Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/12/2014

Now that British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that his government will investigate the Muslim Brotherhood, the Brothers have decamped from Britain, and relocated their headquarters from London to Austria.

In other news, Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood elements clashed with police in Alexandria. Meanwhile, in Upper Egypt, militants launched a bomb at a hospital.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Egghead, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, KP, RR, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Financial Crisis
» Food Price Shock, 2014 Edition
» Michel Barnier: “We Set Up the Banking Union in Record Time”
» Nasdaq Breaks 4,000; Collapses to Worst Week Since June 2012
» Spain Home Sales Plunge by 27.6% in February
 
USA
» 2016 Republican Presidential Hopefuls and Their Advisers, Part 1
» Breaking: BLM to Cease Bundy Ranch Operation
» Bureau of Land Management Hiding Behind Toothless Tortoise
» Deal Reached: BLM Will Release Confiscated Cattle to Rancher
» FAA Designates Bundy Ranch a No-Fly Zone
» Feds Back Down in New Bundy Standoff, Agree to Release Cattle
» Feds Back Down From Bundy Siege After Infowars Exposé of Chinese Land Grab
» Former Justice Stevens Wants the Second Amendment Edited
» Governor Sandoval: Send in the Guard
» Hours After Infowars Breaks Sen. Reid/Chinese Connection to Bundy Land Grab, BLM Backs Down
» Man ‘Broke Into Home, Raped a Four-Year-Old Girl Then Hid in Closet to Smoke a Cigarette’
» Obama to Spend $1.5 Billion Promoting ObamaCare
» Rich Lady: Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin Supports BDS, Just Not When She’s Investing
» Shoe Thrown at Hillary Clinton During Speech
» SPLC Labels Cliven Bundy Domestic Extremist
» Supporters of Nevada Rancher in Federal Fight Briefly Cause I-15 Shutdown
» Survey Finds Teens Still Tiring of Facebook, Prefer Instagram
» The Cliven Bundy Standoff: Wounded Knee Revisited?
» Yes, America Did Build That
 
Europe and the EU
» British Socialite Peaches Geldof Dead After Revealing Secret Society Initiation (Video)
» British Grassroots Counter BDS With a Touch of Humor
» Euro Dickens
» Far-Right Austrian MEP Withdraws From EU Elections
» Financial Sector Spends €120mn on EU Lobbying
» French Free to Call Marine Le Pen a ‘Fascist’
» Israel to Post Top Envoy to Norway
» Italian Castle, Convent, Venetian Island Up for Sale
» Italy: Berlusconi Likened to Aung San Suu Kyi by House Whip
» Italy: Priest Gets Six Years for Raping Minors
» Italy: Diocese to Stand Plantiff in Paedophile Priest Case
» Italy: Mastella and Wife Ordered to Stand Trial for Conspiracy
» Italy: Grillo Under Fire for PD Party List Comments
» Italy Ranks Lowest in Europe for University Graduates
» Italy: Protests in Rome Turn Violent
» Muslim Brotherhood Moves Headquarters From London to Austria After Cameron Announces Terror Investigation
» Nigel Farage’s UKIP Party Soars to 20 Per Cent in ComRes Poll
» Swedish Passports Hot Property on Black Market
» The Joy of Thinking: Shmuel Trigano
» UK Uses Health Workers in Counter-Terror Plan
» UK: Doctors Threatened Parents With Having Their 15-Month-Old Daughter Taken Away Because They Could Not Explain Burns — Which She Suffered at Nursery
» UK: From Bogus Medical Examinations to Punishment Beatings, How Paedophile Cyril Smith Used His Powerful Public Image to Abuse Boys
» UK: Governor Recruitment Freeze After ‘Islamic Plot’ Claims
» UK: Horror at Halal Slaughterhouse: Shocking Undercover Film Shows the ‘Needless Suffering’ Of Livestock That Are Butchered Without Being Stunned First
» UK: Islamic Centre Will Better Help Muslim Women Wanting to Pray in Milton Keynes, According to Association Chairman
» UK: Neighbours ‘At End of Tether’ As Extended Hours for Cambridge Mosque Approved
» UK: Poll Digest — Political — Sunday Mirror / Independent on Sunday Political Poll
» UK: Police Hunt Woman Pictured Urinating in Front of Horrified Daytime Shoppers in Northampton
» UK: Three Found Guilty of Schoolboy Ajmol Alom’s Murder in an East End Park
 
Mediterranean Union
» Building a True Partnership Between Africa and Europe
 
North Africa
» Clashes Between Berbers and Arabs in Algeria Leave Two Dead
» Egypt: Brotherhood Clashes With Police in Alexandria, One Killed
» Militants Launch Bomb at Hospital in Egypt
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Jerusalem Court Convicts Islamic Movement Head of Obstructing Police Operations
» Ramat Gan Towers, Top Diamond Exchange Center
 
Middle East
» 21 Killed in Violent Attacks Across Iraq
» Kuwait: Rape in Mosque?
» Turkey PM Accuses Twitter of Tax Evasion
 
Russia
» Ukraine Crisis: Exchange of Fire in Kramatorsk, Minister Says
» You Cannot Fathom Russia With Your Mind
 
South Asia
» 15 Killed in Rebel Attack Against Election in C. India
» Co-Pilot of Missing Flight MH370 Tried to Make a Call From His Mobile Phone After the Aircraft ‘Vanished’… But He ‘Was Abruptly Cut Off’
» Gunmen Kidnap 100 Pakistani Villagers in Northwest, Government Says
» Japanese Airports Becoming ‘Islam-Friendly’ To Cater to Growing Muslim Tourism
» Maoist Rebels Kill 14 as India Votes
» Missing Plane MH370: Abbott Says Signal ‘Rapidly Fading’
 
Australia — Pacific
» Parents Trek in Honour of Fallen Sons and Afghanistan Wounded
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Ethnic Somalis Under Pressure in Kenyan Capital
» Nigeria: 19 Killed in Boko Haram Attacks in Borno
 
Latin America
» Maduro Regime Catapults Venezuela to Second Highest Murder Rate in the World
» Mexico Opens Centre for Paedophile Priests
» Video: What’s Happening in Venezuela Right Now: Socialist Venezuela: When Insanity Becomes Normal
 
Immigration
» Europe Must Help Italy Cope With Migrant Influx Says Alfano
» Italy Rescues 800 Migrants Off Libya
» Search Underway After Migrants’ Boat Sinks in Aegean Sea
 
Culture Wars
» Fertility Ruling ‘Italy’s Latest Folly’ Says Catholic Weekly
» Italy: Ruling Lifting Ban on Donor Sperm, Eggs Sparks Storm
» Norway: Oslo Opens Munch Room for Priests to Marry Gays
» Racism
» Transgender Female Twitter Engineer, 32, Is Charged With Raping Her Estranged Wife the Day After Serving Her With Divorce Papers
» Twitter Tranny Advocate for “Women in Tech” Accused of Raping His Wife
» Unelected Charters Will Allow Lifelong Community Education
 
General
» Lithium: A Metal That Floats on Oil and Powers Our Phones
» Searching High and Low for Dark Matter (Q+A)
» The Spiritual Ascent
» Who Invented the Bicycle?
 

Food Price Shock, 2014 Edition

Drought in the U.S., past and present, might make 2014 one of the more volatile years for food prices and supplies globally. U.S. consumers may get a preview of what’s coming at the salad bar.

The main culprit is the parched land of California’s Central Valley, which grows a large share of U.S. vegetables, fruits and nuts. Conditions are so dry that some farmers aren’t even bothering to plant. That might have even bigger implications for food prices than the 2012 drought that baked the Corn Belt, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said this week.

California has suffered a double hit: a dearth of rain in the lowlands and a lack of snow in the mountains in the north and east. Snowmelt provides water for many of the state’s farmers during the growing season and for the huge population centers in the south. Snow this year was only about 30 percent of the historical average. Even though the snow now is melting, some streams and rivers have so little water that wildlife crews have had to truck stranded salmon fingerlings downstream so they can make it out to sea.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Michel Barnier: “We Set Up the Banking Union in Record Time”

The French Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, Michel Barnier, published a book titled Se reposer ou être libre (to rest or to be free) on 17 April. He spoke with EurActiv about reforming the European banking system.

We set up the banking union in record time. It was in April 2012, only two years ago, that President Barroso proposed advancing financial and banking integration. This idea can be found in the report from the four presidents of the European Council of 29 June 2012. In September, I presented the first part (the supervision) which was adopted in March 2013. In July 2013, I presented the second part (the Single Resolution Mechanism) which was agreed on in March 2014.

Therefore, in less than two years we revolutionised the banking sector. We can now prevent, supervise and deal with crises together. We broke the vicious circle between sovereignty and banks, and now have banks that live and eventually die at a European level.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Nasdaq Breaks 4,000; Collapses to Worst Week Since June 2012

Equity markets opened down hard, bounced into Europe’s close, and then pushed to new cycle lows into the last hour of the day. The Nasdaq hit 4,000 for the first time in over 2 months and closed at its lowest close in 4 months. Around 3pm we saw the standard ramp attempt but it was weak and faded back towards the lows by the close. EURJPY ran the show this afternoon. This is the Nasdaq’s worst week since June 2012 (with Nasdaq and Russell -3.5% from the FOMC Minutes alone). All major US equity indices closed red for 2014 (first time in over 2 months).

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Spain Home Sales Plunge by 27.6% in February

Ever fewer transactions despite lower prices

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, APRIL 9 — Despite a sharp drop in prices, the real estate market in Spain continues to slide sharply. In February there were a total of 25,717 sales transactions, a 27.6% drop on the same month of the previous year and a 16.1% one on the month of January. According to the figures released on Wednesday by the national institute of statistics INE, new home sales dropped the most, by 37.4% to 11,544 transactions, compared with a 17% reduction in used home sales (to 14,173 transactions). The drop was especially acute for social housing, the transactions of which dropped by 48.6% in February compared with the same month in 2013

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

2016 Republican Presidential Hopefuls and Their Advisers, Part 1

It is when people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. — Patrick Henry

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself. — Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.– Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)

– — From Yahoo, comes an article entitled, The Brain Trusts Behind the 2016 GOP Hopefuls. The Republican presidential hopefuls are getting help from advisors on how to answer a wide range of questions on domestic and foreign policies. When I saw who these folks had as advisors, there is nary a one I could vote for in good conscience. It’s a typical list, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, and Bobby Jindal.

Three of these candidates should immediately be eliminated, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Bobby Jindal. The term “natural born citizen” was well defined at the time the Constitution was written. The definition was given clearly in The Law of Nations by Emerich D. Vattel, a book that was sent to Franklin during the drafting of the Constitution. The founders specifically made the distinction from a regular citizen to insure that our presidency would not be co-opted by someone with foreign interests at heart (like the POTUS we now have). In order to be a natural born citizen, one must be born of two citizen parents and Cruz, Rubio, and Jindal clearly do not qualify, regardless of where they were born. If this requirement can be so easily ignored, everything is up for grabs, and our Congress has allowed Obama to be president despite his father being a Kenyan citizen when Obama was born. Thus, the precedent has been set…

Nevertheless, we’ll look at who they have as advisors.

Senator Rand Paul

At the top of his list of advisors and counselors is none other than Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder and so-called philanthropist. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was strongly criticized by “international charities, farmers’ groups and academics” as a result of a $25 million grant it had given to “GM [genetically modified] research to develop vitamin and protein-enriched seeds for the world’s poor.” Bill Gates loves GMO’s.

The Foundation also funds the pro-Constitutional Convention American Legislative Exchange Council, (ALEC) who has a large corporate membership, along with 2,500 of 7,500 the state legislators. Together they write bills for state and federal passage.

Gates has bankrolled the push to privatize, voucherize, charterize, and generally dismantle free and universal public education in America”. Between 2011 and 2012, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated between $1 million and $5 million to the horrid, Teach for America, and they have poured more than $20 million into communist core.

[…]

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

As if all the other putzes weren’t bad enough, this one takes the cake, and I would guess this is the type of person the RNC will run against Hillary Clinton. Does anyone really like this guy? He seems hell bent on including Islamists in every part of his administration. Just look at the radicals he’s appointed to his security forum. The Clarion Project has written extensively about Christie’s propensity to hire radical Islamists.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Breaking: BLM to Cease Bundy Ranch Operation

A day after Infowars blew the lid on Sen. Harry Reid’s link to the BLM’s land grab of the Bundy Ranch, the Sheriff of Clark County, Nevada, Douglas Gillespie, announced to tremendous applause that the Bureau of Land Management would cease their efforts targeting cattle rancher Cliven Bundy.

In an emotional response, Bundy told the Sheriff he had one hour to disarm the federal agency, to bring the arms to the platform where speeches were made this morning, and to take down their barricades.

Last Saturday, the BLM, with the aid of helicopters, low-flying aircraft and hired cowboys, began rounding up Bundy’s cattle, and forbade him from interfering with the operation, as Bundy announced he was prepared to weather a full-on assault.

The sheriff’s announcement coincided with a press release put out by the BLM today stating that they would back off due to “serious concern about the safety of employees and members of the public.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Bureau of Land Management Hiding Behind Toothless Tortoise

A June 1990 study, called The Desert Tortoise in Relation to Cattle Grazing by Vernon Bostick formerly posted to the University of Arizona website (and still found through Google) should prove once and for all the incredible stupidity of the bumbling bureaucrats with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

The BLM’s self-proclaimed ‘Save the Tortoise’ balderdash is killing off both the tortoise and cows:

“While livestock, jack rabbits, and grasshoppers were busy grubbing the range to stave off starvation, the tranquil tortoise whiled away the time snoozing in its burrow. Then how did they survive? Easy enough — they used a different food source.

“The toothless tortoise is ill equipped to harvest and masticate range forage. The tortoise can harvest only tender vegetation, and it can’t masticate even that. The tortoise can’t process enough bulky, low analysis forage fast enough to meet its nutritional requirements (Nagy & Medica 1986). They solved this problem long ago — they allow other animals to do it for them. Desert tortoises feed primarily on dung. The more animals using the range, the more dung, which makes more food available for tortoises.”

So removing cattle as the BLM is doing on Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch is not helping the Desert Tortoise. In fact, it’s killing them off.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Deal Reached: BLM Will Release Confiscated Cattle to Rancher

LAS VEGAS — A deal has been reached between Bundy family leaders and the BLM, but not without some very tense moments.

Armed Bundy family leaders met with BLM officers Saturday afternoon in Mesquite to discuss the fate of the Bundy’s cattle that the feds removed from BLM land, over the past week. The cattle are being held at a holding area in Mesquite.

Prior to the meeting, hundreds of protesters, some armed, tried storming the BLM’s cattle gate, but weren’t successful. The crowd was urged to wait 30 minutes and give both sides a chance to talk. An agreement was reached that the cattle will be released to the Bundy family later Saturday.

At one point, I-15 was closed in both directions, about seven miles south of Mesquite, because protesters had blocked the freeway. Nearly two dozen police officers and a SWAT unit were at the scene to keep the peace and assist the BLM enforcement officers to safely leave the area.

Protesters have been gathering all week in support of Bundy, who has been locked in a legal battle for the past 20 years over grazing rights with the federal government

Follow 8 News NOW on Twitter for real-time updates

It was announced Saturday morning that Sheriff Douglas Gillespie, Bundy and the BLM were able to reach an agreement over the cattle the BLM has already removed from the federal property.

The agency said it is concerned about the safety of its employees and the public. Earlier this week, BLM officers and supporters of the Bundy family were involved in a scuffle. Cliven Bundy’s son, Ammon Bundy, was tased twice by federal agents. Another woman said she was thrown to the ground by an officer.

With more Bundy supporters pouring in from around the country, safety concerns began to grow.

Sheriff Gillespie has been negotiating with Bundy behind the scenes for months and reached a tentative agreement Friday night, though Bundy insisted the sheriff come to his ranch to finalize the arrangement face-to-face.

In its statement, the BLM said its actions this past week were progress in enforcing two court orders to remove the trespassing cattle from public land.

The agency director also asked that everyone involved in the dispute remain peaceful and law-abiding.

The BLM had offered to pay Bundy for the cattle already confiscated, sources said, but the protesters wanted the cattle returned to Bundy.

[Return to headlines]
 

FAA Designates Bundy Ranch a No-Fly Zone

BLM attempts a media blackout with FAA flight restrictions targeting news helicopters

Yesterday afternoon the Federal Aviation Administration designated the airspace above Bundy Ranch near Bunkerville, Nevada a “no-fly zone” with altitude restrictions that effectively ban news helicopters.

The “temporary flight restrictions,” revealed by a contributor to the Free Republic, bans all air traffic under an altitude of 3,000 feet in the vicinity of the ranch except for aircraft operating under the direction of the Bureau of Land Management…

Undoubtedly these flight restrictions are in response to the intense media presence now surrounding Bundy Ranch.

“Keeps the media choppers away so the BLM can do what it wants,” a contributor named SkyDancer pointed out on the Free Republic.

It’s quite obvious that this is the case considering that news helicopters routinely fly at an altitude under 3,000 feet in order to capture the best footage.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Feds Back Down in New Bundy Standoff, Agree to Release Cattle

Epic confrontation “like something out of a movie”

In an epic standoff that Infowars reporter David Knight described as being like “something out of a movie,” supporters of Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy advanced on a position held by BLM agents despite threats that they would be shot at, eventually forcing BLM feds to release 100 cattle that had been stolen from Bundy as part of a land grab dispute that threatened to escalate into a Waco-style confrontation.

RT @corrcomm: The pictures from #BundyRanch show that this situation isn’t over. #tcot pic.twitter.com/nqsGRk0xsQ #RedNationRising #ORPUW

— TheTrue99 (@TheTrue99) April 12, 2014

Despite the fact that Bureau of Land Management officials agreed to cease their operation to seize Bundy’s cattle after a massive public backlash, Bundy demanded that Sheriff Douglas Gillespie disarm BLM officials and return his stolen cows.

When this didn’t happen, hundreds of Bundy supporters, including cowboys on horseback, descended on a nearby cattle pen outside of Mesquite where the seized cows were being held.

In a tense standoff, armed BLM feds, backed up by at least one SWAT team, threatened to shoot at Bundy supporters if they marched any closer to a line of vehicles.

Infowars reporter David Knight, who was at the head of the march, described the scene as like the moment from V For Vendetta when the military is forced to stand down.

@PrisonPlanet #BundyRanch NOT OVER: heads up…LV SWAT suiting up 1 mile from #BundyRanch #tcot #milita pic.twitter.com/pmaIhKrGwb

— Anonymous 0407 (@Anonymous0407) April 12, 2014

Despite threats such as “one more step and you’re dead,” the protesters continued their slow march towards BLM agents as bullhorns blared.

Refusing to back down, the protesters marched straight past the armed men and towards the cattle pen.

Sheriff Gillespie eventually appeared to inform Bundy supporters that the BLM had finally caved and agreed to release the 100 cattle they had seized that were inside the pen.

After around 30 minutes, Bundy supporters saw the cattle being released about a mile away in the distance.

It cannot be overstated how much of a gargantuan victory this represents for the American people in their battle against big government tyranny.

“The people have the power when they unite,” Ammon Bundy told the Las Vegas Review Journal. “The war has just begun.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Feds Back Down From Bundy Siege After Infowars Exposé of Chinese Land Grab

Huge victory for property rights as establishment handed crushing defeat

The federal government backed down and ended their siege against Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy less than 24 hours after an Infowars exposé connecting the land grab to Harry Reid and a Chinese-backed solar farm went viral, becoming the biggest news story on the Internet.

Last night, we revealed how the feds were using the Bureau of Land Management to bully and intimidate ranchers like Bundy, pushing them off public land in order to pave the way for lucrative “green energy” projects backed by the Communist Chinese government and linked to Nevada Senator Harry Reid.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Former Justice Stevens Wants the Second Amendment Edited

Gut the Second Amendment and turn the individual’s natural right to self defense into a crime

Retired associate Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens has an op-ed in The Washington Post today calling for the Second Amendment to be edited thus:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.

According to Stevens, the “national tragedy” of the shootings at Newtown and the Navy Yard in Washington make it necessary to gut the Second Amendment and turn the individual’s natural right to self defense into a crime…

Liberals like Mr. Stevens want a throughly disarmed public. It is the liberal’s emotional and irrational response to the destructive behavior of a few psychotic individuals that threatens the natural right of self-defense.

If Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had not outlawed private ownership of firearms, the imposition of authoritarianism in those countries would have been virtually impossible, as would have been the genocide of tens of millions of Armenians, Jews, Gypsies, Maya Indians, Christians, and all sorts of government designated political enemies and rivals.

Stevens and the Second Amendment haters would enable government to do what it invariably does when given absolute and unchallenged power — violently eliminate all political enemies.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Governor Sandoval: Send in the Guard

The current critical nature of the crisis cannot be understated. In alleged response to a 20-year-old battle over “illegal cattle grazing,” along with a more recent claim related to ostensibly protecting the allegedly endangered desert tortoise, the federal Bureau of Land Management has been dispatched to the Bundy ranch. Do not be fooled by the innocuous sounding name of this federal agency, however, as the deployment now consists of some 200 heavily armed federal troops, transported by military troop carriers and equipped with sniper rifles and other military armaments. It is an army by any other name.

Meanwhile, in response to this show of force, armed members of patriotic militias are rallying around the Bundy ranch en masse to protect the rights of a rancher and his family. Clearly, the lines of battle are being drawn. Patriots and militias appear to be preparing to square off against this federal army who are present in numbers undeniably disproportionate to any perceived or actual threat.

As the scene of the battle begins to take form, the situation is needlessly and recklessly being permitted to escalate in words and deeds. Today, Clark County Commissioner Tom Collins threatened the patriotic militia members rallying around the Bundys by publicly stating that those planning to travel to Nevada in their support “better have funeral plans.” Clearly, these are fighting words and an obvious escalation to an already volatile situation.

As those words were being spoken, snipers equipped with high powered rifles with scopes continued to train their weapons on American citizens. As that threat now begins to reverberate throughout the nation, federal troops are getting into position to launch whatever offensive that is being planned by federal bureaucrats , merely waiting for the “go” signal. The situation is deadly and deadly serious.

Should the desert sand in the state of Nevada be stained by the blood of either the protestors or federal troops, or the patriots or tyrants, there will be hell to pay. Hell that can be immediately and effectively avoided by the actions of one man who has so far appeared to do nothing but pay lip service to this crisis. That man is Brian Sandoval, the governor of the state of Nevada, who has the power and authority to mobilize the Nevada National Guard and intervene before any shots are fired.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Hours After Infowars Breaks Sen. Reid/Chinese Connection to Bundy Land Grab, BLM Backs Down

Nevada sheriff announces feds to reopen land and end standoff with Cliven Bundy

The Infowars exclusive yesterday exposing U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) involvement in the Bureau of Land Management’s land grab, which was meant to push out American ranchers such as Cliven Bundy in order to make way for Chinese solar farms, was the #1 news story in the entire world over the past 24 hours thanks to the Drudge Report and others, forcing the BLM to retreat from the standoff.

The article, Breaking: Sen. Harry Reid Behind BLM Land Grab of Bundy Ranch, revealed that Sen. Reid was directly destroying the livelihoods of hard-working American ranchers in order to profit from future deals with Chinese energy firms and was shared on Facebook over 44,000 times, Twitter over 34,000 times and was even shared on the professional networking site LinkedIn.

And it worked. Today the Sheriff of Clark Co., Douglas Gillespie, announced that the BLM would retreat from its standoff with cattle rancher Cliven Bundy. The BLM has even replaced the “Cattle Crossing” signs that they had previous taken down from public roads.

No doubt that the feds realized that they could not win the public relations war after the public discovered that this land grab was for a solar farm.

Now this could be a ruse for the time being to get the crowds to leave so the feds can continue its criminal operation later, but Alex Jones doubts that because they have definitely lost the moral high-ground.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Man ‘Broke Into Home, Raped a Four-Year-Old Girl Then Hid in Closet to Smoke a Cigarette’

[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]

A man has been arrested for breaking into an Illinois home and raping a four-year-old girl.

Police say they found Demetrio Campbell, 27, smoking a cigarette in a closet of the Calumet Park home after kicking down the front door and assaulting the girl.

Campbell allegedly tried to lure the girl and her seven-year-old sister as they played outside the home on Sunday, but they ran inside and locked the door.

According to the Chicago Tribune, the convicted felon began banging on the door demanding to be let in. He eventually kicked in the door and entered the home.

Police allege that Campbell ordered two older people in the house out of a bedroom and took the four-year-old girl inside, where he raped her.

One of the witnesses who was ordered out of the bedroom called the police.

When officers arrived, they found Campbell in the closet, smoking.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama to Spend $1.5 Billion Promoting ObamaCare

The promotional budget for ObamaCare alone would cover much of the actual medical expenses for the people involved. But this was never about paying for medical care, it was about taking over health care for political reasons.

New Congressional estimates show the Obama administration is requesting another $774 million for Obamacare “outreach” and advertising in the 2015 budget. This is on top of the estimated $684 million they spent this year and the $52 million they spent on high-profile ads with athletes and Hollywood celebrities. That means the combined total in taxpayer funded advertising will be over $1.5 billion.

Barack Obama said last week, “We didn’t make a hard sell. We didn’t have billions of dollars in commercials like some critics did.”

It now looks like that was a lie, too.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Rich Lady: Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin Supports BDS, Just Not When She’s Investing

By Daniel Greenfield

Excerpt: There’s a great tradition of Socialists doing and saying different things. Especially the wealthy Medea Benjamin kind. While Medea Benjamin pushes BDS on her Facebook page, her investment page looks rather different.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Shoe Thrown at Hillary Clinton During Speech

Hillary Rodham Clinton ducked a thrown shoe, expressed surprise, cracked a couple of jokes that drew applause and continued her keynote speech on stage in front of a Las Vegas convention audience.

An attendee sitting near Rosen later handed a reporter a piece of paper that he said the woman threw. It appeared to be a declassified copy of a Department of Defense document labeled confidential and dated August 1967; it referred to a Bolivian Army operation called “Cynthia” in Bolivia.

The shoe-throwing incident reminded some of former President George W. Bush dodging two shoes thrown by an Iraqi journalist during a news conference in Baghdad in December 2008. Shoe-throwing is considered an insult in Arab cultures.

           — Hat tip: Egghead [Return to headlines]
 

SPLC Labels Cliven Bundy Domestic Extremist

Group implies that Bundy and his supporters are violent radicals.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Supporters of Nevada Rancher in Federal Fight Briefly Cause I-15 Shutdown

(CNN) — Supporters, some of them armed, rallied Saturday around Cliven Bundy in his showdown with U.S. rangers over cattle grazing on federal land, forcing a temporary shutdown of northbound lanes of Interstate 15 near his ranch, the Nevada Highway Patrol said Saturday.

The highway was reopened early Saturday afternoon after protesters moved to the side of the road and stopping blocking it. But traffic was backed up for three miles in both directions, Trooper Loy Hixson told CNN.

Hixson said no one in the armed crowd has threatened violence, but a U.S. senator acknowledged that “tensions are still near the boiling point.”

Authorities dispatched a SWAT vehicle to the protest site at Bunkerville, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, according to photos provided by CNN affiliate KTNV.

The large gathering was expected Saturday by the Bundy family, who told reporters a day earlier that many supporters couldn’t attend the weekday protest because of work.

People gather at a protest area along U.S. 170 April 11, 2014 west of Mesquite, Nevada, near where Bureau of Land Management officials were rounding up Cliven Bundy’s cattle. The bureau announced on Saturday, April 12, that they were ending the cattle roundup over concerns for public safety. A 20-year dispute between the Nevada rancher and federal rangers erupted into an Old West-style showdown this week. The government says Bundy’s livestock has been illegally grazing on U.S. lands for 20 years. Bundy says his family’s cattle has grazed on the land since the 1800s.

A sign announcing the closure of the public land during the cattle round-up. Krissy Thornton, right, and Burgundy Hall are among those protesting the U.S. government’s roundup of a rancher’s cattle near Bunkerville, Nevada, on Wednesday, April 9. Thornton, right, looks at a wound on Bundy’s son Ammon on April 9. Bundy family members and dozens of supporters angrily confronted a group of rangers holding Tasers and barking dogs on Wednesday. Bundy family members say they were thrown to the ground or jolted with a Taser. Federal officials say a police dog was kicked and officers were assaulted.

The U.S. government is rounding up Bundy’s cattle that it says have been grazing illegally on public lands for more than 20 years, according to the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. Between Saturday and Wednesday, contracted wranglers impounded a total of 352 cattle, federal officials said.

Cliven Bundy, left, and his son Dave talk to a reporter in Las Vegas on Monday, April 7. Bundy’s dispute with the government began two decades ago, when the Bureau of Land Management changed grazing rules for the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area to protect an endangered desert tortoise, KLAS reported. Bundy refused to abide by the changes and stopped paying his grazing fees to the federal bureau, which he contends is infringing on state rights.

People help erect a pole so that they could hang a banner April 7 in support of Bundy. One banner at the protest side stated: “Has the West been won? Or has the fight just begun!”

Rancher Derrel Spencer speaks during a rally in support of Bundy on April 7.

Chris Miller holds his hand over his heart during a rally in support of Bundy on April 7.

Bundy’s son Arden works at his father’s ranch on Saturday, April 5.

Cliven Bundy, right, and Clance Cox stand at the Bundy ranch on April 5.

Bundy walks by a free speech area set up by the Bureau of Land Management on Tuesday, April 1.

Federal rangers block a road near Bunkerville, about 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, on April 1.

Showdown in NevadaShowdown in NevadaShowdown in NevadaShowdown in NevadaShowdown in NevadaShowdown in NevadaShowdown in NevadaShowdown in NevadaShowdown in NevadaShowdown in NevadaShowdown in NevadaShowdown in NevadaShowdown in NevadaHIDE CAPTION

<<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 >>> Photos: Showdown in Nevada The growing protest came amid the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s decision to put an early end to a roundup of Bundy’s cattle, which the feds claim have been illegally grazing on federal land for 20 years.

The bureau cited public safety concerns for abruptly ending the weeklong roundup.

The Old West-style controversy — centering on a family that has been ranching in Nevada since the 1800s — drew armed militia groups from across the country to the cattleman’s side this week, especially after a YouTube video captured a tussle teetering on violence between rangers and protesters.

“Based on information about conditions on the ground, and in consultation with law enforcement, we have made a decision to conclude the cattle gather because of our serious concern about the safety of employees and members of the public,” said Neil Kornze, director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Kornze was just confirmed to the directorship this week by the U.S. Senate.

U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nevada, appealed for calm Saturday and told out-of-state supporters to return home…

[Return to headlines]
 

Survey Finds Teens Still Tiring of Facebook, Prefer Instagram

A semi-annual survey on teen preferences from Piper Jaffray finds that Facebook continues to lose appeal with teenagers.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The Cliven Bundy Standoff: Wounded Knee Revisited?

Unfortunately, the Bundy family — like the American Indians — had been living on a reservation: They were never allowed to exercise ownership of their grazing “allotment,” in much the same way that Indians were not permitted to have clear title to their lands. The land on which the Bundy family raised cattle was “owned” by the government, and the Bundys were required to pay rent — in the form of grazing fees — for the “privilege” of making productive use of it. The public-land grazing system has been described as “the nation’s most conspicuous and extensive flirtation with socialism” — except, perhaps, for the Indian Reservation System…

For more than two decades, Bundy has defied the federal land management bureaucracy, and his continued resistance could catalyze a general revolt against their designs for the western United States.

Their intent, as described by Pendley, is to transform the West into “a land nearly devoid of people and economic activity, a land devoted almost entirely to the preservation of scenery and wildlife habitat. In their vision, everything from the 100th meridian to the Cascade Range becomes a vast park through which they might drive, drinking their Perrier and munching their organic chips, staying occasionally in the bed-and-breakfast operations into which the homes of Westerners have been turned, with those Westerners who remain fluffing duvets and pouring cappuccino.”

The high priests of biocentrism and their bureaucratic allies aren’t going to let a handful of ragged but resolute ranchers “check and stop the progress” of Manifest Destiny.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Yes, America Did Build That

America’s first great contribution to the world: the concept of a written constitution.

Our forefathers understood that any document which establishes a government and delineates which powers belong to it, and which expressly states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people” is purposefully limiting the power of the central government. In addition, this document is extremely clear in dividing the powers of government into separate parts as described by Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws. In this work Montesquieu proposed separating the power of government among a legislature, an executive, and a judiciary. This approach presented a government which did not centralize all its powers in an executive. There should be no imperial presidency.

It was the genius of the Framers to construct a constitution which they believed was strong enough to stand the test of time and the lust for power among those chosen to represent the people. They believed as Madison said, “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.” This is America’s great contribution to civilization: a government in chains so that the people could be free for when a government is free, the people are in chains.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

British Socialite Peaches Geldof Dead After Revealing Secret Society Initiation (Video)

Mystery looms around the death of Peaches Geldof and how her ties with the OTO and the BBC Pedophile Ring might have caused her untimely death.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

British Grassroots Counter BDS With a Touch of Humor

In August 2012, a Christian and a Jew bumped into each other in Brighton, the languid seaside resort on Britain’s south coast that has become the hub of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) protests at the local Ecostream store. The Israeli-owned shop has attracted weekly demonstrations from the BDS crowd, angry that products made over the Green Line should be sold in the United Kingdom.

Simon Cobbs, a passionate Zionist who had lived in Israel for three years by the time he was 17, was walking past the Ecostream store when he spotted BDS demonstrators inside the shop. By chance, the man who lived in the apartment upstairs was Daniel Laurence, an equally passionate Christian Zionist. Cobbs and Laurence, like bouncers, threw the BDS demonstrators out. “Then we turned to each other and said, see you next week? I’ll bring some friends,” says Cobbs…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Euro Dickens

By Grace Moore

Charles Dickens is, more than any other writer of the nineteenth century, associated with Englishness — for celebrating home and hearth as well as his persistent attention to social problems in his native country. This outstanding new collection of essays, edited by Michael Hollington, asks us to consider Dickens in a much more cosmopolitan light. It engages with the question of the author’s popularity on the Continent in his lifetime and beyond, and the results are fascinating…

Michael Hollington, editor THE RECEPTION OF CHARLES DICKENS IN EUROPE

Two volumes, 703pp. Bloomsbury. £200 (US $300).

978 1 84706 096 9

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Far-Right Austrian MEP Withdraws From EU Elections

Austrian MEP Andreas Moelzer, of the far-right Freedom Party, announced on Tuesday (8 April) he will quit the European election after making comments comparing the EU with the Third Reich.

The Austrian politician, who has been an MEP since 2004, had said the EU is in danger of turning into a “conglomerate of Negroes, where chaos multiplies through mass immigration.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Financial Sector Spends €120mn on EU Lobbying

BRUSSELS — The EU’s financial industry spends more than €120 million per year and employs over 1,700 lobbyists to work in the EU institutions, according to new research by transparency campaigners.

The report on “The fire power of the financial lobby” published on Wednesday (9 April) by the Corporate Europe Observatory found that more than 700 different financial industry groups were active in the EU institutions in 2013.

Its findings will come as no surprise to Brussels-insiders. The lobbying industry has boomed in recent years as the EU’s law-making powers have increased and financial sector legislation has been a key priority of its institutions in the current legislative term.

Since the 2008 financial crisis which prompted EU governments to pump in around €1.6 trillion to keep their banks afloat, the EU has passed a raft of legislation aimed at tightening regulation ranging from the banking and insurance sectors to derivatives and credit rating agencies.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

French Free to Call Marine Le Pen a ‘Fascist’

Marine Le Pen’s hard work in trying to soften the image of her National Front party was dealt a blow this week when a court rejected her bid to prevent opponents from calling her a “fascist”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Israel to Post Top Envoy to Norway

Israel is sending one of its top diplomats to Norway, hoping that he will be able to repair the country’s image after Druze poet Naim Araidi was removed from the post, accused of sexual harassment.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italian Castle, Convent, Venetian Island Up for Sale

State agency says plan to raise money, boost development

(ANSA) — Venice, April 11 — One of Italy’s historic castles, a convent, and a Venetian island are among the “jewels” which are being offered for sale by the national government to encourage development and raise some much-needed cash.

The State Demanio, or property agency, has said that hundreds of properties with a combined value of tens of millions of euros will be listed in a series of sales beginning Friday and likely to close on May 6.

Already, negotiations are underway for the purchase of the entire village of Cittadella di Alessandria, set near an ancient fortress in the northwestern region of Piedmont.

“It’s a detailed sales plan, and not just to make money but to promote the development of the regions,” said Paolo Maranca, central manager of State real estate assets.

One of the first steps is the sale of five valuable properties each worth more than 400,000 euros that will be conducted online but not through an auction, he said.

That includes a 14th century castle in Gradisca d’Isonzo in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, a 24,000-square-metre building in the centre of the city of Trieste, and the former 16th century convent of San Domenico Maggiore in Monteoliveto in the southern Taranto province.

A 99-year-lease is being offered for the surface rights of the island of Poveglia near Venice, a property that actually includes three small islands, two of which are connected by a bridge. The property lies opposite the Lido and near the inlet of Malamocco.

Other properties on offer, with a total value of about 9.4 million euros, include 148 small assets scattered around the country from Fruili to the Veneto in northern Italy, across to Lombardy and down to Puglia and Basilicata.

The sale does not end there.

The agency said that another 208 properties will go on the market at a later date, likely in September, including castles, monasteries, villages and lighthouses.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Berlusconi Likened to Aung San Suu Kyi by House Whip

‘He’s a symbol, and you can’t gag a symbol’ says Brunetta

(see related) (ANSA) — Rome, April 10 — The House whip of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party on Thursday likened the three-time premier to Burmese Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. “Berlusconi is a symbol, and you can’t stop a symbol, you can’t gag it, you can’t block it. Think about Aung San Suu Kyi — she was trapped inside her home and she became a global symbol.

When you try to silence or stop a symbol, it becomes even stronger,” said Renato Brunetta. Brunetta was speaking on Italian chat show ‘La Telefonata’, which is broadcast on one of Berlusconi’s television channels, Canale 5. A court is set to rule later Thursday on whether the media mogul should serve 10 months under house arrest or performing community service as part of his binding conviction for tax fraud last year. Berlusconi, who was ultimately ejected from parliament as a result, says the ruling and a slew of other legal entanglements are part of a political plot against him by allegedly left-wing judges, one that’s been in place since his rise to lead the country’s right over the past two decades.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Priest Gets Six Years for Raping Minors

Father Marco Rasia abused at least six 16-year-old boys

(ANSA) — Novara, April 8 — An Italian priest got six years in jail Tuesday for raping minors.

Father Marco Rasia was found guilty of sexually abusing at least six 16-year-old boys in 2000 when he was a parish priest near the border with Switzerland.

He continued to rape them even after he was transferred to a nearby parish, a judge found.

Father Rasia claimed the sex was consensual.

He said at least one case was part of a loving relationship.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Diocese to Stand Plantiff in Paedophile Priest Case

Father Roberto Mastro charged with raping 15 under-14s 2007-2010

(ANSA) — Catanzaro, April 10 — An Italian diocese said Thursday it would stand as plaintiff in the trial of a paedophile priest accused of sexually abusing 15 boys.

Father Roberto Mastro, former parish priest at the small town of Belcastro in Calabria, is charged with raping the boys, all younger than 14, between 2007 and 2010.

Prosecutors last week asked for Mastro’s indictment.

The diocese’s request came at a preiminary hearing which will decide if the priest will go to trial.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Mastella and Wife Ordered to Stand Trial for Conspiracy

Power couple in southern Italy face trial in June

(ANSA) — Naples, April 10 — Former justice minister Clemente Mastella, a centrist Catholic, and his wife Sandra Lonardo were ordered Thursday to stand trial with 17 others on charges of conspiracy in a massive graft probe. The pair were once one of southern Italy’s most prominent political couples. According to the indictment, the activity of the small centrist Catholic UDEUR political party, which had a power base in Campania, was aimed at creating a web of corruption involving public tenders for the purchase of goods and services by regional offices including health administrations.

A trial date was set for June 18 in Naples.

The couple, who have consistently maintained their innocence, were part of an extensive investigation in Campania that included businessmen and regional officials.

Prosecutors had said the suspects had set up “a fully fledged system with criminal intent which amounted to a Mafia-style conspiracy”.

Anyone who tried to get in their way was allegedly subjected to “a systematic operation of demolition and boycotting,” the prosecutors claimed in 2009.

Mastella, who now represents Italy in the European Parliament, resigned as justice minister in a related probe in 2008 and brought down Romano Prodi’s centre-left government.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Grillo Under Fire for PD Party List Comments

Women top candidates ‘worthy of best Berlusconi tradition’

(ANSA) — Rome, April 10 — Comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo, leader of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), had to defend himself from fresh accusations of sexism on Thursday after suggesting the five women heading centre-left Democratic Party (PD) lists in the upcoming European Parliament elections had been chosen according to the “best Berlusconi tradition”. “Being a woman is not a value in and of itself,” wrote the controversial firebrand leader on his blog in relation to Wednesday’s decision by PD Secretary and Premier Matteo Renzi to put four female MPs — Alessia Mosca, Alessandra Moretti, Simona Bonafé and Pina Picierno — and female magistrate Caterina Chinnici at the top of the lists of party candidates for Italy’s five constituencies in the May 25 poll. The four MPs “are women used for marketing purposes according to the best Berlusconi tradition: four showgirls and Renzie as Gabibbo,” continued Grillo in reference to the red mascot for Italy’s Canale 5 television channel, part of the ex-premier’s Mediaset empire. Grillo’s comments generated immediate criticism from members of the PD. “Grillo insults women in the best misogynist and sexist tradition,” said PD House whip Roberto Speranza.

“The people chosen by the PD to head the lists are members of parliament with a strong commitment to their base and to the institutions and are respected by citizens: they are in the House due to undisputed merits seen during this last year of parliament.

“Any inference is an offence to the entire party group that we categorically reject”.

However the move by Renzi has also created tension within the PD.

On Thursday the popular mayor of Bari and Puglia regional party coordinator Michele Emiliano described his candidacy as “superfluous” in light of the decision.

“I agreed to head the list (in the Southern Italy constituency) because Renzi asked me to,” said Emiliano. “Now a different choice has made my candidacy superflous,” he continued.

And the mayor of Lampedusa, Giusi Nicolini, at the forefront of efforts to draw attention to the plight of migrants landing on the Sicilian island, said she would be withdrawing from the list for the island’s constituency on grounds the party had acted according to “a logic that deprived her candidacy of all significance”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy Ranks Lowest in Europe for University Graduates

Also at the bottom for high school dropouts

(ANSA) — Brussels, April 11 — Italy has the lowest average of university students who graduated in the European Union, with just 22.4% of those who began a degree program finishing it in 2013, a Eurostat survey said Friday.

Italy was also fifth from last for the number of high-school dropouts, 17% against a European Union average of 11.9%.

The figure on university graduates aged 30 to 34 was a slight improvement over the previous three years but continues to be the worst in the EU where the overall average for graduating from university is 37%.

Italy ranked behind Romania (22.8%), Croatia (25.9%) and Malta (26%).

Countries with the highest number of graduates were Ireland (52.6%), Luxembourg (52.5%) and Lithuania (51.3%).

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Protests in Rome Turn Violent

Police have fired tear gas and made a number of arrests in Rome as an anti-government protest turned violent, leaving several injured.

Hooded protesters hurled rocks and firecrackers at police, causing some 20 injuries to officers, according to authorities. One protester was seriously hurt — losing a number of fingers — after a firecracker apparently exploded prematurely in his hand.

According to the interior ministry, six people were taken into custody on Saturday. Protest organisers said 15,000 people had taken part in the rally but police couldn’t confirm that number…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Muslim Brotherhood Moves Headquarters From London to Austria After Cameron Announces Terror Investigation

Prime Minister David Cameron meets former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a leading member of the Muslim BrotherhoodControversial Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood is moving its headquarters from London to Austria in an apparent attempt to avoid an inquiry into its activities set up by the Prime Minister.

The alleged terrorist outfit was expelled from Egypt following last year’s coup there.

It recently opened a new international office above a disused kebab shop in Cricklewood, northwest London.

But this weekend, sources said it had decided to transfer its base to Graz, Austria’s second city, after David Cameron announced a joint MI5 and MI6 investigation into its membership.

The group is regarded as a terrorist organisation by Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Last month, Mr Cameron said that it was important to establish what the group’s beliefs were in terms of ‘extremism and violent extremism’.

           — Hat tip: Steen [Return to headlines]
 

Nigel Farage’s UKIP Party Soars to 20 Per Cent in ComRes Poll

By Raheem Kassan

Excerpt: The UK Independence Party (UKIP) has hit a record high ComRes poll rating, as the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties both drop points. UKIP is now polling at 20 percent, while Britain’s traditional third party, the Liberal Democrats, have sunk to just 7. The Independent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror poll shows Labour (35 percent) increasing its lead to six points over the Conservative Party (29 percent), with the libertarian, small-government UKIP hot on the heels of Cameron’s party following the resignation of cabinet minister Maria Miller last week.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Swedish Passports Hot Property on Black Market

Swedish passports are changing hands for as much as 80,000 kronor ($12,200) on the black market and being routinely used for human trafficking, prompting the government to launch an investigation into passport abuse according to a new report.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The Joy of Thinking: Shmuel Trigano

By Nidra Poller

Excerpt: Thirty-seven years later, Shmuel Trigano finds himself once more in a linguistic-cultural-geographic conundrum. The French language, which has lost nothing of its vibrant beauty and capacity for expression, is losing its territorial scope. And Jews in France are tottering on the edge of a familiar precipice. The same Muslim population that forced them to flee Arab lands has now created such a hostile environment in France that many envisage another exodus. The French language once practiced by fine minds all over the world is becoming a backwater, a trap for thinkers whose work is not easily translated and marketable. We who are enduring this difficult period in contemporary French history have the privilege of reading their works in the original; it isn’t a golden age, but there’s some silver in it.6

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

UK Uses Health Workers in Counter-Terror Plan

Muslims in the UK say they are unfairly targeted by programme asking medical workers to identify potential ‘terrorists’.

Medical workers, most would agree, have one important job to do: look after the well-being of their patients. However, in the UK, employees of the National Health Service are now being assigned another task: identifying potential terrorists.

This new directive comes from the Prevent programme, part of the UK government’s counter-terrorism strategy created in the wake of the July 2005 London bombings…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Doctors Threatened Parents With Having Their 15-Month-Old Daughter Taken Away Because They Could Not Explain Burns — Which She Suffered at Nursery

A couple were threatened with having their daughter taken into care after they took her to A&E with third degree burns she suffered while at nursery.

Connie and Terry Brooker rushed their 15-month-old daughter Freya to hospital after they picked her up from nursery and found she had severe blisters and burns on her fingers that staff couldn’t explain.

But when the couple, from Gloucester, told doctors they didn’t know how Freya had been injured, medics refused to let her go home with them.

It was only when social services stepped in and Teddy Bear’s Picnic Day Nursery in Quedgeley, Gloucester, admitted liability for Freya’s injuries that the couple were allowed to take their daughter home.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: From Bogus Medical Examinations to Punishment Beatings, How Paedophile Cyril Smith Used His Powerful Public Image to Abuse Boys

[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content **]

In 1963, he was already an enormously powerful local figure, a political godfather with fingers in many pies.

Known as Mr Rochdale, he later became the town’s mayor, then its Liberal MP, and for 20 years strutted the national stage.

At Westminster, on television and in the media, Smith was a big man in every sense.

He was one of the most popular faces in politics, using his oversized appearance, humour and in-your-face northern bluffness to stand out in a world of grey, indistinguishable politicians.

But just like Jimmy Savile — whom he counted as a friend — Smith used his public image as a shield while manipulating his way into positions of influence over vulnerable young people he then ruthlessly abused.

And, like Savile, he deployed his professional success, powerful personality and highly placed contacts to ensure he was never held to account. It was only after his death in 2010 at the age of 82 that men like that victim from Cambridge House felt safe to speak out.

Yet Cyril Smith’s dark side has always been talked about in Rochdale — and the whispers echoed through British politics.

One of the most shocking elements of his story is how the truth was known to the police and in Westminster, yet concealed from the wider public, allowing a paedophile to hide in Parliament.

[…]

It’s now known that on three separate occasions files were passed by Lancashire Police to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Crown Prosecution Service containing details of Smith’s abuse. Yet on each occasion no prosecution was pursued. It is as though Cyril was untouchable.

On one now notorious occasion, files of evidence on Smith held by Special Branch were removed by MI5 officers from the safe at police headquarters in Preston and taken to London. They were never seen again. This was just one of several cover-ups which I will reveal in detail later in this series…

A number of police officers have told me that Cyril was just the tip of the iceberg and, unfortunately, I expect more stories of his abuse to emerge.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Governor Recruitment Freeze After ‘Islamic Plot’ Claims

A council is freezing the recruitment of school governors while it investigates claims of an “Islamic takeover plot”. Birmingham City Council said the system of appointing governors had not changed since the 1980s and needed to be overhauled.

Councillor Brigid Jones, in charge of education, said “floods of allegations” had been received in the wake of an anonymous letter outlining a plot to impose an Islamic agenda in a number of Birmingham schools.

The so-called “Operation Trojan Horse” sparked an investigation by the council and Ofsted, with assistance from the police. Nadeem Malik, from Muslim charity and educational organisation, The Bahu Trust, said: “It’s a very extreme, knee-jerk reaction to what is a discredited document.”

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Horror at Halal Slaughterhouse: Shocking Undercover Film Shows the ‘Needless Suffering’ Of Livestock That Are Butchered Without Being Stunned First

British law requires abattoirs to stun animals before slaughter but there is an exemption for Jewish and Muslim producers

Knife poised at the throat of a helpless sheep, this is the moment a slaughterman cuts the throat of a fully conscious animal.

Our exclusive pictures reveal for the first time the full horror of a religious practice that Britain’s top vet wants outlawed.

Undercover Mail on Sunday investigators secretly filmed inside a halal abattoir as more than 100 sheep appeared to writhe in agony after being ritually killed.

They were placed onto a conveyer belt with their legs tethered before the knife was drawn swiftly across their throats.

In the seconds after the sudden cut, the sheep strained to raise their heads as blood poured from their wounds. They then twitched and convulsed as they were hoisted by their hind legs on metal hooks to drain their bodies of blood.

In non-halal abattoirs, livestock are stunned before killing to prevent unnecessary suffering. Some halal abattoirs also practise pre-stunning. But the animals we saw at this abattoir were fully conscious when slaughtered — a practice campaigners say is inhumane and needlessly cruel.. Killing an animal without prior stunning is illegal in Britain, but the law gives special exemption to Muslim and Jewish meat producers on the grounds of religion.

According to some Islamic scholars, stunning an animal before it is slaughtered for meat is not permitted. There are believed to be about 12 abattoirs dedicated to unstunned slaughterhouses in the UK, and hundreds of abattoirs that do stunned halal slaughter.

Denmark and Poland have recently banned unstunned ritual slaughter — a precedent animal welfare groups in Britain want the Government to follow. Last night, John Blackwell, the new president-elect of the British Veterinary Association (BVA), said: ‘We would like to see unstunned slaughter banned in the UK on the grounds of animal welfare. There is current scientific evidence which says that animals do feel pain if they are slaughtered without any stunning.’…

           — Hat tip: Steen [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Islamic Centre Will Better Help Muslim Women Wanting to Pray in Milton Keynes, According to Association Chairman

MILTON Keynes’ first ever Islamic Centre is nearing completion. The facility is much-needed for the Muslim community, according to Mohammed Ageli, chairman of the Milton Keynes Muslim Association which has funded and will run the building.

The MKMA have been forced to rent out several buildings across the city over the years, and Mr Ageli is looking forward to being able to call the Islamic Centre in Coffee Hall home. “We’re really happy and there is a lot of potential here,” said Mr Ageli. A particular source of satisfaction for Mr Ageli comes with the space provided for women to pray…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Neighbours ‘At End of Tether’ As Extended Hours for Cambridge Mosque Approved

Muslims have been given planning permission to run education classes at weekends in Cambridge’s main mosque, despite neighbours claiming they are “at the end of their tether” with parking chaos.

One resident claimed parents were “aggressive” when they were asked to move their cars on from streets around the Mawson Road mosque, but councillors ruled it was not the planning system’s role to tackle these problems…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Poll Digest — Political — Sunday Mirror / Independent on Sunday Political Poll

Nigel Farage’s party has scored its highest poll rating yet in a ComRes poll, for The Independent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror tomorrow. Labour’s lead has increased to six points as Conservative support falls:

  • Conservative 29% (-3)
  • Labour 35% (0)
  • Lib Dem 7% (-2)
  • UKIP 20% (+4)
  • Other 9% (+1)

Change since last month’s ComRes online poll in brackets. The Lib Dem figure, 7 per cent, is the lowest recorded by ComRes online (series started in 2010), and the Conservative figure is the first time the party has been below 30 per cent this year…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Police Hunt Woman Pictured Urinating in Front of Horrified Daytime Shoppers in Northampton

This is the moment a shameless woman dropped her trousers and urinated on a busy high street. Carrying two shopping bags in tow, the woman exposed her naked behind to passersby and brazenly relieved herself in front of dozens of horrified shoppers in Northampton. Witness Kevin Mabbutt took the picture at about 11.30am on Thursday before posting it on Facebook. He said: “I just couldn’t believe it. I can’t understand how anyone could do something so horrible.”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Three Found Guilty of Schoolboy Ajmol Alom’s Murder in an East End Park

Three men who attacked and killed a schoolboy in an unprovoked attack in a park in London’s East End have today been found guilty by a jury of his murder.

Ajmol Alom, 16, who was aspiring to be a doctor, collapsed yards from his home after he and his friends were attacked with knives and a machete-like blade. His mother rushed from their home and watched helplessly as he lay dying in Spey Street, Poplar…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Building a True Partnership Between Africa and Europe

When EU and African Heads of State met in Brussels at the start of April they were presented with the opportunity to begin to forge a new partnership between two continents that have had a long and sometimes troubled relationship.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Clashes Between Berbers and Arabs in Algeria Leave Two Dead

(AGI) Algiers, Apr 12 — Ethnic violence between Berbers and Arabs broke out in the Algerian province of Ghardaia on Saturday, leaving two Mozabites dead. A 25-year-old was stabbed in the Baissa Oualouane district, and a 22-year-old was killed with a shotgun in the city of Berriane. Security forces are unable to prevent revolts by the local populace and clashes between Arabs and Ibadi Berbers, which have continued for months and claimed dozens of victims despite the government’s efforts.

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

Egypt: Brotherhood Clashes With Police in Alexandria, One Killed

Cairo — One person was shot dead during clashes between police forces and Muslim Brotherhood elements in Alexandria on Friday. The man was transported to the Zohour Hospital during the clashes, said Omar Nasr, head of Alexandria’s ambulance service…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Militants Launch Bomb at Hospital in Egypt

(AGI) Cairo, April 12 — Several masked militants launched a bomb at a hospital in Upper Egypt on Saturday morning, local media reported. Egyptian Health Minister Adel Adwa was scheduled to arrive at the hospital on Saturday for the opening ceremony.

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

Jerusalem Court Convicts Islamic Movement Head of Obstructing Police Operations

The Jerusalem Magistrates’ Court on Thursday convicted Islamic Movement head Sheikh Raed Salah of obstructing a police officer in the line of duty.

Salah was accused of interfering with police officers while they were questioning his wife when he accompanied her to enter Israel from Jordan in 2011, via the Allenby Bridge border crossing. The court, which ruled that Salah “sought to frustrate the search of his wife because to him it represented an affront to his honor,” is set to issue its sentencing at a later date…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Ramat Gan Towers, Top Diamond Exchange Center

Turnover worth 28 bln dollars. 300 colored diamonds

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV- Four towers in Israel represent a miniature, high-security and high-tech city — the Israeli Diamond Exchange, home to one of the world’s major diamond exchanges in Ramat Gan, the commercial outskirts of Tel Aviv. Almost 1,500 firms with 2,200 offices — based on the principle “all on the same floor” — which in 2013 produced a turnover of 28 billion dollars with exports in the same period of rough and cut diamonds worth 10 billion dollars mainly to the US (37% for cut diamonds) and Hong Kong (29%).

The trade of rough diamonds alone is worth eight billion dollars a year for 30 million carats. The towers of Ramat Gan are a private giant — though supervised by the economy ministry’s ‘Diamond Controller’ — making up 20% of all Israeli industrial exports.

This miniature city with restaurants, synagogues, banks (six, including the State Bank of India), emergency room, stores and gyms, has just opened up for the ‘US &International Diamond week’ event. This edition features the extraordinary ‘Rainbow Collection’ of Belgian jeweler Eddy Elzas.

Three hundred colored diamonds of incredible value which “make your legs tremble”, according to a visitor who saw them after endless security checks including having his finger scanned.

“Synthetic diamonds don’t exist here”, President Shmuel Schnitzer, the king of this floor full of buyers, salesmen, brokers, cutting artists and gem experts, told ANSA. “This is not because we despise them but just because we deal with natural ones”.

In what is the world’s top diamond exchange along with Anthwerp, contained in just one floor, the stone is followed in all its passages, starting with traceability based on the ‘Kimberley Process’, an international agreement of certification which guarantees that profits from diamond trade are not used to fund civil wars. Such gems are called ‘conflict-free’.

“We are part of the world federation of diamond exchanges and the World Diamond Council which represents the industry in the Kimberley Process”, said the center’s director Moti Besser.

“And we play a leading role in these international organizations”.

If India has become a main cutting center, the towers of Ramat Gan are vying for “quality and the Israeli industry is at the top in this sector”, said Schnitzer.

Created in 1937 by six pioneers, the Israeli diamond industry during the Second World War was the only manufacturing centre active in the world and the only client of De Beers for rough diamonds, a brooder of the market since 1988 in South Africa.

And it was during the Gulf war in 1991 — when Saddam Hussein’s scuds targeted Ramat Gan — that Israelis in the diamond industry opened offices worldwide with an aggressive marketing approach: overall 55,000 today, including those abroad.

Italy could not miss such an event: a guest of honour on Tuesday was jeweller and designer Roberto Coinc “among the most well known worldwide”, said Schnitzer.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

21 Killed in Violent Attacks Across Iraq

BAGHDAD, April 12 (Xinhua) — Twenty-one people were killed and 45 others wounded in separate violent attacks across Iraq on Saturday, police and medical sources said.

In Iraq’s western province of Anbar, fierce clashes erupted in southern the provincial capital city of Ramadi, some 110 km west of Baghdad, between Iraqi soldiers and gunmen believed to be linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), leaving eight militants killed and eight soldiers wounded, a provincial police source said.

Also in Ramadi, gunmen disguised in army uniforms shot dead a police officer and two policemen in central city, before they fled the scene, the source said…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Kuwait: Rape in Mosque?

Kuwait: Worshipers in a Sabah Al-Salem mosque managed to rescue a juvenile who had been kidnapped by a citizen who forced him into the mosque to rape him. Security sources said that the kidnapper used a knife to threaten the boy. A citizen reported to the police that someone had kidnapped and assaulted his son.

In another development, an Egyptian is currently detained at Jleeb police station over suspicions of pushing his Fillipina off the fourth floor after he caught her cheating on him. The girlfriend was rushed to the ICU.

           — Hat tip: RR [Return to headlines]
 

Turkey PM Accuses Twitter of Tax Evasion

Ankara (AFP) — Turkey’s prime minister accused Twitter Saturday of tax evasion after the micro-blogging site was used to spread a number of damaging leaks implicating his inner circle in corruption scandals.

“Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are international companies established for profit,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in televised remarks. “Twitter is at the same time a tax evader. We will go after it.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Ukraine Crisis: Exchange of Fire in Kramatorsk, Minister Says

A gun battle has erupted in the eastern Ukrainian town of Kramatorsk, the acting interior minister says.

Arsen Avakov said it began when unidentified gunmen tried to storm local administration buildings and police fired back. Several other official buildings were reported to have been seized in eastern Ukraine on Saturday. The confrontations come amid rising tension between the new government and pro-Russia protesters…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

You Cannot Fathom Russia With Your Mind

By Theodore Dalrymple

Excerpt: The prescient man is not the man who knows most. He is like the chess-player who takes in the situation on a board at once, the result of much study and the possession of instinct. The man who has not studied is blinded by prejudice; the man who has studied, but has no instinct, is blinded by learning.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

15 Killed in Rebel Attack Against Election in C. India

NEW DELHI, April 12 (Xinhua) — In a major blow to India’s election, at least 15 people, including security personnel and election officials, were killed Saturday in land mine attacks by left-wing rebels in central India, said police.

This is the second deadly attack by the Naxalite rebels who killed two policemen on Thursday in the eastern state of Bihar during the polling…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Co-Pilot of Missing Flight MH370 Tried to Make a Call From His Mobile Phone After the Aircraft ‘Vanished’… But He ‘Was Abruptly Cut Off’

The co-pilot of missing flight MH370 made a call from his mobile phone as the aircraft flew low over the west coast of Malaysia.

Investigators have learned that the call was made from Fariq Abdul Hamid’s mobile phone as the Boeing 777 flew low near the island of Penang, on the north of Malaysia’s west coast.

The New Straits Times reported today that it was understood the aircraft, with 239 people on board, was flying low enough for the nearest telecommunications tower to pick up Fariq’s signal.

The call ended abrupty, however it has been learned that contact was definitely established with a telecommunications sub-station in Penang state.

The paper said it had been unable to ascertain who Fariq was trying to call ‘as sources chose not to divulge details of the investigation.’

It added: ‘The telco’s (telecommunications company’s) tower established the call that he was trying to make.

‘On why the call was cut off, it was likely because the aircraft was fast moving away from the tower and had not come under the coverage of the next one,’ the paper said, quoting ‘sources’…

Experts said that it was possible for a mobile phone to be connected to a telecommunications tower at an altitude of 7,000 feet — which is low for a large jet like the Boeing 777 unless it was flying at high speed to maintain height…

An email received by the Mail recently suggested that the aircraft had been hijacked and that the pilots had been ordered to fly around Malaysian and Indonesian air space while negotiations were carried out.

Those negotiations, said the email — from a source in Malaysia which could not be verified — demanded the dropping of a jail sentence imposed on Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

The hijackers, said the email, gave government negotiators five hours to meet their demands or the plane would be destroyed.

Yesterday it looked like the black box may had been located deep in the Indian Ocean.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Gunmen Kidnap 100 Pakistani Villagers in Northwest, Government Says

Gunmen stormed a village gathering in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday and kidnapped around 100 men, Pakistani government officials said. Officials said they suspected that the gunmen are Taliban who attacked because the villagers supported the government.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Japanese Airports Becoming ‘Islam-Friendly’ To Cater to Growing Muslim Tourism

Narita, Osaka and Kyoto airports are gradually adapting to accommodate Muslims. ‘Silence rooms are turned into prayer rooms. Airport lavatories now include special taps for Muslim ritual washing. Restaurants go ‘halal’.

Tokyo (AsiaNews) — Because of rising tourism from Muslim countries, Japanese airports have are gradually adapting to cater to Muslim visitors.

Existing ‘silence’ rooms have been turned into prayer rooms. Bathrooms now feature taps for Muslim ritual washing and airport restaurants are asking patrons not to drink alcohol when sitting next to Muslims.

Statistics released in January by the Japan National Tourist Organisation show that the number of tourists from Malaysia surged to 28,500 in December 2013, up 65.5 per cent from the previous year. Indonesian visitors were up 27.3 per cent, whilst those from the Gulf rose by 50 per cent.

Motivated by growing requests (and complaints) by Muslim travellers, Narita (Chiba prefecture), Kyoto and Osaka airports have begun implementing changes.

Under Islamic dietary guidelines, Muslims are strictly prohibited from consuming alcohol and pork — two prominent examples of non-halal ingredients — as well as any of their derivatives.

Animal-based foods must been slaughtered or otherwise prepared using methods based on Islamic scripture, and cannot be touched by culinary utensils used to prepare pork.

In December last year, Narita airport started a catering service to provide several pork- and alcohol-free meals for Muslims, prepared by airline food service TFK Corp, which provides in-flight halal catering to Malaysia Airlines.

As a Muslim, Hideaki Yotsutsuji, spokesman for the Japan Halal Association, said Muslim communities in Japan largely welcome the airports’ attempts to improve hospitality toward Muslims.

But Yotsutsuji also warned airports to keep in mind that trumpeting their pursuit of Muslim-friendliness could backfire. “By touting your place as ‘Muslim-friendly,’ you’re basically getting their hopes high,” he said.

In fact, “No matter how ‘friendly’ you think your place is, some of the Muslims will feel betrayed just by, say, finding a person next to them drinking alcohol,” he warned.

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

Maoist Rebels Kill 14 as India Votes

(AGI) New Delhi, April 12 — Maoist rebels in India have killed at least 14 people in Chhattisgarh state on the second day of the national elections. In Bijapur a bomb attack on a bus carrying election officials and security staff killed seven people, while five paramilitary officers and two civilians were killed in a separate attack.

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

Missing Plane MH370: Abbott Says Signal ‘Rapidly Fading’

Signals in remote seas thought to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are “rapidly fading” and finding the jet will be a “massive, massive task”, Australia’s PM says.

Tony Abbott said he was confident “pings” detected by search teams were from the aircraft’s black boxes. But no new signals have been confirmed in the search area since Tuesday. “No one should underestimate the difficulties of the task still ahead of us,” Mr Abbott warned.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Parents Trek in Honour of Fallen Sons and Afghanistan Wounded

The parents of four soldiers killed in Afghanistan are walking 400 kilometres along a remote Northern Territory road to the Robertson Barracks in Darwin to raise awareness and funds for wounded veterans. The idea is to walk 10 kilometres for each of the 40 soldiers killed in action.

The organiser of the walk, Ray Palmer, 55, from Katherine, says there are more than 250 men and women still suffering with their physical and mental wounds from the war. “And there are still 400 members still serving in Afghanistan that people don’t seem to know about,” he says.

In a quieter voice he says: “And we musn’t forget those who have fallen.”…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Ethnic Somalis Under Pressure in Kenyan Capital

Eastleigh (nairobi) — Thousands of ethnic Somalis have been arrested and detained in an ongoing security operation dubbed Usalama Watch mainly in Eastleigh, a suburb of Nairobi often known as “Little Mogadishu” because of its predominantly Somali population. Usalama means security in Swahili.

The crackdown, which began on 2 April, came after a series of explosions in Eastleigh that killed six people and injured more than 20. Most of those arrested are being held at the Safaricom Stadium Kasarani, a popular national sports venue, which has now temporarily been converted into a police station…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Nigeria: 19 Killed in Boko Haram Attacks in Borno

Nineteen people have been killed in separate attacks by suspected members of Boko Haram who laid siege on some locations in Dikwa, Kala-Balge and Konduga government areas of Borno State between Thursday and yesterday. The attacks have heightened fears of a new wave of violence by the insurgents in parts of the state where hundreds of people were killed this year…

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Maduro Regime Catapults Venezuela to Second Highest Murder Rate in the World

By Frances Martel

Excerpt: A decade and a half of socialist repression and months of protests with seemingly no end have catapulted Venezuela to the top of the list of the world’s most dangerous nations. According to a study by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, Venezuela is surpassed only by Honduras in highest peacetime murder rates in the world.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Mexico Opens Centre for Paedophile Priests

Emmaus House to offer spiritual rehabilitation, reflection

(ANSA) — Mexico City, April 10 — A centre offering support and rehabilitation to paedophile priests has opened in the diocese of Saltillo in northern Mexico, diocesan sources said Thursday.

Emmaus House will help priests tackle the “moral, spiritual and psychological crises” at the root of “specific problems”, the diocese said. The centre is under the direction of monsignor Raul Vera, bishop of Cohauila, a human-rights activist and well-known exponent of liberation theology. It will offer support to up to 20 priests at a time from Mexico and the United States, who will follow a program of “spiritual reflection and rehabilitation” for between three and five months. A similar structure that opened recently in Monterrey, also in northern Mexico, has so far offered support to 43 priests.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Video: What’s Happening in Venezuela Right Now: Socialist Venezuela: When Insanity Becomes Normal

Excerpt: Hope & Change came earlier to Venezuela than to the USA, ushered in by their own Moonbat Messiah, Hugo Chavez. Consequently our glorious socialist future has already been established as normal there:…

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Europe Must Help Italy Cope With Migrant Influx Says Alfano

‘Most are asylum seekers who don’t want to stay in Italy’

(ANSA) — Rome, April 9 — Interior Minister Angelino Alfano in an interview Wednesday said most migrants now disembarking on Italy’s shores are political asylum seekers, and Europe must give Italy a hand in processing and relocating them.

“Hundreds of thousands are in Libya waiting to get on a boat”, Alfano told Sole 24 Ore financial paper’s Radio24.

“It is of the essence that the international community set up refugee camps as well as bilateral control over coasts and departures”.

The minister’s comments followed on news that Italian authorities rescued some 4,000 migrants off several unseaworthy boats in the past 48 hours. Every year, tens of thousands of migrants arrive in Italy, which is the first landfall for those trying to reach Europe by boat from North Africa.

Many die while attempting the hazardous crossing in rickety, overcrowded vessels after being charged exorbitant prices by human traffickers.

After some 400 people drowned in two migrant-boat disasters in October 2013, Italy set up a surveillance and rescue operation called Mare Nostrum to prevent further deaths at sea. “We are rescuing thousands of migrants with our ships”, Alfano continued. “We must speed up procedures to expel those who have no right to stay, and to receive those who have a right to asylum”.

Some 15,000 migrants have landed on Italy’s coasts since the beginning of the year, Alfano said.

“Most asylum seekers don’t even want to stay in Italy.

Other countries must take these people in, because that’s where they wanted to go in the first place”, the minister explained.

“Europe must understand that we can’t take them all in.

And the EU needs to boost our border defense system”, said Alfano.

He went on to blast critics in the anti-immigration Northern League, which sponsored a law making illegal immigration a crime that was recently repealed.

“I would remind them that the migrant influx peaked in 2011, just after illegal immigration was criminalized”, the minister said.

Also on Wednesday, the chairman of the Senate human rights commission refuted the minister’s claims that Italy is under attack by a wave of migrants.

“This is not an invasion. We’ve known for a long time that this was going to happen”, said Senator Luigi Manconi. “We should take a serious look at ourselves and at the reasons why we failed to take the necessary steps to receive people we can easily take care of, without involving other European countries”.

“Italy must do its part, and on this matter our conscience is not as clear as it should be”, he added.

The country must put its own house in order, both in terms of domestic policy and of international treaties it has signed on to but doesn’t always respect, the Senator pointed out.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy Rescues 800 Migrants Off Libya

Latest in string of pick-ups as fair-weather influx continues

(ANSA) — (On board the San Giorgio cruiser), April 11 — The Italian navy rescued 800 North African immigrants off the coast of Libya Thursday night in the latest in a string of pick-ups off rickety boats that have been launched like flotillas during the recent spell of warm weather. The migrants were on board seven rust-buckets and latge dinghies that were intercepted by four Navy frigates and a Finance Guard motorboat about 70 nautical miles south of the stepping-stone Italian island of Lampedusa, which is closer to Libya than to Sicily.

The asylum seekers were transferred to the large Italian cruiser San Giorgio which is expected to dock in a Sicilian port later Friday.

Earlier this week Italy issued a fresh call for help from the European Union after rescuing more than 4,000 migrants in 48 hours.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said in a radio interview Wednesday that “with the fine weather, the next six months are going to be extremely tough”.

He said most migrants now disembarking on Italy’s shores are political asylum seekers, and Europe must give Italy a bigger hand in processing and relocating them.

“Hundreds of thousands are in Libya waiting to get on a boat”, Alfano told Sole 24 Ore financial paper’s Radio24.

“It is of the essence that the international community set up refugee camps as well as bilateral control over coasts and departures”.

The minister’s comments followed news that Italian authorities rescued some 4,000 migrants off several unseaworthy boats in the past 48 hours.

Every year, tens of thousands of migrants arrive in Italy, which is the first landfall for those trying to reach Europe by boat from North Africa.

Many die while attempting the hazardous crossing in rickety, overcrowded vessels after being charged exorbitant prices by human traffickers.

After some 400 people drowned in two migrant-boat disasters within sight of Lampedusa in October 2013, Italy set up a surveillance and rescue operation called Mare Nostrum to prevent further deaths at sea.

“We are rescuing thousands of migrants with our ships”, Alfano continued.

“We must speed up procedures to expel those who have no right to stay, and to receive those who have a right to asylum”.

Some 15,000 migrants have landed on Italy’s coasts since the beginning of the year, Alfano said.

“Most asylum seekers don’t even want to stay in Italy.

Other countries must take these people in, because that’s where they wanted to go in the first place”, the minister explained.

“Europe must understand that we can’t take them all in.

And the EU needs to boost our border defense system”, said Alfano.

He went on to blast critics in the anti-immigration Northern League, which sponsored a law making illegal immigration a crime that was recently repealed.

“I would remind them that the migrant influx peaked in 2011, just after illegal immigration was criminalized”, the minister said.

Also on Wednesday, the chairman of the Senate human rights commission rebuffed the minister’s claims that Italy is under attack by a wave of migrants.

“This is not an invasion. We’ve known for a long time that this was going to happen”, said Senator Luigi Manconi of the ruling Democratic Party (PD) “We should take a serious look at ourselves and at the reasons why we failed to take the necessary steps to receive people we can easily take care of, without involving other European countries”.

“Italy must do its part, and on this matter our conscience is not as clear as it should be”, he added.

The country must put its own house in order, both in terms of domestic policy and of international treaties it has signed on to but doesn’t always respect, the PD Senator pointed out, echoing many previous calls.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Search Underway After Migrants’ Boat Sinks in Aegean Sea

ATHENS, April 12 (Xinhua) — Search was underway Saturday for five people who were believed to be missing after a boat with approximately 50 undocumented migrants sank off the Lesvos island in the eastern Aegean Sea, according to the Greek Coast Guard.

The search was launched after an unidentified person made a telephone call to authorities that he was aboard a vessel carrying about 50 people which was in need of help. Three speedboats rushed to the area. The vessel has not been located yet, but 45 immigrants were found on a nearby beach in good condition, Coast Guard officials said.

           — Hat tip: JP [Return to headlines]
 

Fertility Ruling ‘Italy’s Latest Folly’ Says Catholic Weekly

‘Wild fertilization for all’ warns Famiglia Cristiana

(see related) (ANSA) — Rome, April 9 — Influential Italian Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana slammed the Constitutional Court on Wednesday for throwing out a controversial ban on donor sperm and eggs, calling the ruling “Italy’s latest folly”. “Wild fertilization for all,” read the headline of the weekly’s website. “It’s a shock sentence, albeit not unexpected,” the article adds before inviting readers to voice their opinion on the verdict in an online survey. The ruling was the top trending story on Twitter in Italy for much of the day Wednesday.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Ruling Lifting Ban on Donor Sperm, Eggs Sparks Storm

Italian bishops warn against ‘market of life’

Redazione ANSARome

(ANSA) — Rome, April 10 — One day after Italy’s Constitutional Court lifted a ban on the use of donor sperm and eggs in a controversial law limiting assisted-fertility treatments, a debate on Thursday pitted Catholics against members of the scientific community.

“Finally, couples won’t be forced to travel abroad,” top oncologist Umberto Veronesi, a former health minister, told Roman daily Il Messaggero in an interview published Thursday.

“Banning third-party donors means denying a couple of adults the right to self-determination,” said the oncologist, a vocal critic over the past decade of Italy’s reproductive law, which among other things bans screening of embryos for abnormalities or genetic disorders even for couples with a family history of genetic disease.

On average 2,700 couples have been forced to travel abroad every year since so-called law 40 was approved 10 years ago, Veronesi said, stressing it “denied a couple’s will and desire to become parents of a child they would raise with love”.

Veronesi also said the ruling was a first step in an overhaul of assisted-fertility rules, which remain under court review.

Meanwhile a leading Italian association which promotes the freedom of scientific research, the Associazione Luca Coscioni, said on Thursday that thousands of couples were considering a class-action lawsuit against the State over damage they have suffered under law 40.

“The ruling of the Court is retroactive and states that the ban on third-party donors in assisted-fertility treatments has been illegitimate since the law was approved,” said Gianni Baldini, one of the association’s lawyers.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in 2012 had already rejected the law saying it went against two provisions in its convention for the protection of human rights.

Reproductive rights are hot-button issue in mainly-Catholic Italy.

Avvenire, the daily of Italian bishops’ conference CEI, on Thursday ran headlines on the Constittuional Court ruling reading “The market of life is back” and “Here is how the nature of a mother and father are pickaxed”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Norway: Oslo Opens Munch Room for Priests to Marry Gays

Oslo’s City council has thrown open the august Munch room in Oslo City Hall to any priest who wants to bless a gay couple’s marriage, in protest at the Church’s decision not to allow gay marriage.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Racism

Why are people racist and judged by the colour of their skin? Is it some deep seated fear of the ‘other’ which has roots in genetic and cultural difference or are exposure to artificial factors constructed by politicians and the media to blame?

This week’s Why Factor with presenter Jo Fidgeon explores the experience of racism around the world and in different societies. She finds out about the personal experiences of racism and how it affects peoples’ everyday lives. She also begins to understand how racism is perpetuated through generations and cemented through institutional racism.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Transgender Female Twitter Engineer, 32, Is Charged With Raping Her Estranged Wife the Day After Serving Her With Divorce Papers

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

A transgender woman who works as an engineer at Twitter has been charged with raping her wife after they had filed for divorce.

Dana McCallum works as a senior Twitter engineer and is now facing five felony charges stemming from an incident that occurred the night after she served her wife of six years with divorce papers.

McCallum, whose legal name on the charging documents is Dana Contreras, was arrested on January 26 and charged with three counts of spousal rape, one count of false imprisonment and one count of domestic violence.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Twitter Tranny Advocate for “Women in Tech” Accused of Raping His Wife

By Daniel Greenfield

Excerpt: Dana Contreras, a man, married his wife Melissa in 2007. Then he had surgery to mutilate himself so that he could pretend to be a woman. Then despite not going to college, got a top job at Twitter where he became an advocate for transgender issues, but then things didn’t go so well.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Unelected Charters Will Allow Lifelong Community Education

[For those who don’t have time to read entire article, here are five important excerpts:]

(1) Regarding unelected community councils. It occurred to me recently that there is a very dangerous elephant hiding in a back room, that should be taken into consideration. This elephant has been relatively silent, waiting for Americans to welcome it into the unelected school governance agenda being carried out today. Its name is “Community Education.” Opposition to this lifelong communist form of education with its unelected council system has come from respected researchers, activists and elected school board members, resulting in the elephant being locked up in the back room for over seventy years.

The elephant in the room, community education, referred to above, is waiting for all traditional schools to be restructured as “community schools run by unelected councils.” This will happen if we allow the tax-funded school choice/charter school agenda to go forward. Charter schools with their unelected councils, answering to the corporate fascist entities listed in this paper, will, without voter approval, be able to restructure the traditional public school into the community school of the future, with its unelected council form of governance, described above. Enter the elephant into the room! I know from personal experience that elected public school officials have turned down this effort to transition to unelected community school governance for at least forty years.

My recent article included the text from “Education in the Future: 21st Century Schools Will Offer Learning for all Citizens” by Kent Tempus, April 22, 1989, published in The Muscatine [Iowa] Journal. Go to American Deception.com, type “Lepley” into search engine. This article covered a speech by William Lepley, Commissioner of Education, Iowa. One makes a huge mistake not taking Mr. Lepley’s comments seriously. In brief, he is calling for lifelong community education with all services controlled by the unelected school council. Such community education will include control over all aspects of our lives… lifelong: compulsory community service, health and mental health services, family planning, abortion, euthanasia (if allowed by Supreme Court), leisure, art, music, sports, taking grandma to see the leaves in the autumn, and, of course global workforce training and computerized assessment to assure not only adequate work force skills but approved global attitudes and values. All of the above will be managed by the unelected community council and the computerized data system for control of all humans lifelong, pre-birth through death.

Home schools are included in the plan and are connected by computer with the unelected council…

3. There was a time when Americans would understand (scream and yell about) the danger of accepting an unconstitutional proposal (tax-supported private education and charter schools with unelected boards), especially when they find out it is supported by the following pro-United Nations individuals and groups!!!

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Lithium: A Metal That Floats on Oil and Powers Our Phones

Lithium, a key ingredient in lightweight batteries, is already powering the modern world, and could be key to getting the world to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.

Go back to the 1980s, and lithium was one of the more obscure members of the periodic table, much as its next-door neighbour beryllium remains today.

That all began to change in 1991, when Sony launched the first ever portable gadget powered by a lithium-ion battery. Today, of course, the words “lithium” and “battery” are almost synonymous — this soft metal is in all our smartphones, tablets and laptops.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Searching High and Low for Dark Matter (Q+A)

In late February, on behalf of The Kavli Foundation, I attended an annual conference of dark matter hunters — men and women on a common quest to identify the unknown stuff that makes up more than a quarter of the universe.

At Dark Matter 2014, held at UCLA, more than 160 physicists from around the world discussed their latest findings and technologies, and they shared their hopes and frustrations in solving one of cosmology’s biggest mysteries.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The Spiritual Ascent

By Rebecca Bynum, Author of Allah is Dead, Why Islam is Not a Religion

Excerpt: Those who say, “I am saved and will never fear sin,” are deluding themselves and may fall into the trap of gradual justification of that which originates in their own hearts. Too often such men claim to be part of an elect few who can and do transgress the divine will, even flagrantly, in the name of God. Claiming to be of God’s chosen, Joseph Smith decided he would marry more than one woman, and that his followers could do likewise, sending the rights of Mormon women back thousands years. He let himself think that his will and God’s will were one and the same.

           — Hat tip: KP [Return to headlines]
 

Who Invented the Bicycle?

You might think that an invention as simple as the bicycle would have an uncomplicated past. But as it turns out, this highly popular invention has a history fraught with controversy and misinformation. While stories about who invented the bicycle often contradict one another, there’s one thing that’s certain — the very first bicycles were nothing like the ones you see cruising down the street today.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

4 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/12/2014

  1. ” Now that British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that his government will investigate the Muslim Brotherhood, … ”
    Cameron announced and gave the Muslim Brotherhood ample time to collect all the free goodies given to them by Clever smooth Cameron. They will be out of reach so he will announce victory because they left and there is no one there to investigate. What if investigation reveals something dangerous and he will be embarrassed to announce it. They will also be winners because they are welcomed in Austria with open bosoms, and why not, the beloved religion of future Europe. There must someone else to prove to the British they also love Muslims as much as Britain and France and Sweden and Norway, and even more. Britain you will regret all the enrichment oozed from Muslim Brotherhood. Austria will be the beneficiary. Reverse your decision Britain before it is too late. How on earth did you fail to win the hearts and minds of your beloved Muslim Brotherhood. Are they not your brothers? What a loss!

  2. There are enough muslim brotherhood front organisations in the UK already so that the “head office” in Cricklewood will not be missed. It remains to be seen whether there will be a reduction number of gang rapes, street robberies, beatings of white people, drug dealing, pimping of white schoolgirls or any other activity carried out by and in the name of the religion of peace. I suspect there will not be so that the migration of the muslim brotherhood will be symbolic rather than significant.

  3. Yeesh! No need to ‘investigate’ crimes that you can already prove via existing moles and ever-present surveillance.

    The Muslim Brotherhood already controls Washington DC. Now, it is time for the Muslim Brotherhood to set up shop in the unelected seat of power of the European Union – just in time for Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff’s trial.

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