Rather Expose Them Christian News Blog

Day: April 16, 2023

Italy declares state of emergency amid migrant invasion

BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/04/italy-declares-state-of-emergency-amid-migrant-invasion;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Italy needs to do what Hungary has done: shut the door to illegal migration. It makes a mockery of a country’s immigration system, sending an open invitation to jump the queue, inviting in the worst criminal and jihadist elements, and is economically unsustainable in the long run. Italy’s problem is longstanding. In 2021, nonstop Muslim migrant landings in Lampedusa became a “situation is out of control.” Lampedusa remains the problem area, as well as the entire South coast of Sicily.

Ignoring the problem has not made it go away, and now Italy is under a state of emergency in hopes of stopping the hijrah.

“Italy declares state of emergency amid migration influx,” by Federica Pascale, EURACTIV, April 12, 2023:

Italy declared a nationwide state of emergency on Tuesday for the next six months following the exceptional increase in migrants continuously arriving via the Mediterranean routes.

On Tuesday, the Council of Ministers led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni (FDI/ECR) declared a national state of emergency on immigration after the Civil Protection and Sea Policies Minister Nello Musumeci proposed it. The decision also comes after a meeting between Musumeci and Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi.

The state of emergency will be financed with an initial €5 million in funding.

“Let’s be clear. The problem is not solved, the solution to which is linked only to a conscious and responsible intervention by the European Union”, Musumeci said after the government decided on the state of emergency.

“There is a condition of absolute emergency. It is not a new fact (…) It is a problem destined not to be exhausted for at least the next ten years”, the minister told Radio Anch’io, stressing the need to “neutralise the mafia of the scapegoats”.

Last February, the Italian parliament approved the so-called ‘Code of Conduct for NGOs’ – a government decree establishing a code of conduct for ships intervening to rescue migrants – despite criticism from the UN and humanitarian groups.

Migration flows in recent months have strained State structures, according to Musumeci, who called for a “responsible approach” towards migrants and their rights.

In particular, the minister highlighted the difficulty in managing the flows arriving at the islands – Lampedusa and the entire southern coast of Sicily – areas where first reception hotspots are constantly collapsing.

The Easter weekend was busy for national authorities, with boats breaking down and migrants at sea whereby about 2,000 people were rescued….

Biden Administration Knew of At Least Three Other Chinese Balloons

BY RICK MORAN

SEE: https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2023/04/15/biden-administration-knew-of-at-least-three-other-chinese-balloons-according-to-leaked-documents-n1687474;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Documents leaked by Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira reveal that the Biden administration knew of at least three other Chinese surveillance balloons, including one that spied on a U.S. carrier strike group in the Pacific Ocean and another that crashed in the South China Sea. The U.S. conducts a lot of naval exercises in that area.

The documents also showed that as of February, the Pentagon had no idea what some of the sensors on the balloon were capable of. The intelligence community designated the balloon that flew over the U.S. as Killeen-23, and they know there was a large parabolic dish and a possible mast antenna, but since there is no imagery of what was on the bottom of the balloon, it’s unknown if there were any optical instruments.

Washington Post:

A document produced by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and dated Feb. 15 — 10 days after the Air Force shot down the balloon that flew over the United States — contains the most detailed government assessment to date of Killeen-23 and two balloons from previous years, labeled Bulger-21 and Accardo-21. It was not clear from the documents if Bulger-21 and Accardo-21 were the same balloons that flew over the carrier strike group and crashed.

Bulger-21 carried sophisticated surveillance equipment and circumnavigated the globe from December 2021 until May 2022, the NGA document states. Accardo-21 carried similar equipment as well as a “foil-lined gimbaled” sensor, it says.

For some reason, the NGA named the Chinese balloons after famous mobsters: Tony Accardo, James “Whitey” Bulger, and Donald Killeen. But it’s unsettling that, even with a substantial portion of the Killeen-23 balloon in our possession, we’re still unable to figure out what some of the sensors are supposed to do.

Another interesting item from the leaked documents is that the Chinese government was probably unaware of Killeen-23’s transcontinental trip across the U.S.

The incursion of the spy balloon into U.S. airspace in late January probablycaught elements of China’s government by surprise, according to a third document that relies on intercepted communications. Knowledge of the incursion was likely “heavily stovepiped” within the Chinese military, which lacks “strong senior” oversight of the surveillance balloon program, the document assessed, adding that some in the Chinese government viewed their Foreign Ministry’s response as poor for allowing the crisis to be “sensationalized.”

The leaked NGA document contains an image taken by Bulger-21 that appears to connect to one of the sanctioned companies that were targeted after the balloon became public.

The lack of detailed conclusions about the balloon’s surveillance capabilities raises questions about the decision to let it fly over the United States before shooting it down, an action the Defense Department justified at the time as an opportunity to collect additional intelligence.

Engineers at the National Space Intelligence Center, which is affiliated with the Space Force, assessed that the solar panels on Killeen-23 could generate upward of 10,000 watts of solar power, more than enough to operate any surveillance capability, including synthetic aperture radar, according to the document.

This drip, drip, drip of revelations about the leaked documents is eventually going to send the Biden administration into full-court damage control. There is still much to unpack, including the kind of surveillance we used to spy on some of our friends like Israel and even Ukraine.