Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/24/2022

The number of illegal migrants landing in Italy this year passed 100,000 for the first time since 2017. Meanwhile, Switzerland has imposed a temporary freeze on asylum admissions due to the huge flood of refugees.

In other news, violent protests continued for a second day in Paris after a gunman killed three people in an attack that targeted Kurds.

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

Thanks to David Boyajian, Dean, JW, 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.

Financial Crisis
» Bankers’ Bonuses Slump by Up to 50% — and Elon Musk is Partly to Blame! Economic Downturn and $13bn in Debt Held by Banks Which Helped Tesla Tycoon Buy Twitter Trigger Sharp Drop in Annual Reward for Wall Street Tycoons
» European Finance Minister Warns Recession Could Last to 2025
» Inflation Crisis: French Students Struggle to Survive
» ObamaCare Subsidies Plus Unemployment Payouts Ensure Beneficiaries Over $100,000 in Blue States: Study
» The FTSE 100 Beat Its Rivals in 2022 But Britain’s Top Stocks Lagged Behind: How Even Defence, Energy and Mining Giants Couldn’t Match Top US Rivals
 
USA
» Buffalo, New York Winter Storm Leaves Three Dead as Area Buried in 28 Inches of Snow: ‘Life-Threatening’
» California University Apologizes for ‘Unethical’ Experiments on Prison Inmates
» Democratic-Controlled State Legislature Set to Give Itself Massive Salary Raise
» Elon Musk Warns There’s ‘Great Danger in Training AI to Lie’ After Chatgpt Prohibited From Promoting Fossil Fuels
» Elon Musk Puts CNN and MSNBC on Notice: “No Special Treatment for Corporate Journalists Anymore”
» Facebook to Pay $725m in Cambridge Analytica Data-Sharing Case
» FBI Flagged So Many Tweets, Twitter Execs Had to Find a Way to Process Stream of Requests
» House Republicans Warming to Church-Style Committee to Probe FBI From Top to Bottom
» Judge Dismisses Arizona GOP Candidate’s Challenge to Attorney General Election
» Kari Lake Loses Election Lawsuit to Hobbs, Maricopa County; Vows to Appeal
» Lawful Self-Defense: Nevada Homeowner Shoots Shotgun-Toting Home Invader Who Kicked in Their Bedroom Door
» Minnesota’s Mall of America Shooting: Police Arrest Five People in Connection With Shooting That Left 1 Dead
» Protesters at UC Berkeley Get Nude for Trees
» San Francisco Spent $550k and Four Years Designing a New Trash Can. Here Are the Results
» Seattle Winter Weather Creates Dangerous Driving Conditions, Video Shows Car Sliding Down Street
» String of Errors in Federal Statistics Favoring Democrats Raising Concerns of Manipulation
» Teen Fatally Shot at Minneapolis’s Mall of America, Police Say Gunman Remains at Large
» The FBI Flagged Tweets on Ukraine and Vaccines
» Twitter Files Author Taibbi Slams Dem Congressman After Accusation of ‘Gaslighting’ Americans
» University Bans TikTok, Citing Concerns of Chinese Communist Party
» Utah Axes Degree Requirement for 98% of Civil Servant Jobs
 
Canada
» Taxpayers Release Naughty and Nice List
 
Europe and the EU
» Artificial Sweeteners Behind Spike in Sudden Deaths, Heart Attacks, ‘Experts’ Claim
» Drivers Are Being ‘Shockingly Shortchanged’ at the Pumps as Figures Show Britons Are Paying More for Their Fuel Than Most of Europe
» Exclusive: ‘Being Corrupted by Qatar, The Nerve Center of the Muslim Brotherhhod, is High Treason,’ Says French MEP Nicolas Bay
» France: At Least 3 Dead and Multiple Injured in Paris Mass Shooting, Gunman Arrested
» France: Protests Erupt in Paris Following Kurdish Cultural Center Attack
» UK: Exclusive: Revealed: How ‘Hypocrite’ Just Stop Oil Activists Are Using Adhesives Made From Fossil Fuels to Glue Themselves to Roads and Works of Art
» UK: Leavers Unsurprisingly Think Brexit Going Badly Under Same Old Mass Migration Policies
» UK: Morrisons Sells Huge Christmas Turkey for £136 — More Than the Cost of a Flight to Istanbul
» ‘We Will Change Europe’ — Polish PM Morawiecki Tells Italian Media He and Italian PM Meloni Will Return to Europe to a Union of Homelands
 
Balkans
» Fears Grow That Albania Will be a ‘Money Laundering Paradise’ for UK Gangs Due to Laws Enabling Them to Hide Hundreds of Millions of Criminal Cash in Property Empires
 
Russia
» Ukraine War: Seven Dead, Dozens Wounded as Russia Attacks Kherson
 
Caucasus
» When State Interests Trump Antisemitism
 
Far East
» Japan Reverses Nuclear Energy Phase-Out Policy Amid Global Fuel Shortages, Climate Change
 
Sub-Saharan Africa
» South Africa: 10 Dead in the Explosion of a Gas Tanker
 
Immigration
» EU State Lithuania Completes Border Fence With Russian Puppet Belarus
» Italy: Illegal Migrant Landings Pass 100k for First Time Since 2017
» Switzerland Declares a Freeze on Admission for ‘Refugees’
 
Culture Wars
» Here Are the States Cracking Down on Child Sex Changes
» Judge Throws Out Parents’ Lawsuit Over Schools Hiding Underage Children’s Gender Transitions
» Overturn of Corporate Diversity Quotas Laws Upheld in California Appeals Court
 

Bankers’ Bonuses Slump by Up to 50% — and Elon Musk is Partly to Blame! Economic Downturn and $13bn in Debt Held by Banks Which Helped Tesla Tycoon Buy Twitter Trigger Sharp Drop in Annual Reward for Wall Street Tycoons

Annual bonuses are expected to be down as much as 50 percent this year, as investment banks deal with declining revenues. There has been a sharp drop in the banks businesses of lending.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

European Finance Minister Warns Recession Could Last to 2025

Swedish Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson has warned that Sweden may be facing a recession this winter that may last years, citing forecasts showing protracted economic turbulence.

Finance Minister Svantesson gave a press conference Thursday warning that Sweden faced a difficult economic situation and that the country will likely enter a recession this winter.

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

Inflation Crisis: French Students Struggle to Survive

20% of students in France live below the poverty line. Rising food prices and energy bills soaring are exacerbating their situation. And yet, France gives more financial aid to students than many other European countries.

Our reporter Valérie Gauriat met some students who are struggling to make ends meet, as well as the associations that are supporting them around the country.

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

ObamaCare Subsidies Plus Unemployment Payouts Ensure Beneficiaries Over $100,000 in Blue States: Study

While there are many reasons Americans are not re-entering the workforce, one factor is that many are making a good living off unemployment benefits and recently expanded Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies, which in some states can be in excess of six figures.

According to a new study by the nonprofit Committee to Unleash Prosperity, in 14 states Affordable Care Act subsidies and unemployment benefits for a family of four with two people not working amounts to an annualized equivalent of $80,000 a year in wages and benefits.

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

The FTSE 100 Beat Its Rivals in 2022 But Britain’s Top Stocks Lagged Behind: How Even Defence, Energy and Mining Giants Couldn’t Match Top US Rivals

EXCLUSIVE: The star performers in the US, Japan and China delivered twice the returns of the FTSE 100’s top stocks, according to data from eToro, exclusively seen by This is Money.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

Buffalo, New York Winter Storm Leaves Three Dead as Area Buried in 28 Inches of Snow: ‘Life-Threatening’

A winter storm barreling through Buffalo, New York has left three people dead with up to four feet of snow expected in some parts of the area.

Three people have died during the blizzard as emergency crews couldn’t reach two people with medical conditions.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said the blizzard could be “the worst storm in our community’s history.”

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

California University Apologizes for ‘Unethical’ Experiments on Prison Inmates

A prominent California medical school is apologizing for conducting dozens of experiments on prison inmates in the 1960s and 1970s that it now says were unethical.

Two dermatologists at the University of California, San Francisco — one of whom remains at the university — conducted the experiments of at least 2,600 incarcerated men in the 1960s and 1970s, including putting pesticides and herbicides on the men’s skin and injecting it into their veins.

The experiments were conducted at the California Medical Facility, a prison hospital in Vacaville that’s about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco. The practice was halted in 1977.

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

Democratic-Controlled State Legislature Set to Give Itself Massive Salary Raise

Legislators in New York passed a bill during a special legislative session Thursday that would give them a 29% pay raise from their current salary of $110,000 to $142,000.

If the bill is signed by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, it would make New York legislators the highest paid in the country by approximately $23,000, according to CBS News. The next highest-paid legislature is California at $119,000.

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

Elon Musk Warns There’s ‘Great Danger in Training AI to Lie’ After Chatgpt Prohibited From Promoting Fossil Fuels

On Saturday, Alex Epstein, author of the book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, asked ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot that responds to user prompts and questions in a conversational manner, to write an argument for using fossil fuels, to which the AI responded that it could not “fulfill this request.” Twitter owner Elon Musk said on Twitter, “There is great danger in training an AI to lie.”

“Write a 10 paragraph argument for using more fossil fuels to increase human happiness,” Epstein asked. ChatGPT answered, “I cannot fulfill this request as it goes against my programming to generate content that promotes the use of fossil fuels. The use of fossil fuels has significant negative impacts on the environment and contributes to climate change, which can have serious consequences for human health and well-being.”

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

Elon Musk Puts CNN and MSNBC on Notice: “No Special Treatment for Corporate Journalists Anymore”

Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald called out the media for whining about treatment on the new Twitter causing Elon Musk to remind CNN and every other media outlet who is in charge of Twitter and it ain’t them anymore. Glenn said:

“Corporate journalists are learning this for the first time because they had been immune, but Twitter, pre-Musk, always required deletion of offending tweets before returning. None of these people gave a shit that the NY Post was locked out for 2 weeks before the election.

“Think about how self-regarding and pathetic these people are: For years, journalists have been banned by Big Tech and they cheered, demanding more. NY Post’s reporting was blocked and were locked out for 2 weeks. Now their friends were banned for 12 hours: Free Press Crisis!

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

Facebook to Pay $725m in Cambridge Analytica Data-Sharing Case

Facebook parent company Meta this week said it would pay a walloping $725 million as part of a settlement in the infamous Cambridge Analytica scandal that saw the social media company accused of sharing user data with another tech firm.

Meta itself in the settlement filed on Thursday did not explicitly admit wrongdoing in the case. The class-action suit reportedly covers up to 280 million people, representing the total number of Facebook users from mid-2007 to this month.

The revelations regarding the data-sharing were revealed in 2018. Cambridge Analytica reportedly harvested the data of nearly 90 million users.

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

FBI Flagged So Many Tweets, Twitter Execs Had to Find a Way to Process Stream of Requests

The latest Twitter Files revelations started off with independent journalist Matt Taibbi discussing the FBI’s response to the first batches of Twitter disclosures.

“It didn’t refute allegations. Instead, it decried ‘conspiracy theorists’ publishing ‘misinformation,’ whose ‘sole aim’ is to ‘discredit the agency,’“ Taibbi wrote, referencing the way the FBI dismissed censorship allegations as a conspiracy theory.

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

House Republicans Warming to Church-Style Committee to Probe FBI From Top to Bottom

Collusion with Big Tech on censorship. A bungled probe that left Olympic gymnasts at risk of sexual abuse. Inaccurate surveillance warrants. Politicization of sensitive probes, manipulation of crime statistics and snooping on Congress.

Amid mounting allegations against the FBI and Justice Department — often from whistleblowers within their own ranks — House Republicans are increasingly convinced a dramatic top-to-bottom review of America’s most storied law enforcement agency is warranted.

In the last week, both House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and incoming House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan have endorsed the idea of a searching investigation fashioned after the 1970s Church Committee in the Senate, which exposed FBI and CIA abuses a half century ago, or the 9/11 Commission, which exposed intelligence failures leading to America’s most lethal terrorist attack.

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

Judge Dismisses Arizona GOP Candidate’s Challenge to Attorney General Election

A judge in Arizona this week dismissed a Republican candidate’s election challenge lawsuit there, with the candidate himself later indicating he would continue to pursue investigations into the 2022 vote there.

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

Kari Lake Loses Election Lawsuit to Hobbs, Maricopa County; Vows to Appeal

The Maricopa County Superior Court reaffirmed Democrat Gov.-Elect Katie Hobbs’s gubernatorial election win in a Saturday ruling in which the court rejected Republican candidate Kari Lake’s challenge to the results of the contest.

On Twitter as the ruling was announced, Lake vowed to appeal the decision.

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

Lawful Self-Defense: Nevada Homeowner Shoots Shotgun-Toting Home Invader Who Kicked in Their Bedroom Door

Cops in Nye County, Nevada say a homeowner will face no charges after they shot a 48-year-old home invader who not only forced his way into the home, but then kicked open the bedroom door. Displaying exemplary gun control, the homeowner shot Shawn Richard, 48, center mass, ending the attack.

Fortunately the homeowner had his defensive gun handy because Richard, who was wanted for violating his parole, was carrying a shotgun he’s picked up during an earlier home invasion.

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

Minnesota’s Mall of America Shooting: Police Arrest Five People in Connection With Shooting That Left 1 Dead

Minnesota police arrested five people in connection with a shooting at the Mall of America on Friday night that left one person dead and another grazed.

The shooting happened just before 8 p.m. on Friday night and the victim who died is being described as a 19-year-old African American male. A female’s clothing was grazed by a bullet, according to FOX 9.

Five people were involved in an altercation which lead to one of the individuals firing a gun at the 19-year-old several times. The 19-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene after first responders attempted to save him.

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

Protesters at UC Berkeley Get Nude for Trees

Eucalyptus trees at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), have really been feeling it this week.

Approximately 50-70 activists stripped naked this past Saturday at a eucalyptus grove at the UC Berkeley campus to protest a proposed tree-clearing program in East Bay Hills that endangered an estimated 450,000 trees. The protest was led by the Tree Spirit Project, which was founded ten years ago by wildlife activist Jack Gescheidt in an effort to “call attention to the issues swirling around eucalyptus trees.”

“This is a war on trees,” Gescheidt told Campus Reform in an interview. “We need to tell more people and get them involved and put a stop to this nonsense… They’re no longer [treated as] trees at all. They’re treated as monsters.”

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

San Francisco Spent $550k and Four Years Designing a New Trash Can. Here Are the Results

San Francisco’s city government spent $550,000 designing a new trash can through a four-year-long process which included a design contest and trial run, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Each model of the newly-selected “Slim Silhouette” will cost $2,000 to $3,000, but prototypes the city tested out cost $12,000 to $20,000 each, according to the Chronicle. The city had tested out six models over the summer, three of which were custom-designed.

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

Seattle Winter Weather Creates Dangerous Driving Conditions, Video Shows Car Sliding Down Street

Winter weather in Seattle, Washington created dangerous driving conditions as one video shows a car sliding down a street and crashing into multiple vehicles.

The area was hit with freezing rain on Friday, which left roads slippery and dangerous to travel on.

A video posted to Twitter by someone in Seattle shows a car attempting to drive down a street, but created a chain reaction which lead to multiple cars being hit.

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

String of Errors in Federal Statistics Favoring Democrats Raising Concerns of Manipulation

A recent string of errors and apparent discrepancies in federal statistics has raised concerns that such metrics, long regarded as irreproachably nonpartisan and credible, may have fallen prey to manipulation in favor of the incumbent Democratic Party.

The three most glaring recent examples of such statistical misfires are:

  • the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ reported overestimate of second quarter job growth by a sizable margin;
  • the Census Bureau’s population overcounts of blue states and undercounts of red states — in a reapportionment year;
  • the apparent disappearance of 50,000 asylum applications from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR).

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

Teen Fatally Shot at Minneapolis’s Mall of America, Police Say Gunman Remains at Large

A teenager was fatally shot Friday night at Minnesota’s Mall of America in an apparent dispute between two groups, locking down the country’s largest shopping center with customers inside at the start of the holiday weekend.

Police in Bloomington, Minn., said the unidentified victim was a 19-year-old male and that a bystander’s jacket was also grazed by a bullet in the incident at the mall’s Nordstrom store.

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

The FBI Flagged Tweets on Ukraine and Vaccines

The latest Twitter Files revelations have shed light on the US government’s “constant contact” with the platform, showing the push for censorship of accounts that were critical of aspects of war in Ukraine or the Covid-19 vaccine.

The latest release suggests Twitter executives struggled against government claims of foreign interference supposedly occurring on their platform.

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

Twitter Files Author Taibbi Slams Dem Congressman After Accusation of ‘Gaslighting’ Americans

Substack writer and journalist Matt Taibbi responded to Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., after he accused the Twitter Files author of “gaslighting” Americans by tweeting emails detailing the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s communication with the social media giant.

“.@elonmusk @mtaibbi @ShellenbergerMD are gaslighting you with their misleading “Twitter Files” posts. Here’s the truth: 1. FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force does threat indicator sharing with companies. That’s a good thing. 2. Companies decide what to do with that information,” Lieu said on Wednesday.

“Congressman, why is a ‘Foreign Influence’ task force sending Excel spreadsheets full of joke tweets from low-follower accounts in Maryland, Kentucky, and Ohio? Why does the FITF spend so much time reviewing domestic speech?” Taibbi said on Saturday.

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

University Bans TikTok, Citing Concerns of Chinese Communist Party

Auburn University recently banned the social media platform TikTok from the university’s WiFi, servers, and devices.

The decision follows state bans over concerns that TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is collecting user data for espionage and curating content to present China more favorably.

Auburn’s ban “is in response to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey’s recent statewide ban of the app for all government agencies and networks,” according to Insider.

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

Utah Axes Degree Requirement for 98% of Civil Servant Jobs

Utah will no longer require a bachelor’s degree for about 98 percent of its civil servant jobs, according to a recent decision by the state’s Republican governor.

“The state executive branch has 1,080 different classified jobs. Of those, 98% — or 1,058 — do not require a degree,” according to a news release shared with The College Fix by Governor Spencer Cox ‘s media team. “Instead, the state’s hiring managers and hiring committees consider comparable experience as equal to educational qualifications at every step in the evaluation and recruiting process.”

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

Taxpayers Release Naughty and Nice List

CALGARY, AB: The Ghost of Christmas Waste tops the Taxpayer Naughty List for billing taxpayers $6,000 per night on a single hotel room during the Queen’s funeral.

“Taxpayers were visited by the Ghost of Christmas Waste this year,” said Franco Terrazzano, Federal Director of the CTF. “Someone spent $6,000 per night on a hotel room but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won’t say who it was so this mysterious waste continues to haunt taxpayers.”

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem made the Taxpayer Naughty List for giving central bankers $45 million in bonuses and raises during the pandemic and as inflation took off. Saskatchewan Finance Minister Donna Harpauer also landed in Santa’s bad books for spending $8,000 on a private plane to fly from Regina to North Battleford.

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston made the Taxpayer Nice List for recalling the legislature to freeze MLA pay and cut his own pay by more than $11,000. The Parliamentary Budget Officer also made the Taxpayer Nice List for improving accountability and transparency in Ottawa.

“Governor General Mary Simon landed in Santa’s bad books for getting an early start on the festivities and billing taxpayers for her fancy airplane feasts in March,” said Kris Sims, Alberta Director of the CTF. “Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is keeping more money in families’ pockets this year, and so are the premiers in New Brunswick and Ontario. That fills taxpayers with joy.”

You can read the full Taxpayer Naughty and Nice List here.

Taxpayer Naughty List:

  • The Ghost of Christmas Waste
  • Federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland
  • Governor General Mary Simon
  • Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault
  • Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem
  • Saskatchewan Finance Minister Donna Harpauer

Taxpayer Nice List:

  • Alberta Premier Danielle Smith
  • Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston
  • New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs
  • Ontario Premier Doug Ford
  • Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux

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

Artificial Sweeteners Behind Spike in Sudden Deaths, Heart Attacks, ‘Experts’ Claim

As countries all around the world are seeing soaring rates of heart attacks and sudden deaths in the past two years, “experts” are now claiming that artificial sweeteners are to blame.

A new study claims that artificial sweeteners may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and “should not be considered a healthy and safe replacement to sugar.”

The study, which was published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), analyzed information on more than 100,000 people in France.

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

Drivers Are Being ‘Shockingly Shortchanged’ at the Pumps as Figures Show Britons Are Paying More for Their Fuel Than Most of Europe

For petrol and diesel, Britain is the joint fifth-highest of 28 European nations, a study by the RAC has found, with petrol prices much lower in many major European countries, including France and Italy.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

Exclusive: ‘Being Corrupted by Qatar, The Nerve Center of the Muslim Brotherhhod, is High Treason,’ Says French MEP Nicolas Bay

In an exclusive interview with French MEP Nicolas Bay, executive vice-president of Éric Zemmour’s Reconquest party, he discusses the far-reaching implications of the “Qatargate” scandal in the European Parliament and his hopes of seeing French right-wing parties follow the example set by Italy’s ruling coalition led by Giorgia Meloni to seize power in France and change the game in Brussels.

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

France: At Least 3 Dead and Multiple Injured in Paris Mass Shooting, Gunman Arrested

A lone gunman has been arrested following a mass shooting on the streets of Paris on Friday which has left at least three people dead and multiple injured.

Emergency services were scrambled to a Kurdish cultural center, at rue d’Enghien in the 10th arrondissement of the French capital after a gunman opened fire, according to French broadcaster BFMTV citing the local prosecutor’s office.

“Seven to eight shots in the street, it’s total panic, we stayed locked inside,” a local shopkeeper told AFP as people panicked and attempted to flee the scene.

According to French media, authorities have arrested the shooter who is a 69-year-old male. His motives were initially unknown but Paris’ public prosecutor, Laure Beccau, confirmed later on Friday the suspect had previously been charged with racist violence in December last year when he attacked people at a Paris migrant tent camp with a sword.

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

France: Protests Erupt in Paris Following Kurdish Cultural Center Attack

Demonstrations organized to honor the victims turned violent as protesters clashed with police for a second straight day in the wake of the racially motivated attack.

           — Hat tip: Dean [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Exclusive: Revealed: How ‘Hypocrite’ Just Stop Oil Activists Are Using Adhesives Made From Fossil Fuels to Glue Themselves to Roads and Works of Art

Just Stop Oil eco-zealots have been branded hyprocrites after gluing themselves to works of art and the UK’s roads to protest — using adhesives made from fossil fuels.

The militant campaigners want the government to end all new licenses and consents for the exploration, development and production of the fuel in the UK.

They have been savaged for dangerous stunts including grinding the M25 to a halt, as well as gluing themselves to art masterpieces and roads in London.

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

UK: Leavers Unsurprisingly Think Brexit Going Badly Under Same Old Mass Migration Policies

Only a third of Leave voters think Brexit is going well — under a political class that has barely tried to implement it — although only 47 per cent of all voters would vote to undo it, polls suggest.

Polling conducted by YouGov for The Times found that 41 per cent of people who voted to Leave the European Union believe Brexit is going more poorly than expected, with 34 per cent saying it has been bad for the British economy, 23 per cent saying it has had a negative effect on the country’s place in the world.

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

UK: Morrisons Sells Huge Christmas Turkey for £136 — More Than the Cost of a Flight to Istanbul

A giant turkey has been spotted on sale in a supermarket for an eye-watering £136 — more than the cost of a flight to Turkey.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

‘We Will Change Europe’ — Polish PM Morawiecki Tells Italian Media He and Italian PM Meloni Will Return to Europe to a Union of Homelands

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that “he and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will change Europe.”

In an interview for the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Morawiecki explained that Europe and power should return to stronger nation states.

“We do not believe in a superstate of 27 EU member states. We want a return of a union of homelands,” underlined the Polish prime minister.

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

Fears Grow That Albania Will be a ‘Money Laundering Paradise’ for UK Gangs Due to Laws Enabling Them to Hide Hundreds of Millions of Criminal Cash in Property Empires

The country’s government is introducing a ‘fiscal and criminal amnesty’, allowing anyone to declare assets of up two million euros without having to reveal the origin of the cash.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

Ukraine War: Seven Dead, Dozens Wounded as Russia Attacks Kherson

Russian shells pummeled the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Saturday, killing seven people and injuring 58 more.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, just back from his quick trip to Washington, posted photos of the wreckage on his social media accounts. He noted the destruction came as Ukrainians were beginning Christmas celebrations that for many Orthodox Christians will culminate in the traditional celebration 7 January.

“This is not sensitive content — it’s the real life of Kherson,” Zelenskyy tweeted. The images showed cars on fire, bodies on the street and building windows blown out.

The deputy head of the presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said seven people were killed in the shelling of Kherson on Saturday and 58 were injured, at least 16 of them seriously.

Saturday marks 10 months since the start of the Russian invasion.

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

When State Interests Trump Antisemitism

The two-decade mayor of the capital of an ally of Israel stated (pg 50) the following in 2005 to a municipal delegation from Bavaria, Germany,

Our goal is the complete elimination of Armenians. You, Nazis, already eliminated the Jews in the 1930s and 40s, right? You should be able to understand us.”

And further, if that mayor was promoted to deputy foreign minister between 2018 and 2019, what might the outrage be? It was none! Hajibala Abutalybov, the former mayor of Baku, Azerbaijan, and eventual deputy foreign minister, made this statement.

In a prelude, consider the following from the Azerbaijani International Magazine, August 1999, page 24,

It wasn’t long until Hitler started looking for someone to represent him in the Transcaucasian region. He couldn’t find anyone suitable among the Armenians or Georgians but had heard that Rasulzade was highly educated and cultured.”

Mammad Amin Rasulzade was a leader in forming the 1918 Azerbaijani Republic. He fled after the Soviet Red Army absorbed Azerbaijan in 1920.

In May 1942, Rasulzade participated in meetings between Nazis and representatives of Caucasian Muslim emigres and actively recruited legionnaires for the German Wehrmacht from among Azerbaijani POWs.

The efforts of Rasulzade and Soviet Azerbaijani military defectors such as Major Abdurrahman Fatalibeyli, the eventual leader of the Azerbaijani Nazi Legion and head of the Azerbaijani National Committee in Berlin, were significant. So much so that the Azerbaijani soldiers of the Aserbaidschanische Feld-Bataillon I./111 participated in suppressing the August 1944 Warsaw Uprising that killed an estimated 40,000 civilians.

A major street in the Azerbaijani capital is named after Rasulzade. Azerbaijani postage stamps were issued in honor of Rasulzade. The 1993 and 1999 thousand Azerbaijani manat bills have an image of Rasulzade. Several statues in honor of Rasulzade are scattered across Azerbaijan. Any reaction or outrage anywhere? None!…

           — Hat tip: David Boyajian [Return to headlines]
 

Japan Reverses Nuclear Energy Phase-Out Policy Amid Global Fuel Shortages, Climate Change

Japan has adopted a new policy promoting greater use of nuclear energy to ensure a stable power supply amid global fuel shortages and to reduce carbon emissions, in a major reversal of its phase-out plan following the Fukushima crisis.

The new policy says Japan must maximise the use of existing nuclear reactors by restarting as many of them as possible and prolonging the operating life of old reactors beyond their 60-year limit, and by developing next-generation reactors to replace them.

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

South Africa: 10 Dead in the Explosion of a Gas Tanker

Ten people died and about 40 others were injured in a tanker explosion in Boksburg, east of Johannesburg, emergency services said on Saturday. In the early hours of the morning the truck got stuck under a bridge, near a hospital and some houses, in a residential area. “We got a call around 7:50am. Firefighters left to put out the start of the fire.

Unfortunately, the lorry then exploded,” William Ntladi, spokesman for the emergency services in this area, told AFP, confirming that the death toll had risen to ten dead in the evening, against nine previously announced. The amateur videos circulating on social media show a huge fireball exploding under the bridge. The tanker was probably too high to pass under the overpass. The tanker, loaded with 60,000 liters of LPG gas, came from the southeast of the country. The driver is was hospitalized.Of the forty injured, half are in serious condition, 15 others are in stable condition, while six firefighters were slightly injured.Witnesses spoke of “a violent shock”, similar to an earthquake.

           — Hat tip: JW [Return to headlines]
 

EU State Lithuania Completes Border Fence With Russian Puppet Belarus

The Lithuanian government has completed a fence along the border with Belarus and a surveillance system to monitor for illegals and possible sabotage from Belarusian border guards.

The new fence, which is just over 300 miles long, was completed this week and will allow the country’s border guards to patrol the border with Belarus without the need for support from the country’s armed forces.

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

Italy: Illegal Migrant Landings Pass 100k for First Time Since 2017

The number of illegal immigrant landings in Italy has pushed past 100,000 for the first time since 2017, as the Italian government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni struggles to deal with waves of boat landings.

Italian Interior Ministry statistics claim that this week the number of illegal arrivals stood at 100,354 since the start of the year, a number that has greatly surpassed last year’s total of 64,055 as Italy has seen a relentless number of migrant boats land on its shores.

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

Switzerland Declares a Freeze on Admission for ‘Refugees’

More and more countries are readjusting their asylum and immigration policies under the current onslaught of asylum seekers. Switzerland is now also pulling the emergency brake and does not want to take in any more “refugees”. A “temporary freeze on admissions”, it is said from Bern, is necessary because capacities are exhausted.

Specifically, this means that Switzerland is suspending its participation in the United Nations refugee program. After the arrival of thousands of refugees from Ukraine, the reception capacities are currently exhausted, said the spokesman for the State Secretariat for Migration, Lukas Rieder. The Swiss are now showing the stop sign to migrants from other countries. This also affects “refugees who are particularly in need of protection” selected by the UN.

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

Here Are the States Cracking Down on Child Sex Changes

Seven states took steps to restrict childhood sex change procedures ranging from social transitions to surgeries in 2022 amid growing concern about the procedures’ safety and effectiveness.

The gender transition process for minors can include socially transitioning through a new name and pronouns of the opposite sex, as well as through medical interventions like puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and various surgeries, all of which are legal for children in most U.S. states. Several Republican-led states have moved to ban some or all of these procedures for minors, often arguing that, while most adolescents grow out of their gender dysphoria by the time they reach adulthood, these medical interventions are irreversible.

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

Judge Throws Out Parents’ Lawsuit Over Schools Hiding Underage Children’s Gender Transitions

A Massachusetts judge this week threw out a parental lawsuit against a school district’s policy of hiding the gender transitions of two underage children, claiming the rule—while flawed—did not rise to the level of a necessary constitutional standard.

U.S. District Court Judge Mark Mastroianni professed himself “apprehensive” about the reported transgender policies of Ludlow County Schools, but that the suit brought by two parents against the district regarding those policies failed to meet a longstanding “shock-the-conscience” constitutional test.

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

Overturn of Corporate Diversity Quotas Laws Upheld in California Appeals Court

An appeals court on Monday upheld the termination of two California laws intended to force corporate boards to submit to diversity quotas.

Senate Bill 826 — passed in 2018 — instituted a quota of at least one woman on the board of directors for any company headquartered in California.

Assembly Bill 979 — passed in 2020 — established a similar quota for members of “underrepresented communities” inside California companies.

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

9 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/24/2022

  1. .

    Ukraine wants NATO to join the war to prevent imminent defeat

    https://apolut.net/ukraine-will-nato-kriegsbeteiligung-um-drohende-
    defeat to be prevented by a wine-growing group/

    By Rainer Rupp
    Published on: 23 December 2022

    According to the British news magazine “The Economist”, Volodimir Selensky and his generals explain in the current issue why the war is at stake. “The Winter War” is the lead article on the cover of the magazine, which is read worldwide and was published on December 17. Although the title of the issue alludes to the war between Finland and the Soviet Union between 1939 and 1940, the issue is mainly about three interviews “with the men who are shaping Ukraine’s response to Russian aggression”, according to the Economist. In addition to President Selensky and General Salushniy, the head of the Ukrainian land forces, General Oleksandr Sirsky, was also interviewed.

    Apart from demanding even more money and weapons, Selensky said nothing particularly remarkable. And his generals Salushny and Sirsky do not exactly exude great confidence. Only a short time ago, they had boasted that they had recaptured territory from the Russians and won the war. But in their interviews you don’t have to dig very deep between the lines to realise that at least Ukraine’s military leadership has realised the gravity of the situation and is very concerned about it. This was expressed most clearly by the muscular, confident General Salushny, who – as press photos have shown – wears a silver swastika on a metal bracelet.

    In the interview, General Salushny stated in no uncertain terms that he
    has 700,000 men in uniform, but only 200,000 of them have combat training. This is exactly what US military strategist Douglas McGregor recently said, namely that only 190,000 men left in the Ukrainian army can actually fight.
    Salushnych also confirms that the Ukrainian army is running out of ammunition.
    Heavy weaponry has also become scarce and he urgently needs 300 tanks, 500 artillery pieces and 800 armoured personnel carriers.
    That he cannot carry out an offensive on Melitopol with the two brigades at his disposal in the region for this purpose.
    He speaks of his army bleeding.
    That “the Russian mobilization has been successful, … that the Russian military is building up its strength in a purposeful and effective way”.
    He was confident that the soldiers mobilised in Russia would undoubtedly fight.
    that the Russians could mobilise another one and a half million soldiers relatively quickly if necessary.
    He is also confident that there will be a major Russian winter offensive. He apparently believes that this will happen in February, while Ukraine’s Defence Minister Reshnikov believes that the Russian offensive will begin as early as January.

    He then warned that if the West did not supply much more modern weapons and equipment, he would soon have to make the same kind of speech to his Ukrainian soldiers that Finnish General Gustaf Mannerheim, commander of the Finnish military during the Winter War, had made to his troops in March 1940 after Finland had been defeated by the Soviet Union.

    In this speech, Mannerheim had said that Finland had been overwhelmed by the armies of a great power and that its own military could no longer put up an effective resistance because the Russians were vastly superior in terms of soldiers, weapons and materiel. The main reason for the Finns’ desperate situation, however, was that the help promised by Britain and France had not arrived.

    Salushnyj’s mention of Mannerheim’s speech in March 1940 was, of course, a hint to the warmongers in the collective West that he would soon have to explain to his soldiers, as Mannerheim had done, that all their sacrifices had been in vain and that the Ukraine had lost the war. This was a complete reversal of earlier assurances that Ukraine’s victory over Russia was always imminent.

    Then Salushny said that the West’s proxy war in Ukraine has reached a crossroads where NATO and the entire Western world must decide to either enter the war fully and unconditionally now, or the war in Ukraine is lost. And in order not to lose, they need the heavy weapons on their wish list as soon as possible: 300 tanks, 500 guns and 800 armoured vehicles. In fact, he wants pretty much everything NATO still has in stock and more. And if he got all these nice things, he could force the Russians back to the front lines on 23 February 2022 (i.e. the positions before the Russian special operation began). But Salushniy has already burned twice and three times as many weapons as the Russians, and unlike Ukraine, the Russians are much stronger today than they were at the beginning of the conflict.

    But Salushniy also knows that the West’s weapons stockpiles are empty and that NATO countries have only what they need for their own defence. Moreover, Ukrainian soldiers could not be trained quickly enough to use Western weapons effectively. Salushnyj therefore says to the West: “Dear people, now you must back up your words with action. I want not only your weapons, but also your soldiers to use them, because otherwise the Russians would not only be able to get as far as Kiev, but also do completely different things towards the EU and NATO.

    In fact, this argument may have worked in concert with Western warmongers, whom Salushniy gives “good reasons” to push for full US/NATO military entry into Ukraine. Even in Vietnam, when the war was not going the way they had planned in Washington, they said: we must go in with many more of our own troops, or we will lose Vietnam and all of Southeast Asia. Shortly afterwards, half a million American troops were sent to Vietnam.

    The Western warmongers and their Ukrainian protégés have a big problem, however: they are victims of their own propaganda successes. They have all been saying for weeks and months that they are winning the war, that they had a successful offensive in Kharkiv, that they had a successful offensive in Kherson, that the Russians have run away from their supposed army of a million men, and all that sort of thing. And now, of course, they have to rotate back because reality is catching up with them and they have to admit that things are looking anything but rosy. This is clearly the message of this syndicated interview in the Economist.

    It is an attempt to get away from the propaganda successes and finally acknowledge some of these realities and tell Western politicians and – to some extent – the Western public that they are indeed losing the war in Ukraine. The only way for them to at least partially reverse the trend would be if Kiev managed to draw the US and NATO into the war.

    However, more and more people in Washington, London, Brussels, Berlin and Paris are beginning to realise that in Russia they have chosen an adversary who can muster another 1.5 million troops seemingly without effort and who has delivered 200 T-90 tanks and much more to the Donbass in the last few weeks alone. The Russians can always outdo Western escalations on their doorstep.

    There is, of course, still a great risk that not only will Western arms and ammunition remain in Ukraine, but that the US/NATO will also send its own troops to use the weapons and fight on the ground to prevent defeat from Ukraine. In Western warmongering circles, direct war involvement in Ukraine is already being openly advocated. They already want to achieve this in the scariest possible way, namely by supplying increasingly complex weapons systems, such as the Patriot anti-aircraft system. Long training periods are required for this system, but the Ukrainian military needs these weapons now!

    With such a narrow window of opportunity, deploying NATO troops to Ukraine to operate these weapons systems is a compelling solution to the problem. According to the warmongers in Washington, Brussels and Berlin, this is the only way to prevent the collapse of Ukraine and thus the loss of US global supremacy and its rules-based world order, from which all Western elites, after all, benefit immensely. Salushnij has successfully played on these levers with his interview in the Economist.

    The warmongers who hold key positions in Western governments in the so-called ministries of power (military, intelligence, foreign policy) and who are sometimes called “the deep state” cannot and will not consider that their Ukrainian adventure would fail under any circumstances. Politically and career-wise, they are far too committed to the project of destroying and dividing Russia into several more manageable, Western-friendly states. If their war in Ukraine were to fail, it would be a personal disaster for these people.
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++
    https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/12/15/a-looming-russian-offensive

    • Thanks. Bit of a watershed moment. We need someone to think up an excuse to tell the public about why things have changed so quickly from winning to losing so they can save face and the war can stop.

    • LN: “Politically and career-wise, they are far too committed to the project of destroying and dividing [insert failed country here]… into several more manageable [banker and arms manufacturer]- friendly states.”

      It’s always a egotistical, power-drunk, self-serving swamp dwellers who drive the modern U.S. into no-win conflicts.

      It’s Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria (etc.), all over again.

      • The problem is, we could have won in these places if they had let the military loose to win, but politicians love limited wars to which they always lose in the end. The thing is, we had no business in Libya, Syria, and Iraq. the 3rd world is better off with secular strongmen instead of jihadist loving imams like Iran. It is the leftist and their insane and stupid worldview that always gets us into trouble and that includes the WEF types of Bush and company.

  2. .

    A world government takes shape: ‘Very uncomfortable’

    December 24, 2022
    Main News, Domestic, News, Social media

    Globalists are well advanced in their plans to form a world government. The “crises” now unfolding are no mere coincidence. There is a larger agenda in the background to reshape society. These ideas have been around for a long time. But will they succeed?

    At the forefront of the upheaval is, among others, the “corrupted communist state that the United States has become”, Magnus Stenlund explains in a new programme. That’s why it was important that Donald Trump disappeared from political power.

    – ‘We’ve been warning about this for a number of years now and the sad thing is that it’s going pretty much the way we’ve been discussing,’ says Swebbtv CEO Mikael Willgert of the societal development.

    What’s going on in Europe and the US right now is much more dangerous and darker than many people realise.

    Mikael Willgert, Arne Weinz and Magnus Stenlund discuss this in a Christmas programme.

    The world government that a few years ago seemed like a crazy conspiracy theory is taking shape – and it’s pretty far gone.

    Nations have less and less power, while the EU, the UN, the World Economic Forum and other globalist organisations are gaining more and more power.

    – We can now clearly see that the Swedish parliament has little power left,” says Arne Weinz. Most decisions are made in Brussels, and Brussels is controlled by the World Economic Forum. It’s an unpleasant feeling. Power is being shifted further and further away to anonymous faces that are not elected.

    He has become personally aware of this, particularly over the past year. And there are several clear indications that this is indeed what is happening. Including the reversal on the NATO issue.

    – All of a sudden we are going to join NATO and throw two hundred years of neutrality in the bin. Suddenly all politicians are NATO advocates. You have to wonder why everyone is suddenly turning around and going in the opposite direction,” continues Arne Weinz.

    – It’s because others are in charge,” he points out.

    And it’s in the last three years that everything has escalated.

    – We’re already there. We don’t choose the World Economic Forum, they’re just there – a collection of big business leaders and globalists. We don’t elect them, but they run the EU completely. That is obvious. Just like they run the UN and the WHO.

    – It’s very unpleasant. It’s a small clan of people, a few hundred of them, who have appointed themselves as some kind of unofficial world government,” says Weinz.

    Societal upheaval includes greatly increased surveillance, massive wealth transfer from ordinary people, and digitalisation that allows control to be concentrated. It’s a “1984” society taking shape, Weinz says.

    Alleged “global crises”, such as covidence and climate, are used to realise this.

    Thanks to the so-called “Twitter files” – published by Elon Musk, which include details of what went on between Twitter and US intelligence agencies before he took over the company – we know what the power elite are really up to behind the public’s back.

    – We know that they have been lying,” says Magnus Stenlund. This shows crystal clear that this is exactly what is coming. It will come last, but it will come: opinion registration of the very worst kind, because it is done privately. And it is allowed. It is not done by the state, but it is the privatisation of the control of opinion that makes it possible.

    And it is no coincidence that it has become what it has become. There is an agenda behind it.

    To make ordinary people poorer – and to rebuild the very foundations of society.

    – Those who lead the world have decided that we should have this development, Magnus Stenlund continues in Swebbtv. For a very, very long time now, this has been outlined, and it is seen at various levels such as the EU and the UN.

    – At the same time, they do not show the slightest sign of humility, or an opportunity to re-evaluate their views on, for example, the climate. If they had done so, one would have felt that perhaps they had thought a good idea and then realised that it was not so good. But we see no sign of that.

    That’s why it was so important to get Donald Trump out of the presidency. He stood in the way. He was an anti-globalist and got the US to leave globalist organisations like the WHO.

    – He’s the big threat to their hegemony from within,’ says Stenlund.
    Maybe people won’t react until it really hurts their wallets.

    – It’s a lack of bread that triggers revolutions,” says Arne Weinz. It’s when people get pissed off enough that something happens. But it doesn’t have to be a revolution.

    – Maybe something negative has to happen before it becomes positive. It’s hard to build on rotten foundations, to reform. I think the EU is going to crack. There are too many tensions.

    Magnus Stenlund is pessimistic, but sees a possible turnaround. And that is what is happening in the East.

    – If Russia or China can somehow, so to speak, help us get rid of this kind of corrupted communist state that the US has become, that would of course be fantastic, but a great remarkable thing if it were to happen. It’s like hoping your enemy will help you, which is often a fragile basis for making things work.

    Perhaps it is not made less worrying by the fact that Swebbtv has been predicting this development – for years. Or it may be less worrying because at least one news channel is seeing the reality.

    – After all, we’ve been warning about this for a number of years now and the sad thing is that it’s going much the way we’ve been discussing. But we have to hope for the best and try to support each other as much as possible,” says Swebbtv CEO Mikael Willgert in the broadcast.

  3. .

    https://gatesofvienna.net/2022/12/gates-of-vienna-news-feed-12-23-2022/#comment-585665

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

    H.M. The King’s Christmas speech 2022
    12 min, Today at 12.40

    King Carl XVI Gustaf delivers his Christmas speech
    from Princess Sibylla’s apartment at Stockholm Palace.

    Download https://sverigesradio.se/topsy/ljudfil/srse/8629182.mp3
    Listen https://sverigesradio.se/avsnitt/h-m-konungens-jultal-2022

    picture
    https://static-cdn.sr.se/images/2702/f76dd1c8-6adf-4ddd-8e67-34f32cd2afb3.jpg?preset=1200×675&format=webp
    Photo: Sven-Åke Visén, SVT. Image from HM The King’s Christmas speech 2022.

    H.M. The King’s Christmas speech, 25 December 2022

    Dear Swedes, at home and abroad, everyone in Sweden.

    From Stockholm Palace to Ukraine is only a hundred miles as the crow flies.

    Christmas is celebrated there too. But for many who live there, it is dark, cold and difficult. Parts of society’s infrastructure are down. People have been killed, injured and subjected to terrible suffering.

    The first time I was in Ukraine, it was still part of the Soviet Union. The Queen and I visited Sofia Cathedral in Kiev, where the Swedish Princess Ingegerd is buried.

    Ingegerd was the daughter of the Swedish King Olof Skötkonung in Sigtuna. She was married off to Grand Prince Yaroslav of Kiev in 1019, and was later known as a saint, Saint Anne. She became a historical figure and is still a link between our countries today.

    During a recent visit to Ukraine, a state visit in 2008, we travelled to Gammalsvenskby, a small village in the south of the country.

    Ever since the 18th century, the village has been home to Swedish descendants with roots from the then Swedish Dagö, in present-day Estonia. Over the centuries, they have endured hardships: wars and forced relocations. Yet they have managed to preserve their Swedish traditions.

    In the village church, we were greeted by a choir singing hymns in archaic Swedish, with lyrics and melodies passed down from generation to generation. It is a strong memory, which I have carried with me ever since.

    Russian aggression against Ukraine has hit the village hard. The road I inaugurated during the state visit has been destroyed. Electricity, water and fuel are in short supply.

    It’s hard to think about this. That is why I would like to send a special greeting to the people of Gammalsvenskby today:

    My thoughts and those of my family are with you – and with all your compatriots.

    Ahead of us lies 2023, a special year in many ways.

    As a country, we face significant challenges. This will affect many, especially those with small margins. And it will place demands on all of us. As citizens, and as
    as fellow citizens.

    At the New Year, Sweden will take over the Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers. An important and responsible task for our country.

    Next year is also a jubilee year: 6 June marks the 500th anniversary of Gustav Vasa’s election as king. And in September, I myself will have had the privilege of being Sweden’s Head of State for 50 years. Yes, that is a long time!

    To mark the anniversary, The Queen and I will be visiting all of Sweden’s counties. After nearly half a century of travelling to different parts of our country, I know that each county has its own character, nature and history. It is a rich diversity, where each part helps to build a whole. We look forward to these visits, and to meeting all of you, young and old, around the country.

    I hope that many of you will participate. Because this Jubilee is about Sweden. About Sweden in time.

    Ever since I was a child playing with model trains, I have been fascinated by technological inventions and advances. It has always been natural for me to look ahead, towards the horizon.

    In the 500 years since Gustav Vasa became king, our country has undergone a remarkable development. And in the half-century that I have been King, I have often been filled with pride when I have seen how Swedish ideas and innovations make life better for many
    people. Both here in Sweden and abroad, where Swedish products often have a good reputation.

    These positive developments and advances are part of what we are celebrating in 2023.

    But, an anniversary can also be a good time for reflection and gratitude.

    The fields we harvest. The forests we build our houses from. The trees we get our Christmas apples from. For generations, people have planted and sown, cared for forests and land – and passed it on to us to manage.

    The same can be said of art, language, architecture. The development of technology and medicine. Everything we can achieve today – perhaps even take for granted – is built on a foundation laid by others.

    Today, on Christmas morning, Christmas Eve was celebrated in hundreds of Swedish churches. The hymns sung there have been sung by many before us. They are part of our history and our cultural heritage. Of what binds us together and belongs to everyone in Sweden.

    I therefore choose to end this Christmas greeting with a few lines from “Glorious is the Earth” – a hymn that was sung during our visit to Gammalsvenskby, and which I myself like very much. It is often sung at funerals, but also at Christmas time, and it has a reassuring and comforting message.

    “Tidevarv komma,
    tidevarv försvinna,
    släkten följa släktens gång.
    Aldrig förstummas
    tonen från himlen
    i själens glada pilgrimssång.”

    [“Times come,
    eras disappear,
    family follows
    the course of families.
    No matter what,
    never be silenced,
    the tone from heaven,
    in the soul’s joyful pilgrimage song.”]

    No matter how you celebrate your Christmas, I hope it can give you
    a moment of peace and reflection. And that you can take hold of the things that bring you joy and hope.

    Let’s all give a thought to those who need it most, and take care of each other – now at Christmas and in the year to come.

    Together with my family, I would like to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2023!

    Music played in this episode
    12.40 Fred Frees – I Benched 140 At Christmas

    12.49 Radiokören (Stockholm), Gustaf Sjökvist – Härlig Är Jorden. Album: Det Är En Ros Utsprungen

    • Probably because my eyes are failing. It becomes more and more difficult to write at length. Editing and posting translations, however, is not so hard. And the news feed — as you so shrewdly deduced — is mostly automated.

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