Nasser al-Ansi, a senior leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has reportedly been killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen. Mr. al-Ansi’s organization had claimed credit for the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris earlier this year.
In other news, the sale of skin-whitening cream has been banned in Ivory Coast, due to health concerns.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Diana West, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, KGS, Papa Whiskey, Upananda Brahmachari, 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.
An Unbearable Weight: China’s Spiralling Debt Cannot be Sustained
Denizens of the Great Southern Province of China (otherwise known as Australia) are increasingly concerned about the Middle Kingdom’s economic problems, which may affect their prosperity. Central to these is a rapid increase in debt levels.
China now has higher levels of debt than the US, Germany or Australia. Between 2007 and 2014, China’s total debt quadrupled, from US $7 trillion (158% of GDP) to US $28 trillion (282% of GDP). In 2002, total Chinese debt was US $2 trillion (121% of GDP). Since 2007, China has contributed around one third of the total increase in global debt.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The manipulation of (primarily) Western interest rates is a subject which has been dealt with in numerous, previous commentaries. The “tool” used here are so-called “derivatives”: fraudulent (and previously illegal) bets on this debt market. What can gamblers bet on, in a debt market? That’s simple: the risk of debtors defaulting, or the rate of interest on the debts.
The “gamblers” holding the vast majority of the $1.5+ quadrillion in bets in this rigged casino are (surprise! surprise!) the Big Bank tentacles of the One Bank. When the gamblers bet on the risk of debtors defaulting, they give that the euphemism of “credit default swaps”. When the gamblers want to bet on interest rates, they give that the euphemism “interest rate swaps”.
These pieces have shown how credit default swaps can be used (and have been used) to manipulate interest rates, higher or lower. With the ability to manipulate interest rates to whatever number it desires, the One Bank was able to harvest $trillions in profits, from the Chumps who chose to bet against the Big Banks, in their (rigged) interest rate swaps…
At this point it is necessary to back-track slightly, back to the motive for the One Bank’s massive frauds and crimes in this debt market. We know why this financial vampire wants to protect its so-called “assets” today (through manipulating interest rates lower), but why would it have ever chosen to accumulate all of these IOU’s, in the first place — not only public debt, but private debts as well?
Regular readers can answer that question: Debt Slavery. By indebting (nearly) everyone and everything across the Western world — and to absurd extremes — this financial vampire’s plan is to blood-suck everyone/everything through its “interest payments” on all these public/private mountains of unsustainable debt.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Brazil Industrial Production Down 4.7 PC Over 12 Months
Brazil’s industrial production has dropped 4.7 percent over 12 months after slipping in March by 0.8 percent amid a sharp downturn in the world’s seventh-largest economy, official figures showed Wednesday.
Brazil is enduring a fifth straight year of low growth — last year saw GDP grow by just 0.1 percent and this year is set to see a contraction of around 1.0 percent, the Central Bank and International Monetary Fund agree.
The seasonally-adjusted decline for the first quarter of the year was 5.9 percent.
“With the March 2015 result, industrial production is 11.2 percent below the record level reached in June 2013,” the national statistical institute IBGE said…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Court Says ‘Anomalies’ In Local Govt Derivatives Use
Local authorities involved in about 25 bn in contracts
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — Italian local governments created some “serious anomalies” on their books through the use of such complex financial instruments as derivatives contracts, the Audit Court said Wednesday. Postings in account books were often “incorrect” while fiscal regulations were violated and “considerable contractual imbalances” created, the court said in a report for the Lower House finance committee.
Governments also failed to properly assess the cost-effectiveness of derivatives contracts worth about 25 billion euros, the court said.
It said that at the beginning of the year, overall government derivative contracts were worth a total of about 160 billion euros.
It also cautioned the committee against assuming that financial market losses for derivatives contracts does not mean these were made in error or a result of poor management.
Committee member should “avoid simplifications which often incurs when discussing these topics,” the court said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Wall Street Titans Who Crashed Global Economy in 2008 Go Big for Tpp
Even as millions and millions of Americans—represented by thousands of labor, environmental, family farm, consumer, faith, Internet freedom and other advocacy organizations—continue to stand firmly in opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, those backing the TPP, including President Obama and a large majority of the Republican caucus, still have two dedicated demographic groups pledging their allegiance to the cause and arguing the so-called “free trade agreement (FTA)” would be good for average workers and the economy overall: billionaires and Wall Street titans.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
“Why Won’t Pamela Geller Shut Up?”
How dare Pamela Geller get targeted by terrorists bent on committing mass murder.
That’s been the reaction of a portion of the opinion elite to news that Geller’s “draw Muhammad” contest in Garland, Texas, was (unsuccessfully) assaulted by two heavily armed Muslim men in an attack the Islamic State took responsibility for.
The Washington Post ran an article on Geller headlined, “Event organizer offers no apology after thwarted attack in Texas.”
News that the Post has yet to break about other terrorist targets: “Malala Yousafzai refuses to admit fault for seeking an education”; “Coptic Christians won’t concede error for worshiping wrong God”; “Unrepentant Shiites continue to disagree with Sunnis.”
Yes, these are more sympathetic cases, but it is no more legitimate to shoot someone for drawing Muhammad, than it is to shoot a girl for going to school, or a Copt or a Shia for his or her faith. Expecting apologies from these victims would be almost as perverse as expecting one from Pamela Geller.
Respectable opinion can’t bear the idea that she has become a symbol of free speech, which once upon a time was — and still is, when convenient — one of the highest values of the media and the left.
If Geller were a groundbreaking pornographer like the loathsome Larry Flynt, someone would already be planning a celebratory biopic of her life.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
A Court Decision is No Law at All
“All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.” —Marbury v Madison 1803.
Repugnant — distasteful, offensive, disgusting. Contradictory, incompatible, inconsistent.
Null — without value, effect, consequence, or significance.
Void — having no legal force or effect; not legally binding or enforceable; useless, ineffectual, vain.
Therefore, all laws inconsistent with the Constitution are without value or effect and have no legal force or effect and are useless, ineffectual and unenforceable.
Or, as Saint Augustine so aptly warned us, “an unjust law is no law at all.”
Let me ask you a question: If the government passed a law saying that parents had the right to kill their three year old sons, would that be a valid, just law? Would we be duty bound to follow it?
If the government passed a law that said that workers were entitled to keep 10% of what they earned and that the rest was to be “withheld” by your employer and given to the government, would it be a valid law? What if they said you could keep 70% and the government got the rest? Where do we draw the line?…
President Andrew Jackson, in a shot across the bow regarding a Supreme Court ruling in 1832 famously said, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” President Jackson ignored the decision that the Supreme Court handed down.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
America’s Main Problem: Corruption
The biggest companies own the D.C. politicians. Indeed, the head of the economics department at George Mason University has pointed out that it is unfair to call politicians “prostitutes”. They are in factpimps … selling out the American people for a price.
Government regulators have become so corrupted and “captured” by those they regulate that Americansknow that the cop is on the take. Institutional corruption is killing people’s trust in our government and our institutions.
Indeed, America is no longer a democracy or republic … it’s officially an oligarchy.
The allowance of unlimited campaign spending allows the oligarchs to purchase politicians more directly than ever. Moreover, there are two systems of justice in America … one for the big banks and other fatcats, and one for everyone else.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Clash of Civs in a Nutshell: Muslims Won’t Condemn Islamic Blasphemy Law
by Diana West
Kudos to Tom Trento’s United West for this critically important series of man-on-the-street interviews with Muslims attending the recent “Stand with the Prophet” convention in Garland, Texas. It is no spoiler to reveal that on being asked to condemn the Islamic blasphemy law, not a single Muslim interviewed would do so. It really has to be seen to be believed.
Islamic blasphemy law is Ground Zero in the clash between Islam and the West. It is also the mechanism of Islam’s totalitarian command over its folllowers.
Islamic blasphemy law is also wholly and utterly at odds — no, at war — with Western standards, Western norms, regarding life on earth as an individual with God-given rights and protected liberties. Such rights and liberties include, of course, the right to free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of conscience. This is where we in the West are “coming from” — the sharia-enforcing media excepted — endowed by our Creator with rights and liberties outside the control of religious and state authority…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Comedian Evan Sayet is getting a bit of blowback because of a Tweet following the death of two terrorists in Garland, TX.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Elton Simpson Eluded U.S. Inquiry Before Texas Shootout
By Scott Shane and Fernanda Santos
WASHINGTON — From 2006 to 2009, long before he would briefly become infamous, Elton Simpson spent many hours sitting in the Kabob Palace, a Phoenix restaurant, earnestly explaining Islam to a Sudanese friend who said he had converted to the faith.
They talked about basic principles of the religion, according to court records, and also about jihad, and what Mr. Simpson saw as the obligation to fight to defend the faith in places like Somalia, where he believed Muslims were under attack.
The friend, Dabla Deng, listened carefully, asked questions and did not let on that he was wearing a wire, recording every word and being paid by the F.B.I. for his efforts. For 330 conversations lasting hundreds of hours, Mr. Deng was paid a total of $132,000 with the sole purpose of catching Mr. Simpson in a crime.
Then, on Sunday, Mr. Simpson, 30, and his housemate, Nadir Soofi, 34, opened fire at a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Tex., and were quickly shot to death by a traffic officer. They managed only to wound a security guard in the leg.
A look back at the long investigation of Mr. Simpson, which was revived some months ago when he began expressing support for the Islamic State extremist group, shows how elusive a terrorism target can be. The F.B.I. invested a huge amount of labor and money to protect society from Mr. Simpson, but he and Mr. Soofi still managed to obtain assault rifles and launch an attack.
In retrospect, Mr. Simpson’s lawyer in the earlier case, Kristina Sitton, believes that the prosecution did have an effect on him — just not the one the authorities intended. “He learned that they were following him,” Ms. Sitton said Wednesday in a telephone interview. “He learned how not to attract suspicion. He learned how to be a better criminal.”
[…]
When mosque leaders learned that Mr. Simpson had not been sent to prison, they figured that “the F.B.I. had done their due diligence, that they thought he was fine and wasn’t a danger to our society,” Mr. Shami said. In retrospect, he said, “They probably were mistaken.”
But even after Sunday’s shootout, which underscored the urgency of F.B.I. efforts to identify dangerous people in the community, mosque leaders have not changed their opposition to the use of informants like Mr. Deng.
A few months ago, Mr. Shami said that a man who attends the mosque approached the Arizona chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights group, to say that the F.B.I. had been trying to recruit him as a paid informant. The council notified Mr. Shami, who had heard a similar complaint from the imam at another Phoenix-area mosque.
[This is in line with CAIR’s poster exhorting Muslims to slam the door on the feds and “build a wall of resistance.” See the Ihsanoglu quote elsewhere. — PW
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Encryption: What the FBI Wants it Can Only Have by Destroying Computing and Censoring the Internet
The FBI — and by extension, every law enforcement agency it partners with — wants holes carved in cellphone encryption. The problem is that it doesn’t even know what specifically it wants.
When asked directly if the FBI wants a backdoor, [Amy] Hess [Asst. Director of FBI’s Science & Technology branch] dodged the question and did not describe in detail what actual solution the FBI is seeking.
“We are simply asking for information that we seek in response to a lawful order in a readable format,” Hess responded, while also repeating that the Bureau supports strong encryption. “But how that actually happens should be the decision of the provider.”
When pressed again, Hess said that it would be okay for the FBI not to have a key to decrypt data, if the provider “can get us that information by maintaining the key themselves.” That’s asking the impossible — for a great many reasons. First and foremost, compromised encryption is compromised encryption. It can be exploited by criminals and other unwanted entities just as certainly as it can assist law enforcement agencies in obtaining the information they’re seeking. There’s no way around this fact. You cannot have “good guys only” encryption.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Exclusive: ‘Draw Muhammad’ Winner on Growing up in Islam and Defeating the Jihad
By Jordan Schachtel
Breitbart News spoke with Bosch Fawstin, an accomplished artist, cartoonist, and anti-Jihad activist who won first prize at Sunday’s “Draw Muhammad” free speech event in Garland, Texas.
The event came under attack by AK47-weilding jihadists, who were neutralized by a police officer before they could commit mass murder against the free speech art display’s attendees.
Fawstin talked about his unique experience growing up in the Bronx as a Muslim, how his life changed after the 9/11 attacks, and he shared strategies to defeat the global jihadist movement. His artwork is featured throughout the interview.
Breitbart News: You won first prize at the Muhammad Cartoon Contest? What inspired your first-place artwork?
Bosch Fawstin: Quite simply, I wanted to do something different because I’ve been drawing Muhammad for a long time. Ever since the Danish cartoons, and after the Charlie Hebdo attack. Every time something horrific happens. If free speech was under assault, under siege, I drew Muhammad.
This drawing of Muhammad showed him threatening me. He says, angrily, ‘You Can’t Draw Me,” with a sword in his hand. I respond, ‘That’s Why I Draw You.’“
Breitbart News: We understand that you were brought up in Islam. What is your background? How difficult was it to leave Islam?
Bosch Fawstin: I never set out to draw Muhammad. My purpose was never to be a critic of Islam.
[…]
Right after I left Islam, 9/11 happened. I revisited everything. I reread the Koran. I read countless books on jihad, Islam, and Muhammad. I knew as a cartoonist, as an artist, I had a tool to respond to the atrocities. I made sure I knew Islam very well before making any move.
I became a follower of Ayn Rand’s philosophy and remain so to this day. Ironically, I went from the most misogynistic philosophy on earth, to that created by a woman. Without her work, I don’t know where the hell I’d be today.
Breitbart News: You grew up in a “moderate Muslim” family?
Bosch Fawstin: Almost all of the women in my generation were beaten by their husbands. There was strong admiration for Hitler in the household, because he killed more Jews than anyone. That’s why I refer to Hitler as Islam’s favorite infidel. They forgive him because he killed more Jews than anyone. we were “Moderate Muslims,” but there was still hardcore misogyny and Jew-hatred in my community.
I would interact with Jews, Christians, and they were my friends. When my father found out, he didn’t like it. They weren’t allowed to come to the house. Nonetheless, a Jewish friend and I were known to betray our religions in solidarity when we shared a pepperoni pizza.
Breitbart News: The beatings of innocent women, the Hitler admiration, and the Jew-hatred. These are events you personally witnessed growing up?
Bosch Fawstin: Yes. Absolutely.
[…]
Breitbart News: How do you respond to people who say that you are inciting people and that your work is not protected free speech?
Bosch Fawstin: It’s like saying, ‘the Jews must have done something to provoke the Nazis. They must have said something. Why would they exterminate 6 million of them? Why?’
It’s sick. It is twisted. The fact is, we have the right to insult, to assert our rights.
Breitbart News: What is so sinful about drawing Muhammad in Islam?
Bosch Fawstin: It is so convoluted, historically speaking, because Muslims have drawn images of Muhammad in the past. But today, most are against idolatry, even for the prophet.
Breitbart News: Is there a connection between the terror attack in Garland, Texas with what is going on in the Middle East and the rest of the Islamic world?
Bosch Fawstin: Islam. Everyone’s Koran reads, ‘kill the infidel, wherever you find them.’ Whether they do or not, every Muslim’s Koran has that passage. A lot of them don’t act upon the Koran, but it’s not because of Islam. It’s because they are living, breathing human beings who don’t want to commit those acts.
Breitbart News: What is the best way to defeat Islamic totalitarianism?
Bosch Fawstin: We have to start with the truth. We have to study Islam. We cannot lie about it anymore. We cannot allow the Islamists, so-called intellectuals, and leftists to lie about it anymore. Just look at guys like Bill O’Reilly, who has no idea what he’s talking about. He smeared Pamela Geller because of this event. We are at war. Outside of that building were two savages locked into jihad. People are trying to pretend we were doing something other than celebrating free speech, and demanding our freedom.
[We have to study Islam. Hear! Hear! There’s a reason that one of the conditions of submission demanded by the Muslim conquerors of subject peoples under the Pact of Umar was, “We shall not teach our children the Qur’an.” Allah forbid that they should know what they’re in for. — PW
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
There is no question that images ridiculing religion, however offensive they may be to believers, qualify as protected free speech in the United States and most Western democracies. There is also no question that however offensive the images, they do not justify murder, and that it is incumbent on leaders of all religious faiths to make this clear to their followers.
But it is equally clear that the Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest in Garland, Tex., was not really about free speech. It was an exercise in bigotry and hatred posing as a blow for freedom.
[…]
Some of those who draw cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad may earnestly believe that they are striking a blow for freedom of expression, though it is hard to see how that goal is advanced by inflicting deliberate anguish on millions of devout Muslims who have nothing to do with terrorism. As for the Garland event, to pretend that it was motivated by anything other than hate is simply hogwash.
[Never seen the Gray Lady quite so vituperative. Sounds like she’s channeling Julius Streicher! — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Google Survey Finds More Than Five Million Users Infected With Adware
Ad-injecting malware is one of the most reliable scams on the web. Once a computer’s infected, the virus will drop new ads into any site it visits, sending ad revenue back to the scammers who control it. Users may even know the name of the program, but they’re powerless to remove it. According to new research from Google and UC Berkley, the scam is still going strong, despite more than a decade of work to stamp it out.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
IBM’s Watson Will Make Decisions About Cancer Care in 14 Hospitals in the U.S. And Canada
IBM’s supercomputer Watson will be used to make decisions about cancer care in 14 hospitals in the US and Canada, it has been announced. Using computers to trawl through vast amounts of medical data speeds up the diagnosis process. The system will help assess individual tumours and suggest which drug should be used to target them.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Michigan, Texas, Mississippi, California, Idaho and Washington All Jolted by Significant Earthquakes
Did you know that Michigan was just hit by the worst earthquake that state has seen in more than 60 years? In recent days, there has been a series of alarming earthquakes all over the United States. Of course none of these earthquakes was anything like the massively powerful quake that just crippled the entire nation of Nepal, but many are concerned that these earthquakes could be a sign of what is to come. All over the planet, seismic activity is increasing. In fact, I recently wrote about how the number of volcanoes erupting right now is greater than the 20th century’ s average for an entire year. At the same time, the surface of the sun has become very, very quiet. As you will see in this article, there are scientists that link the two. It is believed that times of very low solar activity have something to do with a rise in seismic activity, and there is one scientist that is claiming that solar activity is declining faster “ than at any time in the last 9300 years” right now. So what does this mean for the future of our planet?
Before we get to that, let’ s review some of the very unusual earthquake activity in the U.S. that we have been witnessing lately. As I mentioned above, the state of Michigan was just hit by the worst earthquake that it has seen in more than 60 years…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pam Geller is Not the Real Problem
Pamela Geller has been taking quite a few hits in recent days for hosting the “Draw Muhammad” event in Garland, Texas, that led to an attack by two gunmen who’ve now been embraced by ISIS as one of their own.
But she’s not the problem. Radical Islamism is — and to a certain extent, so are some of those who condemn her for daring to host this event.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Rep. Gohmert on Jade Helm: We Never Named a State ‘Hostile’
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), a U.S. Army veteran, said it was unprecedented for the military to list U.S. cities and states as “hostile” during a war game.
“In military science classes or in my years on active duty, I have participated in or observed military exercises; however, we never named an existing city or state as a ‘hostile,’“ he said in a recent statement. “We would use fictitious names before we would do such a thing.”
“Once I observed the map depicting ‘hostile,’ ‘permissive,’ and ‘uncertain’ states and locations, I was rather appalled that the hostile areas amazingly have a Republican majority, ‘cling to their guns and religion,’ and believe in the sanctity of the United States Constitution.”
“When the federal government begins, even in practice, games or exercises, to consider any U.S. city or state in ‘hostile’ control and trying to retake it, the message becomes extremely calloused and suspicious,” Gohmert added. He’s calling for the military to completely revamp Jade Helm, starting with the ‘hostile’ labels.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Shooting Clouds Life as Both Muslim and Texan
By Manny Fernandez and Laurie Goodstein
GARLAND, Tex. — When Muslim leaders in the Dallas area learned in February that a provocative blogger had rented space to exhibit caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, they decided to ignore her.
They were well acquainted with Pamela Geller’s vitriol against Islam and figured that there was no point protesting and giving her free publicity.
“We don’t want to be falling for her tactics,” Alia Salem, the executive director of the Dallas and Fort Worth chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said to her colleagues. “She’s trying to bait the Muslim community.”
So it was that on Sunday night, Ms. Salem was at a festive interfaith women’s event with hundreds of Jewish, Christian and Muslim women when she received a text message from a friend saying that two gunmen had been shot and killed while attacking the center where Ms. Geller was hosting her event. First, Ms. Salem said, she started to cry, fearing news of more deaths.
Then she took calls from those she views as allies — other Muslim advocates, a Methodist minister, an organizer for the American Civil Liberties Union — to come up with a response that would walk a fine line: clearly condemning the extremists behind the attack, while also calling to account what they see as hatred decked out in free speech finery.
“The discussion we have to have is: When does free speech become hate speech, and when does hate speech become incitement to violence?” Ms. Salem said. “Free speech is not the same as responsible speech.”
[…]
The shooting in Texas, showcasing that there are Islamic extremists in the United States encouraged by radicals overseas, comes just as Muslims here have been confronting suspicions about their faith and loyalty.
[As well they might. In a 2008 speech at Columbia University, after all, Organization of Islamic Cooperation Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu declared that The Muslim Ummah, means the ‘community of the faithful’. It is a unique bond that has no similar example under any other political or religious system in the world. It is a belonging to ideals which bring Muslims together in an eternal brotherhood lock which transcends all other consideration of allegiance or loyalties or barriers of nationhood, ethnicity, geography or language. — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
The Big Business of Cancer: 100 Billion Dollars Was Spent on Cancer Drugs Last Year
If you are an American, there is a 1 in 3 chance that you will get cancer during your lifetime. If you are a man, the odds are closer to 1 in 2. And almost everyone in America either knows someone who currently has cancer or who has already died from cancer. But it wasn’ t always this way. Back in the 1940s, only one out of every sixteen Americans would develop cancer. Something has happened that has caused the cancer rate in this nation to absolutely explode, and it is being projected that cancer will soon surpass heart disease and become the leading cause of death in the United States. Overall, the World Health Organization says that approximately 14 million new cases of cancer are diagnosed around the globe each year, and the number of new cases is expected to increase by about 70 percent over the next 2 decades. There are very few words in the English language that cause more fear than the word “ cancer” , but despite billions spent on research and all of the technological progress we have made over the years this plague just continues to spiral wildly out of control. Why is that?
In America today, more money is spent to treat cancer than to treat any other disease by far. In fact, according to NBC News, 100 BILLION dollars was spent on cancer drugs just last year alone…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Town Installs License Plate Scanning Cameras in Cactuses
Residents not even informed of program, city officials refused to speak to media.
Town leaders initially declined to even talk to local station Fox 10 about the cameras, with Paradise Valley Police saying they were “not prepared to make a statement at this time.” The network was similarly rebuffed when they attempted to get answers on license plate scanners that were being installed in traffic lights back in February.
Fox 10’s Jill Monier was eventually able to speak to Town Manager Kevin Burke, who admitted that the cameras were being used to “run license plates of cars against a hotlist database.”
When asked why officials had been secretive about the cameras, which are being placed on the perimeter of the town, Burke asserted that there was “nothing to hide” and that the cameras wouldn’t be activated until privacy concerns had been addressed.
“Shouldn’t that have been vetted before they even went up?” asked Monier, to which Burke responded, “It probably is fair.”
The cameras are part of a $2 million “technology upgrade” passed by the council last year. It is not know whether the Department of Homeland Security contributed to this figure, although the DHS has funded the introduction of license plate scanners in other cities.
In February 2014, the DHS announced that it intended to create, “a nationwide database with information from license-plate readers that scan every vehicle crossing their paths,” a proposal that alarmed privacy groups.
The plan was subsequently canceled by Secretary Jeh Johnson, but the program has returned in a scaled back version which will collect data from “at least 25 states” and 24 of the 30 most populated metropolitan areas, reports the Hill.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U of Minnesota: Muslims Enraged at Charlie Hebdo Poster for Free Speech Forum
A poster for a campus forum on the limits of free speech has set off a debate at the University of Minnesota — about the limits of free speech.
The poster, which first appeared in January, prompted hundreds of complaints from Muslim students and others for reproducing a controversial illustration of the prophet Mohammed from the French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo.
But it’s the university’s response to the complaints — just weeks after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo — that drew fire from some faculty members.
After initially demanding that the posters be taken down, university officials quickly rescinded the ban, calling it a mistake. Then the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action investigated and advised the dean of liberal arts to disavow the use of the offending image and “use your leadership role to repair the damage” it caused in the Muslim community.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ultra-Secrecy Surrounds Barack Obama’s New Global Economic Treaty
Barack Obama is secretly negotiating a global economic treaty which would destroy thousands of American businesses and millions of good paying American jobs. In other words, it would be the final nail in the coffin for America’ s economic infrastructure. Obama knows that if the American people actually knew what was in this treaty that they would be screaming mad, so the negotiations are being done in secret. The only people that are allowed to look at the treaty are members of Congress, and even they are being banned from saying anything to the public. American workers are about to be brutally stabbed in the back, and thanks to all of this secrecy and paranoia they won’ t even see it coming.
The name of this new treaty is “ the Trans-Pacific Partnership” , and it is being touted as perhaps the most important trade agreement in history. But very few people in this country are talking about it, because none of us are allowed to see it. An article that was just released by Politico detailed the extreme secrecy that is surrounding this trade agreement…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Canada Expands Spy Agency’s Powers in Landmark Anti-Terror Law
Canada has passed an anti-terror law that drastically expands the powers of its spy agency, allowing it to intercept finances and hijack Twitter accounts. But critics are concerned it will “erode” their freedoms.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Canadian Judge Frees Former Teen Terrorist Who Killed US Army Medic
A former teen terrorist who killed a U.S. Army Delta Force medic in Afghanistan in 2002 was released on bail Thursday by a Canadian judge, a move that allows the former Guantanamo Bay detainee to appeal his U.S. conviction while free.
Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was just 15 when he threw the grenade that killed U.S. Army medic Christopher Speer as Speer and four others cleared a building in the Khost province following an air raid. Captured at the scene, Khadr admitted carrying out the act years later while in Guantanamo. A U.S. judge sentenced him in 2010 to eight years in prison, and the federal government allowed the Toronto native to serve his term in Canada. Khadr, who has been appealing the conviction while imprisoned in Canada, was granted bail by an Edmonton appeals judge who upheld a lower court ruling that his sentence could be cut short due to “good behavior.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Denmark: Justice Ministry Critical of Police in Terror Attack Evaluation Report
It was no coincidence that Jens Madsen resigned as head of the national intelligence agency PET yesterday after just a year and a half at the helm.
Just hours later, the Justice Ministry released a report on the authorities’ own evaluation of their response to the terrorist attacks that killed two people and wounded six police officers in Copenhagen in February.
The report (here in Danish) looked into ten central themes and took issue with the performance of the authorities in a number of areas that day, even if they were evaluated to be adequately prepared for a terror attack.
“Despite this, the evaluation has identified areas in which things could have been done better and drawn conclusions that can be utilised as knowledge and learning-tools for future emergency work,” the report found.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Exit Poll Puts UK Conservative Party Just Short of a Majority
The exit poll in Britain’s general election predicts that the Conservative Party will win 316 seats, just short of a majority in the House of Commons.
The surprise poll results are in contrast to polls leading up to the election that suggested Prime Minister David Cameron’s party would not come close to a majority, and would be locked in a much tighter race with the opposition Labour Party, led by Ed Miliband — predicted to gain 239 seats in the exit poll.
Cameron’s Conservatives would need 326 for an outright majority in the 650-seat parliament.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Sipila Opts for Right-Leaning Government
Centre Party chair Juha Sipilä announced on Thursday evening that he will begin coalition formation talks with the Finns Party and National Coalition Party. Other party chairs earlier confirmed that they will join the opposition.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Rolex Demands Correction From Renzi Re Black Bloc ‘Slur’
Premier slammed ‘hooligans with Rolexes’ at Expo demo
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — Swiss watch giant Rolex demanded a “correction” from Premier Matteo Renzi and Interior Minister Angelino Alfano Wednesday for comments last week when they blasted “hooligans with Rolexes” and “daddy’s boys with a Rolex” for taking part in violent Black bloc ‘No Expo’ protests.
There was no immediate reaction from the premier’s office to the request made by Rolex Italia managing director Gianpaolo Marini in an open letter published in full-page advertisements in Italian daily newspapers.
But Alfano said he was “surprised” by the Rolex advertisements, saying the original comments were made to emphasize what he called “contradictions and inconsistencies” within last Friday’s protest.
“There is no controversy,” said Alfano. Marini denounced what he called an “unacceptable conflating of the image of Rolex with the devastation of Milan and the universe of subversive violence”.
He asked the premier and interior minister for a “courteous declaration of correction”.
Photographs of a protester apparently wearing a luxury watch identified by the media as a Rolex were not good enough quality to ensure “reliable identification” as an authentic example of the famous brand, Marini added.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Factbox: The Good School Reform
Its key measures and the principal objections against it
(ANSA) Rome, May 5 — Following are the key points of the government’s Good School reform bill, and the principal objections by critics: 1. The government plans to permanently hire 100,701 teachers from the list of supply teachers in a bid to turn the page definitively on precarious employment in the school system.
The 100,701 teachers who could receive permanent jobs in September will include temporary teachers at primary, middle and high schools, and the winners of the last public competition for tenure. Trade unions object that the government proposal is only a half solution since it leaves out as many as 50,000 temporary teachers in technical institutes who have worked for years and who would be sacked. 2. The bill would confer new powers to school principals, who would be responsible for evaluating new teachers and rewarding the best with a monetary bonus. Principals would also be allowed to choose whom the 100,000 newly hired teachers in his or her area, and poach teachers from other schools.
Teachers object that concentrating too much power in one official could be counterproductive, especially if the principal is not up to the managerial task.
3. In addition to public financing, public schools would seek funding from voluntary tax donations by parents and private donations.
This measure has sparked fierce opposition, with critics saying it will widen the gulf between public schools in affluent neighborhoods and those in low-income districts. 4. The bill would foster internships, work-study programs and closer links between schools and the private sector in a bid to put students in touch with the labor market and to help business find qualified staff. Students would alternate between schools and work experience, with 400 hours in firms for technical schools and 200 hours for high school students.
Critics say schools will lose their educational aspect. 5.The bill allocates as many as four billion euros for school construction and renovation in coming years, bringing 36,000 existing school buildings up to code. 6. The bill contains tax deductions of up to 400 euros per student per year for parents who send their kids to private school. This will cost taxpayers an estimated 100 million euros, in addition to 472 million euros earmarked each year for the non-public school system.
Critics say the State should not be paying for private education because it undermines the public school system. Also under the bill, public school teachers would be allocated 500 euros a year to be spent on additional cultural activities for their students. These can be theater tickets, books, software, or whatever else the teacher decides.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Former Democratic Party Whip Warns PD Defection Serious
Speranza says Civati’s split means party malaise
(ANSA) — Rome, May 6 — A former Democratic Party (PD) whip for the Lower House on Wednesday said Pippo Civati’s split with the PD should not be taken lightly.
“Civati’s farewell is an act that should make us pause to reflect and can not be dismissed with a shrug, but is a testament to malaise. I do not share the exit from the PD, but the fact that a person who received 400,000 votes in the primary is leaving must make one reflect,” said Roberto Speranza, a PD deputy who stepped down last week as the party whip in the Lower House. Civati challenged Premier Matteo Renzi in the party primaries 18 months ago. On Wednesday he said he is quitting the PD. “Out of coherence with my beliefs and my voters’ mandate, I no longer feel I can vote my confidence in the Renzi government,” the Lower House MP told ANSA on the phone.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Croatia: Work on Adriatic Regasification Unit From Mid-2016
To be built on Krk island
(ANSAmed) — ZAGREB, MAY 5 — The construction of a LNG regasification unit on Krk island, in the northern Adriatic off Croatia, is scheduled to begin in mid-2016.
The terminal will then be fully operative in 2019. The announcement was made on Monday to the press in Zagreb by Mladen Antunovic, the head of state-owned LNG Croatia, founded for the project by two other public entities: Plinacro, for gas distribution, and HEP, for electrical energy production and distribution. “The regasification unit in the northern Adriatic has become one of Europe’s strategic projects. It is on the European Commission’s list and its importance has been further underscored by in the strategy for European energy security, alongside only 33 other, similar projects,” Antunovic said. The media reports that the idea — which has been around in Croatia for at least two decades — is strongly backed by Western diplomatic offices and Washington, given the intensification of the crisis in Ukraine and the deterioration of relations with Russia. The project was reportedly drawn up with the help of experts sent by the US administration, while Washington is said to have sent signals to Brussels to consider EU co-financing. The Croatian government is not expected to be the main investor, but will prepare all the technical and environmental documentation of it prior to offering construction to private investors. A two-terminal LNG with a capacity of up to six billion cubic meters of gas is expected to be built, but if requirements and potential buyers’ interest were not to reach that level, it may be limited to a single terminal.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Srebrenica Muslims Accuse Serb Authorities of Harassment
Arrests and raids are ‘form of repression’
(ANSA/AP) — SARAJEVO — The mayor of Srebrenica has accused Serb authorities of using the pretext of investigating Islamic extremists to harass Muslims who returned to the town following the country’s 1992-95 war.
Camil Durakovic, himself a Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim), said Thursday that Serb police stormed returnees’ homes and arrested people without explanation. He called it a “form of repression.” “Terrorism is a serious global problem and we must all fight against it, but you cannot use it as an excuse to send masked, armed men to search houses of Bosniaks and arrest people without any evidence,” Durakovic said.
Bosnian Serb police on Wednesday raided a few dozen locations and detained 30 people, including two in Srebrenica, on suspicion of links with Islamic extremists.
The operation comes after a Muslim gunman killed one policeman and wounded two others as he stormed into a police station in northeast Bosnia yelling “Allahu akbar” last week.
Investigators believe the 24-year-old gunman was linked to Islamic extremists.
Serbs killed more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica in 1995.
After the war, Bosnia was split into two semiautonomous parts, the Serb-run Republika Srpska and a federation shared by Bosniaks and Croats. Each has its own president, government and police, but are linked by weak state-level institutions.
Srebrenica remains in the Serb-run half.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Al Qaeda Leader Behind Charlie Hebdo Claim Killed by Drone Strike
A top leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who appeared in a video in which he claimed the terror group was behind the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, was killed in a U.S. drone strike, according to analysts who monitor web chatter from the jihadist organization.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) said a video message released by AQAP announced the death of Yemeni-born Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi. The statement came from Khalid Batirfi, the former AQAP operative who was recently freed during a prison break in Al-Mukalla, Yemen.’
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
From Hip-Hop to Jihad, How the Islamic State Became a Magnet for Converts
By Anthony Faiola and Souad Mekhennet
THE HAGUE — She was a redheaded rebel, the singer in the family, a trash-talking, tattooed 21-year-old wrapped up in a hip-hop dream of becoming Holland’s Eminem. Then Betsy found Allah.
After her sudden conversion to Islam last summer, Betsy — a name given by her family to protect her identity — began dressing in full Muslim robes. By January, the once-agnostic Dutch woman, raised in a home where the only sign of religion was a dusty Bible on a shelf, began defending homegrown terrorists. A feud with her father over her apparent radicalization prompted her to leave home — turning up days later, her parents and Dutch authorities now say, in Syria, where she would become the bride of an Islamic State fighter.
She also became part of a growing crisis in Europe, where a surging number of young people from non-Muslim homes are flocking to the Middle East to heed the call of violent jihad. It is happening, terror experts say, as converts emerge as some of the most dangerous and fanatical adherents to radical Islam — a fact driven home this week by Elton Simpson, a 30-year-old American convert who joined one other man in opening fire on a Garland, Tex., contest for cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
“I don’t blame Islam,” said Betsy’s mother, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her daughter. “I blame the people who made her believe in a radical way of life.”
As the Islamic State’s recruiting efforts have grown, concern in the West has largely centered on Europe’s entrenched Muslim communities — communities that have spawned more than 4,000 mostly young and socially isolated Muslims who have left to join Islamist militants fighting in Syria and Iraq. Once there, the new arrivals can transform into what intelligence officials call the most dangerous kind of radical: one with a Western passport.
Yet the Islamic State’s allure is hardly confined to traditional Muslim homes. In fact, as many as 1 in 6 Europeans joining the self-styled caliphate are converts to Islam from non-Muslim faiths including Christianity, as well as nonreligious backgrounds. In some countries, such as France, the ratio of converts among those leaving is significantly higher: about 1 in 4, according to European intelligence officials and terrorism experts.
The swell of converts happens as the Islamic State appears to be actively wooing them, using savvy social media outreach and recruitment drives.
[Question: Why are Twitter and Facebook and the rest, which after all are American companies, allowed to provide a cyber-milieu in which these creatures can thrive? — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Releases Maersk Container Ship Seized Over Legal Dispute
Iran has released a seized container ship, according to the country’s official news agency. The ship’s operator and manager confirmed the reports after exiting Iran’s waters, adding the crew “are in good condition.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Promiscuous Women Cause Earthquakes, Claims Iranian Cleric
In about the most extreme example of slut shaming yet, a prayer leader in Tehran has blamed earthquakes on women who dress provocatively and tempt people into promiscuity.
“When promiscuity spreads, earthquakes increase,” Hojatoleslam Kazim Sadeghi said during prayers on Friday, a video of which was later posted on YouTube.
“There is no way other than taking refuge in religion and adapting ourselves to Islamic behavior,” he added.
Sadeghi is a senior cleric who was last year appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei as a substitute prayer leader in Tehran, a powerful position with Khamenei himself being the official prayer leader.
Iran has suffered greatly from earthquakes, with one in the city of Bam killing tens of thousands in 2003.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Record Breaking Numbers of People Displaced Because of War and Violence
Last year, 38 million people were displaced within their own countries because of jihadist violence, political strife and civil war, a new report says
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Senior AQAP Leader Nasr Ibn Ali Al-Ansi Killed
By Dana Ford
A senior commander in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been killed in a U.S. drone strike, according to an online video statement from an AQAP spokesman.
It was not immediately clear when Nasr Ibn Ali al-Ansi was killed.
A U.S. official confirmed that al-Ansi was dead, but would not say whether his death was the result of a drone strike.
The senior commander was well known for giving a lengthy statement after the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris, claiming AQAP was responsible for the attack.
Twelve cartoonists, editors and other magazine staffers were killed by two gunmen on January 7. The attack was revenge for the magazine’s depictions of the Prophet Mohammed, al-Ansi said then.
He blamed not only Charlie Hebdo, but also France and the United States in his statement.
Al-Ansi urged all would-be jihadists to wage war at home, when possible, as opposed to traveling abroad.
“If he is capable to wage individual jihad in the Western countries that fight Islam — such as America, Britain, France, Canada, and others of the countries that represent the head of disbelief in waging war against Islam … If he is capable of that, then that is better and more harmful,” said al-Ansi.
He continued: “But if that is impossible, and he is able to serve his brothers on the front lines, then let him immigrate, for it is better.”
An off-camera interviewer asked why attacks have abated in the United States.
“By the grace of Allah the great (and) the almighty, we have made efforts in external work, and the enemy knows the danger of that,” al-Ansi said. “We are preparing and lurking for the enemies of Allah. We incite the believers to do that.”
[Kudos to Pamela Geller and all the cartoonists who entered her contest — for flushing a couple of them out. In hunting, that’s called “shooting over bait.” — PW]
| — Hat tip: Papa Whiskey | [Return to headlines] |
Top Al-Qaeda Militant Nasser Al-Ansi ‘Killed’ In Yemen
A US air strike in Yemen has reportedly killed Nasser al-Ansi, a top militant of al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula.
Site Intelligence, a US militant monitoring group, cites an Aqap statement as saying Ansi was killed in April in the port city of Mukalla.
There is no US confirmation. Ansi had appeared in a number of Aqap videos.
In one, he claimed the group was behind the attack on the offices of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January in which 12 people were killed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Belarus Requires the Idle to Pay for Not Working
People who work less than 183 days a year to pay a fine of 250 $
(ANSA/AP) — MINSK — People in Belarus who work less than half the year will have to pay the government for their idleness.
The parliament on Wednesday passed the proposal by authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, which requires work-capable people who work less than 183 days a year to pay a yearly fine of $250. Disabled people, pension recipients and people with young children are exempt.
A statement from the parliament, where the measure passed by a vote of 100-2, said “it’s necessary to stimulate citizens who are capable of work and ensure they fulfill their constitutional obligation to take part in financing state expenditures.” Labor Minister Marianna Shchetkina told the parliament the measure would be temporary.
Belarus’ economy is stumbling in the wake of economic troubles in neighboring Russia.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Gorbachev Critical Towards Western Powers Because of Parade
‘Merkel is not coming because of US pressure’
(ANSA) — MOSCOW — The former Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, stigmatized the absence of Western political leaders in Moscow at the celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the victory against Nazi Germany, definining it as “sign of contempt” towards who fought against Nazism. For Gorbachev, the fact that German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be in Moscow without assisting at the official parade is a consequence of US pressures.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Busted Islamic State ‘Module’ Wants to Make India as Islamic State After Killing All Hindus.
Praveen Swami & Milind Ghatwai | Express News Services | New Delhi & Bhopal | May 6, 2015:: Five (all Muslim men) Madhya Pradesh men arrested from the town of Ratlam last month were part of an Islamic State-linked jihad cell planning strikes in India, highly placed police and intelligence sources have told The Indian Express.
Although growing numbers of Indians have been fighting with the jihadist group in Iraq and Syria, the cell is the Islamic State’s first known affiliate inside the country, sparking fears more could be forming elsewhere.
Imran Khan Muhammad Sharif, the leader of the five men held in Ratlam on April 15, is alleged to have been recruited online by an Indian jihadist he knew as “Yusuf” — code, investigators say, for Karnataka-born Muhammad Shafi Armar, a fugitive Indian Mujahideen operative now leading group of Indians fighting with the Islamic State.
Muhammad Shafi Armar’s brother, Muhammad Sultan Armar, was killed in combat near the Syrian town of Kobane in March, fighting with Islamic State forces attempting to take the city from Kurdish control.
Khan, police sources in Ratlam said, was initially held for possession of chemicals that could be used to fabricate explosives, to which separate terrorism-related charges have since been added.
In voice-over-internet and chat conversations recovered by investigators, police allege, Khan sought help from Armar on how to build explosive devices, procure weapons, and select targets for attack…
| — Hat tip: Upananda Brahmachari | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Aceh: New Pro-Sharia Rules: Males and Females Separated at School
Since yesterday the regency has imposed a division between the sexes in educational institutions. The measure relates to schools, colleges and universities. Travel by motorcycle between people of different sexes banned, unless there is a marital relationship. Shopkeepers banned from displaying mannequins in the window.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — Inspired once again by Islamic law, the North Aceh regency has ordered the prohibition of mixed classes in throughout the territory. The new “quanun” issued yesterday will radically change the habits of the students in the region, and orders a strict separation of the sexes within the school buildings.
A promuovere con forza la nuova norma ispirata alla sharia un consigliere della reggenza di North Aceh, il quale precisa che le classi composte da maschi e femmine saranno ammesse solo nelle scuole elementari. Alle medie e alle superiori (dal settimo al dodicesimo grado), invece, vi sarà una rigida separazione dei sessi. La nuova legge vale anche per gli universitari, che sono “fortemente consigliati” a studiare e seguire le lezioni in classi diverse.
A of North Aceh Regency councilor who vigorously promoted the new law inspired by sharia, states that classes consisting of males and females will be allowed only in elementary schools. In middle school and high school (seventh to twelfth grade), however, there will be a strict separation of the sexes. The new law also applies to the university, where students are “strongly recommended” to study and take lessons in different classes.
Other provisions within the same “quanun”, include a ban on males and females travelling on motorbikes together, unless the two people are husband and wife. The only exception to the ban, is for “on an emergency”.
The president of North Aceh Fauzan Hamzah explained that the rules serve to reduce the cases of adultery, which include “underground” prostitution and extra-marital relations. The measure linked to the school also intends to strengthen young people’s attention on their studies.
Young people will also attend sessions of Islamic prayer after school, while older students will have to do it in the appropriate places of worship. Finally, retailers will no longer be allowed to use mannequins in their window displays, or figures that evoke the animal world.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has increasingly become the scene of attacks or episodes of intolerance against minority groups like Christians and Ahmadi Muslims.
Aceh is the only Indonesian province to enforce Islamic law (Sharia). This special situation was part of a peace agreement signed by the central government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). However, a more radical and extreme vision of Islam is also spreading in other parts of the country (like Bekasi and Bogor regencies in West Java).
However, the decision to toughen laws, regulations, rules and customs has failed to find favour with a large proportion of the local population, forced to change long held customs and habits.
Many in Aceh oppose greater restrictions, especially with regards to women wearing jeans and tight skirts , travelling astride motorcycles, or dancing in public because they “stir desire” and a ban on St. Valentines Day.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Kyrgyzstan’s Economic Crisis Pushes Up Suicide Rate
A study shows that the suicide rate in the Central Asian country jumped from 550 in 2000 to around 700. The global economic crisis is blamed for the increase. Apostolic Administrator Mgr Nikolaus Messmer agrees with the findings. The problem is especially serious among teenagers.
Bishkek (AsiaNews) — The global economic crisis has led to a higher number of suicides in Kyrgyzstan.
According to a study by EurasiaNet, every year about 700 people (one for every 8,300 residents in a country of 5.7 million people) take their own life.
The government has tried to downplay the data, but official medical sources have confirmed the rising trend.
“There were many fewer cases before. Suicides and hangings were quite rare, but during the last four or five years such cases happen more often, especially during the last two years,” said Baktygul Aralbaeva, the deputy chief doctor at Bishkek’s ambulance service.
Economic reasons are a major factor, given that in Kyrgyz society money and connections, not necessarily hard work, often seem to be more important in determining professional success.
“Quite often, men commit suicides, leaving their families. They take loans, and desperate situations push them to this act,” Dr Aralbaeva explained.
“Young people cannot get jobs,” he added. “Before, people graduated from college, got jobs and worked. Now, even if you have two diplomas, without contacts you will not get a job.”
Mgr Nikolaus Messmer, the local apostolic administrator, agrees. “It is true. The situation is grim,” he told AsiaNews. “People are out of work. Villagers move to big cities to seek better opportunities and build a better life. But sometimes things go wrong.”
Mental health experts also agree. For Mizirkhat Kurmanaliev of the National Mental Health Centre, there is a common misperception that those who attempt suicide tend to be mentally ill.
“My experience shows that these are mostly people with personal drama: family issues, economic problems. Suicides are more typical for healthy people who had an active life,” he noted.
Interior Ministry spokesman Ernis Osmonbaev said that the number of suicides in Kyrgyzstan has not changed considerably over the last five years, since the numbers jumped from about 550 a year in the 2000s to 680 or 690 annually, where they have stayed since 2010.
What is worrying for the authorities and experts is that teenagers are now increasingly trying to take their own life. Older people “are more tolerant of the problems they face, they have a philosophical attitude to the issue, while youth react emotionally,” Kurmanaliev added.
According to a report in 2014 the World Health Organisation, titled Preventing suicide: A global imperative, in Kyrgyzstan 11.6 per cent of young people between 15 and 29 took their own life in 2012, a number similar to that of South Korea, one of the countries with the highest suicide rates in the world.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
North Korea Threatens Nuclear Attack on US
North Korea has threatened to attack the US with nuclear weapons if the country “forces it to do so”.
Park Yong-Chol, the deputy director of the North Korean think tank the Institute for Research into National Reunification, gave a rare two-hour interview with CNN on Thursday.
The network said it was only allowed to conduct the interview on the basis that two portraits of former leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were visible behind Park during filming.
In it, he escalated Pyongyang’s fiery rhetoric by claiming North Korea was nuclear-capable and equipped with long-range missiles he warned could reach mainland US.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ivory Coast Bans Skin-Whitening Cream
Ivory Coast has banned skin-whitening creams because of health concerns, the health ministry says.
It says “cosmetic lightening and hygiene creams… that de-pigment the skin… are now forbidden”.
Whitening creams have been popular for years among young women — and some men — across Africa, who believe they make them more beautiful.
But medical experts say they may cause cancer, diabetes, severe skin conditions and other diseases.
“The number of people with side-effects caused by these medicines is really high,” Christian Doudouko, a member of Ivory Coast’s pharmaceutical authority, was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
33,000 Migrants Landed in Italy So Far in 2015, Up 15%
Interior ministry official says on track for 200,000 overall
(ANSA) — Rome, May 7 — About 33,000 migrants have arrived in Italy to date this year, a 15% increase over last year’s arrivals in the same period, an interior ministry official said Thursday.
And that puts Italy on track to receive as many as 200,000 for 2015 overall, well above last year’s 170,000 migrants, said Mario Morcone, head of the civil rights and immigration department in the ministry.
This creates a “very difficult” situation, Morcone told a parliamentary committee on the reception of migrants.
Last year’s budget for migrant reception came to about 630 million and will be higher in 2015 due to rising numbers, said Morcone.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told a joint foreign affairs committee hearing that Italy is continuing to work with four other European nations on drafting a legal framework to present to the United Nations on the destruction of boats used by human traffickers.
Gentiloni said that a draft is expected “during the next week”.
Some countries have said that measure could help to stop some human traffickers from exploiting desperate migrants who arrive in waves from Africa and the Middle East.
Other countries are helping more and more with migrants, he said, but almost all arrivals are still in Italy because its ports are some of the most southern in Europe.
“So this does not diminish the pressure on our country,” said Gentiloni.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Asylum is ‘Secret Password’ For Immigrants Looking to Enter US, Say Critics
Critics say there’s a secret password that allows immigrants access into the U.S., and one that can be uttered in a short phone interview in a process they say exposes border security to widespread fraud.
The word: Asylum.
“Almost anyone at all can call themselves an asylum seeker and get in. It’s a global joke,” said Kenneth Palinkas, president of the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council. “It’s not border security if anyone can recite the magic words and get waved right on in.”
Under current policy, aliens caught crossing the border illegally can claim asylum, and with it receive authorization to work in the United States. Once a work permit is conferred , then comes a social security card and a variety of taxpayer funded benefits such as are Supplemental Security Income, SNAP/Food Stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and Medicaid. Some of which even legal, permanent residents do not receive.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary Clinton Vows to Expand Obama Amnesty to More Illegals
Said she wants Congress to pass a broad immigration bill that would grant most illegal immigrants “a path to full and equal citizenship…”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Presents UN With Draft on Migrant Smuggling
‘We need legal framework to strike at traffickers’
(ANSA) — Warsaw, May 6 — Italy has presented European members of the United Nations Security Council with a draft proposal for ways to combat migrant traffickers, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said in the Polish capital Wednesday.
The aim of the proposal is to obtain a “legal framework allowing us to strike at migrant traffickers,” he said.
Also on Wednesday, European sources said next Monday’s Security Council meeting will be a “first step” to assess what kind of mandate might be needed for European operations against migrant traffickers.
It is not likely that meeting will come up with a resolution, the sources said.
European High Foreign Representative Federica Mogherini will present a May 18 council of EU foreign ministers with various security and defense options, as requested by an extraordinary European summit held after a deadly April 18 Mediterranean shipwreck in which as many as 700 migrants were feared dead.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Terrorists to Come to EU From Libya’, Former PA Minister
Dahlan warns Italy most at risk, security conference in Rome
(by Francesca Bellino) (ANSAmed) — ROME, MAY 7 — Former Palestinian Authority (PA) security minister Mohammad Dahlan said on Thursday at a roundtable discussion in the Italian capital that there would be a “migration of terrorists due to the Libyan crisis”.
“Armed groups will seek to destroy Europe, passing through Italy,” he added. The roundtable discussion, entitled ‘Libya and the Future of Security in the Mediterranean’, was organized by the Comitato Atlantico Italiano in collaboration with Abhath-Al Thuraya Consultancy and Researches of Abu Dhabi and the Mediterranean-Gulf Forum at the Centro Alto Studi per la Difesa in Rome. “To speak about Libya we must speak about its relations with Europe. It was Europe that destroyed Libya. Allied countries destroyed the country and left. They got rid of the dictatorship and created terrorist bodies,” Dahlan said, underscoring that “the way in which the international community deals with the situation in Libya, Syria and Iraq is catastrophic.” “Italy must realize the risks it is running. The Syrian an Iraqi crises led to an internal implosion, while for Libya it was an external explosion. Diplomacy isn’t very useful for resolving the situation. Words are useless with the militias that sell oil on the black market,” the former Palestinian minister added. “We are all a bit to blame for the current situation in Libya,” said former UN special envoy to Libya and Jordanian foreign minister Abdul Ilah Khatib. “In our region, we are used to blaming others, but we must now join together. I believe that those of us close to Libya need to create a collective regional structure that works for everyone’s protection. The Arab League has only issued a resolution for safe skies and asked us to act on this resolution. In the West, there has been a reluctance for a collaborative form, due to the Arab-Israeli conflict and other issues. We must, instead, call a meeting of Libya’s friends and neighbors immediately to save it.” “To reach an agreement,” added the Jordanian minister, “Libya also needs political dialogue involving all the factions, and not only the ones doing the fighting. The population must be in charge of their own dialogue and democratization process. It should not be imposed by the Arab League or foreign countries.” “Only if we bring the Libyan tribes together will there be the conditions for an agreement,” said former Egyptian former minister Mohammed El-Orabi. “We will support Bernardino Leon’s efforts but we think that there is no way that is exclusively political. Terrorism should be fought and you cannot ask terrorists to sit down and negotiate.” “The Libyan population has been suffering for four years because of Europe, which abandoned it,” said Mustafa Ali Rugibai, Chargé d’Affaires at the Embassy of Libya to the Holy See. “Everyone forgot about Libya, and especially Italy.
Libyans want to live a life with dignity, have honest elections and choose their leaders. We want life. What can Italy do? Support the legitimate government and not only pretend to.
Recognize its legitimacy. It can help us to rebuild an army that exists. To use drones to monitor desert borders. The Libyan population has a lot of potential — it can work miracles and defeat terrorism. It will go back to like it was prior to Gaddafi.” Speeches were also made Abdelaziz Kotti, member of Tunisia’s l’Assemblée des Représentants du Peuple; Noman Benotman, former jihadist that played a key role in the dissolution of a group of Libyan Islamist combatants and current head of the Quilliam Foundation, which works with deradicalization in the UK and abroad; Michael Frendo, Maltese Speaker Emeritus of Parliament and former foreign minister; Fabrizio Cicchitto, head of the foreign committee at the Italian Chamber of Deputies; Rinaldo Veri, Centro Alti Studi per la Difesa and Fabrizio W. Luciolli, head of the Comitato Atlantico Italiano and the Atlantic Treaty Association.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Judge Hits Out at Lack of Checks on Lithuanian Killer Who Came to UK
A judge has criticised the lack of checks on serious criminals from the EU after a Lithuanian murderer entered Britain ‘without hindrance’ and threatened to kill a neighbour with a knife.
Raimondas Jakstas, 26, who had served five years for beating someone to death in his homeland, went beserk after Steve Foster asked him to be quiet.
Jakstas had been kicking plant pots around in the back yard at 10.30pm on March 13 when Mr Foster asked the thug not to wake his five-year-old son, Jamie.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Mexico Rescues More Than 100 Kidnapped Migrants
Police in Mexico have rescued more than 100 migrants kidnapped by a human trafficking gang near the capital.
Reports said some of the migrants had been held hostage for five weeks in a house in Mexico State.
Most of the victims were Central Americans, but they also included people from India and Sri Lanka.
The migrants had been trying to reach the US illegally when they were captured by a gang who demanded cash from their relatives.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Migrant Misery Continues as Italy Backlash Gathers Force
Italy’s financial and customs police said Wednesday they had rescued 98 starving migrants who had been drifting in the Mediterranean for two days without food or water.
The asylum seekers picked up overnight by the Monte Cimone patrol boat off Sicily had been at sea for a total of 12 days in a 50-metre boat.
It was unclear whether the migrants had crewed the boat themselves before it lost power and began taking on water, or whether they had been abandoned by people smugglers.
Among those on board were 35 women including three who were pregnant…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Gagging of Mother Forced to Hand Baby Daughter to Gay Dad
A judge ruled that the mother should not be allowed to keep her own biological child after an alleged surrogacy deal she had struck with two gay men — one of whom is the father — broke down.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
School’s Federal Aid at Risk if it Fails to Adopt Transgender Policy
A plan to add “gender identity” to a Virginia school’s nondiscrimination policy has enraged parents and preachers, but leaders of the nation’s tenth largest school district say unless they make the change, the U.S. Department of Education could withdraw federal funding.
Critics warn the Fairfax County Public School policy would allow boys who identify as girls to use the locker rooms and bathrooms of their choice — as well as participate on athletic teams of their choosing.
Martin Baker, the pastor of Burke Community Church, warned that “the damage and destruction to our children, teens and impacted adults will be incalculable.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Waiting for Supreme Court to Re-Define Marriage
While we wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to re-define reality (“Marriage, from now on, is the union of any two living things, until we decide it’s three or more”), last week gave us two news stories that shed further light on the overall situation.
At Temple University, where professors write books and papers to excuse and legitimize pedophilia, someone ordered the cadets in Temple’s ROTC unit to march around, in public, wearing ladies’ shoes spray-painted bright red.
And in Aurora, Colorado, a four-year-old child was sent home from school with an uneaten lunch and a stern letter to the mother, who had committed the offense [cue in sinister organ music]… of including a few Oreo cookies in her daughter’s lunch.
These two events tell us that the Loving Left is re-defining reality everywhere you look, whenever they can get their hands on anyone, from harmless little girls to full-grown soldiers. There is no place to hide from it, and no one is safe.
Someone actually in the U.S. Army chain of command, as yet unidentified, ordered the cadets to make themselves a laughing-stock. It was clearly understood that any cadet who refused could kiss his military career goodbye. This is how the “Choice” party always operates—by taking away the choices that they don’t want anyone to make.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Everything You Wanted to Know About the Pineal Gland
How you think and feel every day depends on the pineal gland. As the producer of the hormone melatonin, the quality and duration of your sleep is how well it subsequently assembled Produces this hormone. This tiny organ Regulates your daily circadian rhythms and seasonal, the sleep-wake patterns determine your hormone levels That, stress levels, and physical performance.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
by Douglas Murray
It does not matter if you are right-wing or left-wing, or American, Danish, Dutch, Belgian or French. These particularities may matter greatly and be endlessly interesting to people in the countries in question. But they matter not a jot to ISIS or their fellow-travellers. What these people are trying to do is to enforce Islamic blasphemy laws across the entire world. That is all that matters.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dear Baron
Please place some where in your web the Fable of the Ducks and Hens..
I have great respect for your work… to place this article does not mean you support Rockwell..
Kind regards
Barry Caulfield… isle of man