Gates of Vienna News Feed 11/10/2017

In a speech given at the University of Salamanca, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker severely criticized Catalonia for its attempt to separate from Spain. He decried nationalism as a “poison” that was a danger to European unity.

In other news, the French Interior Minister said that there are 300,000 illegal immigrants currently living in France.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to AF, Caroline Glick, Charles Low, Dean, DR, Reader from Chicago, 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.

USA
» Explosion Reported at Hotel in Downtown Houston
» Ohio Man Who Invoked ‘Islamophobia’ Defense for Double Murder Gets Life in Prison
» Second Man Stabbed in Thursday’s Bank Robbery, Thankful to be Alive
 
Canada
» Canadian Pot Stocks Rally on Trudeau’s Dollar-a-Gram Tax
 
Europe and the EU
» A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in France: October 2017
» Angela Merkel’s Nightmare as Poll Shows Germans Don’t Want Coalition
» Catalonia Independence ‘Poison’ Slammed by Jean-Claude Juncker
» France: A Decomposing Civilization
» France Unveils Experimental Deradicalisation Programme
» France: At Least Three Injured in Vehicle Attack Near Toulouse, Police Say
» Hungary Blasts EU’s Guy Verhofstadt as ‘Reliable Soros Ally’
» Meet the Swede Who’s Taking Over EasyJet
» Netherlands: Support for Government Parties Slips in New Poll of Polls, Fvd Rises
» U.K.’s Somerset Police Dragged a Child Into Court for the ‘Hate Crime’ Of Calling the Man Who Raped Her a Slur
» UK Prosecutors Destroyed Crucial Emails in Assange Case
» ‘UK Terror Plot Foiled’ Extremist Caught Before Unleashing Horror, Rudd Says
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Caroline Glick: Tzippy and the Iceberg
 
Australia — Pacific
» Is Waleed Aly About to Leave Ten? The Project Host ‘In Talks’ With the ABC to Take Over From Leigh Sales, Aunty’s Highest-Paid Presenter on $460,000
 
Latin America
» Venezuela Officially Declared in Default
 
Immigration
» French Interior Minister Claims 300,000 Illegal Migrants in France
» Germany: Asylum Seeker Drug Dealer Sentenced for Assaulting Undercover Cop
» Manus Island Refugees ‘Regularly Travel Into Town to Have Sex With Underage Girls and Buy Drugs — and They’Ve Been Doing it for Four Years’
» Migrants in Greece Demand ‘Mama Merkel, Open the Doors!’ at German Embassy
 
General
» “This is Crazy” — Antarctic Supervolcano is Melting the Ice-Caps From Within
 

Explosion Reported at Hotel in Downtown Houston

Steve Bingham was across the street from the Whitehall Houston hotel on Friday afternoon, when he was startled by a booming explosion. Bingham, a guest of the hotel, looked up and saw a plume of black smoke rising from the north facade of the downtown hotel.

“I heard a booming sound. It sounded like metal clanging,” Bingham said.

Minutes later, Bingham said he heard a second, smaller explosion coming from the direction of the Whitehall.

By around 1:30 p.m. emergency crews had responded to the incident at the 12-story, 259-room hotel at 1700 Smith Street, a highly-rated facility at the center of the downtown business district.

Houston Fire Department Deputy Chief Blake C. White said the blast was caused by a transformer explosion in a basement electrical room.

“Three contractors were down there replacing a circuit breaker,” White said. “One of them sustained major injuries — burns for sure, probably smoke inhalation.”

The man, whose injuries were described as life-threatening, was taken to Memorial Hermann hospital. A second man left the scene with a bandaged hand and was transported to the hospital, White said. The third did not sustain any major injuries, White said…

           — Hat tip: Dean [Return to headlines]
 

Ohio Man Who Invoked ‘Islamophobia’ Defense for Double Murder Gets Life in Prison

A northeast Ohio man who gunned down two men and wounded three others this past February is headed to prison. A jury has convicted him of double murder, and today the jury recommended that the judge hand down a sentence of 30 years to life, sparing him the death penalty.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Second Man Stabbed in Thursday’s Bank Robbery, Thankful to be Alive

MEDFORD, Ore — George Nye was one of two people who were stabbed during the robbery at the Chase Bank in Medford on Thursday night.

Nye says, the suspect came up next to him as he was talking with the teller and asked for his money and the keys to his car.

When Nye told the suspect he didn’t have his keys, the suspect then stabbed him in the stomach. The knife didn’t go far because he had on a thick coat with objects inside his pocket.

The suspect managed to stab him again in the back of his shoulder then went outside to try and enter Nye’s car, but was unsuccessful.

Medford Police are still looking for the suspect.

Officers believe he is Hispanic with a large hook nose, thin and short in stature, 5’2 feet tall and between 25 to 40-years-old.

           — Hat tip: Dean [Return to headlines]
 

Canadian Pot Stocks Rally on Trudeau’s Dollar-a-Gram Tax

Canadian marijuana stocks surged Friday after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government proposed a tax of one dollar a gram of legalized recreational marijuana.

The government said Friday the tax shouldn’t exceed C$1 (79 U.S. cents) a gram or 10 percent of the producer’s price, whichever is higher. Retail sales levies would be applied on top of that.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

A Month of Islam and Multiculturalism in France: October 2017

October 1. A 29-year-old illegal immigrant from Tunisia stabbed two women to death at the central train station in Marseille. Witnesses heard the assailant shout “Allahu Akbar” as he lunged at the women with a 20-centimetre (eight-inch) knife before threatening soldiers, who shot him dead. The man, identified as Ahmed Hanachi, was using seven different identities and had a long criminal history. He had been arrested in Lyon for shoplifting just days before the attack, but those charges were dropped due to a lack evidence. He was released, despite not having the documents needed to live in France. Why he was never deported remains unclear.

October 2. Five people were arrested in Paris after police found four makeshift bombs at a building in the 16th arrondissement, one of the city’s most exclusive neighborhoods. Police said there was no one living in the apartment block who might be considered a target for jihadists. Interior Minister Gérard Collomb surmised that the bomb was simply meant to create fear: “Blowing up a building in a posh neighborhood shows that no one is safe…that it could happen anywhere in France.” He added: “This shows that the level of the threat in France is extremely high…yes, even if the Islamic State has suffered military setbacks, we are still in a state of war.” …

October 24. France issued an arrest warrant for Redouane Sebbar, a 25-year-old Moroccan man being held in Germany and suspected of helping plan an August 2015 attack on high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris.

October 26. Of the 1,900 French jihadists fighting with the Islamic State, as many as one-fifth have received as much as €500,000 ($580,000) in social welfare payments from the French state, according to Le Figaro.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

Angela Merkel’s Nightmare as Poll Shows Germans Don’t Want Coalition

ANGELA Merkel is facing a domestic crisis after a poll suggested most Germans do not want the three-party coalition she is desperately trying to form.

Following her election disaster, the German Chancellor is attempting to form a partnership with the Greens and pro-business FDP.

But a poll published this week showed 52 per cent of Germans think the so-called Jamaica coalition would be bad for the country.

Just 45 per cent thought it would be a good thing, a fall in support of 12 per cent from a previous survey last month. Three per cent were unsure.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Catalonia Independence ‘Poison’ Slammed by Jean-Claude Juncker

JEAN-CLAUDE Juncker branded nationalism “a poison” as he hit out at the Catalan push for independence.

The European Commission President, who favours a federalist EU, said he was against any kind of separatism.

Speaking at the University of Salamanca to an audience including Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, Mr Juncker said countries should work together to avoid weakening Europe.

He said: “Nationalisms are a poison that prevent Europe from working together.

“We cannot stay with our arms crossed because it is time for us to do what needs to be done.

“I say ‘no’ to any form of separatism that weakens Europe and further widens the existing fissures.”

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

France: A Decomposing Civilization

by Giulio Meotti

[…]

The martyrdom of Father Jacques Hamel at the hands of Islamists has been forgotten; the site of the massacre is still waiting for a visit from Pope Francis as a sign of condolence and respect. French judges are now busy removing Christian symbols from the landscape: last month in Ploërmel, the cross above a statue of Pope John Paul II was ordered dispatched for allegedly violating the separation of church and state.

Paris’s Mayor Anne Hidalgo recently banned the city’s main Christmas market for being insufficiently elegant. France’s authorities and elites are tearing up, piece by piece, the country’s historical, religious and cultural legacy so that nothing will remain. But a nation dispossessed of its identity will see its inner strength broken. Samuel Pruvot, a journalist for Famille Chrétienne (“Christian Family”), recently claimed that Christianity in France will be soon found in “museums”.

French culture, for the past two years, has been marked by “the sentiment of the end of the world”. Intellectuals from both the left and right have been publishing essays about the “suicide of France”, its “decadence” and its “unhappy identity”. These are brilliant and important takes on the current state of French society. France now needs to go beyond mourning. It needs to show strength — the will to prevail.

           — Hat tip: AF [Return to headlines]
 

France Unveils Experimental Deradicalisation Programme

The French justice minister, Nicole Belloubet, unveiled on Thursday an experimental programme to fight radicalisation, titled Rive, put into place in France a year ago.

The programme (Research and Intervention in extremist violence) targets people already sentenced or awaiting sentencing for a terrorism-related offence or reported for being radicalised who will, at a judge’s request, undergo mentoring. An association called Apcars (Association of Applied Criminal Policy and Social Reinsertion), which specialises in social and judicial supervision, is in charge of the programme.

[Comment: Read the whole thing, especially the last sentence of the article. I propose a cheaper and more effective alternative: expulsion.]

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

France: At Least Three Injured in Vehicle Attack Near Toulouse, Police Say

A man deliberately ran his car into a group of Chinese students outside a high school near Toulouse in southern France on Friday, police sources said, injuring at least three people, two of them seriously.

The driver of the vehicle, a 28-year-old man who was known to police for minor offences, was arrested at the scene, the sources said.

The driver, who was arrested in the city’s Blagnac suburb, acted “deliberately” but was not on a list of known extremists, one source said, asking not to be named.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Hungary Blasts EU’s Guy Verhofstadt as ‘Reliable Soros Ally’

Hungary has taken the gloves off in its ongoing struggle with the EU over the forced redistribution of migrants, taking down European Parliament heavyweight Guy Verhofstadt in a pull-no-punches open letter.

The letter, penned by Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Zoltán Kovács and addressed to “reliable Soros ally Guy Verhofstadt”, takes the Belgian MEP to task for his “recent Facebook rant”, in which he denounced the Hungarian government as “disgusting” for “targeting Mr. [George] Soros in person”.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Meet the Swede Who’s Taking Over EasyJet

Swedish travel veteran Johan Lundgren was named chief executive of British low-cost airline EasyJet on Friday.

           — Hat tip: Charles Low [Return to headlines]
 

Netherlands: Support for Government Parties Slips in New Poll of Polls, Fvd Rises

The popularity of three of the four parties in the new Dutch coalition government have taken a knock since announcing their plans to work together, taking support for the alliance to around 46%, according to the latest poll of polls by Tom Louwerse. The poll of polls, an amalgam of six separate opinion polls, shows support in particular for the VVD and CDA is down by around three and four seats in the 150-seat parliament. D66 is down one seat and the ChristenUnie up one at five to seven. The drop in support for the VVD and CDA is consistent across all the polls, Louwerse says. The shift is towards Thierry Baudet’s anti-EU Forum voor Democratie, which has risen consistently over the past few months.

[Comment: Intersting. An Anti-EU party has increased its support in polls.]

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

U.K.’s Somerset Police Dragged a Child Into Court for the ‘Hate Crime’ Of Calling the Man Who Raped Her a Slur

Police in Somerset are reported to have neglected the plights of child rape victims in cases where the rapist was Muslim. In one incident, a victim of serial child rape was dragged before a court for the “racial abuse” of her rapist. The case involved two Turkish immigrants who had groomed six girls between the ages of 14 and 15. The men, Ahmet Kurtyemez and Mehmet Citak, were sentenced to 12 years and 20 years in jail for sexual offenses committed in the area.

A report commissioned by the Somerset Safeguarding Children Board (SSBC) stated that there were at least 14 missed opportunities for the two men to be brought to justice, and criticized social services for refusing to investigate concerns raised by the victims when they repeatedly got pregnant.

The case review looked at two girls whose cases date back to 2010. The duo told investigators that they thought they were in relationships with the adult men, who ran a barber shop and piercing studio in Yeovil.

The report discovered how possible signs of abuse were missed by authorities whose job it was to safeguard children, including an occasion when a 15-year-old girl had an abortion. It also revealed another girl who was visited by one of the men when she was an inpatient at a mental health hospital in Somerset, and became pregnant again.

Worst of all, the report highlights the case of one girl who was wrongly taken to court for allegedly hurling racial abuse at her rapist, while the man got off scott free and wasn’t investigated until years later.

While her rape, and the rapes of the other girls were ignored, police and social services in Somerset were more concerned about appearing politically correct by giving priority over to the so-called “hate crime.”

The report in question, which can be found on the SSBC’s website provides an account of the miscarriage of justice:…

           — Hat tip: DR [Return to headlines]
 

UK Prosecutors Destroyed Crucial Emails in Assange Case

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) admitted to deleting potentially crucial emails relating to attempts to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who remains cooped up in the Ecuadorian embassy.

An email exchange between the CPS and their Swedish counterparts, who were pursuing rape charges against Assange, was deleted in 2014 after a lawyer from the UK side retired.

The CPS, who said the deletion was standard procedure, has denied any legal implications from the supposed error, though they admitted, in comment given to the Guardian, that “We have no way of knowing the content of email accounts once they have been deleted.”

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

‘UK Terror Plot Foiled’ Extremist Caught Before Unleashing Horror, Rudd Says

A BRITISH extremist plotted a terror attack this summer after finding out how to penetrate a stab vest by watching online videos, Home Secretary Amber Rudd has claimed.

The extremist, who has not been named, was preparing for the attack with videos that major websites failed to take down.

Ms Rudd, while in Washington DC, said that more than 44,000 extremist websites have been created in 2017 alone.

The Home Secretary also said illegal videos, such as those showing beheadings or how to plan attacks, can still be found online.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Caroline Glick: Tzippy and the Iceberg

Princeton University Hillel’s last minute decision on Monday to cancel Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipy Hotovely’s scheduled address was the tip of a very dangerous iceberg.

The iceberg itself was revealed the next day on Capitol Hill. On Tuesday the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2016. The bill is intended to facilitate the fight against antisemitism on campuses by requiring university authorities to refer to the State Department’s definition of antisemitism when they consider whether harassing acts were “motivated by antisemitic intent.”

Nine witnesses appeared before the committee. Five supported the legislation. Four opposed it.

The State Department’s 2010 definition of antisemitism was formulated to fight what is referred to as “the new antisemitism.” Unlike the antisemitism of the first half of the 20th century which was directed against Jews as individuals, antisemitism today is increasingly expressed as hatred of Jews for their support for Israel — the collective Jew.

The State Department’s definition of Jew-hatred includes the delegitimization of Israel’s right to exist, demonization of the State of Israel, including by likening it to Nazi Germany, and the use of double standards to judge Israel’s actions. It also defines as an expression of Jew-hatred the allegation that Jews are more loyal to Israel than they are to their countries of citizenship.

US Jewish organizations have repeatedly asked university officials to use the State Department’s definition of antisemitism as a basis for judging allegations of antisemitic attacks and harassment against Jewish students. Most universities have refused.

Passing the bill into law is urgent. As ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt noted in his congressional testimony, attacks against American Jewish students rose 59% in the first nine months of 2017 in comparison to the same period in 2016.

Despite the increase in antisemitism, four witnesses on Tuesday — all Jewish — insisted the bill is unnecessary. Two of the bill’s opponents are Jewish studies professors…

           — Hat tip: Caroline Glick [Return to headlines]
 

Is Waleed Aly About to Leave Ten? The Project Host ‘In Talks’ With the ABC to Take Over From Leigh Sales, Aunty’s Highest-Paid Presenter on $460,000

Gold Logie-winner and host of The Project Waleed Aly has reportedly been ‘in talks’ with the ABC to leave the Ten Network show and join the ranks of the ABC.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

Venezuela Officially Declared in Default

Today at 11am, the ISDA Determinations Committee sits down to decide whether an event of default has occurred due to the delayed principal payment on the Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA, bond that matured Nov. 2, in the process triggering PDVSA (and perhaps Venezuela) CDS, and officially declaring Venezuela in default.

We won’t have to wait that long: moments ago, Wilmington Trust, the Trustee of the 8.5% bonds due 2018, issued by Corpoelec, Venezuela’s electricity company, declared that the missed interest payment originally due October 10, and whose 30 day grace period expired on November 9, and for which no pament was sent or received, officially constitutes an event of default.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

French Interior Minister Claims 300,000 Illegal Migrants in France

French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb has claimed there are around 300,000 illegal migrants living in France.

The Interior Minister presented the figures after being urged to do so by politicians from the conservatives and the populist National Front during a debate on the French immigration budget for 2018. While Collomb claims there are 300,000 illegal migrants, the number of beneficiaries of State Medical Aid suggests a number between 300,000 and 400,000, L’Express reports.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Germany: Asylum Seeker Drug Dealer Sentenced for Assaulting Undercover Cop

A 30-year-old drug dealing asylum seeker from the Ivory Coast has been sentenced to 17 months in prison after he was convicted of violently assaulting an undercover police officer in Hannover.

Moussa S., 30, attempted to sell a ball of cocaine to a man he thought was another drug dealer to then sell it on the streets of Hannover. After the undercover policeman did not pay the asylum seeker, he and a friend set upon the officer and chocked him until he was almost unconscious, Bild reports.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Manus Island Refugees ‘Regularly Travel Into Town to Have Sex With Underage Girls and Buy Drugs — and They’Ve Been Doing it for Four Years’

The Australian government has been informed of 161 offences committed by Manus Island refugees over the last four years, including alleged sexual assault and buying drugs.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

Migrants in Greece Demand ‘Mama Merkel, Open the Doors!’ at German Embassy

Around 150 people, including asylum seekers and pro-migrant activists, called on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to “open the doors” and allow more migrants from Greece to come to Germany.

The protest occurred this week outside the German embassy in Athens and focused mostly on family reunification. Fourteen asylum seekers, mostly from Syria, attended the protest with some of them claiming that they had been waiting to reunite with their families in Germany for over a year, Die Welt reports.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

“This is Crazy” — Antarctic Supervolcano is Melting the Ice-Caps From Within

As we’ve pointed out, the supervolcano phenomenon is hardly unique to Yellowstone National Park, where a long dormant volcano with the potential to cause a devastating eruption has been rumbling since mid-summer, making some scientists uneasy.

           — Hat tip: Charles Low [Return to headlines]
 

3 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 11/10/2017

    • The basic NWO idea is to flood red areas with refugees to turn them purple, and eventually blue.

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