Reader’s links for June 7 – 2015

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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

32 Replies to “Reader’s links for June 7 – 2015”

  1. UK warns 500,000 migrants could try Mediterranean crossing

    ROME (AP) — Naval vessels from Italy, Britain, Ireland and other countries steamed toward the waters off Libya on Saturday to rescue the latest wave of migrants from smugglers’ boats. British authorities warned that up to 500,000 people could attempt the perilous crossing this summer.

    Capt. Nick Cooke-Priest, on the British warship HMS Bulwark, told reporters aboard: “Indications are there that there are 450,000 to 500,000 migrants in Libya who are waiting at the border” for voyage from the North African country’s Mediterranean coast in hopes of reaching Italian shores.

    Also aboard the Bulwark, part of a multi-nation patrol and rescue force, was British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon. “We could see hundreds of thousands trying to cross this summer,” Fallon told reporters who asked about the captain’s half-million figure.

    During Saturday, a total of 3,480 migrants had been safely rescued in 15 separate operations, the Italian coast guard said. Calls for help went out via satellite phone earlier in the day from the smugglers boats, which included six rubber dinghies and nine fishing boats, all some 45 miles (72 kilometers) off the Libyan shoreline, the coast guard statement said.

    Pitching in to save the migrants were Italian coast guard, navy and border police boats and aircraft, a tug boat, two German military ships, the Hessen and the Berlin, and an Irish naval ship LE Eithne.

    One Italian navy ship, the Vega, rescued hundreds of migrants from five boats alone on Saturday. Another Italian naval vessel, the Driade, rescued 560 migrants, while the LE Eithne, rescued 310 people, a day after it saved 113 migrants.

    Fallon said Europe needed to “pool intelligence, get after the gangs themselves” which are based in Libya and organize the smuggling.

    “We can try to cut off their financing. People are making money out of misery, and we can do more there track down the money.”

    About 170,000 migrants were rescued at sea last year by Italy. If the British estimates prove true, this year’s arrivals could far outstrip last year’s.

    Italian authorities investigating the Libya-based smuggling operations say reliable intelligence is hard to come by, given that Western diplomats have long left Libya, wracked by violence following the 2011 demise of the Moammar Gadhafi regime. Rival governments command different parts of the country, and tribal and militia clashes aggravate the chaos.

    Italy has pressed European partners to do more to help it rescue and shelter masses of migrants fleeing poverty, persecution and conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

    So far this year, tens of thousands of migrants have arrived in Italy, with many rescued by vessels from Ireland, Malta, Britain and elsewhere. Italy’s coast guard frequently dispatches nearby cargo ships to go to the rescue. Humanitarian organizations also help with rescues at sea, which often occur when smugglers set sail in a dozen or more boats when seas are calm.

    Earlier Saturday, police in Sicily detained a suspected migrant smuggler who they said had tried a new tactic of putting only a few passengers aboard a small boat in a bid to land undetected on Italian shores. Ragusa police said a Tunisian man was detained for investigation of smuggling after 12 fellow Tunisians aboard a wooden boat told authorities he promised to sail them to an isolated beach near Trapani, western Sicily, at night so they could slip away undetected. Instead, police say the suspect bungled the route and was spotted by an Italian naval vessel.

    Separately, a Gambian skipper suspected of smuggling 116 African migrants was detained by Italian police.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-3113397/2-suspected-migrant-smugglers-detained-Sicily.html

    Reuters – Libyan coast guard detains boatload of Eritrean migrants

  2. Saudi Supreme Court upholds verdict against liberal blogger

    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Court upheld an internationally condemned verdict against a liberal blogger who was publicly flogged after being found guilty of insulting Islam, state-linked news websites reported Sunday.

    The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the sentence of Raif Badawi, a 31-year-old father of three who was lashed in January in a public square, is final and cannot be overturned without a royal pardon.

    Badawi, imprisoned since 2012, initially was sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes for breaking Saudi Arabia’s technology laws and insulting Islamic religious figures through a blog he created.

    After an appeal, a criminal court in Jiddah last year stiffened the punishment to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes. He also was banned from traveling abroad for 10 years after his prison term and fined $266,000.

    In January, security officials flogged Badawi outside a mosque in Jiddah. Saudi rights activists said it was meant as a warning to others who think to criticize the religious establishment, of which the ruling family derives much of its authority.

    Subsequent floggings were halted as the Supreme Court reviewed the case. A person close to the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said that because Badawi’s flogging has been halted since January, the Supreme Court ruling may exclude lashings. It was not immediately possible to clarify the details of the judges’ ruling.

    The lashes had been scheduled to be administered over 20 weekly sessions, with 50 lashes each week, according to the London-based rights group Amnesty International. The rights group has launched a global campaign to call for Badawi’s release and said Sunday that he remains at risk of being flogged.

    Saudi Arabia’s Western allies, including Washington, have called on authorities to rescind the punishment. The kingdom maintains its judiciary is independent and has rejected international pressure as interference in the country’s internal affairs.

    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/cb577285c51d400bbb68fbcc78c91666/saudi-supreme-court-upholds-verdict-against-liberal-blogger

  3. Election observers threatened in Turkey

    Elections observers in Turkey said they were intimidated and forcibly removed from polling stations by the Turkish military, Swedish media reports.

    Swedish Radio in Gävleborg reports that a delegation from that city was thrown out by military personnel from a polling station in the southeastern town of Adiyaman.

    “The military must not be within 100 meters of a polling station, so we said [to the soldiers] that what you are doing is illegal,” Ellen Gustafsson, a monitor with the Swedish Left Party’s youth wing, told the radio station.

    She said the military grabbed them and took them out of the polling station. Gustafsson said the observers tried to resist but that the situation only became more tense when they asked why only representatives of the ruling AKP party were present.

    Turkey is holding a crucial parliamentary election on Sunday that will determine whether lawmakers with the AKP will have the authority to rewrite the constitution and strengthen the powers of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

    Newspaper Dagens Nyheter reports that the military also intimidated two Swedish election observers in the eastern province of Bingöl.

    Ann-Margarethe Livh, who is working with the Left International Forum, a the division of the Swedish Left Party responsible for international solidarity work, said Turkish soldiers with automatic weapons ordered them to leave a polling station.

    Livh described the scene as “both shocking and sad.”

    “We have seen the obvious electoral fraud, like at a polling station where a female official was told by a man standing next to her on how to fill out her ballot,” she told the newspaper. “When we pointed that out we were thrown out.”

    http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=6184106

  4. “Generation Identity” protesting the “great population replacement” in Vienna

  5. AUSTRIA – VIENNA – JUNE 06 2015
    The Generation Identity movement staged a protest yesterday in Vienna

    • Austria: Violent clashes erupt between far-right and antifa activists in Vienna

  6. Egypt Minister Calls for International Law to Criminalize Contempt of Religion

    Egypt’s minister for religious endowments called for the issuance of an “international law to criminalise contempt of religion” on Sunday.

    A ministry official spoke on behalf of Minister Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa during a conference for world religious leaders in Kazakhstan, the state news agency MENA reported.

    Gomaa believes the international law, which he is calling for, should criminalise contempt of religion “without any discrimination.”

    Gomaa warned from the use of religion for political or sectarian reasons, making the message of heavenly religions the “fuel of endless conflicts”.

    In January, gunmen attacked French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo’s office in Paris, killing a dozen people. Over the next two days, five more people were killed in France in related shootings and the attack was the cause for much tension in Europe and globally.

    The French newspaper has stirred multiple controversies for the way it has tackled Muslim issues, dating back to 2011 when it showed offensive drawings of Islam’s prophet Muhammed.

    The newspaper’s first issue after the attack also depicting prophet Muhammad was described by Egypt’s top religious institution Al-Azhar as “sick imagination” and “hateful futility”.

    Within Egypt, contempt of religion is punishable by law and many people have faced trial in recent years, facing this charge.

    A local legal organisation called the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, however, said that “simply…anyone could be presented to court” for publishing an article, images or any material on any of the divine religions if the opinion expressed is different from that of the ruling faction.

    An Islamic show host called, Islam al-Beheiry was sentenced to prison in absentia for accusations of being in contempt of religion as recently as last week.

    Being found in contempt of religion is punishable by between six months and five years in prison and a fine worth 500 to 1,000 Egyptian pounds.

    http://egyptianstreets.com/2015/06/07/egypt-minister-calls-for-international-law-to-criminalize-contempt-of-religion/

  7. I would like to suggest a motto for this web site if I may. “repeat after me, I love Muslims” Or something to this effect.

    Hate consumes everything.

    The term hate is often miss used. Most people that dislike something they will call it hate. But the real meaning of hatred for something means you can’t think of anything other then that subject.

    When the world starts revolving around that subject and nothing but that subject your consumed by your own mind.

    Pity is all we can give them.

    Even know I’m not a christian they have a belief that is critical in my opinion everyone should live by. “love thy enemy”

    As much as i dislike Islam. *I love Muslims* not because of what they may or may not believe but because they’re a flock of people that need our help. I love talking WITH them about Islam and their false prophet.

    You can’t communicate with someone you hate.?

    • You’re absolutely right, Ox: “You can’t communicate with someone you hate.”

      So communicate with those you can reach. Talk about them instead of to them. Address your nearest and dearest and then work your way out.

      You’ve got to communicate -beliefs, or -feelings, or -results of logical analysis to others, those who can act on what you feel or think. Your target audience consists of those with whom you identify, your own perceived kin or kind. They’re the ones you mobilize.

      Obsessive hate is not so alien. Call it fear, if that makes more sense in contemporary terms. Sometimes it’s simply Churchillian stark reality.

      The mechanisms are easily recognized: Render them (1) “subhuman” or “anti-human” and as such (2) dangerous to the body public. (3) Offer means of restoring the system to its mythic purity, either before the toxin came on board or where it has not yet taken hold.

      Refer to them as insects that must be exterminated; or cancers that must be excised completely. Distance them physically, if you can, or psychologically everywhere else.

      Repeat the message constantly and everywhere. Make it graphic and make it often. Posters, TV, classrooms, and now – of course – the miracle of the internet. Take the message to its logical extremes for clarity.

      But those who share your sense of “enemy” or “source of discord” will come up with solutions you might not anticipate.

      How long does it take for comments to a YouTube video to reach radical conclusions?

      This is a very dangerous business, Ox.

      • said, “So communicate with those you can reach. Talk about them instead of to them. ”

        I’ve been talking with a lot of Muslims on line. I’m telling you most really doesn’t understand their belief. Even some of the most well schooled you can find gaps in their thinking.

        The extremist will not talk with you at all. Then there is the vast majority that defend the belief but they don’t know it will enough to defend it.

        Talking about them or to them isn’t a way to get them to leave their belief. you must talk with them. Need to show them how why Muhammad was a false prophet.

    • “repeat after me, I love Muslims” Or something to this effect.

      As Islam is an extremely dangerous cult that tortures the souls of the living and bodies of the dead, would it be truer to “repeat after me, I love humans;” for the release of those made in the image of God who had been subjugated over the centuries, from civilization to unwitting civilization, into 1.7 billion prostrating pagans.

      The Jews have God must not be drawn, the Muslims have Muhammad.

      • humans. Is very generic term not specific to the subject.

        I honestly see a possible revolution in thinking within Islam. They just need to be shown their errors.

        All other beliefs the concept of god isn’t a bad one and not harming others or themselves. So, if someone sees a gap in logic it is easily over looked for the greater good. Islam doesn’t have a greater good.

        • “(Of) All other beliefs the concept of god isn’t a bad one and not harming others or themselves.

          The concept of God as a jealous/loving/angry Person is a very wicked idea.

          Jesus said. ‘OK, fine. Love your God with your heart, mind and soul. But do you know what? Love the Atheists as yourself.’

          The small voice of the Socialist pops up: “(Of) All other beliefs the concept of atheism isn’t a bad one and not harming others or themselves.

          Jesus said, ‘ ‘OK, OK fine. Love your Comrades with all your heart, mind and soul. But do you know what? Love the God-fixated as yourself.’

          And with that they got up and went to stone/bone him.

  8. Islamic State – Iraq – tribal leaders renewing their pledge of allegiance

  9. Islamic state – IRAQ – Tribal leaders – Fallujah – – trial and execution of an Iraqi soldier –

  10. France Arrests Two More in Church-Attack Terror Plot

    Two men were arrested Sunday by French authorities in connection with a thwarted terror plot to attack a church near Paris in April.

    In a brief statement, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the two new suspects, aged 35 and 39, were arrested at dawn Sunday at their homes in Paris’ western suburbs.

    Authorities say Sid Ahmed Ghlam, a computer science student, planned an attack on churches in Villejuif, south of Paris, and is suspected in the killing of a woman nearby.

    He was arrested April 26 after apparently shooting himself by accident. Investigators have said Ghlam received instructions from someone in Syria before implementing the plot.

    Cazeneuve said the new suspect’s exact role in Ghlam’s plot remains to be determined.

    “Raids are still under way at the houses of individuals arrested this morning,” he said.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/france-arrests-two-more-church-attack-terror-plot-n371246

    video (in French – )

  11. Italian Leaders Vow Not to Shelter Any More Rescued Migrants (abcnews, June 7, 2015)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/rescued-migrants-arrive-italy-now-find-room-31590471

    “Heartened by recent election successes by an anti-immigrant party, Italian politicians based in the north vowed Sunday not to shelter any more migrants saved at sea, even as thousands more were being rescued in the Mediterranean from smugglers’ boats in distress.

    Elsewhere in the country, however, corruptions investigations have revealed that some local officials gleefully see a cash cow in the shelters.

    Over the weekend, nearly 6,000 migrants were rescued by an array of European military vessels, including 2,371 who were saved on Sunday from 15 boats that ran into difficulty shortly after smugglers set off with them from Libyan shores, the Italian coast guard said.

    Two German military ships brought a total of some 1,400 people to Sicilian ports Sunday, a day after they were rescued.

    Mayors of Sicilian and other southern towns have warned for months they’ve run out of room for migrants, and thousands of the rescued are being resettled in shelters in central and northern Italy while their asylum requests are processed. The migrants flee poverty, persecution and war in Africa, the Middle East and Asia…..”

  12. German anti-Islam PEGIDA makes surprise gains in first local polls

    Frankfurt (AFP) – Germany’s anti-Islam PEGIDA movement took nearly 10 percent of the vote in mayoral elections in its eastern stronghold of Dresden Sunday, a better-than-expected result for a group whose weekly demonstrations have steadily dwindled.

    In what was PEGIDA’s first appearance at the ballot box, candidate Tatjana Festerling came fourth in the city’s polls, sparked after the conservative mayor resigned for health reasons, with 9.6 percent of the vote.

    The only opinion poll published ahead of the election, by the Technical University of Dresden, had predicted she would secure between just one and two percent of votes.

    The surprisingly strong showing is likely to be hailed as a success by PEGIDA, which stands for “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident” and at its height brought up to 25,000 people onto the streets of Dresden, although later rallies attracted smaller crowds.

    The group, founded late last year, has also been weakened in recent months by internal strife and scandal among its leaders, yet it still managed to spur PEGIDA clones in other cities, while also sparking often far bigger counter-protests.

    The best score in Sunday’s first round went to Eva-Maria Stange, the joint candidate for the Social Democrats, Greens and far-left Linke, who took 36 percent, followed by a candidate from the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) with 31.7 percent.

    The conservative candidate from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party came third with 15.4 percent of the vote, spelling yet another loss of a large city for the Christian Democrats.

    The mayoral race is set to go to a second round run-off on July 5 after no single candidate managed to win an absolute majority.

    Figures dating from 2012 show that Dresden, one of Germany’s 15 biggest cities, has the fewest foreigners, at about seven percent.

    And as a region, Saxony is among the states with the smallest immigrant population at 2.8 percent.

    In her campaign speeches, 51-year-old Festerling called for a “renaissance” of German culture and condemned asylum seekers who have “left family and home because here there’s somewhere nice to live and you get dough from the state”

    http://news.yahoo.com/german-anti-islam-pegida-makes-surprise-gains-first-222138310.html