Bits and Bites from Around the World > Rodeo bull jumps fence, injures three in Oregon

 

Shocking video captures rodeo bull jumping fence,

tossing spectator

By Sarah Do Couto  Global News

Posted June 10, 2024 1:48 pm

 Updated June 10, 2024 1:57 pm

 2 min read

NOTE: The video below contains violent footage of a charging bull. Please watch at your own discretion. 

A rodeo bull named Party Bus triggered chaos in Sisters, Ore., on Saturday when the animal leapt over an arena fence and stormed through fairgrounds, injuring three people.

In video footage of the rampaging bull, people are seen scrambling out of the animal’s path. The bull is seen approaching one unsuspecting person in a red shirt; the charging animal bucks them twice into the air. Party Bus then tramples forward overtop the victim and a picnic table.

The incident occurred during the final portion of the bull-riding event at Sisters Rodeo while the crowd was singing Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the U.S.A.

Many onlookers watched in horror, shouting from the packed rodeo stands as they witnessed Party Bus buck and charge through the grounds.

One of the three victims is a sheriff’s deputy, ABC News reported. The deputy suffered a minor injury while running after the bull.

Two of the three injured persons were taken to hospital. The medical condition of the victims is currently unclear, though the rodeo on Sunday said all of the victims had since returned home from hospital. 

Astonishing. That's one tough girl.

In a statement posted to social media, Sisters Rodeo said they “immediately activated the emergency response plan” when Party Bus jumped the fence.

The rodeo said the bull was subdued after it ran through the fairgrounds and into the livestock holding pens. There, livestock professionals secured the bull into a pen. Medical responders and local police were called to the scene and provided first aid.

“We wish the best to all affected,” the rodeo wrote in its statement. “The safety of our fans is our highest priority and we appreciate their support.”

The Leslie Lange Rodeo Company, which provides livestock for the rodeo, told KTVZ an escaped bull is a “rarity.”

“That’s not something that we ever want to have happen,” Lange said, adding that Party Bus would be receiving additional training in the near future.

The Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association called the incident a reminder that “while rodeo is a highly-entertaining sport, on very rare occasions it can also pose some risk.”

Sisters Rodeo continued with its scheduled programming the following day, Sunday, when the final performance was held.

European Politics > The EU Sues the EC Over Poland; Lech Walesa Faces Jail; New Wall on Belarus Border

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EU Parliament sues European Commission over rule-of-law

‘inaction’ amid major row with Poland

29 Oct, 2021 13:57

The European Parliament has sued the executive branch of the EU government, the European Commission, on Friday, for its failure to use the sanctions mechanism against rule-breaking member states like Poland.

The mechanism in question was introduced in late 2020 and allows the EU to withhold funding of member states that Brussels sees as defying the rule of law. The nation currently topping the blacklist is Poland, whose conservative government has adopted a number of policies that the EU finds objectionable.

“We expect the European Commission to act in a consistent manner and live up to what President von der Leyen stated during our last plenary discussion on this subject. Words have to be turned into deeds,” EU Parliament President David Maria Sassoli said, commenting on the filing.

While Poland’s defiance of Brussels and possible withdrawal of its funding as punishment has been most visible in the news lately, other Eastern European nations like Hungary may also find themselves on the receiving end of the EU's ire.

The European Court of Justice earlier this week ordered Poland to pay a million euro (around $1.2 million) every day until it brings its judicial system in line with EU standards for the rule of law. Warsaw lashed out at the “unlawful penalties”, with Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro stating that his nation “should not pay a zloty” for the kind of justice system it chooses to have.

Can there be any doubt that George Soros' hand is behind this disgraceful display of power?

Ex-Polish president, anti-communist & Nobel Peace Prize winner

Walesa faces jail over denying links to сommunist secret police

30 Oct, 2021 21:17

Former Polish President Lech Walesa was summoned to the nation’s prosecutor’s office on Friday on charges of perjury in a case related to his alleged links to the socialist-era Polish secret police.

The leader of Poland’s Solidarity movement known as a pro-democracy activist, Walesa was summoned to hear the charges related to his testimony back in 2016. At that time, when confronted with documents alleging his recruitment as a secret police informant, Walesa denied he had anything to do with them and said they had been forged to smear his name.

Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which instigated the case against Walesa back in 2016, has now stated that expert opinions and other evidence confirmed that the documents were in fact authentic. The IPN has been sticking to this position ever since 2016 as it stated they were confirmed to be genuine when it first brought the case against the politician.

Dating back to the 1970s, the documents were retrieved from the home of the widow of General Czeslaw Kiszczak, who was also communist Poland’s last prime minister. A personal file on an informant nicknamed only as ‘Bolek’ contains over 150 documents, including payment receipts and a handwritten commitment to cooperate with the socialist-era Polish Security Service alongside various reports submitted by the informant.

The Polish Prosecutor’s Office that launched the case against Walesa over the documents requested an expert opinion from the Institute of Judicial Expertise. According to the Polish media, a team of experts in the field of handwriting concluded that dozens of the documents from the file were drawn up by Walesa. The experts compared the documents to some 140 other papers personally written or signed by the former president between 1963 and 2016, the media said.

The experts’ conclusion was then published by the IPN – an institution responsible for exposing historical crimes in Poland. Perjury in Poland carries a sentence of between six months and eight years of imprisonment.

Walesa, who was the co-founder of the Solidarity movement, which brought down the socialist government in Poland, continues to deny all the accusations. In a statement posted on Facebook, he denounced the accusations against him as “shameful” and said that the charges were aimed at “downplaying his role in history.”

He also said that “the prosecutor's office is not where historical truths are established.” “The truth about those times is something for historians to decide about, and I am not afraid of history's verdict,” the former president added, maintaining that he never collaborated with the communist secret services.

He then accused the IPN of fabricating the documents at the behest of the leader of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. The National Remembrance Institute does have some links with the ruling Law and Justice Party. It also has a history of accusing Walesa and other pro-democracy activists of helping the communists.

Walesa himself has been a staunch critic of Kaczynski as well as reforms to the media and judiciary initiated by his party after it came to power.

The former president has already been cleared of charges concerning alleged collaboration with the communist-era Polish Security Service by a special court back in 2000. He was also awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, years before the collapse of the socialist government, for his “campaign for freedom of organization in Poland” and was called a “symbol of revolt” by the Nobel Prize committee at that time.

Polish president gives green-light for new wall on border with

Belarus in bid to beat back flow of refugees & illegal migrants

3 Nov, 2021 12:55

Polish border guards watch a refugee camp behind barbed wire installed on the border between Belarus and Poland

near the village of Usnarz Dolny, Belarus. © Sputnik / Viktor Tolochko

Poland is set to build a new border wall on its eastern flank in an effort to end a sharp spike in asylum seekers attempting to cross over from neighboring Belarus, after Warsaw declared a state of emergency over the situation.

On Wednesday, the country’s president, Andrzej Duda, signed into force new legislation for the construction of the barrier, after it was backed by the national parliament. Expected to cost more than $400 million, work on the new wall will likely be completed next summer. Running close to half the length of the 400-kilometer border, it will be kitted out with both motion sensors and surveillance systems.

Warsaw has warned that around 500 people a day are attempting to cross into the country illegally, with a sharp spike in recent months. The EU has accused Belarus of laying on flights from troubled destinations like Iraq and Iran, and of encouraging would-be migrants to make the border crossing.

Officials in Brussels have claimed that the country’s embattled leader, Alexander Lukashenko, is “weaponizing” desperate people in a bid to put pressure on the EU, in response to sanctions imposed by the bloc in the wake of Belarus’ disputed presidential election last year and subsequent crackdown on the opposition. Lukashenko insists his government simply is no longer prepared to stop migrants from reaching the border.

Just last week, two Polish border guards were hospitalized after asylum seekers launched an assault on a makeshift fence along the demarcation line, hoping to cross into the EU. According to Warsaw, the “attempts of violent crossing into Poland were thwarted” but the two officers had been injured by a crowd throwing branches and stones. Officials allege that Belarusian soldiers, wearing civilian clothes, were assisting the crowd.

Lithuania, which also borders Belarus and has seen a similar rise in the number of illegal crossings, has begun work on a border fence of its own, with troops installing razor wire and stepping up their presence in the area. “The physical barrier is vital for us to repel this hybrid attack, which the Belarus regime is undertaking against Lithuania and the EU,” Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte said in August.

In September, Lukashenko put forward rule changes that would tear up previous agreements with Brussels and allow his country to reject those eventually deported from EU member states for crossing the border without permission. The move “was prepared in response to the unfriendly actions taken by the EU and its member states towards Belarus,” Minsk said in a statement.

Orban Goes Star Wars on EU Migrant Invasion

Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban & Billionaire George Soros © Reuters

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has apparently called on Hungarians to beware of the power of the Sith in his latest speech on migration crisis in Europe. He also declared Eastern and Central Europe the last ‘migrant-free zone.’

"We should never underestimate the power of the dark side," the prime minister said, referencing Star Wars as he referred to the plots of those behind the “migrant invasion,” adding that they “have no solid structure but extensive networks.”

The EU and some of its key member states have been “taken hostage” by a “speculative financial Empire” through an orchestrated “invasion of new immigrants,” Orban said in Budapest on Monday, adding that this mysterious “financial power” was behind the “latest great migration of peoples” that flooded Europe with “millions of migrants.”

“This plan was developed to make Europe a mixed [multicultural] continent,” the prime minister said at an event commemorating the anniversary of the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, adding that “only we managed to stand up against it,” apparently referring to the governments of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which have taken a staunch anti-migrant stance and refused to accept refugee quotas imposed by Brussels.

Orban then declared Central and Eastern Europe the continent’s last "migrant-free zone." The Hungarian leader expressed the hope that, by acting together, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia could potentially stop mass immigration.

He went on to say that the ultimate goal of the massive inflow of migrants into Europe consisted of depriving it of its Christian and national identity. The prime minister then stressed that Europe should remain "safe, fair, civic, Christian and free" and should regain the splendor he said it had before embracing multiculturalism.

Orban’s remarks concerning the “financial power” behind the mass immigration apparently referred to the Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros. The Hungarian prime minister has already accused Soros of seeking to create a "new, mixed, Muslimized Europe” in July. He also repeatedly blamed the tycoon of fueling the refugee crisis in Europe, adding that “Brussels has come under George Soros’s influence.”

Orban’s words were echoed by Hungarian MP Andras Aradszki, who claimed that “Soros and his comrades want to destroy the independence and values of nation states” by bringing migrants into Europe. He slammed the billionaire by calling him “Satan” earlier this month.

Lurching to Starboard

Orban’s latest remarks also come as Central and Eastern European countries witness a shift to the right. In Austria, two anti-migrant parties took the first two places in the parliamentary election, and are now expected to form the ruling coalition.

Just a week later, parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic ended up in a victory of an anti-establishment movement headed by a local billionaire dubbed “the Czech Donald Trump,” who is particularly known for his severe criticism of the EU’s immigration policies.

Hungary itself is engaged in a bitter row with the EU over the refugee relocation quotas, together with Poland and Slovakia. The issue dates back to the EU decision made in 2015 to rehouse some 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy over a period of two years, only around 27,700 of whom have been settled so far.

Budapest also faces pressure over the fence that covers one-quarter of the length of its borders and was designed to stop the inflow of migrants and asylum seekers at the peak of the refugee crisis. Despite repeated criticism from many European countries, Hungary refuses to remove it and claims that it has helped to cut the inflow of migrants by 99.7 percent since 2015.

Germany’s Police Chief Calls for Border Fence to Cope with Refugee Crisis

Police concerned about the rate of migrant influx

even if the Chancellor is not

© Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters
Germany should build a fence along its border with Austria to stem the influx of asylum seekers, the German police union chief said, according to Welt am Sonntag. He added that other EU countries will follow Berlin’s example.

EU refugee & migrant influx
With more than 710,000 refugees having crossed EU borders so far this year, according to EU border agency Frontex, and with most of them heading to to Germany, the country's police union chief has proposed the construction of a fence along the country's border to tackle the inflow of migrants.

"If we want to conduct serious border controls, we must build a fence along the German border. I am in favor of our doing this," Rainer Wendt, head of the German Police Union told Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday.

Rainer Wendt - Outspoken German police union chief

Wendt reasoned that if Germany closed its borders, Austria would shut its borders with Slovenia adding that "we need precisely this effect."

Wendt has voiced support for the creation of temporary migrant transit zones to filter out refugees seeking asylum in Germany, but added that it would only work if the border has a new fence.

He called on Germany to lead the rest of the EU in adopting harsher anti-migrant measures, saying, "someone must pull the emergency brake now — 
that can only be [German Chancellor] Angela Merkel."

It is highly unlikely that the police union chief's proposal will materialize as the Merkel government has strongly criticized the erection of a similar 3.5 meter fence in Hungary, along its 175 kilometer border with Serbia . Hungarian officials meanwhile announced that no migrants have breached the second fence erected along the Croatian border, since the border was closed on Saturday.

Love the 'Do not enter" sign

Merkel's approach instead focused on efforts to secure EU external borders, something that was agreed between EU member states on Friday. The EU and Turkey agreed on an “action plan” that might give Ankara up to €3 billion ($3.4bn) in aid, visa privileges and new talks on Turkey-EU membership in return for its help in stemming the flow of refugees to Europe.

Visiting Istanbul on Sunday, Merkel spoke of the "mutual interests" of Germany and Turkey in finding "legal ways for coping with refugee flows," when she met with the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The chancellor also commended Turkey for coping with the ongoing refugee and migrant crisis despite receiving less international assistance in comparison to other countries.

Meanwhile the Polish President, Andrzej Duda, warned that migrants will bring “possible epidemics” as he called for more measures "to ensure that Poles are well protected against epidemiological risks".

"The security of citizens is the most important question... financial and physical security as much as health," Duda told the TVN24 channel.

Duda is not the only Polish political figure that is worried about a possible disease outbreak. Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of the Law and Justice party and former Polish prime minister brought up "cholera in the Greek islands" and "dysentery in Vienna" when accusing the refugees of spreading all “kinds of parasites which are not dangerous in their own countries but which could prove dangerous for the local populations" in Europe on Tuesday.

Poland agreed to accept about 5,000 refugees in September out of the 120,000 people to be shared out between the 28-member EU states. Germany is due to receive upwards of one million refugees by the end of the year.