A man named Nicholas Salvadore is suspected of going on a rampage in a north London suburb, where he allegedly beheaded a cat and an 82-year-old woman with a machete. Mr. Salvadore was injured during the incident, and is recovering under armed guard in the hospital. He is reportedly a recent convert to Islam. Police announced that the beheading had nothing to do with “terrorism”, although some of the victim’s neighbors evidently disobeyed police instructions and became terrified.
In other news, the Philippine government condemned the beheading of a member of a paramilitary militia in Basilan province by a jihad fighter for the group Abu Sayyaf.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Fjordman, Insubria, Jerry Gordon, JP, LH, RL, RR, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
Cyprus’ GDP Shrinks by 2.2% in 2q 2014
(ANSAmed) — NICOSIA, SEPTEMBER 4 — Cyprus’ gross domestic product (GDP) shrank in real terms by 2.2% during the second quarter of this year compared with the same quarter of the previous year, data released by the Cyprus Statistical Service, on Wednesday, show. According to the data, as CNA reports, GDP stood at 3,494 million euros in the 2nd quarter of 2014 compared to 3,571.2 million euro in the same quarter of 2013. Based on seasonally and working day adjusted data, it is estimated that the GDP shrank by 2.5% compared to the same period of 2013, and 0.3% compared to the previous quarter.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Eurozone Economy Stagnates as ECB Leaps in to Action
The eurozone economy stagnated in the second quarter, official figures showed on Friday, in line with the poor outlook which pushed the European Central Bank into radical action on Thursday.
In a second estimate for growth in the 18-country currency zone, the Eurostat statistics body confirmed zero percent growth from the previous quarter.
It also reported slight expansion of 0.2 percent for the full 28-country European Union.
“The second quarter stagnation in eurozone GDP clearly added to the pressure on the ECB to take further stimulative action sooner rather than later to try and dilute the risk of extended low consumer price inflation morphing into deflation,” said economist Howard Archer at IHS Global Insight.
Eurozone economic activity also suffered “as heightened global geopolitical tensions, particularly the Ukraine/Russia crisis, weighed down on investment,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece 3rd Most Miserable Place in the World, Study
Unemployment rate and inflation rate affect citizens’ psychology
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, SEPTEMBER 3 — US business and technology news website Business Insider classified Greece among the most miserable countries in the world, based on the unemployment rate and the high prices of products.
As GreekReporter online writes, Business Insider cites a Bloomberg survey that counts misery in each country with the “misery index.” It is measured by adding the unemployment rate to the inflation rate. The index was created by economist Arthur Okoun and in previous decades was a very popular term in the USA. Despite the criticism the “misery index” has received, scientific research has shown that unemployment and inflation affect the psychology of citizens. Venezuela tops the list of the most miserable places with 59.50% (CPI inflation at 52.7%, unemployment at 7.1%) and South Africa comes second with 31.80% (CPI inflation at 6.3%, unemployment at 25.5%).
Greece ranks third with 27.10% (CPI inflation at 0.7%, unemployment at 27.8%). The survey highlights the problem of the increased unemployment when referring to the country’s situation after the six-year recession and dealing with the debt crisis. According to Business Insider, the Greek public sector makes up 40% of the GDP and tourism accounts for 18%. Almost 20% of workers are immigrants and take the agricultural and unskilled jobs. It is also noted that Greece is the first developed country that is now considered an “emerging market.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
In Surprise Move, E.C.B. Cuts Interest Rate, Paving Way for More Action
The European Central Bank cut its main interest rate to a whisker above zero on Thursday, setting the stage for more powerful but riskier measures to prevent the faltering eurozone economy from slipping back into recession.
The surprise cut in the rate at which it issues short-term loans to banks to 0.05 percent from 0.15 percent marks a record. The central bank also increased the fee it imposes on banks to store money at the E.C.B., to 0.2 percent from 0.1 percent. The so-called negative deposit rate, first imposed in June, has already pushed some market interest rates below zero.
With its action on Thursday, the central bank has effectively emptied the standard monetary policy toolbox. If the eurozone economy continues to slow, the next step would almost inevitably be a form of quantitative easing — large-scale asset purchases to pump money into the financial system.
Stocks rose Thursday amid speculation that the E.C.B. would later announce plans to buy bundles of bank loans known as asset-backed securities, in an effort to stimulate lending.
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Italy: Draghi Says ECB to Purchase Securities in October
Central bank lowers growth, inflation forecasts
(ANSA) — Rome, September 4 — The European Central Bank will begin to buy “simple and transparent” asset-backed securities and covered bonds in October to try to encourage credit flows to the economy, President Mario Draghi said Thursday.
During a news conference, Draghi announced that the central bank was also cutting its main interest rates for commercial banks amid reduced forecasts for economic growth and inflation. He also urged governments to work harder on structural reforms in their economies to boost overall growth in the eurozone. “These efforts now clearly need to gain momentum to achieve higher sustainable growth and employment in the euro area,” Draghi said in a prepared statement.
And if they are not enough, the central bank stands prepared to use “additional unconventional instruments in its mandate,” he added.
The ECB cut its economic growth forecasts for this year and next, but slightly increased its 2016 growth expectation while warning that its inflation outlook this year will be reduced.
Growth will average 0.9% this year, down from earlier forecasts of 1.0%, and 1.6% in 2015 instead of 1.7% as earlier predicted; but in 2016, growth will be 1.9% instead of earlier forecasts of 1.8%.
Inflation will average 0.6% this year and 2015’s forecast is unchanged, said Draghi, who also pledged the ECB will continue to “be vigilant on inflation risks” that come from weak economic growth, the exchange rate of the euro single currency and “the geopolitical situation”. Low and falling inflation in many European countries has raised concerns about persistent deflation.
Last month, eurozone inflation averaged 0.3% — well below the ECB’s target rate of just under 2%, which it judges to be the rate that reflects economic growth at just the right speed, neither too fast nor too slow.
The central bank also cut its main refinancing interest rate to 0.05% on Thursday from the previous level of 0.15% to try to boost the struggling economy in the eurozone. As well, the ECB reduced other rates affecting commercial banks depositing funds at the central bank.
By lowering these rates, the ECB is hoping that commercial banks will, in turn, reduce the interest rates they charge to businesses and consumers.
Draghi also said that flexibility is built into the European Union’s stability pact, words that may comfort Italian Premier Matteo Renzi who has urged the EU to allow greater flexibility on its budget.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Appeals for Jobs of Thyssenkrupp Steelworkers in Terni
Francis warns company ‘you don’t play with employment’
(ANSA) — Vatican City, September 3 — Pope Francis on Wednesday made an appeal for hundreds of steelworkers who risk losing their jobs at ThyssenKrupp’s Acciai Speciali Terni (AST) stainless steel plant in Terni. The pontiff warned the German company that “you don’t play with employment” during his general audience in St Peter’s Square.
ThyssenKrupp wants to cut 550 jobs at the plant in the central Umbria region as part of a restructuring programme.
But last month it accepted a government appeal to put the plan on hold so talks could take place after industrial action. “I express my deep concern for the grave situation that many families are experiencing in Terni because of the plans of ThyssenKrupp,” said the Argentine pontiff.
“Once again I make a heartfelt appeal so that the logic of profit does not prevail, but that of solidarity and justice. “You don’t play with employment and those who take work away for reasons of money and business and to earn more should know that they are depriving people of dignity”. Francis met around 7,000 steelworkers and other people from Terni in March and on Sunday a delegation from the city attended his Angelus address.
The pope has frequently criticized the ill effects of global capitalism since taking the helm of the Catholic Church last year and and called on business and political leaders to do more to create and maintain jobs.
He has warned that a form of “wild capitalism” has taken hold in some quarters, to the detriment of many, especially the poor.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Study: Greece’s Pension System Nears Breaking Point
As recession and joblessness speed up deterioration
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS — The ticking time bomb of the Greek social security system will not explode in 2025, but 10 years earlier, or next year, according to a study by the Institute of Labor of the General Confederation of Greek Labor (Ine/Gsee) which is to be presented in Thessaloniki on Thursday as Kathimerini online reports today.
Gsee’s annual report on the Greek economy includes a chapter on the aging population and the sustainability of the social security system from 2013 to 2050. Its conclusions, which Kathimerini has seen, say that the prolonged recession and high unemployment have brought forward the pension system’s crumbling point by a decade and that in order to become viable the system requires additional resources of 950 million euros for 2016 alone. The system’s extra requirements are expected to grow rapidly in the following years, soaring to 2.67 billion euros for 2020.
The authors of the study note that pension cuts and a hike in the retirement age would have allowed for the sustainability of the system until 2025 had it not been for the deep and protracted recession and high unemployment. As a result 2015 is seen as the year when the social security system could fall apart. They add that new measures will be necessary due to reduced state funding (from 16.4 billion euros in 2012 to just 8.6 billion per year from 2015 to 2018), an explosive rise in the jobless rate (today at 27%), an increase in the number of new pensioners (from 40,000 in 2009 to 100,000 per year after 2010), salary reductions and the growth in undeclared and flexible labor. Already the social security funds’ cash reserves have dwindled from 26 billion euros in 2009 to just 4.5 billion last year, while the demographic shift in Greece resulting from longer life expectancy and a reduction in the birthrate has contributed to a 15% increase in the pension burden on funds, the study notes. The Ine/Gsee economists also note that after the recent interventions to the pensions system, the average age of retirement has grown to 63 years (not including early retirement options), while pensions have been cut by about 32.5%.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The ECB: An Act of Determination or Desperation?
BRUSSELS — In yet another attempt to revive the eurozone recovery and fight low inflation, the European Central Bank (ECB) on Thursday (4 September) emptied its toolbox almost entirely.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Job Growth Slips to 142,000 in August
American employers hired at a surprisingly weak pace in August, even as the unemployment rate fell slightly, the Labor Department said Friday.
With a 142,000 increase in payrolls last month, August is the first month since January that hiring gains slipped below the 200,000 level, an important threshold to beat if the economy is going to be able to absorb new entrants while also reducing the ranks of the long-term unemployed.
The unemployment rate dropped 0.1 percentage point to 6.1 percent last month.
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Up to 70% of New Hires on Temporary Contracts, OECD Says
Jobless rate higher among young women than young men
(ANSA) — Paris, September 3 — Up to 70% of new hires in Italy were employed last year under temporary contracts — one of the highest levels among OECD countries, the body said Wednesday.
In its latest Employment Outlook, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) noted that almost one in two young Italians under age 25 was in a precarious employment position last year.
It also said that about 36.3% of employed young workers had had a job for less than one year.
About 40% of young people under the age of 25 in Italy were unemployed last year, nearly double the rate of 20.3% in 2007, said the OECD.
The jobless rate was higher among young women at 41.4% compared to young men at 39%, according to the OECD.
Italian statistics showed a youth jobless rate in July of 42.9%.
In addition, as many as 52.5% of young people in Italy had temporary jobs, the employment outlook said, basing its statistics on figures for 2013. That is marginally down from 2012 when 52.9% had “precarious” jobs without solid contracts, but is still far higher than before the recession in 2007 when 42.3% of young people were in precarious employment.
It was also double the percentage of 26.2% in the year 2000, said the OECD report.
It added that as many as 45 million people were unemployed in the area the agency covers.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
3rd American Aid Worker Infected With Ebola Arrives at Nebraska Hospital
A doctor who became infected with Ebola while working in Liberia — the third American aid worker sickened with the virus — arrived Friday at a Nebraska hospital for treatment.
Officials at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha have said Dr. Rick Sacra, 51, will be treated at the hospital’s 10-bed special isolation unit on the seventh floor, the largest of four such units in the U.S.
Sacra, from the Boston area, headed to Liberia after hearing that two other missionaries were sick. He served with the North Carolina-based charity SIM. Sacra delivered babies but was not involved in the treatment of Ebola patients, so it’s unclear how he became infected with the virus that has killed about 1,900 people.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ferguson Police to be Investigated After Shooting of Michael Brown
US justice department investigation will go beyond teenager’s shooting to look at all practices of predominantly white force
The US justice department may open a wide-ranging investigation into the practices of the Ferguson police department as early as Thursday following the shooting last month of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer in the St Louis suburb…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Former Viginia Gov. Bob McDonnell Guilty of Public Corruption, A.P. Reports
Former Viginia Gov. Bob McDonnell Thursday was convicted of at least one one public corruption charge, the Associated Press reported. More verdicts are pending.
Mr. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, were indicted on 14 counts of conspiracy, bribery, extortion and related charges stemming from what prosecutors said was a scheme to sell the office of governor, which Mr. McDonnell occupied through January this year, for $177,000 in gifts and cash from a dietary supplements executive.
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Joan Rivers: Trailblazing Comic, is Dead at 81
Joan Rivers, the raspy loudmouth who pounced on America’s obsessions with flab, face-lifts, body hair and other blemishes of neurotic life, including her own, in five decades of caustic comedy that propelled her from nightclubs to television to international stardom, died on in Manhattan. She was 81.
Ms. Rivers died at Mount Sinai Hospital, where she was taken on Thursday after reportedly losing consciousness while undergoing a procedure on her vocal cords at a doctor’s office on the Upper East Side. Doctors at the hospital placed her in a medically induced coma.
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Minnesota, Once More on the Front Lines of Terrorism
Not many years ago, the idea of Minnesota as a hotbed of Islamic terrorism would have been laughable. No longer: a mass immigration of Somalis has put Minnesota on the front lines. Authorities estimate that 15 or more Minnesotans have traveled to the Middle East to join ISIS.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mysterious Rise of Fake Mobile Phone Towers
4 September 2014: [S]ecurity-conscious American business men who use hi-spec encrypted smartphones made by ESD America have revealed a nationwide network of “fake” cell phone towers of unknown origin which can intercept calls, texts, and even remotely control unprotected phones…. at least seventeen of these mystery towers were identified in the United States, spread fairly evenly across the country. … Because these interceptors are not officially registered or named in the way an ordinary mobile tower would be, the ownership and intent of the devices is unclear, however … many of them are ‘on top of’ military bases, leading to speculation the American government is hoovering up mobile radio traffic of those in and near bases. Another plausible agent is a foreign power like cyber-warfare specialist China is conducting espionage on a massive scale. …
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
As tearful judge calls it ‘one of the saddest cases ever’
A white homeowner who gunned down an unarmed 19-year-old black woman on his porch last year has been sentenced to at least 17 years in prison.
Theodore Wafer was convicted of second-degree murder in August for killing Renisha McBride outside his home in Dearborn Heights in Detroit, Michigan home in the early hours of November 2.
Before getting his sentence, 55-year-old Wafer apologized to McBride’s family, saying he killed a woman who was ‘too young to leave this world’.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Winooski, Vermont and the Dismantling of America’s Values
by Dennis Prager
As a talk show host, I have no choice but to keep up with what’s happening in America and the world. I am therefore submerged in depressing and often angering fare.
It is hard to read about and discuss the progressives who dominate American media and academia who morally equate Israel and Hamas; who describe America — the most tolerant multi-ethnic country in the world — as racist; and who characterize American universities as a “rape culture.”
But there was a barely reported story that came out of a small city in Vermont last week that, for reasons to be explained, really got to me. The story isn’t comparable to the beheading of innocent people or as dramatic as the rioting in Ferguson, Missouri. But if it typifies what is happening in America, it is difficult not to be pessimistic about America’s future.
The facts of the story are not in dispute.
As reported in the Burlington Free Press, a restaurant in the town of Winooski, Vermont, population 7,000, “removed a sign reading ‘Yield for Sneakers Bacon’ from a garden at the Winooski Rotary.”
Why did the Sneakers Bistro and Cafe remove the sign?
Because “a woman who described herself as ‘a vegan and a member of a Muslim household’ called the sign offensive in a post” on a local Internet forum.
“Given the large number of Muslim families in Winooski, as well as many others who do not eat pork for a variety of reasons,” the woman wrote, “it seems unnecessary for this insensitive business sign to be at the city’s main crosswalk.”
The Free Press reported that “Sneakers owner Marc Dysinger replied that the sign was meant to be fun and to show that the restaurant cares about Winooski. … He apologized for the controversy.”
After “a swarm of Internet comments followed the decision,” Dysinger wrote on Facebook:
“We are here to serve people BREAKFAST, not politics. We removed the sign that was located on public property as a gesture of respect for our diverse community. … Removing it was not a difficult decision. We still love bacon. We still love eggs. Please have the political conversation elsewhere.”
Everything about this story is depressing.
First, the complaint.
The woman who wrote this totalitarian drivel is the worst combination of fake victimhood, political correctness (which itself is a PC euphemism for “that which offends the left”), and Muslims who seek to impose sharia law on non-Muslims. It is also highly likely this woman graduated college, probably with a major in the liberal arts. Our universities teach non-white, non-Christian, and female students to find offense everywhere. American students get degrees in Findi
As a Jew who refrains from eating bacon or any pork product, it would never occur to me or to Jews far more observant than I to tell a non-Jewish restaurant to take down a sign advertising bacon. Nor would it occur to any Jew to find such an ad “offensive.”
The woman possesses yet another vile trait — one of the ugliest in the human pantheon: ingratitude. There is a Somali refugee community in Winooski. These people were saved from the murderous horrors of Somalia; yet this woman, whether or not she is a member of that specific community, has the gall to tell the city that saved this Muslim community’s life that it dare not advertise a food she doesn’t eat. Such ingratitude doesn’t come naturally. It has to be learned.
Second, the restaurant owner’s reaction…
| — Hat tip: RL | [Return to headlines] |
29 August 2014: Lynden Dorval [is the] Edmonton physics teacher who was suspended and fired for giving zeros when students didn’t do their work and daring to question the idiocy of a policy where he wasn’t supposed to give any zeros.
A tribunal dealing with teacher suspensions and firings now says the Edmonton public school board wasn’t fair when they suspended and then bounced Dorval.
Dorval will get a cheque for lost wages of almost two years and a top-up to his pension but not be put back in the classroom since he’s retired.
The teacher who became a national story was suspended back in 2012.
In a letter giving Dorval the pink slip, Edmonton public school superintendent Edgar Schmidt talks of wanting the teacher to “reform” his behaviour and say sorry to his school’s principal.
Instead, the teacher wouldn’t say uncle and the school bigshot then speaks of “ample evidence to warrant termination” in Dorval’s “repeated acts of insubordination, unprofessional conduct and refusal to obey lawful orders.” … Dorval says he had to stand up. It was easier because he could retire though he wanted to stay in the classroom a while longer. … “It was just such a stupid idea. I simply couldn’t follow it,” says the teacher.
“This was the stupidest thing I’d ever been asked to do in my entire career. Nothing has ever even come close to it. … Edmonton public school board isn’t happy and will appeal the decision. …
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Alitalia Unveils New Routes After Etihad Deal
Rome-Marrakesh from Wednesday, then Marseille and others
(ANSA) — Fiumicino, September 3 — Italian flag-carrier Alitalia on Wednesday unveiled its first new routes from its main Fiumicino hub after this summer’s lifesaving deal with Etihad Airlines.
From Wednesday a biweekly link with Marrakesh is starting and from October 26 there will be a new Rome-Marseille service.
Furthermore, according to Alitalia’s Network Director Massimo Iraci, “many other new intercontinental and international links will be opened in the next few months, according to the AZ/Etihad development plan, especially from Fiumicino”.
The Etihad deal, finalised at the start of August, left 2,250 jobs at risk but the Italian government stepped in to save more than half of them, 1,250.
While the deal, which was formally signed August 9, will keep Alitalia in the air, it also offers Etihad a stronger foothold in Europe and access to lucrative routes.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Britain’s One of the Friendliest Places in Europe for Muslims. But for How Much Longer?
By Damian Thompson
Attitudes in this country are still tolerant. But current headlines give reason to fear that might change
British public opinion has never really turned against Muslims. According to Pew’s 2014 Global Attitudes survey, 26 per cent of us have ‘unfavourable’ attitudes towards Muslims in this country; compare that to 46 per cent in Spain, 53 per cent in Greece and 63 per cent in Italy.
Our national tolerance has, so far, proved robust. Even after the 7/7 London bombings, favourable attitudes towards Muslims in Britain dipped by only a couple of points. But is it strong enough to survive the horrors of Isis and Rotherham coming to light simultaneously?…
[Reader comment by beenzrgud on 4 September 2014.]
The question needs to asked as to what exactly will satisfy Muslims in terms of them not wanting to change/destroy the society they have moved to. As far as I can see nothing short of our total capitulation to their will is going to suffice. This is clearly an untenable proposition, hence the current situation. Whether religious or cultural, there is something incompatible in their thinking when it comes to successfully integrating into our society. It should be remembered that the people now choosing to go and commit the vilest atrocities in the middle east are 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants. They have only known the UK and yet still they behave in ways that are alien to us. Whether it is jihadism, vote rigging, honour killings, FGM, or just their apparent inability to take advantage of the educational opportunities in this country, they appear determined to cling to the ways of rural Pakistan, or whatever backwater they originate from. At the same time their numbers in the UK are exploding. This fact should worry rational people, and throwing the term hate monger around to describe those who are articulating their concern will in no way facilitate a solution…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
EU Pressed to Up Aid to Farmers Hit by Russia Sanctions
(BRUSSELS) — The European Parliament ratcheted up the pressure on the European Union Thursday to increase support for farmers hit by a Russian ban on food exports over the Ukraine crisis.
Leading the calls for aid were members of parliament from the Baltic states, Finland and Poland, the countries that are most affected because of their dependence on the Russian market for their milk and other products.
The appeals come on the eve of an emergency meeting of European agricultural ministers.
“The EU must alleviate the distress of farmers to avoid huge losses,” said Liberal MEP Olli Rehn, the former commissioner of economic affairs, stressing the need for “solidarity”.
The Russian embargo, announced in early August, came in retaliation against US and European sanctions over Moscow’s alleged role in separatist violence in eastern Ukraine.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU’s Almunia Says He Awaits Alitalia Notice of Deal
Competition commissioner won’t comment on airline pact
(ANSA) — Brussels, September 3 — The European Union’s Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said Wednesday that he is waiting for formal notice of the deal between troubled Italian airline Alitalia and Etihad Airways before judging whether it meets competition rules. Until then, said Almunia, he won’t offer an opinion on the pact which the parties finalized last month and will see Abu Dhabi-based Etihad invest an estimated 560 million euros in struggling Alitalia.
The deal still requires requlatory approvals.
The deal is expected to keep the Italian carrier alive while providing State-owned Etihad with greater access to lucrative routes in Europe.
But critics, including competing airlines, have complained that the deal contravenes EU regulations concerning State aid.
Competing airlines including International Airlines Group (IAG), which includes the airlines Iberia and British Airways, threatened legal action last October after a separate bailout package for Alitalia which the carriers said constituted State assistance.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
France: Socialist President Hollande ‘Hates the Poor’ Says Ex Valérie Trierweiler
3 September 2014: Francois Hollande’s former partner says that France’s socialist president hates the poor, in her potentially explosive memoirs she penned after the collapse of their relationship earlier this year.
In Merci Pour Ce Moment (‘Thank You For This Moment’) Valérie Trierweiler claims that, in private, the leftist leader refers to the less wealthy with scorn, calling them “the toothless”.
“He portrays himself as a man who does not like the rich. In reality, the president does not like the poor,” Trierweiler wrote. “He, the man of the left, calls them ‘the toothless’, very proud of his humour.”
In another passage leaked to French media ahead of the book’ s publication, which is scheduled for tomorrow, the France’s former first lady wrote that he expressed dislike for her working-class parents.
“They’re not very nice,” he told her during a Christmas dinner with her family in her native town of Angers, western France. … Hollande’s nine-year relationship with Trierweiler ended earlier this year, after Closer magazine published photos alleging the president was having an affair with actress Julie Gayet.
France is struggling to get out of the economic crisis and has recorded no economic growth this year.
Since the election in 2012, Hollande’s approval ratings have collapsed to below 20%, making him the most unpopular president in recent French history.
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Nigerian Armed With Machete Arrested in Jesi
(AGI) Jesi (Ancona), Sept. 2 — A 25-year old Nigerian, Precious Omobogbe, has been arrested in Jesi and charged with grievous bodily harm, attempted murder, resisting arrest and robbery.
Omobogbe kept police officers, city police and Carabinieri cornered for almost an hour threatening them with two machetes he had stolen a little earlier. The man attracted a great deal of attention and was filmed by many citizens who posted the footage online.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Faces Hefty Fine for Illegal Landfills
Advocate general asks for 158,000 euros/day, 60 mlm one-off fine
(ANSA) — Brussels, September 4 — The advocate general of the European Court of Justice on Thursday requested that Italy be charged a fine of 158,000 euros a day and a lump-sum fine of 60 million euros for failing to clean up illegal waste landfill sites.
The request came as part of closing remarks in a case pitting the country against the European Commission (EC) in Brussels. The EC took Italy to court for failing to comply with a 2007 ruling ordering it to clean up hundreds of illegal rubbish dumps, some of them containing hazardous waste.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 11 Pro-Jihad Milan Residents Probed
Syrians suspected of ‘international terrorism’
(ANSA) — Milan, September 4 — Eleven people resident in and around Milan including an electrician who went to fight in Syria two years ago and other Syrians have been under investigation in a probe into international terrorism for two years, judicial sources said Thursday.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: LVMH Agrees to Give Shareholders Its Hermes Stake
LVMH, Dior, Arnault make 5-year deal
(ANSA) — Milan, Sept. 3 — LVMH said Wednesday it accepts an arbitration decision and will give its shareholders the 23.2% stake it holds in Hermes, ending a long dispute.
In addition LVMH, Dior and the Arnault group made a joint formal commitment not to acquire Hermes shares for five years, LVMH said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
It’s Back to the Future for Geert Wilders: New Prosecution Being Readied
Yesterday, the Iconoclast and other on-line blogs published Geert Wilders 10th anniversary speech in the Hague Parliament, “War Has Been Declared Against Us”. The title is a send up on the support of ISIS, Al Qaeda and Hamas from the Muslim émigré community in The Netherlands. His remarks were directed at the ostrich-like policies of the ruling coalition in the Hague Parliament ignoring the rise of political Islam and the threats to cultural values of The Netherlands from shortsighted mass immigration policies. It was the commemoration of his leaving the VVD (Liberal Party) to found the PVV (Freedom Party). Earlier this week, De Telegraaf published a front page report on September 2nd, with the provocative headline “Court already prepared on Wilders”. Having been vindicated in a highly public trial in the Amsterdam District Court in 2011, the Dutch prosecutors have used his statements at a campaign rally in March 2014 as the basis for a new prosecution, because of his ‘fewer Moroccans” remarks. As American baseball great, Yogi Berra might opine in one of his classic malapropisms, “it’s déjà vu all over again”. At a time when The Netherlands is threatened with possible home grown terrorism from returning Al Qaeda and ISIS veterans, it would appear that under the Dutch system of justice, the Anglo-American legal concept of double jeopardy doesn’t apply. It is the latest manifestation of the 800 pound gorilla of intimidation arising from the burgeoning Muslim émigré community…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
New Viking Fortress Discovered in Denmark
It’s been long thought that Denmark is the home to four Viking ring fortresses, but the first discovery in 60 years may shed new light on the Viking Era and King Harald Bluetooth.
Archaeologists have thus far uncovered just small portions of the new fortress, which is being dubbed Vallø Borgring. Researchers have not yet definitively dated the fortress, but think that, like the previously-discovered ring fortresses — Aggersborg and Fyrkat in northern Jutland, Trelleborg in western Zealand and Nonnebakken near Odense — it likely dates back to over a thousand years ago when Harald Bluetooth ruled as king from 958 until his death in 985 or 986.
The newly-found fortress has a diameter of 145 metres, making it the third largest of the five discovered in Denmark.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Socialist French President ‘Dislikes Poor, ‘ Ex-Lover Says
Hollande mocked Trierweiler for humble origins, memoir claims
(ANSA) Paris, September 3 — Socialist French President François Hollande says that “he doesn’t like the rich but in reality he dislikes the poor,” his former First Lady, Valérie Trierweiler, claims in her kiss-and-tell memoir about her relationship with the head of state quoted by Le Monde newspaper Wednesday.
According to excerpts from the explosive book quoted by Le Monde newspaper ahead of publication, Trierweiler recalled that during a family lunch Hollande commented on her modest family origins.
“That was a slap in the face,” she was quoted as saying.
Hollande “presented himself as a man who dislikes the rich. In reality the president does not like the poor,” she said.
“He, a man of the left, refers to them in private as ‘the toothless’ and is very proud of his sense of humour”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spaniards Not Even Ready to Defend Their Country, Poll Says
According to survey, only 16% willing to fight foreign aggression
(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. A reported 22.4% would be likely to participate — low percentages which CIS said are decreasing annually.
Regions like Catalonia and Basque Country saw a 6% drop since 2011, when the previous poll was conducted, in national sentiment, which only grew in cities like the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco where half the population is Muslim.
The survey carried out on 2,500 people selected to represent the entire population, was handed over to the Spanish institute for strategic studies of the defense ministry. Though armed forces are well considered in the country, the majority of those interviewed said “it is necessary to cut their budget and numbers”, which are already among the lowest in the EU.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Sports Car That Runs on Saltwater: Electrolyte Flow Cell Power System
1 September 2014: The … Quant e-Sportlimousine uses something known as an electrolyte flow cell power system to power four electric motors within the car…. [T]his sleek machine has been designed to reach 217.5 mph (350 km/h) — using nothing but saltwater.
Its radical drive system allows the 5,070lbs (2,300kg) Quant e-Sportlimousine to reach 0-60 mph (100 km/h) in 2.8 seconds, making it as fast as the McLaren P1. … The car carries the water in two 200-litre tanks, which provide a range of up to 373 miles (600km). … [The electrolyte flow cell] … works like a hydrogen fuel cell, however, the liquid used for storing energy is salt water.
The liquid passes through a membrane in between the two tanks, creating an electric charge. … NanoFlowcell AG, a Lichtenstein-based company behind the drive, is now planning to test the car on public roads in Germany and elsewhere in Europe as the company prepares for series production.
It claims the technology offers five times the energy capacity of lithium-ion batteries of the same weight. … ‘We’ve got major plans, and not just within the automobile industry,’ says NanoFlowcell AG… ‘The potential of the NanoFlowcell is much greater, especially in terms of domestic energy supplies as well as in maritime, rail and aviation technology’
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Three Arrested in Copenhagen After Danish Mosque Declares Its Support of ISIS
Three people were arrested for selling stickers openly promoting the Islamic State (ISIS) in Copenhagen yesterday.
They all belonged to a group known as De Humanitaere Hjerter (The Humanitarian Hearts) which has been selling stickers which read ‘Support our Ummah’ — Arabic for ‘nation’ or ‘community’ — placed on black bows which bear the logo of Islamic State.
Danish police raided four addresses and arrested the leader of the group, identified as Ali Daghim, as well as another member. “As far as I know, two people have been arrested and are now being interrogated,” deputy inspector Jens Møller Jensen told Danish newspaper, Ekstra Bladet. “Another woman chose to come with (us) to an interrogation,” he continued.
[It was reported that] the group had been selling the stickers since late July when the group was exposed by syrienblog.dk, a pro-Assad website focused on exposing alleged Danish jihadists.
The stickers were being sold for 50 kroner (£5.31) and mimic a similar Danish sticker of a traditional yellow loop, sold to raise funds for Danish soldiers posted overseas. … [Police said that] the raids turned up 100,000 kroner (£10,600) and documentation of the stickers’ sale but not the stickers themselves. Daghim, the leader of the group, denies collecting money for the Islamic State, and has told TV2 that he does not support the Islamic State’s violence.
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
UK Govt Employee Sent to ‘Diversity Training’ For Calling Pakistani Rotherham Rapists ‘Asian Men’
1 September 2014: A researcher in Britain’s Home Office, which is responsible for domestic security and border control, was reprimanded and sent to a ‘two day ethnicity and diversity course’ for refering to the Pakistani rapists in Rotherham as ‘Asian’.
The worker … noted that senior officials in the department told them to “never refer to that again” when they raised the issue of Muslim men grooming young white girls in Rotherham.
An image … shows part of a legal document that claims that the researcher was told: “you must never refer to Asian men”.
“The other response [to raising the issue]”, they claimed, “was to book me on a 2 day ethnicity and diversity course to raise my awareness of ethnic issues”. … Since the news of the case broke, speculation has been rife that pandering to multiculturalism and tiptoeing around the fact that most of the rapists were Pakistani men led to government officials burying their heads in the sand over the issue. …
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
UK: A Journey Into the Mind of ‘Jihadi John’
by Richard Spencer
The modus operandi of the public rap star and the concealed beheader is the same and highlights the danger in our midst
If the rapper known as L Jinny is also the executioner known as Jihadi John, should anyone be surprised? In the past two weeks, a knife-wielding, faceless man in black has become perhaps the most notorious Briton on the planet, the protagonist of two real-life snuff movies as he kills James Foley and Steven Sotloff, American journalists.
His aggressive, grandstanding words have been repeated across our airwaves, their Britishness only too obvious, threatening President Obama and other world leaders like a street-corner hoodlum. He does so in the name of his God…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Douglas Carswell Won’t be the Last Defector Unless Our Lacklustre Leaders Get a Grip
by Sarah Linney
Ukip’s policies might be unpopular in some quarters, but at least they have some
This time last week Douglas Carswell was just another Tory backbencher busying himself with the concerns of seaside dwellers in his Clacton constituency. Then, out of nowhere, he jumped and swam starboard to the Ukip ship. And all hell suddenly broke loose…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Eight in Court on Child Sex Charges
Eight men have been charged in connection with child sexual exploitation after raids on 11 properties. One of the men is charged with three counts of raping a girl under the age of 13.
Up to 120 Thames Valley Police officers searched addresses in Buckinghamshire and Middlesex at 7am on Tuesday…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A witness said she saw a man attacking the victim with the large knife — and “there was blood everywhere”
A crazed attacker brutally beheaded a woman today with a machete. Victim Palmira Silva, aged 82, was found slumped in the garden of a house in a London suburb. Two “crying and screaming” young boys were taken from the semi-detached home shortly afterwards.
Police arrested a 25-year-old man after using a taser gun during a violent confrontation…
Taxi firm manager Kharul Islam, 40, saw officers being handed two boys — aged around three and seven — out of a window before being led to safety.
They surrounded the front and back door and asked a woman in the house to pass out the weeping children. He said: “When the police arrived there was a lot of panic and they were trying to get through the windows on the ground floor. They were talking to the family inside. I saw two kids being held out of the window, I think they were boys, by a woman.
She looked like their mother and was older than the guy arrested. Then the police smashed their way into the house. The family looked like they might be from Afghanistan. They were screaming and crying. I saw a police lady holding both of them. The mother came out and then they went into the van.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Eight Men Charged With Child Sexual Exploitation
Eight men have been charged with sexually abusing girls under the age of 16 by police investigating child sexual exploitation dating back to 2005.
The charges follow raids by Thames Valley Police carried out in Aylesbury and other Buckinghamshire towns on Tuesday. One of the men has been charged with three counts of raping a girl under the age of 13.
The men arrested come from Aylesbury, Milton Keynes, Buckingham and Chesham. The men in custody are aged between 28 and 45.
The operation involved 120 officers who conducted a string of early morning raids.
The men charged are:
Arshad Jani, 32, of Cousins Drive, Aylesbury, charged with one count of conspiracy to rape a girl aged 13/14/15, one count of rape of a girl aged 13/14/15 and one count of engaging in sexual activity with a girl aged 13 to 15.
Vikram Singh, 45, of Cannock Road, Aylesbury, charged with four counts of rape of a girl aged 13/14/15, three counts of raping a girl under age of 13 and one count of administering a substance with the intent of committing a sexual offence.
Asif Hussain, 32, of Rossal Place, Milton Keynes, charged with three counts of rape of a girl under the age of 13 and one count of arranging/facilitating the prostitution of a child.
Sohail Qamar, 40, of St Annes Road, Aylesbury, charged with one count of rape of a child under the age of 16 and one count of sexual activity with a child.
Akbari Khan, 35, of Mandeville Road, Aylesbury, charged with two counts of rape of a girl under the act of 16, one count of conspiracy to rape and two counts of administering a substance with the intent of committing a sexual offence.
Taimoor Khan, 28, of Highbridge Road, Aylesbury, charged with two counts of rape of a girl under the of 16, one count of conspiracy to rape a child and one count of administering a substance with intent of committing a sexual offence.
Sajid Ali, 34, of Brockhurst Road, Chesham, charged with count of rape of a girl under the age of 16, one count of conspiracy to rape a girl under the age of 16, one count of sexual activity with a child and one count of administering a substance with the intent of committing a sexual offence.
Jerome Joe, 35, of Pightle Crescent, Buckingham, charged with one count of sexual activity with a girl aged 13 to 15.
The men were all remanded in custody to appear at Milton Keynes Magistrates’ Court on Thursday…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
This is the first picture of the man alleged to have beheaded a defenceless great-grandmother in her north London garden yesterday.
The man, named locally as would-be cage fighter Nicholas Salvadore, 25, is currently under armed guard in hospital where he is receiving treatment for injuries sustained during yesterday’s lunchtime rampage.
Popular cafe owner Palmira Silva, 82, a widow described as ‘such a sweet lady’, was attacked and killed by a knifeman who minutes earlier was seen hopping over fences in search of a cat, which he also decapitated…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Former Board Presidents Call on Wineman to Resign
Two former presidents of the Board of Deputies have called on the current incumbent to resign amid a backlash over its joint statement with the Muslim Council of Britain and claims that his organisation had failed to do enough in response to the recent Gaza conflict…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
A woman who was found beheaded in a suburban back garden after a man ‘went berserk with a machete’ has been named by police as Palmira Silva, 82.
The victim, who is believed to be of Italian descent and also known as Pamela, was found dead outside a house in Edmonton, north London.
Police say the killing is not currently being linked to terrorism and that specialist firearms officers were called to to reports of a man wielding a knife and attacking animals just after 1pm. Witnesses say he had been ‘cutting the head off a cat’ as he walked along the road…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Vivian Wineman, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD), a Jewish representational body, is facing calls to step down following the release of a joint statement with the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), a move slammed as “beyond astounding” by commentator Melanie Philips. She also dismissed the BoD as “not fit for purpose”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Key Conservative Target Seats Now Have Majority Non-White Voters
26 August 2014: Non-white voters now make up more than half of the first-time voters in some of the Conservative Party’s key targets, according to a data study from elections expert Ian Warren. This will make it harder for David Cameron to win seats, as just one in six non-whites voted Conservative in 2010.
In 35 of the 40 seats the Conservatives need to win to form a majority government there has been an increase in ethnic minority voters since the last election. There has also be an increase in 25 of the seats the party need to hold, the report in the Times said.
Two key battleground seats Hampstead and Kilburn and Harrow West will have a minority of non-white first-time voters by next year’s election. They are held by Labour with a majorities of just 42 and 3143 respectively.
Whilst 74 percent of over 45s in Hampstead and Kilburn are white, this figure falls to just 45 percent amongst teenagers eligible to vote in 2015. A demographic shift that is only likely to become more pronounced over time as the ethnic minority population grows. …
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
UK: London ‘Beheading’: Woman Slaughtered by ‘Man With Machete’ In Back Garden of House in Edmonton
A woman has been found ‘beheaded’ in a back garden in north London after witnesses said a man went “on the loose with a machete”. Police were called to reports of a stabbing in Nightingale Road, Edmonton just after 1pm today, where they found the woman dead in the garden of a property.
Horrified neighbours were evacuated from their homes after the alleged attacker began sprinting through back gardens in the road and tried to decapitate several cats.
Witnesses reported seeing a man with a “crazed look” in his eyes running around the area brandishing a machete as police gave chase.
One tweeted: “Madman on the loose with a machete in Edmonton”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Milton Keynes Man in Court Facing Rape and Prostitution Charges Involving a Child
A Milton Keynes man has been charged with sexual offences involving a 12-year-old girl.
Please note that the charges detailed below do describe sexual offences
Asif Hussain, 32, of Rossal Place, Hodge Lea, appeared at Milton Keynes Magistrates’ Court this morning charged with one count of arranging or facilitating the prostitution of a child. He is also charged with three counts of rape of a girl under the age of 13.
Mr Hussain was one of eight men who appeared in court following a series of arrests on Tuesday morning…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Nazir Afzal: ‘There is No Religious Basis for the Abuse in Rotherham’
Nazir Afzal, the Crown Prosecution Service’s lead on child sexual abuse, says that it is about male power
In the highly charged fallout from the Rotherham report, Nazir Afzal, the Crown Prosecution Service’s lead on child sexual abuse and violence against women and girls, tries to offer a calm perspective. Unruffled by mounting media hysteria over the ethnicity of abusers in Rotherham, he suggests stepping back and taking a wider view of the nationwide picture of child sex abuse.
His role means he has oversight of all child sex abuse cases in England and Wales. “So I know that the vast majority of offenders are British white male,” he says, setting the number at somewhere between 80 and 90%…
[Reader comment by stuartMilan on 3 September 2014.]
more damage limitation. and it’s looking very unconvincing indeed
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Probe Into Rotherham Child Abuse Could Examine Role of East Riding Officer Pam Allen
THE role of a senior East Riding Council officer who was in charge of safeguarding at Rotherham at the height of unchecked child abuse could be examined in a new police investigation into the scandal.
Pam Allen worked for Rotherham Council in childcare services for 13 years before joining East Riding Council in 2009.
She was Rotherham’s director of safeguarding between 2004 and 2009, the period under intense scrutiny following the publication of a damning report into failings by the council and police to stop the sexual exploitation of at least 1,400 children by gangs of men…
[Reader comment by nascar0509 on 4 September 2014.]
This will be happening nationwide not just Rotherham but will we see further investigations? Somehow I doubt it. A massive public sector damage limitation exercise.
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Reveal Sex Abuse Victims Were Younger Than 13 at Time of Alleged Offences
Pre-teen girls were the victims of alleged child sexual exploitation which dates back nearly 10 years, police said after carrying out dawn raids involving 120 officers.
Two girls are understood to have been subjected to a catalogue of abuse dating back to 2005 — but police believe more alleged victims could now come forward.
The men arrested so far are of Pakistani, Caribbean and Afghan origin. Police would not comment on whether they were known to each other. The alleged victims were white, British girls, police said.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Aylesbury police chief Olly Wright called for communities to stay calm. He said: “Child sexual exploitation is something that affects all parts of the community. There is a spread of ethnic backgrounds in this case. Our policy is to work together with victims, no matter what background they come from, and bring offenders to justice no matter what background they come from.”…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Residents living in a picturesque rural village have hit out at controversial plans to build what would be Britain’s largest Muslim cemetery on rural land.
The proposed 11-acre site in Catherine-de-Barnes, near Solihull, West Midlands, would include a total of 11,000 graves for followers of Islam.
Currently, the largest Muslim-only cemetery in the UK is in Ilford, Essex, which has 5,000 plots…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Political Correctness Created the Silence That Allowed Rotherham
By Norman Tebbit
Almost every day there is yet another revelation in the Rotherham child abuse scandal, and it is all too easy to become diverted from calm consideration of the deep-seated causes of the affair into emotional outbursts of anger at those who committed such crimes and those who pretended that it was not happening…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Tony Blair Must Take Some Blame for Rotherham Scandal
By Virginia Blackburn
ON AND on it goes, each detail more ghastly than the last as the tale emerges of men of Pakistani origin abusing white children in Rotherham.
It is a dreadful, shameful, horrifying saga with those poor girls let down by absolutely everyone who should have been looking after them (with the exception of some of their parents, some of whom ended up getting arrested as a result of trying to protect their young).
And yes the police and social services have a lot to answer for but before we go tipping the bucket of opprobrium over them wholesale just remember the climate they were working in.
For if there is one person’s policies that are responsible for what happened to those girls it is Tony Blair’s. It was Blair and his cohorts who decided to change the face of Britain without bothering to mention it to the rest of us and they most certainly succeeded…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Fight Against Intolerance Begins at Home
By Eric Pickles
Britain has a duty to oppose religious and political extremism — be it the English Defence League or the supporters of jihad — in every corner of the land
This summer, we have seen Christians being systematically persecuted and murdered in the Middle East; anti-Semitic attacks and protests soaring in response to the Israeli government’s intervention in Gaza; institutionalised political correctness leading to appalling sexual abuse against children by Pakistani Muslims; and murders carried out by Isil terrorists who may have included Britons indoctrinated to preach evil at home and enact it abroad…
Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP is Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, including responsibility for faith
[Reader comment by Joe Long on 5 September 2014.]
A truly sickening piece, our girls have been groomed, raped, trafficked and pimped on an industrial scale by Pakistani gangs. What exactly did the well padded Pickles do about it?
The EDL have done everything they could to oppose and make this horror public. Let’s take a simple stat, Rotherham — Pakistani population 8000, out of total 250000; 1400 victims — overwhelmingly the victims of Pakistanis; so obviously there is widespread “community” participation; and there is a conspiracy of silence, there has been no co-operation from these people at all.
And yet it is the EDL who are “thugs”, it is deeply depressing that Telegraph posters parrot this state propaganda.
Tommy Robinson is the bravest man in England; following his latest political trial and sentence the parole condition is that he has no EDL contact, what’s that to do with “mortgage fraud”?
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Woman Beheaded in London: New Details Emerge
A woman has been beheaded in at a house in north London, with witnesses reporting that a man then went “on the loose with a machete”.
At a press conference at 1730 BST Commander Simon Letchford said police were called at 1307 today after a man had been seen attacking a ‘dog or cat’, and later seen attacking a car. When police arrived on the scene they found a woman in a garden who was declared dead at the scene…
[Reader comment by barbican on 4 September 2014.]
The 82 year old victim is a woman of Italian origin.
The perpetrator is a 25 year old Afghani who was seen walking down the street beheading a small animal, thought to be a cat.
[JP note: The first part of barbican’s comment has been corroborated in the Daily Mail’s report, but the second part is as yet difficult to establish. Other reports suggest he was ‘black.’]
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Woman Beheaded ‘With Machete’ In North London Garden
Palmira Silva was decapitated at her home in Edmonton in an indiscriminate rampage before armed police subdued her ‘crazed’ attacker
An 82-year-old woman was beheaded in a north London garden after a crazed attacker went beserk with a machete.
Pensioner Palmira Silva was decapitated at her house in Edmonton in broad daylight in an apparent frenzied assault by a 25-year-old man who randomly targeted victims.
The horror scene unfolded as terrified eye witnesses saw the man, who was wielding a foot long blade, attack a passing vehicle and a cat before roaming back gardens for a victim.
Police believe the man also tried to attack two people at another address in Nightingale Road but there were able to escape without injury.
The man was arrested after armed police, who had distracted him to avoid other attacks, cornered him in a house and Tasered him, during which some officers were injured.
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Ms Silva was pronounced dead at the scene.
One line of inquiry for detectives is now understood to be whether the man had been inspired by recent footage of the Isil beheadings of two US journalists in Syria.
Locals last night claimed the arrested man had converted to Islam last year.
However, detectives said they had ruled out terrorism as a motive for the killing.
Eye witnesses described a dramatic operation by police called to the scene in which officers were smashing windows of neighbouring properties lift screaming children and terrified residents to safety.
One neighbour told of her narrow escape and that she believed the attacker was a local man.
Catering worker Freda Odame, 30, said she heard a commotion and pulled back her curtains and saw a black man aged in his mid 20s.
“Someone was shouting and the door was banging. I could hear the screaming but I could not hear what he was saying,” she said.
“I could see that he had a big curved knife, about the size of an arm’s length and he was crouching as if frantically searching for something.
“He had a crazed look in his eyes so I closed my curtains because I was scared. My next door neighbour was in his garden but did not seem to realise anything was going on.
“I have seen him around here all the time, I think he lives on the road, He has a grey car and I think he lives with his family.
“I was just so very scared. Five minutes after I heard him screaming the police knocked on my door and told me I had to get out.”…
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
White Children Will be Minority in UK Classrooms by 2037
31 August 2014: White children will be in the minority in England’s state schools by 2037, if current population trends continue. The Sunday Times is reporting that official figures from the Department of Education show that the number of school children of non-British ethnicity rose by 61 percent in the decade to January 2014, but during the same period, the proportion of white British pupils fell by almost 12 percent.
In terms of absolute numbers, this meant that there were 1.83m children of non-British ethnicity, including those of Asian, black and white non-British heritage, in British schools in January 2014, up from 1.14m in 2004. … The largest ethnic minority in British schools today are children of Asian heritage, of which there are nearly 670,000 pupils. The next two largest groups are black children and white non-British children, both represented by nearly 360,000 pupils each. There are also 320,000 mixed race children.
The fastest growing group are the white non-British, whose numbers have more than doubled per the last decade thanks to an open borders policy with eastern European countries. The figures are of concern because some claim that educational policies designed to support pupils of ethnic minority backgrounds are undermining the performance of white working class British children.
“The white working-class population is massively underperforming. We are neglecting the white working class, and do so at our peril.” Said Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education. … White working class pupils were also noted to be one of two ethnic groups who had the lowest self-confidence and the lowest aspirations.
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Ancient Egypt: Djoser — World’s Oldest Pyramid ‘Ruined’ By Restorers
4 September 2014: Activists are angry with Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities, Mamdouh Eldamaty, for choosing to re-hire a company to restore one of Egypt’s oldest pyramids after the firm caused damage and major deterioration to the structure while trying to repair it.
According to the Non-Stop Robberies movement, the famous Step Pyramid of Djoser, located in the Saqqara necropolis, sustained serious damage while being restored by a company called Shurbagy. This led to major deterioration and the collapse of a section of the pyramid. … “New walls were built outside the pyramid as if the pyramid were a modern construction, which is opposite to international standards of restoration, which prevents adding more than 5% of construction to antiquities if necessary.
“Adding the modern construction is a large pressure on the decaying pyramid, which threatens catastrophe.”
The activists say that in addition to causing great damage to the famous monument, the company has no experience in restoring archaeological sites.
Shurbagy had been contracted to provide construction work on six archaeological projects, and according to Gamal all of its previous work on these jobs is now under investigation. … The pyramid has undergone many restoration projects after an earthquake struck in 1992, leaving a giant dome-shaped hole in the roof and rendering it unstable.
In 2011, a British team began the task of bringing the structure back to its former glory by inflating a giant water-balloon style support in its chambers to hold the ceiling up. However, the restoration ground to a halt in 2012 following issues with funding.
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Jihadists Behind Sinai Attack, 11 Soldiers Killed
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, SEPTEMBER 4 — Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a jihadist group operating in the Egyptian Sinai, on Thursday claimed responsibility for an attack on soldiers two days before. The attack near Rafah killed 11 Egyptian soldiers when a bomb exploded as their armored vehicle was passing by.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Path to Jihad: From Upscale Cairo to Islamic State Beheadings
After leaving his upscale Cairo neighbourhood to fight with the Islamic State militant group in Syria and Iraq, Younes says he learned how to work as a sniper, fire heavy weaponry and behead prisoners using the proper technique.
One year later he harbours the kind of ambition that could create a security nightmare for Egyptian authorities: to return home and hoist the Islamic State’s black flag in Egypt as his comrades have over large swathes of Iraq and Syria.
Eventually, says Younes, he and other Egyptian fighters in Islamic State intend to topple Egypt’s government and extend their caliphate to the biggest Arab nation.
“We will not be able to change the situation in Egypt from inside, but Egypt is to be opened from abroad,” Younes, who asked that his last name be withheld, told Reuters in an interview conducted by Facebook.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Establishment of the Islamic State of Libya (ISL) Is Imminent
4 September 2014: The “paper” government and the “paper” assembly are now squatting in the coastal town Tobrouk, known for its airbase, with no power, no future prospects and no money. They have gone that far east to be close to Egypt to seek help to reconquer the country. Emboldened by these basic facts, the Islamists are planning, according to Libyan democratic sources, to declare, sooner than soon, their own Islamic state, and by so doing, join their Islamists brethern in Iraq, and Boko Haram in Nigeria. …
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia Seizes Arms, Munitions Along Libyan Border
Illicit dealings frequent in Ben Guerdane, more surveillance
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 3 — Tunisian customs officials on Wednesday seized 28 grenades, four RPGs and 6,000 cartridges found in a van bearing a Tunisian license plate on the Medenine-Ben Guerdane road. The driver and passenger have been arrested but neither their identities not their intended destination released. Ben Guerdane, in southern Tunisian, is the closest city to the Libyan border crossing Ras Jedir and is frequently the site of illicit trade and smuggling. Refugees from Libya often end up in Ben Guerdane, and 500 Syrian refugees are currently in the city as well. In recent weeks the government has placed the entire border area under the joint control of the police and the military.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: The Dilemma of the Jewish Leftist
During his yearlong captivity at the hands of the barbarians from Islamic State, Steven Sotloff’s colleagues in Israeli media organs purged all of his articles from their websites to erase his connections to Israel and hide the fact that he was an Israeli citizen.
So, too, every effort was made to hide the fact that he was Jewish.
The reason was clear. Given the genocidal Jew-hatred endemic in jihadist doctrine, it was obvious that if Sotloff’s Judaism was exposed, he would have been singled out for torture and execution.
Much has been written since Islamic State released the video of its British executioner chopping off James Foley’s head last month. We have been told by leaders and commentators alike that with this singular crime, Islamic State awakened the sleeping lion of the West. That act of barbarism, we have been assured, will now force the US to lead a global coalition against this Islamic army of butchers.
Clearly Islamic State is not convinced. With the release of the Sotloff beheading video this week, it appears that Islamic State thinks its cinematographers will move the West in another direction — apathy…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
‘Thousands’ Of ISIS Supporters Rally at Temple Mount in Jerusalem
4 September 2014: A gathering of thousands of Isis (now known as the Islamic State) supporters has taken place at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, according to local Israeli media.
The report by the Israeli television station Channel 10 (to be broadcast next week) added the gathering further demonstrated the terror group’s sights were firmly focused on Israel as a future target.
The rally, which took place on a recent Friday prayer session, was organised by the Tahrir party, described as the “Palestine branch” of IS. … In July, IS told the Palestinian people it was “only a matter of time” before they reach Palestine to join the fight against “barbaric Jews”. … Earlier this week, Israeli officials announced IS had been banned from the country and anyone associated with the group would face the full force of the law.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon signed the law that banned gatherings of organisations that were sympathetic or friendly with IS. …
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Bio-Warfare Expert: “ISIS Poses Potential Bio-Threat , But Not Yet Equal to AQ or Hezbollah”
Foreign Policy (FP) published an exclusive report on August 28th regarding the contents of a laptop captured in Syria from a Tunisian ISIS jihadi, “Mohammed S”, “Found: The Islamic State’s Terror Laptop of Doom.” Among the files on the laptop’s hard drive was a 19 page document allegedly providing details on plans to weaponize bubonic plague and use it as a mass casualty weapon. We contacted noted Bio-Warfare (BW) expert, Dr. Jill Bellamy to address the issues raised by the FP account. Our concerns were whether the Islamic State (IS), formerly ISIS, might have overrun Syrian BW research and dual-use pathogenic production facilities. Further, has IS, like Hezbollah and Al Qaeda, established a WMD directorate, and do they have the means of producing one or more of the so-called ‘Black Six’ pathogens[? See our 2007 and 2013 New English Review (NER) interviews with Dr. Bellamy on the Syrian BW Threat and Dr. Bellamy’s, The Biological Warfare Blog: Black Six. Bellamy conveyed the following observations: While IS’ alleged BW threat is provocative, given its financial resources, the reality is that both Al Qaeda (AQ) and Hezbollah have established credible BW programs, while IS’ capability is still unknown. Hezbollah’s programs are coordinated with both Syrian and Iranian BW programs, whose BW laboratories have successfully developed advanced synthetic pathogens that Western threat reduction agencies may not have the means of detecting. The likely priority targets in the latter cases might be the Jewish communities, particularly in Europe, according to Bellamy. She views as formidable Israel’s highly credible BW threat reduction capabilities, which she says are superior to anywhere else in the world.The greatest threat, according to Bellamy, is in the manufacture of synthetic BWs, for which there are few developed antidotes. In recent years, large strides have been made in biotechnology and genetic engineering that can facilitate the modification of BW agents to increase their toxicity, transmission, and lethality.
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Extremist Islamic Militants Kidnap 50 Men in Northern Iraq
KIRKUK, Iraq, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) — Militants of the Islamic State group on Thursday kidnapped 50 men from a village in Iraq’s northern province of Kirkuk, a provincial security source said.
The incident took place in the afternoon when Islamic State militants attacked the Sunni Arab village of Tal Ali, some 60 km southwest of the provincial capital city of Kirkuk, stormed houses in the village and kidnapped 50 male residents, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
According to the source quoting some witness saying that the Islamic State militants withdrew earlier from the village after the villagers expelled them and burned their flag, but they returned with forces and abducted the residents…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Refuses UN Nuclear Watchdog Access to Parchin Base
23 August 2014: Iran will not give UN nuclear inspectors access to a military base outside Tehran that they have been seeking to visit since 2005, Defence Minister Hossein Dehgan said on Saturday.
Dehgan’s comments, reported by the ISNA news agency, came just two days before a deadline for Iran to answer historic allegations of a military dimension to its nuclear research.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Yukiya Amano, who visited Tehran earlier this month, had said in June that access to the Parchin base was essential for the watchog to be able to certify Iran’s nuclear programme as peaceful.
The base lies at the centre of allegations of past Iranian research into sophisticated explosives that can be used to detonate a nuclear warhead.
In his June report, Amano said satellite photographs suggested that new research was also being carried out at the base this year. …
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Mar Sako warns that the displaced are increasingly suffering, at risk of “genocide” and deprived of “religious, human, moral and national values.” The international community and the Iraqi government must fight extremism. Christians also need to put aside the desire to emigrate and continue to be “leaven” of the earth. The struggle against the political use of religion starts with education.
Baghdad (AsiaNews) — A month since the militias of the Islamic state made their push, resulting in the mass exodus of Christians, Yezidis and other minorities, Mar Raphael I Louis Sako warns that the suffering of the displaced is increasing.
In a written appeal to AsiaNews, His Beatitude talks about the “genocide” of a people deprived of “religious, human, moral and national values”, which is “threat for all.” “>
As he said in the past, the Chaldean patriarch notes that “emigration” is not a solution because Christians should continue to be the “leaven” in the land of Iraq and messengers of “hope.”
Condemning the timidity shown so far by the international community (and the Iraqi government) vis-Ã -vis Islamist violence, Mar Sako stresses the importance of “raising our voice against the extremists and work to create a new mentality of living together [among] Shiites, Sunnis, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Christians and Yezidis in peace and harmony”.
For this reason, it is necessary to take “offensive action at the ideological level” in the Islamic world to stop the religious and financial legitimation of fundamentalism.
In addition to a peacekeeping force in Iraq and a UN commission of inquiry into Caliphate violence, the Chaldean Patriarch’s first proposal is to change the school and university curriculum.
“Only education,” he says, “can commence this transformation and build a society where equality amongst citizens succeeds. To guarantee a better coexistence it is imperative to create a civil society which respects every religion and does not politicize religions for its own benefit.
Here is the letter by the Chaldean Patriarch to AsiaNews:
A whole month passed after the plight of Iraqi Christians and Yazidis and other minorities, as if it was meant to be. The curtains have been drawn on the painful events, and 120.000 Christians are uprooted from their historical homeland because the Political Islam does not want them there, and the world is silent, standing still, either because it approves or because it is incapable of acting. This encourages ISIS (which has nothing to do with the ancient Egyptian goddess of nature and fertility ISIS) to move forward with its ferocious war against culture and diversity and threatening the intellectual and social security. The suffering of the displaced Christians and other minorities is mounting: their needs are escalating and their fears of an unknown future of their shocked children, seized towns, and looted houses keep them sleepless! These people were living in their hometowns in prosperity, pride and dignity; in the blink of an eye, they were ousted from their homes, terrified and fleeing on foot in search of a shelter. It is a scene that takes us back to the dark centuries of the past although it has become a horrific reality of our present civilization!
What these peaceful Christians and loyal citizens experienced is a real genocide, a sad ending, and a proof of the privation of the religious, human, moral, and national values. Therefore, it is a shameful stain in history. Everybody should know is a threat for all!
Few days ago we saw the 13-year-old girl on Ishtar satellite channel, screaming: “I want to go back to my own town, Qaraqosh. I am tired of this life here; I would rather die for it rather than living here in humiliation”. It’s a loud call to the conscience of the world!
The inability of the Iraqi State: What hurts us most is the inability of the machinery of the government to impose law and order in front of the on-going and significant deterioration of security, which fosters a culture of violence that provides the extremist groups a favorable locale to expand! In Baghdad, Christians and others are kidnapped in armored and shaded cars in broad daylight, and are threatened to leave their houses, and harassed in some schools and in some public offices where they hear spiteful words. Could these current barbarous behaviors be unleashed without any control or without a mechanism of re-education?
The people are suffering and the politicians are fighting for positions instead of being united to identify the causes that lead to extremism, violence and injustice, and to seek radical solutions before it is too late! Hopefully the new Prime Minister and the new Government would recognize this as their historical, national and moral responsibility!
Emigration: after being robbed of everything they had, including their official documents, and in the absence of an immediate solution along with the mistrust in the present authorities, the displaced Christians are faced with a pointless waiting for an unknown future. Therefore, many of them are in pursuit of a safe country in the West because in their country, the country of Manna and Quail, only disasters prevail. Emigration should be not a solution!
In order to preserve themselves from extinction, and to keep being the leaven, the Christians of Iraq must face the situation as it is, especially because they carry the message of hope by which they can keep aflame the spark of life. Active and lively Christian groups must move to construct the future, because the challenges of life are faced with courage rather than cowardice. They have to take decisive steps to put pressure on the decision-makers at home and abroad to ensure a life, free and safe, for them in their own Iraq. And here are some practical suggestions that, hopefully, our people wherever they are, will work on making them real:
– To form competent Christian organizations, both political and independent, with qualified staff who undertake permanent sessions of analyzing and studying situations and proposing solutions and apt plans to face the consequences arising both from present crisis and even from unforeseen!
– To create a Crisis Management Team (CMT) to prepare an accurate statistical record of the displaced families in order to claim compensation from the government for the damages and loss of properties, and to help specific cases with solutions and recommendations.
– To organize an Education Committee to keep track of the academic status and the figures of the displaced students and to ask the government of Kurdistan to host them in its schools and universities lest they lose their scholastic future taking into consideration that their number is considerably low.
– To request the UN and other sponsor countries to help constructing decent and suitable housing complexes for those who do not want to be back to their villages, instead of current inappropriate tents.
– To appeal the UN Security Council to form a United Nations peacekeeping force in collaboration with the Iraqi Security Forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga for liberating the Nineveh Plain and for providing adequate security which allows the displaced persons to return to their home villages where they lived for thousands of years.
– To establish local police force comprising the different components of the Nineveh Plain to protect the villages, as envisaged in the new law presented to the new government, which reassures social interaction among Christians and their fellow-citizens.
– To demand the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the human rights violations in Iraq by establishing a commission of inquiry into the atrocities and crimes committed by the so-called “Islamic state” and to bring to justice those responsible behind these “crimes against humanity”.
– We should not give up in raising our voice against the extremists and work to create a new mentality of living together Shiites, Sunnites, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Christians and Yezidis in peace and harmony, therefore we also have to take offensive action at the ideological level with Islamic world to stop the veneer of religious legitimacy and financing and sending militants. We urge the Central Iraqi Government and the Regional Government of Kurdistan to spread the culture of openness, diversity, plurality and equal in the face of a culture of extremism, elimination, marginalization and social backwardness along with a weak individual and collective consciousness of its deficiency. This can be achieved primarily by changing the school and university curriculum. Only education can commence this transformation and build a society where equality amongst citizens succeeds. To guarantee a better coexistence it is imperative to create a civil society which respects every religion and does not politicize religions for its own benefits.
*Louis Raphael Sako, patriarch and president of the Chaldean Bishops’ Conference
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Execute 14 Youngsters, Abduct Civilians in Iraq
Threat ‘goes well beyond Iraq’, German FM says
(ANSA) — Baghdad, September 4 — Islamic State militants have executed 14 young people in the northern Iraq city of Mosul in the latest episode of terrorist violence in the country, Iraqi news agency Nina said Thursday. The victims were sentenced to death by an Islamic court for alleged crimes that were not made known.
Following the execution their bodies were deposited at the local hospital morgue. Meanwhile local sources cited by France Press reported Thursday that dozens of civilians have been abducted from the village of Tal Ali near Kirkuk after they set fire to an ISIS flag and military post yesterday. The news came as German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned of the threat posed by the hardline militant group operating in Iraq and Syria, where it is attempting to put in place a Caliphate.
The group’s ideological demands “go well beyond current action in Iraq,” Steinmeier said, adding that Saudi Arabia and Jordan could be future targets. Also on Thursday, seven Iraqi soldiers were killed and a further 17 injured in a suicide car bombing just south of Tikrit as ISIS launched an offensive to take control of the road leading from the city on the Tigris river and Samarra 50 km further south.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS: Computer of Tunisian Jihadist Found in Syria
With instructions to make weapons. 2,400 fighters from Tunisia
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 3 — The laptop of a Tunisian fighter with ISIS has been found in Syria’s Idlib province in January this year, with impressive data on the fabrication of weapons. A recent article published by Foreign Policy said the computer was discovered in a building occupied by Syrian rebels in northern Syria, close to the Turkish border.
Over 146 GB of hidden files were found inside the laptop, for a total of 35,347 files with propaganda, manuals to make bombs and instructions to produce weapons, including biological ones.
The computer’s owner, a Tunisian national called “Mohammed S.”, is reportedly a “self-taught” jihadist. According to Foreign Policy, he became a member of ISIS after reading physics and chemistry at university in Tunisia.
Some 2,400 Tunisian militants are fighting in Syria, with the majority believed to have joined ISIS, Interior Minister Lofti Ben JEddou said last June. The government is concerned some could take advantage of the chaos in Libya to illegally return to Tunisia. A security plan has been approved by the interior ministry to prevent them from making their way back and border checks have been boosted, especially at the Ras Jedir crossing.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kuwait: 4 ‘Illegal: Secret’ Accounts Found in Awqaf Ministry
A committee formed by Deputy PM, Interior Minister and Acting Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Sheikh Mohammed Al-Khaled to investigate financial violations and unaudited expenses at the Awqaf Ministry recommended referring those already involved and the suspects to the Public Prosecution.
Sources said that the committee has discovered four illegal accounts that were not subjected to Audit Bureau or Finance Ministry’s supervision. “Those accounts were supervised by a small number of officials”, explained the sources, noting that according to the ministry staff interrogated, senior ministry officials had been urging merchants, rich people and major companies to donate to the ministry’s official account before they later redirect the money into the four secret accounts. “When auditors inquired about the money, the officials usually claimed that the money was spent on Islamic and sport activities, recreational excursions for winners of Quran competitions, holding seminars and workshops.
The sources also highlighted that one of the accounts was being used to support teachers and preachers at the central prison while another was used for unknown purposes. “KD 40,000 was deposited in one of those accounts last Ramadan and was never remitted to the ministry’s official accounts”, the sources said.
The investigating committee found out that many of the employees involved are Egyptians and that they have been sent home (on leaves) to avoid being questioned by the committee. —Al-Watan
| — Hat tip: RR | [Return to headlines] |
‘Sensitive Assets’: How Ports Are Advancing the GCC’s Strategic Interests
3 September 2014: The Gulf’s oil bonanza and resulting economic windfall has in recent years placed unprecedented burden on the region’s transport infrastructure, impacting its ability to trade efficiently with the outside world, … The six states have allocated billions of dollars to new cross-border transport projects, including ports, which link directly into new industrial parks and economic cities with the promise of long-term benefits. …
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Syria-Iraq: Steven Sotloff, A Jew Fascinated by Islam
U.S. will not be intimidated, justice will be served, Obama says
(ANSAmed) — NEW YORK — Steven Sotloff had travelled to the Middle East, attracted by the complexity of the region and the education he had received from his Jewish family, who had survived the Holocaust. Sotloff, 31, like the Catholic James Foley, the other US journalist beheaded by ISIS, belonged to one of the three confessions from the “cradle of civilization” in which cohabitation appears increasingly difficult.
Sotloff, who appears in a video posted by intelligence website SITE allegedly showing his beheading, came from an observant family. His mother Shirley, who teaches at the nursery school of the Pinecrest synagogue, in a Miami suburb, is determined to preserve the memory of the Holocaust because her parents were survivors, according to her temple’s biography. Religion played a role in the education of a young man with a passion for sports and journalism, but not in his political beliefs. After images of the reporter wearing an orange jumpsuit were published following Foley’s barbaric beheading by ISIS, Sotloff’s colleague Anne Marlowe wrote on Twitter that he was fascinated by the Islamic world and was fluent in Arabic and this was why he was under threat of becoming the next victim of a beheading.
Sotloff was born and raised in Florida. Before his abduction, he had worked as a freelancer, reporting from Syria, Egypt, Libya, Turkey and Bahrain for Time, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Affairs and the World Affairs Journal.
His abduction, according to other colleagues, was a tragic consequence of a twist of fate: he was allegedly kidnapped because he had chosen as a local “guide” to take him into Syria someone whose identity had been “burned” by another foreign reporter who also wanted to cross the border from Turkey into the war-torn country but who was inexperienced.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian Troops Foil Rebel Attack in Swaida Province
DAMASCUS, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) — The Syrian troops on Thursday thwarted an attempt by the rebels to infiltrate a pro-government village in the southern province of Swaida, killing four of them, according to the state-news agency SANA.
The rebels attempted to infiltrate the village of Dama, some 29 kilometers northwest of Swaida, came a couple of weeks after the Syrian forces backed by National Defense Forces (NDF) managed to dislodge the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front rebels from the village after controlling it for three days.
The Nusra fighters stormed the village last month, putting houses on fire, and killing women and children to subdue the locals there and instill fear in their hearts…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
By Dr Hassan Jouhar
The US administration is either extremely stupid and contradictory or is about to impose another satanic political plot in the region. Either way, it is the Arab peoples who are going to pay a dear price. The US is working on creating an international alliance to fight IS under a Security Council umbrella though IS is just a terrorist group that does not represent any country or government.
Many countries, including UK, France, Italy, Canada and Australia immediately responded to US orders in this regard and the offensives will all be staged in Iraq and Syria, which is the bottom line of the whole thing.
The US was one of the countries that supported armed terrorist groups in Syria for four years providing them with financial, logistic and armament support that directly and systematically pours in by Washington’s regional allies, namely from Turkey, Jordan and some GCC states.
On the other hand, these groups grew and commenced their terrorist activity in Iraq in the presence of US troops. Washington’s decision to dissolve the Iraqi army made some of its generals turn into a nucleus for the IS ‘army’.
This organization’s political and religious icons were those arrested by the Americans and the Iraqi government to be later on released in deals and under clear political pressure to start a series of US-supervised meetings with these organizations in Turkey and Jordan.
US Vice President Joe Biden clearly spoke about the US strategy to divide Iraq and oust the Syrian regime. And in just four years, IS turned into a richly-financed military force claiming to get such funds from oil they manage to smuggle from Iraqi and Syrian oilfields and export it to Europe and the US through Turkey despite the great experience the US and its European allies have in imposing economic sanctions and boycotts as well as monitoring banks and accounts in their own home countries and the US capability to tap even the most secure telephones and Internet used by heads of states and governments.
All of a sudden, the US government wants to fight IS and impose economic sanctions on it, and all of a sudden, British and French leaders announce that IS affiliates might be present on London and Paris streets! If the West is sincere in launching war against IS terrorism, why don’t they hold a press conference to declare information about countries and individuals who have been funding those terrorists, arming them and facilitating their entry through borders from Central Asia to Morocco, and who has been buying the oil they stole if the target was really launching a global war on terrorism?!
What is the secret behind the US’ secret operations in Syria?
Do American fighters really target and strike IS positions or just take advantage to strike Syrian army positions to continue the plan set by the Obama administration two years ago?
What is the secret behind quickly and intensively arming the Kurdish peshmergas for free while a $6-billion weapons deal for the Iraqi army was stalled though the amount had been paid in full years ago?!
—Translated by Kuwait Times from Al-Jarida
| — Hat tip: RR | [Return to headlines] |
Despite Risks, Residents Trickle Back to Besieged Ukrainian City
(Reuters) — University lecturer Olga queued for 40 minutes in a line of cars at a roadblock outside Donetsk on Thursday as she made her way home to the besieged rebel-held city in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian forces have not stopped shelling parts of the city at the heart of a separatist rebellion against Kiev but, three weeks after she fled, Olga believes it has become safer there because the main fighting has moved south…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Moscow Blames NATO for Allegedly Taking Advantage of Ukraine Crisis
MOSCOW, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) — NATO attempts to use the Ukraine conflict to divert public attention from worsening economic situation in Europe, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Thursday.
“I’m convinced that NATO has been very glad that the current events in Ukraine lead to new tension in relations with Russia,” Rogozin wrote on his Twitter account…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Napolitano Calls for Continued ‘Dialogue’ With Russia
President ‘hoping’ for pact between Moscow, Ukraine
(ANSA) — Rome, September 3 — Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Wednesday called for further dialogue with Russia on the situation in the Ukraine.
Napolitano said he felt “great appreciation” for the steps taken earlier in the day by Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine.
“We are hoping that this dialogue will open the road to the revival of the cooperation between the European Union and Russia now in severe crisis,” the president said in a statement.
Poroshenko and Putin reportedly reached an agreement on the steps necessary to reach a ceasefire between Ukraine authorities and pro-Russian rebels in the country.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
NATO Exercise Not Against Russia Says Pinotti
‘Not aimed at putting pressure on Moscow’
(ANSA) — Rome, September 3 — NATO’s Rapid Trident exercise in western Ukraine on September 16-26 including Italian troops is not meant to put pressure on Moscow as pro-Russia rebels fight Kiev in the east of the country, Italian Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti told a joint session of the House and Senate foreign and defence committees Wednesday.
The decision to go ahead with the exercise is seen as a sign of the commitment of NATO states to support non-NATO member Ukraine while stopping well short of military intervention in the conflict.
The annual exercise, to take place in the Yavoriv training center near Ukraine’s border with Poland, was initially scheduled for July, but was put back because early planning was disrupted by the crisis in the eastern part of the country. NATO stepped up military activity in its eastern member states after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March, and is expected to agree at a summit in Wales this week to create a new rapid reaction force of several thousand troops. In addition to staging air force exercises, the United States is moving tanks and 600 troops to Poland and the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania for joint maneuvers in October, replacing a more lightly armed force of paratroopers. But Rapid Trident will entail the first significant deployment of US and other personnel to Ukraine since the crisis erupted.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
‘Russian Embargo Costing Italy 200 Mn a Year’ Says Minister
Food and agriculture exports to Russia down, Martina tells EP
(ANSA) — Brussels, September 3 — Russia’s embargo on European food and agriculture products is costing Italy an estimated 200 million euros a year, Agriculture Minister Maurizio Martina told the European Parliament on Wednesday.
Russia applied the embargo in early August, after the EU imposed sanctions in response to its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in March.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Ukraine and Rebel Representatives Agree to Cease-Fire
Ukrainian government forces and the pro-Russan separatist rebels fighting them in eastern Ukraine will observe a cease-fire starting Friday, negotiators from all sides announced at a news conference in Minsk, Belarus.
However, the strength of the truce was immediately called into question by continued fighting around Mariupol, a port city in southeastern Ukraine.
Speaking from Minsk, negotiators representing the Ukrainian government, the separatists, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said that the cease-fire was due to come into force at 6 p.m. local time.
| [Return to headlines] |
Al Qaeda Expanding to India to ‘Wage Jihad’ And ‘Liberate Its Land’
Al Qaeda terrorists say they’re expanding operations, and will soon open a new branch in India “to liberate its land,” they said.
In a video, al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri said his group’s mission is to “wage jihad against its enemies, to liberate its land, to restore its sovereignty and to revive its caliphate,” CNN reported.
Mr. Al-Zawahiri also announced he will try and gather support “for the vulnerable” in Myanmar and Bangladesh and in other regions that are subjected to territorial disputes between India and Pakistan. He called for a widespread “rescue” of residents in India from what he described was “injustice, oppression, persecution and suffering,” CNN reported.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Punjab: After a Christian Man is Falsely Accused of Blasphemy, His Family Flees
This morning, a court turned down his request for release on bail and remanded him in police custody. A Muslim accused him of offending Islam after the two discussed the Bible and the Qur’an. Now his family is hiding in fear. For Lahore priest, the charges are false and the accused was duped.
Islamabad (AsiaNews) — This morning, a Pakistani court rejected a request for bail by a 60-year-old Christian man and remanded him in custody. Although he was accused of blasphemy, he is innocent of breaking any law.
Activists and civil society groups have called for his release, so far in vain. In the meantime, his family has had to flee their village for fear of retaliation as often happens when a relative is charged under Pakistan’s “black law”.
Naja Masih, a cleaner in a school for the blind in Bahawalpur, Punjab province, was arrested last month after he was accused of blasphemy under Article 295 A of the Pakistan Penal Code.
“>According to the plaintiff, a Muslim barber named Shahid Mehmood, he insulted Islam and the Qur’an.
According to local witnesses, the Christian man and his accuser talked about religion on 23 August, comparing the Qur’an and the Bible. Unaware of the blasphemy laws, Mr Masih spoke about the prophet Lot, which led to the charges of offending Islam.
After the Muslim barber filed a complaint against him with police, he was arrested and brought to a secret location, without notifying family members, before any investigation was carried out.
His wife Nargis Bibi, and their children — Yaqoob, 30; Ashraf, 28; Anwar, 26; and Sunny, 24 — tried to get in touch with the right authorities to get information, but got nowhere. Meanwhile, they were forced to leave their home and village and are now in hiding for fear of attacks or violence by local Muslims.
After several days, his wife was finally able to meet him. He is “devastated,” she said, still unaware of what had happened and why he was in prison. “We have done nothing. We pray that someone will help us,” Nargis said.
Speaking to AsiaNews, Fr Yaqoob John, a priest with the Archdiocese of Lahore active in blasphemy cases, said that “Our sources have confirmed that the accusations are false” and that Masih was “duped”.
For the clergyman, the authorities should intervene and ensure “the safety of this family”. He also called on people to pray for those who are persecuted “for their faith.”
With a population of more than 180 million people (97 per cent Muslim), Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world, the second largest Muslim nation after Indonesia.
About 80 per cent of Muslims are Sunni, whilst Shias are 20 per cent. Hindus are 1.85 per cent, followed by Christians (1.6 per cent) and Sikhs (0.04 per cent).
Scores of violent incidents have occurred in recent years, against entire communities (Gojra in 2009, and Joseph Colony, Lahore, in March 2013), places of worship (Peshawar, September last year) and individuals (Sawan Masih, Asia Bibi, Rimsha Masih and Robert Fanish Masih, who died in prison), often perpetrated under the pretext of the country’s blasphemy laws.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Raids, Bibles Confiscated, Expulsions: The “Continuous Persecution” of Christians in Uzbekistan
In mid-August, in the central region of Navoi, the police raided the house of a Baptist pastor. Earlier, the police had targeted a Protestant. In late July a raid against Jehovah’s Witnesses and a group of Baptists gathered for a summer camp.
Tashkent (AsiaNews / F18) — Violations of religious freedom continue unabated in Uzbekistan, where local authorities target faithful gathered in prayer meetings or in private, confiscating books — including Bibles and Gospels — and placing restrictions on freedom of movement. The raids take place inside private homes, without a warrant, and target both state registered communities as well as individual believers.
The new website Forum18, committed to documenting violations of religious freedom in Central Asia, reports that the latest cases occurred in August and targeted Christian families. The police confiscated personal information, religious material and other items useful to identify their religious affiliation and practice of worship.
In mid-August in the central region of Navoi, a dozen police officers and other officials — without warrant — broke into the home of a Baptist pastor, who was leading a prayer meeting with some family members. Police confiscated religious materials and expelled two faithful from Russia, as well as the man’s mother, from the country. The elderly lady however lives in Israel and is not a member of any church.
Local sources said that the authorities will bring charges against the small group of Christians; in all likelihood they will be sentenced to pay a fine. The police operation comes under the infamous law passed earlier this year by Tashkent, which strengthens censorship and controls on religious texts and which came into force on 15 August.
In addition, at the beginning of last month in Chirchik (Tashkent region), at least 15 policemen raided the house of a Protestant pastor while the man, together with his children and some friends were playing volleyball. The police seized all the religious material and other properties. Friends of the family were tracked down and brought to the police station where they were interrogated at length.
Another episode took place in the north-western region of Khorezm where police “perfectly fabricated” an accusation against a Protestant Christian, guilty of “sharing” his faith with a family member and another person. In late July, on two different occasions the authorities targeted some Jehovah’s Witnesses in eastern Namangan and a Baptist church summer camp in Tashkent.
In a country where about 88 per cent of the population is Sunni Muslim with 8 per cent Christians, religious freedom is under tight government controls. Although only the possession of religious literature that is extremist in nature and incites “religious hatred” is deemed illegal, the judiciary often destroys material seized in homes after receiving “opinion” from “experts” for whom any book about religion is extremist.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Taliban Hit Afghan Government HQ in East, Kill 12
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban struck a government compound in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday in a dawn attack that included two suicide truck bombings and left at least 12 people dead, including eight off duty policemen asleep in their quarters nearby.
The assault followed a stark message from the Taliban to world leaders gathered at a NATO summit in Wales, which will also discuss the drawdown of the alliance’s mission in Afghanistan…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
3 Killed, 3 Hurt in S. Philippine Ambush
MANILA, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) — Three people were killed while three others were injured in an ambush staged by a group of armed men in southern Philippines, a military official said Thursday.
Major Dante Gania, public affairs officer of the Philippine Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said around eight armed men ambushed the group of a certain Sanal Datumanong Torayas at Tacub village, Malabang town in Lanao del Sur province at 6:35 p.m. Tuesday.
Gania said the victims were on their way to their farm when they were waylaid by the suspects led by a certain Luminog Ali, alias Orak Orak…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Philippine Gov’t Condemns Beheading of Militiaman in S. Philippines
MANILA, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) — The Philippine government condemned on Thursday the beheading of a paramilitary man in the southern Philippine province of Basilan.
Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma, Jr. said Philippine authorities have already launched an investigation into the incident.
“We will not tolerate such incident. This is now being thoroughly being investigated by our authorities,” Coloma said in a news briefing in Malacanang, the presidential palace.
The victim, Hadji Aldam, was a member of the Special Civilian Armed Auxiliary. He was allegedly beheaded by the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf Group in Basilan province…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
He’s [Zaky Mallah] Been Jailed for Terrorism in Australia …
Australian Zaky Mallah, the first person charged with terrorism in Australia, is hoping to be signed up to fight with a Ukrainian military unit which is recruiting Australians and ‘all foreign volunteers’ to join a revolution fighting the Russians in the war-torn Eastern European country.
The Asov Battalion — which Sydney man Mr Mallah, who was jailed in maximum security for two years before being acquitted of terrorism charges, has applied to join — has set up a Facebook page in its recruitment drive for men to join for a minimum two months…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Police Fear Fire May Have Been Deliberate
John O’Brien had left for work at 3am on Thursday, leaving his wife Bianka and one-year-old son Jude asleep in their apartment above a Rozelle convenience store. In the flat across the hall was their neighbour, Chris Noble.
Mr O’Brien returned home after hearing a large explosion and fire had ripped through his street, fearing the worst. And within hours, police confirmed the trio were unaccounted for, as the building crumbled in a series of smaller explosions after the initial blast that rocked Sydney’s inner west. Police now fear it was deliberately lit…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Blood Transfusions From Survivors Best Way to Fight Ebola
A panel of experts from the World Health Organization says blood plasma and whole blood transfusions should have priority—for now.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Bodies ‘Litter’ Nigeria Town After Boko Haram Capture
Bama key to battle for control of Borno state
(ANSA) — Rome, September 4 — Bodies remain littered on the streets of a northern Nigerian town two days after it was seized by militant Islamists, a lawmaker told the BBC Thursday.
Boko Haram fighters were patrolling the streets of Bama, preventing people from burying the dead, Ahmed Zanna said. On Wednesday the state government denied the town had fallen. Officials said about 26,000 people had been displaced by fighting in Bama, a key town in the battle for control of Nigeria’s north-eastern Borno state.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Finn Aims to be First Female President of Somalia
A Finn of Somali origin wants to run as a candidate in the Somali presidential election in 2016. Fadumo Dayib is currently studying public administration at Harvard, but she thinks that Somalia is now ready for a female president.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Dalai Lama Pulls Out of SA Trip Amid Visa Row
Tibetan leader planned Cape Town meet with peace laureates
(ANSA) — Rome, September 4 — The Dalai Lama has pulled out of a trip to South Africa amid claims he was going to be denied a visa to please China.
The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, seen by Beijing as a dangerous separatist leader, scrubbed plans to attend a meeting of fellow Nobel peace laureates in Cape Town next month.
He withdrew his visa application after his officials said it would be denied.
The South African government has denied blocking the visa under pressure from China, a key trading partner.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Militant Leader Was Killed in U.S. Strike in Somalia, Pentagon Confirms
The American airstrikes on Monday against the Shabab, the Qaeda-linked militant network in Somalia, succeeded in killing the group’s leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane, the Pentagon announced Friday.
“We have confirmed that Ahmed Godane, the co-founder of al-Shabab, has been killed,” the Pentagon press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby, said in a statement.
He called the death of Mr. Godane “a major symbolic and operational loss” to the Shabab.
| [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Boko Haram Captures Another Border Town, Banki, In Borno
By Ndahi Marama
MAIDUGURI — Twenty four hours after Boko Haram insurgents attacked Bama town in Borno state, the sect members yesterday, in a convoy of Toyota Hilux vehicles and motorcycles took over another border town of Banki, after killing unconfirmed number of residents, as others fled to Cameroon…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Somalia Offers Al-Shabab Amnesty Amid Uncertainty on Leader
Ahmed Abdi Godane may have been killed
(ANSA) — Rome, September 3 — Somalia on Wednesday offered an amnesty to Islamist group al-Shabab amid uncertainty over whether its leader survived a US air strike. The militants would be reintegrated into society if they surrendered over the next 45 days, a statement said.
The offer seems to be an attempt to exploit the vulnerability of al-Shabab following the air strike, analysts say. Al-Shabab has refused to say whether its leader Ahmed Abdi Godane survived.
The strike took place on Monday as Godane was travelling in a convoy in southern Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
West Africa: Failures in the Fight Against Ebola
By Peter Hille
The world seems to be losing the battle against Ebola. Who is to blame? Critics say the international community is not doing enough to curb the disease…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Argentina: Earth-Shaking Dinosaur Discovered
59-tonne behemoth was probably one of the largest land animals ever.
A newly identified species of supermassive dinosaur might have been one of the largest creatures ever to walk on land, suggests a study published on 4 September in Scientific Reports.
Well-preserved bones of the species, Dreadnoughtus schrani, were excavated in southern Argentina between 2005—09. The animal is a titanosaur, one in a typically hefty subgroup of the long-necked, plant-eating dinosaurs known as sauropods.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A ferry bound for Britain has been stormed by up to 250 illegal immigrants who tried to force their way on board the vessel at the French port of Calais.
Witnesses said security staff were forced to turn a fire hose on the crowds as they attempted to overpower officials and machine-gun wielding police by climbing over fences and running up the main ramp into the ferry’s vehicle hold.
The shocking incident took place yesterday afternoon, with P&O Ferries confirming that a ‘huge intrusion’ had occurred.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg condemned a threat from the mayor of Calais threatened to blockade the port unless Britain pays out to compensate locals for the money spent controlling large and unsanitary immigrant camps in the area.
Natacha Bouchart says locals have been ‘taken hostage’ by about 1,500 migrants who hope to cross into the UK because they see it as ‘an Eldorado’ with a lax attitude towards immigration.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: BBC Footage Shows Migrants Scaling Calais Fence
Migrants in Calais have been filmed scaling a 5m high (16ft) security fence to board lorries bound for Britain.
On Wednesday, scores of men tried to force their way on to a ferry bound for England, by running up the ramp. Amateur footage shows people running from police…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
France: Calais Chaos: Now Hundreds of Illegal Immigrants Try to Storm Ferries
HUNDREDS of illegal immigrants tried to force their way onto ferries bound for Dover yesterday afternoon.
Around 85 migrants are said to have attempted to storm a P&O ship by running up the main ramp. But the crew are reported to have raised the ramp and blasted a fire hose at the desperate foreigners. The immigrants had forced their way through a gate, climbed over fences and overpowered security staff…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
France: Calais Gets Police Reinforcement to Stop Migrants’ Bids to Board Ferries
34 officers sent to French port town after migrants push their way through gate and climb fences in attempt to board vessel
Police reinforcements are being sent to the embattled port of Calais in an attempt to prevent increasingly desperate attempts by migrants to gain access to the UK.
An extra 34 officers will be sent to the town, which yesterday saw close to a hundred migrants try to storm a ferry leaving for Dover, the local préfet (prefect) confirmed on Thursday…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
France: Calais to Get More Cops After Migrants Storm Port
France is sending several dozen riot police to protect the Port of Calais after hundreds of migrants forced their way into the facility in a desperate effort to get onto a UK-bound ferry.
At least 34 additional riot police will be posted at the port for the next 10 days in response to the hundreds of migrants who overwhelmed security forces and tried to push their way onto UK-bound ferries on Wednesday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Calais Migrants Hold Demo as Far-Right Closes in
Migrants in Calais hoping to make their way to England are holding a demonstration calling for more protection from the police today, as far-right groups plan to protest their presence this weekend.
They claim to have experienced an increase in the number of physical attacks by French police in the past week and say that they have no confidence that they will protect them when an anti-immigration group marches in Calais on Sunday…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Requests EU Money for Migrant Surge
Greece on Thursday requested €63 million from the EU in emergency funding to help it manage a sharp rise in the number of migrants fleeing wars, persecution, and poverty, reports AFP. “The situation has reached a dangerous level,” said Greek Minister for Mercantile Marine, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Venice Film Fest to Screen Film Defying Fortess Europe
Beach ceremony for ‘Io Sto con la Sposa’, release on 9/10
(ANSAmed) — VENICE — The three directors and the protagonists of the film ‘Io Sto con la Sposa’, at an out-of-competition screening on Thursday, will be holding a beach procession on Thursday to commemorate those who have died fleeing conflict while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea. At the Excelsior beach, participants will write down a few lines in memory of those who have died. The slips of paper will then be put into a bottle and thrown out to sea — which some of them crossed in the attempt to defy ‘Fortress Europe’. An announcement was made on Wednesday that film would come out in cinemas on October 9. The story is one of a fake nuptial procession staged by three visionary and courageous directors — Antonio Augugliaro, Gabriele del Grande, and Khaled Soliman Al Nassiry — to help five Palestinians and Syrians who fled conflict and landed on Lampedusa to continue their undocumented journey across Europe. From Italy to Sweden, through a carefree Europe with a sense of solidarity that scoffs at border control with a facade that has more than a touch of the unbelievable in it, but which actually occurred on the way from Milan to Stockholm between November 14 and November 18, 2013. If a criminal complaint is filed against the directors, they could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison for aiding and abetting undocumented migration: ‘Io Sto con la Sposa’ is not only a documentary, it is also an act of civil disobedience. “We are tired of dividing human beings into ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ ones. And we are tired of counting those who have died trying to cross the sea. They are not victims of a storm, they are the victims of European laws — ones that the time has come to disobey in order to reaffirm the principle of the right to move freely,” said Gabriele Del Grande, who founded the observatory Fortress Europe a few years ago, which gathers stories and photos of the thousands of migrants arriving dead or alive on the coasts of Europe’s borders.
“When you see people from your country coming and you know that they are fleeing war…,” added the Syrian poet and refugee in Milan Khaled Soliman Al Nassiry, “you feel that you are doing the right thing. Helping even a single person to get out of that sea awash in blood makes you feel you are on the right side.” The result is a film that does not speak about ‘others’, it speaks about ‘us’: a story of a Mediterranean friendship that ends up talking about borders using an entirely different vocabulary. “We sought out a new angle to look at it,” said Antonio Augugliaro, “without seeing people simply as victims or commiserating with them. The film is first and foremost a story that seems an adventure, a dream, and a mask at the same time,” with a style that one might say resembles that of a Kusturica film, albeit an almost volunteer one on a very low budget. This may be why ‘Io Sto con la Sposa’ has been spoken about online for months, since a crowdfunding campaign was initiated on May 19. In only 60 days a record-high 100,000 euros were raised, donated by 2,617 producers — the highest amount ever raised in this way in the Italian film world and one of the highest worldwide for documentary films. “It was an extraordinary, innovative process, an entirely new productive process,” said Marco Visalberghi from DocLab, an associate producer of the film — which was produced by Gina Films — and the producer of ‘Sacro GRA’, the Italian film that won a Golden Lion last year at the Venice Film Festival.
“We got out of the ever-narrower cage of financing and television programming, creating a direct relationship with a community of financiers, and ended up bringing the film to the attention of the world and broadcasters.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Three Confirmed TB Cases’ Says Consap Police Union
Union announces class-action suit against interior ministry
(ANSA) — Palermo, September 4 — Consap police union announced Thursday it is filing a class-action suit against the interior ministry after 40 policemen working with recently arrived immigrants tested positive for TB.
There are also three confirmed cases of TB infection, one each in the cities of Bologna, Ferrara, and Terni, the union said.
There is a difference between TB infection and TB disease.
Testing positive means the person has been exposed to TB bacteria and must be treated.
If left untreated, the infection may develop into the full-blown disease, usually in people with low immune systems.
When a person has active TB disease, the individual may be contagious to others, particularly those with whom they spend the most time.
“Semantic differences between positivity and infectiousness certainly do not reassure the almost 50,000 fellow officers who work with (recent) migrants,” Consap said. Opposition politician Beppe Grillo earlier this week accused the government of “re-importing TB” into Italy and suggested new arrivals — many of them from Africa and the Middle East — should be quarantined “as our forefathers were on Ellis Island” in New York.
He then sparked accusations of racism when he posted a picture of Interior Minister Angelino Alfano in blackface in a criticism of the government’s migration policy.
Italy launched its Mare Nostrum rescue operation in October 2013 after the deaths of 400 migrants in two boat disasters in the seas off southern Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Libya’s Boat People, And Italy’s Tragic Folly
By Nicholas Farrell
The ‘mare nostrum’ policy has acted as a magnet for boat people; the crisis is only growing
The next time you eat a fish from the Mediterranean, just remember that it may well have eaten a corpse. As the Italian author Aldo Busi told the press just the other day: ‘I don’t buy fish from the Mediterranean any more for fear of eating Libyans, Somalis, Syrians and Iraqis. I’m not a cannibal and so now I stick with farmed fish, or else Atlantic cod.’ Personally, I prefer my fish natural, fattened on drowned human flesh, but there you go. I take the point…
| — Hat tip: JP | [Return to headlines] |
Refugees Protest Against ‘Monotonous’ Italian Food
27 August 2014: … For two days, a group of about 40 asylum-seekers staying at a refugee centre in the Veneto province of Belluno refused to eat the “pasta with tomato sauce, bread and eggs” meals they were given and called to be fed food from their own countries, Libero Quotidiano reported.
To reinforce their point, they blocked a street with a wooden bench, put their lunch on the ground along with bags of clothes and threatened to leave the centre in La Secca, a hamlet in Ponte nelle Alpi.
They reportedly said “we do not eat this stuff”.
The refugees, said to have been staying at the centre for the past four months, also reportedly slashed the tires of cars belonging to staff working there in protest against living conditions. … “There are thousands of Italians living in poverty and who aren’t even eating one meal a day, let alone two or three,” he said.
“They’re not complaining that the food isn’t good, but that it is not the food of their countries. But when you’re hosted in someone’s home, for example, you eat their food, right? It’s like on the many occasions I’ve been hosted in England, I don’t expect to eat spaghetti.” …
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
4 September 2014: A British woman has been left shocked after finding a suspected illegal immigrant hiding on the back seat of her Fiat Panda after she drove from France to the UK.
Sue Taber, who arrived home this morning after driving from Spain to France and back to Britain via the Eurotunnel, was astonished when she spotted a human leg behind the driver’s seat after parking up outside her home in Shepherdswell, Kent.
She made the unusual discovery as she let her two dogs out of the car and said the 5ft 8in man, aged between 18 and 20, emerged from her vehicle shouting: ‘I’m an orphan, I’m an orphan’.
Ms Taber, who believes the man got into her car while she left it briefly unattended and unlocked at Calais, France, admitted she had felt something nudging her back on her 53 mile cross-Channel journey, but assumed it was just one of her dogs fetching a ball. … Ironically, Ms Taber had been listening to a local radio station phone-in on migrants and the Calais incident as she drove home from the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone — but was completely unaware she was carrying one. … ‘I’m still shaking. You just can’t believe it could happen to you. I’ve got a Fiat Panda for goodness sake, with two dogs in the back. ‘And I’ve managed to get though passport control, everything else with a stowaway on board.’ … ‘Officers located the man and he has been transferred to the Home Office Immigration Enforcement (formally UKBA) for them to take any further action.’ [further inaction, more likely.]
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Poll Gains for Greens, Feminists and Left Party
Sweden’s Feminist Party could secure enough votes to enter parliament for the first time according to new polls which also show gains for the Greens and the Left Party.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Yes I’m sure the little old dear felt no terror whatsoever as she was being beheaded.
Even looking at this logically, they had yet to question the guy before they made that statement – they did not know and could not know anything about the guy’s motives at all. Yet out comes the announcement – you’ll notice too how hardly any of the press dared to mention that he was a muslim. The Sun and The Evening Standard have, but several other outlets have elected not to do so.
The HuffPo has also criticized The Sun for saying the murderer was a Muslim, calling it “inflammatory”. As if running around in the middle of the street, capturing an old granny & beheading her isn’t “inflammatory” like.
Being a cat lover, I think beheading a cat is an abominable thing to do. I hope he never again sees the light of day. On the other hand, knowing the UK “justice” system, he’ll probably be out next week.
Why doesn’t he sue the clever British government for some millions for investigating a god on earth aka muslim. OR for not sending some slave to clean his knife after using it.
I think Britain is lacking sensitivity. Until now they are clinging to power without surrendering the authority to the sultan/caliphate immediately. If they do then they don’t have to think and utter empty talk any more. They will have more fun and freedom.
This horrific story is intertwined with the usual PC and Common Purpose spin, combined with lying by omission. But, “You can fool some of the people some of the time ……. “.
Spot on Nick.
Although more information is slowly coming out:
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/09/05/Nigerian-Muslim-Convert-Suspect-Edmonton
(from Venice film festival documentary article)
“[T]he principle of the right to move freely.”
Seems to be the distillation of a basic philosophical/political principle of the Left of the first half of the 21st century. A nomadic ethic of internationalism; an end to political order beyond International chaos/tyranny. A right (obligation?) to resist all compulsion and authority (the right to remain/dwell in absolute freedom is the complement to the right to free migration).
A major theoretical challenge.
You are on your own kid. Do whatever you have to do to maintain contact with reality in Nulooneystan. These are the good old days.
In the highly charged fallout from the Rotherham report, Nazir Afzal, the Crown Prosecution Service’s lead on child sexual abuse and violence against women and girls, tries to offer a calm perspective……
……His role means he has oversight of all child sex abuse cases in England and Wales. “So I know that the vast majority of offenders are British white male,” he says, setting the number at somewhere between 80 and 90%…
LIAR! LIAR! LIAR!
The man is a muslim and is clearly indulging in taqiyya to protect his co-religionists. The Crown Prosecution Service is riven with Muslim lawyers which explains the rising number of white Anglo Saxon Christian men being accused of offending islam, even though there is no specific statute on the books that they can be accused of transgressing. The whole system stinks.
Once again, it is a sign that society has been sold out by corrupt politicians.
Hello gates of vienna,
You need to look at this! And at portugal as a whole! This is now a EUssr stasi
Police state!
George orwell must be turning in his grave!!
You got to read this!!!
Im english, i live portugal, this little country has turned into a nazi police state in the last 2 years!
You need to read this, i cannot believe it!!!
http://portugalresident.com/portugal-to-set-up-‘anti-rumour’-brigades-to-protect-immigrants
Nice day to you! 🙂
http://portugalresident.com/portugal-to-set-up-‘anti-rumour’-brigades-to-protect-immigrants
By Anti-rumour brigade : The government means anti-islam brigade.
Which really means don’t tell the truth about islam even if you see it and feel it. We force you to choose stupidity and ignore what you see and you have to tell your senses your are wrong and my DARING LIAR government is right.
Now that’s how democracy works.