Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/20/2015

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann says that more illegal immigrants to Austria and the EU must be repatriated. There are too many “refugees” entering the EU, and those who are really economic migrants must be sent back.

In other migration news, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is warning EU member states that if they fail to accept their allotted quotas of “Syrian” “refugees”, legal action will be initiated against them.

In other news, the United Arab Emirates has reportedly hired 300 Colombian mercenaries to fight in the war against the Shi’ite Houthi insurgents in Yemen. The Colombians are said to be prized for their experience in fighting guerillas.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, MC, Nick, Seneca III, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Financial Crisis
» Greek Crisis and Tax Hike Foster Cigarette Smuggling
» Italy: Renzi Says EU Limits Belong to Past
» Paul Slams Congress Over Trillion-Dollar Spending Bill He Claims No One Read
» Renzi Calls for EU to Change Like Italy Has
» The Fed’s “Alarm Clock” Went Off 6 Hours Too Late: What This Means for Stocks and Bonds
» Trump: U.S. Economic ‘Bubble’ Could Soon Burst
 
USA
» Bernie Sanders Campaign: DNC ‘Actively Attempting to Undermine’ Campaign
» Bernie Campaign Under Attack After Accusing Hillary of “Encouraging Islamic Extremism”
» Chicago Cops Say Keeping Evidence of Misconduct Puts Cops in Danger — So They’re Destroying it
» Hagel Accuses Obama Administration of Trying to ‘Destroy’ Him
» Obama Reportedly Makes Eyebrow-Raising Terrorism Remark in Private Talk With Columnists — a Short Time Later, Comment Disappears From NY Times Story
» Princeton May Scrub U.S. President Wilson’s Name Over Racist Ties
» Putin My Fan? It’s Mutual Says Trump
» Trump: Hillary is a Liar — ‘She Lies Like Crazy About Everything’
» US Senate Democrats Promise Action on Gun Control in 2016 — Senator Reid
» Veiled Threat: US Press Wakes Up to Saudi Terror Sponsorship
 
Canada
» The Toronto Media’s Love Affair With Alleged Vicious Killer
 
Europe and the EU
» Air France: Suspicious Device on Flight Was a Hoax
» Belgium Detains 1 Person as Part of Paris Attacks Probe
» ‘Check Travellers’ IDs or be Fined’, Sweden Warns
» Food, Clothing, Toys Italians’ Most Popular Christmas Gifts
» France: Security Gates at Paris Train Stations ‘Worthless’
» France: Salah Abdeslam Stopped Three Times After the Paris Attacks But He Was Released
» Germany: Hitler Really Did Have Just One Ball: Historian
» Italian Party: Merkel Wants to Sign TTIP Before Details About Deal Revealed
» Italian Cardinal Makes Fat Donation After Luxury Apartment Scandal
» Italy Anti-Establishment Party Nips at Ruling Left’s Heels: Poll
» Italy: Boschi Says Her Father Must Pay if He Did Wrong
» Italy: Priest Arrested for Paying for Sex With a Minor
» Italy: Anti-Corruption Agency ANAC’s New Role One Among Many
» New Image Found on Paris Jihadi’s Phone Points to Plan by Terror Cell to Target Birmingham Shopping Centre
» Norway: Child Injured in Svalbard Avalanche Dies in Hospital, Raising Death Toll to 2
» Spain Ruling Party Could be Out With Big Vote for Upstarts
» UK Lord Accused of Child Sex Abuse Dies Before Trial
» UK National Health Service Faces Worst Crisis in History — Corbyn
» UK: ‘Incensed’ Gun Cops: We’ll Lay Down Our Weapons and Step Back From Duty in Protest if Officer Who Shot ‘Gangster’ Is Charged
» UK: Was Birmingham Bullring Next? Photo of Shopping Centre Found on Paris Mastermind’s Phone
» You Can’t Say That! Swedish TV Forces New Language Manual on Journalists
 
North Africa
» Veiled Woman Hits Back When a Pervert Pinches Her Bottom at a Moroccan Market Sending Him Flying and Leaving Him Unconscious for Two Hours
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Israeli Woman Doesn’t Know How She Got the Courage to Respond ‘Like a Lioness’ Against Knife-Wielding Attacker Who Broke Into Home
» Three Rockets Fired From Lebanon Into Northern Israel
 
Middle East
» Europe, Turkey Closed Airspace to Russian Warplanes Flying Anti-ISIS Missions, General Says
» Hezbollah Terrorist Samir Kuntar Killed in Reported Israeli Air Force Strikes in Syria Overnight
» Pentagon Reportedly Considering Stepping up Cyberattacks Against ISIS
» Saudi Arabia, The Mainspring of Islamic Radicalism
» Syria War: Third of Rebels Share is Aims, Report Claims
» Syrian Army Backed by Russian Air Strikes Capture Rebel Stronghold in Aleppo
» UAE Sending Colombian Mercenaries to Yemen: Sources
» Yazidi Woman Begs UN Security Council to Wipe Out ISIS
» Yazidi Used as Sex Slave for Islamic State Speaks to UN
 
Russia
» Ukraine Says it Won’t Repay Russian Debt Due by Weekend
» We Need Russia in Order to Fight Terror Says Renzi
 
Far East
» Dragon Ascendant: A Look at the Growing Firepower of China’s Navy
» Landslide Buries Buildings in Southern China; 27 Missing
» The Firewall Awakens: ICANN’s Exiting CEO Takes Internet Governance to the Dark Side
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Air France Bomb Forces Emergency Landing in Kenya After Explosive Found in Toilet
» Fears of New Islamist Threat Emerge in Nigeria
 
Immigration
» Austrian Chancellor Calls for Repatriation of More Undocumented Migrants
» Berlin Says No Conflict With Italy Over Migrants
» Brescia: Mayor Installs No-Islam Signs: “Respect us or Leave”
» Denmark Defends Plans to Seize Valuables From Refugees
» Eritrean Migrant Dies in Italy Hospital Escape Bid
» EU Countries Refusing to Receive Migrants Likely to Face Legal Action
» EU Struggles to Set up ‘Hotspots’ For Refugees Fleeing Syrian Violence
» Farage for Breitbart — UK Migration Cover Up: The Government Must Release the Real Figures Immediately
» Germany Not the EU’s Blood Donor Says Renzi
» Germany: ‘Abide by Refugee Quotas or Else’
» Italy’s Migrant Workers Face ‘Dire’ Conditions
» ‘No Fingerprints!’: Migrants in Italy Protest
» Separating Violent and Peaceful Islam
» Soros Plays Both Ends in Syria Refugee Chaos
» Trump is Right: Stop Islamic Immigration
» UK: Asylum-Seekers Taken on £100,000 Zoo and Beach Trips With Your Money
 
Culture Wars
» “Most Liberal” US College Unleashes Demands for “Deconstructing the White Supremacist, Capitalist System”
» Watch: Kentucky School Cuts Bible Passages From ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ — So Parents Decide to Take Glenn Beck’s Advice
 

Greek Crisis and Tax Hike Foster Cigarette Smuggling

4.43 bln smuggled cigarettes in 2014; GdF-Brit-Am Tobacco accord

(ANSAmed) — NAPLES — Consumption of smuggled cigarettes has risen by about 50% in Greece since the economic crisis began, turning the country into a large-scale importer of cigarettes as well as a black-market hub.

This emerged during the signing of an agreement between the Naples Guardia di Finanza (financial police) and British American Tobacco, during which discussion was held on the illegal market of “Illicit Whites” cigarettes produced legally for different EU markets and which are smuggled and sold in Europe in non-compliance with EU standards and evading taxes. In Greece, figures from the national statistics agency Elstat and the finance ministry show a gradual but constant increase in the consumption of smuggled cigarettes, from 10.8% in 2010 to 14.9% in 2011, 17.2% in 2012 and over 23% in 2013. In 2014, according to a study by the Dutch company KGMG on the illegal consumption of tobacco products in the EU, some 4.43 billion smuggled cigarettes were smoked in Greece, while legal cigarettes smoked in the same country fell by 10 billion from 2009 to 2014. The research shows that the price of ‘legal’ cigarettes is the main reason for the rise in sales of smuggled ones, both in Greece and in other European countries. From 2009 to 2013, the price of the most frequently sold goods rose by 19% and cigarettes by 59%.

A study by the economic planning and research center KEPE shows that the largest rise was in November 2010, when the government rose excise duties on them by about 300%. Greece, alongside Italy and Spain, has also become a reference point for smugglers from which to illegally export cigarettes to northern Europe, where the earnings are even higher: in the UK a packet of cigarettes costs an average of 9 euros, while in Norway it is 11. Italy’s Guardia di Finanza investigations show that criminal organizations earn enormous amounts, since they pay between 100 and 150 euros for a crate of cigarettes (20-30 cents per packet) wholesale and then sell the crate for 800-900 euros. Greece has in particular become a departure hub for cigarettes, according to the KPGM study, in containers leaving from the Piraeus and Salonika ports.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Renzi Says EU Limits Belong to Past

Premier describes infringement procedure as ‘extravagant’

(ANSA) — Rome, December 18 — Premier Matteo Renzi on Friday said Italy has kept its side of the bargain by implementing structural economic reforms and now it was time for the European Union to reform itself. “In recent months, Italy has made great reforms,” Renzi told a press conference at the end of the European summit. “For this reason, Italy asks with its head held high for Europe to change, that it be more about growth, more attentive to social values and employment, not just technical and bureaucratic policies and limits that belong to the past”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Paul Slams Congress Over Trillion-Dollar Spending Bill He Claims No One Read

A fired-up Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday he voted against the massive $1.1 trillion spending bill because not only was it rushed through Congress — but no one had a chance to read it.

“It was over a trillion dollars, it was all lumped together, 2,242 pages, nobody read it, so frankly my biggest complaint is that I have no idea what kind of things they stuck in that bill in the middle of the night,” Paul, R-Ky., said on “The Cats Roundtable,” a New York-based radio talk show.

“I voted against it because I won’t vote for these enormous bills that no one has a chance to read,” the GOP White House hopeful said.

On Friday, President Obama signed the legislation into law. The final version pairs two gigantic bills: a $1.14 trillion government spending measure that will fund every Cabinet agency through September 2016, as well as a $680 billion tax package which extends dozens of breaks and making some permanent.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Renzi Calls for EU to Change Like Italy Has

Premier defends four-bank bailout, says Merkel did the same

(ANSA) — Rome, December 18 — Premier Matteo Renzi on Friday hailed the results his government has achieved at the European Union level this year, and called for the EU to change course just as Italy has.

“This year we can say we brought some significant results home,” Renzi told a press conference at the end of a two-day European summit in Brussels. “On (the issue of budget) flexibility there is room for action of up to 16.5 billion euros”.

Italy, he said, has kept its side of the bargain by implementing structural economic reforms and now it was time for the European Union to reform itself. “In recent months, Italy has made great reforms,” Renzi told reporters. “For this reason, Italy asks with its head held high for Europe to change — that it be more about growth, more attentive to social values and employment, and not just about technical and bureaucratic policies and limits that belong to the past”.

Renzi also addressed the issue of the North Stream gas pipeline, calling it “intriguing”. The decision to double the North Stream pipeline project “was approved on the sly after the elimination of South Stream last year,” Renzi charged. “A majority of countries support our position, against Germany and the Netherlands,” he said. “Now the ball is in the (European) Commission’s court”. European Council President Donald Tusk appeared to concur.

“Several leaders have tabled the issue of the North Stream pipeline,” Tusk said. “Italy and Bulgaria need clarification on the feasibility of the North Stream project after the South Stream pipeline that was supposed to bypass Ukraine to bring Russian gas into Europe was judged not to be feasible,” he said.

As far as the issue of his government’s rescue of four small lenders, Renzi pronounced himself surprised at the wording of a letter from EU Financial Stability Commissioner Jonathan Hill. “I find Commissioner Hill’s wording strange when he says Italy was the one who decided (to rescue the banks),” the premier said. “We did what the Commission told us to do — we received his letter telling us what to do and what not to do. Italy respects all European rules and bets its reputation on that,” Renzi continued. “Unfortunately in the past, Italian governments lasted less time than a cat on a highway. Now it’s different — respecting the rules is a point of honor for us”.

The center-left premier added he is confident Italy’s banking system is more solid than Germany’s despite the recent rescue of the four troubled lenders. “The solidity of the Italian banking system is better than that of Germany,” Renzi said. “I represent a country that follows the rules even when I didn’t choose them — let us avoid easy alibis,” he said. “When (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel spent 247 billion euros to save her banks she did so within the rules…it would be too extravagant to hold the chancellor responsible for that.

I wasn’t there, and Italy did not do so,” Renzi concluded.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

The Fed’s “Alarm Clock” Went Off 6 Hours Too Late: What This Means for Stocks and Bonds

Not only did the Fed miss its window of opportunity to hike rates, but it did so at the worst possible time, launching the first tightening cycle in 11 years just as US manufacturing entered its first recession since the financial crisis, just as the credit cycle entered its slowdown phase, and just as the default cycle is picking up, first in the energy sector one year ago and now spreading to all other industries. In fact, if the Fed had an alarm clock set to ring at 2:30pm, it hit snooze so many times, the alarm went off at 8pm according to Citigroup, “or possibly even later.” But as the chart below shows, while the Fed’s credibility will be crushed as a result, the Fed’s woeful alarm timing will have dire consequences for both equity and credit returns.

Here is a different perspective on the $4.5 trillion question: where in the credit cycle is the US economy, courtesy of Citigroup.

Typically rate rises start when profits are growing faster than debt and when companies are still deleveraging. This is around “half-past two” on our leverage clock2: 1994 and 2004 both fit this pattern. Now, with companies having been leveraging up for the past four years, and net debt/EBITDA in both Europe and especially the US at its highest non-recessionary level ever, it feels more like eight o’clock, or possibly even later (Figure 2).

What does being 6 hours late to your own rate hike party mean? The two downward facing red arrows in the left chart explain everything.

[Comment: Fed intentionally left it too late. Fed owners are seeking to trigger a collapse by design.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Trump: U.S. Economic ‘Bubble’ Could Soon Burst

‘It’s not going to be a pretty picture’

(BLOOMBERG) — Billionaire Donald Trump sees economic clouds hovering above the U.S. economy. And if it’s going to rain, he wants the precipitation to fall while President Barack Obama is still in the White House.

“Remember the word bubble? You heard it here first,” the Republican presidential front-runner told about 1,200 people at a rally Saturday afternoon in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “I don’t want to sound rude, but I hope if it explodes, it’s going to be now, rather than two months into another administration.”

With the unemployment rate on the decline, the Federal Reserve on Dec. 16 raised its benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2006, after deciding the U.S. economy is now performing well enough that it could make the move.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Bernie Sanders Campaign: DNC ‘Actively Attempting to Undermine’ Campaign

After it was announced that Bernie Sanders hit two million individual campaign donors, the Democratic National Committee announced that they were suspending his campaign’s access to a crucial voter database.

On Thursday evening, the DNC announced that they are cutting off the Sanders campaign’s access to its comprehensive 50-state voter file that lists voter patterns and preferences, which effectively halts their ability to reach out to voters.

They claim that during a 30-minute glitch in NGP VAN, the vendor that handles the DNC’s voter data, the firewall went down and a low-level Sanders staffer gained access to Clinton’s notes in the database.

The staffer was promptly fired, though he claims that he had only looked to see how badly Sander’s own data was breached during the firewall outage.

In a statement on Friday, responding to what Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver called an active “attempt to undermine the campaign,” Weaver put his foot down and stated that if the DNC continues to hold their data hostage, they will take action by the afternoon.

“We are announcing today that if the DNC continues to hold our data hostage, and continues to try to attack the heart and soul of our campaign, we will be in federal court this afternoon seeking an immediate injunction,” Weaver wrote in his statement.

Weaver maintains that the DNC is responsible, as they continuously allowed these firewall failures to occur, even after being alerted by the Sanders’ campaign of the issue in October.

He also demanded that the information stored in the database that the campaign has collected belongs to them and not the DNC.

“This is unacceptable. Individual leaders of the DNC can support Hillary Clinton in any way they want, but they are not going to sabotage our campaign — one of the strongest grassroots campaigns in modern history.”

A petition by infuriated supporters who are crying foul calls to reinstate Sanders’ access to the database. It was launched on Moveon.org following the DNC’s announcement, and had already reached 146,859 signatures by Friday afternoon.

In addition to wanting their database back, the Sanders campaign also stated that they want to see an independent audit of the DNC’s handling of data and its security from the beginning.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Bernie Campaign Under Attack After Accusing Hillary of “Encouraging Islamic Extremism”

Perhaps now we know what was behind the timing of the most recent scandal for Bernie Sanders — concerning improper access to a Democratic database by members of staff.

Ahead of the Democratic debates coming up this Saturday, it seems that Sen. Sanders is now planning to take Hillary to the woodshed over all the destruction and mayhem that she caused during her stint as Secretary of State.

The Madam Secretary was a driving force in the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya and the attempt to oust Assad in Syria, as well as many of the Arab Spring events including Egypt. Hillary’ s Department of State was also instrumental in fueling the rise of “ rebel groups” opposing these regimes who proved to be anything but “ moderate” and instead, led have overlapped with ISIS and other terrorist organizations now plaguing the region.

Bernie Sanders has now accused Hillary over her role in the rise of ISIS, and intends to point out her dangerous and disqualifying flaws in the course of his campaign.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Chicago Cops Say Keeping Evidence of Misconduct Puts Cops in Danger — So They’re Destroying it

With protesters thronging the streets of Chicago demanding police accountability and clamoring for the resignation of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the city’s police union is frantically trying to destroy decades of records documenting police misconduct. As is always the case, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) sees “officer safety” as the highest priority — including protection from legal accountability.

An injunction filed by the FOP insists that preserving those records violates Section 8.4 of its bargaining agreement with the City of Chicago. That provision specifies that all files of misconduct investigations and officer disciplinary histories “will be destroyed five (5) years after the date of the incident or the date upon which the violation is discovered, whichever is longer, except that not sustained files alleging criminal conduct or excessive force shall be retained for a period of seven (7) years after the date of the incident or the date upon which the violation is discovered, whichever is longer….”

Once that deadline passes, the episode of excessive force or other misconduct “cannot be used against the Officer in any future proceedings in any other forum” unless it deals with a matter subject to litigation during the five year period or “unless a pattern of sustained infractions exists.” This element of the bargaining agreement creates an incentive for the police department to delay, obstruct, and obfuscate investigations of misconduct and abuse complaints until the deadline expires — and to keep the process opaque to the public.

“Basically, they bargained away transparency and accountability,” points out Chicago University Law Professor Craig Futterman, who is fighting in court to prevent the destruction of the officer misconduct records. “In a world where an incident like [the fatal police shooting of Laquan McDonald] happens and the public statements are ‘Deny, deny, deny,’ and then close off and circle the wagons, and then a code of silence and an exoneration at the end of the day — in that system, you cannot create public trust,” Futterman explained to the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Hagel Accuses Obama Administration of Trying to ‘Destroy’ Him

The Obama administration sought to destroy the former US defense secretary at the cost of addressing national security issues, former Department of Defense chief Chuck Hagel told the journal Foreign Policy on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Hagel explained he was an outcast from President Barack Obama’s inner circle, and added that important National Security Council meetings were often needlessly long and unproductive.

Obama administration officials would spend too much time on “nit-picky, small things in the weeds,” Hegel said, and would not focus on pressing national security issues.

“We seemed to veer away from the big issues. What was our political strategy on Syria?” he asked.

Hagel also noted that administration officials criticized his assessment of Daesh, particularly his claim that the terror group was “beyond anything the United States has seen.”

Last November, Obama announced Hegel would step down as head of the Defense Department and claimed his departure had been mutually agreed, however, US media reported Hegel’s resignation came as a result of White House pressure.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Obama Reportedly Makes Eyebrow-Raising Terrorism Remark in Private Talk With Columnists — a Short Time Later, Comment Disappears From NY Times Story

President Barack Obama indicated during a private meeting with columnists that he “did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino,” the New York Times reported on Thursday. He also reportedly said he plans to “step up his public arguments.”

The comments, first reported by New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker and reporter Gardiner Harris, were later seemingly scrubbed by the newspaper without an explanation in the story.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Princeton May Scrub U.S. President Wilson’s Name Over Racist Ties

Princeton University has pledged to consider renaming buildings dedicated to former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in the latest U.S. campus effort to quell student complaints of racism by tweaking names, titles and mascots.

A deal top administrators signed late Thursday with student demonstrators ended a 32-hour sit-in outside Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber’s office.

At about the same time, a threat against the university triggered a campus-wide safety alert but on Friday was “deemed not credible,” school security officials said.

Protest organizers at the Ivy League university in New Jersey urged Princeton to remove Wilson’s name and image from its public spaces and from its Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Wilson, the 28th U.S. president from 1913 to 1921, was a leader of the Progressive Movement but also supported racial segregation, which was part of public policy at the time, particularly in southern states.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Putin My Fan? It’s Mutual Says Trump

Mutual admiration between Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin continued to flower Friday, when the Republican presidential frontrunner praised Russia’s leader as forceful and popular.

“I think that he’s a strong leader, he’s a powerful leader,” Trump told MSNBC television. “He’s represented his country.”

The real estate mogul was speaking a day after Putin lauded him as “talented” and “outstanding.”

“When people call you brilliant it’s always good, especially when the person heads up Russia,” the one-time reality TV star said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Trump: Hillary is a Liar — ‘She Lies Like Crazy About Everything’

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” while responding to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton saying in the debate last night that he is “becoming ISIS’s best recruiter,” Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump declared that to be “just another Hillary lie.”

Trump said, “Nobody has been able to back that up. It’s nonsense. Just another Hillary lie. She lies like crazy about everything. Whether it’s trips where she was being gunned down in a helicopter or an airplane, she’s a liar and everybody knows that. But she just made this up in thin air.”

He continued, “I think my words represent toughness and strength. Hillary’s not strength. Hillary’s weak, frankly, she’s got no stamina, she’s got nothing….she couldn’t even get back on the stage. Nobody even knows what happened to her. It’s like she went home and went to sleep….She couldn’t get back on the stage last night I’ll tell you why. Because we need a president with great strength and stamina and Hillary doesn’t have that. We can not have another bad president like we have right now. We need a president with tremendous intelligence, smarts, cunning, strength, and stamina.”

He added, “She may have traveled a lot but she didn’t do the job because the entire world blew up around her. So she wasted a lot of time and energy and money and frankly she wasted a lot of lives because her policies were disaster for the world. The Middle East has blown up around her. Her decisions were horrible. and hundreds of thousands of people have been killed because of her faulty decisions.”

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

US Senate Democrats Promise Action on Gun Control in 2016 — Senator Reid

US Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said that the Democrats are going work on gun legislation.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The US Senate Democrats will be working to get gun control legislation on the agenda at the start of the 2016 new year, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said at a press conference on Friday.

“One thing that we have all agreed on… we are going to do something more on guns, we are not going to be silent on that,” Reid stated.

Stricter background checks and preventing individuals on the terrorist watch list from buying firearms are among the priorities, he added.

In the new year, Democrats will also be pushing legislation to raise the minimum wage, reform student debt laws and secure equal pay for women in the workplace, Reid explained.

The US Congress has been at an impasse on gun control legislation, despite record numbers of mass shootings in recent years. Democrats have repeatedly and unsuccessfully attempted to pass legislation to impose tighter background checks, and new attempts to prevent individuals on the government’s terrorist watch list, or no-fly list, from purchasing guns.

The Second Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees the right of Americans to keep and bear arms.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Veiled Threat: US Press Wakes Up to Saudi Terror Sponsorship

US newspapers have begun to ask questions about the role of Washington’s erstwhile ally in Middle East terrorism, reports Iranian political analyst Trita Parsi.

US news organizations have at last begun to take note of Saudi Arabia’s connections to terrorism, Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) told Press TV on Friday.

“If you just take a look at the coverage in the media in the last three months, the amount of criticism of not only Saudi Arabia, but this silence of the role of Saudi Arabia in this has started to change quite dramatically,” said Parsi.

In particular, news outlets in the US and elsewhere have recently begun to examine the links between terrorism and the more than $100 billion Saudi Arabia has spent funding religious institutions across the world that promote extremist Wahhabi and Salafi ideological beliefs.

This week Vice News reported on Saudi attempts to announced its leadership of an “anti-terror coalition” of Sunni Muslims states, which states such as Pakistan and Malaysia then denied they were a part of.

“Saudi Arabia spends enormous sums on mosques and Islamic schools, or madrassas, in countries like Malaysia and Pakistan, and it has given Lebanon significant military aid. Hartung (William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy) speculated that Saudi officials might have assumed they could call in favors related to that largesse. ‘Sometimes they have an inflated sense of their importance in the world because they spread their money around,’ he said.”

The New York Times responded skeptically to the Saudi announcement of its plan to organize a military coalition of 34 nations against Daesh (ISIL), which excluded important regional powers such as Iran.

“In fact, it is hard to see Saudi Arabia, a Sunni-led state, as a serious partner against the Islamic State unless it stops financing the Wahhabi religious schools and clerics that are spreading the kind of extremist doctrine that is at the heart of the Islamic State’s ideology. Although the Islamic State has pledged to destroy Saudi Arabia, Saudi leaders have so far been more concerned with opposing Shia-led Iran, which they consider their greatest adversary,” the New York Times wrote in an opinion piece.

In addition, the London Evening Standard recently published an article calling on the British government to “start by stopping foreign money funding Wahhabi textbooks, mosques and education in the UK.”

The newspaper quoted a Freedom House report on the Wahhabi books and teachings funded and exported by Saudi Arabia, which concluded that it “continues to propagate an ideology of hate toward the ‘unbeliever,’ which include Christians, Jews, Shi’ites, Sufis, Sunni Muslims who do not follow Wahhabi doctrine, Hindus, atheists and others.”

“It would be bad enough if Wahhabism were confined to that country alone, but over the past 30 years it’s estimated that Saudi Arabia has spent more than $100 billion promoting Wahhabism in mosques, schools and textbooks around the world — far more than the $7 billion spent by the Soviets on communist propaganda over the 20th century,” wrote the London newspaper.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

The Toronto Media’s Love Affair With Alleged Vicious Killer

It was a little after 3 p.m. on Friday, December 11 when a woman walked into a Shopper’s Drug Mart located in the PATH, a concourse filled with stores and restaurants underneath Toronto’s financial district.

The woman approached another woman who was speaking on a cellphone, pulled out a knife and stabbed her once in what police said was a vital organ. Witnesses said the victim was stabbed in the heart and she was taken to hospital suffering from life threatening injuries.

The woman who did the stabbing made good her escape, leaving behind a kitchen knife. According to police the perp. and the victim were not known to each other and witnesses said there was no prior interaction between the two women before the stabbing.

Police quickly released a surveillance photograph of the woman that captured the attention of the local media. Unlike most violent crimes, this one occurred in the financial district where the successful and beautiful people hang out. The wanted woman appeared to be well-dressed, wearing a business suit as she walked along the PATH.

With the public’s help the woman in the photograph was identified as Rohinie Bisesar, 40. The identity of the victim was not made public at this time.

On Tuesday afternoon, Toronto police announced Bisesar had been arrested and charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and carrying a concealed weapon. A few minutes before she was taken into custody, the National Post received an email, purportedly from Bisesar. Although it could not be confirmed Bisesar sent the email, one of her friends confirmed it was sent from the woman’s account.

The rambling email asked about nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and satellites. She then wrote, “I’m sorry about the incidence (sic). I felt the need to be extreme to see if it would work. I would normally not to such a thing.”

On Wednesday Bisesar appeared in court and her lawyer, Calvin Barry said she has no record and would attempt to get bail on her next appearance on Friday. But it was not to be.

Early Thursday morning, police announced the victim died Wednesday evening and the attempted murder charge would be upgraded to second-degree murder. As one of the charges was now murder, she was not entitled to an automatic bail hearing in the court she was appearing in.

Shortly after the death of the victim was announced, she was identified as Rosemarie Junor, 28. Junor worked as a medical technician and was a newlywed. She and her new husband were planning to start a family.

Both before and after Junor’s name was released, the media was fascinated with Bisesar, turning her life into a huge sob story. A Globe and Mail article was typical of the treatment the alleged brutal murderer received in the media. This article was published after Junor had died and her name had been released.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Air France: Suspicious Device on Flight Was a Hoax

The suspicious device discovered in the bathroom of an Air France flight was a hoax, the CEO of Air France said Sunday.

The Boeing 777 was heading to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris from Mauritius when its pilots requested an emergency landing early Sunday at Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa.

The device was made of cardboard, paper and a household timer, said Frederic Gagey, the head of Air France. “This object did not contain explosives,” said Gagey at a news conference in Paris.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Belgium Detains 1 Person as Part of Paris Attacks Probe

Belgian authorities investigating their country’s links to last month’s attacks in Paris have searched a house in Brussels and detained an unidentified person for questioning.

Federal prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt said the search was continuing Sunday evening. The building is located between the center of the Belgian capital and the Molenbeek district where some of the perpetrators of the Nov. 13 attacks, included suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, had lived.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

‘Check Travellers’ IDs or be Fined’, Sweden Warns

Infrastructure Minister Anna Johansson has warned public transport companies that failing to check traveller identities before they enter Sweden could result in fines of up to 50,000 kronor.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Food, Clothing, Toys Italians’ Most Popular Christmas Gifts

Confcommercio survey predicts Christmas present spending up 5%

(ANSA) — Rome, December 14 — Foodstuffs once again are the most popular Christmas present in Italy, with 74.7% of shoppers spending money on them, followed by clothing, (46.2%) and toys (45.4%), according to a survey by the Confcommercio retailers’ association together with Format research.

Spending on travel is up 4% compared to 2014, while books are up 2.4% and personal wellbeing spending, which went down last year, is up by 4.4% this year.

Fewer people are buying smartphones, but more are buying videogames and computers while the overall percentage of consumers who plan to buy Christmas presents is stable at 85.9%.

People buying presents are predominatly the young, the very young and people aged over 55 rather than young families or married people with children aged 35 to 44 living in big cities who will spend less.

Average spending per head for Christmas will be 5% up compared to last year, with 56% of people buying gifts in traditional shops and 75.3% buying in big chain stores.

Most marked this year is use of the Web for buying Christmas presents with 39.6% saying they will buy theirs on Internet compared to 3.8% in 2009. Of those, 26.9% will choose clothing, 21.9% books, 16.3% children’s toys, and 15.3% cellphones and smartphones.

In terms of total budget, 95.2% of consumers will not spend more than 300 euros on presents, the survey showed.

More people this year will spend between 100 and 300 euros, 62.4% compared to 61.9% last year.

Average spending this year is expected to be higher slightly, 166 euros rather than 158 euros last year, the survey said.

Some 4.9% said they are spending more this year compared to 1.8% last year, which Confcommercio said was “still low but a significant enough” increase.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

France: Security Gates at Paris Train Stations ‘Worthless’

New airport style security gates at a cost of €2.5 million a year, were installed at Paris Gare du Nord this week but are a waste of money and will do nothing to deter terrorists, experts say.

From Sunday onwards any passengers taking a Thalys train at Gare du Nord to Belgium or Holland will have to pass through new airport style security gates.

The scanners, known as portiques are being installed in a bid to boost security on France’s international trains in the wake of the Paris terror attacks and the foiled shooting on an Amsterdam Paris train earlier this year.

While government minister Segolène Royal proudly opened the security gates for use this week, experts have dismissed the measure as pure “terror theatre”.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

France: Salah Abdeslam Stopped Three Times After the Paris Attacks But He Was Released

Police stopped Europe’s most wanted terrorist THREE times in the hours immediately after the Paris attacks but he was released every time, according to his getaway driver.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: Hitler Really Did Have Just One Ball: Historian

Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler really did have only one testicle, a German historian has claimed, apparently confirming an urban legend that has persisted for decades.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italian Party: Merkel Wants to Sign TTIP Before Details About Deal Revealed

The leader of Italy’s Lega Nord party, Matteo Salvini claims that German Chancellor Angela Merkel hurries to sign the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership to take advantage of the citizens’ lack of knowledge about the deal.

MOSCOW (Sputnik), Alexander Mosesov — German Chancellor Angela Merkel hurries to sign the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) to take advantage of the citizens’ lack of knowledge about the deal, the leader of Italy’s Lega Nord party, Matteo Salvini, told Sputnik on Friday.

Earlier in the day, Merkel said the EU objective was to sign an agreement on a free trade zone with the United States before the end of the presidency of US President Barack Obama in January 2017.

“Merkel is in a hurry because as time passes, the people will understand, and they will oppose it [the TTIP deal]. For the economies of Italy and Europe, there are more negative sides than positive,” Salvini said.

The stated goal of TTIP is to streamline the flow of goods and services across the Atlantic. The pact seeks to create the world’s largest deregulated trade zone, encompassing over 60 percent of global production.

Anti-TTIP activists criticize the trade deal for the unusual secrecy in which it is being negotiated, and are concerned that released sections of the document clearly show that it will benefit multinational corporations and corporate rights-holders at the expense of sovereign nations and consumers.

The 12th round of US-EU talks is due to be held in early 2016 with the aim of drafting the full text of the agreement before the end of the year.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Italian Cardinal Makes Fat Donation After Luxury Apartment Scandal

An Italian cardinal accused of using charity money to refurbish his luxury apartment has donated 150,000 euros ($163,000) to the Catholic foundation which allegedly footed the bill, media reports said Saturday.

Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s former Secretary of State, a role equivalent to prime minister, has insisted he paid for the 300,000 euros renovation of the flat overlooking Saint Peter’s Square himself.

But a document published in a book this month by Italian investigative journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi purportedly shows he used 200,000 euros from the Bambin Gesu Foundation which collects donations for a children’s hospital in Rome.

“Acknowledging that what has happened has been detrimental to the Bambin Gesu, Cardinal Bertone wanted to meet us half way, donating a sum of 150,000 euros,” the hospital’s president Mariella Enoc said Saturday, according to the reports…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Italy Anti-Establishment Party Nips at Ruling Left’s Heels: Poll

Italy’s Five Star anti-establishment movement is enjoying a boom in popularity which presents a real threat to the ruling centre-left, a new poll showed Saturday.

Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) is not only losing favour, it must hope for the country’s fractious parties on the right to unite against it in order to assuage the Five Star peril.

An Ipsos survey of voter intentions showed that 31.2 percent of people interviewed would cast their ballots for the PD, while 29.1 percent of people favour the Five Star movement (M5S), founded in 2009 by a former comedian…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Boschi Says Her Father Must Pay if He Did Wrong

Reform minister faces no-confidence motion

(ANSA) — Rome, December 18 — Reform Minister Maria Elena Boschi said that her father should be punished if he committed offences in his former role as vice president of Banca Etruria, one of four crisis-hit Italian lenders saved by a controversial recent government decree. Boschi faces a no-confidence vote in parliament over the issue on Friday. “I’m proud to be part of a government that expresses a very simple concept — those who do wrong, must pay, whoever they are, without any differences or favouritism,” she said. “If my father did wrong, he must pay”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Priest Arrested for Paying for Sex With a Minor

Allegedly met minor on Grindr

(ANSA) — Reggio Calabria, December 18 — Reggio Calabria police on Friday arrested a 44-year-old priest on charges of paying for sex with a minor, misrepresenting his identity, luring a minor, and possession of child pornography. He was arrested in the rectory of a parish church in the Piana di Gioia Tauro valley and taken to jail.

Police began an investigation last March after finding the priest in his car with a minor in a secluded and rarely frequented area.

Police said the minor told them the priest paid him 20 euros for sex that took place in the priest’s car shortly before police arrived on the scene.

The minor told police he met the priest on gay social network smartphone app Grindr, and said the priest used an assumed name and told him he was a scientific researcher aged between 35-38.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Anti-Corruption Agency ANAC’s New Role One Among Many

Tasks range from bank arbitration to public contracts

(see related) (ANSA) — Rome, December 18 — The decision to task Italian anti-corruption agency ANAC with the arbitration of cases concerning investors left with worthless bonds in four Italian banks adds another responsibility to the many duties it already has. The bonds were issued by Banca Etruria, Carife, Carichieti and Banca delle Marche, recently rescued by a government decree.

The idea of tasking the Italian Securities and Exchange Commission CONSOB was immediately rejected, in part due to complaints that the body should have conducted monitoring prior to the problems. ANAC is headed by Raffaele Cantone, who has had many problems to solve since his March 2014 appointment, from those concerning Expo Milano 2015 to the Jubilee. Supervision of public contracts and tenders is one of the main activities of the agency. Prior to Cantone’s arrival and the law that revised its functions and powers, ANAC’s main role was entrusted to another agency, the AVCP. The latter has since been eliminated and its functions and personnel have been transferred to ANAC, which has had to ensure that contracts handed out for such key events as the Expo and the Jubilee were done so in line with regulations. The increase in its powers has also led to the head of the body having the right to ask prefects to hand single works or contracts to an external authority when there are serious suspicions of irregularities or reports of crimes committed, ensuring in the meantime that the works continue. This is a “lever” that Cantone has employed several times, from MOSE project in the Venetian lagoon to some of the tenders concerning the Expo and contracted services for the Mineo asylum-seeker center. Transparency is also part of ANAC’s remit, and it monitors public agencies’ national anti-corruption plans and the reports that corruption prevention chiefs have to draw up every year. Now another sizeable sphere of activity will be that of arbitration that those holding bonds issued by the banks involved will be able to request in an attempt to get back their savings. “I have learned with pleasure that the prime minister has selected ANAC as the agency to manage the arbitration. The arbitration chamber may be tasked with it, a body inside of ANAC but autonomous and independent, made up of legal experts and ones of very high professional standards,” Cantone said. The arbitration chamber is led by Ferruccio Auletta, who teaches Civil Procedure Law in Naples, while the others in it are Ugo Draetta, Giovanni Fabio Licata, Alberto Massera and Luca Mezzetti. The arbitration cases that these experts have dealt with so far for ANAC have concerned public contracts. There are over 10,000 bondholders in the four banks, and while not all of them will meet the requirements for arbitration — investments entirely wiped out, poverty, inability to assess the risk involved — there are nonetheless expected to be thousands of cases.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

New Image Found on Paris Jihadi’s Phone Points to Plan by Terror Cell to Target Birmingham Shopping Centre

The evil mastermind behind the Paris terror attacks had a photograph of one of Britain’s busiest shopping centres on his mobile phone, The Mail on Sunday has been told.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, who orchestrated the attacks in the French capital that killed 130 people, had a picture of Birmingham’s Bullring on his smartphone, police have warned community leaders in the city.

West Midlands Police investigators revealed that Abaaoud’s photograph was among others of ‘key and sensitive sites’ in the city, said well-placed sources.

The photos have led police to the ‘frightening conclusion’ that the terrorist ringleader was planning to bring carnage to England’s second city similar to the events he unleashed in Paris on November 13.

The Bullring is the most visited site in Birmingham, and receives almost 40 million shoppers a year.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Norway: Child Injured in Svalbard Avalanche Dies in Hospital, Raising Death Toll to 2

Norwegian police say one of two children who were seriously injured in an avalanche on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard has died.

Police spokeswoman Kjerstin Askholt announced the death on Sunday, a day after the avalanche slammed into Longyearbyen, the main settlement on Svalbard. She didn’t give the age or sex of the child.

A 42-year-old teacher was pronounced dead on Saturday. Eight other people remained hospitalized.

The snowslide knocked houses off their foundations and buried some people under several feet of snow. More than 100 people in the town of 2,000 were evacuated from their homes as a precaution in case of further avalanches.

Svalbard, a sparsely populated island group midway between continental Norway and the North Pole, is cloaked in darkness at this time of year.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Spain Ruling Party Could be Out With Big Vote for Upstarts

A strong showing Sunday by a pair of upstart parties in Spain’s general election upended the country’s traditional two-party system, with results showing the ruling Popular Party won the most votes but fell far short of a parliamentary majority and risked being booted from power.

Days or weeks of negotiations may be needed to determine who will govern Spain, with the new far-left Podemos and business-friendly Ciudadanos parties producing shockwaves because of strong support from voters weary of high unemployment, a seemingly endless string of official corruption cases and the country’s political status quo.

In past elections, the Popular Party and the main opposition Socialists were the established powerhouses and only needed support from tiny Spanish parties to get a majority in parliament when they didn’t win one from voters.

But Podemos came in a strong third place and Ciudadanos took fourth in their first election fielding national candidates — setting up a period of uncertainty as parties negotiate with each other to see which ones may be able to form a governing alliance.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

UK Lord Accused of Child Sex Abuse Dies Before Trial

An 87-year-old British parliamentarian deemed unfit to stand trial on a string of child sex abuse offences died peacefully at his home on Saturday, his family said.

Greville Janner, a member of the upper House of Lords, had been suffering from such severe dementia that a judge ruled earlier this month that he was unfit to enter a plea.

A rare so-called “trial of the facts” was therefore set to take place in April — but his death means it no longer will.

[Comment: How fortunate for the other elites involved in the ring./sarcasm]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK National Health Service Faces Worst Crisis in History — Corbyn

UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said that the UK government was failing to meet its own targets in the sphere of healthcare, including cancelled operations, cancer treatment times and waiting times of emergency services.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The UK National Health Service (NHS) is in the worst crisis since its creation, UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said Friday.

“The NHS is facing its worst crisis since it was founded. The NHS will be over £2 billion [$2.97 billion at the current exchange rate] in debt by the end of the year,” Corbyn said, as quoted in the Labour Party statement.

He added that the government was failing to meet its own targets in the sphere of healthcare, including cancelled operations, cancer treatment times and waiting times of emergency services.

The NHS is the publicly funded health care system in the United Kingdom. The majority of the services it provides are free of charge for the country’s population.

According to a number of studies, NHS performance has dropped in recent years amid austerity cuts introduced by the ruling Conservative Party.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

UK: ‘Incensed’ Gun Cops: We’ll Lay Down Our Weapons and Step Back From Duty in Protest if Officer Who Shot ‘Gangster’ Is Charged

Police marksmen have threatened to hand in their weapons in protest at the arrest of the officer who shot dead alleged gangster Jermaine Baker.

The officer was interviewed under caution ‘in respect of his use of lethal force’ following the death of Mr Baker during an alleged attempt to spring two convicts from a prison van in North London nine days ago.

But the officer’s colleagues in the elite Metropolitan Police firearms unit are understood to be ‘incensed’ and ready to step down from duty if he is charged over the shooting.

Their anger has been sparked by the way the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) used a community meeting last Thursday to publicly announce his arrest. In particular, they feel comments made at the meeting by IPCC Commissioner Cindy Butts appeared to ‘give the impression’ that the unnamed officer was guilty.

Sources have told this newspaper that the threat from the officer’s colleagues to ‘hand in their tickets’ — a reference to their authorisation to carry firearms — extends beyond his close circle of friends in the Met’s SCO19 firearms unit…

           — Hat tip: Seneca III [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Was Birmingham Bullring Next? Photo of Shopping Centre Found on Paris Mastermind’s Phone

Photos of the busy shopping centre have been found on the crazed jihadi’s phone prompting fears Birmingham was on his hit list.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud organised the massacre in the French capital that killed 130 people in November.

He was killed during a police siege days later but according to Mail on Sunday sources the terrorist’s smartphone contained photos of the Bullring as well as other sites in the city.

This is not the first time the jihadi has been linked to the West Midlands.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

You Can’t Say That! Swedish TV Forces New Language Manual on Journalists

Sweden’s Sveriges Television, the country’s public broadcasting giant, has unveiled a new language manual aimed at ensuring that journalists speak in a politically correct manner, often to the point of absurdity, Swedish newspaper Fria Tider reports.

Citing internal company documents, recently prepared on behalf of Hanna Stjarne, the company’s managing director, the newspaper explains that journalists are now encouraged to use — or to avoid — certain words and phrases. For instance, according to the new guidelines, all migrants, including suspected terrorists, who have received Swedish citizenship, must be called simply ‘Swedes,’ while those who have been accused of racism now effectively have no right to protest the charges.

“If someone claims that they have been discriminated against, this means that he feels this way, and we must proceed from that,” the instructions suggest.

“We should not generalize people on the basis of their belonging to any nation, territory or religion. Avoid the vague and utterly erroneous concept of the ‘migrant’,” another quote from the manual reads.

In the place of the word ‘migrant’, the document says, it is necessary to better to use the phrase ‘born abroad.’ However, it is also important to remember that “those born abroad are also Swedes, and that there is no contradiction between the two concepts.”

The instructions state that the word ‘refugees’ can still be used, but prefer that the word alternate with the expression ‘people on the run’.

Perhaps most controversially of all, Sveriges Television’s language guide suggests that everyone, regardless of their actions, should be called a Swede if he or she has received Swedish citizenship. This includes terrorists who happen to be Swedish citizens, who must still unconditionally be called ‘Swedes’. “It’s always best to use the word ‘Swede’ rather than ‘a citizen of Sweden’, in order to avoid the distinction. And if a clarification is necessary, for example, in cases about terrorism, it is possible to use wording such as ‘a Swede, who has had dealings with armed and violent Islamists’.”

Bizarrely, the company management is also discomforted by the word ‘black’, although it has nothing against ‘light-skinned’. “The concepts of ‘black’ and ‘dark-skinned’ can arouse criticism,” the manual suggests, while the terms ‘white’, ‘fair-skinned’ or ‘of Asian appearance’, are still a-ok, apparently.

The cherry on the political correctness cake, Fria Tider argues, is the new manual’s rule suggesting that the word of migrants who have accused Swedes of racism should always be taken at face value: “If someone says that they have been harassed or discriminated against on the basis of [racial] hatred, we must proceed from that person’s feelings — from his feeling that he or she has been discriminated against on the basis of his or her skin color.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Veiled Woman Hits Back When a Pervert Pinches Her Bottom at a Moroccan Market Sending Him Flying and Leaving Him Unconscious for Two Hours

This is the moment a pervert got his comeuppance after he pinched a large woman on the bottom and was sent flying into a market stand in retaliation.

The sex pest victim was covered up from head to toe in an olive coloured veil when she suddenly felt a sharp pinch to her bottom as she bent down near a motorbike.

In one swift moment, the shocked woman turns round and lashes out with all her force at the vile pervert, sending him flying.

Captured on CCTV, the woman’s impressive right hook leaves the man on the ground as he collides with a nearby market stall.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Israeli Woman Doesn’t Know How She Got the Courage to Respond ‘Like a Lioness’ Against Knife-Wielding Attacker Who Broke Into Home

An Israeli woman says she doesn’t know how she gathered the courage and strength — using only her bare hands — to forcefully shove out a knife-wielding terrorist who broke into her home Saturday.

Dikla Dvir said that at first she thought the man who jumped in through a glass door was a robber, unaware that he had just stabbed and injured three Israelis outside a synagogue in Ra’anana, a Tel Aviv suburb.

“I naively thought it was a thief, and I asked him, ‘What are you doing here?’“ she told Israel’s Ynet news.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Three Rockets Fired From Lebanon Into Northern Israel

At least three rockets were fired from Lebanon into northern Israel, the army has confirmed.

Air raid sirens sounded in communities throughout the western Galilee in northern Israel, at 17:42 local time Sunday, including in Rosh Hanikra and Nahariya.

Locals report hearing at least one explosion; three rockets struck within Israel. There are no reports of injury or damage.

Lebanese sources told AFP that “two Katyusha rockets were fired from a Lebanese village five kilometres (three miles) from the border with Israel.”

IDF forces are scanning the area.

The strikes follow Hezbollah vowing revenge for the assassination of its notorious commander Samir Kuntar, in what is believed to have been an Israeli airstrike near Damascus.

Updates to follow.[…]

[once more the brave muslim soldiers attack unarmed civilian targets…]

           — Hat tip: MC [Return to headlines]
 

Europe, Turkey Closed Airspace to Russian Warplanes Flying Anti-ISIS Missions, General Says

Exactly a month ago, Russia took it up a notch in Syria by deploying Tupolev Tu-95 Bears, Tu-22 Blinders, and Tu-160 Blackjacks in the fight against anti-Assad elements including ISIS and al-Nusra.

The first footage of the strategic long-range bombers in action surfaced on November 17 and served notice that Moscow is willing to double down on its commitment to the fight even if securing key cities like Aleppo proves more challenging that The Kremlin originally anticipated.

According to Gen. Anatoly Konovalov, deputy commander of Russia’s long-range aviation force, Moscow’s long-range warplanes have carried out 145 sorties against terrorist targets since mid-November. “In total, long-range aviation aircraft in Syria have carried out around 145 mission sorties, some 1,500 bombs have been dropped and about 20 cruise missiles have been fired,” Konovalov said.

Those who have followed the Syrian conflict might recall that in early September (so before Moscow made Russia’s involvement “official”) the US pressured Greece to deny Russia use of its airspace on supply runs to Latakia. Subsequently, Bulgaria said it had “enough serious doubts about the cargo of the planes” to refuse overflight privileges.

Well in the course of detailing Russia’s long-range bomber missions, Konovalov noted that the Tu-160s were forced to fly from the airfield of Olenegorsk in Russia’s northwestern Murmansk Region.

Why is this notable, you ask? Here’s Konovalov again: “Europe didn’t let us fly; Turkey didn’t let us fly, but we showed that even is such conditions we’re capable of coping with the task using airfields on the Russian territory.”

In other words, Europe and Turkey declined to allow Russia to use their airspace on the way to conducting airstrikes against the very same terrorists that attacked Paris just four days before the long-range warplanes were deployed to the fight in Syria. “Russian pilots had to leave for Syria from Russia’s northernmost Olenegorsk military airport in order to bypass Europe and then cross the Mediterranean Sea toward Syria,” Sputnik adds.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Hezbollah Terrorist Samir Kuntar Killed in Reported Israeli Air Force Strikes in Syria Overnight

The infamous terrorist responsible for murder of Danny Haran and 4-year old daughter in ‘79 who was released in Goldwasser-Regev exchange was killed in reported Israeli strikes overnight. Reports claim Syrian rebels provided Israel with intelligence.

Syrian and Lebanese media have confirmed that the terrorist Samir Kuntar, who was responsible for murdering the father and daughter of the Haran family 36 years ago, was killed in a reported airstrike carried out by Israel overnight Saturday.

At the age of 16, Kuntar, along with three other terrorists from the Palestinian Liberation Front (PLO) infiltrated Israel via Jordan in 1979 by boat, killing Israeli police officer Eliyahu Shahar who attempted to thwart the attack. The terrorist broke into the house of the Haran family, kidnapping Danny Haran and his 4-year old daughter Einat. While under fire from Israeli police, Kuntar shot Danny Haran and then killed Einat by smashing her head with his weapon. Mrs. Haran hid with their second child, 2-year old Yael, who was killed accidentally from smothering while her mother tried to keep her from crying.

Kuntar was released after 30 years incarceration in Israel as part of a deal to return the bodies of kidnapped reserve soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. Kuntar became heavily involved and a senior figure for Hezbollah since his release, received and regarded as a hero.

The terrorist organization Hezbollah referred to Haran as a “martyr” and released the statement: At 10:15pm on Saturday December 19, Zionist warplanes struck a residential building in Jaramana city in Damascus countryside. The dean of liberated detainees from Israeli prisons, brother Mujahid Samir Kuntar was martyred along with several Syrian citizens in the strike.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Pentagon Reportedly Considering Stepping up Cyberattacks Against ISIS

The Pentagon is considering more aggressive cyberattacks on the Islamic State’s computers in an effort to decrease its propaganda on social media and prevent potential terror attacks, according to a published report.

The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday, citing unnamed U.S. officials who were not authorized to speak on the matter, that military hackers at Cyber Command in Fort Meade, Md. have created malware that could be used to curb the terror group’s capabilities on the Internet.

However, the military’s fight against the extremists’ online communications faces drawback from the FBI and other intelligence officials who say that constricting the Internet in Syria and Iraq may shut the window into the militants’ whereabouts and intentions, according to the Los Angeles Times.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Saudi Arabia, The Mainspring of Islamic Radicalism

In my opinion, the real culprit behind the rise of Islamic extremism and jihadism in the Islamic world is Saudi Arabia. The “Aal-e-Saud” (the descendants of Saud) have no hereditary claim to “the Throne of Mecca” since they are not the descendants of the prophet, nor even from the tribe of Quresh (there is a throne of Mecca which I will explain later.) They were the most primitive and marauding nomadic tribesmen of Najd who defeated the Sharifs of Mecca violently after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War. Their title to the throne of Saudi Arabia is only de facto and not de jure, since neither do they have a hereditary claim to the Saudi monarchy nor do they hold elections to ascertain the will of the Saudi people. Thus, they are the illegitimate rulers of Saudi Arabia and they feel insecure because of their illegitimacy, a fact which explains their heavy-handed and brutal tactics in dealing with any kind of dissent, opposition or movement for reform in Saudi Arabia.

The phenomena of religious extremism and jihadism all over the Islamic world is directly linked to the Wahhabi-Salafi madrassahs which are generously funded by the Saudi and Gulf’s petro-dollars. These madrassahs attract children from the most impoverished backgrounds in the Third World Islamic countries because they offer the kind of incentives and facilities which even the government-sponsored public schools cannot provide: such as, free boarding and lodging, no tuition fee at all, and free of cost books and stationery.

Apart from madrassahs, another factor that promotes the Wahhabi-Salafi ideology in the Islamic world is the ritual of Hajj and Umrah (the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina.) Every year millions of Muslim men and women travel from all over the Islamic world to perform the pilgrimage in order to wash their sins. When they return home to their native countries after spending a month or two in Saudi Arabia, along with clean hearts and souls, dates and “zamzam,” they also bring along the tales of Saudi hospitality and their “true” and puritanical version of Islam, which some Muslims, especially the rural-tribal folk, find attractive and worth-emulating.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Syria War: Third of Rebels Share is Aims, Report Claims

About a third of rebel groups in Syria — some 100,000 fighters — share the ideology of so-called Islamic State (IS), new research suggests.

The Centre on Religion and Geopolitics, linked to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, said defeating IS militarily “would not end global jihadism”.

That would require an “intellectual and theological defeat” of its ideology.

The Syrian conflict has killed more than 250,000 people. Millions more have been displaced.

A Western coalition has been carrying out air strikes against IS in Syria and Iraq for more than a year.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Syrian Army Backed by Russian Air Strikes Capture Rebel Stronghold in Aleppo

The army and pro-regime forces seized control of the town of Khan Tuman, 20 minutes south-west of the city of Aleppo, and neighbouring farms, killing 16 rebels in the fierce clash.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UAE Sending Colombian Mercenaries to Yemen: Sources

The United Arab Emirates has secretly sent some 300 Colombian mercenaries to fight for it in Yemen, paying handsomely to recruit a private army of well-trained, battle-hardened South American soldiers, sources told AFP.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Colombians’ experience fighting leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers in their home country made them attractive recruits for the UAE, whose relatively inexperienced army is part of an Arab coalition helping Yemen’s government fight a war against Huthi rebels.

“Colombian soldiers are highly prized for their training in fighting guerrillas,” one source, a Colombian former army officer, told AFP in Bogota…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Yazidi Woman Begs UN Security Council to Wipe Out ISIS

Nadia Murad Basee Taha, 21, was abducted from her home in Iraq in August last year by ISIS militants. She revealed her devastating tale of rape and torture to the UN Security Council.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Yazidi Used as Sex Slave for Islamic State Speaks to UN

Yazidi survivor Nadia Murad Basee Taha described to the United Nations Security Council the horrific ordeal she endured while the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) used her as a sex slave.

“Rape was used to destroy women and girls and to guarantee that these women could never lead a normal life again,” she declared.

The sadistic terrorist group captured Taha in August 2014 as they expanded their caliphate across Iraq and Syria. They consider Yazidis “devil-worshippers” and wish to wipe the minority religion sect off the planet.

Taha explained:

Along the way, they humiliated us. They touched us and violated us. They took us to Mosul with more than 150 other Yazidi families. In a building, there were thousands of Yazidi families and children who were exchanged as gifts. One of these people came up to me. He wanted to take me. I looked down at the floor. I was absolutely petrified. When I looked up, I saw a huge man. He looked like a monster.

I cried. I cried out, I said “I’m too young and you’re huge”. He hit me. He kicked me and beat me. And a few minutes later, another man came up to me. I still was looking at the floor. I saw that he was a little bit smaller. I begged him. I implored him for him to take me. I was incredibly scared of the first man.

The man who took me asked me to change religion. I refused. Then, he asked for my hand in marriage, so to speak. That night he beat me. He asked me to take my clothes off. He put me in a room with the guards and then they proceeded to commit their crime until I fainted.

“I implore you, get rid of Daesh [ISIS] completely,” she begged the council when she finished her speech.

The council erupted in applause for the young woman as Taha buried her head in her hands.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Ukraine Says it Won’t Repay Russian Debt Due by Weekend

It is 3 billion doll

(ANSA-AP) — MOSCOW — Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said on Friday that his country won’t repay a $3 billion debt owed to Russia by this weekend after Moscow’s refusal to accept repayment terms already offered to other international creditors.

The “moratorium” on outstanding debt repayments to Russia effectively means that Ukraine is defaulting on the $3 billion debt due Sunday.

It’s the latest spat between the two neighbors following a run of gas supply disputes, Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula and support for separates in eastern Ukraine.

“After Russia refused to accept our offer despite our attempts to reach a restructuring deal, the government is imposing a moratorium on the repayment of the $3 billion debt to Russia,” Yatsenyuk said at a televised government session.

He did not indicate when Ukraine would be ready to repay the debt. Moscow has previously said it will take Ukraine to court if it fails to pay on time.

Ukraine’s economy has struggled over the past few years and the country has negotiated repayment terms with creditors, but not with Russia.

In November, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a debt restructuring, saying Moscow would be willing to agree to payments of $1 billion a year between 2016 and 2018.

Ukraine turned down the offer, saying it cannot legally offer Russia a better deal than the one it has negotiated with other debt holders. That deal has seen countries accept a 20 percent write-down of their Ukrainian bond holdings, a move which has cut Ukraine’s sovereign debt from $19 billion to $15.5 billion.

Relations between the two neighbors soured after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in March 2014 and threw its backing behind separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian leaders have accused Moscow of sending troops and weapons to the east, a claim the Kremlin has vehemently denied.

Kiev has sought to give a political dimension to the debt, hinting that Russia bought Ukrainian bonds in December 2013 in an act of clandestine bribery of then President Viktor Yanukovych who was facing massive anti-government protests at the time.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

We Need Russia in Order to Fight Terror Says Renzi

Premier hopes for sanctions to be lifted

(ANSA) — Rome, December 18 — Premier Matteo Renzi said Friday Europe needs Russia in order to combat Islamist terror.

“We have never made a secret of our position,” Renzi told reporters at the close of an EU summit on terrorism and immigration. “In order to fight extremism, we need Russia to also be at the table”. The premier added he hoped for a speedy lifting of European sanctions against Russia over its annexation of the Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula. The sanctions “are mutual”, said Renzi.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Dragon Ascendant: A Look at the Growing Firepower of China’s Navy

The growing power of the Chinese navy may become a serious concern for the US, according to an American think tank.

As China became more reliant on the world’s oceans to sustain its economy and to maintain its “comprehensive national power,” the country began drastically improving its naval capabilities, according to Dean Cheng, senior research fellow for Chinese Political and Security Affairs at the Heritage Foundation.

In the 1990s and early 2000s the surface fleet of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) was mostly comprised of fast attack craft armed with torpedoes and missile weaponry, bolstered by a number of mostly outdated destroyers and frigates. Its most modern vessels were several Russian-made Sovremenny-class destroyers, Luhai destroyers and Jiangwei frigates, Cheng points out.

The submarine fleet consisted primarily of antiquated Romeo-class, Ming-class and Song-class boats, with only a small number of Han-class nuclear-powered vessels.

The bulk of Chinese Naval Aviation used to consist of F-6 and F-7 fighters (Chinese copies of the Soviet MiG-19 and MiG-21 respectively), and H-6 bombers (copies of Soviet Tu-16).

However, a fundamental shift in the PLAN’s policies had occurred in the past decade and a half, according to Cheng.

The most obvious innovation was the commissioning of the Liaoning, first Chinese aircraft carrier, which “can already establish a bubble in areas such as the South China Sea where opposing aircraft and helicopters, such as those used for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) duties, would find it difficult to operate freely,” Cheng points out.

Furthermore, China intends to bolster the ranks of its navy with at least six Luyang-II/Type 052C and at least twelve Luyang-III/Type 052D destroyers. Along with 20 Jiangkai-II/Type 054A frigates, these vessels would greatly improve the PLAN’s anti-aircraft capabilities, Cheng remarks.

During 2000s China produced over 60 Houbei/Type 022 fast attack craft — low-radar signature vessels outfitted with anti-ship cruise missiles. According to Cheng, these ships are now being slowly replaced by Jiangdao/Type 056 corvettes — larger vessels which possess better endurance and sea-keeping.

The PLAN’s logistics were also improved by the addition of a number of new replenishment vessels, something that China previously had in very short supply.

China’s submarine fleet was strengthened by the addition of about a dozen Russian-produced Kilo-boats and the domestically-manufactured Yuan-class boats. Furthermore, China also commissioned several new Shang/Type 093 nuclear-powered submarines, Cheng adds.

The Chinese Naval Aviation is also undergoing significant modernization. Along with the addition of over 100 JH-7 Flying Leopard strike aircraft, its inventory was also supplemented by fourth-generation and 4.5-generation fighter aircraft such as J-10, J-11 and Su-30.

While resurgent PLAN is unlikely to be able to establish sea control over key waterways such as the Arabian Sea or Indian Ocean, Cheng claims. However, when it comes to the near seas like the East and the South China Seas, the Chinese navy is a force to be reckoned with as it “already outmatches every regional navy, with the possible exception of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force.”

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Landslide Buries Buildings in Southern China; 27 Missing

A landslide collapsed and buried buildings at and around an industrial park in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen on Sunday, leaving 27 people missing, authorities said.

At least seven people were rescued after 18 buildings were buried and an area of 20,000 square meters was covered with soil, the Ministry of Public Security’s firefighting bureau said in an online statement.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

The Firewall Awakens: ICANN’s Exiting CEO Takes Internet Governance to the Dark Side

Welcome to the Chinese NetMundial Initiative

ICANN’s exiting CEO has stunned internet governance experts by fronting a new Chinese government initiative to expand its view of how the internet should be run.

The conference is China’s transparent effort to shift the internet governance debate away from the currently dominant Western values of openness and freedom, and build a second power base that adopts a more restrictive perspective.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Air France Bomb Forces Emergency Landing in Kenya After Explosive Found in Toilet

The Boeing 777 Air France flight 463, carrying 459 passengers and 14 crew members, was heading to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris when the pilots requested an emergency landing in Mombasa.

Four people have been arrested after a hoax bomb was found in the toilet of an Air France flight from Mauritius to Paris which was forced to divert to Kenya.

The Boeing 777 landed in Mombasa after a passenger reported the suspicious device.

A technical examination of the device found it did not contain any explosives.

The flight was carrying 459 passengers and 14 crew members when pilots requested an emergency landing at a Mombasa airport at 9.30pm GMT.

However, nearly 20 hours after the emergency landing, Air France have now confirmed that the device was a fake bomb made of cardboard and a timer, possibly designed to start panic.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Fears of New Islamist Threat Emerge in Nigeria

Nigeria, which is still battling Boko Haram militants, now risks unleashing a new Islamist threat after violent clashes between the army and a radical Shiite group, experts say.

Though no official death toll was released, at least a dozen members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) were killed in confrontations with the army during a religious procession last week in the northern city of Zaria.

IMN leader Ibrahim Zakzaky was seriously wounded and arrested by the army while his number two was killed during the clashes. The military was forced to put out a denial after rumours spread that Zakzaky’s wife died in custody.

The violence mirrors the bloody beginning of the Boko Haram insurrection in 2009, when the former leader of the Sunni militant group was executed in police custody and the sect took up arms against the Nigerian government…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Austrian Chancellor Calls for Repatriation of More Undocumented Migrants

Chancellor Werner Faymann claims that Austria should repatriate more undocumented migrants who are not “genuine refugees”.

VIENNA (Sputnik) — Austria should repatriate more undocumented migrants who are not “genuine refugees,” Chancellor Werner Faymann said.

“We cannot act as if all refugees really have basis to seek asylum. Therefore we have to increase repatriations,” Faymann told the Oesterreich newspaper in an interview published Sunday.

According to the official, the country’s aim is to decrease the number of illegal EU border crossings which currently stands at 1.5 million.

“If the protection of the outer borders works as it should, the next step should be the opportunity for the controlled and regulated arrival of genuine refugees,” Faymann added.

The European Union is currently struggling to manage a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Berlin Says No Conflict With Italy Over Migrants

Renzi said was against sole German leadership of EU

(ANSA) — Berlin, December 18 — German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesperson on Friday denied speculation that there is a rift between Italy and Berlin over migrants after Italian Premier Matteo Renzi said at the European summit he was against the EU being led solely by Germany. “I don’t see any conflict between the German government and the Italian one,” Merkel’s spokesperson Christiane Wirtz said. “There are intense discussions about refugees at the European level”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Brescia: Mayor Installs No-Islam Signs: “Respect us or Leave”

In Pontoglio, the council has put up new road signs, stating that theirs is a “Town with a history of Western culture and deep-rooted Christian traditions”. Town councillor: “I challenge anyone to say that it isn’t so”

After “no-gender ideology” messages on LED screens in the towns of Capriolo and Prevalle, a town in the province of Brescia has introduced “no-foreigners” road signs. Unconcerned with political correctness, townspeople have dubbed them “no-Islam” signs, a moniker that the council seems more than happy to accept. The episode took place in Pontoglio, a town in the west of the province of Brescia, governed by a centre-right coalition led by Alessandro Seghezzi. On Wednesday, the mayor, already under fire for having raised the price of the residential authorisation certificate to €425, a move which hit immigrants particularly hard, had a series of signs put up on roads leading into the town…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Denmark Defends Plans to Seize Valuables From Refugees

The Danish government on Friday defended plans for police to search asylum-seekers’ luggage for valuables and cash after they prompted international outrage and drew comparisons to Nazi Germany.

“I can see that some foreign media are pouring scorn over (the fact) that we in the future may withdraw asylum-seekers’ valuables and demand that they should pay for their stay in asylum centres themselves,” Integration Minister Inger Stojberg wrote on Facebook.

ADVERTISING”There is no reason to criticise, since it is already the case that if you as a Dane have valuables for more than 10,000 kroner ($1,450, 1,340 euros) it may be required that this is sold before you can receive unemployment benefits,” she added…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Eritrean Migrant Dies in Italy Hospital Escape Bid

An Eritrean man who survived a perilous journey across the Mediterranean by boat to Italy has died after falling from a hospital window in a night-time escape bid, Italian media reported on Saturday.

Eritrean migrants picked up from boats and brought to Italy face relocation along with Syrians and Iraqis to other European countries as part of a controversial programme to share the refugee burden, which has proven unpopular with people hoping to join family members elsewhere.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

EU Countries Refusing to Receive Migrants Likely to Face Legal Action

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that it is necessary to take a fast decision on distribution of migration load in the European Union.

BERLIN (Sputnik) — European countries that resist to share responsibilities to resettle migrants coming to the European Union may be subjected to legal action, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Saturday.

“It is necessary to take a fast decision [on distribution of migration load]. Europe is a legal community. The issue will be resolved by legal means in case there are no other ways to settle it,” Steinmeier told Der Spiegel newspaper.

The European Union is currently struggling to manage a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa in an effort to reach wealthy European states, such as Germany and Sweden.

Countries like the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania have been opposing EU mandatory quota scheme to share 160,000 refugees.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

EU Struggles to Set up ‘Hotspots’ For Refugees Fleeing Syrian Violence

A majority of the so-called refugee “hotspots” across Europe do not function, yet Turkey is praised for stemming the flow, even though it is only because of the onset of winter that a reduction of the migrant influx has occurred, a recent EU report shows.

A new study from the European Commission exposes the reality of ineffective EU refugee policies in detail.

Only two of the 11 planned “hotspots” intended to be up and running in 2015 and intended to receive refugees into the European Union are operational.

Less than one percent of the proposed 160,000 refugees have been relocated successfully.

The report was released at the EU’s end-of-the-year summit on Friday, and the results are broadly regarded as being another failure in the EU’s attempts to manage the ongoing refugee crisis.

“Deficiencies, notably as regards hotspots, relocation and returns, must be rapidly addressed,” the report reads, in part.

European politicians secretly criticize Turkey for not displaying sufficient efforts to manage the refugees, while publicly showing gratitude to their Turkish colleagues, Reuters reported. But it’s really only the wintery weather conditions that have limited the migrant influx in recent weeks, Noah Barkin of Reuters suggested.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Farage for Breitbart — UK Migration Cover Up: The Government Must Release the Real Figures Immediately

For a long time now I’ve been questioning the government’s migration statistics. Yes, they have frequently shown mass migration at record highs. They have also revealed European Union (EU) migrants to be arriving in increasing numbers. But I think the numbers may be even higher than the ones currently publicly available.

The numbers simply haven’t added up for a while now. One of the big question marks hanging over the government’s migration statistics has been the massive discrepancy between the number of National Insurance numbers given to EU migrants and the official numbers of those who are meant to have come and are priced into the government’s top line net migration figures.

Take the figures for the year to June 2015.

A total of 214,000 National Insurance numbers were given to Romanians and Bulgarians. Yet in roughly the same time period, the year ending March 2015, official figures show only 53,000 Romanian and Bulgarian migrants coming to the UK. The numbers are frankly all over the place and point to a rather large underestimation of the actual numbers arriving each year.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Germany Not the EU’s Blood Donor Says Renzi

Premier says EU behind on asylum seekers, not Italy

(ANSA) — Brussels, December 18 — Premier Matteo Renzi had a heated exchange with German Chancellor Angela Merkel over banking union and asylum seekers during the European summit in Brussels, sources said on Friday.

“You cannot tell us that you are Europe’s blood donor, dear Angela,” Renzi reportedly said.

The exchange took place at the start of the second day of the summit, when Renzi confronted Merkel about Germany’s opposition to rapid completion of the process towards a banking union in the eurozone, the sources said. Merkel is said to have admitted that there have too many delays over this issue due to a series of emergencies that the Union has had to face.

Renzi’s stance was backed by several other leaders, including French President Francois Hollande, Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

The Italian premier later denied he had attacked Germany.

“It was anything but,” he told reporters at the close of the EU summit. “I asked Chancellor Merkel some questions. My friendship and respect for her does not preclude my asking some questions,” Renzi explained.

Berlin is not “Europe’s blood donor”, he added. Earlier on Friday, Merkel’s spokesperson denied speculation of a rift between Rome and Berlin over migrants after Renzi said he was against the EU being led solely by Germany. “I don’t see any conflict between the German government and the Italian one,” Merkel’s spokesperson Christiane Wirtz said. “There are intense discussions about refugees at the European level”. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said later that Germany and Italy will always find common ground in spite of disagreements. “It’s not the first time we have different opinions, but we always find an agreement in the end,” she said.

Renzi said that Italy does not see eye to eye with Germany on repatriating Afghan migrants and asylum seekers. “It’s a mistake to think Afghanistan is stable,” he said. “In this case our opinion differs from that of Germany — if Italy and Germany intervene to restore peace in the country, and Afghan brothers and sisters keep arriving…it means that (Afghanistan) has some stability issues”.

Renzi on Friday said that the EU is at fault for failing to respect its commitments on asylum seekers, not Italy. He also described the European Commission’s decision to open an infringement procedure against Italy over registering the finger prints of asylum seekers as “extravagant”. “It’s not Italy that’s behind on migrants, but the EU,” the Italian premier said.

Renzi’s government has repeatedly warned that the European system to tackle the asylum seeker crisis risks breaking down if the EU does not keep its pledge to relocate thousands of refugees in front-line countries like Italy and Greece, whose outlying islands are the first landfall for people taking to the Mediterranean in a bid to flee war, persecution, and Islamist terrorists in Africa and the Middle East.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: ‘Abide by Refugee Quotas or Else’

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier threatened legal action on Saturday against EU countries that refused to accept refugees under the bloc’s quota programme.

Steinmeier said in an interview with German weekly Der Spiegel that “if it cannot be done otherwise, things will be resolved through the appropriate legal channels”, adding that “Europe is a community of law”.

The German minister spoke specifically of Slovakia and Hungary, which have both made their own threats of legal action against the controversial quota system.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italy’s Migrant Workers Face ‘Dire’ Conditions

Immigrants working in agriculture in southern Italy, who mainly come from Africa, face endemically poor living and working conditions despite pledges from the government to clean up the sector, an Italian medical charity said on Thursday.

Even though the vast majority live legally in Italy, “86 percent of agricultural workers don’t have a work contract”, Doctors for Human Rights (Medu) said in a statement, a figure that has remained stable for years.

Medu, which runs a mobile clinic in southwest Italy’s Calabria region, said it has found that “with regards to living conditions, the situation this year is also very dramatic.

“Forty-five percent of seasonal workers sleep on mattresses on the ground while 18 percent sleep directly on the ground in structures deprived of water, light and hygiene services.”

The labourers concerned are mainly from Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and the Gambia. Some 89 percent are under 35 years old.

Most of the health problems Medu staff have found are “directly linked to the dire living and working conditions,” the group said.

Many are also underpaid, Medu said, with wages of €25 to €30 ($27-$32) a day harvesting kiwis or olives.

Migrant workers are paid “30 to 50 percent less than the rate set by contracts in the province,” the charity said, calling on authorities to “immediately implement measures” to ensure the exploitation ends.

Matteo Renzi’s government, which has promised to step up controls, last year launched a system of ethical certification for the sector.

Of the 669 farms that requested the certification, only 227 received it, according to figures released by agriculture unions.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

‘No Fingerprints!’: Migrants in Italy Protest

Some 200 migrants on the southern island of Lampedusa protested on Thursday against being formally identified, fearing that being fingerprinted will leave them stranded in Italy.

The protest came as astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, a Unicef goodwill ambassador, visited a refugee reception centre on the island, a focal arrival point for thousands of migrants crossing by sea from North Africa, and met rescue workers.

Arci, a humanitarian organization in Sicily, said that some of the protesters had been detained on the island for more than a month because they refused to give their fingerprints in order to bypass the Dublin regulation, which forces refugees to stay in the country where they first submitted their asylum request.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Separating Violent and Peaceful Islam

By David P. Goldman

A diabolical logic prompted Donald Trump to propose a travel ban on Muslims: if the US government can’t distinguish between peaceful and violent Muslims, then shut the door to all of them. Trump’s instinct for politicals-as-reality-television buoyed his standing in Republican polls, as Americans put terrorism at the top of their concerns. According to Rasmussen, US voters support Trump’s idea by a 46-40% margin. Among Republicans, the margin is 66%-24%.

Americans by and large aren’t bigots, but the outbreak of Instant Jihad Syndrome last week convinced them that something was broken, and that the whole mechanism of Muslim immigration should be mothballed until the problem was fixed. They know perfectly well that some Muslims want to live in peace with non-Muslims and other Muslims want to burn down the world, but they don’t know how to tell the difference. As information about the couple’s longstanding terror connections trickles into the press, the public doesn’ t trust its guardians to tell the difference, either. That was the lesson they learned from the jihadi Bonnie and Clyde of San Bernardino.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Soros Plays Both Ends in Syria Refugee Chaos

Since John D. Rockefeller was advised to protect his wealth from government taxation by creating a tax-exempt philanthropic foundation in 1913, foundations have been used by American oligarchs to disguise a world of dirty deeds under the cover “doing good for mankind,” known by the moniker “philanthropy” for mankind-loving. No less the case is that of George Soros who likely has more tax-exempt foundations under his belt than anyone around. His Open Society foundations are in every country where Washington wants to put ‘their man’ in, or at least get someone out who doesn’t know how to read their music. They played a key role in regime change in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe after 1989. Now his foundations are up to their eyeballs in promoting propaganda serving the US-UK war agenda for destroying stability in Syria as they did in Libya three years ago, creating the current EU refugee crisis.

We should take a closer look at the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis wreaking such havoc and unrest across the EU, especially in Germany, the favored goal of most asylum seekers today. George Soros, today a naturalized American citizen, has just authored a six-point proposal telling the European Union on what they must do to manage the situation. It’s worth looking at in detail.

He begins by stating, “The EU needs a comprehensive plan to respond to the crisis, one that reasserts effective governance over the flows of asylum-seekers so that they take place in a safe, orderly way…” He then says that, “First, the EU has to accept at least a million asylum-seekers annually for the foreseeable future.”

Soros does not elaborate where he pulled that figure from, nor does he discuss the role of other of his Soros-financed NGOs in Syria and elsewhere which manufacture faked propaganda to build a public sympathy lobby for a US and UK “No Fly Zone” in Syria as was done to destroy Libya.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Trump is Right: Stop Islamic Immigration

You can find the Immigration and Naturalization Act here. Click on the link, then scroll to Chapter 2, Section 212.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 makes clear the intent of Congress regarding aliens wanting to enter our nation. If you read Chapter 2, Section 212, you will find that if an alien seeking to enter America for whatever reason — I repeat, for whatever reason — belongs to any group or organization seeking the overthrow of the United States by “force, violence, or other unconstitutional means” that alien’s entry into America should be prohibited. A group which rejects our Constitution and seeks to replace it with Sharia law fits that definition.

Any “group or organization” includes religion. The Muslim faith is part and parcel of Sharia law which opposes the rule of law that flows from America’s Constitution.

This law is being ignored not just by the media, but by the man who claims to be President of the United States and his Attorney General. It is being ignored by the Republican-dominated Congress. It is not being ignored by Donald Trump. This issue would have never been brought to the public’s attention if not for Trump.

Donald Trump got it right when he said all Muslim immigration into the United States should be stopped until the citizens of America — those human beings the President of the United States is sworn to protect — can be assured that those who want to kill them can be prevented from doing so…

It only took two people to wipe out 14 lives of peace-loving Americans celebrating at a December 2, 2015 San Bernardino, CA party. The two Jihadists, one male and one female, seriously injured an additional 22 others. It only took a half-dozen violent believers in this peaceful religion to fly airplanes into the World Trade Center, killing 3,000 innocent Americans on 9/11/01. It took only one “peaceful” Muslim named Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army Major and psychiatrist, to shoot and kill 13 and injure 30 others at Fort Hood in Killeen, TX. As his attack against military personnel began, Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar!” but the Obama Administration refuses to name the attack terrorism. Instead, it was workplace violence.

There are from 5 to 8 million Muslims in America. If only 1 percent are Jihadists, that totals 50,000 potential terrorists with possible ties to ISIS. If 10 percent are Jihadists, that number increases to 500,000 potential terrorists. Trump is right to be concerned about the safety of Americans… especially women for whom Muslims have little or no regard.

We need to remember — and force our elected officials via the power of the ballot to remember — that though all Muslims are not terrorists, all terrorists are, thus far, Muslim.

Sharia law says all Muslims must commit and attest that the Qur’an is their life’s guiding principle. They must submit to Islam. They must submit to Islamic law — Sharia law. That is why immigrated Muslims do not integrate into the American system and why they begin demanding Sharia law from the time their feet touch American soil. They want prayer mats in airports (they got them). Muslim cab drivers want to be able to pick and choose which passengers are acceptable to them. They apply for jobs as truck drivers but do not want to deliver beer — though they knew their employer delivered beer when they applied for the job.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Asylum-Seekers Taken on £100,000 Zoo and Beach Trips With Your Money

Since 2009, a refugee support group part-funded by the National Lottery has been treating dozens of immigrants to days out at Thorpe Park, Whipsnade Zoo, the London Eye and Brighton beach.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

“Most Liberal” US College Unleashes Demands for “Deconstructing the White Supremacist, Capitalist System”

The manifesto for the micro-aggressives has been unleashed on an unknowing “safe-space”-seeking, politically-corrected, American public. Students at no lesser liberalist college than Oberlin, Ohio, have released 14 pages of full social-justice-warrior-tard warning that they are “not polite requests, but concrete and unmalleable demands.”

As DailyCaller.com reports, the list, which bubbled up online over the past three days, is no less than 14 pages in length, and includes a staggering 50 demands, many of which divide into several sub-demands. Not only are the demands numerous, but they are quite severe and are paired with stern rhetoric. The document opens as follows:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Watch: Kentucky School Cuts Bible Passages From ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ — So Parents Decide to Take Glenn Beck’s Advice

When one Kentucky elementary school cut Linus Van Pelt’s famous monologue from “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” in which he shares the meaning of the holiday season by reading Luke 2:8-14, the administration probably wasn’t expecting the kind of response they received during Thursday’s Christmas production.

During his radio program Thursday morning, Glenn Beck suggested parents protest the school’s decision by reciting Luke 2:8-14 during the time the censored monologue is supposed to be delivered.

“I would get together with parents and I would — if I knew this was coming — take the script of what Linus actually says and I would stand up as a block of parents and just stop the show and just all of us at that point, ‘Doesn’t anybody know what Christmas is all about?’ And all of the parents stand up and just start saying it, even as the play is going on,” Beck suggested.

As it turns out, parents did just that. During Thursday’s production of “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” parents seemed prepared at just the right moment to recite Linus’ Christmas message. In unison, the Kentucky parents started reading Luke 2:8-14.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

8 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/20/2015

  1. Re: “Hitler really did have just one ball”- imagine the destruction if he’d had two!

    (Apologies to anyone offended by my apparent levity, especially Jews and Slavs).

  2. I would propose that all migrants are economic ones. They ceased to be refugees when they landed in Lebanon and Turkey.

  3. It seems that thousands upon thousands of Chinese muslim terrorists have been fighting in Syria with ISIS.

    Did you ever notice all the CHINESE men among those “refugees” in Europe in the films and pictures of the mass numbers of men????

    A few weeks ago I asked a Chinese friend if she would look at a picture I found on the internet.

    ” Are they Chinese I asked and she said:

    “_____. _____.!! YES they are! WHAT are they doing there???”

    If you have 30 or 45 minutes give this article a read.
    http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military

    • Xinjiang (Eastern Turks) are not indistinguishable from Han Chinese, but look pretty similar–their features are Asiatic rather than Anatolian. But they have been China’s main Muslim minority for decades (their independence cause is not without merit frankly) and their terrorists’ brutality is pretty much up to par for Islamists anywhere. A few years back, in an astonishing under-covered story, a gang of them murdered 30 people in Kunming station by random stabbing with knives. Imagine what kind of fanaticism it takes to go out and knife strangers in a public place, and keep on doing it until police shoot you. So it is not entirely surprising to find ‘Chinese’ fighters in Syria.

  4. Typical of the UAE to hire mercenaries to fight. In this case Colombians. Their citizens can’t fight…
    Google “Why Arabs Can’t Win Wars.”
    They are pathetic creatures.

    • Based on the not inconsiderable amount of material I’ve read on various conflicts involving Muslim armies, the Turks – distant relatives of the Mongols – do ok, the Arabs, East- and North Africans are easily whipped into a frenzy but lose heart quickly if things get tough, the Sultans of the Renaissance knew what they were doing when they took White European children (mostly from the Balkans), raised them in Turkey as Muslims and made them into the elite Janissaries, the best fighters any Muslim army has ever had.

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