Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/15/2014

The Malaysian government has finally admitted that Flight MH370 was intentionally diverted from its flight path en route to Beijing towards an unknown location. Some experts say the plane’s destination was the Andaman Islands, others Pakistan. Since the engine “pinged” a satellite for seven hours after the plane cut off communication, there are many potential places where it could have landed. Attention is focused on the plane’s pilot, a supporter of Anwar Ibrahim, the jailed leader of the Malaysian political opposition who has been tried and convicted of homosexuality.

In other news, a Sicilian man who receives poverty assistance from the government has turned out to be a millionaire. Meanwhile, in the northern Italian city of Parma, a fake cripple was arrested for begging alms from passersby. It is thought that his mendicant activities netted him €3,000 a month tax-free.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, KP, Srdja Trifkovic, 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.

Financial Crisis
» Greece: Parliament OKs Bill Axing 21 State Bodies
 
USA
» A Change of Climate
» Al Qaeda Magazine ‘Inspire’ Calls for Bomb Attacks on U.S. Cities
» Boston Marathon and a Backward-Looking Anti-Terrorism Strategy
» Connecticut SWAT Terrorize College Dorm Looking for Plastic Sword (Video)
» DARPA Invading the Privacy of Your Mind (Video)
» FBI Blocked in Corruption Probe Involving Sens. Reid, Lee
» Google Wants E-Mail Scanning Information Blocked
» How Can We Get Rid of Puerto Rico?
» New Lawsuit Filed Against USDA Over Missing Docs Showing GMO Dangers
» Obama Administration Turns the Internet Over to the Globalists
» Rural Nevada Sheriff Defends I-80 Drugs Stops
» Senator Attempts to Disarm Sheriffs at Oklahoma State Capitol
» Steer Wrestler Continues Cowboy Legacy at World’s Biggest Rodeo in Houston
» Sticker Shock: Many Will Pay a Lot More Than $95 for Skipping Health Insurance
» The Youth Imam: Jamaal Diwan
» United Nations Attacks Second Amendment
» Why Does Hollywood Ignore White Slavery?
» Why Do Young People Kill?
» Why Liberals Hate Freedom of Speech
 
Europe and the EU
» 7 Arrested in Joint Anti-Terrorist Operation in Spain, Morocco
» ‘Åkesson Must Tell Swedes if He Plans to Join the National Front’
» Breitbart London: Once Trusted British Institutions Are Attempting to Strangle the Fracking Industry With Regulation
» Breitbart London: Vladimir Putin: Hero of the European Union
» Denmark: Eurosceptic Party Leads in Danish Poll Before European Election
» Germany: Four Face Charges for Bonn Bomb Attempt
» Greece Has One of the Highest Aging Rates in Europe
» Italy: Ex-Premier Letta Snubs Vote on Election Reform
» Italy: Fake Cripple Cited for Abusing Public Goodwill
» Italy: Mobster’s 50 Million Euros in Slot Machines, Assets Seized
» Italy: Anti-Mafia Police Seize Millions From Known Marble Supplier
» Italy: Sicily Man Getting Poverty Aid Actually Owned 1.2 Mln Euros
» Italy: Naples Archeological Museum Reveals ‘Hidden’ Treasure
» Italy: Jailhouse Suicides Peak in 2014, Totalling 40% of Deaths
» Italy: Govt Reinstates Distinction Between Soft, Hard Drugs
» Netherlands: Public Prosecutor Challenged to Act on Wilders’ Moroccan Comments
» Soccer: Moroccan Team Leaves Italian League Over Racism
» Two Out of Three Italians Approve of Renzi’s Economy Package
» UK: Did Gypsies Cut Off Man’s Penis in Revenge for Him Sleeping With One of Their Girlfriends?
» UK: Fairtrade Bid by Town’s Mosque
» UK: Father-of-One Loses Three Limbs and Half His Face to Flesh Eating Bacteria Which Started as a Common Cold Just Four Months Ago
» UK: Give All Pupils an A… at the Start of Term! ‘Silly’ Classroom Guide Criticised
» UK: Lib Dem Candidate Maajid Nawaz Tells Hampstead Audience: ‘Muslims Find Liberalism Reprehensible’
» UK: Lib Dems Say Ban All Petrol and Diesel Cars by 2040 or Earlier
» UK: Pictured: Giant Venomous Huntsman Spider — With a Huge Egg Sac of Babies — That Jumped Out of Charity Worker’s Backpack When She Got Back to Britain From Cameroonian Rainforest
» UK: Teen Jailed After He Got Lethal Arsenal Delivered to Family Home
 
Balkans
» Croatian Ex-Premier Sanader Sentenced 9 Yrs for Corruption
 
North Africa
» Egypt: Pistelli Calls for Reconciliation With MB
» Egypt: Interior Minister — 15 Terror Cells Arrested Over Killing Policemen
» Egypt Unrest: Six Soldiers Shot Dead in Cairo
» Five Egyptian Troops Shot Dead in Cairo
» Gunmen Kill Five Egyptian Soldiers in Cairo
» Gunmen Ambush Egypt Army Checkpoint in Cairo
» Morocco Threatens to Expel Syrians for Mosque ‘Disruption’
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Gaza’s Only Power Plant ‘Shuts Down Over Lack of Fuel’
» Israeli Parliament Passes Trio of Controversial Laws
» Israel Passes Law to Conscript Ultra-Orthodox Jews Into Military
» John Kerry’s Base Betrayal of Israel: A Whiff of Perfidy
» Ultra-Orthodox Jews No Longer Exempt From Military Service in Israel
» Worshipers Prevented From Entering Al Aqsa Mosque for Friday Prayer
 
Middle East
» Berkin Elvan: Turkish PM Accuses Dead Boy of Terror Links
» Death Toll Rises to 3 in Lebanon’s Tripoli
» Fighting for Key Border Town as Syria Civil War Enters Fourth Year
» Here Comes the Temple of Antichrist
» Iran Promoting ‘Islamic Nobel Prize’ For Science and Technology
» Italian Band Will Play for UNIFIL Troops in Lebanon
» Officials in Iraq Say Car Bomb Attacks Kill at Least 8 People in Country’s Capital, Baghdad
» Syria — Lebanon: Exchanged for the Wife of an Al Qaeda Member, Ma’aloula Sisters Shout “Allah Akbar”
» With Millions of Syrian Children Out of School, Entire Generation Could Come of Age Illiterate
 
Russia
» Against Ukraine War? Obama May Seize Your Assets
» Behind the Headlines: Who Are the Crimean Tatars?
» Did Russia Just Move Its Treasury Holdings Offshore?
» European Union NGO Played Direct Role in Violent Coup in Ukraine
» Fascists: Ukraine’s Threat From Within
» In Crimea, Ukraine’s Helpless and Marooned Military Gripped by Confusion and Uncertainty
» Kremlin: If the US Tries to Hurt Russia’s Economy, Russia Will Target the Dollar
» Moscow the Centre for Pro and Anti Rallies on Eve of Crimea Vote
» Referendum Monitor Criticizes U.S. Involvement in Crimea
» Russian Troops Seize Gas Plant Beyond Crimean Border, Ukraine Says
» Russian Army Launches Operation Outside Crimea
» Russian Companies Withdraw Billions From West, Say Moscow Bankers
» Russian Forces Cross Crimea Border to Seize Gas Plant on Eve of Referendum
» Tens of Thousands March in Moscow Anti-War Protest But Others Back Crimean Referendum
» Ukraine: Crimea: Tatar Muslims Plan Referendum Boycott
» Ukraine Crisis: Russia Isolated in UN Crimea Vote
 
South Asia
» Colombo: Fresh Round of Talks to Regulate Fishing Between India and Sri Lanka
» Doomed Airliner Pilot Was Political Fanatic: Hours Before Taking Control of Flight MH370 He Attended Trial of Jailed Opposition Leader as FBI Reveal Passengers Could be at a Secret Location
» Focus Turns to Pilots of Missing MH370 as Investigators Hunt for a Motive
» India: Orissa: Hindu Fundamentalists Block Catholic Church Construction
» India: Orissa: Ruling on Raped Nun “Example of Collusion Between the State and Hindu Extremists “
» India: Bengal Picture: Muslims Aren’t Looking for Didis in Burqas
» Jumbo in the Jungle: Is Southeast Asia a Haven for Hijackers, Pirates, And Terrorists?
» Karzai Insists Afghan Military Can Handle Security in Final Parliament Speech
» Malaysian Prime Minister Says Missing Jet Was Deliberately Diverted
» Malaysia: Pilots’ Homes Raided as Officials Say Disappearance ‘No Accident’
» Malaysian PM: Irregular MH370 Flight Path ‘Consistent With Deliberate Action’
» Missing Malaysia Airlines Plane ‘Deliberately Diverted’
» Missing Malaysia Airlines Jetliner Could Have Flown for More Than 7 Hours
» Pakistan: Asia Bibi’s Appeal to be Heard by Lahore High Court
» Pakistan: Bin Laden Raid: Doctor’s Sentence Cut by 10 Years
» ‘Pirated’ Boeing 777 May Return to Skies as Stealth Nuclear Weapon
» Radar Suggests Missing Malaysia Plane Was Flown Deliberately Towards Andaman Islands
» Viewpoint: Does Singapore Deserve Its ‘Miserable’ Tag?
» Was Malaysian Air Flight 370 a Deliberate Criminal Terrorist Act?
 
Far East
» President Xi Leads China’s Military Reform, Stressing Building of Strong Army
» Severe Punishment for Terrorism: China’s Chief Justice
 
Australia — Pacific
» Liberals Head for Victory in Tasmanian State Election
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» A Freak Show Called Generosity
» Nigeria: UN — Boko Haram ‘Increasingly Monstrous’
» Nigeria: War in Maiduguri: Airforce Rains Bombs on Boko Haram
» Nigeria: Stampede in Abuja’s Stadium Kills Jobseekers
» Somalia: Al-Shabaab Spokesman Denies Claims of His Death
» Whoops! Somali Terrorist Kills Self Early With Accidental Detonation
 
Latin America
» Cuba: Oliver Stone’s Most Vicious Insult!
 
Immigration
» Can’t Read Italian After 22 Years, Man Refused Citizenship
» Greece: More Than 20,000 Immigrants Went Back Home
» Greece: Migrants Rescued Near Ionians Islands
» Telegraph: Bulgaria Selling EU Passports for €180,000
» UK: £4m Ugandan Benefits Cheat Who Claimed for 100 Fake Children Demands Asylum
 
Culture Wars
» Britain is Ready for a Gay Prime Minister, Clegg and Milliband Claim as Same-Sex Marriage Becomes Law
» Fatherhood Initiatives and Nanny Government
» First Kiss Stunt Makes Me Puke
» Parent/Teacher/Student Manifesto
» Sweden: Neo-Nazis Arrested Over Anti-Homophobia Campaigner Attack
 
General
» iPhone Users Are Disappointed With the iOS 7.1 Software Update That’s Draining Their Batteries, Erasing Their Contacts, And Flipping Their Keyboards
» New York Takes London’s Crown as Top Financial Center: Survey
» Richard Branson’s Top 10 Tips for Success
» The End of International Law
» UN Tells us to Eat Bugs While Elite Live as Kings (Video)
 

Greece: Parliament OKs Bill Axing 21 State Bodies

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, MARCH 14 — A controversial bill foreseeing the abolition of 21 Greek state organizations as part of a broader overhaul of the state sector demanded by the troika was voted through Parliament Thursday despite three days of tense debate over its provisions in the House and only after Administrative Reform Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis withdrew a particularly unpopular article foreseeing the closure of a labor institute. The bill, as Kathimerini online reports, passed into law with the number of votes on the separate provisions ranging from 142 to 158 in favor and from 76 to 88 against in the 300-seat House. A large number of opposition party deputies did not even attend the vote. Earlier in the day, Mitsotakis withdrew Article 8 of the bill, which foresaw the abolition of the National Institute of Labor and Human Resources (Eiead), a Labor Ministry body, following protests by several MPs of Socialist Pasok, the junior party in the coalition. The Socialist dissenters had threatened to vote against the bill, raising fears of a new coalition rift.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

A Change of Climate

By Mark Steyn

Excerpt: “Climate Change Not A Top Worry In US,” reports Gallup, deadpan. Washington’s Potemkin parliament can hold as many pajama parties as it wants, but Big Climate absolutism is going nowhere, and the savvier scientists — the ones who haven’t been seduced by political patrons and celebrity pals — are beginning to understand they need to figure out a different tack. Dr Judith Curry’s recent post on “positioning skeptics” (drawing on a longer essay by Ben Pile) includes the following observation by Professor Jonathan Jones of Oxford University: “It has been amusing to watch the apparent surprise of many climate scientists at their discovery that many “climate sceptics” are actually lukewarmers. Taking a rough and ready definition, that lukewarmers believe in AGW but doubt catastrophic AGW, one could reasonably place many of the more famous sceptics (Liljegren, McIntyre implicitly, Montford, Watts explicitly) in that camp, together with a number of “maverick” climate scientists (Curry, Lewis, Lindzen).”

Mustafa Prize winner Michael E Mann doesn’t want you to think like this.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Al Qaeda Magazine ‘Inspire’ Calls for Bomb Attacks on U.S. Cities

By Kerry Picket

Excerpt: The cities and areas listed in the piece include Washington, D.C., New York, Northern Virginia, Chicago, and Los Angeles. America is our first target, followed by United Kingdom, France and other crusader countries. As for the field target for the car-bomb, you have places flooded with individuals, e.g. sports events in which tens of thousands attend, election campaigns, festivals and other gathering. The important thing is that you target people and not buildings:…

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Boston Marathon and a Backward-Looking Anti-Terrorism Strategy

by David A. Clarke Jr.

Planning for the last attack doesn’t make Americans safer

There is almost no chance that the Boston Marathon next month will be the target of terrorist attacks again. Still, Boston officials are adding more surveillance cameras, telling spectators not to bring backpacks and planning to deploy 3,500 police officers — twice as many as last year.

Law enforcement is overdoing the security restrictions only because they can no longer trust U.S. intelligence capabilities…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Connecticut SWAT Terrorize College Dorm Looking for Plastic Sword (Video)

College students face death over plastic sword at Connecticut Junior College.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

DARPA Invading the Privacy of Your Mind (Video)

It used to be that your privacy was invaded by people entering your home and going through your personal possessions or by intercepting and reading your mail. Then they invaded your private cyberspace. Now they are openly preparing you for then next assault — invading the privacy of your mind.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

FBI Blocked in Corruption Probe Involving Sens. Reid, Lee

FBI agents working alongside Utah state prosecutors in a wide-ranging corruption investigation have uncovered accusations of wrongdoing by two of the U.S. Senate’s most prominent figures — Majority Leader Harry Reid and rising Republican Sen. Mike Lee — but the Justice Department has thwarted their bid to launch a full federal investigation.

The probe, conducted by one Republican and one Democratic state prosecutor in Utah, has received accusations from an indicted businessman and political donor, interviewed other witnesses and gathered preliminary evidence such as financial records, Congressional Record statements and photographs that corroborate some aspects of the accusations, officials have told The Washington Times and ABC News.

But the Justice Department’s public integrity section — which normally handles corruption cases involving elected figures — rejected FBI agents’ bid to use a federal grand jury and subpoenas to determine whether the accusations are true and whether any federal crimes were committed by state and federal officials.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Google Wants E-Mail Scanning Information Blocked

Google Inc., the world’s largest Internet-search provider, is seeking to black out portions of a court hearing transcript that includes information on how it mines data from personal e-mails.

Google, fighting a lawsuit claiming its interception of e-mails amounts to illegal wiretapping, asked U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh in a filing yesterday to redact “confidential” information from the transcript, without being more specific.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

How Can We Get Rid of Puerto Rico?

By John Derbyshire

Excerpt: I mean, what is the place? Is it a country, a state, a colony, or what? “A commonwealth,” is the official answer. What’s that? As an ex-Brit, I can tell you all about commonwealths. Britain has one: the British Commonwealth. After the dear old British Empire was wound up in the mid-20th century, important people thought it would be a bit anticlimactic if nothing at all replaced it, so they invented the Commonwealth of Nations, a sort of club for all the countries that had once been British colonies (not counting those dreadful Yanks, of course).

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

New Lawsuit Filed Against USDA Over Missing Docs Showing GMO Dangers

Like many Americans, you may be beating your head against the wall trying to figure out how governmental agencies could so blatantly ignore the facts concerning GMO dangers. A new lawsuit filed March 12, 2014 by Center for Food Safety (CFS) demands that federal documents be released which might incriminate the United States Department of Agriculture over findings that GMO were harmful, while shielding the public from this knowledge. The complaint is filed with the US District Court for the District of Columbia, and can be viewed in full, here.

The lawsuit attests that political pressure was asserted on the FDA to approve genetically engineered alfalfa. It seeks 1179 documents from the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) which explain why the agency reversed its original decision to deny GMOs, specifically RoundUp Ready Alfalfa, being promoted by Monsanto. The Director of CFS, Andrew Kimbrell, states:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama Administration Turns the Internet Over to the Globalists

Plans to impose a censorship and mass surveillance framework may now commence

On Friday the U.S. Commerce Department released its grasp on the internet. Oversight of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, will be passed on to the “global internet community” next year. ICANN, under a Commerce Department contract, has issued domain names since 2000…

During the World Summit on Information Society more than a decade ago, it was proposed that governments not have too much control over the internet. “The international management of the Internet should be multilateral, transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of governments, the private sector, civil society and international organizations.”

In the intervening years the United Nations and the European Union have jostled for control the internet. During a meeting in Dubai last year the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the telecom branch of the United Nations, demanded rules governing the internet be rewritten. Specifically, the international organization proposed deep-packet inspection authority that would allow it to monitor and censor content on the internet. The United States walked out of the conference in protest…

In addition to censorship, the ICANN transfer will allow for a globalist taxation scheme.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Rural Nevada Sheriff Defends I-80 Drugs Stops

A rural Nevada sheriff is defending the practice of stopping suspected drug traffickers on U.S. Interstate 80 and confiscating tens of thousands of dollars even if no criminal charges are filed.

Reports that two men had filed lawsuits in federal court against the county stirred concerns among Humboldt County residents that deputies are making illegal searches and seizures along I-80 in the high desert near Winnemucca about 165 miles east of Reno.

Humboldt County Sheriff Ed Kilgore said he can’t discuss case details, but he wants to assure residents the stops are legal and not intended to shake down unsuspecting visitors. He said that civil forfeitures are legal if an arresting officer suspects the individual obtained — or intends to use — the money illegally.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Senator Attempts to Disarm Sheriffs at Oklahoma State Capitol

Over 40 Sheriffs walked out of the Oklahoma State Capitol this week after an unknown senator demanded they remove their firearms.

After entering the capitol for an annual meet and greet with legislators, the state’s sheriffs were confronted and given an ultimatum, disarm or leave the building.

“One of the senators, who they wouldn’t tell us, complained because we were armed in the building,” Wagoner county sheriff Bob Colbert told KTUL News.

According to Colbert, the senator not only refused to identify, but also ordered others in the capitol to relay the message.

“Everybody in that building knew who we were,” Colbert said.

After being given their options, all 40 sheriffs refused to comply with the senator’s demand and walked out of the building, firearms holstered.

“So we all packed up and left,” Colbert said. “Pretty sad day for me.”

Although several senators reached out to apologize to Colbert, the sheriff is still stunned at the events that played out.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Steer Wrestler Continues Cowboy Legacy at World’s Biggest Rodeo in Houston

HOUSTON, March 14 (Xinhua) — The horse shot out of the chute at a gallop while his rider, Les Shepperson, made the jump on to the back of a rampaging steer to bring the 700-pound (260-kg) animal to the sawdust floor — a routine Shepperson hopes he completed quickly enough to qualify for purses of up to 50,000 U.S. dollars…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Sticker Shock: Many Will Pay a Lot More Than $95 for Skipping Health Insurance

2014 is the first year most Americans will have to either have health insurance or face a tax penalty.

But most people who are aware of the penalty think it’s pretty small, at least for this first year. And that could turn into an expensive mistake.

“I’d say the vast majority of people I’ve dealt with really believe that the penalty is only $95, if they know about it at all,” says Brian Haile, senior vice president for health policy at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. “And when people find out, they’re stunned. It’s much, much higher than they would expect.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The Youth Imam: Jamaal Diwan

“The sound of a basketball bouncing in the gym early in the morning is spiritual for me,” says Jamaal Diwan, imam of the Islamic Center of Irvine (ICOI), and that quote alone shows that the 30-year-old is no ordinary holy man…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

United Nations Attacks Second Amendment

A United Nations committee charged with enforcing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has come down hard on the United States for “gun violence,” code for the right to own firearms guaranteed by the Second Amendment, and a raft of other issues.

Kälin and critics of the Second Amendment routinely ignore data showing how guns save lives and prevent violence. A Gun Owners of America fact sheet shows guns were used 2.5 million times a year in self-defense. Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year — or about 6,850 times a day, according to research conducted by Dr. Gary Kleck, who was awarded the prestigious American Society of Criminology Michael J. Hindelang award for his research into guns and violence.

“Most uses of guns for either criminal or defensive purposes are less dramatic or consequential than one might think,” Kleck writes. “Only 3% of criminal gun assaults involves anyone actually being wounded, even non fatally, and the same is true of defensive gun uses. More commonly, guns are merely pointed at another person, or perhaps only referred to (‘I’ve got a gun’) or displayed, and this is sufficient to accomplish the ends of the user, whether criminal or non- criminal.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Why Does Hollywood Ignore White Slavery?

By Jim Goad

Excerpt: Yet I can’t recall ever seeing a film that deals with the fact that in 1775, George Washington offered a reward for the capture and return of eight runaway white servants who’d escaped his clutches. “One can’t forget—nor even remember—what you don’t know about in the first place..” And for all the countless movies that have been made about black slavery in America—even old ones such as Gone With the Wind and The Birth of a Nation that are now considered blasphemous—I can’t ever remember seeing a film about white slavery. And when I say “white slavery,” I don’t mean sex trafficking—I mean the literal enslavement of white Europeans who were transported against their will to both Africa and America.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Why Do Young People Kill?

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

It happened again in Keizer, Oregon — a suburb of Salem, the Capital. Two 17-year old friends kill the parents of the one young man, Brett Pearson. The mother, Michelle Yvonne Pearson, 44 died from the shooting. Her husband, “Bill” Melbourne Pearson, 57 survived multiple gunshot wounds but is in serious condition. For some unknown reason, the alarm was activated which brought police to the home quickly and Brett Pearson and his friend, Robert Miller II were apprehended. Friends of both boys were perplexed claiming this just was not like them. Shocked and brokenhearted family members agreed. No one had ever seen a problem when they visited the family.

Michelle was an active member of St. Edward Catholic church in Keizer where her son and husband also attended for at least 10 years. Brett was described by his friends as generous and by neighbors as outgoing. But the 3/8/2014 article said Brett Pearson admitted he shot his parents when he was high on meth. Although only 17, their charges are Measure 11 offenses that require them to be treated as adults in court. They are being held without bail. The solution by the liberals: Get rid of the guns while promoting marijuana dispensaries for recreational use and revenue for budget deficits when it is known fact marijuana is the gateway to the harder drugs…

Death Education Desensitizes

Thomas Sowell writing in the October 1990 DETROIT NEWS told how schools were brainwashing our children and how some people may have been shocked when they saw a report on “death education” on the television program 20/20. Among other things, the program showed high school students being taken to morgues to touch dead bodies. In a Letter to the Editor in the EDUCATION REPORTER in September 1999, someone wrote about the death education curriculum he endured at age 15 in Ohio. He said our senior English course included trips to cemeteries and funeral homes where they saw a body embalmed or incinerated into ashes. They explored tombstones and wrote epitaphs.

Death Education starts early in some schools. In Florida first graders were given an assignment to make their own coffins out of shoe boxes. In Massachusetts, 8th graders had an assignment to write a suicide note. In the 9/10/1990 NEW AMERICAN magazine it was reported by Dr. Samuel L. Blumenfeld, one of the religious right’s foremost education gurus, that “over 50,000 American teenagers had committed suicide since the introduction of death education in America’s public school in the early 1970s.” The purpose of death education was to “desensitize” children.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Why Liberals Hate Freedom of Speech

It’s time to stop playing games with the Left. It’s time to crush them under the weight of truth and reason.

[I]t should come as no surprise to you when I declare that those on the Left do not believe in free speech. They simply do not accept the fundamental principle that people of all opinions ought to be able to express those opinions without being punished for it, or at least hindered to the greatest degree possible in their ability to express them. How else can one explain last month’s editorial in Harvard’s student newspaper The Crimson, in which Sandra Korn, a student columnist and “women’s studies” major (who didn’t see that one coming?) obligingly calls for academic totalitarianism,

[…]

There, in a nutshell, is the modern liberal attitude toward freedom of speech, and by extension freedom of thought. If research doesn’t substantiate the cultural goals and priorities of today’s Neo-Fascists, then we must ensure that it “does not continue.” If speech refutes the Left’s positions on any number of issues, then it has to be silenced. “Academic justice” means suppression of all those naughty things that people might say that contradict us. As far as speech is concerned, the Left definitely prefers a command economy over the free market…

There are many conservatives and liberty-lovers who simply need to stop thinking of left-wingers as deluded but well-meaning people. They are not. The Left does not mean well. The Left hates freedom. It’s not just that they have a “different idea” about what freedom is, but hold to the same general set of values about liberty and freedom that we do. Instead, the Left has a completely alien ideology that hates the very concept of individual liberty, and therefore hates you for believing in it. Understand this, and you will go a long way towards understanding what drives those on the Left, from the most highly-placed Inner Party member in the US government all the way down to the barely-literate mouth-breather trolling the comments section on a blog.

[Comment: Recommended reading.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

7 Arrested in Joint Anti-Terrorist Operation in Spain, Morocco

MADRID, March 14 (Xinhua) — Spanish police working in conjunction with Moroccan security forces on Friday dismantled a terror cell responsible for sending jihadist fighters to Syria and other conflict zones such as Mali and Libya.

Spain’s Interior Ministry confirmed seven people had been arrested thus far, three in the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the coast of North Africa, and one in Malaga, with a further three people detained in Morocco…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

‘Åkesson Must Tell Swedes if He Plans to Join the National Front’

Sweden’s European Affairs Minister Birgitta Ohlsson argues that Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Åkesson must come out of his EU closet. Will the party join forces with the National Front or not?

Many of us choked on our morning coffee this week when reading an interview with Sweden Democrat party leader Jimmie Åkesson in the business newspaper Dagens Industri. He praised the leader of the National Front and suggested that the Sweden Democrats could collaborate with the French party’s representatives in the European Parliament.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Breitbart London: Once Trusted British Institutions Are Attempting to Strangle the Fracking Industry With Regulation

By James Delingpole

Excerpt: The National Trust is one of Britain’s best-loved charities — as quintessentially English as tea (out of a proper pot, of course) and scones, as much a part of our heritage furniture as Stourhead (which it owns) or Lundy island (which it manages on behalf of the nation). So when an organisation as widely cherished as the National Trust teams up with an institution as similarly renowned as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB being Europe’s largest wildlife charity with over a million members) to produce a report on the dangers of fracking, it ought to be an issue of great concern to us all. Why? Because if the report is correct and fracking does represent a genuine threat to Britain’s landscape and environment then clearly we should start to worry. But if the report is flawed and inaccurate to the point of outright dishonesty then what we have here is something more worrying still.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Breitbart London: Vladimir Putin: Hero of the European Union

By James Delingpole

Excerpt: Vladimir Putin’s adventurism in the Ukraine has had a strange side effect: it may well have prolonged the life of his chief rival and antagonist — the European Union — by several years. (h/t Benny Peiser — Global Warming Policy Foundation)

Until Russia began rattling its sabre, the EU’s economy was locked in a downward death spiral. There are lots of reasons for this (excessive regulation; the difficulties of having northern and southern European economies operating at very different speeds; incompetence, waste and an ageing demographic…), but if you had to pick the one factor that was dooming it above all, I’d say it was environmental regulation. Specifically, the EU’s ongoing war on fossil fuels and its championing of expensive, inefficient, “renewable” energy have virtually destroyed the economies of Spain and Portugal, given Denmark the world’s most expensive electricity, and hamstrung even the industrial might of Germany.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Denmark: Eurosceptic Party Leads in Danish Poll Before European Election

(Reuters) — The far-right, euro-sceptic Danish People’s Party may emerge as Denmark’s biggest vote getter at the European parliamentary elections in May, a poll indicated on Saturday. The People’s Party would get 15 percent of the vote if the elections, slated for May 22-25, were held now — outdoing both the Social Democrats and Liberal Party, long the two biggest mainstream parties in the Nordic state…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: Four Face Charges for Bonn Bomb Attempt

German authorities on Friday charged four alleged Islamist militants for plotting a failed bomb attack at a railway station and the murder of a far-right anti-Muslim activist.

A suspect identified only as German national Marco G., 26, was accused of planting a self-made pipe bomb in a sports bag at the main train station of the western city of Bonn. The bomb never exploded but sparked a major terrorism alert two weeks before Christmas 2012…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Greece Has One of the Highest Aging Rates in Europe

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, MARCH 12 — Greece is one of the most “aged” countries in the EU, as GreekReporter website writes quoting a survey by Marie-Noel Dyken, associate professor at the University of Thessaly. Only Italy and Germany are presenting highest rates of population aging. Studying data from Eurostat, Dyken found that population aging in Greece as well as in the rest of the EU countries continued incessantly during the last decade. The percentage of the elderly population in Greece increased significantly, from 16.7% to 19.4%, which is higher than the EU average (17.5% in 2011). Examining the age structure of the Greek population, we see that the proportion of people aged over 65 years old exceeds 19% (nearly one in five), which places Greece among the three EU countries with the highest aging rates, along with Italy (20.3%) and Germany (20.6%). On the contrary, the three countries with the smallest aging rates are Ireland (11.5%), Slovakia (12.6%) and Cyprus (12.7%). These indices bring out a serious problem of reproduction in Greece, which is also confirmed by the recent evolution of the country’s natural balance (difference between births and deaths). According to data from the Hellenic Statistical Authority (Elstat), natural balance decreased rapidly during the period 2008-2012. In 2008, births exceeded deaths by 10,300 (positive natural balance), while from 2011 onwards, deaths exceed births. The survey shows that regions such as the islands of Mykonos, Kos, Andros, Rhodes, Santorini and Crete present lower aging rates with the population aged 65 years and over, not exceeding 17%.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Ex-Premier Letta Snubs Vote on Election Reform

Civati also among 13 ‘protest’ absences

(see related) (ANSA) — Rome, March 12 — Ex-premier Enrico Letta was among 13 members of the center-left Democratic Party (PD) who were absent without receiving authorization from a House vote on an election-reform bill authored by PD chief and Premier Matteo Renzi. Joining Renzi in what was seen as a sign of protest was Pippo Civati, who represents a more left-leaning wing in the PD, and who ran against Renzi in last fall’s PD primary.

Civati was one of the few PD members who openly defied Renzi in a party coup last month to unseat Letta from office and take his place.

The move opened the 39-year-old former mayor of Florence to accusations of hypocrisy after repeatedly insisting he would never seek the highest office without a general vote. Just before Renzi’s reform bill passed Wednesday, the premier said he had been the target of an effort to derail his authority in the majority PD.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Fake Cripple Cited for Abusing Public Goodwill

‘Collected 3,000 euros in alms per month’

(ANSA) — Parma, March 14 — Police in the northern city of Parma have cited a man as a fake cripple after watching him walk out of his wheelchair after a day of begging. The 30-year-old Czech national was cited for abusing public goodwill after collecting roughly 100 euros in alms for the day alone. Police, who tailed him the entire day, believe he was collecting around 3,000 euros tax-free per month.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Mobster’s 50 Million Euros in Slot Machines, Assets Seized

Police take Audi riddled by AK-47 that killed son-in-law

(ANSA) — Bari, March 14 — Police in the southern Puglia region seized 50 million euros in assets from a known mafia associate, including hundreds of slot machines, bank accounts and an Audi S6 riddled with gunshots from an AK-47 in a murder.

Police said the owner Francesco Vavalle, 59, has a long criminal record with links to the Mercante gang, part of the Puglia-based Sacra Corona Unita organized-crime group. The luxury sedan was the scene of a shooting in which Vavalle’s son-in-law was killed last month in a feud with a rival clan, police said. The seizure also included six businesses in the gambling sector, as well as a wholesale produce supplier and a company that managed a pizzeria.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Anti-Mafia Police Seize Millions From Known Marble Supplier

Won building contracts ‘thanks to Cosa Nostra ties’

(ANSA) — Palermo, March 14 — Police in Sicily seized five million euros in assets from a high-end marble supplier who was able to dominate the market with alleged help from the Mafia. It was the latest police seizure of property from Giuseppe Bordonaro, 55, which all told amounts to 21 million euros. Police said he was able to win high-priced building contracts for his brand of Billiemi marble, among the most rare and expensive varieties, thanks to relationships with known Mobsters such as Angelo Siino, the Cosa Nostra’s so-called “public works minister”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Sicily Man Getting Poverty Aid Actually Owned 1.2 Mln Euros

Case may not be an isolated, other 80 beneficiaries being probed

(ANSA) — Palermo, March 14 — A man who received an 832 euros monthly subsidy from the region of Sicily saw his funding cut off when investigators found he earned 150,000 euros a year and possessed assets totalling 1.2 million euros, according to an state investigation.

The probe comes as part of a wider plan by Sicily regional Governor Rosario Crocetta to crack down on fraud.

Last year, 87 people saw their subsidies cut off because they didn’t actually comply with the conditions for aid.

Some even received subsidies while serving time in jail for mafia-related crimes, investigators said.

They are now probing about 2,800 other subsidy recipients.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Naples Archeological Museum Reveals ‘Hidden’ Treasure

Closed coin collection to be shown to the public on Sunday

(ANSAmed) — NAPOLI — To hear talk of hidden treasure makes one think immediately of an old chest full of precious antique coins. This is exactly what awaits visitors to the National Archeological Museum of Naples on Sunday March 15, when the museum will open its doors to reveal a “secret” collection for one day — that of the museum’s coins, one of the most important collections in Italy with about 150,000 pieces, from coinage of ancient Greece to that of the Bourbon mint.

The name of the guided tour is “Coins and economy in the ancient world”. It is a rare opportunity rendered even more precious by the presence of archeologists and historians, experts in numismatics, who will explain not only the eras in which the coins were used, but also economic aspects linked to their use.

Coin collecting dates back to the 1500s, as demonstrates the Farnese collection, created in Rome but arriving in Naples through the Bourbon inheritance of Charles VII of Naples. The collection shows the choice of coins and medallions preferred by erudite and Renaissance coin collectors: portraits of illustrious men, architects of ancient history, representations of historic episodes and celebrated ancient monuments that have disappeared or are no longer identifiable. Another attentive and passionate collector was Cardinal Stefano Borgia, a learned prelate from the late eighteenth century with antiquarian interests, whose collection was sold by one of his descendants to the King of Naples Joachim Murat. The Borgia collection includes coins from series produced in Etruria, Umbria, Lazio, Rome and in the central Adriatic area of Italy.

A leap is then made in the second part of the Naples museum medallion collection, which includes about 70,000 coins recounting the monetary history of southern Italy from the 6th century B.C. to the medieval era and modern times, ending with the coinage of the Kingdom of Naples — a journey spanning 25 centuries.

In the rooms dedicated to the Roman period, a place of importance is dedicated to Pompei, with about 15,000 coins found in excavations through 1970: the cash box of a shop; the change or larger hoards in cloth or leather purses recovered next to the skeletons of fugitives; the conspicuous sums preserved in safes with jewelry and silverware; sculptures, ornaments, frescoes and inscriptions that communicate the lively daily life of the citizens’ market and productive activities.

Sunday discoveries of “hidden” art treasures in Naples are organized by Campania Artecard, a project that is creating an integrated system of cultural assets with transport and services. On Sunday March 23, there will be a visit to the hidden rooms of the Royal Palace of Naples.

“The two appointments will be an opportunity for tourists, but also for Neapolitans, to discover treasures and protected places in these two great, world class points of excellence, which are the Archeological Museum and the Royal Palace of Naples,” said Gregorio Angelini, the regional director for the Ministry for Heritage, Culture and Tourism.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Jailhouse Suicides Peak in 2014, Totalling 40% of Deaths

11 so far this year, 49 in 2013

(ANSA) — Rome, March 12 — Suicides in Italian prisons have peaked in the first months of 2014, totalling 40% of all jailhouse deaths reported so far, the president of the Italian Society of Psychiatrists, Claudio Mencacci, said on Wednesday.

“Suicides in Italian prisons have peaked again: 40% of all deaths in jail were suicides,” said Mencacci.

Suicides comprised 30% of deaths reported in Italian jails last year.

According to prisoners’ rights group Ristretti Orizzonti, which monitors jailhouse suicides and other deaths, 49 inmates of Italian prisons committed suicide in 2013 and 11 so far this year.

The highest number of suicides, or 72, occurred in 2009, and the highest number of non-suicide deaths, or 186, occurred in 2011.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Govt Reinstates Distinction Between Soft, Hard Drugs

Moves to crack down on pharmaceutical ‘cartels’

(By Christopher Livesay) (ANSA) — Rome, March 14 — The cabinet on Friday moved to simplify charges for drug offenders, approving a decree that reintroduces degrees of penalties according to which type of narcotic is found in someone’s possession. The measure follows a supreme Court of Cassation decision last month that threw out as “illegitimate” a 2005 law that equated the possession of soft drugs to heavy drugs, and was blamed as a contributing factor to severe overcrowding in Italian prisons. Detractors of that law, which was sponsored at the time by then-right-wing MP Gianfranco Fini and centrist MP Carlo Giovanardi, argued it violated a 1993 popular referendum in which a majority of Italians voted to decriminalize drug possession for personal consumption.

The so-called Fini-Giovanardi law, which had been passed by ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right government, had been challenged several times, namely for violating the European Union legal principle that the punishment must be proportional to the crime.

The law introduced heavy sanctions, including jail time for small-time dealers. Now the law distinguishes between hard and soft drugs, with lighter sentences for substances such as marijuana, and harsher ones for class A hard drugs, such as heroin and cocaine.

On Friday, Health Minister Beatrice Lorenzin said “the cabinet voted to bring back classifications because a void had been left following the Cassation’s ruling”. The new classifications are also expected to help to ease prison overcrowding, which has become a serious problem as Italy has the most cramped prisons in the EU, with about 147 inmates for every 100 beds, human rights organisations have said.

That’s well above a European average of 105.

The European Court of Human Rights in May ordered Italy to dramatically improve its prison system, stop overcrowding and stop violating prisoners’ rights.

The decree was not limited to illicit drugs. It also includes a measure to prevent the formation of pharmaceutical cartels following a suspected fraud involving Swiss pharmaceutical companies Roche and Novartis. Rome prosecutors last week announced that Roche and Novartis are being probed for alleged market manipulation and fraud against Italy’s national health service in connection with a suspected collusion to hamper use of a cheap eye drug in favour of a more expensive one.

The decree approved on Friday “provides for legislation to sponsor the use of off-label medicines which are less expensive for the national healthcare system but equally effective from a therapeutic standpoint,” said Lorenzin. Meanwhile prosecutors announced Friday that the board and management of Roche and Novartis are under investigation in Rome for the alleged cartel promoting Novartis’s Lucentis over Roche’s Avastin.

The Antitrust authority said last week it had fined the companies a record 180 million euros.

It said the companies’ actions had cost the Italian national health service over 45 million euros in 2012 alone and that future costs could potentially reach 600 million euros a year. Novartis and Roche have both denied the allegations and said they would appeal to the administrative courts.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Netherlands: Public Prosecutor Challenged to Act on Wilders’ Moroccan Comments

Moroccan organisations in the Netherlands said they will make a formal complaint against the public prosecution department if it does not take action Geert Wilders’s latest anti Moroccan statements.

The chairman of the national Moroccan council LBM said on Saturday the ‘the ball is now in the department’s court’. Mohamed Rabbae, a former MP for the left-wing green party GroenLinks, said: ‘We will wait until Monday to see if the department put its own policy [to protect citizens against discrimination] into action.’

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Soccer: Moroccan Team Leaves Italian League Over Racism

Alleging racist insults, African immigrants squad pulls out

(ANSA) — Forli, March 13 — A soccer team of Moroccan immigrants pulled out of the minor Uisp league in the eastern city of Forli after enduring a steady stream of racist insults, local newspaper Resto del Carlino reported on Thursday.

The latest episode that triggered the Casablanca team’s decision came last Saturday when rival fans shouted: “Go back home Moroccans..” adding other insults during a match against Club Juventinità di Forlimpopoli which was won 3-0 by Casablanca.

The last straw came when Moroccan players reportedly complained to the referee but no measures were taken, said Rachid Hansal, the 41-year-old captain, a former professional player in Morocco’s top league.

The episode, he said, was “the latest of a long series of racial insults. Unfortunately, such a thing happened every Saturday. “We can’t stand it any longer. And now we are not playing anymore,” he said, adding the team has sent a petition to the league naming one offender.

“What is certain is that we will not stand similar offences anymore. The time had come to do something, to take a strong decision. And we did it”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Two Out of Three Italians Approve of Renzi’s Economy Package

‘Even Grillo, Berlusconi supporters on board’ says poll

(ANSA) — Rome, March 14 — Two out of three Italians approve of Premier Matteo Renzi’s package of tax cuts and investments to revive the weak Italian economy, a survey by pollster Ixè showed Friday. The poll, conducted for State broadcaster Rai3’s Agorà, showed that even a majority, 56%, of the rank-and-file in the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement are satisfied with the plan. “It’s a greenlight,” said Ixè Director Roberto Weber, “even among over two-thirds of (three-time premier and center-right leader) Silvio Berlusconi’s electorate: 68% of voters (from his Forza Italia party) agree with his tax proposals”.

Among Renzi’s own center-left Democratic Party (PD), 82% approve. Some 54% of those surveyed believed Renzi would follow through on his vow to enact the package within 100 days. That corresponded with how many people tend to trust the fast-talking young premier: just over one in two. The survey was conducted on a sample of 1,000 people with a margin of error of +/- 3.1%.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Did Gypsies Cut Off Man’s Penis in Revenge for Him Sleeping With One of Their Girlfriends?

Police search A-road for missing manhood after arrest of suspect, 22

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

A gypsy gang chopped off a man’s genitals after they discovered he had slept with one of their girlfriends, it has been reported.

Police brought a busy dual carriageway to a standstill today to hunt for a penis after he was discovered severely injured at the side of the A-road.

The 40-year-old was discovered in a distressed state on the side of the A66 dual carriageway in Middlesbrough this morning, Cleveland Police have confirmed. It has been reported that the man was seen searching in undergrowth.

A member of staff at Asda close to where the incident happened said he heard the man had suffered the horrendous injury to his groin.

He added: ‘A few of the Asda staff have been talking and apparently it was some gypsy men doing it to another guy after they found out he had slept with one of their girlfriends.

‘I don’t know his name but that seems to be what I have heard.’

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Fairtrade Bid by Town’s Mosque

Keighley’s most prominent place of Muslim worship wants to become the town’s first “fairtrade mosque”. The Markazi Jamia Mosque, in Emily Street, started its campaign to promote ethical trading by linking up with Keighley school pupils.

The Year 9 University Academy Keighley citizenship students invited mosque committee members to participate in a Dragons’ Den-style event. This was designed to convince the committee members to commit themselves to following fairtrade principles…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Father-of-One Loses Three Limbs and Half His Face to Flesh Eating Bacteria Which Started as a Common Cold Just Four Months Ago

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

A young father-of-one who came down with a common cold in November has since lost three limbs and skin from his face after it developed into a horrific flesh-eating bug.

Alex Lewis, 34, had to have both of his legs and his left arm amputated after his feet, fingertips, arms, lips, nose and part of his ears turned black.

His major organs shut down and the keen golfer, who has a three-year-old boy called Sam, spent a week in a coma as the deadly bacteria wreaked havoc through his body.

The nightmare started only four months ago when Mr Lewis, from Stockbridge, Hampshire, started suffering from a common cold.

However, as his symptoms worsened, medics at Royal County Hospital, in Winchester, Hampshire, soon diagnosed him with blood infection Group A streptococcus — a normally harmless bacteria the body should filter out.

But devastatingly, in Mr Lewis’s case it developed into septicaemia and toxic shock syndrome with doctors warning he had only a three per cent chance of survival.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Give All Pupils an A… at the Start of Term! ‘Silly’ Classroom Guide Criticised

All children should start the school year with an A grade and should never be told they have failed, according to a controversial guide for teachers.

Pupils should be awarded the top grade automatically and told to work to maintain it, the influential Royal Society of Arts says.

The charity claims teachers should harness the motivating power of ‘loss aversion’.

All pupils should be given an A in a particular subject and must continuously improve to keep it.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Lib Dem Candidate Maajid Nawaz Tells Hampstead Audience: ‘Muslims Find Liberalism Reprehensible’

Maajid Nawaz sparked heated exchanges with audience members at his first public appearance as Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn.

The 36-year-old, who will battle against Labour’s Tulip Siddiq and Conservative Simon Marcus to become Hampstead and Kilburn MP at next year’s general election, appeared at Hampstead Waterstones to speak about his book Radical on Tuesday…

[JP note: Nawaz hams it up in Hampstead.]

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Lib Dems Say Ban All Petrol and Diesel Cars by 2040 or Earlier

Every diesel and petrol car would be scrapped by then or earlier if there are enough technological advances.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Pictured: Giant Venomous Huntsman Spider — With a Huge Egg Sac of Babies — That Jumped Out of Charity Worker’s Backpack When She Got Back to Britain From Cameroonian Rainforest

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

This terrifying photograph shows the venomous huntsman spider that jumped out of a charity worker’s backpack when she returned to the UK.

Nora Serrat, 32, found the spider with a huge egg sac — containing up to 400 babies — after coming back to London from a two-week charity trip to the Cameroonian rainforest.

The spider, which is known to prey on scorpions and even bats, was described by a member of the charity, the Rainforest Foundation UK, as ‘feisty’.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Teen Jailed After He Got Lethal Arsenal Delivered to Family Home

A teenager has been jailed after police found he was getting weapons including a machine gun and ammunition delivered to his family home

A teenager who bought a machine gun online and had it delivered to his family home, along with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and nunchucks, has been jailed for six years. Reza Khalilzada, 18, was caught hiding an assault rifle under his bed which he had ordered from a US website…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Croatian Ex-Premier Sanader Sentenced 9 Yrs for Corruption

Lower court also convicts his conservative political party HDZ

(ANSAmed) — ZAGREB, MARCH 11 — Croatian ex-premier Ivo Sanader and the political party he led, the conservative Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) — today the major opposition political group — were found guilty of corruption and misappropriation of public funds. The verdict was read today by Judge Ivana Calic in the lower criminal court at the end of the largest anti-corruption trial ever held in Croatia. Sanader was condemned to nine years in prison ordered to return two million euros.

The verdict said Sanader had embezzled two million euros for personal use, abusing his authority as premier and head of his party. Sanader, who held office from 2003 to 2009, received in 2012 a previous lower court conviction, sentencing him to ten years in prison for taking five million euros from the Hungarian oil company MOL Group to facilitate the acquisition of a stake in the Croatian oil company INA.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt: Pistelli Calls for Reconciliation With MB

‘Mistake to consider it monolithic, Hugh moderates a minority’

(ANSAmed) — ROME, MARCH 11 — Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Lapo Pistelli said on Tuesday that it would be a “mistake to consider the Muslim Brotherhood as a monolithic entity”, without differentiation that could foster internal reconciliation in Egypt. The deputy foreign minister was speaking at a conference on Egypt held by the Italian think-tank Istituto Affari Internazionali, in which George Washington University professor Nathan Brown took part. The Brotherhood “has not been defeated”, as evinced from the almost daily protests in the country, Pistelli continued.

And “not all are violent or radical. There are also moderate elements”, though at this stage in the crackdown “they are a minority”. Reconciliation is necessary, Pistelli stressed, especially given the crisis underway in Libya and for a future internal stabilization in that country as well. The US expert expressed optimism of a possible reconciliation, though he considers it to be “premature”. And first and foremost “it is a matter of political will,” he told ANSAmed. “Some in the Muslim Brotherhood would like to explore the possibility, but right now it is not part of the organization’s strategy. It might happen further down the road.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt: Interior Minister — 15 Terror Cells Arrested Over Killing Policemen

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said that the security bodies managed over the past period to arrest as many as 15 terrorist cells, including 94 terrorists, over charges of committing terrorist acts, explosions, killing policemen and army troops in a number of governorates.

In an interview with MENA on the sidelines of the 31st Arab Interior Ministers’ Council, Ibrahim said that the security bodies made great strides toward achieving security and stability, after a spate of violent acts which were carried out by the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood (MB) group…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Egypt Unrest: Six Soldiers Shot Dead in Cairo

Six Egyptian soldiers have been killed by gunmen at a checkpoint in the northern Cairo suburb of Shubra al-Khayma, state media reports. A security official said two bombs left behind by the attackers had been defused.

The violence comes two days after another soldier was shot dead in an attack on an army bus in eastern Cairo. There has been an upsurge in violence since the overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi last July.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Five Egyptian Troops Shot Dead in Cairo

(AGI) Cairo, March 15 — Gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint on the outskirts of Cairo on Saturday killing five Egyptian soldiers, state television reported. The attack came two days after another soldier was killed in an attack on a military bus in the capital. Militants launched a campaign of violence after the army overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July, killing over 300 security forces so far.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Gunmen Kill Five Egyptian Soldiers in Cairo

CAIRO, March 15 (Xinhua) — Gunmen killed at least five Egyptian soldiers on Saturday morning in their attack on a checkpoint on the outskirts of northern Cairo, state news agency MENA reported.

A group of militants stormed a military checkpoint in the suburb of Shubra al-Khayma in northern Cairo, killing five soldiers and injuring several others, a security official was quoted by MENA as saying.…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Gunmen Ambush Egypt Army Checkpoint in Cairo

Gunmen have opened fire on a security checkpoint in northern Cairo, killing several soldiers. Two bombs have also been defused at the scene of the shooting, according to authorities.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Morocco Threatens to Expel Syrians for Mosque ‘Disruption’

Morocco on Friday threatened to expel some Syrian refugees it accused of “causing disruption to mosques and the faithful” in several towns, after a first warning earlier this month, AFP reports.

Authorities will resort to the “immediate expulsion of any offender in accordance with the law… relating to the entry and residency of foreigners in the kingdom of Morocco,” the interior ministry said in a statement…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Gaza’s Only Power Plant ‘Shuts Down Over Lack of Fuel’

The only power plant in the besieged Gaza Strip was shut down on Saturday due to a lack of fuel from Israel, which closed a goods crossing after militant rocket attacks, the energy authority said.

The facility, which supplies some 30 percent of Gaza’s electricity needs, has been forced to shut down several times, most recently in December.

The power plant is one of the main sources of electricity for Gaza’s 1.8 million people and without it, daily blackouts of around 12 hours are expected. Electricity is also received directly from Israel and Egypt.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Israeli Parliament Passes Trio of Controversial Laws

Israel’s parliament passed a trio of controversial laws Tuesday and Wednesday, one of which will require a national referendum on almost any peace deal reached with the Palestinians and another that could for the first time force ultra-Orthodox Jews into military service.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Israel Passes Law to Conscript Ultra-Orthodox Jews Into Military

Israeli lawmakers passed a contentious law on Wednesday meant to draft ultra-Orthodox Jews into the military — the culmination of a drive for reforms that has resulted in mass protests by the religious community in Israel and beyond.

The issue of conscription of the ultra-Orthodox is at the heart of a cultural war in Israel.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

John Kerry’s Base Betrayal of Israel: A Whiff of Perfidy

Secretary of State, John Kerry, revealed utter appeasement towards the overwhelmingly Muslim Palestinian Authority and a cavalier dismissal of the legitimate rights of Israel: The Jewish state. With his own words, he can now no longer be regarded as an honest broker in the so-called “peace process.”

Kerry spewed words that are a complete betrayal of promises that both he, and his master in the White House, had previously and repeatedly made to Israel that any final “peace agreement” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority would demand and require that Israel be recognized by the PA as a Jewish state.

But Kerry reneged on that solemn promise and undertaking by telling a House Committee that it is a “mistake” to insist that the Palestinian Arabs recognize Israel as the Jewish State…

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the U.S. Congress, as recently as May, 2013, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, “has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state.” Perhaps, it is time to rename the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with what it truly is and always has been; The Israel-Islam conflict.

It is not about territory. It never has been. It is always about the Islamic refusal to live side by side with any non-Muslim nation state in territory Muslims had previously invaded and conquered through acts of aggression.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Ultra-Orthodox Jews No Longer Exempt From Military Service in Israel

Israeli MPs have voted 67-1 in favour of a law which would see ultra-Orthodox Jews included in compulsory military service. The opposition boycotted the vote in protest.

Until now, ultra-Orthodox Jews had avoided being in the army, saying they served the country through prayer and study. The legislation will come in in 2017 and will limit the number of those who can be exempt to 1,800.

“This law creates a process not an overnight change, but a process by which slowly they will be integrated more and more into the military and also to the workforce.This is an important value for us as a nation in general to be unified “ Dov Lippman MK from the Yesh Atid party said.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Worshipers Prevented From Entering Al Aqsa Mosque for Friday Prayer

Israeli occupation forces, on Friday, prevented Palestinian men under the age of 40 from entering the al-Aqsa Mosque to observe the Friday prayer…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Berkin Elvan: Turkish PM Accuses Dead Boy of Terror Links

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said a 15-year-old boy who died on Tuesday from injuries sustained in last year’s anti-government protests had links to terrorism.

Berkin Elvan spent nine months in a coma after being hit by a tear gas canister as he went to buy bread.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Death Toll Rises to 3 in Lebanon’s Tripoli

BEIRUT, March 14 (Xinhua) — A security source told Xinhua Friday that three people were killed and 36 others were injured during the clashes that renewed in Lebanon’s northern port city of Tripoli since Thursday.

The source said that though a cautious clam reigned over the usual confrontation lines between the two rival neighborhoods of Sunni Bab el-Tebbaneh and Alawite Jabal Mohsen last night, the clashes renewed Friday and sniper activities were intensive…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Fighting for Key Border Town as Syria Civil War Enters Fourth Year

Syrian troops have been battling for a key rebel-held town on the third anniversary of the country’s civil war. Relief agencies are calling for an end to the conflict, which they warn is creating a “lost” generation.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Here Comes the Temple of Antichrist

The third most holy site in Islam (after Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina, Saudi Arabia), the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the golden-crowned Dome of the Rock overlooking the city attract crowds of Muslim worshipers, with Jews only having access for four and a half hours per day under Waqf regulations that, among other things, prohibit Jews from praying, kneeling, bowing, prostrating, dancing, singing, and/or ripping clothes. However, there is growing demand gathering political support for this status quo on the Temple Mount to be changed: The outcry is for Jews to be allowed to pray upon their ancient site of worship (a fact that Muslims dispute; they say no Temple existed there before).

To accomplish this — and in spite of many Goliath-like obstacles — there are Jews who are not only interested in rebuilding a Third Temple, but who are absolutely determined to see it done…and in their lifetime! Probably the most notable movement toward this end in recent times is the Temple Mount Faithful, founded by Israeli Gershon Salomon. The Temple Mount Faithful tried to place a cornerstone on the Temple Mount site in 1990, causing a tremendous riot in which seventeen people were killed. Salomon hasn’t been allowed to visit the place since that time. Under his leadership, the Temple Mount Faithful conducts a symbolic cornerstone laying each October to remind the people of Israel that God has commissioned the Jewish people to build His house.

These people still intend to lay a cornerstone on Moriah soon. They believe the Temple will be built upon and around that foundation.

The very thought of such an action drives the fundamentalist Muslim radicals wild. They will stop the laying of a cornerstone for the Third Jewish Temple at all costs. That is what most worries the international politicians who have taken it upon themselves to make sure World War III doesn’t break out beginning at Mount Moriah.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Iran Promoting ‘Islamic Nobel Prize’ For Science and Technology

To reward Muslim scientists in the world and the Med region

(by Rodolfo Calò) (ANSAmed) — TEHRAN — The presentation of what has been dubbed the ‘Islamic Nobel Prize’ for science and technology was held on Monday in the Iranian capital’s Pardis Technological Park. The Mustafa Science and Technology Prize, in honor of one of the 201 names (“the chosen one”) of Prophet Mohamed, aims to encourage scholars from Muslim countries and those of the south-eastern Mediterranean to promote and elevate their works. The prize intends to create a “platform” for scientists and specialists to present their latest works and to increase scientific and technological collaboration in the Islamic world.

The prize includes 500,000 dollars, a medal and a certificate, and will be given by Pardis in three sectors: life sciences and medicine, nanosciences and nanotechnology, and information and communication technologies. A fourth prize, for the Best Muslim Scientist, will also be assigned. For the first three categories, the candidates will have to be citizens of a Muslim country, while to compete for the fourth the scientist must simply be a Muslim. There will be 257 universities, academies, research centers and technological parks conducting the pre-selection, a list of which is available on the prize website (www.mustafaprize.org).

The deadline to submit candidatures to these institutes for the first edition of the prize is June 14. The awards ceremony will take place between January 4-9 and will be flanked by a series of events, including a five-day ‘Islamic Nations Festival of Science and Technology’. The label ‘Islamic Nobel Prize’ was used on Monday by Pardis director Mehdi Safarinia, who underscored that Muslim scientists are often underestimated but deserve recognition for their “excellent work”.

To a question asked by ANSAmed during the press conference on the scientific potential of the Mediterranean in relation to the award and the message that the committee promoting the initiative would like to launch to the region, it was said that “there are Mediterranean countries that are Muslim: we would like the media to inform them” and for the scientists of these nations “to take part in this event”.

The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) — the “largest credit institute in the Islamic world” — will be funding the construction and maintenance of a building in Iran to house the Mustafa Prize.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italian Band Will Play for UNIFIL Troops in Lebanon

Vibrazioni Mediterranee to perform on 18/3 near Israeli border

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, MARCH 14 — The Italian musical group Vibrazioni Mediterranee will be performing for UNIFIL troops in Lebanon on March 18. A 16-meter stage with the Mediterranean sea near the Israeli border for a backdrop will be the venue for the group’s performance at the Naqoura military base, the headquarters for the 12,000 UN troops stationed in the country under the command of Italian general Paolo Serra. The event will serve to raise awareness about the activities of this group from Italy’s southern Puglia and Campania regions, for an “exchange between performing artists of southern Italy and those of Middle Eastern countries along the Mediterranean, in order to create bonds of solidarity,” said the group leader and guitarist Martino Di Cesare.

The concert is being held in collaboration with the Italian embassy and the Italian Institute of Culture in Beirut and will also act as a fund-raiser for three centers for the education and assistance of disabled children and young adults in southern Lebanon. The day before the event in southern Lebanon the group will also be performing at the Aboukhater amphitheater of Beirut’s Saint Joseph University and will be continuing on to other Mediterranean countries afterwards, including Turkey and Tunisia.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Officials in Iraq Say Car Bomb Attacks Kill at Least 8 People in Country’s Capital, Baghdad

Officials in Iraq say a series of car bomb attacks targeting commercial areas and a restaurant have killed at least eight people in the country’s capital, Baghdad.

Police officials say a car bomb went off Saturday night in a commercial street in al-Ameen district in southeastern Baghdad, killing four people and wounding 13. Minutes later, police say another car bomb explosion near a falafel restaurant killed three people and wounded six in the capital’s Qahira neighborhood.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Syria — Lebanon: Exchanged for the Wife of an Al Qaeda Member, Ma’aloula Sisters Shout “Allah Akbar”

In a video, the nuns are seen thanking everyone, including the kidnappers, and calling on God to bless them. The al-Nusra Front pledges to continue its efforts until all prisoners are freed from Syrian jails. Reports says a ransom of US$ 4 million, but mediators deny.

Beirut (AsiaNews) — A rebel video shows the release of Ma’aloula nuns as they are handed over to Lebanese authorities in exchange for 143 (some sources say 153) women prisoners held by the Syrian government, including Saja Dlaymé, an Iraqi mother of three and wife of a prominent member of al-Qaeda.

As the exchange took place near the Lebanese-Syrian border, rebels who brought the nuns and took away the female prisoners freed in Syria, are seen shouting nonstop ‘Allah Akbar’, making comments about their victory and pledging to continue seeking the release of all prisoners held in the jails of the “tyrant,’ Bashar al-Assad.

A certain Hadi al-Abdallah shot the video posted on YouTube yesterday. The latter shows the nuns’ release as he talks with them and makes various comments. On the tape, the rebels have their faces covered. In one of the first scenes, one of them is seen carrying and older nun in his arms.

Prompted by Abdallah, the other nuns praise to God and all those who helped end their captivity. “May Allah give you strength and reward,” one nun tells the videographer.

After the release, one of the sisters in an interview with a Lebanese TV station said that they were all “treated well” and that Al Nusra Front kidnappers gave us “everything we asked.”

She added that “no one bothered us,” denying rumours that the kidnappers had forced them to remove their crosses.

After the sisters were eventually released around midnight Sunday, the video shows a veiled woman coming towards the rebels, walking with two children and a baby in the arms of a man.

At one point, as dozens of other women are seen moving towards the rebel convoy, the men start to shout, “Allah Akbar,” louder and with greater excitement, praising God for the release.

One of them pledges, “We shall never rest or get sleep until all our sisters get out of the tyrant’s prisons.”

The video ends with a close-up on one of the children smiling says that his home is in Syria.

Lebanese and Qatari security were instrumental in getting the nuns-for-prisoners swap.

All parties have ruled out claims that a ransom was paid. However, Lebanese Arabic language daily Al Nahar reported yesterday that US$ 4 million were given to the rebels.

What is true is that the nuns’ release, announced at 9 am, was delayed at the last moment because Al Nusra Front rebels had changed his mind. Instead of releasing all the sisters, they wanted to free a few, and then do the same for the rest only after the first exchange.

However, the mediators refused to budge and were ready to leave when the rebels accepted the old conditions.

Yesterday afternoon, the sisters were brought to the Church of the Cross in Damascus, where a Thanksgiving Mass was celebrated for their return.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

With Millions of Syrian Children Out of School, Entire Generation Could Come of Age Illiterate

Along with some 20 other Syrian children, 13-year-old Anas braves rain, mud and cold to attend class in a tent pitched along Lebanon’s border with Syria, the home of a Syrian refugee family that serves as a classroom for four hours each day. There are no benches and no blackboard. There are no textbooks and no notebooks.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Against Ukraine War? Obama May Seize Your Assets

Declaring a “national emergency” over the planned referendum in Crimea to determine whether or not to join Russia, the US president asserts that asset seizure is possible for any US person “determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State”:

(i) to be responsible for or complicit in, or to have engaged in, directly or indirectly, any of the following:

(A) actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in Ukraine;

(B) actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine; or

(C) misappropriation of state assets of Ukraine or of an economically significant entity in Ukraine;

The Executive Order is, as usual, so broadly written that it leaves nearly everything open to interpretation.

For example, what are “direct or indirect…actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, sovereignty, or territorial integrity of Ukraine”? Could that be someone writing an article that takes issue with the US policy that the Crimea referendum is illegal and illegitimate? Could it be standing up in a public meeting and expressing the view that Ukraine would be better off with nationwide referenda to determine whether other regions should become autonomous or joined to neighboring countries?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Behind the Headlines: Who Are the Crimean Tatars?

The Ottomans wanted slaves, and the Crimean Tatars provided them from the steppes of Ukraine and southern Russia—with the help of raiding Nogai Tatars and, until the 15th century, with the collaboration of Genoese merchants who shipped them off from the Crimean port town of Feodosia.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Did Russia Just Move Its Treasury Holdings Offshore?

Foreign central banks’ Treasury bond holdings parked at the Federal Reserve dropped by the most on record in the latest week. Some analysts think the crisis in Ukraine is sparking the move.

Their theory: Russia is shifting its Treasury bond holdings out of the Fed and into offshore accounts. That way, Russia would be able to buy or sell its portfolio if the U.S. and its European allies impose economic sanctions amid growing geopolitical tensions in Ukraine.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

European Union NGO Played Direct Role in Violent Coup in Ukraine

State Department and EU worked in tandem to overthrow elected government

Bill Cash, a member of the British Parliament who led the Maastricht Rebellion against European Union integration, has criticized the EU and its Eastern Partnership and Association Agreement for the role it played in the current crisis in Ukraine.

“We do not have to be enthusiastic advocates of Vladimir Putin’s policies to recognize that this entire Ukrainian crisis was avoidable. Nor to recognize that the Crimea — handed over by Khrushchev within the Soviet Union to Ukraine in 1954 — has been and remains a vital national security and defense interest for Russia, including the Black Sea and its fleet for centuries. The European Union’s Eastern Partnership and Association Agreement were clearly anticipated to be Ukraine’s stepping stone to membership of the European Union, and probably of NATO as well. On both counts the EU has pursued a remarkably naïve foreign policy,” Cash writes on the Conservative Home website…

Cash and North have, by pointing out the activities of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, provided additional detail on how the EU, along with the United States, worked behind the scenes to foment the violent coup in Ukraine and install a government amenable to Wall Street, the financial cartel, and central bankers running the European Union.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Fascists: Ukraine’s Threat From Within

It’s become popular to dismiss Russian President Vladimir Putin as paranoid and out of touch with reality. But his denunciation of “neofascist extremists” within the movement that toppled the old Ukrainian government, and in the ranks of the new one, is worth heeding. The empowerment of extreme Ukrainian nationalists is no less a menace to the country’s future than Putin’s maneuvers in Crimea. These are odious people with a repugnant ideology.

Take the Svoboda party, which gained five key positions in the new Ukrainian government, including deputy prime minister, minister of defense and prosecutor general. Svoboda’s call to abolish the autonomy that protects Crimea’s Russian heritage, and its push for a parliamentary vote that downgraded the status of the Russian language, are flagrantly provocative to Ukraine’s millions of ethnic Russians and incredibly stupid as the first steps of a new government in a divided country.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

In Crimea, Ukraine’s Helpless and Marooned Military Gripped by Confusion and Uncertainty

In the eastern reaches of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, witnesses report advanced Russian surface-to-air missiles being offloaded and readied for movement. At a base near the naval port of Sevastopol, an air force commander takes to YouTube to appeal for clear orders of engagement with the Russian forces who have occupied much of his base. In a naval base near regional capital Simferopol, a commander reports feeling like a hostage, and fearing what will come in the next few days.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Kremlin: If the US Tries to Hurt Russia’s Economy, Russia Will Target the Dollar

Another warning shot was fired before an all-out assault on the dollar system begins. This time, an official shot: Alexey Ulyukaev, Russia’s Minister of Economic Development and former Deputy Chairman of the Central Bank, fired it. It was a major escalation, Valentin Mndrasescu, editor of The Voice of Russia’s Reality Check, told me from Moscow.

Last time, it was Sergei Glazyev, an advisor to Vladimir Putin who’d fired the shot. But he wasn’t a government official. “Anonymous sources” at the Kremlin claimed he wasn’t speaking for the government. As Mndrasescu reported in his excellent article, From Now On, No Compromises Are Possible For Russia:

“From the economic point of view, everyone should get ready for tough actions from Moscow. Sergei Glazyev, the most hardline of Putin’s advisors, sketched the retaliation strategy: Drop the dollar, sell US Treasuries, encourage Russian companies to default on their dollar-denominated debts, and create an alternative currency system (reference currency) with the BRICS and hydrocarbon producers like Venezuela and Iran.”

Unlike radical-sounding Glazyev, Ulyukaev is part of Dmitry Medvedev’s Cabinet. And as former Deputy Chairman of the Bank of Russia, he doesn’t take currencies lightly. He told Rossia-24 news channel about possible retaliatory measures if Washington adds economic sanctions to the political sanctions. Moscow wouldn’t worry too much about political sanctions, he said, but if Washington tries to hurt Russia’s economy, Moscow would retaliate by targeting the US dollar.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Moscow the Centre for Pro and Anti Rallies on Eve of Crimea Vote

Russian and Ukraine flags were carried on the streets of Moscow. An estimated 50,000 people marched through the capital. They want President Vladimir Putin to call a halt to the Crimea referendum on breaking away from Ukraine.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Referendum Monitor Criticizes U.S. Involvement in Crimea

The tone of a news conference with international election monitors in Crimea turned decidedly anti-American Saturday, when Serge Trifkovic, an American foreign affairs analyst of Serbian origin, criticized the United States’ involvement in the upcoming referendum.

“Nobody asked the people of Crimea if they wanted to be transferred from the Russian Federation within the USSR to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic,” Trifkovic said.

He added that it’s “richly ironic” U.S. leaders appear to be upholding the Soviet Communist Party’s legacy by insisting Crimea must remain part of Ukraine, while Russian President Vladimir Putin is “upholding the right of people to self-determination and liberty.”

There are 135 independent observers from 23 countries in Crimea to monitor the referendum vote scheduled for Sunday, in which citizens will decide whether to join Russia or remain an autonomous region in Ukraine. The United States has sought to delay the vote. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday said Russia will face sanctions if it supports the referendum and has warned of “an even greater response” if Russia sends troops into eastern Ukraine.

Trifkovic said he believes the vote is a democratic one. “Well, he’s got another thing coming, the leader of the free world,” he said of President Obama.. “Because as it happens, this peninsula will herald a new era in international relations.”

           — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic [Return to headlines]
 

Russian Troops Seize Gas Plant Beyond Crimean Border, Ukraine Says

Scores of Russian troops that landed by helicopter seized a gas plant just beyond the regional border of Crimea on Saturday, the Ukrainian government said. The action was Russia’s most provocative since its forces took over Crimea two weeks ago.

The latest troop advance came one day before Crimea was set to vote on whether to secede from Ukraine, and it was testing Ukrainian leaders’ resolve to engage Russia’s much more powerful military if it moved beyond Crimea.

By late afternoon, Ukrainian troops were stationed outside the gas plant, which is on a slender sand bar to the east of the Crimean Peninsula, according to Unian, a Ukrainian news service, which quoted the local police. The news agency did not say if shots were fired.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry issued a statement saying that the nation reserved the right to use all necessary measures to stop what it called a “military invasion by Russia.”

[Return to headlines]
 

Russian Army Launches Operation Outside Crimea

The Ukrainian foreign ministry has said it “reserves the right to use all necessary measures to stop the military invasion by Russia” after 80 Russian soldiers, four helicopter gunships, and three armoured vehicles seized the village of Strilkove, in the Kherson region, next to Crimea, on Saturday.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Russian Companies Withdraw Billions From West, Say Moscow Bankers

Russian companies are pulling billions out of western banks, fearful that any US sanctions over the Crimean crisis could lead to an asset freeze, according to bankers in Moscow.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Russian Forces Cross Crimea Border to Seize Gas Plant on Eve of Referendum

Russian forces backed by helicopter gunships and armored vehicles Saturday took control of a village near the border with Crimea on the eve of a referendum on whether the region should seek annexation by Moscow, a Ukrainian official said.

Fox News confirmed Russian troops took over a gas installation in the Kherson region, located between Crimea and Russia.

The action in Strilkove appeared to be the first move outside Crimea, where Russian forces have been in effective control since late last month. There were no reports of gunfire or injuries. The incident raises tensions already at a high level before Sunday’s referendum.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Tens of Thousands March in Moscow Anti-War Protest But Others Back Crimean Referendum

Tens of thousands have gathered in downtown Moscow in the largest anti-government demonstration since 2012, protesting against Sunday’s Kremlin-backed referendum in Crimea on whether to break away from Ukraine and merge with Russia.

Demonstrators waved Russian and Ukrainian flags on Saturday while opposition activists — including the two members of the punk band Pussy Riot who served prison terms for an anti-government stunt — shouted “Say no to war!” and “Putin, go away!” from a stage.

Not far away near the Kremlin, several thousand people dressed in matching red costumes marched in formation to show their support for Russian intervention in the region.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Ukraine: Crimea: Tatar Muslims Plan Referendum Boycott

Sunday’s vote will decide Crimea’s ties with Russia, but the Tatar community are fearful the future could unearth the past.

On the eve of Crimea’s controversial referendum, the region’s Tatar muslims have called for a boycott, nervous of what a future under Russia might hold. Groups of Tatar men have begun street patrols to try to reassure their communities as Russian military manoeuvres revive painful memories from the past…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Ukraine Crisis: Russia Isolated in UN Crimea Vote

Russia has vetoed a draft UN resolution criticising Sunday’s secession referendum in Ukraine’s Crimea region — the only Security Council member to vote against the measure. China, regarded as a Russian ally on the issue, abstained from the vote.

Western powers criticised Russia’s veto over the referendum, which will ask Crimeans if they want to rejoin Russia. Meanwhile, Kiev has accused Russian forces of seizing a village just north of Crimea and demanded they withdraw.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Colombo: Fresh Round of Talks to Regulate Fishing Between India and Sri Lanka

Some Sri Lankan groups accuse the government of ignoring the fishermen from the north of the country. Territorial encroachments explosive regional issue: Indians engaged in trawling, which damages the ecosystem and the livelihoods of local populations.

Colombo (AsiaNews ) — The second round of talks between Sri Lanka and India on territorial encroachments in fishing get underway tomorrow in Colombo. The issue has been at the centre of heated debate for years. However, some Sri Lankan associations criticize their government for failing to involve the fishermen of the north of the country, who are in fact the most affected given that they are closer to Indian shores. “The authorities must find a way — say these organizations — to ban all foreign vessels from the waters, so as not to destroy our marine ecosystem”.

Manel Lucia Kulas, a fisherwoman from Mannar, told AsiaNews: “In the past we earned a good living, but with the incursions of the Indian vessels now we can not even send our children to school. How can we survive if our husbands spend 1000 rupees on gasoline, but earn just 100 rupees a day of fishing?”.

For over 10 years New Delhi and Colombo have been discussing ongoing trespassing of fishermen. In recent years, India and Sri Lanka have imprisoned each other’s crews several times for having invaded territorial waters. On 15 January there was a first meeting between the two countries, in which they both agreed to release the fishermen who were still detained. However, the problem of controlling maritime traffic between southern India and northern Sri Lanka remains unresolved.

According to some, fish stocks in the Indian territory have been exhausted and this has pushed the fishermen to go beyond the limit of their territorial waters. On the other hand they use trawling, which is destroying the Sri Lankan waters and seriously damaging the livelihoods of local communities.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Doomed Airliner Pilot Was Political Fanatic: Hours Before Taking Control of Flight MH370 He Attended Trial of Jailed Opposition Leader as FBI Reveal Passengers Could be at a Secret Location

Police are investigating the possibility that the pilot of missing Flight MH370 hijacked his own aircraft in a bizarre political protest.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah was an ‘obsessive’ supporter of Malaysia’s opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim. And hours before the doomed flight left Kuala Lumpur it is understood 53-year-old Shah attended a controversial trial in which Ibrahim was jailed for five years.

Campaigners say the politician, the key challenger to Malaysia’s ruling party, was the victim of a long-running smear campaign and had faced trumped-up charges.

Police sources have confirmed that Shah was a vocal political activist — and fear that the court decision left him profoundly upset. It was against this background that, seven hours later, he took control of a Boeing 777-200 bound for Beijing and carrying 238 passengers and crew.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Focus Turns to Pilots of Missing MH370 as Investigators Hunt for a Motive

Authorities across the world are asking who aboard the doomed Malaysian jetliner would want to hijack a Boeing 777 — and why.

American authorities have confirmed that they went through the passengers and crew members on the manifest and none had any known links to extremist groups. Now attention is shifting to the two pilots after Malaysian police began a search of their homes.

The last message from the flight deck to Malaysian air traffic control was “all right, good night”. This appears to have been made after the aircraft communications and reporting system (Acars), which sends information about the plane’s location to air traffic control, was deliberately switched off. If so it may suggest that one or both of the pilots were key players in the drama, possibly under duress.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

India: Orissa: Hindu Fundamentalists Block Catholic Church Construction

A group of radicals threaten a catechist and his father in the village of Gudrikia. The area suffered major damages in the 2008anti-Christian pogrom. Since then, the local Christian minority has been living in fear.

Bhubaneshwar (AsiaNews) — A group of Hindu fundamentalists yesterday blocked the construction of a Catholic chapel in the village of Gudrikia, in the Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneshwar (Kandhamal District, Orissa), this according to a local lawyer, Ramakant Parichha, who spoke about it to AsiaNews.

The incident renewed fears and tensions in the village, which was badly hit in the anti-Christian pogroms that shook Orissa in 2008.

The incident apparently occurred at around nine o’clock pm, when the attackers threatened a number of Catholics and carried away the stones they had brought to start the work.

According to local sources, the extremist group threatened Bhagawan Pradhan, 44, a catechist in the village, and his father Danardan Pradhan, 63.

The two Catholics said that they are “frightened” but still plan to file as soon as possible a complaint about what had happened.

During the 2008 anti-Christian pogrom, the village church and the shrine were destroyed.

On that occasion, Mathew Nayak, a young clergyman in the (Anglican) Church of North India who had come to visit his family, was burnt alive in the church where he had taken refuge.

Another local Christian, Lalita Digal, was taken away and murdered, her body never found.

Since then, Catholics and other Christians have been denied free access to local land and forest.

Hindu fundamentalists now farm the land where the church once stood. In November 2013, some Christian leaders went to the police to complain about it, but the latter refused to register their case.

In addition, each year radical groups organise Ram Navami celebrations (honouring the birth of Rama) near the shrine’s ruins.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

India: Orissa: Ruling on Raped Nun “Example of Collusion Between the State and Hindu Extremists “

Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC ) comments to AsiaNews. Of the nine defendants, the court charged only three, acquitting the other six . “Minimizing this violence violates all constitutional guarantees”.

Mumbai (AsiaNews) — A verdict that clearly shows “the connivance and support of public officials of the deliberate violence by Hindu fundamentalists”, says Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), commenting to AsiaNews on the Cuttack Court judgment on the case of Sister Meena Barwa, raped and humiliated by a dozen people during the pogroms in Kandhamal (Orissa), in 2008.

Nine men were tried for the violence committed against the woman religious however, the courts convicted only three of them, giving fully acquitting the other six. A tenth person identified by the victim was never arrested. “We are shocked and dismayed by the light verdict delivered today by the Cuttack District Sessions Court” — stated Sajan George — “It is really a travesty of justice. The nun was attacked, gang-raped and paraded semi-naked through the streets in Kandhamal district of Odisha which incident had indeed shaken up the conscience of the entire nation. The whole incident was published in almost all the newspapers in the country with very clear details”.

In this sense, says the president of the GCIC, “the court verdict clearly shows the callousness of the prosecution in the horrendous sexual assault, the failure at various levels, including documenting, reporting, investigating, charging and prosecuting the cases, is abundantly clear from the verdict”. According to Sajan George the case “clearly indicates an institutional prejudice against the Christian community. Minimizing sexual violence against women is a deliberate dereliction of constitutionally mandated duties and violates constitutional guarantees”.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

India: Bengal Picture: Muslims Aren’t Looking for Didis in Burqas

Mamata Banerjee is proceeding along the same path of buying the Muslim vote with symbolic gestures rather than substance. The same tokenism that has marked “secular politics” in the rest of India is now visible in West Bengal.

One of the reasons Mamata Banerjee won big in West Bengal in 2011 was the shift in the Muslim vote from the Left Front to her Trinamool Congress. When the Left laid siege to Nandigram in 2007 and then “recaptured” the village — which had a significant Muslim population — from those protesting against land acquisition, Muslim opinion started moving towards Banerjee…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Jumbo in the Jungle: Is Southeast Asia a Haven for Hijackers, Pirates, And Terrorists?

Since Malaysian Airlines flight 370 (MH370) disappeared on March 8 on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, commentators have worried that it could be the result of terrorism. Two passengers had boarded the plane using passports stolen in Thailand, and of the 153 Chinese passengers aboard the flight, one was reportedly of Uighur ethnicity — a Muslim minority heavily concentrated in northwest China’s troubled region of Xinjiang. The flight is still missing; much remains unknown.

But Southeast Asia, with its often poorly managed borders and extensive smuggling networks — for weapons, drugs, contraband, and people — has long concerned foreign governments and international terrorism experts.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Karzai Insists Afghan Military Can Handle Security in Final Parliament Speech

Afghanistan’s departing president, Hamid Karzai, has targeted the US during his final address to parliament in Kabul. Karzai said Afghan troops no longer needed international help to defend the country.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Malaysian Prime Minister Says Missing Jet Was Deliberately Diverted

Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia announced on Saturday afternoon that Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 left its planned route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing a week earlier as the result of deliberate action by someone aboard.

Mr. Najib also said that search efforts in the South China Sea had been ended, and that technical experts now believed the aircraft could have ended up anywhere in one of two zones — one as far north as Kazakhstan in Central Asia, the other crossing the southern Indian Ocean.

That conclusion was based on a final signal from the plane picked up on satellite at 8:11 a.m. on March 8, nearly seven hours after ground control lost contact with the jet, he said.

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Malaysia: Pilots’ Homes Raided as Officials Say Disappearance ‘No Accident’

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The Malaysian jetliner missing for more than a week was deliberately diverted and continued flying for more than six hours after severing contact with the ground, meaning it could have gone as far northwest as Kazakhstan or into the Indian Ocean’s southern reaches, Malaysia’s leader said Saturday.

Police on Saturday went to the Kuala Lumpur homes of both the pilot and co-pilot of the missing plane, according to a guard and several local reporters. Authorities have said they will investigate the pilots as part of their probe, but have released no information about how they are progressing.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Malaysian PM: Irregular MH370 Flight Path ‘Consistent With Deliberate Action’

Missing flight MH370 was deliberately diverted from its planned course to Beijing, according to the Malaysian premier. Despite media reports that the plane was hijacked, authorities are investigating all possible causes.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Missing Malaysia Airlines Plane ‘Deliberately Diverted’

The communications systems of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 were deliberately disabled, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak has said. According to satellite and radar evidence, he said, the plane then changed course and could have continued flying for a further seven hours. He said the “movements are consistent with the deliberate action of someone on the plane”.

The plane disappeared a week ago with 239 people on board. Mr Razak stopped short of saying it was a hijacking, saying only that they were investigating “all possibilities”. He said the plane could be anywhere from Kazakhstan to the Indian Ocean.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Missing Malaysia Airlines Jetliner Could Have Flown for More Than 7 Hours

The missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner sent out its last signal about 7 1/2 hours after take off, which means the plane could have have ended up as far as Kazakhstan or deep in the southern Indian Ocean, the Malaysian prime minister said.

“In view of this latest development, the Malaysian authorities have refocused their investigation into the crew and passengers on board,” Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said at a press conference, stressing they were still investigating all possibilities as to why the plane deviated so drastically from its original flight path.

“Clearly the search for (Flight) MH370 has entered a new phase,” Najib told a televised news conference.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Pakistan: Asia Bibi’s Appeal to be Heard by Lahore High Court

After more than four years in prison, sentenced to death without trial for “blasphemy”, the Pakistani Christian will appear before High Court judges in two days time. The Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement, which has taken up her case, appeals to the court to “not give in to pressure from fundamentalists and make sure that justice wins out”.

Lahore ( AsiaNews) — After more than four years in prison, Lahore High Court judges will hear Asia Bibi’s appeal on March 17. The Pakistani Christian was sentenced to death without trial on the basis of the notorious “blasphemy law”. A mother of five, Asia Bibi was arrested in 2009 on charges of insulting Muhammad and then sentenced to death. The international community, the Catholic Church and several human rights organizations vigorously protested against this decision, which will now be analyzed by the Lahore High Court.

The Centre for Legal Aid, Assistance and Settlement — a group that provides legal assistance to members of minorities in Pakistan and also Asia Bibi — confirms the appeal. The director of the Pakistani branch, Joseph Francis, states that he is hopeful that if there is no pressure on the judges by the extremists and the case is handled with care, consideration, and due diligence with the judges being left free to take their decision, her conviction will be overturned.

Nasir Saeed, from the British section, is less positive. He says that it is “not going to be easy” for the judges as it is a very high profile case and the whole world will be watching. He adds: “I pray that God will fill the hearts of the judges with boldness and courage and not allow fear to rule. I also hope that they follow the international norms and keep only justice in the forefront when reaching a decision”.

The Christian mother of five children, was sentenced to death in November 2010 based on the “black law” and has been awaiting the outcome of her appeal since then, locked in solitary confinement in a women’s prison in Sheikhupura (Punjab). Many figures have campaigned for her release including the governor of Punjab Salman Taseer (pictured right with Asia Bibi ) and Shahbaz Bhatti, Minister for Religious Minorities: both were murdered at the hands of Islamic extremists. The Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI also launched an appeal for Asia Bibi’s release, as the women has physically and morally suffered in her long imprisonment.

The High Court will have to rule on the “crime” committed by Asia Bibi , that of drinking a glass of water from a well owned by a Muslim. She was accused of “infecting” the source which led to an argument with other women, and, finally, the charge of having “insulted the prophet Muhammad”.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Pakistan: Bin Laden Raid: Doctor’s Sentence Cut by 10 Years

A jail sentence handed down to the doctor alleged to have helped the US track down Osama Bin Laden in 2011 has been reduced by 10 years by a Pakistani court.

Shakil Afridi is accused by Pakistan of running a fake vaccination programme to help confirm Bin Laden’s presence in the northern town of Abbottabad. His original 33-year term on an unrelated charge was widely seen as punishment for his alleged role.

Bin Laden was killed in a US raid. Special forces entered the al-Qaeda leader’s compound and shot him before flying the body out of Pakistan and burying it at sea.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

‘Pirated’ Boeing 777 May Return to Skies as Stealth Nuclear Weapon

Exclusive investigation: The 239 people on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 may still be alive. This stunning realization is now supported by considerable emerging evidence detailed in this article. At the same time, the “vanished” Boeing 777 may also be in a hanger in Iran right now, being retrofitted with nuclear weapons and turned into a suicide bomb to be deployed over a major city in the Middle East. This possibility is discussed in detail, below, with supporting evidence.

The idea that Flight 370 passengers and crew may still be alive is not a bizarre theory. Even Reuters is now reporting that U.S. authorities have stated, “…it’s also possible the plane may have landed somewhere.”

Here’s the evidence in support of this emerging “piracy” theory of what may have happened to Flight 370 and why the people who may have diverted it might also be planning on turning it into a weapon:…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Radar Suggests Missing Malaysia Plane Was Flown Deliberately Towards Andaman Islands

Military radar data suggests a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for nearly a week was deliberately flown hundreds of miles off course, heightening suspicions of foul play among investigators, sources told Reuters on Friday.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Viewpoint: Does Singapore Deserve Its ‘Miserable’ Tag?

Singapore’s reputation as a wealthy, aspirational and hi-tech country ensures it attracts a great deal of foreign talent — so why is it labelled the world’s least positive country?

Marcus: “We are programmed to think only about ourselves,” he exclaimed. “The only thing that matters is money — helping people is not important.”

Marcus is Chinese Singaporean but was educated in Canada. After five years back home he is desperate to leave again, because, he says, Singapore makes him unhappy too. “In Canada people were helpful and friendly and they respect each other regardless of whether you are a manager or a bus driver.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Was Malaysian Air Flight 370 a Deliberate Criminal Terrorist Act?

When we posted on the alleged disappearance of Malaysian Flight 370, we speculated that the Boeing 777 -200ER Aircraft with 239 souls on board, including 12 crew ,might have been a criminal act perpetrated by a trained terrorist or a suicidal pilot, as was the case with the tragic 1999 Egyptian Air Flight 990. At that time we noted that the aircraft had been picked up by Malaysian military radar on a flight path 200 miles northwest of Penang in the Malacca Straits. Experienced aircraft accident investigators dismissed that alleged debris in the South China Sea, detected from satellite imagery by the Chinese civil aviation authorities, were too large to result from impact. The relatively shallow sea depth is less than 150 feet.

The latest Malaysian civil aviation authority press conference has confirmed that the 180 degree u turn was the result of a deliberate action by technically competent perpetrators or .perhaps akin to Egyptian Flight 990, either the Malaysian Air Flight Captain or his co-Pilot. The radar and automated air control system pings detected via Inmarsat, PLC appeared to corroborate a new flight path that could follow waypoints used for international flights from Kuala Lumpur to the Middle East. After all Malaysia is a predominately Muslim country with significant minority overseas Chinese and Indians. Thus, the Middle East flight may have been the traditional air route for Muslim pilgrims on the obligatory Haj to Mecca. The new analysis by both US and Malaysian experts suggesting possible flight paths across the Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean or due south of the Malacca Straits across the Aceh peninsula of Indonesia skirting the Australian coast west of Perth may confine the search areas looking for debris. Unlike the shallow South China Sea, the Indian Ocean depths with trenches at more than 33,000 feet in places would make spotting debris difficult and would like mask any pings from aircraft flight recorders.

Watch this CNN report on questions regarding the flight crew of Malaysian Air Flight 370:…

           — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon [Return to headlines]
 

President Xi Leads China’s Military Reform, Stressing Building of Strong Army

BEIJING, March 15 — Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is head of a leading group for deepening reform on national defense and the military, on Saturday stressed the country’s military reform should be guided by the objective of building a strong army…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Severe Punishment for Terrorism: China’s Chief Justice

BEIJING, March 14 — Zhou Qiang, head of the Supreme People’s Court, has urged courts across the country to hand down severe sentences for terrorists to maintain safety and stability. Speaking at a Friday’s meeting, Zhou told courts at all levels to serve their justice function to the utmost and strengthen the fight against terrorism…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Liberals Head for Victory in Tasmanian State Election

The Liberal Party was within grasp of its first majority government in Tasmania for 18 years on Saturday — as Labor admitted it faced a hard task of keeping voter interest.

The Liberals were last in power for two years in minority backed by the Greens from 1996 to 1998, and this time party leader Will Hodgman warned against a repetition of any power-sharing arrangement…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

A Freak Show Called Generosity

By Theodore Dalrymple

Excerpt: Legless South African Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius is now on trial for having killed—deliberately or otherwise—his girlfriend. Although I have my own theory of the case, based (as our opinions about most things are) more upon general principles and knowledge of the world than upon a detailed examination of the evidence, every man has the right to be considered innocent until a properly constituted court finds him otherwise. Therefore I shall only observe that it is a moot question whether we derive more pleasure from setting a man on a pedestal than from pulling him down from it. A fallen hero renders mankind a double service. He gives two pleasures for the price of one—on the way up and on the way down.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Nigeria: UN — Boko Haram ‘Increasingly Monstrous’

Abuja — The U.N. says nearly 500,000 people in northern Nigeria have fled their homes in fear of what it calls an “increasingly monstrous” insurgency that threatens food security in many parts of the country…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Nigeria: War in Maiduguri: Airforce Rains Bombs on Boko Haram

“The sound of heavy gunfire and what sounds like RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) began at around 7:15 a.m. and it is still going,” a Reuters witness said. The fighting was happening at Fori, an area near a military barracks, he said.

The gunfire came from suspected Boko Haram Islamists armed with explosives as they attacked Giwa Barracks. The military responded swiftly with aerial bombardment from fighter jets supported by ground forces who crushed the insurgency…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Nigeria: Stampede in Abuja’s Stadium Kills Jobseekers

A stampede among jobseekers taking a recruitment test in the national stadium in the Nigerian capital Abuja has left many people dead and injured. A journalist for French news agency AFP said he had counted seven corpses.

The stampede came during a recruitment exercise by the immigration department. Tens of thousands had turned up to take the test, according to reports. There is a high level of unemployment in Nigeria especially among young people. In 2011, it stood at 23.9%.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Somalia: Al-Shabaab Spokesman Denies Claims of His Death

Sheikh Ali Mohamud Raage (Ali Dheere) The Spokesman for the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Shabaab denied the claims that he was killed. The spokesman declared that he disliked telling the Kenyan Defence Forces that he was still alive, but did not want to spread frantic fear amongst the Somali citizens…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Whoops! Somali Terrorist Kills Self Early With Accidental Detonation

MOGADISHU, Somalia — A Somali police officer says a suicide car bomber accidentally detonated his explosives near a popular hotel in the Somali capital.

Capt. Mohamed Hussein said the bomber appeared to have prematurely detonated his explosives-laden car Saturday as he tried to park near a hotel. No others were hurt or killed in the blast.

The al-Qaida linked group al-Shabab frequently carries out attacks against the Somali government, the U.N. and African Union peacekeepers. Late last month, a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives-laden car at a teashop near Somalia’s intelligence agency headquarters, killing at least 12 people.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Cuba: Oliver Stone’s Most Vicious Insult!

Oliver Stone’s recent visit to Venezuela to premiere his Castro/Chavez infomercial “My Friend Hugo” has brought him under fire in social media.

Exasperated beyond endurance by the onslaught Stone recently lashed back with (apparently) the most hateful insult his inflamed mind could conjure. You people are:

“Similar to the right-wing Florida Cuban exiles who’ve helped keep the US in a dungeon of ignorance!” he raved.

For leftists its “right-wing lunatics spreading a dungeon if ignorance!” For normal folks it’s: “people who have actually experienced communism trying to circumvent communist propaganda as disseminated by a media-Hollywood axis — and one not always completely honest about their motives.”

Not that it always requires blackmail to get Hollywood folks or mainstream talking heads to parrot Castroite propaganda, but here’s a few clues to some of it:

“My job was to bug their hotel rooms,” disclosed high-ranking Cuban intelligence defector Delfin Fernandez, “with both cameras and listening devices”.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Can’t Read Italian After 22 Years, Man Refused Citizenship

Moroccan worker couldn’t read official oath, rejected by mayor

(ANSA) — Rovigo, March 12 — A Moroccan native who lived for 22 years in Italy saw his citizenship application rejected when he could not read the official oath.

Ceneselli Mayor Marco Trombini said that he did not want to discriminate against the man, who is 40, but added that he had to be able to read Italian laws if he wanted to be a citizen.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Greece: More Than 20,000 Immigrants Went Back Home

(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, MARCH 11 — More than 20,000 immigrants that were living in Greece have returned to their countries, as GreekReporter website writes quoting the Head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Office in Greece, Daniel Esdras, as saying during the inauguration of IOM’s office in the city of Patras. According to Esdras, 2013 was the first year when the immigrants who left Greece were more than those who entered the country.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Greece: Migrants Rescued Near Ionians Islands

Fifty-nine undocumented migrants were rescued on Saturday from a boat that was in distress west of Paxoi, a small group of islands in the Ionian Sea, on Saturday.

According to initial reports, the operation was carried out by two coast guard vessels and one of the agency’s helicopters in association with the EU border monitoring agency, Frontex. All of the passengers were reported to be safe.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Telegraph: Bulgaria Selling EU Passports for €180,000

British daily The Telegraph reports that non-Europeans can buy EU passports in Bulgaria for €180,000 in a process which sees them visit the country for two days. The procedure — uncovered by investigative reporters working with a whistleblower — comes after Malta launched a scheme to sell passports for €650,000.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK: £4m Ugandan Benefits Cheat Who Claimed for 100 Fake Children Demands Asylum

Ruth Nabuguzi is insisting that relatives are angry at the shame she has brought on them through her criminal activities here.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Britain is Ready for a Gay Prime Minister, Clegg and Milliband Claim as Same-Sex Marriage Becomes Law

Britain is ready for a gay Prime Minister, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have claimed.

The Lib Dem and Labour leaders said social attitudes had changed dramatically in the last 20 years.

Voters would judge a potential prime minister on their ability to lead rather than their sexuality, they said.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Fatherhood Initiatives and Nanny Government

Generations of welfare cases and a perennial poor underclass have been created, with no work ethic, no desire to succeed, no interest in education as a way out of poverty, and no personal responsibility.

In the age when big government has displaced and replaced fathers, making traditional families obsolete by giving financial incentives in various forms of welfare to millions of out-of-wedlock mothers in head of household families, the idea of fatherhood programs and initiatives seems commendable.

According to the Pew Research Center, four in ten babies were born in 2008 to unwed women. Approximately 2.6 million households were led by single fathers in 2011, a sizeable increase when compared to fewer than 300,000 in 1960. Twenty-three percent of single-household families were father-only families and 77 percent were mother-only families.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

First Kiss Stunt Makes Me Puke

A tawdry publicity stunt paid off big for a Los Angeles clothing maker when a video they made of twenty strangers passionately kissing went viral receiving more than 45 million views since Tuesday.

I find it so repugnant I can barely watch. A kiss is an expression of intimacy and affection. It is reserved for someone special. It has meaning. For strangers to kiss passionately is dehumanizing and disgusting. It’s not an advertisement for clothing. It’s an ad for anonymous sex.

[Return to headlines]
 

Parent/Teacher/Student Manifesto

The anti-Common Core diversion has succeeded in keeping Americans from focusing on the real issue — the Trojan Horse — loss of elected representation through publicly-funded school choice and charters with unelected councils (soviet form of government/regionalism).

Note: Some charter schools are teaching religion. Isn’t that unconstitutional? Do Americans really want to pay their education taxes to have a charter school teach religious beliefs? And not even have an elected official to whom they can go to complain?

Reed Hastings has provided the evidence to back up our DEMAND that our elected officials shut down every single unconstitutional tax-funded private, religious, home school or charter school, with their unelected school boards (taxation without representation) and government/corporate-controlled curriculum. “He who pays the piper calls the tune” or “what government funds government controls.”

We fought and won a war over this issue in 1775-1783!

Turning over education, which is second only to defense in discretionary spending, to an unelected council form of government will be the beginning of the demolition of our representative form of government. We will see the collapse of all units of representative government through the domino effect:…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Sweden: Neo-Nazis Arrested Over Anti-Homophobia Campaigner Attack

Three men have been charged with attempted murder following the knife attack on an anti-homophobia activist in the Swedish city of Malmö earlier this week.

Following a Reclaim the Night event on International Woman’s Day, the men, belonging to the ‘neo-Nazi’ Svenskarnas parti (Swedish Party) attacked a group of people including Showan Shattak (pictured), founder of ‘Football Against Homophobia’…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

iPhone Users Are Disappointed With the iOS 7.1 Software Update That’s Draining Their Batteries, Erasing Their Contacts, And Flipping Their Keyboards

With every new I-phone software update comes the potential for problems and the iOS 7.1 released on Monday is no exception.

Customer’s say it’s killing their phone batteries among other pesky glitches.

The iOS7.1 is the first major update to Apple’s newest operating systems for iPhones and iPads and the apple community is lamenting poor battery charges, disappearing contacts, bad Bluetooth connections, keyboards oriented the wrong way, and the list goes on, reports the Huffington Post.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

New York Takes London’s Crown as Top Financial Center: Survey

(Reuters) — New York has knocked London from its position as the world’s leading global financial center after seven years, according to the Global Financial Centres Index compiled by London-based consultancy Z/Yen.

London slipped from the top of the global rankings, scoring 784 against 786 for New York, because a series of own goals had tarnished its reputation, the report said.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Richard Branson’s Top 10 Tips for Success

Richard Branson left school at the age of 16 and set up Student Magazine with one of his friends. He went on to start Virgin Records in the 1970s and is the founder of the Virgin Group. In the 1980s he formed Virgin Atlantic airline and the 1990s saw the arrival of Virgin Mobile and Virgin Trains.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The End of International Law

By Daniel Greenfield

Excerpt: “There has been no greater advance than this, gentlemen,” the President of the United States said. “It is a definite guarantee of peace. It is a definite guarantee by word against aggression.” The year was 1919. The speaker was President Woodrow Wilson and the tremendous advance in human history was the League of Nations. Then Japan seized Manchuria and turned it into a puppet regime. China turned to the League of Nations which ordered Japan to withdraw from Manchuria. Japan instead withdrew from the League of Nations. Five years later, Japan invaded China. China asked for help from the League of Nations. The League proved to be just as useless again.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

UN Tells us to Eat Bugs While Elite Live as Kings (Video)

Agenda 21 standards are pushing for alternative foods for the masses of wage slaves. Bugs are suggested as a source of sustenance in place of meat.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

12 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/15/2014

  1. The Malaysian govt charge against the pilot is outrageous and corrupt. This pilot hijack was no political act but a religious act — that is obvious when the afterlife is brought into the equation. It was clearly the devout co-pilot collecting his 72 virgins, and not the old pilot who put in 30 exemplary years of service and loved his job. My new rule for my family: never fly with any airline which has Muslim pilots, end of story.

  2. I’ve been looking at the senior pilot’s youtube channel, and I recommend people do the same while it’s still available. I’d be surprised if he’s anything but an innocent victim. He’s just a regular guy, interested in atheism, liberal causes, stand-up comedy, and do it yourself projects. Not a word about Islam, death to infidels or anything like that. If he is being described as a political fanatic because of his support for a liberal politician, maybe this is a red herring.

    http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm6f3-wcpgLhxUR_ONPfoJA (Zaharie Shah’s channel)

    • All well and good… but why then was he supporting a Muslim Brotherhood-tied candidate for president? And earlier in his life, he was president of a few “Islamic’ societies…

      “Liking” a Richard Dawkins video on youtube is very simple – but is it really something to be expected from someone supporting Islamist politicians in Malaysia, who’s also an airline pilot? (and presumably aware that his superiors may be viewing that same channel)

  3. Quote:
    Excerpt: “There has been no greater advance than this, gentlemen,” the President of the United States said. “It is a definite guarantee of peace. It is a definite guarantee by word against aggression.” The year was 1919.
    end

    Proof positive, internationalism is poison.

  4. Quote:
    Rovigo, March 12 — A Moroccan native who lived for 22 years in Italy saw his citizenship application rejected when he could not read the official oath.
    end

    Good.

  5. Quote:
    The Christian mother of five children, was sentenced to death in November 2010 based on the “black law” and has been awaiting the outcome of her appeal since then, locked in solitary confinement in a women’s prison in Sheikhupura (Punjab).
    end

    Another example of how Sharia corrupts even blackness.

  6. Re obama’s turning over control of the Internet to the international community. This is an important step toward the realization of hillary’s (and huma’s) goal of criminalizing hate speech, i.e., any speech that dares to expose the awful truth about islam.

  7. I took a look at the Captain’s vids on Youtube. The themes seem to be (in no particular order):

    Home improvement (in particular servicing an air conditioner)
    Atheism
    Apple products, with an emphasis on breaking free from ‘The Borg’ (doing thing that Apple did not intend)
    Some Malaysian politics
    Balloon animals

    Hardly the profile for a raging Jihadist.

    This whole thing gets stranger by the day.

    • Or its a PR exercise! if he is a muslim as they say then he is a prime suspect, the surgeon who tried to blow up the Scottish airport was the same upstanding citizen untill told to kill by islam!

  8. “Britain is ready for a gay Prime Minister, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband have claimed.”

    Ted Heath

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