Cloistered From the Crisis Greeks Seek Solace in Mt. Athos Monasteries
Mount Athos, a self-governed peninsula in northeastern Greece, has been attracting pilgrims to its Orthodox monasteries for centuries. But the debt crisis has led to a sharp rise in the number of guests seeking calm and solace there. Women still aren’t welcome, though.
Mornings on the sacred mountain begin with loud blows. A monk stands in front of the monastery church of Agiou Andrea and hammers a block of wood. The medieval percussion instrument, called a simantron, is the wakeup call for the first religious service of the day. Several black-clad, bearded men scurry across the courtyard. It is 4 a.m. and pitch-black, and the air is filled with the sound of cicadas.
In a few minutes, the oil lamps will be lit in Agiou Andrea, one of 12 “sketes,” or monastic communities, on Mount Athos. There’s not a single empty space in the choir benches. Sitting behind the singing, rhythmically chanting monks are pilgrims from Greece, Russia and Romania. They have slept a few hours on spartan beds, gone without electricity and warm water, and spent the night swatting at mosquitoes.
Agiou Andrea is not a place to expect luxury. But no one has come here for that. “I am here to wash myself clean of my sins,” says Ilie, a young Romanian who lives in Germany. “Here, we are closer to heaven than anywhere else.” Nikos, a Greek businessman, has come to the monastery to find himself. “To simply turn off, meditate and forget the material world,” he says.
The “Holy Mountain” of Athos is a special place for Orthodox Christians. The sparsely inhabited third finger of the Halkidiki Peninsula in northeastern Greece is wildly beautiful, with almost 350 square kilometres (135 square miles) of dense forests and hills. Legend has it that the Virgin Mary landed here on her way to Cyprus and was overcome by its beauty. God then gave her the mountain on it as a gift. And since the “Garden of the Virgin Mary,” as the place is known, is devoted to only the “purest of all women,” other women are not allowed in. At least that is the reason given by the monks who have ruled Athos as an autonomous monastic republic since the 10th century. Not even female animals are allowed on Athos, except cats.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Finance Ministry Denies ‘Island Evacuation’
(ANSAmed) — ATHENS, OCTOBER 11 — Greece’s Finance Ministry on Thursday denied media reports that troika officials were allegedly pressing the Greek government to evacuate thinly populated islands in order to cut costs, as daily Kathimerini reports. The online version of Proto Thema newspaper earlier on Thursday reported that the country’s foreign lenders suggested that Greeks residing on islands with less than 150 inhabitants, be relocated elsewhere. The newspaper was quoting comments allegedly made by Merchant Marine and Aegean Minister Costas Mousouroulis during a meeting with representatives of Greece’s shipping industry. “I told them (the troika) that they must be out of their minds. This is not something we will negotiate,” Mousouroulis was quoted as saying. In a statement, the Finance Ministry said the reports were just “rumors.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Govt Cuts Income Tax, But VAT Set to Rise
Unions give mixed reaction, PD says budget needs ‘fixing’
(ANSA) — Rome, October 10 — Premier Mario Monti said early on Wednesday that his government will cut income tax in the two lowest bands next year after a tense Cabinet meeting on budget measures that ran late into the night.
But he added that a 2% increase in value added tax scheduled for July 2013 that the government had hoped to avoid will be halved to 1% rather than scrapped completely. So vat will go up from 10% to 11% in the lower band and 21 to 22% in the top band. Monti stressed that the budget measures, contained in the so-called Stability Law, did not amount to another austerity package like the tax hikes and spending cuts his emergency government passed last year to put Italy on course to balancing its budget in structural terms next year.
But they still featured new cuts, including a reduction of over one billion euros In health spending that reportedly caused Health Minister Renato Balduzzi to threaten to resign at the cabinet meeting.
Balduzzi denied that the meeting had been bad-tempered, but said he would continue to lobby for the cuts to be reviewed as the bill goes through parliament.
“I will continue to present the reasons why plans should be reconsidered,” the minister said.
Monti, on the other hand, expressed satisfaction at the income-tax cuts, which will primarily benefit lower earners, saying they showed the policies of his administration of non-political technocrats were working.
“Today we can see and feel that budget discipline pays and it is beneficial,” Monti told a press conference.
“We can allow some moderate relief (with moves such as) as start in the reduction of income tax”. The income-tax rate will be cut to 22% from 23% for those earning less than 15,000 euros per year, and to 26% from 27% for salaries between 15,001 and 28,000 euros, while the top three bands will remain unchanged.
Monti’s austerity measures helped stop Italy following Greece on the path towards a default on its massive national debt but they also have deepened the recession the country slipped into last year.
Italy’s trade unions gave a mixed reaction to the government’s budget bill. “It’s a budget that will depress the economy,” said Susanna Camusso, the head of Italy’s largest union confederation, the left-wing CGIL. “The news is that there will be an increase in VAT, an increase that will only be partially compensated by the cut in income tax”. She added that people on benefits will see their cost of living rise. However, Raffaele Bonanni of the more moderate CISL praised the measures. “It’s a very important signal because for the first time in many years the income tax of low earners is being lightened a little,” said Bonanni. The centre-left Democratic Party (PD), which is one of the three main political groups supporting Monti’s emergency government and is top of the polls ahead of next year’s elections, said health and education cuts needed to be amended. “The reduction of the lowest bands of income tax is very good, but I think there are things to fix regarding two points,” said PD chief Pier Luigi Bersani. “It’s necessary to have a very precise look at the effects of the health cuts and I fear that the jobs of 6,300 to 6,400 teachers will be cut in schools”. Industry Minister Corrado Passera said the budget bill was “a good starting platform” for parliament to work on.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Portuguese Government Approves Draconian Budget
The government of Portugal has approved what ministers called the most austere budget in decades. Lisbon has set its sights on quickly reducing its debt load after being bailed out last year by the EU and the IMF.
Portugalis on course to implement a draconian 2013 austerity budget. Following a 20-hour marathon session, the cabinet on Thursday approved massive spending cuts next year and a string of corrections to this year’s budget.
Details of the measures in the pipeline are yet to be made public, but the package looked certain to include hikes in income tax and other taxes to replace a stalled rise in workers’ social contributions which had been wiped off the table after widespread protests across the country.
The government of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho (pictured above) appeared adamant in its resolve to satisfy the requirements of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which had granted Lisbon a bailout to the tune of 78 billion euros ($100 billion).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Spanish Students: Parents Mobilize
Nationwide student strike called for Oct. 16-18
(ANSAmed) — MADRID, OCTOBER 10 — Spanish students will take to the streets October 16, 17 and 18 to protest the government’s 4-billion-euro spending cuts in public education, proposed educational reforms, and the sackings of thousands of teachers with short-term contracts.
The nationwide protest was called by student unions and parent associations. Following on many demonstrations by teachers and professors, this will be the first major student mobilization against the government.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Dalai Lama Warns Against Generalizing Islam
The Dalai Lama warned not to stereotype Muslims and called for inter-faith dialogue, AFP reported Thursday.
On a lecture tour of the United States, Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader said that every religion, including Buddhism, has “mischievous” people and that they should not be deemed to represent the faith as a whole.
“Due to some mischievous action or destructive action carried out by some mischievous Muslims, due to that, to generalize the whole of Islam as something negative is totally unfair, unjust,” he said. “We need more effort to reach out to other faiths.”
The Dalai Lama, who fleed China to Tibet in 1959, conceded that Buddhists previously had suffered under Muslim rule in India but said “the past is past.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Detroit Police Declare City to be ‘War Zone’ Unsafe for Visitors, Residents
(NaturalNews) The once-great city of Detroit is continuing to self-implode, a victim of decades of gross mismanagement that borders on the criminal.
The latest sign that this former automobile manufacturing capital of the world is headed for the metropolitan dustbin of history is an announcement last week by none other than the men and women of the Detroit Police Department, who sent out a warning via their local union that their city is too dangerous to visit.
To highlight the danger, city cops held a rally last weekend called, “Enter At Your Own Risk,” in front of Comerica Park, “to remind the public that the officers are overworked, understaffed, and at times, fearful for their lives,” CBS Detroit, WWJ, reported.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
James Levine to Return to Conducting Metropolitan Opera in 2013
Defying opera world doubters who thought he was too ill, weak or disengaged, James Levine, the longtime and much loved music director of the Metropolitan Opera, plans to return to the podium for the first time in two years, for a May 19 performance by the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall and for three productions at the opera house next season.
Mr. Levine, 69, once a workhorse of the baton, has been plagued by health problems since 2006, leading to a drip-drip of cancellations over recent years. A fall in the summer of 2011 that caused severe damage to his spine forced him to bow out of all of last season and cancel involvement this season while he recovered. He hasn’t led a performance since May 14, 2011, when he conducted Wagner’s “Walküre.”
“I’m overwhelmingly happy to be coming back,” Mr. Levine said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. “It’s miraculous for me.”
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Leftists Mobilize Schoolchildren for Obama
On Tuesday, October 9, the day after Columbus Day, newspapers reported not one, but two, audacious initiatives: (1) an effort in Denver to have teachers embolden youngsters to actively pursue “social change” within the “dominant culture,” which can be taken for inciting insurrection, and (2) a voter-registration drive in Florida schools aimed at getting kids registered as Obama Democrats, with an outright refusal to do the same for the Republican Party and its nominee, Mitt Romney. In addition to voter “registration,” Pasco County Schools brazenly permitted a former teacher to deliver Obama speeches to senior high-school students.
FoxNews reporter Todd Starnes learned that an outfit going under the moniker Organizing For America was “given access to as many as a half dozen high school and middle school campuses.“ The usual outrage by the community and parents made the rounds of news services in both instances. But it was too late to rein in the Left or launch a campaign of traditional values in government schools.
A lawsuit might have been winnable 20 years ago—in both cases. Today, you’d find it hard to locate a sympathetic judge who’d touch either one. Not because there aren’t any conservative, even Republican, judges. Not because today’s judges are unaware of the questionable legality of these two incursions.
Quite simply, the Left has been allowed to become too powerful.
[…]
Such operations as Organizing For America are front groups for the radical Left. There are hundreds of them. For example, the American Planning Association (APA) uses trained functionaries to serve as “agents of change.” These provocateurs are hard-core activists. They pose as “facilitators” and “moderators” of local committees and focus groups. By twisting words and utilizing slick slogans, they dupe local officials and grassroots groups into launching initiatives or instituting measures that are helpful to socialist-leftist causes.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Moment BBC Film Crew Was Held at Gunpoint After Trying to Sneak Into Nevada’s Area 51
This is the moment a BBC film crew were held by security teams at the notoriously secretive Area 51 — where conspiracy theorists believe the American government is hiding a flying saucer.
Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell and UFO expert Darren Perks sneaked past the border at the site — and were forced to lie on the ground at gunpoint for three hours while the FBI checked their credentials.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
(NaturalNews) Big Pharma firm Johnson & Johnson, maker of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal, owes hundreds of millions of dollars to several states over improper marketing of the medication and for encouraging doctors to prescribe it for non-approved uses, but because the case was settled in court the company’s CEO, Alex Gorsky, won’t have to testify about allegations his company’s drug caused some young boys to grow breasts, among others.
Throughout most of its existence; however, the drug had also been hyped for, and utilized to treat children years before it had been approved for that purpose. It was also prescribed for off-label uses like dementia, depression and anxiety.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Suicide Overtakes Car Accidents as Leading Cause of Injury-Related Death
A recent report on causes of death shows that suicide has now overtaken traffic accidents as the leading cause of injury-related death in the US. One reason for that is because car accident occurrences are down. But even so, the rate of suicide rose by an unhealthy 15 percent between 2000 and 2009, and poisoning (the number one cause of which is prescription drugs) rose by a whopping 128 percent.
[…]
There’s clearly evidence suggesting that economic recessions and financial hardships can be a significant contributing factor.2 According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide rates tend to rise and fall along with recessions and economic booms. For example, during the 1932 Great Depression, as many as 22 people per 100,000 committed suicide. The current economic collapse has also led to a well-documented rash of suicides across Europe.
According to the New York Times:
“Especially in the most fragile nations like Greece, Ireland and Italy, small-business owners and entrepreneurs are increasingly taking their own lives in a phenomenon some European newspapers have started calling ‘suicide by economic crisis.’
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Oceans Are Neither Rising, Nor Turning to Acid
Add ocean acidification and falsely asserted rapid rise of sea levels to the list of things the IPCC, the USGS, and NOAA, among others, are lying about.
When you consider how deeply in debt the nation is, you might think that scientists from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) would want to avoid wasting taxpayer dollars studying “ocean acidification in the Arctic and what this means for the future survival of marine and terrestrial organisms.” You would be wrong.
Like so many government agencies that were originally established for legitimate reasons, the USGS has been corrupted to advance the greatest hoax of the modern era, global warming, aka climate change. A visit to its website shows that its major concerns these days include “climate and land use change”, “ecosystems”, along with “energy and minerals, and environmental health.”
We have arrived at the sad and dangerous point in our history when our government’s agencies are just as likely to be used to advance the global warming./climate change hoax as to be engaged in the original and actual functions for which they were established.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Growth Warning: Top German Economists Say Greece is Lost
Several top German economic institutes on Thursday warned that German growth is slowing as the country continues to be hampered by the ongoing euro-zone debt crisis. And Greece, they say, will be unable to “free itself from its debt burden” and will need another haircut.
Chancellor Angela Merkel had been hoping that her trip to Athens earlier this week would help demonstrate Germany’s solidarity with Greece as it struggles to overcome its debt crisis. Just two days later, however, leading economic institutes in Germany have darkened the mood considerably. The institutes presented their autumn economic forecast on Thursday, and cast doubt on whether Greece would be able to remain part of the euro.
“We believe that Greece cannot be saved,” said Joachim Scheide from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, one of several top economic institutes tasked by the German government with examining the state of the country’s economy twice a year.
Oliver Holtemöller, of the Halle Institute for Economic Research, was also pessimistic at the Thursday press conference called to present the evaluation. He said it is unlikely that Greece will ever be able to free itself from its debt burden — and called for a new debt haircut for the country.
The idea is not likely to go over well. Any new restructuring of Greek debt would necessarily involve the country’s international creditors rather than solely affecting private investors as last spring’s €100 billion haircut did. On Thursday, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble rejected a debt-haircut proposal by the International Monetary Fund, saying it was not helpful. Euro-zone finance ministers also oppose the idea and the European Central Bank has said that forgiving the Greek debt it has on its books is out of the question.
Alternatives, however, are few and far between. And that, combined with the threat of further euro-zone turbulence, the report makes clear, spells bad news for both the German and European economies. …
| — Hat tip: LH | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Defence Minister Pumps Franco Frattini to Head NATO
Giampaolo Di Paolo says NATO allies back ‘strong’ candidacy
(ANSA) — Brussels, October 10 — Italian Defense Minister Giampaolo Di Paolo promoted former foreign minister Franco Frattini to be named the next secretary-general of NATO on Wednesday.
Di Paolo told journalists in Brussels on Wednesday that the allied countries “recognize” Italy’s role in NATO and support the “very strong” candidacy of Frattini to follow Denmark’s Anders Fogh Rasmussen as NATO’s new chief.
Frattini is a center-right politician from the Peopld of Freedom (PdL) party of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, under whom he served from 2002 to 2004 and from 2008 to 2011.
Frattini was European commissioner for justice, freedom and security from 2004 to 2008.
Rasmussen’s term as general secretary was due to end soon but was recently extended by a year. Di Paola spoke at the end of a meeting of ministers held in NATO headquarters in Brussels.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Court Rejects Cuts to Top Government Salaries
Trimming top wages ‘unconstitutional’
(ANSA) — Rome, October 11 — Italy’s Constitutional Court on Thursday struck down a government plan to cut salaries to top civil servants and judges. In its decision, the court said that the decree to trim salaries in the 2011-2012 budget was unconstitutional.
The ruling means the cash-strapped government will not be able to trim the pay packages for employees as planned.
The government of Premier Mario Monti had intended to cutsalaries that exceeded 90,000 euros.
A 5% cut would have been applied to the salaries of employees earning more than 90,000 euros and up to 150,000 euros.
Those earning more than 150,000 euros would have taken a 10% hit.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: PDL Councillor Arrested, Allegedly ‘Bought Votes From Mafia’
Zambetti was ‘Ndrangheta asset, says prosecutor
(ANSA) — Milan, October 10 — Domenico Zambetti, an executive councillor in the Lombardy regional government, was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly buying votes from the ‘Ndrangheta mafia syndicate.
Zambetti, a member of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party, is accused of paying two mobsters 200,000 euros for 4,000 votes (at 50 euros each) in the 2010 elections for the assembly of the region around Italy’s business capital Milan. Milan prosecutor Ilda Boccassini said the investigation, which led to 20 arrests on Wednesday including Zambetti’s, had showed ‘Ndrangheta’s ability to affect “the democracy of the country and the freedom to vote”. She said the probe had also uncovered evidence that the powerful syndicate, which is originally from the southern region of Calabria but has spread to wealthier northern regions in recent years, contaminated the vote for Milan’s city council last year.
Boccassini said Zambetti became an “asset for the mafia organization and it demanded favours from him”. An alleged example of this was the fact that Zambetti had the daughter of an alleged Ndrangheta’ boss, Eugenio Costantino, hired by a regional agency. Lombardy Governor Roberto Formigoni said via Twitter that he had relieved Zambetti of his duties because of the gravity of the allegations.
Judicial sources, meanwhile, said three Lombardy regional councillors have been put under investigation on suspicion of fraud in an unrelated case.
The three are the Northern League’s Davide Boni, the former speaker of the regional assembly, and Franco Nicoli Cristiani and Massimo Buscemi of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party.
Zambetti’s arrest and the corruption probe takes the number of councillors in the Lombardy regional executive and assembly who are under investigation up to 14. They include Formigoni of the PdL who is accused of corruption related to health contracts.
Milan Mayor Giuliano Pisapia said Formigoni should quit in the light of Zambetti’s arrest.
“After this latest development, it’s not possible to go on like this,” Pisapia said.
In neighbouring Piedmont, meanwhile, police searched regional government offices as part of a probe into suspected graft relating to contracts for the construction of new regional headquarters. Furthermore, Vincenzo Salvatore Maruccio, the caucus head in Lazio for the anti-graft Italy of Values (IdV) party, has been put under investigation for allegedly embezzling half a million euros of public money.
Wednesday’s developments were part of a string of corruption scandals that have hit various parts of Italy’s political spectrum in recent months. The PdL was already in turmoil over the case of its former caucus chief in Lazio, Franco Fiorito, who was arrested last week on suspicion of embezzling public money. That case caused Renata Poverini to resign as governor of Lazio last month.
Experts say the scandals have strengthened widespread public disaffection with the nation’s political class and contributed to the rise of comedian Beppe Grillo’s grassroots Five Star movement, which is opposed to the present party system.
The Five Star movement is vying with the PdL for second place in the polls, according to several recent surveys.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Napolitano Signs Anti-Sleaze Decree After Spending Scandals
Measure cuts regional councillors by 35%
(ANSA) — Rome, October 10 — Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Wednesday signed a decree that would cut the number of regional councillors by 35% in response to a raft of public-spending scandals. In a statement, the president said his signature came in response to a need for “urgent measures in finance and managing local authorities”. Upon introducing the decree last week, President Mario Monti cited widespread “dismay at incidents that undermine the faith and reputation of the country and its credibility abroad”.
Recent sleaze cases, culminating in a scandal that forced the governor of Lazio to step down, risked defeating “the efforts we are all making to ensure Italy’s role is fully recognised at the international level,” Monti said.
According to the decree, local bodies who do not stay in line with budgets will face central-government funding cuts of 80%.
Mayors who do not keep their accounts in order will not be allowed to stand again, the premier said.
The pay of local and regional councillors will be cut to the level of the best-behaved region, while stipends will be eliminated and all local officials will have to make public, and have certified by the Audit Court, the money they get.
The pension age of local officials will be raised from 50 to 66. The government planned to change Article V of the Constitution to recalibrate the way the State and regions spend money to avoid waste, Monti says. The tipping point in public indignation with political corruption came last month when Franco Fiorito, caucus leader for ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party in the Lazio region, was alleged to have skimmed off millions of euros of public money for personal use.
The case of Fiorito, who was arrested last week, caused the PdL’s Renata Polverini to step down as governor.
The investigation is only one of a series of recent corruption scandals that have hit various parts of Italy’s political spectrum, sparking condemnation from Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and the Catholic Church.
Experts say the scandals have also strengthened widespread public disaffection with the nation’s political class and contributed to the rise of comedian Beppe Grillo’s grassroots Five Star movement, which is opposed to the present party system.
The Five Star movement is vying with the PdL for second place in the polls, behind the runaway leader, the centre-left Democratic Party, according to several surveys.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Three Lombardy Councillors Probed for Corruption
Police search offices in Piedmont
(ANSA) — Rome, October 10 — Three Lombardy regional councillors have been put under investigation on suspicion of fraud, judicial sources said Wednesday.
The three are the Northern League’s Davide Boni, the former speaker of the regional assembly, and Franco Nicoli Cristiani and Massimo Buscemi of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party.
In neighbouring Piedmont, meanwhile, police searched regional government offices as part of a probe into suspected graft relating to contracts for the construction of new regional headquarters.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Cabinet Dissolves Reggio Calabria Municipal Council
(AGI) Rome, Oct. 9 — The cabinet has decided to dissolve Reggio Calabria’s municipal council as announced by Interior Minister Anna Maria Cancellieri at a press conference held while the meeting continued. “This decision to dissolve the municipal council is not due to instability, but due to continguity with circles that could cause problems” with Mafia organisations.
Cancellieri added that this is a preventive measure and added that a commission of three members with an 18 month mandate would be appointed. The Interior Minister also said this is the first time in history the Municipal Council of a provincial capital has been dissolved. The commission that will now govern the city for the coming 18 months is formed by the Prefect of Crotone, Vincenzo Panico, the State Auditors Inspection Services’ director, Dante Piazza and Deputy Prefect Giuseppe Castaldo.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 32 Mln Seized in Reggio Calabria Crime Syndicate Operation
(AGI) — Reggio Calabria, Oct. 10 — As a result of provisional remedies introduced in parallel with an investigation into ties between the ‘Ndrangheta Crime Syndicate and Leonia, a company part-owned by Reggio Calabria Council, an order of attachment has been served seizing all traceable property, assets and business concerns of the arrested councillors, including the private assets (equal to 49% of company equity) of Leonia Spa, a semi public-private organisation working in the refuse sector, found to be 51%-owned by Reggio Calabria Council. The assets seized (share capital, company shares, business assets, real estate, current accounts and vehicles) are worth a total of 32 million euro. In addition to shares in the semi-public company, the business assets of companies run by the Fontana mafia family were also seized.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Formigoni Administration in Lombardy Close to Collapse
Governor to have talks with PdL, League leaders
(ANSA) — Milan, October 11 — Governor Roberto Formigoni’s administration in Lombardy is close to collapse after a series of corruption scandals, including accusations an executive bought votes from the mafia in 2010 regional elections.
Formigoni, a member of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PdL) party, is himself under investigation for alleged corruption linked to health sector contracts, making him one of 14 members of the regional executive or assembly to be probed in various cases.
The local branch of populist Northern League, who are allied with the PdL in Lombardy and other northern regions, have said they have withdrawn their support for Formigoni’s administration. The future of the regional administration is likely to be settled when the governor has talks with PdL Secretary Angelino Alfano and League chief Roberto Maroni later on Thursday.
“The League (members of the executive) yesterday gave their resignations and I acknowledge that,” Formigoni told Mediaset television on Thursday.
“If the League confirm that they are out of the game, we’ll either have a complete revamp of the executive or we’ll have elections”.
League members are among the Lombardy councillors under investigation.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Thugs Who Beat Up Factory Worker for 80p While Wearing Tiger and Red Devil Fancy Dress Costumes
Two thugs battered a factory worker in the street and robbed him of 80p while dressed as a tiger and a red devil.
Fancy dress duo Fred Dixon, 18, and David Aston-Brown, 20, pounced on Roger Brookes, 37, in the early hours of August 20.
The pair shouted at Mr Brookes as he made his way to work at a plant in Hereford before snatching his rucksack, a court has heard.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: The Cronies Behind the Failed BAE Merger Should Hang Their Heads in Shame
The implosion of the biggest industrial merger of our time, the £30billion tie-up between BAE Systems and Airbus maker EADS was all but inevitable from the day it was announced.
A proposed deal that left the British, French and German governments squabbling over the size of their respective stakes — not to mention one that had to be rubber-stamped by the Pentagon — was doomed from the start.
Yet for weeks the foolhardy managers of BAE and EADS (the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company) pressed ahead with their grandiose ambitions, despite the enormous political obstacles they must have known would lie ahead. Indeed, the decision of BAE chairman Dick Olver to push for this deal was a piece of self-aggrandisement unequalled in recent times even in Britain’s testosterone-fuelled boardrooms.
And let us not forget that a clause relating to the merger meant that chief executive Ian King would have collected a potential £18million in share options as well as a fat pension for life if the deal had gone ahead.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Benghazi’s Real Scandal? Uncle Sam Joined the Jihad
by Diana West
Imagine, pre-9/11/12, that you were responsible for arranging the defense of the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Would you have considered American interests and personnel best protected by bringing in a local security outfit called the February 17 Martyrs Brigade?
The question has yet to come up in House hearings, but I think it holds the key to the Obama administration’s betrayal of the American people in “Benghazi-gate.” To an American with common sense not subverted by advanced degrees, the thought of putting Islamic “martyrs” in charge of American “infidels” in Benghazi — which, fun fact, literally means “city of holy warriors” — would trigger the inevitable “heck, no.” And that’s without even knowing what is significant about Feb. 17.
But I’m talking about Washington, D.C. Here, placing the lives of Americans in the hands of a thug-army linked to multiple atrocities and drawn from jihad-epicentral eastern Libya disturbs no collective brain wave. No matter that Benghazi and nearby Derna sent more men, per capita, to Iraq to kill Americans than anywhere else in the world. As far as the Obama administration is concerned, putting local boys in barracks inside the consulate compound was a great idea. Why not? President Obama’s ambassador, the late Christopher Stevens, was, as they say, “reaching out” across the jihad spectrum on official business.
Meanwhile, Ansar al Sharia (“Supporters of Islamic Law”), the al-Qaida-linked militia believed to have led the consulate assault in September, is a spinoff of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, but that didn’t scratch the lacquered political surface, either. And even as reports remind us of ties among February 17 Martyrs Brigade leadership, the Muslim Brotherhood and the web of jihad-poison spun by Qatar’s Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Libya’s Ali al-Salabi — the latter having been tapped by the Qatari dictatorship to distribute $2 billion to Libyan “rebels” — the focal point remains elsewhere…
| — Hat tip: Diana West | [Return to headlines] |
Tunisia: Leaked Video Belies Ghannouchi’s Moderate Image
Video and audio possibly leaked by Salafists
(ANSAmed) — TUNIS, OCTOBER 11 — Leaked video and audio recordings of Sheikh Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of Tunisia’s ruling Ennahda party, are causing the moderate Islamist politician a headache.
Leaked yesterday on Facebook, possibly by Salafist sources, the video allegedly shows Ghannouchi in a meeting with two Salafist leaders, in which he decries secular control of Tunisian media, economy and police. The audio recording, which was leaked on Thursday, purports to be of a February conversation on constitutional reform between Ghannouchi and Salafist leader Sheikh Bechir Ben Hassen, a member of the Tunisian League of Muslim Scholars.
“The rule of law is based on power and not on the Constitution,” Ghannouchi allegedly said. “We must instil the Islamic spirit in the people. We must take the time to educate our youth, to spread a global Islamic consciousness. That is when the people themselves will demand sharia law.”
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A plane intercepted on its way from Moscow to Damascus was carrying military equipment and ammunition to Syria, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said today.
Erdogan says the cargo seized by Turkish authorities late Wednesday was destined for the Syrian military.
He told reporters in Ankara that Turkey was still examining the equipment and that ‘the necessary will follow.’
Syria has denied that the Syrian Air Airbus A320 was carrying an illicit cargo.
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Qatar: CMC Recommends Shisha Ban for Women, People Under 21
‘Sexist and discriminatory,’ say social network users
(ANSAmed) — DOHA, OCTOBER 11 — The social networks are up in arms over a Doha Central Municipal Council (CMC) recommendation banning women and anyone under 21 from smoking shishas in public, local media reported on Thursday.
The non-binding CMC recommendation, which is to be submitted to the urban planning ministry, also calls for shutting down the smoking rooms in bars, restaurants and cafes.
This amounts to “a sexist and discriminatory measure” and has nothing to do with smoking, according to some social network commentators, because traditionally dressed women often prefer to patronize the smoking rooms, which are generally out of the public eye.
And they may be right, as one former CMC member admitted that the council is against such rooms, because women often sit there with men who are not their relatives.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Syria Comes Between Turkey and Russia
Russian President Vladimir Putin has canceled a visit to Turkey following the forced landing of a plane traveling from Moscow to Damascus. The move signals a possible crisis in Turkish-Russian relations.
Although it had not been officially announced, Putin had been expected to visit Turkey on October 14 for a two-day working visit. Syria was expected to be high on the agenda. The positions of the two countries on this issue differ greatly. The Kremlin has given full support to the Syrian President Bashar Assad while Turkey is openly calling for his immediate removal.
Despite this disagreement, Turkey and Russia cooperate in many fields from nuclear energy to tourism. Trade between the two countries is expected to reach $35 billion this year and a target of $100 billion has been set for 2015. That would suggest that the two need each other — but the Syrian issue has turned into a big headache.
When the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, visited Moscow in July, he disclosed that he had made suggestions to Putin as to how to deal with the period after Assad’s removal from power, but he was waiting for an answer. It’s not clear if that is still the case, but Erdogan recently publicly called on Russia to change its stance on Syria.
Russia has several reason for its continued support for Syria. First of all, Syria is now Russia’s final stronghold in the Middle East. It hosts Russia’s sole naval base in the Mediterranean and it buys $1.5 billion worth of weapons each year.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey: New Draft Code Against Tax Evaders in Parliament
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, OCTOBER 10 — The Turkish government has submitted a draft code to Parliament that would allow the pursuit of tax evaders in foreign countries. If enacted, the code will put into practice an international agreement on preventing tax evasion carved out by the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation (OECD) and the European Commission. However, the government has made a reservation restricting Turkey’s responsibility only to income, corporate and value added tax, daily Hurriyet reported. The contracting governments will help each other and maintain comprehensive cooperation to combat tax evasion at a time when free movement of capital may lead to such consequences. The agreement allows signatory countries to demand information regarding taxes.
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Turkey-Syria: US Analyst Warns, it Could be Erdogan’s Vietnam
Ankara moves troops, ships and warplanes at the border
(ANSAmed) — ANKARA, OCTOBER 9 — A week after stray mortar fire from the Syrian civil war killed five Turkish civilians in the border town of Akcakale, tensions remain high on the 900-kilometer Turkish-Syrian border, with Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan sabre-rattling while his military high command moves troops, ships and warplanes into the area.
According to Turkish analysts, popular opposition to a war with Syria remains high even as Erdogan warns that an all-out conflict with its neighbor, though unwanted, “is not far off,” and that embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “stands on crutches.” The Turkish government envisages five levels of military response to escalating tensions with Syria, Milliyet daily wrote on Tuesday. These are: artillery response to stray mortar fire from Syria; beefing up military presence along the border; air force raids against Syrian positions, and, as a last resort, sending ground forces into Syria.
Turkey has already sent troops and tanks to the border, transferred 25 F16 warplanes to its Diyarbakir Air Force base, and sent warships from the Sea of Marmara to the south-eastern Mediterranean. A fifth measure would entail creating a buffer zone on the Syrian side of the border, should the current flow of war refugees, which now number 100,000, increase to 200,000. Turkey can host up to 120,000 refugees in acceptable conditions, the newspaper quoted authorities as saying. However, Erdogan, engaged in a bloody internal conflict with Kurdish separatists in the north, can ill afford to enter into an armed intervention his NATO allies have already given notice they will not participate in, Turkish analysts said. Erdogan is “trapped between national honor and national interest,” as Prof. Joshua Landis, who directs the University of Oklahoma’s Center for Middle East Studies, put it. “National honor demanded a strong, determined response to last week’s civilian deaths. But it is in the national interest to stay out of Syria, which could potentially turn into Erdogan’s Vietnam.
He could get bogged down, and it would exact a very high price.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Embassy Security Chief Killed During ‘Al-Qaeda Attack’ In Yemeni Captial
A masked gunman riding on a motorbike has assassinated the chief of security for the U.S. embassy today in Sanaa, the capital city of Yemen.
The lethal assault, which Yemeni officials said bore all the hallmarks of an al-Qaeda attack, comes a month after the September 11th raid on the U.S. consulate in Bengahzi, Libya, in which the American ambassador Christopher Stevens died.
After the shooting of Qassem Aqlani, a Yemeni security official in his 50s who had worked for the U.S. embassy for over 20-years, the gunman fled from the scene.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Yemeni Security Official Killed Outside U.S. Embassy
(ANSAmed) — New York, October 11 — A security official at the United States embassy in Yemen’s capital city of Sanaa was shot dead by two masked men on a motorcycle Thursday.
Qassem Aqlani, 50, was ambushed on his way to work. Yemeni security sources have told media in the US that the murder “has the fingerprints of al-Qaeda”.
Aqlani worked for the US embassy in Yemen for about 20 years, and had recently been investigating a September 12 assault on the embassy amid the outrage over a US-produced anti-Islamic film.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The Pakistani schoolgirl shot by a Taliban gunman because she championed education for girls and other Western values was today transferred to a specialist hospital.
Surgeons yesterday announced Malala Yousufzai, 14, was in a stable condition after removing a bullet from her neck.
But following Taliban threats to kill her, authorities in Pakistan decided to move her to a hospital in the army garrison town of Rawalpindi for her own safety.
Authorities today announced they have identified her attacker and offered a 10,000,000 rupee (£119,000) reward for his capture.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
China’s Nobel Literature Prizewinner Splits Opinion
China’s Nobel Prize winner for literature Mo Yan has won over both Western and Chinese audiences. But while some say he works cleverly within the rules, others claim he is too close to the country’s rulers.
Chinese author Mo Yan expressed delight at having won this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature, promising to “strive harder” in his writing.
Among the writers best-known books in the west are “Big Breasts and Wide Hips” and “The Republic of Wine.”
Best known, however, is the 1987 novel “Red Sorghum,” which portrays the hard lives of farmers in the early years of communist rule. The book was made into a film — winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival — by Oscar-nominated director Zhang Yimou.
“Mo Yan is a marvelous storyteller,” Michel Hockx, Professor of Chinese literature at the School of African and Oriental Studies, told DW. “His novels have a unique way of combining the grand narrative of modern Chinese history with the local color of Chinese rural communities.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
South Korean Sentenced in ‘Octopus Death’ Scheme
A report says a South Korean man who blamed a live octopus for the death of his girlfriend has been sentenced to life in prison for killing her.
Yonhap news agency says police had initially concluded in 2010 that the man’s girlfriend suffocated while swallowing an entire octopus that stuck in her throat. It says prosecutors reopened the case five months later after her family found that the man had received $180,000 in insurance money for her death.
Yonhap says a court in the city of Incheon convicted the 31-year-old man on Thursday of smothering the woman to death.
Live octopuses are a delicacy in South Korea and are usually eaten after being cut into pieces.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Kenyan Half-Brother Kidnaps Son
(AGI) Nairobi, Oct 10 — George Obama, the American president’s Kenyan half-brother, is back in the news. His girlfriend has accused him of having kidnapped their 3-year-old son to take him to the United States. According to a report from ABC, citing the local newspaper “The Nation”, during a court hearing the mother of the child declared that George Obama, after coming to her house in the Haruma slum with the excuse of bringing a gift to the boy, took the child away. The judge barred George from leaving the country with the boy and ordered him to bring the child to the next hearing at the end of the month.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Police Pick Up 33 Immigrants on Puglia Shore
Group of Pakistani men all in good health
(ANSA) — Lecce, October 11 — Italian police picked up 33 immigrants on the southern coast of Puglia near the city of Santa Maria di Leuca on Thursday The immigrants are all adult men except for two boys and self-identified as Pakistani. The men told police they had reached the coast on board a vessel driven by smugglers, who left them on the shore.
Police who took the group to the don Tonino Bello center for identification in the city of Otranto said that they were all in good health.
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Chocolate and Nobel Prizes Linked in Study
You don’t have to be a genius to like chocolate, but geniuses are more likely to eat lots of chocolate, at least according to a new paper published in the august New England Journal of Medicine. Franz Messerli reports a highly significant correlation between a nation’s per capita chocolate consumption and the rate at which its citizens win Nobel Prizes.
Building on research raising the possibility that the flavanols in chocolate may enhance cognitive performance, Messerli “wondered whether there would be a correlation between a country’s level of chocolate consumption and its population’s cognitive function.” Using the success of a country in winning Nobel Prizes as a surrogate for “the proportion with superior cognitive function” in a country, he analyzed the relationship between the number of Nobel laureates per capita in a country with that country’s per capita chocolate consumption.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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