Frontex has announced that the number of migrants that have arrived in Europe this year is already more than twice as many as came in last year. Meanwhile, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg told Parliament that the increasing flow of immigrants into Norway is going to cost the country heavily for years to come, and something must be done to contain the costs.
In other news, in a letter to the mayor of Turin, Pope Francis said that the profit motive is “inherently immoral”.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Dean, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Nick, The Observer, 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.
China: September Imports Drop to Under 20.4%
Imports and exports drop for 11t h consecutive month. Fears for equity markets and Chinese markets. Analysts predict a massive government intervention to stem unemployment and declining purchasing power.
Beijing (AsiaNews / Agencies) — For the 11th consecutive month China’s import and export data has dropped. Incoming goods fell by 20.4% in September 2015, while outgoing lost 3.7 percentage points compared to last year. This is yet another indicator of crisis for the world’s second largest economy. Analysts, in the light of the collapse of the previous months, had expected a decline in imports of 15%.
According to experts and analysts, the drastic fall is due to the aftereffects of the international economic crisis and the weakness of domestic demand. The latter stems from the decline in the purchasing power of the average citizen, caused by the devaluation of the national currency (the yuan renminbi) in a surprise move by the Beijing government in August 2015 to boost its exports.
The decline in imports has also affected the export sector, since a large part of the materials imported from China are used for industrial production of consumer goods. But industrial activity is also faltering, and at this point analysts believe they can describe 2015 the worst year of the last quarter century in terms of economic growth.
Fears for the stock market remain: investors may indeed decide to abandon the Chinese companies listed on international stock exchanges. Some Asian traders believe a move unlikely, given that “the central government will intervene with a massive allocation of funds to prevent collapse”.
The stabilization of the economy is the Chinese government’s main concern, which fears unemployment and financial losses. With the decline in the gross domestic product, in fact, unemployment looms as well as a drastic reduction in the average purchasing power. These two factors could trigger massive social protests — already on the rise despite Xi Jinping’s iron fist — going so far as to question the one-party political system dominated by the communist regime.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The Fed Just “Discovered” Another $2.7 Trillion in Debt: “Quietly Boosted Total Credit”
The people of the United States, misled by its politicians, and plundered by its financial institutions, are swimming in so much debt that no one will probably ever grasp the truly staggering amount — if indeed it can ever be fully calculated.
Forget paying it all back; the Federal Reserve isn’t even apparently aware of how deep the crisis goes.
Officially, the U.S. was already $59 trillion in debt in 2015, but now the number is significantly higher.
When the Fed is changed its method of tracking and reporting debt numbers, and replaced a single Credit Market Instruments chart with two separate charts for “debt securities” and “loans,” it suddenly reported an additional $2.7 trillion.
That’s quite an accounting error! Zero Hedge reports:…
[Comment: The Fed (which is not Federal and has no Reserve) was designed to enslave the country via a web of debt…by design it will always be unpayable and always grow.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Video: Essential Hayek — Economic Booms & Busts
The Fraser Institute quietly released this past summer a video entitled “ Essential Hayek: Economic Booms and Busts.” The conservative think-tank explains just what the boom-bust cycle is. Economist Don Boudreaux briefly dives into the idea that politicians believe they can create demand for a product, and the market can’ t fill that demand. But ultimately when…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cokie Roberts: Hillary “Wows” People, “Knows Everything About Every Issue”
Can corporate media bias get any more obvious than this?
[Comment: This is as bad as Baghdad Bob. The Iraq spokesperson who went on TV and denied US tanks were in Baghdad — even as a US tank rolled past behind him. Actually, this is worse — Baghdad Bob probably said what he said since he feared for his life. Wheras, these clown “reporters” are voluntarily and intentionally delivering ludicrous lies to the public.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Global Warmists Tell Feds: Use Anti-Mafia Law to Prosecute ‘Climate Deniers’
And one of those making the demand is a U.S. senator.
Before you say this could never happen, let me ask you: Did you ever think people would be given six-figure fines for declining to bake a cake? And not only that, but see significant numbers of Americans agree with it happening? Orthodoxies are powerful things, and just as the left is riding one that defines non-participation in gay weddings as “discrimination,” it also thinks it can gain mainstream support for the idea that dissent on the global warming orthodoxy is some sort of crime.
Actually, if Democrat U.S. Senator Sheldon White House gets his way, a very specific type of crime — the same kind created to prosecute the mafia:
Last month George Mason Professor Jagadish Shukla and 19 others signed a letter to President Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and White House science adviser John Holdren urging punishment for climate dissenters. “One additional tool—recently proposed by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse—is a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change,” they wrote.
In other words, they want the feds to use a law created to prosecute the mafia against lawful businesses and scientists…
Please note that White House is not proposing a bill for consideration in the Senate. He is asking the White House and the Justice Department to simply apply RICO to global warming skeptics. If this suggestion is followed, the Justice Department will simply start bringing federal indictments against people who publish papers questioning the orthodoxy of man-made global warming on the premise that they — what, are endangering the earth or something?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How Sen. Bernie Sanders Burned the Vets
The problem for Sanders is that his pitiful performance as chairman of the Senate Veterans Committee has come under serious scrutiny by CNN and other media for defending the VA bureaucrats and putting their interests above the veterans they are supposed to serve.
An observer might conclude that Sanders’ preference for big government programs and government-run health care had blinded him to flaws in the VA system.
The Washington Free Beacon noted that his performance got so bizarre at one point that, as the scandals were coming to light, the socialist Sanders tried to divert attention away from the flaws in the bureaucratic system and proceeded to accuse the Koch brothers of launching “a concerted effort to undermine the VA” and discredit government programs.
Sanders said the Koch brothers were picking on these “large, governmental institutions” because they “want to radically change the nature of society, and either make major cuts in all of these institutions, or maybe do away with them entirely.”
John McClaughry of Vermont’s Ethan Allen Institute commented, “Bernie Sanders has become totally demented about the Satanic Koch brothers, to the point that he thinks they are responsible for anything that goes wrong anywhere. This man needs professional treatment.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Innocent Death-Row Prisoner Released With $30 Gift Card After 30 Years
Prosecutor who convicted him said the mistake had ruined both their lives.
After 30 years wrongfully imprisoned for murder on death row, Glenn Ford was released with a $30 gift card.
Under Louisiana law, Ford was entitled more than $400,000 in compensation for the time he spent in solitary confinement at notorious maximum-security facility Angola. Instead, he died penniless on the street.
In an astonishing interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes, the prosecutor who convicted him said the mistake had ruined both their lives. “I did something that was very, very bad,” Marty Stroud told the TV show. “I was arrogant, narcissistic, caught up in the culture of winning.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Man Broke His Thigh Bone Doing Yoga Pose Marichyasana B
Doctors writing in BMJ Case Reports believe this is the first recorded case of a patient breaking a thigh bone during yoga. The man, from Detroit, was attempting the stance Marichyasana B.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Must Watch: “Maybe it’s Not the Guns… Maybe it’s the People Holding the Guns”
If the only gun violence statistics you see are disseminated by the mainstream media or left-wing anti-Second Amendment groups, then in all likelihood you are horrified by America’s murder culture.
But what if what we’re being sold as truth is merely a means to achieve an agenda focused on seeing the American people totally disarmed?
In the following must-see video report from Truth Revolt, host Bill Whittle shows the reality of America’s per capita murder rates.
Though we understand that a cranial rectal inversion may be their immediate response for fear of admitting the truth, we strongly encourage you to share this with those who may not have the full picture:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Nevada Brothel Willing to Pay Student Loans for New Sex Workers
Back in the day, hookers and sex workers would enter their trade to earn enough money for drugs, alcohol and maybe rent. Today, however, those who voluntarily become sex workers are doing so to help pay down their student loans. And one pimp is offering to help.
Dennis Hof, owner of Moonlite BunnyRanch, a legal brothel in the state of Nevada, has announced that all new sex workers will be helped with their student loans. According to Hof, he will match student loan payments equal to what each woman earns prostituting herself.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
North American Union: US/Canadian Generals Discussed Fully Integrating Their Militaries
Ever since the plans for the Trans-Texas Corridor (AKA NAFTA Superhighway) were canceled by the Federal Government and the Texas State Legislature, the theories surrounding the North American Union have largely fallen out of public’s awareness. However, every now and then a story will emerge that suggests that the governments of North America are still quietly conspiring to unite Canada, Mexico, and the US into a superstate, much like the European Union.
The latest revelation of this plan comes from Canada, where it’s been revealed that Chief of the Defence, Staff Gen. Tom Lawson and the former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, once discussed a plan to fully integrate the militaries of the US and Canada. On the surface this doesn’t sound too surprising, since these forces have been frequently deployed together overseas in recent years. And under NORAD, the Air Forces of both nations are already operating under the same command structure for the most part.
However, this plan was supposed to allow personnel from all branches of the military, including our special forces, to be deployed together in the same units under a single unified command outside of Canada. The discussion was held in October of 2013, and the documents that prove it were obtained by an Access to Information request, which is essentially the Canadian counterpart to America’s FOIA.
What’s more alarming about this military integration plan, is that General Dempsey and General Lawson seriously discussed this idea without the knowledge of the US or Canadian governments.
[Comment: Foreign militaries (such as UN safe cities force) will be used to quell any constitutionalist and patriot uprising. Most US military personnel would balk at shooting their own coutrymen.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
In the early days of man’s history, tyranny was ideologically crude and built upon openly seizing power and suppression of the people. Not a lot of fancy theories were trotted out to justify it. Men like Akhenaten, Attila, Genghis Khan, Henry VIII, and Cesare Borgia ruled because they were brazen enough to want to rule, strong enough to recruit the needed henchmen, and smart enough to know that most people would let them be dictatorial…
The movie, Gladiator, with Russell Crowe was playing on TBS. I saw it back in 2000 when it played in the theaters, but thought I’d tune in again for the first part because there is a very inspiring scene in it where the emperor, Marcus Aurelius (played by Richard Harris), is in his last few months of life. He knows he’s dying, and he is trying to convince his trusted confidante and top general, Maximus (played by Russell Crowe), to assume leadership of Rome after he dies. He tells Maximus that he will pass the mantle on to him authorizing that he be his heir and become the new Caesar. He goes into an eloquent speech about why Maximus is the only one for the job. Maximus resists, but says he will consider it. And as they are parting, Aurelius calls after him that his duty is to accept his destiny, for free Rome is dying and needs men of his gallantry. Aurelius shouts to him: “You must save the Republic, Maximus! Go back to the Republic! Promise me that you will restore the Republic.”
Those three sentences are so powerfully relevant to us today, for, of course, we need to do exactly the same thing — go back to the republic. Our once free America is dying from the same dictatorial corruption that stultified and destroyed Rome, the same bread and circuses, the same massive welfarism, cronyism, privileges, and monetary debasement.
But guess what! Those three sentences were deleted from Aurelius’ speech for this particular TV version. The scene ends with a bland generic phase out. Did the collectivists at TBS (Turner Broadcasting System) cut out those crucial three sentences on purpose? Of course, they did. They know, at least subconsciously, the power of the idea of a “republic” and what it means to their rule. They know that a republic is what the Founders meant for us to have, not the collectivist democracy that they worship and work so assiduously to promote. They know that their ideology of collectivism cannot abide a republic’s limited form of government. And they certainly do not want millions of viewers to be reminded of the fact that we have lost our republic. Such a reminder cannot be left in the movie. Thus surely some upper level TBS censor very adroitly cut the last part of the scene where Aurelius makes his eloquent appeal to Maximus to do the only thing that could have saved freedom for the Romans, and the only thing that will save freedom for modern Americans.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
NGOs are hatched, nourished and paid for by One World Order-driven U.N., and have been ever since U.N. Poster Boy, Canadian Maurice Strong, laid the pathway for them. NGOs hatched by the U.N. are reared to get out and do the U.N’s never ending bidding and move comfortably along to whatever is the next U.N. mission.
As many already know the Strong Cities Network is not the U.N’s first attempt to take over the Free West through the apathy-dogged civic/municipal level of government. The devious U.N. pushed its invasive Agenda 21—now Agenda 2030—through hundreds of towns and cities. at home and abroad.
We can see the clear and present danger of SCN in how the Wood-dubbed “top cop” Loretta Lynch described its vision when launching it at the U.N.:… “connecting those localities to one another — as the Strong Cities Network is doing — is not only a powerful way to lift up our communities worldwide. It also sends a message about who we are and what we aspire to be — as an alliance of nations and as a global community.”
Kudos to Wood for going onto the SCN webpage to determine who their members are:…
“One of ISD’s ideological positions should be of great concern to all Americans. A section of their web site details an initiative to fight against “Far-Right Extremism and Intolerance”, which states,
“The blurred relationship between violence from the extreme right and broader trends of Islamophobia and anti-immigration sentiment poses several challenges for policy makers seeking to address the increasing risk of violent right-wing extremism…In 2012, ISD launched a new programme of work to enhance understanding of the threat from the far right, and help policy makers to develop effective responses to these violent and non-violent movements.” [Emphasis added]
“In America, such “far-right” groups are already defined by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security as Tea Party groups, Oath Keepers, Constitutionalists, defenders of the 2nd Amendment and all who oppose Islam, the United Nations, Sustainable development, Agenda 21, Common Core Education Standards, etc., Wood correctly points out.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Proof That 3 Men Survived Their Escape From Alcatraz
In June 1962, three inmates shimmied through a hole they’d chiseled into the walls of Alcatraz prison and climbed up to the roof. To mask their escape, they’d placed in their bunks realistic-looking dummy heads they’d made out of papier-mché and human hair from the prison barber shop. The three men — brothers John and Clarence Anglin and fellow inmate Frank Morris — grabbed makeshift paddles and plunged an escape raft they made of stolen raincoats into the dark waters of San Francisco Bay.
Alcatraz officials have long stated that the men drowned, maintaining the prison’s bragging rights of no escapees. But now, more than 50 years later, new leads are being presented by the Anglin family, who are cooperating with authorities for the first time.
They claim that not only did the brothers survive the escape, they were alive and well up through at least the mid-1970s — and may still be alive today.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Trump on Hillary: She Shouldn’t be a Candidate — What She’s Done is Very, Very Serious (Video)
“She shouldn’t be a candidate. What she has done is very, very serious and anyone who has done what she’s done has either gone to jail or had certain problems like you wouldn’t believe like general Petraeus… They destroyed his life. And what he did was five percent of what she’s done. She’s being protected by the Democrats. In my opinion they won’t do anything with her. It’s very unfair to everybody else who have suffered greatly for far less than what she’s done.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Will Canadian Conservatives Win on Oct. 19?
With Barack Obama as U.S. president, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has emerged as the leader of the Free World. Brian Lilley of The Rebel.Media discusses how Obama’ s campaign staffers are helping Harper’ s political enemies in the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party. Lilley says Harper has focused on the economy “ and moving incrementally in a conservative manner.” He countered a socialist proposal for a national day care system with tax credits for parents. He is tough on illegal immigration but open to legal immigration. Gay marriage and abortion-on-demand are realities in Canada, but Harper has stopped euthanasia, Lilley says. The former commentator for the Sun News Network also discusses why the channel is now defunct and how people can support TheRebel.media as a conservative alternative in Canada and around the world.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Cardinals Distance Themselves From ‘Leaked Letter to Pope’
‘This is a new Vatileaks,’ Cardinal Mueller says
(ANSA) — Rome, October 13 — Conservative cardinals indicated as signatories of a letter to Pope Francis leaked to the press on Monday expressing concerns about the synod on the family distanced themselves from its publication Tuesday, saying those responsible had intended to create divisions among participants.
“I am not saying if I signed it or not,” Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said in an interview with newspaper Corriere della Sera. “The scandal is that a private letter to the pope has been published. It is a new Vatileaks,” Cardinal Mueller continued.
Instead Cardinal George Pell, archbishop of Sydney and another of the alleged signatories, told La Repubblica newspaper the contents of the letter published on Monday did not “correspond” to the original.
Their comments came after the cardinals Angelo Scola, André Vingt-Trois and Peter Erdo on Monday denied having signed the letter and Vatican spokesman Farther Federico Lombardi urged journalists to make the necessary checks. The confusion comes as bishops are meeting at the Vatican to explore how the Church should respond to the needs of the modern family, with differences in opinion on how to confront issues such as same-sex and co-habiting couples and reception of the Eucharist for divorced Catholics who are remarried. In the letter the alleged signatories expressed concerns about the procedures for discussion and the way the final position paper would be drawn up.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Prosecutors Probe Mock Gallows at PEGIDA Rally
Marked for Chancellor Merkel and her deputy
(ANSA-AP) — BERLIN — Prosecutors in the German city of Dresden have opened an investigation after a demonstrator at a protest organized by anti-Islam group PEGIDA carried a mock gallows with nooses marked as being reserved for Chancellor Angela Merkel and her deputy.
Prosecutor Jan Hille said Tuesday that an investigation was opened into persons unknown on suspicion of disturbing the peace and public incitement to commit crimes, news agency dpa reported.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Has France’s Charlie Hebdo’s Legacy Gone Sour?
Last January, gunmen stormed the offices of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, and shot 12 people dead. Another five were killed in a related attack on a Jewish supermarket elsewhere in Paris.
The shootings prompted an outpouring of sympathy and solidarity with Charlie Hebdo, and a flood of financial support, but nine months on has that legacy begun to sour?
It was, as much as anything, a story of survival; of the bravery and friendship highlighted by the horrific attack.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hundreds of Thousands Protest Globally Over Weekend, Media Coverage Absent
On the weekend of October 10th, dozens of unrelated large protests sprinkled the globe as tensions continued to escalate in the Middle East. Despite hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets around the world, with over a quarter million in Germany alone, national media coverage has been (un)surprisingly quiet regarding these events.
Here are five of these global protests:
A “quarter million” people protested the TTIP and corporatocracy in Germany — with related protests in other European cities such as Amsterdam and London.
Estimated to be 250,000 strong, a protest in Berlin took place to oppose the TTIP “free trade deal” — a major move towards corporatocracy. Protests unfolded concurrently in London, Amsterdam, and other European cities.
“This is the biggest protest that this country [German] has seen for many, many years,” Christoph Bautz, of citizens’ movement Campact inspiringly told protesters in a speech.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Jews Demand ‘Truth About 1982 Synagogue Attack’
Victim’s brother calls on president for help
(by Elisa Pinna) — ROME — Italian Jews have called for “clarity” concerning an attack that occurred on the capital’s synagogue on October 9, 1982.
A group of Palestinian terrorists used machine guns and grenades during the attack, killing a two-year-old named Stefano Tachè and injuring 40 others, mostly children. “No one ever paid for that massacre. Neither the attackers, who managed to escape, nor those who left the Grand Temple without any protection on a holiday (the Blessing of Children, Ed.) and despite an atmosphere of violent anti-Semitism,” the head of Rome’s Jewish community, Ruth Dureghello, said on Monday.
She was speaking at the Italian lower house of parliament at a conference organized alongside Democrazia Solidale on the 33rd anniversary of the attack. In 1982, a wave of anti-Jewish attacks had hit Europe during conflict between Israel and Yassir Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Authority. A week prior to the Rome attack, an empty coffin had been left in front of the synagogue, Corriere della Sera deputy director Antonio Polito said. ‘And yet there wasn’t a single policeman, not even a traffic warden guarding it. Who made the mistake? Was it only a bureaucratic error? Why wasn’t there any protection on that occasion?,” Dureghello asked. “Too many black holes and things that just aren’t right in that story,” said Gadi Tachè, Stefano’s older brother. He was four years old and miraculously survived the bullets and shrapnel that riddled his body. “I was massacred physically and psychologically,” he said before an audience made up of other survivors and many students from Rome high schools. “For thirty years I didn’t speak out.
But then, when I found out that my brother wasn’t even included on the list of Italian victims of terrorism, I decided that it was necessary to react.” In 2012, President Giorgio Napolitano intervened and Stefano’s name was included. Then, during current president Sergio Mattarella’s swearing-in ceremony in 2015, the head of state mentioned the child as being a victim of terrorism. “I am grateful to the head of state for what he said,” Gadi Tachè said. “For many years, Italian civil society considered the attack on the synagogue as (a reason for, Ed.) Jewish mourning and not national.” The archives from the period show, he said, the so-called ‘Lodo Moro’, an agreement between the Italian secret services and “Italian terrorists free to operate in Italy so long as they did not hit Italian citizens”. “And Stefano,” he added, “was not included among Italian victims. For this reason, I asked President Mattarella to help me seek out the truth about what happened.” “In 1982, anti-Semitism reappeared in all its ferocity — moving from criticism of the State of Israel, some of which legitimate, to hatred against Jews in general,” said MP Milena Santerini from Democrazia Solidale and head of the ‘No Hate Alliance’, an alliance against intolerance and hatred at the Council of Europe. “Unfortunately,” she said, “anti-Semitism, like every type of racism and discrimination, is a latent, hidden sentiment that re-emerges in a striking manner when there is the chance to do so.” She added that Italy was the European nation with the second-highest level of anti-Semitism, after Poland.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Deputy Lombardy Governor Arrested in Graft Case
Opposition poised to present no-confidence motion in Maroni
(ANSA) — Milan, October 13 — Deputy Lombardy Governor Mario Mantovani from Silvio Berlusconi’s center-right Forza Italia (FI) party was among three people arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of corruption, ANSA sources said.
The arrest of the top local pol in ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (FI) party prompted opposition parties at the regional assembly to moot a no-confidence motion against Governor Roberto Maroni of FI’s erstwhile allies, the anti-immigrant and anti-euro Northern League.
Investigators said they believed Mantovani tampered with public contracts — including those for transporting dialysis patients — in exchange for free renovations on real estate owned by himself and his relatives while he was a Senator, a regional health councillor, and mayor of the town of Arconate near Milan between June 2012 and June 2014. The deputy governor was expected at a Day of Transparency event on lawfulness in public administration organized by the region, but was arrested before he could show up.
Also taken into custody were Giacomo Di Capua, a 34-year-old regional employee and assistant to Mantovani, and Angelo Bianchi, an engineer involved in public tender competitions in Lombardia and Liguria.
As well, police searched regional government offices, nine homes and 17 companies linked to the three arrested people and 12 others who are under investigation. Among those being probed for bid rigging is Lombardy Economy Councillor Massimo Garavaglia from Maroni’s Northern League.
“We are astonished at this investigation, which we knew nothing about,” Berlusconi said.
“Frankly, the Mantovani we know is a decent person”.
Opposition parties said they may submit a no-confidence motion against Maroni because of the arrest of his deputy.
While Mantovani’s arrest meant he couldn’t make it to the Day of Transparency event, regional councillors from the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) however did attend the event — and brought a crate of oranges with them.
“The oranges are for Maroni, in case he goes to visit his deputy in jail,” they told reporters.
During the event, Councillor Enrico Brambilla from the center-left Democratic Party (PD) told his M5S counterparts that his party is ready to table a no-confidence motion against Maroni.
“We’ll start drafting a document in the next few hours,” replied Dario Violi from the M5S.
Violi went on to call for the Maroni administration to step down.
“We’re ready to govern,” he added.
The M5S is Italy’s second-largest party after Premier Matteo Renzi’s PD.
“I don’t know what to say,” said Giovanni Toti, a fellow FI member and governor of the neighboring Liguria region.
“I hope he can prove his innocence”.
Maroni, for his part, said Maroni said he was “astonished” Mantovani had been arrested.
“I hope he will be able to prove his honesty. From what I hear, most of the charges have nothing to do with his post in regional government”, the governor said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Confindustria ‘Ready to Resume Collective Bargaining’
Squinzi denies ‘barring unions from negotiations’
(ANSA) — Pavia, October 13 — Giorgio Squinzi, the leader of industrial employers’ confederation Confindustria, said Tuesday employers are ready to negotiate a new collective bargaining contract with labor.
“Unions said they’re ready to sit at the negotiating table to renew national collective bargaining contracts and so are we, naturally,” he said.
“We never barred unions from negotiations,” he said, adding Confindustria has come up with “some guidelines that need to be respected during talks”.
The two sides deadlocked after Squinzi said last Tuesday that there was no room for negotiation with unions, describing their position as “unrealistic”.
Confindustria wanted to talk about reforms to the national collective bargaining system before negotiating the contract renewals for several sectors, including food, metal and chemicals workers.
The unions said contract renewals must come first.
The biggest union, the leftwing CGIL, has also accused Confindustria of wanting to reduce salaries and ditch the collective bargaining system.
Labour Minister Giuliano Poletti said last week that the government would intervene if deadlock continued.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Finance Police in Rome City Hall Over Marino Expenses
Outgoing mayor denies misusing municipal credit card
(ANSA) — Rome, October 13 — Finance police on Tuesday seized documents from offices at Rome’s city hall in relation to a probe into expense claims by outgoing Mayor Ignazio Marino, ANSA sources said. Marino handed in his resignation on Monday due to the case. The probe comes after opposition parties claimed Marino charged up to 20,000 euros of personal expenses to his municipal credit card. Marino, who denies misusing his card, has offered to pay the money back, as a “gift”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Late Neolithic Feasts Held at Durrington Walls
A new chemical analysis of the residues found in pottery and animal bones unearthed at Durrington Walls, where the Stonehenge builders are thought to have lived, suggests that residents participated in organized feasts. Pots found in residential areas were used to cook pork, beef and dairy, while pots found in ceremonial areas were mainly used to cook dairy products. “The special placing of milk pots at the larger ceremonial buildings reveals that certain products had a ritual significance beyond that of nutrition alone,” Mike Parker Pearson of University College London said in a University of York press release.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Moldova Thanks Romania for $171 Million Loan, Says it Will be Spent on Modernizing the Country
Moldova’s prime minister has thanked Romania for a 150 million euro ($171 million), five-year loan which he said will be spent on modernizing the former Soviet republic, which wants to join the European Union.
Premier Valeriu Strelet said Tuesday that the loan, agreed upon last month, will bolster reforms and be spent on joint projects that “raise (Moldova’s) development level closer to Romania’s and Europe’s.”
Romania’s Parliament on Tuesday approved the loan, which has an annual 1.5 percent interest rate. Strelet, who was visiting Bucharest, said the two neighbors also planned joint energy projects.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Mother of Brit Jihadi Thomas Evans Says She Hopes He’s ‘Burning in Hell’
THE mother of dead British jihadi Thomas Evans said she is relieved her son was killed and believes he is “burning in hell” for his barbaric crimes.
Sally Evans, 57, has told how her “shy and gentle boy” turned into a monster who “murdered Christians and torched churches”.
Evans, 25, left his home in High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, in 2011 to fight alongside the al-Shabaab terror group in Somalia.
He was killed during a gun battle with troops in June and became the first British extremist to be killed on Kenyan soil after he was shot down during a failed ambush.
In her first interview since her son’s death, Mrs Evans said she would forever miss the boy she brought up but that she was glad the man he became was dead and “burning in hell”.
She learnt he had been killed after a image of his body was circulated on social media site Twitter.
Mrs Evans said: “Imagine discovering the death of your child on Twitter and being both devastated and relieved.”… Mrs Evans believes her son became radicalised after splitting from his girlfriend and forming a friendship with a group of Muslim men at his gym.
He changed his name to Abdul Hakim, grew a beard and started using different pots and pans to his family — saying they were contaminated with food that was not halal.
Mrs Evans said: “I respected his right to be a Muslim, but eventually he stopped respecting my right to be secular and repeatedly told his brother and I we were destined for hell unless we converted to Islam.”
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
PEGIDA: Merkel ‘Europe’s Most Dangerous Woman’
Germany’s anti-Islam party Pegida stepped up its attacks on Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday, slamming her as “the most dangerous woman in Europe” and demanding she resign.
Organizers of the demonstration in the eastern city of Dresden reckoned that around 9,000 people turned up for the Monday night demo, one week before the first anniversary of Pegida’s emergence.
Tatjana Festerling, a leader of the group, told a rally of thousands of supporters in the eastern city of Dresden that Merkel’s policy of welcoming refugees had turned Germany into a “gigantic camp in the jungle”.
Festerling, who came fourth in Dresden’s mayoral elections in June with 10 percent of the vote, denounced Merkel as “irresponsible” describing her as “the most dangerous woman in Europe”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Profit Motive Inherently Immoral’ Says Pope
‘Global economy often has cruel results’ says Francis
(ANSA) — Turin, October 13 — Pope Francis said Tuesday the profit motive is “inherently immoral”. “Global crises have proved that economic decisions (promoting) permanent profit gains are unsustainable (and) inherently immoral,” he wrote Turin Mayor Piero Fassino at the start of the Third World Forum of Local Economic Development, running in the Piedmont capital October 13-16. “Local economic development seems to be the most appropriate response to the challenges of a globalized economy, which often has cruel results,” Francis wrote.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Should Swedish Fashion Firms Use Hijab Models?
Protesters gathered in Stockholm this week to campaign against H&M and Swedish department store Åhlens using women wearing hijabs in recent fashion campaigns. But other Muslims are celebrating their new “role models”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spain School Says Vatican Closes Probe Into Child Abuse
The Vatican, citing lack of evidence, has closed a probe into a case of alleged sexual abuse of a boy at a Catholic school in Spain which had prompted intervention by Pope Francis, the school said Monday.
The Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo this month published a letter sent by the pope in December 2014 to the boy’s parents in which he said the Vatican was investigating the affair.
The couple filed a criminal complaint in 2013 for sexual assault and sexual abuse against a teacher at Gaztelueta school in Leioa, near the northern city of Bilbao…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Switzerland: SVP Threatens to Pull Out of Federal Government
The right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), the most popular political party in Switzerland, is threatening to pull out of the seven-person Swiss government unless it gains two of the seats.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tools Suggest Scotland Inhabited in the Ice Age
A set of 12,000-year-old tools made by the Ahrensburgian culture were unearthed on the coastline of the island of Islay in the Inner Hebrides. Tools of this style are usually found in mainland Europe, Denmark, and Sweden. Finding such Ice Age tools in Scotland suggests that the Ahrensburgian people were coastal foragers who may have hunted sea mammals from skin boats in northern Scotland during the summer months. “The Ice Age tools provide the first unequivocal presence of people in Scotland about 3,000 years earlier than previously indicated. This moves the story of Islay into a new historical era, from the Mesolithic into the Palaeolithic,” Karen Wicks of the University of Reading said in a press release.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Liverpool Bin Men Refused to Collect Wheelchair-Bound Pensioner’s Rubbish
Ellen Dennett, 67 — who is partially sighted, hard of hearing and wheelchair-bound — had rubbish overflowing outside her front door after Liverpool City Council refused to take the bins away.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sharp Rise in Hate Crimes as Security Boosted
Extra funding is promised as police say the number of attacks on some minority groups in England and Wales rose by 18% last year.
Police in England and Wales recorded 52,528 hate crimes in 2014/15 — an increase of 18% on the previous year.
More than 80% of recorded incidents were categorised as being racist incidents, while others involved religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender.
The latest data follows a rise in figures in 2013/14.
In that period, offences involving religious hatred rose by 45% and race hate crime by 4% in the aftermath of the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in London in May 2013.
The increase is thought to be as a result of improved recording of crime over the last year, particularly for crimes involving violence.
It comes after David Cameron announced that anti-Muslim hate crimes will be recorded as a separate category for the first time.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Volkswagen to Cut 1 Bn Investments Per Year
Dieselgate cd cost 40 bn euros
(ANSA) — Berlin, October 13 — Volkswagen said Tuesday it will cut investments by one billion euros a year because of the high costs of the Dieselgate scandal.
The scandal, in which the German carmaker was caught rigging US diesel emissions tests, could cost as much as 40 billion euros, according to media reports Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS: Libya: School Book-Burning in Sirte
Jihadists said books were against Sharia law
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, OCTOBER 13 — Eyewitnesses on Tuesday said ISIS jihadists in Sirte, Libya, burned a large quantity of school books.
The terrorists said the books were against Sharia law because they propose a nationalist education with teachings in English and law concepts, according to the website Alwasat.
Alwasat also reported that the book-burning was aimed to terrorize the city’s residents, who have been under ISIS control for months.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Gentiloni: Ready to Ensure Security in Tripoli
But only after request by Libyan government and UN framework
ROME — If Libyans will form a new government, Italy is “ready” to ensure security to some areas of the country with its military, said Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paolo Gentiloni at Agorà on Rai 3.
Gentiloni set two conditions: a request by the Libyan government and UN cover.
The new government “must be established in Tripoli and this is a complicated challenge”.
“We must not imagine thousands of soldiers in the desert” added Gentiloni, stressing that these are “decisive” days for the formation of a unity government.
“I hope they’ll make it” said the minister. Italy is prepared to make a contribution “but Libyans must make peace among themselves”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli PM Convenes Security Cabinet as Violence Continues
JERUSALEM — A pair of Palestinian men boarded a bus in Jerusalem and began shooting and stabbing passengers, while another assailant rammed a car into a bus station before stabbing bystanders, in near-simultaneous attacks Tuesday that escalated a month-long wave of violence. Three Israelis and one attacker were killed.
The Jerusalem attacks, along with two stabbings in a central Israeli city, marked the most serious outbreak of violence since the current round of tensions erupted. More than 15 people were wounded.
The violence, coming at a time when peace prospects appear nil, have fueled a sense of panic in Israel and raised fears that the region is on the cusp of a new round of heavy violence.
Police closed major highways leading in and out of Jerusalem, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an emergency meeting of his Security Cabinet, where police were to present a plan to halt the violence. Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the country’s internal security minister, Gilad Erdan, was considering a number of immediate steps, including sealing off Arab neighbourhoods in east Jerusalem, where many of the attackers have come from, and making it easier to get gun licenses.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Attacks Leave Three Dead and Several Wounded
Three people were killed and several more wounded in a string of attacks carried out by Palestinians in Israel in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Tuesday, police said. Seven Israelis and 27 Palestinians, including nine alleged attackers and eight children, have died in almost two weeks of street attacks and security crackdowns, in what is the worst unrest in years in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Israeli Police: Jerusalem Attacks Kill Three
At least three people have been killed and many more injured in attacks in Jerusalem.
Two Palestinians carried out a shooting and stabbing attack on a bus in the Armon HaNatziv neighbourhood, killing two people.
Israeli police said one attacker was killed, while the other was apprehended.
Eight Israelis were injured, four of whom are believed to be in a serious condition.
Shortly afterwards, police said another Palestinian rammed a vehicle into a bus stop in the centre of the city before getting out and stabbing pedestrians. One person was killed and six wounded.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Netanyahu Calls Emergency Cabinet Meeting Amidst Terror Attacks
Three Israelis were murdered and over 20 wounded in 4 terror attacks in just 4 hours through out Israel. As a result of severe attacks Tuesday, Prime Minister Netanyahu called for an emergency cabinet meeting Tuesday afternoon.
On Tuesday morning 22-year-old terrorist stabbed a 32-year-old in the neck and stomach in the town of Ra’anana . Civilians subdued the terrorist, both the victim and terrorist rushed to a nearby hospital. Just an hour later in Ra’anana , a terrorist from East Jerusalem stabbed four, one in critical condition. The terrorist was stopped by a civilian who hit him with his car. Civilians subdued the terrorist until police arrived.
Three were murdered and 17 injured in Jerusalem in what security officials now believe to have been planned, simultaneous terror attacks… Hamas praised the terror attacks and stated that they are a “message to anyone who harms our holy places. We call to continue the intifada, which is the natural response to the world’s silence.”
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Netanyahu, Under Public Pressure, Vows to Take ‘Aggressive Steps’ To Combat Palestinian Attacks
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — facing increasing pressure from the public over his handling of a wave of Palestinian attacks — said Tuesday that his government is working on a series of “aggressive steps” to combat the crisis.
The comments come as Netanyahu is seeing his support fading with the public. An opinion poll released this week showed that more than 70 percent of Israel is dissatisfied with his handling of the attacks, according to The Associated Press. Some eight Israelis and 27 Palestinians have died in a month of Israeli-Palestinian unrest.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
350 Lashes for a British Grandfather is the Cost of Doing Business With Saudi Arabia
By James Kirkup
First things first. I’m not in any way condoning the act of mediaeval barbarity that the Saudi authorities are reportedly planning to inflict on Karl Andree, a 74-year-old British citizen. It’s savagery dressed up as justice, plain and simple.
And yet. We have to be realistic about this case, and about our dealings with Saudi Arabia. Bluntly, 350 lashes for a British grandfather is the cost of doing business with the Saudis.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
British Grandfather Karl Andree Facing 350 Lashes in Saudi Arabia for Making Wine
A British grandfather is facing a punishment of 350 lashes in Saudi Arabia for making home-made wine. Karl Andree, a 74-year-old originally from south London, was arrested in August last year when police found bottles of wine in his car. He has already served 12 months in Jeddah’s brutal Briman Prison, which has a reputation for torture and inhuman conditions.
Mr Andree, who worked as an oil executive in the country, is now facing a public flogging of 350 lashes — a punishment his family fear could kill him as he is still weak from battles with cancer. His three children Hugh, 46, Kirsten, 45, and Simon, 33, on Monday urged David Cameron to intervene before authorities carry out the sentence.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France Signs €10 Billion Worth of Deals With Saudia Arabia
France on Tuesday announced a series of deals worth 10 billion euros ($11.4 billion) with Saudi Arabia, during a visit by Prime Minister Manuel Valls.
“France-Saudi Arabia: 10 billion euros in contracts,” he wrote in a tweet.
The deals include contracts and letters of intent between the two countries whose economic and political bonds have been strengthening.
Among the agreements is a Saudi order for 30 patrol boats…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Haaretz Goes to Bat for Trump: Mideast Would be Safer Without US Intrusion
The Israeli news website has come out in support of Donald Trump’s recent claim that the Middle East would be a lot more stable, had Iraq’s and Libya’s leaders remained in power and President Assad was stronger.
Over a week ago, the US Republican presidential front-runner said in an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd that the Middle East would be more stable if Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein were still in power in Libya and Iraq, saying it’s “not even a contest.”
“You can make the case, if you look at Libya, look at what we did there, it’s a mess,” said Trump.
With fellow GOP candidates having pounced — Marco Rubio said Trump “doesn’t understand the reality”, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie called him “painfully naïve”, the website nevertheless said that Trump was right.
Haaretz went on to explain why.
Given all of Saddam Hussein’s crimes, the website says, many people, including the author Peter Beinart, didn’t think that what followed Saddam could possibly be worse.
“We were wrong. According to a 2013 study by researchers at the University of Washington, Johns Hopkins University, Simon Fraser University and Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, America’s invasion, and the turmoil that has followed, have claimed the lives of half a million Iraqis.”
“According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, almost two million Iraqis were displaced from their homes in 2014.”
“In the 11 years following America’s invasion, Iraq’s Christian population declined by two-thirds.”
And all this was, it stresses, before the rise of Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, an organization that would probably not be in existence had America not collapsed the Iraqi state. Today, that genocidal group controls roughly one-third of Iraq.
As for Libya, it says, in the three and half years since the civil war began, according to the Danish Institute against Torture, one out of every five Libyan families has seen a family member disappear.
“By this spring, according to Ibrahim Sharqieh of the Brookings Doha Center, 400,000 Libyans were displaced (in a country of six million).”
“According to the World Bank, real GDP dropped by 13 percent in 2013 and 24 percent in 2014.
This summer, UN Special Envoy Bernardino Leon warned that Libya was “on the verge of economic and financial collapse.”
Syria is worst of all, it stated.
“The civil war that broke out in 2011 has claimed more than 200,000 lives. A staggering 50 percent of Syria’s people have been forced from their homes. IS controls as much as half the country’s territory.”
The people of Iraq, Syria and Libya were safer when dictators ruled their countries than they are now that their countries have collapsed, it reiterates.
“The United States was safer too, since neither Assad, Gaddafi nor Saddam (Bush administration spin notwithstanding) were plotting or inspiring terrorist attacks against the US in their final years in office. ISIL is.”
The news outlet explained Trump’s core point, which is that after fifteen years of this staggering display of American violence — justified in the name of fighting terrorism, preventing nuclear proliferation and spreading human rights — the Middle East is worse off. It is more inhumane and contains more terrorists.
“After the experiences of the last decade and a half, presidential candidates should be keenly aware of war’s unintended consequences.
They should remember that America usually lacks the power and wisdom to topple governments and build better ones in tribal societies with little experience of democratic government.
They should understand that although American “leadership” sounds good, it is often a euphemism for dropping bombs that incinerate people whose faces we never see and whose names we never know.
And that in so doing, America makes already traumatized societies even more desperate and even more hateful,” it concluded.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
ISIL Toyotas Are No Mystery Amid US Support for ‘Moderate’ Rebels
The ‘mysterious’ mass use of Toyota Hilux pickup trucks is no real mystery considering US support for Syrian rebel factions and the proportion of arms ending up in al-Qaeda’s hands, head of the Ron Paul Institute Daniel McAdams told Radio Sputnik.
The finding of widespread Toyota truck use by ISIL is no real mystery considering revelations that 60 to 80 percent of US aid to moderate rebels ends up in the hands of the group, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Daniel McAdams told Radio Sputnik.
An April 2014 report run by NPR praising the Toyota Hilux’ use in warfare showed that the US State Department recently delivered 43 Toyota trucks to the free Syrian army. As much as 60 to 80 percent of US arms sent to Syria haven ended up in the arms of al-Qaeda and its affiliates, Joshua Landis, Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma, told AP on Saturday.
“I think the real mystery is that there is no real mystery. <…> If we put two and two together, and see what Professor Landers points out, it’s not rocket science to see where those Toyotas went to [ISIL],” McAdams told Sputnik.
Toyotas are not the only vehicle finding mass use in the Syrian conflict. A recent video of a newly captured area in Syria also shows destroyed Isuzu D-Max trucks with right-hand drive steering columns.
Such vehicles are only made in South Africa and Thailand, which both drive on the left, unlike Syria, which drives on the right. This could suggest sourcing of the vehicles from countries with sizable Islamist movements which drive on the left, including Indonesia, Malaysia and Kenya. Australia has also been suggested as a source of trucks in the hands of ISIL.
According to McAdams, while it would be better if no country was bombing Syria, the roots of the conflict date back to the US decision to destabilize the country.
“It also would have been better if in 2006, as we now know from Wikileaks cables, it would have been better if the US government had not decided to destabilize the Syrian government,” McAdams added.
In December 2014 it was found that extremist militants including foreign fighters in Syria also use vehicles from the United States, including a pickup truck formerly used by a plumbing company in Texas.
“The Obama administration has got to get rid of these Neocons, all of the Samantha Powers of the world, and some of them are called left-interventionists, humanitarian interventionists, they’re all essentially Neocons, they all believe that you must push the ideology of American exceptionalism at the barrel of a gun,” McAdams said.
McAdams also compared the ideology of Neo-Conservatism to Soviet internationalism in its scope. The ideology also has a significant hold on the US presidential administration, McAdams added.
“If you look at think tanks inside the Beltway in Washington, especially the ones that are quoted by the media all the time. Look at the funding of something like the Institute for the Study of War, they don’t make any secret of it, they are funded by the military-industrial complex. They’re funded by Raytheon and all the big defense contractors, and they produce, not surprisingly, policy papers prescribing the use of US power overseas,” McAdams added.
McAdams also said that cooler heads may prevail in the Syria conflict, as Russia’s standing up to the US could essentially put an end to its uncontested power, bringing up the British Empire and the Soviet Union as examples.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
New ISIS Audio Message Targets Americans, Russians
A 40-minute audio recording released by ISIS reportedly calls for attacks against Americans and Russians for what the terror group calls a “crusaders’ war.”
The recording focuses on what ISIS sees as the “inevitable” face to face confrontation between terrorists and U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Syria, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute. An ISIS spokesman says that when such confrontation happens, it will signal the last nail in the U.S.’s coffin, MEMRI reports.
Researchers say the recording does not call for attacks on U.S. soil.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Paris and Riyadh Sign Multibillion Dollar Deals
In a sign of intensifying economic and political ties between the two countries, France and Saudi Arabia have signed a number of agreements covering a wide range of sectors and worth billions of US dollars.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Damascus (AsiaNews) — US air strikes in Syria are window-dressing, and have little real effect on the militias of the Islamic state (IS), who are left free to act on the ground. Instead the Russian attacks in recent days have been effective, forcing jihadists to fall back towards the Iraqi desert. This is according to Msgr. Jacques Behnan Hindo, referring to testimonies of people living in areas of conflict theater.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Joy for Fr Mourad, Fear for the Fate of 190 Christian Prisoners Held by the Islamic State
Syrian Christians are happy for the clergyman’s escape after five months in jihadi captivity but greatly concerned about the fate of their co-religionists, and possible reprisals against them. In spite of repeated death threats, Fr Mourad “never signed a statement to renounce Christianity.”
Damascus (AsiaNews) — For Syria’s Syriac Catholic community, this is a time of rejoicing because of Fr Jacques Mourad’s newfound freedom but also of anxiety, “great concern” and prayers for the fate of more than 190 Christian hostages from Al-Qaryatayn , a town southwest of Homs, still in the hands of Islamic State militiamen.
Fr Mourad’s escape has been greeted with great satisfaction. The clergyman, who was prior at the Mar Elian (St Julian) Monastery had been abducted in May. The building itself was blown up in August by the Islamic State group
A source close to Fr Mourad, contacted by AsiaNews, confirmed that he was not freed, but managed to escape from his captors.
Now many fear jihadi reprisals, especially since another 40 Christian hostages, also from Al-Qaryatayn, were able to escape yesterday. This, sadly, leaves some 190 in IS hands, exposed to the militiamen’s vengeance.
For Fr Mourad though, the nightmare is over. A priest from the same community as Fr Paolo Dall’Oglio, he was in charge of the local Syriac Catholic parish for the past 12 years.
A friend and colleague of the Italian-born Jesuit priest, he was one of the first monks of the community of Mar Musa who refused to abandon his people, in spite of the threats of kidnapping and the dangers inherent in the conflict.
In an interview with TG2000, Mar Elian’s prior revealed some details of the past months in the hands of the Islamic State group.
“Almost every day, someone [from IS] would come into my cell and ask, ‘Who are you?’ I would answer, ‘I am a Nazarene, i.e. a Christian’. At that point, they would shout, ‘Then you’re an infidel. And since you are an infidel, if you do not convert, we are going to cut your throat with a knife’. But I never signed a statement to renounce Christianity.”
For Fr Mourad, his escape was a miracle, which “the good Lord gave me. Whilst I was a prisoner, I was waiting for the day of my death but with great inner peace. I had no problem with dying in the name of our Lord. I would not be the first nor the last, but one among the thousands of martyrs for Christ.”
Dressed in a disguise, he managed to escape from Al-Qaryatayn on a motorcycle “with a Muslim friend”. Now his thoughts are with the other Christian prisoners still in jihadi hands.
Nonetheless, he is grateful to “all those who prayed for my release. It is a miracle that I escaped from the hands of Daesh*, a miracle by the Virgin Mary.”
* Daesh, is the acronym for ad-Dawlah al-IslÄmiyah fÄ” ‘l-Ê¿IrÄq wa-sh-ShÄm, or Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
The U.S. Government Supplied ISIS’ Iconic Pickup Trucks
U.S. counter-terror officials have launched an investigation into how ISIS got so many of those identical Toyota pickup trucks which they use in their convoys.
They don’t have to look very far …
The Spectator reported last year:
The [Toyota] Hilux [pics] is light, fast, manoeuvrable and all but indestructible (‘bomb-proof’ might not, in this instance, be a happy usage). The weapons experts Jane’s claimed for the Hilux a similar significance to the longbows of Agincourt or the Huey choppers of Nam. A US Army Ranger said the Toyota sure ‘kicks the hell out of a Humvee’ (referring to the clumsy and over-sized High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle made by AM General).
***
The fact is the Toyotas were supplied by the US government to the Al Nusra Front as ‘non-lethal aid’ then ‘acquired’ by ISIS.
Al Nusra Front is literally Al Qaeda.
Public Radio International — an American public radio outlet — also documented a specific shipment of Toyotas by the U.S. State Department in 2014:
Recently, when the US State Department resumed sending non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels, the delivery list included 43 Toyota trucks.
Hiluxes were on the Free Syrian Army’s wish list. Oubai Shahbander, a Washington-based advisor to the Syrian National Coalition, is a fan of the truck.
“Specific equipment like the Toyota Hiluxes are what we refer to as force enablers for the moderate opposition forces on the ground,” he adds. Shahbander says the US-supplied pickups will be delivering troops and supplies into battle. Some of the fleet will even become battlefield weapons.
That’s exactly what happened …
[Comment: I’m stunned. How could this be? /sarcasm…Banksters are trying to trigger WWIII.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey is the Next Failed State in the Middle East
By David P. Goldman
Whether the AKP government itself ordered the Ankara bombing, or simply looked the other way while ISIS conducted the bombing, both Turkey and global opinion will assume that the ghastly events in Ankara on Saturday reflect the desperation of the Erdogan regime. Regimes that resort to this sort of atrocity do not last very long.
The best thing that Turkey could do under the circumstances would be to ask the United Nations to supervise a plebiscite to allow Kurdish-majority areas to secede if they so chose. The mountains of southeastern Turkey with the highest concentration of Kurds are a drain on the national budget and of no strategic importance. Neither Erdogan nor his nationalist opposition, though, will consider such action; that would undermine both Erdogan’s neo-Ottomanism as well as the old secular nationalism. The pressures under the tectonic plates will only get worse. Saturday’s bombing may have demarcated the end of the Turkish state that arose out of the First World War.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK’s Cameron to Press Saudi Arabia Over Briton Facing 350 Lashes
LONDON British Prime Minister David Cameron will intervene in the case of an elderly Briton facing 350 lashes in Saudi Arabia after being caught with homemade wine — a punishment which his family said could kill him.
Karl Andree, 74, was jailed for 12 months in August last year but remains in prison awaiting further punishment for breaking strict Saudi laws prohibiting alcohol after police found the wine in his car, his family said.
“This is an extremely concerning case,” Cameron’s spokeswoman told reporters on Tuesday. “Given the ongoing concerns and the fact we would like to see more progress, the PM is writing today to the Saudis to further raise the case.”
The move underlines diplomatic tensions over human rights in Saudi Arabia, which is considered one of Britain’s closest military allies in the Middle East.
It comes as France agreed potential deals worth 10 billion euros ($11 billion) with Saudi Arabia.
Andree’s son Simon said his father had served his time and that he regretted what happened.
He said his father, who had worked for oil companies in the kingdom for some 25 years, was in poor health, had suffered cancer three times, and also had asthma.
“He’s an old frail man and I fear this lashing sentence is potentially a death sentence for him,” Simon Andree told BBC radio. “That’s our biggest concern, which is why we are trying to raise the case now to get him out.”
Britain’s Foreign Office, which warns on its website that there are severe penalties for possessing alcohol in Saudi Arabia, said embassy staff in Riyadh were checking Andree’s health regularly.
The Saudi Embassy in London had no comment.
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
War Against is Unwinnable, Ex-SAS Soldier Warns
A former SAS soldier has told Sky News the war against Islamic State is unwinnable as things stand, after gaining rare access to Kurdish fighters on the frontline of the battle against the terrorist group.
Phil Campion filmed for Sky in northern Syria and Iraq with both the YPG and Kurdish Peshmerga.
He observed their war against a well-equipped and motivated enemy and experienced some of the worst battles of his life while embedded with the Kurds.
He met members of all-female fighting units in the YPJ in northern Syria. Women are described as the Kurds’ secret weapon.
“Women fight the same as men,” one fighter told him.
“Maybe even better. But now we’re fighting for the same cause, we fight as equals.”
The Kurdish female fighters are a potent force, and are known for their ruthlessness.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Washington Post Rips Iran for Jason Rezaian ‘Conviction’, But Not Obama for Hanging Him Out to Dry
You can certainly understand the Washington Post standing up for one of its own. And its editors do so eloquently in an editorial this morning that denounces Iran’s absurd “conviction” of Post reporter Jason Rezaian — a development they now say occurred two months ago even as they decline to specify the so-called charges on which Rezaian has been “convicted.”
Rezaian has now been held hostage by the Iranian government longer than the American hostages of the Carter era, and the Post lays bare just how ludicrous this whole thing is:…
In fact, Rezaian is one of four Americans being held by Iran. The others are Pastor Saeed Abedini of Boise, Idaho; retired Marine Amir Hekmati of Flint, Michigan; and former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared eight years ago from the resort island of Kish. Every single of them is the equivalent of the 44 Americans for whom we tied yellow ribbons around tries in 1979-1980, held hostage by the exact same insane Islamic regime that did it back then. The same regime with which we cut off diplomatic ties as a result of the incident.
Yet as well as the Post tells Rezaian’s story, its editorial leaves out a crucial detail. While even Jimmy Carter took an adversarial stance toward Iran’s hostage-takers (albeit a pretty ineffective one), Barack Obama decided to negotiate a deal that will allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, with his Secretary of State John Kerry even going so far as to act as Iran’s de facto lawyer before other parties to the deal, and ripping U.S. Republicans who dared to oppose the deal on the grounds that if it didn’t go through, the poor Ayatollah would never be able to trust us again. Obama is even willing to violate a law he signed just three years ago to make possible the lifting of economic sanctions against Iran.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU Agrees to Suspend Belarus Sanctions After Lukashenko Re-Election
The European Union agreed Monday to suspend sanctions against the regime of Belarussian strongman Alexander Lukashenko after he won a fifth term as president, even though observers said the poll was flawed.
Once dubbed “Europe’s last dictator” by Washington, Lukashenko, 61, won a fifth consecutive term on Sunday, picking up 83.5 percent of the vote, according to official figures.
At a meeting in Luxembourg, EU foreign ministers agreed to suspend sanctions against his regime for four months after the elections passed off without incident, France’s European affairs minister said.
“We have taken the decision to suspend the sanctions for the next four months but they can be reinstated immediately if that is required,” minister Harlem Desir told reporters, adding that the situation would be reviewed after that…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Russian Missile-Maker Contradicts Dutch MH17 Crash Report
Results of the Dutch investigation are to be released Today
(ANSA) — MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian state-controlled missile-maker says its own investigation of last year’s crash of the MH17 airliner over rebel eastern Ukraine contradicts conclusions from a Dutch probe.
Results of the Dutch investigation are to be released later Tuesday. Yan Novikov, head of the Russian Almaz-Antey concern, did not specify what was in the report and he did not say at a news conference whether he had been given an advance look.
The Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 crashed July 17, 2014, in rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine and is widely believed to have been shot down by a surface-to-air missile; all 298 people aboard died.
Ukraine and Western countries contend the missile was fired by Russian troops or Russian-backed separatists. The allegations have focused on the Russian-made Buk missile system, which has several variants.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Ukraine Calls for Criminal Investigation After Report Finds Russian Missile Downed MH17
Ukraine is calling for a criminal investigation following a Dutch report identifying a Russian-made Buk missile as the cause of last year’s Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crash, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister said in a United Nations press conference Tuesday. Pavlo Klimkin also called on Russia to cooperate with any future criminal probe.
The 15-month investigation by the Dutch Safety Board claims the Buk missile was fired from an area held by Russian-backed separatists. It also identifies the site where the Boeing 777 crashed in Eastern Ukraine as belonging to the rebels. The July 17 crash killed all 298 on board.
Missile fragments found in the cockpit crew’s bodies, as well as paint traces, enabled investigators to identify the Buk.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Syria’s Al-Nusra Calls on Jihadists in Caucasus to Attack Russian Civilians and Soldiers
The head of al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate has called on jihadists in the Caucasus to attack Russian civilians and soldiers in retaliation for Moscow’s air strikes in Syria.
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, head of Jabhat al-Nusra, launched a broadside attack on Russia’s entry into the Syrian war, offering a bounty of £2.2 million for the head of Bashar al-Assad, Syrian president.
“Indeed, the war in [Syria] will make Russia forget the horrors it faced in Afghanistan,” promised Jolani in a 21-minute video widely disseminated on social media on Monday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
India’s Hindutva-Centred Fundamentalist Slide is a “Shame and Dishonour” For the Country
Members of the right-wing Shiv Sena party ink attacked Sudheendra Kulkarni. Police brutally beat three Pentecostal Christians in their custody after Hindu radicals accused them of forced conversions. For Sajan K George, “The missionaries were humiliated by the same people who were tasked to protect them.”
New Delhi (AsiaNews) — Hindutva inspired sectarian violence and fundamentalism reared their ugly head again this week, despite condemnation from the Indian president and various Indian intellectuals.
In one instance, Hindu radicals attacked an activist with ink as he made his way to a book launch by a former Pakistani Foreign Minister. In another, police officers arrested three Pentecostal Christians on false charges of forced conversions and then slapped and kicked them whilst they were in their custody.
Hindutva (Hindu-ness) is an ideology that seeks to define Indian identity, culture and politics in terms of Hindu religious values. This has led its proponents to perpetrate acts of violence and discrimination against India’s ethnic and religious minorities.
Many analysts have expressed concern at the rise of “hate speech” related to this ideology, which the government of Prime Minister Modi uses to fuel racial hatred in the country.
Sudheendra Kulkarni, a former ideologue with the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and president of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), was attacked yesterday in Mumbai (Maharashtra).
Shiv Sena extremists threw ink at him as he left home on his way to the launch of Neither a Hawk Nor a Dove: An Insider’s Account of Pakistan’s Foreign Relations, by Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, former Foreign Minister of Pakistan.
The activist, who went to the meeting with his clothes and face still covered in ink (pictured), condemned the attack as “an assault against democracy” and reiterated the recent call by Indian President Pranab Mukherjee to defend and respect the values of “tolerance, diversity and pluralism.”
Despite the public outrage and condemnation, a spokesman for Shiv Sena (a Marathi and Hindu nationalist party, allied to the BJP government) called the attack “a non-violent protest”, adding that Maharashtra “is known for its patriotism and national defence [against Pakistan], and Shiv Sena is doing its job promptly.”
The party is also known for its violence and intimidation against Muslims (i.e. the demolition of the Babri mosque and forcing a Muslim man to break his fast during Ramadan).
In another case last week, the three Pentecostal Christians arrested as they taught religion classes in Satna District, in the state of Madhya Pradesh, filed a complaint against the police who held them in custody.
According to the missionaries, about 15 police officers detained them for alleged forced conversions and took them to a police station. Here, they were savagely beaten in front of their accusers, members of the Hindu ultranationalists Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and Hindu ultra-nationalist paramilitary group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
“They were humiliated by the same people who were tasked to protect them,” Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), told AsiaNews.
“The officers banged their heads against a wall, slapped them in the face, kicked them and hit them with lathis (wooden sticks). Instead of acting as protectors, police have become persecutors,” George explained.
Sadly, “Christians are denied freedom of religion, and are treated as second-class citizens. The criminal behavior of law enforcement officers is a shame and a disgrace for India,” the GCIC president lamented.
(Nirmala Carvalho contributed to this article.)
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Taliban Announce Pullout From Kunduz
NYT reports
(ANSA) — Rome, October 13 — The Taliban on Tuesday announced their complete withdrawal from the northern Afghanistan city of Kunduz, the New York Times reported.
The militants took Kunduz last month, the first Afghan city to fall to them since 2001, sparking a counteroffensive by Aghan troops backed by US airstrikes.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Why Afghanistan’s Private Sector is Struggling
Despite long-standing international efforts to revive the Afghan economy, a new report says the country’s private sector still hasn’t managed to fulfill its potential as a driver of economic growth. DW examines why.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
MH370 Plane Wreckage Claimed to be Found on Philippine Island
Police in Malaysia confirmed they had received reports of the discovery in thick jungle on the remote Philippine island of Sugbai in the Tawi-Tawi group.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Australia’s highest security prison is becoming overrun by an extremist ISIS gang threatening to behead correctional officers and inmates unless they convert to radical Islam.
According to the Daily Telegraph, at least 30 gang members reside in Goulburn jail in NSW, are engaging in barbaric warfare against jail ‘infidel’ that oppose their religious ideologies.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Huge Explosions’ Rock Maiduguri, NE Nigeria: Locals: Red Cross
Three blasts hit the city of Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria on Tuesday killing a number of people, locals and the Red Cross said.
The “huge explosions” happened in the Ajilari Cross area of the city, which has been targeted by similar attacks twice in the last month, including on September 20 when at least 117 were killed.
The previous attacks were blamed on Boko Haram, which has increasingly hit “soft” civilian targets in recent months using suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices.
…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Two Madagascans Sentenced to Life for French Couple’s Murder
Two Madagascans were sentenced to hard labour for life Monday over the murder of a French couple whose bodies were discovered badly mutilated in 2012.
The criminal court found the two guilty in the killings of husband and wife Gerald Fontaine, 41, and pregnant 31-year-old Johanna Delahaye, who owned a restaurant in southwestern Madagascar.
The couple had gone by quad bike to a beach to swim but one of the lawyers for their families said Delahaye’s body was later found “almost decapitated” while her husband had “cut limbs”.
Fontaine’s remains were found nine days later, some 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the coastal town of Tulear, while his wife’s body was discovered closer to the beach after a three-day search…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
#UpdateBrazil: Communist Infiltration in the US Government
This week on Update Brazil, hosted by geopolitical analyst Jeff Nyquist and Brazilian conservative Allan L. Dos Santos, author and researcher Trevor Loudon sat down with Jeff and Allan to discuss some of the background on the communist infiltration of the U.S. government, the recent rise of the Russian “bear” on the world stage, and the rise of communism in South America.
It is not uncommon for people like Allan, Jeff, Trevor, and others (myself included), who try and warn Americans and Westerners about the rise of communism and socialism around the world—including the United States, Central America, South America, Africa, etc.—to be labeled “conspiracy theorists” and “red scare wackjobs.” From my own experience, this sort of ad hominem typically comes from people who are, for the most part, completely ignorant of the history of communism and Marxist ideology; or are themselves socialists, communists or “fellow travelers” (i.e. sympathizers).
The prevailing view since the late 80s and early 90s that communism collapsed following the fall of the Berlin Wall becomes “problematic” when one takes a long, hard look at the role Russia and China are currently playing on the world stage.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU Migrant Influx in 2015 Already Double Last Year’s Total
The number of migrants who arrived in the European Union in the first nine months of 2015 is already more than twice the total during the whole of last year, the EU’s border-management agency said, highlighting the scale of the challenge faced by the bloc’s leaders.
More than 710,000 migrants arrived between January and September, compared with 282,000 in 2014, Frontex said in a statement on Tuesday.
The figures were published after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she can’t tell people in her country how many refugees she will ask them to welcome. “We don’t know how many there will be,” Merkel told members of her Christian Democratic Union on Monday night. “What’s needed now is to tackle this with courage and confidence and say: ‘We can do this.’ “
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Frustrated Migrants Take Refugee Centre to Court
Twenty asylum seekers on Monday filed a suit against Berlin’s main refugee registration centre for failing to register them promptly so they could get essential benefits including a roof over their heads, a court official said.
Local authorities have been struggling to cope with a record influx of refugees, and asylum seekers in Berlin have often had to wait days if not weeks to be registered at the centre, known as Lageso.
On Monday, a group of them decided to take their case to the social court, complaining that despite waiting for a week, they were still not registered.
As a result, they were unable to receive any social benefits, including a bed in refugee centre — an urgent need as the winter cold sets in.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Asylum Claims Up 30% Over Last Year Says Interior Ministry
137,000 migrants reached Italy so far this year
(ANSA) — Rome, October 13 — The interior ministry said Tuesday 137,000 migrants made it to Italy and 61,000 asylum claims have been filed so far this year.
The latter number is up 30% over last year, Interior Undersecretary Domenico Manzione told a hearing of a parliamentary investigative commission on migrant and refugee reception. Manzione said the government has doubled the number of asylum examination boards and their productivity almost doubled since last year, with 46,000 rulings in 2015 against 27,000 in 2014.
He added the government has asked the courts to set aside special judges to rule in cases of rejected asylum claim appeals, because right now that process can take as long as 18 months and the government is “concerned” about that.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Boldrini Hails Passage of Citizenship Bill
‘You helped bring down a wall’ she tells Lower House
(ANSA) — Rome, October 13 — Lower House Speaker Laura Boldrini on Tuesday hailed passage of a citizenship bill for immigrants’ children. “The House today helped bring down a wall, at a time in which walls are sadly becoming popular again…it brought down a barrier that has kept so many young and very young new Italians separate from their play and schoolmates,” she said.
“Once the Senate also has its say, a disparity of rights that had become unbearable in the daily experience of hundreds of thousands of families will be no more,” she went on.
“This vote…strengthens our national identity, because it shows a capacity to include new citizens into our culture, our values, our rights and responsibilities”.
“I wish to thank all the grassroots organizations, the immigrant community, and the second-generation networks for incessantly prodding parliament on this issue,” she said.
“I hope that after this first fundamental step, we can see our way to…a process for granting citizenship to adult immigrants as well,” Boldrini concluded.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Renegotiating EU Migrant Funds
To cover sea rescues, first reception, social inclusion
(ANSA) — Brussels, October 13 — Italy is negotiating with the European Commission on reallocating some 150-200 million euros of the national operational programme over 2007-2013 to set it aside for the migrant emergency, EU sources said Tuesday. Talks are expected to wind up in ten days or so, they said. The figure will cover expenses for sea rescues in the Sicilian Channel, first reception, and social inclusion action for migrants.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Moroccan Minors Now Live on the Streets of Sweden
Several hundred Moroccan children live on the streets of Sweden, reports the investigative journalism TV program Uppdrag granskning (Mission Investigation). Their main sources of income are drug dealing and theft.
Since these kids don’t have any adults in Morocco to take care of them, it’s impossible for Sweden to deport them. Meanwhile, the number of migrants flooding Europe is rising.
Desperate youths
Increasingly more Moroccan boys, some of them as young as 9, are coming to Sweden. They live on the streets and avoid the authorities for fear of deportation. Their parents are either dead or very poor…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Most Violent Religion on Earth: Islam’s Animalization of Human Beings
With the projected importation of 200,000 Syrian Muslim refugees and continued 1.2 million legal immigrants annually along with the average 500,000 illegal migrants each year—within 30 years, we expect an added 100,000,000 (million) third world refugees. If not stopped, you must prepare for a different society: hundreds of competing languages, multiple worldviews and hundreds of incompatible cultures struggling within American society…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Solberg Warns of High Refugee Cost
Prime Minister Erna Solberg took time to meet and greet some of the refugees arriving in Oslo last week, but now she warns that refugee costs must be contained. PHOTO: Statsministerens kontor
“We have to get the costs down,” Solberg said in her address to Parliament. “Norway must have adequate and proper programs for those who seek asylum. At the same time, we should not have programs that are so good that more refugees than what’s natural choose Norway as their destination.”
Norway, like all other countries where refugees from the Middle East and Africa are crossing the borders in record numbers, is obligated to offer refuge to displaced persons needing protection. Around 25,000 refugees are now expected to have arrived in Norway this year alone, and another 30,000 next year…
| — Hat tip: The Observer | [Return to headlines] |
Refugee Influx Set to Shake Up Germany’s Muslim Community
Germany’s Muslim community is bracing for a culture shock when masses of Arab migrants join millions of residents of Turkish origin.
But experts suggest the change could be positive for it could broaden outlook, and say fears of Islamist radicalism may be overblown.
For a Syrian refugee family, attending Friday prayers in a German mosque can be a headache.
“Most sermons are held in Turkish,” said Yasemin El-Menouar, Islam expert at think-tank the Bertelsmann Foundation…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Fears Refugee Influx Could Harm Reception Services
Swedish schools and local social services will have a hard time maintaining the quality of their services if the influx of refugees continues at the current rate, according to new reports by the country’s 21 regional administrative boards.
The reports, put together by the regional administrative boards and commissioned by the national Civil Contingencies Agency, paint a grim picture of how the country’s municipalities and county councils would be affected if the number of refugees arriving in Sweden continues to grow.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Would-be Stowaways at Gothenburg’s Port
Officials at the Port of Gothenburg are reporting an uptick in the number of would-be stowaways trying to illegally enter the port and smuggle themselves on board cargo ships.
Port officials say they’ve had more than 100 people since the spring try to get on board a vessel. Most of the cases concern young Albanians trying to make their way to the UK.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Refugee ‘Zone’ Planned by Stockholm Station
A new 700 square metre refugee reception zone is set to be put up next to Stockholm’s Central Station, as part of nationwide efforts to boost help for new arrivals as winter approaches.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Schools Struggle to Cope With Record Number of Refugee Children
As the country tries to accommodate a record number of refugees, some schools are feeling the strain of a sudden surge in enrolments, especially of children who have undergone arduous journeys from areas in conflict and who may need extra attention.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Benedict Cumberbatch Delivers a Speech on Refugees as Hamlet Encore
RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Sadly young Ben’s success seems to have gone to his head. Not content to be a celebrated actor, he has come to see himself as a born-again Bob Geldof.
After milking the applause at the end of the play, Cumberbatch harangues the audience for five minutes about the plight of the Syrian refugees and why Britain isn’t doing enough to help them.
When a friend who had been to Hamlet a couple of weeks ago told me about this, I assumed it was a spontaneous one-off. It wasn’t.
Some other friends went at the weekend and had to suffer the same speech before they could escape.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Longford Being ‘Overwhelmed’ By Migrants as Dozens Arrive Every Day
Longford in West London is fast becoming a ‘transit camp’ for migrants from Calais — with dozens arriving on coaches every day and being transferred to houses, according to locals.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Watchdog: Czech Refugee Camp Offers ‘Worse Conditions’ Than Prisons
Migrants in a Czech refugee center were “debased in front of their children,” according to human rights official Anna Sabatova. The conditions violate international conventions, she said after visiting the facility.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Will America Welcome Refugee Invaders as Europeans Say No Way?
Europe is starting to wise up about the threat of Islam. Unfiltered reports show huge crowds taking to the streets to protest the refugees’ barbaric behavior. Thousands of young, fit, fighting-age men, wearing new athletic shoes, taking “ selfies” with the latest mobile phones, still swarm through Europe looking for the best social services network.
Many unwilling hosts are fed-up and want the rape and plunder to stop. The invaders have worn out their welcome.
So, what about the U.S.? Why is it even an open question whether to take in additional Syrian refugees? We have been told our government has no way to vet them; we know that many of the refugees are not even Syrian; and that ISIS is deploying them as fighters who gain entry by blending in with the horde. They are predominantly Muslim men, not the persecuted Christians who are being crucified and beheaded in this cradle of Christianity. And the world stands by, just as they did 100 years ago during the Armenian Genocide, a slaughter that exterminated most of the Armenians living on the earth at that time, dispersing the remainder to anywhere in the world they could find shelter.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: PD ‘Intends to Table Civil Unions Bill’ In Senate Soon
Opposition disagrees
(ANSA) — Rome, October 12 — Parliamentary sources said Monday that Premier Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) is intent on tabling its civil unions bill in the Senate despite opposition from junior ruling coalition member, the New Center Right (NCD) party. The bill provides same-sex couples with many of the same rights and responsibilities as straight married couples, including the right for one spouse in a civil union to adopt the other spouse’s children, as well as the right to inherit a deceased spouse’s pension and property.
“We differ with the NCD on parts of the bill and on the need to table it soon,” said Senate PD whip Luigi Zanda after a meeting between the two parties. “The PD believes we need to take it to the Senate floor shortly, NCD has a different opinion”. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano (NCD) said after the meeting that his AP caucus (an alliance between NCD and the small centrist UDC party) will do “loyal” battle against aspects of Renzi’s bill.
“Yes to the recognition of individual property and inheritance rights, no to child adoptions,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Renzi Sets Sights on Civil Unions Bill
Catholics ready to do battle
(ANSA) — Rome, October 13 — Conservatives and progressives within the ruling coalition girded for battle Tuesday night ahead of Senate debate on the government’s civil unions bill on Wednesday.
As it stands, the bill provides “full recognition of same-sex couples via a new juridical institution, called the civil union” according to its rapporteur, Senator Monica Cirinna’ from Premier Matteo Renzi’s center-left Democratic Party (PD).
It would give same-sex couples many of the same rights and responsibilities as straight married couples, including the right to adopt their spouse’s children — known as stepchild adoption — and for widows to receive their deceased partners’ pensions and inherit their property.
It also lays duties such as that of mutual assistance and of contributing to common needs.
Other laws, regulations, and collective bargaining contracts that refer to heterosexual marriage “will be applicable in the same way to the parties in a civil union”.
“There can be no turning back the clock on the recognition of social rights,” Cirinna’ has warned.
However, the traditionally Catholic center right, as well as Catholic elements within the center-left are not happy with the bill because it recognizes the rights of gays in committed relationships to be parents. This, they argue, will inevitably usher in the legalization of surrogate motherhood, which is illegal in Italy and which the Catholic Church condemns as a sin.
The PD said earlier in the day it will allow its lawmakers to vote their conscience on the bill, in particular regarding the issue of “stepchild adoption”, said Senator Stefano Lepri, a member of the Catholic wing of the centre-left group. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, who leads the New Center Right (NCD) party, a junior member of the ruling coalition, has said he would wage a “loyal” battle against aspects of Renzi’s bill. “Yes to the recognition of individual property and inheritance rights, no to adoptions,” he said.
In July, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Italy for failing to provide legal “recognition and protection” for same-sex couples, and said it must remedy the situation by changing its laws.
The European Parliament in March called on EU member States that have not already done so, to recognise civil unions and same-sex marriage as a civil and human right.
In February, Italy’s highest appeals court rejected same-sex marriage, saying there was nothing in the Constitution that requires the government to extend marriage rights to gays.
However, the Cassation Court added then that homosexuals have the right to a “protective” law that would ensure same-sex couples have the same rights as unmarried Italian couples.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Playboy to Ditch All-Nude Photos
From March
(ANSA) — Rome, October 13 — Playboy will no longer publish photos of nude women as part of a redesign, the decades-old magazine announced Tuesday.
The magazine that helped usher in the sexual revolution in the 1950s and ‘60s by bringing nudity into living rooms — or at least sock drawers — all over America said that starting in March it will still feature women in provocative poses, but they will no longer be fully nude.
In a way, Playboy may be a victim of some of the forces it helped unleash. Porn in full color and high definition is now widely available over the Internet.
“You’re now one click away from every sex act imaginable for free. And so it’s just passé at this juncture,” Playboy Enterprises chief executive Scott Flanders told The New York Times.
The change represents a major shift for the magazine, which broke new ground when Hugh Hefner created it and featured Marilyn Monroe on its debut cover in 1953. It marks the latest step away from depictions of full nudity, which were banned from the magazine’s website in August 2014.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Beer Giants AB InBev and SABMiller Agree Takeover Terms
The world’s two biggest beer producers are set to merge after SABMiller accepted an increased takeover offer from rival Anheuser-Busch InBev.
SABMiller said it had agreed “in principle” a £44-a-share offer, after four previous attempts from AB InBev.
AB InBev’s brands include Budweiser, Stella Artois and Corona, while SABMiller produces Peroni and Grolsch.
If the deal, worth about £70bn, goes ahead, the newly-created firm will make about 30% of the world’s beer.
SABMiller has a workforce of close to 70,000 people in more than 80 countries, and global annual sales of more than $26bn. AB InBev has a workforce of 155,000 and global revenues of more than $47bn.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Corruption Rears Its Head Again at the United Nations
In announcing bribery and tax fraud charges last week against former United Nations General Assembly President John Ashe, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said that “John Ashe, the 68th president of the U.N. General Assembly, sold himself and the global institution he led.” Moreover, the U.S. Attorney put the UN on notice that his investigation was not over. “We will be asking: Is bribery business-as-usual at the U.N.?” he said…
The federal complaint announced by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara last week was brought against six individuals including Mr. Ashe, who served as the UN ambassador from the country of Antigua and Barbuda before taking the post of UN General Assembly president during the 2013-2014 session. The complaint charged, among other things, that Mr. Ashe received over a million dollars of cash payments, some of which he used to pay for lavish “personal expenses,” from a Chinese real estate developer, Ng Lap Seng. Mr. Ng Seng’s company, the Sun Kian Ip Group, was allegedly looking for favors to help its real estate business in Macau China.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
F.A. Hayek Explains Why Intellectuals Drift Towards Socialism (Video)
With the successful campaigns of Kshama Sawant and Bernie Sanders, socialism is gradually becoming a popular ideology among millions of Americans. Ostensibly, they want to be cared for from cradle to grave and they detest the idea of private property rights, free markets and wealth (or perhaps they envy others having wealth).
It’s quite rare to find professors, educators and the intellectuals in society to promote NAP, capitalism and Austrian economics. Thomas Sowell has eloquently written on the self-anointed promoting socialism, communism and Marxism in numerous articles and books.
The intellectual class believes it has the capacity to plan societies and institute policies they think is best. As other nations can attest to, central planning is a failed concept and can never work.
Here, legendary economist F.A. Hayek speaks with William F. Buckley and talks about why intellectuals drift towards socialism.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Democide: The murder of unarmed, helpless men, women and children by a government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder. This does NOT include combatants killed during times of war.
In all of history, the most prolific mass murderers are not the Jeffrey Dahmers, Jack the Rippers, movie-theater crazies or insane campus shooters. By far, it is government, much more common than war.
Prior to the 20th century (30 B.C. — 1900AD), murder by government, or democide, accounts for, by the best hypothetical estimates, a conservative 133 million people dead. That figure includes: China, the Mongols, Iran (Persia), slavery of Africans (1451-1870), India, The Ottoman Empire, Japan, Russia, Aztecs, French Revolution, Spanish Inquisition, etc.
During the 20th century alone, according to hawaii.edu, government killed approximately 262 million people. Among the culprits: China, USSR, colonialism, Germany, Japan, Cambodia, Turkey, Vietnam, Uganda, Guatemala, Poland, Pakistan, Yugoslavia, North Korea and Mexico (1900-1920).
The preeminent miscreant nations are the USSR, 1917-1987 (62 million), China, before and after the communist revolution — 1928-1987 (87 million), Germany, 1933-1945 (21 million)…170 million people murdered! Most of the dead, by the way, as a result of forcing socialism on their respective countries and only AFTER strict gun control laws and massive gun confiscation was undertaken. Did you get that, Bernie?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |