Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to double the number of his country's troops stationed along its border with the Baltic states and Finland

  

Trade between Iran and the European Union (EU) has flourished over the years; this economic and diplomatic partnership is a large art of what has been fueling the Ayatollahs' support for terrorist groups and undermining regional stability. In recent years, the extent of their trade has reached significant levels, with billions of euros exchanged in goods and services. Behind these seemingly benign economic transactions, however, lies a troubling reality: the funds generated from Europe's trade with Iran are being funneled into activities that are now prolonging violence and conflict across the Middle East and beyond.

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"Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to double the number of his country's troops stationed along its border with the Baltic states and Finland as part of Moscow's preparations for a potential military conflict with NATO within the next decade, Estonia's Foreign Intelligence Service said Tuesday."
The head of Estonia's intelligence service recently said:
"Russia has chosen a path which is a long-term confrontation ... and the Kremlin is probably anticipating a possible conflict with NATO within the next decade or so."

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Pela primeira vez sondagem apresenta empate técnico entre PS, AD e CHEGA para as legislativas

  

É a primeira vez que uma sondagem aponta para um empate técnico entre PS, a AD e CHEGA. Ventura afirma estar “confiante na vitória.” Faltam pouco mais de duas semanas para o ato eleitoral de 10 de março e o partido de André Ventura aproxima-se cada vez mais do pelotão da frente, com o CHEGA a alcançar 16,9% de intenções de voto, sem distribuição de indecisos. Neste estudo, a AD surge na frente, com 21,4%, seguida do Partido Socialista com 21,1%, também com os indecisos por distribuir.
Folha Nacional (jornal do "Chega") - Fevereiro 22, 2024
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ERC abre processo de averiguação a sondagem divulgada pelo Chega

 

O trabalho de campo foi desenvolvido pela empresa portuguesa Intercampus com o compromisso de não ser divulgada nos órgãos de comunicação social em Portugal. No entanto, o jornal do Chega, que está registado na ERC, acabou por divulgar o estudo.
A Entidade Reguladora para a Comunicação Social (ERC) vai abrir um processo de averiguações a uma sondagem divulgada pelo Chega.
O estudo foi feito por uma empresa brasileira não credenciada em Portugal e difundido nas redes sociais e no jornal do Chega, o Folha Nacional.
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Swedish PM says integration of immigrants has failed, fueled gang crime (Reuters)

 

Sweden has failed to integrate the vast numbers of immigrants it has taken in over the past two decades, leading to parallel societies and gang violence, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said on Thursday, as she launched a series of initiatives to combat organised crime.
Many Swedes were shocked earlier this month after violent riots left more than 100 police injured. The violence erupted after a Swedish-Danish politician burned the Quran at a rally and sought to hold more in several immigrant-dominated neighborhoods.
Andersson blamed criminals and said both Islamism and right-wing extremism had been allowed to fester in Sweden, in unusually frank and self-critical comments.
"Segregation has been allowed to go so far that we have parallel societies in Sweden. We live in the same country but in completely different realities," Andersson told a news conference.
The number of people in Sweden born abroad has doubled in the last two decades to 2 million, or a fifth of the population. Andersson's Social Democrats have been in power for 28 of the last 40 years, including the last eight.
Andersson said she wanted to introduce local youth crime boards where social services and police could collaborate. She also proposed tools to make sure that youths stayed in schools and off the streets without the consent of parents.
"Integration has been too poor at the same time as we have had a large immigration. Society has been too weak, resources for the police and social services have been too weak," she said.
Sweden, which holds a general election later this year, has radically tightened its immigration policies since taking in more people per capita than any other European Union country during the migration crisis in 2015. It now has one of the bloc's most restrictive policies.
Human rights organisation Amnesty International has been critical of Sweden's tightening of policies, claiming it is causing human suffering and making integration even harder for immigrants.

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Reality Check: Are migrants driving crime in Germany? (BBC)

 

The claim: The deputy leader of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) said there had been "447 killings and murders" by illegal migrants in Germany last year.
Reality Check verdict: The German interior ministry says that in fact last year 27 illegal migrants either committed or attempted to commit murder or manslaughter. The 447 figure refers to killings or attempted killings by all asylum seekers and refugees, most of whom are in Germany legally. Overall crime in Germany has fallen to the lowest level since 1992, but there has been an increase in migrant crime.
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Bar a blip in the mid-2000s, overall crime has been decreasing in Germany since the early 1990s. But that changed in 2015 - about the same time hundreds of thousands of refugees began entering the country.
The AfD has made claims about a link between the influx of migrants and a rise in crime.
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Since 2014, the proportion of non-German suspects in the crime statistics has increased from 24% to just over 30% (when we take out crimes related to immigration and asylum irregularities).
Breaking that down even further, in 2017 those classified as "asylum applicants or civil war refugees or illegal immigrants" represented a total of 8.5% of all suspects.
This is despite their population representing just 2% of Germany as a whole.
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Igbo Jews are people of Nigeria who practice Judaism

 

Jews have been documented in parts of Nigeria since the precolonial period, but it is not known for the Igbo to have claimed Israelite descent or practiced Judaism in precolonial times. Significant Igbo identification with Jews concretized during and after the Biafran war (1967-1970). No formal census has been taken in the region and the precise number of Igbo in Nigeria who practice Judaism is not known. 

An estimated 30,000 Igbos, having at least 26 synagogues of various sizes, were said to be practicing some form of Judaism in 2008. In 2021 there were said to be approximately 12,000-15,000 mainstream Igbo Jews in Nigeria, comprising some 70 active communities. A more conservative figure of at least 2,000-3,000 Igbo practicing Judaism, and at most 5,000, has also been given.
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Older white women join Kenya's sex tourists

 

MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - Bethan, 56, lives in southern England on the same street as best friend Allie, 64. They are on their first holiday to Kenya, a country they say is "just full of big young boys who like us older girls." Hard figures are difficult to come by, but local people on the coast estimate that as many as one in five single women visiting from rich countries are in search of sex.
Allie and Bethan -- who both declined to give their full names -- said they planned to spend a whole month touring Kenya's palm-fringed beaches. They would do well to avoid the country's tourism officials.
"It's not evil," said Jake Grieves-Cook, chairman of the Kenya Tourist Board, when asked about the practice of older rich women traveling for sex with young Kenyan men. "But it's certainly something we frown upon."
Also, the health risks are stark in a country with an AIDS prevalence of 6.9 percent. Although condom use can only be guessed at, Julia Davidson, an academic at Nottingham University who writes on sex tourism, said that in the course of her research she had met women who shunned condoms -- finding them too "businesslike" for their exotic fantasies.
The white beaches of the Indian Ocean coast stretched before the friends as they both walked arm-in-arm with young African men, Allie resting her white haired-head on the shoulder of her companion, a six-foot-four 23-year-old from the Maasai tribe.
He wore new sunglasses he said were a gift from her.
"We both get something we want -- where's the negative?" Allie asked in a bar later, nursing a strong, golden cocktail.
She was still wearing her bikini top, having just pulled on a pair of jeans and a necklace of traditional African beads.
Bethan sipped the same local drink: a powerful mix of honey, fresh limes and vodka known locally as "Dawa," or "medicine."
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The Clock Turns Back For Women

 

Rising sexual violence in Europe - linked to young immigrant men - threatens women’s hard-earned rights and must not be ignored.

We in the West are used to seeing women everywhere around us. We see them as colleagues in the office, sitting next to us on the bus, as patrons in restaurants, jogging on the streets, and working in shops. We are also seeing more women than ever in leadership positions as prime ministers, politicians, chancellors, directors, and bosses. Women born in the West in the 1990s onward take this as a given. They do not consider that walking to school or sitting in a cafe is a triumph of liberalism. But in some parts of Western cities and towns these days, you may notice something strange: there are simply no women around—or very few.

Walking in certain neighborhoods in Brussels, London, Paris, or Stockholm, you suddenly notice that only men are visible. The shop assistants, waiters, and patrons in cafes are all men. In parks nearby, it is only men and boys playing soccer. In the communal areas of apartment buildings, it is men talking, laughing, and smoking. On the continent to which millions of tourists travel each year to see the female body as an object of art or wearing the latest fashions, this seems a little strange. What happened to the women? Why are they no longer sitting at sidewalk cafes or chatting in the streets?

The answer is that some women have removed themselves from those neighborhoods, others have been hounded out, and still others are at home, out of sight. As more women erase themselves from public places in such neighborhoods, the few who remain are exposed, drawing the attention of men inhabiting the area. There is no formal segregation, but a feeling of discomfort and vulnerability is enough to make any woman walking alone shudder and think, “I won’t come this way again.”

Women in such areas are harassed out of the public square. Some men call out to them, “Hey, baby, give me your number,” or “Nice ass,” or “What are you doing here?” Whatever their age or appearance, if they are female and especially if they are alone, they get the same treatment. A persistent harasser might follow a woman up the street, touch her, and block her path. If a woman looks vulnerable, some men will go further: they pick her as a target, they encircle and intimidate her, groping her, pulling at her clothes, and occasionally doing worse.

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a new book, Prey: "Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights", by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

  
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