A young man wearing a Darth Vader costume and carrying a sword entered a Swedish school today and attacked students and faculty. A teacher and a teenaged boy were stabbed to death, and two other victims were hospitalized. The attacker was shot dead by police. According to Swedish media, the alleged perpetrator was a supporter of the Sweden Democrats.
In other news, Slovenia has asked for EU help coping with the “refugee” crisis, as 12,000 migrants arrived in the small country in a single day. Meanwhile, Sweden has revised its estimates and now says it expects a record 190,000 immigrants by the end of the year.
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Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, MM, RRN, Srdja Trifkovic, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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Brazil Central Bank Keeps Key Interest Rate at 14.25%
Brazil’s Central Bank kept its key interest rate unchanged at 14.25 percent on Wednesday, in line with analysts’ forecasts and with the economy mired in deep recession.
The decision was “necessary” to fight rising inflation, the bank said after a two-day meeting of its monetary policy committee, with Brazil suffering growing levels of unemployment and rising disenchantment with the government of President Dilma Rousseff.
The bank last month warned of a deeper-than-expected recession in the world’s seventh-largest economy, with the darkening outlook sending the national currency plunging to new lows…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Chance of More QE Peps Dax, Troubles Economists
The European Central Bank (ECB) announced Thursday that it may continue buying eurozone governments’ bonds into 2016, hoping to free up banks’ cash to invest in business. The German stock market reacted excitedly — but economists aren’t convinced.
Shortly after ECB President Mario Draghi announced on Thursday that “the council of the ECB is ready and willing to take action, and will use all its tools,” the Dax index of Germany’s biggest companies jumped 1.55 percent to 10,396.66 points.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 2-Yr Bond Yield Below Zero for First Time
Thanks to Draghi
(ANSA) — Rome, October 22 — The yield on two-year Italian BTP Treasury bonds fell below zero for the first time after ECB chief Mario Draghi said new monetary policy moves were in the works Thursday. The yield was -0.006. Citing worries about China and developing markets, Draghi signaled the ECB could increase monetary stimulus in December. Draghi raised expectations the bank might extend its 1.1 trillion euro ($1.2 trillion) bond purchase program aimed at raising inflation and helping a spotty recovery.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Clinton Defends Role Over Benghazi in Heated Hill Hearing
Hillary Clinton defended herself Thursday against accusations she was out of touch as the situation in Benghazi spiraled out of control before the 2012 terror attack, at a long-awaited congressional hearing where Republicans grilled the former secretary of state for hours over her role.
While the day-long hearing spanned everything from the initial decision to intervene in Libya to Clinton’s public explanation of the Benghazi attack, a central GOP allegation was that Clinton paid more attention to emails from friend Sidney Blumenthal than pleas from murdered diplomat Chris Stevens to increase security in the face of growing threats. But, even as Clinton said she “took responsibility,” she accepted little blame for the denial of security requests before the attack, or for the faulty narrative about an anti-Islam video that formed after.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
FCA Workers Approve UAW Contract
With 77% vote in favor
(ANSA) — New York, October 22 — US workers at Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) have approved a new collective bargaining contract negotiated by United Auto Workers (UAW) union, the carmaker announced Thursday. The contract represents “an investment in our American workforce and recognizes the workers’ contribution to the company’s growth over the past six years,” the FCA statement said.
The deal was approved by 77% of employees and will be the basis for contract talks with Ford and General Motors, the UAW said. The UAW represents 40,000 FCA employees at 16 plants.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
NASA Asteroid-Sampling Probe Fully Built, Enters Test Phase
NASA’s first asteroid-sampling spacecraft is now fully assembled.
Engineers and technicians at the aerospace firm Lockheed Martin have finished building the space agency’s OSIRIS-REx probe, which is scheduled to launch toward the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu in September 2016.
“This is an exciting time for the program, as we now have a completed spacecraft and the team gets to test drive it, in a sense, before we actually fly it to Bennu,” said Rich Kuhns, the OSIRIS-REx program manager at Lockheed Martin Space Systems, which will also provide flight operations for the mission.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Vetoes $612 Billion Defense Policy Bill in Rebuke to GOP
President Obama vetoed a sweeping $612 billion defense policy bill Wednesday in a rebuke to congressional Republicans, and insisted they send him a better version that doesn’t tie his hands on some of his top priorities.
In an unusual veto ceremony, Obama praised the bill for ensuring the military stays funded and making improvements on military retirement and cybersecurity. Yet he pointedly accused Republicans of resorting to “gimmicks” and prohibiting other changes needed to address modern security threats.
“Unfortunately, it falls woefully short,” Obama said. “I’m going to be sending it back to Congress, and my message to them is very simple: Let’s do this right.”
The rare presidential veto marked the latest wrinkle in the ongoing fight between Obama and Republicans who control Congress over whether to increase federal spending — and how.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Coming Soon: Chinese Nuclear Power in UK
As part of a deal with Britain, the first Chinese nuclear power station in Europe could be built just 90 kilometers from London. Local residents are concerned about national security, the environment and safety.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dr Fukushima Says Met Pope in October 2014
Medic also visited Vatican in January 2015
(ANSA) — Tokyo, October 21 — Dr. Takanori Fukushima, the Japanese specialist who reportedly diagnosed Pope Francis as having a small, treatable brain tumour, said Wednesday that he met the pontiff on October 1, 2014 after being invited to a special event in the Vatican. The doctor added on his website, takanorifukushima.com, that he also visited the Vatican on January 28, 2015, when he arrived in a helicopter from the San Rossore clinic near Pisa. On that occasion Fukushima slept in a convent near the Vatican and he said that he met several archbishops and Cardinal Angelo Comastri.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Eight Italian Regions on Health Service Restructuring Plans
Programmes include increase in patient costs, tax measures
(ANSA) — Rome, October 22 — Eight Italian regions are undertaking health service restructuring programmes aimed at cutting costs in order to balance budgets, the coordinator of regional budget councillors Massimo Garavaglia said on Thursday.
Lazio, Abruzzo, Campania, Molise, Sicily, Calabria, Piedmont and Puglia are all taking part in the programmes.
Methods include increasing the portion of treatment costs that patients have to pay, as well as tax measures.
A report released by the national agency of regional health services, which tracked the budgets of 108 Italian hospitals in 2014, found that 31 were in the red and 24 were at risk of having to take part in the programme.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: What it’s Like to Report From a PEGIDA Demonstration
After a year of writing about PEGIDA from the comfort of an office desk, DW’s Kathleen Schuster ventured out to Dresden to report live from the group’s one-year anniversary rally. This is what she saw.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hubble Spies Big Bang Frontiers
Observations by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have taken advantage of gravitational lensing to reveal the largest sample of the faintest and earliest known galaxies in the universe. Some of these galaxies formed just 600 million years after the big bang and are fainter than any other galaxy yet uncovered by Hubble. The team has determined for the first time with some confidence that these small galaxies were vital to creating the universe that we see today.
An international team of astronomers, led by Hakim Atek of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, has discovered over 250 tiny galaxies that existed only 600-900 million years after the big bang— one of the largest samples of dwarf galaxies yet to be discovered at these epochs. The light from these galaxies took over 12 billion years to reach the telescope, allowing the astronomers to look back in time when the universe was still very young.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: League to Hold Rallies in Support of Pensioner Across North
At major courthouses
(ANSA) — Milan, October 21 — The rightwing Northern League said Wednesday it would hold rallies outside major courthouses across the north starting at 17:30 Thursday in support of Francesco Sicignano, a pensioner who shot dead an Albanian intruder Monday night and is under investigation for voluntary manslaughter. “The League stands with those who defend themselves,” it said, adding that the rallies would be attended by party members “and ordinary citizens”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Ex-Undersecretary Meduri Arrested in ANAS Graft Probe
Highway company managers and officials also detained for graft
(ANSA) — Rome, October 22 — Former infrastructure ministry undersecretary Luigi Meduri was among several people arrested on Thursday in relation to a corruption probe centred on Italian highways company ANAS. The case led Rome Prosecutor Luigi Pignatone to say the daily stream of graft was “depressing”, but national anti-corruption czar Raffaele Cantone to say he was happy that more “tumoral growths” were emerging, but a new “culture” was sorely needed.
Premier Matteo Renzi said anyone caught stealing from public firms should be sacked “without any form of forgiveness”.
A number of ANAS managers and officials have been arrested including the alleged ringleader, so-called ‘Dark Lady’ Antonella Accroglianò.
Among other things, she allegedly steered work towards firms linked to Italy’s richest and most powerful mafia, the Calabria-based ‘Ndrangheta.
The owners of several companies that won mayor public works contracts are under investigation too as well as some lawyers.
The probe is looking into alleged corruption and vote buying, among other crimes. Meduri, a member of Premier Matteo Renzi’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD), was a “shady middleman” and the political mediator for Accroglianò, police said.
Meduri was infrastructure ministry undersecretary from 2006 to 2008.
He was also governor of the southern region of Calabria from January 1999 to April 2000.
The PD suspended Meduri from the party. Among the other executives arrested are Francesco Domenico Costanzo and Concetto Bosco Lo Giudice, whose Tecnis company won public works contracts worth 800 million euros a year.
In reactions, Pignatone, the Rome chief prosecutor, said the probe gave “a depressing sensation of the daily nature of corruption”.
“The main person under investigation goes to the office every day but her main job is to manage the corruption flow and to treat badly those who get behind on their payments,” he said, referring to Accroglianò.
Corruption, Pignatone said, “is viewed as quite a normal thing”.
Cantone hailed the arrests and called for a “new culture” to help stem such cases.
“I’m not worried, but happy…We’re seeing a whole series of tumoral growths coming out.
“Now, however, we must put a whole series of patches in place to make sure these cases don’t continually recur”.
Cantone was speaking at a conference on the “culture of whistleblowing”.
The president of ANAS called for it to be “cleaned up”.
“I trust in the help of prosecutors, I hope that the action of cleaning up happens as soon as possible, the sooner the better for me and for ANAS, said Gianni Vittorio Armani, adding that “the greater part of ANAS is honest and I think it can get out of the tunnel”.
He said all the incriminated managers would be “dismissed, without settlements”.
Renzi said that “(I have) full respect for those probed but on our part there is the will to clean (things) up: whoever, in a public firm, is found stealing not only must pay but must also be fired without any form of forgiveness”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ATAC CEO Refuses to Take Blame for Latest Metro Disruption
Broggi says firm has made several appeals for urgent funds
(ANSA) — Rome, October 22 — The chief executive of Rome’s transport company ATAC on Thursday refused to accept blame for the latest disruption of the Italian capital’s underground system, and said the firm urgently needed investments from authorities.
Rome’s Metro B line was temporarily suspended on Thursday after an overhead cable at Cavour station in the city centre collapsed. The latest problem comes just a week after a train jumped off the tracks and hit a wall near Anagnina station on the Metro A line. ATAC CEO Danilo Broggi, who is resigning, said at a news conference that the firm had sent two letters to local authorities highlighting the risks posed to Cavour station by recent heavy rainfall.
“We were therefore victims and not perpetrators in this situation,” he said.
He said the company has told authorities repeatedly that it desperately needs about 150 million euros of investments to be able to carry out its services efficiently. He pointed out that sum was just for urgent work and the system really needed much more funds.
On Thursday commuters reacted angrily to the latest disruption, invading the busy Via Monti Tiburtini and taking local bus stops by storm.
Rome city authorities responded by opening traffic-free zones to all vehicles in an attempt to alleviate the chaos.
The state of Rome’s transport system is of particular concern in light of the upcoming Special Jubilee of Mercy, which opens on December 8 and is expected to draw millions of pilgrims to Rome.
Earlier outgoing Rome transport councillor Stefano Esposito took aim at ATAC top brass, saying they should concentrate on making the service work rather than holding news conferences. Broggi said on Thursday that regional authorities owed the company at least 680 million euros, and he blamed the strained situation on problems between political institutions.
He said he had been hired by Rome city authorities to prevent ATAC from going bankrupt and he had achieved that. He also said that during his time at the helm of the company he had increased the number of work and services contracts being offered through competitive tender.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Determined to Resolve Marines Case — Defence Minister
Pinotti says Hamburg tribunal decision ‘an important step’
(ANSA) — Venice, October 22 — Defence Minister Roberta Pinotti said on Thursday that Italy was determined to pursue efforts to resolve a diplomatic spat with India over two Italian marines facing possible charges there in connection with the deaths of two fishermen in 2012.
Pinotti said a ruling by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg in August stating that India has no jurisdiction over the case was “a very important step”.
“We are therefore continuing to follow the path of international resolution,” said Pinotti.
The Indian supreme court has suspended all judicial proceedings regarding the two Italian marines in compliance with the Hamburg court’s ruling. It is due to reassess the situation in January.
Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone are accused of killing fishermen Valentine (aka Gelastine) and Ajesh Binki after allegedly mistaking them for pirates and opening fire on their fishing trawler while guarding the privately owned Italian-flagged oil-tanker MT Enrica Lexie off the coast of Kerala on February 15, 2012.
India granted Latorre leave to return to Italy last year after he suffered a stroke.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Marine Le Pen Refuses TV Debate After Bias Row
A popular French TV show cancelled its Thursday night broadcast after French far-right leader Marine Le Pen refused to attend following complaints she had been invited as top guest too many times.
“Des Paroles et des Actes” (“Words and Actions”), broadcast by France 2 and hosted by journalist David Pujadas, has featured Le Pen as its principal guest four times, a record for any French politician.
But her fifth invitation for Thursday night’s show, just weeks before a crucial election in which she is expected to win the presidency of France’s Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie region, enraged the ruling Socialists and conservative opposition Les Républicains, led by former president Nicolas Sarkozy…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Netanyahu, the Mufti and Hitler
by Srdja Trifkovic
Last Tuesday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu caused a stir when he told the World Zionist Congress that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, inspired Hitler to proceed with the mass murder of European Jews during the Second World War. “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews,” Netanyahu told his audience, referring to the Fürhrer’s meeting with the Mufti on 21 November 1941. “And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here.’ ‘So what should I do with them?’ he asked. He said, ‘Burn them.’“ According to Netanyahu, al-Husseini had “a central role in fomenting the Final Solution.”
The political objective of Netanyahu’s statement was obvious: to imply that the fundamental cause of today’s violence is not Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, now in its 49th year, but the visceral, murderous Jew-hatred allegedly prevalent among the Palestinian Arabs. The historical accuracy of this claim is disputable, however. I’ve taken some interest in the matter, primarily because of the Mufti’s central role in recruiting the Muslims of Bosnia for the SS in 1943, and my view is that al-Husseini had a significant but by no means central role in engineering the Endlösung der Judenfrage.
BACKGROUND — With the emergence of Zionism in the early twentieth century, the Muslims faced a “Jewish problem” for the first time since Mohammad. This time they faced it from a position of weakness, with the Jews for the first time since the destruction of the Temple poised to reestablish a polity that would be territorial as well as spiritual and cultural. The result was a massive outpouring of Muslim Judeophobia between the two world wars, as vitriolic as anything seen in Hitler’s Germany, with the important difference that Nazism could not claim any scriptural grounding or divine mandate, even if it had wished for one.
It was a rude awakening for the Muslim world, after the phenomenal successes of the earlier centuries, to find itself by the early twentieth century on what looked like the losing side of history. It was even more difficult to explain the decline, bearing in mind the Kuranic promise that the Umma consisted of the best of all people. The many military, technological and economic weaknesses produced the sense that something had gone terribly wrong, but it did not result in creative self-examination. The question never was “What have we done?” but always “What have they done to us?” The Western imperialists have had their share of blame apportioned, but in the 1930s the Jews were included among those to be blamed.
Hitler’s Germany sensed this and made a concerted and successful effort to plant “modern” anti-Semitism in the Arab world…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
Poste Italiane IPO Price to be 6.50-6.75 Euros
State selling off around 40% of company
(ANSA) — Milan, October 22 — The price for the upcoming IPO of Italian postal company Poste Italiane will be between 6.50 euros and 6.75 euros, sources said on Thursday. This is in the middle of the range of between 6.00 and 7.50 euros given in the flotation prospectus. The Italian government is selling a stake of around 40% in the company and the privatization is expected to raise 7.8 billion and 9.8 billion euros. As well as running Italy’s postal service, Poste Italiane also has a thriving banking and financial services arm.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Support for Britain’s Membership in EU Falling Amid Migrant Crisis
52 percent of Britons said that they would vote to “stay in” if there was a referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership in the European Union, according to the poll.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Support for the United Kingdom’s continued membership of the European Union has fallen after months in which news coverage has been dominated by stories of the large numbers of refugees coming to Europe, a new poll revealed Thursday.
The United Kingdom is expected to hold a referendum on its membership of the bloc by the end of 2017.
Fifty-two percent of respondents in the new poll said they would vote to “stay in” if there was a referendum, compared to four in ten who would to prefer to leave the bloc, according to a survey conducted by the Ipsos MORI polling company on October 17-19.
The results of a similar poll conducted in June had 61 percent of participants in favor of staying and 27 supporting the so-called Brexit.
Over half of voters said they could be persuaded to change their mind, depending on the how remaining within or leaving the European Union would effect the United Kingdom, Ipsos MORI said.
The new poll comes as Europe is trying to cope with an enormous influx of migrants fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Northern Africa.
In September, the European Commission announced a mandatory quota system to relocate some 160,000 refugees, who had arrived primarily to Italy, Greece and Hungary, among the bloc’s member states.
British Prime Minister David Cameron Cameron rejected any UK involvement in the EU quota scheme, adding that his country would accept 20,000 migrants, exclusively from refugee camps in countries neighboring Syria, over the next five years.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Three Dead, Two Hurt in Swedish School Attack
The suspect behind a stabbing spree at a school in west Sweden has been confirmed dead. A teenager and a teacher also died and two others remain in hospital.
The attack took place on Thursday morning at the school, around 75km from Gothenburg, after a man wearing a mask walked into a building on the premises wielding “several knife-like objects”, police said.
One male teacher, 20, died following the incident, along with a pupil, whose age was confirmed by police in the evening as 17, despite initial statements suggesting he was 11.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK Nuclear Plant Deal Hinges on Ambitions of London, Beijing and EDF
Plans to build two next-generation nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in southwest England are stalled at the crossroads of ambitions by Britain, China and French electricity giant EDF.
A consortium led by EDF (Electricite de France) is expected to make a final decision this year on whether to invest in the gigantic project, estimated to cost £25 billion ($38.6 billion, 34 billion euros), which would be the first new nuclear power station in Britain in decades.
The decision could hinge on China’s role in the consortium through its state-run firms China General Nuclear Corporation (CGN) and China National Nuclear Corporation.
London is looking to the visit this week of Chinese President Xi Jinping as an opportunity to finalise the deal for Hinkley Point, two years after it first gave the green light for the project…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK Police Force ‘Too White’ Says Home Secretary as Officer Cuts Loom
Britain’s Home Secretary has accused UK police forces of not doing enough to employ black and ethnic minority officers. Theresa May launched an attack on the head of London’s Metropolitan Police Service for claiming a rise in knife crime was due to a curb on stop-and-search powers which disproportionately target young black youths.
Theresa May has told the National Black Police Association conference that the 43 forces in England and Wales do not racially represent the communities they serve and that the proportion of black and Asian officers is “simply not good enough”, whilst reforms to stop-and-search “must continue”.
Citing recent home office statistics for the lack of any black officers in four forces — Cheshire, Durham, Dyfed-Powys and North Yorkshire —Theresa May was instantly accused by Ron Hogg, Durham Police and Crime Commissioner, of getting her numbers “wrong” and entering a “ridiculous numbers game”, when police are facing drastic budget cuts.
The relationship between London’s police chief and the Home Secretary has deteriorated in recent months, be it over curbs to stop-and-search, the refusal to allow Sir Bernard to deploy water canon in a potential riot or budget cuts to the Metropolitan Police Service.
The Home Secretary told the head of London’s Metropolitan Police Service to stop his “knee-jerk” reactions about links between stop and search curbs and the rise in knife crime, saying:
“It is simply not true that knife crime is rising because the police are no longer stopping and searching those carrying knives.”
In 2014, Theresa May imposed restrictions on police officers, using stop and search powers, to look for drugs and weapons. According to Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, 27 percent of searches carried out in 2013 were not based on reasonable ground for suspicion and concerns, disproportionately targeting young people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.
In June 2015, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe claimed the stop and search reforms had led to an increase in knife crime.
Recent figures show knife crime increased by 18 percent in London, where ten teenagers have been stabbed to death in the last nine months.
In September 2015, Theresa May announced a “greater role” for volunteer police roles, slashing 22,000 jobs by then end of 2020.
In a recent interview with London’s Evening Standard, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, head of Scotland Yard hit back at the budget cuts, suggesting that the safety of London was at risk from the loss of up to 8,000 police officers and warned that the legacy could limit the Met’s ability to respond to a major terror threat.
The latest dressing down of Britain’s police forces by Mrs May has the potential for relationships between the police and the government to deteriorate further.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Theresa May: Police Forces Are ‘Too White’
Theresa May will publicly criticise claims made by Britain’s most senior police officer that a rise in knife crime is linked to falls in stop and search, branding them as a “kneejerk reaction” and “false”.
In a combative speech on Thursday May will also criticise the race record of the police in England and Wales, saying they are too white, with not one of the 43 forces looking like the communities they serve.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican Neurosurgeon Says ‘Improper’ To Speculate on Pope
Top doc Giulio Maira says QN paper ‘misleading’
(see related)(ANSA) — Rome, October 21 — Neurosurgeon Giulio Maira said Wednesday it would be “improper” for him to speculate on whether or not Pope Francis is ill. “Being a Vatican doctor, speculating on the pope’s alleged illness would have been extremely improper of me,” he told ANSA after Quotidiano Nazionale (QN) paper ran an interview on brain tumours next to an article alleging the pope has a benign brain tumour. “Placing my interview next to the article on the pope was done without my knowledge and is entirely misleading,” said Maira, a chief neurosurgeon at Vatican-linked Gemelli Hospital in Rome.
“I was interviewed without being informed in the slightest about the context of the news story,” said Maira, who is attending a series of scientific conferences in the the United States.
“I gave purely scientific information,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Imam Al-Hussein Mausoleum Closed in Cairo for Ashura
‘To prevent Shia celebrations’, religious endowments ministry
(ANSAmed) — CAIRO, OCTOBER 22 — The Egyptian Ministry for Religious Endowments (Waqf) has ordered the closing of the Imam Al-Hussein mausoleum in the Egyptian capital during the Ashura holiday. The decision was made to prevent Shia rituals from being celebrated in it during the holiday, which marks the tenth day of the holy month of Muharram on the Hejira calendar. A ministry statement noted that the mausoleum would be closed from Thursday until Saturday and that legal measures would be taken if any violations were to occur. Shia Muslims commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein during Ashura. Hussein is their most revered imam and is thought to have been killed and beheaded in the seventh century in Kerbala.
The Kerbala massacre is at the origin of the break between the Sunni and Shia sects of the Muslim religion. The latter believe that Prophet Mohamed’s grandson Hussein should have succeded him instead of Yazid.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Campaign: Encouraging Palestinians to Carry Out Lone Wolf Attacks
In recent days, several Islamic State (ISIS) media organs have released a series of videos aimed at Palestinians, as part of a campaign supporting the wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks currently underway in Israel. Although the call for more attacks naturally receives the most attention, a substantial part of these videos is dedicated to ideological attacks on Hamas and Fatah. The videos were produced by various Islamic State provinces, so as to give an impression of a global campaign. Beyond the calls for more attacks, the campaign also serves ISIS propaganda goals
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Champagne Tastes: IMF Warns Saudi Arabia May Go Bankrupt by 2020
Saudi Arabia may go bankrupt within the next five years if the government maintains its current spending habits, the International Monetary Fund said in a report Wednesday.
Saudi authorities are already planning spending cuts as the world’s biggest oil exporter seeks to cut its budget deficit created by the drop in crude prices.
Saudi officials have repeatedly said that the kingdom’s economy is strong enough to weather the plunge in crude prices as it did in similar crises, when its finances were under more strain.
But the IMF said measures being considered by oil exporters “are likely to be inadequate to achieve the needed medium-term fiscal consolidation. Under current policies, countries would run out of buffers in less than five years because of large fiscal deficits.”
The fall of the price of oil, which accounts for about 80% of Saudi Arabia’s economy, has been absorbed by the hundreds of billions of dollars the kingdom has accumulated in the past decade.
Saudi’s debt as a percentage of gross domestic product fell to less than 2% in 2014, the lowest in the world, Bloomberg reported. In August, net foreign assets fell to the lowest level in more than two years.
The drop in oil prices has prompted the government to sell bonds for the first time since 2007, with the kingdom’s finances further strained by its war in Yemen.
The IMF expects Saudi’s budget deficit to rise to more than 20% of GDP this year after King Salman announced one-time bonuses for public-sector workers following his accession to the throne in January.
A number of such one-off spending proposals this year have added to the spending needs, Masood Ahmed, director of the Middle East and Central Asia department at the IMF, told Bloomberg in an interview in Dubai.
“The budget deficit in Saudi Arabia does go down substantially as a share of GDP over the next five years but it still remains high over this period, all the more reason to identify ways in which it can be brought down further to more a manageable level,” he said.
David Butter, associate fellow at Chatham House in London, told Bloomberg that a crisis is not imminent, but if the government fails to develop sustainable non-oil revenue over the next five to 10 years, “then of course, they’re in big trouble,” he said.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Attacks and Victims Rise Despite Airstrikes
Almost 3,000 killed over past 3 months
(ANSAmed) — LONDON, OCTOBER 22 — Despite airstrikes by the US-led international coalition and the Russian air force, attacks by the Islamic State (ISIS) and resulting victims are increasing.
An IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre report states that there was a 42% rise over the past three months. ISIS conducted 1,086 attacks in mostly Syria and Iraq over the past three months, leading to 2,978 deaths. An average of 32 people were killed by the group every day, 65% more than the previous three months.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Luis Fleischman: Cuban Troops in Syria: Another Foreign Policy Crisis
The Institute for Cuban and Cuban American studies recently disclosed information according to which Cuban troops are helping the Russian/Iranian effort to save the Assad Government in Syria and establish their influence in the Middle East.
According to the report, Cuban military operatives are advising President Bashar al-Assad’s military and may even be preparing to man Russian-made tanks.
This report was later confirmed by the White House, acknowledging that Cuban troops have been training in Russia.
An important question is why Cuban troops are putting themselves in harm’s way when the Russian army should be adequate to face this military challenge. Why would they do it now? A quarter of a century after the end of the cold war; a time when Cubans were willing puppets of the Soviet Union and sent their troops to places like Angola to fight for global communism? Why would they do it now that relations with the U.S. are on the path to normalization?
There are a number of reasons we can suggest as possibilities…
| — Hat tip: MM | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Blasts and Polls: Journalists Threatened and Arrested as Ankara Clamps Down on Media
The peace march massacre and the 1 November election have boosted censorship. At least 20 journalists have been detained under the country’s anti-terror legislation. Freedom of the press in Turkey is under serious threat, international activists say, with President Erdogan as the main culprit.
Istanbul (AsiaNews/Agencies) — Press freedom in Turkey is under serious threat as the authorities censor, intimidate and arrests of journalists, this according to a coalition of international press rights groups after a three-day “emergency mission” to Turkey.
Screws have been tightening in recent weeks following the bloody attack on a peace march on 10 October in Ankara that killed more than a hundred people.
However, “Many journalists are in prison for simply doing their jobs, which is reporting to the public,” said Barbara Trionfi, executive director of the International Press Institute.
In fact, 20 journalists are behind bars in Turkey on mainly terrorism-related charges, a sign of increased state pressure on the press and independent reporters.
Dozens of supporters of the ruling AK party protested outside the offices of the Hürriyet newspaper last month, after it published an article they claimed contained lies about Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Days later, one of the newspaper’s columnists was brutally attacked outside his home.
The aforementioned coalition said that its mission was prompted by “concerns over the deteriorating state of media freedoms in the country and its impact on the election”.
At a press conference in Istanbul, coalition representatives said that some journalists have been in pre-trial detention for months, whilst others have been sentenced for links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Concerns have been growing about press freedoms as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pursues a military offensive against the PKK and the country prepares for its second general election in five months.
International journalists have been arrested and deported, and one of Turkey’s best-known anti-government journalists was attacked this month and a “terror propaganda” probe opened into the paper he works for.
Erdogan had sparked outrage in the run-up to the 7 June election by saying the editor-in-chief of the secular Cumhuriyet daily would “pay a heavy price” over a front-page story which it said proved Turkey had sent arms to Syrian rebels.
Dutch journalist Frederike Geerdink was deported in September after being detained during clashes between Kurdish rebels and Turkish security forces.
In a statement, the coalition of international press rights groups urged Erdogan “to end all exercises of direct personal pressure on owners and/or chief editors of critical media and to stop using negative or hostile rhetoric targeting journalists”.
Turkey now requires all national and international journalists to be accredited in order to cover the November vote.
The country was the world’s top jailer of journalists in 2012 and 2013, ahead of Iran and China, according to the international Committee to Protect Journalists, before improving to 10th place in 2014.
Erdogan has previously insisted his country has “the freest press in the world”. However, Reporters Without Borders ranked Turkey 149th out of 180 in its 2015 press freedom index last month, warning of a “dangerous surge in censorship.”
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Finmeccanica in Contract Talks With Rostec, Others
‘Automation, helicopters, new technologies’ says CEO
(ANSA) — Moscow, October 22 — Aerospace and defence giant Finmeccanica is in contract talks with Russia’s high-tech industrial conglomerate Rostec, CEO Mauro Moretti told Russian news agency TASS on Thursday. “We’re considering several contracts in automation, helicopters and new technologies,” he said, adding Finmeccanica is negotiating with Rostec, a State corporation, and several oil and gas companies in Russia.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Russia to Permanently Station Military Unit in the Arctic
A Russian military unit will be permanently stationed in the Arctic by 2018, the defense minister said on Thursday.
Sergei Shoigu told Russian news agencies on Thursday that the “creation and arming” of the Arctic military unit should be completed by 2018. Shoigu also said Russia is building several new bases in the Arctic as well as rebuilding six Soviet-era air bases there.
“We are not hiding this from anyone: we are have practically finished building bases on the Novosibirsk Archipelago and on Kotelny island,” Shoigu said, adding that modern military technology was “necessary for guarding borders” in the Arctic.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pakistan Suicide Bomber Kills at Least 10 at Shiite Mosque: Officials
A suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque killing at least 10 Shiite minority Muslims and wounding 12 others in a remote southwestern Pakistani town on Thursday, officials said.
The attack took place as Shiites gathered at the mosque to observe the holy month of Moharram in the town of Chalgari in restive Baluchistan, some 170 kilometres (105 miles) southeast of the provincial capital, Quetta.
“At least 10 people were killed and 12 others were wounded after a suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shiite mosque,” provincial home minister Sarfraz Bugti told AFP…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Seoul’s Plan to Control History Textbooks Sparks Academic Fury
Seoul — A plan by the government to mandate the use of a single state-approved history textbook in schools has sparked a growing backlash within academia in a country where the past is often a source of controversy and partisan strife.
Earlier this month, the administration of President Park Geun-hye announced its intention to take control of the history curriculum at secondary schools to correct what it has called left-wing and even pro-North Korean biases in some textbooks. The plan, due to go into effect in 2017, would replace the current system where schools can choose textbooks from among eight private publishers.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
South Africa: ‘All White People Get Out or Else We Will Kill You’ — Black Students
Although the racial and ethnic element in South Africa’s current student protests is being played down by the MSM, white students are generally opposed against the protests, it being near the end of the South African academic year (in the southern hemisphere the academic year corresponds to the calendar year with December being summer vacation), with exams being written soon. The following video posted on Facebook by a Cape Town student, Anne Landman, has already gone viral with hundreds sharing it on Facebook. Reminiscent of a scene from a zombie movie such as World War Z or The Walking Dead, white students had barricaded themselves in a classroom while black protestors outside were breaking down the door.
The ensuing chaos was not recorded on video but Anne Landman writes on her Facebook page:
So this happened. I stopped filming before things got out of hand as we were scared they would damage property, which they did. Hundreds of rioters outside those doors. People were cornered and taunted. Some of our students were beaten up for trying to keep the doors closed. The doors are now broken. They stormed in with balaclavas on, shouting horrible things in our direction. Quote of the day “All white people get out or else we will kill you”. Sorry for the language in the video but we were all panicking a bit in there. What has this country come to?
| — Hat tip: RRN | [Return to headlines] |
Mexican Police Find Tijuana-San Diego Drugs Tunnel
Mexican police have found an 800m (2,625ft) long tunnel used to smuggle drugs into the US city of San Diego, authorities say.
The tunnel, which starts from the Mexican city of Tijuana, is reported to belong to the drug gang of fugitive drug cartel leader Joaquin Guzman.
Police said they detained 16 suspects and seized 10 tonnes of marijuana.
Mexican cartels have been smuggling drugs to the US through underground tunnels for years.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Violence on the Rise in Mexico City, As Armed Men Hold Up Restaurant
In the morning, a body was found hanging from a bridge in Iztapalapa. In the afternoon, armed men burst into a popular restaurant in La Roma. Two hits on the same day — on Monday — in two completely different areas of Mexico City. The first took place in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods, and the second in one of the most upscale quarters of the city, illustrating how the security apparatus in the Mexican capital is failing. This huge urban sprawl of nine million residents is currently grappling with its worst spike in violence in the last 17 years.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Croatia Seeks Help of Brussels
“We need tents, beds, blankets”. Since Sept., 217,000 arrivals
(ANSA) — ZAGREB — The Croatian government has decided to call for international help in order to deal with the migrant crisis and receive the refugees: since September 16 to date, about 217,000 migrants entered the country.
The government authorized the Civil Protection to call — through the European Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) — for material support, including hundreds of tents, housing units, beds, thousands of sleeping bags, blankets, boots and so on. “We need aid, because of escalating migrant crisis in recent days”, the Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic said, adding that sometimes up to 13,000 blankets are necessary during a single night.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Stop Recognising Child Marriages Abroad
Dutch authorities Wednesday moved to close a loophole under which minors married abroad were allowed to join their spouses in the Netherlands, which has registered record numbers of asylum seekers.
Amid growing concerns over the number of child brides resulting from the wars in Syria and Iraq, the Dutch government Wednesday gave notice its laws would be changed from December 5.
“The law aimed at combatting forced marriages provides that a marriage carried out abroad between those under 18 will no longer be recognised in the Netherlands except if both spouses have since reached 18,” says the law published in the official government journal…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Eurotunnel Calls for More UK Border Staff and is Seeking “Signficant” Compensation
The company that operates the Channel Tunnel has urged the British government to bolster its border force in Calais and revealed that the compensation it is seeking for the migrant disruption has grown significantly.
Jacques Gounon, chief executive of Eurotunnel, said that while the British and French governments had taken “immediate and intense action” to tackle the crisis at the French port, “perhaps the only thing which could be improved” is the number of UK passport and customs officials in Calais.
Increasing the number of officials checking drivers and trucks that are bound for Britain would speed-up Eurotunnel’s operations.
The company believes it would give migrants less time to board vehicles and so would help to reduce the disruption to its services.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Officials Scramble to Find Skilled Interpreters
Language services firms that provide interpretation for Finnish authorities say they are struggling to recruit people who can translate from Arabic and the Kurdish language Sorani.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Arrests Suspected Anti-Refugee Plotters
German officials have arrested three far-right extremists and seized explosive material that could be used in attacks on migrants. The authorities say right-wing groups plan to intensify their anti-refugee violence.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Lesvos Feeling Refugee Strain Again
Authorities’ capacity for processing refugees and migrants on Lesvos are being stretched to breaking point again due to a higher influx of people over the last few days.
A total of around 43,000 migrants reached Greece’s eastern Aegean islands, mainly Lesvos, over the past five days, the government said Wednesday. It is estimated that the number of people stuck on Lesvos has risen above 11,000 again.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Migrant Crisis: Czechs Accused of Human Rights Abuses
The UN has accused Czech authorities of “systematic” rights violations in their treatment of refugees and migrants.
The Czech Republic was holding migrants in “degrading” conditions for up to 90 days, the UN’s human rights chief said.
Zeid Raad Al Hussein said migrants had been strip-searched to find money to pay for their detention.
But Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec said the government “fundamentally disagreed” with the accusations.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Migration Group Says World Must be Ready for More Diversity
CAIRO (AP) — The head of the International Organization for Migration says leaders must prepare the world for more diversity as aging societies in the developed world and endemic youth unemployment in the developing world drive demographic trends.
Speaking at a meeting on migration in Cairo on Wednesday, IOM Director-General William Lacy Swing says northern societies need workers while “we have a youthful, largely unemployed global south, with young people needing jobs.”
He says the world is bound to become more diverse in terms of culture, ethnicity and religion.
He says, “Leaders who are not preparing their people for this, through public education, public information, and awareness-raising campaigns, just may not be doing their job.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Migrants: Slovenian Parliament Grants More Power to the Army
New measures can put in force fot three months
(ANSA) — LJUBLJIANA — Slovenian lawmakers have approved a law formally granting more powers to the army in managing the migrant influx along the border of the small Alpine nation.
Parliament voted 66-5 early on Wednesday to allow the troops to warn, direct and temporarily restrict the movement of persons or engage in crowd control, as police normally do.
The law envisages that the new measures can put in force in an exceptional situation and for three months with the possibility to extend the period.
Slovenian army troops already have been deployed at the border providing logistical support to the police.
Migrants have turned to Slovenia in their bid to reach Western Europe after Hungary closed its borders to the flow on Saturday.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Slovenia Asks for EU Help to Tackle Refugee Crisis
European Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos is visiting Slovenia to discuss the migrant crisis. The small Balkan country has asked for EU police help to regulate the migrant flow.
Over the past 24 hours, more than 12,000 refugees have arrived in Slovenia, according to Slovenian police. This record surpasses even the numbers in Hungary at the height of the crisis in September. Slovenia is the smallest country on the Balkan migration route, with only two million inhabitants.
On Thursday morning, more than 1,000 asylum seekers streamed out of a crowded Austrian collection point on the Austrian-Slovenian border after Austrian police removed barriers to prevent possible violence. Police said some followed instructions and regrouped outside the barriers, but many continued walking northward away from the Spielfeld border crossing.
Slovenia voiced sharp criticism over Croatia’s decision to open its borders on Monday night, letting thousands of people in Slovenia, on their way north to Austria and Germany.
The situation is tense in Slovenian refugee camps. In Brezice, near the Slovenian-Croatian border, a fire of unknown origin destroyed 27 tents.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Almost Triples Refugee Estimates as System Buckles
Sweden is being overwhelmed in its efforts to absorb a record number of asylum seekers looking for refuge inside its borders.
The country’s migration agency on Thursday raised its forecast to as many as 190,000 people arriving this year and 170,000 people in 2016. The agency warned costs will rise to 60 billion kronor ($7 billion) next year, double its earlier forecast, and reach about 70 billion kronor annually through 2019.
“The current refugee situation lacks an equivalent in modern times,” said Anders Danielsson, director general of the agency. “We see people literally walking through Europe.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Expects Up to 190,000 Refugees in 2015
The Swedish Migration Agency forecasts that in 2016 the number of refugees in Sweden will be lower than in 2015 and range between 100,000 and 140,000.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Sweden expects from 140,000 to 190,000 asylum seekers to arrive in the country this year, the Swedish Migration Agency said on Thursday.
The agency forecasts that in 2016 the number of refugees in Sweden will range between 100,000 and 140,000.
“The number of asylum seekers in Sweden and Europe is more than ever and the situation is unprecedented,” Anders Danielsson, the head of the Migration Agency said, commenting on the published forecast.
Swedish authorities have accepted nearly 100,000 refugees in the first nine months of 2015. According to the Migration Agency, there will be a shortage of places for migrants by the end of November. By the end of the year, some 25,000 to 45,000 additional places will be required for migrant relocation.
According to refugee statistics by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Sweden, with a population of nine million, has the greatest number of refugees per capita among OECD member states. In 2014, refugees accounted for nearly eight people per 1,000 Swedish citizens, the OECD report said.
The last time the country faced the mass inflow of refugees was in the early 1990s, during the Balkan War when 84,000 people asked for asylum in Sweden.
These figures remained a record in the country until the 2015 data that show figures exceeding the previous record.
Europe is struggling to manage a major migration crisis. Over 710,000 migrants arrived in the European Union during the first nine months of 2015, according to the EU border agency Frontex.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK Migrants Torch Tents and Take Selfies of Carnage in Protest at One Day Transfer Wait
Lawless migrants at a camp in Slovenia torched their own living quarters and took SELFIES of the carnage in a shockingly dangerous act of vandalism.
Hundreds of women and children fled the Brezice Camp in terror and plumes of smoke billowed into the sky as the ferocious blaze spread like wildfire between the closely-spaced tents.
But there were reports that the fires decimated supplies at the camp to the extent that their fellow migrants had to burn clothes donated by charities in an effort to keep warm.
Ari Omar, a migrant from Iraq, bemoaned his treatment at the hands of Europeans, saying: “I am sorry for Europe. We did not think Europe is like this: no respect for refugees, not treating us with dignity. Why is Europe like this?”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Slovenia Court Allows Referendum on Halting Gay Marriage
Slovenia’s Constitutional Court on Thursday gave the go-ahead for a referendum on whether to implement legislation allowing gay marriage, an issue that has divided the central European nation.
The court’s decision comes after parliament in March adopted a bill giving same-sex couples the same marriage rights as heterosexual couples.
A conservative group close to the centre-right opposition Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) and backed by the Catholic Church had contested the law.
The group gathered enough signatures to trigger a referendum…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Dear sir or madam… I don’t know if you have seen the pictures of the man that killed 2 people with a sword…. but saying he was dressed as Darth Vader is going a bit far…. He was wearing a helmet and a paintball mask….
I was simply echoing the media reports. The same is true of the report that he supported Sverigedemokraterna. That’s what Swedish media said, but I know full well how the media lie.
‘Migration Group says world must be ready for more diversity.’ So here we have the International Organisation for Migration, Director General William Lacy Swing (USA State Dept run by PC Utopians) preaching to the Western world about the need to welcome the Third World Muslim invasion.
http://europesworld.org/2014/10/09/why-europe-needs-to-make-immigration-easier/#.Vio1qX6rQdU
What he DOESN’T mention, of course, is the compatibility or not, of the invading cultures with the indigenous Western societies. This is so typical of Utopians of the New World Order (Davos) stripe, and it is the main reason for the catastrophe the West is now facing. Also absent from his rhetoric are the causes of State failure, intolerance, bad governance, corruption and genocide endemic in continents and regions which are endowed with richer natural resources than Europe itself, but still manage to stuff up their societies and expect the West to cope with the collateral damage!
What we need is a paradigm shift through which to view political reality. The popular Marxist, Post-Modern idiocy is well over its Used By Date and now is not the solution, but one of the main causes of the problem.
not only that. social democracy as politicial system is dead. As we can observe it very clearly, it leads to a left “soft” dictatorship in the long run.
Ari Omar, a migrant from Iraq, bemoaned his treatment at the hands of Europeans, saying: “I am sorry for Europe. We did not think Europe is like this: no respect for refugees, not treating us with dignity. Why is Europe like this?”
European respect is different to Arab demands for respect. Where’s the plush red carpet, the bespoke meal service? Interesting insight.