The UK’s border force rescued 49 migrants in the English Channel near Dover early this morning. The new arrivals were traveling in four separate boats.
In other news, an ISIS affiliate in Nigeria reportedly slaughtered up to eleven Christians on Christmas Day.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Insubria, 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. I 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.
U.S. Stocks Climb Again in Santa Claus Rally as All Three Main Indexes Close at Records
U.S. stocks powered higher again Thursday, helped by reports of record year-end retail sales, though trading volumes were light and markets were closed in Europe, Hong Kong and Australia for another post-Christmas holiday.
Amazon led the market up, with the stock gaining more than 4% after the e-commerce giant said the holiday shopping season broke all records.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 105.94 points or 0.37% to 28,621.39 and has gained for 9 of the past 11 trading days to post a year-to-date rise of 22.69%.
The S&P 500 gained 16.53 points, or 0.51%, to 3,239.91 for a year-to-date return of 29.24%.
The Nasdaq Composite rose 69.51 points, or 0.78%, to a new record at 9,022.39 after posting a record close for a 10th straight day, the longest winning streak since July 1997. Year-to-date the Nasdaq has risen 35.98%
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
WASHINGTON — When Syracuse University freshmen walk into professor Jeff Rubin’s Introduction to Information Technologies class, seven small Bluetooth beacons hidden around the Grant Auditorium lecture hall connect with an app on their smartphones and boost their ‘‘attendance points.’’
And when they skip class? The SpotterEDU app sees that, too, logging their absence into a campus database that tracks them over time and can sink their grade. It also alerts Rubin, who later contacts students to ask where they’ve been. His 340-person lecture has never been so full.
‘‘They want those points,’’ he said. ‘‘They know I’m watching and acting on it. So, behaviorally, they change.’’
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Here Are the Possible Reasons Behind Crypto YouTube Take-Down, Will Restoration Ensue?
YouTube slashing crypto content on its website has become an important issue for the crypto community. What’s more baffling is the lack of reason behind the take-downs.
The #YTCryptoPurge hashtag is starting to grow popular with Crypto Twitter as the YouTube BoyCott movement is catching fire.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Praises Student Who Confronts ‘Radical Mobs’ Trying to Shut Down Speech on Campus
President Donald Trump spoke out against the campus left, praising a young conservative student who stood up to “radical mobs” trying to shut down a speech at a public university in New York this November.
At the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit on Dec. 21, Trump referred to a protest that disrupted and ultimately shut down a Binghamton University (BU) lecture given by Arthur B. Laffer, a revered economist and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Tulsi Gabbard Furious After Yahoo Suggests She’s Seeking a ‘Spoiler Role’ As a Third-Party Candidate
Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has said on several different occasions that she does not plan to run as an independent candidate if she fails in her attempt to become the Democrats’ presidential nominee. That little fact, however, did not prevent Yahoo News from publishing a piece arguing that… she’s trying to do exactly that anyway.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Waitress Receives $2,000 Tip on Christmas
According to the Associated Press, a Florida waitress who was in need of money after an expensive car repair bill was given a $2,000 tip on Christmas Eve by her well-wishing regular customers.
Lynette Baio had apparently shared the news of her financial woes with her regular customers, and filled with the Christmas spirit, they took action and helped their favourite waitress out.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
CBC Deletes Trump Scene From Home Alone 2 Broadcast
Canadian state-funded broadcaster CBC deleted the scene featuring Donald Trump from their Christmas broadcast of Home Alone 2.
The scene from the 1992 movie features Trump telling Macaulay Culkin’s character how to find the lobby in the Trump Hotel.
The reason behind the deletion of the scene is not known, with many on Twitter claiming it was a political decision.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Donald Trump Responds to CBC Home Alone 2 Edit, Roasts Trudeau
U.S. President Donald Trump responded to the news that CBC had deleted his Home Alone 2 cameo with two tweets this evening, both joking in nature. In the first tweet, he refers to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Justin T.”
“I guess Justin T doesn’t much like my making him pay up on NATO or Trade!” the president tweeted.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
‘80% Sure That Mifsud is Dead’. What Has Become of the Russiagate Professor?
by Mauro Indelicato , Roberto Vivaldelli
(Agrigento) In the city of temples it seems that everybody has now dumped him. In Agrigento, where the Maltese professor was president of the local university consortium, a full-blown race is on to take the most distance from him. The reference is to Joseph Mifsud, a key figure in Russiagate, who has been missing since October 2017.
Nobody knew anything
Mifsud arrived in Agrigento in April 2010 and was presented at the seat of the provincial government as the new president of the University Consortium. At the time the province was the largest shareholder in the body so a substantial number of the political decisions depended on what today the Region of Sicily knows as the “free consortium of municipalities”. The promotor of his appointment to the Agrigento university consortium was Eugenio D’Orsi, President of the Province from 2008 until 2013, the last before the body was wound up by Rosario Crocetta. “Mifsud — D’Orsi explained in the last few days — had given hope to Agrigento. He was a brilliant person, with unlimited knowledge and we wanted to bring Sicily to the world. The lecturer put me in touch with Malta, and we were about to build the airport thanks to that. That was the best side of him”.
Then, according to the former president of the province, something changed: “In the second part of the experience with him he was, and I will say this bluntly, a charlatan”, D’Orsi said in the interview mentioned above. The same former President then confirmed that the decision to select Mifsud was at the time backed by all the shareholders of the consortium, in other words also by the city council of Agrigento, the Chamber of Commerce and the University di Palermo. But today, as mentioned above, there is a race to dump the Maltese professor first. The city council of Agrigento has, through the current mayor, Lillo Firetto, in the last few days announced that the body has entered a civil claim in the proceeding brought by the Public Prosecution Office of Agrigento in relation to the “crazy expenses” incurred by Mifsud during his presidency…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Former Archbishop Claims Climate Change ‘Largest Challenge Ever to Human Race’
The former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has claimed that man-made climate change is “the largest challenge ever to the human race” and that those who do not believe in it have fallen for conspiracy theories.
The former archbishop has voiced his support for the Greta Thunberg-led climate school strikes and last year backed Extinction Rebellion in its calls for mass protest in reaction to the “unprecedented global emergency” of anthropomorphic climate change.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
I’m Like an Old Lover’: Eurocrat’s Creepy Love Letter Insists Brexit Britain Could Rejoin EU
The vice-president of the European Commission has written a lengthy love letter to the United Kingdom, in which he insists “we’re not going away” and invites Britain to rejoin the European Union in the future.
Published in the newspaper of choice for the British metropolitan left, The Guardian, Frans Timmerman’s 700-word paean to Britain’s membership of the European Union veers violently from the sentimental to the at times outright inappropriate.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Girl Abducted by Syrian Dad Tracked Down in Denmark
Child’s condition said to be good
(ANSA) — Rome, December 23 — An 11-year-old girl abducted by her Syrian father in Milan last week has been tracked down by Italian police in Denmark. The girl had only recently returned to her Ecuadorian mother in Italy after the father, Maher Balle, kidnapped her three years ago and took her to Syria.
He took her away again on Friday after picking her up from the middle school she attends without anyone suspecting anything.
She was tracked down in Aarhus, Denmark’s second city, via the geolocation system on the phone she used to call her mother.
The girl is currently in a home in Denmark and is said to be in a good condition.
Balle, 42, has been placed under investigation for international abduction of a minor.
He also faces possible charges on this count in relation to the previous abduction, in 2016.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Jews Blast Maraini for Slamming Old Testament
Writer accused of ‘ignorance, trite prejudice’
(ANSA) — Rome, December 24 — Jews on Tuesday blasted writer Dacia Maraini for criticising the Old Testament.
Maraini, a bestselling novelist, called the God depicted in the first book of the Bible “vengeful, misogynist, intolerant, and war mongering”.
She said Jesus “reformed the strict and vengeful religion of the fathers, introducing for the fist time in monotheistic culture the concept of forgiveness, respect for women, and a refusal of slavery and war”.
Rome Chief rabbi Riccardo Di Segni said “any informed Christian today knows how to avoid the banalities and lies of this age-old antagonism, which has a precise name, marcionism, and which had remained in the minds and mouths of lay people who are more or less believers but almost always ignorant.” Sergio Della Pergola, president of Israel’s Italian Jewish community, said “a writer has on this occasion shown not only ignorance but also trite prejudices which were superseded by exegesis a long time ago”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: 2019 Men of the Year: London Commuters
Social scientists have long been fascinated by the “bystander effect,” in which ordinary people remain idle as evil deeds are done. A group of brave commuters at London’s Canning Town station showed this year that the opposite can happen too: that everyday people can take swift heroic action when terrorists attempt to disrupt their way of life.
During a chilly October rush hour, a pair of young men—later revealed to be members of an apocalyptic cult—stormed the top of subway cars and began raving. Rather than flee from the chaos, commuters ran toward the threat, swarmed the cars, and bid the individuals to come down. When reason failed, they pelted the cult members with everyday objects—bottles of water and the like—before wrestling them from the train. At great personal peril, members of the crowd neutralized the disturbed young men on the ground, returning the crowded station to normal operations.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
CCTV cameras have been installed above the London grave of Karl Marx to deter vandals who have carried out politically-motivated attacks on it.
The severe measure was taken as a last resort following significant damage to the grave at Highgate cemetery in the last year.
Vandals twice targeted the grave’s white marble plaque and it was daubed in blood red paint spelling out slogans such as ‘architect of genocide’.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
A LEADING Remain backer is being probed by the RSPCA after boasting about bludgeoning a fox to death — while wearing his wife’s kimono.
Anti-Brexit campaigner Jolyon Maugham QC flippantly tweeted: “Already this morning I have killed a fox with a baseball bat. How’s your Boxing Day going?”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Police Waste $2 Million on Electric Cars That Can’t Chase Criminals
Police forces in the United Kingdom have squandered over a million pounds on electric cars that are incapable of chasing criminals or performing emergency services because the eco-friendly vehicles are too slow and take too long to charge.
A freedom of information request found that police in the UK have spent £1.49 million on 448 green cars and vans. However, the actual cost of the eco-police fleets is likely much higher as many districts have not reported their purchases.
The official police reports admit that the battery-powered cars are incapable of fulfilling police duties such as chasing criminals or handling emergency response situations and often run out of power before a shift ends.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Germany’s Failed Police Mission in Afghanistan
by by Thomas O. Falk
After the American military surge eradicated the Taliban leadership in 2002, German police officers have been training Afghan colleagues in Kabul. The quality of the mission conducted, however, has been atrocious, according to a report.
More than 80,000 Afghan police forces have been trained over the years, in an effort that has, so far, cost approximately half a billion euros. However, it is an investment that appears to make a mockery of any ROI prediction model.
This is according to internal US documents that have been published by the Washington Post. Germany, on the other hand, has never conducted a systematic and independent evaluation of the operation.
The documents published by the Post are mainly focusing on alleged mistakes by the US in Afghanistan. However, Germany’s contribution or lack thereof is also part of the piece, as the internal documents show the US’ frustration with the German ally. Germany was “too slow” was doing “too little” and was setting the “wrong priorities.”
In fact, according to the documents, the German mission was failure ab initio. Already in August 2003, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrote in a memo regarding German efforts that these were insufficient and that Berlin needed to be put “under pressure” in order for the Germans to conduct a “better, faster job.”
The documents in question come from the “Special Inspector General for the Reconstruction of Afghanistan” (Sigar). The US agency has interviewed more than 600 policymakers in Afghanistan: military, diplomats, aid workers. The Washington Post enforced in court that most of the interviews were released. In addition, the newspaper obtained the release of government documents.
These show that Berlin was tasked to set up a police academy in Kabul to train several hundred police officers to German standards over the years. Robert Finn, ex-ambassador to Kabul, sneered in a Sigar interview that it was “great,” but unfortunately, Afghanistan would not have needed a few hundred, but 10,000 officers — “yesterday…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Hong Kong Marchers Target Malls on Third Day of Christmas Protests
HONG KONG (Reuters) — Hundreds of protesters marched through Hong Kong shopping malls on Thursday, disrupting business in the Asian financial hub for a third day over the festive period and prompting riot police to close off a mall in a tourist district.
The “shopping protests” have targeted malls across the Chinese-ruled city since Christmas Eve, turning violent at times with police firing tear gas to disperse demonstrators in areas filled with shoppers and visitors.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Francis Snubs Hong Kong in Christmas Message
ROME — Pope Francis called attention to a series of afflicted areas around the globe in his annual Christmas blessing Wednesday, conspicuously omitting any mention of Hong Kong’s mounting crisis.
Traditionally, on Christmas the pope offers up prayers for troubled regions of the world, remembering those who suffer and invoking God’s peace on them. This year’s address was no different, except that in the long list of hotspots mentioned, the former British colony of Hong Kong was nowhere to be found.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The Warragamba Dam, which supplies 80 per cent of Sydney’s drinking water, is at just 43.9 per cent capacity after only 0.1mm of rain fell in its 9,000sq km catchment in the past week.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
Nigeria: Reports: ISIS Terrorists Kill Up to 11 Christians on Christmas Day
An affiliate of the ISIS terrorist group in Nigeria killed up to 11 Christian hostages on Wednesday, Christmas Day, according to reports.
Local news outlet Salkida and Pulse.ng reported that ISIS offshoot ISWAP released a video of the execution of the 11 hostages. Salkida noted that the 11 slain captives may not have all been Christians, but it confirmed that many—if not all—of them were.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
300 Migrants Rescued Off Spain Over Two-Day Christmas Period
Around 100 migrants were rescued off the coast of Spain on Thursday, adding to around another 200 plucked off makeshift boats on Christmas Day, Spain’s maritime rescue service said.
More than half of them were found off the Costa Blanca on Spain’s southeastern coast, with 10 people rescued just before dawn, among them eight men, a woman and a child.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Border Force Intercepts Four Boats Carrying 49 Suspected Migrants Near Dover This Morning
The Home Office has said that 49 people were rescued in the English Channel after trying to cross in the early hours of Boxing Day morning. Border Force officials were alerted to four small boats travelling across the Channel towards the UK coast at around 1.30am Thursday morning. Two Border Force cutters and a coastal patrol vessel (CPV) were deployed and intercepted the small boats.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Migrant Landings Halved in 2019 Due to Salvini Policies
The Italian Interior Ministry has released figures showing that illegal migrant landings have reduced by half in 2019, largely thanks to policies enacted by former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.
According to the ministry, the country saw 23,210 arrivals in 2018 which then reduced to 11,439 in 2019, although the number of arrivals has dramatically increased since Salvini and his League party left the government in August and were replaced by the leftist Democratic Party, Il Giornale reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Colleges Are Dropping Testing, Curriculum Standards in Order to Create ‘Diversity’
Colleges and universities are changing both admissions and curriculum requirements in order to create more ‘diversity’ within their student bodies. These changes often involve lowering of standards, and an implication that students from certain backgrounds cannot score as high on tests as their peers.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Group Behind Netflix ‘Gay Jesus’ Show Has HQ Firebombed on Christmas Eve
The Brazilian comedy group behind Netflix’s new controversial comedy, which depicts the Lord and Savior of Christianity, Jesus, as gay, has been firebombed, according to at least one member of the group.
The Rio De Janeiro based Porta Dos Fundos, (meaning ‘backdoor’ in English) along with Netflix, became the centre of attention after Christian groups and the general public were outraged by the show, with many calling for its cancellation.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ0YtiPrbno&feature=emb_title
In Pripyat, for the first time after the Chernobyl accident, a Christmas tree was installed
“A New Year’s beauty was installed near one of the central houses of Pripyat, the Energetik culture palace. Former city residents came to open the Christmas tree and decorated the tree with New Year’s toys and their photographs from childhood,” the report said.
https://ria.ru/20191226/1562864266.html
“Italy: Migrant Landings Halved in 2019 Due to Salvini Policies” Don’t say that or the current government is going to try its darnest to catch up before New Year’s!
“Colleges Are Turning Students’ Phones Into Surveillance Machines, Tracking the Locations of Hundreds of Thousands” Sounds like China’s social points…
I wonder, though, is the professor even allowed to demand students install a specific app on their devices? Are the students so dumb they don’t check this? And how come nobody came up with the idea of just using a cheap second phone and take turns in bringing everybody’s phones in for the lecture yet? I thought students have always been lazy and creative to an extreme when it came to avoiding extra work…
“The Brazilian comedy group behind Netflix’s new controversial comedy, which depicts the Lord and Savior of Christianity, Jesus, as gay, has been firebombed, according to at least one member of the group.” Honestly it wouldn’t surprise me if they did that on their own in an attempt to pose as victims. It’s common behaviour among snowflakes…
Does anyone know where Jussie Smollet was at the night they claimed they were firebombed? Looks like his handiwork, or some other snowflake. Pretty ineffectual firebombing if you ask me.
Do they call them new arrivals in Londonistan? In Amerikwa they are called replacements or the best lifetime voters that democrat money could buy.
I wonder if the EU will send a flood of their illegal migrant assets to Britain after brexit.