A man who tried to stab passers-by while speaking Arabic was overpowered by a police officer in #Strasbourg on Saturday. When he was apprehended, he was chanting in Arabic, praying by repeating "Allah Akbar" and declaring: "You will all go to hell because of what you are doing in Palestine". https://twitter.com/AmauryBrelet/status/1614612772305735680
The suspect allegedly attacked at least two passers-by on the street before he was overpowered and arrested by an off-duty police officer. The officer was injured in the process.
A man armed with a knife and suspected of attacking several people on the street in Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin) was overpowered and arrested by an off-duty police officer on the Avenue de Colmar at around 5pm on Saturday, according to our information. The suspect allegedly first attacked a passer-by who came to pick up his car with his stabbing weapon. The victim allegedly managed to lock himself in his vehicle and drive off to avoid being stabbed.
The attacker then attacked a woman with her two children nearby, according to a source familiar with the case. At that moment, an off-duty police officer who had observed the scene intervened and was able to subdue the attacker. The latter allegedly tried to stab the officer in the hand with a knife, which caused a cut on one hand. He is also said to have been injured on the shoulder without his condition being a cause for concern.
The police officers of the Brigade Spécialisée de Terrain (BST) arrested the assailant, who was taken into police custody. He is now undergoing medical examination. According to the same source, he is said to speak only Arabic. The police officer who first intervened was taken to hospital, as was the mother of the family, who is in shock. Actu 17
🔴 Un homme qui tentait de poignarder des passants en parlant arabe a été maîtrisé par un policier à #Strasbourg samedi. Interpellé, il a chanté en arabe, prié en répétant "Allah Akbar" et déclaré : "Vous irez tous en enfer à cause de ce que vous faites en Palestine" @Valeurs
Translation: A man who tried to stab passers-by while speaking Arabic was overpowered by a police officer in #Strasbourg on Saturday. When he was apprehended, he chanted in Arabic, praying by repeating “Allah Akbar” and declaring: “You will all go to hell because of what you are doing in Palestine”.
The next Czech president will either be the populist ex-prime minister Andrej Babiš or retired NATO commander and current favorite for the top job Petr Pavel, after the two candidates garnered the most support during this weekend’s first-round election.
Pavel edged ahead of Babiš after the first round of voting, receiving 1,975,056 votes (35.4 percent), compared to Babiš’ 1,952,213 (35 percent) according to the Czech Statistical Office.
Economist Danuše Nerudová and senators Pavel Fischer and Marek Hilšer rounded out the top five candidates, receiving 13.9 percent, 6.8 percent, and 6.8 percent of the vote, respectively.
Jaroslav Bašta, of the right-wing, anti-establishment Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) party, also received a notable 4.5 percent of the first-round vote.
Turnout was relatively high at 68 percent, an increase over the 62 percent recorded back in 2018.
As no candidate achieved 50 percent of the vote, the top two candidates will now progress to a runoff to take place on Jan. 27-28.
Retired General Petr Pavel can be seen as a strong favorite to win the fight for Prague Castle, not least because of the support pledged to him on Saturday by three losing candidates.
Upon conceding their defeat in the presidential race, all three — Nerudová, Fischer, and Hilšer —encouraged their voters to support Pavel in the runoff, a move that could see him acquire an insurmountable lead over his billionaire presidential rival should these voters turn out for him.
“I would like to congratulate the democratic winner, which is Petr Pavel. I have no problem supporting him in the second round,” said Nerudová following the announcement of the first-round election results on Saturday. “In the evening, we will discuss other options, which we will inform you about,” she added.
“The first round of elections is over, the second is about to begin. I fully support General Pavel against Andrej Babiš,” Fischer tweeted shortly after the result, while Hilšer added: “I’m clear for the second round. I support General Pavel.”
In a statement on Saturday, front-runner Pavel acknowledged the support from his defeated rivals and announced he will negotiate with them in the coming days to determine how their support will be presented to voters.
“These elections are definitely not boring, I’m only a few hundredths ahead,” Pavel told reporters. “Given the fact that I was completely inexperienced in politics, unlike Andrej Babiš, I think I am doing quite well.
“The path from the frustration of people whose candidate did not win today does not lead to Andrej Babiš,” he claimed.
Babiš, however, appeared undeterred on Saturday, telling reporters the “result is great.” His supporters insisted everything remains at play in the runoff, claiming that a Babiš presidency is the only option to balance political power in Czech politics.
Prague MP Patrik Nacher, affiliated with Babiš’ ANO movement, told journalists: “The coalition of five has the government, the majority in the Chamber of Deputies, the majority in the Senate, and they have the majority of governors. If their supporter becomes president, for the first time since 1989, all positions of power would be controlled by one entity.”
Polling experts for Czech News Agency (ČTK) consider Pavel to be a firm favorite, as he is likely to pick up more votes from defeated candidates than Babiš.
“The question is whether all these voters will come,” noted political scientist Josef Mlejnek.
Experts believe Babiš will ramp up the rhetoric against Pavel in a bid to deliver a lower turnout of voters in the second round, which could prove to be in his favor. They also question whether there may be “another reservoir of votes for Babiš somewhere.”
The votes for Jaroslav Bašta are not guaranteed to fall to Babiš either, with many SPD voters describing themselves as anti-government and remaining skeptical of the former Czech prime minister who steered the country through the Covid-19 pandemic. In order to have a chance of victory, polling experts believe Babiš will need to find a way to attract these voters, dissuade supporters of other candidates from turning out for Pavel, and garner support among the disillusioned who failed to turn out in the first round.
SYRI National Institute political scientist Stanislav Balík noted that Pavel should not rest on his laurels, telling ČTK: “He has far from won. He needs to convince his voters that nothing has been definitively decided yet, and the voters of the defeated candidates that he is a more acceptable option for them. Neither of these is easy and self-evident.”
In a “national consultation”, the Hungarian government asked Hungarians about the sanctions against Russia. Some 97 percent of the participants voted against the sanctions. The government regards the result as “indicative”.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is one of the harshest critics of sanctions against Russia. He saw this confirmed by the most recent survey in Hungary.
The results of the survey are “pointing the way”, said government spokeswoman Alexandra Szentkirályi on Facebook. It should also be heard in Brussels. The embassy is clearly in favor of a reassessment of the sanctions.
The Hungarian government of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán repeatedly holds “national consultations” in which votes can be mailed or sent online. However, the surveys have no legally binding consequences.
Questions about sanctions with regard to energy sources, raw materials, tourism, inflation
This time, Hungarians were asked if they agree with EU sanctions against Russia on energy, raw materials and nuclear fuel rods. The referendum also dealt with the consequences of the sanctions policy for tourism and the rise in food prices due to the sanctions.
Orbán’s opponents have long considered the questions suggestive, manipulative and misleading. They claim that in practice, only answers in favor of the government were allowed. Eight million people are entitled to vote in Hungary and 1,4 million citizens took part in the vote.
Critics also pointed out that Hungary had actually agreed to all EU sanctions packages against Russia so far.
Last year, in October, the government launched a campaign against the EU’s policy: “Sanctions from Brussels are destroying us!” they warned in reference to multiple rounds of measures targeting Russia.
Orbán justified the appointment of the consultation at the end of September 2022 with sharp criticism of the sanctions: “The sanctions were not decided in a democratic manner, but Brussels bureaucrats and European elites decided on them.”
Hungary alone not strong enough to take on Brussels
In an interview with Radio Kossuth, Orbán explained: “Hungary’s strength is not enough for that, and so mine is by definition. One thing I can do is to try to stop the damage, to say that this is going to be a problem, where we feel that the Hungarian national interest is being fundamentally harmed, we veto there, we stand up for Hungary there, we don’t allow it, but we don’t know how to change, to set the sanctions policy on a different track.”
He said this would simply require a political decision to be made in Brussels. The courage to counter Brussels also exists, he added. “Here we are, for example, or me personally, only this is of no importance, because in order for this to change, for this brave opinion to have consequences, it would have to be a German or a French person who are strong enough to be able to change the position of the entire union.”
Orbán underscored that if the sanctions were to be lifted, “the price of energy would drop in no time and the general price level, i.e. inflation, would immediately be halved with it – so the rate of inflation would be reduced by at least half, but maybe even more”.
He said that unfortunately the sanctions policy would continue in Brussels: “We will introduce sanctions, which will turn out not to work. Behind this, there is another culture shock that affects us Hungarians. It’s about the Germans. I grew up always being told at home that the German is right! The German is precise, the engineer, he calculates, he doesn’t rush, he knows what he’s doing.
“Now I’m looking at what they’re doing, the Brussels committee has a German president, these sanctions are being imposed, and they’re not fully calculated from a professional point of view. So, our belief in the crisis management ability of the Germans, stemming from German engineering precision, has decreased significantly in the past period.”
Amidst the Ramcharitmanas controversy, another video clip of Bihar’s controversial Education Minister Chandrashekhar has emerged on social media. In the video clip, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader is seen praising Islam and calling it the only religion to advocate love and peace.
In the video clip, Chandrashekhar while speaking to a media person said, “Mohabbat (love) aur Imaan (faith) ka paigaam (message) dene wala akela Islam hai.”
As the video clip started doing rounds on social media, BJP slammed the Bihar Education Minister.
Sharing the viral clip, Nikhil Anand, National General Secretary of BJP’s OBC Morcha accused RJD of doing appeasement politics, he also took a dig at CM Nitish Kumar who had earlier distanced himself from the Ramcharitmanas controversy.
“Listen to this statement of Education Minister Chandrashekharji- Islam is the only one who gives the message of love and faith. The Education Minister gave a statement to appease Muslims under the agenda of RJD’s appeasement politics! ‘Mr maloom nahi chief minister’, why are you silent on your cabinet minister’s statement?” Anand tweeted.
शिक्षामंत्री चंद्रशेखरजी का यह बयान भी सुनिए- "मोहब्बत और ईमान का पैगाम देने वाला 'अकेला' इस्लाम है"
शिक्षामंत्री ने राजद के तुष्टीकरण वाली राजनीतिक के एजेंडे के तहत मुसलमानों को खुश करने के लिए बयान दिया!
It is pertinent to note that the viral video clip is taken from a longer video from last year. On the occasion of Eid-ul-Fitr 2022, the RJD MLA was at an Eid-Milan event in Madhepura. During the event, Chandrashekhar had showered praises on Islam and also said that the people of Madhepura and Bihar have to chase out the ‘enemies of peace’ as the country belongs to everyone.
“Islam is the only religion that propagates the message of love and faith. I want to tell this to everyone and to the people of Madhepura and Bihar that we have to chase out the enemies of peace, we all have together made this country, this country does not belong to anyone’s father (kisi ek ke bap ka dash nahi hai), that is why those who spread hatred should rot and the people of faith should be hailed (Nafrat failaney waalon ki kshay ho aur Imaan waalon ki jai ho),” Chandrashekhar said.
Notably, Bihar Education Minister Chandrashekhar had recently stoked controversy after he made derogatory comments about the holy Hindu scripture Ramcharitmanas during the 15th convocation ceremony of the Nalanda Open University in Patna. He claimed that the verse in the Ramcharitmanas ‘Adham jati me vidya paye, bhayatu yatha dudh pilaye’ means ‘Lower caste people become poisonous after getting education like snake becomes after drinking milk’.
The Bihar education minister went on to say that Ramcharitmanas prevent Dalits, lower castes, and women from getting an education, and therefore it should be burnt. Dr. Chandrashekhar further said that RSS is spreading hatred in the country.
It pertinent to mention that the verse Chandrashekhar quoted is an often deliberately misinterpreted translation of the verse because the word poisonous does not appear in the verse as claimed. It means that just like the snake feels happy after drinking milk, the speaker – who is referring to himself as adham jati – also feels happy after getting education.
Despite the outrage, Chandrashekhar refused to withdraw his controversial comments. Besides, Bihar CM when questioned by the media about the matter tried to distance himself claiming that he is not aware of the matter.
German authorities want to put a famous Jewish composer and Holocaust survivor into a psychiatric clinic and want to force her to take the COVID injection.
According to the news outlet Report24, Inna Zhvanetskaya, who lives in Stuttgart, Germany, was supposed to be taken to a psychiatric institution for a string of claimed mental illnesses, and forcefully injected with the COVID vaccines on January 11, which she does not want. (Report24 says it has been in personal contact with Zhvanetskaya.) However, according to several reports, she has been transferred to a safe place by sympathetic activists who wanted to prevent her from being detained and vaccinated against her will.
Zhvanetskaya, 85, sent a video message to Report24 (LifeSite News has the story in English) saying that “music is my life, and if they take away music from me, then they take my life.” The news outlet also received a copy of the court order, which authorizes her forceful transfer to a psychiatric institution and for her to be forcefully injected with the COVID-19 shots “for her own good.”
The order was initiated by her professional guardian, which is strange given that the German national federation of professional guardians is officially against forced vaccinations of patients against their wishes, according to statements on their own website.
Is this the Fourth Reich? What monumental evil.
But before we fully pass judgment on the Nazis Germans, perhaps we should take a look at the current U.S. government, as well.
Good old Uncle Sam, and in particular the Department of Defense (DOD), fully sponsored and controlled the COVID-19 gene-based vaccine program from the start, avoiding nearly all regulations applicable to medical and pharmaceutical products while orchestrating a deceptive public relations campaign to convince the population that customary testing and production safeguards were firmly in place, according to lifesitenews.com.
Analysis of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) conducted by retired pharmaceutical industry executive Alexandra Latypova reveal that the DOD utilized multiple legal maneuvers to establish injectables that avoided nearly all applicable regulations while ensuring the process of their production and their contents would be virtually untraceable. Nice.
And Big Pharma has been quietly working for years on methods to inject livestock with mRNA gene therapies marketed as “vaccines.” Don’t wish to allow the mRNA gene therapies into your body? Better be a vegan. (At least until they figure out how to introduce these “vaccines” into produce.)
And we recently learned that Facebook not only suppressed so-called “misinformation” but also took action against the “virality” of “often true” content on the COVID-19 vaccines. Well, we wouldn’t want to have the truth “go viral” now, would we? That information was contained in an email obtained through the Missouri court case Missouri VS. Biden which alleges that top Biden administration officials “colluded with Big Tech social media companies to violate Americans’ right to free speech under the First Amendment.”
What is really behind authorities incessant, diabolical, maniacal attempts to force every man, woman, and child on Earth to allow the experimental COVID-1984 vaccines to permeate their bodies? Even after we all know they don’t work?
Our rulers can’t keep us from speculating. But they will never cease trying to control us. Or worse.
Approximately 330,000 illegal border-crossings into the European Union were recorded in 2022, the highest figure since the migration crisis of 2016 and an increase of 64 percent from the previous year, according to the latest datafrom EU border agency Frontex.
The Western Balkan migratory route, which sees migrants travel through Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia to reach the European Union’s external border at Hungary, overtook the Central Mediterranean route as the most-used pathway by illegal migrants. More than 145,000 illegal migrants were detected using the route last year, a significant increase of 136 percent over 2021.
Migrants using this route last year were most commonly from Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Tunisia.
Croatia’s membership of the European Union’s borderless Schengen Area, which came into effect on Jan. 1, 2023, will inevitably lead to greater challenges in this region, extending the length of the EU’s external border considerably.
A total of 102,529 migrants were detected attempting to breach the EU border in the Central Mediterranean region to reach Italy, an increase of 51 percent over 2021. Migrants from Egypt, Tunisia, Bangladesh, and Syria were most commonly reported to be active on this route.
The Eastern Mediterranean was the third-most-used route by illegal migrants, primarily traveling through Turkey into Greece. Almost 43,000, primarily Syrians, Afghans, Nigerians, and Congolese, followed this route last year — an increase of 108 percent over 2021.
Decreases in activity were reported in the three other designated routes acknowledged by Frontex. The Western Mediterranean route into Spain saw 14,582 illegal migrants, down 21 percent; the Western African route to the Spanish Canary Islands recorded 15,462 illegal border-crossings, down 31 percent; and the Eastern Land Border into Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia saw 6,127 illegal migrants, down 25 percent over 2021.
Meanwhile, a 37 percent increase was recorded in exits from the Schengen Area towards the U.K. where 71,081 individuals were detected.
The 13 million Ukrainian refugees recorded entering the EU via its external land borders between Feb. 24 and the end of the year are not included in the figures, Frontex confirmed.
More than 80 percent of illegal migrants detected were adult men.
“Women accounted for fewer than one in ten of the detections, while the share of reported minors fell slightly to around 9 percent of all detections,” Frontex stated in a press release on Friday.
The EU border agency stressed that the figures were based on preliminary figures, admitting “the final figures may be higher due to delayed reporting.”
The statistics on illegal border-crossings are separate from the number of asylum applications made across Europe, which perhaps gives a more informed view of the crisis enveloping the continent.
Almost 790,000 asylum applications were made in the EU between January and October last year, according to EU Agency for Asylum chief Nina Gregori. This represents an increase of 54 percent compared to the same period in 2021 and does not include the temporary protection afforded to Ukrainians.
“It’s pretty clear that the growing number of applications will continue for the foreseeable future,” Gregori said in December, with asylum applications in excess of 100,000 each month in the latter months of the year.
Some political figures have reacted to Brigitte Macron’s recent comments in favour of a single uniform for schools. The return of uniforms in schools is currently at the centre of debates in the French National Assembly.
During the parliamentary session of the Rassemblement National (RN), the proposed law to make uniforms compulsory in schools was examined on Thursday 12 January. But on the eve of the examination of this text, Brigitte Macron had already put this subject on the table.
Questioned by readers of French daily Le Parisien on Wednesday, the First Lady had shown herself to be in favour of a single uniform in schools. “This erases differences, saves time – it is time-consuming to choose how to dress in the morning – and money, compared to brands,” said the wife of President Emmanuel Macron.
Pleading for “a simple and not sad outfit”, the First Lady was quick to make the political class react. On BFMTV, Marine Le Pen welcomed “the agreement of Madame Macron”, which, according to her, had voiced the opinion of “many other French people” on this subject. The president of the RN deputies also recalled that “the wearing of a uniform already exists in a certain number” of schools, particularly “overseas”.
But on the left, the enthusiasm of Brigitte Macron for the uniform in schools is not seen in a good light. Speaking to BFMTV, Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV) MP Sandrine Rousseau said that it was “unfortunate that the First Lady should associate herself with this”. For the self-described eco-feminist, “the uniform is really a gimmick to hide inequalities”.
During her wishes to the press on Thursday, the national secretary of EELV, Marine Tondelier, showed concern, judging that “the dikes are breaking” between Macron and the RN. If Brigitte Macron has “the right to be for the uniform in school”, Marine Tondelier questioned the timing of such statements: “But why come out on the subject the day before the RN puts this text in its session?”
Father Wernersbach’s Christmas sermon on family caused a storm of indignation in the “woke” community. screenshot gloria.tv
A Benedictine priest in Germany was publicly condemned and punished by his abbot and the local bishop for preaching against gender ideology and the heterodox Synodal Way and for defending the traditional family in his Christmas homily.
The abbot of the Benedictine Tholey Abbey, Mauritius Choriol OSB, forbade Father Joachim Wernersbach OSB from performing pastoral activities in the area surrounding Tholey Abbey and announced that the Abbey will commission “an ecclesiastical investigation with an analysis of the sermon text and intercession prayers,” according to katholisch.de.
In his Christmas Eve sermon, which was uploaded on YouTube but later removed, Wernersbach talked about abortion, gender ideology, the traditional family, and the Synodal Way from a faithful Catholic perspective.
“There is much about Christmas that we can derive from for our time today,” Wernersbach said. “Jesus was conceived in the womb, which means life begins in the womb. It is hard to believe that half the people no longer see it that way and instead talk about clumps of cells.”
The Benedictine monk explained that the Holy Family shows us the model for the Christian family. “Family consists of husband, wife, and child,” he stated.
“I especially wish those who believe in the traditional family exceptional joy because they are not swayed by and follow or even pay homage to harmful modern trends.”
“God has recommended to us ways of life that are natural, beautiful, and in harmony with the divine order,” Wernersbach stated, contrasting it with the “strange modern currents” of gender ideology, transhumanism, LGBT, “diversity” and the Synodal Way:
You hear about gender and transgender, transhumanism and reproductive health, wokeness and LGBTQ, diversity and identity. Of multiple genders and gender reassignment, plus this devastating new understanding of revelation from the Synodal Way. My dear friends, even the terms are absolutely disturbing. They all have one thing in common: they lack beauty, they lack coherence, and they lack naturalness. They are not aligned, not in harmony with the inconceivably beautiful Divine Order.
“A great dissonance has befallen our country,” the Benedictine monk continued. “Christ came into the world to resolve this dissonance. He does not want us to end up in an absurd world, in a world that no longer wants to know anything about God.
“The Child Jesus in the manger is calling us: come to me, pick me up, and let me embrace you. I love you like a little child loves its mother. With me, you will find everything that is good, true, and beautiful, that which remains forever and does not disappear again like a fad. I give you fellowship with me here on earth and later in heaven.”
“And therefore, my dear friends, do not let yourselves be misled by all the nonsense that people are trying to persuade us to believe, and which in the end does not represent any perspective at all,” Wernersbach said. “Let us rest calmly in the certainty that we have God on our side.”
