Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/22/2015

Two young “Californians”, Muhanad Badawi and Nader Elhuzayel, were arrested late last night as they allegedly attempted to travel to Syria to fight in the jihad on behalf of the Islamic State. The incident had nothing to do with Islam.

In other news, the Eiffel Tower was closed today after employees went on strike over the increasing numbers of aggressive incidents involving pickpocket gangs.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, RRN, 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
» ECB to Keep Buying Bonds
» Income Inequality is Highest Since Records Began
» Italy: Poverty Rate Highest for ‘Non-Standard’ Workers
» Italy: Barilla Reports 35.8% Rise in 2014 Revenues to 3.25 Bn Euros
» New Jersey May Not be Able to Find Money for Pension Payment This Year, State Officials Say
» Tick Tock, The Greek Time Bomb is About to Go Off
 
USA
» 2 ‘Homegrown’ Jihadists Nabbed in California on Way to Join ISIS, Say Officials
» Arguing That You Don’t Care About the Right to Privacy Because You Have Nothing to Hide is No Different Than Saying You Don’t Care About Free Speech Because You Have Nothing to Say
» Baltimore’s Mayor: Spike in Crime ‘Disheartening’
» Charges Dropped Against Cop Caught Having Sex With Cows
» Clinton Foundation Reveals Up to $26.4m in Previously Undisclosed Payments
» Congress Moves to Eliminate Labels Showing Consumers Where Meat Comes From Following WTO Ruling
» Fasting Shown to Regenerate Stem Cells, Reverse Immunosuppression After Three Days
» FBI Admits No Major Cases Cracked With Patriot Act Snooping Powers
» Google Fiber Users Suspected of Downloading Illegal Content May Find Automatic Demands for Money
» ISIS: Cantlie: IS Organising Attack on a Grand Scale in US
» Research Confirms the Importance of Salt as Part of a Healthy Diet
» Rifqa Bary Details Transformation From Islam to Christianity
» Vaccines Suppress Your Brain! Vaccine-Induced Brain Damage Syndrome (Vibds) Mirrors Cognitive Impairment Caused by Chemotherapy (Chemo Brain)
 
Europe and the EU
» Dutch Cabinet Backs Partial Islamic Burqa Ban
» Fight on to Preserve Elfdalian, Sweden’s Lost Forest Language
» Finland Tells 900,000 Reservists Their Roles ‘In the Event of War’
» France: Pickpockets Force Paris Eiffel Tower Staff Walk-Out
» Germany: Top Spy Admits: We’re ‘Dependent’ On NSA
» ‘Hello Dictator, ‘ Juncker Says to Hungary’s Orban
» Isolated People in Sweden Only Stopped Using Runes 100 Years Ago
» Italy: Bossi, Belsito Indicted for Fraud, Embezzlement
» Italy: Fitto Launches New Association After Split With Berlusconi
» Italy: Touil Denies Consent to Extradition
» Italy Worried About ISIS, Says Gentiloni
» Norway Terror Prep No Better Than on 22/7
» Orkney Islanders Are 25 Percent Norwegian
 
North Africa
» Internal Emails Show Clinton Got Detailed Intel on ‘Planned’ Benghazi Hit
» Ready to Aid Tobruk Govt Fight Terror Says Pinotti
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Pope Francis Needs to Stop Appeasing the Muslims
 
Middle East
» Daesh Seizes Last Government-Controlled Border Crossing Between Syria, Iraq
» Here Comes the Sun: Saudi Arabia Looks to Export Solar Energy as Fossil Fuel Starts to Run Out
» Iran Enters Iraqi Fight for Key Oil Refinery, US Officials Say
» Islamic State ‘Seizes Key Syria-Iraq Border Crossing’
» New Documents Show U.S. Smuggled Weapons to Terrorists in Syria
» Saudi Arabia: “I Can’t Stop Until My Husband is Released”
» Saudi Arabia: Suicide Bomber Strikes Shia Mosque
» Striking the Kingdom: ISIS Takes Credit for Deadly Saudi Mosque Bombing
» Suicide Bomber Detonates in Saudi Mosque, ISIS Suspected
» Syria: Father Murad Kidnapped, Same Order as Dall’Oglio
» Syria: Al Qaida Seized Former Hospital, Massacre Feared
» Two Turin Activists ‘Arrested at Syria-Turkey Border’
 
South Asia
» Bangladesh: Islamic Extremists Claim the Right to Kill Ten Intellectuals and Bloggers
 
Far East
» France: Eiffel Tower Shuts as Staff Protest Pickpockets
» Japan, China Spar Over Asian Infrastructure
» Modi Arrives in Seoul to Build “A Strategic Axis” In East Asia
» US Warns China Not to Challenge Military Flights Over South China Sea
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Guinea Reports 27 New Ebola Cases
» Mugabe’s Hand in Zim Massacres Exposed
» Nigeria: Hundreds of Muslims Riot, Set Shariah Court Ablaze Over Alleged Insult to Prophet Muhammad
» SA Needs Another Liberation: President
 
Latin America
» Drug Cartel’s Surveillance Cameras Tapped Electricity, Internet in Mexican Border City
 
Immigration
» Nightly Fight for Life and Death on Aegean Sea
» Slaves and Terrorists? EU Rhetoric on Migrants Under Fire
 
Culture Wars
» Boy Scouts President Says Ban on Gay Leaders Needs to End
» Norway: Why We Show Children How Sex Works
» Our Social Depression
» Religion and Society
» Shock Video: Militant Communists Attack Pro-Life Protest
 
General
» Former UN Lead Author: Global Warming Caused by ‘Natural Variations’ In Climate
» How Male and Female Bathing Suits Got Smaller and Smaller
» Selling Cigarettes in Non-Muslim Countries
» Skin: Our Living Armor
» What is Causing the Strange Trumpet Sounds in the Sky All Over the World?
 

ECB to Keep Buying Bonds

The European Central Bank’s is set to continue its bond-buying scheme decided in January 2015 as planned, according to minutes of the governing council’s April meeting released on Thursday. Under the so-called QE programme, the ECB aims to buy 60 billion euros of bonds per month until September 2016.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Income Inequality is Highest Since Records Began

In most of the 34 countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development the income gap is at its highest level in three decades, with the richest 10 percent of the population earning 9.6 times the income of the poorest 10 percent.

In the 1980s this ratio stood at 7 to 1, the OECD said in a report.

The wealth gap is even larger, with the top 1 percent owning 18 percent and the 40 percent only 3 percent of household wealth in 2012.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Poverty Rate Highest for ‘Non-Standard’ Workers

Jump in number of jobs with less stability, lower pay

(ANSA) — Paris, May 21 — The poverty rate among families of Italian workers in non-standard jobs — the sort of employment on the rise in Italy — is almost five times greater than workers with regular jobs, the OECD said Thursday.

In a report on income inequality, the agency said that poverty among ‘non-standard’ workers — including the self-employed, temporary workers, and those with part-time hours — was 26.6%, compared to 5.4% for those of with stable jobs.

Poverty was higher still, at 38.6%, for the unemployed, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said.

It emphasized the rise in precarious employment in Italy since the 1990s and the risks that conveys for household income.

The Paris-based agency added that it was very difficult to move from precarious employment to a fixed, standard job.

Among those who in 2008 had a short-term contract, five years later only 26% of those had been able to convert that into a permanent, full-time position.

The agency found that employment growth in Italy since the 1990s has mostly come in ‘non-typical’ jobs that pay less, are more precarious, and bring fewer benefits than conventional posts.

Much of the job growth between 1995 and 2007 — even before the global economic crisis — came in these less stable forms, such as self-employment, temporary contracts, and part-time labour. Overall, the percentage of non-typical employment rose to 40.2% in 2013 from levels of just 23.6% in 1995.

This was particularly high for Italian workers under 30, where 56.9% of total employment was in non-typical work, and declined progressively with age, to 39.7% in the range 30-49 years.

The rate dropped to 33.7% for workers aged 50-64. During the 1995-2007 period, employment grew by 26.4% but almost all of that, 23.8%, was in the form of non-typical jobs.

After 2007 and the economic crisis, most jobs lost were permanent, full-time posts that usually brought the best pay and benefits.

Between 2007 and 2013, a decrease of 2.7% in the employment rate came entirely in a decline full-time posts, while the rate of self-employment fell by 1.5%.

During that period, part-time work rose by 4%, said the OECD.

That reflected findings reported on Wednesday by Italy’s national statistical agency Istat that warned of rising levels of part-time work, most of which was not voluntary.

Meanwhile poverty in Italy, “has increased markedly during the (economic) crisis”, particularly for the young, the agency said.

The increase in the poverty rate in Italy was third-highest among the OECD’s 34 member States.

Those include some of the world’s most developed economies, including Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan.

Poverty rates were highest for young Italians under 18, with 17% — four percentage points higher than the OECD average of 13%.

The next highest level was for young people between 18 and 25, which was 0.9 points above the average. Unemployment among young Italians, aged 15 to 25, has been stubbornly high, climbing to 43.1% in March.

The richest 1% of Italy’s population own 14.3% of the nation’s net national wealth, the OECD said.

This was almost three times the 4.9% owned by the poorest 40%, said the agency.

It also noted that Italy has the lower percentage of indebted households among the member states of the OECD. About 25.2% of Italian households were reported to be in debt, a lower rate than the 35.56% level in Austria, 36.6% in Greece, and far from the levels of the two largest economies in the eurozone — France, with 46.8% and Germany, where levels of indebted households stood at 47.4%.

Still, those eurozone levels were well below that of the United States, where 75.2% of households were in debt.

Italy was also the country with the lowest level of over-indebtedness, as only 2.3% of households were said to have debt more than 75% the value of the family assets.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Barilla Reports 35.8% Rise in 2014 Revenues to 3.25 Bn Euros

Growth subdued in Italy as ‘exit from economic crisis is slower’

(ANSA) — Milan, May 22 — Pasta giant Barilla reported 2014 revenues rose to 3.254 billion euro for a net increase of 35.8% over 2013 results, the international exporter said Friday.

EBITDA rose to 427 million euros, up from 409 million euros one year earlier, while debt dropped to 250 million euros from 347 million euros.

Growth in Italy, “where the exit from the economic crisis is slower”, also meant a more subdued expansion of just 1%, the company said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

New Jersey May Not be Able to Find Money for Pension Payment This Year, State Officials Say

Barring a successful appeal, New Jersey will be forced by the courts to make its full pension contribution this year, which will total $1.6 billion.

But that payment hasn’t been budgeted for — and since Gov. Chris Christie has vowed not to raise taxes, the bulk of the money must come from spending cuts.

But budget and treasury officials testified on Tuesday that it might be “fiscally and physically” impossible for the state to come up with the money required to make the full payment.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Tick Tock, The Greek Time Bomb is About to Go Off

The negotiations to make the 7B+ EUR available have been ongoing for several weeks, if not months, and the parties involved in the negotiations haven’t even come close to reaching a deal. Athens was already running on fumes and directed its public institutions to send their cash back to the central government to meet some shorter term payment obligations. On top of that, the government is mulling over instating a transaction tax on cash withdrawals and wire transfers, and several sources indicate this will happen in the short term.

The thing is, it might be too late.

Late last night, a meeting between France, Germany and Greece came to an abrupt end after the parties once again failed to come to some sort of agreement on the terms to make the additional emergency financing accessible for Greece. The main issue right now are the pensions and a sales tax in the country as the Eurozone representatives are forcing Greece to find new ways to cut expenses and increase its income. We aren’t sure the Greeks are unreasonable as its sales tax rate is already at a very high level of 23% after increasing it from 19% in 2010 (see next image)…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

2 ‘Homegrown’ Jihadists Nabbed in California on Way to Join ISIS, Say Officials

Two California men described as “homegrown violent extremists”were due in federal court Friday after they were arrested late Thursday while in the process of heading overseas to join ISIS, authorities said.

Muhanad Badawi and Nader Elhuzayel, both 24 and of Anaheim, were nabbed by the Orange County Joint Terrorism Task Force, Elhuzayel at Los Angeles International Airport and Badawi in Orange County. The task force includes officials from the FBI, Anaheim Police Department and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. A senior law enforcement official told Fox News the arrests were “related” to national security, but that the public were never in danger.

Prosecutors charged the men with conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State group.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Arguing That You Don’t Care About the Right to Privacy Because You Have Nothing to Hide is No Different Than Saying You Don’t Care About Free Speech Because You Have Nothing to Say

Most Americans value privacy and oppose mass surveillance.

The minority who don’t — and who think spying is okay because they have “nothing to hide” — are grossly misinformed (and don’t know that spying is meant to crush dissent and consolidate power … not stop terrorism).

Edward Snowden noted today in a Q&A on Reddit:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Baltimore’s Mayor: Spike in Crime ‘Disheartening’

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called the city’s recent spike in violence “disheartening” Thursday as police work to address a dramatic increase in homicides and nonfatal shootings. “It’s extremely frustrating,” the mayor told reporters at a news conference. “It is disheartening, but I am still resolved to continue to reduce violent crime in our city.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Charges Dropped Against Cop Caught Having Sex With Cows

[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]

When a citizen journalist recently sent us a tip about an officer who was caught having sex with cows, we were admittedly skeptical. But it turns out that the case of former Moorestown police officer Robert Melia Jr. is just as bad as it sounds.

In Mount Holly, New Jersey, Officer Melia was indeed caught assaulting sexually abusing a cow. But his sexual crimes did not end with non-humans. Melia was also charged, several years ago, with sexually assaulting three girls.

It was during the course of that investigation that police found a video in Melia’s home that recorded him… abusing multiple cows. Apparently he was so proud of this abuse that he filmed it and saved it for posterity.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Clinton Foundation Reveals Up to $26.4m in Previously Undisclosed Payments

The Clinton Foundation acknowledged Thursday that it had received millions of dollars in payments that had not previously been disclosed under a 2008 ethics agreement with the Obama administration.

The Washington Post, citing foundation officials, reported that the payments were categorized internally as “revenue” instead of donations, which exempted the organization from including them in its public list of contributions.

According to the Post, the previously undisclosed money was paid in the form of speaking fees for Hillary and former President Bill Clinton, as well as their daughter Chelsea.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Congress Moves to Eliminate Labels Showing Consumers Where Meat Comes From Following WTO Ruling

A House committee has voted to get rid of labels on packages of meat that say where the animals were born, raised and slaughtered.

[Comment: Watch for CJD (Mad Cow) rates to rise.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Fasting Shown to Regenerate Stem Cells, Reverse Immunosuppression After Three Days

(NaturalNews) What if the key to maintaining a vibrant immune system was simply not eating for a few days at a time twice a year? Researchers from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles say that periodic, prolonged fasting — that is, not eating for between two and four subsequent days at a time — not only protects against immune system damage, but it also promotes immune system regeneration, particularly in patients who are already immuno-compromised.

Valter Longo, an Edna M. Jones Professor of Gerontology and the Biological Sciences at the USC Davis School of Gerontology and director of the USC Longevity Institute, looked at the effects of fasting in both mice and humans, observing that when these mammals fasted, their white blood cell counts decreased. The result was that their bodies “recycled” old immune cells, thereby triggering the production of new immune cells to replace them…

As it turns out, prolonged fasting forces the body to use stores of glucose, fat and ketones as well as a significant portion of existing white blood cells. In essence, fasting acts as a type of detoxification, clearing out the old so it can be replaced by the new. The researchers say that the result is essentially the formation of a whole new immune system.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

FBI Admits No Major Cases Cracked With Patriot Act Snooping Powers

FBI agents can’t point to any major terrorism cases they’ve cracked thanks to the key snooping powers in the Patriot Act, the Justice Department’s inspector general said in a report Thursday that could complicate efforts to keep key parts of the law operating.

Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said that between 2004 and 2009, the FBI tripled its use of bulk collection under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows government agents to compel businesses to turn over records and documents, and increasingly scooped up records of Americans who had no ties to official terrorism investigations.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Google Fiber Users Suspected of Downloading Illegal Content May Find Automatic Demands for Money

Google Fiber, the high-speed broadband service, is quickly expanding across the United States. Touting speeds which leave current Internet offerings in the dust — allowing consumers to enjoy up to 1 GB/ps — the service has moved from its original pilot grounds in Kansas City and is expected to appear in Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, NC along with Nashville, TN and Atlanta, GA later this year.

Consumers are clamouring for broadband speeds up to 100 times faster than the national average, but may have a nasty shock if they plan to use the service in order to download content from file-sharing websites and torrent search engines which infringe upon intellectual copyright.

As reported by TorrentFreak on Wednesday, the rollout of Google Fiber has potentially become a catalyst for an increase in targeted piracy notices.According to the publication, piracy notices are being automatically forwarded to users of Google Fiber, and not only include regular cease-and-desist warnings but controversial demands from companies such as Rightscorp and CEG TEK.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS: Cantlie: IS Organising Attack on a Grand Scale in US

Refers to nuclear device from Pakistan or tons of explosive

ROME — The new issue of ISIS propaganda magazine ‘Dabiq’ contains an article allegedly penned by British kidnapped reporter John Cantlie according to which the Islamic State has every intention of striking the US, at home and on a grand scale, either with a nuclear device or with several tons of explosive. Cantlie first refers to the possibility of an attack with a nuclear bomb ‘imported’ from Pakistan to the US but later he calls the scenario “unplausible” and envisages the possibility of IS striking with “several tons of explosive”.

According to the article, the Islamic State’s onslaught against America will ridicule “the attacks of the past”.

Cantlie calls the possibility of carrying out an attack through a nuclear device “imported” into the USA from Pakistan through Libya, Nigeria, South America and finally Mexico by “exploiting the drug-trade and human trafficking network unlikely”, and later talks about “several tons of explosive”. The Isis publication first features a celebration of the Texas attackers who tried to storm an event dedicated to a cartoon-contest depicting prophet Muhammad in May. In the aftermath of the attack, Isis threatened the USA: “What’s coming is much more bitter and painful”. Dabiq also features a number of articles against countries which are part of the US-led coalition. American secretary of state John Kerry is on the front cover together with Washigton’s Arab allies. Other pieces target the Syrian national coalition, the anti-Assad platform supported by many Western and Arab countries.

For the first time since its publication, ‘Dabiq’ also contains many ‘advertisements’ relating to compilations and ‘top tens’ of videos released by the group’s media branch.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Research Confirms the Importance of Salt as Part of a Healthy Diet

Contrary to popular belief, science has never definitively shown that salt in any way causes hypertension. A few poorly conducted studies have made weak correlations between salt consumption and heart issues, but just as the “skeptics” are always loudly barking, correlation doesn’t equal causation.

Somehow this flimsy correlative hypothesis became the impetus behind the government’s scare campaigns against salt, the residual effects of which are still being seen today. Many ill-informed doctors still warn their patients not to consume too much salt, ignoring all the modern science that actually suggests salt is both safe and beneficial.

“While, back then, the evidence merely failed to demonstrate that salt was harmful, the evidence from studies published over the past two years actually suggests that restricting how much salt we eat can increase our likelihood of dying prematurely,” writes Gary Taubes for the NYT.

“Put simply, the possibility has been raised that if we were to eat as little salt as the USDA and the CDC recommend, we’d be harming rather than helping ourselves.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Rifqa Bary Details Transformation From Islam to Christianity

A woman who said she feared for her life after she converted from Islam to Christianity as an Ohio teenager has written a book through which she hopes to inspire girls and women who are desperate for freedom.

Rifqa Bary, 22, gained national attention in 2009 when she ran away from her northeast Columbus home to Florida, saying her father had threatened to kill her.

The book Hiding in the Light: Why I Risked Everything to Leave Islam and Follow Jesus tells her story. It was released on Tuesday by the WaterBrook Press division of Penguin Random House.

Bary is a college student studying philosophy and politics and said her life experiences, including help she received from others, have inspired her to consider a career in law. She cites concern for her safety as the reason for not disclosing where she lives.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Vaccines Suppress Your Brain! Vaccine-Induced Brain Damage Syndrome (Vibds) Mirrors Cognitive Impairment Caused by Chemotherapy (Chemo Brain)

(NaturalNews) Vaccine-Induced Brain Damage Syndrome (VIBDS) is the phenomenon of impaired cognitive function caused by the brain-damaging toxic additives found in vaccines. It mirrors the well-documented cognitive impairment caused by chemotherapy, known across the medical establishment as Post-Chemotherapy Cognitive Impairment (PCCI).

The unmistakable evidence that vaccines cause permanent brain damage is found in the obviously suppressed cognition of those who take them. According to nearly every pro-vaccine parent who routinely takes vaccines, their vaccinated children — who are therefore immune to infectious disease — are endangered by unvaccinated children who they claim might be carrying infectious disease.

But hold on a second. If your own children have immunity, then they have nothing to fear from other children that might be carrying infectious disease. The very definition of immunity means a child can be exposed to the disease and not “catch” it. Not to belabor the point, but “immunity” means to “be immune.” Somehow, this simple, rational point escapes the cognitive capacity of every single person demanding mandatory vaccines for all children.

After all, immunity to chicken pox means you can be exposed to chicken pox and not be afflicted by it. Immunity to measles means you can be exposed to measles and not “get” the measles. Immunity to the mumps means that you can be exposed to the mumps and not catch the mumps. I hope this isn’t new information to anybody, because these statements simply affirm the fundamental truths of immunology.

If immunity doesn’t grant protection from infectious disease, then why should anyone get vaccinated in the first place?

A person who believes that unvaccinated children pose a risk to vaccinated (immunized) children must either:

1) Be too uneducated to understand the meaning of the word “immune.”

or

2) Suffer from brain damage and therefore be unable to grasp the logic that immune children have nothing to fear from non-immunized children.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Dutch Cabinet Backs Partial Islamic Burqa Ban

The Dutch cabinet on Friday approved a partial ban on wearing the face-covering Islamic veil, including in schools, hospitals and on public transport.

“Face-covering clothing will in future not be accepted in education and healthcare institutions, government buildings and on public transport,” the government said in a statement after the cabinet backed Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk’s bill.

The ban does not apply to wearing the burqa on the street, but only “in specific situations where it is essential for people to be seen” or for security reasons, Prime Minister Mark Rutte told journalists after the cabinet meeting.

“The bill does not have any religious background,” Rutte said…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Fight on to Preserve Elfdalian, Sweden’s Lost Forest Language

OPINION: Secret language has preserved linguistic features that are to be found nowhere else in Scandinavia.

Elfdalian (älvdalska in Swedish and övdalsk in the language itself) sounds like something you would more likely encounter in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings rather than in a remote Swedish forest. But the small town of Älvdalen, which gives the language its name, is not an Elven outpost. It is one of the last strongholds of an ancient tongue that preserves much of Old Norse, the language of the Vikings. And it is now to be taught in the town’s preschools for the first time in September, marking a small victory for a group campaigning for its preservation.

Elfdalian is currently used only by about 2,500 people, but is a treasure trove for linguists. Hidden between the trees and hills, it has preserved linguistic features that are to be found nowhere else in Scandinavia, and that had already disappeared from Old Norse by 1200AD.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Finland Tells 900,000 Reservists Their Roles ‘In the Event of War’

Finland has sent letters to nearly a million military reservists, setting out their roles “in the event of war” amid rising tension with neighbouring Russia.

The letters have been dispatched to 900,000 former conscripts in the armed forces, including to Finns living abroad.

The first were sent earlier this month, with the final batch distributed in the last few days.

Finland is not a member of Nato and the country shares an 830-mile border with Russia — the longest of any European nation apart from Ukraine.

In the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the invasion of eastern Ukraine, Finland is uniquely vulnerable to any further aggression.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

France: Pickpockets Force Paris Eiffel Tower Staff Walk-Out

The Eiffel Tower in Paris has been closed to the public as staff stage a walk-out to protest against a surge in pickpocketing gangs in its area.

Workers say the gangs are increasingly threatening them with assault or abuse.

The company managing the major tourist attraction said it was working with police to guarantee the security of staff and the public, but “regrets that visitors… are being punished”.

The 126-year-old iron lattice tower has become a glittering symbol of Paris.

Staff say that “formal guarantees” are needed from management to stop pickpocketing gangs who target numerous tourists every day.

The thieves “form a gang of four to five people”, and sometimes there can be about 30 of them surrounding the tower, one of the striking workers told the AFP news agency. Occasionally they even “fight among themselves”.

A similar closure took place in April 2013 when the Louvre art gallery disappointed hundreds of tourists by closing down after staff complained of being spat at, abused and even assaulted by pickpocketing gangs.

More police were sent to protect the museum, which is visited by 10 million tourists every year.

Paris hosted 22 million visitors in 2014 according to city figures, and is one of the world’s top tourist hotspots in addition to being a magnet for tricksters and pickpockets who especially target wealthy Asian tourists.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: Top Spy Admits: We’re ‘Dependent’ On NSA

The head of the German Intelligence Agency (BND) told a special parliamentary committee on Thursday that his agency is ‘dependent on’ the American National Security Agency (NSA).

Speaking before the special parliamentary committee looking into the activities of the NSA, Gerhard Schindler admitted that the BND had made mistakes in how it had handled requests from the NSA, but he defended the need for cooperation with the American spy agency. “We are dependent on the NSA, not the other way round,” said the spy chief.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

‘Hello Dictator, ‘ Juncker Says to Hungary’s Orban

European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker lived up to his reputation for straight talking Friday when he hailed Hungarian Premier Viktor Orban as “dictator” on his arrival at an EU summit in Riga.

The right-wing Orban has angered and infuriated his European Union peers for years with his blunt comments about the most sensitive subjects dear to Europe’s left and centre parties.

“Hungarians talk straight about tough things. We don’t like to beat about the bush. We are a frank people,” Orban said on a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg earlier this week amid howls of protest.

Juncker was his equal Friday.

“Hello, dictator,” he was overheard to say to Orban, watched by the assembled press covering arrivals to the EU-Eastern Partnership summit in Riga.

Reporters said they had not been able to hear what Orban had said in reply, if anything, to Juncker who was in clearly playful mood as he received EU leaders alongside EU president Donald Tusk and Latvian Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma.

In Strasbourg Monday, Orban insisted Hungary had every right to limit migrant entry at a time when thousands of boat people are washing up on Europe’s southern short.

He also returned to a favoured theme, that his country was free to discuss what it liked — in this instance, reintroduction of the death penalty despite its abolition being a condition of EU entry.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Isolated People in Sweden Only Stopped Using Runes 100 Years Ago

In a remote part of Sweden they used runes until just a hundred years ago. The people in the area also speak their own language: Elfdalian.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Bossi, Belsito Indicted for Fraud, Embezzlement

Ex-Northern League chief ‘cheated State out of 40 million’

(ANSA) — Genoa, May 21 — A judge on Thursday indicted ex-Northern League chief Umberto Bossi and ex-party treasurer Francesco Belsito on charges of cheating the State out of 40 million euros in electoral reimbursements. The former treasurer of the anti-immigrant, anti-euro party is also charged with the aggravated embezzlement of 25 million euros from party coffers, which he allegedly invested in shares and diamonds in Cyprus and Tanzania. The trial opens September 23.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Fitto Launches New Association After Split With Berlusconi

Former minister founds ‘Conservatives and Reformists’

(ANSA) — Rome, May 19 — Raffaele Fitto announced Tuesday that he has launched a new association, the Conservatori e Riformisti (Conservatives and Reformists), after formalising his split from Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia at the weekend. The former minister and Puglia governor is a centre-right MEP and he joined the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, which the British Tories belong to, in the European Parliament after leaving FI. “We have formed a new association called Conservatives and Reformists that is inspired by the European Parliament group,” Fitto told a press conference. After repeated clashes in recent months with FI bigwigs as the group dropped in the polls, Fitto effectively broke ranks with the leadership last month when he decided to support an alternative candidate to FI’s official runner in his Puglia homeland in this month’s regional elections.

Previously Fitto was part of the group of FI figures considered closest and most loyal to Berlusconi.

But last week he said that Berlusconi now represented “old politics that has served its time” and was looking to the “model of the liberal policies that took (British Prime Minister David) Cameron to victory”.

Fitto failed to outline how many lawmakers were supporting his new movement, saying what counted was the “political outlook” being created. He also tried to bury the bitterness with Berlusconi, who said FI was better off without him.

“Forza Italia is a closed chapter,” Fitto told reporters.

“Our decision was not made out of rancour, and it would be a mistake to continue the controversy”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Touil Denies Consent to Extradition

‘No restrictive measures if no evidence of guilt’ says Pansa

(ANSA) — Milan, May 22 — Terror suspect Abdel Majid Touil told a judge at an extradition hearing Friday he does not consent to being extradited to Tunisia. The 22-year-old Moroccan was arrested earlier this week on an international warrant issued by Tunisia, where investigators say he participated in a deadly March 18 attack on Tunis’ Bardo Museum. Also on Friday, national police chief Alessandro Pansa said the warrant was executed “correctly” and that “no restrictive measures will be taken if there is no evidence of guilt”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy Worried About ISIS, Says Gentiloni

Minister says Paris meeting to assess strategy

(ANSA) — Riga, May 22 — Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni admitted Friday that the Italian government was worried about the recent advances made by the ISIS Islamist militant group in Syria and Iraq. “The Italian government is not just worried about Syria, but also about the perhaps even more threatening situation in Iraq,” Gentiloni said. The minister added that the anti-ISIS coalition will meet soon in Paris to discuss strategy. ISIS, which has destroyed a series of ancient monuments, this week took control of the Palmyra archaeological site and is estimated to control about half of Syria. In Iraq, the jihadist group recently captured Ramadi and has vowed to “liberate” Baghdad and Karbala.

“In a few days time there will be a meeting of the heads of the anti-Daesh (ISIS) coalition in Paris and it will be fundamentally important to verify the strategy that we go ahead with,” Gentiloni said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Norway Terror Prep No Better Than on 22/7

Norway’s security and emergency services are no better prepared for a disaster or terror strike than at the time of mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik’s brutal twin attacks in 2011, the country’s Auditor General has concluded in a damning report.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Orkney Islanders Are 25 Percent Norwegian

Over 1,000 years after the Vikings arrived, native Orkney Islanders are still genetically a quarter Norwegian.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Internal Emails Show Clinton Got Detailed Intel on ‘Planned’ Benghazi Hit

Internal State Department emails in the aftermath of the Benghazi terror attack show then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton received detailed information indicating the strike was planned by well-trained fighters, yet her office continued to push the narrative days later that it began “spontaneously.”

The messages were among 296 emails released Friday by the State Department, in the first batch of emails to be made public from Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state. Totaling 896 pages, the emails show a series of Libya dispatches Clinton received from a confidant, as well as the barrage of messages among her and her aides after Sept. 11, 2012.

Those messages depict the rapidly changing understanding of what happened at the U.S. compound that night, and the administration’s internal struggle to settle on a public narrative.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Ready to Aid Tobruk Govt Fight Terror Says Pinotti

‘We will help on request of legitimate parliament’

(ANSA) — Rome, May 21 — Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti told the Senate Thursday Italy is ready to help the internationally recognized Libyan government in Tobruk if it requests assistance. “We recognize the Tobruk parliament as legitimate,” she said. “It has not so far requested aid in combating terrorism but it could, and if so we have maximum willingness to collaborate…(however) we are not talking about a mission on Libyan soil or at Libyan borders”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Pope Francis Needs to Stop Appeasing the Muslims

Inspiration is oozing everywhere these days. The world was recently enlightened by the demands of the ‘Angel of Peace’ — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on May 15th. ‘Angel of Peace’ is the term that Pope Francis recently assigned Abbas at a meeting. The Pope said: “May the angel of peace destroy the evil spirit of war. I thought of you: May you be an angel of peace.” The Pope received a ton of heat over this comment and replied that he ‘meant no offense’ over the comment.

Just a few of the actions and words of the ‘Angel of Peace’

Regarding the Palestinian terror attack on a Jerusalem synagogue in Nov 2014, which slaughtered 4 Rabbis and a police officer, Abbas made his usual ‘half hearted’ comments. At first he seemed to denounce the gruesome attacks by two Palestinians armed with meat cleavers and handguns. Abbas, then quickly connected the attack with the false allegations of Israeli threats to the al-Aqsa mosque. The murders occurred during morning prayers and because of Israeli threats.

The same ‘Angel of peace is the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority. He headed the PLO terror organization’s military wing and planned many deadly attacks on Israel over the last several years.

The main barrier which I have screamed about over the years on my show and in my articles is that no Palestinian leader will go to the obvious first step and acknowledge Israel’s right to even exist as a Jewish state.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Daesh Seizes Last Government-Controlled Border Crossing Between Syria, Iraq

Several officials confirmed Daesh (ISIS) has taken control of the last border crossing between Syria and Iraq controlled by government forces, Reuters reported Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the siege in the Homs province, about 150 miles from Palmyra, occurred after security forces withdrew from both Syria’s al-Tanf and Iraq’s al-Waleed crossing. It’s unclear exactly when Daesh claimed the crossing.

One border crossing between the two countries in northeastern Syria is still controlled by Kurdish YPG forces. Daesh sieged the crossing between Syrian province Deir al-Zor and Iraq’s Anbar province.

The militants declared achieving a “caliphate” across borders in the territory they control in Syria and Iraq.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Here Comes the Sun: Saudi Arabia Looks to Export Solar Energy as Fossil Fuel Starts to Run Out

Saudi Arabia, the desert kingdom which was built on exporting crude oil, is predicting that fossil fuels will become a thing of the past by 2050.

And the world’s largest crude exporter believes that in the not-too-distant future it will be exporting solar energy instead.

Speaking at a climate change conference in Paris on 21 May, oil minister Ali Al-Naimi said: “In Saudi Arabia we recognise that eventually, one of these days, we’re not going to need fossil fuels.

“I don’t know when — 2040, 2050 or thereafter. So we have embarked on a programme to develop solar energy.”

Al-Naimi added that “hopefully, one of these days, instead of exporting fossil fuels, we will be exporting gigawatts of electric power. He noted that oil prices as low as $30 or $40 a barrel wouldn’t make solar power uneconomic.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Iran Enters Iraqi Fight for Key Oil Refinery, US Officials Say

Iran has entered the fight to retake a major Iraqi oil refinery from Islamic State militants, contributing small numbers of troops, including some operating artillery and other heavy weapons in support of advancing Iraqi ground forces, U.S. defense officials said Friday.

Two U.S. defense officials said Iranian forces have taken a significant offensive role in the Beiji operation in recent days, in conjunction with Iraqi Shiite militia. The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

One official said Iranians are operating artillery, 122mm rocket systems and surveillance and reconnaissance drones to help the Iraqi counteroffensive.

The Iranian role was not mentioned in a new U.S. military statement asserting that Iraqi security forces, with U.S. help, had managed to establish a land route into the Beiji refinery compound.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Islamic State ‘Seizes Key Syria-Iraq Border Crossing’

Islamic State militants have seized the last Syrian government-controlled border crossing between Syria and Iraq, a Syria monitoring group says.

Government forces withdrew from al-Tanf — known as al-Waleed in Iraq — crossing as IS advanced, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

The loss of al-Tanf to IS follows the group’s takeover of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra on Thursday.

The US says that fighting the militants will be a “difficult challenge”.

Islamic State now controls “more than 95,000 sq km (36,679 sq miles)” of Syria, which is 50% of the country’s entire territory, the UK-based SOHR said.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

New Documents Show U.S. Smuggled Weapons to Terrorists in Syria

The same people involved in gun-smuggling to Mexico that became known as the Fast and Furious Scandal, were also responsible for smuggling weapons from Libya to the Syrian terrorists trying to overthrow Syria’s Assad Regime, according to information finally revealed this week.

Newly obtained documents released by a watchdog group that investigates and exposes corruption and criminal activity by government officials and agencies provides evidence that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior officials, as well as President Barack Obama, deceived the American people regarding the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi U.S. consulate massacre. The pages released show that top administration officials were handed intelligence reports within hours of the attack that stated the Islamic terrorists’ actions had been planned up to 10 days before the attack and the goal was simply to to assassinate as many Americans as possible.

The documents also confirms the suspicions that U.S. government officials were well aware of weapons being shipped from Benghazi to Syria for use by rebel forces against the Al-Assad regime, according to Judicial Watch. In addition, the document-release contains an August 2012 analysis of intelligence that predicted the meteoric rise of al-Qaida in Iraq terrorists who morphed into the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It also the predicted failure of Obama’s foreign policy aimed at regime change in Syria.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Saudi Arabia: “I Can’t Stop Until My Husband is Released”

Ensaf Haidar, wife of imprisoned Saudi Arabian blogger Raif Badawi, talks of her determination to fight for her husband’s release. She hasn’t seen him since he was sentenced to a decade in prison and 1 000 lashes for his writings. She has been speaking to Nkem Ifejika.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Saudi Arabia: Suicide Bomber Strikes Shia Mosque

At least 10 people have been killed in a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, a doctor has told the BBC.

The emergency doctor at Qatif Central Hospital said at least 70 had been injured, “some very critically”.

Witnesses reported a huge blast at the Imam Ali mosque in the village of al-Qadeeh, in Qatif governorate.

It is the first such incident in Saudi Arabia amid rising tension in the wider region between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

The Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind a similar attack on a Shia mosque in neighbouring Yemen on Friday, which injured about a dozen people.

But it said nothing about the bombing in eastern Saudi Arabia and no other group has said it was behind the attack.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Striking the Kingdom: ISIS Takes Credit for Deadly Saudi Mosque Bombing

ISIS claimed credit for a suicide bombing that killed as many as 20 at a mosque deep inside Saudi Arabia Friday, in what would be the terrorist group’s first attack on the Kingdom’s soil, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The suicide bomber —wearing an explosives-laden belt under his clothes—walked into the Imam Ali mosque in the village of al-Qudaih in the kingdom’s Eastern Province and attacked worshippers commemorating the birth of Imam Hussain, a revered figure among Shiites, Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry said.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Suicide Bomber Detonates in Saudi Mosque, ISIS Suspected

Just yesterday, we said we would not be at all surprised to see plans for a US incursion into blood-soaked Syria start unfolding within a month.

You see, ISIS now controls “more than half of Syria” and has just captured Palmyra, home to ancient ruins and treasures of antiquity which are now at risk of being indiscriminately destroyed by barbarous black flag-flying butchers who have incidentally met with quite a bit of success in their Iraq adventures of late as well.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Syria: Father Murad Kidnapped, Same Order as Dall’Oglio

Fides, Prior of the Mar Elian Monastery taken by two armed men

(ANSAmed) — ROME, MAY 22 — Jacques Murad, a priest belonging to the same religious order as father Paolo Dall’Oglio, was kidnapped by two men, under the threat of arms, from the Monastery of Mar Elian in Syria, according to the Fides agency.

The kidnapping is believed to have occured between May 18 and 21, the Homs Syrian-Catholic Archidiocesis reported.

Father Murad is the Prior of the Mar Elian Monastery, a derivation of the Deir Mar Musa al Habashi Monastery re-founded by the Italian Jesuit Dall’Oglio.

Father Dall’Oglio was kidnapped on July 29 2013 while in Raqqa and there has been no news about him since.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Syria: Al Qaida Seized Former Hospital, Massacre Feared

Al Qaida militants, belonging to the Nusra Front and other islamists militias, seized a former hospital turned into military barracks in the north-west of Syria where some 200 government officers had been besieged for weeks, the National observatory for human rights (Ondus) reported. The fate of the soldiers is unknown.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Two Turin Activists ‘Arrested at Syria-Turkey Border’

Brought medicine to Kurdish civilians in Kobane

(ANSA) — Turin, May 22 — Turkish police arrested two activists from the northern city of Turin Wednesday night at the Syria-Turkey border, infoaut.org leftwing activist website reported Friday. The two had entered Syria illegally to bring medical supplies to civilians in the city of Kobane, which Kurds freed earlier this year from Islamic State (ISIS) fundamentalists. The area surrounding the town, which lies close to the Syrian-Turkish border, remains in the hands of ISIS.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Bangladesh: Islamic Extremists Claim the Right to Kill Ten Intellectuals and Bloggers

Fundamentalist group ‘Al Qaeda Ansarullah Bangla’ has released a list of future victims, and sent a copy to each of them. Security has become an emergency in the country where three critics of Islam have already been hacked to death. “I don’t’ feel safe,” says Catholic blogger.

Dhaka (AsiaNews) — “It would have been better had I not been born here,” said Catholic blogger Nirob Costa (an invented name used for security reasons).

“If I had been born in a Christian country, I would feel much safer,” he told AsiaNews, after Al Qaeda Ansarullah Bangla sent death threats to a number of people, including politicians, educators and bloggers.

The Islamic extremist group has sent a number of letters (pictured) threatening to kill those who criticise Islam. The list of recipients includes Prof Arefin Siddique, vice chancellor of Dhaka University; H T Imama, political advisor to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina; writer Muhammad Zafar Iqbal; famous intellectual Kaberi Gayen; and Awami League MP Tarana Halim.

According to the terrorists, all these people are guilty of criticising the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the country. And they are not the first.

In recent years, Muslim extremists have targeted free thinkers and pro-democracy activists, claiming the right to kill “atheists”.

The first one to be attacked was Ahmed Rajib Haider, the first blogger to be killed in 2013 for his ideas “contrary to Islam”.

Another famous blogger, Ananta Bijoy Das, was killed only last 12 May, in Sylhet, for repeatedly criticising Islamic fundamentalism and its distortion of religion.

Before them, Taslima Nasreen, a well know writer and intellectual, had to flee the country because of death threats from Islamic fundamentalists.

In 1993, she had earned their unwanted attention by writing Lajja (Shame), a book that was banned in her native Bangladesh for being allegedly blasphemous against Islam, the state religion.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

France: Eiffel Tower Shuts as Staff Protest Pickpockets

The Eiffel Tower was closed on Friday morning, as workers protested over the scourge of pickpockets around the famous monument, who they say have threatened and attacked them.

Hundreds of tourists were left disappointed when the Louvre — home to works of art such as the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo — shut in April 2013 after staff complained of being spat at, insulted and even hit by pickpockets.

Particularly targeted are Asian tourists, due to a rise in wealthy travellers from countries such as China. After complaints about muggings and attacks of Chinese tourists, the French interior ministry last year had Chinese police help patrol tourist destinations in Paris.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Japan, China Spar Over Asian Infrastructure

Japan has unveiled a massive spending plan to improve infrastructure in Asia. The plans came as China launches a new infrastructure lender aimed at curbing the financial clout of Tokyo and Washington in the region.

China said Friday it would hold the largest stake in a major new infrastructure investment bank that the United States and Japan view as a counterweight to Western-dominated institutions, as the new bank’s prospective founding members convened in Singapore to figure out when the new lender would begin operations.

China’s share in the $100-billion (89 billion-euro) institution, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), would be between 25 percent and 30 percent, the news agency Reuters quoted unidentified delegates at the meeting as saying. India reportedly offered to take a 10 to 15 percent share in the bank.

Following a three-day meeting in Singapore, the prospective founding members of the AIIB announced that the newly-founded lender would be operational at the end of this year.

A total of 57 countries have so far joined AIIB, including countries as diverse as Germany, Britain, Iran and Laos. The United States and Japan have chosen to stay out of the regional infrastructure lender, considering AIIB as a rival to the US-dominated World Bank and Japan-led Asian Development Bank.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Modi Arrives in Seoul to Build “A Strategic Axis” In East Asia

After his state visit to China and Mongolia, the Indian Prime Minister arrives on the Korean Peninsula and negotiates with President Park for a free trade agreement, to be signed by June 2016. The “Blue House” promises India 10 billion dollars in infrastructure and “hopes” for greater cooperation between the two nations.

Seoul (AsiaNews) — Diplomacy, Asia-Pacific security, international cooperation but also the economy. These were the topics discussed during the meeting between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, who is on a state visit to Seoul after the trip that took him to China. India is currently the 12th trading partner of South Korea, but the intention expressed by the two leaders is to transform the bilateral relationship into “a strategic asset for mutual growth.”

Modi arrived in the peninsula late May 18, after a brief stop in Mongolia. The meeting was held in the “Blue House”, the official residence of President Park, where the two leaders held discussions that lasted for about three hours. At the end of the meeting, during a joint press conference, they said they had started negotiations for an economic treaty that — by June 2016 — should result in Delhi and Seoul signing a free trade agreement.

Park spoke of the desire “to upgrade the bilateral relationship to a ‘special strategic partnership’“, which includes not only the economy “as well as diplomacy, security and greater cultural exchange, science and technology”. To achieve this, a schedule of annual meetings was mentioned “also to strengthen communication channels”.

Modi today met a delegation of South Korean businessmen to discuss the details of this new cooperation, but the South Korean president has already stated the intention to allocate 10 billion US dollars for infrastructure projects, energy development and tax breaks for Korean companies who want to invest in India. The Indian Prime Minister referred to his policy of “Made in India” and “invited” companies to relocate the in the Indian subcontinent.

This visit marks a step forward in the relationship between the two nations, which to date has not been one of significant cooperation. Modi hopes to confirm the forecasts that indicate India as “the next China”, and which will require investment from Asia’s “tiger economies”. In turn, South Korea wants to break free from excessive dependence on the Chinese economy — its biggest trading partner — and is hoping to expand the automotive export market to the Indian subcontinent.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

US Warns China Not to Challenge Military Flights Over South China Sea

The U.S. warned China Thursday against confronting U.S. aerial patrols over the South China Sea days after a verbal dispute between a Chinese military dispatcher and a U.S. Navy surveillance aircraft.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the Navy released two videos and an audio recording of the confrontation, which took place on Wednesday when the Chinese dispatcher demanded eight times that the Navy P8-A Poseidon leave the area as it flew over Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Island chain, where China has conducted extensive reclamation work.

“Foreign military aircraft, this is Chinese navy. You are approaching our military alert zone. Leave immediately,” the dispatcher said on the recording. After the American crew responded that it was flying over international waters, the Chinese dispatcher responded “This is the Chinese navy … You go!”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Guinea Reports 27 New Ebola Cases

After lull in country where epidemic started

(ANSA) — Rome, May 22 — Authorities in Guinea, the country where the Ebola epidemic began, are concerned about a new outbreak of cases just as officials hoped the crisis was coming under control.

Guinea has recorded 27 new cases within a week, compared to seven in the previous week, according to the World Health Organization.

Health officials are particularly alarmed that some of the cases are in an area near the border with Guinea-Bissau, a deeply impoverished country with very few functioning health care centers.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Mugabe’s Hand in Zim Massacres Exposed

New documents allege that Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe — then prime minister — was the architect of Matabeleland’s mass killings in 1983.

Thousands of recently declassified documents that appear to expose the perpetrators are now becoming available in a raft of foreign archival collections. The documents are wide-ranging and include, among others, diplomatic correspondence, intelligence assessments and raw intelligence garnered by spies recruited from within the Zimbabwean government. These papers — augmented by the testimony of Zimbabwean witnesses finding courage in old age — appear to substantiate what survivors and scholars have always suspected but never been able to validate: Mugabe, then prime minister, was the prime architect of killings that were well-planned and systematically executed…

           — Hat tip: RRN [Return to headlines]
 

Nigeria: Hundreds of Muslims Riot, Set Shariah Court Ablaze Over Alleged Insult to Prophet Muhammad

KANO, Nigeria — Hundreds of rioting Muslims have set a Shariah court ablaze in Nigeria’s northern Kano city to protest a judge freeing a cleric accused of insulting the prophet Muhammad.

An AP reporter watched protesters throw blazing, fuel-filled tires into the building, then start marching through streets to demand punishment for Malam Abdul Nyass.

He is accused of saying that the Tijanniyah sect leader is more powerful than Muhammad. Kano is Nigeria’s second largest city with a mainly Muslim population that adheres in almost equal numbers to the Sunni and Tijanniyah sects.

Nyass appeared before the Shariah court last week but was apparently secretly freed and has disappeared.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

SA Needs Another Liberation: President

Sadc chairman President Mugabe has said South Africa needs a second liberation to empower its black citizens who remain marginalised despite a political dispensation that brought majority rule more than two decades ago.

Briefing journalists after a tour of the Sadc Headquarters in Gaborone yesterday, President Mugabe said xenophobic attacks against other Africans were a result of the imbalance in wealth distribution, stressing that South Africa should not be condemned but needed urgent help.

“The pressures with people of South Africa are so much that we cannot avoid incidents of that nature (xenophobia).

“People are unemployed, lots of young men and women are in the streets so when they see people from neighbouring countries running small shops they conclude that it’s these people that have robbed them of their chances, which is not the case.

“It’s not the other African, but it’s a factor of the whites that have kept opportunities to themselves. The political dispensation did not address the disparities between white and black with most of the land in the hands of whites and most of the employment opportunities enjoyed by them (whites).”

The President said most Sadc countries had overcome most of the challenges that South Africans still experienced in terms of empowerment.

“So we must help them. They need another liberation.”…

           — Hat tip: RRN [Return to headlines]
 

Drug Cartel’s Surveillance Cameras Tapped Electricity, Internet in Mexican Border City

Authorities in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas have seized 39 surveillance cameras set up by a drug cartel in the city of Reynosa across the border from Texas.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Nightly Fight for Life and Death on Aegean Sea

As Asian migrants attempt to cross the Aegean Sea to reach Europe, the Turkish Coast Guard tries to keep them from risking their lives on overcrowded dinghies and brings them back to Turkey. Here is series of dramatic photos by Anadolu Agency showing the on-sea struggle seen almost every night on the Aegean.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Slaves and Terrorists? EU Rhetoric on Migrants Under Fire

Prominent academics have accused EU leaders of “perversion of history” in rhetoric designed to justify use of “naval might” against migration.

They spoke out in a letter on the Open Democracy website on Wednesday (20 May).

They cited recent remarks by Italian leader Matteo Renzi, who said “human traffickers are the slave traders of the 21st century”.

The EU’s foreign relations chief, Federica Mogherini, at the UN earlier this month, also said: “I don’t believe that people are less slaves if they are stopped or kept somewhere during the journey or locked in (a) boat that sinks”.

The academics noted “the terms ‘smuggling’ and ‘trafficking’ (are) being employed interchangeably” by the EU in an “elision” which makes use of force sound like “a moral necessity”.

Smuggling, sensu stricto, refers to illegal, but voluntary, journeys. Trafficking means forcing people to go against their will.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Boy Scouts President Says Ban on Gay Leaders Needs to End

Boy Scouts of America President Robert Gates said on Thursday the group’s ban on adult gay leaders needs to end, taking a step toward dismantling a policy that has caused deep rifts in the 105-year-old organization.

Gates said at a national meeting of the group in Atlanta he does not plan to revoke the charters of Boy Scout councils that allow gay leaders, according to a text of the speech, which could significantly weaken enforcement of the ban.

“We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be. The status quo in our movement’s membership standards cannot be sustained,” said Gates, who as U.S. secretary of defense helped end the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that barred openly gay individuals from serving in the military.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Norway: Why We Show Children How Sex Works

In this week’s Newton, Line inserts a plastic penis into a moistened plastic vagina. All in the name of public information.

Newton is a science programme for children and young people. The target group is from 8 to 12 years, that is to say children who have either entered puberty or are about to.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Our Social Depression

This erosion of opportunities to complete life’s stages and core dramas is rarely recognized, much less addressed.

The consequences of economic stagnation are not limited to finance: stagnation is causing a social depression.We can best understand this social depression by examining how the natural stages of human life are being disrupted.

Confucian thought views life as a developmental process with seven stages, each roughly corresponding to a decade: childhood, young adulthood (16-30), age of independence (30-39), age of mental independence (40-49), age of spiritual maturity (50-59), age of acceptance (60-69), and age of unification (70 — end of life).

Each stage has various tasks, goals and duties, which establish the foundation for the next stage.

I see each stage as centered on a core human drama: for the teenager, establishing an identity and life that is independent of parents; for the young adult, finding a mate and establishing a career; for the middle-aged, navigating the challenges of raising children and establishing some measure of financial security; for those in late middle-age, helping offspring reach independent adulthood and caring for aging parents; early old age, seeking fulfillment now that life’s primary duties have been accomplished and managing one’s health; and old age, the passage of accepting mortality and the loss of vitality.

The End of Secure Work and the diminishing returns of financialization are disrupting these core human dramas and frustrating those who are unable to proceed to the next stage of life:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Religion and Society

The famous Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (ratified in 1791) reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” — which at the time meant the imposition of a “state church”, such as the Church of England — “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” The 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, put it well when he said, “The first amendment … was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny.”

More exactly, it was written to prevent government from imposing arbitrary religious values on society, as had happened repeatedly in continental Europe and Great Britain, and indeed throughout human history. This should make those who want to impose humanism arbitrarily on the United States think twice, for humanism is theoretically, practically and (in the U.S.) even legally a religion. True, it flatly denies the existence of the supernatural, but that denial is itself a religious (more broadly, a metaphysical) viewpoint.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Shock Video: Militant Communists Attack Pro-Life Protest

Shocking video footage shows rabid pro-abortion Communist militants repeatedly assault Alex Jones, steal private property and attempt to censor free speech while announcing their love for Satan and killing babies during a pro-life rally in Austin Texas yesterday.

The protest took place outside a Planned Parenthood facility to draw attention to the fact that on average a black baby is aborted every minutein the United States and that black women are twice as likely to have abortions in comparison to whites.

This issue has been completely overlooked by the #BlackLivesMatter movement, which apparently thinks little of the hundreds of thousands of black babies every year that never even get a chance at life, including in major cities like New York where more black babies are aborted than ones actually born.

Soon after the protest began, Communist activists from a group called Red Guards Austin (who laughably deny advocating Communism despite praising Mao, Stalin and marching under a hammer and sickle), arrived to aggressively try and shut down the demonstration.

This incident serves as yet another reminder that leftists are some of the most crazed, aggressive, violent, and intolerant people on the planet who will go to any lengths to censor and intimidate anyone who dares disagree with them.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Former UN Lead Author: Global Warming Caused by ‘Natural Variations’ In Climate

Global temperature change observed over the last hundred years or so is well within the natural variability of the last 8,000 years.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

How Male and Female Bathing Suits Got Smaller and Smaller

Over a century of swimwear is being celebrated in a new exhibition. Things have been getting smaller.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Selling Cigarettes in Non-Muslim Countries

Question: Is it possible for a Muslim to sell cigarettes in a non-Muslim country? The customers are sometimes Muslims and sometimes non-Muslims. The seller is not a smoker, and he also sells books, newspapers, magazines, stationery, and other things.

Answer

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.

Dear questioner, thank you very much for having confidence in us, and we hope our efforts, which are purely for Allah’s Sake, meet your expectations.

According to the view which is deemed to be the most correct, smoking is haram, and hence selling cigarettes is also haram because of the harm inflicted on the person buying it.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Skin: Our Living Armor

Only a few millimeters of skin separate our bodies from the dangers of the outside world. Yet skin’s multilayered design provides us with the perfect combination of strength, flexibility, and durability. Unlike any spacesuit or body armor designed by man, this protective covering is alive, constantly repairing and renewing itself.

The outer layer of our skin, the epidermis, is subdivided into two layers: a thin surface layer of dead cells, called the stratum corneum, and a deeper layer of living cells. The stratum corneum is made up of tightly connected dead cells called corneocytes that form a barrier between the living cells of our body and the outside world.

If we suddenly lost our stratum corneum, death would quickly follow from massive fluid loss and bacterial invasion. Amazingly, over most of the surface of our body, this critically important dead layer measures less than half the thickness of refrigerator shrink wrap. Indeed, we might call the stratum corneum “miracle wrap.”

In thin skin, the dead cells are flattened like thin pancakes and are stacked on top of one another in precise columns (Figures 1 and 2). Each cell is tightly attached to its neighbors on top and bottom by over a hundred little “spot welds” called desmosomes. This tight bond is necessary for the dead layer to resist wear and tear.

In the thick skin on our palms and soles, the epidermis, and particularly the stratum corneum, is much thicker than thin skin. Here the corneocytes themselves are thicker and interlock like jigsaw puzzle pieces (Figure 3). Thick skin is designed to provide high resistance to wear and shearing on the much-used surfaces of our palms and soles.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

What is Causing the Strange Trumpet Sounds in the Sky All Over the World?

All over the globe, people are recording extremely loud sounds coming from the sky.

In many instances, these ominous noises sound like someone is blowing a trumpet.

So what are we supposed to make of these “apocalyptic” sounds? Should we be concerned? Well, what we do know is that this is truly a global phenomenon. In addition to being heard at locations all over the United States and Canada, these sounds have also been recorded in Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Sweden, England, Costa Rica, Ukraine and France. If you go to YouTube and type in “strange sounds”, you will literally get hundreds of results from all over the planet. Of course there are many scientists that insist that there must be a “rational explanation” for these strange sounds. Some theories have suggested fracking, “rock bursts”, venting of high-pressure gas, atmospheric pressure or the natural “background noise” of our planet as the causes of these sounds, but so far none of those theories have been proven. But two things seem certain — these noises sure are creepy, and they just keep on happening.

And this phenomenon is now really starting to get a whole lot of attention. Just within the last month, there have been headlines about it in major new sources all over the planet. For instance, the following is a brief excerpt about this phenomenon from an article in the New York Post…

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

11 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 5/22/2015

  1. What is the difference between the German Nazi intelligence system, the current German intelligence system and the United States NSA? Answer = nothing!

    • The Nazis were infamous for disappearing people without due process. AFAIK, NSA just collects endless trivia…like this comment, perhaps.

      I don’t know of any instance where people have gone missing due to NSA. Do you and you haven’t been telling us?

      Not familiar with the current German intel system. But supposedly Merkel’s emails were intercepted by NSA and she was so angry she sent troops into the US a sharp message to Obama.

      Moral equivalence is sometimes wrong.

      • If one considers that it was the Nazi intel system that ‘assisted’ the CIA/NSA to come into being through Operation Paper Clip – security agencies that then became compromised and beholden to the Nazi way of doing things – then one can start joining the dots as to how and why the current German intel system is run along the same lines.

        Spooks will always snoop on their ‘allies’ and the while the CIA/NSA is not making people disappear yet, that time is fast approaching.

        • I disagree. That sort of work won’t fall to the NSA or the CIA. It’s not their mission. It will be the FBI, DHS, and local law enforcement augmented by the feds in one of those “Joint Terrorism Task Forces”. The pattern for this sort of thing is already emerging.

          NSA will continue to do what it has always done — gather as much sigint as possible, preferably EVERY piece of information that is transmitted electronically, at home or abroad. The CIA will continue its mission, which is overseas intel, wet jobs included.

          The FBI is quite territorial, and would not voluntarily surrender its control over such matters inside the country. Perhaps you don’t understand the USA as deeply as you think.

          • Gee, you were quick off the mark, LOL. I thought about my reply after posting it. You are correct, I should have put the snoopers as the intel suppliers to those forces who are now charged to do the state’s dirty work.

            I agree, it is not the alphabet soup spy agencies that do the dirty work, but the other agencies charged by the state to use that info to target those they consider a threat to the state.

            And just as General Reinhard Gehlen’s Abwehr filtered intel to the Gestapo, so too the CIA/NSA to the various agencies now charged with protecting the American state.

            I am familiar with the shenanigans of taxpayer funded fiefdoms, the FBI guards its Charter most jealously.

  2. Over in Britain there’s a Muslim diversity officer who caused outrage by Tweeting the hashtag #killallwhitemen. Seriously, you couldn’t make it up. It is said that she “could” lose her job.

    In response to the outrage the divisive officer whines on about suffering “trauma” daily as an “ethnic minority woman”. There’s only one minority that suffers daily oppression at her university: white males. There’s a witty piece on her here: http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/2015/05/oppressed-minority.html

    • In a major store outlet in London this past year two costumed Muslims had a little banter back and forth about how they didn’t mind ‘white people’ but they preferred Tower Hamlets – while I waited for service. In their heads we are the minority. Same in America and elsewhere?

  3. Two “Californians” my gluteus maximus, these were two Muzzies being true to form. But leave it to the MSM to reframe this treasonous activity by Muslims as something it’s not.

    It’s not done by Christians, atheists, Buddhists or any other group but Muslims following the Koranic injunctions(something that is never mentioned even on FoxNews). They all act like it’s some unexplainable event.

    The rampant dishonesty and outright propaganda by the MSM and government officials in regards to what is actually occurring is beyond disgraceful and borders on the treasonous.

  4. Nemesis said ‘And just as General Reinhard Gehlen’s Abwehr filtered intel to the Gestapo’

    Gehlen was the founder and first Director of the postwar BND !

    • Correct! He was also the head of the Nazi intel service, Abwehr, during the war. His methods of ‘gathering’ intel were so copied by the fledgling CIA/NSA that those agencies retained him as an ‘ex-Nazi’ to head up the West German intel service while relying heavily on what he chose to filter back to his US masters.

      Naivety or just plain treachery?

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