A Muslim businessman in Vienna is alleged to have used the premises of his Islamic kindergarten for sex orgies and distributing drugs. The suspected alleged perp, known only as “Abdullah P”, reportedly manufactured and sold drugs under the cover of running a Muslim kindergarten.
In other news, the annual observance of “Earth Hour” has been cancelled in the town of Östersund in northern Sweden. Östersund made the news recently when its police chief advised female residents to stay indoors at night to avoid being raped by migrant men. Now the town wants to keep the streetlights on during Earth Hour to prevent those same rowdy immigrants from taking advantage of the darkness to act out their impulses against the women of Östersund.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, C. Cantoni, Captain Nero, Dora, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, RM, Vlad Tepes, 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.
FT Article Looks at How Italy ‘Fell Out of Love’ With EU
Recession, austerity strains links
(ANSA) — Rome, March 17 — An article published this week in the Financial Times newspaper entitled “How Italy fell out of love with the EU” analyses how recession, austerity and the migrant crisis has strained links between Rome and Brussels and led to Premier Matteo Renzi’s growing criticism of EU elites.
In the article, journalist James Politi writes that restoring Italians’ faith in the EU “will not be a simple task for Mr Renzi given how much the country has fallen out of love with Europe”.
Politi cites an Ipsos survey that shows the share of Italians reporting that they have confidence in the EU had fallen to 40% in January 2016 from 73% in 2010.
He says there is a risk for Renzi that his “brash and direct tone with the EU will backfire”. One of the biggest tests for Renzi will be in May when the EU will have to decide whether to accept Italy’s request for greater flexibility in its annual budget, taking into account the reforms it has passed so far.
“The fear in Rome is that if Europe does not begin to change, the populist tide in Italy could become much fiercer, possibly even toppling Mr Renzi,” Politi writes.
“Elections are due in 2018, but he could face a crisis earlier if voters turn down his constitutional reforms in a referendum set for the autumn. In such a scenario, it is not out of the question that Italy could end up exiting the EU or the euro”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ECB Sends ‘Final Notice’ On Banco Popolare-BPM Merger
Frankfurt lays down conditions, uphill climb
(ANSA) — Milan, March 17 — The European Central Bank (ECB) has laid down its conditions for the proposed merger of Banco Popolare and Banca Popolare di Milano (BPM), ANSA sources said Thursday. The ECB reportedly sent a ‘final notice’ to the two credit institutes on Wednesday evening, imposing its requirements for the merger.
It has not been said what these conditions are, although it has been suggested the Milanese and Veronese banks could now face an uphill climb.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Arizona Legislature Passes Groundbreaking Anti-BDS Legislation
Yesterday, the Arizona state legislature passed anti-BDS legislation, HB 2617, developed by the Israel Allies Foundation. Arizona makes it four states that have adopted this groundbreaking anti-BDS directed at barring state agencies from investing in companies that boycott Israel. That is not lost on listeners to the Lisa Benson Show on KKNT960The Patriot in Phoenix. We heard about the launch of that effort from South Carolina State Rep. Alan Clemmons (R-Myrtle Beach) on a December 6, 2015 broadcast when he was in town to meet with members of the Arizona state legislature. South Carolina led the way with the enactment of the Palmetto State’s version in June 2015. We have also had as frequent a guest on the eponymous weekly national security show, the head of the bi-partisan Congressional Israel Allies Caucus, Arizona US Representative Trent Franks.
We posted on Florida Governor Rock Scott signing the anti-BDS statute into law on March 10th that in January and February, 2016 passed both the Senate and House in Tallahassee resoundingly. This past Tuesday, this writer and Northwest Florida ‘Your Turn” talk show host Mike Bates on 1330amWEBY Pensacola interviewed Florida State Representative Mike Hill (R-District 2) on his co-sponsorship of this landmark anti-BDS legislation and sponsorship of ‘Andy’s law ‘ this session in Tallahassee. Listen to the interview.
The Israel Allies Foundation press release on the latest Arizona anti-BDS victory cited someone we regard as a valued friend of Israel and pushback against intrusive foreign laws, Joseph Sabag, Esq. Sabag is deputy director of the IAF. We worked closely with Sabag, Esq, Esq in the period 2012 to 2014 in the citizen lobbying effort, with partner Tony Verdugo and his team from the Florida Christian Family Coalition, to pass bi-partisan legislative resolutions in support of Israel and the Florida version of American Laws for American Courts (ALAC) in 2014.
Sabag of IAF extolled this latest victory in the national fight against BDS:…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Dept. of Justice to Investigate Denial of Mosque in Bernards Township
NEWARK — The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the decision by Bernards Township authorities to deny a Muslim community’s application to build a mosque in the township, a spokesman for the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s office in Newark has confirmed.
The investigation will look into whether the township violated the rights of members of the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge over its prolonged, and ultimately failed, application to build a mosque on Church Street, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
The department’s Civil Rights Division is tasked with enforcing federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, disability, religion, familial status and national origin.
The Islamic society and its president, Mohammad Ali Chaudry, last week filed a federal lawsuit against the township and 15 members of the Township Committee and the Planning Board, charging that they manufactured reasons to deny the application — even changing the zoning ordinance to make building new houses of worship difficult, if not impossible.
Among other things, the lawsuit called for appointment of a monitor to oversee compliance with all federal laws in all committee and planning board decisions for five years…
| — Hat tip: RM | [Return to headlines] |
Sweeney: Bayonne Opposition to Islamic Center ‘Disgraceful’; Mayor ‘Embarrassed’
BAYONNE — State Senate President Stephen Sweeney and city Mayor Jimmy Davis today blasted the citizens of the city who have embarked on a campaign to stop a Muslim community center from being built.
The two officials used a ceremony at the Chandelier restaurant to honor civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. to admonish people for what many see as a a bigoted attempt to bully city officials into rejecting a group’s application to place the community center at Avenue F and East 24th Street.
Davis said if there were ever a time King’s words needed to be heard by residents of Bayonne, it’s now.
“We have an issue that is being presented tomorrow and there are some ugly words being said, something that actually embarrasses me,” Davis said.
The city Zoning Board is expected to vote tomorrow on whether or not to approve the proposed Muslim Community Center. Residents who oppose the center are expected to protest before the 6 p.m. meeting, while a counter protest is also planned.
The community center would include prayer halls, classrooms and a soup kitchen, officials for the nonprofit group Bayonne Muslims said.
“Dr. King taught us we can protest, we’re allowed to protest, but you do it with dignity,” Davis said.
Sweeney spoke after Davis, and was even stronger in his condemnation.
“Mayor, it’s disgraceful what’s going on in this town to preach hate, hate is horrible, we all should be together,” said Sweeney, who is expected to run for governor. “On Martin Luther King Day, this is a day to remember what he’s done and if he can do what he’s done, we all can make this place a little bit better.”
Among those in attendance were U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, Rep. Albio Sires, state Sen. Sandra Cunningham, Assemblywoman Angela McKnight, Assemblyman Nicholas Chiaravalloti, Hudson County register Pamela Gardner, members of Bayonne’s City Council and keynote speaker U.S. Rep. Donald Payne Jr…
| — Hat tip: RM | [Return to headlines] |
The paradox of the individualistic society is that it can only exist if individuals embrace virtues that are greater than their own needs and whims. A society where each individual acts as a little tyrant, pursuing his desires with total selfishness at the expense of everyone else becomes collectivist as the little tyrants turn to a series of big tyrants to get what they want no matter who gets hurt by it.
Social compacts are the alternative to big government. Communities built around unwritten laws in which people do the right thing keep government at bay better than a million laws ever could. No Constitution can protect a people that does not know or care about what it says. Laws embody ideas about what a society can be. But only the people can actually live out those ideas in their lives.
As individual virtues and social compacts break down, selfish squabbles escalate. Tribalism turns into legal civil war. Laws become the means by which one group imposes its will on the other and by which one man seizes the property of another. The people come to view the system with contempt. All virtues and principles are abandoned as neighbor turns on neighbor in resentment and hatred.
Our society has cultivated narcissism as its highest virtue. Even liberalism has become condensed to an identity politics of narcissism in which each victim gets to talk about their feelings for fifteen minutes before crybullying for someone’s head. Political discourse has become an exchange of feelings. And unlike contradictory ideas, clashing feelings of entitlement cannot be resolved.
Ideas can exist objectively. Feelings only exist subjectively. Identity politics resolves this problem by treating the objective response to feelings as privilege. But even subjective empathy can never truly approach the subjective experience of the crybully. Even a member of that same identity group will differ in some way from the multiple intersectional identities of the crybully. And that difference is its own privilege. This isn’t really politics. It’s self-help narcissism crossbred with stale Marxism.
Marxism pretended to be a science. Its idiot inheritors use the same highly specialized vocabulary to describe their imaginary science of feelings to decide whose feelings get hurt microscopically worse.
But that’s the only kind of politics that narcissists can be expected to embrace. The left has personalized the political as much as it has politicized the personal. Its politics is purely personal. Its ideas can be condensed to “X upsets Y”. With the corollary that in the future X will not be allowed to upset Y because Y will be in charge of everything and stupid people like X will all die off so that history is on the side of Y and not X. This is a seven year old’s politics with better vocabulary…
Youmerica is the nightmare of the Founding Fathers come to live. “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion,” John Adams warned. “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” The same is true of all the rest of it.
We have no government capable of contending with human passions unbound by any code. The only government that will serve is tyranny. We can have a virtuous society of free men and women. Or we can have what we have now, and that is only a taste of what is still to come in the dying days of an empire whose people are busy trading their virtues for pottage without counting the cost.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Canada’s Personal Income Taxes on Highly Skilled Workers Among the Highest in Industrialized World
The study, Canada’s Rising Personal Tax Rates and Falling Tax Competitiveness, finds that Canada’s top combined federal and provincial tax rate, which is 53.5 per cent (using Ontario’s provincial rate) now ranks as the sixth highest among 34 industrialized countries and second highest among G7 countries, behind only France (based on 2014 figures, the latest year of available international data).
“Next week’s federal budget offers the Liberal government an opportunity to put in place policies that match their rhetoric about the importance of policies that attract and retain highly skilled workers, entrepreneurs, and investors,” said Charles Lammam, director of fiscal studies at the Fraser Institute and study co-author.
“Competitive personal income tax rates are critical to fostering a positive economic climate but recent tax increases, federally and in many Canadian provinces, harm our ability to attract skilled workers and in fact discourage Canadians from realizing their full potential.”
For example, this year Canada’s Liberal government introduced a new income-tax bracket, increasing the top federal tax rate to 33 per cent from 29 per cent. This increase in the federal tax rate comes on top of numerous recent increases to top rates in Ontario, Alberta and other provinces.
Among the provinces, Nova Scotia has the highest combined top personal income tax rate at 54 per cent, followed by Ontario (53.5 per cent) and Quebec (53.3 per cent). Currently, six of 10 provinces have a top combined federal-provincial rate above 50 per cent.
“A highly skilled worker in Ontario can now lose more than 50 cents of every additional dollar they earn in labour income-hardly an attractive environment for highly skilled workers and entrepreneurs,” said Ben Eisen, co-author and associate director of provincial prosperity studies at the Fraser Institute.
[Comment: Don’t forget the Provincial and Federal Sales tax in addition to slave labour tax. In Ontario, add the GST tax on utility bills. So, another 13% tax on everything you buy and another 7% tax on all your utility bills. Add it all the taxes and it’s well over 50% tax theft.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Austria: Head of Islamic Kindergarten Used Facility for Orgies, Drugs and Defrauding Tax Payers
Sex orgies, drug use and other questionable activities are alleged to have taken place at an Islamic kindergarten in Vienna.
The allegations surround a network of Islamic kindergartens run by a man known only as “Abdullah P”, who is currently under investigation on suspected charges of fraud.
One of the kindergartens, which are all subsidised by the Austrian tax payer, is said to have housed sex parties and has also been used as a front for selling and manufacturing drugs, as reported by Austrian paper Kronen Zeitung.
The kindergarten, located in the Brigittenau suburb of Vienna, is considered the operational “headquarters” of Abdullah P. Information was handed to the police by witnesses of the sex parties and drug use.
Turkish-born Abdullah, who claims to be a “businessman”, has been at the centre of controversy before over the so-called education and integration centres he has ran in the past. Several other Islamic kindergartens he currently runs have also been linked to the teaching of radical Islamist beliefs.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Proposes EU Civil Service for Young People
Initiative presented by Premier Renzi
(ANSA) — Brussels, March 17 — Italy has proposed an EU civil service for young people between the ages of 18 and 25 in the education, health, environment, culture and migrant reception sectors.
The initiative, entitled “Odysseus” was presented by Premier Matteo Renzi at the launch of the “Volta” think tank.
It would involve a competition for 250 positions for young people to take part in voluntary civil service activities over a period of 6-12 months, with a particular focus on the migration crisis.
Odysseus would aim to go beyond the current system of transnational cooperation towards a system run directly by EU institutions. “It’s about creating a common conscience, because investing in education and in volunteering means investing in the future,” Renzi said at the inauguration of Volta.
“Voluntary European service is the first step towards a longer term approach,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Verdini Conviction Sparks Tension Over Backing for Renzi
PD minority says Verdini links pose ‘risks’
(ANSA) — Rome, March 17 — A Rome court on Thursday found Senator Denis Verdini, a former top aide of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, guilty of corruption in contracts for the construction of a military academy in Florence and gave him a suspended two-year prison term.
The sentencing of Verdini immediately reignited controversy over the backing his small Liberal Popular Alliance — Autonomies (ALA) group has recently given to Premier Matteo Renzi’s government for key reforms.
A dissenting minority within Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) on Thursday pointed to the risks that this “preferential axis” posed, and the opposition anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) said that “beginning today, Renzi is governing with the support of a corruption convict”.
Angelo Balducci, former head of Italy’s Superior Council of Public Works, Fabio De Santis, former public works commissioner in Tuscany, businessman Francesco Maria De Vito Piscicelli and real estate developer Riccardo Fusi had already received definitive convictions in the case.
According to the prosecution, Verdini was found to have facilitated Fusi in his affairs and orchestrated De Santis’ appointment as public works commissioner. The public prosecutor pointed to wiretapped conversations as proof.
PD Minority Senator Federico Fornaro said a more prudent approach to Verdini would have been appreciated by voters and party members. Meanwhile small left-wing party Italian Left (SI) said Renzi should clarify whether he wants to carry on with Verdini’s backing.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Kurdish Woman Shot Dead at Wedding in Germany After Refusing to Marry Her Cousin
The father wrote that his beloved 21-year-old daughter Shilan had rejected an arranged marriage and had paid for it with her life during a wedding ceremony in Hanover, Germany.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: ‘Earth Hour’ Blackout Cancelled Because of Migrant Rape
The annual virtue-signalling festival known as ‘Earth Hour’ won’t be celebrated in one Swedish town this year, thanks to a sex-crime epidemic sweeping the municipality.
The small Swedish town of Östersund — population 44,300 — is presently living in a state of fear. Police have instructed women to not go outside alone at night following a spate of sex attacks, and police patrol in search of the perpetrators who have so far avoided capture.
There have now been 14 separate reports of sex attacks in the town, with victims ranging from grown women to 10-year-old girls. Police have refused to release details of the suspects they are seeking — as is usual in a country where police took the decision last year to combat racism by not discussing the ethnicities of crime suspects — but victims have described “foreign origin” attackers.
The danger is considered so great the symbolic act of turning the town’s municipal lights off for one hour is considered too much of a risk, and police have requested the event be cancelled. The final decision was taken in consultation with local officers on Tuesday, with Social Democrat spokesman for the local council Ann-Sofie Andersson remarking:
“Earth Hour is a good and important event, but this year we chose to have the street lights on in view of what has happened. We want everyone to feel safe”.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
It could be a scene from the heart of one of Los Angeles’ infamous ganglands — but this chilling video was in fact shot in a north London suburb just yards away from a busy shopping centre.
A gunman who is believed to have been wearing Muslim dress was filmed chasing four teenagers past houses and parked cars before appearing to shoot one of them as they cowered next to a house.
The shocking footage, taken outside Edmonton shopping centre around 2pm, showed the man following the young boys as they desperately tried to flee the scene, which is less than half a mile from a nearby primary school…
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
This is the shocking moment a Good Samaritan was accosted in the street and became the victim of a distraction burglary by two women who pretended to ask her for directions to a hospital.
The woman was stopped on Portobello Road in Hill Top, West Bromwich, at around 3.15pm on Tuesday March 8 by two women who were travelling in the back of a blue Ford Focus.
[Comment: Article (and police) avoid mentioning that they were muslim women stealing from the kuffar.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
China Wants to Make ‘Minority Report’ A Reality
China has a new strategy in fighting crime, ripped from science fiction and hastily pasted at the top of the list of paranoia-inducing concepts.
It’s called pre-crime. It goes further than sting operations, counterterrorism, or any other government action to preempt criminal activity ever before.
Like the 2002 film Minority Report, China wants to fight crimes before they happen. They want to know they’ll happen before they’re planned—before the criminal even knows he’s going to be part of them. Bloomberg Business reported that the Communist Party “has directed one of the country’s largest state-run defense contractors, China Electronics Technology Group, to develop software to collate data on jobs, hobbies, consumption habits, and other behavior of ordinary citizens to predict terrorist acts before they occur.”
The Chinese government wants to know about everything: every text a person sends, every extra stop they make on the way home. It’s designed for dissidents, but it means that they’ll know every time a smoker buys a pack of cigarettes, how much gas a car owner uses, what time the new mom goes to bed, and what’s in the bachelor’s refrigerator.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Nuclear War With North Korea Coming?
On Sunday, North Korea warned the United States that it could wipe out Manhattan with a single hydrogen bomb, and earlier this month North Korea threatened to make a “ preemptive and offensive nuclear strike” on the United States in response to aggressive military exercises currently being jointly conducted by South Korea and the U.S. military. So does nuclear war with North Korea actually pose a significant security risk to this country? Well, according to the Washington Post the entire west coast of the United States is within reach of North Korea’ s intercontinental ballistic missiles. The only question is whether or not North Korea’ s ultra-paranoid leader Kim Jong Un would ever actually press the button.
Most Americans don’ t realize this, but nuclear war with North Korea is now closer than it has ever been before. In the past, North Korea’ s technical capabilities were greatly limited, but now all of that has apparently changed. Just consider what has taken place within just the past few months. The following comes from a timeline that was put together by the Arms Control Association…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
An Open Secret: The People-Smugglers of Southern Libya
One of the last Niger checkpoints is Madama, 100km south of the border, where the French military have established a base. Smugglers say the French soldiers observe all passing traffic but never interfere.
A Libyan soldier from the south, Hassan Suki, who posed as a civilian to monitor the migrant flow, said both the French and Niger governments were exacerbating the migrant problem.
“Many people in the EU don’t realise what’s happening here, and that France and Niger are behind it,” he said.
“We saw that the military base is metres away from the last Niger checkpoint and we watched commanders come out of the base and talk to the smugglers but they didn’t stop anybody.
“If these French troops are serious, they could stop anything from crossing that border because it’s a big military base with hundreds of military personnel, helicopters and warplanes.”
But the Tebu military commanders in the south insist that, with support, they could completely secure the border.
“Controlling this border is the way to stop illegal immigration towards Europe because if this point is closed, they cannot reach the sea,” he said. “We know which day smugglers pass and where, so we could easily control it. We are from the desert and know this terrain and how to control it. If we had all the equipment we needed, we could start to secure the border within 48 hours.”
#sthash.FhAFmPXL.dpuf
| — Hat tip: Captain Nero | [Return to headlines] |
Chelsea Clinton Reveals Her Mom Thinks it is ‘Important’ To Extend ObamaCare to Illegal Aliens
By Thomas Lifson
More free stuff for people who violate our immigration laws! Hillary Clinton and her daughter have teed up a ball for the Republican nominee, whether Trump or Cruz, to hit 400 yards down the fairway. Just over a week ago, Hillary reversed her former position and declared:
“I will not deport children,” she said after moderator Jorge Ramos pressed her multiple times on the issue. “I would not deport children. I do not want to deport family members either, Jorge.”
So any family that can ante-up plane fare for the kids and one or more parent to JFK, Miami, Los Angeles or any other international terminal, or that can sneak across the border, is here to stay, once Hillary becomes president. And in addition to all the other goodies this country bestows upon people with low incomes, now the $600k a year former NBC correspondent Chelsea Clinton has declared that Obamacare will be extended to illegals.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Greece looks set to start sending migrants back to Turkey on Monday after a proposed ‘one in, one out’ scheme won the approval of EU leaders in Brussels.
Any migrant arriving in Greece after March 20 will be given a swift individual interview to determine whether they will be allowed to remain or sent back to Turkey under the scheme.
After less than an hour of discussions, the prime ministers of Finland and the Czech Republic tweeted from inside the European Council negotiations to announce that the 28 leaders had given their approval to the arrangement.
Even as they agreed the deal, Turkish officials said they had intercepted 3,000 migrants trying to make the crossing to the Greek island of Lesbos.
The deal is also understood to promise visa liberalisation for Turkey’s 75 million inhabitants, who could be granted visa-free access to the EU’s Schengen borderless zone — which does not include the UK — from this summer.
The EU and Turkey also agreed to open a new ‘chapter’ in Turkey’s long-stalled bid for membership of the EU — Chapter 33, on budgets — by July. It said preparations for other chapters would continue ‘at an accelerated pace’.
Ukip leader Nigel Farage said that the agreement made a vote to leave the EU more likely in the referendum on June 23.
‘Giving visa-free access to Turkey will mean increased numbers of people coming to Europe,’ said Mr Farage ‘And fast-tracking an unstable Turkey into EU membership is madness.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Police Attack Migrant Protest in Brescia
Anti-racism campaigners and migrants had gathered in Piazza Loggia, central Brescia for the third day, to protest the withholding of thousands of residence permits, which have not been forthcoming since 2012. During the period from 2012-to-2015 numerous migrants, who have been on the residence permit waiting list, had been detained.
Police charged protesters who were protesting in solidarity with undocumented migrants in Brescia, Monday. At least three people were injured in the clashes, including a 15-year-old who was reportedly struck in the head by a police-truncheon. Four more demonstrators were reportedly arrested in a day marked by violence in which the protesters also reportedly clashed with right-wing activists.
After the violence, a delegation including a local priest, was dispatched for a meeting with city’s deputy-Mayor Laura Castelletti in an attempt to defuse the situation.
Due to the law of Bossi-Fini, those immigrants who lost their jobs because of recession, lose as well their permit to stay in Italy. Thousands of unemployed immigrants are being labeled illegal because Questura di Brescia refuses to renew their work permit…
| — Hat tip: Dora | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Renzi Wants Turkey Deal But Warns it Sets Precedent
EU seeks agreement on migrants with Ankara at summit
(ANSA) — Rome, March 17 — Premier Matteo Renzi warned on his way in to a European Union migration summit Thursday that any immigration accord with Turkey will set a precedent. “We agree on reaching the accord with Turkey, but let us be very clear — it will set a precedent,” he said. “The rules that will apply to Turkey will have to apply to the other countries we expect (migration) flows to be coming from”.
Italy’s “objective is to reach an immigration accord with Turkey, but starting from our values and our ideals”. Any such deal with Ankara must be “based on European principles”, he added.
“For a long time, Italy stood alone in requesting a European approach to immigration. Finally the issue has been recognized as one that needs to be faced by everyone,” Renzi went on.
He added that “the real challenge is investing at the root of the problem, going to Africa, making Africa central”.
“Africa is a priority for this government and for Italy — may it be so for Europe as well.” “To those who say we must help migrants in their home countries, I answer that Italy is on it,” Renzi said.
The Italian premier added that while it is important to reach a deal with Turkey, aid Greece and keep Cyprus’ concerns in mind, the real challenge is to go to the root of the problem.
“(We need to) go to Africa, increase aid, create development opportunities there within the framework of an overall political strategy,” he said.
In related news, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she shared the “cautious optimism” of European Council President Donald Tusk that leaders can reach a common position on a deal with Turkey on migrants and refugees.
“The talks will be difficult but…I am cautiously optimistic that we can find a common position,” Merkel said. “We must find a shared solution first of all among EU countries”.
Earlier this month, the EU reached a preliminary deal whereby Turkey would take back one Syrian illegal immigrant for every legitimate asylum seeker that it allows into Europe.
However, critics have expressed concerns about human rights guarantees, among other things.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The IPCC Has Been Deceiving the Public About the Carbon Cycle From the Start
The claim that man-released CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years was necessary for the alarmist case. It was required to justify the notion of “commitment” to the temperature rise that might happen few hundred years in the future according to the alarmist computer models. It allowed to exaggerate future CO2 concentrations, and to demand premature action (a typical high pressure selling tactic — act now, regret later). And IPCC pulled out all the stops to justify such claims. It tried to create the impression that CO2 is something like a demon from the underworld: ignoring the laws of physics, harmful and dangerous, and difficult to exorcize. This is a claim that was made in FAR:
“Because of its complex cycle, the decay of excess CO2 in the atmosphere does not follow a simple exponential curve … For example, the first reduction by 50 percent occurs within some 50 years, whereas the reduction by another 50 percent (to 25 percent of the initial value) requires approximately another 250 years” (FAR WGI, p. 8)…
Thus, every IPCC report can be compared to a garbage bin in a public square: delicious leftovers from good restaurants are thrown together with rotten fruits and sprinkled liberally with bird feces. One might take a look at the bin to see what sort of food is served in a nearby restaurant, but eating from the trash is not advisable. Some distinguished scientists contributed to the IPCC reports, especially the WGI, but their work lost all value when it was mixed with alarmist viewpoints.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
“Chelsea Clinton has declared that Obamacare will be extended to illegals.”
So bloody what? Who the hell is she anyway? It’s bad enough that her parents decided to name her after a West London football club. It could have been worse. I suppose, it could have been Brighton and Hove Albion or Millwall.
It seems Ostersund has also been a talking point for the MSM. But not in the context of rowdy behaviour of the newcomers (as expected, that’s a taboo topic), but running… apparently some cultural enrichers have taken up running in Ostersund, alongside Swedes…. So all is now well!
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-running-blog/2016/mar/15/running-free-the-swedish-running-club-thats-helping-refugees-build-new-lives
Last night: Al Stewart played in Kent/Covington (south of Seattle).
Such a fun show.
Just thought a lot of GoV folks would appreciate.
See him when you can! Check his website! See when he’s coming to your town!
(After the shocking demise of Keith Emerson, I’m gonna catch all my faves whenever possible!)
I think he’s living out that way now…back when we went to see him, I was well enough to travel. But if he were to appear near here, I’d try to talk the B and the futureBaron into going to see him.
Same for Robert Hunter but I doubt he does anything outside California. Now that he has his winery…
BTW, please leave links when you mention a website. They can be tiresome to sort through on Google.
Thanks.
alstewart.com.
Yeah, I think Al lives in California.