Gates of Vienna News Feed 2/3/2016

A government report leaked to the French newspaper Le Figaro says that more than 8,000 “French” Muslims have been radicalized and now support violent extremism. Hundreds of those are thought to have left France to join the jihad in Syria.

In other news, the High Court in Australia has ruled that the policy of detaining illegal immigrants in offshore migration centers does not violate the country’s constitution.

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

Thanks to AF, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, 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
» Italy Bad Loan Plan Not a Panacea Says S&P
» Italy: €4bn Shortfall in Ten Months Caused by Civil Service Fraud
» Padoan Says Italy Has Right to Budget Flexibility
» Prolongation Polish Scheme Approved by EU Commission
» Wells Fargo is Collapsing Because of Its Huge Exposure to Oil & Gas Companies
 
USA
» A GPS Tracker for Kids Had a Bug That Would Let Hackers Stalk Them
» America’s Agitator: Donald Trump is the World’s Most Dangerous Man
» Don’t Have Surgery or Make Babies or Have Sex… Zika Now Said to Infect the Blood Supply and Spread Via Sexual Transmission
» Is This How Rubio Got 23%?
» Lavoy Finicum’s Last Ride
» Obama Slams ‘Inexcusable’ Anti-Muslim Political Rhetoric
» Rand Paul Drops Out of White House Race
» Republican Rick Santorum Ends Second Bid for President
 
Europe and the EU
» A Clock Tune in Honor of a True Man of True Science by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
» Bulgaria Seeks to Benefit From Russia-Turkey Spat
» Cameron Says Brexit Poll Possibly June 23
» EU Warns Socialist-Led Portugal on Budget Commitments
» European Parliament Divided on Deal to Avoid ‘Brexit’
» France: Corsica: Machine-Gun Fired Against Muslim Shops
» France Now Home to Over 8,000 Islamic Radicals: Report
» Germany: Darmstadt PhD Student Arrested for Supporting ‘IS’
» Italy: Ferrari Profit Up 9% in 2015
» Italy: Presence of Ex-Terrorist at Course for Judges Sparks Row
» Italy: Rome City-Owned Luxury Flats ‘Rented at 10 Euros a Month
» Italy: Veneto Govt to Weigh Autonomy Referendum Terms
» Poll Finds Out What Poles Find Most Irritating About Life Under Brussels
» Sweden: New Rules Proposed to Criminalize ‘Net Hate’
» Top German Journalist Admits Live on Air National News Agenda Set by Government
 
North Africa
» Libya: ENI Workers and Rigs Protected, Defense Minister
» Top IS Commanders ‘Taking Refuge’ In Libya
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Italian Astronaut Cristoforetti on First Visit to Israel
 
Middle East
» Factory That Makes ‘Terror Potion’ Turning ISIS Fighters Into Drug-Fuelled Jihadi Junkies
» ISIS: Slovenia Sends Military Instructors to Iraq
» Jordan: US Ally Packed With Refugees Reaches a ‘Boiling Point’
» Trevi Group Lands Contract for Mosul Dam
 
South Asia
» General Says Poor Leadership is Biggest Problem for Afghans
» Taliban Kill 10-Year-Old Boy Who Joined Militia
 
Far East
» World’s First ‘Robot Run’ Farm to Open in Japan
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Africa is Italy’s Priority Says Renzi in Nigeria
» Europe Distant From Values of Founding Fathers, Renzi Says in Ghana
 
Latin America
» See the Female Fighters Who Strike Fear in the Hearts of Colombian Troops
 
Immigration
» Australia: Court Crushes “Asylum” Policy Challenge
» Australian High Court Rules Refugee Offshore Detention Legal
» Berlin to Get €600m Invader Hotel Bill
» EU Border Office Chief on Refugee Crisis: ‘We Should Have No Illusions’
» Forced to Marry & Flee, Child Brides Seeking Asylum in Scandinavia€
» Israel’s Unwanted African Migrants
» Italy: EU Flexibility Not Just for Turkey Aid, Gozi Says
» Left-Wing Journalist Knife Attacked by Calais Migrants, Blames Britain for Not Letting Them in
» Migrant Crisis in Sweden and Europe: The Views of Kent Ekeroth Sweden Democrat MP
» Muslim Rape Slavery Comes to Canada
» Renzi Says EU Needs Strategy on Migrants, Not Squabbles
» The New German Multicultural Toilet
» Turkish Security Analyst Says Yes, Migrants and Crime Are Linked
» Unintended Consequences: Merkel’s Reliance on Turkey Makes Life Worse for Refugees
 
Culture Wars
» Italy: Rifts Continue Over Civil Unions Bill
» John Cleese: Political Correctness Will Lead to an Orwellian Nightmare
 
General
» Climate Models Are Not Simulating Earth’s Climate — Part 1
 

Italy Bad Loan Plan Not a Panacea Says S&P

Banks hold 201bn in non-performing loans says Padoan

(ANSA) — Milan, February 2 — Standard & Poor’s ratings agency said Tuesday that Italy’s plan to reduce its banks’ non-performing loans is not a panacea. The measure, while positive, is not likely on its own to significantly impact the toxic loan burden, the agency said in a report on an agreement between Italy and the EU to offload Italy’s bad loans. Italy’s banks hold 201 billion euros in gross non-performing loans, Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said earlier in the day. “We’re working on a decree containing many measures on the banking system,” Padoan told reporters on his way out of the Parliamentary Committee for Intelligence and Security Services (COPASIR) earlier in the day.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: €4bn Shortfall in Ten Months Caused by Civil Service Fraud

Rigged tenders, absenteeism and unnecessary consultancy appointments: disloyal civil servants investigated by tax police for offences committed in 2015

The “hole” in the state accounts caused by 7,000 disloyal civil servants guilty of a range of offences in the performance of their duties — from absenteeism to abuse of power — has now reached record levels of almost €4bn. Illegal activities include scams in the health sector; the failure to perform checks before issuing pensions, allowances and exemptions; and rigged tender procedures. The sensational cases brought to light by Guardia di Finanza investigators include inflated contracts and absentee doctors, unnecessary consultancy appointments and people holding down two jobs. The latest data emerging from checks carried out in 2015 paint a picture of Italy as a lawless, wasteful society. In what is a worrying trend, in just four months — June to October last year — the state lost over €500m as a result of fraudulent dealings by civil servants. This translates into over €100m per month, showing that there is still much to be done to eradicate malfeasance, especially in the more isolated areas of the country. No fewer than 3,590 people have been reported for crimes in the field of public tenders alone…

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

Padoan Says Italy Has Right to Budget Flexibility

Juncker welcomes Italy on Turkey, says no to stupid austerity

(ANSA) — Rome, February 3 — Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said Wednesday Italy is entitled by basic European Union rules to the budget flexibility it is demanding for the cost of coping with the Mediterranean refugee crisis. And, as Italy stressed the calculation of those costs should be backdated to the start of the exodus from Libya, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker welcomed Italy’s OK to contributing to a three-billion-euro aid package for Turkey’s assistance to Syria refugees.

Italy emerged as the fourth-biggest contributor to that fund Wednesday, behind Germany, Britain and France.

Juncker also said there would be an end to what he called “stupid austerity”.

Padoan said that Italy was only asking for European Union norms to be respected by requesting flexibility in the application of budget rules. “Italy is requesting a more flexible management of fiscal policy on the basis of rules that Europe set, not ones that we are inventing,” Padoan said during a meeting with British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne at an Aspen Institute forum in Rome.

Padoan voiced the hope that an EU response on Italy’s request for budget flexibility for the refugee emergency should be given “soon so as to avoid having uncertainty that does not help growth”. Padoan stressed, however, that the government’s budget plans would not change and were based on “structural reforms and public investment” to accelerate a sluggish recovery from one of Italy’s longest postwar slumps.

Juncker, for his part, hailed the fact that Italy was willing to make its contribution to three billion euros in EU aid to Turkey in exchange for cooperation on the refugee crisis.

“The three billion for Turkey must be made available,” Juncker told the European Parliament in Strasbourg. “We all have to respect our commitments. Even the Italian government has said it is willing (to contribute). This is positive and I welcome it”. The Commission had criticised Italian Premier Matteo Renzi’s executive for allegedly holding up the aid package.

There has been tension between the Commission and the Renzi government in recent weeks over several issues.

The Commission is set to say in the spring whether it has granted Italy’s request for flexibility in the application of the EU’s budget laws for spending related to asylum seekers. Juncker said Wednesday that the EU executive will not pursue “stupid austerity policies” when it assesses member States’ budgets. “It’s right for the Commission to examine the State budgets as stipulated by the treaties,” Juncker said. “It will conduct its role without following stupid austerity policies. There is plenty of flexibility to permit balances that respect the rules”.

Italy expects the European Commission to respect rules on budget flexibility for spending related to the immigration crisis, EU Affairs Undersecretary Sando Gozi on Wednesday told the Lower House’s political commissions, presenting the country’s 2016 European agenda.

“Italy, once it confirmed its OK to the fund for refugees in Turkey, clarified that the exceptional event cannot only concern a part of the Mediterranean”, Gozi said.

“Expenses in managing the migration flow” from North Africa — specifically the upsurge i arrivals from Libya since the start of the crisis there following the 2011 war — “need to be evaluated according to the same rules and the same interpretation”, he added.

A deal reached Wednesday by the EU’s 28 ambassadors on the three billion euros of aid for Syrian refugees in Turkey envisages a billion euros coming from the EU budget and the other two from member states according to their GDP. Italy’s contribution will be 224.9 million euros, the fourth highest after Germany with 427.5 million, the UK with 327.6 million and France with 309.2 million. Spain is fifth with 152.8 million.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Prolongation Polish Scheme Approved by EU Commission

In line with state aid rules

(ANSA) — BRUSSELS — The European Commission has authorised under EU state aid rules the prolongation of the Polish bank guarantee scheme until 30 June 2016. The scheme covers guarantees and other liquidity support measures in favour of solvent credit institutions in Poland. It was initially approved in September 2009 and prolonged several times, last time in August 2015.

The EU Commission found the prolongation of the scheme to be in line with its guidelines on state aid to banks during the crisis because it is well targeted, proportionate and limited in time and scope. During the application of the extraordinary crisis rules for state aid to banks, the EU Commission is authorising guarantee schemes on banks’ liabilities for periods of six months in order to be able to monitor developments and adjust conditions accordingly.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Wells Fargo is Collapsing Because of Its Huge Exposure to Oil & Gas Companies

Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) has the largest exposure to loans to energy companies among major U.S. lenders, a report from Raymond James said, amid concerns that banks may have to set aside more money to cover bad loans to the industry.

The bank also topped the list with the biggest exposure to energy companies whose public debt was trading less than 35 percent of par, the brokerage said on Thursday.

Wells Fargo was followed by Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), Citigroup Inc (C.N), Comerica Inc (CMA.N) and BB&T Corp (BBT.N).

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

A GPS Tracker for Kids Had a Bug That Would Let Hackers Stalk Them

Thanks to the so-called Internet of Things, gone are the days when parents had to wonder where the hell their kids were. Now, parents can just easily track their children on their smartphone screens’ thanks to myriad internet-connected wearablegizmos. But what happens when those devices get hacked?

The HereO watch and its accompanying iPhone and Android apps do just that, allowing “entire families to share their locations with each other throughout the day,” according to HereO’s official site. But due to bug in the app’s platform web service or API, the HereO also let pretty much anyone with a little technical know-how pretend to be part of the family, and thus gave stalkers a way to easily track and even send messages to any kids or family members wearing the watch, according to new research published on Tuesday.

Anyone could “basically impersonate the parents, which is creepy,” Tod Beardsley, the security research manager at Rapid7, the firm who studied the device, told Motherboard. “Not super useful for traditional computer crime but is definitely in the creepy zone.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

America’s Agitator: Donald Trump is the World’s Most Dangerous Man

Donald Trump is the leader of a new, hate-filled authoritarian movement. Nothing would be more harmful to the idea of the West and world peace than if he were to be elected president. George W. Bush’s America would seem like a place of logic and reason in comparison.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Don’t Have Surgery or Make Babies or Have Sex… Zika Now Said to Infect the Blood Supply and Spread Via Sexual Transmission

When it comes to any virus, however — Ebola, Bird Flu, Zika, etc. — we’ve all learned over the last decade or so that the CDC and the WHO are usually lying about one or more important components of their official narratives.

The narrative almost always goes something like this: “The horror! This new virus is devastating humankind! We urgently need billions of dollars in vaccine funding from the government!”

And then the terrorized government ponies up a few billion dollars in emergency medicine vaccine research funding, and all the scientists and corporations rake in the dollars while the pandemic dies down on its own.

So we have to be cautious because none of us has any direct way to confirm anything we’re told by the CDC. The CDC can fabricate anything it wants with near absolute immunity from real scientific scrutiny. And history has shown us that every time there’s an opportunity to scare the population with another virus, both the CDC and WHO are quick to declare a “global pandemic” when there really isn’t one.

So be cautious with the news about Zika. On one hand, it might be far worse than they’re telling us and a legitimate threat to life throughout the Americas because of the genetically engineered mosquito experiment gone awry. But on the other end of the spectrum, this might be a false narrative being pushed by the vaccine industry to create yet another public scare so they can rake in more “research” money while demanding medical obedience from the public.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Is This How Rubio Got 23%?

The Sanders campaign’s suggestion that Microsoft may have financial interests at stake in the outcome of the race is true for both parties.

As conservative columnist Michelle Malkin pointed out last month, “Microsoft, founded by leading H-1B/amnesty cheerleader Bill Gates, has been [Marco] Rubio’s No. 2 corporate donor the past five years.”…

As The Hill reports:

Microsoft volunteered to provide the technology to help tally up the results of Iowa’s caucus, free of charge… […]

In 2007, Bill Gates even testified before Congress and called for an unlimited number skilled foreign workers—particularly in engineering—to be admitted into the country. “My basic view is that the country should welcome as many of those people as we can get,” Gates declared. “Even though it may not be realistic, I don’t think there should be any limit.”

However, according to U.S. census data there are more than 11 million Americans with degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) who lack employment in these fields. In fact, U.S. schools are graduating two times more students with STEM degrees than are annually finding employment in these fields.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Lavoy Finicum’s Last Ride

This is the first of a series of articles about the events surrounding the investiture of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge administration buildings by a group headed by Ammon Bundy, son of Cliven and Carol Bundy. The Bundys are well known for the events in Nevada that played out in April 2014. In that incident, the Bundys, along with hundreds of other patriotic Americans, went beyond “civil disobedience” and entered the realm of “civil defiance”, defying, with arms, the intrusion of the Bureau of Land Management into the long time operation of the cattle part of the Bundy ranch operation — denying rights that had existed for years and denying them their pursuit of the family business.

Though this writer only spent five days in Burns, he was able to meet many of the key players on the side of the patriots, some townspeople from Burns, and some of those who gathered, on one side or the other, to observe, or attempt to affect, the ongoing activities…

Within seconds, LaVoy is out of the truck, hands raised, and observing where the agents are, walks widely away from the truck and towards its rear to assure that if gunfire begins, that the truck and those inside of it are not in the line of fire.

The rear seat occupants slowly rise, after LaVoy exits. They are still trying to stay low, but also to observe, as best they can, what is occurring outside of the vehicle. They see LaVoy, hands in the air, trying to negotiate deep snow and probably uneven ground, stumbling, occasionally, probably because he was wearing his narrow cowboy boots.

LaVoy then, probably still attempting to remove the threat from those still in the vehicle, yells, “Shoot me, just go ahead and shoot me.”

As he is being shot, he turns back towards his friends, still in the truck, as if in a final good-bye. Just 13 seconds after LaVoy left the truck, he falls to the ground, dead. However, his arm does move, slightly, after he lay on the ground, perhaps as a last gesture to those still inside, perhaps a reflexive reaction.

Note: Second person information from one of the witnesses, indicates thatLaVoy was shot in the back, three times; one shot hit his kidneys, one pierced his heart, and the third——-

There is no reason to believe that he was shot in the face, only in the body-mass.

Those inside are terrified; they see that LaVoy is shot, while unarmed. In reflection, if soldiers (or Marines) in Afghanistan, had acted as the agents and shot an unarmed man, without provocation, would have violated the Rules of Engagement (ROE) of war, and would have stood Court Martial, then probably imprisoned or discharged from service. Unfortunately, the ROE do not apply here, in our own “free” country.

[…]

LaVoy’s well recognized revolver was left beside the seat when he exited Vehicle #1 to draw fire away from the remaining occupants of that vehicle.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Obama Slams ‘Inexcusable’ Anti-Muslim Political Rhetoric

US President Barack Obama on Wednesday slammed what he called “inexcusable” anti-Muslim rhetoric in the political sphere — a veiled jibe at Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump and others.

Making his first visit to a mosque while in office, Obama praised American Muslims as upstanding citizens and thanked them for helping their community.

“Recently we’ve heard inexcusable political rhetoric against Muslim-Americans that has no place in our country,” Obama told the members of the Islamic Society of Baltimore, without specifically naming anyone…

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

Rand Paul Drops Out of White House Race

Republican Senator Rand Paul has dropped out of the race for US president after a disappointing fifth place finish in the Iowa caucuses.

Mr Paul often clashed with his Republican rivals over their hawkish views on foreign policy and their support of government surveillance.

He ended his bid in part to focus on his re-election to the US Senate.

He is seen as representing the Libertarian wing of the party, which promotes individual rights and privacy.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Republican Rick Santorum Ends Second Bid for President

Republican Rick Santorum is dropping his bid for US president, according to US media reports. Mr Santorum won the Iowa caucus in 2012, but ended up at the bottom of the pack at Monday’s caucus.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

A Clock Tune in Honor of a True Man of True Science by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

I have decided to revive that charming tradition of recalling those in eternity by counting the hours that no longer imprison them. I have composed a clock-tune in Bob’s memory, and as a very small mark of gratitude for his unfailing kindnesses to me and my lovely wife.

The usual Classical rule for clock-tunes is that the quarter-hour tune should state the theme in a simple form; that the half-hour and three-quarter tunes — respectively twice and thrice the length of the quarter-tune — should elaborate upon it; and that the three tunes should be chimed in continuous succession for the hour, with perhaps a short cadenza at the end.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Bulgaria Seeks to Benefit From Russia-Turkey Spat

In a fine balancing act, Bulgaria seeks to benefit from a spat between Turkey and Russia to revive weakened economic ties with Moscow — its main gas supplier — without offending Ankara, an important ally in the migrant crisis.

In a sign of thawing relations, Sofia last week hosted a meeting of the Bulgarian-Russian economic cooperation committee — the first since the 2014 failure of the South Stream pipeline project.

The multi-billion-dollar plan had aimed to deliver Russian gas to Europe via the Black Sea and the Balkans while bypassing conflict-ridden Ukraine.

But EU and NATO member Bulgaria, under pressure from both Brussels and Washington, ended up suspending the deal…

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

Cameron Says Brexit Poll Possibly June 23

If final deal reached at Feb 18-19 EU summit

(ANSA) — Rome, February 3 — British Prime Minister David Cameron on Wednesday suggested June 23 as a possible date for the referendum on Britain exiting the EU, or ‘Brexit’.

He said the Brexit poll would be possible then if a final deal on Britain’s renegotiated terms to stay in the EU is struck by the EU summit on February 18-19.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

EU Warns Socialist-Led Portugal on Budget Commitments

The European Commission on Tuesday demanded that the Portuguese government rework its draft budget for this year because it falls short of commitments to reduce public spending.

The Socialist Party-led government took office in November and submitted its budget for 2016 to its EU overseers months behind schedule following inconclusive elections in October.

“We have not made enough progress towards complying with the requirements of the Stability and Growth Pact,” Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told a briefing in the eastern French city of Strasbourg, referring to EU rules on public spending.

“So the work will continue extensively during the next few days,” he said…

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

European Parliament Divided on Deal to Avoid ‘Brexit’

The European Commission chief has described a deal to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU as “fair.” While some MEPs have described the deal as sufficient, others said it doesn’t go far enough.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

France: Corsica: Machine-Gun Fired Against Muslim Shops

Butcher and kebab joint attacked, Valls, ‘it’s intolerable’

(ANSAmed) — PARIS, FEBRUARY 3 — Muslim shops were targeted overnight in Corsica where the main entrance of a halal butcher shop and a kebab joint were hit by a series of machine-gun shots in the seaside town of Propriano, in the south of the island.

The misterious attack did not cause any death or injuries.

Last night’s attacks “are intolerable’, they command our joint condemnation” wrote French Premier, Manuel Valls, on Twitter.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

France Now Home to Over 8,000 Islamic Radicals: Report

Worrying new figures released on Wednesday show that 8,250 people are believed to have been converted to extremist Islam — twice as many as the year before.

There were 8,250 people who were reported on suspicions of being an Islamist radical in France last year — twice as many as the year before, according to fresh statistics.

The figures come from an official report that was leaked to Le Figaro newspaper and was published on Tuesday.

The report found that the number of people suspected to have become radicalized had doubled from 4,015 in 2014 to 8,250 last year.

Hundreds of radicalized individuals, including women and teenagers, have left France in recent years to fight jihad in the Middle East.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: Darmstadt PhD Student Arrested for Supporting ‘IS’

The German police have arrested a Syrian graduate student in the country’s northwest. The 35-year old had posted an Arabic-language video proclaiming his support for the “Islamic State” group.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Ferrari Profit Up 9% in 2015

Earnings up to 2.85 bn

(ANSA) — Turin, February 2 — Ferrari posted 2015 net profit 9% up on 2014, at 290 million euros, the company said Tuesday.

Ferrari posted 2015 earnings of 2.85 billion euros compared to 2.45 in 2014. Car deliveries were 6% up at 7,664.

Ferrari’s free cash flow for 2015 was 390 million euros.

Its net debt at the end of 2015 stood at 1.9 billion euros.

Ferrari said it saw its earnings in 2016 at 2.9 billion euros and car deliveries at 7,900.

The glamour sportscar maker’s accounts were approved at a board meeting chaired by President Sergio Marchionne.

Ferrari stock dropped 7% in Milan after the results were released.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Presence of Ex-Terrorist at Course for Judges Sparks Row

Decision to invite Adriana Faranda ‘unacceptable’, Galli says

(ANSA) — Rome, February 2 — The decision to invite Adriana Faranda, a former left-wing terrorist, to attend a course on restorative justice at the headquarters of the school for the judiciary sparked controversy on Tuesday, with some magistrates defending the initiative and others defining it “absurd”.

Alessandra Galli, daughter of the Judge Guido Galli who was assassinated by Prima Linea left-wing extremists in Milan in 1980, said she was “disconcerted” by the invitation.

“In an institutional headquarters such as this dialogue with someone who killed to subvert the State and the Constitution — to which we magistrates have sworn loyalty — is unacceptable,” she said. Faranda was a militant of the left-wing Red Brigades in the second half of the 1970s and was involved in the kidnapping of Christian Democrat leader and former prime minister Aldo Moro in Rome in 1978.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Rome City-Owned Luxury Flats ‘Rented at 10 Euros a Month

(ANSA) — Rome, February 1 — Rome special commissioner Francesco Paolo Tronca said Monday he has discovered city-owned apartments in luxury neighborhoods being rented for a pittance.

For example, a flat in the Borgo Pio historic district near the Vatican being rented out at 10.29 euros a month, another in the central Corso Vittorio Emanuele rented at 24.21 euros a month, and yet another with a view over the Imperial Forums rented at 23.65 euros a month.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Veneto Govt to Weigh Autonomy Referendum Terms

Zaia to lead discussions

(ANSA) — Venice, February 3 — The government of the Veneto is to confer next week on the terms of a referendum on the autonomy of the affluent northeastern region, sources told ANSA Wednesday. Governor Luca Zaia will lead discussions on the most feasible way to bid for juridical recognition of the hoped-for referendum, they said. The Veneto has long harboured breakaway movements, which used to be spearheaded at one point by Zaia’s Northern league before it abandoned its secessionary thrust.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Poll Finds Out What Poles Find Most Irritating About Life Under Brussels

Poles are growing increasingly divided over the European Union’s decision to monitor the state of Polish democracy, a new poll by conservative daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita finds.

According to the survey, conducted late last month by the Warsaw-based IBRiS polling agency for the newspaper and released on Tuesday, Poles are divided nearly 50/50 when it comes to EU institutions’ decision to examine state of Polish democracy.

The poll came on the heels of a series of moves aimed at ‘downgrading’ Poland’s status within the supranational union, with the European Commission taking the unprecedented step of launching an inquiry into the rule of law in Poland, the European Parliament holding a debate on the issue, and big-three credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s downgrading the country’s credit rating one notch from A- to BBB+, with a negative outlook.

The decision by the EC and the European Parliament to monitor the situation in Poland was welcomed by 47% of respondents, with an equal number (47%) opposed, polling showed.

According to Rzeczpospolita, the three most serious shortcomings of Polish membership in the EU listed by respondents include the imposition of unwanted EU legislation, unequal treatment of member states when it comes to agricultural subsidies (Western European states have the right to more funding), and the sense that the EU views Poland as a pool of cheap labor.

41% of Poles believe that EU decisions which affect Poland — decisions like whether to accept migrants or issues of climate change, must first be discussed in the country, and only then be debated at the EU level.

Moreover, die-hard supporters of the ruling Right and Justice Party (PiS) and the Eurosceptic KORWiN Party believe that issues affecting only Poland must be decided in Poland, without the need to pay any heed to Brussels. 19% of respondents proposed such an approach.

Asked what they like best about the EU, IBRiS polling found that first and foremost, Poles appreciate the open borders between European governments — “the freedom of movement which is becoming more and more at risk in connection to the migrant crisis,” Rzeczpospolita commented. Other positives include EU funding and subsidies, and the ability to get an education abroad.

After gaining control of both the presidency and the parliament in elections held in the spring and fall of last year, the ruling Law and Justice Party has stepped into a war of words with Brussels and Berlin, along with much of its own population, over new laws on the media, the country’s constitutional court, and a surveillance laws. Brussels, for its part, has accused Warsaw of ‘sinking into totalitarianism’, with Warsaw countering that it won’t be lectured to by Brussels bureaucrats or German officials on the state of Poland’s democracy.

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

Sweden: New Rules Proposed to Criminalize ‘Net Hate’

To combat “net hate” a government investigator has proposed that spreading sex tapes or information about other people’s health should be punished under harassment laws.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Top German Journalist Admits Live on Air National News Agenda Set by Government

Worse than the mainstream, government controlled and poll-tax funded media in Germany just agreeing with the ruling coalition, the stations actually took orders on what was and was not to be reported on. He said:

“…the topics about which are reported are laid down by the government.

“There are many topics that would be more important than what the government wants. But they, of course, want to deflect attention away from what doesn’t happen. Yet what doesn’t happen is often more important than what does happen — more important than gesture politics”.

While these orders are sent to media companies from unspecified places in the government, they are communicated to individual journalists by news executives using a new-speak jargon. Dr. Herles explains that while “there are, in fact, instructions from above”, when the editor in chief of ZDF communicated these instructions to his juniors he would merely say reporting should be framed in a way that “serves Europe and the public good”.

There would be no need to add in brackets that this actually means it should be reported “to Ms. Merkel’s liking”, as they would be understood as the true meaning.

“Today, one is not allowed to say anything negative about the refugees” said Dr. Herles, concluding: “This is government journalism and that leads to a situation in which people no longer trust us. This is a scandal.”

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Libya: ENI Workers and Rigs Protected, Defense Minister

‘Mare Sicuro mission for this purpose’

(ANSAmed) — ROME, FEBRUARY 3 — ENI workers and facilities in Libya are protected, Italian defense minister Roberta Pinotti stressed on Wednesday on the Radio 24 program Mix24.

She noted that the mission ‘Mare Sicuro’ had been underway for a year. “With the Parliament, we decided to implement an important mission in the Mediterranean,” she said, “which is called Mare Sicuro and which is a security mission. We made this decision a year ago due to the situation in Libya, which was becoming ever more serious and in general due to the situation on the African coasts, which was getting worse. We have a significant number of ships in the Mediterranean”, including submarines. “We did this,” the minister added, “so that we would be able to defend our rigs in case of attack, just as we have been able to defend Italian fishing boats. We are at sea to protect Italy.”

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Top IS Commanders ‘Taking Refuge’ In Libya

Several senior commanders from the so-called Islamic State have moved to Libya from Iraq and Syria in recent months, according to a top Libyan intelligence official.

Islamic State took control of the city of Sirte last year. Sirte was the hometown of the former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. The Islamist group is believed to have received support from some loyalists of the former regime.

Ismail Shukri, the head of intelligence in the city of Misrata, told Newsnight there had been an influx of foreign fighters in recent months.

“The majority [of IS fighters in Sirte] are foreigners, around 70%. Most of them are Tunisians, followed by Egyptians, Sudanese and a few Algerians.

“Add to that the Iraqis and the Syrians. Most of the Iraqis come from Saddam Hussein’s disbanded army.”

Mr Shukri said senior IS commanders were taking refuge in Libya, under pressure from international airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italian Astronaut Cristoforetti on First Visit to Israel

Taking part in Ilan Ramon International Space Conference

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, FEBRUARY 3 — Invited by the Israeli Space Agency (ISA), the Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti has arrived in Israel for the first time as part of the 11th Ilan Ramon International Space Conference.

The event is named after an Israeli astronaut who died in 2003 in Texas during the Columbia Space Shuttle accident. Cristoforetti on Wednesday met at the Tel Aviv University with young Israelis interested in space technology and her experience at an event organized by the Italian embassy in Israel. On Tuesday evening, she instead met with the Italian community and the Israelis scientific one at an event at the residence of Ambassador Francesco Maria Talò. Italian Space Agency (ASI) president Roberto Battiston underscored in his speech “the close scientific cooperation” in the sector between Italy and Israel. On Tuesday afternoon, Cristoforetti — along with fellow astronauts Shannon Walker (NASA) and Yi So-Yeon (Korea) — was part of a panel on future space challenges.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Factory That Makes ‘Terror Potion’ Turning ISIS Fighters Into Drug-Fuelled Jihadi Junkies

Highly-addictive Captagon pills keep terrorists awake for days and stop them feeling pain

A FACTORY making the highly-addictive drug used by terrorists and ISIS fighters has been uncovered by rebels in Syria.

Tablets and syringes were found inside hotel rooms used by the ‘zombie-like’ gang before last November’s Paris atrocities.

French police believe the evil killers launched their killing spree while high on the lethal ‘Terror Potion’ which has also fuelled the war in Syria.

ISIS chemists are producing millions of the cheap, easy-to-make amphetamine pills that help keep fanatics awake for days, turning them into wide-eyed Jihadi junkies.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS: Slovenia Sends Military Instructors to Iraq

Defense minister confirmed, 15 will be sent to Erdbil

(ANSA) — LJUBLJANA — Slovenia’s defense minister Andreja Katic has officially confirmed that Slovenia will take an active role in the western military action against Isis. The government will send 15 military instructors to Erdbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The first team will include 6 instructors, the other 8 trainers will be sent later on. The relocation of Slovenian troops is scheduled for the second half of 2016. Even Foreign Minister, Karl Erjavec, spoke about this decision, stressing that the Slovenian militare forces will not take part in any fighting. Erjavec said he was convinced that “this decision will not increase the security risk for Slovenia”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Jordan: US Ally Packed With Refugees Reaches a ‘Boiling Point’

The leader of a key U.S. ally in the Middle East warned Tuesday that his country is so packed with Syrian refugees, many with ties to the Islamic State terror group, that his nation has reached a “boiling point.”

“Sooner or later, I think, the dam is going to burst,” King Abdullah of Jordan told the BBC. He said his country is housing more than a million Syrians, many of whom came after the 2011 civil war in Syria broke out. Up to 100 new refugees are admitted each day, the network reports.

Jordan’s welcoming nature has to stop, he said. “We can’t do it anymore.”

King Abdullah told the BBC up to 25% of his country’s budget goes to helping migrants and finding jobs for them. Only 1% of the nation’s Syrian refugees reportedly have work permits.

The Jordanian leader also defended his nation’s terror vetting system, while admitting that the surge of refugees contains “elements” of ISIS.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Trevi Group Lands Contract for Mosul Dam

A few days after top U.S. general warns of its collapse

(ANSA) — Baghdad, February 2 — Italy’s Trevi construction group has landed a $230-million contract for the repair and maintenance of the dam at Mosul in Iraq, a government spokesman told the Associated Press Tuesday. The contract to overhaul and maintain the Mosul dam in the country’s north comes days after the top U.S. general in Iraq warned of its possible collapse.

Government spokesman Saad al-Hadithi told The Associated Press the cabinet awarded the contract to Italy’s Trevi group Tuesday. He had no precise figure for the contract’s value.

A cabinet official told AP it was worth $230 million. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

News of the contract came just days after U.S. Army Lt.

Gen. Sean MacFarland warned of dam’s potential collapse, which could cause mass flooding. Built in the 1980s, the dam is situated on soft mineral foundations, easily dissolved by water.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

General Says Poor Leadership is Biggest Problem for Afghans

Gen Campbell testifies to Congress

(ANSA) — Rome, February 2 — The top American commander in Afghanistan told Congress on Tuesday that most of the problems facing the Afghan security forces stem from poor leadership, the Associated Press reported.

Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Army Gen. John F. Campbell said the Afghan National Army has replaced 92 general officers, including a high-level commander in volatile Helmand province.

The Afghan interior ministry is still “lagging behind” in making leadership changes, he said. U.S. forces are “taking steps to remedy this through our train, advise and assist mission,” Campbell said. He cautioned that the institutional changes that are required will take time.

Campbell’s testimony comes as lawmakers are growing skeptical amid concerns that worsening security conditions demand a greater number of U.S. forces to ensure the gains made in the war-torn country since 2001 aren’t lost. But there is also ample frustration that, after 14 years, the finish line in Afghanistan still is not visible.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Taliban Kill 10-Year-Old Boy Who Joined Militia

Wasil Ahmad killed Monday near home in south

(ANSA) — Rome, February 3 — A 10-year-old Afghan boy who was declared a hero after fighting the Taliban has been shot dead by insurgents while on his way to school, officials said Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.

Wasil Ahmad, who had fought the Taliban alongside his uncle on many occasions, was killed Monday near his home in Tirin Kot, the capital of the southern Uruzgan province, said deputy police chief Rahimullah Khan.

The 10-year-old boy had been a local celebrity of sorts, with widely circulated photographs on social media showing him holding an automatic weapon and wearing a uniform and helmet.

Ahmad’s uncle was a former Taliban commander who changed allegiance to the government and was appointed local police commander in Khas Uruzgan district, Khan said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

World’s First ‘Robot Run’ Farm to Open in Japan

A Japanese firm said Monday it would open the world’s first fully automated farm with robots handling almost every step of the process, from watering seedlings to harvesting crops.

Kyoto-based Spread said the indoor grow house will start operating by the middle of 2017 and produce 30,000 heads of lettuce a day.

It hopes to boost that figure to half a million lettuce heads daily within five years…

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

Africa is Italy’s Priority Says Renzi in Nigeria

‘We stand with you against Boko Haram’

(ANSA) — Rome, February 1 — Premier Matteo Renzi set off on a mission to Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal on Monday.

“If we want to fight poverty, uproot terrorism, and affirm shared values, Africa is our priority today,” he wrote on his website.

“We must do everything possible to make this planet more humane,” he said in the Nigerian capital of Abuja after meeting with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

“Italy has neglected Africa for too long,” he said.

“International cooperation with Nigeria is a great priority…

Nigeria is a country full of resources and talent. We are here to discuss investments, but for me the most important thing are common values”.

To this end, Renzi told Buhari that Italy stands with Nigeria in its battle against Islamist terror group Boko Haram, which is responsible for a string of atrocities in northern Nigeria where it is trying to carve out its own state.

Voicing his condolences for a Boko Haram attack on Sunday that claimed 86 lives, including those of many children who were burned alive, Renzi said “we will destroy all forms of terrorism with determination”.

“We will back your leadership in the fight against terrorism,” Renzi told Buhari.

“Italy is with you, with your people, in the effort against the Boko Haram enemy”.

On the economic front, Renzi said Italy looks forward to economic collaboration with Nigeria in the energy, farming, logistics and infrastructure, and small and medium business sectors. “I consider the possibility of growth in energy and oil investments very positive — particularly with (Italian oil and gas giant) ENI — but also in infrastructure and logistics,” he said. The two leaders agreed that “agriculture and small and medium businesses are a shared priority”, said Renzi. “They are a very important asset for Italy,” he explained. At the end of the first leg of his Africa tour, Renzi reaffirmed his commitment to helping Nigerian migrants in their home country. “Most immigrants who arrive in Italy by boat are from Nigeria,” Renzi wrote on his Facebook page after leaving Abuja for Ghana. “To the kind souls who say ‘let’s help them in their own homelands’ I say this what we’re trying to do — but we do it by maintaining our sense of humanity, our values, our ideals: this is Italy’s vocation”. “We are departing Abuja for Ghana with a certainty,” the premier wrote. “Winning the challenge against extremism in Nigeria and in this part of Africa is decisive for the future of the whole planet. Italy is here,” the premier added. Renzi is due to end his Africa mission in Senegal.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Europe Distant From Values of Founding Fathers, Renzi Says in Ghana

Premier tells Ghanaian parliament Italy working for change

(ANSA) — Accra, February 2 — Italian Premier Matteo Renzi told the Ghanaian parliament in Accra on Tuesday that the European Union appears to have strayed away from the values it was founded upon. “Europe seems very distant from the values of the founding fathers,” said Renzi, who has been engaged in a war of words with the European Commission in recent weeks over various issues. “Africa is often considered a problem, rather than an opportunity, especially when it comes to immigration.

But we are committed to changing Europe’s direction”.

Renzi told the Ghanaian parliament Tuesday that “parliament in every nation is the home of democracy and you must be very proud of your democracy which is a model for your neighbours, and not only them”. He stressed that “democracy is the antibody against terrorism”. Renzi said “terrorism is in Africa but also in Europe, they want to take away our freedom and our way of life. They want to make us live in fear but we must refuse this message”.

Renzi said that war against terrorism was necessary to stop those who were acting to “disintegrate society”.

He also stressed the importance of culture in defeating terrorism. Renzi told the Ghanian parliament Tuesday that “a few days ago I was in Mantua which is (Italian) capital of culture this year. Culture helps us to defeat terrorism and fear. The terrorists want to destroy us and if they can’t do that they want to make us live in fear. We all must refuse this message”. In Ghana Renzi is on the second stage of a three-day Africa trip that started in Nigeria Monday and will conclude in Senegal Wednesday.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

See the Female Fighters Who Strike Fear in the Hearts of Colombian Troops

I asked the officers: Are the FARC camps really like that — sort of an armed, jungle version of Outward Bound? And are there really that many women among the ranks of FARC’s 7,000 or so fighters?

What they told me next was a stunner.

“The women are the worst,” said one special forces officer, his name withheld because he works under cover. “If you get captured, you pray it’s by the male rebels.”

The female guerrillas are the most savage and brutal interrogators, he said. “They’re more ideological than the men. They’re merciless.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Australia: Court Crushes “Asylum” Policy Challenge

The High Court of Australia has rejected an attempt by a fake asylum seeker from Bangladesh to declare illegal that country’s offshore invader detention center policy.

“Human rights” lawyers acting for the invader—who has no claim to asylum under any law, local or international—said the fact that she had been allowed to temporarily enter Australia from an offshore detention center for medical treatment meant that she “deserved the full protection of the Australian constitution.”

Six of the seven High Court judges found against the Bangladeshi invader’s claim, and ordered her to pay the government’s costs. The judges found that the law under which the offshore policy was implemented and managed, was supported by the commonwealth’s constitutional power to make laws regarding “aliens.”

“The detention in custody of an alien, for the purpose of their removal from Australia, did not infringe … the Constitution because the authority, limited to that purpose, was neither punitive in character nor part of the judicial power of the Commonwealth,” Chief Justice Robert French co-wrote with justices Susan Kiefel and Geoffrey Nettle.

The ruling means that that Australian government has a legal right to operate the offshore detention centers on Nauru and Manus Island—a policy which halted the then lucrative people smuggler trade in bringing nonwhites from south Asia by boat to Australia to launch bogus asylum claims.

In reality, none of these “boat people” were fleeing any conflict, and were merely trying to get into Australia to parasite off that white-built society—and to get away from their self-created Second and Third World disaster zones.

Until the offshore detention policy was established—whereby the boats were intercepted at sea and the invaders placed in detention centers on Nauru, an island country in Micronesia in the Central Pacific—some 51,000 nonwhites arrived in Australia by sea, demanding to be let in, just as has happened in Europe along the Mediterranean coast.

The Australian government then issued an official and public warning that anyone who tried to enter Australia illegally (by boat or any other method) would not be allowed to settle there under any circumstances.

As soon as this policy was implemented, the nonwhite invasion stopped. Even the leftist opposition Labor Party had to admit that the policy had worked, even if, in their minds, it had only served to save the lives of illegal immigrants drowning at sea.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Australian High Court Rules Refugee Offshore Detention Legal

Australia’s top court has thrown out a suit brought by a refugee against its remote migrant detention centers. Hundreds of refugees now face deportation back to the island of Nauru in the south Pacific.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Berlin to Get €600m Invader Hotel Bill

The taxpayers of Berlin are to be presented with a €600 million bill—payable to an “Israeli-owned hotel group” — to house nonwhite “refugee” — invaders in luxury hotels in the city, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper has revealed.

According to the FAZ, which has obtained copies of the secret documents used to discuss the deal, the arrangement will mean that each invader will cost the German taxpayer some €18,000 every year in accommodation costs alone.

In terms of the “deal,” the Berlin Senate aims to hire no less than twenty-two hotels for €600 million to house the flood of nonwhites who have poured into the city, all falsely claiming to be refugees.

The city government has resorted to this measure because last year, around 80,000 invaders presented themselves in Berlin, demanding to be fed, housed, and taken care of, as per Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open doors invitation.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

EU Border Office Chief on Refugee Crisis: ‘We Should Have No Illusions’

As head of the EU border agency Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri has one of the hardest jobs in Europe. Tasked with protecting the external borders of the Schengen area, he is keenly aware of just how fragile the zone has become as a result of the refugee crisis.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Forced to Marry & Flee, Child Brides Seeking Asylum in Scandinavia€

Norway has found more than 61 children seeking asylum arrived married to older men. The youngest child bride asylum seeker was just 11 years old.

Official figures from the Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs (Bufdir) and seen by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), reveal that 61 migrants applying for asylum status in the Scandinavian country were under the age of 18.

At least ten were under 16, 49 girls and two boys were aged between 16 and 17. At least two young girls were expecting their second baby and a child bride as young as 11 had arrived in the last three months.

Mari Trommald, director of Bufdir told NRK:

“We are looking very seriously at children under 18 who are in danger of being subjected to sexual abuse, violence and coercion. We are committed to helping these children and preventing forced situations.”

The age of consent in Norway is 16.

“Norwegian law applies in Norway, and we are therefore concerned to make sure no child is subjected to sexual relations, violence or other coercive situations when they are in Norway,” Mari Trommald explained.

Trommald told of a case involving a 14 year old pregnant girl who had arrived in Norway with her 23 year old husband and their 18 month old baby. The pair currently live separately while the husband is investigated by the police.

However, Thale Skybakk from children’s charity Save the Children in Norway told NRK that it wasn’t always best for child brides to be separated from their older husbands, “one has to make an individual assessment as to what is best for the child”.

Devastating Lifelong Impacts

The child brides seeking asylum in Norway, mainly come from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

IKWRO, a women’s rights organization in the UK founded to protect Middle Eastern and Afghan women and girls at risk of ‘honor’ based violence, including child marriage, believes, “child marriage has devastating lifelong impacts”.

“It denies childhood and can subject the victim to a lifetime of rape and other forms of sexual abuse and physical violence, as well as emotional, financial and physical control.”

According to UNICEF, a baby born to a mother under the age of 18 is 60 percent more likely to perish in its first year of life than a baby born to a mother who is over the age of 19.

Norway’s minister of immigration and integration Sylvi Listhaug, who is responsible for the government’s asylum policy, told NRK: “This is a custom that comes from other countries that are far removed what we are used to”.

“It is absolutely reprehensible,” she said, suggesting the authorities could punish adult men arriving in Norway with wives under the legal age of consent. Forced marriage is illegal in Norway.

Unni Wikan, a Norwegian social anthropologist, told NRK that further cases are likely to arise in countries across Europe and present further dilemmas on how to handle child bride asylum seekers.

“Norway may have to accept that underage refugees are married and have children,” Wikan said.

Charity, Save the Children is calling for procedures and guidelines to be issued advising agencies on how to handle individual cases of child brides seeking asylum with their adult husbands.

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

Israel’s Unwanted African Migrants

For nearly a year Israel has been offering African migrants cash and the chance to go and live in what is supposed to be a safe haven in a third country — but the BBC has spoken to two men who say that they were abandoned as soon as they got off the plane. One was immediately trafficked, the other left to fend for himself without papers.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: EU Flexibility Not Just for Turkey Aid, Gozi Says

Also to manage migrants from Libya

(ANSA) — Rome, February 3 — Italy expects the European Commission to respect rules on budget flexibility for spending related to the immigration crisis, EU Affairs Undersecretary Sando Gozi on Wednesday told the Lower House’s political commissions, presenting the country’s 2016 European agenda.

“Italy, once it confirmed its OK to the fund for refugees in Turkey, clarified that the exceptional event cannot only concern a part of the Mediterranean”, Gozi said.

“Expenses in managing the migration flow” from North Africa “need to be evaluated according to the same rules and the same interpretation”, he added.

Earlier on Wednesday European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Italy was willing to make its contribution to three billion euros in EU aid to Turkey in exchange for cooperation on the refugee crisis.

The Commission had criticised Italian Premier Matteo Renzi’s executive for allegedly holding up the aid package.

The Commission is expected to announce in the spring whether it has granted Italy’s request for flexibility in the application of the EU’s budget laws for spending related to asylum seekers.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Left-Wing Journalist Knife Attacked by Calais Migrants, Blames Britain for Not Letting Them in

Refugees turning to violence because of “xenophobia,” claims report

A left-wing journalist who was the victim of a knife attack carried out by migrants in the Calais “jungle” camp responded by blaming Britain for its “xenophobia” in not letting the “refugees” enter the UK.

Robert Edwards, a reporter for RT and an Amnesty UK support officer, visited the notorious migrant camp on the French border to “tell their story,” only to be assaulted by the migrants.

“I was approached by a group of teenagers. One of them has a blade and starts cutting at my jacket,” Edwards told RT.

However, rather than blame the perpetrators, Edwards slammed the ““knee-jerk” rhetoric of people on social media who said the attack illustrated how some of the migrants were “lawless scum”.

Instead of acknowledging that there is obviously a problem with migrants being prone to violence and rape, as evidenced by the innumerable instances of attacks and assaults taking place in Europe every week, Edwards suggested the migrants were acting violently, “because European governments have dehumanized them” and because they have been “denied their rights”.

He goes on to downplay concerns over “border security” and “welfare payments” while blaming opposition to migrants entering Britain on an “upswing of xenophobia”.

[Comment: In a way, these leftist are the real racists — their attitude accepts that migrants behave this way and that it is not their fault. It’s the fault of others. They hold migrants to a lower standard of behaviour since migrants are minorites. The view that the migrants can’t behave any better as individuals is a twisted view of human beings. Leftists don’t even realize they are doing this…]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Migrant Crisis in Sweden and Europe: The Views of Kent Ekeroth Sweden Democrat MP

Kent Ekeroth, a Jewish Deputy of the Sweden Democrats in the national parliament, the Riksdag, was a guest on the Sunday, January 31, 2016, Lisa Benson Show. Benson, Richard Cutting, Advisory Board Member and this writer participated in the discussion with Ekeroth. The topics discussed during the segment covered various aspects of the current migrant crisis in Sweden and Europe caused by the flood of one million asylees and migrants in 2015 who penetrated the broken Schengen borderless system. LISTEN to the podcast, here.

New Year’s Eve, the sexual assaults in Cologne, Germany by 1,000 North African and Arab looking migrants was evidence of threats to native European women and their communities. We posted on the graphic violence perpetrated daily in Germany and the rising call for the resignation of German Chancellor n Angela Merkel. Then there was the disturbing Europol report that 10,000 migrant children have gone missing, presumed to victims of sex trafficking and slavery.

In Sweden, 200 men went on a rampage attacking Moroccan migrants at the central Stockholm rail station provoked by the murder of a 23 year old woman at a reception center. The Swedish Interior Minister ordered the expulsion of 80,000 migrants, virtually half of the 160,000 that poured into the country in 2015. The 23 year old woman victim was killed trying to stop an altercation involving a 15 year old Somali migrant. One of the more than 35,000 unaccompanied minors who entered Sweden, four fifth of them young men.

A Politico Magazine article on “Europe’s Man Problem”, noted this about migrant demographics in Sweden:…

           — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon [Return to headlines]
 

Muslim Rape Slavery Comes to Canada

Ezra Levant on the story the rest of the media didn’t report: A Montreal Muslim immigrant who brought Rotherham style sex slavery to Canada. MORE www.TheRebel.media

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Renzi Says EU Needs Strategy on Migrants, Not Squabbles

Premier says Italy not taking ‘lectures from Commission’

(see related) (ANSA) — Accra, February 2 — Italian Premier Matteo Renzi told the Ghanaian parliament in Accra on Tuesday that the European Union needed to adopt a strategy to cope with the crisis it faces with asylum seekers and avoid unnecessary rows.

“If we want to solve the problem of immigration, we need a long-term strategy, not petty squabbles,” said Renzi, whose executive has been at odds with the European Commission over various issues in recent weeks. “The time when Europe told us what we should do is over.

We give Brussels 20 million euros (a year) and we get back 11.

We want to work, but we are not taking any lectures”. Renzi has complained that the European Union left Italy alone for too long to cope with the Mediterranean migrant crisis and then added insult to injury by opening an infringement procedure against Rome for failing to comply with regulations on taking asylum seekers’ fingerprints.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

The New German Multicultural Toilet

“Refugees” in Germany still find European toilets a “mystery,” cannot use them despite being given pictogram instructions, are continuing to leave human excrement on bathroom floors and showers—and this is why Germany has to introduce a new “multicultural toilet.”

Although this might sound as if it is from some bizarre TV comedy sketch, it is not. Right now, German engineers are working on a “multicultural toilet” at the Global Fliegenschmidt toilet manufacturers in Coswig, Saxony-Anhalt, and news of their first design has appeared in the German media…

Other challenges being faced by the German sanitary engineers include “different latrines for different cultures,” the fact-filled article goes on to tell its readers.

“For Muslims, it is important that when using a toilet, one’s back does not face Mecca. In addition, latrines for men and women have to separate from each other, and the floor cannot be green in color, because that is the color of Islam.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Turkish Security Analyst Says Yes, Migrants and Crime Are Linked

Migrants and crime increases are definitely linked, according to a Turkish security researcher who calls for Europe to accept refugees more openly to discourage smuggling.

Migration and crime are very much linked, both in terms of human trafficking and crimes committed by the migrants, head of Turkey’s International Strategic Research Organisation (USAK) foreign policy think tank Elif Ozmenek Carmikli told Sputnik Turkiye.

“The international community perceives these processes separately. Meanwhile, the Syrian crisis has shown us that the scope of criminal activities such as human trafficking and smuggling, or illegal transportation of refugees, are closely linked,” she told Sputnik Turkiye.

Carmikli cited reports of sexual abuse of Syrian women and children as an example, together with regular stories from Syrian migrants of women and children who go missing, and of organ harvesting operations in Arab neighborhoods of Turkey. Interpol recently revealed that some 10,000 underage migrants are reported to have gone missing.

“All this points to the alarming proportions of criminal activities related to the problem of refugees,” Carmikli added.

Big Money Problems

According to Carmikli, another issue of the refugee crisis is unattended children as a factor in crime. Over the weekend, Swedish right-wingers beat up refugee street children at Stockholm’s train station, whom they accused of pickpocketing and the murder of a social worker.

“Only 14 percent of children of refugees living outside the camps go to school. The remainder spend all their time on the street. This alone is a factor driving the increase in crime,” Carmikli told Sputnik Turkiye.

Smuggling refugees from Turkey to Europe has also become a lucrative source of income for criminal organizations.

“Meanwhile, the scale of the problem is constantly increasing, the main victims of criminal acts are women and children. It is known that a smuggler of illegal immigrants, the carrier receives a monthly income of 50 to 100 thousand euros. According to our information, the total monthly income in this area can be up to $5 million,” Carmikli told Sputnik Turkiye.

Offering solutions to the crisis, Carmikli said that punishments must be increased for smugglers and pimps, although this is difficult to do in the short term.

“It is essential to ensure that the refugees were opened legal ways to enter Europe. Right now there isn’t one, and people are forced to risk their lives and trust smugglers, to have at least a ghostly hope of salvation,” Carmikli added.

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

Unintended Consequences: Merkel’s Reliance on Turkey Makes Life Worse for Refugees

Chancellor Angela Merkel asked Turkey to help reduce the number of refugees coming to Europe. But instead of closing its Aegean coast to migrant smugglers, Ankara shut its border with Syria, making it difficult for those threatened by the war to leave.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Rifts Continue Over Civil Unions Bill

NCD warns of ‘trauma’ over stepchild adoption for gays

(ANSA) — Rome, February 3 — Interior Minister Angelino Alfano on Wednesday warned Premier Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) that it would be “traumatic” if the centre-left group voted with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) over a bill granting rights to gay couples. Alfano’s New Centre Right (NCD) party, a junior partner in Renzi’s ruling coalition, is against the part of the bill that makes it possible for gay partners in civil unions to adopt each other’s biological children, as are opposition conservatives and some Catholic PD lawmakers. The NCD has proposed removing the so-called stepchild adoption clause from the bill to make it possible for the ruling left-right coalition to be united in backing it. The PD has so far rebuffed this suggestion.

The opposition M5S has said it will vote in favour of the bill as long as it’s not watered down. “(PD Senate whip) Luigi Zanda is pressuring us,” M5S Senator Alberto Airola said earlier in the day. “Clearly they’re having a lot of internal problems…but we can’t go below a minimum level of guaranteed rights”. The M5S has debated the issues and is united on its backing of the bill, which is why it declined to file any amendments, Airola added. “If the PD and the M5S vote together on civil unions it will be a serious, negative and traumatic thing,” Alfano warned in an interview on La7 television. “We’re not threatening a (government) crisis, but I don’t think it would be an intelligent move. When there are issues of conscience, the government would be wrong to intervene”. In a separate interview with Mediaset television, Alfano said: “The PD has a great chance to regain (the support) of much of parliament… Let’s remove this adoptions thing. Most of the Italian people don’t want it”. Right now the children of same-sex couples risk ending up in the foster system if one of their parents die, because the surviving parent has no legal custody of them. The bill now before the Senate would also extend to partners in a civil union some of the rights heterosexual married couples enjoy, such as the right to inherit a deceased spouse’s benefits and property, or to make decisions in their stead should one partner become incapacitated. Italy is the only West European country without gay marriage or civil unions, and the European Court of Human Rights in July 2015 condemned the country for failing to give gay couples legal “recognition and protection”, saying the State must change its laws to remedy that. At the weekend, hundreds of thousands of people attended a Rome rally against the bill called Family Day. The previous weekend, even more turned out across Italy in favour of the bill.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

John Cleese: Political Correctness Will Lead to an Orwellian Nightmare

John Cleese says political correctness has gone too far, especially on America’s college campuses, where he will no longer go to perform. As BigThink reports, the very essence of his trade — comedy — is criticism and that not infrequently means hurt feelings. But protecting everyone from negative emotion all the time is not only impractical (one can’t control the feelings of another), but also improper in a free society.

Cleese, having worked with psychiatrist Robin Skynner, says there may even be something more sinister behind the insistence to be always be politically correct.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Climate Models Are Not Simulating Earth’s Climate — Part 1

Unfortunately for the climate science community, the spatial patterns of the modeled warming rates for the global ocean surfaces from 1982 to 2015 (the era of satellite-enhanced sea surface temperature observations) show no similarities to the spatial patterns of the observed warming and cooling…no similarities whatsoever.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

5 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 2/3/2016

  1. And there was I thinking there are millions of devout Muslims readers of the Koran in France. Only 8,000? Hmmm…that’s not too bad.

  2. NEXT WAR ON THE EU-MAINLAND

    Lydia Tomkiw, International Business Times:
    —–
    U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter speaks at the Economic Club of Washington in Washington, D.C, Feb. 2, 2016. The United States will spend $7.5 billion — a 50 percent increase — to fund the fight against the Islamic State group, Carter said. A possible next war could be back on familiar terrain in Europe,

    Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter warned Tuesday. Carter previewed a $582 billion 2017 defense budget that will be released in full Feb. 9, and it includes a request for $3.4 billion as part of the European Reassurance Initiative that focuses on Russian threats.
    “We haven’t had to worry about this for 25 years, and while I wish it were otherwise, now we do,” Carter said, citing
    Russia in a speech at the Economic Club of Washington.

    Polen’s President Andrzej Duda saying “everything points to the need to have substantial presence of both infrastructure and military units on the ground in Central European countries.”

  3. “In other news, the High Court in Australia has ruled that the policy of detaining illegal immigrants in offshore migration centers does not violate the country’s constitution.”

    IOW, Australia, a country with a future.

    It’s MUCH harder to immigrate there legally now than it used to be, also, but they do still have a degree of welcome for legal immigrants (much more so than most European countries, actually).

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