The mayor of Calais is threatening to close the port unless the British government does something to discourage illegal immigrants from congregating there in hopes of gaining passage to England. Britain, with its lax immigration controls and generous welfare benefits, acts as a magnet for illegal migrants coming from other parts of Europe, and the mayor says her city has been “taken hostage” by them.
In other news, the Islamic State has issued a video directed at Russian President Vladimir Putin that threatens to absorb Chechnya into the new Caliphate. Meanwhile, CNN reports that Finland has sent the largest percentage of jihad fighters to join ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Fjordman, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, JP, RR, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Financial Times See Difficulties in Italy, France Reform
Says leaders know problems, but little actual progress made
(ANSA) — London, September 1 — Italian Premier Matteo Renzi and French President Francois Hollande “have identified the problems” regarding reforms, “but their attempts to push through reform have made little headway against special interests and inertia,” said The Financial Times in an editorial on Monday.
The editorial cited the notoriously slow and bureaucracy-laden Italian judicial system and France’s complicated notary system as two obstacles stifling economic growth, as well as a labour system that divides into two classes: protected full-time workers and lower-paid temporary workers.
According to the editorial, the solution is to “orient” labour protection and worker representation to create “as many secure and high-wage jobs as possible, not just for a privileged elite”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Unemployment to Remain Near 27 Pct Through 2015, OECD Predicts
Greece’s unemployment rate will remain around 27 percent through to the end of 2015, according to OECD estimates made public on Wednesday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Purchasing Managers’ Activity Falls in Italy
Index latest in string of negative economic news
(ANSA) — Rome, September 1 — Purchasing managers’ activity fell in August to 49.8 points from the previous 51.9 points in July, Markit Economics said Monday. The Purchasing Managers’ Index sets 50 as the border between expansion in the economy and contraction.
The August measure suggests that activity has contracted after more than a year of expansion and is the latest in a long string of bad economic news for Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Death of American ISIS Jihadi Reveals Security Access as Airline Cleaner in Minneapolis
The death of the American Somali Émigré ISIS Jihadi Abdirahmaan Muhumed, 29, revealed his employment as a cleaner for Delta Global Services, Inc. that gave him security access to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Muhumed, 29, left behind 9 children in the Twin Cities to become an ISIS jihadi, before his death in Syria. A Daily Mail report, noted:…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Michael Bloomberg to Return as Chief of Company He Founded
Michael R. Bloomberg will reassume the leadership of his business empire only eight months after ending his final term as mayor of New York.
Late Wednesday, Mr. Bloomberg told close confidants and senior executives of Bloomberg L.P., a financial data and media company, that Daniel L. Doctoroff, its chief executive and a longtime friend and lieutenant, would leave the company at the end of the year and that he would take over.
For years, Mr. Bloomberg had insisted that he had no intention of returning full time to the company he founded.
| [Return to headlines] |
The Late Steven Sotloff Was an Israeli- American Who Reported on the Menace of Jihad
ISIS murdered its first Israeli American, 31 year old Steven Sotloff. Sotloff made aliyah to Israel and attended the Interdisciplinary Center ( IDC )in Herzliya from 2005 to 2008. He took off when the Arab Spring erupted to follow developments in Egypt, Libya, Turkey and ultimately Syria, where he was abducted by criminal elements and likely ‘sold’ to ISIS. A Ynet.com report, “Steven had Israel in his blood, says close family friend”, revealed his Jewish background and his amazing feat of practicing Jewish observances while in captivity. The information was purposefully impounded until his murder at the hands of a barbaric ISIS executioner. The executioner may possibly be the same British jihadi who murdered the late American journalist, James Foley. We recall the heart rending video plea by Sotloff’s mother in Miami asking that ISIS spare her son’s life.
The Sotloff family deserves our deepest expression of rachmonis (compassion) for the brutal murder of their son Steven at the hands of Jew-hating Salafist Jihadis in Syria. The Ynet.com report noted that this comment:
A former editor recalls: ‘Some of the stories he did had connections with Israel, including stories done ahead of the curve on the jihadi movement taking over in Sinai.’
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Interfaith Exhibition in Thornhill Celebrates Three Different Faiths
Event to be held Sept. 13
An Interfaith Exhibition — From the Roots of Abraham — will be presented Saturday, Sept. 13 at 3 p.m. at the Jaffari Community Centre, 9000 Bathurst St., Thornhill.
This interfaith exhibition offers Jewish, Christian and Muslim men and women an opportunity to enhance their knowledge of each other’s faiths. By designing exhibits that teach about the three faith traditions and learning about the practices of other faiths, organizers hope to increase understanding and respect for all the Abrahamic religions…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
British Jihadis: Keep Calm and Carry On
David Cameron’s new terror measures are welcome, but British values are most important, says Jonathan Russell
In this parliament, existing laws have been reasonably effective at dealing with those who have committed terrorism-related offences. We can prosecute, deport, extradite and place under surveillance, those whom we deem to have broken the law…
Jonathan Russell is Political Liaison Officer of the Quilliam Foundation — a counter-extremism think tank
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Can the West Reinvent Itself in Time?
by Janet Daley
The apocalyptic threat from Isil and the economic paralysis of the eurozone may seem to represent two entirely different dangers to Western democracy — but there is a plausible case for saying that they are really part of the same phenomenon. Could it be that what once appeared to be the unbeatable ascendancy of Western liberal democratic societies has finally been exhausted?…
[Reader comment by Ivanhoe on 3 September 2014.]
If Russia invaded Western Europe, perhaps many would see it as a liberation rather than a conquest!
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Civil Defense Issues Alert as Italy Gripped by Bad Weather
Floods, tornados, landslides, and one dead firefighter
(ANSA) — Rome, September 1 — Civil protection authorities on Monday issued weather alerts for most of Italy as a wave of inclement weather pounded the peninsula and meteorologists predicted more heavy rains and squalls.
Snow fell above 2,000 meters in the northern Friuli Venezia Giulia region, where volunteer firefighting chief Alexander Mayr, 39, lost his life when a landslide swept him into a torrent. Mayr was working to clear a state road from debris when a landslide swept him into the Isarco torrent. Attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful.
In Calabria, a woman was hospitalized with non life-threatening injuries when the wind uprooted a tree, which fell on her, while a tornado tore roofs off buildings and uprooted trees in the seaside resort of Diamante, near Cosenza. Near the northern city of Arezzo, a 40-meter section of the roof of a 14th-century curch caved in under the weight of water following torrential downpours, while in Rome, four people were hospitalized, including a pregnant woman, when a tree branch crashed on their car as they drove in heavy winds.
Also in Rome, strong winds tore through one of the city’s largest open-air markets, making off with stalls and damaging the merchandise beyond repair.
In Genoa, winds of over 30 knots forced a Lufthansa flight from Munich to be rerouted to Turin. Passengers were taken to Genoa by bus. Operations slowed down in Genoa port due to heavy winds, and fire fighters were called to remove fallen trees and signs, and to secure roofs that were in danger of being blown away. In the Campania region south of Rome, emergency services were working Monday to remove mud and debris from an overflowing river that covered a section of highway linking the cities of Salerno and Avellino. A creek overflowed in a town near Avellino, carrying off eight parked cars, flooding basements, and causing landslides.
In the Naples area, 18 firefighting units are deployed in aid of stranded motorists and to empty out flooded basements after a rainstorm pelted several towns around the provincial capital.
In the seaside town of Civitavecchia near Rome, where a tornado was seen gathering offshore, winds of over 55 knots drove a Costa Crociere cruise liner onto the dock, damaging one of the ramps, company sources said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
CNN: Finland Tops List of Countries With Muslim Fighters in Syria
The US news channel CNN has estimated that Finland leads the field in terms of countries with Muslims fighting in Syria. The channel compared numbers provided by 25 different countries to rank Finland as the country with the highest percentage of Muslims who have gone to Syria to fight. The head of Finnish security police Supo says the numbers are about right although not entirely accurate.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Mosque in Jutland Expresses Support for is
As a video of the apparent beheading of another US journalist by the Islamic State (IS) sickened most of the civilised world, a mosque in Denmark expressed its support of the aims — if not the tactics — of the jihadist group.
Fadi Abdallah, a spokesperson for the Grimhøj Mosque in Aarhus, said he would welcome the establishment of a Sharia-based caliphate in Syria.
“An Islamic state will always be what we Muslims yearn for, and therefore we cannot help but support the IS,” Abdallah told Den Korte Avis. “Even if they have made mistakes, we must wait and see.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Head of Humanitarian Organisation Arrested for IS Support
The Copenhagen Police today arrested the head of the humanitarian organisation De Humanitære Hjerter for using his organisation to collect money for the Islamic State (IS).
The police arrested the Danish/Palestinian man this morning and also ransacked a number of addresses in the capital connected to the ongoing case against the organisation.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Easy to See Why Young Muslims in UK Turning to Radical Islam’
Young Muslims are specifically targeted by UK authorities, and it is understandable why they would feel that the only way out is to fight for what they perceive is to be a good cause in foreign countries, Michael Raddie, BSNews co-editor, told RT.
Raddie says the media is unfairly stigmatizing Muslim communities in the UK and it manifests itself in all kinds of things.
RT: Some are concerned that these drastic measures suggested by David Cameron could see innocent Brits mistakenly fall victims of these policies. How likely is that?
Michael Raddie: I think it is extremely likely. If we look at the control orders of the past under the Labour government of Tony Blair there were many people who were swept up in this who were completely innocent. And I think that is probably the idea of the government. It is not necessarily returning jihadists that they want to target, it is actually innocent people that are trying to send some truth into the world, trying to educate themselves and the people around them in their communities about what the government is doing…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Far Right Targets France’s Moroccan-Born Education Minister in ‘Racist’ Hate Campaign
By Tony Cross
France’s new education minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, has become a victim of a right-wing hate campaign. The front pages of two far-right magazines have attacked her for her Moroccan origins, while anti-gay marriage campaigners accuse her of spreading “gender theory” in the nation’s schools…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Italian MP Offers to Swap Places With Sick Marine in India
‘I can stay as long as necessary’ Vaccaro says
(ANSA) — Rome, September 2 — An Italian MP has offered to swap places with one of two Italian marines being detained in India who has fallen ill so he can return to Italy for medical care, sources said Tuesday.
Guglielmo Vaccaro from the ruling Democratic Party (PD) wrote to the daughter of hospitalized marine Massimiliano Latorre, who along with Salvatore Girone is being detained in India in connection with the shooting deaths of two Indian fishermen in 2012.
Latorre was hospitalized Sunday in New Delhi after he lost consciousness due to a mild transitory ischemia, or restriction of blood supply.
The next court hearing in the marines’ case is scheduled for mid-October.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: High Court Says Okay to Close Public Jobs to Non-Europeans
Fair to close State competitions to outside workers
(ANSA) — Rome, September 2 — Competition for public employment in Italy can be fairly limited to citizens of Italy and the European Union as well as refugees, Italy’s high Cassation Court ruled on Tuesday.
It rejected an appeal by an Albanian woman who wanted to be included in a 2011 competition for a position reserved for disabled workers in the economy ministry. The court said that employment law makes it clear that State jobs can still be controlled to the extent that only EU citizens are eligible, particularly in so sensitive a department as the economy ministry.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Renzi’s Govt to Hire 150,000 Teachers, Cut Lists, Update
Premier outlines parts of school reforms on website
(ANSA) — Rome, September 3 — Premier Matteo Renzi’s administration intends to hire 150,000 teachers by September 2015, according to guidelines posted on a government website Wednesday. His school plans also intend to make it simplier to hire new teachers and eliminate cumbersome waiting lists that reportedly can last for years, according the website. It says the new plan would also cut substitute teaching. Writing on the website, Renzi said that teachers must be hired on their merits and not merely seniority.
“We say enough to the precarious (employment) and substitute teaching, we must have the courage,” to hire teachers on merit, he said.
The cost of the plan is estimated at about 3 billion euros in total, with the first phase about 1 billion euros.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Health Scare Shows Marines Situation Untenable — Minister
Italian pair have been held in India since 2012
(ANSA) — Rome, September 3 — Italian Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti said Wednesday that the stroke-like attack suffered at the weekend by one of two Italian marines being held in India showed the situation was “untenable”. Salvatore Girone and Massimiliano Latorre, who have been held in India since 2012, are accused of killing two India fishermen during an anti-piracy mission. Doctors said Wednesday that Latorre is making “satisfactory” progress after the minor transient ischemic attack (TIA) he suffered Sunday.
“The attack makes it even more clear that the situation of the two marines is untenable,” Pinotti told a joint session of the Lower House and Senate foreign affairs and defence committees. Premier Matteo Renzi said Wednesday he had discussed the case with Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi and would be talking to him again.
Latorre and Girone are accused of killing fishermen Valentine (aka Gelastine) and Ajesh Binki after allegedly mistaking them for pirates and opening fire on their fishing trawler while guarding the privately owned Italian-flagged oil-tanker MT Enrica Lexie off the coast of Kerala on February 15, 2012.
Rome has protested a long series of delays in the case, which has caused major diplomatic friction between the countries.
It successfully fought to ensure New Delhi took the death penalty off the table and dropped the application of a severe anti-terrorism, anti-piracy law, which it said would have equated Italy with a terrorist state.
Rome argues the case is not in India’s jurisdiction as the incident took place outside the country’s territorial waters.
It also says the marines should be exempt from prosecution in India, because they are servicemen who were working on an anti-piracy mission, and allowed to return home.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mining Threatens to Eat Up Northern Europe’s Last Wilderness
Vast network of rivers, lakes and mountains in Finland, Sweden and Norway at risk from being exploited for rare earth and other minerals .
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
MP: Criminalise Finns Who Leave for Syria
A Finns Party MP has submitted a written proposal for a law banning individuals from travelling abroad to fight, similar to legislation currently being drawn up in Norway.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
NATO Exercise Including Italy in Eastern Europe
Steadfast Javelin II aimed at reassuring eastern EU countries
(ANSA) — Brussels, September 2 — A NATO exercise involving nine countries including Italy started Tuesday in Poland, Germany and the Baltic countries of Estonia and Lithuania.
The large-scale multinational exercise named Steadfast Javelin II aimed at reassuring eastern European countries will end next Monday, NATO sources said. It involves hundreds of vehicles, aircraft, and forces from nine different countries including the Canada, Italy and the United States, NATO command sources said.
The exercise “is designed to show NATO’s commitment to…safeguarding the freedom and security of its members and partners,” the sources said.
It is the first of a series of exercises to take place throughout September, including a 12-nation exercise in Ukraine from September 13-20 code-named Rapid Trident.
All the exercises were scheduled long before Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in the spring, but they have been expanded since, the sources said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spaniards Not Even Ready to Defend Their Country, Poll Says
(ANSAmed) — MADRID — Spanish nationals, formerly a population of ‘conquistadores’, are not only unwilling to conquer new territories but don’t even want to defend their own in case of aggression, according to a poll by the State Center of sociological research (CIS). The survey found that only 16.3% of citizens would be willing to defend their country if it were invaded, while one in two would not sacrifice their lives unless it was to defend their family.
The survey also found that 55.3% of those interviewed would altogether refuse or would be reluctant to defend a Spain under attack and only 16.3% would not think twice before doing so.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Two Terror Plots Stopped in Sweden
The Swedish Security Service (Säpo) says it has stopped two terror attacks being planned by violent Islamist extremists living inside the country.
Few details of the plots have been revealed, but the chief operating officer of the Security Service confirmed to the Aftonbladet newspaper that its officials had been investigating the potential crimes.
Anders Kassman said that the attacks were discovered following research and intelligence gathering by the security agency. Both foiled plans were intended to be carried out inside Sweden.
He did not reveal if the suspects were intending to carry out suicide bombings.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mrs May said that “a number” of police investigations were now underway, encompassing the allegations of hundreds of the victims. Fourteen cases have been reported since the Jay report last week.
The Government is set to launch a probe into “institutionalised political correctness” in the wake of the Rotherham child abuse scandal, Theresa May has said.
The Home Secretary was responding to a report last week by Professor Alexis Jay which found that at least 1,400 children had been victims of sex abuse in Rotherham over a period of more than a decade…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
By Douglas Murray
It has become increasingly plain that there are areas of our country in which different rules apply. Here are places where religion and ethnicity and the fear of accusations of “racism” and Islamophobia” trump everything — including women’s rights and, and it is now clear, even children’s rights…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Anti-Semitism? Rape Gangs? Never Blame Islam, Always the ‘Far Right’
By James Delingpole
Andrew Norfolk is the heroic, crusading Times chief investigative reporter who broke the Rotherham child sex story. But admirable though he surely is, does anyone else find something a bit disturbing about this statement he made this week?…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Furious Public Demand Rotherham Abuse Answers
As councillors face tough questions over why they didn’t stop child abuse, police boss Shaun Wright faces a vote of no confidence.
Members of the public have shouted and jeered at Rotherham councillors during a meeting to discuss last week’s damning report about child sexual abuse.
Dozens of people packed into a small chamber at the Town Hall, with one man demanding to know why they didn’t act after a seminar about exploitation in 2005. One woman received applause after she shouted: “We are very angry and we don’t know why all of you haven’t resigned.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: How Can Jews Oppose Muslim Anti-Semitism Without Being ‘Islamophobic’?
By Douglas Murray
On Sunday there was a rally in London demanding ‘zero tolerance’ of anti-Semitism. About 4,500 people gathered in front of the Royal Courts of Justice. Speakers who addressed the crowds included the Chief Rabbi, Maajid Nawaz and me…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
By the gobbysh*te
This is the first post and will be a long one as it will set the scene for a lot of what I will publish here in this blog. I have been researching an issue which is increasingly troubling. First some background…
Labour officials, and police acting under labour guidlelines actively protected those rapists over a span of 16 years and attacked the victims. They deliberately took action which ensured that the racial and religiously motivated brutal gang rape of white and non-Muslim children by Islamic Pakistani men could continue unabated under the de facto protection of the state!
That means that labour effectively decriminalised the racial and religiously motivated brutal gang rape of white and non-Muslim children by Islamic Pakistani men
I shall repeat that, for the shocking and disgusting stench of what it represents is difficult to stomach and admit.
Labour effectively decriminalised the racial and religiously motivated brutal gang rape of white and non-Muslim children by Islamic Pakistani men…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Locals Express Anger at Abuse Scandal at Rotherham Council Meeting
A meeting of Rotherham council was interrupted by local people furious about the revelation that more than 1,400 local girls had been sexually abused over a number of years despite warnings that the police and local authority should act…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Plans to Create Mosque in Ellesmere Port Given Green Light
PLANS TO create a mosque in Ellesmere Port have been given the go ahead.
A number of residents opposed to the proposals attended a council planning meeting on Tuesday and spoke of their concerns after the decision was made.
Plans for the Islamic Cultural Centre on King Street were approved by Cheshire West and Chester Council’s planning committee.
One woman, Angela Davies, stormed out of the meeting, only to stomp back in to demand an investigation into the decision. She was told to leave the room. Outside she fumed: “I won’t be able to sit in my garden with all the noise and car doors banging from people coming and going. I’m not racialist or prejudiced; I’m going to investigate.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
by Nigel Nelson
David Cameron and Ed Miliband came to the Commons today to talk about something called ISIL.
We now know it as Islamic State — but those who want to be seen as statesmen don’t want to give beheading jihadists the satisfaction of legitimising them as a state’s men.
So Ed and Dave agreed to call them ISIL throughout Prime Minister’s Questions and then agreed on everything else about them. Cameron called them “cowardly killers”, Miliband “murderous”. Both nodded vigorously when the other rose to speak…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Rotherham Council Deputy Leader: ‘Culpable Should Resign’
There has been a unanimous vote of no confidence in South Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner Shaun Wright at a meeting at Sheffield’s Town Hall. Meanwhile, there have also been calls for the entire membership of Rotherham Council to resign, after a heated public meeting.
A report last week said hundreds of children were abused in Rotherham from 1997 to 2013.
Deputy leader of the council Paul Lakin said he thought there should be resignations — but he denied any culpability himself.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Times of London: Cameron’s Anti-Terror Talk is Nothing But Hollow Bluster
As analysts and politicians pore over the implications of the new anti-terror measures announced by David Cameron on Monday, a columnist in London’s Times newspaper has called them “bungled” and said they simply look like “an attempt merely to grab headlines.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Welcome Home… To a World of Beheadings and Bake Off
by Rod Liddle
Apologies for the lengthy interregnum. I was away in the USA for almost three weeks and my mobile phone provider decided I should not be allowed to make or receive any calls while abroad, for which many thanks…
Occasionally gobbets of news drifted through from the UK papers, almost always about Muslims Behaving Badly — decapitating people, raping their way through South Yorkshire etc — and while walking up a mountain in Colorado I wondered to myself if we were at last beginning to — y’know — lose a little patience. But not so you’d notice, it would seem…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq-Syria: 16 Islamists Arrested in Bosnia
For recruiting fighters, including Wahhabi preacher
(ANSAmed) — SARAJEVO, SEPTEMBER 3 — Bosnian police arrested 16 Islamists on Wednesday in a sweep-up operation part of an anti-terrorism inquiry focusing on the financing and recruitment of young Bosnian nationals for fighting with jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq, reports the Bosnian prosecutor’s office. Massive weapons troves were found as part ‘Operation Damascus’, conducted by 200 officers in Sarajevo, Kiseljak, Zenica, Maglaj, Srebrenika, Zvornik, Buzim and Teslic (with particular attention on the Gornja Maoca and Bocinja villages, known for their local Wahhabi communities).
Among those arrested was Husein Bilal Bosnic, a well-known leader of the Wahhabi community that had recently preached support for the jihadist Islamic State (IS), calling on youths to join the fight in the Middle East. Hamdo Fojnica was also arrested, the father of Emrah, suspected of being an accomplice of Mevlid Jasarevic, who was behind an attack on the US embassy in Sarajevo three years ago.
Emrah died in Syria in a suicide attack. Unofficial estimates put the number of those who have left Bosnia for the fight in Iraq and Syria at about 150. Most have joined the ranks of the Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al-Nusra.
About twenty have lost their lives and the number of those leaving for the front has dropped significantly in recent months.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Sisi — Confronting Terrorism is Not a Security Issue Only
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi received on Tuesday 2/9/2014 a delegation from the US House of Representatives under Chairman of the Armed Services Committee Howard McKeon.
The members of the US delegation hailed the Egyptian efforts for achieving stability in the region and reaching a truce agreement between the Palestinian and Israeli sides. The US delegation said confronting terrorism and extremist thought is a joint battle that should be confronted through cooperation between Egypt and the United States.
President Sisi said political developments in Egypt during the past three years were an expression of a free national will and an embodiment of a purely popular will that was supported by the Armed Forces.
The President said the development of incidents in the region confirmed the soundness of the Egyptian vision and the warnings to the west that extremist thought would move from one country to another…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Tripoli ‘PM’ Presents Cabinet Before Reconvened GNC
After Islamists seized capital. No Turkish ‘interference’, Tobruk govt
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO — The Libyan ‘prime minister’ appointed last week by the General National Congress (GNC), reconvened in Tripoli by Islamist militias holding de facto power over the capital, has presented a list of 19 ministers for his ‘government’. The GNC — which was officially replaced by the House of Representatives, elected in June and recognized by the international community but forced for security reasons to meet in the eastern city of Tobruk — will now be called on to approve the government. The MENA news agency reports that the most well-known figures included on the list by Omar Al-Hasi are Mohamed Al-Ghariani as foreign minister and Mashallah Al-Zewi as oil minister.
Last week the GNC appointed Hasi after it was called on to meet by the Revolutionaries Council set up in Tripoli. The council is made up for the most part of pro-Islamist militias from the northwestern city Misrata that have captured the airport and other nerve centers of the Libya capital, taking it away from rival militias from Zintan, also in northwestern Libya and considered allies of General Khalifa Haftar. The Tripoli ‘revolutionaries’ have turned down an offer by the Muslim extremist group Ansar Al-Sharia to unite in a single body, stressing that they are “against terrorism” and support the constitution.
A diplomatic rift has emerged between Turkey and Libya after Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan allegedly called the holding of parliamentary sessions in Tobruk “improper”, reports the Libya Herald. The Libyan foreign ministry on Monday decried the statement as “blatant interference in Libyan affairs”, calling on the newly sworn-in president to clarify his views. Erdogan had congratulated the House of Representatives after its first session held in Tobruk in August. The Libya Herald noted that Erdogan’s statement closely echoes that of Libya Dawn militias, which said on Sunday that they would recognise the House of Representatives “only if it met in Tripoli”. The Islamist militias took control of the city last week.
The Turkish foreign ministry has condemned the Libyan position, saying that any criticism of Erdogan’s views is “unacceptable”, given his “sincerity and feelings towards our Libyan brothers”. According to the Libya Herald, “Libyan Muslim Brotherhood figures are known to visit Turkey regularly for meetings and use it as a safe haven”. The UAE and Egypt, on the other hand — bitterly opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood — were reported to have helped bomb positions in Tripoli last month sympathetic to the Islamist movement and are seen to back the Tobruk-based Operation Dignity, which has offered protection to the House of Representatives, according to the Libya Herald. The daily noted that the UAE had last month arrested about 30 Libyan nationals believed to have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Libya Dawn. The United Nations, the EU, the Arab League, the African Union, and the Gulf Cooperation Council have all recognised the legitimacy of the Libyan parliamentary body meeting in Tobruk.
Violent clashes near Benghazi’s Benina International Airport were rekindled on Tuesday between the troops under former general Khalifa Haftar and the militants fighting with the Islamist group Ansar Al-Sharia and allied forces, reported the MENA news agency. Dozens have been killed in the fighting since Saturday. Ansar Al-Sharia militants have launched an offensive to take over the airport, one of the few strategic points in Benghazi controlled by the special forces answering to Haftar and the House of Representatives that meets in the eastern city of Tobruk. The ‘government forces’ are backed by military fighter jets carrying out airstrikes on jihadist positions, who return fire with artillery and Grad rockets.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
IDF Shows Detailed Evidence of Hamas’ Rocket Firings From Schools
TEL AVIV — The Israeli military provided its most detailed assessment yet of the conduct and impact of the Gaza war, including photographs indicating that militants stored and fired rockets from schools and a breakdown of the toll inflicted on Hamas.
In a briefing at its headquarters in Tel Aviv, the Israel Defense Forces presented a minute picture of the structure and capability of Hamas and other militant groups operating in Gaza, an effort to explain the severity of the threat Israel faced and justify Israel’s heavy tank shelling and air strikes during the 50-day conflict…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A United Gulf Needed to Defeat IS
By Dr Shamlan Y Al-Essa
Often, we have stressed the importance of preventing clerics from interfering in politics because of the lies and deception the latter entails. Politics seeks to fulfill its own interests while religion is significantly above such self-interestedness. Yet clerics in the Gulf and the Arab world interfere in political affairs in order to appease their governments.
The most obvious example of this is seen in a front page report in UAE’s “Khaleej” newspaper, published on Aug 23, 2014. The report cited that Sheikh Saleh bin Hamid, Imam of the Makkah Mosque, said in the Friday sermon “terrorism is the creation of international and regional intelligence, and condemned the international silence towards mass killings in occupied Palestine, Syria and Iraq.” On page 22 of the same newspaper, there was a report about the meeting of the International Union of Muslim Scholars held in Istanbul, during which Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qardawi was elected president for a new four-year period.
The Emirati paper condemned this move, considering it a continuation of the union’s deviation from its religious role through the interference of its president in the region’s political affairs. It criticized his continued insults of the region’s leaders and people with the aim of creating confusion and chaos and his use of Qatari and Turkish media as a launch pad for his lies and continued delusions. It is very clear from reading both news items that what the clergyman expressed had nothing to do with religion — rather it very clearly and honestly expressed the struggles and conflicted interests of the Gulf countries.
The Gulf countries, regrettably, do not yet have a joint strategic vision on how to deal with the West and on how to tackle the rapid changes in the region, especially the growing influence of Islamic State that has attracted the region’s youth to fight alongside it. The entire international community moved to fight IS in northern Iraq and the chase may now head to Syria.
What really scares me in that the region’s countries are still divided over policies aimed to tackle this terror organization that is rapidly gaining more influence. The Imam of the Makkah Mosque’s calling terrorism the creation of international and regional intelligence agencies may have been correct in the past, but he did not tell us who are the countries, organizations and individuals who have became intelligence agencies’ tools and have pushed the Gulf’s youth to jihadist action in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Bosnia and now Iraq and Syria.
Everybody knows that the Gulf countries are the cradle of terrorism through their extreme exclusionary ideology, their financing of terror groups and their supplying of young men as recruits for these organisations. Why do we not criticize ourselves and admit our shortcomings in dealing with this phenomenon, and put an end to it.
Sheikh Saleh bin Hamid’s remarks come at a time when Arab and Gulf countries are failing to fight terrorism and limit IS’ influence, prompting the involvement of the United States. Washington has said that its war with IS will be long, confirming that the United States considers it the most dangerous terror group it has faced in recent years. It has warned that the Middle East faces a long term battle and that it will not be enough to defeat IS in Iraq and Syria alone.
It is a shameful matter that the Gulf countries differ in their stands and instead incite clergymen against their khaleeji brothers and allies in the West. We, the people of the region, feel strange in our countries. We are lost, not knowing where our governments are going in their war against terrorism. You, Gulf rulers, must unite, because the coming dangers are much larger than you imagine.
—Translated by Kuwait Times from Al-Watan
| — Hat tip: RR | [Return to headlines] |
Beheaded Jewish Journalist Sotloff Was Israeli Citizen
Isis militants have released a video apparently showing one of their members beheading Jewish-American journalist Steven Joel Sotloff.
Mr Sotloff, who was an Israeli citizen, wrote for publications including Time and Foreign Policy. He was abducted in Aleppo, Syria in August 2013…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Blast Kills 5 in Southern Syria
DAMASCUS, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) — At least five people were killed and nine others wounded on Wednesday when armed militant groups attacked a passenger bus in southern Syria, the state-news agency SANA reported.
Citing police sources, SANA said the bus was headed to the town of Hiran in the western countryside of the southern province of Swaida when two explosive devices went off…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Waging Ethnic Cleansing Says Amnesty
‘Blood-soaked killing fields’ says human rights group
(ANSA) — Rome, September 2 — ISIS Islamist militants are carrying out “a wave of ethnic cleansing” against minorities in northern Iraq, Amnesty International said Tuesday.
ISIS has turned the region into “blood-soaked killing fields”, the human rights group said Earlier the UN announced it was sending a team to Iraq to investigate “acts of inhumanity on an unimaginable scale”. ISIS and allied Sunni rebels have seized large swathes of Iraq and Syria, killing thousands of people have been killed, the majority of them civilians.
More than a million have been forced to flee their homes in recent months.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic State and Syrian Regime Using Cluster Munitions, HRW
Against Kurds in the north by IS in 2 attacks
(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT, SEPTEMBER 1 — Islamic State jihadists have used cluster munitions in Syria in at least one location in recent weeks, Human Rights Watch said on Monday citing “credible evidence”.
The Syrian regime has also been using the widely banned munitions since 2012 and continues to do so, it noted. IS was found to have used ground-fired cluster munitions in July in a Kurdish-majority area along the border between Syria and Iraq. Cluster munitions contain dozens or hundreds of small bomblets that they spread over large areas when they explode.
HRW cited local Kurdish sources as saying that the July 12 and August 14 attacks in the Ayn Al-Arab (known as ‘Kobani’ in Kurdish) area had killed 4 Kurdish fighters and an 11-year-old boy. The human rights organization was not able to independently verify the reports but has ruled out that cluster munitions could have been dropped in that location on that date by the Syrian regime or the Kurds themselves. HRW also spoke out on Monday about the use of cluster munitions by the Bashar Al-Assad regime in Manbij, another city not far from the Turkish-Syrian border, on August 21. Six civilians were killed and 41 others were injured in the attack.
HRW states that it received from a local, independent organization evidence documenting the attack. According to evidence collected by HRW, since the outbreak of the conflict in Syria in 2011, the regime has used cluster bombs repeatedly in at least 10 of Syria’s 14 regions.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Islamist Influx: Several Radicalized Ex-German Soldiers in Iraq
Germany on Sunday presented the list of weapons it plans to send to the Kurds in northern Iraq. Some of them, though, may end up being used against former German soldiers. SPIEGEL has learned that 20 ex-Bundeswehr troops have joined jihadists in the region.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy to Start Delivering Arms to Iraqi Kurds
‘By Sep 10,’ says Pinotti
(ANSA) — Rome, September 3 — Italy will probably start arming Iraqi Kurds against ISIS militants late next week, Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti said Wednesday.
Speaking to a joint session of the House and Senate foreign and defence committees, Pinotti said deliveries would start “within the first 10 days of September”.
Italy’s parliament on August 20 backed Premier Matteo Renzi’s move to send military aid to Iraqi Kurds fighting the offensive by fundamentalist Islamic State (ISIS) militia in the country’s north as the premier himself met with Iraqi and Kurdish leaders as well as refugees in Baghdad and Erbil.
Weapons including anti-tank rockets, automatic weapons, machine guns and ammunition will be sent to Kurdish forces.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
More Fighters Going From Denmark to Syria Than Most Other Western Nations
Per capita, Denmark has the second largest contingent of citizens fighting in Syria, according to rankings of the Western countries compiled by British magazine the Economist.
The Danish intelligence service, PET, estimates that about 100 Danes have travelled to Syria to fight in the civil war, TV2 News reports.
Only Belgium had a higher per capita representation than Denmark, while other Nordic countries such as Norway and Sweden occupy fifth and tenth place respectively.
In Berlingske Nyheder, Thomas Hegghammer, a senior scientist from the Defence Forskningsinstitutt in Norway, described the Danish participation in the Syrian conflict as “alarming”.
He said the numbers indicate that Muslims in Denmark are far more radicalised than in other European countries.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Steven Sotloff Murdered by ISIS
By Isabel Hardman
A second beheading of an American hostage — with warnings that a British hostage could be next — brings a fresh round of condemnations of the barbarity of Isis. Steven Sotloff appears to have been killed by Isis, with his British-accented killer accusing Barack Obama of an ‘arrogant foreign policy’ and citing his ‘insistence on continuing your bombings’. David Cameron tonight said:
“If verified, this is a despicable and barbaric murder. My thoughts and prayers are with Mr Sotloff’s family and friends tonight as they deal with this appalling and tragic situation. As I have said consistently over the last few weeks, ISIL terrorists speak for no religion.”…
[Reader comment by Paul Weston on 3 September 2014.]
When the Islamic State beheads Western journalists, does David Cameron think: “This “Has nothing to do with Islam”?? Of course it does, you useless bloody coward, and denying it in an attempt to be a voter friendly PC liberal is immoral, weak and wicked.
Here’s the thing Dave, Muslims in Britain follow the teachings of Mohammed, a warlord, a supremacist, a lover of little girls and a be-header extraordinaire.
I have no doubt that if Mohammed were alive today, he would be the leader of the Islamic State and he would be about to behead the British journalist David Haines. Cameron will be “shocked” again, when Mr Haines is murdered. Cameron will refer to the killers as barbaric terrorists, but Cameron will continue to allow people into the country who follow the religion of the Beheader-In-Chief to the letter.
The problem is Islam Mr Cameron, and you had better wise up soon, because the Islamic crocodile can never, ever, be appeased.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Religious Leader Blames Vatican Over Attacks on Islam
Washing feet of Muslim ladies or interfaith football not enough
(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL — Mehmet Gormez, head of the Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, has said that the prevalence of attacks targeting mosques and Muslim communities has been increasing year by year, and he criticized the Vatican and other religious foundations for remaining ineffective in preventing such attacks against Muslims as Today’s Zaman online reported.
Speaking during an event on Tuesday organized by the Religious Affairs Directorate, which was recently placed under the authority of the prime minister, Gormez said there were 22 attacks on mosques in Germany from 2001 to 2012. Between 2001 and 2013, this number increased to 36, and it has gone up to 70 when this year is included.
Gormez said he believes all religious institutions, and in particular the Vatican, should take necessary steps to curb this rise. Referring to a ceremony during which Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of two young Muslim women at a juvenile detention center as part of the Holy Thursday ritual in March 2013, Gormez said: “This (preventing attacks on Islam) cannot be accomplished by just washing the feet of a young lady or organizing an interfaith football match or tournament… It is necessary to prevent discriminative actions targeting the members of such a holy religion as Islam. The Religious Affairs Directorate also has many responsibilities (to fulfill) in this regard.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Ukrainian President’s Office Announces Cease-Fire With Russia
President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine said on Wednesday that he and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had agreed on a cease-fire in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The announcement provided no details about the agreement, and there was no immediate reaction from the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine who have been battling government troops with assistance from Moscow.
Mr. Poroshenko’s office released a brief statement Wednesday saying that he and Mr. Putin had discussed the conflict by phone. “The result of the conversation was an agreement on a permanent ceasefire in Donbass,” the statement said, referring to a region in eastern Ukraine. “A mutual understanding was reached concerning the steps which will facilitate the establishment of peace.”
| [Return to headlines] |
Ukraine Retracts Claim of Cease-Fire With Russia
The office of President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine said Wednesday that he and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had a similar understanding about what was needed to achieve a cease-fire in southeastern Ukraine, but it retracted a statement it had made earlier in the day that said the two men had agreed to a “lasting cease-fire.”
The initial statement, posted on the presidential website, went too far in describing the results of a telephone call between the two leaders as having reached a cease-fire, said a spokesman, noting that a revised version would be posted shortly.
The presidents exchanged opinions about a cease-fire, but there was no formal agreement, said the spokesman, who, in line with protocol, did not give his name.
| [Return to headlines] |
‘This Message is to You, Vladimir Putin’: ISIS Threatens ‘To Liberate Chechnya and Caucasus’
Islamic State jihadists in Syria have made a video threatening to bring the Russian republic of Chechnya into their self-proclaimed caliphate, after capturing Russian-made planes in Syria. The viral video drew an angry response from the Chechen leader.
The radical Islamists, who have been fighting the government troops of Bashar Assad, captured a key base in Tabqa in northern Syria late last week. Amongst their loot was a hangar containing several antiquated Soviet-made Sukhoi planes, which prompted the Jihadists to record a video address that has now gone viral.
“This message is addressed to you, oh Vladimir Putin. These are your aircraft which you sent to Bashar, and with the help of Allah we will send them back to you,” says a militant in Arabic, though accented Russian voices can be heard off-camera.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
35 Afghan Militants Killed in Fresh Operations: Gov’t
KABUL, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) — About 35 Taliban militants have been killed in fresh military operations across Afghanistan, said the country’s Interior Ministry on Wednesday morning.
“Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) carried out operations to clean some areas from terrorists and enemies of peace and stability of Afghanistan. The operations were conducted in Nangarhar, Balkh, Kandahar, Wardak, Paktiya, Helmand and Kapisa provinces. As a result 35 armed Taliban members were killed, 18 wounded and two others were arrested by the ANSF,” the ministry said in a statement providing daily operational updates.
The security forces also recovered and defused four roadside bombs planted by the militants, according to the statement…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan Says Killed Almost 1,000 Militants Since June
Campaign in ex-Taliban stronghold North Waziristan
(ANSA) — Rome, September 3 — Pakistan said Wednesday its forces killed at least 910 suspected militants since launching an offensive in the tribal area of North Waziristan in June.
The army said 82 soldiers had died fighting the insurgents there and in raids across the country while the main towns in North Waziristan, which had been a Taliban stronghold, were now under its control.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Face the Slaughter: A New Book Excruciatingly Details China’s Horrific Treatment of Dissidents.
By Jay Nordlinger
I met and interviewed a man named Charles Lee — a Chinese-born American doctor. He had come to the U.S. in 1991 to pursue his studies (at the University of Illinois and Harvard). When he was a young medical researcher in China, he had a worrying peek into organ-harvesting. Prisoners would be shot in the back of the head, and their bodies would be hustled to a waiting van. There, the doctors would extract the organs. Lee’s job was to hold the instruments. Some prisoners seemed to him not quite dead at all.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Philippine Gov’t Confirms Filipina Nurse Infected With MERS-Cov
MANILA, Sept. 3 (Xinhua) — The Philippine Department of Health (DOH) confirmed on Wednesday that a Filipina nurse who returned to the country from Saudi Arabia tested positive for the dreaded Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Corona Virus (MERS-CoV).
Health Secretary Enrique Ona said the Filipina nurse came home last Friday via Saudia Airlines Flight SV 870. She then took Cebu Pacific Flight SJ 997 going home to General Santos City in southern Philippines…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
‘Concerned Citizens of Canberra’ Group Continues Opposition to Gungahlin Mosque
A vocal community group which vigorously opposed the Gungahlin mosque has launched another bid to halt its construction.
The Concerned Citizens of Canberra lost a long-running battle against the mosque when a challenge was thrown out of ACT Supreme Court in July. That decision cleared the way for the mosque to be built on The Valley Avenue, after a fight that began in August 2012…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Boko Haram Crisis — Seven Emirs Flee Palaces in Borno, Yobe
By Hamza Idris
Maiduguri — Boko Haram attacks have forced five of the eight first-class traditional rulers in Borno State to flee their palaces, investigation by Daily Trust has shown.
Two other monarchs in Yobe State have also been displaced, following the takeover of their domains by the insurgency.
The Borno emirs affected include Shehu of Dikwa Muhammad Ibn Shehu Masta and Emir of Gwoza Muhammadu Ibn Mustapha Idrissa Timta, whose emirates have been overrun by Boko Haram, and Emir of Bama Kyari Ibn Ibrahim El-Kanemi, who fled when his town was attacked on Monday…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
South Africa: British Resident of Durban Shot Dead by Thieves
South African burglars kill British man who had been living in Durban
A British man living in South Africa was shot dead Saturday night when burglars broke into his house, taking only a laptop before fleeing the crime scene. Stephen Edmondstone, a 63-year-old wedding planner born in Essex, was cooking dinner for his partner in the early evening when he heard a noise in the living room…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
France: Calais Mayor Warns UK, ‘Help With Migrants or I Shut Port’
Calais mayor Natacha Bouchart on Tuesday threatened to shut down the port unless Britain helps solve the problem of the hundreds of immigrants turning up there in a bid to sneak across the Channel.
“I could take the decision to block the port… I could bring pressure to bear,” Bouchart told reporters in Paris after meeting Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
“It would be illegal,” she recognised, “but today I want to make a strong gesture towards the British.”
The mayor took issue with British immigration policy which, she complained, “is “considered as an Eldorado” by immigrants.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Calais Mayor Warns of Blockade Over Illegal Migration
The mayor of the northern French city of Calais has threatened to block the port unless Britain does more to control the number of illegal migrants.
Natacha Bouchart said that her city was being “taken hostage” by about 1,300 migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa who are attempting to cross the English channel from France…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: 42 People Rescued Near Agathonisi, Kos
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 3 — Forty-two undocumented migrants were rescued by the Greek Coast Guard in two incidents in the sea areas of Agathonissi and Kos island on Tuesday as Ana-Mpa reported.
In the first incident 21 migrants tore the inflatable dinghy they were on board when the found out that they had been detected by the Coast Guard. They were all rescued by a Coast Guard vessel in the sea area north of Agathonissi, northeastern Aegean Sea. Twenty one undocumented migrants were also located on an adrift vessel. The migrants abandoned the boat and fell into the sea waters five nautical miles off Kos island. All migrants were collected by a Coast Guard vessel and are safe. There are no missing persons in both incidents. Shipping and Aegean Minister Miltiadis Varvitsiotis will give a press conference on the increased inflow of migrants from the sea borders.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Grillo Blacks Interior Minister’s Face in Migrant Row-Update
M5S leader accused of racism after blog post
(ANSA) — Rome, September 3 — Beppe Grillo, the firebrand leader of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), was accused of racism on Wednesday after publishing a manipulated picture of Interior Minister Angelino Alfano with his face coloured black. The image was at the top of a post in which Grillo continued to criticise the government’s policy on migrants, with sea rescue operations seen by some as contributing to an increase in refugee arrivals. On Tuesday Grillo accused the government of “re-importing TB” to Italy and suggested new arrivals to Italy should be quarantined “as our forefathers were on Ellis Island” in New York. Rome launched its Mare Nostrum rescue operation almost one year ago after the deaths of 400 migrants in two boat disasters in the seas off southern Italy.
Alfano has recently won backing from many European Union partners, including Germany, France and Spain, to support the EU-led Frontex Plus, which is to replace Mare Nostrum in November.
Over 100,000 desperate people fleeing war in Africa and the Middle East have arrived in Italy so far this year after taking on the dangerous crossing over the Mediterranean.
Grillo said in Wednesday’s blog post that Frontex Plus would mean that “Europe will help us import more migrants, who will inevitably try to flee to other European nations”. He also called for Italy to abandon the Dublin Regulation, the EU law that says a country in which an asylum seeker arrives is the one that handles their case.
He said migrants should be given the chance to choose which EU country looks at their request.
“It’s despicable that Grillo is fermenting fear, sowing hate and preaching the most loutish form of racism to pick up a few votes more,” said Marco Furfaro of the Left, Ecology and Freedom (SEL) party.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: British Container Ship Rescues Refugees From Mediterranean
Italian Navy ferrying rescued migrants to port
(ANSA) Taranto, September 3 — As many as 231 refugees arrived Wednesday at this southern port aboard a British container ship that plucked them from the Canal of Sicily, the Italian Navy said.
Italian Navy vessels were ferrying the refugees, including 157 men, 37 women and 37 minors, to the port of Taranto from the ‘Cma Cgm Magellan.’ Doctors were boarding the Magellan to check on the health of the refugees who were to be housed in reception centres provided by city authorities.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
So far, the crisis of the Central American children has been largely defined as either a humanitarian problem or has served to deepen the debate about immigration reform. Yet an aspect of the problem which has been largely overlooked is the lawlessness, criminality, corruption, and anarchy in the three Central American countries (Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras) that these children are trying to escape from.
Some Republican lawmakers blamed President Barack Obama for not upholding immigration laws. According to this theory, it created an incentive for the children to come to the U.S. illegally. Likewise, they hold the president responsible since, in their view, the promise of immigration reform encouraged a mass illegal immigration.
Several Democratic Members of Congress that I recently met, argued that if we expect Jordan to absorb a large number of refugees created by the Syrian civil war, there is no reason why the United States should not absorb 50,000 children from Central America that are escaping the abuses of drug trafficking and the generalized violence it creates .
In turn, President Obama made several proposals. First he pledged to sign an executive order to make changes in the immigration system which he would do without congressional approval. He said he would do this in order to grant some kind of relief to undocumented immigrants…
| [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Controversy in Turin Over LGBT Art Show Poster
Image called sacrilegious by critics of exhibition
(ANSA) — Turin, September 2 — Controversy has erupted in northern Italy over a poster used to promote an art exhibition organized by Turin’s gay community and bearing an image some say is sacrilegious.
The poster for the show, sponsored by the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual community (LGBT), is decorated with a photo of an art work depicting a large naked woman with one foot propped on a religious image.
The exhibition is called the International Art Exhibition LGBTE (The Great Battle To find Results) and with the inscription ‘Saligia’, a likely reference to 14th century art that often used the mnemonic acronym based on the first letters in Latin of the seven deadly sins.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Corruption Costs Poor Countries $1.0 Trillion a Year: NGO
Corruption, fraud and money-laundering cost poor countries a total of $1.0 trillion a year, the anti-poverty organisation ONE said in a study released on Wednesday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
End of Nations: Is There an Alternative to Countries?
Nation states cause some of our biggest problems, from civil war to climate inaction. Science suggests there are better ways to run a planet.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
“I met and interviewed a man named Charles Lee — a Chinese-born American doctor. He had come to the U.S. in 1991 to pursue his studies (at the University of Illinois and Harvard). When he was a young medical researcher in China, he had a worrying peek into organ-harvesting. Prisoners would be shot in the back of the head, and their bodies would be hustled to a waiting van. There, the doctors would extract the organs. Lee’s job was to hold the instruments. Some prisoners seemed to him not quite dead at all.”
Harry Wu wrote about this extensively in his book “Troublemaker” in 1996.
I was in China in 1994 and again in 1997 and on both occasions the Chinese government made no secret of its execution of prisoners. Even today, the Chinese Communist state executes more people in a year than all the other states in the world put together – and that includes North Korea. The principal reason for this is the harvesting of the organs of executed prisoners for commercial transplant. This has been largely ignored by the western countries desperate to do trade deals with a thriving Chinese economy.
Why did this Communist economy thrive? Harry Wu has the answer.
The Laogai system is the Chinese equivalent of the Gulag and the system was given to China by the Soviets in the early 1950s as a means of detaining dissidents and “politically reorientating” them by means of hard labour and indoctrination. Initially, the Chinese government used the slave labour in the Laogais as a means of mass producing goods for cheap export. Later, many of these labour camps were given licenses by the World trade Organisation thereby making them legitimate.
It remains to be seen how many of these camps are still providing cheap goods for export to western countries. They still appear to be providing organs for commercial transplant.
The African hordes are forcing their way into Northern Europe
We have laws to regulate who gets to stay in a European country. What do these hordes care about our law? What are our authorities doing to prevent disorder based on our law?
What will happen when, ignoring law and order, they have doubled in numbers, and still keep pouring in? What, or who, is going to stop them?
What are we going to do?
Yes, we have laws but when are our political elites going to enforce them?
If they do not, what is the responsibility of the voters?
This is an invasion.
When defence starts the flow stops.
Michael, Don’t hold your breath.
The illegal immigrants in Calais, should be allowed into the Channel Tunnel from the French side. The English end of the tunnel should be sealed, when the tunnel is full: close the French end and flood it! It should never have been built in the first place. It has effectively created a land border with the Continent, circumventing the oldest defensive barrier our island had. The cost of construction was astronomical and it will never be paid off.
Well, Old Gaffer, I’ve taken advantage of the Channel Tunnel many times; living in London, I can spend a day in Paris for under £60, Lille for less, and have yet to do the same in Brussels.
The Tunnel isn’t the problem; the EU is. Also the failure of refugees and asylum seekers, assuming they’re genuine, to halt in the first safe country. The UK is not the first safe country for anyone; nor is Australia, but they have the option of returning people to Indonesia or nearby islands- we don’t.