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Nigerian migrant gangs overrun Italian resort town with drug and prostitution rings

Chris Tomlinson
Breitbart
Thu, 22 Feb 2018 17:28 UTC
nigerian migrants
© CARLO HERMANN/AFP/Getty Images
The largely abandoned former seaside resort town of Castel Volturno north of Naples has been taken over by Nigerian gangs who run drug and prostitution rings.

The town has a total population of around 30,000 people, of which an estimated 20,000 are migrants, French news magazine L'Obs reports.

Many of the Nigerian migrant women who walk the streets as prostitutes are underage, offering sexual favours for as little as 5 to 15 euros along the Via Domitiana by the sea.

The rampant petty crime and violence in the city has led to journalists wanting to write about the town requiring police escorts for their own safety.

The current Italian government, which is seeking re-election on March 4th, has signed a 21-million euro package to increase security in towns like Castel Volturno and offer integration programmes for migrants.

Comment: And yet the multiculturalists are still wondering why Europeans are so anti-migrant... Maybe it's because you're doing it wrong? Open borders simply don't work, and it doesn't take a genius to realize that. In fact, those in power knew very well what the effects would be. They either wanted those effects to take place, or were too cowardly to take a stand before things descended into chaos.

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Arrow Down

Asthma med doping: German journalist questions Norwegian Olympians' success


RT
Sat, 24 Feb 2018 17:02 UTC
asthma inhaler
© George Doyle / Getty Images
The Olympic success of Norway's skiing athletes has come under fire after a German investigative reporter accused some athletes of abusing their asthma medication to boost their medal haul.

Norway's Alpine skiers won a bronze medal in the inaugural team event in Pyeongchang on Saturday, adding to the country's lead in the medal count with a total of 38. "It's difficult to say why the performance has been way too good," Norwegian Alpine skiing great Lasse Kjus told Reuters.

Hajo Seppelt, a German journalist and documentary filmmaker on alleged state-sponsored doping in Russian sports, cast doubt on the 'unexplained' success, given the numbers of asthma meds brought to the Olympics by the Norwegian team.

Just prior to the tournament, Norway announced that its delegation brought around 6,000 doses of asthma medication to treat national team members if they are diagnosed with the chronic respiratory disease.
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Handcuffs

Man arrested on suspicion of murdering his maid and storing her body in his freezer


RT
Sat, 24 Feb 2018 16:57 UTC
prisoner behind bars
© Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters
The employer of a Filipina maid who was found dead in a freezer in Kuwait has been arrested on suspicion of murder. The arrest follows a weeks-long manhunt.

Nader Essam Assaf, a Lebanese national, was arrested in his home country in connection with the death of 29-year-old Joanna Demafelis, the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

The housekeeper was found in a freezer in an abandoned apartment in Kuwait City on February 6, more than a year after her disappearance. Her body was found bearing apparent signs of torture, Philippines officials said earlier this month. The incident subsequently led to a ban on Filipino workers traveling to Kuwait.

Philippines Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano called the arrest a "critical first step in our quest for justice for Joanna," and confirmed that President Rodrigo Duterte has been informed of the news.

Meanwhile, Assaf's wife, a Syrian national by the name of Mona, is also a suspect in Demafelis' death. She remains at large and is believed to be in Syria.
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Calculator

Bank of America complains to SEC that cryptocurrencies pose serious threat to business as usual - places restrictions on customer purchases


RT
Sat, 24 Feb 2018 16:47 UTC
bitcoin
Bank of America considers cryptocurrency a material risk to its business, public records reveal. The bank has made efforts to restrict its customers' use of bitcoin and other virtual currencies.

In its annual filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the bank admitted cryptocurrency poses a competitive threat to its business on three separate occasions within the document. The bank said there is a risk that its customers could turn to cryptocurrencies adding that, "Clients may choose to conduct business with other market participants who engage in business or offer products in areas we deem speculative or risky, such as cryptocurrencies."

Comment:

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Handcuffs

Florida man sentenced to 330 years for child pornography and abuse of Filipino children

Anastasia Dawson
Tampa Bay Times
Fri, 23 Feb 2018 16:48 UTC
David Paul Lynch
© Pinellas County Jail
David Paul Lynch, of Venice, Fla., was sentenced to 330 years in prison for regularly traveling to the Philippines to have sex with children and for producing, possessing and distributing child pornography.
A Venice man convicted of producing child pornography and regularly traveling to the Philippines to have sex with children was sentenced Friday to spend 330 years in federal prison.

In October, a federal jury found David Paul Lynch, 56, guilty on charges stemming from multiple trips to the Philippines between 2005 and 2016 where he engaged in "child sex tourism," according to a release from the Department of Justice.

Lynch planned his trips through online communications with individuals in the Philippines who would then locate children for Lynch to sexually exploit, the release said. During his trips, Lynch would have sex with the children and record the encounters, producing child pornography of at least three Filipino children, the release said.

Comment: Will the US go the way of Australia and Ireland?
Cut them off: Australia plans to revoke convicted pedophiles' passports to prevent 'child-sex tourism'
Ireland aims to deny passports to convicted pedophiles to combat child sex tourism

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Eye 2

Amnesty International: Ukrainian secret prisons continue practice of torture

Novorosinform, translated by Tom Winter
Fort Russ
Thu, 22 Feb 2018 00:00 UTC
Amnesty torture
The investigation of the "secret prisons" of Ukraine's Security Service has not made any progress, and illegal detention of people by law enforcement agencies is continuing in the country. This is stated in a new report of the international human rights organization Amnesty International.

The report, entitled "The Situation of Human Rights in the World", notes that the investigation into the "secret prisons" of the Ukrainian secret services has not made any progress, while law enforcement officials continue to use torture and other unlawful acts against people.

In addition, the State Bureau of Investigation, established in Ukraine last year, has not yet begun its work, the analysis says.

Comment: Yet another shining example of what occurs when the US exports its brand of 'freedom and democracy' abroad. Without exception, US intervention - in any sphere - almost always results in a marked disintegration of a country's wealth, standard of living and humanity. But if this is true, then its also correct to say that the worst political actors of Ukraine have empowered themselves to be dupes of the US - and dupes, ultimately, of their own latent criminal tendencies. The Kiev regime has become a black hole for itself and the citizens it is attempting to subjugate; an absolute disaster on every level that only threatens to worsen:

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Passport

UK: Exodus of EU migrants welcomed... 'but we still let in too many'

Macer Hall
The Express
Fri, 23 Feb 2018 18:13 UTC
Theresa May immigrants
© Getty
The number of migrants returning home to Europe has soared since Britain voted to quit the EU.
Around 130,000 left in the 12 months to September last year - the highest level for a decade. It helped cut annual net migration to Britain from the EU to 90,000, data from the Office for National Statistics revealed yesterday. The total was down from 165,000 in the previous 12 months - a fall of 46 per cent.

But in a stark warning to Theresa May about the scale of the border control challenge, net migration from non-EU countries rose by 40,000 over the same period to 205,000.

Around half of the non-EU migrants are thought to be students. It means overall annual net migration was 244,000, still two-and-a-half times the Government's official target of a maximum of 100,000.

Comment:

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Card - VISA

Bank of England's chief cashier pays with cash as banks warn of fraud using contactless cards

Khaleda Rahman
Daily Mail
Wed, 21 Feb 2018 22:13 UTC
Victoria Cleland, the Bank of England's chief cashier has revealed she doesn't use contactless cards because she doesn't completely trust the technology

Victoria Cleland, the Bank of England's chief cashier has revealed she doesn't use contactless cards because she doesn't completely trust the technology
The Bank of England's chief cashier has revealed she doesn't use contactless cards because she doesn't completely trust the technology.

Victoria Cleland, whose signature is on every Bank of England note, said she prefers to use cash for small transactions.

The 47-year-old also says predictions of the death of cash are premature, insisting that 'cash is definitely here to stay.'

'I personally don't really use contactless,' she told the Guardian.

'To be blunt, it wasn't on my card for a long time and so I've just got into the habit of preferring not to.

'And I do hear stories of friends - this is a personal anecdote, this isn't the official Bank view - whose money has been taken off contactless when you walk past something.
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MIB

Sabotage suspected as second Russian athlete 'tests positive for doping' at Winter Olympics

Sean Ingle
The Guardian
Fri, 23 Feb 2018 13:44 UTC
Nadezhda Sergeeva
© Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters
Framed? Russian athlete Nadezhda Sergeeva in Pyeongchang.
Nadezhda Sergeeva, who finished 12th in the two-woman bobsleigh, has become the second Russian to test positive for a banned substance at the Winter Olympics. According to reports in the Russian media, the substance involved was trimetazidine, a stimulant usually used to treat patients suffering from angina.

The disclosure of another positive doping test comes 24 hours after the Russian curler Alexander Krushelnitsky was stripped of an Olympic bronze medal.

The news will heap further pressure on the International Olympic Committee, which will meet today to decide whether the Russian team will be allowed to march under their own flag at tomorrow's closing ceremony.

As things stand, the Russian Olympic Committee is banned, although 168 of the country's athletes have been competing in Pyeongchang under the Olympic Athletes from Russia banner. Alexander Zubkov, president of the Russian Bobsleigh Federation, confirmed Sergeeva's positive test to the Russian newspaper Sport Express.

Comment: The Irish Examiner adds:
The construction of the case against Krushelnitckii seems straightforward; his routine doping sample has come back positive for the prohibited substance meldonium. It is the same substance used by Maria Sharapova and for which she was banned for 15 months.

Although Krushelnitckii left the Olympic village without comment, it seems his defence will be that a fellow competitor - disgruntled at having not been selected to go to the Olympics - spiked or sabotaged his drink with the prohibited substance.

The burden of proof with this defence will be on Krushelnitckii. The "someone spiked my drink" defence is rarely credibly argued in doping cases and even more seldom successful. [...]

All those on the OAR team would have known they would be subject to enhanced testing in the immediate weeks prior to, and during, the Olympics.

And Krushelnitckii was, it seems, independently tested at the end of January at a training camp in Japan before his departure to Pyeongchang. The results were negative.

OAR participants would also have been acutely aware that they were part of a sophisticated political choreography between Russia and the IOC, which it is claimed may even have resulted in athletes entering the closing ceremony under the Russian flag and in the national uniform. Krushelnitckii's positive test now puts pressure on the IOC not to allow this.

And the closing ceremony in Pyeongchang was an opportunity for Russia to draw a line under the past four years of doping allegations, in a year when it hosts another big sporting event - the Fifa World Cup.

Finally, on Tuesday when Krushelnitckii's B sample confirmed the positive finding, Norway, population 5.2m, sat on top of the Winter Olympics' medal table.

Indeed, if Krushelnitckii's case is proven, the bronze medal in mixed curling will go to Norway.

Norway and Russia have been at loggerheads for a while on the issue of doping. The Norwegian FA has, for example, stated that Russia should be forbidden from hosting the World Cup later this year and the Norwegian press has ridiculed the Russians for having to dope even its curlers.

Russia retaliated, highlighting that Norway's delegation brought around 6,000 doses of asthma medication to the 2018 Games - equating to 55 doses for every Norwegian athlete.

Sometimes it's hard to know who or what to believe on doping in sport or even why to bother.
Those Norwegians are probably top of the medals table because of their 'TUEs', dodgy exemptions handed out mainly to Western athletes so they can legally consume all the dope they want.

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Map

Have the Kurds backed Damascus into a corner?

Andrew Korybko
Oriental Review
Thu, 22 Feb 2018 13:44 UTC
PKK Peshmerga fighters
The Kurds aren't playing Damascus like a fiddle just yet, but they're coming dangerously close.

Conflict Context

The past week has seen a flurry of conflicting reports about the true status of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allied militias in Afrin, with the general conclusion being that Damascus is playing a dangerous game of brinksmanship with Ankara in coyly playing with the possibility of allying with the PYD-YPG "federalist" Kurds. The author wrote about this in his most recent analysis titled "Syria's Afrin Move: 'Artful Assistance To Allies' Or 'Armageddon In The Making'?", which includes references to his two crucial foundational texts on this topic questioning whether "It's Even Possible To "Betray" The Kurds?" and warning that "The Syrian Kurds Think They Can Play Damascus Like A Fiddle".

The main point being expressed is that no actor should feel any "guilt" about breaking their previous "commitments" to the Syrian Kurds because it's impossible to "betray" them anyhow, but that Damascus might not realize this and is therefore susceptible to being taken advantage of by the PYD-YPG as it seeks to provoke a conventional Turkish-Syrian conflict. Regrettably, the fact alone that Damascus is flirting with the Kurds is proof that it might be falling for their ruse, though to the government's defense, it might only be doing so as part of a short-term tactical measure aimed at countering what it believes to be the larger and more existential threat of Turkey.
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