Two-thirds of the 80,000 books and manuscripts at an historic Greek Orthodox library in Lebanon were destroyed when unknown arsonists set fire to the building. The tragic attack occurred after the spread of a rumor that the owner of the library had insulted Islam in an article published on the Internet.
In other news, Marseille, with a Muslim population of about 40%, is now listed as the most dangerous city in Europe.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, JD, JP, Mr. T, Nilk, Steen, 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.
Bitcoin: A New Currency, Or a New Scam?
Supporters of Bitcoin think of it as a non-government (or post-government) currency — but it is not. Government can shut it down anytime it wants. And that was the first answer I gave to the caller who asked the question. A “virtual currency” (like Bitcoin) is invisible. It depends on billions of computers which are linked together. You cannot dilute Bitcoin, you cannot counterfeit it… and those two things make it highly desirable to many people who have lost their confidence in the current central bank-controlled world of money. The dollar is being counterfeited all over the world. The point is, the people have largely lost their trust in government. Like most not terribly bright people, they simply do not recognize the point at which they are going to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs and think that Gordon Gekko’s statement that “Greed is good” is accurate — into infinity. Greed is not good — and fairly earned profits are not bad.
Does Bitcoin bypass central banks and currencies, as its supporters suggest it does? Let me answer that question with a question: How do you obtain Bitcoin? Does someone pay you for it in return for your labor? No… you are paid in the nationally-recognized currency of your nation in return for your labor. People who manage risk to earn profits are also paid in the currency of the realm, so to speak. The only way you can get Bitcoin is to use dollars or yen or francs, etc., to purchase it. Thus, it does not by-pass central banks or currencies. It is dependent upon them for its very existence.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
British Housing Plan Pushes the Bubble Towards Pop!
The Conservative Government’s help-to-buy scheme may be well intentioned, but it runs the risk of fuelling a housing bubble as property values rise and banks lend more aggressively because of lower risk. This threatens to produce a repeat of the economic catastrophe seen in 2008.
Prime Minister David Cameron’s programme unveiled for the fourth quarter of 2013 allows homeowners to purchase with just five percent down instead of the customary twenty, with the government guaranteeing the remaining fifteen percent to the lender.
The average purchase price of people using the plan is £160,000 supported by incomes that average £45,000. Using these numbers, a purchaser or couple would previously have needed £32,000 (20%) down with a loan of £128,000, just under three times their income.
The new plan allows for a down payment of just £8,000 with a £152,000 loan, almost 31/2 times annual income. If the purchaser defaults, the government directly pays the lender £24,000 or 15% of the property value.
As with anytime the government messes with private enterprise the plan has unintended consequences! The annoying thing is that these consequences are completely predictable and yet the government goes full steam ahead, perhaps to make a good impression before the next election in sixteen months time from now.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Colo. Democrats Blamed for $80m Hit to Economy by Pushing Out Gun Firm Magpul
DENVER — Democrats came under heavy criticism Friday for driving Magpul Industries out of Colorado by pushing an aggressive gun-control agenda, a move that could cost the state more than $80 million annually.
Republican state Rep. Lori Saine said she was “saddened to see this completely partisan law, widely considered unenforceable by sheriffs across Colorado, cause Magpul to leave our state.”
“The magazine ban did not garner one Republican vote in the House or Senate, and now as a result of this one-sided, Democrat-sponsored law, more than 200 people will lose their jobs and their ability to provide for their families,” said Ms. Saine in a statement. “[T]his move will cost the state of Colorado over $80 million a year in revenue.”
Officials at Magpul, which makes polymer firearms accessories, announced Thursday that the company will move its corporate headquarters to Texas and its manufacturing facility to Wyoming. Both are now based in Erie, Colo.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Journalist Glenn Greenwald joined Eric Bolling onHannity Friday night to talk about the continuing debate over the NSA and Edward Snowden, especially the question of whether Snowden is a patriot or a traitor.
Bolling and Greenwald took note of how this debate does not fall neatly along political lines, and Greenwald said “the breakdown is do you have primary allegiance to the government… or is your allegiance to the Constitution?”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Proposes Executive Orders for Backdoor Gun Confiscation
Obama moves to restrict gun rights through medical tyranny
The Obama Administration announced two new executive orders on gun control Friday, after countless other attempts to erode Second Amendment rights failed to gain public support.
According to one of the proposed actions, patient privacy laws would be pushed aside to allow increased government access to mental health records. Currently required to protect that information, states would now be exempt, instead encouraged to submit a patient’s private records into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).
A second proposal from the Department of Justice would “clarify” who is barred from owning firearms, which would include anyone involuntarily committed to an inpatient or outpatient mental institution. In an attempt to diminish concern, the administration claims that seeking help for mental issues does not prohibit a person from firearm ownership.
“The proposed rule will not change the fact that seeking help for mental health problems or getting treatment does not make someone legally prohibited from having a firearm,” the statement said.
Unfortunately, even without the executive orders currently applied, the government has already deceptively used this exact tactic to revoke legitimate gun ownership without due process, an issue that will undoubtedly increase.
[…]
The targeting of veterans specifically is quite clear. A collaborative study from 2007 between the VA Medical Center and the Archives of Internal Medicine claimed that at least 1/3rd of returning veterans were mentally ill.
With almost every human emotion now being labeled a mental illness by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the attack on gun rights through the medical system will only worsen.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Senator Paul Wants Light Punishment of Snowden for NSA Leaks
(Reuters) — The public debate over the fate of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden intensified on Sunday with conservative Senator Rand Paul calling for a light prison term as punishment for Snowden’s disclosure of information on government surveillance programs.
Paul, a Republican, said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” that Snowden does not deserve the death penalty or life in prison for the leaks, which have rattled the U.S. intelligence community, not to mention an American public that had been unaware of the extent of NSA data collection.
Instead, Paul spoke favorably of “some penalty of a few years in prison” if Snowden were to return to the United States from Russia, where he currently is living, to face trial.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
United States Braces for Record Low Temperatures
Forecasters are predicting that many parts of the United States could experience their lowest temperatures in two decades. Authorities have urged peope to stay inside and stock up on food.
Following heavy snowfall on Thursday, forecasters say the US Midwest is likely to face some of the coldest weather it has seen in twenty years from Sunday. Weather analysts said the northern US plains, including North and South Dakota, the Great Lakes region and Ohio Valley, can expect an Arctic outbreak that has not been experienced in the region since 1994.
Chicago may face temperatures of around minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 degrees Celsius) on Monday, and that wind chill could make the air feel as cold as minus 50 to minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit (-45 to -51 degrees Celsius) in sections of north-central states.
In the state of Minnesota, schools will remain closed on Monday. Governor Mark Dayton said the closure was “to protect all our children from the dangerously cold temperatures.” It is the first time in 17 years that all schools will be closed in the state because of bad weather conditions.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
I don’t write much about the United Nations because it is everything that it is not supposed to be. It’s supposed to be devoted to human rights and other noble and global aspirations. Instead it is a cesspool in which the worst of its member nations are sponsors of terror and other sins against mankind.
An article on Fox News reminded me of just how horrible, for the most part, the United Nations is despite its occasional usefulness. Anne Bayefsky writes extensively on the subject of human rights. She is a professor at York University, Toronto, Canada, and an adjunct professor at Touro College in New York. She has been honored for her work and I rank her as one of the most impressive and important women on the international scene today. Her article took a look back at 2013 and what to expect in 2014.
Lacking any leadership from the United States, a role it has played in international affairs since the end of World War Two, the world is spiraling toward the prospect of a Middle East cataclysm between its secular, moderate population and the insanity of Islamic fascism. As Bayefsky noted, “The U.N. Security Council adopted four legally-binding sanction resolutions on Iran in 2006. American diplomacy managed to extract even Russian and Chinese support for international laws that state ‘Iran shall without further delay…suspend all enrichment related activities.’“
“And yet in 2013 President Obama decided to destroy that hard-won consensus, trash those legal obligations, and authorize Iran to continue enrichment activities.” The U.S. agreement was joined by six world powers, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, five of whom, other than Germany, are permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Have they concluded that Iran cannot be stopped? Or should be allowed to join the nuclear club?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Britain’s Version of Tea Party Rocks Political System Across the Pond
The often stale British political system is being rocked by its very own Tea Party.
The UK Independence Party (UKIP), formed in 1993 opposing Britain’s entry into the European Union, failed to make an electoral dent for a long time. However UKIP has built up steam in recent years and is spearheading a seismic shift in the British political spectrum…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
French City With 40% Muslim Population is the Most Dangerous City in Europe
By Daniel Greenfield
The French city of Marseille has an estimated 30 to 40 percent Muslim population and has been ranked as the most dangerous city in Europe…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Navy Scrambles Destroyer to Challenge Russian Warship Off British Coast
But it takes 24 hours to make 600-mile journey from Portsmouth base — was Putin testing our response time?
In a calculated test of Britain’ s reduced naval capacity in the North Sea, the Russian warship came within 30 miles of the coast.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
This stunning Lake District view is set to be blighted by new ‘super-pylons’ soon to scar 300 miles of countryside (all to hook up green energy)
An ugly army of 400,000-volt pylons is set to march across some of Britain’s most beautiful landscapes. They are necessary to plug energy from wind turbines, new nuclear power stations and even the Continent into the National Grid.
Lines in Somerset, the Essex-Suffolk border and Mid Wales are ready to be put forward for planning consent, while one in Kent is not far behind. Lines in North Wales and on the North-West coast are still to have their exact routes settled. The most advanced is the Scottish line already under construction. The least, needed for the 2020s, is to bring wind energy ashore from turbines off the East Anglian coast.
But the giant pylons — some behemoths up to 213ft tall — will trap homeowners in blighted or unsellable homes, damage tourism-based businesses and spoil historic views. Areas under threat include the Highlands of Scotland, the southern gateway to the Lake District, the Somerset Levels, and the East Anglian countryside which inspired old masters Constable and Gainsborough. This new front in the battle to keep Britain at full power could have political repercussions in the run up to the 2015 General Election.
Local communities, led by a cross-party band of MPs including Tory Dr Liam Fox and Lib Dem Tessa Munt, accuse the Coalition of treating them as collateral damage in the race for renewables and a low-carbon future.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Basic Principle of Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood Speech Was Right, Says Nigel Farage
Ukip leader was asked if he agreed ‘indigenous population’ were strangers in their own country, before being told it was part of Powell’s speech
Mr Farage said it was true ‘in a lot of England’ — before being told on Sky News that it was part of the 1968 warning of racial violence
Nigel Farage yesterday said ‘the basic principle’ behind parts of Enoch Powell’s notorious Rivers of Blood speech was right. The Ukip leader was asked if he agreed with a statement about how the ‘indigenous population found themselves strangers in their own country’.
He said it was true — but appeared thrown when he was told the statement was made by the controversial Tory minister of the 1960s.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: More About the Wall at St James’s
by Esmerelda Weatherwax
A few days ago I blogged from Richard Millet about the Christmas stunt hosted by the church of St James’ Piccadilly called ‘Bethlehem Unwrapped’. The church has spent £30,000 building a full size replica of a wall, part of the security measures taken by the Israeli authorities at its borders, to protect all Israelis, be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim Bahai or of no faith from the depredations of suicide bombers…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Nigel Farage: ‘The Basic Principle’ Of Enoch Powell’s River of Blood Speech is Right
The Ukip leader says that some passages from the 1968 River of Blood speech describing the problems of immigration are now true for much of England
Nigel Farage has said that the “basic principle” of Enoch Powell’s River of Blood speech is “right.” The Ukip leader said that while he agreed with parts of Mr Powell’s infamous speech on how large scale immigration can change an area “beyond recognition” the 1968 speech was based on “different reasons” than the current immigration concerns.
Appearing on Sky’s Murnaghan show the Ukip leader was read excerpts from the speech without being told the origin of the comments and nodded along. When it was revealed the words had been from Powell Mr Farage said: “Well what he was warning about was the large influx of people into an area, that change an area beyond recognition, there is tension — the basic principle is right.”
In the speech Mr Powell said that the “indigenous” population of Britain in the 1960s had found their “homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition.” A situation that Mr Farage said was now true for much of England. Mr Farage added: “For different reasons, and on a completely different scale. When immigration was being discussed in the sixties, seventies and eighties we were talking about an annual net inflow to the country of between 30 and 50,000 people a year. What we have had in the last thirteen years is net 4 million extra migrants coming to Britain.”
In December Vince Cable compared David Cameron’s rhetoric on immigration to Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech and said the Prime Minister had made British voters “schizophrenic” about the issue. The Liberal Democrat Cabinet minister suggested that Conservative rhetoric over immigration was similar to anti-Semitic “panics over Jewish immigrants” in the early 20th century.
Mr Farage also claimed that there is currently “massive oversupply” of unskilled labour from across the EU in the UK which is handing big corporations “big profits” and pushing the wages of British people down. The Ukip leader said any would-be migrant to the UK should now be forced to prove that they will earn at least £27,500 — more than the average UK salary — to make sure they will “be net contributors to the UK economy.”
Mr Farage said that his party was not “scapegoating” Romanians and Bulgarians who may want to come to the UK to work but that open borders had “transformed the labour market” in Britain. He said: “There is no question that it’s pushed wage inflation down; it’s helped big companies and big corporations and big landowners to make bigger profits — no argument about that.” Mr Farage, who warned last year of a “Romanian crime wave”, said the Government should ensure those coming to Britain did not have criminal records and would “bring a benefit” to the UK.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Lunatics Take Over the Asylum in ‘Caring’ Britain
A mother, who is considerably saner than the system that has imprisoned her, fights to be reunited with her sons
Last week, I investigated a story as shocking in its own way as that which I broke last month about the Italian woman detained in a psychiatric hospital who, on the orders of a secret court, was then forced to undergo a caesarean section so that her baby could be sent by social workers for adoption.
One of the most terrifying weapons our “child protection” system uses against parents wishing to hold on to children who have been forcibly removed is to have them helplessly imprisoned in an asylum, certified under the Mental Health Act, where they can no longer give social workers and other “professionals” any more trouble…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, provoked anger after expressing agreement with the “basic principle” of some of the sentiments in Enoch Powell’s notorious “rivers of blood” speech. Without being told who had delivered the comments, Mr Farage was read a section in which Powell claimed indigenous Britons risked becoming “strangers in their own country” with “neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition”. Mr Farage responded: “In a lot of England, that’s true”.
He refused to back down when he was told the remarks were made in Powell’s 1968 speech. “What he was warning about is that if you have a large influx of people into an area that changes an area beyond recognition, there is tension. That basic principle is right,” the Ukip leader told Sky News…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Brotherhood Supporters Clash With Security Forces at Azhar
A group of students, who support the Muslim Brotherhood, clashed with security forces on Saturday at Al-Azhar University where the protesters hurled fireworks and rocks at the forces, the state news agency said. Security forces responded with teargas to disperse the student protesters who had gathered by the gate. Security sources said that the pro-Brotherhood protesters are trying to prevent exams from taking place.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
by Patrick Cockburn
Soon after the Libyan capital fell to the rebels in August 2011 I got to know a 32-year-old man called Ahmed Abdullah al-Ghadamsi. We met when he tried to evict me from my hotel room, which he said was needed for members of the National Transitional Council, in effect the provisional government of Libya. I wasn’t happy about being moved because the hotel, the Radisson Blu on Tripoli’s seafront, was full of journalists and there was nowhere else to stay. But Ahmed promised to find me another room, and he was as good as his word…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Former PM Ariel Sharon Faces ‘Imminent Death’
(AGI) Tel Aviv, Jan 5 — Israel’s former premier Ariel Sharon, is in danger of ‘imminent death’, sources at Tel Hashomer hospital said. In a vegetative state since Jan. 4, 2006, Ariel Sharon’s condition has taken a drastic turn for the worse in the past few days.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Top Hamas Figure Denies Communication With Egypt
Hamas Senior official Mahmoud al-Zahar denied efforts had been made to reestablish contact with Egyptian officials to supply Gaza with Qatari fuel through Egyptian ports. The fuel is currently being supplied through Israeli ports, he said, adding that small amounts of the Qatari fuel that had been in languishing in the Suez port have finally arrived.
Zahar told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper on Sunday that Hamas is ready to apply the reconciliation agreement and all its articles, “provided that they are applied completely not selectively like Fatah and authority in Ramallah want.”
“They (Fatah) seek holding partial elections in the West Bank and Gaza without the rest, while the reconciliation agreement states holding total elections,” he added. Zahar raised skepticism on Fatah’s intentions and accused it of seeking election rigging. “They want to rigid elections in the West Bank to get Hamas out of the political scene.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Historic Greek Orthodox Library in Tripoli, Lebanon Torched
TRIPOLI, Lebanon: Lebanese officials and religious figures mobilized Saturday to prevent a renewal of tensions in the northern city of Tripoli after unknown assailants torched a historic library owned by a Greek Orthodox priest.
Civil Defense teams struggled to put out the flames which engulfed the bookstore owned by Father Ibrahim Srouj in the old Serail neighborhood in the city, turning one of Lebanon’s most renowned libraries into rubble.
Unknown assailants torched Al-Saeh library, destroying “two thirds of some 80,000 books and manuscripts housed there,” AFP reported.
The attack came after rumors circulated in the city, Lebanon’s second largest, that Srouj wrote an article published on the internet insulting Islam and the Prophet Mohammad…
| — Hat tip: Mr. T | [Return to headlines] |
Jihadists Kill 24 Rival Rebels in Syria
(AGI) Beirut, Jan 5 — Jihadists belonging to the group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have killed 24 rival rebels in northern Syria, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. At least 10 rebels died near Tal Rifaat, a village in the province of Aleppo, after the car they were travelling in was attacked by the Al Qaeda-linked group on Saturday. Meanwhile, another five members of the rebel Islamic Front were killed by a car bomb as the battle against armed opposition to the Assad regime intensified.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Rumor-Offended Bibliocaustic Defenders of Islam Burn Down Library in Tripoli
Whipped up by a rumor that a Greek Orthodox priest had said something un-nice about Muhammad — he hadn’t — some decided to punish Father Sreij by burning down the library he carefully tended. Think of all the damage — the churches and synagoguges and Hindu and Buddhist temples,the Byzantine frescoes (how many Anatolian Ravennas were destroyed?), the paintings, the libraries, the Stelae, the statutes of Buddha small and big — done by Muslims over the centuries, wherever Islam went, and came to dominate?
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pope to Visit Middle East in May, Meet Orthodox Head
(Reuters) — Pope Francis is to visit biblical sites in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories in May, his first trip to the Christian Holy Land as pontiff and only the fourth by a pope since biblical times.
The May 24-26 trip to Amman, Jerusalem and Bethlehem will mark the 50th anniversary of a historic trip to the region by Pope Paul VI. Pope John Paul II visited in 2000 and Benedict XVI went in 2009.
Apart from its significance for Roman Catholic relations with Jews and Muslims, Francis’ trip will hold major importance for relations among Christians because it will include a meeting in Jerusalem with the spiritual head of the world’s Orthodox Christians, as well as Anglican and Protestant leaders.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Progress in Peace Talks Despite Difficulties: Kerry
RAMALLAH, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday that despite difficulties Israelis and Palestinians are facing, some progress were made in their peace talks. Kerry told reporters during a news conference in Ramallah following his second meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in less than 24 hours.
“We are working with a serious purpose and a commitment to trying to resolve this conflict that has been going on for many years… We are not there yet, but we are making progress,” he said. Kerry also said that he will go to Jordan on Sunday and then pay a previously unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia.
During the press conference, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat denied that the United States has presented to the Palestinians any official written document of a framework agreement, adding “all what is presented is ideas that still under discussions between the two sides.”
“Nothing has been presented to us, we are still in the status of exchanging views and ideas,” Erekat told reporters, adding “ Kerry will return back to the region within the coming days to continue our discussions.”
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
by Veli Sirin
The unraveling of relations between Erdogan and Gülen has begun to overshadow the details of the corruption scandal that brought it about.
As the crisis of Turkey’s government and the country’s competing Islamists is deepening, the attitude of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the ruling Justice and Development Party, known as AKP, is hardening — as are the positions of his opponents.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Chechen Terrorist Challenges Russia Ahead of Olympics
Chechen rebel leader and Russia’s most wanted terrorist, Doku Umarov, has ordered his followers to sabotage the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi with whatever it takes, including attacks on civilian targets.
The Winter Olympics in Sochi kick off on February 7, but concerns over terror attacks are already very real.. Fears have grown since two recent attacks in the Russian city of Volgograd which left 34 people dead, especially after Russia’s public enemy number 1, Doku Umarov, said he was prepared to use “maximum force” to prevent President Vladimir Putin from holding the event. In a July 2013 video message, Umarov had already called on his followers to use “any methods allowed by the almighty Allah” to sabotage the games.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Terror Chief Dubbed Russia’s Osama Bin Laden ‘Will Target Britons at Olympics’
The document, drawn up by Canadian counter terrorism agencies and shared with British intelligence, says Doku Umarov poses the greatest terror threat for the Games at Sochi in southern Russia.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladesh: Trucker Dies of Bomb Injuries
DHAKA, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) — A Bangladesh trucker early Sunday died of injuries sustained after a bomb thrown on his vehicle blasted in Gazipur on the outskirts of capital Dhaka on Saturday, the first day of the opposition party’s countrywide general strike to foil parliament elections, police said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Security forces in Delhi have been placed on high alert after receiving warnings of a possible terrorist attack on the metro system.
Security has been doubled across crowded areas of the underground rail network with passengers being frisked on entry and their baggage searched.
The Islamic Terrorist group Indian Mujahideen is understood to have threatened a Mumbai-style attack some time during the first 10 days of 2014.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Helicopter Shot at in Afghanistan, No Casualties
(AGI) Rome, Jan 5 — An Italian ‘Fenice’ Task Force CH47 Chinook helicopter was shot at while landing 30 kilometres south of Shindad, during a back-up operation for the Afghan security forces. The helicopter returned fire before taking off for the nearby air base in Shindad. The helicopter, which was carrying Afghan soldiers to an inaccessible location, was slightly damaged but no Italian soldiers were hurt.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: A Movement in Motion
IF MAULANA MAUDOODI, one of two or three people who gave birth to modern political Islam, were to travel through the Muslim world now, he would find some mildly pleasant and very unpleasant surprises. Some 35 years after his death, the political movement he founded, Jamaat-i-Islami, remains an influential force in Pakistan, especially in the area bordering Afghanistan. In Bangladesh, meanwhile, the movement’s leaders look likely to be executed (one has been already) on war-crimes charges relating to the country’s independence struggle in 1971, which they opposed…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
China: 14 Killed in Mosque Stampede
Stampede took place while food was being handed out during event to commemorate religious leader
Fourteen people have been killed and 10 injured in a stampede during a gathering at a mosque in northwest China’s Ningxia region, state media reported Monday. The stampede occurred around 1:00 pm on Sunday while traditional food was being handed out to people attending an event to commemorate a late religious leader, Xinhua news agency said, citing the local government.
Ningxia region is home to the Chinese-speaking Hui minority, who are mostly Muslim but distinct from the Uighurs of Xinjiang.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Worker Aghast at Shoddy Work on Fukushima Radioactive Water Storage Tanks
Yoshitatsu Uechi recalls with disgust the disregard for worker safety, the makeshift plans and the cost-cutting measures, including the use of adhesive tape on key equipment, at his job last year.
He said an emphasis on saving time and expenses was clear when he helped to build storage tanks for radioactive water accumulating at the site of Japan’s worst-ever nuclear accident. “I couldn’t believe that such slipshod work was being done, even if it was part of stopgap measures,” Uechi told The Asahi Shimbun.
He was one of 17 workers from Okinawa Prefecture who were sent to the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant on June 28, 2012. The 48-year-old from Uruma said he worked on foundations and storage tank assembly between July 2 and Dec. 6, 2012.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Ship of Global Warming Folly
The global warming scientists, journalists, and concerned individuals, stuck aboard a ship in 15 ft. thick ice, have set out to prove that “the East Antarctic ice sheet is melting.” The University of New South Wales website describes in alarming tones “an increasing body of evidence” that proves “melting and collapse from ocean warming.”
The irony of the mission which had to be rescued by the icebreaker Aurora Australis, plucking scientists from the stuck Russian MV Akademik Schokalskiy, is that helicopters and other fossil fuel-driven, carbon-emitting machines and ships were used; there is no green energy, wind or solar vessel yet that could perform such a rescue job — the scientists would have been stuck until the ice melted. A second ship, the Chinese icebreaker Snow Dragon, sent in to help, called off the mission about 6.7 nautical miles from the Russian ship.
According to Fox News, when the ship was trapped, it was 2 miles from open water. The rapidly expanding ice placed it 13 miles from open water. It was so bitter cold, the extreme low temperatures coupled with the chill factor, were unforgiving to unprotected human skin.
Does the overwhelming evidence that temperatures around the globe have been cooler in the last 17 years and polar ice caps have increased in size in 2013 by 65 percent deter the global warming scientists and their alarmist Gaia worshippers from imposing their insane agenda? The answer is a resounding no. Controlling how we live is more important than reality and fact.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Three Police Officers Injured in Middle Park Explosion
A tourist has told of hearing ‘‘screams of agony’’, and neighbours have recalled horrific scenes following a gas explosion that injured five emergency services personnel at a unit in Melbourne’s south on Saturday night.
Police believe the blast was the result of an LPG gas canister exploding, but have yet to determine how the flare-up occurred.
Two junior female constables from St Kilda police station and a senior sergeant from South Melbourne station, aged in his 50s, were injured in the blast, with one woman sustaining horrific burns to her face and upper body.
Two firefighters also sustained minor injures.
The second female officer was also badly burnt, as was the male police officer.
All three have undergone surgery and are expected to remain at The Alfred hospital for the next few days.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Congo-Kinshasa: UN Peacekeepers in Dr Congo on Alert After Killing of Army Commander
United Nations peacekeepers in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo have stepped up patrols in North Kivu province where citizens are protesting the killing of a high-ranking Congolese military official, a spokesperson confirmed today.
Special Representative of the Secretary-General Martin Kobler issued a statement yesterday condemning the assassination of Colonel Mamadou Moustapha Ndala of the Congolese Armed Forces (FARDC)…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Navy Redeploys 20 Admirals, 97 Commodores
The Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Joseph Ezeoba, has approved the appointment of 266 officers, which is coming barely a week after the Nigerian Army redeployed their senior officers. The exercise is in line with the ongoing efforts to restrategise for effective counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency wars in the country…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Sitting With the Opposite Sex is a Sin — Imam Yunus
Imam Talihat Yunus, the Chief Imam, Adiam Memorial Central Mosque, Iporo Ake, Abeokuta has stated that sitting with opposite sex in a gathering is a sin.
According to him, “Sitting with or among the opposite sex is strictly prohibited. When men and women sit together, it results to different happenings in our society like fornication, adultery, sexually transmitted diseases and even unwanted pregnancies…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Somaliland: Top Clerics on Campaign to Re-Instill Islamic Values
HARGEISA (Somalilandsun) — An Islamic education programme initiated by top Hargeisa clerics to highlight and sensitize members of the public on how the Islamic religion can help to overcome many hurdles and societal ills afflicting the nation at the moment is underway.
The meeting which will take place at the famous Ali Mataan mosque situated in central Hargeisa is scheduled for 11 nights in which prominent clerics are going to talk about the unbecoming behavior of late taking root in Somaliland and the role Islam plays at rectifying all misdeeds committed by society…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
South Sudan: Ex-VP Says Juba Will ‘Fall Soon’
Nairobi — The three-week old rebels in South Sudan said they were advancing on the capital, Juba, as fighting between rival politicians intensifies further.
The fighting erupted on 15 December when presidential guard units clashed. The former minister of higher education, Peter Adwok Nyaba, said the violence started when elements from the presidential guards of Dinka ethnic group attempted to re-arm after they were disarmed together with their Nuer colleagues, prompting suspicions and misunderstandings.
Others also speculated that the Dinka elements were planning to arrest former vice president, Riek Machar after disarming their counterparts from the Nuer ethnic group to which Machar belongs. The fighting then pitted the Dinka loyal to President Salva Kiir and the Nuer loyal to Machar and spread further on tribal lines when civilians were first targeted in Juba based on their ethnicity.
The violence also spread to the other parts of the country with the rebels now controlling much of the oil-rich northern parts of the young nation…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nick Robinson: BBC Made a ‘Terrible Mistake’ Over Immigration Debate
The BBC’s political editor admits the corporation didn’t have a proper debate on immigration in the late 1990s and early 2000s
Nick Robinson, the BBC’s political editor, has criticised the corporation for making a “terrible mistake” over its coverage of immigration, admitting it censored concerns amid fear they could trigger racism.
Robinson said BBC figures in charge during the late 1990s and early 2000s believed a “warts-and-all” debate over immigration would “unleash some terrible side of the British public”.
He told The Sunday Times (£): “They feared having a conversation about immigration, they feared the consequence.”
One-sided reports meant viewer’s concerns about immigration lowering wages and threatening jobs were not addressed by the broadcaster.
Robinson, whose new documentary The Truth About Immigration is due to air on Tuesday, said the BBC’s audience felt it had “decided these are not acceptable views. And that was a terrible mistake.”
However, he said he thought the BBC was “not getting it right” on immigration.
It comes months after an official review found the BBC did not accurately reflect the public’s growing concern about immigration because of a “deep liberal bias”.
In July a report, commissioned by the BBC Trust, found the broadcaster had been “slow” to catch up with public opinion on immigration and leaving the European Union.
Stuart Prebble, a former ITV television executive, said the BBC had probably been too swayed by the views of politicians, who were also reluctant to discuss immigration for fear of causing offence.
Robinson’s documentary will include new data showing the scale of concern over immigration among the British public.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Will 2014 be the Year of Amnesty?
House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) seems determined to undo the political advantage the GOP has gained from the disastrous implementation of ObamaCare.
According to the New York Times, Boehner “has signaled he may embrace a series of limited changes to the nation’s immigration laws in the coming months,” bringing up a series of bills to advance that agenda. Apparently Boehner is holding firm to the belief that the need for some kind of “reform” outweighs the risks of alienating his core constituency.
According to the Boehner’s aides, the Speaker is considering a “step by step” process, though they did not identify these steps in specificity. The Times, no doubt in an effort to be “helpful,” suggested that such an agenda might include fast-tracking legalization for agricultural workers, increasing the number of visas for high-tech workers, or embracing citizenship for young illegals whose parents brought them across the border.
Unsurprisingly, gaining control of the border failed to make the list.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Culture of Bullying and Intolerance
We now know without the slightest doubt that the homosexual militants are a pack of bullies who thrive on intimidation, stand-over tactics, and thuggery. And they are clearly one of the most intolerant groups on the planet. They have declared war on every single person on earth who refuses to bow down before their agenda.
They have perfected the art of bullying, belligerency and brow-beating, and all opposition will face the wrath of the pink mafia. The examples of these are of course legion, with the most recent battle fought over a few guys who make duck calls for a living and happen to be forthright about their Christian faith.
For having the audacity to actually proclaim in public what the Bible says about the issue of homosexuality, all hell has broken loose, with the A&E network suspending Phil Robertson from his own show a few weeks ago. A storm of protest rightly erupted over this nasty bit of intolerance, and the network was forced to back down.
It all serves as yet another clear illustration of the culture of intolerance and bullying which has sprung up all over the West, primarily at the hands of the militant homosexual lobby. They think they own the world, and can push their agenda with impunity, and smash all dissent along the way.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mark Steyn: The Age of Intolerance
The forces of “tolerance” are intolerant of anything less than full-blown celebratory approval.
Last week, following the public apology of an English comedian and the arrest of a fellow British subject both for making somewhat feeble Mandela gags, I noted that supposedly free societies were increasingly perilous places for those who make an infelicitous remark. So let’s pick up where we left off:
Here are two jokes one can no longer tell on American television. But you can still find them in the archives, out on the edge of town, in Sub-Basement Level 12 of the ever-expanding Smithsonian Mausoleum of the Unsayable. First, Bob Hope, touring the world in the year or so after the passage of the 1975 Consenting Adult Sex Bill:
“I’ve just flown in from California, where they’ve made homosexuality legal. I thought I’d get out before they make it compulsory.”
For Hope, this was an oddly profound gag, discerning even at the dawn of the Age of Tolerance that there was something inherently coercive about the enterprise. Soon it would be insufficient merely to be “tolerant” — warily accepting, blithely indifferent, mildly amused, tepidly supportive, according to taste. The forces of “tolerance” would become intolerant of anything less than full-blown celebratory approval.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mr. Church: That is the Sound of the Barbarians at the Gates
Yesterday I was directed to a Tweet picture that spoke volumes. Here it is:
Pictures can say more than a thousand words, to be sure. And this picture speaks volumes. But I would like to respond to Mr. Church’s interpretation, which I would call the “interpretation of inevitability.”
First, the issue of the abuse of language, the constant ploy of those seeking to degrade the moral and ethical foundation of a culture. The term “homophobe” is one of the most absurd, vacuous, mind-numbing terms ever introduced into the English language. It has no meaningful function, since its actual meaning, and its usage, are rarely concurrent. I do not know any homophobes, personally, since that term would refer to someone who has an irrational fear of their own kind. But that is not how Mr. Church is using it. It is a convenient, if untruthful, term used to slander those who believe homosexuality, as an act and as a lifestyle, is immoral and destructive to human flourishing. Hence it is a convenient way of demonizing an entire position without even offering a meaningful moral or ethical argument. The regularity of its use is witness to the bankruptcy of the position espoused by Mr. Church.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Orlando CCSSO Common Core Secret Meeting
Many anti-Common Core parents, teachers and others were very disturbed about this “in your face” SECRET meeting to discuss our children’s futures. What I am writing here is telling you this meeting happened in Orlando but it affects everyone who has been forced into this education indoctrination across the country.
The Council of Chief State School Officers felt the need to meet behind closed doors to discuss Common Core non- State Led Standards and ways the states can provide assistance for an education system that “supports principal leadership” throughout the country.
The introductory paragraph on the meetings page made the following statement: ‘CCSSO meetings are closed to the public and attendance is by invitation only unless otherwise denoted’.
WOW! What is it they have planned for our children that even the parents aren’t to be aware of?
[…]
Common Core, International Baccalaureate, United Nations schools and all the other out-come based education schools in this country are not about leading our children into the 21st Century. It’s about money for the supporters and creating mindless idiots to follow them without question to take us all quietly into the NWO.
[Comment: Commie Core = building up the next generation to be a bunch of easily manipulated drones of the state.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Revolution of the Family: The Marxist Roots of ‘Homosexualism’
I have been asked recently “what is homosexualism?” I started using the term in my writing on these issues a few years ago when it became clear that we were dealing not with a group of people, but with a particular ideology that is often held by people who are not themselves homosexuals.
A few days ago in The Guardian, Peter Tatchell wrote a pretty good description not only of that ideology’s goals but its origins. This political ideology, often called “queer theory” by its proponents in academia, is what is being pushed, quite openly these days, by the “gay rights” movement. Despite what we are told all day by their collaborators in the mainstream media, from the six o’clock news to your favourite sit-com, this movement is not about “equal rights”. It is about re-writing the foundational concepts of our entire society. I predict that it will not be much longer before the pretense of “equality” is dropped, having done its work.
Many people are scratching their heads and asking how we have suddenly found ourselves at the point where two men can be “married,” a woman can be called a “husband” and a man, a “wife,” and children are reduced to political bargaining chips in the adoption wars, when it seems just yesterday we were only talking about equal rights. Since when do “equal rights” mean deconstructing, dismantling, these foundational social concepts?
If we read them closely, however, the activists themselves have begun to explain it in quite straightforward terms. For them, it has never been about “equal rights” but about the re-writing of our entire social order. The “gay rights” movement has always been, in Peter Tatchell’s own words, “revolutionary, not reformist.”
Others have pointed out the Marxist origins of the Sexual Revolution as a whole, and it is clear that the sudden explosion of homosexualism is merely the next logical step in a systematic programme. A close cousin to radical feminism and grandchild of Marxism, homosexualism was developed out of the politico-academic pseudo-field of “gender studies” and has, for 30 or 40 years, been pushed on a mostly unwilling public, through “anti-discrimination” and “equalities” legislation by a coalition of lobbyists, NGOs and politicians on the extreme left, and in increasingly powerful international circles…
The Manifesto itself is quite blunt about identifying the main enemies to defeat: “The oppression of gay people starts in the most basic unit of society, the family.”
“Consisting of the man in charge, a slave as his wife, and their children on whom they force themselves as the ideal models. The very form of the family works against homosexuality.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Re: Mark Steyn, The Age of Intolerance and Bob Hope’s joke.
The creation of an atmosfear similar to the one prevalent in Nazi Germany where for example failure to donate to the annual Winter Relief charity drive was considered a dereliction of duty, an abuse of liberty, and hostile to the community.
Last Month a gay police “Officer” tried to arrest me for complaining about a qieer who was carrying out a hate campaign against myself for refusing to conduct a gay marriage. My complaint itself- was treated as a “hate crime”. The mere act of opposing the queer agenda “homophobic” hate speech.
I once told a class in one of my university lecturing days- “When the authorities go after clergy- you are then in the classic totalitarian state”…..
Hello!
I’m sorry to hear about your troubles with the Plod. It is utter disbelief.
I’m not sure if you are aware of a project (in French but with English translation) of raising awareness of acts of hate towards the Christian community, in France and across the world.
http://www.christianophobie.fr/
best regards
Lena
Quote:
Mr Farage said it was true ‘in a lot of England’ — before being told on Sky News that it was part of the 1968 warning of racial violence
end
Once again there is a racialization of this issue.
The problem is not race.
Even if every Muslim was white and a British indigene, the West would still be in danger.
Historic Britain and its constituent societies would still be in danger of extinction and cultural genocide.
The racial component of this problem is nothing compared to its very real political, psychological and cultural components.
Wake up, Britain!
Quote:
TRIPOLI, Lebanon: Lebanese officials and religious figures mobilized Saturday to prevent a renewal of tensions in the northern city of Tripoli after unknown assailants torched a historic library owned by a Greek Orthodox priest.
end
In Islam, no person, in himself and in his property, is safe.
Shall we give the Ummah any more power anywhere in the world?
Shall we be fools or wise?
common core = common purpose but in the education field?
brain washing from cradle to grave.
the west is drifting towards fascism.
we’ve “drifted” all right. And run aground on its shores…
Re the meaning of “homophobe”, I take the “homo” part to derive not from the Latin, “man”, but the Greek, “the same”, which of course is the root of “homosexual”.