Swedish police went to the culturally enriched Stockholm suburb of Tensta intending to arrest a woman and her son who were thought to be connected with one of the two men arrested for Friday’s terror attack. When the officers arrived, however, they were pelted with stones by Tensta residents.
Also concerning the Stockholm attack, a van driver is said to have prevented a far worse outcome by swerving in front of the jihadis’ truck at the last moment and forcing it to crash into a department store.
In other news, Norwegian police successfully defused an explosive device that had been placed in downtown Oslo. Authorities decline to provide any details about the device, or who might have planted it.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Insubria, JD, Reader from Chicago, RRN, SS, 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.
FBI Informants Inside Geek Squad May Have Compromised Child Porn Case
The court documents detailing the incestuous relationship between “Geek Squad City” and the FBI are from a case in which Mark Rettenmaier, a California surgeon, was “charged with possessing child pornography, after the doctor took his computer to a Best Buy store for repair,” according to a report by the Washington Post. The report goes on to say:
Computers which require data recovery are typically sent from Best Buy stores around the country to a central Geek Squad City facility in Brooks, Ky., and customers consent to having their computers searched — and turned over to authorities if child porn is found.
While there is no question that Geek Squad technicians have notified authorities after finding child porn, the new court documents assert that there is a deeper relationship than has previously been revealed between the company and federal authorities. The court is now considering the extent of that relationship and whether it is grounds to throw out a pending child porn case, though it could also have ramifications for the dozens of cases which originate from the Kentucky facility annually.
So, by overstepping legal and ethical boundaries to obtain evidence, the FBI may wind up with yet another child pornography case tossed out by a judge. This would not be the first time the FBI’s fuzzy sense of right and wrong compromised a case involving child pornography. As The New American reported late last month, federal prosecutors dropped a case against Jay Michaud, a school administrator from Vancouver, Washington, rather than reveal the “network investigative tool” the FBI had used to identify Michaud as one of the people who had downloaded child pornography from a website operated by the FBI.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Former CIA Officer: “The Intelligence Confirms the Russian Account on Syria”
On Thursday night, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the U.S. intelligence community assessed with a “high degree of confidence” that the Syrian government had dropped a poison gas bomb on civilians in Idlib province.
But a number of intelligence sources have made contradictory assessments, saying the preponderance of evidence suggests that Al Qaeda-affiliated rebels were at fault, either by orchestrating an intentional release of a chemical agent as a provocation or by possessing containers of poison gas that ruptured during a conventional bombing raid.
One intelligence source told me that the most likely scenario was a staged event by the rebels intended to force Trump to reverse a policy, announced only days earlier, that the U.S. government would no longer seek “regime change” in Syria and would focus on attacking the common enemy, Islamic terror groups that represent the core of the rebel forces.
The source said the Trump national security team split between the President’s close personal advisers, such as nationalist firebrand Steve Bannon and son-in-law Jared Kushner, on one side and old-line neocons who have regrouped under National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, an Army general who was a protégé of neocon favorite Gen. David Petraeus.
White House Infighting
In this telling, the earlier ouster of retired Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser and this week’s removal of Bannon from the National Security Council were key steps in the reassertion of neocon influence inside the Trump presidency. The strange personalities and ideological extremism of Flynn and Bannon made their ousters easier, but they were obstacles that the neocons wanted removed.
Though Bannon and Kushner are often presented as rivals, the source said, they shared the belief that Trump should tell the truth about Syria, revealing the Obama administration’s CIA analysis that a fatal sarin gas attack in 2013 was a “false-flag” operation intended to sucker President Obama into fully joining the Syrian war on the side of the rebels — and the intelligence analysts’ similar beliefs about Tuesday’s incident.
Instead, Trump went along with the idea of embracing the initial rush to judgment blaming Assad for the Idlib poison-gas event. The source added that Trump saw Thursday night’s missile assault as a way to change the conversation in Washington, where his administration has been under fierce attack from Democrats claiming that his election resulted from a Russian covert operation.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Marines Punished for Social Media Comments; 15 Other Servicemembers Investigated
Marks first time active-duty Marines have faced discipline for inappropriate actions on social media.
The Marine Corps has punished two California-based Marines for derogatory remarks that they expressed on social media about a female Marine and service leadership, and law enforcement agents have uncovered at least 56 people suspected of involvement in a nude-photo sharing scandal, military officials said Friday.
The punished Marines were both reduced one rank Wednesday in a non-judicial sentence that also included 45 days of extra punitive duties for their remarks posted on the Facebook page “United States Grunt Corps,” said Lt. Col Warren Cook, the commander of 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment at Camp Pendleton, Calif., the unit to which the Marines are assigned.
It marks the first time active-duty Marines have faced discipline for inappropriate actions on social media and comes in the wake of the photo-sharing scandal uncovered in February that Marine leaders have said indicated the service had a cultural problem. Cook said the two Marines he punished failed to maintain “the good order and discipline of the unit.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Syndicated columnist and professor, Walter E. Williams, chastised today’s college snowflakes and the “academic dishonesty” of educators using classrooms to push their political views.
Williams, a Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University where he has taught for 36 years, commented on the differences between his academic experience and those of today’s generation at an award ceremony in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, according to TownHall.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Europe’s Top Rabbi Calls for Solidarity With Muslims
Jews and Muslims in Europe have a common cause in resisting attacks on minority religions and defending religious freedom, Europe’s top rabbi has said. Speaking on the eve of Passover, which begins on Monday, chief rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt warned that the rise of ultra-nationalist parties and damage to the European Union caused by Brexit threatened the security of Jewish and Muslim minorities.
None so blind…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
French Group Takes Over Brunello Di Montalcino Creator
Operation completed
(ANSA) — Florence, April 7 — The Tuscan winemakers that invented the legendary Brunello di Montalcino wine in the 19th century were taken over by French group EPI on Friday.
EPI, owned by the Descours family, one of France’s richest, will have amajority stake in the new company, to be called Tenuta Biondi Santi SpA.
Jacopo Biondi Santi will be the president, Win News reported.
“The operation was successfuly completed today,” EPI said.
Brunello di Montalcino is a wine made with 100% Sangiovese with Italy’shighest DOCG classification. It is the Sangiovese that most wine critics cite to be the best in all of Italy.
It vies with Barolo from Piedmont as Italy’s best red.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Group of 50 European Politicians Announce Independent Scotland Would be Welcomed Into European Union
A GROUP of 50 European politicians have announced they would welcome an independent Scotland into the European Union.
Politicians have been encouraged to “seek common ground” instead of “hatred and division” — a week after Spain announced that it would not veto an independent Scotland’s attempts to join the EU.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Only Eurozone State With Falling Labour Costs
Eurostat reports 0.8% drop in 2016
(ANSA) — Brussels, April 6 — Italy was the only eurozone country in which labour costs dropped last year, Eurostat said on Thursday. In 2016 average hourly labour costs were estimated to be 29.80 euros in the eurozone, compared to 27.80 for Italy, which was down 0.8% on 28.10 euros in 2015.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Argentine Abuse Priest Moved to Genoa
Transfer ‘not enough’ says victims’ group
(ANSA) — Genoa, April 7 — An Argentine priest condemned by a Vatican court for sexually abusing seminarians in 2010 has been moved to Genoa to spend aperiod of isolation, the Abuse Network association said Friday.
They said the transfer of Father Carlos Buela was “not enough”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy-Austria Exercises Aiming to Improve Border Security
Meeting yesterday in Klagenfurt between Udine and Villach police
(ANSA) — UDINE, APR. 6 — A delegation of the Italian police, composed of director of the Training center for public order in Nettuno (Rome) and Vice commissioner Stefano Valeri, the head of Udine Police Central Station Giovanni Belmonte and other five officials, has attended a public order police exercise in Carinthia. The meeting, under the cooperation agreement signed inVienna between Italian and Austrian police cooperation on July 11, 2014 and ratified in 2016, was the first in view of an exchange activity regardinginformation on techniques of public order management between the two countries. This cooperation will continue with other meetings, already scheduledin Udine and Klagenfurt, in order to pursue joint exercises to share the management of possible emergencies at the border, just like it happened for example at the Brenner clashes with the black bloc. The Italian police and the Land of Carinthia are already carrying out joint monitoring activities on the trains at the Tarvisio border. Exchanges include the presence of Austrian agents in Lignano at Pentecost and of Italian policemen in Villach onthe occasion of the Beer Festival.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: M5S Edges Up to 28.5%, PD Steady on 26.4%
Two top parties
(ANSA) — Rome, April 7 — The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) edgedup to 28.5% in the weekly Ixè poll for Raitre Friday, while the ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD) was steady in second spot on 26.4%.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Second Suicide in Afghan Armoured Car Case
Colonel hangs self 7 years after captain shot self
(ANSA) — Bolzano, April 6 — An army colonel recently sent to trial for fraud in allegedly ordering lighter and cheaper armour for vehicles in Afghanistan hanged himself on Thursday, police said.
The family of the colonel, who was not named, do not believe he committed suicide.
The probe started after the 2010 suicide in Kabul of another officer, Captain Marco Callegaro, who shot himself.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Fincantieri Green Light for STX Shipyards
To become majority shareholder for 8 yrs
(ANSA) — Paris, April 6 — The French government on Thursday gave its green light to Italian shipbuilding giant Fincantieri taking over the STX France shipyards at Saint-Nazaire.
The Italian group will become a relative-majority shareholder with around 48% of shares for eight years, Industry Secretary Christophe Sirugue said.
“Fincantieri has presented an ambitious plan for the Saint-Nazaire shipyards,” he said, saying “it aims to strengthen the yards in their core business and also the diversification of maritime energies”.
It also pledged not to cut jobs over the next five years, Sirugue said.
Also taking part in the operation is Fondazione CrTrieste with a stake of 5-6%, while the French State will keep just over 33%. The FRench group DCNS may take up a 12% stake, Sirugue said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Vespa a Design Icon That Can’t be Cloned — Judges
Chinese company barred from marketing imitations in Italy
(ANSA) — Milan, April 6 — The shape of Italy’s iconic Vespa scooters since their inception in 1948 is an industrial design subject to copyright protection, Turin judges ruled Thursday in saying a Chinese company cannot marketcloned Vespas in Italy.
The sentence for the first time recognised the historic model as a workof industrial design.
Vespa, which is made by Piaggio, was recently cited as one of the EU products US President Donald Trump may slap a ‘super-tariff’ on in retaliation for a longstanding EU ban on hormone-boosted US beef.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Julian Assange Documentary Risk: Showtime Debuts Trailer for Laura Poitras Film
After winning an Oscar for telling the story of Edward Snowden in Citizenfour, Laura Poitras is getting up close and personal with Julian Assange in the trailer for Risk.
Filmed over six years, the documentary, which is set to premiere on Showtime this summer, goes inside the WikiLeaks scandal with unprecedented access to the man at the center of it — Assange.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Norwegian Capital Oslo Scare After Attack in Sweden
Police in the Norwegian capital of Oslo said they neutralised an explosive device found in a busy area of downtown Oslo and said they had arrested a suspect.
Norway was put on high alert after neighbouring Sweden suffered a truck attack in the capital that killed four people and injured 15.
Police Chief Vidar Pedersen confirmed that the Oslo device, initially described as “bomb-like,” was an explosive. The police Twitter account said it had been defused or neutralised.
Police would not give any details about the suspect, or further information about the device.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Stockholm Attack Driver ‘Deliberately Targeted Young Children’ As He Drove Hijacked Lorry Into Crowd
Witness: ‘It didn’t look out of control, it was trying to hit people.’
A suspected terrorist targeted young children as he drove a hijacked lorry into a crowded shopping street in Stockholm, witnesses claimed last night.
Infants’ buggies were sent “flying through the air”, one Swedish broadcaster reported, as the vehicle zigzagged along the pedestrianised Queen Street shopping district and embedded itself in the window of a department store.
“It swerved from side to side. It didn’t look out of control, it was trying to hit people,” a second witness, Glen Foran, an Australian tourist, told Reuters. “It hit people, it was terrible. It hit a pram with a kid in it, demolished it.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Terror: Stockholm Attacker Planned to Strike Parliament But Bystander Stopped Him
A VAN driver who swerved in front of the Stockholm terrorist saved hundreds of lives by forcing him to lose control of his hijacked beer lorry and thunder into a department store.
Cueva, 27, spent an extra 10 minutes eating lunch with a colleague before heading back to work — a decision that ultimately prevented the attacker from smashing into Sweden’s parliament building.
He told MailOnline that he wanted to protect Sweden’s government building, which was only 500m from where the horrifying attack took place.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The Coming Civil War in Europe
The Leftist-Liberal demographic engineering project of the European Union violates the rights of indigenous European peoples, goes against global trends towards the territorial partition of ethnic groups, and contradicts expert research on conditions that create ethnic and political conflict. The continuous practice of settling large numbers of non-Europeans into regions already inhabited by European indigenous populations but who have very low fertility rates inevitably alters the ethnic compositions of European nation-states, renders Europeans demographic minorities in their own homelands, affects the distribution of political power and the relations between ethnic groups, and causes a variety of other conflicts and problems, including civil war.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Two Capitalisms in Post-Socialist Europe
Between Neoliberalism and “exclusive solidarity”
(ANSA) — TRIESTE, 3 APR — di Igor Guardiancich, politologo.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the countries of Centraland Eastern Europe have faced the challenge of transition from a centrallyplanned economy to a market economy. At the peak of their popularity, neo-liberal economists, such as Leszek Balcerowicz in Poland and Lajos Bokros in Hungary, had prominent positions in the first democratically elected governments, initiating the so called “shock therapy”. This therapy consistedof immediate price liberalization, macroeconomic stabilization and privatization of state-owned property.
It was just the beginning. During the next two decades, many countries adopted post-socialist vanguard neoliberal policies, such as radical deregulation of the labour market, “flat tax”, privatization of pensions etc. Thosecountries had become for Western Europe of low-cost production centres andtherefore had to report their competitiveness to foreign investors. In some cases, the reforms were launched against the advice of international organizations, such as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. The reform process was uneven throughout the region. The Baltic States put in practice a pure model of neoliberalism, Croatia and the Visegrad Group (CzechRepublic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) adapted it to their own context, adopting the neoliberal dogma less accurately: they thus established state a more generous welfare state, a labour market only partially liberalized, selective privatization and deregulation. In other countries, such as in Bulgaria, Romania and South-Eastern Europe, neoliberalism took on the traits of a”non-system” based on political nepotism…
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Thugs Hurl Stones at Swedish Police Investigating Stockholm Attack
POLICE in Sweden were pelted with stones as they investigated the Stockholm terror attack, it has been claimed.
Officers were reportedly targeted as they tried to arrest two people — a woman and her 17-year-old son — living at an address linked to a 39-year-old suspect, who is already in custody.
One police officer involved in the operation, Abdallah Ahmed, said he and his colleagues were “exposed to stone throwing” as they entered the district of Tensta on Saturday evening.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: 770 Straight-A Students Can’t Get Place at Medical School
Top-performing teenagers are being shunned by leading universities while the NHS continues to recruit thousands of foreign doctors to plug a staffing crisis.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Voting Closes in Germany Ahead of Turkey Referendum
After two weeks of voting for Turkey’s upcoming referendum on April 16, polling stations closed on Sunday at Turkish consulates in Berlin, Hamburg, Hanover, Frankfurt, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Münster, Karlsruhe and Mainz, as well as four other polling stations set up for the occasion.
Some 1.4 million Turkish voters live in Germany. According to the state-run Turkish news agency Anadolu, 39 percent of them had already cast their ballots by Saturday.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Croatia: Former Premier Sanader Sentenced for Corruption
Four years and 6 months for buying property with public funds
(ANSA) — BRUSSELS, APR. 7 — Former Croatian Prime Minister, Ivo Sanader, inoffice from 2003 to 2009, was sentenced today — court of first instance — to four years and six months in prison for corruption and abuse of power dating back to nine years ago.
Sanader has to return 2.2 million euro that, according to judgment, he illegally obtained in 2009 by abusing his power.
Former prime minister was found guilty of having forced the then Minister of Agriculture to buy, for the ministry, a property in Zagreb owned by an entrepreneur and member of his party, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ, Conservative ), at a price which was much higher than current market value, thus causing damage to state coffers.
In the deal he was also involved former Agriculture Minister Petar Cobankovic, sentenced to a much lighter sentence. Sanader continues to profess innocence and since the court sentenced him to less than five years in prison, the former prime minister, according to Croatian laws, is not obliged to await in prison the outcome of the appeal, and thus remains at large.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
EIB: 70 Mln Loan to UFM-Labelled EuroMed University of Fes
Will fund construction of eco-campus
BARCELONA — The European Investment Bank (EIB) has approved a 70 million euro loan to support the EuroMed University of Fes (UEMF). The loan represents a substantial contribution for the construction of the UEMF eco-campus. It will consolidate the regional dimension of the University, whose principal vocation is to build academic, scientific and intercultural bridges between both rims of the Mediterranean. The EIB loan is to finance the construction of the eco-campus, including the teaching and research premises, the sports area, the library and other facilities and equipment.
This contribution complements others from international, European and Moroccan financial partners. The UEMF is a flagship project of the Union for theMediterranean initiated by His Majesty the King Mohammed VI,aiming to havethe capacity to hostover6,000 students representing diverse nationalities in the Euro-Mediterranean region and Sub-Saharan Africa. It is expected that around 80% of the student body will benefit from international mobility experiences with double diplomas. It also received the institutional supportof the Steering Committee of the COP22 as a “model of eco-space, combiningacademic life, research, innovation and technology transfer in a clean environment, using the latest technologies for sustainable development”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Palm Sunday Bombings of Egyptian Coptic Churches Kill 44
At least 44 people were killed in Egypt in bomb attacks at the cathedral of the Coptic Pope and another church on Palm Sunday, prompting anger and fear among Christians and leading to troop deployments and the declaration of a three-month state of emergency.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks, which also injured more than 100 people and occurred a week before Coptic Easter, with Pope Francis scheduled to visit Egypt later this month.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Donald Trump Carried Out Syria Missile Strike ‘After Being Convinced by Daughter Ivanka’
Trump is believed to have made his dramatic U-turn after being convinced by Ivanka
DONALD Trump’s decision to rain down 59 Tomahawk missiles on a Syrian air base was sparked by his daughter Ivanka’s “heartbroken” response to Assad’s chemical attack, insiders have claimed.
Trump has long opposed military intervention in Syria — both as a private citizen when he criticised Obama’s intervention in the region, and as President.
But the Republican firebrand is believed to have made his dramatic U-turn after being convinced by his daughter Ivanka’s impassioned response to the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons on Tuesday.
A source close to the first family said: “Increasingly, Ivanka is having more and more influence over her father.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
False Flag: How the U.S. Armed Syrian Rebels to Set Up an Excuse to Attack Assad
Evidence suggests a false flag chemical weapons attack on the Syrian people was initiated by Syrian rebels with the help of the United States in order to justify Thursday night’s U.S. Military attack on a Syrian base.
President Trump approved the bombing of the Syrian military base controlled by Dictator Bashir al-Assad supposedly to destroy the Syrian government’s ability to launch further chemical attacks on civilians.
“Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children,” Trump said in remarks from Mar-a-Lago, his family compound in Palm Beach, Florida. “It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons.”
But Trump’s statements contradict the reality that rebel groups have been trained to secure, monitor, and transport chemical weapons. Included in the opposition to Assad are terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and ISIS. Should we believe these rebels’ claims against Assad, especially given their access to chemical weapons?
Documents from Wikileaks show that the U.S. State Department wanted to help rebels overthrow Syrian Dictator Assad in order to strengthen Israel’s position against Iran. The State Department discussed how Iran and Syria trained forces in opposition to Israel.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
German Foreign Minister Calls for Immediate Probe Into Syria Gas Attack
German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has called for an immediate investigation into the alleged gas attack carried out by the Syrian regime on the town of Khan Sheikhoun.
“It is important that the UN and experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) gain immediate access and can carry out their investigation without hindrance,” Gabriel told the German newspaper “Bild am Sonntag.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Russia, Iran Warn U.S. They Will “Respond With Force” If Syria “Red Lines” Crossed Again
A statement issued on Sunday by a joint command centre consisting of forces of Russian, Iran and allied militia alliance supporting Syrian President Bashar al Assad said that Friday’s US strike on the Syrian air base crossed “red lines” and it would “respond with force” to any new aggression while increasing their level of support to their ally.
In the statement published by the group on media outlet Ilam al Harbi, the pro-Assad alliances says that “what America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines. From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is and America knows our ability to respond well.”
Earlier on Sunday the UK’s Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, demanded Russia rein in Mr Assad (by which he really meant be willing to accept a new Syrian regime with a pro-western puppet leader, and one who is willing to allow the Qatar gas pipeline to cross the country on its way to Europe.
Fallon also claimed that Moscow is “responsible for every civilian death” in the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhun and said Putin was responsible for the brutal killings “by proxy”, because it was the Syrian president’s “principal backer.” The defense minister said the attack had happened “on their watch” and that Vladimir Putin must now live up to previous promises that Mr Assad’s chemical weapons had been destroyed. His comments came after Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson pulled out of a Moscow visit hours before he was due to fly…
Finally, for those who are unclear about the core geopolitical tensions that are at the base of the long-running Syrian proxy war, the answer is — as so often tends to be — commodities and specifically natural gas, as we first explained in 2013, and as summarized in the following October 2016 article courtesy of Eric Zuesse (see also “Competing Gas Pipelines Are Fueling The Syrian War & Migrant Crisis”)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Warns of All-Out War as MSM Attacks Official Story Doubters
The MSM exposes their own hidden agenda supporting the conflict.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Salvini Says US Missiles in Syria Are Gift to ISIS
Northern League leader says Trump made wrong choice
(ANSA) — Rome, April 7 — Northern League leader Matteo Salvini on Friday criticised United States President Donald Trump’s decision to order a missilestrike on a base in Syria.
“US missiles on Syria are a terrible idea and a gift to ISIS,” said Salvini, who has frequently praised both Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Perhaps due to domestic problems, perhaps badly advised by the warmongers who are still looking for Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons, Trump has made the most mistaken choice in Syria and has reopened a war against Islamic terrorism that had been won.
“Maybe someone in Washington wants to repeat the disasters of Iraq, Libya and the Arab Spring with all the devastating consequences for Italy and Europe”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syrian Chemical Attack: The Sequel
The more things change the more they stay the same
InfoWars takes a look back at the first chemical attack in Syria in 2013 and compares it to the latest attack in 2017.
Also watch Darrin McBreen and Rob Dew’s breakdown on How To Recognize War Propaganda:
[Comment: Hint: Continuous news designed to trigger emotions is the clue. When eotions are triggered the logc part of the brain is not working. the propaganda is more easily absorbed uncritically.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: Erdogan is Preparing to Pray in the Hagia Sophia Next Friday
The President will pray together with members of his party and the religious leaders in Istanbul. The event falls two days before the referendum, to garner the Muslim vote. Transformation of the ancient Christian basilica into a museum rejected. Erdogan: Kemalism is dead.
Istanbul (AsiaNews) — The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is preparing to go to pray next Friday April 14 in Saint Sophia in Constantinople, the church declared a museum by the father of Republican Turkey Kemal Ataturk in 1934.
Erdogan will not be alone: He will be accompanied by representatives of his party AKP (Muslim extraction) and religious leaders in Istanbul. According to the Christian calendar next Friday is Good Friday and the event will take place just two days before the April 16 referendum strongly backed by Erdogan in Turkey to establish an absolutist Presidency of Neottoman and Islamic extraction.
Thus Erdogan, nicknamed the “new sultan” for his political extremism,will seek to channel Muslim faithful in favor of a Yes ( “Evet”) vote. According to the Muslim calendar the month to April (Nisan) is the month of the birth of Mohammed.
The news is carried in pro-government newspapers, presenting the latest book by Turk historian Mustafa Armagan — titled “The Saint Sophia intrigue” (Aya Sofia Entrikalari). In doing so they seek to create and prepare the climate for the prayer, as the will of the Turkish president. The book argues that the decree signed by Kemal Ataturk in 1934 which turned the Hagia Sophia from mosque into a museum, is not authentic. According to Armagan,the Kemal Ataturk signature on the decree is false. Therefore the act has no legal value and therefore Santa Sofia can in fact be used as a mosque, as was the case after the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453.
Hagia Sophia it was built in 537 by Emperor Justinian and dedicated to God’s Wisdom. To justify his remarks, the Turkish historian reports that the Kemal Aturk signature on the 1934 Decree is unlike any other signaturepenned by the Father of Republic in prori acts.
Various sources are cited in the book which claims, according to the author, that the transformation of Hagia Sophia into a museum, was the result of pressure from various Western international forces, headed by the then US Ambassador Joseph Grew.
Mustafa Armagan also notes the news that Kemal Ataturk had visited St. Sophia in 1935, three months after its proclamation as a museum, was not reported in any Turkish newspaper of the period, but only by the Greek language journal, Apogevmatini, published on February 7, 1935, in Istanbul. The author recalls, in that same period, the strong reaction of the Egyptiannewspaper “El Risale “, strongly opposed to the transformation of Hagia Sophia into a museum.
In this way the pre-referendum climate is becoming increasingly tenseand polarized. On the other hand, the climate has been fostered and created by Erdogan himself with his recent statements against the Kemalist period, when he proclaimed: “That period, which began in 1923, is about to end. And that’s that”. And that is, woe to the vanquished.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
US Fails to Prove Existence of Chemical Weapons at Syrian Airfield — Russian MOD
‘After 24 hours… neither the Pentagon, nor the US State Department have presented proof of the presence of chemical weapons there.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Malaysia Parliament Upholds Child Marriage
Proposal to ban the custom fails. For Shabudin Yahaya, girls as young as nine are “physically and spiritually” ready for marriage. Under Islamic law, children under 16 can marry, a practice used to avoid prosecution in rape cases.
Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews) — The Malaysian parliament approved a bill onsexual offences against children without outlawing child marriage.
Opposition MP Teo Nie Ching had proposed banning child marriage, but her amendment failed to win support in parliament in the Muslim majority country.
During the debate, Shabudin Yahaya, a member of the Barisan Nasional coalition, said that girls as young as nine were “physically and spiritually” ready for marriage.
“They reach puberty at the age of nine or 12. And at that time, theirbody is already akin to them being 18 years old. So physically and spiritually, it is not a barrier for the girl to marry,” he said.
He also added that in his view there was “nothing wrong” with a rape victim marrying her rapist to avoid a “bleak future”.
Shabudin’s comments sparked outrage, with some opposition politicianscalling on for him to resign.
In a statement on Wednesday, Shabudin said his comments were taken out of context, and that marriage was not a “back door exit to legalise rape,” noting that he rejected the motion to ban child marriages as it is contrary to provisions in Islamic law (Sharia).
Under both civil law and Islamic law, girls and boys under 18 can marry. Civil law sets the minimum age of marriage at 18, but those above 16 can marry with the permission of their state’s chief minister.
Under Islamic law, children younger than 16 can get married if the Sharia courts allow it.
The new law criminalises “grooming” — touching and befriending children as a prelude to sexual abuse — and spells out penalties for making and possessing child pornography. However, the law does not mention child marriage.
Critics argue that this allows offenders to get away with rape through marriage. Spousal abuse is not an offence under Islamic and Malaysian law.
Over the years, several rapists have married their victims, includingunderage girls, to avoid prosecution.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Duterte Calls on US to Help Fight Terrorism
MANILA- Distancing from his usual anti-American remarks, President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday said Manila and Washington should work together to address international terrorism threats.
Speaking at the Mt. Samat Shrine in Pilar, Bataan for the Araw ng Kagitingan commemoration rites, Duterte said the historic ties between the Philippines and the United States should serve as a basis for joint anti-terrorism efforts.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Sheikh Mohammad Tawhidi — the outspoken Shia imam from Adelaide — has revealed the chilling threat — involving a $5000 bounty — which this week drove him into hiding.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
A Christian man claims a group of Muslim teenagers of Middle Eastern appearance ripped off his silver crucifix necklace during an alleged attack on a Sydney train.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
The Forgotten Genocide Awaiting Again?
South African whites are easily hoodwinked. This of course is because the international media usually turn a blind eye to atrocities committed against whites by Africans, because it is not the “flavor of the month”. Even so-called political scholars will tell you in detail about the genocide of the Huti’s and Tutsi’s, but they are totally ignorant about a white refugee crisis a mere 40 years ago.
The flight of 500 000 Portuguese from Angola and 750 000 from Mozambique after vicious racial attacks is one of history’s “secrets”. It is now 40 years later — will the white flight from South Africa also become one of the world’s political “secrets” because it is politically incorrect even talking about it? It is, after all, again a racist, African scenario which the United Nations choose to ignore.
The Portuguese call it the greatest exodus in the history of Africa. Not even the Congo during Uhuru in the 1960’s where 90 000 whites had to flee for their lives between January and July, can compare with the human tragedy of the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique in 1975.
South Africa, Brazil and Portugal at the time rushed to the aid of the more than one million Portuguese trapped in Angola and Mozambique. In July the Brazilian airline, Varig, however, ceased its flights through Luanda to Rio, which were already fully booked to mid-October.
For a long time the Portuguese government delayed any substantial help for the refugees. But with the launching of “Operation Air Bridge” it eventually recognised its responsibility to its citizens in Angola. By that time up to 200,000 had left Angola already; in June and early July more than 6,000 a week were taking scheduled commercial flights on the Portuguese airline, TAP, and another 3,500 were flown home on military aircraft.
Thousands of refugees flooded South West Africa (Namibia), fleeing for their lives just because they were whites. Trucks arrived at a rate of about 300 per week in SWA and from there to South Africa…
| — Hat tip: RRN | [Return to headlines] |
Venezuelans Clash With Police in Fresh Anti-Maduro Protest
Protesters hurling rocks clashed with police firing tear gas Saturday in Venezuela’s fourth demonstration in a week against President Nicolas Maduro and his government.
The rally was marked by anger over a ruling from the leftist government banning opposition leader Henrique Capriles from office for 15 years. Around 4,000 people attended the demonstration.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
California Declared Sanctuary State, Muslims Rejoice
Soros wants all borders open so they can come and go as they please. It is a ploy to weaken our country, the only country standing in the way of The One World Order.
The creases of grief etched in his face could not be concealed. Normally cheerful, he ran a men’s clothing shop in a mall in California. Expressing concern while asking about it, “Alfred” said he had just received a phone call informing him that his best friend in Egypt had been murdered, thrown to his death from the window of his apartment to the concrete below. All in the name of Jizah, or, Dhimmititude.
These are the’ taxes’ forced against non-Muslims in exchange for tolerating their presence and as a coercive means of converting conquered remnants to Islam. It is the Islamic version of the Mafia’s ‘protection’ racket, where you pay to ‘protect’ your place of business from destruction and vandalism from roaming thugs.
The friend’s Jizyah, or protection taxes, became higher every month until the Muslims were demanding everything he earned in his business. They were prepared to strong-arm him into compliance. He finally called the police who came to the apartment, sided with the Muslim mob and helped throw him out the window.
This is what it is like for non-Muslims living under imposed Sharia Law, which they are determined to implement in any county they enter. This is the goal. And enter they do with the Soros sponsored Democrats making certain all doors are open to them.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Considers Closing Border With Switzerland After Migrant Crossings Soar
Germany could be forced to close its border with Switzerland if a surge in illegal migrant crossings continues, interior ministry officials told the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Media Must Explain Migrants — Pope Francis
Interfaith dialogue to help them
(ANSA) — Vatican City, April 7 — The media must explain migrant issues and not call them illegals, Pope Francis said Friday.
The pope also called for interfaith dialogue to boost Churchs’ roles inhelping migrants.
Francis was speaking in an interview with Italian interior ministry magazine Civil Rights, which will appear in English in America Magazine, a publication of the US Jesuits.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Suspected Stockholm Killer is Rejected Asylum Seeker
This looks to be exactly the same situation as the Islamic extremist who was free to murder in Berlin after having his asylum application rejected.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Can a Peter Pan Generation Preserve Liberty?
The 40th President of these United States, famously stated, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”[1]
Training up the next generation has encountered a serious problem.
Psychologist Dan Kiley has identified what he calls the Peter Pan syndrome — A serioius social-psychological phenomenon is besetting American males: hundreds of thousands of boys are refusing to become men. Though they have reached adult age, the are unable to face adult feelings and responsibilities.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Trump is beginning to look like the worst possible choice of all time right now. The military industrial complex is on the march again. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, yeah but what if.
“Also concerning the Stockholm attack, a van driver is said to have prevented a far worse outcome by swerving in front of the jihadis’ truck at the last moment and forcing it to crash into a department store.”
I would hope the van driver is arrested pronto as it was clearly a racist attempt to cause an MVA in someone he identified as foreign….
It’s no wonder they want to kill us with such hate for them on open display….
“After winning an Oscar for telling the story of Edward Snowden in Citizenfour, Laura Poitras is getting up close and personal with Julian Assange in the trailer for Risk.”
Well, I’ll only be watching it if Pamela Anderson is in it wearing a tiny “Wikini”
America, as an institution, hates young white males…unless they get their legs blown off in some inane war. Can our matriarchy defend our Republic? Does it want to? Probably not.
Paddy-
The US’ terrible attitude towards white males and disabled vets is simply another aspect of the total cultural war being waged by the Left on the blocs that have the most potential to offer effective resistance.
“welcome an independent Scotland into the European Union.”
If Scotland joined the EU it would not be an independent nation-state.
This seems obvious, when the EU is an organisation dedicated to dismantling the nation-states of Europe but not in politically-correct Scotland it’s not.
The media is mostly neutered and public debate framed by pro-EU voices.
This is one of the several big lies at the heart of the fake nationalist party the SNP.
When Scots who think the SNP are actually a nationalist party, (the SNP are very clever at playing on nationalist sentiment for electoral advantage, while in reality promoting an Internationalist, Socialist ideology), wake up to what replacement migration and Islamisation actually mean, (official projections are 9 immigrants for ever new-born Scot and Mohammed is most popular boys name in Glasgow), they now have no nationalist party to voice their concerns- it has been hollowed out by progressives and Islamo-leftists.
Absolutely spot on,Sturgeon is a globalist and a commie,this shows the intellect of the average Scot,who believes her nationalist lies.She is a hard left multiculturist and indeed may be a closet muslim as she spent many years in Pollokshields which is largely muslim in population.She embraces the saltire as a cover story and continually says things like THINK AGAIN which appeases the subconscious of the masses who fall for her absurd pretend nationalism,if it was not so pathetic it would be hysterical.What loony lefty thinks that EU/Globalism/mass immigration/no borders etc equates to nationalism.
I doubt very much she’s a convert but she is a raving apologist.
Her first port of call after the Hebdo massacre was the jihadi, pro-blasphemy, anti-Ahmadi central mosque in Glasgow, to make sure they ‘felt protected’ because Islamic jihad has noooooothing to do with Islam.
The SNP have given warm welcomes to Hamas reps and Alex Salmond helped launch the Islamic Forum of Scotland, an organisation dripping with connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Salmond making it quite clear that the SNP “prefers people of faith” on which he backtracked but the point had been made.
Meanwhile they cement ethnic identities while undermining Scottish identity.
When the ethnic identity is one from a country of many multiples the population of Scotland, the absurdity and subversion of the SNP project becomes apparent.
One could go on and on unfortunately, with examples of Islamo-apologism and collaboration with radical Islamist groups and civilisational jihadists.
The SNP project is profoundly anti-Scottish and if their white paper of immigration was ever enacted, would make the Scots a minority within a few generations.
They contend UK immigration is ‘illiberal’ when the English are on course to be a minority in their own country later this century, one wonders just how much more ‘liberal’ it could be?.
They also contend mass immigration is a economic driver and diversity is strength- both these notions are dangerous fantasy.
It was ironic when Sadiq Khan said ‘nationalism can be as divisive as bigotry and racism’, Nicola popped up to say not only was she a fan of Khan and that ‘we’re not racist, we’re progressives too.’
Apparently being a ‘progressive’ means having too many links to Islamofascists to be purely coincidental.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/25/sadiq-khan-nationalism-can-be-as-divisive-as-bigotry-and-racism
In the real world the SNP have run up the worst tax/spend ratio on the Western world, while the NHS and schools are in decline.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/08/the-proof-that-scotland-is-better-off-in-the-uk/
I could go on but I’d just get depressed over the suicidal impulses of the progressive, who just like the Scottish National Party are the opposite of what the name signifies.
Here’s an insight into the thinking of the SNP. Readers maybe aware of (bored with?) my love of old military aircraft; I must also confess to a similar interest in old trains, so I read the UK publication “The Railway Magazine”.
Their February issue reported that the SNP wants to integrate the Scottish segment of the British Transport Police, who are experts in their particular role, into Police Scotland (what a silly name). A Scottish correspondent in the March edition pointed out that this is a purely political ploy, playing to the gallery but likely to compromise passenger safety.
“Europe’s top rabbi calls for solidarity with Muslims”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/08/rabbi-calls-on-muslims-to-join-fight-for-religious-freedoms
Meanwhile back in reality;
“Change Gun Laws in Europe to Let Jews Carry Arms, Says Leading Rabbi”
http://www.newsweek.com/change-gun-laws-europe-let-jews-carry-arms-says-leading-rabbi-299102
Which Rabbi is more realistic?
“Hath not a Jew eyes?” asks Mark Steyn
http://www.steynonline.com/6101/hath-not-a-jew-eyes
Apparently not and I’m in agreement with Laura Rosen Cohen who berates ‘official Jews’ like A.Foxman or Pinchas Goldschmidt:
“Shame on you, Abraham Foxman. Shame on you.
These Jews are a danger to the Jewish people.”
Soldiers and armed police are not guarding Cologne, Notre Dame, Canterbury cathedrals and Jewish schools and synagogues against murderous atheist terrorists or anti-mass immigration activists for that matter.
Yet here we have a Rabbi along it has to be said, with most Jewish organisations promoting more Muslim immigration into Europe and/or stating common cause.
Again meanwhile in reality, Stephen Pollard in 2015 in the DT reports, in France attacks against Jews “have risen sevenfold since the 1990s…..almost of all these attacks have been carried out by Muslims.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11335980/Antisemitism-in-France-the-exodus-has-begun.html
Steyn remarks in ‘A Judenrein Europe’,
about Michel Houellebecq’s novel Soumission,
in which the protagonist’s Jewish girlfriend decides it’s time to flee France to Israel. And François says bleakly, “There is no Israel for me.”
http://www.steynonline.com/6750/exodus
Paddy, not all of us Americans think that way. Unfortunately all anyone hears is from the loonies on either of the edges of America — you don’t hear much from us in the middle, who do not think like at all!
So greetings from Kansas, where we tend to be conservative and sensible. Accent on the sensible. Peaceful muslims live at both ends and the middle of our state and as far as I know there is no problem with them at all. They came here to be free, and free they are.
P.S. We do not hate white males, either.
The same the peaceful musslies did when they migrated from all Yugoslavia to Kosovo, overturning the ethnic composition in 2 generations. Peaceful they were until the time to slaughter the infidels came… under NATO protection.
Well mainly from Albania, but you’re dead right about the traitorous, back-stabbing NATO, and look who leads that today, Stoltenberg, who couldn’t wait to drag moslem rabble into Norway, you know who’s side he’s on!
It’s not just the men in the US who refuse to grow up. The women aren’t any better. Just try finding a TV message board to have conversations on that isn’t primarily filled with underemployed adults obsessing over children’s cartoons.