The Israeli cabinet voted 13-7 to release 104 imprisoned Palestinians, clearing the way for the renewal of “peace” talks, as demanded by Secretary of State John Kerry and the United States. Among those released will be murderers responsible for terror attacks that killed innocent Israeli civilians.
In other news, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church warned against gay marriage, saying that the movement to legalize gay unions risks bringing on the apocalypse.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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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.
Italian Pensions Body Inps to Reimburse Extra Taxation Hits
Measure applies to so-called golden pensions over €90,000
(ANSA) Rome, July 26; A higher tax rate slapped on retired Italians enjoying pensions of more than 90,000 euros gross per year introduced by the Italian government in recent years in an attempt to boost state revenue has been revoked, the Italian pension body Inps announced on Friday. Beneficiaries will be reimbursed the additional amounts withheld in 2013.
The measures are being enacted in the wake of a recent Constitutional Court ruling that sentenced the taxation hike norms as being illegitimate.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Govt Aiming to Abolish Provinces by 2014
‘Savings of over one billion euros’ says minister
(see related) (ANSA) — Rome, July 26 — Regional Affairs Minister Graziano Delrio said Friday the government was aiming to abolish Italy’s provincial governments before provincial elections in 2014, saving over one billion euros in public expenditure. “We’re aiming to prevent the renewal of provincial administrations in 2014 elections. We think we can convince parliament this is necessary. We’re full of hope and faith but not certainty,” he said. Earlier on Friday Premier Enrico Letta’s cabinet approved a bill that will strip many of the powers of Italy’s provincial governments ahead of plans to abolish them completely in Constitutional reforms. The move to abolish the provincial governments is part of a drive to reduce the cost of Italy’s political apparatus as the country’ struggles to emerge from its longest recession in over two decades. Letta’s government has also presented a bill to phase out public funding of political parties and there are plans to cut the number of lawmakers in parliament too. The bill passed Friday will also reorganise Italy’s town and city councils, merging many and creating metropolitan authorities for big cities and their surrounding areas, if it is approved in parliament.
The president of the Union of Italian Provinces (UPI), Antonio Saitta, said Friday it would seek damages against the government for the ensuing “cuts to resources for citizens and services” contained in the bill. “This will crowd municipalities that do not have facilities to handle technical and critical functions, such as the management of 5,000 school buildings,” he added. “Education should be considered a priority”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Number of Civil Servants in Greece Down to 614,053
After 15,000 departures in the first half of this year
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, JULY 26 — Almost 15,000 people left Greece?s civil service in the first half of 2013, according to a new website that keeps track of the number of public sector workers. According to the site, apografi.yap.gov.gr/, the state currently employs 614,053 people. Of these, some 92,500 work at local authorities. The biggest employer is the Education Ministry, which has 184,292 staff, which includes teachers. Just over 40% of civil servants have a university education and more than a third are aged between 40 and 49, as Kathimerini reports.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Southern Italy Suffers Recession More Than Rest, Report Says
GDP down 2.5% in 2013, consumption and wages drop
(ANSA) — Rome, July 26 — The economic recession will hurt southern Italy more than the rest of the eurozone’s third-largest economy, with the local economy expected to contract 2.5% this year compared to the 1.7% drop forecast for the center-north of the nation, according to a new report released on Friday. Svimez, a group that promotes economic development in southern Italy, said that consumption in the south is expected to drop 4.2% compared to the 2.8% forecast for the rest of the nation, while it is estimated that investments will decline 11.3% in the period compared to a 5.4% drop in the central-northern area. Wages meanwhile are expected to decline 1.4% in the centre-north compared to 2% in the South, and exports will drop 1.1% in the centre-north compares to a 2% drop in the south.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Drowning in Sea Level Nonsense
It’s not the sea level rise you should worry about. It is the rising levels of national debt and the deficit
New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D) and forty members of Congress believe the sea levels are rising, that a panel should be created to determine what should be done, and, of course, to throw billions of dollars at a problem that does not exist. Politicians were eager to scare the public with the discredited global warming hoax and now they have found a new one.
In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has proposed a $20 billion flood barrier system to protect the city from future hurricanes and rising sea levels. Well, hurricanes like tropical storm Sandy are real, but rare. Rising sea levels, however, represent no threat at all.
William Happer who researched ocean physics for the U.S. Air Force and is currently a physics professor at Princeton University notes that “The sea level has been rising since 1800, at the end of the ‘little ice age’“, a cooling cycle last from around 1300 to 1850. Far from heating up, the Earth entered a new cooling cycle around 1996 or so.
Harrison Schmitt, a former Apollo 17 astronaut, U.S. Senator, and a geologist, says “Predicting a sea level rise of seven feet over the next few thousand years would seem too risky a prediction on which to spend tax dollars” and that is surely an understatement. Wasting billions on “climate change”, however, is the new siren call of the Obama administration, but the National Research Council is warning, as Fox News reported, “that those kinds of subsidies are virtually useless at quelling greenhouse gases.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gramsci in the ‘Hood — Why Italy’s Marxist Icon is Being Honored in the Bronx
In the art world, auctions and mega galleries dominate. There are departed graffiti artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat who sell for tens of millions of dollars. Venice’s biennial tips its hat to ‘outsider’ artists, such as Antonio Ligabue, and mixes them with ‘insiders’, such as Richard Serra.
Enter Thomas Hirschhorn, a creator of installations, spaces, meeting places similar to bidonvilles or Brazilian favelas — a real outsider. He is the last survivor of social art which aims to change not so much the history of art as the art of history — and of life.
Invited by the visionary director of the New York DIA Foundation, Frenchman Philippe Vergne, Hirschhorn visited 46 of New York’s 334 public housings units in search of the perfect place to build a monument to Antonio Gramsci, the revolutionary philosopher and founder of the Italian Communist Party.
In the end, he chose Forest Houses, an urban complex in the South Bronx which, until a few years ago, suffered from extremely high crime rates. Today the situation has improved a little. Once he had found the location, Hirschhorn moved there with his wife and child and started to work with the people of the neighborhood to create his idea for the monument.
“A precarious monument, a short-term monument,” he tells us, shirtless and lanky with glasses which make him look like a cartoon character from the 1960s.
Hirschhorn has already built three monuments in this series dedicated to intellectuals he admires. One in Amsterdam in 1999 dedicated to Baruch Spinoza; another in 2000 in Avignon to honour Gilles Deleuze; and a third in Kassel in 2002 to celebrate Georges Bataille.
“I dedicated monuments to these philosophers because they are thinkers who help us to believe in our capacity for reflection, they give strength to our thoughts, they encourage us to be active,” he explained. “I like the idea of full-time thought. I like philosophy.”
Gramsci’s will be the last. Anyone expecting a traditional style monument — a sculpture of Gramsci seated, maybe on a stool, with a book in his hand — will be surprised…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Hounds From Hell Nipping at Our Heels
“The Trilateral Commission is the President of the United States; I represent the Trilateral Commission.” Henry Kissinger; see The True Story of the Bilderberg Group, Daniel Estulin
Those who doubt the awesome but evil power of secret societies are in denial because denial is a much more comfortable place to exist. It’s much easier to accept all the lies, all the time. To acknowledge the level of deceit and betrayal by almost every president for more than a century, as well as ‘revered’ business magnates and members of the Outlaw Congress is simply too much for trusting Americans. So many millions who truly do not understand how brutal and ugly “the game” is and how it’s been affecting their lives.
The American people have been directed, manipulated and driven in the desired direction for more than a century. Between the government’s indoctrination centers they call public schools, conditioned blind loyalty to the two main political parties in this country, the Ministry of Propaganda (mainstream media and cable networks), most never had a chance. The majority will stay in denial, continue blaming the other party or are of the cattle class; they simply spend their days grazing until they’re led to the slaughterhouse. Only at the end does the stench of death reach their nostrils; by then it’s too late.
Some secret societies are “religious” based, others occult, some satanic, most have no political loyalty, only an agenda. They are simply mad indivdiduals who lust for power every waking moment. Ignoring the under pinings of those organizations leaves an individual with no truth as to the factions destroying this country as well as the rest of the world…
“Thirty-five years ago, in the November 1978 and April 1979 issues of Trilateral Observer, Antony C. Sutton and myself wrote the following analysis on China. We warned of the disastrous effects that would result if these policies moved forward, and we thoroughly exposed the members of the Trilateral Commission who were almost solely responsible for China’s ascendent rise as a world power. That no one listened at the time is self evident, because nothing changed and no one resisted. (For clarification, names of Trilateral Commission members are in bold type.)” Rest at link above.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. — James Madison
God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it. — Daniel Webster
If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. — Samuel Adams
I always find it interesting that I receive more letters from readers when I simply write about my emotions regarding what is happening in America. When I deliver researched articles that I’ve worked on for weeks, I get letters, but not the volume I get when I write from my heart. Real Americans, Decoration Day, and The Christmas Thing, resulted in my mailbox being flooded with letters from readers who said I’d struck a chord with them. Those folks, especially those my age, all seem to understand exactly what I mean, but it’s only when I write truly, “from the heart.”
“Are You Proud To Be An American?” was published on May 13, 2013, and I received a letter in my mailbox which made me weep. It still makes me weep every time I read it. I asked Shirley, from Wolverhampton, England, if I could share her wonderful heartfelt letter. So, here is the letter I received from a woman in England who longs for freedom, and still looks at America as a shining beacon of liberty.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Today The Hill reports that Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who head the Senate Finance Committee and are working on a complete rewrite of the U.S. tax code, have assured their colleagues that any of their requests to preserve a loophole will be kept secret by the National Archives for 50 years. The details of the story, all true, read as if they were dreamed up by a 10-year-old after watching Thunderball: “Each submission will also be given its own ID number and be kept on password-protected servers, with printed versions kept in locked safes,” The Hill writes. Until 2064. It isn’t clear who holds the key to the safes, or whether, as in a nuclear silo, there are two key-holders to prevent actions of conscience.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The federal government is asking us to not only allow all of our information to be in one place, but to trust them with it.
The Affordable Care Act is so despicable, even the Republicans are beginning to see the reality that it must be repealed, not replaced.
Barack Obama, and his minions, know that they are losing ground, and are doing whatever they can to get support back for the federal health care law, while targeting individuals, and handing out waivers to allies, and delaying business killing mandates against companies. Never mind that from a constitutional perspective, regardless of what the ideology-influenced Supreme Court Justices say (remember, those people are supposed to be apolitical, but their rulings, and the opinions attached to those rulings, are telling us otherwise), health insurance, and health care in general, is not an authority granted to the federal government by the United States Constitution in the first place.
As time passes, the truth about the dangers that Obamacare poses become more and more apparent. None of it surprises those that have opposed the monstrosity from the beginning, be it rising health care costs, rising insurance premiums, tyrannical mandates, and unworkable programs. In fact, they have been illegally amending it just to try to make some of the components work. It is so complex, the law is unworkable, unenforceable, and too general. . . by design.
Ultimately, the plan is for all hell to break loose, for the failure of the system to be astronomical, and then Obama stepping in to save the day with federally controlled socialized medicine (a.k.a. Single Payer).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Scientists Discover What’s Killing the Bees and It’s Worse Than You Thought
As we’ve written before, the mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America’s apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow. Now, a new study has pinpointed some of the probable causes of bee deaths and the rather scary results show that averting beemageddon will be much more difficult than previously thought. Scientists had struggled to find the trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study published today in the journal PLOS ONE, scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have identified a witch’s brew…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Diana West: What Geert Wilders is Reading on His Summer Vacation
From RTL Nieuws, a story about what Dutch political leaders are reading on their summer vacations: De PVV doet geen uitspraken over het vakantieadres van Geert Wilders. Maar hij heeft wat lichte lectuur meegenomen, zoals ‘Understanding dhimmitude’ en ‘American Betrayal’, vertelt z’n voorlichtster.
Translation (via Google translate): The PVV will not comment on the holiday address of Geert Wilders. But he has brought some light reading, such as ‘Understanding Dhimmitude’ and ‘American Betrayal’, says his spokeswoman.
Understanding Dhimmitude is Bat Ye’or’s new book. American Betrayal, of course, is mine…
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
France: Police Seize 60 Tonnes of Eiffel Tower Souvenirs
Police in Paris seized a mammoth sixty tonnes of miniature Eiffel Towers this week as part of an investigation into illegal street peddling in the city’s tourist hotspots.
The massive stash of mini ‘Iron ladies’ was discovered in a warehouse in the Paris suburb of Bourget, police revealed on Thursday.
Police estimate that the objects, which were to be supplied to around 100 illegal street vendors in Paris, are worth a total of around €176,000.
Officers also seized €156,000 in bank notes and €20,000 in coins during the raid.
On Tuesday, police also arrested two suspects believed to be at the centre of the criminal network, a 41-year-old Chinese shop manager and her brother, aged 40.
Their shop, located in the 3rd Arrondissement of the French capital, supplied around 100 sellers with souvenirs, raking in profits of more than €500,000, far more than the shop’s declared income of €33,000.
A source close to the case told French daily Le Parisien that the raid was carried out as part of wider operation aimed at increasing security for the millions of tourists who visit the capital each summer.
“This means trying to put a stop to the illegal sellers who pester tourists around France’s most famous attractions,” the source said.
In April Paris’s police force also launched an operation called “Paris en toute sécurité” (“Safe Paris”) aimed at alerting tourists to the activities of illegal street peddlers in the city, TF1 television reported.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: New Mafia Probes Ordered Into PDL Senate Whip
Schifani suspected of ties to Cosa Nostra boss
(ANSA) — Palermo, July 26 — New probes into suspected Mafia links by the Senate whip of Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) Party are to go forth, a judge ordered Friday, rejecting a motion to close the case. Renato Schifani, who was until recently Senate Speaker, is suspected of meeting Cosa Nostra boss Filippo Graviano when he was a lawyer in Palermo in the 1980s.
A judge on Friday ordered prosecutors, who had requested dropping the case, to dig deeper, giving them 120 days to carry out a new round of investigations. Among other things, the judge told investigators to further explore Schifani’s alleged ties to the Brancaccio gang, indicating seven mobsters-turned-witnesses to be interrogated. “The added probes will only confirm my complete innocense,” said the PdL whip. The probe was shelved in the past but reopened on the strength of informants’ claims in summer 2010.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Friends Rally Around Del Turco After Bribery Conviction
Ex-governor admits he had ‘lost hope’ with sentence request
(ANSA) — Pescara, July 22 — While former Abruzzo Governor Ottaviano Del Turco admitted Monday that he had “lost hope” before he received a prison sentence of more than nine years in a bribery case, colleagues quickly rallied to his cause. “I was and remain convinced of the innocence of Ottaviano Del Turco, to which I express closeness and friendship,” said Daniele Capezzone, who heads the House finance committee and is a coordinator of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party.
He spoke after an Italian court sentenced Del Turco to nine years, six months in prison for involvement in the exchange of health-sector bribes.
The judge initially mis-read the sentence as nine years and nine months before it was later corrected to nine years and six month.
Outside his home in Collelongo, Del Turco reacted quietly.
With his son Guido by his side, Del Turco admitted to reporters that he had “lost hope” when the prosecutor requested a 12-year jail term.
Del Turco, a former Socialist trade union leader and ex-finance minister, was arrested with nine others five years ago on charges of fraud, corruption, embezzlement and money laundering involving some 14 million euros.
Prosecutors said Del Turco took bribes of almost six million euros.
“I can not come to terms with the sentence…Even before despair and bitterness, I have a feeling of absolute disbelief,” said Giuliano Cazzola, a former trade unionist and friend of Del Turco.
After a career in trade unions, Del Turco rose to the top of Bettino Craxi’s Socialist Party before it was swept away in the Bribesville scandals of 1992-94.
He stayed in the centre left and served as head of parliament’s anti-mafia commission between 1996 and 2000, when he was named finance minister. He stayed in the post for just over a year.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Red Tape Ensnares Esselunga
Twenty health and safety officials, national insurance inspectors and officers from Carabinieri, police, financial police, and forestry authorities swoop at Novara to check thirty workers
MILAN — This time, there will be no Dolce&Gabbana-style lock-out. Yet the surprise visit by officials from the INAIL insurance institute, the provincial employment office, the INPS social security offices, and officers from the Carabinieri, the police, the financial police and the forestry authorities, to check a building site’s compliance with regulations must have seemed a tad over the top to Bernardo Caprotti. To make things worse, the gaggle of inspectors who turned up early on a June morning at the Corso Vercelli site in Novara was twenty-strong.
The Esselunga founder no longer writes books complaining about red tape but at 88 years of age, he is still feisty. In La Spezia, he spent two decades making appeals and counter-appeals before managing to open the only Esselunga outlet in an area dominated by its arch-rival Coop. In other words, red tape and law suits are meat and drink to a man who has created a supermarket empire with more than 20,000 employees and a turnover of €6.8 billion. However this time, say sources close to Caprotti, the inspection at Novara “stuck in his craw. Eight hours with the police, the Carabinieri and the financial police standing guard to make sure none of the workers escaped and then seventy-five pages of reports because someone left his name tag at home”. That’s right. According to Esselunga, “at 9 am on 26 June, officials and officers appeared at the entry to the site to carry out an inspection. From 9am to 5 pm, every single site worker spent about two hours of the working day with them…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Ministers Respond to Racist Banana Attack
The latest racist attack against Italy’s first black minister, in which bananas were hurled at her during a rally, sparked outrage across the political spectrum Saturday.
Immigration Minister Cecile Kyenge was speaking at a Democratic Party (PD) rally on Friday when an unidentified spectator threw bananas at her, missing the stage but sparking reactions of disgust from across the country.
Shocking cases of abuse have multiplied against Kyenge, an Italian citizen born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, climaxing earlier this month with a member of the anti-immigration Northern League party who likened her to an orangutan.
Kyenge, who has refused to rise to the bait or write Italy off as racist, immediately reacted to the banana attack by slamming it as “a waste of food”.
Social networks lit up with reactions, and ministers and politicians took to Twitter to voice their anger and support for Kyenge.
Italy’s environment minister Andrea Orlando expressed “utter indignation for the wretched act”, while the agriculture minister, Nunzia De Girolamo, said “Kyenge has shown that faced with idiotic and violent acts, sometimes the best weapon is irony.”
At a rally for the Left Ecology and Freedom (SEL) party on Saturday, where she was received with warm applause, Kyenge said she was “proud to be Italian.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Masked Man Tries to Nab 3-Year-Old
A masked man attempted to kidnap a three-year-old girl from a playground in Frölunda, Saturday night, according to Swedish Radio P4 Gothenburg, however the girl’s older brother managed to stop the man from taking his sister.
A few little kids were playing, when a car drove up, according to Jan-Erik Lundberg from the police. A masked man got out of the car and gathered the girl up and tried to take her with him, continues Lundberg.
The girl’s nine-year-old brother then stepped in, kicking and hitting the man, who eventually released the girl and fled back to the car, where a driver was sitting, ready to make a get-away, according to P4 Gothenburg.
Police have no information about the car, and are hoping to trace DNA from the perpetrator through the girl’s clothing.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Barack’s Egyptian Hoax: American Influence Must Never Help Impose Tyranny!
When the Muslim Spring movement arrived amongst much fanfare, the liberal elites heralded this as Obama’s foreign policy coming of age. Muslim Spring is the Barack inspired doctrine offer to aid resisters against Middle East dictators, helping any rebels despite whatever beliefs they espoused. How wise it was, they exclaimed, to direct wars from far-away, to keep American troops out of harm’s way, and lead from behind!
Other more realistic analysts declared the notion of tossing aside foreign leaders, some strongly pro-American, a recipe for disaster. (see Obama Support of “Arab Spring” Clear Marxist Values Leading to Sharia Law Revolution) Further, the idea that America would look the other way while Muslim Shariah Law-directed governments were established across the zone, with US aid, seemed surreal. In short order, the governments of Egypt, Libya, Yemen and now Syria were part of a movement replacing secular tyrannies with what pompous leftists claimed would be an American Revolution type undertaking. Instead, as seen in Egypt, a functional, and US friendly secular tyranny was replaced by a radical Muslim dictatorship imposing Shariah Law, inserted by the Muslim Brotherhood radicals who engineered the coup.
In brief, the problem in Egypt is the problem in the Middle East — Obama decided to back a coup for a group of men who were Muslim radicals and didn’t seem to mind, against one of America’s most reliable allies — Hosni Mubarick. If this isn’t troubling enough, when the Egyptians themselves became alarmed at the new government’s draconian powers, America did nothing. Further, when the military finally stepped in and removed Muhammad Morsi, Barack was steamed. Obama acted as if the entire idea behind removing Mubarak — by far the world’s wealthiest man at $700 billion, according to Forbes — was to install a Muslim law government.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
More than 1,000 prisoners have escaped from a Libyan jail this afternoon, it has emerged.
Libyan security officials said the mass jailbreak occurred at Koyfiya prison, near the eastern city of Benghazi.
The jailbreak happened as protesters stormed the offices of Islamist-allied parties in Libya’s main cities.
Protesters had massed across the country angry over the killing of an activist critical of the country’s Muslim Brotherhood group.
Today, hundreds gathered in the capital Tripoli after dawn prayers, denouncing the Friday shooting of Abdul-Salam Al-Musmari. They set fire to tires in the street and demanded the dissolution of Islamist parties.
‘We don’t want the Brotherhood, we want the army and the police,’ Libyan protesters chanted, repeating a slogan also used in Egypt.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Spanish Mums ‘Trapped’ By Moroccan Baby Ban
Fifty Spanish families who adopted Moroccan babies a year and a half ago are not being allowed to take the children back home with them to Spain. Monica Díaz first met her adopted son Abdallatif in an orphanage in Rabat when he was not even a month old.
Nearly two years on, new adoption laws in Morocco mean she hasn’t been able to take him back home with her to the Spanish region of Catalonia.
“They’ve asked us to be patient, but it’s been nearly 22 months of suffering,” she told Catalan daily La Vanguardia.
Monica, who is self-employed and used to pay Abdallatif regular visits in the early stages of the adoption, has now had to move to Rabat to ensure her son is not taken away from her.
Along with 50 other families, she is waiting for a signature on her son’s passport which will allow him to leave Morocco.
What was once a relatively straight-forward adoption procedure has been hindered by a change of government in the North African country.
Abdelilah Benkirane’s moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party, which has ruled since late 2011, introduced a new law which prevents non-residents from adopting Moroccan children.
“They don’t want to sign my son’s leaving permit,” Maribel, a Basque woman who shares a flat with Mónica in Rabat, told La Vanguardia
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Talks With Palestinians to Begin Informally on Monday After Cabinet Approves Prisoner Release
The cabinet paved the way on Sunday for negotiations with the Palestinians to start informally in Washington on Monday, as it voted 13-7 to approve the talks and empower a ministerial committee to release 104 Palestinian prisoners over the next nine months.
Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who heads the Israeli negotiating team, and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s envoy Yitzhak Molcho left Sunday evening for the US. They were expected to hold a preliminary meeting Monday at US Secretary of State John Kerry’s home with Palestinian negotiators Saeb Erekat and Mohammad Shtayyeh, and then begin the negotiations in earnest on Tuesday.
Related: •Referendum Bill to face first Knesset vote Wednesday•List of the 104 prisoners to be releasedKerry phoned Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas Sunday evening to extend a formal invitation to the talks. According to a statement put out by the State Department, the meetings will “serve as an opportunity to develop a procedural work plan for how the parties can proceed with the negotiations in the coming months.”
The decision to approve in principle the release of prisoners — and to set up a ministerial committee empowered to determine when and which prisoners will be released — came at the end of a nearly six-hour, sometimes emotional, cabinet meeting. The seven ministers who voted against the move included Likud ministers Gilad Erdan and Israel Katz, Yisrael Beytenu ministers Yair Shamir and Uzi Landau, and Bayit Yehudi ministers Naftali Bennett, Uri Ariel and Uri Orbach.
Likud ministers Silvan Shalom and Limor Livnat abstained.
Those who voted for the proposal were Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Yuval Steinitz, Moshe Ya’alon and Gideon Sa’ar from the Likud; Sofa Landver and Yitzhak Aharonovitch from Yisrael Beytenu; Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid, Yael German, Yaakov Peri, Shai Piron, and Meir Cohen; and Hatnua’s Tzipi Livni and Amir Peretz.
The prisoners, all incarcerated for attacks that took place prior to the 1993 Oslo Accords, are to be released in four different stages.
The idea behind the gradual release, according to Israeli officials, is to ensure that the Palestinians uphold their commitments during the initial nine months of negotiations not to take unilateral actions during this period against Israel in the UN or at other international forums, and not to immediately walk away from the negotiating table.
Netanyahu, who made phone calls to his ministers on Saturday night to ensure passage of the measure, told the cabinet he did not need to be lectured about the pain or difficulty involved in releasing terrorists with “blood on their hands.”
“I want to remind you of my personal history,” Netanyahu said during the cabinet debate. “My brother was killed commanding a force to release hostages who were being held to negotiate the release of terrorists,” he said, in reference to his brother, Yoni, who was killed in the July 1976 Entebbe raid.
“I was injured in the raid on the Sabena plane [in 1972] that was hijacked in order to release terrorists. I remember entering the plane as bullets whistled around me. I apprehended the terrorist Theresa Halsa. Seven years later she was released during the period of Menachem Begin in a deal that freed terrorists.”
But Netanyahu was not the only one who brought a personal twist to the vote. Shalom, the energy and water minister, got choked up explaining that he would abstain, and mentioning his father — the manager of a bank branch in Beersheba, who was killed during a bank robbery when Shalom was only six years old. Livnat, who also abstained, spoke of her nephew who was killed two years ago in a terrorist attack.
Peri, a former head of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), said that “as someone who was responsible for chasing and arresting many of those murderers, this is a very difficult decision that breaks the heart and is a tragedy for bereaved parents.
But not going back to the negotiation table would be even worse.”
Peri, along with Netanyahu, Ya’alon, Livni, and Aharonovitch, will comprise the ministerial committee that will decide when to release the 104 prisoners.
Netanyahu told the cabinet that any decision to release some 15 Israeli Arabs convicted of pre- Oslo terrorist attacks would have to come back to the cabinet for approval.
Netanyahu began the discussion, during which nearly every minister spoke, saying that this was not an “easy” moment for him.
“It is not easy for the ministers. It is not easy especially for the families, the bereaved families, whose heart I understand,” he said. “But there are moments in which tough decisions must be made for the good of the country and this is one of those moments. I believe that resuming the diplomatic process at this time is important for the State of Israel, both in order to try to bring about an end to the conflict and given the complex reality in our region, especially the security challenges from Syria and Iran.”
Netanyahu said somewhat elliptically that being involved in a diplomatic process will make it much easier for Israel to act — and stop actions — in the area.
Israel, he said, had three interests in re-engaging now with the Palestinians: To try to find a solution to the conflict; to prevent negative trends against Israel in the international arena from gaining steam; and to allow Israel to better prepare to deal with the “challenges and opportunities” in the region.
The main opposition to the move inside the cabinet came from Bennett, who said the prisoner release was a “slippery slope.”
“Once we released a terrorist in return for a soldier, then we released hundreds of terrorists for a soldier, then hundreds of terrorists for a dead soldier,” he said. “Now we are releasing a hundred terrorists for ‘process.’ We are showing the world that for us everything is negotiable.”
According to one participant in the meeting, the key speech was given at the outset of the debate by Sa’ar, the interior minister, who up until then had not given a clear indication of how he would vote.
“It would be easy and popular to vote against,” he said. “But what would happen if all of us, or even half of us, vote against? A negative vote means that Israel rejects the understandings the prime minister reached with the US secretary of state. Negotiations will not begin, and Israel will be blamed, even by its best friends in the world.”
Sa’ar said it was an understatement to say that Israel’s international standing at the present time was “not easy,” and that the release of the prisoners could not be divorced from the greater context of the talks and Israel’s international standing…
| [Return to headlines] |
400,000 Minors Abused by Inner Circle Person in Turkey: Report
Up to 400,000 children have been sexually abused by family members or relatives in the past 20 years in Turkey according to official reports, Turkish daily Taraf reported yesterday.
Reports from Social Services and the Child Protection Institution, and the Children Bureaus of the Police Department have shown that the number of under-aged being sexually assaulted by a family member or someone close to the child or family lies between 350,000 and 400,000 in the last 20 years. Reports have shown that 80 percent of the perpetrators either directly know the child or the parents closely.
Only 27 percent of sexually abused children shared their situation with someone, though this usually happened long after the assault took place, while the larger part did not tell anyone about the abuse they underwent. A total of 32 percent of these children did not speak to anyone about the sexual assault even after they became adults.
Reports also showed that Turkey ranked number one in searches on sexual images of children within the 13-19 years age bracket, while Turkey tops the list in searches for the words “çocuk pornosu/child porn” on the Google search engine. The children aged between 13 and 19, who can be seen in sexual images and footage found online, number over 36,000. Of these children, 42 percent are under the age of seven, whereas 77 percent are aged nine or younger. Only one percent of the children whose images are put online could be identified.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia Awards $22.5 Bln Contracts to Build Riyadh Metro
The Saudi Arabian government awarded $22.5 billion in contracts to three foreign-led consortia on Sunday for the design and construction of a metro rail system in the capital Riyadh.
The project, which will involve six rail lines extending 176kilometres (110 miles) and carrying electric, driverless trains, is the world’s largest public transport system currently under development, Saudi officials said.
U.S. construction giant Bechtel Corp heads a group which won a $9.45 billion contract to build two lines, the government announced.
A consortium led by Spain’s Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas won a $7.82 billion contract for three lines, while Italy’s Ansaldo STS heads a group that won a $5.21 billion order.
Design work will start immediately and construction will begin in the first quarter of 2014, the government said. The project would be completed in 2019.
Flush with cash after more than two years of high oil prices, Saudi Arabia is pumping billions of dollars into infrastructure projects designed to improve living standards and ease social discontent in the wake of the 2011 uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world.
Last August. the government approved a $16.5 billion plan to modernize the transport system in its holy city of Mecca, including building a bus network and a metro system.
It is also building several other rail systems, including a 2,750 km line running from Riyadh to near the northern border with Jordan.
Saudi officials said Riyadh’s population was projected to grow from 6 million to over 8 million in the next 10 years, making the metro vital to ease congestion and pollution in the capital’s streets.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Majority of Imprisoned LGBTs Kept in ‘Solitary Confinement’
A majority of imprisoned lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals are effectively being held in solitary confinement, and are not allowed to join activities with other prisoners, the Justice Ministry has revealed. The ministry issued a statement on the status of imprisoned LGBT people in response to questions posed by Zafer Kiraç, the chair of the Civil Society in the Penal System Association (CISST).
The ministry’s answers, provided within the framework of the “right to information,” further indicated that providing a “health report” to prove sexual orientation was a precondition, in language that has caused fury among LGBT associations. The ministry’s plan to build a separate facility for LGBT individuals has also rung alarm bells.
“Planning is done so that detainees and convicts in the LGBT situation do not come together with other detainees and convicts when taken to common use areas and social activities in the penal execution institutions,” the Justice Ministry said in its response delivered on July 24.
“Also, it is being planned that a special type of institution will be built for those detainees and convicts in the LGBT situation,” the statement read, causing worry on its repercussions that might doom the LGBTs to further isolation.
The ministry stated that there were a total of 79 LGBT individuals currently in prison, eight in custody, 71 convicted. However, the real number is arguably higher, since sexual orientation can be identified only when expressed.
Planning regarding daily life in prison is done “by taking into account the legal provisions and the physical conditions of the institution,” the ministry added, describing a practice which is likely to leave room for many LGBT people not being able to enjoy these rights.
According to the ministry’s answer, when prisoners declare themselves as LGBT prior to entry into penitentiary, they are asked for a health report and put into wards with those in the same situation. Yet, since the LGBT prisoners are dispersed across 16 penitentiaries, most of them are in practical solitary confinement.
Being asked to present “a health report indicating their situation” is usually regarded as paving the way for medical examinations that might violate human dignity.
Another notable feature of the ministry’s response was its use of the phrase “having LGBT” to refer to LGBT individuals, sparking controversy over whether it was therefore being regarded as an illness.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Equipped with miniskirts, kitten heels, and assault rifles, these are the goose-stepping girls who led North Korea’s biggest ever show of military might yesterday.
Kim Jong Un’s battalions of babes were taking part in a lavish display intended to strike fear into North Korea’s adversaries and rally the country’s beleaguered populace behind its youthful Dear Leaer.
Solemn faced and tightly regimented, they marched amid columns of tanks, artillery and farm equipment that showed the isolated dictatorship remains on a war footing 60 years after the end of the Korean war.
Also on show were a broad array of ominous-looking missiles which, it is feared, could be used in conjunction with North Korea’s plans to become a nuclear-armed state.
The assembly of weapons and troops was reminiscent of the marches held by the Soviet Union and China at the height of the Cold War.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Suriname Wants Dutch Compensation for Slave Trade
The former Dutch colony of Suriname has joined Caribbean nations to press for compensation from the Netherlands, the UK and France for the lingering legacy of the Atlantic slave trade. Caricom, a regional organisation for the Caribbean Community, has taken up the cause and is preparing for a long drawn-out battle with the countries’ governments. It has engaged British law firm Leigh Day, which waged a successful fight for compensation for hundreds of Kenyans who were tortured by the British colonial government during the Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s and 1960s, the Guardian newspaper reports. Caricom will target the Netherlands on behalf of Suriname, the UK on behalf of the English-speaking areas of the Caribbean, and France on behalf of Haiti. According to Caricom, the legacy of slavery includes widespread poverty and under-development. Saint Vincent prime minister Ralph Consalves told the Guardian any settlement should include a formal apology. Earlier this month, social affairs minister Lodewijk Asscher stopped short of an apology when he expressed the government’s ‘deep regret’ for the Dutch slave trade. He was speaking at a ceremony to mark 150 years since the Netherlands banned slavery in its former colonies.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Britain is less able to keep track of its visitors than Disney World, it was claimed last night, as a scathing report exposed the failings of official immigration statistics.
Crucial estimates of arrivals from overseas rely on random interviews carried out with just 12 people passing through ports and airports each day — and even they may be lying, MPs said.
Ministers were warned they should not base their controversial immigration target — to limit population growth to the tens of thousands every year — on such shaky figures.
The Public Administration Select Committee urged the Home Office to combine its visa figures with forthcoming electronic data on visitors to build up a far more accurate picture of foreigner numbers.
Committee chairman Bernard Jenkin said: ‘Most people would be astonished to learn that there is no attempt to count people as they enter or leave the UK.
Philippa Roe, leader of Westminster City Council, said: ‘When I gave evidence to this committee I said Disney World has better technology to keep track of its visitors than we do. I’m pleased this report accepts the current system is a blunt instrument which is patently not up to the job.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Imagine Making Children Illiterate
Not all at once, by some surgical procedure.
No, this will be a slow, subtle process, taking place over years. Every step will be conducted with utmost seriousness. Scientific validity will be claimed. Endless research will be constantly referenced.
If there is little progress or outright failure, teachers always seem amazed, as if such a thing had never happened before. Principals explain that the school is doing everything it can, if only parents would help in this delicate training.
Children and families will be told with absolute confidence: we use the best methods here and our students learn to be lifelong readers. Neither assertion is true.
What sort of people could participate in such a charade? How could they come to work each day, observing happy, normal children in the playground, and knowing they will be kept from reaching their full potential?
[…]
That verdict is a harsh one and makes us uncomfortable. But this pattern goes back to 1930s, when Whole Word was first introduced. It can’t work; and the people in charge had to know it didn’t work. (Phonics is always the correct choice). It’s simpler to understand all our problems if you simply accept this description: the fix was in. Ideologues plotted to make sure that the schools would dumb down children, rather than elevate them. Bogus methods had to be used.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Orthodox Leader Condemns Gay Marriages, Warns of Apocalypse
Head of the Russian Orthodox Church warned Western governments on Sunday against legalization of same-sex marriages what he called a sign of approaching end of the world. Patriarch Kirill said during a service at Moscow’s major cathedral that the recent initiatives in a range of countries to legalize same-sex marriages “is a dangerous and apocalyptic symptom” that should not spread over to Russia, according to Russian media reports. While those who “fight the laws imposed by the minority are subject to repressions,” Kirill, who leads the Church known for its conservative views, was quoted as saying during his speech at Kazan Cathedral near Red Square on Sunday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Human-Animal Hybrids: Sick and Twisted Chimeras Are Being Created in Labs All Over the Planet
Did you know that scientists all over the globe are creating extremely bizarre human-animal chimeras? Over the past decade, there have been some absolutely stunning advances in the field of genetic modification. Today, it is literally possible for college students to create new lifeforms in their basements. Unfortunately, laws have not kept pace with these advancements, and in many countries there are very few limits on what scientists are allowed to do. As you will read about below, extremely creepy human-animal hybrids are now being created in laboratories all over the planet. And this is just the stuff that is publicly admitted. Can you imagine what kind of sick and twisted experiments are taking place in the dark corners of secret labs that nobody knows about? And what happens if these creatures get out into the wild and starting mating? At that point, it would be nearly impossible to “put the genie back into the bottle”. Scientists seem very eager to test the limits of what is possible, but what they are unleashing may have consequences that none of us ever dreamed possible.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Interesting the comment from the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church about gay marriage when viewed against the Zagorsk Prophecy of 1911 which said that a spirit from hell would overtake the Russian people – Marxism – which would have nothing to do with the Russian soul and that it would lead to the division of Germany into two and the collapse of America before Russia would go out to re-christianise the world. Russia is now swimming strongly against the Marxist tide no doubt aware of the millions of Russian deaths Marxism caused.
However, as regards the apocolypse, I was recently reading a children’s book on the Vikings and there was a description of Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods. Here in England we face the Twilight of the English through state-engineered genocide. We could also say that we face the Twilight of the Europeans. Hence, the description seemed to strike a chord as many people are beginning to wonder about the end of days.
Ragnorok was to be preceeded by massive floods, fires and earthquakes until the whole world burns when both gods and men will perish. The whole is brought about by the evil spirit, Loki, who killed the Christ-like Baldur. In fact much of the description is reminiscent of the Second Coming. Loki was to unite all the forces of evil to bring down the gods and their world. Some feel that extreme climatic events now taking place are somehow mirroring the taking over the world by evil; i.e. a small plutocratic elite controlling the banking system and hence the economies of all major countries.
But Ragnorok is meant to be succeeded by a new golden age. Is that the one predicted by Zagorsk when St Michael casts the Satanists who have taken over the world and their Marxist useful idiots down into hell and Holy Russia leads us in the anti-Marxist counter-revolution.
By the way, another thought struck me about these Marxists, their islamic bully boys are much the same as Hitler’s brownshirts and they, like Hitler himself a weak little man, as they are. They are using fanatical young muslims to bring about their international socialist revolution for them, just as Hitler did with his national socialist revolution.
There has just been a programme on television here in Britain about children forced to work in the textile mills as virtual slaves – including my own grandmother – for about the same length of time that there was black slavery. Plus of course the first slaves in America were white but could not take the climate. Plus, European society was based on slavery from the time of the Greeks to the end of the middle ages. Greeks, Romans, Saxons, Vikings, Normans etc all had a slave class underpinning society but one which depended on the classes above it to survive. Can I respectfully suggest, therefore, that Messrs Leigh Day turn their attention to seeking compensation for almost every European citizen, especially the Slavs/Slaves whose ancestors were used as slaves by the classes above them. We Europeans were nearly all slaves at one time or another but we are not lingering in destitution and playing the blame game because of it. We have just pulled ourselves together and got on with it.
Well put! my surname is Edwards, where are lord Edward’s ancestors for me to sue??? it seems to me the afro population in the USA is enslaving itself with this entitlement nonsense,
This will not buy an ounce of good will from the barbarians. Muslims understand force. And that’s all they understand. This is stupid stupid stupid!