The alleged mastermind behind the Bardo Museum massacre in Tunisia last March, a Moroccan named Abdel Majid Touil, has been arrested in Italy. He is said to have crossed over to Italy from North Africa in one of the migrant boats.
In other migration news, about 500 recent Mediterranean immigrants have set up two refugee camps in the heart of Paris.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Erick Stakelbeck, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, K, 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.
Government Regulation and Economic Stagnation
One of the more interesting economic debates in the past couple of decades is why the economy is slowing down.
Since 2000, per capita GDP growth in the US has been 0.9 percent per year, compared to 2.3 percent per year in the previous fifty years. This is a big difference: at 2.3 percent growth we double in wealth every generation. At 0.9 percent it takes us close to a century to double. So why the slowdown?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: One-Third Increase in Poverty, Demand Jumps for Baby Bonus
Head of INPS social agency says 15 million households at risk
(ANSA) — Rome, May 19 — Poverty increased by fully one-third during the six years of the economic crisis, helping fuel the demand by more than 15,000 applicants for Italy’s new baby bonus, the head of national social agency INPS said Tuesday.
The percentage of poor households in Italy rose to 25% from 18% before the crisis, Tito Boeri told a hearing of the House social affairs committee.
The number of poor grew to 15 million from 11 million, he added. The economic crisis that dates from about 2008 has hit the poorest 10% of the Italian population particularly hard, added Boeri.
Those poorest people saw a 27% loss in income during the crisis while the richest 10% saw a mere 5% decline in their incomes, he said.
About five million Italians are in conditions of “severe deprivation”.
Meanwhile, INPS has already received 15,000 applications for the baby bonus since it became available last week for families with earnings less than 25,000 euros per year.
The bonus will amount to about 80 euros per month, or 960 euros annually for the first three years of every child’s life.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Renowned Experts Warn of Slow-Motion Financial Collapse
Despite constant reassurances from federal overseers, Americans are becoming increasingly aware of the economy’s frail nature.
While media pundits and analysts desperately push the failure of central planning and Keynesian economics, these 5 experts continue to be proven right on the dangers of reckless spending and debt.
Here are 5 renowned experts who warned of the now-present, slow-motion financial collapse…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
6 Chinese Men Indicted in Theft of Code From U.S. Tech Companies
The Obama administration on Tuesday announced the arrest of a Chinese professor and the indictment of five other Chinese citizens in what it contended was a decade-long scheme to steal microelectronics designs from American companies on behalf of the Chinese government.
The indictment, under a provision of the Economic Espionage Act that is used only in cases where the government believes it can prove the theft was on behalf of a foreign power, was the largest since five members of the People’s Liberation Army were indicted last year, accused of hacking into the computer systems of American companies to steal technology for state-owned Chinese companies.
Continue reading the main story
None of those five officials have been arrested or seen in an American courtroom, and for a time those indictments froze discussions between the United States and Chinese governments over rules for reducing online attacks. But the chief of the national security division of the Justice Department, John P. Carlin, recently defended the approach as the best way to “raise the price” for the Chinese.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Democrat Rep. Worried About Morale — Because Congressmen Haven’t Had Enough Pay Raises
Out in the real world, pay increases are usually tied to performance. Do a better job, grab a better position, and make more money. It makes a lot of sense.
Unfortunately, Congress is not part of the real world. When you live off the largesse of the American taxpayer, the sky is the limit. No matter how terrible a job you do, you can always demand more.
Enter Florida Democrat Representative Alcee L Hastings. He’s terribly concerned that the paltry $174,000.00 we currently pay our average congressmen is so low that “Morale” may suffer. Hastings complains that high rent has forced him to move to a “comfortable but not nearly AS comfortable” apartment, and he worries that members of Congress make will be unable to send their kids to college.
He even has the audacity to whine about high taxes.
Check out the video:…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Federal Judge Says DC Gun Carry Law is Unconstitutional
A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction saying the District of Columbia’s new concealed carry law is unconstitutional.
The order, issued Monday by Judge Frederick J. Scullin, was the second decision in less than a year declaring the Washington, D.C., gun carry laws to be unconstitutional. In October of 2014, the same judge ruled that the district’s complete ban on gun carry was also in violation of the Constitution.
Scullin barred DC Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier from enforcing the city’s requirement that a person applying for a concealed carry permit must prove they have a “good reason” to need one. This requirement created a system where only those with police reports detailing violent threats against them could obtain a permit.
Critics said the requirement was the reason few permits had been issued thus far, and argued that it violates the Second Amendment.
The “good reason” clause was used to deny three men who wished to carry weapons in the District permits. The men—Joshua Akery, Tyler Whidby, and Brian Wrenn—joined with the Second Amendment Foundation to file suit against the city.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Money from George Soros and others fuels the racist, anti-cop violence.
ACORN’s successor group in Missouri has been paying protesters $5,000 a month to generate civil unrest in Ferguson, the troubled St. Louis suburb where black youth Michael Brown was killed by a white police officer last August.
We know this because some of the protesters haven’t been paid and, now, they are demanding what they were promised. They held a sit-in at the offices of Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) and posted a demand letter online.
MORE is the rebranded Missouri branch of the former Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) which filed for bankruptcy in late 2010. That ACORN state chapter reconstituted itself in December 2009 as MORE under orders from ACORN’s national headquarters. President Obama used to work for ACORN and he represented it in court as a lawyer. (See my previous article on MORE.)
MORE has been active in the Ferguson protests and in efforts to free jailed demonstrators so they can continue vandalizing businesses, intimidating perceived adversaries, setting fires, throwing projectiles and human waste at cops, and engaging in the Left’s usual modes of so-called nonviolent protest. MORE believes that protesters should be given a blank check to inflict whatever harm they wish on the community in pursuit of social justice.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary Clinton Pushes GMO Agenda… Hires Monsanto Lobbyist… Takes Huge Dollars From Monsanto
(NaturalNews) Democrats who had been programmed to blindly vote for Hillary Clinton are picking their jaws up off the floor after learning the truth about Hillary’s ties to Monsanto. The ties run so deep that she’s now being dubbed the “Bride of Frankenfood.” ()
Shockingly, Hillary Clinton’s ties to Monsanto are new information to her liberal support base. It drives home the important point that nearly everyone supporting Hillary Clinton has no idea who she really is, as evidenced by this stunning new video from Mark Dice and Luke Rudkowski.
“Hillary Rodham Clinton’s ties to agribusiness giant Monsanto, and her advocacy for the industry’s genetically modified crops, have environmentalists in Iowa calling her ‘Bride of Frankenfood’“ reports the Washington Times. “A large faction of women voiced strong support for Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy until the GMO issue came up, prompting them to switch allegiances to Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont, a liberal stalwart challenging her for the Democratic nomination.”…
It’s not just GMOs, either, that haunt the real history of Hillary Clinton. As The Atlantic reported this year, Hillary Clinton was also instrumental in handing the Russian government a near-monopoly over nuclear weapons uranium supplies.
All the while, money was flowing into the Clinton foundation from uranium interests:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Advances in Ramadi — And America
What happens over there matters over here.
While ISIS is dominating the headlines again after its brutal conquest of the strategic Iraqi city of Ramadi, in Anbar Province, this past weekend, the threat posed by the Islamic State is increasingly being felt much closer to home. The recent targeting of a Mohammed cartoon drawing contest in Garland, Texas by ISIS supporters should have been a major wakeup call. ISIS’s goal is to have a network of supporters and sympathizers in place in America to carry out the kind of smaller-scale, low tech, inexpensive attack seen in Garland (and in Ottawa, Paris, Sydney, New York City, Oklahoma, Paris and Copenhagen in recent months) in U.S. cities on a regular basis, creating a tense, guerilla war-style atmosphere.
As my latest report for CBN News shows, U.S. officials believe that ISIS is well on its way to having such a support network in place in the homeland.
Click the link above to watch.
| — Hat tip: Erick Stakelbeck | [Return to headlines] |
Leaked List Shows Ferguson Protesters Paid by Soros Front Group
A leaked list shows that Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE), a group funded by George Soros, paid over 80 individuals and organizations to protest during civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri last year.
The details came to light after black activists held a sit in protest at the offices of MORE last week in St. Louis to complain about the fact that they hadn’t been paid the money they were promised for taking part in the demonstrations.
In order to show where the money had been going, MORE was forced to release the following list of who had been paid what.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Osama Bin Laden Killing: What Else is Washington Hiding?
Seymour Hersh’s report on the killing of Osama bin Laden makes Americans wonder whether their government is lying to them about other events, Ron Paul and Daniel McAdams stressed. Some influential US policy-makers have rushed to dismiss the report of American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh who published new relevations on the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, due to the fact that Hersh is challenging the government explanation of what happened, emphasized Ron Paul, a former Republican congressman and two-time US presidential candidate.
“I think the goal is mostly to discredit him [Seymour Hersh] and he is not an easy person to discredit because he is challenging this status quo,” Dr. Ron Paul remarked.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rand Paul Vows to Do Everything Possible to Block Patriot Act Renewal
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) vowed Monday to do “everything possible” end the renewal of the Patriot Act — even as he conceded that the filibuster he was planning was unlikely to be enough to end the program.
“We do not have the votes to ultimately defeat the Patriot Act. I can delay it; I can force them to debate it so the public at large can know what they’re doing,” Paul said, while asserting that he has public opinion on his side.
“They’ve got the votes inside the Beltway, but we have the votes outside the Beltway,” Paul said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
State Department Reveals Hillary Clinton Received $500k Worth of Jewelry From Saudi King
Foreign diplomacy doesn’t always resolve world-class problems, but it sure does rake in the swag.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was given a half-million bucks worth of diamond and ruby jewelry by Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz and received $58,000 worth of bling from Brunei.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Stupefying Generations of Americans
I used the verb “stupefying” to describe a long process in our nation’s schools that has produced several generations of Americans, dumbed down and resulting in more than half who are functionally illiterate, nor can do math, and, as a recent headline reported “Student’s Results in Social Studies Stagnate.”
“U.S. middle-school students’ performance on social studies didn’t improve much between 2010 and 2014, federal test scores released Wednesday (April 29) show, underscoring concerns about the uniformed citizenry and workforce.” When it comes to U.S. history, the share of students scoring at or above proficiency last year was 18%, up one percentage point from 2010. In other words, over 80% failed to have a grasp on the subject, critical to every citizen’s understanding of U.S. history, its Constitution, and governance.
An extraordinary new book by Samuel Blumenfeld and Alex Newman, “Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children” ($26.95, WND Books) should be the center of conversation for a nation’s media, but I suspect this may be among the few places you would learn about it. Blumenfeld has written ten books on education and Newman is an international journalist, educator and consultant…
Blumenfeld notes that “In the United States the socialist utopians adopted a new and unique method of conquering a nation; by dumbing down its people, by destroying the brainpower of millions of its citizens.”
This was launched in 1898 by John Dewey, a socialist, and outlined in his essay titled ‘The Primary-Education Fetich.’ “In it he showed his fellow progressives how to transform America into a collectivist utopia by taking over the public schools and destroying the literacy of millions of Americans.”
“The plan has been so successfully implemented that it is now a fact that half of America’s adult population are functionally illiterate. They can’t read their nation’s Constitution or its Declaration of Independence. They can’t even read their high school diploma.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Tina Siegert the Google Goliath’s David
Conservative websites like Canada Free Press (CFP) owe a debt of gratitude to plucky ‘Citizen Journalist’, news researcher cum laude, Tina Siegert of News the Media Won’t Show You.
Though some might not yet realize its full impact, all conservative websites are under Google suppression now that Google has claimed rights as the Grand Central of Internet Truth. Google will no longer drive traffic to Conservative websites. Internet traffic is what gets all websites Internet advertising. Without advertising they will go under.
Google, the world’s largest search engine, is gargantuan in size and clout, but still small enough to fit in Barack Obama’s back pocket.
Tina Siegert is but an infinitesimal grain of sand on the mighty Google beach, but she’s doing what the owners of major conservative websites should be doing for themselves. That is trying to find ways to keep from being drowned in the coming Google tsunami.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
World Communist Government Planned and Financed by USA
The head of the Ford Foundation, ex-OSS officer Paul Hoffman, doubled as head of ACUE in the late Fifties. The State Department also played a role. A memo from the European section, dated June 11, 1965, advises the vice-president of the European Economic Community, Robert Marjolin, to pursue monetary union by stealth.
It recommends suppressing debate until the point at which “adoption of such proposals would become virtually inescapable”.
DECLASSIFIED American government documents show that the US intelligence community ran a campaign in the Fifties and Sixties to build momentum for a united Europe. It funded and directed the European federalist movement…
Listen to this remarkable youtube video with Christopher Story and William Mcllhany. At the 4.16 mark Story quotes Gorbachev “the European Union is the new European Soviet”. —William H. McIlhany speaks with Author, …
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Alitalia, Air France to Part Company
Partnership between carriers to end in 2017
(ANSA) — Rome, May 19 — Alitalia said Tuesday it would not renew its partnership and ancillary joint ventures with Air France-KLM when these expire in 2017.
The decision comes after the Italian flag-carrier’s recent tie-up with Etihad Airlines.
The move affects a range of agreements on market, sales and cargo services.
Alitalia said that the original agreements set out in 2009 and 2010 were made in “a very different economic environment”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Danish Royals Draw Out Hamburg Crowds
Crown prince Frederik and crown princess Mary of Denmark pulled out the crowds on a visit to Hamburg on Tuesday morning at the head of a economic mission called ‘Danish living.’ The visit lasts three days and includes a stop-off in Munich.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Fights Germany Over Trucker Minimum Wage
The European Commission launched legal action against Germany on Tuesday, accusing the government of illegally applying the national minimum wage to a number of trucking and haulage companies from Austria, Poland and Hungary.
The EU’s powerful regulator objects to the application of a national minimum wage to lorry drivers passing through the country even just for a few hours and the substantial paperwork associated with that.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
European Jews Fear for Safety a Year After Museum Attack
(BRUSSELS) — A year after a gunman murdered four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, Jews across Europe increasingly fear for their safety and warn they are on the frontline of an Islamist war against democracy itself.
Since the attack in the Belgian capital on May 24, 2014, Jews have been slain in jihadist attacks in Paris and Copenhagen. Jews were also murdered in a similar attack in the French city of Toulouse in 2012.
“The threat of jihadist attacks in Europe is not limited to the Jewish community,” European Jewish Congress chief Moshe Kantor told AFP.
“Islamist extremists see European democracy and freedom as their primary enemy. However, Jews remain on the frontlines,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Islamist Held for Stalking Charlie Hebdo Chief
Two men, one with links to Islamic extremism, have been questioned by police after they were reported to have been watching the home of one of the surviving members of Charlie Hebdo staff.
Laurent “Riss” Sourisseau, the publishing director of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, has been living under police protection ever since the January terror attacks in Paris.
He escaped the massacre with a bullet wound to the shoulder, while 12 people around him were shot dead.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
French Mayor Forced Into Mental Institution for ‘Islamophobic’ Comments?
If this story turns out to be accurate, it appears as though the spirit of “Je Suis Charlie” is very much dead in France.
A French Mayor was reportedly committed to a mental institution against his will after he posted ‘Islamophobic’ comments on Twitter.
The story began when Robert Chardon, mayor of the southern French town of Venelles, became embroiled in a Twitter debate with former French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
Chardon insisted that France “ban the Muslim faith in France” and instead “promote the practice of the Christian faith.”
While Chardon’s remarks may be seen as bigoted and offensive to many, what reportedly happened next was infinitely more shocking.
A translated version of an AFP story states that Chardon was “forcibly hospitalized” as a result of “incoherent statements” made on Twitter.
Press reports about Chardon’s comments in English-language media contained no details of Chardon being detained in a psychiatric ward.
Local officials subsequently denied the AFP report and claimed that Chardon had been hospitalized for cancer treatment, although the mayor had been undergoing such treatment for months.
The AFP story said that Chardon had been committed to the mental institution “by someone close to him for reasons of incoherent statements.”
Selwyn Duke sums up the chilling prospect of Chardon being forcibly detained over his political beliefs.
“One tactic Soviet-bloc countries would use to stifle dissidents was involuntary confinement to mental institutions. After all, you have to be crazy to oppose state ideology, right? Now, though, 26 years after the Berlin Wall’s fall comes a similar shocking story — from well west of where the wall stood.”
While those who disparage or merely criticize the religion of Islam are finding themselves under increasing scrutiny in Europe, some countries are extending political correctness to the point of directly aiding ISIS jihadists.
At least 32 Danish citizens who are fighting alongside Islamic State terrorists in Syria have received welfare unemployment benefits of around 378,000 kroner (US$57,000) each.
Meanwhile, in Sweden, some politicians are calling for ISIS terrorists to be reintegrated into society and given jobs — at taxpayer expense — upon their return from Iraq and Syria.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Leader Warns AfD Could Become National Front
The leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) warned on Tuesday that his own party has the potential to turn into a German version of the National Front, France’s far-right political party.
Party founder and leader Bernd Lucke, along with three close allies, conceded to several German journalists on Tuesday that his party had the potential to develop into an anti-American, Islamophobic German version of the National Front, Süddeutsche Zeitung reported.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Ferrovie Nord’s Achille Quits After Probe
Police investigate personal spending with company credit card
(ANSA) — Milan, May 19 — Norberto Achille on Tuesday quit as president of Ferrovie Nord Milano after being put under investigation for allegedly spending around 600,000 euros of the regional rail operator’s money on personal expenses for himself and his family between 2008 and 2014.
The company, which is about 58% owned by the regional government of Lombardy, said that the deputy president Luigi Cardinetti will fill in the top job for now.
Police allege Achille used his company credit card for a range of person spending.
In a statement, police added a judge banned Achille from holding executive positions for six months.
Also included in the investigation is the head of the supervisory board of the company, Carlo Alberto Belloni, on allegations of failing to properly control financial matters.
Achilles joined Ferrovie Nord in 1998, after working for the City of Milan’s transportation department.
Opposition politicians complained the government of Lombardy should have better control over its agencies.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Schools Measures Approved as Govt Removes ‘5 Per Mille’
Review of controversial reforms could be complete Wed
(ANSA) — Rome, May 19 — Education Minister Stefania Giannini said Tuesday that the government accepts the removal of article 17 of its ‘Good School’ reforms bill, including measures dealing with allocations to private schools.
But, she added, the government is not giving up the idea entirely.
Earlier, members of the Democratic Party agreed the measures should instead be sent to budget review specialists.
That agreement also saw a PD minority withdraw an amendment on article 17.
Giannini said the government is still “committed” to the allocations of funds for schools but accepts that it could be done through other means.
Meanwhile, the Lower House approved a raft of other measures contained in the government’s controversial reform bill including teacher training allowances, performance bonuses and tax breaks for contributions to school maintenance.
Some suggested the review may be completed Wednesday.
“With article 12 (of the reform bill) investment in teacher training and refresher courses becomes permanent,” said Giannini in a post to her Twitter account, referring to the introduction of an annual 500 euro allowance for teachers. The minister also hailed approval of an article setting a three-year time limit on fixed-term contracts for teachers and auxiliary staff. “No to new job insecurity, from now on hiring is based on competitive examination,” Giannini said in another message. The House also approved the introduction of bonuses for teachers who perform well, to be assigned by school principals on the basis of criteria set out by an assessment committee, and of a 65% tax credit on donations towards school building or maintenance projects. “Everyone can help improve the school system,” Giannini said in yet another tweet. On Monday the House approved measures giving increased powers to school principles that remained controversial despite having been watered down slightly with respect to the original version. Unions called a nationwide strike earlier this month in protest over the reform and have warned of further mobilisation as the bill continues its passage through Parliament.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Luxottica Gifts Shares to Employees on Chairman’s Birthday
9 mn euros in stock bonus to celebrate Del Vecchio’s 80th
(ANSA) — Milan, May 19 — Luxury eyewear maker Luxottica gifted nine million euros worth of shares to employees on Tuesday.
In celebration of Luxottica chairman and founder Leonardo Del Vecchio’s 80th birthday, the eyewear magnate gave approximately 140,000 shares of Luxottica stock to his Italian employees.
“A big, heartfelt thank you to the Italian employees of the group, the real makers of our company’s success”, Del Vecchio said in a statement.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Whirlpool Layoff Plan ‘Unspeakable’ Says Guidi
‘Unacceptable, cold, preposterous’ plan says Marche governor
(ANSA) — Ancona, May 20 — Industry Minister Federica Guidi said Wednesday a Whirlpool plan to lay off 30% of its Italy workforce is “unspeakable”. No progress has been made in spite of a month of government-brokered talks between labor and management, the minister said. Whirlpool is seeking to increase redundancies from 1,350 to 2,060 in what Marche Governor Gian Mario Spacca called “an unacceptable, cold and preposterous” plan. Unions warned the international household appliance manufacturer takeover of Italian home-appliance maker Indesit last July would lead to massive layoffs.
The deal signed at the time of the takeover by UILM, FIM and UGL unions as well as Italian local and central governments was aimed at avoiding 1,425 layoffs at Indesit and ensuring 83 million euros’ worth of investments.
Whirlpool said last month that it plans to invest 500 million euros in Italian operations over four years. But UILM warned Wednesday Whirlpool plans to lay off 2,060 of its 6,700 Italy workforce. The bulk of the job losses are set to come on the factory floor, with several hundred administrative and R&D positions also being cut.
Unionized workers earlier this month blocked a major highway between Rome and Naples to protest the proposed job cuts.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mohammed Cartoons Coming to Denmark
Next month’s political festival on the island of Bornholm has already attracted Islam critics and nationalists — now it will also include the Mohammed drawings that were the target of a shooting in the US earlier this month.
The People’s Meeting (Folkemødet) on Bornholm grows more controversial by the day.
After the uproar surrounding the invitation to Dutch politician and prominent Islam critic Geert Wilders, it was announced that a host of European nationalists will attend at the invitation of the far-right Danes’ Party (Danskernes Parti).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
By Martin Witkerk
Raspail’s great merit is to have seen what few others did: that Europeans stand to lose control of their destiny within the lifetime of men now living.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Nuclear Disaster Waiting to Happen’: Royal Navy Probes Trident Whistleblower’s Claims
The Royal Navy has launched an investigation into whistleblower William McNeilly, who exposed horrid security lapses in UK’s trident nuclear program which make it easier for intruders to access some secured areas than enter “most nightclubs.”
UK authorities are “concerned for the whereabouts” of the 25-year old whistleblower, who went absent without leave and cooperated with WikiLeaks to post a detailed 18-page report called The Nuclear Secrets.
McNeilly, a weapons engineer, who allegedly served from January to April this year on board the HMS Victorious, claims that a number of security lapses and technical faults with the Trident missiles carrier exposes the UK nuclear deterrent to potential terrorist attacks that “would kill our people and destroy our land.”…
Besides the evident security flaws, the weapons technician lists a number of equipment problems, including a seawater leak, a flooded torpedo compartment and defective toilets. His revelations include missile compartment being used as an exercise gym, and the communication system that was difficult to understand.
“There were a lot of red tags on equipment in most of the compartments we went into. I highly suspected a lot of them were for defect rectification, rather than standard maintenance Tagouts. Seeing the condition of the security and equipment made me more than concerned, for the safety of the people,” he wrote.
The state of affairs is so chaotic that McNeilly says any “psychopath” can gain access to UK’s nuclear site.
“It’s just a matter of time before we’re infiltrated by a psychopath or a terrorist,” he says. “There were some people that I served with on that patrol who showed clear psychopathic tendencies.”…
While acknowledging that McNeilly’s report does “not pose any security risk to our personnel or operations,” the Ministry of Defense is nonetheless working with the police to find him.
“The Navy is concerned for the whereabouts and wellbeing of able seaman McNeilly and is working closely with civilian police to locate him,” the Navy said.
The whistleblower who has not returned from his leave of absence since taking off last week, acknowledged that “the penalty for releasing this will be life prison if I’m lucky.”
“The worst fear for me isn’t prison or being assassinated, it’s the fear of sacrificing everything I have just to warn the public and yet never be heard,” the 25-year-old wrote.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Macedonia’s Muslim Uprising Seen as Flashpoint in East-West Energy War
SKOPJE, Macedonia — A bloody confrontation this month between Macedonian police and Albanian Muslims has touched off widespread protests and threatens to ignite a geopolitical powder keg whose effects could be felt well beyond the impoverished Balkan nation, warn analysts.
Russia, thwarted repeatedly by the West in its bid to pipe natural gas to Europe, has settled on the so-called “Turkish Stream,” a route that passes through Turkey and Macedonia. Moscow suspects the U.S. and Europe, opposed to its plans to supply energy to Europe, is fomenting unrest in a bid to change the Russia-friendly regime of Gruevski and scuttle the pipeline.
The U.S. has been lobbying Greece to support an alternative pipeline project that would receive gas from Azerbaijan rather than Russia.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Wants to Turn Libya Into Its ‘Hub’ In Africa
The leaders of Isis have sent money and a growing number of fighters and military trainers to Libya from Syria to boost the Islamic State’s presence in Libyan territory and widen its influence, a US military source has told the Wall Street Journal.
According to the source, Isis now has an operational presence in Libya and aims to turn the country into its hub in Africa.
Libya is now part of the map of terror of Isis, the source was quoted as saying by the Wsj, adding that the presence in the country gives jihadists a new base to plan attacks in North Africa and, through the Mediterranean Sea, in Europe. Some US officials and experts, added the Wsj, also see signs they believe prove the willingness of the group’s leaders to boost relations with Islamic militant groups in the Egyptian Sinai peninsula, sending limited funding, as well as in other countries, but the highest concern is represented by growing relations with Libyan groups. The paper also reported that the US military see few valid options to stem the growth of Isis in the North African country, where the power void has favored the proliferation of militant groups.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Benghazi-Syria Weapons Connection
How arms got into ISIS jihadists’ hands — with Clinton and Obama’s full knowledge
The shameless lying that has formed the heart of the Obama administration’s Benghazi narrative took another turn yesterday. Documents obtained by Fox News reveal that U.S. intelligence agencies were “fully aware” weapons were being moved from Benghazi to Syria before the attack on Sept. 11, 2012, that claimed the lives of ambassador Christopher Stevens,Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, and diplomat Sean Smith. The documents also put the lie to President Obama’s assertion that the rise of ISIS caught the administration “by surprise.”
“Newly released documents show a serious disconnect between what the administration said, and what was known at the Defense Intelligence Agency, also known as the DIA,” reported Catherine Herridge yesterday morning on “America’s Newsroom.” “This Sept. 16, 2012 memo, copied to the national Security Council, State Department, CIA and others, concluded that the Benghazi attack was planned at least 10 days or more in advance. The DIA memo also reports the attack was tied to 9/11, and was retaliation for a June 2012 drone strike that killed an al Qaeda strategist. There is no discussion of a demonstration or an anti-Islam video,” Herridge added.
The memo is indeed damning. It reveals that the “Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman” (BCOAR) who claimed “ultimate responsibility” for the Benghazi attack were engaged in an effort “to kill as many Americans as possible to seek revenge for the [U.S.] killing of Aboyahiye (Alaliby) in Pakistan and in memorial of the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center buildings.” The memo further reveals the Obama administrations knew these terrorists had access to sophisticated weapons, including SA-7 and SA23/4 MANPADs “as well as unidentified missiles over two meters in length.” They knew a force of 120 men under the age of 28, led by Abdul Baset (AZUZ), had established a headquarters and training facility in the city of Derna “where they train almost every day focusing on religious lessons and scripture including three lessons a day of jihadist ideology,” the memo stated…
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton rightly described the implications from the data disclosure. “These documents are jaw-dropping,“ he stated.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Common Enemy: Israel, Hamas Face Threat of ISIS in Gaza
Sworn enemies Israel and Hamas may have found the one thing that can unite them: The threat of ISIS taking over Gaza.
Hamas, the U.S.-designated terrorist organization which controls the Islamic enclave in Israel and which fought a vicious 50-day war against Israel last summer, is desperately trying to stop ISIS from gaining a foothold within its territory. In recent weeks, jihadi groups loyal to ISIS have exchanged gun and rocket fire with Hamas authorities, planted bombs in public buildings and threatened an all-out war with the Gaza government. Hamas reportedly blew up a mosque believed to be a base for ISIS loyalists and has detained significant numbers of suspects.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
De-Islamization is the Only Way to Fight ISIS
by Daniel Greenfield
Obama can’t defeat ISIS with soft power, though ISIS could beat him with soft power assuming its Caliph ever decided to agree to sit down at a table with John Kerry without beheading him. Iran has picked up billions in sanctions relief and the right to take over Yemen and raid ships in international waters in the Persian Gulf just for agreeing to listen to Kerry talk for an hour. And that might be a fair exchange.
As bad as having your capital or ship seized by Iran is, listening to John Kerry talk is even worse.
If ISIS were to agree to a deal, it could pick up Baghdad and Damascus just in exchange for showing up. All it would have to do is find a Jihadi who hasn’t chopped off any heads on camera to present as a moderate. The administration and its media operatives would accuse anyone who disagreed of aiding the ISIS hardliners at the expense of the ISIS moderates who also represent the hardliners.
If Obama did that, he would at least lose in a way that he understands; instead of in a way he doesn’t.
So far ISIS has preferred the classical approach of killing everything in its path. The approach, deemed insufficiently nuanced by masters of subtlety like Obama and Kerry, has worked surprisingly well. Their response, which is big on the Bush arsenal of drone strikes, Special Forces raids and selective air strikes, hasn’t. But Bush was fighting terrorist groups, not unrecognized states capable of taking on armies.
It’s hard to destroy something if you don’t know what it is. And it’s hard to know what a thing is if you won’t even call it by its name or name its ideology.
The left loves root causes, but the root cause of ISIS isn’t poverty, unemployment or a lack of democracy.
It’s Islam.
The Islamic State isn’t unnatural. Its strength comes from being an organic part of the region, the religion and its culture. Its Arab enemies have performed so poorly fighting it because their institutions, their governments and their armies are unstable imitations of Western entities.
The United States can’t make the Iraqi army work because Iraq isn’t America. The assumptions about meritocracy, loyalty to comrades and initiative that make our military work are foreign in Iraq and Afghanistan where the fundamental unit is not the nation, but the tribe, clan and group.
Iraq and Syria aren’t countries; they’re collections of quarreling tribes that were forced into an arrangement that included the forms of Western government without any of the substance. When the Europeans left, kingdoms quickly became military juntas. Now the juntas are fighting for survival against Islamic insurgencies that are striving to return the region to what it was in the days of Mohammed.
ISIS is the ultimate decolonization effort. It’s what the left claims that it wants. But real decolonization means stripping away everything the Europeans brought, including constitutions, labor unions and elections. The cities that ISIS controls have been truly decolonized. There is no music, there are no rights, slavery is back and every decision is made by a cleric with a militia or a militia leader with a cleric.
That’s Mohammed. It’s the Koran. It’s Islam.
ISIS, or something very much like it, was always waiting to reemerge out of the chaos. Before ISIS, there were the Wahhabi armies of the Ikhwan which did most of the same things as ISIS. The British bombed them to pieces in the 1920s and the remainder became the Saudi Arabian National Guard.
The insistence on democratic institutions weakened the military juntas holding back Islamist insurgencies. Islamists took power across the region. Where they couldn’t win elections, they went to war. But whether they won on the battlefield or the ballot box, violence and instability followed them.
The fundamental mistake of the Arab Spring was the failure to understand that Islamist democracy is still a road leading to the Caliphate. Turkey’s Erdogan, the Islamist whose rule was used to prove that Islamist democracy can work, now openly promotes the reestablishment of the Ottoman Empire.
Or as Mullah Krekar of Ansar Al-Islam put it, “The resistance is not only a reaction to the American invasion; it is part of the continuous Islamic struggle since the collapse of the Caliphate. All Islamic struggles since then are part of one organized efforts to bring back the Caliphate.”
A decade later, the Norwegian Jihadist leader has proven to be more accurate than his Western hosts.
ISIS is not a reaction. It’s the underlying pathology in the Muslim world. Everything planted on top of that, from democracy to dictatorships, from smartphones to soft drinks, suppresses the disease. But the disease is always there. The left insists that Western colonialism is the problem. But the true regional alternative to Western colonialism is slavery, genocide and the tyranny of Jihadist bandit armies.
Our policy for fighting ISIS is colonialism by another name. We are trying to reform Iraqi institutions in line with our values and build a viable Iraqi military along the lines of our own military. We’re doing much of what the British were doing, but without their financial interests or imperial ambitions.
And all of this is reluctantly overseen by Barack Obama; the progressive campaigner against colonialism…
| — Hat tip: K | [Return to headlines] |
Iran’s Leader Rejects Foreign Access to Military Sites, Scientists
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s supreme leader vowed Wednesday he will not allow international inspection of Iran’s military sites or access to Iranian scientists under any nuclear agreement with world powers. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told military commanders Wednesday that Iran will resist “coercion and excessive demands” from America and other world powers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq PM Heads to Russia Seeking More Arms
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi flew to Russia on Wednesday seeking closer military cooperation as he faces tough challenges in the fight against the Islamic State jihadist group.
Abadi, who is due to meet President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, heads a large delegation that includes several ministers and a number of civil and military advisers.
The focus will be “the development of relations between the two countries, mainly expanding the military and security cooperation, and support for Iraqi forces in the face of terrorism,” Abadi’s office said…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Is Jihadists ‘Overrun’ Northern Part of Syria’s Ancient Palmyra
(AFP) — Jihadists from the Islamic State group took control of the northern sector of Syria’s historic city of Palmyra on Wednesday, a monitor said. “IS fighters seized the northern parts of the city, which amount to a third of Palmyra,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “Regime forces fled from these neighbourhoods,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Nears Palmyra Amid Fresh UNESCO Fears
Takes third of Tadmur
(ANSA) — Rome, May 20 — Islamic State (ISIS) militants have seized a third of the Syrian town next to Palmyra amid fresh warnings from UNESCO over the potential threat to one of the Middle East’s greatest archaeological sites. Activists say ISIS had overrun much of the north of Tadmur after fierce clashes with government forces.
Pro-government militia have been evacuating citizens, Syrian state media report.
Syria’s head of antiquities said the world had a responsibility to save Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Hundreds of statues had been moved to safety, but large monuments could not be moved, Maamoun Abdul Karim warned.
ISIS militants have ransacked and demolished several ancient sites that pre-date Islam in Iraq, including Hatra and Nimrud, leading to fears they might attempt to damage or destroy Palmyra.
Rising out of the desert and flanked by an oasis, Palmyra contains the monumental ruins of a great city that was one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world.
The site, most of which dates back to the 1st to the 2nd centuries AD when the region was under Roman rule, is dominated by a grand, colonnaded street.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Teen Girl Tried to Join IS in Syria
A 15-year-old girl embarked on a trip to Syria earlier this spring, intending to join terrorist organisation IS, but she was apprehended in Turkey and is now back in her hometown of Örebro in central Sweden.
When the girl’s parents found out that she had run away from home to join IS in Syria, they contacted the police and that led to the Turkish authorities intervening.
Three other Örebro residents have also attempted to travel to Syria to join IS, and have been deported by Turkish authorities twice. While the teen girl is back in Örebro, the other three individuals may have entered Syria via Jordan, according to unconfirmed information attained by Swedish Radio’s P4 Örebro station. They are a woman in her twenties who is married to an Örebro resident fighting for IS in Syria plus two men — one of whom has several brothers who have already been to Syria. One of the brothers was killed in Syria and another was convicted on Monday in Örebro for physically assaulting his sister.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian Activists Say ISIS Extremists Have Seized Almost Full Control of Palmyra
Syrian activists say that Islamic State extremists have seized almost full control of the ancient town of Palmyra, though it remained unclear how close to the famed archaeological site they have come.
The Syrian Observatory for human rights reported that government forces collapsed in the face of IS attacks and withdrew from the town late on Wednesday.
A media collective for Palmyra also says that IS was now in control of most of the town.
It’s not immediately clear how close the militants are to the ruins, which are just southwest of the town.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Renewed Mistrust Between Ukraine and Russia Harms Fragile Truce
Ukraine’s fragile cease-fire with Russian-backed separatists could unravel without both sides agreeing to a long-term truce, foreign policy analysts fear.
While Russian President Vladimir Putin said this month that the situation in eastern Ukraine has “become quieter,” Ukrainian officials remain weary over their actual role in the conflict.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Bin Laden Bent on Spectacular US Attack Until the End: Files
Washington (AFP) — Hunkered down in his Pakistani compound, Osama bin Laden pleaded with his followers to stay focused on attacking the United States instead of being dragged into Muslim infighting.
Documents that were declassified on Wednesday shed new light on the mindset of Al-Qaeda’s founder, his debates over tactics, his anxiety over Western spying and his fixation with the group’s media image.
“The focus should be on killing and fighting the American people and their representatives,” the late Al-Qaeda figurehead wrote.
The letter was among thousands of files found by US Navy SEALs on May 2, 2011 when they descended on Bin Laden’s hideout in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad and shot him dead.
US intelligence agencies have now declassified more than 100 of these documents taken from Bin Laden’s archive, after lawmakers ordered the move and critics accused the CIA of withholding material.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Osama Bin Laden’s Bookshelf: Noam Chomsky, Bob Woodward, And Jihad
Osama bin Laden was an avid reader with varied interests, including relations between religious communities in early medieval Spain, the economics of France in the 1930s, recent blunders by US intelligence agencies and the Vietnam war.
But he had one overriding fascination: his own organisation.
The list of books and other publications seized by US Navy Seals during the May 2011 raid in which the al—Qaida leader was killed reveal an eclectic range of reading material including works by Noam Chomsky, Yale history professor Paul Kennedy, and journalist Bob Woodward, as well as books suggesting that senior US officials deliberately allowed the 9/11 attacks to succeed.
The presence of some of the works on the “shelves” of Bin Laden — many are thought to be PDFs, so the bookshelves may be largely virtual — was predictable. Several are classics of modern extremist literature.
There are two works by Bin Laden’s mentor, Abdallah Azzam — Join the Caravan and The Defence of Muslim Lands — both of which were written in the 1980s and remain hugely influential among radical Islamists today.
Bin Laden, who was 54 when he died, also had a copy of The America I Have Seen, a vitriolic memoir of a short trip to the US by the Egyptian thinker and activist Syed Qutb, considered the godfather of modern jihadi thinking and hanged in 1966.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hong Kong Litterbugs Shamed in Billboard Portraits Made Using DNA From Trash
A campaign that used DNA analysis to give a face to anonymous Hong Kong litterbugs, then posted representations of the faces on billboards across the city, has been a big hit on social media.
The Face of Litter campaign was launched on Global Earth Day last month for the Hong Kong Cleanup Initiative, organised by online magazine Ecozine and the Nature Conservancy. It was aimed at raising awareness of the extent of littering in the city by pinpointing those responsible and encouraging people to change their behaviour.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EC Vice President Lashes Out at ‘Hole’ In New Immigrant Plan
EC spokesperson says not ‘quota’ but ‘relocation’ system
(ANSA) — Brussels, May 20 — The vice president of the European Commission on Wednesday lashed out against the EC’s proposal for revamping immigration policy saying the new system fails to provide the humanitarian treatment to survivors of human trafficking that it was conceived to address.
“We are facing a difficult challenge for the (EU) states; but I find it unacceptable that Europe is saying it wants to stop drownings and then says nothing about what to do with people rescued from the sea, on how to accommodate them,” said Frans Timmermans, speaking at the plenary session in Strasbourg.
An EC spokesperson on Wednesday said the new system of distributing migrants to be hosted in various EU countries was designed to facilitate logistics, not create a quota system.
“We are in contact with the French authorities. The Commission is not proposing a quota system. It offers a means of temporary relocation for emergency situations, for a specific group of people in clear need of international protection. Paris is with us on this,” said Natasha Bertaud, a spokesperson for the EC.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
EU Commission Engulfed in Migrant ‘Quota’ Battle
The European Commission’s plan to relocate asylum seekers in Europe is in danger of being killed off by reluctant member states.
Less than a week after it was announced, on 13 May, 10 countries have signaled opposition.
Hungary’s PM Viktor Orban has said the plan is “madness” and France’s Manuel Valls called it “a moral and ethical mistake”.
Other countries, including Spain and Poland, say they oppose the way the commission wants to distribute asylum seekers — according to population size, wealth, and the number of migrants already hosted.
Spain’s foreign minister, Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, declared on Monday (18 May) that his country is “ready to fulfill all the support efforts asked of us, but this should be proportionate, fair and realistic”. He added that “the criteria used by the commission are not.”
Poland’s Ewa Kopacz said last week she is “in favour of voluntary decisions on this issue”.
With anti-immigration parties on the rise in many EU countries, the reactions are as much a symptom of their growing influence on public debate as an attempt by governments to limit this influence.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Hollande Rejects Migrant Quotas for Europe
French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday there was “no question” of introducing a migrant quota system in Europe, as proposed by the European Commission.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France: Migrant Camps Emerge in the Heart of Paris
In recent weeks almost 500 refugees who have made their way to France via the notorious migrant boats across the Mediterranean have set up camp at two locations in the heart of Paris
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hungary Says No to EU Migrant Quota Initiative
‘Quotas absurd, unhealthy’ says prime minister
(ANSA) — Strasbourg, May 19 — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called European Union migrant quotas “absurd” and “unhealthy” Tuesday.
“The quotas represent an incentive to illegal immigrants,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Is it Too Harsh to Force Illegal Aliens to Self-Deport?
Immigration, legal or illegal, has been festering in America since the ink was dry on the Constitution. Racial bias and ethnic purity, along with financial, economic and security fears have driven immigration policy right, left, up, down and inside out for well over 150 years, every time a wave of immigration hits American shores.
Government always reacts to immigration woes. It is never proactive. Government policies can inhibit or enhance legal and illegal immigration. Since President Johnson’s 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, government’s policies have essentially created several magnets to illegal immigration. President Reagan’s granting amnesty to over 3,000,000 illegal aliens without the enforcement of and severely penalizing illegal employment, just added to the magnets. President Obama’s immigration executive orders have accelerated illegal immigration to the point of a flood.
But the worst magnet was the bastardization of the 14th Amendment that created what is now known as “Anchor Babies” where any child born in America, from anywhere on the planet, automatically becomes a citizen of the United States.
[Comment: Take a look at Mexico’s laws regarding illegal immigration. You will be stunned and outraged, and ask yourself why the US is not enforcing laws the same way.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Moroccan man has been arrested in Italy over the Tunisia museum massacre that left 21 tourists dead after fleeing across the Mediterranean on a migrant boat.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the March attack on the Bardo Museum in the capital Tunis which killed British mother Sally Adey.
Abdel Majid Touil, 22, was arrested at the house where he lives with his mother and brothers in Gaggiano, near Milan last night.
The accusations listed in the Tunisian arrest warrant include premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit attacks against the internal security of the state, belonging to a terrorist group and recruiting and training others to commit terrorist attacks, police said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Renzi Says All EU Must Accept Migrant Quotas
‘Problem is not only Italian’ premier tells Porta a Porta
(ANSA) — Rome, May 19 — Premier Matteo Renzi said Tuesday that all of the European Union must accept migrants quotas because the problem of waves of arrivals across the Mediterranean cannot be handled by Italy alone. “The EU for the first time has said that the problem is not only Italian,” Renzi said in an interview with TV’s Porta a Porta. “The countries agreed to send ships but they must accept the principle of quotas,” and accept responsibility for a share of the migrants, he added. France and Spain have questioned the quotas.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy to Recover Migrant Bodies as EU Plan Falters
Italy will recover hundreds of bodies from a boat which capsized in April in a bid to prevent the collapse of an EU plan to tackle the migrant crisis, the prime minister said on Tuesday.
“We will go to the bottom of the sea and recover that boat,” Matteo Renzi said in a television interview, as opposition mushroomed to controversial plans for quotas to spread Mediterranean refugees around Europe.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Moroccan Arrested in Italy Over Bardo Attack, Arrived on Migrant Boat
22-year-old allegedly involved in deadly March 18 attack
(ANSA) — Milan, May 20 — A 22-year-old Moroccan has been arrested in the area of Milan in connection with the deadly attack on the Bardo museum in Tunis, Italian police said Wednesday.
Tunisian investigators believe that the man, , named as Touil Abdelmajid, planned the March 18 attack in which 24 people died, including four Italians, and also took part in the assault. Italian police seized material from the apartment in the town of Gaggiano, near Milan, where the man was staying and this material will be analysed by intelligence specialists.
The Moroccan man originally arrived in Italy on a migrant boat, ANSA sources said Wednesday. The man was identified in February at the Sicilian port of Porto Empedocle after arriving along with 90 other people on a migrant boat. He was then issued with a expulsion order. Investigators believe the man, who is in Italy illegally, returned to his homeland before going on to take part in the Bardo attack. He was captured in an apartment he was sharing with his mother and two brothers in the town of Gaggiano, near Milan. The question of whether Islamist terrorists could be among thousands of migrants coming to Italy from North Africa is a hot political issue here.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Russia, China Review Draft Resolution at UN on Migrants
Security Council members concerned with military action
(ANSA) — New York, May 19 — A draft resolution at the United Nations on seizing and destroying boats used by human-smugglers to try to slow migrant flows was being reviewed by Russia and China, a UN source said Tuesday.
Those two permanent members of the UN Security Council were said to have major concerns about military actions and could veto such a resolution.
The draft text speaks of a “mandate for an operation under the umbrella of the European Union” and the UN.
The operation could include the use of force in order to “inspect, seize, and neutralize boats that are suspected of being used for the smuggling of migrants”.
The controversial measure was approved on Monday by European foreign and defense ministers, who agreed to use their naval forces to stop boats used by human smugglers from North Africa.
The plan would reportedly see European navies take migrants back to African ports — an apparent breach of the international ‘non-refoulement’ law — and also destroy the boats that carried them.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Migration Board Worker Took Bribes for Passports
A court in Malmö has jailed a former Migration Board worker and his accomplice for taking bribes in exchange for residence permits and passports for asylum seekers desperate to stay in Sweden.
In a bribery case that first came to light in the summer of 2012, three men were charged with selling Swedish residence permits, forged Bulgarian passports and other identity documents to refugees seeking shelter in Sweden.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia Attack Suspect ‘Arrived in Italy by Boat’
A Moroccan man suspected of being involved in the March attack on the Bardo National Museum in Tunis, which killed 21 tourists, arrived in Italy by boat, police said on Wednesday.
Abdel Majid Touil, 22, was arrested on an international warrant by Italy’s anti-terrorism Digos police in the northern town of Gaggiano, officers told a press conference.
Touil, who is wanted for premeditated murder, kidnapping and terrorism, was detained on Monday evening. He was living with his mother, a carer, and two older brothers in the town near Milan.
The Bardo attack on March 18th killed 22 people, including a Tunisian policeman and tourists from Italy, Japan, France, Spain, Colombia, Australia, Britain, Belgium, Poland and Russia.
Tourists getting off buses outside the museum were gunned down by two black-clad gunmen with automatic weapons, who then took hostages inside the building.
Many people were shot in the back as they tried to escape. After rampaging through the museum for several hours, the two gunmen were killed in an assault by security forces.
Tunisia’s President Beji Caid Essebsi said a few days after the attack that a third gunman was on the run.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tunis Bardo Museum Attack: Jihadi Suspect Arrested in Italy Arrived on Migrant Boat
Italian police have arrested a suspected Islamist militant allegedly involved in the deadly terror attack at the Bardo museum in Tunis in March.
Authorities said the man, named as 22-year-old Moroccan national Touil Abdelmajid, first arrived in Italy on a migrant boat, fuelling fears that other jihadists could reach Europe as asylum-seekers crossing from north Africa.
He was held in the northern village of Gaggiano, near Milan, by members of Italy’s anti-terror police unit, the Digos, who were acting on a Tunisian arrest warrant. He was staying there with relatives, who had a regular resident permit, local media reported.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Almost a Third of School Pupils Believe ‘Muslims Are Taking Over Our Country’, Study Claims
Almost a third of schoolchildren believe that Muslims are “taking over our country” according to the largest study of its kind carried out in the UK.
A survey of almost 6,000 children aged 10 to 16 across England found that negative attitudes towards migrants and Muslims were widespread among school pupils.
The data, based on questionnaires sent to more than 60 schools across the UK by charity Show Racism the Red Card (SRTRC) between 2012 and 2014, also found that 60 per cent of children questioned believed “asylum seekers and immigrants are stealing our jobs”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Can Racism be Stopped in the Third Grade?
An experiment at Fieldston, which starts when 8-year-olds are sorted by race, has some very liberal parents fuming.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Common Core teaches collectivism—socialism—and degrades various elements of education from math to English to science
In a new book by Samuel Blumenfeld and Alex Newman, “Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children”, Blumenthal points to “Growing levels of illiteracy, plunging international rankings, the decline of critical-thinking skills, mushrooming decadence, mass shootings, and companies that can’t find the skilled workers they need—these have become some of the atrocious hallmarks of U.S. public schools.”
“Common Core schemers are engaged in what can only be described as consumer fraud with monumental implications for education and the future of America.“ The bottom line is that “the scheme was never field-tested before being foisted on America.”
There is no part of student’s education that Common Core does not impede or corrupt. In the area of science, Blumenfeld says, “Instead of teaching children about science—real science—the standards will offer students a steady stream of controversial propaganda presented as unchallenged fact.” Regarding climate change “students will be required to learn that human activities are mostly to blame, even though this notion is disputed by countless scientists and a vast, growing body of actual scientific observational evidence.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Vortex — The End of Civilization
After hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars poured into the Irish nation by pagan Americans, homosexuality will win a national referendum
When the barbarian hordes descended on Europe in the fourth and fifth centuries, crushing underfoot what was left of cultural antiquity, it looked as if civilization was at an end. Irish monks, in their monasteries and scriptoriums, preserved the writings from antiquity by transcribing them for posterity. They kept the classics alive, safe in their isolation, keeping a secure touchstone to the civilization their faith had transformed. For this reason, the Irish are largely credited by historians with saving civilization.
This week, 1500 years of civilization will come to an end.
Indications are very strong that after hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars poured into the Irish nation by pagan Americans, homosexuality will win a national referendum as being equal to traditional marriage. Surveys do show the gap narrowing as we get down to the Friday vote, but the margin is still somewhere around 10 percent in favor of sodomite unions becoming legalized. This will be the first time in the history of the world that the issue will have been approved by a national referendum of voters.
It was Ireland — through St. Patrick — that cemented the overthrow of homosexuality as an acceptable practice as it was engaged in regularly by the Celtic warriors. The rise of Catholicism brought an end to that. Now 1500-plus years later, homosexuality is being embraced and is evidence of Catholicism coming to an effective end in Ireland.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Vienna’s Gay-Themed Traffic Signals to Stay Permanently
Right wing party will lodge a criminal complaint
(ANSA/AP) — VIENNA — Vienna’s gay-themed pedestrian traffic lights are here to stay. Instead of the usual stick man, the lights show couples — a man and a woman, two women or two men.
Set up recently at 47 crossings, they were to be taken down in June, after the end of several gay-friendly events.
But Vienna Councilwoman Maria Vassilakou, in charge of traffic issues, says they will now remain. State broadcaster ORF quoted her Tuesday as saying they have already achieved cult status.
The right-wing Freedom Party says it will lodge a criminal complaint against Vassilakou for allegedly contravening traffic regulations and wasting taxpayers’ money at a cost of 63,000 euros ($70,000.) But a Facebook page calling for them to be kept has gathered more than 20,000 likes.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |