Further proof of the increasingly lucrative migrant rescue business and ties between so-called human rights charities and organized people smuggling gangs has been revealed by Italian prosecutors. On March 1, Italian police have launched an investigation against the Italian based NGO Mediterranea Saving Humans (MSH), accusing them of charging large amounts of money for taking 27 boat migrants on board from the Danish-registered ship Maersk Etienne.

According to the Ragusa public prosecutor’s statement, the people smuggling NGO had violated the law by aiding illegal immigration and acted against the maritime navigation code. The rescue ship Mare Jonio allegedly demanded €10,000 from the Danish ship for each passenger taken from onboard their vessel. The Maersk tanker had earlier picked up 27 illegal migrants floating in a boat, and the Maersk tanker’s owners would have been charged a total of €270,000 if they had agreed to these terms. Eventually, the sum of €125,000 was transferred by Maersk onto the NGO’s bank account.

The African migrants have been kept in makeshift conditions on the tanker for 38 days due to the fact that Maltese authorities refused to allow the ship to dock in any of their ports. After agreeing to pay the roughly €4,630 per migrant, the tanker’s temporary passengers were allowed to board the Italian ship. The NGO vessel then proceeded to the Sicilian port of Pozzallo, where all 27 migrants disembarked.

Although MSH has not denied that a large sum was received after the passenger transfer from the Maersk ship, the NGO has issued a statement complaining about the Italian prosecutor’s bias, stating that “Ragusa’s public prosecutor has made public his personal crusade against NGOs many times…  And, Mediterranea will not stop because of this sad and predictable attack. Mediterranea will continue to be at sea where the crimes of slaughter, torture, rape, and persecution are carried out.”

The Danish shipping giant Maersk have also defended its actions, saying that “at no time before or during the operation was any financial compensation or support discussed or agreed. Months after the rescue operation, Maersk met with representatives from Mediterranena to thank them for their humanitarian assistance. Following this meeting, we decided to make a contribution to Mediterranea to cover some of the costs they endured as a result of the operation. This was done in the amount of €125,000 euros and with the full support of Maersk Tankers’ management.”

This, however, is not what the Italian authorities’ investigation has found so far. According to them, the migrant smuggling NGO was motivated by profit when picking up illegal African immigrants from the commercial ship. They also allege that Beppe Caccia, a board member of the NGO, called a Danish phone number four times between Sept. 8 and Sept. 10. Furthermore, the pro-migration organization’s co-founder, Luca Casarini, was charged as far back as 2019 with promoting illegal migration.

Over a 1,000 people have died in the Mediterranean in 2020, roughly three people a day. This is largely a result of them being abandoned mid-sea by people smugglers. Organized criminal gangs are often tracking migrant rescue NGO ships and abandoning their human cargo in their vicinity.

The European Fundamental Rights Agency (RFA) has documented nine new legal proceedings against civil rescue ships, that adds up to 50 such proceedings since 2018. As the report indicates, there is a constant flow of new NGO ships venturing out to sea to pick up illegal migrants. Jail sentences for such illegal activities are virtually non-existent, and as the example of German migrant rescue boat captain Carola Rackete shows — who in 2019 had rammed an Italian coastguard ship with her own boat — perpetrators of even the most brazen violations can continue with illegal activities with near impunity.

The RFA report also alludes to the fact that the only means that authorities are currently able to use to fight back and stop NGO ships from ferrying a constant stream of migrants to European ports are simple administrative, technical or safety-related obstructions that keep these ships at port, at least temporarily.

https://rmx.news/article/article/ngo-rescue-ship-caught-demanding-10-000-per-migrant

Water brand Evian created a storm after its social media post sparked a backlash for apparently offending Muslims observing Ramadan.

On Tuesday, when the faithful were marking the start of a month-long fast between the hours of sunrise and sunset, the Danone subsidiary brand posted a message on its French Twitter page that read: “Retweet if you have already drunk a litre of Evian today.”

The message generated an angry response from some users who found it thoughtless and insensitive. “Worst timing,” wrote one person, responding to the post that was retweeted more than 5,000 times in one day.

“There are millions of us fasting in France, right?” another said. There are more than five million Muslims living in France, the second-largest religious group in the country.

Users asked why the mineral water brand decided on the tweet that day, with some accusing Evian of racism and religious insensitivity.

However, other users defended the brand, pointing out how it posts regular statements and questions about water consumption on its Twitter feed.

Journalist Mathieu Slama criticises the apology of mineral water producer Évian to users in the French daily “Le Figaro”.

The confrontation, but also the way Évian reacted, says a lot about the “state of our public debate” and about “our collective failure in the face of the religiosity and entrism of the Muslim religion”, says Slama.

First of all, corporate brands, like politicians, would now be subject to ever-increasing pressure from minorities and would adapt their communication as a result. When they apologised, all these brands believed they were playing politics, “when in fact they were submitting to the market logic of pandering to communitarian sensibilities in order to protect their business”. This is because a dispute over communitarian issues can have a strong financial impact: “Therefore, brands want to prove themselves progressive and ‘woke’, even if this leads to defending ideas that are dangerous from a democratic point of view”. Évian has apologised because they got scared in the face of a possible boycott by Muslims”.

Moreover, according to Le Figaro, this confrontation shows us how much France is threatened by an Islamist entrism “that denies almost all the traditional values of our culture. In the name of the respect owed to a religion, we would have to renounce certain freedoms. In the name of this respect, we would have to accept limits to freedom, we would have to satisfy certain sensitivities”. After all, Évian had been accused of “lacking consideration for a community and practically committing blasphemy by disregarding the great importance of Ramadan for practising Muslims”. In other words, this meant “requiring Évian – and other brands or institutions – to take into account the religious specificities of a community in their communications. How could one not see in such an instruction an extremely dangerous bias for our democracy?” Therefore, France should “under no circumstances give in to the demands of these new puritans”.

In addition, one can see in this debate “the increasing rise in France of an Anglo-Saxon concept of freedom of expression, in which it is linked to the consideration of this or that minority. This is called ‘cancel culture’, which presupposes the banning of any expression that might offend a community or a minority”. Évian had posted an apology tweet “out of fear of calls for boycotts” and because the company did not want to harm “its responsible and progressive corporate image”. But this “Cancel Culture”, Slama continues, “this product of an Anglo-Saxon puritanical and intolerant culture, is destroying careers and companies the more it gains influence. One must not give in to this new intolerance and now more than ever proactively defend the values on which our society is based”.

Évian previous tweets never attracted this level of attention, with most barely surpassing double digits in retweets or likes.

A few hours after the message was posted the brand apologised, calling the original post clumsy. Evian said the tweet was not meant to cause offence.

https://www.die-tagespost.de/politik/aktuell/frankreich-warum-ein-tweet-von-evian-zum-politikum-wurde;art315,217501

A 20-year-old Thai man living in Bremen was on his way back to his flat on Monday last week when he was attacked. Three young men repeatedly punched him in the face and brutally kicked the victim, who was lying on the ground, in the head – while calling him “Chinese” again and again. Even when the victim called for the police, they did not let go of him. The suspects, all three men are Syrian, according to the police two are the same age as the victim, were caught soon after – now the police are also investigating on suspicion of a possibly racist crime. The victim talked to TE magazine about the crime.

“I thought they were going to kill me,” says Nitiwit – he suffered skull fractures, among other injuries, and had to be hospitalised and treated. “Germany is supposed to be one of the safest countries in Europe,” he complains, Nitiwit calls Germany his “beloved homeland”. But the three perpetrators did not have any fear of “the police and the law” – and whether they could be prosecuted at all, he also has his doubts.

The police arrested the alleged perpetrators, but they are on the loose again. The victim does not understand why the state allows this to happen: “Although these people are dangerous, they are allowed to run around freely. The brutality with which they attacked the student was shocking: in addition to kicks to the head, two of the Syrians lifted the student from the ground and held him by both arms so that the third could punch him in the face.

Despite the seriousness and dimension of this allegedly racially motivated “hate crime”, which the judiciary has so far only prosecuted very mildly, the media response has been extremely restrained – although “anti-Asian racism” was repeatedly made an issue by the media in the Corona pandemic when the origin of the Corona virus was at issue. The local newspaper Weser-Kurier reported on the incident in a brief article in its print and online editions, but also concealed the origin of the suspects in the latter. It seems that the robbery does not fit the expected stereotype. “For me, it makes no difference what skin colour the perpetrators have,” said the victim – but that does not seem to apply to everyone.

https://www.tichyseinblick.de/daili-es-sentials/gewaltkriminalitaet-bremen-rassismus/

Five months ahead of the German federal elections, the senior ruling conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Socialist Union (CSU) coalition remains divided over who should be their top candidate to run for the position Angela Merkel will leave vacant, daily Magyar Hírlap writes.

The majority of Germans welcome the fact that Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder has decided to run for the joint candidacy of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU). Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed by the Civey polling institute on behalf of the Augsburger Allgemeine, believe Söder’s decision is correct. The rate is even higher among supporters of the CDU/CSU party, with 86 per cent of respondents saying they are pleased with Söder’s announcement.

In its latest survey, the Forsa polling institute asked what Germans thinks of Markus Söder and CDU President Armin Laschet’s leadership skills. According to the results released by the RND editorial network on Wednesday, only 4 percent of Germans believe Laschet has strong leadership skills. In contrast, 57 percent of participants said they considered Söder a strong leader. Laschet is trusted by 12 percent of respondents, compared to 27 percent for the Bavarian prime minister.

Commenting on the poll data, the head of the Forsa Institute, Manfred Güllner said that Laschet’s candidacy would significantly reduce the chances of union parties in the September federal parliamentary elections. Many Christian Democrat sympathizers could support the Greens or the liberal FDP, but the number of uncertain voters would also increase, Güllner said, adding that the data show that Germans do not consider Laschet to be the right chancellor candidate.

According to CDU Secretary General Friedrich Merz, the debate on the identity of the candidate for the head of government of the conservative parties must be concluded as soon as possible. Merz told Deutschlandfunk radio that the party alliance has to make a decision on the issue by the end of the week at the latest, as any delay could cause further damage to the CDU/CSU.

Germany is in a deep crisis due to the pandemic, the effects of which on the economy are not yet visible, he said. Merz assured Laschet of his support, adding that he had already promised to do so in the January party presidential election, where he finished in second place.

Söder and Laschet both spoke after Tuesday’s parliamentary faction meeting that they wanted to clarify the issue of candidacy later this week. According to an article by Der Tagesspiegel, the CDU/CSU has found itself in a “dangerous and explosive situation” in recent days. The Bavarian prime minister even spoke about the need for unity on Sunday, saying he is ready to step downi the CDU leadership did not support him. The presidency eventually voted for Laschet, but Söder did not yet give up the race.

Lars Klingbeil, secretary general of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), a smaller member of the governing coalition, said the power struggle is completely paralyzing the coalition parties. Klingbeil told the Phoenix Canal: all this is fatal in a critical situation in which Germany is currently. In his view, it would serve the CDU/CSU right to be relegated to an opposition role after the September elections.

https://rmx.news/article/article/germany-s-cdu-csu-deadlocked-over-who-should-be-chancellor-candidate

Sandro V. encounters the attacker in a car park in Winterthur. It happens last Friday, shortly before 11 pm. V., who was convicted by the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona last summer as the head of the Winterthur Islamist scene, gets into an argument with the man. During the argument, his opponent attacks him with a cutting weapon, presumably a machete.

Sandro V. is left injured after the attack. He has to be taken to hospital. The attacker, on the other hand, escapes – across the border to Germany. But he is not at large for long. German police arrested the 43-year-old at the weekend. He is said to be a known exponent of the German Islamist scene.

On the German part, the public prosecutor’s office in Constance is conducting the proceedings. Upon request, spokesperson Andreas Mathy says that the 43-year-old is being investigated for dangerous bodily harm. However, pre-trial detention has not been requested in his case. Mathy says: “The man claimed a self-defence situation, which could not be clearly refuted”. Accordingly, there would not have been sufficient reasons for detention. In the meantime, it has also become clear that the alleged perpetrator did not act alone. According to Mathy, another person is being investigated for complicity or aiding and abetting. However, no arrest was made.

The background of the crime is still unclear. According to well-informed persons, it could have been a dispute in the Islamist milieu. Sandro V., who once called himself the “Emir of Winterthur”, has not yet left extreme circles. Last summer, V. had claimed otherwise: during his trial before the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona, he testified that he had de-radicalised himself. This had also been confirmed to him in a report by the anti-violence unit of the Zurich cantonal police.

The convert explained himself in court as follows: He used to be a devout Muslim. But the barbaric actions of the IS had made it clear to him that the ideology of the terrorist militia was absolutely wrong.

The court, however, did not believe him. In September 2020, it sentenced the Winterthur resident to 50 months imprisonment. The presiding judge’s ruling was as follows: “He was an almost fanatical follower and supporter of the IS and its predecessor organisation. V. had not only shared the ideology of the terrorist organisation, but had also spread it. Countless pieces of evidence were found on data carriers. All in all, his culpability was severe, especially since there was no discernible awareness of his deeds on his part.

The 34-year-old’s defence lawyer had previously demanded a full acquittal in vain. In the meantime, V. has appealed against the verdict. Therefore, he is currently at large.

It is still not entirely clear how the Winterthur man became radicalised. Former acquaintances described him to the newspaper NZZ as a young guy with a penchant for cars, as someone who smoked a lot of pot and had an attack dog. He is said to have been proud of his Italian origins and the Catholic religion. They tell of a man who could be winning, good-looking, but at the same time seemed somewhat restless.

At the end of the noughties, Sandro V. changed his mind and converted to Islam. In mid-November 2013, he finally travelled to Istanbul and from there to the war zone in Syria in an all-terrain vehicle. Less than a month later, he returned to Switzerland. Thanks to his status as a “returnee”, he gained reputation in the rapidly growing Winterthur Islamist scene. In 2014, together with the Thai boxing world champion Valdet Gashi, he founded the martial arts school MMA Sunna, which has since closed again and is an important meeting place for young Salafists.

The investigations of the Office of the Attorney General also showed that he was in contact with notorious hate preachers such as Bilal Bosnić or Mirsad Omerović. V. spoke of “exclusive contacts” with the radical clerics.

Sandro V.’s name was repeatedly mentioned in connection with jihad travellers who left Switzerland to join the Islamic State in the war zone. Several young men trained at his martial arts school, which was run according to Muslim rules, before they left. That meant no music, no women. Several of these young men later died in Syria and Iraq. In 2016, V. was arrested by the police and spent a year in pre-trial detention. Then he was released under conditions.

The authorities investigated the Winterthur man for years. Last year’s trial was a central case for them. In its indictment, the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland made a description of V. as a leading Salafist figure in Switzerland who “held an intermediary position” with radical clerics abroad. The indictment was based on the analysis of telephone calls, chats, pictures and videos as well as on witness statements.

https://www.nzz.ch/zuerich/islamismus-deutscher-attackiert-emir-von-winterthur-mit-machete-ld.1611683

BY MATT MARGOLIS

In this year alone, we’ve learned that trees are racist, as are fonts. Heck, even not being racist is racist!

So, I guess the news that cheese is racist now shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Environmentalists in Brighton and Hove in England are trying to get more plant-based school meals, citing not only the environmental impact of animal agriculture and fishing industries, as well the apparent racism of dairy products.

“Animal agriculture and fishing industries are leading causes of deforestation, ocean dead zones, water pollution, biodiversity loss and species extinction,” reads the petition started by Alison Plaumer of Extinction Rebellion. “Not only that, intensive animal farming poses a significant threat for the development of new pandemics and for furthered antibacterial resistance to emerge.”

Plaumer also told the city council last month that “Arguably, there is a racist element to serving dairy too much because 65 percent of the world’s population are lactose intolerant, many from the BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) community.”

“Loads of parents around here give lots of support to this,” Plaumer claims. “What do children want? They want action. They want it now.”

Most kids probably want cheese, too. Because cheese is awesome, and I feel bad for anyone who can’t have cheese because, as I said, it’s awesome.

If cheese is racist, what does that make Hunter Biden, who used to smoke parmesan cheese because it looked like crack?

The petition is calling for two plant-based food days be introduced at all public schools, and all council-run events to be entirely plant-based after the pandemic is over.

That’s cute.

According to Impossible Foods, their Impossible Burger, the plant-based burger of choice that’s available at Burger King, the ingredients of their burger are the following:

Water, Soy Protein Concentrate, Coconut Oil, Sunflower Oil, Natural Flavors, 2% Or Less Of: Potato Protein, Methylcellulose, Yeast Extract, Cultured Dextrose, Food Starch Modified, Soy Leghemoglobin, Salt, Mixed Tocopherols (Antioxidant), Soy Protein Isolate, Vitamins and Minerals (Zinc Gluconate, Thiamine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Niacin, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Vitamin B12).

Well, good luck if you have a soy allergy. I guess if you have a soy allergy you’re racist, too.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/04/14/here-we-go-again-now-cheese-is-racist-n1440082

Global funds for development aid reached a new high in the past year. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) announced in Paris on Tuesday, that public funds from donor countries rose to more than 161 billion US dollars (around 136 billion euros).

This corresponded to around one percent of the amount that the recipient countries had made available for economic stimulus measures in 2020. OECD Secretary General Angel Gurría criticized this as too little. “This crisis is a great test of multilateralism and of the concept of foreign aid itself. We must make much greater efforts to help developing countries distribute vaccines, care for hospitals, and support the incomes and livelihoods of the most vulnerable helping the world to achieve a truly global recovery.”

German Development Minister Gerd Müller (CSU) announced that, with 25 billion euros, Germany was the second largest donor country after the USA and that it was meeting its international obligations. At the same time, he warned against a reduction in funds in the coming years. “The financial plan submitted by the Ministry of Finance foresees a reduction in development funds of around a quarter in the coming years.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) had promised the developing countries 220 million euros for the fight against climate change at the end of January. “Germany shares responsibility to strengthen the resilience of poorer and the poorest countries.” The aim is to provide 500 million euros annually by 2025 to protect particularly poor people from the consequences of climate risks such as crop failures or floods.

Last year, in view of the Corona crisis, the AfD called for funds for development aid to be frozen for a year . “For a strong Germany in and after the crisis, an end to the rampant redistribution of German wealth halfway around the world”, argued the development policy spokesman for the AfD parliamentary group, Markus Frohnmaier.

According to trade and development body UNCTAD, the global economy posted its sharpest annual drop in output since records began to be aggregated in the 1940s, “with no region spared”. But especially Europe, South Africa and India did very poorly according to the latest data.

“Multilateralism has essentially lost its mojo”, said Richard Kozul-Wright, head of the Division on Globalization and Development Strategies at UNCTAD, in a year that saw an almost 4 percent drop in global output. Speaking to journalists in Geneva recently, the UN economist maintained that debt-relief initiatives for poorer countries expected by the G20 group of advanced economies had been “extremely weak”.

The crisis triggered an effective loss of 255 million full-time jobs worldwide, according to the International Labour Organization.

Many countries, even rich ones, are struggling with the cost of the Coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. In Germany it is expected to reach €1,3 trillion according to government figures. The calculation, published by the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) at the end of last year, was in a Finance Ministry response to a request by the parliamentary leader of the socialist Left Party.

The total sum includes “all aid packages, launched by the federal and state governments to date,” the loss of revenue due to the crisis and guarantees at the federal and state level for more than €826 billion, according to the report.

In France, the crisis caused by Covid-19 will cost the state 424 billion euros over three years. The sums mentioned are staggering. The Covid-19 epidemic will cost a total of 424 billion euros in 2020, 2021 and 2022 to public finances in France, said the Minister of Action and Public Accounts, Olivier Dussopt in Le Figaro, Tuesday, April 13.

The figure, confirmed by the ministry to AFP, breaks down into 158 billion euros for the year 2020, 171 billion for this year (including 56 billion dedicated to emergency measures) and 96 billion euros in 2022.

These 424 billion euros represent “the gap between the public deficits forecast before the crisis” and what the minister “finally included in the stability program which will be sent to Brussels in a few days,” according to Le Figaro. These sums take into account both reductions in tax revenue and exceptional expenditure such as the solidarity fund and partial unemployment.

https://freewestmedia.com/2021/04/15/development-aid-funds-rise-to-a-record-high/