Reader supplied news links for Aug 14 – 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

54 Replies to “Reader supplied news links for Aug 14 – 2015”

  1. Jonathan S. Tobin, Commentary:
    Distorting the Truth About Iran and Israel

    Coming to grips with the reality of the anti-Semitism and hate that is at the heart of Iranian foreign policy is a difficult problem for the administration. It has struck an agreement with Iran that, at best, merely postpones the moment when the Islamist regime will get a nuclear bomb while granting its nuclear program international approval. It also gives it a lucrative cash bonus in the form of perhaps $100 billion in unfrozen assets and the relaxation of sanctions that will enrich the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.

    The fact that this deal will give material aid to Iran’s terrorist campaign against Israel while leaving open the door to it eventually gaining the ability to wipe out the Jewish state with a nuclear weapon ought to be troubling.
    Far from undermining the theocratic regime, the influx of cash and business will strengthen its leaders and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and their support for terror far more than it will enrich its people. That is why the nuclear deal is dangerous and why the push for detente, that is the real point of administration policy, is based on a misunderstanding about the nature of the Islamist state.
    https://www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/08/12/iran-plotting-against-israel/

  2. UN council to meet on Islamic State gay attacks

    United Nations (United States) (AFP) – The UN Security Council will hold a meeting this month to hear about Islamic State attacks on sexual minorities, the first-ever council meeting focussed on gay rights, the US ambassador said Thursday.

    The informal meeting on August 24 will shine a spotlight on “ISIL and its systematic targeting of LGBT persons who find themselves in ISIL-controlled territory,” said Samantha Power.

    The United States and Chile will host the meeting that will be open to all member-states interested in the plight of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people persecuted by the jihadists.

    “This will be a historic meeting. It will be the first Security Council meeting on LGBT rights,” Power told reporters.

    UN envoys will hear accounts from Adnan, an Iraqi who fled northern Iraq after being targeted as gay, Syrian Subhi Nahas, who was also threatened and Jessica Stern, the director of the International Gay and Lesbian Rights Commission.

    Power noted that Islamic State attacks on gays had been well-documented.

    The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported last month that IS fighters dropped two men from a building in the city of Palmyra and then stoned them to death.

    In December, IS posted photographs showing jihadists throwing a man off a rooftop and then stoning him to death because he was gay.

    Two men were stoned to death in Syria in November after declaring that they were gay.

    It remained unclear how many countries with anti-gay laws would attend the meeting, but Power said she expected a good turnout.

    The United States is leading an international coalition that has vowed to defeat the jihadist group, which declared a caliphate in June 2014 after seizing the Iraqi city of Mosul.

    Islamic State now controls large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, and has gained a foothold in Libya, Yemen, Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East.

    http://news.yahoo.com/un-council-meet-islamic-state-gay-attacks-000141750.html

    • WHEN are we going to EVICT this obscenity from American soil?
      Should've done it while the ash from 3,000 human bodies was still falling on Sept 11, 2001.

      • As soon as people realize we are fighting a war of survival the UN will be disbanded, hopefully the World Court will also be tossed into the trash can of history.

  3. TURKEY – British tourists terrified after Turkish hotel staff stage mock Isil-style attack

    Employees at five-star hotel stormed pool with fake guns and fuel cans, six weeks after Tunisia beach massacre

    British holidaymakers staying at the five star resort Grand Yazici Mares in Icmeler, Turkey, were left terrified after staff members staged an Isil-style attack.

    Jason Phythian, 43, was relaxing poolside when a group of men stormed the pool area brandishing fake guns and ‘fuel’ cans. Mr Phythian claims a man dressed in Arab clothing poured a liquid labelled as fuel over his head and then pulled out a lighter.

    “One ran up to me with a bucket with ‘fuel’ written on the side. He threw it over me and got out a cigarette lighter.”

    Jaosn’s sister Dawn Sutton, 41, wrote she was “so shocked to see them dressed up. One was dressed in army pants walking around with a gun pointing it at people.”

    The traumatised guests were informed the “attack” was part of a “Hollywood-themed poolside show”. They however remained suitably unimpressed claiming the prank resembled the Tunisia attacks which took place only 6 weeks earlier.

    Thirty-eight individuals including 30 British tourists were killed by ISIS terrorist Seifeddine Rezgui Yacoubi who stormed a popular hotel near Sousse, Tunisia, on June 26.

    Mr Pythian, who visited the resort with five members of his family, was on a 10-day holiday to celebrate his father’s 70th birthday. He claims the incident left him wanting to return to the UK.

    “It was disgusting to try and make light of Tunisia in that way.”

    The family complained to the hotel but claim the incident was brushed off as a prank.

    Jet2Holidays, the holiday operators who booked the Phythian’s holiday, released a statement saying that they regret the incident.

    “We are sorry to hear about the distress experienced…This was a Hollywood themed poolside show, which included the characters Rambo and Superman, and it is always well received by the hotel’s residents.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/11801047/British-tourists-terrified-after-Turkish-hotel-staff-stage-mock-Isil-style-attack.html

  4. ‘Pregnant after Rape’: Statues of stoned women placed in Prague by anti-Islamic groups

    • Russian and Chinese intelligence has copies and various of the Islamic groups probably have some or all of them.

  5. Oklahoma survival store says Muslims not welcome

    Operator of store in Oktaha says he has no plans to remove a sign refusing service to Muslims.

    OKTAHA — The Council on American-Islamic Relations is taking aim at a Muskogee County survival store that has declared itself a “Muslim-free” business.

    The national CAIR chapter has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice, but the federal agency has so far remained silent on the issue.

    CAIR has called the sign and similar signs posted at other business across the nation “clearly illegal” and compares the signs to “whites only” signs that businesses posted to exclude African-Americans before the Civil Rights Movement.

    The Save Yourself Survival and Tactical Gear store in Oktaha has a sign in its window stating it is a “Muslim free establishment.” The sign also states, “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”

    http://newsok.com/article/5439970

  6. French court’s pro-pork ruling on school menus upsets Muslims

    PARIS: A leader of France’s top Muslim organization is criticizing a court decision that could jeopardize a decades-old policy in which public schools offer substitutes to pork when the meat turns up on lunch menus.

    Abdullah Zekri of the French Council of the Muslim Faith said Thursday he is worried that the ruling a day earlier in eastern Dijon could sow discord in France — a country that in recent years has struggled to find a balance between its secular principles and its respect for religious beliefs.

    A legal defense team for Muslims had sought to block application of an order earlier this year by Gilles Platret, the conservative mayor of nearby Chalons-sur-Saone, to pull pork substitutes from school menus. Such substitutes are offered across France, in addition to vegetarian alternatives.
    Lawyers on both sides said the ruling was not final, and was based more on procedural grounds than a full debate on the issue.

    But on Twitter, Platret called the ruling a victory for secularism in France. Many French defend a strict separation of religion and state as laid out in a 1905 law to guarantee secularism. The law has underpinned moves by recent French governments to pass bans on face-covering Muslim veils as well as headscarves, Jewish skullcaps and overly visible Christian crosses in public schools.

    France is home to western Europe’s largest Muslim population, estimated at more than 5 million people — most with family histories traced to former French colonies in Africa. Like observant Jews, observant Muslims don’t eat pork.

    Zekri, who also heads the National Observatory Against Islamophobia, called the mayor’s order a provocation that could lead students to inspect each other’s plates and serve as “a factor for conflict.”

    Philippe Petit, a lawyer for Chalons-sur-Saone, countered on BFM-TV that religion “stops at the (public) school door.”

    http://www.arabnews.com/world/news/790806

    • Quote from a blog
      because if I said what I want we'd be shut down and I'd probably be among the disappeared
      [my bold]
      “We need to recognize that Obama is in total thug mode and is intent on placing Israel in a non-survivable position. And to hell with the leftist Jewish traitors in the U.S.
      How can any sane Jew or gentile think that a person who sat in the pew of a flaming anti-Semitic and American hating preacher, FOR TWENTY YEARS, not be a flaming anti-Semite and America hater himself?”

      • The left has spend a long time changing the educational system so the kids aren’t taught how to think for themselves. Most of them are so dumb the dumb blonds notice.

    • Too many threw themselves under the bus first. Enthusiastically. Screwy DNA, like moths hara-kiri directly into the flame.
      Thought they’d bought safe-passage for themselves, never mind their people. You trust the kapo to do right by you? Shake hands with the Devil, you’re all his.

      • The urge to betray others to save yourself is one that is removed from the human thought pattern at semi regular WWII taught us that style of survival has its own dangers but it has been so long since the facts of history were taught this is one of the lessons of history we are having to relearn.

        Think of it as evolution in action, with the deaths of the Kapos the average intelligence of the human race raises a fraction of a percentage point.

      • Recently I saw something on TV about how the human race is getting smarter with the average IQ being higher all the time. The wars are culling the lower intelligence people. Or the reports are wrong one of the two.

  7. Bin Laden: Osama’s son Hamza ‘issues al-Qaeda message’

    Al-Qaeda has released an audio message that it claims has come from Hamza Bin Laden, a son of Osama Bin Laden.

    The message is believed to be the first time al-Qaeda propaganda has presented Hamza Bin Laden as an official member of the militant group.

    In the message, shared by al-Qaeda supporters on Twitter, Hamza Bin Laden urges attacks on the US and its allies.

    Osama Bin Laden was killed by US special forces in 2011 in a raid on his compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan.

    The group has since been led by al-Qaeda’s former second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

    Hamza Bin Laden’s whereabouts are not known. He is believed to be in his mid-twenties.

    During the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Al-Jazeera network broadcast footage that appeared to show him among Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

    His audio message, released on an al-Qaeda website, calls upon followers in Kabul, Baghdad and Gaza to wage jihad, or holy war, on Washington, London, Paris and Tel Aviv.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-33927562

    Osama Bin Laden’s son releases taped message calling on jihadis to target cities in the West including London

    Osama bin Laden’s son – dubbed the Crown Prince of Terror, has released a chilling message calling on supporters to attack the West

    The jihadist son of Osama bin Laden – dubbed the Crown Prince of Terror – has released a chilling message calling on supporters to attack London, Washington, Paris, and Tel-Aviv.

    Hamza bin Laden, who supported his father’s reign of terror before he died in Pakistan in 2011 at the hands of US special forces troops, urges Al-Qaeda supporters to move the war away from the Middle East.

    The video has an introduction by current terror chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, reports terror intelligence group SITE.

    Director Rita Katz says Al-Qaeda, which is losing power and influence to ISIS, is attempting to reinvigorate the terror group using the bin Laden name.

    She tweeted: “AQ leadership wants Hamza as a future leader: someone loved & inspirational, without a negative reputation or participation in infighting.

    “Hamza Bin Laden calls to move the war from Kabul, Gaza, & Baghdad, to Washington, London, Paris, and Tel-Aviv. Urges: ‘This is your duty’.”

    Interestingly, Hamza bin laden makes no mention of ISIS, which is attracting Islamic extremists from around the world and has created a ‘caliphate’ in Syria and Iraq.

    She added: “Though Hamza Bin Laden mentioned Jihadi fronts and leaders from around the world, no mention of ISIS and its leaders.”

    Spy chiefs believe Hamza escaped as US Seals shot his father in the head and chest – sparking fears the bin Laden terror legacy could live on.

    According to intelligence sources Hamza was bin Laden’s closest confidante and brainwashed into terror acts in his early teens.

    The young bin Laden appeared on a sick extremist website to mark the third anniversary of the July 7, 2005, London bombings, in which 52 people died.

    Hamza read a poem in which he called for the destruction of America, Britain, France and Denmark – and terror chiefs fear he was being groomed as an al-Qaeda boss.

    He was also implicated in the assassination of Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto in 2007.

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/osama-bin-ladens-son-releases-6252495

  8. LIBYA – ISIS executes 22 wounded at Sirte medical center, burn the center down

    ISIS militants executed 22 wounded persons who were being treated at a medical center in the city of Sirte’s District No. 3.

    According to sources who spoke to Alwasat, ISIS fighters stormed the center and conducted inspections. The militants then executed 22 and mutilated their bodies before burning down the building.

    This brings the death toll from the clashes and other acts between neighborhood youth and ISIS to 57 people dead, most of the dead belong to the Al-Firjan tribe.

    http://en.alwasat.ly/en/news/libya/1057/ISIS-executes-22-wounded-at-Sirte-medical-center-burn-the-center-down.htm

  9. Islamic State fights rival group and eastern forces in Libya

    BENGHAZI, Libya, Aug 14 (Reuters) – At least 42 people have been killed in clashes between Islamic State, a rival Islamist group and forces loyal to the official government in two Libyan cities, residents and medics said on Friday.

    The fighting typifies the chaos in the oil-producing country, where two governments, former rebels and Islamist groups are battling for control, four years after the ousting of veteran ruler Muammar Gaddafi.

    In the main eastern city, Benghazi, Islamic State attacked forces loyal to the official government. They killed five soldiers and destroyed a tank and three military vehicles, residents and medics said.

    Seven soldiers were also wounded in the attack in the central area near the commercial port, closed for more than a year because of the fighting. A warplane could be heard later, as government forces brought in reinforcements.

    In Sirte, a central city about 500 km (300 miles) east of the capital Tripoli, Islamic State fought with a rival Salafist Muslim group and armed residents who have been trying to expel it.

    Islamic State fighters took over the city in February, expanding their presence in the North African country by exploiting a security vacuum, as they did in Iraq and Syria.

    Fighting raged until early on Friday before dying down when Islamic State took back a district which the Salafists and armed residents had tried to seize, residents said.

    Through the day the city was quiet, giving residents the chance to remove bodies strewn in the streets, among them women and children. Around 37 people have been killed in the past two days, residents said.

    “Families are leaving Sirte,” said a resident, asking, like others, not to be named. He said Islamic State fighters were searching for people with weapons.

    A similar battle occurred in the eastern city of Derna in June when Islamic State was expelled by rival Islamist fighters who teamed up with locals angered by the arrival of foreign militants and clerics.

    Islamic State launched an offensive to retake Derna this week.

    Libya has two governments fighting each other for power, while Islamic State and other armed groups carve out their own fiefdoms.

    The United Nations brought the main warring factions together in Geneva this week but the diplomacy has been overtaken by fighting between groups not present at the negotiating table.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-3198507/Islamic-State-fights-rival-group-eastern-forces-Libya.html

  10. ABCNEWS – ISIS Leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Sexually Abused American Hostage Kayla Mueller, Officials Say

    Before her death earlier this year, American hostage Kayla Mueller was repeatedly raped by the top leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, according to counter-terrorism officials.

    Mueller’s family confirmed to ABC News that government officials have told them that their daughter, who would have turned 27 on Friday, was the victim of repeated sexual assaults by al-Baghdadi.

    “We were told Kayla was tortured, that she was the property of al-Baghdadi. We were told that in June by the government,” said Kayla’s parents, Carl and Marsha Mueller, who spoke exclusively to ABC News today.

    Al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi who calls himself “Caliph” as ruler of the Islamic State, personally brought the enslaved 26-year-old humanitarian aid worker from Prescott, Arizona, to be imprisoned inside the home of Abu Sayyaf, a Tunisian in charge of oil and gas revenue for the group, counter-terrorism officials have told ABC News over the past several months.

    “Baghdadi was at the house of Sayyaf. He delivered Kayla Mueller, live and in person,” one of several counter-terrorism officials briefed on the case told ABC News.

    The top terror leader later regularly visited the compound to meet with Sayyaf and to repeatedly sexually assault Mueller, officials said.

    In early February ISIS claimed Mueller had been killed in a coalition bombardment in Syria. Three months later, on May 16, the U.S. Army’s elite hostage-rescue and counter-terrorism unit known as Delta Force conducted a ground raid to capture Abu Sayyaf but was forced to kill him instead when he raised a weapon, officials said.

    The new revelations about Mueller’s long ordeal — which involved torture since the beginning of her one-and-a-half years of captivity, her family has been told by the FBI — shatter rumors spread by some officials that she had cooperated or was a willing spouse, which has deeply upset her family and many inside her case.

    Some speculation was based on a smuggled letter released by her family in which the captive Mueller wrote, about a year into her captivity, that she was “completely unharmed + healthy (put on weight in fact); I have been treated w/ the utmost respect + kindness.”

    The information about al-Baghdadi’s extraordinary direct role in the captivity and physical abuse of Kayla Mueller was drawn from, among many sources, the U.S. debriefings of at least least two Yezedi teenage girls, ages 16 and 18, held as sex slaves in the Sayyaf compound as well as from the interrogation of Abu Sayyaf’s wife Umm Sayyaf, who was captured in the U.S. raid, the officials told ABC News.

    Officials stressed that all of what transpired with many girls kept as sex slaves inside the Sayyaf household hasn’t been reconstructed completely and is still is in the process of being verified, though al-Baghdadi’s role in abusing Mueller is certain.

    At least two Yezedi teens had escaped last year and another girl was rescued by the American ground assault force in Syria in May, which the White House announced at the time.

    Last fall, the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command in Irbil, Iraq, located one girl, who had escaped Sayyaf’s clutches, and learned the whereabouts of the last American known to be in ISIS hands, officials said. American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, along with aid worker Peter “Abdul-Rahman” Kassig and two British aid workers, had been brutally beheaded in ISIS execution videos by then.

    By January, U.S. special operations senior commanders were aggressively attempting to find and track Sayyaf, a “top tier leader” responsible for funding the ISIS war machine, in order to plan a possible rescue of Mueller and to bring her intelligence-rich captor to justice in a U.S. courtroom, several officials said.

    After enforcing a media blackout on names of hostages demanded by ISIS in private emails to their families for months, White House Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough inadvertently blurted out Mueller’s first name on ABC News’ “This Week” on January 25 as he explained efforts to find her: “Kayla’s family knows how strongly the president feels about this and we will continue to work this,” he said then.

    Asked about Mueller on NBC on Feb. 1, President Obama said, “Well, what we can say is that, as has been true of all the hostages, that we are deploying all the assets that we can working with all the coalition allies that we can to identify her location. And we are in very close contact with the family trying to keep them updated.”

    But days later, Mueller was dead. ISIS claimed in a public statement that she had been killed in an airstrike by Jordanian aircraft on a building in Syria. Though U.S. officials somehow quickly confirmed her death, they have since disputed ISIS’s claim of how she perished. How Kayla Mueller actually died isn’t known, officials told ABC News.

    From that point forward, the military’s Joint Special Operations Command zeroed in on Abu Sayyaf. They tracked him to a location in Syria by early March and awaited optimal conditions to launch a rare ground raid. A Delta Force ground assault team on May 16 swiftly overwhelmed Sayyaf’s guards — some of whom, realizing the compound was under attack, attempted unsuccessfully to hide from the U.S. operators, an official said.

    It was initially suspected by U.S. officials that Mueller had been forced into a “marriage” to Sayyaf. But after Delta Force killed him, newer intelligence pointed firmly to al-Baghdadi as Mueller’s primary victimizer. The Yezedi teens — and others — provided the U.S. with a wealth of information used to interrogate Umm Sayyaf, who “spilled everything,” including details about various ISIS leaders’ “locations and patterns of life,” a counter-terrorism official told ABC News.

    Eventually the girls who had survived captivity with the Sayyafs were allowed to leave the protection of the U.S. military in Irbil and return to normal civilian lives, though occasionally shadowed by special operators worried for their safety in public places.

    Last week, the U.S. announced that Umm Sayyaf was handed over to Kurdish authorities in Irbil, who are known for lightning-swift justice. Some U.S. prosecutors had hoped to try her in federal court in Manhattan.

    Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who has been supportive of the Mueller family, wrote to Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Thursday demanding to know why Umm Sayyaf was given to Kurdish authorities rather than brought to the U.S. for trial.

    As her family marked Mueller’s 27th birthday, they pointed to a video made in tribute in which their daughter said she had learned that, “Everything happens for a reason, and that nothing should be a regret, and that you’re always learning about yourself through other people.”

    http://abcnews.go.com/International/isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-sexually-abused/story?id=33085923

    • Christian-Jewish Group Launches Massive Campaign to Fight Iran Nuclear Deal (VIDEO)

      JNS.org – The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (known as “The Fellowship”) has launched a massive interfaith lobbying campaign to rally Christians across the U.S. to urge Congress to nix the Iran nuclear deal.

      According to The Fellowship, the campaign seeks to capitalize “on the mutual understanding between Jews and Christians that Iran and its Islamic fundamentalist allies have been persecuting Christian and Jewish minorities in recent years and cannot be trusted to abide by international law.”

      As part of the campaign, The Fellowship has launched a video reminiscent of the Cold War-era “Daisy” television ad that was used in the 1964 presidential campaign.

      “If this agreement is ratified, Americans will—for the first time in a generation—understand what it means to have a credible threat of annihilation looming over the heads of our children and grandchildren, and in that way will understand better than ever the threat that hangs over Israelis every day,” said Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder and president of The Fellowship.

      The advertising and lobbying campaign is aiming to reach millions of people through cable television, radio, and social media, in addition to the distributed of 2 million emails to The Fellowship’s Christian allies nationwide.

      “Both Christians and Jews must unite in order to counter the threat of radical Islam,” Eckstein said. “We need that unity now more than ever to fight off the virulent hatred and violence threatening both our faith communities. A nuclear Iran would be a disaster of catastrophic proportions for the entire free world.”

      Founded in 1983, The Fellowship promotes cooperation and understanding between Jews and Christians. The group has raised more than a billion dollars, mostly from Christian donors, to support Israel and the Jewish people.

      http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/08/12/christian-jewish-group-launches-massive-campaign-to-fight-iran-nuclear-deal-video/

      • We have to fight the deal but I am afraid that Iran (if it doesn’t already have them) will be getting nukes long before the 10 years the deal has to run. From what I have heard the problem is reducing the size and weight so they will fit onto the missiles Iran has available. The info I have been receiving may be wrong but the only sensible thing to do is act as if it is true.

  11. Calais migrant crisis: ‘English mafia’ trafficking people to UK (BBC, Aug 15, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33909698

    “British traffickers are involved in smuggling migrants into the UK from northern France, a mayor has alleged. One migrant, who said he had spent £15,000 so far on trying to reach the UK from Syria, also said many of the criminals were British nationals.

    The BBC saw cars with UK number plates at a camp on Dunkirk’s outskirts. The mayor of nearby Teteghem, Franck Dhersin, said UK-registered cars – driven by what he called English mafia – were often spotted there.

    He said people in the UK who complained about migrants trying to reach the country did not realise “the cars are English and the owners are English”….”

  12. Palestinian detainee on hunger strike unconscious (BBC, Aug 14, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-33927560

    “A Palestinian held without charge by Israel has lost consciousness after nearly two months on hunger strike in protest at his detention. Mohammed Allan, an alleged activist for the Islamic Jihad militant group, was on a respirator and was being given fluids, an Israeli hospital said. His case is being seen as a test of a recent Israeli law authorising the force-feeding of hunger strikers.

    Israeli doctors are challenging the law, which they say is unethical. The Israeli Medical Association has described force-feeding as tantamount to torture and a violation of a patient’s rights. It has urged doctors to refuse orders to perform the procedure.

    Supporters of the law say force-feeding is necessary to save prisoners from death, and to discourage them from using hunger strikes as a tactic to end – or draw attention – to their detention.

    It is not yet known if Mr Allan will be subjected to the controversial procedure, in which doctors forcibly insert a tube into the empty stomach. The decision could depend on his medical condition. A statement from the Barzilai hospital, where Mr Allan is being treated, said his condition had deteriorated on Friday morning but remained stable….”

    • On the hypothesis of Islam, Allah fill fix this issue eventually. And last but not least, Allah does not burden people beyond their abilities (or so)…

  13. Turkish Kurd grief: ‘They don’t even let us bury our dead’ (BBC, Aug 14, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33929933

    “A room is full of women looking like they have cried for hours, if not for days. Sat on the floor leaning against each wall, they don’t say much. Instead, they wail, wipe their tears and hug each other to share the pain.

    Ayse Aygun’s 18 year-old son Salih had gone across the border to Syria, to join the Kurdish YPG militants and fight against the Islamic State group (IS). He was killed two weeks ago in a clash at the town of Sirrin. Ayse’s family and friends try to be there for her in these difficult times.

    It is more than losing a child for Ayse. The Turkish authorities will not allow her son’s body back into the country to be buried….”

  14. Somali wedding guests ‘killed by AU troops’ (BBC, Aug 14, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33936353

    “African Union (AU ) soldiers allegedly killed six people at a wedding in Somalia’s port town of Merca, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said. The AU has already said it is investigating allegations that its soldiers have been involved in killing civilians in the town in July.

    But this is the first detailed account of this alleged incident. Witnesses told the US-based campaign group that troops from Uganda allegedly carried out the killings on 31 July. Neither the AU nor the Ugandan government has commented yet on the details of latest allegations.

    Witnesses say that following a bomb attack on an AU convoy in Merca, which is some 70km (45 miles) south of the capital, Mogadishu, Ugandan forces entered several nearby houses….”

  15. Mauritania anti-slavery law welcomed by campaigners (BBC, Aug 14, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-33936243

    “Campaigners have welcomed Mauritania’s new anti-slavery law which makes the offence a “crime against humanity”. It has also doubled the prison term for offenders to 20 years. Activists hope the law will encourage more slaves to take legal action to secure their freedom and will encourage the courts to punish slave owners. Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981, but activists say it is still widely practised and many in the West African country inherit their slave status.

    According to the AFP news agency, the new law, passed on Wednesday, also criminalises “10 other forms of slavery”, including forced marriage and handing a woman over to another man without her consent after the death of her husband. Boubacar Ould Massoud, chairman of campaign group SOS Slavery, told the BBC it also provides for legal help for victims and enables them to seek compensation. He said it was laughable to think that slavery did not exist in Mauritania….”

  16. Migrant crisis: Greek ship at Kos to house refugees (BBC, Aug 14, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33934233

    “A passenger ship has docked at the Greek island of Kos to be used as a registration centre and accommodation for migrants and refugees. The vessel could provide temporary shelter for up to 2,500 people.

    Greek authorities hope it will help them cope with the influx of migrants – many of them Syrian refugees – who have arrived on the island. Clashes broke out this week as police tried to contain people being held inside a football stadium.

    More police have been drafted in and efforts are being made to speed up the registration process to try to prevent stop further unrest….”

    • I see they that the old solutions are coming back, during the Napoleonic wars Britain use decommissioned men of war to hold French and American prisoners.

  17. Austria refugee camp branded ‘shameful’ by Amnesty International (BBC, Aug 14, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33940654

    “Human rights group Amnesty International has criticised what it calls “inhumane” conditions at Austria’s main refugee camp. Amnesty says around 1,500 people are sleeping in the open air at the Traiskirchen centre near Vienna. It describes the facility as insanitary and badly organised and says there is insufficient medical care.

    The interior ministry said it was working to try to improve the situation at the camp. It said Austria was facing an “extreme situation” because of a rise in the number of people seeking asylum there. The head of the Austrian branch of Amnesty International, Heinz Pazelt, told the BBC the conditions in Traiskirchen were “shameful”, particularly in a rich country like Austria. He said hundreds of unaccompanied minors were being severely neglected. “They are just left alone and have to survive there. They are the last ones who get to eat, and this is a really heavy human rights violation of the convention for children,” he said.

    The Amnesty report (in German) says many of the problems could be easily dealt with if there was better cooperation between the federal government and the provincial authorities in Austria.
    The EU’s statistics agency Eurostat says Austria received more than 28,000 asylum applications in 2014. In the first three months of 2005, it had received more than 10,000. Syrians, Kosovans and Afghans were the three biggest groups claiming asylum in Austria in early 2015, the agency says.”

  18. Ethiopia stowaway gets to Sweden in airliner’s hold (BBC, Aug 14, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33928045

    “An Ethiopian man hoping to get asylum in Sweden has been found in the hold of an airliner after a flight from Addis Ababa to Stockholm. He was handed over to Swedish police after a medical check at Arlanda airport. His health is said to be good.

    The hold of the Ethiopian Airlines jet would have got very cold during the long flight. There was a stopover in Rome, but he is believed to have come all the way from Addis Ababa. Such cases are rare, officials say.

    According to Radio Sweden, the man is an Ethiopian, born in 1991, and intends to seek asylum in Sweden. The plane landed at 06:53 local time (04:53 GMT)….”

  19. 13,000 Afghan Security Forces Killed in Last Three Years (abcnews, Aug 14, 2015)
    http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/13000-afghan-security-forces-killed-years/story?id=33094534

    “Over the past three years more than 13,000 Afghan soldiers and policemen have been killed fighting the Taliban. That staggering statistic will likely continue to rise as the 4,302 Afghan security personnel killed and 8,009 wounded so far this year is a rate almost 40 percent higher than this time last year.

    The latest Afghan casualty numbers released by the Pentagon on Friday are based on information provided by the Afghan National Defense Security Force which includes the Afghan Army, Afghan National Police, Afghan Air Force and the Afghan Local Police.

    They show that from January 1 to July 31, 2015 4,302 Afghan security personnel were killed in action and 8,009 wounded in combat with the Taliban. That’s a 36 percent increase over the same time frame last year when there were 3,337 killed and 5,746 wounded.

    For comparison 2,215 American service members died and 20,027 were wounded during the 13 year U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan that ended in December, 2014. Some 10,000 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan to train Afghan troops, but hardly ever leave their bases as Afghan security forces have taken the lead for security in recent years….”

  20. U.S. confirms ISIS used mustard agent (CNN, Aug 14, 2015)
    http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/14/politics/isis-mustard-agent/index.html

    “The U.S. government has test results from an ISIS attack in Hasakah, Syria, from two weeks ago that confirm the terror group used a mustard agent as a weapon, multiple U.S. intelligence and military officials told CNN on Friday.

    The U.S. is continuing to investigate an attack this week in northern Iraq that also has indications of a similar chemical agent being used.

    Officials stress the amount of chemical agent is thought to be small and the concentration low. But it is yet another sign that ISIS is in possession of mustard agent and is using it in battle.

    The U.S. is still investigating the amount and sophistication of how the agent was delivered.

    One official said the mustard agent used in Syria is more likely precursor chemicals, rather than a complex munition, a sign this did not come from a cache of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but was probably mixed by ISIS on its own, using agents or precursor chemicals it obtained…”