1. Reports say a man has gone on a killing spree in the centre of the southern Austrian city of Graz.
One witness said that the man drove the car at high speed around a 3km circuit on the pavement, hitting people and stopping to get out and repeatedly stab a couple in their sixties.
Local police confirmed that the incident happened today but would not give any details or confirm the number of dead and injured.
Here are links to more articles in German such as Krone, and this other one, and The Mirror in English.
(While the articles refer to the (almost certainly) jihadi as an ‘Austrian’, one of the German papers refers to him as having Bosnian roots. The media is already using the ‘mentally ill’ canard to cover for this likely act of jihad just as they did for all those attacks before Christmas in Europe 2014)
2. China orders civilian ships adapted for military use: report
China’s government has passed new guidelines requiring civilian shipbuilders to ensure their vessels can be used by the military in the event of conflict, state-run media said on Thursday.
The regulations require five categories of vessels including container ships to be modified to “serve national defence needs”, the state-run China Daily newspaper said.
3. Weekend of Fear in Greece as Monday Brings Salvation or Ruin
Dorothea Lambros stood outside an HSBC branch in central Athens on Friday afternoon, an envelope stuffed with cash in one hand and a 38,000 euro ($43,000) cashier’s check in the other.
She was a few minutes too late to make her deposit at the London-based bank. She was too scared to take her life-savings back to her Greek bank. She worried it wouldn’t survive the weekend.
“I don’t know what happens on Monday,” said Lambros, a 58-year-old government employee.
Nobody does. Every shifting deadline, every last-gasp effort has built up to this: a nation that went to sleep on Friday not knowing what Monday will bring. A deal, or more brinkmanship. Shuttered banks and empty cash machines, or a few more days of euros in their pockets and drachmas in their past – – and maybe their future.
Thank you Carpe Diem, M., Richard, WTD ad many more. This is gonna be an interesting day. More to come ASAP.
After reading and viewing the video at the links posted about the killing spree in Graz, Austria, I thought it worth mentioning that none of the reports make mention of any witness accounts of verbalizations made by the perpetrator during the attack. The utter absence of this detail – did the attacker utter anything during each assault? – leave doubt to the claim that terrorism is immediately dismissed out of hand before an official body count is publicized.
The authorities credibility is further questioned yet again given the immediate release of this perps ‘mental deficiency’ put on record, while insisting this perp has an “Austrian” identity as if to obscure perp’s Bosnian (Muslim) heritage. Uncomfortable truths cannot be obscured for long and further attempts to provide cover from the inevitable will ultimately backfire badly for those involved in the big lie.
Same story in Stockholm, tvelwe years ago. Two persons killed.
http://www.dn.se/sthlm/mordatal-for-vansinnesfard/
“China’s government has passed new guidelines requiring civilian shipbuilders to ensure their vessels can be used by the military in the event of conflict, state-run media said on Thursday.”
Pirates capture a civilian ship, and you have a fortress.
They are being fitted to accept anti air and anti sub weapons, they will primarily be used to carry troops and supplies, although some retrofitted civilian ships were used as escort vessels by the Brits in WWII. They are credited with killing several subs.
I don’t think if is possible to over estimate the potential damage of a Greek default, the major damage will be done to the banks without enough in the provision for bad debts account but all will be hurt. In the US the banks are required to hold enough assets to cover a certain percentage (I think 10%) of all loans. To the best of my knowledge no European nations requires the same and most banks have provisions for between 1 and 2%.
Bank failures occur for one of two reasons, 1) they loan out too much money to people who can’t repay the loans and then reason 2) bank runs occur. Bank runs occur when people try to withdraw all of their money from the banks. No bank maintain enough cash to cover all of their depositors if they try and withdraw all of their money. Once one bank in a town is forced to shut its doors on depositors the panic spreads to all other banks in the town and potentially the other banks in the country. Bank runs can be stopped by the government declaring banking holidays of several days to let the panic subside but if this is done too early or too late it causes more damage.
USA: Muslim community hold ‘Unity Walk for Peace’ for Charleston victims