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WORLD NEWS

Germany: Anti-Immigration Party Surges in Popularity by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12973/germany-anti-immigration-party

The AfD’s opponents, who often brand the party as “far right” or “extremist,” claim that the party’s alleged ties to neo-Nazi groups pose an existential threat to Germany’s constitutional order. The AfD’s supporters counter that Germany’s politically correct establishment, afraid of losing its power and influence, is attempting to outlaw a legitimate party that has pledged to put the interests of German citizens first.

“Migration is the mother of all problems.” — German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer.

“Extremism cannot be combated with exclusion, but with looking at the facts. Those who want to reach concerned citizens must themselves get out of the ideological trenches.” — Oswald Metzger in Tichys Einblick, a prominent German blog.

The murder of a German citizen by two failed asylum seekers in Chemnitz, and the attempted cover-up by German police, has contributed to a surge in support for the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD), which, according to a new poll, has overtaken the Social Democratic Party (SDP) to become the second-strongest political force in Germany.

Support for the AfD has increased to 17%, while backing for the SPD has fallen to 16%. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) alliance is at 28.5%, according to an Insa Institute poll published by the newspaper Bild on September 3.

The rise of the AfD — which has been fueled by widespread anger over Merkel’s decision to allow into the country more than a million mostly Muslim migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and the subsequent increase in violent crime — reflects an ongoing realignment in German politics, in which voters increasingly are rejecting the multicultural orthodoxy of the mainstream parties.

When federal elections were held on September 24, 2017, the CDU/CSU won 32.9% of the vote, its worst electoral result in nearly 70 years. The SPD won 20.5%, its worst-ever showing. The AfD won 12.6%, to become the country’s third-largest party in the German parliament.

Sunday’s Vote Could Snap Swedes out of Their Stockholm Syndrome By Charles Ortel

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/09/sundays_vote_could_snap_swedes_out_of_their_stockholm_syndrome.html

Swedes are set to vote Sunday, and soon the world may view another example of citizens frustrated by arrogant politicians and bureaucrats upending the status quo and changing the landscape of a rich country whose leaders manifestly have failed the working class. For in truth, Sweden is burning, physically and figuratively. This reality is known better outside that country, because pro-globalist elites in Sweden work so hard to obscure brutal crimes and dislocations that occur as too many unvetted immigrants sweep into their generous nation.

But it is not simply burning cars, and savage assaults that capture the concern of Swedish citizens and international observers. An expensive, thirty year experiment in Sweden promoting global governance and attacking world problems has certainly helped Swedish elites, but many voters see more financial harm than benefit for themselves.

So, in mere days, the Swedish electorate will speak, and rumblings emanating various ways suggest that parties and politicians long in control of the government will suffer erosion in their influence. How much power will a right-leaning party – Sweden Democrats – win at the ballot box, and what roles might candidates in this party play either supporting or obstructing the coalition government destined to emerge after September 9, 2018?

How closely will voters examine the qualifications and backgrounds of candidates for office, including their criminal records, if any, and the stated goals of their political parties concerning Sweden and regarding the wider world?

These major questions and looming answers must be seen in context.

Sparks Igniting Political Changes

In February 2017, when newly inaugurated President Trump drew attention to Tucker Carlson’s Fox News special on Sweden’s mounting problems with immigration policies, most critics around the world scoffed.

So, who was correct?

‘Consequences Will be Dire’ if Assad, Russia, Iran Attack Haley Warns By Bridget Johnson

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/consequences-will-be-dire-if-assad-russia-iran-attack-idlib-haley-warns/

“When Russia and the Assad regime say they want to counter terrorism, they actually mean they want to bomb schools, hospitals, and homes.”

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley warned today at a UN Security Council briefing on Syria that an impending regime offensive “will only leave Syria weaker and more broken and create generations of Syrians who will never forget the heinous and senseless brutality of the Assad regime and its allies.”

About three million people live in northwestern Idlib province, one of the last strongholds of opposition forces who have been battling dictator Bashar al-Assad for years. Airstrikes were reported in the province today as the international community is trying to stop a major regime-Russia offensive that could be especially bloody and include more chemical weapons use by Assad.

“Any offensive is to us objectionable as a reckless escalation. There is lots of evidence that chemical weapons are being prepared,” said Ambassador Jim Jeffrey, America’s newly appointed special representative to Syria.

Jeffrey said the U.S. is “not in a hurry to pull out” of Syria because ISIS, which the non-regime Syrian Democratic Forces have been fighting, is not defeated.

Haley said today that the “Assad regime and its enablers, Russia and Iran, have a playbook for this war.”

“First, they surround a civilian area. Next, they make the preposterous claim that everyone in the area is a terrorist, so every man, woman, and child becomes a target. Then comes the ‘starve and surrender’ campaign, where they keep attacking until the people no longer have food, clean water, or shelter. It’s a playbook of death. The Assad regime has spent the last seven years refining it with Russia and Iran’s help,” she said.

“The atrocities committed by Assad will be a permanent stain on history and a black mark for this council – which was blocked over and over by Russia from taking action to help,” she added. CONTINUE AT SITE

Keith Windschuttle: Captain Cook and the Great Game

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/09/captain-cook-great-game/

Margaret Cameron-Ash’s ‘Lying for the Admiralty’ demonstrates how Cook discovered Bass Strait and drew deliberately misleading maps, presenting Van Diemen’s Land as a peninsula and disguising his discovery of Sydney Harbour. His goal and that of the Admiralty was to mislead the French.

The book’s title is Lying for the Admiralty (Rosenberg, Sydney, 2018) and instead of a subtitle to spell out its subject matter, its cover has a portrait of Captain James Cook and a map of New Holland with its east coast uncharted, as it was before the great navigator’s first expedition. For a brief moment I thought this might be another assault on Cook, adding to the indignities his reputation suffered from the graffiti attack on his statue in Sydney last September. The accusation of lying sounded like the now well-entrenched leftist campaign to discredit him on the 250th anniversary of his epic voyages of discovery, which began when he left Plymouth Dock on August 26, 1768.

Author Margaret Cameron-Ash quickly dispels any such thoughts. Her introduction confirms that Cook was not only a great man but a loyal English patriot who was not above preparing charts, log books and journals which, with the approval of the British Admiralty, provided misinformation to deceive the navigators of foreign powers. Cook was a player in what Rudyard Kipling later called the “Great Game” of spying and deception in the geopolitical rivalry among the European powers for maritime supremacy. Cook’s discovery of the Australian continent’s east coast, and the information he kept secret about it, were critical manoeuvres in this rivalry.

This is both a compelling new take on the political climate behind the founding of Australia and an exciting, page-turning work. It is easily the best book I have read all year, and one of the best in many a year. It is located within the same revisionist version of Australia’s origins that Alan Frost has been pioneering since the 1990s in his books Botany Bay Mirages, The Global Reach of Empire and his recent popular summaries Botany Bay and The First Fleet.

David Singer: Jordan’s Re-entry into West Bank Looms Large as Trump Dumps PLO

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2018/09/david-singer-jordans-re-entry-into-west.html
Two major developments this past week could see a large part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) being reunified with Jordan – as existed between 1950 and 1967 – or becoming a Jordanian enclave – under President Trumps’ yet-to-be- announced “ultimate deal” intended to resolve the100 years-old Arab-Jewish conflict.

Those developments were:

Trump immediately stopped all further American financial aid to UNRWA:

The PLO refusedto have anything to do with Trump’s slowly-gestating peace proposals after Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017.

This PLO anti-Trump stance has continued unabated despite US Ambassador to the United Nations – Nikki Haley – publicly warning the PLO last January when asked about future US funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestinian Arab refugees:

“The President has basically said he doesn’t want to give any additional funding, or stop funding, until the Palestinians agree to come back to the negotiation table. We still very much want to have a peace process. Nothing changes with that. The Palestinians now have to show they want to. As of now, they’re not coming to the table, but they ask for aid. We’re not giving the aid. We’re going to make sure that they come to the table.”

This week Trump gave up waiting – ending all future donations to UNRWA including $300 million pledged for this year.

More than 2 million UNRWA registered Palestinian Arab refugees live in Jordan – most of whom have full citizenship. Nearly 370,000 – or 18 per cent – live in 10 refugee camps.

The West Bank has nearly 775,000 UNRWA registered Palestinian Arab refugees – a quarter of who live in 19 camps.

New U.S. Envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun to Travel to Asia Announcement of visit to Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo next week follows cancellation of trip to Pyongyang By Courtney McBride

https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-u-s-envoy-for-north-korea-stephen-biegun-to-travel-to-asia-1536247887

The former Ford Motor Co. executive recently tapped to pursue negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear program will travel to Asia next week, the State Department said on Thursday.

Stephen Biegun, named Special Representative for North Korea last month by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, will travel to Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing between Sept. 10 and Sept. 15. The State Department didn’t announce any travel by Mr. Biegun to North Korea.

During the visit to Asia, Mr. Biegun will meet with counterparts and “continue diplomatic efforts to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea,” under an agreement between President Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, according to the department.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is scheduled to meet Mr. Kim the following week in Pyongyang.

Mr. Biegun’s trip follows the abrupt cancellation of a planned visit to North Korea by the envoy and Mr. Pompeo. Mr. Trump announced that decision via Twitter , citing frustration with the lack of “sufficient progress” in talks.

Palestinians: Spitting in the Well by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12978/palestinians-conflicting-messages

In reality, the Palestinians have one main message for the US administration: We hate you and incite against you, but we fully expect that you will continue providing us with cash, to the tune of billions of dollars. And, when you do try to help us, we reserve the right to spit in your face.

The entire existence of Fatah, the faction that dominates and controls the Palestinian Authority, relies heavily on financial aid from the US, EU and other Western donors.

So, while the protesters in Ramallah were demanding that the US rescind its decision to cut off its funding to UNRWA, Abbas’s men in east Jerusalem were trying to block a US-sponsored meeting to discuss ways of helping the Palestinian economy.

Abbas and his top officials in Ramallah evidently want to have it both ways — to continue their incitement against the Trump administration while being bankrolled by US taxpayer money.

Abbas and company would do well to learn that when they spit in the well they drink from, the water they draw will be bitter indeed.

Once again, the Palestinians are conveying conflicting messages about their attitude towards US President Donald Trump’s administration. On one side, they are condemning the Trump administration for its decision to cut all US aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA); on the other, the Palestinians are opposed to any plan by the US administration to provide them with financial aid and improve their living conditions.

This Palestinian stance is not only bad-faith double-dealing, it also reflects the state of confusion and uncertainty among the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah in particular and the Palestinian public in general.

In reality, the Palestinians have one main message for the US administration: We hate you and incite against you, but we fully expect that you will continue providing us with cash, to the tune of billions of dollars. And, when you do try to help us, we reserve the right to spit in your face.

This is the message — despite much duplicitous obfuscation — that the Palestinians have long sought to communicate the US.

Now to the facts.

Why Two Americans Were Stabbed in Amsterdam Merkel’s open borders for Islamic terrorism strikes again. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271259/why-two-americans-were-stabbed-amsterdam-daniel-greenfield

Two million people arrived in Germany in 2015 and 1.8 million people next year in 2016.

Jawed came to Germany in 2015, while Abdul had arrived the year after in 2016. Both Jawed and Abdul were Afghan Muslim migrants. Both applied for asylum and had their asylum applications rejected.

Abdul Mobin Dawodzai was recently sentenced to eight years in prison for stabbing to death Mia Valentin, a 15-year-old girl, to death. Jawed went to Amsterdam and stabbed two American tourists at the central station.

Abdul was angry that Mia broke up with him. Jawed was angry about insults to Islam and Mohammed.

Jawed’s German residence permit enabled him to carry out a terrorist attack in Amsterdam. He mentioned Geert Wilders, the pioneering Dutch leader who was recently forced to cancel a Mohammed cartoon contest due to violent Islamic threats, and so the media has chosen to blame the terrorist attack on Islamic cartoons rather than Islamic terrorists. But Jawed is part of a larger trend of Afghan violence.

Both Jawed and Abdul carried out their stabbing attacks in public. The victims, a 15-year-old girl and American tourists, also brought more attention to a type of ordinary terror that has overtaken Europe.

In March, Hussein Khavari, an Afghan refugee who had fled to Germany in 2015, was sent to prison for raping and murdering Maria Ladenburger, a 19-year-old German student. But Hussein wasn’t fleeing Afghanistan; he was fleeing Greece, where he had thrown a 20-year-old female student off a cliff after robbing her. The Greeks sentenced him to a decade in prison, but Hussein fled to Germany instead.

Like Abdul, Hussein claimed to be a minor when he was actually in his twenties. (He may not have even actually been from Afghanistan.)

LONDON BUSES CARRY SIGNS “ISRAEL IS A RACIST ENDEAVOR

“A tweet by Wales-based international relations academic and UK-Israel relations specialist James Vaughan (“Would talk less about antisemitism if there were less of it about”):
Inter alia:

‘,,,,The Met tweeted to say police in Lambeth were investigating reports of fly-posting and that “offensive material will be removed”.
The posters shocked Londoners making their way home from work, with many describing them as “vile” and “terrifying”. Others claimed the adverts were a “hate crime”.
A TfL[Transport for London’ spokesperson said: “These adverts are absolutely not authorised by TfL or our advertising partner JCDecaux.
“It is fly posting and therefore an act of vandalism which we take extremely seriously. We have instructed our contractors to remove any of these posters found on our network immediately.”….’

U.K. Charges Two Russians With Attempted Murder of Spy, Daughter U.K. authorities believe the suspects in the poisoning of Sergei Skripal are Russian military intelligence officers By Stephen Fidler and Jason Douglas

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-k-charges-two-russians-with-attempted-murder-of-spy-daughter-1536143138?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=3&cx_tag=contextual&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

LONDON—British authorities charged two men that they believe are Russian military intelligence officers with the attempted murder of a former spy and his daughter in March, an incident that prompted the largest-ever collective expulsion of Russian diplomats from the West.

Prosecutors charged the men—named as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov but those names are believed to be aliases—with four offenses related to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, who has lived in Britain since a 2010 spy exchange with Moscow. The charges also included conspiracy to murder and the use and possession of nerve agent Novichok.

“This was not a rogue operation,” she said. “It was almost certainly also approved outside the GRU at a senior level of the Russian state.”

The charges reinforce how the attack—which Moscow denies—continues to provoke profound tensions between Russia and the U.K. and its allies. The U.K. said it wouldn’t seek extradition of the two men, since the Russian constitution forbids it, but that a European Arrest Warrant had been obtained, providing for their arrest if they set foot in the European Union.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that in addition to failing to provide proof that the Russian state was involved in the poisoning, the British government had refused Russia’s offer to send its own investigators to the U.K. to help investigate the case.

In a statement to lawmakers Wednesday, Prime Minister Theresa May said the attack was almost certainly authorized at “a senior level” of the Russian state. She added that the U.K. government concluded that the suspects are officers from the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU.CONTINUE AT SITE