Reader’s Links, April 20, 2018

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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

133 Replies to “Reader’s Links, April 20, 2018”

  1. Golden Rush-Out: Turkey Extracts Its Bullion Reserves From US (sputniknews, Apr 20, 2018)
    https://sputniknews.com/business/201804201063750442-turkey-central-bank-gold-reserves-us/

    “The total volume of the Turkish Central Bank’s gold reserves, which were stored in the United States, stood at 220 tons; last month, Turkey’s gold reserves were worth about 25.3 billion dollars.

    Local media cited government sources as saying that the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) has transferred its gold reserves from the US Federal Reserve System to Ankara.

    In March 2018, the CBRT’s gold reserves were worth 25.3 billion dollars; 220 tons of Turkish gold was stored in the US, according to the sources.

    The largest private Turkish banks also withdrew their gold reserves from abroad, responding to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s call “to get rid of exchange rate’s pressure and to use gold against the dollar.”…”

  2. Activists on Jihadi John campus mount a campaign of abuse to oust moderate Muslim staff member – amid nationwide ‘plot’ by hard-Left students to sabotage the government’s Prevent anti-terrorism scheme (dailymail, Apr 20, 2018)
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5636067/Students-Jihadi-Johns-former-university-Westminster-target-staff.html

    “Disturbing intimidatory tactics used by students to undermine anti-terrorist measures on university campuses can be revealed today.

    Activists are targeting anyone connected to the Government’s Prevent programme – which seeks to tip off the security services about potential extremists.

    In one example, students at Islamic State executioner Jihadi John’s former university launched a direct action campaign to make a Muslim staff member’s life ‘hell’ for his involvement in the scheme.

    Interfaith adviser Yusuf Kaplan was branded a ‘fake Muslim’ and demonstrators said they hoped he would ‘die’.

    Thirty protesters stormed Westminster University’s headquarters to demand his sacking.

    They also descended on Mr Kaplan’s office to hurl abuse through a megaphone, screaming ‘shame’ and chanting ‘say it loud, say it clear, Kaplan not welcome here’.

    The personal intimidation is part of an orchestrated nationwide plot by hard-Left students to sabotage Prevent, which was made a legal requirement on campuses after a string of Islamist terrorists were groomed at UK universities…”

  3. reuters – Austria says will bar Turkish politicians from campaigning on its soil

    VIENNA (Reuters) – Austria’s right-wing coalition government, which is strongly opposed to Turkey joining the European Union, will bar Turkish politicians from campaigning on its territory ahead of June elections in Turkey, the chancellor has said.

    Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called snap parliamentary and presidential elections this week, bringing the votes forward by more than a year so that Turkey can switch to a powerful new executive presidency system that was narrowly approved in a referendum last year.

    Ahead of that referendum, Turkish ministers sought to drum up support in countries with large Turkish communities, like the Netherlands and Germany. Those countries imposed bans on security grounds that angered Istanbul, and Erdogan and some of his allies at the time compared the German government to the Nazi regime.

    “Erdogan’s Turkish leadership has been trying to exploit Europe’s communities of Turkish origin for many years,” Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told ORF radio in remarks broadcast on Friday. “Turkish election campaign appearances in Austria are unwanted and we will therefore no longer allow them.”

    Austria’s opposition to such events is, however, not new.

    The previous chancellor, a Social Democrat, said last year that he would try to prohibit any campaign appearances by Turkish ministers. A law has since been passed giving the government greater powers to ban foreign political gatherings.

    Several hundred thousand people in Austria are Turkish or of Turkish origin.

    Kurz’s conservatives are in a coalition government with the anti-Islam Freedom Party, making Austria the only western European country to have a far-right party in government. Both parties believe the European Union should break off Turkish accession talks.

    When asked if Austria would prevent campaign events by all Turkish political parties, however, Kurz said it would.

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-austria-turkey/austria-says-will-bar-turkish-politicians-from-campaigning-on-its-soil-idUSKBN1HR0XK

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  4. Turkey Targeting Greece – Again

    by Uzay Bulut
    April 20, 2018 at 5:00 am

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12199/turkey-targeting-greece-again
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    Turkey has been harassing Greece consistently. Most recently, this week, on April 17, two Turkish fighter aircraft harassed the helicopter carrying Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and the Greek Armed Forces Chief Admiral Evangelos Apostolakis as they were flying from the islet of Ro to Rhodes.

    With the illegal seizures and occupation of northern Cyprus in 1974 and the Syrian city of Afrin this March — with virtually no global response — Turkey apparently feels unchallenged and eager to continue; this time, it seems, with the oil-and-gas rich islands of Greece.

  5. Counter-Revolution in the Sanctuary State?
    Resistance to California’s unconstitutional laws shielding illegals is growing.
    April 20, 2018
    Matthew Vadum

    California’s grossly unconstitutional obstruction of federal immigration laws is feeding a growing backlash by local governments against the state’s unprecedented sanctuary laws that shield its 2.4 million illegal aliens from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE).

    There is a “little bit of a revolution going on in California” over “sanctuary cities,” President Trump told reporters yesterday in Key West, Fla.

    “Drugs are flowing into our country,” he said. “We need border protection. We need the wall. We have to have the wall. The Democrats don’t want to approve the wall because they think [opposing it is] good politically, but it’s not.” He added that human trafficking is “worse than it’s ever been in the history of the world.”

    “If you look at what’s happening in California with sanctuary cities — people are really going the opposite way,” Trump continued. “They don’t want sanctuary cities. There’s a little bit of a revolution going on in California.”

    This righteous, patriotic blowback is taking the form of Golden State localities opting out of the state laws, and in some cases, joining the Trump administration’s lawsuit against California’s months-old “sanctuary state” laws that punish compliance with federal immigration laws and provide legal cover for corrupt officials to continue brazenly flouting immigration laws and interfering with federal agents trying to enforce them.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269945/counter-revolution-sanctuary-state-matthew-vadum

  6. Video: SJP and the ‘Intifada’
    The violent agenda of a campus hate group exposed.
    April 20, 2018
    Frontpagemag.com

  7. White Gun Owners, the Left Hates You
    Law-abiding, white gun owners are the new Nazis.
    April 20, 2018
    Mark Tapson

    If you are a white, law-abiding gun owner, never forget: the left hates you.

    If you are a gun-wielding jihadist, leftists will find every excuse to turn a blind eye to your evil and direct their outrage toward white, law-abiding defenders of the Second Amendment. If you are a gun-wielding, non-white illegal alien like the multiple-felony murderer of San Francisco’s Kate Steinle, the left will shield you in a sanctuary city and blame Steinle for being white, pretty, and causing trouble for you by getting in the way of your bullet. If you are part of a gun-wielding black mob torturing and massacring white farm-owning families in South Africa, the left will wag its finger at the families themselves and blame your savagery on their colonialist oppression. The left hates you.

    What about white leftists? Do white leftists hate themselves? Yes, although they do love themselves during their ecstatic spasms of virtue-signaling. Hence their self-flagellating claims of their own purported white privilege, cultural appropriation, and colonialist past. But mostly they hate you, law-abiding white patriots – make no mistake about it.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269943/white-gun-owners-left-hates-you-mark-tapson

    • …[R]efusing to take up arms in defense of your children’s lives does not make you a spiritually and morally superior human being; it makes you an ideologically-warped coward of the worst degree.

  8. “New American History Textbook Slams Trump Supporters: ‘Afraid Of Rapidly Developing Ethnic Diversity Of Country’” Weasel Zippers via The American Mirror – April 16, 2018
    https://www.weaselzippers.us/381755-new-american-history-school-textbook-slams-trump-supporters-afraid-of-rapidly-developing-ethnic-diversity-of-country/

    “Ep. 9: Boycotts of Chick-Fil-A and Bras Take Shape, While Liberals Attack Barbara Bush”
    FreedomProject Media – April 19, 2018

  9. (1) An Iran video worth seeing because of the chants.
    [They are chanting:
    1. Our enemy is here in Iran, you lie to us that our enemy is the US. (Meaning mullas’ regime is the real enemy of Iran)
    2.Such a disgrace is this media (IRIB is lying to Iranians and is the regime propaganda)
    3.I kill traitor to my country.]

    https://twitter.com/ThomasWictor/status/987407336825208832

    This is not #Iran in 1979. This is #Iran in 2018. And these are no ordinary protests.

    https://twitter.com/AlirezaNader/status/987342439152345090

  10. Austrian PM vows to bar Turkey elections campaigns ahead of snap polls (hurriyetdailynews, Apr 20, 2018)
    http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/austrian-pm-says-no-turkish-campaigning-to-be-allowed-ahead-of-snap-polls-130622

    “Austria’s right-wing coalition government, which is strongly opposed to Turkey joining the European Union, will bar Turkish politicians from campaigning on its territory ahead of snap June elections, the country’s chancellor has said…”

  11. Brussels calls on Turkey to improve alignment with EU’s foreign and security decisions (hurriyetdailynews, Apr 20, 2018)
    http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/brussels-calls-on-turkey-to-improve-alignment-with-eus-foreign-and-security-decisions-130644

    “The European Commission’s 2018 “progress report” for Turkey urged Ankara to align more closely with the EU’s declarations and decisions on common foreign and security policy for the next year.

    “In the coming year, Turkey should in particular take urgent steps to significantly improve its alignment with EU declarations and Council decisions on common foreign and security policy,” stated the report, released on April 17…”

  12. Gülenists see Greece as a ‘safe haven,’ says Turkish PM Y?ld?r?m (hurriyetdailynews, Apr 20, 2018)
    http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-blasts-greek-court-decision-to-release-suspected-soldier-130634

    “Followers of U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen have started seeing Greece as a “safe haven,” Turkish Prime Minister Binali Y?ld?r?m said on April 20, after a Greek high court’s decision to release a former Turkish soldier from custody.

    Greece “protects [Fethullahist Terrorist Organization] FETÖ members who actively participated in the [July 2016 military] coup attempt,” Y?ld?r?m told reporters.

    “What Greece has been doing is harming our friendship,” he added.

    Earlier in the day the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the Greek court’s recent decision to release Süleyman Özkaynakç?, who sought asylum in Greece, “demonstrates once again that Greece protects coup plotters.”…”

  13. NGOs must rethink aid to ‘fragile’ and developing states, study finds (france24,Apr 20, 2018)
    http://www.france24.com/en/20180420-international-community-ngo-rethink-aid-developing-states-lse-oxford-escaping-fragility

    “A new LSE-Oxford report on growth and development released Thursday says the number of people living in “fragile states” is rising sharply and calls on the international community to transform its approach to providing aid to these nations.

    By 2030, half of the world’s poor will be living in so-called fragile states – those nations so afflicted by conflict or corruption that their governments either lack the legitimacy to be effective or the ability to provide public services, economic growth and employment opportunities for their populations. These nations often lack basic security, a functioning private sector, and have deep-rooted social, religious or political divisions that make uniting under a central government particularly challenging.

    Such state insecurity doesn’t just condemn whole nations to poverty – it has a global effect, including “driving mass migration, providing safe havens for piracy and trafficking, and enabling terrorist training camps to thrive”, the authors note in “Escaping the Fragility Trap”.

    The report – released April 19 by the LSE-Oxford Commission on State Fragility, Growth and Development, which is chaired by former UK prime minister David Cameron and conducted under the auspices of the International Growth Centre (IGC) – draws on research and testimony from policymakers, academics, business leaders and other experts in fragile states and conflict situations.

    “The Commission’s findings are clear,” it said. “If international assistance, aid, and – crucially – economic development are to help make our world safer and more prosperous, we need to address what we call the ‘syndrome’ of fragility.”

    And yet the international response to aid in these fragile nations continues to be hampered by the same mistakes of the past.

    “Indeed, some of the things developed countries, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and donors have done have arguably made matters worse,” the report said. “After decades of aid, many of these countries are as poor as they ever were – some even poorer.”

    International agencies must take a more realistic view of what can be achieved at the local level instead of rushing to impose Western democratic norms on a still-fragile nation, the report said. Many well-meaning programmes often fail because they are “inconsistent” with what a fledgling state is objectively capable of achieving. At other times, governments have been coerced into adopting projects and programmes that they do not want or need.

    Any long-term solutions will be largely domestic, the report found. “That may be slow and tough, but it is likely to be more lasting. Homegrown solutions and locally negotiated coalitions of governments, businesses, and civil society are the things that will make well-designed international support more likely to be effective.”

    International agencies – including NGOs, donor countries, aid groups, the International Monetary Fund, the UN, financing institutions and peacekeeping forces – must fundamentally rethink their approaches and learn from past failures. “Above all, they must stop setting out long lists of unachievable objectives and unrealistic timetables, and start working with governments rather than around governments,” the Commission said.

    “Escaping fragility is by necessity, a slow, step-by-step, and often imperfect process,” said Dr Donald Kaberuka, former president of the African Development Bank and co-chair of the LSE-Oxford commission. “International support will be needed, but the chances of success are higher if the country and its people are in the driver’s seat.”

    And yet, national actors – governments and political parties, as well as media and civil society groups – must also rethink their approaches. “This emphasis on greater national respect and responsibility will only work if they set out their national priorities – about where they are going as a country and who they want to be,” said the report. “Owning those priorities, learning from mistakes, combatting corruption, and demonstrating accountability are all crucial.”

    ‘Pop up democracy’

    Poverty and stagnation are particularly acute in nations struggling to rebuild after conflict. First steps include re-establishing security and rebuilding trust on a local level.

    But what has become standard practice is a rapid reaction to a crisis, topped off with “a veneer of high-sounding sentiments based on a salient myth”. That myth is the idea that if some “root cause” of fragility is eliminated, society will soon return to functioning.

    It was this myth that was at work in ousting Saddam Hussein, following which the Iraqi state was demolished, a new constitution quickly established and a new government chosen in multi-party elections. But Iraq soon descended into sectarian conflict and chaos.

    The report observed that, despite its failures, variants of the Iraq strategy have been used over and over again by the international community. From the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt to the Taliban in Afghanistan, the fall of each of these regimes has been followed by what the Commission called “pop up democracy”.

    “Yet none of these societies duly became flourishing democracies; instead each disintegrated into varied degrees of disorder,” it observed.

    The international community must not be too quick to impose democratic norms on a still-fragile situation. Smooth transitions from conflict to peace are more likely to succeed if there is a period of power-sharing before elections are held, the report found.

    Establishing the “building blocks of democracy – the rule of law, checks and balances, the protection of minorities – matter as much as the act of holding elections”, the Commission said.

    “For states trying to find a pathway out of fragility, these building blocks can be even more important.”

    A transitional phase during which a government earns legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens, by creating checks and balances and establishing a common purpose, “is preferable to the illusion of instant legitimacy conferred by a donor-approved election that citizens do not accept”.

    “Elections matter and I am an out and out believer in democracy,” the IGC quoted the UK’s Cameron as saying on the eve of the report’s release. “But before we rush to multi-party elections, we need to do more to resolve conflicts, achieve power-sharing, and put in place the checks and balances that can help prevent another slide into conflict and failure.”

    In a society riven by sectarian religious, ethnic or other divisions with a history of past grievances, finding agreement on what is fair or “just” may prove especially difficult.

    “The purpose of power-sharing is primarily to allay mutual fears, with each group able to block change that crosses its red lines,” the report said.

    Moreover, this allows time for different social groups to come to some sort of agreement on a mutually beneficial, common path forward and a vision for the future.

    “A key role of inclusive government is to reshape identities and values to those which support the peaceful transition of power, the obligation to obey laws, and the collective effort needed to lift the society out of poverty.”

    The report advised that consistent, concrete acts of consensus-building were preferable to sweeping agreements that may mean little when put into practice.

    “Tangible acts of inclusive governance which signal common purpose are more important than grandiose symbolic gestures and pronouncements such as a constitution signed in a flurry of publicity while the parties to it are still enmeshed in short term tactical manoeuvring which is often within a mind-set of a zero-sum game.”

    The report also counselled that patience was key: “Transforming fragile societies is a generational process, not an event.”

    “We have much to learn from the mistakes which have been made in fragile states – it is high time for a new approach,” said Commission member Minouche Shafik, director of the London School of Economics and Political Science, as quoted by the IGC.

    “Our recommendations suggest viable paths out of fragility grounded in academic and practical evidence which provide a constructive approach for a better future in these countries.””

  14. France ‘expels’ controversial Salafist preacher to Algeria (france24, Apr 20, 2018)
    http://www.france24.com/en/20180420-france-expels-controversial-salafist-preacher-algeria

    “Controversial Salafist preacher, Imam El Hadi Doudi, who was based in the southern French city of Marseille, was expelled to Algeria Friday morning following a lengthy legal process, according to a French media report.

    The 63-year-old preacher — who was born in Algeria and does not have French citizenship — was expelled on Friday, the AFP reported quoting an unnamed French interior ministry source.

    The expulsion followed a deportation order issued by the French interior ministry on Tuesday.

    But Doudi’s expulsion application was suspended pending a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which finally ruled in favour of the deportation on Thursday.

    The ruling followed an appeal by the Salafist cleric’s lawyer, Nabil Boudi, who argued that his client would be tortured or suffer “inhuman or degrading treatment” if he was returned to Algeria.

    The court granted the French government 72 hours “to gather the additional information necessary to make an informed decision”. Doudi was held in an administrative detention center pending the court’s final ruling.

    Sermons targeting women, Jews, Shiites

    The imam of the as-Sounna mosque, in the heart of Marseille, was one of the most high profile cases in the French government’s effort to combat radicalisation.

    The new de-radicalisation plan announced by French President Emmanuel Macron’s government includes increased surveillance of Muslim clerics accused of hate speech and incitement to violence…”

  15. Sweden: Immigration Tops Voters Concerns Ahead of Election (breitbart, Apr 20, 2018)
    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/04/20/sweden-immigration-top-voter-concern/

    “Swedes have named immigration as the country’s most pressing concern, a new poll taken ahead of national elections in September has found.

    The Demoskop survey conducted for Expressen found that some 20 per cent of Swedes now believe immigration to be the most important election issue — a figure which has jumped five points since March, when healthcare topped the list of voters’ concerns.

    Healthcare was the primary concern for 19 per cent of respondents followed by law and order at 12 per cent, and integration at 10 per cent along with schooling and childcare which also attracted 10 per cent of the vote.

    On the issues of both immigration and integration, Swedes surveyed had the highest confidence in policies put forward by the populist Sweden Democrats (SD)…”

  16. US govt counterterrorism center accidentally releases ‘remote mind control’ documents – report (RT, Apr 20, 2018)
    https://www.rt.com/news/424734-us-counterterrorism-center-mind-control/

    “The Washington State Fusion Center, a multi-agency counterterrorism center, accidentally released some puzzling documents this week: A dossier on the effects of remote mind control, a media report claims.

    Investigative journalism site Muckrock filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the center, looking for documents on Fusion’s investigations into white supremacist groups and far-left activists Antifa. Among the trove of documents they got back was a file titled “EM effects on human body.”…”

  17. MS-13 gang tells members to murder a Long Island cop ‘like we do in El Salvador’

    The notorious MS-13 gang recently told its membership to randomly murder a Long Island cop, with the NYPD in turn placing its officers on high alert, a police source said.

    An informant went to the Hempstead police on Wednesday to recount his chilling conversation with a member of the gang, according to an NYPD memo warning of the threat.

    The gang-banger declared “the police have been making too many arrests and it’s time to take the streets back and take out a cop like we do in El Salvador,” the memo said.

    “Subject stated they need to make a statement. Any member of MS-13 has permission to carry out the attack.”

    http://www.gopusa.com/?p=44212?omhide=true

  18. Bay of Pigs Freedom-Fight: 57 Years Later
    How JFK’s voluntary betrayal led Cuban heroes to doom.
    April 20, 2018
    Humberto Fontova

    The Bay of Pigs freedom-fight transpired 57 years ago this week. Given that Hollywood and the mainstream media have finally gotten around to revealing the hideous truth about a Kennedy’s perfidy and how the media/Democrat complex helped cover it up (i.e. Teddy, Chappaquiddick), who knows, perhaps one day they’ll level with us about what really happened at the Bay of Pigs.

    “I really admire toughness and courage, and I will tell you that the people of this brigade [Brigada 2506] really have that…you were let down by our country.” (Donald Trump, addressing Bay of Pigs Veterans at the Bay of Pigs Museum in Miami FL, 11/16, 1999.)

    “It’s a great honor and I’m humbled for this endorsement from these freedom fighters—from TRUE freedom fighters… You were fighting for the values of freedom and liberty that unite us all. (Candidate Donald Trump, receiving endorsement of Bay of Pigs Veterans at the Bay of Pigs Museum in Miami FL, 11/16, 2016.)

    But let’s not hold our breath about the Hollywood/media complex finally coming clean about the Bay of Pigs as it just did about Chappaquiddick. So until that day arrives, here it is:

    No, the invasion was not “doomed” from the beginning because of Castro’s “popular support” in Cuba—as the media/Democrat complex would have you believe.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269934/bay-pigs-freedom-fight-57-years-later-humberto-fontova