The first anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing was remembered today in observances all over the United States. Americans were able to celebrate the fact that, despite the death and horror inflicted upon Boston by two immigrant terrorist jihadists, our country’s vibrant diversity remains as strong as ever.
In other news, Islamic terrorists from Boko Haram abducted more than a hundred schoolgirls in Nigeria.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Bank of Italy Expresses Doubts About Renzi’s Economic Plan
Central bank says cuts may not raise enough to reach goals
(ANSA) — Rome, April 15 — The Bank of Italy on Tuesday expressed doubts about the economic blueprint of Premier Matteo Renzi’s government during a session in the Lower House. “In 2015 the expenditure savings indicated as the maximum obtainable from the spending review would not be sufficient to cover the programme goals,” it said. Renzi’s cabinet approved the blueprint, the Economic and Financial Document, last week.
It includes ambitious plans for 10 billion euros in income-tax cuts targeting low-earners each year.
The government said around 4.5 billion euros of the 6.7 billion needed to finance those cuts this year will come from an ongoing review of public spending.
Renzi’s three-year blueprint foresees 26 billion euros in further public-spending cuts in 2015 and 2016. The Bank of Italy added that the target of raising the equivalent of 0.7% of Italy’s gross domestic product by selling off public assets, properties and stakes in State-controlled firms was “ambitious”.
Parliament is set to vote on the DEF Friday so it can be delivered to the European Commission before the end of the month.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
European Parliament Approves Banking Union Reforms
European legislators have voted in favor of the biggest overhaul of the bloc’s financial system since the euro currency was introduced. They supported measures aimed at minimizing the risks posed by failing banks.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italian 10-Year Bond Yield Drops to Euro-Era Low
BTPs at 3.11%, less than half of 7.17 peak in late 2011
(ANSA) — Rome, April 15 — The yield on Italian 10-year bonds fell to a low of 3.11% during trading Tuesday, levels not seen since the birth of the euro in 1999.
Analysts said that demand has been steadily rising for Italian paper, particularly since the European Central Bank President Mario Draghi pledged in mid-2012 to take whatever action was needed to protect the common currency, the euro.
The rising yield on the 10-year BTP helped to reduce its spread with the equivalent German Bund -usually judged by markets to be very safe — to 160 basis points.
That is well below the peak of almost 500 basis points for the spread reached in November 2011, when it appeared that Italy was teetering on the brink of a Greek-style financial meltdown.
The yield at that time on Italian BTP peaked at about 7.17%.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy’s Poor Forced to Live in Squats
Medina Mercedez lugs her possessions into the abandoned office space she now calls home, joining the growing ranks of Italy’s poor forced to live in squats amid social misery despite a tentative economic recovery.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
One in Four Children in Europe at Risk of Poverty
In Italy 33.8% of children are at risk, Save the Children says
(ANSA) — Rome, April 15 — Over one in four children in the European Union are at risk of poverty or social exclusion as a result of the economic crisis, Save the Children said in a report published Tuesday.
Between 2008 and 2012 the number of minors threatened by poverty across the 28-member union rose by one million to 27 million, or 28% of the total, the international children’s advocacy organisation said.
The number rose by 500,000 between 2011 and 2012 alone.
In Italy 33.8% of children were deemed at risk, compared to between 12% and 19% in northern European countries. In Greece, Hungary and Latvia the percentage of at-risk children ranged between 35% and 41%, while in Romania and Bulgaria it rose to 52%.
The report, commissioned in view of European parliamentary elections on May 25, blamed the economic crisis and poor distribution of resources for the rise in child poverty.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
One in Three Spanish Kids ‘At Risk of Poverty’
The charity Save the Children launched a petition on Tuesday urging Spain to do more for deprived children in the crisis-hit country, where one in three minors lives at risk of poverty.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: 36.3%: Andalusia Has EU’s Highest Jobless Rate
Some 36.3 percent of people are out of work in Spain’s Andalusia’s region: that’s the most in Europe and 14 times higher than in Germany’s Upper Bavaria, which has the lowest jobless rate in the EU, figures released on Tuesday show.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
This Chart Shows US How Bad the Economy Really is: “Flashing Red Warning”
Most people, when you ask them how the economy is doing, will point to the Dow Jones, NASDAQ and S&P 500 as evidence of a healthy recovery.
What the majority of those people fail to look at is the underlying valuations for the stocks within those indexes.
If you are an investor and hold stocks, or are thinking about jumping in because this latest “correction” is about to take a turn for the better, we direct your attention to this absolutely critical piece of information regarding price-per-earnings from Karl Denninger of Market Ticker:
“A bit of perspective is in order here. The number of stocks that have been trading on nothing more than QE-addled leverage, with nosebleed territory P/Es including Facebook (96), Amazon (537!), Netflix (180), LinkedIn (762), Salesforce (Negative P/E) and Twitter (ditto; -$3.41 EPS.)
“Yeah, but the market is “cheap”, right? Sure it is with all these big-cap techs trading at prices like this…
“There is only one reason to buy such a stock — you’re convinced that some other sucker will pay you an even greater multiple to sales (say much less earnings) than you paid.
“That the air will eventually come out of such a market is inevitable.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
We’re Being Pushed Into Crisis, Says Russian Premier
(AGI) Moscow, April 15 — The Russian economy continues to deteriorate but the difficulties “are tied to attempts of certain forces to push us into an artificial crisis”, Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev told finance officials in Moscow. He asked them not to underestimate the political component of the economic crisis, reported Ria Novosti news agency. Preliminary estimates for the first quarter of the year showed growth in Russia’s GDP has fallen to 1 percent, he said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Young Spaniards Scrape by in Ruthless London
More and more young Spaniards, forced to leave home by crippling unemployment, are attracted to London by the prospect of work and the chance to learn English — but often run into a fresh set of problems.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Today marked the first commemoration of the Boston Marathon Bombing that occurred at the Boylston Street finish line on April 15, 2013 in two devastating explosions at 2:49 PM triggered by homemade pressure cookers bombs packed with lethal shrapnel. The nation was riveted for five days by the pursuant of refugee Jihadists of Chechen origin, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarneav who planned and perpetrated the bombing. The elder Tamerlan dies in a hail of bullets, while his younger sibling Dzhokhar was captured cowering in a boat in the backyard of a Watertown neighborhood. Dzhokhar’s trial is scheduled in a Boston Federal Court in November 2014. The Federal prosecutors are seeking a death penalty for his actions.
President Obama observed the Bombing in a private moment of silence. Vice President Biden journeyed to Boston to join in a memorial with Mayor Marty Walsh, former Mayor Thomas Menino, Massachusetts Governor Derval Patrick first responders and four survivors at a series of scheduled events at the Hynes Convention Center.
Biden commended these survivors for their “pure courage”. Further he said, “You have become the face of America’s resolve.” He completed his speech saying, “We are Boston. We are America. We respond, we endure, we overcome, and we own the finish line.”
Governor Patrick reflecting the Hub City’s community spirit said, “We are no strangers here.”
These remarks at today’s commemoration and memorial bolstered the imagery of Boston Strong defiant, yet grieving over the losses in both human and spiritual terms. There is an exhibit at the Boston Public Library at the head of the Copley Square with a selection drawn from the City of Boston Archives of the global outpouring of sympathies. There were blessings for runners who have signed up for the 2014 Marathon, re- scheduled for April 21st, who will run in the name of those killed and injured, many maimed for life with missing limbs. There will be panel discussions of the resilience of the Boston community and books to be published on the occasion of this commemoration.
Governor Patrick has contended that security planning for this year’s Boston Marathon is has been “very thorough”, preparing for the legendary race’s 26 mile plus route from suburban Hopkington,Massachusetts to the finish line in Copley Square.
The devastation is reflected in the opening stanzas of our article on this tragic event in the May 2013 edition of the New English Review, Refugee Jihad Terror in Boston:…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Boston Marks Anniversary of Marathon Bombings
Boston has paid tribute to the victims and survivors of last year’s marathon bombings. The anniversary began with a wreath-laying ceremony at the site of the attack that killed three people and injured more than 260.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Bundy Ranch and the New Rules of Engagement: Send This Analysis to Your Favorite Fed
(NaturalNews) In the aftermath of round one of the Bundy Ranch armed siege by the U.S. government, I have decided to offer the federal government an intelligent analysis of the new rules of engagement. People like Daniel P. Love, Special Agent in Charge of BLM Region 3, desperately need to review and learn these rules. Other federal agents also need to understand the tectonic shift of power that has just taken place and how it will impact their operations from here forward.
Why am I doing this? Because the BLM, through its astounding incompetence and arrogance, very nearly initiated a massacre at Bundy Ranch which would have been disastrous for the BLM agents actively engaged there. The incident very nearly came to a shooting war, and it is the outdated, ill-informed government playbook that inflamed the situation and brought it to a flashpoint of violence. At every step, BLM escalated the situation beyond reason: who brings snipers to a tortoise dispute? Who unleashes attack dogs on unarmed pregnant women and cancer survivors? The BLM, that’s who!
I know there remain many good agents in many different departments of the federal government. But there are also many incompetent agents who are still living in the 1990’s and think they can run an armed ranch siege in 2014 the same way the ATF ran the Waco, Texas siege in 1993. But the rules have changed. As proof of that, consider the now-historical fact that BLM agents publicly surrendered and retreated from hundreds of armed citizens near Bunkerville, Nevada. How did this happen, exactly? To understand that, you must understand the new rules of engagement between the feds, the media and the citizens.
So if you have any friends who are feds in any department — BLM, ATF, DEA, FBI, etc. — make sure they get a copy of this article… and we all might spare ourselves some bloodshed in the near future.
Personal context: As far as my own background, I am a long-time supporter of local law enforcement, a fan of certain individuals within the FBI who are still part of “the good guys” pulling for America, and an outspoken critic of overzealous abuse of power in any agency, including the ATF, DEA and of course the BLM. My personal beliefs on current events can best be summarized by the words of Judge Andrew Napolitano in this video interview.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Carson: White House Wanted Me to Apologize for ‘Offending’ Obama
Conservative sage Dr. Ben Carson is claiming the White House was offended by his now-famous keynote address at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast and asked at the time for an apology call to President Obama — which he didn’t make. The anecdote is found in Carson’s upcoming book “One Nation: What We Can All Do to Save America’s Future.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Census Survey Changes Will Prevent Analysis of ObamaCare Effects
The Census Bureau will make significant changes to its annual survey that will make it difficult to measure Obamacare’s effects, The New York Times reports.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Con-Con — Throwing the Baby Out With the Bath Water
For the purpose of this article the Baby is the Constitution and the Bath Water (which is usually pretty dirty) is the ConCon, Convention of the States or whatever name you want to give it. I have written about my feeling on this several times before and now I’m angry.
We have hard hitting Americans who influence the people of this country pushing for this monster — Mark Levin, George Soros, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, David Barton, Michael Farris, Mark Meckler and others and THEN we have organizations that are portraying themselves as Constitutional supportive Americans that are also supporting a ConCon. All of these people have an AGENDA as to why they want YOU to BELIEVE this is the thing to do.
To begin with, all these hard hitters in support of the ConCon might do well to actually learn what the Constitution says especially those like Michael Farris who calls himself a Constitutional lawyer. I would remind the readers so does Obama!
Have they ever told you there is a NEW Constitution sitting on the sidelines for them to vote on if they choose to? Have they told you that behind closed doors some of them refer to our country as a Democracy and not a Republic? The president and legislators may be acting like we are a democracy — even stating so, however according to the Constitution of the United States we are still a REPUBLIC and there is an order of the way things should be done. To call some of these people liars is a gentle word.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Desert Tortoise Greatly Benefits From Bundy’s Cattle Grazing
The Bureau of Land Management’s ongoing dispute with cattle rancher Cliven Bundy has supposedly been waged over unpaid grazing fees. Bundy’s cattle is said to have grazed in protected areas regulated to preserve endangered species, chiefly the desert tortoise.
Desert tortoise populations thrive in uncontrolled grazing areas. Later we learned the BLM had actually been euthanizing scores of endangered tortoises, as well as releasing some into the wild, in advance of closing the doors to the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center, which they claim lacked funding.
Since the start of the conflict, Bundy has asserted that the cattle he grazes actually benefit the desert tortoise population. “I’ll never get it. If it weren’t for our cattle, there’d be more brush fires out here. The tortoises eat the cow manure, too. It’s filled with protein,” Bundy stated.
It turns out, he’s right, according to one range expert:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
FBI Failed to Throughly Vet Boston Bombing Suspect After Russian Lead, Report Finds
Two years before the Boston Marathon bombings, the FBI failed to vet thoroughly information from Russian officials that one of the bombing suspects might have a link to terrorism, according to a recent Justice Department inspector general’s report.
Russian intelligence officials told the FBI in 2011 that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had become radicalized and expressed concern that he might return to Russia and join extremist groups there. The Russians also wrote that Tsarnaev hoped to travel to Palestinian territories and wage jihad but didn’t go because he couldn’t speak Arabic.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Feds Desperate to Hide Harry Reid Link to Bundy Land Grab
The feds are so desperate to hide Harry Reid’s connection to a Communist Chinese energy company linked to the Cliven Bundy land grab, they are now even deleting Google’s cached version of an explosive document originally deleted from the BLM website.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Flash Points of Tyranny: It Doesn’t End With the Bundy Standoff
To the discerning eye they are everywhere; Flashpoints of tyranny threatening to push the nation into open revolt. The standoff between the Bundy ranch and the BLM feds is a visceral example of growing discontent over an expanding federal government.
These abuses have occurred over many decades, with a focused intent. Centralization of power and a steady erosion of personal wealth and liberty have been the result. As these abuses and usurpations continue, Americans will face a choice between submitting or standing firm like the Bundy family did.
The tax foundation recently reported that Americans pay more in taxes than they do for food and housing expenses combined. Adding insult to injury, the IRS has been caught in open political persecution of Tea party organizations opposed to big government.
The average American citizen is more than $70,000 in debt. Now the IRS is seizing tax refunds of individuals who’s parents had outstanding debt.
President Obama, since taking office in 2009, has proposed 442 new taxes. Obamacare, with all of its penalties, is effectively another tax. Small business owners on average now lose about a week of business preparing taxes.
Meanwhile, wealthy elites like the Rockefeller Family and Bill Gates are able to hide their wealth in tax exempt foundations, which are in turn used to shape the cultural, political and financial spheres of our world.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
GMOs: Unleashing Frankenstein on the Natural World
Investigative reporter Jeremy Siefert said, “When people first hear about just the basic facts concerning Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs or Genetically Engineered Foods) — the DNA of seeds altered with genes from other organisms like bacteria so food crops can withstand herbicides that will kill all other plants, patented by giant chemical companies and found in 80% of processed foods — the standard response is “Oh, my God.” For some, it’s just an exclamation, but for others, it’s the beginnings of a prayer. There’s a mixture of horror and disbelief, as if finding out we’re living inside a very strange sci-fi novel. Beyond that, it’s the sting of humiliation from being ignorant about something so big, mixed with the anger that comes from feeling like you’ve been duped.
“Even without understanding what a GMO is or why it matters, most of us believe as citizens of a supposedly free and democratic society that we have the right to know if GMOs are in the food we eat. The fact we don’t know, and that our right to know has been taken away by corporate greed and government collusion, should upset and mobilize people. When all the food and seed and water and air is owned and patented by giant multinational corporations, will we even protest? Do we have the wakefulness and willpower to take that first step and stand up for this basic right?” (Source: www.fairworldproject.org)
What I discovered in my research: ADM and Monsanto do not want you to know, along with high government officials, the deleterious effects on the Natural World that GMO food production causes in the long run.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
I Just Returned From Bunkerville
On my way back at noon today (Monday), I observed fourteen LV Metro Police units leaving the Bunkerville area and traveling toward Las Vegas.
LVMPD officers were in Bunkerville to prevent violence. They are no longer there. This may possibly leave the Bundy family in a vulnerable position.
I also observed two BLM dump trucks with several white SUV’s blocking access to the part of the I -15 overpass at the Bunkerville/Riverside exit near the Bundy Ranch.
There is no logical reason the BLM is still in the Bunkerville area!
I cannot help but fear that a small contingent of heavily armed BLM operatives could possibly block the one road leading to the Bundy Ranch, thereby stopping those who would respond to an alert from the family.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Is Barack Obama ‘Black’? a Majority of Americans Say No.
President Obama made history in 2008 as the first African American president in U.S. history. But according to data in a fascinating new Pew Research Center study, a majority of Americans describe the president as “mixed race,” while just more than a quarter (27 percent) call him “black.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
NASA Signs Over Historic Apollo-Era Launch Pad to SpaceX
One of NASA’s most historic launch pads is now under new management.
Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida is now under the direction of SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies), the private spaceflight company headed by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. The launch pad, which was the site where Apollo 11 lifted off on the first manned moon landing in July 1969, will now support the company’s rockets and spacecraft as they depart for Earth orbit, and possibly destinations beyond.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New York Police Unit That Spied on Muslims is Disbanded
The New York Police Department has abandoned a secretive program that dispatched plainclothes detectives into Muslim neighborhoods to eavesdrop on conversations and built detailed files on where people ate, prayed and shopped, the department said.
The decision by the nation’s largest police force to shutter the surveillance program represents the first sign that William J. Bratton, the department’s new commissioner, is backing away from some of the post-9/11 intelligence-gathering practices of his predecessor. The move comes as the federal government reconsiders and re-evaluates some of its post-9/11 policies, including the National Security Agency’s bulk data collection.
| [Return to headlines] |
by Mark Steyn
As is now traditional in these stories, we’re now being told that the Brothers Tsarnaev are merely the latest card-carrying members of Local 473 of the Amalgamated Union of Lone Wolves. No broader pattern can be discerned, or should be discerned. All jihad is local. Nobody could have seen this coming:
Boston bombing suspects Tamerlan, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev appeared to lead normal lives
If by “normal lives”, you mean reported to the US Government by a major foreign power as possible terrorists, interviewed by the FBI, had your citizenship application put on hold, and cheerily posting a series of videos to YouTube as part of your “Terrorists” playlist. No doubt millions of people in America lead lives that “normal”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
NYPD Ends Muslim Surveillance Program
The New York Police Department said Tuesday it has disbanded a special unit whose efforts to try to detect terror threats in Muslim communities through secret surveillance sparked outrage.
The surveillance program by the NYPD Intelligence Division had come under fire by community activists who accused the department of abusing civil rights.
In a series of articles that began in August 2011, the AP documented that police had systematically spied on Muslim neighborhoods, listened in on sermons, infiltrated colleges and photographed law-abiding residents as part of a broad effort to watch communities where terror cells might operate. Individuals and groups were monitored even when there was no evidence they were linked to terrorism or crime.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Taps Woman Who Denied Access to War Vets From Memorial for ObamaCare
It seems that the woman who denied war vets access to their Memorial is the same one who will get to deny them their health care.
But don’t worry the mainstream media reminds us Sylvia has a smiling face.
Health and Human Services director Kathleen Sebelius replacement Sylvia Mathews Burwell, handpicked by Barack Obama on March 4, 2013 as new director of the Office Management and Budget, is coming to the HHS portfolio under a stench.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Quantum Supergravity Could Explain Weirdness of Black Holes
Zvi Bern is riding a winning streak more befitting a poker shark in Vegas than a theoretical particle physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is famous in his field for betting colleagues that he can calculate with increasing precision the behavior of gravitons, hypothetical particles that are believed to impart the force of gravity. At stake in each wager is a fine bottle of wine. Against all odds, Bern’s wine collection is growing.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ron Paul Warns Feds Could Launch Waco-Style Assault Against Bundy
Ron Paul appeared on Fox News with Neil Cavuto last night to warn that the federal government could be planning to launch a Waco-style assault against Nevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy.
Expressing hope that last week’s events, during which Bundy supporters faced down armed BLM agents and forced them to release Bundy’s cattle, represented a new benchmark for Americans standing up against federal government intrusion, the former Congressman suggested that it would be naive to think that the feds have thrown in the towel.
“They may come back with a lot more force like they did at Waco with the Davidians,” said Paul, adding that he hoped the situation remained non-violent.
Host Neil Cavuto remarked that the potential for violence across the United States was on a “very slight trigger,” to which Paul responded, “That’s the great fear…especially if the financial crisis gets much worse which I anticipate.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sheriff: Feds Strategize for ‘Raid’ On Ranch
Warning follows threat from Harry Reid that grazing dispute ‘not over’
Mack, a longtime sheriff, told WND that Reid’s statements are beyond the pale.
“That kind of stupidity, where he puts federal regulations and policies of bureaucrats ahead of a family in his state that has done no wrong or committed a crime,” Mack said.
He charged that it is Reid who is destroying his own state’s ranching industry as well as the U.S. Constitution. The sheriff chided the senator for making statements about abiding by laws.
“Isn’t that amazing? The biggest crook in Washington,” Mack said.
On the issue of a raid, he said: “That’s what we have heard. It’s not confirmed. People we had on the inside told us the BLM still is considering raiding the Bundy ranch. We’re going to keep in touch with them, protect them, pray for them.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Supposedly Hormone-Free Commercial Milk Found to be Full of ‘Girlie Hormones’ Says Mother Jones
(NaturalNews) You’ve probably seen it on milk cartons, yogurt containers and cheese packaging if you live in the U.S. — that little asterisk followed by a claim that the milk used in the product does not contain rBST, rBGH or other artificial growth hormones. But a series of studies conducted by researchers at Harvard University has revealed that, despite this claim, many commercial dairy products still contain high levels of growth hormones, particularly the feminizing hormone estrogen.
While most rBST- and rBGH-free dairy products likely do not contain these added hormones, the fact of the matter is that modern dairy production methods, particularly those now used in the U.S., cause more hormones than normal to be present in milk. The reason for this, according to Ganmaa Davaasambuu, a physician and scientist from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), is that many commercial dairy herds are milked excessively as well as during pregnancy, both of which result in higher-than-normal hormone levels in the finished product.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Testimony Put Off as Judge in 9/11 Case at Guantanamo Looks Into FBI Leak Probe
An apparent FBI investigation has at least temporarily shut down the effort to try five Guantanamo Bay prisoners by military commission for the Sept. 11 terror attack.
The U.S. government brought about 200 people to the U.S. base in Cuba for a hearing into whether one defendant is mentally competent to stand trial in the death penalty case.
But that plan has been dashed by the revelation that the FBI is investigating how the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attack was able to send two letters and an essay out of the prison without passing through a security review.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Beat Goes on: Opposing Obama is Racist
Alas, another reporter asked me the same question I have been repeatedly asked for the past five years. “As an African American, why are you a member of the Tea Party?” It dawned on me to ask the reporter, “If you are a thinking patriotic American, why are you NOT a member of the Tea Party?”
It is stunning that reporters can not see the absurdity and racism against white voters in their assumption that Tea Party membership (push back against Obama’s agenda) equals racism.
For the first time in U.S. history are Americans required to submit to their president’s agenda or suffer the mainstream media and Democratic party branding an “R” on their forehead for racist? Does our president’s skin color repeal our right to disagree with government?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In a stunning admission, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy revealed to House Science, Space and Technology Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) that the agency neither possesses, nor can produce, all of the scientific data used to justify the rules and regulations they have imposed on Americans via the Clean Air Act. In short, science has been trumped by the radical environmentalist agenda.
The admission follows the issuance of a subpoena by the full Committee last August. It was engendered by two years of EPA stonewalling, apparently aimed at preventing the raw data cited by EPA as the scientific foundation for those rules and regulations from being independently verified. Two studies, the 1993 Harvard Six Cities Study (HSC) and the American Cancer Society’s (ACS) 1995 Cancer Prevention Study II, had verified that fine airborne particles measuring 2.5 micrograms or less were responsible for killing thousands of Americans every year. They became the baseline by which the EPA regulated particulate emissions from power plants, factories and cars. Airborne particles of that size are equivalent to approximately 1/30th the diameter of a human hair.
Apparently Smith and other Republicans had an inkling of what was going on at the EPA last November. At that time, Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) introduced the Secret Science Reform Act aimed at barring the agency from proposing new regulations based on science that was neither transparent nor reproducible. “Public policy should come from public data, not based on the whims of far-left environmental groups,” Schweikert said in a statement. “For far too long, the EPA has approved regulations that have placed a crippling financial burden on economic growth in this country with no public evidence to justify their actions.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Roots of CAIR’s Intimidation Campaign
Brandeis sides with a spawn of Hamas over a champion of women’s rights.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
This week, capitulating to Islamic-supremacist agitation led by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Brandeis University reneged on its announced plan to present an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the heroic human-rights activist.
In my 2010 book, The Grand Jihad, I devoted a chapter to the origins and purposes of CAIR, its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood’s Hamas-support network, and its aim to silence critics of Islamic supremacism. In light of the continuing success of this campaign — despite a federal terrorism-financing prosecution that exposed CAIR’s unsavory background — it is worth revisiting that history. What follows is an adapted excerpt from that chapter.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Right Wing Extremists More Deadly Than Jihadists
By Peter Bergen and David Sterman
Today in the United States, al Qaeda-type terrorism is the province of individuals with no real connection to foreign terrorists, aside from reading their propaganda online. Given this, it becomes harder to explain, in terms of American national security, why violence by homegrown right wing extremists receives substantially less attention than does violence by homegrown jihadist militants.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Washington State School District Sets Up ‘Homeland Security Class’
Agency that lists military veterans as number one terror threat setting up school curriculum
The Department of Homeland Security is partnering with a Washington state school district to recruit future employees through a new high school curriculum.
An employment application posted by Evergreen Public Schools this weekend requests a certified “Homeland Security Instructor” to steer young students into a career with the agency…
Given the fact that former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano labeled returning military veterans as the number one terror threat in 2009, will students be shown the New York Times report where the agency trained Boy Scout Explorers to kill “disgruntled Iraq war veterans?”
Multiple DHS-funded drills throughout the country have also portrayed children and parents outside of the public school system as terrorists. In 2004, Michigan police apologized to families after carrying out a drill that consisted of homeschoolers carrying out a terrorist attack on a public school bus.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Who’s Watching Me? Police Took Photos of My License Plates
As a part of my series on the use of automatic license plate readers in Virginia, I wanted to find out what kind of information local police might have. By law, the only information I’m privileged to is my own.
Last week I filed a public records request with the Alexandria Police Department. I’ve lived in the lovely city of Alexandria for just two years, and my driving record — aside from the occasional parking ticket — is virtually spotless.
What I found, however, left me riveted.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
British Political Establishment Braces for Impact in Upcoming Euro Elections
Britain’s ‘big three’ political parties don’t just look over their shoulder at the upstart UK Independence Party anymore, often times they now look up ahead at them. And with Euro elections (UKIP’s strong point) approaching in May for the first time there seems to be real concern amongst political and media elites that a permanent shift is taking place.
Mahatma Gandhi once said “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.” UKIP has completed the first two of Gandhi’s four stages and they are now approaching stage three — a fight where the challenger is given equal credibility going in.
A combination of the two most recent polls shows Labour winning the elections next month with 35.5% while the Conservatives garner 29.5%. UKIP looks solid in third place at 19%. But ‘the polling factor’ remains to be answered. How accurate is the methodology and how honest are the answers?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Low-Carb Diets Causing Food-Phobic Kids
Diets low in fat, carbohydrates and sugar have become more and more popular for people who want to live healthily and lose weight, but the trend may be dangerous for children.
Experts from the national association against eating disorders, LMS, warn that a growing number of children, primarily girls aged 8-10, are malnourished due to strict bans in their homes against certain foods.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Exclusive: When Cameron Took the Muslim Brotherhood to Lunch
A warm welcome British Prime Minister David Cameron extended at a private lunch to a Muslim Brotherhood spokesman contrasts sharply with an inquiry his government has launched into its activities.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Faroe Islands to Get Two New Underwater Tunnels
The parliament of the Faroe Islands has decided to spend 1.9 billion kroner on building two underwater tunnels that will link the archipelago’s largest islands in 2024, Ingeniøren reports. Creating the tunnels will be the largest public construction project ever undertaken on the Faroe Islands.
Streymoy is home to the capital, Tórshavn, and is the largest and most populous island of the Faroe Islands.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Former Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi Ordered to Do Community Service
An Italian court has ordered former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to do a year of community service after he was found guilty of tax fraud. The 77-year-old has been spared going to prison due to his advanced age.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Sars Research Lab Loses 2,000 Tubes of Killer Virus
By Umberto Bacchi
The Pasteur Institute in Paris reported it lost 2,349 tubes containing Sars virusReutersA prestigious research institute in France said it had lost thousands of tubes of samples of the deadly Sars coronavirus.
A routine inventory check at Paris’ Pasteur Institute revealed that 2,349 tubes containing fragments of the virus responsible for the deaths of 774 people in 2002 were missing, the centre named after French chemist Louis Pasteur said.
The institute was quick to reassure the public and said that the contents of the missing vials had no infectious potential. They contained only part of the virus and had no ability to spread.
“Independent experts referred by health authorities have qualified such potential as ‘non-existing’ according to the available evidence and literature on the survival of the Sars virus,” the institute said.
In 2002 more than 8,000 people were infected by a pandemic of Sars — severe acute respiratory syndrome. The virus spread from China through Hong Kong and on to other countries before it was eventually brought under control.
It is not clear how the tubes disappeared from one of the institute’s safest laboratories. Management were made aware of the loss in January, Le Monde newspaper reported.
For weeks, staff at the institute tried to find the missing vials, general director Christian Bréchot said.
“We’ve looked for those boxes [containing the tubes] everywhere,” Bréchot explained.
“We went thought the lists of all the people who have worked here in the past year and a half, including trainees. We have scrutinised their profile to check if there was any conflict.”
Bréchot said that foul play was “highly improbable” but had not been ruled out.
The tubes were stored in a high-security laboratory dedicated to research into highly infective viruses.
Access to the lab is limited to a restricted number of personnel, who have to go through a disinfection process before they can leave.
Bréchot suggested that the tubes, which were moved from one freezer to another in March 2013, might have been destroyed by a member of staff who forgot to record the procedure…
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
France: Thousands March in Paris Against ‘Right-Wing’ Hollande
Far-left political parties and unions took to the streets of Paris Saturday to protest austerity measures by President François Hollande, who has seen his approval rating sink to a new low.
Tens of thousands of people marched through the French capital shouting slogans aimed at Hollande’s government and brandishing signs with slogans such as “When you are leftist you support workers”.
French police said that about 25,000 joined the protest, while the French Communist Party estimated the turnout at 100,000. A parallel, but smaller march was held in the southern city of Marseille.
Hollande, a Socialist, is struggling to turn around a weak French economy, and hard-left parties have urged him to abandon his business friendly reforms and public sector deficit targets set by the European Union.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Paris Cops Told to ‘Purge’ Roma From Posh Area
Police in Paris’s posh 6th arrondissement have been ordered to count up Roma people and “systematically purge” them from the area, according to media reports on Tuesday. The local mayor appears to at the source of the instruction.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Sars Research Lab Loses 2,000 Tubes of Killer Virus
A prestigious research institute in France said it had lost thousands of tubes of samples of the deadly Sars coronavirus.
A routine inventory check at Paris’ Pasteur Institute revealed that 2,349 tubes containing fragments of the virus responsible for the deaths of 774 people in 2002 were missing, the centre named after French chemist Louis Pasteur said.
The institute was quick to reassure the public and said that the contents of the missing vials had no infectious potential. They contained only part of the virus and had no ability to spread.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
French Scientists: We’ve Lost Sars Virus Vials
A routine inventory at the prestigious French research body Institut Pasteur in Paris revealed it has lost some 2,300 tubes containing samples of the potentially deadly SARS virus.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Independent Catalonia Can Stay in EU: Report
A “pragmatic” European Union is unlikely to eject Catalonia if it votes to part ways with the rest of Spain: that’s the argument put forward in a new report by a team of pro-independence advisers to the region’s government.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: House Speaker Declares 2012 Income of Just 6,314 Euros
Boldrini’s 94,304 euros from UNHCR not taxable
(ANSA) — Rome, April 14 — Italian Lower House Speaker Laura Boldrini declared a taxable income of just 6,314 euros in 2012, according to the Senator asset registry of Italy’s current legislature, made public on Monday. But in an attached declaration, said she received 94,304.63 euros in tax-exempt income from the United Nations for her former job as spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Boldrini’s declaration specified that she had received US $121,340.61.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Ghanaian Pickaxe Murderer Sentenced to 20 Years
Kabobo deemed ‘semi-infirm’ at time of May 2013 rampage
(ANSA) — Milan, April 15 — A Ghanaian migrant who attacked and killed three passers-by with a pickaxe in Milan on May 11, 2013, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Tuesday following a fast-track trial in which he was deemed to be mentally semi-infirm.
Mada ‘Adam’ Kabobo was judged fit to stand trial last October despite suffering from “schizophrenic psychosis” after he killed pensioner Ermanno Masini, 64, unemployed 40-year-old Alessandro Carole’ and 21-year-old Daniele Carella in the early morning rampage. Kabobo’s ability to control his actions was “greatly diminished but not totally absent” and he was sufficiently “able to understand” what he was doing to face murder charges, psychiatrists said at the time.
Two other people were injured in Kabobo’s hour-long string of attacks before he was stopped by police.
On Tuesday preliminary hearings judge Manuela Scudieri also sentenced Kabobo to three years in a care and surveillance centre after prison and ordered compensation for the victims’ families. Kabobo’s defense lawyers, who had requested his acquittal on grounds of total infirmity, said they would appeal against the sentence. They have already lodged a petition with the supreme Court of Cassation for the Ghanaian to be transferred to a judicial psychiatric hospital in order to receive more appropriate care. Andrea Masini, son of the victim Ermanno Masini, described Tuesday’s sentence as “insufficient”.
Meanwhile, relatives of the victims were expected to sue the interior ministry for compensation on grounds Kabobo, who came to Italy illegally in 2011 and was later served an expulsion order, does not officially own anything.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Steel Queen Closes Plant After ENI Appointment
Marcegaglia workers protest at Milan tech unit move
(ANSA) — Milan, April 15 — Italy’s steel queen and former employers’ chief Emma Marcegaglia marked her first day as new president of fuels group ENI by closing a technology unit’s plant in Milan.
The Marcegaglia group said Marcegaglia BuildTech’s 169 workers would be moved to a different factory at Pozzolo Formigaro near Alessandria. Unions immediately called a work to rule, fearing job cuts despite company reassurances.
Emma Marcegaglia, former head of industrial employers’ federation Confindustria, was named Monday as one of three new women chiefs of State-controlled giants in an unprecedented move by Premier Matteo Renzi.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: UGL Trade Union Leader Implicated in Embezzlement Probe
Giovanni Centrella suspected of siphoning off 500,000 euros
(ANSA) — Rome, April 15 — Finance police searched the Rome headquarters of Italy’s General Labour Union (UGL) on Tuesday as part of an embezzlement probe involving Secretary-General Giovanni Centrella and his coordinator Laura De Rosa.
Centrella, his wife Patrizia Lepore and De Rosa are accused of criminal association for aggravated misappropriation in relation to the alleged embezzlement of around half a million euros from UGL coffers.
Starting in 2010, the money was allegedly siphoned off from the trade union through a combination of bank transfers, cash withdrawals and cash-card top-ups, ending up on bank accounts linked to Centrella and his spouse. Investigators are also probing allegedly ‘anomalous’ expenses. The private homes of Centrella and De Rosa were also searched.
UGL is one of the smaller trade union centres in Italy and has historic ties with the political right.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Benevento Prefect Arrested on Suspicion of Corruption
‘Took kickbacks for declaring companies mafia-free’
(ANSA) — Naples, April 15 — The prefect of the southern city of Benevento, Ennio Blasco, was placed under house arrest Tuesday on suspicion of corruption in relation to anti-mafia certificates issued between 2009 and 2011 during a previous posting. Blasco is alleged to have taken kickbacks including jewellery, paid holidays, a chauffeured vehicle and money to cover laundry expenses in exchange for facilitating the issuing of certificates of non-involvement in mafia activities for private security companies owned by brothers Carmine, Carlo and Antonio Buglione from Nola near Naples during his tenure as prefect of Avellino. Carmine and Carlo Buglione were also placed under house arrest Tuesday along with Carlo’s brother-in-law Erasmo Caliendo, who investigators say had close links with the prefect.
Antonio Buglione, who was taken hostage by Sardinian kidnappers in 2010 and subsequently released, was placed under investigation in connection with the probe.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Renzi Appoints Women to Chairs of ENI, Enel, Poste
Marcegaglia, Grieco and Todini to head State-controlled firms
(ANSA) — Rome, April 15 — Premier Matteo Renzi appointed women to the chairmanship of three major State-controlled companies on Monday in a top management shakeup aimed at breathing new life into some of Italy’s biggest firms. Former industrial employers’ association Confindustria president Emma Marcegaglia was appointed to the chairmanship of oil and gas company Eni; tech firm Olivetti president Patrizia Grieco to the chairmanship of electricity provider Enel; and State broadcaster RAI board member Luisa Todini to the chairmanship of Poste Italiane Spa. They will be working alongside Claudio Descalzi, Francesco Starace and Francesco Caio, appointed CEO of Eni, Enel and Poste respectively.
Italian railway company Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) CEO Mauro Moretti was moved to aerospace and defence giant Finmeccanica, where he will hold the same position under the unaltered chairmanship of Gianni De Gennaro.
The government was expected to announce new appointments for FS and electricity transmission-system operator Terna shortly.
The appointment of women presidents to three of Italy’s main State-controlled companies is part of a push by the Renzi government to increase the number of women holding top positions in the public sphere. Eight out of 16 cabinet ministers are women, while last week the centre-left premier nominated women to head his Democratic Party’s electoral lists in European parliamentary elections on May 25. Marcegaglia, Grieco and Todini are expected to receive no more than 238,000 euros gross per year in line with a pledge by Renzi to cap the salaries of all public-sector managers at or below the quarter of a million euros Italian President Giorgio Napolitano gets as part of efforts to forge a leaner and more efficient State.
Some of the fattest cats in Italy’s bloated public sector currently earn three or four times what the head of State is paid.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Redundant Fiat Worker to Run in Tsipras List
(AGI) Naples, April 15 — After running with former anti-mafia prosecutor Antonio Ingroia, a redundant Fiat worker, Antonio Di Luca, will be on Italy’s Tsipras list — officially ‘The Other Europe with Tsipras’ — for the European elections. “It is an anti-capitalist slate which started with the workers’ struggles, and I am the only worker in the southern constituency,” said Mr De Luca, one of the 19 Fiom union members from Fiat’s Pomigliano plant. The left-wing electoral list collected 35,000 signatures in Campania and was submitted to a court in Naples on Tuesday morning.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Oil Drilling May Have Triggered Deadly Quakes
Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region on Tuesday suspended new drilling as it published a report that warned that hydrocarbon exploitation may have acted as a “trigger” in twin earthquakes that killed 26 people in 2012.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi Sentenced to Community Service for Tax Fraud
An Italian court on Tuesday ordered former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to do a year of community service following his conviction for tax fraud.
The former premier, who was convicted in 2012 in connection with TV rights bought in the 1990s by his Mediaset media empire, will spend at least one day a week helping at a centre for the elderly.
Italian media reported last week that Berlusconi’s lawyers had asked for him to be sentenced to community service helping care for disabled and elderly people near his estate outside Milan.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Jews Should ‘Change Stupid, Ignorant Spokesman’
Grillo claims ‘no intent to offend’ with Levi, Auschwitz parody
(ANSA) — Rome, April 15 — Italy’s Jewish community should “change its stupid and ignorant” spokesman after it condemned Beppe Grillo’s latest tirade because of its play on the title of Holocaust survivor Primo Levi’s most famous book, If This Is A Man, the anti-establishment comedian-turned-politician said Tuesday.
Grillo, leader of the opposition 5-Star Movement (M5S), stressed that his use of the line “If This Is A Country” to attack Premier Matteo Renzi and President Giorgio Napolitano, as well as an accompanying doctored photo of Auschwitz with the infamous sign changed from Arbeit Macht Frei to “(outlawed Masonic lodge) P2 Macht Frei”, had been “misunderstood”.
“There was no intent to offend” in his blog post, which raised hackles in the Jewish community and was widely criticised in the media, said the leader of M5S, which won a shock 25% in the general election a year ago. “The Jewish community should change its stupid and ignorant communicator,” said Grillo, who boycotts the media and communicates with his movement via the Web and through foul-mouthed rally rants, periodically expelling members who disagree with him.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lily-White Workers Wanted, Says Dutch Cleaning Company
The company’s ‘whites only’ Facebook ad made headlines this week in the Netherlands, which has seen a rise in overt racism and xenophobia in recent years.
The owner of a Dutch cleaning company has been splashed across front pages this week after admitting on the company’s Facebook account that he only wants white workers and calling other employers who think likewise, but say nothing, hypocrites.
Wesley de Laat, owner of Budget Cleaning Brabant, has been lambasted for his “whites only” stance and his later defense. “White workers are better than non-white workers,” he told the media this week. “I don’t discriminate,” he went on. “I just don’t invite them for interview. Poles, Moroccans, any non-whites are not going to be hired to work for this company. Ahmed and Ali are probably very good people, but I don’t want them working for me.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Paul Weston: The Betrayal of Britain
If Britain is to survive the coming decades as a peaceful democracy, then we need to have a counter-revolution of the mind and a counter-revolutionary political party to effect radical change. Liberty GB is such a counter-revolutionary party.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain: Man Signs Up as Organ Donor Then Kills Himself
A man in the Spanish city of Valencia shot himself in the head on Monday just moments after he’d asked two nurses at a local hospital to sign him up as an organ donor.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Strong Swiss Franc Hits Nestlé’s Q1 Sales
Nestlé, the world’s leading food industry group, saw its sales slide 5.1 percent in the first quarter from the same period in 2013, the Swiss-based company said on Tuesday, blaming the effect of exchange rates and strength of the franc.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Hobbit Actor Jailed in Cocaine Case
Swedish actor Mikael Persbrandt has appealed a five-month prison sentence, handed down on Tuesday after he was found guilty of buying cocaine.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Syria is Now the Biggest Threat to Britain’s Security
The crisis in Syria has emerged as the biggest threat to Britain’s security, The Telegraph can disclose. The threat to the UK from returning fighters from the Syrian civil war is now the same as that from al-Qaeda terrorists in the borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
For the past two years, British jihadists have been able to gain access bomb and weapons training as well as further radicalisation. There are fears that British men who have been radicalised there are also being encouraged to return to the UK to carry out attacks here rather than staying to fight.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: July 7 Anti-Terror Chief to Oversee Muslim Schools Infiltration Claims
Chief constable accuses Michael Gove of ‘desperately unfortunate’ move by calling in former anti-terror chief to investigate Birmingham ‘Trojan Horse’ plot claims
One of Britain’s most senior policemen has accused Michael Gove of fuelling speculation about an alleged Muslim plot to take over schools by appointing the anti-terrorism chief who oversaw the July 7 bombings investigation to oversee inquiries.
Chris Sims, Chief Constable of West Midlands Police said the decision to call in Peter Clarke, former head of Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command, to investigate claims about schools in Birmingham as “desperately unfortunate”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: North Korean Officials Visit Salon Over Kim Jong-un ‘Bad Hair’ Advert
North Korean officials paid a visit to a London hair salon to question why it had used their leader Kim Jong-un’s picture in a poster offering haircuts. The poster in M&M Hair Academy in South Ealing featured the words “Bad Hair Day?” below the leader’s picture.
Barber Karim Nabbach said embassy officials were shown the door and the salon’s manager spoke to the police. The Met Police said: “We have spoken to all parties involved and no offence has been disclosed.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Chief Condemns Appointment of Terror Officer Over ‘Islamic Schools Plot’
Chris Sims, West Midlands chief constable, says appointment of Peter Clarke could stir up community tensions in Birmingham
The chief constable of West Midlands police has condemned as “desperately unfortunate” the appointment of an anti-terror officer to investigate allegations of Islamic fundamentalists infiltrating schools in Birmingham.
Peter Clarke, who served as the head of the Metropolitan police’s counter-terrorism unit, has been made an education commissioner by Michael Gove, the education secretary, the Department for Education (DfE) said on Monday…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: *Disturbing Content*]
That Cyril Smith was a paedophile is known. But in a devastating book — serialised in the Mail this week — Labour MP Simon Danczuk exposes the industrial scale of his debauchery and how the Establishment, Liberal Party, police chiefs and even MI5 covered it up.
Today Danczuk, MP for Smith’s old Rochdale seat, reveals how the 29-stone monster was saved from prosecution time after time…
After spending many months wading through abuse, despair and wretched politics in pursuit of Cyril Smith, I had just about gone as far as I thought possible.
I wasn’t sure if I had the stomach to deal with much more — when a key piece of the jigsaw I’d almost given up on finally turned up.
I got access to the police files on Cyril Smith.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Tony Blair’s Religious Charity’s ‘Links to Extremism’
Advisers claimed to be tied to the Muslim Brotherhood which is being investigated by British spies
Tony Blair’s religious charity has links to an Islamic extremist group being investigated by MI5 and MI6, it has been alleged.
It has been claimed that two Muslim leaders, who have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, are advising The Tony Blair Faith Foundation.
The organisation has been declared a terrorist group in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and could be banned in Britain, despite insisting they do not have links to extremist factions.
The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch, which has been looking into the group for 13 years, revealed that Dr Ismail Khudr Al-Shatti, an adviser to the Kuwaiti government and a member of Mr Blair’s advisory council, is a leading member of the Kuwaiti branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. the Islamic Constitutional Movement (ICM).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican to Report on Paedophilia With UN Committee
(AGI) Holy See, April 15 — The UN’s Committee Against Torture has summoned Vatican delegates to Geneva on May 5-6, to review the Holy See’s compliance with the convention against torture in relation to paedophilia crimes. The Vatican signed the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 2002.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Albanian Police Arrest Man for Allegedly Recruiting Muslims to Join Syrian Rebels
TIRANA, Albania — Albanian police say they have arrested a 30-year-old man for allegedly recruiting men to enlist with Muslim rebel groups fighting in Syria.
A police statement said the suspect was taken into custody Tuesday and will face charges of recruiting for terrorist activities. If convicted, he could be imprisoned for at least 10 years. Another seven Albanian Muslims, including two imams, were arrested following a crackdown a month ago and are facing similar charges.
Scores of Albanians have gone to support Syrian rebels and at least two have died.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Air Berlin Cancels Flights to Sharm El-Sheikh
Germany’s second-biggest airline, Air Berlin, on Monday said it has cancelled flights this month to Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh resort on the Red Sea because of deteriorating security for foreign tourists.
The airline’s announcement follows warnings by Belgium, Germany and Switzerland for their nationals to avoid the Sinai following stepped up unrest and violence there. In February, three South Korean tourists were killed in a bomb attack on a bus claimed by an Al-Qaeda-inspired group. Scores of Egyptian policemen and soldiers have been killed in attacks claimed by Sinai-based militants.
The skittishness of European companies and tourist carriers could be costly for Egypt, which depends on tourism for more than 11 percent of GDP.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Gunmen Abduct Jordan Ambassador in Libya
TRIPOLI (Libya): Masked gunmen seized the Jordanian ambassador in the Libyan capital on Tuesday, officials said, the latest in a wave of abductions and kidnappings that have swept Libya underscoring the lawlessness in the North African nation since the 2011 overthrow of late dictator Moammar Gadhafi…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Gunmen Kidnap Jordan’s Ambassador to Libya
Masked gunmen have kidnapped Jordan’s ambassador to Libya. The perpetrators have demanded the release of a Libyan Islamist militant from prison in Jordan.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdogan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn’t always know who was really employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer. (A spokesperson for Petraeus denied the operation ever took place.)
The operation had not been disclosed at the time it was set up to the congressional intelligence committees and the congressional leadership, as required by law since the 1970s. The involvement of MI6 enabled the CIA to evade the law by classifying the mission as a liaison operation. The former intelligence official explained that for years there has been a recognised exception in the law that permits the CIA not to report liaison activity to Congress, which would otherwise be owed a finding. (All proposed CIA covert operations must be described in a written document, known as a ‘finding’, submitted to the senior leadership of Congress for approval.) Distribution of the annex was limited to the staff aides who wrote the report and to the eight ranking members of Congress — the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate, and the Democratic and Republicans leaders on the House and Senate intelligence committees. This hardly constituted a genuine attempt at oversight: the eight leaders are not known to gather together to raise questions or discuss the secret information they receive.
The annex didn’t tell the whole story of what happened in Benghazi before the attack, nor did it explain why the American consulate was attacked. ‘The consulate’s only mission was to provide cover for the moving of arms,’ the former intelligence official, who has read the annex, said. ‘It had no real political role.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
11 Killed in Separate Violent Attacks Across Iraq
BAGHDAD, April 15 (Xinhua) — Eleven people were killed and 31 others wounded in separate violent attacks across Iraq on Tuesday, while the Iraqi Justice Ministry blocked Abu Ghraib prison in the west of the capital Baghdad over security concerns…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Says Would be Reliable Gas Supplier for Europe: Report
Iran could be a “reliable, secure and long-term” supplier of gas to Europe, Tehran’s industry minister Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh said on Monday.
“We don’t want to compete with Russia. But we know that Europe’s demand for gas is increasing and would like a share in this,” Nematzadeh told the business daily Handelsblatt in an interview.
“We have the energy reserves and cooperation plans. But as far as Russia is concerned, that is a decision for Europe alone,” the minister said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi King Replaces Intelligence Bandar Bin Sultan With His Deputy Youssef Al-Idrisi
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia’s king has appointed a new intelligence chief, Youssef al-Idrisi, replacing Bandar bin Sultan in the key post, which oversees the kingdom’s support for Syrian rebels.
The Saudi Press Agency carried the royal decree Tuesday saying Bandar had requested to be relieved of the post. Al-Idrisi was Bandar’s deputy.
The news comes after security officials told The Associated Press that 65-year-old Bandar was returning to the kingdom after around two months abroad for surgery on his shoulder.
Bandar’s responsibilities as head of intelligence included executing Saudi policy in the Levant, including policies toward Syrian rebels seeking to oust President Bashar Assad.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Syria War: Maaloula’s Monastery Destroyed After Assad Forces Drive Rebels Out
By Peter Oborne
The Syrian regime shows off its latest conquest — a scarred monastery where the language of Christ is still spoken
It has stood for centuries above the ancient settlement at Maaloula, one of a handful of villages in the mountains northeast of Damascus where Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, is still spoken. But yesterday, as Syrian army officers showed off their latest conquest in the long back-and-forth war with the country’s rebels, the monastery of St Sergius was a sorry sight.
The same shellfire that had helped to drive the rebels out had breached its massive limestone walls and, inside what had long been seen as a symbol of Syria’s religious freedom, broken icons lay on the ground alongside crosses, catechisms, and images of the Virgin Mary — though it was not possible to ascertain the cause…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Gestapo-Like Governing Aimed at With New Intel Bill: Main Opposition CHP Leader
The government is seeking to build a Gestapo-like regime through a bill that will turn Turkey’s national spy agency into an intelligence coordination body working directly under the prime minister, according to the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).
“Turkey is rapidly turning into an intelligence state with the MIT (the National Intelligence Organization) Law,” CHP leader Kemal Kiliçdaroglu said on April 15, addressing a meeting of his party’s parliamentary group.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Twitter Agrees to Close Some Accounts
Twitter will close some accounts in Turkey but will not for now set up an office there as the government wants, a senior Turkish official said late on Monday after talks over a dispute which saw the government ban the site for two weeks.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government blocked Twitter and YouTube in March, drawing international condemnation, after audio recordings, purportedly showing corruption in his inner circle, were leaked on their sites.
The Twitter block was lifted 11 days ago after the constitutional court ruled that it breached freedom of expression, a decision Erdogan has since said was wrong and should be overturned.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkish PM Erdogan Slams Judiciary, Promises ‘Cleaning’
Showing no let-up, Turkey’s prime minister has continued on the warpath against his erstwhile ally Fethullah Gülen, vowing to liquidate aspects of Gülen’s “parallel structure” in the judiciary while accusing the movement of allying with the Armenian lobby.
Those who commit crime and their collaborators will sooner or later appear before the courts and pay the price for what they did, the prime minister said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Administration Reportedly Holding Back on Non-Lethal Aid to Ukraine
The Obama administration reportedly is withholding even non-lethal military aid to Ukraine for fear it could further inflame tensions — despite already intensifying clashes between the country’s government and pro-Russia militiamen.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dmitry Medvedev, the Prime Minister of Russia, on Tuesday said Ukraine is on the brink of civil war. Medvedev’s remarks come as the junta in Kyiv launched a military operation against “terrorists” who have occupied government buildings in the eastern part of the country.
“I will be brief: Ukraine is on the brink of civil war, it’s frightening,” the former president said, according to Russian news agencies.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Condemn Ukraine Violence But Keep Dialogue Open Says Pinotti
Escalation should not close ‘chinks of light’ says defence min
(ANSA) — Strasbourg, April 15 — The international community should keep dialogue open with Moscow despite an escalation of violence by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine that on Tuesday spurred a response from the interim government, Italian Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti said at a European Union defence ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg.
“Italy’s position, while firmly condemning actions that cannot be approved, is that of not closing chinks of light for dialogue,” she said.
She said the “escalation of tensions” should not mar the progress made in recent talks between NATO and Russia, although the stand-off in eastern Ukraine “has de facto frozen the possibility of joint operations that were very interesting”. Ukraine’s acting president, Olexander Turchynov, on Tuesday announced the start of an “anti-terrorist” operation against pro-Russian activists in the east, starting near the large city of Donetsk. US President Barack Obama has urged Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to use his influence to make separatists in Donetsk and other parts of eastern Ukraine stand down.
Putin denied that Russia was intervening in the crisis.
Pro-Russian rebels have seized buildings in about 10 towns and cities across Ukraine’s eastern provinces, which are increasingly ethnically Russian the farther east you go and form the heartland of Ukraine’s heavy industry.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
By Edward Lucas
Deep in the flat and featureless landscape of eastern Ukraine, it is all too possible that the outline of World War III is taking shape. Whipped up by the Kremlin propaganda machine and led by Russian military intelligence, armed men are erecting road blocks, storming police stations and ripping down the country’s flag.
They are demolishing not just their own country — bankrupt, ill-run and beleaguered — but also the post-war order that has kept most of Europe and us, here in Britain, safe and free for decades. Vladimir Putin is striking at the heart of the West.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Former U.S. Diplomat: Send U.S. Ground Troops to Ukraine
CFR member wants to heighten tension with Russia
A former U.S. diplomat and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, James Jeffrey, is calling for U.S. ground troops to be injected into the brewing civil war in Ukraine. Jeffery is a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a beltway think tank controlled by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and associated with the neocon wing of the Republican Party.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Moscow Officials Blast UN Report Claiming Ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine Falsely Claimed Assault
Russian Foreign Ministry officials Tuesday blasted a U.N. human rights report that said ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine have falsely claimed to be under assault to justify Russian intervention, Reuters reported.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
NATO’s Pet Nazis Savage Ukrainian Presidential Candidate (Video)
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
Ukrainian presidential candidate Oleg Tsarev was savagely beaten outside a TV studio after an interview for the Ukrainian talk show, ‘Svoboda Slova.’ The studio was apparently surrounded by armed men in masks earlier, preventing Tsarev from leaving after the interview. When he did finally emerge, masked men with Svoboda Neo-Nazi “Wolfsangel” armbands began throwing objects at, choking, and physically beating Tsarev.
Dramatic video of the confrontation was captured, and exposes the successors of the “Euromaidan” protests as not a “pro-democracy” movement, but a mob using violence and intimidation to disrupt and destroy all political opposition to their agenda.
In an earlier report titled, “ Ukraine: The Anti-Maidan Begins,” the various components of the “Euromaidan” protests were broken down illustrating how violent Neo-Nazi fanatics and ideologues were the rule, rather than the exception in Kiev before the violent overthrow of the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych. The mobs that attacked Tsarev outside the studio he had given an interview in, appear to have ties to Svoboda’s street front, one of the central political parties that led the “Euromadian,” and a party that now enjoys three top ministry positions within the newly installed Kiev regime.
As the regime in Kiev prepares a violent “anti-terror” campaign to subjugate eastern Ukrainians who wholly reject the unelected regime’s seizure of power and its deliberate intimidation and deconstruction of their political rivals ahead of rushed elections, the savage beating of Oleg Tsarev by the regime’s supporters must be kept in mind. It is these very tactics by the regime that is driving opposition across much of Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions, including Crimea which has already decided upon and begun the process of integrating with Russia rather than remain under literal Neo-Nazis occupying Kiev.
The Western media will continue covering-up, spinning, and otherwise compartmentalizing the violent, authoritarian regime in Kiev — but acts like the beating of Oleg Tsarev will make this task all the more difficult, and the likelihood of the regime ever establishing any sort of legitimacy slim if at all possible.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Calls on UN to Condemn Ukraine Military Operation
US upholds Ukraine’s ‘right to respond and restore order’
(ANSA) — Rome, April 15 — Russia called on the UN to condemn Ukraine after its armed forces on Tuesday recaptured a military airfield from pro-Moscow separatist militias in the country’s Russian speaking east.
Also on Tuesday, the White House said Ukraine acted within its rights, and the international community must hold Russia accountable for encroaching on its neighbor.
“The Ukrainian government has a responsibility to uphold law and order, and the provocations in east Ukraine are creating a situation to which the government must respond”, said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
“The US and its allies must be willing to impose stiff new sanctions against those personally responsible and against key sectors of Russia’s economy, such as energy, banking and mining”, said Kathleen Doherty, the deputy mission chief at the US embassy in Rome.
While such sanctions could have short-term repercussions on the economies of Italy and other EU countries, they will be little compared to the long-term consequences of allowing countries who annex their neighbors’ territories to go unpunished, Doherty added.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Could Ban Import of Untested GMOs
The import of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into Russia could be prohibited should such products fail to pass inspections, according to a draft law published on the Russian government’s legal web portal.
The bill was drafted by the Ministry of Education and Science and is aimed at tightening control over GMO-based products in the country.
“The import of GMOs and GMO-based products into the Russian Federation may be banned if such products fail to pass the required examinations,” the explanatory memorandum to the bill stated.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Washington Drives the World to War
The CIA director was sent to Kiev to launch a military suppression of the Russian separatists in the eastern and southern portions of Ukraine, former Russian territories for the most part that were foolishly attached to the Ukraine in the early years of Soviet rule.
Washington’s plan to grab Ukraine overlooked that the Russian and Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine were not likely to go along with their insertion into the EU and NATO while submitting to the persecution of Russian speaking peoples. Washington has lost Crimea, from which Washington intended to eject Russia from its Black Sea naval base. Instead of admitting that its plan for grabbing Ukraine has gone amiss, Washington is unable to admit a mistake and, therefore, is pushing the crisis to more dangerous levels.
If Ukraine dissolves into secession with the former Russian territories reverting to Russia, Washington will be embarrassed that the result of its coup in Kiev was to restore the Russian provinces of Ukraine to Russia. To avoid this embarrassment, Washington is pushing the crisis toward war.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Afghan Deputy Minister Kidnapped in Kabul: Sources
KABUL, April 15 (Xinhua) — An Afghan deputy minister of public works was kidnapped Tuesday morning in northern Kabul, sources said.
“Gunmen kidnapped the Deputy Minister of Public Works Ahmad Shah Wahid in Khair Khana locality. One of his security guard was wounded in a short exchange of fire,” a security official told Xinhua anonymously. Officials of the Afghan interior ministry confirmed the kidnapping…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
Two convicted cannibals have been rearrested in Pakistan after a young boy’s head was discovered in their home.
The gruesome discovery of a three-year-old’s head was made in the house of Mohammad Arif Ali, 35, and his brother Mohammad Farman Ali, 30.
The pair, from the small town of Darya Khan in the country’s interior, had previously served two years in jail for cannibalism and were only released last year.
At the time, local police said the two men had dug up more than 100 corpses from the local graveyard and eaten them.
Arif and Farman have now been rearrested as an investigation gets underway in to the grim discovery at his house.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mini-Sub Scours Ocean Floor for MH370
An intial dive by a mini-submarine to search for debris from missing flight MH370 has turned up nothing. Officials believe an underwater search is now the only way any wreckage can be found.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan Police Arrest 2 Suspected of Cannibalism
Police in central Pakistan arrested a man Monday suspected of cannibalism after finding body parts including a skull that may have belonged to a child in his house, officials said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
500-Million-Year-Old Embryos Fossilized in Rare Find
Tiny, spherical fossils found in southern China appear to be the embryos of a previously unknown animal.
The fossils come from the Cambrian, a period dating from 540 million to 485 million years ago and known for an explosion of diversity. Some of the organisms that appeared during the Cambrian, such as the bug-like trilobite, had exoskeletons and other hard parts that fossilized nicely. Others, including sponges and worms, were made of soft tissue that rarely preserves.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A 13-Year-Old Eagle Huntress in Mongolia
A photographer who snapped what could be the world’s only girl hunting with a golden eagle says watching her work was an amazing sight.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China’s President Xi Wants More Military Use of Space: Report
Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly asked his nation’s air force to hasten its integration of air and space capabilities.
During a visit to the air force headquarters of the People’s Liberation Army in Beijing on Monday (April 14), Xi urged the development of a “new-type combat force” and told military leaders they need to be able to deal with air and space emergencies “swiftly and effectively,” the English-language newspaper China Daily reported.
The news report gave few details on how Xi wanted to strengthen the military use of space. Some of the Chinese media framed Xi’s request as a response to actions by the United States and other world powers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Adelaide-Based Shiekh Sharif Hussein Free to Preach Race Hate
POLICE say they will not act against a radical preacher who publicly prayed for the slaughter of Hindus and Buddhists, leaving him free to spread his messages of hatred.
According to a translation of the Arabic video, published by the US-based Middle East Media Research Institute, the sheikh publicly prayed: “Oh Allah, count the Buddhists and the Hindus one by one. Oh Allah, count them and kill them to the very last one”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ebola Outbreak: At Least 100 Die in West Africa
More than 100 people have died from the latest Ebola outbreak in West Africa. With no cure or vaccine, it is one of the most deadly of viruses, killing between 60 to 90 percent of those infected. Heath officials in Conakry, the capital of Guinea, have set up isolation centers and are screening at the airport.
Passengers with flu like symptoms — fever, diarrhea, or joint pain — aren’t allowed to fly.
Dr. Jagatic described it as the biggest known Ebola outbreak an urban area. Health officials do not expect the virus to go global and stress that Ebola is not easy to catch, requiring direct contact with an infected victim’s bodily fluids.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Schoolgirls Abducted as Terrorists Strike Borno
Abuja — Suspected Boko Haram sect members have reportedly abducted more than 100 students at a girl-only school in Borno State. It emerged on Tuesday students were part of the 250 boarded at the school and sitting for the ongoing national examinations.
Sources said the terrorists attacked Chibok town, a distance of 141 kilometres from the capital of the troubled Borno State, Maiduguri, late on Monday and burnt down houses and shops at will. They were also alleged to have carted away food items and vehicles and killing undisclosed number of people in the town…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Militants Kidnap 100 Schoolgirls
Suspected Islamist militants reportedly kidnap more than 100 schoolgirls during an attack on a town in Nigeria’s northeast.
More than 100 schoolgirls have been kidnapped by heavily armed gunmen from a school in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state. The attackers, thought to be members of the Islamist terror group Boko Haram, reportedly overpowered guards protecting the school in the town of Chibok before setting buildings on fire and driving off with their captives.
Emmanuel Sam, an education official in Chibok, said: “Many girls were abducted by the rampaging gunmen who stormed the school in a convoy of vehicles.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Scores of Girls Abducted From Nigerian School by Suspected Islamist Rebels
Suspected Islamist rebels have abducted at least 100 girls from a secondary school in Nigeria’s northeast Borno state, according to local officials. The assailants are believed to be members of Boko Haram.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Suspected Islamic Militants Abduct 100 Female Students From School in Northeast Nigeria
Officials say suspected Islamic extremists have abducted about 100 female students from a school in northeast Nigeria — but some of the teens managed to escape from the back of an open truck.
Islamic extremists have been abducting girls to use as cooks and sex slaves. Extremists also are blamed for Monday morning’s explosion at a busy bus station in Nigeria’s capital that killed at least 75 people and wounded 141.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Cubans Hungry for Internet Revolution on the Communist Island
It’s a month since Cuba’s government started permitting people to have email on their mobile phones but the queues to sign up for the service are still enormous.
But Cubans are still far from fully “connected”. The new phone service is limited to email and does not include the internet.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
DCCC Chair: We Care More About Amnesty Than Midterm Elections
The top Democrat who is leading the effort to help the party elect more members to Congress said he cares more about amnesty than the midterm elections.
Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley on Sunday, Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said the midterm elections are taking a backseat to the amnesty legislation Democrats and establishment Republicans desperately want.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greek Court Sentences 2 Men to Life Imprisonment for Stabbing Murder of Pakistani Worker
ATHENS, Greece — An Athens court has convicted two Greek men to life imprisonment for stabbing a Pakistani immigrant worker to death last year, during a spike in racist attacks in the recession-ravaged country.
Racist attacks have multiplied in Greece after the country’s acute financial woes began in 2009. A rise in anti-immigrant sentiment propelled the marginal Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn party into Parliament in 2012.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya: Mombasa Crackdown Nets 100 Foreigners
At least 100 Somali nationals were yesterday arrested in Mombasa in the ongoing countrywide crackdown on “illegal” immigrants. An operation launched in Changamwe and Kisauni areas by a combined team of regular and administration police led to the arrests…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
‘Migrant Files: ‘ the EU’s Refugee Victims
Again and again, refugees die during an attempt to reach European territory. Now a group of European journalists has found that the EU’s lure claims a higher number of casualties than previously thought.
There is hardly any information or any reliable data about how many people die on their way to Europe in an overcrowded refugee boat on the Mediterranean Sea or in an attempt to cross one of the border fences, which are supposed to keep migrants out of Spanish enclaves in Africa. In order to provide such numbers, a group of journalists from various European countries has now attempted to collate data from all the known cases.
One source of the information in the so-called Migrant Files is UNITED for Intercultural Action, a network of 560 international NGOs.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Over 20,000 Migrants Enter Italy So Far in 2014
On pace to meet record, interior minister says
(ANSA) — Rome, April 15 — More than 20,500 migrants have landed on the Italian coast so far this year, as compared to 2,500 during the same period of the previous year, Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told parliament on Tuesday. Speaking before a committee on the country’s borders, Alfano stressed that the number of incoming migrants was on pace “to reach the record levels of 2011, when more than 62,000 people entered”. The minister also said that in 2013 there were 27,000 asylum applications; while in the first three months of 2014, they have already exceeded 13,000, with a 140% increase compared to the same period last year. Fewer than one third of all migrants are forced to turn back at the border, he added. In order to cope with the high number of requests, Alfano said he intends to set up a commission for the examination of asylum applications in each Italian prefecture, thus moving from the current 20 to over 100. Alfano then recalled that operation Mare Nostrum, a coordinated effort launched last October to spot and save migrants at sea, have saved 19,000 people.
“And no one can say how many would have died without the mission, but it is hard to imagine that they would all be alive,” he said.
Mare Nostrum was launched after roughly 400 migrants died in successive boat accidents off the coast of Sicily last fall.
The interior minister said that Mare Nostrum cost over nine million euros per month and stressed that “Europe’s further involvement is essential”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UNHCR Urges Athens to Rethink Migrant Detention Periods
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Tuesday urged the Greek government to review a measure regarding the prolonged detention of migrants for whom a return order has been issued.
The move followed a recent decision by the coalition administration to extend detention beyond the maximum period allowed by the European Return Directive, set at 18 months.
According to the UNHCR, the decision was also incompatible with Greek law. The organization also called on the Greek government to seek alternative means of detention for those seeking asylum.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sex-Segregated Public Restrooms Are an Outdated Relic of Victorian Paternalism
It’s easy to think of the push for gender-neutral public restrooms as an issue that matters only to transgender people—after all, they’re the ones left holding their bladders when the stress of constantly using the “wrong” bathroom gets to be too much. But as a straight man, gender-neutral bathrooms matter a lot to me, too—in part because I want the trans community to enjoy the same privileges I do, but also because nothing irks me more than seeing a long line snake out from the women’s room while the men’s room sits vacant, or vice versa.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UN: Britain’s Sexism More ‘Pervasive’ Than Any Other Country
Sexism in Britain is more “in your face” than any other country, a UN expert says as she attacks the UK’s “boys’ club culture”. South African Rashida Manjoo, a human rights expert, was charged by the UN Humans Rights Council to monitor violence against women in the UK and report back to them.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Even Casual Use of Cannabis Alters Brain, Warn Scientists
Experimenting with cannabis on a casual basis damages the brain permanently, research has found. It is far from being a “safe” drug and no one under the age of 30 should ever use it, experts said.
People who had only used cannabis once or twice a week for a matter of months were found to have changes in the brain that govern emotion, motivation and addiction.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
For humans and other land mammals, sleep involves partial or total unconsciousness, the inactivation of all voluntary muscles (those that are consciously controlled) and the suspension of senses such as vision and smell.
But the same thing isn’t true for dolphins and other cetaceans, the group of marine mammals that includes whales, orcas and porpoises.
Instead, these animals undergo an unusual form of sleep called “unihemispheric slow-wave sleep.” Also known as deep sleep, slow-wave sleep is a type of sleep thought to help the brain consolidate new memories and recover from its daily activities.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
One odd thing about the Boston bombings. There was not a mention of the fact that the good citizens of Boston used to collect money for the IRA, to help the IRA blow up innocent British citizens.
Odd, that.
The people who run in the Marathon come from all over the world. Those Irish-Americans who gave to the IRA weren’t among that group. If you drew a Venn diagram showing the population of Marathon runners and their followers in Boston and the population of those who supported the IRA, their intersection would be a null set.
Dymphna, that is a very good point.
Last week, by chance, I saw the London marathon, at a point where it ran through the most islamic part of London. I was totally bemused — for there, in an area where it is usually impossible to see a white/non-muslim person, the tables were reversed, and it was impossible to see a muslim/non-white person. This held for both the audience of the marathon and the runners.
The last time I had seen this contrast, was when I visited the same area during the Queen’s Jubilee, and the Royal Wedding celebrations. On both those occasions, walking through London’s East End, it was like turning the clock back 50 years.
At events such as the Boston Marathon, muslim killers can be almost certain they will not harm a muslim. I now realise that any and every public celebration in London is a target for muslim terrorists. They are more likely to kill muslims on a bus or tube, than at any of these events.
It’s certain evidence that they live in a parallel society to everyone else.