Two bombs were detonated near the Iranian embassy in Beirut today, killing twenty-three people and wounding upwards of 150. The Iranian attaché is reportedly among the dead. According to the Iranian ambassador, Israel was responsible for the attack.
In other news, an explosive device was discovered in a car during a routine traffic stop in Toronto and safely detonated by police explosives experts. Two men that were in the car are now in custody. As yet there is no official Mohammed Coefficient for the incident.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, MC, Papa Whiskey, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Croatia: Unemployment Again Over 20%
Percentage of jobless youths third-highest in EU
(ANSAmed) — ZAGREN, NOVEMBER 19 — The number of unemployed people in Croatia in November exceeded again 350,000 units, bringing the unemployment rate to top 20% after six months, according to data released on Tuesday by Croatian statics office Dzs.
The number of jobless increased by 20,000 units from September and by 10,000 on the same month last year. The drastic growth of unemployment in Croatia in just two months is due to the end of the tourism season and therefore the conclusion of seasonal contracts.
Unemployment for youths under 25 years of age has reached 52.8% in Croatia, according to Eurostat, the third-highest in the EU right after Greece and Spain.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
IMF: Negative Forecast for Middle East and North Africa
2013 growth rate revised down; uncertainty for future
International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington
(ANSAmed) — ROME — The coming future appears far from rosy for countries in the so-called ‘Menap area’ including the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, according to the latest regional survey recently published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The medium-term outlook has weakened, the survey said, adding that the growth rate is expected to go down 2.25% this year, from the earlier estimate of -1.5% released in May.
The growth rate was revised down over the area’s political instability and weaker global oil demand.
The report said that difficult political transitions and uncertainty from the civil conflict in Syria, together with ongoing developments in Egypt, are weighing on the confidence of oil importer countries. At the same time, suspensions and disruptions in domestic oil provision and weaker global demand have reduced the production of crude oil in spite of a recent price hike due to growing geo-political risks.
According to IMF analysts, growth in the region could resume in 2014 after the international economy generally improves and oil production gains pace. However the study warned about the risks weighing on this forecast and, even more cause for concern, the growth rate which will remain below the level necessary to cut down unemployment and improve living conditions in the area.
Politics can be the only solution to avoid the danger of falling into a vicious circle of economic stagnation and social conflict, the report said, noting that a strategy was urgently necessary to boost confidence, growth and employment.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Justice Department Announces $13 Billion Settlement With JPMorgan
JPMorgan Chase and the Justice Department finalized a $13 billion settlement on Tuesday, punctuating a long legal battle over the risky mortgage practices that became synonymous with the financial crisis.
The civil settlement, which materialized after months of wrangling, resolves an array of state and federal investigations into JPMorgan’s sale of troubled mortgage securities to pension funds and other investors from 2005 through 2008. The government accused the bank of not fully disclosing the risks of buying such securities, which imploded in 2008 and helped plunge the economy to its lowest depths since the Depression.
JPMorgan’s settlement strikes at the core of the accusations, requiring the bank to pay fines to prosecutors and provide relief to struggling homeowners as well as compensation for harmed investors. JPMorgan initially planned to pay about $3 billion, a position it abandoned midway through negotiations.
The final $13 billion deal eclipses other major Wall Street settlements. In fact, it is the largest sum that a single company has ever paid to the government.
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Marc Faber Fears “The End of the Capitalist Economic System as We Know it”
“We already live in a financial economy in which the debt and capital markets exceed the value of the real economy by far,” Marc Faber explains to Germany’s Finanzen100, “and that’s before the current formation of bubbles.”
His most ominous warning, and one that fits perfectly with the seeming insanity of Federal Reserve (and all developed market central banks) is that “the next time a bubble bursts, then the capitalist economic system as we know will falter.”
The numbers speak for themselves: In 1980, the market capitalization of the U.S. stock market was less than 40 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). The debt, measured in credit markets, was about 130 percent of GDP. Today these figures are higher, according to Marc Faber many times: The market capitalization has reached over 100 percent of GDP, the debt about 300 percent. This is consistent with figures from the consulting firm McKinsey. After calculation, the global debt still stood in 2010 at $158 trillion. In 2012, there were already $ 200 trillion — and rising. This makes for a worldwide economic power of slightly more than $71 trillion about three times.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
OECD Says Italy Successfully Reducing Deficit-to-GDP Ratio
Warns public debt to GDP continuing to rise nevertheless
(ANSA) — Paris, November 19 — Italy is successfully reducing its budget deficit, but failing to reduce its public debt relative to gross domestic product (GDP), the OECD said in its Economic Outlook released Tuesday.
The OECD forecast Italy’s deficit to GDP ratio at 3% for 2013, 2.8% for 2014 and 2% in 2015.
Italy’s public debt to GDP ratio, however, is set to grow from 132.7% of GDP in 2013 to 133.2% in 2014. Only in 2015 is it projected to decline to 132.6%.
The OECD warned Italy will need to slash public spending even further than planned for 2014-2015 as a result.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
OECD Warns Italian Banks on Credit Squeeze
Says continued interruption of investment cycle hampers recovery
(ANSA) — Paris, November 19 — The OECD said the continuation of the credit squeeze in Italy could hamper economic recovery in its Economic Outlook, released Tuesday.
The OECD said bank loans in Italy continue to wane, partly because of reduced demand, but higher interest rates in Italy than in other eurozone countries suggest that availability of bank credit is also low. If Italian banking system continues to restrict credit and interrupt the normal investment cycle, it will put brakes on economic recovery, warned the OECD.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Taleb Blasts Bernanke & Greenspan, Warns “Debt Raises the Risk of Catastrophe”
“Debt increases tail-risk,” warns anti-fragility expert Nassim Taleb, “whether it’s personal, corporate, or governmental.”
A rise in debt, he warns, implies nothing less than a rise in “the risk of catastrophe,” and Taleb chides, governments “should be focused in risk-management… instead of creating these risks.” This brief Bloomberg TV clip cuts to the chase as the normally circumlocutory Taleb unloads on the perils of central banks, “Mr. Greenspan created tail risk by eliminating the business cycle,” and since then tail-risks have accumulated with debt the “number one creator of these risks.” In a fascinating phrase, Taleb notes, “corporate debt is benign,” since in failure it turns into equity, “but government debt is another matter… for it turns into inflation or worse invasion…”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Black Supremacist Calling for Mass Murder of Whites Still Employed by Homeland Security
A Department of Homeland Security employee who earns more than $115,000 annually from the federal government remains employed nearly four months after he was revealed to be the mastermind behind a hateful black-nationalist website.
The DHS placed Ayo Kimathi on administrative leave back in August after the Southern Poverty Law Center linked the federal employee of four years to War on the Horizon, a website that claims to be “preparing Black people worldwide for an unavoidable, inevitable clash with the white race.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Black-Clad Einsatzgruppen Confiscate Guns in California
Einsatzgruppen are special paramilitary task forces, the most notorious of which were the death squads deployed by Germany’s National Socialist regime. The contemporary American soyuz is lousy with einsatzgruppen, some of which — such as the Pima County, Arizona SWAT team, which murdered Jose Guerena in his Tucson home — behave in a fashion almost indistinguishable from their German antecedents.
The State of California’s Armed Prohibited Persons System (APPS) has created an einsatzgruppe dedicated exclusively to gun confiscation. Using gun registration lists, the APPS stormtroopers, “arriving in SUVs and dressed in black tactical uniforms … regularly sweep through California cities” to seize firearms from people the state has designated “prohibited persons,” reports the Fresno Bee. A criminal conviction is not necessary for enrollment on the civilian disarmament register; all that is necessary is an official finding by the state’s Welfare bureaucracy that the gun owner is “a danger to himself or others.”
The searches are conducted without warrants — unless the targeted individuals refuse to cooperate, in which case the raiders will “seek a warrant and lock down the house until they get results.” California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed a bill that will use a $24 million surplus from firearms purchase fees to hire 36 new jackboots for the squad.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Boy Found Handcuffed to Front Porch Wearing Dead Chicken Necklace, CPS Supervisor Arrested
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
A Child Protective Services supervisor was arrested this past week after police found an 11-year-old boy shivering and handcuffed to the front porch of her home with a dead chicken tied around his neck.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Brittany Murphy and Husband Poisoned to Death by Government Spooks, Father Claims
Brittany Murphy’s father has sensationally claimed that the tragic ‘Clueless’ actress was poisoned to death by after offering her celebrity backing to a whistleblower fighting the government.
Angelo Bertolotti, 87, alleges that at the time of her death his daughter was under surveillance from shadowy government operators who wiretapped her phone and terrorized her after she spoke out in support of a Department of Homeland Security whistleblower.
Julia Davis, who claims to have once worked as a stunt double for Angelina Jolie, says Brittany was being persecuted for standing up for her.
Davis claimed she was branded a ‘domestic terrorist’ after she exposed security flaws that were allowing terrorists to sneak into the U.S. while she was working as a border security guard in California.
[Comment: Article outlines alarming evidence that the father is right.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Coming Soon: A Biometric Fingerprint Scan Just to Leave the Airport?
Promo video shows user scanning fingerprint to leave containment area of TSA-backed detention pod
TSA ‘detention pods’ currently being rolled out at major airports across the U.S. have biometric and object-detecting capabilities, according to promotional material from Eagle Security Group, the company that manufactures the devices.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cruz: Other Shoe Hasn’t Dropped; What’s Next for ObamaCare is Worse
Earlier this week, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, described a few additional unintended consequences that we can expect with the Affordable Care Act’s rollout, and as he describes it, as bad as it’s been so far, we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg.
“The five million who have lost their health care now is just the beginning of this,” he begins. You’re going to see more and more people who can’t keep their doctor.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
DHS Still Hasn’t Fired Black Supremacist Who Called for Mass Murder of Whites
The black-nationalist Department of Homeland Security employee who was placed on leave almost four months ago for running a website that espouses the mass murder of whites has still not been fired, an agency spokesperson told National Journal.
The Southern Poverty Law Center first exposed Ayo Kimathi in August, prompting a small media firestorm that led DHS to place the procurement officer on administrative leave with pay pending review. DHS deputy press secretary Gillian Christensen confirmed that his status has not changed and that he is still on leave pending review.
Kimathi, using the online nom de guerre “the Irritated Genie,” called for “ethnic cleansing” of “black-skinned Uncle Tom race traitors” on his website, which envisioned a massive race war on the horizon. “In order for Black people to survive the 21st century, we are going to have to kill a lot of whites—more than our Christian hearts can possibly count,” he wrote.
[As Shakepeare said: “The insolence of office.” — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
DHS Still Hasn’t Fired Black Supremacist Who Called for Mass Murder of Whites
The black-nationalist Department of Homeland Security employee who was placed on leave almost four months ago for running a website that espouses the mass murder of whites has still not been fired, an agency spokesperson told National Journal.
The Southern Poverty Law Center first exposed Ayo Kimathi in August, prompting a small media firestorm that led DHS to place the procurement officer on administrative leave with pay pending review. DHS deputy press secretary Gillian Christensen confirmed that his status has not changed and that he is still on leave pending review.
Kimathi, using the online nom de guerre “the Irritated Genie,” called for “ethnic cleansing” of “black-skinned Uncle Tom race traitors” on his website, which envisioned a massive race war on the horizon. “In order for Black people to survive the 21st century, we are going to have to kill a lot of whites — more than our Christian hearts can possibly count,” he wrote.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
He’s Baaack! Hateful MSU Prof Will Resume Teaching Duties
Penn was initially stripped of his teaching duties after launching into an anti-Republican tirade in his first lecture. A student in the classroom recorded his rant and sent it to Campus Reform, which published it.
The professor claimed that Republicans refused to pay their taxes and supported voter ID laws in order to disenfranchise black people. He also attacked Anne Romney, claimed that Christians were “blind followers,” and trashed athletes. This was insulting to some of the students in the room who were Republicans, Christians and athletes, though other students thought the rant was awkward and offensive as well.
One student even reported that Penn had threatened to punish students who disagreed with him by giving them bad grades.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
High-Tech Vasimr Rocket Engine Could Tackle Mars Trips, Space Junk and More
Scientists are making progress on an advanced space propulsion system aimed at a variety of uses, including reboosting space stations, cleaning up space junk and powering superfast journeys that could reach Mars in less than two months.
Led by former NASA astronaut Franklin Chang-Díaz, Ad Astra Rocket Co. is developing the versatile, high-tech engine, which is known as the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket, or VASIMR for short.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New Media Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Establishment seeks to assimilate or eliminate independent media
Recent polls show that trust in mainstream media is hovering at record lows. Print journalism is fast becoming a distant memory as the establishment press rapidly loses its audience to independent media outlets on the Internet.
Far from accepting its fate meekly, the system has rolled out the big guns in a desperate bid to either eliminate or assimilate the burgeoning alternative press.
The latest example is buried within the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP) and concerns “intellectual property enforcement.” Put simply, the agreement will mandate ISPs to remove online content without the need for a burden of proof or any kind of legal process, greasing the skids for aggressive and disproportionate censorship-driven takedowns.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The October 2012 Pre-Election Jobs Report Was Faked
In the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington.
The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated.
And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it.
Just two years before the presidential election, the Census Bureau had caught an employee fabricating data that went into the unemployment report, which is one of the most closely watched measures of the economy.
And a knowledgeable source says the deception went beyond that one employee — that it escalated at the time President Obama was seeking reelection in 2012 and continues today.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Virginia: Creigh Deeds Wounded; Son Had Mental-Health Evaluation Monday
Sen. Creigh Deeds was stabbed multiple times early today at his Bath County home and his son, Gus, is dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Gus Deeds had been released Monday following a mental health evaluation performed under an emergency custody order, an official said.
At a news conference in Charlottesville, a Virginia State Police spokeswoman said Deeds was stabbed numerous times in the head and torso but was alert and had given statements to authorities. She said Deeds, who was being treated at the University of Virginia Medical Center, had been seriously wounded.
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Dennis Cropper, executive director of the Rockbridge County Community Services Board, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the emergency custody order, or ECO, allowed Gus Deeds to be held as long as four hours to determine whether he should be held longer, up to 48 hours, under a temporary detention order.
The son was evaluated Monday at Bath County hospital, Cropper said, but was released because no psychiatric bed could be located across a wide area of western Virginia.
At the news conference, state police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said Gus Deeds was found inside the family’s residence in rural Millboro with a gunshot wound, and died at the scene. Geller said authorities are not looking for other suspects…
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WebMD Betrays Americans by Pocketing Millions to Promote ObamaCare Propaganda
(NaturalNews) A new investigation has revealed that one of the foremost online resources for health information accepted millions of dollars from the federal government in exchange for its promotion of Obamacare. As reported by The Washington Times, the federal government awarded WebMD a $4.8 million contract for its agreement to post pro-Obamacare propaganda on its website, including the deceptive article “7 Surprising Things About the Affordable Care Act.”
A contract document obtained by The Washington Times reveals that the Obama administration funneled cash lump sums to WebMD each time it posted articles or information endorsing the health care program. WebMD also reportedly accepted funds as part of a federal scheme to indoctrinate physicians about Obamacare, so that they, too, could dispense propaganda about the program to help build support for it.
Based on the leaked fee schedule, it was revealed that WebMD had been contracted to receive $126,826 in taxpayer funds for each single 5,000 word review article it posted on scientific advances in a specific clinical topic. The site also received nearly $70,000 for a single four-minute video it posted from an opinion specialist. And an astounding $140,000 was awarded for a single eight-question online quiz posted to the site.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Woman Hailed by President as ObamaCare Success Story Now Can’t Afford ObamaCare (Video)
CNN reports that a woman the president hailed as an Obamacare success story just realized she won’t be able to afford Obamacare because it’s too expensive:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sun Media Scoops Digital World on Real Rob Ford Story (Video)
Toronto City Council may have “stripped” Mayor Rob Ford of his powers yesterday, but in the same motion, they stripped themselves of their own democracy and dignity.
Three hundred and eighty three thousand, five hundred and one Toronto voters sent Ford to City Hall to stop the out-of-control, taxpayer-sapping Gravy Train in 2010. In a 37 to 5 vote, yesterday the same council responsible for the Gravy Train, flipped the bird at voters in a move more shameful than anything Ford ever did.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Toronto Police Detonate Suspicious Package in Entertainment District
TORONTO — Two men are in custody and a section of the Entertainment District has re-opened after the bomb squad blew up a suspected “incendiary device” found in a car during a traffic stop early Tuesday.
Toronto Police say officers pulled over the white Honda Civic for an alleged Highway Traffic Act offence in the westbound lanes of King St. W., just west of Peter St., around 3:30 a.m.
“During a search of the vehicle the officers found a suspicious package in the trunk,” Const. Wendy Drummond said Tuesday, unable to elaborate.
She said Emergency Task Force and Bomb Squad officers were called to the scene after the discovery.
In order to keep pedestrians and motorists at a safe distance, the surrounding area was shut down from John St. to Spadina Ave. and from Front St. to Adelaide St.
“The package was then removed from the vehicle and imploded,” Drummond said of the controlled detonation.
Reporters at the scene were told the suspicious package was an “incendiary device,” but police would not immediately release further details.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
British Muslims Seek to Combat Extremism
Monday marks the beginning of the trial of two men accused of murdering a British soldier in Woolwich, London, in May. The attack was widely condemned by faith leaders and has caused unease in the Muslim community.
British soldier Lee Rigby was killed in broad daylight outside his barracks in southeast London on May 22, 2013. The attack provoked a public outcry, because the accused told passers-by that they were killing a soldier to avenge the killing of Muslims by the British armed forces.
Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, both converts to Islam, pleaded not guilty to the charges during a hearing in September. On Monday, the two men will appear in court. In the morning, roughly 30 protesters demonstrated in front of the courthouse, according to Agence France-Presse. Among them was the leader of the far-right British National Party, Nick Griffin.
The attack against Lee Rigby was widely condemned by religious leaders, but still led to a rise in threats made against Muslims and mosques in the days and weeks following the murder. Shaynul Khan of the East London Mosque says the atmosphere was tense. “We heard many incidents of mosques and other institutions, as well as people, being attacked in the wake of the Woolwich incident,” he told DW in an interview. “So I think at that time the community was gripped by a certain degree of fear.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Council of Europe Questions Italy’s Prisoner-Abuse Probes
Report raises query over persistent prison overcrowding
(ANSA) — Strasbourg, November 19 — The Council of Europe in Strasbourg on Tuesday published a report criticizing persistent overcrowding in Italian prisons and raised a series of questions regarding how Italian authorities investigate suspected cases of prisoner mistreatment.
The Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), which authored the report, based its conclusions regarding mistreatment investigations on detailed analysis of the cases of Stefano Cucchi and Mario Gugiotta, ANSA confirmed. Cucchi died while in police custody in Rome’s Pertini prison hospital on October 22, 2009, one week after being arrested on a drug charge.
Mario Gugiotta was beaten by police outside of the Olympic Stadium in Rome in May 2010.
The CPT pointed out that when Cucchi and Gugiotta were each brought into court after their arrests, they bore visible lesions, yet magistrates failed to have their injuries noted in hearing transcripts or to order an immediate medical visit to collect possible evidence of mistreatment.
Without mentioning the Cucchi case by name, the committee criticized investigators who threw out the hypothesis that Cucchi had been abused prior to being brought before a judge.
The CPT also marveled at how Italian prisoner-mistreatment investigations resulted in so few convictions. In the Cucchi case, a hospital director, two physicians and a hospital staff member were convicted in June 2013 for not properly treating Cucchi’s health condition. An autopsy shortly after Cucchi’s death found he had two broken vertebrae and internal organ damage, but the court found he was killed by “severe shortage of food and liquids”.
The guilty are on parole rather than serving prison time, and three police guards and three nurses who were also on trial were acquitted.
A 2001 police raid on the Armando Diaz school in Genoa, which was being used as temporary headquarters for an activist organization protesting a G8 summit, resulted in 93 arrests and 61 hospitalizations for police-inflicted injuries, including three left in critical condition and one in a coma. Prosecutors put 125 policemen on trial, including supervisors and an assistant chief of police, but none of the accused served time despite convictions.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Czech Republic: Key Member of Czech Ruling Party Shot Dead at Home
PRAGUE, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) — Roman Houska, an influential member of the ruling Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD), was found shot dead at his villa Monday night, according to local media. Houska was believed to have been murdered at around 19:00 local time(1800 GMT) at his house on Kamenny vrch street in Chomutov, a town in the country’s northwest…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: PET in Hot Water for Allegedly Spying on Pia Kjærsgaard
The head of the domestic intelligence agency stands accused of using Kjærsgaard’s calendar to try to squash the former DF leader’s visit to Christiania
The head of the domestic intelligence agency PET, Jakob Scharf, stands accused of forcing PET employees to illegally spy on the former head of Dansk Folkeparti (DF), Pia Kjærsgaard.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Yahya Hassan Assaulted at Central Station
Poet was attacked from behind by a 24-year-old man who allegedly shouted that Hassan was an infidel and should die
The poet Yahya Hassan was assaulted with punches to his head and body while waiting on a platform at Copenhagen Central Station yesterday, according to media reports.
Hassan — whose parents are Palestinian — is known for his criticism of the immigrant community, which he accuses of bad parenting.
Hassan’s assailant has been identified as 24-year-old Isaac Meyer. Meyer was convicted on terror charges in 2007 and was handed a seven-year prison sentence.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ernst & Young to Check on Vatican Accounts
(AGI) Vatican City, Nov 18 — Pope Francis has been checking on the financial activities of the Holy See and has asked for a communique released by the Governorship of the Vatican State to be published on Monday. The document reports that “in accordance with the Pontifical Committee in charge of studying and advising on the economic and administrative affairs of the Holy See, a mandate has been assigned — following a selection procedure — to an Ernst&Young international team to carry out assessment and consulting procedures on the economic and administrative activities of the Vatican City State.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Euro Shuffle: MEPs Rebel Against Monthly Move to Strasbourg
Members of the European Parliament are tired of the monthly move from Brussels to Strasbourg for a week of plenary sessions. But France has blocked attempts to scrap Strasbourg as the second seat. Now lawmakers plan to use a trick to stop this immensely expensive traveling circus.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
French Senate Ratifies Italy-France High-Speed Rail Link
Senate vote comes after passage in House
(ANSA) — Paris, November 19 — The French Senate on Tuesday approved the French-Italian bilateral agreement to build the controversial high-speed TAV rail link between Lyon and Turin.
The vote seals French ratification of the agreement after passage in the Lower House on Thursday.
The Lyon-Turin high-speed link in the Susa Valley has triggered protests throughout Italy for several years, some involving violent clashes with police, vandalism, threats and disruption of highway traffic.
Opponents say the project threatens sensitive environmental areas and will cost too much public money, while supporters argue it will cut down on vehicle traffic and pollution.
Excavation work began November 12 on a large exploratory tunnel as part of rail construction.
Proponents of the link said by reaching this stage of construction, it’s clear that the project has gone too far now to be halted.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
German Police Raid Businesses Suspected of Mafia Ties
‘Ndrangheta crime syndicate believed involved in wind farm
(ANSA) — Berlin, November 19 — German police raided 25 properties and businesses in six states as part of a money-laundering investigation involving the ‘Ndrangheta mafia, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The probe focused on the financing of a wind farm built in Crotone in Calabria, which was seized in July 2012 by Italian courts.
German authorities are especially interested in money transferred between banks in Italy and Germany’s HSH Nordbank and suspect a link with the powerful, Calabria-based ‘Ndrangheta mafia.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
German Parties Say EU May Not be Able to Let Turkey Join
(Reuters) — The European Union may not be able to accept Turkey as a member, German parties negotiating a coalition government have said, while making clear the EU’s “privileged relationship” with Ankara should be developed further.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Angered Over Turkish Deputy PM’s Hagia Sophia Remarks
For the possible conversion of the museum into a mosque
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS — The Greek Foreign Ministry has reacted angrily over a possible conversion of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia Museum into a mosque following statements from Turkish officials, as Anadolu Agency reports from the Greek capital. “The repeated statements from Turkish officials regarding the conversion of Byzantine Christian churches into mosques are an insult to the religious sensibilities of millions of Christians and are actions that are anachronistic and incomprehensible from a state that declares it wants to participate as a full member in the European Union, a fundamental principle of which is respect for religious freedom,” the Greek Foreign Ministry said in a statement released on Monday.
“Byzantine Christian churches are an intrinsic element of world cultural and religious heritage, and they should receive the necessary respect and protection,” it said. The statement came days after Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc expressed his hope to see Hagia Sophia Museum be used as a mosque, while already calling it the “Hagia Sophia Mosque” while speaking to reporters during the opening ceremony of a new Carpet Museum, located adjacent to the ancient Hagia Sophia complex. The status of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, with a number of campaigns to open it for Muslim prayers being initiated, despite suggestions that this would be disrespectful to the building’s past as a church.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Police on ‘Red Alert’ Under the Fear of Armed Attack
After the discovery of hidden arsenal buried outside Athens
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, NOVEMBER 19 — Hellenic Police is on ‘Red Alert’ from the last 24 hours under the fear of a new armed attack. According to some sources from the police counter-terrorism division, the attack’s target this time will be the Hellenic police. The ‘Red Alert’ started when the police discovered an arsenal consisting of four Kalashnikov assault rifles, ten hand grenades and about 750 rounds of ammunition of various caliber, all concealed in a barrel which was buried in a wooden area in Ippokratios Politia, in the north of Athens, as daily To Vima online reports.
The discovery has caused concern amongst police officers, since they have reason to suspect that a militant group may be intending to carry out an attack against police targets, as a “supplement” to the shooting in Neo Iraklio which resulted in the death of two neo-nazist party Golden Dawn members.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greek Consortium Wins Tender to Build First Mosque in Capital
(Reuters) — The long-stalled construction of a state-funded mosque in Athens came a step closer on Thursday with the announcement that a consortium of Greek companies had won the tender to build it. Athens has not had a formal mosque since Greece won independence from occupying Ottomans in 1832 and has been criticized by human rights groups such as Amnesty International for being one of the few European capitals without one. But a government decision in May to revive the project during the country’s deepest economic crisis had divided a country that spent nearly four centuries under Turkish Ottoman rule, where hostility towards migrants is rising and the Orthodox Church is a powerful institution…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Greek Police on High Alert Amid Fears of New Terror Hit
The police are on high alert amid fears of a new terrorist hit, possibly on a police target, sources have told Kathimerini just a few days after an unknown guerrilla group claimed responsibility for killing two members of the neofascist Golden Dawn party earlier this month.
According to senior police sources, the force’s counterterrorism unit has received information over the past few days regarding a likely hit on a police target. The same sources said that the proclamation released on Saturday by the new group, which calls itself Militant Popular Revolutionary Forces, contains several references suggesting close ties between Golden Dawn and the police, which it describes as “the armed dogs of the regime.” Police fear that the group’s insistence on links between the force and the party means an attack on the police is likely.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Codacons Ready to Appeal in Rome Job Competition Issue
(AGI) Rome, Nov 18 — The consumer association, Codacons, has addressed the issue of a public competition for government jobs organised by the municipality of Rome. Codacons said it is ready to appeal to the regional courts representing the 20,000 candidates who have passed pre-selection should the rest of the test be cancelled, while waiting to hear what the city will decide. “All those who took part in the 2012 selection and passed the first test, can protect their interests,” said Codacons.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Govt Backs Embattled Justice Minister
Cancellieri faces confidence vote Wednesday
(ANSA) — Milan, November 18 — Deputy Premier Angelino Alfano repeated Monday that the government was standing behind embattled Justice Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri, under fire for calling judicial authorities and allegedly influencing them to go easy on the relative of a family friend suspected in a corruption probe. “We have already given our support to Minister Cancellieri and we repeat it,” said Alfano. A government source told the Financial Times earlier Monday that the justice minister may quit before parliament votes on a motion of no confidence Wednesday. Earlier this month she admitted to parliament to calling authorities regarding Giulia Ligresti, a member of a major Italian business dynasty who was arrested in July for alleged involvement in cooking the books at the Fonsai insurance group.
But she denied influencing her release from jail to house arrest, and insisted it was to look after her health, as she had a history of depression and anorexia. There have been increasingly vocal calls from within Premier Enrico Letta’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) for it to join the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement in calling for Cancellieri to be removed after new reports of phone conversations with the Ligresti family emerged. On Friday, Italian daily La Repubblica cited leaked police reports which showed Cancellieri and her husband maintained telephone contact with Ligresti’s uncle Antonino. Antonino’s brother is Giulia’s father Salvatore Ligresti, the family patriarch and former honorary chairman of Fonsai, who is also under house arrest along with two former executives from the insurance company. Cancellieri says she consulted Antonio, a doctor, for medical advice. The minister’s son, Piergiorgio Peluso, is a former manager at the insurance group and received a whopping five-million-euro severance payoff after a short spell there. Cancellieri’s detractors says it is a case of people with friends in high places receiving better treatment from the Italian justice system than ordinary people.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Carer Beats 85-Year-Old in Bathtub
Police attacked at the scene
(ANSA) — Viterbo, November 19 — A carer was arrested in central Italy Tuesday for beating up an 85-year-old woman in the bathtub and attacking officers at the scene, police said. The carer, a 54-year-old Romanian woman, was witnessed physically and verbally abusing the victim as officers arrived at her Viterbo apartment, police said. They were alerted by neighbors who heard screaming.
Police said the carer was under the influence of drugs. The victim was hospitalized for cuts and bruises.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Man Held for Beating Pregnant Wife, Punishing With Leftovers
Ostracized from rest of family
(ANSA) — Brindisi, November 19 — A man in southern Italy was arrested Tuesday for beating his wife while pregnant and ostracizing her from the rest of the family, feeding her only the leftovers at dinner while forcing her to sit away from the table. The husband, a 24-year-old Moroccan national, was taken into custody in accordance with the anti-femicide decree, passed by the Italian government in October following a wave of public outrage over violence against women. The violence in this case reached a peak in August during the mother’s eighth month of pregnancy, when she was admitted to hospital with face and stomach injuries. She stayed under medical supervision until giving birth to a girl. Both the mother and child are now staying with relatives.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: PD Holds Basilicata Region
Turn-out less than half
(ANSA) — Potenza, November 19 — The centre-left Democratic Party (PD) retained the governorship of the southern Italian region of Basilicata on Tuesday.
Marcello Pittella became governor at the head of a centre-left coalition that won 60% of the vote, about three times the total gained by a centre-right coalition led by ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s now-defunct People of Freedom (PdL) party.
Less than half the electorate — 47.6% — turned out to vote, more than 15% down on the last regional vote in 2010 and almost 22% down on the February general election when long-time foes the PD and PdL finished in a near-tie and ended up governing together two months later.
The PdL on Saturday split into hawks who joined the revamped version of Berlusconi’s first party, Forza Italia (FI), and doves who formed the New Centre Right (NCD) party under former Berlusconi heir-apparent Angelino Alfano, deputy premier and interior minister.
The NCD is sticking with PD Premier Enrico Letta’s government while FI is expected to withdraw its support, without being able to bring the executive down, when Berlusconi is ejected from the Senate on a tax-fraud conviction.
The PD is set to elect a new leader December 8 with Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi a hot favourite.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Talks Break Down Between Indesit, Unions
Appliance maker begins procedure to lay off 1,425 workers
(ANSA) — Rome, November 19 — Labour negotiations for Italian home-appliance maker Indesit broke down early Tuesday after sleepless managers and union representatives failed to reach agreement in a meeting at the industry ministry in Rome.
The meeting had begun Monday afternoon at 17:30.
Union sources told ANSA that Indesit management pulled out of the talks at about 7:00 on Tuesday, after a night of confrontation, and has opened a procedure toward laying off 1,425 workers.
Indesit issued a statement saying that it is “forced to carry out its (restructuring) plan unilaterally” given the “incomprehensible impossibility of reaching an agreement with the unions”.
Indesit blamed the unions for the “lack of agreement that blocks access to social welfare and penalizes workers” with the opening of redundancy procedures.
Indesit also claims that the unions left 83 million euros in extraordinary investment that management was willing to put on the table.
The UILM union said that opening the procedure toward worker redundancies does not signal the end of negotiations, as there are still 75 days to find a solution.
The company said at the beginning of June that it was set to slash 1,425 jobs, including 25 managers, 150 white-collar staff and 1,250 factory workers across three Italian manufacturing plants.
Indesit’s 70-million-euro restructuring plan would keep only high-end appliance manufacturing in Italy, and to concentrate low-cost appliance manufacturing in Poland and Turkey.
Immediately following the announcement, unions FIOM-CGIL, FIM-CISL and UILM called for strikes that hit the company throughout the summer.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Mayor Arrested on Allegations of Extortion, False Papers
Charges related to contracts in town midway between Rome, Naples
(ANSA) — Frosinone, November 19 — The mayor of Ceprano, a town between Rome and Naples, was arrested Tuesday on allegations of attempted extortion and possession of false documents. Allegations against Mayor Giovanni Sorge relate to municipal contracts.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Brindisi Mayor Probed for ‘Tax Dodge’
Former revenue office chief also under investigation
(ANSA) — Brindisi, November 19 — Brindisi Mayor Cosimo Consales was placed under investigation Tuesday in connection with suspected tax dodging involving a municipal communications company he had a stake in, police said.
The centre-left Democratic Party official is being probed along with the former head of tax-collection agency Equitalia in the Puglia city, they said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Pressure for Justice Minister to Quit Intensifies
‘Cancellieri should resign for good of Italy’ says Renzi
(By Christopher Livesay) (ANSA) — Rome, November 19 — Pressure grew on Tuesday for Italy’s embattled justice minister to resign as prominent figures spanning the political spectrum panned the government for standing beside her, a day before parliament votes on a no-confidence motion against her, fueled by accusations she meddled in a high-profile corruption case involving family ties.
“It’s a mistake to back (Anna Maria Cancellieri),” said Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi, favored to become the leader of the center-left Democratic Party (PD). “If Italy gets a new justice minister the government is better off, not worse”. Cancellieri is under fire for calling judicial authorities and allegedly influencing them to go easy on the relative of a family friend suspected in a corruption probe. Earlier this month she admitted to parliament to calling authorities regarding Giulia Ligresti, a member of a major Italian business dynasty who was arrested in July for alleged involvement in cooking the books at the Fonsai insurance group. But she denied influencing her release from jail to house arrest, and insisted it was to look after her health, as Ligresti had a history of depression and anorexia. There have been increasingly vocal calls from within Premier Enrico Letta’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) for it to join the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement in calling for Cancellieri to be removed after new reports of phone conversations with the Ligresti family emerged. On Friday, Italian daily La Repubblica cited leaked police reports which showed Cancellieri and her husband maintained telephone contact with Ligresti’s uncle Antonino. Antonino’s brother is Giulia’s father Salvatore Ligresti, the family patriarch and former honorary chairman of Fonsai, who is also under house arrest along with two former executives from the insurance company. Cancellieri says she consulted Antonio, a doctor, for medical advice, and that she has intervened in case’s similar to Ligresti’s more than 100 times.
Both Premier Letta, of the center-left PD, and Deputy Premier Angelino Alfano, of the center-right New Center Right, have vocally supported her, pointing out that prosecutors said that her phone calls had no influence on Ligresti’s release to house arrest. Her critics point to the minister’s son, Piergiorgio Peluso, a former manager at the insurance group who received a whopping five-million-euro severance payoff after a short spell there. Cancellieri’s wide range of detractors say it is a case of people with friends in high places receiving better treatment from the Italian justice system than ordinary people.
“We will vote no confidence (in Cancellieri), because the latest revelations make carrying out her mandate impossible,” said Lombardy Governor Roberto Maroni, the head of the right-wing Northern League. “I was hoping that her sense of civic duty would compel her to resign”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tensions are rising in Europe, especially regarding the role of Germany, which is the target of mounting criticism in terms both of its actions and omissions
The fact that the euro is safe from collapse now seems to be taken for granted by the markets. The speculation against the euro, which last year jeopardized its very future, has ebbed away. This, thanks to the intervention of the ECB and its president, Mario Draghi, who announced his determination to use the whole arsenal at his command to save the single currency. But now that the worst of the euro crisis is over, we are entering a worrying phase of political crisis.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Protesters Shun ‘Racist’ Black Pete in Amsterdam Festival
Tens of thousands of people crowded Amsterdam’s streets on Sunday to watch the traditional holiday arrival of Saint Nicholas as a handful joined a silent protest against his sidekick “Black Pete”, which they said was a racist symbol.
The debate over Black Pete has reached a fever pitch in the last weeks in the Netherlands, highlighting the issue of racism in a country that prides itself on open-minded values. It has even sparked a UN rights probe.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Alcoholics Paid 5 Cans of Beer a Day to Clean Up Amsterdam
As a way to keep alcoholics from causing a nuisance in Amsterdam’s Oosterpark, the Rainbow Foundation Project is using government grants and donations to pay the troublemakers in beer and tobacco to clean up the city.
The project pays the alcoholics 10 euros ($13.53), half a pouch of rolling tobacco and five cans of beer for every day they show up for work, the Daily Mail reported.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Norwegian Racism’ Triggers Twitter Storm
Norwegians with ethnic backgrounds have flooded Twitter with personal stories of racism after a 23-year-old medical student tweeted a moving post with the hashtag #Norskrasisme.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Half of Oslo Residents Now Fear Street Crime
More than half the people living in Oslo have had their sense of safety affected by a recent rise in muggings, a survey commissioned by the VG tabloid has revealed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norwegian Army Goes on Vegetarian Diet
The Norwegian military said Tuesday it plans to put its troops on a vegetarian diet once a week in a bid to fight a new kind of enemy — climate change.
The army said its new meatless Mondays are meant to cut its consumption of ecologically unfriendly foods whose production contributes heavily to global warming.
“It’s a step to protect our climate. The idea is to serve food that’s respectful of the environment,” spokesman Eystein Kvarving told AFP.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
NSA Logged 33m Calls in NATO Ally Norway
The US’s National Security Agency (NSA) logged more than 33 million phone calls made by its Nato ally Norway over just one month, a secret document seen by Norway’s Dagbladet newspaper has revealed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Politically Fractured: Populists Fail to Shift EU Balance
Far-right populists are expected to make significant gains in elections for the European Parliament this spring, but the only existing populist group in the body shows these parties can shout as loud as they want but are unlikely to have much influence.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Romania — 1989 a Bittersweet Year
The year 1989 was a painful, bittersweet period in my life and in the history of my people. It was a year filled with death, life, grief, anguish, freedom, physical pain, and the struggle for power.
My father passed away on May 12 in excruciating pain, denied drugs, IV nourishment, and any kind of medical treatment, a 60-pound shadow of his former self. My Dad was a sturdy and healthy 200 pound man full of life and joie de vivre.
An outspoken critic of the president, Dad was always detained at his place of employment for his views, his lack of membership in the communist party, and his not-so-secret desire to have another president replace Ceausescu in his lifetime.
Thousands of victims, killed by communists
Dad had just turned 61 when he was beaten one last time and languished three weeks before his death in a hospital ward, tended by his loving sister who kept him alive with teaspoons of water and broth. My Dad was one of thousands of victims, killed by communists in their quest for power and control. His honesty, his integrity, his freedom of speech, and his desire to be free sentenced him to an early demise.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: MP Investigated for Hate-Speech Blog Post
A Sweden Democrat MP is to be investigated for hate speech, following an article about Somalis on his blog last year. Thoralf Alfsson wrote in the blog that for each Somali immigrant that gets a residence permit in Sweden, the amount of money reaching the terrorist organisation al-Shabaab will grow.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Stockholm Mosque Hit in Pig’s Trotters Attack
Police suspect vandalism after pig’s trotters were thrown into a mosque near Stockholm after the windows of the building’s main door were smashed in on Monday morning.
“Shortly before 11am we received a call from the mosque” in Fittja, police official Ulf Lindgren told AFP. “The person had just arrived and found pig’s trotters inside.”
In Islam, pork meat is considered impure.
“We have classified this as an act of vandalism,” Lindgren said. “But insofar as it is pig’s trotters, it could be something else.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Police Crackdown on Leftist Extremists
Around a dozen people have been arrested by the police in Sörmland, in a crackdown on leftist extremists, believed to be connected to the Revolutionary Front.
Police on Tuesday seized street fighting weapons and petrol bombs. Thirteen addresses in Mälärdalen and Stockholm were raided by the police.
Sörmland’s police spokesman Frederick Wallen , said the evidence involved street fighting weapons and petrol bombs. He also confirmed that the crackdown is linked to a criminal investigation into the left extreme network Revolutionary Front.
“Through the raid we have been able to prevent a planned arson attack,” said Fredrik Wallen to SVT Sörmland.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Intelligence Service Want Instant Access to Phone Traffic
Swedish Radio News revealed Tuesday that the Swedish Intelligence Service, SÄPO, the police and other crime fighting authorities are on the way to receiving instant access to parts of Sweden’s data and telephone traffic.
Data, including people’s emails and calls within the country’s borders, can be directly downloaded by the police once the system has been fully tested, reports Swedish Radio News.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
U.N. Head Compares Muslims to Jews While at Auschwitz
While on his way to… wait for it… a Climate Change conference in Poland, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon stopped to visit Auschwitz in an attempt to pay respects. In so doing, he compared the Jews who died there to Muslims he says are being persecuted today and are getting virtually no help.
| [Return to headlines] |
UK: Bolton Council Apologises After Pork Product is Served to Muslim Youngsters in School Dessert
TOWN hall chiefs have issued an apology after a pork product was discovered in chocolate mousse being served to Muslim youngsters as part of their school dinner. Bolton Council’s school meals service which provides dinners to many of the borough’s school is now working closely with Bolton Council of Mosques and an investigation is under way. The incident only involved Gaskell Community Primary School in Thomas Holden Street, Bolton, and as soon as the ingredient — pork gelatine — was spotted, the dessert was withdrawn…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Christianity at Risk of Dying Out in a Generation, Warns Lord Carey
Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, warns Christianity “a generation away from extinction” in Britain
Christianity is just a “generation away from extinction” in Britain unless churches make a dramatic breakthrough in attracting young people back to the faith, the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has warned. Clergy are now gripped by a “feeling of defeat”, congregations are worn down by “heaviness” while the public simply greets both with “rolled eyes and a yawn of boredom”, he said.
His comments at a Christian conference came as a stark report laid before the Church of England’s General Synod warned that its position as a “national institution” will be in doubt if numbers in the pews drop much further. The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, also underlined the scale of the crisis telling members of the Synod they must “evangelise or fossilise”. In an impassioned plea for Church to adopt a new missionary stance, he told them that their constant internal debates were like no more than “rearranging furniture when the house is on fire”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Four homes went up in flames and hundreds were left without power in sub-zero temperatures this morning after thieves cut through a cable at an electricity substation to steal copper worth just £40.
One family, with two young children, was forced to flee their home in Greenock, Inverclyde, at 4am.
They escaped the house in Devon Road after thick smoke filled the property. The 28-year-old father was treated for smoke inhalation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Hate DVD is Sent to the Acton Mosque Where Terror Suspect Escaped
The Acton mosque where terror suspect Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed evaded police by wearing a burka disguise, has been sent a menacing video
The mosque visited by a terror suspect who evaded police by wearing a burka has received a second hate DVD. It arrived through the post the morning after the mosque held an open evening for the public to learn more about Islam to help dispel fears that the faith nurtured extremists and terrorists.
Abdul Maalik Tailor, an interfaith outreach worker at the An-Noor mosque, said the open evening on Monday had an exhibition about Islam and that women who wore the face veil were there to answer any questions. But on Tuesday morning the mosque in Church Road, Acton, received a second copy of a DVD it was sent in August. It contains footage of a fake skull with the words ‘Prophet Mohamed’ scrawled across…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Muslim School Governors Criticised
A leaked Government audit of a Muslim free school has revealed a number of governors may have had conflicts of interest.
The Department for Education’s (DfE) report, obtained by Channel 4 News, is reported to have found that some governors at the Al-Madinah School in Derby “are closely involved with suppliers to the school either directly or through family connections”.
The audit, published in September, also said the Muslim faith school “cannot currently demonstrate that it is maintaining proper accounting records” and revealed that auditors had identified “irregular payments” of almost £20,000, according to the broadcaster. Last month the school was branded “dysfunctional” by Ofsted, who ordered that it be placed in special measures, and Shazia Parveen, the chair of governors, announced she was to step down from her position. Education Minister Lord Nash will today meet the governors of the school to decide on its future…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Queen Hires Muslim as High Sheriff
(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) — The eye-catching nomination, yet to be announced, went to Charles ‘Abd al-Mateen’ John Pelham, the 8th Earl of Yarborough.
Using the name Abd al-Mateen after reverting to Islam, the Earl of Yarborough will take the unpaid role next year. The Eton College graduate is a master of the Brocklesby Hunt, and President of Brocklesby Park Cricket Club. On the death of his father in 1991, he inherited the bulk of the £68 million estate, which includes Brocklesby Park in Lincolnshire, 27,500 acres of farmland, and one of Britain’s finest private art collections…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: SOAS to Review Security After Muslim Brotherhood Storms Lecture
A London university is reviewing its security procedures after protesters from the Muslim Brotherhood chased away a speaker about to give a lecture on Egypt.
The group of demonstrators stormed a lecture theatre at the School of Oriental and African Studies. They began chanting and unfurling flags associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, a political organisation whose members include ousted Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Guest speaker Mohamed El-Nabawy was forced from the stage and ushered out of an emergency exit by SOAS security guards.
The event was organised by the university’s Palestine Society. A spokeswoman for SOAS said the demonstrators were not students and had been let in because it was a public lecture. The university and the society are considering closing future events to the public in an effort to stop a repeat of the incident…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Women Gather for Peace Conference at Bait-Ul Futuh Mosque in Morden
Hundreds of women gathered for a peace conference this weekend. Over 170 guests joined members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Womens’ Association at Western Europe’s largest mosque — Baitul Futuh Mosque, in Morden on Saturday, November 16. The National President of the Ladies Auxiliary, Nasira Rehman, said the theme of the evening, A Time for Peace, was especially poignant following remembrance Sunday last week. Guests had the opportunity to tour the mosque complex which includes libraries and various exhibitions displaying works of the community around the world…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Military Opponents, Backers Clash Near Egyptian Museum
Security forces fire tear gas close to Tahrir square
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, NOVEMBER 19 — Demonstrators opposing and supporting the military in Egypt are clashing near Tahrir square, close to the Egyptian museum in Cairo, on the second anniversary of violence in November 2011 in which close to 50 demonstrators opposing the then-ruling military council died.
Security forces fired tear gas to disperse demonstrators but clashes between the two factions are continuing.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Plotting to Train Islamic Libyan Forces as Chaos Mounts
As Libya continues its deadly spiral into lawlessness and bloodshed — most recently illustrated when Islamist militias gunned down protesters in the capital city of Tripoli last week, or when the “prime minister” was kidnapped last month — the Obama administration has a new plan to bring order out of chaos. After having handed the smoldering ruins of Libya to a gaggle of radical Islamists and al Qaeda-linked fanatics by helping oust and summarily execute despot Moammar Gadhafi, the U.S. government is now working on a scheme to train Libyan “troops” and “security forces.” All of it will help the embattled Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic regime cement its loose grip on power as it enforces sharia law.
Critics of the controversial scheme are warning that it risks further empowering Islamic terrorists with advanced U.S. military training.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. To Train Libyan Military Personnel
WASHINGTON, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) — The United States has agreed to provide basic combat training for 5,000 to 8,000 Libyan military personnel, Defense Department spokesman Steve Warren said Monday. The training mission is still being planned, and is slated to take place at a base in Bulgaria, Warren said during a Pentagon briefing. He provided no details on costs, timing or training specifics…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Haniyeh’s Granddaughter Released Home to Gaza
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has returned to Gaza following his visit to Israel with his critically ill granddaughter, Amal. Haniyeh arrive yesterday with the one-year-old who was seeking treatment for a serious digestive tract infection, according to a report by AFP.
Yediot Aharonot reported that the child was being treated at the Petah Tikva pediatric hospital, but that doctors had decided there was nothing more they could do for her. She was then transferred back to Gaza, where it was determined she could get equal hospital care as she would in Israel.
Every year, several thousand Gazans are given permission to cross over into Israel to receive urgent medical treatment. […]
[I don’t suppose it will occur to him that his granddaughter has now been treated by “apes and pigs” will it? but I give her my best wishes for a speedy recovery anyway — hypocrisy rules OK!]
| — Hat tip: MC | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Court Orders Evacuation of Settlement Homes
Gives state six months. All homes are in West Bank
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV — Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered the State to evacuate within six months homes built on private Palestinian land in three illegal West Bank settlements, Haaretz reported on Tuesday.
According to the paper, members of the Court criticized authorities writing that ‘it will not be possible for much longer to trust the State’s engagements in such matters’.
The homes are in the illegal settlements of Givat Assaf, Mitzpe Yitzhar and Maaleh Rehavam in the Occupied Territories.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
PA Hands Out Generous Payments to Released Palestinian Prisoners
by Abha Shankar
The Palestinian Authority (PA) government in Ramallah handed out lavish payments to Palestinian prisoners released by Israel in recent months, the Jerusalem Post reports. The PA confirmed the report but said the amounts claimed by Israel — up to $50,000 per prisoner — were “inaccurate” and “exaggerated.”
Israel has released 52 prisoners since August as part of ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
A veteran Palestinian terrorist, Issa Abed Raboo, who was convicted in 1984 of killing two Israelis near Bethlehem, received a $60,000 bonus and the PA also volunteered to pay for his wedding.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Prime Minister: Radical Islam Taking US Back to the Past
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, at an Israeli-French technology conference Tuesday, contrasted Israel’s goals with those of Islamic radicals as a matter of modernity and anachronism.
Referencing the scientific studies before him, Netanyahu stated, “What we are seeing is the future. I think where radical Islam is trying to take us is the past.” He elaborated, “We are for modernity. They are for a dark medievalism..”
“We’re for opening up our societies for everyone — men, women, minorities, the right to be different,” the Prime Minister continued, “They’re for uniform suppression of a rigid doctrine and they want to back it up with weapons of death.” […]
[maybe Bibi has been reading GoV! bet you wish your PM/Pres. could say these words]
| — Hat tip: MC | [Return to headlines] |
Report: IAF Strikes Targets in Gaza City in Response to Mortar Fire
The IAF hit various targets Tuesday evening near the city of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported.
An IDF spokeswoman confirmed there had been a strike in the enclave, but could not confirm any further details.
The Air Force strike was conducted in response to mortar shell fire emanating from Gaza that landed in the Eshkol Regional Council area earlier in the day, Channel 2 reported.
| — Hat tip: MC | [Return to headlines] |
Studying Hebrew Through Tel Aviv Graffiti
Guy Sharett’s ‘itinerant’ method
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, NOVEMBER 18 — Israeli linguist and language teacher Guy Sharett has come up with a new method to teach the notoriously difficult Hebrew to his students, using graffiti on Tel Aviv’s walls, plaques and signs. He takes them to the city’s once dilapidated Florentine quarter, now popular for its nightlife. The idea has been growing in popularity for the past two years, and every week (normally Friday afternoon) groups of students of all ages and nationalities take a walk through Florentine’s historic streets, pausing before graffiti and writings that have been carefully selected to understand “Israeli society through signs and popular culture”.
“There has not yet been,” said Sharett in good Italian, which he studied in Florence, “a revolution in language teaching. The time has come to come out of the closed environment of schools and out from behind desks.” Those he called “survivors of Ulpan” (the traditional course for those wanting to study Hebrew) seem to agree with him.
“I started out with an announcement on my Facebook page,” said Sharett, a descendent of the family of Moshe’ Sharett, a Labour Party leader who was one of Israel’s founding fathers and prime minister between 1953 and 1955. “To my surprise, 20 people came to the first appointment. Since then, more and more have been coming.” Sharett’s ‘linguistic’ tour varies from one day to the next, but sometimes comes across graffiti on one of the area’s walls depicting the unmistakeable silhouette of Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism. The slogan — which appears below the portrait and is the most well-known of those on the creation of Israel — ‘If you want it, it isn’t a dream’, has been transformed into ‘If you don’t want it, you don’t need it’.
Armed with a plastic blackboard, Sharett explains the Hebrew words to the students, notes their linguistic ties and teaches the “political meaning” of the graffiti. Another example used in this new form of instruction are the municipal manholes: the oldest ones, from 1937, on which the name Yafo (Jaffa) does not appear, and the more recent ones on which it appears next to the current name of the municipality.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
At Least 23 Killed in Explosions Near Iranian Embassy in Beirut
Two explosions near the Iranian embassy in the Lebanese capital of Beirut have killed 23 people and injured 146, according to Lebanese health officials.
Among the dead is the Iranian cultural attache, identified as Sheikh Ibrahim Ansari. Ambassador Ghazanfar Roknabadi told the Associated Press that Ansari took his post in Lebanon a month ago and was overseeing all regional cultural activities.
The mid-morning blasts hit south Beirut’s upscale neighborhood of Janah, a stronghold of the Shiite militant Hezbollah group. Attacks have targeted Lebanon’s Shiite strongholds recently in what many see as retaliation by extremists for Hezbollah’s role in Syria.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Disturbing Photos of Abuse of Mentally Disabled Patients in a Saudi Centre
The photos, taken in a centre for the mentally disabled in the city of Douasser, have been making the rounds online in Saudi Arabia. They reveal the degrading conditions in which some mentally handicapped people must live in the Saudi kingdom.
The mission of the centre, which is public and free, is to care for mentally disabled patients. The first photo shows an adolescent tied to a railing. On another picture, a young man is tied to a bed with pieces of cloth. Yet others show naked patients waiting to take a group shower. Some patients can be seen eating off of the floor.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Guest Column: The Orient Express From Mecca to the Vatican
Christians in the Cross Hairs
by Reuven Berko
The tunnel recently dug under the Bosphorus linking Turkey to Europe is symbolic of the age-old Islamic desire to conquer the Holy Roman Empire, especially Rome and the Vatican to include Europe in Islam.
If Turkey is allowed to join the EU it will accelerate the inevitable Islamization of Europe. It will accelerate the emigration of Turks and enable them to unite the already growing Islamic enclaves in the European countries. Radical Islamism is laying the tracks for an Orient Express that will run from Iceland to Iran, its engineers and conductors Islamist terrorists and its shackled passengers Christians and Jews on their way to another mass grave in Al-Madinah.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Asks for China, Russia’s Support in Nuclear Talks Against ‘Excessive Demands’
On eve of Geneva talks, Rouhani calls Putin, Xi and says while “significant progress” has been made in last round of nuclear talks, “excessive demands could complicate the process”; Iran FM: Israel trying to scuttle Geneva talks.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Unveils Attack Drone With ‘2,000-Kilometer’ Range
Iran on Monday unveiled a missile-equipped drone with a range of 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers), the official IRNA news agency reported.
“The Fotros drone has an operational range of 2,000 kilometres and can fly at an altitude of 25,000 feet, with a flight time of 16 to 30 hours,” Defence Minister Mohammad Dehgan was quoted as saying.
Dehgan said the new drone could carry out reconnaissance missions or launch air-to-surface missile strikes.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq Executes 12 Men for Terrorism
(AGI) Baghdad, Nov 18 — Iraq has executed 12 men for terrorist activities, justice ministry sources report. Baghdad has executed 144 people so far this year in spite of international requests for a moratorium and condemnation of the practice. In 2011 the number of executions in Iraq stood at 129.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Blamed by Iran for Beirut Bombings
Iran’s ambassador in Lebanon accused Israel of being responsible for a blast that rocked the Iranian embassy in Beirut, killing at least 23 people Tuesday.
Ghazanfar Rokn Abadi told Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television that “the agents of the Zionist entity Israel are behind the blasts,” according to a translation provided by the Naharnet news site.
“This terrorist attack will not affect us,” he reportedly added, “but it will make us stronger and more convinced of our stances.”
Veteran Israeli lawmaker MK Tzachi Hanegbi rejected the accusations, saying that it is sometimes “humoristic” that Israel is blamed for everything bad happening in the Middle East. […]
“A country that is perpetrating terror all over the world, maybe feels” comfortable accusing others of the same, and “Israel is there to blame,” he told reporters at a briefing organized by The Israel Project. “There are things that we do that we do take responsibility for, because they have to do with Israel’s security. But Israel’s security gains nothing from bloodshed in Beirut or in any other Arab state,” he added […]
| — Hat tip: MC | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Beirut Hit by Twin Bombings Near Iranian Embassy
As many as 18 people have been killed and scores wounded in two explosions in the Lebanese capital, raising fears over rising instability in the country
Two explosions struck on Tuesday near the Iranian Embassy in the Lebanese capital of Beirut, killing 18 people, wounding scores and causing wide damage to the mission and nearby buildings. The mid-morning blasts hit Beirut’s upscale neighborhood of Janah, a Hezbollah stronghold. One explosion blew out the large black main gate of the Iranian mission, damaging the three-story facility. It was not known if anyone inside was hurt. Debris was scattered on the street and cars were on fire as people ran away from the chaotic scene. The second blast was metres away from the embassy building. The explosions killed 18, according to a medical source quoted by Reuters. An Associated Press photographer counted at least five bodies after the blasts in south Beirut. AP video showed firefighters extinguishing flames from vehicles, blood-spattered streets and bodies covered with sheets on the ground. A charred motorcycle stood outside the embassy gate…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Suicide Attack Against Iranian Embassy
Some 23 dead; al Qaida says responsible, Iran blames Israel
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT — Two car bombs driven by as many suicide bombers on Tuesday morning hit southern Beirut where the Iranian embassy is located, targeting the main entrance of the diplomatic compound, according to Iranian media.
Iranian cultural attaché, shaykh Ibrahim Ansari, was among the 23 victims. According to Iranian state television, he was close to the embassy’s entrance at the time of the attack.
Jihadist group Brigades Abdullah Azzam linked to al Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack but Iran’s ambassador to Beirut, Ghozanfar Roknabadi, said Israel was behind ‘the terrorist attack’. The pro-Iranian Lebanese movement Hezbollah and the Syrian regime of President Bashar al Assad also accused Israel.
The first blast occurred at around 9.20 am local time in the Bir Hasan area: a car packed with explosives drove into the door of the embassy. A few minutes later another car — which was perhaps supposed to explode inside the diplomatic compound — blew up on the same road where a number of residential buildings are located.
Most of the victims — including some 150 injured — were caused by this second explosion and are civilians. Embassy security guards were also killed.
Lebanese Defence Minister Fayez Ghosn said ‘it is the first time Beirut is struck by a double and coordinated suicide attack’.
‘It is an attempt to bring regional instability to Lebanon’ added the minister, who is close to the Hezbollah-led government coalition.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Al Qaeda Offshoot Claims Beirut Bombings
The Iranian embassy in the Lebanese capital Beirut was the apparent target of two explosions on Tuesday, killing at least 23 people and wounding a further 146. The al Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades has claimed responsibility.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Media Watchdog Condemns UAE Tweeter Jail Term
AFP — An international media watchdog on Tuesday condemned the jailing of a Tweeter in the United Arab Emirates who used the micro-blogging website to post about the trial of 94 Islamists.
The rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said he was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 500,000 dirhams (100,000 euros) on Monday over his tweets.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
5 Killed in Two Firing Incidents in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) — At least five people including two policemen were killed and another was injured in two firing incidents in Pakistan on Monday, local media and officials said. According to the Superintendent of police Aamir Farooqui, two unknown gunmen riding on a motorcycle opened fire at three policemen at a check post in the country’s southern port city of Karachi, killing two and leaving another injured. The incident took place when the police stopped the motorcycle for checking in Nazimabad area of the city. The attackers fled the site after the firing. Police and rescue teams rushed to site and shifted the bodies and injured to hospital.
In another incident, at least three people were shot dead in the southwestern district of Turbat in Balochistan province…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
India ‘To Cancel’ 12-Helicopter Contract With AgustaWestland
Finmeccanica stock slips on report over scandal-hit deal
(ANSA) — Milan, November 19 — India is set to cancel a contract with AgustaWestland for 12 helicopters, Indian press reported on Tuesday citing defence ministry sources.
Stock in AgustaWestland’s parent company Finmeccanica fell 1.73% to 5.40 euros on the reports.
Finmeccanica’s largest shareholder is the Italian government, which owns 30% of the defence and transport conglomerate.
Indian auditors in August criticized their government over the multi-million-euro contract to buy helicopters equipped for VIP use in a long-running saga concerning the troubled deal.
In a report to parliament, the comptroller and auditor general of India slammed the procurement process, saying regulations had been violated, and condemned the contract’s “unreasonably high” costs.
Both Italy and India have opened separate judicial investigations into allegations of bribery in the deal.
Italian prosecutors have requested a fast-track trial on corruption charges for former Finmeccanica chief executive Giuseppe Orsi along with Bruno Spagnolini, chief executive of the AgustaWestland helicopter unit.
The government of India froze payments on the contract in February and threatened legal action if any wrongdoing was uncovered.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
ISI Actively Involved in Planning 26/11 Attack: US Expert
Washington: Pakistani spy agency ISI was actively involved at every stage in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, described as “the most important terror attack since 9/11”, according to a top counter-terrorism expert.
“The attack was intended to change dramatically the future of South Asia, perhaps even by provoking a war between the two nuclear powers in the subcontinent,” says Bruce Riedel, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst.
Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taeba group (LeT) had carefully chosen the targets and meticulously researched them over several years, he wrote in The Daily Beast, an American news reporting and opinion website.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistanis ‘Embrace’ YouTube Mascot to Protest Internet Censorship
Pakistani activists are turning to humor as a weapon in their fight against state internet censorship. YouTube may have been banned for over a year, but it still managed to make an appearance on the streets of Karachi: as a mascot offering hugs to those who want it back.
In a video uploaded by members of ‘Pakistan for all’ — a citizens’ rights group — a mascot dressed up in a YouTube logo walks through the city with a sign that says: ‘Hug me if you want me back’. The mascot makes its way from traffic-clogged streets to the calmer confines of the beach, where Karachiites meet it with a smile and a hug. The stunt is part of a campaign that opposes state regulation of the internet.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Terms Reached on Key Issue in Afghan Talks on U.S. Military Presence After 2014, Officials Say
American and Afghan officials said Tuesday that they had reached a tentative deal to overcome one of the last major hurdles to a post-2014 security agreement, allowing for American-run raids on Afghan homes but only in “extraordinary circumstances.”
Afghan officials said that a long impasse over the issue had been overcome during a phone call by Secretary of State John Kerry to President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday. As part of the agreement, President Obama would be expected to acknowledge past “mistakes” by United States military forces, and to promise such mistakes would not be repeated, according to Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi.
A spokesman for the American Embassy, Robert Hilton, would not comment on details of the negotiations.
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U.S.-Afghan Deal Would Keep American Troops in Afghanistan for Years
While many Americans have been led to believe the war in Afghanistan will soon be over, a draft of a key US-Afghan security deal obtained by NBC NEWS shows the United States is prepared to maintain military outposts in Afghanistan for many years to come, and pay to support hundreds of thousands of Afghan security forces.
The wide-ranging document, still unsigned by the United States and Afghanistan, has the potential to commit thousands of American troops to Afghanistan and spend billions of US taxpayer dollars.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Vietnam Banker Sentenced to Death for Fraud
A Vietnamese former banker and his business associate have been sentenced to death for their part in the embezzlement of $25 million, state media has reported.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Terrorist Who Got Away: Why Seal Team 6 Was Sent to Snatch Ikrima From Somalia
Abdukadir Mohamed Abdukadir, who is known as Ikrima, is thought to be a key player behind the siege at Kenya’s Westgate Mall that claimed dozens of lives in September. Intelligence officials say Ikrima is a commander and active recruiter within the Somali militant group al Shabaab.
Ikrima came to Norway in 2004 “and left in a hurry in 2008,” according to Norwegian TV2 correspondent Bent Skjaerstad — who has spent more than a year investigating Ikrima.
“He had two sides, he was literally two-faced,” Mbombe said. “All smiles and pleasant to the boss, quite charming when he was outside, but back in the center he was unfriendly and aggressive. He spoke a lot about Norway and the Norwegians, saying he hated them and the Americans.”
However, the recent Westgate Mall attack has raised more questions about his time in Norway. Could he have recruited Hassan Dhuhulow, the 23-year-old Norwegian who appears to be one of the gunmen caught on surveillance cameras during the siege?
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Asylum Seekers Disappear En Route to Centres
Police do not properly register asylum seekers landing at Copenhagen Airport before they put them in taxis to an asylum centre — nearly two thirds never make it there
Around 170 asylum seekers have been put in taxis to the Sandholm Asylum Centre by the police after arriving at Copenhagen Airport this year, but only 70 actually completed the journey.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Mission ‘Should Back Italy’s Mare Nostrum Task Force’
(AGI) Brussels, Nov 18 — A European Union mission should support Italy’s Mare Nostrum task force on human trafficking, said Foreign Minister Emma Bonino. Italy proposed a joint mission to combat human trafficking in the Mediterranean, in a letter written by the minister to Defence Minister Mario Mauro.
Ms Bonino will explain the proposal to colleagues at the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Brussels on Monday.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
EU Warns Refugee Push-Backs Are Illegal
The European Commission indirectly warned Greece and Bulgaria today (19 November) to stop turning down Syrian refugees at their borders with Turkey, after the UN issued a similar call just a few days before.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU: 16% of Asylum Applicants Are From Western Balkans
96% rejection rate in 2012, but general upward trend
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, NOVEMBER 19 — The 16% of all asylum applicants in the EU in 2012 and in the first six months of the 2013 came from the Western Balkans countries (considered together). In recent years, after the liberalization of the visa’s regime for the citizens of Serbia, Albania, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro and FYROM in the Schengen’s area, their applications have consistently represented the highest numbers of asylum requests made in the EU (exceeding the numbers from any other country of origin), despite the fact that are largely considered to be unfound, as shown by a rejection rate of 96% in 2012. The Top 5 destination countries are Germany, France, Sweden, Belgium and Switzerland, followed by Hungary, Austria, Luxembourg, Italy, United Kingdom, Denmark and Greece. According to the European Asylum Support Office, the applications were nearly 20,000 in 2008, about 60,000 in 2012 and over 30,000 in the first half of 2013. The number of applications is variable over time, showing a general upward trend, and strongly seasonal, with the major peaks being seen just before winter. Asylum seekers from Western Balkans consist mainly of Roma from Serbia and FYROM, and Albanians from Albania and Kosovo. Apart from the larger cities in origin countries, however, the main areas appear to be in Kosovo, or around Kosovo, i.e. Northern Albania, Southern Serbia and Northern FYROM are typical areas of origin. EU Member States and associated countries and Western Balkans countries both appear agree that, at root, the phenomenon of use of the asylum systems to make manifestly unfounded applications has an economic cause, which is exacerbated particularly in Serbia and FYROM for ethnic minorities. Though Western Balkans citizens face one of the highest rejection rates of asylum claims of any countries of origin, the rate varies by destination country and by country of origin, with Albania seeing the highest number of positive decisions and FYROM the lowest overall.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Integration Debate: Parties Close in on Dual Citizenship Deal
For the first time in Germany, politicians seem close to a deal that would extend the right to dual citizenship to children of immigrants and naturalized Germans. The national identity of thousands of young people hangs in the balance.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Legal proceedings over the aborted deportation of an African migrant who lured a vulnerable schoolgirl to a house for sex have cost the British taxpayer £350,000 — and he may now receive tens of thousands in compensation.
Jumaa Kater Saleh, 24, was convicted as part of a predatory sex gang for the ‘deliberate, targeted abuse of a young and vulnerable girl’, who was aged 13 at the time. But he was allowed to remain in Britain under human rights law because he faced mistreatment if sent back to Sudan.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Immigrant Parents Should Control Mugger Kids: PM
Immigrant parents should take more responsibility for stopping the wave of street crime sweeping Oslo, Norway’s new prime minister has argued.
“It looks like young gang members are behind most of this,” Erna Solberg told Dagsavisen newspaper on Monday. “I think the call from local parents to mobilize immigrant parents is important. We have to crack down on this, and parents in the immigrant community must also play their part.”
Oslo saw 120 robberies in October, more than any other city in Scandinavia. There were just 78 robberies recorded in Copenhagen and only 63 in Stockholm.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Total of 86 Undocumented Migrants Intercepted in Aegean in 1 Day
Coast guard officers in the Aegean on Tuesday intercepted a total of 86 undocumented immigrants believed to have been headed for the Greek mainland from neighboring Turkey.
Forty-two migrants were detained on Icaria, in the central Aegean, and another 46 on Chios, in the eastern Aegean.
There were no details about the ethnic origin of any of the migrants but they were all believed to be unharmed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
University of Texas Group Cancels ‘Catch an Illegal Immigrant Game’
AUSTIN, Texas (CBS Houston/AP) — A conservative student group has canceled a planned “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Game” at the University of Texas at Austin. The game initially drew condemnation from Democrats and a threat of expulsion from campus officials.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Euthanasia Pushes Forward in Scotland, While a New Brussels Group Pushes Back
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
The push for euthanasia is like the campaign for Gay-marriage. Proponents peck, peck, peck away at the issue slowly turning public opinion. In the beginning the arguments seems so compassionate, the old liberal line of just wanting to help people. But as always following the first wave are more sweeping overhauls of society. The woodpecker starts out by just putting a hole in the tree, but unchecked he can eventually knock it over.
The Scottish bill is loaded with safeguards but as we’ve seen in the European countries that have legalized this, the push is constantly to expand who can receive legally assisted suicide and also to expand the qualifying circumstances.
According to Christian Concern, the Euthanasia Prevention council will “highlight cases of euthanasia in Belgium including those of Mark and Eddy Verbessem, the 45-year-old deaf identical twins, who were euthanised by the Belgian state, after their eyesight began to fail; and the case of Nathan/Nancy Verhelst, whose life was ended in front of TV cameras, after a series of botched sex-change operations. His mother said she hated girls, found her child ‘so ugly’ at birth and did not mourn his death. And the case of Ann G, who had anorexia and who opted to have her life ended after being sexually abused by the psychiatrist who was supposed to be treating her for the life-threatening condition.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Euthanasia Declaration Should be Renewed Regularly
A written euthanasia declaration should be renewed regularly to give doctors more certainty about their patients’ wishes, six doctors and scientists told Trouw on Tuesday.
In a statement published in the paper, they say written requests for euthanasia should be renewed every two years, particularly in cases of dementia.
The more recent the declaration, the easier it is for doctors to carry out the patient’s wishes. A recent declaration together with the opinion of family and carers would also help doctors in their decision to employ euthanasia in cases where the patient can no longer make an informed opinion.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
School Cancels Christmas Toy Drive After Humanists Threaten to Sue
A South Carolina charter school has canceled its annual Christmas toy drive after a group of self-described humanists complained that the project violated the U.S. Constitution and accused them of bribing children to convert to Christianity.
Renee Mathews, the principal of East Point Academy in West Columbia, S.C., said the annual Operation Christmas Child project was halted because the American Humanist Association threatened to sue the school.
“We received a letter saying we had to cease and desist immediately or they would take legal action against us,” Mathews told me…
Mathews said their small school had no choice.
“We have a very small budget and very small legal budget. We felt that we could not risk using our school funding for classrooms and teachers to fight a court case.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mystery Humans Spiced Up Ancients’ Rampant Sex Lives
Genome analysis suggests interbreeding between modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans and a mysterious archaic population.
New genome sequences from two extinct human relatives suggest that these ‘archaic’ groups bred with humans and with each other more extensively than was previously known.
The ancient genomes, one from a Neanderthal and one from a different archaic human group, the Denisovans, were presented on 18 November at a meeting at the Royal Society in London. They suggest that interbreeding went on between the members of several ancient human-like groups living in Europe and Asia more than 30,000 years ago, including an as-yet unknown human ancestor from Asia.
“What it begins to suggest is that we’re looking at a ‘Lord of the Rings’-type world — that there were many hominid populations,” says Mark Thomas, an evolutionary geneticist at University College London who was at the meeting but was not involved in the work.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |