Reader’s links for May 31 – 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.

This way, under the various posts of the day, conversation can take place without as much ‘noise’ on the various links and articles and ideas in the main posts and all the news links being submitted can be seen under these auto-posts by clicking on the comments-link right below these ones.

Thank you all for those that take the effort to assist this site in keeping the public informed. Below, typically people can find the latest enemy propaganda, news items of related materials from multiple countries and languages, op-eds from many excellent sites who write on our topics, geopolitics and immigration issues and so on.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

88 Replies to “Reader’s links for May 31 – 2016”

  1. Religious riots broke out in Pandogari, a town in Rafi Local government area in Niger State over an alleged Facebook post by an Igbo trader, 24-year-old Methodus Chimaije Emmanuel allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
    Emmanuel was lynched on Sunday, May 29, 2016 by a Muslim crowd and the religious riots spread to other parts of the city. Nigerian soldiers and other security agencies moved in to prevent the riots from spreading and imposed a curfew on the town.
    A search on Facebook reveals the only one Methodus Chimaije Emmanuel to be a dormant account, however. Nobody has presented the alleged offending Facebook comment or revealed its contents.

    http://www.nigeriatoday.ng/2016/05/4-people-killed-traders-alleged-facebook-post-blaspheming-prophet-mohammed-sparks-religious-riots-nigeria/

  2. Facebook using people’s phones to listen in on what they’re saying, suggests professor
    The company says that it does use peoples’ microphones, but only to help them out – and there’s an easy way of turning it off

    http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/facebook-using-people-s-phones-to-listen-in-on-what-they-re-saying-claims-professor-a7057526.html

    ‘Cause turning the phone’s microphone off will not make it useless as, you know, a phone!

  3. The judge overseeing the premiere military tribunal at Guantánamo Bay effectively conspired with the prosecution to destroy evidence relevant to defending the accused architect of the 9/11 attacks, according to a scathing court document.

    Army Col James Pohl, who this week at Guantánamo is presiding over a resumption of pretrial hearings in the already troubled case, “in concert with the prosecution, manipulated secret proceedings and the use of secret orders”, the document alleges, preventing Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s defense team from learning Pohl had permitted the Obama administration to destroy the evidence.

    http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/31/9-11-attacks-destroyed-evidence-khalid-sheikh-mohammed

    The Obama administration ordering destruction of evidence? Could not be, could not be….

  4. One of the main legitimate roles of government is the enforcement of property rights: without property rights, a society cannot function because people cannot be assured that any deal reached will be honoured… I know this is poor phrasing, but, without strong property rights, people are too afraid to form a cohesive society.

    Which is why Trudeau the elder made certain that property rights were specifically excluded from the Canadian Constitution…

    But, to the story:

    HERAT, AFGHANISTAN — Amid the city’s swirling winds, construction crews work steadily to create a new downtown strip that, someday, will include high-rise office towers and thousands of new homes.

    That’s bad news for people like Nesar Ahmad Papalzai who have watched the rising property values in their city in western Afghanistan contribute to a chronic problem: land-grabbing.

    The practice — in which acres of private and government land are illegally seized by local strongmen, corrupt officials and other opportunists — contributes to thousands of land disputes in Afghanistan. They in turn undermine President Ashraf Ghani’s efforts to convince Afghans that their country is crawling toward civil stability.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-afghanistan-the-taliban-isnt-the-only-group-battling-for-land/2016/05/30/ae931813-109c-43d4-adca-f5bae69cd061_story.html

  5. RAW: Anti-Erdogan protest in Istanbul turns ugly

    Demonstrators in Istanbul clashed with police on Tuesday evening. Protestors came to Istanbul’s famous shopping street Istiklal road with the aim of marching to Gezi park to mark the third anniversary of the 2013 Gezi protests. However, they were stopped by police before being able to reach Gezi park. Protests began in Turkey in 2013 as a small environmental sit-in against government plans to raise a central Istanbul park and later turned into nationwide demonstrations against Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s perceived authoritarian style.

    • Clashes in Istanbul between police and protesters break out on Gezi anniversary

      Clashes between police and protesters broke out in Istanbul on Tuesday when hundreds of people took to the streets to mark the third anniversary of the Gezi Park protests, despite a heavy police presence.

      More than a dozen activists were detained and a MEE contributor in Istanbul said that small-scale clashes went on into the early evening after opposition groups vowed to defy a police blockade of Taksim Square which neighbours Gezi. However, as evening fell the clashes had all but died out.

      Opposition Huriyet newspaper reported that riot police, plainclothes officers as well riot control vehicles and water cannon were all deployed to the square, with local sources telling MEE that tear gas was also used.

      Police also detained 16 activists at the offices of the city’s architects chamber near the Ottoman-era Yildiz Palace, which had opposed the Gezi Park development and strongly backed the protests, local media reports said.

      Reports said they had failed to obey an eviction order and it was not immediately clear if the detentions were linked to the anniversary.

      #Istanbul chamber of architects members randomly detained on 3rd anniv of #gezi protests. Govt still sore after 3 years. #Geziversary

      — Erkin Özay (@erkinozay) May 31, 2016

      The May-June 2013 Gezi protests began as a grassroots movement to stop plans for the redevelopment of Gezi Park in central Istanbul but snowballed into a wave of nationwide anger against the rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

      The demonstrations eventually fizzled out after a heavy-handed police response, and the security forces have since reacted harshly with water cannons and tear gas to even the smallest anti-government rallies.
      “Very little visibility remains for the Gezi movement of 2013 – widely acknowledged as being the first spontaneous grassroots community movement in the country,” MEE contributor and Turkey analyst Suraj Sharma said.

      “Although the very misgivings that gave rise to the Gezi protests still exist and, according to many analysts, are even more acute now, a combination of the heavy-handed crackdown and the ad hoc nature of the protests means that no traces of any sort of demonstration remain.

      “Authorities, particularly Erdogan, have used every opportunity during the last three years to call the Gezi protests a coup plot orchestrated by the domestic and foreign enemies of Turkey,” he added.

      Although there were no signs of any signficant plans to mark the anniversary of the protests, which began on 31 May 2013, hundreds of armed police were deployed in Taksim Square where they set up barriers and said they would stop pedestrians from entering, an AFP correspondent said. Two opposition parties in Turkey also called on their supporters to remember the spirit of Gezi.

      “I am indebted to all youth who used their intelligence, rationality and knowledge at Taksim Square,” main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) chair Kemal K?l?cdaroglu said in a parliamentary group address on Monday.

      Turkey’s youth “made a dictator kneel,” he added, while calling the protests a “splash of freedom”.

      The pro-Kurdish HDP also said in a statement that the protests were “legitimate, democratic and righteous reaction to the oppressive and authoritarian AKP [Justice and Development Party] mentality.”

      Eight people were killed in the nationwide unrest which followed the Gezi Park protests.

      The low-key anniversary came a day after Erdogan laid into the western media for being allegedly “blind, deaf and dumb” to a police crackdown on demonstrators in strike-hit France, despite broadcasting “uninterrupted” coverage of Turkey’s 2013 protests.

      In apparent response to his words, pro-Erdogan bloggers on Twitter launched a campaign urging people to beware of France as it stages the upcoming Euro football championships in France, under the hashtag #FranceisnotsecureforEuro2016.

      http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/clashes-between-police-and-protesters-break-out-gezi-anniversary-432694091

  6. Sorry if this is a repeat – article came out Saturday:

    KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government threw its support in parliament this week behind an Islamic penal code that includes amputations and stoning, shocking some of his allies and stoking fears of further strains in the multi-ethnic country.

    Critics believe the scandal-tainted prime minister is using ‘hudud’, the Islamic law, to shore up the backing of Muslim Malay voters and fend off attacks on his leadership ahead of critical by-elections next month and a general election in 2018.

    The government on Thursday unexpectedly submitted to parliament a hudud bill that had been proposed by the Islamist group Parti Islam se-Malaysia’s (PAS).

    Although debate on the law was deferred to October by PAS leader Abdul Hadi Awang, its submission to parliament brought criticism from leaders across the political spectrum, including allies of the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, who represent the ethnic Chinese and Indian communities.

    http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0YJ04N

  7. Somebody to watch, Mudar Zahran. Opposition Coalition, shadow govt-in-waiting, Jordan.
    Solve Arab-Israeli conflict without UN

    Even worse, the U.N. has symmetrically attacked and compromised economic progress between Palestinians and Israelis by endorsing the boycott of Israeli ?products, which results in our Palestinian brothers and sisters losing employment opportunities in Israeli ?companies. This pushes Palestinians toward ?hopelessness and radicalization and further kills the potential for peace.?

    In addition, the U.N.’s proposed solutions to the conflict are all based on outdated ?circumstances that could have been applicable to the situation decades ago but not today. ?For example, Jordan has been ignored as a major part of the peace puzzle. The U.N. has failed to include Jordan as a major potential partner for establishing a true ?peace through the offer of equal economic, political and civil rights to all of its citizens and ?ending the regime’s systematic discrimination against Jordanians of Palestinian, Bedouin ?and northern peasants heritage.?

    In the dynamic aftermath of the Arab Spring, the U.N. sticks to solutions that are based on the Middle East of six decades ago. Today, things are much more fluid: Governments change, regimes ?fall and the future is highly unpredictable. It is unrealistic to think that anyone would accept the U.N.’s outdated ?solutions. ?

    The world must realize that we, the people of the region, Arabs and Israelis, can solve our problems without outside influence or U.N. involvement. The Jordanian Opposition Coalition strongly believes the U.S. government must seek to ?neutralize the U.N.’s influence on the peace process while enhancing peace between ?Arabs and Jews through economic, social and civil integration.?

    http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16253

  8. As Johnny says, not all human capital is the same.
    The expulsion that backfired: When Iraq kicked out its Jews

    Bent on destroying Israel, and gripped by vicious anti-Semitism, Baghdad ‘pauperized’ its Jews and forced them to leave for the nascent Jewish state in 1951-2. It believed Israel would collapse under the strain. But the immigrants ultimately helped Israel thrive, and it was Iraq that suffered

    http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-expulsion-that-backfired-when-iraq-kicked-out-its-jews/