Anti-Monti Protester Spends Night on St. Peter’s Dome
Trieste businessman says govt guilty of ‘social butchery’
(ANSA) — Vatican City, October 3 — A Trieste bar owner was still on the dome of St Peter’s Basilica early on Wednesday after spending the night on one of the holiest Catholic churches to protest, among other things, against Premier Mario Monti’s government.
Marcello Di Finizio risked his life to climb down to a ledge over a window on the dome late on Tuesday to hang a banner that read: “Help!!! No more Monti, no more Europe, no more multinationals. You are killing us all. Development??? This is just social butchery”.
Monti’s emergency administration of non-political technocrats has passed tough austerity measures and structural economic reforms since stepping in after the eurozone crisis forced Silvio Berlusconi to resign as premier last year.
Di Finizio is also angry about a European directive that means permits to run seaside establishments like his must be put up for auction.
The 46-year-old, who started his unusual demonstration at around 17:000 local time Tuesday, also climbed the dome to stage a protest in July.
The protester had a long telephone conversation with Tourism and Sport Minister Piero Gnudi and European Affairs Minister Enzo Moavero at around 23:000 local time Tuesday, Vatican sources said, but they failed to persuade him to come down. Pope Benedict XVI was due to give his weekly General Audience in St Peter’s Square at 10:30 local time.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Greece-Troika Stalemated on 2013-2014 Cuts
2-4 billion euros yet to be agreed on
(ANSAmed) — Athens — Negotiations between Greece and the troika (EU-ECB-IMF) on how much more hardship the country must inflict on itself in 2013-2014 in exchange for a 31.5-billion-euro bailout are still stalemated, local analysts said on Tuesday.
The numbers separating the two sides remain unclear, with Greek Finance Minister Yannis Stournaras airing 2 billion euros and unnamed troika officials telling Greek reporters 4 billion euros (2 billion from further cuts, 2 billion from further tax hikes) are still missing from the equation. Further cuts in wages and pensions, sacking tens of thousands more civil servants, and defanging private sector labor laws are among the troika conditions the Antonis Samaras administration is finding hard to digest.
Stournaras raised the issue of closing or merging redundant public entities in a meeting today with Administrative Reform Minister Antonis Manitakis, who told reporters that sackings “are of dubious utility, and will bring about social and political destabilization.” Asked whether more people will soon lose their jobs, Stournaras answered “we are not discussing layoffs, we’re discussing mergers.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Spain’s Bad Bank Held by Private Investors
30-billion-euro EU bank bailout ready, De Guindos said
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, OCTOBER 3 — Private investors will be majority stakeholders in the so-called bad bank that will take on toxic loans from Spanish banks, Finance Minister Luis De Guindos told parliament on Wednesday.
The details on how banks are to be recapitalized are forthcoming over the next few days, and the European Commission is expected to green-light the process in November, the minister explained. The first 30 billion euros in EU bailout money are already available, and recently nationalized banks can help themselves as soon as they submit their restructuring plans, De Guindos said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Biased Mainstream Media Has No Credence and is a Threat to Our Country’s Existence
On September 21, 2012, Caddell, as a Democratic pollster and a Fox News contributor delivered a speech to “Accuracy in Media’s Conference: Obamanation: A Day of Truth.” The title of the speech was “The Audacity of Corruption.” Caddell doesn’t comment on the title but the mockery and innuendo is inescapable.
Caddell stated in the speech that he felt the most dangerous time in our political history was at hand and the balance of power that the media plays in whether or not a free democracy can be maintained. He also stated that when he first started in politics, all politicians of both major parties despised the press commonly, because they were SOBs to everybody; continuing, “Which is exactly what they should be. Whatever the biases were, they were essentially equal-opportunity people.
[…]
Mr. Caddell also said these words in his speech to the “Accuracy in Media” conference:
“But the overwhelming bias has become very real and very dangerous. We have a First Amendment for one reason. We have a First Amendment not because the Founding Fathers liked the press — they hated the press — but they believed, as [Thomas] Jefferson said, that in order to have a free country, in order to be a free people, we needed a free press. That was the job — so there was an implicit bargain in the First Amendment, the press being the only institution, at that time, which was in our process of which there was no checks and balances.
“We designed a constitutional system with many checks and balances. The one that had no checks and balances was the press, and that was done under an implicit understanding that, somehow, the press would protect the people from the government and the power by telling-somehow allowing-people to have the truth. That is being abrogated as we speak, and has been for some time. It is now creating the danger that I spoke to.”
[Comment: see article for link to video.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Wind Farms “Ready to Press Charges Against Barack Obama”
The Ralls Corporation wants to bring the President to trial, for blocking a contract for the construction of wind turbines in Oregon in the name of “national security”. The White House’s decision, the first in 22 years to block a foreign investment, is linked to the American presidential campaign.
Beijing (AsiaNews/agencies) — A Chinese company with interests in the United States has said it is ready to press charges against President Barack Obama for the order with which the White House has blocked a contract for the construction of wind turbines in the name of national security. The company, owned by two Chinese citizens, argues that Obama “has treated this agreement unfairly, acting illegally and in an unauthorized manner”.
The controversy started on 28 September, when U.S. President Barack Obama banned the Ralls Corporation from building a wind farm in Oregon for “reasons of national security”. The U.S. Treasury Department, which announced the decision, pointed out that this is an entirely legal presidential prerogative, but the fact remains that it is the first time in 22 years that such a decision has been taken against a foreign company.
The Chinese firm has been ordered to withdraw its investment in a series of wind farms purchased at the beginning of the year near a naval base where new types of drones, or unmanned aircraft, are tested. According to some U.S. government sources, the issue regards military security and the “various attempts” at espionage that U.S. defence intelligence “receives every day from abroad”.
The issue of relations with China is one of the main themes of the election campaign for the American presidential elections on November 6: the Republican challenger Mitt Romney accuses the Democrat Obama of being “too soft” with Beijing. For their part, the team of the President-in-Office has replied by citing Romney’s financial investments in China. From his 2011 tax return, one learns that the Republican candidate last year sold thousands of shares in seven Chinese companies, some of them state-owned, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Democrats Admit Obama Not Eligible
Weary of defending in court the Constitutional eligibility of their man at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Democrat Party has finally admitted Barack Obama is not qualified to be president of the United States— and that it doesn’t matter.
According to a motion filed by Party attorneys [url] in a Tennessee eligibility lawsuit, “…Defendants [the Tennessee Democrat Party and the Democrat National Committee] assert that the Tennessee Democrat Party has the right to nominate whoever it chooses to run as a candidate, including someone who is not qualified for the office.“
In numerous previous lawsuits questioning the Constitutional eligibility of Barack Hussein Obama, Democrats have maintained that voters, not the Constitution, should be the final arbiters of presidential eligibility. Though a disgraceful assertion on its face, such mindless rambling was about all that desperate Democrat attorneys had in their arsenals, apart from the perpetually employed “plaintiffs lack standing” defense.
But now, the cat is out of the bag, and the true sentiments of Democrat Party officials have finally been aired. It seems that, according to the left, as long as the acting president has the requisite contempt for the United States, is willing to work tirelessly to destroy the national economy, and will ignore both the rule of law and his Constitutional duty to enforce it, he is eminently qualified to hold the country’s top job.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Explosive Findings About DHS Operations in Congressional Report
An explosive 141-page investigative report was quietly released just after midnight by the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is an indictment of the practices and procedures of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
While this report provides details of the investigation of “fusion centers,” or intelligence centers across the country under the control of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, it provides critical insight into the workings of the DHS itself.
The report, available here in PDF format, notes that a review by subcommittee investigators of 13 months of reports issued between April 1, 2009 and April 30, 2010 identified no reports that “…uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could [subcommittee investigators] identify a contribution…to disrupt an active terrorist plot.”
The report details a governmental agency led by upper management who are out of touch and out of control. Some explosive findings include:
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
FBI Trying to Track Down Suspected Terrorist With Michigan Ties
(WXYZ) — The FBI is trying to track down a suspected terrorist with ties to the metro Detroit area.
FBI agents are looking for 31-year-old Ahmad Abousamra. They believe he fled from the United States in 2006 and is now living in Syria with his wife and at least one child.
It is believed that the Abousamra’s parents live in Canton, though they are not suspected to be involved.
Abousamra was indicted in 2009 after allegedly taking several trips to Pakistan and Yemen. FBI agents believe he was trying to get military training to learn how to kill American soldiers overseas.
The FBI thinks he also went to Iraq hoping to join forces with those fighting against the U.S troops.
In 2009, a federal warrant was issued for Abousamra’s arrest after a he faced a list of conspiracy charges against the United States.
The following year, the FBI says Abousamra and another person gave materials of support to the al-Qaida .
According to the FBI, he was born in France but has dual citizenship in the United States and Syria.
Abousamra’s last American address was in the Boston area.
Tarek Mehanna, the man the FBI believes he co-conspired with, was convicted in 2011. Mehanna was sentenced to 17-and-a-half years in prison this year.
A $50,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the arrest of this suspect. The FBI is hoping with the help of TV news, Facebook, and Twitter that they will generate tips.
Anyone with information can call 1-800-CALL-FBI or (617) 742-5533.
| — Hat tip: RE | [Return to headlines] |
Federal Court Rules in Favour of Indefinite Detention of US Citizens
Last month District Judge Katherine Forrest permanently blocked the NDAA provision, saying that “First Amendment rights have already been harmed and will be harmed by the prospect of (the law) being enforced.”
However, the very next day the Obama administration moved to appeal the decision in an attempt to reinstate the indefinite detention provisions. The administration characterized the ruling by Forrest as unconstitutional.
Federal judge in New York, Raymond Lohier, then granted the Obama administration an “emergency” stay that temporarily blocks Forrest’s ruling.
Late yesterday, a three-judge motions panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit extended that stay, supporting the administration’s appeal and intimating that Forrest’s ruling is flawed.
“We conclude that the public interest weighs in favor of granting the government’s motion for a stay,” Appeals Court Judges Denny Chin, Raymond Lohier and Christopher Droney wrote in a three-page order that also expedited the appeal.
All three judges on the panel were appointed to the appeals court by Obama.
| — Hat tip: RE | [Return to headlines] |
Obama Eligibility Odds: 1 in 62.5 Quintillion
Lord Monckton crunches numbers on ‘mistakes’ in White House birth certificate
Entire books have been written about the problems with the “birth certificate” that was released by the White House purportedly documenting Barack Obama’s birth in Hawaii.
Computer imaging experts have found it to be fraudulent and the conclusion of an official law enforcement investigation assembled by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is that it is just not real.
But it wasn’t until now, through the work of the Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, that the world was informed just exactly what the odds are against all of those anomalies occurring naturally.
One in 62,500,000,000,000,000,000. (That’s 62.5 quintillion)
Or, if one prefers, the chances are 0.0000000000000000000016 that those curious developments happened by accident.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Patty-Flipping Robot Designed to Entirely Replace Two to Three Full-Time Kitchen Staff
The start-up robot firm Momentum Machines is one. Funded by San Francisco’s Lemnos Labs, it has developed a robot designed to take the place of humans in burger restaurants. Its creators believe their patty-flipping Alpha robot could save the fast-food industry in the United States about US$9 billion (Dh33.05bn) a year. Designed to entirely replace two to three full-time kitchen staff, it can grill a beef patty, layer it with lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and onions, put it in a bun, and wrap it up to go — no less than 360 times an hour. Momentum believes kitchen robots are not only more cost-effective than human staff, they are also more hygienic. …
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Six States, Soldiers and Seniors Will Decide 2012 Race
All eyes are on the “swing states.” Six of them are absolute MUST WIN states or there is no way to remove Obama from office peacefully. When I say MUST WIN, that’s exactly what I mean. Romney CANNOT WIN without winning Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin and Colorado.
[…]
Because Democrats have been overtly anti-Military since the 1960s, decimating the military at every opportunity and shifting more and more funding away from National Security and into Social Engineering, soldiers have consistently voted 80% Republican for decades.
Democrats have attacked Tri-Care, Social Security, Medicare, Defense spending and Military Rules of Engagement, for years now, resulting in a HUGE increase in KIA and WIA among soldiers on the field of battle and struggling veterans at home.
This is why Obama and Panetta are working to disenfranchise the Military vote in 2012. With a full military vote, states will swing towards Romney. Without their votes, those same states will swing towards Obama. Right… guess which states have huge military voters? — Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Colorado and Wisconsin.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Texas: Saudi Muslim Arrested With Fake Military ID, Weapons, Access to Chemical Agents
Azeez Al-Ghazian, 29, a Saudi national from Fort Worth, TX, is in custody after authorities found counterfeit military identification documents and weapons in his wrecked truck behind Hurst shopping center, which prompted authorities to evacuate it.
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Thousands of Bombs Dumped in Gulf of Mexico Pose Huge Threat to Oil Rigs
After World War II the US government dumped millions of kilograms of unexploded bombs into the Gulf of Mexico. This is no secret; many governments dumped their unexploded ordnance into oceans and lakes from 1946 up until the 1970s when it was made illegal under international treaty.
Now that technology has advanced enough for oil companies to drill deep sea wells in the Gulf of Mexico, those forgotten payloads have become a real hazard.
[…]
In 2011 BP had to close down its Forties crude oil pipe in the North Sea, which carries 40% of the UK’s oil production, after they found a four metre unexploded German mine laying just next to it. The giant mine was found during a routine inspection of the pipeline, and forced its closure for five days whilst engineers attempted to safely remove it and transport a safe distance away to be detonated.
[…]
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US Vice President States the Middle Class Has Been Buried
(AGI) Joe Biden dealt a heavy blow to Barack Obama’s electoral campaign on the eve of the first presidential debate. Speaking to supporters in Charlotte, North Carolina, the US Vice President commented that the American middle class has been ‘buried’ during the current presidency. The candidate for a second term as Vice President, talking of the Republican tax plan, asked ‘how can they justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years?’ The Republicans were obviously quick to seize on this gaffe. A senior advisor to the Romney campaign said: ‘Thank you, Vice President Biden. For the first time in a long time, you’re right.’ .
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
What do you do when the guy in the White House deliberately lies to the American people because he’s afraid they won’t vote for him if he tells them the truth that, because he spent four days in Charlotte bragging about how good he was for killing Osama bin Laden, he inflamed al Qaeda enough to retaliate against him on Sept. 11, 2012 by attacking the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya and killing US Ambassador Chris Stevens, IT specialist Sean Smith and former Navy Seals Glenn Dhoherty and Tyrone Woods, and scaling the walls at the US Embassy in Cairo?
What do you do when evidence clearly suggests that the envoys in both the US Embassy in Cairo and the Consultate in Benghazi received forewarning of protests and possible displays of anti-Americanism at their embassies on Sept. 11? And, what do you do when you learn the US Ambassador of Egypt jumped on a plane heading back to Washington on Sept. 10—after leaving orders for the US Marines guarding her embassy to unload their weapons?
What do you do when you realize Muslim Brotherhood radical associated with al Qaeda stormed the walls of the US Embassy, burned the American flag and hoisted an al Qaeda flag on American soil? (US embassies, by international law, are the sovereign territory of the country who occupies the embassy)
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Zbigniew Brzezinski: Crack Down on Those Who Insult Islam
Zbigniew Brzezinski, the man who helped bring down the Shah of Iran and replace it with its current radical fundamentalist Islamic theocracy, wants a crackdown on people who insult Islam
Saying “it’s not an issue of freedom of speech,” Jimmy Carter’s former National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, suggests that the makers of the anti-Mohammed movie could be held liable for the deaths of the US Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. He recommended that the United States should investigate and crack down” on ‘evil forces’ such as those people behind the movie.
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Al-Qaeda Blamed for Europe-Wide Forest Fires
Al-Qaeda has been blamed for a recent series of forest fires across Europe, as the head of Russia’s Federal Security Service claimed they were set by arsonists as part of the group’s low-cost attack strategy.
“One should note that setting fires to forests in the countries of the European Union is a new tendency in al-Qaeda’s strategy of a ‘thousand cuts’,” Alexander Bortnikov said, according to state news agency RIA Novosti, at a meeting of heads of security agencies.
“This method allows (al-Qaeda) to inflict significant economic and moral damage without serious preliminary preparations, technical equipment or significant expenses.”
In linking al-Qaeda to the deadly wildfires, Mr Bortnikov pointed to calls to launch a “forest jihad” by various extremist websites which he said also publish detailed instructions about how and where to best carry out arson.
He said it was very difficult for special services to find and prosecute such arsonists.
Deadly fires have swept through forest land in EU countries such as Portugal and Spain over the past few months, killing scores of people and forcing thousands to evacuate.
| — Hat tip: Fausta | [Return to headlines] |
Black Fashion Week Shakes Up Paris Couture
A few days before Black Fashion Week opens in Paris, Adama Paris [real name Adama Ndiaye] … the event’s creator is also getting slightly annoyed at the recurring questions: Why exclude certain people by labelling the event “black”? What would you think if someone launched “White Fashion Week”? … “I would say fine, create a White Fashion Week,” she told the French press earlier this week “But guess what, the fashion world is already white.”
As a respected Senegalese designer who has spent much of her career in Europe, and the creative force behind ten editions of the wildly successful Dakar Fashion Week, Paris is speaking from experience. “We’re trying to break into a tightly closed world of strict codes,” she told FRANCE 24.
Indeed, Black Fashion Week will debut in Paris on October 4 on the heels, and in the overbearing shadow, of the 2012 Paris Fashion Week. …
If not for its eye-catching title, Black Fashion Week might have strutted through the French capital unnoticed. Many in France — where ethnic origins are strictly banned from population censuses — are uncomfortable with the name. A beauty pageant exclusively for black women in France last April drew wide attention, and condemnation, for its race-specific character. …
While she argues that dark-skinned designers and models are underrepresented in the fashion industry — accounting for less than ten percent of industry professionals, recent reports have revealed — Adama Paris says the label “black fashion” refers to a movement rather than a colour of skin. “This is not a fashion show by black people, for black people,” she says. “It’s part of a movement, like “black music” and “black art”, and it is inclusive of all the people that are drawn to it.”
As evidence, she points to the list of Black Fashion Week’s featured designers, which include European, Tunisian and Moroccan designers who are not black. “Not all of Africa is black, and not all black people come from Africa,” she notes.
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
In the annals of moral idiocy, the Marxist British historian Eric Hobsbawm, who died yesterday [Oct 1] at 95, will ever enjoy a conspicuous place. A gifted and prolific writer, the Egyptian-born Hobsbawm was utterly absorbed by the ideology that fired his youthful dreams of utopia. How he must have savored the fact that he was born in 1917, the year of the Bolshevist revolution in Russia which ushered in so much poverty, misery, terror, and freedom-blighting totalitarian oppression. …
Although he claimed to have been victim of a “weaker McCarthyism” that retarded advancement of leftists in the UK, Hobsbawm enjoyed a stellar career replete with official honors, preferments, and perquisites. He was showered with honors and academic appointments at home and abroad. His books won all manner of awards. … But the central fact about Hobsbawm, as about so many doctrinaire leftists, was his willingness to barter real people for imaginary social progress. If he “abandoned, nay rejected” the “dream” of the October Revolution, he never abandoned its animating core: an almost reflexive willingness to sacrifice innocent lives for the sake of a spurious ideal.
I think that says us all we need to know about this repellent figure …
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
German Court Abandons Nazi Massacre Case in Tuscany
Decision sparks ire and disbelief in Italy
(ANSA) — Rome, October 1 — German magistrates decided not to prosecute eight former-Nazi officials for participating in a notorious World War II massacre in Tuscany, sparking rage and disbelief among Italian politicians, survivors, and victims’ families on Monday.
After a 10-year investigation, German magistrates concluded that there was not enough evidence to prosecute the surviving eight of 17 former Nazi military officers suspected of having a role in the murder of hundreds of civilians in the village of Sant’Anna di Stazzema, near Lucca, in 1944.
In its own investigation and trial, the Italian military court condemned 10 of the ex-Nazi officers to life in prison in absentia, including the eight who remain alive. Germany refused to grant Italy’s request for the men’s arrest.
Italian military magistrates found that the German soldiers cold-bloodedly exterminated between 457 and 560 people — mostly the elderly, women and children — in a premeditated, non-military operation aimed at wiping out resistance supporters and civilians, and nailed the blame on the 16th division of the SS armored infantrymen.
In one episode during the massacre, Nazi military rounded up about 100 villagers into three animal stalls and a courtyard, and proceeded to throw hand grenades into the crowd as well as shoot machine guns and rifles, according to the Italian reconstruction. The corpses were then burned.
The Sant’Anna episode, according to Italian magistrates, was just one in a series of round-ups leaving a trail of blood and suffering throughout the Tuscan hills.
“I want to assure the survivors and victims’ relatives that the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office did everything possible” to clarify the responsibility of German military officers in the Sant’Anna di Stazzema massacre, said Stuttgart Attorney General Claudia Krauth on Monday. “Even here we feel the weight of our responsibility,” added Krauth, “We have investigated with great interest and commitment.” The decision of the Stuttgart prosecutors led to expressions of ire and disbelief among survivors and victims’ relatives, while Italian politicians vowed to seek justice.
“We are saddened and disheartened by the news. We are not resigned, however. That massacre must find truth and justice. We will present a request to the (German) government to acquire the documentation and to know how it intends to prevent those responsible from going unpunished,” declared Paolo Corsini, an Italian deputy to the European Commission and member of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).
The German court decision spawned “bitterness and pain” for Italian Senators Vannino Chiti and Felice Casson, also both members of the PD, who made a joint statement.
“I can’t believe it, that they decided something like this.
It’s not possible. It’s an offense to all 560 victims. One can’t accept a verdict of this kind,” said Enrico Pieri, a survivor of the tragedy.
“How can one understand all this? It is an offense for all of the victims. None of this is justifiable. At Sant’Anna, innocents lost their lives, including women, mothers, children, under the ferocity of these soldiers. And now news comes from Germany that they don’t even want to bring them to trial? It is absurd,” said Bruno Pellegrini, son of one of the survivors of the massacre, Cesira Pardini.
Pardini was 18 at the time of the incident. She received a medal for saving two sisters and a one-year-old child from the slaughter.
Her mother and two other sisters were killed.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Fiorito Shredded Evidence Before Arrest, Judge Says
‘Destroyed invoices found in waste bin’
(ANSA) — Rome, October 2 — A judge on Tuesday said there was proof that Franco Fiorito, the former caucus leader of Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party in Lazio, destroyed evidence before his arrest.
“Fragments of invoices addressed to the PdL caucus were found inside a paper shredder and a waste bin at his home,” said the judge’s statement. Fiorito was arrested and taken to jail earlier Tuesday after a judge agreed with prosecutors that there was a risk he could reoffend or tamper with evidence.
The case, which exploded when Fiorito was put under investigation earlier this month, caused the PdL’s Renata Polverini to step down as governor of Lazio last week. Investigators are looking at around six million euros of financial transactions carried out by Fiorito over the last two years. They said 1.38 million euros of this money went into bank accounts in Fiorito’s name via 193 fund transfers.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Tunisian Tells Harrowing Tale of Domestic Abuse
Piacenza resident calls on other victims to go to police
(ANSAmed) — Piacenza, October 3 — A Tunisian woman in Italy called on other victims of domestic violence to report their tormentors to police on Wednesday.
“I invite all women who suffer beatings and violence to not tolerate what I went through, but to go to the police,” said the resident of the northern Italian city of Piacenza. The woman’s husband, a 39-year-old Tunisian manual laborer, beat her, forced her to wear full cover and forbid her to see Italian friends. The man also raped her in order to have additional children. At one point, the man struck her on the head with hookah. When the woman sought medical help she told doctors that her wounds were self-inflicted injuries. Twelve years of abuse ended in June when — after yet another beating — the woman reported her husband to police.
During police investigations, the man returned to live in Tunisia.
The woman remained in Piacenza with her four children.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: I’m Not Getting Enough Sleep in Prison, Says Hamza: New Tactic in Fight Against Extradition
Hate preacher Abu Hamza is ill because he can’t get enough sleep in his ‘harsh’ prison cell, his lawyers complained yesterday.
They want judges to halt his extradition to the US so he can have an MRI scan to establish if he is fit to travel.
It is the latest legal delaying tactic in a case which has already taken eight years and cost the British taxpayer more than £1million.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Three Men Appear in Court Charged With Raping 16-Year-Old Girl in Burnley
THREE men have appeared in court charged with raping a teenage girl at the weekend.
A 16-year-old girl was found by a man walking his dog on the canal towpath close to Barden Lane in Burnley at 6am on Saturday.
Police said she was in a ‘distressed state’ and was taken to hospital by officers.
It is alleged that the girl met the men in the Barden Lane area of Burnley before she was taken to a house where she was attacked. Then she was allegedly left alongside the Leeds Liverpool canal the next morning.
The men appeared before Burnley Magistrates Court yesterday after being charged.
Mohammed Qasim, 25 of Berry Street, Brierfield, was charged with possession of a class B drug and rape.
Mohammed Rizwan Sikander, 24, of Colne Road, Burnley, was charged with rape Amad Khan, 25, of Whalley street, Burnley, was charged with possession of a class B drug and rape
| — Hat tip: Kitman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Teenager, 19, Who Has Burgled an Incredible 278 Homes Since He Was 12
A teenager wants to ‘clear his slate’ after allegedly burgling 278 homes and stealing 60 cars since he was 12.
Adam Crampton, 19, has been a ‘prolific’ one man crimewave, especially in the Leicester area where up to 200 of the burglaries took place.
He pleaded guilty to three specimen counts of burglary at Leicester Magistrates’ Court recently but has asked that a further 278 break-ins and 60 car thefts be taken into consideration when he is sentenced later this month.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
BBC daytime television is turning into a “ghetto” of antique and auction shows for as much as five hours a day, it was claimed yesterday.
Viewers are becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of variety on BBC1 and BBC2 with retired and shift workers claiming they are bombarded with “cheap” and “interminable” home and property shows.
Others have called on the BBC to put more of its vintage archive on during off peak hours instead of reality shows.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
EU-Tunisia: Privileged Partnership in November, Barroso Says
Fule and Bettaieb sign financial aid plans for health, justice
(ANSAmed) — BRUSSELS, OCTOBER 3 — Tunisia and the EU will sign a new “privileged partnership” protocol for bilateral cooperation in November, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said after meeting with Tunisian Premier Hamadi Jebali on Tuesday.
“Many projects are already underway, but we can go further on macroeconomic aid,” Barroso said. This must accompany ongoing reforms in Tunisia, with the help of international lenders, he added.
EU-Tunisia relations are fourfold, EU President Herman Van Rompuy explained today. They include a new plan of action for privileged partnership; 400 million euros over 2011-2012 for economic recovery and democratic transition; further trading integration, with a view to integration into the EU single market; and partnership for mobility.
Also on Tuesday, Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule and Tunisian Cooperation Minister Riadh Bettaieb signed an agreement to implement a new, four-year, 25-million-euro program to reform the Tunisian justice system, making it more impartial, independent and efficient, and bringing prisons up to international standards.
They also agreed on a 12-million-euro health care program, that will affect four million Tunisians in 13 of the country’s poorest eastern and southern regions, where 40% of the population lives. The program will improve access to basic health care, quality of service, and hospital and clinic conditions.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Libya: Clashes in Bali Walid Between Army and Militia
City is a stronghold of Gaddafi supporters
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, OCTOBER 3 — Libyan army troops clashed last night with armed militants in Bani Walid, an important town south-east of Tripoli considered a stronghold of Muammar Ghaddafi’s followers. There are no reports on the number of injured from the fighting which allegedly occurred as a consequence of an operation by the Libyan army against the loyalists who kidnapped and tortured Omran Shaban, the Press Solidarity news agency reports. Shaban is believed to have contributed to the capture of the former dictator. He died from injuries reported while being held captive by his kidnappers.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Two Egyptian Christian Boys, 9 and 10, Accused of Defamation of Islam
by Mary Abdelmassih
(AINA) — Two Coptic children were detained on charges of Defamation of Islam. Mina Nady Farag, 9, and Nabil Nagy Rizk, 10, both from the village of Ezbet Marco in Beni Suef, were arrested and sent to a juvenile detention center until Sunday, pending investigation into a complaint submitted by the village Muslims. The children will appear again before prosecution on Sunday.
Nabil’s father told Copts United that his son does not read or write. He said the children were searching in a pile of trash to find “something useful” when they came over a plastic bag with torn papers. They were stopped by a Salafi sheikh, who took the children to church to report them to the priest. “He insisted that the priest stop mass and come outside to talk to him,” said a resident of the village. The priest went out and chided the two boys.
Not many newspapers covered this story which broke out on Monday, and those which did had several versions of the story.
Al-Ahram, the semi-governmental daily, said in its October 1 issue that authorities succeeded in containing a sectarian crisis between Muslims and Christians by arranging a meeting between Muslim and Christian families, where the Christians apologized and the Muslims accepted their apology. Al-Ahram wrote that the two nine-years-old boys were tearing some old papers in a library, including papers “suspected to be from the Koran”, when an imam of a mosque saw what they were doing, and subsequently took them to their parents to complain. Later the newspapers changed the story and reported that the two children “urinated” on the Koran.
“We thought the matter was sorted out after the meeting between the Muslim and Christian families two days ago, but we were stunned today when both boys were to be held in custody in a juvenile detention center,” said Nabil’s father.
It was reported this evening that the Muslims in Ezbet Marco have prevented the priest of the church from entering the village, allegedly because he did not chastise the two boys enough.
Some Copts believe that the real aim behind this defamation of Islam story is to ban the priest from the village and stop any prayers in its church.
| — Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih | [Return to headlines] |
Was Ambassador Stevens’ Death a Hit?
Widespread anti-US uprisings in the Muslim world (which Obama helped to foment) and Benghazigate are certainly embarrassments from a foreign policy standpoint, but there are other nuances attendant to the affair which might be examined, particularly in light of this President’s inclination toward political sleight-of-hand.
For example, the murder of Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya, and two former Navy SEALs were tragedies that never should have occurred. It is also clear that the abysmal security provided by the State Department contributed in no small measure to these deaths. Obviously, this makes for further embarrassment, and could impact Obama’s re-electability.
But why would Stevens and his staff have been consigned to such a dangerous detail with horribly substandard protection, and repeatedly denied augmented security? In my view, this is the pertinent question, because it speaks far more to Obama’s duplicity and ruthlessness.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt-Turkey: Growing Relations Belie Hegemonic Rivalry
Despite economic ties, Brotherhood doesn’t buy neo-Ottomanism
(ANSAmed) — ROME, OCTOBER 3 — Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s visit to Turkey, where he attended a Justice and Development Party (AKP) rally on Sunday, lasted just 12 hours, but it was long enough to seal the new relationship between the two countries, whose Sunni Islamist leaderships now see eye to eye. During the visit, Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan, fresh from his reelection as AKP chairman, signed a $2 billion loan over to Egypt, now led by Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Freedom and Justice Party (FJP). In power thanks to broad popular votes in their respective countries, both Sunni parties are aligned on international issues such as Syria and Palestine. Their relationship has been growing since the fall of Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. A month later, Turkish President Abdullah Gul was the first head of state to travel to Cairo, where he met with the main party leaders and the youth of Tahrir Square. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was a frequent visitor to the Egyptian capital after that, with the AKP allegedly funding Morsi’s FJP electoral campaign. This rapprochement follows on decades of Muslim Brotherhood hostility to Turkey, which recognized the State of Israel in 1949. Nine years later, Israeli Premier David Ben-Gurion and his Turkish counterpart, Adnan Menderes, met secretly to discuss a “peripheral pact”, and the Muslim Brotherhood branded Turkey “the new Israel.” This state of affairs continued into the mid-1960s, when Turkey began a policy of rapprochement with Arab and Muslim countries, and was confirmed when the AKP rose to power in 2002, giving Turkey’s foreign policy a nationalist, Islamist slant. Relations with Israel having soured after a 2010 Israeli military raid on the so-called Gaza flotilla of Turkish human rights activists, Egypt and Turkey are now aligned on almost every level, including the economic one. From the free trade zone they entered into in January 2011 along with Jordan, Libya, and Syria, to a preferential trade agreement making Egypt a hub for Turkish goods on their way to Africa and the Persian Gulf.
In Ankara on Sunday, Morsi suggested abolishing visas between the two countries, and called on Turkish entrepreneurs “not to fear for their investments” in Egypt. However the apparent honeymoon belies the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood may not fully embrace Turkey’s quest for preeminence on the Middle Eastern checkerboard under the guise of its so-called neo-Ottoman foreign policy. In 2011 Essam al-Arian, a widely respected senior Muslim Brotherhood figure in Egypt, rebuked Erdogan for suggesting Egypt adopt a secular state: a remark some Middle Eastern analysts interpret as a marker of the limits to Turkey’s ambitions.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Iranians Clash With Police as Their Currency Plummets
Riot police armed with batons and tear gas confronted money lenders and shopkeepers in Tehran today as worries about the failing rial have lead to anger and street protests. The Iranian currency has lost more than 40 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar in the last week, hammering businesses and traders who are finding it impossible to maintain prices. Things have gotten so bad that cross-border trade with Turkey has come to a standstill.
| — Hat tip: Steen | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: No EU in Erdogan’s 2023 Programme, Controversy
President Gul believes Europe should top Ankara’s priorities
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, October 2 — Where is the Turkey of ‘sultan’ Recep Tayyp Erdogan going — towards the EU, Eurasia or the Middle East, questioned press reports in Ankara after a surprising congress of the Justice and Development party (AKP) of the Islamic nationalist premier in power since 2002 at which Europe was completely ignored.
For the first time the country’s leader — who has been in power for ten years and always with polls indicating 50% of the population would be voting for him — never mentioned in his three-hour-long speech Turkey’s EU membership candidature. Even in the 70-page manifesto of AKP for 2023 — the 100th anniversary of the foundation of modern Turkey by Ataturk — doesn’t discuss Europe, aside from briefly mentioning confirmation of the country’s candidature to EU membership, pro-government daily Zaman noted.
The premier has instead insisted a dozen times on the country’s Islamic values and on the relations with sibling countries in the Middle East and the ex-Ottoman territories ‘from Baku to Sarajevo, from Arbil to Kabul, from Ramallah to Tripoli’, wrote Hurriyet.
Is the absence of Europe the sign of an Islamic and Middle-Eastern development in the ‘new’ Turkey of Erdogan, an authoritarian and volatile premier who wants to stay in power until 2023? Or, according to the interpretation of Egemen Bagis, the minister for European affairs, a sort of ‘warning’ to the EU which has been pushing forward membership talks at an extremely slow pace ever since their inception in 2005? According to analyst Ahmet Hakan, the explanation is mid-way and must be read according to the strategy of the ‘new Erdogan’. He considers himself, according to Hakan, as a man with an historic mission.
He is dreaming of re-gaining influence over the area controlled by the Ottoman empire, he believes the Turkish-Muslim nation has born again. The premier also thinks he will be the one to end 100 years of the country’s elite government and perceives any criticism as an attempt to halt his great mission.
Zaman today ran a headline saying that ‘the AKP has set aside the EU goal in its long-term foreign perspective’. Several analysts are questioning Erdogan’s vision of a Middle-Eastern power more Islamic and further removed from Europe.
‘Turkey would risk losing its predominant role in the region if it distanced itself from Europe and postponed EU membership’, warned Mustafa Kutlay, a political analyst with the Usak research centre in Ankara.
And Europe is also at the centre of tensions between the head of state, the Muslim moderate Abdullah Gul who asked parliament to continue to consider the EU as a great priority for the country, and the prime minister who hopes to take his place at the presidential Cankaya palace in 2014.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey Strikes Back After Syrian Shelling Kills 5 Civilians
The Turkish prime minister announced on Wednesday night that Turkey had fired artillery at targets in Syria, in retaliation for Syrian mortar fire that fell in a Turkish border town and killed five Turkish civilians. It was the first instance of significant fighting across the Turkish-Syrian border since the Syrian uprising began last year, and raised the prospect of greater involvement by the NATO alliance, to which Turkey belongs.
“This atrocious attack was immediately responded to adequately by our armed forces in the border region, in accordance with rules of engagement,” said a written statement from the office of the prime minister, carried by the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency. “Targets were shelled in locations identified by radar.”
“Turkey, in accordance with the rules of engagement and international law, will never leave such provocations by the Syrian regime against our national security unrequited,” the statement added.
NATO said it would convene an urgent meeting on the issue Wednesday.
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British troops are carrying loaded weapons at all times inside Camp Bastion to protect themselves against insider attacks by rogue Afghan soldiers and policemen.
Servicemen and women moving around Britain’s main base in Afghanistan have been told to carry their personal firearm following a spate of ‘green on blue’ murders, in which allied troops are killed by the local forces they are training.
US General John Allen, the top soldier in the warzone, is understood to have issued a fresh directive to coalition forces at all bases in the country in mid-August.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Top U.S. Commander in Afghanistan: We’re Willing to Fight — But ‘Not Willing to be Murdered’
Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, says he’s “mad as hell” about the increasing number of insider attacks, in which Afghan soldiers and police murder the Americans who are trying to train them.
“You know, we’re willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign. But we’re not willing to be murdered for it,” Gen. Allen told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in a segment that aired on Sunday.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
US “Inflammable” Flags Sold Out in Pakistan
(AGI) Islamabad — In Pakistan, the US flags are a hot item. In fact, they are burned by the thousands in protest against the movie on Mohammed. The student wing of the Shiite party Majlis-e-Wahadatul Muslimeen, for example, has stated that in the most active days of protest reached a pick production of 500 per hour. That same group has produced a US flag 500 meter long and 60 meter wide, that will be displayed in the near future on a Lahore street, ready to be walked upon by the protesters. The anti-US demonstrations continued during the whole month of September and caused over 20 deaths. Warranted to be flammable, every Stars and Stripes fetches between 120 and 1500 rupees (1-12 euros), but often the parties and the various religious movements buy entire stocks to be distributed to the protesters.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Sydney Doctor Denies Genital Mutilation of Daughters
A SYDNEY doctor and his wife who belong to a small Islamic sect have denied taking part in the genital mutilation of their daughters.
A community religious leader who is an associate of the couple has also denied telling others to lie to police about the prevalence of female circumcision in their local community.
The Sydney couple appeared in Parramatta Local Court on Wednesday, charged over the female circumcision of the two girls.
The victims, understood to be the couple’s daughters, were aged six and seven when the procedures were carried out.
Court documents show that one procedure took place in metropolitan Sydney and the other on the NSW south coast in the past two years.
The father, 42, and his pharmacist wife, 35, have been charged with two counts of female mutilation.
The co-accused man, a 56-year-old sheik, also appeared in court charged with two counts of being an accessory after the fact to female genital mutilation and with hindering the police investigation.
He is accused of telling locals in the past two months to lie to police about the prevalence of female genital mutilation within the community, court documents show.
Their solicitor John Sutton said there was no mention that the alleged offences were part of a religious act.
“It is a very small community, a very small religious order,” Mr Sutton told the court.
“The allegation has nothing to do with religion.”
Outside court, he told reporters there was nothing more to say other than “an absolute denial of the allegations”.
The three accused will appear in the same court on 8 November.
The Medical Council of NSW may raise the matter with the Health Care Complaints Commission (HCCC) for a possible disciplinary hearing, a spokeswoman told AAP.
The Pharmacy Council of NSW is considering suspending the mother’s professional registration, it said in a statement.
A 68-year-old retired nurse was charged with performing the procedure on the two girls and will appear in Campbelltown Local Court on 3 October.
Four other women — aged 39, 68, 73 and 77 — from Sydney and Wollongong have also been charged in the case, bringing the total accused to eight.
Each woman has been charged with female genital mutilation.
All four are alleged to have been present at one or both of the circumcisions.
They have been granted bail to face Parramatta Local Court on 7 November.
| — Hat tip: Nilk | [Return to headlines] |
Trinity Church Members Reveal Obama Shocker!
‘Matchmaker’ Rev. Jeremiah Wright ‘provided cover for gays’
Over the past several months, WND investigators have interviewed a number of members of the church who claim the president benefited from Wright’s efforts to help black men who engage in homosexual activity appear respectable in black society by finding them a wife.
The 2003 New York Times story, “Double Lives on the Down Low,” said that though many black men reject “a gay culture they perceive as white and effeminate,” they “have settled on a new identity, with its own vocabulary and customs and its own name: Down Low.”
The Times said that while “there are black men who are openly gay, it seems that the majority of those having sex with men still lead secret lives, products of a black culture that deems masculinity and fatherhood as a black man’s primary responsibility — and homosexuality as a white man’s perversion.”
The Down Low Club at Trinity “doesn’t have meetings, and it isn’t like the Rotary Club,” a source identified for this article as “Carolyn” explained to a WND investigator in Chicago.
[…]
Carolyn and the other members of Trinity who provided statements corroborating her testimony were insistent that WND conceal their identities as a condition of being interviewed.
“I’m still scared to discuss any of this,” Carolyn said.
“At Trinity, if you even hint at talking about Obama being gay, you are reminded of our dear departed choir director,” she said. “He was killed, and it wasn’t a robbery. The Christmas presents weren’t touched. The TV was not taken, nothing in the apartment was missing.”
Carolyn’s reference was to Donald Young, the 47-year-old homosexual choirmaster at Trinity who died of multiple gunshot wounds in his Chicago apartment Dec. 24, 2007.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
All You Need to Know About Liquid Natural Gas (LNG)
Liquefied natural gas is an odorless, colorless, non-toxic, non-corrosive and non-flammable form of methane. As fuels go, it’s pretty cool.
Actually, LNG is colder than Antarctica on winter solstice. Methane is chilled to about minus 260 degrees — a temperature that transforms it from a vapor to a liquid, compressing its volume 600 times to make it more economical to store for later use or to ship long distances from countries endowed with natural gas to those starved for the fuel.
That’s the broad story of LNG — a case of Adam Smith capitalism at work.
But in the details, the LNG story is a tale of brilliant physicists, savvy government engineers and entrepreneurial risk takers. LNG’s back story includes a Nobel Prize, anxiety about U.S. air defense and a disaster that destroyed part of Cleveland.
LNG touches only a small portion of the world’s gas supply, but it’s the fastest-growing portion. Since 2000, global demand for LNG has grown 140 percent and now accounts for roughly 10 percent of the methane consumed worldwide. The rest moves to market by pipeline.
LNG is exported from 19 countries, including from one U.S. plant in Nikiski, Alaska.
Since 2006, Norway, Russia, Yemen, Peru, Angola and Equatorial Guinea all have started making LNG, while Qatar, Nigeria, Australia, Oman and Indonesia have expanded production.
Qatar’s expansion was an act of sheer audacity. Qatar tripled its LNG production capacity to over 80 million metric tons a year — about 11 billion cubic feet a day — leaping past Malaysia and Indonesia as the world’s largest LNG maker. Last year Qatari plants exported almost one-third of the LNG traded across the globe. In the mid-2000s, with construction under way, Qatari officials thought they’d be selling much of their LNG to the United States. The Lower 48 shale-gas boom blew apart that plan. But last year, as Japan idled nuclear power production after the Fukushima disaster, Qatari exports to Japan soared 56 percent over their 2010 level, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. That dulled Qatar’s pain of losing the U.S. market.
Meanwhile, more countries are clamoring for LNG to quench their growing energy appetite.
Since 2006, China, Brazil, Chile, Dubai, Kuwait, the Netherlands and even Canada and Mexico all became first-time importers of LNG. They joined the mainstay LNG consumers of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, according to the International Group of Liquefied Natural Gas Importers.
[See link for chart and for an explanation of the history and chemistry involved in extraction, separation, chilling and compression. Think cold beer and steaks to grasp the motivation]
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High United Nations Official Calls Free Speech a “Gift” And a “Privilege”
The United Nations would have us forget all about the idea of inalienable rights with which all individuals are endowed by their Creator. The UN wants us to forget the idea that government was established for the purpose of securing these rights, not to create them with the power to take them away. Such ideas are so old-fashioned, after all. The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, were written in the eighteenth century. The United Nations believes it has a much more modern idea.
Free speech is a “gift given to us by the [Universal] Declaration of Human Rights,” said Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations Jan Eliasson during a press conference on October 2nd at UN headquarters in New York. It is “a privilege,” Eliasson said, “that we have, which in my view involves also the need for respect, the need to avoid provocations.”
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a set of normative principles adopted by a majority of the member states of the UN. It gave rise to legally enforceable UN human rights treaties that embodied its core principles, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK Muslims Pay People to Infiltrate English Defence League Rallies and Cause Trouble
Three witnesses have come forward and admitted that they were approached on September 27, 2012 by individuals claiming to be members of the Muslim Defence League and Sharia4UK. These three witnesses, which consisted of two males and one female stated that… “We were approached and offered money to dress as English Defence League (EDL) Members and arrive early in Walsall, blend in with their ranks… and create violence at their upcoming Demo.” “They recommended attacking police, throwing bottles, bricks… etc…”
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2 comments:
Apparently Juvenal was not entirely correct when he said :
panem et circenses :)
@ High United Nations Official Calls Free Speech a “Gift” And a “Privilege”
Rofl ...
What a load of BS.
I will practise my FREE SPEECH when I want. With or without UN`s permission.
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