Nine suspects have been arrested in Turkey after yesterday’s car bombings in a town on the border with Syria. The Turkish foreign minister says that the alleged bombers have a connection with Syria, and the Turkish government is demanding that the world take action against the Assad regime.
In other news, a Saudi national was arrested after arriving at Detroit Metro airport with a pressure cooker in his luggage, and then lying to TSA officers about his reasons for bringing it into the country.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, Papa Whiskey, Steen, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Detroit Insolvent, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr Says
Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr says the city of Detroit’s cash-flow crisis makes it “insolvent” and unable to borrow more money to mask over debts being made worse by skipping millions in payments for retiree pensions and health care.
After 45 days on the job, Orr’s initial assessment of Detroit’s perilous finances is laid bare in a 41-page report to be delivered today to state Treasurer Andy Dillon.
Calling it “a sobering wake-up call about the dire financial straits the city of Detroit faces,” Orr said he will use the report as a baseline for paring down the city’s $15.6 billion in debt and long-term liabilities.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Europe Urges France to Undertake ‘Far Reaching’ Reforms’
Le Figaro, 8 May 2013
EU authorities, which recently granted France an additional two years to rein in its spending deficit, are nonetheless pressing Paris to push through reforms, writes Le Figaro.
On May 7, a day when French and German finance ministers — Pierre Moscovici and Wolfgang Schäuble — met in Berlin, the European Commission recommended that France should implement “audacious” reforms to improve competitiveness. Adding weight to this request, European Commission President Herman Van Rompuy urged Paris to introduce “far reaching” reform.
However, the conservative daily notes —
Burdened with an outsize public sector and held captive by a ruinous social model, France has taken no steps to implement the far reaching reforms that the Europeans are clamouring to see.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
France and Germany Plan Deal for Jobless Youths
France and Germany are to launch a joint initiative this month aimed at tackling the growing problem of youth unemployment in Europe. The scheme, called “New Deal for Europe” will be used to promote education and training.
France and Germany plan to launch this month a “New Deal for Europe” against youth unemployment, which has topped 50 percent in several countries, with credits for companies that create jobs, a news report said Monday.
Under the initiative, billions of euros (dollars) in loans from the European Investment Bank (EIB) would be used to promote education, training and job placements for young people, reported Germany’s Rheinische Post daily.
The plan will be presented in Paris on May 28 by French Labour Minister Michel Sapin, his German counterpart Ursula von der Leyen and a group of companies, said the report citing unnamed government sources and conference organisers.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and his French counterpart Pierre Moscovici would also join the town hall-style meeting organised by the EU bank and the German-American investor and philanthropist Nicolas Berggruen.
The “New Deal” — named to echo US president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Great Depression recovery plan — comes amid fears of a lost generation, especially in Greece and Spain where almost two out of three young people are unemployed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Graduating From College Into a Bleak Unemployment World
When I came to the university from my country, officials looked at my transcript and did not give me credit for courses such as Philosophy of Socialism, Scientific Socialism, Socialist Economy, and Dialectical Materialism. They told me flatly that they were just communist propaganda. Funny how today, if I had had the same courses, not only would I have been given credit, I probably would have been congratulated for having taken those classes and hired by a government branch staffed heavily with people who believe in socialism.
College costs have exploded and, in order to attract more students, advisors entice students with the false promise of a six-figure job, knowing that the unemployment rate is very high among college graduates. Almost 25% are either unemployment or underemployed.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hungary: ‘Viktor Orbán: We Have Decided Not to Give in to Pressure From Brussels’
Magyar Hírlap, 10 May 2013
The European Commission may drop the excessive deficit procedure against Hungary, “on condition that it stays on course for budgetary consolidation.”
On May 3, Brussels acknowledged that Hungary’s deficit was well below 3 per cent of GDP in 2012, but that it is expected to rise slightly above this threshold in 2013 and 2014.
The government led by Viktor Orbán announced that it would adopt measures which are “compatible the country’s current social and economic policies,” that is to say: it will refuse to implement “measures demanded by the Union of other countries: no tax increases on individuals or SMEs, and no reduction in welfare spending.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spain’s ‘Indignants’ Renew Street Protests
Thousands of Spaniards on Sunday gathered to mark the second anniversary of the “indignants” movement formed to protest economic inequality as unemployment in the debt ridden country last month hit record levels.
The “indignados” demonstrators gathered in Madrid, Barcelona and in around 30 other Spanish cities in anger at the government’s austerity measures.
At the Puerta del Sol central square in Madrid, protesters carried signs that read “The fight continues”, “Together, it’s possible” and “They call it a democracy but it’s not”.
They were due to hold a minute’s silence later Sunday to mark “a silent cry”.
The “indignants”, along with the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations in New York, spawned similar protests in hundreds of cities around the world.
While some of Sunday’s demonstrators waved republican flags, others wore T-shirts symbolising the mobilisation of the education sector which, much like the health sector, has been hit hard by the belt-tightening cuts.
Retired factory worker Fernando Gomecello Rodriguez, a 65-year-old who took part in the first protests held by the movement, said he resented Spain’s impotence.
“The government just does what Germany, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank tell it to do,” he said.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative government hopes to save €150 billion ($195 billion) by 2014 through the cuts in a bid to slash the public deficit.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: ‘Indignados’ Party Eyes 5-Star Movement
Delegation on Wednesday in Ancona to meet Grillo
(ANSAmed) — MADRID — Two years after the creation of the ‘indignados’ movement in Spain, the idea to set up a political front like Italy’s anti-establishment Five-Star Movement is growing. A Spanish delegation on Wednesday, May 15, will be in Ancona to meet Beppe Grillo, the comedian who leads the movement, according to the Cronica weekly of the El Mundo newspaper. The attorney Ramon Hernandez told reporters that a working group set up by him with other people in the movement called ‘Confluencia’, is examining the possibility of creating a party to represent the indignados and leftist groups.
‘The idea is to create a progressive front which can run in the elections with a programme promoting social transformation with the participation of citizens and the public opinion’, said the attorney. The Democracia Real Ya (Dry) platform is considering the possibility of setting up a political association. Over half of the Spanish population, 54,7%, would back a Movement 15-M at the elections, according to a Gallup poll in Spain cited by the media. Some 23% of those interviewed were against it while 22,3% did not have an opinion. The percentage of backers increased to 61% among those interviewed who were between the ages of 25 and 44.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Youth Unemployment: Germany’s Unique Key to Success
Die Welt Berlin
For the five million young unemployed Europeans, Germany, where the rate of youth joblessness is the lowest in Europe, looks like a promised land. While its system of dual training at the core of this success seems like a model for crisis-hit countries, it is not easily exported.
Stefan von Borstel
More than 5.5m young Europeans are without jobs. In the crisis countries in southern Europe, a generation is coming of age with few prospects: one in two Spaniards and Greeks under 25 are unemployed, and it’s one in three in Italy and Portugal.
To them, Germany must look like an island of the blessed: youth unemployment here is below 8 per cent. In none of the other 27 EU member states is it this low. Only Austria is anywhere close (8.9 per cent).
How do they do it, our European neighbors ask — and even make pilgrimages to Germany to research the phenomenon. What they discover is our dual vocational training system — going to school (theory) and working (practice) simultaneously rather than consecutively. For most Europeans, that’s new: learning and working, instead of learning then working.
The European Commission has praised the German model as a “guarantee against youth unemployment and shortage of skilled labour.” Even US President Barack Obama praised the German model in his 2013 State of the Union address: “Right now, countries like Germany focus on graduating their high school students with the equivalent of a technical degree from one of our community colleges, so that they’re ready for a job.”
Slow-changing opinions
For a long time, other countries criticised Germany for this approach — in fact, the OECD regularly upbraided us for having too few university graduates. For many international education experts, a university education — bachelor or master’s degree, doctorate — is the measure of all things. German “Meister” (master) certification is seen as rather exotic….
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
CNN Calls for Real-Time Police State Surveillance
The establishment media is calling for the implementation of Big Brother technology following the Boston bombing last month.
In order to prevent terrorist attacks, CNN argues, there must be real-time surveillance cameras planted everywhere. Panopticon technology is required if we are to expect government to protect us from terrorists and other miscreants, the corporate media network says.
In April, CNN dismissed privacy and civil liberty concerns and argued that “facial-recognition software and other technologies are making security-camera images more valuable to law enforcement. Now, software can automatically mine surveillance footage for information, such as a specific person’s face, and create a giant searchable database.”
CNN says video surveillance is “less intrusive” and “much more pleasant” than pat-downs and other in-your-face Gestapo tactics. “When combined with competent law enforcement, surveillance cameras are more effective, less intrusive, less psychologically draining, and much more pleasant than these alternatives,” writes Heather Kelly.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Crocodile Tear During Benghazi Cover Up Smear
The mainstream media mistake Obama sweat for tears, but not everyone is being taken in by the crocodile tear depicted on the Drudge Report today.
Small businessman Warren Gillette posted this on FaceBook:
“Yahoo news has come under scrutiny lately for being way out left, and an Obama propaganda tool. This claim takes the cake. Here we are to believe…that they (tears) begin in the lateral aspect of the eye, despite the fact that the lacrimal duct drainage is in the medial aspect of the eye. And the Yahoo bogus tear appears to defy gravity as it moves laterally from the claimed point of origin!!”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Establishment Media Attacks Rand Paul for Saying Globalists Plotting Against Constitution
The Washington Post has attempted to write-off Kentucky Senator Rand Paul as a fringe kook for opposing the United Nations’ Small Arms Treaty.
Ezra Klein, who spends a lot of time over at MSNBC with Rachel Maddow and has also appeared with Bill Maher — who has called the Second Amendment “bullshit” — bases his claim on research conducted by Snopes.com, the website specializing in debunking myths.
Klein says the treaty does not pose a threat to gun owners in the United States. He dismisses the email below as “black helicopter stuff from Paul.”…
Here is Paul’s email:
Dear fellow Patriot,
Gun-grabbers around the globe believe they have it made.
You see, only hours after re-election, Barack Obama immediately made a move for gun control…
On November 7th, his administration gleefully voted at the UN for a renewed effort to pass the “Small Arms Treaty.”
But after the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut — and anti-gun hysteria in the national media reaching a fever pitch — there’s no doubt President Obama and his anti-gun pals believe the timing has never been better to ram through the U.N.’s global gun control crown jewel.
I don’t know about you, but watching anti-American globalists plot against our Constitution makes me sick.
This Spring, the United Nations went back into session to finalize their radical so-called “Small Arms Treaty.”
With the treaty finalized, a full U.S. Senate ratification showdown could come any time President Obama chooses and there will be very little time to fight back.
If we’re to succeed, we must fight back now.
That’s why I’m helping lead the fight to defeat the UN “Small Arms Treaty” in the United States Senate.
And it’s why I need your help today.
Will you join me by taking a public stand against the UN “Small Arms Treaty” and sign the Official Firearms Sovereignty Survey right away?
Ultimately, UN bureaucrats will stop at nothing to register, ban and CONFISCATE firearms owned by private citizens like YOU.
So far, the gun-grabbers have successfully kept many of their schemes under wraps.
But looking at previous attempts by the UN to pass global gun control, you and I can get a good idea of what’s likely in the works.
You can bet the UN is working to FORCE the U.S. to implement every single one of these anti-gun policies:*** Enact tougher licensing requirements, making law-abiding Americans cut through even more bureaucratic red tape just to own a firearm legally;
- CONFISCATE and DESTROY ALL “unauthorized” civilian firearms (all firearms owned by the government are excluded, of course);
- BAN the trade, sale and private ownership of ALL semi-automatic weapons;
- Create an INTERNATIONAL gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun CONFISCATION.
I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this is NOT a fight we can afford to lose.
Ever since its founding 65 years ago, the United Nations has been hell-bent on bringing the United States to its knees.
To the petty dictators and one-world socialists who control the UN, the United States of America isn’t a “shining city on a hill” — it’s an affront to their grand designs for the globe.
These anti-gun globalists know that as long as Americans remain free to make our own decisions without being bossed around by big government bureaucrats, they’ll NEVER be able to seize the worldwide power they crave.
And the UN’s apologists also know the most effective way to finally strip you and me of ALL our freedoms would be to DESTROY our gun rights.
That’s why I was so excited to see the National Association for Gun Rights leading the fight to stop the UN “Small Arms Treaty!”
Will you join them by going on record AGAINST global gun control and sign the Official Firearms Sovereignty Survey today?
The truth is there’s no time to waste.
You and I have to be prepared for this fight to move FAST.
The fact is the last thing the gun-grabbers at the UN and in Washington, D.C. want is for you and me to have time to mobilize gun owners to defeat this radical agenda.
They’ve made that mistake before, and we’ve made them pay, defeating EVERY attempt to ram the UN Small Arms Treaty into law since the mid-1990s.
But now time may not be on our side.
And worse… the UN Small Arms Treaty is no longer the only UN scheme threatening our gun rights.
More and more of the UN’s radical agenda is slipping through covertly, under the cover of domestic legislation.
Not long ago, Obama told Sarah Brady from the anti-gun Brady Campaign, “I just want you to know that we are working on [gun control]. We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”
In fact, Hillary Clinton’s State Department recently bragged that Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious are implementations of the UN’s anti-gun agenda!
And I’d place a wager that Obama’s M1 Rifle Re-importation Ban was also the UN’s agenda dutifully executed by his administration.
Anti-gun UN policy that NEVER received a single vote in the United States Congress!
The UN met recently to pass a final version of the “Small Arms Treaty” to be sent for ratification by the Senate.
So if you and I are going to defeat them, we have to turn the heat up on Washington now before it’s too late!
1. Do you believe the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Second Amendment are the supreme law of the land?
2. Do you believe any attempt by the United Nations to subvert or supersede your Constitutional rights must be opposed?
If you said “Yes!” to these questions, please sign the survey the National Association for Gun Rights has prepared for you.
But I hope you’ll do more than just sign your survey today.
With your help, the National Association for Gun Rights will continue to turn up the heat on targeted Senators who are working to implement the UN “Small Arms Treaty.”
Direct mail. Phones. E-mail. Blogs. Guest editorials. Press conferences. Hard-hitting internet, newspaper, radio and even TV ads if funding permits. The whole nine yards.
Of course, a program of this scale is only possible if the National Association for Gun Rights can raise the money.
But that’s not easy, and we may not have much time.
In fact, if gun owners are going to defeat the UN’s schemes, pro-gun Americans like you and me have to get involved NOW!
So please put yourself on record AGAINST the UN Gun Ban by signing NAGR’s Firearms Sovereignty Survey.
But along with your survey, please agree to make a generous contribution of $250, $100, $50 or even just $35.
And every dollar counts in this fight so even if you can only chip in $10 or $20, it will make a difference.
Thank you in advance for your time and money devoted to defending our Second Amendment rights.
For Freedom,
Rand Paul
United States Senator
P.S. Only hours after re-election Barack Obama immediately made a move for gun control…
On November 7th, his administration gleefully voted at the UN for a renewed effort to pass the “Small Arms Treaty.”
What’s worse, the UN met in March to pass the final version of the treaty that will be sent to the Senate for ratification.
If we’re going to defeat the UN “Small Arms Treaty,” gun owners have to turn the heat up now before it’s too late!
Please return your Firearms Sovereignty Survey and put yourself squarely on the record AGAINST the UN “Small Arms Treaty.”
And if you can, please make a generous contribution to the National Association for Gun Rights of $250, $150, $100 or even just $35 right away!
And every dollar counts in this fight so even if you can only chip in $10 or $20, it will make a difference.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Justice Subpoenaed AP Phone Records, News Service Says
(CNN) — The Justice Department secretly collected two months of telephone records for reporters and editors at The Associated Press, the news service disclosed Monday in an outraged letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.
The records included calls from several AP bureaus and the personal phone lines of several staffers, AP President Gary Pruitt wrote. Pruitt called the subpoenas a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into its reporting.
[…]
The AP reported that the government has not said why it wanted the records. But it noted that U.S. officials have said they were probing how details of a foiled bomb plot that targeted a U.S.-bound aircraft leaked in May 2012. The news agency said records from five reporters and an editor who worked on a story about the plot were among those collected.
The subpoenas were disclosed to the news agency on Friday, Pruitt wrote. In all, federal agents collected records from more than 20 lines, including personal phones and AP phone numbers in New York; Hartford, Connecticut; and Washington, he wrote.
[Much good it did you people to carry Barry Hussein’s water for so long, eh? — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Painful Possibilities of Obamacare
I am asked, occasionally, why I still harp on Obamacare so much. The answer is simple. America was sold a bill of goods. I should probably qualify that last statement. Only those Americans who bought into the idea of Obamacare, as Obama and the liberal-socialists who make up the modern Democratic Party presented it, were hoodwinked. Most clear-thinking adult human beings saw through the scam from the beginning and warned and warned and WARNED against it. We TOLD you what it was — and is — and we told you what it would do to America, as a whole, and to you and I as individuals.
Obamacare is a lie, dear reader, one of the biggest lies ever told the American people and one of the biggest lies/hoaxes ever perpetrated upon any nation on the globe. It was — and is — a grand “CON.” It is founded on Marxism and is, in fact, Socialism. But it is more than that — much more. It brings America to the threshold of becoming a police state.
Oh, uh, gun owners… you’re not going to like Obamacare. Here’s why. Under Obamacare there is a strong likelihood that if you own a gun you will not get healthcare insurance.
Far-fetched, you say? Maybe. Before you decide definitively for yourself, check out this article at the Washington Times entitled “U.S. quietly begins to study gun safety.”
And then read this article entitled: “Stealth Agencies for Gun Control”
Why would the national HEALTH agency (NIH) be studying gun control issues or any issue having to do with guns? I mean, after all — it is a HEALTH agency, right? Their intention, I believe, is to fix solidly in the collective mind of the public that guns (and gun control) is actually, a HEALTH issue. It’s a lie, of course. But tell a lie long enough and people begin to believe it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Traveler From Saudi Arabia Arrested at Detroit Metro With Pressure Cooker
Detroit — Federal agents arrested a Saudi Arabian traveler who arrived at Detroit Metropolitan Airport with a pressure cooker, a key component used in the Boston Marathon bombings last month.
Hussain Al Kwawahir will be arraigned at 1 p.m. in federal court for allegedly using an altered passport and lying to a Customs and Border Protection Agent about the pressure cooker.
Al Kwawahir arrived at the airport Saturday from Saudi Arabia, via Amsterdam, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday in federal court.
He told agents he was visiting his nephew, who attends the University of Toledo.
During baggage inspection, officers noticed a page missing from his passport.
Al Kwawahir told officers he did not know how the page was removed from the passport.
During the baggage exam, officers found a pressure cooker.
Al Kwawahir said he brought the pressure cooker for his nephew because the devices are not sold in the United States, according to the complaint.
Later, he changed his story and admitted that his nephew had purchased a pressure cooker in the U.S. but it was cheap and broken.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Consumers Can Blame Wal-Mart for New Online Sales Tax When it Passes
In an overwhelming show of support, the U. S. Senate voted 69-27 to let states collect sales tax on out-of-state online purchases. While the measure still has to make it through the House, you can bet your boots consumers will be paying online sales tax before the next holiday shopping season rolls around. And who do we have to thank for this increase in taxes? Wal-mart, of course.
Currently, online retailers are only required to collect sales tax on purchases made by consumers who live in states where the online store has a physical presence. The proposed measure would require all online retailers with more than $1 million a year in out-of-state-sales to charge sales tax on all purchases, regardless of the consumer’s location.
It’s not surprising that the bill is being sponsored by Wal-Mart’s own Congressional representative, Republican Steve Womack of Arkansas. For nearly a decade Wal-Mart has been been fighting to develop their own online presence while watching Amazon gradually eat into their substantial corporate profits.
The mainstream media is reporting that brick-and-mortar stores, namely Wal-Mart, want to level the playing field, claiming they’re losing sales and market share because they’re required to collect sales taxes on every purchase but online retailers aren’t. The bill’s proponents say that states are losing $23 billion annually in sales tax revenue.
But let’s make one thing perfectly clear: This bill is being sponsored and pushed through by Wal-Mart, and it has nothing to do with “lost tax revenue.” This is just another Wal-Mart scheme to increase their own profits.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Washington Post Blames Gangland Shooting on Second Amendment
Gun control advocates hijack incident in America’s crime capital to demonize law-abiding gun owners
Despite the fact that the FBI described the shooting at a New Orleans Mother’s Day parade as “a flare-up of street violence” and not a targeted attack, the Washington Post cited the incident as another reason to push through draconian gun control measures.
19 people were injured yesterday as the parade passed through the 7th Ward neighborhood near the French Quarter in New Orleans. Suspects were witnessed running from the scene after they fired the shots but no one has been apprehended.
In addition to the FBI describing the incident as “a flare-up of street violence,” CNN reported that, “One of the suspects was described as an African-American male, approximately 18 to 22 years old, wearing a white T-shirt and blue jean shorts.”
New Orleans is plagued by gang violence and has been referred to as “the deadliest city in America”. In 2010, the city’s homicide rate was 10 times the national average.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Brussels Wants Better Comparability of Bank Charges’
Der Standard, 8 May 2013
The European Commission aims to combat “insufficiently transparent” bank charges.
To this end, explains Der Standard, it is planning to introduce a common framework for information on charges, which will apply in all EU countries. Once it has been established, customers will regularly be informed of the costs associated with running their current accounts.
The project, which also includes regulations to make it easier to open a basic account and to switch to another bank, is to be presented on May 8 by the Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, Michel Barnier, and Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner Tonio Borg.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Danish Government Proposes Changes to Controversial Ghetto List
Two new categories added and one downplayed in annual compilation of troubled housing areas
The government is out with its latest proposal on how to define what constitutes the nation’s problem neighbourhoods, or ghettos, such as Vollsmose, Gellerup or Mjølnerparken.
The income and educational background of the residents have been added to the previous benchmarks of unemployment, crime and the number of residents from different ethnic backgrounds in a neighbourhood to define a ghetto. The government intends to focus on the first three criteria, while the language defining the last two was softened to say ‘low security and integration’.
The urban and housing minister, Carsten Hansen (Socialdemokraterne), outlined the changes in a proposal called ‘Poor housing — the next steps’.
Last year’s list of 33 ghettos would be cut to 29 under the new criteria, but Hansen denied that the government was playing with numbers to reach its aim of reducing the number of areas designated as ghettos by 25 percent by 2016 and 50 percent by 2020.
“It is an attempt to be realistic and nuanced; we are not performing any sleight of hand,” Hansen told Berlingske newspaper.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
What does Norse mythology say about the creation of the world? Can ancient tales answer the questions of today? A new tablet application called “Dreams of Valhalla” offers everything you ever wanted to know about Norse myths and their gods and goddesses.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Europe Day: The European Project is a Total Failure
Il Sole-24 Ore Milan
Constructed on economic, political and geopolitical criteria, the EU must be judged by the same criteria. And the verdict of the British historian Niall Ferguson is final.
Niall Ferguson
Thank you. Merci. Mersi. Grazie. Gracias. Grazzi. Go raibh maith agat. Dziekuje. Danke. Aitäh. Köszönöm. Multumesc. Dêkuji. Paldies. Aciu. Dakujem. Obrigado. Hvala. Dank u. Kiitti. Blagodaria. Merci villmahl. Efharisto. And my personal favourite, tak.
There are 23 ways of saying thank you in the European Union, and I think that in itself illustrates why the European experiment has ended in failure. Do you remember those experiments that you used to do as a kid with a chemistry set? You would keep adding chemicals, one after the other, to see what would finally produce an explosion. That’s what they did in Europe. It started with six; that wasn’t enough. It went to nine . .. . nothing. Ten . . . a little bit of smoke, nothing more. Twelve . . . nothing. Fifteen . . . still nothing. Twenty-five . . . beginning to bubble. Twenty-seven .. . . explosion!
I’m absolutely certain that Lord Mandelson and Daniel Cohn-Bendit will tell you that the European experiment has succeeded because there has been peace in Europe since it began in the 1950s. Can we just knock that on the head? European integration has had absolutely nothing to do with peace in Europe since World War II; that has been the achievement of NATO [the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation]. The creation of the European Union was not about war and peace, otherwise there would have been a European Defence Community, and that was vetoed by the French National Assembly in 1954.
Economic evaluation
Europe has to be judged in economic terms, since its own terms have always been economic. And how did it do? In the 1950s the economy of integrated Europe grew at 4 per cent. In the 1960s, it was about the same. In the 1970s, growth was 2.8 per cent; in the 1980s, it slid to 2.1 per cent; in the 1990s, it was only 1.7 per cent: and so on, down to zero….
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
France: Taxes on Smartphones, Tablets to Support Culture
Report, end of law against illegal downloads
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, MAY 13 — The Lescure report which was handed over to the government on Monday recommends that the Hadopi law passed under President Nicolas Sarkozy against the illegal download of music and films from the internet be scrapped. It also vouches for taxes on all devices connected to the internet — including smartphones and tablets — and on revenues of operators providing internet access. The report was aimed at finding new instruments to adapt the French cultural industry to the digital era and enable the state to continue protecting artistic production.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Bayern Munich Build Mosque for Muslims
MUNICH — Helping their players to fulfil their religious duties, German football giants Bayern Munich have decided to build a mosque to help Muslim footballers to perform their prayers.
The German football club agreed to a request to build a mosque in the Allianz Arena stadium to serve its Muslim players and fans.
The request was made by the club’s Muslim midfielder Bilal Franck Ribery, who asked for specifying a small room for players to perform their prayers.
The new mosque would serve Muslim players and fans with a full time imam, an Islamic library and Islamic sessions.
The administration also announced that they will finance 85 percent of the costs of the worship place, leaving 15% to Muslim players and fans who want to participate.
The news about the new mosque was made public via the club’s official site…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Ruby Received as Much as 4.5 Million Euros, Prosecution Says
‘Wiretaps, Berlusconi bank withdrawals prove it’
(see related) (ANSA) — Milan, May 13 — Evidence suggests that ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi likely paid more than 4.5 million euros to the young exotic dancer at the centre of a sex scandal, the prosecution said Monday.
Wire taps that intercepted telephone calls, notes and bank withdrawals by Berlusconi all support the conclusion that he paid off Karima El Mahroug, a young Moroccan nightclub dancer who went by the stage name ‘Ruby Heartstealer’, prosecutor Ilda Boccassini told the court. Berlusconi stands accused of paying for sex with Ruby before she was 18, the legal age of prostitution in Italy, and of allegedly abusing his power in a bid to cover up the affair.
El Mahroug and Berlusconi have both said they never had sex during several of the ex-premier’s so-called Bunga Bunga parties while she was underage. But Ruby lied for financial gain, said Boccassini, noting that Berlusconi’s bank withdrawals between October and December 2010 were enough to “cover abundantly” the 4.5-million-euro figure mentioned in phone calls and notes involving Ruby.
Berlusconi faces jail time not only on the charges of having sex with a minor, but also for allegedly abusing his position as premier to spring Ruby from a Milan police station in May 2010, supposedly to avoid a diplomatic incident with Egypt.
According to the prosecutor, it was Berlusconi’s “best interests” to get Ruby out of jail at that time, to try to ensure their sexual relationship remained secret.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Prosecutor Paints Ruby as Having ‘Oriental Cunning’
Moroccan runaway was attracted to ‘easy money’, says Boccassini
(see related story)(ANSA) — Milan, May 13 — A prosecutor described the Moroccan woman at the centre of a sex-trial against ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi as having “oriental cunning” and being lured astray by her attraction to “easy money” at a trial hearing on Monday in Milan.
The parents of Karima ‘Ruby’ El Mahrough “were unable to rein her in, and she exploited her physical beauty to her own advantage…(as well as) her story of the poor Muslim who escaped from her father-master,” prosecutor Ilda Boccassini charged in her indictment of Berlusconi.
Boccasini also claimed that Ruby was “attracted by easy money” while her Moroccan family “broke its back working”. Berlusconi is accused of paying for sex in 2010 with Ruby, who was an underage Moroccan nightclub dancer at the time. The 76-year-old centre-right leader is also charged in the same trial with abuse of office for allegedly interceding on Ruby’s behalf in a telephone call to police when she was in custody on a theft charge.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Malta: “Dalligate”: ‘We Have a ‘Bomb’ — Green Meps’
The Malta Independent, 8 May 2013
At a press conference in Valletta on May 7, MEPs José Bové and Bart Staes presented a leaked report by the supervisory committee of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) on the investigation of former European Health Commissioner, John Dalli. It was on the basis of the investigation that Commission President José Manuel Barroso obliged Dalli to resign last October. Published on May 7, by news website Malta Today, the report questions some of the methods used by OLAF in the course of its enquiries.
Quoting part of a statement by Bové and Staes, the newspaper says —
EC President Jose Manuel Barroso should shoulder responsibility [for the scandal] because “he ruined Malta’s image along with Mr Dalli’s reputation”.
The two MEPs also criticised the Commission President for his failure —
… to see that the OLAF supervisory committee was informed of the case immediately and […] [the fact that he] allowed the report to be handed to the relevant authorities without adopting the five-day time-frame rule which enables the supervisory committee to verify whether the procedures were followed correctly in terms of the investigation.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Guards on Ships Should be Defence-Ministry Trained: Captains
Armed security guards used to protect Dutch ships against pirates should be trained and supervised by the defence ministry, according to the captains’ association NVK.
NVK chairman Alex van Binsbergen told the NRC captains are concerned that shipping companies want the speedy deployment of private guards, and that these would be the responsibility of the captains themselves.
‘This means captains would have to give the order to open fire. This is not part of their training and yet they could end up facing criminal prosecution for their actions,’ Van Binsbergen told the paper.
Two weeks ago the cabinet agreed that private security guards could be used to protect ‘certain categories of transport… under certain conditions.’
The shipping industry welcomed the move and called for legislation to be introduced as soon as possible. At the moment, members of armed forces are used to protect Dutch ships.
The Netherlands is one of the few EU countries not to allow private security guards to protect its maritime interests, the paper said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Portrait: Isabella Lövin — The MEP Who Never Gives Up
Fokus Stockholm
Since her election to the European Parliament in 2009, the Swedish MEP Isabella Lövin has pursued just one goal: to stop overfishing. Even if she has to upset the routines of elected officials and throw certain local communities out of work. Excerpts.
Johan Anderberg
For 50 years, the professional fishermen on the largest inland lake in Northern Ireland have carefully nurtured their fish stocks. They set up a cooperative, introduced quotas, and released fry, while the French and Spaniards went on vacuuming the fish out of the oceans. And today a Swede wants to stand in the way of an entire industry and the community that relies on it for their livelihood to get the backing of the European Parliament for a ban on eel-fishing across the whole of the union.
Three hundred jobs will be lost. And the fishermen of Lough Neagh will find no new ones.
A fisherman from the lake, Pat Close, showed up for the meeting with Isabella Lövin with scientific reports under his arm and flanked by an expert. Just a little respite? Perhaps they could release more fry in compensation? Nothing helped. Isabella Lövin won’t budge an inch. “They all try to get relief and subsidies. But they’ll have to look for another livelihood; it’s as simple as that.”
It’s a strange politician who works here. Where other members have pinned up pictures of their country of origin, the walls of the office of Isabella Lövin are lined with maps showing fishing zones in the Skagerrak [the strait that separates Norway from Denmark] and photographs of tuna.
Single focus
It’s been four years since she set up shop here, and not as a representative of the Swedish people, despite what her business card says. The constituency she works for are Anguilla, Gadus morhua, Salmo salar. Eel, cod and salmon. Nobody on her staff pretends that she cares about anything else. The tax on Cypriot bank deposits? She votes with her parliamentary group. The banking union? Ditto. Other subjects? She has no time for them….
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘Romania: The New Eldorado for Farm Land’
Jurnalul National, 8 May 2013
“The quality of the land, good prices and the possibility of obtaining subsidies have attracted foreign investors,” points out Jurnalul National, which reports that several European newspapers have described Romania as a “new Eldorado”.
Under the terms of the country’s EU accession treaty, Romania is obliged to deregulate its property market from January 1, 2014 — a move that will remove restrictions on land acquisitions by foreigners. However, in the runup to this date, enterprising investors from abroad have already purchased 10 per cent of the agricultural land in the country via locally registered companies.
According to official figures, 10m of the 11m hectares of agricultural land in Romania are currently under cultivation. But other more realistic estimates set the current level of land use at just 40 per cent.
Jurnalul National is worried by the prospect of agro-industrial multinationals, which make use of monoculture, buying up land owned by small farmers. It is a concern that is shared by Minister of Agriculture, Daniel Constantin, who recently negotiated a deal to improve credit facilities for Romanian farmers with the country’s banks. From now on, the owners of small holdings will be able to use newly purchased land as collateral for loans, which was not possible in the past.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Roma: Selective Sorting in Romanian Adoptions
România libera, 10 May 2013
“Three quarters of families who want to adopt a child refuse outright to take Roma children”, regrets Romania libera, after studying the data published by the National Office of Adoptions for 2012.
The Romanians who get “beyond the prejudices”, like the teacher posing on the daily’s front page alongside her “darker-skinned” daughter, are rather an exception. “Romanians are racist”, openly admits a pastor who has adopted two Roma children.
These prejudices persist due to “deficiencies in education”, Cristina Neacsu, psychologist of the Romanian Office for Adoptions, tells the paper:
[the families who want to adopt] come here with preconceived ideas. We tell them that there’s no gene for crime or aggression. Others are afraid that the child up for adoption will be stigmatised.
In 2012, of the 1,222 families who were accepted as prospective adoptive families, 875 stipulated in writing that they wanted only “Romanian children, excluding any other ethnic group”.
“The statistics show that the Romanians prefer to wait for years for the state find a compatible child rather than adopt a Roma minor,” notes România libera.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: A Fifth of Murder and Rape Suspects Born Abroad, Shock Survey Finds
[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]
A fifth of rape and murder suspects in the UK last year were foreign nationals.
Figures showed a total of 93 people were charged with murder and 632 with rape.
The statistics of suspects born abroad compares to the overall numbers of 555 murder suspects and 3,436 murder suspects.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Boy, 15, Charged Over Doorstep Acid Attack That Left Woman, 28, With Horrific Burns
[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]
A boy of 15 has been charged following a doorstep acid attack that left a 28-year-old woman with horrific facial injuries.
Tara Quigley suffered major burns to her head and arms after answering her door to a stranger. It is feared she will be scarred for life.
She had answered the door and spoke to someone who asked to speak to “Michelle” shortly before 9pm on the day of the assault. He returned about 30 minutes later and squirted an acidic substance in her face from a bottle, according to police.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A mother has told how bungling housing bosses sent a letter to her two-year-old son threatening him with action for ‘laughing too loudly at Thomas The Tank Engine’.
Jodie Holden, 22, was stunned when she opened a complaint letter addressed to her son Chenlair Bent accusing him of anti-social behaviour and branding him a ‘noise nuisance’.
Housing officials also warned the child — who can’t read or write — to be ‘mindful’ of his neighbours in Walsall, West Midlands.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Britain’s largest police force let a quarter of all criminals in the past year escape with just a caution, new figures revealed today.
The crimes which were punished with no more than a slap on the wrist from Scotland Yard included robbery, drug trafficking and even rape.
In total, the Metropolitan Police issued nearly 30,000 cautions in the 12 months up to March this year, according to the statistics.
The data came to light thanks to a Freedom of Information request by Tony Arbour, a Conservative member of the London Assembly.
Among the cautions issued were 5,843 for violent attacks, 165 for sexual offence and five for rape — usually punished by several years in prison.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
United Kingdom: ‘Voters Tell Cameron to Cut Europe Down to Size’
The Times, 8 May 2013
A new YouGov poll commissioned by The Times found 42 per cent of respondents want a relationship with Europe based on free trade, while 21 per cent want a complete British withdrawal.
The survey is just the latest sign of the difficulties UK Prime Minister David Cameron faces in winning support for Britain’s continued relationship with the EU, ahead of a referendum on the matter due before 2017. The PM has vowed to negotiate a new deal with Europe.
The poll found that 46 per cent of people questioned said they would elect to leave the EU if there was an in-out referendum now, compared to 35 per cent who would choose to stay.
According to the daily —
Should Mr Cameron fail to negotiate a new relationship with Brussels more akin to a common market, MPs warned that he would find a significant number of his parliamentary party turning against him in his promised referendum.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Car Bomb Kills Dozens in Libyan Hospital Parking Area
(AGI) — Benghazi, May 13 — A car bomb has killed dozens of people in a crowded parking area in front of a Benghazi hospital. The number of dead and wounded are not yet known, according to witnesses and security sources. Libyan government sources say that at least 15 people were killed.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Gates: Some Benghazi Critics Have “Cartoonish” View of Military Capability
Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates forcefully defended the Obama administration on Sunday against charges that it did not do enough to prevent the tragedy in Benghazi, telling CBS’ “Face the Nation” that some critics of the administration have a “cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces.”
Gates, a Republican who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush in 2006 and agreed to stay through more than two years of President Obama’s first term, repeatedly declined to criticize the policymakers who devised a response to the September 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ron Paul: What No One Wants to Hear About Benghazi
Congressional hearings, White House damage control, endless op-eds, accusations, and defensive denials. Controversy over the events in Benghazi last September took center stage in Washington and elsewhere last week. However, the whole discussion is again more of a sideshow. Each side seeks to score political points instead of asking the real questions about the attack on the US facility, which resulted in the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Republicans smell a political opportunity over evidence that the Administration heavily edited initial intelligence community talking points about the attack to remove or soften anything that might reflect badly on the president or the State Department.
Are we are supposed to be shocked by such behavior? Are we supposed to forget that this kind of whitewashing of facts is standard operating procedure when it comes to the US government?
Democrats in Congress have offered the even less convincing explanation for Benghazi, that somehow the attack occurred due to Republican sponsored cuts in the security budget at facilities overseas. With a one trillion dollar military budget, it is hard to take this seriously.
It appears that the Administration scrubbed initial intelligence reports of references to extremist Islamist involvement in the attacks, preferring to craft a lie that the demonstrations were a spontaneous response to an anti-Islamic video that developed into a full-out attack on the US outpost.
Who can blame the administration for wanting to shift the focus? The Islamic radicals who attacked Benghazi were the same people let loose by the US-led attack on Libya. They were the rebels on whose behalf the US overthrew the Libyan government. Ambassador Stevens was slain by the same Islamic radicals he personally assisted just over one year earlier.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Two Men Arrested on Suspicion of Spying for Mossad
Tunisie, 13 May (AKI) — Security forces have arrested two young Tunisians from the northeast of the country who are suspected of working for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, the Al-Moussawar newspaper reported Monday.
One of the two suspects was caught as he was allegedly sending information via the internet on the security situation in the Jebel Chaambi area of the Kasserine governorate.
The second youth was arrested on suspicion of transmitting sensitive information via the social networking website Facebook and of abetting the first suspect, Al-Moussawar said.
Both the youths come from Biserta in the northeast Tunisian coast, the paper reported.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
After Bombings, Turkey Says World Must Act Against Syria
Turkey accused a group with links to Syrian intelligence of carrying out car bombings that killed 46 people in a Turkish border town, and said on Sunday it was time for the world to act against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
The two car bombs, which ripped through crowded shopping streets in Reyhanli on Saturday, increased fears that Syria’s civil war is dragging in neighboring states, despite renewed diplomatic moves to end it.
Damascus denied involvement, but Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said those behind the attacks were from an “old Marxist terrorist organization” with ties to Assad’s administration.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Six Years and 300 Lashes for a Lebanese Christian for Having Converted a Young Saudi
Saudi also sentenced along with the man. Both were colleagues of a young woman, who fled to Sweden after her conversion. The girl is now living under the protection of some NGOs and never wants to return home.
Khobar (AsiaNews / Agencies) — A court in Al-Khobar, Saudi city east of the Gulf, has sentenced a Lebanese Christian to prison and flogging for having converted a young Saudi man to Christianity and helped ??a young woman escape from the country. The first considered the organizer of the operation, was sentenced to six years in prison and 300 lashes. The Saudi was charged as an accomplice to two years and 200 lashes. Both worked with the girl in an insurance company. The two have announced an appeal.
The case, which began last year in late July, has caused a stir in Saudi Arabia, an ultra-conservative kingdom which applies a strict version of Islam. Muslims who convert to another religion risk the death penalty.
So far, investigators have not revealed the identity of the young woman, who for several months has taken refuge in Sweden and refuses to return home despite the various appeals of her family, and various negotiations between the Saudi embassy in Stockholm and Swedish authorities to hand over the girl. She is currently under the protection of non-governmental organizations and in a video posted recently appeared claiming to have chosen to convert to Christianity without being under any duress.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Detains 9, Alleges Syrian Link to Car Bombings
Turkey has detained nine of its citizens in connection with twin car bombings that killed several dozen people in the town of Reyhanli, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said Sunday.
The two blasts Saturday afternoon killed 46 people, 35 of them Turkish citizens, the semiofficial Anadolu news agency reported Sunday.
About 100 other people were wounded, Turkish officials said. Fifty were hospitalized Saturday night, including 29 in critical condition, according to Interior Minister Muammer Guler.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Under the Black Flag of Al-Qaeda, The Syrian City Ruled by Gangs of Extremists
[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]
The Islamists smashed up one of the two shops that sold alcohol. That much was pretty inevitable, the locals agreed. The other off-licence had already closed, as had the casino on the outskirts of town.
They brought in a radical cleric from Egypt to preach Friday prayers, and set up a sharia court in the city’s new sports centre with the support of other brigades. They had their fiefdom — an entire city to run only 60 miles from Nato’S border.
Then, one night, 10 men came for Nagham and Nour al-Rifaie, two teenage sisters from a well-known liberal family. They were at home with a family friend, Yusra Omran, 30, and their male cousin, 32.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen Gunmen ‘Kidnap Swiss Red Cross Worker’
Tribal gunmen have kidnapped a Swiss man working for the International Committee of the Red Cross in southern Yemen, a local pro-government militia leader said on Monday.
The gunmen who belong to Al-Marakisha tribe kidnapped the man in the city of Jaar, in Abyan province, said Hussein al-Wahayshi, a local commander of the Popular Resistance Committees. Gunmen from the same tribe briefly held two Indian ICRC staff last week.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Australian Telegraph Newspaper: Unvaccinated Children Should be Raised as Outcasts
(NaturalNews) In a new low for even the mainstream media, the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph newspapers in Australia are pushing a campaign of outright medical child abuse they call “NO JAB NO PLAY.” The campaign demands that unvaccinated children be barred from all social contact with other children and condemned to the life of a social outcast where parents are presumably supposed to raise them in cages in dark basements. The paper has launched its horrific, anti-human-rights campaign, “NO JAB NO PLAY” that demands children who are not vaccinated with state-mandated chemicals (which include mercury, formaldehyde, aluminum and other toxins) be denied interaction with other children.
I’m not making this up. The paper, which seems to be run by a band of human rights haters and child abuse proponents, all but admits wanting to turn children into anti-social monsters and psychological criminals — just one of the side effects of forcing children to be raised without healthy social interaction with other children. This is the first time in history that an Australian newspaper has directly called for the medical abuse of children — and seem to be happy about doing so! Is their editor the ghost of Jimmy Saville from the UK?
It’s a new low for even the Telegraph. Click here to see the campaign push by the newspaper.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria’s Islamists ‘Staging Bolder, Deadlier Comeback’
After a crackdown pushed them out of Nigeria’s northern cities, Islamist militant group Boko Haram have regrouped, rearmed and are staging a bold comeback that has already allowed them to seize control over parts of the northeast.
Using porous borders with Chad, Niger and Cameroon in the desolate scrubland around Lake Chad, they are smuggling bigger weapons, staging cross-border raids, killing and kidnapping in an escalation of violence that could further draw Nigeria’s neighbors into its counter-insurgency fight, security officials say.
The Islamists now control at least 10 of the 27 local council areas in Borno state, Nigeria’s most remote northeastern region on the edge of the Sahara and a relic of one of Africa’s oldest medieval Islamic empires, security sources there say.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Is Fraud in Our Refugee Resettlement Program Threatening Our National Security?
The unfolding events of the Boston Marathon Massacre have produced evident abuses of the Refugee Resettlement programs of the US State Department and Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement. The Tsarneav brothers and family were generously granted asylum, family reunification . They were generously supported with state welfare and Medicaid benefits and educated at an elite public high school , community colleges and state universities. Then there was evidence of abuses in the Student Visas by Kazakh accomplices after the fact that may have purposefully destroyed evidence in the dorm room of Dzhorkar Tsarneav. He is the surviving Boston bombing suspect now incarcerated at an infirmary at Fort Devens in central Massachusetts. Perhaps the most flagrant recent example of abuses of the asylum system was the fraud committed by a Tunisian jihadi, Ahmed Abassi. Abassi was implicated in the alleged radicalization of a fellow Tunisian apprehended by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the Canadian railway bombing plot. Abbasi has been arrested and was allegedly planning to release a bacterial agent in a major municipal water system hoping to kill upwards of 100,000 Americans. US Attorney for the Southern District of Manhattan Preet Bahara said at the arraignment of Abassi, “had an evil purpose for seeking to remain in the United States — to commit acts of terror and develop a network of terrorists here, and to use this country as a base to support the efforts of terrorists internationally.” We have written extensively about one groups of refugees, the Somalis. There has been documented evidence of fraud in the family reunification program committed by Somalis in African refugee camps. These resulted in shutdown of the Department of State family re-unification program for three years.If you believe that the US Senate in its rush to produce an omnibus Immigration Reform bill have taken the time to examine these patent and dangerous abuses of our US Refugee Resettlement program guess again. Corcoran noted that S. 744, “provides more funding for resettlement contractors and makes it easier for a greater number and variety of refugees/asylum seekers to gain admission to the US.” In the light of a long trail of abuses, citizens should request that the Senate Judiciary Committee and the “gang of eight” Senators conduct hearings on the Refugee Resettlement program before continuing this threat to our national security. One place to start is sending a letter expressing your concerns about the Refugee Resettlement program to Ms. Richard at the State Department, Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration to be included in its hearing record. As a former refugee resettlement worker in a letter to Ms. Richard wrote: It is time for a moratorium on refugee resettlement until ORR and the volags get their act together.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Forza Nuova Launches ‘Immigration Kills’ Internet Campaign
Far-right party warns against citizenship reforms in Italy
(ANSA) — Rome, May 13 — Italy’s far-right Forza Nuova party launched an Internet campaign on Monday called ‘Immigration Kills’, referring to the recent rape and murder of a young woman in Livorno and a pick-ax killing spree committed in Milan on Saturday, both by non-Italians living in the country. The campaign warns against reforms proposed by recently appointed Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge, Italy’s first black minister, that would grant children born to immigrants living legally in Italy automatic citizenship.
The recent acts “nail proponents of immigration reform to their responsibilities…and provide dramatic reasons against its applicability,” the group said on its site.
Mada Kabobo, an undocumented immigrant, killed two men and injured three others in a string of attacks before being stopped by police on Saturday in Milan.
Ablaye Ndoye, a Senegalese national, was arrested on May 3 for suspicion of raping and murdering 19-year-old Ilaria Leone, found strangled to death outside the port city of Livorno.
Kyenge has received a spate of racist insults since her appointment.
“Shoot Minister Kyenge, not Carabinieri” and “Minister Kyenge, f**k off” were found daubed on walls in the Tuscan city of Pistoia, signed by Forza Nuova supporters.
The first taunt referred to a man who shot two Carabinieri outside the premier’s office while Democratic Party (PD) deputy head Enrico Letta’s new left-right government was being sworn in nearby.
On Thursday Forza Nuova party hung a banner outside the PD offices in the Marche city of Macerata that read: “Kyenge go back to Congo”.
Italian prosecutors have opened a probe into online abuse directed at PD member Kyenge, a doctor who was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
As well as anonymous attacks on the Internet, the 48-year-old Kyenge was also targeted by a senior member of the anti-migrant Northern League.
League MEP Mario Borghezio called Letta’s new executive a “bonga bonga government” and claimed Kyenge would seek to “impose her tribal traditions from the Congo”.
An online petition has been launched calling for Borghezio to be ousted from the European Parliament.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Second Victim Dies From Migrant’s Pickaxe Rampage in Milan
21-year-old man declared brain dead two days after attack
(ANSA) — Milan, May 13 — Twenty-one-year-old Daniele Carella was declared brain dead on Monday morning, two days after being hacked with a pickaxe by a Ghanian man on a violent rampage in Milan.
Mada Kabobo, an undocumented immigrant, killed another man and injured three others in a string of attacks before being stopped by police on Saturday.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Molotov Cocktails’ Found Outside Milan Refugee Centre
Ghanaian’s rampage has fuelled anti-immigrant feeling
(ANSA) — Milan, May 13 — Four bottles full of petrol were found outside a refugee centre in Milan Monday.
Anti-immigrant feeling has risen in the northern Italian city since a Ghanaian man went on a rampage with a pick-axe Saturday, killing one man and injuring four others.
Members of the anti-immigrant Northern League party attempted to link the incident to a softer line on immigration announced by new Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge, Italy’s first black minister. But Northern Leaque leader Roberto Maroni on Monday said “Kyenge’s got nothing to do with it” while arguing her statements would spark a fresh wave of migrant landings.
He also said Italy would “never” accept automatic citizenship for the children of migrants born on Italian soil, another move Kyenge has aired.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
More Migrant Kids Need Help With German
Increasing numbers of children from migrant families are needing extra German lessons at school because their language levels are not up to scratch, a newspaper reported on Monday.
New government figures show a growing number of pupils whose first language is not German are needing extra tuition so that they can follow school lessons, wrote the Bild daily tabloid.
In families where little or no German is spoken in the home, the children often have a hard time keeping up with native speakers in the schoolroom, and more of them are needing crash language courses to get them up to speed, figures suggest.
In Hamburg, for example, official statistics show that 23 percent of primary school children hardly ever speak German at home, while in North Rhine-Westphalia 18 percent of kids speak another language with their family, whereas in Bavaria this figure lies at 15 percent.
“In some regions, nearly half of all children need targeted language tuition,” Maria Böhmer, the German government’s Commissioner for Integration told Bild. “It’s a big task. It has to be given top priority everywhere.”
Every child must be able to speak German well enough to follow lessons when they start school, said Böhmer, which is why language support was important from the very beginning.
Those who can’t speak German, she said, are just “passive onlookers in our country.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Afghan Refugees Break Hunger Strike in Boden
Thirteen Afghan refugees who have been on a hunger strike outside Migration Board (Migrationsverket) offices in Boden in northern Sweden have broken off their action after three weeks of refusing to eat.
“Two quit yesterday, one in the morning, and the rest during the evening. We’ve had talks during the entire afternoon together with police,” the agency’s Mikael Ribbenvik told the TT news agency on Sunday.
The Migration Board took the hunger strikers to hospital so they could get help starting to eat again.
“When you’ve managed for so long there is a certain procedure required before you can start to eat again. You need checkups and support,” said Ribbenvik.
The move comes following efforts begun by police negotiators on Saturday to launch a dialogue with the hunger strikers in Boden. However, Ribbenvik said they Afghan refugees likely abandoned their protest due to a combination of efforts.
The refugees in Boden have been on hunger strike since mid-April, as have a group located Holmsund, just outside of Umeå.
The Holmsund asylum seekers are continuing their hunger strike, as are a group located in Gävle in eastern Sweden who began their protest a little over a week ago.
Most of the hunger-strikers are originally from Afghanistan and many have been taken to hospital for treatment in the course of the hunger strike.
All of those involved are seeking residency in Sweden, several have been rejected while others are waiting for rulings or plan to seek asylum elsewhere in the EU.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Rome Mayor Candidate Pledges Gay-Civil-Union Certificates
‘Diversity is a resource’ says Ignazio Marino
(ANSA) — Rome, May 13 — The center-left candidate for mayor of Rome on Monday pledged to issue civil-union certificates for same-sex couples.
“Diversity is a resource,” said Ignazio Marino of the Democratic Party in his statement announcing the platform. Marino, a Senator and a surgeon, added that his administration would also introduce programs in schools aimed at educating children on gay rights. He will run against incumbent centre-right mayor Gianni Alemanno, the candidate of Beppe Grillo’s anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) Marcello De Vito, and businessman Alfio Marchini in elections scheduled for May 26 and 27.
Italy currently does not recognize any type of same-sex unions.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jury Finds Philadelphia Abortion Doctor Guilty of First-Degree Murder
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, a West Philadelphia doctor known for performing late-term abortions, was found guilty on Monday of three out of four counts of first-degree murder.
The verdict came after a five-week trial in which the prosecution and the defense battled over whether the fetuses Dr. Gosnell was charged with killing were alive when they were removed from their mothers.
Dr. Gosnell was acquitted of one first-degree murder charge involving an aborted fetus and was also acquitted of third-degree murder in the death of a 41-year-old patient.
| [Return to headlines] |
Jury Convicts Abortion Provider Kermit Gosnell of Murder
[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]
Abortion provider Kermit Gosnell was convicted Monday of three counts of first-degree murder for severing the spinal cords of infants born during abortions at his West Philadelphia clinic.
The trial now moves into a sentencing phase to decide whether Gosnell should receive the death penalty or face life in prison.
The verdicts were announced hours after the jurors informed the judge in the case that they were hung on two charges.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mindless, Progressive Automatons Have Filled America With Righteous Indignation
Pulitzer-Prize winning American playwright David Mamet staged his political coming-out party in the Village Voice in an article titled, David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’. Mamet rejects his former cynical attitude, saying: “This is, to me, the synthesis of this worldview with which I now found myself disenchanted: that everything is always wrong.”
Mamet then wrote a book titled, The Secret Knowledge, On the Dismantling of American Culture (video). Here he delivers a gem: “Liberalism is a religion. Its tenets cannot be proved, its capacity for waste and destruction demonstrated.” Mamet claims that Liberal Rednecks don’t understand their opposition because they never take the time to absorb any information they don’t already believe. An article about Mamet from the Wall Street Journal said this:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.N.’s ITU Pursues Internet Control — Again — This Week
The Fifth World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum (“WTPF-13”) will be held in Geneva, Switzerland, this week for three days, May 14-16.
As with the bellicose WCIT-12 (the U.N.’s 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications) last December in Dubai and its accompanying protests and dramatic walkout by the U.S. delegation, this Forum will be run by the United Nations notoriously dubious telecommunications arm, the ITU.
WTPF-13 — with its Twitter hashtag #WTPF13 and counter-tag #OpWTF — is ITU’s final preparation for The 2014 ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (“PP-14”), ITU’s Fall 2014 plenipotentiary meeting.
In February, outgoing U.S. Federal Communications Commissioner Robert McDowell testified to Congress in a joint U.S. House subcommittee hearing on international Internet governance that U.N.’s ITU Internet plans “must be stopped.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |