A Czech anti-terrorism official says that the Palestinian embassy in Prague may have been a transshipment point for arms. He is concerned that the weapons at the embassy may have been spread throughout the Schengen area.
In other news, the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca has announced that as an innovation, Zamzam water will now be available to the faithful in portable cans.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Egghead, Fausta, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JLH, JP, LS, Nick, 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.
Cyprus Records Deflation in 2013 for 1st Time Since 1964
Due to decreases in prices of electricity, air fares, potatoes
(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA — Cyprus recorded a rate of deflation in 2013 of -0.4% for the first year since 1964, according to data published on Friday by the Cyprus Statistical Service, as reported by Financial Mirror online. In December 2013 deflation of -2.3% was recorded for the second consecutive month, compared to a rate of deflation of -2.1% in November 2013 and inflation of 1.1% in December 2012. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for December 2013 fell by 0.34 units or 0.29% to 117.49 units compared to 117.83 in November 2013. This, the Statistical Service says, is mainly due to decreases in the prices of electricity, air fares, potatoes and certain clothing items.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: New Taxes Force Yacht Owners Sail Away
Risk of exodus towards Turkey, Croatia, Montenegro
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, JANUARY 3 — The Greek Marinas Association (GMA) has reported a number of departures of foreign-owned yachts due to the new charges imposed since the start of the year on recreational vessels, as daily Kathimerini reports.
International organizations, associations and unions active in the maritime tourism domain have informed their members about the new increased taxation Greece has imposed on yachts. The GMA has also been informed about certain strong foreign associations, which have many members on their registers, that may resort to the competent authorities of the European Union to protest the tax hike. International reports also cite the possibility that Greek tax and customs authorities could bar yachts from leaving local marinas if their owners are unable to pay the additional charges. In that context they note that unless the charges are paid this year, the obligation for their payment will be carried over to next year. According to GMA data, yacht owners mostly from the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Germany and Austria have taken their boats from Greece to marinas at rival maritime tourism destinations such as Croatia, Montenegro and Turkey. As an example, GMA says that the cost according to the new charges for a 12-meter vessel docking at a regional marina in Greece would be 20% higher on average compared with last year. The association further noted that when Italy applied a similar tax policy of high charges in 2012, it witnessed the departure of 30,000 yachts. That development, it added, led the Italian government to exempt foreign owners of private boats from the payment of the additional charges.
Earlier the local authorities in Sardinia had also applied high charges on boats, but that decision was withdrawn when owners resorted to the European authorities asking for compensation, GMA reminded.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Obama, The Fed, And the Phony Economic Recovery
In a clever display of Marxist political maneuvering, President Obama and his “progressive” supporters are now attacking the substandard economic “recovery” that they have helped create. Zubi Diamond, author of the Wizards of Wall Street, says their ultimate goal is to increase federal control of the economy and “complete the fundamental transformation of America.”
The public understands something doesn’t add up. A Washington Post-ABC poll finds that 64 percent of the public thinks federal government policies currently favor wealthy Americans, while a new CNN/ORC polls hows that nearly 70 percent say the economy is generally in poor shape, and only 32 percent rated it as good.
This is after Obama has been president for five years, trying various tax-and-spending measures supposedly to spur economic growth…
What liberals like Krugman want the public to ignore is the fact that the politicians yakking the most about inequality — such as Obama, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and Democratic Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren — are backed by George Soros, the billionaire socialist hedge-fund operator who says capitalism is the major global threat. Soros almost single-handedly financially underwrites the “progressive” movement today.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Senate Votes to Advance Bill on Extension of Unemployment Benefits
A Democratic push to extend unemployment benefits that have expired moved forward on Tuesday morning, barely avoiding a Republican filibuster.
The Senate’s 60-37 vote to simply take up a three-month extension of benefits passed with no room to spare, which will set off a negotiation to try to pass the bill later this week. Even some of the Republicans who voted yes want the cost of the extension set off by cuts elsewhere in the budget.
Senate leaders on Monday night abruptly postponed a vote on the measure. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, was about to call the vote when the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, accused him of manufacturing a political issue by holding a vote with 17 senators absent, mostly because of weather delays. Mr. Reid than gruffly asked for consent to postpone it until Tuesday morning.
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5 Rocky Alien Planets Revealed by NASA’s Kepler Spacecraft
Five rocky planets are among a slew of newly discovered alien worlds found by NASA’s prolific Kepler spacecraft. The planets, which range in size from ten to eighty percent larger than Earth, were announced Monday (Jan. 6) at the 223rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Washington, D.C.
Two of the newfound rocky planets, named Kepler-99b and Kepler-406b, are both 40 percent larger than Earth and have densities similar to lead, the researchers said. But, the chances of finding life on these exoplanets are slim, they added, since the two planets orbit their respective stars in less than five days, making these worlds sweltering and unable to support life as we know it.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Al Sharpton Demonstrates He’s Clueless About Global Warming (Video)
MSNBC’s Politics Nation on Friday featured a lab coat-wearing Al Sharpton pontificating about global warming…
If Mr. Sharpton conducted any research of his own, he would have realized that the 97% of climate researchers poll has been disproved many times over, and that most of the “gloom and doom” predictions made by the global warming theorists have not come true. Even the climate change histrionics one sees in the media after every major storm or fire are wrong, as the frequency of hurricanes, tornados, and wildfires are all way down.
Other facts arguing against the anthropogenic climate change theory include the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the U.N.’s global warming organization, which acknowledges that the Earth’s temperatures haven’t gotten warmer in over 15 years. Additionally, both polar ice caps are growing at near record rates. In fact, some peer-reviewed studies are predicting the earth is about to experience a mini ice age.
Perhaps Mr. Sharpton would be better off putting away the white coat and concentrating on what he does best: dividing the American people.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chicago Gun Ban ‘Unconstitutional’, Judge Says
Chicago’s attempts to cut gun-related violence in America’s murder capital may have suffered a setback after a ban on selling guns in the city was called unconstitutional by a federal judge.
US District Judge Edmond E. Chang overturned the order, ruling it goes too far in stopping buyers and dealers from taking part in the lawful selling of arms.
He said the government has a duty to protect its citizens, but he also highlighted the fact that the ban covers gifts among family members.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chicago Weather Too Cold Even for Zoo Polar Bear
CHICAGO — You know it’s too cold when the city’s polar bear is kept indoors.
Anana, the Lincoln Park Zoo’s lone polar bear, is keeping warm in a “climate-controlled” area in the wake of the city’s below-zero temperatures, according to zoo spokeswoman Sharon Dewar. “She doesn’t typically enjoy the very cold much,” Dewar said of the 12-year-old polar bear. “Few of us are accustomed to this cold.”
Polar bears in the arctic would typically put on a fat blubber layer going into late winter, Dewar said, but Anana, a city bear, doesn’t have that blubber layer this year due to our warmer climate.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Father Who Planned Abuse of Kids Gets Life Sentences
A father who, along with his wife, planned before they were born to sexually abuse their children, was given two sentences of life in prison Monday in federal court in Orlando. What 26-year-old Jonathan Adleta did to his children, said U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr., was “heinous. … This defendant is guilty of … the destruction and scarring of his own children.”
An Orlando jury convicted Adleta on Sept. 12 of two charges: transporting minors across a state line to engage in a sex act and conspiracy.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
FDR, Treason and the 1st Amendment
“There are a number of Americans in Europe who are aiding Hitler et al on the radio,” FDR wrote to Attorney General Francis Biddle on October 1, 1942. “Why should we not proceed to indict them for treason even though we might not be able to try them until after the war?” the president asked, specifying that “I understand Ezra Pound, [Robert] Best, [Jane] Anderson and a few others are broadcasting for Axis microphones.” End of memo.
Less than a year after Assistant Attorney General Wendell Berge’s declaration that the FDR administration “would not think in terms of suppression” of pro-Axis propaganda, the president was thus instructing Berge’s boss to do the opposite. Whereas Berge had championed the Bill of Rights in the fall of 1941, those words would soon ring hollow.
Two months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 laid the groundwork for the internment of Japanese-Americans. And as the three dissenting opinions in Korematsu case (1944) made clear, the procedure of sending U.S. citizens to camps fundamentally contradicted the 5th Amendment’s due process protections.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Girl Falls Asleep 30 Times a Day Since Taking the Flu Vaccine
It was supposed to be a simple vaccine against swine flu, but since she had it, Chloe Glasson’s life has been like a bad dream.
Just four months after being given the Pandemrix injection, the 15-year-old schoolgirl developed the sleeping disorder narcolepsy.
Now, without warning, she falls asleep up to 30 times a day wherever she is.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Instagram Star Has an Enviable Rear — And 1.3m Followers
It was a 30-degree December day, but to the 25 bystanders shoving their iPhones 3 inches away from Jen Selter’s butt, it was hot hot hot. Selter, a 20-year-old Instagram star, famed for her large derriere, was demonstrating her squatting technique for the New York Post atop a subway railing in Midtown, clad in nothing more than a sports bra and hotpink yoga pants.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Milky Way Sparkles Over Windmill in Amazing Panoramic Photo
Our dazzling Milky Way galaxy shines over an old windmill in this stunning panoramic image recently sent in to SPACE.com by an amateur astronomer. Astrophotographer Sean Parker captured this splendid 14-shot panoramic view of the Milky Way arching over Paulden, Ariz. Parker sent the image.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Political Agenda Backfires, Gun Sales in 2013 Smash All Records
An armed citizenry is vital for liberty to flourish.
One year ago this month, President Obama announced that radical gun control was the top of his agenda for his second term. Although he failed to get any of the gun bans or government registrations passed on the federal level, he was successful in one area. His actions convinced millions of Americans to buy more firearms than any time in history.
The FBI reported that it performed an astounding 21,093,273 background checks for the year ending Dec. 31, which is 8 percent higher than 2012, which was also a huge year for gun sales leading up to the election.
Put in context, National Instant Background Check System (NICS) checks have gone up a whopping 66 percent since Mr. Obama came to the White House.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Oklahoma: Satanic Temple Unveils Design for Baphomet Devil Statue
A group of Satanists who hope to build a statue of the devil next to a monument of the Ten Commandments by Oklahoma’s Capitol building have unveiled their proposed design.
The Satanic Temple, a New York-based organisation who describe themselves as “the most active satanic organisation in the world”, applied for a permit to erect a monument of Satan next to the Ten Commandments memorial.
The group argued that the Commandments statue had opened the door for other religions to be allowed to erect memorials to their faiths on Capitaol grounds.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma has taken cout action to have the Ten Commandments memorial removed on the grounds of religious discrimination.
The satanic group monument would be a 7ft (2.1 metres) sculpture of Satan in the form of Baphomet, a goat-headed figure with horns and a long beard.
Satan sits on a throne with a pentagon inscribed on it and two small children standing beside him. The group had said that it hoped the statue would act as an “object of play for young children” and Satan’s lap would serve as a seat for visitors “for contemplation”.
The statue would be inscribed with quotes from Lord Byron and William Blake.
Lucien Greaves, spokesperson for the Satanic Temple, said: “The monument has been designed to reflect the views of Satanists in Oklahoma City and beyond.”
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Parking Violation Turns Into Police Assault Caught on Video — Lawsuit
A Nebraska family filed suit Monday against dozens of police officers alleging that they turned a parking violation into a rough arrest and violating the family’s constitutional rights by breaking into a nearby home and confiscating video of the incident.
Four Omaha police officers initially responded to a complaint on March 21, 2013 that Octavius Johnson had parked his truck in the wrong area of the street. A video of the incident recorded from an upstairs window shows police throwing Johnson to the ground and punching him multiple times as a number of other officers rush to the scene.
“He went around my neck, threw me to the ground, choked me out to the point where I couldn’t breathe or speak,” Johnson told KPTM-TV in Nebraska. “The officer told me to stop resisting, punched me in the face and said ‘do you want to die today.’“
Another officer pushes Octavius’ brother Juaquez, who is filming the arrest on a camera phone, away from the scene. Juaqeuz then escapes the officer’s grasp and sprints into a neighbor’s home and is chased by a handful of police, who eventually confiscated his phone.
That video — which is thought to have been destroyed — has never been made public. Yet the video captured from upstairs quickly went viral after the incident, inspiring community demonstrations and eventually the dismissal of the four officers caught on film. Criminal charges were brought against two of those patrolmen for either tampering with evidence or being an accessory.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Police Tase, Shoot and Kill 90-Pound Schizophrenic Teen
What began as a family’s call to police for help in calming a schizophrenic teenager armed with a screwdriver and a mouthful of threats ended with police gunfire and heartache.
The killing of Keith Vidal, 18, of Boling Springs Lakes, NC, over the weekend has spurred a state investigation into the teen’s death and a family’s call for answers as they say police shot Vidal in cold blood.
Family of Vidal said they called police on Sunday afternoon to help subdue the 90-pound teen who was holding a small screwdriver and threatening to fight his mother during a schizophrenic episode. Two officers responded to the family’s home and restrained Vidal. Then, a third officer arrived and soon thereafter reportedly shot Vidal, Mark Wilsey, Vidal’s step-father, told reporters during a press-conference on Monday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Racism May Accelerate Aging in African-American Men
A new study reveals that racism may impact aging at the cellular level. Researchers found signs of accelerated aging in African American men, ages reporting high levels of racial discrimination and who had internalized anti-Black attitudes. Findings from the study, which is the first to link racism-related factors and biological aging, are published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Racial disparities in health are well-documented, with African Americans having shorter life expectancy, and a greater likelihood of suffering from aging-related illnesses at younger ages compared to Whites. Accelerated aging at the biological level may be one mechanism linking racism and disease risk.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ten Most Corrupt Politicians in Washington DC
Marriane Williamson, author of the book A Return to Love, announced this past fall her plan to run for Congress in the 33rd district of California to stop the “Culture of Corruption” in our nation’s capital.
Without a doubt, deep, systemic corruption thrives in our U.S. Congress. It flourishes in our White House. Thomas Jefferson, our third president, tried to pass term limits, but failed in the face of those who love power and expect to maintain it.
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, released its 2013 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” www.JudicialWatch.org, the list, in alphabetical order, includes:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Mark of the Beast is Here, Part 12
In recent years, rfid technology has been expanding within public and private firms as a method for verifying and tracking people as well. We first became aware of this trend a while back when a chief of police — Jack Schmidig of Bergen County, New Jersey, a member of the police force for more than thirty years — received a VeriChip (rfid chip) implant as part of Applied Digital Solution’s strategy of enlisting key regional leaders to accelerate adoption of its product.
Kevin H. McLaughlin (chief executive officer of VeriChip Corp. at the time) said of the event that “high-profile regional leaders are accepting the VeriChip, representing an excellent example of our approach to gaining adoption of the technology” (note that VeriChip Corp. was renamed to PositiveID Corp. on November 10, 2009, through the merger of VeriChip Corp. and Steel Vault Corp.). Through a new and aggressive indoctrination program called “Thought and Opinion Leaders to Play Key Role in Adoption of VeriChip,” the company set out to create exponential adoption of its FDA-cleared, human-implantable rfid tag.
According to information released by the company, the implantable transceiver “sends and receives data and can be continuously tracked by GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) technology.” The transceiver’s power supply and actuation system are unlike anything ever created. When implanted within a body, the device is powered electromechanically through the movement of muscles and can be activated either by the “wearer” or by the monitoring facility.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The following article is an analysis of Alberta’s BILL 25, the “Children First Act 2013”. I of all people can admit that I’m no law professor or even highly educated, what I am, is a dedicated husband and father of two beautiful children, and I tend not to trust any bureaucratic attempt to legislate away my rights as far as my children are concerned, no matter how noble the intent may appear. This analysis is intended to illustrate how, with a little predictive imagination, a broad and vague piece of legislation can so easily turn into outright abuse when unregulated authority over the public is given to a small group people, corporations, and governments, or as in many instances in this Act, just ONE person.
In May, 2013 the Alberta Department of the Crown Corporation of Canada declared the creation of Alberta’s BILL 25 “CHILDREN FIRST ACT 2013”, announced in the Media just days before it passed its third and final reading in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. This Law passed on the premise of “protecting” our children, and improving “services” for Families, by announcing:
“While parents, guardians, and families have the primary responsibility for their children; ALL individuals, families, communities, and Governments have a SHARED responsibility for the well-being, safety, security, education, and health of children.” (My emphasis added)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Conservative MP Braid Must Learn From Real Scientists Before Speaking Out on Climate Change
Appearing on CBC News Network’s Power and Politics on Monday, Conservative MP (Kitchener-Waterloo) and Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure and Communities, Peter Braid linked recent extreme weather events to climate change. This was a serious mistake.
Climate change has little if anything to do with recent extreme weather. This is one of the few areas of agreement between the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).
The IPCC stated in their March 28, 2012 Special Report on Extremes: “There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change.” The IPCC also asserted that a relationship between global warming, the component of climate change of most concern to environmental campaigners, and wildfires, rainfall, storms, hurricanes, and other extreme weather events has not been demonstrated.
In their latest assessment report released on September 27, 2013, IPCC scientists concluded that they had only “Low confidence” that damaging increases will occur in either drought or tropical cyclone activity” as a result of global warming.
The NIPCC report released on September 17, 2013 concluded the same, asserting that “In no case has a convincing relationship been established between warming over the past 100 years and increases in any of these extreme events.” Hysterical reports from the CBC? The Globe and Mail? Al Gore?
So on what basis did Mr. Braid make his statement? Hysterical reports from the CBC? The Globe and Mail? Al Gore? We need our leaders to speak with real scientists in the field before making such bold assertions.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
British Muslims Attack ‘Draconian’ Proposals
A London based Muslim Human Rights Organisation has attacked the government’s proposal to tackle terrorism saying that they will “tighten the stranglehold on Britain’s Muslims”.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) responded to the government’s ‘Tackling Extremism in the UK,” which was published in the wake of the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby and sought to review anti-terrorism strategy. The human rights organisation said that the proposals would, “chip away at freedoms already eroded by over a decade of draconian anti-terrorism legislation and policy”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Bulgaria: Strasbourg Court to Review 2011 Sofia Mosque Attack
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg will review the complaint filed by a Bulgarian muslim, in connection with the 2011 xenophobic attack at the Sofia mosque. Veli Karaahmed was among those injured when activists of the ultra-nationalist Ataka party attacked the Banya Bashi mosque in downtown Sofia, during prayer hours. In mid-December, the EctHR informed the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee that the Bulgarian state has until the end of March 2014 to issue its stance on the complaint…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a Czech anti-terrorism official pointed out the possibility that the Palestinian embassy in Prague could have served as a transit point to freely ship firearms to any of the 26 countries within the Schengen Area, allowing passport-free movement within the EU.
General Jiri Sedivy, former Czech Army chief-of-staff and NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defense Policy and Planning, now head of the security studies section at Prague’s CEVRO Institut, said, “Maybe the affair in question involves a well organised weapons and explosives distribution network, including the weapons’s further recipients.”
“I’m horrified. This is not only a blatant violation of diplomatic norms and habits but also of security rules related to keeping such an arsenal, that also implies the tragic death of ambassador Jamal al Jamal,” said Sedivy, adding that similar arms arsenals may also be secretly kept at other Palestinian embassies in Europe and overseas.
“In my opinion this is very probable. The [Prague] blast, which occurred by sheer coincidence, may have uncovered something incredible. on the verge of monstrosity,” Sedivy said. “From the beginning it has not been a mere minor local scandal that would be soon over. but an incident of international dimensions,” he said, adding Palestinian Authority representatives have “played theater” with the investigation into the case so far.
| — Hat tip: LS | [Return to headlines] |
Czech Defense Minister Awards Bomb-Sniffing German Shepherd Seriously Injured in Afghanistan
Like many military victims of a Taliban attack in Afghanistan, Athos was treated by American doctors in the field, flown to the U.S. Ramstein base in Germany for his recovery, then awarded for his bravery back home. But Athos is a bomb-sniffing German shepherd who was helping Czech forces in Afghanistan, not a soldier, and during a ceremony honoring him on Tuesday, he received a buffalo bone and a leather collar.
The 4-year-old dog was seriously wounded in a rocket attack on a military base in Logar province on Sept. 30, 2012. During the ceremony at a military dog center in Chotyne, Czech Republic, Defense Minister Vlastimil Picek called Athos “a soldier’s irreplaceable friend.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: ‘In the US Taking a Boss Hostage is Kidnapping’
French and American cultural differences in the world of work were once again underlined on Tuesday when a controversial American CEO reacted with astonishment to news that two French bosses at a factory he is set to invest in had been taken hostage by workers.
An outspoken American executive blasted French tyre workers who’ve taken their bosses hostage at a Goodyear factory in Amiens, saying “in the United States we’d call that a kidnapping”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Hundred Checked in Controversial “Danger Zone” In Hamburg
BERLIN, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) — In the danger zone in Hamburg, more than 400 people have been checked at the weekend, said a police spokeswoman on Monday afternoon. Meanwhile, 90 exclusion orders and eight restraining orders were issued, while 45 people were taken into custody. The arrested people belong to 300 activists who had arranged over the Internet “walk through the danger zone” as a protest against the action of the police in the central districts of Hamburg…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Ancient Palace’s Painted Floors Display Bronze-Age Creativity
The brightly patterned floors of an ancient Greek palace were painted to mimic patchworks of textiles and stone masonry — an innovative way that Bronze Age artists decorated palatial rooms, a new study finds.
Emily Catherine Egan, a doctoral student at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, studied the floor of the Throne Room at the Palace of Nestor, one of the best-preserved palaces of Mycenaean Greece, a civilization from the late Bronze Age. She found that the floors of the palace, located in the present-day Greek town of Pylos, were made of plaster, and were often painted with grids of bright patterns or marine animals.
The creative decorations show how ancient Mycenaean artists used floors — together with painted ceilings and walls — to impress palace visitors, Egan said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Light skin in Europeans stems from a gene mutation from a single person who lived 10,000 years ago.
This is according to a new U.S. study that claims the colour is due to an ancient ancestor who lived somewhere between the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent.
Scientists made the discovery after identifying a key gene that contributes to lighter skin colour in Europeans.
[…]
Previous studies suggested that Europeans today largely descended from Middle Eastern farmers.
[Note from Egghead: Funny, we used to be taught that Europeans came from Africa. Of course, white people were NOT allowed to return to Africa as home, whereas half-white people like Obama were allowed to claim Kenya as home. But, now that Islam is ascending in Europe, we are to be taught that Europeans come from the Middle East — which is very convenient to the Islamic theology that Islam is the beginning of all history and that all people are born Muslim and must revert to Islam….]
| — Hat tip: Egghead | [Return to headlines] |
Modern Europeans Hail From Three Distinct Groups
An analysis of the genomes of eight ancient Europeans by an international team of scientists, led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Germany’s University of Tübingen, contradicts the prevailing belief that Europeans are descendants of Middle Eastern farmers that mixed with dispersed bands of hunter-gatherers. The scientists studied DNA from seven hunter-gatherers found in Sweden and one woman found in Luxembourg, all dating to about 8,000 years ago.
They found that modern Europeans are primarily made up of hunter-gatherers who migrated out of Africa 40,000 years ago, a later influx of Middle Eastern farmers, and a third population that the team named “ancient northern Eurasians,” which ranged from northern Europe to Siberia.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New Europe: Political Progress, Eyes on the Economy
In 2013 two-speed area, Croatia joins EU, Serbia approaches
(ANSA) — TRIESTE — 2013 was the year of the entry of Croatia into the EU, but it will also be remembered for the biggest step forward along Serbia’s path to Europe. The deal signed on April 19 opens to the normalization of relations with Kosovo and enables Belgrade’s voice to be heard in Brussels. The negotiations which start on January 21 is also one of the few successes obtained by the EU foreign policy in a very difficult year.
2013 has confirmed the existence of a New Europe which is running at two speeds, independently from the European status of each country. The locomotive of Eastern Europe is Poland, celebrated by Bloomberg Businessweek as the most dynamic economy in Europe: the gross domestic product (+1.3 % in 2013 , 2.4% in 2014 according to the IMF) is now about $ 500 billion, almost a quarter of the whole Italian economy. Serbia has grown by 2% (38 billion) and will continue to do so in 2014, along with Romania and Belarus. An even better performance has been done by the small Latvia (+4 %), which will also celebrate on January 1st its entry into the eurozone, while Ukraine and Hungary will record a growth close to zero.
Croatia was still celebrating the 28th star on the European flag when Zagreb received a warning from Brussels on the excessive deficit. The Social Democratic government has planned for 2014 privatizations, new taxes and spending cuts.
Nevertheless, prime minister Zoran Milanovic admits that recovery is not at hand. Thus, the Croatian question raises questions about the Union’s future and it is expected that the upcoming negotiations will be even more focused on the new members’ economic endurance.
The official candidates are today Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, but even Albania could join the group in June 2014, since this country has made good progress in the fight against corruption and crime. Anyway, geopolitical weight and connections with Russia and Turkey make everybody look at Belgrade. Prime Minister Ivica Dacic is pushing the country to enter into Europe, but the Russian siren is always awake, and well appreciated by the population: according to a survey, 67% of Serbs would prefer an alliance with Moscow rather than with Brussels.
Belgrade’s doubts reflect those of an entire area, halfway between Western Europe, Russia and the Ottoman fascinations.
Ukraine, for example, rejected a association agreement with Europe in November. After a month of street protests, President Viktor Yanukovich flew to Moscow and came back home full of fresh rubles by Tsar Vladimir Putin.
It was also a year of protests — and it is not quite normal in this area. From Kiev to Ljubljana, from Prague to Budapest, from Tirana to Belgrade, many demonstrations took place, pro EU and anti EU, against the austerity measures and against extremist governments.
Slovenia, one the nearest countries to Europe, having also a commissioner, was among those which had to deal with the great problems with the banking system. At the end of 2013 it records a decline of GDP by 2.6% despite the efforts made by the technocratic cabinet led by Alenka Bratusek.
On the horizon — the World Bank and the EU Commission agree on estimates — there is a consolidation of the recovery within the whole area, with growth rates which are quite impressive when compared to the Old Europe. But unemployment is still troubling, not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, the ‘black holes’ of the area, where the jobless are 44 and 28% of the population.
In 2013, diplomacy and politics have made the New Europe grow, even though along a long and bumpy road. It’s now a matter of the economy to give substance to development plans.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Norway Sees Record Salmon Exports
Norway sold a record 61 billion kroner ($10bn) worth of salmon in 2013, as key markets rebounded in Western Europe. “The main explanation for the export record is high demand for Norwegian salmon on the world market, which has resulted in strong prices in 2013,” said Terje Martinussen, chief executive of the Norwegian Seafood Council.
Salmon exports were up 17 percent on 2012, and beat the previous record of 53.8 billion kroner set in 2010.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Poland’s Prime Minister Calls David Cameron’s Comment About Polish Workers Unacceptable
Poland’s prime minister is criticizing a comment that British leader David Cameron made about Poles who work in Britain and claim UK child benefits for their families back home. Donald Tusk said he would discuss these “unacceptable words” with Cameron over the telephone Wednesday.
In an interview with BBC last weekend, Cameron said, “There are European countries who, like me, think it’s wrong that someone from Poland who comes here and works hard — and I’m absolutely all in favor of that — but I don’t think we should be paying child benefit to their family back at home.”
Tusk said, “No one has the right to single out the Poles as some particular group abusing some rights” and that he would never do that to British tourists in Poland.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Poles Caught Smuggling Onions Into Norway
Two Poles have been fined 10,000 kroner ($1,600) after they were stopped at the Norwegian border with a nearly a tonne of illegal onions and carrots in the back of their truck.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Slovenia: Underground Economy 24% of GDP According to OECD
Minister Zidan explains plan against this phenomenon
(ANSA) — LJUBLJANA — Dejan Zidan , Slovenian minister for agriculture and environment, who is also the head of government coordination in the fight against underground economy, said in an interview with the Slovenian news agency STA, that interventions against unofficial economy planned by the government in 2014 should bring 200 million euros into state coffers. According to OECD data, underground economy in Slovenia is 24% of GDP, that is 8.4 billion euros. The percentage in Slovenia is 6 points higher than the EU average. Each billion of informal economy means a 100 million loss for state coffers, Zidan explained. According to the Slovenian minister the measures against the phenomenon are starting to produce positive results, and in the third quarter of 2013 state coffers have collected 16.5% ( 86 million), more than in the same period last year.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Islamization of France in 2013
by Soeren Kern
“Who has the right to say that France in thirty or forty years will not be a Muslim country? Who has the right in this country to deprive us of it?” — Marwan Muhammed, spokesman, Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF), Paris.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Baldrick and the Left’s Cunning Plan to Twist Our History to Fit Their Deadly Delusions
Michael Gove declared the centenary of 1914 should be an occasion for recognising that Britain played a necessary and honourable part in resisting German militarism.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Elderly Couple Found Dead ‘Were Gassed by Carbon Monoxide From Generator’
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
Ken and Dorothy Swallow, 70 and 71, are understood to have been discovered dead in bed at home in Hurstpierpoint, Sussex by their daughter, Daryl Swallow.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sheikh Zayed Mosque is Picture Perfect for UK’s House of Commons
Abu Dhabi’s iconic Sheikh Zayed Mosque is the toast of Britain’s House of Commons in London after bowling over a UK politician with its beauty. This stunning photograph of the mosque, taken by British Labour MP Luciana Berger, went on display in the House of Commons as part of the annual exhibition by the All-Party Parliamentary Photography Group of the best pictures taken by parliamentarians during the last year…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Stand Up for the Real Meaning of Freedom
by Roger Scruton
We need conservatism now more than ever
When pressed for a statement of their beliefs, conservatives give ironical or evasive answers: beliefs are what the others have, the ones who have confounded politics with religion, as socialists and anarchists do. This is unfortunate, because conservatism is a genuine, if unsystematic, philosophy, and it deserves to be stated, especially at a time like the present, when the future of our nation is in doubt.
Conservatives believe that our identities and values are formed through our relations with other people, and not through our relation with the state. The state is not an end but a means. Civil society is the end, and the state is the means to protect it. The social world emerges through free association, rooted in friendship and community life. And the customs and institutions that we cherish have grown from below, by the ‘invisible hand’ of co-operation. They have rarely been imposed from above by the work of politics, the role of which, for a conservative, is to reconcile our many aims, and not to dictate or control them…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
By Nick Cohen
The other day Mumsnet asked whether I would talk to its audience about my Spectator pieces (here and here) on the universities’ plans to authorise the segregation of men and women on campuses…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
US NGO Uncovered in Ukraine Protests
The recent protests in Ukraine have the stench of a foreign-orchestrated attempt to destabilize the government of Viktor Yanukovych after he walked away from signing an EU Association Agreement that would have driven a deep wedge between Russia and Ukraine. Glamor-star boxer-turned political guru, Vitaly Klitschko, has been meeting with the US State Department and is close to Angela Merkel’s CDU political machine in Germany. The EU association agreement with Ukraine is widely resisted by many EU member states with deep economic problems of their own. The two EU figures most pushing it — Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski — are both well known in the EU as close to Washington. The US is strongly pushing the Ukraine EU integration just as it had been behind the 2004 failed “Orange Revolution” to split Ukraine from Russia in a bid to isolate and weaken Russia. Now Ukrainians have found evidence of direct involvement of the Belgrade US-financed training group, CANVAS behind the carefully-orchestrated Kiev protests.
A copy of the pamphlet that was given out to opposition protestors in Kiev has been obtained. It is a word-for-word and picture-for-picture translation of the pamphlet used by US-financed Canvas organizers in the 2011 Cairo Tahrir Square protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak and opened the door to the US-backed Muslim Brotherhood.[1] The photo below is a side-by-side comparison:
Canvas, formerly Otpor, received significant money from the US State Department in 2000 to stage the first successful Color Revolution against Slobodan Milosovic in then-Yugoslavia. Since then they have been transformed into a full-time “revolution consultancy” for the US, posing as a Serbian grass-root group backing “democracy.” [2] Who would ever think a Serbian-based NGO would be a front for US-backed regime change?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt President Makes Rare Visit to Coptic Pope
Egypt’s interim president on Sunday made a rare visit to the Coptic pope ahead of this week’s Orthodox Christmas celebrations, underlining efforts by the military-backed government to project an image of inclusion ahead of a crucial referendum later this month.
The highly symbolic visit to Pope Tawadros II at the papal seat at Cairo’s St. Mark’s Cathedral by Adly Mansour was the first such visit since socialist leader Gamal Abdel-Nasser attended the cathedral’s consecration ceremony more than 40 years ago.
Mansour’s visit underlined the secular outlook of the military-installed government and signals a dramatic departure from the sectarian rhetoric of some of the more radical allies of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi during his one year in power and the tension and distrust that defined their relations with Christians.
St. Mark’s Cathedral was attacked by a mob in April last year, an event that heightened Christians’ concern over Morsi’s rule and laid bare their vulnerability. Morsi quickly condemned the violence, saying attacking the cathedral was like attacking him personally. But, in an unprecedented direct criticism, Pope Tawadros accused him of failing to protect the cathedral. It was the first ever attack on the papal seat of the Egyptian Orthodox church.
Morsi, who had consistently maintained that he was president for all Egyptians, was ousted by a popularly backed coup on July 3 and is now on trial on charges that carry the death sentence.
“The visit will send a signal that things are very different from Morsi’s days,” said Egypt expert Michael W. Hanna of the New York-based Century Foundation. “It’s a different style and is likely to have a positive impact on the Copts,” said Hanna, who contends that this month’s vote could witness a change in the traditionally low turnout by Christian voters…
| — Hat tip: JLH | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco Investigates Salafist Imam
A Casablanca court prosecutor opened an investigation into a salafist imam, MAP reported on Sunday (January 5th). Abdelhamid Abou Naïm posted a YouTube video in which he accused politician Driss Lachgar of “apostasy” for calling on Morocco to ban polygamy. Lachgar, head of the opposition Socialist Union of Popular Forces, called for the ban several days ago…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Regime Remnants, Women and the Clown — Tunisia’s Revolution Three Years on
Tunisia has shifted from being romantic tale of revolution to a tricky testing ground for the contending forces of political Islam, the market economy, and progressive politics. The January 2011 Tunisian revolution in which President Zein El Abidine Ben Ali was finally overthrown after more than two decades in office was, amongst many other things, a revolution in language. This is perhaps to be expected given that dictatorships typically usurp language, falsify its meaning, and exercise control over what can be said and who can say it…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Kerry and the Long-Term Cost of Releasing Terrorists
On Sunday, Issa Karaka, the Palestinian Authority’s minister for jailed terrorists, announced that in the next round of terrorist releases, Israel will release not only Palestinian terrorist murderers, but Israeli Arabs who murdered Israeli Jews in terrorist attacks.
As late as last week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was said to have completely rejected the Palestinian demand. But in response to Karaka’s statement, Netanyahu’s spokesman said only that the release of Israeli Arab terrorists would be subject to the approval of the government. In other words, Karaka was probably telling the truth.
The question is what has changed? Why happened over the past week that forced Netanyahu to cave? The obvious answer is that US Secretary of State John Kerry came to Jerusalem, again. And he forced Netanyahu’s hand, again.
Kerry is the Palestinians’ ace in the hole. He used the US’s limitless leverage on Israel to coerce Israel into agreeing to pay for the privilege of speaking to Palestinian negotiators who reject our country’s right to exist and extol as heroes the terrorist scum who murder us.
For the pleasure of their company, Kerry forced Israel to agree up-front to release scores of Palestinian terrorist murderers. And he did so in bad faith…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
How Zionist Extremism Became British Spies’ Biggest Enemy
In World War II’s aftermath, MI5 turned to fight a new threat. It wasn’t the Soviets. It was bombers from Jerusalem.
By Calder Walton
MI5’s most urgent threat lay not in its diminished resources, nor from its new Soviet enemy. Recently declassified intelligence records reveal that at the end of the war the main priority for MI5 was the threat of terrorism emanating from the Middle East, specifically from the two main Zionist terrorist groups operating in the Mandate of Palestine, which had been placed under British control in 1921.
They were called the Irgun Zevai Leumi (“National Military Organization,” or the Irgun for short) and the Lehi (an acronym in Hebrew for “Freedom Fighters of Israel”), which the British also termed the “Stern Gang,” after its founding leader, Avraham Stern. The Irgun and the Stern Gang believed that British policies in Palestine in the post-war years — blocking the creation of an independent Jewish state — legitimized the use of violence against British targets.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Prime Minister’s Office Releases Documentation on Palestinian Incitement of Hatred
The late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had two instructive quotes on peacemaking with the Palestinians:
You don’t make peace with friends. You make it with very unsavory enemies.
I believe that in the long run, separation between Israel and the Palestinians is the best solution for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel has plenty of unsavory enemies in the roiling Middle East and elsewhere, these days. However, when your enemies disavow your existence, let alone your legitimacy as a sovereign power, you cannot make peace even the one defined by Rabin. This is why Israeli PM Netanyahu has pushed the importance of recognition of Israel as a Jewish nation. The current diplomatic shuttle campaign for a final status agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) by US Secretary of State Kerry is grappling with this issue.
Today’s release by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office of documented evidence of PA leader Mahmoud Abbas orchestrating a propaganda campaign to incite hatred towards Israel and Jews. There is evidence of Abbas” duplicity of saying comforting things about peace at the UN versus anti-Semitic blood libel to his fellow Palestinians at home. […]
Why would any rational person persist in trying to reach a peace agreement in the face of the duplicitous taqiyyah by the PA leadership and its educational system perpetuating hate against Israel. With not the merest scintilla of likelihood that a final status agreement between Israel and the PA could be achieved in the remaining four months, why is the Administration persisting in this effort when the Middle East is aflame with fundamentalist Jihad warfare on all of Israel’s borders.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Al-Qaeda Groups Fight Each Other in Syria
Two separate al-Qaeda groups operating in Syria fought each other on Tuesday, in the first such incident between the terror network’s affiliates. Al-Nusra Front leader Abu Mohammad al-Golani said in an audio recording that “high-level” fighting erupted between his group and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Are US Troops Needed Again in Iraq?
Michael O’Hanlon, the senior fellow for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution, believes American forces might be needed again in Iraq. In an interview with Fox News National Security Expert KT McFarland, O’Hanlon said he’s “willing to see several hundred Americans or even a couple thousand of special operations persuasions of intelligence backgrounds go and help the Iraqis.”
The stalemate in Syria’s civil war between the Assad regime and opposition — who partly include Al Qaeda-connected groups — could convince those fighters to go to Iraq.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Soccer Team Ditches Israeli Player for Abu Dhabi Match
Team facing criticism for agreeing to play matches despite United Arab Emirates’ refusal to let Israeli defender Dan Mori into the country.
A Dutch soccer team is facing criticism for playing in Abu Dhabi despite the emirate’s refusal to let in the team’s Israeli defender.
Two Dutch politicians and several media criticized the team Vitesse from Arnhem over the weekend for agreeing to play in Abu Dhabi despite the refusal Saturday to let Dan Mori into the country for matches against two German teams.
Geert Wilders, leader of the rightist, pro-Israel Party for Freedom, on Sunday called the team cowardly on his Twitter account. “Vitesse shouldn’t have gone to the United Arab Emirates to protest the refusal to let Mori in. They are now accepting the emirates’ Jew-hate. Cowardly.”
Pieter Omtzigt, a lawmaker for the CDA party, told Dutch media on Monday that Vitesse should behave like Dutch lawmakers, who refuse to visit places which try to dictate the make-up of parliamentary delegations.
Ester Bal, communications director for Vitesse, said the team “stays away from politics and religion. We have always done this. We are a soccer club.”
Management said in a statement that the decision to go to Abu Dhabi was made because “the team had obligations and wanted to prepare to the best of our abilities for future matches.”
In January 2010, Hamas operative Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh was assassinated in the neighboring Saudi emirate of Dubai in a complex operation which involved two people dressed in tennis outfits and several other operatives.
Israel, which was widely seen as responsible for the killing, never confirmed or denied its involvement.
| [Return to headlines] |
Italian Prime Minister Blames Instability on Iran
Rome, 23 Dec. (AKI) — Iran and the policies of its hardline former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are a major factor in the Middle East’s instability, Italy’s premier Enrico Letta said on Monday.
“Much of that region’s instability owes to Ahmadinejad’s choices,” Letta told journalists at his end-of-year press conference in Rome on Monday.
“Now its seems that a window of opportunity has been opened in Iran with the election of its new president [Hassan] Rohani,” Letta continued.
Italian foreign minister Emma Bonino held talks in Tehran at the weekend in a rare visit by a senior European official to the Islamic republic.
Leading a high-ranking delegation, Bonino met Rohani and Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for talks on Saturday and Sunday.
It was the first time an Italian foreign minister had travelled to Iran in nearly 10 years, and the visit came after a landmark agreement last month between Iran and world powers over Tehran’s controversial atomic programme.
Under the accord, Iran agreed to scale back and halt part of its nuclear drive in exchange for limited relief from crippling economic sanctions.
Italy has supported the diplomatic progress with Iran and Letta and France’s president Francois Hollande were the first western leaders to meet Rohani after his August inauguration when they attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September.
“At that time, meeting him was a very risky choice. But I considered it very important,” Letta said at Monday’s press conference.
Rohani and US president Barack Obama became the first leaders of their countries to speak to each other since 1979 when in telephone conversation on 27 September they agreed to accelerate efforts to find a comprehensive solution to the nuclear crisis.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Supports Iraq as it Battles Al-Qaeda Says Emma Bonino
Iraq gearing up to wrest city of Fallujah from al-Qaeda militia
(ANSAmed) — Rome, January 7 — Italy on Tuesday expressed its support for Iraq as its army geared up for an offensive to reclaim two al-Qaeda-controlled cities in its largest province, Al Anbar, which shares a border with Syria. “I express Italy’s solidarity with the Iraqi government as it deals with a serious security crisis, which affects civilians first of all”, Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said.
The Iraqi army deployed tanks and artillery around Fallujah on Tuesday, after fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an al-Qaeda affiliate also active across the border in Syria, overran it and another city in the western Al Anbar province last week.
“We support the process of re-establishing security within a logic of regional stability, including with via European Union action”, Bonino added.
The rule of law and protecting human rights and basic liberties through inclusive dialogue with all members of society are of the essence, the minister said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Latest Fatwa From Iran: No Online Chatting Between Sexes
The latest religious edict from Iran’s supreme leader takes aim at the Islamic Republic’s lonely hearts. Online chatting between men and women on social networks is forbidden under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s latest fatwa, delivered ironically enough on his website in answer to a question sent by email. The top mullah’s reasoning is that such contact could eventually lead to activities prohibited by Islam.
“Given the immorality that often applies to this, it is not permitted,” Khamenei wrote.
Khamenei often delivers fatwas on his website, but the latest one could further expose the spiritual and generational rift between the nation’s web-savvy youth and the hardline religious leaders. Iranians contacted by FoxNews.com, who all declined to be identified by their full names, said the declaration is the latest effort to stop people from talking and sharing.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: Portable Zamzam Cans to be Introduced at Grand Mosque
The General Presidency of the Grand Mosque in Makkah and the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah launched a portable delivery service of Zamzam water in the Grand Mosque’s vicinity on Monday.Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais, chief imam of the Grand Mosque, formally inaugurated the delivery service, through which the water will be delivered inside portable cans…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Al Qaida Kills 50 Prisoners in Aleppo, Activists Say.
ISIS under attack for days by local insurgents, including Al Nusra
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT — Al Qaida militants have withdrawn over the past few hours from the main Syrian eastern city of Dayr az Zor in the region bordering with Iraq’s western al Anbar area at the centre of clashes between Baghdad’s government forces and al Qaida-linked insurgents, activists in Dayr az Zor said via Skype on Tuesday. They said last night members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) pulled out of the area after local rebels on Monday surrounded their headquarters in the city. The sources claimed ISIS, which has been under attack for days in the Syrian regions of Idlib, Aleppo and Raqqa, has now deployed outside Dayr az Zor.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights quoted local medical sources as saying that over 30 al Qaida militants died over the past few hours in the north-western region of Idlib in clashes between al Qaida fighters and local rebels. The dead militants are all reportedly non-Syrian members of ISIS.
Al Qaida militants have executed overnight 50 Syrian activists they had detained in Aleppo, activists in the northern Syrian city told ANSA on Tuesday in a Skype interview.
The prisoners were killed at a former eye hospital in Aleppo, the activists said.
The sources said the executions were carried out by members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, an al Qaida-linked militant group in Syria which has been attacked by local insurgents over the past few days.
The massacre reportedly took place in the eastern Qadi Askar district of the city.
No videos or pictures are currently available to prove that the activists detained in the al Qaida prison were murdered.
An association representing reporters in Aleppo on Tuesday morning condemned the ‘shameful massacre’, claiming that doctors working at field hospitals in the Aleppo area were among those killed by al Qaida.
Neither Father Paolo Dall’Oglio, a Roman Jesuit priest abducted in Syria six months ago, nor Western journalists are among the dozens of prisoners held by al Qaeda and freed by local insurgents Monday in Raqqa, the main city of northern Syria which has been at the centre of a major offensive by Islamic rebel groups against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), an al Qaeda affiliate whose mid-level and top leaders are mostly foreigners.
As part of a response against attacks carried out since last Friday by the diverse members of the Syrian insurgency in the regions of Idlib, Aleppo and Raqqa, a self-proclaimed ‘emir of al Qaida’ of Algerian descent with a Belgian passport announced the creation of a ‘regiment’ with about 100 suicide attackers ready to strike anti-regime Syrian rebel targets.
Meanwhile artillery and air force regime units hit civilian targets in areas supporting rebels, avoiding ISIS posts and barracks — highlighting once more the fact that the Syrian regime and al Qaida appear to have the common goal of fighting the fragmented insurgency front. However insurgents have gained ground in Raqqa, in clashes with ISIS, thanks to the presence of Jabhat al Nusra, an al Qaeda-linked group which is however mainly formed by Syrians who appear to have a more ‘national’ rather than ‘regional’ agenda.
Some 50 prisoners who were freed by insurgents in Raqqa are Syrian men: many claimed to be members of the Free Syrian Army arrested months or weeks ago by ISIS.
A Turkish photojournalist with daily Milliyet, Buenyamin Ayguen, also returned home after he was released by Islamic group Ahrar ash Sham and handed over to Ankara’s intelligence services.
Sources close to humanitarian aid workers in Syria said high-profile detainees including Western reporters and Father Paolo Dell’Oglio had already been moved to another location and were not detained by ISIS in the Raqqa region anymore, as several other sources had reported in the past few weeks.
On the political front, the main platform of exiled Syrian opposition factions confirmed as president Ahmad Jarba who is close to Saudi Arabia. The Syrian National Coalition stressed again on Monday it does not intend to participate in an international conference scheduled to take place in Switzerland on January 22 but confirmed an upcoming visit to Russia, a close Assad ally.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian Al Qaeda Leader Calls for Cease Fire With Rebels
(AGI) Beirut, Jan 7 — The leader of the Syrian Islamist group Al Nusra, which is affiliated with al Qaeda, has called for an end to fighting between anti-Assad rebels and jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). In an audio message posted on Twitter, ISIS leader Abu Mohamed al-Jolani called for a truce. Fighting between the two groups has killed 274 fighters.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: First Chemical Weapons Batch Leaves Latakia
Reloading onto US ship to take place at Italian port
(ANSAmed) — ROME, JANUARY 7 — The first consignment of Syria’s chemical weapons has left the Latakia port onboard a Danish ship, reports the BBC website. Italy has offered the use of a port to load the material onto a US ship, which will be destroying it in international waters. The head of the joint mission for the destruction of Syria’s chemical arsenal, Sigrid Kaag, has confirmed that the material had already left the port and was headed for international waters. Ships from China, Denmark, Norway and Russia are escorting the ship to ensure the safety of the material onboard. Kaag added that the joint UN-OPCW (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) mission encouraged Damascus to continue its efforts to finalize the removal of the chemical weapons in a safe manner and as soon as possible. The most dangerous chemical agents of Syria’s arsenal, which were removed from the country on Tuesday, come from two sites, said the OPCW. The organization called it “an important step commencing the transportation of these materials as part of the plan to complete their disposal outside the territory of Syria”.
OPCW Director-General Mehmet Uzumcu said “I encourage the Syrian government to maintain the momentum to remove the remaining priority chemicals, in a safe and timely manner, so that they can be destroyed outside of Syria as quickly as possible.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey’s PM Not Opposed to Retrial of Army Plotters
(AGI) Istanbul, Jan 6 — Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan would not oppose a retrial of the 237 high-ranking officers who were convicted to very harsh sentences on charges of having promoted a strategy of tension in a plan to carry out an anti-Islamic coup. The sentences were confirmed by the Court of Appeal in October and appealed by the legal counsel of the Army, who claimed that the evidence presented in court was false. “There is not a problem for us about retrials as long as the legal basis is established. In terms of regulations, we are ready to do what we can,” Mr Erdogan told reporters before leaving on an official visit to Asia.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: 600 Police Officers Relocated After Sweep in Ankara
600 relocated in government response to graft probe against it
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA — Some 600 police officers are being relocated following a midnight purge of 350 officers at the Ankara Police Department in the single biggest wave of a government response to an ongoing graft probe launched against it, Dogan news agency reported.
The 350 were reportedly working in units specializing in terrorism, intelligence, organized crimes, financial crimes, cybercrimes and smuggling. Around 80 of those dismissed were police chiefs while the others were officers working at lower ranks, it added. The sweep also included a deputy head of Ankara’s police forces. Some 250 officers have reportedly replaced the relocated officers at the Ankara Police Department.
The sons of two ex-ministers and the general manager of state-owned bank Halkbank remain in custody following the corruption probe, which began last December 17. In a tit-for-tat response — as daily Hurriyet writes -, police officers, including Istanbul Police Chief Huseyin Capkin, were sacked or moved to different position on December 22.
The probe highlighted the deepening conflict between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the movement of Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen, whose followers are said to hold key positions inside the secret services, police and judiciary and are believed to be behind the investigation. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and several government officials have repeatedly accused “a parallel state” within the police department and especially the judiciary of plotting the probe.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Afghan Girl ‘Found With Suicide Vest After Brother Convinces Her to Attack’
Afghan police say the 10-year-old alleged bomber was persuaded to carry out a suicide attack by an older brother
An Afghan girl believed to be about 10-years-old was caught in Helmand province wearing a bomb vest after her brother encouraged her to carry out a suicide attack, police officials said. The girl, named as Spogmai, had been convinced to attack border police after male relatives accused her of having “illicit relations” with officers, according to reports.
She was strapped into a bomb harness by one of her elder brothers and sent across a river to her target, in southern Helmand. However Spogmai began crying with cold while crossing the river and her brother, a suspected Taliban commander called Zahir, fled according to the Pahjwok news agency. Some reports said she was still wearing the vest when she handed herself in to the police and others said Zahir took it with him…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
The Interior Ministry said police had apprehended the young girl who had intended to carry out a suicide attack against Afghan border police in southern Helmand province.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
India: Kashmir Imam Faces Murder Charge
Imam Abdul Gani Naik killed the husband of a woman who was having an affair with the prayer leader, police say.
A local imam is the prime suspect in an alleged case of adultery and murder that has shocked Kashmir. Police charged Abdul Gani Naik, 45, imam of Masjid Abu-Turab at Band Qamarwari, on December 18th with the September killing of Shahnawaz Ahmad Dar, the Kashmir Times reported. Naik, who was arrested October 21st, confessed to having an affair with Dar’s wife, according to police. Dar’s body was pulled from the Jhelum River four days after his September 29th disappearance…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pre-Marriage Sex is Immoral, Rules Indian Magistrate
(AGI) New Delhi, Jan 6 — Sex out of wedlock was defined as “immoral and contrary to the dictates of all religions”, by an Indian magistrate. Virender Bhat, who serves in the fast-track court set up to hear cases of sexual abuse of women, said a 29-year-old woman who reported her fiance for raping her had intercourse “at her own exclusive risk”. The woman claimed her fiance had sex with her after promising to marry her but then refused to keep his promise.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Aunt of North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un Believed Dead, Report Says
Another member of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s inner circle is believed to have died in recent weeks. The South Korean Chosun Ilbo newspaper, citing a government source, reported Monday that Kim Kyong-hui — the aunt of Kim Jong-un, had either committed suicide or died of a heart attack after being out the public eye for some time.
Kim Kyong-hui, 68, is the aunt of the current ruler of North Korea and the sister of his father and predecessor Kim Jong-il. She is also the widow of the recently executed Jang Song-taek, who was executed last month after being dismissed from his powerful position in North Korea’s ruling class.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China Crushes Six Tons of Confiscated Elephant Ivory
The move is a first for the world’s biggest ivory market
On January 6, the government of China held a public ceremony to destroy six tons of elephant ivory seized from the illegal trade. The event took place in Dongguan in Guangdong Province. Workers pushed tusks and ivory sculptures into a noisy, green crushing machine.
The event is the first of its kind in China and follows a crush of six tons of confiscated ivory in the U.S. in November, in Denver.
According to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which had representatives observing the crush in China, about 96 elephants a day are killed illegally in Africa, largely because of the demand for their ivory. Much of that ivory ends up in China, where it is carved and sold domestically or abroad.
There are an estimated 500,000 elephants left in Africa, and poaching them is a $10 billion business that draws international crime syndicates and terrorist groups. International trade in ivory was outlawed in 1990, but poaching continues to fuel a thriving black market.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turning on ‘The Worm’? Rodman’s Old-Timers Team Uneasy Ahead of North Korea Game
Dennis Rodman may be losing the locker room full of NBA old-timers he brought to North Korea, especially after a TV appearance that went over like an air ball at the buzzer. Onetime NBA star Charles Smith, a 6 foot, 10 inch tall center who had a stellar career with three teams, said the 10-member team of retired players’ planning to play an exhibition game Wednesday against a team of North Koreans has become “dwarfed” by the spectacle that is Rodman.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
United States Sending More Troops and Tanks to South Korea
(Reuters) — The United States said on Tuesday it will send 800 more soldiers and about 40 Abrams main battle tanks and other armored vehicles to South Korea next month as part of a military rebalance to East Asia after more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The battalion of troops and M1A2 tanks and about 40 Bradley fighting vehicles from the 1st U.S. Cavalry Division based at Fort Hood, Texas, will begin a nine-month deployment in South Korea on February 1.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
Clinton De Menezes, 43, was gunned down when the armed men climbed a balcony of a friend’s house near Durban in the early hours of New Year’s Eve.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
French Trial Opens Amid Confusion in Congo
The trial of Joshua French in the Democratic Republic of Congo began in confusion on Tuesday, starting with uncertainty over its location and then grinding to a halt when the court translator was found to be inadequate.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: 40 Killed in Separate Attacks in Plateau, Kaduna
Jos — There was bloodshed in Plateau and Kaduna states, yesterday, leading to the death of no fewer than 40 people, including policemen, women and children. At least 30 people, mostly women and children, were killed when suspected Fulani herdsmen attacked Shonong village in Riyom Local Government Area of Plateau State.
The assailants who stormed the village at about 7.am, according to eyewitnesses, left 25 people injured and razed over 40 houses. Most of those killed were children who, frightened by the sound of sporadic gunshots, ran out of their homes but were gunned down by the attackers who had positioned themselves around the community…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
Thomas Berry, 39, from London and 2004’s Miss Venezuela, Monica Spear Mootz, were gunned down by thieves after their car ground to a halt.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chile Jewish Community Hurt by Soccer Club Shirt
SANTIAGO, Chile — A soccer shirt is igniting a war of words between Chile’s Jewish and Palestinian communities.
The Palestino soccer Club of Chile’s first division recently released its new jersey. But many are outraged because shirts that include the number “1” show the numeral in the shape of Israel and the Palestinian territories, implying all the land is Palestinian.
Gerardo Gorodischer is president of Chile’s Jewish Community. He tells The Associated Press that the group is demanding an apology from the club and asking Chile’s soccer association not to allow the shirts because they don’t recognize the Israeli state.
Chile’s Palestinian Federation said in a statement Monday that it backs the club’s choice of the shirt.
The country’s Palestinian community is among the world’s largest, with about 350,000 immigrants and their descendants.
| — Hat tip: Fausta | [Return to headlines] |
New Exoplanet Imager Snaps 1st Photos of Alien Worlds
Current planet-imaging systems are only able to see gas giants about three or more times the size of Jupiter. NASA’s Kepler space telescope has detected thousands of smaller planet candidates but cannot image these directly.
“Almost nothing is known about the composition of the planets Kepler is seeing,” principal investigator Bruce MacIntosh, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said in a news conference here today (Jan. 7) at the 223rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society. “Direct imaging is offering a way to do that.”
The Gemini Planet Imager (GPI), an instrument at the 8-meter Gemini South telescope in Chile, can see exoplanets in the outer solar system of young stars. Its goal is to improve the contrast of planetary imaging by an order of magnitude.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
2013 Immigrant Boom in Germany
(AGI) Berlin, Jan 5 — Germany experienced an immigrant boom in 2013, with a 20-year high of 400,000 new arrivals. The Sunday Welt am Sonntag newspaper published figures collected by the IAB Research Institute of the Federal Employment Agency, showing that over 10 percent more immigrants entered Germany than in 2012.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
To countless migrants, Britain is the promised land. But, once here. many are cruelly exploited. Yesterday, we told the secret of slaves working in our curry houses. Today we reveal the terror of brides brought to our shores to marry their countrymen.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Britons ‘Want Cut in Immigration’
More than three-quarters of British people want to see a cut in immigration, a survey of social attitudes has revealed. However, fewer people now than in 2011 think immigration is bad for the economy — 47% in 2013 compared with 52% two years previously, new findings from NatCen Social Research’s British Social Attitudes survey found…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Dozens of Eritreans Left Israel Voluntarily for Sweden, Interior Ministry Says
Announcement comes as tens of thousands of African migrants carry protest of Israeli migration policies into third day.
As tens of thousands of African migrants carried a strike against Israeli migration policies into a third day, the Interior Ministry announced Tuesday that dozens of Eritrean migrants have left Israel voluntarily in recent weeks for Sweden.
A strike by African migrants continued into its third day Tuesday, as tens of thousands of migrants did not show up for work that morning. Instead, thousands gathered at Levinsky Park, in southern Tel Aviv, to discuss what further steps they would take.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
For African Migrants, Israel is the Land of Broken Dreams
Tumuzgee Aman fled his native Eritrea three years ago in search of a better life, making his way to Israel after a treacherous journey across Egypt’s Sinai desert. But after briefly finding work in a copper mine, his dream came crashing down when Israeli immigration police threw him in jail.
Aman, 36, now spends his days languishing in the Holot detention center — dozens of kilometers (miles) from civilization in southern Israel’s Negev Desert — trapped in a web of bureaucracy that prevents him from leaving the facility yet also bars Israel from expelling him.
“Israel is the same as Eritrea” said Aman, whose family remains free in Tel Aviv. “They separated me from my wife and daughter” he said. “Many people go crazy here.” Such frustrations boiled over this week into protests by thousands of African migrants.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Israel: African Migrants Vow to Continue Strike
Asylum seekers say they have nothing to lose; nationwide strike to be extended until Israeli gov’t meets demands of protesters, say migrants.
African migrants on Tuesday vowed to remain on strike indefinitely until their demands are met by the Israeli government, on the third day of a nationwide strike called to protest Israeli government policy towards asylum seekers.
The decision to continue the strike was announced at a press conference held near the Central Bus Station in the mid-afternoon. Hours earlier, thousands of African migrants gathered in Lewinsky park, where a series of speakers took to the stage to brainstorm how to take the protest forward and keep up the momentum of the past few days.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Many Nepali Migrant Workers Dying in Saudi Arabia, But Riyadh Blames “Natural Causes”
Since 2000, more than 7,500 Nepalis working in Arab countries have died under suspicious circumstances: 3,500 in Saudi Arabia alone, 65 since October 2013. Kathmandu launches an investigation to shed light on the deaths. Doctors and human rights groups blame torture and violence against foreign workers.
Kathmandu (AsiaNews) — The deaths of Nepali migrants in Persian Gulf nations are a source of concern for the Nepali government. In recent days, Nepali authorities have begun to investigate the death of Nepali nationals, often as a result of exploitation and abuse by Arab employers.
According to official statistics, more than 7,500 Nepalis working in Muslim countries have died in murky circumstances since 2000, about 3,500 in Saudi Arabia alone. In the last three months of 2013, 65 Nepalis died in the kingdom.
The authorities in Arab states usually attribute these deaths to natural causes, but fail to explain what these “causes” are.
In recent years, many migrants have returned to Nepal from Gulf countries with horror stories about their working and human conditions, reporting violence, harassment and attempts at forced conversion to Islam.
An official with the Nepali Embassy in Riyadh told AsiaNews that Saudi police tend to attribute the deaths to “natural causes”, refusing to provide any detailed report on the actual cause of death. Most of the migrant workers are aged between 20 and 40 years.
“We, too, think it is unlikely that so many young people die of natural causes,” the official said. “How can a 20-year-old die suddenly without external factors, when witnesses say he had no problem until a few hours before death?”
Indeed, many reports by human rights organisations, Nepal’s Foreign Affairs Ministry and Nepali embassies in Arab countries blame the deaths on poor working conditions faced by migrant workers, including job-related abuses, poor housing conditions, physical and mental stress as well as religious discrimination.
Various consultants with the Department of Foreign Employment (DoFE) believe there is something sinister in the fact that Saudi police repeatedly blame the deaths on “natural causes.”
“This is something we must dig deeper into. Who knows? The deaths might be cold-blooded murders for organ harvesting, or the consequences of severe torture,” said Ganesh Gurung, a foreign employment expert who has conducted extensive research on migrant labour issues.
“It is also possible that the police tag the dead as natural deaths just to avoid investigations or any other procedural hassles,” he added.
After viewing many of the bodies following repatriation, he said that most showed injuries that had not been adequately treated.
In view of this situation, “there should be more focus on pre-departure orientation and health check-ups,” said DoFE spokesperson Divash Acharya.
However, doctors and human rights activists point the finger at the government, which has repeatedly glossed over the causes of the deaths in recent years, claiming that they were primarily caused by stress, bad food habits and weather conditions, thus supporting Saudi police claims.
For GEFONT union leader For Bisnu Rimal, the main problem is that it is absolutely impossible to have independent bodies conduct independent inquiries.
“No one can get in Saudi Arabia,” he explained. For this reason, “We have no other alternative but to rely on embassy reports.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Nigel Farage: UKIP Wants Five-Year Ban on Immigrants Settling in UK
Party leader says he would introduce ban alongside system of temporary work permits, and remove UK from European Union
The UK Independence party is likely to go into the next election repeating its promise of a five-year ban on people coming to settle in Britain while immigration policy is sorted out, Nigel Farage has said.
The party leader also said all immigrants should be banned from claiming benefits for five years after their arrival, and admitted his plans would require the removal of the UK from the European Union.
He predicted that all three main parties would be offering an in/out referendum at the next election, and said electing Ukip MPs was the best guarantee that the referendum would happen.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Poland Hits Back at Cameron Plan to Stop Child Benefit Being Exported Across the EU
Poland’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski has lambasted David Cameron for saying European migrants should be banned from sending their child benefits back home.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Record Support for Severe Curbs on Immigration
Record support for major reductions in immigration as study shows attitudes hardening among middle classes, immigrant communities themselves and even those who say migration has boosted Britain
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Taxpayers Spend £20million on Interpreters to Help Foreigners Claim Benefits
There are fears that the bill will rise after restrictions on migrants from Romania and Bulgaria were lifted at the start of this month.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Belgian Rapist’s Plea for Euthanasia Stirs Debates on Mental Health and Right to Die
For more than half his life, Frank van den Bleeken, a rapist and murderer, has been detained in the Belgian penal system, spending long stretches in solitary confinement in prison psychiatric wings, waiting for treatment of his violent sexual urges.
Now he wants to die.
With little prospect of change, Mr. van den Bleeken has turned to his country’s euthanasia law and asked to be killed by lethal injection if he cannot get treatment.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Camille Paglia: A Feminist Defense of Masculine Virtues
The cultural critic on why ignoring the biological differences between men and women risks undermining Western civilization.
‘What you’re seeing is how a civilization commits suicide,” says Camille Paglia. This self-described “notorious Amazon feminist” isn’t telling anyone to Lean In or asking Why Women Still Can’t Have It All. No, her indictment may be as surprising as it is wide-ranging: The military is out of fashion, Americans undervalue manual labor, schools neuter male students, opinion makers deny the biological differences between men and women, and sexiness is dead. And that’s just 20 minutes of our three-hour conversation.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Lawyer: West Covina Student Told ‘Jesus Not Allowed in School’
According to Advocates for Faith and Freedom, Merced Elementary student Isaiah Martinez attempted to give his classmates candy canes with a message attached containing the so-called legend of the candy cane, which says the candy was created to represent the birth, ministry and death of Jesus Christ. When Isaiah’s teacher noticed the religious message, she prevented him from giving out his gift, telling him, “Jesus is not allowed in school,” according to Advocates for Faith and Freedom.
The public interest law firm alleges Isaiah’s constitutional rights were violated and is demanding the school district change its policy and issue a written apology to him.
“The actions of the school district were hostile and intimidating to Isaiah. Notwithstanding the fact that he is only in first grade, he is entitled to First Amendment protection,” lawyer Robert Tyler wrote in his demand letter to the district.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Who Can Resist the Liberal Brainwashing?
If you are a conservative parent who doesn’t realize that your offspring are subject to a rigorous brainwashing in their local public school, then you are not paying attention. In all red electoral districts and in a surprising number of blue ones, the cultural, political and economic education imparted to the school children is biased sharply to the left. Just to give a few examples, the children are taught that:
- American culture is no more worthy than any other culture. In fact, it has some serious shortcomings in that it is responsible for the nation’s historic maltreatment of women, blacks, Japanese Americans, Native Americans, gays and — for too much of our history — anyone who didn’t fall into the WASP category. The emphasis is on the grievous historic record, not the great progress that has been made in addressing these issues. Moreover, little, if any, mention is made of American Exceptionalism and America’s role as a beacon of freedom to the world. Nor is it emphasized that the US saved the world from totalitarianism twice in the twentieth century.
- America’s ruggedly individualistic, capitalist economic system has resulted in greed, corruption, discrimination against the poor and excessive wealth to those who navigate the system successfully, even if not legitimately. The advancing welfare state is absolutely essential to check the excesses of the so-called free market system.
- The destruction of the planet caused by the wantonly excessive abuses of American industry must be arrested. The health of our environment is the most serious problem facing the nation and extreme measures — even if they impinge on the individual rights of the people — are required to return the environment to good health and keep it that way.
Conservatives have been aware of this calamitous situation for some time — although too many do very little about it because of insufficient funds, time or appreciation for how bad it is. But here is a perhaps surprising revelation: liberal brainwashing in public schools has been going on for a very long time. My K-12 education took place between 1948 and 1960; and it took me until nearly twenty years after my high school graduation to understand the perfidious nature of the brainwashing to which I was subjected as a youth. Once again, here are some of the most egregious examples:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hubble Unveils a Deep Sea of Small and Faint Early Galaxies
(Phys.org) —NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered the long-suspected underlying population of galaxies that produced the bulk of new stars during the universe’s early years. They are the smallest, faintest, and most numerous galaxies ever seen in the remote universe, captured by Hubble deep exposures taken in ultraviolet light.
The 58 young, diminutive galaxies spied by Hubble were photographed as they appeared more than 10 billion years ago, during the heyday of star birth. The newly discovered galaxies are 100 times more numerous than their more massive cousins. But they are 100 times fainter than galaxies typically detected in previous deep-field surveys of the early universe.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Great War was sparked by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the Balkans. The Middle East could be viewed as the modern-day equivalent, argues Professor Margaret MacMillan.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Understanding and Treating the Cancer of Islamic Extremism
by Ribal Al-Assad
“I am a soldier of Allah and this is a war,” explained Michael Adebolajo in his own defense at the trial for the murder of British soldier Lee Rigby. The judge disqualified this as a legal argument, but outside the Court of Law, it is a stark reminder of the irrational and petrifying mind-set at the very heart of Islamism.
Had Adebolajo acted alone, and in isolation, one would question his sanity before looking for deeper lying social causes. But he was not, and we cannot. Islamist extremism links almost every horror story of the past fifteen years. From 9-11 to 7-7, to Madrid and Boston, onto the summer’s massacres in Kenya and Nigeria to the acts of terrorism in Algeria, Mali, Russian Chechnya and China’s Xinjiang Province, runs the constant threat of fundamentalism. It was the motive behind the murder of worshipers leaving a Christmas Day service in Baghdad. And it sits at the very heart of the apocalyptic events in and around Syria.
Terminology in this area can be inflammatory, but definitions are important. Islam is a peaceful religion. Islamism is a perverted ideology that imposes conformity with Sharia law. It views violence as an acceptable means to that end…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
(Islam is a peaceful religion by Ribal Al-Assad). Only a fundamentalist Muslim using taqiyya would write words like that to promote such a dystopian and violent ideology!
A London based Muslim Human Rights Organisation has attacked the government’s proposal to tackle terrorism saying that they will “tighten the stranglehold on Britain’s Muslims”.
Worried as usual, crocodile tears next.
“Where’s the smokescreen, fire the chaff folks”…
“Um.. It ain’t working, they can see through it.”
Where’s the dhimini washing power, to make Islam greener than red?
When there’s a problem, a major problem, the usual initial reaction is to deny it. Then as the problem becomes more apparent and more visible, apologies are made and enquiries are made into the issue. This is what happened in the Catholic Church with regards to children abuse. It’s being slowly tackled and has been acknowledged.
Yet, when it comes to Islamic organizations, the denial stage is strong and any counter challenge is met with “don’t criticize my faith”, or being labelled Racist, or in Islamic states, being called an apostate. This is not good news nor is it a positive way of defending an ideology.
Here we go again, in what I call a circular reference mode, ( anyone with experience of excel might know what I mean). I take issue to the thick skinned approached by taken by these organizations, as they it is evident that they are serious about tackling extremism or abuse, unlike the Catholic Church. Nor do I expect the political elite to batter an eyelid either, as they are so shallow. I await Douglas Murray’s article on this or I could write an article on this….
Sarc on used in my last paragraph on extremism and abuse.
“The country’s Palestinian community is among the world’s largest, with about 350,000 immigrants and their descendants.”
Why did this happen at all?
Does anyone here know when and why Chile allowed a terrorist people to set up colonies?
Re: Light skinned Europeans- I think Egghead is being disingenuous. Notwithstanding some Chinese theories to the contrary, there is little doubt that all humans originated in East Africa, wherever they wandered and mingled thereafter.
Congratulations, you caught my point. Islam claims ALL pre-history and history – and is totally willing to destroy ALL other cultural relics and archeology that might contradict the claim that Islam is the beginning of history.
Also, while white Americans consider swarthy Arabs to be people of color, swarthy Arabs consider themselves to be white. Nota bene: The Arab world for black is synonymous with slave.
You can be sure the ummah will use this tidbit for its propaganda….
I hope the Israelis will just deport all those illegal African immigrants who think they are entitled to just settle in Israel and doubtless claim benefits. Just how many Africans have settled in the Palestinian territories?
Quote:
Just how many Africans have settled in the Palestinian territories?
end
There’s a profound question.
Slaves, anyone?