Five teenaged Afghan boys were arrested in Sweden on suspicion of gang-raping another boy. The victim, who was also an Afghan, was dragged into the woods at knifepoint and subjected to a sexual ordeal that lasted for more than an hour.
In other news, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has proposed a ban on the full-face veil, or burka.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Reader from Chicago, Srdja Trifkovic, 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.
Dallas Pension Showdown: Mayor Seeks to “Target Those Who Got Rich From System”
The Dallas Police and Fire Pension plan is severely underfunded. Not even a $1.1 billion taxpayer bailout the plan officials request will make the plan whole.
Discussion of a possible freeze in lump sum payments led to a run on withdrawals. The board still has not suspended lump sum payouts.
On Saturday, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings proposed targeting those who got rich from the system. This is sure to accelerate the run on assets via lump sum withdrawals…
Unions would be wise to come up with a plan that preserves the most benefits for the most people. But they won’t.
A fair restructuring would cut the most at the top. Million dollar payouts are beyond affordable.
The city of Central Falls, Rhode Island shows what can happen if things end up inside bankruptcy court: “The city’s 133 retirees had their pensions cut by up to 55 percent, with pensioners now getting an average of $16,626 a year. The state allocated $2.6 million to soften the blow for the next five years.”
Having a pension cut from $200,000 to $100,000 is quite different than a cut from $25,000 to $12,500.
However, steep across-the-board cuts are where things are headed because unions never negotiate cuts.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Five Star Movement in Italy, as well as the National Front in France, are clearly Euroskeptic, said economist Felix Moreno. If these two major EU countries were for a direct exit from the euro, it would be a grave threat to the currency, he added.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
German Finance Minister Holds Out Against Greek Debt Cut
Scaheuble urges Athens to push ahead with reforms
(ANSA-AP) — BERLIN — Germany’s finance minister is underlining his opposition to a debt cut for Greece and urging Athens to push ahead with reforms before a meeting with his eurozone counterparts.
Eurozone finance ministers will review progress on the Greek bailout program Monday. The International Monetary Fund argues that Greece needs better terms on its debt payments for its economy to recover, but top bailout lender Germany has been reluctant to commit to debt relief measures.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was quoted Sunday as telling the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that a debt cut “wouldn’t help Greece.” He added that “Athens must finally carry out the necessary reforms. If Greece wants to stay in the euro, there is no way past that — completely independently of the debt level.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Moves Toward Steadier Growth, ISTAT
Recovering, industry and investment up
(ANSA) — Rome, December 6 — The growth rate is stabilizing in Italy after it had slowed steadily throughout the rest of the year, Italy’s national statistic institute ISTAT said Monday.
GDP rose by 0.3% in the third quarter on the previous one and 1% on the year. Manufacturing and investment are recovering, ISTAT noted, while household consumption is still rising at +0.1% but retail sales were down by 0.6% in the period from July to September.
Inflation oscillated around zero in this period. The labour market experience a “slight reduction” in the number of employed and confidence levels in manufacturing firms dropped in November compared to September. It is unclear what effect the constitutional referendum will have on the situation. However, ISTAT noted that it expected stabilization in the last quarter of the year.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: MPS Confirms Bond Conversion of Over 1 Bn
Bank releases statement overnight
(ANSA) — Milan, December 6 — Troubled Tuscan lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) on Tuesday confirmed it has received over one billion euros in voluntary conversions of subordinate bonds.
In a statement released overnight, Italy’s third biggest bank said it netted a total of 1.028 billion euros.
The bank on December 2 published preliminary data on the scheme, a major plank of a five-billion-euro fundraising aimed at ensuring the survival of the Siena-based bank.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Trump About to Preside Over New Global Financial Crisis: “Not His Fault, Merely His Misfortune”
While the world celebrates the political demise of the wicked witch of the west and braces for a Trump-style president, the real crisis is coming, in the form of a financial avalanche that could dump on everyone’s parade.
The warning signs have been up every mile for a long stretch now. The build up of pressure, and the creaking fault lines have been evident. The monetary policy has long been triggering what may prove to be an inevitable collapse…
And it may have been planned for the Donald Trump administration.
via Jim Rickards:
A new global financial panic will be one legacy of the Trump administration. It won’t be Trump’s fault, merely his misfortune. […] There is more potential in how to deal with the crisis after it happens. As Rickards explains:
Can Trump avoid this fate? Possibly.
Descaling finance means reinstating the Glass-Steagall and pre-Big Bang separation of deposit taking and securities underwriting. It means breaking up the big banks… Derivatives should be banned except for exchange-traded futures tied to specific assets used for commercial hedging. It’s time to close the casino.
Will Trump pursue these policies? It’s unlikely. Bank lobbyists rule Washington from the commanding heights; draining the swamp won’t change that.
If the bankers are getting close to Trump and taking over his cabinet and advisors, it is because they wish to benefit from the solution to economic catastrophe.
They have plans.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Biden Says, ‘I’m Going to Run in 2020’
Twenty-seven days after Donald Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States, Vice President Joe Biden told reporters he would make his third bid for the highest office in the land four years from now.
“I’m going to run in 2020,” Biden, 74, told a group of reporters at the Capitol Monday evening. “So, uh, what the hell, man.”
When asked if he was serious or joking, the vice president paused for about four seconds and sighed. He was then asked if he would run for president.
“Yeah, I am,” Biden said. “Yeah, I am. We’re going to run again.”
When pressed further, Biden backed away somewhat from his statement, saying, “I’m not committing not to run. I learned a long time ago fate has a funny way of intervening.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Black Activists Launch Monthly Fee System for Whites to Pay Blacks
Liberal black activists have launched a monthly “subscription box” designed for white people “to not only financially support Black femme freedom fighters, but also complete measurable tasks in the fight against white supremacy.”
The subscription service is called Safety Pin Box and was launched last week. Wearing a safety pin has recently become a symbol within the liberal community for one to show solidarity with minorities.
The group is headed by Leslie Mac and Marissa Jenae Johnson. Johnson is one of the Black Lives Matter protesters who interrupted Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders during a speech in Seattle last year.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Boeing Slides After Trump Tweets Airplane “Costs Are Out of Control”
It appears aerospace is the new pharma…
Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2016
And the result…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Breaking: Oil Company Openly States They Will Defy Army Corps Order in Standing Rock
Balking at an earlier decision by the Army Corps of Engineers, Energy Transfer Partners — the company responsible for constructing the Dakota Access Pipeline — says the denial of an easement necessary to drill under the Missouri River is of no consequence for its plans to complete the project.
According to a statement from Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics, which is acquiring ETP in a merger:
“As stated all along, ETP and SXL are fully committed to ensuring that this vital project is brought to completion and fully expect to complete construction of the pipeline without any additional rerouting in and around Lake Oahe. Nothing this Administration has done today changes that in any way.”
In short, ETP will complete the Dakota Access Pipeline — no matter what the federal government says.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Devastated’ Madonna Breaks Down Over Trump: ‘Haven’t Had a Good Night’s Sleep’ Since Election
Madonna unloaded her thoughts about the presidential election, Donald Trump, ageism and her personal life in an interview with actress Elizabeth Banks for Billboard magazine published Monday.
The 58-year-old pop icon said it felt like “someone died” after Trump defeated her preferred presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, in November.
“It felt like a combination of the heartbreak and betrayal you feel when someone you love more than anything leaves you, and also a death,” the singer told Billboard. “I feel that way every morning; I wake up and say, ‘Oh, wait, Donald Trump is still the president,’ and it wasn’t a bad dream that I had.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The United States is importing people with a religious and cultural propensity to commit horrific acts of hatred and revenge against Western Civilization. This is madness rooted in politics.
On November 28, Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Somali-born Muslim inspired by ISIS, went on a rampage at Ohio State University. He injured 11 when he rammed his car into a group of students with murderous intent and then immediately went on a knife attack before campus security shot him dead.
No soon had this fanatic’s body reached room temperature then Stephanie Clemons Thompson, employed as something called an “assistant director of resident life a Ohio State,” started calling for sympathy and compassion for Artan and lamented that he was taken out so quickly. In her Facebook posing, Thompson refers to Artan as a “BUCKEYE, a member of our family.”
[Comment: People still don’t get it. The politicians are not mad or stupid (although some are useful idiots). They know EXACTLY what they are doing. They are following an evil globalist plot to deconstruct and abolish nation states prior to implementation of a globalist new world tyranny. The politicians are traitors to their respective countries.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Fake News: CBS Pushed Swine Flu Myth
In 2009, CBS claimed Swine Flu epidemic which didn’t exist
Let me take you back to the late summer of 2009, and the Swine Flu epidemic, which was hyped to the sky by the CDC. The Agency was calling for all Americans to take the Swine Flu vaccine. Remember?
The problem was, the CDC was concealing another scandal.
At the time, star CBS investigative reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, was working on a Swine Flu story. She discovered that the CDC had secretly stopped counting cases of the illness-while, of course, continuing to warn Americans about its unchecked spread.
Understand that the CDC’s main job is counting cases and reporting the numbers.
What was the Agency up to?
Here is an excerpt from my 2014 interview with Sharyl Attkisson:
Rappoport: In 2009, you spearheaded coverage of the so-called Swine Flu pandemic. You discovered that, in the summer of 2009, the Centers for Disease Control, ignoring their federal mandate, [secretly] stopped counting Swine Flu cases in America. Yet they continued to stir up fear about the “pandemic,” without having any real measure of its impact. Wasn’t that another investigation of yours that was shut down? Wasn’t there more to find out?
Attkisson: The implications of the story were even worse than that. We discovered through our FOI efforts that before the CDC mysteriously stopped counting Swine Flu cases, they had learned that almost none of the cases they had counted as Swine Flu was, in fact, Swine Flu or any sort of flu at all! The interest in the story from one [CBS] executive was very enthusiastic. He said it was “the most original story” he’d seen on the whole Swine Flu epidemic. But others pushed to stop it [after it was published on the CBS News website] and, in the end, no [CBS television news] broadcast wanted to touch it. We aired numerous stories pumping up the idea of an epidemic, but not the one that would shed original, new light on all the hype. It was fair, accurate, legally approved and a heck of a story. With the CDC keeping the true Swine Flu stats secret, it meant that many in the public took and gave their children an experimental vaccine that may not have been necessary.
I’ll add a few details. It was routine for doctors all over America to send blood samples from patients they’d diagnosed with Swine Flu, or the “most likely” Swine Flu patients, to labs for testing. And overwhelmingly, those samples were coming back with the result: not Swine Flu, not any kind of flu.
That was the big secret. That’s what the CDC was hiding. That’s why they stopped reporting Swine Flu case numbers. That’s what Attkisson had discovered. That’s why she was shut down.
But it gets even worse.
Because about three weeks after Attkisson’s findings were published on the CBS News website, the CDC, obviously in a panic, decided to double down. If one lie is exposed, tell an even bigger one. A much bigger one.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Honorary Trump Street Signs Removed From Downtown Chicago
City workers have taken down two Donald Trump honorary street signs near his downtown Chicago hotel and condominium tower.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
House Report: US Facing Biggest Islamic Terror Threat Since 9/11
The United States faces its highest threat from Islamist terrorists since 9/11 and much of that stems from those radicalized at home, according to the House Homeland Security Committee’s December Terror Threat Snapshot released Tuesday.
What’s more, the report said, the threat to the United States and Europe will persist in 2017.
Throughout 2016, ISIS conducted 62 attacks worldwide, injuring 732 people and killing 215 in several countries, including the United States, France, and Belgium.
“Make no mistake: we face a deadlier threat than ever before not only because our enemies have gotten savvier, but because we took the pressure off them,” House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said in a statement on the report. “For eight years, the Obama Administration reluctantly played global whack-a-mole with terrorists rather than leaning into the fight with decisive leadership.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
It Begins: Police Say ‘Conspiracy Theory’ About Clinton Child Sex Ring Made Man Shoot Up Pizza Shop
While speculation ran rampant, and lots of questionable and admittedly disturbing emails were uncovered, there has yet to be any smoking gun proving the nature of these accusations. However, that fact certainly does not warrant the wholesale abandonment of the internet investigation, or subsequent banning of sites talking about it, as pedophilia is most certainly a real problem among many of the heavy movers and shakers in the establishment.
Because a few ignorant people make threats based off of unfounded conspiracy theories does not mean that anyone should be silenced.
However, this has already begun.
On Reddit, r/Pizzagate was unceremoniously banned by the social media company — – with a disclaimer stating that the subreddit was banned specifically for “the proliferation of personal and confidential information,” noting that,”We don’t want witch hunts on our site.”
There is certainly no shortage of ignorant and belligerent people in this world who would make threats against innocent people. But this does not mean that the dissemination of information should be silenced — regardless of whether or not it is factual.
If the state begins a campaign of censorship, regardless of its intentions of ‘preventing threats,’ it will be used to silence everyone who the establishment disagrees with — history proves this to be the case, every single time.
Because a few easily swayed individuals take tidbits of information and make brash decisions does not mean that this information should be stopped.
If we look back over the past decades, we’ve witnessed the establishment media be the culprits of the most dangerous and deadly conspiracy theories of all time. Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Gulf of Tonkin, and the war on drugs are just a few of the conspiracy theories spread by the establishment media that have led to the death and suffering of millions.
If pizzagate ever leads to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children, or millions of morally innocent people being locked in cages — then we can revisit this conversation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Donald Trump has already lost one of his electoral votes, and there are indications that a number of additional electors may be prepared to abandon him. Prior to the election, I warned my readers that we would not officially know who the next president would be until December 19th. On that Monday, the 538 members of the Electoral College will gather in their state capitals in all 50 states to formally elect the next president. Throughout U.S. history electors have voted according to the will of the people more than 99 percent of the time, but in 2016 there is a concerted effort to persuade Republican electors not to vote for Trump. If 37 Republican electors can be convinced to vote for someone other than Trump, that would keep Trump under the 270 vote threshold needed to win and it would throw the election into the House of Representatives. Most people had considered this to be a longshot, but on Monday a Republican elector named Christopher Suprun publicly announced in the New York Times that he will not cast his vote for Donald Trump. On the other side, there are at least 8 Democratic electors that have already publicly pledged to switch their votes from Hillary Clinton to a compromise Republican alternative to Trump.
So we already know that there will be quite a few “faithless electors” on December 19th. The question will be whether or not they are able to rally enough electors to their cause to deny Donald Trump the presidency.
What Christopher Suprun has chosen to do is really unprecedented in the history of modern American politics. Not only has he publicly announced that he is not voting for Trump, he is also attempting to convince other Republican electors to join him. He explained his reasoning for this move in his editorial for the New York Times…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Michigan Republicans File Emergency Motion to Halt Recount as Another Major Snag Emerges
The Michigan Republican Party filed emergency motions with the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals early on Tuesday, seeking a stay of a federal judge’s order that started a statewide presidential recount in Michigan on Monday and asking for an “en banc” review of that order by all the judges of the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati. As the DFP notes, normally, appeals go to a three-judge panel of the court. A stay from the 6th Circuit would halt the Michigan recount until appeals judges have a chance to review Monday’s order by U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith.
The question for the appeals court to consider, lawyers for the Michigan GOP said, is whether Green Party candidate Jill Stein is constitutionally entitled to a statewide recount “without any evidence that the election was affected … by fraud or other impropriety.” The party gave notice Monday it would appeal the ruling Goldsmith made after a rare Sunday hearing in Detroit. It’s not clear whether or how quickly the 6th Circuit will take up the case.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Other Than ISIS: Half of U.S. Terror Suspects Support ISIS Rival Groups, New Report Details
Almost half of the suspects charged with terrorism offenses in the U.S. since the Syrian civil war began five years ago have not associated themselves with ISIS but with the group’s bitter rivals such as al-Qaeda or embraced the broader jihadist ideology, a new study by George Washington University’s Program on Extremism has found.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Pentagon Reportedly Buried Study Exposing $125 Billion in Waste
Senior defense officials suppressed a study documenting $125 billion worth of administrative waste at the Pentagon out of fears that Congress would use its findings to cut the defense budget, the Washington Post reported late Monday.
The report, which was issued in January 2015 by the advisory Defense Business Board (DBB), called for a series of reforms that would have saved the department $125 billion over the next five years.
Among its other findings, the report showed that the Defense Department was paying just over 1 million contractors, civilian employees and uniformed personnel to fill back-office jobs. That number nearly matches the amount of active duty troops — 1.3 million, the lowest since 1940.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Report Buried Trump-Related ‘Hate Crimes’ Against White Kids
The takeaway was that Trump-supporting white kids have been harassing minorities at the nation’s schools
At least 2,000 educators around the country reported racist slurs and other derogatory language leveled against white students in the first days after Donald Trump was elected president. But the group that surveyed the teachers didn’t publish the results in its report on Trump-related “hate crimes.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Shot Fired at Conspiratorial Pizzeria Pretext to “Shut Down Websites Spreading Hateful Material”
The battle for free speech on the Internet is reaching the main stage.
Curiously, authority over the world wide web has concentrated into fewer hands than ever, and has traded hands in ways that we little understand. Right now, words are being twisted, and used against us.
There are cyber bombardments underway right now. The big campaign is being sold under “fake news,” in the hopes that dissent can be stifled and propaganda can once again by scripted and authoritative. This new narrative is working as well as they had hoped, but it is getting the point across — the the kind of websites that bucked the system during the campaign season aren’t going to be tolerated much longer.
Some of the websites that have been smeared are now suing for defamation and a retraction maligning their work as foreign propaganda.
According to the Daily Caller:…
Meanwhile, a psyop is in the making to smear online investigators and citizen journalists who are attempting to uncover a very dark web of illicit and damning activities connected to Democratic operatives and the Clinton campaign — much of it exposed by Wikileaks dumps of email from Podesta, Wiener and other sources close to the Clintons.
But instead of exposing the culpability of the political figures connected to “Pizzagate” and prompted a serious official inquiry into what would be very serious criminal allegations, activists are getting a blowback of guilt by association for daring to report on the subject at all — after a man walked into the notorious Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant in D.C. at the center of the scandal, and fired a gun while patrons were inside.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Left’s Coming Counter-Attack
Those repudiated on November 8, 2016 have not yet fully realized that voters hadn’t failed to understand what we saw when they revealed their inmost desires to us. Rather, we understood all too well, and we turned away, revolted by the sight.
When they fully comprehend the enormousness of their rejection, we had better be prepared, because these are people who would see the whole nation brought to ruin before permitting it to succeed despite them.
This election was a modern-day Fort Sumter — the first shots of a long and brutal struggle to come.
The left will stop at nothing. They will riot at the slightest provocation. They will use our children as suicide bombers, blowing families apart over made up differences. They will abuse the court system, the regulatory agencies, and every damn little ordinance in the tiniest of backwater towns to harass and beleaguer our efforts.
We must fight for our children as we fight for our future.
There are those who will counsel appeasement, as they always have. Reject their advice without hesitation. Compromise is possible only when both parties agree on an outcome, merely debating the best method to achieve it. Despite what the quisling class tells you, traveling together is an impossibility when you are going in opposite directions.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Supporter Has His Truck Torched & Sprayed With Anti-Trump Slogans While at Christmas Party
Gotta love that classic leftist respect for democracy!
Looks like the “progressives” have committed another terrorist act in the name of tolerance.
A Wisconsin man had his Dodge Ram pickup truck set on fire and spray-painted with anti-Trump slogans while he was at a Christmas party a couple days back. We’ve not yet seen photos of the vandalism, but I’m sure that will be coming soon given the amount of media attention this garnered late last night.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Trump’s Election Stole My Desire to Look for a Partner
By Stephanie Land
Once it was clear that Donald Trump would be president instead of Hillary Clinton, I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to gather my children in bed with me and cling to them like we would if thunder and lightning were raging outside, with winds high enough that they power might go out. The world felt that precarious to me.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Rips Boeing for Cost Overruns on New Air Force One, Says ‘Cancel Order’
President-elect Donald Trump blasted Boeing on Tuesday for alleged cost overruns on a new fleet of Air Force One planes and called for the government to cancel the contract, saying the project price tag is “out of control.”
The president-elect took aim at Boeing’s Air Force One work in a Tuesday morning tweet, and reiterated his concerns to reporters minutes later at Trump Tower.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Congress Works Against Americans
One of the greatest flaws in the U.S. Constitution and its amendments: the founding fathers failed to engage term limits of 10 years maximum for the House and Senate. Because of that, Lord Acton’s historical maxim plays out daily in the USA.
Those 535 scoundrels for the past 45 years slammed us with a $20 trillion debt. We pay out of our paychecks $30 million every month for that debt. We need responsible members instead of the ones that got us into this mess.
Congress created the “Great Society” in 1964 that cost us trillions of dollars, and, at the same time, created an entire of welfare state where women birth 10 to 15 babies to gain greater paychecks. About 48 million people sit on their butts while they eat off their food stamps and EBT cards. (Electronic Benefits Cards, which they fraudulently overuse and misuse and cheat all of us out of billions of dollars annually.) There no accountability.
Same with the 1965 Immigration Reform Act that dumps 1.2 million legal immigrants on us annually. It’s out of date, but not one single Congress critter will rescind it.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Why I Sent My White Daughter to a 98% Black School
In Orangeburg, South Carolina, white kids don’t go to school with black kids.
More than half a century has passed since American schools were officially integrated, but in Orangeburg there are two schools: Orangeburg Prep (OP), which is 95% white, and Orangeburg-Wilkinson (OW), which is 98% African-American.
Among the 2% at OW is Mykenzie Free. She moved last year from OP.
BBC Three followed her move to OW in new documentary, American High School.
For both Mykenzie and her mother, Linda, their unusual decision was about trying to make a difference.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
2,000-Year-Old Roman Skeletons Show Signs of Malaria
Malaria afflicted the Roman Empire some 2,000 years ago, according to a new analysis of human teeth collected in Italian cemeteries.
Malaria is a serious and sometimes fatal mosquito-borne disease caused by parasites. In 2015, an estimated 214 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide, leading to 438,000 deaths, mostly children, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Previous research suggested that malaria was a major disease that afflicted Italy during the Roman Empire. “Its presence during this time is indirectly supported by extensive writings from ancient authors, such as Celsus and Galen, as well as ancient human skeletal remains,” said lead study author Stephanie Marciniak, a biological anthropologist at Pennsylvania State University.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Angel Merkel Calls for Germany Burka Ban
GERMAN premier Angela Merkel called for a ban on the Burka for the first time as she launched a bid to remain in power with a dramatic shift.
Sparking a standing ovation from her CDU Party, the German Chancellor threw her weight behind calls to outlaw the burqa and niqab wherever “possible”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Could the European Union Fall Apart?
It has been a dreadful year for the European Union. It has just got a lot worse. Next year could transform a looming existential threat into a terminal reality. The end of a joint 60-year project to transform the politics of an entire continent is now a distinct possibility.
Some would greet the prospect with glee, others with horror. But few have thought through what it would mean if the pillars came crashing down.
The Italian vote means, as here, a populist, anti-establishment surge has defenestrated a prime minister.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Danish Doctors Come Out Against Circumcision
The Danish Medical Association (Lægeforeningen) has recommended that no boys under the age of 18 be circumcised in Denmark.
The association released its recommendation on Friday, saying that circumcision should be “an informed, personal choice” that young men should make for themselves.
In a press release, the group said that when parents have their male children circumcised, it robs the boys of the ability to make decisions about their own bodies and their own cultural and religious beliefs.
“To be circumcised should be an informed, personal choice. It is most consistent with the individual’s right to self-determination that parents not be allowed to make this decision but that it is left up to the individual when he has come of age,” Lise Møller, the chairwoman of the doctors’ association’s ethics board, said.
Lægeforeningen said that male circumcision carries a risk of complications and should only be performed on children when there is a documented medical need.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Eight Questioned in Belgium on Suspicion of Funding ISIS
Belgian authorities were questioning eight people on suspicion of financially supporting ISIS and recruiting people to leave for Syria to fight with the terrorist group, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
EU Demands Social Media Websites Censor “Fake News” Within 24 Hours
Lists it in the same context as jihadist propaganda
The European Union is demanding that Twitter, YouTube and Facebook censor “illegal hate speech” within 24 hours, content that includes so-called “fake news,” a term so broad that it includes perfectly legitimate news content.
Complaining that censorship is currently taking too long, EU commissioners are threatening to pass new laws if the “non-legislative approach” fails.
“The last weeks and months have shown that social media companies need to live up to their important role and take up their share of responsibility when it comes to phenomena like online radicalisation, illegal hate speech or fake news,” EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourová told The Financial Times.
The fact that the EU is characterizing “fake news” in the same context as jihadist propaganda is chilling. Former UKIP leader Diane James previously told Breitbart that the EU’s definition of hate speech, “Is so vague that it is the thin end of the wedge not just to curb hate speech but free speech as well,” adding that the issue should be decided by parliaments, not by the unelected EU Commission.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Five Afghan Teens Arrested After Boy Gang-Raped at Knifepoint in Sweden
Five Afghan teenagers have been arrested after a boy was gang-raped at knifepoint in a forest in Sweden, it has emerged.
The victim, who is under 15, was filmed during the attack, which happened in woodland in Uppsala, south east Sweden.
He was beaten and dragged out to the forest at knifepoint before being subjected to an ordeal lasting more than an hour, prosecutors say.
One of the attackers filmed parts of the assault, overnight on October 24 and 25, and posted the footage on social media, it is claimed.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Five Afghan Teens in Sweden Charged With Raping Boy
Swedish authorities on Tuesday charged five teenagers from Afghanistan with aggravated rape for allegedly dragging another Afghan boy into a forest, threatening him with a knife and raping him.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Five Afghan teenagers have been arrested after a boy was gang-raped at knifepoint in a forest in Sweden, it has emerged.
The victim, who is under 15, was filmed during the attack, which happened in woodland in Uppsala, south east Sweden.
He was beaten and dragged out to the forest at knifepoint before being subjected to an ordeal lasting more than an hour, prosecutors say.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Former British PM Tony Blair Warns Western Democracy is in Peril
Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, warned of what he saw to be “perilous” times for Western democracies after seismic events like like Brexit and the recent defeat of Italy’s reform referendum that led to the country’s premier to announce his resignation.
“It does feel perilous, actually, because I think there are decisions that are being taken of vast moment in circumstances where systems are fragile,” Blair told USA Today. “And that is troubling.”
He said he is more concerned about Europe than the U.S., pointing out that the U.S. has checks and balances and a strong economy.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Merkel Re-Elected as CDU Party Leader With Big Majority
Chancellor Angela Merkel was re-elected as leader of the CDU at the party conference on Tuesday, meaning she will be their Chancellor candidate at next year’s election.
Merkel received 89.5 percent of the votes from the roughly 1,000 delegates who were present at the conference in Essen, western Germany, according to German media.
The vote secures her a further two years as leader of the party.
It was the ninth time that Merkel had stood for leadership of the conservative party, which she has led for almost 17 years.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Germany’s Wildly Complex Fusion Reactor is Actually Working
The Wendelstein 7-X reactor, which uses a complex design called a stellerator, is performing just like it was predicted to.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
How Will Europe’s Populist Movements Change the EU?
As populist movements grow in Europe, it remains unclear how they will affect the European Union.
Italy is the latest country to vote against its leadership. On Sunday, Italian voters rejected constitutional reforms proposed by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
About 60 percent of voters rejected the reforms in a nationwide referendum. Renzi actively campaigned for the measures. He made it clear that if they were not approved, voters would be rejecting his government.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Man Found Guilty Over Belgium Attacks Terror Suspect Cash
A 26-year-old man has been found guilty of giving £3,000 to a suspect in the Paris and Brussels terror attacks, during a meeting in a Birmingham park months earlier.
A jury convicted Zakaria Boufassil, from Birmingham, of engaging in conduct in preparation for acts of terrorism.
A second man, Mohammed Ali Ahmed, 27, has pleaded guilty to the same offence.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Merkel’s Call for Burqa Ban in Germany Draws Backlash
German Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled support Tuesday for a nationwide ban on full-face veils worn mainly by Muslim women — a move that had an American Islamic advocacy group crying foul, claiming it impedes freedom and increases “Islamophobia.”
As she looks to beat back challenges from her right and win a fourth four-year term as chancellor, Merkel, who had previously opposed a burqa ban, told the Christian Democratic Union conference on Tuesday that prohibiting the veil was essential to stopping the development of “parallel societies.” She said such veils were “not appropriate.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Students Investigate Ireland’s “Deserted Village”
Irish Central reports that students from the Achill Archaeological Field School have been investigating a remote nineteenth-century village of around 40 houses located near Keem Bay, on the western tip of Achill Island. The people who lived in the village grew potatoes and perhaps oats and raised cattle. Their single-room houses were built of drystone walls more than three feet thick, and had rounded corners and a single door facing the bay. Central hearths were placed on the earthen floors. Smoke from peat fires would have traveled out the door and through the thatched roofs.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Court Jails Iraqi for War Crimes After Facebook Post
A Swedish court on Tuesday jailed an Iraqi man for six months for war crimes in a landmark case after he posted photos on Facebook of himself posing with dead bodies in Iraq.
The photos posted on Facebook in July 2015, show Iraqi citizen Raed Abdulkareem, 24, who sought asylum in Sweden in October that same year, posing next to a severed head on a plate and decapitated bodies.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Security Guards Brutally Attacked by Vicious Gang on Stockholm Subway
In the shocking CCTV clip, the pair can be seen struggling to regain control over the situation as the gang turned violent after the officials attempted to detain one person on the underground platform.
The altercation between the security guards and the angry gang was sparked as the detained male refused to cooperate.
Friends of the man began circling the officials as they attempted to lead the person off the subway platform.
However, before the security guards at the Stockholm subway station could calm the situation, a group of people gave chase and started shouting at them to let the detained male go.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: BBC to Air ‘Muslim Big Brother’ Show Featuring Islamic State Defender
The BBC is set to broadcast a two-part ‘Muslim Big Brother’ reality TV series featuring a supporter of jailed radical cleric Anjem Choudary who has defended Islamic State and was involved with the banned terror group Al-Muhajiroun.
Muslims Like Us, to be aired on BBC2 on Monday night, is described as a “social experiment” and features a “diverse” group of British Muslims living together in a house. It was made by Love Productions, who were also behind Benefits Street and The Great British Bake Off.
The BBC said the show showcased “topical, important and, at times, charged exchanges shin[ing] a light on what it means to be a Muslim in modern Britain” in a statement.
[Comment: More proof that taxpayers should stop funding BBC entirely.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Birmingham Man Found Guilty of Giving Cash to Brussels Attack Suspect
Zakaria Boufassil, 26, convicted of engaging in conduct in preparation of acts of terrorism
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
45% Tunisina Unemployed Youth Ready to Emigrate, Study Says
FTDES study cites failure of development policies
TUNIS — A study by the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) revealed that “45% of Tunisian youth searching for work are ready to emigrate, even illegally”. The study, titled “Youth and illegal migration in Tunisia: a field study of stereotypes, practices and expectations”, was conducted in cooperation with the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Foundation (FLS) on a sample of 1,200 young people in Tunisia.
The study, conducted by 11 experts, including 9 university professors, aimed to analyse the various aspects of clandestine migration of Tunisian youth before and after the 2011 revolution and to identify the reasons for this choice, said Romdhane Ben Amor, FTDES media director.
He emphasized the failure of the Tunisian development model, as nearly 25,000 Tunisian youth left the country illegally following the events of the revolution.
He said those figures have continuously increased after 2011, along with a rise in the number of missing persons.
“We believed that the approaches adopted by successive governments in managing the issue of illegal migration would be able to provide alternative solutions, apart from the agreements signed with the European Union, but no improvement has been observed in the treatment of the economic and social situation of regions affected by this phenomenon,” he said.
The study was carried out in December 2015 on a sample of 1,200 young people in 6 governorates (Tunis, El Kef, Gafsa, Kasserine, Medenine, Mahdia), 53.3% of whom were men and 46.7% women. Half of the respondents said they interrupted their studies in secondary school, 27.6% have a university degree, and 17% have a secondary school diploma. In the sample, 24% are unemployed and 70% are job seekers.
Of the respondents, 21% said they are ready to emigrate — even illegally — if the opportunity arises, and 15% said they are in contact with those who organise Mediterranean crossings.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Ancient Leftovers Show the Real Paleo Diet Was a Veggie Feast
Today’s Paleo diet cookbooks might be missing a few pages. Archaeological excavations at a Stone Age site in Israel have revealed the first direct evidence of the sort of plants that our distant human ancestors ate with their meat and fish. Their tastes were more adventurous than we might expect, with roasted acorns and sedges both on the menu.
Archaeologists tend to emphasise the role of meat in ancient human diets, largely because the butchered bones of wild animals are so likely to be preserved at dig sites. Edible plants may have been overlooked simply because their remains don’t survive so well.
The Gesher Benot Ya’aqov site in northern Israel provides some of our first direct evidence of what plants early humans ate. The site was occupied 780,000 years ago, probably by Homo erectus or a very closely related species. Deep in history, waterlogging helped preserve evidence of its inhabitants’ diets — plants as well as meat.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
‘Attack Them in Markets, Roads and Clubs, ‘ ISIL’s New Spokesman Tells European Followers
Islamic State’s new spokesman has promised more attacks on Europe, telling supporters to target “markets, roads and clubs” in his inaugural audio message.
Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajer, whose role as the group’s mouthpiece was disclosed for the first time on Monday, urged Islamic State of Iraq the Levant (Isil) followers to “redouble your efforts and step up your operations.”
“We will attack them in their own countries, he said. “Your operations make a difference, change the situation … burn the ground under their feet.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Covert Depopulation? Mysterious “Thunderstorm Asthma” Now Strikes Kuwait — 5 Dead, 844 Hospitalized
The mystery deepens.
A week or so ago, conspiracy theorists were scratching their heads as to why more than 8500 people in Australia would suddenly have to a hospitalized in a concentrated wave allergies that left several people dead.
Now, a similar event has been reported in Kuwait, where reports claim that thunderstorm activity has triggered a mass reaction and nearly a thousand people were taken to the hospital with severe asthma; again, several people died.
So what is really going on? Is a covert, deadly substance being deliberately sprayed from planes (as governments did back in the sixties, and countless times since)? Or is is just something harmful being swept up from nearby farms and factories?
Whatever the explanation, the pattern is completely bizarre, especially since it has now happened in back to back cases, despite the fact that the phenomenon has been sparsely documented and extremely rare, to the point of being unheard of.
The following was translated from Arabic to English via Google, so there may be errors or poor interpretations.
But at this point, there isn’t much else to go on.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
by Srdja Trifkovic
On November 29 Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised many eyebrows when he declared that Turkey’s military involvement in Syria, which started in the last week of August, had the objective “to end the rule of the tyrant al-Assad who terrorizes with state terror.” He even added that Turkey did not intervene there “for any other reason.”
Only two days later Erdogan completely reversed his position. Speaking in Ankara on December 1, he said that Turkey’s military operation in Syria was not directed “against any country or person,” but only against terror organizations. “No one should doubt this issue that we have uttered over and over,” he went on, “and no one should comment on it in another fashion, or try to misrepresent its meaning.”
Both statements were made with emphatic clarity. They were remarkably contradictory even for a politician well known for unpredictable moves. One possible explanation for Erdogan’s volte-face is the pressure from Moscow, which has been supporting Bashar with air operations since September 2015. The issue was reportedly raised in Erdogan’s telephone conversation with Russia’s president Vladimir Putin on November 30, and at the meeting of the two countries’ foreign ministers in the Turkish coastal resort town of Alanya on the same day.
In view of his strained relations with Washington and Brussels in the aftermath of last July’s coup attempt, and the ensuing radical purge of real, potential, or imagined enemies, Erdogan is keen to maintain his rapprochement with Russia. He initiated it last July, after an eight-month freeze that followed the shooting down of a Russian bomber by Turkish F-16s over northern Syria just over a year ago. In addition to the political imperative of broadening his diplomatic options, Erdogan is keen to avoid further losses to the Turkish economy—amounting to tens of billions of dollars—which had resulted from the cancellation of Russian trade, construction, and package tour contracts…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
‘Europe is Destroying Islam’ New ISIS Speaker Warns of Fresh Attacks on Cities of the West
ISLAMIC State’s new propaganda chief has issued a warning to Europeans and Americans that they face fresh attacks by battle-hardened jihadis after accusing Western powers of “destroying” Islam.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Thugs Hurl Prisoner Off Roof for the ‘Crime’ Of Being Gay in Aleppo, Syria
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: The victim was dragged to the top of a building in Maslamah City in war-torn Aleppo, Syria, having been accused of ‘homosexual relations’.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Throws Man Off Roof for Being Gay; Mob Pelts Corpse With Rocks
New graphic photos released from war-torn Aleppo, Syria, show Islamic State militants throwing a man accused of being gay off a rooftop before a fanatic mob pelts his corpse with rocks.
The website Heavy, which reports on the terror activities of the Islamic radical group, said the incident occurred in Maslamah City in Aleppo. ISIS’ religious police, known as the “hisbah,” carried out the execution in accordance with Sharia law.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Shariah Gold Standard Approved for $2 Trillion Islamic Finance Market
The Accounting and Auditing Organisation for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) and the World Gold Council have made an important decision which was announced yesterday at the World Islamic Banking Conference in Bahrain.
This decision is about one of the most important markets in the world: the gold market, an invest-able market worth an estimated $2.4 trillion and is also of significance for the world of Islamic finance.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
WikiLeaks: Turkish Energy Minister Indirectly Involved in ISIS Oil Trade
WikiLeaks published on Monday a searchable archive of nearly 58,000 emails from the private email account of Berat Albayrak — Turkey’s incumbent energy minister and son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — revealing the influence Albayrak has in Turkey and his correspondence regarding Powertrans, a company implicated in oil imports from ISIS-controlled oil fields.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
World’s First Polluted River Was Contaminated by Neolithic Humans Learning to Smelt 7,000 Years Ago
Neolithic humans who were learning how to smelt were responsible for the world’s first polluted river approximately 7,000 years ago, a team of international researchers has found.
The riverbed in the Wadi Faynan region of southern Jordan is now dry, but researchers found evidence of pollution caused by heating blue-green copper ore and charcoal over fire during the Copper Age.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Two Movies China Desperately Wants to Hide
This week, two extraordinary Canadian films — one a chilling documentary, the other a riveting drama based on its findings — were released for sale on iTunes. Directed by Leon Lee, the films illuminate what may be the most depraved of all systematic human-rights atrocities in the world today: China’s industrial-scale harvesting of vital organs from prisoners of conscience, to be transplanted into patients paying exorbitant fees for a heart, kidney, or liver made available on demand.
The documentary, “Human Harvest,” won the coveted Peabody Award for its exposé of an unspeakable crime against humanity. In 1999, Chinese hospitals began performing more than 10,000 organ transplants annually, generating a vast and lucrative traffic in “transplant tourists,” who flocked to China on the assurance that they could obtain lifesaving organs without having to languish on a waiting list. China had no voluntary organ-donation system to speak of, yet suddenly it was providing tens of thousands of freshly harvested organs to patients with ready cash or high-placed connections. How was that possible?
The evidence, assembled by human-rights researchers and investigative journalists, added up to something unimaginable: China was killing enormous numbers of imprisoned men and women by strapping them down to operating tables, still conscious, and forcibly extracting their organs — and then delivering those organs to the hospital transplant centers that have become a major source of revenue. Chinese officials claim that organs come from violent criminals on death row. But “Human Harvest” makes it clear that most of those killed are peaceful citizens persecuted for their beliefs: Tibetans, Uighurs, Christians — and, above all, practitioners of Falun Gong, a Buddhist-style spiritual movement of peaceful meditation and ethical commitment.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
NZ Church Leader: Earthquakes Are God’s Alarm for End Times
NZ Church Leader: Earthquakes are God’ s alarm for end times [gays are to blame] Controversial pentecostal church leader Brian Tamaki is now warning his followers tremors are a divine alarm after blaming recent destructive quakes on gay people. In a blog post the self-styled Destiny Church bishop says earthquakes were God’s method of “sounding an alarm” to communicate the “times we are in”, referring to the end of the Earth as we know it. “Earthquakes and strange weather patterns are nature’s way of sounding the alarm to those who are listening. You can have your opinions but you cannot argue with nature — The Voice of God is speaking particularly to The Church,” he posted. In a sermon the day before last week’s massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake, which killed two people, Tamaki told churchgoers quakes were a result of sexual “perversions”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Despicable’: UN’s Top Human Rights Body Holds Minute’s Silence for Fidel Castro
U.S. Ambassador Keith Harper tweeted that the HRC “should not be honoring gross and systematic #Humanrights violators with moments of silence.”
Delegates of the U.N. Human Rights Council opened a meeting in Geneva on Monday by standing silently with heads bowed, after the delegation of Venezuela’s leftist government requested a minute’s silence to “honor” the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
Not everyone in the chamber took part. U.N. Watch executive director Hillel Neuer described the honoring of “human rights abuser Fidel Castro” as “despicable” and said that his non-governmental organization “stayed seated.”
In an official U.N. webcast, a member of the Israeli delegation, seated behind Venezuela’s representatives, can be seen walking out as Venezuelan ambassador Jorge Valero asked members to honor Castro.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Priest Nabbed for Sex Abuse at Argentine Deaf School
Father Nicola Corradi, 82, already accused of abuse in Verona
(ANSA) — Buenos Aires, November 5 — An 82-year-old Italian priest has been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing boys in a school for the deaf in Mendoza in western Argentina.
Father Nicola Corradi is already known for alleged abuse committed at a school for the deaf in Verona. A spokesman for the Mendoza bishopric said Corradi, who arrived there in 1996, may have been a beneficiary of the former “malpractice” of shifting predator priests from one place to another rather than denouncing them.
An Italian non-profit organisation, Rete L’abuso Onlus, has denounced Corradi’s abuse in Verona to the local Church, the Vatican and the UN, demanding the creation of a commission of inquiry into Italian paedophile priests.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
By Servando Gonzalez
At end of Fidel Castro’s long life one has to pass a balance and ask what were his biggest successes and what were his biggest failures. I think that the Cuban tyrant had several major accomplishments in his life, and just a single, big failure.
One of his main accomplishments was to fool both friends and enemies into thinking that he was a Communist. Evidence, however, shows that Castro’s ideology — or lack of it[1] — was much more closer to fascism than to communism.
Castro was the son of a rich landlord who sent him to be educated by the Jesuits at the Belén High School in Havana. At the school he fell under the influence of some reactionary priests, and became an avid reader of works by Mussolini, Hitler and Spanish Fascist Primo de Rivera.
Despite his claims on the contrary, Castro was never a Marxist or a Communist, nor a member of the pro-Soviet Cuban Communist Party. By his own admission, he was totally ignorant of Marxist doctrine. Paradoxically, the ones who over and over have claimed that he was a Communist have been Castro himself and his enemies in Miami.
Evidence of Castro’s fascist leanings is shown in his last words in his own defense at the trial for his failed assault of the Moncada Garrison in 1953, “Condemn me, never mind, History will absolve me.” They were very similar to Hitler’s final words in his own defense at the trial for the frustrated 1923 beer-hall putsch “Condemn me, never mind. The Goddess of History will absolve me.” Castro’s words didn’t pass unnoticed to the Cuban Communists,[2] who many times called him a “putchist” — communist lingo for Fascist.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Venezuela Opposition Withdraws From Meeting With Government Officials
Venezuela’s opposition says it will not attend a meeting Tuesday with government officials, putting a halt to on ongoing talks intended to defuse the country’s political crisis.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Anger as German News Show Says Migrant Arrest Over Teen Murder ‘Too Regional’ To Cover
The decision by the TV executives behind Tagesschau, broadcast on mainstream channel ARD, which is funded by licence fee payers, has created anger across the nation.
Maria, the daughter of a high-ranking European Union official, was raped and drowned in the attack, which took place when she was on her way back from a party in October.
The 19-year-old medical student volunteered part-time with a migrant charity but it is unknown whether she knew her attacker.
A march took place yesterday after news broke the Afghan migrant had been arrested over the killing in the city of Freiburg.
Despite widespread anger Tagesschau declined to include the story on its news programme claiming it was no different to other isolated murders.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Austria to Fine or Jail Migrants Who Lie to Authorities
Austria plans to jail or fine asylum seekers who lie to the authorities, a move aimed partly at dissuading migrants from trying to settle, it said on Tuesday.
The cabinet agreed on a draft law that would allow the authorities to punish asylum applicants who lie about their identities — for example by pretending to be Syrian so their claims have a better chance of being accepted — with a fine of up to 5,000 euros ($5,373) or three weeks in jail.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Coastguard: 1,300 Migrants Rescued, 16 Found Dead
Over 1,300 migrants have been rescued from the Mediterranean over the past 48 hours with 16 bodies recovered, the Italian coastguard said on Monday evening.
On Sunday, the Italian coast guard ship Diciotti discovered 11 bodies on a boat which had run into difficulty, while a commercial vessel intervening at another boat found three dead.
The Aquarius, a relief vessel chartered by the NGOs SOS Méditerranée and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), meanwhile, said efforts to resuscitate two women found on a dinghy had failed.
Among those pulled to safety were a number of Syrian families travelling with young children. Most of the over 173,000 migrants who have arrived this year in Italy have come from West Africa and the Horn of Africa.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Divided Britain: The Sheffield School Where Migrants Went From 5% to 95% in Just a Few Years
A SCHOOL in Sheffield has gone from an immigrant population of less than five per cent to 95pc in just a few years, the author of a government-commissioned report revealed today.
Dame Louise Casey said the “misogyny and patriarchy” in some communities was widening inequality rather than healing it.
Dame Louise, who was brought in by David Cameron to report on social integration amid concerns that hundreds of radicalised young Britons were joining Islamic State, warned that the country was becoming more divided as it became more diverse.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Dutch Prime Minister Says Migrant Boats Should be Sent Back to Africa
Prime minister Mark Rutte has called for migrant boats intercepted off the coast of Italy to be towed back to safe countries in northern Africa. Speaking at a conference of European Liberal parties in Warsaw on Saturday, Rutte said: ‘European ships currently pick up migrants and bring them to Italy. That is a ferry service. We have to pick them up and bring them back to Africa.’
In the question-and-answer session afterwards, the prime minister said he wants to make agreements with countries like Egypt and Morocco along the lines of the deal made with Turkey in March, the Volkskrant reported. The funding would come from existing European development aid funds, he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
German State Media Refuse to Run Migrant Murder Story, Say it’s ‘Too Regional’
A German state broadcaster refused to report on the murder of 19-year-old Maria Ladenburger by a 17-year-old Afghan migrant because her killing “was no different to other isolated murders.”
This is the equivalent of a family saying they’re not going to discuss the murder of their own daughter because other murders happen elsewhere in the world. The story is massive news because it was a foreigner killing one of our own. A foreigner shown nothing but kindness and taken in foolishly with open arms.
This insanity is straight out of a recently leaked “checklist” given to journalists in neighboring Austria detailing how to report, or misreport on migrant crime.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
German State Media Defends Not Reporting Girl Raped and Murdered by ‘Refugee’
Germany’s leading news programme has been slammed for failing to report the rape and murder of the 19-year-old daughter of an EU official by an Afghan ‘refugee’.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Underage Migrant Charged With Plotting Terror Attack
An underage Syrian migrant has been arrested and charged in Cologne for having links to Islamic State and for plotting a terror attack.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Undercover Report: Islamic Radicalism Rife in ‘Hotbed of Terror’ Asylum Homes
German-Pakistani journalist Shams Ul-Haq went undercover to several German asylum homes under false identities and found them full of radical Islamic recruiters and believers.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Police Chief Blames Merkel Migrant Policy for Teenage Girl-Murder Rape
German police union chief Rainer Wendt has blamed the mass migration policies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the death of Maria Landenburger who was killed by an Afghani migrant.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Brain Drain Results in Lost State Revenue of 9.1 Bln Euros Per Year
As the government struggles with pressures for additional austerity measures totaling 3.6 billion euros a year, it is missing out on tax revenues of over 9.1 billion euros per year from the departure of Greeks looking to escape the years-long crisis abroad.
The ongoing brain drain is also depriving the Greek economy of the precious human resources that would be needed for its recovery. A McKinsey survey, in fact, has shown that one in three Greek employers were unable to fill vacant posts in their businesses because they could not find the right people with the right skills.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Breaks Immigration Record in 2016
This week the number of immigrants entering Italy since January 1 shattered the previous yearly record from 2014, moving beyond the 170,000 mark.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Merkel Will Have to Spend £2.52bn to Deport Half a Million Migrants
The report warned the country does not yet have the infrastructure to cope with the mammoth task.
Forecasts say the number of people on a list of those who should be deported from Germany will rise to at least 485,000 by the end of 2017 — yet only 85,000 of those will actually have left the country by then.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Migrants: More Hungarian Policemen Serbian-Bulgarian Border
It’s the third largest contingent after October and November
(ANSA) — BELGRADE — A new group of 20 Hungarian policemen was deployed Monday on the border between Serbia and Bulgaria to assist the Serbian colleagues to tackle illegal immigration.
Tanjug press agency reported that it is the third largest contingent of Hungarian officers to be sent to the border between Serbia and Bulgaria; the others had been deployed on October 24 and November 15.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Refugees Combat Cold, Frustration in Greece
With the onset of winter authorities have yet to fully equip the refugee camps in northern Greece to help withstand the increasingly miserable conditions. Marianna Karakoulaki and Dimitris Tosidis report from four camps.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Senegal’s Migrants: The Lure of ‘Somewhere Else’
Tempted by the notion of ‘easy migration’ spread online and on television, many Senegalese are still attempting the perilous trip to Europe.
In Wolof, the local Senegalese language, “Barça or Barsaax” is simple rhyming slang that illustrates the far from simple journey men are willing to embark on to reach Europe. It means “Barcelona or die” and is an apt description of the sacrifice thousands of men make for their families.
A decade ago, thousands of Senegalese boarded fishing boats ill-adapted for the open seas in the hope of reaching Barcelona, Malaga, Marseille, Paris or Rome. Tragically, thousands never made it.
Today, the route takes them inland passing through Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Morocco or Libya where again they board often unseaworthy vessels for journeys that end in disaster.
According to the International Organization for Migration in the Senegalese capital Dakar, around 6000 Senegalese men have been logged on arrival at reception centers in Italy and Greece this year.
Some left their rural villages from the interior of Senegal, but just as many leave from Dakar or its suburbs. The will to migrate isn’t a rural condition.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Suspect Arrested for Sex Attacks on Chinese Students in West Germany
Officials said on Tuesday that they had arrested a 31-year-old man living in a refugee home after two Chinese students reported being sexually assaulted in recent months near Bochum University.
The suspect is described as being an Iraqi asylum seeker, who came to Germany in 2015 and lived with his wife and two children near the scene of the two attacks, state prosecutors said.
In August a 21-year-old student from China reported that a man had seriously injured her and attempted to rape her. Then in November, a 27-year-old student also from China reported that she was attacked and raped by a man.
Prosecutors accuse the man of attempted murder, rape and aggravated assault. The suspect has disputed the charges, according to prosecutors.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: More Reports of Honour Violence Against Female Asylum Seekers
Women and girls who have fled war and violence to come to Sweden as asylum seekers still face oppression and abuse from within their own communities, according to a national team tasked with helping victims of so-called honour crimes.
There is no hard data on the amount of these types of crimes but Mikael Thörn, who is an expert on the team, said there has been an increase in calls to their helpline this year.
He said the abuse and oppression was coming from “their own men or men from the same countries”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Needs Immigrants to Solve Labour Shortage: Employment Agency
Sweden requires 64,000 immigrants annually if it wants to prevent labour shortages from hampering economic growth, the country’s employment agency (Arbetsförmedlingen) has said.
Speaking to public broadcaster SVT, the agency’s director general Mikael Sjöberg predicted that a labour shortage will start to hurt Sweden’s growth as early as next year, before becoming an increasing problem thereafter, as employers in the private and public sector struggle to find people with the right skills.
A decreasing local-born population means immigration will be needed to solve the shortage, the agency explained.
“Sweden’s birth rate is simply too low. The home-born population is reducing. To continue having the possibility of growing further, labour is needed, and therefore an increased population,” Johan Bissman from Arbetsförmedlingen told The Local.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Charges 5 Teenage Refugees With Beating, Gang-Raping Boy for Over an Hour
Five asylum seekers, who arrived in Sweden as unaccompanied minors, have been charged with anally raping a young Afghan male teen at gunpoint in a premeditated assault in Uppsala, a city outside Stockholm.
Swedish state prosecutor John Stromback told AP and local media outlets that two of the alleged perpetrators, who are all aged 16 or 17, were “annoyed with the victim,” who they knew socially. Four of the defendants are Afghans, while a fifth has requested a Farsi interpreter for legal proceedings.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK Top Destination of Italian Migrants — ISTAT
Followed by Germany, Switzerland and France
(ANSA) — Rome, December 6 — The United Kingdom draws the highest number of Italian immigrants in Europe, Italy’s statistics bureau ISTAT reported on Tuesday.
Some 17.1% of Italian migrants pick the UK, followed by Germany with 16.9%, Switzerland with 11.2% and France with 10.6%, ISTAT said in its report on international and internal migration trends.
An increasing number of Italian university graduates over 25 years of age leave the country, a reported 23,000 in 2015, up 13% on the previous year, according to the report.
Emigration however has also increased among Italians with a lower secondary degree, with 52,000 such migrants reported in 2015, up 9% on 2014, ISTAT said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Theatre is ‘Hideously White’ — Andrew Lloyd Webber Report
A major new diversity report commissioned by Andrew Lloyd Webber has slammed the UK theatre industry as “hideously white”. It says black, Asian and minority ethnic performers are regularly overlooked for lead roles and the sector has an “unconscious bias” against them.
The report, Centre Stage — The Pipeline of BAME Talent, highlights the dominance of white students at drama schools, the lack of diversity on the UK’s stages, the financial barriers to training and the stereotyping that BAME talent is subjected to.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Despite Denial, Global Temperatures Are Dropping Fast
All global temperature data sets confirm that global temperature has fallen rapidly in recent months as the recent El Nino ended.
Over the last couple of years there have been many articles about how they have been record-breakers in global temperature. It’s often sold as a simple ‘the planet is getting warmer only because of us’ story. As I have discussed beforethe concurrent El Nino was dismissed by some climate scientists as having an insignificant contribution to that record. However, there is a great deal of confusion and diversity in the assessment of its contribution. Some scientists maintain that it was the recent very strong El Nino that elevated the temperature to record levels.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Hunt for Life on Mars Could Target Nitrogen
Nitrogen is one of the essential nutrients for life on Earth, and some organisms, such as the kinds of microbes found within the roots of legume plants, are capable of converting nitrogen gas into molecules that other species can use.
Nitrogen fixation, as the process is called, involves breaking the powerful chemical bonds that hold nitrogen atoms in pairs in the atmosphere and using the resulting single nitrogen atoms to help create molecules such as ammonia, which is a building block of many complex organic molecules, such as proteins, DNAand RNA.
With organisms playing such a crucial role in the chemistry of nitrogen on Earth, scientists are examining nitrogen in ancient rocks to decipher its potential as a biosignature of life on other planets. New findings in this area of research appeared recently in a paper titled “Nitrogen in Ancient Mud: A Biosignature?” which was published in the journal Astrobiology.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Researchers Baffled by Nationalist Surge
Economic woes wrought by globalization are only part of the cause.
Waves of nationalist sentiment are reshaping the politics of Western democracies in unexpected ways — carrying Donald Trump to a surprise victory last month in the US presidential election, and pushing the United Kingdom to vote in June to exit the European Union. And nationalist parties are rising in popularity across Europe.
Many economists see this political shift as a consequence of globalization and technological innovation over the past quarter of a century, which have eliminated many jobs in the West. And political scientists are tracing the influence of cultural tensions arising from immigration and from ethnic, racial and sexual diversity. But researchers are struggling to understand why these disparate forces have combined to drive an unpredictable brand of populist politics.
“We have to start worrying about the stability of our democracies,” says Yascha Mounk, a political scientist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He notes that the long-running World Values Survey shows that people are increasingly disaffected with their governments — and more willing to support authoritarian leaders.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
“Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!”
The media and pundits will once again be hyperventilating over Trump’s latest tweet, while all the while failing to understand what he is up to. Quite simply he is negotiating. The man is a master at it, and no doubt one of the reasons for his business success.
In an earlier career I received training in negotiation, it’s really an art form, and what I realized about many of Trumps seemingly outlandish statements was that they were the open statement in a round of negotiation. That is technically called the “Opening Gambit”. The purpose is to frame your demands in a punchy statement that unsettles your opponent. That knocks him off his pre-planned game and put you at the advantage. Trump does this a lot. Right now in the Boeing boardroom they are sweating blood. But he knows what he’s doing, he will probably buy from Boeing but they now know they are going to have to trim the price back or no deal. Sharpen those pencils boys!
As someone accurately said, the mistake of the media is to take Trump literally but not seriously. The astute observer takes Trump seriously, but not literally, as to every word he utters. The Chinese need to learn that fast.
I like him (Trump) better every day.
I applaud Trump for acting as though the taxpayer’s money spent on Air Force One is coming out of his own pocket. This is how it is supposed to work!
The waste in the USG, especially in the DoD, is horrific. Running it more like a business, with cost controls would make the government more efficient, and leave more money in the taxpayer’s pocket.
You are also correct that negotiation is an art, and the grown-ups at Boeing will recognize this as such.
On ancient Romans being affected by malaria. And to think that we almost had the plague of malaria killed off by the use of DDT until the disadvantages of DDT were blown up out of all proportion as compared to its effectiveness in combatting this most debilitating of diseases.
Indeed; banning DDT may have killed as many as fifty million people, mainly children.
A small price to pay for avoiding the remote possibility of environmental harm.
To Mark and the Colonel. I was in the Australian Army when Cyclone Tracy went through our northernmost city of Darwin like a dose of salts on Christmas Day, 1974, which is summer time in Oz.
Four days later we were airlifted up there to assist in whatever way we could. One of the problems in the tropics is mosquitoes who have a nasty habit of trying to suck one’s blood, especially when one is trying to sleep on a hot night with 100% humidity.
But, soon after we arrived the pioneer sections of the battalion began using DDT around our campsite (even as we were resting) while what remained of the city council took to the swamps, ponds and rivers with DDT.
Did not see or feel another mosquito for months and the occasional dusting of DDT as far as I can recall did no harm to anyone or anything other than those pesky mosquitoes.
Someone should tell Dr Merkel that military-aged men don’t wear burkas.
They do when they got squeezed by Russians in the Islamic state and want to run away. But seriously it was a great pun!
Who trusts our “elites”? Nobody.
If anyone thinks Merkel doing the burqa ban because she realized what she done… No I do not think so!
She is doing what criminals do, try to hide the proofs for her crimes and with it she hides the symptoms of islamic infection.
If she succeed to do so and lulls the Germans back to sleep, the next time they will be awaken their invaders will be in much higher numbers establishing their islamic political parties and using the very same democracy to establish sharia.
(lowercase intended!)
‘Proofs’ of the offence gets the criminal convicted at court. Frau Merkel has left a trail of ‘proofs’ of her treachery, indeed her Treason, that has been duly recorded and of such magnitude that no judge could ignore.
It’s hilarious that the very things the Left accuses us of are the very same things we assume they are guilty of – absolute intolerance, high-handedness, corruption and the desire to dictate without the inconvenience of opposition!
Their fear that Trump is Hitler re-incarnated underscores their stupidity and lack of historical knowledge. But when did reality ever get in the way of Political Correctness?
Interesting to read about the “Hideously White” theatre and lack of opportunities for black actors.
However, it was a different story when they made ZULU was it not !!!???
As an extra in the now notorious “Tom the cabin boy” Rape Scene which did not survive the final cut, I can assure you that we were outnumbered about 2500 to one !! begad !!! I was the body double with the firm but symmetrical buttocks
They all wanted me in these days you know !, do I shock you !!??o
Who would have thought that the British theatre would be white? Are not Anglo,Saxon,Celtic people white?
The theatre that they talk about is a white culture product.
I must insist that before any more of my tax money go to nations of colour they should have a 50% representation.
Bloody leftist claptrap!
“German police union chief Rainer Wendt has blamed the mass migration policies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the death of Maria Landenburger”
May be there is hope for Germany, they still have a few good men like Rainer Wendt. I wonder if he can be tempted into politics?
**The Dallas Police and Fire Pension plan is severely underfunded. Not even a $1.1 billion taxpayer bailout the plan officials request will make the plan whole. **
One of the horrendous realities staring those who enable fiscal catastrophe in the face is the immediate additional claim on tax revenues for debt service that would be caused by the tiniest of hikes in the interest rate. There’s no more slack in the cables, if you will. When spending and debt began their socialist c!IMG into the stratosphere, politicians had all kinds of leeway. But no more.
The same implacable head-on collision of stupidity, greed, recklessness, and elite privilege with the iron laws of arithmetic is even more of an immediate prospect in the realm of government employee pension funds.
To quote Ayn Rand, “He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see.”
I don’t know who “he” is in the quote but he’s pretty much Everyman in the modern Western fairyland of socialist wing-and-a-prayer public finance. The unions and public employees won a political victory and bamboozled voters with their mantra of “public service” (barf) but, as Rev. Jeremiad Wright would say, the CHICKENNNNS are coming home to ROOOOST!
… socialist climb