Greek government officials are concerned about the legal delays that have prevented the construction of a mosque in Athens. It is feared that the absence of a mosque in the Greek capital could encourage the spread of Islamic extremism.
In other news, violence broke out at the border crossing between Italy and Austria in the Brenner Pass, where pro-immigrant demonstrators gathered to protest the new border controls imposed by Austria. Activists among the protesters threw stones and flares at the Austrian police, injuring five of them.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Jerry Gordon, Nick, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
8 Reasons 9/11 Could Not Have Been an Inside Job
Below, we’ll show that 9/11 could NOT have been an inside job … I. The 9/11 Commission and Congressional Investigation Into 9/11 All Disproved Any Conspiracy
9/11 was thoroughly and exhaustively investigated by the 9/11 Commission, Congress and U.S. scientific agencies.
This horse has already been beat to death, and anyone who raises questions is a nutjob.
True, the 9/11 Commission didn’t believe that the government told the truth about 9/11, and said the government obstructed their investigation.
For example:
9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, and that the 9/11 debate should continue
The 9/11 Commission chair said the Commission was “set up to fail”
The Commission’s co-chairs said that the CIA (and likely the White House) “obstructed our investigation”
9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that “There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version . . . We didn’t have access . . . .”
9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said “We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting”
9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: “It is a national scandal”; “This investigation is now compromised”; and “One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up”. When asked in 2009 if he thought there should be another 9/11 commission, Cleland responded: “There should be about fifteen 9/11 commissions”
The Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) — who led the 9/11 staff’s inquiry — said “At some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened”. He also said “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described … The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years… This is not spin. This is not true.”
Some examples of obstruction of justice into the 9/11 investigation include:
An FBI informant hosted and rented a room to two hijackers in 2000. Specifically, investigators for the Congressional Joint Inquiry discovered that an FBI informant had hosted and even rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House. As the New York Times notes: ==========
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
GOP Voters Incensed by ‘Stop Trump’ Movement
‘The harder they try to stop him, the more likely he is to succeed’
Reps. Thomas Marino and Lou Barletta are two of only a handful of House members to have endorsed Trump. In his announcement last week, Barletta complained that party leaders have “spent more time trying to stop Donald Trump than trying to understand why is he is so popular.”GOP voters in the 10th and 11th congressional districts, who gave big majorities to George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney, are rallying to the man their old standard-bearers detest.
Dan Meuser and Chris Hackett are Republican businessmen who once ran against each other for Congress. Meuser says the campaign to deny Trump the nomination at the national convention “just increases his support. People feel, ‘You’re still not taking us seriously.’“ Hackett agrees: “The harder they try to stop Trump, the more likely he is to succeed.”…
Trump, he said, appeals to “the blue collar, hard-working taxpayers’’ of his district, who are sick of Washington “elites,’’ federal regulations and taxes, including the one on corporations. And he warned against attempts to “rig’’ the convention against Trump.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Gun Owners of America Claims Victory Over ‘Bloomberg’s Billions’
“Gun rights activists demonstrated once again that when politicians feel the heat, they see the light”
Gun owners in Idaho and West Virginia can now carry their weapons concealed without a permit, allowing Gun Owners of America (GOA) to claim victory over “Bloomberg’s billions.”
“For all the talk about Bloomberg’s billions, Daddy Warbucks had his lunch handed to him in Idaho and West Virginia,” GOA’s Erich Pratt told Breitbart News. “Kudos to grassroots gun owners in both states for picking up their phones and calling their legislators. Gun rights activists demonstrated once again that when politicians feel the heat, they see the light.”
Breitbart News previously reported that the West Virginia House overrode Governor Earl Ray Tomblin’s (D) veto of permitless carry on March 4 and the Senate followed suit on March 5. Permitless carry goes into effect in West Virginia in June. And on March 25 Idaho Governor Butch Otter (R) signed permitless carry into law. The ability to carry concealed without a permit takes effect in Idaho on July 1.
[Comment: Americans should hold fast to their 2nd Amendment. Tyranny cannot be imposed by banksters until the American citizen is disarmed.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
LA’s New Rule: Homeless People Are Only Allowed to Own One Trashcan’s Worth of Things
A new law passed by the LA city council prohibits homeless people from owning more belongings than can fit in a 60-gallon trashcan with the lid on, and allows police to summarily confiscate any tents that are still standing on public property during daylight hours.
The law is a response to Los Angeles’s epidemic of homelessness — a rise in homelessness that’s clocked in at 20% of two years.
Of course, homelessness isn’t like smoking, a lifestyle choice that can be disincentivized given enough government arm-twisting.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
North Carolina Has the Chance to Lead a Revolution
This current impasse over the “Bathroom Law” provides North Carolina with a unique opportunity to be a leader not only in standing up to the radical leftist agenda and the bullying of the gay lobby, but also in advancing liberty
Recently, the state of North Carolina has found itself squarely in the cross hairs of the radical gay lobby and its social justice warrior (SJW) allies in business. The reason is a new law, passed by wide margins in both houses of the legislature and signed by Governor McCrory, which prevents local governments from passing ordinances allowing, among other things, so-called “transgendered” individuals to use bathrooms that do not conform to their actual, biological gender (i.e. would require men to use men’s restrooms, and women to use women’s facilities, regardless of what they “identify” as). This was in response to the city of Charlotte, which ignored the wishes of its own people and passed a “non-discrimination” ordinance that would have allowed men who “identify” as women to intrude into the personal privacy of women by using their restrooms.
Naturally, the radical Left is up in arms about this. They disingenuously paint the original Charlotte ordinance as nothing more than “equal rights” (since when does the US Constitution, or any constitution for that matter, address bathroom use?) and part of the “new gay civil rights” push. Opponents of the ordinance warned that it would merely pave the way for perverts to legally be able to victimize women and girls. While the radical gay lobby derides that claim, we should note that the individual who was largely responsible for seeing the Charlotte ordinance pass-a gay man named Chad Sevearance-Turner-is a convicted sex offender who was arrested in 1998 for “committing or attempting to commit a lewd act upon a child under the age of 16.” The original ordinance’s proponents vigorously assert that it would never have resulted in weird, creepy men abusing the system to indecently expose themselves to women (or worse). They should try telling that to this guy in Seattle, or this other guy in Toronto, both of whom did exactly that.
Nevertheless, all the usual suspects are trying to pressure the state government into rescinding the law-LBGTQ lobbyist groups and large out-of-state corporations steeped in California-style social activism have been alternately cajoling and threatening state leaders. Now, the Obama administration has begun threatening to take away funding from North Carolina for roads, schools, and public housing.
Federal funding is commonly used as a way of coercing states into implementing policies that the actual people of the state don’t want, but which the federal government wants them to follow. The Feds will hold out the carrot of funding for some program, or block grants for education, or whatever else if the state behaves the way it wants it to. Conversely, said funding can be cut off should the state step out of line. If that happens, the state finds itself in a fix because the state budget has most likely already been crafted and includes the federal funding among its sources of income to be used. The state government will come under attack from the usual sources of left-wing white noise (teachers’ unions, social spending advocates, etc.) and from the media, and must either give in to get the funding, or else risk unpopularity by increasing taxes to cover the shortfall.
This is where North Carolina’s opportunity to lead a revolution comes into play. If North Carolina leaders would simply stand strong, they could lead the way for other states whose leaders also value liberty and good government.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Researcher Links Mass Extinctions to ‘Planet X’
Periodic mass extinctions on Earth, as indicated in the global fossil record, could be linked to a suspected ninth planet, according to research published by a faculty member of the University of Arkansas Department of Mathematical Sciences.
Daniel Whitmire, a retired professor of astrophysics now working as a math instructor, published findings in the January issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society that the as yet undiscovered “Planet X” triggers comet showers linked to mass extinctions on Earth at intervals of approximately 27 million years.
Though scientists have been looking for Planet X for 100 years, the possibility that it’s real got a big boost recently when researchers from Caltech inferred its existence based on orbital anomalies seen in objects in the Kuiper Belt, a disc-shaped region of comets and other larger bodies beyond Neptune. If the Caltech researchers are correct, Planet X is about 10 times the mass of Earth and could currently be up to 1,000 times more distant from the sun
Whitmire and his colleague, John Matese, first published research on the connection between Planet X and mass extinctions in the journal Nature in 1985 while working as astrophysicists at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Their work was featured in a 1985 Time magazine cover story titled, “Did Comets Kill the Dinosaurs? A Bold New Theory About Mass Extinctions.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
RNC Poised to Crush Cruz & Trump at Convention With “Secret” Delegate Army
Ted Cruz is clearly pinning his hopes on winning the GOP presidential nomination via a contested/brokered convention this summer in Cleveland.
Drifting slowly beneath the Establishment swamp though is a small army of RNC-devoted delegates who are poised to quickly alter the nomination outcome upon the second and third votes, and neither Donald Trump nor Ted Cruz are likely to survive that outcome.
Why Mr. Cruz continues to allow himself to be used so openly by the GOP Establishment as a wedge to prevent Donald Trump from reaching the majority of delegates necessary to lock up the nomination remains unclear to even some of Cruz’s supporters. Cruz has embraced the Republican Establishment in recent weeks, turning his campaign over to the very forces he once railed against as the “DC Cabal.”
Watch the following video to see what the RNC has already planned in order to overtake the nomination process during a brokered convention. It comes in the form of 168 RNC-loyal delegates who will quickly break away from Trump once voting begins, and then likely do the same to Cruz and finally coalesce behind a candidate who might not have even won a single vote during the primary race — a “fresh face” as GOP Establishment strategist Karl Rove recently declared could emerge.
It’s hard to imagine a man as intelligent as Ted Cruz is unaware of this, which would suggest he’s a willing accomplice in the willful disenfranchisement of millions of GOP primary votes, and if that is in fact true, the remaining question then is WHY?
The fix is clearly in, and this video outlines exactly how the Establishment intends for it to play out at the GOP convention…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Ted Cruz: DC Madame’s Records Will be Released
Ted Cruz, if innocent of the allegations should sue but we know what that means — the genie jumping out of the bottle or one might say a bimbo eruption. That is why I believe Cruz will not sue the National Enquirer or any other publication or web site that accuses him of using high paid prostitutes to scratch his itch. Oh, he can say he doesn’t want to give the National Enquirer any credibility or that he’s too busy on the campaign trail, but you and I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A crusading attorney general aims to hurt ExxonMobil after it stopped funneling money to the Clintons
Led by agenda-setting New York State and radical left-winger Al Gore the progressive persecution of climate change skeptics by the states is underway.
Top law enforcement officers in several states are joining with the Chicken Littles of green activism to weaponize the scientifically dubious argument that human activity is not only changing the earth’s climate but that unprecedented world catastrophe awaits unless draconian, economy-killing carbon emission controls are imposed more or less immediately.
The litigation offensive has nothing to do with justice. It is aimed at forcing those few remaining holdouts in the business community who stubbornly cling to science to confess their thought crimes and submit to the know-nothing Left’s climate superstitions. It is part of modern-day environmentalism’s ongoing assault on knowledge, human progress, markets, and the rule of law.
Repent and embrace the true green faith or else you’ll be investigated and denounced as a climate criminal, is the message of “Inspector Gotcha,” New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman…
Schneiderman, a left-wing fanatic, is gearing up for what amounts to political show trials to enforce the Left’s party line on anthropogenic global warming. His most recent victim is coal concern Peabody Energy which settled with the Democrat shakedown artist over its public disclosures related to climate change.
This radical inquisitor whom Politico reported had “spent his career building an ideological infrastructure for the left,” is building a gallows for those with the temerity to reject the lies of the misanthropic global-warmist agenda.
Schneiderman is a leftist’s leftist, a zealous true believer intent on, in his own words, “slow[ing] down the bone-crushing machinery of the contemporary conservative movement.”
In his successful campaign for the attorney general post he worked closely with the ACORN-linked “Working Families Party and financed his run with nearly $1 million from unions, [establishing he] was a true movement progressive, at home in the sorts of gatherings where ‘Joe Hill’ might be sung and people know who Emma Goldman was,” Walter Olson writes at City Journal.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Gulen ‘Islamic Cult’ May be Coming to U.S. Military Bases
The allegations come from lawyer Robert R. Amsterdam, founder of international law firm Amsterdam and Partners LLP, writing at The Hill.
As Amsterdam forthrightly discloses early in the piece, his firm has been “engaged by the Republic of Turkey — a key NATO ally in a hotbed region — to conduct a wide-ranging investigation into the operations and geopolitical influence of the Gülen organization, which is behind the Coral Academy of Science and over 140 other public charter schools scattered across 26 American states.”
This is a reference to the Muslim cleric Gülen, whom Amsterdam describes as “a reclusive but influential Imam living under self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania to avoid criminal prosecution in his native Turkey.” Gülen is a powerful and determined opponent of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The Coral Academy of Science in Las Vegas is negotiating with the United States Air Force to open a charter school at Nellis Air Force Base this fall. Amsterdam says his firm’s investigation revealed that the Gülen organization “uses charter schools and affiliated businesses in the U.S. to misappropriate and launder state and federal education dollars, which the organization then uses for its own benefit to develop political power in this country and globally.”
He also alleges that the organization abuses the H1-B visa program to import Turkish teachers into the United States, improbably claiming there are no qualified American teachers available for the positions, and then controls these Turkish educators by holding their visas hostage, even using the threat of deportation to force salary kickbacks from the teachers.
Amsterdam says that contributions, both voluntary and coerced, from Gülen’s estimated six million followers around the world give his organization assets worth $20 billion to $50 billion.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
You Will Believe in the Left-Wing Orthodoxy, And You Will Like it
Banks announce they will not lend money to people who deal in firearms. A major fundraising web site refuses to host campaigns for the targets of ideological harassment. A U.S. senator openly threatens to go after global warming skeptics using a law that was passed to take down the mafia. Governors veto laws designed to protect religious freedom after receiving threats from organizations like the National Football League. And of course, conservative organizations endure harassment from the IRS.
No one has passed a law banning you from owning guns, disblieving global warming, opposing gay marriage or being a conservative activist. They don’t need to. All they have to do is use the mechanisms of government, politics and public opinion to pressure you, investigate you, threaten litigation against you or otherwise complicate your life. And if you want to put a stop to it, all you have to do is stop opposing their agenda.
This is one of the reasons big government is such a big problem. Once government has its tentacles in enough aspects of American life, the left doesn’t even have to persuade people to believe its arguments. It just has to sick the government on those who dare remain so insolent as to disagree with them — and say so publicly.
It’s become standard operating procedure for those who know they can’t really win arguments on the merits. They’re much better at threats and pressure than they are at persuasion, so they go with their strength. If they can silence you via the regulatory state, why not? The EPA, the NLRB, the IRS and the DOJ can all make your lives miserable simply by launching investigations. Or maybe they can use the courts to shut you down. A lawsuit doesn’t have to have a chance of success to cause you problems. It just has to force you to spend money on attorney fees, discovery compliance and all kinds of other things that throw your life into chaos.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium: Molenbeek: Daily Mail’s Anti-White Lies
The UK’s Daily Mail’s ongoing anti-white lie frenzy was illustrated once again with their headline claim that “right wing fanatics,” deliberately ran down a Muslim woman in Molenbeek this weekend-when in fact the culprits were nonwhite Muslims who were attacking the police.
The incident took place during a large police turnout in the Brussels suburb to prevent an already cancelled protest meeting against Islamists in Europe…
Not untypically for that newspaper-which, despite its sometimes populist take on events, always runs the most anti-white angles on its “news”-its coverage deliberately attempted to create the impression that the incident was committed by “white racists” who were there to cause trouble.
In addition, the Daily Mail report claimed that there was an “anti-Islam rally” and that “Tensions escalated in Brussels as police clashed with far-right protesters.”
The reality of the situation is, needless to say, completely different to the Daily Mail’s lies.
Firstly, there was no “anti-Islam rally,” and there were no “clashes with far-right protestors,” and, finally, the car in question, a white Audi, was driven by two nonwhites-as anyone seeing a video of the incident was immediately aware.
The car had deliberately driven through a police line after throwing an incendiary device and a smoke bomb at the police. They then raced off around the corner, where their vehicle struck the woman.
The vehicle was however quickly stopped by the massive police presence in the city, and the two passengers arrested.
They were named as Redouane and Mohamed B., and have been held in custody for malicious obstruction of traffic, armed rebellion, and felony flight, according to the Brussels public prosecutor.
They were also under the influence of drugs and alcohol at the time of the incident.
The lies of the Daily Mail notwithstanding, the events on Saturday afternoon also demonstrated the inherent anti-white nature of the political elite in Belgium.
After the Identitarian movement had earlier announced that they would be holding an “Islamists out” rally in Molenbeek, the far left mayor of the town took the unprecedented step of banning the event.
Police vehicles fill the streets to crack down on any whites who might dare defy the ban.
The authorities then deployed hundreds of police in the suburb-something they seem to be only capable of when whites want to protest-and immediately arrested a small group of seven whites they suspected of being “right wingers.”
Meanwhile, a far larger group of four hundred reds and nonwhites had gathered in the square, hoping for a fight-but they were of course left alone by the police.
[Comment: Even the most basic of reporting would have uncovered the truth. Clearly mainstream media had a different agenda — paint anti-0immigration movement as dangerous fanatics so the power of the state apparatus can be used against them.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Seven Others Ask EC to Review Methods
‘Eliminate discrepancies’ in output gap calculation methods
(ANSA) — Rome, March 31 — Italy and seven other EU countries have sent the European Commission (EC) a joint letter requesting a review of the method of calculating the output gap, sources said Thursday. The output gap is an indicator used to assess budget adjustments for countries the EC says are failing to meet their objectives. The eight countries asked the EC to “eliminate the time discrepancy” between how it calculates structural surplus (based on two years) and the way individual countries do (based on four years).
The other signatories to the letter sent last Friday are Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Spain.
Italian Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan told Le Figaro paper in an interview out Thursday that the European Union’s system for calculating debt and budget targets damages Italy and should be changed.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Lack of Mosque in Athens Stokes Fears of Radicalism
Government officials fear that the delays in constructing a mosque in Athens, a process that has been beset by legal complications, could allow radical Islam to flourish in the capital.
“Every day that we do not have an official mosque and imam in Athens, we pay for in the increased risk of the radicalization of Muslims in the dark and unofficial places of worship,” an official at the Education and Religious Affairs Ministry who wished to remain anonymous told Kathimerini, referring to dozens of basements that have been converted into makeshift mosques.
Greece passed a law in 2006 to build a mosque in Athens with public money. The legislation also granted the government the right to appoint the imam. Although a plot in Votanikos, near the city center, has been set aside, the construction of the building is being held back by numerous appeals against the project, which the Council of State has to hear.
“It is exactly because of the recent terrorist attacks that we have to move quickly to construct the mosque in Athens,” said the official. “The state has to have an official interlocutor who represents the various branches of Islam. When you do not have official places of worship, who can you speak with?”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Morocco Spy Chief Warns ISIS Are Planning Chemical Attacks in Europe
Abdelhak Khiame (pictured right), Morocco’s head of counter terrorism, claims his unit has smashed 25 ISIS plots in his country in the past year alone.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Scotland: Lawyer Who Called for Muslim Unity After Brutal Murder of Asad Shah Receives Death Threats
A LAWYER who called for unity within Scotland’s Muslim community after the brutal murder of gentle shopkeeper Asad Shah has ‘received death threats’.
Aamer Anwar said he was taking the threats from “fanatics” extremely seriously and had contacted police, who were investigating.
Last week, Mr Anwar chaired an event at Glasgow Central Mosque condemning violence and extremism after the murder of Muslim shopkeeper Asad Shah.
Mr Shah, 40, was found injured outside his convenience store in the Shawlands area of Glasgow on Thursday March 24. His funeral took place on Saturday.
Fellow Muslim Tanveer Ahmed, 32, from Bradford in West Yorkshire, has appeared in court charged with murder.
Following the attack, police described the incident as “religiously prejudiced”.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Anti-FGM Campaigner Hibo Wardere Targeted on a Bus by Muslim Woman
Hibo Wardere, 46, an FGM survivor from Somalia, has spoken out about being attacked on a Walthamstow bus by the mother of a child she had told the practice was a form of abuse.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Revealed: Bungling Ministers Blow £172 Million on Foreign Aid Projects by Mistake
BUNGLING Government ministers have blown hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on lavish foreign aid projects by MISTAKE, it emerged tonight.
Incompetent mandarins have overspent on international aid by more than £170 million this year alone — enough money to keep the Port Talbot steel plant going for six months.
The shocking revelations come on the same night it emerged British aid money has been linked to shocking corruption abroad, including a rigged election in the African country of Tanzania.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Time to End the Foreign Aid Profligracy
This newspaper has been warning about the dangers of foreign aid profligacy for a long time. We have exposed how money has been spent on projects that most would not define as humanitarian — UK funds distributed by the EU have gone towards the construction of a water park in Morocco — and given to countries that few would call desperate cases, such as the tropical paradise of Barbados.
The Department for International Development (Dfid) once backed a programme to help indigenous rainmakers in western Kenya. They supply meteorological information using techniques such as observing insects and flowers.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Vatican Probes Bertone PH Renovations
To suspected of misappropriating children’s hospital funds
(ANSA) — Vatican City, March 31 — The Vatican is investigating two people for misappropriation in connection with expensive renovations to a penthouse apartment inhabited by its former Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican press office deputy chief Greg Burke said on Thursday.
Burke said the probe began after allegations that the work was paid for by a foundation linked to the Bambin Gesù pediatric hospital in Rome, confirming an earlier report by L’Espresso news magazine. The pediatric hospital operates in the Italian national health system but is owned and managed by the Holy See.
The suspects were named as the hospital’s former chairman Giuseppe Profiti and its former treasurer, Massimo Spina.
Cardinal Bertone is not under investigation, Burke added. On Thursday, L’Espresso anticipated a report to be published Friday claiming that judicial authorities at the Vatican had launched a probe into the funding scandal following revelations made by journalist Emiliano Fittipaldi in his controversial 2015 exposé book Avarice, on the Vatican’s financial empire.
Fittipaldi, who authored the Friday article, is on trial in the Vatican along with four others in the so-called Vatileaks 2 case involving the alleged leaking and publishing of confidential Vatican documents, some of which became material for his book.
“Pope Francis’ judges have already found evidence documenting how the renovations to the apartment were paid for by the Bambin Gesù pediatric hospital foundation,” Fittipaldi wrote in the article.
L’Espresso claims the renovations cost a total of 422,000 euros and were billed not to the contractor that actually carried out the work — the now-defunct Castelli Re — but to a London-based holding company controlled by Gianantonio Bandera, the owner of Castelli Re and Bertone’s personal friend.
“The money destined for sick children was in actuality used for the renovations and then sent on to London,” Fittipaldi writes. “In addition to the seven invoices paid to the builder out of the Foundation’s accounts at the Institute for Religious Works (IOR) and the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (APSA), Pope Francis’ magistrates also have signed letters nailing Benedict XVI’s former secretary of state to his responsibilities,” L’Espresso continued. The magazine is allegedly in possession of correspondence between Profiti and Bertone suggesting the manager offered to pay for the renovations through the foundation in exchange for hosting “institutional meetings” in the penthouse apartment, and that the cardinal accepted the offer the following day. “Bertone’s name is not cited in the magistrates’ document but the Holy See will find it hard to overlook his direct involvement in the scandal,” L’Espresso said.
The cardinal has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing over renovations to the penthouse in Via della Conciliazione near St Peter’s Basilica.
“I used my savings,” Bertone wrote in Genoa-based Catholic weekly Il Cittadino last November.
“I have the paperwork to prove I paid roughly 300,000 euros to the Vatican governorate from my own account.
“I later discovered that the Bambin Gesu’ Foundation had made a contribution for the same purpose,” he continued.
“I rule out having ever given indication or authorised the foundation to make any payment,” the cardinal said.
Cardinal Bertone also denied living in luxury.
“The apartment measures 296 square metres and I don’t live there on my own. I live with a community of nuns who help me,” the prelate told Corriere della Sera newspaper at the time.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Two Palestinian terrorists who repeatedly stabbed a British woman in a brutal attack and killed her friend are now each receiving at least £9,000 in ‘blood money’ every year with the help of UK aid.
Kay Wilson was left for dead in an orgy of violence in Jerusalem in which Kristine Luken, an American, was killed.
The attackers were eventually caught and, after admitting their crimes, were sent to prison.
But Ms Wilson was horrified to learn from news reports that her assailants were being paid a monthly stipend equivalent to £750 each effectively from the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Last week The Mail on Sunday exposed how ‘reward’ payments are going via the PA to thousands of terrorists and to hundreds of other prisoners in Israeli jails.
Ms Wilson, 51, and her friend were hiking in the Judean Hills in 2010 when the two men pounced on them, believing both women to be Jewish, although Miss Luken was Christian. After tying the women up the terrorists launched a savage attack.
Miss Luken died from her stab wounds. Miss Wilson still bears a seven-inch scar on her stomach and, more than five years on, breathing still causes her pain.
Ms Wilson said: ‘We were held for 30 minutes at knife point then gagged and bound before being butchered with machetes.”
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Anti-Semitic Egyptian Archeology Outburst Over Jewish Symbols Found on Ancient Temple
We know that Islamists in the Middle East have sought to destroy any vestiges ancient civilizations that pre-dated the grand Jihad of Mohammed and his companions. The Western world has been appalled by ISIS destructions of ancient Assyrian artifacts in Mosul, ancient Churches on the plains of Nineveh, Roman temples in Palmyra, Syria and other UNESCO designated sites. They were striped of artifacts and statuary from these preserved sites to sell on the antiquities black market. Then there is the latest example from Egypt reported by The Jerusalem Post. The discovery of Jewish Stars of David symbols engraved in an ancient temple on Elephantine Island in Aswan, Egypt, “Star of David engraved into ancient Temple causes bustle in Egypt:”…
| — Hat tip: Jerry Gordon | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Christians Say No to Church ‘Controlled by Communist Party’
As Chinese President Xi Jinping continues to tighten the Communist Party’s grip on religious practice, more and more Christians are opting out of the official, state-recognized church and heading underground.
Some six million Catholics have refused to join churches recognized by the Communist Party and have opted to worship in “house churches,” where they can remain loyal to the Vatican.
Father Dong Baolu, an underground Chinese priest, celebrates Mass in these so-called house churches in order to worship God in freedom and independence from state control.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
“The Panama Papers”: Notice Which Newspaper Could Not be Trusted With the Intel
We’ve been waiting to write an outline regarding the “Panama Papers”, because one of the more interesting aspects in the distribution is how the sources within the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung refused to share the massive file of information with The New York Times.
Instead, Süddeutsche Zeitung shared the data through an International Consortium of Investigative Journalists with the including the Guardian and the BBC.
Here’s a brief outline of first batch [of] details:
- Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens.
- A $2bn trail leads all the way to Vladimir Putin. The Russian president’s best friend — a cellist called Sergei Roldugin — is at the centre of a scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore. Some of it ends up in a ski resort where in 2013 Putin’s daughter Katerina got married.
- Among national leaders with offshore wealth are Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt’s former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson.
- In the UK, six members of the House of Lords, three former Conservative MPs and dozens of donors to British political parties have had offshore assets.
- The families of at least eight current and former members of China’s supreme ruling body, the politburo, have been found to have hidden wealth offshore.
- Twenty-three individuals who have had sanctions imposed on them for supporting the regimes in North Korea, Zimbabwe, Russia, Iran and Syria have been clients of Mossack Fonseca. Their companies were harboured by the Seychelles, the British Virgin Islands, Panama and other jurisdictions.
- A key member of Fifa’s powerful ethics committee, which is supposed to be spearheading reform at world football’s scandal-hit governing body, acted as a lawyer for individuals and companies recently charged with bribery and corruption.
[…]
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Largest Leak Ever: Whistleblower Reveals Global Elite Crime Network
The Panama Papers: 2.6 TB of leaked data
Over a year ago, an anonymous source contacted the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and submitted encrypted internal documents from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that sells anonymous offshore companies around the world.
These shell firms enable their owners to cover up their business dealings, no matter how shady.
In the months that followed, the number of documents continued to grow far beyond the original leak. Ultimately, SZ acquired about 2.6 terabytes of data, making the leak the biggest that journalists had ever worked with. The source wanted neither financial compensation nor anything else in return, apart from a few security measures.
The data provides rare insights into a world that can only exist in the shadows. It proves how a global industry led by major banks, legal firms, and asset management companies secretly manages the estates of the world’s rich and famous: from politicians, Fifa officials, fraudsters and drug smugglers, to celebrities and professional athletes.
A group effort
The Süddeutsche Zeitung decided to analyze the data in cooperation with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). ICIJ had already coordinated the research for past projects that SZ was also involved in, among them Offshore Leaks, Lux Leaks, and Swiss Leaks. Panama Papers is the biggest-ever international cooperation of its kind. In the past 12 months, around 400 journalists from more than 100 media organizations in over 80 countries have taken part in researching the documents. These have included teams from the Guardian and the BBC in England, Le Monde in France, and La Nación in Argentina. In Germany, SZ journalists have cooperated with their colleagues from two public broadcasters, NDR and WDR. Journalists from the Swiss Sonntagszeitung and the Austrian weekly Falter have also worked on the project, as have their colleagues at ORF, Austria’s national public broadcaster. The international team initially met in Washington, Munich, Lillehammer and London to map out the research approach.
The data
The Panama Papers include approximately 11.5 million documents — more than the combined total of the Wikileaks Cablegate, Offshore Leaks, Lux Leaks, and Swiss Leaks. The data primarily comprises e-mails, pdf files, photo files, and excerpts of an internal Mossack Fonseca database. It covers a period spanning from the 1970s to the spring of 2016.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Panama: Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption
A massive leak of documents exposes the offshore holdings of 12 current and former world leaders and reveals how associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin secretly shuffled as much as $2 billion through banks and shadow companies.
The leak also provides details of the hidden financial dealings of 128 more politicians and public officials around the world.
The cache of 11.5 million records shows how a global industry of law firms and big banks sells financial secrecy to politicians, fraudsters and drug traffickers as well as billionaires, celebrities and sports stars.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
But the Putin links, as the media has to keep repeating for legal reasons, are not in fact linked to the Russian premier, but rather to some people they claim are in his “inner circle”.
Instead, the global figures directly implicated, including the Argentinian President, Iceland’s Prime Minister, the King of Saudi Arabia — alongside a host of other Western-allied Gulf figures, the President of Ukraine and others are being somewhat insulated by the media narrative.
The leak comes just days before a Netherlands vote on the EU association agreement with Ukraine — a referendum that is effectively about the Dutch people siding with either Vladimir Putin or the EU-backed network (including the leak-named president) of Ukraine. But the focus appears to be locked on Mr. Putin for the time being.
Questions must be asked of the tactics of the ICIJ, and indeed, their backers.
The organisation, which describes itself as “a global network of more than 190 investigative journalists in more than 65 countries who collaborate on in-depth investigative stories” lists as some of its recent financial funders:
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: “Refugees” Earn $50,000 P.A.
“Refugees” who con their way into Australia will earn a minimum of AUD $50,000 (US$38,362) per year without doing anything other than being there-and very likely substantially more depending upon how many children they can produce. The astonishing payouts can be calculated using the Department of Human Services (DHS) “Payment Finder” website tool.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Europe: Airborne Invasion Starts
The first two airplanes with fake “refugees,” flown directly into Germany from Turkey in terms of the European Union “asylum deal,” arrived this morning in Hannover.
The two aircraft, paid for by EU taxpayers, unloaded at least 35 invaders directly onto European soil-and are the first of many to come.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Watch: Violence Breaks Out at Austria-Italy Border Over New Immigration Controls
Demonstrations by pro-migrant social centers at the Austrian Brenner border with Italy tuned violent Sunday, with protesters hurling stones and flares at the Austrian police, injuring five officers, according to reports.
Some 700 protesters from Italy, Austria and Germany spent the day on Sunday at the Brenner Pass, publicly criticizing Austria’s plans to deploy soldiers at the Brenner border to deal with rising numbers of migrants trying to get to northern Europe.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Clinton Says Unborn Babies Have No Rights
Hillary Clinton says that unborn children do not have “constitutional rights.”
In an interview with Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” airing on Sunday, Clinton said that while it “doesn’t mean that you don’t do everything possible to try to fulfill your obligations [to help the unborn person], it does not include sacrificing the woman’s right to make decisions.”
Todd asked Clinton “if an unborn child has constitutional rights” and Clinton replied, “Well, under our laws, that is not something that exists. The unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights.”
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
A young mother was left so haunted by her decision to abort an unborn child that she hanged herself while listening to an Ed Sheeran song about the heartbreak of miscarriage.
Jade Rees, 21, had a termination when her five-month relationship with the baby’s father broke down and he began dating another woman.
But the mother-of-one’s decision left her ‘upset and distressed’ — and three weeks later she took her own life.
Miss Rees left handwritten notes addressed to her parents and two-year-old son, explaining the struggle she had faced since the devastating procedure, in which she stressed that her little boy ‘means everything to me’.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Jupiter Suffers ‘Planetary Extinction’ Strike. Is Earth Next?
Videos taken by two amateur astronomers in mid-March show a meteor strike on the rings of Jupiter that could have been a planetary extinction event if an object of similar size hit Earth.
What the two armatures apparently captured was a comet or asteroid crashing into the debris and small moons that make up rings surrounding the planet of Jupiter. The recording of the impact flash of light looks small and lasts for only a little over one second on the videos.
But looks are deceiving, because Jupiter is 86,881.34 miles wide and the equivalent of 317 times bigger than the Earth. If such an object hit the Earth, it would create the equivalent of the up to 186 mile-wide Chicxulub Crater from an asteroid that hit the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico 65 million years ago.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Latest news (sent to my e-mail from Google – you may be interested in this format)
is that George Soros has risen up and is pouring millions into the coffers of the Democrats for their re-election campaign. He and another reclusive billionaire – it would appear. (Does North America BREED these anti-social billionaires intent on destruction?) Georgy-Porgy is financing protestors at the rate of $16 per day to appear
at Trump rallies and cause violent trouble!
If they build that mosque…I have it on good authority IT BE BLOWN UP and/or BURNED with pig grease.