Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/29/2013

José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, has expressed his deep concern over the conflict between France and the rest of the European Union. He says that when French financial policy differs significantly from that of Germany, it is bad for all of Europe.

In other news, in the wake of last Thursday’s general strike, Portuguese unions are promising a “hot summer of conflict” protesting the austerity regime imposed by the EU.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, McR, 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.

Financial Crisis
» Portugal: ‘Unions Promise Summer of Social Unrest’
» Slovenia: ‘More Belt Tightening 100 Days After Brussels’ Diktat’
 
USA
» Antidepressants and School Shootings: Doctors Write Prescriptions for Murder
» Ex-Chicago Cop: Zimmerman Acquittal to Cause Race Riots
» FBI Document — “[Deleted]” Plots to Kill Occupy Leaders “If Deemed Necessary”
» Is Carbon Dioxide Guilty and Global Warming Settled Science?
» Is Your Smart Meter Spying on You?
» San Diego Judge Puts Unprecedented Gag Order on Sidewalk Chalk Protestor Trial
» Six Plainclothes Cops Attack and Arrest University of Virginia Sorority Woman After She Buys Water From Grocery Store
» The Government’s Mass Spying is an Affront to Democratic Values
» U.S. Army Now Censoring British Newspapers
» Wind Power Lunacy
 
Canada
» Canadian Mounties Exploit Flood to Confiscate Firearms From Citizens
 
Europe and the EU
» Aspirin and Ibuprofen Proven to Cause Heart Attacks
» Data Protection: Google Must Abide by European Law
» EU Institutions: Netherlands Wants Less Europe Almost Everywhere
» EU-France: ‘Barroso: Why France is a Worry for Europe’
» EU-Switzerland: ‘Bern Proposes a New Strategy to Build Ties With Europe’
» Five-Euro Chaos
» Groundbreaking Italian Stem-Cell Research Bears First Fruits
» History: German WWII Film Sparks Outrage in Poland
» Is This the Softest Judge in Britain? Appeal Court Rules Three of His Jail Terms Too Lenient
» Italian Minister Wants Ban on GMOs
» Italian Taxman Vows to Catch More Dodgers
» Italy: Palermo Player Miccoli to Speak About Alleged Mob Ties
» Italy: Electricity Bills Up 10% Since 2009, Authority Says
» Italy: One Man Electrocuted While Trying to Steal Copper
» Italy to Donate 1.2 Million Euros to Demining
» Italy: Minister Idem Resigns Over Tax-Evasion Allegations
» Italy: Mafia Money Laundering Probe Targets Northern League Suspects
» Italy: 32 Set to be Probed for Perjury in Ruby Trial
» Letta Calls Pipeline Approval Strategic for Italy
» Many Italians Fed Up of ‘Euro-Rhetoric’ Says Letta
» Natural Caspian Gas Will Not Flow Through Nabucco
» Postcode System to be Implemented by Ireland Within 18 Months
» The Photographs That Reveal the Gigantic Proportions of One of the World’s Largest Container Ships
» Tourism: Croatia’s Principal Economic Engine
» UK: ‘They Did What They Wanted With Me — No Matter How Disgusting’: Victim of Oxford Sex Gang Talks of Her Three-Year Nightmare
» UK: CCTV Shows the Moment Thug Stamped on Teenager’s Head Ten Times as Two Others Pinned Him Down on the Pavement
» UK: Four Men Jailed for Attack on Mosque Just One Day After the Death of Drummer Lee Rigby
» UK: Pensioner, 75, Arrested After Home-Made Bomb Exploded Outside a Mosque in ‘Hate Attack’
» UK: PCSO With Incredible Photographic Memory Tracks Down 250 Suspects by Recognising Them in the Street
» UK: Police Inspector Jailed for Swindling Thousands of Pounds From Bogus Mortgage and Insurance Claims
» UK: The Foster Mum Who Took in a ‘Vulnerable’ Boy of 16 — Only to Find He Was a Drunken Asylum-Seeking Thug of 26
» UK: The Blue Killer Frog
 
North Africa
» Morocco: Imams to be Promoted to Civil Servant Status
» Morsi’s Speech to Egyptians From Heart of an Islamist: All Lies, Insults and Threats
» Publishing: Huffington Post Launches Maghreb Edition
» U. S. Student Dies in Clashes in Egypt
 
Middle East
» Attackers Who ‘Stabbed British Teenager 17 Times and Stripped Him Naked for Kissing a Turkish Girl Tried to Slit His Wrists to Finish Him Off’
» EU Centre on Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Opens in Amman
» EU-Turkey: ‘Europe Not Duped’
 
South Asia
» Drug Addiction Reaches Crisis Levels in Nepal With Hindus the Most Affected
 
Far East
» Taiwan Celebrates the “Liberation” Of Kinmen Islands From Mines
 
Latin America
» Brazil: Italian Terrorist Faces Expulsion After Court Ruling
 
Immigration
» Amnesty: Not Dead by a Long Shot
» Derail the Amnesty Express: Kevin O’Brien
» ‘Grant All Illegal Immigrants an Amnesty to Stay in Britain’: Tory MP Calls for ‘Seismic’ Change in Policy to Attract Minority Vote
 
Culture Wars
» Ernie and Bert Celebrate Supreme Court Ruling?
» Margaret Sanger’s Eugenic Legacy: Abortion and Planned Parenthood
» Political Correctness and Language
» The Bells Toll for Thee
 

Portugal: ‘Unions Promise Summer of Social Unrest’

Diário de Notícias, 28 June 2013

After a general strike on June 27 shut down transport, health, education and justice services, trade unions announce a “hot summer of conflict” against government-implemented austerity policies, writes Diário de Notícias.

As the general strike ended, police identified 200 protesters who tried to block traffic on the Ponte 25 de Abril, a bridge that serves as one of the main access points to Lisbon. The protesters will be heard in court today.

Diário de Notícias writes, however, that “regardless of how many protests, demonstrations and strikes the unions choose to hold, they will have a limited impact in European institutions, which have already agreed to come to the country’s rescue.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Slovenia: ‘More Belt Tightening 100 Days After Brussels’ Diktat’

Dnevnik, 27 June 2013

In office for three months, the coalition government led by Alenka Bratušek is preparing to make good on its pledge to the European Commission to implement further measures to clean up public finances.

They include raising the VAT from 20 per cent to 22 per cent on July 1, and increasing property taxes this autumn.

Dnevnik points out that as it stands,

… this administration has launched an austerity programme while avoiding the demonstrations that marked the fall of the previous government, but there is no guarantee that this will continue to be the case for the next 100 days.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Antidepressants and School Shootings: Doctors Write Prescriptions for Murder

Dr David Healy is founder of an independent website for researching and reporting on prescription drugs. He is a world-renowned expert on antidepressants, has used SSRI drugs with patients and still prescribes them selectively. He thinks general practitioners are prescribing them in good faith. But according to him: “We are not just using them with people who need to be treated. We’ve gone way beyond that and are actually making people ill.”

Healy questions what kind of society we have become “when increasingly it seems pharmaceutical companies can get drugs on the market which haven’t been shown to work or which have been claimed to be safe and effective when they aren’t.”

According to Healy: “Some 90% of school shootings over a more than a decade have been linked to this widely prescribed type of antidepressant.” Harvard psychologist Dr. Joseph Glenmullen discussing SSRIs said: “We don’t know what these drugs are doing to real life human beings. When you look at all the documents, you see a pattern of misleading doctors who then unwittingly mislead patients. This is a betrayal of the public trust in physicians behind the scenes by the drug industry and it must stop.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Ex-Chicago Cop: Zimmerman Acquittal to Cause Race Riots

Social unrest will “dwarf the Rodney King and the Martin Luther King riots”

Following a number of tweets making threats to kill white people if George Zimmerman is acquitted of murdering Trayvon Martin, a former Chicago police officer warns that the outcome of the case could spark race riots in cities across America.

As Infowars reported yesterday, following the woeful performance of Rachel Jeantel, the state’s so-called “star witness,” a number of Twitter users took to the social network to express their intention to kill white people in retaliation for Zimmerman going free.

Tweets included remarks such as “If Zimmerman get off ima shoot the first #hispanic/white I see,” and “If they don’t kill Zimmerman Ima kill me a cracka.”

In an article entitled, America Will See Its Worst Race Riot Yet This Summer, Crime File News’[url] Paul Huebl remarks that the case against Zimmerman should never have been filed in the first place and that when the trial inevitably collapses with Zimmerman’s acquittal, “I fully expect organized race rioting to begin in every major city to dwarf the Rodney King and the Martin Luther King riots of past decades.”

Huebl is a licensed private detective and a former Chicago police officer.

“If you live in a large city be prepared to evacuate or put up a fight to win. You will need firearms, fire suppression equipment along with lots of food and water. Police resources will be slow and outgunned everywhere,” writes Huebl, adding, “America may see some combat related population control like we’ve not seen since the Civil War. Martial Law can’t be far behind complete with major efforts at gun grabbing.”

Huebl is not the only prominent voice to express fears that the outcome of the trial could lead to widespread social disorder…

Critics of the attempt to convict Zimmerman have cited numerous points of evidence which clearly suggest Zimmerman acted in self-defense and that the case against him was built largely on the back of contrived racial politics.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

FBI Document — “[Deleted]” Plots to Kill Occupy Leaders “If Deemed Necessary”

Would you be shocked to learn that the FBI apparently knew that some organization, perhaps even a law enforcement agency or private security outfit, had contingency plans to assassinate peaceful protestors in a major American city — and did nothing to intervene?

Would you be surprised to learn that this intelligence comes not from a shadowy whistle-blower but from the FBI itself — specifically, from a document obtained from Houston FBI office last December, as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the Washington, DC-based Partnership for Civil Justice Fund?

To repeat: this comes from the FBI itself. The question, then, is: What did the FBI do about it?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Is Carbon Dioxide Guilty and Global Warming Settled Science?

If you ask the global warming alarmists, scientists with a liberal agenda who hide and delete research data to fit their talking points, corrupt third world countries that run the United Nations, and the globalist proponents of UN Agenda 21, the answer is yes.

If you ask students brainwashed into the environmental worship of Mother Earth, investors who stand to make a fortune from selling carbon swaps, Hollywood know-it-alls, and bureaucrats who charge carbon taxes, the answer is yes.

If you ask corporations and countries like Brazil who profit from pushing biofuels (ethanol and DieselMaxx), the EPA, those green on the outside and red on the inside who want to bankrupt the coal industry, those who want energy prices to skyrocket, and those who receive huge government grants and subsidies to profit from expensive wind and solar energy, the answer is yes.

If you ask real and honest scientists, 100 of whom took a full-page ad in the Washington Post to denounce the global warming hoax, the protesting people around the globe who are starving or paying much higher prices for their daily food staple, corn, that is now being turned into ethanol, and if you carefully read the evidence and recent scientific data that is not doctored or manufactured, the answer is no.

If the much maligned CO2, a plant nutrient, is so bad for the planet, why do greenhouse growers buy CO2 generators to accelerate the growth and size of their plants? The generators are made in the U.S. and run on propane and natural gas, turning fossil fuels into CO2.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Is Your Smart Meter Spying on You?

Preface: The original intent of smart meters may been good … conserve energy by setting up a “smart grid” to maximize the efficiency of energy distribution. But there are questions about potential health effects from smart meters. And — in this era of pervasive spying — it’s important to know where the threats to our privacy are coming from.

NBC News reports:

Researchers examining the privacy implications of smart-meter technology found that one German provider’s devices contained vulnerabilities that allowed them to snoop on unencrypted data to determine whether or not the homeowners were home.

After signing up with the German smart-meter firm Discovergy, the researchers detected that the company’s devices transmitted unencrypted data from the home devices back to the company’s servers over an insecure link. The researchers, Dario Carluccio and Stephan Brinkhaus, intercepted the supposedly confidential and sensitive information, and, based on the fingerprint of power usage, were able to tell not only whether or not the homeowners were home, away or even sleeping, but also what movie they were watching on TV.

[…]

In the ultimate irony, one of the biggest proponents of smart meters — Northern California’s main utility, Pacific Gas & Electric — was busted in April for spying on anti-smart meter groups:

On Thursday 4th April 2013, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved a settlement in its investigation into Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) for spying on anti-Smart Meter groups. PG&E will be required to pay $390,000 to the state’s General Fund.

This infiltration by PG&E was part of an on-going surveillance program conducted by PG&E and Edelman, a public relations firm PG&E hired in January of 2010 in response to escalating Smart Meter complaints and problems.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

San Diego Judge Puts Unprecedented Gag Order on Sidewalk Chalk Protestor Trial

As reported in a Thursday evening, June 27, BuzzFlash at Truthout update to the chilling San Diego (SD) city attorney prosecution of Jeff Olson, SD Judge placed an unprecedented gag order on a misdemeanor trial — in particular muzzling Olson. But it also apparently included witnesses, the jury and others.

Judge Howard Shore also chastised the Mayor of San Diego, Bob Filner. Filner apparently in the judge’s eyes had the temerity to call the trial of Olson a waste of time and taxpayer money. According to the San Diego Reader, Filner sent out a memorandum on June 20 that read in part:

“This young man is being persecuted for thirteen counts of vandalism stemming from an expression of political protest that involved washable children’s chalk on a City sidewalk. It is alleged that he has no previous criminal record. If these assertions are correct, I believe this is a misuse and waste of taxpayer money. It could also be characterized as an abuse of power that infringes on First Amendment particularly when it is arbitrarily applied to some, but not all, similar speech.”

Judge Shore, in essence, warned the mayor of San Diego, who happens to be a Democrat in a traditionally conservative city, to keep his comments to himself, and would likely have issued a gag order on the mayor if Judge Shore were able.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Six Plainclothes Cops Attack and Arrest University of Virginia Sorority Woman After She Buys Water From Grocery Store

Modern policing! Public safety! No amount of snarky irony can prepare you for this tale of police idiocy in the name of the most minor and absurd of laws, reported in Daily Progress out of Virginia:

When a half-dozen men and a woman in street clothes closed in on University of Virginia student Elizabeth Daly, 20, she and two roommates panicked.

That led to Daly spending a night and an afternoon in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. Her initial offense? Walking to her car with bottled water, cookie dough and ice cream just purchased from the Harris Teeter in the Barracks Road Shopping Center for a sorority benefit fundraiser.

A group of state Alcoholic Beverage Control agents clad in plainclothes approached her, suspecting the blue carton of LaCroix sparkling water to be a 12-pack of beer. Police say one of the agents jumped on the hood of her car. She says one drew a gun. Unsure of who they were, Daly tried to flee the darkened parking lot.

“They were showing unidentifiable badges after they approached us, but we became frightened, as they were not in anything close to a uniform,” she recalled Thursday in a written account of the April 11 incident.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Government’s Mass Spying is an Affront to Democratic Values

Let’s Also Not Pretend It’s An Effective And Efficient Way Of Keeping Us Safe

Never mind the fact that — if the government’s spying was really only aimed at protecting us from terrorism — the NSA probably wouldn’t put so many resources into spying on our allies at the G20 summit, the European Parliament or Chinese universities (or perhaps even our own government officials).

America’s terrorism experts say that the NSA’s mass surveillance program doesn’t make us safer.

An article on Bloomberg notes that real terrorists don’t even use the normal phone service or publicly-visible portions of the web that we innocent Americans use:

[…]

William Binney — the head of NSA’s digital communications program — says that he set up the NSA’s system so that all of the information would automatically be encrypted, so that the government had to obtain a search warrant based upon probably cause before a particular suspect’s communications could be decrypted. But the NSA now collects all data in an unencrypted form, so that no probable cause is needed to view any citizen’s information. He says that it is actually cheaper and easier to store the data in an encrypted format: so the government’s current system is being done for political — not practical — purposes. Binney’s statements have been confirmed by other high-level NSA whistleblowers.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

U.S. Army Now Censoring British Newspapers

The U.S. Army admitted Thursday to blocking employees’ access to The Guardian which broke the NSA spy gate scandal.

This rampant restriction to truth has been ongoing since June 6 when Glenn Greenwald exposed the NSA for collecting millions of Verizon phone records every day.

The Department of Defense refers to the censorship as “network hygiene” to cleanse military servers of “unauthorized disclosures of classified information,” according to Gordon Van Vleet, a spokesman for U.S. Army NETCOM in an e-mail to the Monterey County Herald.

The California newspaper began investigating after employees of the Presidio of Monterey, an army garrison, started complaining.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Wind Power Lunacy

Neither wind nor solar power will provide sufficient electrical energy

Can you love nature when it is covered with wind turbines? Or solar panels?

Suffice to say, the wind power industry would not exist without state government mandates for its use, federal tax credits, and the deafening silence of environmentalists who want to save every species on Earth with the exception of the wind turbine’s slaughter of a million of eagles, hawks, geese, bats, and other flying creatures every year.

[…]

The cliché is that great minds think alike and recently there have been a spate of editorials and commentaries, all coincidently written by colleagues of mine. One of them is Dr. Jay Lehr, the science director of The Heartland Institute, for which I am a policy advisor along with others with far more impressive credentials than my own as a longtime science and business writer. On June 17, The Wall Street Journal published Dr. Lehr’s commentary, “The Rationale for Wind Power Won’t Fly.”

“After decades of federal subsidies — almost $24 billion according to a recent estimate by former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm — nowhere in the United States, or anywhere else, has an array of wind turbines replaced a single conventional power plant. Dr. Lehr inferentially raises the question of why any nation would spend that kind of money without receiving sufficient and equivalent electrical power. It is a very good question.

As Dr. Lehr noted, “It’s known to everybody in the industry that a wind turbine will generate electricity 30% of the time — but it’s impossible to predict when that time will be.” There are about 24,000 of these hideous machines according to the American Wind Energy Association and, given their lobbying, that number could double in the next decade. They will still not produce sufficient electricity — let alone predictable and constant electricity — for a small city…

I doubt he will get the plaudits and recognition he deserves, but Dr. John Droz, Jr., a physicist, has devoted his knowledge to providing the best collection of scientific date available regarding the futility and stupidity of wind power. Dr. Droz has a website [url] where you can learn the FACTS about wind power or you can Google his name to find his many excellent articles on the subject.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Canadian Mounties Exploit Flood to Confiscate Firearms From Citizens

Citizens complain cops seizing guns is something right out of Nazi Germany

Canada’s Royal Mounted Police exploited rising flood waters in the town of High River in Calgary as they seized firearms from the homes of evacuated residents. The floods were the result of extremely heavy rain.

On Thursday, according to the Calgary Herald, the RCMP confiscated a “substantial amount” of firearms under the pretext of controlling the weapons and storing them for safekeeping.

“We just want to make sure that all of those things are in a spot that we control, simply because of what they are,” said Sgt. Brian Topham told the newspaper.

Residents are outraged by the high-handed measure.

“I find that absolutely incredible that they have the right to go into a person’s belongings out of their home,” said resident Brenda Lackey. “When people find out about this there’s going to be untold hell to pay.”

“It’s just like Nazi Germany, just taking orders,” another resident yelled as the Mounties prevented residents from entering the town south of Calgary.

“This is the reason the U.S. has the right to bear arms,” another resident, Charles Timpano, said as he pointed at a group of Mounties blockading the town.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Aspirin and Ibuprofen Proven to Cause Heart Attacks

(NaturalHealth365) On June 14, a groundbreaking study presented at the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism provided compelling data proving that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like aspirin and ibuprofen can cause heart attacks.

At the conference, Dr. Carl Orr from the Department of Medicine, Royal College of Surgeons, stated:

The side effect profile and safety of NSAIDs has been commonly reported, but little is known about treatment duration and its implications for cardiovascular risk. This data demonstrates an immediate increase in the risk of death and MI [heart attack], challenging the safety of even short-term use. The introduction of physician guidelines to assist safe prescribing of this class of drug is vital, and the only way to keep patient safety at the forefront of disease management.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Data Protection: Google Must Abide by European Law

Der Tagesspiegel, 26 June 2013

In an opinion piece published on June 25, the advocate general of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has decided that American Internet search engine Google must abide by European law on the protection of personal data, reports Tagesspiegel, while adding that users of the service do not necessarily have a general “right to be forgotten”.

Google, which is not responsible for the content of third-party websites, is therefore under no obligation to remove personal data that appears in the search results it provides, even if this information is out of date or prejudicial to the interests of the individuals mentioned. The German newspaper continues —

For years, the defenders of personal data protection have battled with American corporations like Google, Facebook and Apple in a bid to make them abide by European law.

To date, they have refused to recognise European law, on the pretext that they are headquartered in the United States. Now, the advocate general of the ECJ has decided that they must follow national legislation on the protection of personal data if they have a subsidiary in the member state concerned.

In its own report, La Vanguardia argues “the EU has ruled in favour of Google in the conflict over the right to oblivion,” now that the advocate general of the ECJ has decided that the removal of certain information in Google’s search results would amount to “censorship” of content published by private party. The Barcelona daily explains that with this opinion, the American Internet giant has “won the first battle”. It further adds —

Google and other search engines are not responsible for the protection of the right to oblivion on the Internet, and this right can only be exercised in very specific cases where the content is illegal or prejudicial to copyright holders, but not in the case of an individual who wants to erase his or her digital footprint.

The opinion was delivered in response to questions referred by the National High Court of Spain, which was called on to rule in case where Google appealed a decision by the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD). The agency had decided in favour of a citizen, who found personal data concerning him in a property advertisement published more than ten years earlier by La Vanguardia.

The ECJ, which is not bound by the advocate general’s opinion, will deliver its judgement in the coming months.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

EU Institutions: Netherlands Wants Less Europe Almost Everywhere

EUobserver.com, De Volkskrant

The Dutch coalition government said in a memo published on June 21 that: “The Netherlands is convinced that the time of an “ever closer union” in every possible policy area is behind us”, reports the EUobserver. According to the news website, the memo “said the Union’s slogan should be “European where necessary, national where possible.” It also said —

there is a ‘strong need’ for joint EU action on big-ticket items, such as economic governance, migration and defence. But it noted that a review of EU powers by its foreign minister, Frans Timmermans, shows an equal need for ‘creating a European Union that is more modest, more sober.’

Sheila Sitalsing of De Volkskrant is not positive about the memo —

On the government’s list is school milk and school fruit. That is a pertinent question. Because the indoctrination of schoolchildren with free apples is a flagrant attack on the sovereign nation state, but it has nothing to do with the essential ideas about Europe or the call back of policy areas. […] EU member states could agree on the fact they should stay away of each other’s tax systems, but if they subsequently give the power to Olli Rehn to make constraining economical ‘policy recommendations’ […] this directly affects the tax system. […] The government has given a gift to the audience, a bone to keep the Eurosceptics quiet.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

EU-France: ‘Barroso: Why France is a Worry for Europe’

Les Echos, 27 June 2013

The conflict between the European Commission and France “is completely artificial,” says José Manuel Barroso in an interview with Les Echos.

As Europe’s leaders gather in Brussels for a European Council, the Commission President insists that his “remarks were deliberately misinterpreted” and that he is “in favour of cultural exception, which is a sacrosanct concept.”

Questioned on the Commission’s economic recommendations for France, Barroso points out that “if there is too great a gap between France and Germany, then that is a problem for all of us in Europe.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

EU-Switzerland: ‘Bern Proposes a New Strategy to Build Ties With Europe’

Le Temps, 27 June 2013

The Federal Council has given a green light to further talks “to consolidate the bilateral approach” to relations with the European Union, announces Le Temps. However, the Geneva daily points out that strict limits will be imposed on what is up for negotiation: “There will be no question of ever allowing the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to rule against Switzerland or to issue judgements in Swiss disputes with the EU.”

The newspaper explains that —

the strategy being followed not only makes it possible to negotiate new agreements, but also to establish sustainable and reliable relations.

The European Commission has indicated it will consult with Europe’s 28 member states to obtain a negotiation mandate before the end of the year.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Five-Euro Chaos

Vending machines “unsuitable” say filling station owners. Oil companies “waiting for new €10 and €20 notes”. No more Trenitalia ticket machine problems

Martino Landi, chair of the federation of independent petrol stations (FIB), affiliated to the Confesercenti retailers’ association, shudders to think what will happen when the European Central Bank starts printing the new €10 and €20 notes. “Almost all of Italy’s more than 20,000 filling stations have still to update the software that runs the petrol vending machines. The delay is down to the oil companies. I’m waiting to see what will happen a short time from now”. Tobacconists are also waiting. Giovanni Risso, chair of the tobacconists’ federation (FIT), says that last month’s problems are behind us although the new note in circulation since 2 May, the one with the face of the Greek goddess Europa visible against the light and in a portrait hologram, did create problems for aspiring petrol purchasers who had the notes in their wallets when they needed to use a vending machine. It was no use meticulously folding them, aligning them or turning them the other way round. The problem was the software.

VENDING MACHINES — There was a similar story with parking meters and snack vending machines in businesses, hospitals and schools. But Lucio Pinetti, chair of the Confida trade association, says the problems were sorted out some time ago: “We were lucky because most of the machines only take €0.50, €1 and €2 coins and it wasn’t much trouble to update 100,000 machines [out of a total of 2.4 million — Ed.]. It would have been very different if the BCE had issued new coins. That would have been a disaster”. But all’s well that ends well, at least in the case of Trenitalia. Internal sources at Trenitalia say that, apart from the first few days when the €5 notes were being refused, the software issue was quickly overcome by updating the program at a reported cost of €20,000. Small change to the former transport monopolist. Meanwhile the Milan transport authority, ATM, which a month ago threw in the towel with a message saying “at the moment the new €5 note is not accepted”, has now issued assurances that by “the end of July all metro stations will be compliant”, confirming that some of the problems remain. As do some of the irritations….

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Groundbreaking Italian Stem-Cell Research Bears First Fruits

Possible cure for ALS, other fatal degenerative diseases

(ANSA) — Rome, June 24 — Human stem-cell therapy could combat incurable degenerative neuromuscular diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, Italian researchers announced on Monday. Six patients involved in preliminary tests showed no adverse reactions to stem cells grafted into their bone marrow. “These are just the first steps. But we already have the green light from the National Institutes of Health for the next phase trials, which will involve six more patients and then six more. After that, we can move on to demonstrating the therapy can actually stop the disease,” said chief researcher Angelo Vescovi.

This is the first experiment in the world with this kind of therapy, which involved using neural cells from miscarried fetuses to produce unlimited quantities of stem cells.

“Vescovi’s reasearch is avant-guarde. If it is proven effective, the Italian method could be the cure for fatal diseases,” said Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

History: German WWII Film Sparks Outrage in Poland

Polska The Times, Gazeta Wyborcza

“Poles, I hurt you. I am sorry,” headlines Polska The Times, quoting Nico Hofmann, the German producer of Our Mothers, Our Fathers a controversial televised drama about the Second World War.

As the miniseries aired on Polish television last week, commentators lambasted it as “scandalous”, “offensive” and “unjust” for its seemingly blatant portrayal of Polish Home Army (AK) soldiers as anti-Semites. In one of the scenes, when the AK unit assaults a train with Jewish prisoners locked in a boxcar, a Polish partisan says they should be left to die “just like communists or Ruskies”, while another boasts “we drown Jews like cats”.

GW’s columnist argues the German drama…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Is This the Softest Judge in Britain? Appeal Court Rules Three of His Jail Terms Too Lenient

A judge who handed out unduly short sentences three times in a single year was yesterday branded ‘Britain’s softest’.

The prison terms handed down by Judge Martin Joy to two child rapists and a drug dealer were deemed too lenient by the Court of Appeal and were increased by as much as five years.

He was the only judge in England and Wales to have more than one sentence altered by the Attorney General in 2012, official figures revealed.

The statistics also showed that record numbers of cases are attracting complaints about ‘unduly lenient’ sentences.

A total of 435 cases were referred to the Attorney General last year, compared with 377 in 2011 and 342 in 2010.

Cases may be highlighted by victims or their relatives, the Crown Prosecution Service or members of the public.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Italian Minister Wants Ban on GMOs

Ready to challenge EU, De Girolamo says

(ANSA) — Rome, June 26 — The Italian agriculture minister has said she wants a ban in Italy on the cultivation of genetically modified organisms (GMOs.

Nunzia De Girolamo said on Monday 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 its 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.

Despite the ruling, which prompted some Italian farmers to start using GM seeds, DuPont Pioneer is still awaiting a final decision from Italy’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, “before evaluating the possible sale of corn seeds in Italy,” DuPont Pioneer spokesman Paolo Marchesini told ANSA Wednesday.

The overwhelming majority of Italian regions, 16 out of 20, have declared themselves GMO-free, according to Slow Food. On Monday the governor of the northeastern Italian region that borders Austria and Slovenia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, said she wrote to De Girolamo 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 said.

The governor said she had read of the minister’s intention to draft a decree for a country-wide ban on 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 Taxman Vows to Catch More Dodgers

1.6 mln checks in 2013

(ANSA) — Rome, June 27 — Italy’s tax authorities aim to step up the fight on the country’s endemic tax evasion, the internal revenue service said Thursday.

The Revenue Agency said it would carry out 1.6 million tax checks this year, about 0.3 million more than last year, with the help of a new data bank.

The head of the tax-collection agency Equitalia, Attilio Befera, said earlier this week that he would not let up on the “war” against tax dodging, which amounts to 21% of Italian GDP, despite criticism of new aggressive tactics.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Palermo Player Miccoli to Speak About Alleged Mob Ties

Wiretaps said to have recorded team captain insulting Falcone

(ANSA) — Palermo, June 24 — A press conference will be held on Wednesday by Palermo player Fabrizio Miccoli after wiretaps were released revealing he had alleged mobster ties and recorded him insulting former anti-mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone who was killed along with his wife and three bodyguards on May 23, 1992 by a roadside bomb.

Miccoli reportedly called Falcone “filth” in a telephone conversation with the son of fugitive mob boss Antonino Lauricella.

The Palermo forward and captain is also under investigation for extortion after he reportedly asked Mauro Lauricella to collect money owed to him, said Palermo investigators.

Miccoli’s contract with the Palermo team is up on June 30.

The player’s agent, Francesco Caliandro, said that Wednesday’s press conference to be held in Rome was organized “quickly” to talk about the player’s next moves after his contract expires and to clear up allegations of mobster links.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Electricity Bills Up 10% Since 2009, Authority Says

High tariff bracket pays heftier bills, 5% more than EU average

(ANSA) — Rome, June 26 — Electricity bills have registered a 10% increase from 2009 for private consumers because of tax hikes, the president of Italy’s Energy Authority, Guido Bortoni, said Wednesday. Presenting the authority’s annual report, Bortoni noted that while in the second part of last year the price of electricity dropped, registering in the second quarter of 2013 the same level as mid-2009, taxes have grown and now make up on average one third of electricity bills.

Overall in 2012 electricity bills were under the EU average for low-consumption customers — generally below 1.000 and until 2.500 kWh — the Energy Authority said. In particular prices were 8% less than the EU average for consumption under 1.000 kWh and 6.2% below the EU average for the majority of Italian families whose consumption ranges between 1.000 and 2.500 kWh. Prices however registered a significant increase in the higher tariff bracket — over 2.500 kWh — topping the EU average by 5% with taxes amounting to 45% of bills. Companies in particular pay a higher price than the European average due to taxes.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: One Man Electrocuted While Trying to Steal Copper

Friends called for help as accomplice shocked during theft

(ANSA) — Novara, June 27 — A 45-year-old man was electrocuted and died while trying to steal copper wires in northwestern Italy, police said Thursday.

The man, who is from Borgomanero in the region of Piedmont, and two accomplices were trying to remove wiring from an installation of power giant Enel near Milan.

When the other two realized what had happened, they called police for help.

With the recession cutting into incomes in Italy, copper theft is on the rise even though the price of the metal — which had once been in high demand from industrializing China — has been falling steadily over the past two years.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy to Donate 1.2 Million Euros to Demining

Down from 2 million in 2012, ‘crisis to blame’

(ANSA) — Rome, June 27 — Italy donated two million euros in 2012 to the Fund for Humanitarian Demining aimed at financing clearance projects in Libya, Somalia, Bosnia and Afghanistan, and plans to give 1.2 million euros to the cause in 2013, according to Deputy Foreign Minister Lapo Pistelli on Friday. Italy has “played its part in backing countries that are still paying the consequences for the use of mines,” he said.

Pistelli, who was overseeing a meeting of the National Committee for Humanitarian Action, cited Italy’s ongoing recession as the reason behind the lower contribution in 2013. The funds donated this year are meant to assist in mine-clearance projects in Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan, Pistelli said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Minister Idem Resigns Over Tax-Evasion Allegations

‘Decided days ago after insults, accusations’

(ANSA) — Rome, June 24 — Equal Opportunity and Sports Minister Josefa Idem tendered her resignation on Monday amid allegations of tax evasion.

“I had already made my decision days ago after accusations and insults,” said Idem after her resignation was accepted by Premier Enrico Letta.

In an interview published Monday, Idem told Italian daily Corriere della Sera that the accusations were pretentious and a “massacre”, creating the climate of a “lynching”. The retired international athlete and Olympic canoeing gold medalist said that she had made an innocent mistake and was not trying to cheat the system. “I insist on being believed…I am not a trickster,” she said. According to media reports, she maintained two residences in the Ravenna area, one apparently outfitted as a commercial gym, but avoided paying all the relevant taxes.

Idem told the daily that she had presented the proper documentation two years earlier but that the procedure to incorporate the correct application of taxation for the properties had gotten stuck in a bottleneck.

“The press said that I am being investigated. They will tell me what for. I’m thinking that there might also be an investigation into how my personal data and confidential documents from the town hall ended up in the newspaper,” she said.” “All of this is simply absurd. From one week to the next I have gone from a respected person to a criminal,” said German-born Idem, who won five Olympic medals as a sprint canoeist including the gold she won in Sydney in 2000.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Mafia Money Laundering Probe Targets Northern League Suspects

Reggio Calabria, 25 June (AKI) — Anti-mafia police on Tuesday searched homes and offices in northern and southern Italy belonging to eight suspects linked to the Northern League party amid a money-laundering probe.

Three of the companies whose premises were searched on the orders of anti-mafia prosecutors in Reggio Calabria belong to Bruno Mafrici, native of the city who practises as a lawyer and has numerous clients in the northern city of Milan.

Other suspects include a bank employee, Ivan Pedrazzoli, and a private investigator, Angelo Violi, who was allegedly tasked with gathering information on the Northern League’s secretary, Roberto Maroni, police said.

Seventy anti-mafia police officers were deployed in Tuesday’s operation carried out in the Calabrian capital, Reggio Calabria, in the northwest port city of Genoa and in the northern business capital, Milan, where six banks were also searched.

The former editor of the Northern League’s newspaper, La Padania, Leonardo Boriani, was in March arrested in an anti-mafia graft probe.

A 2011 report by Italy’s anti-mafia directorate said the Calabrian mafia had colonised Italy’s wealthy north due to its ‘unlimited financial resources’.

Popular writer and anti-mafia activist Roberto Saviano in November 2010 accused the Northern League of helping the Calabrian establish itself in Italy’s north, where it wins bids for public works which are useful to launder money from illegal operations like drug trafficking.

Maroni accused Saviano of slander over his claims made on a prime-time Italian TV show and the head of the Northern League’s Lombardy regional council threatened to sue Saviano.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: 32 Set to be Probed for Perjury in Ruby Trial

Probe expected to start in September, include MPs and MEP

(ANSA) — Milan, June 25 — The 32 witnesses who testified in ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s defence in a trial where he was convicted of sex with an underage prostitute are likely to be probed on suspicion of perjury, judicial sources said Tuesday.

Berlusconi was found guilty Monday of paying Karima ‘Ruby’ El Mahroug for sex and abusing his office to cover it up.

He was sentenced to seven years in prison and banned for life from public office — a conviction Berlusconi’s lawyers have said he will appeal.

The defence witnesses, who include a junior minister in the unprecedented left-right government backed by Berlusconi, will “automatically” be placed under investigation when Milan judges issue their explanation for the verdict in September, sources said. El Mahroug, a former nightclub dancer better known under her stage name Ruby Heartstealer, denied at a separate pimping trial that she slept with Berlusconi.

But she did not testify at the Ruby trial and is not on the list.

It includes three members of Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Freedom (PdL) Party — Deputy Foreign Minister Bruno Archi, MP Valentino Valentini and MEP Licia Ronzulli.

Left-wing opponents of centre-left Premier Enrico Letta’s government have called for Archi to quit.

Carlo Rossella, chairman of the Medusa Film company — part of the media empire controlled by the Berlusconi family — is on the list, as is Giorgia Iafrate, the police officer who ignored a recommendation from a juvenile court official and released Ruby to Berlusconi’s former dental hygienist and then PdL Lombardy regional councillor Nicole Minetti.

Berlusconi was convicted of abusing his office as premier to get Ruby freed after she was detained on a 3,000-euro theft claim made by a former friend.

He said he wanted to avoid a diplomatic incident because Ruby was the niece of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

She has admitted to posing as Mubarak’s niece. Prosecutors also say 18 among 32 young women who took part in Berlusconi’s parties perjured themselves.

The women, like Archi, Rossella and the others, supported the former premier’s claim that the gatherings were not ‘bunga bunga’ sex parties but innocent and merry affairs featuring burlesque performances.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Letta Calls Pipeline Approval Strategic for Italy

TAP to start in Greece and channel Azerbaijan gas

(ANSA) — Rome, June 28 — Italian Premier Enrico Letta on Friday called the recent agreement approving the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) “strategic” for the country, adding that there was tension with Romania at a summit on Thursday in which the plan was approved. TAP is a natural gas pipeline project that is set to start in Greece and run across Albania and the Adriatic Sea before reaching southern Italy. It will allow gas to flow directly from the Caspian region to European markets, bypassing certain Eastern European nations.

“It’s very important news” said Letta.

The Italian premier said he planned to travel soon to Azerbaijan to thank the government.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Many Italians Fed Up of ‘Euro-Rhetoric’ Says Letta

Premier says ‘concrete deeds’ needed

(ANSA) — Rome, June 28 — Many people in Italy are fed up with “Euro-rhetoric” that does not lead to solutions to ordinary people’s struggles during the economic crisis, Premier Enrico Letta said at the end of a two-day European Union summit in Brussels.

But Letta also stressed that the EU has to some degree provided an answer with the agreements it reached at Thursday and Friday’s summit, including measures to combat youth unemployment.

“There is a very strong feeling of impatience with Euro-rhetoric, both in Italy’s political parties and in certain segments of the population,” Letta told a press conference.

“There was a need for concrete deeds like those achieved at this summit”. Ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) campaigned hard against EU-imposed austerity in the run-up to February’s inconclusive general election.

That vote ended in a virtual three-way tie among the PdL, M5S and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) that led to two months of political deadlock before Letta’s left-right government was sworn in late in April.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Natural Caspian Gas Will Not Flow Through Nabucco

Eleftherotypia, 27 June 2013

Greek daily Eleftherotypia evokes Leonard Bernstein’s musical comedy “West Side Story” to announce the contract for the construction of the European segment of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) signed in Athens on June 26.

By 2018, the pipeline is slated to link the Shah Deniz deposit in Azerbaijan to the San Foca Terminal in southern Italy via Greece and Albania. Undertaken by a consortium of firms including the Norwegian Statoil, the Swiss Axpo and the German E.ON in a joint venture with British BP, it is expected to supply 10bn cubic metres to Europe, the equivalent of 10 per cent of the continent’s annual needs in natural gas.

Greek finance minister Yannis Stournaras said the contract would create 2,700 jobs. This is good news, says the paper, following the failure of efforts to privatise the DEPA gas company. Eleftherotypia also reports that Chinese firm Cosco, which controls a part of the Greek port of Piraeus, will also participate in the transport of the natural gas.

The signing of the TAP contract is a defeat for Nabucco West, a competing consortium backed by the European Union, which passed through Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria. “This project started in 2002 and was supposed to transform the Austrian oil firm OMV into a global player,” recalls Austrian daily Die Presse, but adds:

This dream did not come true. The huge supplies of gas in Azerbaijan will be transported by the competing network. Thus OMV must absorb the costs of the project [of €50bn].

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Postcode System to be Implemented by Ireland Within 18 Months

Every home and business premises in State to be issued with ‘unique identifier’

Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte plans to implement the long-awaited postcode system with a “unique identifier” for every dwelling and premises within 18 months.

Mr Rabbitte will bring a memo to Cabinet on Tuesday explaining the status of the proposal to allocate exclusive codes with seven or eight characters to every letterbox in the State.

Ireland is the only State in the European Union or among OECD countries that does not have a national postcode system in place, but Mr Rabbitte will tell ministerial colleagues the incoming system will be the most modern in Europe.

Unique code

Under the plan, householders and business owners will know their unique code within a year. The system is designed to improve the efficiency of delivery of post and parcels, but it will also assist in the provision of public services.

Householders and business owners will be able to give the unique code to service providers, such as ambulance dispatchers, to ensure their location is easily found. The new development will not spell the death knell for Dublin’s most prestigious property districts such as D4 and D6.

It is expected that the addresses will be reflected in the new “alpha-numeric” codes, which will contain a mixture of numbers and letters, in a manner similar to the vehicle registration system.

A “postcode operator” is due to be appointed in September. The operator will manage the system and be responsible for the dissemination of codes.

A tender process to appoint the operator will soon enter its final phase.

The Post Office and the Ordnance Survey Office have pooled data to assist the development of the system.

The system is expected to have a particular impact in rural areas, where many homes have addresses that can often only be interpreted with detailed local knowledge.

The introduction of a postcode system was one of the previous Fianna Fáil/Green Party administration’s programme for government commitments.

Implementation cost

That Coalition calculated the system could cost up to €15 million to introduce while annual maintenance could amount to €2.5 million. Mr Rabbitte’s predecessor as minister for communications Eamon Ryan strongly supported the concept of a postcode system, but in 2010 Labour’s then communications spokeswoman Liz McManus described the estimated spend as “totally unjustifiable in the current climate”.

Mr Ryan said in 2011 that the memorability of the codes would be important. “I think it should be something you retain in your mind, a postal code that can make sense for the area and is not just a random series of letters and numbers,” he said.

Mr Ryan’s predecessor Noel Dempsey had previously set a 2008 deadline for the system’s introduction.

In 2005, a working group recommended the introduction of postcodes on the basis that such a system would provide efficiencies within the postal sector, boost national competitiveness and assist in the provision of public and private sector services.

           — Hat tip: McR [Return to headlines]
 

The Photographs That Reveal the Gigantic Proportions of One of the World’s Largest Container Ships

When launched in 2006, the Emma Maersk shipping container was the world’s largest of its kind ever built.

And now these stunning photographs show just how huge the massive vessel is.

Built by the A. P. Moller-Maersk Group, the ship measured 397 m (1,302 ft) long, its beam measured 56 m (184 ft), its draught is 16.02 m (52.6 ft) and it reached a depth of 30 m (98 ft).

Named after Emma Mærsk, Mærsk McKinney Møller’s late wife, it can carry up to 170,794 gross tonnes, and can reach speeds of 25.5 knots (29.3 mph).

Scroll down for video

[…]

Her maiden voyage took her from Aarhus, stopping by Gothenburg,Algeciras, the Suez Canal, before landing in Singapore in just three weeks during 2006.

She made headlines that year when she was nicknamed SS Santa because she carried tonnes of Christmas goods from China to the UK.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Tourism: Croatia’s Principal Economic Engine

Represents 20% of GDP, could rise with EU membership

(ANSAmed) — Zagreb, June 27 — Tourism is the main engine of economic growth in Croatia which is due to become the 28th member of the European Union from July 1.

Tourism comprises one-fifth of GDP, while income continues to rise at a rate of aroud 3% a year and investments in new businesses have not been slowed by the recession.

It has a stunning coast stretching for 1,700 kms, almost 1,300 islands of which 66 are inhabited and these are among its strongest tourism assets.

Its artistic cities are typically Mediterranean while its architecture has been strongly influenced by centuries of domination by Venice. The most famous is Dubrovnik, in the south with its imposing Medieval walls, Baroque and Renaissance churches and squares.

It draws around 800,000 tourists every year and has a high international profile after the successful TV show, Game of Thrones, which is breaking records around the world, was shot there. In 2012 Croatia recorded 11.8 million visitors, 5% more than the previous year when there were 10 million foreign visitors.

It recorded 63 million overnight stays generating more than 6.8 billion euros in earnings — 15.4% of national GDP.

The most numerous visitors are Germans, followed by Austrians, Slovenians and Italians, even though the number of Italian visitors has vallen since 2011.

Croatia’s entry into the European Union is expected to attract new investment and promote it as a quality destination which is safe for travellers.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

UK: ‘They Did What They Wanted With Me — No Matter How Disgusting’: Victim of Oxford Sex Gang Talks of Her Three-Year Nightmare

[WARNING: * Disturbing Content *]

During her primary school years, Katie was considered academically gifted and dreamed of becoming a forensic scientist.

At home, her loving parents read her bedtime stories and would at times remind her to feed her giant African land snail.

But when she turned 12 her life changed forever. Sitting on some steps with a friend in Oxford, Katie was approached by two Pakistani brothers who befriended her with alcohol and cigarettes.

She was flattered by the attention they paid her, completely unaware she was being groomed for sexual exploitation until it was too late.

For almost three years she was violently and sexually abused by a gang and then sold for sex on hundreds of different occasions to a network of child abusers across Britain.

Shockingly, during her ordeal she told police and social services she was being abused, but nothing was done to help her…

A month after her 15th birthday, she told police that one of her abusers, Akhtar Dogar, was forcing her to have sex with him and other men.

But instead of following up these allegations, she said officers threatened to arrest her for wasting police time.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: CCTV Shows the Moment Thug Stamped on Teenager’s Head Ten Times as Two Others Pinned Him Down on the Pavement

A thug who stamped on an unconscious teenager’s head ten times while his two friends pinned him face down to the pavement in a ‘sickening’ late-night attack has been jailed for seven years.

Piara Purewal, 22, attacked Louis Mousset, who was 18 at the time, in the early hours of September 9 last year.

The student, now 19, was walking with friends in Birmingham city centre when he was set upon by Purewal and his two accomplices, Dale Walker, 21, and Lance Keating-Hutchinson, 25.

The trio had been fighting with a group of other men and turned their attentions to Mr Mousset as he walked past.

Purewal punched him and knocked him out before Walker and Keating-Hutchinson held the unconscious teenager face down on the kerb, allowing Purewal to repeatedly stamp on his head.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Four Men Jailed for Attack on Mosque Just One Day After the Death of Drummer Lee Rigby

Four men have been jailed for an attack on a mosque just a day after Drummer Lee Rigby was killed.

Michael Manyweathers, 49, Jeremy Rochester, 33, Robert Mullins, 35 and Trevor Mullins, 38, each pleaded guilty to racially aggravated criminal damage after windows at the Dorset Islamic Cultural Association, in Poole, were broken on May 23.

Manyweathers, of Poole, Robert and Trevor Mullins, both of Shaftesbury, and Rochester, of Bournemouth, were each sentenced to four months in prison by a judge at Bournemouth Crown Court yesterday, prosecutors said.

[Commenter: The speed and amount of resources that have been thrown at these acts show the complete bias the Police in Britain have towards crimes against minorities and those against white people or our won institutions. Many Christian Churches are attacked in northern cities and the police fail to act on these crimes let alone categorise them as racially motivated. — – SP_Davies , Romford, United Kingdom,]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Pensioner, 75, Arrested After Home-Made Bomb Exploded Outside a Mosque in ‘Hate Attack’

Counter-terrorism detectives have arrested a 75-year-old pensioner in connection with planting a home-made bomb which exploded outside a mosque.

The elderly man was detained by West Midlands Police yesterday afternoon on suspicion of causing an explosion likely to endanger life or damage property.

Officers were called to reports of a suspicious item at the Aisha Mosque and Islamic Centre in Walsall, West Midlands, last Saturday.

Army personnel ordered the evacuation of 150 people from almost 40 homes in the vicinity of the place of worship after bomb disposal experts were called to the scene.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: PCSO With Incredible Photographic Memory Tracks Down 250 Suspects by Recognising Them in the Street

A PCSO with a photographic memory, who has tracked down 250 suspects after recognising them in the street, has been given an award by police bosses.

Andy Pope has the skills to identify criminals from the tiniest of details — and has arrested 247 wanted suspects in the last two years.

Mr Pope, from Redditch, Worcestershire, was this week given a ‘Putting the Public First Award’ for an unbelievable identification in August 2012.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Police Inspector Jailed for Swindling Thousands of Pounds From Bogus Mortgage and Insurance Claims

A senior police officer was branded ‘thoroughly dishonest’ by a judge as he was jailed for making a string of bogus mortgage and insurance claims.

Inspector Mohammed Razaq, 53, swindled thousands of pounds relating to four houses he owned or managed.

Last month a jury at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court found him guilty of six counts of fraud, three counts of money laundering, and a charge of failing to disclose information.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: The Foster Mum Who Took in a ‘Vulnerable’ Boy of 16 — Only to Find He Was a Drunken Asylum-Seeking Thug of 26

.Susan Johnson became a foster mother after her daughter left home .But she has faced ‘a cavalier attitude to her safety’ from the care system .Twice she has had foster ‘children’ she was incapable of caring for .One Afghan ‘boy’ turned out to be chain-smoking man of 26 .Another British 15-year-old emptied her bank account of £1,000 .But she continues to foster, despite her family’s objections

Since his arrival 12 days earlier, Farood, an asylum-seeker from Afghanistan, had behaved disgracefully. He constantly reeked of alcohol and treated my house like a hostel rather than a home, coming and going as he pleased.

But it was his physical strength and raw aggression that I found the most frightening.

I’m a 60-year-old widow and retired school secretary, only 5ft tall, and I live on my own. This ‘boy’ on the other hand, was more than 6ft tall, stocky and had a demeanour and physical strength beyond his supposed years.

Where there should have been spots, there was stubble.

Where I’d expected a cowed and frightened child in need of love and a good meal, I found the arrogance and, quite frankly, terrifying swagger of a grown man.

Intimidated and frightened, I quickly stopped trying to enforce any house rules. I could almost see the aggression that bubbled off Farood, how could I match his brute physicality?

Even when I found condoms left casually on his bedside table and received a complaint from my neighbour about him leering at her teenage daughter over the garden fence while he smoked endless cigarettes, I felt powerless to act.

But when I tried to raise my concerns with my key worker — that Farood wasn’t the 16-year-old I’d been told he was — I was fobbed off.

‘Just hang on to him for a couple more days,’ I was told, with the assurance everything was being done to look into Farood’s background and find a more permanent placement.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: The Blue Killer Frog

British experts have successfully bred a rare species of frog that is so poisonous it can kill ten men.

The blue poison dart frog is only 2.5cm long and is usually found in the tropical forests of Costa Rica and Brazil.

But the species is under threat in South America, where their habitat is being destroyed.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Morocco: Imams to be Promoted to Civil Servant Status

Same for mourchidats, or female spiritual guides

(ANSAmed) — RABAT, JUNE 26 — The Islamic government of Morocco is drafting a decree that would promote imams and mourchidats (the female spiritual guides) to civil servant status.

The religious guides will work under contract and qualify for the same wages, benefits and promotions as administrative level public officials, LaVieEco reported Wednesday.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Morsi’s Speech to Egyptians From Heart of an Islamist: All Lies, Insults and Threats

Egypt’s President Morsi spoke to the Egyptian people for two hours and 40 minutes Wednesday evening (June 26) demonstrating his deep resolve to keep his power and position at all cost. Predictably, his speech held little wisdom in recognizing his differences or his willingness to work toward rectifying them through compromise.

Instead, the ruler of Egypt veiled his eyes to the real needs of his fellow countrymen and their pursuit of freedom and human rights.

Referring to his executive office as a “regime” and exploiting the Taquiya (deception) principle of Islamic doctrine, Morsi claimed that Egypt’s new constitution is a democratic draft (“We succeeded in writing a democratic constitution”) and pleaded with the country to honor its sovereignty. Deception by a leader is always harmful, but Morsi seems to believe his own lies, which is even more troubling. Suffering from both denial and delusion, Morsi’s mind appears to be unsound.

Speaking from his podium in the Egyptian Center for Conferences to a packed house of admirers, Morsi sounded much like an Islamic preacher addressing worshipers but, later in his speech, tempered his tone using language more like the political-religious leadership he is. This shift of method and terminology by a true Islamist illustrates a classic mixture of political aims colored with Allah-fearing sentiments to capture sympathy and agreement from listeners. The majority in the room stood up cheering and applauding for Morsi with slogans favoring the president at various times throughout his speech especially when Morsi attacked his opponents, rivals and critics.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Publishing: Huffington Post Launches Maghreb Edition

French edition in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria

(ANSAmed) — ROME, JUNE 25 — The Huffington Post Media Group and investors Alix Etournaud and Fares Mabrouk have launched a French-language edition of The Huffington Post covering the Maghreb — Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. “Just last month we launched our first Asian edition, in Japan, and now we’re thrilled to be bringing The Huffington Post to Africa, inviting people in the Maghreb to add their voices to the growing global conversation,” said founder Arianna Huffington.

“From antiquity to the present day, the Maghreb — as a unique intersection of Arab, African, and Mediterranean cultures — has been a place rich in history and diversity. And the launch comes at a time when the Maghreb region, perhaps as much as any other in the world, is undergoing a seismic transformation — socially, politically, economically — which has drawn the world’s attention to Maghreb and its people and put the spotlight on its enormous untapped potential.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

U. S. Student Dies in Clashes in Egypt

(AGI) Washington — A 21-year-old American student died in clashes in Alexandria on Friday .

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Attackers Who ‘Stabbed British Teenager 17 Times and Stripped Him Naked for Kissing a Turkish Girl Tried to Slit His Wrists to Finish Him Off’

[WARNING: * Disturbing Content *.]

A group of attackers who stripped a British teenager naked and ‘stabbed him 17 times’ for kissing a local girl in a Turkish bar also tried to slit his wrists to ‘finish him off’.

Dwayne Ward, 17, was found with his wrists slashed and his body soaked in blood in a garden in the Tepe district of Marmaris by locals.

The teenager, who has been enjoying a night out with his older brother on Tuesday, is now out of intensive care after fighting for his life, and doctors hope he will fully recover, The Sun reported.

A police report revealed Dwayne said: ‘I was having fun while I was out and I kissed a Turkish girl at the bar I was in.’

‘I went to another bar and that was when they hit me in the head with a hard object.’

He then added, according to The Sun: ‘I don’t remember the rest.’

[…]

Around 270 officers had been deployed on the case. Between them they watched footage from 217 CCTV cameras over 48 hours finally getting a clear clip of Ismail A, 24, and Attila Dincer, 26, closing in on Dwayne.

Police CCTV clearly shows Dwayne wobbling down a deserted street as his two alleged attackers move in behind him. Attila Dincer, 31, links arm with the drunken Dwayne as Ismail A, walks on his other side.

[Comment: Excellent detective work by the Turkish police resulting in the apprehension of the attackers.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

EU Centre on Chemical, Biological and Nuclear Opens in Amman

(ANSAmed) — AMMAN, JUNE 25 — Jordan on Tuesday saw the opening of the European Union (EU) Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Centres of Excellence (EU CBRN CoE) Risk Mitigation regional secretariat at the Royal Scientific Society in Amman, an EU statement said. The overall objective of this project is to develop a comprehensive inter-country (Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon), inter-agency structure for the coordination, establishment and implementation of CBRN incident response throughout the region.

It will address national needs in the countries by improving the existing CBRN emergency response capacity and provide comprehensive technology solutions and training in prevention, preparedness and response.

The Initiative aims to mitigate CBRN risks of criminal, accidental or natural origin by promoting a coherent policy, improving coordination and preparedness at national and regional levels and by offering a comprehensive approach covering legal, scientific, enforcement and technical issues, said the statement. The Initiative mobilizes national, regional and international resources to develop a coherent CBRN policy at all levels, thereby aiming to ensure an effective response.

It involves over 60 countries and has been launched in 8 different regions of the world, namely: African Atlantic Façade; Central Asia; Eastern and Central Africa; Gulf Cooperation Council Countries; Middle East; North Africa; South East Asia; South East Europe, Southern Caucasus, Moldova and Ukraine. Each of these regions will soon have fully operational Secretariats.

The Regional Secretariats ensure cooperation and coordination with partner countries and are responsible for supporting them with the identification of needs, the formulation of regional project proposals, the development of national action plans and the implementation of the projects.

As a result of the on-going activities of EU CBRN CoE initiative in the Middle East, 12 projects — addressing countries’ needs — were launched in 2013. The latest project being launched in the Middle East region concerns Strengthening Capacities in CBRN Response and in Chemical and Medical Emergency, and will be implemented by EU Member States Agencies in close cooperation with local authorities.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

EU-Turkey: ‘Europe Not Duped’

Cumhuriyet, 26 June 2013

“The attempt by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ministers to justify the savage behaviour of police at the Gezi Park demonstrations has not succeeded,” explains Cumhuriyet in the wake of the meeting in Ankara of EU ambassadors and Egemen Bagis, the Turkish Minister for European Union and chief negotiator in accession talks.

The Kemalist daily points out that, in view of the present context, the EU has announced that accession negotiations will not resume before the release of the European Commission’s annual report on Turkey’s progress towards EU membership, due in October.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Drug Addiction Reaches Crisis Levels in Nepal With Hindus the Most Affected

Almost a third of young people is taking drugs; an increase of 3 per cent compared to ten years ago. According to psychologists, weak educational institutions and unstable families are some of the causes of the problem.

Kathmandu (AsiaNews) — About 28 per cent of Nepali students take drugs, this according to a report by the Narcotic Drugs Control Law Enforcement Unit based on the testimony of young users and dealers. The problem, which seems to affect mostly the Hindu majority, has increased by 3 per cent in the last decade.

Riken (who prefers not to give his full name) is 22 years old and up to three months ago, he was studying in college. “I came to drugs through my friends,” he told AsiaNews. “I thought I’d try it once and then stop, but I couldn’t stop.”

When his professors found out, they had him expelled from the university. Now Riken is taking part in a drug rehabilitation programme at the Mukti Kendra Rehabilitation Centre in Kathmandu.

Like him, almost a third of young Nepalis have fallen into this nightmare. For many psychologists, the problem is due to the absence of important role models during their teenage years, both at school and in the family.

“Young people in Nepal are often left on their own,” Thapa, a volunteer at a rehabilitation centre, told AsiaNews. “The much smaller Christian community is less affected by this problem because families are more tightly knit,” said the woman who has spent the past 20 years helping addicts. “This gives parents greater control over their children.”

In 2000, then Health Minister Ram Baran Yadav opened a rehabilitation centre run by the Maryknoll Missionary Fathers and the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.

In recent years, many Christian and Catholic volunteer groups have set up centres around the country to help rehabilitate drug abusers. Many young Hindus work as volunteers in such facilities.

According to Nepal’s security and intelligence agencies, the rise in drug abuse, with 70,000 known addicts, has been mirrored by a parallel increase in the crime rate.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Taiwan Celebrates the “Liberation” Of Kinmen Islands From Mines

The archipelago, together with Matsu, was a minefield for over fifties years: they were the scene of the fiercest battles fought between communists and nationalists. Today, after six decades, children can once again run on the beaches.

Taipei (AsiaNews) — “This is a good day for us, for our grandparents and people who love peace.” So says Senyi, a child of eight years who took part in the non-competitive cross-country race with another thousand participants to celebrate the liberation islands of Kinmen (?? ?) finally free from landmines.

“This is a dream come true,” added Zhang Ruiyi (???), a teacher at a secondary school in Taipei but originally from Kinmen, who returned this past weekend to the islands to be with her family and to celebrate the event. “I want to thank the God of peace: I’m Catholic, my husband is Buddhist and we pray every one more brick is added to build peace in the world. I want a better world for my children and for future generations. “

It rained all day on the day of the race, but this failed to dampen spirits: “We are wet and happy, my grandfather is here and was a victim of a mines in this area. He lost a leg and today has not stopped thanking those who worked to make this dream come true”, says Mr. Lee (???).

Everyone at the end of the course, hung a yellow bow on the new monument erected to commemorate the season of peace. Grandfather Lee cried and movingly spoke of the day when the mine exploded under his foot. “The whole recovery process was painful, but little by little I matured inside and began to raise awareness so no more innocent people were injured or even lose their lives. This inner strength that grew inside me infected many others. I want to thank all those who have made this demining possible: for me are they undoubtedly heroes. “

The director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, ICBL (?? ? ?? ?? -) Sylvie Brigot [at the center of the photo], said she was happy for the fact that over the past seven years Taiwan has de-mined the islands of the archipelagos Kinmen and Matsu (?? ??), both border areas and war zones in which the mines were placed in the ‘50s and ‘60s, when the two sides of the Taiwan Strait were at war.

Over the past seven years 126,000 mines have been removed and at the end of this month the two islands will be officially declared “completely de-mined areas.” Sylvie Brigot said that Taiwan “is a great example for neighboring countries” because “it finished three years ahead of the deadline in the demining mission which has involved many Pacific nations over a full decade.”

The International Mine Ban Treaty (? ?? ?? ??) demands from countries that adhere to de-mine their own territories within a decade. Although it has not signed the international treaty, the government of Taipei in 2006 with the Antipersonnel Landmine Control Act (?? ? ?? ?? ??) set a limit of seven years, which was complied with.

Professor Zhang also expressed his satisfaction and his regret: “We think of how foolish we are as human beings: It costs 3 American dollars to place a mine, while it costs between 100 and 1,000 dollars to trace, defuse and remove it not counting the possible victims . I always tell my students: a policy of peace and non-violence would be totally free and enrich all, economically and morally. “

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Brazil: Italian Terrorist Faces Expulsion After Court Ruling

San Paolo, 28 June (AKI) — Convicted far-left Italian terrorist Cesare Battisti could be deported from Brazil after its supreme court on Friday overturned his appeal against a conviction for forgery, O Globo daily reported.

Battisti was found guilty of putting fake stamps from Brasil’s immigration service on his passport, a crime punishable with expulsion under Brasilian law, according to O Globo.

Brazil’s justice minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo will now decide if Battisti is to be deported.

Authorities have long sought Battisti’s extradition to Italy to serve a life sentence for four murders committed when he was member of the radical Armed Proletarians for Communism group during the 1970s.

He spent three decades on the run and has lived in France, Mexico and Brazil, where he was in jail from 2007 until his release in June, 2011.

Brazil’s former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s last official act before leaving office was to grant 58-year-old Battisti political refugee status on the recommendation of a report by Brazil’s attorney general.

Battisti was convicted in absentia in1990 after he escaped from an Italian prison in 1981 while awaiting trial.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Amnesty: Not Dead by a Long Shot

The conventional wisdom is that the Gang of Eight bill, or any facsimile thereof, has no chance of passing the House. By all rights, it shouldn’t. The bill does for immigration policy what Obamacare does for health care — make things profoundly worse.

But it would be a serious mistake to underestimate supporters of the Gang of Eight. A powerful coalition of liberal interest groups, mainstream media, unions, big business, Hollywood, academia, and practically every Democratic politician in the country are continuing to wield resources toward the bill’s ultimate passage that dwarf the resources of the bill’s opponents.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Derail the Amnesty Express: Kevin O’Brien

This all looks so distressingly, depressingly familiar.

People working on Capitol Hill have spent months building a massive bill that would greatly expand federal power and reach while raining gifts on favored constituencies.

At the last moment, the introduction of an equally massive amended version has thrown the process into darkness and the potential effects of the legislation into confusion. Once again, we won’t really know what is in a piece of legislation that will affect the lives of every American — and millions of unlawful trespassers on American soil — until it passes.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘Grant All Illegal Immigrants an Amnesty to Stay in Britain’: Tory MP Calls for ‘Seismic’ Change in Policy to Attract Minority Vote

All illegal immigrants in Britain should be granted an amnesty to stay in the country, a Tory MP has said.

Nadhim Zahawi, MP for Stratford-Upon-Avon, argued that the move makes sense economically and that a ‘seismic’ shift in policy is needed for the Conservatives to attract votes among minority groups.

But it would represent a major switch in political direction for the party.

Earlier this week Chancellor George Osborne announced that immigrants who claim benefits will have to learn English or see their handouts docked.

Mr Zahawi told The Independent: ‘We shouldn’t be afraid to think outside our comfort zone. Our failure to appeal to ethnic minorities should send loud alarm bells ringing in Downing Street and Central Office.

‘Unless we act now this electoral penalty will only get worse.’

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Ernie and Bert Celebrate Supreme Court Ruling?

Is nothing sacred any more? It’s quite obvious that the institution of marriage as being between a man and a woman is set for annihilation by those on the left, but one magazine will “celebrate” the recent Supreme Court ruling in a truly odd way. The next cover of The New Yorker magazine will feature Sesame Street’s Ernie and Bert cuddling as the decision is delivered.

Under the title “Moment of Joy,” the the new cover, shows Bert’s arm around Ernie as they pair watch the television coverage of the Supreme Court. For those of you who haven’t followed the case, the Supreme Court’s ruling essentially wipes out the Defense of Marriage Act and also nullifies the will of California voters by stating that the existing lower court ruling against Proposition 8 shall stand. And this is cause for celebration by Ernie and Bert?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Margaret Sanger’s Eugenic Legacy: Abortion and Planned Parenthood

Dr. Angela Franks, author of the incredibly well-researched and scholarly book “Margaret Sanger’s Eugenic Legacy,” is perhaps the nation’s foremost authority on the issue of Margaret Sanger’s troubling history of eugenic activism.

Franks spoke to attendees at this year’s NRLC Convention about the eugenic roots of Planned Parenthood’s founder in a talk entitled “Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood: The Eugenics Connection.”

Franks draws out and clarifies the image that Planned Parenthood has attempted to create of its infamous founder. The organization has turned a blind eye to her eugenic history, and when challenged on issues such as her support for sterilization, Planned Parenthood has a habit of saying that Sanger did not, in fact, endorse sterilization, or changing the uncomfortable subject to something else to divert attention from Sanger’s troubling views.

What did Sanger think about the issue of sterilization?

First of all, Franks points out, Sanger stringently pushed a policy of the government compensating poor citizens in exchange with a poor person’s agreement to be sterilized as a means of population control. “In this way,” Sanger said, “the moron and the diseased would have no posterity to inherit their condition.” (Franks points out in her book that bribing a poor person with money in exchange for sterilization is in fact a deeply immoral and unethical act.) Franks points out that this bribery is something that has frequently occurred in other developing countries.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Political Correctness and Language

Political correctness has affected people’s communication in the United States. Political Correctness has gone mad through the halls of congress and the White House. Obama even passed a bill H.R. 1913, Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. (Akers) The Bill was passed on the April 29th of the last year. Critics of the measure now contend that, the bill will force local and state law enforcement to prosecute and sentence individuals not only for the crimes they commit, but also for their beliefs. (Akers) This slippery slope will take the country down the road, towards eventually criminalizing the thoughts of the American people.

The Hate Crime Bill will also prevent religious beliefs because the bankers are in control now. Thomas Jefferson once said, “Banking foundations are more dangerous than standing armies.” Islam forbids monetary interest, so therefore when a Muslim politician stands against interest on loans, he could be arrested. “This unconstitutional hate crimes bill raises the possibility that religious leaders or members of religious groups could become the subject of a criminal investigation focusing on a suspect’s religious beliefs, membership in religious organizations and any statements made by a suspect,” said Rep. Broun.

We are now in “double dip recession,” (which is depression) and people will not resist it. Americans will at the least criticize the Obama administration. The main stream media invokes race war to divide and concur; I’m sick and tired of seeing that. When a person criticizes Obama, the media calls them racist. A MSNBC host was telling the public that “socialist” is a code term for the N-word. This tactic discourages African Americans from protesting with the tea parties, which are against both the Democrats and Republicans. People who voted for Obama feel betrayed because he is continuing the policies of George Bush. This tactic is manipulating the perception of well meaning citizens across the country and it’s dangerous. This also violates freedom of assembly, just like the media did with Dr. Martin Luther King.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Bells Toll for Thee

Legalizing same-sex sexual activity and marriage is but one of numerous attacks against America from within

Designated by Congress as the “National House of Prayer” and often identified as the church of our national leaders, the National Cathedral in Washington DC celebrated Wednesday’s Supreme Court decisions regarding same-sex marriage by ringing its bells for 45 minutes at noon ET, followed by a celebratory prayer service that evening.

After being notified of the Supreme Court’s ruling, our putative president made a congratulatory call from Air Force One to the plaintiffs in California’s Proposition 8 case, a call that was also broadcast on MSNBC, the unofficial mouthpiece for the administration. Welcome to American Babylon, 2013.

Those who have been paying attention to the systematic attacks on the moral fabric of our nation understand that what is taking place in America has absolutely nothing to do with “equal rights” or “gender equality.” This should be especially evident in light of the fact that homosexuals comprise a mere three percent of our population, yet have somehow managed to cause an entire nation to redefine traditional marriage between a man and a woman. How is this possible? The answer lies in the larger picture.

The internal takeover of America

America has become a captured operation. Forced acceptance of same-sex unions is part of a larger plan that was outlined and detailed nearly a century ago by Antonio Gramsci, a well known Marxist…

The children of the United States were and are considered to be one of the most important “resources” for the takeover of America. Accordingly, schools had to be infiltrated by the agents of the Marxists-Communist mindset, today called the Progressives, and the minds of the children “prepared” or educated in accordance with a tolerance and blind acceptance toward Marxism and Communism.

It is no wonder, then, that today most people who have been educated and are of age have no idea that for years, it was illegal to import anything into the United States that was produced in Communist China.* It is no wonder that the U.S. educational system from the 1960s forward has promoted immorality under the guise of tolerance, and has not only allowed, but forced parents to accept curriculums of abhorrent behavior be permitted to pollute the minds of our young people.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]