A massive explosion all but destroyed a pair of semi-detached houses in Clacton, a suburb of London, this morning. A gas leak is thought to have been the cause of the blast. Miraculously, no one was killed, although two of the ten people in the houses suffered grievous injuries. Readers will find it instructive to compare photos of the aftermath of the explosion with those of the “natural gas” explosion in Minneapolis on January 1.
In other news, a young graduate student from Iran at Georgia Tech was hospitalized in Atlanta with third-degree burns over 90% of his body after what appeared to be Molotov cocktails exploded in his apartment.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Diana West, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, RR, Seneca III, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Bitcoin: Revolutionary Game-Changer or Trojan Horse?
JP Morgan Chase has filed a patent for a Bitcoin-like payment system. And Russia’s largest bank is working on a Bitcoin alternative as well.
Ben Bernanke and the Department of Justice have both cautiously blessed Bitcoin.
François R. Velde, senior economist at the Federal Reserve in Bank of Chicago, labeled it as “an elegant solution to the problem of creating a digital currency.” John Browne theorizes:
While crypto-currencies remain insulated from central bank manipulation, governments have thus far been tolerant, perhaps because their capability to track transactions is more advanced than Bitcoin believers admit.
Indeed, Bitcoin is not really that anonymous, as the NSA can track Bitcoin trades.
The NSA can apparently also hack Bitcoin. And see this. Given that the NSA may be changing the amount in people’s accounts, it would be child’s play for them to change the amount in your Bitcoin wallet.
And Yves Smith argues that Bitcoin actually plays into the hands of the central bankers:
“If you believe the hype, you’ve been had. As Izabella Kaminska of the Financial Times tells us, you all are really just doing free/underpaid R&D for central banks, since you are debugging and building legitimacy for one of their fond projects, making currencies digital and getting rid of cash altogether.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Greece May Get 50 Years to Repay Its Debt
BERLIN — EU officials are considering an extension to 50 years (from 30) for Greece to repay its bailout loans, Bloomberg reports. A spokesman for German finance minister Schaeuble refused to confirm the report and said Berlin will only engage in such talks once the troika finishes its review of Greek reforms.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Northern League Says Napolitano ‘Shameless’
‘Euro has destroyed jobs, wages, pensions’ says Salvini
(ANSA) — Rome, February 4 — The leader of the anti-immigrant and anti-euro Northern League on Tuesday slammed Italian President Giorgio Napolitano for defending a European single currency it said had “destroyed” jobs and wages. “Napolitano is without shame,” said Matteo Salvini as the Italian president made a keynote address to the European Parliament. “Anyone who still defends this euro that has destroyed jobs, wages and pensions is in bad faith,” Salvini said.
The League leader said the EP elections in May, where populist anti-euro parties are expected to score big, would “sweep away these euro follies”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy’s Audit Court May Sue Rating Agencies for 234 Bn Euros
Case regards alleged error in 2011 downgrade — FT report
(ANSA) — Rome, February 5 — Italy’s State auditor, the Audit Court, is considering suing the world’s three leading rating agencies for damages over downgrades of the country’s credit rating in 2011, the Financial Times has reported.
The Audit Court may be about to sue Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch for 234 billion euros over the downgrades, which increased concern about Italy’s financial position and contributed to a rise in borrowing costs at the height of the eurozone debt crisis.
The FT said S&P had revealed that it had been notified that the Audit Court may present a claim, in part because the agency allegedly failed to account for Italy’s cultural heritage when downgrading the country’s rating.
“S&P never in its ratings pointed out Italy’s history, art or landscape which, as universally recognised, are the basis of its economic strength,” the FT quoted the petition as saying. S&P dismissed the claim as “frivolous and without merit”, the FT said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Marc Faber Fears “A Vicious Circle to the Downside” Is Just Beginning
“It’s not just tapering that is putting pressure on markets,” Marc Faber warns in this brief clip. “Emerging economies have practically no growth and we have a slowdown in China that is more meaningful than strategists are willing to believe,” he adds and this is “causing a vicious circle to the downside” in inflated asset markets as most of the growth in the world over the last five years has come from emerging markets. Faber suggests Treasuries as a safe haven in the short-term; but is nervous of their value in the long-term as “debt is becoming burdensome on the system.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Millions of Americans Teetering on Edge of Financial Ruin
A poll conducted by NBC News and Marist paints a bleak financial picture for millions of Americans. Nearly 20 percent, more than 40 million Americans, say they have a difficult time making ends meet.
The poll follows the results of a report released last year by the U.S. Census Bureau. It showed household income steadily declining since the Great Recession began in 2007. Median income in 2012 was $51,017 a year, down from $51,100 the year before. In 1999, median income was $56,080 when adjusted for inflation. The report also showed 46.5 million Americans mired in poverty.
Last January the Commerce Department reported personal income had fallen 3.6% that month, the largest decline in 20 years. Taxes and inflation made the decline even bigger. Disposable personal income fell by 4%. It was the largest loss in half a century…
The precipitous decline in middle class wealth is largely the fault of the Federal Reserve and government economic policy. The Federal Reserve enables deficit spending by government and fractional reserve lending by banks. It does this by creating money out of nothing. This influx of new money dilutes the value of existing currency and creates inflation. This represents an invisible tax government never talks about.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish Financial Crisis Adds to Region’s Chaos
By David P Goldman
More than coincidence accounts for the visit to Iran by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on January 28, the same day that his economic policy collapsed in a most humiliating way.
As the Turkish lira collapsed to levels that threatened to bankrupt many Turkish companies, the country’s central bank raised interest rates, ignoring Erdogan’s longstanding pledge to keep interest rates low and his almost-daily denunciation of an “interest rate lobby” that sought to bring down the Turkish economy. Erdogan’s prestige was founded on Turkey’s supposed economic miracle.
Hailed as”the next superpower” by John Feffer of the Institute for Policy Studies, and as “Europe’s BRIC” by The Economist, Turkey has become the Sick Man of the Middle East. It now appears as a stock character in the comic-opera of Third World economics: a corrupt dictatorship that bought popularity through debt accumulation and cronyism, and now is suffering the same kind of economic hangover that hit Latin America during the 1980s.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
18.2 Feet! One of Biggest Burmese Pythons Caught in Florida
Florida officials say they’ve bagged one of the biggest Burmese pythons ever found in the state: an 18.2-foot-long (5.5 meters) female weighing some 150 pounds (68 kilograms).
It’s alarming to find Burmese pythons with such robust physique in the wilds of Florida, because the snake is considered an invasive species. Native to Southeast Asia, the nonvenomous constrictors are popular as exotic pets, and pet Burmese pythons that were released or escaped are likely responsible for establishing the breeding population that’s taken hold in Florida in the past two decades. With no natural predators in the state, the snakes’ numbers have exploded, and they’re wiping out native wildlife like bobcats, foxes and raccoons.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Are Conservatives Kidding Themselves?
Obama’s mentors were communists, race baiters, violent radicals, corrupt politicians. Style of governing combines divisiveness, mean-spiritedness, lawlessness and manifest incompetence.
We have elected to the presidency a man with no executive or managerial experience, indeed with no significant accomplishments of any kind. This man’s main mentors all his life were communists, race baiters, violent radicals and corrupt politicians. His style of governing manages to combine divisiveness, mean-spiritedness, lawlessness and manifest incompetence. He has made no secret of his intention to recreate the United States as an internationally weak, equality-obsessed, unexceptional, centrally managed, social welfare state. His main accomplishment has been to convert the health insurance industry into a public utility. And we re-elected him! What does that say about the political savvy of the people of the United States of America?
Virtually all of the main opinion-forming organs of the country are controlled by progressives. This includes the media, educational system, universities, libraries, seminaries, legal profession, federal bureaucracy, much of the major corporate boardrooms, public sector unions and the foundations established by the “robber barons” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Given the thorough brainwashing that the populace is subjected to, it is a miracle that any conservative thought survives. Yet polls indicate that 40% of the people self-identify as conservatives. But more than half of them have no idea what being conservative entails. I warrant that much less, certainly no more than 20% of the people have any understanding of how far the nation has drifted from its Constitutional moorings.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Unions furious to learn the law will apply to them too
Unions that undoubtedly believed they were part of the Obama administration’s select group of “winners,” have discovered otherwise. In a scathing letter addressed to Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Harry Reid (D-NV), the presidents of UniteHere and the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) declared they were “bitterly disappointed” that the proposed regulations to ObamaCare would be detrimental to their interests.
In short, unions that supported the president’s two election campaigns are apparently just discovering what many Americans have known for years: Obama’s promises are worthless.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Can a Marxist Who Wants to Take Down the Free West Really be “Not a Bad Guy”?
If there was any chance of Obama answering the “right questions”, he would never have shown up for the Fox interview.
Planting doubt in the minds of viewers that Obama is only being “misread”, in effect enables him to continue spreading Marxist misery as the seemingly unstoppable Marxist transformer of a beloved America…
In fact, empirical proof that Obama is a socialist/marxist exists in the plain English, gloating of the Progressive Populist magazine of November 1996:
“New Party members and supported candidates won 16 of 23 races, including an at-large race for the Little Rock, Ark. City Council, a seat on the country board for Little Rock and the school board for Prince George’s County, Md. Chicago is sending the first New Party Member to Congress, as Danny Davis, who ran as Democrat, won an overwhelming 85% victory. New Party member Barack Obama was uncontested for a State Senate seat from Chicago.”
This is what The Democratic Socialist Party of America published in their July/August Editor of New Ground 47 Newsletter:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cedar-Riverside Caucus Draws Raucous Crowds
A fight ended a caucus at Brian Coyle Center Tuesday night
Rowdy, fighting crowds cut short a neighborhood precinct caucus Tuesday in Cedar-Riverside, where Mohamud Noor is challenging longstanding state Rep. Phyllis Kahn. Nearly 300 people crowded into the gymnasium of the Brian Coyle Community Center on Tuesday, but tension and scuffles between attendees shut down the caucus 40 minutes in.
“I saw a heated discussion and a table move and a speaker move, and the police came in,” said Corey Day, executive director of Minnesota’s DFL party. Hamdi Abdujalil, 18, said attendees screamed when Noor arrived at the meeting, insisting they “register” with the candidate.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Coca-Cola and an America That is No Longer a Real Country But, Rather, The Whole Wide World
By Hugh Fitzgerald
By their ads shall ye know them. The propaganda campagaign on behalf of Diversity — apparently something that is not self-evidently wonderful because otherwise why would its putative wonderfulness have to be brought up on every conceivable occasion?
[…]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Conservatives? We Don’t Need No Stinking Conservatives
Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges. — B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
I still don’t understand why some people who claim their love for America call themselves “conservatives.” The word “conservative” is a derivative of the word “conserve,” which means to keep, protect, preserve, save, maintain, perpetuate. And I ask myself, what do conservatives want to keep, protect, preserve, save, maintain, perpetuate and conserve?
Do conservatives want to conserve teachers brainwashing our children in the public schools that we humans evolved from a piece of rock and that gay is cool?
Do they want to protect university professors who tell their students that truth is just a social “construct” that has nothing to do with reality?
Do they want to keep Big Pharma hooking their children on psychotropic drugs that turn them into senseless, cold-blooded mass murderers?[1]
[…]
Conservatives love blaming Obama for all the bad things currently going on in America. But most of the problems we face are not Obama’s creation. Obama’s policies are just the seamless continuation of George W. Bush’s policies. And Bush’s policies were the seamless continuation of Clinton’s policies. And Clinton’s policies were the seamless continuation of George H.W. Bush’s policies. And George H.W. Bush’s policies were the continuation of the policies of most previous presidents back to Wilson. And their policies are so similar because they were not conceived by them but by their master puppeteers at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The truth is that the current state of things is not only the result of the efforts of liberal traitors who are trying hard to destroy America. It is also the work of conservatives who are doing exactly the same as the liberal traitors, as well as of many true patriots who apparently are either confused or lack what is needed to firmly oppose them.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Explosive Device, Gasoline Found in Burned Student’s Apartment
A suspected Molotov cocktail and several plastic bottles filled with gasoline and kerosene were found in the Midtown apartment of a Georgia Tech graduate student severely burned, police said Wednesday.
Saamer Akhshabi remains in Grady Memorial Hospital with third-degree burns over 90 percent of his body from the fire started in his apartment Tuesday afternoon in the 200 block of 10th Street, police said.
Late Tuesday night, it wasn’t known what caused the fire. But an FBI spokesman said the man’s burns were possibly from an incendiary device.
“At this time, we are assisting in furthering the investigation to determine how the male received the injuries and how the fire started,” Officer John Chafee with Atlanta police said.
Several investigators were outside the apartment building late Tuesday. A resident of a nearby apartment, George Greenlee, said he was told to evacuate.
In addition to what police described as a Molotov cocktail — a container filled with flammable material, and often topped with a make-shift fuse — police said several gasoline- or kerosene-filled bottles were found in the apartment.
Police reported the incident to U.S. Homeland Security, and a police SWAT team, and agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI were called in…
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Florida College Reverses No-Gun Policy on Campus in Wake of School Shooting
Police responded Thursday to the shooting at Eastern Florida State College / Photo credit: News-Press.com
Following a shooting in a parking lot at Eastern Florida State College, school officials took an unusual step — they are now allowing guns back on campus.
The shooting occurred Thursday, when a student was brutally attacked by two men near his car. The student, Landrick Hamilton, 24, was able to retrieve his firearm from inside his vehicle and shot one of the men in the chest, according to Orlando NBC affiliate WESH.
The man who was shot, Amado Contreras, 25, was hospitalized and is listed in fair condition.
At the time of the incident, firearms were not allowed on campus. The college announced Tuesday that it was now reversing its no-gun policy in the wake of the shooting, as long as weapons are kept secure and out of sight inside cars.
Eastern Florida’s students have largely applauded the change.
“I saw the guy getting beat down,” student Rio Gonzalez told WESH. “The gun practically saved his life.”
“If someone feels like they’re in harm’s way, they have the right to defend themselves as citizens,” student Trevaria Cole agreed.
Although he was in violation of school policy at the time of the shooting, Hamilton will not be punished, according to WMFE radio.
“We’re glad to work with him to get him back going in his studies,” college spokesman John Glisch said. “He remains a full-time student, and he’s not facing any type of disciplinary action.”
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Justice Antonin Scalia Says World War II-Style Internment Camps Could Happen Again
Justice Antonin Scalia predicts that the Supreme Court will eventually authorize another a wartime abuse of civil rights such as the internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II.
“You are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again,” Scalia told the University of Hawaii law school while discussing Korematsu v. United States, the ruling in which the court gave its imprimatur to the internment camps.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Left Brain vs. Right: It’s a Myth, Research Finds
It’s the foundation of myriad personality assessment tests, self-motivation books and team-building exercises — and it’s all bunk.
Popular culture would have you believe that logical, methodical and analytical people are left-brain dominant, while the creative and artistic types are right-brain dominant. Trouble is, science never really supported this notion.
Now, scientists at the University of Utah have debunked the myth with an analysis of more than 1,000 brains. They found no evidence that people preferentially use their left or right brain. All of the study participants — and no doubt the scientists — were using their entire brain equally, throughout the course of the experiment.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Massachusetts College Man-in-Undies Sculpture Causes Stir
WELLESLEY, Mass. (AP) — A remarkably lifelike sculpture of a man sleepwalking in nothing but his underpants has made some Wellesley College students a bit uncomfortable, but the president of the prestigious women’s school says that’s all part of the intellectual process.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
MSM Collapsing: NY Times Now “Irrelevant, “ According to Its Own Writers
Opinion pieces have no impact on public discourse as statist media sinks
In another example of how the mainstream media is in a state of collapse, the New York Times’s own writers told a newspaper that NY Times opinion pieces are now seen as “irrelevant” and have no impact on public discourse whatsoever.
This is a stunning turnaround from as little as five years ago, when a New York Times opinion piece was viewed with respect and held a certain level of gravitas.
The New York Observer interviewed more than two dozen current and former NY Times writers, virtually all of whom were unanimous in acknowledging that the Old Gray Lady is becoming increasingly insignificant…
This is yet another consequence of the fact that more and more people are turning away from mainstream media as a result of its habitual efforts to twist the truth and deceive the public in order to serve the interests of the state.
The corporate press is in a blind panic because it is quickly losing its ability to dictate reality and shape narratives, which is why people like Hillary Clinton have bemoaned the fact that the establishment is “losing the Infowar” to newly emerging media sources.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Pushes and the People Punt
Ladies and gentlemen, in its history there is evidence all over America of people saying enough is enough and pushing back against government tyranny, corruption and little tin Gods. One such push back occurred in a little town in Tennessee in 1946.
In the late 1930’s and early 40’s, McMinn County, Tennessee was notorious for its corruption and voter fraud. The local sheriff at the time, one Paul Cantrell, having been elected three times by the people, decided he would be King of the County and started a racket where he and his deputies would be paid a fee for every arrest they made. They sometimes would stop a bus going through town and charge some of the passengers with public drunkeness and arrest them. They lined their pockets for a fair the well and manipulated the vote to stay in power. The people in the town lived in fear of Cantrell and his henchmen.
Corruption and voter fraud were well known by the FEDS at the time and the Justice Department, you know the one that corrupt Eric Holder runs now, investigated McMinn County, but no charges were ever filed against Cantrell or his deputies.
Returning veterans were also aware of Cantrell’s racket and corruption and ran 5 candidates at the local election in August of 1946. The Vet’s campaign slogan was a “fraud-free election.” Needless to say Cantrell and his men were not about to go down without a fight and a fight they got. On the other hand these returning vets were returning from war, where high adrenaline and violence were a daily part of their lives. They weren’t about to be pushed around by some pot-bellied sheriff who thought he owned the town.
The vote was August 1, 1946. Over 200 armed guards were placed around the polling places. With only 15 deputies under sheriff Cantrell, he had to bring guards in from surrounding counties. A black man was assaulted and then shot at one of the polling places by one of the deputies. The deputy ultimately went to jail for 3 years.
When the polls closed the deputies seized the ballots and took them to the jail. The jailhouse was barricaded and defended by 55 deputies. The veterans, very familiar with guns from the war, armed themselves from the local armory and descended on the jailhouse. Estimates of the number of armed veterans besieging the jailhouse ranged from 200 to 2,000. The veterans demanded the ballot boxes but sheriff Cantrell refused. Riots broke out across the town with most of the damage being inflicted on police cars. The veterans opened fire on the jailhouse and ultimately dynamited the jailhouse door. In any event, the veterans recovered the ballot boxes and after a “fraud free” count, 5 veteran candidates replaced the corrupt ones. The gambling and liquor houses, owned and operated by the sheriff and his deputies, were raided and closed down. (source: Battle of Athens (1946))
Please take note that the corruption in Athens, Tennessee would have never been stopped with nice words. In almost every case, the only thing that will stop corruption and vice, which is violence by its very nature, is violence challenging violence. Corruption in the hands of those that carry the guns is violence on the people. Government, by definition is force. Force, or the threat of force against the people, is violence. We are not advocating violence at this point in America’s history because there are still peaceful ways to root out the corruption, that is if enough Americans are up to the task.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Part of New York’s Laguardia Airport Evacuated Over Suspicious Package
NEW YORK, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) — Part of Terminal C at LaGuardia Airport has been evacuated as a precaution as authorities investigate a report of smoke coming from a package, local media quoted the Port Authority as saying…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Philip Seymour Hoffman is Just the Tip of the Iceberg of the Raging Heroin Abuse Epidemic in America
According to the federal government, the number of heroin addicts in the United States has more than doubled since 2002.
Yes, you read that correctly. In fact, it is being reported that heroin-related overdose deaths have risen 84 percent just since 2010. The truth is that the recent death of Philip Seymour Hoffman is just the tip of the iceberg of the raging heroin abuse epidemic in America. Heroin is cheap, it is potent, and it is very similar to the legal painkillers that millions of Americans are currently addicted to. According to ABC News, Hoffman was found “with five empty heroin bags as well as many as 65 more bags that were still unused” when his body was discovered on Sunday in his New York apartment. It is a great tragedy, but the reality is that tragedies like this are happening all across the United States every single day. Heroin is the the number one killer of illegal drug users, and as heroin use continues to rise so will the number of dead bodies.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Possibly the World’s Most Impressive Paper Plane
(CNN) — All that’s missing are the fussy flight attendants and the smell of irradiated food.
Oh, and maybe some nerve-jangling turbulence.
And reassuring pilots.
Twenty-two-year-old San Franciscan Luca Iaconi-Stewart has done what any self-respecting airplane fanatic would do.
He’s got his own.
Unlike, say, John Travolta, however, who owns and flies five planes including a Boeing 707-138, Iaconi-Stewart’s craft is more befitting his age and status.
It’s four feet long.
And made of cardboard.
And he built it himself.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sheila Jackson Lee: Writing Executive Orders for Obama to Sign ‘Our Number One Agenda’
Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said that the new Congressional Full Employment Caucus will “give President Obama a number of executive orders that he can sign.” Jackson Lee added that writing up executive orders “should be our number one agenda.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Supreme Court Justice Confirms American Internment Camps Will Happen Again: “it is the Reality”
While President Obama and Congressional members have made an effort to convince their constituents that the provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act will never be used against citizens of the United States, the fact is that the laws clearly allow for the detention, arrest and detainment of Americans without charge or trial.
The President attempted to assuage these fears of potential abuse of the law by including a signing statement promising he would never use the law against Americans, but the statement itself is non-binding, leaving the possibility of misuse wide open.
In the event of a declared national emergency or war, when fear and panic are running rampant, the President will, without a shadow of a doubt, implement whatever means necessary in order to control the populace and maintain order.
Detainment and interment will be at the top of the Department of Homeland Security’s to-do list.
And if you have any doubts about this possibility then pay close attention to the words of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at a recent event where law students asked the judge about the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
Keep in mind that this is coming from one of the people who will be sitting on the panel of judges who decides whether or not such an act is Constitutional:
[…]
There will come a time in America when panic grips the nation. There will be riots, violence, and bloodshed resulting from any number of plausible scenarios like the collapse of our economic and monetary systems.
When this happens the government will implement their continuity plans. Martial law will be declared.
The Department of Homeland Security will activate their already stocked and staffedn Federal Emergency Management Agency refugee camps. We’ve seen these in limited form during major storms like Hurricane Sandy. Those who came to FEMA for help reported that their facilities were like concentration camps.
But they were nothing compared to what would happen in a situation where hundreds of thousands of people would need to be detained under a national emergency declaration. According to various sources and a ton of research over the years, FEMA camps are situated all over the country and are awaiting internees.
A U.S. Army internal document provides some additional insight:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Today’s Wall Street Journal (WSJ) had a front page story that raises question of the vulnerability of our national power grid to terrorist attack given an incident that occurred in Silicon Valley in April 2013. It is only now t surfacing in the national media, “Assault on Power Grid Raises Alarms”. In the early morning of April 16, 2013, the Metcalf, California transmission substation in Silicon Valley was attacked by what federal investigators believe was a highly professional terrorist team . That sniper assault caused 17 transformers to crash severing power to Internet Service Providers and other power users in Silicon Valley. Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) was forced to increase and reroute power to the area served by the disabled transmission station. The recovery took 27 days for PG&E to repair and bring the transmission substation back on line…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
The establishment is gunning for Tea Party congressmen who back civil liberties and oppose war, and is putting tens of millions of dollars on the line to defeat them in 2014. Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) claimed on MSNBC’s Now With Alex Wagner January 15:
It’s often said this is not your father’s or grandfather’s Republican Party. It’s not even the Republican Party of five years ago. These folks have gone Tea Party over the edge and they’re obsessive. They’re extremists, and quite frankly, they’ve destroyed the Republican Party and used it only in name. The fact is, we haven’t done anything. We’ve only passed about 60 bills. Most of them are suspensions, post office namings and a few of them have been bills to simply reopen the government after they shut it down.
Ellison specifically complained on MSNBC about the unwillingness of Tea Party Republicans to back pet leftist causes, such as increasing the minimum wage, providing amnesty for illegal immigrants, and transforming unemployment insurance into a long-term dole.
Ellison and his cheerleaders on MSNBC — and other establishment television networks — have decried the increasing partisanship in Congress and attributed it almost exclusively to the Tea Party movement. But is the Tea Party responsible for this partisanship?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Postal Service Announces Giant Ammo Purchase
The U.S. Postal Service is currently seeking companies that can provide “assorted small arms ammunition” in the near future.
On Jan. 31, the USPS Supplies and Services Purchasing Office posted a notice on the Federal Business Opportunities website asking contractors to register with USPS as potential ammunition suppliers for a variety of cartridges.
“The United States Postal Service intends to solicit proposals for assorted small arms ammunition,” the notice reads, which also mentioned a deadline of Feb. 10.
The Post Office published the notice just two days after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced his proposal to remove a federal gun ban that prevents lawful concealed carry holders from carrying handguns inside post offices across the country…
Including mass purchases by the Dept. of Homeland Security, non-military federal agencies combined have purchased an estimated amount of over two billion rounds of ammunition in the past two years.
Additionally, the U.S. Army bought almost 600,000 Soviet AK-47 magazines last fall, enough to hold nearly 18,000,000 rounds of 7.62x39mm ammo which is not standard-issue for either the U.S. military or even NATO.
It would take a Lockheed Martin C-5 Galaxy, one of the largest cargo aircraft in the world, two trips to haul that many magazines.
A month prior, the army purchased nearly 3,000,000 rounds of 7.62x39mm ammo, a huge amount but still only 1/6th of what the magazines purchased can hold in total.
The Feds have also spent millions on riot control measures in addition to the ammo acquisitions.…
While the government gears up for civil unrest and stockpiles ammo without limit, private gun owners on the other hand are finding ammunition shelves empty at gun stores across America, including shortages of once-common cartridges such as .22 Long Rifle.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Black Death Plague Strain Differs From That Which Killed Millions 800 Years Earlier
By sequencing the deadly pathogen’s genome, scientists solve a mystery, and learn more about plague strains that still kill today
For the first time, researchers have sequenced the full genome of the bacterium that caused a plague that killed millions of people in the 6th century A.D., and discovered to their surprise that the outbreak was caused by a different strain of the same germ that was to blame for the more famous Black Death 800 years later. Their findings offer insight into the genetic factors that influence the virulence of the plague bacterium as well as other pathogens.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Brit May Have Surfed Biggest Wave Ever; Andrew Cotton Reacts to ‘Scary’ Feat
Experts believe the biggest wave ever surfed may now belong to British surfer Andrew Cotton. After conquering what many believe was a 78-80 foot wave in Nazare, Portugal, on Sunday, photographic evidence now heads to a judging committee at Billabong; a decision on a short list of nominees will be made in May.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
British Politician Wants UK Muslims to Denounce Parts of Quran
A far-right UK Independence Party (UKIP) politician reiterated on Tuesday his belief that a declaration denouncing specific parts of the Quran must be signed by Muslims living in Britain. Gerard Batten, an MEP, renewed his suggestion first proposed in 2006 while speaking to the British daily news website the Guardian, adding that Europe made a huge mistake by allowing “an explosion of mosques across their land.”
“If that represents the thinking of modern people, there’s something wrong, in which case maybe they need to revise their thinking,” Batten said. “If they say they can’t revise their thinking on those issues, then who’s got the problem — us or them?” he added.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EC Report Highlights Extent of Corruption in Italy
‘Links between politics and the mob, low-integrity lawmakers’
(By Stefania Fumo) (ANSA) — Rome, February 3 — The European Commission’s first anti-corruption report revealed Monday that Italy has a high rate of graft due in part to a strong link between politics and organized crime.
Worsening matters is “the low level of integrity of elected representatives,” the EC found. Both examples, it said, “are among the most worrying aspects, as evidenced by the high number of corruption investigations (in Italy)”.
It also criticizes a new Italian anti-corruption law for “leaving unresolved” various problems by “not modifying the statute of limitations nor rules against false accounting and money-laundering, nor does it make trading votes a felony”.
The report points out that Italy has much work to do to fight conflicts of interest in the government.
Among its recommendations is for Italy to “block the adoption of ad personam laws,” which it said “on several occasions have impeded attempts” to guarantee swift trials. The EC report also called for for public officials to disclose their assets, and for more control mechanisms around local and regional public spending.
If Italy fails to act, it will further erode public confidence in the country’s institutions, the report said.
“Corruption undermines citizens’ faith in their institutions and damages the economy, depriving countries of tax revenues that are particularly necessary in this moment of crisis,” European Home Affair Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said in presenting the report. The report also found that corruption costs the overall European economy about 120 billion euros per year.
The Italian Audit Court recently found that corruption costs Italy roughly 60 billion euros per year. Corruption in large-scale infrastructure projects in Italy is estimated to account for 40% of the total value of the contracts, the EC report said.
It pointed to large public projects, like the post-earthquake reconstruction of the city of L’Aquila, Milan Expo 2015, and the future Turin-Lyon high-speed rail link are all at risk of “criminal infiltration” and “misappropriation of public funds”.
The report placed suspicion of corruption on certain completed high-speed rail construction projects in Italy, noting that the costs were four to 10 times greater than other locations in Europe and Japan.
In Italy, construction costs for high-speed rail ranged from 47.3 million euros per km for the Rome-Naples link to 96.4 million euros per km for the Bologna-Florence link, and averaged 61 million euros per km overall.
In contrast, high-speed rail links such as Paris-Lyon and Madrid-Seville cost 10.2 million euros and 9.8 million euros per km, respectively.
The Tokyo-Osaka high-speed train cost 9.3 million euros per km, the EC said.
The report pointed out that the cost differences in themselves were “inconclusive”, but could turn out to be indicators of “possible mismanagement” or “irregularities” in public procurement tenders.
The EC recommended more transparency in Italian public tenders, both before and after they are granted, noting that the same advice was among EC recommendations for Italy in July 2013.
The EC also included a survey showing 97% of Italians agree that corruption is widespread in their home country, against an EU average of 76%.
Nearly two out of three Europeans and 88% percent of Italian citizens believe that bribery and the use of connections are often the easiest way to obtain certain public services, the EC said.
In response, Filippo Patroni Griffi — undersecretary to Premier Enrico Letta — said that while Italy still has work to do to stem money laundering and to increase the penalties for crimes of corruption, it has already implemented some of the EC’s recommendations.
“I’m thinking of the asset disclosure by public officials requirement, our law on party financing, and the national anti-corruption agency we are setting up. These have all been ratified into law”, Patroni Griffi said.
“We also introduced a bill just a few days ago, that would severely restrict holding high office in the public and the private sector at the same time,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Frenchman Sentenced to Prison Over Kitten Abuse Video
A 24-year-old man has been convicted of animal cruelty by a Marseille court after injuring a kitten by throwing it against an apartment building, then uploading a video clip of the act on his Facebook profile, officials said. Frenchman Farid Ghilas has been sentenced to a year in prison.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Backs Italy Over Case of Marines in India
‘Unjustified delay’ in handling of case, says The Hindu
(ANSA) — New Delhi, February 4 — Just prior to German President Joachim Guack’s visit to India on Tuesday, Germany’s Ambassador to New Delhi Michael Steiner expressed support for Italy as it struggles with a diplomatic crisis involving the trial of two of its marines in the country.
In meeting with journalists to outline the presidential visit, Steiner said that a smooth handling of the case is in the interest of Italy, India and the European Union (EU). “Italy is part of the EU so we are following the case closely. It is on one hand a bilateral issue, but we think it is in the mutual interest of India, Italy and the EU to solve it smoothly, considering it has been going on for two years (now),” he said. The German envoy stressed that “this issue has also a bearing on the global fight against piracy, to which the EU is strongly committed”.
The government in New Delhi has given mixed signals about whether or not to use an anti-piracy law that carries the death penalty against Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, accused of killing two Indian fishermen after allegedly mistaking them for pirates and opening fire on their fishing trawler while guarding the privately owned Italian-flagged oil-tanker MT Enrica Lexie off the coast of Kerala on February 15, 2012.
Italy has been petitioning the Indian Supreme Court to rule out the harsh law against gaining the support of the European Union, which has threatened economic consequences. India has shown “unjustified delay” in handling the case of the two marines, who were on an anti-piracy mission at the time of the shooting, Indian daily the Hindi said in an editorial Tuesday.
An Indian court postponed on Monday for another week a long-awaited ruling over how authorities should proceed against the marines.
Staffan De Mistura, Italy’s special envoy assigned to the case, told ANSA “the prosecution can no longer play with time.
We have calculated with our lawyer 25 judicial postponements without one piece of documentation”. Italy had previously been given assurances from India’s Foreign Ministry that the pair would not face the death penalty.
In commenting on the case, The Indian Express reported Tuesday that of the three ministries involved, the foreign and justice ministries do not support using the anti-piracy law against the marines, while the interior ministry wants it to be applied.
Italian Defense Minister Mario Mauro told Radio Anch’io on Tuesday that “the Indian justice system is violating the rights of the two marines, since for the past two years they have been entirely willing to undergo any and all investigations. They should now be allowed to return home to Italy and follow the trial from here. This is an issue that concerns all Italy”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Grapevine Gene Bank Under Threat
Scientists raise concerns about relocation of premier French research vineyard dubbed the ‘Louvre of vines’
Uncertainty hangs over one of the world’s largest and most important grapevine collections. The Domaine de Vassal vineyard, on France’s Mediterranean coast, houses a vast sweep of grape biodiversity that is essential to research and winegrowers in France and around the world.
The 138-year-old collection, managed by the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), has been threatened with eviction, prompting a decision to relocate it.
The collection was started in 1876 by French researchers in response to a pest outbreak that saw the near-destruction of Europe’s vineyards. The outbreak was caused by accidental introduction of phylloxera — an aphid that infests roots and kills the vine.
The vineyard was initially located near Montpellier, but moved to the Domaine de Vassal in 1949, where it expanded greatly. It now houses some 7,500 accessions from 47 countries, representing 2,300 different grape varieties, including wild species, rootstocks, hybrids and mutants.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Industry Chief Criticises ‘Punitive’ Italian Taxman
System ‘complicated and uncertain’, Squinzi says
(ANSA) — Rome, February 4 — The head of Italy’s powerful industrial confederation Confindustria hit out at the Italian taxman on Tuesday, describing the system as “punitive, complicated and uncertain”.
“Companies are subject to thousands of obligations and as many controls,” Confindustria chief Giorgio Squinzi told a parliamentary commission on administrative and legislative simplification. “But has all this served to prevent tax evasion? The figures say no,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Is a New Tea Party Brewing in France?
The growing visibility of a staunchly conservative movement in France has prompted comparisons with the Tea Party of the United States.
Interior Minister Manuel Valls has warned that France was seeing the birth of its own version of the grassroots, anti-tax Tea Party movement amid a surge of anti-government demonstrations by right-wing groups and religious conservatives across the country.
“We are witnessing the creation of the French version of the Tea Party. By exploiting the political and leadership crisis on the right, and the National Front party’s move away from the far-right, a conservative and reactionary right has been set free,” Valls, a Socialist, told the Journal du Dimanche in an interview published on Sunday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italian President Denounces ‘Aggressive Nationalism’ In Europe
Northern League protest Napolitano during Strasbourg speech
(see related) (ANSA) — Strasbourg, February 4 — Upcoming elections for Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) scheduled for May “should be seen as a moment of truth,” where voters must reject any appeal to “return to aggressive nationalism…(and) persistent national selfishness and pettiness,” President Giorgio Napolitano said in a speech Tuesday to the European Parliament.
Populist euroskeptic parties are expected to do well in the election, in part due to voters’ exhaustion with recession, cuts to their standards of living, and rising taxes.
Napolitano also warned against continued government austerity that he said has been difficult on people and which some experts say has intensified the effects of the recession.
He said that among “too many European leaders, there is insufficient awareness of the decline that threatens Europe,” and called for greater efforts to shake off the effects of recession.
A “vicious circle” has been created by the efforts made by many countries, including Italy, to deal with the debt crises by cutting spending and deficits.
“We need a stronger political cohesion of the European Union, and a more determined European leadership,” to help pull the deeply interconnected region back into prosperity, he said.
As Napolitano spoke, members of Italy’s regionalist Northern League protested with posters and banners denouncing the single currency.
The protests, including League Members of the European Parliament (MEP) and party secretary Matteo Salvini, complained that the euro has “killed” jobs and wages.
Mara Biozzotto, an MEP, wore a T-shirt bearing the message “Napolitano is not my president” and others called the president “shameless” for promoting European unity.
Their protest was denounced by Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, who suggested its goal was to raise the League’s political profile.
“I have no sympathy for those who violently and vulgarly criticize for the sole purpose of increasing their visibility and to throw the country into chaos,” Schulz said in Italian.
Back in Italy Napolitano has been facing relentless pressure from Beppe Grillo, the leader of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), and his followers who have accused the president of being part of a “coup d’état” in Italy and destroying the country.
The M5S has staged a series of high-voltage protests in parliament over measures they are opposed to over the last week, including a new election law, and has demanded that Napolitano be impeached.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italian President Clashes With Lega Nord in EU Assembly
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano has denounced eurosceptic “propaganda” in the run-up to elections, while urging EU leaders to tackle a genuine “crisis in popular support.”
The 88-year-old politician faced noisy jeers from MEPs in Italy’s far-right Lega Nord party during his speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday (4 February). The deputies held up placards saying “Basta euro (enough of the euro),” while party leader Matteo Salvini yelled out: “Napolitano has no shame.”
The Italian President said the election, in May, will be a “moment of truth” for the EU due to the “crisis in popular support.” He described people who call for the break-up of the Union as being guilty of “vacuous propaganda … (and) disarming simplicity.” “We have to fight against national egoism and anachronistic conservatism,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Letta Moots Islamic Museum on Venice Grand Canal
Anti-immigrant Northern League slams project
(By Stefania Fumo) (ANSA) — Venice, February 3 — Venice Mayor Giorgio Orsoni wants to put his city on the map as a site of internationally weighty institutions, and a possible Islamic Museum plus study center is one of them.
On Monday, the mayor thanked Premier Enrico Letta for considering such a museum for the iconic city’s Grand Canal, which in Orsoni’s view would dovetail nicely with an existing Museum of Oriental Arts, a Council of Europe office in St.
Mark’s Square that often hosts Aspen Institute meetings, and a planned Orthodox Church study center, which would rise in the Mestre district on mainland Venice.
The Italian premier said during a trip to Doha, that his government “made a commitment to explore the opportunity to build an Islamic museum in Venice on the Grand Canal”.
Letta is in the Persian Gulf state on a mission to drum up investment to help to pull the Italian economy after its longest postwar recession.
Orsoni said the concept fits in with Venice’s municipal goal of continuing to bring “great cultural institutions of international breadth to Venice”.
The city offered “a special thanks to … Letta for his interest in the creation of an Islamic museum of great international scope in Venice, a sign of the history of this city and its openness to dialogue between cultures and religions”, added Orsoni.
The project was slammed Monday by the regionalist, anti-immigrant Northern League, which suggested Letta should focus on the economy and not cultural institutions.
Massimo Bitonci, Senate whip for the League, accused Letta of working to spread Islam in Italy.
“We do not want any Islamic museum in Venice”, Bitonci said. “Letta would do better to focus on the economic crisis instead of thinking (of ways) to spread Islam”, he added.
He suggested Letta was attempting to distract attention from a major industrial problem involving electrical-appliance multinational Electrolux, which last week announced a shock wage-cut plan it said was necessary to keep its Italian plants running.
That opinion was buttressed by Lorenzo Fontana, a League Member of the European Parliament, who threatened to put a spanner in the works of such a project.
“We will stay day and night in front of the building site and obstruct the work,” said Fontana.
“The League will never allow such a mess, the Veneto (region) wants independence, not Islamic museums,” he said, adding that such projects threaten to undermine the foundations of Italian society.
“I can’t believe he is even remotely thinking of putting money into yet another useless museum when our entire cultural heritage, and Venice itself, are at risk”, thundered Veneto Governor Luca Zaia, another Northern League member.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Rejects Lufthansa’s Call to Block Alitalia-Etihad Deal
‘Germans wanted company to go bankrupt’, says transport minister
(ANSA) — Rome, February 4 — The Italian minister of transport on Tuesday called a request by Germany’s largest airline to the European Commission to halt Etihad Airways’s planned investment in Alitalia a “disproportionate reaction”.
“The truth is that the Germans were hoping Alitalia would go bankrupt, enabling them to divide up the remains of our market and transform our airports into small stops for air traffic heading to Frankfurt and Munich,” Minister Maurizio Lupi told Italian media.
Lufthansa called on the European Commission on Monday to halt the planned investment from the Abu Dhabi-based carrier, alleging the use of State aid in disguise to break competition rules. The complaint by Frankfurt-based Lufthansa came as Alitalia CEO Gabriele Del Torchio said the troubled Italian carrier was poised to sign a financing deal with banks which was part of a 500-million-euro bailout package organized last fall by the Italian government.
It was later revealed that banks pledged about 165 million euros, with a remaining 35 million euros to come later.
The investment is critical to Italy’s cash-strapped national carrier as it struggles to survive until it can find a solvent partner, such as Etihad.
However, Monday’s move by Lufthansa, Europe’s largest airline, could act as a stumbling block to the plan by government-owned Etihad to invest in the Italian carrier and establish deeper roots in the lucrative European market.
“Alitalia and Etihad are two private enterprises,” the minister underscored. “The government simply provides consistent support to an infrastructure strategy. Have the French or Germans ever done it differently? They should stop calling on the EU to limit opening up to competition. They will find fierce opposition in Brussels”. He went on to note that Italy was “years behind” in infrastructure strategies and that “Etihad’s investment is an opportunity for everyone”. Brussels has not yet commented on the case. A spokesman said Tuesday it would look into the capital increase and follow developments closely. European sources have said in relation to the complaint by Lufthansa that Article 107 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union, which regulates state-aid control by the Commission, mentions ‘State aid from an EU Member State’, and thus does not encompass third countries. Meanwhile, Alitalia trade unions will be meeting at 18:00 (17:00 GMT) on Tuesday to continue talks on the company’s industrial plan and to assess the overall situation after Premier Enrico Letta’s visit to the UAE and the 165 million euros in financing granted by banks.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Venice at War Over Islamic Heritage
Venice unveils controversial plans to build an Islamic museum
Centuries after providing a massive armada for the crusades against the Saracens and battling the Ottomans, a fight has broken out in Venice over plans to build a museum of Islamic art on the banks of the Grand Canal…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Senate Approves Emergency ‘Ecomafia’ Decree, Becomes Law
Tackles mafia, industrial damage to environment
(ANSA) — Rome, February 5 — An emergency environmental law to deal with damage wrought to the environment by the mafia as well as industrial pollution from the ILVA steel plant in southern Italy passed Wednesday in the Senate to become a law. The decree, which passed in the House on Friday, was introduced by the government in December to deal with the environmental crimes of the so-called Ecomafia in an area dubbed the “terra dei fuochi” or land of fires in the southern Campania region.
It includes measures that have been toughened up since December, according to Environment Minister Andrea Orlando.
Under the law, burning rubbish without authorization becomes a crime.
The law also introduces tougher controls on agricultural land, where waste is often illegally dumped, which will be reportedly checked and fenced in the next 150 days.
It provides harsh penalties for those found guilty of burning waste and allocates an additional 600 million euros to the 300 million euros previously granted to Campania to clear land used for illegal rubbish dumps.
Levels of toxicity in the soil of land used for farming will be tested under the measure.
The law includes measures which will also affect the troubled ILVA steel plant in the southern Italian city of Taranto, which has been at the centre of a long-standing judicial case.
The powerful Naples-based Camorra mafia has long infiltrated every part of the rubbish-collection industry and has raked in huge profits even as its illegal dumps and uncontrolled burning of waste and other toxic materials have been blamed for unusually high levels of cancer and other disease linked to pollution that will plague future generations.
In particular, its disposal of toxic waste, including burning, in the southern Campania region and the area between Naples and Caserta — the land of fires — has led to very grave health warnings.
Mafia infiltration of waste disposal has become a major environmental and health issue as hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste — some of it dangerously contaminated — has been illegally dumped in what some have described as an ecological time bomb that will continue to poison the land for at least another 50 years.
In many cases, hazardous or toxic waste has, in clear violation of environmental laws, been dumped in landfills that are not properly sealed with the result that waste materials seep into the soil and aquifers.
According to environmental group Legambiente, 14% of environmental crimes in Italy take place in Campania, where 6,000 illegal waste fires and 2,000 toxic dumps were reported between January last year and August 2013.
The creation of the Ecomafia and the illegal trafficking of waste was exposed in the bestselling book Gomorrah.
The author of that book, Roberto Saviano, also exposed the criminal empire of the Casalesi, one of the most powerful families in the Neapolitan mafia, and as a result has been under police protection because of death threats.
His book was later turned into an award-winning film of the same name and documents the mob’s deadly hold over rackets and businesses ranging from toxic-waste disposal to construction, drugs and even the garment industry.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Priest, 60, Accused of Molesting Boy, 4
Cleric says blackmailed by father
(ANSA) — Ferrara, February 5 — Italian prosecutors have requested the indictment of a 60-year-old priest in Ferrara they say molested a four-year-old boy.
The priest denies sex abuse and says he was blackmailed by the boy’s father, who lives in the same building.
The alleged offences took pace in the priest’s flat.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lega Nord: “We Don’t Want an Islamic Centre in Venice”
by Diana West
It sounds like opera. Venice been sold down the river to the Emir if Qatar by Letta the Prime Minister and Orsoni the Mayor. Enter Bitonci, the hero from Lega Nord. Things don’t end well.
Western civilization, weep.
From the Daily Mail:
Venetians are up in arms over plans to build an Islamic centre on the banks of the lagoon city’s Grand Canal.
Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta announced plans to build the Islamic museum and study centre during a meeting with the Emir of Qatar.
Letta, who is in the Middle East to drum up investment for Italy’s woe-begotten state industries, said the leaders had ‘made a commitment to explore the opportunity to build an Islamic museum in Venice on the Grand Canal.’
The centre is set to be housed in one of Venice’s most prestigious and beautiful vantage points, the Palazzo delle Pescheria on the Grand Canal by the Rialto bridge.
The former prosecutor’s headquarters there has recently been vacated.
The project has immediately met with fierce resistance from Venetians, who say the money would be better spent rescuing their city from sinking into the mud…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey’s EU Application ‘An Open-Ended Process’ Says Merkel
‘My skepticism is no secret’ chancellor tells Turkish PM Erdogan
(ANSAmed) — BERLIN, FEBRUARY 4 — Turkey’s EU accession is still “an open-ended process”, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a joint news briefing with Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan Tuesday in the German capital. Erdogan asked Germany to boost its support for Ankara’s application to join the EU.
“It is no secret that I am skeptical with regards to Turkey’s entry as a full-fledged member”, Merkel said.
“This process doesn’t have a deadline”, she told reporters.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK Set to Sell Sensitive NHS Records to Commercial Companies With No Meaningful Privacy Protections
The UK government’s Health and Social Care Information Centre quietly announced plans to share all patient records held by the National Health Service with private companies, from insurers to pharmaceutical companies. The information sharing is on an opt-out basis, so if you don’t want your “clinical records, mental health consultations, drug addiction rehabilitation details, dsexual health clinic attendance and abortion procedures” shared, along with your “GP records, HS numbers, post-codes, gender, date of birth,” you need to contact your doctor and opt out of the process.
This is a complex issue. Large data-sets are the lifeblood of epidemiology and evidence-based care and policy, and the desire to extract useful health information from this data is a legitimate one.
However, it’s clear that no one involved in the process gives a damn about privacy. These data-sets — which will be sold on the open market to commercial operators — are “anonymized” and “pseudonymized” through processes that don’t work, have never worked, and are well-documented to be without any basis in reality.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: A Response to SOAS Muslim-Christian Dialogue Society
Yesterday Student Rights received an open letter from SOAS Muslim-Christian Dialogue attacking our work on gender segregation. Read our response below.
Many thanks for your open letter regarding Student Rights’ work on the issue of on-campus gender segregation. We strongly reject your claim that by highlighting gender segregation we are “vilifying” student Islamic societies…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Bullfinch Victims Help Police With Training Video
VICTIMS in the Bullfinch trial have told their stories for a training video to be used by police. Chief Constable Sara Thornton on Friday briefed members of a police panel on steps the force had taken to tackle child sex exploitation in the Thames Valley…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A six year-old boy who was suspended from his school after he took a bag of Mini Cheddars in his packed lunch has now been expelled.
Riley Pearson, from Colnbrook, near Slough, was initially excluded from Colnbrook C of E Primary School after teachers discovered the snack and called in his parents.
After a meeting with headmaster Jeremy Meek, they were sent a letter telling them Riley would be excluded from last Wednesday until Monday because he had been ‘continuously breaking school rules’.
But his parents have now said he has been expelled after they spoke to the media, while his younger brother has also been banned from its pre-school.
The school has insisted a pupil was not excluded ‘for just having Mini Cheddars in their lunchbox’ but because there had been a ‘persistent and deliberate breach of school policy, such as bringing in crisps, biscuits, sausage rolls, mini sausages, scotch eggs and similar’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Charities Commission is Not Fit for Purpose, Say MPs
Sam Younger, head of troubled charities watchdog, admits he has been too soft on rogue organisations, ahead of critical report by MPs on his leadership
The head of the troubled charities watchdog has admitted he has been too soft on rogue organisations, ahead of a critical report by MPs on his leadership…
During evidence sessions, MPs accused the body of deciding not to strip charitable status from a proscribed terrorist organisation said to encourage suicide bombings, while at the same time pursuing the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church in a dispute over its charitable status.
It was also accused of taking four years to begin investigating the bookshop in Leeds which had connections to those who committed the July 7 bombings…
[JP note: See
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmpubacc/792/79202.htm
and here for info on the political apparatchik and erstwhile leader of the pack Charity Commission
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzi_Leather and at youtube, Suzi Hell-for-Leather on What Makes a Good Regulator http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-qQyOp0p5Y ]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Charity Watchdog Feeble — MPs
The charities watchdog has been condemned as “feeble” and “not fit for purpose” following an investigation by MPs into its performance…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Clacton Gas Explosion: Ten Injured in Street Blast and Fire
Ten people have been hurt in a gas explosion and fire at a residential street in Essex. The blast happened at about 08:30 GMT in Cloes Lane, Clacton. A man in his 70s was airlifted to hospital with life-threatening injuries and a woman in her 50s was severely burned, the East of England Ambulance Service said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How Did Anyone Survive This?
Neighbours describe pulling families from wreckage after two houses are flattened following huge gas explosion that left 10 injuredResidents of Clacton, Essex reported hearing a loud bang ‘like a bomb going off’ at 8.30am thanks to gas explosion
Bystanders who helped pull out a couple from the rubble of their home after a huge gas explosion have revealed their shock that anyone survived the blast.
A man is in hospital with life-threatening injuries after the incident in Clacton, Essex, with two more people severely injured and seven left ‘walking wounded’.
Police and other emergency services — including four fire engines, five ambulances and two air ambulances — were called to the scene on Cloes Lane just before 8.30am today.
Two of the rescuers who risked their lives to pull victims out of the rubble said they were surprised that anyone had survived the explosion.
Wayne Reekie, who was taking his children to school when the blast occurred, said: ‘There was a massive boom and the whole street shook.
‘I ran towards the house, I think there were three or four of us. I could see straight away there had been a big explosion — there was hardly anything left of the house other than rubble.
‘There was an elderly lady there and an old man who was trapped. They were both burned and trapped by the rubble but they were conscious and seemed to be more worried about each other than themselves.
‘A mattress was on top of the man — it looked like he was still in bed. The woman was screaming in pain, she wanted to be with her husband. We cleared the rubble from on top of her and pulled her free as the firefighters arrived.
‘It was amazing that people survived the blast. I thought we would just be pulling bodies out of there.’…
| — Hat tip: Seneca III | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Mosque Attacker Found Not Guilty Due to Insanity
A man accused of attempted murder after a policeman and worshippers were stabbed at a mosque has been found not guilty due to insanity. A jury at Birmingham Crown Court cleared 32-year-old Mohamoud Elmi of two charges of attempted murder and one of wounding with intent, after he stabbed a police officer and a worshipper at a mosque in Ward End on June 15th…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Poplar Rapist Jailed for 17 Years
A rapist from Poplar has been jailed for 17 years after carrying out years of sexual and emotional abuse. Mohammed Fakhrul Islam, 33, of Stewart Street, filmed his victim on his mobile phone as he raped her before blackmailing her, saying that he would publish the footage online with her phone number and claim that she was a prostitute…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Restaurant Owners: ‘Midnight Curfew Will Destroy Our Businesses in Brick Lane’
Restaurant owners in London’s world-famous Brick Lane today said a midnight curfew would destroy the city’s curry capital. Council officers have visited the 60 curry houses along the culinary hotbed in recent days warning that they must stop serving at midnight or face a £20,000 fine.
A letter from Tower Hamlets Council warned that even eateries with licences to serve food and drink beyond midnight must now abide by local planning rules which insist upon midnight closing to cut down on “anti-social behaviour”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
A teenager, jailed today for stabbing his grandmother to death while high on the former legal high mephedrone, was hallucinating that a Swat team was after him and he needed to ‘go to war’.
Lewis Dale, 17, stabbed his grandfather Allan Dale, 80, twice with a kitchen knife before butchering stabbing his grandmother Irene Dale, four times as she lay in her bed screaming: ‘What are you doing, Lewis?’
Dale wept in the dock of Hull Crown Court as he was told he would face receive a lengthy jail term after a jury found him guilty of charges of murder and attempted murder…
Mother-of-three Irene Dale, who had been married 57 years, had taken in the grandson she had nursed from a toddler in a play pen because he needed a bail address as he was in trouble with police.
She had no idea he had bought £50 worth of methedrone that afternoon and was sat hallucinating that police Swat teams were coming for him and that he needed to pull on his helmet and ‘go to war’.
He stormed into the pensioners’ bedroom stabbing them as they lay in bed before stealing their television and jar of 50ps to exchange for six more grams of mephedrone within two hours of her death.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Understanding Quilliam and Its Critics
By Paul Murad
The recent cartoon controversy, in which a group of reactionary Muslims demanded punitive action against a secular Muslim for stating he was not offended by a cartoon depicting Muhammad, revealed a great deal about the state of Britain’s Muslim communities…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UN Calls on Vatican to Turn Sex Abuse Suspects Over to Police
A UN rights committee on Wednesday called on the Vatican to turn over any clergy or lay employees suspected of abusing children over to the police to face possible prosecution.
In an unprecedented report, it urged the Vatican to “immediately remove all known and suspected child sexual abusers from assignment and refer the matter to the relevant law enforcement authorities for investigation and prosecution purposes”.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child also denounced the Church for failing to live up to its repeated pledges to handle abuse complaints internally. It criticised the Vatican for “systematically” placing concerns for its reputation ahead of its responsibility to protect children by failing to remove clergy suspected of molestation.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UN Report Condemns Vatican Over the Systemic Sex Abuse of Tens of Thousands of Children
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
The Vatican was denounced in a devastating UN report Wednesday for failing to stamp out child abuse and the church was urged to remove all clergy suspected of raping or molesting children.
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said “tens of thousands of children worldwide” had been abused systemically for years within the Catholic church.
It urged the Holy See to “immediately remove all known and suspected child sexual abusers from assignment and refer the matter to the relevant law enforcement authorities for investigation and prosecution purposes”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Benghazi School Blast Injures 12 Students
One lost leg; bomb thrown during recess
(ANSAmed) — ROME — At least 12 students were injured at a Benghazi private school on Wednesday when a bomb was thrown into the building just as the recess period was beginning. At least two of the students were injured seriously.
Eyewitnesses quoted by the daily LibyaHerald on its online site said they had seen a man throw an explosive device over the school wall. The students hospitalized at Al-Jelaa Hospital “ranged between the ages of 13 and 17”, said a member of the emergency medical staff, adding that one of them had lost a leg.
Spokesman for Benghazi security services Ibrahim Al-Sharaa told the newspaper he could not confirm reports that the explosive device had been thrown by a student. He said that neither the type of explosive device nor the identity of the attacker was currently known. Benghazi was the cradle of the 2011 uprising that toppled the 42-year rule of Muammar Gaddafi, but over the past few years has become the stronghold of militants opposing the centralism of the Tripoli government. The former rebel fighters have carried out dozens of attacks on security forces, and radical Islamist groups also have a presence in the city. Over two years after the fall of Gaddafi, chaos and anarchy reign supreme in the country. The militants have targeted not only security forces but also high-ranking government officials.
On the January 29, interim Interior Minister Seddik Abdelkarim was unhurt in an assassination attempt in the capital, while in October Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was taken hostage by armed militants in Tripoli only to be released a few hours later.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Police Kill Gadhgadhi, Suspect in Belaid Assassination
Tunisian police have killed the suspected assassin of an opposition figure. The National Guard stormed a militant hideout in a seaside suburb of Tunis after a daylong standoff.
Interior Minister Lotfu Ben Jeddou said police killed seven people on Tuesday, including one man suspected of assassinating Chokri Belaid, nearly a year to the day after his murder. A policeman also died in the clash.
Police killed “seven heavily-armed terrorists,” Ben Jeddou told reporters, and then named Chokri’s alleged killer: “Kamel Gadhgadhi was found to be among them.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Uploads Online New Images of Dead Sea Scrolls
JERUSALEM, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) — The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library uploaded on Tuesday thousands of new high quality images of the fragments from the biblical texts.
Israel’s Dead Sea Scrolls, the world’s oldest biblical manuscripts, have been accessible online since 2012 after the Israel Museum and Google teamed up to launch a digitized version of the scrolls, allowing the viewers to translate them and zoom in on any of the verses…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Settlers Mock Kerry’s Peacemaking With Spoof Video
The main settlers’ lobby has released a video ridiculing John Kerry’s Middle East peace efforts, undermining a plea from the White House for Israeli politicians to desist from personal attacks on the US secretary of state
Israel’s Yesha [settlers] Council has posted online a deliberately disrespectful spoof depicting America’s top diplomat — played by an actor resembling John Kerry — riding a camel and making a series of preposterous statements that belittle his understanding of the region’s complexities.
At one point, the Mr Kerry character is seen down-playing the importance of the Western Wall, one of the holiest sites in Judaism, in Jerusalem’s old city. “Dividing Jerusalem is not an easy thing,” the actor says. “We must realise it is holy to all religions — Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Klingons and Hobbits. But what I’m saying is: ‘why fight over an old wall?’…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Al-Qaeda: Defender of Christians?
Muslim persecution of Christians is the “Achilles Heel” of the global Islamic movement’s image — the surest way of exposing its supremacist and intolerant elements and one of the main reasons the major media and establishment rarely report or address it.
The logic (fully explained here) can be summarized as follows:
Islamic and jihadi attacks targeting the West or Israel pose no problem to the image of Islam. No matter how violent or brutal, no matter how many Islamic slogans are shrieked — “Allah commands the subjugation of infidels!” — Muslim violence against the West and Israel will always be dismissed as desperate acts of disempowered, oppressed, and frustrated Muslims — the “underdogs,” which the West tends to romanticize.
And so they will always get a free pass, without further reflection.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
British Woman Held for Begging in Kuwait
KUWAIT: A British woman was arrested in Souq Al-Mubarakiya after she approached a ruling family member and asked for money to treat her allegedly sick children, while police later found more than KD 1,000 in her possession. The woman, who is of Iranian origin, approached Sheikha Amthal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah on Sunday afternoon, asking for financial help and showed documents which she said indicate that her three children had cancer. The woman was put under arrest for begging — which is illegal in Kuwait — and taken to the Salhiya police station for questioning. Investigations revealed that the woman had arrived in Kuwait on a visit visa to beg, and she managed to collect more than KD 1,000 before she was caught. She was later taken to the Criminal Investigations Department to face charges. Sheikha Amthal had accompanied Sheikh Salman Al-Hmoud Al-Sabah, the Minister of Information and State Minister of Youth Affairs, to attend a festival at the traditional market.
| — Hat tip: RR | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan Hookah Ban Sparks Public Outcry
There’s no smoke without ire: a ban on water pipes in restaurants and cafes has caused uproar in Jordan where $1 billion worth of tobacco goes up in smoke every year. Under a decision based on a 2008 law that was not previously enforced, the government has announced that by the end of 2014 the licences of more than 5,000 establishments that serve hookahs will be revoked.
Furious smokers and cafe owners say the move will affect their lifestyle and a $1.5 billion (1.1 billion euro) industry, jeopardising the jobs of 12,000 people.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait: Egyptian Held for Practicing Witchcraft and Black Magic
A Sulaibikhat resident was arrested on charges that include practicing witchcraft and black magic for money over the course of the past four years. The 38-year-old Egyptian man was caught Monday after being lured to a trap in Salmiya by an undercover agent. The arrest happened following investigations in information that reached Kuwait City police about the activity of a man who convinced his clients, mostly females, of his ability to ‘break up’ couples or make certain individuals fall in love with them using sorcery.
A woman was sent undercover to the sorcerer and asked him to cast a spell on a man and ruin his marriage by making him despise his wife. The suspect agreed and demanded KD 800 to complete his mission. The two agreed to meet in a Salmiya restaurant, and the man was soon arrested with possession of the numbered cash that the woman gave him. The man admitted during questioning that he has been practicing his illegal activity for over 4 years. Police headed to the house where the man lived with his family, and found tools used in witchcraft as well as an amount of heroin. The suspect was taken to the authorities for further action.
| — Hat tip: RR | [Return to headlines] |
Lebanon: Bonino: Meeting in Rome to Boost Military Forces
Syria, political solution necessary for aid to enter in the country
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT — Italy ‘is interested in summoning a meeting to strengthen the Lebanese armed forces on the date and at the level and composition deemed useful by Lebanese authorities’, said Foreign Minister Emma Bonino at the end of a meeting with her Lebanese counterpart Adnan Mansour Wednesday in Beirut, adding that the respective foreign and defence ministries will consult on the matter.
Bonino also recalled that a new meeting of the International Support Group for Lebanon is scheduled on March 5 in Paris ‘at a political level, while the one to be held in Rome will be more on a technical level’.
‘It is not my place to advise Lebanon on its home affairs but I can say what I would also tell my country: stability is a fundamental issue, most of all in a very fragile regional context where institutions have a very important role. Italy has always supported Lebanon’s sovereignty and independence’.
The minister, who is in Beirut to verify with Lebanese authorities ‘the impasse and difficulties concerning the arrival of over 900,000 Syrian refugee in Lebanon’ responded during a press conference to a question on whether Italy will welcome Syrian refugees saying: ‘When millions of people are moving, welcoming 2-300 does not solve the problem. Now it’s important for aid to enter Syrian territory’.
The Italian foreign minister stressed that the problem ‘implies a political complication, as well as a financial burden, a humanitarian and security problem: it is as if 15 million people arrived in Italy in two years. This means it becomes another country with other obligations and problems’.
Minister Bonino then cited the humanitarian conference held last Monday at the Italian foreign ministry during which UN Deputy Secretary General Valerie Amos spoke about ‘seven million people without humanitarian aid’ in Syria.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Paris Denies French School is Teaching Sharia Law in Qatar
France’s Foreign Ministry has denied media reports that a French international school in Qatar has agreed to teach Islamic sharia law and separate boys and girls into different classrooms.
A recent agreement between the Lycée Voltaire in Doha and French authorities does not involve changes to religion classes or dividing classes by sex, Paris said after reports of the accord sparked outrage in France.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Perth Man Shayden Thorne Released From Saudi Prison: Reports
The Perth-born man convicted of terrorism-related offences in Saudi Arabia has reportedly been released from prison. Shayden Thorne was sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail in May, 2013. SBS journalist Malarndirri McCarthy is reporting that he was been pardoned. The Department of Foreign Affairs was aware of reports about Mr Thorne but is yet to confirm…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Muslim Cleric Suggests That Baby Girls Wear Hijabs to Prevent Rape
A Saudi cleric has proposed this solution to molestation of young girls: they should be required to wear burqas. While no law or practice in Islam requires that baby girls wear burqas, Sheik Abdulla Daoud suggested that covering the babies in burqas would keep them from being raped. Daoud made the controversial comment on TV last year, stating that babies were being molested in Saudi Arabia.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Suicide Attacks by Foreign Fighters Skyrocket in Iraq
Surge in suicide bombings tied to extremists
The leading al Qaeda-inspired group in Syria and Iraq is tapping a “global network” of foreign fighters to carry out a surging number of suicide bombings in Iraq, the Obama administration’s top diplomat for the region said Wednesday.
Suicide bombings have more than tripled in Iraq over the past year, from an average of 7 per month in 2012 to roughly 35 per during 2013, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Bret McGurk told the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.
“All of these suicide bombers, we believe, are foreign fighters recruited through extreme propaganda on the promise of paradise for killing other Muslims,” said Mr. McGurk. The attacks “demonstrate a sophisticated global network that is able to recruit, train and deploy human beings to commit suicide and mass murder,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UN Report Says UAE Judiciary Under ‘De Facto’ Control of Rulers, Calls for Torture Probe
A United Nations report says the United Arab Emirates’ judiciary lacks independence, with power often centralized in the hands of prosecutors who are influenced by heads of government. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, said the judicial system “remains under the de facto control of the executive branch.”
Some defendants also appear to have been tortured with electric shocks in detention. She says lawyers are working without detailed understanding of a critical state security law that was enacted but never published.
Knaul wrapped up a nine-day visit to the Emirates Wednesday. She met senior government officials, judges, lawyers and members of civil society, but says she was barred from visiting a prison and certain detainees.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
We’re fighting al Qaeda like a terrorist group. They’re fighting us as an army.
by J.M. Berger
No matter what estimate you’re working with, there are far more people currently fighting with an acknowledged al Qaeda affiliate than belonged to the pre-9/11 organization during its entire history — by multiples.
The vast weight of al Qaeda manpower and funding (the sum of both AQC and its official affiliates) currently goes to support insurgencies and warfighting, including both foreign fighters and regional residents under the same flag. While this activity is obviously concentrated in Syria, every major al Qaeda affiliate has followed the same course to some extent, deploying forces to hold territory and attempt governance from Mali to Somalia to Yemen.
Al Qaeda is clearly still in the terrorism business, but terrorism is no longer its flagship product — in the same way that the Mac no longer dominates the Apple brand. Terrorism is the product on which the organization was built — and it still matters — but it is no longer the main line of business.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
9-Year-Old Girl Raped in Indian Capital
NEW DELHI, Feb. 5 (Xinhua) — Indian police have arrested a 25- year-old man for allegedly raping a minor girl in the national capital Sunday, a senior police official said Wednesday.
“The incident happened Sunday. The accused first lured the victim with chocolates and then raped her. We have arrested the accused, called Gopi Nisha Mallah, in the case. The girl is battling for her life at a hospital,” he said on condition of anonymity…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Himalayan Heights Pose No Problem for Bees
Alpine bumblebees can hover at air pressures equivalent to 9,000-metre altitudes
Alpine bumblebees can hover happily in pressure conditions equivalent to an altitude of 9,000 metres — higher than the peak of Mount Everest. They manage this mountainous feat by beating their wings in broader strokes, a laboratory study has found. Although there is no food to be harvested on Himalayan peaks, the bees’ adaptable flight might help them to escape predators elsewhere, the authors suggest.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Students Protest Against Racial Profiling in India
The beating and death of a university student from the northeast has caused four days of protests. Prominent politicians are pledging support.
Northeast India is geographically isolated from the rest of mainland India. The seven northeastern states are almost completely cut off from the rest of India by Bangladesh. The northeastern states are bordered by Tibet, Nepal, Myanmar, and China, with whom northeastern Indians often have closer ethnic and linguistic ties.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Suicide Attack Kills 9, Injures Over 50 in Pakistan’s Peshawar
ISLAMABAD, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) — At least nine people were killed and over 50 others injured on Tuesday evening when a suicide blast targeted a restaurant in Pakistan’s northwestern provincial capital of Peshawar, officials said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
North, South Korea agree to reunions for families separated by war
North and South Korea agreed on Wednesday to allow some families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War to hold brief reunions, despite continued tensions over South Korea’s planned military drills with the United States.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
US-China Rivalry More Dangerous Than Cold War?
The prominent realist international relations scholar John Mearsheimer says there is a greater possibility of the U.S. and China going to war in the future than there was of a Soviet-NATO general war during the Cold War.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Taxi Driver Attacked After Evicting Passengers
A taxi driver has had his vehicle smashed up, while being threatened and pelted with rocks in Port Hedland overnight. Police say the 22-year-old male driver collected two men and two women from a house in Trelow Court, South Hedland at 9.15pm on Tuesday night. One of the passengers allegedly attacked the taxi after the group were evicted on Roberts Road after making threats to the driver…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
EU Seals Free Trade Deal With West Africa
Negotiators from West Africa and the EU have put pen to paper on a €42 billion-a-year free trade deal with the West African trade bloc after 10 years of haggling, but ongoing talks with East African states remain mired in fine print.
The deal, which covers trade and development cooperation, will guarantee full long-term duty and quota-free access to the EU market for West African nations. When it enters into force, it will eclipse bilateral interim agreements with Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya: Two Killed as Gunfire Rattles Nairobi’s CBD Again
Nairobi — Two suspected robbers were on Wednesday morning shot dead following a gun battle with plainclothes policemen on Nairobi’s Kimathi Lane. Nairobi Central Police Chief Patrick Odumo said the two were part of four man gang that planned to rob those withdrawing large sums of money from a nearby Barclays Bank branch…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Gunmen Kill 80 in Plateau, Kaduna, Yobe
Some 80 persons have been killed by gunmen in separate attacks on villages in Plateau, Kaduna and Yobe States. In Plateau State, some 30 persons, including two soldiers, were killed in two villages in Riyom Local Government Area, barely 24 hours after the state police command met with stakeholders towards finding a lasting solution to the spate of killings in the state.
Twenty others, mostly traders, were also killed on Monday night when gunmen, suspected to be members of the outlawed Boko Haram sect, attacked a local market in Yobe town…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
South Africa: Protester Shot Dead in Sebokeng
A protester was shot dead and another wounded during demonstrations in Sebokeng, south of Johannesburg, Gauteng police said on Wednesday.
“The protesters split into two groups, the other group wanted to remove the barricades on the road and the other group would not allow it, several shots were fired between the two groups,” said police spokesman Captain Tsekiso Mofokeng…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Girls as young as ten are being sent to initiation camps in Malawi to be taught about how to have sex and in some cases lose their virginity.
The girls are told by their families they are attending a camp with their friends, but when they arrive they are shown how to have sex and told they must lose their ‘child dust’ as soon as they can or they will get a skin disease.
The horrifying practice is not new — it is a time-honored ritual passed through generations and the girls are sent by their families to make sure they are accepted into their communities as adults.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
6 Million in Brazil Lose Power
A broad swath of Brazil experienced intermittent power outages Tuesday amid record-setting high temperatures and low reservoir levels at the country’s hydroelectric power plants, Reuters reports.
Brazil’s national grid operator ONS said that the outages were caused by short circuits in transmission lines in the Northern part of the country, which triggered an automatic shutdown of power distribution to some areas. The automatic shutdown was intended to prevent the blackouts from becoming more widespread.
The power outages come just a day after Brazil’s Energy Minister Edison Lobao said he saw “no risk of energy shortages,” despite high demand on the grid. January was one of the hottest months on record in some parts of Brazil.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
9 Die in Fire Destroying Argentine Bank Archives
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Nine first-responders were killed, seven others injured and two were missing as they battled a fire of unknown origin that destroyed an archive of bank documents in Argentina’s capital on Wednesday.
The fire at the Iron Mountain warehouse took hours to control and the sprawling building appeared to be ruined despite the efforts of at least 10 squads of firefighters.
The nine firefighters and civil defense workers were crushed when a brick wall collapsed on top of a large group of first-responders on the sidewalk and street outside, Argentina’s Security Secretary Sergio Berni said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Talks Break Down Over Panama Canal Extension Dispute
Stock in Italy’s Salini Impregilo down 2.12%
(ANSA) — Rome, February 5 — The Panama Canal Authority has broken off talks to solve a dispute over cost overruns for a massive extension of the canal with the mostly European consortium commissioned with the project, the consortium said Wednesday.
An Italian company, Salini Impregilo, is part of the GUPC consortium led by Spain’s Sacyr that has the $5.25 billion contract to do the expansion and is asking the canal authority to stump up an extra $1.6 billion to cover cost overruns.
Salini Impregilo’s share price fell 2.12% on the Milan stock exchange after Wednesday’s announcement.
“It is an illogical decision dictated by a rigid attitude that will damage the canal, the country and the Panamanians, as well as causing damage to international trade and all those countries, like the United States, that have made major investments in view of an extension of world trade,” read a GUPC statement.
GUPC said the Panama Canal expansion and up to 10,000 jobs are now at risk.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Dual Citizenship: Merkel Government Ponders Who is a German
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s new government has promised to introduce dual citizenship for children born to immigrants in Germany. Now, though, the left and right are fighting over what exactly that means. A new integration debate could result.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Immigration Has Changed and Laws Should Too’, Says Minister
Almost 5 mln today compared with 500,000 in the 1980s
(ANSA) — Rome, February 4 — Minister for Integration Cécile Kyenge on Tuesday reiterated her position on the 2002 Bossi-Fini immigration law on the sidelines of a conference. “Migration has changed. In the 1980s there were 500,000 immigrants, compared with almost five million today. Therefore, laws should change,” said the minister, an immigrant from Congo herself. “Over the past few years, migration has shifted from being transitory to stable”. The number of new migrants to come to Italy dropped by 9.1%, or 35,000 people, in 2012 over the previous year, national statistics agency Istat reported last week.
New arrivals two years ago totaled 351,000 people.
What has to change, she stressed, is above all “the approach, placing the individual and his or her rights at the center. However, there is also the need to comply with European directives and regulations”.
The so-called Bossi-Fini law was ratified under the previous center-right administration, in which the anti-immigrant Northern League was a minority coalition partner. Kyenge has been the target of repeated racist slurs from the League since becoming integration minister under the current left-right administration led by Democratic Party (PD) Premier Enrico Letta.
The minister announced in late January that she had prepared a bill “to amend or repeal discriminatory laws” in Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Over 450,000 Asylum Applications in Europe in 2013
Over 450,000 asylum applications were made in Europe in 2013, according to the Malta-based European Asylum Support Office. The tally includes applications made in Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Iceland. In December 2013, the total number decreased 13% compared to November but increased by 24% compared to December 2012.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Robots Undercut the Case for More Immigrants
With technology destroying jobs for humans, adding tens of millions of new immigrants to America will only deepen inequality and poverty.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Limit immigration or watch conservative efforts become irrelevant.
By Phyllis Schlafly
If the Republican party is to remain conservative and nationally competitive, it must defeat amnesty and proposed increases in legal immigration.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
A 13-year-old schoolboy raped his eight-year-old sister after watching pornography on an X-Box computer console, a court has heard.
The teenager told police he used the games console to view explicit material before he ‘decided to try it out’.
The boy said he targeted his younger sister because she was small and ‘couldn’t remember stuff’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Students Win! Can Now Celebrate America
It shouldn’t require a protest… but it did. It shouldn’t require school administrators to face scores of angry parents… but it did. In a school where students simply wanted to have a day in which they showed their pride in being an American, it took complaints, protests, and national news coverage in order to happen. All of this… right here in America.
The story begins at Fort Collins High School in Colorado. As part of “spirit week,” student organizers proposed “Merica Day,” a day in which students could express their pride and patriotism for America. As reported by Colordoan.com, the school administrators said no, no, no.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Thoughts on the Super Bowl and Sports in General
Men’s Obsession With Sports Indicates A Dangerous Decline In Our Country
I have always enjoyed sports. As a youngster, I played organized sports — even into college. Over the years, I played football, basketball, and baseball. I ran track. And I was on the high school wrestling team. Football and wrestling were my two favorite sports…
However, with all of the above said, I also believe that the obsession of so many men with sports (especially football) is an indication that our country is in a very serious and dangerous decline. In fact, the obsession we see with sports today is comparable to the obsession that the citizens of Rome had with the gladiator “games” in the waning years of that empire’s existence. They were so distracted with the “games” that they didn’t even notice that their country was collapsing. The same thing is happening in America now.
The average American man today couldn’t list the Bill of Rights to save his life, but he knows the minutest details of his favorite sports team and players. Listen to the lunch conversations at almost any restaurant or the foyer conversations at almost any church and all you will hear are men talking about sports. It is quite disgusting! It’s almost as if men are trying to live out their masculinity vicariously through their favorite sports heroes. In a bygone era, when a man painted his face, he was going to war. Now, he is going to a sporting event. If the men of America were as passionate about preserving liberty as they are cheering for their favorite football team, our country would not be in the sinkhole it is in today.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican Blasts Back at UN Report on Pedophile Priests, Abortion
The Vatican blasted back at a UN-authored Rights of Children report, saying its criticism of the church’s stand on homosexuality is driven by critics of the church’s “non-negotiable” teachings.
The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, whose members have included such nations as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Uganda and Thailand,accused the Vatican Wednesday of “systematically” adopting policies that allowed priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children over decades, and urged it to open its files on pedophiles and bishops who concealed their crimes.
Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the head of the Holy See’s delegation to the United Nations in Geneva, told Vatican Radio that non-governmental organizations which favor gay marriage probably influenced the committee to reinforce an “ideological line” in the report.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Fiery Black Hole Debate Creates Cosmological Wild West
Last week famed physicist Stephen Hawking caused an uproar with his assertion that black holes do not exist — at least not as we’ve defined them for the past 40 years. Rather than letting nothing, not even light, escape their grasp, Hawking says that this “point of no return” is a fallacy, and black holes will sometimes let trapped light back out.
Hawking’s notion does away with a key part of a black hole — its event horizon. It sounds far out, and has been met with heated debate, but even if Hawking is wrong, his high-profile claim highlights the fact that efforts to solve the paradox have turned cosmology on its ear. Firewalls have turned this corner of physics into a cosmic Wild West: a strange frontier where black holes can take on the form of exotic stars, fuzzballs, time machines or iced wormholes.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
NASA’s Next Great Space Telescope Passes Major Milestone
The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s next flagship space observatory, has passed a major milestone on its road to its planned 2018 launch: the delivery of the last three mirrors that will make up its complicated infrared-seeking innards.
The mirror delivery for the $8.8 billion James Webb Space Telescope lays a critical brick in the observatory’s path to becoming the most powerful space telescope ever built. When complete, the telescope is expected to have seven times the light-collecting power of its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, and should provide answers to questions about the early universe and the chances of life on other planets.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Stuff Symphony: Beautiful Music Makes Better Materials
The hidden structures of music are universal patterns of nature — and they can help us create new materials like artificial spider silk
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Woolly Mammoths Died for Want of a Few Herbs
IT WAS the superfoods wot dunnit. Woolly mammoths may have starved to death when changes in the climate deprived them of their best food: flowering herbs.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Additionally, the U.S. Army bought almost 600,000 Soviet AK-47 magazines last fall, enough to hold nearly 18,000,000 rounds of 7.62x39mm ammo which is not standard-issue for either the U.S. military or even NATO.
Intriguing? Any of it going to Syria? Or is just for US domestic consumption? NATO standard is 5.56mm. Great for close quarter/urban situations apparently and likely to wound more than kill outright. So for the US Army to order 7.62mm magazines is perturbing, suggesting a different policy (in mind) – stop dead.
Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the head of the Holy See’s delegation to the United Nations in Geneva, told Vatican Radio that non-governmental organizations which favor gay marriage probably influenced the committee to reinforce an “ideological line” in the report.
yes. those NGOs seem to think that the whole world has to revolve around their ideology. The UN evidently doesn’t make much to do, has it? Civil wars, dire poverty, terrorism. Ah, but… dealing with abuse in the Catholic is one thing, the report doesn’t stop there though, it wants the Catholic Church to change its doctrine, (abortions and homosexuality).. Fair’s fair, I hear you say, this is outright interference.
When will the UN publish a report on child abuse, domestic violence, brutal executions, in Saudi Arabia or depriving women of their rights in Afghanistan or FGM in Egypt and asks the Grand Mufti to do something about it. Oh wait! (For Godot).
“It takes no account of the particularities of the Holy See, treating it as if it were the HQ of a multinational corporation,” he said in an e-mail
Don’t know if you’re still following here, Lena N, but I think we’re entitled to expect a higher standard of behaviour from those who claim moral authority over us, in the same way that it’s particularly repugnant if the police are partisan or corrupt.
No self respecting white man should follow NFL NBA.
Also I’m sick of the Paedo accusations against the Church. It’s a big organization. Statistically it’s actually better than the general population and compares well against public schools, against groups like the Mormons, Muslims and animists. I can’t speak for Buddism but Thailand is a Paedo heaven.
The distinction of the church is that it has a bureaucracy that recorded and tracked the criminals who infiltrated and abused.
Does anyone believe that Saudis care about blonde catholic kids? Or that China respects the human rights of children in general? Do me a favour.
“We are witnessing the creation of the French version of the Tea Party. By exploiting the political and leadership crisis on the right, and the National Front party’s move away from the far-right, a conservative and reactionary right has been set free,” Valls,
In the first part, Valls, aka Gaz, is taking bollocks as part of the government’s scaremongering tactics. The people who support LMPT come from all political walks of life. There is no ambition or intention for politics. So no Tea Party.
Near the top of this blog, we have a quote from one Servando Gonzalez, who asks whether conservatives want to conserve teachers brainwashing our children… that we humans evolved from a piece of rock (I suspect he thinks not).
Further down is a story about different strains of plague from different periods of history. That would be evolution working, folks.
Not evolution, but mutation. There is a difference you know.
Mutation produces stronger strains, with a better chance of survival. That’s evolution.
For example, there is currently a new strain of TB which is resistant to antibiotics. Either the bug (excuse technical term) has evolved, or our benevolent deity has created a new version to kill greater numbers of his (allegedly) favourite creation, ie ourselves.
To quote Tim Minchin’s poem “Storm”, science changes its beliefs in the light of evidence; religion denies evidence in order not to change its beliefs. Remember Galileo?
the moat resistant strains of TB arose from giving meds to eejits who wandered away before they were entirely free of TB, thus permitting the more virulent form to arise.
There oughta be a law … i.e., if you aren’t compliant with whatever regimen the doctor says you need, then you go into quarantine. That ruled the day back before there were patients’ rights for folks who could simply refuse to treat a disease which affected the community.
I saw this happen many times with the ‘ambulatory’ mentally ill. If they refuse to take their medications, no court will order the patient’s rights “violated”. That the community’s safety is subsequently heavily violated and put at risk because of the individual’s delusions of persecution doesn’t matter. The individual’s right to forego his medication trumps other considerations. Only it’s a facade of course; the front falls off when an individual thinks he can defy the whimsy of state enforcers.
Clacton or acton?clacton is in Essex on the coast,acton is a suburb of London with a huge marshalling yard.