Gates of Vienna News Feed 8/15/2013

The death toll in the most recent government crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood has risen to 525, according to the Egyptian Health Ministry. After denouncing the military’s actions against the camps in Cairo, President Obama decided to cancel next month’s joint military exercises with Egypt.

In other news, a woman named Sherrilyn Church is challenging Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd for his parliamentary seat on a platform of “no more mosque-building”. Ms. Church says that Islam is not primarily a religion, but a legal system whose laws are in violation of Australian law.

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

Thanks to Fjordman, Green Infidel, JD, McR, Papa Whiskey, 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
» California Economist Says Real U.S Debt $70 Trillion, Not $16.9 Trillion the Government Claims
» UK: £800million Bill for Hiring Consultants to Replace Government Staff Made Redundant With £300million in Pay-Offs
 
USA
» Citizens Alarmed as Militarized Cops Invade Missouri Neighborhood
» City Reduces Police Force by Placing Public Under Constant Surveillance
» ‘Conscious Living’ Community Raided at Gunpoint by SWAT in Yet Another Paramilitary Police Action
» Lead Gardasil Developer Clears Conscience, Admits Vaccine is Useless and Deadly
» Marine Corps Colonel: Homeland Security Building “Domestic Army”
» Martha’s Vineyard: ‘Birthplace of the Man From Nowhere’s Presidency’
» MSNBC Attempts to Connect Hate Groups to Alex Jones
» NSA Domestic Spying “Built on Lies”
» Obama Pushes for World War 3 With Proxy Wars, Vicious Relations
» Obama, EPA Plan Climate Change Action Without Congress
» ObamaCare Provision “Forced” Home Inspections
» Oliver Stone: ‘Obama is a Snake and We Have to Turn on Him’ (Video)
» One Conservative Missing From CNN’s New “Crossfire”
» U.S. Military Veteran Describes How Vaccines Made Service Members Sick
 
Canada
» Manure-Filled Hot Tub Leads to Quebec Man’s Arrest
 
Europe and the EU
» Norway: ‘Taxi Ride With PM Made My Bad Back Worse’
» Scotland: Dunfermline Teenager, Daniel Perry, 17, Kills Himself After Blackmailers Trick Him on Skype
» Sweden: Beware: The Surströmming is Let Out of the Can!
» The Siege of Byzantium
» UK: Breast Implants Suicide Bomb Threat: Heathrow on High Alert Over “Credible” Intelligence
» UK: Eat Ento: Students Hope to Break Prejudice Against Eating Bugs by Opening Pop-Up Restaurant
» UK: Number of Stay-at-Home Mothers Falls to New Record Low
» UK: Surgeons and Dentists With HIV to be Allowed to Operate on Patients After Ban is Lifted by Government
» UK: Women Who Fear Being Forced to Marry Abroad Told to Hide Spoon in Underwear
 
North Africa
» Condemning Egypt’s Crackdown, Obama Cancels Joint Military Exercises
» Death Toll in Egypt Violence Climbs to 525, Health Ministry Says
» Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood Assaults 22 Christian Churches
» ‘Incoherent’ Obama Policy on Egypt Under Fire as Violence Spreads
» Obama on Egypt: ‘We Don’t Take Sides’
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Israel Court Rules to Stop Water Fluoridation in 2014 Due to Health Concerns
 
Middle East
» Interfaith Outreach in Syria: Islamic Jihadists Murder Italian Priest
» Iranian Candidate Nina Siahkali Moradi ‘Too Attractive for Politics’
» Poland: Knife Attacker Held. Drunk Turk Attacked With a Knife a Passer-by in Pleszew.
» Syria: Video: Obama Backed Militants Execute Teenage Boys
 
Far East
» After More Than 40 Years of Mounting Guilt, Aging Chinese Apologise for Cultural Revolution ‘Evil’
» Dangerous Operation at Fukushima’s Reactor No. 4 Could Ignite “Atomic Chain Reaction”
» Early Humans Lived in China 1.7 Million Years Ago
» Is This the World’s Worst Zoo? Visitors’ Fury After Staff in China Try to Pass Off Tibetan Mastiff as a Lion and a Mongrel as a Leopard
» Letting TEPCO “Clean Up” Fukushima is Like Letting a Murderer Do Brain Surgery on a Vip
 
Australia — Pacific
» Kevin Rudd Challenger for Griffith, Sherrilyn Church, Proudly Opposes Islam and Wants Mosques Banned
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Justine Greening Backs Nigeria’s ‘Sensible’ Space Programme
 
Latin America
» Meet the Olinguito, The Shy ‘Bear-Cat’ That’s the First New Carnivore to be Discovered in the West for 35 Years
» More Fast and Furious Guns Surface at Crimes in Mexico
» More ‘Fast and Furious’ Weapons Appear at Mexico Crime Scenes
 
Immigration
» 100 Romanians and Bulgarians Take a Job in Britain Every Day, Official Figures Show
» Rubio: Obama Will ‘Basically Legalize’ 11 Million by Executive Order if Immigration Reform Fails
» UK: 200 Languages Spoken in Manchester by Its Population of Just 480,000
 
Culture Wars
» PC Orthodoxy is Destroying America
» Stopping Hate Speech Spread Via Internet Tops Agenda of UN Anti-Racism Committee
 
General
» Google Says Email Users Have “No Legitimate Expectation” Of Privacy
» Honey in Modern Wound Care: A Systematic Review
 

California Economist Says Real U.S Debt $70 Trillion, Not $16.9 Trillion the Government Claims

The federal government has been low-balling the public for years on how much debt it actually has, a University of California, San Diego economics professor says, adding that the real amount is $70 trillion — not $16.9 trillion.

James Hamilton’s claim the United States is in a much deeper financial hole than many realize comes as Congress gets ready for another budget battle when lawmakers return in September. Both sides have been digging in on their policy positions over the debt, spending and the country’s future fiscal health.

Hamilton believes the government is miscalculating what it owes by leaving out certain unfunded liabilities that include government loan guarantees, deposit insurance, actions taken by the Federal Reserve as well as the cost of other government trust funds. Factoring in those fees brings the total amount the government owes to a staggering $70 trillion, he says.

Hamilton believes important areas of federal off-balance-sheet commitments include loans for post-high school education, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve System.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK: £800million Bill for Hiring Consultants to Replace Government Staff Made Redundant With £300million in Pay-Offs

The government has spent £800million calling in consultants to do the work of staff made redundant with pay-offs worth almost £300million.

The revelation sparked claims Whitehall departments have ‘let good people go’ before rehiring former civil servants on expensive, temporary contracts.

The spending also flies in the face of a ban on the use of external consultants as part of the government’s austerity programme.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Citizens Alarmed as Militarized Cops Invade Missouri Neighborhood

In order to justify the use of heavily armed and militarized cops in routine police work, police now say they must rely on SWAT teams to serve felony arrest warrants. In South County, Missouri, police rolled out their SWAT force on Tuesday evening, alarming citizens.

“An unidentified man pulled up around 8:15 p.m. was frisked by police and then detained for questioning, but what got neighbors here very upset happened a few minutes earlier,” reports FOX2Now in St. Louis. “It was the presence of a SWAT team, complete with officers wearing armor and carrying assault rifles surrounding the man’s home as police went to the door. One woman frantically told her husband, the army’s here.”…

While the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security have exploited the war on terror as an excuse to militarize Officer Friendly, there is a more logical explanation for this disturbing trend — the state considers the American people an existential threat and is reacting accordingly.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

City Reduces Police Force by Placing Public Under Constant Surveillance

In 40-foot high watch towers, police officers are practically prison guards over population.

A New Jersey police department is replacing their beat cops with “virtual patrols” that can spy on you.

The Camden County Police Department recently created the Real Time Tactical Operation Intelligence Center in order to “help a reduced police force” by installing 120 cameras across the city, according to My9NJ.

The cameras can record in real-time and save footage for future use.

The police department also monitors the public with a mobile 40-foot high sky booth called the “Sky Patrol,” which is practically a prison guard tower.

The booth is high enough for police to intimidate the population below while scanning a wide area of the city with cameras, thermal-imaging, and other sophisticated spy tech.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘Conscious Living’ Community Raided at Gunpoint by SWAT in Yet Another Paramilitary Police Action

(NaturalNews) A small, Texas-based group calling itself a “sustainability community” says it was raided by a police SWAT team over suspicion that members were growing and distributing marijuana, but officers were unable to locate any contraband.

According to a press release from the group, which calls itself The Garden of Eden, “a small Intentional Community based on Sustainability,” Arlington P.D. SWAT officers raided the community the morning of Aug. 2, awakening inhabitants while executing a search warrant. But, says the group in a press release, no pot was found.

“Ultimately only a single arrest was made based on unrelated outstanding traffic violations, a handful of citations were given for city code violations, and zero drug related violations were found,” said the group.

Seriously, a SWAT team?

Officers were reportedly on scene for about 10 hours, group officials said, conducting searches that “involved many dozens of city officials, SWAT team [sic], police officers and code compliance employees.” The group said “numerous official vehicles including dozens of police cars” were involved in the operation, along with some “specialized” vehicles that were involved in the “‘abatement’ operation.”

“Witnesses say that there were helicopters and unmanned flying drones circling the property in the days prior to the raid that are presumed to have been a part of the intelligence gathering,” said the release. “The combined expenses for the raid itself and the collection of information leading up to the fruitless raid are estimated in the tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars.”…

The group said that city code enforcement officials ordered members to cut the grass, destroy some wild and cultivated plants including blackberries, lamb’s quarters and okra, and remove “other varied materials from around the premises such as pallets, tires and cardboard that the Community members say they had collected for use in sustainability projects.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Lead Gardasil Developer Clears Conscience, Admits Vaccine is Useless and Deadly

(NaturalNews) Did you know that one of the lead researchers involved with developing the two available vaccines for human papillomavirus (HPV), Gardasil (Merck & Co.) and Cervarix (GlaxoSmithKline), admitted back in 2009 that the jabs are essentially useless and more dangerous than the very conditions they are hailed as preventing and treating?

Before the vaccine industry apparently convinced her to change her story — you can read more about the saga here — Dr. Diane Harper, a key developer of Gardasil, is on the record as having cleared her conscience about this fraudulent vaccine, which has been shown to be both ineffective and dangerous.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Marine Corps Colonel: Homeland Security Building “Domestic Army”

A former Marine Corps Colonel who was stationed in Fallujah and trained Iraqi soldiers warns that the Department of Homeland Security is working with law enforcement to build a “domestic army,” because the federal government is afraid of its own citizens.

The comments by the Colonel, whose identity remains unknown, were made during public testimony at a Concord City Council meeting on Tuesday. The meeting concerned a decision on whether to accept a $260,000 Homeland Security grant on behalf of the Central New Hampshire Special Operations Unit to purchase a BearCat armored vehicle.

The purchase of the vehicle has been surrounded by controversy after the city’s Police Chief wrote in an application filing to the DHS that the vehicle was needed to deal with the “threat” posed by libertarians, sovereign citizen adherents, and Occupy activists in the region.

Referencing signs in the crowd which read “More Mayberry, Less Fallujah,” the Colonel spoke of how he didn’t even have armored vehicles when he was stationed in Fallujah.

The Colonel’s role as a Ministry of Defense coordinator was to command, train and equip the Iraqi Army, noting that he helped do everything he could “to make it as strong as possible,” but that “Homeland Security would kick their butts in a week.”

Stressing that it was unlawful and unconstitutional to use US troops on American soil, the Colonel warned, “What’s happening here is we’re building a domestic military,” adding that police are now “wearing the exact same combat gear that we had in Iraq, only it was a different color.”

The Colonel warned that the DHS was following military tactics by, “pre-staging gear and equipment” in order to build a “domestic army” while shrinking the US military “because the government is afraid of its own citizens.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Martha’s Vineyard: ‘Birthplace of the Man From Nowhere’s Presidency’

Like a homing pigeon, President Barack Obama always returns to Martha’s Vineyard.

There since Saturday, Obama vacationed in Martha’s Vineyard in 2009, 2010 and 2011, missing only last summer when he was running for re-election.

But is it really the lure of the ocean or wanting to get in golfing and family time that keeps bringing him back?

It now turns out that ‘The Presidency of the Man from Nowhere’ both began and continues in Martha’s Vineyard, where uncrowned ‘Queen Behind the Oval office’ Valerie Jarrett is a longtime summer resident.

Senior Obama advisor and Assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, Jarrett, who receives full-time Secret Service Protection, has 24-7 access to Obama White House living quarters, making the Martha’s Vineyard getaways for the two all the more curious.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

MSNBC Attempts to Connect Hate Groups to Alex Jones

Hate groups rise because whites are no longer “geographically dominating”

Progressive talk show host and strong supporter of repealing the Second Amendment, Alex Wagner, devoted an 11-minute segment to bashing documentary filmmaker Alex Jones Wednesday afternoon on her MSNBC show Now with Alex Wagner. Wagner opens the segment reminding the public how many people were killed and wounded in the Boston marathon bombing.

She quickly leads into deceased Boston bomber suspect Tamerlane Tsarnaev’s interest in “far right-wing conspiracy theories.” Despite there being no evidence whatsoever, Wagner alleges that Tamerlane was a fan of Alex Jones. She even accuses Alex of “influencing” the behavior of the Boston bomb suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlane Tsarnaev.

Wagner says, “The bombing suspects may not have been the radical jihadists that they were initially believed to be. Older brother Tamerlane Tsarnaev was reportedly a fan of far right-wing conspiracy theories.”…

This certainly isn’t the first time the mainstream media has dedicated segments to bashing Alex Jones, however the segments seem to be getting longer.

This illustrates the establishment media’s growing fear that they’re losing the information war.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

NSA Domestic Spying “Built on Lies”

Kit Daniels recently wrote a brief but very enlightening news story on InfoWars.com:

“On the August 6 edition of the Alex Jones Show, Dr. Ron Paul responded to this very straightforward statement which appeared in a recent New York Times article:

“‘Some analysts and Congressional officials suggested Friday that emphasizing a terrorist threat now was a good way to divert attention from the uproar over the N.S.A.’s data-collection programs, and that if it showed the intercepts had uncovered a possible plot, even better.’

“‘Well, it’s not amazing that this is the truth,’ Paul said in response. ‘It’s amazing, I think, that the New York Times would admit it.’

“Paul went on to say that the NSA’s claim of saving Americans from dozens of terrorist attacks is simply rhetoric to prove that the agency’s massive spying on Americans is a good thing.

“‘Their (the NSA officials) claimed successes are all built on lies,’ Paul said.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama Pushes for World War 3 With Proxy Wars, Vicious Relations

Barack Obama is pushing harder than ever to fuel hot proxy wars against Putin’s Russia, publicly comparing him to Hitler and Stalin on national television, and pushing relations to the brink of full scale war.

When we really look at what’s going on, really looking at the way Obama and his handlers are pushing such outlandish and venomous attacks on every front against the slightest possibility of enhanced foreign relations, we come to the realization that Obama is intentionally generating the spirit of conflict between Russia and the United States. And, while we were discussing this months ago, it’s now being highlighted in the Russian media and internationally as a blatant reality.

First and foremost we need to examine the ‘hottest’ form of instigation that is currently ongoing from the Obama administration, and that is the Sryian proxy war that virtually no one knows about. As I’ve reported in the past, Obama is of course funding the Syrian rebels who run around in the streets beheading the Christians and innocents in general bloodlust. Well, that’s bad enough, but it just so happens that Russia is aiding and supporting the opposing side in the war for Syria — Assad’s forces.

[…]

…If you remember the Israeli strike on Russian missile compounds within Syria, which I originally was reporting on amid a mainstream media blackout, there is now military action that may be directly killing Russian troops.

And it is no coincidence that Putin ordered an immediate ‘combat readiness’ exercise for 160,000 troops and an arsenal of military machines following the Israeli strike on the Russia missile compound (originally denied by Israel until it was leaked by US intelligence weeks later). This exercise included everything from naval ships to strategic bombers, but as always it was not worthy of appearing in mainstream news reports. At the time, the media was simply too busy reporting on what George Zimmerman was doing that day.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama, EPA Plan Climate Change Action Without Congress

BOULDER, Colo. — EPA chief Gina McCarthy said Wednesday that the Obama administration is finished waiting for Congress to act on climate change and plans to bypass the legislative branch in developing a federal response.

Ms. McCarthy, who was confirmed last month as Environmental Protection Agency administrator, cited President Obama’s June 25 speech at Georgetown University, in which he unveiled his Climate Action Plan and vowed to make combatting climate change a priority of his second term.

Mr. Obama gave “what I really think is a most remarkable speech by a president of the United States,” said Ms. McCarthy in remarks at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“Essentially, he said that it is time to act,” she said. “And he said he wasn’t going to wait for Congress, but that he had administrative authorities and that it was time to start utilizing those more effectively and in a more concerted way.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

ObamaCare Provision “Forced” Home Inspections

“Clearly, any family may be visited by federally paid agents for almost any reason.”

According to an Obamacare provision millions of Americans will be targeted.

The Health and Human Services’ website states that your family will be targeted if you fall under the “high-risk” categories below:

  • Families where mom is not yet 21.
  • Families where someone is a tobacco user.
  • Families where children have low student achievement, developmental delays, or disabilities.
  • F amilies with individuals who are serving or formerly served in the armed forces, including such families that have members of the armed forces who have had multiple deployments outside the United States.

There is no reference to Medicaid being the determinant for a family to be “eligible.”

In 2011, the HHS announced $224 million will be given to support evidence-based home visiting programs to “help parents and children.” Individuals from the state will implement these leveraging strategies to “enhance program sustainability.”

[Your home is your castle? Pish tosh! That is soooo last-century! — PW]

           — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey [Return to headlines]
 

Oliver Stone: ‘Obama is a Snake and We Have to Turn on Him’ (Video)

A video released Wednesday shows American filmmaker and Vietnam veteran Oliver Stone telling a Tokyo audience that President Obama is a “snake” for “institutionalizing” illegal National Security Agency spy programs, the Blaze reported.

“Obama is a snake,” he told reporters earlier this week at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, eliciting laughter and applause. “He’s a snake. And we have to turn on him…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

One Conservative Missing From CNN’s New “Crossfire”

As a veteran of CNN’s Crossfire in the 1980s, I am intrigued by the channel’s decision to bring back the liberal-conservative debate format show. When I was on the program, the motto was, “Don’t talk while I’m interrupting.” The “liberals” on the show this time around are partisan Obama Democrats. In fact, one of them, Van Jones, is possibly to the left of Obama…

The new Crossfire features former Obama campaign official Stephanie Cutter and the disgraced former communist Van Jones as the liberal co-hosts. You may remember that Jones lost his White House job after then-Fox News host Glenn Beck exposed his Marxist background and involvement in the 9/11 “Truther” movement.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

U.S. Military Veteran Describes How Vaccines Made Service Members Sick

(NaturalNews) A U.S. Navy veteran says vaccines she received as part of her initial entry into the service and during deployment to the Persian Gulf made her ill and have left her with permanent problems.

The veteran, who wrote her account anonymously on the Vactruth.com website, said she received a total of three vaccines — bird flu, Gardasil, and smallpox — that she believes were, in total, responsible for months of sickness.

“I had never had a serious reaction to any vaccine before, and it was after the third round of it that I decided to do some research for myself,” she wrote in a March 2013 post. “Now I am carrying my first child, and I am grateful that I have done this research so that I can spare my child the results of a criminal undertaking in the form of mass vaccination.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Manure-Filled Hot Tub Leads to Quebec Man’s Arrest

A man from Quebec’s Lanaudière region is facing charges after he allegedly filled his estranged wife’s hot tub with manure after being served with divorce papers.

On Tuesday morning, Quebec provincial police were called to a house in the small town of Sainte-Émélie-de-l’Énergie, located about an hour and a half north of Montreal, after receiving a mischief complaint.

“On site, the officers saw a man with a tractor placing manure in the spa, or the hot tub, of his ex-wife and [at] the front door,” said Sûreté du Québec Sgt. Audrey-Anne Bilodeau.

The man allegedly refused to stop when ordered to by police and then tried to take off on the tractor.

Police soon caught up with him.

“He was arrested within minutes,” Bilodeau said.

“One police officer was injured, but from what I heard it was only minor injuries.”

According to the local newspaper Journal de Joliette, the suspect is a retired police officer and had just received notice that his estranged wife had started divorce proceedings. The newspaper also reported that the accused had to be subdued with pepper spray.

A 64-year-old man faces four charges, including hit and run and assaulting a police officer.

He appeared in court in Joliette and has been released pending his next court date.

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]
 

Norway: ‘Taxi Ride With PM Made My Bad Back Worse’

One of the passengers carried by Norwegian Prime minister Jens Stoltenberg in a taxi-driving election stunt has complained that her bad back was made worse by his terrible driving.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Scotland: Dunfermline Teenager, Daniel Perry, 17, Kills Himself After Blackmailers Trick Him on Skype

[WARNING: Disturbing content.]

A teenager has killed himself after he became the victim of a webcam blackmail plot.

Daniel Perry, 17, from Dunfermline, Fife, took his own life after a Skype conversation with someone he believed to be a girl the same age as him.

However, a gang then hijacked the chat and threatened to show the video to his family and friends, unless he paid them off.

Child welfare charities have warned that they are getting dozens of calls every week from suicidal children as young as 11 caught in the same trap.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Sweden: Beware: The Surströmming is Let Out of the Can!

The third Thursday in August, is the official day for “surströmming première”, when Swedes start eating the strong-smelling delicacy of so called “soured herring” — fish that has been fermented for months to reach the right consistency, taste — and smell.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The Siege of Byzantium

Today, August 15, marks the anniversary of Constantinople’s victory over Muslim invaders in what historians commonly call the “Second Siege of Byzantium,” 717-18. Prior to this massive onslaught, the Muslims had been hacking away at the domains of the Byzantine empire for nearly a century. The Muslims’ ultimate goal was the conquest of Constantinople — for both political and religious reasons.

Politically, Islam had no rival but the “hated Christians” of Byzantium, known by various appellations — including al-Rum (the Romans), al-Nassara (the Nazarenes), and, most notoriously, al-Kilab (the “dogs”). The eastern Sasanian Empire had already been vanquished, and Persia subsumed into the caliphate. Only the “worshippers of the cross” — as they were, and still are, disparagingly known — were left as contenders over the eastern Mediterranean basin.

[…]

Indeed, one cannot overemphasize the religious nature of these wars — which, if still codified in Islam’s sharia, has become all but alien to a Western epistemology that tends cynically to dismiss the role of faith. That the primary way of identifying oneself in the old world was based on religious affiliation — not race, ethnicity, or nationality, all modern concepts — is indicative of the central role of faith.

[…]

Of the original 200,000 Muslims who set out to conquer the Christian capital and additional spring reinforcements, only some 30,000 ever made it back alive. By way of retribution and before dying, a bitter and vindictive Omar, failing to subdue the Christians across the way, was quick to project his wrath on those Christians, the dhimmis, living under Islamic authority: He forced many of them to convert to Islam, killing those who refused.

It is difficult to exaggerate the significance of this battle. That Constantinople was able to repulse the caliphate’s hordes is one of Western history’s most decisive moments: Had it fallen, “Dark Age” Europe — chaotic and leaderless — would have been exposed to the Muslim invaders. And, if history is any indicator, the last time a large expanse of territory was left open before the sword of Islam, thousands of miles were conquered and consolidated in mere decades, resulting in what is known today as Dar al-Islam, or the “Islamic world.”

[An excellent disquisition on a little-known but epochal event — of which I, for one, had previously been unaware. You’re never too old to learn! — PW}

           — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Breast Implants Suicide Bomb Threat: Heathrow on High Alert Over “Credible” Intelligence

Security has been beefed up after intelligence al-Qaeda is plotting attacks on airlines flying out of London

Heathrow Airport is on high terror alert amid fears women suicide bombers are ready to strike with ­explosives concealed in breast implants.

Security checks have been beefed up after “credible” intelligence that al-Qaeda is plotting attacks on airlines flying out of London.

One staff member said: “There are genuine fears over this.

“We have been told to pay particular attention to females who may have concealed hidden explosives in their breasts.

“This is particularly difficult for us to pick up but we are on a very high state of alert.

“It’s led to long queues here at Heathrow — much longer than usual at this time of the year.

“But because it’s the summer holiday season, no one has complained.”

Al-Qaeda’s chief bomb-maker Ibrahim al-Asiri is understood to have developed the method of foiling airport scanners by concealing ­explosives in an implant or bodily cavity.

It is also feared there is no shortage of ­volunteers willing to take part in an atrocity after hundreds of extremists recently escaped from prison in Pakistan.

Explosives expert Andy Oppenheimer said: “There is a great fear that al-Qaeda are planning on using internal devices to try and get through airport scanners.

“These explosives could be in breast implants.”

Another specialist, who asked not to be named, said breast implant bombs could be set off by injecting another liquid.

The expert added: “Both are very difficult to pick up with current technology and they are petrified al-Qaeda are a step ahead here.

“It’s pretty top secret and potentially very grisly and ghastly.”

Independent security analyst Paul Beaver said: “There are currently deeply serious concerns over body cavities and implants of all kinds — including breast implants — being used to hide explosives.

“It is taking longer to get through Heathrow and other airports in Europe and North America because of these fears.

“They are taking longer to screen people and there is definitely some sort of profiling going on.

“The general alert state remains the same in the UK but overseas, the recent Pakistan prison breakouts and foiled attacks in Yemen are raising fears of a new jihadist wave of violence.”

Terrorists are believed to be plotting attacks with the explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN.

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Eat Ento: Students Hope to Break Prejudice Against Eating Bugs by Opening Pop-Up Restaurant

If you’re bored of pizza and not in the mood for curry, how about trying a restaurant specialising in dishes made of insects?

Honey caterpillar canapes, consomme of grasshopper dumpling with locust jus, and burnt bee larvae are all on the menu at Eat Ento, a pop-up restaurant which starts a three-night run in south London tonight.

The ambitious menu is the brainchild of four graduates who describe themselves as ‘iconoclasts of taste’, and say they who want to make creepy-crawlies a regular part of the Western diet.

Aran Dasan, 26, Jonathan Fraser, 26, Julene Aguirre, 27, and Jacky Chung, 25, say edible insects (not all of them are) are a ‘healthy, tasty and sustainable source of protein’.

They plan firstly to get people to enjoy eating them, and then to open a permanent restaurant. Their ultimate goal is to get insects onto our supermarket shelves within seven years.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Number of Stay-at-Home Mothers Falls to New Record Low

The number of mothers staying at home to look after their children has hit a fresh low, falling by more than 50,000 over the past year, official statistics reveal.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Surgeons and Dentists With HIV to be Allowed to Operate on Patients After Ban is Lifted by Government

NHS staff infected with the Aids virus will be allowed to carry out operations and other invasive procedures for the first time.

A ban which has been in place for more than 20 years is to be lifted by the Government, which says it will not put patient safety at risk.

The ban was imposed because of fears that if an HIV positive surgeon or dentist cut themselves during certain types of operation, it could result in the patient becoming infected.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Women Who Fear Being Forced to Marry Abroad Told to Hide Spoon in Underwear

Charity advises women and young girls to set off airport metal detectors to give them more time to seek help from authorities

A number of women and girls at risk of forced marriage have avoided going abroad by concealing spoons in their underwear at airport security, according to a campaign group.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Condemning Egypt’s Crackdown, Obama Cancels Joint Military Exercises

Condemning the violence that erupted in Egypt on Wednesday, President Obama announced on Thursday that the United States had canceled next month’s planned military exercise with Egypt.

“The Egyptian people deserve better than what we’ve seen,” Mr. Obama said from his vacation retreat on Martha’s Vineyard.

Mr. Obama warned of future steps but made no mention of cutting off $1.5 billion in United States military and economic aid to Egypt in wake of the massacres.

“America wants to be a partner in the Egyptian people’s pursuit of a better future,” Mr. Obama said.

[Return to headlines]
 

Death Toll in Egypt Violence Climbs to 525, Health Ministry Says

The death toll from Egypt’s bloody crackdown on supporters of the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi, soared beyond 500 across the land on Thursday with over 3,700 people injured, the Health Ministry said, in a further sign of the extent and the ferocity of Wednesday’s scorched-earth assault by security forces to raze two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo.

Despite the growing tally of dead, however, Muslim Brotherhood supporters of Mr. Morsi urged followers to take to the streets on Thursday, a day afterthe assault on the camps set off a violent backlash across Egypt and underscored the new government’s determination to crush the Islamists who dominated two years of free elections.

Mohamad Fath Allah, the Health Ministry spokesman, told the official Al Ahram Web site that the toll so far stood at 525 with 3,717 injured. He said the biggest concentration of killings — numbering 202 — had been in the larger of the two protest camps in Nasr City suburb, with 87 recorded in the smaller Nahda Square camp near Cairo University. A further 29 deaths were reported from the Helwan area on the outskirts of Cairo with 207 from other areas around the country.

[Return to headlines]
 

Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood Assaults 22 Christian Churches

The attacks are connected to the evacuation of Islamist sit-ins by the police. At the moment there is no data about any deaths or injuries. Fr. Rafic Greiche, spokesperson of the Egyptian Catholic Church, spoke of at least seven Catholic churches attacked, and another fifteen Coptic Orthodox and Protestant churches

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

‘Incoherent’ Obama Policy on Egypt Under Fire as Violence Spreads

As Egypt descends into chaos, President Obama is facing increasing criticism that an “incoherent” policy toward the country — much like U.S. policy toward Syria — is putting U.S. money and influence on the line without a clear end-game.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Obama on Egypt: ‘We Don’t Take Sides’

President Barack Obama is calling for an end to the violence in Egypt a day after 525 people were killed in protests across the country.

Speaking from Martha’s Vineyard Thursday, the president strongly condemned security forces going after supporters of ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

“America cannot determine the future of Egypt, that’s a task for the Egyptian people,” Obama said. “We don’t take sides.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Israel Court Rules to Stop Water Fluoridation in 2014 Due to Health Concerns

Citing health concerns, the Supreme Court of Israel has ruled that the nation will stop fluoridating its water supplies in 2014. It’s ironic that as one of the most developed nations in the world, the United States is slow to follow suit of other nations that recognize the dangers of feeding the population various foods and substances — like genetically modified foods and fluoride.

Since 1974, fluoridated water supplies was mandatory in Israel. It seems the nation, like the U.S., thought (or pretended to think) that fluoride offered enough benefit to risk the populations health. Hoowever, Izun Hozer Association for Dissemination of Health Education and Yaacov Gurman petitioned Israel’s highest court on November 12, 2012, demanding that water fluoridation come to a halt due to not only potential health concerns, but also because fluoride provides virtually no benefit. In April 2013, the Minister of Health, Yael German, created a new regulation removing mandatory water fluoridation.

Interestingly, ruling not only puts an end to not just mandatory fluoridation in Israel, but all fluoridation — mandatory or voluntary. Here’s a translation of the court ruling…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Interfaith Outreach in Syria: Islamic Jihadists Murder Italian Priest

BEIRUT- Al-Qaeda-linked rebels in Syria have killed an Italian Jesuit priest who disappeared in the east of the country late last month, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Paolo Dall’Oglio, a vocal supporter of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and some Islamist rebel groups, disappeared in the rebel-held city of Raqqa on July 29.

He had served for three decades at the Monastery of Saint Moses the Abyssinian, or Deir Mar Musa, before being expelled from the country in 2012. Since then he had returned to Syria at least twice.

The British-based monitoring group cited local activists in the city of Raqqa with close links to Dall’Oglio as saying he was killed while being held by fighters from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

It was not immediately possible to confirm the report.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Iranian Candidate Nina Siahkali Moradi ‘Too Attractive for Politics’

AN ELECTORAL candidate in Iran has been denied a place on city council despite winning enough votes because she is deemed to be “too attractive”..

The Independent reports that Nina Siahkali Moradi, 27, received 10,000 votes, placing her 14th out of 163 candidates for the city of Qazvin elections.

The council only elects the first 13 across the line but the person placed 14th is listed as “the first reserve.”

However, when the elected mayor gave up his seat, Ms Moradi was disqualified.

“We don’t want a catwalk model on the council,” a senior Qazvin official was quoted as saying in the Times.

Ms Moradi is a graduate student of architecture.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said that the disqualification was apparently because of her “non-observance of Islamic codes”, and that her campaign posters were the basis for complaints from senior conservative rivals.

“Almost 10,000 people voted for me and based on that I should be the first alternate member of the City Council,” Ms Moradi told local media.

A challenge may be considered because it is illegal to disqualify someone who had initially been qualified to run for office, as Ms Moradi had been.

It could be a test for Iran’s new President Hassan Rowhani, who has vowed to stand up for women.

“Women work but don’t enjoy equal rights. I will form a women’s affairs ministry to return their trampled rights to them,” he said prior to his election.

           — Hat tip: McR [Return to headlines]
 

Poland: Knife Attacker Held. Drunk Turk Attacked With a Knife a Passer-by in Pleszew.

[Translated by Green Infidel]

A drunk Turk attacked with a knife a 17 year-old in Pleszew. The wounded passer-by was placed in a hospital. The knife attacker was held. The court arrested the violent Turk for 3 months.

In the centre of Pleszew the drunk Turk, a worker in one of the local kebab takeaways, attacked a young resident of Pleszew with a knife. The boy with wounds in the stomach, chest and face was taken to the hospital in Pleszew. The wounds suffered by the Pole are serious, but his condition is not life-threatening.

The offender, a 32 year-old Turkish citizen. was arrested by police.

The prosecutor charged him with the offence of causing grevious bodily harm. He faces up to ten years in prison.

[In one comment, a user called “Pleszewianka” also wrote of an experience she knew of personally in the town:]

“I will only say that it’s not the first time that Arabs behave aggressively towards people, I think they don’t know the rules here… a year ago, there was a situation outside another bar run by foreigners, where as a group of 3 they beat up a friend of mine, with hardly a reason, making him unconscious.”.

           — Hat tip: Green Infidel [Return to headlines]
 

Syria: Video: Obama Backed Militants Execute Teenage Boys

[WARNING: * Disturbing Content *]

A shocking new video out of Syria shows Obama-backed militants executing two teenage boys whom they accused of supporting the Assad regime, yet another reminder that the White House is arming jihadist extremists.

[…]

An Associated Press report citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights still manages to partly blame the Assad regime for the boys’ deaths, claiming that attempts to exchange them for rebel prisoners were rejected.

The Obama administration announced its intention to arm the Syrian opposition back in June despite a plethora of evidence confirming that FSA rebels have joined forces with Al-Qaeda terrorists and are committing atrocities on a routine basis.

Last month we reported on how an entire town of Christians in Syria’s Western province of Homs were massacred by FSA rebels.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

After More Than 40 Years of Mounting Guilt, Aging Chinese Apologise for Cultural Revolution ‘Evil’

[WARNING: * Disturbing Content *]

As a teenager radicalised by China’s Cultural Revolution, Zhang Hongbing denounced his mother to the authorities. Two months later a firing squad shot her dead.

Now after more than 40 years of mounting guilt, Zhang has ruffled the silence that cloaks China’s decade of turmoil with a public confession.

Such rare apologies have been welcomed as a potential gateway to the collective soul-searching that could bring healing — but is blocked by a ruling Communist Party whose critics say is unwilling to confront its own responsibility.

“Back then everyone was swept up and you couldn’t escape even if you wanted to. Any kindness or beauty in me was thoroughly, irretrievably ‘formatted’,” Zhang told the Beijing News last week.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Dangerous Operation at Fukushima’s Reactor No. 4 Could Ignite “Atomic Chain Reaction”

Threatening to trigger a new — and possibly more devastating — nuclear disaster than the original or ongoing one at the Fukishima plant in Japan, a risky plan to remove fuel rods from a damaged reactor building could unleash an “unprecedented” level of radiation, according to experts, if things go wrong.

According to reporting by Reuters, the radioactive material within the fuel rods slated for removal are equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the plan to move them “has never been attempted before on this scale.”

The 400 tons of highly irradiated spent fuel and other nuclear materials will be taken from the crippled building and moved to a safer location, but the manner of the operation should be put in serious doubt, say the experts.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Early Humans Lived in China 1.7 Million Years Ago

An extinct species of tool-making humans apparently occupied a vast area in China as early as 1.7 million years ago, researchers say.

The human lineage evolved in Africa, with now-extinct species of humans dispersing away from their origin continent more than a million years before modern humans did. Scientists would like to learn more about when and where humans went to better understand what drove human evolution.

Researchers investigated the Nihewan Basin, which lies in a mountainous region about 90 miles (150 kilometers) west of Beijing. It holds more than 60 sites from the Stone Age, with thousands of stone tools found there since 1972 — relatively simple types, such as stone flakes altogether known as the Oldowan. Researchers suspect these artifacts belonged to Homo erectus, “thought to be ancestral to Homo sapiens,” Hong Ao, a paleomagnetist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Xi’an, told LiveScience.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Is This the World’s Worst Zoo? Visitors’ Fury After Staff in China Try to Pass Off Tibetan Mastiff as a Lion and a Mongrel as a Leopard

A China zoo has been forced to apologise after it tried to pass off a dog as a lion.

Angry visitors to the People’s Park in Luohe, Henan province, complained when the ‘African lion’ started barking.

Zoo staff said they had pretended the Tibetan mastiff was a lion because they could not afford the real thing, local media reported.

The state-run Beijing Youth Daily claims the zoo commonly replaced exotic animals with common species.

Elsewhere in the zoo, visitors found a mongrel dog in the Timber wolf’s cage and another pooch posing as a leopard in the big cat enclosure.

Then in the reptile house, keepers had placed two giant sea cucumbers which they were trying to pass off as snakes.

One customer called Liu said: ‘‘They’re cheats. I paid good money to see the lion and all I got to see was a dog.

‘The zoo is absolutely cheating us. I took my son there so he could hear the different sounds animals made but when we reached the cage where the African lion was supposed to be, the big animal in there started barking.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Letting TEPCO “Clean Up” Fukushima is Like Letting a Murderer Do Brain Surgery on a Vip

If an incompetent doctor killed numerous patients doing routine surgery — and then lied and tried to cover it up — would you let him perform brain surgery on a VIP such as the president?

Of course not?

So why are we letting Tepco to remove the fuel rods from Fukushima?

Tepco has an abysmal track record:

  • Engineers warned Tepco and the Japanese government many years before the accident that the reactors were seismically unsafe … and that an earthquake could wipe them out
  • The Fukushima reactors were fatally damaged before the tsunami hit … the earthquake took them out even before the tidal wave hit…

[Comment: Frightening reading. The reality of the situation is much worse than you can imagine. Why no media coverage of this?]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Kevin Rudd Challenger for Griffith, Sherrilyn Church, Proudly Opposes Islam and Wants Mosques Banned

A CANDIDATE for the Prime Minister’s seat of Griffith has put outlawing the Islamic faith front and centre of her election campaign, branding it a “religion from hell” and claiming that building mosques in Australia is “high treason”.

Sherrilyn Church of the Rise Up Australia Party says her top policy priority in the election is to ban the building of mosques in the electorate, south of Brisbane.

Ms Church — a small-time citrus farmer from Crows Nest on the Darling Downs — said her primary concern for the electorate was “the Islamisation of the city by councils giving permission for mosques to be erected”.

“Basically, I see Islam not primarily a religion but a system of law because to the Islamic mind the existence of a mosque in an area means they believe that Sharia law applies and the Islamic flag must fly — now that is high treason in a sovereign nation,” she said.

“Islam is a legal system before it is a religion. We have freedom of religion but their religion is illegal.

“We are multiethnic, but we are not multicultural, because that’s where the law comes into it.

“The people in the mosque can be as charming and pleasant as your best Australian but there is also those elements, as you know across the world, where young men are recruited to jihadist training camps from these mosques.

“A lot of people consider it to be fine. A lot of people also consider that having gay marriage is fine.”

Ms Church, 61, said she believed the Muslim faith and democratic citizenship were fundamentally incompatible.

“This question is asked of all Australian citizens when they stand before the governor or to become citizens. They have to declare that they will come under our system of law, and our flag.

“If you’re going to say; ‘no, I’m going to hold to the laws of the Koran’, I would say ‘pack your bags, get on the next plane and go home’.

“Our laws are totally and utterly contrary to the law of the Koran. There are some religions that didn’t come from heaven, they come from hell.”

Ms Church’s platform has proven unpopular within the local Islamic community, which has two mosques in the Griffith electorate at Holland Park and West End.

The views only damage hard-fought steps to integration with the southside community according to Islamic College of Brisbane chairman Mohammed Yusuf.

“It’s a very sad thing that because of ignorance and people trying to gain cheap publicity with these things they do so much damage,” Mr Yusuf said.

“It really annoys us when people who through their own ignorance or for their own political gains, say things which are damaging. It’s not in the best interest for anyone.

Mr Yusuf said that Christianity and Islam were fundamentally the same and the Sharia is compatible with Australia life and “does not affect anybody else”.

“There’s punishments and penalties for certain things — adultery or stealing and all that — under Sharia law that apply in Islamic states, not Australia so there’s no way the Muslims are going to say I’m going to introduce that here.

“The majority of the things we talk about for Sharia law are already in existence here — we follow what applies to us, what does not apply we refrain from and don’t practice.”

[Return to headlines]
 

Justine Greening Backs Nigeria’s ‘Sensible’ Space Programme

Nigeria’s space programme will help combat famine in Africa, Justine Greening has said as she defended sending hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to the country in aid.

Miss Greening, the International Development Secretary, said Nigeria’s own investment in its satellite technology was “sensible” and stressed that it was not being funded with British money.

Tory MPs have criticised her department for allocating more than £900 million in government funds for social and educational projects in Nigeria when the country is spending its own money on training an astronaut.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4, she said she believed British aid was being “well spent” but added: “We obviously have to make sure that we critically assess the projects underway.

“We are investing in education projects — some of these are actually in incredibly challenging parts of Nigeria.”

Ministers expect the Nigerian government to invest in its own infrastructure as well, she said as she praised the space schemes as “a sensible investment”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Meet the Olinguito, The Shy ‘Bear-Cat’ That’s the First New Carnivore to be Discovered in the West for 35 Years

U.S. scientists said the carnivorous olinguito looks like a cross between a house cat and a teddy bear but is a member of the same family as raccoons

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

More Fast and Furious Guns Surface at Crimes in Mexico

Three more weapons from Fast and Furious have turned up at crime scenes in Mexico, CBS News has learned, as the toll from the controversial federal operation grows.

According to Justice Department tracing documents obtained by CBS News, all three guns are WASR-10 762-caliber Romanian rifles. Two were purchased by Fast and Furious suspect Uriel Patino in May and July of 2010. Sean Steward, who was convicted on gun charges in July 2012, purchased a third. The rifles were traced yesterday to the Lone Wolf gun shop in Glendale, Ariz.

During Fast and Furious and similar operations, federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) encouraged the Lone Wolf and other gun stores to sell massive amounts of weapons to questionable purchasers who allegedly trafficked them Mexican drug cartels.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

More ‘Fast and Furious’ Weapons Appear at Mexico Crime Scenes

Three more weapons used in Operation Fast and Furious have been recovered at crime scenes in Mexico, Fox News confirms.

The Justice Department has refused to provide a full account of the weapons involved in Fast and Furious to Congress. Refusal to turn over certain documents related to Fast and Furious led to a bipartisan vote in June 2012 to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. The House Oversight Committee is suing for release of the material.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

100 Romanians and Bulgarians Take a Job in Britain Every Day, Official Figures Show

About 100 Romanians and Bulgarians a day are getting jobs in Britain, according to official figures.

The number of people from the two EU countries has soared by more than a third over the past year, even though they are not yet allowed to work freely in this country.

The number here has reached a record high of 141,000, according to the Office for National Statistics — over-shadowing the total number of Australians and New Zealanders for the first time since records began.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Rubio: Obama Will ‘Basically Legalize’ 11 Million by Executive Order if Immigration Reform Fails

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio warned Tuesday that some on the Republican side of immigration reform could come up empty-handed if the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” plan fails.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK: 200 Languages Spoken in Manchester by Its Population of Just 480,000

Manchester is the third most ethnically diverse city in the world after Paris and New York according to fascinating new research.

An astonishing 200 languages are spoken there by a population of less than half a million, making the northern city known for Coronation Street and club music more multicultural than London.

Despite having a relatively small population of 480,000, immigration means that dozens of rare languages are spoken in Manchester including Nahuatl, the ancient language of the Aztecs, Zulu, from South Africa, and Dari, from Afghanistan.

You will also hear Lingala, Idomo and Ewe on the city’s streets, not to mention Eleme, a Nigerian dialect spoken by just 3,000 people worldwide, Igbo and Konkani.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

PC Orthodoxy is Destroying America

Self-engendered political correctness is destroying our Bill of Rights

“We have met the enemy, and he is us.” — Pogo

What’s more chilling than a people oppressed by a Hitler, a Mao or a Stalin? A people that voluntarily oppresses itself, a reality that has now afflicted America.

We have watched over the last 40 years as American women have gone — willingly in most cases — into abortion mills to destroy one-third of a generation.

We have seen speech codes pop up on college campuses banning any conservative expression, and watched as so-called hate crimes legislation appeared on the books as the law of our land, a dangerous precedent if ever there was one.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Stopping Hate Speech Spread Via Internet Tops Agenda of UN Anti-Racism Committee

12 August 2013 — The United Nations committee tasked with combating racial discrimination today opened its latest round of work in Geneva with a focus on stopping the spread of racist hate speech on the Internet and social media networks, as well as the need to use education to prevent racism and xenophobia.

“Where does the right of expression, which we all want to respect, stop and the need to sanction and prevent hate speech begin? What is the point in time when one right has to recognize that it cannot be exercised if it implies the violation of another one,” UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Flavia Pansieri said in her address to the opening of the 83rd session of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

As the world becomes more inter-connected, incidents in numerous countries have drawn attention to the issue of racist hate speech, which today is more easily spread across national borders, she added.

Ms. Pansieri urged the Committee to include in its deliberations the Rabat Plan of Action, adopted by independent UN experts at a meeting in Morocco in October 2012, on the prohibition of advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.

The Deputy High Commissioner noted that the Committee meets against a backdrop of two landmark events — the annual Nelson Mandela International Day commemoration and the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s march on Washington in which he made his famous “I have a dream” speech.

Fifty years after his famous speech, Mr. King’s vision remained a dream for many people around the world and that was why, to continue to protect those whose human rights were being violated because of their race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, the Committee’s members are here today, said Ms. Pansieri.

She also spoke about the recent adoption by the Human Rights Council in June of a resolution on education as a tool to prevent racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, which recognized that quality education could help create more inclusive societies.

Noting continued attacks on people with albinism in Tanzania and in other countries, Ms. Pansieri reiterated the calls of High Commissioner Navi Pillay to halt these crimes and to engage with national authorities to educate people against stereotypes, including the belief that body parts from albinos have magical qualities.

The three-week session of the Committee will review reports submitted by Chile, Chad, Venezuela, Burkina Faso, Belarus, Jamaica, Sweden and Cyprus.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Google Says Email Users Have “No Legitimate Expectation” Of Privacy

Speaking about its email services in a court filing Google has said: “a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.” This specific wording, which is a citation of other case law, was recently brought to public attention by Consumer Watchdog who called it “a stunning admission”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Honey in Modern Wound Care: A Systematic Review

Honey, known for centuries as a topical treatment for a wide range of wounds, has recently known a revival in modern wound care. The objective of this systematic review is to evaluate the available evidence and the role of honey in contemporary wound care. The search strategy was developed in the databases PubMed and ISI Web of Science. Fifty-five studies of any design, evaluating the use of honey in human burns, ulcers and other wounds, written in English, French, German or Dutch were eligible for inclusion. In all three wound categories honey seems to be a dressing with wound healing stimulating properties.

In burns there is also evidence for its antibacterial capacity. In general, honey is also been mentioned to have deodorizing, debridement, anti-inflammatory and wound pain reducing properties, although the evidence for these properties is rather limited. Many of the included studies have methodological problems, and the quality of certain studies is low, making it difficult to formulate conclusive guidelines. This review reveals several gaps in the research of honey in modern wound care, and recommendations are suggested for future research.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

3 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 8/15/2013

  1. “Denmark Bans Meatballs to Accommodate Muslims”

    http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3936/denmark-bans-meatballs

    “One of the largest hospitals in Denmark has admitted to serving only halal beef — meat that is slaughtered in accordance with strict Islamic guidelines — to all of its patients regardless of whether or not they are Muslim.”
    . . . .
    “In a separate but related story, Ekstra Bladet reported that at least 30 nurseries, preschools and daycare centers in Denmark have banned the Danish national dish — pan-fried meatballs known as frikadeller — because they include pork and are offensive to Muslim children.”
    . . . .
    “In Nørrebro, …, a district in Copenhagen where up to 40% of the children are Muslim,…”

    If you can’t fight them, join them. “’I Guds navn. Allah er den største’”

    (Google Translate does a reasonable job of translating the Ekstra Bladet page.

    • Time to go vegetarian I can’t abide the gratuitous cruelty, let alone flaunting of animal welfare laws in most Western countries, of Halal slaughter
      The religious component is BS- It’s all about some Muslims making money and the Ummar having lots of Zakat for jihad.

    • Hijab has different meanings; in this case, it seems to be just a covering for the hair, which should be no more offensive than a nun’s wimple.
      If I went into the store in question (which I know well, and have got lost in, which seems to be Ikea’s intent!) and was served by a woman with her face partly or totally covered (niqab), I would complain and cease my patronage, as I find being forced to converse with someone whose face I can’t see offensive.
      I’ll get really upset if they stop serving meatballs!

Comments are closed.