Reader’s links on January 14, 2018

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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

83 Replies to “Reader’s links on January 14, 2018”

  1. Mina Dennert, muslim and communist, works for the Swedish state tellevision SVT, and so does her husband. They are friends with the man on Facebook that decides the policy for postings, there are a picture on the web with them embracing. Dennert has created an activist group called # jagärhär – # Iamhere – that are spying on Facebook users – and they are bragging of 75000 members. It seems like the majority is working on the state SVT or are civilservants – or is working on the MSM where almost everyone is politically postioned to the left of the Social Demokrts, Socialdemokraterna (S)
    They get FB users banned for everything, and they often lie and claim the users are posting pornography. They count writing “refugees” with citation marks as a hate crime, even if Sweden is swamped with migrants who are not refugees, and claims to be younger than 18 years and should be treated as children – when at least 80 per cent are way older than 17. One was found out to be 39.

    Mina Dennert: ”2017 will be the year of the silenced voices”
    Mina Dennert: ”2017 blir de tystade rösternas år”

    http://www.politism.se/story/mina-dennert-2017-blir-de-tystade-rosternas-ar/

    http://www.politism.se/content/uploads//2016/12/Skarmavbild-2016-12-22-kl.-10.56.22-550×552.jpg

  2. Iranian oil tanker sinks off China as official says no hope of survivors (theguardian, Jan 14, 2018)
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/14/iranian-oil-tanker-sinks-off-china-no-hope-of-survivors

    “An Iranian oil tanker has burst into flames and sunk, eight days after a collision with a cargo ship off the coast of China, according to state media.

    A Tehran official said before news of the sinking that there was no hope of saving the 30 missing crewmen. Chinese officials have played down fears of a major environmental disaster.

    The Sanchi, carrying 136,000 tonnes of light crude oil from Iran, had been in flames since colliding with the CF Crystal, a Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter, on 6 January.

    At about midday on Sunday local time, the ship “suddenly ignited”, with the vessel burning fiercely and a pall of smoke about 800-1,000 metres high, China’s transport ministry said, releasing dramatic pictures showing the tanker obscured by thick black smoke.

    The ship later sank, the official news agency Xinhua cited the State Oceanic Administration as saying…”

  3. Gunmen kill Christian in Egypt’s Sinai (abcnews, Jan 14, 2018)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/gunmen-kill-christian-egypts-sinai-52338053

    “Egyptian security officials say gunmen have shot dead a Christian man in the turbulent north of the Sinai Peninsula, the latest attack to target members of the country’s Christian minority.

    The officials said three masked gunmen carried out the attack and identified the victim as 35-year-old Bassem Attallah.

    They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

    No group claimed responsibility for the Saturday attack, which bore the hallmarks of Islamic State militants, who are spearheading a yearslong an insurgency in northern Sinai…”

  4. Pope Francis: Fears of Mass Migration Are ‘Legitimate’ and ‘Fully Comprehensible’ (breitbart, Jan 14, 2018)
    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/01/14/pope-francis-fears-of-mass-migration-are-legitimate-and-fully-comprehensible/

    “In a nuanced address Sunday for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Pope Francis seemed to walk back earlier statements denouncing “xenophobia,” acknowledging instead that fears associated with mass migration are logical and justifiable.

    “Local communities are sometimes afraid that the newly arrived will disturb the established order, will ‘steal’ something they have long laboured to build up,” Francis said in a Mass celebrated with migrants and refugees living in Rome Sunday. “These fears are legitimate, based on doubts that are fully comprehensible from a human point of view.”

    Whereas it is normal to experience these fears, the Pope said in his homily, it may be wrong to let them control our actions.

    “Having doubts and fears is not a sin,” he said. “The sin is to allow these fears to determine our responses, to limit our choices, to compromise respect and generosity, to feed hostility and rejection. The sin is to refuse to encounter the other, the different, the neighbour, when this is in fact a privileged opportunity to encounter the Lord.”

    Earlier this month the Pope criticized those who challenge the wisdom of mass migration, accusing them of demagoguery and promoting xenophobia.

    Those who decry “the risks posed to national security or the high cost of welcoming new arrivals,” are guilty of “demeaning the human dignity due to all as sons and daughters of God,” Francis said in his Jan. 1 message for the World Day of Peace.

    To resort to such “rhetoric,” Francis claimed, people “are sowing violence, racial discrimination and xenophobia, which are matters of great concern for all those concerned for the safety of every human being.”

    In his homily Sunday, the Pope quoted his own Message for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees, saying that every stranger who knocks at our door “is an opportunity for an encounter with Jesus Christ, who identifies with the welcomed and rejected strangers of every age.”

    He repeated an earlier call for migrants to “know and respect the laws, the culture and the traditions of the countries that take them in,” while insisting that host societies “open themselves without prejudices to their rich diversity, to understand the hopes and potential of the newly arrived as well as their fears and vulnerabilities.”

    Along with the legitimate fears experienced by nations facing waves of new immigrants, the Pope said that new arrivals “also have fears: they are afraid of confrontation, judgment, discrimination, failure,” which are also legitimate.

    Earlier this week, an Italian archbishop declared that immigration must be “rational” because uncontrolled immigration leads to the “crushing and extermination of our society.”

    “You can’t just open the doors, as if it were a party,” Archbishop Luigi Negri stated in an interview with Italian media Tuesday. It is essential to “highlight the economic, human and cultural costs of immigration,” since failing to do so means caving into “ideology.”

    “I am a Catholic and therefore I believe in welcoming diversity,” said Negri, the recently retired archbishop of Ferrara-Comacchio and a close friend of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, “but this cannot be unmeasured because otherwise it leads to a crushing and extermination of our society.”

    Asked why the globalist movement is pushing so hard for increased immigration, Negri said that the movement seeks to normalize mass immigration “because this serves the great globalized economy, one of whose objectives is to create a low-paid immigrant workforce.”

    The archbishop claimed that in this regard, Pope Francis is being exploited by secularist society, which uses his words to justify their own positions, which have nothing to do with Christianity.

    “Pope Francis is being instrumentalized by the reigning worldview,” Negri said. “Today there is a connivance between a certain Christianity and the secularist society, which the Church seems no longer able to say ‘no’ to, which in my view is exactly what is needed.””

    • Pope: It’s a sin if fear makes us hostile to migrants

      Pope Francis has defined hostility and rejection of refugees and migrants as sin, encouraging people to overcome their “fully comprehensible” fears

      […]”Having doubts and fears is not a sin,” the pope said. “The sin is to allow these fears to determine our responses, to limit our choices, to compromise respect and generosity, to feed hostility and rejection.”

      Francis elaborated: “The sin is to refuse to encounter the other, the different, the neighbor,” instead of seeing it as a “privileged opportunity” to encounter God.

      http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/pope-sin-fear-makes-us-hostile-migrants-52338488
      =============================================
      Pope: It’s a sin if fear makes us hostile to migrants

      Similarly, he said, newcomers also are afraid: “of confrontation, judgment, discrimination, failure.” “These fears are legitimate, based on doubts that are fully comprehensible from a human point of view,” Francis continued in his homily.

      […]Later, greeting about 25,000 people in St. Peter’s Square, Francis advocated responding to the migrations that “today are a sign of our times” in four ways: “welcome, protect, promote and integrate” migrants.

      https://apnews.com/ab9e287a72d744dd921bd1b68928f04e
      ==================================================

      Migranti, l’appello di papa Francesco: ‘Superate le paure e accogliete’

      […]Secondo Bergoglio, dunque, “il peccato è rinunciare all’incontro con l’altro, con il diverso, con il prossimo, che di fatto è un’occasione privilegiata di incontro con il Signore”. In questa ottica, ha spiegato, “per le comunità locali, accogliere, conoscere e riconoscere significa aprirsi alla ricchezza della diversità senza preconcetti, comprendere le potenzialità e le speranze dei nuovi arrivati, così come la loro vulnerabilità e i loro timori”.[…]

      http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/cronache/migranti-lappello-papa-francesco-superate-paure-e-accogliete-1482891.html
      ================================================
      Pope Francis to celebrate World Day of Migrants and Refugees on Sunday

    • euronews – ‘Treat newcomers with respect’ pontiff urges on World Day of Migrants and Refugees

    • Pope Francis: Fears of Mass Migration Are ‘Legitimate’ and ‘Fully Comprehensible’

      Earlier this month the Pope criticized those who challenge the wisdom of mass migration, accusing them of demagoguery and promoting xenophobia.

      I believe that Dante reserved the innermost circle of hell precisely for those like Pope Francis.

      Seeing this pious, sanctimonious piece of filth hurriedly attempt to walk back all of his chastising and criticism of those who were merely hoping to save their own cultures from being overrun by barbaric savages can only further enrage all of his victims.

    • Italy: March supporting migrants who make deadly Alps crossing

      Italian pro-migration activist group Briser les frontiers marched on the French-Italian mountain border near Claviere and Moginevro on Sunday to protest migration laws at borders preventing the sanctuary of refugees.

      The activists carried pro-migration banners as they travelled between the two mountains in a similar route which asylum seekers have been known to cross to get between countries often at great risk.

      Italian and French mountain police blocked their paths however for most of the protest, but activists eventually reached their destination by staying close to the ski slopes.

      Briser Les frontieres solidarity network member Daniele Brait explained: “In recent months there have been many attempts to cross the border into the Alps that seem to have become the new Mediterranean. People who have managed to survive the sea today risk their lives in these mountains.”

      Migrants are known to regularly attempt to traverse the Colle della Scala (Cole de l’Echelle in French) in freezing temperatures some 1800 metres above sea level between Italy and France, resulting in the death of many.

      SOT, Nicoletta Dosio, No-Tav movement spokesperson (Italian): “The motivations that bring us here today is to express solidarity and to reiterate that the World with the borders is a world that does not serve and we don’t want.”

      SOT, Nicoletta Dosio, No-Tav movement spokesperson (Italian): “This Europe, which is the Europe of Maastricht, is a fortress that exploits the countries of the South of the world with the war and does not allow the poor of the Earth, who have become poor because of this exploitation, to cross its borders.”

      SOT, Daniele Brait, Briser Les frontieres solidarity network member (Italian): “In recent months there have been many attempts to cross the border into the Alps that seem to have become the new Mediterranean. People who have managed to survive the sea today risk their lives in these mountains.”

      SOT, Daniele Brait, Briser Les frontieres solidarity network member (Italian): “One of the rules of the mountain, as well as one of the rules of the sea, is that people who need help, a warm place, a blanket, a jacket, even just something like a hot dish, are not abandoned.”

      SOT, Briser les frontieres Activist (Italian): “Italy has always done business with Libya where there are detention centers that are lager.”

      SOT, Briser les frontieres Activist (Italian): “It finances them with the excuse of fighting terrorism and managing migration flows. In these camps people are tortured and women raped.”

  5. Protests against Honduran leader’s re-election turn violent

    TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Protests against the re-election of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez have turned violent with security forces firing tear gas and some marchers breaking windows and setting fires.

    Video from Friday’s protests showed former President Manuel Zelaya being shoved by military police. Zelaya and defeated presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla also suffered the effects of tear gas.

    Hernandez was awarded the electoral win weeks after the November vote and a disputed vote tally. The opposition alleged fraud and plans to continue protesting through Hernandez’s swearing in on Jan. 27.

    https://apnews.com/8ef2d58a9542452f82233953820078fd/Protests-against-Honduran-leader's-re-election-turn-violent

  6. CIA deputizes Moby to vouch for infamous ‘dossier’ to the public?
    By J.E. Dyer January 13, 2018

    Bottom line up-front: no.

    That’s my judgment. That doesn’t mean Moby (the entertainment name of Richard Melville Hall, musician and producer) isn’t telling the truth. It means there seems to be a lot of overinterpretation of what he may have been asked to do, and by whom.

    Moby made a little wavelet back in February 2017 when he put up a Facebook post claiming to know for a fact that the “dossier” was “100% real,” and that Trump was being blackmailed by the Russians.

    Moby learned this, back in 2017, by “spending the weekend talking to friends who work in DC.”

    Convincing, to be sure. In the 11 months since, the post has garnered more 13,000 reactions (likes, etc.), 6,700 shares, and 4,200 comments.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/01/13/cia-deputizes-moby-vouch-infamous-dossier-public/

  7. As alarmists struggle to fir Arctic temps to global warming model, new study emerges
    By LU Staff January 14, 2018

    The recent cold snap was “highly unusual in the current climate,” and not the product of man-made global warming, a new study found.

    But wait, other scientists said the two-weeks of frigid weather and snow in the eastern U.S. was “very much consistent with our expectations of the response of weather dynamics to human-caused climate change.”

    The group Climate Central released a new study countering that claim. Climate Central specializes in an emerging area of research called “attribution” where scientists try to pin specific weather events on man-made warming.

    Climate Central’s new study, however, shows only the malleable nature of trying to attribute individual weather events to long-term changes in global climate. The answer to questions “Is this weather the product of global warming?” still depends largely on who you ask.

    While Climate Central has research suggesting no global warming link, other scientists spent weeks hyping the alleged connection between warming and the recent cold snap.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/01/14/alarmists-struggle-show-arctic-temps-fit-global-warming-model-new-study-debunks-claim/

    • While Climate Central has research suggesting no global warming link, other scientists spent weeks hyping the alleged connection between warming and the recent cold snap.

      These jerks can’t even get their stories straight yet, somehow, expect people to believe them.

      If there is one specific group within the human race that has a solid chance of helping mankind productively address ongoing climate change (anthropogenic or otherwise), it is the scientists.

      Within the scientific community, there is no greater sin than that of knowingly falsifying data. It is grounds for professionalism ostracism and being cast into the outer darkness. How these lying bastards expect anyone to take them seriously as they go about cherry-picking data and selectively applying data collection methodologies defies all logic or reason.

      They deserve to be jailed for wasting everybody’s time and money.

      • This is a new religion with its true believers, that is why there are calls for the people who believe in science to be put into prison or otherwise punished.

      • I think they are counting on two things.

        People have no freaking clue how science works and think of it as argumentum ad credentum. And also confirmation bias.

        And they are mostly correct to count on those two things.

        • People have no freaking clue how science works and think of it as argumentum ad credentum. And also confirmation bias.

          Which is where a disturbing amount of your Postmodernist arguments (rightfully) come into play, Eeyore. This large-scale effort to discredit the Scientific Method is one of the few ways to (without philosophic or spiritual intervention) bring humanity to its very knees.

  8. Trump DEA crackdown nabs senior MS-13 leader, 16 others
    By LU Staff January 13, 2018

    The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) bagged the senior MS-13 leader for the Northeast U.S. along with 11 other high-ranking members of the gang in a Thursday crackdown operation, the New York Post reported.

    The 17 defendants — five of whom are not MS-13 members — are facing charges including second-degree murder, drug trafficking, and conspiracy. They face up to 25 years in prison if convicted, the Post reported Thursday.

    The unnamed Long Island-based leader operated two cells, code-named “Hollywood” and “Sailors.” He reported and transferred proceeds directly to MS-13 heads in El Salvador, according to the DEA.

    DEA Special Agent in Charge James Hunt said in a statement:

    It started as a small-scale drug investigation on Long Island, a DEA investigation which is still growing, and as it went along and we brought other agencies on, we saw a violent threat that pushed us to get even more agencies involved and eventually apprehend this regional leader of MS-13. Not only did we arrest the highest-level Mara Salvatrucha leader in the Northeast who reports to MS-13 in El Salvador, but we sent a message that we will continue to investigate their violent crimes and bring justice to their victims.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/01/13/trump-dea-crackdown-nabs-senior-ms-13-leader-16-others/

    • Is there even one single thing about The Clinton Foundation that is able to pass an ordinary smell test?

      If you want to read a truly inspiring book about someone dedicated to helping Haitians at the most basic level (i.e., combating Multiple Drug Resistant Tuberculosis), pick up a copy of, “Mountains Beyond Mountains“, by Tracy Kidder, author of the high-tech non-fiction masterpiece, “Soul of a New Machine”.

      Dr. Paul Farmer has made incredible strides in coping with one of the most difficult-to-treat and expensive-to medicate-diseases in the entire world. He has done all of this with an infinitesimal fraction of the financing that the Clintons skimmed off of the recent disaster in Haiti. The book is both moving and informative as Kidder accompanies Farmer into some of the most desperate and impoverished areas on earth.

      As an example, it was found by Farmer’s team that merely offering $5.00 to patients as an incentive to show up regularly for their monthly MDR TB appointments improved treatment outcomes to a totally unexpected extent.

      $5.00, got that?!? Imagine what this miracle-worker could do with all those tens of millions that the Clintons made disappear.

      • Is there even one single thing about The Clinton Foundation that is able to pass an ordinary smell test?

        Is there one single thing about The Clinton Family that is able to pass an rodinary smell test?

        • Is there one single thing about The Clinton Family that is able to pass an ordinary smell test?

          Touché!

  9. ^—— DEA = Actual Bondian heroes

    some links – note Hawaii government local and state use of twiitter as a back-up to failed early warning system that the state of Hawaii was using — note California reluctance to send out a false alert– These warning systems are subjective– the number of character limit they have (per my previous links) does not allow for the numbers that would enable readers to make their own assessments based on the where, when, how much, which model of sensor data. The DoD timeline for HI that I posted earlier is vague enough to include a rogue actor or hacked system. There are twitter and FB reports of sirens sounding on base and in Kauai, but not elsewhere. Is the siren system independent of the text system? Did two systems fail.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ayaked-ullah-indicted-new-york-subway-bomb-attack-n836476

    http://ktla.com/2018/01/13/hawaii-issues-missile-warning-in-error-sending-panic-on-social-media/

    http://ktla.com/2018/01/10/with-101-freeway-closed-to-mudslides-hundreds-including-evacuees-travel-by-boat-between-ventura-and-santa-barbara/

    http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-evacuations-montecito-20180110-story.html [emergency phone alert went out too late to help those who ignored door-to-door warnings]

    http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-montecito-mudsides-101-story.html
    U.S. Highway 101, a major north-south artery that carries 100,000 vehicles through the Central Coast each day, was initially expected to open Monday, but officials said cleaning up one part of the freeway was proving more difficult than imagined. [as it has two feet of standing water].
    [Amtrak trains and private ferries and a whale-watching boat are transporting residents and emergency workers.]

  10. BREITBART – H.R. McMaster Endorsed Book That Advocates Quran-Kissing Apology Ceremonies

    TEL AVIV — A book on terrorism endorsed and touted by H.R. McMaster, the embattled White House National Security Adviser, calls on the U.S. military to respond to any “desecrations” of the Quran by service members with an apology ceremony, and advocates kissing a new copy of the Quran before presenting the Islamic text to the local Muslim public.

    The book’s author further demanded that any American soldier who “desecrates” the Quran be ejected from the foreign country of deployment, relieved of duty and turned over to a military judge for “punishment.”

    “Desecration” of the Quran, according to the McMaster-endorsed book, includes such acts as “letting the Quran fall to the ground during a search, or more blatant instances.”

    The book, reviewed in full by this reporter, was authored by U.S. military officer Youssef H. Aboul-Enein and is titled Militant Islamist Ideology: Understanding the Global Threat.

    McMaster provided a glowing blurb for the book jacket, referring to Aboul-Enein’s book as “an excellent starting point” for understanding terrorist ideology.

    McMaster also promoted the book in ARMOR, the journal of the U.S. Army’s Armor Branch, published at Fort Benning, Georgia, where McMaster served as commanding general at the Ft. Benning Maneuver Center of Excellence.

    McMaster wrote in his blurb for the book: “Militant Islamist Ideology deserves a wide readership among all those concerned with the problem of transnational terrorism, their ideology, and our efforts to combat those organizations that pose a serious threat to current and future generations of Muslims and non-Muslims alike.”

    In the blurb, McMaster revealed his own views on terrorism, claiming that “terrorist organizations use a narrow and irreligious ideology to recruit undereducated and disenfranchised people to their cause.”

    Aboul-Enein is listed as a senior adviser and analyst at the Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism at the Defense Intelligence Agency, a position that he also held under the Obama administration. He is an officer in the Navy Medical Service Corps and Middle East Foreign Officer, and an adjunct military professor and chair of Islamic studies at the National Defense University.

    more :

    http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/08/20/h-r-mcmaster-endorsed-book-advocates-quran-kissing-apology-ceremonies/

    • What McMaster is doing within a hundred miles of Washington DC is beyond me. Get rid of this Islam-appeasing rectal cavity. Better yet, strip him of all rank, demote him to buck private, and slingshot this Muslim @ss-kisser straight into Leavenworth.

    • The liberal guest tries to change the subject all the time, he can’t answer the real questions and has to shift the discussion so he doesn’t have to admit his side isn’t honest in their statements about the immigrants.

  11. Muslim Communist Sadiq Kahn for the labour part today said on Twitter “We cannot allow a populist, anti-feminist narrative to take hold in Britain”. This is a picture from a labour conference…

    https://imgur.com/6ScsDfC

  12. DAILY MAIL – ‘He feels really bad’: Civil Defense employee who sparked terror in Hawaii by accidentally triggering ballistic MISSILE warning will be ‘retrained’ say officials after thousands fled to bomb shelters

    […]’This guy feels bad, right. He’s not doing this on purpose – it was a mistake on his part and he feels terrible about it,’ said EMA Administrator Vern Miyagi in a press conference Saturday afternoon.

    […] there was no template in the system for an alert retraction, and so the all-clear message had to be manually entered and activated, accounting for some of the delay.

    […]State emergency managers have also already implemented a two-person verification for alerts and an automated all-clear signal that can be used IN THE FUTURE .

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5266357/Hawaii-receives-ballistic-missile-threat-warning.html

  13. Illinois: Illegal Alien Threatens Mass Murder on Greyhound ‘Ride from Hell’
    Diversity is our greatest strength! As proven once again by a Federal criminal illegal alien in Wadsworth, Illinois who not only terrorized passengers onboard a Greyhound Bus but caused enough panic that the driver was forced to lead police in a high-speed chase across the city.

    https://thegoldwater.com/news/16095-Illinois-Illegal-Alien-Threatens-Mass-Murder-on-Greyhound-Ride-from-Hell

  14. CBC – Does Robert Mueller have the goods on Donald Trump?

    Jill Wine-Banks, a former Watergate prosecutor, speaks to the CBC’s Wendy Mesley about special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation of the Trump administration’s possible involvement with Russia after sources say Mueller is close to interviewing Trump.

    • An interview by Mueller would be a set up to try to get him to say something that would contradict something earlier, he could then be charged with lying to the FBI.

      According to all of the lawyers he has done nothing to obstruct justice.

  15. “NYPD’s John Miller – CLUELESS on Islam allows Jihadi to Lecture FBI”
    Understanding the Threat – December 19, 2017

  16. Note: the real reason Hitler’s Germany invaded Czech and created the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was to have the Czechs engineer and build their tanks, airplanes and everything military. Looks like left to their own ‘German’ engineering, the products are somewhat less awesome…

    BERLIN—Germany’s naval brass in 2005 dreamed up a warship that could ferry marines into combat anywhere in the world, go up against enemy ships and stay away from home ports for two years with a crew half the size of its predecessor’s.

    First delivered for sea trials in 2016 after a series of delays, the 7,000-ton Baden-Württemberg frigate was determined last month to have an unexpected design flaw: It doesn’t really work.

    Defense experts cite the warship’s buggy software and ill-considered arsenal—as well as what was until recently its noticeable list to starboard—as symptoms of deeper, more intractable problems: Shrinking military expertise and growing confusion among German leaders about what the country’s armed forces are for.

    https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/german-engineering-yields-new-warship-that-isnt-fit-for-sea/ar-AAuFzMv

  17. A 10-year-old boy was freed Sunday after being held hostage for 30 hours at an Ohio apartment complex.

    The standoff in Liberty Township ended around 6:30 a.m. when the man who took the boy hostage surrendered to SWAT negotiators, Fox 19 Cincinnati reported.

    Charges were pending against the man, who was not immediately identified. He fired 20 to 30 shots at deputies in the morning and afternoon Saturday. Deputies did not return fire.

    http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/14/ohio-hostage-standoff-ends-after-30-hours-with-release-boy-10-and-gunmans-arrest.html

  18. Tunisia: Thousands rally on seventh anniversary of Arab Spring

    Tunisians took to the streets of Tunis on Sunday to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the start of the Arab Spring.

    Family members of those who died held photos during the march with injured people involved in the uprising also taking part.

    A large police presence remained throughout the largely peaceful rally apart from some minor scuffles.

    It has been seven years since the January 14, 2011 toppling of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after 23 years in power.

    But rising anger over price hikes and new austerity measures has seen protesters return to the streets chanting the 2011 slogans of “work, freedom, dignity”.

    • Tunisia: Violence erupts as police attempt to disperse protest against price hikes

      Protesters set tyres alight while police fired tear gas as they tried to disperse those taking part in nationwide protests against the government’s approved increases in the budget bill for 2018, in Tunis, on Sunday.

      Protests against deteriorating economic conditions kicked off across the country on Monday, following the government’s announcement of austerity measures and tax increases. Some 800 people have reportedly been arrested since the beginning of the protests.

      Tunisia is under pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its partners to cut its deficit and to create jobs, despite the fact that one of Tunisia’s most profitable sectors, tourism, has been suffering since 2015, when the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS; formerly ISIS/ISIL) carried out numerous military attacks against tourists.

  19. Iran’s ‘Supreme Leader’ has conspiracy meltdown on Twitter
    And casually threatens to attack the U.S

    The unelected Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei — who rules the country with unchecked power — has unleashed a frenzied tweetstorm, accusing the U.S. and “Zionists” of being behind the ongoing protest movement in Iran.

    The tweetstorm starts with a somewhat laid-back approach to the protests in Iran, in which many are calling for his dismissal — or even his demise.

    https://www.conservativereview.com/articles/irans-supreme-leader-conspiracy-meltdown-twitter/

    • Trouble Brewing: The Disaster of California State Pensions – An Interview with Robert Enlow

      • Whenever I find myself talking to a public employee, I ask them, “Would you rather receive 100% of your retirement benefits for about ten or fifteen years, or 66% of them for the rest of your life?”

        I’ll let you guess how they all answer. All of these bloated pensions are headed for a massive “haircut”. The alternative is a complete and total economic meltdown. This situation is binary, full stop.

        See: Poland Confiscates Half Of Private Pension Funds To “Cut” Sovereign Debt Load

  20. A new research by Professor Ednan Aslan has revealed some shocking insights.

    The professor, whose speciality is religious education at the University of Vienna, asked Muslim asylum seekers in the city of Graz about their religious attitudes. Many respondents, it turned out, were holding radical religious views.

    For example, 44.3 percent of the women interviewed were opposed to shaking hands with men. More than half of the respondents believed “infidels” will be punished by Allah in hell for eternity because they refuse to submit to Islam.

    https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/01/austria-many-muslim-asylum-seekers-hold-medieval-views/

  21. After the large-scale influx of migrants a trend began to emerge in a lot of European countries: Stories of European women being attacked or sexually assaulted by migrant men.

    The first major incidents happened in Germany and Sweden, where group tactics were used by migrants to rob, assault or rape women (this same tactic of mobs preying on women was seen in Egypt’s Tahrir square). This rapidly evolved to an unprecedented scale of sexual assaults Europe had not seen in centuries.

    https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/01/rape-murder-and-misogyny-the-real-victims-of-the-migrant-crisis-are-europes-women/

  22. Sweden to re-issue booklet of world war precautions
    TT/The Local
    ne**@th******.se
    @thelocalsweden
    14 January 2018
    16:42 CET+01:00
    nuclear weapons
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    Sweden to re-issue booklet of world war precautions
    Photo: Kungliga Inrikesdepartementet/Wikimedia Commons
    A booklet containing advice on how to cope with the outbreak of world war is set for a re-release after 30 years.
    An updated version of the pamphlet Om kriget kommer (If War Comes) will be sent to Swedish homes in May or June, reports newspaper Aftonbladet.

    First released in the 1940s during the Second World War, the booklet contains tips for citizens on what to do should Sweden become involved in a war.

    The most recent version of the war advice book was produced in the 1980s. But with regional security considered to have worsened in recent years, and terrorism also having emerged, authorities have decided to re-issue the book with new content to reflect today’s national security circumstances.

    “Back then the [booklet’s] focus was only on war. Today society looks completely different. There is a significantly more complex threat with climate change, terror attacks, pandemics and manipulation of information. People need to learn and know about how to deal with it,” Christina Andersson of the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap, MSB), which has been commissioned by the government to produce the new version of the booklet, told Aftonbladet.

    Meanwhile, a survey carried out by MSB found that Swedish public concern about the spread of nuclear weapons has increased significantly over the last year.

    Swedes were asked how they feel about the nuclear threat as part of the agency’s annual Opinioner (Opinions) survey, in which perceptions of defence issues, society, Swedish foreign and defence policy, and international relations are analysed.

    Over 1,000 responses from December 2017 were analysed in the survey.

    Though most of the answers showed little change since 2016, 59 percent said they were concerned about nuclear proliferation – an increase of 23 percent from the previous year.

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    A large proportion were also concerned about IT security (59 percent, up from 40 percent) and biological and chemical weapon proliferation (46 percent, up from 29 percent).

    READ ALSO: Almost nine in ten Swedes in favour of UN nuclear bomb ban

    Get notified about breaking news on The Local Share this article

    • They are getting worried about what is happening, too bad they didn’t worry about what was going to happen and refused to allow unlimited immigration from the Middle East.

  23. Top school bans Muslim girls under eight from wearing hijabs (standard, Jan 14, 2018)
    https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/top-school-bans-muslim-girls-under-eight-from-wearing-hijabs-a3739656.html

    “One of the best rated primary schools in the UK has banned girls aged under eight years old from wearing hijabs.

    St Stephen’s primary school, in Newham, east London, has also forbidden Muslim pupils from fasting on school days during Ramadan.

    Arif Qawi, chairman of governors at St Stephen’s, which topped the Sunday Times school league tables in 2017, said the Department of Education should “step up and [take the issue] out of our hands”.

    He told The Sunday Times: “We did not ban fasting altogether but we encouraged them to fast in holidays, at weekends and not on the school campus…”

  24. PICTURES: Historic German Church Demolished as Mosques Multiply Across the Country (breitbart, Jan 14, 2018)
    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/01/14/germany-historic-church-demolished-mosques-multiply-across-country/

    “The 19th century Church of St Lambertus in Immerath, Germany, has been torn down despite public protests, as mosques and Islamic centres multiply across the country.

    The huge building, which was “notable for its double towers and neo-Romanesque design”, according to the Catholic Herald, was demolished by the RWE mining company to make way for an opencast lignite mine.

    St Lambertus and the farming village surrounding it was bought out by RWE some years ago, with the church being formally deconsecrated in 2013.

    Villagers have been relocated to a new site, and provided with a new church built “according to a modern design”….”

  25. Fresh violence in Tunisia after protests marking Arab Spring anniversary (france24, Jan 15, 2018)
    http://www.france24.com/en/20180115-fresh-violence-tunisia-after-protests-marking-arab-spring-anniversary

    “Violent protests erupted again on Sunday in two areas of the capital Tunis and another town after a relatively calm two days, the latest protests in the country against austerity measures.

    After nearly a week of at times violent protests, police used tear gas against dozens of young protesters in the Ettadamen district of Tunis in renewed demonstrations over a tax hike.

    A Reuters witness saw youths around 20 years old throwing stones at police cars and setting fire to tyres before security forces drove them back with tear gas.

    Witnesses told Reuters that violent protests were also taking place in Kram district in the capital…”

    • It is amazing to me that British police have stated that they can no longer investigate “low level crimes” like burglary but they CAN and DO track down and intimidate those that make negative comments about Muslims on the internet.

      All of that will change when these constables return home after a day’s work only to find that their wives and daughters (or young sons) have been raped by their beloved, culturally enriching, “Asian” neighbors.

      If not then, maybe it will require pulling up to a smoldering pile of glowing embers.

  26. US-led coalition helps build new Syrian force, angering Turkey (memo, Jan 14, 2018)
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180114-us-led-coalition-helps-build-new-syrian-force-angering-turkey/

    “The US-led coalition is working with its Syrian militia allies to set up a new border force of 30,000 personnel, the coalition said on Sunday, a move that has added to Turkish anger over US support for Kurdish-dominated forces in Syria.

    A senior Turkish official told Reuters the US training of the new “Border Security Force” is the reason that the US charge d’affaires was summoned in Ankara on Wednesday. The official did not elaborate.

    The force, whose inaugural class is currently being trained, will be deployed at the borders of the area controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – an alliance of militias in northern and eastern Syria dominated by the Kurdish YPG.

    In an email to Reuters, the coalition’s Public Affairs Office confirmed details of the new force reported by The Defense Post. About half the force will be SDF veterans, and recruiting for the other half is underway, the coalition’s Public Affairs Office said.

    The force will deploy along the border with Turkey to the north, the Iraqi border to the southeast, and along the Euphrates River Valley, which broadly acts as the dividing line separating the US-backed SDF and Syrian government forces backed by Iran and Russia.

    US support for the SDF has put enormous strain on ties with NATO ally Turkey, which views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – a group that has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey…”

  27. Qatari royal says he is a ‘prisoner’ in UAE (memo, Jan 15, 2018)
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180115-qatari-royal-says-he-is-a-prisoner-in-uae/

    “A member of Qatar’s ruling family said he was detained against his will in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in a video widely circulated via social media on Sunday, Anadolu reports.

    Abdullah bin Ali Al-Thani said in the video: “I am currently in Abu Dhabi. I was a guest of Sheikh Mohammed. I am no longer a guest; I am a prisoner.”…”