known locally as “Jimmy’s gym”, was used by members of the Jihadist group that planned to attack the English Defence League. Two of the gang, Mohammed Saud and Anzal Hussain, also worked there. The same gym was used by at least four members of a separate terror cell which planned to attack the UK with eight suicide bombers. Earlier this year those four admitted travelling to Pakistan for terror training and will be sentenced at a later date. While the gym is not directly linked to either plot, police sources say they are working with its management to reduce the risk of radicalisation there…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Caste Discrimination to be Outlawed by Equality Act
Caste discrimination is to be outlawed in the UK, Business Secretary Vince Cable has announced in what is a U-turn on previous government policy.
The House of Lords has voted twice for legal protection to be given to the estimated 400,000 Dalits — so-called untouchables — who live in the UK.
MPs overturned the first Lords vote, but after peers again backed the plan on Monday, there has been a rethink.
Mr Cable said caste would in future be treated as “an aspect of race”.
Keith Porteous Wood, of the National Secular Society, said: “We are delighted that the government has accepted that discrimination against caste should enjoy the same statutory protection as all other forms of protected characteristics.
“This is a victory for the Lords and their emphasis on protecting human rights.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Extremists Admit EDL Attack Plot
Six Islamic extremists have admitted plotting a deadly attack on a far-right rally which only failed by chance despite one of them being under surveillance. The six admitted preparing an act of terrorism between May 1 and July 4 last year when they appeared at London’s Woolwich Crown Court. They had previously denied the charge but Jewel Uddin, 27, Omar Mohammed Khan, 31, Mohammed Hasseen, 24, Anzal Hussain, 24, Mohammed Saud, 22, and Zohaib Ahmed, 22, changed their pleas. They will be sentenced on June 6 with Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC, the Recorder of Greenwich, warning them: “This will attract significant custody. There is no doubt about that.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Ed Miliband Faces Calls to Remove Ken Livingstone From Labour Nec After ‘Disgusting’ Remarks
Ken Livingstone’s remarks about the motives of the Boston bombing suspects have been widely condemned for suggesting that American foreign policy ‘fuels the anger’ that drove such young men into acts of terrorism. Tory chairman Grant Shapps has demanded the former Mayor of London apologise for causing offence…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Islamist Extremists Admit Planning Gun and Bomb Attack on Far-Right EDL Rally
Six Muslim terrorists have admitted planning to attack a rally by the far-right English Defence League with homemade bombs, guns and knives.
The al-Qaeda inspired Birmingham gang may have wanted to assassinate EDL leader Tommy Robinson, who had been due to speak at the event. The plot, last summer, only failed by sheer luck because the Jihadist group turned up too late and the rally had already finished. And they were only caught by another stroke of luck because an error by one of the terrorists when taking out car insurance led to one of their vehicles being stopped by a traffic officer as they returned home.
Even then, the car, loaded with homemade bombs, weapons and a letter attacking the Queen and detailing the plot, sat in pound for two days before the terror cache was discovered. The atrocity almost came off even though one of the cell was under surveillance by MI5 and police after being investigated during another Birmingham terror plot the year before…
[JP note: Birmingham where Muslims can be pure.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Six Islamic extremists who plotted a bloody bomb attack on a far-right rally only failed because the gathering finished early — even though they were under surveillance, a court heard.
The group admitted planning a murderous attack at the English Defence League (EDL) event in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, when they appeared before a judge today.
Police and security services had no intelligence about the planned attack on June 30 last year, although one of the would-be killers was under surveillance in relation to another terrorist plan.
At London’s Woolwich Crown Court, Jewel Uddin, Omar Mohammed Khan, Mohammed Hasseen, Anzal Hussain, Mohammed Saud and Zohaib Ahmed admitted preparing an act of terrorism between May 1 and July 4 last year.
Another of the group, Zohaib Ahmed, was also on bail for possession of terrorist documents at the time of the plot.
All of the men except Hasseen travelled to the rally armed with two shotguns, swords, knives, a nail bomb containing 458 pieces of shrapnel, and a partially assembled pipe bomb, ready to cause mass injuries and deaths.
The nail bomb was an 18-inch (46cm) long rocket which had been stuffed with shrapnel and was to be powered by explosives taken from at least two large fireworks.
Police estimated there could have been up to 750 EDL marchers at the Dewsbury event, but also dozens of officers and innocent passers-by.
The fanatics’ plan failed by chance, because they arrived at 4pm when the rally had dispersed by 2pm.
The planned attack was only uncovered because a traffic officer stopped Uddin and Khan on the M1 as they travelled back to their home town, Birmingham.
He made checks on their Renault Laguna, which came up as being uninsured, and so the car was impounded.
It was only two days later that staff at the pound near Sheffield looked at the contents of the Renault and found the gang’s arsenal.
There were also 10 copies of a hate-filled note addressed to the enemies of Islam, the Queen and Prime Minister David Cameron.
It said: ‘This is a message to the enemies of Allah and his messenger. This is a message to the kafir (non-believer) female devil and self-proclaimed Queen Elizabeth and her accursed jubilee, fooling a nation of blind sheep to your self-proclaimed royalty and majesty.’
The document addressed the EDL directly, saying: ‘To the EDL (English Drunkards League). O enemies of Allah! We have heard and seen you openly insulting the final Messenger of Allah… you should know that for every action there is a reaction.
‘Today is a day of retaliation (especially) for your blasphemy of Allah and his Messenger Muhammad. We love death more than you love life. The penalty for blasphemy of Allah and his Messenger Muhammad is death.
‘What we did today was a direct retaliation of your insulting of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and also in retaliation of your crusade against Islam/Muslims on a global scale. It is of the greatest honour for us to do what we did.’
CDs of speeches by radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki were also found.
Police and security services had the sixth man under low-level surveillance in relation to another terrorist plot.
He had been seen with Khan going into a shop five days before the rally, but no officer followed them in to Home Choice in Sparkhill because contact would have been too close.
In fact they were going to buy the kitchen knives which were among the weapons that the gang planned to use.
Hasseen also pleaded guilty to possessing a document or record containing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism on July 3.
All six of the men played five-a-side football together and went to the same gym at the Darul Ihsan Islamic centre, known as the Baker Street gym, where Saud and Hussain worked.
Police said they deliberately did not take their mobile phones with them on the day of the attack to try to avoid detection.
They had searched the internet for details of how much information detectives can glean from mobile phone data.
It can now be reported that Uddin was flagged up as a person of interest to security services and police after his minor involvement with another group of terrorist plotters.
He was involved as a bucket-shaker doing charity collections for the extremists, who planned to detonate up to eight rucksack bombs and possibly other devices on timers.
Irfan Naseer, 31, Irfan Khalid, 27, and Ashik Ali, 27, all from Birmingham, were convicted in February of planning the attack, which could have been bigger than the July 7 atrocities.
Four other men, including Anzal Hussain’s brother Ishaaq, travelled to Pakistan for terror training as part of the plot, but were sent home when family members intervened.
The men, who sat impassively together, changed their pleas and admitted their involvement via videolink.
They will be sentenced on June 6.
Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC, the Recorder of Greenwich, told the men: ‘This will attract significant custody. There is no doubt about that.’
Marcus Beale, assistant chief constable with West Midlands Police and responsible for its Counter Terrorism Unit, said the six were extremely dangerous and could have maimed, killed and brought misery which would ‘have transmitted fear and anxieties to our communities’.
He said: ‘I am really pleased these six have pleaded guilty.
‘They are clearly a radicalised group with extremely dangerous intent. Their intent was to recklessly cause mayhem and probably mass injuries.’
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Six Admit Planning to Bomb English Defence League Rally
Six men from the West Midlands have pleaded guilty to planning to bomb an English Defence League rally.
Omar Mohammed Khan, Mohammed Hasseen, Anzal Hussain, Mohammed Saud, Zohaib Ahmed and Jewel Uddin admitted preparing an act of terrorism. All six will be sentenced on 6 June. Five of them took a homemade bomb to an EDL rally in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, last June but arrived after it ended. They were caught after their car was stopped and found to have no insurance. Police and security services had no intelligence about the planned attack, although one of the would-be killers, Jewel Uddin, was under surveillance in relation to another terror plan…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Letter: The EDL Plot in Writing and an Attack on the Queen
Copies of a letter found in the terror group’s car revealed their plans and reasons for it and made it clear they had hoped to attack the EDL.
It was dated for the day of the rally but also insulted the Queen, to who it was addressed along with David Cameron.
Entitled “Operation in defence of the prophet Mohammad” it read:
“This is a message to the enemies of Allah and his messenger. This is a message to the Kaffir Female Devil the self proclaimed Queen Elizabeth and her accursed Jubilee fooling a nation of blind sheep to your self proclaimed royalty and majesty”.
In a paragraph directed at the EDL, it went on:
“To the EDL (English Drunkards League) and enemies of Allah, we have heard and seen you openly insulting the final messenger of Allah. You should know that for every action there is a reaction. Today is a day of retaliation (especially) for your blasphemy of Allah and his messenger Mohammad. We love death more that you love life. The penalty for blasphemy of Allah and his messenger Muhammad is death. What we did today was a direct retaliation of your insulting of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and also in retaliation of your crusade against Islam and Muslims on a global scale. It is of the greatest honour for us to do what we did.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
by Jake Wallis Simons
News that six Islamic extremists plotted a gun and bomb attack on an English Defence League (EDL) rally should come as no surprise, even if the manner in which they were caught should…
[JP note: As if the writer of this execrable piece, Jake Wallis Simons, is itching to applaud a terrorist attack on the EDL and comes within a whisker of doing so.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Woman, 21, Charged in ‘Niqab’ Acid Attack
A 21 year-old woman has been charged with an acid attack which left a Victoria’s Secret shop assistant maimed.
Prosecutors have approved the charge over the assault on Naomi Oni, who suffered horrific burns and damaged sight after sulphuric acid was thrown over her face by someone she said was wearing a niqab, the Muslim garment which features a full facial veil. Police have charged Mary Konye, of Throckmorton Road, east London, with throwing corrosive fluid with intent to burn.
Damaris Lakin, CPS London senior Crown prosecutor, said: “I have authorised the Metropolitan Police to charge Mary Konye in relation to the throwing of sulphuric acid onto Naomi Oni on December 30, 2012, in Dagenham. “I concluded that there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and that it is in the public interest to charge Ms Konye with throwing or casting a corrosive fluid with intent to burn, maim, disfigure, disable or do grievous bodily harm.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
World Wide Web Celebrates 20th Birthday
The world’s first web page will be dragged out of cyberspace and restored for today’s Internet browsers as part of a project to celebrate 20 years of the Web, organizers said in Geneva on Tuesday.
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said it had begun recreating the website that launched that World Wide Web, as well as the hardware that made the groundbreaking technology possible.
The world’s first website was about the technology itself, according to Geneva-based CERN, allowing early browsers to learn about the new system and create their own web pages.
The project will allow future generations to understand the origin and importance of the web and its impact on modern life, CERN web manager Dan Noyes told AFP.
“We’re going to put these things back in place, so that a web developer or someone who’s interested 100 years from now can read the first documentation that came out from the World Wide Web team,” he said.
The project was launched to mark the 20th anniversary of CERN making the World Wide Web available to the world for free.
British physicist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, also called W3 or just the web, at CERN in 1989 to help physicists to share information, but at the time it was just one of several such information retrieval systems using the Internet.
“It’s one of the biggest days in the history of the web,” Noyes said of April 30, 1993.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Professor Questioned for Insulting Religion
An Egyptian professor who was questioned on Sunday over allegations that included insulting religion may face suspension. Suez Canal University President Maher Mosbah had ordered that Professor Mona al-Brince be questioned after her students and head of department filed complaints against her. “I will go to university tomorrow, to give my lectures and meet my students, as no official decision to suspend me has been issued yet,” Brince told Aswat Masriya on Monday. “I know how they operate; if I am not present tomorrow, they will punish me for my absence.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Jobless Tunisian Youth Sets Himself on Fire
Twice refused entry to Italy
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, APRIL 24 — A young, unemployed Tunisian man who had tried twice to enter Italy illegally has committed suicide by setting himself on fire in Sidi Abid, Jendouba.
The unnamed 28 year old smothered himself in gasoline and set himself alight before being taken to Jendouba hospital where attempts to revive him failed. His father said that his son had twice been turned away when he tried to enter Italy illegally.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Nation Arrests Hundreds in Syria Recruit Probe
Tunis — Hundreds of Tunisian salafists were arrested last week as part of a probe into jihadist recruitment centres that trained and sent young fighters to Syria, the interior minister said. “Several networks to recruit young Tunisians for jihad in Syria have indeed been dismantled,” Shems FM quoted Lotfi Ben Jeddou as saying on Thursday (April 25th). “They belong to the hardline salafists groups or criminal groups.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
2 Killings Shatter Relative Calm Between Israelis, Palestinians
Tensions rose Tuesday between Israelis and Palestinians after two separate killings — one by each side — shattered what had been a period of relative calm in recent months.
At a northern West Bank hitchhiking stop, an Israeli settler was stabbed to death by a Palestinian man who stole the settler’s gun and attacked nearby soldiers before being arrested, officials said. It was the first such killing of an Israeli by a Palestinian in the West Bank in 18 months. Separately, the government said that Israel Defense Forces killed a Gaza Strip-based militant accused of participating in rocket attacks, including one earlier this month that struck the Israeli resort city of Eilat from the Sinai Peninsula…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Christian Palestinians to Pope, Help us Block Wall
Israeli barrier eating up land, monks’ wine company
(ANSAmed) — RAMALLAH — In an open letter to Pope Francis who is scheduled to meet Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday, the Christian Palestinian community of Beit Jala asked for his intervention against the construction of an Israeli defense wall in the Cremisan Valley in the West Bank.
‘We are a Christian village called Beit Jala near the city of Bethlehem’, read the letter. ‘We are threatened by the construction of the famous separation barrier which Israel’s military occupation means to build by dispossessing most Christian Palestinian lands with the objective of separating Bethlehem and other areas from Jerusalem and other holy sites.
Up until today Israel has confiscated two thirds of our lands’.
The letter to the pontiff said that for over a year the Christian community ‘has been meeting every Friday in these lands to pray for a positive solution to this issue’. The confiscation, the letter said, ‘would dispossess 58 families of their land, and would take away the land of a nursery school managed by Salesian nuns and land owned by a convent of Salesian monks and its winemaking company for a total of 1200 hectares’.
The letter, which follows a recent ruling by an Israeli court allowing the continuation of construction of the separation barrier and the expropriation of land owned by the two Salesian convents in the Cremisan Valley cites a decision of the International Court of Justice urging all member states not to recognize the situation resulting from the construction of the Israeli separation barrier in agreement with the 1949 Geneva Convention.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Kills Suspect in Eilat Rocket Attack
Palestinian kills 20-yr-old Israeli in Tapuach settlement
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, APRIL 30 — Israeli forces killed a suspected Islamic militant and left another wounded in the Gaza Strip, Israeli army radio reported on Tuesday. The man, who was killed while traveling aboard a motorcycle near a Hamas military training camp, was a suspect in a recent rocket attack from the Egyptian Sinai on the Israeli tourist town of Eliat, local media reported. The man who was traveling with him was wounded.
Also on Tuesday, a Palestinian man stabbed a 20-year-old Israeli to death on the side of the road in the Tapuach settlement, near Nablus in the West Bank, army radio reported.
Border guardsmen wounded and subdued the assailant, who is now being held in an Israeli hospital. His conditions are not known.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kerry Scores a Win in the Peace Process
by Alan Johnson
There has been a very interesting development with the Arab Peace Initiative (API). An Arab League delegation led by the Qatari PM met yesterday with John Kerry and Joe Biden and announced what is in effect an amendment of the API. From now on the future borders of Israel and Palestine will include agreed land swaps. Both sides also expressed support for Abbas in the peace process and for Kerry’s planned economic package for the Palestinians…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Fodder for the Front: German Jihadists on Syria’s Battlefields
Jihadists from Germany are fighting, and dying, in Syria on the side of the rebels. Young and totally inexperienced, authorities worry they’ll return home radicalized — if they survive at all.
A young man in his mid-twenties with a stubbly beard is driving a delivery van through the rubble-strewn streets of the northern Syrian town of Azaz. He speaks excellent German and calls himself Yousuf. The man in the passenger seat is around the same age and also sports a beard. He won’t even reveal his first name, but he also speaks nearly perfect German.
“After we go back home, we don’t want any problems with Germany’s foreign and domestic intelligence agencies,” says Yousuf. This also explains why the two men refuse to divulge what city in Germany they come from. “Before we entered Syria, the Turks had already put our passport information into their system,” he adds. “They know exactly who we are. If they pass that on to the Germans, we’re sunk, even though we’re just here on a humanitarian mission.”
A humanitarian mission? That’s the euphemism foreign jihadists use when they try to explain their presence in Syria.
There are reportedly a few hundred Muslims from Western countries who are fighting alongside the rebels to topple Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. It’s a relatively small number compared to the perhaps 100,000 insurgents in the country.
“We know that jihadists from Germany, who we have already been observing here at home, are currently in Syria and fighting there,” German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said last week. German intelligence agencies are primarily concerned that such men will be trained during the civil war and later return to the West as radicalized extremists — assuming they survive.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Warns US: No ‘Red Lines’ In Syria
German Defence Minister Thomas de Maizière on Monday cautioned against game-changing “red lines” in Syria’s civil war, amid growing evidence that regime forces have used chemical weapons.
“I support all forms of political pressure but I currently do not see a role for the military,” De Maizière told reporters while on a trip to Washington, rejecting “automatic” military action in response to Syria’s chemical weapons.
“Efficient military action would be extraordinarily complex and costly,” he warned on the sidelines of the 20th anniversary tribute to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in the US capital.
He appeared to be referring to President Barack Obama’s past warnings that Syria’s use or movement of chemical weapons would constitute a “red line” that could prompt more direct US intervention in the civil war.
The United States said Thursday for the first time that Syria had likely used chemical weapons on a small scale against rebel forces, but emphasized spy agencies were still not 100 percent sure of the assessment.
Obama on Friday promised a “vigorous investigation” into the reports and renewed his warning that proof of their use would be a “game changer.”
De Maizière meanwhile urged Germany’s Western allies to conduct a joint inquiry into the alleged use of chemical arms.
“We do not have enough information yet,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kerry and Arab League, Small Land Swaps for Peace
Israel welcomes softer version of 2002 peace plan
(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 30 — US Secretary of State John Kerry and a delegation of the Arab League on Monday agreed to a land trade that would pave the way towards a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
“The Arab League delegation affirmed that agreement should be based on the two-state solution on the basis of the June 4, 1967 line, with the (possibility) of comparable and mutual agreed minor swaps of the land”, Kerry told reporters after meeting yesterday in Washington with foreign ministers from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and officials from the Arab League, Lebanon, the Palestinian National Authority and Saudi Arabia.
Israel welcomed the initiative.
“This news is very positive,” Israeli justice minister and chief negotiator with the Palestinians, Tzipi Livni, told Army Radio on Tuesday. “In the tumultuous world around…it could allow the Palestinians to enter the room and make the needed compromises and it sends a message to the Israeli public that this is not just about us and the Palestinians”.
The office of Premier Benjamin Netanyahu has not commented as yet.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
New York Times Tells Truth About Syria
Shocking as it may seem, the New York Times managed to tell the truth about Syria today:
“Nowhere in rebel-controlled Syria is there a secular fighting force to speak of.”
The conclusion to this revelation is not, unfortunately, “stop arming the non-existent secularists.” Rather, it is to intervene even more — and even more quickly…
The US and its allies have created the problem of Islamist radicals running the insurgency in Syria by providing support to Islamist radicals running the insurgency in Syria — all the while repeating the lie that it was simply supporting a domestic democratic uprising that reluctantly turned violent only after the regime turned to force.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Q & A: ‘The Jihadist Plot’ By John Rosenthal
by Diana West
I will never forget the unmitigated horror of watching as the United States openly switched sides in the 2011 “Arab Spring,” abandoning allies in the war on terror (jihad) to support those same jihadist forces instead. There was precious little company in the press gallery on this one as US media, shouting slogans of “revolution” and “democracy,” blindly failed to perceive or actually covered up the obvious truth: The US, with NATO, was now supporting the Other Side — the same Other Side that had struck us in 9/11, killed and maimed our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and threatened Western liberty everywhere. It was in this crazy atmosphere, John Rosenthal’s independent reporting from Europe provided essential information and context.
John’s long-awaited book, The Jihadist Plot: The Untold Story of Al-Qaeda and the Libyan Rebellion, is now out from Encounter. It contains much new information on this shameful, perplexing, dangerous episode — whose jarring reverberations, by the way, have yet to play out.
Here is our Q & A.
DW: Whose side is the United States on in Syria?
John Rosenthal: Objectively, we are on the same side as Jabhat al-Nusra in the Syrian conflict. The administration’s listing of Jabhat al-Nusra as a terror organization changes nothing in this regard and amounts in fact to a kind of sleight of hand. It allows the administration to claim that it is supporting
the Syrian rebellion, but somehow not its “extremist” component. But this distinction is completely bogus. The response to the listing from other rebel brigades — many of which hastened to express their solidarity with Jabhat al-Nusra — makes this clear. Jabhat al-Nusra is part of the
mainstream of the Syrian rebellion. If it is extremist, then so is the rebellion as such.
DW: You explain in your book that in mid-2011, the US changed sides in the so-called war on
terror, which was originally mounted as a war against Al Qaeda; and, moreover,
that the US media missed this story. Could you state the case in brief?
JR: The US changed sides in the “war on terror” during the 2011 Libya conflict
and it did so in two senses. In the first place, it did so by virtue of
forming an alliance with some of the very same Islamic extremist forces that
it had been combating for the previous decade. As I show in the book, the
military backbone of the rebellion against Muammar al-Qaddafi was formed by
cadres of the so-called Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). The LIFG was
listed as an al-Qaeda-linked terror organization by both the US government
and the UN Security Council. It was, in effect, the Libyan chapter of
al-Qaeda and had a long shared history with the al-Qaeda “mothership” of
Osama bin Laden. Several of the leaders of the rebellion had in fact been
previously detained by US authorities, either during the invasion of
Afghanistan or in subsequent covert counter-terror operations. In the Libyan
war, the US and its NATO allies were providing air support to troops led by
these very same people…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Saudi Buys 469 Flats Worth 190 Mln USD in Istanbul
(ANSAmed) ISTANBUL, APRIL 24 — The Agaoglu Group, one of the biggest real estate firms in Turkey, has recently sold 469 flats worth 190.7 million USD to a Saudi businessman in one deal, Arab News reports quoting the weekly Turkish magazine Ekonomist. The sale represents nearly 10% of the Agaoglu project in Istanbul, which has a total of 4,789 apartments. The Saudi businessman, whose identity has not been disclosed, has reportedly paid a deposit worth 10 million USD and will pay the remainder this week. Meanwhile, Hasan Rahvali, head of the Agaoglu Group, said the sale was unique in the Turkish construction sector. He said the Saudi buyer decided to make the deal after a recommendation from two Saudi businessmen, in which they bought 60 apartments each from their group last year.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Launches E-Visa System for Citizens of 94 Countries
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, APRIL 25 — Aiming to attract more tourists from all over the world, Turkey has launched a new revolutionary online visa application system for the citizens of 94 countries that enable the issuing of tourist visas within minutes under certain conditions. “Around 30 million foreigners visit Turkey each year. 65% of them are exempted from visa. Our target is the remaining 10 million foreigners. They are allowed to enter into Turkey after they get their visa from our consulates or at the border gates.
This system is designed to transfer all of these procedures to the electronic context,” Deputy Foreign Minister Naci Koru told the Hurriyet daily in an interview. As the architect of this system, Koru is well known for his expertise in digitalizing many functions of the ministry. The system categorizes countries under two large groups. The first group is composed of 40 countries whose citizens will get online visas without conditions. Among them are the United States, Canada, Australia, Austria, Republic of Cyprus, Qatar, Norway, the United Kingdom, etc. The citizens of the second group composed of 54 countries will however get their quick visas under certain conditions. A visa obtained from an OECD country will suffice for applicants from these countries to get an online touristic visa for Turkey. In addition, holding a residence permit from an OECD country is also sufficient for an online application. This group of countries is mainly from Africa.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Veteran Italian War Correspondent Domenico Quirico Missing in Syria
La Stampa’s correspondent has not been heard from for 20 days after entering Syria from Lebanon earlier this month. The Italian foreign ministry has activated its crisis unit to try to trace him
By BBC News:
An Italian journalist has been missing in Syria for 20 days, his newspaper La Stampa says.
Domenico Quirico, 62, an experienced war reporter, entered Syria from Lebanon on 6 April saying he would be out of touch for a week…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
White House Says the US May Use Military Force Against Syria
Pres. Obama spoke to reporters hours later about the allegations during a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah in the Oval Office, calling the developments a “game changer” in terms of how the US might respond.
“Horrific as it is when mortars are being fired on civilians and people are being indiscriminately killed, to use potential weapons of mass destruction on civilian populations crosses another line with respect to international norms and international law,” Obama said.
“That is going to be a game changer. We have to act prudently. We have to make these assessments deliberately. But I think all of us … recognize how we cannot stand by and permit the systematic use of weapons like chemical weapons on civilian populations.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Afghanistan: Woman Killed for “Dishonouring” Family
The public killing of a woman in Afghanistan is further proof that the authorities are still failing to tackle the shocking levels of gender-based violence in the country, Amnesty International said today. The woman, who has two children, was shot dead on Monday 22 April by her father in front of a crowd of about 300 people in the village of Kookchaheel, in the Aabkamari district of Badghis province in north-western Afghanistan…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Bomb Blast in South Afghanistan Kills NATO Troops
Three members of the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) have been killed in a bomb attack in southern Afghanistan.
Officials blamed an improvised explosive device. The nationalities of those killed were not given. Elsewhere, roadside bombs killed three Afghan civilians and wounded five in Kandahar province, and two Afghans in the northern province of Kunduz. On Sunday, the Taliban launched what it called its annual “spring offensive”. It has pledged to target foreign military bases and diplomatic areas…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Burma Proposes Family Planning Regime to Control Muslims
Burma should place limits on the growth of Muslims by introducing a family planning programme in areas where sectarian clashes organised by Buddhists have killed hundreds, an official report has said.
Recommendations of the report into the organised attacks and allegations of collusion by security forces sparked an outcry among activists and campaigners against the Burmese regime. Despite documented involvement of police in attacks on Muslim towns and villages, the inquiry said the number of security forces in faultline districts must be doubled.
It also offered no hope for 125,000 displaced resident of Rakhine state who have looked to the state to ensure they could return home.
President Thein Sein appointed the 27-member panel last year to investigate the causes of the conflict and recommend measures to prevent further violence. Its findings had been delayed several times. The panel included former political prisoners, Christians, a Hindu, Muslims, and Rakhine Buddhists, but did not include any Rohingya Muslims…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
India Warns Pakistan of Massive Retaliation Even in Case of Midget Strike
NEW DELHI, April 30 (Xinhua) — India has warned Pakistan of a massive retaliation even if there is a midget nuclear strike by the neighboring country, local media reported Tuesday. “India will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, but if it is attacked with such weapons, it would engage in nuclear retaliation which will be massive and designed to inflict unacceptable damage on its adversary. The label on a nuclear weapon used for attacking India, strategic or tactical, is irrelevant from the Indian perspective,” ‘The Times of India’ quoted Shyam Saran, the convener of the National Security Advisory Board, as saying…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistani Support for Extremists Persists
The killing of al Qaeda’s former head Osama bin Laden in Pakistan two years ago embarrassed the Pakistani government and military. Experts, however, say Islamabad’s policy to support extremists did not change.
The West had long doubted Pakistan’s commitment to the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda.
It had often accused the Pakistani military’s spy agency — the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) — of backing the Taliban militants. The discovery of al Qaeda’s former head Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad and his eventual assassination in a covert operation by US forces made the world all the more skeptical about Pakistan’s intentions.
Western experts and officials questioned how it was possible that the world’s most-wanted terrorist was living in Pakistan for more than five years and the country’s ubiquitous military and its secret services did not know anything about him.
Experts say that Bin Laden’s ideology of terror is very much alive in Pakistan, and that little has changed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Washington Fuelling Rampant Graft in Afghanistan
Washington has long maligned Kabul for being weak on corruption. But the Central Intelligence Agency has reportedly been buying access to President Hamid Karzai’s inner circle for a decade.
The United States and its NATO allies have complained for years about rampant corruption in Afghanistan, voicing frustration with President Karzai’s inability — or perhaps unwillingness — to fight graft and improve the rule of law.
But according to a report published by the New York Times on Monday, Washington may be one of the biggest contributors to that very corruption. The Central Intelligence Agency has reportedly been dropping off suitcases stuffed full of American dollars at the office of the Afghan president for years, in an effort to buy influence in Kabul.
The British Guardian reported on Tuesday that the United Kingdom’s MI6 also may have made cash payments to Karzai’s office, in an effort to promote meetings between the Taliban and the Karzai government.
The alleged CIA bribes have supposedly amounted to tens of millions of dollars over the past decade. Much of the money was reportedly distributed to warlords and politicians, in an effort to buy their loyalty.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
MUSLIM leaders have slammed the federal government, accusing it of leaving parts of western Sydney to rot because the area is seen as a safe seat.
Politicians had failed to provide jobs, core infrastructure, funding for community organisations and sport as well as neglecting resources needed for policing, the groups claimed. “We have for too long been ignored by government on all areas,” Lebanese Muslim Association president Samier Dandan said. “The only time you see attention is when it is negative issues. Unemployment is very high and more and more land is being opened up to cater for population growth. There is no employment for youth. How can they be employed if they don’t have the right schools or the right education?”
Community leader and Australian of the Year Local Hero national finalist Dr Jamal Rifi said: “I bet my right arm the current government hasn’t put any money into the local area, sporting and education, since they came to power…
[JP note: Don’t mess with JIM.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
First Mandela Images Since Hospitalization Cause Controversy
(ANSA) — Rome, April 30 — The first images of anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela after being released from hospital were released after South African President Jacob Zuma paid a visit to him at his home on Monday, sparking controversy in local as well as social media. “We spoke, we shook hands, he smiled,” Zuma said in an interview with state broadcaster Sabc, which also aired the video of Mandela, who was admitted into medical care in March for a lung infection. Zuma is expected to run in next year’s presidential elections for another term.
The airing of the images triggered much criticism, with Twitter users calling it an invasion of Mandela’s privacy, “invasive” and also disrespectful of all that “Mandela has done for the South African people”.
Many also highlighted the difference between the commentary made by those working at the state broadcaster, who said the leader was “relaxed” and in a “good mood”, when in effect the images showed a weak man sitting on a chair with a blanket over his knees. Photographers’ excessive use of flashes were also criticized during the meeting, given the long-term eye problems Mandela has due to the years spent breaking rocks at Robben Island prison. In the video he is barely Able to keep them open.
Mandela turns 95 in July.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
President Goodluck Jonathan said his administration will provide at least one helicopter for each of the state police commands in the country. Jonathan who disclosed this in Abuja yesterday during the commissioning of police equipment, said it was part of the efforts towards repositioning the nation’s security agencies in response to the current security challenges. “As part of our plans to reposition the Nigeria Police Force, we must make sure that every state command has a helicopter to work with. At this period of security challenges, we must invest in air power to combat terrorism, armed robbery and other security issues,” he said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Somalia: Danish Hostages Freed After More Than Two Years in Captivity
Søren Lyngbjørn, Eddy Lopez and their four Filipino colleagues released by Somali pirates after 40 million kroner ransom is paid
Two Danish seamen who have been held captive for over two years were freed today, the Foreign Ministry has confirmed.
The two Danes, Søren Lyngbjørn and Eddy Lopez, were released by the Somali pirates who have held them since January 2011. Also released were four Filipinos. The pirates were paid a ransom that TV2 News reports was around 40 million kroner. At this point, it is unknown who paid for the release.
According to TV2, the first part of the ransom sum was paid last Thursday and the second was paid earlier today via a money drop.
PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt expressed joy about the release on Facebook.
“It is terrific news that doesn’t just relieve my heart, but likely relieves the hearts of all of Denmark,” the PM wrote. “I would like to send a warm greeting to the seamen and their family. They have been through a terrible ordeal. Now they are in safety and can begin their way back to a normal life.”
Lyngbjørn and Lopez were working for the shipping company Shipcraft aboard the MV Leopard when Somali pirates hijacked the ship in the Indian Ocean on 12 January 2010. They were shortly thereafter transferred to land and held in an unknown location in Somalia. Lyngbjørn is reported as being in very poor health and unable to walk.
In their first media interview since being freed, Lopez spoke to TV2 News and said that they were obviously happy that their long ordeal was over.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Surprising Somali Pirate Victim: Science
A large “data hole” has emerged in the Indian Ocean near the Horn of Africa thanks to the marauding of legions of Somali pirates, who attack and take over ships of all sorts in an effort to gain ransom money, National Geographic reports.
The hostages and ships taken by the pirates are what gain headlines, but the rampant piracy also keeps scientific ships and expeditions away, especially those that drill on the ocean floor, affecting fields from anthropology to climatology. “This problem has been going on a long time and with virtually no public awareness,” Sarah Feakins, who studies Earth’s ancient climates and whose work has been stymied by piracy, told National Geographic.
And the problem ripples outward from the scientific community: A gap in wind and other weather measurements over an area of 960,000 square miles (2.5 million square kilometers) of open sea has left a hole in climate models, affecting forecasts of a wind pattern that is one of the main drivers of the Indian summer monsoon, making it harder to predict when and how much rain will fall on key agricultural areas in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Brazilian Doctor Charged With 7 Murders, May Have Killed 300: Investigator
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
BRASILIA (Reuters) — A Brazilian doctor who was charged with killing seven patients to free up beds at a hospital intensive care unit may have been responsible for as many as 300 deaths, according to a Health Ministry investigator.
Prosecutors said Dr. Virginia Soares de Souza and her medical team administered muscle relaxing drugs to patients, then reduced their oxygen supply, causing them to die of asphyxia at the Evangelical Hospital in the southern city of Curitiba.
De Souza, a 56-year-old widow, was arrested last month and charged with seven counts of aggravated first degree murder. Three other doctors, three nurses and a physiotherapist who worked under De Souza have also been charged with murder.
Prosecutors for the state of Parana said wiretaps of De Souza’s phone conversations revealed that her motive was to free up hospital beds for other patients.
“I want to clear the intensive care unit. It’s making me itch,” she said in one recording released to Brazilian media. “Unfortunately, our mission is to be go-betweens on the springboard to the next life,” she added in the same phone call.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Brazil: Rio Tackles Favelas’ Transportation Problems
A cable car in Rio’s notorious shantytown Complexo do Alemao has made it easier and safer for residents to get around. But some of the favela’s residents are critical that more pressing projects were pushed aside.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration Bill to Bring in at Least 33 Million People in One Decade
If the S744 amnesty bill passes, we can expect 33 million added immigrants within 10 years. That’s for starters. When you add their progeny, chain migration and our own population momentum of one million annually, we face the most profound explosion of humanity within our borders ever in the history of humanity.
It’s the equivalent of adding one additional New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Austin, San Francisco, Columbus, Fort Worth, Charlotte, Detroit, El Paso, Memphis and Boston. If the bill passed, it would be the same as adding ALL of the Top 20 cities in the United States in a short 10 years. That of course does not include additional population growth driven by birth rates.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Scores of ‘Syrians’ Rescued From Migrant Boat
Rome, 30 April (AKI) — Italian coastguard late Monday rescued a boat off the Sicilian coast with 78 people aboard who claim to be Syrian.
The 35 men and 44 boys were all reported to be in good health. An aerial patrol had spotted their boat adrift off the eastern Sicilian coastal city of Syracuse and a coastguard vessel towed it into port.
The migrants were transferred to a local migrant holding centre for health and identity checks.
Early on Tuesday, 15 migrants reached the southern coastal city of Crotone in Italy’s Calabria region, 12 of whom were detained. Their nationalities were unknown.
The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said in March that over a million people had fled the civil war in Syria, putting strain on host countries in the region.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said Syria was “spiralling towards full-scale disaster,” and urged nations to pledge funds urgently.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Rep. Speier: U.S. Should ‘Create Refugee Status for Any Afghan Woman Who Wants to Leave the Country’
(CNSNews.com) — A U.S. lawmaker, expressing concern about the lives of Afghan women when most U.S. troops leave the country in 2014, said those who want to do so should be allowed to come to the United States:
“I’m really concerned about these women,” Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) told a House Armed Services subcommittee on April 25. “I think everyone on this panel is very concerned about these women…But I think there is something we can do. And that is to create a refugee status for any Afghan woman who wants to leave the country and is seeking asylum in our country.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ted Cruz: Principled Opposition to Rubio Amnesty Bill
Senator Ted Cruz, the boat-rocking limited government constitutional conservative Senator from Texas, provided another one of his patented cross examinations of a smoke-blowing government official at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Sen. Ted CruzCruz, the son of legal immigrants from Cuba, asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano about border security measures — the so-called “triggers” — contained in the “Gang of Eight’s” immigration bill.
Specifically, Senator Cruz asked, “If there are no objective metrics, if it is simply the subjective assessment of a host of factors, how can we have any confidence that the border will be secured and that any trigger will be meaningful?”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Has Political Correctness Gone Mad or is Madness Politically Correct?
In 1961 a young psychiatrist by the name of Thomas Szasz published a book called The Myth of Mental Illness in which he argued that “psychiatry, unlike medicine, could demonstrate no physical basis for the ‘diseases’ it identified and ‘treated’“.
In a fascinating profile for Aeon, Holly Case writes that Szasz’s book was a big hit with the counter-culture of 1960s America, whose anti-establishment rebels delighted in what they saw as a repudiation of society’s suffocating norms. And yet, Szasz was no leftwinger. In fact, he was a staunch Republican, who feared that, in the hands of the left, psychiatry would become a tool of political oppression
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Humans’ Indelible Stamp on Earth Clear 5000 Years Ago
When did humans stamp our footprint on the planet? The idea that we have entered a geological epoch defined by our very presence — the Anthropocene — is gaining traction, but exactly when did this epoch begin? After the first atom bomb went off? At the start of the industrial revolution in the mid-18th century? Or was it a lot earlier? A new study argues that the Anthropocene began with the rise of farming or even in Neolithic times, when we took to widespread burning of the bush to hunt animals.
In a reappraisal of humanity’s footprint, Erle Ellis, a geographer at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, and colleagues calculate that across much of the world — excluding the poles — at least a fifth of the land had been transformed by humans as early as 5000 years ago. By contrast, most previous studies conclude that this level of transformation in land use was only reached around 100 years ago. Ellis’s group also argues that this degree of land use would have released enough carbon dioxide to have warmed the local climate of the time.
Even though there were only a few tens of millions of us back then, nature was on the back foot because individuals needed far more land to sustain themselves than we do today, says Ellis. Thanks to more intensive farming methods, per-capita land use in western Europe now is only around a sixth what it was 2500 years ago, while in south-east Asia it is less than a tenth.
“We often assume that early agriculturalists couldn’t alter the landscape much because they lacked the technology,” says co-author Steve Vavrus of the University of Wisconsin in Madison. “But their impact was great because they didn’t need to be as efficient as modern farmers.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Many in Muslim World Want Sharia as Law of Land — Survey
- Strong support for sharia courts to regulate family issues
- More limited backing for harsh punishments, death edicts
- Varied views on democracy, suicide bombing and headscarves
By Religion Editor Tom Heneghan
April 30 (Reuters) — Large majorities in the Muslim world want the Islamic legal and moral code of sharia as the official law in their countries, but they disagree on what it includes and who should be subject to it, an extensive new survey says…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
New Pew Research Study Examines Social and Political Attitudes of Muslims Worldwide
WASHINGTON, April 30, 2013 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — A new Pew Research Center survey of Muslims around the globe finds that most adherents of the world’s second-largest religion are deeply committed to their faith and want its teachings to shape not only their personal lives but also their societies and politics. In all but a handful of the 39 countries surveyed, a majority of Muslims say that Islam is the one true faith leading to eternal life in heaven and that belief in God is necessary to be a moral person. Many also think that their religious leaders should have at least some influence over political matters, and many express a desire for sharia — traditional Islamic law — to be recognized as the official law of their country. But the percentage of Muslims who say they want sharia to be “the official law of the land” varies widely, from fewer than one-in-ten in Azerbaijan (8%) to near unanimity in Afghanistan (99%)…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Off topic:
https://gatesofvienna.net/2006/09/the-other-september-11th/
Quote from “The Other September 11th”: Unfortunately for Kara Mustafa, the Austrians within the city had mounted a counter-tunneling operation. The Austrian “moles” detected the Turkish mine, found the charge, and defused it.” End of Quotation.
Nowadays one “Mole”. Just one is enough this time.
Defusing Mohammeds “Mine” which has been built out of the Matthews Gospel texts will not only exactly destroy the Quorans Founding Myths, it shall also rise up high the Mirror onto the Constantin`s Christs weaknesses …….
Fractioning under the fasict beasts of the Eagle Cults will end and brotherhoods in true humanity shall dwell.
Todays Austrian Traitors in the Gov again leave their People in Vienna alone, EU Monsters playing Louis XIV and Obama does Kara Mustafa …….
Never thought your lies could fall onto you — ?
How anyone “out there” could think that Justice will not be carried out until the last murderers and traitors have gone through their punishments – either the penance way…. or the other…… !