Reader’s links for Nov. 23 – 2015

Daily Links Post graphic

In order to preserve the flow of conversation about various posted items, and also in order to make it easier for visitors to find the list of related links being shared by other readers, regulars and interested parties in one place, each day a post is automatically created at a minute past midnight ET.

This way, under the various posts of the day, conversation can take place without as much ‘noise’ on the various links and articles and ideas in the main posts and all the news links being submitted can be seen under these auto-posts by clicking on the comments-link right below these ones.

Thank you all for those that take the effort to assist this site in keeping the public informed. Below, typically people can find the latest enemy propaganda, news items of related materials from multiple countries and languages, op-eds from many excellent sites who write on our topics, geopolitics and immigration issues and so on.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

58 Replies to “Reader’s links for Nov. 23 – 2015”

  1. (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3”; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));

    Cessnock Reclaim Rally ~ Bloody Awesome Turnout with Juanita MorrisPosted by Debbi Spencer on Saturday, November 21, 2015

    • Easy as pie given the OPM hack. That netted the names, occupations, addresses, and even biometrics of several million federal employees.

  2. David Cameron: World uniting to fight ‘evil threat’ of IS (BBC, Nov 23, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-34897288

    “David Cameron has said the “world is coming together” to fight so-called Islamic State as he held talks with French President Francois Hollande.

    Speaking in Paris, the prime minister said it was his “firm conviction’ that the UK should join air strikes in Syria but the decision would be up to MPs.

    He said he would set out his case to Parliament this week ahead of a vote expected before Christmas.

    The UK is making its Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus available to the French.

    As France pushes for a stronger international coalition against IS in the wake of the terror attacks in Paris, which have left 130 people dead, the French President said his country would “intensify” its action in Syria.

    IS has also claimed recent attacks in Tunisia, Egypt, Beirut and Turkey among others…”

    • In related news, the French will be using the airbase to strike targets provided by President Obama. Of course, these targets are generally unoccupied, and just to make sure, the President provides a 48 hour warning so no one gets hurt.

  3. UN urges Australian rethink on asylum (BBC, Nov 23, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-34896900

    “United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has asked Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to rethink the country’s border security policy.

    Mr Ban voiced his concerns about Operation Sovereign Borders on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Nations (Asean) summit.

    Australia sends asylum seekers to offshore detention centres and turns away boats carrying them.

    A spokesperson for Mr Turnbull declined to comment.

    According to a UN statement, Mr Ban and Mr Turnbull discussed several topics, including climate change and Syria.

    Mr Ban addressed the topic of refugees using very direct language, expressing “concern” and asking that Mr Turnbull “reconsider” the policy.

    “Noting Australia’s longstanding commitment to refugee resettlement, the Secretary General appealed to the prime minister to share responsibilities,” the statement said…”

  4. Syrian army captures towns after Russian strikes: monitor (reuters, Nov 23, 2015)
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/23/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKBN0TC0MP20151123#4eUxhswHPBtkhQvT.97

    “The Syrian army and allied militias, backed by Russian bombardments, took control of two towns in western Syria after heavy battles with Islamic State fighters, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Monday.

    Syrian state media also reported the military and a local force had taken control of Mheen and Hawwarin towns, to the southeast of Homs city, and had killed a large number of Islamic State militants.

    The two towns lie to the east of the north-south highway running through Syria’s major cities that is crucial to control of mainly government-held territory in the west of the country. They are also close to roads that link the Islamic State-held city of Palmyra in the central Syrian desert to western cities…”

  5. EU migration chief in Pakistan after rejection of deportee deal (reuters, Nov 23, 2015)
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/23/us-pakistan-eu-idUSKBN0TC0ST20151123#HI7BoIp8iQgh8J7J.97

    “The European Union official in charge of migration was in Pakistan on Monday for talks after the country last week suspended a deal to accept deportations from mainland Europe.

    Pakistan’s rejection of deportees comes at a time when European leaders facing an influx of migration are desperate to streamline procedures for repatriations.

    Dimitris Avramopoulos, European commissioner for migration, was meeting with Pakistan’s foreign policy chief and interior minister on Monday, EU spokeswoman Ayesha Babar said in Islamabad.

    She added that the one-day visit was planned in advance.

    “He’s not coming just because of the statements” by Pakistani officials that the country would no longer accept deportees from Europe,” she said.

    EU nations signed a deal with Pakistan in 2009 allowing them to repatriate illegal immigrants and other nationalities who transited through Pakistan on their way to Europe…”

  6. Tense Christian-Muslim relations provide backdrop to Pope’s Africa trip (reuters, Nov 23, 2015)
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/23/us-pope-africa-idUSKBN0TC0S920151123#qxmBJBF2o5JtXhHI.97

    “Pope Francis’ first Africa trip will highlight the problems of building dialogue between Christianity and Islam as both religions grow fast on the continent, threatening to widen an already volatile fault line there between them.

    The three countries on the pope’s Nov. 25-30 itinerary – Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic – have been scarred by radical Islamist attacks or Muslim-Christian sectarian strife and security concerns have meant the trip has been kept relatively short.

    With the backdrop, too, of the bloody attacks by Islamist militants in France and Mali, the pope’s top advisers readily acknowledge the difficulties of conducting dialogue between Catholics and other Christian churches and Muslims.

    “How can you dialogue with this mentality? … There is no dialogue with extremists. Look at what they do,” said Cardinal Robert Sarah, who is from Guinea in West Africa and one of the highest-ranking African officials at the Vatican.

    Bishops in Sudan, which for decades was divided between the mostly Muslim north and the south where there are many Christians, have often said Christians there are considered “less than a dog … firewood to be a burned”, said Sarah, speaking in Rome on Friday.

    Francis has sought to heal relations between the faiths by saying that Christians would be wrong to equate Islam with violence. But the potential for collision between the two dominant faiths in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to increase along with the population in coming decades.

    Christianity and Islam in the Sub-Saharan region are both expected to have more than twice as many adherents in 2050 as they did in 2010, according to a study this year by the Pew Research Center on Religion and Public life.

    Christianity is projected to remain the region’s largest religious group, up from 517 million adherents in 2010 to more than 1.1 billion in 2050. The Muslim population is expected to grow at a faster rate, rising from 248 million to 670 million, it said.

    According to a study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, the number of Catholics in all of Africa could more than double to 460 million by 2040.

    Security concerns mean the pope’s movements will be confined to the capitals. All the same, the Vatican says he will for the most part travel in an open popemobile or a small car, eschewing bulletproof vehicles. A spokesman denied a report that Francis would wear a bulletproof vest.

    Kenya, his first stop, has seen some of the worst violence. Two years ago, gunmen from the Somali militant group al Shabaab massacred at least 67 people inside Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall and held out for four days as security forces laid siege to the complex.

    In Uganda, al Shabaab bombed sports bars where people were watching soccer’s World Cup on television in 2010.

    But potentially his most hazardous stop is Nov. 28-29 in Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic, where dozens of people have been killed since September in violence between Muslim Seleka rebels and Christian anti-balaka militias.

    His trip is scheduled to include a visit to a mosque in one of Bangui’s most dangerous districts. French officials have hinted heavily that the Vatican should consider scrapping the Bangui leg of his trip or at least scaling it back.

    “We’ve informed the Vatican authorities that Pope Francis’ visit carries risks for himself and for hundreds of thousands of believers who could be there to see him,” a French defense ministry source said in Paris.

    The Vatican’s security chief returned to Bangui for a re-assessment last week and some Vatican officials say the visit might be reduced to a “touch and go” stop at the airport.

    But that would deny the pope the possibility of making a stop at the mosque to condemn violence in God’s name.

    Last year, on his way back from Turkey, Francis said automatically equating Islam with violence was wrong, but he called on Muslim leaders to issue a global condemnation of terrorism to help dispel the stereotype.

    Catholic relations with Islam hit a low point in 2006 when Francis’ predecessor, Benedict XVI, caused storms of protest throughout the Islamic world when he made a speech that suggested to many Muslims that he believed Islam espoused violence. Benedict said he had been misunderstood and apologized.”

    • Francis has sought to heal relations between the faiths by saying that Christians would be wrong to equate Islam with violence.

      I hope he is captured and paraded in an orange jumpsuit before being beheaded on live TV by the Caliph himself.

  7. EU to take some migrant costs out of budget deficit calculations: Austrian finmin (reuters, Nov 23, 2015)
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/23/us-eurozone-migrants-budget-idUSKBN0TC0E620151123#IgwSdq4MWZpCsvFh.97

    “Austria’s Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling said on Monday he expected the country’s 2016 budget to meet European Commission’s criteria on deficits as some of costs for dealing with migrants would be taken out of the calculations.

    Earlier this month, the European Commission said Austria, as well as Italy, Lithuania and Spain, risked breaking European Union rules with their budget plans.

    “As far as we know ahead of the meeting (to discuss the budget in Brussels), our budget will be accepted and the commission has acknowledged that the migrant (issue) was unforeseen and extraordinary,” Schelling told ORF radio.

    He said it was yet to be decided how the costs would technically be taken out of the calculations. “But it’s clear, that (something) will be taken out of the calculation.””

  8. Assad says Syria troops advancing thanks to Russia strikes

    In the interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix television, Assad said the situation in Syria had “improved in a very good way” since Russia began air strikes on September 30.

    “Now I can say that the army is making advancement in nearly every front… in many different directions and areas on the Syrian ground,” he said, speaking in English.

    http://news.yahoo.com/assad-says-syria-troops-advancing-thanks-russia-strikes-114509628.html

    President al-Assad – Chinese PHOENIX TV Channel

    […]before the Russian participation started about two months ago, it had been more than a year the American – what they call “American alliance” – started their campaign against the terrorists, but the result is that the terrorists have gained more ground and more recruits from around the world. During the first month of the Russian participation, the same terrorists groups have been retreating and fleeing Syria in thousands to Turkey then to other countries; some to Europe, some to Yemen, and other areas. So, this is the fact.

    […]ISIS and al-Nusra, they are offshoots of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and in Afghanistan – as Clinton said, and as everybody knows – they were formed in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets at that time with Saudi money and American supervision and instructions. So, this is very clear, this is reality. Now, their ideology is the Wahabi ideology, the Wahabi-Saudi ideology. Who supported them? The Saudi family supported the Wahabi institution publically and formally, and of course we have so many figures, Wahabi figures, who can send money to them. Logistically, all kinds of supports to ISIS, whether it’s human resources, money, and selling their oil, and so on, passes through Turkey, in cooperation with the Saudis and Qataris, and of course with American and Western overlooking of what’s going on.

    […]Question 12: Do you have lists of who are actually buying their oil, and do you understand how it’s even, I mean, the financial transactions, being realized?

    President Assad: Mainly through Turkey, both money and oil selling, money coming through Qatar and Saudi Arabia. And of course, the Turkish government itself, and the oil goes from Syria to Turkey because anyway most of the oil fields are closer to Turkey and closer to Iraq. They cannot sell through Iraq, because the Iraqi government has been fighting ISIS, while the Turkish government has been supporting ISIS. So, this is the only lifeline to ISIS, through Turkey.

    […]the President of Turkey, who was Prime Minister at that time, he’s Muslim Brotherhood in his heart, so when he saw that the Muslim Brotherhood took over in Tunisia and later in Libya then in Egypt, he thought that he could revive the Ottoman empire in the Arab world, but not under the Ottoman name; under the Islamic name. So he thought that he could rule the world. The only obstacle was Syria. That’s why, for him as an ideological person, he forgot about everything, every plan we put in order to have good relations, prosperity, and so on, and he put his ideology first. So, for him, the Muslim Brotherhood should take over in Syria and he will be the “Imam” of the Muslim Brotherhood in this region.

    […]The problem with the West is they didn’t understand the Syrian people, they don’t understand this region. That’s why they miscalculated at the very beginning, they thought it was a matter of a few weeks or a few months, like what happened in Tunisia and in Egypt, and now because they failed, they want to blame somebody else, they look for a scapegoat, and they want to say it’s me, it’s some other reasons, and so on. But actually, they miscalculated, and I believed in the Syrian population.[…]

    FULL transcript on this page :

    http://sana.sy/en/?p=62206

    ===========================================
    video : Interview in English ( Chinese subs ) ( 36 min 15 )

  9. Germany: Former Stasi HQ turned into refugee shelter

    Refugees congregated outside their new temporary home; the former headquarters of East Germany’s State Security Ministry – the Stasi, in east Berlin, Monday.

  10. Islamic State appoints ‘regional leader’ in Bangladesh; threatens more attacks

    Dhaka: Islamic State terror group has appointed a ‘regional leader’ in Bangladesh and threatened more attacks on the “crusaders and their allies” wherever they may be found.

    “The soldiers of the Khilafah in Bengal pledged their allegiance to the Khalifah Ibrahim (Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi), unified their ranks, nominated a regional leader, gathered behind him and dissolved their former factions,” the outfit said in an article in its latest online magazine ‘Dabiq’.

    However, it does not name the leader nor does it provide any clue to who it could be.

    The article says that the militants have “performed the necessary military preparations, and hastened to answer the order from the Islamic State leadership, by targeting the crusaders and their allies wherever they may be found.”

    Indian and Western intelligence officials say the ‘core’ of this unified jihadi platform that has linked up with the Islamic State includes elements of the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), according to Bdnews24.[…]

    http://www.firstpost.com/world/islamic-state-appoints-regional-leader-in-bangladesh-threatens-more-attacks-2517916.html

  11. CNN – Should we call it ‘radical Islam’?

    Republicans who despise Democrats such as Hillary Clinton for describing America as in a battle against “terrorism” rather than “radical Islam” need to get out of the sandbox. Their charge is, at heart, childish.

    The gripe is that Clinton, President Barack Obama and others, in refusing to say we are battling radical Islam, are too caught up in political correctness to even call our enemies by name. The further implication is that our leaders’ reluctance to directly call out our enemies stems from not truly considering them culpable — i.e., believing that the West had it coming.

    No. The complainants think that as long as we say “radical Islam” rather than “Islam” alone, we are suitably specifying that we don’t hate Muslims. But that isn’t how it would appear to Muslims themselves, and for understandable reasons.

    In a sentence such as “We must eradicate radical Islam,” the object of eradicate is technically “radical Islam,” yes, but the core object, the heart of the expression “radical Islam” is “Islam.” Radical Islam is a kind of Islam. The object of the eradication in the sentence is “Islam,” modified by “radical.”

    That affects how one processes such a sentence — the adjective can come off as a kind of decoration. “I’m thinking about one of those juicy steaks” — note how we process the person mainly as thinking about steak, not steaks with the particular quality of being juicy. The “juicy” feels parenthetical.

    We must take heed of such things especially when the object in question is already loaded with pungent associations. Perhaps if Islam were something most of us had had little reason to think about, then qualifying its name with an adjective would qualify as neutral expression. Restorationist Zoroastrianism — OK.

    But this is the real world. Let’s face it: That Islam is a religion of peace, as George W. Bush stressed after 9/11, is something most of us need reminding of. Humans generalize; we harbor associations. In such a climate, “radical Islam” is especially prone to sounding like a summation of Islam in general. It’s how many of us might guiltily hear it and how many Muslims would process it. Certainly Islamist terrorists would: Of all of the qualities one might attribute to them, subtlety is not one of them.

    But we need not exoticize them on this. Suppose someone decided to battle “radical Christianity”? Note that whatever the justifications along the lines of “We don’t mean all Christians,” they’d sound a little thin — especially given that in some minds, “radical” suggests authenticity.

    It must be stressed, however, that our euphemism will not change any terrorists’ minds.

    We can be sure no Muslim’s decision to join ISIS is going to be affected by our refraining from calling out “radical Islam.” Accounts of even ordinary, burgherly Muslims mysteriously but implacably deciding to leave comfortable existences in Western Europe to join ISIS in Syria make it plain that semantics will be useless in this battle.

    Rather, we must euphemize for ourselves. In maintaining the cognitive equipoise that refuses to revile members of a worldwide religion because of the actions of a small band of amoral true believers, we are demonstrating that we are more enlightened than ISIS and its sympathizers.

    We are the humans who can lay claim to being ahead of the curve, as truly progressive, as truly, in the philosophical sense, free. We must resist benighted overgeneralization — which is hardwired into our cognition — not because we think it would have restrained an Abdelhamid Abaaoud, but because it makes us better humans, and possible models for future ones.

    Virtue, Aristotle called it. And not in the sense of stalwartly refusing a la Dudley Do-Right to call someone a dirty name, but in the sense of cultivating personal excellence simply because, in the end, it’s a perfect foundation for an existence, especially if as many people do it together as possible.

    So, the indignant right-wing columnists who yearn for America to express a more direct contempt for ISIS are missing that we can do that via exactly the euphemism they read as a sign of weakness. In saying we are battling “terrorists” rather than “radical Islam,” we reveal ourselves as better than the barbarians.

    The alternative that the right would prefer would be a nyah-nyah contest, what we might euphemistically call a competition in the distance one can cover via the act of urination. In effect, the right wants us to basically hurl the f-word at ISIS, because then … we’d be showing that we’re … proud, which …

    Come on: it’s just testosterone and boys being boys. I detest ISIS and anybody who joins it, viscerally. No history, legacy or alienation justifies anything ISIS does. But that’s why we must do better than them, including in how we use language. I’m glad our leaders are, and so should the rest of us.

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/22/opinions/mcwhorter-should-we-call-it-radical-islam/

    • The Forward – Should We Call It ‘Radical Islam’?

      Timothy McVeigh was an American terrorist who, 20 years ago, detonated a truck bomb in front of the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 and injuring more than 600 — a toll in casualties that far exceeds the carnage experienced in Paris in the past week.

      McVeigh was raised Catholic and was obsessed with a white supremacist screed. A registered Republican and military veteran, his only other known affiliation was with the National Rifle Association. He committed the deadliest act of terrorism in the United States until 9/11, and the most significant act of domestic terrorism in our history. But we don’t ascribe that deed to radical Catholicism. Or radical Republicanism. Or radical gun ownership.

      We describe the person, not the religion or political party or interest group. To do otherwise would be to unfairly characterize those institutions and their millions of adherents.

      Why, then, should we be obliged to attribute the Paris attacks to radical Islam?

      The analogy isn’t perfect. McVeigh’s perverted worldview was not fueled by his faith — he had left the church years earlier — nor was it propelled by a mission to create global havoc, whereas the Islamic State group considers itself Islamic, and clearly it now has designs far beyond its originating region.

      The comparison is instructive, nonetheless. Ask yourself whether we needed to label McVeigh’s insurrection in order to prevent or combat other acts of domestic terrorism. Then bring it closer to home, and consider whether Yigal Amir, who killed Israel’s prime minister Yitzhak Rabin several months after the Oklahoma City bombing, represented radical Judaism. Or was he instead a radical, fanatical Jew.

      This is a raw moment, when leaders from President Obama on down are excoriated for skirting the semantics and being told that they can’t possibly stop what they won’t name. The insinuation is that extreme political correctness and wobbly foreign policy are conspiring to prevent American leaders from attributing this wave of terrorism to its true source.

      “The newest fault line in the 2016 presidential campaign is over two words: ‘radical Islam,’” wrote Andrew Prokop in Vox. Republican candidates repeat it as a mantra; Democrats avoid it like a toxic substance. But, as Prokop noted, “this is a serious strategic debate about how the U.S. should communicate and define its objectives in the ‘war on terror,’ both internally and externally, that dates back more than a decade.”

      It is a debate that Jews should have a special affinity with, considering what we share with Islam and how we feel when others define our faith for us.

      The crux of the matter is whether to attribute the killings, bombings, rapes and beheadings perpetrated by Islamic State to Islam or to a minority of its adherents. As Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, a professor at Emory University School of Law and a Muslim scholar of Sharia, wrote recently: “The vast majority of Muslims almost certainly feel moral revulsion and outrage about the violence perpetrated by ISIS… However, the truth of the matter is that ISIS leaders and supporters can and do draw on a wealth of scriptural and historical sources to justify their actions.”

      Just as our biblical and rabbinic texts contain language and admonitions that make us cringe, and from which we distance ourselves, so, too, in Islam. Scholars have noted the strong similarities between Sharia, Islamic law, and Halacha, Jewish law — “siblings,” An-Na’im told me. Both developed through sprawling argument and varied interpretation without a centralized authority located in one place. Some Muslims view Sharia as a hegemonic system governing all aspects of life; some Jews view Halacha the same way. The majority of adherents of both religions, though, consider the law “an overarching guide to ordering one’s life,” as scholar Marshall Breger wrote in Moment magazine.

      And just as we debate which Judaism defines us — the kind practiced in Boro Park, Boston or Berkeley? — Muslims point to the same multiple understandings among the globe’s 1.5 million adherents. This is why a simple label is meaningless — or offensive. Is “radical Islam” the same Islam that is practiced in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, which prides itself on its diversity? Or India, the second largest, where Muslims lately have been the target of ethnic violence, not the instigators?

      The brilliance of a decentralized religious system, as we Jews know well, is its adaptability and the freedom it gives the faithful to respond to contemporary conditions. The downside is what we see today in Islamic State: an extreme, grotesque version promulgated by people whose violent response to contemporary conditions erases all other religious values.

      Just as some of us worry about how the Middle East conflict has enabled a tiny minority to warp Judaism into a religion of hatred, many Muslims worry about how their religion has been hijacked by a minority that has slaughtered far more Arab Muslims than anyone else. The Islamic State does pose a monumental challenge to Islam, and we can and should support those Muslims who are countering this brutal movement. But from a religious perspective, it is their challenge, not ours. It is not for us to instruct another faith tradition or culture on how to expunge a cancer in its midst. We Jews have our own work to do. So do Christians.

      It may sound tough to say that the terror caused by radical Islamists is caused by radical Islam, but it’s no more than a simplistic diversion from the more difficult strategic question about how a pluralistic society prosecutes a “war on terror” without discarding its foundational values. To do this we need to separate the zealots from their religion and not conflate the two, or we risk alienating the very people who have the most to gain and the most to lose in this struggle.

      http://forward.com/opinion/325114/should-we-call-it-radical-islam/

      • Just as our biblical and rabbinic texts […] make us cringe, and from which we distance ourselves […] NOT ME.

        enabled a tiny minority to warp Judaism into a religion of hatred…. RELIGION OF HATRED?

        How dare they use collectives “we” and “our”? Tortured logic, reeking self-hatred. Defamation for dummies.

        The Forward used to be called The Jewish Forward.
        It still presumes affinity to Jews and Judaism in order to trash both. This is a kapo-Soros tactic.

        Watch the Enemy march through the institutions.

        I’d be foaming at the mouth with free-floating rage if I didn’t understand the tactic. My father would’ve caught that instinctively; I learned about it from Vlad Tepes.

  12. DAILY MAIL – Chinese police use a FLAMETHROWER on ‘Muslim terror suspects’ after grenades and tear gas fail to lure them from cave

    Forces say they initially used grenades and tear gas to target attackers
    Beijing says it is hunting ‘foreign-led extremists’ in Xinjiang
    Rights groups say unrest due to controls on Muslim Uighurs

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3330368/Chinese-police-use-FLAMETHROWER-terror-suspects-grenades-tear-gas-fail.html

  13. CANADA – ONTARIO – PETERBROUGH – Community raises $110,000 for mosque struck in ‘hate crime’ arson

    Local churches offered members of the mosque a space to offer prayers

    When arsonists struck the only mosque in the Ontario town of Peterborough, members of the community were not only horrified, but also determined to do what they could to help.

    They rallied round, raised money to repair the damage, and local churches offered a space where members of the mosque could continue to give their prayers.

    Having raised $110,000 – more than $30,000 above their target – the community members are now set to present the money to the mosque’s members. The ceremony will be led by local radio personality Sean Eyre

    […]In Peterborough, the arson on the building, the name of which translates as was “Mosque of Peace”, was widely condemned. The city’s mayor’s, Daryl Bennett, described it as a “despicable act”.

    Several local churches offered their facilities to members of the mosque so that they could continue to give prayer, an offer that was taken up.

    In a message posted on its Facebook page, the Kawartha Muslim Religious Association wrote: “In light of the recent events at Masjid Al-Salaam, we would like to thank the community at large for the tremendous and continued support we have received.”

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/community-raises-110000-for-mosque-struck-in-hate-crime-arson-a6745611.html

    • Cuz you know if it was the other way around, the Muslim community would be Johnny-on-the-spot ready to help a torched Christian church.

  14. TEXAS IRVING – Armed anti-Muslim group protests outside mosque in Texas

    Roughly a dozen armed anti-Muslim protesters held a rally at a mosque in Irving, Texas over the weekend, raising tensions in the former town of Ahmed Mohamed, the ninth-grader who was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school.

    The protesters, calling themselves the Bureau of American Islamic Relations (BAIR), were armed with everything from hunting rifles to an AR-15 as they gathered outside the Islamic Center of Irving on Saturday. They also carried signs that read “Stop the Islamization of America” and “The solution to Islamic terrorism” with arrows pointing to armed protesters, according to local media reports.

    “We are here protesting Syrian refugees coming to America, protesting the Islamization of America,” David Wright, a BAIR spokesman, told a local Fox News affiliate. “I think the popular belief is people are scared. They’re scared to say anything about it. They’re scared to come out to a place like this and stand in front of a mosque and protest Islam.”

    “They’re mostly for self-defence or protection,” Wright told The Dallas Morning News, referring to his 12-gauge shotgun. “But I’m not going to lie. We do want to show force. … It would be ridiculous to protest Islam without defending ourselves.”

    Wright cited the Paris attacks and rumors of Syrian refugees coming to Texas as reasons for the protest.

    video :

    http://globalnews.ca/news/2356403/armed-anti-muslim-group-protests-outside-mosque-in-texas/

  15. Greece: Iranian refugees sew mouths shut to protest Macedonia’s policies

    Multiple Iranian refugees have sewn their mouths shut in Idomeni, on the Greece-Macedonia border, Monday, in protest aimed at the Macedonian authorities’ decision to toughen the criteria for allowed legal crossings in the country.

    • Migrants near Macedonia border hold hunger strike

      .... widows and orphans...

      “We need help, we need help, we need help” one migrant says, left stranded at Macedonia’s border with Greece as hundreds protest against border screening procedures, with some on a hunger strike. Jillian Kitchener reports.

    • I like this, they should start chopping off bits of themselves and each other. A huge pile of raghead suicides would show some body some where something.

  16. THE BLAZE – Ahmed ‘Clock Kid’ Mohamed’s Family Demands $10 Million From City of Irving — and That’s Not All

    Attorneys representing the family of Ahmed “clock kid” Mohamed sent a letter to Irving, Texas, officials demanding $10 million in compensation for “damages” and written apologies from the city’s mayor and police chief.

    The letter, obtained by Dallas Morning News reporter Avi Selk, gives city officials 60 days to “comply” with the demands or face “civil action addressing the causes of action and events” related to the infamous clock incident.[…]

    http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/11/23/ahmed-clock-kid-mohameds-family-demands-10-million-from-city-of-irving-and-thats-not-all/

    • hmm. that is 13% out of 25,000 = 3250. It follows** that at least 1625 of Syrian refugees coming to Canada will strongly support ISIS.

      ** I assume that one family equals two adults with 2 children,

  17. Brussels
    Police in Brussels were searching for heavy armed terrorists with explosives. They detained 20 people during the raids on Sunday and Monday . At the moment 18 have been released.
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/11/23/us-france-shooting-belgium-idUSKCN0TA03H20151123#OhFbXzj2MDe88d0f.97

    I assume the Brussels police which was helped by Morocco mukhabarat had the basis to detain these people. Is it perhaps that the police knew there is a connection to the terrorists (or perhaps these people are the terrorists) but they don’t have enough evidence to keep them in? Belgium law is too lenient, perhaps?

  18. ITALY – ‘I’d be happy for an imam to speak at the funeral,’ says father of Bataclan victim

    euronews : In Venice, further proof has been given that the Paris attacks have touched people far and wide.

    The doctoral student was killed in the assault on the Bataclan concert venue.

    Her funeral will be a civil ceremony, held in St Mark’s Square on Tuesday (November 24).

    “I would be happy for an imam to speak at the funeral,” said her father, Alberto Solesin.

  19. CANADA – Gay men will be included among Syrian refugees in addition to women, children, families

    The federal government will include gay men among the Syrian refugees it brings into Canada as part of a plan that puts the focus on accepting women, children and families.

    The Citizen has learned that while the Liberal government, because of potential security concerns, will not accept lone males — at least during the first wave of migrants — this approach will come with an important caveat. The government is sensitive to the fact that gay men escaping violence in the region could be persecuted, so they will be permitted to come to Canada.

    The government plans to make good on its election commitment to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada by the end of December. The details of the ambitious plan will be announced Tuesday.

    In a statement Monday, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said the government needs to show more transparency about which refugees are allowed in and which are excluded.

    “While security concerns remain of vital importance, will a young man, who lost both parents, be excluded from the refugee program?” Mulcair asked in his statement.

    “Will a gay man who is escaping persecution be excluded? Will a widower who is fleeing Daesh (another name for the Islamic States) after having seen his family killed be excluded? This is not the Canadian way.”

    Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister John McCallum has promised to release details of the refugee plan Tuesday.

    http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/gay-men-will-be-included-among-syrian-refugees-in-addition-to-women-children-families