A young pedestrian named Mudasser Sheikh pulled out a two-foot sword and threatened a driver at a crosswalk in Pickering, Ontario. The driver managed to wrest the sword from the assailant, and was punched in the face for his efforts. The swordsman was apparently angry that the driver’s car had blocked his way at the crosswalk. He was arrested, and has been charged with two counts of assault with a weapon and obstructing a peace officer.
In other news, former congressman Anthony “The Wiener” Weiner has risen, so to speak, to the top of the polls among Democrats running in the New York City mayoral race.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, McR, NP, Papa Whiskey, 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.
ECB Chief Draghi Urges France to Enact Labor Market Reforms
ECB President Mario Draghi said his bank cannot resolve the eurozone’s problems on its own. Talking to lawmakers in Paris, he urged France to remove obstacles to higher employment in the country.
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi told French parliamentarians on Wednesday he would continue to do everything in his power to get the eurozone’s economies back on track. But he insisted that national governments had to do their homework and provide the legal framework for more growth.
Draghi told lawmakers in Paris that France needed to do more to make its economy competitive. “It’s important to acknowledge that there are limits to what the ECB’s monetary policy can achieve,” Draghi said in his speech.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greek Crisis: The Caprice of the Brussels Gods
La Repubblica Rome
While the living standards of Greeks keeps falling and the troika’s management of the crisis has been called into question, European institutions continue to look elsewhere. It is high time the Commission was held accountable for this appalling tragedy.
Barbara Spinelli
If they only still had their gods of antiquity, perhaps the Greeks could understand better what they are going through. The injustice they are suffering, the apathy and the casualness of a Europe that, for years, has been standing at their bedside, humiliating them, all the while declaring that it has no wish to expel them — while, in its heart, the Greeks are already on the outside.
In antiquity, the gods were known to be capricious. Above them all reigned Ananke, the goddess of necessity or destiny. Ananke shared a temple with Bia, the goddess of violence at Corinth. In the eyes of the Athenians, Europe shares the traits of this goddess of necessity.
Perhaps the Greeks understand why a summit was held in Rome on June 14, attended by the finance and employment ministers from Italy, Spain, France and Germany to discuss joblessness — an issue that has suddenly taken centre stage — and why none of those ministers had the idea of inviting the worst-off of all the member states: Greece, with unemployment at 27 per cent and more than 62 per cent among youth, the highest figures in Europe.
Greece has been a stain on Europe since the austerity cure began. It has paid for all of us, been used as our guinea-pig and scapegoat. At a June 6 press conference, Simon O’Connor, spokesman for the Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Olli Rehn, admitted that [the Greek crisis] has been a “learning process” for Europeans. They are perhaps now taking a different tack with other countries, but this is no reason for complacency: “Keeping Athens in the Eurozone was not an easy task… We strongly reject claims that we have not enough done to spur growth”.
Such was the reaction of Simon O’Connor and Olli Rehn to a report just published by the International Monetary Fund — that same IMF which, alongside the Central Bank and the European Commission, is part of the famous troika that has drafted the austerity programme for the countries in deficit and that keeps watch over them from its commanding heights. That report is a severe indictment of the strategies and conduct of the European Union during the crisis.
‘Could have done better’
Greece “could have done better” if its debt had been restructured and streamlined from the outset. If the plans had not been implemented with the disastrous slowness that stamps decision-making by unanimity. If a common supervision of banks had been agreed upon in time. If growth and social consensus had not been considered as negligible factors. The only thing that mattered was to prevent contagion and to save the money of creditors. For this, Greece was punished. Today it is treated like a pariah in the Union and everyone glories in their success because, technically speaking, Greece is still in the Eurozone, while in all other respects it is ostracised….
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Risks Eight Billion in Derivatives Losses, Says Ft
Restructuring of contracts during euro crisis may prove costly
(ANSA) — Rome, June 26 — Italy risks losing as much as eight billion euros on derivatives contracts that were restructured at the height of the eurozone crisis, according to a report by the Financial Times.
The FT said the losses could stem from the restructuring of eight derivatives contracts with foreign banks with an overall value of 31.7 billion euros in the first half of last year documents in a Treasury report.
The restructuring made it possible for the Italian Treasury to stagger payments on the contracts over a longer period but at more disadvantageous terms in some cases.
The original contracts appear to have been stipulated in the 1990s, the FT said, when the Italian government was trying to make its national accounts look better by taking upfront payments from banks in order to meet the deficit targets needed to be among the first wave of 11 countries that adopted the euro in 1999.
The report did not say how big the losses could be, but the FT calculated that they could amount to eight billion after consulting three independent experts.
If the report is true, the losses will be another headache for Premier Enrico Letta, who is already struggling to find cash to fund several policy goals.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Treasury Says No Derivatives Danger to Public Finances
FT reported Italy risked losing up to 8 billion
(ANSA) — Rome, June 26 — The Treasury said Wednesday there was “no danger for the accounts of the State” after the Financial Times reported that Italy risks losing as much as eight billion euros on derivatives contracts that were restructured at the height of the eurozone crisis.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
El Dorado County Sheriff Strips Forest Service of State-Law Enforcement Power
The El Dorado County Sheriff says he’s not happy with the U.S. Forest Service, so he’s stripping them of their authority by keeping them from enforcing state law within the county.
Sheriff John D’Agostini is taking the unusual step of pulling the police powers from the federal agency because he says he has received “numerous, numerous complaints.”
In a letter obtained by CBS13, the sheriff informs the federal agency that its officers will no longer be able to enforce California state law anywhere in his county.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Friend: Michael Hastings Was Working on “Biggest Story Yet” About CIA
Sgt. Joe Biggs says journalist would never have driven at high speed
A friend of Michael Hastings told Fox News today that the Rolling Stone journalist was working on the “the biggest story yet” about the CIA before his suspicious death and that Hastings drove “like a grandma,” making it extremely out of character for him to be speeding in the early hours of the morning.
Sgt. Joe Biggs told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly that “something didn’t feel right” after Hastings sent a panicked email saying the authorities were on his tail, adding that the story of him driving at high speed in the early hours of the morning was completely out of character.
“His friends and family that know him, everyone says he drives like a grandma, so that right there doesn’t seem like something he’d be doing, there’s no way that he’d be acting erratic like that and driving out of control,” said Biggs, adding that “things don’t add up, there’s a lot of questions that need to be answered.”
Biggs said he had contacted Mercedes asking them if it was normal for their cars to “blow up to that extent” and for the engine to fly out 100 feet from the site of the crash.
Biggs also confirmed that Hastings was working on a story about the CIA and that it was “going to be the biggest story yet.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Let’s say your daughter comes home after the first day of high school and reports that her science teacher asked the class what they knew about the solar system. Several outspoken students believed the sun revolves around the earth, so the teacher apologized to the class for the assigned textbook which taught otherwise, and he promised the class a healthy debate on the subject.
Wouldn’t you get on the phone immediately to the school and complain? The low-information student, as yet uneducated and impressionable, does not determine the curricula, but is there to learn. Misinformation is the adult’s duty to correct.
Yet today’s GOP has a similar approach. The “shoot-themselves-in-the-foot” party is stalking the irresistible “youth voter,” or what purportedly has been learned about this elusive prototype. The College Republican National Committee commissioned surveys of young adults, 18 to 29, and issued a report which advises the party to radically alter not just its media tactics and grassroots outreach to youth, but the Party’s current message on some issues.
Take a guess what those issues are…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Laws, Taken to Absurdity, Become Slavery
“By just sheer numbers, the more laws that are written, the less likely the entire population will even know about the laws, or understand them, or know of their consequences or penalties for violation, much less be in compliance with them. The consequence of too many laws is that huge segments of the public are totally unaware of their existence or their effects. And yet, under the law, ignorance of the law is not a defense. Then, when the hapless individual comes face-to-face with the law, it results in anger and frustration for that individual and a spiraling degradation of freedom and liberty for all of us. And worse, the more laws there are, the more opportunities for emotionally and financially draining lawsuits between aggrieved parties, egged on by lawyers who make their living off of human weaknesses and interpreting laws that no one else can understand.” — Ron Ewart
Every day, government tightens the screws on the American people by passing and then enforcing new law, after new law, after new law. All these laws cover every aspect of human behavior. There is now nothing we do that isn’t covered by some law, restriction, or regulation. Politicians, local, state, or federal, never saw a new law to restrict the people they didn’t like.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Los Angeles Students Trained to Sell Obamacare to Their Families
Schools in Los Angeles are teaching students the finer points of ObamaCare so they can better promote the health care reform initiative to their families, a report out of the Heartland Institute states.
“‘Teens are part of a “pilot” program to test whether young people can be trained as messengers to deliver outreach and limited education to family and friends in and around their homes,’ said Gayle Pollard-Terry, a LAUSD spokesman, in an email,” reported research programmer Loren Heal of the Heartland Institute. “Teens will be educating adults that they already know (e.g., family or friends) and not other adults,” Pollard-Terry’s email states.
The new initiative allots nearly $1 million worth of state grant funding to LAUSD outreach programs, including meetings with part-time and contract employees eligible to receive ObamaCare, and adult-student class presentations about the new healthcare law.
“Teens will be trained to be messengers not to those groups, but to their own families, to get more people enrolled in taxpayer-subsidized healthcare,” Heal states.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
N.F.L. Player Aaron Hernandez Charged With Murder
The N.F.L. player Aaron Hernandez was charged Wednesday with the murder of Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semipro football player who was found dead on June 17 in an industrial park within a mile of Hernandez’s home. He pleaded not guilty to that charge and five other gun-related charges.
Hernandez was arrested and led away from his home in North Attleborough, Mass., on Wednesday morning.
Hernandez, wearing a white T-shirt and red athletic shorts, was driven to the North Attleborough police department. He was arraigned Wednesday afternoon in Attleborough District Court.
| [Return to headlines] |
National Emergency Centers Establishment Act 2013
On Tuesday, a caller to the Alex Jones Show brought up H.R.390, the National Emergency Centers Establishment Act, introduced in the House of Representatives on January 23 of this year by Florida Democrat Alcee L. Hastings. The bill — submitted to the Subcommittee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats & Capabilities — is a reformulation of an earlier bill going by the same name, H.R. 645, introduced in 2009. That bill was referred to committee and subsequently died there.
If it had made it out of committee, the earlier legislation would direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to do the following:
(1) to provide temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster;
(2) to provide centralized locations for the purposes of training and ensuring the coordination of Federal, State, and local first responders;
(3) to provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of government, private, and not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations; and
(4) to meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
H.R. 390 proposes to accomplish the same objectives. It will “designate closed military installations as sites whenever possible and to designate portions of existing military installations as centers otherwise.”
Responding to the earlier bill, then Congressman Ron Paul said the legislation would be used to incarcerate Americans following the establishment of martial law. “Yeah, that’s their goal, they’re setting up the stage for violence in this country, no doubt about it,” Paul responded to a question about the House bill. “They’re putting their back up against the wall and saying, if need be we’re going to have martial law,” Paul added.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
NJ Couple Facing Fine Over Bird Feeder
A Bergen County, N.J., couple has been ordered to appear in court — for the offense of feeding the birds in their own backyard.
As CBS 2’s John Slattery reported, the Borough of Ramsey told Annette and Alfred Rockefeller they are not just feeding the birds — they are illegally feeding wildlife.
Alfred Rockefeller, 77, comes from the famous bloodline.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama: Driving a Green Dagger Into the Heart of the American Dream
by James Delingpole
When it comes to pinpointing the nadir of the Obama administration, future historians are going to suffer a serious case of option paralysis. Was it Benghazi? The NSA? His use of the IRS to harass the Tea party? The various scandals involving his black ops department, the EPA? Obamacare?
Personally, though, I think the one they will eventually plump for is Obama’s Climate Action Plan of June 25 2013. The economy, after all, is everything. Without an economy you can’t afford a domestic policy, let alone a foreign policy. So you’d think the very last thing any president would do as his country began to show the first vague signs of slow — and quite possibly illusory — recovery after a long recession would be to jeopardise it with a whole new raft of utterly pointless regulation and wasteful government expenditure. Why it would be like seeing a man drowning and, instead of throwing him a life line tossing him a lead weight…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Mocks Skeptics of Climate Change as ‘Flat-Earth Society’
President Obama angrily blasted climate change skeptics during his energy policy speech Tuesday at Georgetown University, saying he lacked “patience for anyone who denies that this problem is real.”
“We don’t have time for a meeting of the flat-Earth society,” Obama said. “Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it’s not going to protect you from the coming storm.”
Earlier in his remarks, Obama said the “overwhelming judgement of science, of chemistry, of physics, and millions of measurements” put “to rest” questions about pollution affecting the environment.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
THIS January, as President Obama began his second term, the Pew Research Center asked Americans to list their policy priorities for 2013. Huge majorities cited jobs and the economy; sizable majorities cited health care costs and entitlement reform; more modest majorities cited fighting poverty and reforming the tax code. Down at the bottom of the list, with less than 40 percent support in each case, were gun control, immigration and climate change.
Yet six months later, the public’s non-priorities look like the entirety of the White House’s second-term agenda. The president’s failed push for background checks has given way to an ongoing push for immigration reform, and the administration is reportedly planning a sweeping regulatory push on carbon emissions this summer. Meanwhile, nobody expects much action on the issues that Americans actually wanted Washington to focus on: tax and entitlement reform have been back-burnered, and the plight of the unemployed seems to have dropped off the D.C. radar screen entirely.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Surveillance is Not Aimed at Terrorists
The debate over the U.S. government’s monitoring of digital communications suggests that Americans are willing to allow it as long as it is genuinely targeted at terrorists. What they fail to realize is that the surveillance systems are best suited for gathering information on law-abiding citizens.
[…]
The infrastructure set up by the National Security Agency, however, may only be good for gathering information on the stupidest, lowest-ranking of terrorists. The Prism surveillance program focuses on access to the servers of America’s largest Internet companies, which support such popular services as Skype, Gmail and iCloud. These are not the services that truly dangerous elements typically use.
[Every time the feds bust some radical Muslim moron they’ve managed to get next to, I wonder who’s flying under their radar. The Tsarnaevs were probably just the tip of the iceberg. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Weiner Rises to Top in Poll Among Democrats in NYC Mayor’s Race
Anthony Weiner has gone from rock bottom to the top of the heap — and now leads the Democratic mayoral field, according to a poll released last night.
The disgraced former congressman was selected by 25 percent of those surveyed, vaulting him ahead of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who dropped to 20 percent in the WNBC/Channel 7-Wall Street Journal survey.
Among the major Democratic candidates, former city Comptroller Bill Thompson was at 13 percent, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio held at 10 percent, and current Comptroller John Liu had 8 percent.
According to the poll, New York voters are ready to forgive and forget — or, at least, to cast aside — the sexting antics that led Weiner to resign from Congress in 2011.
For the first time, his approval rating pivoted into positive territory: 52 percent approve of him, while only 35 percent disapprove.
Quinn’s camp brushed off the results.
“We fully expect the polls to fluctuate throughout the campaign, but we are confident that on Election Day, when voters have to decide who they want to lead this city, they will choose someone who has demonstrated the ability to lead and deliver,” said Quinn spokesman Mike Morey.
At her peak in February, Quinn led the Democratic pack at 37 percent in a Marist College poll.
Even Weiner wasn’t too excited by the numbers.
“Look, in many ways it doesn’t change anything,” he said after a mayoral forum in Manhattan.
“We’re going to keep talking about ideas for the middle class and those struggling to make it.
“And it certainly does seem that that conversation about ideas, that people are responding to it.”
One city-based Democratic consultant who isn’t working for any mayoral candidate said the poll is no longer just about name recognition.
“Weiner is now showing that not only is he a name that people recognize, but he’s able to gain steam and move beyond his past scandals,” the consultant said. “And it appears to all be at the expense of Chris Quinn, who is sinking as fast as Weiner’s congressional career collapsed.”
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Why the Alarming Rise in Suicide Rates Among Vets?
No one likes to talk about death or suicide, especially when it involves the brave men and women defending our country. But, in 2012, Pentagon officials announced that battle casualties are no longer the primary reason for soldiers’ deaths. Now, the primary cause of death is suicide.
The alarming rise in suicide rates among veterans simply can’t be ignored. In 2011 there were 283 suicides among military personnel. In 2012 that number jumped 15 percent to 303. And according to an article at Forbes, so far in 2013, every 65 minutes a military veteran commits suicide. That’s 22 suicides per day.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sword-Wielding Pedestrian Charged After Allegedly Threatening Driver Who Blocked Crosswalk
PICKERING, Ont. — A 25-year-old Pickering, Ontario, man is facing charges after a pedestrian pulled a sword from his pants and threatened a driver he’d accused of blocking a crosswalk.
Police say a pedestrian crossing an intersection in Pickering began to yell at a motorist stopped at a red light for blocking his path.
Investigators say the pedestrian followed the car to a nearby plaza still yelling at the driver and then pulled a 60-centimetre sword from his pants and threatened the motorist.
The driver was able to wrestle the weapon from his attacker but was punched in the face.
Investigators recovered the sword at the scene and say the motorist suffered minor injuries.
Mudasser Sheikh is charged with weapons dangerous, two counts of assault with a weapon and obstructing a peace officer.
| — Hat tip: NP | [Return to headlines] |
Britain’s Long Standing De-Civilisation of Muslims
by Ismail Patel
The Woolwich murder and its backlash has exposed what has been apparent for decades — Britain’s liberal democracy has failed to prevent the persecution and victimisation of its Muslims.
The horror of the murder of Lee Rigby on the streets of Woolwich cannot be understated. However, the immediate violent reaction against Muslims and Islamic institutes is a disturbing trend demonstrating a growing intolerance within Britain of its Muslim population. The fear that has been exacerbated on the ground within Muslim communities, and the trend towards normalisation of religious hatred towards Muslims propelled by these events, is not something new. This has been made possible through a process of de-civilisation which has been in operation for decades and now stands exposed…
[JP note: Ismail Patel — so understated he gives Jeeves a good run for his money.]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Complaint Filed Against Irish Subsidiaries of Apple and Facebook Over Data Sharing
An Austrian-based student group has filed a complaint that Facebook and Apple’s Irish subsidiaries broke EU law by allegedly sharing data with US intelligence services.
The Europe-v-Facebook group suggests the two companies located in Ireland to reduce their tax bills, a decision with potentially far-reaching consequences in wake of revelations about the Prism intelligence programe.
The group’s plan is to use what it views as the companies’ tax optimisation corporate structures against them.
The complaint was filed by Viennese law graduate Max Schrems, who spearheaded a series of complaints to Ireland’s data protection commissioner that Facebook retained user data in breach of EU law.
The student group has filed additional complaints against Microsoft and Skype in Luxembourg as well as Yahoo in Germany, where the companies have located their respective European operations.
“In order to avoid taxes US companies have spun a network of subsidiaries,” said Mr Schrems. “At the same time these ‘tax avoidance strategies’ lead to a situation where the companies have to abide by US and EU laws. This can get tricky when they have to adhere to EU privacy laws and US surveillance laws.”
After revelations about the Prism programme, operated by the National Security Agency (NSA), Mr Schrems said he had consulted with many experts, all of whom expressed doubts about the legality under EU law of European-based US companies sharing data with US intelligence services.
The US tech companies face a dilemma, according to Mr Schrems: either comply with the US “gag order” precluding them from discussing Prism and risk a prison sentence in Europe, or answer all questions of EU authorities and risk NSA action in the US.
Europe-v-Facebook says it expects EU inquires to provide greater detail about the extent of data transfer between U.S. companies’ European and US arms, allowing it to be forwarded to the NSA.
The group’s complaint draws on the precedent set in 2006, which found that a mass transfer of data to the US authorities was illegal under EU law.
The 2006 case arose following complaints that the payment processor ‘SWIFT’ had forwarded transaction details to US authorities via a US-based data centre.
Mr Schrems says that, judging by media reports, the Swift and Prism data transfer operate under similar “black box” schemes.
The Swift case was closed when the company moved its data centre from Belgium to Switzerland.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Demands Answers From Britain Over GCHQ Surveillance
The German government has expressed its rising anger over Britain’s monitoring of global phone and internet traffic and has directly challenged the legality of the controversial surveillance project.
On Tuesday, justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger sent two letters to the British justice secretary, Chris Grayling, and the home secretary, Theresa May, demanding to know the extent to which German citizens have been targeted and warning that democracy could not flourish when states employ a “veil of secrecy” to obscure their actions.
Describing the revelations over GCHQ’s surveillance operation as “like a Hollywood nightmare”, Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger asked for clarification of the legal basis for Project Tempora and demanded to know whether the programme has been authorised by any judicial authority, according to the Guardian. She also asked for information on the specific nature of data that was collected and whether “concrete suspicions” triggered the data collection…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
How Your Local Officials Are Using Stealth to Implement Agenda 21 and ICLEI
How your local officials are using stealth to put Agenda 21 and ICLEI into every city, town and county of America.
We all know that politicians play fast and loose with the truth — when running for office to get our vote, once they get into office in order to stay there — whenever it is expedient to do so. The general public has become apathetic about politics and elections and one major reason is because of this. They lie.
This is about lying by our local officials here in Knoxville. Might this not be considered just white lies and of really no consequence in today’s world of consumate political liars? Read it then decide it for yourself…
To help you understand why the obfuscation and misdirection from our local politicians are so dangerous, you need to understand what they are imbedding into our local government. International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, (ICLEI, now called local communities for sustainability) is an international (as it’s name implies) organization headquartered in Bonn, Germany. ICLEI leaders wrote chapter 28 of the UN’s Agenda 21. The first paragraph of Chapter 28 reads:
[…]
The problem is Agenda 21 is so far from being great, it is a plan to control every aspect of our lives, to take away private property, to deny us our liberty, and to make us slaves. That is why they don’t promote it; you wouldn’t buy it. So the powers-that-be are sneaking it in through planning commissions, sustainability councils, even our schools — while they are saying that they never heard of Agenda 21.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ireland: Doctors Warn Muslims With Diabetes Over Ramadan Fasting
Muslims with type 2 diabetes in Ireland who intend to fast during the upcoming Ramadan are being warned that advance planning with their doctor is vital to avoid developing acute complications. Many Muslims with diabetes may choose to fast during Ramadan — the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, observed worldwide as a month of fasting — despite guideline recommendations for the management of diabetes during this time.
There are an estimated 49,204 Muslims in Ireland, according to the latest CSO figures, representing a sharp increase over the previous five years. Ireland’s Muslim population includes 8,322 primary school-aged children and 3,582 of secondary school age — among whom diabetes is also on the increase…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Minister Wants Ban on Gmos
Genetically modified foods and seeds explosive issue
(By Kate Carlisle) (ANSA) — Rome, June 24 — The Italian agriculture minister has said she wants to create a ban in Italy on the cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
Italian Agriculture Minister Nunzia De Girolamo said that she would push for legislation with backing from the Italian health and environment ministers.
“I believe they think as I do, at least judging from their statements in recent days,” De Girolamo said in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
Responding to De Girolamo, Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said that she gave her “full support” to the agriculture minister, but added that from a juridical point of view, “a solution had to be found”. De Girolamo admitted that the European Union could contest the measure which, she said, would expose Italy to a procedure for “violation of European law”. “But Brussels has not yet launched an infraction procedure against France, which has banned GMO cultivation with a similar measure,” De Girolamo added.
The GMO issue is particularly explosive in Italy.
As the second-largest producer of organic crops in Europe and the fourth largest in the world, there is widespread fear of the potential damage resulting from accidental GMO contamination.
Agricultural organization Coldiretti has issued several reports suggesting that widespread public hostility to GMO crops would damage the domestic market for farm produce if it were to spread.
Last week, Coldiretti said that nearly eight out of 10, or 76%, of Italians were against GMOs — 14% more compared to a survey from last year. Italy has often reiterated its opposition to GMOs and EU policies that hinder it from deciding is own policy on the use of genetically modified crops and products.
As a member state of the European Union, Italy cannot block the sale of EU-approved genetically modified seeds, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) said in September after Italy was on the losing end of a ruling in a lawsuit by GMO producer DuPont Pioneer against Italy’s Ministry of Agriculture.
Italy contested the sale of DuPont Pioneer-brand corn seeds in the country.
DuPont Pioneer, which produces and distributes worldwide both conventional and genetically modified seeds — which it refers to as “genetically improved seeds” — said it was satisfied with the ruling.
“We would like to see removal of obstacles so farmers can exercise their rights and freedom of choice on the planting of genetically improved crops in Italy,” said company spokesman Paolo Marchesini.
However, 16 out of 20 Italian regions have declared themselves GMO-free, a report by the organization Slow Food said in June. On Monday, the governor of the northeastern Italian region that borders Austria and Slovenia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, said she wrote to the Italian agricultural minister asking for State help to block cultivation of GMOs, which the regional government has little control over.
“I wrote a letter to Minister De Girolamo asking her to intervene in a situation which certainly puts our region Friuli-Venezia Giulia in difficulty,” Friuli-Venezia Giulia Governor Debora Serracchiani explained in the town of Palmanova.
The governor said she had read of the minister’s intention to create a decree for a country-wide ban the cultivation of GMOs despite awareness “of the fact that there is an (EU) regulation that appears to go in the opposing direction, or at least creates problems”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Wine Exports Continue to Grow
Sparkling wine shines, up in volume and value
(ANSA) — Rome, June 24 — Italian wine exports continue to rise, up nearly 10% for the first three months of 2013 and bringing in 1.1 billion euros for producers, the winemakers’ association Assoenologi said on Monday.
However, the volume of wine exported dipped slightly by 1.1%, the reported said.
Only sparkling wines showed an increase both in volume, up 13%, and in value, jumping by 19.7%, to 130 million euros.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Govt Launches Anti-Poverty Charter for South
Premier wants to promote greater social inclusion
(ANSA) — Rome, June 26 — Premier Enrico Letta said Wednesday that his government has launched a new anti-poverty charter for the less wealthy southern regions of Italy.
“The government has approved the creation of a charter for social inclusion,” said Letta after a cabinet meeting. “It will be an experiment for the whole south of Italy.
It’s an intervention against extreme poverty”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Strikes at Rome’s Colosseum Create ‘Incalculable Damage’
Hoteliers’ association worried for image of country for tourists
(ANSA) — Rome, June 24 — Wildcat strikes by workers last week at one of Italy’s most famous monuments, the Colosseum, have caused “incalculable damage” to Rome and the tourist industry, Italian hoteliers’ association Federalberghi said on Monday. “In a country like Italy, tourism activities should be considered essential public services,” Bernabo’ Bocca, the association’s president, said.
Strikes that were held by disgruntled workers from the FLP labor union closed the 2,000-year-old symbol of Rome last Thursday for four hours and again for a spell on Sunday.
“While we respect workers’ rights, those of tourists and citizens are no less important,” Bocca said.
The association asked for Minister of Culture Massimo Bray to intercede, saying that “mistreatment of tourists in Italy seriously damages the image of the country and has grave economic repercussions”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Cops Nab Dodgy Cheese Distributor
Sold as Italian, but the producer was German
(ANSA) — Modena, June 24 — The State Forestry Corps on Monday cited four people with commercial fraud for selling German-made cheese as Italian-made products.
Agents searching a Modena-based producer and wholesale distributor seized 350 packages of suspiciously labeled cheese, slapping the company with a 20,000-euro fine.
Company managers have withdrawn their merchandise from 100 supermarkets throughout Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Letta and Berlusconi ‘Agree to Postpone VAT Increase’
Government to decide in September
(ANSA) — Rome, June 26 — Prime Minister Enrico Letta and ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, whose centre-right People of Freedom (PdL) party is supporting the current left-right coalition government, have agreed to postpone a controversial increase in value added tax (VAT), ANSA sources said Wednesday after the pair met late on Tuesday.
The decision on a 1% increase in the top band of VAT from 21% to 22% has been reportedly pushed back till September, with the possibility of yet another postponement until December.
So the rise will not come into effect next month as originally scheduled.
The decision will be approved at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the sources said.
Both VAT and a highly unpopular housing tax, IMU, have been problem issues for Letta, a member of the centre-left Democratic Left (PD) party, with the PdL party threatening to pull the plug on executive if IMU is not scrapped and the VAT increase averted.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Josefa Idem’s Portfolio Shared Among Other Ministers
After minister’s resignation over tax fraud allegations
(ANSA) — Rome, June 26 — The Italian government on Wednesday decided to divide the portfolio of outgoing Equal Opportunity and Sports Minister Josefa Idem, who tendered her resignation Monday over allegations of tax evasion, among other cabinet members. Premier Enrico Letta said after a cabinet meeting that Maria Cecilia Guerra, deputy labour minister, will be in charge of equal opportunities, Regional Affairs Minister Graziano Delrio will be in charge of sports and Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge will be responsible for youth policies.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Four Catholic Prelates Probed Over Paedophilia Claims’
Rome, 25 June (AKI) — Prosecutors are probing four high ranking Catholic churchmen over allegations they sexually abused young boys, several Italian media outlets reported on Tuesday.
The probe by Rome prosecutors comes after a former priest, Patrizio Poggi reported to police around 20 allegedly paedophile priests, among them five prelates including an unnamed Monsignor and the private secretary to a bishop
Poggi also presented to police a young male witness and gave the names of the alleged sexual abuse victims.
The probe spearheaded by prosecutor Maria Monteleone is also investigating a suspected prostitution racket that arranged gay encounters for priests.
After a tip-off from Poggi, police tailed a former soldier and alleged ‘recruiter’ and observed him accompanying a teenage boy inside a Rome church.
Poggi was convicted of the sexual abuse of five teenage boys aged 14 to 15 in the late 1990s, handed an eight-year jail sentence and ordered to pay the boys 50 million Italian lire (25,000 euros) in compensation.
Poggi’s prison sentence was cut to five years but the Catholic Church refused to reinstate him after his release.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Leading Critic of French Al-Dura Coverage Convicted
Philippe Karsenty found guilty of defamation for accusing France 2 of staging Palestinian boy’s death
S French media analyst was convicted Wednesday of defamation for accusing a state television network of staging a video that depicted a young boy being killed in a firefight between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers.
The footage more than a decade ago galvanized Palestinians and anti-Israeli sentiment in the Mideast at the start of the bloody Second Intifada.
A Paris court fined Philippe Karsenty 7,000 euros (NIS 33,000) in the defamation case filed by network France 2. Karsenty accused the network’s Jerusalem bureau chief, Charles Enderlin, of fabricating parts of the segment.
The 55 seconds of edited footage, broadcast on September 30, 2000, showed the terrified boy, Mohammed al-Dura, and his father amid a furious exchange of fire in the Gaza Strip. It then cut to the boy slumped in his father’s lap. The report blamed Israeli forces for the death.
Karsenty called the verdict “outrageous.” A lawyer for France 2 said it was a victory for journalists.
Karsenty was convicted of libel in 2006, a judgment that was overturned on appeal in 2008. France 2 subsequently appealed that appeal at the “Cour de cassation,” France’s highest court. Last year, the Cour de cassation annulled the ruling acquitting Karsenty of libel in 2008.
Last month, an official Israeli government report concluded that al-Dura was not harmed by Israeli forces and did not die in the exchange of fire.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who commissioned the report in 2012, said the accusations aired on France 2 were “a manifestation of the ongoing, mendacious campaign to delegitimize Israel.”…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
More Small Hospitals Risk Bankruptcy
Ten to 15 small hospitals in the Netherlands could end up in financial difficulty and go bankrupt, experts told the AD on Tuesday.
According to a report by accountancy group BDO, hospitals in Veghel, Sittard-Geleen and Boxmeer are at risk because of their financial situation, the paper says.
In particular, small hospitals without obvious specialisms are likely to get into trouble, particularly if they face competition from other clinics. ‘They have trouble paying the bills, have no financial buffers and make hardly any profit,’ BDO chairman Chris van den Haak said.
On Monday, the Ruwaard van Putten Ziekenhuis in Spijkenisse was declared bankrupt. It is being taken over by three other hospitals in the Rotterdam area.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
PD Loses Fight to Win Big in Sicily Elections
(AGI) — Palermo, Jun 24 — The centre-left’s grand slam in Sicily, announced on Friday by Florence’s Mayor Matteo Renzi during his pre-election swing through Ragusa, Siracusa and Messina, has failed. Of the three cities electing a new mayor, which also concerned another 13 municipalities, only Siracusa elected a PD (centre-left) candidate, Giancarlo Garozzo, with 53.3 percent of the vote. The M5S candidate, Federico Picitto, was elected mayor in Ragusa with 69.35 percent, or 20,720 votes, trouncing his PD adversary, Giovanni Cosentini, who received only 30.65 percent or 9,156 votes. In Messina the independent candidate, Renato Accordinti, with his “Cambiamo Messina dal basso” (change Messina from the bottom up) movement, beat the centre-left’s Felice Calabro’ who at a first vote count won by a few dozen votes.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Gazeta Wyborcza, 25 June 2013
Painting swastikas on the side of a building is not spreading fascism but simply a symbol of good fortune, according to public prosecutors in Bialystok, eastern Poland.
Prosecutors refused to launch an investigation into the marks daubed on the side of an electricity transformer, despite several complaints, instead arguing that that a swastika “is a symbol of good luck and prosperity,” writes Gazeta Wyborcza, which jokingly suggests that the swastikas must have been painted by Hindus, who believe they bring good fortune.
Prosecutor General Andrzej Seremet has already repealed the “scandalous” decision made by staff in Bialystok, a city notorious for a recent series of neo fascist and racist incidents. According to the Polish Criminal Code, those responsible for propagating fascism or other totalitarian systems face fines, restrictions on liberty or up to two years in prison.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Launches Commission to Reform Vatican Bank
Pope Francis is launching a commission to investigate the Vatican Bank. The financial institution has been plagued with scandals during its 71-year history. Its usefulness has been openly questioned by the new pontiff.
The Holy See announced Wednesday that the Institute of Religious Works (IOR) will be the target of an investigation overseen by the pope. Four prelates and Harvard Law School professor Mary Ann Glendon, a former ambassador to the Holy See, are to have top-level access to all documentation when they create their report for the pontiff.
The pope said he was establishing the commission because he “wants to know better the legal position and the activities of the institute so that they can be better harmonized with the mission of the Universal Church and of the Apostolic Seat.”
The commission was established with a personal decree known as “chirografo,” which orders the commission to give its findings and supporting documents directly to the head of the Roman Catholic Church. No deadline has been given for the report.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Dramatic Moment a Passenger Jet Engine Explodes Just Before Take-Off
This is the dramatic moment one of the engines of an aeroplane carrying more than 300 passengers explodes as it prepares to take off.
The Airbus A330 was taxiing along the runway at Manchester Airport yesterday when its right engine suddenly developed a fault and exploded.
The aircraft had fortunately not yet left the ground and the pilot was able to quickly bring it under control.
[Commenter: over the years more aircraft have have gone overseas for maintenance to cut costs, many to Eastern Europe at the cost of British Aircraft engineering jobs. We now seem to be having a lot more aircraft related incidents, related???? — ian , derbyshire, 26/6/2013 11:21]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Jane Austen! Why Can’t We Have Anjem Choudary on the New Ten Pound Note?
by Rod Liddle
I see that they have gone for Jane Austen as the face of the new ten pound note, after a long and bitter row. I find it incredible that they decided not to take the chance to show a true commitment to multicultural diversity and have instead chosen some boring dead white woman. I wrote to the authorities demanding that the fiery Islamic organiser Anjem Choudary have his face on the note. After all, as taxpayers we give him enough of the stuff every year. But this was rejected out of hand, sadly.
Choudary has backed a new organisation, called Islamic Emergency Defence. The initials are a deliberate reference to the improvised explosive devices which kill our soldiers in Afghanistan, as well as a nod of respect to the English Defence League, an organisation which this half-wit secretly admires. There is still no movement on the £25,000 we pay him in rent each year, despite promises that the whole thing was to be investigated. Would he have got away with this for so long if he was, say, a Methodist imbecile, rather than a Muslim imbecile?
[Reader comment by FrankS on 26 June 2013.]
Put a woman in a burqa on the note — then you change the identity of the woman whenever you want to without having to change the image.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A MUSLIM group accused of vigilantism and backed by hate preacher Anjem Choudary has been flooded with calls of support.
Islamic Emergency Defence — which pledges to defend Muslims in a “swift and Islamic manner” — has seen splinter groups rise up in Blackburn, Luton and East London. Its website gives an “emergency hotline” number for Muslims to report attacks rather than call police. One IED member said he would not be afraid to stand up to people who were anti-Muslim.
Call handler Abu Zakariyyah said: “We aren’t trying to do assassinations but if we witness someone being attacked it is our duty as a Muslim to protect them.” The secretive London-based group have welcomed fanatical preacher Choudary’s support. Abu said: “Anjem Choudary is an admirable person and he is one of a group of people we have consulted.”
He defended the initials IED — which also stand for Improvised Explosive Device, a deadly bomb used against British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan — adding: “It doesn’t mean anything evil.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Mosque Sprayed With Swastikas in Racist Attack
A mosque in Worcestershire has been sprayed with racist graffiti including swastikas after a break-in during the early hours of the morning.
The vandals daubed graffiti onto walls and at least half a dozen windows using paint taken from builders’ cabins on the site, which is under construction. West Mercia Police said the damage at Redditch Central Mosque in Jinnah Road was caused between 2am and shortly before 4.30am on Wednesday when it was discovered by a targeted police patrol…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: National Police Unit Monitors 9,000 ‘Domestic Extremists’
Officers familiar with workings of unit indicate that many of campaigners listed on database have no criminal record
A national police unit that uses undercover officers to spy on political groups is currently monitoring almost 9,000 people it has deemed “domestic extremists”. The National Domestic Extremism Unit is using surveillance techniques to monitor campaigners who are listed on the secret database, details of which have been disclosed to the Guardian after a freedom of information request.
A total of 8,931 individuals “have their own record” on a database kept by the unit, for which the Metropolitan police is the lead force. It currently uses surveillance techniques, including undercover police, paid informants and intercepts, against political campaigners from across the spectrum. Senior officers familiar with the workings of the unit have indicated to the Guardian that many of the campaigners listed on the database have no criminal record…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Spy Agencies Win Millions More to Fight Terror Threat
Britain’s intelligence agencies will emerge as the biggest winners from the Government’s review of public spending, The Telegraph can disclose.
MI6, MI5 and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) will see an inflation-busting increase in their combined £1.9 billion budget, underlining the Government’s concern over the growing terrorist threat following the Woolwich attack.
Police spending on counter-terrorism will also be protected and will rise in line with inflation. The percentage increase in the budgets of the intelligence agencies — at more than three per cent in addition to inflation — will be the largest of any item of government spending including the NHS, schools and international development. It will lead to the agencies receiving about another £100 million in funding annually from 2015…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sadiq Khan Has Unwittingly Highlighted the Problem of Islamic Extremism
by Douglas Murray
Sadiq Khan MP had a piece in the Telegraph last week attacking an excellent piece by Charles Moore in the same paper the Saturday before. In his piece Sadiq makes a number of claims which are worth rebutting.
First is his question, ‘Would we accept the Jewish community being talked about the way the Muslim community are?’ Well, as I have written here before, that would depend, among other things, on whether or not in recent years a bunch of fundamentalist Jews had detonated bombs across the London transport system or beheaded a soldier on the streets of London. It would also depend on whether cells of Jewish extremists had been caught, tried and prosecuted on a fairly regular basis for trying to kill and maim numerous British people…
[Reader comment by Teddy Bear on 24 June 2013.]
It’s over 2 weeks since it was decided to end funding to the Tell Mama project for its exaggerations, but the BBC has still to make the public aware of this. As far as the BBC are concerned, the figures given by Tell Mama following the murder of Lee Rigby are accurate.
Just a few days ago, BBC News interviewed Robert Spencer, the founder of Jihad Watch, who together with Pamela Geller, had been invited by the EDL to attend and speak at a planned gathering on Armed Forces Day in Woolwich at the site of Lee Rigby’s death.
As we’ve come to expect, the stance of Islamists and their left wing appeasers led by the BBC were trying to get them both prevented from entering the country. So one of the figures used by the News broadcast to tell the public how wrong it was to allow the American Islamic experts to come to the country was Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of Tell Mama. He even had the temerity and hypocrisy to state that Robert and Pamela’s presence was bad for Britain, especially using the site of Lee Rigby’s death.
You can see in the broadcast that the BBC made no attempt to let the viewer know just who this ‘speaker for freedom’ is, nor challenge the hypocrisy for the way he had used the death of Lee Rigby. The BBC are a MAJOR part of the problem that gives the likes of Sadiq Khan any credibility, even among the BBC ignorant public.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Armed Clashes Break Out in Tripoli
(AGI) Tripoli, June 26 — Violent clashes between two armed groups broke out on Wednesday in the Abu Slim district of Tripoli, close to the city centre, said a security source. Men from the city of Zintan, armed with light and heavy weapons, were attempting to free five of their group members, captured on Tuesday by a brigade of former rebels, and being held in their “katiba” headquarters in Abu Slim, reported press sources and local witnesses.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Sends U.S. Troops to Prop Up Morsi
Obama’s determination to secure the Middle East for Islamofascists
In yet another remarkable display of Obama’s determination to secure the Middle East for Islamofascists, 400 U.S. troops will reportedly be deployed to Egypt to augment the police force of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. They will be part of a 13-country force stationed in Egypt in anticipation of protests, scheduled for June 30th, calling for the removal of Morsi. Curiously, whereas Obama readily threw former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak under the bus in 2011, the White House is now eager to defend the regime of Morsi, who, like his Muslim Brotherhood sponsors, is well on his way to imposing the Saudi Arabian model of governance on Egypt.
The so-called “peacekeeping mission” on which the U.S. troops will serve is expected to last nine months. It follows six months of training by troops at both Fort Hood, Texas, and Fort Irwin, California. That training reportedly included crowd control measures as well as Molotov cocktail attack response. “Soldiers encountered Molotov cocktails and other dangerous items in the training,” reported a local TV news station out of Killeen, TX, that broke the story.
A Fort Hood Press Center release reveals that a battalion task force from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team will be part of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) peacekeeping contingency based along the southeast coast of the Sinai Peninsula between Eilat, Israel, and Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt. Once there, they will man positions and checkpoints, report any violations of the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, and remain prepared to respond to threats. That treaty required Israeli forces to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and for Egypt to keep the area demilitarized. An exception to the treaty was authorized in 2011 when Israel allowed several hundred Egyptian troops into the area to quell violence that occurred then.
Troops assigned to the MFO are not under operational command of their respective nations, but commanded by the MFO itself. The MFO’s headquarters are located in Rome, Italy. With regard to American troops, the MFO website notes they will be expected to provide a Quick Reaction Force should the need arise.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israel and PA Lock Horns Over Puppet Show
International festival by Palestinian theatre prohibited
A poster for the international puppet festival produced by the Palestinian Al-Hakawati theatre in East Jerusalem, also known as the Palestinian National Theatre (photo taken from the theatre’s website)
(ANSAmed) — JERUSALEM- Israel has ordered the cancellation of a children’s puppet festival at a Palestinian theatre in East Jerusalem, claiming the eight-day event was unlawfully sponsored by the Palestinian Authority.
Two days ago Israel’s public security minister, Yitzhak Aharonovic, who is from the nationalist party Israel Beitenu, unexpectedly banned the 19th edition of the festival. Israel prohibits any PA activity within Jerusalem. The theatre’s managers were shocked by the decision, saying that it is even more out of place coming as it does amid efforts to relaunch the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Their indignation was shared by representatives of the Israeli theatre scene, including the writer Yehoshua Sobol and the actors Itay Tiran, Yossi Pollack and Norman Issa. “Many people worked for months to be able to hold this festival,” they said, “with the sole aim of bringing joy to children, most of whom live in poverty.” “The shutting down of a theatre is like a stab to the heart,” Issa said. They have collected over 800 signatures as part of a petition against the measure. The incident has already garnered a great deal of attention within the press, but the internal security minister seems unwilling for the time being to reassess the matter.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Clashes Over the Night in Turkish Capital
Thousands protest police ‘impunity’
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA — Clashes between the police and anti-government protestors occurred Tuesday night in central Ankara, report Turkish media. Anti-riot police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the 2,000 protestors demonstrating against the release of a policeman accused of shooting and killing the young protestor Erhem Sarisuluk on June 1 in the Turkish capital. The policeman was released after the prosecutor’s office said he had acted in self-defence. The footage of the incident broadcast on Halk TV show that the policeman first started kicking the demonstrator and then took out his pistol and fired at least three times. One of the bullets hit Sarisuluk in the head, who is then seen falling to the ground. Thousands of people took part in protests against police ‘impunity’ Tuesday evening also in Istanbul, Smyrna and other cities in the country
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
by Damien McElroy
The abdication of Sheikh Hamad in favour of his son Tamim will be felt far beyond the Gulf’s richest state — not least in Britain, where its vast sovereign wealth fund has been active
The Shard, Western Europe’s tallest skyscraper, and fleets of tankers carrying natural gas to the rest of the world will rank among the Emir of Qatar’s lasting achievements, but yesterday his legacy was being assessed in the light of his abdication.
Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani stepped aside after exactly 18 years of reformist rule to make way for his 33-year-old Sherborne- and Sandhurst-educated son in a swiftly executed handover. As power moved from father to son, the ruling family celebrated the first peaceful transition within its ranks in a century of shifting fortunes for the Gulf’s richest state…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian: Rebel Stronghold Talkalakh Taken by Hezbollah
Alongside regime troops; ANSA sources
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, JUNE 26 — The Lebanese Shiite militias of Hezbollah have taken control of the Syrian rebel stronghold Talkalakh, west of Homs, alongside the troops of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
The news was reported to ANSA by Talha Kleib, the coordinator of city’s opposition activists.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish Deputy PM Says He Could Barely “Restrain” Himself From Speaking Out on Bikini Woman
Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arinç said he was “barely restraining” himself from saying certain things about the recent protests in Taksim where a woman danced around in her bikinis until police forces detained her, slamming the woman for believing “nudity is freedom.”
“We have a misunderstanding of freedom in a way that we see it as letting everyone on to the streets and stripping naked. Like in Taksim, recently, a woman came out eventually, and excuse me for saying this, just stripped off all her clothes, starting to dance in her underwear. Supposedly she came from Switzerland, and supposedly she brought freedom to Turkey. I can barely restrain myself from saying something,” Arinç said.
Arinç then slammed the understanding that claimed nudity to be a form of freedom, saying, “however, it is impossible for us to do anything other than just telling them that this is wrong. We should not be encouraging it.”
A woman in a bikini joined protesters in Taksim Square June 20 to support the dissent and danced on her own for some time before leaving the site due to one particular woman attacking her and the bystanders. The bikini demonstrator returned to the square sometime after and continued her protests before she was detained shortly by security forces.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladesh: Rajshahi: Muslim Mayor: I Want Christian Schools for My City
Mossaddeque Hossain Bulbul, Mayor of Rajshahi: “Catholics play an exemplary job in the education sector and their institutions are excellent centers for the formation of students.” The decision was made after a meeting with the local bishop, Msgr. Gervas Rozario.
Dhaka (AsiaNews) — Building Christian schools and institutions in Rajshahi and in all its districts: the official request made ??by Mossaddeque Hossain Bulbul, the newly elected mayor of the city, to Msgr. Gervas Rozario, bishop of the diocese. “Catholics — said Bulbul, a Muslim — play an exemplary role in education, they have well known institutions around the country and are great centers for the formation of students.”
Last week, the Diocese of Rajshahi organized a welcome ceremony in honor of the new mayor, in the presence of young Christians and government personalities. On that occasion, the bishop presented the situation in which Christians live in the area to Bulbul. Although in Bangladesh there are 302 Catholic elementary schools, four Catholic universities and 50 Catholic high schools, in the Rajshahi there is not even one.
Given this lack, Bulbul said: “With humility I ask the bishop to build formation facilities in my town. I will help you to build a school and a college that will be run by Catholics.”
Mossaddeque Hossain Bulbul was the candidate of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in municipal elections that took place on 16 June. Against all expectations, the BNP — nationalist opposition party in the government — won in all the cities that voted. Essentially, it was thanks to the support of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the Islamic party, for months the protagonist of hartal and violence throughout the country.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Taliban Targets Pakistan Judge, Kills Security Personnel
A bombing in Karachi has left a top judge injured and several of his security team dead. The Taliban targeted the Shiite court official for his “un-Islamic” rulings.
A motorcycle carrying a bomb detonated during morning rush hour near the motorcade of a High Court judge on Wednesday. At least six policemen and two paramilitary Rangers from the judge’s security team died in the attack.
The Sindh High Court judge, Maqbool Baqir, sustained injuries and was transported to a hospital soon after the blast. He was reportedly in stable condition.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China: Xinjiang: Police Open Fire on Crowd: 27 Victims
In the remote western province, hotbed of ethnic clashes between Han and Uyghurs, tension continues unabated. A group of people assault police station and officers, who open fire at point blank range to repel them.
Urumqi (AsiaNews / Agencies) — Overnight clashes between Uyghurs and Han Chinese in the western province of Xinjiang have resulted in 27 victims, almost all protesters killed by police who opened fire on them. The violence took place in the desert area near Turpan, about 280 km from the provincial capital Urumqi. According to the official news agency Xinhua, the officers opened fire on “a mob of rioters.”
Before the police opened fire 17 people had already died (9 police officers and 8 civilians). The crowd had stormed a police station and a government building. A local official speaking anonymously, said officers “opened fire on the crowd” to protect the buildings killing 10 civilians. Several dozen were injured on both sides, who have since been admitted to the local hospital.
The spark that ignited the clashes is unclear. The province has long been the epicenter of violence and tensions between the ethnic Uyghur — once the majority in the area — and Han. The central government in Beijing has encouraged the emigration of Han to the province in an attempt to “balance out” the social reality of Xinjiang, but the ongoing fighting is proof that the experiment has failed.
The Uyghurs are Turkic-speaking Muslims: for several decades they have had an adversarial relationship with the Chinese central government. After a few (unsuccessful) attempts to gain independence as “East Turkestan”, the ethnic leaders have asked Beijing to be allowed to safeguard their local language, culture and religion. The Chinese government — while giving tax breaks and social benefits — decided instead to use a heavy hand and launched a campaign of repression and control in the whole area. The heavy hand of the regime is felt even on the Islamic religious community, suspected of propagating a terrorist and fundamentalist vision of Islam. Islamic publications are censored, the sermons of imams controlled and young people under the age of 18 are banned from attending the mosque.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The nationally known news outlet Breitbart.com is now reporting that evangelical and pro-family leaders, through the EIT, have joined in working with The National Immigration Forum which according to their own website is funded by globalist George Soros who is a graduate of the Fabian Socialists London School of Economics. The National Immigration Forum also reports donors such as the globalist and pro-abortion Ford Foundation and the radical Tides Foundation…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
GOP Support for Amnesty Alienates Conservatives
The speaker will get his immigration bill, but it will cost him his job
There were two heavy lifts ahead of the Republican Capitol Hill leadership, the farm bill and amnesty for illegal immigrants, before they could skip town for the July 4 recess.
The House GOP leaders are still stunned and confused about the unlikely combination of Tea Party rebels and mischievous Democrats that defeated the farm bill. In his daze, Speaker John A. Boehner’s team has pushed the farm bill to the left and is now moving full speed onto immigration.
The June 25 vote on ending debate on the amendment to the amnesty bill in the Senate was the test vote. The 1,200-page amendment was a complete replacement of the original 1,000-page bill reported out of the Judiciary Committee, crafted by GOP senators John H. Hoeven III and Robert P. Corker Jr.
The 67-27 margin was not the 70-vote threshold Democrats hoped for, but it is enough to not only shut down a filibuster — it could override a veto.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Moroccan Terror Suspects Served With Deportation Orders
Vicenza, 26 June (AKI) — Italian authorities on Wednesday issued deportation orders for two suspected Moroccan jihadists following an investigation by prosecutors in the northeast.
Police in the northeastern city of Vicenza in Italy’s Veneto region issued the deportations order signed by interior minister Angelino Alfano “to prevent terrorist acts”.
One of the suspects is a 43-year-old workman resident in the town of Thiene near Vicenza. The second suspect, who is no longer in Italy, has been registered in Europe’s borderless Schengen area database, police said.
The expulsion orders came after a two-year probe in Veneto concluded that the two Moroccans regularly used the internet to watch and archive radical Islamist sermons urging Jihad and martyrdom.
In their communications, the two suspects had also shown “ingrained anti-semitism and anti-western sentiment,” according to investigators.
Dozens of radicalised Muslims, mainly from North Africa but also including Italian converts to Islam are under close surveillance in Italy, anti-terrorism sources told Adnkronos.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UKBA ‘Ignored’ Police Data on Missing Asylum Seekers
Immigration officials failed to pursue more than 3,000 leads when trying to track down missing asylum seekers, an independent inspector has found.
John Vine, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, said the now-defunct UK Border Agency (UKBA) took no action on 3,077 cases. The UKBA deemed the Police National Computer matches “unreliable” but there was “no rationale” for this, he said. Immigration minister Mark Harper said he “welcomed” the inspector’s report…
[JP note: For more on the Rt Hon Harper see here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2347915/Tory-MP-Mark-Harper-breaks-foot-table-dancing-fall-Soho.html ]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Common Core: Homeschoolers Face New Questions on College Admissions
New information on Common Core “alignment” by the ACT, SAT, and even GED exams raises questions about the impact Common Core will have on private and homeschooled students and their ability to “opt out” of the federally incentivized standards if they want to apply for college.
David Coleman, new head of the College Board — which administers the SAT — said in an interview with Education Week that one of his top priorities is to align the SAT with the new standards. “The Common Core provides substantial opportunity to make the SAT even more reflective of what higher education wants.”
Valerie Strauss at The Washington Post reported in February that the College Board sent an e-mail to all members of the College Board stating, in part:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Court Strikes Down U.S. Marriage Act
The Supreme Court issued a pair of rulings Wednesday expanding gay rights, ruling unconstitutional a 1996 law denying federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples and clearing the way for California to legalize same-sex marriage.
In the California case, the court ruled that opponents of same-sex marriage did not have standing to appeal a lower-court ruling that overturned California’s ban. The Supreme Court’s ruling appears to remove legal obstacles to same-sex couples marrying in the state, but the court did not issue a broad ruling likely to affect other states.
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a 1996 law denying federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples is unconstitutional, in a sign of how rapidly the national debate over gay rights has shifted.
The decision was 5 to 4, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy writing the majority opinion, which the four liberal-leaning justices joined.
“The federal statute is invalid, for no legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity,” Justice Kennedy wrote. “By seeking to displace this protection and treating those persons as living in marriages less respected than others, the federal statute is in violation of the Fifth Amendment.”
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Gay Man Becomes Acting Secretary of the Air Force
With the retirement of Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, undersecretary Eric Fanning became “civilian leader of the Air Force” on June 21.
As Buzzfeed Politics reports, this is unique because Fanning is a gay man who was in the military under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) and who now holds a leadership position as the military continues its transformation away from the ban.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Should Muslims be Allowed to Pray in Public Schools? Michigan Says ‘Yes’
It’s illegal for Christians to pray in public school, according to the U.S. Supreme Court. But in Michigan, Muslims are being given special prayer privileges by school administrators, raising questions as about due process, equal protection, and freedom of speech for followers of the faith of America’s Founding Fathers…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Supreme Court Deals Blow to Traditional Marriage
The U.S. Supreme Court today paved the way for same-sex couples to marry soon in California, effectively leaving intact a lower-court ruling that struck down the state’s voter-approved ban on gay marriage.
In a ruling that assures further legal battles, the high court found that backers of Proposition 8 did not have the legal right to defend the voter-approved gay marriage ban in place of the governor and attorney general, who have refused to press appeals of a federal judge’s 2010 ruling finding the law unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court ruling, which found it had no legal authority to decide the merits of a challenge to Proposition 8, sends the case back to that original decision — and the only question now is how quickly same-sex couples can marry and whether that ruling will have immediate statewide effect.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Transgender First-Grader Wins Civil Rights Suit After Girls’ Bathroom Ban
The Colorado Civil Rights Division has decided in favor of the transgender first-grader who had been prohibited from using the girls’ bathroom at a public elementary school.
The Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, which filed the complaint on behalf of the first-grader’s family, announced the ruling on Sunday, reports Denver FOX affiliate KDVR.
The student, Coy Mathis, was born biologically male but wears girls’ clothes all the time. The six-year-old had also been using the girls’ bathroom at Eagleside Elementary in Fountain, Colorado near Colorado Springs.
In December, the school banned Coy from using the girls’ bathroom. The new policy was for Coy to use either the boys’ bathroom, a teacher’s lounge bathroom or the nurse’s bathroom. (RELATED: School district bans transgender first-grader from using girls’ bathroom)
At the time, the Mathis family responded by taking Coy out of school
The ruling by the state’s civil rights division, which enforces anti-discrimination laws, decreed that Mathis was a victim of illegal discrimination.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Twitter’s Pro-Abortion Vampires of the Night
Slaughter in Benghazi couldn’t keep Obama awake but Davis could
What was the President of the US doing last night on the eve of his $100-million, one-week junket to Africa?
Tweeting to voice his support for a Democrat filibustering a controversial abortion bill in the Texas state house.
The World’s Number One Champion of partial birth abortions tweeted: “Something special is happening in Austin night.”
That something special was State Sen. Wendy Davis (D) filibustering for nearly 13 hours to protest a bill that would have banned abortion in the state of Texas after 20 weeks.
Slaughter in Benghazi couldn’t keep Obama awake but Davis could.
But then again ‘hero’ Barack Hussein Obama is for the slaughter of babies — even when they are born live after failed abortion attempts.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
US Supreme Court Strikes Down Federal Law on Gay Marriage
The United States Supreme Court has struck down part a federal law that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. In its second ruling, the court paved the way for gay marriage in California.
In a 5-4 vote, the US Supreme Court ruled part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) — which did not recognize homosexual couples as equal to heterosexual couples under the law — unconstitutional. The ruling now makes homosexual partners eligible for the same legal benefits given to heterosexual couples under federal law.
The law had imposed “a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages made lawful by the unquestioned authority of the states,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion. Twelve states and the District of Columbia currently allow same-sex unions.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Weiner has a half a weiner lead.
Good heavens, all it takes to make it big in politics in the U.S. is a pretty face or some notoriety!
or a weiner made famous on the internet.
Or a weiner made famous on the internet. And don’t forget he is married to the top moslem mole in the U.S government.