A missile fired from Yemen was intercepted by Saudi air defenses over the capital Riyadh. The missile was targeting the al-Yamma royal palace, but exploded in the air over the city instead.
In other news, the European Commission announced that it may initiate a process that would remove Poland’s voting rights, as punishment for Warsaw’s intransigence in the face of Brussels’ demands.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Charles Low, Dean, Dora, JD, 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.
Amtrak Train Was Going 80 in a 30 Mph Zone Before Deadly Derailment
Three killed in Amtrak train derailment
DUPONT, Wash. — Federal officials confirmed an Amtrak train was hurtling 50 mph over the speed limit when it careened off an overpass south of Seattle, spilling cars onto the highway below and killing at least three people.
Bella Dinh-Zarr, a National Transportation Safety Board member, said at a Monday night news conference that information from the event data recorder in the rear locomotive showed the train was traveling at 80 mph in a 30 mph zone when it derailed at 7:34 a.m.
I-5 southbound around the crash site was expected to be closed through the Tuesday morning commute. Cranes worked overnight to clear the derailed cars. Even after their removal, WSDOT inspectors must check the travel lanes for hazards.
Eighty passengers and five crew members were aboard when the train derailed and pulled 13 cars off the tracks. At least 50 people were hospitalized, more than a dozen with critical or serious injuries, authorities said. No one on the highway was killed.
Earlier media reports stated that as many as six people had been killed, but at a Monday evening press conference, officials said that there were only aware of three deaths…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Commissioner in Talks With UN to Put Troops on the Streets of Chicago
“The United Nations has a track record of protecting minority populations”
Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin is in talks with United Nations officials to explore the possibility of putting UN troops on the streets of Chicago to address the city’s horrendous gun violence problem.
Boykin flew to New York last week to meet with UN assistant secretary-general for peacebuilding support, Oscar Fernandez-Taranco to discuss the issue.
“The United Nations has a track record of protecting minority populations,” Boykin said before the meeting. “There was tribal warfare between the Tutsis and the Hutus in Africa, and they deployed peacekeeping troops there to help save those populations and reduce the bloodshed. We have to do something — black people in Chicago make up 30 percent of the population but 80 percent of those who are killed by gun violence.”
Boykin said that UN peacekeepers would be more suited to patrolling the streets than the U.S. National Guard because they are better “trained” for the role.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel did not directly address any potential role for the United Nations in Chicago when asked by reporters.
The idea of deploying UN peacekeepers on U.S. soil is likely to rile many on the right who have warned about international forces conducting gun confiscation operations domestically for decades.
[Comment: Is this not treason?]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Congress Paid $265K in Sexual Harassment Claims Over Last Decade
Congress has paid out more than $265,000 in sexual harassment or sex discrimination settlements through its secretive Office of Compliance over the last decade, according to new data made public Tuesday.
The numbers are part of a public accounting demanded by leaders after reports of the office being used to hush up accusers who felt they were maltreated by members of Congress.
The money spanned 10 settlements stretching from 2008 through this November.
About half of that money, paid out from 2013 through November, had already been made public earlier this month. But the numbers from 2008 to 2012 were new Tuesday.
Across all complaints against lawmakers, the compliance office paid out more than $700,000 during the 10 years. About $342,000 of that came in the first five years, and nearly $360,000 came from 2013 on.
None of the names of the lawmakers involved in the settlements was revealed in the data, made public by House Administration Committee Chairman Gregg Harper, who is leading a probe into the use of the compliance fund and other ways Congress has hushed up complaints…
| — Hat tip: Dora | [Return to headlines] |
Globalists Fueling GOP Civil War
Establishment expresses dismay at the personal toll Trump’s election has taken on them
A pair of NeverTrump Republicans blasted “Vichy” Republicans for collaborating with the “incredibly erratic and unpredictable” President Trump, whom they suggested would “probably be a dictator by now” were it not for our country’s system of checks and balances.
Eliot Cohen, who served in the State Department under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and co-founded the now defunct Neo-Conservative think tank “Project for the New American Century,” along with Max Boot, another neo-Con who currently serves as a fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, blasted President Trump’s first year in office in an interview with Politico.
Despite admitting “some of the worst-case scenarios that we imagined have yet, mercifully, come to pass,” Boot labeled President Trump “incredibly erratic and unpredictable” and warned he still may destroy NATO, launch a trade war with China, lift sanctions on Russia, or start a war with North Korea.
[Comment: RINO’s = Globalist puppets and Democrat operatives.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Massachusetts man was sentenced Tuesday to 28 years in prison for plotting to behead a controversial, right-wing blogger whom the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) had urged its global support base to kill.
David Wright, 28, was part of a Boston-based cell of would-be jihadis recruited by notorious ISIS propagandist Junaid Hussain before he was killed in an August 2015 U.S. drone strike. Earlier that year, authorities said Wright plotted with his uncle, Usaamah Abdullah Rahim, and a Catholic convert to Islam, Nicholas Rovinski of Rhode Island, to kill anti-Islam activist Pamela Geller and others they perceived as enemies of their ultraconservative religious ideology. The plot failed after Rahim was shot dead by police over a separate attempted attack against authorities, and the FBI soon arrested the surviving pair, which federal agents had been monitoring all along.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Long Island Woman Charged With Trying to Fund ISIS Through Bitcoin Scam
A Long Island woman tried to bankroll ISIS through fraud, bitcoin and shell companies, Brooklyn federal prosecutors said Thursday.
Zoobia Shahnaz conned financial institutions out of about $85,000 — including about $60,000 in bitcoin and other digital currencies — to help fund terror, according to authorities. Prosecutors said she wired more than $150,000 to shell entities in Pakistan, China and Turkey with the intention of helping ISIS.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
RT: Julian Assange Doubles Down on Cryptocurrencies to Thwart US ‘Financial Censorship’
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange reportedly has exposed an apparent attempt by the U.S. intelligence apparatus to undermine funding to his controversial website, using institutions he established for the express purpose of protecting potential donors from the authorities.
In a recent series of Twitter postings, Assange alleges “politically induced financial censorship” that violates not only US donors’ First Amendment rights but also their right to freedom of association. “US donors are the majority of our donor base,” Assange wrote.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Christmas Attack: German Government Admits Mistake in Aftermath
Germany has admitted that mistakes were made in the aftermath of last year’s attack on a Christmas market in Berlin that left 12 dead.
“Everything humanly possible” was being done to help those affected and improve security, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on the first anniversary of the attack.
Mrs Merkel has come under fire for her government’s response.
Families have said they were not given timely information and that they were sent bills for the costs of autopsies.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
EU Commission May Launch Moves to Punish Poland Over Legal Reforms
BRUSSELS (Reuters) — The European Union’s executive may trigger a process on Wednesday to begin to strip Poland of its voting rights in the bloc, officials say, as months of tensions between Brussels and Warsaw come to a head.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy, So Far Spared From ISIS Terror Attacks, On High Alert During Christmas
Some say Italians have the mafia to thank for something.
Keeping ISIS at bay.
So far, Italy has not seen the sorts of attacks carried out in Paris and other European cities. Some speculation is the mafia doesn’t want more trouble on its turf, more police, and more of a spotlight, so they have taken a big role in squeezing terrorists.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Macron Deems Assad’s Accusation That France Support Terrorism ‘Unacceptable’
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accused France of supporting bloodshed in his country, making it unfit to talk about a peace settlement, comments that were rebuffed on Tuesday by French President Emmanuel Macron, who called them “unacceptable”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Spain on the Edge: Catalonia Election Set to Lay Bare Fractured Nation
SPAIN’S future is on the line ahead of regional elections in Catalonia which lay bare a fractured community — with the seven parties showing little prospect of securing a majority in the ballot.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Four Men Arrested on Suspicion of Terror Attacks
Police have raided five properties and arrested four men on suspicion of plotting a ‘Christmas terror attack’.
Specialist counter terrorism police officers kicked a door off its hinges as they arrested three men aged 22, 36 and 41, at addresses in Sheffield on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.
A 31-year-old man was arrested at an address in Chesterfield on suspicion of the same offence.
All four were arrested by anti-terror police working with MI5 in the ‘Islamist related’ investigation, with people evacuated from their homes and schools placed on lock down this morning.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ISIS Supporters Threaten New Year’s Eve Attack With Poster
Islamic State supporters have threatened a New Year’s Eve attack in the latest of the terror group’s disturbing posters.
Two armed terrorists can be seen making their way through a murky underpass holding multiple weapons on the billboard-type banner which carries the grammatically incorrect slogan: ‘Wait for us on your year parties.’
ISIS has released a string of the propaganda posters in recent weeks targeting the festive season and the bucket hat-clad gunman in the new version has appeared in at least one other.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sex Robot Expo in Venue Switch After ‘Terror Threat From Offended Islamist Extremists’
The Third International Congress in Love and Sex with Robots has been rocked by terror threats from Muslim extremists.
The two-day conference, which started today, was supposed to take place at Goldsmiths University, where it was held last year.
But organisers have been forced to move the controversial meeting of computer scientists, AI experts and robot ethicists to a secret venue for security reasons.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
‘Not Just ISIS’: Assad Decries West’s Support for Militants, Vows to Root Out All Terrorism in Syria
The war in Syria won’t be over until every last terrorist is defeated, including those backed by the West, Syrian President Bashar Assad has said, accusing some Western countries of having hands “covered in Syrian blood.”
Speaking to reporters after his meeting with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin in Damascus, Assad told journalists that focusing on Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) alone distracts from the other extremists in Syria supported by the West such as Al-Nusra Front, also known as Jabhat al-Nusra, an affiliate of Al-Qaeda.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Derailed Campaign Targeting Hezbollah to Secure Nuclear Deal With Iran
The Obama administration secretly derailed Drug Enforcement Administration efforts targeting the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah as it worked to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, according to a new report.
| — Hat tip: Charles Low | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Must Return Nobel Peace Prize if Hezbollah Story is True — Israeli Ex-FM
Yesh Atid chairman and former Finance Minister Yair Lapid urged former President Barack Obama to return the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded in 2009, if an investigative report regarding his administration’s behavior towards the Hezbollah terror group is correct.
Speaking with party members on Monday, Lapid responded to a report released by Politico early Monday morning which claims that the Obama administration systematically shielded the Hezbollah terrorist organization from prosecution, blunting the efforts of the Drug Enforcement Administration to crack-down on Hezbollah’s global drug trade and money laundering rackets.
“If the report is correct,” Lapid told party members at a Yesh Atid meeting Monday, “then Barack Obama must return the Nobel Peace Prize he received.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi ‘Intercepts Yemen Rebel Missile Over Riyadh’
Saudi Arabia has intercepted a rocket fired by rebel Houthi fighters in Yemen, who declared a “new chapter” in its confrontation with the kingdom.
The Volcano 2-H ballistic missiles was aimed at the al-Yamma royal palace in Riyadh, but was stopped by Saudi’s air defences.
Reporters heard a blast and saw a plume of smoke rising above the Saudi capital near the palace, where King Salman chairs weekly government meetings and hosts foreign dignitaries.
It was the second time in as many months that a rebel projectile had reached as far inside the kingdom as Riyadh, and while audacious, neither caused any real damage.
In a televised address, rebel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said the range of missiles in the Houthi arsenal was being extended. “Our long hand will reach other places, God willing,” he said.
A screenshot from a video purportedly showing Saudi air defense intercepting a missile over Riyadh Credit: Twitter
“As long as you continue to target Sanaa we will strike Riyadh and Abu Dhabi,” he said, referring to the seat of government of the United Arab Emirates, a key member of the coalition…
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Who to Believe on Washington’s Korea Policy, Tillerson or Trump?
by Ron Paul
President Trump has often said that his foreign policy objective was to keep his enemies guessing. If that’s the goal, you could say that he’s doing a good job. The problem is who does he think his enemies are, because the American people are often left guessing as well.
US policy toward North Korea last week is a good example of how the Trump Administration is wittingly or unwittingly sowing confusion among friend and foe alike. In what looked like a breakthrough, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced last Tuesday that the US would be willing to sit down and talk with North Korea “without preconditions.” Previously the US had demanded that North Korea agree to end its nuclear weapons and missile programs before Washington was willing to sit down to formal talks.
The State Department shift toward actual diplomacy with North Korea was quickly quashed, however, when the White House announced that its position on North Korea had not changed. It seemed that the State Department and White House were each pursuing different foreign policies on the Korea issue.
The White House even appeared to belittle Tillerson’s attempt at diplomacy, releasing a statement on Wednesday that talks with North Korea would be “pointless.” No wonder speculation persists that Tillerson is on his way out as Secretary of State.
Then on Friday Secretary Tillerson seemed to do a u-turn on his own policy, announcing at a UN Security Council meeting that a “sustained cessation of North Korea’s threatening behavior” must precede any negotiations with the US. “North Korea must earn its way back to the table,” he said. So, after just three days the offer of unconditional talks with North Korea had been put on and then removed from the table.
There is more than a little hypocrisy in US demands that North Korea cease its “threatening behavior.” Just this month the US and South Korea launched yet another joint military exercise targeting North Korea. Some 12,000 military personnel and 230 aircraft — including stealth fighters — participated in the massive war games. Does anyone think this is not meant to be threatening to North Korea?…
| — Hat tip: Dora | [Return to headlines] |
Every cop in Sydney could soon be patrolling the streets armed with military-grade M4 assault rifles to guard against organised crime and terrorism, the state’s top cop said.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Australia’s incoming Attorney-General Christian Porter has indicated the failings of the Human Rights Commission warrant it being scrapped and said its operations must be overhauled.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Heavily armed riot police have rushed to a home in Melbourne after officers were pelted with rocks while trying to break up an out of control party.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese professional shoppers have found a loophole enabling them to send large amounts of baby formula overseas, by buying it in bulk from wholesale supermarket Costco (pictured).
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
[…]
No one talks about Africa very much these days. On the college campus, the word “de-colonization” still pops up in papers, but it is now used by mentally unstable feminist academics in their howling about white men. No serious person talks about colonialism or what happened to the former colonies. Even South America is ignored by the American commentariat, other than to praise the wonderfulness of immigration. What used to be called the Third World has largely been forgotten by our Progressive rulers.
The reason for this is Africa, in particular, stands as proof against everything the modern Left says about the human condition. There are no success stories in Africa. Botswana is the closest you get, but it remains one of the poorest places on earth. The rest of Africa is a collection of failed states basket-cases…
| — Hat tip: Dora | [Return to headlines] |
Children Dying in Venezuela From Malnutrition at Alarming Rate
Over a five-month span, The New York Times exposed the harrowing conditions in which babies and children barely subsist in 21 public hospitals across 17 states in Venezuela. Since the country’s economy began to collapse in 2014, emergency rooms have seen an alarming increase in the number of youths suffering from severe malnutrition and dehydration.
The Times painted a shocking portrait of life in present-day Venezuela, especially for the poor. Dying infants are turned away from hospitals — 63 percent of which operate without baby formula — because they are filled to capacity. Parents join street gangs in an effort to secure basic necessities like food, and resort to scouring restaurant trash bins for scraps. Little babies die in doctors’ arms upon arrival and mothers go days without eating, shrinking to the size of children.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Austrian Gov’t Gets Tough on Immigration
Austria’s incoming conservative government is taking a hard line on immigration by promising “sanctions” against those “refusing to integrate.”
Sebastian Kurz, 31, is set to become the world’s youngest leader after winningthe parliamentary election in October with his People’s Party. Kurz will serve as chancellor with support from the populist Freedom Party.
A new platform unveiled Monday calls for faster deportations and a halt to illegal immigration. The main emphasis for migrants will be put on integrating to Austrian society by adopting local values. Monthly payments to migrants will be cut to 365 euros ($432 USD) with the possibility of earning an “integration bonus” of 155 euros ($184 USD).
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
“Europe has always been a continent of diversity. Migration has always been an integral part of its history,” the Council of Europe has claimed in a statement marking International Migrants Day.
The international body stated on Monday that mass migration from the third world is “Europe’s present and future opportunity”, but warned that EU nations are “facing several challenges”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
France to Toughen Immigration Laws After Mayors Say Towns Cannot Cope
EMMANUEL Macron is set to toughen France’s immigration policy in a bill to be debated next year as mayors across the country say they are overwhelmed by numbers and dubbed the crisis “a social emergency”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
French Mayors Panic as Migrants Overwhelm Cities, Beg Macron for Help
Mayors from seven major French cities overwhelmed by the flow of migrants, have written a joint letter to Paris published in LeMonde on Saturday, begging the government to step in and help.
According to the letter, the cities of Lille, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Grenoble, Rennes, Toulousa and Nantes are taking in “several thousand” refugees per month, which the mayors say is causing a social emergency as they are “backed up against a wall” and “completely saturated” by a seemingly endless flood of asylum seekers.
The year 2017 ends with a massive rise in the demand for asylum and the arrival of newcomers puts extreme tension — particularly with the onset of the cold wave — of the classic public and institutional policies. In a proportion never before known, the mechanisms allocated to housing asylum seekers, led by the State, often with the support of our communities, are indeed completely saturated, despite the steady increase the number of places … The evidence is there, before our eyes, in our streets, in homes and shelters: there is urgency.
Every month, several thousand people arrive in our cities. Integrating those recognized as refugees and helping those who have lost their right of asylum who still remain in our territory is a major issue. —Le Monde (translated)
The mayors point to a lack of shelters, and call on Paris to establish a “solidarity network” between the cities of France dedicated to addressing the flow of migrants, as well as an “enlarged meeting with the state at the highest level,” which the mayors say must act quickly by assuming its sovereign powers to “finance these developed actions and propose a clarified framework of work with the communities for a real plan of reception of the migrants.”
In other words — Paris needs to step up and dedicate more money and housing towards the migrant crisis.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
University Teaches White Employees How to Overcome the ‘Discomfort’ of Being White
A two-day professional development conference held recently at the University of Michigan included a training session that aimed to help white employees deal with their “whiteness” so they could become better equipped to fight for social justice causes, according to organizers.
Participants who took part in the “Conversations on Whiteness” session, held December 5 during the university’s Student Life Professional Development Conference, were taught to “recognize the difficulties they face when talking about social justice issues related to their White identity, explore this discomfort, and devise ways to work through it,” the university’s website states.
The goal was to help participants in “unpacking Whiteness” to support students and staff with issues and efforts “related to identity and social justice,” the website added.
The “Conversations on Whiteness” session was one of more than a dozen workshops offered at the conference, held Dec. 4 and 5. The whiteness session utilized the “Privileged Identity Exploration Model” to help white participants explore the “discomfort” of their “white identity,” according to organizers.
[Comment: more incessant racist guilt trip propaganda foisted on whites. ]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Substitute teacher loses job for telling kids that Santa doesn’t exist
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/19/parents-students-heartbroken-substitute-teacher-tells-third-graders-santa-elves-not-real/
Are the mood, temperament and specific function controls located ergonomically?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5194967/Sex-robot-convention-axed-uni-terror-fears.html
Is the unit athletic enough for use upon a trampoline or trapeze?
What I see here is a recipe for mass polygamy.
And where are the guy-bots? If I make mine enlist, do I get the GI Bill?
If you get a few for your kids, is there parental control?
I’m getting old. I’d [ almost ] prefer that I could see how it comes out from the Afterlife.