An Afghan “refugee”, part of an armed contingent of illegal immigrants attempting to enter Bulgaria from Turkey, was shot dead by a Bulgarian border guard. Meanwhile, Hungary closed its border with Croatia to additional migrants, but Croatia redirected the columns of asylum-seekers to Slovenia to help them in their bid to get to Germany.
In other migration news, Turkey rejected the EU’s offer of €2.6 billion for its help with the “refugee” crisis.
In other news, the Spanish government has threatened to revoke Catalonia’s “autonomous” status if it persists in its attempts to achieve independence from Spain.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, RL, RR, Steen, 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.
Bangladesh’s Youth Unemployment, Highest in South Asia
Recent reports by the World Bank and the International Labour Organisation indicate that 41 per cent of young people do not work, do not study and do not train. The situation is even worse for young women. Absence of quality education and skills is the main reason. Many firms have to hire foreigners. Unemployment and crime are closely linked.
Dhaka (AsiaNews) — Studies by the World Bank (WB) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), based on 2013 data, outline a stark employment situation for young Bangladeshis.
Bangladesh’s population under 30 years of age makes up 60 per cent of the total labour force. In 2013, the youth unemployment rate in Bangladesh was 10.3 per cent, higher than the regional South Asian average of 9.45 per cent.
In that same year, about 41 per cent of Bangladeshi youth were considered NEET (not in employment, education or training) and the portion of young unemployed NEETs was 78 per cent, especially women.
Even when young Bangladeshi do work, they are employed primarily in the informal sector*, with more than 95 per cent of youth involved in informal economic activities in 2013, especially self-employment (31.7 per cent), and unpaid family work (11.1 per cent).
Shymol Rozario, a young 27-year-old Catholic man, spoke to AsiaNews about the difficulties of getting work. He has tried to find employment in the capital after he left his home village three years ago.
When he does get an odd job, like giving private lessons, he sends some money back home. However, this is not enough to “buy his parents the medical drugs they need.” His “mother prays for me, that I may land a good job, hoping that might send her more money.”
Basically, three years since his graduation Shymol is still unemployed, despite the many job interviews he has had. A stable, full-time position still eludes him.
In its report, titled ‘Toward Solutions for Youth Employment’, the World Bank report noted that the problem of youth unemployment is global, with a third of the world’s 1.8 billion young people not currently involved in employment, education or training.
A further one billion youth is expected to enter the job market in the next decade, but only 40 per cent are likely to get jobs that currently exist.
The World Bank report compared the situation and indicators in four focus countries — Bangladesh, El Salvador, Tunisia and Uganda — and found that the worst situation is in the Asian country.
“The absence of quality education and a skilled labour force are the main causes of youth unemployment in Bangladesh,” World Bank Lead Economist Zahid Hussain said.
The study found for example that more than 75 per cent of Bangladeshi business leaders claimed that a scarcity of skilled young workers was a challenge to hiring youth.
Because investment to generate employment is not in line with demand, the country currently must hire skilled workers from India, Sri Lanka and Thailand because of shortage of skilled labour.
Making matters worse, youth unemployment and crime are interconnected, said Mohammad Ashraful Alam, chairman of the Criminology and Police Sciences Department at Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University.
“Youth suffering from poverty, unemployment and illiteracy are often driven by frustration towards drugs,” he explained. After that, “the step to crime is a small one. If unemployment rises, the crime rate will too,” he said.
Last but not least, the World Bank report also noted a major gender gap in Bangladesh, with young women constituting the majority of unemployed young NEETs.
“More young women than young men are in vulnerable employment. The greatest proportion of women in vulnerable employment can be seen in Bangladesh (90 per cent),” the report said.
Early marriage is one major factor. In fact, most school dropouts are girls (64.4 per cent) in order to get married.
* The informal sector is neither taxed, nor monitored by the authorities, so it potentially exposed to criminal activities.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bank of Italy Says Take Chance to Cut Debt
Confirms economic recovery underway
(supersedes previous)(ANSA) — Rome, October 16 — The Bank of Italy (BoI) on Friday urged the government to take advantage of the country’s fledgling economic recovery and favorable macroeconomic circumstances to cut public debt.
In an economic bulletin the central bank called on policymakers “to fully take the opportunity offered by exceptionally favourable financial and monetary conditions and the gradual strengthening of the recovery”.
“The time frame for rebalancing public accounts must ensure a clear and progressive reduction in debt,” it added.
The central bank confirmed the economy is in recovery and revised upward its July forecasts on 2015 GDP growth. “GDP growth could turn out to be slightly above 0.7%,” it said. It also confirmed a rise in domestic consumption and a slow recovery in productive capital investments. The gradual “reduction in taxes is consistent with the need to lower elevated fiscal pressure” that is hampering growth. “The most directly effective measures are those cutting the burden on production factors” while the abolition of property taxes “could have circumscribed effects on consumption,” the BoI said. Government labor policies have generated at least one fourth of new jobs this year. Of those, one third were directly related to Premier Matteo Renzi’s signature Jobs Act and two-thirds to tax breaks on new full-time permanent hires, according to the central bank.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Industrial Production for Oil and Gas Well Drilling Drops to Lowest This Century
Industrial Production growth in The US has now slwoed for 10 straight months, rising just 0.4% YoY in September — the weakest growth since Dec 2009 — signaling the path to recession is clear. Manufacturing production YoY slowed to just 1.4% — the slowest since Feb 2014. For the 8th month of the last 9 IP fell MoM with a 0.2% drop in September as a modest revsion higher in autos was offset by a plunge in Oil and Gas Drilling to the lowest this century (down 4% after rising 1.7% last month).
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Cash Transactions Limit to Rise to 3,000 Euros, Pension Measures Within Months, Says Renzi
Premier says change will help consumer spending
(ANSA) — Rome, October 13 — Premier Matteo Renzi said Tuesday that the limit on cash transactions, aimed at combatting money laundering and tax evasion, will be raised from 1,000 euros to 3,000 in the 2016 budget law. “One of the things we will propose to parliament in the budget law is to take back the cash level to the European average, the French level, taking it from 1,000 to 3,000 euros,” he told the RTL 102.5 radio station.
“It’s a way to help consumer spending and say ‘no more terror’ (from the State). That money is traced anyway”.
Renzi said that changes to add flexibility to the pension system to enable people close to retirement age to quit work will be ready within months. At the weekend the premier announced that the measures would be approved next year and not, as had been expected, in the 2016 budget law. “I’m ready to wrap it up within a few months, but I refuse to do it in a scrambled way,” Renzi told the RTL 102.5 radio station. “I’m extremely concerned about the danger of making a mess, like in the past”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
This is How to Survive if You Lose Everything (Including Your Home)
These days, “survivalism” has come to mean preparing for great events like nuclear holocaust or total government collapse. But disaster may come on a much more personal level. Individuals can suffer catastrophe as surely as nations can. When they do, it can be even more distressing because individuals feel alone in their suffering. I am talking about personal financial ruin and homelessness. Thousands of people across North America, indeed the world, have already experienced it following bankruptcies and foreclosures.
Whole families have been evicted from their homes, some quite forcibly. We see dozens of tent cities appearing across America, and more people ordering storage containers to live in. What we don’t see are the “hidden homeless” — those forced to survive by couch-surfing or moving back in with family. If 47 + million Americans now live below the poverty line, that means 47 + million who are either homeless or in imminent danger of becoming so. And the number is still growing.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
As the quarterly earnings season heats up we are seeing massive cracks in the global economy. Most recently mega-retailer Walmart announced flat-lining sales and say that they expect earnings per share to collapse as much as 12% next year citing higher employee costs and a bleak economic outlook.
But financial pundits continue to look at such reports from some of the world’s biggest companies on the planet as a minor hiccup, doing everything in their power to assure the American people that we remain on a recovery trajectory.
A new report from the World Bank, however, has some very unsettling news for those who think that we are almost out of trouble. According to the report, the world has to create some 600 million jobs over the next 10 years just to keep the system afloat — an almost insurmountable task given that jobs are being wiped out, especially for younger workers, across the United States, Europe and Asia.
Across regions and continents, people 15 to 29 years old are at least twice as likely as adults to be unemployed. The world will have to create 600 million jobs over the next 10 years, or 5 million a month, just to prevent the situation from getting worse, the Washington-based lender said in a report it released Tuesday with coalition partners such as the International Labor Organization.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
US Bank Earnings Gain on Consumers; Oil Risk Looms
Stronger lending to consumers and small businesses emerged as a bright spot in bank earnings this week, even as the oil market downturn stood out as an emerging risk.
Results from JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo showed lending to be particularly strong in areas like credit cards, auto loans and home mortgages, as large banks strive to make up for the drag from low interest rates by increasing loans to consumers.
At Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest mortgage lender, a 6.5 percent gain in community earnings to $3.7 billion compensated for an 8.1 percent drop in wholesale banking to $1.7 billion.
That trend is a welcome antidote to the slow-growth economy that has banks planning for a “lower-for-longer” baseline scenario for US interest rates…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
“Clock Boy” Ahmed’s Dad: Incident Will “Spread Islam” In America
Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed, father of ‘Clock Boy’ Ahmed, shared another 9/11 ‘Truther’ Facebook post, only this time in Arabic, claiming that the clock incident will lead to spreading Islam in America.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
2 Obama Golf Outings Cost Taxpayers $1.8m, $20,000 a Hole
(Washington Examiner) Documents provided under the Freedom of Information Act to Judicial Watch showed that the cost per hole was $20,406. During two trips to California and Florida, the president played five rounds of golf.
In February, he traveled to Palm Springs, California, for an all-men President’ s Day break. The flight alone cost $1,031,685. Judicial watch is still awaiting a report on security costs.
In March, Obama traveled to Palm City, Florida, for a golf weekend. That flight cost was $804,870.30 based on Air Force One expenses provided by the Air Force.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Bad Timing? Texas ‘Clock’-Maker’s Visit With Sudanese Leader Complicates Wh Invite
Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year old boy arrested after a homemade clock he brought to school was mistaken for a bomb, may be putting President Obama in an awkward situation after meeting with Sudanese president and alleged war criminal Omar al-Bashir just days before a White House event to which he was invited.
Despite the controversy, the White House has not yet announced any change of plans for the invitation or the event — an Astronomy Night scheduled for Monday that brings together NASA astronauts and government scientists with students and teachers.
The White House did not return a request for comment from FoxNews.com. The boy’s family reportedly has expressed interest in visiting the White House.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
All residents aged 21 or over will no longer need a permit to carry a pistol or revolver on their person, when traveling on foot or in their vehicles. There are a few exceptions such as courthouses, schools, federal buildings, state parks, etc. But for the most part, so long as you’re legally allowed to own a firearm, you’re good to go in the State of Maine.
And contrary to what many of the gun grabbers would have you think, the state isn’t going to turn into a Mad Max free-for-all any time soon.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Democratic Physicist Slams Obama on Climate Change
A left-leaning, Democratic voting, Obama supporting physicist, Freeman Dyson, said he parts ways with his president on the issue of climate change — that the White House administration is wrong and the Republicans correct.
“I’ m 100 percent Democrat myself and I like Obama,” Dyson said to the Register. “But he took the wrong side on this issue and the Republicans took the right side.”
Dyson slammed scientists who support the liberal line of thought on climate change and said they were ignoring “obvious” findings and beliefs, including the fact carbon dioxide is not actually a pollutant.
“How does it happen that a whole generation of scientific experts is blind to obvious facts? … Pollution is quite separate to the climate problem,” Dyson said, the Daily Caller reported. “One can be solved and the other, cannot. And the public doesn’ t understand that.”
[Comment: He doesn’t understand it’s being pushed for political purposes as an excuse opress the public.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Feds, Southern Poverty Join to Root Out Domestic Terror
The U.S. Justice Department announced the opening of a new office aimed at tracking domestic terrorism and coordinating investigations with various pertinent parties — but it’ s their planned partner in the endeavor that could set conservatives’ teeth on edge: the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“We’ ve been pushing for something like this for quite a few years,” said Mark Potock, with the SPLC, Breitbart reported. “We feel like it’ s very much a step forward, although we’ ll have to see how it plays out.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Google, The NSA & DHS Are Creating a Global DNA Database
According to the Verge, Ancestry.com, is seeking permission from the FDA to create a national DNA database. Ancestry.com claims they’ll use your DNA to assess your families disease risk.
Would it shock you to know that Google, the NSA and DHS are using “front companies” to create a GLOBAL DNA database? “On the heels of our AncestryHealth launch and our one million genotyped customers milestone for AncestryDNA, we’re excited to announce this collaboration with Calico to research and develop life changing solutions,” said Ken Chahine, Executive Vice President and Head of DNA and Health. “We have laid the groundwork for this effort through the combination of an unmatched family history database, one of the fastest growing genetic databases…”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gun Shop Forced to Pay $6m to Two Cops Because They Sold the Gun That Was Used to Shoot Them
In a verdict that could prefigure a political alliance between police unions and advocates of new restrictions on private firearms ownership, a federal jury in Wisconsin has ordered Milwaukee-based Badger Guns to pay nearly $6 million to two police officers who suffered severe injuries after being shot with a gun purchased at the store.
This unprecedented civil award will encourage efforts to hold gun retailers — and, perhaps, firearms manufacturers — civilly liable for crimes committed by other people. It also reinforces the prevailing (and factually impoverished) narrative of an ever-escalating “war on cops.” Ten additional lawsuits similar to the one filed against Badger Guns are working their way through the courts.
[Comment: Communists have taken over the police unions.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS: Hacker Arrested, He Stole US Military Personal Data
Information was then forwarded to Isis propagandist
(ANSA) — NEW YORK — US authorities arrested a hacker, Ardit Ferizi, born in Kosovo but resident of Malaysia, charged with stealing personal data from the American military, in order to forward them to ISIS.
The news was reported by CNN, quoting the State Department.
These data, which included pictures and addresses of at least a thousand soldiers and federal employees, were stolen by Ferizi, who had hacked into the computer system of a US company, and then forwarded the data to Junaid Hussein, a British hacker who was active on social media, where he used to recruit westerners looking to join Isis. In August, the US military announced that Hussein had been killed in an air raid in Syria.
According to US authorities, Hussein was a leading member of the so-called ‘cyber-caliphate’, responsible for online attacks on government sites in the US, France and other countries. Malaysian authorities have agreed to extradite Ferizi in the United States, where he will be charged with offenses related to cybercrime.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) Remember the Ebola outbreak of 2014 when nurses infected with Ebola were proclaimed “cured” through the intervention of pharmaceutical medicine? Like everything else the MSM broadcast about Ebola, we now know it was all a sinister fabrication.
Texas nurse Nina Pham was widely celebrated as a hero by the mainstream media for her role in treating an infected Ebola patient that started an outbreak in a Dallas hospital. What the media didn’t tell you is that Nina Pham was nearly killed by the Ebola “treatment” medicines administered by the hospital. “Nina Pham, the first known case of an individual contracting Ebola within the U.S., is now suing the parent corporation of her former employer, which she says violated her personal privacy and left her chronically ill by exploiting and neglecting her during the outbreak,” Natural News reported earlier this year.
“The 26-year-old nurse says she now suffers from constant nightmares, body aches and insomnia due to the experimental medications that were forced upon her while in isolation.”
Pharmaceutical interventions, in other words, caused serious organ damage to nurse Pham, and that damage is permanent. Naturally, the CDC-controlled media exploited Pham for P.R. purposes, but once the news had passed, they left her permanently damaged and abandoned by the system.
Now reported in The Independent (UK): “A British nurse who was apparently cured of Ebola earlier this year is now in a critical condition, doctors have said, with experts expressing astonishment at the deterioration of her condition.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Teacher Tells 13-Year-Old Black Conservative He’s “Not Worth Saving in a Fire”
A teacher at Columbia Middle School in Evans, Ga. allegedly told his students that outspoken 13-year-old black conservative CJ Pearson was “not worth saving in a fire,” another example of how liberals seem to believe that hate speech is acceptable so long as it’s directed at those on the right.
Pearson previously made headlines after his Twitter account was blocked by President Obama’s official Twitter account following a video in which Pearson criticized Obama over his response to the ‘Clock Kid’ controversy. White House officials also made fun of the teenager.
Pearson was told by several other students in his class that teacher Michael Garrison said CJ is “not worth saving in a fire” and that he “hates him.”
The teacher also accused Pearson of cheating on a vocabulary test when he was in sixth grade, a claim that Pearson denies.
“It’s always great having a teacher that’s not only a liberal bully, but someone who engages in slander,” Pearson told BizPac Review. “My words are bold and I don’t expect everyone to agree. But to have a teacher say this about me? Completely inexcusable.”
School principal Eli Putnam has promised a full investigation into the matter. Pearson accuses the teacher of violating the school’s bullying policy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Liberal Leader Trudeau: US-Canada Relations ‘Crucial’
Canadian Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has promised that improving relations with the Obama administration will be a top priority if elected prime minster.
He said Canada’s ties with its largest trading partner have been frayed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s hard push for the Keystone pipeline.
Mr Trudeau supports the pipeline, but says he is willing to work with the US to address environmental concerns.
The Liberal Party is leading the polls in the run-up to Monday’s election.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Plans Takedown of Another U.S. Ally
Harper, in power since 2006, has truly been the leader of the Free World over the last seven years. He is a reminder of what an American president should be standing for in the world. No wonder Obama wants to finish him off.
In a dispatch earlier this year, McLeod provided the facts about the interference of Obama campaign operatives in the Canadian elections scheduled for October 19. “In Canada, Obama’s campaign team is guiding the election campaigns of both the Liberals and the NDP,” she wrote. She urged the Harper government to investigate.
She explained why Obama is targeting Canada: “To the U.S., Canada is the country next door, to Obama it’s home of the architects of the maligned Keystone XL Pipeline and home to the world’s Number One elected defender of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”…
Canada used to have a conservative cable channel, Sun News Network. But it went out of business earlier this year when the channel failed to get enough distribution to pay for expenses. Cable companies in Canada were carrying foreign channels such as Al Jazeera and Putin’s Russia Today, but wouldn’t carry Sun News. Brian Lilley, a former host on the network, said that the cable companies “didn’t like the message.” He explained, “They didn’t like that we were brash, we were very conservative. We were pro-business, pro-family, pro-oil, pro-Israel. We were pro-America…They decided to shut us down.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
British High Court Rules Uber Lawful
Blow to black cabs
(ANSA) — Rome, October 16 — Britain’s High Court ruled Friday that the Uber app to hail minicabs is lawful — a blow to London’s famous black cab drivers, who argued that it violated city regulations.
The court’s decision came after London’s transport authority sought clarification as to whether the San Francisco-based company’s app worked in the same way as meters used by the strictly regulated black cabs.
The Licensed Taxi Drivers’ Association argued the app — which records a car’s location and travel time and feeds it back to servers in California — worked like a meter. But Justice Duncan Ouseley disagreed, ruling that the app relies on GPS signals and did not operate in the same way.
The association said it would appeal.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Earliest Known Draft of King James Bible is Found, Scholar Says
The King James Bible is the most widely read work in English literature, a masterpiece of translation whose stately cadences and transcendent phrases have long been seen, even by secular readers, as having emerged from a kind of collective divine inspiration.
But now, in an unassuming notebook held in an archive at the University of Cambridge, an American scholar has found what he says is an important new clue to the earthly processes behind that masterpiece: the earliest known draft, and the only one definitively written in the hand of one of the roughly four dozen translators who worked on it.
The notebook, which dates from 1604 to 1608, was discovered by Jeffrey Alan Miller, an assistant professor of English at Montclair State University in New Jersey, who announced his research on Wednesday in an article in The Times Literary Supplement.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
English FA Suspends Support for Platini FIFA Bid
On basis of ‘new information’
(ANSA) — Rome, October 16 — The English Football Association on Friday suspended its backing of Michel Platini’s FIFA presidential bid after discovering new information about the payment which led to his suspension from world soccer.
The FA was one of the first federations to publicly endorse Platini’s campaign in July and now becomes the first to distance itself from the UEFA president.
The ethics case centers on two million Swiss francs (about $2 million) Platini received from FIFA in 2011. He says the money was unpaid additional salary from his job as FIFA chief Seppe Blatter’s adviser between 1998 and 2002.
The FA says it received “more information” on the case from Platini’s lawyer at Thursday’s UEFA meeting.
As a result, the FA board decided Friday that “it must suspend its support” of Platini’s candidacy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Part-Time Option for Retirees Reportedly in 2016 Budget
Govt to slash IRES business tax
(ANSA) — Rome, October 15 — The government’s 2016 budget bill reportedly includes a measure allowing people over 63 to work part-time instead of retiring outright, sources said Thursday.
Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan outlined the draft 27-30 billion-euro budget, which also reportedly includes cuts in the IRES business tax as of next year, to President Sergio Mattarella late on Wednesday ahead of a cabinet meeting later today. The part-time option for retirement-age workers and the IRES tax cut would cost 100 million euros at least.
The budget bill comes in four chapters, titled Strong Italy, Simple Italy, Just Italy, and Proud Italy.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: UIL Says Will Strike During Jubilee ‘If Necessary’
‘If there are problems that warrant it’
(ANSA) — Rome, October 15 — Italy’s third-biggest union UIL on Thursday said it would strike “if necessary” during the Roman Catholic Jubilee of Mercy Holy Year from December this year to November next.
“If there are problems serious enough to warrant a strike then we will walk out,” UIL sources said.
Earlier Thursday the national strike authority called for a Jubilee strike truce.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Govt Says Ready to ‘Intervene’ To Combat Overuse of Strikes
Premier says bringing cities to a halt not acceptable
(ANSA) — Rome, October 13 — Premier Matteo Renzi said Tuesday that the government was ready to change the laws regulating industrial action to combat overuse of strikes unless a deal is struck between trade unions and firms. “If there is no agreement between the unions and the companies, we are ready to intervene with a law on (worker) representation,” Renzi told the RTL 102.5 radio station. “The right to strike is indisputable, but a situation in which every Friday one union gets up and says let’s halt the city is not possible,” he said referring to a long string of transport sector strikes that have hit Rome commuters especially hard.
“If there is a minimum percentage for public transport, you don’t bring it to a halt”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Doctors May be Disbarred for Advising Against Vaccines
Disciplinary measures for giving wrong info on vaccine dangers
(ANSA) — Rome, October 16 — Doctors who advise parents not to vaccinate their children may be disbarred, the health ministry said Friday. It said the measure could be included in a forthcoming bill on making vaccination in schools compulsory.
Doctors who spread erroneous information about the dangers of vaccines will face disciplinary measures and could eventually be disbarred, the ministry said. If a death is involved they would of course face criminal action, it said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: FCA Outperforms EU Auto Market
Sales up 15.6% in September
(ANSA) — Rome, October 16 — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) has outperformed the European car market last month, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) said Friday.
FCA sales rose 15.6% in September, with growth of 13.8% in the first nine months of 2015, led by Fiat and the success of the Jeep model. Volkswagen also was in positive territory in spite of an emissions-fixing scandal, with sales up 8.4% in September. European auto sales added 9.8% in September over the same period last year, in a continuing growth trend that has seen sales up 8.8% in the first nine months of 2015. The data covers the EU-28 countries as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Invoice Allegations Totally Fabricated Says Renzi
Florence Audit Court probing Renzi’s spending as mayor
(ANSA) — Rome, October 16 — Premier Matteo Renzi said Friday allegations he may have misspent public funds while he was mayor of Florence are “totally fabricated”. “What surprises me is I am called on to answer over and over to totally fabricated allegations,” Renzi told Sole 24 Ore financial paper’s Radio 24. “The facts are there, and facts are stubborn,” he added. The Florence Audit Court earlier this week opened a probe into Renzi’s spending on meals while he was mayor of the Tuscan capital, which he ran from 2009-2014.
The Court said it had an obligation to investigate after Il Fatto Quotidiano daily ran an interview with a Florence restaurant owner who said “Renzi was always here, and I invoiced City Hall”.
Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) recently pressured Rome PD Mayor Ignazio Marino to step down after the opposition alleged he spent public money on private restaurant meals.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Brussels Not a Teacher Giving Exams Says Renzi
C’an advise but not tell us which tax to cut’
(ANSA) — Rome, October 16 — Premier Matteo Renzi told Sole 24 Ore financial paper’s Radio 24 in an interview Friday that “Brussels is not a teacher giving exams, it’s not qualified to intervene”. The premier spoke on the day after cabinet approved his government’s 27-30-billion-euro budget. “Italy has been psychologically subordinated to eurocrats,” he said. The EU “can advise us, but it can’t tell us which tax to cut. Italy gives Europe a lot of money, as far as respecting the parameters I would also urge taking a look at other countries’ deficit data”.
He was later contradicted by European Commission sources in Brussels, who said the EU has a legal basis to intervene in the economic choices of single governments. “We have a legal basis, all the States have signed…the Stability and Growth Pact,” said spokespeople for European Commissioner for the Euro Valdis Dombrovskis and European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Berlusconi Says Renzi Has ‘Authoritarian Impulses’
Likens his own trials to those of Jesus
(ANSA) — Rome, October 16 — Former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi sounded off Friday on a broad range of current events, from the government’s budget bill to his own allegedly ‘political’ trials, and said current Premier Matteo Renzi has “authoritarian impulses,” while speaking at a regional conference of local administrators.
“Renzi has shown authoritarian impulses, and we can’t let this happen in our country,” he said.
Berlusconi, who leads the country’s Forza Italia (FI) party, ran down the list of voter approval levels for Democratic Party leader Renzi and Northern League leader Matteo Salvini, who he said stand at 30.5% and 26.7%, respectively.
“I’m at 25%, and it’s a miracle because they’re on TV six hours a week. I’m (on TV) six hours a year, but if I come back to TV they assure me that in a few months we can get Forza Italia back to up to 25% from the 12% it’s at now,” Berlusconi said.
Most opinion polls have FI at below 10%.
Speaking about the cabinet’s approval of the budget bill Thursday, Berlusconi used a play on words when he said, “Renato Brunetta says it well: it’s not a game-changer but a game-cheater, just like it was with the 80 euros,”. Berlusconi was referring to the famous 80-euro-a-month tax bonus Renzi introduced last year for low earners which Renzi announced Sunday will no longer feature in people’s pay packets, but will instead be transformed into an extra form of tax deduction.
Berlusconi suggested that rather than an exit from the euro, a national currency could be used alongside the currency now used by 18 European nations.
“I remember, after World War II, that in Italy there was a second currency that stayed alongside the lira from 1943 to 1953. I’m not saying to leave the euro, but I haven’t found any rule in the EU treaties that forbids the adoption of a national currency, and we already have a name: it’s called lira, the market gives it an exchange rate with the euro, why not give it a try?” Calling Salvini of Northern League an “important ally”, Berlusconi said, “The League is at 16%, it has to stay with us”.
Berlusconi also spent time lamenting his “politicized sentences” and compared his “political trials” to those of Socrates, Jesus, and Stalin.
“Some people tell me I shouldn’t say it, but even Jesus had a political trial,” Berlusconi said.
“When I’m not as young as I am now, I’ll write a book, and I invite you to have your children read it,” the 79-year-old said.
“With politicized sentences they took out the leader of the centre-right, the head of the opposition. Like they say, ‘when the cat is away, the mice will play,’ and the mice have had such a party that in the last Senate vote there were as many as 49 centre-right senators who gave their vote to a bungled Senate”.
Berlusconi called Tuesday’s arrest of former Lombardy deputy governor Mario Mantovani of Forza Italia “inconceivable”.
Mantovani stepped down Wednesday after his arrest in a probe into suspected kickbacks.
“We’ve read the accusations and his arrest is inconceivable,” Berlusconi said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Al Azhar Imam to Speak at House
Some criticise, others praise invite
(ANSA) — Rome, October 16 — The grand imam of Cairo’s Al Azhar university, the world’s top Sunni Muslim seat of learning which has been waging a highly vocal campaign against Islamic State (ISIS) militants, has been asked by House Speaker Laura Boldrini to address the Italian lower chamber on October 21.
In charge since 2010, Ahmed El Tayyeb is considered one of the most moderate Sunni theologians in Egypt, and was ill-viewed by the Muslim Brotherhood when it was in power.
El Tayyeb supported the military who deposed Islamist former president Mohamed Morsi.
Ahead of his speech, Tayyeb said Friday he would give a wide-ranging survey of Islam and reiterated an appeal for “the unity of Arabs and Muslims to face the Zionist threat”.
Some opposition politicians have condemned Boldrini’s invitation.
Senator Maurizio Gasparri of the centre-right Forza Italia party said he was offended by an invite to someone he claimed was “a sort of pope of Sunni Islam who would like to give lessons on terrorism and Islamophobia”.
According to Gasparri, “defining the invitation as irresponsible is the least one can say.” The head of Rome mosque’s interreligious dialogue centre, Imam Yahya Pallavicini, disagreed with Gasparri.
“The dean of Al Azhar university is one of the most qualified, well prepared and experienced figures in Islam and I believe it will be very important to listen to what he has to say in the Chamber of Deputies,” he said.
“Speaker Boldrini’s move is interesting,” Pallavicini said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mass Murderer Breivik Sues Norwegian State Over Prison Conditions
Mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik will take the Norwegian state to court in March over his prison conditions, which he likens to “torture”, Norwegian legal sources said Friday.
Breivik, who killed 77 people in a bombing and shooting rampage in July 2011 because he was opposed to Norway’s multiculturalism, has complained repeatedly about being held in isolation.
“We believe that his rights are being violated. He is isolated from the other inmates, from other people, and only has contact with health care workers and guards,” Breivik’s lawyer Oystein Storrvik told AFP.
The case will be heard by the Oslo district court between March 15 and 18, the court said. It was not immediately known whether Breivik will appear before the court…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Moldova Detains Ex-PM Over $1 Billion Corruption Scandal
The former prime minister of Moldova was detained Thursday over a $1-billion “fraud of the century” scandal that sparked mass protests and demands for the resignations of top officials.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Poland Considers Dividing Europe Over Russia-Germany Pipeline
An East-West rivalry over Russian natural gas pipelines could erupt in the European Union as Poland seeks allies against the expanded Russia-Germany energy route.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has ruffled feathers among Eastern European countries, which believe the new pipeline plans threaten to reduce their own financial resources and political clout.
One of the main issues appears to be that countries including Poland and Slovakia want Russia to foot the bill for Ukraine’s post-coup crisis by covering transit fees for the Russia-EU gas pipeline going through the country. The Polish Institute of International Affairs, an influential Warsaw think tank, has suggested that Poland use the European Commission to stop the pipeline.
“Poland’s vocal opposition to the project will be heard only if Warsaw manages to find an appropriate narrative along with sufficient allies and if it works actively and through various channels in the European Union to stop it,” the report said.
The European Commission previously said that it would look into the deal, although not all EU politicians believe it to be the case. Lithuanian European Parliament Member Zigmantas Balcytis said that it was an empty promise made only after eastern European MEPs called the pipeline a betrayal of EU interests.
After a meeting of Andrzej Duda and his Slovakian counterpart Andrej Kiska earlier in October, the politicians expressed their opposition to the Nord Stream-2 pipeline expansion project. Duda proposed raising this issue with the Visegrad countries, which include the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
“They’re making fools of us. It isn’t possible to talk on a political level about the need to stabilize Ukraine and at the same time adopt a decision that places Ukraine and also Slovakia in an unenviable position, as this affects the transit of huge amounts of gas through both Ukraine and Slovakia,” Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said in September.
The capacity of the Nord Stream-2 pipeline could reach up to 55 billion cubic meters of direct annual gas supplies from Russia through the Baltic Sea to European customers. Russia’s envoy to the European Union, Vladimir Chizhov, previously said that the Nord Stream-2 is not a political project, but it is supposed to ensure stable gas supplies to Europe.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Spanish Government Threatens to Suspend Catalonia Autonomous Status
Spanish Justice Minister Rafael Catala said that alongside the constitution, the central Spanish government has several legislative instruments to prevent Catalonia, the autonomous region, from secession, including the use of the Spanish Constitutional Court.
MADRID (Sputnik) — The Spanish government is looking into the possibility of suspending Catalonia’s autonomous status if the region continues it’s popular movement toward independence, Spanish Justice Minister Rafael Catala announced Friday.
According to article 155 of the Spanish constitution, an autonomous community can be forced to submit to the central government if the community’s actions are judged by the central government as being a threat to national interests.
“If the moment comes, we will apply it [article 155],” Catala said in an interview with Onda Cero radio station.
The minister said that, alongside the constitution, the central government has several legislative instruments to prevent the autonomous region from secession, including the use of the Spanish Constitutional Court.
Catalonia is an autonomous community with wide-ranging independent powers over local culture, transport, commerce and governance. The region has long accused Madrid of stifling the region’s culture and economy.
In November 2014, over 80 percent of Catalans participating in an unofficial secession vote supported the move. More than two million out of an estimated 5.4 million eligible voters took part in the non-binding ballot. Catalan President Artur Mas was accused by the central government of Spain of civil disobedience and abuse of power following his organization of the vote.
In September, the pro-independence Catalan Junts pel Si (Together for Yes) coalition and their allies from the radical left-wing Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP) party secured 72 seats in the 135-member regional parliament.
According to Catalan leaders, election result give the parties a clear mandate to form an independent state of Catalonia.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Strauss-Kahn ‘Probed for Fraud’
French media say
(ANSA) — Rome, October 16 — French prosecutors have opened a preliminary fraud inquiry targeting former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, French media say.
The case centres on an investment firm, LSK, which Strauss-Kahn chaired until it went bankrupt a year ago.
The investigation was launched in July after a shareholder filed a complaint, the media reports say.
Strauss-Kahn resigned as IMF chief in 2011 after being accused of attempted rape in the US.
Those charges were later dropped, but another scandal followed in France. It ended in June when he was acquitted of procuring prostitutes for sex parties.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Stockholm is Fastest Growing City in Europe
Sweden’s capital is swelling more rapidly than any other city in Europe, with its population expected to expand by 11 percent by 2020.
Neighbouring Nordic capital Copenhagen came second, with a predicted rise of 10.3 percent.
Meanwhile Oslo, which topped the same table last year came third, with an expected population increase of 7.9 percent.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Syrians in Gothenburg Scared by ISIS Graffiti
A Christian Syrian teenager has told The Local how he fears he is “going to die” after threats containing Isis symbols were painted on his family’s takeaway shop, amid growing safety concerns among the Assyrian community in west Sweden.
Jacob Asmar and his family discovered the message “convert or die” scrawled on the walls of their pizzeria in red paint earlier this week.
“I think it’s horrible because we get thoughts that we don’t want to get now […] like we are going to die because this terrorist group is coming to Gothenburg,” the 16-year-old told The Local on Friday.
“We Assyrians are worried — especially my family because we own the restaurant — about how there could be big trouble.”
The pizzeria is one of a number of businesses in the Tynnered area of the city that have been targeted by graffiti appearing to support the radical Islamist group Isis (also known as IS) in recent weeks.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Christians Ordered to Convert or Die by ISIS Jihadis as They Declare a European Caliphate
The Assyrian community in Gothenburg, Sweden are being tormented by the threats and police have now launched a probe.
Markus Samuelsson was shocked after radicals covered his restaurant in the city with graffiti this week.
They daubed the terror group’s logo alongside the disturbing phrases “convert and die” and “the caliphate is here” over the walls on Tuesday.
The Arabic letter for ‘N’ — which has been used to identify Christians and drive them out of their homes by ISIS fighters — was also painted on the restaurant.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
TTIP Talks Dominated by ‘Corporate Lobbyists That Swarm Around Brussels’
European Union Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström has admitted “I do not take my mandate from the European people” over the secretive talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade deal, Sputnik has been told.
There has been huge criticism of the TTIP trade deal between the European Union and the US. Critics, however, say the deal set to be the biggest in the world will hand huge powers to multinational companies and will lead to looser regulation and potentially, allow big business to take legal action against governments that outlaw certain products or services.
According to John Hilary, Executive Director at War on Want, the person leading the talks, Cecilia Malmström, is being heavily influenced by corporate lobbyists. Hilary told Sputnik:
“I challenged Malmström over the huge opposition to TTIP across Europe. In the last year, a record three and a quarter million European citizens have signed the petition against it.”
“Thousands of meetings and protests have been held across all 28 EU member states, including a spectacular 250,000-strong demonstration in Berlin this weekend.
“When put to her, Malmström acknowledged that a trade deal has never inspired such passionate and widespread opposition. Yet when I asked the trade commissioner how she could continue her persistent promotion of the deal in the face of such massive public opposition, her response came back icy cold: ‘I do not take my mandate from the European people.’ “
He said Malmström receives her orders “directly from the corporate lobbyists that swarm around Brussels.
“The European Commission makes no secret of the fact that it takes its steer from industry lobbies such as BusinessEurope and the European Services Forum, much as a secretary takes down dictation.”
“It’s no wonder that the TTIP negotiations are set to serve corporate interests rather than public needs.”
Trojan Horse for Big Business
The EU and the US already trade goods and services worth US$2.3 billion (€2bn) every day, but the TTIP would create further growth and new opportunities by eliminating red tape and tariffs wherever possible to reduce costs and open up new markets.
However, critics say the TTIP will pave the way for huge multinationals to have more controlling powers than governments. Central to the talks is the issue of investor-state dispute settlement, or a version of it, that gives shareholders the power to sue governments if regulatory issues cause financial harm to a company.
According to the Gala Foundation, the TTIP’s regulatory harmonizations will ignite a “race to the bottom” of environmental regulations in the EU, so that they come to resemble the USA’s far weaker regulatory system.
Many analysts agree that TTIP is a Trojan horse for big food corporations aiming to avoid food safety regulations and undermine sustainable agricultural practices in their rush for profits and trade.
“TTIP offers a glimpse of the nightmare that the European Commission has in store for each one of us.”
“Cecilia Malmström has shown the contempt with which she and her fellow commissioners view the European people. We have been warned,” said Hilary.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK Steel Union Calls for ‘Urgent’ Action to Save Jobs
Unions have called on the government to take “urgent” action to save jobs in the British steel industry ahead of a crisis summit on Friday called following the closure of a major plant in northeast England.
The meeting follows last month’s announcement by Thai steelmaker Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) that it would cut 1,700 jobs and suspend production at its Redcar plant on Teesside.
SSI blamed the decision on plunging steel prices on world markets…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Woman on London Bus Launches Racist Rant at Muslim Women Calling Them ISIS B****es’
A racist woman taunted Muslim passengers on a London bus calling them ‘Isis b****es’.
In what appears to have started because two of the Muslim women were speaking their own language, the foul-mouthed woman, who had a child in a pram with her, goes on an ignorant rant in front of the whole bus.
Around five minutes of the incident was caught on camera and uploaded to Facebook by Mico Abrigo.
The black woman, who appears to be extremely annoyed by the Muslims on the 206 bus, shouts: ‘Talk your f***ing language. Keep laughing. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. With your bombs hiding underneath your clothes.
‘I don’t f***ing like you people because you’re f***ing rude. You come to England and you have no f***ing manners. Go back to your f***ing country where they are bombing every day, don’t come here where we are free.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Warsaw Acts Over Claim ‘Poles Killed More Jews Than Germans’
Polish prosecutors on Thursday opened a libel probe against a US historian after he claimed Poles killed more Jews than Germans during World War II.
Last month, German newspaper Die Welt ran an article by the Polish-born Princeton University professor Jan T. Gross in which he sought to explain Poland’s wariness of accepting Syrian migrants streaming into Europe by referring to anti-Semitism during the war.
“The Poles, for example, were indeed rightfully proud of their society’s resistance against the Nazis, but in fact did kill more Jews than Germans during the war,” wrote the 68-year-old Jewish historian…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Leon: Mission Impossible Without Italy
Gentiloni, no role to those against accord. Ban, support UN
ROME — There is “no alternative” to an agreement on a government of national unity in Libya, a proposal reached with great effort that would have been an “impossible mission” without Italy, which will have a leading role in the challenge of the immigration emergency, human trafficking and ISIS threat. The UN special envoy, Bernardino Leon, said he is “cautiously optimistic” on the possibility of the agreement’s success in an exclusive interview with ANSA shortly after outlining the latest progress at a press conference with Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni at Rome’s Palazzo Chigi. The accord on the government is “the only reasonable option possible”, the “situation is better than last year, the climate is positive, we must work to keep this trend over the coming days”, explained Ban Ki-moon’s envoy.
The proposal with the names of those to be part of the new government, including Fayez Sarraj as premier, “is widely accepted by various Libyan factions”. Such a result last year, “when the conflict was open”, would have been unimaginable.
“There is a minority that doesn’t accept some personalities — continued Leon in the interview with ANSA — but we are working to include them as well in the agreement”. The support of Misrata’s militia, “representing 70-80% of the coalition Fajr Libya” grouping factions of Islamic inspiration in western Libya who are de facto in power in Tripoli, “is truly an important support for the government and the agreement, I have appreciated very much this position”. The fighters from Misrata, on the front line of the uprising that lead to the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, said they are ready to guarantee the security of the new executive in the Libyan capital. And Zintan rivals have announced their support for Leon’s proposal. The congress in Tripoli (Gnc) and Parliament of Tobruk (Hor) have instead postponed a decision to the beginning of next week, when a deadline set by Leon on October 20 expires.
“I don’t believe there is a majority of representatives in the Gnc or Hor opposing the accord. I think there are concerns: I want to assure that the international community is aware of this and that we will try to solve a few issues”. In particular, explained Leon, the one concerning Benghazi’s weight in the new government. But the agreement, he concluded, “cannot be re-opened, it is not negotiable”.
And in the long term, the UN envoy stressed, Italy “will need to have a leading role” in the international community to confront challenges like the migrant crisis and threats coming from negative forces in Libya (like ISIS).
At a press conference in Palazzo Chigi, Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni stressed that Leon has done an “extraordinary job” and added that the agreement on the government “cannot be touched” — those who don’t accept this accord “must know that they will have no legitimacy and no role” in the stabilization of Libya.
“We are working to reach not just a majority but the widest consensus possible” on the accord, added the minister. He stressed that the Italian foreign minister hosted meetings of “15 countries, as well as the 3+5 for the first time in this format also seven countries from the region”, including Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Qatar and “we stressed that the agreement is not renegotiable”.
These issues were also confronted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in his address at the Lower House for the ceremony marking the 60 years of Italy’s adhesion to the United Nations in which he asked Libyan leaders to support efforts to implement the ambitions of the 2011 revolution.
The UN secretary general also praised Italy and said that if a UN peace mission in Libya will be approved, the decision on who will lead it will be taken by the Security Council. “I can only say that Italy had a very positive role”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
More Lockerbie Suspects Traced to Libya
Libya’s Tripoli-based government has named two new Lockerbie airliner bombing suspects sought by Scottish prosecutors. Their prospects of trial remain doubtful, however, given Libya’s political instability.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Top Olive Oil Exporter Worldwide
Boom in oil exports, 299,000 tons in nine months
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, OCTOBER 12 — Tunisian olive oil exports have reached a record 299,300 tons for a value of over 900 million euros, according to the latest data published by Tunisia’s industry minister concerning the month of September.
According to the data on the 2014-15 season, Tunisia has become the world’s top exporter of olive oil ahead of Spain. All magazines in the sector published in the North African country confirmed the data, reporting a six-fold increase in exports value from the 2013-14 season at some 46,400 tons. The average selling price of olive oil, according to the Tunisian industry ministry, has increased 8.3% from the same period during the previous season. Olive oil represents the top Tunisian agricultural product to be exported (60%) and has fundamental importance for the country, indirectly employing about one million workers.
Recently, a European Commission proposal to widen Tunisian olive oil import quotas from previous annual quotas set until December 31, 2017, were opposed by Italian producers. The EU decision to allow the export of an extra 35,000 tons of olive oil annually from Tunisia to the Union “was not taken in a bureaucratic manner but takes into account the current situation of the market”, explained Daniel Rosario, spokesman for EU agricultural commissioner, Phil Hogan. He noted that the measure was taken by the 28 member states as a concrete sign of solidarity towards a country seriously affected by recent terror attacks.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Growing Fears of a Third Intifada
Israeli forces say they have shot dead a Palestinian who stabbed an Israeli soldier in the West Bank. The killing follows two weeks of violence that has left at least 7 Israelis and 33 Palestinians dead. Radical Palestinians are calling for war.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Joseph’s Tomb Attack Reminds of Radical Islam
(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, OCTOBER 16 — The attack by young Palestinians on the Tomb of Joseph reminds of “actions carried out by the most extremist Islamic factions, from Afghanistan to Libya”, said the director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, Dore Gold, condemning an attack “carried out only because it is a place where Jews pray”.
According to Gold, the fact shows “what would happen if holy sites in Jerusalem were in the hands of the Palestinian leadership”. “Only Israel can protect” everybody’s holy places in Jerusalem.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kerry, Israeli Arabs and the Separation Delusion
by Caroline Glick
Israel’s political leaders have rightly expressed anger at the US State Department’s hostile characterizations of the Palestinian terrorist onslaught. Secretary of State John Kerry’s claims, parroted by his spokesmen, that Israel is either entirely to blame for Palestinian terrorism or shares the blame equally with the Palestinians, are baseless lies.
Kerry and his spokesmen have alleged that the current Palestinian convulsion of murderous violence is a product of “a massive increase in settlements.” Yet as Haaretz reported this week, Israel has built fewer homes for Jews in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria since 2009, when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (and President Barack Obama) entered office, than it had since 1995. The steep increase in the Jewish population in the areas is almost entirely the result of Jewish women having babies.
The other accusations the State Department has leveled against Israel — that it incites violence and engages in terrorism — are so obscene that there is no point in trying to set the record straight. Quite simply, an administration comfortable with libeling Israel in this way doesn’t want to know the truth.
While at this point it is abundantly clear that Kerry like the administration he serves has an unpleasant, irrational obsession with the Jewish state, it’s hard to shake the conclusion that there is more going on here than simply opposition to Israel.
For instance his claim this week that “Unless we get going, a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody,” is more an assault on reality generally than on Israel in particular.
Kerry, like the Obama administration as a whole, is angry at reality because at least as far as Israel and its Palestinian neighbors are concerned, reality shares no common ground with the administration’s assumption of Israeli guilt…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
Palestinians Torch Burial Site of Biblical Hero Joseph
TEL AVIV — Hundreds of Palestinian youth set fire on Friday to the Joseph’ s Tomb complex, causing severe damage to the revered burial place.
Joseph’s Tomb, considered Judaism’ s third holiest site, is the presumed burial place of the son of biblical Jacob, who was sold by his brothers into slavery and later became viceroy of Egypt.
Hundreds of young Palestinians surrounded the site and threw Molotov cocktails and other flammable objects at the tomb complex.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Al-Qaeda in Syria Leader: Kill Alawite Minority, Russians; Christians Fear West Backs Him
Christians were better off under the Baath than they would be under al-Julani.
““They don’t accept anyone who is different,” Archbishop Jeanbart added. “Anyone who is not a fundamentalist Muslim has no rights — no right to live, no right to be in society, no right to be a citizen . . . [they] have destroyed everything — our economy, our industry, our churches, everything. . . The most important thing we are suffering from is that they are destroying man. They are taking away our right to choose what we want to be.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Erdogan Leads Turkey to the Precipice
by Daniel Pipes
[N.B.: The Australian’s title is “Would-be dictator Erdogan leading Turkey to the precipice” and its version uses Australian spelling]
The Republic of Turkey is undergoing possibly its greatest crisis since the founding of the state nearly a century ago. Present trends suggest worse to come as a long-time Western ally evolves into a hostile dictatorship.
The crisis results primarily from the ambitions of one very capable and sinister individual, Turkey’s 61-year old president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. A career politician who previously served four years as the mayor of Turkey’s megacity, Istanbul, and then eleven years as the country’s prime minister, he forwards two goals hitherto unknown in the republic: dictatorship and full application of the Shari’a, Islam’s law code.
During his first eight years of power, 2003-11, Erdogan ruled with such finesse that one could only suspect these two aspirations; proof remained elusive. This author, for example, wrote an article in 2005 that weighed the contradictory evidence for and against Erdogan being an Islamist. A combination of playing by the rules, caution in the Islamic arena, and economic success won Erdogan’s party, Justice and Development (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, or AKP), increasing percentages of the vote in parliamentary elections, going from 34 percent in 2002, to 46 percent in 2007, to 50 percent in 2011.
That 2011 election victory, his third in succession, gave Erdogan the confidence finally to remove the armed forces from politics, where they had long served as Turkey’s ultimate power broker. Ironically, this change ended the increasing democratization of prior decades for his fully taking charge allowed Erdogan to develop an oversized ego, to bare his fangs, flex his despotic muscles, and openly seek his twin objectives of tyranny and Shari’a.
Indeed, Erdogan made his power felt in every domain after 2011. Banks provided loans to the businessmen who kicked back funds to the AKP. Hostile media found themselves subject to vast fines or physical assault. Ordinary citizens who criticized the leader found themselves facing lawsuits, fines, and jail. Politicians in competing parties faced dirty tricks. Like a latter-day sultan, Erdogan openly flouted the law and intervened at will when and where he wished, inserting himself into legal proceedings, meddling in local decisions, and interfering with police investigations. For example, he responded to compelling raw evidence of his own and his family’s corruption by simply closing down the inquiry.
The Islamic order also took shape. School instruction became more Islamic even as Islamic schools proliferated, with the number of students in the latter jumping from 60,000 to 1,600,000, a 27-fold increase. Erdogan instructed women to stay home and breed, demanding three children apiece from them. Burqas proliferated and hijabs became legal headgear in government buildings. Alcohol became harder to find and higher priced. More broadly, Erdogan harked back to the piety of the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922), eroded the secular republic founded in 1923 by Kemal Atatürk, and positioned himself as the anti-Atatürk.
Erdogan also faced some serious problems after 2011. The China-like economic growth slowed down and debt spiraled upwards. A disastrously inept Syria policy contributed to the rise of the Islamic State, the emergence of a hostile Kurdish autonomous area, and millions of unwelcome refugees flooding into Turkey. Foreign relations soured with nearly the entire neighborhood: Tehran, Baghdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, Athens, the (Greek) Republic of Cyprus, and even (Turkish) northern Cyprus. Ties also went south with Washington, Moscow, and Beijing. Good relations were limited to Doha, Kuala Lumpur, and — until recently, as shown by the many indications of Turkish state support for the Islamic State — Raqqa.
Erdogan has pugnaciously responded to this predicament by stating, “I do not mind isolation in the world” and even to suggest that other leaders were “jealous” of him. But he fools no one. The old AKP slogan of “Zero problems with neighbors” has dangerously turned into “Only problems with neighbors.”
If Erdogan’s base loves his strongman qualities and stands by him, his aggressive actions and policy failures cost him support, as major blocs of voters rejected him, especially Kurds (an ethnic minority), Alevis (a religious community spun off from Islam), and seculars. The AKP’s vote dropped accordingly from 50 percent in 2011 to 41 percent in the June 2015 elections, a reduction that meant its losing a long-standing majority in parliament and the numbers to govern on its own.
The poor showing in June 2015 blocked Erdogan from legitimately gaining his dream powers as executive president. But being the politician who stated long ago, when mayor of Istanbul, that democracy is like a trolley, “You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off,” he predictably did not let something as petty as election results get in his way. Instead, he immediately began scheming to get around them.
He opted for a pair of tactics: First, he rejected power sharing with other parties and called another election for Nov. 1; in effect, he offered Turks another chance to vote as he wanted them to. Second, after years of negotiating with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistane, or PKK), Turkey’s leading Kurdish violent insurgent group, he renewed war on it. In doing so, he hoped to win over supporters of the anti-Kurd ethnic Turkish nationalist party, Nationalist Action (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, or MHP).
These tactics appear to be futile; polls show the AKP losing as many Kurds as it gains Turkish nationalists, and so likely to fare in November about the same as it did in June. But the tactics are highly consequential, tearing apart the body politic, creating tensions and prompting violence. The current round began in July with the bombing of peace marchers leaving 33 dead, followed by PKK retaliation against representatives of the state, a Kurdish town placed under siege, and twin bombings in the capital Ankara (widely considered ultimately attributable to Erdogan) which killed 105 peaceful protestors. And yet two weeks remain before voting day …
In other words, Erdogan’s obsession to win a parliamentary majority is doing fundamental damage to the country, damage that takes it to the precipice of civil war.
What makes the situation slightly absurd is that, whatever the results of the Nov. 1 election, Erdogan will doggedly continue his campaign to become dictator. If he cannot do so legitimately, he will do so illegitimately. Repeating what I wrote just before the June election, “how many seats the AKP wins hardly matters. Erdogan will barrel, bulldoze, and steamroll his way ahead, ignoring traditional and legal niceties with or without changes to the constitution. Sure, having fully legitimate powers would add a pretty bauble to his résumé, but he’s already the tyrant and Turkey’s course is set.”
Assuming the AKP does not win the votes necessary to make Erdogan a legal strongman, how might he manage this illegally? The past year, since he became president, offers a hint: Erdogan has bleached the once-powerful prime minister’s office of its authority. In all likelihood, he will extend this process to the rest of the Turkish government by setting up an alternative bureaucracy in his huge, new presidential palace, with operatives there controlling the ministries of state. An apparently unchanged formalistic structure will take orders from the palace autocrats.
Likewise, the parliament will remain untouched in appearance but voided of true decision making. Civil society will also find itself under palatial control as, exploiting his financial and legal levers, Erdogan shuts down publicly dissenting voices in the judiciary, the media, the academy, and the arts. In all likelihood, private dissent will next be proscribed, leaving Padishah Recep I master of all he surveys.
What will he do with this authority? In part, he will exult in it, in the unbridled range of his ego and his writ. Beyond that, he will use this might to advance his Islamist agenda by harking back to the Ottoman imperial legacy, further undoing the Atatürk revolution, and imposing Sunni Islamic laws and customs. Just as autocracy came to Turkey in tranches, so will Shari’a be implemented piecemeal over time. The processes already underway — Islamic content in schools, women urged to stay home, alcohol disappearing — will continue and accelerate.
Assuming that Erdogan’s mystery diseases stay under control, this Islamist idyll contains just one flaw: foreign relations, the most likely cause of its demise. Unlike a fellow dictator like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, who had the good fortune to rule in the placid confines of South America, Erdogan is surrounded by the world’s most crisis-ridden region. His domestic success increases the chances of an ego-driven blunder that diminishes or ends his rule. Tense relations with Iran and Russia over the fighting in Syria offer one temptation, as the seemingly purposeful Russian penetrations of Turkish airspace highlight; or with Israel over Jerusalem or Gaza; or with Cyprus over the newly discovered gas fields.
(With this prospect presumably in mind, Erdogan’s son Bilal recently relocated to Bologna, Italy, supposedly to work on a Ph.D. thesis; a whistleblower plausibly claims Bilal from there will manage the family’s vast fortune.)
When the Erdogan era expires, the country will be much more divided than when it began in March 2003 between Turk and Kurd, Sunni and Alevi, pious and secular Sunnis, and rich and poor. It will contain millions of difficult to assimilate Syrian refugees and Kurdish areas declared independent of the state. It will be isolated internationally. It will contain a hollowed-out government structure. It will have lost the tradition of legal impartiality.
Erdogan’s larger accomplishment will have been to reverse Atatürk’s Westernizing policies. Whereas Atatürk and several generations of leaders wanted Turkey to be in Europe, Erdogan brought it thunderingly back to the Middle East and to the tyranny, corruption, female subjugation, and other hallmarks of a region in crisis. As Turks struggle over the years to undo this damage, they will have ample opportunity to ponder the many evils bequeathed them by Erdogan.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. (c) 2015 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete and accurate information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Iraqi Forces Add Russian Guns to US Tanks for ISIL Fight
TEL AVIV, Israel — Earlier this month, Shia militiamen in Iraq dropped off an American-supplied Abrams tank at a US-supported repair facility where workers were surprised to find an attached Russian machine gun plus Iranian ammo, Defense News has learned.
The MIA1 main battle tank — one of 146 frontline tanks the US sold to Baghdad — was transported through the Green Zone to a US-supported Iraqi service facility at al-Muthanna that was established as part of the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
IS Failed Attempt to Kill Jordanian Pilot
Two Syrians in custody
(ANSAmed) — AMMAN, OCTOBER 13 — Jordanian security forces has allegedly foiled an attempt by the Islamic State (IS) to assassinate a military pilot in the national air force who is taking part in attacks on the group in Syria and Iraq, local press said today.
Two Syrian nationals are standing trial for the botched attempt which took place in the northern city of Irbid, town of Hawara in June this year, said al Rai newspaper.
The men had rented a house near the pilot residence and observed his movement ahead of carrying out their plan, which was uncovered by security before it took place, said the newspaper quoting official sources.
The pro-government paper said that a third suspect, known as al Homsi, remains at large while the two suspects are awaiting trial at the military-run state security court.
Name of the targeted pilot was mentioned during a video for the killing of Jordanian pilot Moath al Kassasbeh, who was burnt alive by IS earlier this year after he was captured during a mission over city of Raqa.
The government in Amman has intensified security procedures this year after announcing it was taking part in attacks on IS in Syria and Iraq, while it is also hosting international troops participating in the US-lead attacks.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Is Germany Showing Too Much Deference Toward Turkey Over Armenia?
Was the massacre of Armenians 100 years ago genocide? The German parliament is hesitant to say it was. Is this because they don’t want to anger Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan?
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS in “Retreat” As Russia Destroys 32 Targets While Putin Trolls Obama as “Weak With No Strategy”
Perhaps the most amusing thing about Russia’s intervention in Syria is the degree to which it made the world wake up and question the West’s “anti-ISIS” strategy
While everyone has been quick to characterize Moscow’s actions as the latest and perhaps greatest example of Vladimir Putin calling Washington’s bluff, it’s important to understand exactly why that’s an accurate characterization here. That is, this is more than just Moscow betting it could support Assad and Washington would simply move out of the way.
This was Russia and Iran realizing that the only reason the US and its regional allies have been able to keep up appearances in the eyes of the public with regard to the “campaign” against ISIS, is because the public has never seen what happens when someone powerful makes a serious effort to eradicate the group. Once Russia moved in, gave the superpower greenlight for Iran to abandon all pretense that it isn’t also directly involved, and began racking up gains in a matter of days, the Western public was left to wonder why the US couldn’t accomplish in 13 months what Russia appeared to have accomplished in a matter of (literally) 72 hours.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Russia, Iran Begin “Promised” Assault on Syria’s Largest City in Final Bid to Restore Assad
Earlier this week, we noted that Iran had reportedly sent “thousands” of troops to Syria in preparation for an offensive aimed at retaking the city of Aleppo.
With a population of more than 2 million, Aleppo was Syria’s largest city prior to the war and it’s now run by a hodgepodge of rebels and militants including al-Qaeda, the Free Syrian Army, and ISIS.
To get an idea of the effect the war has had on the city, have a look at the following before and after nighttime light emissions images:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Syria: Madrid and Vienna Break Taboo, Dialogue With Assad
ISIS and migration impose strategy change
(by Francesco Cerri) (ANSAmed) — MADRID, SEPTEMBER 9 — After four years of war, 250,000 deaths, infinite murders, rapes, torture and other atrocities by the men of ‘caliph’ al Baghdadi, with tens of thousands of refugees arriving in Europe, is it time to change strategy and talk with Bashar al Assad? Many analysts think so, the idea is handled with caution by several foreign ministries and the government of Madrid and Vienna are now openly supporting such an option.
In Tehran, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Garcia Margallo clearly stated that “the time has come to start negotiations with the regime of Bashar al Assad”. His Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz echoed his words from Dubai: “we need a pragmatic approach including an involvement of Assad in the fight against ISIS terror”. He added that Russia and Iran, the two powers backing Assad, must also be involved.
Madrid and Vienna are breaking the taboo of the Syrian president’s demonization with whom the West, pushed by the ‘Sunni axis’ Turkey, Saudi Arabia-Qatar — has broken bridges for the past four years.
In the wake of the ‘Arab springs’ Assad — promised his former friend Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was at the time a prime minister and now serves as Turkey’s Islamic president — would have quickly fallen, toppled by ‘democratic’ Sunni rebels presented as heirs of those demonstrating for freedom.
The project sponsored by Ankara, Doha and Riyadh was to replace him with an Islamic Sunni government of the Muslim Brotherhood. But things went differently. The authoritarian regime of the Alawite Assad did not fall, actually maintaining support in particular among minorities (Shiites, Alawites, Christians and Yazidis). And ‘democratic’ rebels entered the ranks mostly of jihadist groups, notably ISIS and Al Nusra-Al Qaida.
The expansion of the ‘caliphate’, with its atrocities, has become an existential threat not just for Syria and Iraq, but for the entire Middle East, from Turkey to Yemen, for North Africa, from Libya to Mali, and now for Europe.
The risk of attacks is high, without mentioning the destabilizing effects of the biblical exodus of tens of thousands of desperate people. “They are not fleeing Assad’s regime but the atrocities of ISIS”, noted Vladimir Putin.
For Washington, which has been bombing jihadists in Iraq and Syria for a year, the enemy isn’t Assad anymore but Al Baghdadi.
Long accused of helping the jihadists, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, now threatened by ISIS, have adhered to the Coalition.
And the refugee crisis is leading Paris and London to plan anti-ISIS raids on Syria which they had ruled out so far so as not to help the regime.
“The question of Assad’s departure will be posed sooner or later”, said yesterday French President Francois Hollande.
Putin said Assad is ready to make concessions, to open the government to “healthy opposition”, or non-jihadist opponents, and call elections.
“The nuclear agreement with Tehran is radically changing the game”, said Swiss Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter. Iran is once again a key interlocutor, with the leverage of representing a huge market for the West.
But if peace talks appear possible with Damascus, previous attempts have shown they are impossible and unthinkable with ISIS. A military option — and the destruction of the ‘caliphate’ — needs everybody: from the Coalition’s planes to Kurdish and Shiite militias, the only ones so far fighting on the ground against the jihadists with the army of Damascus. “We cannot forget Assad’s crimes nor that we are on the same side in this war”, noted Kurz.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria Army Begins Offensive Near Aleppo With Russian Support
Syrian government forces backed by Russian airpower and allied militias opened a new front against rebel fighters south of second city Aleppo on Friday.
The fresh offensive came as Turkey said it had downed an “air vehicle” of unknown origin that violated its air space close to the Syrian border.
And a monitoring group said that more than 250,000 people have now been killed since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011.
The Aleppo offensive is the fourth that President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has launched since Moscow began an air campaign on September 30…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
US Rebel Training Program ‘Nuts,’ Ex-Pentagon Chief Says
A doomed US plan now on hold to train Syrian rebel fighters outside the country to fight the Islamic State was “nuts,” former defense secretary Robert Gates said.
President Barack Obama’s administration has suspended its $500 million train and equip effort in the latest embarrassment concerning a Syria strategy that has stumbled from one setback to the next.
Pentagon officials say that instead of training rebel units, the US military would dole out weapons to favored commanders already on the ground.
“I think the idea of training somebody from the outside and sending them in is nuts, it’s just not going to work,” Gates said in an interview with the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” aired Thursday…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
CIS Summit: Russia to Bolster Central Asia Military
Leaders of post-Soviet states are gathering in Kazakhstan to attend the summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a regional organisation dominated by Russia. One of the key documents they are expected to sign is a concept of military co-operation until 2020.
Russia has been pushing its military presence across the region and this document will certainly fit this policy.
Interestingly, this document will be reviewed in Central Asia, where Russia has been rapidly increasingly its military capacity lately.
Moscow struck deals with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to extend its bases till 2042 and 2032 respectively. It has announced an increase in troops in Tajikistan, its largest foreign base, from 5,900 to 9,000 soldiers by 2020.
Russia is planning to renew the fleet of its airbase at Kant, Kyrgyzstan by 2016.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Europe and Russia Mission to Assess Moon Settlement
The European and Russian space agencies are to send a lander to an unexplored area at the Moon’s south pole.
It will be one of a series of missions that prepares for the return of humans to the surface and a possible permanent settlement.
The spacecraft will assess whether there is water, and raw materials to make fuel and oxygen.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Ukraine Gives Russia 2 Weeks to Agree to Debt Restructuring
New front in the show-down between the countries
(ANSA-AP) — MOSCOW — Ukraine on Thursday gave Russia two weeks to accept to write off part of its loans to the country, as other international creditors have agreed to do, opening a new front in the show-down between the countries.
Relations soured after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula and threw its backing behind separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian leaders have accused Moscow of sending troops and weapons to the east, a claim the Kremlin has vehemently denied.
Ukraine and its international creditors agreed in August to write off 20 percent of Ukraine’s bond holdings, shrinking $19 billion in the country’s sovereign debt to $15.5 billion.
Arseny Yatsenyuk said in a statement Thursday that all Ukrainian bondholders on Wednesday agreed on the restructuring deal at a meeting in London but a Russian representative did not show up.
He said he would give Moscow two weeks, until Oct. 29, to agree to likewise trim a $3 billion loan Russia gave Ukraine in 2013. Yatsenyuk threatened to sue Russia if it does not agree, though it’s unclear what legal basis Ukraine would have.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Decides to Keep Troops in Afghanistan Until Further Notice
Germany’s defense ministry has announced that its service personnel will remain in Afghanistan for the time being. The news followed US plans to keep troops in Afghanistan until at least the end of 2016.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
GM Eggplants Send Bangladesh Farmers Into Poverty as They Fail for Second Year in a Row
(NaturalNews) While many people tout the benefits of GM foods (those who profit at the expense of others’ health, of course), a majority of individuals are not staying quiet about the fact that such biotechnology methods are quickly destroying their livelihood.
Among those who are standing up for their right to plant, sell and enjoy thriving crops are farmers in Bangladesh, who are making their views known about the grave situation in which GM Bt brinjal — the first genetically modified food crop in Bangladesh — is jeopardizing their eggplant production. The plants are either not producing anywhere near the quantity of previous years or are actually dying out within one month of being planted; many farmers have said that upwards of 200 of their 500 saplings died in that short time. This marks the second consecutive year of such failings.(1,2)
“We’ve removed most of the plants after those had died about 15 days ago,” said Lovely Begum, the wife of a farmer in the country. “The officers (BARI officials) told us to do so to prevent the spread of the disease. Despite that the rest of the plants are dying out in numbers every day.”(1)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
India to Acquire Russian Air Defences
Nilova Roy Chaudhury, RIR
The Indian Defence acquisitions council has okayed the purchase of S-400 long range missile systems from Russia, reports in the Indian media said.
On the eve of Indian President Pranab Mukherjee’s first visit to Israel, one of India’s leading weapons suppliers, India is planning to buy the new-generation Russian S-400 ‘Triumf’ air defence missile systems, which can destroy incoming hostile aircraft, stealth fighters, missiles and drones at ranges of up to 400-km, Indian media reports in the ‘Times of India’ and the ‘Economic Times’ said on Sunday.
Sources told the Times of India that the defence acquisitions council (DAC), chaired by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, will “soon” take up the proposal moved by the Indian Air Force (IAF) to purchase around a dozen S-400 long-range systems from Russia.
“The project is at an initial stage at present. But it will be a government-to-government contract when it is finalized, with the S-400 systems being inducted over several years,” said a defence ministry source.
The acquisition could likely be a game-changer, providing strategic parity for the Indian armed forces with inimical forces in the neighbourhood. Sources in the government told RIR the government was “definitely” considering the purchase. It is possible the announcement could happen when the Indian Prime Minister visits Moscow.
The proposal to acquire the S-400 system comes ahead of Parrikar’s forthcoming visit to Russia later this month. The Defence Minister’s visit is part of a series of preparatory visits to finalise the agenda for the summit meeting of President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi scheduled to be held in Moscow in December.
India’s decision to acquire the long-range missile system comes almost a year after China signed a deal with Russia to acquire six S-400 missile system batteries, for US$ three billion. China is likely to begin receiving the S-400 batteries, known as ‘SA-21 Growler’ by NATO from 2017 onwards. The ‘Triumf’ system is said to rival the anti-ballistic missile capabilities of the US Patriot PAC-3 system.
Countries which have territorial disputes with China in the East and South China Seas, from Japan to Vietnam and the Philippines, are all worried at the prospect of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army getting such a force-multiplier to dominate the airspace.
India is clearly also worried about China’s acquisition of such a military capability, even if it is defensive in nature, as it could prove to be a strategic game-changer in the event of any possible conflict.
The S-400 has three kinds of missiles, with different capabilities, that can fly at supersonic and hypersonic speeds to intercept all kinds of targets at ranges from 120 to 400-km. Russian experts even proclaim the S-400 surface-to-air missile (SAM) system can “radar lock and shoot down” stealth fifth-generation fighters like the American F-35 jets.
India, on its part, is trying to plug the gaping holes in its airspace surveillance and defence network with progressive induction of a wide array of sensors and weapons.
With both the IAF, tasked with the country’s air defence, and Army saddled with increasingly obsolete air defence weapons, the ongoing induction of the indigenous 25-km range Akash area defence system has come as a major relief for them.
Induction of the Israeli Spyder low-level quick-reaction missile systems, with a 15-km range, is now planned from 2016-2017 onwards. The project was stuck since the Tatra trucks — on which the missile systems were to be mounted — had got enmeshed in corruption scandals. The contract was recently amended to replace the Tatra trucks with indigenous Tata trucks.
Deliveries of the medium-range SAM systems jointly developed by Israeli Aerospace Industries and DRDO, with an interception range of 70-km, will also begin from 2016-2017, the Economic Times reported.
Along with induction of these weapons, IAF is also now expanding its fully-automated surveillance network called IACCS (integrated air command and control system) to the entire country, with the cabinet committee on security recently approving another Rs 8,000 crore for the project. Eventually, the Army and Navy’s Akash Teer and Triguna air defence networks will be integrated with the IACCS, the Times of India reported.
India is among the world’s largest importers of military hardware, and one of the issues Prime Minister Modi will have on his agenda in Moscow is to seek increased collaboration with Russian and other defence hardware manufacturers to ‘Make in India’ and not only transfer technology.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Indian Mob Kills Man for Smuggling Cattle
A mob killed one Muslim man and injured four others after the men were accused of smuggling cows for the purpose of slaughtering them for meat. The survivors were arrested and charged with animal cruelty.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: Aceh: Thousands of People Flee Religious Violence Following Church Attacks
Some 7,000 people have fled Aceh Singkil Regency. Two days ago a group of Muslims set fire to two churches. At least 2,000 refugees have reached the diocese of Sibolga, to the south. Singkil had not experienced sectarian violence before. In 1979, local Muslims and Christians had worked out a deal.
Jakarta (AsiaNews) — Thousands of people have fled their homes, streaming out of Aceh Singkil Regency, Aceh Province, following sectarian violence two days ago.
Hundreds of Muslims from the Islamic Youth Movement set fire to two Christian churches and launched guerrilla-like attacks against Christians. Two attackers are said to have died with more wounded.
As a result of the violence, hundreds of families picked up and left, some 7,000 people who fled the conflict zone.
Islamic law (Sharia) is applied in Aceh. Aceh Singkil Regency is the province’s southernmost district, on the border with North Sumatra, where refugees have sought to escape.
In a letter to the Love Humanity Devotional Group (Kelompok Bakti Kasih Kemanusiaan or KBKK), a Jakarta-based Catholic humanitarian association, Crosier priest Ipung Purwosuranto said that hundreds of people are seeking refuge in North Sumatra.
“Dozens have arrived asking for asylum in St Michael’s Parish in Tumajae, in the diocese of Sibolga. They are housed temporarily in the rectory and the house of the sisters,” the clergyman said.
According to Fr Dominikus Sibagariang OFM, some 2,000 people have become refugees. “Several Capuchin priests and local nuns helped them by bringing them food. This is a humanitarian mission. The priests’ presence gives people a sense of hope and security.”
The incidents in Singkil stem from Muslim anger over the construction of too many “illegal” churches, i.e. places of worship built without a proper building permit. Before this, the area had not known sectarian incidents.
According to Regency chief Safriadi, Muslim and Christian communities struck a peace deal in 1979, which was renewed in 2001, whereby both sides agreed to coexist peacefully.
The agreement included the right for Christians to build churches, but only one in four could be permanent; the others could only be movable.
“Today the number of movables is greater than agreed,” Safriadi said. “Christians have at least 24, and this sparked the protest of Muslim leaders.”
On 6 October, Muslims protested peacefully for the dismantling of illegal temporary churches. The local Regency chief agreed to their demands. Four days later, it was agreed that ten Christian places of worship would be torn down.
Demolition was set 19 October and would take two weeks. However, tired of waiting, local Muslims took the law into their own hands and set fire to two churches.
Since the government and the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka or GAM) signed a peace agreement, the province of Aceh enforces Islamic law.
However, more radical and extreme versions of Islam are growing in many parts of the country, like Bekasi and Bogor in West Java.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan: Punjab Farmer Murdered for Defending His Fields From “Land Mafia”
Razzaq was the father of six daughters. His father and brother were killed because they were fighting for their land. In 2000 General Musharraf seized 68 thousand acres in the Okara district. Since that time 14 poor farmers have been killed, many others arrested and injured, including Catholic activists. The movement of Punjab landless tenants.
Islamabad (AsiaNews) — A Pakistani farmer of 35 was executed by a firing squad because he claimed the right to ownership of land, confiscated 15 years ago by the army of the former General Pervez Musharraf. The man’s name was Razzaq and he was the father of six daughters.
He was kidnapped while he was sleeping in his home in the village of Nolana (in Okara district, Punjab province), conducted in front of the wall of the girls’ school of the village government and shot dead. The attackers did not stop even in the face of desperate cries of his wife, who begged for mercy for the father of her children.
Badrul Nisa, a farmer who lives in a nearby village, told AsiaNews that Razzaq had received death threats, as well as his father and brother, who were both murdered. His murder took place on October 13 at around 3 am (local time), but only at 10 were the residents of the community able to bring the body of the deceased to the hospital in Okara to perform an autopsy. The authorities at first opposed the return of the body. After animated protests, they released him at around 5 pm.
Violence against small landowners began in 2000, when General Musharraf (then Chief of Staff of the armed forces) asked farmers to abandon their status as independent farmers and become contract workers under the military, who took possession of their land. The tenants rejected this proposal, they refused to share profit with the military farms administration and instead to pay the tenancy cost to the Punjab revenue department.
Since that time, the army confiscated land arbitrarily, giving rise to the so-called “land mafia”, ie a system of criminal collusion between local authorities and wealthy landowners who seize the agricultural areas by force. Since then 14 peasants were killed, several others wounded and arrested, including Catholic activists who defended their rights. In 2000 a movement of landless tenants of Punjab was founded (AMP, Anjuman Muzareen Punjab), which now has 1 million members.
Badrul Nisa is also a victim of the violence in 2005, police attacked her village and has fractured his right shoulder and a knee. He was medicated with 17 stitches in his head. Yesterday she attended a seminar entitled “Farmland, feudalism and food sovereignty”, held in a hotel in Lahore by Pakistan Kisan Rabita (Farmer Communication) Committee and the Alliance for the eradication of poverty in South Asia.
The speakers called for justice for the murdered tenants- like Razzaq — demanding the restitution of lands and farms confiscated by the armed forces. The Pakistan army in fact claim ownership of six farms that stretch for 68 thousand acres in the Okara district and that belonged to local farmers for over 100 years.
The Nepalese Balram Banskota, general secretary of the All Nepal Peasants, present at the seminar, harshly condemned the murder of Razzaq and called for “the end of all false cases against farmers in Okara and the release of those arrested.”
“The sovereignty in food production — he said — must be inserted in the Constitution of Pakistan. We demand the end of the feudal system and that all the farms in the public sector be given in management to farmers. We must fight together to transform the global corporations that exploit the rights of poor farmers. “
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China: Harbinger of a Brave New World
Totalitarianism is a function of technology. Prior to recent times, governments might claim to be absolute, but they did not have the record-keeping, administrative capacity to make good on that claim. Now they can do so far more easily than ever before — without hiring armies of spies. All that they have to do is follow the population on the Internet and use computers to collect and analyze the data. What Google can do, governments can do — and in Xi Jinping’s China that is what they are going to do. As The Weekly Standard reports…
| — Hat tip: RL | [Return to headlines] |
China Says Military Will “Stand Up and Use Force” If US Sends Warships to Islands
Earlier this week, US officials indicated that they are set to go through with a plan to sail warships around China’s man-made islands in the Spratlys.
“It’s just a matter of time when it happens,” one government source told WSJ…
The warship or ships would pass within the 12-mile territorial limit China claims around the structures to demonstrate that US commanders do not recognise it.
Such a move, the Global Times suggested, could be a “breach of China’s bottom line”.
“If the US encroaches on China’s core interests, the Chinese military will stand up and use force to stop it,” the paper warned.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Historic Building Collapses in Hanoi Opening the Door on the Place of the Freemasons in Vietnam
As a result of rains and humidity, the building suddenly caved in on 22 September. Located in central Hanoi, the two-storey villa housed the Tonkin branch of the masonic order. The mishap has exposed the place of freemasonry in Vietnam’s modern history, which includes one illustrious member by the name of Ho Chi Minh City.
Hanoi (AsiaNews/EDA) — The recent collapse of a historic building in central Hanoi has re-opened a hitherto little-known chapter in the history of Vietnam, namely the role played by freemasonry in the country. Emerging in the nineteenth century in the heyday of French colonial rule, the fraternity of free stonemasons included Ho Chi Minh among its members.
In the afternoon of 22 September, the colonial-era building located at 107 Tran Hung Dao St suddenly caved in. Two people were killed and many more were injured.
The local press gave the story broad coverage, raising questions as to why the building caved in. However, what has caught the attention of many intellectuals and history buffs is the role played by the building in the modern history of Vietnam.
Following the establishment of French Indochina in 1887, freemasons came to the Asian country. Once upon a time, the two-storey old French villa was the seat of the Masonic Lodge of the Tonkin.
Rapidly, the lodge (and the villa) grew in influence, so much so that Masons soon held the most important offices and positions of power throughout Indochina.
Based on historical records, 22 out 32 governors-general of Indochina, six out of eight high commissioners, four commissioners general, nine out of 16 military leaders were members of the Masonic fraternity. Many senior French colonial officials had sworn allegiance to the association.
However, this power did not go unchallenged. Catholic missionaries were among the staunchest opponents of Freemasonry in Vietnam, and soon began clashing with local leaders loyal to the lodge.
Such a struggle did not stop the fraternity from growing; especially local educated and wealthy elites soon became keen on belonging to a secret society, beginning with lodges in France.
Such was the case of Nguyen Van Vinh, an intellectual and writer, who translated the main French authors into Vietnamese.
He was the first to join a lodge, taking advantage of a trip to France for the 1908 Universal Exhibition, after meeting resistance from Masonic lodges in Vietnam.
He was soon followed by other Vietnamese, including Emperor Duy Tn, artists and writers such as Tran Trong Kim and Pham Quynh, and even Ho Chi Minh, who at the time (1922) went by the name of Nguyen Ai Quoc.
In 1920s, the Vietnamese lodges opened up to local elites, setting up the ‘Confucius’ lodge in Hanoi and the ‘Kong Phu Tseu’ in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).
According to the police investigation, the building, which collapsed on 22 September, had been restored in the 1990. However, the work was not enough to stabilise it.
Age (110 years), poor maintenance, heavy rains and high humidity dealt the villa a fatal blow, leading to its subsequent collapse.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Burkina Coup Leader Charged With ‘Crime Against Humanity’: Military
Burkina Faso’s military said Friday a general accused of leading an attempted coup last month would be prosecuted on an array of charges, including “crime against humanity”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Acapulco Violence Scaring Off US Spring Breakers
American college students used to visit Acapulco during their holidays by the thousands, but they are now shunning the beach resort as it has become Mexico’s murder capital.
A favorite haunt of Hollywood stars in the 1950s, Acapulco has lost its luster in recent years. Images of dead bodies are making a splash in newspapers more often than the city’s legendary cliff divers.
Between two and six people are murdered every day in Acapulco, according to the Guerrero state prosecutor’s office…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Afghan Refugee Shot Dead by Police While Trying to Enter Bulgaria
An Afghan man was shot trying to cross into Bulgaria from Turkey late on Thursday and died on his way to hospital, the interior ministry has said.
“A big group of illegal migrants attempted to enter Bulgaria from Turkey. One man suffered a gunshot wound in the incident and died on the way to hospital,” an interior ministry spokeswoman told AFP.
The incident happened near the south-eastern Bulgarian town of Sredets on Thursday evening, she said, adding that the dead man was from Afghanistan.
Public BNR radio cited the interior ministry’s chief of staff, Georgy Kostov, as saying that the group of 50 people €” all from Afghanistan €” was intercepted by a patrol of two border guards and a police officer after crossing into Bulgarian territory.
“They put up resistance during the arrest. One of the officers fired warning shots and, in his words, one of the migrants was wounded by a ricochet and later died,” Kostov told the radio.
He did not confirm initial allegations that the group was armed…
| — Hat tip: RR | [Return to headlines] |
Budapest to Close Down Border With Croatia to Migrant Flow
More than 383,000 migrants have entered Hungary this year
(ANSA-AP) — BUDAPEST — Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Friday afternoon after a meeting of the national security Cabinet that “the Hungarian-Croatian green border will be closed from midnight.” Hungary clamped down on its border with Serbia with a similar barrier on Sept. 15. Since then, migrants have been taking a detour through Croatia to reach Hungary. More than 383,000 migrants have entered Hungary this year, nearly all passing through on their way to Germany and other destinations further west in the EU.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) The left-wing extremists who run California operate by catering to specific demographics in order to remain in power — specifically, the state’s immigrant population, whether staying in the country legally or illegally.
About nine months ago, the California Legislature authorized, and Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown signed, a bill to allow the state to issue driver’s licenses to illegal aliens. By all measures, the program has been a success (or failure, depending on your point of view). Over 500,000 licenses have been issued so far, despite the fact that these folks aren’t even in the country legally.
In California and a few other places in the country, driving is treated as a “right” where everywhere else it is treated as a “privilege.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Croatia to Divert Migrants to Slovenia: Minister
Croatia is set to divert migrants to Slovenia after Hungary announced it would close its border with the country, the interior minister said Friday.
“We are turning the route, the corridor, towards Slovenia,” Ranko Ostojic told reporters.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Erdogan Mocks EU’s Help Over Syrian Refugee Crisis
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday mocked the EU’s contribution to easing the Syrian refugee crisis, saying the bloc had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for accepting just a tiny number of asylum-seekers.
Speaking after Turkey and the EU agreed a plan for improving the handling of the refugee crisis, Erdogan also questioned whether Brussels treated Ankara’s long standing membership application seriously.
“They announce they’ll take in 30,000 to 40,000 refugees and then they are nominated for the Nobel for that. We are hosting two and a half million refugees but nobody cares,” Erdogan said…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
EU to Give Turkey Up to $3.4bln if Ankara Cooperates on Refugee Crisis
The European Union may provide Turkey with about 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) in exchange for Turkey’s efforts to limit the amount of refugees traveling to Europe.
BRUSSELS (Sputnik) — The European Union is considering providing Turkey with between 2 billion ($2.28 billion at current exchange rates) and 3 billion euros ($3.4 billion) in exchange for cooperation on easing a massive refugee influx to Europe, the commissioner for European neighborhood policy and enlargement negotiations said Thursday.
Brussels is investigating speeding up visa liberalization processes with Ankara in exchange for Turkey’s efforts to limit the amount of refugees traveling to Europe, Johannes Hahn said in an interview with Der Standard newspaper.
The European Union is eager to assist the country in providing health care, employment and education to refugees fleeing violence in their home countries and arriving in Turkey, so that people would be less inclined to go to EU states, Hahn said.
Brussels seeks Turkey’s cooperation on border control and a return policy for undocumented immigrants who reach Europe.
Turkey is a major gateway for refugees wishing to reach the relative safety of Europe.
Amid what has been called the worst migrant crisis since World War II, Ankara has declared an open-door policy for refugees and has spent about $7.6 billion to date to host some 2.2 million Syrian refugees, according to Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus.
In late September, European leaders agreed to use UN programs to allocate at least 1 billion euros to help Syrian refugees in Turkey as well as other nations hosting Syrians.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Europe Asylum-Seeker Quota Plan Plunged Into Chaos
The European Union’s controversial quota system to allocate refugees to member states according to a quota system has been rendered unworkable after scores of asylum-seekers refused to travel to their allocated country.
Around 30 Syrians in Greece have refused to travel to Luxembourg, because most of them want to go to Germany. According to The Times of London, diplomats report that there are also problems rounding up migrants to go to Estonia because Italian and Greek authorities are reluctant to force people to go where they do not want to.
“The quotas are not so people can go asylum shopping,” one EU diplomat said.
“If you say you are escaping war, you can’t refuse to go to Luxembourg. It is making a joke out of the whole quota system.”
The quota system hit problems back in June, when EU leaders failed to agree a European Commission plan to relocate 160,000 people according to a quota system. However, the number pales into insignificance compared with the 710,000 refugees, displaced persons and other migrants who have made their way to Europe.
On September 14, the European Council finally adopted the Commission’s proposal to relocate 40,000 people from Italy and Greece. This was followed a week later by a decision to relocate 120,000 from Italy, Greece and other member states directly affected by the refugee crisis.
However, the UK and Ireland have exercized their right not to take part in the quota system. And, in its latest report on the relocation progress, the European Commission admits:
“The first relocations of people in clear need of protection have taken place, but much work is still needed to ensure that a substantial flow of several hundreds of relocations per month quickly follows.”
The first group of 19 Eritreans flew from Italy to Sweden amid huge publicity in the first of the relocation program. However, this had been intended for 33 Eritreans, but sources said 14 “absconded” the day before and “the remaining people had to be placed under lock and key to stop them disappearing too.”
Lack of Staff
Calls for extra staff to be provided by member states to bolster the border agency Frontex and the staff of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) have failed to attract the intended numbers.
The commission admits in its latest report:
“So far, the commitments made by Member States fall far short of the real needs. As of 8 October, only six Member States have responded to the call for contributions for EASO with 81 experts, out of the 374 needed […] six Member States have responded to the call from Frontex with 48 border officials.”
Frontex had requested 775 additional border guards, screeners, de-briefers and interpreters.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Jobs for Refugees: Easier Said Than Done
In a bid to cope with the ongoing massive migrant influx to Germany, there have been growing calls for integrating asylum seekers into the country’s job market. But experts say it is a long and arduous process.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hungary’s Viktor Orban: Islam is ‘Rulebook of Another World’
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has defended his tough stance against Middle East immigrants by saying that Islam, the religion of the overwhelming number of people now entering Europe, is the “rulebook of another world” that has “never been part of Europe”.
In an interview extract published today in Germany’s Focus news weekly, Mr Orban spoke about the record migrant influx flooding Europe, offering that “the language of the European elite is ideological and dogmatic”.
“Islam has never been part of Europe, it came to us,” Orban told Focus in a story to be published in full Saturday. Mr Orban said that Germany’s Turkish migrants, who arrived in their tens of thousands from the 1960s for work, now “belong to German history and therefore Europe’s too”.
“But spiritually, Islam was never part of Europe. It’s the rulebook of another world,” he said. Mr Orban also attacked France and Germany for refusing to countenance “any doubts” over a multicultural society. “We in Hungary decide what we want or don’t want. We don’t want that,” he said.
On Sat, Oct 17, 2015 at 12:37 AM, Fjordman PJ
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hungary to Seal External Schengen Border With Croatia
Hungary will close its border with Croatia to migrants at midnight, the foreign minister says. The decision came after right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with his security cabinet.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Illegals Sue Missouri Colleges for Too-High Tuition
The American Civil Liberties Union has stepped in to sue on behalf of three illegal immigrants who accuse three Missouri colleges of charging them tuition rates that are just too high.
The trio are in America because of President Obama’ s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that allows them extended stays and shelter from deportation. And the schools they’ re targeting?
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration to Israel Seen Up 16%, Led by France
More than 30,000 people are expected to immigrate to Israel in 2015, a 16 percent increase on last year, Immigration Minister Zeev Elkin said Thursday.
France would provide the largest number of new residents, with a 2015 estimate of 7,500 representing a 118 percent jump on 3,440 in 2013, the immigration ministry said.
In January, after four Jews were murdered in an attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued an invitation to French and European Jews to emigrate…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Islam Was ‘Never Part of Europe’: Hungary’s Orban
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban defended his hardline stance against refugees, the vast majority of whom are Muslim, saying in an interview published Friday that Islam “has never been part of Europe”.
Speaking to Germany’s Focus news weekly about the record migrant influx, he said “the language of the European elite is ideological and dogmatic”.
“Islam has never been part of Europe, it came to us,” Orban told Focus in an interview to be published in full Saturday…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘It Makes Me Very Sad’ Says Open Borders Activist Brutally Stabbed by Migrant Gang
A pro-migrant, open borders activist is reported to be “very sad” after being stabbed twice in the back by a gang of “Arabs” as he stood outside a pizzeria in Dresden, east Germany.
Twenty-nine year old ‘Julius G.’ involved himself in political activism while reading his degree in industrial engineering Technical University of Dresden. Now he may have fallen victim to his own politics, as the refugee advocate was attacked while waiting for friends in Dresden’s Neustadt, known as the city’s ‘left wing’, or ‘alternative’ quarter.
Germany’s Bild-Zeitung reports police were called to Pizza 5 on Alaunstraße on Saturday after a group of six to eight men jumped the student in the early hours and stabbed him twice in the back, leaving him in a serious condition. A police spokesman said: “Several police vans searched the surrounding area, unfortunately without success. According to witnesses, the attackers were said to be North Africans”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Was Right: EU Wrong on Migrants — Renzi
‘It is time member states keep their promises,’ Timmermans says
(ANSA) — Rome, October 14 — Premier Matteo Renzi said Wednesday that Italy had the right stance on the Mediterranean migrant crisis all along, unlike the rest of the European Union.
“We can say without too many words that Italy was right on immigration and the rest of the EU was not,” Renzi told the Lower House ahead of a summit of European leaders starting Thursday.
“I am not claiming a decision of this government, but what I do say is that Italy understood the complexity of the immigration problem and an approach that is not linked to the hysteria of the moment but to a strategic vision,” Renzi continued. “Many of our friends and allies changed their stance on the basis of single events, emotionally charged moments, circumstances which by their nature were destined to produce an immediate effect but not a long-term strategy,” he said.
“We said the moment had come to change EU policy on immigration,” the premier told the Lower House.
“Now we are witnessing the assumption of a principle that was denied for months and which Merkel and Hollande have brought with authority before the European Parliament, a simple principle: the Dublin treaty is over. Not technically, but politically,” Renzi said. The new ‘hotspots’ for identifying and registering newly arrived migrants and refugees set up under a EU scheme for assisting front-line countries such as Italy and Greece “only make sense in conjunction with relocation and the policy of repatriation”, the premier continued. Renzi was echoed by European Commission vice president Frans Timmermans, who said Wednesday “reform of the Dublin system is necessary because conditions have changed with respect to when Dublin was agreed and today there are some countries that cannot manage by themselves”.
The necessary premise for reforming Dublin is that the system of hotspots, relocations and repatriations works in its entirety, he added. In this respect Timmermans said the European Commission was “concerned” and that it hopes “governments will talk to each other frankly at tomorrow’s Council meeting”.
“It is time member states keep their promises,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lesbos Opens First Greek ‘Hotspot’ Refugee Reception Center
Greece has opened its first so-called “hotspot” center on the island of Lesbos to address the influx of migrants. The European Union plans to set up further four hotspot centers in Greek waters, and also two in Italy.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Migrants: IOM: 615,000 Arrivals by Sea in Europe in 2015
3,117 dead trying to reach the continent
Refugees arriving in Greece [ARCHIVE MATERIAL 20151002 ]
(ANSAmed) — GENEVA, OCTOBER 16 — Over 613,000 migrants and refugees reached Europe in 2015 by crossing the Mediterranean Sea, according to the latest data released by the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Over the same period, at least 3,117 people died at sea as they were trying to reach the Old continent.
Out of a rotal of 613,179 migrants and refugees who reached Europe by sea, Italy registered 137,313, Greece over 472,000.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Migrant Crisis: Turkey Says No Deal Done on EU Action Plan
Turkish officials have stressed that a plan agreed by EU officials for joint action with Turkey on the migrant crisis has not been finalised.
The leaders agreed to speed up visa liberalisation talks for Turks if Turkey stems the influx.
They also promised to “re-energise” talks on Turkey joining the EU and to consider more aid.
However, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu said the agreement was still a draft.
He called the financial measures proposed by the EU “unacceptable”, according to the AFP news agency.
Earlier Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had made scathing criticisms of Europe’s reaction to the crisis.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Number of Refugees in Greece Exceeds 470,000,15 Times Higher Than 2014
Over 472,000 refugees from the Middle East and North Africa arrived by sea to Greece since January, compared with 31,000 arrivals registered in 2014 during the same period.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The number of refugees who have crossed the Mediterranean Sea in 2015 to arrive in Greece is 15 times higher than last year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said Friday.
Over 472,000 refugees from the Middle East and North Africa have arrived by sea to the country since January, compared with 31,000 arrivals registered in 2014 during the same period.
Despite worsening weather conditions, the refugee flow continues at an estimated 4,500 a day, IOM added.
Some 3,200 refugees are reported to have died at sea since the beginning of the year, due in part to bad weather and “the acute disrepair of the overcrowded vessels” used by human traffickers, according to IOM estimates.
Europe is struggling to manage a massive refugee crisis. According to EU border agency Frontex, over 710,000 people have arrived in the European Union in 2015, fleeing poverty and violence in their home countries.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Restoring Europe’s Borders and Sovereign Nations
European edition of The Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2015
By Geert Wilders, Marine Le Pen, Mateo Salvini and Heinz-Christian Strache
Europe. Imagine a world without her. Sure, the geographical entity will always continue to exist. But the civilization is in danger. Millions of migrants are currently arriving in Europe. More than half a million have already done so. Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, says the greatest tide of refugees and migrants is still to come. Hungary’s foreign minister expects 35 million people heading to Europe. This will be the end of [cultural identities] as we know them.
The situation is completely out of control. Too many fortune seekers, too much illiteracy. Some of the migrants are refugees, but the majority comes for economic reasons. Our European economies and social-protection systems cannot cope with this. The media prefer to focus on families and children, but their images cannot conceal that the asylum seekers flocking to Europe are predominantly young men. Many are unskilled.
But the main problem is that, unlike the flow of refugees at the end of World War II, these migrants come from countries with a culture entirely different from Europe’s. Mass immigration is leading to the dilution of cultural identity in the European Union member states.
Its citizens resent this. Instinctively, these citizens are patriots. They don’t like to lose their identity as a people. They don’t want to give up their countries. Instinctively, they grasp two very important truths. First, that without identity, there is no country. Second, that without a country, there can be no prosperity, no justice, no democracy, and no liberty.
The European Union has slowly been eroding Europe’s nation-states by gradually dismantling their sovereignty. It has robbed our countries of the right to conduct our own national asylum policies. Last month, the EU forced refugee quotas on its member states and overruled governments who disagreed. The mask has fallen, and the peoples of Europe have seen the EU’s ugly face.
Better than before, they now realize that our national parliaments have been reduced to fake parliaments. Vital matters, including those concerning our national identities, are no longer decided by our national parliaments but by obscure institutions in Brussels. People are forced to give away their country without even having a say in the matter.
Governments in Eastern Europe are especially sensitive about this. It’s no coincidence that the strongest resistance to the EU’s mandatory migrant quotas comes from countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. For many decades these countries were ruled from Moscow without their consent. They don’t want to now be ruled from Brussels without their consent.
But the migration crisis has also alarmed the peoples of Western Europe. Polls and election results in recent weeks clearly indicate that patriot parties such as ours are growing spectacularly.
While the governments in Western Europe’s capitals bash the leaders in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, millions of citizens in Austria, France, Italy, the Netherlands and other nations share their concerns.
In Vienna’s regional elections Sunday, the Austrian Freedom Party won a third of the votes. In polls in the Netherlands, the Party for Freedom has become as big as the two governing parties combined. In France, polls indicate that the National Front will win its local elections in December. In Italy three months ago, the Northern League made stunning electoral gains.
While millions are on their way to Europe, millions in Europe realize that they have been betrayed by the political elites in The Hague, Paris, Rome, Vienna and other capitals. Our parliaments have been emasculated by Brussels and are filled with politicians who no longer care about our basic national interests. Governments don’t mind the loss of national sovereignty and national identities either. Far too often, they are composed of politicians who hope to one day pursue an international career at an EU or U.N. institution after their national career ends.
The gap between the citizens and those who rule them has never been so wide. We have to close this gap in order to reassert control over our own borders. And we can do so democratically by mobilizing the people to vote for parties that stand for national sovereignty and the defense of national identities. Reclaiming democracy: that is the key to solving the migration crisis.
There is no need to imagine a world without the nations of Europe. It’s clear what needs to happen. We need to reclaim our national sovereignty, abolish EU treaties such as the Schengen treaty and reaffirm the supremacy of national parliaments.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Sex Assaults by Refugees Drive Women Staff From German Asylum Center
A cleaner at a refugee center in Bavaria was subjected to sexual assault on a daily basis from two asylum-seekers living at the center, which has decided to employ only male cleaners as a result.
Two asylum seekers at an asylum reception center in Kitzingen sexually attacked a female member of the cleaning staff every day for more than a week, compelling the institution to employ only male cleaners.
On Wednesday Bayerischer Rundfunk [BR] reported that two male asylum seekers aged 38 and 52 had been detained after the woman finally summoned up the courage to report the attacks, which took place between October 1 and October 10, to her employer, and to the police.
A spokesperson for the Kitzingen District Office told BR that as a result of the attacks, the contracted cleaning company responsible for the asylum center will send only male cleaners from next week.
“Until then, cleaners will be accompanied by the security service when cleaning the showers and toilets. In addition, showers and toilets will be closed for the duration of the cleaning,” said the local authority.
The reports of sexual violence committed by asylum seekers in Kitzingen follow previous allegations of abuse in other detention centers in Germany. Earlier this month German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that 15 women and children living in a reception center in Hessen, home to 500 asylum seekers, reported being sexually abused at the center..
A letter written by representatives of Hessen’s Regional Assembly and posted on the internet in August expressed serious concern about the increasing danger for women and children living in the reception center, due to the threat of sexual violence.
“It must be said, that we are not talking about individual cases,” they warned, reporting numerous incidents of rape, sexual assault and forced prostitution at the center.
“Women report that they, and children, have been raped or subjected to sexual assault. Many women sleep in their clothes. Women regularly report that they don’t go to the toilet at night, because of the risk of sexual assault or rape in the toilets, or on the way there.”
“Even in the daytime, passage through the camp is a frightening situation for many women.”
Despite the preponderance of pictures of women and children that have been published in the Western media throughout the ongoing refugee crisis, approximately 81% of the migrants arriving in Europe are adults and nearly 84% of those adults are men, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Tensions Are Heightened’: Germany Struggles Amid Tide of Middle East Refugees
Merkel, who says she will not limit the flow, has been praised in some quarters for humanitarian leadership, but the huge wave of Muslim asylum seekers has also engendered considerable controversy.
Bavarian State leader Horst Seehofer has threatened to take the federal government to constitutional court if it does not turn back the refugees at the border as an emergency measure. Roughly 10,000 migrants pour into the southern Bavarian State from Austria each day.
Seehofer is the head of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
“The situation in the Berlin refugee center is a mess,” he said. “People wait around all day for a number to register and then are told to come back the next day to do the same thing. They become frustrated and tensions are heightened.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Says EU Financial Offer on Migrants is ‘Unacceptable’ (1)
Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu on Friday slammed an EU offer of financial help to Turkey to ease the migrant crisis as unacceptable, saying an action plan agreed in Brussels was a draft and not final.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Rejects Offer of EU Membership in Exchange for Halting Refugee Influx
Turkey has brushed off the offer of EU membership in exchange for halting the refugee influx as “bribery”, hours after European leaders sought to buy the country’s co-operation at a price of £2 billion.
Racep Tayyip Erdogan, the man Europe hopes can hold back a vast new wave of migrants, ridiculed an offer of visas, cash and a fresh chapter of accession talks drawn up by European leaders last night.
If Brussels wants his co-operation, nothing less than full EU membership will do, the president said, adding that the offer did not appear to be “sincere”.
“The West and Europe’s security and stability is contingent on our security and stability. They have accepted this now. So if it can’t happen without Turkey, why don’t you take Turkey into the EU? The problem is clear but they are not open,” he said.
Mr Erdogan’s determination to drive a hard bargain with Europe came as Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, prepared to travel to Turkey this weekend to try build momentum for a workable deal with Ankara.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Says EU Financial Offer on Migrants is ‘Unacceptable’ (2)
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticized an EU offer of financial help to ease the migrant crisis. The foreign minister said that an action plan agreed in Brussels was merely a draft and not final.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Villains in New Captain America Comic Are Opponents of Illegal Immigration
Captain America started out by taking on Nazis and defending freedom, now, however, Marvel has him siding with Democrats in Washington and beating up on conservatives who quote the US Constitution.
A video by the MacIver Institute boils the development down into a minute long analysis:
Essentially, a new black “liberal” Captain America decides that he cannot remain apolitical and states ““I have a side. That’s right. I have opinions. Strongly held beliefs, even,” while staring over the Capitol building…
Then Captain America heads to the southern border to beat up some evil right wingers who are “threatening” innocent illegal immigrants who just want to be left alone.
The evil Commander makes some evil statements about building a wall and not wanting illegal immigrants to bring crime and disease into America.
“By invading this sovereign land, you defy the laws of God, nature, and the United States Constitution!” the evildoers declare.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
We’re Not Giving in to Merkel on ‘Catastrophic’ Migrant Policy — Polish FM
Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna called Germany’s proposals to further redistribute migrants a ‘catastrophe,’ opposed by Poland and the majority of EU countries.
Germany’s proposal for a mandatory permanent mechanism to distribute refugees across Europe is a ‘catastrophe,’ brought about by the needs of internal German politics and will not be accepted by the majority of EU countries, Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna said on Friday.
The foreign minister was asked about the commitment German Chancellor Angela Merkel made in the Bundestag not to waver from attempts to impose a binding agreement on the distribution of refugees across EU member states.
Such an agreement would go beyond the plan to relocate 120,000 refugees, which was approved at an emergency EU summit last month despite stiff opposition from central European countries, several of which voted against the redistribution plans.
Despite the opposition, Germany is seeking further plans for mandatory distribution. “We cannot just fix a ceiling and say, ‘I don’t care about anything above that,’“ Merkel told the Bundestag last month.
Schetyna described further redistribution plans as “absurd.”
“These are not the best days for internal German politics in the context of refugees, and so this is an attempt to create a better image. This German approach has no bearing on European decisions. The case is closed,” Schetyna told the Polish radio station RFM.
“We will not surrender, because that was the agreement. In this regard, we have a large majority in the European Union.”
Schetyna rejected the idea that Germany and Sweden, who have welcomed the bulk of migrants to Europe, should have the ability to impose their plan for a greater redistribution mechanism on the rest of Europe.
“The deal was very tough, a very difficult debate, and a very difficult decision. This matter is closed and the vast majority — I emphasize that — want this to be a permanent decision.”
“If we in Europe say that we will continue to impose strict distribution for the next wave of refugees, it will be a catastrophe for Europe. There will be no agreements for that.”
Instead of making plans to distribute migrants, Schetyna said that Europe should concentrate its efforts on fortifying its borders, and come to grips with the people who have already arrived in Europe.
“We have to take measures to protect our external borders, the hot-spots, and ensure the registration of political refugees from the Middle East in centers, not introduce automatic distribution,” said Schetyna.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
How ‘Majority Illusion’ Is Engineered on Social Networks to Push Leftist Agendas
(NaturalNews) Does it sometimes seem like there are more homosexuals in the world than you actually thought? Or more white supremacists? Or that more people support a political or social position than you thought possible — or logical? Or that all Christians are bigots and all Muslims are terrorists?
You’re not alone. Millions of people all over the world have had similar thoughts and observations. As it turns out, there is a reason for such misconceptions — our perception is being purposely manipulated in order to promote certain agendas, according to recently released research.
“One of the curious things about social networks is the way that some messages, pictures, or ideas can spread like wildfire while others that seem just as catchy or interesting barely register at all. The content itself cannot be the source of this difference. Instead, there must be some property of the network that changes to allow some ideas to spread but not others,” reports Technology Review.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chasing Wormholes: The Hunt for Tunnels in Space-Time
Science fiction literature is full of stories in which tunnels in space-time — known as wormholes — are used for time travel. How much fact lies within the fiction? The answer is, more than you might think. Scientists are looking at ways to use traversable wormholes (if they exist) to travel faster than the speed of light — and even to travel through time itself.
“A traversable wormhole is a hyperspace tunnel, also called a throat, that connects together two remotely distant regions within our universe, or two different universes — if other universes exist — or two different periods in time, as in time travel, or different dimensions of space,” physicist Eric Davis told Space.com by email.
Davis specializes in the field of space-time as a member of the Tau Zero Foundation, where he uses equations from Einstein’s general theory of relativity to think about possible (or impossible) designs for traversable wormholes, warp drives and time machines.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Giant ‘Hole’ In Sun is 50 Earths Wide
A hole in the topmost layer of the sun and its magnetic field, the size of 50 Earths, is letting loose an ultrafast solar wind that has kicked off several nights of auroras down on Earth.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
I thought the power play that Turkey just did to be interesting.
Why should we let you bribe us to stop the flow of Muslims into Europe when you won’t let us be members of the EU?
Can you imagine the FLOOD of Turks into Europe if they were granted EU status?
Seems Turkey has the EU between a rock and a hard place…
Very soon it won’t matter either way as we become complexly and completely overwhelmed with and by our own bs. Cameron is shifting in Turkey’s direction and its hordes dying to stop any fresh air circulating inside or outside the mosques. The Turks of Erdogenvader long to finish off Constantinople and Romeo part two? Meanwhile Cameron wants out of the EU?
The EU is pathetic in begging someone else to solve their invasion problem, particularly when that someone is encouraging the invasion.
European nations have 3,500,000+ troops in their military who are active or reserve members. The Greek and Bulgarian border with Turkey is 175 miles long. Some 400 miles of water stretch from Greece past Crete.
For what are they saving these mighty military machines if they are not to seal off such a small boundary?
That snake Urgebegone’s benevolence is the key to protecting Europe from this existential crisis? It is to laugh.
True to form the GDR angel will wing her way to Caliphistan for urgent talks on how to open the door to free movement of yet more Muslims into Europe.
… part of an armed contingent of illegal immigrants attempting to enter Bulgaria from Turkey …
Might not “an armed contingent of illegal immigrants” be also termed “invaders?”
The Hijira gathers force.
I was interested to see how they’d frame the black Londoner, considering the Left operates under the ridiculous assumption “only whites can be racist.” I was surprised they took such a harsh stance against her, even calling her “racist” and “ignorant”. Guess it just proves what we knew all along. In the Oppression Olympics, Muslims win out every single time.
Still, I saw this as a feel-good story. It’s nice to see someone getting angry, really enraged about the betrayal of Europe. I only hope she’s got a good method to defend herself. The Antifa crowd and Muslim invaders are almost sure to retaliate.
In Multiculti bridge, Islam is trumps. It always wins.