A California woman named Ramineh Behbehanian has been arrested for allegedly attempting to poison Starbucks customers with orange juice laced with isopropyl alcohol. An alert Starbucks customer noticed the suspect replacing bottles of juice in the cooler with her own tainted bottles, and another customer noted Ms. Behbehanian’s license plate number, allowing police to apprehend her.
In other news, a man in northern Italy committed suicide by throwing himself out of the window of his apartment before he could be evicted. Another northern Italian man died when he set himself on fire in front of a café. Both suicides are thought to have been caused by despair over unemployment and the financial crisis.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, LS, Steen, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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Italy: Berlusconi Claims Victory in IMU Property Tax War
Left must ‘deal with our agenda,’ says PdL founder
(ANSA) — Rome, May 17 — Ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi claimed victory in the battle over Italy’s IMU propery tax in a Facebook video message on Friday.
“The left was sure to win, and instead it now has to deal with our agenda: IMU will be dropped and already by June will not have to be paid,” Berlusconi said.
Premier Enrico Letta said Friday that his government had given its “first responses” to “families, firms and workers” in recession-hit Italy by approving a decree that suspends the June rate of property tax IMU. He added that the decree featured measures to find one billion euros to refinance the budget for CIG unemployment benefits, which is danger of running out within months as applications soar.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano of Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party, one of the two main parties backing Letta’s new right-left government, said he was “extremely satisfied” with its first move to reform the unpopular IMU property tax. Contention over the removal of IMU has been one of the main issues straining ties between Letta’s Democratic Party (PD) and PdL, and has been used by Berlusconi’s party as a threat to topple the recently formed government that brought the two sides together.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Letta Pledges to Revamp IMU by September
‘Now the left must deal with our agenda’ says Berlusconi
(By Christopher Livesay) (ANSA) — Rome, May 17 — Premier Enrico Letta’s cabinet on Friday approved a decree to suspend the June payment of the controversial IMU property tax after weeks of threats from ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi. The reform will cover businesses as well as homes, Premier Enrico Letta said, after Berlusconi threatened to pull the plug on Letta’s fledgling right-left government unless firms got IMU breaks too.
Letta, from the center-left Democratic Party (PD), said the reform showed his government had given its “first responses” to “families, firms and workers”. The secretary of Berlusconi’s center-right People of Freedom (PdL), the other main party backing the government, said he was “extremely satisfied” with its first move to reform the tax. “The government’s first ball has scored,” said Interior Minister and Deputy Premier Angelino Alfano. Berlusconi, who does not sit in government but carries immense influence over center-right lawmakers, claimed victory over the left in the reform battle, and recalled the PD losing its lead in February general elections after the PdL campaigned hard to eliminate IMU. “The left was sure to win, and instead it now has to deal with our agenda: IMU will be dropped and already by June will not have to be paid,” Berlusconi said. Letta says suspending June IMU payments will buy time to prepare a comprehensive review of the tax, but he has not said it will be scrapped completely. Before Friday’s cabinet meeting, Letta warned that people should not expect “miracles” from it, but said the measures it approves should give the government 100 days to carry out key economic reforms. IMU was instituted among a series of austerity measures under former premier Mario Monti’s emergency technocrat government to restore health to Italy’s public finances drained by the euro crisis, which helped bring down Berlusconi’s government at the end of 2011. It has been widely criticised for being too high and unfair, as it is levied at an equal rate per square metre on owners of plush downtown apartments and on low-income families with flats in the suburbs. Abolishing IMU and reimbursing the 2012 revenues from it would create a hole of around eight billion euros in this year’s budget. “By August we must achieve a comprehensive reform of property tax, including factories, otherwise the Letta government will fall,” former minister Renato Brunetta, the PdL’s House whip, said Thursday. Letta’s PD and the PdL are strange bedfellows who were forced into an unlikely and some would say unnatural marriage by President Giorgio Napolitano to end a two-month post-election stalemate on April 30. This was because no single coalition had enough sway in parliament to govern alone after February’s inconclusive general election. Another bone of contention between the coalition partners is the PdL’s attacks on allegedly leftwing parts of the judiciary who they say are persecuting Berlusconi for political motives, after the 76-year-old media magnata’s many legal woes worsened this month. The PD’s Senate whip inflamed the situation on Thursday by suggesting a law that bans the holders of government licences, like the ones Berlusconi has for his TV networks, should be applied to make the three-time premier ineligible for public office. But Berlusconi sought to ease the tensions, calling off scheduled appearances at a number of rallies for local elections later this month and saying that “there is a good possibility that this government can keep going”. The decree agreed Friday also featured measures to find one billion euros to refinance the budget for CIG unemployment benefits, which is danger of running out within months as applications soar.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Man Burns Self to Death in Northwestern Italy
Latest in wave of ‘economic’ suicides
(ANSA) — Vado Ligure, May 17 — A man burned himself to dath outside a trattoria near the northwestern Italian city of Savona Friday.
The unnamed man, 47, may have been in financial difficulties, police said. A man in the Sicilian town of Vittoria, near Ragusa, set himself on fire Tuesday after his home was put up for auction.
Two weeks ago a 45-year-old man, after two years without work, threw himself off a building near the northwestern city of Pisa.
Police believe unemployment drove the labourer into deep depression.
Recent studies have pointed to Italy’s longest recession on record as driving a rising number of suicides in the country.
A triple suicide in the Marche region in May was one of the most dramatic recent effects of the grim economic times.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Man Throws Self From Window During Eviction
66-year-old dies in Vicenza hospital
(ANSA) — Vicenza, May 15 — A 66-year-old man threw himself from the window of his home in northern Italy as he was being evicted and later died in the hospital Wednesday. Local police and bailiffs were sent by the courts to evict the man, who officials said had been offered a job cleaning houses or as a security guard to pay his debts. “We try to help everyone but the effort must be mutual,” said Vicenza Mayor Giuseppe Boschetto. The incident is under investigation.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Washington Signals Dollar Deep Concerns
Over the past month there has been a statistically improbable concurrence of events that can only be explained as a conspiracy to protect the dollar from the Federal Reserve’s policy of Quantitative Easing (QE).
Quantitative Easing is the term given to the Federal Reserve’s policy of printing 1,000 billion new dollars annually in order to finance the US budget deficit by purchasing US Treasury bonds and to keep the prices high of debt-related derivatives on the “banks too big to fail” (BTBF) balance sheets by purchasing mortgage-backed derivatives. Without QE, interest rates would be much higher, and values on the banks’ balance sheets would be much lower.
Quantitative Easing has been underway since December 2008. During these 54 months, the Federal Reserve has created several trillion new dollars with which the Fed has monetized the same amount of debt.
One result of this policy is that most real US interest rates are negative. Another result is that the supply of dollars has outstripped the world’s demand for dollars.
These two results are the reason that the Federal Reserve’s policy of printing money with which to purchase Treasury bonds and mortgage backed derivatives threatens the dollar’s exchange value and, thus, the dollar’s role as world reserve currency…
The price of gold rose from $272 an ounce in December 2000 to $1,917.50 on August 23, 2011. The financial gangsters who own and run America panicked. With the price of the dollar collapsing in relation to historical real money, how could the dollar’s exchange rate to other currencies be valid? If the dollar’s exchange value came under attack, the Federal Reserve would have to stop printing and would lose control over interest rates.
The bond and stock market bubbles would pop, and the interest payments on the federal debt would explode, leaving Washington even more indebted and unable to finance its wars, police state, and bankster bailouts.
Something had to be done about the rising price of gold and silver.
There are two bullion markets. One is a paper market in New York, Comex, where paper claims to gold are traded. The other is the physical market where personal possession is taken of the metal — coin shops, bullion dealers, jewelry stores.
The way the banksters have it set up, the price of bullion is not set in the markets in which people actually take possession of the metals. The price is set in the paper market where speculators gamble.
This bifurcated market gave the Federal Reserve the ability to protect the dollar from its printing press.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Astrophile: Saturn’s Egg Moon Methone is Made of Fluff
Out among Saturn’s menagerie of moons, a shiny white egg rests in a nest of ice crystals.
Named Methone, this small, oval moon was seen in close-up for the first time last year by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Methone is utterly unlike the other small balls of ice and rock that dot the solar system, which are deeply scarred by impacts. Instead it is smooth, with not a hill or pockmark in sight. Now astronomers may have a clue as to why: Methone is made of lightweight fluff.
Objects in our solar system have been battered by asteroids and comets for billions of years, but planets and big moons have ways of smoothing themselves out. For one thing, their strong gravity pulls them into a spherical shape. Some worlds have enough internal heat to create lava flows and other volcanic events that can fill in craters, and a few boast rain or strong winds to erode away evidence of the impacts.
Small moons, though, are geologically inactive and airless, so are unable to erase the damage. “When we look at objects less than 200 kilometres in radius, they are all like potatoes. They have lumps, grooves, craters,” says Cassini team member Peter Thomas, at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. That makes Methone’s smooth exterior a puzzle.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Benghazi as Lazarus, Back From the Dead
McCarthy asks a question that should be posed again and again until we have a satisfactory answer. What did then-Secretary of State Clinton and President Obama talk about when they spoke at 10:00p.m. the night of September 11, 2012? “There is good reason to believe,” McCarthy points out, “that while Americans were still fighting for their lives in Benghazi, while no military efforts were being made to rescue them, and while those desperately trying to rescue them were being told to stand down, the president was busy shaping the ‘blame the video’ narrative to which his administration clung in the aftermath
| — Hat tip: LS | [Return to headlines] |
Conventional Medicine Openly Admits to Confusion Over BRCA1 Gene
Many of us have heard the conventional talking points that refer to an “87% higher risk for breast cancer” — if one tests positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation. But, I’m here to tell you, that this is a complete fabrication of the medical truth.
I’ll be honest — when I read this statement by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) — I nearly fell off my chair. Even if you test positive for the BRCA1 gene mutation — your risk of getting breast cancer may still be caused by other factors.
In other words, the BRCA1 gene may not really be the cause of breast cancer.
Read for yourself what the National Cancer Institute says about BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutations…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In a long-awaited Treasury Department inspector general report, investigators said the IRS did decide internally that some of those questions being asked of conservative groups were way out of line — especially requests for donor rolls.
Per Politico:
The report shows that top IRS officials put a stop to some of the questions in early 2012, including the ones that asked tea party groups who their donors were, what issues were important to them and whether their top officers ever planned to run for office. And they told the investigators they planned to destroy the donor lists that had already been sent in.
However, interviews with members of the targeted groups show a much larger — and sinister — portrait, and one that extends far beyond the rudimentary language in the IG report. In that regard, investigators say only that the IRS “requested irrelevant (unnecessary) information because of a lack of managerial review, at all levels, of questions before they were sent to organizations seeking tax-exempt status.”
Toby Walker, president of the Waco Tea Party, told the website, “They were asking for a U-Haul truck’s worth of information.”
So intrusive and ridiculous the demand for information that some groups seeking tax-exempt status simply gave up in frustration.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
IRS Tax Exemption/Obamacare Exec Got $103,390 in Bonuses; Did Obama OK Them?
Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 when it began targeting conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harassment, got more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012. More recently, Ingram was promoted to serve as director of the tax agency’s Obamacare program office, a position that put her in charge of the vast expansion of the IRS’ regulatory power and staffing in connection with federal health care, ABC reported earlier
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Michael Moore: Love Your Globalist Government
George Orwell said the worst advertisement for socialism is its adherents. Michael Moore makes the case in spades. Like all good socialists, he believes the government is good despite plenty evidence to the contrary.
Moore quite naturally ignores the obvious fact that Obama, like his predecessor, does not work for the American people. Obama works — if we agree that reading a teleprompter is work — not for the American people, but for Goldman Sachs, Google, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Morgan Stanley, General Electric, and other bankers and monopolists and warmongering transnational corporations (see the entire list here).
The CFR and Trilateralists turnstile continued to work after the 2008 election as it has for decades. Soon after the election, Obama staffed his new administration with CFR and Trilateral members and other globalist insiders.
“Barack Obama appointed eleven members of the Trilateral Commission to top-level and key positions in his administration within his first ten days in office,” Patrick Wood wrote in early 2009. “This represents a very narrow source of international leadership inside the Obama administration, with a core agenda that is not necessarily in support of working people in the United States.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Secret to Corruption: Never Appoint a Special Counsel
Do you ever wonder how Obama gets away with the most outrageous acts ever perpetrated by a sitting president with barely a nick to his reputation? Did you scratch your head when not a single Justice Department or ATF official went to jail for sending hundreds of guns over the border to Mexican drug lords with the expressed purpose of fomenting violent crime? Do you really think high ranking government officials are going to be held accountable for the now blazing IRS and Benghazi scandals?
If these and other questions like them have been bothering you for the past few years, I have a simple answer that explains how Obama and his liberal associates in government have gotten away with all the above and more: Attorney General Eric Holder will never, ever appoint a special counsel to investigate any crime even remotely connected to this administration.
It really is that simple. In fact, Holder practically admitted as much when he was questioned by Breitbart reporters as to whether he was going to appoint a special counsel to scrutinize Benghazi. His one word answer: “No”.
Holder may be corrupt, but he is no one’s fool. He knows that as soon as he appoints an independent prosecutor with subpoena power who can question witnesses under oath, and threaten them with jail time if they don’t answer truthfully, any resulting investigation could not only lead directly to himself and other high ranking officials at the DOJ, but could take down the State Department, White House and the rest of the Obama administration that seems to be overflowing with corruption.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Poison Found in Starbucks Orange Juice; California Woman Arrested
Customers at a San Jose branch noticed Ramineh Behbehanian, 50, swapping bottles with ones contaminated with rubbing alcohol, police say.
A California woman tried to poison Starbucks’ customers by swapping bottles of orange juice on shelves for ones laced with rubbing alcohol, police said.
Ramineh Behbehanian, 50, was allegedly spotted by other customers placing newly contaminated containers into fridges 3:45 p.m. Monday at a San Jose branch.
She fled the store after staff were alerted to her sick trick — but a worker wrote down her license plate number.
Cops tracked her to her home, some five miles away, where she was arrested and charged with felony poisoning.
Lab tests revealed she had mixed isopropyl alcohol with the juice. It’s not yet known why she did it, but officers believe she acted alone.
No one drank any of the poisoned juice, reports Mercury News.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Private Mars Flyby Mission Ponders NASA & Commercial Rockets
The organizers of a private plan to send two people on a round-trip flyby of Mars in 2018 are choosing between a variety of commercial rockets and a NASA booster for the mission.
The nonprofit Inspiration Mars foundation was founded by entrepreneur and space tourist Dennis Tito, who flew to the International Space Station in 2001 aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Tito said the flyby mission is aimed at inspiring the public about space exploration and accelerating humanity’s quest to visit Mars by taking advantage of a rare launch opportunity that allows for a relatively brief 501-day round trip.
“The way we’re going, we’ll never get started,” Tito said of the government’s approach to manned missions to Mars Wednesday (May 8) at the Humans 2 Mars Summit in Washington, D.C. “It’s time for us to take the first step.”
At the summit, Tito and his Inspiration Mars colleagues laid out some of the details of their plan, which will send a married male-female couple within about 93 miles (150 kilometers) of the Martian surface. The team hasn’t yet chosen a launch vehicle for the mission, but said there are three main options.
The first option is to use the Falcon 9 Heavy rocket being designed by commercial firm SpaceX. The booster is still in development, but it should be able to launch about 10 metric tons of mass into low-Earth orbit, which is enough to send the Mars-bound capsule and crew in one go. The vehicle is due for its first test launch next year. “Then we’ll find out if that is an option,” said John Carrico, vice president of space systems for Applied Defense Solutions, a contractor for Inspiration Mars.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tesla Motors Raises More Than $1 Billion From Debt, Equity
May 17 (IFR) — Tesla Motors has upsized its debt and equity offerings, as the electric car maker capitalizes on surging investor demand to raise more than $1 billion in cash.
The US company late Thursday increased the size of the convertible bond offering to $600 million, after increasing it earlier that day to $525 million from an initial $450 million.
Meanwhile on Friday Tesla finalized a per share price of $92.24 for the sale of 3.39 million common stock shares. It had originally planned to offer 2.7 million shares.
With overallotment options included on both offerings, total fundraising is $1.02 billion.
The move comes after Tesla, co-founded by Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk, last week reported an $11 million profit for the first quarter — the first profit in the company’s 10-year existence.
The success of the new fund-raising, and the company’s recent share price explosion, point to strong investor belief in Tesla’s long-term prospects.
“Either they become a niche manufacturer like Porsche or Maserati and make 50,000 high-end cars annually, or they crack the code on a $30,000 car that would put them on the inflection point of a large industrial,” one banker told IFR.
“Musk has a vision of creating a $50 billion-plus company in five years.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
This week in the US, we had two revelations concerning possible threats to water supplies. We refer to the arrest and arraignment by federal prosecutors in Manhattan of Ahmed Abassi, a Tunisian national and chemical engineering graduate of Laval University in Quebec, on Asylum fraud and an alleged WMD attack on a municipal water system. See here. Then there was the detention of seven Pakistani, Saudi, and Singaporean chemical engineering students and graduates caught trespassing on the grounds of the Quabbin reservoir in Massachusetts after closing hours. The Quabbin Reservoir supplies the bulk of the City of Boston’s and Western Massachusetts citiesâ€(tm) potable water. The Massachusetts State Police reported that the foreign group was not engaged in any reconnaissance for nefarious purposes at the Quabbin Reservoir. Nonetheless the FBI local office in Springfield, Massachusetts will be periodically monitoring the situation. See here.One of the more disabling and emerging pathogens is the cryptosporidium parvum (this is the human infective species) (Crypto) parasite (oocysts) derived from animal and human fecal tissue that has a toughened cell cover which is impervious to chlorination, fluoridation and in some instances, can avoid filtration. Within the United States and other countries, Cryptosporidiosis is a notifiable illness caused by extremely chlorine-tolerant protozoa of the genus Crypto. The only way the parasite can be killed is by boiling water above 160 degree F. Note in this article on the 20th anniversary of the Milwaukee Crypto outbreak that Milwaukeeans are still boiling water. See here. In the US we have had two mass Crypto outbreaks in water supply systems in Carrollton, Georgia in 1987 and in Milwaukee in 1993. The Georgia outbreak affected 13,000 out of 16,000 residents. Because the Milwaukee water supply system draws from Lake Michigan, Crypto pathogens might have entered from drainage or in ice breakup during the early spring. In the Milwaukee case, the epidemiologists and public health specialists estimate that more than 400,000 succumbed to Crypto causing massive outbreaks of watery diarrhea over a period of two weeks or more. 108 deaths occurred involving those with immune deficiencies from cancer treatment, AIDS and other maladies. Within immunocompromised communities, exposure frequently leads to severe and permanent diarrhea, decreasing absorption of nutrients resulting in progressive dehydration and eventual death. See here. When the Tunisian jihadi, Abassi, referred to placing bacteria sufficient to kill 100,000 in a municipal system that was a stretch. More likely using Crypto parasites, e.coli or other waterborne pathogens could be planted by terrorists in sources and reservoirs for municipal water systems. Waterborne pathogens are more cost effective
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
The EPA’s Disturbing Human Experiments
If the shocking allegations contained in a lawsuit filed last Friday by responsible science advocate Steven Milloy are accurate, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a major scandal on its hands. As reported by the National Legal and Policy Center, Milloy initiated litigation in U.S. District Court in Virginia, based on evidence he accumulated via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). He alleges that the EPA engaged in disturbing experimentation that deliberately exposed human beings to airborne particulate matter the agency itself considers lethal. The experiments were conducted at EPA’s Human Studies Facility at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. “That EPA administrator Lisa Jackson permitted this heinous experimentation to occur under her watch shocks the conscience,” said Milloy.
The suit accuses the EPA of paying as many as 41 participants $12 an hour to breathe in concentrated diesel exhaust, for as long a two hours at a time. The exhaust was directly piped in from a truck parked outside the Chapel Hill facility. According to the lawsuit, the fine particulate matter, called “PM2.5,” was piped in at levels 21 times greater than what the EPA calls its “permissible limit.”
Yet even that phrase is misleading. In testimony delivered to Congress in September of 2011, EPA chief Lisa Jackson claimed that exposure to fine particulate matter of 2.5 microns — or less — was lethal. “Particulate matter causes premature death. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should,” she testified at the time.
Milloy learned about the experiments last year, after reading about them in a government-supported scientific journal. In June, he filed a complaint with the North Carolina Medical Board, accusing Drs. Andrew Ghio and Wayne Cascio, both of whom were employed by the EPA, along with Dr. Eugene Chung, who worked for the University of North Carolina, of violating EPA standards of conduct in human research and the Hippocratic Oath. “During these experiments, the study subjects were intentionally exposed to airborne fine particulate matter (‘PM2.5,”) at levels ranging from 41.54 micrograms per cubic meter to 750.83 micrograms per cubic meter for periods of up to two hours,” Milloy wrote to Dr. Ralph C. Loomis, president of the NC Medical Board. “The EPA also believes that PM2.5 is carcinogenic to humans,” he added.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Green Enemies of Humanity, Science and the Truth
Among the greatest liars on Earth today is the international organization called Friends of the Earth (FOE). It has engaged in the most scurrilous fear-mongering for decades, along with Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the World Wildlife Fund, while all the time they pulled in billions in funding.
In May 2012, the Daily Caller noted that “The Congressional Research Service estimates that since 2008 the federal government has spent nearly $70 billion on ‘climate change activities.’“ The leading critic in Congress, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) asked at the time, “Which would you rather have? Would you rather spend $4 billion on Air Force base solar panels, or would you rather have 28 new F-22s or 30 F-25s or modernized C-130s?”
“Would you rather have $64.8 billion spent on pointless global warming efforts or would you rather have more funds put toward modernizing our fleet of ships, aircraft and ground vehicles to improve the safety of our troops and help defend the nation against the legitimate threats that we face?’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The IRS Targeted Conservative Media
Of the IRS abuse cases that have recently come to light, the use of the IRS to enforce the defunct “Fairness Doctrine” on broadcasters is one of the most disturbing.
“I am alarmed by reports that suggest a federal official at the IRS instituting a de facto Fairness Doctrine,” National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) President & CEO Dr. Frank Wright said in a press release. Wright was referring to long-time Christian radio host Dr. James Dobson revealing that his organization had to submit sample radio programs to the IRS, and that an IRS agent indicated that his criticism of President Obama would prevent his ministry from getting a certain form of non-profit status.
A press release about the controversy was issued under the headline, “IRS Subjects Dr. James Dobson and Family Talk Action to Viewpoint Discrimination.”
In other words, Dobson’s views were singled out by the IRS because they were conservative, Christian, and critical of President Obama.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
White House Aide: ‘Nothing That Suggests’ IRS Official at Center of Scandal ‘Did Anything Wrong’
A besieged White House dug in its heels Sunday and defended figures at the center of the unfolding Internal Revenue Service scandal while reiterating that President Obama knew nothing of the misdeeds inside the agency.
White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, appearing on four Sunday morning political talk shows, offered strong support for Sarah Hall Ingram, who led the agency’s tax-exempt division as it admittedly targeted conservative groups. She recently was promoted to chief of the health care reform office, tasked with implementing “Obamacare.”
Critics of the administration expect many more heads to roll as the true scope and intent of the IRS actions come to light, but Mr. Pfeiffer on Sunday strongly defended Ms. Ingram.
“No one has suggested that she did anything wrong yet,” Mr. Pfeiffer said on “Fox News Sunday.”
“Before everyone in this town convicts this person in the court of public opinion with no evidence, let’s actually get the facts and make decisions after that. There’s nothing that suggests she did anything wrong,” he said.
Mr. Pfeiffer added that a top-down investigation of the IRS will examine Ms. Ingram’s 2009 to 2012 tenure as head of the tax-exempt division.
Other IRS authorities have paid the price for what officials on both sides of the aisle, along with a host of others, have described as outrageous behavior. Steven Miller, former acting IRS commissioner questioned by Congress last week, was pushed out by the president.
Ms. Ingram’s replacement, Joseph Grant, has announced his retirement despite taking the job only a few weeks ago…
| [Return to headlines] |
Eurozone: Europe Needs Its Martin Luther
La Repubblica Rome
The EU is becoming a corrupt church where Germany rules by a dogmatic economic orthodoxy. Politics must take back control with a protestant schism coming from grassroots initiatives, argues an Italian columnist.
Barbara Spinelli
It can only happen in this Europe, which is veering towards disaster not because of its economic woes but the contorted foolishness of its politics. We’re referring to the scandal of a German constitutional court that has become crucial for every EU citizen, while the constitutional court in Portugal is worthless. We’re talking about Jens Weidmann, the governor of the German Central Bank, who is accusing [the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) Mario] Draghi of going beyond his mandate — saving the euro with the means at his disposal — and is shamelessly declaring war on a currency that we call “common” precisely because it does not just belong to Berlin.
The ECB’s mandate is in fact clear even if Weidmann contests its constitutionality. It aims to maintain stable prices (Article 127 of the Lisbon Treaty) but while respecting Article 3, which prescribes sustainable development for Europe, full employment and improvement in the quality of the environment, the fight against social exclusion, justice and social protection, economic, social and territorial cohesion and solidarity between EU member states.
Something is not right if Article 3 does not even poke its head out from the pages of the ECB’s website for fear that Berlin might take a dim view of it.
Challenging the anti-crisis othodoxy
In little over a year, in May 2014, we will vote for a new European Parliament. It will be a date that is unusual for Italians in particular. That is because the European troika (ECB, European Commission, International Monetary Fund) has a bigger impact on our lives than ever was the case in the past. It is because its anti-crisis medicines are being challenged everywhere by people, even shaking the confidence of the doctor that is applying them with the greatest passion. On September 22, the Germans will go to the ballot box and may reward an anti-European party — Alternative for Germany — that came into being last February. The parties will need to put a stop to the lies that are being put about as to the possibility of making Angela Merkel “yield”. Especially in Italy, they will need to stop the betrayal of voters and citizens. Finally and for the first time, if they dare, they will be able to name a president of the European Commission. That is in the treaties….
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘Fiat to Operate in Both Italy, U.S. After Chrysler Merger’
Elkann responds to angst over possibly moving Turin headquarters
(ANSA) — Turin, May 17 — The president of Italian automaker Fiat on Friday said the company would operate on multiple fronts once its merger with Chrysler is complete. “Like all big organizations, Fiat is well-protected wherever it operates,” John Elkann told journalists when asked if the Turin-based company would relocate its headquarters to Michigan, where Chrysler is based. “This means that there’s Turin for Europe, Detroit for America, Betim for Latin America and Shanghai for Asia. That’s how things work, which we’ve explained and clarified multiple times. That’s how we operate”. Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne has led Chrysler since it emerged from bankruptcy in 2009 under Fiat’s majority ownership.
Marchionne has reportedly been moving closer to his goal of finding financing to purchase the remaining 41.5% of Chrysler shares held by VEBA, a trust controlled by retirees of the United Auto Workers union.
Concern has been raised in Italy and the US over where the single company would he located.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
International Cultural Exception: Paris Finds Some Allies
La Tribune
“Cultural exception: France rallies 13 EU countries,” announces French financial daily La Tribune, which reports that French Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti has managed to convince 13 of her fellow ministers in other EU states to sign a letter, sent to the European Commission and to the EU’s Irish Presidency calling for the film and audiovisual sectors to be excluded from talks on a free-trade agreement with the United States.
The letter was signed by representatives of Germany, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Spain, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. La Tribune continues —
… the minister has pointed out that “the letter from fourteen European States, representing a vast majority of the population of the EU” — with the notable exception of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands — shows the will to retain this “cultural exception”, which consists, in the face of “the power of the American audiovisual industry,” of excluding all audiovisual services […] from any commitments to free-trade regulations.
The daily notes that the free-trade agreement with the United States is on the agenda for an up-coming meeting of EU culture ministers to be held on May 17.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Head of State Public Works Agency Accused of Corruption
Police seize 12 million euros in goods from former civil servant
(ANSA) — Rome, May 17 — Police seized 12 million euros in goods, including homes, cars, motorcycles, as well as bank accounts and investments belonging to a disgraced public works official Friday.
The goods were seized as part of an investigation into dealings by Angelo Balducci, a former head of the state public works office, who is accused of corruption in the misuse of funds set aside for such events as a Group of Eight (G8) summit of international leaders.
Balducci is also implicated in fraud related to other events including the 150th anniversary celebration of the unification of Italy.
Some of the goods were held in the name of Balducci’s family, including his wife Rosanna Thau and children Lorenzo and Filippo Balducci.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Grillo Bans Comments to Blog Entry on Free Speech
‘To protect users from prosecution for vilifying president’
(ANSA) — Rome, May 15 — Beppe Grillo, leader of the Italy’s anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, banned comments to his blog post due to a southern Italian probe against 22 people accused of insulting the Italian president.
“Who can be safe from prosecution for criticising the president of the republic? So to defend oneself, the only way is to not write anything anymore. Lips sealed. Fingers blocked on the keyboard. Comments blacked out,” the comedian-turned-politician posted on his blog, his main soapbox.
Grillo protested in his blog that “Twenty-two people are under investigation for ‘offending the honour and prestige of the president of the republic’“ by the prosecutor’s office in Nocera, a town south of Naples, “essentially…for ‘vilification’, a term that can include any opinion, criticism, or assessment judged offensive”.
Grillo cited his own post from May 31, 2012, inviting Italian President Giorgio Napolitano to abolish the crime, which carries a sentence of one to five years in jail.
He also wrote that the law originally enshrined respect for Italy’s monarch under Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime.
“This post, in order to avoid legal complaints filed against anyone, will be, for the first time in the history of the blog, without the option to comment. In the future, perhaps, it will become the rule for the entire Web in Italy,” Grillo said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Six Million Euros Worth of Property Seized in Idi Probes
Priest and businessmen investigated in hospital embezzlement
(ANSA) — Rome, May 15 — Police confiscated over six million euros worth of property and bank accounts on Wednesday as part of investigations into alleged corruption at the Italian hospital group Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata (IDI).
A priest and two businessmen were put under house arrest in April in relation to the scam that investigators believe amounts to 14 million euros.
Father Franco De Caminada, who was the managing director of IDI that runs a dermatology hospital in Rome and another near Viterbo, is accused of issuing false invoices and embezzling four million euros out of the hospital.
Wednesday’s seizures include a luxury apartment near the Vatican, along with villas and commercial properties worth an estimated 4.2 million euros in and around Rome owned by businessman Domenico Temperini, one of the businessmen arrested in April.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Govt Popularity Down 5% to New Low of 34%
Letta close to lowest point hit by previous govt
(ANSA) — Rome, May 17 — Enrico Letta’s new right-left reform government sank 5% to a new low of 34% in the latest weekly survey by SWG out Friday.
On May 3, three days after it was sworn in to end a two-month post-election stalemate, its rating stood at 43%. Amid burgeoning policy squabbles, it is now close to the low point of the previous austerity government of Mario Monti, pollster SWG said.
Letta has vowed far-reaching political and economic reforms to restore voter trust.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Ruby Gives Her Take on Berlusconi Ties at Pimps’ Trial
Ex-premier ‘always’ gave her envelopes of cash
(By Kate Carlisle) (ANSA) — Milan, May 17 — A young Moroccan former nightclub dancer who went by the stage name ‘Ruby Heartstealer’ testified on Friday at the trial of three people accused of pimping for ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi — retired TV anchorman Emilio Fede, bankrupt ex-talent scout Lele Mora and Nicole Minetti, an ex-Lombardy regional councillor and the ex-premier’s former dental hygienist.
The woman, who is at the center of a sex scandal involving Berlusconi said that when she first visited his villa in February 2010 he gave her an envelope containing between 2,000 and 3,000 euros. “I was always given an envelope full of money,” often in 500-euro bank notes, she testified. But he “did not ever give me five million, nor ever promised” that amount, she said during her testimony.
The prosecution in a related trial against Berlusconi has said that his bank withdrawals between October and December 2010 were enough to “cover abundantly” a 4.5-million-euro figure allegedly mentioned in phone calls and notes involving payment to El Mahroug.
The ex-premier has said he gave the young woman money because he wanted to help her to establish a business and gain her independence.
Opening a beauty salon was a “dream”, El Mahroug said Friday. El Mahroug said that although things did not go well when she tried working in a salon in the city of Messina, she still craved economic independence and her own shop. She told the court that she was very surprised the first time she visited Berlusconi’s home. “When I got out of the car (at Berlusconi’s house), I was told this was the villa of the premier, and I was surprised”.
“It did not seem real,” she said. She said Berlusconi, then premier, introduced himself and she was introduced simply as Ruby, adding that she went out that night at the invitation of Mora and thought she was on her way to a disco. According to El Mahroug, she never saw the ex-premier touch any girls at his supposed Bunga Bunga parties. “The girls came close (to him) while they were doing their sensual dances, but I never saw any physical contact,” she said.
However, she told the court that during after-dinner parties at the ex-premier’s Arcore villa she saw showgirl Marystelle Polanco dressed as “Obama and as Ilda Boccassini, with a toga (magistrates robe) and red wig”.
Milan prosecutor Boccassini — who worked closely with murdered anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone in the 1990s and also lead a 2002 trial in which Berlusconi was accused of bribing judges in the 1980s in order to win control of the state-owned SME food conglomerate — requested Monday the former premier be sentenced to a combined six-year jail term for abuse of power and for having sex with Ruby when she was underaged.
Berlusconi claims to be the victim of biased prosecutors, including Boccassini, who have been conducting a witch-hunt against him.
Also according to El Mahroug, Minetti would dress as “a sexy nurse, doctor or nun”.
“I saw Minetti, at a certain point while she was dancing, strip down to her underwear,” El Mahroug said.
“In the ex-premier’s Bunga Bunga room, there was a pole for dancing,” she testified, saying that the other girls explained the origin of Bunga Bunga came from a joke that Berlusconi liked to tell.
El Mahroug also denied ever performing erotic dancing at the alleged sex parties, and said she only ever made one appearance “in a belly dance,” using clothes given to Berlusconi by his late friend former Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi. El Mahroug also testified that during that first party at Berlusconi’s home, she also told the “story” that she was the daughter of a Brazilian singer and an Egyptian, and that she was also a “relative” of Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak. Berlusconi stands accused of allegedly abusing his power in a bid to have El Mahroug released from jail by arguing that that was necessary to avoid an international incident with Egypt.
Mora, Fede and Minetti, all personal friends of Berlusconi, are charged with the alleged procurement of prostitutes, including Ruby, who was one year below the legal age for prostitution at the time of the alleged sex parties hosted by Berlusconi in 2010. Sex workers can ply their trade legally in Italy from the age of 18. The former nightclub dancer testified that she never had sex with Berlusconi, and that the ex-premier was under the impression she was in her twenties and not a minor. “He thought I was 23, 24,” she said. The prosecutor contested this, citing a wiretapped conversation of El Mahroug with a friend in which she said “Silvio knows I’m a minor, but I denied this”. She told the court she was not telling the truth in that conversation. “I told lies,” said El Mahroug. “For me, lies were an automatic defense mechanism with everyone”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Five Fake Blind People Unmasked in Sesto S. Giovanni
(AGI) Milan — The finance police unmasked five fake blind people in Sesto S. Giovanni, unveiling a 10-year long 600,000-euro fraud ..
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Politicians Bow Before Fiat CEO Marchionne, Sel Leader
(AGI) Viareggio, May 17 — Nichi Vendola, leader of leftist SEL, Left, Ecology and Freedom party, said: “We are astonished at the sight of politicians of the left bowing before Sergio Marchionne. Now that the Fiat CEO will uproot the Italian automaker from Turin and move it to Detroit, they will have to speak up.” Vendola concluded this message while addressing a crowd attending the rally of the center-left candidate to mayor of the Tuscan town of Viareggio.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Anonymous Members Arrested for Hacking Govt, Vatican
Attacks on ‘key infrastructure, govt sites, major firms’
(ANSA) — Rome, May 17 — Police on Friday arrested four Italian members of the international ‘hacktivist’ network Anonymous for allegedly hacking into computer systems of the government, parliament and the Vatican.
The four also allegedly got into the systems of key infrastructure systems and major firms but police have not yet said what damage they did.
Raids were carried out “across Italy”, police said.
“The group carried out a series of attacks against the computer systems of critical infrastructure, institutional sites and important companies”, police said.
Anonymous, a loose international association of hackers, became known for a series of well-publicized hacks and attacks on government, religious, and corporate websites.
Dozens of people have been arrested for involvement in Anonymous cyberattacks, in countries including the US, UK, Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, and Turkey.
Supporters have called the group “freedom fighters” and digital Robin Hoods while critics have described them as “a cyber lynch-mob” or “cyber terrorists”. In 2012, Time called Anonymous one of the “100 most influential people” in the world.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Meets All Specs: Italian Pork Delicacies Get OK to be Sold Again in U.S.
Francesco Semprini New York
Some people are hailing it as a culinary revolution. One thing is certain, the re-introduction of certain banned Italian pork products after 15 years represents some serious business opportunities.
Italian businesses will now be able to sell “Made in Italy” pork products such as salami, pancetta, air-cured pork, and culatello Parma ham after a decade-and-a-half of exclusion by American health authorities.
The measure will take effect beginning May 28, and was brought into effect by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). Based on a review from the Service, as requested by the Italian government, it was formally declared that the Italian regions of Lombardy, Emilia-Romagna, Veneto, Piedmont, and the autonomous regions of Trento and Bolzano are free from swine flu.
This means that the American administration will eliminate the so-called “non-tariff barriers” for these products to enter commercialized domestic markets and that pork and dairy imports have a low risk of introducing Swine Vesicular Disease into the U.S…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Political Conspiracy Theories: Angela Merkel is No KGB ‘Sleeper Agent’
By Jan Fleischhauer
Ever wondered what Angela Merkel had in mind with her decision to phase out nuclear energy? Dependency on Russian energy, if you believe some prominent conspiracy theorists. They’d like you to believe the German chancellor is some kind of KGB “sleeper agent” installed by Moscow at the end of the Cold War.
For people from the states of the former West Germany, those from the East just can’t be trusted entirely — it’s a latent suspicion people have always had. For anyone who is drilled from childhood on to hide his or her feelings and thoughts, having two faces becomes second nature.
“Disguise and deception are traditional survival strategies that people were forced to use under a dictatorship,” social psychologist Tilman Allert wrote a few days ago in the respected Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in a piece that explored “strategic insincerity” as a way of life.
In other words, we should have known better. Instead, we allowed 16 million potential sleeper agents into the country. Now they are among us. One is already even sitting in the Chancellery.
Yes, let’s not allow ourselves to be deceived by the harmless-seeming façade. Angela Merkel has everything it takes to sneak her way to the top: a great degree of adaptability paired with a high level of intelligence, as well as an almost inexhaustible capacity for patience. For nearly eight years now, she’s been Germany’s leader, and yet she remains an enigma. Even today, we still don’t know what she’s really thinking, what she wants or where she comes from…
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Political Union: Hollande Takes Up Merkel’s Challenge
Le Monde, 17 May 2013
“At last a French proposition for Europe!” announces Le Monde, which welcomes the new European attitude outlined by the French President during his May 16 statement —
François Hollande’s address to Europeans and Germany at his press conference, finally put an end to the dodging and obstruction of European policy that have marked his tenure since his election. […] In affirming that France should be the “link” between northern and southern Europe, the head of state has given up on the idea of rallying Latin countries to oppose a Germanic Europe.
The daily also argues that in calling for united “economic government” in the Eurozone —
François Hollande is taking Angela Merkel, who proposed a political union a year ago, at her word. At the time, he was critical of an empty proposition. Today he has given it “substance”. Taking Germany at its word is the right strategy. At last, France is once again bringing a proposition to the European table. However, it will only be credible if Mr Hollande sets his French house in order.
In Germany, where François Hollande’s remarks have been received with much less enthusiasm, Die Welt points out that the “so-called offensive is mainly composed of measures that were already presented by his predecessor,” whether they be —
… the European economic government that was called for by Sarkozy before the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 2008, or the idea of issuing bonds, which for tactical reasons Hollande is no longer calling Eurobonds, in the hope that the stubborn Germans will one day accept them.
With regard to his address to Germany, Die Welt remarks that Hollande’s attitude consists of “moaning about German austerity not only as a statement of his ideological position, but also as a tactical measure.” For the newspaper —
… in presenting himself as someone who is willing to do battle with the spectre of a Merkel style austerity diktat, he is trying to obtain room for manoeuvre that, in a best case scenario, will enable him to push through unpopular reforms. It follows that Angela Merkel will have to continue to allow him use her as a European punching-ball for some time to come.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Qatar Buys 40% Stake in Milan’s Porta Nuova
Agreement with Hines on plan for renovation of vast area
(ANSAmed) — MILAN — Qatar is buying 40% of Porta Nuova, an ambitious renovation project involving a vast area of Milan whose buildings and skyscrapers, including the new headquarters of bank Unicredit, are changing the skyline of Italy’s financial capital. The Italian division of Texas-based international real estate firm Hines and Qatar Holding, an investment arm of the Gulf state’s sovereign wealth fund, have signed a ‘strategic partnership’ which will bring the emirate’s fund in a project to change a 290,000 square meter area including Garibaldi, Isola and Varesine neighbourhoods close to the Garibaldi station and hip street Corso Como.
In a statement, the two groups said Qatar Holding had agreed to buy a 40% stake in the project while the remaining 60% would be detained by the current sponsors. The Qatari fund, a major holding with stakes in, among others, Credit Suisse, Porsche, Harrods and football team Paris Saint-Germain, recently bought some of the most exclusive hotels in Sardinia’s Emerald Coast and the London headquarters of Credit Suisse.
Neither the project’s developers, Hines Italia SGR, a division of the Houston-based developer, nor Qatar Holding, gave any indication on how much was paid for the stakes of a project whose value reportedly exceeds 2 billion euros. Qatar certainly has no problems in investing in real estate, in spite of the sector’s crisis, thanks to its oil revenues. Manfredi Catella, the managing director of Hines Italia Sgr, said the partnership “confirms that Porta Nuova is one of the most interesting investments in Italian real estate” and a “fundamental sign for the Italian economic system and the international capitals’ market”.
So far Hines has let 60% of offices while 75% of retail units that have gone on the market have been sold, approximately 50% of the total. Porta Nuova’s prices are high — on average 9,000 euros per square meter.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Support for the UK Independence Party has reached a record 19 per cent, while both Labour and Conservatives are losing ground, it has emerged.
Despite a week of controversy, in which UKIP leader Nigel Farage visited Edinburgh and was locked in a pub by angry protestors, public backing for the party has never been higher.
The UK Independence Party leader said the left-wing extremists who trapped him were the ‘ugly face of Scottish nationalism’ pursuing an anti-English agenda.
However, poll results do not reflect the crowds who just this week shouted ‘racist scumbag’ and ‘scum’ at the leader, who has begun to pose a real threat as a major political party.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Swedish Jews Flee Their Former Sanctuary’
Dagens Nyheter, 17 May 2013
“We are one” announces the slogan of the Eurovision Song Contest, which is currently taking place in Malmö.
However, “at a time when the old industrial city has become an international melting pot that is full of optimism, a growing number of Jewish families are leaving, notes Dagens Nyheter. Anti-semitism is now a defining trait of Malmö, and harassment is common to the point where many Jews no longer see any future in the city.”
Malmö had a 2,000-strong Jewish community in the 1970s. However, only 500 remain there today, explains the newspaper. “The majority have moved to Stockholm or abroad.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Netherlands: Immigrants Tangled Up With Turkish Gangs
De Standaard Brussels
Are Bulgarian immigrants abusing the welfare system? Several cases of benefit fraud have sparked controversy. But often, the suspected fraudsters are themselves simply victims of organised crime networks.
Marloes de Koning
Mitko Dimitrov Iliev applied for his first passport at the age of 50. He is a small man with crooked teeth and a shy expression. His home in Ivanski, a village in north-east Bulgaria, is dilapidated but spacious. His otherwise empty bookcase contains little more than an accordion. He used it last year in an attempt to earn a little money busking in the Dutch city of Groningen.
While he was playing in the street, a group of Turks approached him. They offered to assist him in registering with the municipal authorities. “One of the Turks interpreted, so I had no idea what they were saying.” The Turk in question later promised him a brand new mobile phone and said “Come on, we’re going to start a business.” He had Mitko, who is illiterate, sign a stack of documents. Mitko holds his thumb and index finger 15cm apart. That is how thick the stack was.
Turks in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Bulgaria play a major role in organising fraudulent benefit claims in the Netherlands. Not to mention the exploitation of illiterate Bulgarians. Bulgaria has quite a large Turkish-speaking minority. It comprises ethnic Turks and Roma, who began calling themselves Turkish after 1989. Their shared language and religion enable them to easily befriend the large Turkish communities in western Europe. Mitko received €200, but never saw any sign of the promised phone.
A few weeks later, however, his old phone began to ring incessantly. It was invariably a Dutchman on the line, who he could not understand. After a while, he realised that it had to be a man from the bank. Mitko thinks that it is the Dutch bank with an orange lion in its logo, because he once saw the symbol on a bank card.
The bank continued to call. Mitko has since begun to assume that he has a business and considerable debts in the Netherlands. After all, this has also happened to several people who he knows. He has no idea whatsoever of the sums involved, as the only piece of paper he possesses himself is his proof of registration with the municipal authorities. Just few days ago, Mitko therefore finally decided to turn the phone off and board a minibus back to Bulgaria. “I’m scared they will eventually impound my home or put me behind bars for someone else’s crime.”
Minibuses depart from Bulgaria
Ivanski is just one of a whole series of Bulgarian villages from which minibuses continually depart for the Netherlands. An evening of enquiries in the provincial capital, Shumen, yields a list of seven places within a radius of 30km. In most of these villages, there are one or two men who take care of contacts and organise transport….
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Mother of Two of the Oxford Sex Gang Defends Her Sons and Blames Victims
ABOVE: Akhtar Dogar, 32, was convicted of rape, facilitating child prostitution and traffickingThese girls should be playing with toys. If they start (having sex) at ten, by 15 they are proper ladies.The mother of two of the abusers19th May 2013By Dominik Lemanski
THE mother of two members of the Oxford child sex abuse gang has defended her sons and blamed their victims.
A group of mainly Asian men groomed girls as young as 11 before giving them drugs and carrying out degrading attacks — then hiring them out for sex with other paedophiles.
But last night the mother of two of the abusers, Akhtar Dogar, 32, and Anjum Dogar, 31, said they were innocent and accused police, social services and the girls themselves of being complicit in creating Britain’s “grooming culture”.
She said: “These girls should be playing with toys. If they start (having sex) at ten, by 15 they are proper ladies.”
Her elder son Akhtar was convicted of 11 offences and Anjum of nine. Both men were found guilty of rape, child prostitution and trafficking.
Last week at their Old Bailey trial it was heard Akhtar, known as “Spider”, and Anjum, known as “Jammy” to their victims, helped organise “parties” where men would pay for sex.
One victim told Thames Valley Police: “I’ve seen them doing it to little girls in their school uniforms.”
And a 15-year-old said she was abused by Akhtar for three days after running away from a children’s home in 2006.
The victim, who was raped by the gang from the age of 12 and sold for sex, told police she was sick of being treated “like a piece of meat”.
A 14-year-old girl said she was threatened with guns and feared she would be forced to have sex with 11 men in a day.
She recalled refusing to have sex with a “fat and ugly” man and being grabbed and threatened by Anjum.
But speaking at her home in the Cowley Road area of Oxford, the Dogars’ mother — believed to be named Bashira — said they were innocent…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
MPs are in line for a pay rise of £10,000 a year — but they may have to give up their gold-plated pensions.
Annual salaries would increase from £65,738 to more than £75,000 in a move being considered by Commons officials.
A senior MP said he feared they would be accused of having their ‘snouts in the trough’ but argued: ‘Voters may not like it, but if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Oxford Grooming Ring Was Race-Hate Gang Rape
By Carole Malone
Having seen how our gutless authorities operate, they knew they could defile white girls however and wherever they chose
Why did only one Muslim cleric have the guts to say it? Why was everyone else scared to? Why are they STILL scared to?
And why — even after all the sickening stories of those Oxford schoolgirls having babies aborted with hooks, being repeatedly gang-raped, beaten, branded and burned with cigarettes — are people STILL shying away from saying exactly what kind of crimes these are?
Because what happened to these girls can’t just be chucked in the box marked “general sex crimes”.
These gang atrocities in Oxford — just like the ones in Rochdale, Derby and Telford — were the very worst kind of racially motivated hate crimes committed by Muslim men who’ve been taught to believe that white women are worthless trash and deserve to be punished for their “decadent” Western lifestyle, i.e. wearing make-up and short skirts.
And while most Muslim clerics have stayed silent on this, while our wider society refuses to acknowledge what these crimes are REALLY about, only Dr Taj Hargey, imam of the Oxford Islamic congregation, had the courage to stick his head above the parapet and say what happened to these girls WAS racially motivated and illustrates the deep- seated hatred some Muslim men have for white women.
“Some people are saying the predators’ religion was an irrelevance. But that’s deluded nonsense,” he says.
So why aren’t the police saying that?…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Probe at Least 54 More Evil Child Sex Grooming Gangs
Officers are preparing to bust the biggest paedophile network ever seen in the country, with police set to swoop within days
At least 54 evil child grooming gangs are being investigated by police.
It comes as officers in the North of England are preparing to bust the biggest paedophile network ever seen in the country, with police set to swoop within days.
Our disturbing figures can be revealed after reporters contacted every force across England and Wales, but the true number is likely to be much higher as many failed, or refused, to reply.
Child exploitation came into focus this week when seven paedophiles were convicted of sexually torturing girls as young as 11 in Oxford.
Thames Valley Police missed several opportunities to rescue the girls from the abuse over six years.
The same force has now revealed it is investigating 14 more networks — with some gangs even using women to help groom the youngsters.
Chief constable Sara Thornton said: “We are looking at double figures for the number of suspects.”
She went on: “I think the vast majority are men but there are a couple of women who might have been facilitating exploitation.”
As a result of our inquiries, police chiefs admitted to at least 54 investigations.
Out of 43 forces in England and Wales, 31 responded to our request for information.
Seventeen said they had ongoing probes, including Merseyside, which would only say it was investigating a “number” of grooming rings.
Three — Staffordshire, Norfolk and Humberside — refused to tell us how many investigations they had, and 12 did not get back to us.
At 14, Thames Valley has the largest number of probes, followed by six in Lancashire — where one of the worst paedophile gangs was caught in Rochdale last year.
Nottinghamshire and Greater Manchester said they were looking into five alleged sex cells each.
Steve Heywood, chief constable at Greater Manchester, admitted child exploitation was now the force’s “number one priority”.
The Met Police in London said its officers were probing four gangs.
Three probes are active in South Yorkshire, Northants and Suffolk.
There are two each in Surrey, Northumbria and West Yorkshire. South Wales, Kent, West Mercia, Devon and Cornwall and Cambridgeshire each have one investigation.
Staffordshire, Humberside and Norfolk would not say how many investigations they had.
West Midlands, Sussex, Wiltshire, North Yorkshire, Leicestershire, Hampshire, Avon and Somerset, Gloucestershire, Cheshire, Cleveland, Dorset and Dyfed Powys did not reply
There are no investigations in Derbyshire, Warwickshire, North Wales, Hertfordshire, Gwent, Cumbria, Durham, Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire, Bedfordshire, Essex.
The figures come as 10 men are preparing to stand trial this week accused of exploiting a girl over a four-year period in High Wycombe, Bucks.
All deny the charges.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
The size of primary schools has rocketed in the last three years as Britain deals with an explosion in the birth rate fuelled by the rise in young immigrant families.
There are 60 per cent more supersize primaries with more than 700 pupils — including some with more than 1,000 — than in 2010, according to Department for Education statistics.
While three years ago there were no schools with more than 1,000 pupils, it is now becoming more common to have six classes in each year.
There are now 130 schools with more than 700 pupils, compared with just 80 three years ago.
Supersized schools are most prevalent in deprived areas, particularly east London and central Birmingham, where cheap council housing is available for families.
[Comment: Correction: this is not the result of a baby boom AND immigration, this is the result of an *immigration baby boom*. The numbers of children born to white British parents are declining and have been for years. There is no British baby boom happening. It is all immigration-led. In London two-thirds of babies born have at least one foreign parent (and of course the other one is likely also to be of immigrant origin). VOTE UKIP. — – Seatofmars , London, 18/5/2013 16:34 Rating 1086 ]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Two women put in charge of an elderly relative’s finances left her in a cheap care home and cut off her money while they bought designer watches and cars in a £200,000 spending spree.
They claimed that they bought the gifts as ‘heirlooms’. They were found out only when they asked a secret court to approve purchases including laptops, jewellery and season tickets for a football club.
A judge condemned the pair for acting with a ‘licence to loot’ as they were the only visitors the 93-year-old widow with dementia received — and he ordered them to pay back the cash.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UKIP Wins Rotherham By-Election
The UK Independence Party has tonight won another council seat in Britain after taking on Labour in its stronghold of Rawmarsh in Rotherham.
The results which came in moments ago declared that UKIP had won the seat by 104 votes, with Caven Vines (UKIP) beating Lisa Marie Wright (LAB).
The Conservative Party’s vote full through entirely, with the party garnering just 108 votes compared to UKIP’s 1143 and Labour’s 1039. The Liberal Democrats came an embarrassing last place with only 28 votes, coming in behind the Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts (61) and the British National Party (80).
Meanwhile, the Conservatives gained a seat from the Liberal Democrats tonight in Somerset, while Labour took a seat in Melcombe Regis, Weymouth, from the Conservatives.
UKIP recently stunned the British political establishment by taking 147 council seats in the recent local elections.
Rotherham’s previous experiences with UKIP have also been reported across the media, when in 2012 parents were found to have been discriminated against for adoption based on their UKIP party memberships.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Islamists and Police Clash in Tunisia
(AGI) Tunis — Tension ran high in Tunis on the sidelines of a meeting of supporters of the Islamist group Ansar Al-Sharia .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Al-Qaeda’s Syrian Wing Takes Over the Oilfields Once Belonging to Assad
Up to 380,000 barrels of crude oil were previously produced by wells around the city of Raqqa and in the desert region to its east that are now in rebel hands — in particular Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda off-shoot which is the strongest faction in this part of the country.
Now the violently anti-Western jihadist group, which has been steadily extending its control in the region, is selling the crude oil to local entrepreneurs, who use home-made refineries to produce low-grade petrol and other fuels for Syrians facing acute shortages.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Man Spared Paralysis Sentence
(AGI) Riyadh, May 19 — A Saudi man has averted a sentence of paralysis for stabbing and paralysing another man after the victim’s family agreed to accept compensation instead through ‘qisas’, or retribution. The Saudi legal code provides for the perpetrator of crimes to be sentenced to suffer a similar fate, in what has been described as an “eye for an eye” system. The dropping of the sentence was reported by Saudi media on Sunday, after the case garnered international attention and an appeal from Amnesty International to the Saudi government not to carry out the sentence.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian Loyalists Launch Offensive to Win Back Qusayr
(AGI) — Beirut, May 19 — Regime troops launched an offensive to win back the Syrian city of Qusayr from rebels, reported the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, with heavy fighting still ongoing at the city gates. The city of Qusayr, in the province of Homs, is strategically important because it links the capital to the Mediterranean coast. It has been the scene of fighting between government troops and rebels for weeks. The city was also targeted by heavy shelling at dawn on Sunday morning, killing 13 people, the Observatory added.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
India: Orissa: Two Hindu Extremists Linked to the Murder of Missionary Graham Staines Arrested
Arrest comes almost 14 years after the massacre of missionary and his two children. Ramjan Mahanta and Ghanshyam Mahanta were part of the group of dozens of Hindu extremists responsible for the massacre. They will be tried by a special tribunal. To date, only two of the authors of the massacre have been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Bhubaneswar (AsiaNews) — The Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) yesterday arrested two other people connected to the brutal murder of Australian Pastor Graham Staines and his children, burned alive January 23, 1999 in the village of Manoharpur in Orissa. The two, Ghanshyam Mahanta and Ramjan Mahanta, were arrested last night in the area of ??Anandpur in Keonjhar district and conducted to police stations in Bhubaneswar, where they were interrogated by investigators. Bk Pradhan of the special CBI of Calcutta said that soon the two accused will be tried by a special court.
On the night between 22 and 23 January 1999 a mob of Hindu extremists burned alive Pastor Staines and his sons Philip and Timothy (aged 9 and 7), while they were sleeping in their station wagon in Manoharpur village (Keonjhar district, Orissa) . At first the police arrested Hindu extremist party Bajrang Dal member Dara Singh, the master mind behind the massacre, and 12 other accomplices.
But almost 14 years after the massacre the authorities have not punished the perpetrators. On 22 September 2003, a special court sentenced Dara Singh to death and the other 12 to life imprisonment. However in May 2005, the Orissa High Court overturned the death penalty for Singh to life imprisonment and acquitted 11 others. Only one of the accomplices of Singh, Mahendra Hembram is serving a life sentence. For both the sentence was confirmed in 2011.
In 2006, the missionary’s wife and daughter Esther returned to Orissa. The brutal murder of Staines was a prelude of the anti-Christian pogrom in 2008 in the district of Kandhamal.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan’s Khan Accuses Rival of Killing Female Politician
(AGI) Karachi — Pakistani politician Imran Khan blamed his rival for the death of a senior member of his party on Sunday .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Tourists “Are Uncivilized and Damage the Image of the Motherland”
Vice Premier Wang Yang makes statement during a government meeting to prepare a new law on tourism. Over 80 million Chinese visited a foreign country in 2012: “They scream, spit and draw graffiti. We need to educate them to respect religions, and the customs of the places that host them”.
Beijing (AsiaNews) — Chinese tourists abroad or at home, “are uncivilized and their behavior is damaging the image of the country: talking loudly in public places, jay-walking, spitting and willfully carving characters on items in scenic zones. We must act to change this situation.” So says Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang during a government meeting reported by the People’s Daily, the official organ of the Communist Party.
The government is preparing to pass a new law on tourism, given that several bilateral agreements with European countries have made ??it easier for the entry of tourists from both sides. Wang, a former Secretary of Guangdong and known for his reformist positions, pointed out that the behavior of compatriots abroad must be changed to avoid damaging the turnover in the industry.
The “uncivilized behavior” of Chinese tourists “is often criticized by the media and has damaged the image of the entire Chinese people, creating significant negative impacts. The government must take action to improve the situation. Authorities should guide the tourists to behave in civil manner, respecting the religious beliefs and customs of the places they visit and protecting the environment”.
The flow of Chinese tourists abroad has skyrocketed in the last decade. Thanks to the enormous economic growth of the country — and the crisis that hit the western nations, first of all the European ones — more than 80 million Chinese citizens visited at least one EU nation in 2012: of these, more than one million chose Italy.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
North Korea Test Fires Four Missiles Off Coast Over Weekend
North Korea fired four short-range missiles over the weekend as it showcased its military ambitions in defiance of international sanctions and diplomatic efforts to convince the totalitarian state to return to talks.
Kim Jong Un’s regime launched one short-range guided missile yesterday afternoon headed northeast into waters off its eastern coast, South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min Seok said by phone yesterday in Seoul. That followed the firing of three short-range projectiles on May 18. South Korea urged the North to stop provocations, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung Suk said in a briefing yesterday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Nigerians Send Nearly €500m a Year Home From Ireland
NIGERIAN migrants here are now sending nearly half-a-billion euro back home each year. World Bank figures reveal that €468m in ‘remittances’ was sent from Ireland to Nigeria in 2011.
That’s an average of more than €26,000 for each of the 17,642 Nigerian nationals in Ireland, including children.
This is far in excess of the sums sent home by Poles from Ireland. They sent $224m (€174m), even though there are more than 122,000 Polish people in the country.
The issue will be raised during a Dail debate this week on the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) (Amendment) that are being rushed through in advance of the forthcoming G8 summit in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh next month.
Fianna Fail’s justice spokesman, Niall Collins, will raise the issue of Nigerian remittances with Justice Minister Alan Shatter.
He said: “It raises a number of questions. There may be legitimate and valid reason for the extremely large amounts of money being sent from Ireland to Nigeria, compared with the amounts sent by other nationalities.
“On the face of it, it has to be questioned. I will be asking the minister to investigate and find out why.”
Monies sent from Ireland by foreign migrants are three times higher than the amount of money being sent home to Ireland by the Irish abroad.
World Bank statistics show that Irish people living in other countries sent more than $750m (€560m) back home in 2011, but foreign workers here sent remittances of $2.4bn (€1.8bn) home during the same year.
The largest amount of money leaving Ireland was to Britain, at over €529m in 2011. This was followed by Nigeria (€468m) and Poland at (€174m).
Globally, remittances are hugely important to developing countries and, despite the economic downturn, they have grown dramatically in recent years.
The last World Bank figures showed that in 2011 remittances to poorer countries totalled €289bn. Total remittances worldwide are estimated at €390bn.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Recognise Gay Unions Says House Speaker
‘Europe is demanding it,’ says Boldrini
(ANSA) — Rome, May 17 — Gay unions should get legal recognition and full civil rights in Italy, House Speaker said on the International Day Against Homophobia Friday.
“Homosexuals must see their unions recognised by the law of the land in Italy too,” Boldrini said at a ceremony.
She said the move, long advocated by gay groups but blocked by Catholic and conservative lawmakers, is needed, she said, “because Europe is asking us for it”.
Boldrini, a centre-left former United Nations refugee chief, stressed that gay unions had legal status in 19 European countries including Catholic Spain.
The International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) was set up in 2004 to mark the day in 1990 when homosexuality was removed from the International Classification of Diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Same-Sex Couples Should Have ‘Same Rights’ Says Idem
Equal opportunity minister will ‘do all’ to ensure recognition
(ANSA) — Rome, May 17 — Same-sex couples should have the same rights as any other couple, Italy’s equal opportunity minister, Josefa Idem, said on Friday.
“I maintain that also in our country, as in other European countries, a law is needed to protect (same-sex) civil unions,” Idem said.
“I intend to dedicate myself to ensuring that homosexual couples have the same legal recognition (as others), as guaranteed by the Constitution,” Idem said, speaking on the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
3D Print Your Own Invisibility Cloak at Home
Invisibility cloaks made of plastic can now be created at home using 3D printers, researchers show.
The first clues that cloaking devices might one day become more than science fiction, a la “Star Trek” began emerging seven or so years ago. Since then researchers have made such cloaks a reality by smoothly guiding rays of electromagnetic radiation such as microwave beams completely around objects so they proceed along their original trajectory as if nothing were there.
The first working invisibility cloaks were demonstrated using complex lab experiments. They can now, in principle, get made at home using 3D printers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Google’s Plan to Take Over the World
Google’s big keynote at its I/O developers conference this week wore me out.
Not because it lasted a grueling three hours and fifty minutes, but because of what was announced. With every new product update, every new feature, every new virtual service, it became more and more clear that Google isn’t just a search company that makes loads of cash by showing you ads. It’s creeping into every aspect of our digital, physical, and private lives at an exponential rate.
I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it.
Google isn’t just the backbone of the Internet anymore. It’s rapidly becoming the backbone of your entire life, all thanks to data you’re voluntarily giving up to a private company based on your Web searches, photos, Gmail messages, and more.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How Electric Spacecraft Could Fly NASA to Mars
Electric vehicles aren’t just popular on the ground — it turns out they’re all the rage in space these days, too. While still not as common as traditional chemical spacecraft engines, electric engines are growing in popularity for both Earth-orbiting satellites and scientific spacecraft on missions to deep space. And electric engines could turn out to be a key element in NASA’s goal of sending people to Mars, experts say.
“The maturity of the various technologies that make up electric propulsion is getting there,” said Vlad Hruby, president of the Busek spacecraft engine company. Hruby said he’s been waiting for a renaissance in electric spacecraft for about 20 years. “Now it’s finally coming to fruition.”
In 2012, Boeing introduced an all-electric communications satellite design called the 702SP, which officials say has been popular with commercial clients. In April of this year, satellite builder Orbital Sciences said it’s developing its own all-electric model to compete.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The End of Competition is the Beginning of Tyranny
Meritocracy requires chaos. An orderly society isn’t chaotic, it’s stratified. The power has been parceled out to all the people who should have it. And there’s only so much to go around. Newness is a threat because new things are unpredictable. They’re chaotic. They disrupt the power structure.
The liberal argument is largely an argument for a society consolidated around government in service to progressive ideals. It’s a tidy world in which governments and non-profits consume an always increasing share of everything else until there isn’t anything else because it’s been consolidated. The end result of that process however isn’t progressive. It’s tribal.
Power naturally consolidates along personal lines, not political lines. A society may begin by consolidating power so that all the non-profits can help the homeless and the people who can’t read fireworks instructions, but, in a peculiar phenomenon, the homeless never seem to get helped much and fireworks accidents keep happening.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Re the European financial crisis.
Those criminals who caused the crisis are probably still multi-millionaires who will never be charged with any crime—their victims have nothing left but despair and suicide.
Anyone who thought the UE would end up somewhere good is blinkered these people voted for it and supported it, a majority hated Mrs Thatcher and now they are reaping what the sowed! it might be sad but I dont feel sorry for most of them! when they start blaming the socialists and unions then they will have learned and can get going again!