Reader’s links for February 5 – 2017

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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

85 Replies to “Reader’s links for February 5 – 2017”

  1. Breakfast at McDonald’s has left two French soldiers, who are part of the counter-terrorism Operation Sentinelle. without their assault rifles and ammunition, local press reports. The robbery comes amid an extended state of emergency in France.

    Weapons from the soldiers’ car were stolen on Thursday afternoon in the La Vespilliere area in the country’s northwest, according to the 20minutes website.

    At the time of the robbery, the two troops were having breakfast inside the restaurant. Their van was white and did not have any indications it belonged to the army or police, or that it contained weapons.
    Read more
    The Louvre Pyramid in Paris, France, February 3, 2017 © Christian Hartmann Louvre attacker identified as ‘29yo Egyptian tourist’

    Two assault rifles, as well as ammunition for 9mm automatic pistols, were stolen through a broken window, Le Parisien reports. The ammo cannot be used for the stolen rifles.

    https://www.rt.com/news/376366-france-police-weapons-mcdonalds/

  3. Generalbundesanwalt sieht „Grenzen der Leistungsfähigkeit“ im Antiterrorkampf erreicht.

    Mit ei­nem drin­gen­den Hil­fe­ruf hat sich Ge­ne­ral­bun­des­an­walt Pe­ter Frank an die Jus­tiz­mi­nis­ter der 16 Bun­des­län­der ge­wandt. Auf­grund der Viel­zahl von Ter­ror­ver­fah­ren „sind die Gren­zen der Leis­tungs­fä­hig­keit der Bun­des­an­walt­schaft er­reicht“, schreibt Frank in ei­nem Brief an die Mi­nis­ter. Das Schrei­ben, das dem SPIEGEL vor­liegt, stammt aus der ver­gan­ge­nen Wo­che. Vor­fäl­le wie in Ber­lin oder Chem­nitz könn­ten sich „je­der­zeit wie­der­ho­len“. Frank bit­tet die Mi­nis­ter des­halb „ein­dring­lich“, Staats­an­wäl­te und Rich­ter zur Un­ter­stüt­zung an die Bun­des­an­walt­schaft zu ent­sen­den. „Die Be­kämp­fung des Ter­ro­ris­mus und da­mit die Ver­hin­de­rung von An­schlä­gen“, schreibt Frank, „ist eine ge­samt­staat­li­che Auf­ga­be, die mei­ne Be­hör­de ohne aus­rei­chen­de per­so­nel­le Un­ter­stüt­zung durch die Län­der nicht mehr um­fas­send ge­währ­leis­ten kann“. In Jus­tiz­krei­sen wur­de der Brief stel­len­wei­se als „noch nie da ge­we­sen“ und „un­fass­bar“ be­wer­tet. Wäh­rend die Bun­des­re­gie­rung das Bun­des­kri­mi­nal­amt und die Ge­heim­diens­te mas­siv auf­rüs­te, müs­se der Ge­ne­ral­bun­des­an­walt in den Län­dern um Per­so­nal bet­teln.

    https://magazin.spiegel.de/SP/2017/6/149411819/?utm_source=spon&utm_campaign=centerpage

    ( Chief prosecutor Peter Frank warned in the letter to justice ministers of 16 German lander ( is the name for (federal) states in Germany.)that given large number of investigations and the lack of staff he exhausted the possibilities of action against terrorists. He asked the ministers to support his work by immediate secondment of prosecutors and judges to his office )

  4. reuters – Macron offers refuge in France to U.S. scientists, entrepreneurs

    French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron on Saturday called on U.S. scientists, academics and entrepreneurs at odds with Donald Trump’s administration to move to France.

    The former economy minister, one of the frontrunners in the upcoming presidential election, urged U.S.-based scientists working on climate change, renewable energy or health issues who were wary of the new political situation to seek refuge across the Atlantic.

    “I want all those who today embody innovation and excellence in the United States to hear what we say: from now on, from next May, you will have a new homeland, France,” he said.

    Rogue Twitter feeds voicing employee concerns at more than a dozen U.S. government agencies have been launched in defiance of what they say are Trump’s attempts to muzzle federal climate change research and other science.

    Representing scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and other bureaus, either directly or through friends and supporters, the accounts protest restrictions they view as censorship since Trump took office on Jan. 20.

    Without naming Trump in his campaign speech in the southeastern city of Lyon, Macron, a former investment banker, said his “solemn call” was meant to all “researchers, academics and companies in the United States fighting obscurantism and who are afraid today”, to join the land of innovation he wants France to be.

    Macron’s campaign for the Elysee palace has been given a fillip by a scandal over fake pay embroiling his main rival, conservative Francois Fillon, and the nomination of a hard-left candidate to represent the ruling Socialist party.

    The 39-year old is now seen reaching the election’s crucial second round runoff in May and beating far-right leader Marine Le Pen by a comfortable margin, according to a number of opinion polls published this past week.

    Macron also had a thinly veiled dig at Trump’s intention to build a wall along the Mexico border, comparing it to France’s Maginot Line, which in 1940 failed to keep Nazi invaders out of France.

    “I don’t want to build a wall. I can assure you there’s no wall in my program,” he told about 8,000 cheering supporters. “Can you remember the Maginot Line?”

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-macron-idUSKBN15J0RQ

    euronews – French presidential ‘rock star’ Emmanuel Macron wows crowds

    • @ Martin:

      Macron is the most dangerous candidate in the forthcoming French elections. Let me get out on a limb: He will face off Marine LePen in the second (and decisive) tour and win, because SOROS has learned his lesson in the recent US elections. Yes I say SOROS! He is, in my opinion, the product of SOROS finance and Cougar patronage (including the mother of Hollande’s Children). BE AFRAID BE VERY AFRAID !!!!

      • I don’t follow French Politics very closely but he seems to have jumped to the top of the heap very fast, rather like the way the anti Trump people kept jumping up during the primaries. This sudden popularity means that there is backing to fight the populism of Marine le Pen. That spells SOROS and a desire to maintain his hold on Europe through the EU politicians and Bureaucrats.

        SOROS is the nearest thing to James Bond villain I can remember, he came close to achieving his goal of world domination and is fighting to undo the damage that the Brexit and Trump victories have done.

    • The problem with the Maginot Line was that they stopped building it at end of the German border and the beginning of the border with Holland. The Germans invaded Holland, looped around the end of the Maginot Line and ran riot in the French lines of communications. Trump isn’t going to stop building the wall at the end of Texas.

    • well…. if ever disillusioned Socialists decide to vote for Melenchon instead he could be the one facing Marine Le Pen — and now they say Fillon is going to throw the towel tomorrow or the day after… one more scandal or one more jihadist attack and the whole picture could change again…

      ==============================
      this was uploaded just now on RT :

      France: Emmanuel Macron’s image based on ‘total emptiness’ – Marion Le Pen

      France’s youngest MP and National Front (FN) member Marion Marechal Le Pen stated that liberal presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s “great talent” was his ability to use marketing techniques to create an image “on the basis of total emptiness”, speaking from Lyon on Sunday.

      The niece of FN leader Marie Le Pen stated that Macron was out of tune with the “basic aspirations of the majority of French people” when it came to immigration policies.

      Le Pen went on to call for France to ‘drastically limit’ immigration and move away from the Schengen agreement. She added, “Nowadays communitarianism is the soil of radical Islam which is at odds with the French community.”

      SOT, Marion Le Pen, a member of the National Front party, (French): “By the way, the great talent of Emmanuel Macron is how he creates a kind of image on the basis of total emptiness, which his program represents. This is a real marketing product, inflating its novelty and it was the same way in the days when Macron was one of the most prominent ministers of the government of Manuel Valls. I sincerely believe that to convert all this into votes is not possible, I am almost fully convinced about that. I think this is purely a marketing product. Anyway, by those few things which are known about his program, you can understand that he is a supporter of privatisation of the functions of the state apparatus and the total liberalisation of the economy, that he is a libertarian and advocates for gay marriage and all claims of the LGBT community. In addition, I believe that he defends immigration, and thus, does not meet the basic aspirations of the majority of the French people.”

      SOT, Marion Le Pen, a member of the National Front party, (French): “Yes of course I’m convinced of it because firstly we want to get out of Schengen, regain control of our borders, know who can go in and go out, and drastically limit immigration. Nowadays communitarianism is the soil of radical Islam which is at odds with the French community, we also wish to have an extremely hard policy towards Salafism.”

  6. All sentient Life has two minds:
    Male and Female both entwined.
    One sees words of Black and White
    Another colors’ Rainbow Light.

    So when trouble comes and set upon
    One will fight, avoid or run.
    The other disguise, freeze or feint
    Cooperate without complaint.

    Yet isolated; one seeks Legal-Files
    The other, Preferentials.
    The Master yokes His emissary
    The Mistress chokes Her company.

    They need therefore their voices clean,
    Constantly forgiving new truths unseen.
    Careful with this binary
    From the blind who cannot see.

    Hate Speech stales, children suffer
    Absent father or battered mother.
    Inspiration: the Shirk’s invention
    Equality: low comprehension.

    So with healthy mind, heart and soul
    Agrees only with what is whole.
    Perception is a pride for fools
    When fixated to Golden Rules.

    https://youtu.be/u6CsGY8wpGw

  7. Azhar clerics say verbal divorce with no witnesses or immediate documentation valid (ahram, Feb 5, 2017)
    http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/257630/Egypt/Politics-/Azhar-clerics-say-verbal-divorce-with-no-witnesses.aspx

    “Egypt’s Council of Senior Islamic Scholars upheld on Sunday the instant validity of verbal divorce without witnesses or documentation, but also stressed the need for quick official documentaion.

    A meeting of the council, presided over by Egypt’s Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayeb, discussed the matter after a recent call by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi to mandate documentation of divorce before a marriage official as a way of strengthening the institution of the family.

    The Council of Senior Islamic Scholars is an advisory board comprised of prominent Azhar clerics, which is appointed by the grand imam.

    Islamic religion allows a man to divorce his wife verbally.

    Egyptian law mandates that divorces should be documented within 30 days.

    El-Sisi had said in a speech last week that making documentation of divorce decisions a necessity would help in lowering divorce rates in the country.

    The president quoted official statistics which show that 40 percent of marriages end in divorve withinn the first five years.

    El-Sisi argued that documentation before officials gives married partners a chance to reconsider separating.”

  8. Taliban commander Hekmatullah among 54 killed in Helmand: MoD (khaama, Feb 5, 2017)
    http://www.khaama.com/taliban-commander-hekmatullah-among-54-killed-in-helmand-mod-02811

    “At least 54 militants including a local commander of the Taliban group was killed during the clearance operations in southern Helmand province.

    The Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the militants were killed during the joint clearance and counter-terrorism operations in the past 24 hours.

    According to a statement by MoD, all the militants, including the local commander of the group, Hekmatullah, were killed in Garamser district.

    The statement further added that the operations were conducted with the support of the artillery units of the Afghan army and the Afghan Air Force…”

  9. DAILY MAIL – Exposed: How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data

    The Mail on Sunday can reveal a landmark paper exaggerated global warming
    It was rushed through and timed to influence the Paris agreement on climate change
    America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration broke its own rules
    The report claimed the pause in global warming never existed, but it was based on misleading, ‘unverified’ data

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html

  10. Syria: Anti-government fighters surrender in Homs in bid for amnesty

    Over 100 anti-government fighters surrendered to Syrian authorities in Homs, laying down their arms and registering their names in order to attain a government granted amnesty, Sunday.

    A reported 105 former fighters were seen queuing and waiting to receive documents, which will see their citizenship restored.

    Opposition forces were granted amnesty within the framework of Amnesty Decree No.15. This means they will have their legal status settled.

    Earlier in the day, President Bashar al-Assad extended the Amnesty Decree No.15 issued on July 28, 2016, which stipulates granting an amnesty for the militants who turn themselves in to the government and hand over their weapons.

  11. GERMANY – His selfie went viral for all the wrong reasons. Now this refugee is suing Facebook.

    BERLIN — On a September day in 2015, Syrian refugee Anas Modamani took one of Germany’s most emblematic selfies. Snapping himself alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel during her visit to his Berlin shelter, he captured an image that became a symbol of her momentous decision to allow more than 1 million asylum seekers into Germany.

    It also turned Modamani into the target of far-right conspiracies. Fake stories and doctored photographs first linked him to the March 2016 terrorist attacks in Brussels, then to the Berlin Christmas market attack in December. Another image even falsely claimed that he was a suspect in a recent assault on a homeless man.

    So now he is taking aim at the messenger: Facebook.

    The suit is seeking to compel Facebook to act faster — even preemptively — to remove such material, and thereby concede that the social network is also a media company and therefore liable for the content it publishes.

    The lawsuit, which goes to court Monday, marks the latest attempt to hold Facebook more accountable for an upsurge in fake news. Germany, Europe’s most populous nation, with cherished notions of personal privacy and a low tolerance for propaganda, has emerged as a particularly fierce battleground for the outlet.

    “Facebook only deletes those URLs that are pointed out to them in written form,” said Modamani’s attorney, Chan-jo Jun. “We are fighting for all reposts to be deleted.”

    As Facebook has come under fire for allowing the spread of fake news, the company has promised to take steps to combat the problem while maintaining that it is merely a platform for sharing information, not generating it.

    The Europeans have been particularly aggressive. In May, the European Commission agreed on a new code of conduct with Facebook and other social-media platforms under which they would respond to reports of questionable content within 24 hours.

    But nowhere in Europe has the pressure been stronger than in Germany — a country where the memory of Nazi propaganda and Cold War-era machinations have created a culture strongly adverse to hate speech and false reports. A proliferation of far-right and pro-Russian websites also have trained their sights on Merkel as she campaigns for reelection in a vote set for September, putting the issue of fake news front and center in the public debate.

    In response to calls for change, Facebook last month announced the start of a new effort in Germany in partnership with the nonprofit journalism network Correctiv. With the help of professional journalists, reports shared by users and identified as fake would be labeled as potentially suspect or false.

    Yet the Germans may push Facebook to go even further. The country’s Justice Ministry is monitoring how quickly Facebook, Twitter and YouTube delete potentially libelous fake news, reports inciting hate and other content considered illegal under domestic law. If the results show that Facebook has not made progress since a similar test in September, the German government has threatened to force it to comply.

    “We’re considering concrete legislative measures,” said Justice Ministry spokesman Philip Scholz. He added, “We’re also considering fines as a final option.”

    Modamani’s attorney has sought to sway German prosecutors to build a case against Facebook for years. Although prosecutors in Hamburg and Munich took a look at his claims that the network was allowing the spread of incendiary and hateful material, thus far they have failed to take action.

    In the Modamani case, the suit is seeking to force Facebook not only to delete specific false or illegal posts reported by users, but also to adopt special filters that search the network and remove all other references to that content. Jun said that although Facebook claims to have deleted fake posts attacking his client, he found reposts of the images as recently as last week.

    The claims center largely around three images, which were widely spread and which Jun claims could still be circulating on Facebook. One shows the selfie of Modamani and Merkel next to security footage of a group of young men suspected of trying to set a homeless man on fire at a Berlin subway station on Christmas Eve. The face of one of the suspects is circled and falsely identified as Modamani.

    “Merkel made selfie with one of the offenders in 2015!” it reads.

    In another incident, a photomontage circulated on Facebook of Modamani with Merkel against the backdrop of a Berlin Christmas market following the December attack. The caption reads, “They are Merkel’s dead.”

    An earlier claim had falsely linked Modamani to last year’s Brussels attacks, alleging that Merkel “took a selfie with a terrorist.” The image was initially posted by a user called “Anonymous” and, according to Jun, reposted at least 1,000 times. Many times more users saw it.

    “I love Facebook — I found an apartment through the network,” Modamani told Spiegel Online last month. “But I also hate Facebook, because this Photoshop stuff simply never ceases.”

    In a statement, Facebook said that it had “already quickly disabled access to content” that Modamani’s legal representatives had reported. “So we do not believe that legal action here is necessary or that it is the most effective way to resolve the situation.”

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/his-selfie-went-viral-for-all-the-wrong-reasons-now-this-refugee-is-suing-facebook/

    ========================================================
    BREITBART – Facebook ‘Fake News’ Censor Correctiv Funded By Soros, Staffed By Left-Wing Establishment

    Correctiv, the allegedly non-partisan “fake news” censor working with Facebook in Germany is funded by groups linked to left-wing billionaire George Soros and the establishment media.

    A new investigative report from anti-mass migration NGO Einprozent has revealed who is behind the new organization employed by Facebook to report and censor what they consider to be “fake news.”

    According to the NGO, Correctiv is largely staffed and funded by those who were formerly establishment journalists, many of them writing for left-leaning publications. They say that the top donor to Correctiv is the Brost Foundation, set up by the former head of the publishing company FUNKE Media Group, Erich Brost. The foundation has given €925,000 to get Correctiv off the ground.

    Mr. Brost is also the former employer of Collectiv’s CEO, David Schraven, who worked as a leading researcher for Funke group until 2014 and previously worked at the far-left paper Die Tageszeitung or TAZ.

    The chief editor of Correctiv, Markus Grill, meanwhile has worked for both the left-wing magazine Stern, which last April associated anti-mass migration Alternative for Germany supporters with Nazis, and magazine Der Spiegel which has run a series of covers and articles directed against U.S. President Donald Trump.

    €114,000 has been donated by the Dutch organization The Adessium Foundation which works on climate change and environmental issues and is openly funded by George Soro’s Open Society Foundation. Soro’s Open Society Foundation has also given €26,884 directly to Correctiv.

    George Soros and the Open Society foundation have been linked to the funding of pro-migrant campaigns to promote Somali migrants in the past, and have spent money on trying to influence the elections of various European Union countries in favour of left-wing open borders parties, with the aim of destroying populism.

    All the money pouring into the organization has led to comfortable salaries for the two men in charge of Correctiv. According to the report, David Schraven earns in excess of 9,000 euros a month and Markus Grill earns over 7,000 per month, salaries far larger than that commanded by average German journalists.

    In January Correctiv released a report on ‘alternative media’. Every media platform listed was to the right of centre, calling into question their claims of being independent and unbiased.

    The German government has also been devising ways to crack down on what they regard as “fake news” before the 2017 federal election, setting up what Interior Minister Thomas De Maiziere has called a “defence centre against disinformation.” Many have criticized the move and likened the centre to an Orwellian Ministry of Truth.

    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2017/02/05/report-facebook-fake-news-censor-correctiv-funded-soros-staffed-establishment/