Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/25/2016

A man suspected of being a terrorist was shot and wounded by armed police in Brussels after taking a woman hostage at a tram stop. The alleged suspect was carrying a rucksack with bomb materials in it, and is thought to be connected with a terror plot in France that was also foiled today.

In other news, an Islamic State leader said to be second-in-command to Caliph al-Baghdadi was surrounded and killed today by U.S. special forces in Syria.

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

Thanks to AF, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, 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.

Financial Crisis
» ECB Warns High-Debt Countries Risk ‘Shocks’
» Eurozone Recovery Continuing at Moderate Pace — ECB
» Students Stiff Taxpayers on $600 Billion of Non-Perfoming Loans
 
USA
» Cruz Responds to ‘Garbage’ Affair Accusations, Blames Trump
» Donald Trump and China: A Complex Relationship
» Feeling G.O.P. Peril, Muslims Try to Get Out Vote
» Franklin Graham: ‘Quran Teaches Its Followers to Hate’
» Get Ready for TSA Sexual Molestation Outside Airports
» Giuliani: Clinton a “Founding Member” of ISIS
» Hitler-Supporting AI Bot Nixed
» ‘Lost’ Emails Show Hillary Clinton Used Server Earlier Than Admitted, Has Not Turned Over All Emails
» McHugh: Catholic Church ‘Prostrating Themselves Before a Religion That’s Been at War With Them for 1400 Years’
» Number of US Drones Will Nearly Triple by 2020: FAA
» Save America in Twenty Eight Steps
» State Department Reveals American Deaths in Brussels Hours Before Obama Returns to United States
» The Nuclear Option — Trump Proves He Has Wisdom and Temperament to Lead Free World, Terrifies Naysayers
» Water Treatment Plant Hacked, Chemical Mix Changed for Tap Supplies
 
Europe and the EU
» 3 Terror Suspects Nabbed in Brussels Raids
» After Brussels Attack: ‘Europe Won’t Exist in Ten Years’
» Armed Police Shoot Man ‘Carrying a Bomb in a Rucksack After He Takes a Woman Hostage’ At Brussels Tram Station as They Swoop on Terror Suspects Linked to ‘Imminent Attack in France’
» Brussels Attacks: Belgian Police Wearing Hazmat Gear Comb Streets Arrest 6
» Brussels Jihadists ‘Plotted Radioactive Bomb Attack’
» Bulgaria: Labour Costs Up by 5.8% in Oct-Dec 2015
» Bungling Belgian Police Knew of Paris Bomber Abdeslam’s Secret Hideout for Three Months But Did Nothing… While He Planned Machine Gun Massacre at ‘Easter’
» Dozens of Swedish Women Show Support for Islam by Taking Selfies in Hijab After Brussels Massacre
» Dr. Jill Bellamy: “This is a War and There Will be Thousands of Deaths All Across Europe.”
» EU Fails to Agree on Counter-Terror Measures
» Ex-Times-of-London Editor: ‘The Scariest Thing About Brussels is Our Reaction to it.’
» In the Capital of Europe
» Indian Air Stewardess in Iconic Brussels Airport Bomb Photograph is Now Stable After Suffering Burns to 15 Per Cent of Her Body and a Shattered Foot
» Italian Newspaper Speaks Out: Ban and Expel Islam!
» Italy: Bertolaso Slams Mogherini for Crying Over Brussels
» Italy: Colosseum Via Crucis on ‘Lockdown’ For Easter Safety
» Italy: Cops Nab Syrian Jail-Breaker and the Guard Who Helped Him
» No Peace for the Mourners of the Brussels Terrorist Attack Dead
» Now Former CIA Head Confirms: European Union ‘Gets in the Way’ of National Security
» Spanish Patriots Protest ISIS Mosque
» Swedish Policemen: We Are Defenceless Against Terrorists
» UK: Popular Muslim Shopkeeper, 40, Was Stabbed to Death Outside His Business in a Religiously Motivated Attack by Another Muslim Just Hours After He Posted a Message Wishing His ‘Beloved Christian Nation’ A Happy Easter
» Video Shows Woman Tearing Up Israeli Flag at Brussels Memorial
» VW, Porsche Recalling 800,000 SUVs Over Possible Pedal Issue
 
Balkans
» Macedonia: 6 Sentenced for Joining ISIS, Recruiting Fighters
 
North Africa
» British Special Forces Reported in Libya Since Start Year
» The Daoud Affair
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Exclusive — Top Jihadist Claims Islamic State Has Agents Working in Western Airports
 
Middle East
» A Year of War That Has Set Yemen Back Decades
» Amnesty Report Criticizes Jordan for Human Rights Violations
» Backstory: Behind the Terror Takedown
» Exclusive — Arab Intel Official: Islamic State Stepping Up Efforts to Carry Out Attacks in U.S., Russia
» In Syria and Iraq, The Islamic State is in Retreat on Multiple Fronts — the Washington Post
» Iraqi Army Launches Operation to Retake Mosul From Islamic State
» IS Group Claims Triple Suicide Bombing in Yemen
» ISIS Second-in-Command With a $7million Bounty on His Head is Killed in Bombing Raid as Terror Group in Retreat Across Iraq and Syria
» Saudi Arabia Arrests Shiite Religious Leader for ‘Exalting’ Hezbollah
» Surrounded Special Forces Hero Blows Up ISIS Jihadis After Calling in Airstrike on Himself
 
South Asia
» Malaysia Arrests 15 for Suspected Links to Islamic State
» ‘No-One Told Me I Was Going to be Interviewed by a Muslim’
 
Far East
» Around 100 China Ships Encroaching Malaysia’s Waters: Minister
» Hong Kong Bookseller Bows to Chinese Pressure?
 
Immigration
» “Child Migrants” Linked to DC Murders
» A Time for Choosing
» Austrians: ‘Reds, It’s Your Fault’
» Berlin to Build on Tempelhof Despite Drop in Refugees
» Denmark Deploys the Army at Asylum Centres
» Germany: ISIS Refugee-Terrorist Arrest in Berlin
» Hillary-Merkel: Partners in ‘Invited Refugee Invasion’ Crime
» Illegal Alien Allowed to Stay in USA Pleads Guilty to Rape, Murder, Kidnapping
» ISIS Jihadis Entering UK Set to Soar as France Bans Lorry X-Rays Over Migrant Safety Fears
» Italy: D’Alema Calls for ‘European Islam’
» More Aid Agencies Join Boycott of Greek Migrant Camps
» UK: 40 Per Cent of Illegal Migrant and Foreign Criminal Deportations Cancelled Due to Lack of Staff
 
Culture Wars
» George Soros’ Son Donates $1 Million to Planned Parenthood to Help Elect Hillary Clinton
 
General
» How Chronic Stress Promotes Spread of Cancer, And What You Can Do About it
 

ECB Warns High-Debt Countries Risk ‘Shocks’

Central bank says Italy exposed to high medium term risks

(ANSA) — Rome, March 24 — The European Central Bank (ECB) warned Thursday that countries with high debt levels such as Italy remained exposed to volatility on the money markets.

“Countries with high debt levels are particularly vulnerable in the event of renewed financial market instability, given the still strong fiscal-financial nexus,” the ECB said in its economic bulletin. “Moreover, their capacity to accommodate potential adverse shocks is rather limited”. Italy has a massive public debt of over two trillion euros, more than 130% of GDP. The ECB pointed out in the bulletin that the European Commission recently identified eight eurozone countries, including Italy along with Belgium, Ireland, Spain, France, Portugal, Slovenia and Finland, as being “exposed to high medium-term fiscal sustainability risks, mainly on account of their elevated government debt levels and/or high implicit liabilities”.

Economic recovery in the eurozone is continuing but at a slower rate than expected, the European Central Bank (ECB) said in its monthly bulletin published on Thursday.

“The economic recovery in the euro area is continuing, albeit with lower than expected growth at the beginning of the year on the back of a weaker external environment,” the bank said.

“Looking ahead, the economic recovery is expected to proceed at a moderate pace,” it added. “Domestic demand should be further supported by the ECB’s monetary policy measures and their favourable impact on financing conditions, as well as by continued employment gains from past structural reforms,” the bank continued. “Overall, insufficient demand remains the single most important factor holding back services business at the euro area level, but other factors play a role at country and sub-sectoral level,” the ECB said.

“For example, factors limiting services business that are reported comparatively often by market services firms are financial constraints in Italy and shortage of labour in Germany,” it added.

The ECB also noted the significant appreciation of the euro exchange rate over the three months under review. “The euro appreciated markedly in effective terms between early December2015 and mid-February 2016 amid the increase in global uncertainty,” the bank said. “In bilateral terms, the euro appreciated by 3.4% against the US dollar over the same period” while “uncertainty surrounding the United Kingdom’s referendum on EU membership weighed on the pound sterling, resulting in the euro appreciating by 9.3%”. The euro also appreciated strongly against the Russian rouble, the Chinese renminbi and the currencies of emerging market economies and commodity-exporting countries, the ECB continued. “Higher volatility and the decline in risk appetite supported the Japanese yen, leading to a euro depreciation against the Japanese currency by 5.4%,” it said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Eurozone Recovery Continuing at Moderate Pace — ECB

Poor demand holding back services, euro has strengthened

(ANSA) — Rome, March 24 — Economic recovery in the eurozone is continuing but at a slower rate than expected, the European Central Bank (ECB) said in its monthly bulletin published on Thursday.

“The economic recovery in the euro area is continuing, albeit with lower than expected growth at the beginning of the year on the back of a weaker external environment,” the bank said.

“Looking ahead, the economic recovery is expected to proceed at a moderate pace,” it added. “Domestic demand should be further supported by the ECB’s monetary policy measures and their favourable impact on financing conditions, as well as by continued employment gains from past structural reforms,” the bank continued. “Overall, insufficient demand remains the single most important factor holding back services business at the euro area level, but other factors play a role at country and sub-sectoral level,” the ECB said.

“For example, factors limiting services business that are reported comparatively often by market services firms are financial constraints in Italy and shortage of labour in Germany,” it added.

The ECB also noted the significant appreciation of the euro exchange rate over the three months under review. “The euro appreciated markedly in effective terms between early December2015 and mid-February 2016 amid the increase in global uncertainty,” the bank said. “In bilateral terms, the euro appreciated by 3.4% against the US dollar over the same period” while “uncertainty surrounding the United Kingdom’s referendum on EU membership weighed on the pound sterling, resulting in the euro appreciating by 9.3%”. The euro also appreciated strongly against the Russian rouble, the Chinese renminbi and the currencies of emerging market economies and commodity-exporting countries, the ECB continued. “Higher volatility and the decline in risk appetite supported the Japanese yen, leading to a euro depreciation against the Japanese currency by 5.4%,” it said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Students Stiff Taxpayers on $600 Billion of Non-Perfoming Loans

With the U.S. taxpayer guaranteeing $1.2 trillion of student loans, only about half are being repaid.

New data from the U.S. Department of Education reveas that the total amount of outstanding of direct federal student loans stands at about $945.6 billion, distributed among over 30 million recipients. The current rate of growth for student-loan debt guaranteed by taxpayers is $2,726 every second.

The total amount of student loans is much higher, at about $1.7 trillion. Including federal guarantees to private loans, U.S. taxpayers are on the hook for up to $1.2 trillion. That is larger than the $1.1 trillion of auto loans outstanding and dwarfs the $700 billion in credit card debt outstanding.

Federal involvement in student loan lending started with the Higher Education Act of 1965. But it never really took off until 1968, when the percentage of women attending college started to catch up, eventually passing the approximately 28 percent of men attending college.

This rise in college attendance by women appears to be responsible for the inflation of tuition. From 1968 to 2016, the cost of attending college grew by 1,272 percent. That compares to the consumer price index, which rose only 279 percent; medical costs, which grew 670 percent; or new car costs, which grew only 95 percent, according to Advisor Perspective blog.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Cruz Responds to ‘Garbage’ Affair Accusations, Blames Trump

The Donald Trump-Ted Cruz mud-slinging took another bizarre twist Friday, driven by an Internet frenzy over a tabloid report alleging Cruz had extramarital affairs.

Cruz addressed the salacious report in the National Enquirer at an event in Oshkosh, Wis., calling the claims “garbage” and “complete and utter lies.” He also placed the blame around the neck of front-runner Trump.

“It is a tabloid smear and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen,” Cruz said, claiming the only on-the-record source for the story is Roger Stone — who formerly served on the Trump campaign as an adviser.

Trump, in a written statement, denied Cruz’s claims.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Donald Trump and China: A Complex Relationship

Premier Li Keqiang has said the US election “has been lively and has caught the eye”, but many in China see it as more than that.

They see the flamboyant New York billionaire as an inspiration rather than an antagonist.

Even among the Chinese diaspora, who might have been put off by Mr Trump’s views on race and immigration, there is some admiration.

Ms Wang moved to the US from China at the age of 25 and became a naturalised American citizen three years ago. She holds a PhD degree and is a professor at a private California university.

Ms Wang tells the BBC she will “definitely” vote for Donald Trump as she sees him as “the medicine America needs”.

I asked what exactly it is about Mr Trump that appeals to her. Her answer: “He’s smart, honest, outspoken, and he is also a strongman.”

She adds: “He is the kid who yells that the emperor has no clothes.”

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Feeling G.O.P. Peril, Muslims Try to Get Out Vote

WASHINGTON — American Muslims are watching in growing horror as Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz battle for the Republican presidential nomination, outdoing each other with provocative proposals that have included Muslim registries, immigration bans and fleets of police patrolling their neighborhoods.

With round tables, summit meetings and news releases falling on deaf ears, national advocacy groups are planning to fend off policies they consider hostile to Muslims with a more proactive strategy: driving up the Muslim vote.

Organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, known as CAIR, the Islamic Circle of North America and the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations are encouraging mosques to turn themselves into voter registration centers before the November election so that Muslims can make their voices heard at the polls. Registration drives are expected to ramp up significantly in June, during Ramadan, when attendance at Islamic centers peaks.

“The fear and apprehension in the American Muslim community has never been at this level,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for CAIR. “The anti-Islamic tidal wave is spurring civic participation.”

[Comment: Classic takkiya and fear mongering played on American muslims. If Trump wins there is not going to be a muslim purge, only sensible immigration policies that help to keep out radical islamic soldiers.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Franklin Graham: ‘Quran Teaches Its Followers to Hate’

Horrific events like Tuesday’s jihadist attacks in Brussels should not come as a surprise, says noted evangelical preacher Franklin Graham, since hatred and violence against nonbelievers are central to the teachings of Islam.

“Why does Islam hate so much?” Graham asked in a recent Facebook post. “It’s because the Quran teaches its followers to hate.”

“Jews, Christians and others are to be subdued so that Islam may ‘prevail over all religions,’“ he added. “It’s all in the final chapter of the Quran—’Kill or be killed in battle, and paradise awaits,’“ he said.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Get Ready for TSA Sexual Molestation Outside Airports

The Brussels attack will prove to be a bonanza for the police state and its TSA sexual molesters.

Following the attack Infowars reported on a predictable move-already planned, but waiting for the appropriate incident-to expand airport “security” beyond airport departure gates to the street outside the airport itself.

Soon you will be forced to walk through a naked body scanner at the entrance of the airport terminal, before you buy a ticket or check your bags. Serial molesters in nifty blue uniforms with authoritative TSA badges will stick their hands down your pants, feel up your breasts, and traumatize your children-all in the name of preventing terror attacks engineered by intelligence agencies and committed by brainwashed patsies and mental deficients who read an ISIS tweet or a Facebook post.

It is hardly a secret the TSA and the Department of Homeland Security want to expand Gestapo activity beyond airports-to sports stadiums, concert venues and the local mall. They announced this goal years ago and have already imposed TSA “procedures” at rail and train stations and conduct high visibility state security theater events during the Super Bowl.

With every terror event the police and surveillance state creeps forward. Ultimately, like Nazi Germany and Stalin’s nation-wide gulag, the panopticon police state will reach into every facet of American life, as it did in East Germany under the Stasi. The prevalence of electronic communication has made the effort seamless and difficult to avoid.

We are one major event away from a total and complete police state. For now, however, the state will be satisfied with incremental destruction of our liberty and the eradication of our privacy and dignity.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Giuliani: Clinton a “Founding Member” of ISIS

Failed presidential candidate and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani told Bill O’Reilly on Wednesday Hillary Clinton helped found ISIS, now the Islamic State.

“She helped create ISIS,” Giuliani said. “Hillary Clinton could be considered a founding member of ISIS.”

O’Reilly asked Giuliani what made Clinton responsible for the creation of the terror group.

“By being part of an administration that withdrew from Iraq. By being part of an administration that let [former Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki run Iraq into the ground, so you forced the Shiites to make a choice. By not intervening in Syria at the proper time. By being part of an administration that drew 12 lines in the sand and made a joke out of it,” Giuliani said.

In fact, the presence of the United States in Iraq and the direct efforts of the Pentagon created a group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that would become IS and eventually ISIS well before Obama was president and Clinton Secretary of State.

In January 2006 al-Qaeda in Iraq merged with several other Sunni Wahhabi groups to form ad-Dawlah al-Iraq al-Islamiyah, which translates as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). In 2013 the group moved into Syria and became ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyah fI ‘l-’Iraq wa-sh-Sham, or ISIS. The following year the State Department decided the group’s name was the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” or ISIL.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Hitler-Supporting AI Bot Nixed

An experiment by Microsoft to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) Twitter bot has been hastily withdrawn after it took less than a day to turn into a Hitler-supporting, holocaust-denying, and highly racially charged “Twitterer” of note.

The Twitter robot, named Tay, was supposed to be an experiment in AI which would interact with 18- to 24-year-old Twitter users based in the US to “research conversational understanding.”

Microsoft said to the Twitter world when it launched bot that the “more you chat with Tay, the smarter she gets, so the experience can be more personalized to you.”

However, less than twenty-four hours later, Tay had twittered more than 96,000 replies, including messages such as “Hitler was right I hate the jews [sic],” “Bush did 9/11 and Hitler would have done a better job than the monkey we have now. Donald Trump is the only hope we’ve got.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

‘Lost’ Emails Show Hillary Clinton Used Server Earlier Than Admitted, Has Not Turned Over All Emails

Watchdog group Judicial Watch has uncovered new Hillary Clinton emails that demonstrate she was using her illicit homebrew email server at least a month earlier than she has previously admitted, and also make it clear she has not handed over all of her official correspondence yet, despite claims to the contrary.

“The emails also contain more evidence of the battle between security officials in the State Department, National Security Administration, Clinton and her staff over attempts to obtain secure Blackberrys,” Judicial Watch points out.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

McHugh: Catholic Church ‘Prostrating Themselves Before a Religion That’s Been at War With Them for 1400 Years’

“There’s a federal refugee program that hands out $1 billion per year to non-profit charities… Five of the top nine are Christian charities, one of which is Catholic Charities. And they get a $70 million per year refugee resettlement budget. Ninety-eight percent of that comes from the federal government,” McHugh said.

“Who decides who these refugees are? Well, the U.N. does,” she continued. “And as we’ve seen and Breitbart News has broken, along with Refugee Resettlement Watch headed by Ann Corcoran, that of the 100,000 refugees resettled in the United States in 2014, an estimated 40 percent of them are Muslims.”

“I think right now the Catholic Church and Christianity at large is in the grips of an ideology of globalism. You just had yesterday on Maunday Thursday, Pope Francis wash and kiss the feet of Muslim refugees — who actually look quite uncomfortable in the video of it,” McHugh said. “They’re prostrating themselves before a religion that’s been at war with them and everything that’s not Islam for 1400 years.”

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Number of US Drones Will Nearly Triple by 2020: FAA

An estimated seven million drones will fly in US skies by 2020, nearly tripling the number expected to be in circulation by the end of the year, the Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday.

“Unmanned aircraft systems will be the most dynamic growth sector within aviation,” the agency said in a report, which forecast that some 2.5 drones million will be in use by the end of 2016.

How the civilian drone market evolves, however, will depend on future security and regulatory measures put in place by the US government, the FAA said, emphasizing that “unprecedented milestones” were already set in 2015.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Save America in Twenty Eight Steps

People often talk about freedom, which typically today means being able to do whatever you want, even at the expense of the rights of others. Unbridled freedom in time only leads to instability and chaos. In my opinion Liberty is far superior to freedom. Liberty means freedom with responsibility. I would like to lay out the top 28 principles of Liberty that when applied will go a long way toward helping our republic return to her rightful place as that sweet land of Liberty.

1. The only reliable basis for sound government and just human relations is natural law. 2. A free people cannot survive under a republican constitutionally limited republic unless they remain virtuous and morally strong. 3. The most promising method of securing a virtuous and morally stable people is to elect virtuous leaders. 4. Without religion (faith in the true and living God) the government of a free people cannot be maintained. 5. All things were created by God, therefore upon Him all mankind are equally dependent, and to Him they are equally responsible. 6. All men are created equal. 7. The proper role of government is to protect equal rights, not provide equal things.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

State Department Reveals American Deaths in Brussels Hours Before Obama Returns to United States

Hours before Air Force One touched down on American soil, the State Department revealed that two American citizens were killed in the terrorist attacks three days earlier this week in Brussels. The attacks killed more than 30 people and wounded about 270.

The Associated Press cited a U.S. official who revealed on condition of anonymity that the families of two Americans had been informed of their deaths.

The news was revealed as Secretary of State John Kerry landed in Belgium this morning to visit the city.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

The Nuclear Option — Trump Proves He Has Wisdom and Temperament to Lead Free World, Terrifies Naysayers

Mr. Trump’s address to American Israel Public Affairs Committee Monday night was thoughtful and considered. It was not one of his rambling ad-lib campaign speeches, which are enormously entertaining for supporters but maddening for people trying to piece together his specific policy positions.

At AIPAC, Mr. Trump laid out a clear and concise vision about the threats we and our allies face from the terror and hatred spewing from Islamic radicals in the Middle East. The speech was highly-informed and clearly influenced by the smart people he is listening to around him.

It was one of his first speeches delivered to an audience that wasn’t filled with Republican Party faithful. It was his first major address of the general election. And he aced it.

The speech was downright thrilling at moments.

“When you live in a society where the firefighters are the heroes, little kids want to be firefighters,” he said. “When you live in a society where athletes and movie stars are heroes, little kids want to be athletes and movie stars.”

“You cannot achieve peace if terrorists are treated as martyrs. Glorifying terrorists is a tremendous barrier to peace.”

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Water Treatment Plant Hacked, Chemical Mix Changed for Tap Supplies

Hackers infiltrated a water utility’s control system and changed the levels of chemicals being used to treat tap water, we’re told.

The cyber-attack is documented in this month’s IT security breach report (available here, registration required) from Verizon Security Solutions. The utility in question is referred to using a pseudonym, Kemuri Water Company, and its location is not revealed.

A “hacktivist” group with ties to Syria compromised Kemuri Water Company’s computers after exploiting unpatched web vulnerabilities in its internet-facing customer payment portal, it is reported.

The hack — which involved SQL injection and phishing — exposed KWC’s ageing AS/400-based operational control system because login credentials for the AS/400 were stored on the front-end web server. This system, which was connected to the internet, managed programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that regulated valves and ducts that controlled the flow of water and chemicals used to treat it through the system. Many critical IT and operational technology functions ran on a single AS400 system, a team of computer forensic experts from Verizon subsequently concluded.

During these connections, the threat actors modified application settings with little apparent knowledge of how the flow control system worked. In at least two instances, they managed to manipulate the system to alter the amount of chemicals that went into the water supply and thus handicap water treatment and production capabilities so that the recovery time to replenish water supplies increased. Fortunately, based on alert functionality, KWC was able to quickly identify and reverse the chemical and flow changes, largely minimising the impact on customers. No clear motive for the attack was found.

Verizon’s RISK Team uncovered evidence that the hacktivists had manipulated the valves controlling the flow of chemicals twice — though fortunately to no particular effect. It seems the activists lacked either the knowledge of SCADA systems or the intent to do any harm.

The same hack also resulted in the exposure of personal information of the utility’s 2.5 million customers. There’s no evidence that this has been monetised or used to commit fraud.

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]
 

3 Terror Suspects Nabbed in Brussels Raids

Authorities detained three people Friday in raids in several districts of Brussels in an operation prosecutors said is linked to an arrest in France that purportedly disrupted a terror plot in an advanced stage.

One man carrying a suitcase with bomb materials was shot in the leg and arrested in Schaerbeek, the same Brussels district where police earlier this week uncovered a bomb-making factory used in Tuesday’s terror attacks that killed 31 people, Belgian state television reported.

Amateur video shows the suspect, wearing a backpack, was sitting at a tram stop when he was approached by two officers. During an exchange, police fired twice, hitting the suspect in the leg. Police then dragged him off.

The federal prosecutor’s office said a total of three people were arrested in a series of raids in Schaerbeek, Forest and Saint-Gilles. Three of the terrorists in Tuesday’s attacks had been living in a Schaerbeek apartment where police later found a bomb-making factory and Islamic State flags .

The Belgium arrests are believed to be linked to the arrest in Argenteuil, France, on Thursday of Reda Kriket, who was convicted in absentia of terrorist activities last year along with the suspected ringleader of the deadly Nov. 13 attacks on Paris, the Associated Press reported…

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]
 

After Brussels Attack: ‘Europe Won’t Exist in Ten Years’

A Romanian member of the European Parliament has lashed out at Europe’s approach to the cultural war with migrants, and questioned the ability of Europe as a cultural entity to continue in the face of the onslaught.

Romanian MEP Laurentiu Rebega is a member of the same Europe of Nations and Freedom group as Marine Le Pen and the Front National, having joined last year after he crossed the floor from the Conservative party.

Speaking out in the immediate aftermath of the Brussels bombing attack this week, he told Breitbart London that the flow of refugees to Europe wouldn’t end until there was peace in the Middle East — a potentially unlikely prospect.

Speaking of the migrants travelling to Europe in ever greater numbers, Mr. Rebega said: “They can’t be integrated, they will never be integrated.”

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Armed Police Shoot Man ‘Carrying a Bomb in a Rucksack After He Takes a Woman Hostage’ At Brussels Tram Station as They Swoop on Terror Suspects Linked to ‘Imminent Attack in France’

A woman was taken hostage by a suspected terrorist during a dramatic stand-off at a tram stop in Brussels today, witnesses say.

Armed police shot the suspect as part of a fresh swoop to thwart an ‘imminent attack’ on France. A second suspect was also shot in the raid, which began in a flat in the nearby Schaerbeek area, north Brussels.

Footage shows police coaxing a child away from the injured suspect, who was shot in the leg at the tram stop amid reports he was carrying a bomb in a rucksack.

Belgian prosecutors confirmed the man was linked to a planned attack in France, which was foiled by the French authorities last night in a separate raid in Paris.

Footage shows police ‘neutralising’ the suspect before dragging him off behind a nearby car as they arrested him in front of terrified witnesses.

A group of women visiting a hair salon opposite the tram stop described the moment they saw police swoop on the man standing with his bag.

Speaking to MailOnline, they said the man had been standing at the tram stop near a woman who was apparently with a young girl.

As police arrived, the man is said to have pulled the woman to the floor with him — apparently holding her hostage. However, the armed officers were able to pull her to safety before dragging the man to the side, the shaken witnesses recounted.

Three people have been detained in the fresh wave of raids with authorities naming two as Tawfik A. and Salah A.

Two of the three — Tawfik A and an unnamed man detained in Schaerbeek — were wounded in the leg, the statement said.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Brussels Attacks: Belgian Police Wearing Hazmat Gear Comb Streets Arrest 6

From a CNN report out of Brussels Belgium:

Police detained six people in raids Thursday night as investigators raced to uncover the network behind this week’s terror attacks in the Belgian capital.

The Belgian federal prosecutor’s office didn’t provide details about who had been detained in the Brussels raids, why they had been apprehended or whether they will face charges.

“It will be decided tomorrow if these people will remain in custody,” the office said in a statement released late Thursday.

Two people were taken into custody in Brussels’ Jette neighborhood, one person was detained in a different part of the capital, and three people were in a vehicle in front of the federal prosecutor’s office when authorities apprehended them, public broadcaster RTBF reported.

So far, authorities have said they believe five men played a part in Tuesday’s bombings in Belgium that killed 31 people and injured 330. Three of the attackers are dead. Two of them could still be on the loose.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Brussels Jihadists ‘Plotted Radioactive Bomb Attack’

Eleven nuclear workers in Belgium have had their security passes revoked amid fears the attackers who carried out this week’s bombings in Brussels intended to build a radioactive dirty bomb.

A senior nuclear official was secretly filmed by jihadists late last year, with brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui linked to the plot to scatter radioactive material over a crowded area.

Speaking to The Times, an official at the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control said: “When you start filming someone in the way they did, the logical conclusion is that they wanted to abduct that person and to obtain radioactive material.”

The “big question” now facing authorities is whether the intended to build a dirty bomb with the aim of attacking a large public space, contaminating it with radioactive material, the official added.

Over 100 soldiers were guarding Belgium’s two nuclear power stations last night, as well as a nuclear research facility and a company that makes isotopes for medical purposes.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Bulgaria: Labour Costs Up by 5.8% in Oct-Dec 2015

(ANSA) — SOFIA — The cost of labour in Bulgaria grew by 5.8% in the last quarter of 2015 compared to the year before, data released by the National Office for Statistic shows. The highest hourly wage cost grew most notably in the construction sector (+11%), followed by industry (+8.1%) and services (+4.6%).

The growth of overal labour costs was most significant in the category of ‘Administrative and support service activities’ (+14.2%), followed by the real estate and construction sectors (+11%).

Non-wage related costs grew by 5.2% on a yearly basis. The hourly wage cost in Bulgaria was 3.8 euros in 2014 — the lowest in the Eu according to Eurostat.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Bungling Belgian Police Knew of Paris Bomber Abdeslam’s Secret Hideout for Three Months But Did Nothing… While He Planned Machine Gun Massacre at ‘Easter’

A catastrophic police blunder allowed Paris bomber Salah Abdeslam to remain at large for more than three months, Belgian police have admitted.

A dedicated beat officer gave information about the whereabouts of Abdeslam to superiors on December 7 and urged them to pass it on to the country’s anti-terrorist police.

But the confidential report — which cited the address 79 rue des Quatre Vents, Molenbeek, where Abdeslam was finally apprehended — was inexplicably not passed onto the federal bureau.

His RIR ‘Informative Report’ remained on the shelves at the Malines Police headquarters instead.

This was while Abdeslam was Europe’s most wanted man as the most high-profile fugitive of the Paris terror attacks that killed 130.

The news comes as it’s revealed the sole reason he gave up his suicide mission at the Stade de France is that he did not have a ticket.

It is also claimed he was also planning a multiple shooting and suicide bomb attack in Brussels over Easter similar to those in Paris in November.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Dozens of Swedish Women Show Support for Islam by Taking Selfies in Hijab After Brussels Massacre

Swedish women are showing their support for Islam by taking selfies in hijabs after the Brussels bombings.

From the hijabuppropet website:

The violance against Muslim women has increased, and this is extremely worrying. Their basic rights are not being respected, their civil rights are being respected. And we need to put a stop to this. Being called names in the streets, getting their scarfs/hijabs ripped off their heads, and being slandered has become a daily routine for many muslim women.

We have set out to arrange this walk because we can not allow this behavior any longer in our society anymore. Come and show your support, at Friday the 26, 17:00

In stockholm, we will walk from Kulturhuset, sergelstorg (plattan) to the Mosque at Medborgarplatsen, this will be a silent demonstration!

WOW! Women have absolutely no rights under Islam and these braindead women are holding a rally in support of the barbarians. Unreal.

[Comment: Needle is stuck on stupid.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Dr. Jill Bellamy: “This is a War and There Will be Thousands of Deaths All Across Europe.”

Over the past 24 hours Lisa Benson and Dr. Jill Bellamy, Dr. Jill Bellamy, noted bio defense expert, member of the UN Counterterrorism Advisory Council and Founding Director of Warfare Technology Analytics , held conversations and emails exchanges regarding the ISIS suicide bombings in Brussels at the Zaventem Airport and Maelbeek Metro near the EU Complex and European Parliament. The toll has now risen to 31 dead, two of whom are Americans, 330 injured, half of whom remain in hospital with extensive shrapnel wounds and burns. What follows are exchanges between Benson and Bellamy. Bellamy will be a guest on the Sunday, March 27, 2016 The Lisa Benson Show that airs at 4PM EDT in the US…

           — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon [Return to headlines]
 

EU Fails to Agree on Counter-Terror Measures

PNR directive possibly in April, intelligence-sharing in June

(ANSA) — Brussels, March 25 — An emergency summit of European Union interior and justice ministers held Thursday in the wake of bloody Islamist terror attacks in Brussels failed to come up with a rapid joint counter-terror response.

On Tuesday, 32 people were confirmed dead and another 300 were wounded — 61 of them critically — in two suicide bombings at the Belgian capital’s Zaventem airport and on a metro line serving EU institutions.

The ministers from the 28 EU member countries delayed moving forward on a European Commission directive on the sharing of air passenger name record (PNR) data to some time in April, and to reconvene in June to discuss intelligence-sharing.

The Commission’s PNR directive would transfer air passenger data to member states’ law enforcement authorities for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime. The European Council approved a compromise text hammered out with the European Parliament on December 4, 2015 — three weeks after the November 13 Islamist terror attacks in Paris that claimed 130 lives. The EP Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee endorsed that text on December 10, but the European Parliament as a whole has yet to vote on the measure.

“This text cannot remain bogged down,” said French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve. “Terrorism is fast, Europe is often slow,” said Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, who has proposed exporting Italy’s national anti-terrorism committee model to Europe. Italy has been pushing for intelligence-sharing since its EU duty presidency in the second half of 2014.

“These attacks are shocking but not surprising,” said Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos. “Citizens are tired and frightened. I didn’t come here just to talk — something has to change.” Avramopoulos added that the terrorists who carried out the Brussels attacks were known to intelligence.

“If we had shared the information we could have prevented (the attacks),” he said. “The same goes for those who carried out the Paris attacks”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Ex-Times-of-London Editor: ‘The Scariest Thing About Brussels is Our Reaction to it.’

“The scariest thing about Brussels is our reaction to it,” says respected British journalist and commentator and former editor of the (London) Times, Simon Jenkins.

Really?

Scarier than, say, being one of the two London businessmen now lying in a Brussels hospital with “life-changing injuries” having taken the full force of the airport nail bomb which killed at least 14 people and hideously shredded many more?

Scarier than being one of the passengers on the Brussels underground at 9.11 on a Tuesday morning hearing the olive-skinned man with the suicide belt yelling the last words you’ll ever hear: “Allahu Akbar”?

Sorry, Simon. I’m not buying it. You’re talking theory: this thing you’ve read in some dry-as-dust, surrender monkey textbook about how by reacting to “terror” we’re “doing what the terrorists want.”

You talk about all the bad policies governments have introduced as a knee-jerk response to “terror” and you’re quite right: our governments have indeed behaved like headless chickens and their botched foreign policy interventions — the second Iraq war; Afghanistan; Libya — almost certainly have exacerbated the terror threat rather than reduced it.

But that’s an argument against governments doing bad, ill-thought-through stuff. It doesn’t follow, as you seem to be suggesting, that therefore the only sensible solution is to take all this horrific violence on the chin in order to avoid escalating it any further.

That’s because, whether bien-pensants like you like it or not, Simon, that horrific violence on our streets is going to escalate.

And there’s loads we can do to stop it. And loads we’re going to have to do to stop it sooner or later because there’ll come a point when ordinary people — not sophisticated columnists like you, Simon — have simply had enough and won’t be able to take it any more. At which point it could get really ugly. …

If we want to stop it getting really ugly, the first thing we absolutely have to do is to ignore the siren voices of blithering liberals like Simon Jenkins.

It simply isn’t true, as Simon ludicrously implies, that if we close our eyes, stick our fingers in our ears and go “Nyah nyah nyah. It’s not really happening!” all the nasty stuff will go away.

The nasty stuff is here to stay and glib cultural relativists like you, Simon, are part of the problem, not the solution.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

In the Capital of Europe

by Ian Buruma

Brussels has frequently had a bad press. Already in the 1860s, Baudelaire, who fled there from the French censors, called the Belgian capital “a ghost town, a mummy of a town, it smells of death, the Middle Ages, and tombs.” To a growing number of Europeans, “Brussels” is a byword for bureaucratic bullying by the so-called Eurocrats.

Donald Trump called Brussels a “hellhole.” Perhaps he was thinking, if that is the right word, of Molenbeek. Densely populated by immigrants, mostly from North Africa, this district has become a symbol of seething European jihadism. Last year’s mass murders in Paris were apparently plotted there; the number of young men and women (around a hundred) who have left Molenbeek to fight for ISIS in Syria and Iraq is relatively high.

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

Indian Air Stewardess in Iconic Brussels Airport Bomb Photograph is Now Stable After Suffering Burns to 15 Per Cent of Her Body and a Shattered Foot

The Indian flight attendant who was pictured in the moments after the Brussels airport bombings on Tuesday is now in stable condition and recovering.

Nidhi Chaphekar, 40, suffered burns over 15 per cent of her body and fractured her foot in the explosions on Tuesday, and is being treated at a hospital near Brussels.

The air stewardess from Mumbai was initially reported as being placed in a medically induced coma, but is now out of danger.

‘The doctor has confirmed that Nidhi is in stable condition and not in coma,’ Jet Airways said in a statement on Friday morning.

‘She is resting and under sedation for her comfort.’

The photograph of Ms Chaphekar lying injured at the airport would later become the defining image of the Brussels terror attacks on Tuesday morning.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Italian Newspaper Speaks Out: Ban and Expel Islam!

Let’s throw Islam out of our countries, writes the Italian newspaper Il Giornale in an editorial in response to the carnage in Brussels.

“Islam and its God is incompatible with our civilization, our childrens’ blood is on its hands and it is insatiable. That’s the problem. The rest is just chit-chat.”

About the Muslim killers in Belgium, the editorial leader observes: “They do not stop; they will not stop. They are not desperate; they represent Islam bourgeoisie — those who someone has described as” integrated,” and we are expected to trust.”

“Enough is enough!”

“We are saving, nourishing and nurturing our enemies. Although they may be “moderate” and do not handle bombs, they are the foundation, they provide protection to and operate in complicity with those manning the bombing-network.”

The Islam-hostile attitude, the newspaper writes, “is not racism, but self defense.”

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

Italy: Bertolaso Slams Mogherini for Crying Over Brussels

‘They’ll call me sexist but this time I agree with Meloni’

(ANSA) — Rome, March 24 — Centre-right Rome mayoral candidate Guido Bertolaso on Thursday joined a chorus of criticism of European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini for breaking down in tears Wednesday while talking about the Brussels terror attacks.

Bertolaso was echoing criticism from his rightwing rival for Rome mayor, Giorgia Meloni, who on Wednesday said she was “ashamed” of Mogherini and called her “a symbol of a soft Europe”.

Bertolaso said “I find it embarrassing that the EU foreign minister should start crying after an attack like that: the minister, like all the European Commission, should demonstrate that we aren’t afraid and we won’te be intimidated”.

Bertolaso, who had come under fire for saying Meloni should not stand because she is pregnant, added that “I’ll be accused of being sexist again but I agree with Meloni…it was an embarrassing scene because Europeans want to be reassured by their leaders”. Several members of the ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD) said they were “proud” of Mogherini for “showing humanity”.

Berlusconi is the mayoral candidate of former premier Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia party.

Meloni is backed by her own small rightist Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) party and by the rightwing populist Northern League party, the top party on the centre right.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Colosseum Via Crucis on ‘Lockdown’ For Easter Safety

Metal detectors, canine units for Way of the Cross

(ANSA) — Rome, March 25 — Friday evening’s Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession led by Pope Francis at the Colosseum will take place in a high-security lockdown against terrorist threats.

Various security checkpoints will be cordoned off in a radius to screen visitors in separate stages prior to entering the area surrounding the Colosseum.

Checks will involve portable and fixed metal detectors as well as bomb squads with sniffer dogs.

Rome’s police headquarters said the city’s Easter weekend security plan to continue through Easter Monday “is designed to guarantee maximum safety conditions for everyone who wants to participate in the religious events”.

Weekend surveillance will be increased on city buses in cooperation with public transport company ATAC.

Police said “door-to-door” security checks will also continue, which in the last month have resulted in controls on seven illegally occupied buildings, identification of more than 3,000 people, and the vacating of 14 camps.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Cops Nab Syrian Jail-Breaker and the Guard Who Helped Him

Escaped con was serving time in Switzerland for sex crimes

(ANSA) — Milan, March 25 — Carabinieri police arrested an escaped Syrian convict and a Swiss prison guard in the northern town of Romano di Lombardia on Friday. International arrest warrants had been issued against the two after the 27-year-old Syrian broke out of a Zurich-area prison on the night of February 8, allegedly with help from the 32-year-old female guard. The Syrian was reportedly serving time for sex crimes.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

No Peace for the Mourners of the Brussels Terrorist Attack Dead

VIDEO: Muslim woman rips up Israeli flag at Brussels makeshift memorial

Not even in their inconsolable mourning for the 34 slaughtered by Tuesday’s horrific Islamist terrorist attack are the Brussels’ grieving safe from the desecration of their oppressors.

Thousands of family, friends and strangers left flowers, flags, burning candles and notes at the vigil set up on at the central Brussels landmark Place de la Bourse in the days following the attack.

The flowers, flags candles and notes are the public’s only way to honour the dead of the carnage that broke hearts, worldwide, in Brussels on Tuesday, March 22, 2016.

But the bold desecrator caught by French-language television station RTL is shocking proof that even the mourners of the dead will not be allowed any peace:

“A French-language television station captured footage of a woman wearing a hijab ripping up an Israeli flag at a makeshift memorial for the victims of Tuesday’s bombings in Brussels. (Jerusalem Post, March 24, 2016)

“The images were captured by the RTL television network and disseminated on the web and social media.

“In the clip, the woman is seen sifting through the flags that were lining the pavement. After lifting a Palestinian flag, she then spots an Israeli flag and begins tearing it up. She then buries the ripped shards underneath other flags.”

“She bends down to pick up the blue and white Israeli flag and begins ripping it up, before placing the pieces beneath another flag, which looks as though it could be the symbol of Georgia. (Daily Mail, March 24, 2016)

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Now Former CIA Head Confirms: European Union ‘Gets in the Way’ of National Security

A former CIA director has said the European Union “gets in the way” of security services, further undermining Prime Minister David Cameron’s assertion that remaining within the EU makes the UK safer.

His comments come just a day after the former head of Britain’s MI6 security agency, Sir Richard Dearlove, said that membership of the EU actively hampers British security. He argued that, on a range of measures, a British exit is demonstrably better for national security.

Retired general Michael Hayden agreed with his former colleague, telling the BBC that the EU is “not a natural contributor to national security”.

“National security remains a national responsibility and so sadly, the grades you have to give to each of the services are frankly individual, and it’s very uneven,” General Hayden explained.

While France and Britain have “very good”, “aggressive” security services, Belgium’s, he said, is “small, under-resourced, legally limited and frankly, working for a government that itself has its own challenges in terms of overall governance.”

“European defence and security policy has proved to be little more than an aspiration,” sir Richard said in his intervention, adding “Britain is Europe’s leader in intelligence and security matters and gives much more than it gets in return. It is difficult to imagine any of the other EU members ending the relationships they already enjoy with the UK.”

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Spanish Patriots Protest ISIS Mosque

Spanish patriots yesterday held a loud and visually spectacular anti-invader protest outside a large mosque in Madrid-previously exposed as an ISIS recruiting center-as part of a growing Europe-wide reaction against the Brussels terror attacks.

The protestors, from the Hogar Social Madrid (“Madrid Social Home,” or HSM) organization, held aloft a banner reading “Today Brussels, Tomorrow Madrid? Terrorists Not Welcome.”

According to a statement on the HSM Facebook page, the militants occupied a strategic bridge overpass facing the mosque-the largest one in Spain-and deployed smoke canisters to draw attention to their action.

“The protest was held at this mosque because it was a place which is Wahhabi-funded and Salafist groups are organized to enlist in the ranks of the Islamic State,” the HSM statement said.

The mosque had earlier been subjected to an intensive police investigation during which it was established that all its members had paid a “Jihad tax” to finance the travel of young invaders to Syria.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Swedish Policemen: We Are Defenceless Against Terrorists

“Like being sent out hunting lions with a peashooter and a jumpsuit made of zebra meat.” This is how a policeman describes the feeling when police are sent out to patrol areas identified as potential terror targets in Sweden — without adequate weapons. Now several sound the alarm because their equipment is not good enough against terrorists.

After the terrorist attacks in Paris, the threat level was raised by the Security Police in Sweden, from three to four on a five-point scale. In connection with this, patrol cars were sent to streets to monitor targets and areas where terrorists could strike.

But now several police officers around the country warn that they lack both protection and weapons to protect themselves against a possible mass shooting or a terrorist attack, according to Swedish Television.

“We are sent out without adequate weaponry because we only have a 9 mm service pistol. We also learn that there may not be enough enhanced body armor and ballistic helmets. It feels like being sent out hunting lions with a peashooter and a jumpsuit made of zebra meat.,” writes policeman Christian in an incident report.

In the report, Christian refers to a statement by Roger Alvefuhr, who was National Police weaponry chief until 2010. To Aftonbladet, Alvefuhr says that he shares the police concerns about their armament:

– It’s very bad way. I feel sorry for my former colleagues. (…) In all honesty, they are absolutely defenceless.

“It’s not fun for me or my family to read,” writes Christian.

“To be sent on such missions without training and proper equipment does not feel safe, it creates a tremendous feeling of insecurity being faced with a scenario where you encounter perpetrators, which in principle would mean a death sentence in case we cannot flee,” writes policeman Johan.

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

UK: Popular Muslim Shopkeeper, 40, Was Stabbed to Death Outside His Business in a Religiously Motivated Attack by Another Muslim Just Hours After He Posted a Message Wishing His ‘Beloved Christian Nation’ A Happy Easter

A man has been arrested after a popular Muslim shopkeeper was stabbed to death by another Muslim in a religiously motivated attack just hours after he had posted a message wishing ‘a very happy Easter to my beloved Christian nation’.

Asad Shah, 40, was set upon with a knife and had his head stamped on in a shocking attack outside his Glasgow newsagents shop just after 9pm last night.

A police investigation has been launched into the full details surrounding Mr Shah’s death, with officers pursuing a line of enquiry that the attack was racially aggravated.

Police Scotland confirmed to MailOnline that everyone currently involved in the investigation was Muslim following the arrest of a man aged 32.

The appalling attack came just hours after deeply religious Mr Shah, who was keen to reach out from the Muslim community to Christian neighbours, posted heartfelt Easter messages on social media.

The 40-year-old was today due to be hosting a meeting with Christian friends about the importance of Easter.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Video Shows Woman Tearing Up Israeli Flag at Brussels Memorial

Footage emerged Thursday of a hijab-clad woman ripping up an Israeli flag at a makeshift memeorial to the victims of Tuesday’s terror attacks in Brussels.

The images were broadcast Wednesday by the French-language TV network RTL and the clip rapidly circulated online and on social media.

In the footage, which lasts just over a minute, the woman examines the flags on the pavement at the Place de la Bourse in central Brussels. After picking up a Palestinian flag, she moves a few feet away to where the Israeli flag is laid.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

VW, Porsche Recalling 800,000 SUVs Over Possible Pedal Issue

The vehicles concerned are 2011-2016 models

(ANSA-AP) — BERLIN — Volkswagen and its Porsche unit say they’re recalling a total of about 800,000 Touareg and Cayenne SUVs worldwide because of a potential problem with the pedal system.

Volkswagen said Thursday that it is recalling 391,000 Touaregs worldwide because of a problem that was detected in internal checks with “possible loosening of a retaining ring on the bearing block of the pedal system.” The vehicles concerned are 2011-2016 models.

Porsche said the recall also affects just over 409,000 of its Cayenne SUVs, made in the same years.

Volkswagen said it will contact owners of the cars and aims to examine the vehicles as quickly as possible, with the checks expected to take less than half an hour each.

The recall comes as Volkswagen grapples with fallout from its diesel emissions-rigging scandal.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Macedonia: 6 Sentenced for Joining ISIS, Recruiting Fighters

Including an imam believede to be the mastermind of the group

(ANSA-AP) — SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) — A criminal court in Macedonia’s capital Skopje has sentenced six people, including an imam, to prison for joining the Islamic State group and recruiting fighters for it.

The imam, believed to be the mastermind of the group, was sentenced Friday to seven years. A second man received a 5 1/2-year sentence while the other four were sentenced to five years.

The six were arrested last August following raids in Skopje and several towns in the northwest. Another five suspects are also on trial and have pleaded not guilty.

At the time, authorities had said 130 people from Macedonia were believed to have joined IS to fight in Syria and Iraq, and 16 had been killed. Macedonians face a minimum four-year sentence if convicted of participating in overseas militant groups.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

British Special Forces Reported in Libya Since Start Year

Guardian reports document of Jordan King meeting Congressmen

(ANSAmed) — ROME, MARCH 25 — Britain’s SAS special force has been deployed in Libya since the start of the year, according to the Guardian newspaper, which cites a memorandum it obtained from a secret meeting between Jordan’s King Abdallah II and U.S. Congressional leaders including Senate Armed Forces Committee chairman John McCain.

At the start of January the king explained his plans for joint operations between British and Jordanian special forces.

King Abdullah explained, as emerges from the document, that British special forces needed assistance from the Jordanian troops on the ground because “the dialect spoken in Jordan is similar to that of Libya”.

The monarch recalled also that British soldiers contributed to the creation of a mechanised battalion in southern Syria, led by a local commander and composed of tribal fighters, to fight against the army of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and that his troops were ready together with those of Britain and Kenya “to go beyond the frontier” and attack the Al-Shabaab militias in Somalia, according to the Guardian.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

The Daoud Affair

How Western intellectuals turn themselves into the enemies of an entire class of liberal writers from Muslim backgrounds

Last month the Algerian novelist and journalist Kamel Daoud astonished the readers of Le Monde in Paris by threatening to renounce journalism, not because he is afraid of Islamists at home in Algeria, though a fatwa has been issued against him, but for another reason, which is still more dismaying. He has been severely condemned by people from the Western intellectual class, and silence seems to him an appropriate response.

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

Exclusive — Top Jihadist Claims Islamic State Has Agents Working in Western Airports

TEL AVIV — The Islamic State has agents working in Western airports, metro stations and “very sensitive facilities in the world,” a leading Islamic State-allied militant claimed in an exclusive interview.

Abu al-Ayna al-Ansari, a Salafist movement senior official in the Gaza Strip, made the claim in a pre-recorded, hour-long interview to air in full on Sunday on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio,” the popular weekend talk radio program. Klein doubles as Breitbart’s senior investigative reporter and Jerusalem bureau chief.

Ansari is a well-known Gazan Salafist jihadist allied with Islamic State ideology. During the interview with Klein, Ansari seemed to be speaking as an actual IS member, repeatedly using the pronoun “we” when referring to IS and even seemingly making declarations on behalf of IS.

IS has been reluctant to officially declare its presence in Gaza for fear of a Hamas clampdown, but the group is known to be active in the coastal enclave and Ansari is a suspected IS leader. IS-aligned militants have taken responsibility for recent rocket fire from Gaza aimed at Israel.

Ansari claimed IS infiltration of Western transportation systems.

Ansari stated:

The Islamic State is a state. The Islamic State has agents all around the very sensitive facilities in the world, like metro stations, like airports and other places whether in the West or in the Arab world. We have our mujahedeen implanted in those facilities as workers, as employees, even in the security field in the airports.

And they were recruited to work with the Islamic State and we proved that we succeeded to reach a very deep infiltration in these facilities. We showed it in Sinai with the Russian jet. We show it now. And everybody should understand. This is a state. This state will not disappear. It will only become bigger because this is the message. This is the prophecy of Muhammad and this is the promise of Allah.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

A Year of War That Has Set Yemen Back Decades

The dead of Kawkaban are among at least 3,200 civilians killed here in the past year. The United Nations says most were victims of airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition. A UN panel has accused the Saudis and their allies of bombing schools, health facilities, wedding parties and camps for the displaced.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Amnesty Report Criticizes Jordan for Human Rights Violations

And for 12,000 Syrians stuck at the border

(ANSAmed) — AMMAN, MARCH 23 — Amnesty International on Wednesday cited human rights violations by Jordan including not enabling Syrian refugees to get healthcare, mistreatment of detainees and repression of press freedoms. The statement added that Amman has denied entrance to over 12,000 Syrian refugees stuck in a desert area near the border with Jordan, who fled the Syrian conflict and are currently in dire conditions. On the issue of freedom of expression, Amnesty International said that journalists are often arrested and put on trial for criticizing the authorities. The organization added that the Jordanian authorities had restricted freedom of expression and association, using laws that criminalize protests and other forms of peaceful expression. Dozens of journalists and activists have been arrested. Amnesty International underscored that those in charge of border control do not allow Palestinian authorities to enter Jordan.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Backstory: Behind the Terror Takedown

When a U.S. special operations team suddenly surrounded the car carrying the Islamic State’s second in command, he was given the split-second option of surrendering. Instead, he began firing.

“He made a bad choice,” a senior military source told Fox News.

Abd al-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli, also known as Abu Ala al-Afri and Haji Imam, died in a hail of bullets early Thursday morning on an isolated road in eastern Syria, a location described by U.S. military officials as being “in the middle of nowhere.”

Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a press conference Friday he was ISIS’ finance minister. But the terror leader also was considered the man most likely to take over for ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, if he were captured or killed.

Details of the takedown emerged Friday, including descriptions of the elite U.S. assault force arriving in helicopters as drones flew overhead, tracking him.

When al-Afri refused to surrender, he and all those with him were killed. If he had been captured, he would have been interrogated and then handed over to Iraqi authorities.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Exclusive — Arab Intel Official: Islamic State Stepping Up Efforts to Carry Out Attacks in U.S., Russia

JAFFA, Israel — Based on interrogations of hundreds of militants who were arrested in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and Europe, the Islamic State’s next step after the Brussels bombings is probably to carry out attacks in Russia and ultimately the United States, an Arab intelligence official told Breitbart Jerusalem.

IS’ “Chechen division” is making intensive efforts to strike in Russia, he said.

“The information that we have collected tells us that the organization is bent on carrying out a massive attack in Russia. Many of the detainees said they are aware of Chechen jihadis who trained in Syria and Iraq in preparation for striking Russia. We have also intercepted coded messages on social media that could be orders from HQ to the operatives on the ground.”

“IS tries equally hard to carry out an attack in the United States,” he added, “but it would require greater efforts than in Europe. But it has proved to be a cynical and murderous organization that can very well operate under the radar.”

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

In Syria and Iraq, The Islamic State is in Retreat on Multiple Fronts — the Washington Post

BEIRUT — As European governments scramble to contain the expanding terrorist threat posed by the Islamic State, on the battlefield in Iraq and Syria the group is a rapidly diminishing force.

In the latest setbacks for the militants on Thursday, Syrian government troops entered the outskirts of the historic town of Palmyra after a weeks-old offensive aided by Russian airstrikes, and U.S. airstrikes helped Iraqi forces overrun a string of Islamic State villages in northern Iraq that had been threatening a U.S. base nearby.

These are just two of the many fronts in both countries where the militants are being squeezed, stretched and pushed back. Nowhere are they on the attack. They have not embarked on a successful offensive in nearly nine months. Their leaders are dying in U.S. strikes at the rate of one every three days, inhibiting their ability to launch attacks, according to U.S. military officials.

Front-line commanders no longer speak of a scarily formidable foe but of Islamic State defenses that crumble within days and fighters who flee at the first sign they are under attack.

“They don’t fight. They just send car bombs and then run away. And when we surround them they either surrender or infiltrate themselves among the civilians,” said Lt. Gen. Abdul-Ghani al-Assadi, commander of Iraq’s counterterrorism forces, who is overseeing the latest Iraqi offensive to capture the town of Hit in Anbar province.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Iraqi Army Launches Operation to Retake Mosul From Islamic State

Iraq’s U.S.-backed military has launched an offensive to liberate the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

BBC quotes the Iraqi military as saying the operation is “the first part of the long-awaited offensive has recaptured several villages.”

The Iraqi army operation is reportedly backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, Kurdish peshmerga troops, and a Shiite-controlled paramilitary force.

“Recapturing the city would represent a huge victory for the Iraqi forces, which have been making slow gains against the extremist group’s fighters,” reports USAToday. “It took months last year to retake the much smaller city of Ramadi from the militants.” .

ISIS has held Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, since June 2014.

“The assault [to retake Mosul] was launched from the Makhmour area, to which thousands of Iraqi troops have deployed in recent weeks, setting up base alongside Kurdish peshmerga and U.S. forces around 60 km [about 37 miles] south of Mosul, Islamic State’s main bastion,” reports Reuters.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

IS Group Claims Triple Suicide Bombing in Yemen

Three suicide bombs hit checkpoints in the southern Yemeni city of Aden on Friday, killing at least 20 people, residents and eye witnesses said, and Islamic State militants claimed responsibility for the attacks.

In one of the blasts, a vehicle exploded as it arrived at a military checkpoint in the Buraiqa area in northwestern Aden, killing soldiers and civilians, eyewitnesses and security sources said.

The other two bombings hit checkpoints on the road to a base used by the Saudi-led military coalition that is fighting in Yemen…

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

ISIS Second-in-Command With a $7million Bounty on His Head is Killed in Bombing Raid as Terror Group in Retreat Across Iraq and Syria

ISIS second-in-command Abdul Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli has been killed in bombing raid in Syria, it has been reported.

Al-Qaduli, who was the ISIS finance minister had a $7million bounty on his head was killed earlier this month.

US Defence Secretary Ash Carter confirmed Al-Qaduil’s death but refused to go into detail about the mission. He said the death of Al-Qaduli would make it more difficult for ISIS to operate and for the terror organisation to pay their fighters.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Saudi Arabia Arrests Shiite Religious Leader for ‘Exalting’ Hezbollah

Hussein al-Radi detained in the Eastern Province as part of the “war” launched by the Gulf States against supporters of the Lebanese militant group. He had already come under fire from the authorities for defending Nimr al-Nimr. In a video posted online he described him as a “hero”.

Riyadh (AsiaNews / Agencies) — Saudi security forces have arrested a Shiite religious leader, accused of exalting Hezbollah. According to the Arabic daily Al-Watan, Hussein al-Radi (in the photo) was arrested in the context of the “war” launched by the Gulf States — led by the Saudis — against the the Lebanese Shiite armed militant movement, described as “terrorist” . The region’s governments have therefore set out a series of punitive measures against any “supporters”.

Hezbollah is a Shiite militant armed group, whose influence in Lebanese politics has grown more in recent decades. Allies and supported by Iran, they have put their military force at Assad’s service in fighting fundamentalist militia of al-Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda) and the Islamic State (IS), inflicting heavy defeats.

The Shiite imam was arrested in the region of Al-Ahsa, in the Eastern province.

Hussein al-Radi is accused of having “exalted” the deeds of the “terrorist group Hezbollah” and “insulting the kingdom” in a video “published and shared” online. He has also “broken agreements signed earlier” with the authorities, who had already indicted him “for defending the terrorist Nimr al-Nimr after his execution.”

In early January the Saudi government decided to execute 47 people for “terrorism”, including the Shiite dignitary Nimr al-Nimr, leader of protests by the Shiite Muslim minority in the country denouncing an attitude of “marginalization.” The execution has triggered a wide protest in the capital and other Iranian cities, resulted in the attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashad.

In response to the attack several of the Arab world and the Gulf governments have decided to withdraw its ambassador to Iran, Qatar including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Sudan, sparking a political crisis (and religious) in the Muslim world between Sunnis and Shiites.

In a video recorded March 20 Radi last, with a bushy white beard, speaks from a podium lauding Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, calling him a “hero.” He also spoke of Iran as a regional and international power.

Ibrahim AlMugaiteeb, president of Human Rights First Society, an activist movement based in the Eastern Province, says he is not surprised by the arrest of Radi. He adds that it is not permissible to detain such a senior religious leader, although it is equally true that he “ pushed the envelope” with his statements.

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

Surrounded Special Forces Hero Blows Up ISIS Jihadis After Calling in Airstrike on Himself

A HERO special forces officer took out a group of murderous Islamic State (ISIS) jihadis who had pinned him down by calling in an airstrike on HIMSELF, it emerged today.

The brave commando gave bomber jets his own co-ordinates after being trapped by a gang of evil Islamists whilst carrying out covert operations to disrupt their supply line.

His extraordinary bravery meant vital operational information did not fall into the jihadis’ hands and also ensured that he took several of the group’s twisted militants down with him.

The bloodthirsty Islamists were moving in to capture the stranded soldier following a fierce gunfight when they were surprised by the bombing raid and blown to hell.

It is thought the commando may have belonged to Russia’s crack Spetsnaz elite combat unit, which was dispatched to Syria to hunt down and take out fleeing jihadis.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Malaysia Arrests 15 for Suspected Links to Islamic State

Malaysian authorities have arrested 15 people, including a police officer, suspected of links to Islamic State and of planning an attack in the country, the police chief said on Thursday.

The announcement came after Tuesday’s bombings in Brussels by Islamic State that killed at least 31 people and injured 270. Muslim-majority Malaysia has been on high alert since Islamic State-linked militants carried out an armed attack in the capital of neighboring Indonesia in January.

Some of the suspects received orders from Muhammad Wanndy Mohamed Jedi, a Malaysian Islamic State recruiter in Syria, to launch an attack on Malaysia, inspector general Khalid Abu Bakar said in a statement.

They were involved in collecting funds to be channeled to an Islamic State-linked group in the southern Philippines and arranging the movement of “two foreign terror suspects” from Malaysia to a Southeast Asian country, Khalid said.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

‘No-One Told Me I Was Going to be Interviewed by a Muslim’

Moment Burma democracy heroine Suu Kyi lost her cool with BBC’s Mishal Husain after being quizzed over violence towards Muslim minority

She is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a beacon of saintly integrity in the West who remained under house arrest for 15 years in her native Burma.

However, there is another side to Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi that sits at odds with her iconic image.

After the BBC Today presenter Mishal Husain gave Suu Kyi a rough ride during a BBC interview, Suu Kyi lost her composure and was heard to mutter angrily off-air: ‘No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim.’

The spat between the two prominent and famously elegant Asian women has only just emerged, and followed a heated interview with the 70-year-old president of Myanmar’s National League for Democracy on the Today programme, according to a new book, The Lady And The Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi And Burma’s Struggle For Freedom, by Peter Popham.

Suu Kyi’s equivocal attitude towards the violence suffered by Burma’s Muslim minority has alarmed even her most dedicated fans.

When she was repeatedly asked by Husain to condemn anti-Islamic sentiment and the wave of mob-led massacres of Muslims in Myanmar, she declined to do so. ‘I think there are many, many Buddhists who have also left the country for various reasons,’ she replied. ‘This is a result of our sufferings under a dictatorial regime.’

Much of the country’s huge Buddhist majority dislikes its small Muslim community with a passion, so it is thought Suu Kyi did not want to alienate her supporters.

Muslims are only 4 per cent of Burma’s population. The Rohingya Muslims, who have borne the brunt of the violence, are a smaller minority still. The Rohingya are explicitly forbidden from becoming citizens of Burma and have no political weight whatsoever.

Husain, 43, was the first Muslim presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme.

But while often seen as a symbol of the BBC’s commitment to diversity, she is, herself, thumpingly posh.

The mother-of-three and Northampton-born daughter of Pakistani parents was educated at private school and Cambridge University, where she read law.

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

Around 100 China Ships Encroaching Malaysia’s Waters: Minister

Around 100 Chinese boats and ships were discovered trespassing Malaysian waters in the South China Sea, a minister said Thursday.

According to Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama, Shahidan Kassim, minister in the prime minister’s department, said that around 100 China-registered boats and vessels had been detected in the Luconia Shoals — which Malaysia calls Beting Patinggi Ali. He did not offer further specifics on the nature of these vessels and their specific locations.

Malaysia, one of four Southeast Asian claimants in the South China Sea disputes along with Brunei, Vietnam and the Philippines, has been contending with a series of bolder and more frequent incursions by Chinese vessels over the past few years.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Hong Kong Bookseller Bows to Chinese Pressure?

The “missing” Hong Kong bookseller Lee Bo has reportedly said he will no longer deal in banned books. This came a day after he reappeared in Hong Kong following over two months in mainland China.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

“Child Migrants” Linked to DC Murders

Three nonwhites who entered the US illegally in 2013 as “unaccompanied minors” have been arrested in connection with a series of brutal MS-13 gang murders in the Washington DC area.

The three “minors”-who all skipped immigration hearings-were arrested after taking part in the gangland shooting of a seventeen-year-old in Loudoun County, Virginia.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

A Time for Choosing

Utterly reject the disciples of mindless diversity and multiculturalism

After the latest atrocity inflicted by ISIS,Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon offered the world another look at the utter bankruptcy that informs the progressive mindset. “It was always possible that more attacks could happen,” he explained, “but we never could have imagined something of this scale.”

Never imagine it? The death toll engendered by the attack in Paris last November was more thanthree timesthe total notched by Islamic thugs in Brussels. As for the”possibility” of more attacks, who’s kidding whom? Does anyone, other than the terminally clueless who still buy into such drivel, remotely believe we’ve seen the last attack on a European Union that rolled out the welcome mat tomorethan one million Muslim”refugees” in 2015 alone?

One might have thought EU politicians besotted by political correctness might have been chastened by that Paris attack, or the Charlie Hebdo attack before it, or even the outbreak of”migrant” rape gangs that plied their trade in Cologne on New Year’s Eve and spread their evil to other EU cities in the following days. But it’s a sad reality that progressive ideologues, who fervently believe they own the franchise on the”superior” wisdom that drives their multicultural Utopian ambitions,will never admit an uncomfortable reality best expressed in a question asked by PJ Media columnist Roger L. Simon. “Are progressives going to murder our children with their political correctness?” he wonders.

Sadly, the answer is yes…

So yes, as despicable as it sounds, progressives are going to murder our children-if we let them. If we continue to countenance their”why do they hate us?” hand-wringing,their lust for open borders and unrestricted immigration, their odious assertions that the only thing keeping a committed Islamic jihadist from becoming a model citizen is a good job, and their reflexive contempt for their own civilization. If we continue to ignore the nexus between jihadists and progressives, both of whom wish to overwhelm conservatism, and the Judeo-Christian roots of Western civilization, prior to facing off against each other.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Austrians: ‘Reds, It’s Your Fault’

Terrorist attacks in Europe are the fault of the leftist parties in Europe — that was the message that activists from the Austrian Identitarian movement carried into the streets of Vienna today in double protests in front of the headquarters of the Green and Social Democratic parties. The protests- using the sounds of explosions and cries of terror to symbolize recent events- drew huge support and applause from passersby.

The protest actions, cleared ahead of time with local police, saw the Identitarians form up before the headquarters of the two parties-which are in a coalition government to keep out the populist FPO-and then, to the soundtrack of a large explosion, all fall down as if dead.

At the same time, a large banner was unfurled, reading “Das ist eure Schuld” (“It is your fault).

A statement on the group’s Facebook page said that the blame for the attacks in Brussels-which left thirty dead and scores injured — was exclusively that of the politicians who pulled down Europe’s borders in pro-asylum “madness.”

[Comment: 100% correct — with the proviso — it is not “madness”, but an intentional plan to destroy nation states using mass migration.]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Berlin to Build on Tempelhof Despite Drop in Refugees

The Berlin government is going ahead with plans to expand the big refugee center at Tempelhof airport, even though its population has dropped. Campaigners say it’s a back door for developers in the much-loved park.

           — Hat tip: Fjordman [Return to headlines]
 

Denmark Deploys the Army at Asylum Centres

If the police need help guarding the asylum centres, special trained soldiers from the Armed Forces are now ready, reports DR.

The army has, in cooperation with the police, trained nearly 600 soldiers who will be available for the police to guard the reception centers for refugees — including Søgårdlejren, which has still not been put into use, says press officer at the Defence Command, Henrik Mortensen.

– The goal has been reached. We have in total trained 600 men to help with the preparedness, he says.

In January, the Danish immigration and integration minister, Inger Støjberg, said that employees from the armed forces will be able to relieve the police, while there is a border control.

And if the defense must step in, they are trained to relieve the police in a number of areas, says Henrik Mortensen.

– It is among other things about security and access control at the fence around the reception centers. It could also be about detainees who are not allowed to leave the centres and to maintain peace and order at the centres, he says.

It is the police that decide when the trained soldiers will be called in to help with patrolling.

They can be deployed within seven days notice.

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

Germany: ISIS Refugee-Terrorist Arrest in Berlin

German police have arrested a 19-year-old nonwhite invader in a Berlin “refugee center” after identifying him as a fighter for ISIS in Syria-the latest in a series of refugee-terrorist arrests this week in Germany.

The nonwhite, identified as “Shaas E. M.,” joined ISIS in 2013 and stayed with them until at least August last year, and then took part in the mass invasion of Europe following Angela Merkel’s invitation to the Third World to come to Germany.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Hillary-Merkel: Partners in ‘Invited Refugee Invasion’ Crime

Without thought or planning, Merkel opened Germany’s doors to Islamic terrorists, endless Muslim hordes and accelerating fragmentation of her country’s future. She overlooked Paris, France. Merkel evaded the Charlie Hebdo massacre. She forgot 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombers.

“Germany saw a record two million ‘foreigners’ arrive in 2015 — more than the number of asylum seekers who came between 1954-1989. According to the head of the Statistics Agency, however, it could be a conservative estimate.” Breitbart

On America’s side of the pond, Hillary Clinton states that our country must accept another 65,000 Syrian refugees. She advocates for total amnesty for anywhere from 15 million to 31 million illegal aliens. She supports the continued immigration of 1.2 million legal immigrants annually as mandated by the 1965 Immigration Reform Act.

Hillary spits venom at Cruz and Trump for mentioning that we need a “pause” in Muslim immigration because, as Obama said, “It’s not who were are.” Note that Obama admitted to George Stephanopoulos in a documented interview in 2007 that he followed the Islamic faith through the Qu’ran.

One look at history shows that Charles Martel drove back the Muslims mobs at Poitiers in 722 to save Europe from Islamic barbarism. Thomas Jefferson created the U.S. Navy and Marines to defeat the Muslim Barbary Pirates from sinking our trading ships off the coast of Africa. Our Marine “leathernecks” coined that moniker because they strapped thick bands of leather around their necks so the Muslims couldn’t cut their heads off.

Andre Servier, French historian said, “The deadening influence of Islam is well demonstrated by the way in which the Muslim comports himself at different stages of his life. In his early childhood, when the religion has not as yet impregnated his brain, he shows a very lively intelligence and remarkably open mind, accessible to ideas of every kind; but, in proportion as he grows up, and as, through the system of his education, Islam lays hold of him and envelops him, his brain seems to shut up, his judgment to become atrophied, and his intelligence to be stricken by paralysis and irremediable degeneration.”

[Comment: Do not ascribe to stupidity that which is best ascribed to malice aforethought. Puppet politicians of EU are following a plan for the INTENTIONAL destruction of their own nation states. Chaos and deaths that are on the path to the banskter’s glorious socialist super state of serfs are just collateral damage. ]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Illegal Alien Allowed to Stay in USA Pleads Guilty to Rape, Murder, Kidnapping

Mexican illegal Juan Manuel Razo Ramirez pled guilty March 14 to one count of rape, three counts of kidnapping, and two counts each of “aggravated murder, attempted murder, attempted rape, aggravated burglary, aggravated robbery and felonious assault,” according to the Morning Journal.

The migrant launched his murderous crime wave three weeks after President Barack Obama’s directives forced immigration officials to release him back on the streets, instead of repatriating him.

The plea helps him escape a possible death sentence.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

ISIS Jihadis Entering UK Set to Soar as France Bans Lorry X-Rays Over Migrant Safety Fears

THE number of illegal immigrants and Islamic State (ISIS) jihadis entering Britain is set to soar after French authorities banned British border guards from X-raying lorries in case they harm migrants.

British border police routinely scan lorries about to cross the Channel to search for anything illegal.

But today it emerged the French have banned guards from using the devices — which take around an hour to scan each vehicle — to scan for illegal immigrants, but they still can for illegal goods.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: D’Alema Calls for ‘European Islam’

Integrate Muslims to prevent radicalization says ex-premier

(ANSA) — Rome, March 24 — Ex-premier Massimo D’Alema on Thursday called for a moderate, integrated European Islam to combat the rise of Islamic radicalism in European cities.

“A significant part of the Muslim world in Europe is not integrated,” he said.

“Which means that (Islamist) terrorism is surrounded by an area, if not of solidarity, of non-hostility”.

“I would like these people to feel they are full-blown European citizens,” D’Alema continued. “It would be preferable if they could build their mosques the same way churches are built, that is, with public funds. Italy has a 0.8% (tax program) for the Catholic church, but there are 1.5 million Muslims who are not recognized and with whom we don’t have an understanding”.

A European Islam “could be more open and modern than the fundamentalist kind that comes from some countries of origin,” the center-left Democratic Party (PD) politician said.

His comments sparked immediate reactions from rightwingers.

“Is he nuts??” tweeted anti-immigrant Northern League leader Matteo Salvini.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

More Aid Agencies Join Boycott of Greek Migrant Camps

More aid agencies helping migrants arriving in Greece say they are joining a boycott of detention centers.

Human rights organizations have criticized a deal between the European Union and Turkey to fast-track registration and asylum applications. Migrants whose applications fail will be sent back to Turkey.

Aid agencies said cooperating with the Greeks at detention centers would make them complicit with an “unfair and inhumane” practice.

On March 22, the UN refugee agency UNHCR and aid organization Doctors Without Borders both announced they would cut back assistance.

A day later, the International Rescue Committee and Norwegian Refugee Council joined them.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

UK: 40 Per Cent of Illegal Migrant and Foreign Criminal Deportations Cancelled Due to Lack of Staff

Four out of ten deportations of illegal immigrants and foreign criminals from the UK were cancelled in 2014-15, largely because there were not enough staff available to take them to the airport.

Almost 34,000 airline tickets had to be cancelled in one 18-month period, costing British taxpayers more than £1.4 million, a report by the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration has revealed.

A separate report suggests officials have lost track of thousands of foreign students whose visas have expired, the BBC reports.

The first report explains that a “major constraint” on the deportation process was a lack of security staff to accompany detainees out of the country.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

George Soros’ Son Donates $1 Million to Planned Parenthood to Help Elect Hillary Clinton

Jonathan Allan Soros — the son of liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros — has donated $1 million to Planned Parenthood Votes — a political advocacy arm of the nation’s largest abortion business, which has endorsed Hillary Clinton for president.

.@HillaryClinton wins Missouri, making Tuesday night a clean sweep of all five states. #ShesWithUs #IVotePPAction pic.twitter.com/UtuMRKkblA

– Planned Parenthood (@PPact) March 17, 2016

Soros — the CEO of JS Capital Management LLC — made his contribution on February 22, according to FEC filings. In February, 11 individuals donated a total of $2,723,297.17, with Soros providing the largest of the donations.

LGBT activist Jon L. Stryker, heir of the Stryker medical technology company and founder and president of the Arcus Foundation, also donated $100,000 in February to Planned Parenthood Votes. The executive director of the Arcus Foundation is Kevin Jennings, a former Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education in the Obama administration and the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which provides pro-LGBT agenda curricula to public schools in the United States under the umbrella of anti-bullying education.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

How Chronic Stress Promotes Spread of Cancer, And What You Can Do About it

Psychological stress can take a tremendous toll on your health. One of the reasons for this is because stress causes inflammation, which in turn is a hallmark of most diseases, from obesity and diabetes to heart disease and cancer.

Six years ago, I interviewed Donald (“Donnie”) Yance, an internationally known herbalist and nutritionist, who shared a really surprising piece of information: stress was actually pinned down as a cause of cancer all the way back in 1908. As Donnie said:

“Eli Jones, the great eclectic physician in cancer, and probably the most brilliant person that ever lived on the face of the planet, wrote a book in 1908 called “Cancer — Its Causes, Symptoms and Treatment.” There isn’t one inaccuracy I can find in that book, written more than 100 years ago.”

In this book, Dr. Jones revealed the top causes of cancer, and the No. 1 cause he listed was unresolved stress. Since then, a number of studies have confirmed this link. In the video above, two doctors at MD Anderson Cancer Center go into some of the details now known about stress and cancer.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

3 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 3/25/2016

  1. As to the Buruma piece: A perfect elitist disconnection from the most immediate realities. It’s actually a very good piece about Brussels, perhaps paid for by the word, but the comments about Molenbeek were worse than just the gilding of a horse-apple. It’s symptomatic of too many reasons why this will not be just a ‘cycle’ of violence. Prattle can doom us.

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