Displaying posts categorized under

WORLD NEWS

Mass Migration: The European Commission’s New “Norm” by Alain Destexhe

The Commission, based in Brussels, is not elected but, according to EU treaties, it has a monopoly — yes, a monopoly — on initiating legislation at the European level. A Commissioner is an appointed bureaucrat, one for each member state — often a former top politician, now sidelined in his country of origin, therefore with very little democratic legitimacy.

First of all, many of the migrants are not qualified; and second, they receive social benefits so there is little or no incentive for them to work. Articles supporting the claims of the officials — that Europe needs more migrants in order to fund the healthcare and pensions of aging Europeans — neglect that this plan can only succeed IF the migrants work. These assumptions, therefore, appear to be based on ideological bias rather than scientific evidence.

The new norms, like the size of apples or the curvature of cucumbers, should, according to the European Commission, be determined by the European Commission. Migration will not be a question open for debate. It will be a “norm” determined by the Commission.

Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, recently published a startling opinion, advocating for more immigration as an inescapable reality to which European citizens should just adapt without any further discussion.

The article illustrates much of what is wrong with European institutions, in particular the European Commission, a mixture of bureaucratic arrogance, false creed based on dogma rather than facts, and a disdain for democratic debate. The Commission, based in Brussels, is not elected but, according to EU treaties, it has a monopoly — yes, a monopoly — on initiating legislation at the European level. Each Commissioner is an appointed bureaucrat, one for each member state — often a former top politician, now sidelined in his country of origin, therefore with very little democratic legitimacy.

“It is time to face the truth…. The only way to make our asylum and migration policies future-proof is collectively to change our way of thinking first,” wrote Avramopoulos. Does he think that grass-roots citizens do not think? Like Zeus — another Greek — on Mount Olympus, the truth comes from the upper floor of the Berlaymont building, the official headquarters of the European Commission in Brussels, as a top-down process. Hey, stupid dudes who want to control immigration, just listen the new self-proclaimed God-bureaucrat and shut up because: “we cannot and will never be able to stop migration”. Period.

Canada: Islamist-Leftist-Government Alliance Silences Free Speech by Christine Douglass-Williams

“I… make a distinction between those who choose to practice Islam in peace and harmony with others, and those with an agenda to subvert democratic constitutions, demand special privileges over other creeds, and attack innocent people as a supremacist entitlement. It is odd to be removed from a race relations foundation for my private work in criticizing Islam, which is not a race.” — Christine Douglass-Williams, Jihad Watch, December 21, 2017.

Canada’s Motion M-103 puts Islam above all other religions in that any other religion can be discussed openly, criticized openly and even be mocked openly without punishment or state penalty.

“The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” — Muslim Brotherhood Plan for North America.

Political Islam espouses the opposite of all I stand for as an activist for human rights for all. I oppose its treatment of women, female genital mutilation (FGM), child brides, killing of gays, goals to obliterate Israel, raping of infidel women, blasphemy laws etc., as any proponent of human rights and those who battle intolerance should.

For writing and warning about political Islam, I was terminated as a director at the federal government’s Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF), an agency usually at arms-length from the federal government.

As I wrote at Jihad Watch:

I have been terminated from the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, four months after a threatening letter by Heritage Minister Melanie Joly about my writings on Islam at Jihad Watch,

Joly made good on her threats. The Privy Council has terminated my appointment, despite my years of dedicated commitment to the Foundation, on which I also served as Chair of the Investment Committee, and as a member of the Human Resource and Executive Committees. Why? Because I dared to criticize political Islam on Jihad Watch, and because of My Personal Warning to Icelanders, in which I warned about the deceptive works of Muslim Brotherhood operatives in their infiltration of the West. Their tactics are well documented.

I personally make a distinction between those who choose to practice Islam in peace and harmony with others, and those with an agenda to subvert democratic constitutions, demand special privileges over other creeds, and attack innocent people as a supremacist entitlement. It is odd to be removed from a race relations foundation for my private work in criticizing Islam, which is not a race.

Canadian Press (CP) gave my story balanced coverage. It was run by Post Media outlets, Canoe, The National Post and even Huffington Post. The lengthy Toronto Star story — “Board member of anti-racism agency fired amid accusations of Islamophobic commentary” — however featured a number of far-left, pro-Islamist sources; among them: The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), CAIR-CAN/NCCM and the Mosaic Institute.

Welcome to the New Year, Same as the Old by Mark Steyn

Happy New Year to you. On the Eighth Day of Christmas the multiculti fetishists gave to us:

An eight o’clock curfew:

VAST areas of East, North and South London have been declared “no-go zones” by terrified delivery drivers because of the acid attack epidemic, The Sun can reveal.

Moped riders say they won’t go to the violent hotspots after 8pm because they fear being attacked with acid or knives.

They have been forced to cut down their hours – taking a massive pay cut – thanks to the dangers.

The House of Commons heard last week that London has more acid attacks per head of population than any other world city.

Seven sexual assailants:

At least seven people were arrested for sexual assault in the German capital, police said, as cited by Die Welt newspaper…

In most cases, women were “groped between their legs or their buttocks,” Thomas Neuendorf from the Berlin police press office told Ruptly. “The suspects were predominantly young men from Syria or Afghanistan,” he said.

Six stabbers arrested:

Six people have been arrested following four fatal unrelated stabbings that took place on New Year’s Eve and in the early hours of New Year’s Day.

Five homes raided:

Police have raided five homes as part of an anti-terror operation to foil a suspected Christmas terror plot.

Loud bangs were heard as an army bomb squad was deployed following a raid in Chesterfield and there were also operations by counter-terror officers in three parts of Sheffield.

Four women gang-raped:

Another woman has been attacked and gang raped by several men in the Swedish city of Malmö… Police have searched an area in Högaholm with a special dog for semen. The victim was taken to hospital but had no severe injuries.

Political Islam and Sharia Should Be Outlawed in Europe by Mirek Topolánek

Mirek Topolánek is the former prime minister of the Czech Republic and a candidate for the upcoming presidential elections, to be held January 12-13, 2018. His speech was translated by Josef Zbořil, and is reprinted here with the kind permission of the author.

“Let us look… at the parallel legal system that is gradually creeping into the EU….The emergence of these enclaves, reinforced by elite policies of multiculturalism, group identity politics, and the deconstruction of Western heritage, has contributed to the fracturing of Western European nations and has weakened the overall sense of mutual responsibility for one’s fellow citizens.” — Andrew Michta, The American Interest, June 6, 2017

The roots of the radical Muslim behavior that is now sweeping Europe can be traced to elements of Islamic law and doctrine created in the 7th century that are being maintained today. These include polygamy for men; allowing men to buy and sell women as sex slaves or concubines; divorce rights [for men that] discriminate against women; insistence on a dress code for women that includes hiding their faces; and discriminatory inheritance laws.

These are the types of laws that Muslim communities in Europe are pushing for and adhering to, and they are based on inequality of gender, religion, ethnicity and social status. In sharia law, there is no freedom of religion, speech, thought, artistic expression or the press…There is no united protection for all people. Justice is different for Muslims and non-Muslims, for men and women… There is no democracy… Jews and Christians are dhimmi, third-class citizens…

The following are excerpts of a speech delivered by Mirek Topolánek, former prime minister of the Czech Republic and former president of the European Council, at the Legal Salon in Prague on November 2, 2017.

Equality, in the legal sense, is based on the principle of freedom and the right of every person to dignity and equal treatment before the law [such that] the law… does not [make a distinction]… between people [based on] their economic or social status, age, ethnicity, [etc.]

The principle of equality is enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, a declaration that is part of the constitutional order of the Czech Republic…

The philosophical roots of the idea of human rights based on equality can be found not only, but especially, in European culture — from the Code of Hammurabi, through the Cyrus Cylinder, the Magna Carta Libertatum, the US Declaration of Independence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The current concept and understanding of human rights as inalienable, definite and universal is a matter of the past four centuries, [culminating in] the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which includes equality as one of the basic human rights sets…

Sharia for New Year’s by Bruce Bawer

These extraordinary legal actions are almost exclusively reserved for the punishment of those who have criticized Islam.

On the contrary, it seems clear that the real reason for these prosecutions is that people in positions of authority fear violence by Muslims if their critics go unsilenced.

The same reporters and commentators who insist that it is absurd to worry about sharia coming to the West are, in fact, ideologically arm-in-arm with those in authority who are aggressively introducing sharia-style laws in the West, prosecuting speech that violates those laws, and issuing dark warnings — in tones unbefitting public officials in a free country — that you had better learn to be sharia-compliant or you will be sorry. The real lesson of all this is that we had better learn to be aggressive in our resistance to this proliferation of sharia-influenced prohibitions or we will, indeed, end up being very, very sorry.

Last September, a man named Mark Feigin posted five comments on the Facebook page of an Islamic center. They were not Islam-friendly. “THE MORE MUSLIMS WE ALLOW INTO AMERICA,” he wrote, “THE MORE TERROR WE WILL SEE.” He called Islam “dangerous” and said it has “no place in western civilization.” A couple of his comments included vulgar or profane language. On December 20, the State of California sued Feigin, charging him with violation of a penal code that reads, in part:

“Every person who, with intent to annoy or harass, makes repeated telephone calls or makes repeated contact by means of an electronic communication device… to another person is… guilty of a misdemeanor.”

According to the state Attorney General’s office, Feigin was guilty of a crime because he had engaged in “repeated harassment” of people whose religion he sought to “mock and disparage.”

Eugene Volokh, the UCLA law professor whose “Volokh Conspiracy” blog is a popular site of legal debate and discussion, wrote about Feigin’s case on December 29, noting that by the Attorney General’s logic, the state would be able to sue citizens who had written equally critical comments on, for example, an NRA or pro-Trump website. “This can’t possibly be consistent with the First Amendment,” Volokh said.

No, it certainly is not. But it is thoroughly consistent with Islamic law, sharia. The simple fact is that nowadays it would be exceedingly unlikely to see an individual in the Western world being prosecuted by a government for mocking and disparaging a gun-rights organization or a Christian politician. No, these extraordinary legal actions are almost exclusively reserved for the punishment of those who have criticized Islam.

Consider the case of Danish author Lars Hedegaard, convicted of hate speech in 2011 for mentioning in a private conversation in his own home that many Muslim women and girls are raped by members of their own families. (His conviction was later reversed by the Danish Supreme Court.) Or Dutch politician Geert Wilders, tried three times in the Netherlands — the third time successfully — for “hate speech” directed at Muslims. Or the late Italian author Oriana Fallaci, tried in both France and Italy for, respectively, “inciting religious hatred” and “defaming Islam.” Or Finnish politician Terhi Kiemunki, found guilty of “slandering and insulting adherents of the Islamic faith” because she had “claimed that all of the terrorists in Europe are Muslims.”

Another act of repression in Cuba, and still nothing from Obama By Silvio Canto, Jr.

We were told three years ago that showering Cuba with U.S. tourists and business investments would eventually work in the interest of Cubans.

Well, it’s not working yet! It’s the same old Cuba, according to The Washington Post:

IN HAVANA on Dec. 20, a group of artists and activists were preparing to perform a piece titled “Psychosis.”

The plot revolves around a person enclosed in a very small space, showing signs of madness, who wants to leave.

The play was inspired by events in 2010 at a psychiatric hospital in Havana, where 26 patients died of hunger and cold.

The story is obviously a metaphor about the regime of Fidel and Raúl Castro, who have ruled the island for nearly six decades, intolerant of dissent and free speech.

In the performance, there were to be allusions to Raúl Castro and terms such as “dictatorship.”

Predictably, before the performance, the authorities swooped in and made arrests.

The director was detained temporarily, as well as the chief actor.

Also arrested was activist Lia Villares. When released Dec. 22, she said she had scratched a message on the prison cell walls: “Art Yes, Censorship No. I am free.” She was fined for defacing the walls.

The authorities warned her sharply against any activity on behalf of Cuba Decide.

The Iranian rebellion the world wants to ignore Six hundred people have already been arrested and dozens killed. Civilians don’t stand a chance Douglas Murray

If there is one lesson the world should have learned from Iran’s ‘Green Revolution’ of 2009 and the so-called Arab Spring that followed, it is this: the worst regimes stay. Rulers who are only averagely appalling (Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak) can be toppled by uprisings. Those who are willing to kill every one of their countrymen stay. So it is that after almost half a million dead we enter 2018 with Bashar al-Assad still President of Syria and with Iran’s mullahs approaching the 40th anniversary of their seizure of power in 1979.

Last week this lesson got a chance to be learned again when protests broke out on streets across Iran, and the world wondered which date this one might echo. A revolution finally to counter 1979? Or just another replay of the brutally suppressed protests of 2009?

The origins and cause of these latest protests are already contested. The regime claims foreign interference. Others warn of clerics even more hardline than the regime. But most early reports indicate that protesters began by highlighting the country’s living standards. Specifically, they complained about the government’s use of its recent economic bonus (from the lifting of sanctions) not to help the Iranian people, but to pursue wider regional ambitions. Iranian forces are currently fighting in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. This from a power whose defenders still claim is not expansionist.

Iran is experiencing low growth, high unemployment and inflation (10 per cent) and the increasing unaffordability of necessities such as eggs and milk. But the most striking factor is how swiftly the protests became not just critical of the government, but openly anti-regime. Outside the gates of Tehran University a crowd chanted slogans against the nation’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, including ‘Death to the dictator’. The nationwide demonstrations, which have not been led by any single demographic, class, or group, have included cries of ‘Leave Gaza, leave Lebanon, my life (only) for Iran’. Chants of ‘Death to Hezbollah’ (Iran’s terrorist proxy currently fighting in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria) have also been heard from Mashhad to Kermanshah. After several days, Ayatollah Khamenei tried to dampen this motif by appealing (unsuitably for a cleric who claims to be devoted solely to Allah and the Imam) to the patriotism of all Iranians. The regime may be worrying. Whereas 2009’s protests centred on Tehran, these are rural as well as urban, and remarkably widespread.

‘Iran paid dearly for its nuclear aspirations’

Brig. Gen. (ret.) Yossi Kuperwasser, formerly the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate’s research division, believes the latest protests in Iran have dealt a strategic blow to the ayatollah regime, and warns of a “domino effect” in Iran.

Even if the Iranian regime survives this, it will have sustained a serious strategic blow,” says Brig. Gen. (ret.) Yossi Kuperwasser, who previously headed the Israel Defense Force’s intelligence research division, referring to the wave of anti-government protests across Iran in recent weeks.

Kuperwasser knows, as does any intelligence expert, that in the Middle East, perception sometimes becomes reality. And like anyone who has served in Israeli intelligence since the 1973 Yom Kippur War debacle, he also knows that sometimes the seemingly impossible can suddenly become a reality.

In his view, the unrest that has engulfed Iran suggests that the Iranian masses have finally managed to smash the concept the ayatollah regime has perpetuated since its rise to power in 1979.

“All of a sudden, it became apparent that there is not a lot of support for the big undertaking – turning Iran into a hegemonic power in the region – and for the Islamic idea. It turns out that it is just an empty slogan,” Kuperwasser says.

He adds that unlike the protests of 2009, when the Iranian masses took to the streets to protest against election fraud, the current protests are not about a specific grievance but against the very idea of the Islamic republic.

“The protests, in large part, reflect a demand not just for reform but for a revolutionary change,” he says.

Hector Timerman´s Lament By Julian Schvindlerman see note please

The scoundrel and son of the scoundrel and liar Jacobo Timmerman is still described as a “human rights advocate” on Wikipedia….rsk

Former Argentine Minister of Foreign Affairs (2010-2015) Hector Timerman is now under house arrest. He is not in prison only because he is terminally ill and he was granted the privilege. He was accused of betraying his country by secretly negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding with the Islamic Republic of Iran together with other officials of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner´s government. Prosecutor Alberto Nisman denounced that the ultimate goal of that pact was to exculpate the perpetrators of the 1994 AMIA attack. Shortly before presenting his evidence to the National Congress, he was found dead with a shot in the temple. The Argentine Justice has just determined that he was murdered.

Mr. Timerman has responded to the charge of treason to the nation through his lawyers. He also reacted publicly, through letters, articles and interviews in which he sought to present himself as a victim — of the national political powers as well as of the local Jewish community.

In one of his most “dramatic” acts -a performance of feigned indignation, in fact- Timerman resigned as a member of AMIA, taking advantage of the indecision of the local Jewish authorities as to whether to expel him from the institution, or not. He was, after all, the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs of the country, and the community leadership feared for the repercussions of such a decision. In a letter sent to AMIA and DAIA (the political representation of the Jewish community) in April 2015, Timerman compared himself to Theodor Herzl:

“I have noticed with displeasure that the referents of AMIA and DAIA have fallen back into the vulgar accusation that every Jew who criticizes their actions, and they are not few, be branded with the worn-out argument of being ‘shameful Jews’. They should remember that the first Jew to be accused in such a way was Theodore Herzl, founding father of modern Zionism. It happened in 1898 when Karl Strauss accused him of hating the Jews so much that he wanted to eradicate them all from Europe. Since then, this accusation is valid only for those who believe they can measure the Jewishness of others.”

After his house arrest in December 2017, Timerman gave an interview to the leftist, pro-Kirchnerismo newspaper Página12 in which he once again underlined his Jewishness by presenting himself as a victim of historical prejudices. “It hits me twice because I am a Jew. Jews are often accused of double loyalty, as if we were second-class Argentines. It makes me go back to my childhood, when they pressured us asking us if we were loyal to Argentina or Israel. It is an infamy.”

Recently, Timerman reiterated his anguished protest in the opinion page of The New York Times in an article in which he defined himself as a “political prisoner” and a “target of the anger of the Jewish community.” He also claimed that the pact with Iran aroused “vindictive anger” against him. He accused the judge who ordered his house arrest to deny him medical attention in time, which “is like condemning me to death.” “Argentina´s Constitution does not permit the death penalty,” he said with a heavy-heart, “but with a judge like this, that is little guarantee.”

Shred the Veil By Eileen F. Toplansky

In the 2014 book Princess: More Tears to Cry by Jean Sasson, the protagonist, Princess Sultana Al’ Sa’ud of Saudi Arabia, recounts how “to this day there are teenage Saudi boys living in Riyadh who, taught by their fathers and the clerics, consider women to be second-class citizens and cast stones at what they consider to be an offensive sight – an unveiled female face.”

The princess asserts that it is her “sincere wish that the day will come when … an uncovered face will not cause violence in the street.” She declares that “nothing reveals more to [her] of a young woman’s personality than the will to fight against any injustice against women, and certainly something as personal as the face veil, which is not required by the Islamic faith, as all those who are truly familiar with our holy book will know.”

She relates a tale of a young girl in a poor hamlet in Al-Kharz who aspired to be a doctor. As she was the last of four daughters, this resulted in her father saying to his wife, “I divorce you” three times (Quran 2:222-286), and the deed was done. The baby’s mother, who had just given birth, witnessed her now ex-husband grab the newborn baby, shouting that he was going “to bury [her] alive in the desert.” He wanted to take the “infant into the desert, where he would have scooped sand with his hands until he had created a hole large enough to hold a tiny baby, and then he would have pushed that sand over the baby so that she would have sucked sand rather than air into her lungs until she had died an agonizing death.” He then “shouted for his three older daughters to line up and wait for his return as he was going to throw those three in the village well.”

Fortunately, an uncle to the little baby intervened and asked that the father pass the newborn to him; instead, the newborn was “tossed on the dirt floor” while her father left. Since her father did not insist upon custody of his daughters, the unwanted child had a sliver of a chance at life. In Saudi Arabia, “if a man claims custody from the first day of a child’s birth, no one will defy the father.” Had the infant’s father “demanded guardianship, no one would have stood in his way,” and he would have murdered all his daughters.