With the enthusiastic approval of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the Syrian air force bombed ISIS forces inside Iraq. Meanwhile, President Obama has requested that Congress authorize $500 million in additional aid to the “moderate” “rebels” in the Syrian “opposition”.
In other news, the French Supreme Court upheld the ban on the wearing of hijab in the workplace.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, JP, Russkiy, 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.
Stone Cold Proof That Government Economic Numbers Are Being Highly Manipulated
How in the world does the government expect us to trust the economic numbers that they give us anymore? For a long time, many have suspected that they were being manipulated, and as you will see below we now have stone cold proof that this is indeed the case. But first, let’s talk about the revised GDP number for the first quarter of 2014 that was just released. Initially, they told us that the U.S. economy only shrank by 0.1 percent in Q1. Then that was revised down to a 1.0 percent contraction, and now we are being informed that the economy actually contracted by a whopping 2.9 percent during the first quarter. So what are we actually supposed to believe? Sometimes I almost get the feeling that government bureaucrats are just throwing darts at a dartboard in order to get these numbers. Of course that is not actually true, but how do we know that we can actually trust the numbers that they give to us?
Over at shadowstats.com, John Williams publishes alternative economic statistics that he believes are much more realistic than the government numbers. According to his figures, the U.S. economy has actually been continually contracting since 2005. That would mean that we have been in a recession for the last nine years.
Could it be possible that he is right and the bureaucrats in Washington D.C. are wrong?
Before you answer that question, read the rest of this article.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The U.S. Economy Has Collapsed: “This is a Monstrous Negative Revision”
For months the administration, financial pundits and Wall Street analysts made it a point to inform Americans about the healthy state of our economy. One of the key metrics they’ve used as proof of recovery was the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which measures the productive output of the U.S. economy as a whole.
Earlier this year the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis noted that this measure was showing positive growth. But now, after a second official revision, all of that purported growth used to goad consumers into spending more money on homes, cars and other goods has been revealed to be nothing but conjecture. According to the BEA, not only did economic growth stall during the first quarter of 2014, it completely collapsed, signalling a significant shift in consumption habits amid increasing food and energy prices:
Real gross domestic product — the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States — decreased at an annual rate of 2.9 percent in the first quarter of 2014 according to the “third” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The government first made consumers believe that the economy grew. Then they revised this down to slight negative growth. The latest revision of -2.9% growth is significant, because even with official inflation at over 2% America’s economic output has declined. It seems that no matter how much money they pump into the system, it isn’t enough to offset the lack of income or job growth.
This is a monstrous negative revision.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
10 Facts About the SWATification of America That Everyone Should Know
The number of SWAT team raids in the United States every year is now more than 25 times higher than it was back in 1980. As America has conducted wars overseas in recent years, our police forces have become increasingly militarized as well. And without a doubt, many of our cities have become much more dangerous places. Thanks to relentless illegal immigration, drug cartels are thriving and there are now at least 1.4 million gang members living in the United States. But there are many that believe that the militarization of our police forces has gone way too far. Almost weekly, SWAT team brutality somewhere in America makes national headlines. You are about to read about a couple of horrific examples of this below. Once upon a time, police in America were helpful and friendly and the public generally trusted them. But now our police forces are being transformed into military-style units that often act like they are in the middle of Iraq or Afghanistan. The following are 10 facts about the SWATification of America that everyone should know…
#1 In 1980, there were approximately 3,000 SWAT raids in the United States. Now, there are more than 80,000 SWAT raids per year in this country.
…when you start arming the police like military units and your start training them like military units, eventually they start acting like military units and the results are often quite frightening.
For example, just check out what happened when a SWAT team in Florida raided the home of one young couple earlier this month…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
73-Year-Old Veteran Threatened With Foreclosure for Displaying American Flag
A 73-year-old veteran is being threatened with foreclosure unless he pays an $8,000 dollar fine — all for displaying a small American flag in a plant pot outside his Sweetwater, Florida home.
When Larry Murphree placed the stars and stripes in a flower pot on his front porch, he received a letter from the Sweetwater Homeowner’s Association demanding that he pay the huge fine within 30 days or be slapped with a foreclosure lien on his house.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
85% of Measles Outbreak Victims Already Received Vaccinations
(NaturalNews) The mainstream media is giddily engaging in a mass political orgy over measles after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the disease is allegedly spreading in large part due to foreign travelers and the unvaccinated. But a recent slip by KYW Newsradio 1060 in Philadelphia revealed that 85 percent of reported measles cases are, in fact, occurring in people who already received their vaccinations.
Catherine J. Frompovich from Activist Post says she heard the statistic blurted out during a recent KYW 1060 broadcast, only to find no further trace of it on the news website or on any subsequent broadcasts. But the statement, as she recalls it, went something along the lines of this:
“The current all-time-high measles outbreak in California since measles was ‘eradicated’ due to vaccines and vaccinations, has local health authorities stumped because 85 percent of those contracting measles were fully vaccinated.”
Frompovich was so taken aback by this statement, especially since it apparently contradicts official CDC data, that she had to let the world know about it. Yet, it is hardly surprising since previous similar outbreaks, including a major outbreak in New York where 20 people fell ill with measles. Of these, 18, or 90 percent, had already been vaccinated for measles, which supports the 85 percent figure admitted by KYW 1060.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
America’s Favorite National Pastime: Hating Soccer
I’ve held off on writing about soccer for a decade — or about the length of the average soccer game — so as not to offend anyone. But enough is enough.. Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation’s moral decay.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
America’s Age of the Feuilliton
Society more interested in mindless entertainment than deep consideration, Intellectual and moral interests are shallow, degraded, and generally pointless.
Hermann Hesse’s book, The Glass Bead Game, written in 1943, includes an interesting concept about “the Age of the Feuilliton.” This book is set in a fiction European region called Castalia, roughly 500 years from the present, but existing in a period of technological stasis such that the “feel” of the culture and society is similar to that of the mid-20th century Europe in which Hesse lived. In contrast to this stable and introspective future (exemplified by the eponymous glass bead game, a deep intellectual exercise that operated on the principle of synthesizing all human knowledge and finding parallels between disparate fields of understanding, which was restricted to highly-educated scholars, and was treated something like professional sports are today), the current age in which we now live is referred to as “the age of the feuilliton.” The term “feuilliton” refers to inserts that used to be placed in French newspapers and which carried stories about fashion, movies, gossip, celebrities, and other frivolous topics. The term is used by Hesse to describe our current age as one in which rapid change occurs (just look at the fashion world, as an example), but in which the intellectual and moral interests were shallow, degraded, and generally pointless. It denoted a society more interested in mindless entertainment than deep consideration. Our current age was looked down upon by many in that future — our shallowness and distraction were the cause of so much violence and so many wars and other disturbances…
One of the major ways in which the Left dumbs down the American population is through the public education system. I’ve observed previously that the Left is not genuinely interested in our children receiving a thorough and useful education, no matter how much they may squawk about “funding” and whatnot. For the Left, publik skoolz are merely a means by which to propagandize children to a leftist worldview while simultaneously rendering them unable to question the unreality they have been taught. The Left has absolutely no desire for children to grow up into college students, and then into full-fledged adults, who can think for themselves, using logic and reason to assess what they see and hear and to come to their own conclusions.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Barack & Marx: Why Revolution is the Only Game in Town
Much like DeQuincy’s autobiographical Confessions of an Opium Eater, a true Marxist is addicted to Revolution. Why? Because only through revolution can a liberal hope to overturn government enough to force his fellow citizens into embracing socialism. But why the desperate demand for all persons to acquiesce to communism? Because Marxism is a religion, and a violently missionary one at that.
All history of Marxist movements proves this point. Further, Islam’s model of capitulate, or suffer, is a handy metaphor for leftism’s position. After all, no person should be allowed to live without suffering once the god has been rejected. Interestingly, madness and socialism have been the rule since Robert Owen’s 1825 New Harmony failed as the first socialist experiment…
Possony explains Lenin traits, some of which seeming similar to Barack’s character. Both wore a placid exterior which obscured an ideological and obdurate mindset. Lenin had an inflexible mind interested in few topics, constrained in a “mental straight jacket.” He had evolved into believing he was always right, and so he disliked skepticism and opposed open minds.
Lenin was prone to paranoia, and his prison time seems to have caused him to over-value his core ideas. This results in a monomania leading to confirmation bias, or seeing the entire world as only reinforcing the ideas. Lenin displayed psycho-pathological traits which led him to disregard the past or future, and just focus on the present. Possony describes Lenin as,
Self-righteous, rude, demanding, ruthless, despotic, formalistic, bureaucratic, disciplined, cunning, intolerant, stubborn, one-sided, suspicious, distant, asocial, cold-blooded, ambitious, purposive, vindictive, spiteful, a grudge-holder, and a coward…Lenin appeared to be unpretentious and soft-spoken. His enormous willpower was hidden behind a facade of modesty. His personality was basically cold, yet he gave the impression of warmth.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
I told Jim that the executive director of a National Education Association (NEA) affiliate claimed that Saul Alinsky’s RULES FOR RADICALS had become the NEA’s “bible,” and that President Obama and Hillary Clinton had also been interested in Alinsky’s theories about community organizing. Jim recognized Alinsky as a revolutionary radical, and I asked him, “Did you know that book by Alinsky has an Acknowledgment to Lucifer at the front?” A look of distress came upon Jim’s face, and I further related that in the book, Alinsky argued that the radical organizer “dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression…An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent…He knows that all values are relative,…truth to him is relative and changing.”
I told Jim that some supporters of the one-world conspiracy have announced that we are moving from the Piscean Age (Christian age of moral absolutes) to the Aquarian Age in which truth is relative (humanistic moral relativism based upon situation ethics). Then I related that Marilyn Ferguson in her book, THE AQUARIAN CONSPIRACY (1980), promoting this conspiracy, wrote: “There are legions of conspirators…(who) are linked…They have coalesced into small groups in every town and institution…They amplify the activities of the conspiracy by networking and pamphleteering…Of the Aquarian conspirators surveyed, more were involved in education than any other single category of work.”
More recently, former Vatican official, Malachi Martin, stated in THE NEW AMERICAN (June 9, 1997): “The Pope is surrounded by men in clerical garb who do not possess the Catholic faith; they are working with foundations, non-governmental organizations, international groups, financial institutions, governments, academia, and other agencies to bring a new world order into existence…The governments of the world will be directed by those who have climbed their way into the capstone…They are a new type of human being, an internationalist who seeks to control mankind…Collectively, they intend to use religion, governments, and anything they find useful to impose their will.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
As confirmation that the Trilateral Commission was part of the Power Elite’s overall scheme. I told Jim to read Sen. Barry Goldwater’s autobiography, WITH NO APOLOGIES, in which the former U.S. Senator explained: “In my view the Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power — political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical. All this is to be done in the interest of creating a more peaceful, more productive world community. What the Trilateralists truly intend is the creation of a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved. They believe the abundant materialism they propose to create will overwhelm existing differences. As managers and creators of the system, they will rule the future.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why rVotes Should Terrify the Entire DC Establishment
Adler’s rVotes, like the Democrat party’s favored VoteBuilder, is more than just some cool set of campaign and election tools. rVotes is virtually identical to the Obama campaign technology platform. Steve Adler should know, he wrote the original source code. After accepting a buyout from his business partners in 2005, a pay package that included his Voter Action Network (now called “VoteBuilder”) source code and a five-year non-compete agreement, Adler stayed on the sidelines until launching rVotes in 2010. Prior to rVotes, the two major election campaign platform systems were the Democrat’s sophisticated Voter Action Network and the Republican’s propriety, grossly inferior, tightly controlled Voter Vault platform.
The rVotes platform is designed for open access, individual use by an infinite number of users and grassroots groups. Adler’s rVotes offers a voter intelligence infrastructure that unifies, synchronizes and weaponizes data, for the benefit political candidates and organizations on the right (conservative) side of the political fence. And there are no GOP gatekeepers or good old boys determining who can and can’t access the system. Our founding fathers that penned the phrase, “We the People”, could have never imaged this degree of power.
Although no single, “silver bullet” can explain a candidate’s victory, there is no doubt Brat’s rVotes decision made his historical Virginia election possible. By making a $1,000 investment, the Brat campaign was empowered to crush the GOP “machine”. And combined with his skillful recruiting of disciplined volunteers, Team Brat out-worked and out-smarted an out-of-touch, over-consulted, highly financed insider. It took but a total of $150,000 — and zero name recognition — to topple the second highest-ranking republican in America sitting on a $5,000,000 war chest.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Email Shows IRS Targeted GOP Senator
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional investigators say they uncovered emails Wednesday showing that a former Internal Revenue Service official at the heart of the tea party investigation sought an audit involving a Republican senator in 2012.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Feds Threatening ‘Third Wounded Knee’ With Eminent Domain Land Grab on Sioux Indian Reservation
In the wake of a Bundy Ranch crisis sparked by a militarized federal land-grab effort in Nevada, it seems that the Department of Interior has set its sights on a new prize — this time targeting once protected Indian reservation land on Pine Ridge in South Dakota.
The Oglala Sioux and Lakota Sioux of the reservation have been told by the Federal Government that the National Parks Service will be taking land that comprises the South Unit of the Badlands National Park as a new ‘Tribal National Park’, only the wording in the bill clearly indicates that it will be a federally managed national park under the Department of Interior, giving mere lip service to its tribal title. The Congressional bill has already been written, and if passed through Congress, both tribal members and non tribal members will be stripped of their deeded land — at a price set by the federal government. If owners do not accept Washington’s offer (expected to be a meager one), the land can be acquired at no cost because the measure has waived all appraisal rights and stipulates that Washington can simply take Indian land by force under ‘eminent domain’.
Thousands of tribe members will be affected by the land-grab. Some residents will be forced to relocate, and many more others will lose their income from grazing allotments on the land — a result which will ultimately force any remaining independent cattle ranchers out of business. In addition to all this, Tribal members will lose their share income from entrance fees collected at the adjacent North Gate fees of the Badlands National Park — a punitive measure which will further compound the existing economic depression on a reservation where the average annual income is around $8,000 per year.
Washington may be pining for yet another ‘Wounded Knee’, as many residents and tribal members are prepared to stand their ground in the face of a federal imperialist policy inside US borders — a trend which many Americans have experienced first-hand, particularly in western states like Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Global Warming Data Faked by Government to Fit Climate Change Fictions
(NaturalNews) When drug companies are caught faking clinical trial data, no one is surprised anymore. When vaccine manufacturers spike their human trial samples with animal antibodies to make sure their vaccines appear to work, we all just figure that’s how they do business: lying, cheating, deceiving and violating the law.
Now, in what might be the largest scientific fraud ever uncovered, NASA and the NOAA have been caught red-handed altering historical temperature data to produce a “climate change narrative” that defies reality. This finding, originally documented on the Real Science website, is detailed here.
We now know that historical temperature data for the continental United States were deliberately altered by NASA and NOAA scientists in a politically-motivated attempt to rewrite history and claim global warming is causing U.S. temperatures to trend upward. The data actually show that we are in a cooling trend, not a warming trend (see charts below).
This story is starting to break worldwide right now across the media, with The Telegraph now reporting (1), “NOAA’s US Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) has been ‘adjusting’ its record by replacing real temperatures with data ‘fabricated’ by computer models.”
Because the actual historical temperature record doesn’t fit the frenzied, doomsday narrative of global warming being fronted today on the political stage, the data were simply altered using “computer models” and then published as fact.
Here’s the proof of the climate change fraud:…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary Clinton Calls for Harsh Restrictions on Alternative Media
Alex and Infowars Nightly News host David Knight break down remarks presumptive presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made to Infowars reporters during a book signing in Austin, Texas, on Friday. Clinton declared it is the responsibility of the establishment media to counter “bad information” put out by the alternative media.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How the USDA Can Make or Break Public Health, And Why it Has Chosen the Latter
Ever since 1933, every five to seven years the US Congress passes a set of legislative acts commonly referred to as “the Farm Bill,” which includes agricultural subsidies to growers of certain types of food.
These subsidies are in large part responsible for promoting and worsening the US obesity epidemic — a fact highlighted in a 2013 study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.1 According to the authors, the root of the problem is that:
“Government-issued payments have skewed agricultural markets toward the overproduction of commodities that are the basic ingredients of processed, energy-dense foods.”
This includes corn, soybeans, wheat and rice, which are the top four most heavily subsidized foods.
By subsidizing these, particularly corn and soy, the US government is actively supporting a diet that consists of these processed grains, namely high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), soybean oil, and grain-fed cattle — all of which are now well-known contributors to obesity and chronic disease.
The Farm Bill essentially creates a negative feedback loop that perpetuates the highly profitable but health-harming processed food diet that the United States has become infamous for.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
I Think We Are Looking at a Failed Presidency
Recently, television news anchor and commentator Brit Hume said, “I think we are looking at a failed presidency.”
For the past five years, Mr. Barack Obama failed the American people as to jobs for our 48.1 million Americans subsisting on food stamps who cannot secure livable-wage jobs. When Obama enjoyed tremendous power to reduce massive trade deficits five years ago by bringing manufacturing jobs back to America, instead, he increased food stamp recipients from 36 million in 2008 to 48.1 million in 2014. He forced all those Americans to feed on the backs of American taxpayers — who still possess jobs.
He oversaw some kind of “Fast and Furious” gun running operation on the Mexican border that failed and it failed miserably. He failed to secure and protect the embassy at Benghazi, which killed four of America’s finest. He allowed millions of illegal aliens to cross America’s borders along with millions overstaying their visas to blend into the illegal mix across the country. He lost respect from Russia’s Putin who engineered bold steps in annexing the Ukraine. Obama watches helplessly as Islamic terrorists retake Iraq. He watched 68 percent of African-American children being brought up by single mothers on welfare — without bringing any “Hope and Change” to better Black America.
He sued states and blocked their efforts in trying to stop illegal aliens from overwhelming our American work force. He fails at his job, but he won’t let “states rights” secure their own rights.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Inside the Vast Liberal Conspiracy
Picture this: millionaires and billionaires gathering under tight security in fancy hotels with powerful politicians and operatives to plot how their network of secret-money groups can engineer a permanent realignment of American politics.
Only, it’s not the Koch brothers. It’s the liberal Democracy Alliance.
The 21 groups at the core of the Democracy Alliance’s portfolio intend to spend $374 million during the midterm election cycle — including nearly $200 million this year — to boost liberal candidates and causes in 2014 and beyond, according to internal documents obtained by POLITICO.
While growing sums of that cash are being spent vilifying the billionaire conservative industrialists Charles and David Koch over their own network’s political spending, the documents reveal the extent to which the Democracy Alliance network mirrors the Kochs’ — and is obsessed with it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Justices Limit Presidential Recess Appointment Powers
The Supreme Court on Thursday said President Obama had violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate to appoint officials to the National Labor Relations Board during a brief break in the Senate’s work.
But the larger message of the court’s majority opinion, written by Justice Stephen G. Breyer and joined by its four more liberal members, was that there is a role for recess appointments so long as they are made during a recess of 10 or more days.
Justice Antonin Scalia agreed with the result in the case but issued a caustic dissent from the bench. “The majority practically bends over backwards to ensure that recess appointments will remain a powerful weapon in the president’s arsenal,” he said.
| [Return to headlines] |
New York City Loses Final Appeal on Limiting Sales of Large Sodas
The Bloomberg big-soda ban is officially dead.
The state’s highest court on Thursday refused to reinstate New York City’s controversial limits on sales of jumbo sugary drinks, exhausting the city’s final appeal and handing a major victory to the American soft-drink industry, which bitterly opposed the plan.
In a 20-page opinion, Judge Eugene F. Pigott Jr. of the State Court of Appeals wrote that the city’s Board of Health “exceeded the scope of its regulatory authority” in enacting the proposal, which was championed by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
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Rand Paul Proposes Legislation to Stop End Run Around 2nd Amendment
Senator Rand Paul is attempting to prevent the Obama administration from making an end run around the Constitution.
On Thursday Paul introduced legislation to amend the Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for the 2015 budget.
The amendment would prohibit the federal government from providing funds to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or Department of Justice to target gun and ammunition companies.
S.Amdt.3359 to H.R.4660 will prohibit “any action by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to classify the sale or manufacture of a firearm or ammunition as an activity involving risk” and prevent “any action by the Department of Justice to discourage the provision or continuation of credit or the processing of payments by any financial institution to a manufacturer, dealer, or importer of firearms or ammunition, based on the fact that the business is a manufacturer, dealer, or importer of firearms or ammunition.”
The Justice Department is attempting to discourage the free exercise of the Second Amendment through its “Operation Choke Point.”
The FDIC is collaborating “at the behest of Barack Obama” with the DOJ to force gun stores out of business, according to Ammoland.com. “Already, scores of gun dealers have complained that their banks have cut their credit or otherwise put pressure on them.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Supreme Court Rules Obama Overstepped His Authority
The Supreme Court on Wednesday limited the president’s power to fill high-level vacancies with temporary appointments, ruling in favor of Senate Republicans in their partisan clash with President Barack Obama.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) Scientific fraud is so common in the vaccine industry, it’s practically the default business model. The truth is that most vaccines don’t work, so in order to make them appear to work, researchers routinely spike blood samples of vaccinated test subjects with antibodies, making it appear the vaccine caused the body to produce those antibodies.
This is exactly what Merck does with MMR vaccines, according to the company’s own former virologists who filed a False Claims Act with the federal government. It’s also why up to 97% of children who contract measles or mumps were already vaccinated against measles and mumps.
Now, a National Institutes of Health-funded vaccine scientist who was celebrated as achieving a breakthrough vaccine against HIV has confessed to spiking the test subject blood samples with antibodies. Dong-Pyou Han had taken $5 million in NIH grant money to further his “research” at Iowa State University. The mainstream media and vaccine advocates hailed his research as groundbreaking, “game-changing” advancements in the search for an AIDS vaccine.
But now, it turns out Han committed outrageous scientific fraud that wasted taxpayer money and diverted resources away from other important research projects. So federal prosecutors have taken the extraordinary step of charging Han with making false statements to the government. He now faces four felony counts, each of which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years. (Yes, lying to the government is a federal crime. But the government lying to us, well… that’s another matter altogether.)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
What is Aspartame? Five Surprising Facts You Never Know About This Chemical Sweetener
(NaturalNews) The controversy surrounding one of the world’s most popular artificial sweeteners, aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal), continues some 30 years after the chemical was rammed through the regulatory process by pharmaceutical interests, despite its well-documented dangers. And yet to this very day, many people are still unaware of the chemical sweetener’s sordid history, not to mention what aspartame is actually made from and how it affects the body and brain.
To many, aspartame is just another FDA-approved sugar alternative that has to be safe, otherwise it wouldn’t be on the market. But the truth about aspartame is much more sinister, including how the chemical sweetener gained market approval http://www.fda.gov. And there’s so much more to the aspartame story that you’ve probably never heard before, thanks to government collusion with powerful drug interests.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
100 Years on, ‘Forgiving’ The Gunshots That Sparked WWI
A hundred years after the death of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria led Europe into World War I, his great-granddaughter, Anita von Hohenberg, spoke to FRANCE 24.
For more than 30 years, Anita von Hohenberg has taken care of the Artstetten Castle in Austria.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Abu Qatada Will Not be Allowed Back to UK, Says Nick Clegg
Nick Clegg tells his weekly LBC radio show that the UK had been right to deport radical preacher Abu Qatada to Jordan to face terror charges, and insists the Government would fight any attempt by him to return to Britain
The Government would fight any attempt by Abu Qatada to return to Britain, Nick Clegg said after reports the radical cleric has been cleared of some terror charges…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: Jihad at the Jewish Museum
by Emanuele Ottolenghi
For three years, Western governments have viewed Syria mostly as a problem from hell. They lamented Syria’s descent into the abyss of civil war and mass atrocities. They expressed hope for a political solution. They imposed sanctions on Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and his close associates and relatives. They provided some aid for the humanitarian crisis. And they offered some rhetorical support and material help — though by no means decisive — to moderate elements of Syria’s beleaguered opposition. But their bottom line was: this is someone else’s problem and that somehow, what happens in Syria, lamentable as it may be, stays in Syria.
That changed on Saturday May 24, the day before most European countries went to the polls to elect a new European Parliament, when, according to French police who arrested him a few days later, Mehdi Nemmouche, a young French Muslim from Marseille with a criminal past, walked into the Jewish Museum in Brussels, took out a Kalashnikov, and calmly proceeded to murder four people who were inside the museum at the time, before disappearing into thin air. He is now fighting extradition to Belgium and denies all charges…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Britain’s First Islamic Bond Draws Torrent of Bids
(Reuters) — Britain became the first Western country to sell an Islamic bond on Wednesday, attracting 2.3 billion pounds in orders, more than 10 times the amount it was looking to sell.
The government raised 200 million pounds from the five-year sukuk issue, part of an effort to boost London’s position as a centre for Islamic finance…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Cameron Calls Juncker Candidacy ‘Wrong for Europe’
British PM isolated in bid to block former Luxembourg PM
(see related) (ANSA) — London, June 26 — British Prime Minister David Cameron called the candidacy of Jean-Claude Juncker for European Council President wrong for Europe, the BBC reported on Thursday.
The British prime minister explained that European leaders are thinking of choosing someone who will find it hard to be the voice of reform and change for Europe.
Cameron has found himself increasingly isolated in his bid to block the former Luxembourg prime minister’s appointment, as potential allies have changed tack to support the candidacy of Luxembourg’s longest serving premier, considered an EU insider, said the BBC.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Cameron Headed for Defeat in EU Posts Battle
(BRUSSELS) — Britain’s David Cameron headed for defeat at an EU summit Thursday after being abandoned by his allies in a battle to block the nomination of Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission chief.
European Union leaders gather at the World War I killing fields of Ypres in Belgium to kick off two days of fiery talks in what is the most bitter dispute seen in Europe since the height of the euro crisis.
After commemorating the start of the 1914-18 war, the 28 heads of state and government will hold an informal dinner to set the bloc’s new five-year policies, with the Juncker row officially banned on Thursday, but the atmosphere expected to be strained.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Campaign Launched to Halt Synthetic Biology Food Ingredients
(NaturalNews) Genetic engineering is evolving into a whole new monster with the recent introduction of synthetic biology, a new technology that involves inserting computer-generated DNA into genetically modified (GM) yeast for the purpose of fermenting synthetic ingredients. But a coalition of environmental and food safety advocacy groups is hoping to put a stop to this latest abomination, which is expected to be quietly hidden in the food supply and labeled as “natural.”
A recent announcement by Friends of the Earth (FOE) explains that the first “SynBio” ingredient to be released commercially is one that mimics vanillin, the active flavor compound found in natural vanilla. A Swiss company known as Evolva, in partnership with International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF), has developed a way to produce artificial vanillin using the brave new process, which has never been tested for safety.
By combining GM yeast with man-made DNA, scientists have come up with a way to manufacture synthetic vanillin-like flavoring in a lab, producing a substance that mimics the real thing. It is biotechnology on steroids, in essence, and multinational corporations plan to market the end product as “natural” while hiding it in food without proper, honest labeling.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Yahya Hassan Not Welcome at Grand Mosque Opening
The Danish-Palestinian poet Yahya Hassan was booed when he showed up to participate in the celebrations at the opening of Copenhagen’s new grand mosque yesterday and then refused entry.
Hassan — who is not a practising Muslim — landed himself in hot water amongst parts of the Muslim contingency in Denmark after he published a collection of poetry that was critical of Islam last year. The collection has since become the best-selling poetry collection in Danish history.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dublin House Prices Surge Most Since 2006
Dublin home prices jumped the most in almost eight years last month amid warnings from analysts and regulators that a lack of supply in the Irish capital could stoke fresh financial instability.
Ireland is recovering from the worst real-estate crash in western Europe, which forced the state to inject 64 billion euros ($87 billion) into its banks and caused homebuilding to sink to historic lows. The Central Bank of Ireland warned this month that lawmakers need to address the lack of supply in Dublin to avoid property causing renewed financial volatility in a country that needed an international rescue in 2010.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France to Extradite Brussels Jewish Museum Shooting Suspect
A French court on Thursday ordered a man accused of carrying out a deadly shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels in May to be extradited to Belgium.
The court in Versailles, west of Paris, said Franco-Algerian Mehdi Nemmouche, 29, who was detained several days after the May 24 attack, should be handed over to Belgian authorities for “killings with a terrorist connotation”.
The decision was in line with a European warrant issued for Nemmouche’s arrest.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
French Supreme Court Upholds Islamic Veil Ban at Work
Rules dismissal of Fatima Afif from day-care center is legal
Moslem girls demonstrate against France’s decision to ban the the Islamic headscarf in public schools. (archive)
(ANSAmed) — PARIS — Upholding the separation between church and State, the French supreme Cassation Court has ruled that the controversial dismissal of an employee for wearing an Islamic veil to work in a private creche on the outskirts of Paris is legal.
The case that has gripped France for six years began when Baby-Loup, a day-care center employing Fatima Afif in the multicultural Parisian suburb of Chanteloup-les-Vignes, fired her after she refused to remove her Islamic headscarf at work.
“This verdict is good news for children, women, employees, Muslims, and non-Muslims”, said the day-care center’s lawyer, Richard Malka.
“It is also good news for the republic”.
The plaintiff’s lawyer, Michel Henry, called the ruling “disappointing” and said his client will take her case to the European Court of Human Rights.
“A private entity, in this case an association, can place limits on its employees’ freedom to express their religious beliefs in the workplace”, the Cassation Court wrote.
“This does not mean that the secular principle must necessarily be enforced on private employees who do not render a public service”, it added.
Founded in 1991 in a multi-ethnic, low-income neighborhood, Baby-Loup cares for the children of single-parent and disadvantaged families. Its regulations say that staff must adhere to “philosophical, political and religious neutrality”.
Afif charged discrimination in court, but her case was turned down in 2010, 2011, and by an appeals court in 2013.
“Children must not be confronted with ostentatious demonstrations of religious identity”, a Paris appeals court wrote in November.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Introducing… The Local Denmark
It’s known internationally for its Nordic noir, high standard of living and great beer — but how much do we really know about Denmark? As The Local expands to Scandinavia’s most southerly nation we hope to bring less-publicized aspects of this country to the English-speaking world.
Earlier this year they attracted worldwide ire for public killings of zoo animals and in May they hosted the Eurovision song contest.
If you don’t speak Danish then chances are your knowledge of Danish news over the past year ends here.
But what else has been going on in Denmark recently?
Quite a lot, as it turns out…
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Italo CEO Denies Bankruptcy Reports
‘We’re suffering, but debt is under control’
(ANSA) — Rome, June 24 — Italian high-speed train operator NTV “is suffering financially,” CEO and President Antonello Perricone said Tuesday, but its debt “is nothing to worry about” and stressed its increasing popularity. Speaking before the House transportation committee, Perricone denied possible bankruptcy reports, saying NTV’s Italo service, a competitor to the FS State railway, counted 6.2 million passengers in 2013, over three times higher than 2012, its inaugural year. “We’ll soon hold a board meeting” to discuss finances, he said. NTV, Europe’s first private open-access high-speed rail operator, is a joint-venture that includes among its shareholders Ferrari Chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, Tod’s owner Diego Della Valle, Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo and French national railways group SNCF.
In an interview with the Financial Times on Monday, Montezemolo accused the State railway of “trying a lot to kill us”. In one example, he cited how Bologna’s new high-speed station allocated 15 ticket machines for Trenitalia but just one for Italo.
He also denied reports that Italo is heading for bankruptcy but admitted it must “work on its debt,” according to FT.
Montezemolo argued that Italo’s presence in the market has brought better services and lower prices by forcing Trenitalia to compete, FT said. “We are not going to disappear,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Prosecutors Ask Court to Send Bossi, Sons to Trial
Founder of Northern League accused of misusing public funds
(ANSA) — Milan, June 25 — Milan prosecutors on Wednesday asked that former Northern League leader Umberto Bossi and his two sons be sent to trial along with six others on charges related to allegations of embezzlement and fraud against the State involving 40 million euros. Prosecutors also asked that courts dismiss the case of Senator Rosi Mauro, a Northern League member and confidant of Bossi.
The scandal forced Bossi, founder of the regionalist League, to quit.
Prosecutors finished their investigation in late 2013 into Bossi and his sons Riccardo and Renzo, who were all accused of fraud and embezzlement in the management of 40 million euros in public funds earmarked for the Northern League’s political operations.
Prosecutors said that 10 people, including Bossi and his sons, were included in their probe that began in 2012 into the misuse of party funds, a crime that allegedly began several years earlier.
Bossi, whose political career was based on railing against central government, graft and mismanagement, stepped down as Northern League secretary in April 2012 during the investigation that included former party treasurer Francesco Belsito.
Bossi, who in the 1980s spearheaded the movement that eventually became the Northern League, was allegedly involved with Belsito in irregularities in documentation to obtain reimbursements for electoral spending.
Bossi’s sons Renzo and Riccardo were accused of allegedly using party funds for personal use.
A number of high-profile League members resigned from their positions after it emerged that prosecutors in Milan, Naples and Reggio Calabria had launched probes into the party’s financing.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Engineering Czar Indicted in Milan Airports Acquisition
Prosecutor says Indian firm agreed to rig bid
(ANSA) — Milan, June 24 — A public prosecutor Tuesday recommended the indictment of engineering magnate Vito Gamberale, an associate, and an Indian entrepreneur on charges of complicity in an alleged rigging of the auction of a 29.75% share in the Milan airports authority SEA.
Prosecutors allege Gamberale and his partner Mauro Maia struck an illicit deal with entrepreneur Behari Vinod Sahai to present his bid to purchase the SEA stake too late. The Indian bid was disallowed, leaving the way open to Gamberale’s F2i Italian Funds for Infrastructures company, prosecutors alleged.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Mafia Sinking Claws Into Rich North, Observatory Warns
One of Italy’s most powerful mafia syndicates is expanding beyond its southern heartland and taking root in the wealthy north of the country, the Organised Crime Observatory warned on Thursday.
Families from the ‘Ndrangheta organisation are infiltrating small towns in northern Italy, “influencing local government and monopolising sectors key to the mafia economy,” the country’s organised crime watchdog said.
The mafia has traditionally flourished in poor southern Italy, but networks of mobsters from the Calabria region are increasingly taking advantage of a reduced police presence in small northern towns and the fact that fewer votes are needed to get elected to town councils.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nicosia Rebukes Ankara for Calling Cyprus ‘Defunct’ State
(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, JUNE 26 — The government of Nicosia on Wednesday issued a terse response to a document submitted by Turkey to European Union officials which is said to have described the Republic of Cyprus as a “defunct” state.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norwegian Anti-Facebook Film Goes Viral
A Norwegian short film about the miseries of life in the age of Facebook has struck such a chord that it has had nearly 3m views on YouTube in less than a month.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Polish Nationalist Says Le Pen, Not Wilders, Pulled Plug on Alliance
Polish nationalist Janusz Korwin-Mikke says it is the Front National’s Marine le Pen, not the PVV’s Geert Wilders, who pulled the plug on his party joining the anti-EU alliance in Brussels.
Korwin-Mikke told Dutch television show Nieuwsuur that Wilders had no problem working with him. It was Le Pen who suddenly found him to be too extreme, Nieuwsuur quoted him as saying.
‘Yesterday (Monday) everyone assumed the alliance would go through. But Le Pen suddenly thought we were too extreme.’
Wilders was at the European parliament on Monday to pick up his MEP’s pass. On Tuesday he announced he would not take his seat in Brussels because of the collapse of the alliance.
Wilders said he had broken off the pending alliance with Korwin-Mikke’s KNP because of his views. Nos reported that the KNP was still angry about the PVV’s ‘problem with Poles’ hotline.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Scientists Break Genetic Code for Diabetes in Greenland
Groundbreaking research by Danish geneticists, published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, has succeeded in explaining the high incidence of type 2 diabetes within the Greenlandic population.
In the traditional Greenlandic diet — which is heavy in protein and light on carbohydrates — maintaining high blood-sugar levels for as long as possible may have been advantageous and a result of evolutionary adaption, Hansen and Anders Albrechtsen, a colleague at KU, speculate.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: SAS Flight Delayed by Vibrating Dildo
Passengers kept waiting for flights are used to airlines blaming the delays on so-called ‘technical issues’. But for a SAS flight leaving from Sweden last weekend, the ‘technical issues’ were rather unusual and left many of its passengers ‘buzzing’ with delight.
Scheduled to fly to Split in Croatia, the flight was delayed on the ground due to a vibrating dildo in a passenger’s bag.
To make matters worse for the bag’s owner, she was forced, in front of her rather bemused co-passengers, to remove the batteries from the device, which had been vibrating away, alerting airport security.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A Christian working at London Heathrow Airport has claimed that harassment by fundamentalist Muslim colleagues led to her dismissal.
Nohad Halawi, 49, says she was wrongly accused of being ‘anti-Islam’ and unlawfully dismissed while working as a uniformed beauty consultant in the duty-free shop at Terminal 3.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How to Curb the Threat of Homecoming Jihadist Fighters
Research has shed enough light on jihadist fighters and radicalisation to help us mitigate the ISIS threat, argues security expert Peter Neumann
A week after taking Iraq’s second city, Mosul, insurgent group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) published a slick 12 minute video. Its protagonists were a group of British and Australian Muslims sitting in front of a black flag while talking about the virtues of jihad and martyrdom, and urging their “brothers back home” to join them…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Jimmy Savile boasted about having sex with corpses and had jewellery made from glass eyes he removed from their bodies, it was revealed today.
The sick paedophile also gloated to others that he enjoyed ‘posing’ the corpses and that he would ‘wheel them around’ at night at Leeds General Infirmary.
The astonishing and macabre crimes were revealed in a mass of NHS reports into his crimes published today.
Investigators discovered the DJ and Top of the Pops presenter claimed at least 103 victims aged between five and 75. They detailed his 50 year reign of terror at 28 institutions including Leeds, Broadmoor and Stoke Mandeville hospital.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: MI6: Sir John Sawers to Step Down as Spy Chief
The Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service will step down this autumn after five years in the job
The Chief of MI6 is to step down after five years as head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service. Sir John Sawers will leave the Secret Intelligence Service in November, Government sources said.
The 58-year-old former diplomat and adviser to Tony Blair has been head of MI6 since 2009, overseeing covert operations and intelligence gathering overseas. He is reported to have wanted to step down before next year’s general election…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Controversial plans to scrap part of a pay and display to make way for a mosque have been delayed because of concerns about parking. The Kent Muslim Welfare Association (KMWA) hopes to build a new landmark place of worship to replace the mosque in Canterbury Street, Gillingham…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UNESCO Grants Heritage Status to Prehistoric French Cave
The UN’s cultural agency UNESCO on Sunday granted World Heritage status to a prehistoric cave in southern France which houses the earliest known man-made drawings.
The cave, which survived sealed off for millennia before its discovery in 1994, contains more than 1,000 drawings dating back some 36,000 years.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Wind Turbines Take Terrible Toll on Animals
I’ve recently reported on the bizarre behavior of animals, 1,600 miscarriages, and fetal deformities at a mink farm in Denmark after the installation and full operation on September 2013 of four 3-MW VESTAS wind turbines within a short distance (328 m) from Kaj Bank Olesen’s fur farm.
Mark Duchamp, Chairman of World Council on Nature, released an update on June 23, 2014 that farmer Olesen now believes that when the wind blows from the South West where the wind turbines are located, “mother minks attack their own puppies.” Olesen put down over twenty mink pups and forty are under observation because of deep bites.
The online Aoh.Dk referenced how, since the wind turbines “began to spin last fall, the number of stillbirths and deformed puppies increased fivefold.” Farmer Kaj Olesen Bank also explained, “The proportion of females that refused to mate has quadrupled as compared to last year when there were no wind turbines behind his mink farm.”
You could argue that we are not mink and should not worry that low-frequency vibrations created by wind turbines are harmful to humans. After all, green energy proponents keep reassuring us that wind and solar energy is harmless to the planet and to adjacent populations. When animals such as minks, cattle, sheep, goats, and horses, exposed to wind turbines 24/7, become aggressive, die en masse, abort their fetuses, some with developmental malformations, and attack their young, it is time to ask ourselves, what are wind turbines doing to the human body? The “wind turbine syndrome” is not just hypochondria as the wind industry and the environmental lobby explained.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Libyan Human Rights Activist Killed in Benghazi
(AGI) Benghazi, June 26 — One of the most prominent human rights activists in Libya, Salwa Bugaighis, was shot dead on Wednesday night at her home in Benghazi, only a few hours after voting ended in the country’s general election. “Unknown hooded men wearing military uniforms attacked Mrs Bugaighis in her home and opened fire on her,” security forces reported. The attackers shot a security guard, who is not in a life-threatening condition, before shooting Bugaighis several times in the presence of her husband, who has since disappeared.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco Counter-Terror Battle Goes Global
Rabat — Aware of the need to step up international co-operation to tackle terrorism, Morocco is working to build partnerships with other countries.
The cabinet last week approved a major security agreement with Belgium. The deal aims to prevent, monitor and combat all forms of terrorism, in accordance with the laws of both countries, Budget Minister Driss Azami said…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Violence and Low Turnout Mar Libya Parliamentary Election
Voters in Libya have been to the polls to elect a new parliament that, it is hoped, might bring more political stability to the country. Turnout was low and there were some instances of violence, in one case deadly.
Low turnout and a deadly attack on troops providing security provided the backdrop to the Libyan general election on Wednesday, with the likely winner remaining unclear…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Was Benghazi State Sponsored Terrorism? An Interview With Kenneth R. Timmerman
Kenneth R. Timmerman is author of Dark Forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi. It is a gripping expose, replete with evidence of deception and cover up about who perpetrated the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans; Ambassador Chris Stevens, communications aide Sean Smith, ex-Navy Seals CIA-contractors, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty on 9/11/2012. Dark Forces conveys the thesis that the attack in Benghazi was a state sponsored terrorism act perpetrated by Iran’s Quds Force with the assistance of the Libyan Al Qaeda Militia, Ansar al-Shariah. senior Hezbollah operative and used Ansar al-Shariah as a paid front and local pick up team. That is in contrast to Administration claims that the Benghazi attack was triggered by a protest of a US made internet video that transformed a protest rally at the legation into an attack
Timmerman is the New York Times bestselling author of earlier exposes Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran, and Shadow Warriors: The Untold Story of Traitors, Saboteurs and the Party of Surrender.. Timmerman spent 24 days in a PLO-Fatah dungeon as a captive during the First Lebanon War in 1982. That episode did not deter him from returning to Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq and Israel to report on arms trafficking and state and non-state terrorism. Both he and former UN Ambassador John Bolton were nominated by a former Swedish Foreign Minister for a Nobel Peace Prize their work disclosing Iran’s nuclear program. Read our interview with Timmerman in our NER Press collection, The West Speaks by Jerry Gordon.
Lisa Benson and this writer interviewed Timmerman about Dark Forces and the web of deception surrounding the Benghazi attack on the Lisa Benson Show, Sunday, June 22nd. What follows is a transcript of that interview…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Names 2 Hamas Men in Teens’ Kidnap
Both Hamas men have previously served time in Israel jails. Both are missing from their Hevron homes.
The Shin Bet has cleared for publication that it suspects Hamas Hevron terrorists Amer Abu Aisha and Marwan Kawasmeh played pivotal roles in the kidnapping of three Israeli teens. Eyal Yifrach, 19, Naftali Frenkel, 16 and Gilad Sha’ar, 16, were kidnapped while hitchhiking home from yeshiva in Gush Etzion on June 12…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
27 Killed in Attacks Across Iraq
BAGHDAD, June 25 (Xinhua) — A total of 27 people were killed and 90 others wounded in violent attacks across Iraq on Wednesday, police and security source said. Five people were killed and 17 others injured when a suicide bomber blew up himself near a checkpoint in the city of Kirkuk, 250 km north of Baghdad.
In Ishaqi area of Salahudin, several mortar shells landed on the house of Ismail Khudair Hlob, first deputy governor of Salahudin, leaving seven people killed and 25 others wounded.
In a separate incident, three people were killed and two others injured in an attack on a wine shop in the Zayouna district in Baghdad…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
9 Killed in Bomb and Grenade Attacks in Yemen
ADEN, Yemen, June 26 (Xinhua) — Attacks took place Thursday morning at a military base and local airport in Yemen’s southeastern province of Hadramout, killing at least nine and wounding 12 others, a government official told Xinhua.
“The blast occurred after an explosive-laden car struck the main gate of the First Military Region Headquarters located in Seiyun town of Hadramout province, leaving at least three soldiers killed and 12 others injured,” the local government official said on condition of anonymity…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Assad and Maliki Unite Against Common Enemy ISIS
Air strikes may spell end of what has often looked like a mutually beneficial relationship between Syrian regime and jihadists
Bashar al-Assad’s enemies often accuse him of being in cahoots with jihadis, but that is not the message of the latest Syrian air force raids on Isis targets — welcomed from Baghdad on Thursday by a grateful Nouri al-Maliki.
Air strikes on al-Qaim, Rutba and al-Walid matched a pattern begun earlier this month with attacks on Raqqa, Hassakeh and Deir al-Zor — Isis-held areas of north-eastern Syria that are close to the border with Iraq, now breached wide open to allow the group to move men, money and equipment both ways…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Turkey’s High-Risk Power Play
For most Westerners, Turkey is a hard nut to crack.
How can you understand a state sponsor of terrorism that is also a member of NATO?
How can you explain Turkey’s facilitation of Kurdish independence in Iraq in light of Turkey’s hundred-year opposition to Kurdish independence?
What is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan trying to accomplish here?
Is he nuts?
On the terrorism support front, today Turkey vies with Iran for the title of leading state sponsor of terrorism.
First there is Hamas.
Last week an Israeli security official told the media that the abduction of Naftali Frankel, Gilad Shaer and Eyal Yifrah was organized and directed by Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas commander operating out of Turkey…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Danish Photographer Released After Spending Over a Year in Captivity in Syria
A Danish freelance photographer who had been held captive in Syria for the past 13 months was yesterday released, according to the Foreign Ministry.
Daniel Rye Ottosen, 25, from Give was taken hostage on May 17 last year, just two days after he arrived to photograph Syrian refugees in Turkey and Syria.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Days of Terror: Iraqi Christians Live in Fear of ISIS
Some 40,000 Christians live in Qaraqosh, a town near Mosul, Iraq. Residents have been gathering daily in 12 local churches as ISIS jihadists advance towards the community. Their existence is a precarious one.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq PM Hails ‘Syrian Air Strike’ Against ISIS
Islamist militants keep advancing in north and west
(ANSA) — Rome, June 26 — Iraqi Premier Nouri Maliki on Thursday hailed an apparent Syrian air strike on Islamist militants led by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) at a border crossing between Iraq and Syria.
Isis and its Sunni Muslim allies have seized large parts of Iraq north and west of Baghdad, with the government struggling to stem the militants’ advance.
The US has sent 300 military advisors to Baghdad and is reportedly mulling drone strikes to help stop the militant advance.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq is Facing ‘Existential Threat’ Says William Hague
Foreign secretary meets with Iraqi leaders on visit to Baghdad, stepping up pressure on Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s embattled PM to form an inclusive government
Iraq is now facing an “existential threat”, William Hague warned on Thursday as he arrived in Baghdad for emergency meetings on the conflict wracking the country.
Stepping up the pressure on Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s embattled prime minister, , the foreign secretary said Baghdad must form an inclusive government that reflects the makeup of Iraq’s society…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Saddam, The Good Old Days
If Saddam was still the Iraqi dictator, he would never have permitted ISIS to exist. Now we must destroy it. No troops on the ground, just American air power.
I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but sometimes I miss Saddam Hussein.
Yes, he was a cruel despot. Between September 1980 and July 1988 he pursued an eight-year war against Iran that killed an estimated combined million troops on both sides and achieved nothing. He had ruled from 1979 until 2003 when George W. Bush decided to remove him by invading Iraq, believing as other nations did that he had weapons of mass destruction. Had he not posed a constant threat to neighboring nations, he might still be in charge. He was hanged in 2006, but the U.S. would stay on until our troops were withdrawn by Barack Obama in 2011.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iraqi Defense Official: Army Has Lost 7 Divisions; Losses at $10b
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Since they began their blitz just over a fortnight ago, Sunni insurgents in Iraq have destroyed half of the Iraqi army and inflicted $10 billion in losses, a senior Iraqi defense official said.
Those losses continued to mount Wednesday as the jihadi-led insurgents reportedly overran the Ajeel oil site east of the captured city of Tikrit, and Iraqi television showed helicopters flying in troops as fighting continued for Baiji, the country’s largest oil refinery…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
By Daniel Johnson
Once again, Islam takes centre-stage, while the West watches anxiously on. From Brussels to Beijing, terrorists are still slaughtering civilians. Across Africa, from Libya to Nigeria and Kenya, fragile states are falling apart under the Islamist assault. In the Middle East, the Syrian civil war has now spread to Iraq and threatens to destabilise other states. Further East, Pakistan is under Taliban attack even before Afghanistan is evacuated by Nato. We are now seeing the results of President Obama’s premature withdrawal from Iraq, his encouragement of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, his irresolution in Syria, his appeasement of Iran and his failure more generally to grasp the scale of the Islamist challenge to the West…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Jordanian Parliament Says Seven-Year-Old Kids Can be Jailed
Bid to ‘prevent use in honour crimes’ sparks outcry
(ANSAmed) — AMMAN — The Jordanian parliament has amended the penal code to allow children as young as seven to be tried and imprisoned, drawing widespread condemnation from human rights organizations who described the new legislation as a gross violation of human rights and international treaties, activists said on Thursday.
Approved late Wednesday during a session of the conservative and tribal-run parliament, the law would allow children to serve up to 15 years behind bars if convicted of serious crimes. Supporting MPs said the law is designed to stop a new version of so-called honour crimes, in which families are using children to kill female relatives in order to avoid prosecution.
Authorities in Amman have lately imposed heavier penalties on the murder of women for reasons of family honor.
“Parliament’s amendments are in violation of child rights and contradict the principle of child rehabilitation”, said children’s rights activist Sameera Rajudi. “International law allows for legal action against children no younger than 12 years old. The law should also avoid imprisonment and implement alternative punishment that could help rectify child behavior”, lawyer and human rights activist Rehab Qadoumi told al-Ghad newspaper. “The law should consider children to be victims of social circumstances rather than criminals”.
While the new law still needs to be approved by the Senate and by King Abdullah, activists are concerned that if passed, it will be a major setback in the kingdom’s fight to improve children’s rights.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Jordan: Qatada Trial: View From the Courtroom
Our correspondent was in court in Jordan when Abu Qatada was found not guilty of charges of conspiring to commit acts of terror
As the judge read the long list of accusations and charges made against Omar Mohammed Othman — better known as Abu Qatada — his five sisters sat in a row on a wooden bench inside the court, listening with baited breath. All wearing the full black abaya and niqab, their eyes were trained on Abu Qatada. One sister held the other’s gloved hand, massaging it gently to calm her down…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Obama to Request $500 Million to Aid Syrian Opposition
President Obama on Thursday requested $500 million from Congress to train and equip what the White House is calling “appropriately vetted” members of the Syrian opposition. The request comes as the administration is trying to put some form to the president’s surprise announcement last month of plans for a $5 billion counterterrorism fund to provide training for operations in vulnerable countries in the Middle East.
The training program would be the most significant action yet by the United States in the conflict in Syria, which has spilled over the border now to Iraq, where a Qaeda-inspired insurgency is threatening the American-backed government.
| [Return to headlines] |
By: A. Savyon and Y. Carmon
With the start of summer 2014, the Iranian regime faces a serious crisis, as it begins to recognize that its efforts to create a balance of power with the Sunni world and the West are failing while at the same time external and internal threats to the regime are increasing. To ensure its survival, the regime is now turning its attention to suppressing domestic opposition, with which it has been in escalating conflict in recent years, particularly since the June 2013 presidential elections.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saddam’s WMDs: The Left’s Iraq Lies Exposed
The recent turmoil in Iraq brought on by the rise of the Sunni extremist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has ironically struck a blow to the American Left’s endlessly repeated narrative that there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq prior to the war.
The State Department and other U.S. government officials have revealed that ISIS now occupies the Al Muthanna Chemicals Weapons Complex. Al Muthanna was Saddam Hussein’s primary chemical weapons facility, and it is located less than 50 miles from Baghdad.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Terror Created by British Intelligence Will be a Threat for “Many Years”
Richard Barrett, a former head of counter-terrorism at MI6, says Syria “is likely to be an incubator for a new generation of terrorists.”
Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police’s assistant commissioner and head of specialist operations, told the Daily Mail Britain will experience increased terrorism for “many years” as a result of young British men participating in the Syrian war.
“I’m afraid I believe that we will be living with the consequences of Syria — from a terrorist point of view, let alone the world, geopolitical consequences — for many, many, many years to come,” Dick told the BBC Radio 4 over the weekend.
The Daily Mail cites Richard Barrett, a former head of counter-terrorism at MI6, who estimated “possibly up to 300 people have come back to the UK” since the start of the West’s proxy war in Syria. He said intelligence services are confronted with an “impossible” task in tracking them.
Barrett said the war in Syria funded and supported by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, with U.S. military trained terrorists “is likely to be an incubator for a new generation of terrorists.” He estimated that more than 12,000 foreign mercenaries have traveled to Syria since the United States and its partners launched the war against the al-Assad government in Damascus.
“That is more than the 10,000 who went to Afghanistan during the decade-long [CIA fomented] jihad against Russian occupation,” The Independent reports. “One in four foreign fighters in Syria is from the West — part of a global phenomenon, with fighters from more than 80 countries represented on the battlefield.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Gulag Museum Says Facing Closure
The rights group running Russia’s only museum in a preserved former Soviet labour camp warns that the facility is facing closure as authorities grow increasingly hostile to probing the country’s totalitarian past.
The Perm-36 museum — named after the notorious prison camp where it is housed — has seen operations grind to a halt after local authorities cut off key funding “without explanation”, the non-governmental organisation Memorial said.
“Visits are not taking place, electricity to the museum is cut and all the employees have been put on unpaid leave for an undetermined period,” said Robert Latypov, head of the local branch of Memorial, one of Russia’s most prominent human rights organisations.
“If the museum closes then it will be a harbinger of the arrival of an ideological dictatorship,” Latypov told AFP on Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence Still Relevant to Int’l Relations: Indonesian FM
JAKARTA, June 26 (Xinhua) — The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence initiated 60 years ago are very important universal norms and still play great roles in guiding international relations, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said.
During a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua, Marty said the five principles which speaks about respect for territorial integrity, the non-use of military aggression and others are actually shared by the contemporary world in the current international relations…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistani Charity is a Terror Front Which Attacked Indian Consulate, Says US
Jamat ud Dawa, one of Pakistan’s largest education and health charities, is part of the terror group which carried out the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and attacked an Indian consulate in Afghanistan last month, according to the U.S government
The United States government has identified an Islamic charity as a front for one of the world’s largest terrorist groups and accused it of carrying out an attack on an Indian consulate in Afghanistan last month.
According to US State Department officials the group, Jamaat ud Dawa, is an alias of the Lashkar e Taiba, the Kashmir-focused terror group which is believed to have carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which ten suicide commandos killed more than 150 people in a three day massacre…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
The Taliban Five Are Even Worse Than You’ve Heard.
One of the five senior Taliban leaders transferred to Qatar in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl played a key role in al Qaeda’s plans leading up to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Mohammad Fazl, who served as the Taliban’s army chief of staff and deputy defense minister prior to his detention at Guantánamo, did not have a hand in planning the actual 9/11 hijackings. Along with a notorious al Qaeda leader, however, Fazl did help coordinate a military offensive against the enemies of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan the day before. And Osama bin Laden viewed that September 10 offensive as an essential part of al Qaeda’s 9/11 plot.
The 9/11 Commission found that the hijackings in the United States on September 11, 2001, were the culmination of al Qaeda’s three-step plan. First, on September 9, 2001, al Qaeda assassinated Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Shah Massoud in a suicide bombing. Massoud’s death was a major gift to the Taliban because he was their chief rival and still controlled parts of the country. The assassination was also intended to weaken opposition to the Taliban and al Qaeda within Afghanistan before the United States could plan its retaliation for the most devastating terrorist attack in history. The Northern Alliance did, in fact, play a role in America’s response.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
After Years of Denial, Mainstream Media Now Admits Fukushima Core Meltdowns Actually Happened
(NaturalNews) As experts continue to search for feasible ways to enter the stricken Fukushima nuclear facility in Japan without causing further damage or exposing workers to deadly levels of radiation, the mainstream media is finally admitting that the plant’s reactor cores did, indeed, experience meltdowns.
After years of denial and coverup, it is now being openly but quietly admitted that the three damaged reactors cores are most likely completely destroyed. But because of the level of damage involved, workers still have no idea just how bad things really are, and it could be months or even years before anyone has any solid answers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
China Voice: RIMPAC Drill Not Window-Dressing for China-U.S. Ties
BEIJING, June 26 (Xinhua) — The Chinese navy’s first involvement in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) multinational naval exercises cannot be undervalued. A Chinese fleet with about 1,100 soldiers and officers are now in Pearl Harbor participating in exchange events, including press conferences, visits of warships, basketball and football matches and a cross-country race.
Their involvement in the activity between the United States and Pacific Rim nations makes the world’s largest multinational maritime military exercise more inclusive…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Fleet Arrives in Hawaii for RIMPAC Drill
HAWAII, the United States, June 25 (Xinhua) — A Chinese fleet with about 1,100 soldiers and officers arrived in the Pearl Harbor Tuesday to take part in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) multinational naval exercise.
It is composed of missile destroyer Haikou, missile frigate Yueyang, supply ship Qiandaohu, hospital ship Peace Ark and two ship-borne helicopters, as well as a commando unit, a diving squad and a medical team…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
DPRK Fires 3 Short-Range Projectiles Into Eastern Waters
SEOUL, June 26 (Xinhua) — The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) fired three short-range projectiles into its eastern waters, Yonhap News Agency and YTN reported Thursday.
The three projectiles, believed to be short-range missiles, were launched from Wonsan areas in the southeastern coast, where Pyongyang fired FROG surface-to-surface missiles in late March.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Philippine President, Muslim Rebel Leader Meet on Peace Process
MANILA, June 26 (Xinhua) — Philippine President Benigno Aquino III and Muslim rebel leader Al Haj Murad Ebrahim have met for the second time in Japan and discussed on the peace process between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front ( MILF), a senior government official disclosed Thursday…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
AUSTRALIA’S Islamic leaders have demanded radical group Hizb ut-Tahrir stop voicing its vile sermons in public, hate-filled messages which they claim are tarnishing the entire Muslim community.
The stinging rebuke comes as the religion’s leaders prepare to intervene in the activist group in a last-ditch attempt to calm its members’ aggressive and scandalous approach and curb its fundamentalism…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
GMO Bananas Are Coming to a Supermarket Near You, Thanks to Bill Gates
‘We know our science will work’ — famous last words
(NaturalNews) What does the development of genetically modified bananas have to do with the world’s richest man, founder of Microsoft Corp. Bill Gates? Everything.
As noted by CNet News, James Dale, the director for the Center for Tropical Crops and Biocommodities at Queensland University of Technology in Australia, says he’s devoted a number of years to the creation of a better banana (what is currently wrong with the kind that grow naturally? We haven’t a clue, but there it is).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
THE federal government will consider expanding the criteria for proscribing terrorist groups following fresh advice it could not act to curb the activities of the radical group Hizb ut-Tahrir under existing laws.
The Daily Telegraph has learned the government recently sought fresh advice on whether it could proscribe the global organisation, which has accused Prime Minister Tony Abbott of demonising jihadist fighters in Iraq and Syria, as a terrorist group…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Radio Outburst by Michael Smith an Insult to Islam
FORMER radio presenter Michael Smith was at the centre of a religious storm yesterday after he asserted prophet Mohammad was a sexual predator during his regular 2GB chat show with Ben Fordham. His provocative comments caused such an angry response, Fordham apologised for the remarks.
In 2012, ex-2UE host Smith was cleared of “inciting hatred” by the Australian Communications and Media Authority over an on-air remark that the prophet Mohammad had “married a nine-year-old and consummated it when she was 11’’…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Revealed: The Secretive Q Society’s Battle Against Islam
THEY are a group of “concerned citizens”, but are very hesitant to say who they really are. If you want to go to one of their meetings, you have to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Their only address is a PO Box in suburban Melbourne. They won’t say exactly where their money comes from and say they never will.
And they are very opposed to Islam in Australia.
The secretive organisation known as the Q Society has this week been linked to a noisy campaign to stop the construction of a mosque in Bendigo, Victoria.
Over the past few weeks, some of the town’s businesses and residents have awoken to find black balloons tied up outside their premises as a way of protesting the proposed place of worship.
The $3 million development was approved last week at a raucous council meeting. There were reports indicating the Q Society was a “key force” behind the Bendigo campaign (the organisation says it only held a public meeting and was “not a protest organisation”).
So who exactly are they and what are they doing?
The Q Society — named because the group was founded at a 2010 meeting in the upper class Melbourne suburb of Kew — claims to have members across the country.
Its mission is about “educating” people about Islam, spokesman Andrew Horwood said, rather than leading the protests.
They describe themselves as “Islam-critical”, are avowed opponents of sharia law and have published a book Getting Through: How To Talk To Non Muslims About The Disturbing Nature of Islam and produced YouTube videos including “How to stop a mosque”.
It has few public faces except for its president, Debbie Robinson, and Mr Horwood. “We’re purely educational,” he told news.com.au…
| — Hat tip: Russkiy | [Return to headlines] |
Gambia: Three Mosques Renamed in Banjul
The Committee of Banjul Muslim Elders has announced that, following discussions and wide consultations, it has renamed three mosques in Banjul, a press release has indicated.
It informed the general public that the Independence Drive Mosque in Banjul will henceforth be known as Masjid Abu Bakar Saddiq, whilst Half-Die Mosque, will be called Masjid Umar Bun Khatab. Meanwhile, in another related notice, it announced that James Senegal Mosque, Banjul, is renamed Masjid Ali Ibn Abu Talib.
“The Committee of Banjul Muslim Elders, after many discussions and wide consultations, unanimously agreed to effect the name changes stated above. The name change reflects the view that the name of a mosque should be Islamic, dignified and inspiring. The names, ‘Independence Drive’ and ‘Half-Die”, were mere names of convenience, and had nothing to do with Islam. By not having proper names of their own, the mosque simply assumed the names of their locations, and changing names as the names of these locations changed…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Kenya Governor Arrested for Deadly Coast Attacks
First high-profile politician charged over killings
(ANSA) — Rome, June 26 — Kenyan regional governor Issa Timamy was arrested Thursday on terrorism and murder charges in connection with attacks in the coastal Lamu district in which scores of people were killed.
Timamy is the first high-profile politician to be charged over the killings in the Mpeketoni town area.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has blamed the attacks on political networks, despite Somali Islamist group al-Shabab claiming responsibility.
Most of the dead were ethnic Kikuyus, like Kenyatta. Non-Muslims were singled out to be killed.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria Receives US Military Aid Against Boko Haram
(AGI) Lagos, June 26 — The U.S. supplied the Nigerian army with military equipment to aid the fight against the Boko Haram Islamic terrorists. General Ibrahim Sani broke the news, explaining that the defensive and communications equipment will strengthen the Nigerian Army. Abuja security forces are fighting the Boko Haram militiamen who have devastated the north-eastern portion of the country, causing over three thousand casualties and destroying countless villages. Last April, Islamic fundamentalists kidnapped 300 female students, and are still holding their prisoners.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Jonathan — Boko Haram Insurgency Worse Than Civil War
President Goodluck Jonathan has said the Boko Haram insurgency is worse than the civil war that broke out in Nigeria in the late 60’s. Jonathan said this at the Presidential Villa in Abuja yesterday while receiving the College of Bishops of the African Church led by Primate Emmanuel Udofia, who paid him a courtesy visit…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Abuja Blast — Police Confirm 21 Dead
Twenty one persons have been confirmed dead and another 17 injured in a bomb explosion that hit Emab Plaza, in Wuse 2, Abuja, Wednesday, police have said. The blast occurred at the busy plaza at about 4 p.m. local time, setting off a huge fire…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Somalia: Deadly Fighting Erupts in Buulo-Burde Town
The fighting flared up in Buloburde after Al Qaeda linked Al Shabaab militants launched heavy assault against on bases manned by Somali Federal Gov’t troops in the town. The gun battle between Somali troops and Al Shabaab are continued in the area as both warring sides used heavy and slight weapons during the battle…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Somalia: Suicide Bomb Hits a Bulo-Burde Hotel
At least two people among them a Djiboutian Official and soldier were killed in Bulo-burde town of Hiran region after suicide bomb hit a Amalow hotel in the town. An eyewitness who declined to be named told Shabelle Media that the gunmen believed to be Al Shabaab militants rammed into hotel and killed Djiboutian Official and soldier…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Argentina Will Not Default on June 30, Says Economy Minister
Kicillof says funds deposited to meet obligations under swap
(ANSA) — New York, June 26 — The economy minister of Argentina said the country will not default on its debt on June 30, Bloomberg reported Thursday.
Economy Minister Alex Kicillof said Argentina had deposited enough funds to honour its obligations to creditors who signed on to a bond swap.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Millions Spent as Councils Struggle to House Refugees
The vast majority of Denmark’s councils are being forced to think outside the box when it comes to housing the rising number of refugees entering the country.
According to the local council organisation KL, 80 percent of councils have difficulty finding permanent housing for incoming refugees.
“It’s a challenge because more and more refugees are coming because of conflicts such as in Syria, and that is difficult for the councils,” Jacob Bundgaard, the head of KL’s labour market board and mayor of Aarhus, told DR Nyheder.
“It’s a task that we must undertake together so that the people who have fled can have decent conditions.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Draft Agenda Calls for Greater Migration Burden Sharing
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, JUNE 26 — European Council President Herman Van Rompuy’s draft agenda for a two-day summit of European leaders beginning on Thursday states that the EU must prepare for the ‘‘challenges of managing migrant flows with solidarity and a fair sharing of responsibility’’. The document also calls for the strengthening and modernization of the EU’s external borders and a bolstered EU role in the Mediterranean area. Dealing with the root causes of migration trends is an essential part of the EU’s migration policies, the draft noted, calling for them to be more firmly anchored in the EU’s policies for foreign affairs and development through a comprehensive approach to migration and mobility.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Europe’s Migrant Influx: ‘We Need Help But We Don’t Know Where From’
Unprecedented numbers are risking their lives to reach Europe, and local authorities in coastal communities where they land are struggling to cope. Lizzy Davies reports from Catania while photographer Massimo Sestini accompanied the Italian navy on its rescue missions earlier this month, offering a rare up-close glimpse of the men, women and children who make the dangerous trip to start a new life
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Illegal Alien Tsunami to Cost US Taxpayers $ Billions Annually
With many American citizens feeling helpless — and hopeless — as they watch their nation’s border security openly violated by illegal alien children — some of whom are over 18-years-old — a nonpartisan watchdog group reported on Thursday that the state of California alone spends upwards of $25 billion each year to provide human services to millions of lawbreakers.
“While President Barack Obama and many Democrats benefit from the influx of illegal aliens who may become Democrats themselves, it’s the American taxpayers footing the bill for the politicians’ future voters,” said former police officer and security director Iris Aquino.
The group, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), released a study that finds providing healthcare, education, law enforcement, and social services to a growing illegal alien population costs Californians $25.3 billion per year, according to the report.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
London’s Population is 8.4m and Rising Faster Than Any Other Part of the Country
London’s population is rising at a faster rate than any other part of the country because of high immigration and birth rate and now stands at more than 8.4 million, official figures revealed today.
The Office for National Statistics said that the number of people living in the capital rose by just over 108,000 in the year to June 2013…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Norway Asked to Receive More Syrian Refugees
OSLO, June 26 (Xinhua) — Norway has been asked to receive at least 5,000 Syrian refugees and issue additional temporary residence permits to more people from the war-torn Middle East country, the Norwegian news agency NTB reported on Thursday.
The request was contained in an Amnesty International letter sent to Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg before the conference on the crisis in Syria under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva on Friday.
But so far, Norway is ready to receive 1,000 Syrian refugees from camps in Syria’s neighboring countries…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Six Facts You Should Know About Obama’s Flood of Illegal Aliens
Here are six facts you need to know about what President Obama fraudulently calls the unaccompanied minors “urgent humanitarian crisis.”
- First, many minors aren’t unaccompanied. Rather, they’re traveling with their mothers, some pregnant with future anchor baby citizens. Other women crossing are of child bearing age — this bodes poorly for Americans who favor limiting population growth. As a whole, the arriving aliens have little education, few jobs skills, and don’t speak English. Many will be dependent on social services throughout their lives.
- Second, despite what the Obama administration tells you, the illegal immigrants aren’t fleeing Central American violence. The aliens have advised immigration officials that they intend to reunite with their families, a high percentage of which are also illegal immigrants and who have told their Central American relatives that once inside the United States, Obama will allow them to remain. Before releasing the aliens, officials issue them an immigration court appearance date. Since few show up, the orders are jokingly refer to as “run letters.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Last Time We Had Illegal Alien Amnesty, The World Trade Center Got Bombed
by Daniel Greenfield
Mahmud Abouhalima was just a DREAMER. He dreamed of blowing the World Trade Center. And he got a surprisingly long way to fulfilling his wish thanks to a little fairy named Amnesty.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Moderateness of the Far Right and the Extremism of Immigration
By Ricardo Duchesne
The mandated claim that mass immigration is indispensable to the cultural and economic “enrichment” of European nations is possibly the most extreme policy ever implemented in human history. This cultural Marxist-initiated policy is bringing an irreversible alteration in the intrinsic ethnic and cultural identities of European nations. Economic Marxism was reversible and indeed worked to protect the former Soviet sphere from the less physically violent but far more insidious cultural Marxism dominating the West today.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
What Real Immigration Reform Means
It appears our efforts are at least getting some response from our state legislature here in Texas joining with (thankfully) soon to be gone, Gov. Rick Perry and other high ranking officials regarding the massive invasion of illegals into Texas (35,000 a month) and in the past few weeks, tens of thousands of minor illegal aliens: Texas-Led Border Security Surge ‘Imminent’. $1.2 million dollars a week is being allocated to put this plan into action. $1.2 MILLION dollars a week from we the taxpayers to do what the gutless cowards in the Outlaw Congress have refused to do for decades. This whole debacle is going to cost you, me, our children and grand children a ton of debt and misery until the problem is fixed once and for all.
The same can be said for Arizona, although I still haven’t read or heard anything about Gov. Jan Brewer activating their volunteer militia to known ‘hot spots’ along their border. However, one state rep has introduced a bill: AZ: GOP Rep. Introduces Bill to Send Thousands of National Guard Troops to Border. The good folks in Arizona need to keep hammering on Brewer and their state reps and senators to get their militia funded, organized and on the border.
The criminal impostor in the White House is making noises because the noise from we the people is drowning Washington, DC: Obama talks tough to Mexico: Illegal-immigrant children won’t get to stay. Of course, he doesn’t mean it because this latest surge is due to Soetoro/Obama’s encouragement: White House Admits ‘Rumors’ of Amnesty Motivating Illegal Border Crossings
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Artificial Paradise and the New Man: Mankind at the Final Turning Point
It is obvious that there is an elite class, the Oligarchy if you will, that is controlling the world, for their purposes. But this Oligarchy uses the technologies of Aldous Huxley’s “Scientific Dictatorship” to create a velvet totalitarianism. But what is their end game? We can get some idea by reading the science fiction novels and non-fiction books of what were called the Fabian Socialists of England, the intellectuals who joined forces with the enormous power of international bankers to implement what they called an the “Open Conspiracy,” which was outlined by the book of the same title by H. G. Wells and was revised by author Marilyn Ferguson who wrote the Aquarian Conspiracy. These powerful intellectuals, backed by the incredible wealth of men like Rothschild, Cecil Rhodes, Rockefeller, and others, created a master plan for what they called “The New World Order,” which was also the title of books written by H.G. Wells and Adolph Hitler. Additional books and writings included 1984 by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and non-fiction books by the father of behavior modification, B.F. Skinner, who wrote Beyond Freedom and Dignity, and Cybernetics by Norbert Weiner, and others.
When you piece these books together like a giant puzzle, you see a vision for a futuristic world totally controlled by a scientific elite, a “New World Order,” deliberately brought into being through chaos and manufactured crisis.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Convicted Heavy Metal ‘Christian’ Singer Admits Being Atheist, Duped Fans to Sell Music
A so-called Christian heavy metal band whose frontman was convicted of attempting to hire a hitman to murder his estranged wife has admitted that it duped fans into believing that they were Christian in order to sell their music…
“A lot of Christian parents said, ‘Yes, you can buy this As I Lay Dying CD, because they’re a Christian band.’ They don’t even think to actually check the lyrics,”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cowardly Christian Entertainers
During an interview with The Independent last year, country western star Carrie Underwood, a professing Christian, got the media’s full attention when she decided to come out in support of gay “marriage.” “As a married person myself,” she chirped, “I don’t know what it’s like to be told I can’t marry somebody I love, and want to marry. I can’t imagine how that must feel. I definitely think we should all have the right to love, and love publicly, the people that we want to love.” Underwood also noted that she attends a gay-friendly church.
Four years ago another popular “Christian” singer, Jennifer Knapp, came out as a lesbian. In an interview Knapp stated that she wasn’t interested in becoming another spokesperson for the gay agenda because she wasn’t equipped for that. “I’m in no way capable of leading a charge for some kind of activist movement,” she bluntly told “Christianity Today” in 2010, adding, “I’m not capable of getting into the theological argument as to whether or not we should or shouldn’t allow homosexuals within our church.” (Source) Four years later we learn that Jennifer has boned up on theology 101 and now feels she’s capable of arguing her view on what the Bible teaches on homosexuality. Purchase her soon to be released book where she tells the story of her troubled life and you’ll discover Jennifer’s liberal theology. And, not surprisingly, on her book publisher’s website we learn that she has become an “advocate for LGBT issues in the church.”
The gay agenda has weaseled its way into all aspects of society, including religious institutions, corporations, politics, the media, education, the arts, the entertainment industry and so on. As a result, there’s a great divide in this country.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
It’s Time to Leave the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
If you are a Jesus-loving, Bible-based member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — unless God has called you to stand as a prophetic voice of rebuke to the denomination or unless your ministry commitments to individuals make it impossible for you to leave — now is the time to make your exit.
The PCUSA has made its rejection of the Word of God official.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Louisiana Governor Dumps Common Core; Bureaucrats Fight Back
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (shown) issued executive orders aiming to remove the Obama administration-pushed Common Core education standards in the state’s government schools, drawing widespread applause from teachers, parents, taxpayers, and activists across the political spectrum. The orders seek to quash the school nationalization scheme in Louisiana by withdrawing from the federally funded national testing regime aligned with Common Core, a deeply controversial and expensive assessment that the Republican governor said was adopted in violation of state law. Education bureaucrats, though, are fighting back.
If successful, the governor’s orders and announcement would make Louisiana the fourth state this year to formally withdraw from what critics now deride as “ObamaCore” and even “CommieCore.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Opt-Out of Common Core, Opt-in to the Ron Paul Curriculum
Oklahoma recently took action to protect the state’s children from the federal education bureaucracy by withdrawing from Common Core. Common Core is the latest attempt to bribe states, with money taken from the American people, into adopting a curriculum developed by federal bureaucrats and education “experts.” In exchange for federal funds, states must change their curriculum by, for example, replacing traditional mathematics with “reform math.” Reform math turns real mathematics on its head by focusing on “abstract thinking” instead of traditional concepts like addition and subtraction. Schools must also replace classic works of literature with “informational” texts, such as studies by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Those poor kids!
Oklahoma will likely not be the last state to explicitly ban Common Core, as grassroots opposition to this latest federal education “reform” scheme continues to grow. While “reform math” and the use of “informational” texts grab headlines and fuel the outrage behind this movement, they are just symptoms of the problem, not the cause. The devil with Common Core lies not in its details but in its underlying principle. That principle is that that DC-based central planners can develop a curriculum suitable for every student. The idea that government “experts” can centrally plan a nation’s educational system is just as flawed as the idea that government can centrally plan the economy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Supreme Court Strikes Down Buffer Zones for Abortion Protests
The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Massachusetts law that barred protests near abortion clinics.
The law, enacted in 2007, created 35-foot buffer zones around entrances to abortion clinics. State officials said the law was a response to a history of harassment and violence at abortion clinics in Massachusetts, including a shooting rampage at two facilities in 1994.
The law was challenged on First Amendment grounds by opponents of abortion who said they sought to have quiet conversations with women entering clinics to tell them about alternatives to abortion.
| [Return to headlines] |
Nearby Alien Planet May be Capable of Supporting Life
A newfound alien world might be able to support life — and it’s just a stone’s throw from Earth in the cosmic scheme of things.
An international team of astronomers has discovered an exoplanet in the star Gliese 832’s “habitable zone” — the just-right range of distances that could allow liquid water to exist on a world’s surface. The planet, known as Gliese 832c, lies just 16 light-years from Earth. (For perspective, the Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years wide; the closest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light-years away.)
Gliese 832c is a “super-Earth” at least five times as massive as our planet, and it zips around its host star every 36 days. But that host star is a red dwarf that’s much dimmer and cooler than our sun, so Gliese 832c receives about as much stellar energy as Earth does, despite orbiting much closer to its parent, researchers said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Brit Hume declares ; “I think we are looking at a failed Presidency…”
Nemesis answers : Really? It has only taken you six years to realize that?
The Australian radio presenter remarks in 2012 about Mohammad, being a “sexual predator” , was vindicated. A damm long time to come to a decision.
Still a Great show, and you can hear the points made, and then the upset caller loosing his cool.
http://sheikyermami.com/who-is-damaging-whos-cause/
Unfortunately the shows host apologized over the furor.
Just to repeat an earlier comment as I have seen and read about, that has a lot of information about the pecularitiies of the the prophet.
Father Zakaria Botros, a coptic priest reveals a lot of those peccadilloes with plenty of resources. That is preaching and lectures done with a love in his heart that reveals the truth about Mohamed and the koran. Done with great decorum with a wicked sense of humour and questions for muslims.
Also a great way for us to summarise a bit more of the frailties of Mohammad.
His writings/videos and etc should be spread far and wide, and consistently.
From part(II) this time
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/01/father-zakaria-botros-on-the-perverse-sexual-habits-of-the-prophet-part-ii
““Muhammad would not sleep until he kissed his daughter Fatima and nuzzled his face in her bosom [the priest provided the appropriate sources]. Dear lady! what would you say to your husband sleeping with his face in your daughter”s breast””is that the height of morality?!””
If you need a laugh for the day do check it out and for other days there are part(I) (II) (III) (IV), and with many examples of the peculiarities.
Well worth to look and great simple summary of the peculiarities of islam.
Simpleton
“The secretive organisation known as the Q Society”
See the Society’s website: http://www.qsociety.org.au/
Some meetings are open to the public, without a non-disclosure agreement being required for guests. Notice of public meetings is given on the website eg: http://www.qsociety.org.au/events.pdf
“And they are very opposed to Islam in Australia.”
YES!
The Q Society is not the only group in Australia opposed to Islam. I think the black balloons were placed by another group.