Reader links for Sept. 18 – 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

128 Replies to “Reader links for Sept. 18 – 2015”

    • Pentagon revises number of U.S.-trained Syrian fighters to 9

      Four more members of the U.S.-trained New Syrian Force have entered Syria since Wednesday, a Defense Department spokesman said Friday.

      That brings the total number of New Syrian Force fighters in Syria to nine, up from the “four or five” that Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. Central Command, provided at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing this week.

      Col. Pat Ryder, a spokesman for Central Command, said that in addition to the nine fighters now active in Syria, there are 11 U.S.-trained moderate fighters who are not yet in Syria.

      Accounting for the rest of the initial class of 54, 14 are fighting in Syria but are with their U.S.-vetted parent opposition group, 18 are in Syria but their specific whereabouts are unknown, one is reportedly dead and one was taken captive by the al-Nusra Front.

      Ryder said, to his knowledge, none of the fighters who can’t be accounted for has joined an enemy group such as al-Nusra.

      He also said all of the U.S.-provided equipment is accounted for, even for the 18 fighters whose whereabouts are unknown. That equipment is being used by a “moderate opposition group” with which the U.S. has contact, Ryder said.

      Despite the first graduating class getting off to a rough start, Ryder said officials “continue to see a heightened number of interest” with 7,000 Syrians trying to join the program. That number is likely to drop significantly as officials vet them and reject those who are too young, have ties to terrorist organizations or have a medical condition that makes them ineligible to fight.

      A fourth class is in training and about 100 recruits are at the two operational training sites, Ryder said. The “majority” of that group has either completed the U.S. training or are nearing completion and will return to Syria “in the near future.”

      Austin’s testimony that only four or five Syrian fighters remained from the original 54 drew criticism from lawmakers on Capitol Hill, who deemed the program a failure.

      Despite that blowback among Congress, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook told reporters that the program “in some form of fashion, will continue.”

      http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2572413/

  1. Germany: Migrants’ Rape Epidemic
    “We Are the Biggest Brothel in Munich”

    http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6527/migrants-rape-germany

    Although the rape took place in June, police kept silent about it for nearly three months, until local media published a story about the crime. According to an editorial comment in the newspaper Westfalen-Blatt, police are refusing to go public about crimes involving refugees and migrants because they do not want to give legitimacy to critics of mass migration.

    A 13-year-old Muslim girl was raped by another asylum seeker at a refugee facility in Detmold, a city in west-central Germany. The girl and her mother reportedly fled their homeland to escape a culture of sexual violence.

    Approximately 80% of the refugees/migrants at the shelter in Munich are male… the price for sex with female asylum seekers is ten euros. — Bavarian Broadcasting (Bayerischer Rundfunk).

    Police in the Bavarian town of Mering, where a 16-year-old-girl was raped on September 11, have issued a warning to parents not to allow their children to go outside unaccompanied. In the Bavarian town of Pocking, administrators of the Wilhelm-Diess-Gymnasium have warned parents not to let their daughter’s wear revealing clothing in order to avoid “misunderstandings.”

    • Read the whole article for a long list of women raped in Germany this summer, all by “refugees”

  2. EU border force blames Turkish Airlines for surge in illegal African migration

    Rapid expansion of Turkish national carrier is in part behind surge in African migrants through the Western Balkans, EU agency says

    The European Union’s borders agency has suggested one of the world’s biggest airlines is fuelling the illegal migration crisis by opening new routes in Africa.

    Frontex said a dramatic increase in migrants from Africa illegally crossing the borders of the Western Balkans in order to reach the EU “could be partly explained” by the commercial strategy of Turkish Airlines.

    The flag carrier, which serves more destinations than any airline in the world, has a fleet of 296 and revenues of £5 billion last year, has opened a raft of new routes to Africa – a move interpreted as a drive by President Erdogan to increase Turkish influence.

    While the world’s attention has been on illegal smuggling gangs, the allegation suggests that major corporations – acting entirely legally – also play a major and poorly-understood role in the mass migration affecting the continent.

    Turkey is a major route for would-be migrants, travelling by land from Syria and Afghanistan onwards by land or sea to Greece, the Balkans and central Europe.

    Frontex noted there had been a threefold increase in Africans detected making illegal border crossings in the Western Balkans in the three months June to compared to the previous quarter..

    They included a nine-fold increase in Congolese, a six-fold rise in Cameroonians, and a four-fold rise in Ghanaians.

    In total it detected some 4,071 Africans out of 54 437 illegal border crossings.

    The report goes on: “The increase in detected Africans in the Western Balkans could be partly explained by the expansion of Turkish Airlines connection network in Africa.”

    It notes how the carrier now has the largest network in Africa, nearly doubling its weekly seat capacity from 38,000 to 70,000, and planning to open six new destinations.

    “It already boasts the largest network in the continent among foreign carriers, overtaking Air France and Emirates. By the end of 2015, Turkish Airlines will have at least 45 destinations in its African network across 30 countries. For comparison, Air France, which has the second largest African network among European carriers, offers flights to 34 destinations. Brussels Airlines has 19 African destinations on offer, British Airways 18 and Lufthansa 13.”

    The problem is down to Turkey’s policy of “visa diplomacy”, under which its Islamist government has sought influence across Africa and the Middle East, by easing visa restrictions. Citizens of countries such as Somalia, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Sudan can all get “e-visas”, which require only a form to be filled in and a fee to be paid online.

    A Telegraph reporter pretending to be from Afghanistan was able to buy such a visa in less than five minutes, using the name John Smith:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/11874964/EU-border-force-blames-Turkish-Airlines-for-surge-in-illegal-African-migration.html

  3. CANADA NIQAB – CBC – Federal government to request stay of niqab ban decision until appeal is heard

    Federal Court of Appeal quashed ban on face covering at citizenship ceremonies

    The Conservatives are seeking to throw up another roadblock to a Muslim woman’s quest to be able to vote in October.

    The government announced Friday it will seek a stay of a Federal Court of Appeal decision this week that would have allowed Zunera Ishaq to wear a niqab while swearing the oath of citizenship.

    Current regulations ban wearing of face veils at citizenship ceremonies, but Ishaq challenged the rule, won in Federal Court and again this week, when a three-judge appeal panel upheld that decision in a quick ruling from the bench.

    In response, the federal government said it would seek leave to appeal the case to the Supreme Court of Canada. On Friday it said it would ask that the appeal court ruling be put on hold while the issue goes to the Supreme Court.

    “The reason why now is because we had a court ruling that we’re responding to expeditiously,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday at a campaign event in Calgary.

    “Look, when someone joins the Canadian family, there are times in our open, tolerant, pluralistic society that as part of our interactions with each other we reveal our identity through revealing our face. When you join the Canadian family in a public citizenship ceremony it is essential that that is a time when you reveal yourselves to Canadians and that is something widely supported by Canadians.”

    The stay could be granted by either the appeal court or the top court. One of Ishaq’s lawyers said Friday they intend to ask the government which it will be and how soon, as they will fight the request.

    “We want to argue the stay as soon as possible, so if the court denies the stay, my client can still get her citizenship and vote,” Lorne Waldman said in an interview.

    ‘The interests of justice’

    If the stay is granted, Ishaq is unlikely to have the opportunity to become a citizen before the Oct. 19 vote. The government has until mid-November to file the leave application to the Supreme Court and the justices could take as long as three months to consider it.

    Giving Ishaq the chance to vote was what prompted the swift ruling from the appeal court on Wednesday.

    “We believe that it is in the interests of justice that we not delay in issuing our decision through the examination of an unnecessary issue so as to hopefully leave open the possibility for the respondent to obtain citizenship in time to vote in the upcoming federal election,” Justice Mary Gleason wrote in the decision.

    In order for Ishaq to obtain citizenship, the Citizenship and Immigration Department must formally invite her to a ceremony. Several are scheduled in Ontario between now and Oct. 19.

    The Conservatives have also said that if re-elected, they would, in their first 100 days, re-introduce and adopt legislation banning face coverings during citizenship oaths. A bill to do that was introduced in the waning days of the last Parliament.

    The niqab ban was inspired in part by Quebec’s experience with the so-called charter of values, a document introduced by the Parti Quebecois government which banned the display of overtly religious symbols by people in the public sector.

    While the charter was extensively criticized and partly blamed for the defeat of the PQ government in 2014, the issue of the niqab still resonates in the province, where the Conservatives hope to increase their seat count.

    That’s likely why it was left to Denis Lebel, a Conservative candidate in Quebec, to announce the plans to seek a stay, rather than Justice Minister Peter MacKay, who is not running for re-election.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/federal-government-to-request-stay-of-niqab-ban-decision-until-appeal-is-heard-1.3233924

    Trudeau accuses feds of limiting rights, freedoms over niqab debate

    Fri, Sep 18: Justin Trudeau accused the federal government of being “irresponsible” for trying to limit one woman’s right to vote because she wears a niqab, saying Canadians’ rights and freedoms should be protected.

    http://globalnews.ca/video/2228869/trudeau-accuses-feds-of-limiting-rights-freedoms-over-niqab-debate

  4. SPAIN – Syrian family tripped by camerawoman meet Real Madrid stars

    The Syrian refugee family whose plight was made famous when they were tripped up by a Hungarian camerawoman as they fled, were on Friday greeted by the stars of Real Madrid, including Cristiano Ronaldo.

    Osama Abdul Mohsen and his two sons, Muhammad, 18, and Zaid, seven, have been brought to Spain due to the initiative of Miguel Angel Galan, director of a football coaching school in the Getafe suburb of Madrid.

    “Little Zaid got to know his idol, Cristiano Ronaldo, with whom he was photographed on the pitch,” the club said in a statement alongside a picture of the family with the World Player of the Year and a host of his Madrid teammates.

    […]The family were given a tour of the club’s Santiago Bernabeu stadium on Thursday by the club president, Florentino Perez. They will also be present at the Bernabeu as guests of the club for the La Liga clash with Granada on Saturday.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/18/syrian-family-tripped-by-camerwoman-meet-real-madrid-stars

  5. Turkey: Clashes erupt as police form human wall in front of refugees

    Clashes erupted when Turkish police decided to prevent refugees from marching any further towards the Greek border, Friday. Hundreds of refugees had started to march from their improvised camp on the outskirts of the border city of Edirne towards the Turkish-Greek border, earlier on Friday, with the police closely following them.

  6. Hungary: Croatia guilty of ‘participation in human smuggling’ – Hungarian govt spokesman

    “The Croatian system for handling migrants and refugees has collapsed basically in one day,” according to the spokesperson for the Hungarian government, Zoltan Kovacs, who gave a statement to the press in Beremend close to the Croatian border, on Friday. The spokesman was flanked by aide to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Gyorgy Bakondi.

  7. <Hungary has seized a train that brought migrants from Croatia, disarmed 40 Croatian police and arrested train driver, per head of Hungarian disaster unit

    Hungary Confiscates Croatian Migrant Train

    Hungary has confiscated a Croatian train that tried to transport 1,000 migrants into the country – describing its arrival as a breach of EU law.

    The migrants were accompanied by 40 Croatian police officers, who were disarmed and sent back to their homeland in what Hungary called a “major, major incident”. The driver was arrested.

    Hungary said the migrants were being transferred to a reception camp.

    Budapest has stated repeatedly that it will charge such migrants with illegal entry and expel them back to the country from which they arrived.

    The train’s seizure is the latest development in a spat between Croatia and Hungary which has left the fate of thousands of migrants uncertain.

    Croatia’s foreign minister, Vesna Pusic, had told Sky News that the countries had agreed “to provide a corridor”, adding that “all these people want to go to Germany or northern Europe”.

    But Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs told Sky News’ Mark Stone this was a “lie”.

    More than 4,000 migrants were sent from Croatia to Hungary on Friday after officials in Zagreb said the country did not have capacity to accommodate the 17,000 who had arrived since Wednesday.

    In Hungary, Sky’s Alex Crawford said it appeared bus loads of migrants were now being taken to registration camps on the Austrian border.

    Others are being taken north towards the Slovakian border.

    For its part, Austria, which sits between Hungary and Germany, said that if a corridor was being created, nobody had coordinated with its interior ministry.

    Meanwhile, Ms Pusic also revealed that, of those who had been registered in Croatia so far, 60% were refugees and 40% economic migrants.

    Tensions have been growing in Croatia as long lines of refugees wait to board trains and buses.

    There were reports of clashes between desperate migrants from Afghanistan and Syria at the train station in Beli Manastir.

    Elsewhere, some 2,000 people have gathered in Tovarnik waiting for transport.

    Sky’s Colin Brazier said temperatures were in the high 30s and 100 people had sought treatment for heat exhaustion and severe dehydration.

    EU leaders are to meet next Wednesday to try and agree a unified response to what has become the biggest movement of people in Europe since World War Two.

    http://news.sky.com/story/1555206/hungary-confiscates-croatian-migrant-train

    https://twitter.com/zoltanspox

  8. SLOVENIA – Slovenian riot police have pepper sprayed about 500 migrants on a bridge along the Croatian border.

    The migrants were at the Harmica border crossing Friday night, demanding to be let into Slovenia but were blocked by a line of about 50 riot police. As migrants pushed and shoved to break through the police line, they were pepper sprayed.

    The asylum-seekers were staying near the border crossing over the Sutla River, washing their eyes out with water.

    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/latest-activists-german-migrant-shelter-overcrowded-33851123

    video – Dobova train station

  9. Nigeria’s Boko Haram crisis: Half a million children ‘flee in five months’ (BBC, Sep 18, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34289474

    “Half a million children have fled attacks by the Islamist group Boko Haram over the past five months, the UN children’s agency says.

    Unicef says this brings the total number of displaced children in Nigeria and neighbouring countries to 1.4m.

    Tens of thousands are suffering from acute malnutrition and some of their camps have been affected by cholera.

    Boko Haram attacks have spiked after it was driven out of territory it held by a regional military offensive.

    “In northern Nigeria alone, nearly 1.2m children – over half of them under five years old – have been forced to flee their homes,” Unicef said in a statement.

    Another 265,000 children have been uprooted in Cameroon, Chad and Niger, it said…”

  10. GERMANY – TURKEY – Espionage trial involving Turks in Germany reveals alleged money transfers

    Three suspects of Turkish origin have been charged with espionage in an indictment prepared by the German attorney-general that includes wiretapped phone conversations revealing transfers of huge sums of money and claims of Germany being the true enemy of Turkey.

    In the third hearing of the suspects’ trial, provincial Police Chief Steffan Blasius testified that a suspect and former aide of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Muhammed Taha Gergerlioglu, 59, frequently communicated with German national Göksel Güler, also a suspect in the case, and many others, some of whom remain unidentified.

    Blasius said the police prepared 3,300 pages of transcripts from more than 20,000 wiretapped phone and Internet communications. Police only mentioned the headings of the transcripts in court, without going into detail. Blasius read headings such as “Ismail al-Buti, 500 million USD,” “Swiss Bank, power of attorney, 500 million USD” and “To be given to RTE [Erdogan]” in the Koblenz High Court.

    Last year, the leader of the Turkish main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, claimed Erdogan has eight Swiss bank accounts. He called on the president to prove otherwise, but Erdo?an has never responded.

    During the trial of the suspects, the third of whom is Turkish national Ahmet Duran Y. and all of whom were arrested in Germany in December on suspicion of espionage, the court rejected the defense’s attempt to have the indictment thrown out because of ongoing cooperation over terrorism between the two countries.

    In May, the attorney-general filed charges against the trio, accusing them of spying on behalf of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT).

    Blasius stated that Güler had acted as a sort of personal secretary for Gergerlioglu, organizing his itinerary and picking him up from the airport when he came to Germany. He said the two originally spoke over the phone, but later switched to written communication, often using messaging software, including Skype, Viber, Tango and WhatsApp.

    Among the headings of transcribed messages were “Recep Tayyip Erdogan will reach [out to] 7 billion people and bring justice to the world” and “Arab media launched a campaign against TR [Turkey], all except Al Jazeera.”

    ‘Germany real enemy of Turkey’

    A message Gergerlioglu sent to an unidentified person on Aug. 18, 2014, stated, “Germans are our real enemies,” “These [Germans] are true enemies of Islam” and “Germans did not take it well that THY [Turkish Airlines] outperformed Lufthansa.”

    Blasius said many messages included comments about Fethullah Gülen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the US and who has inspired a civil society movement in his name. One message even noted that the Israeli ambassador had attended an event organized by the Gülen movement.

    Gülen, who is internationally acclaimed for his promotion of interfaith dialogue, tolerance and education, served as a spiritual leader and imam before moving to the US in 1999. He became a target of Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government following the eruption of a graft scandal that implicated Erdogan’s inner circle in late 2013.

    Erdogan has accused the Gülen movement of operating a “parallel structure” of supporters in the judiciary and the police force who initiated the graft probes, while the movement denies the charge.

    Turkish spies are said to have been ordered to spy on Erdogan’s opponents in Germany, including members of the Kurdish minority, the faith-based Gülen movement and other Turkish nationals critical of the Turkish leadership.

    According to court documents, the three were charged with tracking and spying on Turkish and Kurdish dissidents who would be detained upon returning to Turkey. Blasius said police had recovered many photographs from the communications, including some of demonstrations by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Bielefeld and Mannheim.

    The suspects allegedly profiled Alevi groups in particular. One message was titled “Regarding a PKK and Alevi rally in Koln: German intelligence is supporting atheist Alevis and secular Kurds against Turkey with lots of money. They are swimming in a pool of money. German anarchists are supporting this rally as well.”

    Gergerlioglu also organized a social group, called the “New Istanbul Civilization (YIM),” on WhatsApp, with more than 50 participants, who exchanged information and photos. In his messages, Gergerlioglu talked about setting up a wide intelligence network, stressing that all information exchanged within the group would be assessed by MIT. He said: “MIT infiltrated the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant [ISIL]. Foreign intelligence exposed that. The PKK is arming. Don’t worry; they will use it against ISIL.”

    Gergerlioglu was reportedly sent by MIT head Hakan Fidan with a fund of 25,000 euros to launch a consulting firm for German-Turkish companies in the city of Bad Dürkheim with Güler in 2011.

    The indictment states that the suspects were engaged in acts of espionage for MIT. Ahmet Duran Y. and Güler were charged with collecting information about dissidents opposing Erdogan in Germany under the leadership of Gergerlioglu. They face a prison sentence of up to five years, according to German law.

    The second witness to testify on Thursday was Police Chief Martin Müller of the Mainz Criminal Bureau. He said he examined the iPhone seized from Gergerlioglu and found more than 300 documents in the phone’s memory. Among them were passport photographs belonging to British, Syrian, Iranian and Kazakhstani citizens, a list of names from various groups, including al-Qaeda, documents of arms trades between Israel and Istanbul, as well as various official letters and notifications addressed to and from Turkish prosecutors’ offices, governors, and members of the police force and gendarmerie.

    http://www.todayszaman.com/national_espionage-trial-involving-turks-in-germany-reveals-alleged-money-transfers_399409.html

  11. US Muslim Brotherhood Joins Coalition Demanding Obama Administration Action In Syria

    The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has announced that it has joined an interfaith coalition that staged an event in front of the White House to demand that the “Obama administration to do more to address the ongoing humanitarian disaster in Syria.” According to the MPAC announcement:

    [….]We called on President Obama to do the following: Increase protection for civilians in Syria Prioritize the resolution of the conflict in Syria as part of his foreign policy agenda Resettle at least 65,000 Syrian refugees in the United States by the end of 2016 Specifically, we called on the United States to establish safe zones in Southern and Northern Syria to protect civilians from aerial and chemical attacks; to apply greater diplomatic pressure on influential countries that can help stop the conflict; and to resettle between 65,000 and 100,000 refugees in the United States within the next year.

    As always seems to be the case with such coalitions, the appearance is created of a broad-based support when, in fact, the participants are all tied in some way to the US Muslim Brotherhood. All seven Muslim members present at the above event were indeed found to have such ties:

    on this page :

    http://www.globalmbwatch.com/2015/09/17/us-muslim-brotherhood-joins-coalition-demanding-obama-administration-action-in-syria/

    • Translation, the Shiite’s are winning and we want Obama to use the US military to place Brotherhood Sunni’s in charge of that region.

  12. RUSSIA – Moscow Central Mosque to reopen on eve of Eid

    Moscow’s Central Mosque will reopen on the eve of Eid al-Adha, also called the Feast of Sacrifice, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan among the guests attending the event, Anadolu Agency has reported.

    The ceremony will also be attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders, the agency said.

    The mosque – also known as Moscow Cathedral Mosque and the Moscow Jum’ah Mosque – was demolished four years ago and has been rebuilt to house 10,000 worshippers.

    The reopening on Sept. 23 will see a new complex 20 times larger than its predecessor at 19,000 square meters.

    The Turkish Diyanet Foundation, an agency of Turkey’s religious affairs directorate, helped with the mosque’s interior design.

    “In fact, Turkey’s president will participate in the opening ceremony of a mosque in Moscow and he will also have a meeting with the Russian president; they will have a bilateral discussion,” Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday, TASS reported.

    “We also expect, if the president of the Palestinian Authority, [Mahmoud] Abbas, participates in the opening of the mosque, Putin will have separate talks with him also,” Peskov said, adding he was unaware if the Russian president would participate in the opening of the mosque.

    http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/moscow-central-mosque-to-reopen-on-eve-of-eid——.aspx?pageID=238&nID=88706&NewsCatID=510