A legal scholar named Osagie Obasogie has written a book that examines whether a blind person can be racist. His conclusion: the ability to see skin color is not is not a necessary condition; one may display the traits and attitudes of a racist without it.
In other news, a young Australian woman who was killed fighting for the Syrian jihad turns out to have had a secret life as an Islamic fundamentalist, despite the fact that she attended a top-notch Anglican school.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Bill Keezer, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, MC, Nilk, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Government of the Rich, By the Rich and for the Rich
We now live in a two-tiered system of governance. There are two sets of laws: one set for the government and its corporate allies, and another set for you and me.
The laws which apply to the majority of the population allow the government to do things like sending SWAT teams crashing through your door in the middle of the night, rectally probing you during a roadside stop, or listening in on your phone calls and reading all of your email messages, confiscating your property, or indefinitely detaining you in a military holding cell. These are the laws which are executed every single day against a population which has up until now been blissfully ignorant of the radical shift taking place in American government.
Then there are the laws constructed for the elite, which allow bankers who crash the economy to walk free. They’re the laws which allow police officers to avoid prosecution when they shoot unarmed citizens, strip search non-violent criminals, or taser pregnant women on the side of the road, or pepper spray peaceful protestors. These are the laws of the new age we are entering, an age of neo-feudalism, in which corporate-state rulers dominate the rest of us, where the elite create the laws which can result in a person being jailed for possessing a small amount of marijuana while bankers that launder money for drug cartels walk free. In other words, we have moved into an age where we are the slaves and they are the rulers.
Unfortunately, this two-tiered system of government has been a long time coming. As I detail in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, the march toward an imperial presidency, to congressional intransigence and impotence, to a corporate takeover of the mechanisms of government, and the division of America into haves and have nots has been building for years.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Three-Year Treasury Bonds Go for Record-Low Rate of 1.51%
Rate on government paper lowest since Italy joined euro
(ANSA) — Rome, January 13 — The rate on Italy’s three-year bond hit a record low of 1.51% on Monday, the lowest since the country adopted the euro in 1999.
The Treasury announced it would auction four billion euros worth of the bond.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Out of the Abyss: Looking for Lessons in Iceland’s Recovery
In 2008, Iceland experienced one of the most dramatic crashes any country had ever seen. Since then, its recovery has been just as impressive. Are there lessons to be learned? SPIEGEL went to the island nation to find out.
What should one expect from a country in which the sentence, “What an asshole!” is a compliment? Icelanders say “asshole,” or “rassgat,” when they tousle a child’s hair or greet friends, and they mean it to be friendly.
While trudging through a lava field within view of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano, the guide says: “Iceland is the asshole of the world.” That, too, is a positive statement. It’s also a geological metaphor. In Iceland, which lies on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and thus on the dividing line of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates, the earth has a tendency to relieve itself through various geysers, volcanoes and hot springs.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Soup Kitchens for the Greek Middle Class
In Greece even the middle class is suffering because of the crisis. Soup kitchens and food donations for the needy are being organized — even in fancy suburbs of Athens.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Number of Working Age Americans Without a Job Has Risen by Almost 10 Million Under Obama
That headline is not a misprint. The number of working age Americans that do not have a job has increased by nearly 10 million since Barack Obama first entered the White House.
In January 2009, the number of “officially unemployed” workers plus the number of Americans “not in the labor force” was sitting at a grand total of 92.6 million. Today, that number has risen to 102.2 million. That means that the number of working age Americans that are not working has grown by close to 10 million since Barack Obama first took office. So why does the “official unemployment rate” keep going down? Well, it is because the federal government has been pretending that millions upon millions of unemployed workers have “left the labor force” over the past few years and do not want to work anymore. The government says that another 347,000 workers “left the labor force” in December. That is nearly five times larger than the 74,000 jobs that were “created” by the U.S. economy last month. And it is important to note that more than half of those jobs were temporary jobs, and it takes well over 100,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth each month. So the unemployment rate should not have gone down. If anything, it should have gone up.
In fact, if the federal government was using an honest labor force participation rate, the official unemployment rate would be far higher than it is right now. Instead of 6.7 percent, it would be 11.5 percent, and it has stayed at about that level since the end of the last recession.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Troika Bullied Cyprus and Portugal, MEPs Say
The troika of international lenders “held a gun to the head” of Cyprus and Portugal and showed little sympathy for social measures, an MEP looking into its work has said.
“Both countries had very little room for manoeuvre in negotiating the terms of the bailouts. What they said basically was that ‘a gun was held to our head’, especially in Cyprus,” Juergen Klute, a left-wing German MEP, told this website. “And the troika had very little interest in social measures, they were only concerned about cutting back the deficit,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Amiri Baraka, Polarizing Poet and Playwright, Dies at 79
Amiri Baraka, a poet and playwright of pulsating rage, whose long illumination of the black experience in America was called incandescent in some quarters and incendiary in others, died on Thursday in Newark. He was 79.
[…]
Mr. Baraka was famous as one of the major forces in the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and ‘70s, which sought to duplicate in fiction, poetry, drama and other mediums the aims of the black power movement in the political arena.
[…]
Mr. Baraka, whose work was widely anthologized and who was heard often on the lecture circuit, was also long famous as a political firebrand.
[Back in the day, LeRoi Jones penned a poem entitled “Black People!” You won’t find it online, but it may be found in “The LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader.” It’s one of the most significant works in black American literature, because it so truly captures the essence of what so many of them feel: “You cant steal nothin from a white man he’s already stole it he owes you anything you want, even his life.” The antidote to this attitude weighs 230 grains, moves out at 820 feet per second, and may be had at your local gun store. Don’t leave home without it! — PW]
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Bin Laden Photos Won’t be Released as Court Spurns Appeal
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to order the release of photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse and burial at sea, leaving intact the CIA’s classification of those images as top-secret.
The justices today turned away an appeal by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group that filed a Freedom of Information Act suit seeking release of the 2011 photos. A lower court ruled that the classification of the images was proper.
The Obama administration and Central Intelligence Agency said release of the photos would damage national security by inflaming tensions overseas and leading to retaliatory attacks against Americans.
The lawsuit involved 52 images of bin Laden after he was killed during a raid by U.S. special operations forces on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011. President Barack Obama said in 2011 that the photos were “very graphic.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Burglars Who Took on F.B.I. Abandon Shadows
PHILADELPHIA — The perfect crime is far easier to pull off when nobody is watching.
So on a night nearly 43 years ago, while Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier bludgeoned each other over 15 rounds in a televised title bout viewed by millions around the world, burglars took a lock pick and a crowbar and broke into a Federal Bureau of Investigation office in a suburb of Philadelphia, making off with nearly every document inside.
They were never caught, and the stolen documents that they mailed anonymously to newspaper reporters were the first trickle of what would become a flood of revelations about extensive spying and dirty-tricks operations by the F.B.I. against dissident groups.
The burglary in Media, Pa., on March 8, 1971, is a historical echo today, as disclosures by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden have cast another unflattering light on government spying and opened a national debate about the proper limits of government surveillance. The burglars had, until now, maintained a vow of silence about their roles in the operation.
[I am no great fan of the American left, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. It is my firm conviction that this was their finest hour. — PW]
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Fewer Young Than Old Sign Up for New Health Care Plans
People signing up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s federal and state marketplaces tend to be older and potentially less healthy, officials said Monday, a demographic mix that could cause premiums to rise in the future if the pattern persists.
But officials expressed optimism that more young people will sign up in the months ahead, calling it “solid, solid news” for the health care law. They said demand for insurance through the marketplaces was increasing sharply across all age groups and they said youth outreach will become more aggressive in the months ahead.
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Government Evicts Entire Wyoming Town
The United States Government, more specifically the EPA, has effectively decreed that an the entire town of Riverton, Wyoming must uproot themselves and go live elsewhere. Citing the Clean Air Act, and altering 100-year-old, Congressionally-approved Wyoming State boundaries, the EPA decreed Riverton as the newest addition to the Wind River Reservation. Now, while one would be standing on solid ground to argue the EPA isn’t physically evicting the residents of Riverton, the changes taking place certainly make the lines of intimidation and bureaucracy seem a bit blurry. […]
| — Hat tip: MC | [Return to headlines] |
ObamaCare and Medicare Morph in Maryland to Lower Hospital Costs
They said health rationing would never come, that if you liked your plan and doctor, you could keep it. They lied, and now that that’s over let’s move on. Since it’s the government’s doctor not yours any more, Maryland has announced a bold deal with state and federal officials not to treat people unnecessarily.
Maryland officials have reached what analysts say is an unprecedented deal to limit medical spending and abandon decades of expensively paying hospitals for each extra procedure they perform. If the plan works, Maryland hospitals will be financially rewarded for keeping people out of the hospital — a once unimaginable arrangement.
This is without any question the boldest proposal in the U.S. in the last half century to grab the problem of cost growth by the horns,” said Uwe Reinhardt, a healthcare economist at Princeton University.
Yes, progress is not treating people. Hospitals are preparing for this brave new world by firing employees.
[…]
“Negotiated prices” between mammoth pharmaceutical companies and equally mammoth insurance companies and government agencies produce mammoth prices. The don’t produce itty-bitty prices. And since the prices are so gigantic, is Maryland is going to pay for fewer of them? Does this mean the X-Rays will be charged at seventy three bucks? Or are they simply going to order only 1/7th the number of $517 X-Rays to stay within the budget?
The reason it’s important is because Obamacare officials are making Maryland the template for the national system. “A top official with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Friday that a state plan to reduce hospital visits could serve as a national model for curbing costs while improving patient outcomes.”
[…]
[NOTE: This is a Belmont Club Special. Don’t miss the exchanges in the comments section on the downside of socialist medical care]
| — Hat tip: Bill Keezer | [Return to headlines] |
Principal ‘Raped Boy in Office’ With Parent Outside
(Huffington Post) A former middle school principal in North Carolina is accused of sexually assaulting a student while the boy’s unsuspecting parent was outside the room.
David Ellis Edwards, 49, was arrested Friday and charged with second-degree forcible sex offense, sexual acts with a student, taking indecent liberties with a minor and crimes against nature, WTVD reported.
Deputies say that between 2009 and 2011, Edwards molested at least three boys between the ages of 11 and 14. At least one of the incidents allegedly occurred in Edward’s office while the victim’s parent sat in a nearby waiting area.
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Ron Paul: Congress Defers to President on NSA Reform
Where once there was a Congressional committee to challenge and oppose the president’s abuse of power, today the president himself has been even allowed by a complacent Congress to hand pick his own NSA review commission!
Are we really expected to believe that a commission appointed by the president to look into the activities of the president’s intelligence services will come to anything more than a few superficial changes to give the impression of real reform?
One of the president’s commission recommendations is that the NSA cease holding our phone records and demand that the private phone companies retain those records instead — for the NSA to access as it wishes. This is supposed to be reform?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Spanish Language ObamaCare Website So Badly Translated That Spanish Speakers Can’t Read it
Hey, you know who’s vital to the success of ObamaCare? Young people. That’s a problem, because they aren’t signing up. Do you know who else was key? Hispanics. As far back as 2010, Democrats were touting the myriad benefits that would be bestowed upon the Latino community via the Affordable Care Act. In return, the influx of new sign-ups would help stabilize the entire system.
With that in mind, you’d think they’d build a Spanish language version of Healthcare.gov that worked just as well as it’s barely functional English counterpart. Oh wait, they did!
According to the New York Daily News, the site is so badly translated that native Spanish speakers are having trouble using it — unless, of course, they have a translator guide them through the rocky translation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Study-at-Home Courses for the Obama Re-Education Camps
In this day and age of study-at-home courses, Communist re-education camps are being redefined. As the non-violent socialist revolution takes place in these United States, 21st century methods of re-education have taken the place of forced relocation used by the Communist dictatorships. You can now study at home to get your socialist indoctrination.
Just choose your favorite leftist propaganda sources on the internet, on television, and yes, even a few still remain on the radio. You can now feed on the lies of the day from home, avoiding the mess of forcibly being relocated into rural indoctrination camps…
Which leads us to the here and now, where instant media sources abound. Why relocate for re-education when you can get your immediate indoctrination from home? For example, on Tuesday, January 7, President Obama was our celebrity speaker on the TV news channels, re-educating us about basic economics.
The highlight of his “teaching” was the following: “Independent economists have shown that extending emergency unemployment insurance actually helps the economy, actually creates new jobs.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Imperial Obama Administration
Never before in American history has the Executive Branch of government assumed more of the powers constitutionally vested in Congress than this one. One of the latest disputes between the Department of Justice and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is illustrative.
The FBI and the Department of Justice have refused to cooperate with the on-going congressional investigation of the IRS targeting of conservative tax-exempt organizations, singling them out for discriminatory treatment. On January 8, Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa sent a critical letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, the same attorney general who carries the dubious distinction of being the only one in American history found in contempt of Congress. The letter states that the Administration’s refusal to cooperate “may rise to the level of criminal obstruction of a congressional investigation.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
When Did America Turn Into the Soviet Union?
Bill Binney is the high-level NSA executive who created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital information. A 32-year NSA veteran widely regarded as a “legend” within the agency, Binney was the senior technical director within the agency and managed thousands of NSA employees.
Binney spent decades studying — and trying to counter — the repressive Soviet program of mass surveillance. In other words, Binney is an expert on spying in general, and Soviet spying in particular.
Binney said that — after 9/11 — America implemented the same type of system used by the Soviets.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Alitalia CEO ‘Optimistic’ Over Possible Etihad Deal
Italian carrier still on brink of collapse after State bailout
(ANSA) — Fiumicino, January 13 — Alitalia CEO Gabriele Del Torchio on Monday said he is upbeat about a possible deal with United Arab Emirates carrier Etihad Airways.
“We are in the exploratory phase, but if well begun is half done, then I am optimistic,” Del Torchio said.
Etihad in December confirmed it was in talks to buy a 49% stake in Italy’s cash-strapped national carrier, equal to a much-needed capital injection of 350 million euros.
The Italian carrier received a 75-million-euro capital injection from State-owned post office Poste Italiane in December as part of a government-engineered 500-million-euro rescue package.
Alitalia could need another capital increase to keep running if its business plan does not bring rapid results and Etihad opts out of the deal, sources said.
After buying 29% of Air Berlin, Germany’s second-largest airline, in 2011, Etihad has taken stakes in carriers across the world, including Air Serbia, Aer Lingus, Darwin Airlines, Virgin Australia, Jet Airways and Air Seychelles.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Army Imam Says British Muslims Can be Good Soldiers
The British armed forces’ first Muslim chaplain says there is no conflict in being a Muslim and fighting for Britain.
Imam Asim Hafiz, an Islamic adviser to the Ministry of Defence, says Islam encourages the defence of life and country. Muslims in the British military have been criticised by hardliners within the community, who have viewed their involvement in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq as a betrayal of their faith.
Last month two men were convicted of murdering Lee Rigby, a British soldier, outside Woolwich barracks in south-east London. They are due to be sentenced later this month…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Beppe Grillo Accuses Italian Press of Disinformation
(AGI) Rome, Jan 12 — Five Star Movement founder Beppe Grillo once again lashed out against the Italian press, holding journalists responsible for “scientific, methodical and surgical disinformation.” In his blog, the comedian targeted La Repubblica and La Nazione newspapers in particular. “The devil is in the details, and so is disinformation. In La Nazione of Friday Jan. 10, 2014, the Five Star Movement is mentioned under ‘other parties’ in an article on the composition of the Senate.
This while nine million Italians have voted for us. Doing so makes our movement look insignificant to the readers, as if we’re not there”, he wrote.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Billionaire Businessman to be Czech Finance Minister
Czech President Milos Zeman is days from appointing Social Democrat leader Bohuslav Sobotka as new prime minister and billionaire businessmen Andrej Babis and leader of ANO, an anti-establishment movement, as new finance minister, reports Reuters. The Czech Republic has been without an elected government since June.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
British Police Target 3 Men in Portugal in Disappearance of Madeleine McCann
British police are on their way to Portugal to arrest three men in connection with the case of Madeleine McCann, the British toddler who disappeared in 2007 while on a family vacation at a Portuguese resort.
Britain’s Metropolitan Police Service wants to question three thieves who carried out raids in the coastal town of Praia da Luz, where the then 3-year-old McCann was last seen, according to a report in London’s Daily Mirror.
The girl’s case was reopened in 2011 and investigators have been following new leads in hopes of finding little Madeleine, who would be 10 years old now. Recently discovered cellphone records showed the three suspects made several calls to each other in the hours after the girl vanished.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Estimating the Size of the UK’s Muslim Population — Survey
Londoners generally underestimate the size of the capital’s Muslim community, but across the rest of the UK’s regional cities, the tendency is for overestimation, a survey by Channel 4 News has found. The survey asked people to judge the proportion of Muslims within their nearest city, covering 34 major British settlements.
Channel 4 News conducted the survey following media reports that one in ten babies and toddlers in the UK is from Muslim families. A report in the Times, which ran the story on its front page, suggested it was a sign of a “startling” change in UK demography. A debate on Channel 4 News on Friday questioned why Islam was being focused upon…
[JP note: See also http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/douglas-murray/2014/01/is-the-startling-rise-in-muslim-infants-as-positive-as-the-times-suggests/ ]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
EU Speaks Out Against Death Penalty for Italian Marines
‘Will do everything in power to resolve issue with India’
(ANSA) — Brussels, January 13 — The president of the EU commission on Monday spoke out against the possibility of the death penalty being applied to two Italian marines on trial in India for allegedly killing two fishermen there. “We are all against the death penalty,” said Josè Manuel Barroso in a meeting with Vice-President of the European Commission (EC) Antonio Tajani. Later, Tajani guaranteed that Brussels will do everything in its power to arrive at a positive solution in the case. On Friday Indian newspaper The Hindustan Times reported that India’s anti-terrorist National Investigation Agency (NIA) was pressing to apply a severe 2002 law designed to fight terrorism in international waters against Italian marines Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone.
Under the law, capital punishment is a possible punishment.
The pair are accused of killing Valentine (aka Gelastine) and Ajesh Binki on February 15, 2012, when the marines allegedly mistook them for pirates and opened fire on the Indians’ fishing trawler from the privately owned Italian-flagged oil-tanker MT Enrica Lexie.
The shooting occurred just off the coast of Kerala in southern India, near traditional Indian fishing grounds in the Laccadive Sea.
The Italian government said India would face “counter-measures” if the severe law were applied after New Delhi had repeatedly guaranteed the Italians would not face death.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Let’s Clarify Health Authority Scandal Now, Says Minister
(AGI) Rome, Jan 12 — Italy’s Minister of Agriculture, Nunzia De Girolamo, wants to bring the Benevento area health authority scandal before Parliament. “I am more than willing to clarify as soon as possible this baffling issue before parliament. I have been subject to an unprecedented media lynching despite the fact that I am not involved in the investigation,” the minister wrote. “As I have said before, my home phone was tapped by the people arrested in connection with the alleged crimes committed at the Benevento local health authority.” .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi ‘Wants to Head Party List’ At European Elections
Rome, 10 January (AKI) — Former premier Silvio Berlusconi wants to head his conservative Forza Italia party’s list of candidates in every Italian region in May’s European elections, according to unnamed party sources.
“I hope to be able to head the party list in the European elections. I’d like to,” he allegedly told the sources at a meeting of Forza Italia regional coordinators in Rome on Friday.
Berlusconi also claimed there would be snap Italian general election in late May and that his party would win.
“Let’s get ready for election day at the end of May,” the sources cited him as saying.
The 77-year-old billionaire media tycoon predicted 25 May as a general election date and told regional coordinators to roll out a massive campaign to galvanise party support and win over undecided voters.
Berlusconi was stripped of his seat in Italy’s Senate upper house of parliament in a November vote following his conviction in August for tax fraud.
He must serve a one-year sentence either under community service or house arrest and has been banned from holding public office for two years after the supreme court on 1 August said he orchestrated a giant tax evasion scam at his Mediaset television empire.
Despite his legal woes, Berlusconi’s party emerged as the most popular political force according to an online SWG poll published at the end of August.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Le Pen to Do ‘Maximum’ To Block Further EU Integration
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has promised that nationalist parties will do “the maximum” to block further EU integration if they make gains in May’s European elections. “I don’t expect anything from the European system except that it explodes,” she told journalists in Paris.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Met Police Report: Corrupt Freemasons Run the UK Legal System
Secret networks of Freemasons have been used by organised crime gangs to corrupt the criminal justice system, according to a bombshell Metropolitan Police report leaked to The Independent.
Operation Tiberius, written in 2002, found underworld syndicates used their contacts in the controversial brotherhood to “recruit corrupted officers” inside Scotland Yard, and concluded it was one of “the most difficult aspects of organised crime corruption to proof against”.
The report — marked “Secret” — found serving officers in East Ham east London who were members of the Freemasons attempted to find out which detectives were suspected of links to organised crime from other police sources who were also members of the society.
Famous for its secret handshakes, Freemasonry has long been suspected of having members who work in the criminal justice system — notably the judiciary and the police.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Islamization of Belgium and the Netherlands in 2013
by Soeren Kern
In January, the gangland shootings of two young Moroccan men in downtown Amsterdam drew renewed attention to the growing problem of violent crime among Muslim immigrants. The two men were gunned down with AK-47 assault rifles in a shooting the mayor of Amsterdam, Eberhard van der Laan, described as reminiscent of “the Wild West.”
In March, the Dutch public broadcasting system NOS television reported that the Netherlands has become one of the major European suppliers of Islamic jihadists. According to NOS, about 100 Dutch Muslims are active as jihadists in Syria; most have joined the notorious Jabhat al-Nusra rebel group.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK Bread and Cereal Bars Found to be Contaminated With Glyphosate
(NaturalNews) The UK and EU populace doesn’t embrace Monsanto’s propaganda, and their governments are somewhat less dominated by Monsanto minions than the US government is. So traces of glyphosate in major British non-GMO food brands should be a huge red flag for us here in America.
UK news site The Ecologist featured a study performed by a British anti-GMO group called GM Freeze. Two major food brands contained traces of glyphosate. The research disclosed that all four cereal bars produced by Jordans and 34 out of 40 bread products sampled from Walburtons contained traces of glyhosate. These are both big name brands in the UK.
Those traces were below the EU maximum allowable glyphosate residue amounts for cereal products. But many disagree with the maximum allowable amounts, pointing out that glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor and thus shouldn’t be tolerated at any level. [1] [4]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Birmingham Men Arrested at Heathrow on Suspicion of Terrorism
Two 21-year-olds arrived from Istanbul after it was believed they had spent some time in Syria.
Two men from Handsworth have been arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences relating to activities in Syria. They were detained at Heathrow Airport at about 3.30pm today (Monday) after they had arrived back in the UK on a flight from Istanbul. Unarmed officers from the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit detained the men both aged 21 as they disembarked. They are now being questioned at a police station in the West Midlands area. The pair are believed to have travelled to Syria in May last year…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Government Accused of ‘Social Engineering’ Over WW1 Plans
The government is hit by another row over its plans for the First World War centenary, amid accusations it is “whitewashing” the contributions of Australians and New Zealanders, in favour of those of black and Asian servicemen
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Row Over BBC Climate Change Conference ‘Cover Up’
The BBC is dragged into a row over its coverage of climate change after spending thousands of pounds trying to keep details of an “eco conference” attended by top executives secret
The BBC spent thousands of pounds over six years attempting to “cover up” a climate change seminar credited with shaping its coverage of the environment, it emerged today.
At least £20,000 was paid out by the corporation battling a Freedom of Information request about the conference that featured lectures by green activists and scientists, it was revealed.
Almost 30 of the BBC’s most senior executives — including the head of TV news and future director-general — attended the event in 2006 which was funded with a grant from the former Labour government.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt’s Democratic ‘Referendum’ Is a Disgrace
by Peter Oborne
In the wake of the military seizure of power in Egypt last July, US secretary of state John Kerry praised the coup leader General Sisi for “restoring democracy”. Last November, in a sign of approval for the new regime, Kerry visited Cairo where he said that Sisi’s “road map” to democracy was “being carried out to the best of our perception”.
Tomorrow marks the first step in the road map — a constitutional referendum. The primary purpose of this referendum is to strengthen the already stifling grip of the army and security forces on the Egyptian political system…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt Votes on New Constitution While Engulfed in a Climate of Fear and Patriotism
CAIRO — Egyptians are being asked to vote this week on a vision of their nation’s future sponsored by the powerful military, a two-day election widely seen as a referendum on a likely presidential run by the country’s top general — but held in a climate of fear and intimidation.
An astounding 160,000 soldiers and 200,000 policemen were expected to deploy across Egypt on Tuesday and Wednesday to guard polling stations and voters following months of violence that authorities have blamed on Islamic militants. Supporters of Mohammed Morsi, the Islamist president ousted in a coup last summer, have said they would stage massive demonstrations and boycott the vote on a new constitution.
In many ways, Egypt looks more like a country going to war rather than one preparing for what is supposedly a transition to democratic rule. The government and the overwhelmingly pro-military media have portrayed the balloting as the key to the nation’s security and stability over which there can be no dissent.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Every Right ‘Is a Battle Now’, Tunisian Woman Entrepreneur
Visiting enterprises, institutions with Moroccan counterparts
(ANSAmed) — ROME — Tunisia’s Constitution prior to the revolution was far “better” for women than the one being voted on article by article in the country right now, the young Tunisian entrepreneur Soumaya Chouikha told ANSAmed. And this despite the fact that equality between the sexes has been enshrined in Articles 20 and 45 in the new one. “Now we have to struggle for any single right”, she said. Chouikha is in Rome for a meeting of female entrepreneurs from both the northern and southern Mediterranean with her two Moroccan counterparts. The businesswomen’s visit began Monday and will continue through January 18, with several institutional and other meetings. It was organized by the Corrente Rosa association in collaboration with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Network Globale, Gender Interuniversitary Observatory and the Roma Tre university.
Being a female entrepreneur was also easier prior to 2010, she said. The young woman was selected in the ‘Business Wednesdays’ held by the Chamber of Commerce and the Agency for Industrial Politics, she said, but this opportunity no longer exists “due to political instability”. And the fact that she does not wear a headscarf, she noted, would have undoubtedly hampered her activities had she had to start out during the government led by Ennahdha, the Islamic party that recently handed over the position of prime minister of the new transitional government to former independent minister Mehdi Jomaa. Her business, Laboratoires Zahra Nature, deals in natural medicine and has just marked its one-year anniversary of activity. ?’We provide jobs for six people, but we hope to raise this number to 30,” she said, “and we buy all the raw materials in Tunisia.” The Moroccan Nadia Mabrouk, founder and general manager of the Salvema Maroc Gourmet company, operates in the food sector.
She said that she had had to wait for two years, from 2006 to 2008, to be granted financing from local banks, which never gave written responses to her requests for credit despite her meeting all the requisites. She was only able to develop her business after getting 280,000 dollars in financing from USAID to buy Italian machinery with, enabling her to quadruple production.
She now exports her Moroccan foodstuffs to the US, France, and Canada.
Based in Agadir, it was easier for her to enter into contact with USAID since it works both in Rabat and elsewhere in the country, and gives preference to female entrepreneurs. She now employs 25, 24 of whom women. Another Moroccan businesswoman visiting Rome, Aaicha Benarfa, focuses on cosmetics and the valuable characteristics of argan oil. Following other experiences in the world of work, she is now focusing on her qualifications as pharmacist and biologist in her new company Formazen to launch a product that is composed of 90% argan, a much higher percentage than is usually found. She is channeling her energy into exports, but not towards the already saturated markets such as Italy, Spain and France. “I am looking towards the US, Japan, Russia and Latin America,” she said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The World Awaits First Step of New Egyptian Roadmap
It is considered by many that the approval of the new constitution will write a “death certificate” for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, because this constitution forbids political parties based on religions, and it would put an end to the Brotherhood’s Constitution which has been in place since 2012.
The Brotherhood is trying to scare people from going to vote and is spreading rumors about bombings, suicide attacks and riots around the voting polls. And they rally their followers to disrupt the referendum, but the army has responded by distributing more than 160,000 officers and soldiers — in addition to police forces deployed — to secure electoral headquarters, protect citizens and to eliminate any attempts by the Brotherhood to disrupt the referendum process.
The results of Egyptians votes abroad brought much relief for the government and the Egyptians, because the results of the vote were all “yes” with percentages ranging from 85% to 98%. And it is considered by many observers that these results are strong indications of the result of the referendum inside Egypt as well.
But what is hard to understand — at least for me — is that the government claims that a “yes” vote is like a magic wand that will instantly eliminate terrorism; that the Brotherhood and other armed militias will disappear overnight.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Air Force Retaliates After Palestinians Fire Rockets Near Ariel Sharon Funeral
The Israeli air force retaliated to Palestinian rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip on Monday, hitting sites used by militants after rockets were fired from the territory near the end of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s funeral.
The location in southern Israel where Sharon was later buried is within range of rockets from the Palestinian territory, and rockets have hit the area in the past. Israeli police said they exploded about six miles away from the ceremony.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Left for Dead in 1948: The Battle That Shaped Arik Sharon
Battalion commander Sharon, 20, was shot in the abdomen and would have died, but for the heroism of a 16-year-old soldier, wounded himself, who dragged him through the Latrun killing fields to safety
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Aussie Beauty Killed in Syrian Hellhole Had a Secret Jihad Life
Karl Karroum said his half-sister was always a Muslim, despite her Anglican education.
“She was born a Muslim, so was her sister Rose. Their mum isn’t Muslim, but our dad is,” he said.
“She went to that school because it was the best education, and an all-girls’ school … it suited our faith.”
He said Karroum did not wear a burqua or niqab, traditional Muslim dress for women, until a few years ago.
“She started wearing it once she studied her religion more as an adult … she definitely wasn’t a recent convert to Islam, that’s not right,” he said.
[Oh, there’s a surprise. It’s okay to use the kuffar institutions for what you want. Okay, no it’s not a surprise. Neither is the bit about how she only started wearing the niqab once she got more religious. Oops. Horse’s mouth and all that. ]
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Clashes Between Syrian Rebels and Jihadists Kill 700
(AGI) Beirut, Jan 12 — Seven-hundred people have been killed in nine days of fighting between Syrian rebels and jihadist groups, according to the latest figures available to human rights activists. “A total of 697 people were killed in fighting between Jan. 3 and 11, including 351 rebels, 246 members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and 100 civilians”, reported the Syrian Human Rights Observatory.
Hundreds more were displaced, said the activist group.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Loses $150 Billion a Year Due to Brain Drain: Science Minister
TEHRAN — Every year, about 150,000 highly talented people emigrate from Iran, and this is equivalent to an annual loss of 150 billion dollars for the country, Iranian Minister of Science, Research and Technology Reza Faraji Dana said on Tuesday.
In a situation where the budget for running the government is 1.95 quadrillion rials (about $78.4 billion), Iran gives “150 billion dollars in assistance to other countries” through the brain drain, Faraji Dana said in a speech at a ceremony arranged to honor the winners of the 18th Scientific Olympiad of Students at Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Is Obama Trying to Resolve or Prolong the Conflict in Syria?
Suppose a great power declares that it supports a peace process aimed at finding a political solution to a terrible, ongoing conflict. Then suppose that this great power makes such declarations after it has already proclaimed its strong interest in the defeat of one of the main parties to said conflict.
And then suppose that this great power insists on preconditions for a peace process — preconditions effectively boiling down to a demand for pre-emptive surrender by the party whose defeat the great power has already identified as its major goal — which render such a process impossible. Is it not reasonable to conclude that the great power in question is (how to put this gently) lying about its purported support for peace?
That, in a nutshell, is the Obama administration’s posture toward the ongoing conflict in Syria.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Port for Syrian Arms Transfer to be Named Thursday
Local resistance risks delaying destruction
(ANSA) — Rome, January 13 — Speculation on which Italian port will be used to transfer Syrian chemical weapons aboard a US ship that will destroy them in international waters will cease on January 16, when the choice will be announced after the Italian parliament hears the director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the government has announced. The ports of Brindisi, Taranto, Augusta, Gioia Tauro and Cagliari are the possibilities cited by the media in the past few days amid some local opposition.
Meanwhile transferring the chemical weapons is proceeding as scheduled. There are still four days ahead, as announced by Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino from Paris over the weekend, where she attended a meeting of the Friends of Syria Group. Bonino explained from Paris that the choice of an Italian port will be based on technical requirements “which were requested and which the infrastructure minister is evaluating”. The message was addressed to those who criticized Italy’s decision to attend the ‘Geneva 2’ peace conference scheduled on January 22 in Montreux. It was also aimed at stressing once more the Italian government’s determination in pushing forward and playing its part. On Thursday the director-general of the Hague-based OPCW, Ahmet Uzumcu, will meet Bonino and then go to parliament to explain to the foreign and defence committees of the Lower House and Senate the phases concerning the transfer of chemical agents from a Danish or Norwegian cargo vessel to a US ship, the MV Cape Ray. The operation should take place at the end of the month and will be attended by OPCW inspectors who will examine the material once it has boarded the US ship. Meanwhile Italian local administrations are continuing to refuse to host the cargo ship, drawing the attention of international media.
The Wall Street Journal warned over the weekend that “plans to use an Italian port as part of a process to destroy Syrian chemical weapons have stumbled over local opposition, raising the risk of delaying the US-Russia sponsored project to eradicate a trove that includes mustard gas and components of sarin gas”.
In particular, the US daily spoke about Brindisi’s refusal and the letter of Sardinia Governor Ugo Cappellacci to Premier Enrico Letta announcing he was rejecting Cagliari’s candidature “with rage and shock” and would fight it in any way possible. So far Bonino’s reassurances that the chemical weapons “will not touch Italian soil” have not eased concern.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Police: 2 UK Men Arrested at Heathrow Airport on Suspicion of Terrorist Activities in Syria
British police say two men have been arrested at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of participating in terrorist activities in Syria. Police say the men — both 21 and from Birmingham, central England — are believed to have traveled to Syria in May of last year. Police say neither poses any imminent threat to the public.
West Midlands Police said the men were detained Monday afternoon after they arrived in the U.K. on a flight from Istanbul.
European officials are concerned about domestic threats posed by fighters returning from Syria. British intelligence officials say they have seen “low hundreds of people” from Britain go to Syria to fight. A handful of people have been arrested in the U.K. on suspicion of attending terrorism training camps in Syria.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Al-Qaeda Group Retakes Al-Bab, Commits Massacre
Activists report dozens of summary executions
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, JANUARY 13 — The jihadist fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have retaken Al-Bab, north-east of Aleppo, from other rebel groups over the past few hours. Reports were from local activists that ANSA contacted via Skype and who said that dozens of summary executions of prisoners and rival combatants had been carried out. Al-Bab has not only been the scene of clashes between local rebels and Al-Qaeda fighters but has also been bombarded by Syrian regime forces over the past few days.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Taqiyyah — What Iran is Really Saying About the P5+1 Joint Plan of Action
Yesterday, when we posted on the official announcements of the P5+1 Joint Plan of Action to go effective on January 20, 2014, someone left a comment on the Facebook entry correctly saying, that it was pure “taqiyyah”. Confirmation of that arrived today courtesy of MEMRI article, “The Geneva Joint Plan of Action: How Iran Sees It”.
Note what Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on December 18th at Tehran University, Zarif revealed the Islamic Regime revealed Islamic Regime’s assessment of how their taqiyyah has fooled the Administration:…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish Government Says it Will Not Withdraw Controversial Judicial Bill
Turkey’s government says it has no plans to withdraw legislation that would tighten Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s grip on the judiciary.
Erdogan’s government has proposed the bill, which would strengthen the Justice Ministry’s hold on a council that appoints judges and prosecutors, as it fights a corruption scandal that implicated Cabinet ministers.
Erdogan claims the corruption charges are a conspiracy orchestrated by followers of an Islamic movement which he says has infiltrated the police and judiciary.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
U.S.-Iranian Citizen Arrested for Shipping Military Secrets to Tehran
by Abha Shankar
A criminal complaint charged Mozaffar Khazaee (aka Arash Khazaie) of shipping secret copyrighted documents relating to the U.S. Air Force’s F35 Joint Strike Fighter Program and military jet engines to Iran.
Khazaee, who became naturalized in 1991 and holds dual U.S. and Iranian citizenship, allegedly obtained the information from defense contractors with whom he had been employed as an engineer.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Vehicle Carrying 2 German Diplomats Attacked in Saudi Arabia
Investigators are looking into an attack on a vehicle carrying two German diplomats in eastern Saudi Arabia Monday. Saudi state news agency SPA says the two survived the attack but their vehicle was burned. A police spokesman said authorities are investigating the cause of the attack in the town of Awamiya, according to a Reuters report.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Why Turkey’s Jews Left Following WWII
Harold Rhode, whom we interviewed in the December 2013 edition of the New English Review (NER), has an review of a new book in Sephardic Horizons about Turkish treatment of its once numerous Jewish population; 100,000 at the start of WWII now less than 15,000. The book is Turkey, the Jews, and the Holocaust by Corry Gutstadt, originally published in German in 2008 and reissued in an English translation by Cambridge University Press in 2013. Rhode spent nearly three decades, as a Turkish and Islamic Affairs expert in the US Office of the Secretary of Defense before his retirement in 2010.
Coincidentally, in our interview with Michel Gurfinkiel, to be published in the forthcoming February 2014 edition of the NER, he spoke of the migration of Turkish Jews following WWII. They migrated to Israel and France prompted by their mistreatment by the xenophobic Turkish wartime regime.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
AK-47 Designer Mikhail Kalashnikov Wrote Repentant Letter to Church Before His Death
Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the AK-47 assault rifle, reportedly wrote a regretful letter several months before his death to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church asking if he was to blame for the deaths of those killed by the guns.
The Russian daily Izvestia reported Monday that Kalashnikov, who died last month at 94, wrote to Patriarch Kirill and told him he keeps asking himself if he’s responsible. Izvestia quoted Kirill’s spokesman Alexander Volkov as saying the Patriarch sought to comfort Kalashnikov and praised him as a true patriot.
The letter contrasted with past statements by Kalashnikov, who had repeatedly said he created the weapon to protect his country and couldn’t be blamed for other people’s action.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kalashnikov ‘Repented Killings’ In Letter to Church
Moscow (AFP) — Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of the legendary AK-47 assault rifle, turned to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in the months before his death to express remorse for those killed by his invention.
The Patriarch’s press secretary, Alexander Volkov, told Izvestia that the Russian Church leader received the letter and wrote a personal reply.
“The Church has a very definite position: when weapons serve to protect the Fatherland, the Church supports both its creators and the soldiers who use it,” Volkov said. “He designed this rifle to defend his country, not so terrorists could use it in Saudi Arabia.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladesh: Rajshahi: Islamists Kill Young Catholic Who Complained About Anti-Christian Violence
Ovidio Marandy, an ethnic Santhal, died last Saturday in Gobindoganj (northern Bangladesh). He had organised a demonstration in his village after Islamic extremists had set it on fire to punish Christians for voting in the 5 January election.
Dhaka (AsiaNews) — Islamists murdered Ovidio Marandy, a young ethnic Santhal Catholic man, last Saturday in Gobindoganj, Gaibandha district (northern Bangladesh). His funeral was held today in the Beneedwar parish church.
A native of Beneedwar Parish (Diocese of Rajshahi), the young man was the younger brother of Fr Samson Marandy, a Catholic priest in the Diocese of Dinajpur.
According to his brother and other family members, Muslim radicals wanted to punish the young man, a well-known figure in the local Catholic community, because he had recently organised a demonstration in his village against Islamist violence.
On 5 January, hundreds of Islamic extremists stormed the homes of Christians in the dioceses of Rajshahi and Mymensigh because they had voted in the general election.
“Ovidio was very brave, and was famous in his community. We are shocked by what happened,” said Fr Proshanto Gomes, a local priest. “Christians have the right to vote. Why are Islamists attacking us? We want peace.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Sumatra: In One Month Authorities Block the Construction of Five Churches
They lack building permits and construction must be stopped. The latest case in Bungo district; local administration exclude reasons of “discriminatory” or “confessional” nature. The leaders of the Christian community explain: present since 2004 and so far “there have never been problems”. Private homes instead of a place of worship.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — >From December 16 last until today at least five Christian churches in the province of Jambi, Sumatra ( in the western part of the Indonesian archipelago), have been forced to halt construction work due to a blockade imposed by local authorities, under pressure from the Islamic extremist fringe . The latest case — after the four that occurred in December 2013 — dates back to a few days ago in the district of Bungo . As often happens, the order to stop the project issued by the local administration has been motivated by the lack of the infamous IMB , the building permit necessary for the construction of a building , whether religious or civil ..
The process for building a church in Indonesia — Catholic or Protestant — is quite complicated and may take five to ten years to obtain all permits required by law. The procedure is governed by the Izin Mendirikan Bangunan (IMB), a species of written protocol that allows for construction to commence and is issued by local authorities. The story gets more complicated if it is a place of Christian worship: permission must be obtained from a number of residents in the area where the building is to be constructed and the local Group for Interfaith Dialogue. And even if the permission is granted “unspecified reasons” can come into play that will lead officials to block the projects. Often, this occurs after pressure from the Muslim community or radical Islamic movements.
Firdaus , chief of Pasir Putih village, confirms that the recent closure of the site for the construction of a Protestant church in the area is “administrative” and due to the lack of a building permit. He adds that he had sent several notifications and letters warnings to community leaders of irregularities in procedures. The decision to block the church construction in the district of Bungo is “in line with the law,” he warns, and “is not based on discriminatory or sectarian issues”.
However, Pastor Pangaribuan explains that the community has lived and worked in the territory since 2004, and “so far, there have never been problems ,” until the intervention of the authorities who imposed a a stop on all construction. The Christian leaders call for a quick resolution of the dispute, but Tommy Usman — the local Police chief — warns that another project has already been approved for the area . A church in the area would be a source of “social disorder” and that’s why the local government intends to replace the place of worship with private homes. According to Usam even church leaders have agreed to the change, and “that is the end of the story issue”.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has seen a rise in the number of attacks or acts of intolerance against minorities, including Christians, Ahmadi Muslims and others. In the province of Aceh — the only in the Archipelago to apply Islamic law ( Sharia ) — following a peace agreement between the central government and the Free Aceh Movement ( GAM ) , the application of a radical form of Islam among citizens is becoming more extreme. In addition, certain rules such as the building permit — the infamous IMB — are exploited to prevent the building or close down places of worship, as was the case in West Java against Yasmin Church. The constitution provides for freedom of religion, but the community is the victim of incidents of violence and abuse. Local sources report that in December alone , at least five Christian places of worship have had to close their doors due to pressure from Islamists.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China Set to Seize South China Sea Island by Force
Beijing claims island “illegally occupied” by the Philippines
Reports out of Chinese state media indicate that Beijing is set to invade an island in the South China Sea “illegally occupied” by US ally the Philippines, stoking concerns that the tension filled region could explode.
The report goes on to state that the “battle” will not include a Chinese invasion of Filipino territories, although the Philippines will undoubtedly view Beijing’s attack on Zhongye Island as precisely that since it has been occupied by Filipino troops for over 40 years.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘There’s No Asian Way of Looking at Physics’, Says Perth Teacher Marko Vojkovic
FOR many years, Perth chemistry and physics teacher Marko Vojkovic has been at the front of the fight against what he describes as sociology in the teaching of sciences. He led opposition to Western Australia’s ill-fated outcomes-based education curriculum in 2007 and says he recognised some of its telltale signs when teachers got their first glimpses of the national curriculum in 2010.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
CAR: Cannibal: Why I Ate Man’s Leg
Sectarian violence in the Central African Republic has reached a new extreme with an act of cannibalism in the capital, Bangui. The BBC’s Paul Wood has heard a graphic first-person account, which some might find upsetting.
The buses throwing up clouds of red clay dust had yet to rub out the ugly bloodstain in the dirt. A Muslim man had been murdered here a few days ago, by Christians. His limbs were hacked off. Then one of the crowd ate the flesh in a public demonstration of cannibalism…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Eid-El-Maulud: Jonathan Felicitates With Nigerian Muslims, Pledges Free, Fair 2015 Elections
The President said he won’t be distracted by the electoral process.
President Goodluck Jonathan has assured Nigerians that his administration will strive to ensure the 2015 general elections are free and fair. He also said his administration will ensure it completes its ‘priority’ projects successfully.
The President, who stated this on Monday in his message to Nigerians ahead of the Eid-El-Malud celebrations on Tuesday, said he would continue to work with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and all stakeholders to prepare for the next elections and not be distracted by the election process.
Mr. Jonathan, in the message signed and circulated by his spokesperson, Reuben Abati, also felicitated with all Nigerian Muslims as they celebrate the birth of the Prophet Mohammed…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Francis Continues to Put Stamp on Church
Pontiff chooses new cardinals from beyond Europe
(By Sandra Cordon) (ANSA) — Vatican City, January 13 — Pope Francis is continuing to put his own stamp on the Catholic Church hierarchy with the announcement of 19 names of men who will soon become cardinals, the majority from developing countries.
Drawing from clerics in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Francis — who is himself from Argentina — seems to be taking another step away from the traditional Church hierarchy, consistent with the emphasis and tone of his public remarks.
Since his election in March 2013, the first pontiff from Latin America has emphasized the importance of social justice, assisting the poor and those who are struggling, living more simply, and demonstrating greater respect, tolerance and care for others.
In remarks during an audience with the diplomatic corps on Monday, the pope continued that theme by denouncing human trafficking and the use of child soldiers as “crimes against humanity” while he also urged kinder treatment and more support for the elderly and for youth in society.
He has buttressed his public stance by living a simple lifestyle that includes shunning the papal apartments and posh limousines for communal life in St. Martha’s guesthouse in the Vatican and travel in a Ford Fiat. On Sunday, Francis further showed his willingness to be unconventional and break tradition by throwing open the Catholic Church and baptized 32 babies in the Sistine Chapel.
There, Francis told the mothers to have no qualms about breast-feeding during the service.
He also christened a baby whose parents had not been married in Church, but instead at a civil ceremony.
Equally consistent were the appointments on Sunday of new cardinals from relatively small countries with high levels of poverty including Haiti, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Nicaragua.
He also named a second cardinal for the very Catholic Philippines, which was rocked in November by Typhoon Haiyan that affected millions as one of the most intense tropical storms to ever make landfall anywhere in the world. Of the 19 named on Sunday, 16 are “cardinal electors” who are under 80 and therefore eligible to enter a conclave to elect a new pope.
This allows Francis to shape the Catholic Church in the future, with the appointment of cardinals who will help to choose future popes who presumably will share some of his philosophy. Francis elevated Mario Aurelio Poli, his successor as archbishop in Buenos Aires; Ricardo Ezzati Andrello, archbishop of Santiago, Chile; Orani João Tempesta; the archbishop of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil; and Chibly Langlois, Bishop of Les Cayes in Haiti.
Other new cardinals will be Andrew Yeom Soo jung, archbishop of Seoul, South Korea; Jean-Pierre Kutwa, archbishop of Abidjan, Ivory Coast; and Philippe Nakellentuba Ouédraogo, Archbishop of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso.
At the same time, the pope is also making a concerted effort to reshape the Church in the present, with such measures as an extraordinary meeting on the family called by Francis for October 2014. The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization is the official title selected for the extraordinary general assembly of the synod of bishops to be held in the Vatican — only the third time such an assembly has been called since the synod’s creation in 1965.
In preparation, the Vatican has been surveying its priests around the world for input on controversial issues ranging from same-sex marriage to surrogate motherhood to polygamy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
At Last, The BBC Talks About Immigration
The BBC’s refusal to air the divided views on immigration has ended up encouraging the very racism it was intended to crush
How did you react to Nick Clegg’s admission that the UK has accepted around 1,500 Syrian refugees? Was it: a) This country’s full, send the scroungers back? Or b) Good, but why only 1,500? That seems a very small number given the appalling situation those poor souls are in.
I know my country or, at least, I still believe in the basic decency of its people, and I would bet my new Christmas Dreamland electric blanket that the majority of Britons would say b).
The present anger about immigration is not directed against desperate asylum seekers or even immigrants themselves. As BBC political editor Nick Robinson pointed out in his refreshingly forthright BBC2 programme, The Truth About Immigration, it’s largely the result of uncontrolled mass immigration over the past decade and the failure of the BBC and the political class to permit an open debate about what it was fair or reasonable for this island to absorb.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France is probably the worst affected of all western nations by immigration, since it is on the brink of losing its European identity to the insistent Muslims increasing in numbers within French borders. As they grow in population, they come to believe they can impose the will of Islam on the French people, and when they don’t get their way, they often resort to violence.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italian authorities have rescued over 400 migrants from two boats near Sicily over the weekend, reports Reuters. Two-hundred and thirty-six migrants, including women and children, were rescued on Saturday. Italian navy said they spotted another 200 on Sunday morning. Most are reportedly from Africa.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Lampedusa Shipwreck Survivors Accuse Human Traffickers
Torture, violence after paying thousands for journey from Libya
(ANSAmed) — PALERMO — Seven Eritreans who survived an October 3 shipwreck off the coast of Lampedusa told a preliminary investigative judge Monday of torture, imprisonment and threats suffered. The witnesses said that Mouhamud Elmi Muhidin, a 34-year-old Somali national, was one of the traffickers. The man stands accused of human trafficking, belonging to a criminal association for clandestine migration and sexual violence. “It’s him. I will never forget his face,” said one of the witnesses, pointing at Muhidin. The survivors of the shipwreck that cost the lives of 366 people told of being taken hostage in the desert by armed men in Sebha on the border between Chad and Libya and held prisoner in a house until family members sent 3,000 dollars to pay the hostage-takers. They were tortured during their imprisonment, and all concord that the women were taken outside and raped. After the ransom was paid, the prisoners were allegedly taken to Tripoli in lorries and shut up in another home. Only in exchange for another 1,600 dollars were they put onto motorboats to reach the large boat that subsequently went down. The witnesses corroborated the charges filed by prosecutors Geri Ferrara and Maurizio Scalia, who will continue Thursday with the interrogations of eight Syrian survivors of an October 11 shipwreck off Malta. In the latter trial (the two legal proceedings were initially united and then divided), a 37-year-old Palestinian, Attour Abdalmemen stands accused of belonging to a criminal organization for clandestine migration and of allegedly piloting the shipwrecked boat. The Eritreans questioned on Monday will be transferred to different centers for refugees and asylum seekers in Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Letta Calls for United European Action on Migration
Cooperation needed to settle newcomers, says Italian premier
(ANSA) — Mexico City, January 13 — European Union countries must find a way to better cooperate on immigration issues rather than leaving individual nations to struggle on their own, Premier Enrico Letta said Monday during a State visit to Mexico.
The topic is of particular interest to Italy, where thousands of immigrants — many fleeing war and poverty in North Africa and the Middle East — land on the country’s most southern shores each year.
Most arrive by boat and many die during the perilous crossing, while others are forced to live in desperate conditions in underfunded and inadequate migrant centres.
After a series of rescues and migrant crises in the fall, the European Union promised more help for Italy, often the first point of arrival for many migrants.
During an interview with Mexican television network Televisa, Letta said that Italy has learned from hard experience about the importance of “effective multilateral cooperation in a strong Europe that does not leave any country alone and on its own”.
Letta also referred to strong words from Pope Francis when he visited the migrant centre on Italy’s tiny island of Lampedusa in July and denounced “the globalisation of indifference” towards migrants who die trying to reach Italy.
In October alone, an estimated 400 refugees died off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa in two boat disasters.
Letta said that “the strong words of the Pope should prompt us to ensure that this issue will be addressed at the multilateral level”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Nigel Farage Calls on Government to Let Syrian Refugees into UK
Ukip leader says responsibility to help refugees is separate from concerns over economic migration from EU countries
Nigel Farage is calling on the government to start admitting refugees fleeing the fighting in Syria into Britain. The Ukip leader, who has been at the forefront of the opposition to allowing migrants from Bulgaria and Romania unfettered access to the UK, said the position of those displaced by conflict was very different.
“I think refugees are a very different thing to economic migration and I think that this country should honour the spirit of the 1951 declaration on refugee status that was agreed,” he told BBC News.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swiss Oppose Anti-EU Migrant Quotas
Poll figures released by Swiss public broadcaster SRG on Friday says 55 percent of those surveyed would reject a plan to reimpose immigration quotas for European Union citizens, reports AFP. Thirty-seven percent are in favour. The Swiss will vote on the measure in a referendum on 9 February.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Abolishing Representative Government Through Education: Common Core, Choice, And Charter Schools
Transforming America One City at a Time
Is this country at a tipping point? How do you transform our Republic? There are four main issues I will discuss in this article:
- Governance — removing locally elected school officials;
- Funding — ushering in federal choice and vouchers under the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) which will change our system of taxing and financing schools to one where the funding will follow the child (this is also a means to control private schools and expand charter schools);
- Charter schools — replacing your local neighborhood school with a zealous for-profit agenda so that there will no longer be parent or voter input, or elected school boards, specifically with an aim to kill public education.
- Common Core Standards — ushering in a system of individualized, psychotherapeutic learning; the standardization of teaching, testing, and technology in all 50 states; nationalizing education ; and changing traditional education based on academics to a workforce training model.
[Comment: A MUST READ article.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Can a Blind Person be a Racist?
In this adapted excerpt from a new book, a legal scholar and social critic documents that racist attitudes are not rooted in the ability to actually “see” the color of someone’s skin
By Osagie Obasogie
Do blind people understand race? Given the vast and sprawling writings on race over the past several decades, it is surprising that scholars have not explored this question in any real depth. Race has played a profound and central role to human relationships. Yet how is it possible that this basic question has escaped deeper contemplation?
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New Patriotic Movie Blasts the Media
As incredible as it sounds, Hollywood has produced a patriotic movie for a change. “Lone Survivor,” the new war movie starring Mark Wahlberg, is so powerful in its depiction of the brutality of al Qaeda and its Taliban backers that it could awaken the American people to the reality of President Obama’s deliberate retreat in the face of this global danger.
“‘Lone Survivor’ leaves box office shocked and awed,” is how USA Today described its debut. It depicts the grueling training of U.S. Navy SEALs and the sacrifices that American soldiers are making to keep Afghanistan free of Taliban and al-Qaeda control.
While celebrating American heroism and sacrifice, the film also leaves the distinct impression that rules of engagement in battles with the enemy, encouraged by a “liberal media” that puts the human rights of terrorists above the lives of our troops, threatens ultimate victory in this global struggle.
The story of Marcus Luttrell, a retired Navy SEAL who received a Purple Heart and Navy Cross for his actions against Taliban fighters, is also part of a Patriot Tour coming to various U.S. cities this year. The purpose is to demonstrate appreciation for the U.S. military and to expose the brutality of the terrorists who cut off heads and massacre their own people. This, too, is shown in the film.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In this excerpt from his new book, Our Mathematical Universe, M.I.T. professor Max Tegmark explores the possibility that math does not just describe the universe, but makes the universe.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Private Cargo Ship Delivers Gifts, Ants to Space Station Crew
A privately launched cargo ship packed with late Christmas presents and space-traveling ants linked up with the International Space Station on Sunday (Jan. 12) in a milestone delivery mission for the astronauts onboard.
Space station astronauts used a robotic arm to capture the unmanned Cygnus spacecraft early Sunday morning and attach it an open docking port as both spacecraft sailed 260 miles (418 kilometers) above Earth. The special delivery comes courtesy of the Dulles, Va.-company Orbital Sciences Corporation, which launched the Cygnus spacecraft on Thursday (Jan. 9) to make its first commercial resupply mission to the station for NASA.
The Cygnus spacecraft is carrying 2,780 lbs. (1,260 kilograms) of gear for the space station crew, including fresh fruit and Christmas gifts. It is also delivering eight ant farms to the station for weightlessness research, 23 student experiments and small cubesat satellites among the science gear.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Top 10 Nations Persecuting Christians Exposed by Human Rights Group
This week, one of the world’s most active human rights groups released their annual report on religious persecution throughout the world. The report lists the top nations in 2013 in which Christians are murdered, maimed, imprisoned or forced into exile.
In the last 12-years the brutal regime in North Korea has been — and continues to be — world’s most restrictive nation in which to practice Christianity, according to the Open Doors 2014 World Watch List (WWL).
But the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is witnessing intense competition from other nations located in the Middle East and Africa in persecuting followers of Jesus Christ, most of them so-called Muslim countries.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why the Risk of World War is Rising
Top economic advisers are forecasting war and unrest.
They give the following reasons for their forecast:
- Countries start wars to distract their populations from lousy economies
- Currency and trade wars end up turning into shooting wars
- The U.S. is still seeking to secure oil supplies, and the U.S. doesn’t like any country to leave the dollar standard
Additionally, the American policy of using the military to contain China’s growing economic influence — and of considering economic rivalry to be a basis for war — is creating a tinderbox.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“Imam Asim Hafiz, an Islamic adviser to the Ministry of Defence, says Islam encourages the defence of life and country. Muslims in the British military have been criticised by hardliners within the community, who have viewed their involvement in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq as a betrayal of their faith.”
Muslims are 5% of the UK population. Muslims are 0.4% of the UK armed services (that may even include non-military roles within the armed services).
Muslims are 21% of those in young offender prisons.
The Queen is, according to geneological records, a blood relative of Mohammed. So this sort of disloyalty to the Crown is perplexing.
Glass half full or half empty, the MOD imam on th BBC article:
As part of the deployment he has met Afghan religious leaders to discuss the role of Islam in bringing peace to the country.
“They did understand some individuals may manipulate the faith to encourage people to take up arms and fight but overwhelmingly were keen to promote that Islam is not at war with the world,” he says.
Some individuals? Errr.. It seems to me more than some in Afghanistan and a more than some individuals also back in the UK too, all of whom are free under Cameron’s leadership, to say this openly.
The “some individuals” are too powerful to be called isolated, and their objectives are too destructive to be called unimportant.
These “individuals” are the enemy.
They and what they represent must be destroyed.
Pope Francis Continues to Put Stamp on Church
Pontiff chooses new cardinals from beyond Europe. Is that news? The fact that most practicing Catholics aren’t from Europe, shows that the pope is aware of this. Your average devout catholic is from Africa and Latin America, so that makes sense.
The color part of race is just the color code that warns you about the character within. In my more cynical moments I wonder if LEO’s and Legislators simply want an easier time identifying the feral.
When you have to arrest your own phenotype sentiment about class always butts in. Empathy also tends to make the copper go softer.
Looking at national crime stats and breakdown by ethnicity it’s easy to see who one needs to be wary of. In Europe it’s Muslims and in the U.S. it’s Blacks followed by Hispanics.
Of course Lefties will scream racist and use of “hate facts” when these little tid bits are brought up in a discussion.
I do find it amusing when various ethnic groups prey on another such as the Hispanics in Southern California who have been ethnically cleansing Blacks from their neighborhoods by hiring gangs to beat and kill them into leaving, that the words “racist” and “xenophobic” are never used. It’s only applied against whites who oppose the PC/MC agendas promoted by the Left.
As to the article “can a blind person be a racist”, it was atrocious gibberish, I gave up after he compared Mozart to that grade school rapper Jay-Z. That pretty much told me where this guy was coming from and where he was going.
The bizarre part of this is that a good proportion of the British Army in India was Muslim. There is probably considerable institutional memory of commanding Sepoys of the Mohammedian persuasion.
It doesn’t surprise me.
Winston Churchill conceded that Muslims, as individuals, can be quite admirable in duty and loyalty.
It was their “social development” that Islam tragically undermined.
In my own opinion, Islam is not just a “retrograde” force, it is a destructive ideology that is far too charming to too many people who are ignorant of history.