Gates of Vienna News Feed 1/26/2018

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy moved to block any comeback by former Catalonian President Carles Puigdemont, who is in exile in Belgium after Catalan separatists won last year’s “illegal” referendum in Catalonia. Meanwhile, the secessionist parties in Catalonia denounced what they called a “coup” by the Spanish government.

In other news, the European Commission says that the migrant quotas decreed by Brussels represent core European values, and may not be refused by EU member states.

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

Thanks to Caroline Glick, Charles Low, FB, Insubria, Reader from Chicago, Srdja Trifkovic, Vlad Tepes, 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.

Financial Crisis
» Italy: Notable Monetary Stimulus Still Needed — Draghi
 
USA
» Firefighter Shot at 30 Times in Oakland After Wrong Turn
» Neocon Security Strategy
 
Canada
» Has the Mysterious Voynich Manuscript Finally Been Cracked?
 
Europe and the EU
» Catalan Seccessionists Denounce Madrid ‘Coup’
» Czech Election: Milos Zeman Warns EU and Threatens Own Referendum
» Czech Election Run-Off 2018 Pits Populist Milos Zeman Against Jiri Drahos
» Czechia: MfD: Former Prague Imam, His Relatives Accused of Terrorism
» EU Rice Farmers Urge to Reduce Import From Some Countries
» Finland’s Marine Le Pen
» Germany: Forbidden Love: Taboos and Fear Among Muslim Girls
» Italy Heading for Record 8 Mn Flu Cases
» Italy: Parisi Centre-Right Governor Candidate in Lazio
» Italy: Egyptian Father and Son Arrested for Terrorism Links
» Spain Bids to Block Puigdemont’s Return as Catalonia President
» Swiss Couple Given All-Clear After Contact With Rabid Bat
» UK: Rough Sleeping Reaches Record Level While ‘Refugees Welcome’
» ‘We Reclaimed What Was Taken From my Jewish Grandparents — German Citizenship’
» WikiLeaks Founder Asks London Court to Drop UK Arrest Warrant
 
North Africa
» Cambridge Now on Right Track in Regeni Case — Envoy
 
Israel and the Palestinians
» Caroline Glick: Pence and Pew: Present and Future
» Jerusalem Off Table? US Off Too, Palestinians Reply
 
Middle East
» Syria: Turkey Denies US Version of Trump-Erdogan Call
 
South Asia
» Davos: Indian Prime Minister Says Attack on Globalism Must be Stopped
 
Immigration
» Austria: Plainclothes Police Officers Severely Beaten by Drug Dealing Migrants
» Commission: Mass Third World Migration Central to EU Values, Refusing Quotas ‘Unacceptable’
» Denmark to Update Visa Rules for Foreign Professionals: Ministry
» Italy: Migrant Centre Near Venice Searched
» Italy: Ageing Europe Needs Migrants — Gentiloni
» Police: Foreigners Vastly Over-Represented in Sex Crimes in Finland
 

Italy: Notable Monetary Stimulus Still Needed — Draghi

Eurozone growth robust, euro creating uncertainty

(ANSA) — Rome, January 25 — “Notable” monetary stimulus is still needed in the eurozone, European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said Thursday.

Draghi also said eurozone growth was robust and the euro’s volatility was creating uncertainty.

Draghi also said inflation will remain at or about current levels.

He also urged member countries to step up efforts to implement structural reforms.

In other remarks, Draghi said quantitative easing (QE) did not favour any country in particular and that “growth is going well but it’s too soon to sing victory”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Firefighter Shot at 30 Times in Oakland After Wrong Turn

OAKLAND, Calif. (KTVU)- One wrong turn almost cost a Bay Area firefighter his life as someone opened up an excessive amount of gunfire on him in East Oakland Wednesday night.

“I felt the whole car shaking and I was like ‘Wow, I might die tonight,’“ said Joseph Echema.

He says he was talking on his cell phone and drove down the wrong street before pulling over in the 2000 block of 102nd Avenue in East Oakland. He turned off his car and then felt as he was under attack.

“I didn’t think I was going to make it out. I never felt anything like that in my life,” said Echema.

He says roughly 30 shots were fired, with about 18 bullets hitting his car.

“I heard so many rounds going off and the power of the bullets that were hitting my car. I just thought it was going to be relentless and I wasn’t going to make it out,” said Echema.

Bullet holes can be seen from every angle of the car. Echema believes the bullet that shattered his back window traveled through the car and hit the front window. Luckily, he was laying down. When the gunfire stopped he decided to make a run for it.

“I saw him there and it looked like he was trying to reload or do something. But he wasn’t running away so I thought round two was coming,” said Echema.

That’s when he turned on his car and drove a little more than a half a mile away to a fire station on 98th Avenue. First responders treated him for a bullet graze…

           — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes [Return to headlines]
 

Neocon Security Strategy

by Srdja Trifkovic

Devising a great power’s national-security strategy is serious business. When external challenges are properly evaluated, tasks prioritized, and resources allocated, the results can be impressive. The Roman Empire from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius (a.d. 96-180) provides one example; Britain from Napoleon to the Great War another. The rise of Prussia and unification of Germany during Otto von Bismarck’s tenure (1862-90) was based on his masterly assessment of the international environment and successful interlacing of political, economic, and military capabilities—the essence of strategy.

The 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act—which mandated that the White House produce an annual report to Congress on the U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS)—was based on sound thinking. The report was supposed to assess America’s “worldwide interests, goals, and objectives”; to outline “proposed short-term and long-term uses of the political, economic, military, and other elements of the national power”; and to assess the resources and capabilities required to implement that strategy.

Over the years, however, the NSS has degenerated into an ad hoc wish list laced with lofty rhetoric and mostly devoid of the key elements of strategic reasoning. President Donald Trump’s first NSS, which he presented on December 18, is no exception to this rule. It opens with the boast that “[t]he whole world is lifted by America’s renewal and the reemergence of American leadership,” which is simply incorrect. In general the 68-page document fails to relate its four ambitious “pillars” (“protecting the American people and preserving our way of life, promoting our prosperity, preserving peace through strength, and advancing American influence in the world”) to actual ways and means. In addition, it fails to prioritize goals and grade threats by magnitude…

           — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic [Return to headlines]
 

Has the Mysterious Voynich Manuscript Finally Been Cracked?

Mysterious text from the Voynich codex, a brightly illustrated ancient manuscript, may finally have been deciphered, according to a new study from computer scientists in Canada.

For decades codebreakers have poured over the 240-page relict, from which pages have been carbon dated back to the early 1400s. It has been suggested that the manuscript, which is housed at the Beinecke Library at Yale University and contains brightly colored images of plants and an unknown language, is a medieval medical journal for women.

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

Catalan Seccessionists Denounce Madrid ‘Coup’

Puigdemont’s group denounces Constitutional Court appeal

(ANSAmed) — MADRID, JANUARY 25 — The group backing former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont in the Barcelona parliament on Thursday accused Madrid of preparing “a coup d’état” and of wanting to “comandeer the will of the Catalan people”. The accusations came after Spanish deputy premier Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said the Premier Mariano Rajoy had asked the Council of State to give its opinion on an appeal to be lodged with the Constitutional Court on Friday against the decision of the Catalan parliamentary speaker Roger Torrent to present Puigdemont for investiture. The appeal should have the effect of preventing Puigdemont’s candidature from being presented.

The former president, who is currently on self-imposed exile in Belgium and faces arrest in Spain, has the backing of the absolute majority. However, Madrid claims his name cannot be put forward, despite the victory of the pro-independence front in elections on December 21. JxCat party whip Eduard Pujol has slammed “the threats” and “arbitrariness” of the central government and said Puigdemont’s candidature “will not be withdrawn”. “These are serious hours,” he said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Czech Election: Milos Zeman Warns EU and Threatens Own Referendum

Milos Zeman, the incumbent head of state, made the comments during a TV debate with his political rival, pro-EU challenger Jiri Drahos, as they battle a closely contested election-run off.

The decision made by nearly 8.4million Czechs could result in a drastic change for the politics of the country and even its future membership of the EU.

Mr Zeman said Czech citizens should have a direct say on political issues and that he is not opposed to a referendum on EU membership.

The 73-year-old said: “Brexit is a decision that must be respected”

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

Czech Election Run-Off 2018 Pits Populist Milos Zeman Against Jiri Drahos

Many see the vote as a referendum on Mr Zeman, 73, a former centre-left prime minister who has veered sharply to the right and sought closer relations with Russia and China.

His brash style has divided the Czech Republic and ruffled feathers in Brussels — as well as leading calls against accepting migrants from mainly Muslim countries he also demanded the removal of EU sanctions imposed over Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea.

In a final poll released on Monday, Mr Drahos led with 47 percent to 43 percent for Mr Zeman, while 10 percent remained undecided. But Mr Zeman is the bookies’ favourite for victory.

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

Czechia: MfD: Former Prague Imam, His Relatives Accused of Terrorism

Prague, Jan 23 (CTK) — The Czech police have accused former Prague imam Samer Shehadeh, his brother Omar Shehadeh and the brother’s wife Fatima (formerly Kristyna Hudkova) of terrorism and the latter two of joining a terrorist group fighting in Syria, daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) wrote on Tuesday.

All the three suspects are Czech citizens, the two men are of Palestinian origin. They have been prosecuted as fugitives, the paper writes, citing the Czech National Centre for Organised Crime (NCOZ).

The former imam helped his brother and the brother’s wife travel abroad, join a terrorist group in Syria and he approved their actions, MfD writes.

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

EU Rice Farmers Urge to Reduce Import From Some Countries

Origin labeling among the proposals to be examined

(ANSA) — BRUSSELS, JAN 23- Rice farmers from all over Europe (Italy, France, Greece, Spain, Bulgaria, Romania, Portugal and Hungary) have reiterated their request to activate the safeguard clause in order to reduce imports of duty free rice from some least developed countries such as Cambodia and consider rice as a ‘sensitive’ good in trade negotiations. The farmers met in Brussels at the 2nd forum of the European rice sector. In addition to these aspects, the chairman of their organization, Paolo Carrà, underlined “the need to discuss other proposals, such as the country-of-origin labeling, the request for extraordinary EU measures and funds dedicated to this sector”. “The quantities in stock and imports from countries that are not a benchmark in terms of respect of basic human rights are putting unbearable pressure on prices — the president of European rice farmers Bertrand Mazel — therefore, we must have a more offensive attitude to protect the sector”.

The meeting was attended by representatives of the ministries of the French, Spanish and Italian farmers and MEPs, such as Paolo De Castro, Tiziana Beghin, Salvatore Cicu, Alberto Cirio, Angelo Ciocca, and the assistants of Lara Comi and Mara Bizzotto.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Finland’s Marine Le Pen

HELSINKI — Of the eight contenders to be Finland’s next president, none stand out quite like Laura Huhtasaari.

The candidate of the far-right Finns Party is an outlier in both style and substance. She won’t win Sunday’s presidential election but she’s using her time in the spotlight to push her party’s anti-immigrant, anti-establishment message.

She hates the European Union, cheered Brexit and supports Donald Trump — and believes Finland is more than ready for her brand of populism.

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

Germany: Forbidden Love: Taboos and Fear Among Muslim Girls

Young Muslim women are often forced to lead double lives in Europe. They have sex in public restrooms and stuff mobile phones in their bras to hide their secret existences from strict families. They are often forbidden from visiting gynecologists or receiving sex ed. In the worst cases, they undergo hymen reconstruction surgery, have late-term abortions or even commit suicide.

Gülay has heard it from her mother so many times: An unmarried woman who has lost her virginity might as well be a whore.

Gülay, 22, lives in Berlin’s Neukölln, a district that is home to a high number of Muslim immigrants, and has little in common with the cliché of the “girl with the headscarf.” She wears tight jeans, low-cut blouses and has long hair that she doesn’t keep covered. She is self-confident and looks people in the eye. Gülay plans to begin a training program to work as an airport ground hostess next year. At first glance, she comes across as a poster child for successful integration.

Nevertheless, she is adamantly opposed to seeing her name in print, just as she would never meet a journalist for an interview in one of the hookah bars in her neighborhood that are so popular among Arab and Turkish immigrants. She is worried that someone could overhear her talking about her family’s strict morals, and about the rigid code of honor in her social environment that prevents girls from having sex before marriage and forbids them from having boyfriends.

Gülay is thinking about how best to sum up her dilemma. She nervously stirs her tea before launching into a litany of complaints. “The boys can screw around as much as they want, but if a girl does it she can expect to be shot,” she says. “That’s just sick.” She first had sex five years ago, and it completely changed her life. Since then, she has been deathly afraid of being branded by her family as a dishonorable girl — or, worst yet, punished and cast out…

           — Hat tip: FB [Return to headlines]
 

Italy Heading for Record 8 Mn Flu Cases

Top virologist tells ANSA

(ANSA) — Rome, January 25 — Italy is having a record flu season and there will have been 7.5-8 million cases by the end of this year’s epidemic, virologist Fabrizio Pregliasco told ANSA Thursday. “Considering that now there are already around five million Italians hit by flu viruses, we can estimate that at the end of the season the total cases will arrive at 7.5-8 million,” said Pregliasco, a researcher at Milan university and health director of the IRCCS Galeazzi Institute.

He said that this total would be the highest in at least nine years.

“The season is comparable in its virulence only to 2004-5 and the pandemic year of 2009,” he said.

Italy’s flu epidemic has peaked at over 4.7 million cases so far, the Higher Health Institute’s (ISS) Influnet service said earlier Thursday. The number of cases was now gradually declining, Influnet said. In the third week of the year there were 794,000 new cases for a total, since the epidemic started being watched, of 4,728,000 Italians who were confined to their beds by the epidemic.

The incidence is still at a ‘high intensity’ level of 13.1 per 1,000 but lower than the previous week, when it was 14.5, Influnet said.

The ISS said that since it began monitoring the epidemic in September 64 people had died of the flu.

It added there had been seven serious cases among pregnant women.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Parisi Centre-Right Governor Candidate in Lazio

Businessman leader of Energies for Italy accepts

(ANSA) — Rome, January 25 — Businessman Stefano Parisi said Thursday he had agreed to be the centre right’s governor candidate in Lazio on March 4. “Today I received the invitation form the centre-right leaders to candidate myself as governor of the Lazio region,” he said. “We decided to accept because we are a new party, built in just a year of work and we must consolidate our presence in the whole of Italy,” he said, referring to his small centrist political grouping Energies for Italy (EPI).

“We have a long-term project,” he said.

Parisi said his decision meant there would be no EPI lists at the general election, also on March 4.

Parisi’s main rivals on March 4 will be incumbent Nicola Zingaretti for the centre left and Roberta Lombardi for the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Egyptian Father and Son Arrested for Terrorism Links

Moroccan wife/mother deported for public security

(ANSA) — Milan, January 26 — The anti-terrorism and organized crime sections of the Milan and Como police on Friday arrested an Egyptian father, 51, and his son, 23, for alleged links to terrorist groups. The two were residents in the Como province. The interior ministry measure has led to the deportation of the men’s wife/mother, a 45-year-old woman from Morocco, for public security reasons.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Spain Bids to Block Puigdemont’s Return as Catalonia President

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has asked the Constitutional Tribunal (TC) to block the comeback of ousted Catalonian President Carles Puigdemont, exiled in Brussels since last year’s “unconstitutional” independence referendum.

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

Swiss Couple Given All-Clear After Contact With Rabid Bat

The Swiss health authorities say a Swiss couple who had contact with a rabid bat during a trip to Florida are free of rabies.

           — Hat tip: Charles Low [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Rough Sleeping Reaches Record Level While ‘Refugees Welcome’

Rough sleeping has soared to record levels, with nearly 5,000 people — including a large number of veterans — estimated sleeping rough last year in England, while local authorities rolled out the red carpet for refugees.

Local authorities recorded 4,751 people bedded down outside in a single night in autumn, marking a 15 per cent increase on the figure for 2016, according to the latest government figures.

The rise to autumn 2017 is the seventh consecutive increase in rough sleeping, with the number of people affected having more than doubled since comparative records began in 2010.

With 217 people sleeping rough, Westminster was the worst affected by the phenomena, while in second place with 178 rough sleepers recorded was Brighton and Hove, which styles itself a “city of sanctuary” for illegal immigrants and asylum seekers.

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

‘We Reclaimed What Was Taken From my Jewish Grandparents — German Citizenship’

In early 1939, Renata Rowe’s grandparents and father arrived in Australia ‘stateless’, after escaping the anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany. Over 75 years later, Rowe decided to reclaim her heritage by becoming a German citizen.

           — Hat tip: Charles Low [Return to headlines]
 

WikiLeaks Founder Asks London Court to Drop UK Arrest Warrant

British prosecutors say there is a hypothetical chance Wikileaks founder Julian Assange could soon walk free from the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Mr Assange’s lawyers have asked a London court to drop the arrest warrant that stems from his breach of bail conditions, as he steps up efforts to leave the embassy after five and a half years.

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

Cambridge Now on Right Track in Regeni Case — Envoy

After ‘havering’ by tutor

(ANSA) — London, January 25 — The investigation into the Cairo torture and murder of Giulio Regeni has come onto “the right track as far as the British side is concerned” after initial “havering” by his former tutor Maha Abdelrahman, Italian Ambassador to the UK Paquale Terracciano told ANSA Thursday.

Delays in the UK side of the probe “were not due to the London authorities nor to Cambridge University per se, but to an individual lecturer, Regeni’s tutor, who had a havering and contradictory attitude,” Terracciano said.

This has now been put right and Abdelrahman has handed over her computer and database in a “rather invasive step”, the ambassador said. Abdelrahman, who has been accused of putting Regeni in harm’s way with a PhD subject that was too politically sensitive, Egyptian trade unions, recently stressed that the 28-year-old Friuili-born researcher had “freely chosen” his doctoral subject.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Caroline Glick: Pence and Pew: Present and Future

Vice President Mike Pence gave an epic speech at the Knesset this week. His was the most powerful embrace of Zionism and the Jewish people any foreign leader has ever presented. Pence’s fluency in Jewish history, and his comprehension of the centrality of the both the Bible and the Land of Israel in the vast flow of that history in far-flung-exile communities across time and space was spellbinding. He touched the hearts of his audience, causing knots in the throats of most of the people sitting in the Knesset on Monday afternoon.

Pence’s speech was rendered poignant and the friendship he bore became tinged with urgency with the publication, the very next day, of the latest Pew Center survey on American views of Israel.

Speaking in the name of the American people he represents, Pence said on Monday: “The friendship between our people has never been deeper.”

And when it comes to the Republican voters who elected President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence a year and two months ago, Pence is certainly correct. But the Pew data showed that on Israel, as on so many other issues, the cleavage between Republicans and Democrats is vast and unbridgeable…

           — Hat tip: Caroline Glick [Return to headlines]
 

Jerusalem Off Table? US Off Too, Palestinians Reply

Ready for talks but with East Jerusalem as capital

(ANSAmed) — TEL AVIV, JANUARY 25 — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeinah has described as “unacceptable” the comments made by US President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday.

“If the issue of Jerusalem remains off the table, America will remain away from the table,” he said. Palestinians are “ready to engage in negotiations” for a peace process “based on a Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as the capital”. Trump “should withdraw” his recent controversial decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, Rudeinah added.

“The threat of the policy of hunger and submission will not work with the Palestinian people,” he concluded in reference to the US threat to withhold aid unless the Palestinians return to the negotiating table.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Syria: Turkey Denies US Version of Trump-Erdogan Call

‘American president did not express concern’

(ANSAmed) — ISTANBUL, JANUARY 25 — A phone call between Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdogan is fueling tension between the United States and Turkey.

A few hours after the call Wednesday between the two presidents, which focused on the military operation launched Saturday by Ankara against the Kurdish-Syrian enclave of Afrin controlled by US-backed YPG militia, Turkish diplomatic sources said a White House statement on the phone call did not accurately reflect the conversation. According to Ankara, the call was just an “exchange of point of views” between the two leaders on Turkey’s ‘Olive Branch’ operation, while “President Trump did not express any concern regarding an escalation of violence” connected to the operation, contrary to a version of Trump’s statements released by the White House. Turkey also said that Trump did not talk about a “destructive and false” rhetoric coming from Turkey, as claimed by the White House.

Ankara also denied that the conversation mentioned a state of emergency implemented after the failed coup that has been in place in Turkey for over a year and a half.

Both sides confirmed that the two leaders discussed the consequences of a possible expansion towards the East of Turkish intervention in Syria, towards the Manbij region, where special US forces are present to cooperate with Kurdish militia.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Davos: Indian Prime Minister Says Attack on Globalism Must be Stopped

Giving the opening speech at the World Economic Forum’s Davos summit Tuesday, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi told global elites that opposition to globalist policies is one of the world’s foremost threats.

“Forces of protectionism are raising their heads against globalisation, their intention is not only to avoid globalisation themselves but they also want to reverse its natural flow,” said the Indian leader, lamenting that the creation of globalist trade deals “had come to a kind of standstill”.

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

Austria: Plainclothes Police Officers Severely Beaten by Drug Dealing Migrants

Three Austrian plainclothes police officers were injured after they attempted to arrest two teenage Afghan asylum seekers who tried to sell them drugs.

The incident took place in the Prater area of Vienna’s Leopoldstadt district which contains one of the city’s main train stations and has become a hub for drug dealing and violence, often involving migrants. The officers were offered drugs by the Afghans and when they attempted to arrest the 16— and 19-year-old, they were met with heavy resistance Kronen Zeitung reports.

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

Commission: Mass Third World Migration Central to EU Values, Refusing Quotas ‘Unacceptable’

Refusing refugee quotas is “unacceptable”, Brussels has said, stating that migration from Africa and the Middle East is “directly linked” to values on which the European Union (EU) was built.

Migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said asylum seekers arriving in Europe must be shared out across the bloc, and dismissed the idea that nations opposed to compulsory quotas could show “solidarity” with financial contributions and means other than resettling third world migrants within their borders.

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

Denmark to Update Visa Rules for Foreign Professionals: Ministry

The Danish government will introduce rules providing more flexibility for skilled foreign professionals to take on extra work outside of their primary employment, the Ministry of Immigration and Integration has announced.

           — Hat tip: Charles Low [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Migrant Centre Near Venice Searched

Fraud probe

(ANSA) — Venice, January 25 — Italian financial police on Thursday searched a migrant reception centre at Conetta near Venice as well as the offices of the cooperative that runs it and other firms linked to it. Prosecutors are probing suspected conspiracy to commit fraud in public supplies. Two officials at the Venice prefecture also had their offices searched on suspicion of breaching judicial secrecy.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Ageing Europe Needs Migrants — Gentiloni

We need safe migrant flows

(ANSA) — Rome, January 25 — An ageing Europe needs migrants, Premier Paolo Gentiloni said Thursday. “Italy is proud of the results of its migrant-emergency management,” the premier said, saying “we saved Europe’s honour and showed how to move from flows managed by criminals to safe flows. He said “there is a need for this type of migration, which does not imperil human lives, on the part of a Europe that is getting older and which we want to defend, both culturally and economically”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Police: Foreigners Vastly Over-Represented in Sex Crimes in Finland

Newly released statistics from the Finnish Police University College show that foreigners account for as many as 37 per cent of suspects in sexual offence cases in metropolitan areas despite making up only 10 percent of the population.

Police also noted that a third of all the foreigners who were suspected of committing sexual offences in major cities were Iraqis, Finnish national broadcaster Yleisradio Oy reports.

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

10 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 1/26/2018

  1. I see a gibbet in the future of migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos. Hanging is too good for such traitors. That revolting Greek toad will feed a lot of crows.

  2. Three plainclothes police officers beaten and injured by two teenagers…what is there more to say?

  3. Mr. Zeman was just re-elected president for the next five years! It was tight as anything, but luckily common sense still prevailed in the Heart of Europe.

  4. Wow! WHAT a treat: just found that Netflix ‘Confession Tapes’ Season1, Episode 1, is about 1993 ferociously savage murder of a moderate Islamic doctor, his wife and daughter by the long forgotten fanatic Saudi funded Wahhabi Fuqu’a group who also murdered three members of a D.C. family before that. An FBI informer went to the Bellingham Washington police who thought the idea of Islamic motive ‘ridiculous’ and then proceeded to coerce the son of the family and a friend into false confessions. The father, it seems, was a brilliant engineer who figured out that ALL the mosques in America were a degree off from facing Mecca. His wife’s bloody body was carefully aligned to face exactly toward Mecca. It is two episodes but opens up a whole shocking pre 9/11 horror story about the Wahhabi takeover of American Islam.

  5. That firefighter was lucky. I grew up in East Oakland. Oakland is a great city to be FROM.

    • I lived there during the 70s and in the Bay Area in general. The unholy trinity of cities is thusly named, San Francircus, Oinkland, and Berzerk-Lee

    • The firefighters should just stay out of those dangerous areas and leave the natives to their own devices. Eventually the problem will solve itself.

  6. BTW, what about those 50 baboons who escaped the Paris zoo and are hiding out with the immigrants?
    moder8r!

Comments are closed.