French Prime Minister Manuel Valls thinks that his country needs to establish a renewed rapport with Islam. In an interview with Le Monde, Mr. Valls said, “We need to reset and invent a new relationship with Islam.”
In other news, more than 5,000 immigration-critics took to the streets of Berlin today in a demonstration against Chancellor Angela Merkel and her migration policy.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, Dean, DV, Fjordman, MM, Reader from Chicago, 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.
Ireland Jails Top Three Bankers Over 2008 Banking Meltdown
Three senior Irish bankers were jailed on Friday for up to three-and-a-half years for conspiring to defraud investors in the most prominent prosecution arising from the 2008 banking crisis that crippled the country’s economy.
The trio will be among the first senior bankers globally to be jailed for their role in the collapse of a bank during the crisis.
The lack of convictions until now has angered Irish taxpayers, who had to stump up 64 billion euros — almost 40 percent of annual economic output — after a property collapse forced the biggest state bank rescue in the euro zone.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
16 Feared Dead After Hot Air Balloon Crashes in Texas
Sixteen people were feared dead Saturday after a hot air balloon caught on fire and crashed in Central Texas, officials said.
Erik Grosof with the National Transportation Safety Board arrived at the scene and confirmed there were “a number of fatalities.”
Caldwell County Sheriff Daniel Law said earlier that his office received a 911 call at 7:44 a.m. local time reporting a possible vehicle accident at a spot near Lockhart, Texas.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Abigail Fisher: Affirmative Action Plaintiff ‘Proud’ of Academic Record
“I’m a plaintiff in a pretty interesting Supreme Court case that’s been to the Supreme Court twice,” says the young woman sitting across the table from me, introducing herself for the tape as I adjust the levels on my recorder.
That’s putting it mildly. Abigail Fisher’s case against the University of Texas at Austin (UT) thrust her into the very centre of heated and overlapping public debates about race and identity, integration, privilege and education in the United States.
Fisher brought the case because she wanted to stop the university from using race in the admissions process, arguing that as a white woman she had lost out on a place because preferential treatment was given to black and other minority students.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Federal Racial Discipline Quotas Create Chaos in St. Paul Schools
The city’s high schools have become menacing places where gangs prowl the halls and ‘classroom invasions’ are commonplace. It’s coming to your schools next.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Hillary Clinton Said “Systemic Racism” In Tonight’s Speech. That’s Major.
The way we talk about racism in America is changing.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Moment of Silence for Fallen Cops Marred by Jeering at DNC Convention
A hard-won moment of silence for fallen police officers Thursday night at the Democratic National Convention was marred by chants from the crowd of “black lives matter!” in an ugly moment that angered law enforcement representatives and underscored the anti-cop climate that has gripped the nation.
After the mothers of black men who had been killed in racially charged incidents were welcomed onto the stage earlier in the week, Philadelphia’s Fraternal Order of Police chapter pressed the DNC to honor fallen cops. Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez was invited to speak about the five cops killed in her city July 7, and said she and her fellow officers took the job to “serve and protect, not to hate and discriminate.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Suspect in Washington State Shooting Had Broken Up With Victim, Neighbors Say
An 19-year-old gunman who killed three people and injured another person at a house party outside Seattle early Saturday had recently broken up with one of the victims, witnesses and neighbors said.
The Associated Press identified the shooting suspect as Allen Christopher Ivanov, who was booked into the Snohomish County Jail and held for investigation of three counts of murder, including one count of aggravated murder. He has not yet been charged, but is expected to be arraigned Monday.
Victor Balta, a spokesman for the University of Washington, said a student matching that name and age has been enrolled at the university’s campus in nearby Bothell, where he was going into his sophomore year.
Authorities had not released the identity of the deceased victims. The injured victim was in intensive care at a Seattle hospital.
| — Hat tip: MM | [Return to headlines] |
Wall Street for Hillary?: Clinton Has $48.5m in Hedge Fund Backing, Compared to Trump’s $19k
Hedge fund owners and employees have so far this election cycle contributed nearly $48.5 million for Hillary Clinton, compared to about $19,000 for Donald Trump, an indication that Wall Street is clearly backing the Democratic presidential nominee.
The total amount of such campaign contributions in 2016 is $122.7 million, twice as much as in the 2012 election cycle, according to a recent federal report analyzed by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
With the Democratic and Republican parties’ conventions over Thursday and the general election officially just a few days old, it’s no surprise that pro-Clinton groups have received more hedge fund money.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
1 Killed, 2 Seriously Injured When Bus Skids Off Norway Road
Norwegian police say one person was killed and two people were seriously injured when a tourist bus skidded off the road in the middle of the Nordic nation. The accident happened Saturday in the mountains and fjords near the city of Aalesund, 550 kilometers (340 miles) northwest of Oslo, Norway’s capital.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium Arrests 2 Brothers Suspected of Plotting Attack
Two brothers have been arrested in Belgium on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office announced Saturday.
Nourredine H., 33, and his brother Hamza H. were taken in for questioning following police searches Friday evening in the city of Liege and the Mons region. A Belgian judge will decide Saturday whether the two men should remain in custody.
The police searches were carried out at the request of a magistrate specializing in terrorism investigations, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. It said that according to preliminary information, the brothers may have been involved in plans to commit an attack in Belgium.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘France Has Problems But it’s Not on Brink of Civil War’
While certain French politicians and security chiefs have openly talked of the nightmare prospect of civil war in France, one expert tells The Local the country is too resolute to go down that path.
Since the brutal murder of a French priest by two homegrown French jihadists, talk of the prospect of a kind of civil war in France has increased.
Hervé Morin, the president of the Normandy regional council, talked of a “risk of the fracturing of French society.”
“We have lived in peace since 1945 but that is changing,” said Morin. “We need to respond to this accumulation of violence, if not French society will explode.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
France Church Attackers ‘Smiled’ And Spoke of Koran
One of the jihadists who murdered an elderly French priest smiled as he carried out the attack, and nuns who witnessed the grisly murder said the killers spoke about the Koran.
The two nuns who were in the church when Father Jacques Hamel was killed, his throat slit on the altar, said the men appeared aggressive and nervous during the attack at the Eglise Saint-Etienne in Normandy on July 26th.
Then, one of the attackers seemed pleased.
“I got a smile from the second (man). Not a smile of triumph, but a soft smile, that of someone who is happy,” nun Sister Huguette Peron told Catholic newspaper La Vie on Friday.
Abdel Malik Petitjean and Adel Kermiche, both 19, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and both were killed by police in the shock attack.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
French PM: ‘France Needs New Relationship With Islam’
As France struggles to get to grips with an increasing number of terror attacks the French PM says the country needs a new relationship with Islam.
In an interview in Le Monde on Friday Valls said France, which is home to around five million Muslims, needs to forge a new rapport with Islam.
“We need to reset and invent a new relationship with Islam in France,” Valls said.
The PM has long wanted to help nurture a more French version of Islam, without extremists elements and said in Friday he was in favour of a ban on foreign funding of mosques.
He also wants Imams to be trained in France rather than abroad.
The PM has warned in the past that Salafists were “winning the ideological and cultural battle” in France, home of Europe’s biggest Muslim population.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
French MP: France Should Learn From Israel in War on Terror
TEL AVIV — Now that France has been forced into a war against terrorism, it would do well to take lessons from Israel, a French parliamentarian told Arutz Sheva in the wake of the murder of a priest in Normandy by Muslim extremists.
MP Meir Habib, who also served as vice chairman of the investigating committee for the 2015 terror attacks in France, said he was urging the country’s leadership, which he claims is woefully unprepared to deal with the threat it is facing, to learn from Israel’s anti-terror tactics.
“I sought to go to Israel and to learn from the Israelis; you’re more experienced in dealing with terrorism. Thirty of us, French parliamentarians, met with the [Israeli] Prime Minister, Justice Minister, Police Chief, and the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, Avi Dichter.”
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
German Satirists Mock Erdogan (And His Penis)
Satire magazine Titanic has advised fans to snap up its August issue quickly, before it is banned.
And it is not likely to go down well with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“Erdogan stressed: Even his penis is staging a coup,” taunts the headline of the August issue.
On the cover is a photo of a concerned-looking Erdogan, while a sausage has been strategically Photoshopped over his groin area.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Has Expelled 35 Islamist Terrorists in 2016: Alfano
Italy’s Interior Minister Angelino Alfano on Thursday told Parliament that 35 Islamists had been expelled from the country so far in 2016.
“Since January 1st, 2015, we have expelled 102 people, carried out checks on 106,000 terrorists, arrested 549 and placed 884 under investigation,” Alfano added.
Of those expelled “all were found to be working to radicalize others and promote jihad in Italy,” Alfano said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Mussolini’s Region Votes to Criminalize Fascist Souvenirs
The sale of trinkets and souvenirs bearing the image of Benito Mussolini has been outlawed in the region of Italy where the fascist dictator was born and raised.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Who Beheaded Priest to France: “We Are Going to Destroy Your Country”
Abdelmalik Petitjean and Adel Kermiche, both 19, were both on terrorist watchlists when they slit Father Jacques Hamel’s throat in Normandy on Tuesday….
It comes as ISIS released a new video of the teenager calling on fellow extremists to ‘destroy’ France and launch attacks on its allies.
Dressed in a striped t-shirt, Petitjean speaks mostly in French but uses some Arabic phrases, and appears to be filming in a home.
Addressing President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls directly, he says: ‘You will suffer what our brothers and sisters are suffering. We are going to destroy your country.’
‘Brothers go out with a knife, whatever is needed, attack them, kill them en masse.’
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Polish Experts: ‘Europe is at the End of Its Existence. Western Europe is Practically Dead’
Speaking to Polish television, a former member of Poland’s counter-terror police and an academic expert on information warfare and terrorism have articulated their concern about the intellectual and spiritual collapse of European civilisation, remarking it is “at the end of its existence”.
Former Central Bureau of Investigation (CBS) officer Jacek Wrona and military history academic Dr. Rafal Brzeski were guests on the Polish TVP Info programme discussing the Munich shooting in which nine were killed, and were forced to conclude it was a symptom of the end of European Civilisation.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: What Do We Actually Know About the Violence in Malmö?
International media have presented a “distorted” view of a spate of Malmö shootings and an explosion, a senior police boss has told The Local.
Sweden’s third-biggest city Malmö was rocked by an explosion last night and a spate of shootings in the past week, including one at a shopping centre in the Rosengård area which got global attention.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Christians Pay Price as Turkey Turns to Islam After Attempted Coup
Mid the cacophony of police sirens, low-flying helicopters and rifle fire, there was another sound during the attempt to overthrow president Recep Tayyip Erdogan: The wailing of Turkey’s imams.
From the nations’s 85,000 mosques, their amplified voices were heard calling upon the faithful to take to the streets and defy the plotters. The people listened.
Some bravely stood in front of tanks as they defended the democratically elected president. Around 240 from both sides died and 1,400 were injured.
For others the night presented different opportunities as hardline Muslim Sunnis, whipped up to a frenzy, targeted Turkey’s Christian community.
In Matalya, a sprawling city in Anatolia, once the heartland of Christianity in the East, they targeted a Protestant church.
The word church is a grand term for the small, modern shopfront nestled in the city’s minority Alevi district.
For, despite a tolerant constitution, Protestants are not allowed to build churches in Turkey. Even the name church must be coupled to the non-threatening “association”.
Gangs chanting “Allahu akbar” rounded on it to smash its glass frontage. “The attack on the church was light. But it’s significant that it was the only shopfront attack in those three days,” said its minister, Pastor Tim Stone, last night. “We were the only targets.”
Nor was Matalya alone. In the Black Sea city of Trabzon others attacked the Santa Maria church, smashing windows and using hammers to break down its door.
| — Hat tip: DV | [Return to headlines] |
FBI Chief: Success Against ISIS Means More Terror
Battlefield success against ISIS may produce more terrorism for the West, FBI Director James Comey warned this week.
Comey predicted that eventually crushing ISIS in its self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq will likely result in dispersing terrorists elsewhere.
“At some point there is going to be a terrorist diaspora out of Syria like we’ve never seen before,” Comey said. “Not all of the Islamic State killers are going to die on the battlefield.”
The FBI director’s warning that the collapse of the caliphate will mean increased attacks in Western Europe and the United States mirrors a consensus among intelligence officials.
Comey compared it to the formation of al Qaeda, which drew from fighters who had been hardened and radicalized fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s and early 1990s.
“This is an order of magnitude greater than anything we’ve seen before” Comey said. “A lot of terrorists fled out of Afghanistan… this is 10 times that or more.
“We saw the future of this threat in Brussels and in Paris (attacks earlier this year).”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
FBI Director: Crushing ISIS in Syria Risks Releasing ‘Terrorists Diaspora’ Into the West
James Comey said the number of Isis killers traveling to the West is ‘10 times’ worse than al-Qaeda of the 1980s and 1990s.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey-PKK Conflict: Dozens Killed in South-East Clashes
The Turkish military has killed 35 Kurdish militants who tried to storm a base in the south-east, officials say.
The overnight attack, in the Cukurca district of Hakkari province near the Iraqi border, came hours after clashes between soldiers and militants left eight soldiers dead in the area.
A ceasefire between Turkey’s military and the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) broke down in July last year.
The army is reeling from a huge purge following a coup attempt two weeks ago.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘We’ll Freeze Turkey Talks’ Warns EU as Arrests Continue
As Turkish authorities on Friday widened their sweeping post-coup crackdown to the business sector, the European Union’s enlargement commissioner implicitly warned that the bloc would freeze Turkey’s accession talks if the crackdown violated the rule of law.
The deadly July 15th rebellion unsuccessfully tried to unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has since launched a radical purge against anyone suspected of complicity.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Cyber Attack: Large Hack ‘Hits Government’
A “professional” cyber attack has hit Russian government bodies, the country’s intelligence service says.
A “cyber-spying virus” was found in the networks of about 20 organisations, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said.
The report comes as Russia stands accused over data breaches involving the Democratic Party in the US.
The Russian government has denied involvement and has denounced the “poisonous anti-Russian” rhetoric coming out of Washington.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Armenia Police Officer Killed Amid Hostage Crisis
A police officer has been shot dead in the Armenian capital, Yerevan, during a stand-off with an armed group holding hostages inside a police station.
It came after police threatened to storm the building on Saturday.
Dozens of people were injured when police clashed with supporters of the group on Friday night.
The group seized the building nearly two weeks ago seeking the release of “political prisoners” including opposition leader Jirair Sefilian.
Mr Sefilian has strongly criticised President Serge Sarkisian’s handling of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
California Risks $135m in Federal Grants Over ‘Sanctuary City’ Policy
California state and local law enforcement agencies may have to choose between more than $100 million in federal aid and the “sanctuary city” immigration policies that supporters say are humane, but critics say fuel crime.
The policies, whether in writing or just in practice, preclude local law enforcement from working with federal authorities when they catch an illegal immigrant who by law faces deportation. The laws have sparked a national controversy in the wake of dozens of murders and other violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants who local law enforcement did not report to the Department of Homeland Security.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
I’m Ashamed of Germany’s Refugee Failure: Green Leader
The head of the Green Party has responded angrily to Angela Merkel’s speech on refugees on Friday, saying he feels “ashamed at Germany’s failure”.
Fighting the causes of the refugee crisis has come to sound like “a hollow phrase”, Cem Özdemir, Green Party leader, told the Funk Media Group.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are trapped in Aleppo in northern Syria, said Özdemir.
“This is an unimaginable misery — and the world barely takes any notice. Angela Merkel is completely ignoring this and other humanitarian catastrophes.”
He was ashamed, he said, “due to the failure of the world community, of Europe and above all of Germany”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Merkel’s premiership is hanging by a thread today as thousands gathered to call for her resignation while a key political ally dramatically withdrew his support over immigration policy.
More than 5,000 protested in Berlin and thousands more throughout Germany over the ‘open-door’ policy that many have blamed for four brutal terrorist attacks that left 13 dead over the last month.
The Chancellor faced a fresh wave of fury after it emerged that two recent terror attacks and a third killing were carried out by men who entered the country as refugees.
Despite the massive waves of criticism, Merkel defended her policy this week, dramatically proclaiming ‘we can do it’ as she pledged not to let the violent acts guide political decisions.
But now her key ally in Bavaria — which bore the brunt of the attacks — has launched a fresh attack on her leadership, distancing his party from Merkel and straining the coalition that keeps her in power…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Party Conventions Highlight Growing U.S. Divide on Immigration
A vast divide widens as Clinton tilts left toward a pro-immigration platform and Trump promises a crackdown and mass deportation.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Polish MP: Germans Going to Great Lengths to Cover Crimes of Their Arab Guests
[…] The conservative MP has picked up on the fact the Germans went to great lengths to “cover up the crimes of their Arab guests, or even shift the blame upon themselves” ever since their arrival, for the sake of keeping the German public on Merkel’s side.
Prof. Pawlowicz further pointed out how in the interest of keeping the lefty spirits up, the “Berlin Gay Pride event went ahead despite the mourning in Munich”, suggesting the Germans have already adjusted to the “new normal” of living with terrorism without even being instructed by their politicians to do so. That is in complete contrast to how the French dismissed the advice to “live with terrorism” by Manuel Valls.
“Europe is ill and bleeding. We [Poland] survive with God’s help” said Prof Pawlowicz in the context of the World Youth Day celebrated by the Catholic youth currently converged from all over the world in Krakow, whilst pointing to the “white flag” and “colour pencil protest” attitude in France, Belgium and Germany, all of whom “rejected God in favour of a misunderstood liberty”.
Picking up on the German CDU parliamentary deputy Armin Schuster’s statement that “Germany needs a culture of farewell (Abschiedskultur), as opposed to the culture of welcome (Wilkommenskultur)” Pawlowicz expressed her doubts that the “German culture still has it in it to win against the alien culture in the struggle for the European territory which we are witnessing”.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
“a new relationship with Islam” for France – Manuel Valls.
Dhimmitude.
Islam doesn’t want a new relationship with them. They are filthy kuffar who must be killed or enslaved. This is the unchanging word of “Allah”.
With respect to “Abigail Fisher: Affirmative Action Plaintiff ‘Proud’ of Academic Record”, I note the BBC ‘journalist’ writes: ‘”Becky with the bad grades” is one of the more publishable epithets thrown her way by critics who just see a young woman suffering a bad case of white privilege.’ without noting that ‘Becky’ is used as a racial slur against white women.
M. Vall’s timing is perfect. My guess would be that there are many millions and growing, who heartily agree with him and are already decided on that particular score.
** FBI Director: Crushing ISIS in Syria Risks Releasing ‘Terrorists Diaspora’ Into the West **
We are helpless out here in the Diaspora. It’s an eternal principle. If an ISIS savage wants to go anywhere, it’s his unqualified right to do so. We can put a man on Mars but immigration controls are beyond our level of competence.
You WAYCIST!
He may not be interested in war, but war is definitely interested in him. If your strategy is to pretend it is not happening, you have already lost.
Someone should tell Valls there already is a new relationship. The Muslims attack, the French die. A nation that won’t defend itself gets the relationship it deserves. Ditto for Sweden, Germany, Britain, Canada, and beyond.