Reader’s links for Feb. 15 – 2016

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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.

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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

142 Replies to “Reader’s links for Feb. 15 – 2016”

  1. Syria calls for UN action on Turkish attacks on Kurds (BBC, Feb 15, 2016)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35576153

    “Syria has condemned Turkish military action against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria described it as a violation of its sovereignty.

    It called on the UN Security Council to take action.

    Turkey carried out a second day of shelling on Sunday of Kurdish forces advancing in northern Aleppo province.

    Ankara views the Kurdish militia in Syria as allied to the outlawed PKK, which has carried out a decades-long campaign for autonomy in Turkey.

    But the United States and others back the Kurdish militia in Syria, the YPG, in its fight against the so-called Islamic State (IS) group.

    Syria has accused Turkey of violating its sovereignty by backing “al-Qaeda-linked terrorists” in the north and has warned it has a right to respond.

    “Turkish artillery shelling of Syrian territory constitutes direct support to the armed terrorist organisations,” the Syrian government said in letters to the UN Secretary General and the Security Council’s Chairman.

    The letters accused Turkey of allowing about 100 gunmen – believed to be either “Turkish soldiers or Turkish mercenaries” – to cross into Syria.

    “[Syria] will maintain its legitimate right to respond to the Turkish crimes and attacks and to claim compensation for the damage caused.”

    France’s foreign ministry has also urged Turkey to end its assault on Kurdish fighters in northern Syria…”

    • Informative article. Unusual for the BBC. First time I’ve ever seen the Syrian crisis properly described as a war: “Almost five years of civil war in Syria have led to the deaths of more than 250,000 people. More than 11 million people have been displaced.”, rather than as a one-sided genocide carried out personally by Bashar al-Assad, entirely because he is a brutal dictator who loves killing his own people for the crime of wanting to be free and live in a democratic country, just like Denmark, Canada, and New Zealand.

      There’s also a great little Kurd chart that tells you who hates the Kurds the most, and which Kurds are getting killed by whom, and who is “fighting” ISIS…

      • I’m trying to avoid Kurd-related bad news. Way over-identified with the Kurds – every Kurdish woman soldier becomes a young Israeli. I know they used to Skype, exchange tips on hair and makeup and child care..

        I tried reading about honor-killings and FGM amongst them but that’s not enough. They’re not even all Muslims – Christians and Yazidis seek refuge with them. Any tolerance is exceedingly rare in that neighborhood.

    • Turkey vows ‘harsh reaction’ as missiles hit Syria town

      Turkey warned Kurdish militia fighters in northern Syria on Monday they would face the “harshest reaction” if they tried to capture a town near the Turkish border, and accused Russia of a missile attack there that killed at least 14 civilians.

      A major offensive supported by Russian bombing and Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias has brought the Syrian army to within 25 km (15 miles) of Turkey’s border. The Kurdish YPG militia has exploited the situation, seizing ground from Syrian rebels to extend its presence along the frontier.

      At least 14 civilians were killed in the Syrian town of Azaz, the last rebel stronghold before the border with Turkey, when missiles hit a children’s hospital and a school sheltering refugees fleeing the Syrian army offensive, a medic and two residents said.

      Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said a Russian missile had hit the buildings and that many civilians including children had been killed.

      Turkey shelled YPG positions for a third day to try to stop its fighters seizing Azaz, just 8 km (5 miles) from the border. Ankara fears the Kurdish militia, backed by Russia, is trying to secure the last stretch of around 100 km (60 miles) along the Syrian border not already under its control.

      “We will not allow Azaz to fall,” Davutoglu told reporters on his plane on the way to Ukraine, adding YPG fighters would already have taken Azaz and Tal Rifaat further south had it not been for Turkish artillery firing at them over the weekend.

      “If they approach again they will see the harshest reaction,” he said.

      The standoff has increased the risk of direct confrontation between Russia and NATO member Turkey.

      Turkey is enraged by the expansion of Kurdish influence in northern Syria, fearing it will encourage separatist ambitions among its own Kurds. It considers the YPG a terrorist group.

      Davutoglu said Turkey would make the Menagh air base north of the city of Aleppo “unusable” if the YPG, which seized it over the weekend from Syrian insurgents, did not withdraw. He warned the YPG not to move east of the Afrin region or west of the Euphrates River, long a “red line” for Ankara.

      HOSPITALS HIT

      Syria’s rebels, some backed by the United States, Turkey and their allies, say the YPG is fighting with the Syrian military and its backers, including Russia, against them in the five-year-old civil war. The YPG denies this.

      South of Azaz, the Kurdish-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance, of which the YPG is a member, took around 70 percent of the town of Tal Rifaat, according to the Syrian Observatory, which monitors the war.

      Major powers agreed in Munich on Friday to a cessation of hostilities in Syria, but the deal does not take effect until the end of this week and was not signed by any warring parties.

      At a press conference in Kiev, Davutoglu doubted Russia’s commitment to any such deal, pointing to comments from Moscow that it would continue its air strikes regardless. Russia, Davutoglu said, had a clear objective:

      “They want to have just two options in front of the international community: Daesh or Assad,” he said, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

      Tens of thousands have fled to Azaz from towns and villages where there is heavy fighting between the Syrian army and militias.

      “We have been moving scores of screaming children from the hospital,” said medic Juma Rahal, following the missile strikes. At least two children were killed and ambulances ferried scores of injured people to Turkey for treatment, he said.

      French charity Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) meanwhile said seven people were killed and at least eight staff were missing after missiles hit a hospital in the province of Idlib, west of Aleppo, in a separate incident.

      “The author of the strike is clearly … either the government or Russia,” MSF president Mego Terzian said.

      Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said Russian air strikes were targeting Islamic State infrastructure and she had no reason to believe that Russian planes had bombed civilian sites in Idlib.

      “We are confident that (there is) no way could it be done by our defense forces. This contradicts our ideology,” she said in Geneva.

      Syria’s ambassador to Russia meanwhile said U.S. war planes were responsible.

      “Concerning the hospital which was destroyed, in actual fact it was destroyed by the American Air Force. The Russian Air Force has nothing to do it with,” Ambassador Riad Haddad told Rossiya 24 television.

      GROUND INCURSION NOT PLANNED

      Ankara views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a 31-year-old insurgency for autonomy in southeast Turkey. But Washington, which does not see the YPG as terrorists, supports the group in the fight against Islamic State in Syria.

      That has left Turkey dangerously exposed, unable to count on the support of its NATO allies as it campaigns against the YPG, but also threatened by Islamic State fighters, as well as Syrian government forces and their backers including Russia.

      Turkish financial markets were weaker on Monday on fears about the situation on the border, with the lira underperforming emerging markets currencies, its dollar bonds selling off heavily, and its default insurance costs rising.

      Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz denied a report that some Turkish soldiers had entered Syria at the weekend and said Ankara was not considering sending troops there, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.

      The Syrian government had said Turkish forces were believed to be among 100 gunmen who entered Syria on Saturday.

      Yilmaz also denied reports that Saudi Arabian aircraft had already arrived at Turkey’s Incirlik air base to join the fight against Islamic State, but said a decision had been reached for Saudi to send four F-16 jets.

      http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-turkey-idUSKCN0VO0H2

      • Turkey: Davutoglu threatens retaliation against Kurds in Azaz, Syria

        Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu threatened Kurdish YPG fighters from Ankara, Monday, warning them that they would face the “harshest reaction” if they attempted to approach the northern Syrian town of Azaz.

        SOT, Ahmet Davutoglu, Prime Minister of Turkey (Turkish): “It doesn’t make sense [for the PYD – Kurdish Democratic Union Party] to say ‘we won’t take steps backward.’ They took steps backwards. Right now, the YPG units have been removed from the areas of Azaz. If they come closer to Azaz, they would see the harshest reaction. We won’t let Azaz fall. The entire world should know this. Regarding the airport, we won’t let this airport be used against Turkey or against the moderate opposition. If they [the YPG] don’t withdraw their forces, this airport will be rendered unusable.”

    • U.S. condemns deadly Syrian air strikes against civilian targets

      WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Monday condemned air strikes conducted by the Syrian government and its supporters against civilian targets in northern Syria, including several hospitals.

      U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said continuation of the attacks “flies in the face of the unanimous calls by the ISSG (International Syria Support Group), including in Munich, to avoid attacks on civilians, and casts doubt on Russia’s willingness and/or ability to help bring to a stop the continued brutality of the Assad regime against its own people.”

      The State Department reiterated its call for all parties to end attacks against civilians and to allow humanitarian relief supplies to reach the people who need them.

      http://news.yahoo.com/u-condemns-deadly-syrian-air-strikes-against-civilian-183824485.html

      State Department condemns airstrikes in northern Syria

      The State Department is condemning airstrikes in northern Syria that hit civilian targets including a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders.

      “That the Assad regime and its supporters would continue these attacks, without cause and without sufficient regard for international obligations to safeguard innocent lives, flies in the face of the unanimous calls by the ISSG, including in Munich, to avoid attacks on civilians and casts doubt on Russia’s willingness and/or ability to help bring to a stop the continued brutality of the Assad regime against its own people,” spokesman John Kirby said in a statement Monday afternoon.

      At least 23 people were killed on Monday when missiles hit hospitals and a school in rebel-held towns, residents told Reuters.

      “We have been moving scores of screaming children from the hospital,” a medic told the news service.

      Doctors Without Borders said at least seven people were killed and eight people are missing and presumed dead when four missiles destroyed a hospital it supports in Ma’arat Al Numan, Idlib Province.

      “We call again on all parties to cease attacks on civilians and take immediate steps to grant humanitarian access and the cessation of hostilities that the Syrian people desperately need,” Kirby added.

      http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/269478-state-department-condemns-airstrikes-in-northern-syria

    • Turkey: Army howitzers rain shells on Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria

      Turkish Army howitzers at the Akcabar Military Base near Kilis shelled the positions of Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) fighters located just across the border in Syria, Monday. Ankara has said the shells were fired in retaliation for an attack on a border security outpost earlier in the day.

      The Turkish Army has reportedly trained fire on fighters of the PYD’s People’s Protection Units (YPG) since Friday, with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu stating that Ankara will not let the northern Syrian town of Azaz fall to Kurdish forces. He has also said that Turkish shells would disable the nearby Menagh air base, if it looked like falling into Kurdish hands.

      At least 29 YPG militants have reportedly been killed since the bombardments began three days ago.

    • Belgium: All hostilities to stop except against ISIS and al-Nusra – Mogherini

      High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini stated that all sides in the Syrian conflict have agreed to the “cessation of hostilities against all targets that are not Daesh or al-Nusra,” during a press conference in Brussels, Monday, ahead of an assembly of the European Council.

      Mogherini stressed the importance of protecting civilians on the ground and guaranteeing “security and protection to medical facilities, the work of the NGO’s on the ground and humanitarian delivery,” adding that Monday’s shelling against a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) affiliated hospital in Syria, which resulted in dozens of casualties, was “completely unacceptable.”

    • RT -Syrian army advances into Raqqa in major anti-ISIS assault

      Syrian army units and paramilitary forces are reportedly moving into Raqqa province, seizing strategically important areas along the Salamiyah-Raqqa road which leads directly into the Islamic State stronghold.

      On Sunday, Syrian government forces and Palestinian armed militia captured the strategically important Tal Masbah hilltop, the last entrenched Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS/ISIL) position.

      The fortified position guarded approaches to the Salamiyah-Raqqa highway, leading to the terror group’s stronghold in the city of Raqqa, Al-Masdar news outlet reported, citing a military source.

      Later that day, the Syrian government army launched a massive assault on the village of Zakiyah and seized an important crossroads near the village, cutting IS’s major supply route from Raqqa to nearby Hama province.

      The Syrian government army’s 555th Brigade, 4th Mechanized Division, “Desert Hawks” brigade and Golani regiment, as well as the pro-government Palestinian Liwaa Al-Quds militia (Jerusalem brigade) took part in both ground offensives.

      A source in the 555th brigade told Al-Masdar that IS militants entrenched at Tal Masbah hilltop were forced to flee northeast towards the desert on the Raqqa-Hama border, where an intense battle between the terror group and government forces is taking place.

      The Syrian government army is also set to retake the key Tabaqah military airbase in southwest Raqqa province, which was captured by IS in August 2014.

      “This is an indication of the direction of coming operations toward Raqqa,” a military source briefed on the battle told Reuters. “In general, the Raqqa front is open … starting in the direction of the Tabqa area.”

      The advance into IS-held Raqqa province would allow Damascus to regain control over a region where Syrian government forces have had no presence since 2014. It would also complicate any move by Saudi Arabia to deploy forces to the area.

      Previous media reports indicate that Saudi Arabia is considering a full-scale ground invasion into war-torn Syria, where they are backing anti-government rebels battling Syrian President Bashar Assad.

      Riyadh has also been threatening that Assad will be toppled if he does not leave during a period of political transition. “Bashar al-Assad will leave – have no doubt about it. He will either leave by a political process or he will be removed by force,” Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told CNN.

      The possible Saudi intervention as well as recent Turkish artillery shelling of Kurdish and Syrian army positions came amid a successful anti-IS offensive by government forces in Aleppo, another important region.

      https://www.rt.com/news/332462-syrian-army-offensive-raqqa/
      ===================================================
      video RT – Kurds – Aleppo -Syria –

    • REUTERS – Syria’s Assad doesn’t see ceasefire possible within a week

      Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Monday any ceasefire did not mean each side had to stop using weapons, and nobody was capable of securing the conditions for one within a week.

      “Regarding a ceasefire, a halt to operations, if it happened, it doesn’t mean that each party will stop using weapons,” Assad said in Damascus in televised comments.

      “A ceasefire means in the first place halting the terrorists from strengthening their positions. Movement of weapons, equipment or terrorists, or fortification of positions, will not be allowed,” he said.

      World powers agreed in Munich on Friday to a “cessation of hostilities”, scheduled to start a week later, but Syrian army offensives across the country, backed by Russian air strikes, continue unabated.

      He said that there were many questions before a ceasefire could happen, including defining who is a terrorist, adding that as far as the state is concerned, anyone who carried a weapon against it was a terrorist.

      “There can’t be a ceasefire without a goal or a time. So far they say they want a ceasefire within a week. Who is capable of gathering all these conditions and requirements within a week? Nobody,” Assad said.

      “Who will talk to the terrorists? If a terrorist group rejects the ceasefire, who will hold it to account?”

      If the terms of ceasefire are agreed, operations must be stopped with the aim of improving the security situation in order to reach local reconciliation agreements with rebels, he said.

      Local reconciliation agreements are widely seen as a way for the state to pacify areas on its terms.

      Assad also said that any political transition in the country must be subject to the existing Syrian constitution.

      “Any transitional process, regardless of what it is, must be subject to the current constitution,” he said, adding the suggestion of having “a transitional governing body” was a departure from the constitution.

      “We can only stop working with the current constitution if we agree, in dialogue, to a new one that the Syrians vote on,” he said.

      http://in.reuters.com/article/mideast-crisis-syria-assad-idINKCN0VO2AN

  2. Dentist with links to al Qaeda, Safoora attackers arrested in Karachi (tribune, Feb 15, 2016)
    http://tribune.com.pk/story/1047106/fund-raiser-and-collaborator-dentist-linked-to-al-qaeda-arrested-in-karachi/

    “Law enforcement agencies claimed to have arrested another highly educated professional in Karachi on Sunday for his alleged connections with the terrorists involved in the Safoora massacre.

    The suspect was said to have been working for al Qaeda since 2008 and was also good friends with Saad Aziz, the alleged mastermind of the brazen attack on the Ismaili Muslim community in May last year.

    Police said Dr Usman Ali Khan was arrested after a shootout near the Shalimar bus stand in Saddar. The Preedy police launched the raid after a tip-off about his presence.

    A Kalashnikov was seized from the suspect, who was shifted to the Preedy police station. Dr Usman is a dentist and runs a clinic in the Ayesha Manzil neighbourhood, police said.

    Preedy SHO Kamal Naseem said Dr Usman was associated with al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and had links with the main outfit since 2008. “He also enjoyed good relations with the Saad Aziz group of militants,” he added.

    The officer said the dentist used to generate funds for al Qaeda and also gave shelter to militants of the globally proscribed organisation. “He is a resident of Federal B Area and runs his dental clinic near Ayesha Manzil where many militants visited him as well,” he added.

    Apart from Saad and his three close accomplices involved in the Safoora carnage, the counter-terrorism police have also detained several well-educated suspects. Those arrested include Adil Masood Butt, the vice-chancellor of a private college and university; and Khalid Yousuf Bari, a former engineer at the national airline.

    Three others rounded up for their involvement – Saleem Ahmed, Suleman Saeed and Sheeba Ahmed – have been freed. While Bari is imprisoned, Butt is still on his 90-day preventive custody with police unable to bring concrete evidence against both.”

  3. 56 geo-tagged seminaries suspected of terrorist links (tribune, Feb 15, 2016)
    http://tribune.com.pk/story/1047029/national-action-plan-56-geo-tagged-seminaries-suspected-of-terrorist-links/

    “As many as 56 of the 13,849 religious seminaries geo-tagged by the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) have been put in Category A for their suspected links with banned organistions, The Express Tribune has learnt.

    Documents available with The Tribune show that most of these seminaries identify themselves with the Deobandi sect.

    A Home Department official said that updated information on seminaries across the province was now available to the authorities concerned. “We have information about their sectarian affiliation and number of students and teachers at each facility,” he said….”

    • Report: Interactive Map Shows Radical Mosques Across U.S.
      But pointing that out would be “racist.”

      While French and Belgian officials are calling for the “dissolution” of all radical mosques in their countries, respectively, the Obama administration has remained deafeningly silent concerning the nearly 100 U.S.-based mosques currently known to be hotbeds of Islamic extremism.

      A report in the Daily Caller provides an interactive map (a screenshot of which is posted above) showing just where these 83 radical mosques are located in the U.S. The data was provided by the Clarion Project, a non-profit dedicated to documenting and exposing Islamic extremism.

      http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/report-interactive-map-shows-radical-mosques-across-us

  4. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3447174/Two-tourists-walking-Golden-Gate-Bridge-struck-mysterious-five-inch-blow-darts-punctured-mans-leg-jeans.html

    This story should be watched, as it could be a new terrorist tactic. Two tourists on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge were struck by blow darts. Meanwhile, in Southern California, hundreds of miles from San Francisco in Northern California, birds have been shot with blow darts. It seems connected, and if so, it’s unlikely some random mean teenager did this travelling just to play with darts.

    • As far as Allah is concerned, it’s all good. It’s all Jihad. That could be a couple of evil teenagers being idiots, or it could be somebody’s entrance fee into Muslim Paradise. There are probably a million things like that you could think up. Great, eh?

  5. Anti-Migrant Force Builds in Europe, Hurting Merkel’s Quest (abcnews, Feb 15, 2016)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/anti-migrant-force-builds-europe-hurting-merkels-quest-36942421

    “So where should the next impenetrable razor-wire border fence in Europe be built?

    Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban thinks he knows the best place — on Macedonia’s and Bulgaria’s borders with Greece — smack along the main immigration route from the Middle East to Western Europe. He says it’s necessary because “Greece can’t defend Europe from the south” against the large numbers of Muslim refugees pouring in, mainly from Syria and Iraq.

    The plan is especially controversial because it effectively means eliminating Greece from the Schengen zone, Europe’s 26-nation passport-free travel region that is considered one of the European Union’s most cherished achievements.

    Orban’s plan will feature prominently Monday at a meeting in Prague of leaders from four nations in an informal gathering known as the Visegrad group: Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Visegrad group, formed 25 years ago to further the nations’ European integration, is marking that anniversary Monday. Still, it has only recently found a common purpose in its unified opposition to accepting any significant number of migrants.

    This determination has emboldened the group, one of the new mini-blocs emerging lately in Europe due to the continent’s chaotic, inadequate response to its largest migration crisis since World War II. The Visegrad group is also becoming a force that threatens the plans of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who wants to resettle newcomers across the continent while also slowing down the influx.

    “The plan to build a new “European defense line” along the border of Bulgaria and Macedonia with Greece is a major foreign policy initiative for the Visegrad Four and an attempt to re-establish itself as a notable political force within the EU,” said Vit Dostal, an analyst with the Association for International Affairs, a Prague based think tank.

    At Monday’s meeting, leaders from the four nations will be joined by Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov so they can push for the reinforcements along Greece’s northern border. Macedonia began putting up a first fence in November, and is now constructing a second, parallel, fence.

    “If it were up only to us Central Europeans, that region would have been closed off long ago,” Orban said at a press conference recently with Poland’s prime minister. “Not for the first time in history we see that Europe is defenseless from the south … that is where we must ensure the safety of the continent.”

    Poland has indicated a willingness to send dozens of police to Macedonia to secure the border, something to be decided at Monday’s meeting.

    “If the EU is not active, the Visegrad Four have to be,” Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said recently. “We have to find effective ways of protecting the border.”

    The leaders will try to hash out a unified position ahead of an important EU meeting Thursday and Friday in Brussels that will take up both migration and Britain’s efforts to renegotiate a looser union with the EU. The Visegrad countries have also recently united against British attempts to limit the welfare rights of European workers, something that would affect the hundreds of thousands of their citizens who now live and work in Britain.

    The anti-migrant message resonates with the ex-communist EU member states, countries that have benefited greatly from EU subsidies and freedom of movement for their own citizens but which now balk at requests to accept even small numbers of refugees. The Visegrad nations maintain it is impossible to integrate Muslims into their societies, often describing them as security threats. So far the Poles, Czechs and Slovaks have only accepted small numbers, primarily Christians from Syria.

    Many officials in the West are frustrated with what they see as xenophobia and hypocrisy, given that huge numbers of Poles, Hungarians and other Eastern Europeans have received refuge and economic opportunity in the West for decades.

    Indeed there are plenty of signs that the countries are squandering a lot of the good will that they once enjoyed in the West for their sacrifices in throwing off communism and establishing democracies.

    Orban’s ambitions for Europe got a big boost with the rise to power last year in Poland of the right-wing Law and Justice party, which is deeply anti-migrant and sees greater regional cooperation as one of its foreign policy priorities. Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo’s government says it wants to do more to help Syrian refugees at camps in Turkey and elsewhere while blocking their entry into Europe.

    Although Orban is alienating Greek authorities, who are staggering under the sheer numbers of asylum-seekers crossing the sea from Turkey in smugglers’ boars, he insists he must act as a counterweight to Western leaders, whom he accuses of creating the crisis with their welcoming attitude to refugees.

    “The very serious phenomenon endangering the security of everyday life which we call migration did not break into Western Europe violently,” he said. “The doors were opened. And what is more, in certain periods, they deliberately invited and even transported these people into Western Europe without control, filtering or security screening.”

    Dariusz Kalan, an analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, said he doesn’t believe that the Visegrad group on its own can destroy European unity but says Orban’s vision is winning adherents across the continent in far-right movements and even among mainstream political parties.

    “It’s hard to ignore Orban,” Kalan said. “People in Western Europe are starting to adopt the language of Orban. None are equally tough and yet the language is still quite similar.””

    • As if the western European core countries, especially Germany with its industrial might, didn’t do a thorough cost vs profit analysis pre-EU, examining precisely what the return on peripheral, or “captured” central and eastern European markets would yield. The purchase of German goods by European countries has been a bonanza. I doubt altruism had anything to do with inviting in the easterners. They were to be fodder. Where has the altruism for Greece gone? Where is the altruism in the attempted cultural assassination of the V4? The fact that they won’t accept muslims makes them somehow ungrateful to the EU’s largesse? I think not. The maniacs running the EU show cannot tolerate the counterweight of Orban and the other central European leaders. What if Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia etc join the V4? What will Merkel and the rest do in retaliation?

      • Right at the moment economic retaliation, if that group joins the V4 will Austria follow? They have been showing good sense in many of their actions in the recent past.

    • The girl is right. I’m sick of people saying they are “war weary” and “it’s not our fight”. It’s go-time, Baby. ISIS is committing crimes against humanity on a terrifying scale while at the same time creating an actual new country that is obviously meant to be the seat of the New Ottoman Empire – with clear intentions of taking over the world just like Adolf Hitler. ISIS is stage 4 lung cancer. Anybody who is soft on ISIS is holding up a big sign saying, “I AM THE ENEMY, STUPID!”.

      • Consider this the phony war period of this war, it has lasted longer then the phony war period at the beginning of WWII and the western nations didn’t disarm during that period but it is the closest parallel in recent history that I can find.

      • Your preaching to the choir Chris,
        spread information such as this far and wide to all your contacts.
        Knowlege is power.

  6. MIGRANT WARNING: Child refugees could become ‘attackers of tomorrow’, politician claims

    A TOP politician has claimed the thousands of missing child refugees in Germany could pursue a life of crime.

    Joachim Herrmann warned the youngsters could turn to crime if Germany does not “rapidly integrate” them into society.

    He told a newspaper the “new attackers of tomorrow could soon come from the group of young refugees”.

    Mr Herrmann, Bavaria’s Interior Minister, made the comments after a series of shocking thefts and sex attacks by migrant gangs across the country.

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/644130/Joachim-Herrmann-Germany-Cologne-sex-attacks-refugee-crisis

    • How many of the missing “children” are really children and how many are adults claiming to be younger to ensure they are allowed to stay?

  7. Anti-migrant force builds in Europe, hurting Merkel’s quest

    WARSAW, Poland (AP) — So where should the next impenetrable razor-wire border fence in Europe be built?

    Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban thinks he knows the best place – on Macedonia’s and Bulgaria’s borders with Greece – smack along the main immigration route from the Middle East to Western Europe. He says it’s necessary because “Greece can’t defend Europe from the south” against the large numbers of refugees pouring in, mainly from Syria and Iraq.

    The plan is especially controversial because it effectively means eliminating Greece from the Schengen zone, Europe’s 26-nation passport-free travel region that is considered one of the European Union’s most cherished achievements.

    Orban’s plan will feature prominently Monday at a meeting in Prague of leaders from four nations in an informal gathering known as the Visegrad group: Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Visegrad group, formed 25 years ago to further the nations’ European integration, is marking that anniversary Monday. Still, it has only recently found a common purpose in its unified opposition to accepting any significant number of migrants.

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_CENTRAL_EUROPE_MIGRANTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-02-15-07-41-13

  8. EU steel workers protest against cheap Chinese imports

    BRUSSELS (AP) — Steel company managers joined thousands of their employees from across the European Union to protest Monday against the import of cheap Chinese products and to warn the 28-nation bloc not to open the doors further to Beijing.

    The European steel industry is accusing China of illegal export subsidies and selling products below production cost, all of which contributes to the crisis in the European steel sector.

    With whistles and firecrackers, the workers ringed some of the EU institutions to push their demands to keep Chinese steel at bay. The industry argued that if the EU recognizes China as a market economy, a status that would allow for even more imports, it would cost tens of thousands of jobs.

    “Everybody understands that there is a high need to act,” said Geert Van Poelvoorde, president of the Eurofer industry group, which was behind the march.

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_EUROPE_CHINA_STEEL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-02-15-08-20-24

  9. Why negative interest rates herald new danger for the world
    Negative rates are becoming the “new abnormal” in a shaky world economy. But with fresh panic hitting markets, are we finally hitting the limits of what monetary policy can achieve? Click on the countries to find out

    The world’s tentative experiment with negative interest rates got off to an unremarkable start.

    Sweden’s Riksbank – the world’s oldest central bank – became the first major monetary authority to cross the rubicon and take its main policy rate into the red exactly a year ago to the month.

    The Riksbank’s move followed the like of Switzerland and Denmark, who had turned negative in a bid to stimulate flagging inflation and halt the punishing appreciation of their currencies.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/12149894/Mapped-Why-negative-interest-rates-herald-new-danger-for-the-world.html

    • It’s a war on cash disguised as monetary policy. If you have to pay to deposit there’s a better chance you’ll spend it. All steps toward eliminating cash altogether in favor of full control digital currencies.

      • I don’t see full digital ever happening, after all how can you bribe someone with a plastic card that leaves a record of the transaction? Even the dumbest politician will end up figuring this one out.

  10. Arab states are seeking nuclear weapons to counter Iran, Israel warns
    Defence minister Moshe Ya’alon says his country is seeing signs of a much-feared nuclear arms race in the Middle East

    Israel has picked up signs of the beginning of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East as Arab states seek nuclear weapons to counter Iran, the Israeli defence minister has warned.

    Moshe Ya’alon said Sunni Arab nations were not reassured by last year’s nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers and were making their own preparations for nuclear weapons.

    “We see signs that countries in the Arab world are preparing to acquire nuclear weapons, that they are not willing to sit quietly with Iran on brink of a nuclear or atomic bomb,” Mr Ya’alon said.

    The defence minister gave no evidence to back up his claims but Israel closely monitors the military activities of its Arab neighbours.

    Israel and the Sunni Gulf countries do not have diplomatic ties but are known to talk through back channels and are united in their opposition to Iran.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/12156598/Arab-states-are-seeking-nuclear-weapons-to-counter-Iran-Israel-warns.html

  11. Saudi Arabia launches military exercise with 20 nations

    (CNN)Saudi Arabia launched a massive military exercise that will include troops from 20 nations, state media reported Monday.

    The drill, dubbed North Thunder, involves Arab and Muslim countries, according to the Saudi Press Agency. It’s taking place in King Khalid Military City in northeastern Saudi Arabia.

    The news agency did not provide much information on what the exercise entails but called it “the largest in the region’s history.” The agency said it will involve air, sea and land forces.

    http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/15/middleeast/saudi-arabia-military-exercises/index.html

  12. North Korea’s Kim orders more rocket launches

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has praised scientists involved in the country’s recent rocket launch that he said struck a “telling blow” to enemies and ordered them to press ahead with more launches, state media reported Monday.

    Earlier this month, North Korea ignored repeated international warnings and launched what it said was an Earth observation satellite aboard a rocket. Washington, Seoul and other view the launch as a prohibited test of missile technology and are pushing hard to have Pyongyang slapped with strong sanctions.

    The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said the ruling Workers’ Party on Saturday gave a banquet in honor of scientists, officials and others who it said contributed to the Feb. 7 rocket launch. Kim and his top deputies were present.

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_KOREAS_TENSION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-02-14-21-55-12

    • Remember a few years ago when North Korea and Iran kept drawing attention to one to let the other do something in relative secrecy? This smells like they are starting to do this again.

    • The left wing millionaires are now paying the price for backing the politicians that keep talking class warfare, their big contributors are now having to hire house hold troops to keep themselves and their families safe.

  13. Stress and the City: Britain’s bank workers buckle under pressure

    LONDON (Reuters) – Dwindling job security, heavier workloads, regulatory upheaval and the poor public image of the banking sector are taking a toll on the mental health of Britain’s bank workers.

    Eight years after the global financial crisis, stress in the industry has pushed up demand for insurance to protect revenues against the cost of paying staff too sick to work, insurance data show.

    https://ca.news.yahoo.com/stress-city-britains-bank-workers-buckle-under-pressure-070936042.html

  14. Turkey vows ‘harsh reaction’ if Kurds try to take Syrian town

    KIEV/ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey will not allow the northern Syrian town of Azaz to fall into the hands of a Kurdish militia and its fighters will face the “harshest reaction” if they approach it again, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Monday.

    A major offensive supported by Russian bombing and Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias has brought the Syrian army to within 25 km (15 miles) of the Turkish border. The Kurdish YPG militia has exploited the situation, seizing ground from Syrian rebels to extend its presence along the Turkish border.

    Turkey is infuriated by the expansion of Kurdish influence in northern Syria, fearing it will encourage separatist ambitions among its own Kurds. The YPG, which Ankara considers to be a terrorist group, controls nearly all of Syria’s frontier with Turkey.

    Speaking to reporters on his plane en route to Ukraine, Davutoglu said YPG fighters would have taken control of rebel-held Azaz and the town of Tal Rifaat further south had it not been for Turkish artillery firing at them over the weekend.

    http://www.oann.com/turkey-denies-soldiers-entered-syria-says-has-no-such-plans/

  15. Samples confirm Islamic State used mustard gas in Iraq – diplomat

    AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Islamic State militants attacked Kurdish forces in Iraq with mustard gas last year, the first known use of chemical weapons in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a diplomat said, based on tests by the global chemical weapons watchdog.

    A source at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) confirmed that laboratory tests had come back positive for the sulfur mustard, after around 35 Kurdish troops were sickened on the battlefield last August.

    The OPCW will not identify who used the chemical agent. But the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity because the findings have not yet been released, said the result confirmed that chemical weapons had been used by Islamic State fighters.

    The samples were taken after the soldiers became ill during fighting against Islamic State militants southwest of Erbil, capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.

    The OPCW already concluded in October that mustard gas was used last year in neighboring Syria. Islamic State has declared a “caliphate” in territory it controls in both Iraq and Syria and does not recognize the frontier.

    http://www.oann.com/exclusive-samples-confirm-islamic-state-used-mustard-gas-in-iraq-diplomat/

  16. China urges United States, North Korea to hold direct talks

    BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s foreign ministry on Monday urged the United States and North Korea to sit down with each other face-to-face and resolve their problems, as tension continues to climb on the Korean peninsula after North Korea’s latest rocket test.

    While China was angered by the launch, it has also expressed concern at plans by Washington and Seoul to deploy an advanced U.S. missile defense system, saying it would impact upon China’s own security.

    “The focus of the nuclear issue on the peninsula is between the United States and North Korea,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news briefing.

    “We urge the United States and North Korea to sit down and have communications and negotiations, to explore ways to resolve each other’s reasonable concerns and finally reach the goal we all want reached.”

    North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Feb. 7 carrying what it called a satellite, drawing renewed international condemnation just weeks after it carried out a nuclear bomb test.

    It said the launch was for peaceful purposes, but Seoul and Washington have said it violated United Nations Security Council resolutions because it used ballistic missile technology.

    North Korea’s nuclear bomb test last month was also banned by a U.N. resolution.

    http://www.oann.com/china-urges-united-states-north-korea-to-hold-direct-talks/

  17. In Syrian war, a bigger role for Russian strategists

    BEIRUT (Reuters) – While Russian fighter planes pound rebel positions on the battlefield in Syria, Russian military strategists are playing a far more subtle role in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

    Several sources – on both sides of the battle lines – have told Reuters in interviews conducted over the past two months that Russian advisers have been involved in drawing up plans to secure Damascus, Assad’s seat of power.

    Those interviewed by Reuters, including non-Syrian military officials fighting alongside Assad’s forces, said Russia’s plans to buttress Damascus involve weakening rebel forces in the south of the country between the capital and Jordan. The aim is to reduce the rebels’ chances of launching a major offensive.

    The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to written questions for this article. Russia has said it has no ground troops in Syria beyond those protecting its bases. Russia does concede it has trainers and advisers on the ground, but only in an educational and advisory capacity.Russia’s influence in military planning is already evident, rebel fighters and the non-Syrian military officials say.

    They say Russian experts played a major role in a Syrian army offensive at the turn of the year in the western coastal province of Latakia, home to the Alawite population of which Assad is part.

    http://www.oann.com/in-syrian-war-a-bigger-role-for-russian-strategists/

  18. ISLAMIC SOCIETY OF BALTIMORE (ISB)

    The Islamic Society of Baltimore (ISB) was established in 1969 by a handful of Muslim families who held weekly meetings and Friday prayers at Johns Hopkins University. As their faith community grew in size over the years, so did their need for a larger facility. In 1982, ISB purchased an eight-acre lot at its current location and promptly built the Masjid Al-Rahmah mosque. Today ISB is Maryland’s largest Islamic facility, administering also a full-time K-12 school, a Quran Academy, a health clinic, a nursery, a Sunday school, a youth group, and an interfaith group. Belonging to a network of mosques controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), ISB aspires “to be the anchor of a growing Muslim community with diverse backgrounds, democratically governed, relating to one another with inclusiveness and tolerance, and interacting with neighbors in an Islamic exemplary manner.”

    An archived Internet action alert that ISB posted a number of years ago regarding the protracted Chechen War against Russia, lauded “the Mujahidin [jihadists] in Chechnya” for their ability “to defend themselves” and to pose “a formidable threat to [the] heavily armed Russian Army.” Emphasizing that “it is … our responsibility as Muslims all over the world to help them in their Jihad effort,” the communique solicited donations “to help the Refugees and Mujahidin in their struggle.” Meanwhile, a page on ISB’s archived “Official English Site” linked to a “Jihad in Chechnya” feature on the website of Azzam Publications, an al Qaeda-affiliated site that was: (a) named in honor of Osama bin Laden’s mentor, Abdullah Azzam, and (b) renowned for its fervent support of jihad and “martyrdom” operations. Still another archived ISB web page provided a link to the homepage of Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi.

    Shortly after 9/11, ISB hosted a number of guest speakers who later went on to become prominent advocates of, and recruiters for, Islamic jihad, including the American-born al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

    http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7891

  19. Ohio Machete Assailant Was Known to FBI
    Police have identified the suspect as Mohammed Barry, 30, who had been investigated for radical views by the FBI four years ago

    Police officers say they identified the man who carried out a machete attack in Ohio as 30 year old Mohamed Barry. Barry attacked four people with a machete in a restaurant in Columbus Ohio then fled the scene in a car February 10.

    He was shot and killed after police officers gave chase. After they forced him from his vehicle, Barry tried to stab one of the officers with the machete and was shot twice.

    http://www.clarionproject.org/news/ohio-machete-assailant-was-known-fbi

  20. Report: Iran Executes a Child for Cheering a Saudi Soccer Team
    Arab media reports Iran executed a boy from the southwestern city of Ahvaz for cheering a Saudi football team and wearing Arab clothes.

    Iran executed a child for cheering a Saudi soccer team at a match in Tehran, according to Arabic media reports. The Ahvazi child, Yasser Shalibawi, was charged with cheering for the visiting Al-Hilal soccer team at a match in Tehran and wearing Arab clothes.

    He also allegedly held up a sign saying “The Arabic Al-Hilal: Welcome to the Land of the Arabic Al-Ahvaz.’

    http://www.clarionproject.org/news/report-iran-executes-child-cheering-saudi-soccer-team

  21. Sweden: Man Shot During Pro-Kurdish Demonstration In Fittja

    A man was shot and critically injured at a pro-Kurdish rally in a Stockholm suburb at the weekend, police said on Sunday.

    Organisers of the event said the incident in the suburb of Fittja on Saturday had a “political motive” but did not elaborate.

    Police spokeswoman Ewa Nilsson told AFP the victim was in critical condition, adding that the assailant fled by car and was still at large.

    Local media reported that the victim, described by the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper as a 52-year-old Kurdish man, was in a minibus covered in Kurdish flags that was following the march when he was shot.

    “This is a direct attack against the protesters, against the Kurds,” one of the rally organisers was quoted as saying by Swedish news agency TT.

    There are about 170,000 Kurds in Sweden, which has a total population of 9.8 million.

    http://www.france24.com/en/20160214-man-shot-sweden-pro-kurdish-rally

  22. Conservative says Muslim Migration West is a Planned Invasion to Destroy Western Christendom!

    “This clearly is an invasion. This is a planned invasion, not only in Europe but also in the United States. I believe for the specific purpose of destroying Western Christendom.” — Former Rep. Michele Bachmann

    Former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is making waves (again), for her vociferous stand against the Muslim wave of migrants heading West from the Middle East and Africa. While Bachmann’s stance against Muslim immigration has been known for some time, her latest condemnation made some specific and surprising arguments – namely, that the migration was a “planned invasion” for the “specific purpose of destroying Western Christendom.”

    The former Congresswoman made the comments during a radio interview with Jan Markell’s Understanding the Times.

    “We saw this mass migration, this people movement, which is a historic people movement of Muslims from Islamic nations tending to be the most radicalized nations. From those nations into nations that are known as Western Christendom. So, you don’t see this mass migration into Russia, or into China, or into Indonesia. This mass migration is all headed toward Western Christendom…

    “This clearly is an invasion. This is a planned invasion, not only in Europe but also in the United States. I believe for the specific purpose of destroying Western Christendom.” — Former Rep. Michele Bachmann

    Former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) is making waves (again), for her vociferous stand against the Muslim wave of migrants heading West from the Middle East and Africa. While Bachmann’s stance against Muslim immigration has been known for some time, her latest condemnation made some specific and surprising arguments – namely, that the migration was a “planned invasion” for the “specific purpose of destroying Western Christendom.”

    The former Congresswoman made the comments during a radio interview with Jan Markell’s Understanding the Times.

    “We saw this mass migration, this people movement, which is a historic people movement of Muslims from Islamic nations tending to be the most radicalized nations. From those nations into nations that are known as Western Christendom. So, you don’t see this mass migration into Russia, or into China, or into Indonesia. This mass migration is all headed toward Western Christendom…

    http://eaglerising.com/30186/conservative-says-muslim-migration-west-is-a-planned-invasion-to-destroy-western-christendom/

    • They are moving into Russia. Too damn many.
      But Russians have been “reverting” to Christianity in a big way, so the migrants might be doing the same dirty business there as well.

  23. Obama Administration Once Again Concedes to Putin in Syria

    Washington has succumbed to another diplomatic mirage: the Russian promise of a limited pause in the intensifying war in Syria.

    Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that they had agreed to an arrangement to “accelerate and expand” deliveries of humanitarian aid to starving civilians in besieged areas, to be followed by a partial “cessation of hostilities” within a week.

    The agreement falls far short of an actual ceasefire, in part because it does not include the main belligerents: the Syrian regime and opposition forces.

    The cosmetic arrangement gives the illusion of “doing something” to ease the mounting humanitarian catastrophe in Syria. But it only marginally addresses the symptoms of Syria’s bloody conflict, while ignoring one of the root causes: the brutal repression meted out by Bashir Assad’s dictatorship, strongly supported by Russia and Iran.

    http://dailysignal.com/2016/02/12/obama-administration-once-again-concedes-to-putin-in-syria/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRovsqrJZKXonjHpfsX56ugrW6G0lMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4AScJlNq%2BTFAwTG5toziV8R7jHKM1t0sEQWBHm

    • The author very much supports the efforts to remove Assad, he is ignoring the massive war crimes of the opponents of Assad and how the country was peaceful with on of the best human rights records in that region prior to Obama deciding that Assad has to go.

  24. Notes After New Hampshire

    image: http://jewishworldreview.com/0212/steyn_new.jpg
    Mark Steyn
    By Mark Steyn

    Read more at http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0216/steyn021516.php3#oIXVt4efMCFmd1gY.99

    According to exit polls, in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, two out of three GOP voters favor Trump’s proposed temporary ban on all Muslim immigration – despite the universal reaction from the massed ranks of the politico-media class that this time he’d really gone too far. In other words, as I said all those months ago, it’s the old Broadway saw: Nobody likes it but the public.

    The only reason any pollster is even asking this question is because Donald Trump proposed it. As those numbers suggest, any of Trump’s rivals could have helped themselves by “stealing his issue”. And yet no other candidate has gone anywhere near it – or anything like it. Perhaps one reason why American elections have the lowest voter participation rate of almost any developed nation is because the political class mostly seems to be talking about its own peculiar preoccupations. Consider this astute observation by Steve Sailer:

    American citizens have turned in large numbers to old-white-guy candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. For all their differences, both give the impression that they are running for president of the United States, not president of Davos.

    I live in northern New Hampshire, where every town that isn’t a ski resort is dead. They were pleasant, sleepy places in genteel decline 20 years ago. Now they’re hollowed out by heroin and meth, and offering no economic opportunity beyond casual shifts at the KwikkiKrap. And when you listen to the Dems they’re worried about micro-aggressions and transphobia and when you listen to Congressional Republicans they’re talking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The two-party one-party state has nothing to say to tens of millions of Americans.

    Trump won because he put real-world issues on the table. Nobody needs to be told that he “isn’t a real Republican”. That’s the point of Trump. The Republican base loathes the Republican leadership far more than they love the vessel they’ve chosen to express their loathing.

    Read more at http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0216/steyn021516.php3#oIXVt4efMCFmd1gY.99

      • DNC Chair: Superdelegates Exist To Protect Party Leaders From Grassroots Competition

        Socialist Bernie Sanders thumped Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire winning the popular vote by 22 percent. But, unfortunately for the Democrat voters, New Hampshire superdelegates don’t have to answer to the voters and they’re going with Hillary. Hillary left the Granite State with 15 delegates. Bernie Sanders left the state with 13 delegates. Feel the Bern. This week DNC chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz told CNN the superdelegates exist to protect the party elites from grassroots competition. How Democratic. — Wasserman Schultz: Superdelegates “exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists.”

  25. [...the mother was depressed because her husband left her to wage jihad in Syria ]

    BRUSSELS – The child was strangled and had his throat cut by his mother

    The child found dead in Schaerbeek on Sunday morning on the corner of rue Van Hammée and avenue Paul Deschanel was strangled and had his throat cut by his mother.
    He was killed at around 4am on Saturday, the Brussels Prosecutor’s office told the Belga agency. The mother confessed when questioned by police.

    Police first contacted the family, made up of a 37 year old mother and her two sons aged 11 and 8, early on Saturday. They were at their home in rue Van Hove, in Schaerbeek. But they didn’t notice anything strange.

    At around 4am that night, the mother, who suffers from psychological problems, had a breakdown and attacked her younger son, aged 8. The mother strangled the child and cut his throat. She then transported the body in a suitcase, and dumped it in a park near her home, between rue Van Hammée and avenue Paul Deschanel.

    The landlord of the property called in on Saturday, and noticed the boy wasn’t there. He immediately contacted police.

    The mother was questioned by police over Saturday night and Sunday. She confessed, and told them where the child’s body was. She said the crime was due to a breakdown.

    The older son, aged 11, was looked after by a youth judge.

    The children’s father left for Syria a few years ago, the Prosecutor’s office said.

    A medical examiner, an investigative judge and a team of firefighters went to Schaerbeek on Sunday. They went to where the child’s body had been found earlier that morning, the Belga agency said.

    http://www.brusselstimes.com/rss-feed/5088/the-child-was-strangled-and-had-his-throat-cut-by-his-mother

    http://bx1.be/news/meurtre-dun-enfant-a-schaerbeek-un-drame-familial/

  26. The Utter Depravity and Horror of Communism

    I’m in Cambodia, where I just finished a series of speeches to civic groups on some of my usual topics, in this case tax policy, the recipe for growth, and libertarian principles.

    All that was par for the course.

    What will always stay with me and haunt my thoughts, by contrast, was my visit to the Tuol Sleng camp, which was used as a processing center during the genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge communist dictatorship in the late 1970s.

    The bottom line, as you can see from this sign, is that 14,000-20,000 civilians went through this facility and only about 200 survived.

    Here’s a sign showing the English translation of rules governing camp behavior.

    The sixth rule, which says prisoners could not make noise while being beaten and tortured, seems especially perverse.

    Wow, reads like the rules governing campus anti-free speech tribunals.

    But I shouldn’t joke because so much of this camp contains horrifying memories of communist barbarity.

    http://conservativerepublicannews.com/2016/02/15/the-utter-depravity-and-horror-of-communism/?utm_source=160215CRNDBLCFARGIF3&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=160215CRNDBLCFARGIF3

  27. Isil suspects ‘missed’ Paris terror attacks after their false passports were spotted by border police

    The two men reportedly entered Europe posing as refugees but were held up in Greece when EU officials spotted they were travelling with false passports

    Two suspected Isil terrorists were too late to take part in the Paris terror attacks as they were delayed when border guards in Greece spotted their false passports, it has been claimed.

    The two men reportedly entered Europe posing as refugees but were held up in Greece when EU officials spotted they were travelling with false passports.

    They were later allowed to continue their journey, but were too late to take part in the attacks.

    The claims, in Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper, raise serious questions over the security of Europe’s borders.

    It remains unclear why the two men were allowed to continue their journey despite allegedly being held in Greece for several weeks while their identities were checked.

    The two men, who have not been named, were then arrested at a refugee shelter in Salzburg on December 10, a month after the Paris attacks.

    Austrian police said they were being held on suspicion of links to the Paris attackers and membership of a foreign terrorist organisation, believed to be Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

    At the time, there was speculation the men, reportedly an Algerian and a Pakistani, were planning a new attack in Europe.

    But Bild quoted German intelligence sources as saying they have confessed they were supposed to take part in the November 13 attacks.

    They arrived in Greece together with some of the other Paris attackers posing as asylum-seekers, the newspaper claimed.

    But officials from Frontex, the EU border agency, spotted the two men were arriving with forged passports and held them for further checks.

    While most of the attackers were long-term French and Belgian residents, at least two are believed to have entered Europe posing as Syrian refugees.

    The Austrian authoroities declined to comment on the new claims.

    “The situation remains what we have previously said,” Robert Holzleitner, a spokesman for prosecutors, said.

    “We have no information on this specific case,” Ewa Moncure, a spokesman for Frontex, said.

    “What I can tell you is that if some one arrives in Greece and presents a false document our officials inform the Greek authorities.

    “They can only be held by the Greek authorities and not by Frontex.

    “Only the national authorities have the power to hold them and investigate.”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/12156807/Isil-suspects-missed-Paris-terror-attacks-after-their-false-passports-were-spotted-by-border-police.html

  28. Email-Gate: Did Clinton Knowingly Violate Eight Federal Laws?
    Written by Guest Columnist
    Feb 10, 2016

    4.3k Share Tweet Pin

    James Madison once said: “The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” Clearly, Clinton didn’t get the message.

    Despite bearing the name “Clinton” the former Secretary of State achieved her obscure power through a series of debacles that include presidential runs, her time as a U.S. Senator, and the infidelity of her husband, Bill.

    However, no matter one’s societal status or last name, especially for Hillary in this case, no American citizen is exempt from the rule of law. Even agency executives who handle classified information are not exempt. With that, even though no indictment has been spurred by the probes into Secretary Clinton’s email fiasco, it is definitively likely that she violated federal secrecy laws.

    http://constitution.com/email-gate-did-clinton-knowingly-violate-eight-federal-laws/

  29. A Mini World War Rages in Aleppo, Syria?

    In the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, a battle with global dimensions risks erupting into a wider war. Russian warplanes are bombing. Iraqi and Lebanese militias aided by Iranian advisers are advancing on the ground. An assortment of Syrian rebels backed by the U.S., Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are fighting back. Kurdish forces allied both to Washington and Moscow are extending Kurdish territories. The Islamic State has snatched a couple of small villages while all the focus was on the other groups.?   

    The Aleppo offensive is affirming Moscow’s stature as a dominant regional power. The advances by Shiite Iraqi and Lebanese militias are extending the sway of Iran far beyond the traditional Shiite axis of influence into Sunni areas of northern Syria. Almost all of the advances are being made by Lebanese Hizbullah, the Iraqi Badr Brigade, Harakat al-Nujaba and other Iraqi Shiite militias sponsored by Iran.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/a-mini-world-war-rages-in-the-fields-of-aleppo/2016/02/14/d2dfff02-d340-11e5-a65b-587e721fb231_story.html

  30. Greece: First refugee registration centre completed on island of Chios

    Final preparations were being made at the first identification and registration centre for refugees on the Greek island of Chios, on Monday. The island has become one of the key entry points in the eastern Aegean sea for refugees attempting to reach Europe.

    The registration centre is set to be inaugurated by Defence Minister Panos Kammenos on Tuesday, as part of his tour in the eastern Aegean region.

    Greece has built the new registration centre in an old industrial complex near the village of Halkios. At the present time, the centre has a temporary capacity of up to 600 refugees and migrants able to be registered on a daily basis. This figure is expected to increase to up to 1,200 people per day.

  31. euronews -Germany’s ruling coalition clashes over refugee integration

    Germany’s ruling coalition is clashing over how best to integrate the more than one million refugees the country has welcomed in recent months.

    The centre-right CDU is calling for a six-month initial halt on refugees receiving the minimum wage if they are in an internship. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party claims that if the 8.50 euros an hour payment is lowered, employees will be more likely to offer job opportunities.

  32. Reports of three refugees in Cologne attacks ‘wrong’

    Numbers circulating in English-language media about the number of refugees involved in crimes in Cologne on New Year’s Eve are wrong, Cologne prosecutors say.

    Associated Press, meanwhile, reported Bremer telling them that the majority of suspects were asylum seekers.

    He also said that the overwhelming majority of suspects arrived in Germany in 2015

    http://www.thelocal.de/20160215/reports-of-three-refugees-in-cologne-attacks-wrong

  33. Left Media Migrant Rape Cover-Up: HuffPo, Indy, AND United Nations Claim Cologne Attackers ‘Not Refugees’, German Prosecutor: ‘Total Nonsense’

    Mainstream media outlets have been blasted for peddling “total nonsense” today as left-wing newspapers coalesced to claim with one voice that “only three” of the suspects involved in Cologne’s mass migrant rape on New Year’s Eve were recent migrants or refugees.

    But Cologne’s prosecutor, Ulrich Bremer, has said that the claim is “total nonsense” after an interview with German paper Die Welt this weekend was misinterpreted and reported in a way that the left-wing outlets wanted, rather than what the truth was.

    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/02/15/mass-media-migrant-rape-cover-up-huffpo-indy-metro-rt-claim-cologne-sex-abusers-not-refugees-german-prosecutor-total-nonsense/

  34. Edmonton store owner publicly shamed for denying service to customer in burka

    David Menzies reports on the story of an Edmonton business owner who has become the target of politically correct fanatics after he refused service to a woman wearing a full burka. His store has a “No Facemask” policy but as always when Islam is involved, common sense takes a back seat.