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Nigel Farage

[size=150:1ifasywr]Nigel Farage: enlargement of EU creates gateway for organised crime
Ukip leader says Britain has opened doors to countries that 'have not recovered from communism'

[size=85:1ifasywr]Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent
theguardian.com, Sunday 4 May 2014 11.07 BST

Nigel Farage's remarks appeared to be aimed at Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU in 2007.

The enlargement of the EU to include former Warsaw Pact countries such as Romania has created a "
gateway for organised crime"
, the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, has said.

As more damaging details emerged about the views of Ukip candidates, Farage admitted his party had made mistakes in its selection of candidates. He said Ukip would attempt to change perceptions this week when it published its election addresses for the local elections, featuring black and minority ethnic candidates.

Farage said the presence of Romanians in Britain posed a threat, warning of an explosion in organised crime. Expanding on his answer in a Guardian interview last month, when he spoke of how discomfiting it would be to live next door to Romanians, Farage told the Andrew Marr Show on BBC1: "
We have opened up the doors to countries that have not recovered from communism and I'm afraid it has become a gateway for organised crime. Everybody knows that. No one dares say it."


The remarks appeared to be aimed at Romania and Bulgaria, two former Warsaw Pact countries that joined the EU in 2007. A further eight former Warsaw Pact countries, led by Poland, joined the EU in 2004. Farage is concerned about immigration from the so-called A8, but his remarks appeared to be aimed at Romania and Bulgaria because they are less developed economically.

Farage insisted his party was not racist after the Sunday Times reported that a candidate in Stockport had resigned after calling Islam "
evil"
. The Ukip leader said: "
We have made mistakes. But these people are not representative of Ukip at all. Not only am I adamant that we are a non-racist party, this week we are going to fight back against it. You will see our election address for the local elections this year and you will see a lot of black ethnic minority candidates who are proudly standing for Ukip. I am going to approach this differently in future.

[size=150:3dvuq7ih] NOT ALL THIEVES ARE STUPID

1. Some people left their car in the long-term parking at San Jose while away, and someone broke into the car. Using the information on the car's registration in the glove compartment, they drove the car to the people's home in Pebble Beach and robbed it. So I guess if we are going to leave the car in long-term parking, we should NOT leave the registration/insurance cards in it, nor your remote garage door opener.
This gives us something to think about with all our new electronic technology.

2. GPS.
Someone had their car broken into while they were at a football game. Their car was parked on the green which was adjacent to the football stadium and specially allotted to football fans. Things stolen from the car included a garage door remote control, some money and a GPS which had been prominently mounted on the dashboard. When the victims got home, they found that their house had been ransacked and just about everything worth anything had been stolen. The thieves had used the GPS to guide them to the house. They then used the garage remote control to open the garage door and gain entry to the house. The thieves knew the owners were at the football game, they knew what time the game was scheduled to finish and so they knew how much time they had to clean out the house. It would appear that they had brought a truck to empty the house of its contents.
Something to consider if you have a GPS - don't put your home address in it... Put a nearby address (like a store or gas station) so you can still find your way home if you need to, but no one else would know where you live if your GPS were stolen.

3. CELL PHONES
I never thought of this.......
This lady has now changed her habit of how she lists her names on her cell phone after her handbag was stolen. Her handbag, which contained her cell phone, credit card, wallet, etc., was stolen. 20 minutes later when she called her hubby, from a pay phone telling him what had happened, hubby says 'I received your text asking about our Pin number and I've replied a little while ago.' When they rushed down to the bank, the bank staff told them all the money was already withdrawn. The thief had actually used the stolen cell phone to text 'hubby' in the contact list and got hold of the pin number. Within 20 minutes he had withdrawn all the money from their bank account.
Moral of the lesson:
a. Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your contact list. Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, Sweetheart,
Dad, Mom, etc....
b. And very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked through texts, CONFIRM by calling back.
c. Also, when you're being texted by friends or family to meet them somewhere, be sure to call back to confirm that the message came from
Them. If you don't reach them, be very careful about going places to meet 'family and friends' who text you.

4. Purse in the grocery cart scam...

A lady went grocery-shopping at a local mall and left her purse sitting in the children's seat of the cart while she reached something off a shelf...wait till you read the WHOLE story! Her wallet was stolen, and she reported it to the store personnel. After returning home, she received a phone call from the Mall Security to say that they had her wallet and that although there was no money in it, it did still hold her personal papers. She immediately went to pick up her wallet, only to be told by Mall Security that they had not called her. By the time she returned home again, her house had been broken into and burglarized. The thieves knew that by calling and saying they were Mall Security, they could lure her out of her house long enough for them to burglarize it

[size=150:1pcyrl3e]EU raises alarm on Bulgaria corruption

Sofia: anti-corruption measures 'in infancy' after seven years of special EU monitoring

By Andrew Rettman

BRUSSELS, Today, 09:30

Seven years after joining the EU, Bulgaria has done little to curb corruption and organised crime in a threat to its sovereignty and to European unity.

The Balkan country of 7.5 million people, the EU’s poorest, has a “serious” problem with high-level corruption, while preventive measures are still “in their infancy” the European Commission has said in a monitoring report due out on Wednesday (28 January).

It also has a problem with organised crime, with little protection for witnesses and “very low” rates of conviction and asset seizure.

Lack of independence in the judiciary and political instability are making matters worse, the report added.

“The fact that the period covered by this report [since January 2014] saw three different governments and a deadlocked parliamentary situation has clearly contributed to a lack of resolve to reform”.

Drilling into more detail, the 11-page paper, seen by EUobserver, commended Sofia on recently drawing up an “honest assessment” of its shortfalls in the anti-corruption field. It also said the forced resignation of a top anti-corruption official for “trading in influence” is a good sign.

But it described efforts to clean up the administration as “piecemeal” and “unco-ordinated”, with “the impression that decisions … are being taken on political grounds” and with very few high-level prosecutions “despite the scale of the problem”.

It said “pressures at a local level” hamper the fight against the Bulgarian mafia.

It added that the “burdensome” and “formalistic” criminal code slows down courts, while use of outside experts in investigations raises “questions of … impartiality”.

It noted Bulgaria needs “more transparency and objectivity” on judicial appointments and that a new system on allocation of cases to specific prosecutors remains open to abuse.

Meanwhile, Romanian media say that a parallel commission report to be published also on Wednesday gives Bulgaria’s larger neighbour more credit for reform.

But it accuses the Romanian parliament of failing to respect Constitutional Court judgements and of acting too slowly to lift the immunity of MPs in criminal cases.

It praises the growing number of corruption cases against judges and prosecutors but, as in Bulgaria, it complains that conviction and asset confiscation rates lag behind.

It also says corruption in the education and healthcare systems remains an issue.

Romania last year elected a reformist president - ethnic German Klaus Iohannis - in what commentators say bodes well for future progress.

But the so-called Co-operation and Verification Mechanism (CVM) reports will make sad reading for Bulgarian and Romanian politicians hoping to join the EU’s passport-free Schengen travel zone after years of delay.

They also come in a climate of increased Schengen vigilance after the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris.

In Bulgaria’s case, high-level corruption was recently identified as a threat to the country’s sovereignty and to its ability to follow EU lines on foreign and energy policy.

Sofia last year abandoned construction of Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline due to EU legal objections. But the decision caused a backlash by pro-Russian elements in the Bulgarian elite, prompting a political crisis.

For his part, US secretary of state John Kerry, who visited Sofia on 16 January, noted that the fight against graft is “about providing the climate for investment and shielding the country from those who exploit the situation to gain undue influence over your choices as a sovereign nation”.

He said the US will help Bulgaria, which gets 100 percent of its gas from Russia, to be less dependent.

He also warned that “whether or not Russia were to choose, for whatever reason, some other form of retribution [against Bulgaria for its South Stream decision] is obviously something to be seen as we go forward”.

“We stand ready … to be supportive of Bulgaria in this time of economic and security challenge”, he said