Bad weather in the Aegean has caused additional deaths of would-be migrants attempting to cross from Turkey to the Greek islands. Thirteen bodies, including six children, washed up on the coast of Lesbos. And ten bodies, among them six babies, were recovered from a boat that sank just offshore of Samos.
In other news, the AKP party of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won an absolute majority in parliament in today’s elections. However, it failed to win a super-majority, which would have allowed it to amend the country’s constitution.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Dean, Fjordman, Insubria, TR, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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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.
Cheap Money Fuels Mega-Merger Boom
A flood of cheap money is financing the biggest boom in mega-mergers and takeovers since the 2008 global financial crisis.
But analysts warn that hastily arranged corporate marriages that seem blissful in good financial times can end in tears, and considerable debts.
Companies have already struck 45 mergers and acquisitions with a value exceeding $10 billion (9 billion euros) each in the first nine months of the year, according to data provider Dealogic.
The mergers amount to a total of $1.2 trillion — up 89 percent from the same period last year…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
China Manufacturing Activity Shrinks for Third Straight Month: Govt
Activity in China’s vast manufacturing sector in October shrank for the third month in a row, officials said Sunday, adding to fears that the world’s second largest economy is slowing faster than policy makers admit.
The official Purchasing Managers? Index (PMI) came in at 49.8 last month, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.
The indicator tracks activity in China?s crucial factory and workshop sector and was unchanged from the previous month. A figure above 50 signals expansion, while anything below indicates shrinkage…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Oversight Body Says Inps Risks 10bn Annual Deficit in 10 Yrs
Iocca says projections are ‘not reassuring’
(ANSA) — Rome, October 28 — Pietro Iocca, the president of the CIV oversight body of social security and pensions agency INPS, told a Lower House hearing on Wednesday that the agency risked running 10 billion euro deficits every year in 10 years’ time. “The projections for the INPS balance sheet are not reassuring,” Iocca said. “It’s a situation that should be focused on and monitored”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Finance Ministry Reaches 6.5 Bn Target With Privatisations
ENEL and Poste Italiane together with Enav and MPS Monti bonds
(ANSA) — Rome, October 30 — Italy’s Finance Ministry on Friday said that with the recent partial privatisation of Italy’s postal company Poste Italiane, the government has reached its 2015 target of 6.5 billion euros of revenue to be used to pay down public debt.
The Treasury Department said the funds came from four different operations and by law must be used to pay down public debt.
The postal system privatisation involved a sale of 34.7% of capital which brought in about 3.1 billion euros.
In addition, the Finance Ministry said the sale of 5.74% of capital in electricity and gas utility ENEL netted 2.2 billion euros, extraordinary dividends for surplus capital from the sale of state-owned air traffic controller ENAV brought in 200 million euros, and 1.1 billion euros came from the reimbursement of so-called Monti bonds it issued to troubled bank Monte Paschi di Siena.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Carson, GOP White House Candidates Critical of Obama’s Syria Plan for 50 Special Ops Troops
Republican White House candidates on Sunday criticized President Obama’s plan to deploy 50 Special Operations troops in Syria to fight the Islamic State terror group.
“Sending 50 American Special Forces into Syria in the eyes of ISIL shows that Obama is not all in,” candidate and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said on “Fox News Sunday.” “It is a sign of weakness to ISIL. They have sized Obama up and they think he’s weak.”
Graham, a defense hawk and Armed Services Committee member, argued that such a small group will have “no chance of winning” the fight to destroy the Islamic State, whose recent and unexpected rise has resulted in the militant group occupying large swatches of Iraq and Syria.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Jeb Bush Tries to Reassure Jittery Donors After Lackluster Debate
For the second time in the past week, Jeb Bush attempted to reassure anxious donors that his presidential campaign was still in good shape. Bush delivered his latest glass-half-full message on a Thursday afternoon conference call, one day after Wednesday night’s admittedly sub-par debate performance, as some of his financiers worry that his move to confront one-time protégé Senator Marco Rubio backfired badly.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Massachusetts Mosque Vandalized Amid Increasing Islamophobic Rhetoric in US, Civil Rights Group Says
Members of the American Muslim community in Massachusetts Sunday asked the U.S. Department of Justice and state officials to open a hate crime investigation following apparent anti-Muslim vandalism at a suburban Boston mosque. Vandals scrawled “USA” in large red letters, repeatedly across the exterior walls of the Islamic Center of Burlington, said officials of the Massachusetts branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a national civil rights group for Muslims.
The graffiti, which was discovered Sunday morning and reported to local police, fits in with an Islamophobic theme proffered by some national political figures who suggest Muslims are not “real Americans,” the group said. The Burlington mosque also was targeted in 2013 when the building’s sign was defaced with similar “USA” graffiti.
“With national political figures falsely claiming that American Muslims cannot be patriotic citizens, it is not surprising that Islamic institutions are targeted by those emboldened by the mainstreaming of Islamophobia,” said John Robbins, executive director of CAIR in Massachusetts. “We ask that state and federal law enforcement authorities investigate the apparent bias motive for this attack on a house of worship and that our nation’s leaders speak out against growing anti-Muslim bigotry.”
In recent months, vandalism and other hate speech has hit mosques in Texas, Kentucky, Virginia, Nebraska, Tennessee, Ohio and New York, among other states, CAIR said. Activists have laid blame with some of the 2016 Republican presidential candidates, including Donald Trump and Ben Carson. Both men have drawn criticism following remarks that many considered to be anti-Muslim…
| — Hat tip: TR | [Return to headlines] |
Obama, FBI Director Spar Over the ‘Ferguson Effect’ On Police
President Obama and his FBI director are sparring over whether the so-called “Ferguson Effect” is real, complicating the president’s push to loosen the nation’s sentencing laws.
Thirty of the biggest U.S. municipalities have seen increases in homicides compared to last year as of the end of September, according to data provided by the Major City Chiefs Association. In Baltimore and Milwaukee, murders have jumped by more than 50 percent.
During last Wednesday’s GOP primary debate, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said officers are afraid to get out of their cars “because of a lack of support from politicians like the president of the United States.” Other candidates, such as Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), also argue Obama has not done enough to defend police.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. And U.K. To Hold Joint Financial Cyber Security Exercise
The U.S. and British governments will hold a joint exercise to test cyber security and information sharing arrangements involving global financial institutions, according to the U.K. National Computer Emergency Response Team.
The initiative will not be a “war game” involving live testing and will instead check communication and coordination links between governments, authorities and companies, an e-mailed statement from CERT said. While it will involve financial firms, it will not test their individual responses, it said.
As online criminals grow more sophisticated the exercise is part of ongoing engagement between the U.K. and U.S. after President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron said in January the two countries would deepen cyber security ties.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Witnesses Describe Gunman’s Rampage in Colorado Springs
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Witnesses have described a terrifying scene on the streets of Colorado Springs, where a gunman armed with a rifle marched down a city street and shot and killed three people before being fatally shot in a gun battle with police.
Authorities have released few details about Saturday afternoon’s shooting in broad daylight. The suspect and victims have not been identified, and police are looking for a motive.
Betty Barker told KOAA-TV News5 she saw the gunman approach a young man on a bike and shoot him several times. Several people in the neighborhood said they were horrified to see the man’s body, lying face down, still on his bike, still wearing his backpack.
Matt Abshire, 21, told the Colorado Springs Gazette he looked outside his apartment window and saw a man shoot someone with a rifle.
Abshire said after the first shooting he ran to the street and followed the man and called police.
The man suddenly turned and fired more shots, hitting two women, Abshire said.
Abshire told The Gazette he rushed to help, but that one of the victims was already dead, shot in the chest. The other woman was shot in the face. Police confirmed Saturday afternoon that both were killed…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Crises Beset Juncker’s ‘Last Chance’ EU Commission One Year On
A year after Jean-Claude Juncker took charge of what he called the “last chance” European Commission, his plans to win back sceptical voters have been partly sidelined by existential threats like the migrant and Greek crises, analysts say.
The wily former Luxembourg prime minister vowed when he took the reins of the 28-nation EU’s executive arm in November 2014 to be more “political” than his Portuguese predecessor, Jose Manuel Barroso.
That meant fewer rules about the shape of cucumbers and other red tape that had given Brussels a bad name, and more dealing with the bigger issues affecting increasingly disillusioned Europeans.
But while the Commission has not been afraid to be proactive, even if it annoys member states, that has failed to translate into wider support for Europe — as the victory of eurosceptics in Polish elections last weekend shows…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany’s Anti-Euro Party Which Became Two
Leaks to the press, failed grabs for power, an extramarital affair.
The accusations and rumours surrounding a group of eurosceptic German members of the European Parliament are fodder for a tabloid newspaper or a script for an episode of House of Cards, the popular political drama series.
But the developments which led five of seven MEPs to leave anti-establishment party Alternative for Germany (AfD) also include a fundamental disagreement over the future direction of the party, whether to focus on dissolving the eurozone, or curbing immigration.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Non-Muslim inmates in several of Britain’s category A prisons are being forced to pay a ‘protection tax’ to radical Muslim prisoners out of fear of facing violence.
The ‘tax’, known as ‘jizya’, was found to be enforced by some Islamist extremist prisoners in four of Britain’s largest prisons.
The shocking findings were uncovered by a team of government investigators, appointed by justice secretary Michael Gove last August to establish the threat posed by Islamic extremists in prisons.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Marino Supporters Gather at Campidoglio
‘Democracy is dead’
(ANSA) — Rome, October 30 — Supporters of Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino gathered at the Campidoglio Friday after 25 councillors signed their resignations before a notary, marking the end of his bid to prolong his term after a U-turn on quitting over an expenses scandal.
“Marino Mayor, We Are The Antibodies” read a banner being waved, referring to anti-corruption czar Raffaele Cantone’s recent contention that Rome lacked the antibodies to fight graft.
“Democracy is dead and the most serious responsibilities are of the Democratic Party of (Premier Matteo) Renzi,” Marino’s party, said two supporters.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Tuscan Farmers Schedule ‘Red Meat Week’
Farms will hail ‘healthy’ cuts from Saturday
(ANSA) — Florence, October 31 — Tuscan farmers belonging to the Coldiretti labour union have launched a counter-offensive in defense of salami and Florentine beefsteaks, declaring a ‘red meat’ week from Saturday to November 7.
Special menus featuring what farmers insist are healthy, lean cuts of beef and pork will be offered in farms and restaurants around the region following the advice by the World Health Organisation to avoid red meat.
“Our home cured meats are healthier, because they are lean, not treated with hormones and obtained respecting rigid production discipline ensuring well being and quality of animal feeding,” said Coldiretti Tuscany president Tullio Marcelli.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Large analysis finds that decades’ worth of medical advice was misguided.
An analysis of 53 weight-loss studies that included more than 68,000 people has concluded that, despite their popularity, low-fat diets are no more effective than higher-fat diets for long-term weight loss.
The study, published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, runs counter to decades’ worth of medical advice and adds to a growing consensus that the widespread push for low-fat diets was misguided. Nature looks at why low-fat diets were so popular and what diet doctors might prescribe next.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Marino Quit Affair a ‘Farce’ Says Vatican Daily
Rome ‘rarely exposed to similar’ says L’Osservatore Romano
(ANSA) — Vatican City, October 30 — Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano said Friday the on-off resignation saga of Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino “is taking on the guise of a farce”.
It said “beyond all judgement there remains the damage, also of image, wreaked on a city accustomed in its history to see all manner of things, but rarely exposed to similar affairs”. Marino tendered his resignation over an expenses scandal October 12 and withdrew the resignation October 29 despite the opposition of his own Democratic Party, which is now teaming up with opposition councillors to bring him down.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Norway’s Second Largest Bank Abandons Cash
Scandinavian banking bank Nordea will stop handling cash in its Norwegian branches from Monday, in the latest move towards a cashless society in the Nordic region.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Three Reasons Why Britain Needs ‘Brexit’
By Roger Bootle
First, on past form, the EU will continue to stretch its tentacles wider and deeper into every nook and cranny of national life. Hence, the costs of its interference will rise substantially. Meanwhile, over time the EU budget will surely increase. After all, the logic of moving towards a closer union is that the central budget should outrank national ones.
Second, if most of the rest of the EU moves towards full fiscal and political union to make the euro work, it is going to be very uncomfortable for the UK to be inside the EU but outside that bloc. Whatever difficulties we have had over recent years in making our voice heard in Brussels are bound to get worse.
Third, the EU is likely to fall in relative importance in the world. Admittedly, the UK doesn’t have to choose between trading with the EU and trading with the rest of the world. But if the rest of the world is continuing to grow in relative importance, then the benefits of EU membership would be proportionately smaller, and the costs yet more unnecessary.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Top French Weatherman ‘Sacked’ Over Climate Change Book
A popular weatherman announced Saturday evening he been sacked by leading French news channel France Télévisions for publishing a book which accused top climate change experts of misleading the world about the threat of global warming.
Philippe Verdier, a household name in France for his daily weather reports on the France 2 channel, announced in an online video that he had received a letter of dismissal.
“My book ‘Climate Investigation’ was published one month ago. It got me banned from the air waves,” said the weatherman, who was put “on leave” from the TV station on October 12…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Ash Trees Could be Genetically Modified to Resist Dieback Disease
Genetically-modified ash trees resistant to ash dieback could be used to replace the millions likely to be wiped out by the disease, Government-backed scientists have suggested.
The vast majority of Britain’s 80 million ash trees are expected to be lost over coming decades due to the spread of the Chalara fraxinea virus, which was first spotted in the UK in 2012.
Scientists at the Queen Mary University of London are working to sequence the genome of different species of ash tree from around the world to try to identify genes that make some varieties, such as those found in East Asia, resistant to the disease.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK’s Scandal-Hit Lords Enjoy Day in Sun But Clouds Loom
Sniffing white powder with prostitutes, expenses scandals — members of Britain’s House of Lords usually only hit the headlines for their colourful extra-curricular activities, but one recent debate proved an exception.
The unelected upper chamber of parliament on Monday held a series of votes which forced Prime Minister David Cameron’s government to rethink a controversial part of its austerity drive.
The result has reminded the public that the Lords are more than a group of ageing grandees nodding off on red leather benches after lunch…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
US Official Was Allegedly Paid for Warning UK Against Brexit
Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Independence Party, has alleged that United States Trade Representative Michael Froman could have been paid for warning the UK against leaving the European Union.
During his latest appearance on the Andrew Marr Show, leader of the UK Independence Party Nigel Farage suggested that United States Trade Representative Michael Froman could have had a vested interest in sounding a warning that the US will not sign a trade deal with the UK if Britain leaves the EU.
“He’s clearly been paid to say that, hasn’t he? This is the big political club gathering around the Prime Minister who clearly is in desperate trouble with the referendum,” Farage said as quoted by the Independent.
Farage alleged that Froman could have been paid by “the state department, or something.”
On Wednesday Michael Froman said that the US is unlikely to sign a separate trade deal with the UK in the event of a Brexit. The US Trade Representative pointed out that London would face trade barriers while re-establishing economic ties with the US on its own.
It is no secret that Washington wants Britain to remain a part of the EU. The US envisages signing the widely discussed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the European Union. If the UK leaves the bloc it will not be regarded as a TTIP member and face additional trade tariffs.
To complicate matters further, the United States is the UK’s second biggest export market after the EU. The situation voiced by Froman could deal a severe blow to the country’s economy.
A nation-wide referendum on whether the UK would remain a part of the EU is due to take place before the end of 2017.
Nigel Farage has repeatedly bemoaned the fact that Britain has ultimately transformed into a junior member of a “Germany-dominated club.”
“What we are seeing is an increasingly authoritarian EU that crushes democratic rights & then actually crows about it,” the politician wrote on his Twitter account.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Benghazi Government Accuses Italian Warships of Violating Libyan Territorial Waters
Three Italian warships have entered Libyan waters east of Benghazi without permission, the internationally recognized Libyan government claims. The EU is running an anti-trafficking mission on the high seas near Libya.
People smugglers have profited from the power vacuum in Libya, caused by the rivalry between the internationally recognized government in Benghazi and the authorities set up by rebel factions in Tripoli.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Defense Minsitry Denies Libyan Claims of Violating Territorial Waters
Italian Navy vessels did not violate sovereign Libyan waters, Italian Defense Ministry said Sunday.
ROME (Sputnik) — Internationally recognized Libyan authorities based in the eastern city of Tobruk accused Rome of violating the North African nation’s territorial waters, claiming to have spotted three Italian warships off the coast of Benghazi.
“The news released this morning by Libyan sources about the presence yesterday of three Italian vessels in Libyan waters is false,” the Italian ministry said in a statement.
The Tobruk government reportedly scrambled its military aircraft in response to the claimed violation.
The Italian Defense Ministry said all its military vessels in the Mediterranean operate “within the limits established by treaties.”
Libya has been split since 2011, when the Arab Spring protests led to a civil war and the overthrow of long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi. The country has been ruled by the Tobruk-based Council of Deputies and the Tripoli-based General National Congress.
Arish Saeed, the chairman of the Tobruk government’s International Information Authority, told Sputnik earlier this week he expected the formation of a UN-brokered national unity government to be announced soon.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Russia: Plane That Crashed in Egypt Broke Up High in the Air
The Russian passenger plane that crashed in Egypt, killing everyone onboard, broke up at high altitude, Russia’s top aviation official said Sunday.
Fragments of the plane were found scattered over a large area, indicating it disintegrated high in the air, said Alexander Neradko, head of Russia’s federal aviation agency. Neradko, along with two Russian Cabinet ministers, were in Egypt inspecting the crash site in a remote part of the northern Sinai Peninsula, where Egypt is fighting an Islamic insurgency.
The news of a high-altitude breakup comes on the heels of reports that the co-pilot of the doomed jet had doubts about the plane’s safety before the flight.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sinai Plane Crash: Russian Airliner ‘Broke Up in Mid-Air’
A Russian airliner which crashed in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, killing all 224 people on board, broke up in mid-air, a Russian official says.
Victor Sorochenko, the head of Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee, said it was too early to conclude what caused the crash on Saturday.
He told reporters debris was found across a 20sq km-wide area of Sinai.
Russia is observing a day of mourning after its worst air disaster.
Egyptian Prime Minister Sharif Ismail said experts had confirmed that a plane could not be downed at 9,450m (31,000ft), the altitude the Airbus 321 was flying at, by weapons the militants are known to possess.
President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi also urged caution on Sunday, saying the investigation into the cause was a “complicated matter” that could take months.
Russian Transport Minister Maksim Sokolov said no evidence had been seen that indicated the plane was targeted, and IS has not produced pictures or video footage to substantiate its claim.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Economy Minister Resigns to Allow Major Gas Deal: PM
Israel’s economy minister resigned on Sunday, opening the way for the government to greenlight a multibillion dollar gas deal with US energy giant Noble Energy, a statement from the Prime Minister’s office said.
“Minister (Aryeh) Deri announced to me his intention to quit. In order to proceed with the (offshore gas) agreement the ministry will be transferred to me and I will give the greenlight,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
A major deal to exploit offshore gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean has been stuck for almost a year due to the objection of the country’s anti-trust authority, which warned the agreement could give Noble and its Israeli partner Delek an effective monopoly…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
6 Takeaways From the Turkish Elections
A defiant Erdogan rides back to power on a wave of violence.
After losing their single-party majority for the first time in 12 years, the Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) returned to power after a five-month intermission. Turkey’s supposedly non-partisan president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has demonstrated his mastery of politics by winning the election gamble to lead his party back to government. Although the AKP has failed to win the super-majority needed to unilaterally impose an executive presidential system tailor-made for Erdogan, the party regained a clear mandate to rule Turkey for the next four years.
Since the June elections, Turkish politics has been marred by intimidation and violence, both by the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and the Islamic State (IS), leading to hundreds of casualties. Erdogan seems to have ridden the wave of mayhem back to power by taking the votes of Turkish nationalists away from the far-right MHP and of religious Kurds from the pro-Kurdish HDP. The AKP’s promise of strong leadership, security and stability seems to have struck a chord with an electorate deeply worried about Turkey’s spiraling into violence in a volatile region.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
EU Gives 28 Million Euros to Syrian Refugees in Jordan
The European Union on Sunday said it was allocating an extra 28 million euros to Jordan to help it meet the urgent needs of Syrian refugees as winter sets in.
EU humanitarian affairs commissioner Christos Stylianides made the announcement during a visit to the Zaatari camp in northern Jordan that is home to 80,000 refugees from across the border in Syria.
“Today I’m announcing the allocation of 28 millions euros ($30.8 million) specifically for Jordan. This money will assist the urgent needs of Syrian refugees and their host communities,” Stylianides told reporters.
The latest aid raises the overall EU humanitarian assistance to 198 million euros since Syria’s conflict broke out in 2011…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
IS Overruns Town in Central Syria: Monitor
Islamic State group jihadists seized a small town in Syria’s central Homs province Sunday with help from local rebels and advanced on a majority Christian village, a monitoring group said.
“The Islamic State group easily took control of the village of Maheen, southeast of Homs, after two suicide attacks,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Maheen lies 70 kilometres (43 miles) southeast of the government-controlled provincial capital Homs city, and 35 kilometres east of the Syrian-Lebanese border.
For the past two years, a ceasefire between rebel factions in the town and regime troops at surrounding checkpoints had governed Maheen…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
‘Islamic State’ Takes Central Syrian Town Near Key Highway
IS has reportedly seized a central Syrian town from government forces. The capture of Mahin, near a strategic road, marks a new effort from the jihadists to expand their presence in the country’s center.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Opening Soon: Germans Race to Capture the Iranian Market
Ahead of the planned lifting of Western sanctions against Iran, businessmen from around the world are visiting the country, and as one group from Germany discovered, there is no shortage of opportunities.
Many Asian countries boycotted the Iranian boycott. As a result, they had free rein in the market for nine years, along with high profit margins and no competition. Western companies were forced to look on as China, India and South Korea developed infrastructures and, with growing success, copied Siemens turbine components.
American courts have also been vigilant in ensuring that foreign companies comply with the terms of the embargo. Some financial institutions, including Commerzbank, stretched the rules and had to pay billions in fines as a result.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Paralysed Lebanon Government Risks Losing Millions in Aid
Lebanon’s political stalemate has not only left uncollected garbage piling up in the streets, but now risks losing millions in international loans for key development projects because of a paralysed parliament.
To secure the funds, Lebanon’s parliament is required to approve loan deals or pass legislation on which the money is conditioned.
But the legislature, deeply divided over issues ranging from minor domestic disagreements to the conflict in neighbouring Syria, has not met since May 2014…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Qatar Open Mega-Camp for 70,000 Workers
Qatar officially opened the country’s biggest workers’ accommodation camp on Sunday, with enough space to house almost 70,000 labourers.
“Labour City” which also contains two police stations, Qatar’s second largest mosque and cost some $825 million to build (750 million euros), will house 68,640 workers when it reaches full capacity.
It was unveiled by Prime Minister Abdullah bin Nasser Al-Thani and the Labour Minister Abdullah al-Khulaifi in a ceremony in the capital Doha…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Syria Conflict: Russia’s Scars From Afghanistan
It is more than 26 years since Soviet troops pulled out of Afghanistan. But today Russia, once again, is at war outside the former Soviet Union — in Syria.
The BBC’s Steve Rosenberg in Moscow met some veterans of that Soviet war to find out what lessons were learnt.
Modern Russia often claims it has learnt the lessons of Afghanistan, and that never again will it allow itself to be sucked into a long bloody war, far from its borders.
Singer, songwriter and war veteran Vladimir Mazur hopes that is true.
“We lost so many young men in Afghanistan,” he sings, “but there’s no point grieving. We just have to make sure it never happens again.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Syria Rebels Using Caged Captives as ‘Human Shields’: Monitor
A major Syrian rebel group is using dozens of captives in metal cages as “human shields” in the largest opposition stronghold on the outskirts of Damascus, a monitor said Sunday.
Jaish al-Islam, regarded as the most powerful rebel group near the capital, has put regime soldiers and Alawite civilians it was holding in metal cages, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP.
The group then placed these cages in public squares in the Eastern Ghouta region in an attempt to “prevent regime bombardment”, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: AK Party Regains Majority for Single-Party Rule in Repeat Election
The snap election results indicated that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has regained the majority in a repeat parliamentary election on Sunday by winning nearly 49 percent of the votes.
Despite pursuing divisive language and showing authoritarian tendencies through repressive policies over the country’s dissenting voices, the AK Party, which played the nationalism card by waging war against the country’s Kurds after it declared the end of the Kurdish settlement process, seems to have reached its goal to rule the country single-handedly.
Winning back the parliamentary majority, the AK Party, however, seems to have failed to obtain the votes that will enable it to amend the Constitution in line with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s wishes to place a presidential system in Turkey by replacing with the current parliamentary system, paving the way for a one-man rule.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Elections: Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Ruling AKP Declares Victory After Nearly All Votes Counted
Turkey’s ruling party won a majority in the elections on Sunday night in a shock victory that will consolidate Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s power and raise fears the country will slide further into authoritarianism.
To the relief of many within and outside of Turkey, the pro-Kurdish party, which became the first of its kind to pass the 10 per cent threshold to win seats, maintained a result above 10 per cent. After nearly all votes were counted, it had a vote share of 10.5 per cent.
On Sunday night, there were clashes in Turkey’s main Kurdish city of Diyarbakir with police firing tear gas and reports of battles with police and youths.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Pro-Kurdish Leader Vows to Pursue Peace Push
The leader of Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party vowed Sunday to pursue the faltering push for peace between Ankara and Kurdish rebels after again winning enough votes to sit in parliament.
The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) scored just over 10 percent of the vote with almost all ballots counted, although the figure was down on the 13 percent it won in June.
The result five months ago was a historic breakthrough for the HDP as it became the first party representing the country’s biggest minority to secure seats in the Turkish parliament.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
United Nations Says More Than 700 Iraqis Killing in Violence in October
The United Nations says the number of Iraqis killed in violence in October was 714, up from 537 people in the previous month. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq said in a statement that 559 of those killed in October were civilians, including civilian police, while 155 were members of Iraqi security forces, including the Kurdish peshmerga, Interior Ministry SWAT forces and militias fighting alongside the Iraqi army.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Europe’s Last Dictator Has Become the Darling of the Bond Market
He’s known as Europe’s last dictator, he mangles financial terminology and his secret service once jailed the chief executive officer of the world’s biggest potash miner. He’s also turning into a darling of the bond market. Alexander Lukashenko, president of Belarus, is showing a softer side that’s helped cut the premium on the country’s debt to the lowest in almost a year compared with other emerging markets.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Police Eliminate Two ISIL-Affiliated Terrorists in Russia’s Ingushetia
Two terrorists, who had sworn allegiance to the notorious Islamic State (ISIL) militant group, were detected and eliminated in Russia’s North Caucasus Republic of Ingushetia, the national anti-terrorist committee said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — One of the eliminated terrorists, Beslan Mahauri, was once a confidant of Doku Umarov, a Chechen Islamist militant in Russia, the leader of the Imarat Kavkaz terrorist organization, who was killed in 2013. In August, Umarov’s successor was killed in a special operation in Russia’s North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan.
“According to the national anti-terrorist committee operational data, the eliminated militants in June swore their allegiance to the international terrorist organization ISIL [Islamic State],” the committee said in a Saturday statement.
Islamic State is a jihadist militant group, which has seized large territories in Iraq and Syria. It is known for recruiting young people from all over the world via social media. Some 20,000 to 30,000 foreign fighters are fighting alongside extremists against government forces in Syria and Iraq, according to various estimates.
In August, Russian security forces killed eight ISIL-affiliated militants in Ingushetia. One of the dead was identified as the mastermind behind last December’s attack on a police station in the Chechen capital, Grozny.
In mid-October, an anti-terrorist operation regime was imposed in six settlements of Ingushetia.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladesh Teachers, Students Rally Against Latest Killing
Protesters rallied in the Bangladesh capital Sunday over the latest attacks against secular writers and publishers, accusing the government of failing to halt rising deadly violence blamed on hardline Islamists.
Teachers, writers, students and other protesters converged on Dhaka University to vent their anger, one day after a gang of men armed with machetes and cleavers hacked to death a publisher of secular books.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
FBI Says No Bomb Blast on Maldives President’s Boat: Report
The FBI has said it found no evidence an explosion on board the Maldives president’s boat was caused by a bomb, a report said, raising questions about his deputy’s arrest over the incident.
President Abdulla Yameen was unharmed in the blast on his speed boat which authorities described as an assassination attempt. The September 28 explosion left his wife and two others slightly injured.
Police arrested vice president Ahmed Adeeb nearly a month later for treason as he returned to the Indian Ocean archipelago from an official trip abroad…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
India’s Choked Capital Starts ‘Pollution Toll’ For Trucks
Delhi on Sunday introduced a toll for all trucks and commercial vehicles in an attempt to improve air quality in the world’s most polluted capital ahead of Diwali celebrations. Trucks are banned from entering the Indian capital during the day, but every night after 8pm more than 50,000 pour in, according to the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE).
Successive Delhi governments have faced flak for failing to curb pollution in the Indian capital, whose air quality is worse than even Beijing’s.
The city is expected to have the world’s highest number of premature deaths due to air pollution by 2025 with nearly 32,000 fatalities, according to a study by Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. With more than 8.5 million vehicles on Delhi’s roads and 1,400 new cars being added every day, city authorities will have their work cut out to reduce pollution.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Notorious Uzbek Leader Welcomes Kerry to Silk Road Citadel
Uzbek President Islam Karimov welcomed US Secretary of State John Kerry’s Central Asia diplomatic caravan to the historic Silk Road citadel of Samarkand on Sunday.
The notorious 77-year-old strongman, who has ruled Uzbekistan for a quarter century since its independence, met Kerry at the airport in thick fog.
According to the US State Department’s own 2014 human rights report, Uzbekistan’s electoral system is rigged and torture and corruption run rampant.
In more colourful language, a leaked 2010 US diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks branded Karimov’s realm “a nightmarish world of rampant corruption, organised crime, forced labour in the cotton fields and torture.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Al Shabaab Militants Launch Deadly Attack on Somali Hotel
Two bombs ripped into a hotel in the centre of the Somali capital on Sunday morning and police fought Islamist al Shabaab gunmen who stormed inside the building, police and witnesses said. At least eight people were killed.
Al Shabaab, which has frequently launched attacks in Mogadishu in its bid to topple the Western-backed government, said it was behind the assault on the Sahafi hotel where government officials and lawmakers stay.
“Mujahideen (fighters) entered and took over Sahafi hotel where enemies lived. The operation still goes on,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, told Reuters.
The incident mirrored tactics used before by al Shabaab, in which it detonates bombs to break through security at targets and then sends in fighters…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria Moves to Split Up Delayed Oil Industry Bill
Nigeria looks set to unbundle a long-awaited oil law to speed up its passage through parliament, potentially unlocking billions of dollars in frozen investments.
The Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) has been gathering dust since 2008 because of disagreements between the government and global oil majors over its terms.
The new head of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Emmanuel Kachikwu, who is likely to become junior oil minister, said recently the delay was hurting the economy…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Zuma Says South Africa Faces a ‘Serious Struggle’ To Meet Economic Goals
In his frankest admission yet about the state of the economy, President Jacob Zuma said South Africa faces a “serious struggle” to meet growth and jobs targets amid a global slowdown.
Falling metal prices, triggered by a slowdown in China, has forced mining companies such as Anglo American Platinum Ltd. to consider firing workers. Investment in South Africa has also stagnated as business confidence remains near a four-year low, dragged down by an energy crunch that resulted in frequent powers cuts, particularly in the first half of the year.
Zuma spoke at his residence near the Union Buildings where four days before thousands of demonstrators called for a freeze on university tuition, capping more than a week of protests by the students that were the biggest since the end of apartheid. The unrest provoked running battles between the police using stun grenades and protesters outside Parliament in Cape Town and in Pretoria. On Friday, Zuma bowed to their demand.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Haitians Flow Into Cemeteries to Mark Voodoo Festival of the Dead
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — People have been streaming into cemeteries across Haiti bearing candles, food offerings and bottles of dark rum to mark the country’s Voodoo festival of the dead.
At Port-au-Prince’s national cemetery, priests and priestesses dressed in white gather around a blackened monument that is believed to be the oldest grave. There, they evoke spirit Baron Samedi, guardian of the dead.
Voodoo is a blend of African spirituality and Christian tenets that slaves created centuries ago.
Voodoo priest Pierre Saint Ange cracked a rope whip and told onlookers not to “fight with guns or burn tires.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Senator Rubio works for the lobbyists, not for Americans. That is why he is receiving more money from Silicon Valley than any other candidate in this race. He is their puppet.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Asylum Seekers From Afghanistan Topped Iraqis as Majority in Tornio
On Friday, for the first time, more asylum seekers from Afghanistan than from Iraq arrived at the Tornio reception centre. Overall, however, 70 percent of all migrants coming to Finland still hail from Iraq.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Finland: Anti-Migrant Demonstration in Tornio
A group of about 150 people, some of whom carried signs that read “close the border” and “migrants not welcome,” gathered at an anti-migrant demonstration in Tornio on Saturday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
German Coalition Fails to Resolve Rift on Refugees (1)
Germany’s ruling coalition failed at crunch talks Sunday to resolve major differences over the country’s refugees policy as it braces for the biggest influx since World War II.
The spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel, Steffen Seibert, said after two rounds of weekend negotiations among party leaders that meetings would continue this week.
The vast majority of the up to one million people arriving in the country this year are crossing the border from Austria into Bavaria.
While most Germans initially backed Merkel’s open-doors policy for those fleeing war and persecution, a growing backlash has piled pressure on the chancellor and exposed rifts within her conservative bloc.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: “20 Million Muslims by 2020”
by Soeren Kern
“We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law.” — From a leaked German intelligence document.
“The migration crisis has the potential to destabilize governments, countries and the whole European continent. … What we have been facing is not a refugee crisis. This is a migratory movement composed of economic migrants, refugees and also foreign fighters” — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Germany’s Muslim population is set to nearly quadruple to an astonishing 20 million within the next five years, according to a demographic forecast by Bavarian lawmakers.
The German government expects to receive 1.5 million asylum seekers in 2015, and possibly even more in 2016. After factoring in family reunifications — based on the assumption that individuals whose asylum applications are approved will subsequently bring an average of four additional family members to Germany — that number will swell exponentially. This is in addition to the 5.8 million Muslims already living in Germany.
According to the president of the Bavarian Association of Municipalities (Bayerische Gemeindetag), Uwe Brandl, Germany is now on track to have “20 million Muslims by 2020.” The surge in Germany’s Muslim population represents a demographic shift of epic proportions, one that will change the face of Germany forever, “but we are just standing by, watching it happen.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
German Coalition Fails to Resolve Rift on Refugees (2)
Germany’s ruling coalition failed at crunch talks Sunday to resolve major differences over the country’s refugees policy as it braces for the biggest influx since World War II.
The spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel, Steffen Seibert, said after two rounds of weekend negotiations among party leaders that meetings would continue this week.
“The three leaders of the coalition parties held constructive talks on all aspects of the refugee situation and will gather again on Thursday ahead of a conference of German state leaders,” Seibert said in a statement.
“They agree on several points, as well as on several points that still need to be resolved including the issue of ‘transit zones’,” he said, referring to a proposal to create airport-style processing points on Germany’s borders to allow would-be refugees who do not fulfil asylum criteria to be moved out quickly…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Immigrants Caught at Border Believe Families Can Stay in US
Nearly a year after the Obama administration launched a massive public relations campaign to dispel rumors of a free pass for immigrant families crossing the border illegally, internal intelligence files from the Homeland Security Department suggest that effort is failing.
Hundreds of immigrant families caught illegally crossing the Mexican border between July and September told U.S. immigration agents they made the dangerous trip in part because they believed they would be permitted to stay in the United States and collect public benefits.
The interviews with immigrants by federal agents were intended to help the Obama administration understand what might be driving a puzzling surge in the numbers of border crossings that started over the summer.
Administration efforts to stop the flow of immigrant families, primarily from Central America, have included public service campaigns in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to highlight the dangers and consequences of making the trek.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Israel’s Chilly Reception for African Asylum Seekers
Israel’s policy toward African asylum seekers is to pressure them to self-deport or, as the former interior minister Eli Yishai put it, to “make their lives miserable” until they give up and let the government deport them. About 60,000 African asylum seekers have entered Israel since 2005, most of them Muslims from the Darfur region of Sudan, and Orthodox Christians from Eritrea; today that number is closer to 45,000.
The government and some media call them “infiltrators,” a word that for most Israelis evokes Palestinians illegally crossing into Israel to launch attacks, painting them as a threat. A law passed in 2013 requires male African asylum seekers already in Israel to be detained automatically and indefinitely in the open detention center, Holot, in the Negev desert. Detainees are allowed to wander the desert between three obligatory check-ins every day, and they must also remain in Holot overnight. If they miss a check-in, they can be transferred to the nearby prison. Their only alternative is to accept a sum of $3,500 to return to their country of origin, or a third country, usually Uganda or Rwanda, often without proper documentation to stay.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Migrant Crisis: Bodies Wash up on Lesbos as Winds Rage
The death toll off the Greek Island of Lesbos is likely to rise in the coming days unless urgent action is taken, according to an official leading rescue efforts.
The warning comes after the Greek coastguard said the bodies of another thirteen people, six of them children, had been recovered.
More than 430 people drowned trying to cross from Turkey to Greece in October.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Nowhere to Go? Russia Scraps Privileges for Ukrainian Migrants
Russia has stopped offering Ukrainian refugees preferential migration status, which it had granted against the background of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region.
Russia has stopped favoring people from Ukraine in its admission of migrants. Special privilege had been offered to Ukrainians in the wake of the armed conflict in the Donbass region; however, this preferred status expired in Russia on November 1, according to RIA Novosti.
However, migration privileges remain in place for refugees from the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of eastern Ukraine, where government troops have launched a so-called anti-terrorist operation against supporters of the Donbass region’s independence.
Russia offered Ukrainians preferential migration status in 2014 in connection with the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. The set-up was due to expire on August 1, 2015; they allowed Ukrainians greater opportunities to stay and work in Russia.
Whereas citizens of most former Soviet countries are generally allowed to stay in Russia for 90 days without a visa, the Russian Federal Migration Service was ordered to indefinitely extend this period for Ukrainians staying in Russia temporarily. Ukrainians were instructed to turn to the Federal Migration Service and apply for such an extension, and show their passport and migration card.
On August 1, the Federal Migration Service said that it had given Ukrainian migrants 90 days to determine their status.
During that time, they were free to obtain a work permit, on par with citizens of other CIS countries with which Russia has a visa-free agreement.Under Russian law, if a migrant from these CIS countries fails to get registered in Russia within 90 days, the Federal Migration Service will give him or her another 30 days to leave the country. If the migrant fails to do so, he or she is banned from entering Russia for three to ten years.
According to the FMS, more than 600 thousand citizens from Ukraine have already asked Russia to grant them temporary asylum, refugee status or a temporary residence permit. Right now, there are about 2.6 million Ukrainian citizens in Russia, including more than a million residents from south-eastern Ukraine.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Ongoing Refugee Crisis a Potential Disaster
The crisis rocking Europe may destroy everything that has been so painstakingly built over the past 40 years. No one can say where the European project is headed and no one can predict when and if the uncontrollable inflow of refugees will ease.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Punch-Up at German Asylum Centre Injures Six
Some 50 people at a German shelter for asylum seekers engaged in a violent brawl overnight, hurling chairs and beating each other with table legs, leaving six people injured, police said Saturday.
The dispute broke out during the evening meal on Friday when an Arabic-speaking refugee insulted a group of Kurds, a police statement said. The confrontation quickly escalated, drawing in around 50 people who threw tables, chairs and benches and beat each other with table legs.
Security guards tried to break up by fight by using pepper spray and around 50 police and six dogs were called in as backup.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Refugees Targeted in Violent Attacks Across Germany
Assailants wielding baseball bats attacked asylum seekers in Magdeburg, while other migrants were harassed and beaten in the German towns of Wismar and Jena, police say. Refugee homes were also hit in arson attacks.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Refugee Crisis Was Not Unexpected, Top UN Official Says
Director-General of the United Nations office in Geneva, Denmark’s Michael Moller, expresses optimism that the agency’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) will help toward ending extreme poverty but he has no illusions about the refugee crisis, stressing that such phenomena will continue.
This very negative, xenophobic and frankly racist narrative that we’re seeing in many countries, including my own country — I don’t recognize my own country — is unacceptable, because the facts are different. The facts are that the whole of Europe — minus maybe one or two countries — needs migrants in order to keep the economy going. You can make a very clear economic and statistical case that there’s a direct correlation between the number of migrants a country takes in and economic growth.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Tragedies in the Aegean Continue After Nearly a Dozen Refugees, Including Six Babies, Drown
Tragedy struck the Aegean again on Sunday when a boat making the dangerous crossing from the Turkish coast to the Greek island of Samos sank with the loss of at least 11 refugees, six of them children and babies.
The boat, which was carrying around 30 people, overturned just 20 yards from the shore of Samos, one of the holiday islands that has received the largest number of refugees in recent months.
Ten bodies — including six children, four of them babies — were found in the cabin of the boat, which sank in water just 10ft deep.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Indian Movie ‘Aligarh’ Shines Rare Light on Homophobia
A rare Bollywood movie tackling homophobia gets its Indian premiere on Friday, with the filmmakers hoping it will help change attitudes in the conservative country where homosexuality is illegal.
“Aligarh” is based on a true story about a university professor who was suspended from his post after a television news crew filmed him having sex with a rickshaw puller in an undercover sting operation.
“The film deals with a human story about a man isolated by his peers for a choice that should have been his own,” the film’s director, Hansal Mehta, explained to AFP…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Institutions: Revive Universities of the Muslim World
To boost science, higher-education institutes must give students a broad education and become meritocratic, say Nidhal Guessoum and Athar Osama.
The 57 countries of the Muslim world — those with a Muslim-majority population, and part of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) — are home to nearly 25% of the world’s people. But as of 2012, they had contributed only 1.6% of the world’s patents, 6% of its academic publications, and 2.4% of the global research expenditure. There have been only three Nobel laureates in the sciences from OIC countries; today these nations host fewer than a dozen universities in the top 400 of the many world rankings, and none in the top 100.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Is Climat Investigation available in English? I cannot find it on Barnes & Noble.
No, only in French as it has only been made available.
‘Europe need migrants’ according to Michael Moller, DG of the UN in Geneva – a career international civil servant. That’s the species which has zero economic experience and yet pontificates about the necessity of Ivory Tower World Government, run by them, in which we are all reduced to wage serfs at the lowest common denominator of the Third World semi-literate (no fault of the illiterates, but of their corrupt governments). That is what is called EQUALITY – forcibly reducing everyone to the same level – except themselves and the global financial emperors, who back them and use them, of course.
The hubris of this parasitic elite, now monopolizing political power by reducing nation states to administrative units of The Greater ‘Good’, is beyond scandalous. We are thought of as casino chips which can be raked around a gaming table according to the needs of their masters – the financiers, in their casino capitalism gambling addiction.
I submit that these power-grabbing, PC World Government autocrats are far more dangerous than Radical Islam, because they will use the Islamic invasion as the means of tightening their grip around our throats. Merkel is already implementing that game plan. The next thing will be a universal ID chip. The Germans know all about those from the time, not long ago, when they branded numbers onto Jews!
In my humble estimation this is a perfect a summing up of the situation – it is sharp precise and concise.
I’d love to see the’power-grabbing PC World Government autocracy’ and its bureaucracy counter this statement with one of its own. Why are they so reluctant to put their case? Has the cat got their tongue?
I see where the UN 2030 agenda is for implementing its program of biometrics for every individual human on the planet. If that is not the foretold Mark of the Beast, then I don’t know what is. Of course, by 2030 the already 9 billion of us will probably need to be reduced somewhat in number and the leading civilization (the West) reduced to such low numbers as to practically render the White Caucasian as an extinct branch of humanity.
With Christianity obliterated and Islam ascendant as the one World Religion, the ruling elite will be able to live out their complete fantasy. Or so they think!
If that is not the foretold Mark of the Beast, then I don’t know what is…
Eschatological language and symbols are a specialized field. I wouldn’t dream of translating any of it to a particular time and place. Of course, that hasn’t stopped people from doing their own interpretations. imho, the symbolism is so dense and so arcane as to be of little assistance in telling us how to live in the moment. In each period of chaos, though, it has been used to signify things that history ended up sorting out. As will happen again as this generation moves through its allotted time here.
Yes, very true Dympthna, but extra-ordinary times need extra-ordinary definitions with which the ordinary folk can attest to.
The Bible is a reliable historical source, especially within archaeology, but is so written as to not be future specific but open to interpretation by those who may judge for themselves its validity.
As long as you understand, Nemesis that those doing the judging re validity for a particular place and time are limited by their own “don’t know what we don’t know” kind of ignorance. We’re free to make guesses and if you guess that some edict from the UN is a Biblical prediction, that’s yours…t’ain’t mine. I believe in historical disconnects since there have been so many. Before the Bubonic plague decimated Europe who would have guessed how it would change the “eternal order” of things? Repeatedly. But it allowed the serfs who survived an economic freedom they’d never known. At a terrible cost we’ve never even tried to metabolize. We seem to move from one horrific disaster to another, learning less each time.
Most demographers agree the massive mid-century global demographic implosion is going to create chaos. Will it be a net boon or a net loss? Who cares? Instead, as ignorant of science as their medieval ancestors, people prefer to worry about a global warming. Or is it a global cooling? Or is it a stall in change? All of these have occurred before but we never learned anything from them except how to panic.
Once the gelded press corps finally wakes up to the demographic implosion (which Chinese leaders know darn well is coming) they will proceed to irresponsibly promote the story in hopes of selling more advertising, never mind the consequences.
BTW, India is aware of the coming implosions also, but like China it cannot stop its citizens from widespread female infanticide. And it grapples with Islamic barbarity on a daily basis, which drives Hindus to hysteria.
If our Western “feminists” weren’t so ignorantly narcissistic, they’d be attempting to respond to the deaths and/or mutilations of billions of females qua females. But they’re hooked on trivia like ‘date-rape’ and micro-aggressions and the fabulous freedom to walk around with their breasts bared in the holy name of women’s rights. Idjits led around by the nose – or by their sanctified vaginas. They are too indoctrinated to learn from experience.
In this world one may guide those whom we may be responsible for, but one should never push them.
Likewise, the Bible is there for those who wish for guidance, but the Bible never pushes its information onto those who choose to not heed what is in that book.
We all have choices in this world to make as most of us trudge through life while others get to fly, but does that do them any good in the long run?
Mark Twain once quipped that in everyone’s life there are two great events – being born and then learning why we are born. How many of us have bothered to find out why we were born?
Most of our real and ancient history has been deliberately hidden from us – folklore has more truth to it than most would realize – by those who control us and wish to keep controlling us. The Smithsonian is curator to many ‘odd’ and truly ancient human artefacts stretching back into the millions of years that it keeps hidden from the public because the current scientific status quo refuses to believe such compelling evidence of how truly ancient we really are. Such evidence would most certainly put to death the theory of evolution which many today accept as fact.
And so it is with the ever changing positions of the goal posts in the game of fraud now known as ‘climate change’, and to which mainly the Godless accept as fact without so much as to bother to familiarize themselves with how our weather actually comes about – now that is just truly mindless stuff!
Yes, the Chinese have been around long enough to realize a dying civilization when they see one. Who knows, maybe the Chinese will inherit the Earth after all as the new Christian dominated East?
>> After factoring in family reunifications — based on the assumption that individuals whose asylum applications are approved will subsequently bring an average of four additional family members to Germany — that number will swell <<
Europe is helpless. Family reunification must be allowed. It is ordained by God and no man can oppose it. It is like Polaris or Andromeda or the moon. It is just there. Eternal. Irresistible. Sacred. Immutable. If one invader is good then five invaders must be extra good.
European politicians can mandate the length of a cucumber and banish words from the languages of European aboriginals but here they are helpless. Yes, they are.
>> The facts are that the whole of Europe — minus maybe one or two countries — needs migrants in order to keep the economy going. <<
This from Denmark’s Michael Moller, Director-General of the United Nations office in Geneva, proving that there's no fool like an educated fool.
Yes, Europe is on its last legs economically and only the importation of opportunistic, hostile, welfare-sucking, low-skill, barely-literate Africans and jihad-loving, welfare-sucking soldiers of Islam and their medieval political and social thinking will enable it to survive.
This is the kind of garbage that the globalists distribute all day, every day.
Do you think they get Soros funding to say these things? Cui bono, Colonel?
I think that Moller is personally well compensated. For some there is never enough, of course.
And then there are those like our former U.S. State Dept. officers who knew to say the right things so employment at Saudi-financed think tanks would be open to them after retirement.
Why should UN officials behave differently from FSOs if there’s Soros money sloshing around for future scholarly truth-searching?
Apart from these “insights” I am at a loss to understand the behavior and thinking of otherwise normal-looking adults in the West. Will Ferrell in “Zoolander” was so confused at one point that he thought he was taking crazy pills. I don’t want to jeopardize my freedom to own non-nuclear weapons but, between you and me, sometimes I think I must be taking those pills myself.
I know many of these career international civil servants first-hand. It’s a club. They all go to the same universities and follow courses taught by… “career international civil servants”‘. They follow courses of “European integration”, “International Humanitarian Law”, “Global Politics”. Not courses in “Engineering” or “Medicine” or “Chemiccs” where you actually learn something that you can use in a company or a factory or a hospital. No just some vague utopian blablabla. And after graduation they are helped by their former professors to find a job as a “career international civil servant” and they from alumni networks with other “career international civil servants”. So you get a number of people who all have the same ideas and constantly confirm these ideas among themselves. If someone in the club actually starts to use his/her brain that causes so much cognitive dissonance that this person is quickly worked out of the network. So what do you get in these international organisations? A bunch of people who all know each other, all have the same utopian ideas and are completely out of touch with how life is for the regular citizen. Merkel has a crazy plan but no clue how this is for the regular policeman, or nurse in a hospital who has to take care for migrants, are an older couple living in a frontier village that gets floaded by migrants.
We call them – The Traitor Class.
Have you done an article on this? It’s a pic of a ship with 1000s of migrants that Muslims have been circulating, claiming it is WWII refugees fleeing to North Africa. But it was Albanians fleeing to Italy in 1991 when communism collapsed.
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/the-real-story-behind-this-incredible-photo/story-fnq2o7dd-1227591925994
I tried to find more background information. Which ethnic group was fleeing from what?
I hope you find it useful