Tag: Merkel

Something Wicked This Way Comes? Syrian Refugees Tearing Up Europe

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

thLTI1PZZBDo you remember when Fox News recently reported that

… (Secretary of State John) Kerry said the United States will take in more refugees worldwide in the next two years, including 10,000 Syrian asylum seekers in 2016.

“We will now go up to 85,000 with at least 10,000 over the next year in Syria specifically. And in the next fiscal year we will target 100,000,” Kerry said.

In the fiscal year ending September 2015, the world’s biggest economy took in 70,000 refugees?

Things aren’t going so well, in regards to the Syrian Refugees still arriving in Europe, later to be arriving here.

News.Yahoo.com reports that

Germany’s PEGIDA movement holds an anti-migrant rally Monday a year on from its formation, highlighting a European backlash towards a massive influx that has heaped pressure on Chancellor

The demonstration comes a day after Swiss voters returned a historically strong result for a populist party known for its virulent campaigns against immigrants and Islam, and following a knife attack on a German mayoral candidate who championed refugee issues.

Monday’s rally, due to start at 1600 GMT in PEGIDA’s stronghold of Dresden, marks a contrast to efforts by Merkel who over the weekend made a crucial one-day trip to Turkey, where she hailed progress in helping Ankara deal with the migrant crisis and vowed to push forward its long-stalled EU membership bid.

The European Union wants Turkey to do more to tighten its border security and help contain the historic influx of Syrians and others escaping conflict, persecution and poverty.

In return, Ankara wants greater recognition for its role in hosting more than two million Syrian refugees, an increase in financial help and an acceleration of its stuttering drive for EU membership.

Merkel and the Turkish leadership indicated officials were making progress towards a deal on cooperation, although neither suggested a final agreement had been reached.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (L) shakes hand with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu after th …
She said Berlin was prepared to support opening EU accession talks on economic and monetary affairs, and would also consider opening more of the 35 total so-called “policy chapters”.

– ‘Dynamising accession’ –

Speaking after her talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Merkel said the EU and Turkey were in agreement to work closer “on dynamising the accession process” towards Turkey’s EU membership and also visa liberalisation for Turks wanting to travel to the EU’s Schengen zone.

“The talks in that direction are very promising and will be continued,” said Merkel.

Erdogan, who for months has bitterly criticised the EU’s attitude towards Turkey, also called for more accession chapters to be opened, while Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu praised a “better approach” from the 28-nation bloc.

Germany has been Europe’s top destination for refugees, most of whom travel through Turkey and the Balkans, and is expecting to register up to a million asylum requests this year.

While many Germans have welcomed the refugees, there has also been a backlash with Merkel’s party losing support while the long-dormant anti-Islamic PEGIDA protest movement has again drawn thousands of followers.

Simmering tensions ended in violence in the western city of Cologne on Saturday when a man with a knife attacked independent mayoral candidate Henriette Reker, who is active in helping refugees, leaving her with serious neck wounds and injuring four others.

Reker won Sunday’s election with an absolute majority.

The attacker, a 44-year-old unemployed man arrested at the scene, had “a racist motivation” according to police, and was said to have been close to the extreme right in the 1990s.

View gallery

Migrants and refugees cross the Slovenian-Austrian border in Sentilj onto Spielfeld on October 18, 2 …
– ‘Migration pressure’ –

In another sign of increasing anti-migrant sentiment in Europe, a Swiss populist party known for its virulent campaigns against immigration, the European Union and Islam won a record number of seats in the Alpine nation’s parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Merkel said that the fact Turkey had accomplished the immense task of looking after more than two million Syrian refugees on relatively little funding had led to “migration pressure” which resulted in the current unprecedented influx of migrants into Europe.

“We will engage ourselves more strongly financially as the European Union. Germany will play its part,” she promised.

More than 630,000 people fleeing war and misery have landed on Europe’s shores so far this year, many making risky sea crossings from Turkey to Greece.

Another 12 people drowned off the Turkish coast on Saturday, and on Sunday the Greek coastguard said five migrants including a baby and two boys had died trying to cross the Aegean Sea.

Separately, 20 Afghan would-be migrants bound for Europe were killed in Iran on Sunday when the mini-bus they were travelling in collided with a truck.

As the influx continued, Hungary closed its border with Croatia, forcing thousands of migrants to find a new route to northern Europe through Slovenia and into Austria.

But with numbers growing, Slovenia on Sunday said it would handle no more than 2,500 arrivals a day to ease pressure on both its own and Austria’s borders.

Meanwhile, in France…

Breitbart.com reports that

A mass intrusion by hundreds of migrants forced Eurotunnel cross-Channel rail services to be suspended in both directions last night after they stormed the terminal and platforms in France. The human tide led the Channel Tunnel operator to halt services from Folkestone, Kent and Coquelles in northern France.Passenger services are experiencing long delays today and the sale of tickets to travellers without reservations has been suspended, The Guardian reports.

A Eurotunnel spokesman said refugees were using diversionary tactics in order to occupy police to allow others to try to cross the Channel in the ensuing confusion. He said:

“They are coming in waves to occupy the police, then another wave comes, then another, until there is no more police. One group is then able to get through.

“Then we have to take over and sweep through the terminal and clear them all from the tracks and the platform.”

Eurotunnel is warning of ongoing delays at Folkestone, with trains operating “with some timetable disruption”. Passengers services from France are operating to schedule but delays can be expected, the Eurotunnel website says.

It emerged at the weekend that the number of migrants living in makeshift camps outside Calais has now reached 6,000.

At least 15 migrants have died in or near the tunnel since the start of the cross-Channel migrant crisis at the beginning of the summer.

One person died overnight on October 15-16 after being hit by a freight train at the Channel Tunnel’s Coquelles terminal. It followed the death on Thursday of a migrant, believed to be Syrian, who was hit by a car on a motorway close to the tunnel.

The increase in migrants attempting to cross the Channel prompted a string of measures to increase security at the terminal, including extra fencing and the deployment of more border force search and dog teams.

Recently, Ben Shapiro, writing for Breitbart News, asked and answered the following question…

Who Are These Refugees? That competition to accept refugees would be fine if we knew that the refugees plan on assimilating into Western notions of civilized society, and if we knew that they were indeed victims of radical Muslim atrocities. Unfortunately, we know neither. It is deeply suspicious that major Muslim countries that do not border Syria refuse to take in large numbers of refugees, except for Algeria and Egypt.

Turkey has taken in nearly two million refugees, according to the United Nations, and keeps the vast majority in refugee camps — a typical practice in a region that has kept Arab refugees from the 1948 war of Israeli independence in Arab-run camps for seven decades. Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq have taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees as well, but all border the chaotic, collapsing Syria, and thus have limited choice in the matter. Iran has taken in no refugees. Neither have Pakistan, Indonesia, or any of the other dozens of member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain all refused to take any refugees, and explicitly cited the risk of terrorists among the refugees, according to The Guardian (UK).

These fears are not without merit, as even Obama administration officials have acknowledged: back in February, director of the National Counterterrorism Center Nicholas Rasmussen called Syrian refugees “clearly a population of concern.” FBI Assistant Director Michael Steinbach explained, “Databases don’t [have] the information on those individuals, and that’s the concern. On Tuesday, State Department spokesman John Kirby told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that terrorist infiltration was “a possibility. I mean, you can’t, you can’t dismiss that out of hand.” He then added, “Obviously, if you look at those images though, it’s pretty clear that the great majority of these people are innocent families.”

Actually, images show a disproportionate number of young males in crowds of refugees. And those images reflect statistical reality: according to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Mediterranean Sea refugees are overwhelmingly male: just 13 percent are women, and just 15 percent are children. The other 72 percent are men. Compare that population to the refugees in the Middle East from the same conflicts: 49.5 percent male, and 50.5 percent female, with 38.5 percent under the age of 12. Those are wildly different populations.

It is also being reported that these “refugees” are leaving a trail of waste, human and otherwise, in their wake.

In other words, these guys believe that hygiene is a girl that they used to “date” back home.

Classy, huh?

It appears that we have a lot to look forward to.

Here’s a Million Drachma Question for ya: Why are the other Middle Eastern Countries not taking them in?

What do they know that we and the Europeans don’t?

I can answer those questions in three little words: “hijrah” and “taqujiyya”.

“Hijrah” refers to the undertaking of a pilgrimage to spread Islam to the World, such as undertaken by Mohammed between Mecca and Medina in 62 A.D., which is referred to as “The Start of the Muslim Era”.

“Taquiyya” is the Muslim Practice of purposeful lying to us “Infidels” in order to further the cause of Islam.

So, in case you are wondering, that, in a nutshell, is why informed Americans do not want 200,000 un-vetted Syrian “Refugees” brought here.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The European Socialist Slide

On By kingsjesterIn Politics5 Comments

Americans have watched as Europe has teetered on the brink of economic chaos, reminiscent of a Buddhist monk preparing to set himself on fire.

It appears that the match has been lit.

French socialist Francois Hollande has won a clear victory in the country’s presidential election.

Mr Hollande – who got an estimated 52% of votes in Sunday’s run-off – said the French had chosen “change”.

Admitting defeat, centre-right incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy wished “good luck” to Mr Hollande.

Analysts say the vote has wide implications for the whole eurozone. Mr Hollande has vowed to rework a deal on government debt in member countries.

Shortly after polls closed at 20:00 (18:00 GMT), French media published projections based on partial results giving Mr Hollande a lead of almost four points. Turnout was about 80%.

Jubilant Hollande supporters gathered on Place de la Bastille in Paris – a traditional rallying point of the Left – to celebrate.

People drank champagne and chanted: “Sarko, it’s over!”

Mr Hollande – the first socialist to win the French presidency since Francois Mitterrand in the 1980s – gave his victory speech in his stronghold of Tulle in central France.

He said was “proud to have been capable of giving people hope again”.

He said he would push ahead with his pledge to refocus EU fiscal efforts from austerity to “growth”.

“Europe is watching us, austerity can no longer be the only option,” he said.

Mr Hollande has called for a renegotiation of a hard-won European treaty on budget discipline championed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mr Sarkozy.

Meanwhile, in Greece…

Greece’s former finance minister and Socialist party leader called for a broad coalition government of pro-European parties, ruling out a two-party government with his conservative rivals after his party received a drubbing in Sunday’s parliamentary elections.

Official projected results showed Evangelos Venizelos’ PASOK party plunging to third place with 13.6 percent and 42 seats in the 300-member parliament. The conservative New Democracy was projected in the lead with 19.18 percent and 109 seats, far below the 151 needed to form a government. The margin of error was 0.5 percentage point.

“A coalition government of the old two-party system would not have sufficient legitimacy or sufficient domestic and international credibility if it would gather a slim majority,” Venizelos said. “A government of national unity with the participation by all the parties that favor a European course, regardless of their positions toward the loan agreements, would have meaning.”

If borne out by final results, the outcome is devastating for PASOK, which won a landslide victory in 2009 with more than 43 percent of the vote.

Voters outraged by Greece’s protracted financial crisis and the austerity measures imposed in return for international bailouts punished both main parties, turning to smaller anti-bailout groups instead. The leftist Syriza, which was projected in second place with 16.3 percent and 50 seats, has been strongly opposed to Greece’s bailout agreements.

“For us in PASOK, today is particularly painful,” Venizelos said. “We knew the price would be heavy and we had undertaken for a long time to bear it.”

Things aren’t  so peachy-keen in Germany, either:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition lost power in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, first estimates showed Sunday, after a vote that could presage national elections next year.

Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) scored 30.6 percent, according to ARD public television, with her junior partners at the national level, the Free Democrats (FDP), winning 8.3 percent – not enough to retain power in the northern state.

However, the opposition – combining the centre-left Social Democrats and ecologist Greens – also failed to gain sufficient support to form a government, with 29.9 percent and 13.6 percent respectively.

This left as a strong possibility a so-called “grand coalition” between the CDU and SPD, which many believe could be the final result of the national elections due in September or October 2013.

The big winners on the night were the Pirates, an upstart party that has shaken up the staid world of German politics with a campaign based on more transparency in the political process and internet freedom.

For the third consecutive regional election, they breached the five-percent mark needed to enter the state parliament, winning 8.2 percent of the vote.

But for the FDP, although they lost more than six percent compared to the last election in 2009, it was a better-than-expected result, given that they are polling nationally at around three percent.

Turnout was low, with around 60 percent of the 2.2 million registered voters casting their ballot, compared to more than two-thirds in 2009.

The socialist Left party failed to clear the five-percent hurdle, scoring around 2.4 percent. A party representing the state’s small Danish minority also fell below the threshold, with 4.5 percent.

The parties will now engage in days of horse-trading before the final make-up of the state parliament is determined.

However, the election will have little impact on the make-up of the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament where Germany’s 16 states are represented, and Merkel’s personal popularity remains high.

Back on April 24th, Robin Wells reported on the effect of what was happening in European Politics on the markets, for guardian.co.uk:

When markets contemplate that it’s likely that another austerity-skeptic, François Hollande, will win the presidency in France, then the pattern becomes impossible to ignore: the “core” eurozone countries are fragmenting. While it would be foolish to make predictions, what is probable is that Germany’s political isolation within the eurozone will deepen, leaving German taxpayers unwilling to continue backstopping the whole system.

Unthinkable as it seems, the logical conclusion is that the eurozone cannot continue to exist, at least in its present form. Markets, which hate unquantifiable uncertainty, are sensing this. We are likely to be in for an extended period of gut-wrenching turbulence.

What are the implications for the US, economically and politically? Direct links between the US and eurozone economies are fairly minor: we don’t export that much to them, they don’t import that much from us, and US banks have had an extended time to cut their exposure to eurozone risk. Yet the collateral damage could still prove significant.

When the stock markets fall, consumer and business confidence falls, leading to cutbacks in spending – bad news for an American economy that is still mired in recession. In addition, crisis in Europe makes for a stronger US dollar, as investors flee to safer abodes. Again, bad for the economy as a stronger dollars hurts US exports.

The reality of the eurozone’s troubles should lend support to President Barack Obama’s campaign against GOP presidential nominee presumptive Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans. It provides a demonstration that austerity is self-defeating, that fiscal stimulus is needed in a deeply depressed economy, that recovery from a financial crisis is a slow and halting process, and that by grasping the nettle immediately, the Obama administration has succeeded in stabilizing its financial sector – while the Europeans have made a hash of it.

Ms. Wells’ thoughts about our economic plight are way off…unless she calls the Obama Administration embracing of European Socialist-style Big Government, spending like there’s no tomorrow, and keeping unemployment at over 8% “stabilizing the financial sector”.

It is imperative that America not follow Europe’s example, this November 6th.