A US Bankruptcy Court judge has ruled that the city of Detroit may move ahead with its bankruptcy case. It is hoped that by officially declaring its insolvency, the city may partially pay off its creditors, resume some of its normal functions, and begin to provide services to city residents again.
In other news, according to the latest report from French scientists investigating the death of Yasser Arafat, the PLO leader did not die of polonium poisoning.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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Detroit Bankruptcy Moves Forward as Judge Rules City Can Shed Debt
Detroit’s historic bankruptcy will move forward after a judge ruled Tuesday that the financially crumbling city is eligible to shed billions in debt. Judge Steven Rhodes turned down objections from unions, pension funds and retirees, which all stand to lose big under any plan to address Detroit’s long-term liabilities.
The decision Tuesday was long-awaited, and clears the way for the city to proceed in the largest public bankruptcy in U.S. history.
“This once proud and prosperous city can’t pay its debts. It’s insolvent. It’s eligible for bankruptcy,” Rhodes said in announcing his decision. “At the same time, it also has an opportunity for a fresh start.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Feeding the Bubble: Is the Next Crash Brewing?
Central banks around the world are pumping trillions into the economy. The goal is to stimulate growth, but their actions are also driving up prices in the real estate and equities markets. The question is no longer whether there will be a crash, but when.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
It Will Implode: “We Will See the Demise of the Dollar”
Few economic analysts truly understand the underlying fundamentals of the global economy and their impact on the workings of the world. Fewer still are willing to share that knowledge with the general public and advise others on how to shield themselves against a destabilization of the system as we have come to know it.
Bud Conrad of Casey Research is one of those who does, and in the interview below with Future Money Trends he discusses the end result of the manipulations currently being executed by our government, central banks, and financial institutions.
For now, we benefit from a trade deficit by trading all of our worthless U.S. dollars to foreign countries for tangible products. But eventually these countries will no longer demand the dollar, which will then trigger its collapse.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Naples Unemployed Clash With Cops, Break Into PD Offices
‘All we want is a job’ activists say
(ANSA) — Rome, December 3 — Police on Tuesday clashed with unemployed workers from Naples who broke into ruling Democratic Party (PD) headquarters in central Rome after their meeting with the labor minister was canceled, arresting 40.
Two police officers, one of whom was kicked and punched, were injured in the melee with the workers, sources said. Calling themselves Euro Unemployed Neapolitans (EDN) and Group Bros, the workers also rallied at the labor ministry and at the Trevi Fountain in a bid to force the government to reinstate unemployment compensation and to give them jobs after years on the dole.
“For years, we were handed 480 euros a month. Then, three years ago, even that dried up. We call on politicians to reinstate those funds”, said EDN chief Aminto Cesarino.
“For four years we attended state classes on waste, recycling and coast clean-up. Now we’re fully trained, but they’re not giving us the jobs they promised”, said fellow activist Luigi.
“That’s all we want: a job. You can’t be unemployed your whole life”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Japan Preparing $53 Billion Economic Stimulus Package This Week: Sources
(Reuters) — Japan will craft an economic stimulus package this week worth about $53 billion to bolster the economy ahead of an increase in the national sales tax in April, people familiar with the process said on Tuesday.
The size of the package, ordered in October by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, will be between 5.4 trillion yen ($52.43 billion)and 5.6 trillion yen, the sources told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Government ministers have said the package needs to be at least 5 trillion yen to soften the economic blow of the tax hike — Japan’s biggest step in decades toward curbing its enormous debt.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Judge Allows Detroit Bankruptcy to Go Forward
The struggling metropolis of Detroit, overwhelmed by debt and groping for a path forward, on Tuesday became the largest American city ever to qualify for bankruptcy protection.
Under a ruling by Judge Steven W. Rhodes of the United States Bankruptcy Court, the vastly diminished city, once the nation’s fourth largest and the cradle of the American auto industry, will now be allowed to search for a way to pay off some portion of its debts and restore essential services to tolerable levels under court supervision. The goal, according to an emergency manager appointed by the state of Michigan, is to emerge next year from court protection with a formal plan for starting over.
“This once proud and prosperous city cannot pay its debts. It is insolvent. It’s eligible for bankruptcy,” Judge Rhodes said Tuesday. “But it also has an opportunity for a fresh start.”
| [Return to headlines] |
The Holiday Shopping Season is Off to a Horrible Start
According to the National Retail Federation, Americans spent an average of 4 percent less over the four day Thanksgiving weekend than they did last year.
Overall, that means that approximately$1.7 billion less was spent at U.S. retailers compared to last year. It had already been projected that this holiday shopping season would be the worst for retailers since 2009, but if these numbers are any indication it may be even worse than expected. So why is this happening? Well, basically the American consumer is tapped out. The unemployment crisis in this country is actually getting worse, poverty is absolutely exploding and the middle class is being systematically eviscerated. In other words, you can’t get blood out of a stone. Many retailers are offering extreme discounts in a desperate attempt to lure more shoppers, but the money simply isn’t there.
According to Yahoo News, the decline in shopping over the four day Thanksgiving weekend was the first decline that we have seen since the last recession…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
81% of Americans Want ObamaCare Repealed
Editor’s Note: The complete rejection of Obamacare by Americans goes hand-in-hand with their disgust with Congress, which now has an unprecedented 9% approval rating. Of course the Obama defenders will continue to downplay the strong resistance to Obamacare by distorting the truth.
Rasmussen reports that a whopping 81 percent of American voters wish to see the new health care law repealed or significantly changed, with exactly half saying the Affordable Care Act should be completely scrapped and started again from scratch.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Allen West: Backdoor Gun Control is Here: No Lead Means No Bullets
I am one who steers very clear of tinfoil hat conspiracy theories. I often believe progressives plant stories in order to distract and disrupt, enabling them to pursue their true goals and objectives. That’s why I stress the importance of staying focused on the modern liberal socialist policies of the Obama administration, not the sideshow antics.
However, as a former combat commander, I have been trained to look for trends. And I believe we’ve found a very disturbing one. it seems that back door gun control is in full effect in the United States. Why? Thanks to Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), we can no longer smelt lead from ore in the United States.
The first contact the EPA made with The Doe Run Lead Smelter in Herculaneum, Missouri (population 2,800) was in 2008 but it was in 2010 that the EPA finally forced Doe Run to plan a shut down. This plant has been in operation since 1892 but will finally close its doors this month. It was the last lead smelting plant in the US.
The closedown is due to new extremely tight air quality restrictions placed on this specific plant. President Obama and his EPA raised the regulations by 10 fold and it would have cost the plant $100 million to comply…
What this all means is that after December 2013, any ammunition that will be available to US citizens will have to be imported, which will surely increase the price and possibly come under government control. It seems this is fully in concert with the US Military and Homeland Defense recent purchase of large quantities of ammunition.
As Terresa Monroe Hamilton wrote on Noisy.net
The effect is chilling: you can own all the guns you want, but if you can’t get ammo, you are out of luck. Remember when President Obama promised his minions that he was working on gun control behind the scenes? Welcome to it. The result is that all domestically mined lead ore will have to be shipped overseas, refined and then shipped back to the US.
Not only will ammo be even harder to come by, the demand and the process of supply will cause the price to skyrocket even more. And ponder this, there is an excellent chance that Obama will rig the market to where all ammo has to be purchased from the government instituting an ammo registration.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ammo Price Surge Expected as EPA Regulations Close Lead Smelter
Because of heightened EPA regulations, Doe Run Company’s Herculaneum lead smelter in Herculaneum, Missouri — the last U.S. smelter of its kind — is closing its doors on December 31, 2013.
Once this happens, the lead for traditional ammunition will have to be imported, thus driving up the price for bullets, shotgun shells, etc.
The Herculaneum smelter has been operating in the same location since 1892. And according to the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA), “it is the only smelter in the United States which can produce lead bullion from raw lead ore,” so once it closes, the only lead smelters left in the nation will be ones that recycle lead from existing items “such as lead acid batteries or spent ammunition components.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — and your neighbor — love the flying tech
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the U.S. government aren’t the only ones experimenting with drones. Average Joes are buying them too. They’re using the flying technology to shoot videos of weddings, Little League games, and for other, less than wholesome, purposes.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Don’t Give Up on ObamaCare, US President Urges
Barack Obama asks Americans to have patience with glitches in new system, insisting healthcare reform will not be repealed.
Mr Obama used a speech at the White House to address criticisms of the law and accuse his Republican opponents of attempting to gain politically from the problems surrounding his central domestic policy achievement.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Family Returns Home, Finds Stranger Moved in Claiming Home as His Under Obscure Ohio Law
A family Ohio were in for a nasty surprised after they returned from a visit out-of-town visit to a dying relative to find someone else had moved into their house.
Their outrage has now turned into a court battle, pitting them against a man who says he has the court documents to prove the house is now his.
Robert Carr moved into the home that had been occupied for 21 years, changed the locks and emptied the house.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Fiat Chrysler US Sales Up 16%, Best Since Nov 2007
44th straight monthly gain
(ANSA) — New York, December 3 — Chrysler’s November sales in the United States were up 16% on the same month in 2012, the Fiat-controlled US carmaker said Friday.
It was the best November since 2007 and the 44th straight monthly gain, the Detroit No.3 said.
Fiat sales were a shade down on November 2012.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obamacare is the ultimate expression of the progressive and/or liberal approach to government
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — C. S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia and many other works of literature.
It is one of the great mysteries that, for progressives, also called liberals, the past provides no lessons, no warnings that would prevent them from repeating their errors. Progressives are always focused on a magical future in which there will be no wars, no hunger, no poverty. Their belief in the redistribution of wealth — communism — is, in Winston Churchill’s words, “the equal sharing of misery.”
Obamacare is a perfect example of the progressive inability to accept that socialism and/or communism simply does not work. It depends on coercion and in the case of communism it left hundreds of millions dead in its wake over the course of the last century. Obamacare depends on (1) the belief that human nature will change — which it will not — and (2) the lies to implement it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Homeowners Ordered to Remove Christmas Lights
Homeowners in an Orange County, Calif. neighborhood have been ordered to remove their outdoor Christmas lights because the decorations are an obstruction and violate county code ordinances.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Kids Arrested Waiting for School Bus
Three high school students are still dumbfounded after they were arrested this past Thanksgiving eve while waiting for a school bus.
The Edison Tech high school students were on their way to a basketball scrimmage as part of a group of about a dozen teens who had been instructed by their coach to wait for the bus in downtown Rochester.
A Rochester police officer arrived when he saw the group of teens gathered on the sidewalk, and ordered them to disperse. Students attempted in vain to explain they were headed to a basketball game.
“We was just waiting for our bus and he started arrested us,” one of the students who was arrested, Wan’Tauhjs Weathers, 17, described.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mapped: Male and Female Brain Connections
Women’s and men’s brains are wired differently, in ways that seem to match the stereotypes. The finding comes from a method of visualising brain connections, although it doesn’t give an idea of how the differences initially arose.
Ragini Verma at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and her colleagues scanned the brains of 949 males and females between the ages of 8 and 22. They focused on two regions: the cortex, involved in thought, perception and language; and the cerebellum, which coordinates movement. Their method tracks the motion of water molecules to show where nerves stop and start, revealing what is known as the connectome.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mosque Takes Over Former Wheaton Church
A mosque recently moved into a former church building on the northeast side of Wheaton, becoming what is believed to be the city’s first Islamic institution. In late August, the Islamic Center of Wheaton bought and moved into the 26,193-square-foot former First Assembly of God Church at 900 E. Geneva Road, at the southwest corner of Geneva Road and President Street. Records show that, through a bank trust, the Islamic Center of Wheaton paid $3.15 million for the church and its 7.08-acre property…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
National Movement to Boycott NFL Launched
Pro-Obamacare NFL launches war on Second Amendment
The National Football League once again revealed itself to be little more than an establishment political tool when it declined to run a Super Bowl ad submitted by rifle manufacturer Daniel Defense.
The company’s “offensive” ad depicts a former marine arriving home to greet his wife and child, accompanied by a voice over stating, “no one has the right to tell me how to defend them.”
The ad supposedly violates the NFL’s advertising guidelines, which bar ads featuring “firearms, ammunition or other weapons,” even though the ad doesn’t actually show any of the above, aside from an illustration of their popular DDM4 rifle featured below Daniel Defense’s logo.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
No Security Ever Built Into ObamaCare Site: Hacker
It could take a year to secure the risk of “high exposures” of personal information on the federal Obamacare online exchange, a cybersecurity expert told CNBC on Monday.
“When you develop a website, you develop it with security in mind. And it doesn’t appear to have happened this time,” said David Kennedy, a so-called “white hat” hacker who tests online security by breaching websites. He testified on Capitol Hill about the flaws of HealthCare.gov last week.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obamacare’s Unending Funeral Dirge
Like a funeral dirge that will not end, spreading sorrow throughout the land, Obamacare continues despite every market reality that dictates it should not — only because this President and the Democrat leadership of the Senate refuse to admit that it is uneconomic, incapable of becoming so, and — were it not for the government — would be long buried by now.
This past week the Washington Examiner published results of a survey it conducted of insurance agents affiliated with the National Association of Health Underwriters in sixteen cities. The data gathered revealed that 7 of 10 doctors refuse to participate in the Obamacare exchanges. Moreover, health providers, including United Healthcare, Aetna, Cigna, and Coventry, are refusing to participate in the exchanges, and the nation’s top dozen hospitals, including Los Angeles’ Cedar-Sinai, New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering, New York Presbyterian Hospital, are either refusing to accept any exchange policies or limiting acceptance to a scant one or two.
While providers are refusing to accept Obamacare insurance, many of those signing up are finding their premiums are going through the roof. Meanwhile, as some 5.5 million individually insured individuals discover that the President’s promise of a “fix” to his broken promise of insurance retention proves fictive, another 80 to 100 million, according to the American Enterprise Institute, will soon be notified in the Fall of 2014 that their employer based plans are being canceled.
[Comment: Obamacare is a success. It was designed from the start to fail and cause total chaos. It has achieved that and more. Watch for a proposal that the only “solution” is be a total takeover of healthcare by the government. The greed of the insurance companies blinded them to the greater threat of government takeover of the healthcare industry. Insurance companies were played. Lenin: “]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ObamaCare Website Still Failing After Deadline; Crashes Live on CNN
Understand one thing: The mainstream media sorely wants to see Obama succeed, so naturally they want to see Obamacare succeed, and the face of Obamacare right now is the Healthcare.gov website.
So it should come as no surprise that, on the day the Obama administration said its online exchange would be fixed and ready for customers to sign up, there would be at least one mainstream outlet that would want to test the site and be the first to claim Obama a hero.
Enter CNN.
As reported by Newsbusters.org’s Noel Sheppard:
A really funny thing happened Sunday morning when the folks at CNN’s “New Day” tried to open a health insurance account at the newly upgraded ObamaCare website.
It crashed.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ohio Court: Polite Drivers Are Not Suspicious
The second highest in Ohio decided on Wednesday that police have no business searching a motorist during a routine traffic stop for being too polite. The Court of Appeals suppressed the evidence that allowed police to seize a .40 caliber Sig Sauer and a small bag of marijuana from Joshua A. Fontaine at 2:27 am on December 12, 2012.
On that day, Ohio State Highway patrolman Jared Haslar was running a speed trap on Pearl Road in Strongsville, where the speed limit is 35 MPH. Patrolman Haslar claims his radar gun clocked Fontaine at 45 MPH, so he pulled him over. In the course of the stop, Fontaine cheerfully handed over his license, proof of insurance, and registration. This caused the officer to suspect criminal activity.
“While speaking to Mr. Fontaine I felt that his body language and his behavior was a little bit unusual,” Patrolman Haslar testified. “He was extremely — like almost overly polite, and he was breathing heavily at times while I was talking to him.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Parents Stop Biometric Hand Scanner Program at Public Schools
A school district in the state of Washington has stopped its use of biometric hand scanners at schools which uniquely identified each student after parents flooded a school board meeting last night to complain.
Similar to a retina scanner, the hand scanners introduced by the Puyallup, Wash. School District identified the unique vein patterns in each student’s palm in order to deduct the lunch price from that student’s pre-paid school lunch account…
The News Tribune also reported that the parents learned about the hand scanners not from the school district but from news reports after their introduction.
The scanners were in use at Wildwood Elementary School for a week and Stahl Junior High School for a month.
This is not the first occurrence of a school district implementing invasive technologies which treat children like cattle.
[Comment: Conditioning the next generation to accept Orwellian technologies as “normal”.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rep. Michele Bachmann: Obama is ‘Rewriting the Constitution’
President Obama is “rewriting the Constitution” so he can push his personal agenda and curry political favor for Democrats — case in point, Obamacare — Rep. Michele Bachmann said Tuesday.
“He has rewritten the Constitution for himself as a part of his effort to fundamentally transform the United States of America,” she said on Fox News.
Mrs. Bachmann — who has been a bit behind the scenes in recent months compared with the media stage she commanded during her public run for the GOP’s 2012 primary pick for the White House — made the comments as a lead-up to the House Judiciary Committee’s planned hearing on Mr. Obama’s use of executive powers, Politico reported.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
TSA Expands Searches of Parked Cars at Airports
TSA-approved warrantless searches of vehicles parked outside airports are being expanded, with a photograph taken at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport informing Thanksgiving travelers that all vehicles belonging to AmeriPark customers “will be searched by uniformed security.”
The policy, which first came to light earlier this summer after complaints from people who found notes inside their car which read, “your vehicle has been inspected under TSA regulations,” continues to cause confusion and stoke concern amongst privacy advocates…
At some airports the searches are also being conducted with customers receiving no notification whatsoever.
“I was inside paying my bill. I looked through the window and saw this gentleman looking through my trunk,” said Michelle Zevola, who used the Curbside Valet Service at Charlotte Douglas Airport. “He was moving things around, shining a flashlight, going through the compartments. I am so fine being searched at the airport. It’s about safety. But I am not fine with my personal property being searched without permission or notification,” added Zevola.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Two Years Old and Not Part of the Family?
Does requiring a two-year-old to have their own health insurance policy sound like a joke? Well it’s no joke, because that’s exactly what happened to self-employed title insurance business owner Cornelius Kelly and his pediatrician wife Jennifer.
The Kellys, who are parents to four small children, recently found themselves among the five million Americans canceled from their perfectly acceptable and affordable health insurance. Preferring not to be part of the Affordable Care Act but feeling like he had no other choice, Cornelius, with hesitant but hopeful anticipation, ventured forth onto the New York State of Health Web site.
The first thing Mr. Kelly found out was that none of the plans offered out-of-network coverage, which is what he wanted. Then it got even better when Cornelius heard that none of the plans would include the youngest member of his family who, according to a representative, until her second birthday would have to have a separate insurance policy of her own.
He, his wife and their three oldest children, ages three, five, and six, could all be together on one policy ranging in price from $810.84 to $2,554.71 a month. The baby, because she was not yet two, required a separate plan whose options ranged in price from $117.21 to $369.31.
So, as liberal logic would have it, children can stay on their parents insurance until they’re 26-years-old, but if a child is not yet two-years-old, they’re on their own.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why Are So Many Wealthy People Building Futuristic High Tech Security Bunkers?
The wealthy are spending more to protect themselves from all the rest of us than ever before. So why are they so concerned about the future? Do they know something that the rest of us don’t? Or do they just have the money to buy the type of security that the rest of us would if we could?
Over the past few years, wealthy people all over America have been equipping their homes with futuristic high tech security systems that go far beyond the kinds of things portrayed in recent Hollywood films such as “The Purge”. We are talking about security bunkers with their own sustainable sources of food and water, hidden passageways that lead to ballistics-proof panic suites, and thermal heat detectors that can detect someone hiding up to 15 kilometers away. Most of these security measures will probably never even be needed if things stay pretty much as they are today. But if the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted on a daily basis continues to disintegrate and we see massive civil unrest in the years ahead, then those security measures are going to come in very handy indeed.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Archaeologists Looking for Stonehenge Origins ‘Are Digging in Wrong Place’
New research suggests stones came from Carn Goedog in Pembrokeshire — almost a mile from site of excavations
For almost a century archaeologists have been braving the wind and rain on an exposed Welsh hillside in an attempt to solve one of the key mysteries of Stonehenge. But new research about to be published suggests that over the decades they may have been chipping away at the wrong rocky outcrop on the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Cultural Heritage: Malta Accused of Muslim History Cover-Up
(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, DECEMBER 3 — A well-known Maltese historian and chairman of the National Book Council, Mark Camilleri, has accused Malta’s Superintendence for Cultural Heritage of attempting to cover-up the island’s Islamic past, as Anadolu Agency reports. Camilleri, who wrote a book challenging the notion that the people of Malta became Christians following Paul’s shipwreck on the island in 60 C.E., made the accusation after the Superintendence refused his request for a list of all archeological objects from the year 800 to 1400 C.E. Arab Muslims, who had conquered and ruled the Mediterranean island between those dates, left a legacy of history and culture which is still found in the Maltese language today, which is considered to be a dialect of Arabic. Infuriated by the decision, Camilleri, who also protests against the absence of Arab heritage at the national archeological museum, called the Superintendence a “propagandistic machine which controls and abuses of historical evidence for religious and ideological ends.” However, Superintendent Anthony Pace brushed off the accusations, saying that the list requested by Camilleri was part of ongoing research of which findings would be published in two years time. Although a survey conducted by daily MaltaToday found that 63% of Maltese people acknowledge their Muslim past, respondents aged between 18 and 34 were the least likely to accept this fact.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
French Experts Reject Theory That Arafat Was Poisoned
French experts have dismissed allegations that late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was killed by polonium poisoning, a source close to the investigation told AFP on Tuesday. “The report rules out the poisoning theory and goes in the (direction) of a natural death,” the source said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Irish Police Colluded in IRA Murder, Inquiry Finds
Irish police colluded in the 1989 murder of two senior Northern Ireland police officers by the Irish Republican Army, a judge-led inquiry found Tuesday.
The inquiry looked into the circumstances around the death of Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan, who were ambushed and shot by militants in March 1989 in south Armagh. The two officers, who weren’t armed, were attacked when they were crossing the border into Northern Ireland shortly after a meeting in an Irish police station in the town of Dundalk.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Ice Sculpture of Renzi Planned at Igloo Voting Office for PD
Democratic Party constructs special voting station in north
(ANSA) — Milan, December 3 — Some northern voters in next week’s Democratic Party (PD) primary will vote in an igloo under the frosty eye of an ice-sculpted image of front-runner Matteo Renzi, organizers of the event announced Tuesday.
Voters in the remote polling station of Ponte di Legno, 165 km north of Milan, will travel by cable car to cast their ballot in the igloo constructed from ice blocks on the Presena glacier in Valcamonica.
Besides the ice sculpture of Renzi, mayor of Florence, supporters of other candidates to become national PD party secretary have been invited to sculpt images of their nominees.
Organizers say 10 to 20 volunteers will work in the igloo polling station being constructed as a “political message” to the PD to remind the party of the wide differences between regions in Italy.
Renzi, heir-apparent to run the national party, has been campaigning hard and cultivating a high profile to remain well ahead of his two opponents, Gianni Cuperlo and Giuseppe Civati, before the December 8 vote.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Govt Reforms Welfare Rules to Stop ‘Fake Poor Scandal’
Greater monitoring for revenue agency, fewer self-declarations
(ANSA) — Rome, December 3 — The Italian government on Tuesday approved a new procedure for evaluating those in need of government assistance, aimed at making it tougher for people to fraudulently collect benefits. “It aims to halt the scandal of fake poor people,” said Premier Enrico Letta. The reform decree puts a greater emphasis on monitoring the value of assets and reduces the amount of property exemptions. It also requires revenue authorities to evaluate assistance applications more carefully and to depend less on applicants’ self-declared income and property. Finance police in Italy routinely crack down on people living lavish lifestyles found to be collecting assistance benefits from the government, taking a huge toll on Italy’s public services. In 2012 police cited 9,632 people for false social security and welfare claims costing the State coffers 103 million euros.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Burning Waste a Crime Under New Govt Bill
‘Land of Fires’ decree to curb widespread practice around Naples
(ANSA) — Rome, December 3 — The Italian government on Tuesday passed a decree which makes burning waste a crime, Agriculture Minister Nunzia De Girolamo announced on Twitter.
Land where waste has been illegally dumped and burned will be checked and fenced in the next 150 days under the new “Land of the Fires” decree, ministry sources said. Illegal waste-management practices are a growing problem in Italy, particularly in the southern Campania region and the area around Naples, which has been dubbed the “Land of Fires”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Offices of Totalerg Raided on Allegation of Tax Fraud
Authorities says almost 1 bn euros involved in probe
(ANSA) — Rome, December 3 — Finance police raided offices of energy company TotalErg in Rome, Milan and Genoa Tuesday morning following allegations of a massive fraud.
Prosecutors ordered the raids based on an alleged tax fraud of as much as 904 million euros involving TotalErg.
TotalErg is half owned by French giant Total SA, the fifth largest integrated oil and gas company in the world.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
North Bests South in Italian Education, OECD Survey Says
Top performers from Trento, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Veneto
(ANSA) — Rome, December 3 — Northern Italian high school pupils from the regions of Trento, Friuli-Venezia Giulia and Veneto were among the world’s top math students while southerners ranked among the lowest together with Turks and Romanians, according to an OECD survey released on Tuesday.
Students were tested under the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a triennial international survey to evaluate education systems worldwide through the skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds.
Students from Sicily and Campania in the south ranked the lowest in Italy in math skills, close to the 100th position like Romania.
Italy’s north-south educational divide also applied to sciences and literature, the PISA report found.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Report in France Rules Out Polonium in Death of PLO Leader Arafat
Reports by French scientists into Yasser Arafat’s death have ruled out polonium poisoning. The results contradict earlier findings by a Swiss lab, and mean it’s still unclear what killed Arafat nine years ago.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Riksdag Snub After Anti-Sweden Democrat Song
Lyrics interpreted as an invite to assault the anti-immigration Sweden Democrat leader have caused a political stir, prompting the speaker of parliament to boycott a Riksdag ceremony where singer Jason Diakité, also known as Timbuktu, will receive an anti-racism award.
Diakité recorded the song Black Doves And Wilted Lilies (‘Svarta duvor och vissna liljor’) with the hip-hop group Kartellen. It contains the phrase “Jimmie blue and yellow, hoist him on the flagpole”, in reference to the leader of the Sweden Democrat party, which has long been seen as a one-issue party wanting to curb migration to Sweden.
In the eyes of many Sweden Democrats, Timbuktu’s choice of lyrics were not just controversial, but offensive and illegal. Gabriella Hedarv, a columnist in the party’s own paper SD-kuriren, said Timbuktu should be stripped of the honour of singing at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo next week as he “threatens the life of democratically elected politicians”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain to Restrict Cellphone Use for Train Drivers After July Crash That Killed 79
Spain will ban cellphone use by train drivers except in cases of emergency after a train crash that killed 79 people. Public Works Minister Ana Pastor said Tuesday that Spain also planned to install ‘black box’ data recorders like those used on planes, which give a more complete picture of incidents from the train journey.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Mythical Banana Kingdom of Iceland
The temperature outside hovered around 5°C, but inside the greenhouses that dot the South Iceland town of Hveragerði, you can taste the humidity. A hotbed of geothermal activity located on a 5,000-year-old lava field, the town has espoused the title ‘hot springs capital of the world.’ I had come to Hveragerði to visit one greenhouse in particular, a 1,100-square-metre tropical greenhouse and the largest banana farm in Europe outside of the Canary Islands. I had come to Hveragerði in pursuit of the elusive Icelandic banana.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Trento Most Liveable Italian City, Naples the Least
Northern, central regions boast highest quality of life
(ANSA) — Rome, December 2 — The region of Trentino-Alto Adige again tops the classification in the annual survey on quality of life in Italian cities conducted by daily Il Sole 24 Ore, with Trento and Bolzano taking first and second place, respectively. Rounding out the top five cities were Bologna in the Emilia-Romagna region, Belluno in the Veneto, and Siena in Tuscany.
The survey bases its findings on 36 factors in the categories of standard of living, business and work, health and environmental services, population, public order, and free time.
Naples and its province ranked at the bottom of the survey in last place at 107, down one from 106th place in 2012, when Taranto ranked last. Among large Italian cities in 2013, Florence came in 7th (up from 18th place in 2012), Milan rose to 10th place (17th in 2012) and Rome registered at 20th, up one place from 2012.
Turin fell in the rankings to 52nd place, down from 42nd in 2012.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
A Bulgarian burglar who was allowed into the UK despite having a string of convictions for theft and burglary has been jailed after he broke into a home just eight days after arriving in the country.
Emil Metodiev, 32, was caught red-handed with items from the burglary in Thorpe Bay, Essex, and pleaded guilty to the break-in earlier this year. He was jailed for 16 months at Basildon Crown Court yesterday.
Richard Kelly, prosecuting, said: ‘He had only been in the UK for eight days and had no independent means of income. It is not unreasonable to conclude the reason he came to the UK was to commit crime.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Crooked BT Workers Plotted With Copper Thieves to Steal £280,000 of Underground Telephone Cables
Simon Read, along with Jamie Summerscales, Jamie Ratford, Ryan Wiley, Kieron Madden, Ricky Read and Simeon Ramsey all posed as roadside workmen, wearing high visibility vests and setting up cordons and cones, when they carried out the thefts.
The gang committed a large number of thefts over a six month period between April and early December 2012, operating at different times of the day and night.
Prior to embarking on these expeditions the thieves received crucial tip-offs from BT employee Zeki Mehmed that enabled them to successfully target specific sites all over London and the Home Counties.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Edward Snowden Spy Leaks: Only One Per Cent of Files Published, Says Guardian’s Alan Rusbridger
Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian, reveals that only one per cent of intelligence files leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden have been published by the newspaper
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Guardian Journalists Could Face Criminal Charges Over Edward Snowden Leaks
Journalists at The Guardian newspaper are being investigated by anti-terror police over their roles in the Edward Snowden leaks, a senior policewoman confirms
Employees of The Guardian newspaper could face criminal charges over their role in publishing secrets leaked by Edward Snowden, Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer has signalled.
Cressida Dick, an assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard, confirmed for the first time that detectives were examining whether staff at the newspaper had committed an offence.
She also told MPs that her officers are looking at potential breaches of a specific anti-terrorism law which makes it unlawful to communicate information about British intelligence agents. The offence carries up to 10 years’ imprisonment.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Lee Rigby Murder Trial: Alleged Killers ‘Talked of Religion and Afghanistan’
Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale shouted about the damage other soldiers had done, their trial hears
A first aider who rushed to help the murdered soldier Lee Rigby heard one of his alleged killers talking about “religion and Afghanistan”, a court has heard. Vikki Cave feared Michael Adebolajo, 28, and Michael Adebowale, 22, were planning to attack police as she spoke to the two men just metres away from Fusilier Rigby’s body. Abebolajo and Adebowale both deny murdering the soldier, as well as counts of attempted murder of a police officer and conspiracy to murder…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A teenage career criminal has been jailed today after repeatedly posing as a charity fundraiser collecting sponsorship money to spend on cannabis.
His targets — some as old as 77 — were so moved by his false sob stories, including one about his ‘sick little brother’ having cerebral palsy, that they donated their pension money to the 19-year-old.
A court heard how Wayne Kinvig got a ‘buzz’ out of preying on people’s kindness on doorsteps in Burnley, Lancashire.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Croatia: Nationalists Want Anti-Serbian Minority Referendum
After anti-gay marriage referendum; premier vows to intervene
(ANSAmed) — ZAGREB, DECEMBER 2 — Just after Croatians voted to ban same-sex marriages in a referendum yesterday, a coalition of nationalist associations on Monday announced they have gathered enough signatures for a referendum to curtail the rights of minority Serbian citizens.
At issue is the right of Serbs to use their own language and to the public use of Cryllic lettering.
The nationalist coalition includes veterans of the 1991-1995 war of Croatian independence. They started gathering signatures after bilingual signs appeared on the streets of Vukovar, a city that was particularly ravaged during that war. Visibly irritated, Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic promised he will do everything in his power to prevent this referendum from taking place, including changing the rules on this kind of vote if necessary.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Benghazi — A spate of targeted assassinations and clashes rocked Benghazi and Derna over the weekend. The latest attack targeted Libyan army officer Salah Fraj al-Dursi, killing the man and injuring his teenage son on Sunday (December 1st), AFP reported.
On Saturday, a security source said unidentified assailants gunned down a soldier outside his home and attacked a special forces’ base in Benghazi.
In Derna, long seen as a bastion of radical Islamists, dozens of residents blocked roads, burned tyres and called for a strike to protest against insecurity in the city. Some protestors were injured by a “gelatin” bomb, thrown into the anti-Ansar al-Sharia demonstration on Friday. Al-Saiqa Special Forces turned out to protect demonstrators, who exceeded one thousand people.
Meanwhile, Al-Saiqa forces arrested three people from the city of Derna in possession of weapons, bombs and a large amount of money last week. The trio fired at the Barqa forces manning Barses Gate and accused army personnel of being apostates…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Morsi to CIA: Don’t Let Me Down… I’m Your Servant!
The Brotherhood is trying to gain time to show their power
Cairo, Egypt — The Muslim Brotherhood still dreams of the return of their ousted president Mohamed Morsi. Yet with 90% of their senior leaders arrested and facing trial, losing popular support and getting banned and regarded as a terrorist organization their return-to-power yearning seems far fetched.
U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry recently said that the Muslim Brotherhood had stolen the Egyptian revolution, and several reports confirm that the U.S. administration realize now that they were betting on the losing horse; that the new Egyptian government is the one to cooperate with — not the Muslim Brotherhood — if, that is, the U.S wants to maintain its interests in the Middle East.
Morsi faces charges ranging from incitement to killing demonstrators, high treason, spying for foreign countries, covering up for registered terrorists, among other crimes. He will spend the rest of his life in prison, if he’s lucky enough not to receive a death sentence.
Recent confidential reports mention that Morsi was in shock and suffering severe depression after Kerry’s comments. He feels that the Americans have begun to abandon him in favor of the new Egyptian government. Morsi sent a message through his prison visitors to the CIA saying: How could America and its security institutes abandon me, while I served them sincerely and cooperated with them during the last period to prevent conflicts in the Middle East?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Women and Children in Algerian Jihadist Training Camps
Entire families ‘recruited’ for terrorism purposes
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, DECEMBER 3 — Algerian security forces have discovered entire families, women and children included, in jihadist training camps in the southern part of the country.
Reports were from the Tunisian weekly Akher Khabar, generally well-informed on terrorism-linked issues. The weekly quoted sources in the Algerian security services, which said that the “enlistment” of entire families is part of a plan to create “jihadist families” to be used in terrorist activities.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Abu Qatada: Court Date Set for Terrorism Trial in Jordan
Radical Islamist cleric who was deported by Britain in July is due to face terrorism charges in Jordanian court from December 10
Radical Islamist cleric Abu Qatada, deported by Britain in July after a near decade-long legal battle, is to go on trial in Jordan on December 10, judicial sources said Tuesday. “The state security court has set next Tuesday, December 10, as the date for the first hearing in the trial of Abu Qatada,” one source said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Aid Workers Prepare Syrian Refugee Camp in Jordanian Desert for Another Harsh Winter
Cranes are lifting trailers into place and tents are being packed away as international aid workers rush to winterize a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan — trying to avoid a repeat of last year when three days of torrential rain turned the massive site into a muddy swamp.
Warm clothing, blankets and electric heaters are being prepared for distribution to the desert camp’s 120,000 residents, mostly women and children.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Syrian rebel Kawa Khalil told me the recent story of the Holy Cross church.
Before the war, the church doubled as a school, attended by Muslims and Christians. After the destruction of Syria began, classrooms became homes for refugees.
On 27 October, the Holy Cross Armenian Orthodox Church was burned in Tal Abyad, Raqqa, Syria.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Daniel Pipes: Saudis Bristle at Obama’s Outreach to Iran
The “Joint Plan of Action” signed with Iran by the so-called P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the U.K., and the U.S.) on Nov. 24 in Geneva caused Shiite Arabs to celebrate, Sunni Arabs to worry, and Saudis to panic. The Saudi response will have far-reaching and unpredictable consequences.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Early Warning System: A Plan to Halt German Jihadists From Going to Syria
German jihadists are heading to Syria in ever greater numbers, with some 230 having already traveled to join the opposition in battle. A German politician wants to create an early warning system to prevent young men from making the trip.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hezbollah Chief Accuses Saudi Intelligence of Being Behind Iran Embassy Bombings in Beirut
The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group has accused Saudi Arabia of being behind last month’s two suicide bombings that targeted the Iranian Embassy in Beirut. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah’s comments mark the first time Hezbollah has openly accused the kingdom, and marks a sharp escalation in the Shiite Muslim group’s rhetoric.
An al-Qaida linked group has claimed responsibility for the Nov. 19 attack that killed 23 people, saying it was in response to Hezbollah and Iran’s involvement in Syria.
Nasrallah said the claim was credible but accused Saudi intelligence of providing backing and support. He also said Saudi intelligence was behind daily terrorist attacks in Iraq.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sanctions cause increasing shortfall in medicines and vaccines.
A tightening of already draconian international economic sanctions against Iran is causing serious shortages of certain drugs, vaccines and other key medical supplies in the country, medical researchers and public-health officials are warning.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli-Made Arsenal Found in Homs: Syrian Army
Syrian army says it found Israeli-made weapons in Homs.
Israeli-made arsenal has been found by Syrian army during anti-terrorist operations in Syria’s Homs province, state media has reported.
A military source told the Syrian news agency SANA on Sunday that Israeli weaponry — including missiles — were seized in an operation in the central city of Tadmur in Homs province.
Israel has been one of the main supporters of the war in Syria…
On Saturday, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad said Israel and Saudi Arabia had set up a new joint command in Jordan to oversee the operations of militants.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Istanbul Seminary ‘Stays Shut’ Until Athens Mosque is Opened
The Greek Orthodox Halki Seminary in Istanbul will not be re-opened until the Fethiye Mosque in Athens is opened for prayers, a senior figure of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia Needs Private Sector Growth to Stem Youth Unemployment, Business Leaders Say
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia, the largest Arab economy, urgently needs to create new jobs in the coming years for the millions of young people expected to enter the kingdom’s workforce, Saudi business leaders and the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.
The need for jobs is outpacing available work throughout oil-rich Gulf Arab countries, meaning that while the region’s kings and ruling sheiks have so far ridden out the Arab Spring, demographics and time may not be on their side for very long.
Unemployment, which jumped in Saudi Arabia from 10.5 percent at end of 2009 to 12.1 percent at end of 2012, could eventually feed greater dissent and challenges to the monarchy’s tight grip on power.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ In Christian Town Says MP
Rome, 3 Dec. (AKI) — A Syrian MP has urged the world’s nations and Pope Francis to stop “crimes against humanity” in the historic Christian town of Maalula, which activists said was captured by rebels on Monday.
“The true crime against humanity in Syria is in Maalula,” Christian MP Maria Saddeh told Adnkronos International (AKI), a day after the United Nations implicated Syria’s authoritarian president Bashar al-Assad in war crimes.
“Sixteen nuns have been kidnapped, civilians are being killed and a monastery and 60 houses were burnt down yesterday,” said Saddeh, who was elected to parliament as an independent.
“A massacre in taking place and the West cannot look on. Nations and the Pope must intervene.”
“Maalula is a global symbol of Christianity, part of Syrian and world heritage, where Aramaic is still spoken, where there are churches, monasteries and early Christian archaeological sites,” she stressed.
Syrian rebels including the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Nusra Front and other jihadist groups overran Maalula north of Damascus after after five days of intense fighting, UK-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday.
The Observatory claimed that at least 126,000 people have died in the two and a half year conflict between rebels and pro-Assad forces.
Saddeh accused “extremist groups who want to create an Islamic Caliphate” of unleashing “targeted attacks” on Syria’s Christians in the conflict as part of a plan to remove the religious minority from the Middle East region.
She called on the international community to “put pressure on those states that support terrorism, above all Saudi Arabia, but also on France”.
Rebels abducted 12 Syrian and Lebanese Orthodox nuns from their convent in Maalula on on Monday after moving into the town, Vatican Radio reported, citing Mario Zenari, the Holy See’s nunzio or envoy to Syria.
The Vatican was “closely following the case of the Maalula nuns held hostage by Islamists in Syria,” its spokesman Federico Lombardi said on Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian Rebels Take Control of Christian Town Maaloula
Syrian rebels have once again taken control of parts of Maaloula, an ancient Christian town 60 kilometres from Damascus that lies close to key highways and smuggling routes, activists and residents said on Monday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Syrian Civil War is Breeding a New Generation of Terrorist
Scotland Yard is right to be worried about British jihadists bringing the war home
Just like the Spanish civil war in the Thirties, the Syrian conflict has all the makings of an international cause célèbre, with well-intentioned volunteers willing to risk their lives fighting to defeat a dictator. But the objectives of some of the more extreme factions within the Syrian opposition are hardly benign.
The ideology espoused by Islamist terror groups, such as the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which both have close ties to al-Qaeda, has the ultimate aim of turning Syria into an Islamic republic ruled on the basis of sharia — not exactly sympathetic to Western interests.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UN Humanitarian Chief: 250,000 Besieged in Syria Remain Beyond the Reach of Aid
An estimated 250,000 people in besieged communities in Syria remain beyond the reach of aid, the U.N, humanitarian chief said Tuesday in a closed-door Security Council briefing that one member called “chilling.”
Deep divisions in the council have kept it from taking more action on the 2 1/2-year-old civil war that activists say has killed more than 120,000 people. Valerie Amos’ task has been to tell the world body about the worsening conditions for millions of civilians in Syria — and how difficult it is to reach them.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Bolshoi Dancer Sentenced to Six Years for Acid Attack
Dancer Pavel Dmitrichenko was sentenced to six years in prison Tuesday for his role in an acid attack on the Bolshoi ballet’s director Sergei Filin. Ex-convict Yuri Zarutsky, who splashed the acid in Filin’s face, was sentenced to 10 years.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Cliff Kincaid: Pope Francis, Jihad, And Moscow’s “Espionage Church”
Before Pope Francis created a controversy by denouncing “trickle-down” economics, the pro-growth policies associated with President Reagan, Russian President Vladimir Putin was visiting the Vatican and acting like a religious believer. Putin made the sign of the cross, gave the pope a Virgin Mary icon, and bent over to kiss it. The pope followed suit.
The Putin visit carries far more significance than a papal document which criticizes free markets and is considered a step toward the possible collaboration — or even merger — of the Roman Catholic Church and the Russian Orthodox Church in global affairs. Discussions between these churches are already taking place under the rubric of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. The Russian Orthodox Church has been dominated by Putin’s old KGB and continues to serve the interests of the Kremlin.
The document, labeled an “apostolic exhortation” and titled “The Joy of the Gospel,” also purports to describe the nature of global Islam. But these comments, even more controversial than the statements attacking free markets, have been mostly ignored by the press.
Pope Francis insists, in the face of evidence to the contrary, that “Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalizations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Navy: Arctic a ‘Priority Region’ In 2014
Russian naval forces are set to make the Arctic a priority region, boosting combat training and scouting lesser-known areas of the icy territory in 2014, a navy spokesman said Monday.
The Northern Fleet will conduct sailing and diving expeditions in the Arctic and develop a series of ice-class patrol ships to protect the country’s interest in the region, said Vadim Serga, a captain First Class and spokesman for the fleet’s Western Military District.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Explosion Hits Afghan Capital: Official
KABUL, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) — A blast went off in western Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul Tuesday evening and casualties were feared, a security source said.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
World War II Japanese Mega-Submarine Discovered Off Hawaii
A Japanese submarine that was lost at sea after it was intentionally scuttled by the U.S. Navy during World War II has been located by a team of explorers off the coast of Hawaii.
The I-400 was one of the “Sen-Toku” class submarines, which were the largest submarines ever built until nuclear-powered subs were invented. It is 400 feet long and could travel one and a half times around the world without refueling.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Yuan Passes Euro as 2nd-Most Used Trade-Finance Currency
China’s yuan overtook the euro to become the second-most used currency in global trade finance in 2013, according to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.
The currency had an 8.66 percent share of letters of credit and collections in October, compared with 6.64 percent for the euro, Swift said in a statement today. China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Germany and Australia were the top users of yuan in trade finance, according to the Belgium-based financial-messaging platform. The yuan’s share of global trade finance was 1.89 percent in January 2012, while the euro’s was 7.87 percent, Swift said.
China is seeking a greater role for its currency in global trade and investment as the state loosens controls on the exchange rate and borrowing costs in the world’s second-largest economy. People’s Bank of China Deputy Governor Yi Gang said Nov. 20 it is no longer in the nation’s interest to keep building up its foreign-exchange reserves, which totaled a record $3.66 trillion at the end of September.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Central African Republic: PM Calls for Aid, Foreign Troops
The interim prime minister of the Central African Republic said stabilizing his violence-plagued country will require foreign financial aid in addition to the deployment of international troops. In an interview with the French news agency published Monday, Nicolas Tiangaye said the C.A.R.’s economy has been “paralyzed” by a crisis that began in March, when rebels overthrew the president of the impoverished nation. The coup led to the formation of a weak interim government that has been unable to stop former Seleka rebels from committing rights abuses across the landlocked country…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Maiduguri Attack — Jonathan Summons Emergency Security Meeting
Abuja — President Goodluck Jonathan summoned an emergency security meeting following an attack by suspected members of Boko Haram sect in some parts of Maiduguri on Monday. Those in attendance at the meeting were the National Security Adviser, retired Col. Sambo Dasuki, and the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Admiral Ola Ibrahim…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
How the US Gave Guns to Mexican Cartels
In September 2009, John Dodson, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was assigned to the ATF’s Phoenix office. What he found there shocked him. The bureau was encouraging gun dealers to sell weapons in bulk to known straw buyers, who would funnel those guns to Mexican drug cartels. Known as Operation Fast and Furious, it ended with the death of at least one American law enforcement officer. Dodson became a congressional whistleblower, and the investigation into the operation is ongoing. In this exclusive excerpt from his new book, “The Unarmed Truth,” Dodson explains how tragically inept Fast and Furious was.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Francis Reveals He Used to Work as a Bar Bouncer
It’s common knowledge that St. Peter guards the pearly gates. But what many people might not know is Pope Francis used to guard the door at a bar in Argentina. That’s right: Pope Francis used to be a bar bouncer.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
We Gave Thousands of Guns to Mexican Drug Cartels. Americans Died. Where is the Outrage?
On Sunday, the New York Post ran an excerpt from “The Unarmed Truth” by John Dodson. Dodson is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agent who blew the whistle on the gun-walking operation known as Fast and Furious.
According to the Mexican government, 211 of their citizens, including police officers and children, have been murdered with weapons from that scandalous operation. So was American Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, whose family, along with every other concerned American, has been stonewalled in their efforts to find out who is accountable for this atrocity. After recounting some truly unbelievable instances of bureaucratic arrogance and ineptitude, Dodson inadvertently poses a question with far larger implications. “We gave thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels. Americans died. Where is the outrage?” he asks.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
30 Out of Every 1,000 Migrants Die at Sea
EU must act in countries of provenance, says new EUI report
(ANSAmed) — ROME — Every year for the past 15 years, an average of 40,000 illegal immigrants have disembarked on European shores, and the mortality rate has increased in the meantime, a report by the Florence-based European University Institute said Monday. Most recently, more than 30 out of every 1,000 of those who tried to cross the Mediterranean have died along the way.
A total of 623,118 clandestine immigrants have reached Europe from 1998 to the present day: with its 39,420 new arrivals so far, 2013 is just an average year.
But the mortality rate has been on the rise since 2001, making the European crossing “the most dangerous in the world”, according to the report.
During 2008-2013, a majority of refugees came from those countries in which it is the most difficult, if not impossible, to request asylum, namely Afghanistan, Eritrea, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, Syria. The paradox is that those who have the most right to claim refugee status are also those forced to put themselves in the hands of human traffickers.
Europe must act on several fronts in order to break this vicious cycle, the report suggested. First and foremost, by boosting its presence in countries of first asylum, then by increasing asylum capabilities in third countries.
If prevention is the best cure, the issue of turning refugees away remains an open one. “People intercepted or rescued at sea can be sent back to where they boarded only after they have been given the possibility of arguing against this decision before the authorities of the member State”, said the report, citing a European Court of Human Rights ruling from February 2012.
Because this right cannot be guaranteed while on the high seas, the pressing question remains where to take the illegals.
Coastal nations have already nixed a European Commission proposal that refugees be taken to the shores of the nearest country. There is still much to be done to reach a consensus on how to prevent the ongoing massacre in the waters of the Mediterranean, the report pointed out.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Foreign Student Population Up But Lags Behind Italians, OECD
Number of immigrants in schools grew 5% from 2003 to 2012
(see related) (ANSA) — Rome, December 3 — The number of foreign students in Italy has increased by 5% from 2003 to 2012, making up 7.5% of today’s student population against the OECD’s average of 12%, the organization said on Tuesday.
However, the OECD’s PISA international survey testing the math, science and reading skills of 15-year-olds worldwide highlighted a divide between immigrant and Italian students with foreigners performing on average 48 points lower than their Italian peers in mathematics.
From 2003 to 2012, the performance of Italians improved, rising 23 points, while immigrants’ skills remained stable, according to the survey.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jailed for Smuggling Syrians Into Sweden
A 30-year-old man’s been sentenced to four months in prison for human trafficking. The man was stopped in September by the police and customs at the port of Helsingborg after he drove off a ferry from Denmark in a minibus with 9 Syrians on board. He had 6,500 euros in cash in his pockets. The man claimed that he had done nothing wrong and it was a humanitarian act to help the Syrians seek asylum in Sweden.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Judge: Obama’s Uncle Can Stay in U.S.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that President Obama’s uncle can remain in the United States. Onyango “Omar” Obama, 69, who has been living in the U.S. for some 50 years, invoked his nephew’s name as he successfully fought off efforts to deport him. “I do have a nephew,” he said during a hearing. “He’s the president of the United States.”
U.S. Immigration Judge Leonard Shapiro ruled that Onyango Obama is of good moral character, pays his taxes, and meets the criteria for legal permanent residency.
From the Boston Globe: “(Onyango Obama) also contradicted the White House’s assertion that the president had never met him. Onyango Obama testified that his nephew lived with him in Cambridge for three weeks while the future president was a student at Harvard Law School in the late 1980s.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mexican Colleges Look to Expand in U.S. To Serve Immigrants
In an ethnically themed shopping center called Plaza Mexico just south of Los Angeles, a public university from the Mexican state of Colima has planted its flag.
Alongside the shopping center’s stores and taquerias, the University of Colima offers mostly remedial education in reading, writing and math to about 100 Mexican immigrants. But a handful of students here are preparing to take their final exams for Mexican degrees, just one of several recent efforts by Mexican universities to branch into providing full-fledged university educations in the United States.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In order to sustain dialogue with Islam, suitable training is essential for all involved, not only so that they can be solidly and joyfully grounded in their own identity, but so that they can also acknowledge the values of others, appreciate the concerns underlying their demands and shed light on shared beliefs. We Christians should embrace with affection and respect Muslim immigrants to our countries in the same way that we hope and ask to be received and respected in countries of Islamic tradition.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Abortion Leading Killer of Blacks
So much for “family planning.” Sounds more like eugenics.
The left does NOT want you to see this graph. Abortion leading killer of blacks. #tcot #p2 #ocra #tlot #prolife pic.twitter.com/Du9rNnDNWB
— Paul Revere (@PaulReverePress) December 2, 2013
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hobby Lobby Case Would Thwart Obamacare’s Benefits for Casual Sex
Obamacare has always included the agenda of sex-without-consequences. It was behind the original push for free birth control. It shows prominently in Colorado’s Obamacare ad campaigns promoting casual sex. It was reflected in speeches by the President: Free birth control without even a co-pay. Morning-after pills for those who didn’t use protection.
Even more liberating, Obamacare shifts responsibility away from both partners and onto somebody else: your boss. If an employer like Hobby Lobby doesn’t liberate you by providing contraception, they must be pilloried and fined over a million dollars each day.
President Barack Obama tries to cloak his contraceptive mandate in asexual clinical language, but he has always been in major political alliance with the movements spawned from the sexual revolution of the 1960’s. The sexual liberation agenda has always been in conflict with religion and traditional values.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
10 of the World’s Most Hated Airports
3. London Heathrow, London, England
2. Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, United States
1. Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris, France
Grimy washrooms with missing toilet seats don’t help. Nor do broken scanning machines and an overall lack of signage, gate information screens and Paris-worthy bars, restaurants or cafe’s.
The baffling circular layout is worsened by warrens of tunnel-like structures, dismissive staff and seething travelers waiting forever in the wrong queue.
The worst part may be this airport’s aura of indifference to it all. “Waiting for a connection here,” notes one commuter, “is like being in custody.”
If you’re actually staying in Paris, you may be okay. If you have the gall to just be passing through between Malaga and Montreal, you can cut the spite of this place with a cheese knife.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Fake Brain Helps Investigate Age’s Intelligence Decline
Dying cells may play only a small role in the brain decline that accompanies ageing. That is the suggestion from the first computer simulation of brain function that can solve intelligence tests almost as well as university undergraduates. The model promises to reveal how our brains and behaviour are affected by age, and might even offer a way of testing drugs that compensate for cognitive decline.
Psychologists have known for many years that our ability to think through novel problems — our “fluid intelligence” — gradually declines with age.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hints of Cold Dark Matter Pop Up in 10-Year-Old Circuit
One of the universe’s most-wanted particles may have shown its face in a simple tabletop experiment nearly a decade ago — only no one noticed at the time. “If other experiments confirm the effect, then it could be an immense step forward in our understanding of the matter contents of the universe,” says Christian Beck of Queen Mary, University of London, UK.
Beck has reanalysed an unexplained signal in an electrical circuit, first reported in 2004, and says it is just what you would expect to see if dark matter takes the form of hypothetical particles called axions. It’s too soon to known if the signal actually is dark matter, but these circuits — Josephson junctions — may present a promising new way to hunt for the mysterious stuff.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Signs of Water Found on 5 Alien Planets by Hubble Telescope
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has detected water in the atmospheres of five planets beyond our solar system, two recent studies reveal.
The five exoplanets with hints of water are all scorching-hot, Jupiter-size worlds that are unlikely to host life as we know it. But finding water in their atmospheres still marks a step forward in the search for distant planets that may be capable of supporting alien life, researchers said.
“We’re very confident that we see a water signature for multiple planets,” Avi Mandell, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., lead author of one of the studies, said in a statement. “This work really opens the door for comparing how much water is present in atmospheres on different kinds of exoplanets — for example, hotter versus cooler ones.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spooky Physics Phenomenon May Link Universe’s Wormholes
Wormholes — shortcuts that in theory can connect distant points in the universe — might be linked with the spooky phenomenon of quantum entanglement, where the behavior of particles can be connected regardless of distance, researchers say. These findings could help scientists explain the universe from its very smallest to its biggest scales.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The New Orientalism: Why Posh Leftists Adore Muslims & the Muslim World
by Paul Austin Murphy
There is a long tradition of posh Trotskyists/progressives condescending what they take to be the brown exotic. (Prince Charles, who’s not a Trot, also indulges in this pastime with all things Islamic and Arabic; just as Sir Richard Francis Burton, another upper-class gentleman, did in the 19th century.)
Since the Left often indulges in what it calls ‘class analysis’, it can hardly fault me for my class analysis of the thoroughly middle class — and often upper middle class — nature of the Left (or, at least, of the leaders and theorists) over the years.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Transgene Escape: GMOs Spreading Uncontrollably Around the World
Testbiotech, a nonprofit organization started with independent (‘non-biased’) biotech research in mind, recently released a report on the spread of genetically altered plants. The organization says GMOs are spreading throughout the world without any controls in place to stop them. They have escaped their intended areas and are moving into the environment and even infringing on wild plant populations. This is happening everywhere and something must be done to stop it before it worsens.
In the U.S., Canada, Central America, Japan, China, Australia, and Europe, genetically modified organisms are spreading into the food system. This is happening with corn, rice, cotton, flaxseed, bentgrass, and poplar trees, according to the Testbiotech report.
“Coexistence between genetically engineered crops and biodiversity is not possible if crops are spreading into wild populations without control. Industry is contaminating biodiversity and our future seeds — who will hold them responsible?” says Margarida Silva from the GMO-free Platform in Portugal, according to GM Watch.
Just 3 examples of GM contamination can be seen here:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
By Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman
There is an old joke (a John Wayne movie?) that tells of why women put up with violent husbands. “How else can I know he loves me?”
In the developed world, wife beating is no longer considered a sign of love; it is bullying, intimidating, and criminal, which means the batterer can go to prison. But in the modern world, where violence against women is no longer tolerated, it is a mystery why some modern women choose to convert to Islam where wife beating is common. Some not only convert, but also become violent jihadis themselves.
Women comprise 75% of the 5,000 converts to Islam in England, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Most of these converts do so after falling in love with a Muslim man.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |