Reader’s links, April 11, 18

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About Eeyore

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

136 Replies to “Reader’s links, April 11, 18”

  1. What the Secret Service Threat Assessment Ignores
    Mental illness isn’t the issue.
    2018-04-11T00:09:00-04:00
    Daniel Greenfield

    The Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) has released its report on mass public attacks in 2017. It mentions, “terrorism” only once and the word “Islam” doesn’t appear in it at all.

    That’s strange because two of the attacks, the Lower Manhattan car ramming and the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting rampage, were Islamic terrorist attacks. The perpetrators, Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbeki immigrant, and Aashiq Hammad (Esteban Santiago), both credited ISIS with inspiring their killing sprees. These two Muslim terrorists had managed to kill a combined 13 people while wounding another 18.

    And then there was Kori Ali Muhammad who had murdered 4 people in Fresno. Muhammad had shouted, “Allahu Akbar” when confronting the police just like Sayfullo Saipov would 3,000 miles away.

    But Muhammad was apparently also a member of the Democrat’s favorite racist hate group: the Nation of Islam. The NOI combines two favorite topics of the left, Islam and hating white people. Louis Farrakhan, its leader has met or appeared with numerous top Dems, including Obama, Keith Ellison, a former NOI hate group member who is now number two at the DNC, Rep. James Clyburn, the third-highest ranked Democrat in the House, and many other members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

    (Muhammad also endorsed Bernie Sanders, like James T. Hodgkinson, the Bernie Sanders supporter who opened fire at a Republican charity baseball practice, who also appears on the Secret Service list.)

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269763/what-secret-service-threat-assessment-ignores-daniel-greenfield

  2. The Collapse of ‘Saudi Venezuela’
    Once the region’s richest country, now a leading producer of refugees.
    2018-04-11T00:04:00-04:00
    David Paulin

    Shocking scenes reveal the collapse of Venezuela-style socialism. Many poor Venezuelans pick through garbage to find food. Others, however, have given up altogether on oil-rich yet impoverished Venezuela. In untold numbers, they join ragtag columns of refugees trekking under a blazing sun into neighboring Colombia. An estimated 100,000 per month now cross into Colombia, legally and illegally, according to Colombian officials. Many remain in Colombia – up to half a million by some estimates. Others push on to other countries. Among the most popular are Brazil, Panama, Ecuador, and Chile, where poor migrating Venezuelans sometimes encounter anti-immigrant sentiments. The backlash is animated by a sense that Venezuela – once the region’s richest country, known enviously as “Saudi Venezuela” – is getting its comeuppance. In Panama, a popular rap song tells of a Venezuelan woman who “was famous in her own country but here does something else” — an apparent reference to prostitution.

    Venezuela’s socialist disaster abounds with tragic ironies. The biggest revolves around Venezuela’s poor majority. The poor idolized Hugo Chávez, believing the firebrand leftist would improve their living standards by giving them their rightful share of Venezuela’s oil wealth. In Chávez, they also saw a charismatic politician who grew up poor like them, talked like them, and looked like them with his swarthy complexion and curly black hair.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269848/collapse-saudi-venezuela-david-paulin

  3. Reinforcing Our National Guard At The Border
    The steps that must be taken to really stop illegal entries.
    2018-04-11T00:04:00-04:00
    Michael Cutler

    President Trump’s decision to send National Guard troops to the U.S./Mexico border to provide support to the U.S. Border Patrol is not unprecedented. Both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama also sent unarmed National Guard troops to the southern border.

    While the administration has yet to fully explain how the troops will assist the beleaguered Border Patrol agents, it is to be presumed that the National Guard personnel will also be unarmed and not directly involved in the interdiction and apprehension of aliens attempting to enter the United States surreptitiously without inspection.

    Of course anything that can be done to free up Border Patrol agents from activities that distract them from their primary mission of securing the border are welcome, but we must understand that these national guard troops will not, by themselves, seal that problematic border.

    Once again attention has been drawn, virtually exclusively, to the need to secure the southern border of the United States. Make no mistake, that border must be secured, however, the need to enforce the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States has always been ignored. We will consider interior enforcement shortly.

    The justification for President Trump’s decision to deploy those National Guard troops was reported in an April 8, 2018 ABC News report, Trump adviser cites ‘alarming’ 200 percent increase in attempted US-Mexico border crossings.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269838/reinforcing-our-national-guard-border-michael-cutler

      • Yup and they should be armed, retrain them as MPs if they have to but don’t send them down there unarmed.


  4. Is There a Pattern to the Hijab Hoaxes?
    2018-04-11T04:22:00-04:00
    Daniel Greenfield
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    We’ve certainly had a lot of these hijab hoaxes. And there’s a pattern to them.

    The women or girls claim that they had their hijab torn off by a man who called them a terrorist or told them to go back to their own country. And after a previous rash of college student hoaxes, the trend appears to be going younger and younger.

    This latest Hijab hoax was carried out by a 13-year-old. The most recent one before that involved an 11-year-old girl.

    If I had a suspicious mind, I would wonder whether the Brotherhood fronts have decided to use younger girls who won’t face any serious criminal charges and who have more plausible deniability. When a child tells a lie, it’s easy to dismiss it as immature behavior.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/269854/there-pattern-hijab-hoaxes-daniel-greenfield

  5. Border Patrol Reports ‘Large Groups’ of Migrants Crossing into Texas

    Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector are reporting “large groups” of illegal immigrants crossing the Texas border with Mexico, according to a statement circulated Tuesday. They are mostly composed of unaccompanied minors and families from Central America.

    During a two-day period last week, Border Patrol agents assigned to the Weslaco Station reported the apprehension of 112 migrants in two large groups that crossed the border from Mexico illegally on Friday and Saturday. The arrests occurred near the Texas border town of Hidalgo, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Tuesday morning.

    http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2018/04/10/border-patrol-reports-large-groups-migrants-crossing-texas/

  6. Washington Times – Muslim group sues to block Trump terrorism report

    Organization says mixing immigration and terrorism harms Muslims

    Two anti-Trump organizations filed a lawsuit Monday arguing that a government report earlier this year linking immigrants to most of the country’s terrorism cases since 2001 is so misleading that it violates federal law.

    The request seeks to recruit federal judges to police the accuracy of the administration, in what — if it’s successful — could become a model for anti-Trump groups to push back on a president they see as having a tenuous connection to the truth.

    The January report concluded that 73 percent of the 549 people convicted of international terrorism between 2001 and 2016 were foreign born.

    Activists were infuriated by the report at the time, and now two groups — Muslim Advocates and Democracy Forward — have sued, saying the investigation “misleadingly inflates the threat they pose to the United States,” and “inaccurately” focuses on Muslims.

    “The report perpetuates the ongoing stigmatization of immigrants and Muslims by the administration,” the groups said. “For example, the Trump administration has used the report to justify its sweeping ban on the entry of nationals from six Muslim-majority countries into the United States. It has also specifically tied the report’s findings to its calls for an end to the issuance of diversity and family reunification visas, which would have a significant negative impact on Muslim immigrants.”

    At stake is the Information Quality Act, which lays out the goal of government information being accurate, and creates a process for the public to demand corrections, with the agencies required to respond to those requests within 60 days.

    Neither the Justice Department nor Homeland Security, which co-authored the report, responded to the groups’ requests, they said.

    The groups want the courts to declare the report inaccurate and issue an order banning them from disseminating it.

    The Justice Department declined to comment.

    The report has been widely used by the Trump administration, which pointed to the findings in calling for stricter immigration and travel controls.

    But the lawsuit says the report was wrong to focus only on international terrorism cases, ignoring domestic cases not affiliated with jihadist groups. And the lawsuit says the report included people who committed their acts of terrorism overseas, but were later extradited to the U.S. to face charges.

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/apr/10/muslim-group-sues-block-trump-terrorism-report/

  7. the daily caller –Meadows: Sessions, Rosenstein ‘Should Be Held In Contempt’ – Impeaching Wray ‘In The Toolbox’

    Rep. Mark Meadows told reporters Wednesday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “absolutely … should be held in contempt” for not complying with a subpoena from House Intelligence Chair Devin Nunes.

    “Really at this particular point, it’s members of Congress who have a bigger problem with Rod Rosenstein [than the president],” Meadows said in response to a question about POTUS possibly firing the deputy AG. “Myself included.”

    “He is not giving us the documents, and he is not doing his job,” he continued. “If he is not going to do the job, he needs to go and find one that he will do, and so the frustration with the AG and the deputy AG is probably more of a focus of Congress, and it probably makes the president’s dissatisfaction pale in comparison.”

    “They have not complied with the subpoena. They should be held in contempt if they can’t get it right.”

    Meadows added that impeaching FBI Director Christopher Wray — an idea first floated by Nunes — is “in the tool box.”

    “Hopefully they will comply long before we have to go that route, but it is in the tool box that we have there. Certainly contempt of Congress is the first step.”

    http://dailycaller.com/2018/04/11/meadows-sessions-rosenstein-wray-contempt-impeach-video/

    • FBI gives Nunes access to memo that started Russia probe

      After threatening contempt of Congress, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and viewed a copy of the two-page FBI memo that kick-started the Russia investigation; chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge reports from Washington.

    • Rosenstein, Wray need to be held accountable: Rep. Gaetz

      Lou Dobbs – Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) on whether Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be fired.

  8. The death toll for rising aviation accidents: 133 troops killed in five years

    In the last three weeks, six military aviation crashes have killed 16 pilots or crew — a tragic development that has cast a spotlight on a growing crisis: Accident rates have soared over the last five years for most of the military’s manned warplanes.

    Through a six-month investigation, the Military Times found that accidents involving all of the military’s manned fighter, bomber, helicopter and cargo warplanes rose nearly 40 percent from fiscal years 2013 to 2017. It’s doubled for some aircraft, like the Navy and Marine Corps’ F/A-18 Hornets and Super Hornets. At least 133 service members were killed in those fiscal year 2013-2017 mishaps, according to data obtained by Military Times.

    https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2018/04/08/the-death-toll-for-rising-aviation-accidents-133-troops-killed-in-five-years/

      • sequestration, things are getting better but they didn’t have money for maintenance or training. The Air Force was canablizing 2/3rds of the planes to keep the rest flying. Same thing happened under Clinton but then they managed to get enough money to keep 1/2 of the planes flying.

        • The Air Force was canablizing 2/3rds of the planes to keep the rest flying.

          Hell! That’s something Third World countries do with their planes and equipment! I guess 0bama really managed to import some of his “culture” into the past two administrations.

  9. Facebook has dozens of former Obama, Hillary staffers in senior positions
    Allum Bokhari, Breitbart

    [Ed. – Dozens means dozens. The low count is 45, apparently, going only by the people who overly list their prior employment in online profiles. The actual count is probably higher.]

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/04/10/facebook-dozens-former-obama-hillary-staffers-senior-positions/

    During his recent apology tour, Mark Zuckerberg notably failed to mention recent revelations about the Obama 2012 campaign’s exploitation of the platform’s weak pre-2014 data protections to harvest masses of data from non-consenting users. The number of ex-Obama staffers on his payroll, according to Linkedin, might explain why.

    The establishment media narrative on the Facebook data scandal hit a snag last month. They hoped the story would be restricted to Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics firm that they linked to the Cruz and Trump campaigns, and their alleged misuse of data. But a bigger story soon emerged, linked to a longtime media favorite: Barack Obama.

    http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/04/10/dozens-obama-alumni-now-senior-facebook-employees/

    • Facebook has dozens of former Obama, Hillary staffers in senior positions

      Considering Zuckerberg’s having previously hinted about a presidential run, this tidy little alliance is particularly unnerving.

  10. reuters –Global Muslim body urges Europe to assimilate migrants better

    RIYADH (Reuters) – Europe must do more to assimilate Muslim immigrant populations and criminalise religious hate speech, said the head of a global Muslim missionary society trying to help Saudi Arabia mend its reputation as a promoter of intolerant ideology.

    The Muslim World League (MWL) and the kingdom itself have been accused for decades of spreading the strict Wahhabi strain of Islam, often criticised as the philosophical basis for radical Islamist militancy worldwide.

    Recent gestures of interfaith tolerance follow Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s promise to promote a more moderate form of Islam, and his warning that extremists’ main aim is to radicalise Muslim communities in Europe.

    Critics say the mosques and Islamic centres around the world controlled by the MWL promote intolerance and hatred of some religions and Muslim sects — a charge the group denies.

    Secretary-General Mohammed al-Issa said the organisation, headquartered in Mecca, could assist in assimilation and the eradication of extremist ideology abroad.

    “We believe that European countries, where there is much debate now, and other countries around the world … need to enhance national assimilation programmes and criminalise hatred and contempt for adherents of religions because this threatens the safety of the community,” he told Reuters in an interview.

    “The League has programmes and curricula that enhance national assimilation and which can courageously and forcefully confront all forms of extremism, as well as special programmes to thwart efforts to infiltrate the Muslim community.”

    He would not elaborate on specific measures.

    Saudi Arabia last month ceded control of Brussels’ Grand Mosque, previously run by the MWL, to local authorities over concerns that it promoted radicalism.

    Prince Mohammed has traced some of the kingdom’s most restrictive practices to 1979, the year of the Shi’ite Muslim revolution in Iran and an attack on Mecca’s Grand Mosque by Sunni extremists.

    WOMEN’S RIGHTS

    He has loosened social restrictions in the past two years, scaling back the role of the religious police and allowing women more independence, including the right to launch their own businesses and drive a car.

    Critics, however, accuse the 32-year-old heir to the throne of trying to rewrite history and absolve the government of blame for decades of promoting intolerant ideas.

    Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s most gender-segregated nations, is ranked 138 of 144 states in the 2017 Global Gender Gap, a World Economic Forum study on how women fare in economic and political participation, health and education.

    Last month, a U.N. rights watchdog said Riyadh still needed to end discriminatory practices against women and enforce a recent order that would entitle them to obtain a passport, travel or study abroad and access health care without having to seek consent from a father, husband or son.

    Issa, who also sits on the kingdom’s top clerical body, the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, said there was no reason why women should be barred from obtaining a passport or travel without the consent of a male guardian.

    “The intention of sharia (Islamic law) must be understood within religious texts … and we must understand that fatwas (religious decrees) differ according to various times, places and circumstances,” he said.

    “A woman can nowadays travel anywhere safely and therefore I cannot tell her that she cannot travel … This may take time for individuals to accept but, from a legal perspective, this does not require time.”

    He said women would still be required to obtain their guardian’s consent for marriage in order to “safeguard” society and families.

    Saudi Arabia has no written legal code to go with the texts making up sharia. Police and judiciary have long citing social customs in enforcing certain prohibitions on women.

    https://in.reuters.com/article/saudi-europe-islam/global-muslim-body-urges-europe-to-assimilate-migrants-better-idINKBN1HH2N1

    NOV 2017 -Mohammed al-Issa, head of a Saudi-based Islamic organization on terrorists ideology

  11. MILLCREEK TOWNSHIP, Pa. (WICU) – A school district in Pennsylvania armed its teachers with baseball bats in response to the recent school shootings nationwide.

    In the wake of the Parkland School shooting, the Millcreek School District armed its 500 teachers with 16-inch baseball bats.

    Educators React to Trump’s Push to Arm Teachers
    According to Superintendent Bill Hall, the bats were distributed to each teacher, following an in-service training day on how to respond to school shootings.

    https://www.tmj4.com/news/national/pennsylvania-school-district-arms-teachers-with-mini-baseball-bats

  12. Sometime on or around April 1, 2018 Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy Jason Fitzsimons, 42 years old and in excellent state of mind and health, called in sick to his job. Shortly thereafter Fitzsimons was found dead on his sofa. There has been a complete “news blackout” of this curious and untimely death.

    Deputy Fitzsimons wasn’t just any law enforcement officer. Unlike many of his peers, he took to social media to question the potential agenda behind the February 14 Marjory Stoneman High School mass shooting, suggesting that the event was being used to promote the Democratic Party’s gun control platform in anticipation of the 2018 midterm elections. And recent personnel decisions involving public officials indicate (e.g. here and here), an unwritten law of taxpayer-funded institutions is that employees disavow and steer clear of “conspiracy theories” that may call their superiors’ motives into question.

    https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2018/04/09/dead-at-42-broward-county-sheriff-deputy-who-questioned-parkland-school-shootings-gun-control-agenda/

    • … 90 to 97 percent of cleanup at two sites is questionable

      They must have hired locally.

  13. Czech Republic welcomes only Christian refugees – Muslim migrants can go to Iran or Saudi Arabia
    Facebook undefined

    The Czech Republic accepts only Christian refugees claiming they are the real refugees..
    Most of the immigrants who arrived in Germany are not refugees from Syria. They are Muslim immigrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East who exploited the flow of immigrants from Syria to invade Europe as “refugees.”
    Have you ever wondered why there are no terrorist attacks in Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary?
    These are the only countries that refuse to adopt the EU’s free immigration policy.

    https://www.freespeechtime.net/2018/03/czech-republic-welcomes-only-christian.html

  14. Note: This Pentagon project was cancelled the day Facebook was founded:

    PENTAGON KILLS LIFELOG PROJECT
    THE PENTAGON CANCELED its so-called LifeLog project, an ambitious effort to build a database tracking a person’s entire existence.

    Run by Darpa, the Defense Department’s research arm, LifeLog aimed to gather in a single place just about everything an individual says, sees or does: the phone calls made, the TV shows watched, the magazines read, the plane tickets bought, the e-mail sent and received. Out of this seemingly endless ocean of information, computer scientists would plot distinctive routes in the data, mapping relationships, memories, events and experiences.

    https://www.wired.com/2004/02/pentagon-kills-lifelog-project/

  15. GARDEN CITY — Four people were injured when a simulator M21 tank round exploded inside a Garden City business Wednesday morning.

    The explosion happened at about 10:20 a.m. inside Henderson Wheel and Supply, located at 112 West 34th Street.

    According to Garden City Police, employees at the wheel shop found the round outside the shop while doing weed control. They brought the device back inside, and were trying to take it apart when it exploded, investigators said.

    http://www.ktvb.com/mobile/article/news/local/police-simulator-tank-round-caused-garden-city-explosion/277-537324605

  16. MWL offers Europe help to fight extremists (saudigazette, Apr 11, 2018)
    http://saudigazette.com.sa/article/532503/SAUDI-ARABIA/MWL-offers-Europe-help-to-fight-extremists

    “Europe must do more to assimilate Muslim immigrant populations and criminalize religious hate speech, said the head of a global Islamic missionary organization based in Saudi Arabia.

    The Muslim World League (MWL) and the Kingdom itself have been accused for decades of spreading an austere strain of Islam, often criticized as the philosophical basis for the Islamist militancy worldwide.

    MWL Secretary-General Mohammed Al-Issa said the organization, headquartered in Makkah, could assist in assimilation and the eradication of extremist ideology abroad.

    «We believe that European countries, where there is much debate now, and other countries around the world … need to enhance national assimilation programs and criminalize hatred and contempt for adherents of religions because this threatens the safety of the community,» he told Reuters in an interview.

    «The League has programs and curricula that enhance national assimilation and which can courageously and forcefully confront all forms of extremism, as well as special programs to thwart efforts to infiltrate the Muslim community.»

    Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman has traced some of the Kingdom›s most restrictive practices to 1979, the year of the Shiite revolution in Iran and an attack on the Grand Mosque in Makkah by extremists.

    He has loosened social restrictions in the past two years, scaling back the role of the religious police and allowing women more independence, including the right to launch their own businesses and drive a car.

    Issa, who also sits on the Council of Senior Scholars, said there was no reason why women should be barred from obtaining a passport or travel without the consent of a male guardian.

    «The intention of Shariah must be understood within religious texts … and we must understand that fatwas (religious decrees) differ according to various times, places and circumstances,» he said.

    «A woman can nowadays travel anywhere safely and therefore I cannot tell her that she cannot travel … This may take time for individuals to accept but, from a legal perspective, this does not require time.» He said women would still be required to obtain their guardian›s consent for marriage in order to «safeguard» society and families. — Reuters”

  17. Moroccans Represent Majority of New EU Citizens: Eurostat (moroccoworldnews, Apr 11, 2018)
    https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/04/244288/moroccans-represent-majority-new-eu-citizens-eurostat/

    “According to the latest statistics issued by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, on April 9, Moroccan nationals once again constituted the largest group of foreigners acquiring citizenship in an EU Member State in 2016, with over 101,300 citizens naturalized.

    Out of this figure, 89 percent of Moroccans obtained citizenship in Spain, Italy, or France, while the rest acquired citizenship in Belgium, the Netherlands, or Germany.

    Moroccans comprised the largest demographic naturalized in Spain, representing 36.5 percent of all naturalization cases. They were also the largest group to be naturalized in Italy and France, at 34.8 percent and 17.5 percent of national cases, respectively.

    According to Eurostat, Moroccans have ranked first in terms of naturalization in the 27 countries of the European Union, followed by Albanians, Indians, Pakistanis, and Turks.

    Albania ranked second with over 67,500 new citizens, mostly in Italy and Greece. India took third place with over 41,700, mostly in the UK.

    The report said that in 2016, around 995,000 people acquired citizenship in a Member State of the European Union (EU), up from 841,000 in 2015.

    “Of the total number of persons obtaining the citizenship of one of the EU Member States in 2016, 12 percent were former citizens of another EU Member State, while the majority were non-EU citizens or stateless,” the report says.”

  18. Number of Afghan migrants in Turkey rises 400 percent in one year (hurriyetdailynews, Apr 11, 2018)
    http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/number-of-afghan-migrants-in-turkey-rises-400-percent-in-one-year-130130

    “The number of undocumented Afghan migrants in Turkey rose by 400 percent in one year, according to figures from a Turkish cabinet meeting, daily Habertürk reported on April 11.

    The Turkish cabinet had gathered to discuss the recent inflow of Afghan migrants to Turkey.

    According to the figures, there were 27,000 Afghans in the first quarter of 2018, an increase from 6,000 in the first quarter of 2017.

    During the meeting, cabinet members said Afghan migrants considered Turkey as their final destination and not a transit country.

    But a small number of Afghan migrants were trying to reach European countries via Turkey, the members reportedly said.

    The cabinet meeting came after Turkish Prime Minister Binali Y?ld?r?m’s visit to Afghanistan over the weekend, where he met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and other statesmen amid reports on a large number of undocumented Afghans trying to enter Turkey through Iran in addition to those who are waiting at the borders.

    Erzurum, A?r? and Igd?r in the country’s east and Van in the southeast are the provinces that receive most Afghan refugees.

    Dawn raid on Afghan migrants, human traffickers

    Police teams raided 12 different addresses across the eastern province of Erzurum to capture human traffickers early on April 11.

    The operation was backed by drones, special forces teams and almost 100 police officers against human traffickers smuggling Afghan migrants to Turkey.

    Scores of migrants were also rounded up during the raids and were taken to police stations.”

  19. France naturalizes 120,000 new French citizens (including hundreds of Brits) (thelocal, Apr 11, 2018)
    https://www.thelocal.fr/20180411/french-naturalizes-120000-including-over-1000-brits

    “France naturalised 120,000 people in the year 2016, with an ever-growing number of Brits joining the crowd.

    Nearly one million people were granted an EU passport in 2016, with most new citizens becoming Italian, followed by Spanish and British.

    In fourth place was France, which gave out passports to 119,152 new citizens over the year, according to figures released by Eurostat on Monday.

    It marked the fourth consecutive year that France has seen an increase in the number of nationalisations.

    Around half of these 120,000 passports came via naturalisation, while some 21,000 came via marriage to a French person.

    So where are they all from?

    Of those who became French who already had another EU passport, most were from Portugal (30 percent).

    Then, the most common EU citizens to become French were from Romania (20 percent), Poland (9 percent), Italy (8 percent) and the UK (6 percent).

    For those from outside the EU who became French, Morocco and Algeria made up 16 percent of the total each. Next most common was Tunisia, Turkey, and Mali with 7, 5, and 4 percent respectively.

    The majority of the French passports in 2016 went to Moroccans (17,728) and Algerians (17,644), followed by Tunisians with 7,673…”

  20. German state government defends headscarf ban for children (DW, Apr 11, 2018)
    http://www.dw.com/en/german-state-government-defends-headscarf-ban-for-children/a-43345191

    “North Rhine-Westphalia’s government is on the defense after a plan to legally ban girls from wearing headscarves in school sparked controversy. Germany’s anti-discrimination head said a ban could marginalize Muslim kids.

    Serap Güler, the undersecretary in the integration ministry for the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), has fiercely defended a proposal to ban girls under the age of 14 from wearing headscarves or hijabs in school…”

  21. Russia’s Toxic Legacy

    EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The recent poisoning on British soil of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer who acted as a double agent for the UK’s intelligence services, and his daughter Yulia with a very rare nerve agent of the Novichok type appears almost certainly to have been conducted by the Russians. While the attack is part of a long chain of similar incidents, it was an overwhelming event diplomatically, politically, practically, and in terms of intelligence. Two similar incidents in London exhibited common elements linking them to the Skripal attack. Together, they shed light on the apparatus that might be responsible.

    The quest for untraceable, incurable poisons and undetectable modes of employing them has long preoccupied intelligence services oriented towards political assassination. In addition to being a major medico-technical challenge for both perpetrators and investigators, that quest has serious diplomatic and political dimensions.

    In 1978 and 2006, two notorious assassinations (among many others in the UK and elsewhere in the world) occurred in London. Those two assassinations bear a strong resemblance to the recent attack on former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter on British soil and thus warrant reexamination.

    https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/russia-poison-assassinations/

  22. Full interview: ‘Beatles’ jihadists speak to Sky

    ( 9 min 21 )

    ‘Beatles’ jihadists Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh tell Sky News there will be more IS-inspired attacks in Europe.

  23. Dusseldorf church historian Michael Hesemann was banned on Monday by Facebook for 30 days.

    Reason for that was this contribution: “Islam plays in the 1,700-year history of the Christian West only one role: The sword of Damocles, which hung over us, the threat of barbarism against which they unite and to defend themselves was. In that sense, Islam is not part of German history but the fight against Islam! ”

    With this contribution, the historian wanted to participate in the initiated by Horst Seehofer/CSU/ Islam debate. With the statement that Islam does not belong to Germany, the CSU leader had sparked a controversial debate last week. According to a poll, 76 percent of Germans agreed with Seehofer. But shortly after Michael Hesemann had published his post on his Facebook page, this was reported and Facebook imposed the block.

    “It says a lot about the deplorable state of our democracy under Chancellor Angela Merkel, when a historian may not name any more simple historical facts. For the question of whether Islam belongs to Germany, as Merkel claims or it does not, as Horst Seehofer stated, there is a third answer: yes, it is part of our history, albeit in a way that fir many may be an uncomfortable one ” Michael Hesemann explained to our editors. “Islam has even contributed significantly to European integration. Without Islam, there would have been no Charlemagne, whose grandfather, as a hero of Poitiers, grew beyond his role as majordomo and laid the foundation stone for the Carolingian dynasty. There would be no crusades and the associated cultural transfer. There would be no renaissance, which was the result c of the fall of Constantinople and the flight of its scholars to the West . There would be no Holy League as the first European defense alliance against the Turks and so much else. So Islam certainly played an important role in the history of Europe, and especially in Germany, but not as part of our culture, in which it was never integrated – but as a threat against which to unite and to overcome. Say: without Islam, a Christian West would never have defined itself in that clarity.

    The Catholic historian dismissed the reasoning that he had attacked people because of their religious affiliation, “This analysis of the history of our relationship to Islam in the period between the 7th and 18th centuries does not affect a single living person. It does not attack Islam, even though it states that it was perceived by the Christian West as a barbarism, a term that incidentally originates from ancient Greece and flatly characterized all non-Greek – and Islam really does not have Greek roots.

    Nobody would resent it when a historian states that the Franks and Crusaders, in turn, have been understood by many Muslims as ‘barbarians’, perhaps even there were in some ways. But in above case the historical assessment of Islam is simply limited and unworthy of a free society. Obviously, any critical engagement with a religion that has spread through the subjection of other peoples and still today follows a barbarian 7th-century law that follows Sharia with its brutal corporal and capital punishments, including stoning and crucifixion is forbidden. Apparently, even slightly critical historian must now be muzzled. And therefore , I strongly protest and plead for the right to freedom of expression and free discussion of historical facts, “said Michael Hesemann on Wednesday
    http://nrw-direkt.net/facebook-sperrt-duesseldorfer-historiker/

    • This man knows nothing about the real facts of history, he is right about what is going on in South AFrica but doesn’t know diddly about American History.

  24. EU TERROR WARNING: Jihadis using potential EU member to slip into Europe undetected (express, Apr 11, 2018)
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/944724/EU-news-terror-attack-warning-France-Germany-European-Union-terrorism-committee-Turkey

    “TERRORIST are gaining access to Europe by using “real false Turkish passports” to pose as visiting tourists on the Continent, according to a shock warning to the European Parliament’s terrorism committee.

    Terrorism expert Jean-Charles Brisard said would-be jihadis “use these passport to enter under the pretence of tourism”, using Bulgaria and Hungary as possible routes into Europe.

    The expert told MEPs: “What’s evolved is the practices of the terrorists, themselves.

    “They’ve found methods to get around systematic controls of migration flows. So, they’ve changed their access route.

    “There are individuals or terrorist groups that in Turkey can access real false Turkish passports and use these passports to enter Europe on the pretence of tourism – through Bulgaria, often Hungary.

    “This is a new route into Europe and a new route opened up by terrorists organisations quite recently.”…”