Reader’s links, May 7, 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

115 Replies to “Reader’s links, May 7, 2018”

  1. ThinkProgress Smears Investigative Journalist for Questioning Douma Gas Attack (sputniknews, May 8, 2018)
    https://sputniknews.com/us/201805081064233098-THinkProgress-smears-journalist-douma-attack/

    “Reporter Pearson Sharp, who visited Douma, Syria, about 10 days after a chemical attack allegedly took place there, spoke with Sputnik Radio’s Fault Lines with Garland Nixon and Lee Stranahan on Monday after he was smeared by ThinkProgress…

    When visiting Douma, Pearson explained that instead of describing what he personally saw, he wanted to put the camera on people in the town instead and let them tell the story. After interviewing dozens of Douma residents, Sharp found that “consistently, not one person in the town said they heard anything about an attack.”

    ThinkProgress tried to diminish the journalist’s integrity by impugning his employer, One
    America News Network (OANN), as a “far-right, pro-Trump media outlet.” However, that accusation has little traction, since if Sharp had wanted to parrot the Republican US president, he wouldn’t have reported that there was no evidence of a chemical attack in Douma — the opposite of what the White House continuously claims.

    ThinkProgress accused OANN on April 18 of “defending the Syrian government against claims that it had used chemical weapons on its citizens,” which is clearly a made-up claim with no evidence, Sharp told Fault Lines. Sharp noted that he would not have hesitated to report that Assad did use chemical weapons if that’s where the evidence pointed.

    “That was the whole point. In a way, it wasn’t me reporting; it was the people reporting and I was just giving them the camera. Whatever they said would have gone on camera, regardless” of whether the accounts he heard aligned with a political stance, the journalist told Sputnik.

    ThinkProgress tried to make a crime out of Sharp’s decision not to manipulate the accounts he was receiving, writing, “at no point does OANN try to mask the pro-Assad language peppering the report.” They complain that Sharp offers no evidence for their “wild claims” — though of course, the US, UK and France have also failed to demonstrate the truth of their allegations that a chemical attack did take place, let alone what agents were used and by whom…

    “OANN and Sharp’s reporting falls short in many respects, but perhaps most glaring is its apparent inability to provide concrete evidence to support any of its wild claims,” ThinkProgress said in its April 16 report, “Far-right website claims it found no evidence of a chemical attack in Syria: The latest instance of far-right media pushing a ‘false flag’ conspiracy theory.”…”

  2. Kenya president says 9 soldiers killed in attack in Somalia (abcnews, May 7, 2018)
    https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/kenya-president-soldiers-killed-attack-somalia-54996767

    “Kenya’s president says nine Kenyan soldiers were killed when extremists attacked their patrol car in neighboring Somalia.

    President Uhuru Kenyatta mourned the soldiers who were killed Sunday evening in an al-Shabab attack in Dhobley, Somalia. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had killed and wounded 15 soldiers, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist groups.

    Kenyan troops are part of an African Union force bolstering Somalia’s weak government against an insurgency by the Somalia-based extremist group al-Shabab.

    Al-Shabab has carried out numerous attacks on Kenya since October 2011, saying it is retribution for Kenya sending troops to fight the militants in Somalia.

    Last week the group was suspected in the killing of four non-Muslims working at a quarry in Mandera county in northern Kenya.”

  3. Canadian officials heading to Nigeria to discuss asylum seekers

    Federal ministers say border jumpers are not getting a free pass to stay in Canada just because they’re entering the country without first going through customs and immigration.

    Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, Transportation Minister Marc Garneau, and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said Monday they are working the manage the influx of asylum seekers, who are mostly crossing the border into Quebec because it is easily accessible.

    “Let me make the point emphatically – that coming across the border in ways that try to circumvent the law or defy proper procedure is no free ticket to Canada,” said Goodale.

    Many of the asylum seekers this year have come from Nigeria, so Hussen is going to head to that country later this month to talk to Nigerian officials about the issue.

    He said that in many cases, the Nigerian applicants have been granted visas to stay in the U.S., but after only a few weeks they are being found having walked across the border.

    Hussen said the U.S. is now granting fewer visas to Nigerians.

    Under the terms of the Safe Third Country Agreement, people who enter Canada somewhere other than a regulated border crossing are allowed to make a claim for asylum without being automatically rejected and returned to the United States.

    Goodale said when asylum seekers are found in Canada they are issued a conditional removal order and need to prove they need protection from the Canadian government.

    The ministers said the flood of claimants has required the federal government to hire 70 more people to handle the applications.

    “And this is a really important point because when someone has a legitimate claim for refugee status we want them to find out as soon as possible so their life is not in limbo and they can move on. And equally importantly if people do not have a legitimate claim for refugee status it’s important that we can process their claim quickly so they can be asked to leave Canada. And that is our law,” said Hussen.

    The announcement is part of $173-million investment announced in this year’s budget to hire an additional 70 employees who will process an additional 17,000 refugee claims per year.

    The money will also be used to build more that 500 new temporary accommodations at the Lacolle border to help alleviate pressure on the shelters in Montreal.

    Refugee advocate Rivkah Augenfeld said it is a long overdue increase in resources and is good news for asylum seekers.

    “The fact that more money will be given to the immigration and refugee board per se is excellent because one of the problems has been that immigration has sped up the eligibility hearing for people, meaning you do have the right to make a claim, but then it all gets backed up at the immigration and refugee board,” she said.

    Provincial officials in Quebec were also glad to hear of the measures, especially since they have been asking Ottawa to do more to deal with the issue.

    In a statement, the Quebec government said it was glad the federal government was going to set up a triage centre near the border to quickly evaluate asylum seekers and perhaps direct them to other provinces.

    Quebec was also happy to hear Ottawa would set up temporary housing near the border, since the space the province made available for temporary shelter was frequently near capacity.

    More than 20,000 people applied for asylum last year, and more than 7,500 applied in the first four months of 2018.

    It’s a situation the provincial government calls unmanageable; 2500 people crossed irregularly into Canada at Roxham Road in April alone.

    About 70 per cent of the asylum seekers who had hearings last year were given permission to stay in Canada. Those most likely to be rejected were from China, Hungary, Nigeria, Colombia, and Haiti.

    https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/canadian-officials-heading-to-nigeria-to-discuss-asylum-seekers-1.3918405

    • Over 26,000 people have crossed the border illegally since last year, but only 1% have been removed

      The vast majority of the people who crossed the Canada-U.S. border irregularly last year will not be permitted to stay, a federal minister confirmed on Monday, but numbers provided by the Canada Border Services Agency suggest very few have so far been forced to leave.

      “We estimate that a bit more than 90 per cent of irregular migrants do not meet our criteria (to claim asylum), and that they must leave,” said Transport Minister Marc Garneau in French at a media briefing in Montreal.

      Garneau was referring mainly to the Haitian nationals who crossed last summer, the government later clarified. The people coming this spring, in contrast, have been mainly from Nigeria, and their acceptance rate may be different, given the security situation in their home country.

      According to the office of Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, who was also at Monday’s briefing, the Canada Border Services Agency has removed a total of 243 irregular migrants since April 2017.

      In that same time span, approximately 26,250 irregular migrants have crossed the Canada-U.S. border between legal checkpoints, meaning that while a majority may not qualify to remain here, only about one per cent of them have so far been removed.

      Garneau said on Monday that another 200 will be leaving in the next two weeks.

      Many of the people who crossed last year have ended up in Montreal (which has an established Haitian community) and Toronto, awaiting a decision from the Canadian government on whether they qualify to make an asylum claim. If they do, they must then wait to have that claim reviewed.

      The decisions can take weeks and even months given the backlog of files currently being handled by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB). In the meantime, more than 12,500 work permits have been approved for asylum claimants in Quebec to allow them to find employment and keep food on the table while they wait.

      Many of last year’s Haitian migrants had established lives, and jobs, in the United States before coming north. Their temporary protected status in the U.S., implemented after the devastating earthquake in 2010, is set to expire in July 2019.

      Apart from the 243 people removed by the CBSA since the spring of 2017, it’s unclear if others may have left voluntarily over the winter months after they were told they could not claim asylum.

      Others still may be in the process of appealing a rejection decision.

      “Prior to removal, individuals may seek leave for judicial review, as well as administrative review procedures that assess the potential risk to the person of returning to the country of origin,” explained Scott Bardsley, spokesperson for Goodale’s office.

      “Pre-removal risk assessment is one of the safeguards in place to ensure people in need of protection are not removed. This assessment is conducted by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.”

      The federal government is already gearing up for another busy summer at the border, with a vast majority of resources dedicated to the most popular illegal crossing point in Lacolle, Que.

      Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said Monday he plans on travelling to Nigeria himself this month to meet with officials there. Three Canadian staffers are already on the ground.

      Removals will take ‘years’: Rempel

      The opposition, meanwhile, has been highly critical of Ottawa’s approach, with the Conservatives arguing that a loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement (which is at the heart of why so many people are crossing between checkpoints) must be closed as soon as possible. Officials have said any changes to the treaty would require consent from the United States.

      “We wouldn’t have to go to countries like Nigeria to tell people not to come if the loophole didn’t exist in the first place,” said Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel.

      “Removal orders have dramatically increased under the Liberals, yet most of them have not been executed … the reality is, it will likely take years to process (the migrants’) refugee claims, and then years to remove them. The Liberals have no plan to rectify this.”

      In the meantime, Rempel added, asylum seekers will have access to at least some social services and health care services.

      Budget 2018 set aside $173.2 million over two years to strengthen border security and speed up processing times at the Immigration and Refugee Board.

      Part of that money is to be used “to ensure that those claims that are refused are moved to the removal process in an expedited manner,” the government said Monday. Another chunk of the funds is being dedicated to hiring 64 new employees at the IRB.

      But last week, Shereen Benzvy Miller, deputy chairperson of the IRB’s Refugee Protection Division, told a parliamentary committee that it’s been difficult to recruit, train and retain those people.

      “It is difficult to increase capacity on a dime … There are inherent challenges of having only a two-year funding window,” she said. “And it can be difficult to attract talent if all you have to offer is a couple of years of employment.”

      https://globalnews.ca/news/4191302/asylum-border-crossers-removals-ending-up/

  4. How should Trump handle John Kerry’s ‘illegal shadow diplomacy’?

  5. Devin Nunes should hold Sessions in contempt of Congress: Rep. DeSantis

    Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) on why he agrees with House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’s call to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt of Congress.

  6. euronews – “Thousands” protest at Hungary government

    About “100” demonstrators formed a chain front of the parliament building to oppose the rule of Orbán Viktor and his party Fidesz.…

  7. euronews – Italian president calls for formation of ‘neutral government’

    [....."neutral government" only means anybody except "Matteo Salvini" the real winner of the last election ... in a way to keep the Leftist "elite" in power ... ]

    =================================================
    President Matarella :

    wiki : In 2007 he was one of the founders of the Democratic Party (PD), a big tent centre-left party formed from a merger of left-wing and centrist parties[...]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergio_Mattarella

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

  8. TRT ( Turkish Television and Radio ) Bacha posh: The Afghan girls living secretly as boys

    In Afghanistan, many families prefer sons over daughters. A male child is a status symbol who carries the family name forward, while daughters are often considered a burden. This has led to some of them practising the age-old tradition of ‘bacha posh’ – where girls are disguised as boys.

  9. President Erdogan : «Colonial France Massacred 5 Million Muslims In Algeria And The World Stood Idly By»

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech that “the French have massacred 5 million Muslims in Algeria during the harsh French colonial yoke,” reported Monday, May 7, the Turkish public Radio-Television Channel (TRT).

    “The French massacred 5 million Muslims in Algeria. They also committed a huge massacre in Libya. But the world is silent. It will be the same later, because it is their structure, their character” Mr. Erdogan underscored at the ceremony of the Zeytindagi Peace Prize of Istanbul.

    President Erdogan also spoke about the legitimate Palestinian cause. “In this world as well as in the hereafter, we will be in pursuit of the Israeli administration which associated Palestine and Jerusalem with the horrendous persecutions, whereas they should have been the centers of humanity and especially of peace,” stressed President Erdogan.

    According to the Turkish President, the UN does not find any solution to the problems on earth. “The world is bigger than five nations. We will defend what is right until our last breath”, he hammered.

    “A system that allows for the profits, or even the will of only 5 countries, for the security of all the countries of the world, cannot be sustainable. The UN must now be subjected to reform,” he further insisted.

    https://www.echoroukonline.com/president-erdogan-colonial-france-massacred-5-million-muslims-in-algeria-and-the-world-stood-idly-by/

    video :

    https://twitter.com/RTErdoganLive/status/993444227257458688

  10. TRT ( Turkish Radio and Television ) Let’s talk Islamophobia

    A group of scholars shared their thoughts about Islamophobia today, its impact in different parts of the world, and how they envision the future of its policies.

    • I asked David Wood from Acts17Apologetics @youtube to make a reaction video. It will be soooo enjoyable.