Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/29/2015

At the last minute Iran rejected the nuclear deal offered by the United States and the “P5+1” group. The Iranians were unhappy with certain aspects of President Obama’s offer, so signing has been postponed. The next deadline will now be in July.

In other news, a transcript of the cockpit voice recorder on Germanwings Flight 9525 reveals that the captain pleaded with copilot Andreas Lubitz through the locked cockpit door in the last few minutes before the jetliner crashed.

Meanwhile, a march by the PEGIDA affiliate in Quebec was cancelled after a greater number of “anti-fascists” convened to oppose it.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Fjordman, Insubria, JD, K, Val Price, 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.

Financial Crisis
» Bible Code Predicts Economic Collapse in 2015
» Greece’s Creditors Mull New Reform Plans
» Russia ‘To Join China-Led Development Bank’
 
USA
» Bill Nye Aligns Himself With Greatest Science Fraud of the Century: GMO ‘Safety’
» Ex-Missouri Officer Indicted for Use of Stun Gun on Teen Whose Heart Later Stopped
» FBI Quietly Removes Recommendation to Encrypt Your Phone… as FBI Director Warns How Encryption Will Lead to Tears
» Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign is Now Effectively Over
» Limbaugh on Reid: ‘I Don’t Believe for a Minute’ He Was Injured on Exercise Machine [Audio]
» Medical Establishment Forces Psych Meds on One Million Children Just Because of Their Birth Date
» Military Drill Identifying “Hostile” U.S. States Sparks Alarm
» San Francisco Jail Inmates Allegedly Forced Into ‘Gladiator-Style’ Fights
» Senator Wants State Department Investigation of Huma Abedin
» The End of the American Presidency
» Video Shows Troops Training to Intern Citizens in Fort Lauderdale
» Video: Black Men Beat White Man Who Refused to Talk About Michael Brown
» Weather Underground Bomber Unmasked — As City Schoolteacher
» Welcome to a Surrealistic World Run by Google
 
Canada
» Future Shop Shutters Canadian Stores, Will Re-Brand as Best Buy
» News Publishers Take Down Truthful Stories Reporting Vaccine Damaged Children After Being Threatened by Vaccine Fanatics
» PEGIDA Québec Cancels March After Anti-Racist Groups Convene
» Several Injured After Air Canada Plane Leaves Runway on ‘Abrupt’ Landing
 
Europe and the EU
» Åkesson Interview Seen as ‘Mobbing’: Report
» Cecilia Malmström: EU-US Free Trade Agreement Will be Delayed
» Draghi Says Over-Regulation Keeps Italian Firms Small
» Enoch Powell is Named by Bishop in Sex Abuse Probe: Scotland Yard to Investigate Satanic Abuse Claim and Demands to See Filed Held on Serving MPs
» Germanwings Co-Pilot Andreas Lubitz’s Remains Found in French Alps
» Germanwings Black Box Reveals Andreas Lubitz’s Attempts to Coax Pilot Into Toilet
» Germanwings Flight 4U9525 Crash: Medicine for Psychological Illness Found at Co-Pilot’s Home -Report
» Germanwings Black Box Transcript Reportedly Reveals Captain Pleading With Co-Pilot to Open Door
» Italy: Prosecutors Seek Indictment Against Russian Energy Exec
» Italy: Investigators Say Berlusconi Paid 10 ‘New Women’
» Italy: Fincantieri Ship Workers Strike Over Microchips in Boots
» Italy: ‘Kickback’ Envelopes for Incalza Found Behind Books
» Italy: Veneto Governor Moots Creation of Separate Venetian Currency
» Sweden Will Not Ditch Law Against Spontaneous Dancing
» Sweden: Pub Shooters Wore Skull Masks and Police Vests
» UK: Daily Mail Comment: Jihadi Schoolgirl and Her Militant Father
» UK: Fifth Girl From London School Tried to Flee to Join ISIS But Was Stopped on Airport Runway
» UK: Man Lost His Son in a Toxic Divorce, Only to Find He Wasn’t the Father
» UK: Prison Cell-fies of a Heroin Kingpin Show Off His Flatscreen TV, Cigars and Playstation as He Parties With Pals Behind Bars
» UK: Police Watchdog to Probe Claims Paedophile Sergeant Ordered Junior Officer to Keep Quiet After Catching MP With Two Boys at Sex Party
» UK: Schools Now Indoctrinating 4-Year-Olds With Guilt, Labeling Them “Racist” For Asking Questions
» UK: Wandsworth Prison Escapee Neil Moore Faked Bail Email
 
North Africa
» Gunman From Tunisian Bardo Museum Terror Attack Killed in Armed Raid
» Leading Suspect in Tunisia Museum Attack Killed
» Tunisians Rally Against Terrorism After Bardo Attack
 
Middle East
» Arab League Agrees to Create Joint Military Force
» But What Does the Supreme Leader Say?
» Iran Refuses to Sign Written Nuclear Deal
» ‘Iran Wants to Conquer Mideast’: Israeli PM Slams Prospect of Nuclear Deal
» ISIS Beheads 8 Shiites in Syria
» Netanyahu Accuses Iran of Trying to ‘Conquer the Entire Middle East’ Amid Looming Nuclear Deal
» Pro-Iran Hezbollah Says Riyadh Will be ‘Defeated’ In Yemen
» Putin Letter to Arab Summit Triggers Strong Saudi Attack
» The Truth Behind the RAF Mission to Smash ISIS: More Than 100 Airstrikes, 180 Targets Destroyed and £37million Spent
» Why Yemen Matters
» Yemen is Just Part of Iran’s Mideast Master Plan
 
South Asia
» The Perils of Speaking Out Against Islamic Law in Malaysia
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Safari Tourist Survives Attack by Lion When Beast Jumped Into His Car
 
Immigration
» Obama Keeps Americans in Exile, But Welcomes Illegals
» Pew Researcher: Rate of Illegal Immigrant Males in Workforce 12 Percent Higher Than U.S.-Born Males
 
Culture Wars
» Arkansas Legislature Passes Bill to Cut Off Funding to Planned Parenthood Abortion Biz
» California State University Bans Christian Clubs, Calls Them “Discriminatory”
» Italy: Bagnasco Says Gender Theory May Lead to ‘Transhuman’
» Ontario Teacher Suspended for Criticizing Child Procurement Program
 
General
» Is Climate Change $$ Campaign Working?
 

Bible Code Predicts Economic Collapse in 2015

Best-selling author Jonathan Cahn explains The Mystery of the Shemitah, the biblical pattern which indicates that a financial collapse may be coming in 2015. Does a mystery that is 3,500 years old hold the key to what is going to happen to global financial markets in 2015?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Greece’s Creditors Mull New Reform Plans

Greece’s creditors are studying new reform plans put forward by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ government in a bid to secure further bailout funds.

Greece, which submitted the proposals on Friday night, says the plans will raise €3bn (£2.2bn; $3.3bn) in state revenues for the cash-strapped country.

International creditors have suggested they are ready to extend help on Greece’s €240bn (£176bn; $272bn) bailout until the end of June.

But Mr Tsipras’s earlier reform plans met resistance from EU leaders, with Germany among the most critical.

Officials from the EU, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB) are examining the proposals this weekend, with a response expected in the coming week.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Russia ‘To Join China-Led Development Bank’

Russia is to sign up to the Chinese-led development bank AIIB, first deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov said Saturday at an international forum in China, cited by Russian news agencies.

“I’d like to inform you that Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken the decision that Russia will participate in the capital of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB),” Shuvalov said at China’s Boao Forum, quoted by RIA Novosti state news agency.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Bill Nye Aligns Himself With Greatest Science Fraud of the Century: GMO ‘Safety’

(NaturalNews) Many of today’s young adults grew up watching him on public access television. But Bill Nye “the Science Guy” has taken an unfortunate turn for the worse as it pertains to his position on genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), degenerating rather suddenly from an honest position of concern about their impacts on the ecosystem to open acceptance of this disproven technology.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Ex-Missouri Officer Indicted for Use of Stun Gun on Teen Whose Heart Later Stopped

Indictment alleges officer “continuously” shocked teen with stun gun he was on the ground and unthreatening…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

FBI Quietly Removes Recommendation to Encrypt Your Phone… as FBI Director Warns How Encryption Will Lead to Tears

Back in October, we highlighted the contradiction of FBI Director James Comey raging against encryption and demanding backdoors, while at the very same time the FBI’s own website was suggesting mobile encryption as a way to stay safe. Sometime after that post went online, all of the information on that page about staying safe magically disappeared, though thankfully I screenshotted it at the time:

If you really want, you can still see that information over at the Internet Archive or in a separate press release the FBI apparently didn’t track down and memory hole yet. Still, it’s no surprise that the FBI quietly deleted that original page recommending that you encrypt your phones “to protect the user’s personal data,” because the big boss man is going around spreading a bunch of scare stories about how we’re all going to be dead or crying if people actually encrypted their phones:

Calling the use of encrypted phones and computers a “huge problem” and an affront to the “rule of law,” Comey, painted an apocalyptic picture of the world if the communications technology isn’t banned.

“We’re drifting to a place where a whole lot of people are going to look at us with tears in their eyes,” he told the House Appropriations Committee, describing a hypothetical in which a kidnapped young girl’s phone is discovered but can’t be unlocked.

So, until recently, the FBI was actively recommending you encrypt your data to protect your safety — and yet, today it’s “an affront to the rule of law.” Is this guy serious?

More directly, this should raise serious questions about what Comey thinks his role is at the FBI (or the FBI’s role is for the country)? Is it to keep Americans safe — or is it to undermine their privacy and security just so it can spy on everyone?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign is Now Effectively Over

Hillary Clinton’s unannounced campaign for the U.S. Presidency has already failed. Her arrogance (or else stupidity) in having wiped clean the hard drive of the private server she had used for her emails while she was the U.S. Secretary of State adds insult to the injury already done to her incipient campaign by the earlier revelation that she had evaded the State Department’s record-keeping system and had used her private server for all of her State Department emails and not only for her personal emails. (TheNYT had headlined March 2nd: “Hillary Clinton Used Personal Email at State Dept., Possibly Breaking Rules.”)

CNN, early Saturday morning, March 28th, bannered the big follow-up, “Hillary Clinton deleted all email from personal server,” and reported that, “Hillary Clinton permanently deleted all the emails on the private server she used to do official business as secretary of state.” Ms. Clinton immediately responded to reporters’ questions by saying that nothing of importance to, or concerning, her State Department business, was on that server, and that she had recently sent to the investigator who is looking into this matter “roughly 30,000 emails” that related to State Department business. However, the public, and prosecutors, will now not be able to see the other emails (which she says were approximately 32,000), because she then had that server wiped clean. She says she had had this done because “no one wants their personal emails made public.”

In other words: the public would just have to trust her assertion that nothing related to government business was in those “personal emails.”

Private letters from Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and other American leaders, are published in books; but Hillary Clinton does not think that the American public should ever have access to hers. Today’s emails are like paper-and-ink letters in that bygone era; but she has, in effect, burned them. Historians won’t get to see them; neither will the public.

Even the earlier revelation had caused her ratio of unfavorable-to-favorable ratings in polls to soar.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Limbaugh on Reid: ‘I Don’t Believe for a Minute’ He Was Injured on Exercise Machine [Audio]

“Does anybody believe that Harry Reid really had an accident with his exercise machine?” Limbaugh asked after touching on Reid’s announcement. “Does anybody really believe that’s why Harry Reid is still bruised and is still wearing dark glasses, what, months after this accident with his exercise machine?”

“I don’t believe for a minute that whatever happened to Harry Reid has anything to do with an exercise machine unless somebody repeatedly threw him into it,” Limbaugh said mocking Reid. “Harry Reid looks like and is acting like — and now with this announcement, behaving like — somebody who may have been beaten up.”

[Comment: If he was beaten up — why the cover up? Unless it was a father that beat him up?]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Medical Establishment Forces Psych Meds on One Million Children Just Because of Their Birth Date

NaturalNews) If you have a young child, better watch out: She or he may be misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) simply because of their age.

That’s right, your daughter or son could be linked with a behavioral condition for no other reason than the fact that they were born during a certain year and happen to have a penchant for giggling and well, behaving as children often do.

In other words, if they’re the youngest and considered the most immature in their kindergarten class, they’re more likely to be labeled as having ADHD. In turn, they’re prescribed medications like Ritalin. Shockingly, such harmful psych medications are being doled out to 1 million children in the United States for this reason, which often comes from the interpretation of teachers whose opinions are often heavily weighed in the determination of whether or not a child should be prescribed such drugs.

Yes, these days, a child being a child is apparently a Ritalin-worthy excuse.

The disturbing news comes from a study published in the Journal of Health Economics which states that “…evidence that diagnoses of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are driven largely by subjective comparisons across children in the same grade in school.” Michigan State University economist Todd Elder, who engaged in research on this topic, reported his findings in the journal.

“If a child is behaving poorly, if he’s inattentive, if he can’t sit still, it may simply be because he’s 5 and the other kids are 6,” Elder says. “There’s a big difference between a 5-year-old and a 6-year-old, and teachers and medical practitioners need to take that into account when evaluating whether children have ADHD.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Military Drill Identifying “Hostile” U.S. States Sparks Alarm

A massive U.S. military drill dubbed “Jade Helm 15” lists Texas, Utah, and part of California as “hostile” or “insurgent pocket” territory. The unclassified information about this drill is causing widespread alarm nationwide, with more than a few analysts suggesting it may be some sort of exercise practicing to impose martial law on Americans fed up with an out-of-control federal government. During the exercises, which will take place over the summer, Special Forces from various branches of the military will work with local law-enforcement in scenarios that, to critics at least, sound suspiciously like they are aimed at subduing rebellious American civilians and states amid a civil war or large-scale unrest. The federal government issued a response dismissing the concerns and saying that the training is to help U.S. forces prepare for overseas missions, but not everyone is convinced.

The most alarming components of the drills highlighted by concerned citizens and media commentators surround an unclassified presentation about Jade Helm 15’s “realistic military training” that was apparently leaked. In a graphic showing the territory across which the training will take place — essentially the American Southwest — different states are colored based on the fictional status of their loyalty to Washington. Colorado, Nevada, and most of California, for example, are dark blue, indicating that they are “permissive.” Utah and Texas are both shaded red, indicating that they are “hostile.” Southern California is also red, with a note reading “insurgent pocket.” Arizona is light blue, which in the legend is listed as “uncertain (leaning friendly),” while New Mexico is brown, or “uncertain (leaning hostile).” Two more states, Florida and Louisiana, have reportedly been added to the exercise.

According to the presentation, the eight-week training program involves Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces Command (Green Berets), Air Force Special Operations Command, Marine Special Operations Command, Marine Expeditionary Units, the 82nd Airborne Division, and unspecified “interagency partners.” Underneath the logo for the Jade Helm drills, a sword with two arrows crossing it, it reads: “Master the Human Domain.” What exactly that means was not clear, but at least some critics of the exercise have suggested it may be a euphemism for subjugating the population of the United States. Indeed, as other analysts have noted, citing available information, the drill almost certainly has nothing to do with defending the Southern border from invasion. The few details that have been provided, though, are causing concern among analysts.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

San Francisco Jail Inmates Allegedly Forced Into ‘Gladiator-Style’ Fights

The Department of Justice has been asked to investigate after prison guards allegedly forced inmates to engage in gladiator-style fights for “sadistic pleasure” and betting, in scenes the authorities said evoked Game of Thrones.

An inmate at the San Francisco County jail who weighed 150lb was allegedly forced to fight a 350lb inmate, under threat of being beaten up and shot with a Taser by guards, Jeff Adachi, the San Francisco County public defender, said in a press conference on Thursday.

Four sheriff’s deputies have been accused by three inmates of orchestrating vicious fights for their own amusement while encouraging them with chants.

Adachi said the deputy who reportedly orchestrated the activities was accused in 2006 of sexually assaulting inmates, in a case that was later settled out of court.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Senator Wants State Department Investigation of Huma Abedin

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee reportedly has asked the State Department’s inspector general to investigate why Huma Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton, was allowed to keep her job while working at a politically connected consulting firm.

Fox News said Saturday that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) made his request after learning that both Clinton and Abedin, the wife of disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, used a now-deleted private Internet server for department correspondence.

Abedin worked part-time at State while a full-time employee of the private firm.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

The End of the American Presidency

Following the War of Independence separating America from Great Britain and establishing a new free sovereign nation, our Founders set a course to establish a Constitutional Representative Republican form of self-governance, of, by and for the people of the newly formed United States with the passage of the U.S. Constitution.

Ever since, political powers here and abroad have sought to undermine, dismantle and destroy the United States and eliminate it as the world’s most free, prosperous and powerful nation on earth.

Two hundred years later, trapped in a growing global shift towards a One World system of global governance based on communist principles of social justice, the United States would soon find itself in a silent battle for its sovereignty and security emanating from within…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Video Shows Troops Training to Intern Citizens in Fort Lauderdale

Martial law-style drill caught on camera.

The clip shows armed troops arresting role players on the street before a column of prisoners are marched towards a mock internment facility. Black Hawk choppers are also seen whizzing between buildings.

The exercise was accompanied by very little media coverage. A Sun-Sentinel report said that Broward County police would be “assisting members of the U.S. Special Operations Forces who are undergoing urban warfare training.”

[Comment: Millions of dollars spent building realistic towns on military bases for training. Why the need to use real world? To remove the revulsion many soldiers experience when following unconstitutional orders. To condition the troops as well as the public to see such things as “normal”. One massive PsyOp. Soldiers are being conditioned to become the slave enforcement arm of the banksters in order to retain power and keep the entire corrupt edifice going.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Video: Black Men Beat White Man Who Refused to Talk About Michael Brown

Police are looking for three black men in the St. Louis area after they attacked a white man who refused to talk about the shooting of Michael Brown. The beating was captured by a passenger’s cell phone on one of the city’s MetroLink trains.

The unnamed victim, 43, recounted the story to a local station. He said that one of the men (red shirt) asked to use his cell phone. When he said no, the suspect sat down and asked his opinion on the Michael Brown incident.

The victim said, “I responded I was too tired to think about it right now.”

The video begins just after the angered 20-something stood up and began ranting. Suddenly, he attacks the victim, delivering at least 13 punches to the man’s head. For the entirety of the assault, the victim was seated, protecting his head.

As the train pulled into the station, one of the other suspects joined in the beating. As the doors opened, the main suspect delivered a final kick to the defenseless man before exiting the train.

According to a CNN report, the victim suffered only cuts and bruises to his face and did not request medical attention. He did indicate that he was surprised no one on the train helped:

I think it was disgusting that people were sort of laughing and smiling about it. And no one offered to help. No one seemed to call 911.

However, it was noted that a security guard who witnessed part of the beating called the police.

[Comment: Does Obama wish he had a son like this?]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Weather Underground Bomber Unmasked — As City Schoolteacher

The “bomb guru” for the terrorist group the Weather Underground never served a day in jail — but he did spend decades teaching in New York City classrooms, a new book reveals.

Ronald Fliegelman built explosives for the Weather Underground, a far-left group that launched a domestic bombing campaign in the 1960s and ‘70s, including one explosion inside NYPD headquarters.

But when the group dissolved, Fliegelman managed to safely fade away into the square life. For 25 years, he worked as a public special-education teacher, retiring to a quiet life in Park Slope, Brooklyn, according to “Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence” (Penguin Press).

And he’s unapologetic about his past, according to author Bryan Burrough.

“Ron is proud of what he did,” he told The Post.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Welcome to a Surrealistic World Run by Google

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rocked the online world world when its 313-page ‘Net Neutrality’ initiative was revealed last month. But in reality, Net Neutrality was devised not by FCC but by Google.

When Net Neutrality was still a twinkle in Father FCC’s eye, Google was already killing the traffic of all websites including world Internet giant, Drudge.

That mission accomplished Google is now setting itself up as the only purveyor of truth. Don’t worry, Google’s motto after all is “Don’t do Evil”.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Future Shop Shutters Canadian Stores, Will Re-Brand as Best Buy

U.S.-based electronics retail giant Best Buy Co. is closing its 131 Future Shop stores Saturday and will re-open 65 of them in a week under the Best Buy banner in a bid to improve business.

Best Buy joins other retailers that are feeling the pinch of more shoppers making purchases online and giant e-commerce rivals such as Amazon.com Inc. stealing business. The shift to cyber buying is particularly acute in the electronics and computer field.

As a result of the consolidation, about 500 full-time and 1,000 part-time jobs will be lost, the company said. The affected employees will receive severance and help with outplacement support, it said.

[Comment: Cyber buying does not account for the drop in sales. It is a cover excuse. The bottom line is the consumer is tapped out — that is why the consumer driven economy of the last few years is dying.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

News Publishers Take Down Truthful Stories Reporting Vaccine Damaged Children After Being Threatened by Vaccine Fanatics

(NaturalNews) A popular Canadian media outlet recently decided to pull a story that it published back in January about the dangers of the Gardasil vaccine for HPV (manufactured by Merck & Co.) after “some doctors and public health officials” reportedly raised a stink about its content.

Clearly kowtowing to the vaccine industry, the Toronto Star pulled the story after it allegedly led to “confusion between anecdotes and evidence” — the story was about how Gardasil has severely injured at least 60 Canadian girls, a fact that may have led some readers to forego getting their own children vaccinated.

It was apparently too much for readers of the Toronto Star to have access to information about how injections with Gardasil can lead to debilitating health conditions and death, so the paper’s cowardly editors simply removed it, with the only available access to it on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

PEGIDA Québec Cancels March After Anti-Racist Groups Convene

Anti-Islam group with European roots and National Front sympathies organizes in Quebec

A march organized by sympathizers of a Europe-based anti-Islam, anti-immigration group called PEGIDA was cancelled on Saturday after hundreds of people showed up to protest against PEGIDA itself.

The self-described leader of the relatively new PEGIDA Québec chapter, Jean-François Asgard, told Radio-Canada that “Islam needs to reform itself or leave the West.”

Well-known activist Jaggi Singh said PEGIDA is a collection of neo-Nazis, Islamophobes and internet trolls. (Radio-Canada)

Jaggi Singh of the No One Is Illegal activist group helped organize Saturday’s counter-protest.

Hundreds of people toting signs denouncing racism and Islamophobia arrived 30 minutes prior to the scheduled start time of the PEGIDA march, set to take place in a largely Muslim community in Montreal called Little Maghreb.

Just over 100 people had RSVP’d to PEGIDA Québec’s march, while nearly 900 members of Antifa (anti-fascism) and other anti-racist groups said they would attend the counter-demonstration.

“There’s no way that their demonstration will be able to go where they want to go. They won’t be able to pass. The police have given them permission to march, but that doesn’t mean people in the neighbourhood or anti-racist groups are giving them permission to march,” he said.

The anti-Islam group had submitted its march itinerary to Montreal police. A number of officers were on the scene to keep an eye on any violence…

           — Hat tip: Val Price [Return to headlines]
 

Several Injured After Air Canada Plane Leaves Runway on ‘Abrupt’ Landing

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — An Air Canada plane made an “abrupt” landing and skidded off the runway at the Halifax airport in bad weather, and officials said Sunday 23 people were taken to a hospital for observation and treatment of minor injuries.

The airline said Flight AC624, an Airbus 320 that left Toronto late Saturday, had 133 passengers and five crew members. Pictures provided by Canada’s Transportation Safety Board showed significant damage to the plane with the nose torn off and what appears to be an engine crumpled under a damaged wing.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Åkesson Interview Seen as ‘Mobbing’: Report

A recent interview with Sweden Democrat head Jimmie Åkesson on the Norwegian-Swedish TV talk show Skavlan has resulted in a storm of complaints in Norway. Many viewers considered it an attack interview.

In Sweden, most people appeared upset about the interview before it aired and criticised public broadcaster SVT for giving the controversial far-right leader a forum on Norwegian journalist Fredrik Skavlan’s popular show.

But in neighboring Norway, the complaints came flying after the interview was broadcast, with many people calling it nothing less than “mobbing”, according to the tabloid Verdens Gang.

Norwegian public broadcaster NRK was inundated with viewer protests and reports flew in fast to the Norwegian authority that oversees broadcasting content. A Facebook group “Boycott Skavlan” soon appeared.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Cecilia Malmström: EU-US Free Trade Agreement Will be Delayed

Negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will not be completed until 2017, EU Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström tells Swedish Radio.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is the world’s largest trade agreement and is being negotiated between the European Union and the United States. However, according to Malmström it will be completed in 2017 at the earliest, even though the two parties initially aimed for a 2014 deadline.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Draghi Says Over-Regulation Keeps Italian Firms Small

ECB president says no shortage of bonds for QE purchases ++

(ANSA) — Rome, March 26 — Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, said Thursday that over-regulation of business in Italy forces firms to remain small.

That lowers productivity for the economy as a whole, he said in comments to Italy’s Lower House.

Reducing regulations could increase business size between 8% and 12%, he said.

Still, financial market confidence in Italy’s fiscal competence and its economic prospects has improved significantly, shown by the narrowing interest-rate spread with Germany, he added.

Draghi recalled the very difficult period in 2011 when the spread between Italy’s benchmark 10-year bond and its German counterpart widened to about 500 basis points.

In comparison, the spread at midday Thursday stood at about 114 basis points, suggesting that investors no longer demand very high interest rates in exchange for investing in Italy. Structural reforms are important to encouraging ongoing growth, as does efforts to help commercial banks reduce the burden of bad loans.

The ECB “looks very favorably on initiatives to reduce the weight of impaired (loans) on banks’ balance sheets in order to free up resources,” to help businesses, said Draghi.

He said that ECB stress tests on major banks last year has helped strengthen financial institutions.

He added that he sees “more favourable growth prospects” for the eurozone.

Meanwhile, Draghi said that there is no shortage of bonds available for purchase through the quantitative easing program.

The ECB is aiming to buy 60 billion euros of bonds monthly for 18 months to stimulate demand and inflation but some critics have said they are concerned there won’t be enough available paper. The appearance marked the first time in six years that Draghi addressed the Italian Lower House, according to Bloomberg news.

He last spoke to Parliament in 2009 when Draghi was still head of the Italian central bank, Bank of Italy.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Enoch Powell is Named by Bishop in Sex Abuse Probe: Scotland Yard to Investigate Satanic Abuse Claim and Demands to See Filed Held on Serving MPs

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the late Tory MP, one of the most prominent and divisive politicians of the 20th Century, has been named to Scotland Yard by the Bishop of Durham.

The Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, contacted police after Powell’s name was passed to him by a former Bishop of Monmouth, Dominic Walker, who first heard the allegation when he was a vicar counselling young adults in the 1980s…

However, the ongoing scandal over how serial paedophile Jimmy Savile was able to evade detection for decades has led institutions to take a safety-first approach, so the Church felt it had no option but to pass on the information to police.

Enoch Powell’s frontline political career ended abruptly in 1968 after he made his infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech warning about the dangers of uncontrolled immigration.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Germanwings Co-Pilot Andreas Lubitz’s Remains Found in French Alps

Professor Michael Tsokos, Germany’s most prestigious forensic scientist, said he will be haunted forever by the grim task of identifying the remains of those killed in the Germanwings crash.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Germanwings Black Box Reveals Andreas Lubitz’s Attempts to Coax Pilot Into Toilet

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

According to transcripts in German newspaper Bild, captain Patrick Sondheimer screamed ‘Open the goddamn door!’ as his co-pilot (pictured) deliberately flew the aircraft into the Alps.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Germanwings Flight 4U9525 Crash: Medicine for Psychological Illness Found at Co-Pilot’s Home -Report

German police have found medical treatments for psychological illness at the home of the co-pilot suspected of deliberately crashing a jet into the French Alps, killing 149 people and himself, a German newspaper said Saturday.

Investigators made the discovery in a search of the home of Andreas Lubitz in the western city of Duesseldorf and seized a number “of medicines for the treatment of psychological illness”, Welt am Sonntag weekly said.

“The 27-year-old has been treated by several neurologists and psychiatrists,” it quoted an unidentified high-ranking investigator as saying, in excerpts released ahead of Sunday’s edition.

[Comment: Websearch SSRI drugs — strong side effects of homocidal, suicidal thoughts. Naturalnews.com has a lot on this issue. Many of the school shooters in the US were on these drugs.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Germanwings Black Box Transcript Reportedly Reveals Captain Pleading With Co-Pilot to Open Door

The transcript of the final minutes of the doomed Germanwings flight, recorded by the black box, reportedly reveals the captain yelling at co-pilot Andreas Lubitz to “open the door” before the plane’s fatal descent.

The Telegraph reports that records published by the German newspaper Bild reveal Captain Patrick Sondheimer screaming at Lubitz to open the cockpit door before taking an axe to it in a last-ditch attempt to stop the plane from crashing into a French mountainside that would kill everyone on board.

Minutes prior, Sondheimer was heard telling Lubitz that he was going to the bathroom and giving permission to Lubitz to “take over.” After the captain knocked on the door to get back into the cockpit, the plane began its descent prompting an alarm to sound.

Sondheimer never heard a response from Lubitz as the aircraft flew into the ravine.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Prosecutors Seek Indictment Against Russian Energy Exec

Akhmerov ‘swindled the state out of 59mn’

(ANSA) — Milan, March 26 — Milan prosecutors on Thursday requested a criminal indictment against Russian businessman Igor Akhmerov for allegedly defrauding Italy of 59 million euros in the solar panel sector, sources said Thursday.

Akhmerov, 49, co-owns the Zurich-based Avelar Energy Group, whose largest shareholder is Russian oil, gas, coal and energy conglomerate Renova Group.

Renova is headed by oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

Prosecutors believe Akhmerov and two executives in Avelar’s Italian division, Marco Giorgi and Gianpiero Coppola, are guilty of criminal association.

Together, the suspects allegedly “used solar panel companies” their company owned in the southern Basilicata and Puglia regions to defraud Gestore Servizi Energetici — a company that is wholly owned by the economy ministry — by illicitly obtaining millions in benefits and incentives to produce solar power.

Akhmerov was arrested last July.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Investigators Say Berlusconi Paid 10 ‘New Women’

2,500 euros a month, according to investigators

(ANSA) — Milan, March 26 — Former premier Silvio Berlusconi was paying 10 “new young women” sums totaling 2,500 euros a month, according to reports from investigators.

Accountant Giuseppe Spinelli was in charge of the payments to the women who reportedly attended parties at the three-time premier’s home and who are not officially under investigation, according to the documents released on Thursday.

Along with the new women listed as receiving monthly payments by Spinelli, a trusted manager of Berlusconi, was also ex-Lombardy regional councilor Nicole Minetti of former Berlusconi’s now-defunct center-right People of Freedom (PdL) party, who was listed as receiving 15,000 euros a month.

Minetti, the ex-premier’s former dental hygienist, was sentenced to three years in jail by an appeals court in Milan last November for procuring prostitutes for Berlusconi’s sex parties at his private residence in Arcore, near Milan.

Judicial sources in a probe into alleged perjury by so-called ‘bunga bunga’ witnesses said earlier this month that Berlusconi gave over two million euros from 2010 to early 2014 to another group of young women who attended his parties.

These sums did not include money given to an alleged underage prostitute known as Ruby the Heartstealer, whose real name is Karima El Mahroug, who attended the sex parties.

Investigators have said Berlusconi is still paying Ruby and other alleged prostitutes in exchange for their silence about the real nature of his bunga bunga sex parties.

The ex-premier is also alleged to have paid for an expensive birthday party for the baby daughter of Ruby, who prosecutors believe worked as an underage prostitute when she attended the parties in 2010.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Fincantieri Ship Workers Strike Over Microchips in Boots

Unions say unlawful tracing, company says for safety

(ANSA) — Genoa, March 25 — Workers at Italian state-owned shipyard Fincantieri went on strike Tuesday over a supplementary contract that unions said would include microchips in worker boots.

Fincantieri clarified that it wanted to integrate audiovisual technologies to increase the safety of the workers, not to monitor them from a distance. Unrest was particularly acute at Fincantieri in Liguria, a coastal region in northwestern Italy. Strikes have plagued the Riva Trigoso shipyard in Genoa and Muggiano shipyard in La Spezia. A surprise one-hour strike Tuesday in La Spezia was also protesting a decision to sell a dry dock used by the shipyard for fear of job losses. The decision to cede the dry dock was made by a consortium guided by the provincial government. Two hours of strikes protesting the supplemental contract are also planned for today in the Sestri Ponente shipyard near Genoa; and another is planned for March 31.

Strikes on rotation are also being held today at the Marghera shipyard near Venice.

Worker agitation comes as a crucial deadline looms next week to deliver a ship — the Viking Star. “They want to make (workers) work for free for a half hour everyday and they want to put a microchip in the work boots.

They are also asking us to give a gift of 104 hours of work for ex-holidays,” the unions said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: ‘Kickback’ Envelopes for Incalza Found Behind Books

Judge says evidence piling up in public-works graft probe

(ANSA) — Rome, March 24 — Two envelopes containing money allegedly paid as kickbacks were found Tuesday hidden behind books in the Green Field company allegedly used by former public-works honcho Ercole Incalza and an alleged accomplice, Sandro Pacella, to siphon off bribes on contracts.

The envelopes were found in the office of Green Field partner Salvatore Adorisio, who is one of some 50 people under investigation in a massive probe into graft in major public works that saw Incalza, his former aide Sandro Pacella, and businessmen Stefano Perotti and Francesco Cavallo arrested last week for suspected kickbacks that inflated costs by as much as 40%. “The envelopes contained 2,110 euros in cash and a piece of paper with written numbers on it indicating they had originally contained 53,000 euros,” a Florence preliminary investigation judge wrote.

The handwritten notes documented two 13,000-euro and two 9,000-euro withdrawals corresponding to deposits made in favor of Incalza and Pacella, according to the judge.

Prosecutors said Incalza, a public-works official for seven governments, oversaw “systemic corruption” on a massive scale.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Veneto Governor Moots Creation of Separate Venetian Currency

Luca Zaia of Northern League makes proposal in radio interview

(ANSA) Rome, March 24 — Veneto governor Luca Zaia suggested Tuesday the region might adopt its own coinage with a separate mint to the euros minted in Rome.

“It would be too beautiful to have a Venetian currency and a mint,” Zaia, a member of the separatist Northern League and its Venetian branch the Liga Veneta, told Radio 24.

“The dream at the moment is to have two democratic referendums on independence and autonomy,” said Zaia.

Northern League politicians have been more strident in separatist rhetoric as regional elections approach.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Sweden Will Not Ditch Law Against Spontaneous Dancing

Five out of eight parties in the Swedish parliament have voted against spontaneous dancing at bars as the Liberal Party failed to pass a motion to get rid of dance permits.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Sweden: Pub Shooters Wore Skull Masks and Police Vests

The two men who opened fire at a Gothenburg pub on March 18 were wearing skull masks and police vests, surveillance cameras footage reveals. Two people were killed and eight injured in the incident.

The surveillance footage, obtained by the Aftonbladet newspaper, shows grainy pictures of men carrying automatic weapons and wearing black hoods and black-and-white masks with skull imagery on them.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Daily Mail Comment: Jihadi Schoolgirl and Her Militant Father

When 15-year-old Amira Abase (pictured) fled the UK for Syria to join the butchers of Islamic State, her father launched a bitter attack on her school and the police for allowing it to happen.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Fifth Girl From London School Tried to Flee to Join ISIS But Was Stopped on Airport Runway

The girl went to the same east London school — the Bethnal Green Academy — as Kadiza Sultana 16, Shamima Begum 15 and Amira Abase 15 who fled to join IS fighters last month

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Man Lost His Son in a Toxic Divorce, Only to Find He Wasn’t the Father

This is the heart-breaking story of Jonathan Whiting whose ex-wife duped him into spending six years bringing up a youngster as his own when, in truth, the boy was fathered using another man’s sperm.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Prison Cell-fies of a Heroin Kingpin Show Off His Flatscreen TV, Cigars and Playstation as He Parties With Pals Behind Bars

Dealer Jason Crocker, 36, was jailed for five years but has been taking the selfies in his cell showing his cushy life. They show his cell decorated with newspaper cuttings calling him a ‘kingpin’.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Police Watchdog to Probe Claims Paedophile Sergeant Ordered Junior Officer to Keep Quiet After Catching MP With Two Boys at Sex Party

The police watchdog is to examine claims that a paedophile sergeant ordered a junior officer not to tell anyone after catching Cyril Smith at a sex party with two boys.

The account of the officer, then a young beat bobby but now retired, that he was threatened with the Official Secrets Act after he found the 29-stone Liberal MP at the home of a known sex offender in 1988 was the latest piece of evidence of an Establishment cover-up of Smith’s decades of abuse.

Yesterday the Independent Police Complaints Commission ( IPCC) announced it would be overseeing the investigation into the unnamed ex-officer’s claims.

He came forward earlier this month to describe how as a probationary officer he discovered Smith at the party with a prolific sex offender and two drunk teenage boys in Stockport.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Schools Now Indoctrinating 4-Year-Olds With Guilt, Labeling Them “Racist” For Asking Questions

(NaturalNews) Reading and writing skill standards have dropped considerably along with other language skills, especially English. When it comes to actually educating children, schools are really nothing more than daycare warehouses for children to become conditioned for corporate jobs and social compliance.

What used to be taught at the high school level is now college level, and before that, high school level was once covered in grade school. Instead of focusing on what should be covered better and on essays to prove a grasp of what’s studied instead of multiple choice exams that can be cleverly manipulated by students for higher grades than deserved, the trend is now focusing on politically correct behavior.

School districts in England have issued manuscript guidelines for what is considered offensive rhetoric among children as young as five. Instead of coaching the children directly for callous remarks, looks or behavior deemed politically incorrect along color, social class and gender lines, teachers are required to fill out lengthy forms and check off items listed.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Wandsworth Prison Escapee Neil Moore Faked Bail Email

Wandsworth prisoner Neil Moore was on remand when he used an illicit mobile phone to create a fake email account.

He posed as a senior court clerk and sent bail instructions to prison staff, who released him on 10 March 2014.

His deception was uncovered when solicitors went to interview him three days later, only to find him gone.

Moore, 28, from Ilford, east London, handed himself in three days later.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Gunman From Tunisian Bardo Museum Terror Attack Killed in Armed Raid

Prime Minister Habib Essid said suspected Tunisian gunman Khaled Chaieb, also known as Abou Sakhr Lokman (pictured), was killed overnight in an operation in the Gafsa region.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Leading Suspect in Tunisia Museum Attack Killed

TUNIS, Tunisia — Tunisia’s prime minister said Sunday a leading suspect in a deadly museum attack on foreign tourists has been killed in anti-terrorist operations, as tens of thousands of Tunisians marched through the capital to denounce extremist violence.

State news agency TAP cites Prime Minister Habib Essid as saying that Khaled Chaieb, also known as Abou Sakhr Lokman, was one of nine terror suspects killed overnight in an operation near the Algerian border.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Tunisians Rally Against Terrorism After Bardo Attack

French President Francois Hollande and other foreign dignitaries are expected to join thousands of Tunisians marching in protest against terrorism.

The rally follows the deaths of at least 21 foreigners when gunmen stormed a museum in Tunis on 18 March.

Tunisian authorities said they killed one of the militants linked to the attack, in a raid on Saturday.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Arab League Agrees to Create Joint Military Force

The heads of Arab League countries meeting in Egypt have agreed to create a joint Arab military force.

The League has been meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh amid a crisis in Yemen and the threat of jihadists who have made major gains in Iraq, Syria and Libya.

However, establishing the make-up and remit of the force could take months, analysts say.

A 10-nation, Saudi-led coalition is currently carrying out air strikes against rebels in Yemen.

The strikes are in support of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who fled after gains by the Shia Houthi rebels.

Correspondents have described the conflict as a proxy war between Sunni Arab nations and Shia Iran.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

But What Does the Supreme Leader Say?

What Americans have a hard time understanding is that, for all the Iranian negotiators, the outcome of the nuclear arms deal that the United States is leading all comes down to just one man, Sayyed Ali-Khamenei, otherwise known as the Supreme Leader of Iran.

In the 21st century, it is hard to comprehend that a nation could be ruled by a man whose powers supersede that nation’s president, its civil government, its judiciary and its military. Iran has had only one other Supreme Leader since its founding in 1979, Ruhollah Khomeini who held the position until his death in 1989. The 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran overthrew the Shah in order to secure greater freedom, but the Iranians ended up more servile than before.

This is who Obama and P5+1team (France, Great Britain, Russia, China, plus Germany) is negotiating with as they move toward the March 31 deadline for the talks. Khamenei has already said that the only thing he wants is the immediately lifting of the economic sanctions that are credited with bringing the Iranians to the negotiation table.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Iran Refuses to Sign Written Nuclear Deal

by Joel B. Pollak

Iran is refusing to commit to a written nuclear deal ahead of the March 31 deadline that American officials had touted for a general framework to be signed, the New York Times reports.

The Obama administration and Congress have clashed over bills to impose new sanctions on Iran or to require Senate ratification of any nuclear deal. However, the Iranians appear to have treated the March 31 date as merely an opportunity to drag talks out further—this time, until a deadline of July 1.

When the extension of talks was announced last year—the third new deadline in a process that was supposed to last no more than six months when first announced in late 2013—there were two deadlines reported. One was March 1, 2015, the deadline for a “political framework agreement.” The other was July 1, for “final agreement including annexes,” according to a CNN report at the time. However, the political framework agreement was always vaguely defined, and later extended.

The West has attempted to negotiate with Iran for years. Iran’s refusal to obey international norms and treaties to which it had already committed led to six UN Security Council resolutions banning all nuclear enrichment activity…

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]
 

‘Iran Wants to Conquer Mideast’: Israeli PM Slams Prospect of Nuclear Deal

The possible signing of a deal on Iran’s controversial nuclear program is “dangerous” as it may be the only thing Tehran lacks to establish control over the whole of the Middle East, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says.

Iran’s nuclear talks in Lausanne, Switzerland, which entered the final stage before the March 31 deadline, have confirmed “our concerns and even worse,” Netanyahu told Israeli public radio.

According to the recently re-elected right-wing prime minister, the “‘Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis” poses a threat to all of humanity and must be stopped.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS Beheads 8 Shiites in Syria

A new video released by the Islamic State group on Sunday shows its fighters cutting off the heads of eight men said to be Shiite Muslims. The video posted on social media said the men were beheaded in the central Syrian province of Hama.

“Our swords will soon, God willing, reach the Nuseiries and their allies like Bashar and his party,” the man said referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group that is fighting on his side. The word Nuseiry is a derogatory term to refer to Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The border town of Arsal, where Hujairi was kidnapped, was also the site of a bold joint raid by the Islamic State group and Syria’s Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front last August that captured two dozen Lebanese soldiers and policemen. Four of those hostages have been killed so far, two of them beheaded by IS. The remaining 20 soldiers and policemen remain hostages.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Netanyahu Accuses Iran of Trying to ‘Conquer the Entire Middle East’ Amid Looming Nuclear Deal

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Sunday that Iran is trying to “conquer the entire Middle East” as the West appears close to signing a pending nuclear deal with Israel’s arch-enemy.

“This deal, as it appears to be emerging, bears out all of our fears, and even more than that,” Netanyahu told his cabinet in Jerusalem, according to Reuters. The United States, Iran, and five other world powers are working toward a March 31 deadline to reach a nuclear deal.

The nations are meeting in Lusanne, Switzerland, and Netanyahu said he has “deep concern” over the pending deal.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Pro-Iran Hezbollah Says Riyadh Will be ‘Defeated’ In Yemen

Saudi Arabia will be roundly “defeated” in its air campaign against Yemen, Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon’s pro-Iran movement Hezbollah, said Friday, calling on Arab leaders to stop the “aggression”.

“The outcome of this war is clear: Saudi Arabia will be defeated and the Yemeni people will have an undeniable victory,” Nasrallah said in a televised speech.

Hezbollah is now militarily involved in Syria, where it is bolstering the embattled regime, and in Iraq where it says it is fighting Sunni extremists.

A months-long rebellion by Shiite fighters in Yemen escalated into a regional conflict Wednesday, when a coalition led by Saudi Arabia began conducting air strikes on rebel-held territory.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Putin Letter to Arab Summit Triggers Strong Saudi Attack

(Reuters) — Saudi Arabia accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of hypocrisy on Sunday, telling an Arab summit that he should not express support for the Middle East while fuelling instability by supporting Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

In a rare move, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced that a letter from Putin would be read out to the gathering in Egypt, where Arab leaders discussed an array of regional crises, including conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya.

“We support the Arabs’ aspirations for a prosperous future and for the resolution of all the problems the Arab world faces through peaceful means, without any external interference,” Putin said in the letter.

His comments triggered a sharp attack from Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal.

“He speaks about the problems in the Middle East as though Russia is not influencing these problems,” he told the summit right after the letter was read out.

Relations between Saudi Arabia and Russia have been cool over Moscow’s support for Assad, whom Riyadh opposes.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The Truth Behind the RAF Mission to Smash ISIS: More Than 100 Airstrikes, 180 Targets Destroyed and £37million Spent

The bombings, carried out by Britain’s fleet of warplanes and unmanned drones, have targeted more than 180 ISIS positions and have killed dozens of Islamists.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Why Yemen Matters

by Daniel Pipes

The Middle East witnessed something radically new two days ago, when the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia responded to a plea by Yemen’s president and led a 10-country coalition to intervene in the air and on the ground in the country. “Operation Decisive Storm” prompts many reflections:

Saudi and Egypt in alliance: Half a century ago, Riyadh and Cairo were active in a Yemen war, but then they supported opposing sides, respectively the status-quo forces and the revolutionaries. Their now being allies points to continuity in Saudia along with profound changes in Egypt.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Yemen is Just Part of Iran’s Mideast Master Plan

Analysis: Israel has spent five years warning that Iran seeks Shiite domination of the Muslim world, and the Gulf States know by now not to rely on the Obama administration.

by Smadar Perry

Operation Storm of Resolve, designed to rescue Yemen President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s regime from the clutches of the Houthi rebels, began with an exercise in misdirection. At midnight between Wednesday and Thursday, the first squadron of Saudi Arabian fighter planes launched attacks on targets in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a — air force bases, arms depots belonging to the rebels, the palace of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, and a reserve forces base in the south of the city that was taken by the rebels last month.

The strike caught the rebels by surprise. At a meeting earlier on Wednesday night between Houthi rebel leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi and ousted president Saleh, the two had coordinated an assault on Aden, Yemen’s second-largest city.

“If Aden falls,” the ousted president promised, “Yemen will fall, and the forces will be able to turn their attention to the greater task at hand — taking control of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait for the purpose of overseeing marine traffic into the Red Sea.”

With the Arab response slow in coming, despite threats voiced by senior advisers to the Saudi king, the rebel commanders in Yemen were sure they had at least 24 hours in which to mount operations in the field before the Arab foreign ministers met in Sharm el-Sheikh for an emergency summit. They knew that the battle for power in Yemen would top the agenda, but believed that they’d have until the end of the summit on Friday afternoon before a green light was given to amass an Arab force to take action in Yemen. The also failed to foresee a powerful military strike and believed that time was on their side.

“We decided to take action against the rebels in Yemen without getting the approval of the Arab League,” the spokesman for the Saudi Royal Palace said on Thursday morning, following a night of air strikes on Sana’a and the retaking of the airport in Aden.

It’s been revealed, meanwhile, that in behind-the-scenes discussions, four Arab states agreed to join the air strikes under the command of the Saudi defense minister, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.

During a tour Wednesday of the Saudi-Yemen border, Salman issued a stern warning to the rebels. “We are committed to the security of the Yemeni people,” he declared. “If you continue to undermine the stability and threaten Saudi Arabia, you will get hit hard.”

A spokesman for the Houthi rebels responded in kind, commenting: “We have already proved to you in 2009 how easy it is to invade the territory of the kingdom. Your army is weak. Today we are more skilled. When we decide to invade, we won’t stop in the city of Mecca, but will continue on to Riyadh to topple the government institutions.”…

           — Hat tip: K [Return to headlines]
 

The Perils of Speaking Out Against Islamic Law in Malaysia

A satirical video has exposed the sensitivity over Islamic law in Malaysia — as well as the limits of online speech in the country.

It was supposed to be a light-hearted poke at proposals to expand Islamic law in one state in Malaysia. But a video starring journalist Aisyah Tajuddin resulted in death and rape threats along with a police investigation.

It all began when the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (known by its Malay acronym PAS) proposed implementing hudud laws on Muslims in Kelantan, a mostly rural state in the northeast of the country.

Hudud laws cover prohibitions against things such as adultery, apostasy, robbery and theft, and prescribe punishments considered cruel or unusual in most Western countries: public beatings, stoning, amputation and public execution. They’re also relatively uncommon in most Muslim nations with the exception of those such as Saudi Arabia or Iran which follow the most strict interpretations of Islamic sharia law.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Safari Tourist Survives Attack by Lion When Beast Jumped Into His Car

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: Brendan Smith (pictured left), from Perth, has told of the moment a lion jumped through his window and bit into his legs while on an African safari in Johannesburg.

[Comment: There’s decent movie called “Prey” about a safari gone wrong.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama Keeps Americans in Exile, But Welcomes Illegals

President Barack Obama’s push to legalize millions of illegal immigrants is leaving many Americans’ families locked out of the United States.

American engineer Jimmy Gugliotta and his Argentinian wife and children have been stuck in Chile for so long that he’s pleading for donations to buy food and airfares while the U.S. visa agency slowly processes the visa documents needed by his wife and children.

“I was initially told the process would take 6 to 9 months and we had enough money to get us through until that time,” he wrote in his March 19 GoFundMe online appeal.

“We are trying to sell the few possessions that we have left,” said Gugliotta, who escaped a hard-knock childhood by learning computer design while earning $8 an hour in various manual labor jobs.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Pew Researcher: Rate of Illegal Immigrant Males in Workforce 12 Percent Higher Than U.S.-Born Males

WASHINGTON, DC — An illegal immigrant male residing in the United States is more likely to be gainfully employed than a male who is a legal immigrant or U.S.-born citizen, a senior demographer at the Pew Research Center think tank told lawmakers.

In 2012, the most recent year for which data is available, an estimated 91 percent of illegal immigrant males were in the workforce. This compares to 84 percent of legal immigrant men and 79 percent of U.S.-born males, Pew Research Center demographer Jeffrey Passel in written testimony prepared for a March 26 hearing held by the Senate Homeland Security & Government Affairs Committee.

Put in a different way, legal and illegal immigrant males had a better chance to be in the workforce than U.S.-born men in 2012.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Arkansas Legislature Passes Bill to Cut Off Funding to Planned Parenthood Abortion Biz

On Thursday, Arkansas lawmakers voted to cut off public funding to abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood and organizations that refer women to abortion providers. The legislation, S.B. 569, passed the Republican controlled House with a vote of 70-8 and now heads to pro-life Governor Asa Hutchinson’s desk.

Thankfully, Arkansas also has a constitutional amendment barring public money from funding abortions, except to save the life of the mother. However, previously abortion businesses in the state received federal grants to be “navigators” under Obamacare. Pro-lifers were opposed to this because they said it indirectly funding of abortion.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

California State University Bans Christian Clubs, Calls Them “Discriminatory”

(NaturalNews) The Left’s war on organized religion is continuing, especially on the nation’s college and university campuses, those bastions of “tolerance” that are actually becoming zones of speech control.

In particular, Christians are becoming an endangered species, especially on California campuses where more and more exchange students from other cultures and religions are attending.

As reported by The College Fix:

When Cal Poly Sal Luis Obispo hosts its annual Open House this April, during which campus clubs typically greet and recruit prospective visiting students, one longtime mainstay at the university will be conspicuously absent: Cru.

The Christian club will not be allowed to set up a table and pass out fliers, or meet and greet guests. It’s the same at Chico State, where Cru will not be allowed to showcase itself during the school’s annual fall recruitment drive. They’ve also been forbidden from hanging up posters in freshman dorms.

Apparently, the First Amendment’s freedom of religion clause means nothing to student and university leadership at these institutions.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Bagnasco Says Gender Theory May Lead to ‘Transhuman’

CEI head urges reaction against corruption

(ANSA) — Rome, March 23 — Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, head of the powerful Italian Bishops Conference (CEI), said Monday that gender education could lead to the creation of “transhuman” beings.

But Italian parents have the “freedom of education for their children,” which is permitted not as a “favour” but instead is a “fundamental right”.

Meanwhile, he told the CEI’s ruling council that honest people “can and must react against corruption” after the latest in a long line of graft scandals.

Corruption, the cardinal said, is “a very grave offence for the poor and the honest. That is intolerable”.

As well, Bagnasco warned that Europe must consider why its citizens are joining Islamic State (ISIS) extremist death squads.

The problem is not because of unemployment but due to a culture at home that is found to be “empty of its own spiritual, moral, anthropological” guidelines, said Bagnasco.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Ontario Teacher Suspended for Criticizing Child Procurement Program

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

An Ontario teacher has been suspended after criticizing Ontario’s sex ed in social media. She wishes to remain anonymous as she “fears for her safety.”

She writes:

“Thank you for covering the sex-ed topic in such an informative, educational, way. As a public school elementary teacher, I had been trying to do the same by using social media (Twitter, Facebook.) At least until I have been gagged by my own Union and sent to the school board’s “Tweet Right” course.

What is happening in schools and particularly the union is terrifying. We are being gradually conditioned to approach children with sex talk via images of gingerbread cookies. Most of us have learned as children to reject candy from strangers. Yet here we are, teachers from the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario about to start using images of candied cookies to have adult chats about sex with children.

It’s simply criminal. There ought to be some sort of political/judicial/criminal action to stop this dead in it’s tracks.

There is this sort of linguistic/psychological approach gradually implementing the “sex-ed” curriculum. There is an occult quality to the entire thing and disturbing overtones of pedophilia.

I hope you continue your work on this subject. Parents and teachers need to be educated about the sex education program and its genesis. They simply don’t know. They need to be informed with the facts about it so they can understand.”…

The sex ed curriculum was designed by a pedophile. Benjamin Levin pleaded guilty to making written child pornography, counseling a person to commit a sexual assault, and possession of child pornography. He also told an undercover police officer he had sex with his own daughters and hoped to have sex with his granddaughters.

[Comment: If a stranger on the street did this to a child it would be called “corruption of a minor” and they would go to jail. This program is pure evil.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Is Climate Change $$ Campaign Working?

The most expensive public relations campaign in western civilized history, (mostly public tax dollars), in the last 25 years has failed to gain many believers but the political alarmism crusade is being $$ cranked up ever higher. The latest big push is to get an agreement at the Paris Conference Dec. 2015.

The global warming / climate change threat agenda has traditionally been politicized, Liberal/NDP/Green Leftists on the pro side with Conservatives being more skeptical.

Many opportunists have profited at the expense of a heavy additional burden on taxpayers for all government departments, public schools, universities, subsidized grants to no end of studies, enormous media advertising, corporate friends reliant subsidies, environmental groups, political agendas etc.

Hyped up climate fears and enviro threats are used by politicians to justify increasing gov’t revenue like carbon taxes. Recently, Washington State’s Gov. Jay Inslee is trying to implement a carbon tax (or cap/trade) to raise $12.2 billion to fund a transportation plan.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

26 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/29/2015

    • The logic behind the bible code is flawed because if one goes ‘looking’ for a particular event in the ‘matrix’ of scripture then one can obviously work the many trillions of combinations until one finds something desirable.

  1. Having a long time internet friend that was expelled from Syria and currently works for the Brookings institute I can look back on the Syrian conflict as one that was completely influenced by western powers (and made what it is today and that is a genocide of minority inhabitants.)
    The foreign policy that the United States has taken can be categorized as inept, ignorant, malicious and absurd.
    Hey, pick your adjective but none of them are good.
    Over 300,000 people have been murdered and 2 million displaced refugees due to the Obama administration.People that were soundly informed about the repercussions of the United States foreign policy were pleading with them years ago. This carnage could have been stopped.
    How anyone can listen to this administration and not know that they have caused the greatest genocide of minorities in the Middle East of any western admin in current history is beyond me.
    And yet, their western allies remained silent while this carnage was evolving. You would think that someone, anyone would have spoken up and thrown off the yoke of American might under the Obama administration in order to say what is right. No one has.
    I blame the entire western alliance for being too cowed to say what everyone knew; minorities were being murdered and no one was willing to do a thing about it until the American gov’t was shamed into a cosmetic resistance. That says a lot about all the western countries.
    And now we have this massive problem of religious crazies running unimpeded through the entire middle east and floods of refuges wanting safe harbor and a return of what they think of as normal.
    Unfortunately, what they think of as normal is not normal to us but, their politicians are savvy enough to know that they can use their voice to force us into submission through our very own laws. Why exactly are we importing these people into our countries? Isn’t there some island where we could let them live their Sharia law unimpeded? Where they could argue with drivers licence people and citizenship officials? Where the women could be beaten under their burkas and the men could be unemployed?

    WHY is this happening>

    This is one totally screwed up American administration when we have one part of our military fighting against Iran in Yemen and another part offering air support to Iran in Iraq while trying to bargain a nuclear arms deal at the same time!.

    I really can’t remember how much more crazy our foreign policy has ever been.
    I fear for our country and I fear for the world.

    • Don’t just blame Obama. The UK and France and the EU haven’t been idle either. They too provided supplies to those fighting against Assad although not arms (or so we are told). As a result the rebels have murdered and exiled Christians and anyone else who doesn’t follow their particular brand of islam. Only last week I read that the UK is over there training these “freedom fighters” against Assad. The same fighters who, according to the UN, used chemical weapons against their own people and blamed Assad.One would have thought that after the carnage following the overthrow of Saddam and Ghaddafi that the west might have learned. They haven’t and the only sense being preached is by Putin.

    • We have a saying in England – He can’t tell his ar** (bottom) from his elbow.

      But it is not as simple as that is it. I cannot believe that a POTUS, any POTUS, does anything without a reason. Now that reason may not be to the benefit of ‘you the people’, but believe me there is an agenda here, and the real question is WHOSE!

      Cui bono?

    • It’s Marxist zero-sum conflict theory and the absurdity of the resulting ideas about “social justice” applied to foreign policy.

      It results in evil, but there’s no guilt among the believers because their intent is good, and to them only their intent is important, not the actual results.

      Even if the result is a holocaust worthy of Hitler himself, the believers feel no shame or guilt because of their great noble intentions.

    • “Late”, Bishop? We’ve not always agreed, but if you are communicating from the other side (decent internet connection, I hope?), a description would be interesting; things may have changed since Dante’s report.

  2. ” The Iranians were unhappy with certain aspects of President Obama’s offer, so signing has been postponed. The next deadline will now be in July.”

    Only simpletons will believe that. It’s a done deal. USA and Iran are in collusion to give the impression that USA is not easy on Iran, and that Hussein Obama is not a fool to accept Iran’s diktats without challenge. It is a Malignant holy alliance between Hussein and Iran. Only Now we can understand the significance of his Cairo Speech in 2009. Congress can’t stop him whatever recklessness he does. No one can.

    • You mean this devious, malignant ‘Christian’ is just to be allowed to do whatever he likes (well he is) and Congress is powerless to stop him?

      Surely Congress could stop him; I’m not familiar with the niceties of the American Constitution but surely the founding fathers put in place something to stop a rogue President from trashing the country.

      • Yes, there is the procedure for impeaching the president, but it requires a 2/3rds majority in the senate for conviction and the Democrats there are partisan slaves of the president.

        This is an example of how an impeachment attempt would go if it were attempted: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Bill_Clinton

        Democrats have shown that they won’t vote for impeachment of a Democrat president simply because he breaks the law, and probably not even for treason. They will only do so if the president turns against their individual political interests.

        • That’s the problem: democracy = dictatorship
          in the end results.
          Results are important not titles and names.

          • Names are always important. It is how we distinguish things. That doesn’t negate results but without the names, you have linguistic chaos. For example, the name “Potemkin” has a distinct meaning and it arose from a result.

          • It’s more like: democracy still results in a de facto oligarchy. At least a head of state is constrained a bit by the interests of the oligarchy, but he can get away with anything that doesn’t aggrivate the oligarchs enough to unite them against him.

            At least the oligarchs can still be swapped out by the voter, but aside from recall referendum it can’t be done quickly, and recall doesn’t work unless the population is sufficiently united.

            So if a president can keep the oligarchs divided, and the oligarchs can keep the population divided then accountability mechanisms can be defeated. Even if they can’t then they could still conceivably defeat accountability with the collusion of the military (which is why they take an oath to uphold the constitution).

        • The rationale of the separation of powers mechanism the U.S. Founding Fathers put in place was that the three branches of the government would always have competing interests. They appear not to have foreseen that all branches would later come to uphold a higher law, namely, Keep the boodle flowing, don’t make waves, and maintain the forms.

          The two-thirds requirement for conviction of a president is the senate is extremely high and arguably rightly so. Even so, no Democrat in the Senate will defect these days and, given the sellout of the Republicans even before they new Congress was sworn in, it’s clear there’s no fight in them.

          The constitutional scheme has been subverted by careerism. Perks and power before the interests of the nation.

          If Obama undermines the Constitution or is hostile to the interests of the nation, well, his actions are secondary to the Prime Directive. Not even secondary. Irrelevant. Long before the Odd Couple arrived to take up residence on Transylvania Avenue the American republic was slyly morphed into a state with an all-powerful federal government and, ever since, this has been acquiesced in, enabled, or engineered by the Supreme Court, the Congress, the presidents, state governors, state courts, state bar associations, law schools, and the legacy press. They are all obedient to their masters.

      • The problem is that every country has a noble Constitution and Laws and governing bodies to apply justice on their citizens.
        But to have laws written and a Congress only to get elected and have fat salaries and prestige is completely different from what is in reality.

        Can you ever remember the Congress stop an aggressive war or stop a president’s recklessness?
        – Saddam would give $25 000 to any family who committed atrocities against Jews. Congress was asleep. Should have urged the president to punish Saddam severely for that.
        – Assad, the father, occupied Lebanon. Congress did not pressure the president to force Assad to withdraw from Lebanon in 24 hours.

        – Hillary and her former replacements went to Cairo to see if Muslims brotherhood members were treated “fairly” in courts of justice. Several times she was escorted out of the court for interfering in the domestic affairs of Egypt. Now just think of that: Who in his right mind would support with money too, the Muslim Brotherhood to rule Egypt. It is like putting your son to sleep with a scorpion. How could politicians think of these ideas, eccentric…. you would say, no, criminal. Did the congress reject that?

        – Did the Congress impeach Hussein after his Cairo speech and does the congress know or care that everything he mentioned in that speech is being applied to the letter, with unlimited enmity towards Israel. Ah he can punish israel with impunity, but not Abbas.

        When action is/ was needed … no action was take. e.g. Stopping Iran from occupying Iraq.
        When there was no need for action ( no need to interfere in Libya, Syria, Iran in 1979) , they interfered grossly with disastrous results.
        The only remedy to stop wars in the middle east is to give Israel advanced weapons, money, support on all levels, so that they will be defeated every time they start a war. Wars have always been stopped that way not through appeasement. You can’t stop muslims from believing in the book. But you can stop them from killing you.

        • The president of the US might as well be king when it comes to international relations and policy. He’s the commander of the military and diplomacy (which is just an extension of the military, when it really comes down to it).

          Congress is very limited in what they can do about any of this, and it tends to be limited to defunding things or impeachment. So there really has to be an obvious impending disaster directly affecting the ruling class and members of congress for them to be willing to do anything. Even a nuclear war, if it’s limited to the Middle East, might be insufficient for them to do anything.

  3. Re ADHD. Didn’t I recently read that the bloke who “discovered” and named ADHD now says that he was mistaken and that no such condition exists? Just naughty and undisciplined children.

    • If you’d ever worked with a truly ADHD kid – or an even worse hell – lived with one, you would temper your condemnation and implied criticism of such families. I knew one boy, the son of a Boston firefighter, who could be found on the tops of trees or telephone poles – at three in the morning. They didn’t use medications back then, nor did they have a name for his behavior. But those parents and teachers suffered.

    • As Dymphna says, these things are real. Unfortunately they get misdiagnosed. High functioning autism is often misdiagnosed as “ADHD” in girls, for example. This is exacerbated by the false belief that “men and women are the same.”

      Then you have the parents who are convinced that their kids have every single trendy medical problem that gets media attention.

      • Nimrod- good point. ADHD in girls doesn’t lead to hyperactivity but to ‘spacing out’. If anything, they tend to be hypo-active. Right now in the US there is a big controversy re vaccines and autism. It’s mainly because the cheaper preservatives in *some* vaccines are problematic and the fact that too many vaccines are given at one time for the convenience of doctor and parents.

        OT, but interestingly, children (or adults) are most likely to ‘shed’ the bacteria right after the vaccine. Take the child to daycare and many of the kids get whatever the vaccinated child was given…the best practices here are a mess. So are the adjuvants and preservatives. So is the risk of infection from the heavy influx of poverty-stricken 3rd world unaccompanied children. California is a vast hot-house for old diseases waiting to return.

        I’m always OT…and VERY ADD. The B says it’s like taking a puppy for a walk…

          • I’m actually a cat person. Or those little yippy dogs with curly hair and great curiosity. One I could bathe in the bathroom sink and who LIKED the process. ‘Twould be fun.

            We have neither since my Lulu died…can’t afford the upkeep and the B is already tasked with Driving Miz Dymphna to doctor appointments and to the plant nurseries in the Spring, and to visit relatives…

            A pet would be a drive too far, me thinks.

          • You’d like my brother’s pet. He’s a rescue dog, a Parson’s Terrier, smarter than many humans, and can extract food from any closed container. But he does chase cats…

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