Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/24/2016

British Prime Minister David Cameron has called on Christian leaders to “reach out” to Muslim communities in order to help prevent young Muslims from becoming extremists.

In other news, in the wake of the Brussels massacres, Rome has raised its terror alert to the highest levels over the upcoming Easter weekend, since 150,000 visitors are expected and the city is considered a prime target for a jihad attack.

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

Thanks to AF, C. Cantoni, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, Nick, 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
» Croatia: Unemployment Rate 17.8% in February
 
USA
» “The Cult of Cultural Marxism”: Foolish of the Forces They Are Ushering in to Destroy America
» AIPAC’s Gratuitous Partisan Apology to Obama at 2016 Washington Policy Conference
» Cruz’s College Roommate: Everybody Hated ‘Nasty’ Ted
» DHS Whistleblower: U.S. Handcuffed in Terror War
» GOP Elites Line Up Behind Cruz
» ISIS Attacked Brussels? The US Created ISIS? Therefore?
» Kasich Rejects GOP Call to Quit Race
» O’Reilly: ‘Mark My Words, A Weapon of Mass Destruction Will be Used by the ISIS Savages’
» Rudy Giuliani: ‘Hillary Clinton Could be Considered a Founding Member of ISIS’
» Shadow Campaign to Deny Trump Delegates Begins
» Utah Voter Reveals Fraud: “I Literally Had Over 50 Ballots in My Hand”
 
Canada
» Hold the Presses. It Isn’t Mental Illness— It is Arrogant Liberalism
 
Europe and the EU
» 61 Out of 300 Brussels Wounded Are Serious — Minister
» After Brussels, Rome Announces ‘Maximum’ Terror Alert for Easter Festivities
» Appeasement and Sentimentality Will Not Defeat Jihadis, Says Leo McKinstry
» Arms Traffickers Behind Terrorist Attacks Says Pope
» Dispatch From Molenbeek: Breitbart Reporter Surrounded by Cops, Army — Rifles Trained
» EU Ministers to Demand More Data Access After Brussels Attacks
» Former Israeli Intel Operatives Run Security at Brussels Airport
» ‘I Think Maybe it’s Time’: Trump Says Britain Will Leave the EU Because of Migration ‘Craziness’ And Says ‘Thousands and Thousands’ Of People Backed His Claims About ‘Radicalized’ London
» ISIS Have 400 Trained Fighters in Europe Who Are Poised to Unleash More Terror Attacks
» Italy: FCA Issues Eight-Year Benchmark Bond at 3.75%
» Italy: ‘Informal’ ECB OK to BPM-Banco Merger
» Italy: Hitachi Buys Another 3.47% of Ansaldo STS
» Italy: Priest to Face Trial for Child Porn
» Italy: 5 Politicians Arrested for ‘Ndrangheta ‘Vote Buying’
» Italy: Two Britons Arrested for Terrorism in Bari
» Jihad in Brussels
» Juncker Warms to the Idea of an EU Intelligence Agency
» Media Manipulation: More Fake Video Reports of the Brussels Terror Attacks
» Mysterious Death of Italian Banking Executive to be Re-Examined Amid Murder Claims
» Poland: 14.5 Mln Active E-Banking Users
» Slovakia: New Government, Three Ministers to Nationalists
» Spain: Protests Outside Islamist-Linked Mosque After Brussels Attacks
» The Shrapnel That Ripped the Brussels Victims to Shreds: Doctors Reveal Bomb Fragments That Were Pulled From Survivors After Terror Attacks
» UK: Cameron Urges Christian Leaders to ‘Reach Out’ To Muslim Communities and ‘Fight Extremism’
 
Middle East
» Syrian Troops Nearing Palmyra, Reports Sana
» US Arrest of Scandal-Tainted Turkey Tycoon Enthrals Erdogan Critics
 
Russia
» Russia Destroys 700 Tonnes of Polish Apples
 
South Asia
» Bangladeshi Islamists Threaten Violence if Supreme Court Drops Islam as State Religion
 
Far East
» China’s Vaccine Scandal: Horror for Millions of Parents Amid the Country’s Latest Health Scare After £62 Million Worth of Illegal Jabs Have Been Distributed Nationwide
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» Liberia Shuts Border With Guinea as Suspected Ebola Victims Flee Doctors
 
Immigration
» Ann Coulter — Hashtag: We Are Neville Chamberlain!
» Germany: Teacher Brutally Murdered by Afghan Migrant
» Italy: Pope Washes Feet of 11 Refugees, One CARA Staffer
» Mass Immigration is on the Verge of Destroying Europe, Blasts Leo McKinstry
» Piers Morgan: When it Comes to Terror, Isn’t it Time We Started Listening Seriously to Trump?
 

Croatia: Unemployment Rate 17.8% in February

1.8% improvement compared to 2014. Average wage 1000 euros

(ANSA) — TRIESTE — The unemployment rate in Croatia was at 17.8% in February, a 1.8% improvement compared to the same month of the last year, data released by the National Office for Statistics shows. The average salary before tax amounted at 7,709 kunas (around 1,022 euros) in January, 2% more compared to the same month of the last year.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

“The Cult of Cultural Marxism”: Foolish of the Forces They Are Ushering in to Destroy America

Editor’s Comment: The failures in logic, and the fueling of unwise and arbitrary groups of power is quickly unraveling American cultural and social life. Identity politics has corralled groups of gender, race, sexual orientation and other categories and weaponized them to create divide, and make potentially revolutionary division inevitable — all without pinning down any fundamentals or principles with which to live by.

Mainstream Americans, and those who value Constitutionally-recognized rights to free expression and self-determination are horrified to watch people, under naive pretexts, give into to a radical and extreme power base. These dangerous powers will ultimately be used not to achieve a noble goal — like equality under the law or tolerance — but to insist upon preferential treatment of special groups and the attempt to police speech on the basis of hurt feelings and “unlearning” culturally-loaded concepts. As you can see, the whole movement is headed for disaster, and plans to bring America down with it.

The Reasons Why People Hate Cultural Marxists

by Brandon Smith

A common misconception in America today is that our nation is evenly divided between conservatives and liberals in an absolute sense. This is not necessarily true.

Though national elections always seem to progress along a 51 percent to 49 percent opposition, with red states barely beating our blue states or blue states barely beating out red states, this is not a practical representation of the legitimate ideological boundaries within the U.S. What you really have in America is a wide spectrum of beliefs of varying degrees in-between ultimate extremes. I am of course referring to the general public in this respect.

The top of the political pyramid is a different story entirely. For them there are no sides whatsoever. Top Republicans and top Democrats are essentially the same animal with the same goals. They may wear different masks and exploit diverging rhetoric, but at the end of the day for elitists, America is a one-party system.

For the rest of us there is a hazy drift, with many people holding some views that lean conservative and other views that lean liberal.

Unfortunately, “moderates” do very little to direct the future of nations. Nearly all great changes and great upheavals are initiated by the elites themselves (extremists in their own right) or by smaller groups on opposite ends of the spectrum (which are often manipulated by elitists). At the very far reaches of the void of the left and liberalism festers what I would call a sociopolitical theology; the cult of cultural Marxism.

If you are confused as to what cultural Marxism really is I highly suggest you research as much as possible into the Frankfurt School founded by Marxist professors and academics in Germany during the 1920s and the early 1930s. The basic foundation of the Frankfurt School was to take the collectivist philosophy of Karl Marx, which revolved primarily around economic class structure, and apply it in a more sociological manner utilizing Hegelian dynamics.

The Frankfurt School sought to explore “class oppression” not only between the rich and the poor, the workers and the aristocracy, but also in aspect to races, religions, families, genders, behavioral psychology, etc. That is to say, the Marxists of the Frankfurt School were looking for new methods to divide and conquer existing societies and nations beyond simple economic conflicts.

After the rise of fascism in Germany, numerous members of the Frankfurt School fled to the U.S., bringing their ideological framework with them and applying it in U.S. universities and academic circles.

One of the primary character traits or strategies of cultural Marxists today is that they rarely if ever actually self-identify as cultural Marxists. This strategy allows them to change their colors on a whim, like a chameleon, and it prevents opponents from pinning down their world view in order to present a solid argument against them. It also allows them to disassociate from past cultural Marxists with negative reputations while holding the same beliefs as those historical figures.

The cultural Marxist denies he is a cultural Marxist, then he goes on to argue an ideology which perfectly matches what cultural Marxists have historically believed.

This is only one of the many reasons why most people, conservatives and moderate liberals alike, distrust and even despise cultural Marxists. The pervasive weakness among cultural Marxists in America is that they tend to believe their own propaganda. They think that they are an actual social force in this country with the numbers and support to back their activities. They fell into this delusion because for a time they have been effective at infiltrating popular media and generating a false consensus, not to mention organizing public and online mobs to be used as a weapon against others. They seem to be everywhere, yet they are few.

Lately, though, the illusion of numbers is beginning to collapse for them. Masses of people, even those that identify with the “Left”, are beginning to disown what are often referred to as “social justice warriors” (cultural Marxists) and are speaking out. Here is a list of reasons why the public is shifting and the tide is turning against social justice and cultural Marxists.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

AIPAC’s Gratuitous Partisan Apology to Obama at 2016 Washington Policy Conference

Seth Lipsky has an op-ed in today’s edition of the New York Post castigating AIPAC for the gratuitous partisan apology to President Obama issued by Ms. Lillian Pinkus the newly elected head of the pro-Israel lobby group, AIPAC’S pathetic apology to Obama. Pinkus was abjectly apologizing for the stinging criticism of the President by Republican Front Runner Donald trump and contenders, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich for isolating the Jewish nation of Israel, America’s democratic ally in the roiling Middle East. Her apology was partisan, a reflection of AIPAC’s pro Administration bias, a contradiction of its alleged doctrine of free speech…

           — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon [Return to headlines]
 

Cruz’s College Roommate: Everybody Hated ‘Nasty’ Ted

“Ted Cruz is a nightmare of a human being,” he said

Ted Cruz’s freshman roommate at Princeton, Craig Mazin, has spent the past year trashing Cruz — not so much for his politics but for his “awful personality.”

“Ted Cruz keeps losing to a reality show host, which is deeply pleasing to me,” Mazin tweeted this morning. “‘Only Ted Cruz can unite the party’ is the saddest sentence in politics right now.”

“We know for a FACT that Cruz does the OPPOSITE.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

DHS Whistleblower: U.S. Handcuffed in Terror War

The terms of the settlement of a recent discrimination lawsuit brought by Muslim activists against the New York Police Department has set a dangerous precedent that makes it even harder for law enforcement in the United States to prevent attacks like the coordinated bombings Tuesday in Brussels that killed at least 31 people and injured more than 180, contends a newly retired Department of Homeland Security officer.

Philip Haney, a former Customs and Border Protection officer who previously worked in the Middle East, explained to WND that as part of the settlement reached in U.S. District Court in January, the NYPD was forced to purge a study of terror attacks that helped law enforcement detect potential threats.

Haney, the author of an upcoming book published by WND Books about his experience as a DHS whistleblower titled “See Something, Say Nothing,” warned that the case against the NYPD is helping foster “a subtly coercive, politically based policy that will lead to what we’re seeing in Europe.”

“We’re not immune to it,” he said of the recent mass attacks on civilians in Paris and now Brussels. “If there is no intervention, no response to that intrusion into the law enforcement arena, we will see the same thing happen here.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

GOP Elites Line Up Behind Cruz

(POLITICO) Republican elders, desperate to stop Donald Trump, are increasingly convinced they would rather forfeit the White House than hand their party to the divisive Manhattan billionaire.

That’s why the party’s establishment is suddenly rallying behind Ted Cruz, a man they’ve long despised and who has little chance, in the view of many GOP veterans, of defeating Hillary Clinton on Election Day.

“People think we’re not going to win in November anymore. All the candidates that had a shot at winning don’t appear to have a shot at winning the nomination. Everyone is resigned to that,” said a high-ranking GOP operative about the thinking among Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio alums as well as Republican party officials and big-money donors.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS Attacked Brussels? The US Created ISIS? Therefore?

As far as the Brussels attacks are concerned, if we assume that ISIS was responsible, the whole scenario is turned upside down after analyzing the basis of ISIS.

The Obama administration (jointly with the Bush administration) should be announcing: “Well, we keep ISIS alive. Unfortunately, things happen. One of those things is Brussels.”

And then you could go on to query the sincerity of the word “unfortunately.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Kasich Rejects GOP Call to Quit Race

(NEW YORK TIMES) Republicans desperate to stop Donald J. Trump from capturing the presidential nomination increased the pressure Wednesday on Gov. John Kasich of Ohio to quit the race, with Jeb Bush joining the growing number of party figures throwing their weight behind Senator Ted Cruz.

Mr. Kasich refused, saying that he, not the Texas senator, was the best option to stop Mr. Trump. But his argument was undercut by his dismal showings Tuesday in Utah and Arizona, where he won no delegates — as well as by the surprise endorsement Wednesday morning by Mr. Bush of Mr. Cruz.

Mr. Bush, who dropped out of the presidential race last month, is the latest mainstream Republican — following Mitt Romney and Senator Lindsey Graham — who is ideologically closer to Mr. Kasich, but whose embrace of Mr. Cruz is a strategic calculation that he has a better shot at stopping Mr. Trump.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

O’Reilly: ‘Mark My Words, A Weapon of Mass Destruction Will be Used by the ISIS Savages’

HILLARY CLINTON: “It would also be a serious mistake to begin carpet bombing populated areas into oblivion. Proposing that doesn’t make you sound tough, it makes you sound like you’re in over your head. Slogans aren’t a strategy.”

On that Hillary Clinton and I agree, slogans are no strategy. But again, what is her strategy to stop the terror killings plaguing the world?

What is it?

If “Talking Points” hears about alliances one more time, cardiac arrest may follow.

Let’s stop the BS, people are dying, innocent people.

ISIS is like the black plague marching through Europe, killing at random.

There is a report today that 400 terrorists have been dispatched by ISIS to cause damage in Europe.

The solution to defeating Islamic terrorism lies in brute force, not dumb suggestions that the Kurds handle things, that kind of blather.

America needs a strong leader who will sit down with the smartest military people and map out a clear fighting plan.

Then NATO needs to declare war on the ISIS group.

Then every Muslim nation needs to be asked to pledge troops to help NATO fight ISIS.

No more dithering, no more sloganeering.

Because, and mark my words here, a weapon of mass destruction will be used by the ISIS savages. It is just a matter of time.

And that’s the memo.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Rudy Giuliani: ‘Hillary Clinton Could be Considered a Founding Member of ISIS’

According to Giuliani, there was much to be desired with regards to the details of Clinton’s plan.

“If you are talking about doing what she wants to do, which is to rally our forces against ISIS, you have got to come back to the White House, you got to sit in the situation room, and you can’t leave until you come up with a plan.

The former NYC insisted she had an opportunity to rally those forces while secretary of state. However, she did not he argued, and added she might be responsible for the rise of ISIS.

“She had her chance to do it,” he added. “She helped create ISIS. I mean, Hillary Clinton could be considered a founding member of ISIS.”

Host Bill O’Reilly pressed Giuliani on that statement, to which he went on to argue was due in part to the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq.

“By being part of an administration that withdrew from Iraq,” he replied. “By being part of an administration that let Maliki run Iraq.”

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Shadow Campaign to Deny Trump Delegates Begins

(POLITICO) When South Dakota’s Republican activists convened in Pierre to pick their delegates to the Republican national convention, they got an unexpected visitor.

Merle Madrid, senior aide to Ohio Gov. John Kasich, had flown in from Columbus to make an appeal: If the convention fails to elect front-runner Donald Trump on the first ballot, consider Kasich on the second — even if the state’s Republican voters sent them there to back Trump or Ted Cruz.

Madrid was polite and earnest , but according to interviews with 17 of the state’s 29 delegates, he came up empty.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Utah Voter Reveals Fraud: “I Literally Had Over 50 Ballots in My Hand”

No ID checks and ballots being handed around like napkins.

A GOP caucus in Utah reportedly handed out multiple ballots to voters — and never bothered to check the IDs or credentials of the voters.

One of the voters described the caucus as a vote with “no apparent controls, no credential checks, no ID checks and ballots being handed around like napkins,” with at least 250 ballots passed out to only 120 voters.

“I literally had over 50 ballots in my hand,” the voter wrote on the Godlike Productions forum. “We were told to mark our vote and place our ballot in a tin can.”

“They then asked for a volunteer to hold the can and at this point, most people filed out the door.”

And when he went to visit another precinct caucus, he was handed another ballot without being asked for ID.

“As I left the building, I started overhearing results coming back from other precincts: Overwhelmingly numbers for Cruz, like 70-90% or more,” the voter added. “In one precinct Cruz got around 100, Trump had 2, Kasich 0.”

“Bottom line: They basically are going to post whatever the hell numbers they want.”

There were similar reports of voter fraud and outright lies in Iowa.

For one thing, Marco Rubio was polling at a distant third, yet he managed to finish just one percent behind Trump, and the voting machines used were provided by Microsoft, a major Rubio supporter.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Hold the Presses. It Isn’t Mental Illness— It is Arrogant Liberalism

Once again Canada’s self-appointed media elites are justifying actions of terrorists. This latest attack in Canada-insignificant compared to the recent bombings in Brussels-was downplayed. It wasn’t terrorism-it was mental illness. Of course it was. The left wing British authors of the Euston Manifesto. After a Muslim man entered a Canadian Forces recruiting centre and attacked two soldiers, the editors of the Globe and Mail wrote, “If we become fixated on a pre-existing model of what the world should look like, we are more likely to shape acts of apparent randomness into the picture we expect to see.” So in their desire not to get attached to a pre-existing idea-that Muslims kill in the name of Allah, in the name of their culture and their teachings- they concluded he must be mentally ill. Despite what this man said when he attacked CANADIAN SOLDIERS.

From the Globe March 20, 2016. “A test of the ability to categorize a complex world came this week when a lone man allegedly walked into a Canadian Forces recruiting centre in Toronto and stabbed two soldiers while yelling, ‘Allah told me to come here and kill people.’ Held in connection with the incident is 27-year-old Ayanle Hassan Ali. Is this a case of terrorism? Or a random act of violence, possibly connected to mental illness?”

The Globe and Mail editors did exactly what they warned their readers not to do; jump to a conclusion. They did not want to offend Muslims-they decided to offend the millions of us with mental illness. They want us to believe that mentally ill people do these things when in fact those of us with mental illness tend to harm ourselves-not others. Only a small number of people with severe mental illness like unmanaged schizophrenia have been known to harm others.

So despite the fact it 27-year-old Ayanle Hassan Ali looked like a duck walked like a duck and quacked like a duck-he was a duck except to these self-appointed elites who decided to call him a turkey.

[Comment: Canadian newspapers, magazines and TV is full of this leftism. When SunTV came along they conspired to ensure Canadian were not exposed to the truth. It’s no wonder Canadian TV, magazines and newspaper ratings are tanking.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

61 Out of 300 Brussels Wounded Are Serious — Minister

Burns, injuries caused by metal shards

(ANSA) — Rome, March 24 — Some 61 of the 300 people wounded by the Brussles terror attacks are in “serious condition,” Belgian Health Minister Maggie De Block,said Thursday according to local media. “The most serious injuries are burns caused by a strong explosion and the metal shards,” she said.

The death toll from the attacks currently stands at 32.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

After Brussels, Rome Announces ‘Maximum’ Terror Alert for Easter Festivities

After the horrendous jihadists attacks in Brussels Monday, Rome has declared a maximum terror alert in view of the impending Easter celebrations when more than 150,000 pilgrims and tourists are expected to descend upon the Vatican.

Vatican security was already exceptionally tight, but the recent assault has raised the ante considerably and Rome has responded with intensified security measures at railway stations, subway, airports and famous landmarks.

The ubiquitous patrols are intentionally visible to all, both to reassure visitors and discourage any would-be trouble makers. Vigilance is especially intensified at key points of aggregation where tourists will be congregating during the Easter holidays.

Nowhere is security higher than around the Vatican itself, as the epicenter of the waves of pilgrims entering Rome for Holy Week and Easter.

The area around St. Peter’s Square is fully barricaded, and visitors are required to follow predetermined paths to enter or exit the plaza, after having passed through metal detectors and a gauntlet of security personnel.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Appeasement and Sentimentality Will Not Defeat Jihadis, Says Leo McKinstry

IN its endless fearmongering about the dangers of Brexit the Remain campaign peddles the line that Britain’s membership of the European Union “makes us safer”.

It was always a desperate piece of propaganda but now that argument has been comprehensively demolished by the Islamist atrocity in Brussels, which left at least 31 people dead and more than 270 injured.

Following a string of other barbarities such as the twin massacres in Paris last year the Belgian carnage demonstrates how the EU has made us ever more vulnerable to attack. It was all too gruesomely appropriate that this new outrage should take place close to the European Commission building in Brussels.

For, contrary to all its rhetoric about peace, the EU actually serves as a gigantic engine of chaos and disintegration. Through its refusal to uphold either our values or our borders it has truly helped to create the enemy within.

Its determination to obliterate national identities has left us defenceless. Its obsession with multi-culturalism has shattered our social cohesion.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Arms Traffickers Behind Terrorist Attacks Says Pope

In Holy Thursday homily at asylum seeker center

(ANSA) — Rome, March 24 — The mercenary greed of arms traffickers is behind the bloody March 22 Islamist terror attacks in Brussels, Pope Francis said during his homily as he celebrated Holy Thursday Mass at an asylum seeker reception center near Rome. “Behind the act of war and destruction in a European city…there were others…the arms manufacturers and traffickers,” he said. In the same way, those behind Judas paid him 30 pieces of silver to turn Jesus over, Francis said.

He pointed to two contrasting actions to drive home the importance of believing in peace and brotherhood.

“All of us here together — Muslims, Hindus, Catholics, Copts, Evangelicals — are all brothers and children of the same God who want to be integrated and live in peace: one action,” he said.

“Three days ago an act of war and destruction in a European city was carried out by people who do not want to live in peace — but behind that act as behind Judas there were others…the arms manufacturers and traffickers who want blood not peace, war not brotherhood”. Francis went on to explain the significance of his act of washing the feet of asylum seekers as Jesus washed his disciples’ feet.

“In this moment when I will carry out the same act as Jesus in washing your feet, we are all of us together making an act of brotherhood and we all say: ‘we are diverse, we have different cultures and religions, but we are brothers and we want to live in peace’“.

“May each in his own tongue pray the lord so that this brotherhood becomes contagious in the world, so that there will no longer be 30 pieces of silver to kill one’s brother, so that brotherhood and goodness will always remain”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Dispatch From Molenbeek: Breitbart Reporter Surrounded by Cops, Army — Rifles Trained

As my phone rang, my hand shot to my pocket to take the call. But before I could even get my phone out I had half a dozen police on me, pistols drawn, with soldiers running up to support their colleagues in blue.

On this occasion I decided it wise to follow the instructions being barked at me in French to place my hand wide apart on the rail and to let the phone ring.

The officer closest to me, pistol ready, demanded identification. Foolishly I let instinct rule my head and reached for my wallet.

As I did the nearest soldier twitched. The rifle came up. That was all the instruction I needed to return my hand to the rail.

Once my body had been searched and my British identity assured, nervous smiles spread on the men and women’s faces. They apologised but made it clear I should not be in that area — a public space, in the heart of Brussels.

Walking out of Molenbeek it was clear the locals were treating me with suspicion and several shouted angrily in Arabic at me.

As a Caucasian male in Molenbeek the police have to assume a man wearing a heavy coat to keep warm near the police station is a threat. The predominantly Arab population assume I’m an undercover cop.

Its the same treatment I got in Sweden’s Rosengard.

As I crossed the threshold of the suburb into Brussels centre, a native Belgian stopped me and called me crazy for going in there at all. She echoed warnings I’d had from European Parliament staff beforehand that the situation there is beyond bad.

As I write this I read there have been police raids in the Chausse d’Ixelles so it is time to move again. This time I’ll try to look less like an Islamist killer.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

EU Ministers to Demand More Data Access After Brussels Attacks

Following the terrorist attacks in Brussels, European Union ministers are planning on a new security-driven push for access to communications data — including a dedicated international data sharing platform.

This comes after 31 people were killed and roughly 300 others were injured when three suicide bombers attacked Brussel’s Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station on Tuesday morning.

Ministers had drawn up a draft statement at a “hastily arranged meeting”, which was seen by the Financial Times, which reported that the EU’s security politicians will soon call “for a European legislative blueprint to be drawn by June to enable government to obtain easier access” to what is being termed “digital evidence”.

As part of the plans, the ministers will back the creation of a “dedicated platform” for live information sharing, as well as a renewed push on the development of the Shengen Information System II, which the UK joined last April.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Former Israeli Intel Operatives Run Security at Brussels Airport

But wait, there’s more.

Via: sott.net:

The aviation and general security services firm ICTS handles security operations at Brussels airport, the scene of a bomb attack yesterday morning.

This will not, however, be the first time that ICTS has come under scrutiny for possible security lapses leading to a ‘Muslim terror attack’.

As the provider of security services to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and United Airlines and US Airways, the firm’s security system was criticized for somehow allowing erstwhile ‘underwear bomber’, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to “slip through” and board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 to Detroit with explosive materials on Christmas day 2009.

But ICTS’security faux pas’ don’t end there. In December 2001, they somehow managed to let deranged shoe bomber Richard Reid, onto his Miami-bound flight in Paris, and this was after ICTS had cleared Reid through security at Amsterdam airport on a flight to Tel Aviv in July 2001 for what was apparently an all-expenses paid week-long trip to the Israeli city.

ICTS also somehow missed several of the alleged 9/11 hijackers who allegedly flew out of Boston’s Logan airport on September 11th 2001. ICTS also handled security for London’s bus network during the July 7, 2005, ‘suicide’ bomb attacks. In fact, two of its subsidiaries, ICTS UK and ICTS Europe Systems, are based at Tavistock House, Tavistock Square in London, scene of the London Stagecoach bus bombing that day.

That’s quite a record, all in all.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘I Think Maybe it’s Time’: Trump Says Britain Will Leave the EU Because of Migration ‘Craziness’ And Says ‘Thousands and Thousands’ Of People Backed His Claims About ‘Radicalized’ London

Donald Trump says ‘it’s time’ for Britain to leave the EU due to ‘the craziness that’s going on with migration’ as he maintained he was right over claims that parts of London had become ‘radicalised’.

The US Presidential hopeful insisted he was not endorsing Britain’s exit from the EU but said that ‘people pouring in all over the place’ would be the final straw for British voters when it came to June’s referendum.

The billionaire tycoon turned politician said there was ‘unrest’ in the UK and insisted ‘thousands and thousands’ of Britons backed his controversial pledge to ban Muslims from the US.

Mr Trump caused uproar in Britain after backing up the policy by claiming parts of London were so radicalised that they were ‘no-go areas’ for police and it led to a campaign to ban him from the UK.

But speaking to DailyMail.com U.S Editor-at-Large Piers Morgan on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Mr Trump described the move as ‘disgraceful,’ adding: ‘That ban went nowhere, it shouldn’t have gone anywhere.’

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS Have 400 Trained Fighters in Europe Who Are Poised to Unleash More Terror Attacks

Officials believe hundreds of extremists have been trained specifically for external attacks on European cities, like the ones which have brought death and devastation to Brussels and Paris.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: FCA Issues Eight-Year Benchmark Bond at 3.75%

4.5 billion euros in orders

(ANSA) — Milan, March 23 — Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) on Wednesday issued an eight-year 1.25-billion benchmark bond denominated in euro with a 3.75% yield, with orders totaling 4.5 billion euros.

Joint bookrunners included Banca Imi, Credit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, RBS, Societe Generale and UniCredit.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: ‘Informal’ ECB OK to BPM-Banco Merger

Business plan needed for formal green light

(ANSA) — Rome, March 23 — The European Central Bank’s banking oversight committee has issued “an informal green light”, sources said, to the merger between Italian banks Banca Popolare di Milano (BPM) and Banco Popolare after modifications requested on capital action and the governance of the post-merger bank, which would be Italy’s third biggest. To obtain a formal green light the banks must reportedly present a business plan which must be examined first by the ECB’s Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) and later by the ECB’s governing council, the sources said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Hitachi Buys Another 3.47% of Ansaldo STS

Japanese group a hair’s breadth below 50%

(ANSA) — Milan, March 23 — Hitachi on Wednesday bought another 3.468% of Italian rail signalling company Ansaldo STS, taking the Japanese group to within a hair’s breadth of owning 50%. Hitachi said it might buy other shares too to stave off a possible takeover bid.

Hitachi is aiming to raise its stake Ansaldo STS from 46.48% to over 50% and avert that risk, ANSA sources said earlier Wednesday.

The Japanese group contacted several investors with stakes of under 5% and offered them 10.50 euros per share.

That offer also applied to investors who sold a total of 6.4% of the company’s capital in a public offer that concluded last week.

Several major investors did not sign up and took legal action, saying the initial offer of 9.50 euros per share undervalued the company. Hitachi bought 40% of Ansaldo STS from Italian defence and aerospace giant Finmeccanica last year at the 9.50 euros price. Italian prosecutors are probing alleged collusion between Hitachi and Finmeccanica on the price and finance police searched the two companies’ offices in Italy, and those of Ansaldo STS, last week.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Priest to Face Trial for Child Porn

Father Franco Legrottaglie, 67, under house arrest since Nov

(ANSA) — Brindisi, March 23 — Father Franco Legrottaglie will go to trial May 2 for possession of child pornography, sources said Wednesday.

The 67-year-old prelate from Ostuni in Brindisi province has been under house arrest since November.

He served in the Brindisi-Ostuni diocese, including as a parish priest and a chaplain at Perrino Hospital in Brindisi.

He has a previous conviction for “violently libidinous acts” in a 1991 incident, for which he was sentenced to a year and ten months in prison.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: 5 Politicians Arrested for ‘Ndrangheta ‘Vote Buying’

Former undersecretary Principe under house arrest

(ANSA) — Cosenza, March 23 — Five politicians were arrested by Carabinieri police from the southern city of Cosenza and put under house arrest on Wednesday for alleged “vote buying” with Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta mafia. Four jailed members of the Cosenza-based Lanzino-Ruà ‘Ndrangheta clan were also issued arrest warrants in relation to the case. Among the politicians implicated is Sandro Principe, a member of Premier Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) and former labour ministry undersecretary. He was also the former mayor of the town of Rende and a former executive regional councillor. Principe was shot and seriously injured when Rende mayor in 2004 by a disgruntled former bank worker, Sergio Staino, and never fully recovered.

Former city councillor Giuseppe Gagliardi, 69, was also arrested.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Two Britons Arrested for Terrorism in Bari

‘Brought false passports for Ansar al-Islam’

(ANSA) — Bari, March 24 — Two Britons of Iraqi origin were arrested this week in Bari, the Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno reported Thursday.

The pair are suspected of bringing into Italy false passports for the Ansar al-Islam jihadist group, police said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Jihad in Brussels

by Judith Bergman

Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said on June 24, 2015, at a conference aptly named “Call to Europe V: Islam in Europe”:

“The idea of a clash between Islam and ‘the West’… has misled our policies and our narratives. Islam holds a place in our Western societies. Islam belongs in Europe…. I am not afraid to say that political Islam should be part of the picture.”

Nine months later, the ignorance, willful blindness and sheer incompetence regarding even the most basic tenets of Islam, which Mogherini betrayed in her statement has reaped yet another lethal result. What she said is fairly representative of the view aired in public by the European political and cultural establishment.

Thirty-one people were killed and around 300 wounded in Brussels on March 22, in the bombings of Brussels airport and Maalbeek metro station, at the heart of the European Union itself. ISIS took responsibility for these latest terrorist attacks

Mogherini, at an official press conference in Jordan, broke down in tears during her comments on the day’s terrorist attacks. But the pain she, as one of the highest-profile representatives of the EU, exhibited on behalf of the many killed and wounded in Europe, is self-inflicted. It is Europe’s immunity to facts that has led directly to the current state of utter chaos in European security matters.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Juncker Warms to the Idea of an EU Intelligence Agency

Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said today (23 March) that better cooperation of member states’ secret services was needed to respond to the challenge of terrorism. Juncker spoke alongside French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who visited Brussels in the aftermath of yesterday’s terrorist attacks in the capital of the EU.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Media Manipulation: More Fake Video Reports of the Brussels Terror Attacks

So far two cases of fake videos: can we trust the mainstream media reports concerning the Brussels terror attacks?

One of the first videos published by Belgium’s mainstream media, was, according to reports, from the CC security surveillance cameras at Brussels airport. The video report was released at 9.07am, one hour after the first bomb attack at the airport.

The video was fake. What Derniere Heure and La Libre published was footage from a January 2011 terror attack at Moscow International airport.

Journalists and media editors are fully aware that surveillance videos at an airport are under the jurisdiction of the airport’s security authorities. They are not normally released immediately after a terror attack.

There was no way the media could have got hold of the surveillance videos in the immediate wake of the attacks. Moreover, following the attack, the airport was closed down.

In another words, the airport surveillance video would not have been available to the media less than one hour after the terror event.

What Derniere Heure did was to take the Moscow International airport video, remove the audio in Russian, change the date and broadcast it on the Internet and network TV at 9:07 AM.

Was this a stupid mistake or was it deliberate?

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Mysterious Death of Italian Banking Executive to be Re-Examined Amid Murder Claims

The mysterious death of an executive who worked for the world’s oldest bank is to be re-examined after Italian prosecutors ordered that his body be exhumed.

David Rossi, who was the head of communications for Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank, which was founded in 1472, died after falling — or being pushed — from a third floor window of the bank’s headquarters in a 14th century palazzo in the Tuscan city of Siena.

His death in March 2013 came at a time when the bank was pushed close to the brink of collapse over a scandal involving the loss of hundreds of millions of euros through risky investments.

Prosecutors in Siena, where the bank is based, have ordered his body to be exhumed and for the trajectory of his fall to be simulated, in an attempt to discover exactly how he died.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Poland: 14.5 Mln Active E-Banking Users

Up by 11.3% compared to 2014

(ANSA) — TRIESTE — There were 14.5 million active users of e-banking services in Poland in 2015 — 11.3% more than the year before, Warsaw Business Journal reported quoting the data made available by the Polish Bank Association (Zbp). The accounts with access to banking services online were 30.3 million — 20.8% more than in 2014.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Slovakia: New Government, Three Ministers to Nationalists

Fico’s Smer-SD will have 9 departments

(ANSA) — BRATISLAVA — The new Slovak government, composed of four parties (both to leftwing and rightwing) is ready and the coalition Smer-SD led by Prime Minister Robert Fico will appoint 9 ministers. Miroslav Lajcak will remain at the head of diplomacy and Robert Kalinak is confirmed as Interior Minister. Three ministers of the new government were appointed by the Slovak National Party (SNS), whereas Peter Gajdos — since 2013 deputy chief of staff of the Slovak armed forces — was appointed as the Defence Minister. Two ministers were appointed by Most-Hid, the party of the Hungarian minority, whereas the rightwing party Siet (Network) appointed the Transport Minister. The outgoing one-party government led by premier Fico is expected to resign today. President Andrej Kiska will then entrust Fico with the power to appoint the new government. The Social Democrats of Smer-SD won the general election on March 4, but lost majority in parliament. Therefore, Fico was forced to form a coalition with 4 of the 8 parties that entered parliament.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Spain: Protests Outside Islamist-Linked Mosque After Brussels Attacks

Following terrorist attacks by Islamists in Brussels, protesters from Hogar Social Madrid (Madrid Social Home) protested terror-linked Madrid mosque, the Islamic Cultural Centre.

Occupying an overpass facing the mosque, known locally as the M-30 due to its proximity to the motorway, the group used smoke canisters, fired flares and hung a banner emblazoned with the words “Today Brussels, tomorrow Madrid?”

Explaining their choice of location to protest, the group’s statement on its Facebook page slammed it as a centre of extreme Islamist ideology with links to Islamic State.

As well as being described as “not just as a ‘recruitment ground’ but effectively as operational headquarters” for the terror cell which plotted the 2004 train bombing that killed almost 200 people, the Islamic Cultural Centre was used as a jihadi recruitment hub by terror network Al-Andalus Brigade. Led by ex-Guantanamo Bay prisoner Lahcen Ikassrien, the group recruited fighters for Islamic State in Syria using the cafeteria as its base.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

The Shrapnel That Ripped the Brussels Victims to Shreds: Doctors Reveal Bomb Fragments That Were Pulled From Survivors After Terror Attacks

These horrific images show the twisted and bloodied pieces of shrapnel doctors have removed from those wounded in Tuesday’s devastating terrorist bomb blasts.

Doctors showed the huge pieces of metal to the press and Belgium’s royal family after they were removed from patients they treated in the aftermath of the airport and metro terror attacks.

Belgian King Philippe and Queen Mathilde inspected the fragments today during a visit to speak with survivors at Gasthuisberg hospital in Louvain, Belgium.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Cameron Urges Christian Leaders to ‘Reach Out’ To Muslim Communities and ‘Fight Extremism’

DAVID Cameron has urged Christian leaders in the UK to help Muslim communities to tackle extremism in the wake of the Brussels bombings.

The Prime Minister said Christians had to join the “great fight” by “reaching out” to Muslims and helping to stop people drifting into extremism.

Speaking at an Easter reception for Christians in Downing Street, he said he wanted to build “stronger and more resilient” communities.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Syrian Troops Nearing Palmyra, Reports Sana

‘ISIS preparing offensive in Aleppo province’

(ANSAmed) — BEIRUT/MOSCOW, MARCH 24 — Syrian government forces have not yet entered the city of Palmyra but are only a few kilometers from it, reported state-run new agency SANA on Thursday. The reports came after Syrian state-run television broadcast images of a Syrian flag raised over a building that it said was in the center of the city. The English website of SANA reported that “…army units, in cooperation with popular defense groups, have advanced further in the vicinity” of Palmyra. “A military source told SANA that al-Qubour valley and al-Qusour Mountains, located to the west of Palmyra, came in the army’s hands, after earlier restoring al-Tar Mountain, 3 km west of Palmyra Castle,” the website reported. Meanwhile, Islamic State (ISIS) are massing for an offensive against government troops in the Aleppo province, the Russian defense ministry was quoted by Interfax as saying on Thursday. The news agency said that Russian warplanes had destroyed 146 ISIS military objectives in 41 airstrikes in the Palmyra area between March 20 and 23, killing over 320 jihadists. Five tanks, six pieces of artillery, two munitions warehouses and 15 vehicles were reportedly destroyed in the airstrikes.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

US Arrest of Scandal-Tainted Turkey Tycoon Enthrals Erdogan Critics

It has all the ingredients of one of the soap operas that keep Turks hooked for weeks. A flamboyant young businessman who rose fast, a superstar singer wife, and intrigue that goes to the dark heart of Turkish politics.

The surprise arrest in the United States of Turkish-Iranian gold mogul Reza Zarrab stunned Turkey, where Zarrab had been linked to a 2013 corruption scandal that ensnared the government of then premier, now president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Zarrab spent 70 days in custody in Turkey over the scandal that Erdogan denounced as a plot by his arch-foe, the US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, to bring down his government…

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

Russia Destroys 700 Tonnes of Polish Apples

Imported regardless the embargo

(ANSA) — TRIESTE — Russian authorities have destroyed 700 tonnes of apples imported from Poland regardless the embargo, Polskie radio reported. The ban on the import of fruit and vegetables has been introduced by Russia in August 2014, following the EU sanctions against Moscow due to the Ukrainian crisis. Since then, the export of fruit from Poland fell by 10%, while a 19% drop has been registered in terms of vegetables export.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Bangladeshi Islamists Threaten Violence if Supreme Court Drops Islam as State Religion

The Hifazat-e-Islam Bangladesh group has called for a mass strike on Friday, warning that “Millions of Muslims will come out of mosques against the Supreme Court” and punish the judges. For Catholics and Hindus, the group’s threats are “immoral”.

Dhaka (AsiaNews) — The Islamic fundamentalist group Hifazat-e-Islam Bangladesh has threatened retaliation and a general strike if the Supreme Court seriously considers dropping Islam as the state religion.

The judges are currently holding public hearings to decide whether to repeal the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which makes Islam the state religion.

“Bangladesh is a country where 92 per cent of the people are Muslim. If anybody removes our religion from the constitution, we shall oppose them. If the government and the Supreme Court do it, they will offend our religious sentiment,” said the Hifazat-e-Islam Bangladesh Secretary Azizul Haque Islamabadi. Huge mass protest and people will follow with dire consequences.

The leaders of the Islamist group met in Chittagong. At a press conference, they expressed their opposition to the petition brought to the Supreme Court by activists, writers and educators.

The latter base their initiative on the fact that this sectarian element was absent from the country’s first constitution in 1971. The eighth amendment making Islam the state religion came only in 1988.

For their part, fundamentalists call on Muslims to join a mass strike planned for this Friday. “If we become involved in protest over this issue, this government will responsible,” Islamabadi said.

“Millions Muslims will come out to protest against Supreme Court,” he added, “and will punish those who want to drop Islam as the state religion.”

Hifazat and Bangladesh-Islam was founded in 2010 to challenge the government’s secular education policy.

“We abide by the court, but we hope it will not take any decision which will force religious people to take to the streets and cause chaos in the country,” Islamabadi noted.

Others told AsiaNews that the extremists’ warning is “unfortunate.” For one Hindu, the Islamists “are blind; they only think of themselves. They do not respect the Supreme Court and want a State of militants.”

“Their demands are immoral,” said Rosaline Costa, a Catholic activist. “The party has no legal basis or recognition by the State. Since it made its first public appearance in 2013, it has aroused a lot of controversy because it is fighting against the nation’s progress, development and the empowerment of women.”

The activist also pointed out that the first constitution signed in 1971 was based “on four pillars. One was the secular state. The eighth amendment was approved instead under the government of the military dictatorship (led by General Hussain Muhammad Ershad), but has never been accepted by the people. Therefore, the question of the legitimacy of this amendment should be settled. The government needs to move forward in its action.”

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

China’s Vaccine Scandal: Horror for Millions of Parents Amid the Country’s Latest Health Scare After £62 Million Worth of Illegal Jabs Have Been Distributed Nationwide

A vaccine scandal in China that saw £62 million ($88 million) worth of expired or contaminated drugs trafficked across the country has left many parents worried for their children’s health.

Out-of-date jabs for polio, rabies and chickenpox among others made by licensed pharmaceutical companies may have been given out since 2011, which were distributed by a vaccine trafficking ring led by a mother and her daughter, reports the People’s Daily Online.

So far at least 37 people have been detained and 13 wholesalers put under investigation. The case has shocked the nation and raised many questions over vaccine safety, it could be the country’s worst public health crisis since a tainted baby formula cover-up in 2008.

The scandal also involves the illegal and improper storage, transport and sale of vaccines across China.

Last month, police in Shandong Province, east China, announced they had arrested a mother, surnamed Pang, and daughter, surnamed Sun, in April 2015, who are alleged to be the ring leaders in the scandal

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Liberia Shuts Border With Guinea as Suspected Ebola Victims Flee Doctors

The government is now working to identify and quarantine individuals who have definitely come into contact with the Ebola patients. Officials tell Reuters they have identified 816 people who potentially carry Ebola, but finding them and quarantining them will be difficult. “When the villagers realized that the test conducted by our health teams on the man were positive, they all fled into the bush,” an official told Reuters of Makoidou, the village in which the fifth patient died.

Local news outlet Guinee News cites authorities as recounting the last days of the man, who has not been identified, as he went from village to village seeking treatment for Ebola. He first went to Balan village and then went to a second unnamed village, “where he spent the night before returning in contact with a healer.” Dissatisfied, he found another healer willing to take his case in Maikodou, where he died.

Macenta health director Dr. Mamadou Diallo, who tells this story, notes that hundreds of those identified as suspected Ebola cases are in hiding. “Today, according to Dr. Diallo, the main difficulty of the prefectural coordination of response is due to the fact that the village where the death took place is deserted, and several high-risk contacts are on the run without a trace at the moment,” Guinee News notes.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Ann Coulter — Hashtag: We Are Neville Chamberlain!

Then, in January of this year, Trump talked specifically about the Muslim invasion of Brussels on the Maria Bartiromo show. “There is something going on, Maria,” he said. “Go to Brussels. … There is something going on and it’s not good, where they want Sharia law … There is something bad going on.”

The New York Times headlined a story on the interview: “Donald Trump Finds New City to Insult: Brussels.” News is no longer about communicating information; it’s about imparting an attitude. Trump is rude, so whether he’s right is irrelevant. As the saying goes, “Better dead than rude.”

Indignant Belgians took to Twitter, the Times reported, “deploying an arsenal of insults, irony and humor, including images of Belgium’s beloved beer and chocolate.” Liberals have gone from not understanding jokes to not understanding English. When Trump talked about unassimilated Muslim immigrants demanding Sharia law, I don’t think he was knocking Belgium’s beer and chocolate.

Rudi Vervoort, the president of the Brussels region (who evidently survived this week’s bombing), rebuked Trump, saying, “We can reassure the Americans that Brussels is a multicultural city where it is good to live.”

After multiculturalism struck this week, Vervoort said, “I would like to express my support to the victims of the attacks of this morning …” Twitter bristled with supportive hashtags, the Belgian flag and professions of solidarity. The Times editorialized: “Brussels, Europe, the world must brace for a long struggle against this form of terrorism.”

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: Teacher Brutally Murdered by Afghan Migrant

The Afghan asylum seeker accused of the brutal murder is 58 years-old and came to Germany during the mass wave of migrants that came through Greece and the Balkans in December. It is thought that the murder came out of an argument between the pair and that it has escalated into violence. The Afghan is thought to have beaten the teacher about the head with a rock and a metal instrument like a pipe or a crowbar.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Pope Washes Feet of 11 Refugees, One CARA Staffer

At asylum-seekers’ centre north of Rome

(ANSA) — Rome, March 24 — Pope Francis on Thursday washed the feet of 11 refugees and a staffer at an asylum-seekers’ reception centre (CARA) at Castelnuovo di Porto north of Rome, commemorating what Jesus did to his disciples at the Last Supper. When he washed the feet of CARA staffer Angela Ferri, the only Italian in the group, the woman murmured ‘mamma’, recalling her mother who died a few days ago.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Mass Immigration is on the Verge of Destroying Europe, Blasts Leo McKinstry

SEVERAL millennia were required to build European civilisation but its impending destruction has been the work of just a few years, carried out by a cadre of irresponsible, unpatriotic and deluded politicians led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Dressing up their vandalism as compassion and their cowardice as moral superiority, these leaders have created an immigration crisis so profound that the very existence of our European culture and heritage is under mortal threat.

The tragic paradox of the obsession with free movement and the abolition of national identities is that Europe in any meaningful sense will probably cease to exist this century.

As the social revolution accelerates traditional values of democracy, freedom and solidarity will be replaced by conflict, sectarianism, oppression and intolerance.

Increasingly Islamified, barbaric and poverty-stricken, Europe will become indistinguishable from large swathes of North Africa and the Middle East.

           — Hat tip: Nick [Return to headlines]
 

Piers Morgan: When it Comes to Terror, Isn’t it Time We Started Listening Seriously to Trump?

By Piers Morgan

How many more?

That’s all I could think this morning as news broke of yet another ISIS terror attack, this time in Brussels.

How many more innocent men, women and children are going to be blown to pieces by these murderous bastards?

How many more airports, train stations, sports stadiums, restaurants or concert halls will be obliterated in a hail of suicide bombs and bullets?

How many more world leaders will wring their hands on national television afterwards and spout pointless platitudes about the ‘poor brave victims’ and ‘heroic emergency services’?

How many taunting, gleeful claims of responsibility will the despicable perpetrators of these evil crimes be able to issue?

I’m sick of this, aren’t you?

Sick of feeling sick about such endless, senseless barbarism.

And the worst thing about it is that I see no end…

Trump told me countries must tighten their borders in light of these terror attacks, especially to anyone related to an ISIS fighter in Syria.

Is he so wrong?

He told me he wants law-abiding Muslims to root out the extremists in their midst, expressing his bafflement and anger that someone like Abdeslam was able to hide for so long in the very part of Brussels he had previously lived.

Is he so wrong?

He told me America must make it far harder for illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. and thinks European countries should follow suit.

Is he so wrong?

He told me he believes there are now areas of many major European cities which have become poisonous breeding grounds for radicalized Islamic terror.

Is he so wrong?

I didn’t feel I was talking to a lunatic, as many seem to view Trump.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

14 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/24/2016

  1. It seems that the overriding prerequisite to be a ‘leader’ in the West these days is that the candidate MUST be a congenital idiot.

    • I feel despair every time Cameron opens his mouth! Just once could someone not request the Muslim community to embrace the rest of Society? Amidst all the grief in Bruxelles you witness a Muslim women destroying an Israeli flag and replacing it with a Palestinian one instead having not to carefully trodden over other people’s tributes. Muslim children celebrated the atrocity by cheering in the playground and yet the teacher is questioned by the police for tweeting about this abhorrent fact. The first reaction to the ever growing attacks by jihadis by Western leaders is concern for the Muslim population and “islamaphobia”, how about the non Muslim population being given some consideration for a change (they are the ones being murdered and maimed after all)

      • He has said numerous times (at his KJV Bible speech, at an Eid dinner …) that he is no religious scholar and he is not an authority on religious matters at all.

        So according to DC himself, there is no need for anyone to listen to anything he has to say about Islam, because he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

    • I feel despair every time Cameron opens his mouth! Just once could someone not request the Muslim community to embrace the rest of Society? Amidst all the grief in Bruxelles you witness a Muslim women destroying an Israeli flag and replacing it with a Palestinian one instead having not to carefully trodden over other people’s tributes. Muslim children celebrated the atrocity by cheering in the playground and yet the teacher is questioned by the police for tweeting about this abhorrent fact. The first reaction to the ever growing attacks by jihadis by Western leaders is concern for the Muslim population and “islamaphobia”, how about the non Muslim population being given some consideration for a change (they are the ones being murdered and maimed after all)

  2. Another tiny example of state of France nowadays

    Paris. http://bit.ly/1Up0w9f
    Woman in burka arrested while burning bible. Court finds her guilty for wearing burka but bible burning. When asked why she said she felt persecuted.

  3. Giant boils are growing in cities all over Western Europe. They need to be lanced – on sight.

  4. “”Mass Immigration is on the Verge of Destroying Europe, Blasts Leo McKinstry””
    “”Increasingly Islamified, barbaric and poverty-stricken, Europe will become indistinguishable from large swathes of North Africa and the Middle East.””

    That’s the plan to make us all poor, so that they can create a permanent political class and lord over us. But it will all end in chaos and blood shed and the further fracturing of Europe into even more smaller autonomy zones, look to Lebanon and the former Yugoslavia as to what our future might look like.

    • Leo McKinstry has written some good stuff. He has a column in the Daily Express.

      Max Hastings, another military historian, has written some good stuff over the years as well.

      Remember when Paul Weston got lifted for reading something that Churchill wrote about Islam? Well Max Hastings had also quoted that passage in one of his columns, in the national press. And he wasn’t lifted for doing so, either.

      It’s handy to make a note of what people like this say – and when you want to make the same point, then quote them. It gives one an extra layer of protection, legally speaking, if you are not engaging in ‘hate speech’ but are merely quoting a respected military historian who was writing in the national press.

  5. Re Ann Coulter: Chamberlain is unfairly condemned. He seems to have understood that Britain could have lost a war with Hitler in 1938. A couple of years later, thanks to the Nazis’ overconfidence, we were building fighter ‘planes faster than the Germans.

    Re Piers Morgan: Oh how hard it is, to find myself agreeing with this- er- person!

    • That may be at least partially correct, re. Chamberlain. But GB shouldn’t have been in that position in the first place. There had been time aplenty to get themselves sorted out & get planes etc built. But under Chamberlain, they hadn’t done so.

      Also: consider how Halifax wanted to parley with the Italians & seek terms with the Nazis in May 1940, & how Chamberlain spoke out in support of this.

      It’s an interesting subject, & there’s a lot to it. But the bottom line is surely that attempting to appease an enemy who you cannot trust, who will break any deal they make with you, who has given themselves over to evil, and who wants to see you kneel before them, just won’t work.

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