Month: August 2022

McKinsey won Dutch contracts without a call for tenders

The global consulting firm McKinsey was awarded contracts without a call for tenders in the Netherlands and it was an important link in the rollout of the “new normal” during the Coronavirus scare.

Data analyst Cees van den Bos has unearthed FOI documents about the role that consultancy firm McKinsey played in the Dutch government’s Corona approach. Wopke Hoekstra, who has served as second Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands and Minister of Foreign Affairs in the fourth Rutte cabinet since 10 January 2022, was a partner at this consultancy firm prior to his ministry position.

During the pandemic, McKinsey was awarded various contracts without a call for tenders and turned out to be an important link in the roll-out of the “new normal” and large donations to NGOs, Van den Bos discovered.

The agency came up with ideas for a “tracing app” and there was also a relationship with Sywert van Lienden’s controversial mask deal. The real jackpot was however the vaccines. As early as May 2020, McKinsey made a powerpoint presentation and won the contract for vaccines.

No due process in awarding lucrative contracts

In a Twitter thread, Van den Bos remarked that the government should advertise such contracts publicly so that other companies also have a chance to compete. These rules were not followed. Contracts were awarded directly, sometimes on the instructions of Minister Hugo de Jonge.

On 28 May 2020, Dutch weekly De Groene Amsterdammer investigated the contracts awarded by McKinsey. It asked, among other things, about the plan that the bureau had drawn up. The response was that McKinsey had allegedly only been a “process supervisor” and had not drawn up a plan. But the FOI documents show that a plan had indeed existed.

Van den Bos also discovered that there were ties between McKinsey and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance and the World Economic Forum. In 2020, the Netherlands transferred hundreds of millions to GAVI, among others, but also to Cepi, which was formed in 2017 by the WEF and the Gates Foundation to profit from the “next pandemic”.

“In these lobby clubs, (your) money is made available, which goes to the NGOs. They spend it as they see fit, outside (procurement) laws,” Van den Bos observed.

Statistician Fritsander Lahr noted: “It’s remarkable that at the beginning of May McKinsey was already helping to obtain vaccines that did not yet exist at all. But not really surprising if you consider that Hugo de Jonge was already saying at the end of April/beginning of May that vaccinating would be the only way out of the crisis.”

McKinsey implicated in French corruption at the highest level

A similar McKinsey scandal erupted around Emmanuel Macron. It was revealed in number 502 of French investigative magazine Faits & Documents. Profitable French industries such as Alstom were gutted by foreign investors, sparking unemployment and impoverishment.

Macron has had to explain himself at length on the damning report of the Senate commission of inquiry on McKinsey’s involvement in state affairs to the tune of one at least a billion euros. The co-rapporteur of the commission, Éliane Assassi had noted that “whole sections of public policies were delegated to consultants, who however have no democratic legitimacy”. She added that it was a “deep intrusion of the private sector into the public sphere”.

Even more damning is that the French Senate investigation confirmed that the McKinsey firm had not paid corporate tax in France for at least 10 years.

https://freewestmedia.com/2022/08/14/mckinsey-won-dutch-contracts-without-a-call-for-tenders/

Italy: Afghan Released From Jail a Day After Arrest for Sex Assault on Two Minors

A 34-year-old Afghan migrant accused of sexually assaulting two underage girls at an Italian beach has been released by a judge just a day after his arrest.

The Afghan admitted to touching one of the girls while swimming but was able to convince the judge to release him from jail, despite calls by the prosecutor to keep the 34-year-old in pre-trial detention.

The incident is said to have taken place on Monday at the Curvone beach in Ostia near Rome. The Afghan is accused of approaching the girls while they were in the water, attempting to joke with them before groping one of the girls and then touching the other, Il Giornale reports.

The girls cried out after the alleged assault, which brought the attention of the nearby bathers who, in turn, alerted the local Carabinieri in the area.

The Afghan attempted to leave the area as the officers approached but was arrested near the beach after the girls gave officers a description of the man.

While the judge in the case released the Afghan after just a day, claiming he was not dangerous, the Afghan was banned from staying in Rome and scheduled for another hearing in the case next month.

Whether he obeys the ban and shows up for the hearing remains to be seen, however.

Migrant sex attacks in pools and at beaches have become more frequent since the apex of the 2015-16 migrant crisis, including a now infamous case of an Iraqi who raped a ten-year-old boy in a Vienna swimming pool and tried to justify his actions by claiming it was a “sexual emergency.”

Italy has also seen similar attacks, such as the rape of a Polish woman in August of 2017 on a beach in Rimini in which a group of suspected North African migrants beat the woman’s boyfriend unconscious before raping her multiple times.

Earlier this year in June, more sex attacks took place aboard a train in Lake Garda, and a mob of around 2,000 or so migrant-background youths wreaked havoc on towns along the lake. Six teenage girls between the ages of 16 and 17 reported by sexually assaulted aboard the train by multiple young men.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/08/14/afghan-released-from-jail-a-day-after-arrest-for-sex-assault-on-two-minors/

Rushdie Stabber Only Charged With Second-Degree Attempted Murder, Authorities Try to Bar Press

What does it take to get charged with first-degree attempted murder in New York? 

Stabbing a top target of Islamic terror isn’t enough?

Authorities in upstate New York tried to bar the press from attending the arraignment of Hadi Matar, the New Jersey man accused of the stabbing of writer Salman Rushdie.

What were they trying to cover up?

The man suspected of stabbing renowned author Salman Rushdie in western New York pleaded not guilty Saturday to attempted murder in the second degree and other charges, his attorney says.

Right now this is being handled by the county prosecutor even though this is terrorism which is a federal issue. The feds poke their noses into places where they don’t belong and then carefully avoid cases where they do.

New York’s penal code notes that murder in the second degree includes situation where “the defendant acted under the influence of extreme emotional disturbance for which there was a reasonable explanation or excuse, the reasonableness of which is to be determined from the viewpoint of a person in the defendant’s situation.”

I’m not saying this is the rationale here, I don’t know whether it is or not in play.

Murder in the second degree and assault in the second degree are oddly light for what was an obvious murder attempt. Not to mention domestic terrorism.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2022/08/rushdie-stabber-only-charged-second-degree-daniel-greenfield/

After his response to Salman Rushdie assassination: much criticism of Austrian President Van der Bellen

Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen (78) expressed his “deep dismay” about the assassination attempt on Salman Rushdie in New York. The well-intentioned words are not quite as well liked on the web: Van der Bellen is reproached for his friendliness to the Iranian regime. As is well known, the Iranians had imposed the death fatwa against Rushdie.

The Green campaigner reacted to the news of the assassination of the well-known author Salman Rushdie with the usual words for this: “I am deeply shocked by the brutal attack on the great man and author Salman Rushdie – hatred and violence must have no place in our free society. I wish him and his family much strength at this time.”

The reactions to Van der Bellen’s statement followed promptly on the social media platforms: Photos were immediately posted to the tweet of the Federal President, showing the Federal President in a friendly handshake with Iranian President Hassan Rohani at the Vienna Hofburg. Quote from Twitter specifically to Van der Bellen’s “deep consternation”: “This is what someone says who welcomed the president of the regime that imposed a death fatwa against Rushdie with a red carpet and military honours in Vienna.”

Many other social media users did not react quite as the marketing team of the election campaigning president would have wished. One user wrote: “Have we heard this about Austrian stabbing victims?” And one critic said: “You forgot to mention something: A bounty of more than three million dollars has been offered by Iran for whoever kills Rushdie. In the legal opinion issued by Khomeini, all those involved in the dissemination of the book were also threatened with death.”

For Alexander Van der Bellen, this is not the first problem in his starting election campaign: reportedly, his untruth about a “climate-friendly” train journey to Graz was exposed because it was revealed that his entire convoy of luxury official cars was driving the same route in parallel. Then the Green candidate also caused massive protests when, at the opening of the Salzburg Festival, he called all those Austrians “collaborators” of Putin who were critical of the EU sanctions. In the meantime, a new INSA poll shows that 52% of Austrians support an end to these EU measures against Russia because they massively harm Austria.

https://exxpress.at/nach-seiner-reaktion-auf-salman-rushdie-attentat-viel-kritik-an-van-der-bellen/

France: UPDATE- Perpetrator is Moroccan- A man in his sixties is found decapitated in the street. The suspected perpetrator is his son. He is said to have shouted “Allah Akbar” when he was arrested

A 25-year-old Moroccan man, who was already known to the police, beheads his father and attacks the police with a knife, shouting "Allah Akbar".  La Provence

Around 2am on Saturday night, the first calls were received on the emergency number “17” that a person armed with a knife was chasing another man in the Rue Louis-Braille in Saint-Priest.

A few minutes later, a city police crew discovered a decapitated body in the car park at number 40 in that street. The murder weapon, a kitchen knife, was also found next to the body of the victim, who was about 60 years old.

Shortly after the gruesome discovery, a group of the BAC (Brigade Anti-Criminalité) spotted the suspected murderer nearby, in Louis Braille Park street no. 33.

The man refused to surrender and tried several times to attack the police officers, but he did not succeed.

According to the newspaper Le Progrès, the suspected murderer also shouted “Allah Akbar” during the arrest.

He was taken into police custody. The 25-year-old is the victim’s son. The two men lived in the same house in Saint-Priest.

The Lyon prosecutor’s office confirmed to the newspaper Le Progrès that the initial findings “point to a murder by decapitation”. The investigation, entrusted to the Sûreté départementale du Rhône, “must determine the exact circumstances of this tragedy, as well as the motive, and examine the personality of the perpetrator”, the prosecutor’s office said. Le Progrès

https://www.fdesouche.com/2022/08/14/saint-priest-69-un-homme-dune-soixantaine-dannees-retrouve-decapite-en-pleine-rue-lauteur-presume-des-faits-est-son-fils-il-aurait-crie-allah-akbar-au-moment-de-son-interpellation/

Price explosions: German supermarkets attach anti-theft devices to staple foods

Food items have been secured with anti- theft devices based on the Anglo-Saxon multicultural model as the first German citizens seem to be driven to acts of desperation in view of the price explosions. This does not affect high-priced items such as champagne, but staple foods. Are these now becoming luxuries?

Inflation is causing food prices to skyrocket, and further price increases are forecast for the next three months. This was the result of a survey by the ifo Institute, as reported by ARD. More and more people can no longer afford these horrendous prices and are driven to desperate acts with the number of thefts increasing.

Supermarkets have been taking countermeasures – with anti-theft devices.

A supermarket in Berlin-Weißensee has now attached security markings to some types of meat – yellow stickers with the inscription “Secured article”.

The anti-theft devices also appear to be used in other supermarket branches. On Twitter, a user shared a photo showing the yellow stickers on butter. She wrote: “I think it hacks Lidl! Have we gotten to the point where regular butter has to be protected against theft with a security tag?”

When asked, supermarket chain Aldi did not rule out such theft prevention either, but, like Lidl, Rewe, Netto and Norma, did not want to comment publicly on security measures.

The development is worrying. Accordingly, Adolf Bauer, President of the Social Association Germany, said: “The fact that supermarkets and discounters have come so far that they do not categorically rule out anti-theft devices for food leaves us stunned. It is more than obvious that staple foods must not become even more expensive. It is imperative that we prevent the majority of people from no longer being able to afford this and that the last resort is theft.” And he warned politicians: “We must not leave people alone with their existential fears. Because otherwise the social division will continue to increase and social unrest could no longer be ruled out.”

According to the consumer protection center, food has become more expensive in all food groups: “In the past 20 years, food prices have risen significantly less than other living costs. While inflation was still just under 1.5 percent on average between 2000 and 2019, the price increase from July 2021 to July 2022 was 14.8 percent.”

Additional security measures are already being taken in Great Britain. Supermarkets from the chains Sainsbury’s, Coop, Tesco and Aldi provide baby milk, vitamin supplements, steak, cheese and butter.

How could things have gotten so bad in Germany, which is said to be so rich, that people are forced to steal the food they need because they can no longer pay for it? The traffic light coalition government, one of the main drivers of these catastrophic conditions, does not seem to see any need for action.

On the contrary, instead of finally abandoning their suicide course, citizens are burdened with more gas levies. Despite inflation, the energy crisis and the housing shortage, migration, which is a huge netto loss for the German social system, is actively being pursued.

https://freewestmedia.com/2022/08/13/price-explosions-german-supermarkets-attach-anti-theft-devices-to-staple-foods/