Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/17/2013

The Italian luxury liner Costa Concordia is finally being righted and raised, a year and a half after it ran aground off a Tuscan island. The hulk is being salvaged by an American-Italian consortium, which plans to tow it to a shipyard and break it up for scrap.

In other Italian maritime news, nearly a thousand illegal migrants traveling in five different boats were rescued overnight in the Channel of Sicily by the Italian navy and coast guard. The refugees are reportedly Syrians, Palestinians, and Moroccans.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jolie Rouge, JP, KP, 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
» Almost 50 Million Americans Now on Food Stamps as Nation Plunges Into Widespread Poverty
» Italian Banks’ Labor Contracts Cancelled
» More Americans Than Ever Consider Themselves “Lower Class”
» My Grovelling Apology to Herr Schauble
» Tax Wedge Reduction is a Priority for Italian Government
 
USA
» CDC Now Admits Era of Antibiotics at an End as Bacteria Out-Wit Drug Companies
» CIA Employee Who Refused to Sign Non-Disclosure on Benghazi Suspended
» Constitution Day — Sept. 17, 1787: Can it Survive in 2013?
» Crazed “Black Out” Navy Yard Shooter Suspect Alexis Had Secret Government Clearance
» Islamic Group Sues Des Plaines for Rejecting Planned Mosque
» Lesson of Navy Yard Shooting Echoes Lessons of Camp Liberty, Fort Hood
» Obama: The Second Amendment Only Applies to Al-Qaeda
» Photo: Students Taught Falsified Version of Second Amendment
» Was Navy Yard Killer on Anti-Depressant Meds?
» Washington Navy Yard Gunman ‘Obsessed With Violent Video Games’
 
Canada
» Canuck Bashing: The Last Phobia
 
Europe and the EU
» British Court Enforces Sharia Over Equal Protection of Law
» Denmark: Up to 200 More Church Closings Could be on the Way
» French Jeweller Who Shot Thief Becomes Online Hero
» Germans and Brits Agree: The European Union Needs to be Slimmed Down
» Iron Age Horse Found as Norway Glacier Melts
» Italferr Chair and Ex-Governor of Umbria Arrested
» Italy: Police Dig for Toxic Waste in Camorra Heartland
» Italy: Few Other Countries Could Have Righted Costa Concordia
» Italy: Grillo Attacks Re-Election of President Napolitano
» Italy: Gasparri Lashes Out at Olli Rehn Over IMU Property Tax
» Italy: Monti Apologizes to Olli Rehn Over Insults by PDL Members
» Italy: Toy Manufacturers Under House Arrest for 114-Mn-Euro Fraud
» Norway Politician Starts 3,000km Commute
» Norway: Foreign Press Defends Progress Anti-Migrant Tag
» Scotland: Wayne Stilwell Jailed for Mosque Bacon Attack
» Snake Robots on Mars: How They Could Look
» Suspected Leader of Islamic Militant Cell Arrested in Spain
» UK: Jeremy Browne: Ban Muslim Women From Wearing Veils in Schools and Public Places
» UK: Muslim Veil Ruling? Nonsense Upon Stilts
» UK: Sarah Wollaston: Veil Debate Should be Wake-Up Call for Feminism
» UK: Thousands of Popular British Plant Varieties Could be Banned From Our Garden Centres Under New European Proposals.
» UK: Tiptoeing Around Islam and a Ban on Muslim Women Wearing the Veil
» UK: Unveiled
» UK: Veils in Court Are a Barrier to Justice
» Violin From Titanic Goes on Display
 
North Africa
» Egypt: FB Photo of a Kiss Sparks Scandal
» Egypt: Court Freezes Assets of 25 Muslim Brotherhood Leaders
» Egypt: UNESCO to Restore Churches and Museums Affected by Violence in Egypt
» Syrian Refugees ‘Living in Fear in Egypt’
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Israeli Army Kills Palestinian in West Bank
 
Middle East
» 5 Lies Invented to Spin UN Report on Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack
» China Refuses to Blame Regime for Syria Gas Attack
» Iraq: As Death Toll Hits Highest Level Since 2007, Patriarch Sako Laments Rising Sectarianism, Loss of Unity
» Obama Authorizes Military Aid to Syrian Opposition to Combat Chemical Weapons Use
» Syria Crisis Causes $140 Million Losses for Jordan Farmers
» Syrian Civilians and Rebels Treated in Israel
» Syria: UN Resolution Won’t be Under Chapter 7, Says Lavrov
» Syria: Nearly Half Rebel Fighters Are Jihadists or Hardline Islamists, Says Ihs Jane’s Report
 
South Asia
» Bangladesh: Abdul Quader Mollah, The ‘Butcher’ Of Mirpur, Sentenced to Death
» Bangladeshi Islamist Leader Abdul Kader Mullah Sentenced to Death
» Leaders Pay Tribute to Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew on His 90th Birthday
» Sri Lanka: Sinhalese Buddhist Radicals Attack Protestant Church
 
Far East
» Philippine Army Says Muslim Rebels Fleeing Southern City
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» EU Pledges 650 Million Euros for 3-Year Somalia Aid Plan
» Four Boko Haram Members Die After Arrests in Nigeria
» Nigeria: Killing of Civilian JTF Causes Riot in Maiduguri
» South Africa: Foreigner’s Shops Attacked in Port Elizabeth
» Swedish Hostage in Al-Qaeda Film
 
Immigration
» Almost 1,000 Refugees Rescued in Channel of Sicily
» Declining Demographics and the Destruction of an Exceptional Country
» Israel Strikes Down Law Targeting African Migrants
» Italy: Kyenge Backs Pope’s Call to House Refugees in Empty Convents
» The Myths of S744 Amnesty Bill
 
Culture Wars
» Catholic University to Welcome Communist Leader
» Divorced Catholics, Gay Christians, Atheists in Heaven: The Mystery of What Pope Francis Really Believes
» Italy: Lesbian Film Fest Launching in Bologna
» Keith Olbermann, Craig James and the Shocking Example of Double Standards
» Nature is Given Rights But Not Unborn Babies
» Obama Nominee for Judge Says Abortion Frees Women From “Conscription Into Maternity”
» ‘Pinkwashing’ And the Dark Side of Breast-Cancer Philanthropy
» The Paganization of America
» The Sexual Indoctrination of America’s Children
» The Truth About Homophobia
 
General
» 11 Million Users Abandon Facebook
» Is This the Most Extraordinary Human Brain Ever Seen?
» You Are Married to Four Wives Each, Each of Whom Comes With 70 Virgins, And Each Virgin Comes With 70 Servant Girls
 

Almost 50 Million Americans Now on Food Stamps as Nation Plunges Into Widespread Poverty

(NaturalNews) As economic recovery continues to prove dismal if not illusory, American families are signing up for food stamps in record numbers, showing signs that poverty is increasing and the job market is far from recovering.

According to official U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) numbers, households on food stamps increased by 45,900 in one month, hitting a staggering new high in June of 23.117 million households, with an additional 125,079 individuals signing up for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, a near-record 47.76 million people that is just below the December 2012 peak of 47.79 million.

More than 80% of those families receiving food stamp benefits are at or below the poverty line, with more than 61% of households drastically below the poverty line, making less than $14,648 in a year per household of three.

These numbers reflect a bigger trend that is all but abysmal in scope — that more than 22 million people have been added to the government dole since December 2007, at the onset of the economic crisis that has spiraled into near depression levels. According to Zero Hedge, more than 2.2 million jobs are needed to reach equilibrium with Fall 2008 levels of employment and cost of living affordability.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Italian Banks’ Labor Contracts Cancelled

ABI association cites recession, costs and pension reforms

(ANSA) — Rome, September 16 — Italian national banks association ABI met with unions on Monday and gave formal notice that it is exercising its right to dissolve national contracts currently in force in order to precipitate new negotiations.

ABI announced in a statement it had the legal right to cancel the contracts if it gave notice at least six months prior to expiration, set for June 30, 2014.

In a letter to the unions, ABI said one reason for the move was Italy’s deep recession, which has seen the economy contract every quarter since July-September 2011.

“For the banks, the fall in profitability has proven significant and unsustainable; in frequent cases, returns are negative,” ABI said in the letter.

ABI added that recent regulatory reforms and the need to reinforce capital ratios also weighed on the banks, as did high labour costs compared to European counterparts.

Moreover, automated banking and higher technology was increasing in importance, while the advantages of physical branches and their personnel were on the decline.

ABI complained that Italy’s recent pension reforms, which increased the age at which many workers can retire, had the adverse effect of leaving banks over-staffed.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

More Americans Than Ever Consider Themselves “Lower Class”

By Christine Rouselle

Excerpt: Despite promises of “hope and change” by our current president, more Americans than ever before now consider themselves to be “lower class.” According to the General Social Survey, 8.4 percent of Americans now consider themselves to be “lower class,” the highest percentage since the survey began in 1972. The majority of Americans have typically referred to themselves as “middle” or “working” class.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

My Grovelling Apology to Herr Schauble

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Excerpt: I apologise for mentioning that unemployment is 27.8pc in Greece, 26.3pc in Spain, 17.3pc in Cyprus, and 16.5pc in Portugal, or for pointing that it would be far worse had it not been for a mass exodus of EMU refugees. Nor was is proper to mention that Greek youth unemployment in 62.9pc. These are trivial details.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Tax Wedge Reduction is a Priority for Italian Government

(AGI) Rome, Sept 16 — Reducing the tax wedge is a one of the priorities the Italian government must address in coming months according to the “Agenda for Growth”, the update for national reforms added to the economic and financial paper that will be presented on September 20. A draft paper states, “The size of the tax wedge must be reduced and the burden moved from labour and capital to consumer spending, property and the environment thereby guaranteeing a neutral budget.

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

CDC Now Admits Era of Antibiotics at an End as Bacteria Out-Wit Drug Companies

In a breakthrough moment of truth for the CDC, the agency now openly admits that prescription antibiotics have led to a catastrophic rise in superbugs, causing the death of at least 23,000 Americans each year (an estimate even the CDC calls “conservative”).

This is the conclusion of the CDC’s new Threat Report 2013, a document that for the first time quantifies the number of fatalities happening in America due to antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

CIA Employee Who Refused to Sign Non-Disclosure on Benghazi Suspended

A CIA employee who refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement barring him from discussing the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, has been suspended as a result and forced to hire legal counsel, according to a top House lawmaker.

Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) revealed at an event on Monday that his office was anonymously informed about the CIA employee, who is purportedly facing an internal backlash after refusing to sign a legal document barring him from publicly or privately discussing events surrounding the Benghazi attack.

The revelation comes about a month after several media outlets reported that CIA employees with knowledge of the terror attack had been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDA) and submit to regular polygraph tests.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Constitution Day — Sept. 17, 1787: Can it Survive in 2013?

The question facing America on September 17, 2013, is whether Americans can keep the free constitutional republic of limited central government powers created under the leadership of the Founding Fathers.

Or, whether America shall continue to be transformed under the leadership of self-declared liberal “Progressives” headed by President and Commander-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama, liberal “Progressives” who have declared since the time of Woodrow Wilson that the Constitution is an “outdated 18th Century document,” useful for its time but not this time, which therefore should be discarded and replaced in the 21st Century by their “progressive” ideology of an “Administrative State” in which an elite ruling class of political and academic “experts” heading central (federal) government bureaucracies will create an American utopia, from food stamps to foreign policy.

An indication of the liberal “progressives” success in transforming American from the vision of the Founding Fathers into their own liberal “progressive” vision of a soft totalitarian state led by “experts,” i.e., themselves, is that on September 17, 2013, few American children in government schools dominated by liberal “progressive” teachers and education bureaucrats, will be taught of the historic importance of September 17, 1787, for our nation, and for the world.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Crazed “Black Out” Navy Yard Shooter Suspect Alexis Had Secret Government Clearance

The suspected Navy Yard gunman shot dead by cops earlier today had a secret government clearance despite the fact he was arrested in Seattle in 2004 after shooting out the tires of a car during an angry “blackout.”

According to a police report, Aaron Alexis didn’t remember the incident until about an hour later.

Alexis was also arrested in 2010 for shooting into a neighbor’s apartment in Fort Worth, Texas. He had previously confronted the neighbor for making too much noise. The woman said she believed the shooting was intentional.

Despite these incidents, the alleged shooter was permitted a secret government clearance and was hired as a civilian contractor with a military-issued ID card.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Islamic Group Sues Des Plaines for Rejecting Planned Mosque

Another federal court battle is brewing over a northwest suburb’s refusal this summer to let a 160-member Islamic group open a mosque in a vacant building in an industrial area. The lawsuit filed Monday against Des Plaines and five of its aldermen is the latest to take on a “knee-jerk reaction to something Islamic or Muslim,” said Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations-Chicago. His group helped win a $445,000 settlement from DuPage County in a similar case earlier this year. Now, it’s backing the case brought by the American Islamic Center and its attorney, Tony Peraica…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Lesson of Navy Yard Shooting Echoes Lessons of Camp Liberty, Fort Hood

Yesterday’s shooting spree at Washington’s Navy Yard reminds us that disarmed military personnel are made-to-order victims for spree shooters.

When Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire Nov. 5, 2009, on soldiers preparing to deploy overseas, I was at Camp Basra, Iraq, a combat historian mobilized with the Army Reserve.

To the soldiers in my circle, it was similar to the May 5, 2009 shooting spree at Camp Liberty, Iraq, when a joe burst into that camp’s combat stress center (!) and fatally shot five other soldiers.

Understand: All military personnel in Iraq were armed, with either a rifle or a handgun, and sometimes both. Living in a universally armed society created an unspoken atmosphere of respect and caution in personal relationships. It also meant any spree shooter inside-the-wire was instantly surrounded by equally armed personnel.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama: The Second Amendment Only Applies to Al-Qaeda

President pushed to disarm Americans on the same day he approved arming al-Qaeda

President Barack Obama accelerated firearm shipments to al-Qaeda on the very same day he demanded more gun control in the wake of the D.C. Navy Yard shooting.

Obama waived a provision in federal law specifically designed to keep the U.S. government from supplying firearms to terrorists such as al-Qaeda, according to the Washington Examiner.

Citing his authority under the Arms Export Control Act, the president declared Monday that he would “waive the prohibitions in sections 40 and 40A of the AECA related to such a transaction.”

No longer will Obama need to rely on the CIA to give free guns to Islamic extremists in Syria; now he will make the transfers openly with this “transparent government” initiative.

On the same day as his overt approval for arms to al-Qaeda, Obama announced that he is drafting executive orders for more gun control.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Photo: Students Taught Falsified Version of Second Amendment

Excerpt: Here is what the Second Amendment says: ‘A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.’Here is what advocates of statist tyranny want it to say:

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Was Navy Yard Killer on Anti-Depressant Meds?

SSRI drugs linked with multitude of mass shooting cases

Several indications suggest that Navy Yard killer Aaron Alexis may have been taking psychiatric drugs, bringing into focus once again the clear connection between anti-depressants and mass shootings.

With the motive behind yesterday’s tragic rampage still unknown, speculation has centered around Alexis’ personal life.

The Associated Press reports that Alexis, “had been treated since August by the Veterans Administration for his mental problems,” which included paranoia, sleep disorder and hearing voices in his head.

According to his father, Alexis suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his harrowing experiences during his involvement in rescue operations on 9/11.

SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) drugs are the most common form of treatment for PTSD, with Paroxetine being one of the most prescribed medications for this purpose. Paroxetine was also listed as the number 3 top violence-causing drug by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP).

The study, which is based on FDA figures, reveals that antidepressants Pristiq (desvenlafaxine), Paxil (paroxetine) and Prozac (fluoxetine), all appear in the list of the top ten violence-causing drugs.

We also know that Alexis “blacked out” during a violent confrontation in 2004 when he shot out the tires of vehicles belonging to construction workers parked next to his home. Black outs are also a common side effect of SSRI drugs.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Washington Navy Yard Gunman ‘Obsessed With Violent Video Games’

The Washington Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis played violent video games including Call of Duty for up to 16 hours at a time and friends believe it could have pushed him towards becoming a mass murderer.

Alexis, 34, who was shot dead on Monday after killing 13 people at Washington’s Navy Yard, also carried a .45 handgun tucked in his trousers with no holster “everywhere he went” because he believed people would try to steal his belongings.

He also felt racially discriminated against, and believed he had been financially “screwed” over a contracting job in Japan at the end of last year, friends said.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Canuck Bashing: The Last Phobia

By Mark Steyn

Excerpt: As it turns out, [David] Brooks, like yours truly, was born in Toronto. I think we can all agree that the only thing worse than a Canadian is a self-loathing Canadian: It’s bad enough that the first Canadian president of America [Ted Cruz] has to run around pretending he’ll be the first Hispanic president, but it’s outrageous that the New York Times’s only Canuck columnist should be the Roy Cohn of Canadians.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

British Court Enforces Sharia Over Equal Protection of Law

by Andrew C. McCarthy

Has sharia accommodation in England reduced the Magna Carta to a dead letter? The question presses thanks to the ruling of a Crown Court in London that permits a Muslim woman under indictment for witness intimidation to wear a niqab — a veil which makes only her eyes visible to observers — during her trial. The ruling is a compromise. The defendant will be shielded from public and media view; her face will be observable, however, to the trial jury, as well as the judge and lawyers in the case.

As Robin Shepherd of thecommentator.com contends, this resolution disserves the bedrock principle of equal protection under the law. All other citizens will be forced to endure the public examination attendant to being accused of crime — only Muslim women are given this safe-harbor. Shepherd roots his argument in Western tradition. On that account, he might have added that the niqab itself is a powerful statement of the anti-equality principles that undergird sharia, providing another reason why Western legal systems should resist its principles…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Denmark: Up to 200 More Church Closings Could be on the Way

After six churches were closed last week, the church minister leaves the option open for shutting even more

The culture minister, Marianne Jelved (Radikale), announced on Friday that six churches in Copenhagen would be closed, and now the church minister, Manu Sareen (Radikale), says that even more churches may be shut down.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

French Jeweller Who Shot Thief Becomes Online Hero

As social networks blaze with messages of support for the French jeweller who shot and killed a burglar in Nice last week, the dead man’s family fears that the judicial process could be swayed by public opinion.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Germans and Brits Agree: The European Union Needs to be Slimmed Down

By Mats Persson

Excerpt: When asked what they thought of 13 domestic and European institutions, German voters had the least faith in the European Parliament and the European Commission, which are only trusted by 33 per cent and 30 per cent of voters respectively, massively down compared to a decade ago. This corresponds to a similar shift in attitude in government circles that are growing sceptical about the EU institutions — one actually hears more rude things about the Commission in Berlin these days than in London.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Iron Age Horse Found as Norway Glacier Melts

The remains of an iron age horse has been found in a glacier two thousand metres up in the mountains of Norway, one of the first times such an animal has been found at such altitude.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italferr Chair and Ex-Governor of Umbria Arrested

Lorenzetti among six in Toscan TAV rail probe

(ANSA) — Perugia, September 16 — Italian police on Monday arrested the chairman of Italy’s state railroad engineering firm Italferr, Maria Rita Lorenzetti, in a Florence-based probe into Tuscan construction for the TAV high-speed-rail line. “Risk of contaminating evidence” was cited as a reason for holding Lorenzetti in a nearly 500-page arrest order that also called for the house arrest of five others.

According to preliminary information, Lorenzetti is suspected of corruption and conspiracy.

Italferr chief since 2010, Lorenzetti has always maintained the integrity of her work. The 60-year-old executive and ex-politician served two terms as the governor of the Umbria region, four mandates as a member of parliament, and began her career in politics as one of Italy’s first female mayors, elected to the post in her hometown of Foligno in 1984.

Lorenzetti belongs to the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).

Florence judge Angelo Antonio Pezzuti also ordered the arrest on Monday of Gualtiero Bellomo, member of the an environmental ministry commission; Furio Saraceno, chairman of Nodavia, a company involved in high-speed-rail construction; Valerio Lombardi, an Italferr technician; Alessandro Coletta, a consultant and ex-member of the supervisory authority for public bids; and Aristodemo Busillo of the Roman company Seli, which is managing excavation of the “Monna Lisa” high-speed-train tunnel under Florence.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Police Dig for Toxic Waste in Camorra Heartland

Tipped by State’s witness with mafia links

(ANSA) — Naples, September 17 — Police north of Naples responded to a tip to dig up suspected toxic waste in the Camorra mafia’s heartland on Tuesday. Digging is expected to last throughout the week, with ongoing testing for toxic substances at the site in Casal di Principe, the hometown of the Camorra’s infamous Casalesi gang. The Casalesis’ wrongdoing, which has long included illegal waste-disposal, was exposed in great detail in Roberto Saviano’s best-selling 2007 book Gomorrah, later turned into an award-winning film. Saviano has since lived under around-the-clock police protection after death threats. Tuesday’s tip reportedly came from an unidentified State’s witness with mafia links. So far the dig has reached a depth of six meters. Digging is planned to stop after 12 meters.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Few Other Countries Could Have Righted Costa Concordia

Salvage master Nick Sloane comments on parbuckling operation

(ANSA) — Giglio Island, September 17 — Senior salvage master Nick Sloane, in charge of righting the Corsa Concordia cruise ship, said on Tuesday that “few countries in the world” other than Italy would have been able to put together resources needed for an operation as large as the rotation of the massive wreck.

The ship that once transported 4000 people had lurched semi-submerged on its side off the Tuscan island of Giglio since January 2012 when 32 people died in one of the worse maritime disasters in Italian history.

“The whole team is very proud of what we have done,” commented Sloane, who works for the Italian-US consortium Micoperi-Titan, which is in charge of the unprecedented salvage operation — and the world’s largest.

Sloane, a South African, said there was much damage to the 114,500 tonne cruiser, which needs to be catalogued.

Sloane was greeted like a star, welcomed with hugs and applause by Giglio residents and swarmed by journalists and cameras, after commanding the operation from a floating control-room a few metres from the ship’s carcass.

“I didn’t expect people to react this way,” Sloane said.

“I am relieved and proud, like my team.

“And I am a little tired. I’m going to have a beer and then go to sleep. I’m sending a kiss to my wife,” he added.

The operation to set the wrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship upright was successfully completed at around 4:00 local time on Tuesday.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Grillo Attacks Re-Election of President Napolitano

(AGI) Rome, Sept 17 — Anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) leader Beppe Grillo has written in his blog that parliament is made up of a “multitude of slaves”, the Constitutional Court is a gerontocracy that makes decisions, such as the electoral law, after years of calm deliberations and that the re-election of the Italian president is unconstitutional.

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

Italy: Gasparri Lashes Out at Olli Rehn Over IMU Property Tax

PdL Senate whip tells European economic commissioner to go home

(ANSA) — Rome, September 17 — The Senate whip for Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party Maurizio Gasparri on Tuesday lashed out at European Commissioner for Economic Affairs Olli Rehn for questioning the financial wisdom of Italy’s recent repeal of an unpopular housing tax.

Rehn, who was in Rome on Tuesday, expressed worry to the Italian Senate budget commission over the financial impact of Italy’s recent repeal of the IMU property tax on first homes and agricultural land.

Italy’s unprecedented right-left coalition government, cobbled together in April after months of political stalemate, recently passed the decree which was largely motivated by a campaign promise by Berlusconi.

Italy’s languishing right rebounded to second place in February’s parliamentary elections and has since regained the lead among Italian political parties in recent voter polls.

“It’s time to halt foremen of the moment like this Olli Rehn, a nobody who comes to Italy to play supervisor,” said Gasparri, who is deputy Speaker of Italy’s Upper House.

“Consider instead the disaster that people like (Rehn) have caused by destroying Europe, obtuse bureaucrats who kill the people (of nations) and kill the continent under unfair competition from China and through bankrupt economic policies,” Gasparri continued, also calling Rehn an “unwelcome person”.

“Take an airplane and go home and pay all the taxes you want”. “In Italy, the IMU on first homes doesn’t exist anymore and this figure will not put it back”.

On Tuesday, Rehn told the Italian Senate budget commission that the abolition of the IMU “aroused worry” for Italy’s public finances.

Rehn added that the EC would closely examine the service tax being introduced by municipal governments on a national basis to fill the budget gap left by the repeal. Rehn also warned Italian Senators that Italy must keep its budget promises to Europe and needs to make a priority of economic growth.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Monti Apologizes to Olli Rehn Over Insults by PDL Members

(AGI) Rome, Sept 17 — Former Prime Minister Mario Monti called European vice president, Olli Rehn on Tuesday afternoon to express his respect and solidarity, both personally and as leader of the Civic Choice Party. Monti was speaking of the “impolite expressions aimed at him from senior PdL party members on the occasion of your working visit to Rome.” Monti told Rehn he particularly regretted the “disgraceful words spoken by the Senate’s deputy speaker, Senator Maurizio Gasparri.” .

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

Italy: Toy Manufacturers Under House Arrest for 114-Mn-Euro Fraud

‘Mister Toys’ charged with selling cheap imports

(ANSA) — Caserta, September 17 — The owners of the Mister Toys games company were placed under house arrest on Tuesday for allegedly defrauding the State of some 114 million euros by illegally importing toys from China.

The toys were allegedly brought into Italy from other European countries without passing through Italian customs.

The pair allegedly involved relatives and friends who ran front companies, two of whom were also put under house arrest.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Norway Politician Starts 3,000km Commute

Progress Party politician Per Sandberg on Tuesday began one of Norway’s most extreme daily commutes, flying 3160km every day from his home on Senja, the island in Northern Norway, to Oslo and back.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Norway: Foreign Press Defends Progress Anti-Migrant Tag

International journalists have hit back at Norway’s Progress Party as it seeks to convince them not to compare it to far-right parties such as the Sweden Democrats or France’s Front National.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Scotland: Wayne Stilwell Jailed for Mosque Bacon Attack

A man who threw bacon into an Edinburgh mosque has been jailed for 10 months.

Wayne Stilwell, 25, was caught on security cameras attaching the bacon to the handles of the main door at Edinburgh’s Central Mosque.

He then threw the bacon inside the building, knowing Muslims regard pork as unclean.

At Edinburgh Sheriff Court earlier he pled guilty to causing a breach of the peace. His lawyer said Stilwell was sorry for his crime.

Sheriff Gordon Liddle said his actions had been “grossly offensive” and jailed him for 10 months.

Sheriff Liddle said: “A custodial sentence is inevitable.”

The city’s sheriff court heard that Islam prohibits its followers from consuming products made of pork — and Stilwell’s actions, on 31 January 2013, offended people at the mosque.

Sentence had been deferred on Stilwell, a prisoner of HMP Edinburgh, for background reports.

On Tuesday, defence solicitor Matthew Nicholson told the court his client was sorry for his crime and accepted that he would be going to prison.

           — Hat tip: Jolie Rouge [Return to headlines]
 

Snake Robots on Mars: How They Could Look

Scandinavian-based Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research (SINTEF) believes a great alternative to Mars’ rovers maybe slithering robotics. They are working with Norwegian company Robotnor on many uses for the robots.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Suspected Leader of Islamic Militant Cell Arrested in Spain

Madrid (CNN) — The alleged leader of an Islamic militant cell in Spain who escaped arrest in June when eight of his suspected colleagues were detained has been taken into custody, the Spanish Interior Ministry said Monday. The suspect, Yassin Ahmed Laarbi, a Spaniard, was arrested Monday in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on Morocco’s north coast, where the eight other suspects also were detained on June 21, an Interior Ministry statement said…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Jeremy Browne: Ban Muslim Women From Wearing Veils in Schools and Public Places

Britain should consider banning Muslim girls and young women from wearing veils in schools and public places, a Home Office minister has said.

Jeremy Browne, a Liberal Democrat, said there needs to be a national debate about whether the state should step in to protect young women from having the veil “imposed” on them. Mr Browne said he is “instinctively uneasy” about banning behaviour, but suggested the measure may still be necessary to ensure freedom of choice for girls in Muslim communities.

The Home Office minister is the first senior Liberal Democrat to raise such deep concerns about Islamic dress in public places. A growing number of Conservative MPs also want the Government to consider a ban. Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, has suggested he may support banning the veil in classrooms, but downplayed the chances of wider restrictions…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Muslim Veil Ruling? Nonsense Upon Stilts

by Robin Shepherd

That’s Jeremy Bentham’s line. And it’s a good one. But what was an English court thinking of in its ruling over the Muslim niqab? Did English law from Magna Carta die today?

The English utilitarian political philosopher Jeremy Bentham famously (and mischievously) described natural law related predispositions towards societal governance as “nonsense upon stilts”. Still, it was a great line. And if anyone thought it had had its day, they must have missed Monday’s judgment in an English court about a defendant’s right to wear the Muslim veil…

Fudging this issue is becoming a national sport in Britain, and much of the Western world besides. And that is because everyone is terrified of confronting an issue of truly civilisational importance: How do you remain intellectually honest and supportive of a law-based Western-style society while simultaneously trying to reach a deal with those whose existential requirements are antithetical to your core traditions?

[Reader comment by Julieann Carter on 16 September 2013.]

Did English law from Magna Carta die today? Yes. And along with it a sizeable chunk of the heart and spirit of the British majority. This women is a Muslim convert, she is yanking the chains of officialdom in alliance with left-wing student activists. Why does officialdom ALWAYS roll over and show it’s belly whenever confronted with the ‘religion of peace’. Does their cowardice render them too stupid to see that this is not a religious issue, that it is a political one pushed by professional agitators? ‘Mrs Dawson’! So it sounds like her husband may be a convert too.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Sarah Wollaston: Veil Debate Should be Wake-Up Call for Feminism

Politicians need to set clear national guidance on where women should be allowed to wear veils, says Sarah Wollaston MP.

This past month should be a wake-up call for feminism. Birmingham Metropolitan College has lifted the ban on students wearing the niqab and Blackfriars Crown Court has similarly allowed a defendant to give evidence whilst fully veiled. In my opinion it is time for politicians to stop delegating this to individual institutions as a minor matter of dress code and instead set clear national guidance.

There are serious consequences for women if they are hidden from view in our courts and our classrooms. For individual campaigners this may be a free choice but what of those who, once the niqab becomes an accepted norm, are pressured into compliance as a badge of piety or purity? It would be naive to think that a thirteen year old would have complete freedom to reject family or peer group pressure.

Much of our communication is through facial expression and that is lost behind the niqab. It would be a perverse distortion of freedom if we knowingly allowed the restriction of communication in the very schools and colleges which should be equipping girls with skills for the modern world. We must not abandon our cultural belief that women should fully and equally participate in society…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Thousands of Popular British Plant Varieties Could be Banned From Our Garden Centres Under New European Proposals.

Horticulturalist Michael Leapman despairs.

Excerpt: Let me set out my stall from the start. I am not a dyed-in-the-wool Eurosceptic: but I am highly sceptical of busybodies trying to frame complex rules to solve problems that, in real life, barely exist. Keen gardeners will guess what I am referring to — the report in yesterday’s Telegraph that the European Commission is planning to insist that no plant can go on sale unless it is on an official register, where its characteristics will have to be described in detailed botanical terms.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Tiptoeing Around Islam and a Ban on Muslim Women Wearing the Veil

by Benedict Brogan

Nothing illustrates better the anxiety of the British political classes in 2013 than the debate — if that’s the word — about the wearing of the veil. The issue has been circling overhead like a flight stuck in a holding pattern over Heathrow, waiting to land. Unrelated events have joined to give the issue critical mass.

The controversy over Birmingham Metropolitan College’s prohibition on full facial coverings — only to back down when protests began to get heated — has coincided with a court case involving a woman who demanded her right to appear veiled in the dock, in which the judge ruled first that she couldn’t, then agreed that she might pending a further ruling. To those David Cameron added a bit of tinder last week when his office said he would be happy to have the veil banned in his children’s schools, but only in the name of a head teacher’s right to set uniform policy. Then, in this morning’s Telegraph, came the spark, in the form of Jeremy Browne, who said he was uneasy about the whole thing, wondered about the issue of compulsion for young women, and called for a national debate.

The facts are far more complicated of course. For starters, the debate relies on various forms of shorthand: veil is easier to grasp, but niqab is more accurate. Or take Birmingham Metropolitan: what it really wanted was to bar the wearing of “all hoodies, hats, caps and veils” on its premises to make students more easily identifiable. And in the court case, we should remind ourselves that the prosecution had no objection to the woman appearing veiled, as long as an agreed system of identification was in place.

But none of that detracts from the political issue, which is that a number of politicians, from Jack Straw through Jeremy Browne to Ukip, are all uneasy about what they perceive as a contradiction between their liberal values of individual freedom and identity and a faith that appears by some interpretations to suppress freedom.

Ukip want an outright ban, aligning themselves with the French view, that the veil represents a direct challenge to the secular state. Dr Sarah Wollaston, writing in the Telegraph, wants politicians to stop leaving it to individual institutions and set national guidance. Other Tories might take an even more robust view, as might some Labour MPs. Nick Clegg expressed polite sympathy but quashed the idea of a national ban, limiting it to schools. That I suspect will be Mr Cameron’s view, and no doubt Theresa May’s. But consider this: we are less than two years from a general election, next spring the Tories face a thrashing from Ukip in the European elections, and among Conservatives the jockeying for life after Dave is well under way. What might Boris say about the matter next time he is asked? Or Michael Gove for that matter? Will ministers find a way of defending religious liberty and the integrity of the courts and the rights of schools? We will get a ruling later on the Blackfriars Crown Court case. How will ministers respond if, the judge decides it is lawful to wear a niqab in the dock? Will they suggest that rape victims and children might be afforded the same privileges for example? The longer you scrutinise the issue, the more you find reasons why ministers might be tempted to tiptoe around it rather than confront it head on.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Unveiled

As judge orders woman to uncover face, The Sun demands vital reforms:

1.   BAN veils in school, courts and hospitals
2.   BAN them in airports, banks and secure areas
3.   LET employer decide if ok in the workplace
4.   BUT freedom to wear them in the street
 

BRITISH justice must be transparent. And religious belief cannot trump the law of the land.

That is why Judge Peter Murphy was dead right to demand that a Muslim woman remove her full-face veil to give evidence at her trial…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Veils in Court Are a Barrier to Justice

The wearing of the niqab is one of those issues that makes many people profoundly uneasy

We live in an age of rights and freedoms, each carefully enshrined in law. But what happens when those rights conflict, as they often must? At Blackfriars Crown Court yesterday, Judge Peter Murphy was forced to rule on whether a Muslim woman who insists on wearing the niqab — the full facial veil — during her trial should be allowed to do so. In other words, does her right to freedom of religious expression trump the need for the basic operation of justice to take place, not least the court’s ability to verify that the accused was indeed who she claimed to be?

In a ruling that bent over backwards to be fair to the defendant, the judge decided that she could wear the niqab in court. However, if she chose to give evidence, she must do so with face uncovered — although it would be shielded from the view of the general public. While he sidestepped the issue of identification, he made the point that the jury must be able to evaluate her testimony properly, which cannot be done if it is delivered from beneath the veil.

The wearing of the niqab is one of those issues that makes many people profoundly uneasy. For some, it is a simple profession of faith; for others, it is a way of the wearer cutting themselves off from the people, and the society, around them (not to mention an alarming innovation in Islamic practice, stoked by the increasing popularity of doctrinaire Wahhabism). Yesterday’s ruling, therefore, could not have been more timely. It comes in the wake of the decision last week by Birmingham Metropolitan College to rescind a ban on face coverings (including veils) intended to make pupils more identifiable. This prompted interventions from several politicians, including the Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, and the Lib Dem minister Jeremy Browne, who have argued that we need to consider whether the wearing of the niqab should be banned in schools and colleges, or even in public places more generally, as is the case in France.

At the moment, the balance of opinion seems against any French-style ban, and rightly so: people should, in principle, have the right to wear what they want, and to express their religious beliefs (so long as it is a genuine expression of belief, rather than something imposed by familial or social pressures). Yet when the wearing of the veil seriously impinges on the functioning of justice, or education, it cannot be right that individual devotion should take priority. The judge yesterday acknowledged that his is only a one-off ruling, based on his own interpretation, and implored Parliament, or the higher courts, to provide a definitive ruling. We hope they do so — and that they reach the common-sense conclusion…

[Reader comment by philofficer on 17 September 2013.]

‘Veils in court are a barrier to justice’

Absolutely, as is wearing the niqaab in public, a barrier to integration. However, the Islamists have no concept of this or any understanding of the adage of ‘when in Rome’ — unless of course when Rome is Riyadh. No short skirts, no outward signs of affection, and if this is the way they want to live then let them get on with it, I have no objection, particularly as I don’t want to ever go there and pollute them with my ‘questionable’ free thinking Western values.

But Muslims do want to come here, and I do not want to bend over backwards to accommodate a culture that wishes to subsume mine.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Violin From Titanic Goes on Display

The violin played by the bandmaster of the Titanic as the liner sank beneath the waves is to go on display at a museum marking the tragedy in Northern Ireland, officials said Monday.

The instrument belonging to Wallace Hartley was found strapped to his body after he drowned with some 1,500 others on board the supposedly unsinkable ship in 1912. It has an inscription on the back from the 34-year-old’s fiancee to mark their engagement.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt: FB Photo of a Kiss Sparks Scandal

Activist rejects insults, ‘pessimistic’ even after Morsi

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, SEPTEMBER 16 — Egyptian activist Ahmed El-Gohary spoke to ANSA on Monday about a photo of a boy and a girl in a headscarf kissing, for which he has come in for criticism. The human rights defender, 38 years old and working with one of the country’s largest NGOs, said that he had shared the photo “on Facebook with a non-Egyptian friend, with whom I was exchanging views on social rights in Egypt, and now I wonder why this photo — which I liked a lot — has sparked all this debate”, he said. The photo has made him a household name and shows the couple kissing against a background of graffiti. The photographer is unknown. “Even my friends have forgotten all the country’s problems and simply focused on this photo, which just shows a kiss,” he said. “They refuse to understand that this is personal freedom that they are violating. Even if the girl is wearing a headscarf, she has every right to express her feelings however she wants,” Ahmed said, criticising the “insults” posted on his Facebook page.

“You’ve got to delete this photo, because you are a Muslim, and you must be punished”, “Congratulations, you’ve lost all your sense of a true man, jealous of his own religion” and “I do not want to be your friend so long as this photo is on your Facebook page” are some of the comments — though the photo also garnered eighty-some “likes”. “Even my own freedom to post a photo that I like very much has been violated by all manner of insults and criticism,” the activist said, who noted that these reactions bode ill for the country in general. “Unfortunately, after such an important revolution like ours, the people — and even educated people — still have this mentality: kisses in the street are to be incriminated, but when young people die in the same streets no one reacts….”. “Individual freedoms have been entirely violated both by Islamists, who are incessantly rummaging among our feelings, and by those governing now, with special laws that protect only power.” “I am pessimistic both about the future of respect for human rights and an exit from the current crisis, which the country is plunging deeper into every day,” he underscored. “Egypt is experiencing large-scale defeat and no one knows how we will get out of it.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt: Court Freezes Assets of 25 Muslim Brotherhood Leaders

Including Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie

(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, SEPTEMBER 17 — The Cairo Assize Court on Tuesday froze the assets of 25 Islamic movement leaders, including top Muslim Brotherhood officials such as its Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie, his deputy, Khairat el Shater and Saad el Katatni, leader of the Brotherhood’s political arm, judicial sources said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt: UNESCO to Restore Churches and Museums Affected by Violence in Egypt

An official source in UNESCO said he will prepare a detailed report about the condition of the Egyptian historic churches and museums, which were affected by the acts of violence in the past month, to send it to UNESCO, which in turn will see what it can do to help in their restoration.

It is worth mentioning that the churches and museum have been stormed and ransacked with some being torched by extremists after security forces on August 14 dispersed two large days-long sit-ins in Cairo and Giza staged by supporters of ousted President Mohamed Morsy.

The International Council of Museums (ICOM) and UNESCO condemned the acts of sabotage against Minya’s Mallawy Museum in Egypt, which have come under attack by extremists during the past month. Nearly 1090 artifacts have been taken from the museum.

Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim received on Thursday 12/09/2013 architectural expert Pierre-André Lablaude, who was assigned by UNESCO to evaluate the condition of historical churches and Minya’s Mallawy Museum. Lablaude will prepare a detailed report about the condition of the ancient buildings and the museum.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Syrian Refugees ‘Living in Fear in Egypt’

Once welcomed as war refugees, Syrians exiled in Egypt are now under threat for alleged ties to the recently-deposed Muslim Brotherhood. FRANCE 24 looked into anti-Syrian discrimination and was confronted with first-hand experience of the trend.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Israeli Army Kills Palestinian in West Bank

In Jenin refugee camp, during attempted capture

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, SEPTEMBER 17 — A Palestinian wanted by Israeli secret services was killed Tuesday morning in a Jenin, West Bank, refugee camp when a military unit attempted to arrest him. Israeli military sources say that clashes with the population occurred during his arrest. The man was injured in the clashes and died of his injuries after being hospitalised in Israel. Palestinian sources have said the victim was Hussam Said A-Tubassi.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

5 Lies Invented to Spin UN Report on Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack

As predicted days before the UN’s Syrian chemical weapons report was made public, the West has begun spinning the findings to bolster their faltering narrative regarding alleged chemical weapon attacks on August 21, 2013 in eastern Damascus, Syria. The goal of course, is to continue demonizing the Syrian government while simultaneously sabotaging a recent Syrian-Russian deal to have Syria’s chemical weapon stockpiles verified and disarmed by independent observers.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

China Refuses to Blame Regime for Syria Gas Attack

(AGI) Beijing — China refused to blame the Syrian regime for a sarin gas attack, despite a report by UN weapon inspectors ..

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

Iraq: As Death Toll Hits Highest Level Since 2007, Patriarch Sako Laments Rising Sectarianism, Loss of Unity

More than 5,000 deaths have been recorded since January, the bloodiest level in civilian casualties since 2007. “People are unwilling to forgive or turn the page,” according to the Chaldean Patriarch. For a Christian lawmaker, “a wider conflict between Sunni monarchies in the Gulf and the Shiite axis Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah” could drag down the country.

Baghdad (AsiaNews) — As a result of car bombs in seven cities yesterday, Iraq’s death toll rose this year to 5,612 after only eight and a half months, making it the bloodiest year since 2007.

“People are unwilling to forgive or turn the page,” Chaldean Patriarch, Mar Raphael Louis Sako told AsiaNews. “Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, Arabs . . . everything is fragmenting and moving towards confessionalism.”

With the Syrian emergency casting a big shadow, the recent wave of religious violence in Iraq has killed more than 3,000 people this summer.

With an average of 36 civilian casualties per day, September is going to be the bloodiest month in five years. Yesterday, 11 different attacks across the country caused 67 deaths.

According to iraqbodycount, web-based effort to record civilian deaths, the toll of ten years of instability ranges between 114,000 and 125,000 civilian dead.

The US withdrawal in 2011, and the subsequent transfer of power to Shia-dominated Iraqi Shiite authorities has made matters worse, rekindling religious hatred by the Sunni minority.

In addition to that, the conflict in neighbouring Syria, with its sectarian connotations, has contributed to fresh violence among Iraqi religious groups.

“The regional situation is very complex and the crisis in Syria is evidence of that,” Patriarch Sako said. “In Iraq and throughout the Middle East, it seems that outside hand are feeding hatred and violence by leveraging the ethno-religious fragmentation.”

Even Christian MP Yonadam Kanna, a leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, told AsiaNews that “the violence in the country, especially in Baghdad, is a direct reflection of the sectarian conflict that is taking place in Syria, as well as the Iraqi component of a wider conflict between Sunni monarchies in the Gulf and the Shia axis Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah.”

“People in Syria are not weeping for the regime,” he went on to say, “but for the collapse of state institutions. >From this perspective, the stability of Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey is likely to be compromised. Thank God that at least we avoided an outside armed intervention.”

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

Obama Authorizes Military Aid to Syrian Opposition to Combat Chemical Weapons Use

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) — U.S. President Barack Obama released an executive order Monday to officially authorize non- lethal military aid to the Syrian opposition, in order to prevent the use and proliferation of chemical weapons.

According to the order, Obama authorized the provision of defense articles and defense services to the Syrian opposition, organizations implementing U.S. aid programs and international organizations to help them prevent the use and proliferation of Syria’s chemical weapons. White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that the U.S. government position on providing assistance to the Syrian opposition, including the military wing, remains unchanged. “We have stepped up that assistance, and we will continue to step it up,” Carney said during a press briefing…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Syria Crisis Causes $140 Million Losses for Jordan Farmers

(ANSAmed) — AMMAN, SEPTEMBER 16 — Agriculture sector in Jordan is reeling from effect of the Syrian crisis with reported $140 million losses due to closed trade route to Europe, traders said today.

“Since the Syrian crisis, agriculture industry lost JD 100 million (USD 140 million) of revenues that was exported to Europe,” said Zuheir Hweijan, head of the national agriculture export association.

Jordanian farmers have been dealt a heavy blow since the closure of Syrian borders, their first transit destination to reach the lucrative European market. Traders have been forced to travel longer rout through north Iraq, which causes goods damage and delivery delays, said and leads to goods reaching destination under compromised.

“We are facing a disaster. Goods take up to three weeks to reach Europe through Iraq roads. This leads to damage of goods,” he told ANSAmed.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Syrian Civilians and Rebels Treated in Israel

(AGI) Safed (Israel), Sept 17 — Hospitals in northern Israel are treating people wounded in the Syrian civil war. Most are rebel militia fighters and civilians who cross the border seeking medical treatment. The largest medical facility is Safed’s Ziv hospital, in Upper Galilee, but the Israeli army has also set up a makeshift hospital near the border, in the northern region of the Golan Heights.

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

Syria: UN Resolution Won’t be Under Chapter 7, Says Lavrov

UN Charter Chapter 7 regulates Security Council’s use of force

(ANSAmed) — MOSCOW, SEPTEMBER 17 — A UN Security Council resolution to dismantle Syria’s chemical arsenal will not fall under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter which covers the use of force on behalf of the Council, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday after meeting with his French counterpart, Laurent Fabius. “The resolution of the Security Council, which will approve the decision of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) executive council, will not be over Chapter 7,” Lavrov said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Syria: Nearly Half Rebel Fighters Are Jihadists or Hardline Islamists, Says Ihs Jane’s Report

Opposition forces battling Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria now number around 100,000 fighters, but after more than two years of fighting they are fragmented into as many as 1,000 bands.

The new study by IHS Jane’s, a defence consultancy, estimates there are around 10,000 jihadists — who would include foreign fighters — fighting for powerful factions linked to al-Qaeda.

Another 30,000 to 35,000 are hardline Islamists who share much of the outlook of the jihadists, but are focused purely on the Syrian war rather than a wider international struggle.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Bangladesh: Abdul Quader Mollah, The ‘Butcher’ Of Mirpur, Sentenced to Death

He is one of the leaders of the Islamist party, this according to the Supreme Court, which upheld his conviction for crimes against humanity. Last February, an international war tribunal had sentenced him to life imprisonment, a ruling Mollah had appealed.

Dhaka (AsiaNews) — The Supreme Court of Bangladesh sentenced to death Abdul Quader Mollah, deputy secretary general of Jamaat-e-Islami (the first Islamic party in the country), for crimes against humanity committed during Bangladesh’s war of liberation from Pakistan in 1971.

When verdict was read, many of his supporters staged violent protests in Chittagong. In the ensuing clashes, two policemen were injured. Since then, tensions continue to run high.

Mollah, 65, is accused of having planned a series of executions, including the massacre of Mirpur (a Dhaka district), which earned him the nickname of koshai, the “butcher”.

An international tribunal had sentenced him to life imprisonment on the same charges last February.

Mollah challenged the verdict in appeal to the Supreme Court, which, however, upheld the conviction and increased the sentence.

His sentence seven months ago sparked anger among supporters of the Islamist party. This resulted in violent protests that intensified after the ‘international’ war tribunal set up by the ruling party Awami League sentenced to death other Jamaat leaders.

Since then, party militants have also organised general strikes (hartal) on a semi-regular basis, which often degenerate into vandalism and clashes with the police.

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

Bangladeshi Islamist Leader Abdul Kader Mullah Sentenced to Death

Critics say move has been made under intense political pressure

The highest court in Bangladesh has issued a death sentence for the leader of an Islamist party convicted of war crimes during the country’s struggle for independence — a move that critics say has been made under intense political pressure. The Supreme Court increased the punishment for Abdul Kader Mullah from a term of life imprisonment to one of execution, after he was found guilty earlier this year.

Mullah, 65, a senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, had been found guilty of crimes against humanity in February. At that time, when the court sentenced him to life imprisonment, there were massive protests in Dhaka and other cities from secular groups and ordinary people, demanding that he receive the death penalty…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Leaders Pay Tribute to Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew on His 90th Birthday

Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew received a standing ovation from members of parliament, cabinet ministers and visitors in the public gallery yesterday as he arrived at parliament in a wheelchair on his 90th birthday.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Sri Lanka: Sinhalese Buddhist Radicals Attack Protestant Church

A monk and four of his followers attacked the Pentecostal community in Meegoda, accusing its pastor of “forced conversions” and of “destroying” Buddhist culture. The police have ignored the complaints of Christians. “The attack is unmotivated,” Buddhist Lawyer said. “As a Buddhist, I feel embarrassed because real Buddhism is not about attacking and killing.”

Colombo (AsiaNews) — Tensions are rising in Sri Lanka because of the violence perpetrated by some radical Sinhalese Buddhists groups against Christian communities, whom they accuse of engaging in “forced conversions” and of trying to “destroy” Buddhist culture.

The latest incident occurred on 8 September when a group of fundamentalists attacked the Pentecostal Church of the Living Water in Meegoda, a village near Colombo.

“The attack was unmotivated,” Buddhist lawyer Susantha Dodawatta told AsiaNews, because “nothing happened between the two communities in the area.”

Pitipana Seelawansa Thero, a Buddhist monk who heads the Padukka Puraanas Viharaya Temple, led the attack, along with four of his followers: Rangana Jayarathna, Chandrapala, Sunil Perera and Damith Nilanga. None of them lives in Meegoda.

The attackers claim the church is unregistered and that conversions by Christians are a big problem for the village. Despite complaints by the pastor, Rev E K Pryantha, the police have not yet arrested the culprits.

“Such attacks,” the lawyer said, “show that there is a political agenda that aims to unite the Buddhists. Everyone should have the freedom to change religion in this country. We Buddhists are the first to be harmed in our culture and religion from these petty actions. Whoever is behind this incident should not be supported. As a Buddhist, I feel embarrassed because real Buddhism is not about attacking and killing.”

In the recent past, some radical Sinhalese Buddhist groups have targeted Muslims and Christians.

Two extremist groups, the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) and the Sinhala Ravaya (Sinhalese echo), have led the attacks, ostensibly on a “mission” to protect the Sinhalese population and the Buddhist religion.

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

Philippine Army Says Muslim Rebels Fleeing Southern City

The fighting, in which nearly 100 people have been killed, has highlighted lingering grievances in the Catholic-majority country despite its growing economy and an agreement with the biggest Muslim rebel group that was meant to bring peace.

The guerrillas who stormed into the city of Zamboanga on Monday last week belong to a breakaway faction of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). They object to a deal aimed at ending 40 years of conflict signed last October with the main Muslim rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and are trying to derail it. An army spokesman said on Tuesday the guerrillas were fleeing from Zamboanga and heading to outlying islands, off the main southern island of Mindanao…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

EU Pledges 650 Million Euros for 3-Year Somalia Aid Plan

(AGI) Brussels — The European Union has pledged another 650 million euros to help rebuild Somalia over the next three year

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

Four Boko Haram Members Die After Arrests in Nigeria

Vigilantes helped arrest at least 11 members of the Islamic sect in Nigeria’s northeast and four of the suspects died in custody, a military official said on Sunday.

The Boko Haram members were arrested Saturday in the town of Michika in Adamawa state, said Lt. Col. Beyidi Martins, the commanding officer of the battalion meant to help capture those in the Islamic sect. Six of the suspects were brought to Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram some years ago, and the other five were brought to Mubi. He said that four of the five who were brought to Mubi were beaten by the vigilante group that helped arrest them. He said two of the suspects died Saturday. “Two others died today (Sunday) of injuries. We now have one still alive and is being interrogated,” Beyidi said.

The Civilian Joint Task Force is a vigilante group formed by residents to combat the Boko Haram network, which has launched attacks that have killed more than 1,700 since 2010 in Nigeria, according to an Associated Press count. The cooperation between the military and vigilante group comes a day after police said members of Civilian-JTF beat and killed a policeman in Maiduguri after one of their members was shot by police…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Nigeria: Killing of Civilian JTF Causes Riot in Maiduguri

There was pandemonium in Maiduguri yesterday as youths took to the streets to protest the alleged killing of a member of the Civilian JTF by a trigger happy policeman. The member of Civilian JTF, according to thousands of irate youth who took to the streets chanting, “police is Boko Haram”, was shot dead by a policeman on patrol along the popular Kano road. The protest caused traffic gridlock along the major roads for some hours as the Civilian JTF aided by other youths in the town barricaded the road, burning tyres and wielding dangerous weapons. The irate youths were also seen trying to raze the state police headquarters but were chased away by the soldiers who assisted the policemen on duty. A witness told reporters that many policemen were beaten up by the youths who went in search of any person in police uniform…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

South Africa: Foreigner’s Shops Attacked in Port Elizabeth

Johannesburg — Several shops belonging to Somali nationals in KwaZakhele and New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, were looted and burnt at the weekend, Eastern Cape police said on Monday. Brigadier Marinda Mills said at least ten shops were attacked. “Two shops at Ntintili Street were looted and burnt and the vehicle which was parked outside the shop was set alight,” said Mills. Several other shops were targeted on Sunday. Police had since moved some foreign nationals out of the area. The attacks followed the arrest of a Somali man after he allegedly shot and killed a man outside a shop on Saturday evening…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Swedish Hostage in Al-Qaeda Film

A Swedish man kidnapped in 2011 is one of seven hostages featured in a video released by a north African terrorist group, reports news agency AFP, citing Mauritania’s ANI.

Swedish Johan Gustafsson was taken from Timbuktu in northern Mali in November 2011, along with a South African and Dutch hostage reports ANI.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Almost 1,000 Refugees Rescued in Channel of Sicily

Migrants arrived on five different boats

(ANSA) — Palermo, September 17 — The Italian Navy and Coast Guard and several merchant ships rescued a total of close to 1,000 refugees on five different boats in the Channel of Sicily overnight.

A group of 133 migrants was picked up by a merchant ship in Maltese waters after the Coast Guard was alerted that their boat was in trouble. They are being taken to Catania.

A Navy vessel saved 223 people, reportedly Syrian, Palestinian and Moroccan nationals, on a second boat and took them to Pozzallo, another Sicilian port.

A third boat with 105 people aboard, including a man with serious health problems who was taken to hospital in a speed boat, was intercepted 88 miles south of the Sicilian island of Lampedusa.

The other migrants were taken by ship to Lampedusa.

Another 270 migrants who were rescued 65 miles from the Libyan coast after sending an SOS via a satellite phone late Monday were being taken to Porto Empedocle, near Agrigento, by a Liberian merchant ship.

They included a heavily pregnant woman experiencing labour pains. A fifth boat, carrying 210 migrants, was intercepted 75 miles south of Lampedusa. Migrant arrivals in Italy from Northern Africa pick up in summer months as sea conditions improve, but many die while attempting the harzardous voyage across the Mediterranean, often in crammed and unsafe boats.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Declining Demographics and the Destruction of an Exceptional Country

The Russians are addressing their declining demographics by having a special holiday, take-off-work-to-have-sex day. If a baby is produced 9 months from an official holiday, the couple receives a car.

It takes 2.1 babies per family in order to replace a dying population. Most European nations are way below this statistic, thus committing self-suicide. Whether they are not having babies for economic reasons, selfishness, increase in cheap and readily available abortions, depraved lifestyles, lack of housing, lack of jobs, high unemployment encouraged by a generous welfare state, or education, the problem is that most Europeans are self-destroying through attrition, fast replaced by north Africans and Middle Easterners who do have lots of babies per family.

EU governments have tried to address the issue by opening their immigration floodgates to hordes that have refused to assimilate, not becoming good citizens, and in general a nuisance to a peaceful society by overtly trying to destroy it while the government and the police did nothing to punish the offenders or even address the multiculturalism gone berserk. Instead, they have punished locals for hate speech when citizens tried to point out the huge immigration problem.

In the United States, the replacement value gets a pass to 2.1 thanks to unchecked illegal immigration and anchor babies, otherwise Americans replace their dying population at 1.9 or less, not enough to keep the local population at current levels. The problem is the same here as in the EU, the illegals refuse to assimilate, learn the language, and become Americans. Instead, one demographic is pushing for Reconquista and another for the establishment of a world caliphate, advocating taking over the country in the near future.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Israel Strikes Down Law Targeting African Migrants

Israel’s supreme court has revoked a law that allowed authorities to hold African migrants in detention for up to three years, in a move cheered by rights groups and criticised by hardliners as a threat to the country’s Jewish character.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Kyenge Backs Pope’s Call to House Refugees in Empty Convents

‘It’s a good start’ says integration minister

(ANSA) — Rome, September 17 — Italian Integration Minister Cecile Kyenge, a doctor who was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the nation’s first black minister, on Tuesday applauded Pope Francis’ proposal of turning defunct convents into refugee centers. “It is with great pleasure that I heard of the proposal made by Pope Francis,” Kyenge said. “That is a starting point”. The pontiff made the request earlier this month, saying that closed convents were useless to the Church and would serve better if they were useful for housing refugees.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

The Myths of S744 Amnesty Bill

The problem: As the baby-boomers age, U.S. society will have an increasingly older population that is collecting Social Security. Because of the large outflow of money from the Social Security trust fund, that fund will go bankrupt in approximately 2042. As of 2004, the Social Security deficit was $5.229 trillion. That deficit narrows to $3.699 trillion if the $2.5 trillion supposedly in the Social Security trust fund is counted. However, the existence of that $2.5 trillion is in doubt. Paul O’Neill, the first Secretary of the Treasury during the G.W. Bush administration was interviewed on November 24, 2008 for the PBS show Frontline:

There’s a so-called famous lockbox in West Virginia I went to look at when I was secretary of the Treasury. You know what’s in the lockbox? Actually it’s a filing cabinet, and there are some pieces of paper that say, “We owe you.” There’s no money there; there are no investments there. There’s nothing there but a piece of paper. That’s a fraud.

People think, “Hey, I put money all my life in Social Security and Medicare.” You didn’t really. The government just took it and spent it on something else. There’s no money there. So, the deficit is either $5 trillion or $3 trillion, depending on whether you believe in the Social Security trust fund.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Catholic University to Welcome Communist Leader

With no room for opposing views or questions, Seattle University is planning to host a talk, complete with a book signing and reception for Angela Davis, on October 17. The event is sponsored by the Center for the Study of Justice in Society.

There is no justice for Catholics in any of Angela Davis’ books. Like all Communists, it’s Angela’s way or the highway.

“It would be difficult to find a speaker who contradicts the teaching of the Catholic Church on more levels than Angela Davis. Stalin, maybe? She is a notorious feminist, Marxist, communist, socialist who engages in pro-abortion, pro-same-sex “marriage” activism,” James Bascom wrote for TFP Student Action, a group whose goal is “Defending Moral Values on Campus.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Divorced Catholics, Gay Christians, Atheists in Heaven: The Mystery of What Pope Francis Really Believes

By Damian Thompson

Excerpt: Gays, divorcees and atheists are understandably confused about these messages from the See of Peter; so are devout heterosexual Catholics. Me, too. Pope Francis seems to be indicating a direction of travel without saying how far — if at all — the Catholic Church is prepared to move.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Lesbian Film Fest Launching in Bologna

‘Some Prefer Cake’ premiering 51 selections

(ANSA) — Bologna, September 16 — The seventh edition of the ‘Some Prefer Cake’ lesbian film festival, set to run in Bologna Wednesday to Sunday, is dedicated to “lesbian survivors” such as victims of hate crimes in South Africa or Chinese activists, organizers say.

The event is scheduled to premiere some 51 films, shorts and documentaries. The festival program can be viewed on www.someprefercakefestival.it.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Keith Olbermann, Craig James and the Shocking Example of Double Standards

So this is what our society has come to. Within a 10-day period, sportscaster Craig James was fired by Fox Sports for comments he had made against homosexuality during a political campaign last year while Keith Olbermann was lauded for his 9-minute anti-Russia, pro-homosexuality rant on ESPN. The double standards are as glaring as they are shocking.

As reported on Advocate.com, a leading gay website, “Keith Olbermann opened his ESPN show last night with a scathing rant against Russia’s antigay laws and the International Olympic Committee’s response to calls for a boycott of the Winter Games in Sochi.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Nature is Given Rights But Not Unborn Babies

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

Unregenerate human thinking is becoming more degrading with the passing of time. For example, Boulder, Colorado is on the verge of passing a “Nature Rights Law” that gives flowers and trees a right to life. When I read the article regarding this, I thought, “This is degenerate thinking! People in Boulder are considering granting rights to nature, to flowers and trees, while millions of unborn babies are given no rights to exist. People are more concerned about flowers and trees then they are about the unborn. This is absurd. What depraved thinking!”

Just recently, I heard, on a radio talk show, certain Iowa legislators praying for the protection of abortion doctors and praising God for abortions. I could not believe what I was hearing. In fact, I only listened to part of it because I could not stomach listening to all of it. Here were people, in leadership of a state government, praying for God to bless abortions. What were they really doing?

[Comment: Horrifying account of what some abortion doctors did…]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama Nominee for Judge Says Abortion Frees Women From “Conscription Into Maternity”

The United States Senate Judiciary Committee will vote this week on President Obama’s nomination of Cornelia Pillard to the court that many consider the second-most powerful and important in the land, the Court of Appeals of the D.C. Circuit. Of President Obama’s judicial nominees who have exhibited hostility towards unborn children, perhaps none is as flagrant, or as out-of-touch, as Cornelia Pillard.

In a 2007 law review article, Pillard wrote that “[r]eproductive rights, including the rights to contraception and abortion, play a central role in freeing women from historically routine conscription into maternity” (emphasis added). She believes there is an “equal protection” right to abortion — a position never adopted by the United States Supreme Court.

In other words, she believes that women cannot be equal citizens unless they have an unlimited right to abortion, and rather than suggest that the Constitution be amended if her views win favor with the American people, she asserts that the Constitution already protects abortion by forbidding states to deny anyone the equal protection of the laws.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘Pinkwashing’ And the Dark Side of Breast-Cancer Philanthropy

Near the end of the polemical new National Film Board documentary Pink Ribbons, Inc., activist Judy Brady is asked what she thinks of when she sees the pink ribbon symbolizing breast-cancer awareness: “I see evil,” says Brady.

Who could possibly see anything wrong in a symbol that has mobilized people to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for breast-cancer research since the 1980s?

The answer is provided in this documentary by Quebec’s Léa Pool ( Emporte-Moi, Lost and Delirious). The film is based on a 2007 book by Queen’s University professor Samantha King ( Pink Ribbons Inc: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy, one of a handful of studies in the past dozen years on the contentious social history of breast cancer and the gulf between the reality of the disease and the high-profile public perception of it.

In spite of the optimistic messages, breast cancer is not being beaten.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Paganization of America

Once upon a time, I had the opportunity to teach in Salem, Mass., made famous centuries ago by its witch trials. Twenty years ago, the town government of Salem decided that they would trumpet witchcraft to promote tourism. Now, Salem celebrates Halloween for more than a month. Some famous churches have been converted into museums and amusements of horror and fright. Other churches have been converted into wiccan, Goth and necromancer places of worship. (The wiccans, by the way, do not like the necromancers because they need to kill to worship death.) The governor of Massachusetts has even named the state’s official witch.

Just before I arrived, a group of Ugandans had traveled to Salem, ostensibly to thank the people of Salem because the first missionaries had gone out from Salem to Africa aboard the famous Gloucester schooners centuries ago. When the Ugandans arrived, they found that Salem was more pagan than anything they had experienced in Africa. The Ugandans have now decided to pray for Salem and send evangelists.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Sexual Indoctrination of America’s Children

There used to be a phrase for people who became too obsessed with sex and sexual activities, especially bizarre, fringe behavior or unrestrained promiscuity. We called them “sex maniacs.”

That’s clearly what Democratic Party leaders like President Obama and their allies in the mass media and the educational establishment have become in the wake of the “Sexual Revolution” of the 1960s. Not content with dismantling the United States Constitution and Moses and Jesus Christ’s traditional moral hold on the body politic, they have for decades been bullying America’s citizens into accepting not only promiscuous pre-marital sex but also more and more extreme sexual behaviors. We have seen this inordinate obsession with sexual politics in the promotion of the murder of unborn babies up until birth (these villains never did want to make abortion “rare,” no mater how many lies they keep telling you), lewd “Gay Pride” parades on the public dime, “free” condoms to middle school and high school students, and “same-sex marriage.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Truth About Homophobia

If you believe homosexuality is morally wrong — that God himself has condemned the behavior — then you’re a “homophobe.” You don’t have to be afraid of homosexuals. You don’t have to be afraid of being infected with AIDS. You’re a “homophobe” if you don’t condone gay sex.

Those who love to use the label “homophobe” see their enemies as cruel, judgmental people standing for outdated concepts of morality. Until you’re ready to wave the white flag and abandon a biblical concept of morality, you are a threat to the sexual revolution.

Sexual revolutionaries have taken the White House, the Senate, many courts, most colleges, many schools and many churches. They’ve gained the support of most American corporations. Their first and most adamant allies have been the media outlets. In fact, more than just allies, some in the media are generals in the revolution.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

11 Million Users Abandon Facebook

A new report by the Daily Mail reveals Facebook users are abandoning the social media giant at an unprecedented rate over privacy concerns. Photo: Sebastien Wiertz via Flickr

Photo: Sebastien Wiertz via Flickr

New research shows Facebook has lost a total of eleven million users, nine million in the US and two million in Britain. Researchers at the University of Vienna analyzed 600 users and found they quit for the following reasons:…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Is This the Most Extraordinary Human Brain Ever Seen?

ONCE you know what it is, this apparently innocuous picture of a blob assumes a terrible gravity. It is an adult human brain that is entirely smooth — free of the ridges and folds so characteristic of our species’ most complex organ.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

You Are Married to Four Wives Each, Each of Whom Comes With 70 Virgins, And Each Virgin Comes With 70 Servant Girls

By Daniel Greenfield

Excerpt: Your first thought might be of all the kits, cats, sacks and wives on the road to St. Ives. But it also has the air of a surreal version of the Home Shopping Network. “You don’t just get 70 virgins…”

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]