In a speech to the Brussels Economic Forum yesterday, the hedge fund magnate George Soros criticized the Trump administration, and referred to the United States as a “hostile power”. Mr. Soros also lashed out at Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, labeling Hungary a “mafia state”.
In other news, Islamic terrorists opened fire on guests at a resort facility in the Philippines, injuring at least 25 people. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Insubria, Matt Bracken, Reader from Chicago, SS, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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“Now the Pain Begins”: S&P, Moodys Cut Illinois to Near Junk, Lowest Ever Rating for a U.S. State
The monetary problems plaguing the state of Illinois (not to mention its public pensions) have been widely documented here over the past few years, and today the rating agencies finally noticed, when in the span of a few hours, first S&P, then Moody’s downgraded Illinois to BB+/Baa3, respectively, both just one notch above junk, the lowest rating ever given to a U.S. state, as both agencies cited a long-running political stalemate over a budget shows no signs of ending.
In the first downgrade, S&P warned that Illinois is at risk of soon losing its investment-grade status, an unprecedented step for a state that would only deeper the government’s strain. Bypassing its traditional 90-day review, S&P said Illinois will likely be downgraded around July 1, when the new fiscal year begins, if leaders haven’t agreed on a budget that starts addressing the state’s chronic deficits
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The Bilderberg 2017 Agenda: “The Trump Administration — A Progress Report”
Every year, the world’s richest and most powerful business executives, bankers, media heads and politicians sit down in some luxurious and heavily guarded venue, and discuss how to shape the world in a way that maximizes profits for all involved, while perpetuating a status quo that has been highly beneficial for a select few, even if it means the ongoing destruction of the middle class. We are talking, of course, about the annual, and always secretive, Bilderberg meeting.
And just like last year’s meeting in Dresden, the primary topic on the agenda of this year’s 65th Bilderberg Meeting which starts today and ends on Sunday, is one: Donald Trump.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
35 St. Louis-Area Convenience Store Owners Indicted Following Federal Raids
A federal grand jury has indicted 35 store owners on federal conspiracy charges for trafficking contraband cigarettes, distributing controlled substances and money laundering.
According to reports, the suspects conspired for more than 2 years to buy contraband cigarettes in St. Louis, a low tax market, while transporting and distributing them in Chicago, Illinois, and New Jersey, which are high tax markets.
Read:Federal agents raid several St. Louis-area convenience stores
The store owners are accused of using several convenience stores that they operated to create the appearance of legal cigarette purchases.
Illegal profits form the contraband cigarette sales were laundered through accounts associated with the stores.
Synethetic drugs, K-2, was sold every day from a handful of the convenience stores. Authorities said the store owners manufactured synthetic drugs themselves by importing chemicals from China.
“The collaboration with our federal and local law enforcement partners is the key to breaking criminal enterprises in this area,” said Special Agent in Charge James M. Gibbons of HSI Chicago.
“Synthetic drugs that are sold as purportedly legal substitutes for cannabis and stimulants, such as cocaine and methamphetamine, are neither legal nor safe,” said James P. Shroba, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA St. Louis Division. “These substances were never intended for human consumption and only serve to satisfy the avarice of the seller.”
| — Hat tip: Matt Bracken | [Return to headlines] |
Nigel Farage is “Person of Interest” In FBI’s Probe of Trump and Russia
In what may be the most unexpected news of Thursday morning, the Guardian has reported that former UKIP leader, and the man largely responsible for Brexit, Nigel Farage is a “person of interest” in the FBI’s investigation looking into possible collusion between the Kremlin and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. As the UK newspaper notes, citing “sources with knowledge of the investigation”, the former Ukip leader had raised the interest of FBI investigators because of his relationships with individuals connected to both the Trump campaign and Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder whom Farage visited in March.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
George Soros Hits Back at Hungary’s Viktor Orban, Denounces ‘Mafia State’
BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Investor George Soros hit back Thursday against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbanover the leader’s attempts to shut down a Budapest university which Soros founded after the fall of communism.
In a speech in Brussels, the Hungarian-American billionaire accused Orban of building a “mafia state” in Hungary. In doing so, he reached for a term that has gained currency among Orban’s critics, who see the prime minister as leading an increasingly authoritarian and corrupt political system in which he and those in his inner circle are growing richer, often with European Union funds.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Undersecretary Vicari Probed in Corruption Case
Allegedly received Rolex from businessman Morace
(see related) (ANSA) — Palermo, May 19 — Infrastructure Undersecretary Simona Vicari, a member of the centrist AP group, is under investigation in a corruption probe that led to the arrest of shipping businessman Ettore Morace on Friday, sources said. The allegation concerns a Rolex allegedly given to the undersecretary by Morace. It is suspected that this is linked to Vicari presenting an amending lowering value-added tax on maritime transport from 10% to 4%, saving million of euros for Morace’s company. Vicari has just received notification she is probed, sources said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Fincantieri Signs Deal for 66.66% of STX France
Italian company to pay 79.5 million euros
(ANSA) — Rome, May 19 — Fincantieri said Friday that it has signed an agreement to buy 66.66% of the share capital of STX France shipyards from its current shareholder, STX Europe AS.
The Italian group said it would pay 79.5 million for the stake, through available financial resources.
Fincantieri said it was continuing negotiations with the French authorities to finalize the shareholders’ agreement for STX France in accordance with the Heads of Terms signed on April 12.
“With more than 150 years of history, STX France is a global player in maritime construction. Based in Saint-Nazaire, on the French Atlantic coast, the Group operates one of the most modern shipyards in the world and has great expertise in the design and engineering of the most complex and innovative ships,” a statement read. “STX France has approximately 2,600 employees and a network of more than 500 subcontractors. “In 2016 it has generated revenues of approximately euro 1.4 billion.
“Through this industrial partnership, Fincantieri and STX France will create a global leader in all high-tech shipbuilding industry’s sectors. “The perfect complementarity of Fincantieri and STX France cruise activities and products would allow the two companies to serve all the clients and end-markets and to generate value not only for the shareholders, but also for the employees and the respective subcontractors’ networks”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Moroccan Nabbed for Raping Pregnant Wife
Near Lecce
(ANSA) — Lecce, June 1 — A 45-year-old Moroccan street hawker was arrested near Lecce Thursday on suspicion of raping his pregnant wife, police sources said.
The man also allegedly beat his wife in front of their children, police said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Radical Islamic Salafists and Drug Dealers Working Together Make Strange Bedfellows
Drug dealers on the streets of Berlin and radical Islamic Salafists may seem strange bedfellows but police are discovering a growing number of Islamists linked to the drug scene.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Soros Says Italy Situation EU’s Biggest Danger
Magnate worried by migrants, bank crises
(ANSA) — Rome, June 1 — Open Society Foundations chief George Soros, the Hungarian-American financier, told the Brussels Economic Forum Thursday that Italy’s banking and migratory crises are today “the most dangerous threat” to the European Union. The EU, he said, is going through an “existential crisis”, but the recent victories of pro-EU candidates in the Dutch and French elections have given it fresh “impetus”. Now the EU must be “saved” and “reinvented radically”, said Soros.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Soros: The European Union is Now in an “Existential Crisis” And Trump’s America is a “Hostile Power”
Commenting on the current state of the European experiment, George Soros warned the European Union has plunged it into an existential crisis as a result of “dysfunctional” institutions and austerity mandates, and will require the bloc to reinvent itself to survive. Speaking at the Brussels Economic Forum, the billionaire investor said the EU had “lost its momentum” as he urged policymakers to abandon hopes of “ever closer union” driven by a top-down approach from Brussels, a statement which will likely displease Germany.
“The European Union is now in an existential crisis,” Soros told a Brussels audience. “Most Europeans of my generation were supporters of further integration. Subsequent generations came to regard the EU as an enemy that deprives them of a secure and promising future.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Who Unleashes the Wars. “La Civiltà Cattolica” Contradicts the Pope
In the “piecemeal world war” incessantly decried by Pope Francis, those ultimately responsible are always and only — according to him — “those who make and traffic in arms” and thereby “profit from the blood of men and women.”
It is a very materialistic and economistic explanation, vaguely Marxist in flavor, which is even applied to terrorist acts. Francis has said so and repeated it countless times, most recently during the last Holy Week.
Curiously, however, the magazine that usually follows his thinking most closely, “La Civiltà Cattolica,” edited by his Jesuit adviser and ghostwriter Antonio Spadaro, in a recent scholarly article on the “armed conflicts in Africa” and above all on the “failure of the traditional approaches of analysis” entirely ignores the manufacture and traffic of weapons among the causes of these conflicts, and instead traces them back to very different causes.
In the ten pages of the article, the word “arms” appears only once, marginally and without any causal significance.
The author, Arsène Brice Bado, is a Jesuit from Ivory Coast who studied at Yale University in the United States and at Laval University in Canada and has done field research in various African countries involved in conflicts…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bahrain: Main Secular Opposition Party Banned
Waad is accused of “fomenting violence, supporting terrorism, and encouraging crimes”. Former party secretary Ibrahim Sharif has been arrested several times for his activities of democratic opposition. Human rights activists speak of “absurd and ungrounded” accusations.
Manama (AsiaNews / Agencies) — A Bahrain tribunal has ordered the dissolution of the country’s top opposition group in the country, in the context of an increasingly marked campaign launched by the Sunni authorities against the Shiite component (majority) of the population.
According to the judges, the Waad (National Democratic Action Society) is accused of “fomenting violence, supporting terrorism and encouraging crimes”. International activists and NGOs speak of “absurd and groundless” accusations.
The sentence handed down yesterday afternoon, arrives less than a year after authorities arrested and sentenced Shia activists and religious leaders and suspended the activities of Al-Wefaq, the main Shia opposition group, on charges of terrorism, extremism and violence as well as ties to a foreign power (i.e. Iran).
Last week the police raided a Shiite village, causing the deaths of five people and detaining about 300. Behind the protests, Sheikh Qassim he was sentenced to prison (with suspended sentence) for corruption, whose citizenship has already been revoked, is accused of having used his position and his role to “serve the interests” of “foreign” powers.
Yesterday the Bahraini Justice Ministry that the High Court had ordered the Waad party be disolved. The decision is apparently motivated by the party’s use of the term “martyrs” to define three men executed in January for killing three policemen. Waad also violated the law by expressing solidarity with the Wefaq National Islamic Society.
Waad and its leaders deny having violated the Law on Political Association. They also point to their peaceful opposition to violence and in favor of the rights of all citizens in the country.
Activists and human rights associations say that Waad’s suspension is an “attack” on freedom of expression and association, and the “further evidence” that the authorities do not intend to respect “human rights promises.” A decision, they add, that is part of a wider campaign of repression “against human rights”.
Former Waad Secretary General Ibrahim Sharif has been arrested, imprisoned, released and re-arrested several times in connection with his opposition activities.
Bahrain is a Gulf monarchy ruled by a Sunni dynasty in a country where the majority of the population (at least 60-70%) is Shia and want constitutional changes and social and economic rights. In 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring, riots broke out that the king of Bahrain — a US ally supported by Riyadh — put down with Saudi military aid.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Bangladesh: Mymensingh: A 12-Year-Old Catholic Kidnapped by a Muslim. The Family is ‘Demoralized’
The kidnapper is a 35-year-old Muslim man. The minor was seized while returning home after school. Parents have asked for mediation of Islamic leaders without results.
Netrakona (AsiaNews) — A 12-year-old Catholic girl was kidnapped by a 35-year-old Muslim man, Fajal Miha, and has been missing for days. The child’s family, of tribal ethnicity, reported the kidnap yesterday, denouncing that it dates back to May 26.
Her parents waited to report the abduction for fear of social stigma affecting girls who are seized, often victims of forced violence and marriages. The child belongs to the Catholic community of Boruakona, in the district of Netrakona, diocese of Mymensingh. Speaking to AsiaNews, family members complain: “We went to the police station several times, we were told we would receive their help. Now we are demoralized. “
The child was in sixth class in the local Catholic school. Teachers report that she is a brilliant and lively student. On the day of her disappearance she had participated in a program organized by tribal students. In the evening, on the way back home, she was kidnapped by Muslims and some accomplices.
The victim’s grandfather states: “As Christians and religious minorities, we are persecuted by the Muslim majority. We can no longer live in this country. “ The man says that the family has also attempted to ask for the mediation of Islamic leaders who “had assured us that we could bring our child back in 24 hours. But nothing. Police have also failed. They say they are searching. “
Meanwhile, a group of tribal students has decided to implement a protest against the kidnapping. In Bangladesh, Christians are an exigent minority and have long complained of various forms of persecution and harassment. They account for just 0.4% of the population, which is about 600,000 faithful (out of a total of 160 million inhabitants). Of these, almost 350,000 are Catholics.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Terrorism Threat to Singapore Remains at Highest Level in Years: Home Affairs Ministry
SINGAPORE — The terrorism threat to Singapore remains at the highest level in recent years, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said on Thursday (June 1), as it called on the public to stay alert and be prepared in the event of an attack.
“Singapore was specifically targeted in the past year and the regional threat has heightened,” the ministry said in its inaugural Singapore Terrorism Threat Assessment Report.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Claim Responsibility for Attack on Luxury Resort in Manila, Dozens Injured
Gunfire and explosions have been reported at the luxury Resorts World Manila hotel in the Philippines. A masked gunman was on the second floor of one hotel, firing at guests, hotel employees fleeing the scene told CNN Philippines. According to initial press reports, at least 25 people have been injured following the attack which has been claimed by Islamic State operatives.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Controversial Muslim leader Keysar Trad said Australian Islamist extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir does not endorse violence despite it preaching ex-Muslims should be killed.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Ex-Morgan Stanley Trader Barred for Hiding Venezuela Bond Buys
One Wall Street bank that wasn’t buying controversial Venezuelan bonds was Morgan Stanley — or so it thought.
A broker watchdog banned ex-bond trader John Batista Bocchino on Thursday for buying $190 million of the South American country’s debt, defying the bank’s own rules against it — and then trying to hide the deals.
From 2011 to 2012, Bocchino made about 300 trades in Venezuelan bonds, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
“To further conceal his customers’ trading, Bocchino created hundreds of firm documents, including new account forms and trade tickets, that contained false information,” the watchdog said.
[Comment: Those who assist repressive regimes are enemies of the human race.]
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
“Frustrated” Migrants on Trial for Setting Asylum Centre on Fire
Three asylum seekers who are suspected of setting an asylum centre on fire in the German town of Hövelhof-Staumühle in January are now on trial for arson.
The trio of asylum seekers, aged between 20 and 26, are said to have been “frustrated” with their accommodation at the asylum home which was converted from a former military barracks. They are said to have made threats to the workers at the home the day before claiming that if they didn’t have their demands fulfilled there would be a “massacre” Tag 24 reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
European Officials Commandeer Private Property to House Migrants
Faced with an orchestrated influx of millions of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, German officials have started commandeering private property to house the tsunami of new arrivals. Italian property owners have also been forced, literally kicking and screaming, to house migrants against their will. Plans to put resistors in jail are reportedly being considered. And in Sweden, where an extreme housing shortage in Stockholm has been made even more acute by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants in recent years, authorities are using tax money to outbid Swedes in the intensifying competition for living space. Other fundamental freedoms are also being attacked under the guise of dealing with the self-inflicted “refugee crisis.” And it is going to get worse.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
German Media Promotes Migrants Replacing Aging Locals in Small European Towns
German magazine Der Spiegelhas begun a series of articles entitled “The New Arrivals” claiming in one piece that mass migration can revive declining birth rates in small Spanish towns.
The German publication told the story of a Moroccan migrant from Tangier named Said al Ghoury who moved with his family to the small Spanish town of Visiedo with his family and claims he “rescued” the village from demographic decline.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
‘If These People Hadn’t Come Here as Refugees, The People They Killed Wouldn’t be Dead’
Steve Price and Waleed Aly clash over ‘the link between immigration and terror’
Waleed Aly has locked horns with Steve Price in a fiery debate in The Project about the link between refugees and terror attacks in Australia.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Refugee Camps Return Within Sight of Flattened Calais Jungle
HUNDREDS of migrants scrambling to reach Britain this summer have set up new camps at Calais, the Daily Express can reveal today.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Evergreen State College Shut Down After Threat of “Campus Violence”
Evergreen State College closed campus on Thursday and warned students and faculty to stay away because of an unspecified threat of “campus violence” — though it’s just as likely they’re using the episode as an excuse to shut down the protests that have effectively brought life on campus to a halt over the past week since a campus biology professor objected to a planned demonstration that asked white students and faculty to leave campus for a day.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Report: Worldwide Terrorism at All-Time High
Worldwide terrorism is at an all-time high, and violence cost the global economy $14.3 trillion last year, with a $2.5 trillion impact in the United States alone.
These new figures from the latest Global Peace Index, a report on conflict and security, indicate that world peace has been deteriorating for the past decade, largely driven by terrorism and conflicts in the Middle East and Northern Africa.
The study says the decline interrupts long-term improvements the world had been making since the end of World War II.
According to the report, the annual number of terrorism incidents has almost tripled since 2011.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
It seems like Soros getting more pissed about Hungary…
Good, very goooood…
George Soros should be in jail. He is responsible for a lot of deaths but nobody does anything, presumably because he is so filthy rich and powerful, and I wonder where that money came from.
He shouldn’t be in jail, he should be in a morgue.
I agree Moon, love your clear thinking!
Too bad Soros wasn’t speaking in Hungary!
“German Media Promotes Migrants Replacing Aging Locals in Small European Towns”
What is it with Germans that in 100 years they have moved from being the most obnoxious nationalists to being the most obnoxious multi-culturalists? Have they no middle ground?
That is excellent.
I believe there’s a mechanism in the human brain that enables us to apply a different amount of muscular effort to the normal activities of life such as raising a piece of toast to our lips or loading a dead body into the trunk of our automobile. It appears that large numbers of Germans take hold of their toast and then smash it into their mouths.
In fact, what you say explains Angela’s disdain for the German flag that some innocent patriotic colleague made the mistake of handing her. That she most assuredly couldn’t schaffen.
The religion of peace acting out again and again. What a monster.
It is specifically designed that way, until it conquers the entire globe, whereupon it will begin to feed upon itself.
The fact that it lends itself to sectarianism is one of its weaknesses. However, the West is exploiting this weakness poorly. We could be covertly supporting one sect over the other without allowing the sect we are supporting to feed us the poison pill of immigrants and mosques.
The West is also supporting the wrong sect entirely. Iran’s Persian forbears had one of antiquity’s great civilizations. The Gulf states were never anything more than desert-dwelling savages until the past 50 or 60 years.
Soros should try moving back to Hungary. He won’t live long there. Hungarians have long memories.
He is such an evil man that he has bodyguards to protect him. From what I have read (and I don’t know if it’s true) his sons have been raised in evil as well.
If the Israelis could kidnap Eichmann from his hiding place in
South America and expedite him back to Israel for trial and
Subsequent Execution could Mossad be prevailed upon with
Their expertise to deliver this odious man to Russia where
There is a warrant for his arrest?
I hope readers of this blog like the news tips I send to it. I feel that in our great movement I am just a small contributor compared to everyone else here, from the translators to essayists such as Fjordman, whom I consider one of the most original thinkers writing today.
R from C – the news feed is one of my go to reads with my morning coffee. Though, if you and the other contributors keep up the good work, that may become morning vodka
I appreciate the stuff you send RfC. Thanks for taking the trouble.
What islam costs the world, (14.3 trillion) because lets face it, despite the bald-faced lies of the leftists and do-gooders, terror is islam, and vice-versa.