An Iraq vet with PTSD named Ivan Lopez went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, killing three people before committing suicide. A number of other people were wounded, and have been taken to area hospitals.
In other news, the Norwegian mass-murderer Anders Behring Breivik will go to court in attempt to end his nearly three years of solitary confinement, which he says breaches his human rights.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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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.
Italy’s PSBR Down Five Billion Euros in First Quarter
Economy ministry says amounted to 31.7 billion
(ANSA) — Rome, April 1 — Italy’s public sector borrowing requirement (PSBR) was 31.7 billion euros in the first three months of 2014, down some five billion euros on the same period last year, the economy ministry said. The reduction was thanks to higher tax revenues, the ministry said, especially increased yields from value added tax, the top band of which went up from 21% to 22% at the start of October.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
‘Low Inflation is a Brake on Structural Reform’ Says Padoan
‘But reducing income, labor taxes already a structural reform’
(ANSA) — Athens, April 1 — Italian Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan on Tuesday said low eurozone inflation slows down structural adjustments in southern European countries with high debt-to-GDP ratios and lagging growth, such as Italy.
“Reducing the fiscal wedge (or the gap between employers’ labour costs and workers’ take-home pay) is already a structural adjustment,” the minister said at the end of an Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin) meeting of EU finance ministers in the Greek capital.
Permanent tax cuts must be offset by permanent spending cuts, he added.
In February, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) urged Italy’s government to reduce income taxes and cut minimum labour costs to generate growth in an economy showing timid signs of recovery after its longest postwar recession.
Italy’s slow growth may have become a structural problem, added the Paris-based organisation.
The OECD recommendation broadly reflects Renzi’s economic program.
In order to carry it out, Padoan must now perform a tricky balancing act in order to jump-start the economy without defaulting on Italy’s EU obligations. This was made clear when Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem on Tuesday urged Italy “to stick to the agreements and procedures and to enact reforms so that we might all become more competitive”. Italy’s budget commitments are set out under a European Stability and Growth Pact requiring member States to maintain budget deficit-to-GDP ratios of 3% or less.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Over 42% of Italian Pensioners on Less Than 1,000 Euros
Some 210,000 retirees pocket over 5,000 euros a month
(ANSA) — Rome, April 2 — Just over seven million Italian retirees, 42.6% of the total of 16.6 million, had pensions of under 1,000 euros a month in 2012, national statistics agency Istat said Wednesday. At the other end of the scale, Istat said 1.3%, 210,000 people, had pensions of over 5,000 euros a month in 2012.
Furthermore, 11,683 — 0.1% of the total — had so-called golden State pensions of more than 10,000 euros a month.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
What to Expect From Janet Yellen
No change.
Oh, you want more? Groucho Marx used to tell a joke on himself that “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would admit me as a member.” That pretty much sums up why we shouldn’t expect much from the new chairman of the Federal Reserve System. This administration and this Congress will never admit anyone that is not of the Keynesian-School-of-economics persuasion. As long as this mentality resides in the political halls of power, our nation will not get another Paul Volcker.
That means that we should anticipate a continuation of policies that assume that monetary expansion can spur economic growth. It cannot. Monetary expansion can spur phony economic growth; i.e., fooling entrepreneurs to invest capital in projects that will not return a profit. GDP may go up — temporarily. Employment may go up — temporarily. Janet Yellen and her fellow Keynesians believe that the Fed, through money creation, can create software engineers, doctors, nurses, and steel mills. In other words, they think they’re creating real resources. It’s nonsense, yet they seem to be true believers. They may couch this error in highfalutin terms, but that is what they mean on a fundamental level. In the end capital will be destroyed, resulting in an economic bust, and the nation will have wasted years and resources that it can never recover.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
4 Dead: Including Gunman, In Fort Hood Shooting
FORT HOOD, Texas (CBS Houston/AP) — CBS News has confirmed 4 people are dead after a shooting at Fort Hood. The number of dead includes the gunman.
At least 14 others were injured in the shooting.
Pentagon sources tell CBS News that the Fort Hood shooter is a soldier — identified as 34-year-old Ivan Lopez — and that he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. CBS News reports that the shooting stemmed from a soldier dispute.
Injured people were being treated at the post’s Carl R. Darnall Medical Center and other local hospitals.
A witness identified only as “Tyler” told KCEN-TV that soldiers and civilians were escorted out of buildings by police at gunpoint and emergency vehicles were rushing around the base, including several ambulances.
KHOU-TV reports the incident happened around 4:30 p.m. near the Medical Brigade on the post. The base was put on lockdown, with soldiers and personnel alerted to “shelter in place.”
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Chinese Investments in U.S. Commercial Real Estate Surges
It took just one 15-minute phone call in July to persuade Ifei Chang to join Shanghai-based developer Greenland Holding Group Co. and lead a U.S. expansion. Within three months, she was running $6 billion of projects as part of a record push by Chinese investors into American property.
Greenland reached a preliminary agreement in October to buy a 70 percent stake in the $5 billion Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, New York. That followed a July deal to acquire a $1 billion residential-and-entertainment project in downtown Los Angeles. Chang, who took charge of that site upon arriving in the U.S., is now on the hunt for more investments.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
CIA Misled on Interrogation Program, Senate Report Says
A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that the CIA misled the government and the public about aspects of its brutal interrogation program for years — concealing details about the severity of its methods, overstating the significance of plots and prisoners, and taking credit for critical pieces of intelligence that detainees had in fact surrendered before they were subjected to harsh techniques.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
CIA Station Chief Confirms No Protests Before Benghazi Attack
Why did the CIA ignore their own station chief in Libya when developing its talking points for the administration?
That’s a question that is likely to be answered on Wednesday at a hearing of the House Intelligence Committee.
Washington Times:
Before the Obama administration gave an inaccurate narrative on national television that the Benghazi attacks grew from an anti-American protest, the CIA’s station chief in Libya pointedly told his superiors in Washington that no such demonstration occurred, documents and interviews with current and former intelligence officials show.
The attack was “not an escalation of protests,” the station chief wrote to then-Deputy CIA Director Michael J. Morell in an email dated Sept. 15, 2012 — a full day before the White House sent Susan E. Rice to several Sunday talk shows to disseminate talking points claiming that the Benghazi attack began as a protest over an anti-Islam video.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Detroit Jews Aim for Closer Ties to Muslims
Joint Conference Hopes To Build Cooperation
Jewish and Muslim officials in the Detroit area examined areas where they could cooperate more closely. The daylong event, “A Shared Future,” was co-sponsored by the American Jewish Committee’s Detroit office and the Michigan Muslim Community Council…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
FBI Probing High-Speed Trading on Wall Street
The FBI has disclosed a year-long investigation into the questionable practices of high-frequency trading less than 24 hours after the rest of the world discovered how suspect the practice can be.
The Wall Street Journal reports the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened an investigation into high frequency trading on Wall Street about a year ago. “Trading ahead of other investors based on information about orders that other investors can’t see could violate insider-trading laws,” an FBI spokesperson explained to the Journal.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Fort Hood Shooting Leaves 4 Dead, 14 Injured
A shooting Wednesday night left at least four people dead and at least 14 wounded at Fort Hood, the sprawling Army facility that in 2009 was the site of the deadliest mass shooting ever at an American military base, a Texas congressman said.
Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said on a conference call with reporters that as many as four people had died in the attack, including the gunman.
The shooter was wearing an Army uniform, but it was unclear whether he was on active duty, Mr. McCaul said.
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Fort Hood Gunman Was Treated for Depression and Anxiety
The gunman in the Fort Hood shooting was an active-duty enlisted soldier who served four months in Iraq and was being evaluated for PTSD, military officials said Wednesday night.
Ivan A. Lopez, 34, had previously served in the Army National Guard in Puerto Rico, a military official said. He was assigned to the 13th Sustainment Brigade at Fort Hood.
Officials said he was being treated for depression, anxiety and other behavior and mental issues but had not yet been officially diagnosed with post-traumatic stress.
“He was undergoing a diagnosis process,” Lt. Gen. Mark Milley said.
He said the gunman was never wounded in action but “self-reported” a traumatic brain injury.
Lopez was married and lived in the area near the post. His family had not yet been notified.
Three people were shot dead and at least 11 were wounded in Wednesday’s violence. Lopez took his own life, officials said.
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Mechals told jurors that local and federal police initially investigated the bludgeoning as a hate crime after a note was found near the body that read: ‘This is my country, go back to yours, you terrorist.’ However, street camera footage and information from the couple’s eldest daughter about her parents’ troubled marriage led police to charge Alhimidi.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) President Obama gloated today over the obedience of millions of Americans who were forced under penalty of law to purchase overpriced health insurance that benefits Big Pharma and the sick-care industry. Claiming 7.1 million enrollees — a number so wildly fabricated that it generated bouts of laughter from those in the know — Obama accused critics of the forced government mandate of “trying to scare people” away from getting health insurance.
Obama’s celebration of Obamacare is politically equivalent to Kim Jong-Un celebrating how many people in North Korea praise him when required to do so in his presence. It’s the moral equivalent of a Venezuelan socialist election where if you vote for the tyrant in charge, you get a free lunch; but if you vote for the opposition, you get a bullet to the head. Obamacare’s “victory” is the philosophical equivalent of every dictator who has ever shoved a gun in the faces of helpless citizens and told them to swear their allegiance to him. Only in a totalitarian regime does the President celebrate millions of people being forced into compliance and call it a “victory.” The very idea is morally repugnant and wholly anti-American.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pelosi: ‘Our Founders Wanted’ ObamaCare
In a press conference outside the White House West Wing, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) once again lauded Obamacare as something our Founding Fathers intended 200-plus years ago. She stated:…
Back in January, when Nancy Pelosi made an appearance on Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, she was asked why the Democrats did such a poor job implementing Obamacare. She responded with a befuddled, “I don’t know.” When asked if she had any plans to fix the problem, she stated, “It’s not my responsibility.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Supreme Court Strikes Down Limits on Federal Campaign Contributions the Supreme Court on
Wednesday issued a major campaign finance decision, striking down limits on federal campaign contributions for the first time. The ruling, issued near the start of a campaign season, will change and probably increase the role money plays in American politics.
The decision, by a 5-to-4 votes along ideological lines, was a sort of sequel to Citizens United, the 2010 decision that struck down limits on independent campaign spending by corporations and unions. But that ruling did nothing to disturb the other main form of campaign finance regulation: caps on direct contributions to candidates and political parties.
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Why More Puerto Ricans Are Living in Mainland U.S. Than in Puerto Rico
Miranda is one of thousands of Puerto Ricans who have left the U.S. territory in recent years in search of a better life in the U.S. mainland.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Your Next Car Will Have a Rearview Camera, Whether You Want One or Not
Whether you’re backing out of the garage in an SUV the size of a Balkan state or in a zippy little Prius, the government doesn’t trust your ability to not maim Little Billy or Grandpa, who are apparently crawling around the driveway in their suburban-terrain ghillie suits. That’s why the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is requiring vehicle manufacturers to include rearview camera systems in many vehicles starting in 2016 and expects full compliance by 2018.
“To reduce the risk of devastating backover crashes involving vulnerable populations (including very young children),” explains a report (PDF), the administration “is issuing this final rule to expand the required field of view for all passenger cars, trucks, multipurpose passenger vehicles, buses, and low-speed vehicles with a gross vehicle weight of less than 10,000 pounds.” The field of view needs to be 10-by-20 feet directly behind the vehicle, which can only be achieved with a camera.
Just how devastating are these types of crashes? The NHTSA, which operates under the Department of Transportation, tallies 210 fatalities and 15,000 injuries every year. Each one of these incidents is tragic, but for a federal authority to issue broad regulations seems a little arbitrary, since about twice as many Americans die falling out of bed each year and four times as many die falling off household furniture. And America’s war with lounging devices doesn’t even scratch the surface of the top causes of death.
[Comment: Ghillie suit = camouflage outfit worn by snipers]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Canadian Forester Says Trees Can Heal the Planet
Diana Beresford-Kroeger is passionate about protecting trees — and growing them. The botanist has nurtured her own research forest in Canada, and believes trees remain the key to combating climate change.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Protester Gets 9 Months for Promoting Hatred Against Muslims
A notorious protester convicted of wilfully promoting hatred against Muslims and criminally harassing a Muslim man and his family was sentenced Tuesday to nine months in jail.
Eric Brazau handed out a flyer that “vilified Muslims and disparages their religion,” Ontario court Judge S. Ford Clements said in February, when he found Brazau guilty.
The case was far from being on the borderline between “rough and tumble debate” and hate speech, as Brazau had argued, Clements said in a College Park courtroom.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Belgian ‘Crown’ Knocks Migraine on Head
A headband containing electrodes takes the edge off migraines before they develop into acute blinding pain.
A small technology company based in southern Belgium is set to take on the giant US market with its crowning achievement: an anti-migraine headband. A product of years of medical and technological research, the device is a diadem fitted with electrodes designed to take the edge off migraines before they develop into acute blinding pain…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Cameron See Eye to Eye on Need to Revamp EU
Italian wins backing for reforms from British counterpart
(ANSA) — London, April 1 — Italian Premier Matteo Renzi and British Prime Minister David Cameron agreed on the need to overhaul the European Union, with the former saying it has become a hotbed of bureaucracy during a bilateral meeting in London Tuesday.
Renzi also won a strong endorsement from Cameron for his ambitious programme to reform Italy’s slow, expensive political apparatus and reverse the path of decline its economy seems to have taken in recent years. Conservative Party leader Cameron said he supported Renzi’s “ambitious measures” adding that: “Europe is behind Asia. There must be reforms in Brussels too”. Cameron said he backed the direction Renzi wanted to push Europe towards during Italy’s duty presidency of the EU in the second half of this year. “The Italian presidency is extremely important,” Cameron said. “Matteo wants to make growth and jobs the central issues and we agree”.
The 39-year-old, Italy’s youngest-ever premier, won a similar endorsement at a meeting with United States President Barack Obama on Thursday. Renzi called for “a better Europe, not more Europe”, adding that Italy “must do its part” and “fight against those who are afraid of change”. “Recently Europe has lost its dream-like quality and become only the place of absolute bureaucracy,” he said. “The first challenge to tackle is the vision of Europe that the next generation will have. This is only possible if it has a different idea about economic growth”.
Cameron is a big critic of the EU too and, while saying he wants Britain to stay in it, has promised a referendum on membership if his Conservative party win next year’s general election.
Renzi urged Britain to remain in the union.
There is no Europe, there is no great Europe without the presence of the United Kingdom,” he told a joint news conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron.
“The presence of the UK in Europe should not be in discussion. It is absolutely fundamental and crucial for us and we will work together, I am sure of it,” Renzi said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Claim: We Found the Holy Grail: “The Cup Which Touched the Lips of Jesus Christ”
Their research led them to a a museum in San Isidro Basilica in the northwestern Spanish city of Leon, where the cup has been on display in a small viewing room for years.
The supposed Holy Grail was offered to King Fernando I, who ruled between 1037 and 1065, as a peace offering by the head of a Muslim kingdom within Spain, the historians said.
The cup, made of agate, gold and onyx, is actually two goblets formed together, the authors claim.
The artifact had been known until last week as the goblet of the Infanta Dona Urraca, King Fernando I’s daughter.
With so many other historical investigations making similar claims the evidence for the Infanta Dona Urraca being the Grail has yet to be scrutinized by scholars, but Torres and Ortega del Rio are certain they have found the treasure of the ages.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Conservatives Rally on the Streets of Paris
by Daniel Pipes
There were no incidents, perhaps because about 150 heavily armed gendarmes walked ahead, alongside, and behind the march, as well as lurked in busses. I came away from the event, as well as from discussions afterwards, with several impressions:
First, so intense is the pro-immigration and pro-Islamic pressure in France that it takes monumental courage just to stand up to these forces. And those who do so fear violence, fears confirmed by an outsized police protection. The restaurant where the leadership later met was kept under wraps.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU Plans to Simplify Travel to Schengen Zone
The European Commission has announced plans to simplify the bloc’s visa rules for non-Europeans. The new guidelines are designed mainly to attract more business and tourism.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The European Commission on Tuesday proposed a new bill to ease visa-entry rules on third country nationals. The commission says the rules would shorten and simplify the procedures for those wanting to come to the EU for short stays. The idea is to boost tourism and create more jobs.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Eurogroup Chief Says Debt-Laden Italy Must Reform
No need to delay respect of budget limits, says Dijsselbloem
(ANSA) — Athens, April 2 — Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem said Wednesday that debt-laden Italy had to introduce structural economic reforms and dismissed reports countries may be given more time to make fiscal adjustments.
“Italy has a high debt and has to undertake reforms,” Dijsselbloem said after a meeting of eurozone finance ministers — the Eurogroup — in Athens. “It isn’t necessary to delay respect of the budget limits”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
ExoMars Scientists Narrow Down Landing Sites
Scientists have picked four potential landing sites for a European rover designed to search for life on Mars. The 300-kilogram ExoMars rover, part of a joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, is scheduled to land on the red planet in early 2019. Armed with a drill that can bore 2 metres into rock, the rover will search for preserved organic matter that, on the surface, might have been destroyed by harsh radiation.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Far-Right Sets Sights on European Parliament
As the extreme right rises across Europe, Le Pen wants to seize the momentum — raising the voice of her anti-immigration National Front and amplifying it through a broad parliamentary group. These parties, leveraging public frustration with the EU, want to weaken the bloc’s power over European citizens from within Europe’s premier legislative institution.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France Unveils New-Look Cabinet Following Local Elections Defeat
France’s new cabinet has been announced following a significant re-shuffle. The line-up includes Segolene Royal as environment and energy minister. Royal is a former partner of President Francois Hollande.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Grandson of Muslim Brotherhood Founder Now an Advisor to British Government Office
If British Prime Minister David Cameron is serious about investigating the Muslim Brotherhood in his country, he might want to start with one of his own government offices and a certain Baroness Warsi, who serves as a Senior Minister there.
Tariq Ramadan, the maternal grandson of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, has not renounced the group. In fact, he proudly displays his ancestry and speaks frequently at Muslim Brotherhood events in the U.S. As Shoebat.com has reported in the past, Ramadan is even connected to the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Ramadan was named as the Director of the Qatari-based Centre for Islamic legislation (CILE) in 2012. It was learned at the time that the CILE rolls up under the Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies (QFIS), which is very closely linked to Qaradawi.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Labour Flexibility Counterproductive, Says Visco
‘Italy banks in good shape ahead of EU stress tests’
(ANSA) — Athens, April 1 — Italy needs to come up with a different kind of job flexibility, because current policy has been counterproductive, central bank governor Ignazio Visco said Tuesday at an Ecofin meeting of EU finance ministers in the Greek capital.
“We have pursued a flexibility that has not been useful, that has been exploited by companies to reduce labor costs while putting off innovation”, the governor said.
Italy first introduced flexible labour contracts in 1997, extending it in 2003 with the so-called Biagi law allowing various types of non-permanent contracts.
“We need to pursue a different flexibility, one that couples employer interests with those who need and want an education”, Visco said.
His comments came as new data from the national statistics bureau showed unemployment in Italy rose to 13% in February, the highest level in about 37 years, with youth unemployment hitting 42.3%.
Visco went on to say he is confident Italy’s banks are in good shape ahead of forthcoming EU-wide stress tests.
The aim is to assess banks’ resilience to adverse market developments over a period of three years (2014-2016). The methodologies and scenarios for the tests are expected to be published sometime in April, with banks’ individual results to be released at the end of October, according to the European Banking Authority (EBA).
“Italian banks have gotten busy cleaning up their act in view of the stress tests”, Visco said, adding that Italy’s financial institutions have recapitalized to a great degree and “by their own means”.
“Obviously their profitability is low, but the potential is there given the way these banks have managed to attract funds. This shows trust in their ability to weather the crisis”, the governor explained.
“Italy’s banking system has faced up to the crisis with very little cash, less than any other European country”, he added.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Has ‘Wasted Too Much Time on Labour Reform’
Renzi says govt has ‘lots to do’
(ANSA) — Rome, April 1 — Premier Matteo Renzi said Italy has “wasted too much time” over labour-market reforms after unemployment reached a record high of 13% in February. “We still have a lot to do,” added Renzi, whose government is presenting measures to simplify labour regulations in Italy, extending benefits and reducing the current myriad of current labour regulations. “We’ve wasted too much time in recent years, now we have to get running…
“In Italy there are 2,100 regulations that deal with the world of work, so it’s normal that in the end disputes go to court. “Our idea is a labour code of 50 or 60 regulations to give rules and certain time frames, written in English too for investors”.
He added that his government was open to negotiate over these measures while stressing that the “basic set-up cannot be changed”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Veneto Separatists Arrested for Suspected ‘Terrorism’
24 arrested, tried to turn tractor into sort of tank
(ANSA) — Venice, April 2 — Italian police on Wednesday arrested 24 Veneto separatists suspected of crimes that include criminal association for terrorism and subversion of the democratic order.
The people arrested included former MP Franco Rocchetta, the founder of the Liga Veneta (Veneto League) separatist party.
Police seized a tractor that they said the suspects had unsuccessfully tried to turn into a sort of tank by attaching a canon to it for an attention-grabbing protest in Venice’s St Mark’s Square. The economic crisis has increased support for independence in the northeastern region of Veneto, where many blame central government for bleeding local businesses dry with high taxation.
Last month separatists organized an unofficial referendum in which an overwhelming majority of participants voted in favour of leaving Italy.
Organizers said some two million people took part in the poll, but this figure has been challenged by many critics. The Liga Veneta was a founding member of Northern League, a federation of regionalist parties.
The League has recently upped its drive for greater autonomy for wealthy northern regions and started calling for outright independence again, the original demand of its early years.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Grillo Ramps Up Call for Referendum on Euro, EU Membership
Wants Italy to follow Britain’s lead
(ANSA) — Rome, April 2 — Beppe Grillo of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) on Wednesday upped his call for Italy to have a referendum on whether the country should continue to have the euro as its currency and stay in the European Union.
Writing on his blog, the fulcrum of his Internet-based party, the comic-turned-politician said Italians must be given the final word on whether the euro is still “feasible and legitimate”.
“Italy lost its monetary sovereignty without consulting its citizens,” added the leader of Italy’s second-largest party. Grillo has been pushing for a referendum on the single currency since last year. In Italy it is possible to call a referendum by collecting 500,000 signatures in a petition if the Constitutional Court rules that the proposal is line with the Constitution.
Grillo says Italy should follow the lead of Britain, after Prime Minister David Cameron promised to hold a referendum on EU membership by 2017.
His opponents accuse him of stirring up anti-Euro and anti-austerity sentiment ahead of European Parliament elections on May 25, in which the M5S and Euroskeptic parties like it are expected to do well.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Calls for ‘Functional Immunity’ For Marines
Italian pair held in India accused of homicide
(ANSA) — Brussels, April 2 — Italy believes that “functional immunity” should be recognized as an important issue by the entire international community, Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini said on Wednesday in comments on the case of two Italian marines being held India for alledegly killing two fishermen during an anti-piracy mission in 2012.
Functional immunity protects State officials from the jurisdiction of other States as they perform actions while on duty.
Rome is seeking international arbitration in the case, arguing it is not under Indian jurisdiction as the incident occurred outside the country’s territorial waters, and says the marines should be exempt from prosecution in India because they are servicemen who were working on a mission.
“It is important to actually recognize that functional immunity is important for everybody”, Mogherini said, stressing that NATO has already acknowledged this and continues to recognize such an issue.
Marines Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, who are accused of killing the two fishermen after allegedly mistaking them for pirates, “were not in India for private reasons but were on duty”.
“The recognition of such a dimension is extremely important”, stressed Mogherini.
Italy has long attempted to win international support in the case of the two marines who were guarding the privately-owned Italian-flagged oil-tanker MT Erica Lexie off the coast of the southern Indian state of Kerala in February 2012 when the incident occurred.
In February, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said their case could have “negative implications” for the fight against piracy and could not be treated as a bilateral issue.
Rome has won the backing of the European Union in the case and is seeking to get the United Nations involved.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Alitalia-Etihad Deal to Close This Week, Minister Says
Lupi tells Lower House investor near deal with Italian carrier
(ANSA) — Rome, April 2 — A deal between struggling Italian carrier Alitalia and Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways should go through this week, Italian Transport Minister Maurizio Lupi told the Lower House on Wednesday.
“I think this week, as announced, the work carried out in the past few months will reach a conclusion,” he said.
Lupi said last week that Etihad would shortly decide whether to buy a stake in Alitalia.
Talks are ongoing over whether the Gulf carrier, which is vying to broaden its network in Europe, could buy up to 40% in the troubled Italian airline.
In early February, Etihad and Alitalia issued a joint statement saying they were in the “final phase” of negotiations for a deal that would see the Abu Dhabi carrier buy as much as a 40% stake in its Italian counterpart, the equivalent of a much-needed capital injection of 350 million euros.
But the arrangement, as well as other plans to bring Alitalia back to profitability, have been controversial.
In addition to Lufthansa’s competition, the owner of British Airways has said that a plan coordinated by the Italian government to rescue Alitalia triggered the same concerns.
The complaints came as Alitalia was poised to sign a 200-million-euro financing deal with banks as part of a 500-million-euro bailout package engineered by the previous Italian government last autumn.
This also included a controversial 74-million euro investment by Italy’s state-owned post office Poste Italiane.
International Airlines Group (IAG), the holding company that owns British Airways, Iberia and Vueling called that a form of protectionism and is illegal under EU laws governing state assistance to businesses.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Mausoleum of Augustus to be Restored
Restoration of the mausoleum of Augustus, built in 28 B.C., is scheduled to begin. The cylindrical monument once stood 120 feet high, and was topped with a bronze statue of Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. The structure held his ashes, as well as the ashes of his successors, Tiberius and Claudius. “It’s incredible the mausoleum is still standing despite what it has been through,” archaeologist Elisabetta Carnabuci told The Guardian.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Work Begins on the World’s First 3D-Printed House
Zero waste, lower transport costs and recyclable materials — is 3D-printing the future of housebuilding? Dutch architects are putting the process to the test for the first time in Amsterdam.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Netherlands: Successful Skull Operation Using 3D Printing Technology
The UMC Utrecht has successfully replaced a complete skull in one of their patients. The operation is the first of its kind using a skull created by 3D printing technology.
The 23 hour operation was undertaken by specialist surgeon Bon Verweij on a 22 year old female patient. The skull is made of a new kind of endurable plastic.
The patient suffered from a condition in which the skull keeps getting thicker. The condition lead to severe and worsening headaches and disorientation in the patient. The operation was necessary to prevent more serious symptoms.
“The patient has her sight back entirely, is symptom-free and back to work. It is almost impossible to see that she’s ever had surgery,” said Verweij.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nordic Populist Parties Divided on Which EP Group to Join
Right-wing populist parties from the Nordic countries are set to take different political paths after the European elections in May.
While the Sweden Democrats are looking towards the likely coalition between France’s National Front and the Dutch Freedom Party, the Danish People’s Party and The Finns party are seeking their political alliances elsewhere.
“Our choice is between the EFD (Europe of Freedom and Democracy) and the ECR (European Conservatives and Reformists),” Timo Soini, chair of The Finns party, told EUobserver.
Both groups are dominated by British eurosceptics. The EFD is home to prominent eurosceptic Nigel Farage and his UKip party, while the Conservative party of Prime Minister David Cameron forms the main part of the ECR.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Bold Lynx Eats Deer in Woman’s Garden
Else Margrethe Haugen was looking out of the window into her garden in Stangvik, north of Ålesund in Norway when she saw that a lynx had chosen to feast on a deer on her land.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Breivik to go to Court to End Solitary Confinement
The anti-Islamic terrorist Anders Behring Breivik is planning to take legal action to end his 33 months in solitary confinement, arguing that it is violating his human rights.
Breivik’s lawyer Tord Jordet told Aftenposten newspaper that the long period of isolation his client had endured constituted an additional punishment, which had not been part of the 21-year sentence he received in 2012.
“We’re looking into it now, and after the summer holiday we will make the decision as to whether we will do it or not,” Breivik’s lawyer Geir Lippestad told The Local. “At some point, it will be against human rights, so the prison must have a plan to rehabilitate him and those plans don’t exist today.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Poland: Lego is Satan’s Work and Destroys Souls, Says Priest
A POLISH priest has warned parents to be on their guard against Lego, warning the plastic blocks are a tool of Satan and can “destroy” children’s souls…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Renzi Says Italy Afraid to Prove Its Worth
Italians often have a distorted identity, says premier
(see related) (ANSA) — Brussels, April 2 — Italian Premier Matteo Renzi on Wednesday said Italy should not be afraid to prove its worth.
Leaving a summit of European Union and African leaders in Brussels, Renzi said Italians often have a distorted “crumpled” view of who they are and fail to recognize their value.
“We are the seventh main United Nations donor,” he said.
“We lead a mission in Lebanon and are the main country providing UN peacekeepers”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Soviet Sweden? Model Nation Sliding to Third World
By Dale Hurd
It has been a laboratory for all kinds of social experiments: Swedish leaders are trying to build the perfect society.
The country has been compared to two nations that also tried to build perfect societies: North Korea and the Soviet Union. In Sweden, if you don’t like how utopia is being built, you won’t be shot like in North Korea, but your life could become very unpleasant, very quickly.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Stop Turkey’s EU Accession, Say German Parties
Twitter banned, the opposition threatened — at least one of Germany’s ruling parties has had enough of Turkey’s government, and wants to prevent the country joining the EU. But Berlin and Brussels are less strident.
Gerda Hasselfeldt, Berlin regional leader of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister-party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, tried to calm the waters — even before they were disturbed…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Inquiry Into Racism in Housing and Social Services
The Swedish Data Inspection Board will investigate whether there has been any illegal registration of individuals on the basis of ethnicity within social services or the housing market.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Islam Critic Convicted of Shoe Attack
The 55-year-old who battered a Muslim woman with a shoe in Malmö was on Wednesday handed a suspended sentence for assault. He also attacked the woman’s daughter.
“There was no doubt that his view of Muslim was extremely hateful,” the police wrote in their report.
The man is a member of the Free Press Association (Tryckfrihetssällskapet), which many consider to be a front to print xenophobic materials. The Malmö District Court reasoned, however, that membership in the association was not enough to prove any motive in the assault case.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Girls Raped After Facebook ‘Grooming’, Court Hears
Girls raped after Facebook ‘grooming’, court hearsA gang of men from Peterborough sexually exploited vulnerable teenage girls after targeting them on Facebook, a court has been told.
Five men are on trial for trafficking and raping eight girls, aged between 13 and 16, between 2008 and 2013. Prosecutor Patricia Lynch told Cambridge Crown Court the girls were singled out “because of their vulnerability”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: More Birmingham Headteachers Raise Fears of ‘Islamic Plot’ To Take Over Schools
Birmingham school bosses are believed to have been inundated with letters and calls from anxious city head teachers and governors worried that Muslim extremists could be plotting to take over their schools.
The city council is understood to have drafted in extra staff to investigate the allegations of a concerted plot by hard-line Islamists, called Operation Trojan Horse, to infiltrate schools and ‘indoctrinate’ pupils by using dirty tricks to remove non-Muslim staff.
Since the allegations, revealed in the Birmingham Mail last month, it has emerged that at least 12 Birmingham schools are under investigation by Ofsted and the Department for Education and Secretary of State Michael Gove is being kept informed of developments…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Nigel Farage Scores Victory Over Nick Clegg as Second TV Debate Turns Nasty
Polls show heated and confrontational debate on Europe won convincingly by Ukip leader as Lib Dem leader accused of lying to British people
Nigel Farage accused Nick Clegg of “wilfully lying to the British people” and warned that the European project could end in bloodshed during the pair’s second debate on Wednesday night. In a heated and confrontational televised debate the Ukip leader warned that extremists would resort to “violence” unless the European Union “ends democratically”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: New Law Could Target Parents Who Drink Alcohol in Front of Kids as Child Abusers
“Making fun of” what a child says would also represent emotional abuse
A new law in the UK which will criminalize the “emotional abuse” of children could target parents who drink alcohol in front of their children as child abusers, giving the state an opportunity to snatch kids on the flimsiest of pretexts, with parents being punished with up to ten years in jail.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Saharan Dust Prompts ‘Very High’ Air Pollution Threatening Sick and Elderly
Anyone suffering from sore eyes or throat is advised to cut back on physical exertion while those with heart and lung problems are warned to take extra care
Saharan dust is contributing to unusually high levels of air pollution, threatening the health of elderly and vulnerable people in the UK. Parts of eastern England, the Midlands and Wales over the next few days will experience the highest levels of air pollution on the government’s official scale, and those with heart and lung problems have been warned by environmental experts to avoid “strenuous activity”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sex Abuse Gang Targeted Young Girls in Lincolnshire and Rutland, Jury Told
A gang targeted vulnerable teenage girls through social networking sites before sexually exploiting and gang-raping them, prosecutors have told a court.
Five men are standing trial at Cambridge Crown Court accused of trafficking and raping eight girls who were aged between 13 and 16 at the time of the allegations, which date between 2008 and 2013. The victims were from the Lincolnshire, Rutland and Peterborough area.
Prosecutor Patricia Lynch told jurors yesterday (Monday) that the girls were vulnerable not only because of their age but also their “difficult” social backgrounds. Opening the case against the defendants, four of whom are Pakistani, she added: “This case involves the deliberate sexual exploitation of young vulnerable white girls by a group of older Asian men…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
by Peter Oborne
David Cameron has been a competent and in many ways an underestimated prime minister, especially when dealing with domestic policy. However, he brought negligible experience of foreign affairs with him into Downing Street. As a result he has largely been out of his depth (and very easily swayed) in foreign policy.
The latest example of the Prime Minister’s naivety concerns his decision to order an investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood, and its alleged links to “violent extremism” in Britain. The timing of Mr Cameron’s statement is strange and troubling. His announcement looks very much like a political stunt designed to protect Britain’s trading relationship with Saudi Arabia.
The announcement comes just six weeks after the British defence firm BAE Systems finally agreed to a deal on the price of 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets it is selling the Saudis, with the announcement coming during the Prince of Wales’s visit to the kingdom…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Unite Chief Warns Over UKIP Rise
The boss of Britain’s biggest trade union has warned Ed Miliband of the “danger” posed to Labour’s core Northern vote by the rise of Ukip.
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey likened the Ukip surge to the rise of the BNP and said Labour must “take it head-on” or risk haemorrhaging further support across the North…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
US Calls on Europe to Step Up Energy Independence But Options Are Limited, Success Uncertain
The United States called on Europe to wean itself from a dangerous dependency on Russian gas, saying it was time to stand together and bring an end to the Kremlin’s use of energy supplies as political leverage.
Left unsaid was the European Union’s reluctance to follow the United States headlong into shale gas extraction, which has transformed the global energy scene and turned the U.S. from importer into a nascent exporter. Or its refusal to fully re-embrace nuclear power in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan.
And even if it tried to become independent, it would take Europe years to develop promising sources, such as shale deposits in Ukraine and Poland — and with no guarantees of success.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
White People the Least Healthy Ethnic Group in Britain
Official data suggests that people from white ethnic backgrounds are unhealthier than those from non-white ethnic groups.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ICT: EU Seeks Med Partners for Horizon 2020 Program
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT -Some 72 billion euros will be available in EU funding for research and innovation in the information and communication technology sector for the next seven years as part of the Horizon 2020 program, 17 billion more than in the previous one.
Enterprises and universities in the Middle East and North Africa will also be able to benefit from the program by working with European partners. The initiative and how to access the funding will be illustrated over the coming months in a series of meetings underway in several Middle Eastern countries as part of the EU’s Med-Dialogue initiative.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Could the Pharaohs Read and Write?
Little is known about the education of royal children in ancient Egypt, so Filip Taterka of Adam Mickiewicz University examined Egyptian texts for clues to the literacy of the pharaohs. He found references to medical documents, letters, and wisdom literature written by the kings, and adds that the writing implements found in the tomb of Tutankhamun suggests that the boy king had been educated.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Egyptian Columnist Apparently Wants to Sue Israel Over… the 10 Plagues
An Egyptian columnist is apparently calling on his government to sue the state of Israel over the 10 plagues that struck ancient Egypt as described in the biblical book of Exodus.
“We want compensation for the (Ten) Plagues that were inflicted upon (us) as a result of the curses that the Jews’ ancient forefathers (cast) upon our ancient forefathers, who did not deserve to pay for the mistake that Egypt’s ruler at the time, Pharaoh as the Torah calls him, committed,” he wrote, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute. “For what is written in the Torah proves that it was Pharaoh who oppressed the Children of Israel, rather than the Egyptian people.”
His column was published on March 11 but was more recently translated into English by MEMRI.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Police Targeted With Bombs at Cairo University
Two bombs have detonated at police outposts in Egypt’s capital, Cairo. A senior police officer was killed in the bombings.
Officials said the bombs, hidden in bushes, occurred within short succession of each other. Their target is thought to be riot police, who are deployed daily to the area in expectation of protests by supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
Shootings and bombings directed at security officials has become frequent since the army ousted the democratically elected president Morsi last July.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Egyptian Islamists Murder Young Christian, After Dragging Her From Car
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
Eyewitnesses have given a harrowing account of the murder in Cairo of a young Coptic Christian woman, hauled out of her car and beaten and stabbed to death by a Muslim mob, apparently targeted because of a cross hanging from her rear-view mirror.
The incident occurred in the Cairo suburb of Ain Shams after mosque prayer services on Friday, when police clashed with Muslim Brotherhood supporters angered by army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s decision to run for president.
An eyewitness appearing on “90 minutes,” a program on the al-Mehwar satellite network, said 25-year-old Mary Sameh George was attacked in her car near a church, where she planned to deliver medicine to an ill and elderly woman.
Protestors climbed onto her car, collapsing the roof, then hauled her from the vehicle, beating and mauling her — to the extent, he said, that portions of her scalp were torn off. She was stabbed multiple times, her throat was slit and when she was dead, the mob torched her car.
One Coptic outlet said that according to the health ministry, the young woman had been stabbed at least a dozen times.
The death of Mary Sameh George received little coverage in Egyptian newspapers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt vs. The Muslim Brotherhood — Preventing the Next Syria
The sentencing of over 500 Muslim Brotherhood members to death in Cairo — many in absentia — for their role in the attack, torture, and murder of an Egyptian policeman is the culmination of an all encompassing security crackdown across Egypt. The move has created a chilling effect that has left the otherwise violent mobs of the Muslim Brotherhood silent and the streets they generally terrorize, peaceful and empty.
The move by the Egyptian courts has attracted the predictable condemnation of the US State Department. The Washington Post’s article, “Egyptian court sentences 529 people to death,” quoted US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf as claiming the US was “deeply concerned,” and “shocked.” She also claimed that the move “defied logic.”
The move was, however, exceptionally logical.
While the US continues to feign support for the government in Cairo, it was fully behind the so-called “Arab Spring,” the Muslim Brotherhood-led regime of Mohamed Morsi that came to power in its wake, its mobs in the streets, and the networks of NGOs inside Egypt supporting and defending their activities…
The Egyptian military’s lightning fast moves to shatter the Muslim Brotherhood’s networks has for now thwarted a foreign-driven, armed, and dangerous attempt to subvert Egypt’s stability. It is a model that had Syria or Libya followed, tens of thousands of lives could have been spared, and the lives of millions more left unscathed by years of bloodshed and war.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli FM Uncertain Whether Crisis is ‘Real or Artificial’
Palestinian reaction ‘will not help them achieve independence’
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, APRIL 2 — Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Wednesday that he wasn’t sure whether the fresh crisis in stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks was real or “artificial”.
“We will know the answer in two or three days,” he said in commenting on US Secretary of State John Kerry’s decision to call off another visit to the region after a surprise move by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas to sign applications for Palestinian admission to 15 international treaties and conventions on Tuesday. “We have done everything possible to support an agreement.
The ball is now in the Palestinians’ camp.” Lieberman added that he was not worried about the Palestinian initiative. “All of this,” he said, “will not bring them closer to an independent State.” He added that if Palestinians did not want to continue negotiating, Israel was by no means going to “chase after them”. “Our true political future,” added the minister, “is represented by the moderate Arab world.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
by Meryl Yourish
John Kerry has gotten his very own teachable moment. Of course, that moment has been an utter waste of, well, all the time he’s been Secretary of State. The U.S. is stepping back from trying to get the Palestinians to talk peace, because John Kerry has discovered that it’s impossible to have peace when at least one of the partners isn’t interested in actually achieving it. Of course, he blames Israel as much as the Palestinians. But let us review. Israel freed over a hundred convicted terrorists, including murderers. Israel froze settlement building for nine months. Israel has continuously come to the talks with the idea of compromising. In the meantime, Abbas has refused every single chance at compromise, insisted that Israel must retreat to the 1949 Armistice lines, release all Palestinians in Israeli jails, and allow Palestinian refugees to overwhelm Israel in any agreement.Oh, and since Israel refused to release the last group of murderers without a Palestinian promise to continue talking past the end of April, Abbas signed papers to get the PA into 15 UN organizations in yet another move to make an end run around talks to establish a Palestinian state.
John Kerry, and I presume Barack Obama, have finally learned what every president since Jimmy Carter has learned: The Palestinian leadership does not want peace.
It wants all of Israel. And Kerry offered the worst deal ever: Jonathan Pollard goes free if Israel releases more terrorist murderers. How unprecedented is that, to offer to release an American prisoner in exchange for Palestinian prisoners? It just begs to encourage the Taliban to demand prisoners from the U.S. in exchange for our captive soldier.
Well, the peace talks are dead. I knew they wouldn’t succeed.
You can’t have peace when only one side wants it.
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Politics Divides Nazareth’s Muslims and Christians
Though Nazareth is known for its Christian community, Israel’s biggest Arab city is home to a Muslim majority. Tensions between the two religions have been on the rise since a mayoral election turned ugly.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that the contest was fought along sectarian lines: when the state of Israel was created in 1948, Nazareth was a small Christian town. The influx of Muslim refugees from surrounding villages changed its demographic makeup, and the high birth rate in the Muslim community means they now make up more than 70 percent of residents.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
12 Killed in Violent Attacks in Iraq
BAGHDAD, April 2 (Xinhua) — Twelve people were killed and 26 wounded in separate attacks, including a suicide bombing, in Iraq on Wednesday, police said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Ancient Monastery at Petra Likely Built to Track Sun
Add the Monastery at Petra to the monuments that humans probably built for astronomical purposes. New research suggests that ancient architects tracked the motion of the sun and constructed the religious center with the winter solstice in mind.
When the Earth reaches its farthest point from the sun, light from the sun shines into the monastery — which is located in Petra, Jordan — and falls upon the podium of a deity. At the same time, the light casts the shadow of the head of a lion (a sacred animal in Nabatean culture) upon a mountain opposite to the religious center.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Five Yemeni Soldiers Killed in Al-Qaida Attack in Aden
ADEN, Yemen, April 2 (Xinhua) — Gunmen suspected to be al- Qaida members launched a massive attack on the Yemeni Military Force Base in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden on Wednesday morning, killing up to five soldiers and injuring several others, a competent police source told Xinhua…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Heathrow Loses Its Place as World’s Busiest Airport… to Dubai
Bosses attack politicians for dithering over third runway after airport is knocked into second place
Politicians were yesterday accused of squandering 350 years of British transport supremacy after Dubai overtook Heathrow as the world’s busiest airport.
Dubai International Airport has carried more international passengers than Heathrow for three months in a row, according to the latest figures.
The quarterly results from the airports reveal that Dubai is also well on course to overtake Heathrow’s passenger numbers for the whole of this year — which would put an end to a 350-year period in which Britain has been home to either the world’s busiest port or airport.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Jordanian Court: Women Without Hijab Are “Sluts” Unfit to Testify
An Amman appellate court announced last week that a woman who does not cover up or wear a hijab is considered a “slut” and shouldn’t be allowed to testify in court, reports Albawada.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Militants in Syria Prepare Chemical Attack in Damascus — UN Envoy
Armed gangs in Syria are conspiring to stage a chemical attack in the Damascus suburbs in order to later lay the blame on the Bashar Assad’s government, Syria’s UN Ambassador Bashar Jaafari has warned the Security Council.
“Competent Syrian authorities intercepted a wireless communication between two terrorists in the Jawbar area of the Damascus governorate,” Jaafari said in a letter addressed to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council. The letter was published on Tuesday on the UN website.
In that communication, the diplomat said, one “of the terrorists said that another terrorist named Abu Nadir was covertly distributing gas masks.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
New Cold War With Russia Heating Up in Syria
As President Obama was his teleprompter on March 20th to announce sanctions against Russia, Syrian rebel forces led by al Qaeda-linked Islamic Front and Jabhat al-Nusra launched a surprise offensive in northwestern Syria near the Turkish border. The offensive, known as “The Martyrs Mothers,” captured the three area border crossings into Turkey and killed Hilal al Assad, Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s cousin and head of the militia known as the National Defense Force. With the U.S. secretly arming the rebels and President Obama in Saudi Arabia, the new Cold War with Russia is heating up in Syria.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
New English Review: Stalemate in the Middle East?
As the Persian New Year Norwuz dawned, the Middle East was upended by developments that have thrown into question international efforts to reign in Iran’s quest for nuclear hegemony and the Obama Administration’s quest for a final status agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Overarching these objectives of the P5+1 and US Secretary of State Kerry was the seizure from the Ukraine and annexation of Crimea by Russian President Putin unsettling these agendas. Putin had formed an alliance with Shiite Allies, the Assad regime in Damascus and Iran. He is backing the former in the three year old civil war with weapons to thwart Sunni support from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Emirates for rebel militias. Putin wants to stifle Sunni irredentism in the Southern Russian provinces of Chechnya and Dagestan. As American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Scholar, Michael Rubin observed, “Putin sees international relations as a zero-sum game in which for Russia to win, everyone else must lose.”
Israel is vitally concerned about the Iran threat with evidence unveiled on March 10th in the port of Eilat by PM Netanyahu. On display was a secreted cargo of Syrian made rockets, mortars and large caches of ammunition seized by Israeli Naval commandos from a Panamanian flagged cargo vessel, the Klos-C in the Red Sea off Port Sudan. He said:…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia Declares All Atheists Are Terrorists in New Law to Crack Down on Political Dissidents
Saudi Arabia has introduced a series of new laws which define atheists as terrorists, according to a report from Human Rights Watch.
In a string of royal decrees and an overarching new piece of legislation to deal with terrorism generally, the Saudi King Abdullah has clamped down on all forms of political dissent and protests that could “harm public order”.
The new laws have largely been brought in to combat the growing number of Saudis travelling to take part in the civil war in Syria, who have previously returned with newfound training and ideas about overthrowing the monarchy.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
State Dept. Says Iran’s Pick for UN Ambassador ‘Troubling’ Amid Outrage Over Hostage Crisis Link
The State Department is raising “serious concerns” over Iran’s new nominee for ambassador to the U.N., who was involved with the group that took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran for 444 days and held American diplomats hostage in 1979.
Critics were outraged after it was revealed Iran wants to send Hamid Aboutalebi to New York as its envoy. Aboutalebi may now be a 56-year-old veteran diplomat, but also was apparently a member of the hard-line Muslim student group that took over the embassy.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Intense Fighting and Air Strikes in Damascus Suburbs
Opposition chief Ahmad Jarba visits Latakia amid offensive
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, APRIL 2 — Intense fighting between Syrian rebels and loyalists has erupted in the Damascus suburb of Jawbar, eyewitnesses told ANSAmed via Skype on Wednesday.
The fighting in what had been a truce zone has been ongoing for hours, the sources said.
The northern suburb is held by regime forces but surrounded by rebel-held neighborhoods.
Also on Wednesday, the regime’s air force carried out repeated air strikes over the southern Damascus pro-rebel suburb of Mliha, which is under siege by government troops, activists told ANSAmed via Skype.
The numbers of wounded and casualties are still unknown.
Opposition Syrian National Coalition (SNC) chief Ahmad Jarba on Tuesday took a rare trip to the coastal province of Latakia amid a two-week offensive by non-SNC affiliated rebels.
Jarba, who is thought to be close to Saudi Arabia, was seen in an activist video along with rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) General Malek al-Kurdi.
“We hope this meeting to be taking place at a historic moment…of the beginning of the final phase of our liberation of the coast and the whole of Syria from Bashar al-Assad’s regime”, al-Kurdi said.
Jarba in February visited FSA units fighting al-Qaeda-affiliated militias in northern Syria. Fundamentalist militias from the Islamic Front, the Jabhat al-Nusra Front, and the Ahrar ash-Sham brigade on March 21 went on a coordinated offensive in a region bordering on Turkey, managing for the first time to take control of a sliver of Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Brzezinski and Globalists Position EU for Takeover of Ukraine
Zbigniew Brzezinski, an originating Trilateralist along with David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger, has called for the European Union to step up to the plate and increase its involvement in Ukraine.
On Tuesday, the EU’s economy boss, Olli Rehn, a Bilderberg attendee and also vice president of the European Commission, said the EU will soon lavish a nearly bankrupt Ukraine with cash as part of the ongoing effort to yank it out of the Russian orbit.
The EU, which has imposed austerity on its member states, will fork over 11 billion euros to the junta in Kyiv as part of a package cooked up by the International Monetary Fund.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
NATO Exploits Phantom Russian Troop Build-Up to Call for Militarizing Eastern Europe
Western observers find no evidence of military build-up on Russia’s border with Ukraine
On Sunday Infowars.com reported that the Pentagon, NBC News and Russian media have all confirmed Russia is not massing troops on the border of Ukraine. NATO made the claim after junta ambassador to the U.S. Olexander Motsyk said there were about 100,000 troops amassed at the Ukraine border.
“Western observers have found no evidence of a military build-up along Russia’s border with Ukraine, the Russian foreign ministry said on its website Friday,” The Wall Street Journal reported last week. “The statement from Russia’s foreign ministry referred to inspections by Ukrainian and Western observers as well as survey flights by German and U.S. planes over the border territory, all of which, it said, found no evidence of military escalation.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
With political chaos playing out around them, researchers in Ukraine and the freshly annexed region of Crimea are facing their own upheavals. Many Crimean institutes are looking to their new Russian master for signs of what is to come, and Ukraine’s scientists can already see cuts heading their way.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
6 Afghan Police Killed as Suicide Bomber Targets Ministry
KABUL, April 2 (Xinhua) — At least six policemen were killed Wednesday in a suicide bombing on the country’s Interior Ministry, the ministry confirmed in a statement.
“One suicide bomber wearing military uniform tried to enter along side of the visitors to the ministry of interior building at around 2:30 p.m. (local time). The attacker detonated his explosive jacket at the entrance after being identified. Six Afghan National Police (ANP) were martyred as a result of the blast,” the ministry said in the statement…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
When the world’s largest democracy goes to the polls from April 7 to May 12 the logistics are mind-boggling. Over 800 million voters will choose their representatives for the national parliament in the capital New Delhi.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) As the facts about MH370 slowly emerge, it is increasingly apparent that the Malaysian government has been — and continues to be — involved in an elaborate cover-up that falsified and hid evidence the public deserves to know about the fate of Flight 370 passengers.
The government openly admitted this, in fact. “A Malaysian team have told relatives of Chinese passengers on board the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 that there was sealed evidence that cannot be made public, as they came under fire from the angry relatives at a briefing on Wednesday,” reported the Straights Times.(1)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
MH370: Malaysia’s Police Chief Warns Plane Mystery May Never be Solved
The investigation into Malaysia Airlines’ flight 370’s disappearance may never find the true cause, the country’s police chief warned on Wednesday. Khalid Abu Bakar said the case “may go on and on and on” and urged people to be patient as he briefed reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
Investigators believe the Beijing-bound flight was diverted deliberately by someone on board not long after taking off from the Malaysian capital early on 8 March. But with no wreckage from the Boeing 777 yet detected, despite a massive international hunt in the southern Indian Ocean, they have few clues to help them determine who caused the diversion and whether it was malicious.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Musharraf’s Indictment ‘Divisive’ For Pakistan
A Pakistani court has indicted former military dictator Pervez Musharraf for treason relating to his imposition of emergency rule in 2007. Experts say the ruling is likely to further polarize Pakistan.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Renzi Urges Ban to Handle Marines Case Internationally
‘Request is legitimate’ says premier
(see related) (ANSA) — Rome, April 2 — Italian Premier Matteo Renzi on Wednesday said he urged United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to handle internationally the case of two Italian marines held without charges for an alleged murder in India two years ago. “It’s a legitimate and necessary request,” said Renzi in Brussels.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Suicide Bomber Kills Police at Kabul’s Interior Ministry Ahead of Afghanistan Elections
A suicide bomber dressed in military uniform has killed police officers at Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, days ahead of presidential elections.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Thailand: Bomb Explosion in Bangkok Kills Seven
BANGKOK, April 2 (Xinhua) — A bomb believed to be from the World War II period exploded in Thai capital Bangkok on Wednesday, leaving at least seven people dead and 19 others injured. The 225-kilogram bomb exploded when a worker at a scrap metal warehouse in the Bang Khen district tried to cut it open, who reportedly did not realize it was a bomb…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Vietnamese Watermelon Bound for China Stuck in Border Exit
In the past ten days, lorries carrying watermelon have been making a 30-kilometer-long queue on northern Vietnamese border, and the line is getting longer as Vietnamese merchants rush to reach China to sell their fruit before they become too ripe.
Vietnamese watermelon merchants have incurred huge losses as the price of watermelon has plunged and some fruit become rotten due to long waiting period for their transport to Chinese markets. A lively debate over the responsibility of relevant Vietnamese ministries and sectors in addressing the woes of Vietnamese watermelon exporters to China is now raging across the country…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
EU-Africa Summit Focuses on Trade and Conflicts, Not Least in CAR
European and African leaders have opened a major summit seeking deeper political, economic and investment ties. The meeting will also focus on conflict prevention, like the violence in the Central African Republic.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy ‘To Engage in EU Mission’ To Tackle CAR Crisis
Sources in Brussels say
(ANSA) — Brussels, April 2 — Italy has vowed to contribute to a European Union security mission in Bangui to restore peace in the Central African Republic (CAR), sources in Brussels said on Wednesday.
African and EU leaders are meeting in Brussels to discuss the conflict in CAR.
The EU has announced it intends to send 1,000 troops to restore stability following more than a year of conflict after mainly Muslim rebels gained power.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya Launches Anti-Terror Crackdown
Security forces in Kenya are seeking to crack down on insecurity following the assassination of a Muslim cleric in Mombasa and a triple bombing in Nairobi earlier in the week.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kenyan ‘Al-Shabab Recruiter’ Killed Near Mombasa
A radical Muslim cleric in Kenya, Abubakar Shariff Ahmed, has been shot dead outside the coastal city of Mombasa, police and witnesses say.
His corpse lay on a road with what appeared to be wounds to the head and body, Reuters news agency reports. It is not yet known who killed the cleric…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Living by the Wheelbarrow in Liberia
In Liberia, wheelbarrows are humble but robust technology. They provide employment and help keep local economies moving. Critics say they are a reminder of underdevelopment.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
S. African HIV Prevalence Rises on Soaring New Infections
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) — The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in South Africa is rising due to the world’s fastest growth in new infections and a higher patient survival rate, according to a new health study.
An estimated 12.2 percent of South Africa’s population was infected with the HIV virus in 2012, compared with 10.6 percent in 2008, according to a survey of 38,000 people carried out by the country’s Human Sciences Research Council.
The percentage rise was partly due to 400,000 new HIV cases in the year studied, the highest in the world, taking the total number of people infected in South Africa to 6.4 million.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
150 Scientists Condemn Seralini GMO Study Retraction as Attack on Scientific Integrity
(NaturalNews) Scores of scientists have condemned a journal editor’s retraction of a study that reported a number of serious side effects in lab rats that consumed Monsanto’s genetically modified maize and Roundup herbicide.
In all, according to a press release by a group called End Science Censorship, the number of scientists decrying the retraction has climbed to 150.
The group said the editor of the Elsevier journal Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT), Dr. A. Wallace Hayes, claimed that the retraction of a study conducted by a team headed by Prof. Gilles-Eric Seralini was due to some “inconclusive” findings. But that rationale has been roundly criticized by scientists who point out that many studies contain findings that are not at all conclusive.
What is also noteworthy, they point out, is that the retraction comes just a few months after the arrival of a former Monsanto scientist on the editorial board of the scientific journal.
“It is a criminal attitude,” said Dr. Mohamed Habib, a professor of entomology at the University of Campinas, Brazil, who has signed a petition opposing the retraction.
“Truth and ethical values have to be considered as more important than money. The article must be reinstated,” he said, adding that the retraction appeared to indicate that powerful economic interests influenced the journal’s decision.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bishops Group Says Venezuela Seeks Totalitarian Rule; Could Hinder Vatican Role as Facilitator
CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s organization of Catholic bishops is accusing the government of seeking totalitarian-style rule, comments that potentially could complicate the Vatican’s offer to facilitate talks between the socialist government and its opposition.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Chile Quake Leaves 6 Dead But Causes Less Damage Than Feared
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet toured northern Chile on Wednesday, inspecting the damage from a magnitude 8.2 earthquake the night before that left six people dead and forced the evacuation of about 900,000 others but which apparently caused less damage than feared.
At first glance Wednesday morning, damage to northern coastal cities near the epicenter seemed to be minor, according to local news reports and government officials. There were scattered fires caused by gas leaks and some structural damage to homes and businesses but apparently little devastation in the vicinity of Pisagua, near the offshore epicenter of the quake.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iveco Suspends Production in Venezuela Over Currency Crisis
‘Import costs unsustainable’ says Italian truck maker
(ANSA) — Turin, April 2 — The currency crisis in Venezuela is forcing Italian truck and industrial vehicles maker Iveco to suspend production there after 60 years, the company said Wednesday.
The company, which is owned by Turin-based CNH Industrial, cited difficulties in importing key components and materials, a factor which has hit industries across the country. “It is Iveco’s intention to resume manufacturing at La Victoria when market conditions improve and stabilise,” it added, insisting it was committed to the Venezuelan market, and will continue providing parts and services through its 32 locations nationwide. Iveco Venezuela has a total labor force of 400 workers and produces a range of trucks and bus chassis.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
High Deportation Figures Are Misleading
Immigrants living illegally beyond the border area are less likely to be deported under ‘deporter in chief’ President Obama, contrary to widespread belief.
“If you are a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero — it’s just highly unlikely to happen,” John Sandweg, until recently the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in an interview.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Navy Rescues 730 Migrants Off Unseaworthy Boats
124 women and 29 minors, from North Africa with no life jackets
(ANSA) — Rome, April 2 — Two Italian Navy vessels on Tuesday rescued a total of 730 migrants off two dangerously overcrowded boats coming from North Africa, the Navy said Wednesday.
Among them were 124 women and 29 minors.
Navy helicopters first saw the migrant boats while on patrol, and a decision was made to rescue the people on board because they did not have life jackets and the vessels were deemed unseaworthy, Navy sources said.
A Navy ship is taking the migrants to the Sicilian coast town of Porto Empedocle, where they are expected to arrive sometime today.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy to Send Moroccan Convicts Back Home
Italy’s justice minister has signed an agreement to have Moroccan convicts sent back home, in a move aimed at tackling chronic overcrowding in prisons. Andrea Orlando signed the accord with his Moroccan counterpart, Mustafa Ramid, during a meeting in the Moroccan capital, Rabat.
There are around 4,000 Moroccan prisoners in Italian prisons, where overcrowding has prompted strong criticism from the European Court of Human Rights.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
MSF Calls for Greece to End Lengthy Migrant Detentions
(ANSAmed) — ROME, APRIL 2 — The aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) released a report and video on Wednesday decrying the detention of migrants in Greece in conditions described as a ‘‘living hell’’, calling on the nation to put an end to the situation. Greece currently holds the rotating six-month EU presidency.
The migrants detained include children, the ill, and people who have not committed any crime, and the detention has serious effects on their physical and mental health, the report states.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Rand Paul: GOP Must Get ‘Beyond Deportation’
Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday argued the Republican Party needs to get “beyond deportation” in order to break through to Hispanic voters.
The Kentucky Republican and likely 2016 contender argued that before the GOP can make its case to the Latino community, which voted overwhelmingly for Democrats in 2012, the party needs to make clear it is open to a more welcoming approach to immigration.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
How white parents should talk to their young kids about race.
I dug into research on the causes of racial bias and talked to developmental and social psychologists, race-relations researchers, and Africologists. The good news is that the answer seems to be yes—there are things I can do to keep my kids from harboring racial prejudice. Namely, I can talk to them about race.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Teacher: ‘I Was Bullied’ For Opposing Common Core
A Missouri teacher says she was intimidated and bullied because she opposes the newly implemented Common Core, a new standardized testing and lesson plan that has been adopted by 45 states.
Kindergarten teacher Susan Kimball of Sikeston, Missouri, testified in a legislative hearing that her bosses and fellow teachers had pressured her and others not to speak negatively about Common Core in public or online, lest they face repercussions at work.
“In a professional development meeting … in November, and at a faculty meeting in January, we were told in my building, and I quote, ‘Be careful about what you post on Facebook, or talk about in the public regarding Common Core. Don’t say anything negative. It could affect your job,’“ Kimball recalled for the Missouri Senate Education Committee. Video of her testimony was recorded by Duane Lester, a conservative blogger, who was asked by several activists to attend and videotape the testimony and questions. (Lester says he’s not an activist on the issue, but he’s concerned about the lack of transparency and cost of implementing new standards.)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
They Are Just Doing Their Job! Who’s Fault is it?
“The Laws of God and of man have been violated, and the guilty must not go unpunished.” — President Harry Truman, May 1945, Nuremburg Trials “Tyranny on Trial”
Interestingly enough, back in 1945, during the Nuremberg Trials, when the war criminals were rounded up by a world tribunal to bring forth justice concerning those who were responsible for the murder of 12 million people (mainly Hitler’s regime), when it was time to answer for their crimes, the accused stated that they were “just doing what they were ordered to do,” regardless if it was legal or illegal, not only in the sight of man, but also before a Just and Holy God (Proverbs 21:3).
The real question here should be: Who were the real criminals? Those who committed the crimes, or those who let them commit the crimes? Imagine with me for a moment if the people in Germany would have dealt with these criminals before their crimes commenced — how different would the outcome have been (Deuteronomy 28:63)?
Let me show you how history is repeating itself right here in America.
When I look across the country, as I do on a daily basis, and see things taking place in America, I can’t help but wonder why we are where we are today and who is to blame for the position that we as a people are in.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Wearable Tech the Surveillance Grid of the Future
In the near future, consumers will be adorning themselves with wearable technology that will weave an incredibly detailed picture of their lives. A cloud of information will float around you with details on sleep habits, what you ate for breakfast, who you are meeting for dinner, your heart rate, and much more. Insurance companies will likely harvest this data to adjust your rates. Governments will undoubtedly hack into this cloud of personal data to track down dissidents. Marketers will have access to a goldmine of personalized information that will be used to market products.
These wearables are sold to the public as a means of making life easier, which they undoubtedly will. With that convenience there will be a price to pay in privacy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Who Knew About Harm From Electromagnetic Radiation
Monday, February 3, 2014 was a very strange day in London. Only the weather was predictable. A cold rain fell as a dais of scientists faced a room full of reporters in the Royal Society Library’s Special Events Room on Carlton House Terrace. With its pillared roots going back to the 1600s, the Royal Society Library had welcomed scientists from all over the world for centuries.
On this day, two scientists distinguished themselves as authors of the thick, glossy tome that was almost the biggest presence in the press briefing. Co-authors Prof. Bernard Stewart, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales and Christopher Wild, PhD, Director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) esteemed International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) prepared to tell the world we are on the verge of a cancer tsunami. World Cancer Report 2014 was nearly six years in the making. IARC is the cancer agency of the WHO, and a core part of their mission is to disseminate information on cancer. They gather information, frequently classify the risk level of various substances, and share that news with the world. This day the news was daunting…
He then stated the known: IARC, the International Agency on Research for Cancer — the very sub-group of the World Health Organization that sponsored the report, had classified RF (microwave) radiation and everything on the RF — EMF Spectrum a 2B or “possible human” carcinogen in May of 2011. He further stated that a major minority of the May 2011 IARC Working Group, based on the scientific evidence, did not want a 2B “possible human” carcinogen status for RF radiation, but rather the more serious classification of 2A, meaning a “probable human” carcinogen.
The Advisor then proceeded to state the unknown: “What was the future trajectory of this RF-EMF Spectrum classification given new science that had come along since May of 2011?” the gentleman queried. “Since Dr. Lennart Hardell, the scientist whose science was considered as part of the 2B classification, had come out in 2013 and said the classification should now be Group 1, meaning RF radiation is a known human carcinogen, might IARC upgrade the RF Spectrum to 2A, or even Group 1 — a known carcinogen?” Catching a quick breath, he continued, “In short, RF radiation causes cancer, the concern among independent scientists appears to be growing, and what does the panel see as a potential for upgrading the warning about RF radiation’s status as a carcinogen?”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
It’s odd, and a little sad, that the command’s order is to “shelter in place.” To me that sounds like ordering troops to “cower in place.”
I presume that “defend in place” was not chosen as the prime directive as that would needlessly and improperly inspire the troops to fight back, as well as highlight the fact that they still have no means of doing that in these situations, viz., fight back.
Allow troops to carry issue sidearms or bring their own!
Honour killing?
translated from the French
1. and 2.
1. Throat slit by husband : « She cooked couscous badly”
http://www.20min.ch/ro/news/romandie/story/Egorgee-par-son-mari—elle-faisait-mal-le-couscous–20209678
By Christian Humbert
The trial of a Tunisian at the criminal court started on Tuesday morning . He killed his wife in 2010, but he presents himself as secular, tolerant and attached to human rights.
Why would she want a lover, I assumed my marriage obligations? The ex-accountant at the Tunisian embassy, 2010 wife killer in Fribourg, talked to the court without pause since Tuesday. “may she rest in peace” the 47 year man often expresses, who describes himself as a “socialist, secular, sentimental, not jealous and respectful of human rights”. “I was considered as a calm person”. That did not stop him from raping his wife and then urinating on her.
The accused, who believed that he was being followed by the Tunisian dictator’s police at the time, also acted as a tyrant towards his wife, banned from going out. He declared that she was threatened with kidnapping to be resold. He followed so often the one from which he was separated from now, “ an angel, a very fragile flower”, 7 years his junior.
He ties her up, knifes, shoots and cuts her throat
But he also describes her as “psychiatrically ill”. nevertheless, it is him who gagged, attached her at the foot of the bed in the middle of the afternoon, while their 2 daughters were in the flat, in the area of Schönberg, in Fribourg. Then, he hit her with 15 knife blows in the back, before shooting her with an airsoft pistol, a ball is lodged in the victim’s lips. He then strangled her again before cutting her throat. The accused slept next to the body and explained to the teenagers that their mother had gone, then that she has been hospitalised. Jobless, drinker, the one who was called David, claimed that he can explain all. A break up, it isn’t the end of the world, but I needed to know why”. He accused her of not looking after the children and not know how to make couscous. She fed them badly and returned late, he added.
2. Exclusive testimony of the dad of the young lady killed in Athus: “he stabbed Vanessa 12 times”
by Nicolas Léonard
On Sunday morning on Usine street in Athus ( Aubange), Vanessa Hopp’s dead body is discovered in her apartment. The 21-year-old young lady was killed, with dozen stabs. Her companion-Larbi Azzedine-was placed under arrest.
” Vanessa had enough of it and thought of leaving Azzedine “, according to Mario, the dad of the young lady.
The anger, deafness. The sadness, infinite. It is both feelings that are in Mario Hopp. On Sunday morning, the police came to announce, to him and his wife, that his daughter had been found dead in her apartment of Athus. Killed by several stabs, no doubt by her companion, Larbi Azzedine, who was placed under arrest.
Mortal love at first sight
“It had been a year that they were together. Vanessa had met him, with friends, near the station of Luxemburg. It was love at first sight “, tells us Mario. Who, him, has never “felt forthright (senti)” Larbi. ” He is a 27-year-old Algerian. He told us that he had fled Algeria and that it was for this reason that he had no papers. And without papers he could not work. Vanessa loved him. Then we accepted him into the family. He attended the marriage of my elder daughter, played with the smallest of my children, lived under my roof and to other one of my daughters … He said that he respected me, whom I was as her father, whom never he would hurt me. “Often, Mario warned his daughter. ” How could she move on in life with someone that did nothing? I said to it to her the day before her death. But I was afraid that she would go away from me. “Nevertheless, Mario knows that Larbi is jealous and violent (person). ” But every time Vanessa said he had calmed down, every time it would not happen anymore. She raised one complaint only once, with the public prosecutor’s department of Luxemburg.
Over the course of the months, Azzedine had a total influence on the young woman, edging out her friends. Little by little Vanessa intended to put an end to their relation. ” She told me: dad, I am going to return at home(with you), I can’t bear him anymore. ” Vanessa ran out of time. The last weekend, she was struck by 12 stabs. ” He stabbed her almost everywhere on the body. In particular at the level of the neck … It is obvious that he wanted to kill her. He gave her no chance.
Http: // http://www.sudinfo.be/970305/article/regions/luxembourg/actualite/2014-03-26/temoigna ge-ex uee-a-athus-il-a-porte-12-
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1kx9ki_david-rachline-s-enerve-contre-la-construction-d-une-mosquee_tv
In French
The FN councillor asked about the source of the funding for the Frejus mosque, and also wanted reassurance on the type of sermons, he got howled down by the others on the council, particularly the now ex mayor.
Bear this mind… Fast forward the elections, the FN is now the mayor!
Disgruntled local politician, ex mayor, Elie Brun, Frejus, about the Muslims: ”
With what I did for them, [crap], they can build their mosque by themselves, they can go and stuff themselves.”
The socialist member is a bit of a sore loser in the local elections.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1kx5kx_david-rachline-et-elie-brun-apres-le-premier-tour_news
From Foxnews no less
The National Front is launching a European youth movement in Vienna on Friday. It’s called the Young European Alliance for Hope — or YEAH — and includes the FPO, Belgium’s Vlaams Belang and Sweden Democrats.
Re: “Lego is Satan’s work”. You sure this shouldn’t have been posted on the 1st?