Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas said that his government will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Hamas, despite its recent reconciliation with Mr. Abbas and Fatah, said that it will never recognize the existence of Israel at all.
In other news, Prime Minister Chung Hong-won of South Korea has resigned after his government came under heavy fire for its handling of the recent ferry accident, which left more than 300 people dead or missing.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, JP, LB, Steen, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Savings and Retirement in Danger
While a coalition of governments and brutal dictatorships known as the Group of 20 (G-20) is in the process of meeting in April to continue its push to empower the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Bundy was fighting the BLM in Nevada, the somnambulists were running in the Boston Marathon again and others met at a “pot festival” in Colorado on Easter weekend blowing smoke in the face of photographers. One participant wore a T-shirt: Drugs Are My Life. A recent Gallup survey found that 70 percent of respondents have “checked out” or are “actively disengaged” from their jobs. And that dear readers is exactly the goal of these evil proliferate despot world leaders including Barack Obama who want sleeping Americans and global one world government.
Obama and others met in Russia in 2013 to continue plotting while our lethargic pot smokers and others don’t have a clue. This G-20 coalition is doubling the resources it has while giving dictatorships such as China and other socialist regimes much more control over the institutions at the expense of the U.S. Government. A controversial IMF report released late last year, for instance, touts schemes to have big spending governments with out-of-control debts plunder humanity’s wealth using a mix of much higher taxes and outright confiscation. They have already literally looted the bank accounts of private individuals in Cyprus as a trial run at worldwide wealth confiscation and our savings, 401(k) and retirements are in danger. Citing a sample of 15 euro-area nations, the report claims that all households with positive net wealth — anyone with more assets than debt would have to surrender ten percent.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Tiny Agenda 21 Homes for the Homeless
If the Fed is allowed to continue its polices we may all soon be living in micro-homes made of garbage
In addition to ePodments, rabbit hutch-like apartments of 200 square feet, the homeless, unemployed and poor may soon be relegated to “mini-homes,” tiny dwellings made of straw, casein, junkyard scrap and other cheap materials. (See the infographic below.)
MPHOnline wants to make “mini-home communities viable, cost-effective and sustainable” in response to the economic crisis. It cites as an example Allan Graham’s Community First Village in Austin, Texas.
While helping the poor is admirable, we have to ask: why is there an economic crisis? Why are millions of Americans unemployed and underemployed?
Sheltering folks is certainly required, but so is making sure a tiny international financial cartel does not have the power to command and destroy economies at will.
The current economic crisis was created by the Federal Reserve. It manufactured the housing bubble that burst and took down the economy. It has engineered no less than ten economic recessions since 1950. It admits to having unleashed the Great Depression.
When too big to fail casino banks and corporations go bust, the Federal Reserve bails them out. The Frank-Dodd audit of the Fed revealed an astounding $16,000,000,000,000.00 has been given in bailouts to banks and corporations throughout the world from December 2007 through June 2010 after the manufactured subprime housing bubble popped. The $16 trillion figure dwarfs both the national debt and the annual gross domestic product for the United States.
“From now on, depressions will be scientifically created,” warned Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. in 1913 when the Federal Reserve Act was passed in the dead of night on Christmas. “The financial system has been turned over to the Federal Reserve Board. That Board as ministers the finance system by authority of a purely profiteering group. The system is Private, conducted for the sole purpose of obtaining the greatest possible profits from the use of other people’s money.”
Homes are needed for the homeless and unemployed. But what is really needed is to deconstruct the Federal Reserve and return America to sound and honest money, not inflated fiat currency designed to benefit a small cabal of international bankers and impoverish everybody else.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
2016 Republican Presidential Hopefuls and Their Advisers, Part 2
“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” — Thomas Jefferson
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.” — Marcus Tillius Cicero
The phony rightwing cabal is such a huge spider web that it’s impossible to write about all the connections in the allowed space for an article. The leftist alliances and deviousness of these wolves in sheep’s clothing is truly mind boggling. I’ve written about them many times, so I hope the readers of this article have read my previous articles and can fully connect the dots.
In part 1 of this article, we covered Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Chris Christie. Now let’s take a look at Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Paul Ryan, and Bobby Jindal.
As mentioned in Part 1 of this article, Rubio is Constitutionally ineligible for the position of President or Vice President. However, since Barack Hussein Obama has set the precedent for being elected when only one parent was an American citizen, we now will face three more challengers whose parents were not both American citizens when they were born.
Adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who is the former director of the Congressional Budget Office and economic policy advisor to Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign is at the top of Rubio’s list. He is now president of the American Action Forum. Not bad enough that Eakin was tied to leftist Republican, John McCain, but on the board of his American Action Forum is none other than Jeb Bush, who has reformed and destroyed the education in Florida, and who loves Communist Core…
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
At the top of the adviser list is John B. Taylor, a Stanford University Hoover Institution scholar, a former member of Economic Advisers, and economics adviser to several GOP presidential candidates, along with fellow Hoover Institute research fellow, Lanhee Chen, former chief policy adviser to presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Taylor and Chen are in good company with Council on Foreign Relations members, Condoleezza Rice, George Schultz, and Council for National Policy members, Edwin Meese and Richard V. Allen.
[Comment: A must read — many of the advisors to the candidates have leftist connections.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Once again, the Constitution is written so clearly that it takes a liar to say that it authorizes the federal government to take and/or manage property within the United States for reasons other than “Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dockyards, and other needful Buildings”. Of course, “other needful Buildings” is not specific. However, any sane person will understand that the Constitution is talking about either military uses, e.g., bases, or the buildings necessary to fulfill the other federal duties, e.g., post offices.
Neither the United State Constitution nor The Federalist Papers mention national parks, national monuments, Bureau of Land Management, national forests, “protected land” or national land regulations. However, we can infer from the Papers and the ratification debate that the States would not have ratified the Constitution if it gave the federal government the power to come into a State and take control of land.
“The size of this federal district is limited. The State ceding the land for this use must consent. The State will make a compact with the federal government, assuring the rights of the citizens of the district. The inhabitants will have enough inducements to become willing parties to the cession. An elected municipal legislature will exercise authority over them. The legislature of the State and the people who live in the ceded part will agree to the cession and ratify the Constitution. Therefore, this seems to cover every objection.
“The federal government must have authority over forts, military depots, arsenals, dockyards, etc. Public money will be spent on such places.The property and equipment stored there should not be under State authority. These are important to the security of the entire Union and shouldn’t depend on one State. However, each State where they are located must agree.” Federalist Paper # 43 [paragraphs 5-6]
Except for the small amount of land listed in the Constitution, it is clear that the federal government is not supposed to own property within the United States. The Constitution cannot be faulted for the federal land grab that has been detrimental to the economy and well-being of the States. The States have allowed this invasion of unconstitutional federal power.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Genetically Modified Organisms: Coverup and Obfuscation
“The genetic modification of food is intrinsically dangerous. It involves making irreversible changes in a random manner to a complex level of life about which little is known. It is inevitable that this hit-and-miss approach will lead to disasters. It must disrupt the natural intelligence of the plant or animal to which it is applied, and lead to health-damaging side-effects.“ Dr. Geoffrey Clements, Natural Law Party, UK. Tryptophan toxicity incident — $2 billion in claims for deaths and disease.
One reader said, “This one is why U.S. Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri snuck in the Monsanto Protection Act. The USDA and Monsanto illegally planted crops in areas, which would most economically and environmentally damage the other non-GMO crops and refused to pull them when the fed courts ordered it. So Monsanto got the fed government to remove them from any controls. Simple. This is a huge reason why I state that they don’t care what we do — petition, write, march, protest, etc. When the rules work against them, they change the rules to fit their needs. If we follow the rules we have no option but to always play catch-up, and they continue to kill and damage everyone.”
Science writer Ethan Huff said, “Biotechnology giant Syngenta has officially been outed for deliberately hiding data that proves the company’s genetically-modified (GM) Bt 176 corn is directly responsible for killing livestock. Dr. Eva Sirinathsinghji writing for QW Magazine explains that Syngenta is now facing criminal charges for willfully concealing the results of an internal, company-run study on Bt 176 corn from 1996 that was abruptly ended when four cows died after just two days of consuming the “Frankencorn.”“…
This reader said, “This one is pretty critical. GMOs almost always use glyphosate, and it is called a “chelate” for minerals. It prevents the uptake of multiple minerals– over a score of minerals. Selenium, copper, zinc, boron, magnesium, manganese, strontium, etc. Study I read in 90’s when I had 10,000 articles and a few hundred books on natural/alternative health showed that of slightly over 200 corpses killed by strokes — everybody had a copper deficiency. About the same number dead from myocardial infarction (heart attack) — every single one of them had a selenium deficiency. We need those minerals the GMO plants can no longer supply.”…
Overall, the paper found that non-GMO corn is 20 times richer in nutrition, energy and protein compared to GMO corn.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Is Choice Lost? Microchips to Administer Drugs, Replace Pills
(NaturalNews) According to reports from CNN, people who use pharmaceutical drugs, but who don’t like having to remember, think, exercise their personal agency, or make their own proactive choices throughout their day, may soon be able to get their medications automatically administered via an implanted chip.
MIT researchers and a company called MicroCHIPS are developing a chip smaller than a square inch in area, which can be preloaded with drugs. It can release drugs into your body in given doses and time intervals, programmed according to “doctor’s orders” — while your mind wanders on “more important” things…
What could possibly go wrong?
You may have heard last week about the man who was never picked up for his 13 year prison sentence because of clerical administrative error? Do you want to have the possibility of administrative error literally sewn under your skin, embedding the risk of medical mistakes inside your body, every day without reprieve?
To name just one of many scenarios, imagine you are having an adverse drug reaction, and your wireless service to contact the doctor’s office happens to be interrupted that day, while the chip continues to pour the poison into your bloodstream?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Judas Goat Glenn Beck Colludes With CIA and CFR to Take Down Patriot Movement
The pedigree of Beck’s circle reveals he is not a libertarian and does not believe in the Constitution
Glenn Beck, who fancies himself a libertarian, is working with corporate media insiders and a former CIA employee who flaunts his membership in the globalist Council on Foreign Relations. The objective of this group at the very heart of Beck’s operation, now readily apparent following the Cliven Bundy standoff, is to portray the Nevada rancher as a racist zealot, a member of a dangerous and outlaw sovereign citizen movement, and inseparable from violent and conspiracy crazed “militia” domestic terrorists. Beck’s campaign mirrors that of the Obama administration, Eric Holder’s Justice Department and the liberal media intelligentsia.
Beck and company are exploiting a carefully crafted meme manufactured in the intervening years since the Oklahoma City bombing by the Southern Poverty Law Center in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department and the establishment media. They are using this government created and SPLC disseminated mythology to foment discord within the patriot movement and also set the stage for a false flag event that will serve as a coup de grace that will destroy the movement.
The correlation between the Obama administration, the Justice Department and Beck became obvious as the standoff progressed, most notably when Beck began to repeat government talking points to attack Bundy and his supporters.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Media Accused of Hollywood Sex Ring Cover-Up
The mother of the alleged victim of a powerful Hollywood pedophile ring says she tried for years to interest the media in the story. Michael Egan’s mother Bonnie Mound said, “I wrote every news channel, every magazine, every talk-show host, everybody, from Oprah to ‘20/20’ to ‘60 Minutes’… Nobody wanted to do anything because of the high-profile people involved.”
One of those alleged “high-profile people” is defendant Bryan Singer, who is said to have “manipulated his power, wealth, and position in the entertainment industry to sexually abuse and exploit the underage Plaintiff [Michael Egan], “through the use of drugs, alcohol, threats, and inducements which resulted in Plaintiff suffering catastrophic psychological and emotional injuries.”
A member of “Out” magazine’s list of the “Power 50” top homosexuals in the U.S., Singer is a major financial contributor to the Democratic Party. Records of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show Singer making donations totaling $75,800 to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and even the North Carolina Democratic Party.
One description of his work notes that he is “one of the industry’s most successful writer/producer/directors” and that his credits include “Valkyrie,” the X-Men films, and “Superman Returns.” He is also the executive producer of the Emmy Award-winning medical drama “House.”
Singer has strongly denied the allegations. However, a gay news and entertainment site called Queerty reports that “…Singer may have a tough time making the allegations go away, so to speak, after photos published back in 2009 were widely reported to have been taken at one of Singer’s alleged sex parties.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
MSNBC Host Was an FBI Protected Drug Dealer
The Rev. Al Sharpton, the ambulance chasing civil rights careerist, race baiter and MSNBC fixture, served his government as an FBI informant. Sharpton said he worked with the FBI after he was threatened by gangsters but, as The Smoking Gun reported on earlier this month, this turns out to be a lie.
In fact, the explanation for Sharpton’s informership is far more prosaic — he was caught on tape negotiating a cocaine deal.
“The reverend was ‘flipped’ by FBI agents three months after he was filmed in March 1983 (during a bureau sting) talking cocaine with an undercover agent,” The Smoking Gun reports. “Sharpton was confronted by FBI agents who showed him the ‘cocaine’ videotape. The panicked reverend agreed — on the spot — to cooperate with federal agents, according to sources familiar with the contents of Sharpton’s FBI informant file.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Oregon Pulls the Plug on Its ObamaCare Exchange After Blowing $300 Million
ObamaCare has certainly been beneficial for one constituency, and that is web developers who charge hundreds of millions for web sites that don’t work. Maybe I should be in that business. But it doesn’t work out too well for the taxpayers who get stuck with the bill, as we’re finding out in the case of Cover Oregon.
Originally hailed as a model of a state-run exchange, Cover Oregon failed to ever enroll a single person, but managed to run up hundreds of millions in costs while pulling off the unlikely accomplishment of failing more spectacularly than HealthCare.gov itself:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Saul Alinsky Tactics and the BLM War
The internet has been buzzing for the last few days with hysterical hypocrisy from the Left over some remarks made by Clive Bundy, the Nevada Rancher who recently staved off a paramilitary assault by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Bundy made a comment that perhaps black people were better off slaves (as opposed to the neo-slavery of benevolent government.) He was roundly thrashed for his remarks.
First, this is textbook; Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals rule #12
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)”
See, the Left cannot win any argument on the merits of their beliefs; they have to attack the personalities involved. The Politics of Personal Destruction Bill Clinton once called it — while being a master practitioner of the tactic himself. As the old legal adage says, if the facts are against you argue the law, if the law is against you argue the facts, if both are against you attack the parties involved. This last is what Liberals do, because they have neither facts nor laws on their side. They have to impugn people’s motives…
This is about property rights. This is about contracts. This is about the Rule of Law as opposed to the rule of force. This is about standing up to an agency which is supposed to work for the People and not the other way around. It is about being safe from paramilitary forces goosestepping over your property. It is about core American principles.
It is not about the person of Clivn Bundy. The statists have made it so because they cannot win a free and fair exchange of ideas on this issue.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Science Behind the “Global Warming Pause”
Although global temperatures have been rising over the past century, a slowdown in the rate of warming in the past few years has left some scratching their heads over a seeming “global warming pause.”
The suggestion that global warming has stopped is “nonsense,” climatologist Richard Alley of Penn State University said last fall. The fact that the year 2012 was no warmer than 2002, he said, ignores the long-term trend of warming.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Shall-Issue’ Legislation Introduced to Calfornia Assembly
A sweeping handgun carry license reform bill introduced into the state Assembly could make California a ‘shall-issue’ state if adopted.
The bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, (R), would be the biggest change to the Golden state’s gun laws since 1923.
It follows in the wake of the groundbreaking Peruta decision by a federal appeals court which found San Diego County’s ‘may-issue’ standard of granting concealed-carry permits to be unduly harsh.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Truth About Bundy and the New York Times
New York Times tried to smear Bundy with the race card. Besmirched its already dirtied reputation trying to carry the Democratic-liberal-agenda
Following Nevada rancher Clive Bundy’s successful standoff against the federal government, the New York Times released a column “exposing” Bundy as a backward racist.
Before taking the liberal mouth-piece’s aggressive editorializing, one should note that the column presents Fox News as the media instigator for the conflict. Why didn’t the New York Times report on the escalations between the Nevada rancher and the Bureau of Land Management? Too busy playing up Hillary Clinton for 2016?
The article also identifies Bundy’s party affiliation (Republican), when the focus should be the private militia of farmers and ranchers from all over the country resisting the federal government. Was this a righteous cause? Does Bundy owe taxes? And even if Bundy is in the wrong on a financial matter, did the Bureau of Land Management handle this conflict appropriately? Here are Bundy’s comments, contained in this YouTube clip, which provides the entirely of Bundy’s remarks, not just what the New York Times thought was “fit to print”:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Power Grid Could be Too Big, On the Verge of Collapsing Like Pile of Sand
(NaturalNews) In a March 2014 report, The Wall Street Journal issued a dire warning about the nation’s electric power grid.
“The U.S. could suffer a coast-to-coast blackout if saboteurs knocked out just nine of the country’s 55,000 electric-transmission substations on a scorching summer day,” Rebecca Smith wrote.
Indeed, as Natural News and other sites and publications have been reporting, there is increasing concern among U.S. policymakers, Congress and others that the nation’s electric power grid is at risk of being crippled, either by direct cyber attack or by through the physical destruction of key transmission sites.
In fact, the power grid is as brittle as a sand castle, say a trio of researchers whose new study is sounding alarm bells in government and in the industry.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why Thousands of Americans Gave Up Their Citizenship Status Last Year
Americans have always enjoyed the privilege of living abroad without losing citizenship. Think Hemingway and Fitzgerald decamping to write in Europe after World War I, or Gen. MacArthur spending decades in Asia around World War II. Expatriates remain Americans, and have generally been welcomed back to our shores with open arms.
But today there are at least 3,000 fewer Americans than there ought to be. That’s how many people live overseas and voluntarily gave up their citizenship in 2013 alone. And they won’t be coming back — at least not as Americans.
Their decision to become foreigners is being driven, in many cases, by changes to domestic laws. The United States is one of only two countries that attempt to tax money citizens earn while working overseas (Eritrea is the other). And two laws aimed at bringing tax revenue back into the U.S. — the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts (FBAR) — are actually driving Americans away.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Czechia: Police Accuse Man Over Islamic Book After Prague Mosque Raid
Unnamed 55 year old faces up to 10 years in prison over transation of controversial book
Prague, April 26 (CTK) — The Czech police have accused the editor of a book on Islam of promoting a movement suppressing human rights and freedoms after a raid in two Prague centers of the Islamic Foundation on Friday, Pavel Hantak, spokesman for the police unit fighting organized crime (UOOZ), told CTK today.
The suspect is a 55-year-old man who has Czech citizenship. He had the controversial book translated to Czech and he provided for its publishing and distribution. He man may end up in prison for up to 10 years.
Within the raid, about 20 people were questioned and several of them may be expelled from the country.
Hantak said the police decided not to release the name of the book because they do not want to advertise it in this way.
The book allegedly spreads racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and violence against “inferior” races, he said.
The police stayed in the premises of the Islamic Foundation from Friday to Saturday morning. On Friday, they interfered in a mosque on the city’s outskirts and in the office and prayer room in the city center.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Czechia: Five Men Suspected of Spreading Harmful Book Arrested in Prague
Prague — Czech police detained five people in a raid on the Muslim community in Prague, handcuffed them and drove them away in a van today, Pavel Hantak, spokesman for the Squad for Uncovering Organised Crime (UOOZ), has said.
He said detectives interfered in several places in Prague centre on suspicion of the publication and distribution of a book spreading racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and violence against “inferior” races.
Hantak said the police checked places where bigger numbers of religious-oriented people regularly meet.
One of such places is the Islamic Foundation in the centre of Prague, where the five above people were detained.
The premises include a place of prayer and rooms where lectures, Arabic courses and Friday sermons in Arabic and Czech are given.
According to witnesses, some 100 people were in the mosque. The police action frustrated today´s main prayer of which many of the released people complained.
One of the persons present was the first secretary of the Indonesian embassy, who said armed police entered the mosque and told the present to lie down.
Some people wanted to talk to the police, but they did not succeed, the diplomat, who was accompanied to the mosque by other members of the embassy, told journalists.
The most known case of a controversial book was the publication of the Czech translation of Adolf Hitler´s Mein Kampf issued by the Otakar II. publishers of Michal Zitko in March 2000.
Zitko was prosecuted on suspicion of support for and propagation of a movement suppressing human rights. He was first given a suspended sentence, but the Supreme Court acquitted him in March 2005. The 60,000 crown fine, which the Prague Municipal Court imposed on the Internet seller of the book published by Zitko, Vit Varak, remained valid.
($1=19.857 crowns)
| — Hat tip: LB | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Exactly 150 Years After the Schleswig War, Does Southern Jutland Want to be German?
While most of Denmark bemoans the humiliating defeat of the 1864 Second Schleswig War, the southern Jutlanders themselves may have quite a different view on the matter.
In an interview in Jyllands-Posten, local author Erling Jepsen said the real tragedy was when southern Jutland in 1920 became part of Denmark again.
“The 1864 war is seen as a scar on Denmark’s soul. But the death toll aside, it wasn’t a tragedy that southern Jutland was ceded to the Prussians in 1864. It was a tragedy that it became Danish in 1920,” Jepsen told Jyllands-Posten.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
This is the moment Britain First, a Christian group determined to see off Islamic fundamentalism,. harass an innocent Muslim family attending the Old Bailey for a case of their murdered son.
City of London police intervene to protect the family who cower in a doorway near the Central Criminal Court.
One man shouts that he knows which mosque the family attend and another accuses the police of protecting Islam.
The scenes are taken from London’s Holy Turf War, a new documentary that shows on one side the Muslim patrol berating people who drink or dress provocatively in the streets while on the other is the Christian patrol, members of a new group Britain First, a political party and ‘street defence organisation’ that says it ‘opposes and fights the many injustices that are routinely inflicted on the British people’.
The Muslim patrol is supported by the controversial Anjem Choudary who wants to see the introduction of sharia into Britain.
Three of its members were jailed on December 6, 2013. Jordan Horner, a 19-year old Islamic convert who calls himself Jamaal Uddin, pleaded guilty to two charges of assault and two charges of using threatening words and behaviour, was sentenced to 68 weeks’ imprisonment. Ricardo MacFarlane, 36, who pleaded not guilty, was sentenced to one year for affray and two years for using threatening words and behaviour…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Space Researchers Map Sea on Saturn Moon
Part of Cassini-Huygens mission
(updates previous) (ANSA) — Rome, April 23 — For the first time, a pair of Italian researchers have taken accurate measurements of the Ligeia Sea on the surface of Titan, which is the largest of Saturn’s 63 moons. Marco Mastrogiuseppe and Valerio Poggiali, from Rome’s La Sapienza University, are working with Cornell University and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to map all the seabeds on Titan, whose surface is shaped by rivers and lakes of liquid ethane and methane (the main component of natural gas).
They work with data gathered by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and its European-built Huygens probe, which arrived in the Saturn system in 2004.
“For the first time, we were able to directly measure the depth of an alien sea”, Mastrogiuseppe told ANSA. “Ligeia is about the size of Italy’s Adriatic Sea, it’s about 200 meters deep, and contains 5,000 billion tons of hydrocarbons, mostly methane”.
Titan is one of the most Earth-like worlds discovered to date, according to NASA.
With its thick atmosphere and organic-rich chemistry, it resembles a frozen version of Earth from several billion years ago.
Titan is of great interest to scientists because it has a substantial, active atmosphere and complex, Earth-like processes shaping its surface.
Mastrogiuseppe and Poggiali are now at work on mapping the biggest of Titan’s bodies of water, the Kraken Sea, which the Cassini probe discovered in 2007.
The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Poor’ Man With Bentley Cautioned
Friend of paparazzi king Corona
(ANSA) — Udine, April 22 — A man claiming to live in absolute poverty was cautioned Tuesday after police impounded his Bentley and Range Rover.
Fabio Frassinelli, 42, from this northeastern Italian city, had never filed an income-tax return, police said.
They have cautioned him for allegedly dodging taxes worth some 180,000 euros over three years.
Frassinelli is a close friend of infamous paparazzi king Fabrizio Corona, jailed for blackmailing celebrities during an on-off relationship with showgirl Belen Rodriguez. Like Coronoa, Frassinelli parlayed his high-living style into TV appearances.
Corona and Frassinelli were arrested in a probe into counterfeit dollars in 2008 but later cleared.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Cement Gobbling Up Greenery, Farmers Say on Earth Day
Make damaging environment a crime says green group
(ANSA) — Rome, April 22 — The unchecked spread of cement is gobbling up much of Italy’s choicest greenery, farmers said while urging the government to stem rampant construction and help the struggling rural community on Earth Day Tuesday.
Over the past 20 years, misguided policies favouring the construction sector and penalizing farmers have driven people away from rural areas and caused Italy to lose 15% of its countryside, the Coldiretti farmers’ association said in its Earth Day statement.
This means that farmed land has been reduced by 2.15 million hectares, with some 1.2 million farms shutting down.
Every day, 288 hectares of farmland are lost, exposing some five million inhabitants to the risk of landslides and floods, Coldiretti said. To reverse this destructive trend, the government needs to enact policies to protect and promote agricultural activity in harmony with people whose consumption patterns prove that more and more people support local farmers and local products, according to Coldiretti. One in three Italians shops at one of the 1,200 farmers’ markets that have sprung up in major Italian cities at least once a year, and while food sales dropped by 4% last year due to the recession, purchases at farmers’ markets jumped by 67% in 2013 alone, Coldiretti said.
Earth Day is celebrated annually on April 22, with events held in some 192 countries to demonstrate support for environmental protection. The theme this year is green cities.
Also Tuesday, Italy’s premier enviornmental organisation called on the government to make offences against the environment a formal crime.
The government must include environmental crimes in the Italian criminal code, the Legambiente environmentalist association said in its Earth Day statement.
Every year, some 30,000 crimes against the environment are committed in Italy, enriching their perpetrators by some 16 billion euros, said Legambiente.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi’s Daughter Likens Legal Trouble to Inquisition
‘We’ve gone back to the Middle Ages’ says Barbara
(ANSA) — Rome, April 22 — The daughter of three-time premier Silvio Berlusconi says her father’s legal travails are on par with the Inquisition. “All that’s happened to my father in all these years is anomalous, from the Inquisition,” said Barbara Berlusconi in an interview with the Spanish edition of Vanity Fair published Tuesday. “From the legal point of view, we’ve gone back to the Middle Ages, when you didn’t judge a person for breaking the law but for how he behaved at home”. Barbara, 29, a CEO of his AC Milan soccer club, has long defended her father with other family members against what they claim to be a witch-hunt orchestrated by allegedly leftist judges over the course of his 20-year career at the head of Italian center-right politics. Most recently, A Milan court last week ruled the media magnate could serve the remainder of his four-year sentence for a 370-million-euro tax fraud by doing a half-hour a week of community service at a senior center, as long as he desists from insulting the judiciary.
In addition, the 77-year-old is appealing convictions for paying for sex with an underage prostitute and abuse of office, which carried a lifetime ban from office; and has been indicted for allegedly bribing a Senator to change political sides.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: League Lawmaker Proposes to Keep Elected Senate
Resistance to Renzi reform appears to be growing
(ANSA) — Rome, April 24 — Roberto Calderoli, a senior Senator with the Northern League party, has proposed retaining the Senate as an elected assembly — in contrast with changes envisioned in a government bill to turn the Upper House into a leaner body of local-government representatives with minimal lawmaking powers.
The changes to the Senate are part of institutional reforms aimed at making Italy easier and cheaper to government that Premier Matteo Renzi has a deal on with Silvio Berlusconi, the leader of the opposition centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party.
But members of FI on Wednesday called for that pact to be renegotiated to make it possible for the Upper House to continue being an elected body.
Furthermore, there is a minority within Renzi’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) that is also against having an Upper House made up of representatives nominated by the country’s regions.
So Calderoli’s announcement that he too is proposing keeping an elected Senate at the fringes of a meeting of its Constitutional affairs committee suggests resistance is growing to the reform Renzi is trying to push through.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Freddy Mercury Tribute Singer ‘Dodged 800,000 Euros’
Big profits from ‘Queen’ shows in Italy, Spain, Slovenia
(ANSA) — Taranto, April 24 — An Italian Freddy Mercury tribute singer has been cited for allegedly dodging 800,000 euros with his version of legendary band Queen.
The Puglia faux rocker, who was not named, made big undeclared profits on shows in his home region, northern Italy, Spain and Slovenia in the last few years, police said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: State Health Department Workers Suspended Over Absences
Employees allegedly walked off job to run personal errands
(ANSA) — Vibo Valentia, April 24 — Seventeen employees with a State health department (ASL) in the southern Calabrian town of Pizzo were suspended for two months on aggravated fraud charges on Thursday.
The workers — including managers, clerks and nurses — regularly walked off their jobs to run personal errands or did not go to work asking colleagues to punch in for them, Carabinieri police said.
The suspension was ordered by a judge after a two-year investigation by local prosecutors.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Divorces to be Settled Outside Courtroom Under Govt Measure
Aims to speed up slow system, ‘among Europe’s most backward’
(ANSA) — Rome, April 24 — The justice ministry has proposed accelerating divorce procedures in Italy by allowing couples to settle outside the courtroom. Justice Minister Andrea Orlando said the measure was necessary to “resolving disputes between individuals” and replacing the current system, which is “among the most backward on the continent” in its requirement that a judge be present under all circumstances. A judge would still be required in some cases, such as couples with children, according to the measure. Divorce has been legal in Italy since the early 1970s. The acceleration measure was introduced to the House on Wednesday. The EU has repeatedly rapped Italy for having one of the slowest legal systems in Europe.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Napolitano ‘Honours’ Marines Held in India
Head of State pays tribute to pair on Liberation Day
(ANSA) — Rome, April 25 — President Giorgio Napolitano said he “honoured” two Italian marines who have been “unjustly held” in India for over two years for allegedly killing two Indian fishermen during an anti-piracy mission while speaking at a ceremony for Liberation Day Friday. The head of State noted that the pair were being kept “far from their families and homeland”.
Napolitano’s comments came a day after the Italian government announced it was opening a new phase in the saga of the two marines, replacing its special envoy on the case and sending its ambassador back to New Delhi to help steer the case towards arbitration. Defence Minister Federica Mogherini told the Senate Rome has sent a note to New Delhi as it opens an “international procedure” that, unless the Indians cooperate, would inevitably lead to arbitration by an international body such as the UN.
Rome has decided to send its ambassador to India back to New Delhi to mark the “fresh stage” in its efforts to have Massimiliano Latoree and Salvatore Girone returned, Mogherini added. Daniele Mancini will oversee the “new phase” of internationalising the case, she said. Special envoy Staffan de Mistura has done his job and new figures are needed now that Rome is taking the case to the international level, Mogherini told the Senate. Rome does not consider the India proceedings, which have yet to lead to trial, “valid”, she said. “We do not accept a (future) Indian trial whose validity we do not recognise,” Mogherini said. Latorre and Girone are still awaiting trial over the deaths of Valentine (aka Gelastine) and Ajesh Binki, whom they allegedly mistook for pirates. Italy is currently appealing to India’s top court against NIA anti-terrorism prosectors taking the case. Rome has also requested the pair be allowed to return home and the whole case be dropped.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Renzi Pledges to Stop EU Cash Being ‘Thrown Away’
Premier says cash often ‘not spent or spent badly’
(ANSA) — Rome, April 23 — Premier Matteo Renzi said Wednesday that his government will soon take action to ensure European Union funds are fully capitalised on by Italy. “We have to better use the European funds, there is lot of money and it is often not spent or spent badly,” Renzi said in a question-and-answer session via his Twitter account, @matteorenzi. “We’ll talk about this better next week, we’ll have a special meeting and we’ll launch an initiative. “Italy has thrown away money in too many cases. It’s not the fault of Europe, but of the Italian bureaucrats and politicians who have failed”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jockeying for Position: Scottish Nationalists Want to Join the Nordic Family
Edinburgh and Glasgow are on the same latitude as Copenhagen, but is geography enough to justify an independent Scotland becoming the newest member of the Nordic Council should there be a ‘Yes’ vote in the country’s upcoming referendum?
Angus Robertson, the Scottish National Party (SNP) foreign affairs spokesperson, makes it clear that closer ties would be desirable. “Following a Yes vote, Scotland would seek a closer relationship with our Nordic neighbours,” he said.
“Scotland is in an important northern European location and it makes perfect sense for the Scottish Government to work bilaterally with neighbours such as Denmark, Norway and Iceland and multilaterally with the Nordic Council and other regional bodies,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Last Year, 17 People in the Netherlands Died in Honour Killings
There were 17 honour-killing-related deaths in the Netherlands last year, 10 of which involved male victims, according to police figures released on Friday.
The figures were collated by police experts on honour-related crimes. In addition to the 17 deaths, there were also 12 attempted murders, the experts’ report said. Five people were reported as ‘missing’.
A quarter of all cases played out in the Turkish community. In 16% of the cases Moroccan families were involved. Iraqi and Afghan nationals were involved in 10% and 12% of cases. In 6% of cases, a native Dutch national was involved in the violence or threats.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Malta Citizenship Now Available for €880,000
The citizenship-by-investment programme of Malta has been amended and is open for application. For a minimum investment of €880,000 (Dh4,471,480) the Maltese citizenship is now available.
The concept of granting Maltesese citizenship to high-net worth people in return for their contribution to the Maltese economy was introduced end-2013, when the Maltese government announced the Individual Investor Programme, to be made available in a matter of weeks.
However, criticism towards the low barrier requirements of eligibility caused the delay of its implementation, with some claiming that the programme would not be realised at all. Nevertheless, the government amended the requirements and presented what is already being called one of the most interesting economic citizenship programmes of the region.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
No Evidence John Paul Knew of Sex Scandal at Legionaries
‘Clarity’ from probe days before canonization of Polish pope
(ANSA) — Rome, April 22 — There is no sign that former pope John Paul II knew of the sex abuse scandal involving disgraced cleric Marcial Maciel and his Legionaries of Christ organization, a proponent of the Polish pope’s canonization said Tuesday. An investigation produced “maximum clarity” on the issue, said the postulator of his sainthood on Sunday when both John Paul as well as former pope Paul XXIII will be made saints.
Concerns were raised about John Paul’s connections with the disgraced Legionaries and its leader, who the former had repeatedly endorsed.
The group was put under watch by the Vatican in 2010 after Maciel was removed from its leadership for decades of sexual abuse against boys and fathering several children, two of whom he also abused.
Church probes have since confirmed nine other priests in the organization sexually abused children and at least 10 more are still under investigation.
The scandal tainted the pontificate of John Paul, sparking accusations of ignoring public reports about the group as early as the 1990s of abuse that began in the 1980s.
The Legionaries of Christ apologized in a statement in February for the actions of the group and its founder, who died in 2008.
“We want to express our deep sorrow for the abuse of seminarians, minors, immoral acts committed on men and women, the arbitrary use of its authority and property, for the enormous consumption of drugs,” said the general chapter of the Legionaries of Christ.
The group said it rejects his immorality and expressed “deep sadness” at the initial refusal to accept the testimony of Maciel’s victims.
“We ask forgiveness for these deficiencies that have increased the pain and bewilderment of many,” they said, adding their thanks that former pope Benedict XVI saved the organization.
Maciel was stripped of his leadership role and ordered to a life of prayer and penitence by John Paul’s successor Benedict XVI in 2006.
Known to encourage recruitment of priests and new followers, the Legionaries count over 950 priests and 70,000 lay members worldwide, primarily in Latin America, the home of Argentine Pope Francis.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Electoral Commission Sorry for Extremist Party Use of Lee Rigby Slogan
The political watchdog allowed the extremist Britain First party to use the slogan “Remember Lee Rigby” on voting slips for next month’s European election
The Electoral Commission has apologised after allowing an extremist party to use a slogan featuring murdered soldier Lee Rigby. The watchdog had given the green light for Britain First to use the description “Remember Lee Rigby” on voting slips for next month’s European poll. Commission chair Jenny Watson said: “We are deeply sorry for the offence that has been caused and I have apologised to Lee Rigby’s family.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: High Street Lawyers to Get Formal Training in Islamic Sharia Law
A new training course being run by the Law Society this summer is described as an ‘introduction to Islamic Sharia law for small firms’
High street lawyers are being offered formal training in Islamic Sharia Law by the professional body which represents solicitors, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose. A new training course being run by the Law Society this summer is described as an “introduction to Islamic Sharia law for small firms”.
Critics said the fact that the Law Society was offering training in Sharia law created the “perception” that it was now “a legal discipline”.
It comes after the Society controversially published guidance last month to allow high street solicitors to draw up Sharia-compliant wills. On Monday around 100 anti-Sharia law campaigners are expected to protest outside the Society’s head office in the heart of London’s legal establisment…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Lloyds Drops Overdraft Fee on Islamic Accounts
Lloyds Bank has been accused of religious discrimination after offering free overdraft accounts to Muslims. The bank sent customers a booklet this month explaining new charges.
While many will have to pay up to £80 a month if they go into the red, Muslims were told they would escape the charges.
One customer, Anita Milton, a nurse of New Eltham, south London, said: “I can’t believe that they’re thinking of offering one account for Muslims and making everyone else pay for the same service. Do I have to change my religion to get the best deal?”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Secret Downing Street Memo Which Names Cameron’s Choice for EU Commissioner
A secret memo has been passed around top members of the coalition, including the Prime Minister and his deputy Nick Clegg, outlining what kind of political heavyweight needs to be appointed as Britain’s next European Commissioner…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Telling the Truth About Terrorism and Islamic Charities
The link between “charity” groups and terrorist organizations is frequently not recognized or is ignored. The chairman of the British Charity Commission, William Shawcross, on April 20, 2014 expressed his concern about charities being used as vehicles for such groups. He warns that the “problem of Islamist extremism… is not the most widespread problem we face in terms of abuse of charities but is potentially the most deadly… and it is growing.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UKIP in New Racism Row After Lenny Henry Insult
More UK Independence Party election candidates make prejudiced comments on the internet, including one who said Lenny Henry, the comedian, should leave Britain to live in a “black country”
Nigel Farage is facing a new racism row after it emerged that more of his UK Independence Party election candidates made prejudiced comments on the internet. In one statement, a candidate standing in next month’s local council elections suggested on Twitter that the comedian, Lenny Henry should leave Britain to live in a “black country”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Armed Assailants Kidnap Egyptian Girl in Libya — Agency
Cairo — Armed assailants kidnapped an Egyptian 15-year-old girl in Libya’s Benghazi on Saturday, Egypt’s state news agency said. Libyan authorities have begun investigations to find the perpetrators, security sources told the agency.
This is not the first time an Egyptian has been kidnapped in the neighboring country that has suffered from a security vacuum since the removal of President Muammar Gaddafi.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Raymond Ibrahim on CBN News: ‘Will Egypt’s El-Sisi Protect Christians?’
With only one month to go before Egyptians elect a new president, it looks like former Army Chief General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi will be the likely winner. The interim government says international observers will monitor the polling to assure the integrity of the electoral process.
But who will give assurances that violent acts against Christians will be minimized in the months ahead?
Not el-Sisi, CBN News contributior Raymond Ibrahim said. Not the Egyptain military, police, or any other political candidate who may become president.
Ibrahim says that’s because a mob mentality dominates Egypt. This is most apparent on Fridays, after prayers in the mosque. That’s when radical imams preaching an extremist intepretation of the Koran incite their followers to attack the “infidels.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hamas Declares it Will Never Recognise Israel
(AGI) Gaza, April 26 — Hamas has said it will never recognise Israel in spite of its agreement with Fatah to form a national unity Palestinian government. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that Palestine National Authority recognition of Israel was nothing new and that Hamas would never recognise Israel.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Palestinians Will Not Recognise Israel as ‘Jewish’ State
(AGI) Ramallah, April 26 — Palestinians will never recognise Israel as the ‘Jewish’ state, president Mahmud Abbas said on Saturday, when his leadership convened after Israel halted peace talks. Abbas told members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s Central Council that although they had recognised Israel in 1993, the Palestinians should not be forced to go a step further and recognise Israel’s religious identity.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
33 Killed, 90 Wounded at Election Rally in Iraq
BAGHDAD, April 25 (Xinhua) — At least 33 people were killed and 90 others wounded in a series of bombing attacks at a parliamentary election rally in Iraq’s capital city of Baghdad on Friday, an Interior Ministry source said.
The three back-to-back attacks, one roadside bomb and two car bombs, struck as supporters of the Sadiqun bloc, the political wing of Iraqi Shiite Islamist group Asaeb Ahel al-Haq, were holding a parliamentary election rally near a sports club in eastern Baghdad, the source said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Al Qaeda Chief Urges Westerner Kidnappings to Use in Prisoner Exchanges
Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri has called on Muslims to kidnap Westerners, particularly Americans, who could then be exchanged for jailed jihadists including a blind Egyptian cleric convicted in 1995 of conspiring to attack the United Nations and other New York landmarks.
In a wide ranging audio interview, the al Qaeda leader expressed solidarity with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and urged unity among rebels in their fight against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the Zawahiri tape, but the voice resembled that of the al Qaeda leader.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Enduring Enmity: Iran: Israel, And Islamic Anti-Semitism
by Andrew E. Harrod
“Love of the prophet requires hatred of the Jews,” the Moroccan Muslim cleric al-Maghili (d. 1505) declared, as quoted by Dr. Andrew G. Bostom’s latest book Iran’s Final Solution for Israel: The Legacy of Jihad and Shi’ite Islamic Jew-Hatred in Iran. Bostom’s masterful compendium shows that al-Maghili’s sentiments are hardly rare in Islam, making a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Iran a nightmarish threat for Israel and beyond.
The “civilizational war waged by Shiite and Sunni jihadists” today is “consistent with Islam’s classical jihad theory,” Bostom demonstrates with copious quotation of Islamic theological sources and historical primary sources. Of 40 Koranic references to jahada or “struggle,” the Arabic root of jihad, for example, 36 address violence, according to one study. “Muhammad himself,” normative canonical Islamic accounts indicate, “was the ultimate prototype sanctioning jihad terror.” Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna therefore had a “seamless connection” to “traditional Islam itself,” as his translated writings show.
Additionally, “orthodox Islamic jurisprudence” holds that “non-Muslims peacefully going about their lives—from the Khaybar farmers whom Muhammad ordered attacked in 628, to those sitting in the World Trade Center on 9/11/01—are complicit.” In particular, Muhammad the “Muslim prophet-warrior developed a penchant for assassinating individual Jews and destroying Jewish communities by expropriation and expulsion… or massacring their men and enslaving their women and children.” Only humiliating submission to Islam and its “blood ransom jizya poll tax” per Koran 9:29 can spare Jews and Christians as dhimmis this fate.
A “central antisemitic motif in the Koran… decrees an eternal curse upon the Jews… for slaying the prophets and transgressing against the will of Allah.” The “Koran’s overall discussion of the Jews is… a litany of their sins and punishments.” A “sort of ancient Koranic antecedent of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” even appears in Koran 5:64. “Sunni dogma” in particular holds the black-Jewish Abdullah ibn Saba “responsible… for promoting the Shiite heresy and fomenting the rebellion and internal strife associated with this primary breach in Islam’s political innocence.”
Jews under Muslim rule had to observe the “rightful bounds” of a “subjected relationship,” even “in mythically ‘tolerant’ Muslim Spain.” When Granada’s Muslim rulers appointed Jewish grand viziers, the “results were predictably tragic” in 1066. Pogroms claimed 4,000 Jewish lives, more than those lost 30 years later during the First Crusade’s Rhineland passage. Today, “Zionism… has posed a predictable if completely unacceptable challenge to the Islamic order, jihad-imposed chronic dhimmitude for Jews, of unprecedented, even apocalyptic magnitude.”
Iran’s 1979 “Islamic putsch” and “retrograde revolution,”…
| — Hat tip: Andy Bostom | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq’s Dwindling Christian Community ‘Face Disaster’
Iraq’s dwindling Christian community faces “disaster,” and if no action is taken they will number just a few thousand in a decade, the country’s most senior church leader told AFP.
Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako said the daily migration of Christians from Iraq was “terrifying” and blamed a range of factors, including generally poor security in the country and worsening religious extremism.
Iraq’s Christian community is a shadow of what it used to be — once numbering more than a million nationwide, with upwards of 600,000 in Baghdad alone, there are now fewer than 400,000 across the country.
Because Christians do not retain tribal affiliations in the way Muslim Arabs do, they have little recourse for resolving disputes outside the Iraqi legal system, which is often criticized for corruption and subject to manipulation.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait, a U.S. Ally on Syria, Is Also the Leading Funder of Extremist Rebels
Kuwait, a U.S. ally whose aid to besieged Syrian civilians has been surpassed only by the United States this year, is also the leading source of funding for al-Qaeda-linked terrorists fighting in Syria’s civil war, according to Obama administration officials.
The amount of money that has flowed from Kuwaiti individuals and through organized charities to Syrian rebel groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra totals in the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to experts whose estimates are endorsed by the Treasury Department.
Until recently, tiny, oil-rich Kuwait avoided public scrutiny as attention to terrorist financing focused more sharply on Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
But the fact that those countries have made strides in addressing the problem, a senior Treasury official said, has “shed more light on the less forward-leaning steps taken in Kuwait.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia: YouTube to Respect Islamic Laws and Customs
Content providers to the video-sharing website will have to follow “rules and conditions” that respect “the nature of society and laws”, this according to president of the country’s General Authority for Audiovisual Media, a move deemed “alarming, a threat for us,” his according to a content producer.
Dubai (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Saudi authorities plan to regulate local companies producing content for YouTube, this in the world’s top per capita user of the video-sharing website.
Dissatisfaction over state broadcasters’ staid programming and societal restrictions have created a uniquely captive audience for web-based entertainment.
The General Authority for Audiovisual Media, a recently formed watchdog, will soon issue a manifesto to organise — or regulate — the work of YouTube channels, said its president, Ryiadh Najm.
The plan will include rules and conditions that will be “in accordance with the nature of society and laws in this context”, Najm said, whilst allowing it to embrace “these talents and developing their artistic and technical abilities”.
The proposed new rules follow a new Saudi law that defines as terrorist any act that “disturbs public order, shakes the security of society, or subjects its national unity to danger, or obstructs the primary system of rule or harms the reputation of the state”.
Until now, Saudi YouTube programme makers have been able to operate without a licence because they are not actual broadcasters.
Channels like UTURN Entertainment and C3 have attracted more than 500 million views for their various YouTube shows as of mid-September 2013.
“Until we see the details, it’s a bit alarming, a threat for us,” said Kaswara Al Khatib, chairman and chief executive of UTURN Entertainment.
“The whole idea is to regulate it in a way to make sure where the areas are to be played with and the areas that should not be touched,” said Al Khatib.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syria’s Bloodshed Spills Into Iraq as Al-Qaeda Bombs Shia Militant Rally
Al-Qaeda has attacked a Shia militant group in Iraq that has sent fighters to support Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad
Syria’s sectarian war came to the capital of neighbouring Iraq as al-Qaeda bombed a rally for a Shia militant group that has sent fighters to defend the regime in Damascus. A team of suicide bombers killed at least 33 people and left many more injured after detonating two huge blasts in a stadium packed with around 10,000 people in eastern Baghdad on Friday…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Crimea Says Kiev Has Blocked Water Supplies
(AGI) Simferopol (Ukraine), April 26 — Ukraine has cut off water supplies to Crimea, Crimean vice premier Rustam Temirgaliyev said on Saturday. Simferopol has depended on these water supplies and Crimean authorities have started to transfer water from the rivers of the peninsula to the North Crimean Canal bed, which was completely dried out on Saturday, to ensure the supplies Simferopol depends on.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Russia, Islam and the West: Shifting Sands
SHOULD the West co-operate with Russia to counter the threat of militant Islam? A proposal that both Russia and China should be allies in the battle for Muslim hearts and minds was the most provocative part of this week’s sweeping theo-geo-political peroration by Tony Blair…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
British Troops Killed in Helicopter Crash in Afghanistan
Five British service personnel have been killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence discloses
Five British service personnel were killed when the helicopter they were travelling in crashed in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.
The MoD said it was investigating the circumstances of the crash but refused to confirm the nationality of the troops who were killed. However, military sources told the Telegraph all five dead were feared to be British.
An MoD spokesman said: “We can confirm that a UK helicopter crashed in southern Afghanistan today. The incident is under investigation and it would be inappropriate to comment further until families have been notified.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Burma: Two Imams Sentenced Over Yangon Mosque Fire
Two imams have been sentenced to eight years in prison each over a fire at a mosque in Myanmar’s biggest city last year that killed 13 children and inflamed sectarian tensions despite police assurances that it was accidental.
The two, Zayar Phyo (also known as Noyora) and Khin Maung Aye (also known as Arsit), were convicted Thursday by the Botahtaung Township Court of criminal negligence for the fire that police said was started by an electrical fault…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Bogor: Christians Appeal to New Mayor to Let Yasmin Church Reopen
On 7 April, Bima Arya Sugiarto replaced controversial Mayor Diani Budiarto, who had the church closed. His decision, which violated a Constitutional Court ruling, was taken under pressures from Islamists. The new mayor now has to put “an end” to abuses against the Christian community, which this year celebrated Easter in the open air.
Jakarta (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Members of the GKI Yasmin Church appealed to Bima Arya Sugiarto, the new mayor of Bogor (West Java), to keep the promise he made a few weeks ago to reopen their church before the presidential election in July.
For a long time, the place of worship has been at the centre of a controversy involving local authorities against the city’s Christian minority.
Former mayor Diani Budiarto had had the building sealed in response to demands by Islamic extremists. Even a ruling in favour of the Church by the Constitutional Court in 2010 was not enough to see the building returned to the faithful.
Bima and his deputy, Usmar Hariman, took office on 7 April. “The matter is now in their hands,” said GKI Yasmin Church spokesman Bona Sigalingging. Hence, “we ask them to respect the ruling” of the Supreme Court and “put an end” to the abuses perpetrated for years by the former mayor.
On Easter Sunday, members of the community along with a delegation from the Batak Protestant Church (HKBP) Philadelphia Bekasi celebrated an outdoor service in front of a government building.
Like in the past, they tried to raise awareness about their predicament in the general public and the main parties involved in the case.
A few days ago, Bogor’s new mayor pledged he would find a solution to the issue during his inauguration. “I am optimistic about the possibility of reaching an agreement,” Mayor Bima Arya Sugiarto said.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has increasingly seen attacks or acts of intolerance against minorities, such as Christians and Ahmadi Muslims as well as members of other faiths.
Some regulations, like building permits, have been used to prevent the construction of places of worship or close them down, as was the case in West Java with the Yasmin Church.
In 2006, district authorities had granted the Church all the necessary building permits required by law, only to revoke them under pressure from Muslims encouraged by extremist Islamist groups.
For many years, local Christians had to conduct religious services out in the open, hoping to see their church returned one day.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Suicide Attack Kills 4, Wounds 7 in Afghanistan
GHAZNI, Afghanistan, April 26 (Xinhua) — A suicide bomber targeted police on Saturday in Ghazni city, 125 km south of the Afghan capital Kabul, killing four people including himself and wounding seven others, police said.
“A terrorist detonated his explosive-laden rickshaw next to a police van in Ghazni city killing four people including himself, two police and a civilian,” deputy provincial police chief Assadullah Insafi told Xinhua…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark Inks New Energy Co-Operation Deal With China
In the presence of Queen Margrethe and Chinese President Xi Jinping, the Danish ambassador to China, Friis Arne Petersen, signed a new co-operation agreement between the Danish energy authorities, Energistyrelsen, and China’s National Energy Conservation Centre.
The agreement will increase China’s focus on effective energy regulation, particularly in the industrial sector, and Denmark will also help develop and implement strategies at a national and local level.
China has already developed a company program focusing on industries involving steel, chemical and cement, and Danish experiences can contribute to further development of a more energy-efficient industry in China.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Rescuers Paint Harrowing Portrait of Search Aboard Sunken Ferry
Jindo, South Korea (CNN) — In the final, chaotic moments before the South Korean ferry Sewol rolled over and sank into the chilly waters of the Yellow Sea, 48 girls obeyed the orders of crew members and put on their life vests.
Perhaps afraid, they all crammed into a single room meant for 30.
None of them survived.
The account of the recovery of the girls’ bodies, offered Friday by rescue officials, offers a glimpse of the final moments aboard the sinking ferry, which went down on April 16 with 476 people aboard.
It also illuminates the daunting task facing divers trying to retrieve bodies while maintaining a fading glimmer of hope that perhaps, somewhere aboard the ferry, someone remains alive.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
South Korean Prime Minister Resigns Over Ferry Disaster
Prime Minister Chung Hong-won, the No. 2 official in the South Korean government, apologized and offered to resign on Sunday, as the country remained angry and saddened over the sinking of a ferry that left 302 people, a vast majority of them high school students, dead or missing.
The government has come under fire as early investigations revealed a slew of loopholes in safety measures and a lax regulatory enforcement that investigators said contributed to the sinking of the 6,825-ton ferry, the Sewol, 10 days ago.
The government was also criticized for failing to respond quickly and efficiently to the crisis and for fumbling during the early stages of rescue operations.
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Kenya: Police Arrest Saudi Arabian Near Somalia
POLICE yesterday arrested a Saudi Arabian national suspected to be involved with al Shabaab. Ahmed Hanas was intercepted near the Kenya-Somalia border in Kiunga, Lamu East district.
According to detectives, the Saudi was detained when he arrived in the coastal town on Wednesday morning. Lamu police boss Samson Obara said they also recovered a speedboat allegedly used to transport al Shabaab fighters between Kenya and Somalia…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Boko Haram — 40 Terrorists, 4 Soldiers Killed in Battle Near Sambisa Forest — DHQ
“Two of the terrorists were earlier arrested at a local market two days ago while trying to procure foodstuff while others were spying on the military base in the area.”
The Nigerian military said on Friday that ‘over 40 terrorists’ were killed in a battle between them and soldiers in Bulanbuli, near the dreaded Sambisa Forest. The military also said 4 soldiers were killed in the battle with the terrorists, believed to be members of the Boko Haram…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: New Criminal Section at Asylum Centre
A new section entirely dedicated to criminals will open at the Immigration Department’s closed asylum centre in Vottem (Liège) soon. In all the facility will be able to house 22 criminal illegal aliens awaiting removal from the territory. In this way the criminals will be detained separately from others being held at the closed asylum centre.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration Push Threatens to Divide Republicans
In the heat of an election year, the prospect of immigration legislation threatens to strike a divide into the Republican Party on Capitol Hill.
House Speaker John Boehner is sending new signals that he’s preparing to aggressively push for an immigration bill, even if it causes the rank-and-file headaches. But on the other side of the Hill, top Senate Republicans are picking a different fight — going after the Obama administration over reported efforts to ease deportations.
In a letter sent Thursday to President Obama and signed by 22 Senate Republicans, they accused the administration of “an astonishing disregard for the Constitution.” The reported deportation changes, they charged, would be a “near complete abandonment of basic immigration enforcement.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: Businesses Fear Anti-Immigration Vote Fallout
The recent vote to restrict the inflow of European Union workers is having effects on Swiss businesses according to a survey, with less confidence in investment and concerns that growth prospects for the economy have worsened.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Blame Obama and Environmentalists for Burning Babies for Electricity
Even though there is now a stay of execution from officials of an energy plant in Oregon reportedly burning aborted babies from Canada to generate electricity, blame government-funded environmentalists of the day and their their main ‘Panderer in chief’ President Barack Obama for a coming trend that allows burning babies for electricity.
Following a LifeNews story below that is going viral, the Marion County Board of Commissioners issued the following statement:
“Today the Marion County Board of Commissioners learned that the Covanta Waste-to-Energy Facility located in Marion County may be accepting medical waste containing human tissue from outside sources. In response to an April 21 article in The B.C Catholic, the board took immediate action to temporarily halt the acceptance of boxed medical waste at the facility. “(LifesiteNews.com, April 24, 2014).
Notice the use of the word “temporarily” in the Marion County Board of Commissioners statement.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) If you live in Oregon, the lights to your house may be powered by the incineration of aborted babies. This has been confirmed by the British Columbia Health Ministry which told the pro-life Life Site News organization that “biomedical waste” including aborted fetal tissue was routinely shipped to Oregon to be incinerated in a “waste-to-energy” plant that produces electricity.
This is one way in which abortion has been made to be more “green,” much like a recycling program. The mothers of the aborted fetuses are told their fetuses are “cremated” — implying they are somehow honored with positive intention. In reality, the organs, bones and tissues of these babies are dumped into large ovens where they are incinerated to produce electricity.
Now that the practice has been exposed, those who oversaw its operations have been shamed into halting it. “The Marion County Board of Commissioners announced late Wednesday that they are putting a stop to a waste-to-energy facility’s program that was incinerating aborted babies to produce electricity,” reports Life Site News.
“We did not know this practice was occurring until today,” said Commissioner Janet Carlson. “We are taking immediate action and initiating discussions with Covanta Marion to make certain that this type of medical waste is not accepted in the future.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Former Archbishop of Canterbury: We Are a Post-Christian Nation
Exclusive: Former archbishop of Canterbury says Britain is no longer a nation of believers, as Telegraph poll reveals Christians are reluctant to express their faith
Britain is now a “post-Christian” country, the former archbishop of Canterbury has declared, as research suggests that the majority of Anglicans and Roman Catholics now feel afraid to express their beliefs. In an interview with The Telegraph, Lord Williams of Oystermouth says Britain is no longer “a nation of believers” and that a further decline in the sway of the Church is likely in the years ahead…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
So Rowan Williams says that the UK is a post Christian country. If so, then he must take full responsibility for this as he has repeatedly promoted islam over Christianity at every available opportunity. Similarly the UK is also in a post democratic state and you can blame Tony Blair and his commy cohorts for this by his imposition of cultural marxism upon the British people without any form of mandate.
Peter, the labour party has always been socialist at best and it is the peoples stupidity that caused this, the [excretory orifice] Blair was simply the tool. This is why I left but then any country that spends 6 years fighting the socialist menace only to elect a socialist government over their beloved mr Churchill is a lost cause!
Chris, When I joined the Labour Party it actually supported the working British man now it supports the non working foreign man – which was why I left both the party and the country.