Reader’s links for June 29 – 2015

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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

59 Replies to “Reader’s links for June 29 – 2015”

  1. Notorious Australian militant ‘may still be alive’ (BBC, June 29, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-33307346

    “Australian Islamic State (IS) militant Khaled Sharrouf may still be alive, according to local media.

    The Australian government had been trying to confirm reports Sharrouf and fellow Australian Mohamed Elomar were killed in the Middle East.

    It is now believed Elomar died in an air strike, but convicted terrorist Sharrouf may have survived.

    The two men came to public attention last year after they posted pictures of severed heads in Syria on social media.

    Some of those photos showed Sharrouf’s seven-year-old son holding up the severed head of a Syrian soldier.

    Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said last week the government was close to verifying Elomar’s death.

    However, on Sunday she said security and intelligence agencies were working to verify reports that Sharrouf had survived the coalition air strike “which is believed to have killed Mohamed Elomar”, reported Nine News.

    The two Australian men had travelled to Syria and then Iraq in 2013 to fight with IS.

    Local media on Monday reported Elomar was recently killed by a drone strike but his friend was not killed.

    Members of Sharrouf’s family in Sydney also said Elomar had been killed.

    Security officials are now checking the possibility Sharrouf faked his death in a bid to get his family back to Australia, the Daily Telegraph has reported.

    His wife, Tara Nettleton, and their five young children, joined him in Syria, where his then 13-year-old daughter married Elomar.

    Sharrouf was sentenced to four years in prison in 2009 for his role in a terror plot involving targets in Sydney and Melbourne.

    He was arrested with several others in 2005 in what was then the largest anti-terror raid in Australian history.

    Ms Nettleton’s mother, Karen Nettleton, says her daughter and grandchildren want to return to Australia.

    The Australian government has not offered them any assistance to return.

    Officials have suggested Tara Nettleton might be prosecuted for supporting terrorist activity.”

  2. Israel intercepts Gaza-bound boat (BBC, June 29, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33307420

    “The Israeli Navy has intercepted a Gaza-bound vessel sailed by pro-Palestinian activists and diverted it to an Israeli port, the military says.

    It says it acted in international waters to prevent the “intended breach of the maritime blockade” imposed since 2007 against the Hamas-run territory.

    There was no violence as the navy searched the boat, Israel says.

    The activists said they wanted to draw attention to the blockade, which Israel says is a necessary security measure.

    They said the vessel was carrying humanitarian aid, including medicine and solar panels.

    The boat intercepted on Monday is believed to be Marianne – the lead vessel of a four-strong flotilla.

    “In accordance with international law, the Israeli Navy advised the vessel several times to change course,” the military said in a statement, the AFP news agency reports.

    “Following their refusal the Navy visited and searched the vessel in international waters in order to prevent their intended breach of the maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip.”

    The vessel is currently being escorted to the port of Ashdod…”

  3. Taliban ambush in Herat province ‘kills 11 soldiers’ (BBC, June 29, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33308094

    “Taliban militants in Afghanistan have killed at least 11 Afghan soldiers in an ambush in western Herat province, police have told the BBC.

    The convoy of pick-up trucks was attacked on Sunday evening in Karukh district of Herat, officials say.

    Weapons were stolen by the Taliban from the scene of the attack, the Tolo news agency reported. It said that at least six soldiers had been injured.

    The ambush follows fighting last week in the northern province of Kunduz.”

  4. ‘I had a nest of insects inside my body, I wanted to die’: Revealed, how Italian priests are conducting EXORCISMS to break ‘voodoo spells’ put on terrified Nigerian migrant girls by traffickers who force them to work as prostitutes

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3140330/I-nest-insects-inside-body-wanted-die-Revealed-Italian-priests-conducting-EXORCISMS-break-voodoo-spells-terrified-Nigerian-migrant-girls-traffickers-force-work-prostitutes.html#ixzz3eSPNSor0
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

      • Yup, and the entire world is going to suffer because enough were stupid enough to vote in socialist for a long time.

  5. The Strategic Consequences of “Grexit”

    http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6071/grexit-consequences

    “Grexit is likely to lead to economic and political turmoil in Greece, a hugely important strategic country, which borders on an increasingly unstable part of the world. Greece lies on the Mediterranean, fewer than 350 kilometers to the north of the Libyan coastal town of Derna, a stronghold of the Islamic terrorists of ISIS. It was here that, last February, ISIS beheaded 21 Coptic Egyptian prisoners, and vowed to conquer Europe. The threat to Greece’s eastern borders is even greater. Greece is currently being inundated by illegal immigrants, arriving from Turkey by sea. Each day in June, human traffickers were transporting between 650 and 1,000 migrants by boat from Turkish ports to Greece. Last January, ISIS revealed that it is smuggling terrorists into Europe by hiding them among the migrants leaving Turkey.”

    This doesn’t include Russia and China waiting to take advantage of the situation.

    “If Greece leaves the EU, it is highly unlikely that it will try to prevent the illegal immigrants from travelling on to the rest of Europe. On the contrary, in March, Greek defense minister Panos Kammenos vowed to flood the rest of Europe with immigrants if the EU should allow Greece to go bankrupt. “If Europe leaves us in the crisis, we will flood it with immigrants, and it will be even worse for Berlin if in that wave of millions of economic immigrants there will be some jihadists of the Islamic State, too,” the Greek minister said. All the newcomers to Greece, Kammenos said, would be given papers, so they “could go straight to Berlin.” Greece is a member of NATO. The whole world could witness how the defense minister of one NATO country was threatening other NATO members with unleashing Islamic terrorists on them.”

    This will make things much more dangerous in Europe.

    • NATO has become something to sneeze at.

      Blackmail and cynicism make for allies who aren’t trustworthy. Greece has no qualms whatsoever about turning NATO bases over to the enemy. And that posture was evident long before she was found to be in extremis.

      Meeting the geostrategic threat, should it materialize, will require military intervention of some sort. Who knows? Greece may prefer that the only “coalition of the willing” available consists of Russian-speaking, Orthodox Christians.

      Do we count Turkey as a NATO partner? Remittances and concessions and a wink at occupied Cyprus have sustained that pariah state. A substantial number of Turks are now EU citizens. Yet the Turk’s been colluding with Europe’s greatest threat since Hitler. He’s provided enough material support to terror to earn enemy combatant status.

      The flood of migrants to Greeks is coming via Turkey. Why not stop the migrants just as they leave Turkish international waters, before they reach Greece? Why so tippy-toe before the Turk?

      The defection of POTUS doesn’t write off contractual obligations amongst the remaining members of the alliance. Have any of them kept their part of the substantive commitments they made way back when?

      Treaties were made for the defense of Europe. How will they be honored in the province of Eurabia?

      • All you have said is true, especially about the Greeks preferring Christian masters to Islamic ones. I have stated many times ( a few of them on the blog) that during the coming decades nations will disappear and others will appear. About the only silver lining in a Russian controlled Greece is that the Russians won’t destroy the ancient archeology sites.

  6. Egypt’s top prosecutor dies from injuries sustained in bomb attack

    This is the first successful assassination attempt against a state official since an upswing in violence following the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013

    Egypt’s top prosecutor Hisham Barakat has died from injuries sustained in a bomb attack in Cairo, medical sources confirmed to Ahram Online.

    It is the first successful assassination attempt against a state official since an upswing in violence following the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

    Barakat suffered ruptures to the nose and left shoulder, and internal bleeding in the lungs and stomach, health ministry spokesperson Hossam Abdel-Ghaffar told Ahram Online.

    He had been taken to the operating room at Al-Nozha hospital in Heliopolis.

    Nine people, including two drivers, one civilian and five members of the security forces, were injured when a bomb hit the prosecutor’s convoy near the military academy in Heliopolis, Abdel-Ghaffar said.

    President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi met with Interior Minister Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar after the attack, where he reported the situation to the president.

    El-Sisi urged the ministry to tighten security measures and find the perpetrators of the attack.

    Islamist militants, who have primarily targeted security forces since the removal of Morsi, have also attacked several judges.

    In May, three judges and their driver were killed when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in the North Sinai city of Al-Arish.

    http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/134017/Egypt/Politics-/Egypts-top-prosecutor-dies-from-injuries-sustained.aspx

  7. Nepal tells UN to destroy low quality food meant for quake survivors

    KATHMANDU, June 29 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The United Nations must destroy hundreds of tonnes of substandard food it imported for distribution to survivors of the recent earthquakes in Nepal, a senior Nepali government official said on Monday.

    Two quakes, on April 25 and May 12, killed 8,844 people, injured more than 22,000 and destroyed 500,000 homes forcing tens of thousands into temporary shelters and in need of food and medical care.

    The U.N.’s World Food Programme has distributed more than 6,500 tonnes rice, high energy biscuits, pulses and oil to more than two million people in areas hit by the disaster.

    But Nepal’s Food Technology and Quality Control Department said laboratory tests of some rice and pulse samples showed they were “unfit for human consumption”.

    That included more than 500 tonnes of split peas stored in Nepalgunj in the southwest of the country, and 6 tonnes of rice in Laprak, a village in the badly-hit central Gorkha district.

    WFP said none of the problem food was distributed and the stocks would be returned to suppliers once the government cleared necessary papers because they had failed to meet the quality specifications.

    “We are investigating all the steps the damaged food passed through,” WFP’s emergency coordinator, Richard Ragan, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

    He said WFP took food quality and safety “extremely seriously”, had cancelled the supply contract and would replace the food.

    But Uttam Kumar Bhattarai, a senior Agriculture Ministry official, said the damaged food must be destroyed in front of witnesses from the local authorities.
    *************************************************************************************
    “Replacement means you are taking the substandard food back which could be distributed elsewhere,” Bhattarai said. “So this should be destroyed.”

    He said if WFP did not destroy the food then government authorities would do it.
    ***********************************************************************************
    Last week, Nepal said the relief phase for the earthquake victims was over and received $4.4 billion in pledges from donors for the post-earthquake reconstruction.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-3143319/Nepal-tells-UN-destroy-low-quality-food-meant-quake-survivors.html

  8. Islamic state video – Libya – decapited body of a Libyan soldier paraded on a pickup —> 4:40 to the end –

  9. Cameron tells BBC to stop calling barbaric terror group ‘Islamic State’ because name is offensive to ‘many Muslims’

    Prime Minister says Muslims ‘recoil’ from use of the controversial name
    Cameron uses ‘ISIL’ which stands for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
    Warned fight to defeat terrorists needs ‘extraordinary resolve and patience’
    Up to 30 Britons are thought to be among the 38 killed in Sousse on Friday

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3143297/Cameron-tells-BBC-stop-using-Islamic-State-barbarous-terror-group-threatening-British-way-life.html

  10. Hungarian police use tear gas to break up clashes in migrant camp

    Hungarian police fired tear gas to break up clashes in a camp for migrants in the eastern town of Debrecen on Monday, police said.

    It was unclear what triggered the clashes, which started with a fight between two migrants in the camp on the outskirts of the town 230 km (140 miles) east of Budapest.

    Police spokeswoman Erika Demeter said the police had used tear gas to “pacify people” but there were no injuries.

    Another spokesman, Denes Dobo, said the conflict broke out between two Turkish nationals and several other migrants were embroiled in the row. Police arrested one of the Turkish migrants.

    Police had to temporarily close a road nearby as a group of migrants set fire to a garbage container and pelted rocks outside the camp, Dobo said.

    “Right now there is calm in the camp, police is upholding public order and security,” Dobo said.

    In the first six months of this year, the number of migrants crossing into the European Union via Hungary’s border with Serbia exceeded 66,000, overtaking even the number arriving in Italy.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/29/us-europe-migrants-hungary-idUSKCN0P91YA20150629

  11. USA – Another suspected ISIS sympathizer arrested in New Jersey

    A Hudson County man was arrested at his home Monday morning for allegedly conspiring to provide material support to ISIS, U.S.

    Alaa Saadeh, 23, of West New York, is charged by complaint with conspiring with other individuals in New Jersey and New York to provide services and personnel to ISIS, aiding and abetting an attempt to provide services and personnel to ISIL, and attempting to persuade a witness to lie to the FBI.

    According to documents filed in the case, the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) have been investigating a group of individuals from New York and New Jersey who have allegedly conspired to provide material support to ISIS

    http://7online.com/news/another-suspected-isis-sympathizer-arrested-in-new-jersey/815169/
    ———————————————————————
    Fifth arrest made in New Jersey for terror-related charges

    NEWARK, N.J. — A New Jersey man has been arrested on suspicion of conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, the fifth such arrest of a tri-state area resident this month, the FBI said Monday.

    Alaa Saadeh, 23, of West New York, N.J., was taken into custody Monday morning at his home, the FBI said.

    In addition to accusations he conspired with other men in New Jersey and New York to provide services and personnel to the Islamic State terror group, Saadeh is suspected of trying to persuade a witness to lie to the FBI, the agency said.

    The 23-year-old is expected to appear before a judge Monday afternoon.

    http://pix11.com/2015/06/29/fifth-arrest-made-in-new-jersey-for-terror-related-charges/

  12. Putin reinforces support of Syrian government

    His comments came after a meeting with Syria’s foreign minister.

    MOSCOW, June 29 (UPI) — Russia has reaffirmed its support for the Syrian government and its President Bashar al-Assad Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

    Referring to four years of civil war and an assortment of rebel groups attempting to overthrow the Syrian government, Putin said “we’re sure that the Syrian people will win in the final run and our policy of supporting Syria, its leadership and its people remains unchanged.”

    Putin spoke at a meeting in Moscow with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem.

    At another press conference later in the day, attended by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Mouallem said Putin promised Syria continued political, military and economic support, adding the visit to Moscow was directed at finding a political solution to Syria’s crisis.

    Lavrov added aid to the Syrian government would reduce terrorism in the Middle East; he also issued a plea for nations in the region to unite in stopping terrorism.

    http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2015/06/29/Putin-reinforces-support-of-Syrian-government/3901435586601/

    ————————————————————————–

    DAILY BEAST – Turkey Plans to Invade Syria, But to Stop the Kurds, Not ISIS

    www (dot) thedailybeast ( dot ) com/articles/2015/06/28/turkey-plans-to-send-troops-into-syria-widening-the-war.html
    ———————————————————————————————————————–
    As Kurds gain in Syria, Turkish govt ponders military action

    ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — As Kurdish rebels in northern Syria rack up wins against the Islamic State group, Turkish media is abuzz with talk of a long-debated military intervention to push the Islamic militants back from the Turkish border — a move that will also outflank any Kurdish attempts to create a state along Turkey’s southern frontier.

    President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began chairing a National Security Council meeting Monday, only days after he vowed to prevent the Kurds from establishing a state in Syria.

    Pro-government newspapers are rife with purported proposals, ranging from loosening the rules of engagement to give Turkish troops a freer hand to fire into Syria, to a tanks-and-troops invasion aimed at occupying a 110-kilometer (70-mile) long, 33-kilometer (20-mile) wide buffer zone.

    The burst of tough talk has analysts “scratching their heads about what to make of all of this,” Aaron Stein, an associate fellow at the London-based RUSI think tank, said in a Twitter message.

    In a telephone interview, Stein said the new talk of action was due in part to dramatic Kurdish gains in Syria, where rebels have scored a series of victories against IS, most notably in the border town of Tal Abyad. That key transit point is not far from the IS’s Syrian power base of Raqqa.

    The capture of Tal Abyad opened ways for Kurds to connect their stronghold in Syria’s northeast to the once-badly isolated border town of Kobani — which famously resisted a months-long Islamic State siege — and perhaps even the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in Syria’s northwest. That would create a vast, contiguous zone of Kurdish control, which Turkey fears will stir up separatist sentiment among its own Kurdish minority.

    Ankara is also eager to shake accusations that it is turning a blind eye to the Islamic State group — especially after photos were published showing the grinning fanatics within a stone’s throw of the Turkish border during the battle for Tal Abyad.

    Stein said the pictures were embarrassing.

    “You had ISIS fighters walking within 10 feet (3 meters) of the border, smiling and waving at Turkish border guards,” he said, using an acronym for Islamic State. “That gives the impression of complicity. It’s very damaging to Ankara.”

    But the idea of military intervention across the border remains unpopular in Turkey. Any battles in urban areas would almost certainly mean heavy casualties in a fight against a determined and entrenched foe. The Dogan News Agency on Monday broadcast footage of what it said were IS militants digging ditches and planting mines across from the Turkish border.

    Even a more limited intervention, such as artillery or air strikes, could increase the flow of Syrians seeking shelter in Turkey, which is already burdened with the world’s largest number of refugees.

    Fighting in Syria could also weaken the standing of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party, which recently lost its parliamentary majority and is now courting potential coalition partners to stay in power.

    Most seriously, any fighting in Kurdish areas of Syria risks derailing the peace process with Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey, overturning a key achievement of Erdogan’s leadership and potentially spreading violence across the country.

    “If there is a decision to attack the cantons in Rojova (the Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria), it would amount to an attack on all Kurdish people,” senior Kurdish rebel commander Murat Karayilan said in a statement Monday. “Such an intervention would be an intervention that takes Turkey to civil war.”

    More modest forms of intervention in Syria seem likelier. Turkey has long pressed the U.S. to set up a no-fly zone — to no avail — and previous plans for a buffer zone have been shelved. Stein believes Monday’s meeting will probably result in orders to Turkey’s border forces to take their gloves off.

    Meanwhile any hopes that recent rebel gains against the government of President Bashar Assad elsewhere in Syria had turned the dictator’s allies against him were knocked back by a surprise visit by Syria’s foreign minister to Moscow on Monday.

    The Kremlin’s policy to “support Syria, the Syrian leadership and the Syrian people remains unchanged,” news agencies quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin as telling the envoy.

    http://news.yahoo.com/turkey-holds-security-meeting-amid-syria-invasion-talk-092353486.html

  13. Three European interior ministers visit Tunisia to stand together against terrorism

    • “There is a real thirst for revenge” – Muslim cleric on Tunisia terrorist attack

      Muslim activist Anjem Choudary has said that the presence of Western civilians in Muslim countries is creating instability.

      A MUSLIM SOCIAL activist and cleric has said that the terrorist attacks that occurred last Friday in Tunisia, France, and Kuwait are a product of Western people encroaching on the Muslim world.

      Anjem Choudary, a high-profile British cleric and former chairman of the Society of Muslim Lawyers, said that: “being naked on a beach, alcohol, drugs, these are things that are rejected by all Muslims” in relation to the attack in Tunisia that left 38 people dead, including three Irish citizens.

      Choudary was speaking to Adrian Kennedy on 98FM’s Dublin Talks radio show earlier today.

      “The real question to ask is why is there such instability in North Africa. It is not so much a question of blame. We need to look more deeply into this,” Choudary said.

      […] ” ISIS are not happy with these tourist resorts being westernised. It has definitely been a factor before with the likes of the Bali bombings, although not every Muslim will attack people.

      Being naked on a beach, drinking alcohol, drugs – these things are all rejected by all Muslims.”

      http://www.thejournal.ie/anjem-choudary-tunisia-2188441-Jun2015/

  14. Saudi Arabia: Mutawwa beat British man and his wife for using the female checkout line in the grocery store

    This is a longer clip of a story we published in 2014 of a British man who gets harassed by the Saudi mutawwa.

    Video footage appears to show Peter Howarth-Lees as he is jumped on by a member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, also known as the Mutawwa, outside the supermarket in Riyadh.

    In the video, after a woman appears to intervene, Mr Howarth-Lees, can be heard shouting ‘That’s my wife, how dare you.’

    The clip shows that Howarth-Lees was targeted already inside the grocery store apparently for using a women’s operated check-out.

    Commentaries in Arabic under the video on youtube make mention that Prophet Mohammed had ordered that all pagan Christians and Jews must be expelled (from their own country which Saudi Arabia was in those days). Another Saudi commenter suggests that the kafir “sells wine” and forces his wife to “commit adultery”. A third commenter suggests the Mutawwa should use Sharia on Mr Howarth-Lees. Yet one more explains that the kafir (word he used) does not pray while the store has to close for prayers and the foreigner refused (this is obviously not true since they went shopping after Friday prayers).

    https://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/saudi-arabia-mutawwa-beat-british-man-and-his-wife-for-using-the-female-checkout-line-in-the-grocery-store/

    ( … and they rob his credit card : —– > 0:21 to 0:40 )

  15. Chibok girls ‘forced to join Nigeria’s Boko Haram’ (BBC, June 29, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33259003

    “Some of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped in Nigeria have been forced to join Islamist militant group Boko Haram, the BBC has been told.

    Witnesses say some are now being used to terrorise other captives, and are even carrying out killings themselves.

    The testimony cannot be verified but Amnesty International says other girls kidnapped by Boko Haram have been forced to fight.

    Boko Haram has killed some 5,500 civilians in Nigeria since 2014.

    Two-hundred-and-nineteen schoolgirls from Chibok, are still missing, more than a year after they were kidnapped from their school in northern Nigeria. Many of those seized are Christians.

    Three women who claim they were held in the same camps as some of the Chibok girls have told the BBC’s Panorama programme that some of them have been brainwashed and are now carrying out punishments on behalf of the militants….”

  16. REUTERS – French beheading suspect denies jihad motivation

    The man being held in France under suspicion of beheading his boss and trying to blow up a chemicals plant has told investigators there was no religious motivation behind the attack, a source close to the inquiry said on Monday.

    The source said Yassin Salhi, 35, told investigators he was not a jihadist and repeated earlier statements that he committed the act outside the southeast city of Lyon on Friday after a row with his wife the day before and his boss a few days earlier.

    Salhi, who was arrested on the scene of the crime on Friday, can be held for a maximum 96 hours under French law before being charged or released.

    The severed head of his boss was found hanging on the fence of a site belonging to U.S-based gas and chemicals company Air Products, next to flags bearing professions of the Muslim faith.

    Examination of one of Salhi’s phones revealed he had taken a picture of himself with the severed head before his arrest and sent the image to a number belonging to a French national last traced to the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa in Syria.

    Friday’s attack stirred new security fears in France less than six months after January’s Islamist killings at a satirical weekly and Jewish foodstore in Paris.

    Prime Minister Manuel Valls has said the threat facing France, a member of the international coalition fighting Islamic State in Iraq, has never been greater. A number of sites around the country have been put on maximum security.

    French authorities say Salhi frequented Islamic radicals and was filed between 2006 and 2008 as being at risk of becoming radicalized, but he had a clean criminal record and did not show signs of preparing any attacks.

    Local media cited witnesses to the instability of his character, including a former martial arts instructor who said the usually calm father-of-three was subject to such bursts of violence that fellow pupils refused to spar with him.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/29/us-france-blast-suspect-idUSKCN0P91UI20150629

  17. DNA helps jail Afghan father for rape (BBC, June 29, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33023247

    “An Afghan court has passed a landmark judgement, using DNA evidence to convict a man for the multiple rape of his daughter. The victim who cannot be named to protect her safety, was abused for more than 10 years, bearing two children. Violence against women is endemic in Afghanistan and victims of sexual abuse are often themselves jailed for “moral crimes”.

    I met the victim, who is in her early twenties, for the first time last year after the trial against her father was suspended with the judge asking for DNA evidence. She was pregnant as a result of the abuse and held her four-year-old on her lap.

    “This is my daughter and my father’s daughter,” she said. “She is the result of my father raping me. We are both mother and daughter and sisters at the same time.”

    As sunlight streamed through the drawn curtains of the impoverished home she shares with her mother, she told me the story she had presented in court for the first time last summer. According to the victim, the abuse began when her father returned from Iran after eight years abroad. She was 12 years old….”

  18. UK – Teachers from Wales to do Ramadan fast with Muslim students to show Islam is ‘nothing to be afraid of’

    Three teachers from Wales who feel Muslims are “needlessly vilified” say they are standing by their Muslim students and the local Islamic community by taking part in a sponsored fast.

    Speaking with WalesOnline, Andrew Bodgin – who teaches at the Celtic English Academy in Cardiff – said the three staff members want to show others that the Islamic community and their culture are “nothing to be afraid of.”

    He added: “The more we can connect with different peoples and their cultures, the better.”

    Along with Jon Letson and Jennifer John, the three teachers will go 19 hours without food or water this Friday July 3 to raise awareness of the Holy Month of Ramadan.

    […]Speaking with WalesOnline, he said the teachers admire their Middle Eastern Muslim pupils who fast during the long summer days and said: “Seeing the efforts they make to study while doing Ramadan, we wanted to show we empathise and want to show that there is community support within the community here.”

    The trio will be breaking their fast for Iftar at sundown this Friday at Cardiff’s Dar Ul-Isra mosque.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/teachers-from-wales-to-do-ramadan-fast-with-muslim-students-to-show-islam-is-nothing-to-be-afraid-of-10352991.html

  19. US resume aid to military in Bahrain (BBC, June 30, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33322212

    “The US has said that it will resume aid to the military in Bahrain. Security assistance has been withheld since 2011, when the Gulf state put down mass Shia-led protests. But US State Department spokesman John Kirby said that Bahrain had made progress on human rights, including the release of political prisoners. Bahrain is home to the US Navy’s Fifth fleet and has flown airstrike missions over Syria as part of the US-led coalition against Islamic State (IS).

    “We believe it is important to recognise that the government of Bahrain has made some meaningful progress on human rights reforms and reconciliation,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement. He added that this did not mean that the US thought the human rights situation in Bahrain was adequate….”

  20. Yemen capital Sanaa hit by car bomb attack (BBC, June 29, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33322431

    “A car bomb has exploded in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, causing an unknown number of casualties, officials say. There are conflicting reports over who was the target of the attack. AP says it was targeting the homes of several Shia Houthi rebel leaders, but Reuters reports that a group of mourners were hit, wounding 28 people. Shia Houthi rebel fighters have been fighting forces loyal to Yemen’s exiled President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadifor several months. Saudi-led air strikes targeting Houthi positions, which launched in March, have had a devastating impact on civilians.

    In a separate development on Monday, the rebels said in a statement they had launched a Scud missile across the border at a Saudi military base “in response to the crimes of the brutal Saudi aggression”. If confirmed, it would be the second such attack since fighting began. An attempt to send a Scud missile earlier this month was intercepted and shot down by Saudi Arabia before causing any damage….”

  21. HUNGARY DEBRECEN – Hungary police fire tear gas to quell riot in refugee camp

    Hungarian police fired tear gas to contain a riot at an overcrowded refugee camp in the eastern city of Debrecen Monday, after fighting broke out between asylum seekers over a religious dispute.

    ***************************************************************************************************
    The disturbance began after one migrant ran off with another’s copy of the Koran and trampled on it, said a statement on the Hungarian police website.
    ***************************************************************************************************
    Several hundred other asylum-seekers joined the fracas, which spilled out of the camp, where police said some cars in the parking lot were damaged and bins set on fire.

    Riot police called as reinforcements fired tear gas to quell the riot and push the group back into the camp.

    One man was detained in custody while one police officer was injured by a stone-thrower, according to the police statement.

    In the last two years, EU member state Hungary has become a major transit country for refugees and migrants attempting to reach wealthy Western countries like Austria and Germany by land rather than sea.

    Most come from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, but also from Kosovo.

    Authorities told state news agency MTI later Monday that the camp will be temporarily closed to new arrivals, while restrictions will be placed on movement in and out. With room for 800 people, the camp in Debrecen (230 kilometres from Budapest) is one of Hungary’s largest reception centres for asylum-seekers, but is now holding 1,900, a government official told MTI Monday.

    The nation received more asylum-seekers per capita than any other EU country apart from Sweden in 2014, up to nearly 43,000 from just 2,000 in 2012.

    The spike in asylum-seekers has coincided with a series of controversial anti-migration measures launched by Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

    Earlier June, his government unveiled plans to build a four-metre (13-foot) high fence on its border with Serbia to keep out migrants.

    The government has also sent the public questionnaires linking immigration to terrorism and launched a nationwide poster campaign urging migrants not to break laws or take jobs from Hungarians.

    In a visit to Debrecen last month, Orban said the camp should be closed for good.

    http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/9/134107/World/International/Hungary-police-fire-tear-gas-to-quell-riot-in-refu.aspx

    • Greatest quote from article [my emphasis]:
      “No economy functions without banks,” said Kyriakos Mitsotakis, a senior MP in New Democracy, a centre-right opposition party. “Some people in Syriza think that shutting them down for week is just a minor hiccup, which isn’t surprising as many Syriza people have never worked in the private sector. But it’s not a hiccup, it’s a huge shock.”

  22. Long live Londonistan! Cough, cough, cough…. Cough…

    EXCLUSIVE – Sunbed killer’s link to Britain: Tunisia massacre gunman was inspired by fanatic who ran global terror cell in London (dailymail, June 29, 2015)
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3143795/Sunbed-killer-s-link-Britain-Tunisia-massacre-gunman-Seifeddine-Rezgui-inspired-fanatic-ran-global-terror-cell-London.html

    “Links between the Tunisia beach massacre and Islamist extremism in Britain can be revealed today. The fanatic who inspired gunman Seifeddine Rezgui ran a global terror network from London, a Daily Mail investigation has found. The mentor – Saifallah Ben Hassine – was himself a disciple of hate preacher Abu Qatada, then also based in the UK.

    The dramatic revelation came as:

    Survivors of the attack that cost as many as 30 British lives insisted they saw a second gunman;

    Police and the Army prepared for Britain’s biggest ever counter-terrorism training exercise in London today;

    Theresa May laid flowers at the scene of the ‘brutality and destruction’;

    A significant number of Rezgui’s alleged accomplices were arrested;

    It emerged that the mass murderer had terrorist training in Libya;

    David Cameron announced a national minute’s silence for noon on Friday and hinted at bombing raids in Syria.

    Security officials are investigating whether there are direct links between Rezgui and terrorists based in Britain.

    But the Mail has discovered that the group said to have indoctrinated Rezgui in Tunisia over the past six months is led by Ben Hassine. And these extremists can be traced straight back to the so-called ‘Londonistan’ years leading up to 9/11.

    Ben Hassine, 49, arrived in Britain in the late 1990s and quickly became a follower of Qatada, who had fled Jordan. Court papers state Ben Hassine used London as his base for founding and running the ‘Tunisian Fighting Group’ from 2000 onwards.

    It is not known if he claimed asylum but he was in the UK for at least three years. The terror network had links to Al Qaeda and, according to the papers, ‘aimed to recruit new members and send them to Afghanistan for training’.

    The documents add that: ‘Abu Qatada appears as a watermark running through the whole of this case as being the mastermind.’ Ben Hassine later left Britain and by 2011 had established Ansar al-Sharia, the main terror group in Tunisia. He has remained close to Qatada, who was deported from Britain in 2013 after a prolonged legal fight….”