Nicolas Maduro, the new president of Venezuela, called Barack Obama the “grand chief of devils”. Mr. Maduro’s animosity was aroused by the Obama administration’s unwillingness to recognize the validity of the recent presidential election in Venezuela.
In other news, eight NATO soldiers were killed yesterday in a series of jihad attacks in northern Afghanistan. Among the dead was a member of the German special forces.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, JD, 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.
Debt Crisis: Irish President Condemns ‘Hegemonic’ EU
Financial Times, The Irish Times
Irish President Michael Higgins is under fire following an interview with the Financial Times in which said that the EU was “hegemonic” and faces a “moral crisis” as much as an economic one. He also urged the European Central Bank to reform or risk social upheaval and a loss of popular legitimacy. He has attracted the ire of critics who say he has overstepped the constitutional limits of his office. But this should not lead Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny to reach “for his censor’s pencil”, writes the Irish Times:
In articulating the case for a social Europe and a rejection of orthodox neo-liberalism, perhaps the President, in his inimitable way, is straying beyond the ideological horizon of the government. […] Mr Higgins, in pushing boundaries and urging that we develop a new vision of the EU and our place in it, is playing an essential role in stimulating, without deciding, a debate that is necessary and overdue.
The constitutionality of Higgins’ comments should be left to Ireland to debate, notes the Financial Times editorial. But “the issues he addressed are precisely those we should want elected politicians to grapple with publicly.” The economic daily continues —
Mr Higgins may think that the moral arguments stack up against austerity. But it also matters morally if borrowing today burdens future generations; and if public borrowing is spent on privileged insiders’ interests. He is, however, right that the debate must be had.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Our nation has become so politically correct in the last twenty years that it actually threatens the existence of America. The fools in our government feel that the Constitution guarantees our ‘right’ to not be offended, which it does not do. Because of this we have several groups that are constantly declaring that they have been offended in one way or another. The homosexuals are offended by Christians standing for the Biblical view point of homosexuality but for some odd reason they don’t care that Christians are rightfully offended by their open display of the perverted lifestyle they want to force on all Americans.
We also see muslims jumping on the ‘offended’ band wagon when someone exposes islam for what it is, a political ideology of hate and murder. Since 620 A.D. islam has forced itself on other nations by the sword. President Obama, trying to con the American people into believing the lies about islam being a ‘ peaceful religion’, has stated that islam is a religion of tolerance. I guess that the fact that there have been over twenty thousand terrorist attacks in the world since 911, all perpetrated by muslims against non-muslims because they were non-muslims, somehow slipped past Obama.
One thing that we have to understand about islam is that they never immigrate to another nation without the intent of taking that nation over and they have never assimilated into any nation that they have immigrated into. EVER! They always begin initiating shariah law whenever they can. We see this in America in several states. In Dearborn, MI it is against the law to ring church bells, because it is offensive to muslims. There are certain parts of that town where there are signs that state that that part of the city is a shariah zone. Any western woman walking through that section of the city had better be in muslim garb or face the consequences. The city officials go along with this blatant violation of an American’s constitutional rights because they haven’t the guts to stand up against these people who refuse to assimilate into the American culture. Yes, there are some that actually find the American way of life ten thousand times better than the lifestyle of a political ideology that is still in the 7th century, but the majority of muslims continue to live according to the quran.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Media Begins Covering Anti-Fourth Amendment Boston Martial Law
Through extensive coverage by the alternative news and the vocal concerns of concerned citizens, the blatantly anti-constitutional searches conducted at gunpoint amid the Boston lockdown are breaking through into the international media.
I was happy to join Russia Today’s The Truthseeker to discuss not only the warrantless home searches that openly defied the Fourth Amendment and the entire Constitution at large, but also the introduction of a bill that seeks to regulate gunpowder. Just as was predicted by an anonymous poster before the manhunt for 19-year-old suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev that included a martial law lockdown, Senator Frank Lautenberg quickly introduced a bill seeking to regulate the sale of gunpowder — a substance that has been in use for thousands of years since its 7th century invention…
The gunpowder regulation bill uses the Boston Marathon bombings as a scapegoat to push the bill…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Michelle Obama: Gun Violence Has Children Fearing Death Every Day
First lady Michelle Obama said that students at a high school just five miles from her family’s Chicago home told her that “every day they wake up and wonder whether they’re going to make it out of school alive.”
In an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” that will air this weekend, the first lady said that when she met students after delivering a speech last month on gun violence, she was struck by the extent to which fear dominated the children’s everyday lives.
“I mean, every single kid worries about their own death, or the death of someone, every single day,” Obama said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
SHEPHERD-MIL, an UAV which looks like a native bird with the same flight performance, will be featured. This UAV is characterized by the glide-ratio and noiseless motor that make it invisible, silent and unobtrusive in sensitive missions. SHEPHERD-MIL was initially developed as a bird strike avoidance system, and currently is used in situations where the safety and protection are key.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Will Alabama Supreme Court Jettison the Impostor President?
Tens of millions of uninformed Americans voted for Soetoro in 2008, so they could brag about voting for “America’s first black president.” Barry Soetoro is bi-racial; Caucasian and Negro. Those who genuflect at the altar of political correctness and wear “white guilt” like a badge of honor have overlooked that thorny little fact because it disturbs their self-righteous “I’m not a racist, I voted for a black man” comfort zone.
Soetoro should never have been allowed on any ballot, but those of us who have followed this gigantic fraud from the beginning have watched judges, one after another, display either outright ignorance regarding the ‘natural born citizen’ requirement in the Constitution or act like the same flavor cowards as the entire U.S. Congress who did not stop the electoral college vote in January 2009 or 2013. Not one stood up for the Constitution. Not Michelle Bachmann. Not Ron Paul. Not Jim DeMint. Not Jeff Sessions. Not Mitch McConnell. Not Orrin Hatch. Not Steve King. Not Rand Paul. Not one of them either time…
The tens of millions of mindless members of the Democratic/Communist Party USA willingly voted for their own execution while thinking it was a great idea. A nation of fools who shame every drop of blood spilled to birth this constitutional republic.
Needed votes magically appeared by electronic vote fraud, again. Phantom voters were created by individuals who would do anything to see a Marxist in our White House. Those whores for the Democratic/Communist Party USA have now been convicted:
Officials found guilty in Obama, Clinton ballot petition fraud
“A jury in South Bend, Indiana has found that fraud put President Obama and Hillary Clinton on the presidential primary ballot in Indiana in the 2008 election. Two Democratic political operatives were convicted Thursday night in the illegal scheme after only three hours of deliberations. They were found guilty on all counts”…
Many will remember the noble battle fought by Roy Moore back in 2001 over displaying the Ten Commandments in a state owned building. He was elected Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and began his fight to keep a monument of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Judicial Building. A federal judge ordered it removed. Justice Moore said no. There are very few real men like that left in this country. On November 13, 2003, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary unanimously removed Judge Roy as Chief Justice. That good, decent man remained active in the fight and on November 6, 2012, he won his election to again become Chief Justice for the Alabama Supreme Court.
We have now come full circle as they say:
Obama eligibility appeal in Roy Moore’s court (Do take the time to read the whole article)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sharia 1, Free Speech, 0 — York Regional Police Indulge in Censorship
The behaviour of a Muslim officer with the York Regional Police has, it seems, not only embarrassed the department, but also offended at least some in the Muslim community.
YRP Insp. Ricky Veerappan, who’s in charge of the force’s so-called diversity, equity and inclusion bureau (who dreams up this ridiculous agencies and their self-righteous titles?) apparently didn’t like the idea of a department chaplain, Rabbi Mendel Kaplan, inviting controversial American commentator Pamela Geller to address a local synagogue.
Veerappan, as some kind of self-appointed Commissar of Speech, opposed such a person would being allowed to express her views on his patch. Reportedly, he told Kaplan his position with the department would be in question if he didn’t cancel the invitation. He was quoted as saying, “If he did (host Geller), then we’d have to reassess our relation with (Kaplan),” he reportedly said. “Some of the stuff that Ms. Geller speaks about runs contrary to the values of York Regional Police and the work we do in engaging our communities.”
No surprise, the police later issued a statement denying that the rabbi had been “threatened.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ABBA — The Museum Expected to be a Big Hit
The world’s first museum dedicated to Sweden’s iconic disco group ABBA is set to open in Stockholm on Tuesday, offering visitors a chance to get up close and personal with the 1970s foursome with a little help from modern technology, AFP’s Camille Bas-Wohlert reports.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
French Navy M51 Ballistic Missile Test a Failure
(AGI) Brest — A French navy test of the submarine-launched M51 intercontinental missile resulted in outright failure on Sunday .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Royal Regalia Heist Shocks Swedish Church
A sceptre and crown used in the sixteenth-century funeral of King Johan III were stolen during an overnight robbery at the Västerås Cathedral in central Sweden.
Cathedral chaplain Johan Sköld was “upset and shocked” after learning of the burglary, which was discovered by a member of staff who opened the cathedral on Friday morning.
The thieves entered the cathedral by breaking a window.
“It is a great loss and not only for this church since it concerns a Swedish king. What happened is terribly sad,” Sköld told local newspaper Vestmanlands Läns Tidning (VLT).
Johan III, the son of King Gustav Vasa, died in 1592. The stolen items — a bronze crown and sceptre and a gilded wooden apple — were kept by the grave of Erik XIV, the half-brother of King Johan III who was buried without regalia in Västerås in 1577. Around the year 1800 King Gustav III arranged for the sceptre and crown, which had been used in King Johan III’s funeral procession, to be moved to Västerås and placed by the grave of Erik XIV.
“It is impossible to sell these things,” said Kenneth Mandergrehn of Sweden’ National Bureau of Investigation (Rikskriminalpolisen).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden ‘Far Behind’ On Counter-Terrorism
Swedish Muslims fighting in Syria and other conflict zones could return home to carry out terror attacks and Sweden has a lot to learn from other EU countries when it comes to preventing Islamist terrorism, a new report claims.
The report, presented to Sweden’s EU- and Democracy Minister Birgitta Ohlsson of the Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) on Friday, suggests that Sweden lags behind other EU countries when it comes to preventing militant Islamism at a time when around 30 Swedish citizens have joined al-Qaida-style groups in Syria.
“We are far behind countries like Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark,” said Professor Magnus Ranstorp of Sweden’s National Defence College (Försvarshögskolan). He co-authored the government-commissioned report together with his colleague Peder Hyllengren.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Trierweiler Costs France Three Times Less Than Carla Bruni
(AGI) Paris, May 5 — France’s president is affected by presidentialism, to the point of wrecking havoc with protocol and he is poorly liked, as shown by his record minimal support.
Nevertheless nobody can accuse the “premier compagne de France”, Valerie Trierweiler of burdening the Elyse’s. Her costs may be borne by the taxpayers, but are three times less that those incurred by the former premier dame, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. To be exact: Valerie’s costs are 19,742 euros per month in contrast to the 62,162 euros per month spent by the former top-model.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
A greeting card company hoping for a laugh used a doll meant for Muslim girls as the basis for a birthday card that depicts a headscarf-wearing little girl as a terrorist.
In a pink hijab, or headscarf, and flowered dress, a doll is depicted on the card saying things like ‘Pull string for message IF YOU DARE!’ and ‘She’ll love you to death!’ insinuating that the innocent-looking Muslim is a suicide bomber.
The card appears to be based on a real doll meant for actual Muslim girls.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A quick-thinking shopkeeper bravely snatched a blundering robber’s knife and turned it on his attacker during a ‘terrifying’ armed raid.
University student Tom Henry Waller burst into Manish Patel’s Bargain Booze store brandishing a nine-inch carving knife strapped to a golf club.
But Waller’s planned hold-up was foiled by Mr Patel, who grabbed the makeshift weapon and turned it on the masked robber, jabbing him with the blade before driving him out of his shop.
The budding social worker had become addicted to heroin while studying and admitted his disgust at himself during his conviction at Hull Crown Court on Friday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons was arrested yesterday over allegations of rape and sexual assault relating to two men.
Nigel Evans was taken to a police station in Lancashire, where he is Conservative MP for Ribble Valley, and questioned over offences dating from 2009 to March this year.
Forensic teams were searching his two homes in London and Pendleton, Lancashire, as part of their inquiries.
Yesterday afternoon, they could be seen examining his white Saab convertible, which was parked near his constituency home.
By last night, no charges had been made against Mr Evans, who came out as gay in a 2010 article for The Mail on Sunday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How Lauren Booth Found a Good Muslim Husband — With an Advert on the Internet
She is known for writing about her colourful private life, her dramatic conversion to Islam and a spectacular falling-out with her half-sister, Cherie Blair.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that when Lauren Booth decided she wanted a new husband, she advertised on Facebook.
And after announcing her quest for a partner to her 7,000 Facebook ‘friends’ last year, Ms Booth, 45, has now announced she is wed.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal her husband is Sohale Ahmed, a devout Muslim and divorced father of three from Stockport, Manchester.
Mr Ahmed must have survived a stern examination of his credentials to earn Ms Booth’s affections. For in her Facebook announcement, she promised a ‘series of rigorous tests of din [religion], finances and personality’.
He would have to have his own teeth and be able to ‘pray’ and to ‘pay’, she added. Secret drinkers, CIA stooges and anyone who fancied Sunday roast at her brother-in-law Tony Blair’s house were told they need not apply.
The journalist and broadcaster — a vocal opponent of the Iraq War who now works for Iran’s state-owned news channel Press TV — said anyone who wished to have lunch with Mr Blair was discounted because it meant they liked eating with ‘Muslim-murdering former leaders’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
It’s not yet clear whether he will have similar success when it really matters, in the 2015 General Election. Or whether UKIP’s support will melt like spring snow, as did similar mid-term avalanches for the Lib Dems when they, too, were the harmless protest party.
Farage insists not. ‘These elections have exposed the great Tory myth, “Vote UKIP, get Miliband.” In many areas, people who voted UKIP got UKIP. That’s the real kick in the balls for Cameron.’
Other political leaders live in a goldfish bowl, sealed off by flunkies who screen every call. Not Farage. Punters in the pub approach him, jab him in the chest and say, ‘Bloody well done Nige,’ as Farage’s raffish spin doctor, who looks more like a gamekeeper with his scarred cheek and tweed jacket, looks on, unconcerned.
[Comment: Why do you think gay marriage legislation was launched in so many European countries all around the same time? It was because it was ordered by the EUSD — European Union Socialist Dictatorship. Until we get out of the EU we will never have a free hand to do what needs doing to put our country back on track…and mark my words…once we do leave, we will be followed by many more countries wanting their independence back. My uncle burned to death in a Wellington Bomber in WWII to protect us from exactly what we are accepting at the moment under the Lib Lab Con… — Noggin The Nog , Liverpool, United Kingdom, 05/5/2013 11:30 ]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Proof No Good Deed Ever Goes Unpunished
Some stories make my blood boil. You won’t always find them on the front pages or leading the television news bulletins. But they tell you more about the condition of modern Britain than most of what passes for ‘news’ these days.
Take the case of 19-year-old Kurtis Green, from Dersingham in Norfolk. For the past 12 years he has been lovingly tending the war memorial opposite his parents’ fish and chip shop.
It began when he was just seven. Kurtis saved up his pocket money to buy gardening tools and started clearing litter and planting bulbs.
Over the years he has devoted hundreds of hours of unpaid time to his task. When he was 15, he mounted a successful campaign to persuade councillors to spend £20,000 restoring the memorial with new flowerbeds, railings, seating and block paving.
Kurtis won a Norfolk Young People’s Role Model of the Year award and was congratulated by the Queen.
Thanks to his efforts, the local branch of the British Legion collected a prize for Norfolk’s most improved war memorial.
But Kurtis wasn’t content to rest on his laurels. Deciding the plants and flowers could do with more irrigation, he tapped into a nearby water supply, which had been installed as part of the restoration programme.
Together with a fellow villager, 65-year-old John Houston, he went about the work in a professional manner. At the insistence of the council, he took out public liability insurance and coned off the area where the trench was being dug.
Dersingham parish council claimed the work had been undertaken without permission and accused them of theft and causing criminal damage.
As a result, Kurtis and John were interrogated for two hours by police. ‘All we have been doing is to help the community and we are being treated as if we are criminals,’ Kurtis complained…
A spokesman for Norfolk Police said: ‘The circumstances are now being considered by the Crown Prosecution Service. Police are aware of Kurtis’s efforts in cleaning up the memorial and we will work with all concerned to try to reach an acceptable resolution.’
If they are trying to reach an ‘acceptable resolution’, then why the h*ll has the file been referred to the CPS?
I’m only surprised that the Old Bill didn’t raid Kurtis’s house at 6am and then ransack the place for eight hours, confiscating his computers and carting off dozens of bin liners full of ‘evidence’.
Of course, in the days when Dersingham had a proper police presence, a resident bobby who knew everyone in the village, it would never have come to this.
PC Plod would have told any jumped-up parish councillor who wanted a young man prosecuted for tidying up the war memorial to take a running jump: ‘Push off, Fred, or I’ll nick you for wasting police time.’
These days, Dersingham villagers who want to talk face-to-face with a real live copper are requested to report to a ‘surgery’ in Budgens supermarket on a Friday morning, between 10.30am and 11.30am.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Say Killers Will Go Free in ‘Crazy’ Move to Destroy All DNA Samples After 6 Months
Police and scientists have warned that dangerous criminals could escape justice because of a ‘baffling’ Government decision to destroy six million DNA samples.
It means detectives will no longer be able to use a pioneering investigative tool — familial DNA testing — that narrows down suspects using forensic material from relatives.
Martin Bottomley, who leads a specialist police team which uses the technique, argues some cases will now be ‘impossible’ to solve.
And top forensic investigator Patricia Wiltshire, whose evidence was crucial in convicting Ian Huntley of the Soham murders, said: ‘It is a crazy, retrograde move. In forensic protocols and police procedures, Britain is respected worldwide, but this could damage our reputation.’
The process of erasing all existing samples began in December and is due to be completed this month.
In addition, under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 — legislation championed by Nick Clegg in response to a European human-rights ruling — all new samples must now be destroyed within six months.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
For 12 years, Kurtis Green has diligently tended the war memorial in his village, cleaning up rubbish and planting bulbs at its base.
In January, the Queen congratulated the 19-year-old for his hard work revamping the memorial, near her Sandringham Estate in Norfolk.
But officials at Dersingham Parish Council have taken a rather different view and reported him to the police for his unpaid work — which they have labelled criminal damage.
Mr Green, whose grandfather fought in the Second World War, was quizzed for two hours at a police station after he added a pipe to water the flowers without permission.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt Mob Lynches Teenage Son of an Islamist Leader
AFP — An angry Egyptian mob has lynched the teenage son of a Muslim Brotherhood leader, accusing him of killing a man over Facebook comments critical of the Islamist movement, security sources said Saturday.
The violence that took place on Thursday in the Nile Delta was the latest in a spate of vigilante killings in the region amid growing lawlessness since the 2011 revolution that toppled former president Hosni Mubarak.
Yussef Rabie Abdessalam, 16, pulled out a gun and opened fire indiscriminately, killing a passerby and wounding another after a heated argument with a man who had openly criticised the influential Brotherhood on the Internet, the sources said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
[NOTE: Excerpted from an old but accurate look at the folks who could well be behind the Boston Marathon curtain -D]
Dore Gold’s Hatred’s Kingdom is the definitive book on Saudi Arabia’s support for Islamist terrorism and their role in furthering the jihadist ideology that creates suicide bombers. If, like me, you thought Dore Gold was just a diplomat, let me reassure you that this is a book by a scholar — one who originally researched the subject for his doctoral dissertation. He has mastered the history and uncovered the incriminating facts. Saudi Arabia is no friend—but the locus of funding and propaganda behind the enemy we face.
The Saudis back the Wahhabi movement. Wahhabism, founded in the 17th century, seeks a return to the practice of original (i.e. salafi) Islam of Mohammad’s days. This is a jihadist movement against all non-Muslims (they supported jihad against the Sikhs in the 1820s, for example) and against the Shiites (Wahhab, himself, attacked Shiites in, what is today, Iraq).
Early in the 20th century, the British supported the Saudi family, who gained control of Mecca from the Hashemite family. Under Saudi control strict Islam was enforced through out Arabia. In 1963, the educational system came under Wahhabi control. But, more importantly, the 1960s saw the influx of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Muslim Brotherhood originated the Islamic Revival in response to Ataturk’s abolition of the caliphate. Sayyid Qutb, a key force in the Brotherhood (also see Paul Berman’s Terror and Liberalism) was executed by Nasser in 1966. The Brotherhood sought and found refuge in Saudi Arabia. Members of the Brotherhood assumed university positions in the newly created Islamic University of Medina and King Abdul Aziz University. It was at the latter that Muhammad Qutb, brother of Sayyid, taught a young Osama bin Laden true Islam.
Gold notes (as does Berman) that Sayyid Qutb lived briefly in America and was repulsed by modern culture. A feeling widely shared by devout Muslims. In “1957, Wilfred Cantwell Smith of McGill University wrote, ‘Most westerners have simply no inkling of how deep and fierce is the hate of the West that has gripped the modernizing Arab.’“ (Gold p93-4).
At Aziz University was Abdullah Azzam, who taught the centrality of jihad to Islam. He hoped for a replay of Islam’s glory — when Muslims defeated the Byzantine and Persian empires and appeared to conquer the world. “Azzam saw his new jihad crushing the Soviet Union and the United States.” (Gold p98) At the Islamic University of Medina two influential faculty members (Jarishan and al-Zubayq) condemn Western secularism: “In the economic field that means the flag of capitalism, in the political field that means the principles of democracy, and in the social field it waves the principles of freedom.” And they damned “secularism in education and the mass media as ‘aggression against Islamic legitimacy.’“ (Gold p101)
[…]
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Turkey and Israel to Discuss Flotilla Compensation
(AGI) Ankara — Israel and Turkey will meet in Ankara on Monday for more compensation talks over the flotilla incident .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Afghan President Still Receives CIA Slush Funds
(AGI) New York — Hamid Karzai has continued to receive a slush fund from the CIA, despite the scoop by the New York Times .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Eight NATO Soldiers, One German, Killed in Afghanistan Attacks
The German military says one of its soldiers was killed and another wounded in an insurgent attack in northern Afghanistan on Saturday. A total of eight NATO soldiers were killed in separate attacks on the same day.
In a statement released on Sunday, the German military, or Bundeswehr, confirmed one of its special forces soldiers was killed during a joint operation with Afghan forces near the northern city of Baghlan. The statement says insurgents opened fire on the Afghan and NATO International Security Assistance Force troops.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
India: Orissa: 7 Innocent Christians Still in Prison, Victims of Sham Trials
Phulbani Fast Track Court judge closes his court and assigns the case to a sessions court. It may take another year to conclude trial. The seven are charged with the murder of a Hindu leader, who launched the anti-Christian pogroms of 2008. The Maoists have always claimed responsibility for the assassination.
Mumbai (AsiaNews) — For the umpteenth time, the Phulbani Fast Track Court judge has postponed the hearing of the way for the release of seven innocent Christians, accused without any evidence of the murder of the Hindu leader Laxamananada, whose death in 2008 triggered the violent pogroms in Orissa. The new session is scheduled for May 22. They have thus far spent four and a half years in the prisons of Kandhamal victims of sham trials, despite the fact that the Maoists have always claimed responsibility for the assassination.
The hearing that the seven Christians and their families have been waiting for was scheduled on April 1 last. That day, however, the judge announced that his court was closed, and that the case had been passed into the hands of a regular Session Court. The Fast Track Courts are special courts, which were established after the pogroms in Orissa to try to speed up the judicial process.
Once in the hands of a Session Court, the case could suffer further delays. When they were created, these courts were intended to quickly conclude a trial: listening to the sides involved one day after another. But the procedural loopholes and a backlog of other cases have transformed proceedings into continuous referrals, bogging the entire Indian judicial system in an almost inextricable way.
Convinced that the day had come to embrace their husbands, six of the seven wives along with their children went to the pastoral center Konjamendi, which provides assistance and support to Christian prisoners and their families. Thus, on March 18 these women and 12 boys and girls met pastors Prasan Pradhan, Sushant Pradhan and Sunil Parichha, Sajan George — president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) — and brother Markos. Together they traced the moments of the arrest of their men and then prayed together. The next day, the religious leaders accompanied all of them to Phulbani prison, to visit their husbands. At the end of the day, the pastors accompanied the families to their homes to Kotagad.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Myanmar on Alert of Terror Attack
Myanmar has beefed up security measures and tightened control over travelling visa after reports of possible terrorist attacks in the country, according to Min Aung, Police Lt. Col. of the Myanmar Police Force.
“We’ve been reported the terrorists are trying to enter the country and attempt bombing. So, we have ordered [regional police forces] to step up security measures. We must be always alert as they may wait for the chance to attack. Security has been tightened at the border checkpoints, too,” he said.
Indonesian terrorist Abu Bakar Bashir has recently called for a ‘jihad’ in Myanmar, rousing the mujahideens or the Islamic militants. This alerted the regional police to carry out necessary inspections in predominantly Muslim areas, Police Col. Hla Moe from Railway Police Department of Myanmar Police Force said.
“As the terrorists say they will wage jihad in Myanmar, we have to raise our security measures. We conduct inspections at the gates of and inside the city, said Mandalay Region Police Force’s Police Lt. Col. Tun Naing.
About 600 police are on duty every day. If anything happens in the area, units will reach there in no time to take action. The police have also been equipped to handle the bombs, he said.
Magway Region Government’s Director Min Yu Shein said Magway region is a white region— peaceful area and will not allow any terrorists’ attack to happen. “We are cooperating with the police informers and the police forces. The police and soldiers are now patrolling the region every day,” he said…
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Riot Police Battle Islamists in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Clashes between police and Islamist protesters in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka have left at least three people dead and 60 injured.
Up to half a million Hefazat-e Islam supporters gathered in the city, where rioters set fire to shops and vehicles.
The activists are calling for those who insult Islam to face the death penalty.
Later, the police used tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades to expel thousands of protesters who occupied the city’s main business district.
Thousands of Islamist activists were seen fleeing the Motijheel area, and by the early hours of Monday morning police had taken control of the area, reports the BBC Bengali service reports.
‘Hang atheists’
On Sunday, throngs of protesters blocked main roads, isolating Dhaka from other parts of the country.
Chanting “Allahu Akbar!” (“God is greatest!”) and “One point! One demand! Atheists must be hanged”, the activists marched down at least six main roads as they headed for Motijheel, AFP news agency reported.
The area around the city centre’s largest mosque turned into a battleground as police reacted to stone-throwing rioters with tear gas, rubber bullets and truncheons.
Three people were killed, the BBC Bengali service reported, with at least one dying of gunshot wounds. Other agencies reported the death toll had risen to at least 10, with several casualties sustaining gunshot wounds to the head.
Reports spoke of some 60 people being injured, including two local TV journalists.
Hefazat-e Islam wants greater segregation of men and women, as well as the imposition of stricter Islamic education.
The group’s opposition to a national development policy for women has angered women’s groups.
Hefajat-e-Islam draws its strength from the country’s madrassahs, or religious schools.
But the government, which describes Bangladesh as a secular democracy, has rejected the group’s demand for a new law on blasphemy.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said current legislation was adequate.
A Hefajat-e-Islam activist, Hossain Soliman Abdullah, said the main aim of the protest was to press for the implementation of a 13-point demand inspired by the Koran.
Dhaka’s Daily Star newspaper reports that the group hired at least 3,000 vehicles, including buses, lorries and minibuses to bring demonstrators into the capital, while others travelled there by train.
On Friday, Sheikh Hasina said the government had already met many of the group’s demands.
“Many of these have already been implemented while some are in the process,” she was quoted as telling the Daily Star.
She said the government had already arrested four bloggers for making “derogatory comments” against the Prophet Muhammad and they would be punished if found guilty.
Muslims make up nearly 90% of the country’s population with the rest mostly Hindus.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Vulnerable Papuan Children Being Taken
Our tipster says:
I can definitely attest that similar efforts of indoctrination are underway in Egypt and Pakistan based on news reports you’re probably already aware of, but what’s really noteworthy is that someone from a mainstream (and left-leaning!) newspaper spent six months on this, and flipped off all the threats from the Indonesian establishment. Kudos to Mr Bachelard for his work.
The village of Megapura in the central highlands of Indonesia’s far-eastern province of West Papua is so remote that supplies arrive by air or by foot only. Johanes Lokobal has lived here all his life. He does not know his exact age: “Just old,” he croaks. He’s also poor. “I help in the fields. I earn about 20,000 rupiah [$2] per day. I clean the school garden.” But in a hard life, one hardship particularly offends him. In 2005, his only son, Yope, was taken to faraway Jakarta. Lokobal did not want Yope to go. The boy was perhaps 14, but big and strong, a good worker. The men responsible took him anyway. A few years later, Yope died. Nobody can tell Lokobal how, nor exactly when, and he has no idea where his son is buried. All he knows, fiercely, is that this was not supposed to happen.
“If he was still alive, he would be the one to look after the family,” Lokobal says. “He would go to the forest to collect the firewood for the family. So I am sad.”
The men who took Yope were part of an organised traffic in West Papuan youth. A six-month Good Weekend investigation has confirmed that children, possibly in their thousands, have been enticed away over the past decade or more with the promise of a free education. In a province where the schools are poor and the families poorer still, no-cost schooling can be an irresistible offer.
But for some of these children, who may be as young as five, it’s only when they arrive that they find out they have been recruited by “pesantren”, Islamic boarding schools, where time to study maths, science or language is dwarfed by the hours spent in the mosque. There, in the words of one pesantren leader, “They learn to honour God, which is the main thing.” These schools have one aim: to send their graduates back to Christian-majority Papua to spread their muscular form of Islam.
Ask the 100 Papuan boys and girls at the Daarur Rasul school outside Jakarta what they want to be when they grow up and they shout, “Ustad! Ustad! [religious teacher].”
In Papua, particularly in the Highlands, the issues of religious and cultural identity are red-hot. Census data from over the past four decades shows that the indigenous population is now matched in number by recent migrants, largely Muslims, from other parts of Indonesia. The newcomers’ domination of the economy, particularly in the western half of the province, effectively marginalises the original inhabitants. This immigration means that indigenous Papuans have a real — and realistic — fear of becoming an ethnic and religious minority in their own country. Stories of people taking away their children adds an emotive edge and has the potential to inflame tensions in an already volatile region.
For about 50 years, a separatist insurgency has been active in Papua and hundreds of thousands have died in their efforts to gain independence for the province. Christianity, brought by Dutch and German missionaries, is both the faith of a vast majority of the indigenous population, and a key part of their identity. Islam actually has an even longer history in Papua than Christianity, but it’s of a gentler kind than what’s preached in Java’s increasingly hardline mosques and it’s still, for the moment at least, the minority religion. But when the pesantren children return from Java, their faith has changed. “They become different persons,” Papuan Christian leader Benny Giay, tells me. “They have been brainwashed”.
The schools insist they recruit only students who are already Muslims, but it’s clear they are not too fussy. At Daarur Rasul, I quickly found two little boys, Filipus and Aldi, who were mualaf — brand new converts from Christianity. One radical Islamic organisation, Al Fatih Kafah Nusantara (AFKN), makes no bones about its intention to convert, and to use religion for political ends. Leader Fadzlan Garamatan says AFKN has brought 2200 children out of Papua as part of his program of nationalistic “Islamicisation”. “When [Papuans] convert to Islam, their desire to be independent reduces,” says Fadzlan on AFKN’s internet page.
In restive West Papua, the movement and conversion of young children is politically explosive. We were warned a number of times not to chase the story. It’s never reported in the Indonesian press. The chief of the Indonesia government’s Jakarta-based Unit for the Acceleration of Development in Papua and West Papua, Bambang Darmono, downplays it as just one of “many issues in Papua”, and the Religious Affairs Ministry’s director of pesantrens, Saefudin, says he has never heard of it. But my efforts to trace the life and death of one Papuan boy has revealed that the trade goes on. And, in the service of grand religious and political aims, sometimes young lives are broken.
[…]
…Lani is a local cleric in Megapura and the other villages surrounding the highland capital, Wamena. It was in about 2005 when he and Aloysius Kowenip, the police chief from the nearby town of Yahukimo, began approaching families to recruit their children. The pair worked to take five boys from vulnerable families in each of five villages and transport them to Java for education. Kowenip, a Christian, says it was his idea to “help” the children, and that the funding came from “the local government and an Islamic organisation” whose name he could not remember. He says he sought out children with only one living parent because “nobody guided them”.
[…]
[READ THE REST OF THIS INVESTIGATION AT THE URL ABOVE] SUMMARY:
Perhaps, like the well-documented movement of children in East Timor, the Papuan operation has no government endorsement but enjoys quiet consent at high levels of Indonesian society. Andreas Asso survived to tell his tale, but remains furious at how he was duped into leaving his highland home, then abandoned to his fate.
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China: Rats Served as a Lamb in Shanghai Restaurants
New food scandals hit Asian giant: authorities have seized 10 tons of rat, fox and mink meat served as lamb in the Chinese megalopolis for four years at least. Over the past three months, the police have detained more than 3,500 suspects and withdrawn more than 20 thousand tons of products all over the country.
Shanghai (AsiaNews / Agencies) — If the last four years you sat at a table in Shanghai to enjoy a delicious lamb or mutton stew, you were probably served rat, fox or mink meat. This is according to statement issued by the Ministry of Public Security after the arrest of a suspect, known as Wei, the head of a sprawling organization that peddles fake meat.
This past February, the police organized a raid in Jiangsu and Shanghai, which led to the arrest of 63 people and the seizure of 10 tons of meat and additives. According to preliminary investigations, in these four years, Wei built a racket to the value of 10 million Yuan (1.2 million euro).
“Since 2009 — reads the official Ministry statement — the suspect bought foxes, mink, rats and other animal products unidentified in Shandong. After adding gelatin, carmine, nitrate and other additives, he sold the meat to markets in Jiangsu and Shanghai, passing it off as rolls of lamb to use in the stew”.
In March, police in Baotou, a city of the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, closed a company that since 2010 has produced beef counterfeited for 15 Chinese provinces. The authorities have withdrawn at least 15 tons of fake beef.
The discovery of these two cases has led, over the past three months, to the seizure of approximately 20 thousand tons of counterfeit meat and the arrest of 3,576 suspects, all over China.
Several times in recent years the Asian giant has been at the center of scandals linked to food served on Chinese tables. In 2008 six infants died and about 300 thousand children became ill after consuming milk powder contaminated with melamine, used to raise the level of nitrogen present in the milk, to falsify protein intake.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Communist Vietnam — Human Trafficker Extraordinaire
By Michael Benge
Vietnam is now the proud possessor of the inglorious title “The Worst Human Rights Violator in Southeast Asia,” according to recent testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.. State-affiliated labor export companies are major suppliers of men, women, and children to the forced labor and sex trafficking markets, while government officials profit from kickbacks.
Statistics on Vietnam’s human trafficking range widely; though accurate information about this communist country is hard to find. Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security offers an official figure of 2,935 Vietnamese who were subjected to human trafficking between 2004 and 2009. However, international organizations report a far larger number; more than 400,000 victims since 1990. Even this covers only those reported as victims, omitting untold tens of thousands of abuses that go unnoticed, especially in the labor force.
Exporting workers is nothing new for Vietnam. After the 1975 communist takeover, hundreds of thousands of laborers were sent to the Soviet Union and European Eastern-Bloc countries as a form of war debt payment. Many ended up jobless, in debt, and stranded. Vietnam quickly graduated from supplying forced labor to trafficking women and children as sex slaves…
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Kathmandu Opens Borders With China and Triggers Slave Trade
In recent months, at least 56 Nepalese women have been torn from the hands of their traffickers. Under the new rules they cross the border with a daily permit to be exploited in bars and nightclubs, or are sold to Chinese men. The one-child policy imposed by the Beijing government creates increasing demographic imbalances in China.
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) — The new policy of open borders between Kathmandu and Beijing, aimed at promoting trade and the movement of people between the two countries, “has exacerbated the problem of human trafficking,” which particularly affects women in Nepal. This is the complaint of activist Anuradha Koirala, president and founder of Maiti Nepal, an organization that fights for human rights and winner of the 2012 CNN-Hero Award. Girls of different ages are increasingly trapped in prostitution or sold as brides to Chinese men for money, a phenomenon exacerbated by the aberrant one-child policy desired by the Chinese Communist authorities, which led to a progressive decrease of the local female population.
The Nepalese NGO confirms that, in recent months, at least 56 women in Nepal have been torn to from the hands of their traffickers, but hundreds of others still remain in the hands of unscrupulous traffickers, abusers or men who exploit them for money in the Chinese territory ..
There is also another association in defense of women, the Santi Punarsthapana Griha — House for a return to peace — that the young women are (in some cases) sold for money by their own families of origin, to end up in restaurants, night clubs hotel, along the border area of ??Khasa. “Given that the Nepali women do not understand Chinese — added the activist Koirala — men have a brutal behavior towards them, only to wildly beat them if they do not obey.”
According to the latest estimates the trade in human lives has doubled in just one year, the two organizations have saved at least 150 women from slavery. Of these, at least six were working in bars and sex shops, 20 in restaurants, 10 in hotels, 20 others scattered in various areas of the red light districts that proliferate along the Sino-Nepalese border. “Most of the women — said the president of Maiti Nepal — get a permit to cross the border for a day, but they rarely return. Traffickers move them every two or three months to different places to avoid them being found out.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Somalia: at Least 11 Dead in Mogadishu Suicide Bombing
(AGI) — Mogadishu, May 5 — The preliminary estimate of people killed in the suicide bombing in the centre of Mogadishu was eleven. A suicide-bomber drove a car loaded with explosives into a government convoy while it was crossing a crowded intersection. “Several people were killed”, explained police official Mohamed Adan, who added that “the blast was huge”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Venezuela’s President Maduro Calls Obama ‘Chief of Devils’
(AGI) Caracas, May 5 — Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called Barack Obama “the grand chief of devils.” The President of the United States did not acknowledge Maduro’s presidential election victory. Nicolas Maduro is late Hugo Chavez’s successor and the winner of the controversial Apr. 14 election.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Integration Minister Kyenge Wants Bill for Jus Soli
(AGI) Rome — Integration minister Cecile Kyenge asked for a bill on the Jus Soli, but the PdL is against it .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
EU Asking Italy for Civil Union Regulations, Says Boldrini
(AGI) Venice — House Speaker Boldrini said the European Union is asking Italy to draw up regulations for civil partnerships .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Gosnell Case Strikes a Nerve
By Alan W. Dowd
The trial of Kermit Gosnell — the Philadelphia man accused of murdering a female patient and several babies who were “accidentally” born during abortion procedures — has struck a nerve in a numbed America.
Gosnell’s crimes were uncovered quite by accident during a 2010 FBI-DEA raid related to drug violations at Gosnell’s abortion clinic. What the federal agents found was shocking: a beautician assisting on late-term abortions, blood-covered floors, reused disposable medical supplies, body parts stuffed in plastic bags. Whatever you wish to call those to whom Gosnell’s macabre collection once belonged — unviable tissue masses, fetuses, babies — their remains weren’t even accorded the respect a highway-cleanup worker gives road-kill. A grand jury report aptly called Gosnell’s abortion mill a “house of horrors.”
As The Washington Post reported, albeit belatedly,state regulators had ignored complaints about Gosnell, including 46 lawsuits filed against him, and made just five inspections — which are supposed to be conducted annually — since the clinic opened in 1979. The woman whose murder he is being tried for succumbed to lethal doses of pain killers and sedatives. The babies Gosnell is accused of murdering — initial charges included seven newborns, but the judge threw out some of the cases — were not so fortunate as to be sedated to death. To its credit, once the Post got around to covering the case, its reporting included eyewitness testimony — too gruesome, too inhuman, too heartbreaking to include here — describing how horribly these and other newborns died.
That brings us to the raw nerve exposed by the Gosnell case.
For those without strong views on abortion and even for many abortion supporters — “reproductive-rights advocates,” in media parlance — the ghastly details of Gosnell’s multi-million-dollar abortion enterprise are forcing them to consider two truths:
First, the Gosnell case amplifies the mixed messages floating around a mixed-up country. The case provides an unsettling, discomforting reminder that partial-birth and post-birth abortions like those performed by Gosnell cause pain to the baby, put the mother at risk and end a life — just like the 1.2 million pre-birth abortions carried out in America each year. Indeed, if Gosnell’s infant victims had succumbed to Gosnell’s wares before they were born, the crimes Gosnell is being accused of would not be crimes in most cases or in some places. As Michael Geer of the Pennsylvania Family Institute observed, the difference is “a 15-minute or half-hour time frame and 10 inches of physical space.”
Second, this is where the slippery slope ends — this kind of callousness and contempt for life conceived by Roe. How far we have fallen: elected officials rationalizing infanticide; senators quibbling over how much of a child can be born in order to defend partial-birth abortion; major media outlets either ignoring or downplaying a case of premeditated mass-murder; lawyers and advocacy groups trying to explain Gosnell’s actions — my grandfathers’ America would have called murder — on grounds that the women wanted and paid for abortions; a taxpayer-funded organization refusing to say whether a newborn “struggling for life” deserves emergency care, refusing even to notify authorities of what was happening at Gosnell’s office. (As a Philadelphia newspaper reports, “women would sometimes come to Planned Parenthood for services after first visiting Gosnell’s West Philadelphia clinic, and would complain to staff about the conditions there.)
How did we get here? Step by step. Steadily, the clarity of when life begins was blurred by agenda-minded judges and shoulder-shrugging doctors; Roe’s legal loopholes came to rationalize virtually anything, from after-the-fact birth control to partial-birth abortion to post-birth infanticide; and happy-sounding euphemism numbed the nation’s conscience. Each step relied on the previous step for justification, and with each step America slid further down the slippery slope.
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Track Officials Disqualify High School Runner for Thanking God
A Texas high school track team was prevented from advancing to the state finals after the student who landed first place in the boys 4x—100-meter relay pointed towards the sky in a gesture of faith, prompting the team’s disqualification.
In a perverted interpretation of a rule governing high school sports, which prohibits any excessive celebration, relay anchor Derrick Hayes’ act of lifting his finger by his ear and pointing to the heavens was deemed to be a gaudy celebratory motion, on par with dancing or spiking a football in the end zone.
Last week’s controversial judgment has members of the community and critics alike asking if the rule is a violation of the First Amendment, which prohibits the making of laws impeding the free exercise of religion.
[…]
The student’s hand gesture disqualification is just the latest example illustrating a disturbing trend of religious demonization seemingly occurring nationwide.
In April, Fox News discovered that a U.S. Army training instructor was leading a class presentation that listed Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism as examples of “religious extremism,” casting them alongside such groups as Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Ku Klux Klan.
Earlier this month, Breitbart also reported that the Pentagon released a statement confirming they would court martial soldiers for religious proselytization, specifically targeting soldiers promoting the Christian faith. An excerpt from the article follows:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |