Carme Forcadel, the speaker of the Catalonian parliament who was recently arrested for her part in the Catalan independence movement, will remain in custody until her €150,000 bail is paid. Five other Catalan lawmakers are also being held in jail.
In other news, the Libyan navy has accused the migrant-transporting NGO Seawatch of contributing to the deaths of migrants at sea.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Charles Low, Dean, KS, Reader from Chicago, SS, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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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.
Mass Shootings, Mass Psychology and Self-Defense
There is an unfortunate correlation between crises and catastrophes and mass psychology. For those with a decent long-term memory, you may have noticed that the frequency of attacks and tragedies taking place today arouund the world is far above and beyond what occurred 10 years ago. So much so that many in the public have moved beyong the point of outrage and have now embraced complacency.
| — Hat tip: Charles Low | [Return to headlines] |
Minnesota Man Convicted in ISIS Recruiting Case Wins Release
The young Somali-Minnesotan became an early test of anti-jihadi rehabilitation efforts.
Abdullahi Yusuf, one of nine young men arrested in a sweeping FBI probe of ISIS recruitment in Minnesota, on Thursday became one of the few Americans to be allowed back in society after trying to join the terror group.
A federal judge in Minneapolis granted Yusuf, 21, supervised release from the federal halfway house where he has been held since his sentencing in November 2016.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Viral Meningitis Outbreak: The Virus Can be Spread for Nine Weeks After Recovery!
Washoe Country Nevada has experienced a viral meningitis outbreak. So far, 47 people have contracted the disease and 43 have had to be hospitalized and the outbreak and is still ongoing.
| — Hat tip: Charles Low | [Return to headlines] |
Woman Says Roy Moore Initiated Sexual Encounter When She Was 14, He Was 32
Leigh Corfman says she was 14 years old when an older man approached her outside a courtroom in Etowah County, Ala. She was sitting on a wooden bench with her mother, they both recall, when the man introduced himself as Roy Moore.
It was early 1979 and Moore — now the Republican nominee in Alabama for a U.S. Senate seat — was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney. He struck up a conversation, Corfman and her mother say, and offered to watch the girl while her mother went inside for a child custody hearing.
“He said, ‘Oh, you don’t want her to go in there and hear all that. I’ll stay out here with her,’ “ says Corfman’s mother, Nancy Wells, 71. “I thought, how nice for him to want to take care of my little girl.”
Alone with Corfman, Moore chatted with her and asked for her phone number, she says. Days later, she says, he picked her up around the corner from her house in Gadsden, drove her about 30 minutes to his home in the woods, told her how pretty she was and kissed her. On a second visit, she says, he took off her shirt and pants and removed his clothes. He touched her over her bra and underpants, she says, and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Assange Says Bloomberg Spread Propaganda on Alleged Russia Meddling in Catalonia
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, has stated that the Bloomberg news agency had published an unverified propaganda story concerning Catalonia, claiming that Russia allegedly influenced the region’s residents during the independence referendum.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Catalonia Crisis: Belgium’s PM Says He Won’t Interfere
Belgium’s prime minister has been grilled in parliament, as he battles to contain the fallout of the arrival of Catalan leaders.
Facing pressure, Charles Michel urged Madrid to talk to the separatists, but said he would not interfere in any extradition to Spain.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Catalonia Leader to Stay in Jail Until €150,000 Bail is Paid
A SPANISH supreme judge has ordered the Catalan parliament speaker to stay in jail until her €150,000 bail is paid
The speaker, Carme Forcadell, will be held in custody during an investigation into her role in the “illegal” push for independence in Catalonia.
Ms Forcadell and five regional lawmakers testified on Thursday on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds.
Four other lawmakers would also be released on 25,000-euro bail, while a fifth would be freed on certain conditions without bail, a source told Reuters.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Czech President Favored to Win First Round of January Election, Poll Says
Czech President Milos Zeman is in the lead over a wide field of contestants vying for the country’s highest office in a January vote.
Zeman, 73, is poised to win the Jan. 12-13 first round with 34 percent, according to a survey by the CVVM pollster, a result that would force a faceoff between the winner and the runner up two weeks later. The president’s top challengers have tried to build support by denouncing Zeman’s anti-immigrant, pro-Russian rhetoric. Fewer than half of the 19 registered candidates appear to have met the legal requirements, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Exclusive: Top Polish Government Minister Hits Back at ‘Offensive’ BBC ‘Illiberal Democracy’ Smears
A senior Polish politician has hit back as Britain’s state broadcaster the BBC prepares to air a new documentary on the politics of Central European Visegrád nations Poland and Hungary in which it will accuse the anti-mass migration governments of being anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, and corrupt.
A preview of the forthcoming programme, due to be broadcast on the BBC World Service three times on Tuesday, November 14th, reveals Europe’s Illiberal Democrats will take aim at Hungary and Poland for resisting the EU’s attempts to impose compulsory migrant quotas and “dismantling democracy”, while claiming Hungary’s Viktor Orbán is “anti-Semitic” and “corrupt”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Norway to Bring in Armed Police at Oslo Airport
Norway’s government has confirmed that police at Oslo’s Gardemoen Airport are to be armed.
Minister for justice and security Per-Willy Amundsen confirmed the government’s stance on Thursday, reports VG.
“The National Police Directorate [Politidirektorate] has asked to be armed and the Minsitry of Justice and Public Security has agreed to temporary armament at Oslo Airport. The armament will initially apply for three months,” Amundsen said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Poland Rules Out ‘Polexit’ But Slams European Commission
Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo on Thursday said her country would not follow Britain and leave the European Union, but criticised the European Commission for overstepping its brief.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Says it’s Holding Bodies of Gaza Terrorists Killed in Tunnel Blast
Bodies of five Islamic Jihad fighters recovered from Israeli territory; Israel had refused Gaza authorities to search for terrorists’ remains.
The IDF on Sunday said it was in possession of the remains of five of the 12 Islamic Jihad terrorists who died in last week’s tunnel explosion, after finding their bodies inside Israel.
The IDF Southern Command and Gaza Division found the missing bodies while carrying out additional operations on the tunnel, an IDF statement said.
The tunnel was detected using newly implemented advanced technology and destroyed last week in a controlled explosion inside Israeli territory.
Seven other terrorists, including two senior Islamic Jihad commanders and two Hamas members, were killed in the tunnel that Islamic Jihad on Saturday said it had been building “for years.”
Initially, seven bodies were found in Gaza. On Thursday, the head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj.-Gen. Yoav ‘Poly’ Mordechai rejected appeals to enable searches for the five sets of remains before the remains of two IDF soldiers killed three years ago were retrieved and other missing Israelis accounted for.
Mordechai told the head of the International Red Cross delegation in Gaza, Jacque de Maio, “Israel will not allow search operations in the area of the security barrier in the Gaza Strip without progress on the issue of Israelis kidnapped and MIAs.”
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Attention: Saudi Prince in a Hurry
by Thomas L. Friedman
To understand the upheaval that is taking place in Saudi Arabia today, you have to start with the most important political fact about that country: The dominant shaping political force there for the past four decades has not been Islamism, fundamentalism, liberalism, capitalism or ISISism.
It has been Alzheimer’s.
The country’s current king is 81 years old. He replaced a king who died at 90, who replaced a king who died at 84. It’s not that none of them introduced reforms. It’s that at a time when the world has been experiencing so much high-speed change in technology, education and globalization, these successive Saudi monarchs thought that reforming their country at 10 miles an hour was fast enough — and high oil prices covered for that slow pace.
It doesn’t work anymore. Some 70 percent of Saudi Arabia is under age 30, and roughly 25 percent of them are unemployed. In addition, 200,000 more are studying abroad, and about 35,000 of them — men and women — are coming home every year with degrees, looking for meaningful work, not to mention something fun to do other than going to the mosque or the mall. The system desperately needs to create more jobs outside the oil sector, where Saudi income is no longer what it once was, and the government can’t keep eating its savings to buy stability.
That’s the backdrop for this week’s daring, but reckless, power play by the 32-year-old son of King Salman — Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known by his initials M.B.S. I’ve interviewed M.B.S. twice. He is a young man in a hurry. I’ve found his passion for reform authentic, his support from the youth in his country significant and his case for making radical change in Saudi Arabia compelling.
Indeed, there are two things I can say for sure about him: He is much more McKinsey than Wahhabi — much more a numbers cruncher than a Quran thumper. And if he did not exist, the Saudi system would have had to invent him. Somebody had to shake up the place.
| — Hat tip: KS | [Return to headlines] |
DOJ to Russia Today: Register as a Foreign Agent or Face Arrest
Congress is using a decades-old piece of legislation to force Russia Today to register as a foreign agent in the US, adding that if the site doesn’t comply with the order by Monday, the DOJ could move to shutter its operations and arrest its top executive, RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.
Russia Today revealed Thursday that the Department of Justice has given the site until next week to comply with its new interpretation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). RT has been operating in the US since 2005.
While undoubtedly disappointing in terms of its implications for first amendment freedoms in the US, the DOJ’s declaration is hardly a surprise. Under pressure from lawmakers, Twitter last month said it would prohibit RT from buying paid ads on its platform.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A Russian woman in her 20s claims a man by the name of Rinat Bilyanov kept her prisoner in a squalid home for six years, having four children with her even as he beat and tortured her.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
An anti-Islam activist has defended calling senator Sam Dastyari a ‘monkey terrorist’ in a Melbourne bar and says he has ‘no regrets’ about the confrontation.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
An Australian extremist group has been banned from using PayPal to raise money for Islamic State terrorists in prison.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Fundamentalist New Zealand pastor Logan Robertson who said gay people should be shot in the head is opening a branch of his WestCity Bible Baptist Church in Brisbane.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Ricky Turner, a thug who racially taunted Iranian-born senator Sam Dastyari at a Melbourne bar insists ‘monkey’ isn’t a racist word. ‘I’ll give an apology to the monkeys out there,’ he said.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Pauline Hanson has accused Labor Senator Sam Dastyari of exploiting a racist rant against him at a Melbourne pub on Wednesday night to get publicity for his new book.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has refused a halal-friendly McDonald’s breakfast on the Queensland election trail, instead taking up a fish and chip shop owner’s offer of instant coffee.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
The right-wing group has revealed that they are planning to ‘target’ Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young after their racially-charged verbal attack on Sam Dastyari in Melbourne.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Australia’s peak Sunni Muslim group has agreed to pay back $22 million to a Sydney’s Malek Fahd Islamic School. NSW Supreme Court justice Michael Ball had to order on the first day of a trial.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Iranian-born senator Sam Dastyari, who describes himself as a non-practising Muslim, has been ambushed and called a terrorist at a Melbourne bar.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
The 27-year-old Polish woman arrested on Tuesday for her protest against the treatment of refugees on Manus Island, which blocked trains going to the Melbourne Cup has been charged.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Immigration Will Dominate Hungary’s 2018 Elections, Orban Says
Hungarian voters will decide in next year’s elections whether they will remain a “free nation” protecting their cultural heritage or join those who are eroding Europe’s traditional values by supporting immigration and integration, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Libyan Navy Accuses NGO of Contributing to Death of Migrants
Libyan naval authorities have accused the migrant transport NGO Seawatch of interfering in one of their rescue operations and contributing to the death of five migrants.
Ayyoub Qasim, the spokesman for the Libyan coastal authorities, blamed Seawatch for the deaths saying they had refused to leave an area when asked by a Libyan vessel. Qasim added that the naval force was in the area responding to a distress call from the migrant boat, Il Giornale reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Domestic violence researchers want immigrants to be told not to bash their wives or children upon entering Australia.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Persecution of Christians by Muslim Migrants Moves From Asylum Homes to the Streets
After several reports showed that Christians were being systematically persecuted in German asylum homes, the problem has now moved from the homes to the streets.
Gottfried Martens, the pastor of a free church in Berlin, claims that while over the last year or so asylum homes have become much safer for Christians, he has seen the persecution of Christians, especially converts from Islam, continue, Die Welt reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Two men have suspended themselves in a hanging tent four storeys above the Perth office of Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, urging the federal government to evacuate Manus Island.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Guy Zangari (pictured), a Labor politician from south-west Sydney, insists 90 per cent of constituents in his largely foreign-born electorate speak English, after Mark Latham found most of them didn’t.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Whoa! €150,000 bail. That woman is one HECK of a flight risk. Good thing there’s no vindictiveness at work there.
Is Judge Roy Moore being framed for an event that may have occurred around 38 years ago? It appears from the information within the article that there is only one accuser under 16 at the time of the accusation, and she seems to be the one who appears to be the star witness in dishing the dirt out on Moore.
From the article itself it appears that a young Roy Moore certainly had his female admirers around the town.
Loose lips sink ships and they can also sink a judge’s political career.
A question either not asked of the main accuser or ignored for the sake of the story, is where was the accuser’s mother at the time that Moore was calling her house and taking her daughter for ‘joy’ rides after sunset?
And would a concerned mother allow her pretty 14 year old daughter to be baby sat by a young attractive male with a bit of a reputation, while she attended a court hearing, or would she want her daughter close so that she could keep an eye on her as most caring mothers are liable to do?
And 38 years is a long time ago to be remembering precise details, including what was spoken.
I wonder if this now woman’s Bank account has suddenly grown a little more money than what is usually in there?
I can’t wait until the lunatic left criminalizes:
– Heterosexual males smiling at women.
– Heterosexual males refusing dates or intimacy with men/transsexuals because that is ‘homo/transphobic’.
I think the Poles should take comfort from the BBC attacking them – it means they must be doing something right.