At least forty would-be migrants died in the hold of a people-smugglers’ ship en route to Italy in the Mediterranean. It is thought that the victims suffocated from diesel fumes in the closed hold. Passengers who pay lower rates to the traffickers are relegated to spaces below decks on the smuggling ships.
In other news, the death toll from the massive explosion in the Chinese city of Tianjin has risen above a hundred. Residents in neighborhoods near the blast site have had to be evacuated due to the presence of toxic chemicals, including sodium cyanide, in the smoke from the fires created by the explosion.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Caroline Glick, Fjordman, JD, Jerry Gordon, RL, 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.
Are Automakers About to Hit the Panic Button?
There is a major problem brewing the US Auto industry… and therefore the US economy.
Automakers just unleashed a massive production surge to keep the dream alive…
The only way automakers are making sales is by lowering credit standards to truly mind-numbing levels… that cannot last.
China’s economic collapse has crushed forecasts for the automakers.
Inventories are already at record highs.
And July saw a massive surge in producton.
What comes next is simple… a production slump — just ask The Atlanta Fed.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Greece an Irreversible Member of Euro, Says Juncker After Eurogroup Nod
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Friday that Eurogroup’s approval of a third bailout for Greece means the country’s place in the Eurozone is not under threat.
“The message of today’s Eurogroup is loud and clear: on this basis, Greece is and will irreversibly remain a member of the euro area,” he said in a statement.”
“And the European Commission will support Greece in developing a new and fair growth, jobs and investment perspective for its citizens.”
Juncker admitted that the past six months had been “difficult.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
One-in-a-Billion “Hiccups” Are Happening All the Time, Citi Warns Something is Wrong
Earlier this year JP Morgan’s letter to shareholders, Jamie Dimon let it slip that there are some very disturbing things going on in today’s capital markets. Prices can gap in illiquid markets, Dimon explained, and that has the very real potential to spark a panic, causing illiquidity to spread to previously liquid markets. Dimon warned that one should not be fooled by relatively tight bid-asks; it’s market depth tells the true story, and as JP Morgan’s Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou will tell you, some markets (the Treasury market for instance) are getting quite thin indeed.
The dangers associated with a widespread lack of market depth are of course exacerbated by the presence of HFTs. This was on full display during last October’s Treasury flash crash. Here’s what Dimon had to say on the subject: “.then on one day, October 15, 2014, Treasury securities moved 40 basis points, statistically 7 to 8 standard deviations — an unprecedented move — an event that is supposed to happen only once in every 3 billion years or so.” “Some currencies recently have had similar large moves,” Dimon added, referencing the carnage that accompanied the SNB’s abandonment of the euro peg in January (as well as countless other flash crashes and rips) and presaging precisely what we’ve seen this week on the heels of China’s move to devalue the yuan.
The takeaway from all of this is not, as Dimon concluded, that statistics can’t be trusted, but rather that when things that are supposed to happen once every 3 billion years start happening once every three months, or every three weeks, then something is definitively broken.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
by Caroline Glick
American Jewry is being tested today as never before. The future of the community is tied up in the results of the test.
If the Jews of America are able to mount a successful, forceful and sustained opposition to President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, which allows the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism to become a nuclear-armed state and provides it with $150 billion up front, then the community will survive politically to fight another day.
If the communal leadership and its members fail to fight, American Jews will find themselves communally disenfranchised…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Biden Calls Chattanooga Gunman a ‘Perverted Jihadist’
Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday called the slaying of four Marines and a sailor at a Chattanooga reserve center the act of a “perverted jihadist.”
Biden’s comments came at a memorial to the five servicemen killed in a shooting rampage by Kuwait-born Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez.
“These perverse ideologues, warped theocrats, they may be able to inspire a single lone wolf to commit a savage act, but they can never, never threaten who we are,” Biden said. “When this perverted jihadist struck, everyone responded.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Emails Reveal Hillary Literally Read up on “How to Delete Something So it Stays Deleted”
As I’ve said many times before, the best part about Hillary Clinton running for President, is that she’s so unbelievably corrupt and shady, not a week goes by without a new scandal or embarrassment. It makes the insulting charade of U.S. elections at least somewhat comical.
In the latest gaffe, we learn (through her own emails), that she asked to borrow a book titled, Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better.” Chapter Six of this book is titled, “The Email That Can Land You In Jail,” which includes a section titled: “How to Delete Something So It Stays Deleted.”
You can’t make this stuff up.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
F-35 Slammed as ‘Inferior’ To Older American & Foreign Fighters
Mig-29 and the Su-27 better than F-35, according to report.
The performance of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is inferior to foreign jets it is expected to outperform in engagements and barely justifies replacing with it the older models currently deployed by the Pentagon, a scalding report says.
With an estimated price tag of $1.4 trillion, the Joint Strike Fighter is among Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program. The 5th-generation multipurpose fighter jets are meant to become the backbone of America’s air power for decades to come and play a significant part in defense capability of its allies.
But the performance characteristics of the advanced aircraft are inferior to those of 4th-generation aircraft deployed by advanced foreign power like Russia or China, which it is meant to dominate through superior technology, a scalding new report said.
The report released this week by US progressive think tank National Security Network identified four key areas in which the F-35 does not deliver: poor maneuverability that makes it vulnerable in dogfights, small internal payload capacity, short operational range and reliance on stealth technology for survivability.
“The F-35 will find itself outmaneuvered, outgunned, out of range, and visible to enemy sensors,” NSN’s policy analyst Bill French said. “Going forward, full investment in the F-35 would be to place a bad trillion-dollar bet on the future of airpower based on flawed assumptions and an underperforming aircraft.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Intelligence Community Wants Clinton’s Security Clearance Suspended
Security experts say that if Hillary Rodham Clinton retained her government security clearance when she left the State Department, as is normal practice, it should be suspended now that it is known her unprotected private email server contained top secret material.
“Standard procedure is that when there is evidence of a security breach, the clearance of the individual is suspended in many, but not all, cases,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who was deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence in the George W. Bush administration. “This rises to the level of requiring a suspension.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Operative Meets His Bête Noir on the Iran Nuke Deal: US Army Gen. (Ret.) Barry McCaffrey
Yesterday, when we posted on the September 9th Washington March to Save America opposing the Iran Nuclear deal, we drew attention to a letter approving the deal signed by 33 former senior military officers, “The Time Has Come for a March in DC to Stop the Iran Nuclear Pact.” Alana Goodman has an expose in today’s Washington Free Beacon (WFB) about the White House manipulations behind the scene by a retired Navy rear admiral, now a lawyer with the Venable law firm in Washington, who authored the letter , “White House Played Role in Iran Deal Letter Signed by Former Flag Officers.” The Obama operative got his comeuppance when he solicited retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey. who opposes the pact. He made the wrong pick.
Goodman of WFB wrote:…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Climate Fascism is Another Nail in the Coffin for the U.S. Economy
Is Barack Obama trying to kill the economy on purpose? On Sunday, we learned that Obama is imposing a nationwide 32 percent carbon dioxide emission reduction from 2005 levels by the year 2030. When it was first proposed last year, Obama’ s plan called for a 30 percent reduction, but the final version is even more dramatic. The Obama administration admits that this is going to cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars a year and that electricity rates for many Americans are going to rise substantially. And what Obama is not telling us is that this plan is going to kill what is left of our coal industry and will destroy countless numbers of American jobs. The Republicans in Congress hate this plan, state governments across the country hate this plan, and thousands of business owners hate this plan. But since Barack Obama has decided that this is a good idea, he is imposing it on all of us anyway.
So how can Obama get away with doing this without congressional approval?
Well, he is using the “ regulatory power” of the Environmental Protection Agency. Congress is increasingly becoming irrelevant as federal agencies issue thousands of new rules and regulations each and every year. The IRS, for example, issues countless numbers of new rules and regulations each year without every consulting Congress. Government bureaucracy has spun wildly out of control, and most Americans don’ t even realize what is happening.
In the last 15 days of 2014 alone, 1,200 new government regulations were published. We are literally being strangled with red tape, and it has gotten worse year after year no matter which political party has been in power.
These new greenhouse gas regulations are terrible. The following is a summary of what Obama is now imposing on the entire country…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Admin Moves to Block Restitution for U.S. Terror Victims
Obama admin sides with Palestinians in landmark terror case
The Obama administration has intervened in a landmark legal case brought by the American victims of Palestinian terrorists, urging the court to limit restitution for the victims out of fear that a sizable payout could collapse the Palestinian government, according to a copy of the court filing.
Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken argued in a filing to a New York City court that a hefty payout to the victims of Palestinian terror crimes could burden the Palestinian Authority (PA) and interfere in Obama administration efforts to foster peace in the region.
The victims are entitled to as much as $655 million from the PA following the conclusion of a decade-long lawsuit that exposed the Palestinian government’s role in supporting and paying for terror attacks in Israel.
The administration’s intervention in the case has drawn criticism from U.S. lawmakers and some of those affected by the decision.
While the administration supports the right of terror victims to sue in U.S. courts, it remains particularly concerned about the PA’s solvency…
| — Hat tip: RL | [Return to headlines] |
Sheriff Compares Constitutionalists to ISIS
Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich linked “rhetoric” from supporters of the U.S. Constitution to violent anti-government groups and ISIS this week in an exposé on the officer’s fight against “homegrown extremists.”
SheriffSpokane Artist’s rendition of Sheriff Knezovich standing on “Don’t Tread on Me” flag in August issue of the Inlander / Click to enlarge (Note: Knezovich uninvolved in cover choice)
In an article featured in the August 2015 edition of the Inlander, the Washington state sheriff draws comparisons to the ISIS terrorist group while railing against everyone from Infowars’ Alex Jones to Washington State Rep. Matthew Shea.
“There are some of those folks that want to overthrow the government, period. They want to hit a reset button,” Knezovich said. “If they’re willing to lie to get that reset button — this is how ISIS starts.”
[Comment: Someone who believes in the Constitution and see that many government officials are urinating on the Constitution is, according to the bankster puppet politicians, a homegrown extremist.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Special Report: Queen Elizabeth to be Assassinated on Saturday?
High alert in Britain ahead of the VJ Day celebrations, as the facade of terror attacks — similar to the ones orchestrated in Boston — threaten the lives of the Royal Court.
The Daily Mail details how the British police state will be on full display for this weekend’s festivities:
Military snipers will be posted on rooftops, road blocks will be erected, and bags will be searched to protect the Queen, Prince of Wales, Prime Minister and thousands of VJ Day veterans and guests from fanatics bent on causing mayhem in Westminster.
The drastic security procedures follows the discovery by intelligence chiefs that home-grown jihadis want to use an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) to murder the Queen, dignitaries and veterans.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: London Pushes Through Stiff Resistance to Cycle Superhighways
Two new segregated bike paths will crisscross the city and open up speedy, safe cycling that will ease pollution and traffic for everyone, non-cyclists, too, Boris Johnson says.
London is a big huffing puffing city, so Mayor Boris Johnson’s success in pushing ahead with his plan to build cycle superhighways right through the heart of it seems nothing short of a small miracle.
[Comment: All part of control of population and controlling freedom of movement. These lanes are created by taking away lanes for cars so traffic congestion becomes so unbearable as to force people out of the car. All part of the plan when building a panopticon city. Cars provide population with too much mobility for the liking of elitists. In the Soviet, people needed get get a pass (permission) to travel from one region to another. You think London’s Mayor will be cycling in winter?]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Police Raids to Crack Down on ISIS Stronghold in Europe as Extremists Secretly Buy up Land
Local security services have staged a series of raids in Balkan countries following revelations that Islamic State terrorists have been secretly buying up land in mainland Europe.
The swoops follow an exclusive Sunday Mirror investigation which revealed that IS had developed new training grounds in the region.
Locals in the Bosnian village of Osve told our investigators that they regularly heard gunshots and a terrorism expert warned that the village is “a major threat” after it become a hideout for terrorists on the run, and a training centre for new recruits before they go to fight in Syria and Iraq.
Raids took place in five major cities across Macedonia, including the capital Skopje, and were aimed at smashing a network of recruiters and organisers for the terrorist group.
Macedonian police raided 25 homes, the Yaya Pasha and Tutunsuz mosque in Skopje, an internet cafe and the offices of two Islam-linked NGOs identified as Spark of Grace and Islamic Youth.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Witness Says Islamic State Group Consolidating Hold Over Central Libyan City of Sirte
A witness says Islamic State fighters have consolidated their hold over the city of Sirte in central Libya, calling on residents to pledge allegiance over loudspeakers from its main mosque and desecrating bodies of their adversaries.
Cleric Khalid Awad says Saturday that street fighting has stopped at the moment, but that the extremists hold the area around the mosque and have surrounded disputed residential areas, where resistance has ceased.
He says the extremists killed some of their prisoners and hung the bodies from bridges, roundabouts and highways across the city.
The IS affiliate spread in Sirte in March, taking advantage of the chaos plaguing Libya since 2011.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Former General: Obama Allowed ISIS to Rise!
Obama using ISIS as proxy army.
The US didn’t interfere with the rise of anti-government jihadist groups in Syria which finally combined into Islamic State, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency claims, backing a secret 2012 memo predicting their rise.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Throw 2 Gay Men Off a Roof in Syria Before They Are Stoned by a Mob
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
The latest ISIS video shows the men being thrown to their deaths in Homs, Syria, before being stoned by the bloodthirsty crowd. But, for the first time, the video reveals what happens afterwards.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic State Confirmed to Have Used Mustard Gas Against Kurds in Syria
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil) used mustard agent in its fight against a Kurdish militia in Syria, testing has confirmed.
Unnamed US government officials involved in investigating alleged chemical weapon use by Isil in the northeastern Syrian city of Hasakeh confirmed mustard gas had been used, according to the Washington Post and CNN.
Mustard gas, used during World War One, can cause blisters, blindness and respiratory damage and is an internationally-banned chemical weapon.
Last month, members of a Syrian Kurdish militia, the People’s Defence Units or YPG, reported that projectiles fired by Isil’s jihadists had released “a yellow gas with a strong smell of onions.”
The attack adds to an increasing number of allegations of chemical use by Isil. On Friday, the German defence ministry issued a statement saying Kurdish fighters in neighbouring Iraq, known as the Peshmerga, had suffered severe burns when Isil had used mortars tipped with chemical materials against them.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Kayla Mueller Was ‘Repeatedly Raped’ By ISIS Leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
Before her death earlier this year, 26-year-old Kayla Mueller was a sex slave for the top leader of the Islamic State, the American aid worker’s parents have revealed.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
US Reportedly Sees Possible Pattern in ISIS Chemical Weapons Attacks
U.S. intelligence agencies reportedly believe the Islamic State used chemical weapons in Syria on Kurdish forces at least two weeks before the group may have used it in Iraq, U.S. officials said on Friday.
The reports are fueling concerns that ISIS has acquired an arsenal of banned chemicals that could escalate fighting in the region.
“It could be a pattern,” a senior U.S. official with knowledge of the intelligence told The Wall Street Journal.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ukraine Conflict: Refugees in Their Own Country
International aid agencies say about 1.4 million people have fled the fighting in eastern Ukraine and moved elsewhere in the country.
Social workers speak of a “hidden” humanitarian crisis, since many of these people are not concentrated visibly in refugee camps, but are tucked away in apartments, dormitories and sanatoriums on the outskirts of towns and cities.
These “internally displaced people” (IDPs) — the official name for refugees who do not cross international borders — struggle to find permanent housing and regular jobs in Ukraine’s moribund economy, often lacking the necessary work and residence documents.
Their situation is all the more precarious because it is concealed.
Less than 5% live in officially-recognised facilities, officials say.
Observers warn that their circumstances will become much worse when winter comes, since many live in sub-standard housing.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
MH370: Malaysia Publishes New Theory
Malaysia’s government newsagency has published a new theory suggesting Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 glided downwards and landed with soft impact on the southern Indian Ocean.
The report raises the possibility that one or more of the 239 people on board were still alive when the Boeing 777 ditched into the ocean after flying for more than seven hours off course.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China Air Pollution Kills 4,000 People a Day: Researchers
Air pollution is killing an average of 4,000 people a day in China, according to researchers who cited coal-burning as the likely principal cause.
Deaths related to the main pollutant, tiny particles known as PM2.5s that can trigger heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer and asthma, total 1.6 million a year, or 17 percent of China’s mortality level, according to the study by Berkeley Earth, an independent research group funded largely by educational grants. It was published Thursday in the online peer-reviewed journal PLOS One from the Public Library of Science.
“When I was last in Beijing, pollution was at the hazardous level: Every hour of exposure reduced my life expectancy by 20 minutes,” Richard Muller, scientific director of Berkeley Earth and a co-author of the paper, said in an e-mail. “It’s as if every man, woman and child smoked 1.5 cigarettes each hour.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China Tianjin Blasts: Evacuations as Sodium Cyanide Found
The Chinese authorities have ordered the evacuation of residents within a 3km radius of the Tianjin blast site over fears of chemical contamination.
The evacuations came after an apparent change in wind direction, and as police confirmed the highly toxic chemical sodium cyanide was found near the site.
A man was found alive 50m from the blast core, Xinhua news agency said.
At least 104 people are reported to have died in the giant blasts in the north-east Chinese port on Wednesday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Four years ago, following the Sendai tsunami and resulting explosion at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the Japanese government had just one goal: to minimize panic among the population, even if it meant blatantly lying about the resulting deadly radioactive fallout the public was exposed to. After all the top prerogative among government bureaucrats has always been to minimize social disturbance even if it means sacrificing countless individuals to a death that could have been avoided if only the government had told the truth from the beginning.
This was also the playbook followed by the Chinese government three days ago after the massive chemical plant explosion in China’s port of Tianjin where the casualty count is increasing with every passing day (85 dead at last check and rising fast), but where the real danger is that toxic gases and chemical fallout, just as dangerous and lethal as Fukushima’s beta and gamma waves, have spread in the air and water, and are jeopardizing the local population.
Initially the government did everything in its power to cover up the spread of deadly contaminants. As we reported yesterday, People’s Daily openly lied to the local population: “Authorities tasked with marine
monitoring announced there were no hazardous chemicals detected in waters off the blast site in north China’s port city Tianjin on Friday.
A statement from the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) said major measurement of seawater composition did not show any anomaly compared with historical records.
Hazardous materials such as cyanide and volatile phenol were not detected, while the variety of zooplankton was not affected either, it added.
The problem is that the Chinese government long ago lost all credibility and as we reported yesterday, local residents “wondered if even the air was safe because of the smoke, still billowing hours later from vestiges of the inferno, which destroyed an industrial zone near the port. Many people wore masks.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Death Toll From China Blasts Rises to 104, Xi Urges Changes
The death toll from two massive explosions that tore through an industrial area in the northeastern Chinese port of Tianjin has risen to 104, state media said on Saturday, as China’s president urged improvements in workplace safety.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said authorities should learn the lessons paid for with blood in Wednesday warehouse blasts, according to the official Xinhua news agency. The number of people killed had previously been put at 85.
China evacuated residents who had taken refuge in a school near the site of two huge explosions, state media said, after a change in wind direction on Saturday prompted fears that toxic chemical particles could be blown inland.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
North Korea Threatens Strikes Over South Korea Propaganda Broadcasts
North Korea threatened to attack South Korean loudspeakers that are broadcasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda messages across their shared border on Saturday.
The warning follows Pyongyang’s denial that it had planted land mines on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone that maimed two South Korean soldiers last week. Seoul retaliated for those injuries by restarting its loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in 11 years and suggested more actions could follow.
The North is extremely sensitive about insults of Kim Jong Un and his regime, and its tries to isolate its people from any criticism or suggestions that Kim is anything other than powerful and revered.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Notorious Extremist Belmoktar Said to Head Al-Qaida’s West Africa Branch
A militant group that has claimed responsibility for recent violence in Mali has rebranded itself as al-Qaida’s West Africa branch while reaffirming that it is led by the notorious extremist Moktar Belmoktar.
The SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S. monitoring outfit, said the latest statement from Belmoktar’s Mourabitoune organization was distributed on Twitter this week.
Belmoktar, who is known for daring attacks and for kidnapping foreigners, has been reported killed numerous times, most recently in June.
In May he rejected a pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State group made by a different member of his organization.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Cuba’s Repression Pushed 24,000 to Risk Trip to U.S. In Eight Months
The United States is experiencing a massive surge in the number of Cuban refugees risking their lives to reach American shores, following President Obama’s announcement that the White House would legitimize the communist Castro regime by reestablishing diplomatic relations.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is reporting that 23,978 Cuban refugees arrived in the United States between October 2014 and May 2015, with another 3,564 Cubans attempting and failing to reach U.S. shores. Most of those arriving successfully crossed the southern border with Mexico or crossed the straits of the Caribbean separating Florida from Cuba. The number of Cubans arriving in the past eight months is significantly larger than the number that reached the United States throughout all of the 2014 fiscal year: 22,162.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Cubans Stunned by Kerry Speech, But Skeptical of Change
The sight was so unlikely that some Cubans could scarcely believe it: a U.S. secretary of state lecturing their Communist government about democracy and human rights on state television.
As the U.S. flag was raised at America’s embassy in Havana for the first time in 54 years, John Kerry called for a “genuine democracy” in Cuba and his comments were broadcast across the country in full, translated accurately into Spanish so everyone could understand.
Cubans should be free to choose their own leaders, Kerry said, telling the government to respect international norms of human rights.
ADVERTISING
Cuba’s government hit back by criticizing the United States’ own record on rights, but it did let its people hear Kerry.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
“Avoid That Belgium Becomes a Second Calais”
Interior Minister Jan Jambon (N-VA) has announced that a special ‘Task Force’ has been created to counter human trafficking. Jambon steps up the battle against human traffickers to avoid Belgium would become a second Calais.
“Prevention is better than cure”, Jambon told the commercial TV station VTM. Belgium will put extra efforts into identifying and tracking down people smugglers. Almost 350 human traffickers have already been apprehended since the start of last year, the minister said. “So we can’t say the problem is non-existent in Belgium. […] We will start a hunt for those making big money on the back of people living in misery and taking advantage of this.”
If French police are stepping up the battle in Calais, we should beware that these networks could move to other places, like the Belgian coast, Jambon argues. This is exactly what the minister aims to avoid. The criminal organisations and networks are made up of different nationalities, but detectives estimate that Belgian citizens account for the largest part with some 20 per cent.
The Task Force should unite the different players in the battle against people smugglers: the federal police are at the helm of the operation, and are cooperating with local police, the judicial authorities, the Immigration Office, Fedasil, the provinces etc.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
40 Migrants Die Off Italy — ‘Worst Crisis Since WW2’
More than 40 migrants have died in the Mediterranean on Saturday, the Italian navy said, after apparently suffocating below deck on the boat taking them to Europe.
Survivors of the hazardous crossing from Libya often tell of how traffickers lock migrants in the hold — mostly black Africans — who pay less for the voyage.
Packed inside the confined space they not only risk drowning if the rickety boats capsize, but many are also overcome by diesel fumes.
The EU says the scale of migration, driven by war, disaster and poverty, has no parallel since the 1940s.
“The world finds itself facing the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War,” EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said on Friday.
Italy and Greece have born the brunt of the emergency.
On the Greek island of Kos, scores of exhausted migrants, many of whom arrived on inflatable boats early Saturday, were turned away from a ferry that was due to start registering new arrivals
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
At Least 40 Migrants Die in Mediterranean: Italy Navy
At least 40 migrants died after apparently getting trapped and suffocating in the water-logged hold of a fishing boat in the Mediterranean, the Italian navy said on Saturday.
The victims are thought to have suffocated after inhaling fumes from fuel after the boat took on water in the hold, the captain of the navy ship leading the rescue said on Italian state television.
Commander Massimo Tozzi, speaking from the ship, said that when his men boarded the migrant boat they found the dead in the hold “immersed in water, fuel and human excrement”.
Migrants who have arrived in Italy say human traffickers based in lawless Libya charge them between $1,200 and $1,800 for a place on the deck of boats. Those crammed in the hold pay about half as much as those above.
Admiral Pierpaolo Libuffo, head of Italy’s rescue operations, told Italian television that 312 survivors had been taken on board, including 45 women and 3 children.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Europe Migrant Crisis: Dozens Die in Hold of Libya Boat
At least 40 migrants have died in an overcrowded boat in the Mediterranean, the Italian navy has said.
Some 320 others were rescued when the vessel was intercepted off Libya.
The dead were found in the fishing boat’s hold. It is thought they died after inhaling fumes from the engine, the rescue vessel’s captain said.
European officials say the plight of migrants, almost 250,000 of whom have crossed by boat to the continent this year, is “beyond urgent”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
In Macedonia, Hundreds of Migrants Desperate to Make it to Europe Jam Trains
Pushing and shoving each other, hundreds of migrants trying to get to Serbia overflowed the train platforms of this southern Macedonian town, near the border with Greece, on Saturday.
The migrants, mostly from the Middle East but also from Afghanistan, want to arrive in Serbia, the last country that stands between them and a European Union member state, Hungary.
The route partly avoids deadly boat crossings in the Mediterranean and is becoming increasingly popular among migrants desperate to gain asylum in Europe. Migrants either travel from Turkey to Greece by boat, or to Bulgaria by land, and from there on they move to Macedonia and Serbia. Along the way, they often fall prey to people smugglers and criminal gangs.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Fighting broke out between a group of Asian migrants on the Greek island of Kos today.
Riot police did nothing as 50 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran threw rocks and exchanged blows near a passenger ship where hundreds of migrants were being registered.
Hundreds of Asian migrants were stood near the police station when the brawl broke out, possibly because they have little chance of being processed on the Eleftherios Venizelos.
The Greek authorities are giving priority to Syrians. They are treated as refugees because they are fleeing their country’s bitter civil war and therefore have greater rights under international law than economic migrants.
News of the outbreak in Kos comes as experts claim nearly 250,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean into Europe this year and that number will top quarter-of-a-million by the end of the month.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Two Arson Attempts on Swedish Refugee Centres
The asylum centre in Arboga, where the man suspected of the Ikea murders lived, was evacuated early Saturday morning when two bags of flammable liquid were found nearby. The same night a centre for unaccompanied refugee children and young people in Värnamo was the target of an arson attack.
Following a tip-off police found two unknown objects in the vicinity of the Arboga accommodation.
“Late on Friday night they found the first object and the second some time after midnight,” said Thomas Gustafsson, police spokesman in Västmanland.
A large area was cordoned off and bomb technicians from Stockholm called.
“As a precaution it was decided that the accommodation would be evacuated,” Gustafsson told the Swedish TT news agency.
Staff from the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket) and Arboga municipality removed the 83 residents to a local church.
Bomb technicians found that the objects consisted of two sacks of flammable liquid. Police have launched a preliminary investigation.
Passers-by managed to extinguish the fire at the Värnamo centre before the emergency services arrived. Twenty children and young people, between the ages of 15-21, were living there. Nobody was hurt.
“It was a resourceful intervention by passers-by that ensured the fire was stopped early,” said a police spokesman. “We have undertaken an investigation and can conclude that the fire was not an accident. It has been classified as arson although we do not yet have any suspects.”
The arson attacks come just five days after a mother and her adult son were stabbed to death at an Ikea store in the central town of Västerås.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Asylum Seekers Are Being Housed at the Britannia Hotel in Stockport
The Britannia Hotel in Stockport is one of the country’s newest asylum hostels. There’s a pool, a gym, a cocktail bar and people from far-off lands with interesting tales about how they got there.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
What is the EU for, If Not Solving the Migration Crisis?
By Janet Daley
The EU is now fostering a new species of international crime. In all my years as a convinced Eurosceptic, I never expected to write that sentence. But here we are — with a flourishing network of mobsters, smugglers and armed gangs trafficking, not drugs, alcohol or weapons, but human beings. The mayor of Palermo, Leoluca Orlando, once said to have broken the grip of the Cosa Nostra in his city, suggests that the crisis has allowed a renewed mafia presence to establish itself in southern Italy, which is now running the illegal migration racket with its usual techniques of threats, bribery and violence.
This is not an Italian monopoly. In a filmed encounter last week, a Sky News television crew, attempting to interview a would-be migrant to the UK in France, was threatened by an armed trafficker with a British accent who appeared to think that the cameraman was competing for his business. Nobody else, he made alarmingly clear, was going to get a chance to handle this guy’s passage across the Channel. He sounded like a pimp whose girls were in danger of being poached.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Judge on Abortion Videos: Gag Order is a Restraint on First Amendment Rights
“This decision brings us one step closer to the day Stem Express and Planned Parenthood have been dreading.”
The Superior Court of the State of California has ruled that biomedical company StemExpress cannot legally suppress the release of video obtained by the Center For Medical Progress, and does not have any right to the footage or documents that the anti-abortion activists have obtained.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joanne O’Donnell explained that a restraining order taken out against CMP will no longer stand, as it represents a restraint on First Amendment rights.
“The injunction Plaintiff seeks would prevent Defendants from disseminating the videotapes,” said the judge. “First, this proposed injunction would constitute a prior restraint on the Defendants’ rights under the First Amendment and the parallel protections under the California Constitution.”
“Plaintiff does not persuade the Court that the discovery it seeks is necessary to obtain the preliminary injunction. That is because it appears unlikely that the Court is going to grant the preliminary injunction,” Judge O’Donnell said Thursday.
The ruling means that the CMP will be able to release the remaining footage it has of StemExpress employees, without fear of reprisal.
Attorneys working with the CMP believe justice has prevailed.
“People who don’t have anything to hide don’t go to court to stop journalists from reporting the truth.” said Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund President Chuck LiMandri.
“The court was right to deny StemExpress’ request to gain access to damaging material against them obtained through solid investigative journalism. Americans have the right to know the truth about Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby body parts and the ‘fiscal rewards’ Stem Express says that it provides to abortion clinics,” LiMandri added.
“As has been more than apparent from the videos that have been released, StemExpress and Planned Parenthood have plenty to hide.” added Life Legal Defense Foundation Vice President of Legal Affairs Catherine Short.
“These videos not only expose the potential illegality of Planned Parenthood’s actions, they expose the grisly, inhuman nature of Planned Parenthood’s business,” Short said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Racist Views of Planned Parenthood’s Founder
In the wake of the recent and ongoing Planned Parenthood scandal regarding the harvesting and sale of baby hearts, livers, lungs, and other organs, late last week a group of black pastors requested that a bust of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, be removed from a temporary Smithsonian exhibit named, ironically, “Struggle for Justice.”
The pastors are deeply offended at Sanger’s inclusion in the program because of her direct ties to eugenics and overall disdain for African-Americans.
Until now, many Americans have trustingly assumed that Planned Parenthood is a benevolent health care provider, but after watching the horrific videos, complete with senior employees’ casual disrespect for human life and dignity, the public is beginning to ask more probing questions about Planned Parenthood’s founding, mission, and ongoing work.
In doing so, they will likely learn very disturbing information about Sanger’s view of black Americans and how that influenced the founding of Planned Parenthood of America, the nation’s largest abortion provider.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Only forty?
http://newsbleat.com/2015/08/16/death-to-all-white-people-screech-flap-gibber-gibber/
“DEATH TO ALL WHITE PEOPLE” (SCREECH, FLAP, GIBBER GIBBER)
Right here, Dear Readers, is why black Americans have an attitude problem.
“The Rev. Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, told his followers in a sermon laced with racist invective and “allahu akbars” that white people deserve to die.
The three-hour sermon, delivered last week according to Gateway Pundit, came after reports that he had called for 10,000 volunteers to “kill white people if the government doesn’t give the black community ‘justice,’” the website reported.
In a video of the Aug. 13th sermon, Farrakhan said, “I wouldn’t bring our young women and young men into some place to be slaughtered. But that’s what the white man hopes for. That’s why he makes mischief with my words. ‘Farrakhan wanna get an army to kill people,’ because, you see, white people deserve to die. And they know so and they think it’s us coming to do it. No, no, no.” Farrakhan also said in the video that a God will send a UFO, “a chariot” or “wheel in the sky,” to rescue his followers and carry out justice if a race war began.”
Any questions?