Gates of Vienna News Feed 7/15/2013

The Dutch Minister for Social Affairs is concerned that so many of his fellow countrymen perceive Islam as a threat. The large influx of Muslim immigrants, coupled with the association of Islam with terrorism, produces a fear of Muslims, according to the minister. He says the situation is worrisome because it endangers social cohesion and stability.

In other news, the Troika (the IMF, the ECB, and the European Commission) is pressuring the Greek government to cut the salaries of 9,500 Orthodox priests, who are on the government payroll.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Erick Stakelbeck, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, MC, McR, Papa Whiskey, TV, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Financial Crisis
» Bill Black: The Banks Have Blood on Their Hands
» Greeks Are Sad and Lonely But Live Longer, OECD
» Italy: Industry Minister Says Govt Determined to Avoid Tax Hikes
» Troika Wants Greece to Cut Priests’ Salaries
 
USA
» Army Helicopter Drill Frightens City
» As Justice Pursues Civil Rights Probe Against Zimmerman, FBI Documents Show No Evidence of Bias
» CIA Will Now Openly Propagandize Americans
» Facebook Refuses to Remove ‘Kill Zimmerman’ Page
» Filmmaker Beaten by Trayvon Martin Protesters in Oakland
» Harry Butler — Defending the US Constitution the Hard Way
» Heroes! Teens on Bikes Rescue Girl From Kidnap (Video)
» Homeschooled Girl Went to College at 12 and is Now Set to Get PhD at 16
» Is Obama Exploiting Trayvon Martin Death to Trash 2nd Amendment?
» Justice for Darryl
» Kincaid: CNN Commentator Embarrassed by Zimmerman Verdict
» NSA Data Center Will Use 1.7m Gallons of Water Per Day to Read Your Email
» Oakland: Police Stood Down as ‘Protesters’ Terrorized Drivers
» Obama Exploits Zimmerman Verdict to Attack Second Amendment
» Obama’s Mistake on Trayvon Martin Case
» ‘Paddywagon’ Name for Pub Leads to Appeal to Tampa Mayor to Shut it
» Stakelbeck: New Book Launches Today: “The Brotherhood”
» Stoking Racial Unrest in a Headline
» The Watergate of Whistleblowers That Could Bring Down Hillary Rodham Clinton
» WW3 Brews as Nation Distracted by Trayvon Martin Case
 
Europe and the EU
» Calderoli Reported to Italy’s Anti-Discrimination Body
» Dissident’s Family Expulsion Revoked by Italian Authorities
» Italy: Decree Against GMO Corn Signed by Ministers
» Italy: Local Government Taxes Up 500% Over 20-Year Period
» Italy: Bondi’s Comments on Taranto Cancer Rates Sparks Furor
» Italy: Calderoli Says Orangutan Insult Born From ‘Love for Animals’
» Italy: Veneto Councillor Says Orangutan ‘Victim’ Of Kyenge Insult
» Italy: PD Says Calderoli Must Quit After ‘Orangutan’ Slur
» Italy: Trial of Councillor for ‘Inciting Rape’ on Kyenge Delayed
» Netherlands: Minister: Worrying That Population Experiences Islam as Threat
» Netherlands: Islam-Friendly Rubbish Bins in Alkmaar
» Rents Mean Third of UK ‘Off Limits’ To Poorer Families
» Spain: Slush Funds: Barcenas in Court, Rajoy in Storm
» The EU Removes the Ban: Philippine Planes Once More Can Fly in Europe
» UK: Battle Over ‘Mosque’ Plan for Canaletto’s Isle of Dogs View of Greenwich
» UK: Here’s How the Conservatives Can Win Back the Working Class
» UK: How Melanie Phillips Became a Culture Warrior
» UK: The Far Left is Finished in This Country
» Vatican Freezes Accounts of Cash-Flight Prelate
» ‘World’s Oldest Calendar’ Discovered in Scottish Field
 
North Africa
» Egypt Crisis: US Envoy Arrives in Cairo as Egyptian Prosecutor Freezes Assets of Top Islamists
» Egypt — After Morsi, Christians and Churches Targeted by Islamists
» Three Killed, 17 Injured in Attack in Egypt’s Sinai
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Muslim Extremists Force Jews From Temple Mount
 
Middle East
» Bahrain Opposition Fears Expanded Crackdowns Over Calls for Protest Surge
» Israel Struck Syrian Arms Depot in Latakia From Sea
» Kuwait Discovers New Oil and Gas Field
» Syrian Rebels Will Return Arms at End of Uprising, Says Minister
» Turkey: Despite the World’s Indifference, Gezi Park Continues to Speak Out Loudly
 
South Asia
» Bhutan’s “White Gold” Wets India’s Interest
» India: The Massacre of Gujarat, Narendra Modi: Sad as When an Animal Dies
» India: Orissa: Catholic Nun Gang Raped
» India: Christian Clergyman’s Death in Orissa Ruled an “Accident” By Police
» School That Teaches Afghan Girls to Speak for Themselves
» Top Bangladeshi Islamist Found Guilty of War Crimes
 
Far East
» Mongolia: Controversy for Naadam: “Enough With Using Kids in Horse Races”
 
Latin America
» Luis Fleischman and Nancy Menges: The State Department Underestimates Iranian Threat in the Western Hemisphere
 
Immigration
» 385,000 Unemployed Foreigners in Italy
» Broken Immigration or Broken Laws That Are Not Enforced?
» Netherlands: Bulgarian Immigrants Are Often Uneducated Turks
» Sicily: Landed Migrants Knock on Residents’ Doors for Help
 
Culture Wars
» Italy: Prelates Blast Palermo for Gay Logos on Saint’s Day
 
General
» Nanosized Aluminum Being Sprayed in the Atmosphere, Causing Degenerative Disease, Says Neurosurgeon
» Toxic Chemicals in Personal Care Products Causing ‘Epidemic’ Of Skin Allergies
 

Bill Black: The Banks Have Blood on Their Hands

We invited Bill Black to return to explain whether the level of systemic risk due to fraud in our financial markets has improved or worsened since the dire situation he painted for us in early 2012. Sadly, it looks like abuse by the big players has only flourished since then.

In the U.S., our regulators have publicly embraced a “too big to prosecute” doctrine. We are restraining, underfunding, and dismantling regulatory oversight in the interest of short-term stability for the status quo. Which, as a criminologist, Black knows with certainty creates an environment where bad actors will act in their self-interest with assumed (and likely real, at this point) impunity.

“If you can steal with impunity, as soon as you devastate regulation, you devastate the ability to prosecute. And as soon as that happens, in our jargon, in criminology, you make it a criminogenic environment. It just means an environment where the incentives are so perverse that they are going to produce widespread crime. In this context, it is going to be widespread accounting control fraud. And we see how few ethical restraints remain in the most elite banks.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Greeks Are Sad and Lonely But Live Longer, OECD

(ANSAmed) ATHENS, JULY 15; Greeks feel depressed and lonely, work more than others and receive lower salaries compared with the OECD average as daily Kathimerini reports. On the upside, they also live longer. According to the latest Better Life Index compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Greece is not the best country to live in, nor is it the worst. Yet having experienced a 25% decrease in incomes and an unemployment rate of nearly 27%, it languishes at the bad end of the member-country list. The biggest problems for Greeks appear to be of a social and psychological nature. The happiness index gave Greece a reading of just 1.3 points out of 10 based on the interviews conducted by OECD researchers. Greeks also feel helpless and lonely, with 81% responding that they have someone to reach out to for help in times of need, against an OECD average of 90%. The average annual income in Greece amounts to 15,726 euros, against an average of 17,728 euros in OECD countries. Employment in Greece covers only 56% of people against an average of 66%. Greeks work 2,032 hours per year, against 1,776 hours in the OECD, putting pressure on another qualitative index, the balance between work and a personal life. Another negative factor for sentiment in Greece is the fact that it has the highest rate of university degree holders and at the same time of people who are unemployed. In other countries, owning a degree and having training generally opens the door to the labor market, though in Greece this tends to remain shut. The education level is also lower, according to the study, as Greek pupils scored 473 points in reading, writing and arithmetics against an OECD mean rate of 497 points.

Nevertheless, Greeks live longer, with their life expectancy exceeding 80 years despite living in a more polluted environment: air pollution amounts to 31 micrograms per cubic meter, compared to an OECD average of 20 mg/c.m.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Industry Minister Says Govt Determined to Avoid Tax Hikes

Zanonato says govt will is ‘absolute’ to avoid IMU and VAT rise

(ANSA) — Turin, July 15 — Italian Industry Minister Flavio Zanonato on Monday said the government was determined to avoid increases on a controversial property tax called the IMU as well as on Italy’s 21% value added tax (VAT). “The will not to increase the IMU is absolute, and the same is true regarding the IVA,” Zanonato said on the margins of a meeting to inaugurate construction of a new Italy-France power-line. Zanonato added that government leaders were working to identify financial coverage for public finances to avoid the tax hikes.

Italian Premier Enrico Letta earlier this month announced the government’s top political priority — to staunch a creeping value-added tax (VAT) and to make cuts in the loathed IMU property tax — will hit significant trouble due to lack of financial coverage and budget restrictions imposed by the European Union.

“The first goal is the most difficult,” Letta told journalists in Rome on July 4 after a summit held by the parliament majority to establish a roadmap for the current legislature.

Capping the VAT and slashing the IMU are “the most complicated things (on the agenda), because they come with the 2013 budget, which is still rigid and does not enjoy the flexibility” guaranteed by the decision announced earlier in Brussels, Letta said.

On July 3, European Commission President Jose’ Barroso announced the EC was allowing “greater flexibility” in eurozone countries for public investments, but belt-loosening is not scheduled to begin until 2014, and still does not allow exceeding a 3% budget-deficit limit.

“Coverage must be found completely within the budget, and that is not easy,” Letta said.

Centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi promised to cancel IMU and pay back last year’s take during the campaign for February’s general election.

Lawmakers belonging to Berlusconi’s People of Freedom Party (PdL) have staked their political reputation and support for Italy’s unprecedented right-left coalition government on the two tax measures.

The property tax had been reinstated by a technical government last year to address a crisis in public finances.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Troika Wants Greece to Cut Priests’ Salaries

State puts up about 200 million euros

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, JULY 15 — The Greek government is being squeezed by international lenders to slash the salaries of about 9,500 priests to meet demands from international lenders to keep reducing expenditures, which could lead to resistance from the Church and clerics. There is no separation of Church and State in Greece. According to a report in the newspaper Parapolitika cited by GreekReporter, representatives of the lenders revived the proposal that had been set in 2011 to the government of then premier George Papandreou, according to which the state should stop paying the salaries of priests or at best to share it with the Church. The state puts up about 200 million euros to pay the salaries of the priests and there is confusion over whether the plan would reduce the state’s share, or could lead to the Church having to decide whether to pick up the costs or start firing priests the same way the government is going ahead with a proposal to dismiss as many as 27,500 public workers.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Army Helicopter Drill Frightens City

The mayor wants answers from the Joint Base Lewis-McChord garrison commander about an unannounced Army helicopter training exercise that alarmed many Port Angeles-area residents late Thursday night.

“I’m demanding answers Monday morning, and I’ve been told I’m going to get them,” said Cherie Kidd, who will meet with Army Col. H. Charles Hodges Jr. at the base near Tacoma.

“[The helicopters] terrorized my city,” Kidd said.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

As Justice Pursues Civil Rights Probe Against Zimmerman, FBI Documents Show No Evidence of Bias

The Justice Department has responded to appeals to probe whether George Zimmerman committed any civil rights violations in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin — but previously filed FBI documents are already challenging the narrative that the shooting was racially motivated.

Sanford police detective Chris Serino told FBI agents last year that after examining the case, it appeared Zimmerman was suspicious of Martin because of his “attire, the total circumstances of the encounter and the previous burglary suspects in the community.”

According to the document, Serino considered Zimmerman as having “a little hero complex, but not as a racist.”

Serino told the FBI that there had been several burglaries in the area, and that gang members in the community “typically dressed in black and wore hoodies.”

“When Zimmerman saw Martin in a hoody, Zimmerman took it upon himself to view Martin as acting suspicious,” Serino said, while describing Zimmerman as “overzealous.” The FBI document was posted on the Smoking Gun website.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

CIA Will Now Openly Propagandize Americans

Smith-Mundt Act “reformed” this month allowing CIA to disseminate propaganda

On July 2, a little noticed “reform” passed in January went into effect. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, passed as part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, will allow the CIA to flood America with more government propaganda.

The Smith-Mundt Act, passed as the national security state was taking shape in 1948, authorized the State Department to unleash a tidal wave of propaganda outside the United States while supposedly forbidding its dissemination inside the country. The law set the stage for Frank Wisner, who headed up the CIA’s covert action division in the early 1950s, to build his “mighty Wurlitzer,” described by none other than the New York Times as “the means for orchestrating, in almost any language anywhere in the world, whatever tune the CIA was in the mood to hear.”

In the years since, the establishment media has worked hand in glove with the CIA. This cozy relationship was revealed by Frank Church and the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities in 1975 and, a few years later, by reporter Carl Bernstein.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Facebook Refuses to Remove ‘Kill Zimmerman’ Page

Facebook refused to remove a page entitled ‘Kill Zimmerman’ — arguing that it didn’t represent a “credible threat of violence,” as threats to murder George Zimmerman following his acquittal continue to flood Twitter.

According to Facebook, the ‘Kill Zimmerman’ page “doesn’t violate our community standard on credible threat of violence.”

After media attention, Facebook appeared to remove the page but an identical clone popped up soon after and is still online.

Earlier this month, Facebook also refused to remove a Facebook page entitled “Riot For Trayvon” for the same reasons before being forced to do so after the story went viral.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Filmmaker Beaten by Trayvon Martin Protesters in Oakland

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

Christian Hartsock, who describes himself as a conservative journalist and filmmaker, told the Daily Caller earlier today he was assaulted by a crowd protesting the Zimmerman verdict in downtown Oakland Sunday night.

“I have interviews and I have footage of [Trayvon protestors] chanting ‘no justice, no peace — you pigs in your sleep,’“ Hartsock told The Daily Caller. “One of them was an elementary schooler chanting with his mom.”

After Hartsock arrived and began filming the demonstration, he was told by two men to leave. After he refused, the men turned on him…

After a man demanded Hartsock erase his video, a thug came up from behind and hit him three times in the face. “Then I began getting clocked by others in my left temple and jaw by other assailants and was mowed to the ground by about half a dozen of them.”

“For a couple minutes I was pinned down to the ground — one gentleman on top of me slugging me across the face repeatedly as an indeterminable number of others kicked me in the side of the head, and tried to get my phone out of my hand… The harder my grip tightened, the harder their punches to my face became,” he told the Daily Caller.

“I fought them off somehow — it was kind of miraculous,” Hartsock said.

Hartsock said ABC News was covering the protest but failed to record the assault. “ABC news van less than 20 feet away, got NONE of it. Yeah, this is why we have to do you guys’ jobs for you and get paid in blood,” wrote Hartsock on Facebook. “My face is swollen and I have a huge black eye.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Harry Butler — Defending the US Constitution the Hard Way

Harry Butler is not someone that you have heard of, but you will. You do not know the story of his arrest by federal agents, but you should. He should not have spent a year in prison for trying to defend the US Constitution, but he did.

Harry and I go way back — in the early 1970s we served together in the same Underwater Demolition (UDT-21) platoon, and later served together in SEAL 2 (in different platoons).

After leaving the service Harry went on to fly as a Captain for Gulfstream Aerospace. I could name-drop here like you would not believe (sultans, former presidents, movie stars, etc.), suffice it to say that Harry has flown VIPs all over the world, and acquired a rock solid reputation for dependability and trustworthiness along the way.

So how does a former SEAL and world-class pilot end up being grabbed by federal agents and locked away for a year? Good question. I will try to answer it in this article…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Heroes! Teens on Bikes Rescue Girl From Kidnap (Video)

Two teenagers are being hailed as heroes for hopping on their bicycles last week, chasing down a kidnapper and rescuing an abducted, five-year-old girl.

Young Jocelyn Rojas of Lancaster Township, Pa., had been playing in her front yard, when an unknown assailant snatched her and threw her in his car. Her mother reported the girl’s disappearance within minutes.

“It’s something you don’t wish on anybody,” Roja’s grandmother, Tracey Clay, told WHTM-TV in Harrisburg. “Horrible, horrible thoughts flashed through my mind.”

But nearby, 15-year-old Temar Boggs, who didn’t know the girl but who had seen television reports on the kidnapping and police patrolling his neighborhood, determined to do something. He gathered together six of his friends.

“We got all of our friends to go look for her,” Boggs told Lancaster Online. “We made our own little search party.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Homeschooled Girl Went to College at 12 and is Now Set to Get PhD at 16

Tesca Fitzgerald will be heading off to grad school, but when she finally begins classes at the Georgia Institute of Technology, her classmates will be several years older than her.

In college at age 12, Tesca just graduated from Portland State University and is on the fast track to receive her PhD in cognitive science and human robotic interaction by age 22.

Her mom Ami Fitzgerald says its all down to their homeschooling that has allowed her daughters the freedom to study at their own speed.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Is Obama Exploiting Trayvon Martin Death to Trash 2nd Amendment?

Using the death of a 17-year-old child to push an unrelated political agenda is about as cheap and dirty as it gets

Democrat politicians are notorious for living by the credo, “Never let a crisis go to waste!” Making political hay during times of national crisis is written into the DNA of most Democrat politicians, including that of our 44th president, Barack Hussein Obama.

True enough, politics is a rough and tough business, best avoided by those who blanch at the sight of blood.

Still, most Americans would expect even the most hardened politician to balk at the notion of exploiting the death of a 17-year-old African-American boy for raw political advantage.

Yet that is exactly the road President Obama is pursuing on the heels of the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Justice for Darryl

On Thursday, July 11, police discovered the rotting body of 17-year-old Darryl Green, a black child from the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago. Green’s body was found behind a boarded-up house in the 6500-block of South Damen, face down on basement stairs. The body was so badly decomposed that originally, local news reports suggested that he had died of blunt force trauma. On Friday, an autopsy showed he had been shot to death. Relatives reported that Green had refused to join a gang at school.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Kincaid: CNN Commentator Embarrassed by Zimmerman Verdict

After the not-guilty verdict was handed down, George Zimmerman attorney Mark O’Mara strongly criticized the media’s role in getting his client charged in the case. He compared the media to “mad scientists” who had turned Zimmerman into a “monster.” He said the media “took a story that was fed to you and you ran with it and you ran right over him and that was horrid to him.”

But the false story line — that Zimmerman was a racist who shot a black man for no reason — continued during the trial, especially in the reckless and wild CNN commentaries of Asunciön “Sunny” Hostin.

Hostin boosted the prosecutors throughout and wanted viewers to believe a guilty verdict was a slam-dunk…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

NSA Data Center Will Use 1.7m Gallons of Water Per Day to Read Your Email

Data centers are notorious for using a lot of power and other resources, but residents of Bluffdale, Utah are a little annoyed by the volume of water that will soon begin flowing to a new NSA facility. When it is completed in September, cooling the massive collection of servers will require as much as 1.7 million gallons of water each day. That’s no drop in the bucket when you’re in the middle of a desert like Bluffdale happens to be.

The data center, or Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center as it’s more properly known, is a 1-1.5 million square foot facility with about 100,000 square feet devoted to data storage. What kind of data? Well, this is the NSA so the official answer is, “that’s classified.” More generally, the data center will be processing the contents of electronic communications including phone calls, emails, and internet searches. Basically, it probably has something to do with PRISM.

This facility will use as much water as several thousand average homes, but roughly one third of that volume can be recycled and used for watering lawns. The city expects the data center to account for roughly 1% of all water use in the region and is currently investigating additional sources of water.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Oakland: Police Stood Down as ‘Protesters’ Terrorized Drivers

Cops allowed Trayvon demonstrators to seize control of major street for three hours

One of the questions to emerge out of last night’s unrest in Oakland, where crowds protesting the George Zimmerman verdict turned violent and seized control of a major street for three hours, is why police withdrew from the area and allowed drivers to be terrorized.

According to a report by ABC 7, protesters had “complete control” of 14th and Broadway near Oakland City Hall and refused to let vehicles pass.

At about 8:30 p.m., police opened the intersection to traffic. But it quickly deteriorated when demonstrators surrounded frightened drivers who found themselves trapped. The crowd forced them to turn around.

Oakland police officers that had been near the corner retreated, leaving the helpless drivers without police protection. It’s unclear who gave that command.

In Los Angeles, demonstrators also blocked major highways and acted provocatively towards drivers.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama Exploits Zimmerman Verdict to Attack Second Amendment

Obama responded to the Zimmerman verdict on Sunday by calling for renewed legislation aimed at the Second Amendment.

He did not attack the Bill of Rights directly, but instead admonished Americans for not doing enough “to stem the tide of gun violence that claims too many lives across this country on a daily basis.”

Here is the entire statement by Obama. It was posted today on the White House website:

[…]

It appears Obama, in addition to instructing the Justice Department to prosecute George Zimmerman for violating the “civil rights” of Trayvon Martin, will attempt to revisit so-called “gun control,” an effort that failed dismally earlier this year in a Democrat-controlled Senate.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama’s Mistake on Trayvon Martin Case

(CNN) — Every American can make their own judgment about whether justice was served by the verdict in the George Zimmerman murder trial but one thing we should all recognize: President Obama’s interference in a local law enforcement matter was unprecedented and inappropriate, and he comes away from the case looking badly tarnished by his poor judgment.

“If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” the president said when asked about the case in the Rose Garden on March 23, 2012, after many had called for Zimmerman’s arrest but several weeks before he was charged. “When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids.”

In fact, if the president had a son, he would have been born to extraordinary privilege and raised with all the advantages of two very affluent and highly educated parents. He would have gone to tony private schools. His path in life would have been almost as dissimilar from Trayvon’s as one could imagine.

[…]

The president’s remarks created a clear impression that he was motivated by one of two factors, and we can only guess as to which, or what combination of the two, was at work here. One possibility is that this is merely another manifestation of the president’s well-known narcissism: No matter what the situation may be, it’s all about him.

The other, more troubling possibility is that the president surrendered to his political instincts. He wants disadvantaged Americans to believe that he and his family are one of them — despite their life of unparalleled privilege — and he wanted the prosecutors, judge and jury to believe that this was a case about race where justice demanded a guilty verdict.

[Hear! Hear! — PW]

           — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey [Return to headlines]
 

‘Paddywagon’ Name for Pub Leads to Appeal to Tampa Mayor to Shut it

Name of new pub considered insult to Irish says 77-year-old AOH historian and activist

Tampa, Fl Mayor Bob Buckhorn, an Irish American, has been criticized for granting a license to a new pub with a name that the leader of a local Irish heritage organization is calling “denigrating” to the Irish.

James J. Harkings IV, president of the Hillsborough County division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America, recently sent a letter to the mayor over the Paddywagon Irish Pub located at the corner of Cass and Tampa streets.

“Your Honour, I fail to understand why your administration granted a license to The Paddy Wagon since this uniquely American perjorative term was instigated by the Know Nothings in the 19th century to denigrate Irish-Catholics,” begins the letter, according to TampaBay.com.

“Regrettably, such terminology has been carried forward along with denigrations of African-Americans, Hispanics, Jews, etc.,” the 77-year-old Harkins added in the June 10 letter and said he would forward the mayor’s response to his state and national boards.

Hawkins is not only a community activist but an historian, lecturer, and author. His blog, The Irish Mastryoshka, covers the history of medieval Irish monks.

Mayor Buckhorn says that while he wouldn’t have chosen “Paddywagon” himself, he is not offended by the name.

“I say that as somebody of Irish descent who is married to a woman of Irish descent,” he said. “I think at some point political correctness can be taken too far. If that had been my establishment, I would have chosen another name, but it’s not my restaurant and it’s not my job to pick the names.”

City planning and development director Thomas Snelling responded to Harkins’ letter on July 5.

“We appreciate your sensitivity to what you feel is a derogatory slur to the Irish American people,” he wrote. “Please be aware, however, that the naming rights of businesses are not within the city’s regulatory purview, and we have no authorization to request a name change.

“Since this is a franchised business,” he added, “you may want to contact their headquarters and ask them to consider your position.”

Harkins said he noticed the pub, which is owned by Jeff Barnes, while driving and did not know it was a franchised business. He has not made a complaint to the company.

The pub’s corporate parent, Linksters Management Group of Sarasota, made no response to TampaBay.com’s questions.

           — Hat tip: McR [Return to headlines]
 

Stakelbeck: New Book Launches Today: “The Brotherhood”

Today is the big day. My new book, “The Brotherhood: America’s Next Great Enemy” has launched and is available from coast to coast.

The book is an in-depth look at the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and the global Islamist movement in the Middle East and right here in America.

It features my on-the-ground, exclusive interviews with various radical Islamists in Europe and the United States, as well as my investigations of the Muslim Brotherhood network around the globe.

The Brotherhood may be down right now in Egypt, but they’re anything but out: including right here in America.

I’ll be sending out exclusive excerpts over the next few days and am embarking on an extensive media promotional tour that will see me appear on Fox News, CNN, CBN, The Blaze TV and talk radio over the next few days and weeks.

Appearing on Hannity tonight on Fox News.

Many more details to come.

You can pick The Brotherhood up at the above link.

           — Hat tip: Erick Stakelbeck [Return to headlines]
 

Stoking Racial Unrest in a Headline

The mainstream media is out-of-control irresponsible when it comes to aiding and abetting the advance of racial tension.

Poised like squabbling vultures, the American mainstream media reported almost gleefully on the predicted protests that would follow the ‘Not Guilty’ verdict in the George Zimmerman trial.

But when it comes to yellow journalism, The Daily Mail in England takes the cake.

‘Protests erupt across US after George Zimmerman goes free for killing unarmed boy with bag of sweets’ was the Daily Mail’s headline on Saturday.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Watergate of Whistleblowers That Could Bring Down Hillary Rodham Clinton

While Americans were mesmerized by the Zimmerman trial, a law office in Dallas, Texas, was burglarized — twice in two days over the June 29-30th weekend. It was no ordinary burglary, either. And, it was no ordinary law office. The law office of Schulman & Mathias, one of many offices situated in a large office building within a business park in Dallas represents a high-level whistleblower by the name of Aurelia Fedenisn, a long-time investigator for the State Department’s Inspector General’s (IG) office. Ms. Fedenisn’s duties included investigating fraud, corruption and mismanagement possibly constituting either criminal wrongdoing or internal violations of State Department regulations involving some 260 embassies and diplomatic outposts across the globe.

[…]

It was 8:30 p.m. local time on Saturday, June 29, 2013, when two burglars — an unidentified man and a woman, entered the office building where the law offices of Schulman and Mathias are located. Security cameras caught footage of the pair entering and leaving the office building.

After gaining entry, the pair then made their way to an upper floor where they reportedly entered the law office through an adjacent empty office by cutting or punching a hole through the wallboard. Once inside, they stole three computers and files from a locked file cabinet they broke into using some type of crowbar-like device, never touching valuable silver bars and other items of significant, if not untraceable monetary value.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

WW3 Brews as Nation Distracted by Trayvon Martin Case

As the world reacts to the Trayvon Martin case, including prominent rappers calling out the media over its race baiting, reports detail around 160,000 Russian troops were called to ‘combat readiness’ following an Israeli strike on Russian-made missiles in Syria.

Is the nation too distracted by the George Zimmerman trial’s 24/7 news cycle to even know about this developing situation that coincides with escalating tensions between Russia and US-affiliated nations around the world?

First up is the new revelation that Israel was behind an attack on Syria that targeted Russian-made anti-ship missiles. According to the Israeli National News sources within the U.S., Israel recently launched an attack on Russian missiles that were apparently sold to Syria and stationed at a critical point within the country. Until now, it was unknown who had initiated the bombing that had rocked Latakia on July 5th…

According to a syndicated Russian announcement:

“On Friday, during a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu Russian, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an unexpected military drill, urging all forces to enter a state of full combat readiness on the night of July 13.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Calderoli Reported to Italy’s Anti-Discrimination Body

PD Senator says it was ‘duty’ to file formal complaint

(see related stories) (ANSA) — Rome, July 15 — An official complaint was filed with Italy’s anti-racial discrimination body against Deputy Senate Speaker Roberto Calderoli for his comments about Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge comparing her to an orangutan, Democratic Party (PD) Senator Sergio Lo Giudice said on Monday. “This morning I sent Italy’s National Office against Racial Discrimination (UNAR) a formal communication about the disturbing incident of racially motivated offenses against Minister Cecile Kyenge,” Lo Giudice said.

“I felt that it was my duty to report this episode that, due to the institutional source it comes from, is particularly serious and reflects conduct based on the idea of racial superiority and discrimination on the basis of ethnic backgrounds,” Lo Giudice said. A firestorm has broke out after Calderoli said while speaking at town festival in Carroccio a Treviglio near his home city of Bergamo on Sunday that “when I see her (Kyenge’s) pictures, I can’t help but think of her resemblance to an orangutan”.

On Monday, the anti-immigration Northern League Senator explained that his comments were born from his “love for animals”.

The Northern League heavyweight told the Italian daily paper Il Corriere della Sera that his comparison of the Congolese-born minister to an orangutan was “an aesthetic judgment, not meant to be racist”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Dissident’s Family Expulsion Revoked by Italian Authorities

Ablyazov family can return, says government

(see previous) (ANSA) — Rome, July 12 — The Italian government said on Friday that the expulsion of the wife and daughter of prominent Kazakh dissident Mukhtar Ablyazov from Italy in June was revoked and that they could return to the country.

“The revocation of the expulsion order will be immediately made known to the Kazakh authorities through diplomatic channels,” a government statement said.

A meeting was held among top Italian government members in Rome on Friday to discuss the deportation of the wife and daughter of prominent Kazakh dissident Mukhtar Ablyazov from Italy in June.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, Premier Enrico Letta, Foreign Minister Emma Bonino and Justice Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri held talks to discuss the case of Alma Shalabayeva and her six-year-old daughter, who last month were taken to Rome’s Ciampino airport and put on a private jet with Kazakh diplomats following a raid by Italian police on a Rome apartment.

Letta, Bonino and Cancellieri have denied knowing about the operation until after the fact.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Decree Against GMO Corn Signed by Ministers

First step in safeguarding biodiversity, De Girolamo says

(ANSA) — Rome, July 12 — Italian Agriculture Minister Nunzia De Girolamo’s battle against genetically modified organisms (GMOs) took a step forward on Friday after a decree prohibiting the cultivation of MON810 corn in Italy was signed on Friday.

The decree was signed together with Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin and Environment Minister Andrea Orlando.

“Today’s decree is only the first step, the most urgent, of a series of further initiatives with which will define a new framework for the cultivation of GMOs in our country,” Girolamo said. “It is a measure that protects our specific (biodiversity), which safeguards Italy from homogenous products…we need to focus on quality,” De Girolamo said.

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.

Italian farmers association Coldiretti said in June that nearly eight out of 10, or 76%, of Italians were against GMOs — 14% more compared to a survey from last year.

“Agricultural entrepreneurs say no and surveys show opposition (to GMOs). If we start growing homogenous produce we lose what makes us characteristic and will this greatly damage our agricultural sector,” De Girolamo said last week.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Local Government Taxes Up 500% Over 20-Year Period

Retailers association says increase ‘exceptional’

(ANSA) — Rome, July 15 — Local government taxes in Italy have increased some 500% over the last 20 years, a study by retailers association Confcommercio said on Monday.

The “exceptional increase” of administrative costs jumped from 18 billion euros to 108 billion euros since 1992, the study said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Bondi’s Comments on Taranto Cancer Rates Sparks Furor

ILVA commissioner summoned by environment minister to clarify

(ANSA) — Rome, July 15 — Remarks made by the government-appointed commissioner of the embattled Italian steel company ILVA, Enrico Bondi, sparked furor on Monday and prompted Italian Environment Minister Andrea Orlando to summon him for clarification. The turnaround guru picked to guide the steel company, which is accused of causing an environmental disaster in Taranto, said the southern Italian port city’s cancer problems are mainly due to the city’s high rates of smoking and alcohol consumption. Orlando summoned Bondi to appear Monday for “clarification” and is also choosing three new experts to oversee clean-up and rehabilitation of the Taranto steel plant, to be appointed by ministerial decree. ILVA has faced enormous problems in the past year, most recently with a decision by the Italian government to appoint a commissioner to take over management of the company’s ill-fated Taranto steel plant in southern Italy.

Enrico Bondi’s job as commissioner is to remediate and revamp the plant — the largest in Europe — located in southern Italy.

ILVA has been at the centre of a political and legal battle since last July when local magistrates ordered the partial closure of the Taranto plant due to serious health concerns. The Riva group, which owns the ILVA steel plant, is the biggest iron and steel producer in Italy, the fourth-biggest in Europe and the 23rd-biggest in the world. Earlier this month, prosecutors asked the courts to indict Emilio Riva, ILVA’s former head, on charges of massive tax fraud.

Milan prosecutor Francesco Greco accused Riva, and two other former executives of the steelmaker, of evading 52 million euros in taxes dating back to 2007.

A London-based executive with Deutsche Bank was also named by the prosecution for assisting in the alleged fraud.

Emilio and Adriano Riva, owners of the Riva group, have been under investigation for fraud against the State and fake money transfers.

Some 1.2 billion euros transferred out of Italy by the Rivas were previously confiscated.

In January, ILVA executive and family member Fabio Riva was arrested in London after two months on the run.

Taranto prosecutors had issued a European arrest warrant for Fabio Riva, the deputy chairman of parent-company Riva, last December saying that he was sought as part of a criminal probe into the environmental scandal at the facility.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Calderoli Says Orangutan Insult Born From ‘Love for Animals’

Firestorm against Senator after latest anti-Kyenge slur

(ANSA) — Rome, July 15 — Deputy Senate Speaker Roberto Calderoli said on Monday that comments about Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge that have been slammed as the umpteenth racist insult by anti-immigration Northern League members were born from his “love for animals”.

The Northern League heavyweight told the Italian daily paper Il Corriere della Sera that his comparison of the Congolese-born minister to an orangutan he made over the weekend was “an aesthetic judgment, not meant to be racist”.

Calderoli said while speaking at town festival in Carroccio a Treviglio near his home city of Bergamo that “when I see her (Kyenge’s) pictures, I can’t help but think of her resemblance to an orangutan”.

Premier Enrico Letta called Calderoli’s comments “unacceptable…beyond every limit,” and expressed his support of Kyenge.

After Calderoli phoned Kyenge to apologize, Lombardy Governor and Northern League leader Roberto Maroni said that the Senator had “done well to do so,” but that the comments had been fueled by “immigration policies proposed by Kyenge that are not only wrong, they contribute to the uncontrollable influx of immigration” into Italy.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Veneto Councillor Says Orangutan ‘Victim’ Of Kyenge Insult

‘God’s creature’ not to be compared to ‘Congolese minister’

(see previous)(ANSA) — Rome, July 15 — A Northern League regional councillor on Monday responded to a firestorm over Deputy Senate Speaker Roberto Calderoli’s comparison of Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge to “an orangutan” by saying that the “real victim is the orangutan”.

Veneto League member Daniele Stival said on Facebook that an orangutan is “one of God’s creatures” and should not be compared to a “Congolese minister”.

Stival removed the post shortly after and said that he had made a mistake.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: PD Says Calderoli Must Quit After ‘Orangutan’ Slur

Remark on first black minister Kyenge ‘inexcusable’

(ANSA) — Rome, July 15 — The Democratic Party (PD) on Monday called for Deputy Senate Speaker Roberto Calderoli to quit for saying Italy’s first black minister looked like an orangutan. The top party in Italy’s grand coalition said the Northern League bigwig’s bid to “minimise” his remarks against Congo-born Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge could not excuse them.

“Enough already,” the PD said in a note after Calderoli claimed he had been joking and he was known for comparing ministers to animals.

“We can’t leave scope for inexcusable racism, insults, the instigation of the worst instincts,” the PD said.

It said Calderoli was already spurring copycat incidents like the rightist Forza Nuova Party dangling nooses during a visit by Kyenge to the Abruzzo coastal city of Pescara Monday.

Calderoli has a history of xenophobic stunts, including a 2006 TV appearance wearing a T-shirt bearing cartoons of the prophet Mohammed which sparked riots in Libya that left 11 dead.

He was forced to resign as reforms minister.

Later that year he made racist remarks about the France team that lost to Italy in the “2006 World Cup Final. In 2007 he campaigned against a planned mosque in Milan, leading a pig over the site.

Kyenge has been the subject of racist abuse, mostly from the anti-immigrant League, since her appointment in the PD’s unprecedented coalition with its traditional foe, the People of Freedom (PdL) Party of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, in April. In April an EMP from the Northern League, Mario Borghezio, said eye surgeon Kyenge, who has been pushing to ease immigration norms, wanted to “impose Congo tribal law” in Italy.

He was ejected from the European Parliament’s euroskeptics’ caucus last month.

In June a municipal League councillor said “someone should rape” Kyenge so she “knows how it feels” following a case of alleged rape by an immigrant. Kyenge has advocated changing laws to improve migrants’ conditions and allow legal immigrants to become Italian citizens before the current age of 18.

The League is in opposition to the PD-PdL coalition, formed after a two-month post-election impasse, but was long Berlusconi’s ally.

Calderoli was the architect of the current controversial electoral law, which he immediately dibbed a “Pig’s Sty” after framing it in 2006, deemed responsible for February’s inconclusive election result. Creating a law more likely to produce a clear winner is one of the priorities of the Pd-Pdl government.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Trial of Councillor for ‘Inciting Rape’ on Kyenge Delayed

Lawyers strike holds up Valandro case

(see related ‘Kyenge’ stories) (ANSA) — Venice, July 15 — The sexual violence trial of a local councillor in Padua on Monday was once more delayed due to a lawyers’ strike. The trial of Dolores Valandro, a local councillor in the northern Italian city of Padua, was put off to Wednesday, marking the second time legal proceedings were put off.

Valandro, formerly of the anti-immigrant Northern League, is accused of instigation to commit racist sex crimes.

Valandro attacked Italy’s first black cabinet member by calling for Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge to be raped in a June 13 Facebook post.

“(Why) doesn’t anyone ever rape her in order (for her) to understand what the victim of this heinous crime feels like?” Valandro, a councillor for a Padua district, said on her Facebook page under a photo of Kyenge.

Valandro has since been expelled from the Northern League and was first called to appear in court July 1.

Members of the Northern League has made repeated attacks on Kyenge.

The Democratic Party (PD) on Monday called for Deputy Senate Speaker Roberto Calderoli of the Northern League to quit for saying she looked like an orangutan, while Premier Enrico Letta said the episode was “shameful”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Netherlands: Minister: Worrying That Population Experiences Islam as Threat

THE HAGUE, 12/07/13 — Vice-Premier and Social Affairs Minister Lodewijk Asscher considers it worrying that part of the population experiences Islam as threatening.

“The increasing visibility of Islam in our society, the different traditions and views, and the association with violence and radicalisation have led to part of the people seeing Islam as a threat. This is a worrying development because this threatens the cohesion and stability in society,” writes Asscher in answer to questions from the Party for Freedom (PVV).

PVV leader Geert Wilders wanted to know from Asscher how he assesses a recent survey by pollster Maurice de Hond showing that a majority of the Dutch consider that no more immigrants from Islamic countries should be allowed in. The population would also welcome putting a stop to the building of new mosques.

Asscher rejects these proposals. “The Dutch Constitution gives everyone the right (…) to exercise their faith in a house of worship or at a comparable location. This cabinet has no objections in principle to new mosques when there is a need for them in society. It is up to municipalities to determine whether or not a new mosque can be built within the municipal boundaries.”

Additionally, the cabinet is not planning to block immigrants from Islamic countries. Asscher: “The Aliens Act specifies under what conditions someone is eligible for a residence permit in the Netherlands. From what country someone comes, taken by itself, is not relevant to (the question of) whether or not to award a residence permit in the Netherlands.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Netherlands: Islam-Friendly Rubbish Bins in Alkmaar

ALKMAAR, 13/07/13 — The municipality of Alkmaar has stationed Islam-friendly rubbish bins in the districts of Oudorp and Overdie.

At the beginning of June, so-called ‘food and bio-containers’ in which residents can dispose of bread and other food remains were placed at various locations in Oudorp and Overdie. This food waste is currently often thrown along the side of a pond, causing nuisance from seagulls.

“The reason that special food containers have been stationed is to do with the fact that throwing away food does not fit into the Islamic culture,” says the municipality on its website. “The bread and other food that comes into the containers is not however destroyed, but processed in two stages into re-usable materials.”

Christian democratic (CDA) Sustainability Alderman Jan Nagengast says people “should be aware that they can cause infestation by throwing food on the street.” In this connection, Alkmaar has visited a number of mosques and “drawn their attention to the disposal of leftover food.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Rents Mean Third of UK ‘Off Limits’ To Poorer Families

LONDON (AFP) — One third of Britain is “effectively off limits” to families on low incomes because of the high cost of rented housing, a report published Monday said.

Even a “modest” private rented property is beyond the reach of low income families in 33 percent of local authority areas, the Resolution Foundation said in its Home Truths report.

It said much of London is out of reach for low income families but warned that the capital is not the only place where people are being priced out.

Other “affordability hotspots” included Aberdeen, Exeter, south Cambridgeshire and Warwick.

The study focused on the cost of housing for the 5.6 million low to middle income households of working age in Britain.

For most of these, home ownership is not an option because of the high deposits required to buy property and many are not eligible for social housing, the think-tank said.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Spain: Slush Funds: Barcenas in Court, Rajoy in Storm

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JULY 15 — Dozens of people staged a protest Monday in front of Madrid’s Audiencia Nacional, a few metres away from the headquarters of the Pardido Popular, just as the former treasurer of the governing Popular Party (PP), Luis Barcenas was being questioned again by prosecutor Pablo Ruz over the party’s alleged slush funds.

Twenty days after his arrest amid a climate of great expectation, Barcenas faced the magistrate with his new defence lawyer, Javier Gomez de Llano. He will have to answer questions regarding the PP’s alleged funds first described in excerpts of diaries published five months ago by El Pais and whose existence the former treasurer reportedly confirmed in an interview published by El Mundo on July 7.

It is possible that the former PP senator, who faces among other things corruption charges, will give the prosecutor a copy of text messages he received from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy until last March though he had not been a party treasurer since 2010.

‘I will always support you Luis, be strong’, the PP leader allegedly wrote. ‘You know which game you are playing but I remain free from any engagement with you and the party’, read the last text message from Barcenas to Rajoy, reportedly sent prior to the media leaks.

The former treasurer has been detained since last July 27 in isolation and without bail over risks he might flee or try and tamper with evidence in connection with the ‘Gurtel case’ concerning the network involving entrepreneurs who allegedly bribed for four years high PP officials in exchange for public contracts.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

The EU Removes the Ban: Philippine Planes Once More Can Fly in Europe

The limitation had been in force since March 2010, for failure to comply with safety standards and cases of corruption. Starting tomorrow the European skies are again open to Philippine Airlines. For September, connections are scheduled with London, Paris and Rome. Experts predict a boom in tourists and a strengthening of the market.

Manila (AsiaNews/agencies)-The European Union has (partially) removed the ban on entry into its territory of planes flying the Philippine flag, after civil aviation authorities in Manila solved some problems regarding the safety of flights. Analysts and experts point out that removal of this obstacle can facilitate a “significant flow” of tourists and an increase of trade between Brussels and Southeast Asian nation.

Guy Ledoux, Eu Ambassador in Manila, confirms that the decision — which will take effect tomorrow — will enable aircraft of Philippine Airlines to resume flights, while the need to strengthen the security measures for other companies remains, such as Cebu Pacific Air.

The Philippine Airlines, which has just bought a new long-range Airbus, intends to restore connecting flights with London, Paris, Rome and Amsterdam from September, as explained by the company’s President Ramon Ang. Instead Cebu Pacific, a low cost carrier, has improved its safety control levels but a recent accident involving one of its aircraft in Davao city has shown that “some weaknesses” still persist.

Philippine authorities have welcomed the decision by the European Union. Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said it will “boost tourism, enhance competitiveness and facilitate the entry of investments from the eurozone.” Manila now expects a similar decision to be taken by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. agency that deals with the safety of flights in the country.

The European Commission had banned the Philippine flights in March 2010, for failure to comply with international safety standards. It is important to underline the commitment of the Philippine authorities in the fight against corruption, one of the endemic ills of society but which has registered some “significant” progress in recent years. In the past, according to some reports, licenses to fly were granted to flight students who had not even passed the skill tests.

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

UK: Battle Over ‘Mosque’ Plan for Canaletto’s Isle of Dogs View of Greenwich

A community centre proposed in a public park with its unique Canaletto view of Greenwich could turn out to be a full-time mosque instead, a church leader in London’s East End has warned.

The claim emerged at the launch of Friends of Island Gardens which is spearheading a campaign to protect the open space on the Isle of Dogs shoreline.

A request has been made to Tower Hamlets Council to build a centre on the ‘World Heritage’ site where Canaletto painted his classic view of Greenwich Royal Palace in 1750.

But the Dean of Christchurch and St Luke’s on the Isle of Dogs called for those behind the request to “be honest” about what the building would really be used for.

“These groups who use our churches for prayer meetings want them five times a day and I can’t say yes,” the Rev Tom Pyle told the launch.

“They’re going to crowd out any other use for the building because in winter the first prayer is 8.30am and the last at 4pm. No other use is going to be possible because it squeezes out other activities like youth clubs or coffee mornings.

“This application is about prayer space. The centre simply becomes a place where that group has to monopolise — I think they should be honest about that.”

More than 100 protesters packed the meeting at Poplar Rowing Club following 2,100 letters that have been sent to the Town Hall demanding the application be rejected. They maintain there are already many community centres on the Isle of Dogs.

Tower Hamlets Tory Group leader Peter Golds told the meeting: “The application is for prayer facilities with separate entrance for men and women. Those making the application call themselves a community group—but they want to run a mosque.”

Protesters were not against Mslem prayer, they pointed out, only the encroachment on the park.

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Here’s How the Conservatives Can Win Back the Working Class

Labour is losing in areas such as the North East, where voters long for an economic revival, writes David Skelton

I went to the Durham Miners’ Gala on Saturday, as I’ve done most years since I was a child growing up in nearby Consett. For me, the soul of the gala isn’t at the city’s racecourse, where an assortment of Left-wing speakers, including Len McCluskey, addressed the crowd. Instead, the beating heart of the occasion is in the parade of banners and brass bands through the most beautiful city in the country, each representing one of the pits in the once-mighty Durham coalfield.

I went to celebrate the culture of the North Eastern mining communities that the region is steeped in. My grandad worked as a pitman in the Durham coalfield, one of the most back-breaking and dangerous jobs imaginable. I went to pay homage to the men and women of these tight-knit villages and to the values of hard work, community and solidarity that kept mining communities together during hard times.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: How Melanie Phillips Became a Culture Warrior

by Mark Tapson

FrontPage Mag readers almost certainly are familiar with British journalist Melanie Phillips from her book Londonistan, which chronicled England’s multicultural slide into submission to Islam, or from her more recent book The World Turned Upside Down, about the West’s slide into secular mass derangement. But few readers may know about Phillips’ own journey from the political left to social conservatism. She takes us on that journey in the short autobiography she just released on her own publishing imprint, EMBooks, an ebook called Guardian Angel: My Story, My Britain.

[…]

Phillips still rejects a political label; she remains focused instead on preserving the values of Western civilization. “And that requires moral, political, and religious leadership of the highest order — and buckets of courage” — which she certainly has.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: The Far Left is Finished in This Country

by Harry Mount

This was the scene at the Marxist Festival in central London on Saturday afternoon. Conditions were perfect for a mass outburst of revolutionary excitement: a cloudless day; the perfect venue at the School of Oriental and African Studies, a hotbed of progressive politics; a bankrupt country and heavy question marks over the future of capitalism. It was late afternoon — when even the laziest students are emerging from their bedrooms. Time to party like it’s 1917! Except, erm, no one turned up.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Vatican Freezes Accounts of Cash-Flight Prelate

IOR probe ‘may touch others’

(ANSA) — Vatican City, July 12 — The Vatican on Friday froze two accounts held in the Vatican Bank by a top prelate and former accounting chief arrested in connection with a failed attempt to fly 20 million euros of laundered money back from Switzerland to Italy. A Vatican investigation into suspect transactions at the bank, whose official name is Institute for Religious Works (IOR), may be extended to other persons as well as Msgr Nunzio Scarano, Vatican Spokeman Federico Lombardi said.

“The Vatican is determined to pursue a zero-tolerance policy on possible financial irregularities, whether by clertics or lay persons,” Lombardi said, citing a recent statement from IOR’s new head, Ernst von Freyberg. Scarano, who until recently led a key Vatican accounting unit, was refused release to house arrest this week in a probe claiming he conspired with a former Italian spy and a financial broker to try to secretly repatriate the cash, allegedly the fruit of tax evasion by a family close to the prelate.

Scarano, from the port city of Salerno near Naples, was suspended a month ago from his job as head of analytic accounts at the Holy See’s asset-management agency APSA when police started sifting through his assets because of his suspiciously large financial holdings and artistic trove.

He was arrested JUne 28 on suspicion of planning to elude customs controls along with Giovanni Maria Zito, a recently transferred agent in the AISI domestic intelligence agency, and financial broker Giovanni Carenzio.

Police said Scarano and Zito set up a private jet to fly the cash for three Salerno-based shipowner brothers, the D’Amicos, whose family was friendly with Scarano.

Zito is suspected of getting 400,000 euros for arranging cover for the flight, which never took place because of last-minute cold feet.

The prelate has told prosecutors he “acted in good faith” and was only “trying to do a favour for the D’Amicos”.

Police have said the D’Amico brothers were the alleged beneficiaries of what they called “a complex and expensive operation to evade airport customs controls and bring back into Italy money that is believed to be the fruit of tax evasion”.

The Vatican has said it would cooperate “fully” with the probe, which gained headlines worldwide and was seen as a fresh blot on the reputation of the troubled IOR.

The Scarano probe is part of a wider investigation into alleged shady transactions at IOR, in which former president Ettore Gotti Tedeschi and his former No.2 were placed under investigation in connection with suspected money laundering.

Gotti Tedeschi was cleared last week but his No.2 and another official were charged in the case.

IOR, to which APSA is indirectly linked, said it would launch an internal inquiry “in line with the zero-tolerance policy promoted by (new) president Ernst von Freyberg”.

German aristocrat and industrialist von Freyberg, appointed in February by Pope Benedict XVI in one of his last official acts as pontiff, last month vowed to bring greater transparency to IOR’s dealings.

Von Freyberg said the bank planned to publish its profit and loss accounts online by the year’s end and would run checks on its 19,000 account holders.

In addition, the bank will start to have a different “communication policy”, and plans to give interviews with “qualified representatives of the international press”, von Freyberg said.

The Vatican Bank has made a series of moves to show greater transparency since Argentinian Jesuit bishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis in March, succeeding Benedict XVI, the first pontiff to voluntarily abdicate in 700 years.

As a new broom with a reputation for plain talking, Francis is reportedly keen to remove stains from IOR’s reputation and get it onto the ‘white list’ of countries with unimpeachable anti-money-laundering credentials.

The new pope has vowed to take on power elites in the Curia, or central governance, of the Catholic Church, and recently admitted he would even have to tackle a gay lobby.

Two days before the Scarano case broke Francis set up a pontifical commission on IOR, to brief the pontiff on the bank’s activities and make sure it operated in harmony with the “Church’s mission”.

After coming into the prosecutors’ cross-hairs, IOR has started working with the Council of Europe’s Moneyval anti-money-laundering agency in a bid to make it onto the white list.

In a report last July, Moneyval said that the Holy See had made progress on financial transparency, but added that more reforms were needed.

The Italian press has increasingly speculated on the fate of the scandal-plagued bank, wondering whether the pontiff might reorganize or shut it down.

The new IOR panel will be chaired by Cardinal Raffaele Farina, and it will include another three prelates and Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon, a former United States Ambassador to the Holy See.

Last month the Vatican’s financial watchdog published its first annual report on the Holy See’s efforts to combat money laundering and funding terrorism.

In it, the Financial Information Authority (AIF) said it had uncovered six cases of suspect transactions in 2012, a notable increase since 2011 when only one such case was flagged.

Two of those cases were sent on to Vatican prosecutors for a probe.

AIF Director Rene’ Bruelhart did not go into the specifics of the transactions, specifying only that “they were not tied to financing terrorism”.

Established by Benedict XVI in 2010, the AIF is charged with monitoring the commercial and monetary activities of Vatican agencies like the Vatican Bank.

Over the years the Vatican Bank has acquired a murky image on transparency.

There have been allegations that IOR was used to launder money most notably by ‘God’s Banker’ Roberto Calvi, the former head of Italy’s biggest private bank, whose body was found hanging under Blackfriar’s Bridge in London in 1982, a suspected victim of the Sicilian mafia.

IOR was also named in kickbacks probes stemming from the 1990 collapse of public-private chemicals colossus Enimont, part of the Clean Hands investigations that swept away Italy’s old political establishment.

More recently, there has been a series of Italian TV reports and a best-selling book claiming to show how individuals have used IOR to squirrel away money, dodging Italian regulations.

A Vatican report to Moneyval is due in December on the basis of a questionnaire the Holy See will receive in September.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

‘World’s Oldest Calendar’ Discovered in Scottish Field

Excavations of a field at Crathes Castle found a series of 12 pits which appear to mimic the phases of the moon and track lunar months.

A team led by the University of Birmingham suggests the ancient monument was created by hunter-gatherers about 10,000 years ago.

The pit alignment, at Warren Field, was first excavated in 2004.

The experts who analysed the pits said they may have contained a wooden post.

The Mesolithic “calendar” is thousands of years older than previous known formal time-measuring monuments created in Mesopotamia.

The analysis has been published in the journal, Internet Archaeology.

The pit alignment also aligns on the Midwinter sunrise to provided the hunter-gatherers with an annual “astronomic correction” in order to better follow the passage of time and changing seasons.

Vince Gaffney, Professor of Landscape Archaeology at Birmingham, led the analysis project.

He said: “The evidence suggests that hunter-gatherer societies in Scotland had both the need and sophistication to track time across the years, to correct for seasonal drift of the lunar year and that this occurred nearly 5,000 years before the first formal calendars known in the Near East.

“In doing so, this illustrates one important step towards the formal construction of time and therefore history itself.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt Crisis: US Envoy Arrives in Cairo as Egyptian Prosecutor Freezes Assets of Top Islamists

A senior US official has flown into Cairo hours after Egypt’s prosecutor ordered the freezing of assets belonging to 14 top Islamists.

Under Secretary of State Bill Burns, the first US official to visit since the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi, is scheduled to stay there until Tuesday, the US State Department said. Burns will push for “an end to all violence and a transition leading to an inclusive, democratically elected civilian government” at meetings in Cairo with various parties, it said.

His visit comes as the new regime applies increasing pressure on Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, already in disarray with key figures detained and others on the run. And it comes hours before opponents and supporters of Morsi are due to hold fresh demonstrations in the capital. International concern is mounting over the detention of Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president, who was toppled in a popularly backed military coup on July 3.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt — After Morsi, Christians and Churches Targeted by Islamists

About a hundred Christian families flee the Sinai after the murder of a Coptic priest and the beheading of a Christian businessman. Gunmen riddle churches with bullets. Christian stores are marked for possible attacks, whilst demonstrations target Patriarch Tawadros, “guilty” of supporting Morsi’s ouster. Christians are likely to be scapegoated by Islamist groups and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Cairo (AsiaNews) — More than a hundred Christian families have fled El Arish in the Sinai after receiving death threats from Islamist groups following the fall of Mohamed Morsi. On 6 July, a 39-year-old priest, Fr Mina Haroan Abboud, was killed. On 11 July, the body of another Christian, a merchant from Sheikh Zowayd, was found decapitated. He had been kidnapped a few days before. Currently, Coptic churches in northern Sinai have cancelled all services and meetings, except for a Mass on Friday. No Christians are left in the towns of Rafah and Sheikh Zowayd.

The Sinai Peninsula has always been a home for Islamist groups, many of them linked to Hamas in Gaza. For decades, they have fought against the Egyptian army as it tried to stop weapon supplies and smuggling into the Gaza Strip. Under Morsi and the Brotherhood, the army had reduced pressure on them but now the military is back in force following the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s successor.

In the few days since Morsi’s removal, the Sinai has seen dozens of attacks against police stations, army checkpoints, and individual members of the Armed Forces. But attacks have also been carried out against the Christians, “guilty” of supporting Morsi’s fall.

On 5 July, a Jihadist group using the name Ansar al-Shari’a in the Land of Kinaanah (i.e. Egypt) issued a statement promising to respond to the “war against Islam in Egypt,” a war waged by “secularists, atheists, Mubarak loyalists, Christians, security forces and the leaders of the Egyptian Army.”

In its statement, the group describes democracy as “blasphemous” in assuming one of God’s prerogative and warns of impending “massacres of Muslims in Egypt”.

Christians, especially Patriarch Tawadros, are accused of conniving with the army to remove Mohamed Morsi.

Coptic Patriarch Tawadros and the Grand Imam of Al Azhar Mosque Ahmed al-Tayeb were present at the ceremony in which Morsi’s removal was announced.

In many pro-Morsi manifestations organised recently by the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Tayeb is branded as a “traitor.”

The Coptic patriarch has also been accused of betraying Egypt. Three days ago in Heliopolis, at least 2,000 young members of the Muslim Brotherhood wrote “Down with Tawadros” on the walls of a (Catholic) church during a demonstration that lasted several hours.

It is likely that the Coptic minority will be scapegoated for President Morsi’s fall and the Brotherhood’s loss of power.

“Tensions are high,” Christian sources in Egypt told AsiaNews, also because the Brotherhood, aided by infiltrated jihadists, is planning a series of anti-Christian terrorist attacks.

Three days ago, the Christian village of Dabaaya was attacked by a group of armed men who burnt 23 houses and killed four Christians. One of them, Emile Nessim, had worked hard to collect the signatures for the Tamarod (rebel) movement that led to Morsi’s fall.

On 9 July, the Mar Mina Church in Port Said was riddled with bullets by a group of unknown gunmen.

In recent days, a group of Islamists drew crosses on some shops owned by Egyptian Copts in Minya (250 km south of Cairo). People are afraid that this ‘Nazi-style’ gesture might be the prelude of a terrorist attack against the targeted buildings.

Some sources note however that in general, after Morsi’s removal, there has been a greater sense of reconciliation between Muslims and Christians, “a stronger solidarity against extremism and for national unity”.

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

Three Killed, 17 Injured in Attack in Egypt’s Sinai

NORTH SINAI, Egypt, July 15 (Xinhua) — At least three people were killed and 17 others injured early Monday in a mistaken attack on a bus in Egypt’s North Sinai, a security source told Xinhua. The source said the assailants intended to attack an armored security vehicle but their rocket-propelled grenades missed and instead hit the bus, which was carrying cement company workers. “There are Palestinian elements involved in the attack,” the security source said on condition of anonymity, noting that the raid took place in an area close to the border with Israel. At least 10 people, including civilians and security personnel, have been killed in attacks by extremists in Sinai in the past week, the official MENA news agency reported.

[…]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Muslim Extremists Force Jews From Temple Mount

Hundreds of pilgrims forced from Judaism’s holiest site by Muslim mob. Activist: “Police failed to carry out their duties again”

Hundreds of Jews came to the Temple Mount Monday in honor of Tisha B’Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the two Jewish Temples by the Babylonian and Roman empires respectively.

But their visit was cut short as Muslim worshippers physically blocked them and appeared to be preparing a riot.

Michael Fua, of the Jewish Leadership faction of the Israeli Likud Party, was at the Mount.

“Today, on the eve of Tisha B’Av, the Israel Police failed do discharge its duties again,” Fua accused. “Hundreds of Jews who came to the Mount from all parts of the Land of Israel, were kept waiting for a long time at the entrance to the Mount, at the only gate where Jews are allowed to pass, while hundreds of Muslims entered from the other gates without any check or delay.

“As the third group that the police allowed inside entered the Mount, many Muslims began to gather and shout. As usual, instead of preventing the rioters from ascending to the Mount and grouping together, the police quickly informed the Jewish pilgrims that it will not allow them to carry out a full tour of the Mount, and quickly made them leave through the nearest gate.”

Fua, who videotaped the event, explained: “The video shows Dr. Yoel Elitzur and some of the ascenders, faced by the Muslim mob that is familiar to us from the previous days. It s amazing to see how the Israel Police plays into the hands of the Muslim rioters, and actually encourages them to threaten and run amok.

“This scenario is one that is known in advance and it is time that the police change their behavior, so that the scenario may change, too.”

“Freedom of religion”

This latest incident comes as Likud-Beyteinu MK Moshe Feiglin challenges a ban preventing him from ascending the Temple Mount.

In the letter to Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, Feiglin said the ban was in contradiction to three basic laws: the Jerusalem Basic Law, the Knesset Basic Law and the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Freedom. Feiglin also claimed the prohibition went against the freedom-of-religion clauses of the Declaration of Independence.

The Temple Mount is Judaism’s holiest site, where the two holy Temples once stood before being destroyed by the Babylonian and Roman empires respectively. This Tuesday marks the anniversary of the destruction of both temples (which occurred on the same day in the Hebrew calendar — the 9th of Av).

Despite its supreme importance to Jews worldwide, Jews are subject to draconian limitations on the Mount, including a ban on praying, due to the presence of an Islamic complex, administered by the Waqf Islamic Trust, and threats by Islamist groups. The Israeli police are able to bypass court decisions upholding the Jewish right to prayer there by citing unspecifiied “security concerns”, either to ban individual activists or even to issue blanket prohibitions on Jews ascending at all.

Religious Jews are followed closely by Israeli police and Waqf guards to prevent them from praying, or from carrying out any other religious rituals.

Non-Jewish visitors are not subject to such restrictions.

Apart from pressuring authorities to ban Jewish prayer, the Waqf has also been accused of destroying Jewish artefacts on the mount, in a concerted effort to Islamize the site and deny all Jewish connection to it.

           — Hat tip: MC [Return to headlines]
 

Bahrain Opposition Fears Expanded Crackdowns Over Calls for Protest Surge

Opposition groups in Bahrain are appealing for authorities to call off crackdown warnings over plans for a major anti-government rally next month.

Protest factions in the Gulf nation have called for large demonstrations Aug. 14 inspired by the toppling of Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi.

Bahrain has been wracked by 29 months of near nonstop unrest as majority Shiites seek a greater political voice in the strategic Sunni-ruled kingdom, which is home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

Authorities have vowed a harsh response to next month’s planned demonstrations, apparently fearing it could sharply escalate the ongoing street clashes.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Israel Struck Syrian Arms Depot in Latakia From Sea

(AGI) London, July 14 — The attack on an arms depot outside the Syrian port city of Latakia on July 5 was not carried out by warplanes but by an Israeli submarine, the British Sunday Times reported. A cruise missile launched from a Dolphin class submarine targeted the regime’s 50 Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missiles. According to the report, the naval intervention was closely coordinated with Washington. If the report is confirmed, the attack was Israel’s first naval intervention in Syria since the civil war began.

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

Kuwait Discovers New Oil and Gas Field

KUWAIT CITY (AFP) — The Gulf state of Kuwait has discovered a new oil and gas field in Kabed area close to the well-known Manageesh oilfield, Hashem Sayed Hashem, CEO of state-owned Kuwait Oil Co said on Monday.

Hashem gave no estimates of the reserves in the field located in western Kuwait but told the official KUNA news agency that more details would be released at a later date.

OPEC member Kuwait is pumping around 3.0 million barrels per day of oil and says it has about 100 billion barrels of crude reserves although the figure had been questioned in the past.

The emirate has earmarked around $100 billion to be invested over the next five years on several oil projects like building a large refinery and upgrading two existing ones.

The investment is part of a long-term plan aimed at boosting oil production capacity to 4.0 million bpd by 2020.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Syrian Rebels Will Return Arms at End of Uprising, Says Minister

Alistair Burt has told the Commons that the Syrian National Coalition had made a commitment to stop arms falling into the wrong hands

Britain should not worry about sending weapons to Syrian rebels because they have promised to give them back when they are no longer needed, a Foreign Office minister suggested yesterday.

Alistair Burt told the Commons that the Syrian National Coalition had made a commitment to stop arms falling into the wrong hands and agreed to “return any such equipment at the end of the conflict”. He was speaking in a backbench debate on military involvement in the Syrian crisis, amid fears that David Cameron would seek to send weapons to the country during the summer recess.

           — Hat tip: TV [Return to headlines]
 

Turkey: Despite the World’s Indifference, Gezi Park Continues to Speak Out Loudly

Forced by protests to stop its redevelopment plan for the park, the government goes after the Chamber of Turkish Architects and Engineers. New clashes break out in Istanbul, with water cannons and tear gas used on the crowd. The death toll rises to five since protests began.

Istanbul (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Forgotten by the international community, Gezi Park demonstrators continue their protest. After the government suspended the redevelopment of the park, one of the last green spaces in old Istanbul, demonstrations started up against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his party. Overnight on Saturday, demonstrators and security forces clashed again near Taksim Square.

Istanbul police attacked a crowd of about 500 people with tear gas and water cannons. The peaceful demonstration, which had begun in Istiklal Street, was organised after the government imposed restrictions on architects and engineers. Protesters also clashed with local merchants, tired by 40 days of continuous protests.

Last Wednesday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the Justice and Development Party Party (AKP), moved to curb the power of the Chamber of Turkish Architects and Engineers (TMMOB) by stripping it of the power to grant final approval to urban planning projects, prompting opposition charges that he is waging a vendetta against the group for its participation in the protests that began on 31 May.

“The government is trying to make the TMMOB . . . pay for all of those events which affected Turkey,” Akif Hamzacebi, a senior lawmaker in the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said.

The TMMOB, which represents some 400,000 professionals, joined the protest movement after it came out against the government plan for Gezi Park, which included building a shopping centre and rebuilding Ottoman-era barracks. As part of its action, the TMMOB launched a lawsuit that forced the government to suspend the project.

The wave of demonstrations that has been sweeping Turkey for more than 40 days began with a protest by some environmentalists against the destruction of Gezi Park, the green lung of old Istanbul, eventually morphing into an open challenge to the ruling AKP and its leader.

Five people have lost their lives during the protests, the latest is a young man of 19, who succumbed last Wednesday after a month in hospital.

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

Bhutan’s “White Gold” Wets India’s Interest

The rivers that flow through the tiny Himalayan kingdom promise great wealth. Large-scale power plants could light up the country and become a source of foreign exchange with neighbouring India. By 2020, more than half of GDP will come from hydro. Experts warn though of possible environmental risks.

Thimphu (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Bhutan’s rivers could be a source of enormous wealth for the kingdom if harnessed by powerful hydroelectric power plants to provide energy (also) to neighbouring India. In co-operation with and funded by New Delhi, the kingdom is now aiming for a capacity of 10,000 megawatts by 2020 with ten new plants. Experts urge “caution” though because of the impact such large-scale projects can have on the environment.

Home to monks and Himalayan nomads, the Kingdom of Bhutan has set its sights on becoming an unlikely energy powerhouse thanks to its abundant winding rivers.

Hydropower plants already harness the country’s water to light up nearly every Bhutanese home, generating power sent to remote villages by cables strung through rugged mountain terrain.

This represents a significant shift for the long-isolated nation, where less than a quarter of households had electricity in 1999, the year when it became the last country to introduce TV.

However, the kingdom has set its goal much higher with renewable hydropower expected to provide more than half of its GDP by 2020.

“It is the white gold for Bhutan today,” said Chhewang Rinzin, managing director of state-owned Druk Green Power Corporation, which runs the country’s hydropower sector.

Bhutan’s first megaproject, opened in the south-western Chukha district in the 1980s, is now one of four major plants which between them have almost 1,500 megawatts of capacity or 5 per cent of Bhutan’s hydropower potential.

However, sceptics warn that the small nation might be biting more than it can chew and could end up “drowning in hydropower”. At the same time, the environmental impact could be huge in exchange for uncertain revenues.

Samir Mehta, South Asia programme director at US-based watchdog International Rivers, warned that hydropower plants faced serious threats from climate change, as well as Bhutan’s susceptibility to floods from lakes formed high in the mountains by melting glaciers.

Bhutan is a small landlocked kingdom of just over 700,000 people, sandwiched between two giants, India and China.

Until 2006, it was ruled by a Buddhist theocratic regime. In 1979, then King Jigme Singye Wangchuck had banned religions other than Buddhism and Hinduism.

In 2008, when 28-year-old Jigme Khesar came to the throne, he also brought to the country new hopes for greater openness. The country’s new constitution recognised freedom of religion for all Bhutanese.

However, people are still required to report to the authorities their religion and many bans and restrictions were kept in place penalising, for example, Christians who make up 0.5 per cent of the population.

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

India: The Massacre of Gujarat, Narendra Modi: Sad as When an Animal Dies

In an interview with Reuters the Chief Minister of Gujarat and a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) says “he does not feel guilty” because he “did nothing wrong”. In the carnage of 2002, almost died 2,000 Muslims died, while Modi did nothing to stop the Hindu militants.

New Delhi (AsiaNews/agencies)- No guilt for the massacres of 2002 in Gujarat, only sadness, “like when you run over a puppy”. This is how Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of the Indian State, has returned to talking about the interfaith massacres that have claimed the lives of thousands of Muslims and for which he is held responsible. Harsh reactions on the part of the Congress (against the government) and the country’s Islamic community, who are asking Modi, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP, the Hindu nationalist party), for an official apology for the comparison.

On February 27, 2002 the carnage of the Sabarmati Express occurred at Godhra, when an Islamic Group attacked and set fire to the train, on board which Hindus were travelling, returning from Ayodhya, the site of an old mosque seized years ago by Hindus. The assault — in which 58 people died — then sparked violent riots of an inter-confessional nature, throughout Gujarat, in which the Islamic community paid the highest price, with almost 2,000 victims. Ever since Modi has been accused of conspiring in the clashes, for not having taken any measures to stop them and not having set up any investigation.

It was this behavior on his part that favored the polarisation of the Gujarati society, where several times in the past Muslims have complained of being “second-class citizens”.

Interviewed by Reuters about the massacres of 2002, Modi said: “I would feel guilty if I had done something wrong.” On the contrary, he added, the special investigation team appointed by the Supreme Court “cleared me of any wrongdoing.” An investigation, the one referred to by the chief minister, was distorted by procedural defects.

But what unleashed the wrath of Congress and of the Islamic community was another controversial phrase by Modi. “If someone else is driving a car — he said — and we are sitting in the backseat, if a puppy ends up under the wheels would it be a sad thing or not? Of course it would. Regardless of whether I am Chief Minister, I am a human being. If something bad happens somewhere, it is natural to be sad”.

A pity, government representatives explained, that in 2002 he was Chief Minister and therefore “at the wheel” of Gujarat. “What does Modi think”, added Kamal Farooqi, spokesman for the Samajwadi Party (Socialist and secularist Party), “that Muslims are even worse than animals?”.

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

India: Orissa: Catholic Nun Gang Raped

A nun, 28, was abducted and raped for a week. One of her cousins is among the attackers. For the archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneshwar, “The perpetrators must be brought to justice [. . .]. What happened is a disgrace”.

Bhubaneshwar (AsiaNews) — A 28-year-old nun was kidnapped and raped for a week by a group of men in Bamunigam, Kandhamal District (Orissa). She was held between 5 and 11 July, but the case was made public only today. “The perpetrators must be brought to justice without delay and the law must take its course. What happened is a disgrace,” said Mgr John Barwa SVD, archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneshwar, who condemned the attack.

The nun, a Kandhamal native, lives in Chennai (Tamil Nadu), where she is studying in college. According to her testimony to police, she received a phone call from a woman about two weeks ago, who reported that her mother was very sick.

On 5 July, she took a train to Bamunigam, where two cousins ??and some friends were waiting to take her home. However, rather than take her to the village of Minapanka, the men led her to a still unidentified place. Here the sister was gang raped for a week.

On 11 July, the attackers left the sister at Berhampur train station, threatening her not to tell anyone about what had happened. The victim managed to reach her village where on 13 July she filed an official complaint.

For now, police arrested her cousin, Jotindra Sobhasundar, and Tukuna Sobhasundear, a friend. The other attackers are nowhere to be found.

The nun received medical assistance and tomorrow her superior will visit her.

According to her brother, the violent act might have been triggered by “family reasons”.Last year, an uncle was killed by Maoist guerrillas, and his children (the nun’s cousins) accused her family of being involved in the murder.

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

India: Christian Clergyman’s Death in Orissa Ruled an “Accident” By Police

Police dismiss the obvious signs of violence on the victim’s body. For the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), “When the anniversary of the 2008 anti-Christian pogroms in Kandhamal approaches, Hindu extremists attack Christians.”

Mumbai (AsiaNews) — “Once again, a Protestant clergyman in Orissa is murdered and the police tries to dismiss it as an accident,” said Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), who spoke to AsiaNews after the discovery of the tortured body of Rev Jaisankar, a medical doctor and pastor at the Blessing Youth Mission, near Lamtaput (Kandhamal district). His funeral will be held today at 4 pm (local time).

Jaisankar went missing Thursday morning as he made his way by motorbike to Lamtaput to provide medical training. Sometime later, his body and bike were found close to the banks of a river. According to the police, it was an accident: the doctor was crossing a bridge when he fell into the river as a result of violent rains, and the current dragged him away.

However, given the type of wounds his body suffered and the conditions under which Christians live in the area, the GCIC believes it was murder.

“In August 2008,” Sajan George said, “all the churches and Christian places of worship in the villages of Fufugaon, Chandrasundi Pada and Narakunduliguda were looted and burnt. Hindu extremists often act out their brutality against the Christian minority, especially when the anniversary of the terrible and brutal genocide of Kandhamal approaches.”

Episodes similar to that of the doctor have already happened in the past, like the death of Michael Nayak in 2011, which was deemed an “accident”. In 2012, the authorities reopened the case as a possible murder.

Anti-Christian violence in August 2008, George noted, “was part of an orchestrated plot, which was also fully supported [by the government] of Orissa.”

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

School That Teaches Afghan Girls to Speak for Themselves

Dah Yaya is an Afghan village set in stony hills and steeped in traditions that limit women to second-class status in this desperately poor country ravaged by Taliban insurgency.

But in a school set up by an Afghan-American woman named a 2012 top 10 hero by TV network CNN, girls are learning to dream of a different future, of saying “no” to the dictats of their elders.

Just a 40-minute drive from Kabul, the village feels as if it’s in the middle of nowhere. The road winds through the arid, dusty hills that encircle the Afghan capital, past mud-brick homes.

Women and girls wear burqas. Only once they are safely behind the gates of the Zabuli Education Center, do school girls take them off and leave them hanging on a banister.

Founded by Razia Jan as part of her battle to educate girls in rural Afghanistan, the school wants to exact change in a country notorious for dreadful women’s rights.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Top Bangladeshi Islamist Found Guilty of War Crimes

Ghulam Azam, wartime leader of Bangladesh’s largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, was sentenced Monday by the International Crimes Tribunal to 90 years in jail for crimes against humanity during the country’s 1971 war of independence.

Bangladesh’s war crimes tribunal convicted and sentenced a former Islamist party leader to life imprisonment on Monday, in the fifth such conviction since January, as violence broke out between police and his supporters across the country.

Bangladesh has been hit in recent months by a wave of violent protests related to the war crime convictions and the unrest presents a thorny law and order challenge to the government, which is gearing up for polls early next year.

Ghulam Azam, 91, the former head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was found guilty on charges of planning, conspiracy, incitement and complicity to commit genocide and crimes against humanity during a 1971 war to break away from Pakistan, lawyers and tribunal officials said.

“All charges have been proved but the death sentence has not been given, considering his age,” state prosecutor Syed Haider Ali told Reuters. Azam has received a 90-year jail term.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Mongolia: Controversy for Naadam: “Enough With Using Kids in Horse Races”

The beginning of the national competition of wrestling, horse riding and archery ignites protests for the use of children in racing: they weigh and cost less. An activist: “The rich must stop exploiting youngsters for their own entertainment.” Over 300 accidents a year, and betting up to 60,000 dollars.

Baatar (AsiaNews/agencies) — There is growing protest in Mongolia for the participation of children in horse races. In at least 30,000 yearly competitions involve child riders aged 7 years and older. The human rights groups are asking the government to raise the minimum age and limit participation.

Thursday, July 11 Naadam began, a traditional Mongolian discipline that combines wrestling, horse racing and archery. Very often, for the 28 kilometres of riding foreseen by the competition, children are preferred to adults: they are lighter and do not tire the animal. However, over the past year, 326 kids at a young age have suffered serious injuries in official matches, but it is estimated that that figure is greater if one takes into account the accidents that occurred in the countryside and that are unreported.

The horse is at the heart of a Mongolian tradition and the discipline of Naadam gathers up a cultural heritage that from Genghis Khan comes down to the present day. In Mongolia it is said that, with their first steps, children also learn to ride on horseback, and on this principle traditionalists defend the practice. “Children fall from horses, it’s the only way to learn horse riding — one trainer sustains — in this way the young child and the horse become a harmonious entity”.

But the figures of accidents and premature deaths in the race are pushing human rights associations rights to fight for greater protection. Baljinnyam Javzankhuu, of the National Agency for children, claims that “over the past 20 years the competitions have become much more cruel”.

With the accomplice of the fortuitous moment of economic expansion experienced by the country in recent years, the discipline of Naadam began attracting a substantial flow of betters. “The rich should stop making children victims of their fun”, explains the Mongolian activist, Oyunchimeg Purev “the children and their families do not receive even a fee”. Bets can arrive at 60,000 dollars for the race and the horses are also insured for a value of millions, while the salary for young jockeys rarely exceeds the $100 per race and the amount spent on insuring them is even lower.

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

Luis Fleischman and Nancy Menges: The State Department Underestimates Iranian Threat in the Western Hemisphere

Last year a bill titled “Countering Iran in the Western Hemisphere Act” sponsored by Congressman Jeff Duncan was passed into law. This law mandated that the State Department issue a yearly report on Iran’s influence and activities in all of North, South and Central America as well as the Caribbean. As a result, on June 27 the State Department released their report to Congress on Iranian influence in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The State Department released an unclassified summary of policy recommendations, but it assessed that “Iranian influence in Latin America and the Caribbean is waning.” According to the report, the main reason this occurred is that international sanctions against Iran “have limited the economic relationship between the Western Hemisphere and Iran.”

The report cites the fact that the Treasury Department designated the Venezuelan Banco Internacional de Desarrollo as an entity targeted for sanctions as well as the state-owned oil company PDVSA. PDVSA was sanctioned for sending petroleum products to Iran. Likewise, sanctions were imposed on the Venezuelan Military Industry Company…

[Return to headlines]
 

385,000 Unemployed Foreigners in Italy

Up 19% for EU Citizens and 25.4% for Non-EU Born

(ANSA) — Rome, July 15 — There were 385,000 unemployed foreigners in Italy in 2012, a year-on-year increase of 19% and 25.4% for European Union and non-European citizens, respectively, an Italian labour ministry report on immigration revealed on Monday.

The report said the figures had assumed “alarming” size over “the long period of crisis”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Broken Immigration or Broken Laws That Are Not Enforced?

Multiculturalism is a failure and has broken Europe financially

Conservatism is dead in public policy, liberalism and democrat party rule, everything they wished to accomplish or do to this country has been done or is being currently done. The Republicans and Democrats are two branches of the same diseased tree, the tree of elitist power and control totally divorced from the will of the people.

“Mexico is outsourcing its poverty to the U.S.” Mexicans and other foreign nationals are pouring over the southern border. There are signs in every language possible, primarily in Spanish, teaching people how to come across the border, how to get food stamps, and many other benefits in the United States.

The open borders crowd is elated, including former President George W. Bush. In ABC News “This Week,” he commented, “I think it is very important to fix a broken system, to treat people with respect, and to have confidence in our capacity to assimilate people.”

Sen. Rubio and the Gang of Eight are doing the bidding for corporations and farmers who want cheap labor and for Democrats who want new voters, a glaring reflection of a “confluence of elitist interests.” Open borders policy invites the invasion of our country by unwanted illegal immigrants.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Netherlands: Bulgarian Immigrants Are Often Uneducated Turks

THE HAGUE, 10/07/13 — Immigrants from Bulgaria are often ethnic Turks. They are poorly educated, usually have no work and the majority want to continue to live in the Netherlands, according to a study by the Socio-Cultural Planning Bureau (SCP) presented Tuesday.

The SCP studied Poles and Bulgarians that have emigrated relatively recently to the Netherlands and are officially registered as residents at municipalities. The study shows wide differences between the two groups.

On 1 January 2013, 111,000 Poles and 21,000 Bulgarians were registered in the municipal register. Among the Bulgarians, half consisted of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria. Only 47 percent of them have work. Among other Bulgarian, this figure is 59 percent.

Labour market participation among Bulgarian women is extremely low at 36 percent. Bulgarian men are much more likely have a job in the Netherlands (67 percent). The Bulgarians with a job however are mostly working few hours. They often work for a Turkish-Dutch employer in the Netherlands.

Among the recently migrated Poles, 84 percent have a job in the Netherlands, and 70 percent of them have had an education at least to MBO level. This is seen by the government as the minimum level for having good prospects on the labour market.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Sicily: Landed Migrants Knock on Residents’ Doors for Help

Siracusa citizens give first assistance to 63 immigrants

(ANSA) — Siracusa, July 15 — A group of 63 migrants left on the Sicilian shore by traffickers near the city of Siracusa overnight Sunday knocked on residents’ doors asking for assistance.

Most of the migrants waited for police and coast guards, though several tried to flee before authorities arrived, police said.

All 63 were taken to a migrant center for identification.

Thousands of migrants flood toward Europe across the Strait of Sicily each summer as warm weather brings calmer seas, and the islands of Lampedusa, Pantelleria and Malta provide stepping stones to the continent.

Many come from Northern Africa looking for jobs, but also from further south and other parts of the globe.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Prelates Blast Palermo for Gay Logos on Saint’s Day

‘Pride’ projections on cathedral ‘deviant’

(ANSA) — Palermo, July 15 — A representative of Palermo’s prelates on Monday slammed the festivities for the Sicilian capital’s patron saint, Saint Rosalia, for “homosexual ideology”. “Shame! We are touching the bottom,” wrote Don Fabrizio Moscato, secretary of Palermo Archbishop Paolo Romeo, on a Facebook page.

Moscato was shaken by the projection of Gay Pride and LGBT logos on the facade of the Palermo Cathedral in front of thousands of faithful gathered for the religious celebration Sunday evening.

The images, which were taken during last month’s national Gay Pride festivities, were part of a series of videos of events that took place over the past year in the city. Moscato berated the “homosexual ideology projected on the noble southern portico of the Palermo Cathedral” and the “symbols of gay pride and recognition of homosexual unions placed next to a newborn”.

The priest posted photos of the projections as well as images of the ceremonial float used to carry the sacred saint’s statue to the cathedral.

The priest complained that the float was decorated with “orgiastic motifs”.

“Who can convince me that this is all normal? Who can have arguments to defend a real insult to the nobility of the faith that the Santuzza (Little Saint) and the Cathedral represent?” the priest wrote.

“This is the exploitation of children! This is a future imposed on minors by minority groups who have a false and deviant view”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Nanosized Aluminum Being Sprayed in the Atmosphere, Causing Degenerative Disease, Says Neurosurgeon

(NaturalNews) Back in the 1960’s, quiet scientific dialogue began about global climate change and how it can be manipulated. What might have turned into a productive discussion of responsible protection of Earth’s climate and ecosystem had eventually evolved into a mad, controlling science experiment. By the 21st century, jumbo jets were being deployed to drop billions of dollars of nanosized aluminum and other particles into the skies. In attempts to reflect sunlight away from the Earth and cool climate temperatures, this science experiment has exploited populations of people to mass amounts of airborne metals that are literally raining down and poisoning everyone, slowly, subtly.

According to neuro-surgeon Russell L. Blaylock, the nanosized aluminum particles found in chem-trails are contributing heavily to degenerative disease today.

Like in bio-engineering, where scientists rewire the DNA of crops, creating genetically modified foods, geo-engineering is the global attempt to manipulate the sun and Earth’s climate. In both mass engineering operations, “professionals” try to play “God,” but it’s a given — nature and natural processes cannot and were never meant to be controlled. Hence, we see the unintended consequences of degenerative disease occurring today due to GMOs and geo-engineering. All the disease statistics are neglected, however, as controllers justify their means.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Toxic Chemicals in Personal Care Products Causing ‘Epidemic’ Of Skin Allergies

(NaturalNews) Be careful which facial creams, shampoos, moisturizing soaps and other personal care products you buy and use, as many of them apparently contain a chemical linked to causing what some experts have now dubbed an “epidemic” of skin allergies and other dermal issues. A new report compiled by dermatologists reveals how the preservative chemical methylisothiazolinone, or MI for short, has led to a massive increase in eczema and other skin allergies in recent years, and calls on regulators to ban the chemical.

Long used in many conventional care products as a deterrent for bacteria and other harmful pathogens, and as an alternative to toxic parabens, MI is generally recognized by regulatory authorities in both the U.S. and Europe as safe and non-toxic. But its practical use in the real world tells a much different story, with many people reporting severe allergic and other negative reactions when exposed to it. The situation has gotten so out of control, according to reports, that some dermatologists are now calling for an immediate moratorium.

“We are in the midst of an outbreak of allergy to a preservative which we have not seen before in terms of scale in our lifetime,” says Dr. John McFadden, a consultant dermatologist at St. John’s Institute of Dermatology in London, as quoted by the Telegraph. “Many of our patients have suffered acute dermatitis with redness and swelling of the face. I would ask the cosmetics industry not to wait for legislation but to get on and address the problem before the situation gets worse.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

3 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 7/15/2013

  1. @UK: The Far Left is Finished in This Country.

    Who needs the old far left when you have the hybrid Marxism of muscular liberalism, islamification and globalisation?

    @‘World’s Oldest Calendar’ Discovered in Scottish Field.

    Counterintuitively recent archaeological finds in the British Isles appear to be reversing the pole as to the movement of ideas and technology to one of north to south.

  2. Exactly Jolie Rouge, the far left of the 1950s and 1960s is now the cultural marxist gang of three that rule the country. The consensus of that era, perhaps the old centre ground is now the far right. The British people have not moved to the far right, they have been moved to the far left on the surface, except for the few of us who refuse to budge and accept the common sense of our father’s and grandfather’s generations.

    As regards the Vice-premier and Social Affairs Minister of the Netherlands, Ludicrous Asscher, methinks he is stark raving bonkers and had better keep his neck covered for the day when it will be severed by a jihadist sword.

  3. Pingback: Beginning of the End | Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 | Anewwe's Search for Eudaimonia

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