Reader’s Links, April 26, 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

170 Replies to “Reader’s Links, April 26, 2018”

  1. A report commissioned by the German government found that newly-arrived asylum seekers were behind more than 90% percent of the increase in violent crimes in the state of Lower Saxony.

    As of December 2017, an estimated 600,000 able-bodied asylum seekers in Germany were on the welfare dole, according to Die Welt. “More than half of the able-bodied unemployment benefit receivers at present are of foreign descent,” wrote Der Spiegel on April 10, 2018.

    Meanwhile, poverty in Germany, especially among elderly pensioners, has reached a historic high.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-25/germany-migrant-crisis-delusions

  2. A report commissioned by the German government found that newly-arrived asylum seekers were behind more than 90% percent of the increase in violent crimes in the state of Lower Saxony.

    As of December 2017, an estimated 600,000 able-bodied asylum seekers in Germany were on the welfare dole, according to Die Welt. “More than half of the able-bodied unemployment benefit receivers at present are of foreign descent,” wrote Der Spiegel on April 10, 2018.

    Meanwhile, poverty in Germany, especially among elderly pensioners, has reached a historic high.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-04-25/germany-migrant-crisis-delusions

  3. #AllCulturesAreEqual

    Evidence for the largest single incident of mass child sacrifice in the Americas— and likely in world history—has been discovered on Peru’s northern coast, archaeologists tell National Geographic.

    More than 140 children and 200 young llamas appear to have been ritually sacrificed in an event that took place some 550 years ago on a wind-swept bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, in the shadow of what was then the sprawling capital of the Chimú Empire.

    https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/04/mass-child-human-animal-sacrifice-peru-chimu-science/

  4. France Detects Over 400 Daesh Donors Financing Terror Attacks – Report (sputniknews, Apr 26, 2018)
    https://sputniknews.com/europe/201804261063939941-france-detects-over-400-daesh-donors/

    “As a two-day conference on the fight against terrorism financing began on Wednesday at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Paris authorities announced that they have identified hundreds of donors supporting one of the most notorious terrorist groups.

    Francois Molins, a major anti-terror prosecutor in France, said Thursday that the country’s intelligence had distinguished 416 French sponsors sending money to Daesh to finance their terrorist activities, France 24 reported.

    They also managed to identify 320 fundraisers, mostly from Turkey and Libya, who were responsible for money transfers, Molins argued.

    The statement came as a two-day conference on dealing with terrorism financing kicked off on Wednesday at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)….”

  5. French special forces sent to reinforce US-led operations in Syria: Mattis

    US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said on Thursday that French special operations forces arrived in Syria over the past two weeks to help boost US-led efforts against the Islamic State group.

    Speaking to senior lawmakers in Washington, Mattis responded to a question about whether the United States was planning on pulling out of Syria — something President Donald Trump has said would happen “very soon.” Right now, “we are not withdrawing,” Mattis told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

    “You’ll see a reenergised effort … You’ll see increased operations on the Iraqi side of the border, and the French just reinforced us in Syria with special forces here in the last two weeks. This is an ongoing fight right now,” he said.

    Trump on Tuesday appeared to walk back his vow to yank US troops from Syria, saying the United States wanted to “leave a strong and lasting footprint ” in the country. Currently, about 2,000 US troops are in Syria, most of them commandos.

    France is a longstanding member of the international coalition fighting IS in Iraq and Syria, and helped bombard the militants in the Mosul area during the Iraqi operation to recapture the city.

    France, along with the US and Britain, also took part in the April 14 cruise missile strikes against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons-related facilities.

    28 more civilian deaths

    The US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq acknowledged on Thursday the deaths of another 28 civilians, increasing the overall toll of non-fighters killed to at least 883.

    The coalition said in a statement that it had completed a review in March of 49 reports of potential civilian casualties from air and artillery strikes, of which all but three were deemed not credible.

    […]

    https://www.dawn.com/news/1404019/french-special-forces-sent-to-reinforce-us-led-operations-in-syria-mattis

    =======================================
    US to expand Syria operation: Defense Secretary Mattis

    WASHINGTON (AA) – Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis on Thursday said the U.S. will expand its operation in Syria despite President Donald Trump’s stated willingness to withdraw from the war-torn country.

    “We are continuing the fight [with Daesh],” Mattis said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Defense Department budget.

    “We are going to expand it and bring in more regional support; [it] is probably the biggest shift that we are making right now.”

    Emphasizing on the presence of anti-Daesh coalition members in the region, he said the fight will continue until Syria gets completely cleared of Daesh.

    Mattis also said operations against Daesh would increase on the Iraqi side of the border while France had reinforced the U.S. in Syria with special forces in the last two weeks.

    Earlier in the month, Trump said his country would be leaving Syria “very soon” since Daesh had been defeated, arguing that the U.S. spending in the Middle East was futile and it detracted from domestic spending.

    However, the Pentagon described reports of a U.S. plan to withdraw troops from Syria as “rumors”, adding that the U.S. would continue fighting against Daesh in Syria. Later on, Trump agreed to keep them in the war-torn country for the short-term.

    Recently, Trump, at a joint news conference with French President Emanuel Macron at the White House, noted that he wanted American troops to return from Syria but also did not want Iran to strengthen its influence in the region, especially after the defeat of Daesh.

    http://www.mynet.com/haber/english/us-to-expand-syria-operation-defense-secretary-mattis-4081010-1

    =================================================
    Mattis pledges re-energized ISIS fight in Syria, says US would regret leaving

    WASHINGTON – American troops will be key in a soon-to-be re-energized campaign against remaining Islamic State fighters in Syria, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told senators Thursday on Capitol Hill, pledging the United States was not preparing to pull its forces from the war-torn country.

    “This is an ongoing fight right now,” Mattis told Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., during a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We’re continuing the fight, and we’re going to expand it with more regional support.”

    Shaheen and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked Mattis to explain recent comments by President Donald Trump indicating the commander in chief was considering the removal of about 2,000 American troops in Syria serving as advisers to Kurdish-Arab forces battling ISIS.

    “We want to come home, we’ll be coming home but we want to leave a strong and lasting footprint and that was a big part of our discussion,” Trump said Tuesday during a news conference at the White House alongside French President Emmanuel Macron. He added later: “So, we’ll see what happens. But we’re going to be coming home relatively soon.”

    Mattis told the senators that any removal of American forces would be based on conditions on the battlefield and not a timeline demanded by the president.

    Graham, long a proponent for greater American intervention in Syria, asked Mattis whether he supported pulling all American troops out of Syria once ISIS is completely destroyed. The senator compared such a departure to the United States withdrawal from Iraq in 2011, which officials have said contributed to the rise of ISIS across Syria and Iraq.

    “I’m confident that we would probably regret it,” Mattis said.

    The defense secretary indicated American forces would be needed to train local Syrian forces properly to hold the territory the U.S.-backed coalition has liberated from ISIS. Those forces are maturing, but much more training would be needed to ensure ISIS or another group like it did not reemerge in the area, he said.

    Additionally, operations against ISIS, which have largely stalled in recent months, should surge in the coming days, Mattis told Shaheen.
    The French have added special forces to the fight and some Middle Eastern nations will soon increase their contributions,
    he said. Mattis did not elaborate on what that additional support would include.

    American intelligence officials estimate ISIS retains more than 1,000 fighters in eastern Syria. The militants, who once controlled huge swaths of territory across Syria and Iraq, are now confined to two small towns in the Middle Euphrates River Valley, about 2 percent of the land that it once occupied, Army Col. Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the U.S.-led anti-ISIS campaign, said Tuesday. Those villages – Hajin and Dashisha – are surrounded by U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, he said. But offensive operations against ISIS have been slow moving since February, as some Kurdish SDF fighters have fled north where Turkish-backed militants have targeted Kurdish groups near Syria’s border with Turkey.

    Pentagon officials have said some Kurdish fighters have returned to the Middle Euphrates River Valley recently, likely a factor in the optimism Mattis expressed Thursday. The officials, including Dillon, have never indicated how many Kurds fled the fight nor how many have since returned.

    https://www.stripes.com/mattis-pledges-re-energized-isis-fight-in-syria-says-us-would-regret-leaving-1.524102

  6. SUPERIOR, Wis. — A tank containing crude oil or asphalt exploded at a large refinery in Wisconsin on Thursday, injuring several people and prompting fire officials to urge people living near the still-burning plant to evacuate their homes.

    No fatalities have been reported, but at least 11 people were being treated at hospitals in Superior, where the blast happened, and nearby Duluth, Minnesota.

    The explosion at the Husky Energy oil refinery happened at about 10 a.m., Superior Fire Chief Steve Panger told The Associated Press.

    Panger said the fire was out by 11:20 a.m., although smoke could still be seen rising from the plant. Superior police later tweeted that the fire had reignited and urged residents living within a one-mile radius of the refinery to leave. Police blocked roads around the refinery in Superior, which is home to about 27,000 people and borders Minnesota to the north and the tip of Lake Superior.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/wisconsin-refinery-explosion-today-2018-04-26/

  7. “A letter has been sent by the Qataris to Trump envoy Jason Greenblatt,” a knowledgeable source says. The source goes on to say that it spells out terms under which Hamas would agree to work within a Palestine Authority framework. It would ostensibly offer some kind of opening to Israel and PA under the parameters of the “deal of the century,” where the PA would return to control in Gaza in exchange for Hamas normalization/reconciliation in the West Bank. This would give Hamas new and unprecedented influence over the PA not seen since 2006. Greenblatt is US President Donald Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations. He recently spoke to an AJC audience about the administration’s commitment to Israeli-Palestinian peace.

    https://tsarizm.com/news/2018/04/26/is-qatar-pushing-hamas-towards-the-deal-of-the-century/

  8. BOSTON — Boston officials Thursday approved changing the name of Yawkey Way, the street outside Fenway Park, because of allegations that former Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey was a racist who resisted hiring black ballplayers in the 1940s and ’50s.

    The city’s Public Improvement Commission unanimously approved a proposal by current Red Sox ownership to call the stretch of road Jersey Street, which it was originally named before being changed in 1977 to honor Yawkey the year after he died.

    “The spirit of Boston is being renewed,” said Walter Carrington, 87, a former member of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination who investigated the Red Sox organization in 1959.

    http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/23325038/name-yawkey-way-fenway-park-changed-racist-past

    • They are demanding perfection for the historical heroes and the modern heroes. They will never get perfection from humans.

  9. OK – this is probably going to come up in the cultural context, so…

    It seems that Kanye West had freestyled a song to TMZ – and you could see a tab on his computer, showing that he is watching Jordan Peterson videos:

    https://i.redd.it/5tzn01urz9u01.png

    This has been bubbling up on social media today, so, FYI.

  10. BELGIUM – Abou Jahjah not happy with foot on koran

    The Belgian-Lebanese publicist Dyab Abou Jahjah filed a complaint against the new book by ex-Miss Belgium and Vlaams Belang politician Anke Van dermeersch. On the cover is the Flemish with her heels on the Koran.

    In the book ‘A. N. K. E. #PolitiekIncorrect ‘tells Van dermeersch about her strong relationship with Filip Dewinter and reveals more juicy gossip about politicians and famous Flemish people. Islam is also widely discussed. ‘If I hear feminists wearing a headscarf… I do not accept that ‘, according to the politician in an interview.

    According to Abou Jahjah, the book shakes an entire community and the anti-racism and anti-discrimination laws are violated at various points, reports HLN. be.

    Especially with the cover, on which the politician ‘puts Islam a heel’, he has trouble. Abou Jahjah: ‘The Qur’an is a holy book, which is not placed under a shoe. ‘

    Abou Jahjah also points out that Van Dermeersch himself and her party ‘have been ravaging the Muslim community for years and inciting hatred. ‘He warns that the book- which according to the publicist is provocative and insulting- can be dangerous. ‘It can attract the attention of extremists abroad, with the danger that they will radicalise and recruit young people here. ‘

    According to him, it is unique in the world that such a book is published by a well-known figure and politician. ‘Elsewhere such books are written by eccentrics. ‘

    https://www.hotrecentnews.com/news/abou-jahjah-not-happy-with-foot-on-koran/37301
    ==========================================
    Anke Van dermeersch (Vlaams Belang) staat met voet op koran op cover van haar boek: “Ik zet de islam een hak”

    https://twitter.com/HLN_BE/status/989125265031770113

    ==================================================

    https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DboUL2bVMAIxJBk.jpg

    ==============================================
    video – August 20th 2016, London

    Islam Kills Women – Anke Van Dermeersch

  11. the daily caller –White House Releases Photos Of Pompeo And Kim Jong Un

    White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released photos of an Easter weekend meeting between recently confirmed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

    Pompeo traveled to North Korea before his confirmation in his role as CIA director to conduct a meeting ahead of an expected summit between President Donald Trump and the North Korean leader. The shock meeting was revealed weeks later with Trump expressing optimism of the results of the meeting.

    “They had a great meeting,” Trump said of the summit Thursday on Fox & Friends noting that he did not give up any concessions in exchange for the meeting. “This is a much more dangerous ballgame now, but I will tell you it’s going very well.”

    http://dailycaller.com/2018/04/26/white-house-releases-photos-of-pompeo-kim-jong-un/
    ===========================================

    https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/989593842944036864/photo/1

    ============================================

  12. BREAKING: COSBY GUILTY

    Legendary comedian, Bill Cosby, has been found guilty on all three counts in a sexual-assault trial of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home in 2004.

    Cosby’s first trial ended in a deadlock last year. The most recent one began this month. He’s faced dozens of sexual misconduct allegations.

    Cosby, who once embodied the ideal American father faces a maximum sentence of 30 years and a fine of $75,000. He is 80-years-old.

    NBC News reports:
    Read more at http://americanactionnews.com/articles/breaking-cosby-guilty#VOj77HVZ1cPbLp1d.99

  13. Kayne Destroys Obama With DEVASTATING Truth Bomb – Backs Up – Does It Again

    Rap superstar Kanye West is not just promoting President Trump — he’s also trashing former president Barack Obama.

    Kanye tweeted Wednesday:

    KANYE WEST
    ?
    @kanyewest

    Obama was in office for eight years and nothing in Chicago changed.

    This comes after Kanye tweeted a photo of himself wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat Wednesday.
    Read more at http://americanactionnews.com/articles/kayne-destroys-obama-with-devastating-truth-bomb-backs-up-does-it-again#ZubzTf6GYeqcmfj4.99

  14. Alfie Evans’ Dad To Prosecute Three Doctors For Conspiracy To Murder His Son

    Tom Evans, the father of ill 23-month-old Alfie, is looking to privately prosecute three doctors for conspiracy to murder his son, it was revealed in the court of appeals on Wednesday.

    “The court has just heard that Alfie’s dad Tom Evans started private prosecution to have three doctors charged with conspiracy to murder yesterday. Papers were served on medics,” reported Alan Jenkins of ITV News.

    Mr. Evans confirmed this himself via Facebook, writing, “if my son dies now, I will instruct lawyers to start private prosecution of every single person who helps to make that happen.”

    “You say that to withdraw life support from a sick child is a humane medical act – I say it is murder. You say that using force to prevent me from trying to save his life is no more than upholding the law – I say it is murder. You say you are acting in the best interests of the child. Perhaps King Herod used that phrase, too,” he continued.

    https://www.dailywire.com/news/29885/alfie-evans-dad-prosecute-three-doctors-conspiracy-amanda-prestigiacomo?utm_medium=email&utm_content=042618-news&utm_campaign=position3

  15. Recovered text messages exchanged by anti-Trump FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page have been delivered to at least five congressional committees, sources familiar with the situation told Fox News Thursday.

    The messages were transmitted to lawmakers three months after Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced that his office had recovered communications between Strzok and Page over the period between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017.

    The committees that have received the messages from the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General include the House Judiciary Committee the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/04/26/recovered-strzok-page-text-messages-delivered-to-congressional-committees.html

      • He’s still on that greasy, nasty pole! Deeply rotten Massachusetts-Washington corridor. Wretched Kennedy syndicate owned us, sold us to the MB.

        Mike Dukakis and his drunken shrew of a wife lived around the corner. The local cops and the guys at the post office, what stories they tell!
        Cat’s-paw, fortunately unelectable. Foreshadowing: the Dem Machine that created the Manchurian Prez.

        • All this evidence out there and the big media types are not using it to show just who Mueller is.

  16. Migrant ‘caravan’ at U.S.-Mexico border prepares for mass crossing

    TIJUANA, Mexico, April 25 (Reuters) – Hundreds of Central American migrants from a caravan that crossed Mexico reunited in Tijuana on Wednesday and planned to cross the border together this weekend in defiance of threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to repel them.

    The timing of the migrants arrival could compromise a flurry of talks this week to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which Trump has repeatedly threatened to scrap if Mexico does not crack down on the flow of Central Americans through its territory.

    Busloads of migrants began arriving on Tuesday at a shelter that was a five minute-walk from the border and within sight of a U.S. flag waving under an overpass connecting the two countries.

    While many rested in tents after a month-long journey across Mexico, others wandered up to the border to contemplate the next stage in their journey.

    “The wall doesn’t look that tall,” said Kimberly George, a 15-year-old girl from Honduras as she looked toward a stunted barrier a few feet away. “I really want to cross it.”

    http://presscorp.org/news/migrant-caravan-at-u-s-mexico-border-prepares-for-mass-crossing

    • This is the test to see how many people are needed to over whelm the Border Guards, no matter how tihs turns out the next caravan will have more people and will end up rushing the guards with more people.

      The far radical leftist Billionaires (Soros and company) are funding these caravans and other actions against the formerly free nations in the West to create Chaos, their goal is so much chaos that the nations are ungovernable. Once this purpose is achieve in all of the formerly civilized nations they will start pushing their Strongmen to become the leaders. Once they become the leaders they will start pushing that with the laws that protect our liberty and rights in place they will be unable to stop the chaos. Once those laws (feeble as they now are) are removed all nations will become as callous as the British Judges who are sentencing children to death to show the ordinary people who is in charge adn tell them not to mess with the “elite”. The criminals in the prisons will be turned loose to make room for the political prisoners and when the prisons are full the detention camps will be built. The murder of two helpless children shows that once the detention camps are built the gas chambers and ovens won’t be far behind.

  17. Szijjártó Péter sajtótájékoztatója a LIBE-bizottság ülése után

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmUWpd_SGyo

    Very important press conference by Szijjarto, Hungarian Foreign Minister, in the face of the betrayal of his party, which was very violently attacked as a group because of the rejection of migrants.

  18. In Defense of Cash
    Around the world, governments are trying to kill paper money. It’s a terrible idea.

    On the evening of November 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that 500-rupee notes (valued at about $8) and 1,000-rupee notes would become “worthless pieces of paper” at midnight, no longer recognized as legal tender. The stated goal of his demonetization plan: to catch criminals. The government offered a brief window in which old notes could be swapped for new ones, with the idea that everyone from human traffickers to tax cheats would have to show up at banks with vast sums of money and confess their sins or lose the value of their cash holdings altogether.

    The costs of this scheme were large. At the time of the announcement, demonetized notes accounted for 86 percent of all currency in circulation. As George Mason economist Lawrence H. White has written, “A serious currency shortage immediately arose, with predictable consequences. Honest wage laborers in the huge cash economy went unpaid, honest construction projects came to a standstill, honest shopkeepers saw sales dry up, and honest businesses failed. Honest people wasted billions of hours waiting in queues to exchange old notes for the trickle of new notes.”

    Growth in the country’s gross domestic product fell from an annualized rate of 7.37 percent in the quarter prior to the announcement to an average annualized rate of 6.06 percent in the first three quarters of 2017.

    https://reason.com/archives/2018/04/22/in-defense-of-cash

    Richard: I still say that some of the politicians will wake up and realize that no one will be able to secretly bribe them if they do away with cash. Their corruption will be their downfall and our salvation.

    • It’s the People’s Republic of Cambridge.
      It’s not a real campaign, he’s just messing around. Just a cute gesture, fake election as usual.

  19. 23 Islamic State affiliated groups operating in southern Philippines (asiancorrespondent, Apr 26, 2018)
    https://asiancorrespondent.com/2018/04/23-islamic-state-affiliated-groups-operating-in-southern-philippines/

    “WHILE the Maute Group might have been defeated in Marawi City, a report has claimed that there are 23 pro-Islamic State groups operating in the southern Philippines.

    Unnamed intelligence sources told regional news portal Benar News this week that extremist organisations were regrouping with some allied “under the black flag of IS” in order to avenge their defeat by the Philippine Army in Marawi – a Muslim-majority city in the southern province of Mindanao.

    Last year, Islamic State-inspired militants laid waste to Marawi during a battle with Philippine security forces that lasted five months and displaced more than 350,000 people. It will cost at least an estimated $1.1 billion to rebuild the city.

    “They are now aggressively reorganising, recruiting and retraining to re-establish their desire to have a foothold in Southeast Asian region,” an intelligence source told Benar News, referring to groups including the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and Abu Sayyaf.

    A spokesman for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) – which signed a peace deal with the Philippines’ central government in 2014 – said that once it was granted autonomy in Mindanao as of May, it could help to “eliminate” the groups that support IS.

    Zachary Abuza, a Professor in Southeast Asian Politics and Security at the National War College in Washington DC responded on Twitter that: “many are vanity projects, defunct cells, or simply so geographically isolated.”

    “Only a few count, and with exception of Marawi siege, they really don’t work together,” he added.

    The Marawi siege saw President Rodrigo Duterte declare martial law across the entire Mindanao, which is set to last until the end of 2018.”

  20. Ayatollah Khamenei: Ignoring Quran Brings Muslims Humiliation (tasnimnews, Apr 26, 2018)
    https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2018/04/26/1710433/ayatollah-khamenei-ignoring-quran-brings-muslims-humiliation

    “TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Complying with the Quran brings about development and prosperity in the Islamic society, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said, warning that disobedience to the Muslims’ holy book would result in humiliation and vulnerability…”

  21. ‘Manifesto’ lumping Islam and anti-Semitism sparks outrage in France (mee, Apr 26, 2018)
    http://www.middleeasteye.net/muslims-france-anti-semitism-manifesto-conflation-racism-islam

    “Vile, racist, contemptible, Islamophobic, provocative … there has been a huge response in France after the publication of the “Manifesto against the new anti-Semitism” in Sunday’s edition of Le Parisien.

    Signed by some 300 French public figures – including three former prime ministers, several deputies from the National Assembly, and former president Nicolas Sarkozy – the text warns against “Islamist radicalisation” and “a surreptitious ethnic purge” allegedly targeting the Jewish community in the Paris region.

    The signatories demand that “Muslim authorities… strike with obsolescence” verses in the Quran calling for “the murder and punishment of Jews, Christians, and non-believers”.

    The “manifesto” preceded the release this Wednesday of a book in which 16 French intellectuals denounce “the new anti-Semitism”.

    Rectors of mosques in France quickly responded to the Parisien article, with one warning that it could inflame relations between religious communities.

    Dalil Boubakeur, rector of the Great Mosque of Paris, said: “The unjust and delirious accusations of anti-Semitism levied against French citizens of Muslim faith and against the Islam of France in this column presents the patent risk of pitting religious communities against one another.”

    Translation: The French want to rewrite the Quran? Why not, but in that case let’s start by rewriting the violent French national anthem. Aren’t young French children singing along to “March, March! Let impure blood water our furrows”?

    Tareq Obrou, the rector of the Great Mosque of Bordeaux, was outraged: “Attributing anti-Semitism to Islam almost constitutes blasphemy, as two-thirds of the Quran’s prophets are Jewish! This makes no sense.

    “The Quran does not call for murder, it calls for fighting back against hostile people,” Obrou said. “This is the same misinterpretation made by a number of ignorant Muslims, delinquents who pick and choose texts depriving them of their historical context.”

    Oubrou is a signatory of another column, written by some 30 French imams and published in Le Monde on Tuesday which denounces anti-Semitism and terrorism, and rejects the conflations made by the now infamous “new anti-Semitism” manifesto.

    “We call on our other fellow citizens, particularly intellectuals and politicians, to be more discerning. Because these criminal practices claimed to be in the name of Islam could in effect confirm cliches already burned into people’s minds,” the Le Monde column reads.

    “Some have already seen (in this manifesto) a long awaited opportunity to incriminate an entire religion. They no longer hesitate to publicly propagate, including in the media, that the Quran itself calls for murder. This pernicious idea is incredibly violent.”…”

  22. Hillary’s Money Laundering Scheme
    Why is the media ignoring the DNC’s new $84 million campaign finance scandal?
    April 26, 2018
    Matthew Vadum

    While it obsesses over an aging porn star, Russians, discredited ex-FBI officials, and pimple-faced gun-grabbers, the mainstream media has been ignoring an explosive federal lawsuit unearthing a huge illegal money-laundering conspiracy said to have been masterminded last election cycle by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

    It is yet another facet of the plot by which Clinton, possibly in league with then-President Obama, broke the law in an attempt to rig the election. Throughout his agonizingly long presidency, Obama serially abused his powers as the nation’s Chief Executive to undermine his political opponents.

    Against this backdrop, the DNC and Hillary’s campaign “allegedly used state chapters as strawmen to launder as much as $84 million in an effort to circumvent campaign donation limits, and the Federal Election Commission ignored complaints exposing the practice,” according to a Fox News report that has been gathering dust since April 16.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270004/hillarys-money-laundering-scheme-matthew-vadum

  23. So Much Fake News, So Little Time
    How to decide if it’s true.
    April 26, 2018
    Michael Ledeen

    Is anything true?

    We’re flooded with fake news, to the point where even those of us who take pains to check stories are often baffled about what’s true and what’s made up. In recent weeks I’ve been flabbergasted by the quantity of false stories told and retold, even by reliable reporters.

    I’m luckier than most. I don’t have short deadlines, and I’ve lived long enough to have a wide range of sources with proven track records. And yet, it’s getting harder and harder to separate wheat from chaff. To take the most recent example, I’m told by my government, and by those of Great Britain and France, that innocent civilians in Syria were killed by Assad’s chemical weapons, and that the three Western countries bombed Syrian targets in reprisal. I wasn’t skeptical about either claim. Syrian tyrants have been poisoning their own citizens for a long time. Why should I doubt they’ve done it again? And with Donald Trump and Mad Dog Mattis at the helm, why on earth would I doubt that the United States had led a counterattack? There were no “firsts,” it was all part of a well-known pattern. And yet…

    And yet there are many smart people who are telling me that Assad did NOT kill his people with chemical weapons, and that we did not bomb him. These are people I trust and admire. My point is not that the stories about Syria are false (I believe the official version), but that serious people believe that the official accounts are hoaxes.

  24. DACA and the Judicial #Resistance
    Judge’s move to restore Obama’s executive order tramples on separation of powers.
    April 26, 2018
    Joseph Klein
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    In the latest example of judicial tyranny, yet another federal district court judge took it upon himself to usurp the constitutional powers of the president of the United States and Congress. Judge John D. Bates of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that President Trump’s executive order terminating the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (“DACA”), established by an executive order issued by his predecessor Barack Obama, was “unlawful.” Judge Bates based his bizarre decision on the grounds that President Trump’s rescission action, implemented by the Department of Homeland Security pursuant to the president’s direction, was “arbitrary and capricious.” Judge Bates claimed that the Trump administration had failed to provide an adequate explanation for cancelling the DACA program. “The Department’s decision to rescind DACA was predicated primarily on its legal judgment that the program was unlawful. That legal judgment was virtually unexplained, however, and so it cannot support the agency’s decision,” Judge Bates wrote in his 60-page ruling. “It was also arbitrary and capricious in its own right, and thus likewise cannot support the agency’s action,” Judge Bates added. “For these reasons, DACA’s rescission was unlawful and must be set aside.”

    It was Judge Bates who issued a decision “arbitrary and capricious in its own right,” not President Trump.

    Obama’s DACA program had granted young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children the right to work and stay in the U.S. without fear of deportation. These so-called “Dreamers,” many of whom are now adults, were technically in the country illegally themselves when Obama unilaterally decided to “legislate” their temporary legal status, renewable ad infinitum, through executive action because he was frustrated with congressional inaction. Judge Bates showed his bias early in his opinion by stating that he would use the immigration activists’ favorite euphemism “undocumented,” rather than the more accurate term “illegal,” so as not to offend certain people.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269999/daca-and-judicial-resistance-joseph-klein

  25. Muslims Inadvertently Call for Ban on Islam
    The irony of Islamic authorities’ calls to ban “religious hate speech.”
    April 26, 2018
    Raymond Ibrahim

    The very same logic that Muslims cite in their ongoing efforts to criminalize anti-Islamic speech in Western nations would require the criminalization of Islam itself.

    Secretary-General of the Muslim World League Mohammed al-Issa argues that “Europe must do more to … criminalize religious hate speech.” In an April 9 interview with Reuters, this prominent Saudi said: “We believe that European countries, where there is much debate now, and other countries around the world … need to … criminalize hatred and contempt for adherents of religions because this threatens the safety of the community.”

    The “hatred and contempt for adherents of religions” that Muslims complain of is ecumenical code for “Islamophobia.” Thus, on April 5 Ömer Serdar, a senior official from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, announced that he and a “group of Turkish lawmakers will travel to the heart of Europe,” where they will “investigate whether authorities take measures against the hostility of Islamophobic discrimination in Muslims’ daily lives.” Afterwards, “they will hold meetings with state authorities during their visits to Germany, France, and Belgium” and “discuss the issue of marginalization.”

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269990/muslims-inadvertently-call-ban-islam-raymond-ibrahim

  26. Anarchy At Texas State University
    Students stalked, threatened with violence — and the administration sides with the perpetrators.
    April 26, 2018
    Jack Kerwick

    The climate that prevails on today’s college campuses can only be described as chilling.

    The one institution that is designed to serve as a bastion of critical thought, a marketplace of ideas, has been reduced by many faculty, student, and administrator alike to a so-called “safe space,” a space designed to immunize the campus against any and all ideas that its self-appointed gatekeepers deem a threat to their hard leftist orthodoxy.

    Of course, this is not news to anyone who has been paying any attention. And conservatives regularly and loudly complain about the attacks on “free speech” in the University.

    However, this way of characterizing the situation, though accurate as far as it goes, doesn’t go nearly far enough. Thus, its focus on the abstraction of free speech grossly understates the real danger that concrete flesh-and-blood human beings risk when they dare to entertain alternative views.

    Principles, like the principle of free speech, don’t bleed. People do.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269980/anarchy-texas-state-university-jack-kerwick

  27. 300 Algerian and Moroccan imams expected in France during Ramadan (memo, Apr 26, 2018)
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180426-300-algerian-and-moroccan-imams-expected-in-france-during-ramadan/

    “Some 300 imams from Algeria and Morocco are expected to conduct prayers in French mosques during the month of Ramadan as part of bilateral agreements between France and the two Maghreb countries.

    French Prime Minister Manuel Valls is one of the most notable critics of the agreement and has called for “an end to these bilateral agreements allowing the arrival of ‘imams of Ramadan’ because it does not correspond to the idea of an Islam of France”.

    Algeria, Tunisia and Turkey are other countries which send imams to France – there are nearly 300 clerics in the country who have been sent to boost numbers and counter extremism.

    There are 2,500 Muslim places of worship in France though the exact number of imams is not known as many are volunteers. There is a particular shortage over Ramadan when many Muslim communities are looking for imams who are able to recite the Qur’an, a practice known as the “tajwid”.

    “Why should the arrival of these foreign imams suddenly be considered a problem? The controversy is unexpected and incomprehensible,” said Mohammed Moussaoui, President of the Union of Mosques of France (UMF). “The statements of some political men and women about these imams show how out of touch they are with the reality and testify to a clear lack of knowledge of the role and mission of these imams.”

    Earlier this month 300 French celebrities and politicians condemned radical Islamists and the rise of the “new anti-Semitism” and urged Muslims to denounce anti-Jewish and anti-Christian references in the Qur’an.”

  28. Moroccans Form No. 1 Foreign Community in Spain with More than 700,000 (moroccoworldnews, Apr 25, 2018)
    https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/04/245164/moroccans-form-no-1-foreign-community-in-spain-with-more-than-700000/

    “Moroccans are the first foreign community in Spain, with a total of 769,050 people according to statistics by the National Institute of Statistics (INE).

    The statement, published on Tuesday by INE, shows an increase of 19,380 Moroccans living in Spain in 2017 alone.

    Romanians trail Moroccans, ranked second with 673,017 people, followed by British residents with 240,934 people.

    The statistics show that 4,719,418 immigrants lived in Spain on January 1, 2018, up 3.2 percent (146,611 persons) compared to the same period in 2017.

    Foreigners represent 10.1 percent of the total population of Spain, which totaled 46,698,569 residents.

    The total number of inhabitants in the country increased by 126,437 in 2017, an increase of 0.3 percent compared to 2016.

    Moroccans were the second foreign community in Spain in 2016, with a total of 668,852 nationals registered up to July 1.”

  29. New Study Identifies MENA Region as Hub of Instability and Illicit Guns (moroccoworldnews, Apr 26, 2018)
    https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/04/245218/new-study-identifies-mena-region-as-hub-of-instability-and-illicit-guns/

    “Despite strong counter terrorism measures —both in urban and remote areas—the MENA region remains still a hotbed of contraband activities, according to a new study by the Flemish Peace Institute.

    Porous national borders and contested governments have contributed to the prevalence of arms smuggling and terrorist networks, the study claims, as countries in the MENA area are still recovering from chaotic and unstable recent past.

    The 26-page study, which features data analysis on Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco (including Western Sahara), and Tunisia, claims that “illicit arms dealings and trafficking have proliferated in the region.”

    The Gaddafi Factor

    Among the various explanations posed as possible reasons for the proliferation of illicit guns and terrorism-linked violence, the former Libyan leader’s death ranks as the most significant factor, opening up markets for illicit gun trade and cross-border circulation.

    With Arab uprisings and the demise of Muammar Gadaffi, the region witnessed waves of instability post-2011, especially in terms of territorial gains by smugglers and armed militias in Libya.

    “Determining how many weapons entered circulation after Gaddafi’s fall is a very difficult exercise,” the study says, reporting that reliable sources suggest “over one ton of arms were looted after Gaddafi fell.”

    Post-Gaddafi Libya is also said to have been a key driver of instability and illicit trafficking in the region as a whole. The lack of central authority, coupled with the emergence of armed factions and tribal allegiances, transformed the country into a “de facto sponge” that imported troubles and instability to neighboring countries in the recent years.

    Moroccan Exception?

    “Morocco and Algeria are both among the largest arms importers in Africa. While Morocco does not report significant violent episodes or seizures of firearms, Algerian authorities regularly report on the numerous arms seizures and counter-terrorism operations in the country, especially along its borders with Libya, Mali and Niger,” the study states.

    The report also documents that despite the pervasiveness of criminal activities across MENA borders, each country, depending on its military and its violence-countering system, has devised ways of fencing itself against both political instability and the infiltration of illicit arms on its territory.

    In that context, Tunisia is dubbed “a peripheral market for small arms and light weapons,” with a relatively low level of illicit gun flows (e.g. Kalashnikovs from Libya).

    Meanwhile, there is the presence of a reportedly strong network of illicit guns flow (both in and out) in Algeria. Despite constant military patrols and daily reports of seizure of illicit arms, the south of the country is still viewed a hub of insecurity.

    In 2016 alone, the Algerian military reported seizing 668 Kalashnikov automatic rifles, 37 mortars, 18 RPGs, 7 rockets, 792 grenades, and 6 anti-aircraft missiles.

    These numbers suggest that the Algerian “black market” for guns also involves heavy weapons. In addition to an active network of illicit guns and other criminal trafficking, the study reveals, the country was recently a hub of organized violence and a haven for Islamic militias and other armed groups, notably AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), Soldiers of the Caliphate, and the Polisario Front.

    In Morocco, on the other hand, there have been few, though not insignificant, violent incidents involving illicit guns. According to the study, the few cases of violence and gun smuggling witnessed in Morocco are mostly linked to the Polisario Front and some ISIS sympathizers operating in urban terrorist cells.

    Morocco has been safe from the terrorist groups (notably AQIM and ISIS) which have caused havoc in other parts of the region, making it hard for terrorist cells and other forms of organized violence to gain a foothold in the country.

    Between 2010 and 2016, reports pointed to less than 50 violent incidents, the study finds. And while most of the ISIS-linked terrorist cells are dismantled and denied the possibility of launching terrorist strikes in Morocco, the Polisario Front’s arms trafficking is turned toward Mauritania.

    “According to an official Mauritanian source, the Polisario Front represents one of the leading suppliers of illegal weapons to Mauritania,” the study claimed. It added that the group’s “large military arsenal” was acquired from the substantial military and logistic support it has been receiving from “states such as Libya and Algeria.””

  30. Boko Haram attacks Nigerian city: militia (gulfnews, Apr 26, 2018)
    https://gulfnews.com/news/africa/nigeria/boko-haram-attacks-nigerian-city-militia-1.2212486

    “Heavily armed Boko Haram fighters on Thursday attempted to storm the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, civilian militia said, in a rare urban incursion by the group.

    Ebrahim Liman and Babakura Kolo, from the Civilian Joint Task Force, said fighting broke out in the Jiddari Polo area of the city at about 6pm (1700 GMT).

    “From all indications they’re trying to reach Giwa Barracks, where many of their comrades are being held,” Liman told AFP.

    Kolo added: “There has been gunfire and explosions, and residents have all fled the area. Troops have intercepted the attackers…

    “They [Boko Haram] are making an attempt to infiltrate the city.”

    There was no immediate indication of the numbers of Islamist militants involved but the attack stands at odds with repeated Nigerian claims that the group is defeated.

    Liman, whose group assists the military with security, said the insurgents were armed with rocket-propelled grenades and “artillery”, without elaborating…”

  31. Taliban recruiting from Sheikh Ghani Madrasa for its spring offensive: Nabil (khaama, Apr 26, 2018)
    https://www.khaama.com/taliban-recruiting-from-sheikh-ghani-madrasa-for-its-spring-offensive-nabil-04989/

    “The former Afghan intelligence chief Rahmatullah Nabil has claimed that the Taliban group recruits fighters from Shaikh Abdul Ghani religious seminary or Madrasa for its spring offensive.

    In reaction to the announcement Al-Khandaq sprign offensive by the Taliban, Nabil once again criticized the unity govenment officials for the misperception regarding the likely cooperation Pakistan would do to assist in the fight against the terrorists.

    “The offensive announced fm PAK, while some of NUG leaders due 2 their personal motives still thinking PAK will cooperate in war on terror & want to promote MoU on intelligence sharing. These leaders are going 2 destroy our security apparatus by infesting it with ISI spies,” Nabil said in a Twitter post.

    He said “Mawlawi Yousof member of military commission of TBN, along with PAK Army officer in Shaikh Abdul Ghani Madrasa, from where 100s of TBN fighter will join the Khandaq offensive of TBN which has been announced fm PAK yesterday,” he said in another Twitter post carrying a photo of the Madrasa which he alleges is using as a recruitment ground for the Taliban group…”

  32. Migrant arrested near Naples over terror plan to drive into crowd (ansa, Apr 26, 2018)
    http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2018/04/26/migrant-arrested-over-terror-plan-to-drive-into-crowd_6c7986ba-2700-4c56-a6e5-a0a3c981ba35.html

    “State and Carabinieri police arrested a Gambian national in an antiterrorism operation in Naples on Thursday, sources said.

    The arrest comes after investigators found evidence the suspect was planning an attack, the sources said.

    Alagie Touray, 21, admitted to investigators that he had received a request to drive a car into a crowd, the sources said. The evidence against him includes a video published on Telegram in which he allegedly pledges alliance to ISIS leader Ab? Bakr al-Baghdadi.

    He was detained as he left a mosque in Licola, in the province of Naples. Touray landed in Messina along with over 100 other asylum-seekers in March 2017.

    He had been living in Pozzuoli, near Naples, for a year. The arrested man had made a request for political asylum and the application was still being considered by the authorities, according to the sources.”

  33. 280 suspected jihadists apprehended by Spanish police since 2015 (thelocal, Apr 26. 2018)
    https://www.thelocal.es/20180426/280-suspected-jihadists-apprehended-by-spanish-police-since-2015

    “Two men arrested in three days in separate incidents for allegedly spreading Islamic extremist propaganda has brought the total number of jihadists apprehended by Spanish police since 2015 to nearly 300.

    A Spanish national and German resident accused of spreading ISIS propaganda has been arrested in Palma, Spain, Spanish police said in a statement on April 26th.

    According to Spain’s Guardia Civil police, the 31-year-old Spanish national, born in Jordan, was allegedly involved in the “radicalization activities and dissemination of jihadist propaganda inciting violence in social networks of the terrorist group ISIS.”

    Spanish police had been monitoring several social network accounts linked to the accused since August 2016.

    The man’s arrest brings the number of jihadist suspects apprehended by Spanish police since the Spanish government passed new anti-terror laws in 2015 to over 280.

    Three days ago, a Moroccan national was apprehended by the Guardia Civil in Guipúzcoa, a city in the Basque autonomous region in northern Spain, accused of inciting people to jihadist violence on social networks.

    The man was at an advanced stage of radicalization and was planning to join jihadist troops in the Middle East, according to the Spanish authorities’ statement.”

  34. Germany: Muslim migrant children bully and beat up non-Muslim boy for eating pork – an ambulance was needed

    This is the poison fruit of Merkel’s suicidal immigration policies. She will go down in history as the worst German Chancellor since Adolf Hitler. Native Germans increasingly are living in fear in their own countries. Muslim migrants, including these schoolchildren, clearly believe that they can act with absolute impunity and the German authorities will do nothing. Like authorities in Britain when they were for years confronted with the activities of Muslim rape gangs, the German authorities are likely most afraid of appearing to be “racist” and “islamophobic.” And so incidents like this one will multiply.

    https://gellerreport.com/2018/04/germany-children-pork.html/

  35. Russia ‘DISABLING’ American aircraft in Syrian airspace – claims US commander (express, Apr 27, 2018)
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/951868/USA-Russia-Syria-aircraft-military-electronic-warfare-Putin

    “ELECTRONIC weapons are “disabling” US aircraft flying in Syrian airspace and knocking down communications because of “Russian” electronic warfare (EW) weapons, according to the commander of US Special Operations.

    General Raymond Thomas claimed at the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation on Tuesday that America is engaged in “aggressive warfare” with its “enemies” in Syria.

    He said: ”Right now in Syria we are operating in the most aggressive electronic warfare environment on the planet from our adversaries.

    “They are testing us every day, knocking our communications down, disabling our EC-130s, etc.”

    It is not clear who the general meant when he referred to enemies, but Russia is known to have developed electronic warfare capabilities, according to electronic warfare specialist and retired US Army colonel Lauri Buckhout.

    Speaking about the 2008 conflict in the South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions, he said: “The Russians have redone and re-engineered their entire EW fleet in the last 20 years… The Russians put in millions on upgrades after Georgia.

    “They’ve ended up with killer capabilities, jamming in a multitude of frequencies for hundreds of kilometres.”

    Mr Buckhout said there are other vulnerabilities in US systems that Russian electronic weapons could target too.

    US strategic analysts also note that one of the most interesting aspects of Russia’s EW capability is how integrated it is across different areas.

    Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, Roger McDermott, said: “We can’t just strip out the EW capability and look at it separately from cyber, SIGINT (signals intelligence), air defence.

    “It’s found throughout every arm of service, every branch of service, it’s almost impossible to avoid EW capability, which very much contrasts with western militaries.

    “Russia has integrated electronic warfare and offensive and defence electromagnetic spectrum capabilities into its operations and strategies, in a way not seen from NATO forces in Europe.”…”

  36. CBC – Hamid Chekakri faces 18 charges, including aggravated assault, robbery

    Police say the 47-year-old befriended seniors before drugging them with laced chocolate, then robbing them

    A man arrested last month in the United States and extradited to Canada in connection with a string of thefts appeared in a Montreal courtroom Thursday, where he was charged with multiple counts of aggravated assault, robbery, and breaking and entering.

    Hamid Chekakri, 47, appeared in Quebec court Thursday afternoon.
    He is facing a total of 18 charges:

    -Five counts of aggravated assault.
    -Five counts of causing any person to take a stupefying or overpowering drug.
    -Five counts of robbery.
    -Three counts of breaking and entering.

    Montreal police were on the hunt for Chekakri for several months.

    They believed he was connected to a string of robberies that occurred last December in Montreal, Sherbrooke and Ottawa.

    Several elderly victims came forward to police, reporting they’d been befriended by a “charming” man.

    Police said after he gained their trust, the man would offer them chocolate which had been laced with a narcotic. Once the victims fell unconscious, the man would rob them.

    One of the alleged victims told CBC she is relieved to find out Chekakri had been arrested and charged.

    “It was a very scary thing that happened to me,” said the woman.

    “I really don’t want anybody to experience what I did, and maybe if the police caught the man who did this, nobody else will be hurt.”

    A warrant was out for Chekakri’s arrest. He was nabbed by U.S. authorities in March in Atlanta, Ga.

    Chekakri’s bail hearing is scheduled to take place Friday. Until then, he will remain in detention.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/hamid-chekakri-faces-18-charges-including-aggravated-assault-robbery-1.4637227

    ==============================================
    montreal gazette – Montreal robberies: Man accused of feeding victims drug-laced chocolate

    Hamid Chekakri faces five counts of aggravated assault, for having endangered the lives of the people who were robbed.

    Hamid Chekakri, the man who was extradited to Canada this week to face criminal charges at the Montreal courthouse, is alleged to have used a powerful medication to put people to sleep, in some cases for more than a day, before he robbed their homes.

    Details of the crimes Chekakri, a resident of Algeria, is alleged to have committed are detailed in documents filed in a U.S. District Court in Georgia presented as part of Canada’s request to have him extradited to Canada. The 47-year-old made his first appearance Thursday afternoon at the Montreal courthouse, where he faces 18 charges in all. A date for a bail hearing will be set on Friday.

    The drug Chekakri is alleged to have used was so strong that he faces five counts of aggravated assault for having endangered the lives of the people who were robbed.

    Chekakri is alleged to have used a bottle of wine and chocolate to charm his way into three homes, between Dec. 12 and Dec. 21, and tricked at least five people between the ages of 67 and 76, to take the prescription medication Clonazepam, which is used as a sedative or to treat seizures and anxiety. In each case, the victims fell asleep, woke up hours after and found someone had taken valuable possessions.

    In the Dec. 12 case, according to a document filed during the extradition process, a 72-year-old woman refused the robber’s offer of a chocolate and Chekakri (allegedly) “put a chocolate into (her) mouth. Approximately 15 minutes later, (she) started feeling dizzy and lost consciousness. She awoke approximately 15 hours later.”

    The victim was taken to a hospital and the Montreal police were contacted. When she returned to her home, she discovered that money, jewelry, a cellphone, two computers and a stamp collection were missing. The woman told police that the man who fed her the chocolate had called her shortly after she listed her home in the Rivière-des-Prairies—Pointe-aux-Trembles borough for sale.

    The victim was able to provide Montreal police investigators with a phone number that they traced to Chekakri. On Feb. 3, investigators showed the woman a photograph from Chekakri’s passport and she identified him as the man who drugged her. But by then, investigators knew that Chekakri had left Canada near the end of December.

    On Dec. 18, a man gained the confidence of a 67-year-old woman and her 76-year-old husband by pretending to be interested in their neighbour’s home, also in the Rivière-des-Prairies—Pointe-aux-Trembles borough. The couple accepted the man’s gift of chocolates and ate them. The couple slept more than 24 hours and woke up at 8 a.m. on Dec. 20. The 67-year-old woman awoke first and found bruises on her head and lips. She then found her husband still unconscious on the floor.

    The woman called the police and the couple were taken to a hospital where both tested positive for Clonazepam. When they returned home the couple noticed that a jewelry box, jewelry, personal documents and some money were missing.

    Investigators recovered video footage recorded by security cameras at several locations close to the victims’ home and noticed that a vehicle, rented by Chekakri, left the area after the couple fell asleep. The vehicle was later found abandoned in February at a bus station in Toronto.

    In the third case referred to in the extradition request, Chekakri is alleged to have drugged two sisters, age 67 and 72, on Dec. 21, at their home in Town of Mount Royal. The sisters woke up two days later, “early on Dec. 23, 2017, feeling confused. They discovered that money, jewelry and a coin collection were missing, and subsequently contacted the police.” Both victims tested positive for Clonazepam. They also provided police with descriptions that match Chekakri’s appearance.

    On Dec. 28, the Montreal police issued a release seeking help from the public to identify a man whose image was captured leaving the scene of at least one of the robberies. He was described as “calm, patient and very charming” man who used the aliases Aaron, David and Alain when he introduced himself to the victims.

    Three months later, on March 29, investigators had gathered enough evidence to obtain a warrant for Chekakri’s arrest. They learned he had made plans to travel to Philadelphia, PA, with a connecting flight in Atlanta, GA. When he arrived at an airport in Atlanta, on March 31, Chekakri was greeted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers and was placed under arrest. He was detained in Atlanta until he was turned over to members of the Montreal police on Wednesday and was returned to Canada in handcuffs.

    http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/man-extradited-to-canada-is-alleged-to-have-sedated-montreal-robbery-victims

    ================================================

    Drugged by chocolate and robbed, Montreal senior speaks out after being victim of alleged serial thief

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/drugged-victim-robber-1.4607982

  37. channel 4 – Hungary: a civil war for the soul of Europe

    The Hungarian capital looks as splendid as ever. The tourists are here en masse. But behind the alluring facade there is trouble.

    The European Parliament today accused the Hungary’s ruling Fidez Party of systematically undermining the rule of law, democracy and minority rights at home.

    The Hungarian Foreign Minister shot back: all lies. Mind your own business!
    Hungary, once a poster child of East European democracy is at the heart of what President Macron has described as a civil war for the soul of Europe.

  38. TURKEY – Chaotic scenes, shots fired at university protest in Ankara

    A protest against plans to split Ankara’s Gazi University descended into a melee on Thursday, resulting in several injuries and detentions, news and social media sources have reported.

    Students and staff members have been gathering at Gazi university and other institutions around the country to protest against plans to divide existing universities, including Gazi and Istanbul, and attach their departments to 20 planned new universities.

    Police intervened using tear gas as students approached the rector’s office chanting slogans, BBC Türkçe reported .

    Elsewhere, a video circulating on social media showed chaotic scenes of protesters brawling with campus security guards, many armed with sticks, while in the background gunfire can be heard.

    The gunfire came from an unidentified person firing into the air, causing the hundreds of students gathered to disperse, internet news site Mynet reported .

    Another video from the protests published on Mynet shows riot police and ambulances gathered near the protesters.

    A large number of students and four security personnel were wounded during the protests, according to news site Rahaber.

    https://ahvalnews.com/protests/chaotic-scenes-shots-fired-university-protest-ankara

    • Turkish security guards beat students protesting gov’t bill to divide Gazi University

      A protest against plans to split Ankara’s Gazi University descended into a melee on Thursday, resulting in several injuries and detentions, news and social media sources have reported. Also, a gunfire came from an unidentified person firing into the air, causing the hundreds of students gathered to disperse.

      According to a report by online news outlet Ahval, students and staff members have been gathering at Gazi University to protest against plans to divide existing universities, including Gazi and ?stanbul, and attach their departments to 20 planned new universities.

      Police and security guards intervened using tear gas as students approached the rector’s office chanting slogans, BBC Türkçe reported. Elsewhere, a video circulating on social media showed chaotic scenes of protesters brawling with campus security guards, many armed with sticks, while in the background gunfire can be heard.

      The gunfire came from an unidentified person firing into the air, causing the hundreds of students gathered to disperse, internet news site Mynet reported. Another video from the protests published on Mynet shows riot police and ambulances gathered near the protesters.

      A large number of students and four security personnel were wounded during the protests, according to news site Rahaber.

      A video shared by online news outlet Yar?n also showed the moment a group of university students being beaten by security staff at Ankara’s Gazi University campus. Students were reportedly attacked while they were protesting a recent government proposal to establish 20 new universities across Turkey while dividing some of the existing universities.

      Among the universities determined to be divided are Gazi University, Sakarya University, Anadolu University, ?nönü University, Süleyman Demirel University and Afyon Kocatepe University.

      https://stockholmcf.org/turkish-security-guards-beat-students-protesting-govt-bill-to-divide-gazi-university/
      ===============================================
      Turkey: Students detained after clashes with guards at Ankara Gazi University