The Raw Story

Tuesday, 13 January 2015

Rotterdam mayor to Muslims in Europe: "Pack your bags and f*** off" if you don't like the freedoms of the West

© Reuters/Robert Vos/Pool

The Moroccan-born mayor of Rotterdam told unhappy Muslims in Europe they can "pack their bags" in an interview following the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Pictured: Aboutaleb (center) in Rotterdam Jan. 5, 2009.

The Moroccan-born mayor of Rotterdam shocked a live television audience this week by telling Muslims who have a problem with Western culture to "pack their bags" and "f--- off." The Muslim Labour politician Ahmed Aboutaleb made the remarks during an interview with a Dutch news program about last week's deadly attacks on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and is known for his tough stance on Muslim integration in Europe, according to the U.K.'s .

"It is incomprehensible that you can turn against freedom... But if you don't like freedom, for heaven's sake pack your bags and leave," Aboutaleb said to the Dutch news program (News Hour). "If you do not like it here because some humorists you don't like are making a newspaper, may I then say you can f--- off."

Aboutaleb, 53, also argued that Muslims who could not "find [their] place" in the Netherlands were causing ostracism of other Muslims in the country. "All those well-meaning Muslims here will now be stared at," he said. Muslims make up about five percent of the Netherlands' population of 16.8 million.

The Rotterdam mayor became the first Muslim immigrant to lead a major European city when he was appointed to the office in 2008. Born to an imam in Morocco's Rif mountain region in 1961, Aboutaleb moved to the Netherlands when he was 15 and has often been described as a "model non-Western immigrant," according to Spiegel Online.

Despite his tough stance on Muslim immigrants, Aboutaleb himself has been criticized for his own immigrant background by the far-right Dutch political leader Geert Wilders, who submitted a motion of no-confidence against the then-deputy social affairs minister in 2007 for continuing to hold on to his Moroccan passport, reported Der Spiegel. This, Wilders alleged, meant that Aboutaleb's loyalty remained to the king of Morocco rather than to the Netherlands.

London mayor Boris Johnson praised Aboutaleb in the U.K.'s on Sunday, calling him a "hero" for getting "straight to the point" in condemning the terrorist attacks in Paris, which left 17 people dead last week. "That is the voice of the Enlightenment, of Voltaire... that is the kind of voice we need to hear - and it needs above all to be a Muslim voice," he wrote.

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A new video released by the official Islamic State media wing, Al Hayat Media, shows a young boy executing two Russian FSB agents captured by the organization. The boy was previously featured in an ISIS propaganda film showing the training of child soldiers in Kazakhstan.

Before their execution, the FSB agents are interviewed. The first identifies himself as Mamayev Jambulat, who told his interviewers that he was sent to gather info on the Islamic State and to get closer to an ISIS member. Jambulat said that he was born in Kazakhstan, which may explain why ISIS used a Kazakh child soldier to carry out his execution. The second soldier is named as Ashimov Sergey Nikolayavich, who said that he previously worked in Russian intelligence, and was sent to locate and kill a specific ISIS leader. Nikolayavich says during the interview that he received payment on a per-piece-of-info basis from Russian Intelligence. In the video, he also says that he was once a Muslim. None of his statements have been verified at this time and could very well be coerced in the interview under duress.

Just before the six-minute mark of the video, an ISIS militant, accompanied by a child, reads a series of Quranic passages, before saying a few lines in Russian.

"Allah has gifted the Islamic State's security agency with the apprehension of these two spies," he says, with subtitles in Arabic and English. He continues: "By Allah's grace, they are now in the custody of the lion cubs of the Khilafah.

At that point, the child, armed with a handgun, steps forward and shoots the two kneeling captives in the back of the head. We have edited out the most graphic parts of the video, the remainder of which is below.

Links to the video were initially uploaded to an online forum often used by the Islamic State to communicate with their followers, and circulated by affiliated ISIS social media accounts.

Comment: The FSB has refused to comment on the alleged murder of its "agents". Whatever truth there is to their statements, this is an obvious provocation from the West's proxy terror squad, and comes in the context of similar previous provocations, including threats against Chechnya: It also comes after statements from Chechnya's leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, who has been quite vocal about who is really behind so-called Islamic extremism - extremism that Chechnya suffered from for years, and which Kadyrov helped eliminate from the region. The West can't be too happy that their mercenaries were utterly defeated there, and it looks like they want a second chance. Will Russia take the bait? Not likely, and if 'ISIS' enters Russia, they'd better watch out.

© Noa Olchowski

Cartoon by Noa Olchowski published by brings death threats: "10 journalists killed in attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris (top), about 13 journalists killed last summer in attack on Gaza (bottom)"

In the wake of the massacre in Paris last week published a daring cartoon juxtaposing journalists* killed in Gaza by Israel during the brutal summer slaughter with the journalists killed at the office of the satirical magazine in Paris. This set off a chain reaction which ultimately led to calls for murdering journalists after Ronen Shoval, founder of the neo-Zionist and proto-fascist movement, called for an investigation of the newspaper's editors.

The offending cartoon by Noa Olchowski was published with a series of cartoons ran in their Hebrew edition, a project by the site's graphic designers to pay tribute to cartoonists gunned down at the magazine's Paris office. Including the hashtags #JeSuisCharlie and #JeSuisGaza it reads (original Hebrew):

10 journalists killed in attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris (top), about 13 journalists killed last summer in attack on Gaza (bottom).

Shoval, who is running in the primary election of the religious Zionist "Jewish Home" political party called for the investigation "on suspicion of 'defeatist propaganda' under Statute 103 of Israel's penal code" on his Facebook page. Users of the social media site weighed in, reported several of the threats:

A raft of death threats came in. "We must do what the terrorists did to them in France, but at Haaretz," wrote Facebook user Chai Aloni. "Why is there no terror attack at Haaretz?" wrote Moni Ponte.

"Let the terrorists eliminate them," wrote Daniella Peretz. "With God's help, the journalists at Haaretz will be murdered just like in France," wrote Miki Dahan. As Danit Hajaj put it, "They should die."

"Haaretz is where the terrorists should have gone," wrote Riki Michael. "Death to traitors," added Moshe Mehager. "I hope that terrorism reaches Haaretz as well," wrote Tuval Shalom. "With God's help, [there will be] a Hamas operation that kills all of you, like the journalists in France," wrote Ruti Hevroni.

Haaretz's editorial staff said the cartoons published in the project were a personal gesture by the newspaper's designers, not the editorial board, and this is how they were presented.

After the recent alarming death threats a spokesperson for editorial staff had this to say:

"It is astonishing that in the framework of the global debate over freedom of expression and freedom of the press, and at a time when journalists have been killed over the existence of this right, Internet users are demanding that Haaretz completely censor a cartoon whose content they do not like."

Shoval and his movement are no strangers to controversial cartoons.

After initiating a smear campaign described as a "witchhunt" against New Israel Fund's, Naomi Chazan depicting her wearing a horn, a popular fan site for an Army Radio talk show published caricature of Chazan as the devil being stabbed by Herzl himself.

blamed Chazen and NIF for the results of the Goldstone report and the ensuing "deligitimization" of Israel after Operation Cast Lead in 2008: "92 percent of [the] negative references to the IDF in the Goldstone report originating with Israeli sources came from organizations sponsored by NIF [New Israeli Fund]."

* 15 journalists and media workers were killed during operation "Protective Edge," the Israeli government deliberately targets and murders journalists.

You may have heard of robo-advisors, the nickname for online investment platforms that use algorithms to manage clients' money.

Robo-advisors suffer from what we could call Bitcoin syndrome: It sounds cool, but who actually uses it?

According to a new report from Swiss research company MyPrivateBanking Research, a lot of people do - and more of us will get on board in the near future. By the end of 2014, the report finds, robo-advisors may be managing $14 billion, 83% of that in the US. In the next five years, that number is expected to skyrocket to about $255 billion worldwide.

This sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but it's worth noting that it's only a small fraction of the assets managed by traditional (read: human) financial advisors. Traditional advisors still control around $5 trillion in the US alone.

"Robo-advisors will win only a small market share of this total market in the near and medium term. However, the robo phenomenon is here to stay, and we believe that there is good reason to expect robo-advisors to be highly successful as a class," says MyPrivateBanking Research senior analyst Francis Groves in a press release.

In particular, the report highlights Wealthfront, Personal Capital, and Betterment as robo-advisors with the most potential to disrupt the industry, specifically due to "their ability to win new clients, their marketing prowess, and their deep pockets funding-wise."

A photographer from Texas, Joshua Thomas, recently captured a photo in New Mexico of a rare ice crystal halo phenomenon.

In order to point out the interesting details in the photo, the US National Weather Service of La Crosse, Wisconsin made the photo into a diagram that shows the different aspects of the halo.

The phenomenon occurs when minuscule ice crystals in the atmosphere reflect and refract light in a certain way. The halos can be created by light from the sun or the moon, and seeing one often means there will be some kind of precipitation within the following 24 hours.

A new federal executive order expands the list of illnesses for which you could be detained, isolated, and treated against your will if you are entering the US or traveling between states - even if you are completely healthy. Some states have similar or worse laws that would even allow entry into your home.

President Obama has signed an executive order expanding the list of illnesses that could result in forced detention, isolation, and quarantine for anyone exposed, even if they are not sick. It updates a Bush-era executive order, adding "severe acute respiratory syndromes" except for influenza to the list of detainable communicable diseases.

The Public Health Service Act allows the government to apprehend and detain individuals based on communicable diseases named in the Act, or named by presidential executive orders. Executive orders do not have to get congressional approval.

Not only can people with the disease be forcibly isolated, but the CDC also has the power to quarantine anyone who may have been exposed. The new executive order allows detentions for "diseases that are associated with fever and signs and symptoms of pneumonia or other respiratory illness...capable of being transmitted from person to person, and that either are causing, or have the potential to cause, a pandemic, or, upon infection, are highly likely to cause mortality or serious morbidity if not properly controlled" [italics ours]. In other words, if you have been exposed to one of the listed communicable diseases - even if you do not show symptoms - you may be forcibly detained and quarantined.

This is broad authority, as the CDC notes:

"In addition to serving as medical functions, isolation and quarantine also are 'police power' functions, derived from the right of the state to take action affecting individuals for the benefit of society."

And since this is federal law, it covers people entering into the United States and people traveling between states as well.

Even worse, because of various draconian state laws, individuals can also be detained against their will within their state - which includes being forced from their home. Once in quarantine, a potentially toxic drug regimen is generally enforced. While detention authority and scope differs from state to state, some have excessively broad powers. For example

In Alabama, the governor or state board of health may proclaim a quarantine whenever it is deemed necessary. The board of health has full powers of enforcement, and may formulate any rules it believes necessary.

In Idaho, the state reserves the right to enter an individual's home by force if an occupant may have been exposed.

Maine reserves the right to impose emergency regulations at the mere threat of an outbreak.

New York can also detain patients in a locked ward at Bellevue hospital.

In 2009 the Massachusetts Senate considered a bill allowing the police, during a declared public health emergency, to arrest people without a warrant if they have "probable cause" to think they're not complying with orders (including verbal orders from the public health commissioner or local public health authority). Under this bill, citizens could have been detained for as long as necessary for the public authorities to "convey information to you regarding the disease." Happily, because of grassroots activists like you and opposition from the Massachusetts House, the bill did not pass and was never reintroduced.

Of deep concern is that, in most instances, natural treatments will be denied in favor of state-mandated treatments. In New York, for example, a patient with tuberculosis was placed in mandatory isolation for two weeks - and now, even after being released from isolation, he still must take three powerful antibiotics every day and is monitored by health officials via smartphone from his home. In Arkansas, for those under mandated treatment for tuberculosis, "disorderly conduct" can be punished with confinement of up to six months. Does disorderly conduct include not accepting the state-mandated treatment? We don't know for certain, but it seems likely.

Keep yourself healthy! Vitamin D is an excellent preventive treatment for influenza and other viral diseases, and is being studied as a powerful tool to treat and prevent tuberculosis and other communicable diseases and potential pandemics. For other viral treatments, see our recent article on the Ebola virus.

In all of the melee resulting from the shooting of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson, the media has overlooked a number of other very important shootings of unarmed civilians by police officers. One of the most egregious offenses is that of Officer Joseph Weekley's fatal shooting of 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones. Officer Weekley recently saw manslaughter charge dropped against him, for shooting the 7-year-old while she slept.

The Detroit police officer had been on trial for involuntary manslaughter for shooting and killing the young girl during a 2010 police raid. But early in October, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway granted a motion which Weekley's attorney had filed, arguing for the dismissal of the felony charge he faced in the young girl's death. The trial was brought to an end while the Michigan Court of Appeals reviewed an emergency appeal of the ruling.

Presiding Judge Michael Talbot issued the order to deny the appeal and allow the judge's dismal to stand.

"Although I find that the trial court erred in form and substance in granting defendant's motion for directed verdict, we are barred from reviewing that decision," Talbot wrote. The shooting happened just after midnight, back on May 16, 2010. A SWAT team had conducted a raid to search for a murder suspect. Weekly ended up being first through the door.

There was even a film crew on hand to film for a reality show about murder investigations. Weekley says that another SWAT member had thrown a flash-bang grenade, which temporarily blinded him. That's when he fired the shot that killed Aiyana who was asleep on the couch in the front room of the house.

Doubling down on this claim, in court he actually testified that Aiyana's grandmother had somehow "touched" his gun, which made him fire the shot. But he failed to explain how he could tell she had done this when he claimed he couldn't see anything at the time.

The prosecution noted that even having his finger on the trigger of his submachine gun was improper. "He could have avoided injury if he had followed his training," Assistant Wayne County Prosecutor Robert Moran explained.

"He didn't, and as a result of him not following his training and not following the mandates of ordinary care, someone was killed."

But ultimately, the arguments and reason didn't win out. Roland Lawrence, the chairman of the Justice for Aiyana Committee, issued a statement after the court's decision was announced.

"Surely, the death of a baby by a well-trained police force must be deemed unacceptable in a civilized society," Lawrence said.

Steve Fishman, Weekley's attorney, claimed that even though he did not dispute that his client pulled the trigger and killed the girl, "there is absolutely no evidence, none, that's in the least bit credible, that Officer Weekley knowingly created a danger or, more importantly, intended to cause injury." After the dismissal, the only charge Weekley faced, was a relatively minor misdemeanor charge of "careless discharge of a firearm causing death."

The Raw Story

Focused on providing independent journalism.

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Tuesday, 13 January 2015

Rotterdam mayor to Muslims in Europe: "Pack your bags and f*** off" if you don't like the freedoms of the West

ISIS films child soldier purportedly executing Russians: FSB doesn't fall for the provocation

Haaretz receives death threats after publishing cartoon comparing journalists killed in France to those killed in Gaza by Israel

New report: Robo-advisors will manage $255 billion within 5 years

Photographer captures rare ice halo phenomena in New Mexico

Medical Fascism: In the U.S. you could be quarantined and forced to take toxic drugs

Charges dismissed against cop who killed 7 year-old girl while she slept

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