A charitable organization affiliated with George Soros is being accused of sexually abusing migrants in Greek asylum centers. The organization is also partially funded by the European Union.
In other news, authorities in the Philippines deny the shooting attack and fire in a Manila casino, which caused at least 37 deaths, were terror-related. Some terrorism experts say the incident was a robbery.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to AF, C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Insubria, JD, Matt Bracken, Nick, Reader from Chicago, Silentium Voces, 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.
Italian Growth Surges, Padoan Asks Budget Deficit Cut
Provisional EU deal on MPS reached
(ANSA) — Rome, June 1 — Italian growth surged much more than reviously reported in the first quarter, ISTAT said Thursday as Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan asked the European Union for a substantial discount in next year’s budget-deficit-to-GDP ratio.
Meanwhile Padoan reached a provisional deal with EU authorities on the restructuring of troubled Tuscan lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), Italy’s third-biggest and the world’s oldest bank.
ISTAT on Thursday revised sharply upwards its first-quarter growth estimates from 0.2% to 0.4% over the previous quarter and from 0.8% to 1.2% on the same quarter of 2016, the statistics agency said. ISTAT said the surprise revision was due to a better-than-expected performance by the service sector. Italy’s estimated 1.2% GDP growth in the first quarter of the year is the highest since the fourth quarter of 2010, ISTAT said.
Italy’s acquired GDP growth for 2017 is already 0.9%, ISTAT said, revising upwards its estimate from 0.6%.
Italy’s revised 0.4% quarterly GDP growth and 1.2% year-on-year growth takes it off the bottom of the European growth table. Germany is top with 0.6% and 2.9% respectively but France is like Italy in quarter-on-quarter terms (0.4) but worse on an annual basis, 1.0%. But Italy remains below the eurozone average of 0.5% and 1.7%.
Premier Paolo Gentiloni reacted to the better-than-expected growth figures by tweeting: “estimates for 2017 revised upwards.
Italy is growing more than expected and the hard work is continuing”. The latest better-than-expected growth figures are good but “not enough”, former premier Matteo Renzi said. The Democratic Party (PD) leader said the figures “are the result of years of serious and rigorous work we now have behind us. “But I’m not satisfied because I know it’s not enough. “The only road is AHEAD, continuing to lower taxes, simplifying the system and encouraging the country’s real entrepreneurs”.
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Secretary-General Angel Gurria replied to an ANSA question on the better-than-expected Italian growth figures by saying it was “very good news”. He said “Italy has emerged from negative numbers and has now entered on a growth path”, adding that now it is more than ever necessary to resolve the fragilities of the Italian banking system.
Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said the better-than-expected first-quarter GDP growth figures give “good hope to definitively emerge from the economic crisis”. He said they also brought hope of more robust short and medium term growth.
Padoan on Thursday also asked the EU for a nine-billion-euro discount on Italy’s budget for 2018, ANSA has calculated. This is the amount resulting from a reduction from 0.8% to 0.3% in the deficit cut next year. As a result, only six billion more would be enough to avert an automatic 25% hike in VAT as part of the so-called ‘safeguard clauses” currently envisaged, several sources told ANSA.
Padoan wrote to the European Commission Thursday outlining a 0.3% structural deficit cut, instead of the 0.8% originally requested, and the stabilisation of the debt/GDP ratio in 2018, sources said. He was communicating “the scope of the adjustment deemed adequate in light of the public finances of our country, also in light of the reform effort that has been continuing uninterrupted for several years”. An EC spokesman said it had received Padoan’s letter replying to last week’s recommendations but had no comment to make.
The European Commission will use its “margin of appreciation” on Padoan’s requested 0.3% cut in the budget deficit next year, Economic and Financial Affairs Commissioner Piere Moscovici said. He said the EC would reply to the request “at the opportune moment”.
Moscovi said the EC was “at Italy’s side and would assess the budget situation in light of the new growth figures.
Padoan and European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis spoke of the Monte dei Paschi di Siena bank restructuring provisional deal and Italy’s 2018 budget plans on the sidelines of the Brussels Economic Forum Thursday. “Happy to meet Pier Carlo Padoan on the margins of the Brussels Economic Forum. We welcomed the in-principle accord on MPS and discussed the preparation of the 2018 budget,” tweeted Dombrovskis.
European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager on Thursday reached an in-principle deal with Padoan on a restructuring plan for struggling MPS, to permit a precautionary recapitalisation of the Tuscan lender in line with EU rules, the European Commission said.
Also in line with EU rules, some of the costs of restructuring MPS will be borne by shareholders and junior bondholders, the EC said.
Retail bondholders may request compensation in case of misselling, it said, while deposit holder are protected.
Monte dei Paschi di Siena will have its entire portfolio of non-performing loans at market conditions, reducing risks to finances, the Commission said. At the same time, MPS will take a series of measures to substantially boost its efficiency including a ceiling on managers’ salaries, equal to 10 times the average salary of MPS staff, the EC said. The in-principle deal reached on MPS between the EU and the Italian Treasury depends on the European Central Bank’s (ECB) confirmation that MPS is a solvent bank which respects capital requisites, as well as Italy’s obtaining a formal confirmation from private investors that they will take on its portfolio of non-performing loans, the Commission said. Now the EC and the Italian authorities must define the details of MPS’s final restructuring plan, including Italy’s commitments on implementing the plan. ON this basis, Brussels will adopt a formal decision in line with EU rules on State aid, the EC said.
The EC said the preliminary and provisional deal was reached thanks to “constructive talks with Italy”.
Sources in Brussels said that “the financial projections and cost control were the two main talking points” but “all the chapters” in the negotiations “have been closed”. As for selling the non-performing loans, the sources said there is already a “high level of tranquility” on the prospect of private investors buying the NPL portfolio, but that in any case the EU prefers to wait for the formalisation of that purchase.
The deal with the EU “will give further confidence to the solutions for banking problems which have very often been exaggerated, and which with today’s results will be further taken into consideration and put in perspective,” Padoan said. Another “positive consequence” of the provisional deal, he said, is that “it will put on the credit market a strong, stable and sustainable bank which will give a hand to Italian development over the coming years”.
The accord has “resolved all the issues” of the troubled Tuscan lender, Padoan said. “Over time it will require an adjustment on the costs side but it will be able to count on a very strong capital base because at this point MPS is a bank cleaned of its NPLCs, with a capital well over requirements”, he said, adding that the Italian State will “remain in the capital for the duration of the restructuring plan but the goal is to remain the least time possible, even less than five years”.
In other news Thursday, Open Society Foundations chief George Soro, the Hungarian-American financier, told the Brussels Economic Forum 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] |
Colluding With Russians Takes a Back Seat to the Environment for Getting Rid of Trump
As of yesterday, we are now staring straight into the face of why the progressive left want rid of Trump
Unfortunately, the head of the Catholic Church, who devoted his — encyclical on saving the environment seems to have thrown in with them.
Among the first screams of protest of those outraged because Trump pulled the rug from under the feet of the rigorously pious, was the Vatican which described his decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Accord: “a slap in the face”. Never mind the slap in the face for the faithful who worry about how quickly their Sunday pastors were willing to replace the Gospel of Jesus with ‘Save the Environment’ homilies-many beefed up during the 2016 election campaign after then President Barack Obama had declared climate change a bigger threat than radical Islamist terrorism.
As of yesterday, we are now staring straight into the face of why the progressive left want rid of Trump. The Democrat charge that he’s colluding with the Russians was only the warm up, while Saving the Environment is their never-run-out-of-cash main money machine.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Globalists Plot Against Trump and Infowars at Bilderberg
This year’s Bilderberg meeting will focus on taking down Trump
Globalists meet for the Bilderberg conference in Chantilly, Virginia to discuss a number of topics including the “Trump Administration” and the “war on information.”
President Trump pulls out of the Paris climate deal during a powerful speech about the deals unfair stipulations and putting America first.
[Comment: Not just Trump, but the people also — how to suppress populism and re-establish the “legitmacy” of their ministry of propaganda (mainstream’s fake news).]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Shadow Government Grows Roots in Washington
The Obamas have purchased their fancy rented mansion on Embassy Row
No ex-president has ever stuck around the nation’s capital to vex and undermine his successor. Of course, Obama is unlike any president the United States has ever had. Even failed, self-righteous presidents like Jimmy Carter, who has occasionally taken shots at his successors, didn’t stay behind in Washington to obstruct and disrupt the new administration.
– From his Washington home, Obama directs Organizing for Action, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that doesn’t have to disclose its donors and that is at the head of Obama’s network of left-wing nonprofit groups. OfA has upwards of 250 offices across America. His other nonprofit, the Barack Obama Foundation, is building Obama’s presidential library.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Poll: 60 Percent of Trump Voters See Media as ‘Enemies’ To People Like Them
A HuffPost/YouGov poll released Wednesday found that 83 percent of Trump voters believe the media is hostile towards them—with 60 percent saying the media is “enemies to people like” them.
The Huffington Post reports that’s an uptick from February, when 51 percent of Trump voters thought the media is “an enemy to people like you.”
Well over half, or 68 percent, of Hillary Clinton voters say media are an “ally” or friendly to people like them.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Administration Takes the Divisive Legal Battle Over Muslim Travel Ban to Supreme Court
The Trump administration’s lawyers have officially approached the Supreme Court to reinstate the president’s earlier order to impose temporary travel ban on six Muslim-majority countries. The administration asked the justices to test the legality of the executive order, which was blocked by lower courts that called it as a discriminatory step.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Makes it Official: U.S. Out of Paris Climate Pact
Video of President’s statement:
Trump emphasizes that withdrawing from the Paris climate pact is necessary in order to protect American jobs and energy production.
Trump estimates that the pact has a negative impact of $3 trillion on U.S. GDP, and is a major job killer. He also puts a lot of emphasis on how much the deal allows other countries like China and India to do, versus the restrictions it places on the United States.
“This agreement is less about the climate, than about other countries getting an advantage over the United States,” Trump declared.
Trump also pointed out that even if this entire deal is implemented in full, and worked as advertised, all it would do is reduce global temperatures by an average of 0.2 degrees Celsius. Does it really make sense to endure all this economic disruption for that?
Obviously not.
Yes, he says we’ll look into negotiating a new deal, but he also says it’s fine if we can’t negotiate a good deal. That’s classic Trump. He withdraws from deals that he thinks don’t work, and he stays open to working out new ones — but he’s also ready to walk away from the table if that’s what’s best.
[Comment: Excellent. This “climate” pact was never about the climate — it was/is a world communist massive wealth distribution scheme. Take wealth from western countries to give other countries. Take from those who have to give to those who don’t. It was disguised as a feel good climate scam in order to more easily dupe and guilt trip western populations into going along with the scam.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Demands Intense Probe of Obama’s Political Espionage and ‘Unmasking’ of American Citizens
On Thursday morning, President Donald Trump didn’t beat around the bush when he bluntly alleged that his predecessor President Barack Obama’s minions were electronically eavesdropping on American civilians. His tweet comes after the issuance on Wednesday of Congressional subpoenas for records from U.S. spy agencies about Obama officials’ requests such as former CIA chief John Brennan, Obama’s national security adviser Susan “Benghazi” Rice and the ex-U.N. ambassador Samantha Power.
The subpoenas, which were processed and signed by the House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-California, directly referred to the suspicious “unmasking” of U.S. citizens.
In his Twitter posting on Thursday, President Trump stated: “The big story is the ‘unmasking and surveillance’ of people that took place during the Obama Administration.”
Many news reporters were a bit surprised that Amb. Powers is included on Nunes’ list, but according to one Washington insider, Steven Kaufman a former criminal investigations commander, “People will be surprised at the extent Obama’s close associate Susan Powers was involved in unauthorized activities that had the feds involved in questionable activities. She may even have run this surveillance operation.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium Formally Charges Man in Connection With Paris Attacks
A man has been formally charged in Belgium in connection with the deadly attacks in Paris of November 2015, the federal prosecutor says.
The suspect has not been fully identified but is believed to be 30-year-old Yassine Atar.
He was arrested in March 2016, five days after the attacks in Brussels.
His brother Oussama, who remains at large, is suspected of co-ordinating both attacks. In Paris, 130 people were killed while 32 more died in Brussels.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Catholic Lite and Europe’s Demographic Suicide
Ten years ago, after my meditation on Europe, The Cube and the Cathedral, had appeared in several languages, I was invited to speak to members of the European Parliament in Brussels. There, I tried to make what seemed three rather obvious points:
(1) Europe is committing demographic suicide, systematically depopulating itself in what British historian Niall Ferguson has called “the greatest sustained reduction in European population since the Black Death in the fourteenth century.”
(2) This unwillingness to create the future in the most elemental sense, by creating new generations, is at the root of many of Europe’s problems, including its difficulties assimilating immigrants and its fiscal distress.
(3) When an entire continent—healthier, wealthier, and more secure than ever before—deliberately chooses sterility, the most basic cause for that must lie in the realm of the human spirit, in a certain souring about the very mystery of being.
The response to this analysis that has stuck in my mind ever since came from an Italian Euro-parliamentarian, who said, in so many words, “Look, we know we’re finished. We’re trying to arrange things so that we can die comfortably in our beds. Don’t you Yanks come over here and start stirring things up.”…
| — Hat tip: Matt Bracken | [Return to headlines] |
Farmers Left Baffled as Herd of Cows Jump to Their Deaths Off Cliff in Switzerland
Farming experts have been left puzzled after a herd of cows jumped to their deaths in the Swiss canton of Valais.
The 13 cows broke out of their pen running towards a nearby cliff edge before either jumping or falling to the bottom of a 50-metre drop.
Swiss media reported that 12 of the group died while one survived, possibly because it landed on the other cows. The surviving cow was then taken to an animal hospital in the Swiss capital of Bern with a suspected broken jaw.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Geert Wilders for Gatestone: Selling Out Pentecost to Islam
Next Sunday, Christians are celebrating the feast of Pentecost. A Protestant church in the Netherlands is using the occasion to propose the abolishment of the public holiday for the second day of Pentecost. The Dutch have officially been enjoying this holiday since 1815, but the church wants it replaced by an official holiday on Eid-al-Fitr, the day marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
With its proposal, the Christian group says, it wants “to do justice to diversity in religion.” That is politically-correct claptrap. Browsing through today’s papers, I can, however, understand why many Dutch are in a festive mood once Ramadan is over! These days, the headlines are full of incidents, which De Telegraaf, the leading newspaper in the Netherlands, describes as Ramadan rellen (Ramadan riots).
Suppose Christians would, on an annual basis, start to riot after leaving church on Pentecost and demolish property, arson cars, attack police, throw stones through the neighbor’s windows. Suppose the police would feel obliged to mark the Christian Lent in the calendar as days of heightened tensions. Would we not begin to wonder whether there was something wrong with Christianity?
Or suppose Jewish gangs would terrorize entire town districts on Yom Kippur day. Would we not beginning to wonder what they were being taught in their synagogues? Or would we just accept it, celebrate it even, as indications of the cultural “diversity” of our society?
I am writing these lines in my office in the Dutch Parliament in The Hague, barely a few minutes away from the house where the great 17th century Dutch and Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza lived and died. Spinoza gave the world a philosophy of tolerance and freedom…
| [Return to headlines] |
German Rock Festival Evacuated Over Terror Threat
Thousands of people were evacuated from one of Germany’s largest rock festivals Friday after “concrete indications” of a possible terror threat.
Organizers postponed the start of the three-day festival and asked visitors to exit the grounds “in a calm and controlled manner.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Hungary’s Leader: Soros’ Criticism is ‘Declaration of War’
BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary’s prime minister said Friday that harsh criticism by billionaire George Soros is a “declaration of war.” Soros has accused Prime Minister Viktor Orban of running a corrupt “mafia state.”
Orban alleged that the Hungarian-American investor was paying “agent-like networks” of non-governmental organizations to enforce his policies, including the promotion of migration, in Europe and Hungary.
“This is a declaration of war,” Orban said on state radio. “We are facing a financial speculator who has made a lot of money while … plunging many into poverty.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 2 Iraqi Corvettes to Return Home After 26 Yrs
Blocked in La Spezia by 1990 UN embargo
(ANSA) — Rome, May 19 — Two Iraqi Navy corvettes are to return home after more than 26 years in Italy following the 1990 UN arms embargo on Iraq in the wake of the invasion of Kuwait.
Iraqi soldiers who have been guarding the Mussa Ben Nassair and the Tariq Ibn Ziad will finally go home on Monday, the Italian Navy said FRiday.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Trapani Mayor Candidate Nabbed for Graft, Crocetta Probed
Transport Undersecretary Vicari also under investigation
(ANSA) — Palermo, May 19 — Sicilian regional councillor Girolamo Fazio, a former Forza Italia member who is now in the assembly’s mixed group and is running to be mayor of Trapani, was among three people arrested by Carabinieri police on Friday in relation to a corruption probe, sources said. Shipping businessman Ettore Morace and a regional official, Giuseppe Montalto, were also arrested, the sources said. Morace is the son of Vittorio Morace, the chairman of Serie B soccer team Trapani Calcio. The father and son are owners of the Liberty Lines ferry company.
Sicily Governor Rosario Crocetta of the centre-left Democratic Party and Transport and Infrastructure Undersecretary Simona Vicari, a member of the centrist AP group, are under investigation, sources said. Crocetta is being probed for aiding and abetting corrpuption while the allegation against Vicari concerns a Rolex allegedly given to the undersecretary by Morace. It is suspected that this is linked to Vicari presenting an amendment 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] |
Magnet for Nuclear Fusion Made in Italy
ASG Superconductors build core element for ITER project
(ANSA) — La Spezia, May 19 — Italian firm ASG Superconductors on Friday presented the first magnet for ITER, the world’s largest experimental plant designed to show it is possible to produce energy from nuclear fusion. It is 14 metres high, nine metres long, weighs 300 tonnes — as much as a Boeing 747 — and is the shape of a big capital D. The super-high-tech magnet, the first of 18 destined for the ITER project, was made by the Malacalza family’s ASG Superconductors in its La Spezia plant, which will go on to produce another nine (plus one spare one) of the 18 which will form the core of the Iter reactor being built at Cadarache in southern France.
The other nine will be made in Japan.
“We are very proud,” said ASG Superconductors President Davide Malacalza, “we and all those who worked on building it: the head of production had goose pimples when he moved this coil for the first time.
“It took five years to realise the prototype”.
The magnet will produce a magnetic field one million times stronger than that of the Earth.
ASG, which formerly made washing machines at the plant, now “puts the sun in a bottle,” said production chief Marco Chiodo, 58, who has been through both eras.
“I joined the San Giorgio plant on May 7, 1981. There were a thousand of us making almost 2,000 washing machines a day. Now we’re working on nuclear fusion.
“WE are proud of making, for the first time in the world, an object that has never been seen before. You could see washing machines everywhere. We had to be trained, but now we’re here to present what we’ve succeeded in making”. The first experiments with nuclear fusion are scheduled for 2025, ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot said, stressing the “great enthusiasm” among the 35 countries collaborating on the project.
The production of clean energy through nuclear fusion, which reconciles the energy needs of the modern world while safeguarding the environment, is a challenge that researchers and industries have been striving to meet.
The quality of ASG’s nuclear fusion offering is the result of “unequalled technical and productive expertise”, according to a statement on its website. ASG magnets have been used in all the main fusion experiments undertaken so far in Europe. ASG plays a leading role — as a supplier of magnets — in ITER (Europe) and JT-60SA (Japan), the two principal research projects which aim to study the feasibility of producing clean energy by replicating the process that takes place in the sun and stars.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Teen Wrecks EU Flag in Polish Parliament After Anti-EU Speech
A EUROSCEPTIC teen destroyed a European Union flag while furiously addressing the Polish parliament over its membership of the political project.
The teen declared the EU is a replica of the dictatorship of the Soviet Union but under a blue banner, as his audience applauded his speech.
The boy, Michal Cywinski, was speaking at a children’s parliamentary session, for children’s day, in Poland, this year’s topic: “De-Communizing Public Spheres”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The Masons Are Rooting for Bergoglio. But He Views Them Like the Plague
Only twice has Pope Francis spoken in public about the Masons and Masonry. And both times against.
The first time was on the return flight from the journey to Brazil, on July 28, 2013. Asked about the case of Monsignor Battista Ricca and the “gay lobby,” he said:
“If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him? The problem is not having this tendency, no. The problem is in making a lobby of this tendency: a lobby of misers, a lobby of politicians, a lobby of masons, so many lobbies. For me, this is the greater problem.”
The second time was in Turin on June 21, 2015. Meeting with young people and responding off the cuff to some of their questions, at a certain point he said:
“On this earth at the end of the 19th century freemasonry was in full swing, not even the Church could do anything, there were priest haters, there were also Satanists…. It was one of the worst moments and one of the worst places in the history of Italy. However, go and find out how many men and women saints were born during that time. Why? Because they realized that they had to go against the tide with respect to the culture, to that lifestyle.”…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Police in an area where a gang of Asian men were jailed for repeatedly raping a 13-year-old white girl are investigating 179 new sex crimes involving 165 suspects, it was revealed today.
West Yorkshire Police have said today that more than 100 young victims are being supported in Keighley and Bradford.
The force says there are 179 crimes where child sexual exploitation is believed to be a factor under investigation in the city.
[Coronation Street writers have clearly gone out of their way to provide an accurate and realistic portrayal of this phenomenon then.]
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
LATEST police figures show 179 crimes involving child sexual exploitation (CSE) are currently being investigated in Keighley and Bradford.
The statistics, released by West Yorkshire Police, show these crimes involve 165 suspects.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: The Limits of Israeli Power
On Thursday, US President Donald Trump bowed to the foreign policy establishment and betrayed his voters. He signed a presidential waiver postponing the transfer of the US Embassy to Jerusalem for yet another six months.
Ahead of Trump’s move, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a last-ditch bid to convince Trump to move the embassy to Jerusalem. But it was not to be.
Israel’s failure to convince Trump to do what he repeatedly promised US voters he would do during his presidential campaign shows the disparity in power between Israel and the US.
Israel lacks the power to convince foreign nations to recognize its capital — much less to locate their embassies there. The US, on the other hand, not only has the power to recognize Jerusalem and transfer its embassy to Israel’s capital whenever it wishes to do so, it also has the ability to convince dozens of other countries to immediately follow its lead…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Insists it Was Behind Deadly Philippines Resort Attack
ISIS is insisting it is responsible for the deadly attack at a Philippines casino that left 37 people dead — even though Manila police have repeatedly denied that the incident was terror-related.
On Friday, the terror group again claimed that one of its “fighters” was behind the blaze that broke out at Resorts World Manila around midnight, but Philippines authorities have said the motive was robbery.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Resorts World Manila Attack Was Robbery, Not Terrorism: Ex-FBI Agent
The attack on Resorts World Manila was a robbery and not terrorism, a former U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation attaché to Manila said Friday.
Steve Cutler, chairman of the Overseas Security Advisory Council, said on ANC that there’s no indication of terrorism in the attack that killed 38 people and injured 67 others Friday morning.
[Comment: If I recall correctly, the previous article I submitted about this attack said that there were no deaths. Here deaths are reported.]
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Do You Really Want to Pay Another Tax — an Islamic Religious Tax?
Classical Islamic law required non-Muslims to pay a tax to benefit Muslims. This is discussed by Mark Durie in “Islam: Human Rights and Public Policy”:
“For those who declined to convert to Islam, dhimma status assured the vanquished an institutional legal framework which guaranteed their religious freedom and determined their social and economic place in the Islamic state. In return the people of the pact, or dhimmis, were required to pay tribute in perpetuity to the Muslim community (umma), and to adopt a position of humble servitude to it. (The Koranic verse is Q9:29; Fight against those who do not believe in Allah nor in the Last Day, and do not make forbidden what Allah and his messenger have made forbidden, and do not practice the religion of truth, of those who have been given the Book (that is, Jews & Christians), until they pay the jizya (head tax) readily and are humbled.”
Although very different from the jizya tax on non-Muslims, halal certification does involve a transfer of funds from non-Muslim to Muslims to serve religious purposes. This is because most Australian halal certifiers are Islamic organisations such as mosques and the majority of those who purchase halal certified products are non-Muslims. The often excessive halal certification fees — quite disproportionate to any service actually provided by certifiers — are a means by which non-Muslim consumers involuntarily subsidise the Islamic faith. This is our basis for referring to halal certification as a religious tax.
[Halal Choices
www.halalchoices.com.au
Halal Choices — Android application
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.halal_choices_v2
Halal Choices gives the consumer information about products available on Australian supermarket shelves. An issue faced by all consumers is easily identifying halal certified foods. Using Halal Choices you can make an informed choice about the food you eat and where your money goes.]
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
Bombers Posing as Hungry Refugees Kill 9 in Cameroon in Suspected Boko Haram Attack
At least nine people have been killed and 30 injured in a twin suicide bombing in northern Cameroon on Friday (2 June).
The suicide bombers detonated explosive devices near a camp hosting people displaced by an ongoing insurgency at then hands of Nigeria-based Boko Haram terrorists.
| — Hat tip: Nick | [Return to headlines] |
Claim: Widespread Sexual Assault From Migrants in Swedish Schools
Independent Swedish journalist Joakim Lamotte has claimed sexual abuse from newly arrived migrants is not only prevalent in schools but that victims are accused of being racist if they speak out.
Mr. Lamotte, who formerly worked as a journalist at Sweden’s state broadcaster SVT, has posted a video on his Facebook page describing a wave of sexual assaults committed by “newcomer” asylum seekers. He said when students or teachers attempt to talk about the problem they are called racists and nothing is done.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
France: Lorry Parks Under Siege From the Migrants Desperate to Reach UK
MIGRANTS insisted yesterday they will reach Britain by “whatever means possible” as Calais fills up once more with hundreds of asylum seekers.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Geert Wilders: Surging Demographics Change Means Europeans Are in Danger of Being Replaced
For Western Europe’s ruling elites, protecting the rights of so-called asylum seekers has become more important than protecting their own citizens.
Recently, Germany provided a staggering example of this. An immigrant from Uganda raped a woman, but the German authorities refuse to expel him because the rapist claims to be gay and homosexuals are prosecuted in his home country.
The elites also refuse to defend our own identity, and today’s Dutch newspapers contain an example of that. A Protestant church proposes that the official holiday, which the Dutch enjoy for the Christian feast of Pentecost, be replaced by an official holiday on the Islamic feast of Eid-al-Fitr.
With this proposal, the Christian group says, it wants “to do justice to diversity in religion.” However, if there is one culture on earth which allows no diversity in religion whatsoever, it is Islam. Just look at Saudi-Arabia, where they do not even allow the construction of a single church.
I have picked these two examples because they pertain to the two most important issues Europe is currently facing: Mass immigration and the surge of Islam. If we do not want to be wiped away, our population replaced and our culture annihilated, it is vital that we start acting forcefully and courageously to protect our citizens and our civilisation.
Mass immigration is the first major issue we need to tackle. Those who think that since 2015 the worst is behind us, are wrong.
The African population is bound to quadruple from its present 1 billion to 4 billion by the end of the century. In the coming 30 years, the number of Africans will grow by more than one billion people. That is twice the population of the entire European Union. In fact, Africa’s current annual growth of over 30 million people per year is higher than the population of 22 of the EU’s 28 member states.
The demographic pressure will be enormous. One-third of the Africans want to move abroad, and many want to come to Europe. Last year, over 180,000 people crossed in shabby boats from Libya. And this is just the beginning. According to EU Commissioner Avramopoulos, at his very moment, 3 million migrants are waiting to enter Europe. How many terrorists, rapists, ISIS sympathisers and welfare abusers will there be among that number?
Michael Moller, the director of the United Nations office in Geneva warns that the migration process is “just going to accelerate. Young people all have cellphones and they can see what’s happening in other parts of the world, and that acts as a magnet,” he says. Indeed, they can see on their phones that, while fewer than 3% of last year’s migrants were legitimate asylum seekers of refugees fleeing warzones, hardly anyone is being sent back. Instead, they are being welcomed with generous welfare benefits, subsidised housing and public healthcare schemes!
And, so, the bell tolls for Europe. If Western Europe continues with its present open door policies, the population of the continent will simply be replaced. The potential arrival of possibly 1 billion Africans will simply dwarf the 700,000 million indigenous Europeans. Moreover, many of the would-be immigrants are Islamic, which brings us to the second big issue we are confronting…
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Greece: Soros Aligned NGO Under Investigation for Sexually Abusing Migrants
U.S. charity Mercy Corps is under investigation by the Greek government on allegations that members of the group sexually abused migrants in Greek asylum centres.
Two members of the pro-migrant charity are under investigation by Greek authorities who say they sexually abused asylum seekers, though have not gone into the details of the abuse. The charity is also one of many NGOs that receives funding from the European Union, Austrian newspaper Kurier reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘We Save 53 Boats a Day’ Coastguard’s Passionate Plea for Help to Deal With Migrant Crisis
THE Italian coastguard has launched a passionate plea begging for help to process incoming migrants before the summer surge of crossings ensues.
Already this year, 60,000 migrants have been rescued from the Mediterranean and the number is set to increase, according to reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Kurdish Refugee Killed by Arabs in Germany for Smoking During Ramadan
ERBIL — A group of Arab nationals reportedly killed a Kurdish refugee in Germany’s Oldenburg on Thursday over refusing to fast during Ramadan.
Social media activists published graphic photographs showing a man covered in blood with emergency personnel attempting to save him.
A Syrian Kurdish refugee resided in Germany, stated on his Facebook account that a group of Arab men stabbed Abed Hannan Yaghoub to death after they found him smoking cigarette and refusing to fast as it is Ramadan, the Muslim’s holy month during which they avoid eating, drinking and smoking in daytime.
Yaghoub is reportedly a Kurdish national from Syrian Kurdistan’s Afrin province.
Kurdish nationals from the town later said police has already arrested two people suspected to have been involved in the murder.
BasNews has learned that one more suspect is still at large.
| — Hat tip: Silentium Voces | [Return to headlines] |
Migrant Camp in Athens Olympic Airport Cleared by Greek Police
GREEK police began clearing out a makeshift migrant camp today which sprung up in the former Athens airport over a year ago.
Authorities say about 100 refugees and migrants were still living in tents in Hellenikon, the former airport complex that also houses abandoned venues used in the 2004 Olympic Games, down from about 3,000 last year, most of which have been moved to other sites.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
New Migrant Route Opens to Spain, With Arrivals Trebling in 2017
A third migrant route appears to be opening up across the Mediterranean as the number of migrants landing along Spain’s coastline has tripled this year.
Between January and April 2016, some 1,026 migrants arrived in Europe via Spain. But that number has shot up in the same period of 2017 to more than 3,300, making the Spanish route the fastest growing in the Mediterranean.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Stops 100 Syrians Trying to Reach Europe
(AP) — Turkey’s coast guard says it has intercepted nearly 100 Syrian migrants over two days attempting to reach Greece.
A statement says 43 migrants were caught early Friday in the western province of Izmir, when a coast guard vessel intercepted a rubber dinghy.
In an earlier statement, the coast guard said it stopped 50 Syrian migrants, including children, on Thursday.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Muscular Men Less Likely to Support Social and Economic Equality, Study Suggests
[…]
They also surveyed participants on how often they go to the gym, their wealth, whether they support the redistribution of wealth, and whether they approve of the idea that some social groups should have dominance over others (‘social dominance orientation’).
As well as focusing on bodily signs of perceived dominance, the researchers also focused on facial appearance: they had groups of independent raters view participants’ faces and rate whether they saw the men as dominant and attractive. They also used software to analyse faces in terms of the masculinity of their shape.
Prior research has shown several aspects of face shape and appearance, such as height-to-width ratio, are linked to ability to compete for resources in the modern world.
The results showed a significant correlation between those with higher bodily formidability and the belief that some social groups should dominate others. These men were also much less likely to support redistribution of wealth.
But contrary to predictions, there was no correlation between being considered attractive, as measured by waist-to-chest ratio and various facial measures, and whether or not the men supported ‘social dominance orientation’ or redistribution.
The study showed that more muscular men were less egalitarian, and the number of hours actually spent in the gym was also linked to having less egalitarian socioeconomic beliefs.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
The Blasphemy Case Against Bret Weinstein, And Its Four Lessons for Professors
by Jonathan Haidt
[…]
There are several lessons that American professors can draw from these three events:
1) Never object to a diversity policy publicly.* It is no longer permitted. You may voice concerns in a private conversation, but if you do it in a public way, you are inviting a visit from a mob or punishment from an administrator.
2) Do not assume that being politically progressive will protect you (as Weinstein and the Christakises found out). Whatever your politics, you are eventually going to say or do something that will be interpreted incorrectly and ungenerously. Your intentions don’t matter (as Dean Spellman found out at CMC.) This is especially true if your university offers students training in the detection of microaggressions.
3) If a mob comes for you, there is a good chance that the president of your university will side with the mob and validate its narrative (as the presidents at Yale and Evergreen have done, although the presidents at Middlebury and Claremont McKenna did not).
4) If a mob comes for you, the great majority of its members will be non-violent. However, given the new standard operating procedure (which I described in a recent Chronicle article entitled “Intimidation is the New Normal”) you must assume that one or more of its members is willing to use violence against you, and you can assume that many members of the mob believe that violence against you is morally justifiable.
| — Hat tip: AF | [Return to headlines] |
The world is going crazy. Normal standards no longer apply, as the muslim hordes continue to over-run Europe.
What should they do? I would suggest they get those ancient guns out of their attics and start using them. A civilization that refuses to protect itself doesn’t deserve much, but it is the leaders (so-called) that are doing this. I would hate to see Europe over-run by backward muslims. This has happened before, don’t you people learn ANYHING from history?
You may call me prejudiced, but I have read the history of Europe and the last muslim invastion, and evidently the leaders of Europa have not done so. A people who do not remember their history are condemned to repeating it. so the head-chopping will continue, as will the rapes and criminality of muslims as they over-ride your “nice” civilization, which you don’t have the manly fortitutde to protect. Shame on you.
I would suggest closing the gates and returning muslims to their countries of origin. That might buy you enough time to to raise or improve the gonads in your men and find some weapons. This has happened before, you fools.
Do you NOT learn ANYTHING from history? Then you are condemned to repeat it and it will go very badly for you. While I feel sorry for you, I think you are beyond stupid.
I read these news and can’t believe what I’m seeing. Something has happened to change the nature of the European people. As far as I can see, only Poland and Hungary have retained their senses and know what is happening — but they are both small countries and can’t swing Europe back to its senses.
…aaaand the Ramadan Bombathon rolls onward in fair London:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-03/van-rams-pedestrians-serious-incident-london-bridge-knife-attack-follows-live-feed
** Migrant arrivals in Spain trebling in 2017 **
Time for Mr. Towboat to do his work.
If that doesn’t get the message across that Europeans are not wussbunnies, there’s always Mr. Machine Gun. Mr. Machine Gun was very popular in Europe in the first part of the last century. He was used with abandon in fact. He was everywhere.
Now no one knows where he is. He’ll be back again soon I think. It’s a shame. There’s no reason he couldn’t have enjoyed a nice long holiday. But the beautiful people have in effect demanded his return even though they hate people like him. He’s a proper rotter he is. But they are posh. Posh and wise.
Maybe Mr. Corbyn will fix things in the UK. A new man to place flowers at impromptu street memorials could do wonders.
You forgot the candles and teddy bears, Colonel.
Dang. You’re right. It’s foolish to go into battle without employing all available resources.