The latest evidence from the crash of EgyptAir Flight 804 indicates that the plane may have exploded before plunging into the Mediterranean. The body parts of passengers that have been recovered so far are in small pieces, and some show burn marks that suggest they were close to an explosion. A terrorist bomb is now considered the most likely reason for the crash.
In other news, more than 2,000 migrants were rescued off the coast of Libya yesterday by the Italian coast guard in fifteen separate operations.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, Fjordman, JD, MC, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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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.
Bill Cosby Ordered to Stand Trial for Sexual Assault
A Pennsylvania judge ruled on Tuesday there is enough evidence for Bill Cosby to stand trial on sexual assault charges stemming from a 2004 incident.
Cosby nodded his head as Magisterial District Judge Elizabeth McHugh gave her ruling.
“Mr. Cosby, good luck to you, sir,” the judge said.
“Thank you,” said the former TV star, who stood up briskly after the ruling and seemed chipper and unsurprised. He hugged one of his lawyers.
Former Temple University athletic department employee Andrea Constand told authorities that Bill Cosby violated her sexually after giving her pills that made her dizzy and left her legs feeling “like jelly,” according to a police report read at a court hearing Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Clinton Foundation Got $100m From ‘Blood Minerals’ Firm
Prosecutor characterized company as filled with “opportunistic, dictator-hugging businessmen…”
A little known Swedish-Canadian oil and mining conglomerate human rights groups have repeatedly charged produces “blood minerals” is among the Clinton Foundation’s biggest donors, thanks to a $100 million pledge in 2007, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found.
“Blood minerals” are related to “blood diamonds,” which are allegedly mined in war zones or sold as commodities to help finance political insurgencies or despotic warlords.
When the Vancouver, Canada-based Lundin Group gave its $100 million commitment to the “Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative,” the company had long been cutting deals with warlords, Marxist rebels, military strongmen and dictatorships in the war-torn African countries of Congo, Sudan and Ethiopia.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Raided $500m for Zika to Finance UN’s Green Climate Fund
White House throws money at U.N. instead of prioritizing Zika
Last week, the Senate passed legislation to address and prevent the spread of the Zika virus. However, the Senate failed to pay for it, and instead approved a $1.1 billion “emergency” spending supplemental bill that is not subject to the budgetary caps that were agreed to last year.
While congressional inattention to the budget crisis is inexcusable, it is even more disturbing that the Obama administration already has the authority to pay for a Zika response from existing agency budgets, but chose not to.
I’ve said several times on the Senate floor, over the last two weeks, that the Zika virus is a serious threat and should be dealt with responsibly by funding immediate vaccine research and aggressive mosquito population control.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
This Guy Got Himself Stung 1,000 Times for Science — Here’s What He Learned
Justin Schmidt has been stung more than 1,000 times by nearly 100 different insect species. Some would call that madness. He calls it science. Schmidt, an entomologist at the University of Arizona, is the author of a new book called The Sting of the Wild, which seeks to quantify every one of those stings and rank them on a scale of 1 to 4. At the low-end of the scale you have creatures like sweat bees and Southern fire ants. At the top, you meet beasts with names like the warrior wasp and the bullet ant.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Electric Cars and Unicorns: Ontario’s New Green Scheme
Government will reduce our carbon footprint by micromanaging every aspect of our lives and our economy
The future is going to be a lot of fun in Ontario. Just a few years from now, millions of us will be liberated from our evil fossil-fuelled transportation network. Millions of government-subsidized electric cars will whisk us silently to work. Our buses will run on biofuels. Our retrofitted geothermal-powered homes will keep us warm at prices much higher than today’s natural gas (which would be banned). Vast tracts of land will be diverted to solar panels, which will transform the sun’s rays into clean, green, righteous energy — as soon as we can figure out how to store it and attach it to the grid. Unicorns will frolic in our gardens, and pigs will fly.
Ontario’s new draft Climate Change Action Plan is a breathtaking work of fantasy, wrought by folks who evidently never met an engineer, an economist, or anybody else who knows how the real world works. Glen Murray, the Environment Minister, is a notoriously Big Thinker. There is nothing necessarily wrong with government ministers who majored in social work and community development. But they absolutely should not be allowed to run amok unsupervised.
The provincial government will reduce our carbon footprint by micromanaging every aspect of our lives and our economy. Its plan will throw our auto and energy industries into chaos, and further enrage every small town in Ontario, whose rights have been trampled by German salesmen selling giant industrial wind turbines. It will drive some of the highest electricity prices in North America even higher…
The Action Plan will be a gravy train for subsidy seekers, lobbyists and hawkers of green schemes, who show up in droves whenever free money’s being handed out.
It’s hard to pick out one wrong thing with this plan, because all of it is nutty. Let’s start with electric cars. The plan says 12 per cent of all new cars should be electric by 2025. (The market share of electric cars in Canada is currently 0.35 per cent.) How will this happen? Subsidies! You too can drive a Tesla.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: ‘Help! My Name is Jihad’
My name doesn’t make life easy for me, Jihad Eshmawi tells us.
His mission is to get the Swedish media to balance their reporting on refugees, but who’s going to listen to a guy called Jihad?
“Nowadays if you google my name Jihad…you will mostly find definitions like ‘struggle’, ‘sacred war’, ‘suicide bomb’.”
That’s not ideal, obviously. In fact, Jihad is so fed up with having to justify the origins of his name that has even considered printing out explanatory cards.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Moderates: Increase Security for Emergency Personnel
As Sweden’s largest opposition party, the Moderates, hosts a conference in Malmö this weekend, the party secretary joined calls to impose stricter penalties for people who attack police and emergency services.
Tomas Tobé, the Moderate’s party secretary, told Swedish Radio that an attack on police officers, emergency medics, or any other public safety staff is an attack on a society governed by the rule of law.
“The response to this aggression and these attacks must be clear. It is about zero tolerance,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Terrorists Likely Stockpiling Explosives in EU, Says Europol
The threat of terrorists attacks in the EU remains the top national security concern among member states, with some 211 foiled plots last year alone, according to a top EU security official.
The threat of another attack similar in scale to the Paris attack in November last year or in Brussels this past March has national authorities on edge.
Manuel Navarrete Paniagua, the head of the European Counter Terrorism Centre at the EU police agency Europol, told euro-deputies on Monday (23 May) that terrorist cells in the EU were likely stockpiling explosives for later use.
“We have some information reported by the member states that terrorists groups are trying to establish large clandestine stockpiles of explosives in the European Union to be used eventually in large scale home attacks,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The One World Religion Cometh: Pope Francis Warmly Welcomes Top Islamic Cleric to the Vatican
There is a very clear pattern developing here. Pope Francis believes that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, and he wants us to know that he considers Islam to be a perfectly acceptable way to seek God.
If you doubt this in any way, I want you to watch this video which was released by the Vatican in January 2016…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Man Admits Unprovoked Attack at Leytonstone Tube Station
A man has admitted trying to stab four people in an unprovoked attack at a London Tube station.
Muhaydin Mire has admitted four counts of attempted wounding at Leytonstone station in December last year.
Appearing at the Old Bailey via videolink, he pleaded not guilty to one charge of attempted murder after a man was kicked and cut across the throat.
Prosecutors claim the 30-year-old from Sansom Road, Leytonstone, was carrying out an act of terrorism.[…]
| — Hat tip: MC | [Return to headlines] |
Who is to Blame for the Fuel Crisis in France?
With petrol stations quickly running empty and the protests set to rumble on, who can be held responsible for the growing crisis?
France appeared to be mired in a stand-off on Tuesday as one by one, petrol stations across the country ran out of fuel.
With around 25 percent of the country’s 12,000 fuel stations now reportedly running dry the crisis shows no sign of easing.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Human Remains Suggest Explosion Brought Down EgyptAir Plane, Forensics Official Says
Human remains recovered from the crash site of EgyptAir Flight 804 showed burn marks and were “very tiny,” suggesting an explosion brought down the plane, a senior Egyptian forensics official told the Associated Press Tuesday.
Meanwhile, a U.S. official briefed on the latest intelligence told Fox News, “All signs continue to point to terrorism.”
The official who spoke to the AP claimed he personally examined the remains of some of the plane’s 66 passengers and crew at a Cairo morgue. He said all 80 pieces brought to Cairo so far are small and that “there isn’t even a whole body part, like an arm or a head.”
He added that at least one part of an arm had signs of burns — an indication it might have “belonged to a passenger sitting next to the explosion.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic State Group Leader Urges Attacks in Europe and US
An Islamic State group spokesman has urged sympathizers in Europe and the U.S. to launch attacks on civilians there if they are unable to travel to the group’s self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
In a 31-minute audio message released late Saturday by the IS media arm al-Furqan, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani told his followers that, “the tiniest action you do in the heart of their land is dearer to us than the biggest action by us … there are no innocents in the heart of the lands of the Crusaders.”
He encouraged lone wolf attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is expected to start early next month, “to win the great award of martyrdom.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Islamic State Group Recruited Practising NHS Doctor
An NHS doctor left his family in the UK and joined the Islamic State militant group in Syria, the BBC has learned from leaked IS recruitment papers.
Issam Abuanza, 37 — who gained a licence to practise medicine in the UK in 2009 — left his Sheffield home, his wife and two children in 2014.
His sister Najla has told the BBC his parents will never forgive him.
On social media, Dr Abuanza has said he wished that a Jordanian pilot burnt alive by IS had taken longer to die.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
World War Zero Brought Down Mystery Civilisation of ‘Sea People’
The Trojan War was a grander event than even Homer would have us believe. The famous conflict may have been one of the final acts in what one archaeologist has controversially dubbed “World War Zero” — an event he claims brought the eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age world crashing down 3200 years ago.
And the catalyst for the war? A mysterious and arguably powerful civilisation almost entirely overlooked by archaeologists: the Luwians.
By the second millennium BC, civilisation had taken hold throughout the eastern Mediterranean. The Egyptian New Kingdom coexisted with the Hittites of central Anatolia and the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece, among others.
In little more than a single generation, they had all collapsed.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Afghan Taliban Leader Reportedly Was in Iran Hours Before US Strike Killed Him
The leader of the Afghan Taliban who was killed in a U.S. airstrike over the weekend reportedly visited Iran just hours before his death.
Mullah Akhtar Mansour, an Afghan citizen, was carrying a Pakistani passport when he entered the country Saturday at the Taftan transit point in western Pakistan, a popular crossing for cargo trucks, VOA news reports.
The passport reportedly had the name Wali Muhammad on it, but also had Mansour’s photo.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘No Muslims Allowed’: How Nationalism is Rising in Aung San Suu Kyi’s Myanmar
At the entrance to Thaungtan village there’s a brand-new sign, bright yellow, that bears the message: “No Muslims allowed to stay overnight. No Muslims allowed to rent houses. No marriage with Muslims.”
The post was erected in late March by Buddhist residents of the village in Myanmar’s lush Irrawaddy delta region who signed, or were strong-armed into signing, a document asserting that they wanted to live separately.
Since then a couple of other villages across the country have followed suit. Small but viciously insular, these “Buddhist-only” outposts serve as microcosms of the festering religious tensions that threaten Myanmar’s nascent experiment with democracy.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
China’s Scary Lesson to the World: Censoring the Internet Works
Far from knocking down the world’s largest system of censorship, China in fact is moving ever more confidently in the opposite direction, strengthening the wall’s legal foundations, closing breaches and reinforcing its control of the Web behind the wall.
Defensive no more about its censorship record, China is trumpeting its vision of “Internet sovereignty” as a model for the world and is moving to make it a legal reality at home. At the same time — confounding Western skeptics — the Internet is nonetheless thriving in China, with nearly 700 million users, putting almost 1 in 4 of the world’s online population behind the Great Firewall.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Fraudsters Coordinate 14,000 ATM Withdrawals in 3 Hours to Steal $13 Million
News reports don’t indicate that any of the suspects have been apprehended
At least 100 suspects stole over $13 million in three hours on Sunday, withdrawing money from hundreds of ATMs using forged credit cards.
The massive scheme used stolen data of some 1,600 credit cards issued by a South African bank to create fake credit cards.
The suspects then started withdrawing maximum amounts of 100,000 Yen (about $913) from ATMs in Tokyo and other prefectures in Japan on Sunday, May 15, at about 5 a.m.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Militants Release ‘Final Message’ From Norwegian
Islamist extremists have released what they call a “final message” from three hostages including Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad.
In the video, which was released on Sunday and reported by jihadist monitoring group SITE Intelligence Group, the Abu Sayyaf terrorists force Sekkingstad to appeal to the Norwegian government for help.
“Contact this group through June at the Canadian embassy and try to negotiate with this group,” Sekkingstad says in the video, according to SITE. “We will executed on June 13 at 3 o’clock, unless there is an agreement made with this group.”
The Norwegian man’s fellow hostages, Canadian Robert Hall and Filipina Marites Flor, make similar on-camera pleas. All three hostages were also forced to appeal to Filipino president-elect Rodrigo Duterte for help.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Bavaria Tries to Coax Migrants Into Police Force
Bavaria’s interior ministry has started a campaign to encourage more migrants to join up as officers of the law — whether they have a German passport or not.
Joachim Herrmann, the Bavarian interior minister, said that the campaign, which he announced on Monday in Nuremberg, was aimed at improving the success rate of solving crimes in his police force, the Münchener Merkur reports.
Experience shows that migrants in the police force offer “a direct line” to migrant communities because they speak the same languages and have a better understanding of people’s mentalities, said Herrmann.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration Backlash at the Heart of British Push to Leave the E.U.
If Britain does vote to leave the E.U. on June 23, analysts say, a powerfully emotional backlash against decades of immigration in cities such as Peterborough will be the primary driver.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Migrant Crisis: Turkey Could Block EU Deal Over Visas
Turkey’s parliament will block a deal reached with the EU on migrants if Turks do not gain visa-free access to the bloc, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned.
Turkey has repeatedly warned that the whole deal will collapse if this demand is not fulfilled.
“If that is not what will happen… no decision and no law in the framework of the readmission agreement will come out of the parliament of the Turkish Republic,” Mr Erdogan said at the close of the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Over 2,000 Stricken Migrants Rescued in the Mediterranean
Around 2,000 migrants seeking to reach Europe were plucked to safety from unseaworthy boats in the Mediterranean in 15 operations off the coast of Libya on Monday, the Italian coastguard service said.
So far this year more that 34,000 people have been brought to the Italian coast after being rescued off Libya, according to the UN refugee agency.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Blood smeared across the floors and splattered up the walls, these are the horrifying photos from inside the child asylum centre where a female Swedish social worker was murdered in ‘a frenzied attack’.
Alexandra Mezher, 22, bled to death after being stabbed as she tried to break up a fight involving two of the young migrants she was caring for.
The psychology graduate’s killing on January 25 at an asylum centre for unaccompanied minor refugees in Mölndal, a suburb of Gotherburg, sent shockwaves through Sweden and around the world.
Asylum seeker Youssaf Khaliif Nuur, from Ethiopia, is charged with her murder. Nuur has told detectives he cannot remember the incident.
But these grisly pictures taken from the scene show how Miss Mezher appeared to have put up a fight against her killer.
The trail of blood reveals for the first time how she tried to escape from the vicious attack, managing to crawl from the kitchen where she was stabbed with such force her artery was severed.
The psychology graduate, originally from Lebanon, then pulled herself along the corridor, seeking safety in a bedroom.
It was here — lying on the floor in amongst the white sheets stained red by her blood — that she lost her fight for life.
‘The young man has shown extreme ruthlessness and harshness which caused the death of Alexandra Mezhers,’ prosecutor Linda Wiking noted.
Detectives arrived at the centre to find this scene of carnage with a pot plant kicked over on the stairwell.
Suspect Nuur claimed to be just 15 to win himself a spot in the home. But prosecutors can now say conclusively that Nuur is at least 21, if not older, meaning he should not have been at the centre, which was for teenagers aged 14 to 17. Nuur will be deported to Ethiopia on completing his sentence if he is convicted.
The prosecutor’s report also reveals witnesses interviewed by police told how Miss Mezher begged for her life, and was heard to scream ‘No, no, no Youssaf’ at least 10 times as he stabbed her.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
A massive, migrant crime wave is surging across Germany according to figures buried in a new report released by the country’s Interior Ministry. The data reveals that without migrants considered, crime rates in Germany would have remained roughly static since 2014. But, in fact, the country recorded an extra 402,741 crimes committed by migrants.
While much of this criminality concerned illegal border crossings, German authorities instead talked up a “record surge” in crimes by “right wing radicals”.
Concerning statistics from the 135-page report reveal that 70 per cent of pickpocketing, one of the crime types on the rise, was committed by non-Germans. Of this figure, 34 per cent was committed by recent asylum seekers, with the rest committed by “non-Germans”.
Foreign nationals are thought to account for around 11 or 12 per cent of the total population of Germany, but were over-represented in every area of crime.
Illegal immigrants and asylum seekers account for around 2.5 per cent of Germany’s population, but were also massively overrepresented.
Amongst total offences, non-Germans accounted for 27.6 percent while illegal immigrants and asylum seekers accounted for 5.7 percent. Of homicides, the figures are 29.3%/8.2%, and of sexual assaults, the figures were 20.5%/4.8%.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Fresh Calls for ‘End-of-Life’ Pill for Elderly People Refused Euthanasia
Right-to-die organisations have made a fresh call for a ‘last will pill’ to be given to people who no longer wish to live but are turned down for euthanasia. The Dutch Association for a Voluntary End to Life (NVVE) and centrist-liberal party D66 both say the medicine should be made available to elderly people who want to end their lives. D66 MP Pia Dijkstra told Nieuwsuur she planned to bring a private bill to parliament later this year allowing people over 80 to end their lives voluntarily.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
“…the party secretary joined calls to impose stricter penalties for people who attack police and emergency services… “The response to this aggression and these attacks must be clear. It is about zero tolerance,” he said.”
So much for the protection of instruments of the state. Meanwhile, attacks on ordinary indigenous citizens are blamed on the citizens who need to smarten their act and get with the program.
It’s Socialism: Citizens are mere Economic Units but the Ruling Elite need to be preserved at all costs, even if a few 1000 disarmed citizens are slaughtered in the process! Now return to your Govt. Indoctrination Camp
Will there be a twenty first century version of the Night of the Long Knives? Just axing.
If you read Illiad and Oddysey, then you might come to the conclusion that the sea peoples that brought down the east-mediterranean civilisations at the end of the bronze age are the Greeks. After all – Odysseus was nicknamed the “conqueror of cities”, Achilles the “breaker of men” – and all of them were engaged in raiding cities all around the mediterranean. It’s all in the Illiad and Oddyssey.