Culturally enriched “Belgians” who went off to Syria to join the jihad are being deprived of their welfare benefits by two Flemish cities. This includes an end to their unemployment payments. That’ll show ’em!
In other news, according to the official report on integration in Austria, 19% of the country’s population is of foreign origin, with 14% actually born abroad.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JLH, KP, McR, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
18 Signs That Global Financial Markets Are Entering a Horrifying Death Spiral
You can see it coming, can’t you? The yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries is skyrocketing, the S&P 500 has been down for 9 of the last 11 trading days and troubling economic news is pouring in from all over the planet. The much anticipated “financial correction” is rapidly approaching, and investors are starting to race for the exits. We have not seen so many financial trouble signs all come together at one time like this since just prior to the last major financial crisis. It is almost as if a “perfect storm” is brewing, and a lot of the “smart money” has already gotten out of stocks and bonds. Could it be possible that we are heading toward another nightmarish financial crisis? Could we see a repeat of 2008 or potentially even something worse? Of course a lot of people believe that we will never see another major financial crisis like we experienced in 2008 ever again. A lot of people think that this type of “doom and gloom” talk is foolish. It is those kinds of people that did not see the last financial crash coming and that are choosing not to prepare for the next one even though the warning signs are exceedingly clear. Let us hope for the best, but let us also prepare for the worst, and right now things do not look good at all. The following are 18 signs that global financial markets are entering a horrifying death spiral…
#1 The yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries has risen for 5 of the past 6 days, and it briefly touched the 2.90% level on Monday.
#2 Rapidly rising interest rates are spooking investors and causing them to pull money out of bonds at a very rapid pace…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Must Prioritize EU Funds, Warns EU Commissioner
‘No scattergun approach’
(ANSA) — Brussels, August 13 — Italy should focus “on a few, clear priorities” when investing EU funding, European Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn told ANSA on Tuesday. “Distribution of EU funds with a scattergun approach must end,” the commissioner warned. Brussels is awaiting in the fall Italy’s draft partnership agreement on planning development resources and wants “to ensure a significant concentration of available resources on a few, clear priorities,” said the commissioner. Italy is expected to hand over to the European Commission on September 30 a draft including strategies to allocate European structural funds from the EU multiannual budget for 2014-2020.
“In order to really make a difference on the economic development of the country, it is necessary to focus on a limited number of priorities” to create long-lasting employment, support regions and spur growth, the commissioner said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
2 Days After Benghazi, Hillary Screamed at Congressman Who Suggested it Was Terror-Related
The Obama administration called the Benghazi attack a terror incident from day one. That’s what they tell us. The President and Secretary of State Clinton made every effort to ensure that the American people knew what was happening.
Despite Susan Rice’s appearances on the Sunday talk shows, no one was claiming this was a spontaneous attack caused by a YouTube video. They never blamed it all on an unknown filmmaker. No. They told you immediately that it was all about terrorism, because they didn’t want to mislead anyone.
…So why, two days after the attack, was Hillary screaming at a Congressman who dared to suggest Benghazi may have been terror related?
That’s the charge leveled at Secretary Clinton by U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Al Jazeera America ‘First Born Child’ Of the Left’s Marriage to Islam
Shameful marriage of Islam to the far left has produced a monster child: Propaganda monster called Al Jazeera TV.
Al Jazeera America
While unsuspecting societies were fighting Same Sex Marriage in the West, vowing ‘til’ death do us part’, the far left and Islam had run off and eloped.
The far left and its compliant mainstream media contingent reached out a hand to bring Al Jazeera all the way from Doha, Qatar headquarters into American front rooms — starting this afternoon.
Al Jazeera America begins broadcasting today. The network once called ‘Osama bin Laden’s network’ is being sold to American masses as “14 hours of straight news everyday, hard-hitting documentaries, correspondences in oft-overlooked corners of the country. And fewer commercials than any other news channel.” (New York Times, August 18, 2013)
The ‘bin Laden network’ is not a far stretch from an Obama one, and many wonder how long it will take Obama to replace his late night show appearances with Al Jazeera.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Al Jazeera posters have recently appeared in Egypt saying, “A bullet kills a man, a lying camera kills a nation.” This attitude led to the new government closing the channel, after 22 staffers quit in disgust over its pro-Muslim Brotherhood bias.
Al Jazeera is the voice of the Muslim Brotherhood, the group now laying siege to Egypt and burning Christian churches there.
On Sunday, CNN’s media criticism show “Reliable Sources” featured a discussion of the launch of Al Jazeera America. While Egyptian Christian churches burn because of what the channel has done there, Al Jazeera America was given a warm welcome not only by the American media, but also by the Congress of the United States. This show was no exception.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
American Jihadis Returning From Syria a Domestic Terror Threat Say Counterterrorism Experts
While the world media’s attention is deflected by the Egyptian Military overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood uprising, the threat of Western and especially American Jihadis fighting with al Qaida opposition in Syria is raising concern among US counterterrorism experts. Bill Gertz has a definitive analysis of this emerging domestic terrorism threat in a Washington Free Beacon article, “American, European Jihadists in Syria Raise New Domestic Terror Fears.” We have followed this plausible domestic Jihadi terrorist threat for over four years focusing on American Somali émigré and domestic Muslim convert recruits for Somali al Qaeda affiliate, Al Shabaab. (See our NER article, Foot Soldiers of Islam and a recent Iconoclast post, “Al Shabaab’s Latest Home Grown Terrorist Recruiting Video” . There have been several federal court cases convicting returning American al Shabaab jihadis, their recruiters and terrorist funders. Alabama born al Shabaab commander Omar Hammami has evaded capture in Somalia and been featured in several recruiting videos released by this Al Qaeda affiliate. American convert to jihadist Islam, Adam Gadahn is a media spokesman for the so-called core Al Qaeda command in Pakistan. An American convert to Islam, Gadahn has a $1 million price tag on his head and has been been charged with treason by federal authorities.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Andrew Johnson: Two More Colorado Counties Will Vote on Whether to Secede From State
Excerpt: A group of northern Colorado counties are taking more steps toward establishing the 51st state: Two more countries will ask residents if they want to secede the Centennial State on a ballot this fall. Phillips and Weld counties are the fourth and fifth counties to put the question for a vote, following Cheyenne, Sedgwick, and Yuma.
| — Hat tip: KP | [Return to headlines] |
Clive Thompson: How to Keep the NSA Out of Your Computer: Build Your Own Private, Parallel Internet
Excerpt: He and his fellow Athenians built it. They did so by linking up a set of rooftop wifi antennas to create a “mesh,” a sort of bucket brigade that can pass along data and signals. It’s actually faster than the Net we pay for: Data travels through the mesh at no less than 14 megabits a second, and up to 150 Mbs a second, about 30 times faster than the commercial pipeline I get at home.
| — Hat tip: KP | [Return to headlines] |
Elmore Leonard, Novelist Who Elevated the Status of Crime Thrillers, Dies at 87
Elmore Leonard, the prolific crime novelist whose louche characters, deadpan dialogue and immaculate prose style in novels like “Get Shorty,” “Freaky Deaky,” “Glitz” and “La Brava” secured his status as a modern master of American genre writing, died Tuesday at his home in Bloomfield Township, Mich. He was 87.
His death was announced on his Web site.
To his admiring peers, Mr. Leonard did not merely validate the popular crime thriller; he stripped the form of its worn-out affectations, reinventing it for a new generation and elevating it to a higher literary shelf.
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Federal Judge Strikes Down Oklahoma Amendment Opposing Sharia Law
Voters in Oklahoma had passed in 2010 an amendment to the state’s constitution banning Sharia law by more than 70 percent of the vote. The need for the amendment arose out of concern that Islamic Sharia law is making its way into U.S. courtrooms and could be used in place of U.S. law with defendants who are Muslim.
| — Hat tip: JLH | [Return to headlines] |
Huge Lava Fountains Seen Gushing From Jupiter Moon
One of the most massive volcanic eruptions in the solar system has been spotted on Jupiter’s moon Io — by a telescope perched on a volcano on Earth.
On 15 August the Keck II telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii recorded fountains of lava gushing from fissures in the Rarog Patera region of Io. Heated by gravitational squeezing from Jupiter and its other moons, Io is covered in volcanoes that erupt almost continuously. This event is easily in the top 10 yet seen on Io by humans, says Ashley Davies of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
“We try to look at Io at every opportunity, in the hope of seeing something like this,” says Davies. “This time we got lucky.” The lava fountains spouted molten rock hundreds of metres above Io’s surface, erupting over an area totalling 31 square kilometres.
Plasma donut
The Galileo spacecraft, which toured the Jovian system from 1995 to 2003, was the last mission to get a close, near-constant view of the action on Io. But other monitoring efforts like the Keck programme have helped make it clear just how much violence Io is capable of.
The biggest eruption seen so far happened in 2001, when the Keck observatory saw a lava flow that is thought to have spread many hundreds of square kilometres across Io’s surface. And in 2007 the New Horizons probe spotted huge plumes from a volcano called TvashtarMovie Camera as it flew past Io on its way to Pluto.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Just How Corrupt is the Obama Administration?
Fast and Furious gunrunning operation, DOJ, IRS, Benghazi, EPA
Scandal after scandal, coupled with an ongoing contempt for the law and the Constitution, demonstrated by high-level officials and the president himself, point to one deeply troubling conclusion: the Obama administration may be the most corrupt administration ever inflicted on the American public. And while the mainstream media have done a remarkable job deflecting much of that reality, even they cannot keep up with the avalanche of disturbing revelations that arise, seemingly on a daily basis.
Fast and Furious gunrunning operation
We begin with yet another report about the Fast and Furious gunrunning operation, courtesy of Sharyl Attkisson, one of the few remaining reporters who follows a story wherever it goes. Last Wednesday, three more F&F weapons turned up at crime scenes in Mexico. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and as many as 300 Mexican nationals, including teens at a birthday party, were slaughtered by those weapons. Yet the ensuing investigation was first thwarted by Eric Holder’s refusal to turn over critical documents to congressional investigators, earning him a contempt of Congress citation. It was followed by President Obama invoking executive privilege to prevent the same. Other documents reveal that Eric Holder lied to Congress about when he first heard about the operation. The House Oversight Committee is currently suing for release of the material, but both Holder and Obama remain unscathed by this deadly debacle, even as the Terry family’s effort to find out what really happened to their son has been ignored.
Holder’s duplicity regarding Fast and Furious is hardly an anomaly.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Just How Dangerous is the Islam Religion?
Brian T. Kennedy is president of the Claremont Institute and publisher of the Claremount Review of Books and sits on the Independent Working Group on Missile Defense and is a co-author of Shariah; The Threat to America. On January 7, 2011 he delivered a speech at Hillsdale College’s Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional studies and citizenship in Washington, D.C.
He said during the Bush Administration the number of Muslims in the U.S. was typically estimated to be around three million. The Pew Research Center in 2007 estimated it to be 2.35 million. In 2000, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) put the number at five million. And President Obama in his 2009 Cairo speech put it at seven million. In that light, consider a 2007 survey of American Muslims conducted by the Pew Research Center. Eight percent of American Muslims who took part in this survey said they believed that suicide bombings can sometimes be justified in defense of Islam. Even accepting a low estimate of three million Muslims in the U.S., this would mean that 240,000 among us hold that suicide bombing in the name of Islam can be justified. Among American Muslims 18-29 years old, 15% agreed with that and 60% said they thought of themselves as Muslims first and Americans second. Among all participants in the survey , five percent of the low estimate of three million Muslims in America is 150,000 who said they had a favorable view of Al-Qaeda which brings us back to the Fort Hood massacre.[1]
Western Civilization Must Be Destroyed
Kennedy also wrote that it is a Muslim “Strategic Memorandum on North American Affairs that was approved by the Shura Council and the Organizational Conference in 1987. In this document it says,”The process of settlement is a ‘civilization Jihadist Process’ with all the means. The IKHWAN (Muslim Brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western Civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made Victorian over all other religions… And then we’ll have Sharia Law…
Like Hillary Clinton who stood by her husband, Bill, Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, a veritable Muslim Brotherhood princess also stands by her man. Quoting from a former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy recently writing in National Review, Huma Abedin “worked from 1996-2003 for the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs that promotes Islamic supremacist ideology. It’s founder is a top al-Qaida financier, Abdullah Omar Naseef, who also headed the Muslim World League, a leading Muslim Brotherhood organization. The Journal was edited first by Huma’s father, Syed Abedin, and now by her mother, Saleha Abedin, who is a member of the Muslim Sisterhood. By the way during those years, Huma also worked for Hillary Clinton. The source on the Internet who gave me this information asks, “Isn’t the Abedin-Clinton national security story at least as newsworthy as Weiner’s private parts?” But it’s not only CNN and the New York Times that are silent on this issue. Most “conservative” outlets, including Fox News, the New York Post, The Blaze, Breitbart.com and Rush Limbaugh have thus far ignored this story too.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
M. Catherine Evans: Starry-Eyed Liberal Meets the Reality of Medicaid Patients
Excerpt: By the end of 90 days [of doing her job of registering 45 ER Medicaid patients daily], Samantha told me what really affected her was the cold reality that most of the Medicaid patients treated her like dirt. They showed no gratitude for the fact that Samantha’s taxes were going to help them. On top of their sense of entitlement, Samantha noticed many welfare mothers and fathers mistreated their children while the kids were the ones waiting to be seen!
| — Hat tip: KP | [Return to headlines] |
Noonan: What We Lose if We Give Up Privacy
A loss of the expectation of privacy in communications is a loss of something personal and intimate, and it will have broader implications. That is the view of Nat Hentoff, the great journalist and civil libertarian. He is 88 now and on fire on the issue of privacy. “The media has awakened,” he told me. “Congress has awakened, to some extent.” Both are beginning to realize “that there are particular constitutional liberty rights that [Americans] have that distinguish them from all other people, and one of them is privacy.”
Mr. Hentoff sees excessive government surveillance as violative of the Fourth Amendment, which protects “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” and requires that warrants be issued only “upon probable cause . . . particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
But Mr. Hentoff sees the surveillance state as a threat to free speech, too. About a year ago he went up to Harvard to speak to a class. He asked, he recalled: “How many of you realize the connection between what’s happening with the Fourth Amendment with the First Amendment?” He told the students that if citizens don’t have basic privacies — firm protections against the search and seizure of your private communications, for instance — they will be left feeling “threatened.” This will make citizens increasingly concerned “about what they say, and they do, and they think.” It will have the effect of constricting freedom of expression. Americans will become careful about what they say that can be misunderstood or misinterpreted, and then too careful about what they say that can be understood. The inevitable end of surveillance is self-censorship.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) If you own pets, it is probably worth your while to take a closer look at what you are feeding them to determine whether or not it is actually safe. A recent review of the consumer watchdog website, ConsumerAffairs.com, reveals that popular dog food brand Pedigree has received hundreds of complaints in recent days about injuries and deaths potentially caused by its dog food lines, and yet neither Pedigree nor the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued any formal recalls of Pedigree dog food products.
Rapid tooth decay, loose and discolored stools, severe vomiting, seizures, major gastrointestinal upset, and death are among the many complaints posted by Pedigree customers with regards to the health of their pets after eating Pedigree dog food. One woman from Phoenix, Arizona, for instance, recently posted a complaint about how her Pomeranian died in her sleep just days after eating Pedigree dog food and suffering a seizure. Another woman says her dog, also a Pomeranian, died just one day after eating Pedigree.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Al Qaeda Threat to France Played Down by Minister
French Interior Minister Manuel Valls has talked down Al Qaeda’s threat to attack France’s rail network, after revelations in a German newspaper this week. Valls reiterated however that “a terrorist threat is present” in France.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Belgian Jihadists in Syria Stripped of Welfare Benefits
Two Flemish cities have decided to penalise presumed Belgian jihadists, currently fighting alongside rebels in Syria, by depriving them of the social benefits they enjoyed as citizens of Belgium.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: ‘Syrian Fighters’ Benefits Cut’
De Standaard
Municipal authorities in Antwerp and Vilvoorde have removed 29 people who have left Belgium to fight in Syria from social welfare registers, effectively cutting them off from all state benefits.
De Standaard explains that in recent months, Belgian police and intelligence services have found that in several cases, Belgian nationals fighting alongside Syrian rebels continued to receive social welfare payments, including unemployment benefit.
“Notwithstanding major upset over the issue in the Muslim community, there will be further departures” for Syria, declared the mayor of Vilvoorde.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Berlusconi Stands Firm as Leader of Italy’s Centre-Right
(AGI) Rome, Aug 19 — Silvio Berlusconi is standing firm as the leader of Italy’s centre-right stating on Facebook “I will resist” “I will not give up!”. Berlusconi posted a message saying, “Remain calm, I will not stand aside, I remain the leader of the centre-right,” and adding, “I will continue until the end to act in the country’s best interests and those of all Italians.” Berlusconi told his supporters to “Be brave” and promised them “I will do nothing to embarrass you. Let us prepare well.” Part of this message will also be printed on posters having the stage used for the speech made in Rome a their backdrop. The words chosen for these posters include the slogans, “To the very end I will act in the best interests of the country and all Italians, “Move forwards with courage,” “I stand firm,” and “Let us prepare well.” Posters with the Forza Italia symbol will bear the wording “Once again running for Italy”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
EDL News Team: Lord Tebbit: The English Defence League Are Not Far Right
Excerpt: This isn’t an article that looks to explain what we actually do believe, but one that asks the reader to give us a chance. Contrary to Lord Tebbit’s claim in the Huffington Post article referenced above, we don’t have “policies” on which we can be judged. We’ve never claimed to be the experts and we aim to be able to represent anyone who is concerned about the spread of Islamic extremism, whatever their politics.
| — Hat tip: KP | [Return to headlines] |
France: Crime Wave Hits Marseille, PM and Interior Minister Visit
25-year-old killed in score-settling on Monday
(ANSAmed) — PARIS, AUGUST 20 — Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault and Interior Minister Manuel Valls went to Marseilles Tuesday after the death of a 25-year-old in yet another settling of scores between criminal gangs. The southern city seems to be ever more in the grip of organised crime. The government is expected to announce security reinforcements to tackle the problem. Yesterday’s victim, the 13th killed in fighting between criminal gangs this year, was riddled with bullets in the Old Port area after a violent scuffle.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Girl Told Garda [Irish Police] ‘Give Me Money and I’ll Stop Stealing’
A teenage girl, who said “give me money and I’ll stop stealing” when she was charged over the theft of a man’s wallet in Dublin city-centre, has been let off with a warning today.
The 17-year-old, who is originally from Romania and came to Ireland in recent months, pleaded guilty today at the Dublin Children’s Court to stealing a wallet containing bank cards and €50 in cash at South Great George’s Street, on June 2 last.
Garda Cathal Feely told Judge John Lindsay that when later charged with the offence the girl replied: “You give me money and I’ll stop stealing”.
Defence solicitor Niamh O’Regan described the girl’s crime as opportunistic and the court heard that she had no prior criminal convictions.
The lawyer said that the girl, who lives in Dublin with her guardian, was in “dire financial circumstances” and the stolen property was returned.
The teenager intends to return to Romania in the coming weeks, the court also heard.
Judge Lindsay applied the Probation Act, sparing the girl a sentence and a criminal record and warned her that it would be unlikely that she would get this chance again if she re-offended.
| — Hat tip: McR | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: High School Teachers to be Moved to Primary Schools
Ministry lists 6,025 names; 1,300 in mobility programme
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS — More than 6,000 Greek schoolteachers are to be moved from secondary to primary education after the government published on Tuesday a list of educators it believes are surplus to requirements at high schools, while also identifying shortages at elementary schools.
As Kathimerini online reports, the Education Ministry identified a total of 6,025 junior and senior high school teachers across the country, from a range of subjects, who are due to be transferred. They have been given until August 23 to express an interest in what positions they would like to fill at elementary schools before the ministry informs them where they will end up.
The ministry has identified a shortage of 3,876 teachers at elementary schools, particularly in languages, computing, arts and physical education. There are also 828 administrative positions that have to be filled. This means that some 1,300 secondary school teachers would be left without positions. They are likely to end up in the government’s mobility scheme for public sector staff, where employees will receive 75% of their salary for the next eight months. If no new positions are found, they face dismissal. The government aims to place 12,500 public sector workers in the scheme by the end of September and another 12,500 by the end of the year.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Hunt for Intelligent Aliens Focuses on Faint Laser Flashes
When it comes to detecting laser pulses aliens might shoot at Earth to attract our attention, scientists now find they can detect signals as faint as a single photon of light every few tiny fractions of a second.
Astronomers have gazed at the skies for decades searching for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. Lasers can in principle help transmit messages over extraordinary distances, but while scientists have monitored a large number of stars looking for alien laser signals — for instance, facilities at Harvard and Princeton scanned more than 10,000 sun-like stars for several years — no evidence for any have been found yet.
Prior attempts to look for extraterrestrial laser signals concentrated on isolated bursts of light, ones so extraordinarily intense they are likely artificial. In contrast, laser scientist Walter Leeb at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria and his colleagues are focusing on repetitive, faint laser signals received over a sufficiently long amount of time.
“We assumed that aliens would use the simplest possible way of attracting our attention, one already implemented in seafaring since ancient times using lighthouses — that is, periodic light pulses,” Leeb said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Intern Dies in UK After Working 21 Hours
(AGI) London — A German intern has died in London after working for 21 consecutive hours .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Canary Wharf Becomes Europe’s Largest Financial Centre
(AGI) Rome, Aug 18 — The number of white collar workers in London’s new financial district, Canary Wharf, has quadrupled in the past 10 years from 27,000 in 2001 to 100,000 in 2012, the Financial Times reports. Citing figures from the Office for National Statistics, the FT reports that in 2012 Canary Wharf officially overtook the City, London’s traditional financial district, in terms of numbers and has become the largest financial centre in Europe.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Nazi Sympathizer Charged With Defaming Minister Kyenge
Caught with switchblade impersonating police officer
(ANSA) — Lodi, August 20 — Police have detained a Nazi sympathizer in northern Italy for disseminating pamphlets with racist epithets denouncing Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge. The suspect’s home was searched to find Nazi memorabilia such as uniforms and replicas of grenades and bombs. Police had been looking for the suspect on charges of defamation against the country’s first black cabinet member, whom he likened to a primate in literature he distributed at a train station in Lodi, Lombardy. He was apprehended after boarding a train without a ticket, then lying to railway staff by saying he was a police officer. When police intervened they found he was carrying a switchblade. Kyenge, born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been the target of repeated racist abuse since her appointment in April, most publicly by members of the anti-immigrant Northern League party.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia Finances New Islamic Centre in Rotterdam
THE HAGUE, 17/08/13 — The Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, has gifted 650,000 euros for the building of a new Islamic centre in Rotterdam, Kamis Gacha, director of the Netherlands Socio-cultural Centre Foundation (SSCCN) says in an interview on de website of the Kuwaiti ministry of charitable and Islamic affairs (AWQAF).
In the interview, Gacha said the Islamic centre in Delfshaven district will offer space for 4,000 people. Of the Saudi contribution of 650,000 euros, Gacha said 500.000 dollars (about 375.000 euros) is for the purchase of the 2,500 square metre site.
Gacha said the centre “can offer support in the maintenance of the Islamic identity.” A library will be part of the centre. The SSCCN director says on the site he is still looking for 650.000 euros to complete the site.
Gacha is one of three Dutch who are according to a recent report in Het Parool on the payroll of the Kuwati ministry. The SSCDN is housed in a property in The Hague which was bought via AWQAF with the support of the Social Reform Society, the Muslim Brotherhood in the oil state.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Snowden Trashes ‘Racist Swiss’ On Chat Site
Edward Snowden, the former CIA agent who leaked top secret American intelligence documents, slammed the Swiss for being racist, rich and class-conscious on an internet chat site while stationed in Geneva, a US website is reporting.
Arstechnica.com revealed on Wednesday a string of comments that it alleged Snowden left on the website’s “Internet Relay Chat” once he arrived in Geneva in 2007, where he worked as a spy with diplomatic cover.
The remarks, made under an online username “TheTrueHOOHA”, are initially critical about how expensive Switzerland is, make references to how “racist” the Swiss are, but also refer to the mountain country as “pretty cool”.
Snowden, an IT systems expert, was 23 when he arrived in Switzerland as a CIA spy before he moved on to work for a private contractor hired by the National Security Agency (NSA).
Now reportedly at Moscow’s international airport, the 30-year-old is wanted by US law enforcement officials in connection with leaking NSA documents that reveal a massive global internet and telephone “data-mining” surveillance program.
Snowden is being regarded as a traitor to his country by American politicians and a hero by others for lifting the lid on allegedly invasive practices by US intelligence services.
He began secretly leaking the documents to The Washington Post and Britain’s Guardian newspapers in early June before revealing himself as the whistleblower on June 9th.
The comments made by TheTrueHOOHA to Arstechnica suggest that Snowden was unfamiliar with Switzerland when he first arrived.
On the chat site he appears to be conversing with Americans in the US about Swiss life and how it contrasts with life back home.
“You guys wouldn’t believe how expensive shit is here,” he says in one entry.
“You can’t get tap water in restaurants . . . they make you buy it in bottles, glass bottles. 5 bucks a pop.”
He complains of hamburgers costing $15 that tasted like “greasy cardboard”.
“Jesus christ are the swiss rich,” he wrote, adding, with the use of an obscenity, that McDonald’s workers were paid more than he was.
“They make like $50,000 a year.”
Several months later Snowden apparently warmed to life in Geneva.
“It’s pretty cool,” he wrote, according to Arstechnica.com.
“The girls are gorgeous, too. Oh, and prostitution is legal.”
He said it’s “like living in a post card” but also “nightmarishly expensive and horrifically classist.”…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spain’s Foreign Minister Slams UK in US Press
The Wall Street Journal has published a letter from Spain’s minister of foreign affairs and cooperation, José Manuel García-Margallo, demanding the immediate removal of concrete blocks from the Bay of Gibraltar before the start of bilateral negotiations with Britain over the colony’s future.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Bank Intern Who Worked ‘Crazy Hours’ Told How He Felt Under Intense Pressure to Succeed
Moritz Erhardt collapsed in the shower as he neared the end of a seven-week internship with the Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s investment bank division.
The 21-year-old German’s body was found by flatmates in east London and friends claimed he worked through the night eight times in two weeks in a bid to impress bosses.
Reports suggested Mr Erhardt, who was said to suffer from epilepsy, may have had a seizure.
In an online portfolio advertising his skills and aspirations, the high-achieving student told how he became “highly competitive and ambitious” from a young age.
He said he had a “persistent aspiration” to be good at everything, and wrote: “I have grown up in a family that expected me, in whatever respect, to excel in life. By implication, I felt somehow pressurized (sic). However, I did not intend to belie my parents’ expectations. Therefore, I have become a highly competitive and ambitious nature from early on.
“Already during my times in elementary school, I began playing soccer as well as tennis, I engaged in track and field athletics, and I started ski racing. Sometimes, I had a tendency to be over ambitious, which resulted in severe injuries.
“With respect to my performance in school, I was striving for excellence and trying to be the best all the time.”
[…]
Scotland Yard said they are treating the death as non-suspicious.
[…]
[NOTE: Slackers will never die from overwork but the suicidally successful have to consider the hazards of the world of bankster wannabes.]
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UK: Inside the World of the All Night Army of Banking Interns
…in Bethnal Green quiet as a mouse, the four-storey “banker block” was wide awake.
[…]
This is the place where many of the high-flying interns who staff the City’s most famous names come to catch their sleep. It is also the place where, at some time on Thursday last week, 21-year-old Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern Moritz Erhardt, said to have suffered from epilepsy, collapsed and died in his room, reportedly having had very little sleep in the days leading to his death.
[…]
The interns who spoke to the Standard at Claredale House last night were foreigners to a man. They are the star pupils from French, German, Australian, Chinese and Indian universities who arrive in London every summer to put their names into the hat for the City’s most prestigious banking jobs. The “hardcore” internships are the ones on the mergers and acquisitions desks, and last between eight and 10 weeks.
The banks every intern wants to work for — Barclays Capital, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, HSBC and, of course, Bank of America Merrill Lynch — pay their young charges well. Pro rata salaries of £40,000 or £50,000…Goldman Sachs is said to pay even more than that. The work is intense but the rewards are great if you can stand the pace. One former intern says there were 5,500 applicants for the two dozen internship places at his investment house when he did his summer there a few years ago.
Erhardt’s death is likely to focus minds on quite how much London’s banks demand of their summer interns. One intern at Claredale last night, also 21, said he thought the German had worked “eight all-nighters in two weeks”. Yesterday, when rumours swirled around the City, the received wisdom was worse. “Rumours flying around that a BofA [Bank of America] intern died on Thursday or Friday after working 72 hours straight,” is what a City friend of mine texted me, before news reports had emerged.
Asked how long Erhardt had been working in the days before his death, a spokesman for the bank said this morning: “All the rumours and comments are just that, we will have to wait and see what the post-mortem examination says. Do people in investment banking sometimes work long hours? Yes they do.”
Two years ago the Standard interviewed four high-flying banking interns anonymously, shining light on the all-night shifts, dog-eat-dog competition and isolation that characterised the experience of interning at top City firms during the financial crisis.
[…]
The City “bloodbaths” that have seen hundreds of thousands of workers laid off since the financial crisis hit have had a knock-on effect for the firm’s twenty-something summer helpers. There is anecdotal evidence that interns are doing more of the “client critical” work than they were expected to do a decade ago.
“I’m sure there are horror stories from the Eighties and Nineties all over the internet,” says a junior banker at a big City firm, “but the environment in the last three years has probably added to the idea that one has to keep working into the night, driven on by the fact that each intern is peering over his computer to see which other interns are left.”
The aspirant bankers who stay at Claredale pay between £156 and £168 per week for their small single-study bedrooms in shared flats. There are 246 such rooms in 59 flats over four storeys in the red-brick complex.
[…]
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US Official: Greenwald’s Partner Was Detained to Send a Message
One U.S. security official told Reuters that one of the main purposes of the British government’s detention and questioning of Miranda was to send a message to recipients of Snowden’s materials, including the Guardian, that the British government was serious about trying to shut down the leaks.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why Was Enoch Powell Condemned as a Racist and Not Charles De Gaulle?
Charles de Gaulle was Time magazine’s man of the year in 1959, the year he delivered his anti-Arab remarks.
The French and British empires historically had different premises, with the former (in the Roman tradition) focused more on culture and the latter more on race, hierarchy, and family. This difference took many forms: one finds meals of bifteck-frites in tiny towns in the former French colony of Niger but little English food even in the cities of neighboring Nigeria. Léopold Senghor of Senegal became a significant French poet and cultural figure whereas Rabindranath Tagore of Bengal could never transcend his Indian origins.
Likewise, French and British politicians responded to the initial post-World War II immigration of non-Western peoples to their countries in characteristically different ways. Charles de Gaulle, arguably the most important leader of France since Napoleon, focused on culture while Enoch Powell, a rising star in the United Kingdom, emphasized race. Here are their speeches on the topic, starting with de Gaulle (1890-1970), who spoke on March 5, 1959:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Allies Turn Away From US as Obama Backs Radical Islamists in Egypt
Excerpt: Arab countries are stepping up to provide aid pulled by Obama. Astonishingly, they are the good guys, whereas the US government is backing Islamic terrorist insurgents. Unlike Obama, Arab nations want to arrest the spread of radical Islam so that the entire Middle East doesn’t turn into a giant seething Iran.
| — Hat tip: KP | [Return to headlines] |
Backing Egypt’s Generals, Saudi Arabia Promises Financial Support
CAIRO — Saudi Arabia is emerging at the forefront of a forceful effort by Persian Gulf monarchies to back Egypt’s new military leaders, exacerbating a fierce struggle for influence in the chaotic and increasingly leaderless Arab world and putting the Saudis at odds with the United States, a long-standing ally.
On Monday, Saudi Arabia promised to compensate Egypt for any aid that Western countries might withdraw in response to the harsh tactics employed by Egypt’s leaders to quell protests by supporters of the country’s deposed president, in which nearly 1,000 people and more than 100 police officers are reported to have been killed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Bishop of Andropoli: Christians and Muslims United to Save Egypt From Islamists
For Msgr. Golta, Catholic Coptic Auxiliary bishop of Alexandria, the United States and the European Union want to impose Muslim Brotherhood rule on Egyptians. The Islamists have vowed to solve the Palestinian issue yielding 40% of the Sinai to Hamas. Muslims ready to defend the Christians at any cost.
Cairo (AsiaNews) — “Egyptian Christians and Muslims are united to change the country, instead the Muslim Brotherhood are an international movement that is not aiming for the good of Egypt. After his election Mohammed Morsi promised to solve the Palestinian issue, yielding 40% of the Sinai Peninsula to Hamas and to create a new state for the people of Gaza and the West Bank. All at the expense of the Egyptians” says Msgr. Yohanna Golta, Catholic Coptic bishop of Andropoli and auxiliary bishop of Alexandria. The prelate describes the dramatic climate of violence that pervades Egypt and lays the blame at the doorstep of all those countries who are hiding from the facts, ignoring the views of millions of Egyptians and reducing the conflict to a political struggle between the military and Muslim Brotherhood.
“The organization of the Muslim Brotherhood has a plan to build an Islamic caliphate — says Msgr. Golta — this program is international and includes Turkey, Qatar, Egypt and other Muslim states.” For the prelate the West is more interested in solving the issue of Israeli democracy than the plight and desires of the Egyptians. “The Egyptian people, especially young people — he adds — reject this plan. A revolution took place on 30 June in order to avoid the destruction of our country and the army and for the first time the police sided with the people. Everyone, women, men, seniors, children, imams and Christian priests marched together without fighting. I was among the protesters and I witnessed this atmosphere of friendship and unity”. The choosing instead to focus in on the conflict over the legitimacy of the Mohammed Morsi government. “Peace in Israel and Palestine — he adds — suits the West, which is why the U.S. refuses our policies in order to achieve its goal: bring the Islamists back to power.”
Bishop Golta argues that the attack on the Christian Churches had been prepared for a long time and is part of a premeditated plan. “In recent weeks — he says — the extremists have destroyed churches, homes, museums, and staged clashes with the police. This is to show the world that the country is in chaos and push for Western countries to intervene in Egypt, and force the population to accept the government of Mohammed Morsi. “
However, according to the bishop who has experienced the events of recent weeks first hand, the truth does not correspond to the news reported by international media. “The price of this chaos in addition to hundreds of deaths in clashes between Islamists and the army — he explains — are over 40 churches burned and 500 Christian homes deliberately destroyed.” Bishop Golta criticises those who foment the fable of sectarian strife, “Muslims are defending the Copts, organizing security cordons around the churches (see photo), houses, shops. A small minority is instigating the clash and do not represent Egypt. The U.S. and European Union do not want to see the reality, but only what’s important to them, giving credence to lies and trampling on the aspirations of the Egyptian people. “ (S.C.)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt Arrests Muslim Brotherhood Leader Badie
Egyptian authorities announced on Tuesday they had arrested the Muslim Brotherhood’s supreme leader Mohamed Badie, as they escalated their campaign to crush the party of ousted president Mohammed Morsi.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Gulf Nations Split With West to Back Egyptian Military
Efforts by the West to pressure Egypt’s new government to end its crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood could be moot thanks to Saudi Arabia’s oil money — and whole-hearted backing of the military. While the West calls for peace in Cairo, the Saudis are supporting Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, who led the ouster of Mohammed Morsi. The Kingdom has pledged to make up for any loss in foreign aid resulting from the military’s brutal crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Trawler Seized by Tunisia
Diplomatic channels activated in latest
(ANSAmed) — MAZARA DEL VALLO, AUGUST 20 — The Tunisian Navy on Tuesday seized an Italian trawler in the Sicilian Channel, saying it had strayed into Tunisian waters.
The Pindaro, with a crew of three Italians and four Tunisians, was escorted to the North African country’s port of Sfax.
A fishing group in this southwestern Sicilian port said they had activated diplomatic channels to get the trawler back.
Tunisia has seized hundreds of vessels from the Mazara del Vallo fleet since the late 1980s, usually handing them back after a few days.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mark Steyn: Consensus in Egypt
Excerpt: As a result, the factions in Egypt are united only in their contempt for Washington. Obama is despised by Sisi and the generals for being fundamentally unserious; by the Brotherhood for stringing along with the coup; by the Copts for standing by as the Brothers take it out on them; and by the small number of genuine democrats in Egypt for his witless promotion of Morsi’s thugs as the dawning of democracy. Any “national-unity government” of the kind the usual deluded twits are urging on Egypt would be united only in its unanimous loathing of Obama, his secretaries of state, and his inept ambassador.
| — Hat tip: KP | [Return to headlines] |
MB Official on Al Jazeera Says: Gen. Al-Sisi is Jewish and Implementing the Protocols!!
Gamal Nasser, a Muslim Brotherhood commentator on al Jazeera this past weekend asserted that Egyptian military strongman Col. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi was Jewish and implementing the infamous anti-Semitic Czarist forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in a Zionist plot “to set Egypt ablaze”. Nasser contends that al-Sisi is behind the Jewish plot to divide Egyp, meaning the overthrow of former President Morsi and dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood. MEMRI has a subtitled video and transcript of the MB leader’s over the top hate mongering remarks on al-Jazeera. Lest we forget Al-Jazeera is backed by the Emir of Qatar, and promotes the MB credo and doctrine. One wonders whether this is going to be the stream of commentary emanating from its American affiliate thinly disquised as taqiyyah- religiously sanctioned dissimilitude. The Washington Post notes that Al Jazeera America begins broadcasting today.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia’s Amina Quits ‘Islamophobic’ Femen
Amina Sboui, the Tunisian activist who sparked controversy for posting topless pictures of herself on Facebook, said Tuesday she had left the radical feminist group Femen, accusing it of Islamophobia and a lack of financial transparency.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Ratings Plunge Due to Political Turmoil, Red Alert
Standard &Poor’s downgrades credit rating by two notches
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS — International credit rating agencies once again turned their unforgiving eye to Tunisia on Friday, when Standard and Poor’s (S&P) downgraded Tunisia’s foreign and domestic long-term credit rating.
The American financial services company has downgraded the country two levels (from BB- to B), citing concerns about Tunisia’s political crisis and security threats. Making the assessment — which came unexpectedly, especially given the period chosen in which to release it — even more worrisome is the cut in the rating of the Tunisian central bank’s “credit worth”. The bank has come in for criticism recently from local economists as well, who disagree with the direction taken to protect the national currency, the dinar, which is suffering sharp depreciation against the euro and dollar. Two years after the fall of the Ben Ali regime, post-revolutionary Tunisia is still in a transitional phase and the slow pace at which it is moving is weighing the country down: a country already suffering from enormous political tension, the ratings agency noted, which could lead to a wave of violence. Nevertheless, the country is unlikely to see a similar situation to the one in Egypt.
Continuing institutional deadlock since Constituent Assembly (NCA) speaker Ben Jaafar decided to suspend the body’s works indefinitely is also wearing down Tunisia’s political system, which has not been able to find a solution nor even initiate dialogue with basic, shared objectives.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
US, Iran Both Supporting Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood
The recent removal of Morsi from power in Egypt has revealed a bizarre situation in which two opponents, the US and Iran, have joined in their respective shows of support for the Muslim Brotherhood.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Victor Davis Hanson: The Middle East: All Bad Choices
Excerpt: Even in the Middle East, it is hard to get yourself hated all at once by Islamists, the military, the Arab Street, Christian minorities, and secular reformists. In Egypt, the Obama administration has somehow managed all that and more.
| — Hat tip: KP | [Return to headlines] |
Erdogan: Israel is Behind Egypt Coup
Turkish prime minister has suggested that Israel is behind the military intervention in Egypt that removed President Mohammed Morsi.
“Israel is behind the coup in Egypt, we have evidence,” Erdogan told members of his party at a meeting in Ankara on Tuesday. He cited a French intellectual, without mentioning his name, who, according to Erdogan, said in 2011 that the Muslim Brotherhood won’t be in power even if they are elected because “democracy is not the ballot box.” Erdogan stressed the Jewish identity of the French intellectual.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iranian Christian Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison
(AGI) Vatican, Aug 20 — An Iranian Christian convert from Islam was sentenced to 10 years in prison for “crimes against Iranian national security.” Mohammad-Hadi Bordbar, known as Mostafa from Rasht, was tried and condemned for conspiracy after distributing copies of the gospel. He was said to have confessed to leaving Islam to convert to Christianity and to distributing 12,000 pocket-sized gospels as he considered evangelism a duty, Fides news agency reported .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Turkey Withdrawing Troops From UNIFIL
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, AUGUST 12 — The United Nations international peacekeeping force has said Turkey is considering to withdraw its unit operating in southern Lebanon.
The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) spokesperson Andrea Tenenti told Lebanese National News Agency (NNA) that Turkey notified the UNIFIL this week that it has decided to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. “The withdrawal will be completed by the first week of September while Turkish troops will continue to serve in the UNIFIL Maritime Task Force,” Tenenti told NNA, as Today’s Zaman reported.
The report of Turkish withdrawal came on the day when two Turkish pilots were kidnapped by Shiite Lebanese gunmen, demanding the release of nine kidnapped Lebanese Shiite pilgrims abducted by Syrian rebels in Azaz last May. It was not immediately clear if the decision to withdraw troops was related to the kidnapping that has become frequent in Lebanon.
Tenenti said Ankara notified about its decision on August 6, three days before the pilots were kidnapped. He added that Turkey will withdraw its engineering and construction experts unit, but will maintain its presence within UNIFIL’s naval forces with 58 troops and a frigate.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish PM Accuses Israel of Orchestrating Egypt Coup
(AGI) Ankara, Aug 20 — Israel was behind the coup that ousted Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi, said Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Documents proved they were involved, he told local Justice and Development Party leaders.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: In Sumatra, Female Students to Undergo Virginity Tests to Fight Prostitution
A proposal to such an effect comes from HM Rasyid, head of the Department of Education in Prabumulih Regency. Concerned for high school kids, he wants the measure introduced next year. This has proven controversial on social networks and among civil society groups. The commodification of the female body is a widespread phenomenon that also affects the very young.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — Beginning with the 2014-2015 school year, high school girls might be required to undergo a virginity test. Made by the head of the Prabumulih Department for Education, South Sumatra province, the proposal has already sparked controversy with hundreds of people posting outraged or sarcastic comments on social networks with regards to HM Rasyid’s “crazy” idea. Unperturbed, the latter has indicated that he does not intend to back down, hopeful that in the coming months he might get the money to implement his plan.
As media reported in Prabumulih, the education official explained his proposal yesterday. In his view, virginity tests would be an effective way of fighting child prostitution, including among high school girls.
Although he agrees that this is “a private matter” and that tests could be construed as “a violation of human rights”, he still wants them since they are an effective way to prevent “adultery or prostitution.”
Though illegal in Indonesia, prostitution is widespread with places “reserved” for that purpose and nightclubs “providing” company to visitors. In particular, in the big cities pimps use young women and girls of school age to make quick and easy money. As “call girls”, the latter often sell their bodies to meet big city expenses, pay for college or live the high life.
Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world. Although individual rights are protected under the constitution, including religious freedom, the country has seen a rise in violent attacks against minorities and laws that discriminate based on gender.
In Aceh, local authorities have implemented Islamic law, the only province in the archipelago to do so; however, more and more regions are coming under the influence of radical extremist views of Islam.
Increasingly, bans are imposed in personal matters, such as the women straddling motorcycles or wearing jeans or short skirts, with a ‘morality police’ specially trained to enforce bans.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bern Blocks Swiss Ski Lift Sale to North Korea
Bern has vetoed a contract by a Saint Gallen company to sell a ski lift system to the North Korean government for a luxury winter resort in the East Asian country.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
TEPCO Admits Leakage of 300 Tons of Water With Monstrous Radiation Level
Another tank with highly radioactive water at the devastated Fukushima nuclear power plant has leaked, reported operator TEPCO. The contaminated water contains an unprecedented 80 million Becquerels of radiation per liter. The norm is a mere 150 Bq.
A spokesman for the Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) said on Tuesday that 300 tons of highly radioactive water has leaked from a stainless steel tank on the territory of the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has classified the leak as a Level One incident, the second lowest on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) for radiological releases, a spokesman informed Reuters.
The incident is the first Level One since the actual catastrophe at Fukushima in March 2011 when Japanese authorities issued an INES rating.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Thomas Lifson: A Surprising Crystal Meth Epidemic
Excerpt: According to a report in the Asian Wall Street Journal, North Korea is grappling with widespread use of crystal meth. Jason Strother writes: North Korea is experiencing a “drug epidemic,” according to a study published in the Spring 2013 edition of the journal North Korea Review. “A New Face of North Korean Drug Use: Upsurge in Methamphetamine Abuse Across the Northern Areas of North Korea” explains how during the past several years meth production has gone from government-owned factories to privately run underground laboratories and “home kitchens.”
| — Hat tip: KP | [Return to headlines] |
Norway Hopes Congo Death Will Free Survivor
Norwegian officials hope that the tragic death of one of the two Norwegians jailed in the Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday will make it easier to secure the release of the other.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
150 Syrian Migrants Rescued Off Sicily
‘Mostly women and children’
(ANSA) — Noto, August 19 — A raft carrying 150 migrants and refugees from Syria was rescued off the coast of Sicily on Monday. Among them were roughly 40 children and 40 women, the Coast Guard said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Austria: One Out of Five is of Foreign Origin
Data highlighted in the ‘Integrationsbericht 2013’ report
(ANSA) — VIENNA — One Austrian citizen out of five, to be more exact 19% of the population, is of foreign origin: 14% were born in a foreign country, 52% of immigrants feel at home between Klagenfurt and Vienna, but one Austrian out of two now believes that the integration process is not working at its best. These are some of the data highlighted in the ‘Integrationsbericht 2013’, official national report on integration in Austria.
According to statistics reported by media in Vienna, the largest communities already present within the national territory are those of EU citizens (35%), citizens of the former Yugoslavia, except for Slovenia (32%) and Turkish citizens (17%).
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Boat Carrying 106 Migrants Rescued Off Australian Coast
(AGI) Sydney, Aug 20 — The 106 migrants aboard a sinking boat have been rescued north of Australia’s Christmas Island. The Australian authorities received the SOS on Tuesday morning, and a ship reached the boat in distress. All the passengers were rescued, although many of them were already in the water.
Maritime authorities said that two people were injured, though not seriously, and that the rescue operations are still under way.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
French Top Cop’s Immigration Comments Spark Outrage
France’s outspoken Interior Minister Manuel Valls is once again at the centre of controversy after calling the country’s immigration policy and its relationship to Islam into question.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls has sowed discord at the heart of the Socialist-led French government after making controversial comments about the country’s immigration policy and its large Muslim population.
During a closed-door ministerial meeting on Monday, Valls, who is in charge of French police, suggested that in ten years France’s immigration system would need fundamental reforms to tackle the influx of foreigners, especially from Africa.
In particular, he questioned whether the country would be able to maintain its policy of regrouping family members of immigrants who obtain legal residency.
Later in the meeting, he was quoted as saying it would be up to France to prove that Islam was compatible with democracy.
The comments were leaked to dailies Libération and Le Parisien by other ministers who, while wishing to remain anonymous, admitted feeling “outraged” by what they had heard.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hundreds More Migrants Arrive on Italian Shores
More than 600 migrants from Eritrea, Pakistan, Syria and other countries landed on Italian shores on three boats between Monday night and Tuesday, coast guards said.
One boat carrying 336 people was rescued by the coast guard near Porto Empedocle in Sicily and the migrants were taken ashore, where most of them fled from police.
The migrants said they were all from Eritrea.
A second boat with 233 people aboard was also spotted and taken to the tiny island of Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost point and a major arrival point for migrants boats from Libya and Tunisia.
A third boat with 67 aboard arrived in a small port near Syracuse in south-eastern Sicily. The migrants said they were from Pakistan and Syria.
Most of the thousands of economic migrants and refugees who have landed in Italy in recent months have landed in Libya from other parts of Africa.
Some 350 migrants — many of them from Egypt and Syria — arrived on four boats in Sicily on Monday.
Calmer weather conditions and growing unrest in north Africa have led to a surge in migrant arrivals in recent weeks.
Italy’s interior ministry said 24,277 migrants landed in Italy in the 12-month period between August 1st, 2012 and August 10th, 2013. Almost 9,000 arrived in a single 40-day period between July 1st and August 10th.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Over 500 Migrants Rescued Off Sicily
Women and children among Eritreans, Pakistanis, Syrians
(ANSAmed) — Palermo, August 20 — Over 500 migrants, including women and children, were rescued off the coast of Sicily early Tuesday after one of their three boats fell apart at sea. Some 233 people were escorted to shore on the island of Lampedusa by Italian Coast guard, while another 336 migrants were saved off the coast of Agrigento. So far they have been identified as Eritrean, Pakistani and Syrian nationals, who told rescuers they had been at sea for about 10 days. While the summer in southern Italy is marked by large numbers of migrants departing from North Africa, over 500 people is an exceptionally big group to arrive at once.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Push Back Migrants Says Northern League Chief
‘Government, wake up,’ Maroni tweets
(ANSA) — Rome, August 20 — The only way to stem the throngs of migrants who brave the perilous crossing from North Africa to Italy every day is “pushing them back” while still at sea, Lombardy governor and Northern League leader Roberto Maroni said Tuesday.
“Endless landings of illegal immigrants in Lampedusa. A remedy exists: push-backs and bilateral agreements to prevent them from leaving (Africa). Government wake up!!”, Maroni wrote on Twitter.
The anti-immigrant League was one of the main sponsors of a controversial ‘push-back’ policy under the last government of three-time premier Silvio Berlusconi.
Over 500 migrants, including women and children, were rescued off the coast of Sicily on Tuesday morning alone after one of their three boats fell apart at sea. EU border agency Frontex has sounded the alarm, noting that over 12,000 migrants landed in southern Italy in the first seven months of this year, 75% more than last year.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Six Break Out of Immigrant Holding Centre in Northern Italy
14 others apprehended
(ANSA) — Gorizia, August 20 — Six immigrants were able to escape from a migrant-holding centre in the northeastern Italian town of Gradisca d’Isonzo near Gorizia, police said Tuesday. Overall 20 migrants attempted to escape on Monday night but police were able to apprehend the other 14.
Some 30 migrants in Gradisca staged a demonstration last week to protest against poor living conditions at the centre.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Gay Duma Member’s Church is Attacked
(AGI) Moscow, Aug 19 — Unidentified individuals attampted to set on fire a church in St. Petersburg where the local Duma member Vitaly Molonov actively participates. Milonov, known for promoting a much debated anti-gay bill, wrote on Twitter on sunday night that ‘some criminals tried to set St. Peter’s Church on fire. Police are looking for the delinquents.’ The politician added that it must have been an arson attempt because a molotov cocktail was found near the parish church.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
California’s Newest “Protection” Law: “The Gender Identity Bill”
California Governor Jerry Brown has just signed into law a most preposterous bill — a bill that to my trained legal eye looks like the ultimate in child abuse itself — billed as one to “protect transgendered children” (or those perceiving themselves as same). The bill currently endangers all others and those allegedlly “transgendered” childern themselves who more likely than not are the victims of the childhood exploiters who would convince highly suggestible children that they are something other than the good Lord above packaged them. Now your little girls must share gym facilites and restrooms with little boys who suddenly proclaim themselves as little girls despite their outward genitalia. Your little boys must likewise share with little girls who do likewise. And California law passed last year prohibits parents from seeking counseling for their children against this unseemly suggestibility! And they have the nerve to call it “progressive”!
Read the ugly law, Assembly Bill 1266, now enacted and signed by California Governor Jerry Brown here.
Under this new abomination passing itself off as “law,” if your little boy, even a kindergartner, wants to think of himself as a little girl, he must be allowed to use the little girls toilets and public restroom facilities. Ditto if your precious little girl wants to think of herself as a boy.
And should a California parent try to protect his or he precious little ones from the obvious psychological abuse from others of his child that has resulted in the child having these opinions that he (or she) is not as the good Lord created him to be, such counseling about the child’s true “gender orientation” is illegal, too! Governor Jerry Brown signed that bill, California Senate Bill 1172 into law on September 30, 2012. It went into effect on January 1, 2013. You may read that bill as signed by the Governor in its ugly entirety here.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Christian Air Force Veteran Relieved of Duties for Refusing to Affirm Homosexual ‘Marriage’
SAN ANTONIO — A Christian Air Force Veteran has been relieved of his duties after declining to affirm homosexual marriage.
Senior Master Sergeant Phillip Monk has served in the Air Force for 19 years, and has been stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. When he recently returned from deployment, he found that he had a new commander, who was a lesbian…
Monk says that in his early communication with the commander, he knew there would be concerns.
“She said she wanted a chaplain but objected to one particular chaplain that she called a ‘bigot’ because he preached that homosexuality is a sin,” he explained to reporters. “She then said, ‘I don’t know what kind of people actually believe that kind of cr**.’ I knew I was going to have a rough time in this unit and I would have to be very careful about what I said.”
Monk was later asked to advise the commander regarding a disciplinary matter involving an Air Force instructor who had expressed his disagreement with homosexual “marriage” in a written presentation.
“Her very first reaction was to say, ‘We need to lop off the head of this guy,’“ he recalled. “The commander took the position that his speech was discrimination.”
However, when Monk read the words at issue, he believed that the instructor had not done anything wrong.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How Textbooks Push Children to the Left
Are you surprised that leftist ideas have penetrated the minds of the people? Chalk up this reality to the leftist teachers and, especially, to the left-oriented textbooks now in use in our secondary schools. One book in particular that has been gaining traction in New York City in recent years is “The Americans.”
Although even the leftist teachers claim not to like this textbook used in U.S. history (a one-year course required in NYC for all juniors) because it is so skimpy on facts and is written in an opaque style, any informed reader would have to agree that it is one of the most politically correct textbooks one could imagine. Reading this book, one gets the message that the history of America is a theme of victimization. The list of victims is well known: Native Americans, women, labor, immigrants, blacks, farmers, urban dwellers, the mentally ill, migrant workers, unions, etc. “The Americans” is a somewhat diluted version of Howard Zinn’s openly communist college textbook, “A People’s History of the United States.” It is also worth adding that this reference to Zinn’s “communism” is not putting labels on anyone, and is not a McCarthy-like type of red-baiting of an innocent individual; Zinn openly announced his communism decades ago when he taught at Boston University.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Daniel Pipes is misinformed. Enoch Powell could NEVER be described as a rising star of British politics. He was regarded with suspicion by the left who could not accept the concept of a right wing academic while the right were rather in awe of him. His book “medicine and Politics” was one of my set books when I was studying for the Diploma in Municipal Administration (a sort of pass level degree in government) in the 60’s. it was well written while being concise and well referenced.
In the Conservative Party leadership election which brought forth Edward Heath, Powell finished a poor third. The “Rivers of Blood” speech came after this at a time when he was already being sidelined and regrettably destined for the obscurity of Ulster Unionism.