Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/2/2018

Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands, announced that he will be traveling to London next week to take part in a demonstration in support of Tommy Robinson. It will be interesting to see whether Home Secretary Sajid Javid allows Mr. Wilders to enter the UK.

In other news, 150 migrants landed in Sicily ahead of Matteo Salvini’s first visit to the island in his capacity as interior minister. There’s no word yet on whether those 150 culture-enrichers will be among the half million that Mr. Salvini has promised to deport.

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

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Dean, Insubria, 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.

Financial Crisis
» Angela Merkel Refuses Italy Debt Write-Off Amid Fears Government Could Destroy Eurozone
» Sales Have Fallen for 26 Quarters in a Row and More Stores Are Closing — Is This the End of the Line for Sears?
» Turkey Says ‘Addressing Economy Concerns’ After Moody’s Threat
 
USA
» U.S. School Kids Told to Declare Submission to Allah
» White House Planning Summit Between Trump and Putin
 
Canada
» Conrad Black: Why Doug Ford Must be the Next Premier of Ontario
 
Europe and the EU
» British ‘Justice’: Poppycock
» Catalan President Calls for Talks With Spain’s New PM
» Children Are “Our Greatest Treasure” And “Our Hope for the Future”: Polish First Lady
» Christian Celebrations in German Town Cancelled Because Armed Guards and Trucks to Block Streets Were Needed
» England: Cambridge Gets a ‘Golden Dome Mosque’ As 3rd World Colonization Escalates
» EU Breaking Point: Italy, Spain and Trade Tariffs Leave Crisis-Hit Europe ‘Unravelling’
» Geert Wilders: I Am Coming to London to Protest for Tommy Robinson
» Geert Wilders: I Will be Coming to Protest in London, Free ‘Hero’ Tommy Robinson Now!
» German Educrats Send Police to I.D. And Fine Families Leaving School Early
» Italy: Record Rainfall for Turin in May
» Italy Sends a Jolt Through Europe
» Italy: Storm Over Juncker ‘Lazy and Corrupt’ Comments
» Italy: Conte’s 5-Star/League Govt Takes Over
» Italy: Verhoeven to Shoot Renaissance Lesbian Nun Pic in Tuscany
» Italy Needs to Work Harder, Be Less Corrupt: Juncker
» Italy’s New PM Starts Work With Republic Day Parade
» Juncker Calls on Germans to Respect New Italy Govt
» Latvia Rejects EU’s Post-Brexit Budget Proposal
» Stand up to Germany! MP Says Stop Merkel or Face a ‘United States of Europe’
» Stop ‘Bashing’ Trump, Hungary Warns EU
» UK: A New Drive for Islamic Blasphemy Laws?
» UK: Butchers ‘Living in Fear’ As Vegan Attacks on the Rise, Says Countryside Alliance
» UK: Third Man Arrested After Car Ploughed Into Pedestrians in Manchester
» UK: Two Police Officers in ‘Serious Condition’ After Alleged Knife Attack
 
Balkans
» FCA: Serbia, Premier Confident on the Kragujevac Plant
 
Middle East
» Saudi Warns of Military Action if Qatar Gets Russian Missiles: Report
 
Far East
» The Rise of Mass Knife Attacks Shows the Problem Isn’t Guns. It’s People.
» Trump’s Trying to Figure Out How to Cover Kim Jong un’s Hotel Bill in Singapore: Report
 
Australia — Pacific
» Horrifying Moment Man Throws Wild Punches at a Fellow Commuter on a Packed Sydney Bus Because ‘He Was Speaking Too Loudly on His Phone’
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» South Africa: Whites Chased From Shopping Mall by EFF Thugs, Centurion
 
Latin America
» Assange: Living in Limbo
 
Immigration
» Arabic Becomes Sweden’s Second Most Common Language After Migrant Influx
» Asylum Scandal Jolts Germany, Unsettling Merkel’s Government
» Australia: Refugee Mother, 55, Sues Woolworths for $1.3million ‘Because She Slipped on a Shallot While Distracted by a Promotion for a Constipation Aid’
» German Asylum Scandal: Bribery Charges Are ‘Nonsense, ‘ Says Lawyer
» German Police Chief: Feeling of Security Collapsing Due to Mass Migration
» Immigrants Arrive in Sicily Ahead of Salvini Visit
» Truckers Warn of Migrant ‘Normandy Invasion’ After Illegals Abandon Calais
» UK: Fake ‘Child Refugee’ Gets Weak Sentence for Violent Rape of 14-Year-Old Schoolgirl
 
Culture Wars
» Athens’ Same-Sex History Evoked Ahead of Pride
» UK: We Should Applaud the End of the Nuclear Family, Says Top Judge
 

Angela Merkel Refuses Italy Debt Write-Off Amid Fears Government Could Destroy Eurozone

ANGELA Merkel has dismissed calls to write-off a swathe of Italian debt, amid fears the country’s new government could sink the eurozone with its wild spending pledges.

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

Sales Have Fallen for 26 Quarters in a Row and More Stores Are Closing — Is This the End of the Line for Sears?

When sales have declined for 26 quarters in a row, you have got to know that your days are numbered. Once upon a time, Sears was an unbeatable retail powerhouse. It survived two world wars and the Great Depression, but thanks to competition from Amazon and other online retailers it may not even survive 2018. On Thursday, shares of Sears fell to a depressingly low level of just $2.91 once news broke that the company was going to close dozens of more stores. But to be fair, Sears doesn’ t have a choice. If you can believe it, Sears lost an astounding 424 million dollars during the first three months of 2018. Frankly, I don’ t even know how that is possible. If all their employees did all day was flush one dollar bills down the toilet, I still don’ t think that they could lose that kind of money. This is a company that is being horrendously mismanaged, and as I have said so many times before, Sears is ultimately heading to zero.

Company revenue was down 30 percent during the first quarter of 2018 compared to a year ago, and store closings accounted for about two-thirds of that decline.

But same-store sales were way down too — 11.9 percent — and that means that more stores have to close.

[Comment: This is so ineptly managed that to do this you would have to make mistakes EVERY time…not possible… not even accidentlaly a right move once in a while?… starting to suspect that SEARS is intentionally being destroyed. Another plank in the assault on the American economy by globalists. ]

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Turkey Says ‘Addressing Economy Concerns’ After Moody’s Threat

ISTANBUL (AFP) — Turkey on Saturday said it was addressing the concerns of financial markets about the economy after Moody’s threatened a further downgrade of the rating on the ability of the government to pay back its debts.

Moody’s, which had already downgraded Turkey’s ratings to Ba2 in March, said it was placing the assessment on review for a possible new downgrade due to uncertainty about the future direction of economic policy.

Turkey is in the throes of a campaign for June 24 elections where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking a new mandate and a thumping parliamentary majority…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

U.S. School Kids Told to Declare Submission to Allah

Twelve and 13-year-old students in West Virginia were ordered by a government school teacher to declare their submission to Allah, the Islamic God, as part of the Muslim declaration of faith known as the shahada. The assignment sparked outrage among parents, and comes amid similar scandals nationwide.

The controversial exercise called for students in 7th grade social studies to write out the words of Islamic conversion in Arabic calligraphy. It was reportedly part of a packet on “world religion” that was sent home with students.

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

White House Planning Summit Between Trump and Putin

Almost two years after Trump’s shocking election, which supposedly only happened because a troll farm of a few dozen pimply Russian teenagers in St. Petersburg brainwashed America’s middle class into voting against Hillary Clinton, Trump and his alleged puppetmaster, Vladimir Putin, have yet to hold a formal summit, even as Trump prepares to sit down in ten days with America’s sworn enemy, North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un, in what is set to be a historic meeting. But that may be about to change because according to the WSJ, the White House is planning for a potential summit between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, “a meeting that would bring to the international stage one of the world’s most enigmatic political relationships.”

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

Conrad Black: Why Doug Ford Must be the Next Premier of Ontario

Ontario’s long-awaited election day is finally almost upon us. There is a unanimous view that the Liberals are finally going to be thrown out, bag and baggage, after four catastrophic terms, when the province was mortgaged to hare-brained alarm about climatology and electricity-generating facilities were shut down and solar energy and other nostrums subsidized as the province piled up bone-crushing deficits and manufacturers were effectively encouraged to pack up their cards and leave. Over 300,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in southwestern Ontario as electricity costs skyrocketed for all Ontario residents. Only the ineptitude of successive Progressive Conservative campaigns and a formidable Liberal display of electoral skullduggery and chicanery, some of it master-minded by Obama tactician David Axelrod, has kept the regime in office until now. One of the province’s former premiers, when I encountered him socially a couple of weeks ago, declined to predict the outcome but said “I know a tsunami when I see one.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

British ‘Justice’: Poppycock

Instead of arresting rapists, the police, in at least a couple of cases, actually arrested people who had done nothing other than to try to rescue their children from the clutches of rapists.

So much concern — legitimately so — about the sacred right of the rapists to a fair trial, including the presumption of innocence and an opportunity to retain the lawyers of their choice — but so much readiness to excuse the denial of the same right to Robinson.

These decades of cover-ups by British officials are themselves unspeakable crimes. How many of those who knew, but who did nothing, have faced anything remotely resembling justice? Apparently none.

As any viewer of British TV news knows, a “trained professional journalist” in Britain observes all kinds of rules of professional conduct: he calls Muslims “Asians,” he describes any critic of Islam, or anyone who attends a rally protesting the unjust incarceration of a critic of Islam, as a member of the “far right,” and he identifies far-left smear machines as “anti-racist groups.”

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

Catalan President Calls for Talks With Spain’s New PM

Catalonia’s separatist president Quim Torra called on Saturday for talks with Spain’s new prime minister as the Catalan regional executive was sworn in at an emotional ceremony full of pro-independence symbolism.

The swearing-in will automatically bring an end to Madrid’s direct rule over the wealthy, northeastern region imposed in October after a failed bid to break from Spain.

“Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, let’s talk, let’s address this issue, let’s take risks, you and us,” Torra said, just minutes after Sanchez himself was sworn in in Madrid.

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

Children Are “Our Greatest Treasure” And “Our Hope for the Future”: Polish First Lady

Children are “our greatest treasure” and “our hope for the future,” Poland’s First Lady said on Friday as the country observed Children’s Day.

Agata Kornhauser-Duda, a teacher by professional background, was speaking in the eastern town of Biala Podlaska where she was taking part in a Children’s Day event together with President Andrzej Duda.

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

Christian Celebrations in German Town Cancelled Because Armed Guards and Trucks to Block Streets Were Needed

Corpus Christi celebrations were cancelled in the German town of Bergkamen due to high security requirements, local newspaper WA reports.

While in other Catholic communities in the region Corpus Christi processions moved through the towns, the streets of Bergkamen were empty.

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

England: Cambridge Gets a ‘Golden Dome Mosque’ As 3rd World Colonization Escalates

The famous and historical university city of Cambridge, England, has unveiled a huge $22 million golden domed mosque as the Third World colonization of that country proceeds apace, with the government’s Office for National Statistics predicting that a further 5.2 million “immigrants” will settle in the UK in the next ten years.

According to a report in the Cambridge News newspaper, the new Cambridge mosque’s golden dome cost £17 million ($22 million) and is being funded by Muslims all around the world through an internet-based crowdfunding website.

The “golden dome” is now in place, the Cambridge News gushed, adding that although the dome was now up, “a crescent is still to be put in place.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

EU Breaking Point: Italy, Spain and Trade Tariffs Leave Crisis-Hit Europe ‘Unravelling’

THE European Union is facing a breaking point, according to a leading reporter from the AP, who listed off a series of crises that could trigger the disintegration of the member-state bloc.

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

Geert Wilders: I Am Coming to London to Protest for Tommy Robinson

The media gag order has been lifted, but the incarceration of Tommy Robinson remains a stain on the reputation of the United Kingdom. We will not rest until Robinson is free!

Nine years ago, I had the “privilege” of being banned from entering the United Kingdom. Though the leader of a major democratically elected political party in the Netherlands, I am also an outspoken critic of Islam.

That is why I am on the death list of several Islamic organizations and have been forced to live under 24/7 police protection for almost fourteen years. And that is also the real reason why the then British government deemed me a danger to public security. The elites all over Western Europe fear the wrath of Islam.

I managed to have the ban overturned in court, but, since then, numerous other Islam critics, such as my courageous American friends Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, both of them indomitable advocates of freedom and democracy, have also been banned from entering Britain.

George Orwell wrote in the preface to Animal Farm that “if liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.” In Western Europe, today, cowardly authorities want to deprive people like myself, Robert and Pamela and others, of the right to tell our fellow citizens “what Islam doesn’t want them to hear.”

75 years ago, people all over Europe clandestinely listened to the BBC to hear the voice of Winston Churchill. His voice was the voice of liberty, the voice of courageous resistance against Nazi totalitarianism. Churchill, by the way, had no illusions about Islam, either. He said there exists “no stronger retrograde force in the world” than Islam and called Hitler’s vile anti-Semitic book Mein Kampf a “new Koran of faith and war”.

I know a British citizen, today, who is as staunch a freedom fighter as Winston Churchill was, who holds the same opinion on Islam and is not afraid to say so. His name is Tommy Robinson.

Tommy Robinson was arrested on 25 May outside Leeds Crown Court after using social media to broadcast details of an ongoing trial which was subject to reporting restrictions. He was arrested, brought before a judge, and sentenced within five hours. The judge ordered a media ban on his arrest and imprisonment, even forcing British publications to delete their articles about the case.

Such measures are common practice in North Korea and Saudi Arabia. It is sad to see how Britain, the cradle of Western democracy and the rule of law, is fast descending into tyranny.

Following massive protests on social media, demonstrations in Whitehall, a legal challenge by two publishers, and huge international attention for the case, the British authorities lifted the media ban. But Tommy Robinson has remained imprisoned, despite over half a million people signing a petition for his release…

[Return to headlines]
 

Geert Wilders: I Will be Coming to Protest in London, Free ‘Hero’ Tommy Robinson Now!

The “Free Tommy Robinson movement” is growing by the day and it’s not only fans and activists that have joined in. After several members of the European Parliament called for the immediate release of Tommy Robinson, it’s now Geert Wilders who will show up during a protest.

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

German Educrats Send Police to I.D. And Fine Families Leaving School Early

German police are now patrolling airports and highways in that country, not in search of explosives or weapons of any sort, or stopping drunk drivers or speeders, but in search of school-aged children whose parents have taken them out of school in order to take advantage of off-peak airline pricing.

You read that right. According to an article in the New York Times, German public school teachers are annoyed by the practice of parents of excusing their children from the last couple of days of class so that the family can get a head start on vacation and get a bit lower price on air fares.

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

Italy: Record Rainfall for Turin in May

With 21 days of almost continuous precipitation, it hasn’t rained this much since 1859

Spring rain showers in the north of Italy (especially in the pre-alpine zone) is to be expected, at least according to historical data that count May as the wettest month of the year. But the rainfall these last few weeks, particularly in the northwest, has been unprecedented.

Turin is one of the cities to be hit by heavy, almost daily rain showers since April 29. Yesterday counted the 21st rainy day of May (today could well be the 22nd) — twice the historical average — thus setting a new record in the data series that started in 1803. Comparable rainfall has been recorded every 40-sum years: in May 1810, 1859, 1889, 1946, 1984, with episodes of 20-21 days of precipitation during the month. The reason lies in the anomalous position of the anticyclone. A Mediterranean summer with dry weather and new temperature records has already begun in Northern Europe, where temperatures of 29° C in Copenhagen and 32° C in Berlin were recorded. Meanwhile, Northern Italy remains at the mercy of moist but warm Atlantic currents. Still, more striking than the abundance is the persistence of local showers…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Italy Sends a Jolt Through Europe

Euro-skeptic Italian populists are posing a serious threat to the European Union. Following the drama over Greece and Brexit, the political situation in Rome could throw Europe into its next major existential crisis.

He has become his country’s most important politician since the election. At the same time, he has become Europe’s most-feared bogeyman. Now, he is seeking to become a statesman.

Matteo Salvini, 45, the leader of the Italian right-wing nationalist party Lega, has been promising for years that he would lead Italy out of the eurozone if he ever got the chance — and it initially appeared that he would be unable to form a government because of his insistence on appointing a finance minister who advocated leaving the common currency zone. But now, Salvini is doing all he can to demonstrate that he doesn’t actually have anything against the euro after all…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Storm Over Juncker ‘Lazy and Corrupt’ Comments

League, M5S demand denial, EC says taken out of context

(ANSA) — Rome, May 31 — A storm erupted Thursday after European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was quoted by the Guardian as saying Italians were lazy and corrupt.

Juncker was quoted by the British daily as saying that Italians should “work harder and be less corrupt” — a quote an EC spokesman said was “taken out of context”.

Nonetheless, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani urged Juncker to immediately deny the words attributed to him.

The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, one of Italy’s two new government partners, urged Juncker to deny the quote.

The ehad of the other government partner, League leader and interior minister in waiting Matteo Salvini condemned the alleged quote.

“Italians corrupt and lazy?,” Salvini said on Facebook. “Shameful and racist words, with the next government we will see we get the rights and dignity of 60 million Italians respected, who expect collaboration and not insults from Europe”.

A European Commission spokeswoman told ANSA Juncker did not “to her knowledge” tell the Guardian that Italians should work harder and be less corrupt. She said “the words attributed to Juncker were taken out of context”. She said “in a question-and-answer session Juncker referred to the structural problems of the regions of southern Italy, where the EU has done a lot to mobilise funds to create growth and jobs. “The take-up of EU funds can be improved so that people can see the results in the field more quickly”.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Conte’s 5-Star/League Govt Takes Over

Basic income says Di Maio, agree with Church on migrants-Salvini

(ANSA) — Rome, June 1 — Italy has a new government, almost three months after the March 4 general election, with the swearing in of law professor and political novice Giuseppe Conte’s 5-Star Movement (M5S)/League executive.

The new “government of change” features 18 ministers, five of them women.

The government rests on an alliance and government contract between anti-establishment M5S leader Luigi Di Maio and anti-migrant Euroskeptic League leader Matteo Salvini.

Both will be deputy premiers and hold key ministries: Salvini at interior where he will implement a promised crackdown on undocumented migrants, and Di Maio at a new joint industry and labour ministry where he will roll out a basic income for job seekers and poor families.

New Labour Minister Di Maio said Friday that “now we will start work to create work”.

He said “it’s time to get the country started again, to put aside the Fornero (pension reform), to institute the basic income and minimum wage. And we will do it”.

New Interior Minister Salvini said new EU Minister Paolo Savona will try to “renegotiate certain EU rules.” Salvini also said he would find “convergence” with the Catholic Church on his planned crackdown on undocumented migrants. “I have started to cultivate useful and numerous relations with various exponents of the Catholic world,” said the anti-migrant League leader. “We’ll work together, we’ll amaze you, we will decidedly find convergences”. He said “there is much more closeness than distance with them because (migrant) reception, within the limits and rules and possibilities, is an interest of all I think”. On the campaign trail Salvini vowed to expel 500,000 undocumented migrants and set up detention centres in all Italian towns.

Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi said that he was optimistic about the country’s prospects as he arrived at the presidential palace for the swearing-in of the new government. “We are a country that’s recovering fully from the difficulties of the great economic crisis, which hit the whole world,” he said.

“We’ll do a good job”.

Moavero, former EU minister in the Monti and Letta governments, is expected to keep tabs on Savona who was initially rejected by Mattarella because of his anti-euro and anti-Germany views, and replaced as economy minister by a less Euroskeptic economist, Giovanni Tria.

Tria said Friday evening: “No political force wants Italy out of the euro”.

Moavero said “we will work united and motivated all together”. Asked if he would be able to “keep in the ranks” party leaders Di Maio and Salvini, he replied “we are not a military government”.

Mattarella said that “Italy is at a moment of passage of tasks and responsibilities: I issue strong wishes for the new government and a thank you to the one that has just ended its activities”, referring to Poalo Gentiloni.

Mattarella said Italy means to “avoid conflicts of all kinds” and have “an ever more positive and protagonist’s role” in Europe.

He said that “the framework of the republican institutions has always shown it is able to allow Italy to be able to face without hesitation problems and major challenges that have presented themselves. The very exchange between political forces, sometimes harsh, has always been translated into the attitude of not reducing to a conflict per se, and rather into the the ambition of assuring for Italy more secure and stronger prospects for development”.

The Milan stock exchange’s FTSE Mib index rose 1.49% to 22,109 points on Friday with bank stocks leading the way as markets hailed Conte’s arrival at the helm of a political government, ending long uncertainty. The spread between Italy’s 10-year BTP bond and the German Bund plunged to 218 basis points, with a yield of 2.56%, in early trading at the end of the political deadlock that following the March 4 general election. It eventually closed on 226 points with a yield of 2.64%.

The spread, an important measure of investor confidence and of Italy’s borrowing costs, closed at 241 points on Thursday. The spread between the two-year BTP and its German equivalent also fell sharply, dropping to 117 points with a yield of 0.51%.

The spread on the two-year bond hit 343 points, the highest level since 2012, at the peak of the institutional crisis three days ago.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Verhoeven to Shoot Renaissance Lesbian Nun Pic in Tuscany

At Montepulciano and San Quirico D’Orcia end of July

(ANSA) — Florence, May 31 — Basic Instinct, Total Recall, Showgirls, Starship Troopers and Robocop director Paul Verhoeven will shoot his new film about a 17th-century Italian lesbian nun in Tuscany this summer, sources said Thursday.

The film, ‘Benedetta’, is based on Judith C. Brown’s essay Immodest Acts — The Life Of A Lesbian Nun In Renaissance Italy.

Mystic nun Benedetta Carlini, who lived in a convent at Pescia, will be played by Belgian actress Virginie Efira.

The shoot will take place in Montepulciano and San Quirico D’Orcia between the end of July and the start of August, sources said.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Italy Needs to Work Harder, Be Less Corrupt: Juncker

BRUSSELS (AFP) — European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has said Italians need to work harder, be less corrupt and stop blaming the EU for the problems of the country’s poor south.

The controversial comments were immediately followed by a demand by European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, an Italian, for a denial from Juncker, warning on Twitter that his words would be “unacceptable” if true.

Tajani did not specify which comments he was referring to but Juncker said only a few sentences about Italy on Thursday during a question-and-answer session at a conference on the future of Europe in Brussels…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Italy’s New PM Starts Work With Republic Day Parade

Italy’s new prime minister Giuseppe Conte attended a military parade on his first full day in office Saturday, while his outspoken deputy Matteo Salvini was to head to Sicily as part of his campaign against illegal immigration.

The military parade, which Conte attended alongside President Sergio Mattarella, marked Republic Day for the foundation of the Italian Republic in 1946.

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

Juncker Calls on Germans to Respect New Italy Govt

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker has warned Germans to respect the new eurosceptic Italian government, having told Italians to work harder and stop blaming the EU for the country’s problems.

“We should show respect towards Italy,” Juncker said in an interview with the German press group Funke Mediengruppe.

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

Latvia Rejects EU’s Post-Brexit Budget Proposal

RIGA (AFP) — Latvia’s prime minister on Friday “categorically” rejected the European Commission’s proposal to slash cohesion funds and spending priorities for the Baltic eurozone state in its next multi-year budget.

The EU on Tuesday proposed spending more on Italy and other member countries hit by the economic and migrant crises and less on increasingly wealthy eastern states.

Latvia stands to get 13 percent less in cohesion funds in the post-2020 spending plan, while Poland and Hungary stand to lose more.

“This is unacceptable to Latvia,” Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis said, quoted by the BNS Baltic News Service, adding that Latvia “categorically rejects the existing proposal”.

Cohesion or development policy aims to bring economic conditions in the 28-nation bloc’s traditionally poorer eastern countries up to the higher western levels.

Kucinskis also objected to the European Commission’s proposal to identify spending priorities that member states would be expected to follow during the next budget period.

“Since we know that a reduction can be expected… we want some flexibility regarding the programmes,” Kucinskis said according to the BNS, adding that “Latvia should be allowed to choose where to invest and not be ordered to follow the programmes forced on us by the European Commission.”

It proposed May 2 a seven-percent cut to cohesion funds in a 1.279 trillion euro budget to help make up for the loss of Britain’s contribution after Brexit in 2019.

Funds for agriculture, which with development funds account for the biggest share of the budget, are slated for a five-percent cut.

European sources said Poland and Hungary would receive more than 20 percent less in cohesion funds in the next budget, compared to the current 2014-2020 budget.

The Polish government denounced as “unacceptable” the proposed reduction in funds.

EU officials deny the cuts are aimed at punishing eastern EU countries like Slovakia, Poland and Hungary for refusing to admit migrants.

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

Stand up to Germany! MP Says Stop Merkel or Face a ‘United States of Europe’

BRITAIN needs to stand up to Germany to prevent a “United States of Europe” after Brexit, outspoken Eurosceptic MP Daniel Kawczynski has said.

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

Stop ‘Bashing’ Trump, Hungary Warns EU

Hungary’s foreign minister has warned the European Union (EU) to stop “bashing” President Donald J. Trump’s administration, saying it will only backfire on European countries.

“I always urge our friends in the European Union not to play this new sport art which is created which is called bashing [the] United States, you know, because the more our European friends bash the U.S., the more negative impact they will cause with that,” Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Péter Szijjartó told CNBC at the annual forum of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris on Thursday.

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

UK: A New Drive for Islamic Blasphemy Laws?

It is reasonable to assume that the planned report and the ensuing work on finding a definition of “Islamophobia” is meant effectively to destroy the little that remains of free speech in the UK.

The Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group has as its top priority “tackling the far right and counter jihadists”. It seems a peculiar government priority to “tackle” people who are opposed to jihad; one would assume that the British government is also against jihad.

According to British government logic, then, after Muslims stabbed and beheaded British Army soldier Lee Rigby in broad daylight in London, Muslim institutions needed protection — not British ones.

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

UK: Butchers ‘Living in Fear’ As Vegan Attacks on the Rise, Says Countryside Alliance

Attacks on small businesses by vegan activists are on the rise, according to the Countryside Alliance.

Death threats, stoked by social media and encouraged by international groups of activists, have caused butchers and farmers to “live in fear.”

Marlow Butchers, in, Ashford, Kent, was targeted earlier this month by activists who daubed red paint on the doors and windows of the shop.

Since then, the business has been subjected to online abuse.

Wayne Marlow, who runs the business with his father and brother, told Kent Online:

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Third Man Arrested After Car Ploughed Into Pedestrians in Manchester

A third man has been arrested after a woman was killed and several others injured when a BMW car ploughed into pedestrians at a car meet.

Police were called to Europa Way, in Trafford Park, Greater Manchester, at 9.50pm on Thursday to reports a car had collided with a number of people.

Emergency services attended and seven people injured in the collision were taken to hospital.

A 20-year-old woman later died in hospital and five other people were treated for serious injuries…

           — Hat tip: Dean [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Two Police Officers in ‘Serious Condition’ After Alleged Knife Attack

A man has been arrested after two police officers suffered “serious injuries” in the neck and arm after an alleged knife attack at a house in Scotland, sparking a large-scale emergency operation.

Officers were scrambled to the house in Greenock, near Glasgow, on Friday morning where they were allegedly attacked with the blade before being taken to Inverclyde Royal Hospital.

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

FCA: Serbia, Premier Confident on the Kragujevac Plant

Brnabic, everything indicates that production will continue

(ANSA) — BELGRADE, JUNE 1- Serbia’s premier Ana Brnabic said she believes that the FCA group will confirm its commitment to manufacturing in Serbia. “Everything indicates that Fiat will remain in Serbia, we hope to see their investment plans soon, as a representative of the state I will soon have talks with the company’s representatives since I need to know exactly what their decisions are in terms of investments”, said the premier, cited today by the media in Belgrade. Brnabic added at the same time that she was “far less worried about Fiat workers and Krajujevac than a year ago, when there was a strike at the factory” that produces the Fiat 500L.

           — Hat tip: Insubria [Return to headlines]
 

Saudi Warns of Military Action if Qatar Gets Russian Missiles: Report

PARIS (AFP) — Saudi Arabia has threatened military action against Qatar if it goes ahead and acquires Russia’s top of the range S-400 air defence missile system, Le Monde daily reported.

Citing information it had obtained, Le Monde said Friday that Riyadh had written to French President Emmanuel Macron asking him to intervene to prevent the deal going ahead and to help preserve regional stability.

There was no immediate official reaction from the president’s office or the French foreign ministry to the report…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

The Rise of Mass Knife Attacks Shows the Problem Isn’t Guns. It’s People.

In China, where firearms are tightly restricted, it’s probably no surprise that those who want to hurt people found another way to do it. The dramatic rise of knife attacks around the world shows that the problem these days isn’t with guns. It’s with people.

Mass knife attacks have become so common over the years that a Chinese police department recently released a video to teach citizens how to defend themselves against knife-wielding assailants and it has gone viral, with 16 million views in just a few days. It has subtitles and some great advice. It’s well worth a watch.

Some folks in the US who want to do away with the Second Amendment are probably saying smugly, “Well, knife attacks are bad, but only people with GUNS can kill dozens of victims quickly.”

Those folks would be wrong.

For example…

In 2014, 33 people were killed and 130 more were injured when a group of men coordinated a terror attack using knives at a train station in southwest China’s Yunnan Province. In 2015, fifty workers at a Chinese coal mine were killed in a coordinated knife attack. Fifty more workers were injured.

In 2016, a facility for the disabled was attacked by a man with a knife. He killed 15 people and injured 45, then later surrendered himself to police. In 2017, 18 people walking down a city street were injured when a man attacked them with a knife 13 people were seriously injured by a knife-wielding assailant at a shopping mall in Beijing earlier this year. One woman died from her injuries.

This tells me that it isn’t really a problem with guns. It’s a problem with people.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Trump’s Trying to Figure Out How to Cover Kim Jong un’s Hotel Bill in Singapore: Report

President Donald Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is back on, but there are still a number of logistical issues that need to be addressed beforehand.

North Korea, a proud-yet-impoverished country, apparently needs another country to cover the costs of its supreme leader’s hotel stay at The Fullerton, an expensive five-star hotel in Singapore preferred by the North Koreans, The Washington Post reported Friday, citing two people familiar with preparations. The U.S. is reportedly trying to figure out how to discreetly pick up the tab without insulting the easily-agitated North Koreans.

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

Horrifying Moment Man Throws Wild Punches at a Fellow Commuter on a Packed Sydney Bus Because ‘He Was Speaking Too Loudly on His Phone’

The shocking fight happened at about 9pm on Monday on-board the M10 bus along Broadway in Sydney.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

South Africa: Whites Chased From Shopping Mall by EFF Thugs, Centurion

On Sunday morning, 27 May 2018, a resident from Centurion sent a frantic warning to fellow residents in Centurion warning them about EFF thugs chasing white shoppers away from a shopping mall. Apparently white privilege is the reason why white people are not allowed to visit a shopping mall.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Assange: Living in Limbo

Our final topic, picked by you, dear listeners, earlier in a poll on our Facebook page, is “Assange: Living in Limbo”, focusing on the whistleblower’s fate.

Speculation is swirling that the Ecuadorian government is feeling the pressure from the Trump Administration and is considering revoking Julian Assange’s political asylum, throwing the famous whistleblower’s life into limbo.

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

Arabic Becomes Sweden’s Second Most Common Language After Migrant Influx

Arabic has overtaken Finnish as Sweden’s largest minority language, linguist Mikael Parkvall says in newspaper Svenska Dagbladet.

For hundreds of years, Finnish was the second largest mother tongue in Sweden. But not anymore, with the acceptance of hundreds of thousands of Third World migrants, Arabic has taken over second place.

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

Asylum Scandal Jolts Germany, Unsettling Merkel’s Government

Lax and possibly corrupt control of migrants triggers probe, sows new political tensions

A scandal over the handling of asylum requests is threatening to destabilize German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fractious coalition and trigger a parliamentary inquiry into her open-arms migration policy.

A criminal investigation into alleged corruption at Germany’s migration agency has uncovered serious flaws in the processing of asylum claims going back several years, law-enforcement officials said.

The Federal Interior Ministry temporarily closed the agency’s branch in the city-state of Bremen last week after state prosecutors opened an investigation into civil servants, lawyers and interpreters suspected of colluding to grant asylum to at least a thousand migrants, including possible criminals and terror suspects, in exchange for money.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Australia: Refugee Mother, 55, Sues Woolworths for $1.3million ‘Because She Slipped on a Shallot While Distracted by a Promotion for a Constipation Aid’

A Russian refugee is suing Woolworths for $1.3 million after she slipped on a shallot while distracted by a nearby demonstration for a constipation-aid product.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

German Asylum Scandal: Bribery Charges Are ‘Nonsense, ‘ Says Lawyer

The ex-head of the Bremen BAMF refugee agency is being condemned by media and her superiors before the trial, her lawyer said. She is under investigation for irregularities in processing hundreds of asylum applications.

A former regional German migration official under investigation over allegations of having granted asylum to some 1,200 migrants in exchange for bribes has been left in the lurch by those who should be ensuring her fair treatment, her lawyer said on Saturday.

It was not right that “those who are entrusted with her welfare, that is, her superiors, including the [interior] minister, now make accusations without listening to her legal case,” Erich Joester told broadcasters Radio Bremen and NDR and the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Joester rejected the allegations that his client, identified under German privacy laws only as Ulrike B., had accepted money from asylum applicants, calling them “nonsense.”…

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

German Police Chief: Feeling of Security Collapsing Due to Mass Migration

The head of one of Germany’s biggest police unions has described the country’s migration policy as resulting in the ‘feeling of security collapsing’ whilst indiscriminate approval of asylum claims has created an ‘enormous security risk’, according to a report by Germany’s own migration agency

A confidential report by Germany’s Federal Agency for Migration and Refugees found delivered its damning verdict that their Bremen branch had approved asylum applications indiscriminately, to the point of it becoming dangerous.

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

Immigrants Arrive in Sicily Ahead of Salvini Visit

More than 150 migrants disembarked from a rescue ship Friday evening in Sicily, the NGO SOS Mediterranee said, days before hardline anti-immigrant League leader Matteo Salvini visits the island as Italy’s new interior minister.

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

Truckers Warn of Migrant ‘Normandy Invasion’ After Illegals Abandon Calais

Britain’s Road Haulage Association has warned that migrants have abandoned tightly-secured Calais for less protected ports like Normandy, with drivers fearing increased violence and rape.

The RHA has again called on French authorities to deploy the military to problem areas where policing is under-resourced.

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

UK: Fake ‘Child Refugee’ Gets Weak Sentence for Violent Rape of 14-Year-Old Schoolgirl

An Egyptian adult who broke into Britain and claimed to be a Syrian child has been jailed for just three and a half years for the “severe and prolonged” rape of a vulnerable schoolgirl.

At Brighton Crown Court, Karam Majdi, who now claims to be 19, was told he would be deported after serving half of a seven-year sentence in a young offenders unit — although the Home Office has a poor track record on following through with deportation orders.

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

Athens’ Same-Sex History Evoked Ahead of Pride

ATHENS (AFP) — Outside a crumbling neoclassic building on a seedy Athens street, a tour guide marks the spot where one of Greece’s greatest writers Costas Tachtsis used to cruise in drag.

A few blocks away, the English poet Lord Byron became infatuated with the 12-year-old daughter of his Greek landlady before succumbing to the charms of a French boy.

“In the 19th century, Greece was an exotic land full of eroticism,” tour guide Nicolaos Nicolaides, a historian by training, tells his group.

“To European travellers, visiting ancient sites was more of an excuse. Erotic adventures was what they were really hoping for,” he adds with a laugh.

The walking tour through the capital’s same-sex landmarks is the inaugural event of Athens Pride 2018, held in the capital since 2005 but significantly expanded this year.

Instead of a single day of events, this year’s roster is week-long and includes a bike ride, awareness seminars, street parties and performances, plus the customary parade through the city centre on June 9.

Some 50,000 people participated in last year’s parade, compared to just 500 people in 2005.

– Still taboo in politics –

“In 2005, our first aim was just to attract people from the community, that’s how hesitant they were,” organiser Andrea Gilbert told a recent press conference on the event, hosted by the French embassy.

“It’s very important for a young person to have one day per year when they can feel wonderful about being themselves,” she said.

The celebration is held amid some important strides for LGBT rights in the country.

In 2015, the leftist-led government approved a law establishing the right to civil partnership for same-sex couples.

In October, transgender persons were for the first time given the right to legally determine their chosen sex on official documents.

And last month, parliament gave surrogate parental rights to couples in a same-sex civil union.

All have been landmark rulings in a country where homosexuality is taboo for most politicians and publicly opposed by the powerful Orthodox Church.

Earlier this year, a prominent bishop went on trial after labelling gay people the “dregs of society” and called on his followers to “spit” on them.

He was charged with public incitement to violence and abuse of ecclesiastical duties, but a court in his local diocese dropped the case.

In ancient times, notes Nicolaides, not only was “perfect love” that between two men, but Athenian democracy also owes a debt to two male lovers in the 6th century BC.

Harmodius and Aristogeiton were worshipped as demigods in Athens after slaying the tyrant Hipparchus in an apparent personal dispute.

And while there is scant evidence to confirm the poet Sappho as a lesbian icon — a later product of Victorian times — homosexuality among men was an accepted part of life in antiquity before the rise of Christianity.

However, Athens Pride spokesperson Raphael Bilidas insists that much remains to be done to combat homophobia in modern Greek society.

“The ‘pride’ is an answer to what many people continue to say today, that we should be ashamed of ourselves,” he said.

“As long as this mentality persists, we will not be equal,” Bilidas said.

As an example, he cited several families with a transgender parent.

“If that parent wants to change their status to transgender, they must first divorce. There is no provision for transgender parenthood in marriage at present,” Bilidas said.

by John HADOULIS

           — Hat tip: C. Cantoni [Return to headlines]
 

UK: We Should Applaud the End of the Nuclear Family, Says Top Judge

Britain should “welcome and applaud” the collapse of the nuclear family, the most senior family judge in England and Wales has said.

In a speech Sir James Munby, the president of the High Court’s family division, said the modern British family was “complex” and “takes an almost infinite variety of forms”.

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

9 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/2/2018

  1. THE EU PLAN TO DESTROY THE INTERNET. ARTICLE 13

    https://youtu.be/r23tTxxQPKQ

    We must stand up to this if we don’t we are handling the alternative media over on a platter. You won’t be able to reload articles remix tracks repost other peoples work without having to pay a link tax, this is further more proof of the EU trying to regain control and handover the Internet to the mainstream media and major corporations leaving the little man like us and women of course without a platform to speak.

    Please check out this link and make your voice heard.

    https://saveyourinternet.eu/

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    EU Directive SPELLS DISASTER for Internet Freedom

    Black Pigeon Speaks
    Publicerades den 1 juni 2018

    https://youtu.be/-f17NWEhgwY

  2. “We should applaud the end of the nuclear family, says top judge”

    is so wrong . When you read through that article he is here and there on different topics, some points seem fair, others very dubious. The above headline though cuts right through the confusion which is modern British family reality as understood by establishment, and lays bare a fundamental view or approach.

    I really dislike speaking in a menacing way, but I find no other as a lot of this is close to my experience and that of many others I know, and so I address that establishment :

    This weakened fluid society that spins at your will, well the children and grandchildren that are its product will one day have your heads. You won’t even understand why, and they will not care that you don’t. You will be written into history as some of the most disgusting and inhuman creatures that ever walked this earth.

    I, personally, will not lift a finger against you, because that is my own discipline and sanctity that I protect, but I watch and foresee, I am able to discern the results of your false disseminations, how they torture the souls of so many, how shallow is the reward they bring.

    At some point the many who have suffered this imposition, this perverse attack on their very beings, they will revolt blindly against anything that appears as of false authority. Once someone has clicked, and lost their fear, you will not stop them, and the more that lose their fear, the more that will find the strength to do so.

    You are finished, and you could never be more than, as your world is founded on the deception of assuming the lives of others, for where your own are either lacking or completely absent.

  3. Spain decides women must grow beards and men must give birth

    https://politica.elpais.com/politica/2018/06/02/actualidad/1527963171_525298.html

    as it moves to address gender non equality, though they are still searching for enough eunuchs to run the ministry it seems, I guess females will be chosen instead….. if it hangs it bangs etc.

    ( OK, I’m spoofing a bit here but they are looking to create an independent ministry of equality, next door to the ministry of truth probably… it’s all the same, no really /s)

    This message was a completely anti-discriminatory announcement that in no way suggest MEN are at FAULT, or that they are not capable of making choices that are not their own.

  4. A Russian refugee is suing Woolworths for $1.3 million after she slipped on a shallot while distracted by a nearby demonstration for a constipation-aid product.

    Maybe she would have been better off bending over for the shallot.

  5. God bless Poland. At least there’s still somewhere in Europe that values children and family.

Comments are closed.