Reader’s Links for March 29, 2020

Daily Links Post graphic

Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.

This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.

So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.

This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.

About Eeyore

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

80 Replies to “Reader’s Links for March 29, 2020”

  1. Turning ‘wokeness’ into a weapon: Chinese propaganda in the age of the coronavirus

  2. Corpses and People Collapsing to the Ground Spotted in Many Locations | #CCP Virus

    • Of course it is!
      Seems like a duh… unless you’re a brainwashed loser.
      (A loser brings a knife to a gun-fight, so to speak…)

    • Saturday’s broadcast of NJ governor on Meadowlands hospital said otherwise, so the Feds must have had to step in

  3. ISIS detainees escape SDF prison in northeast Syria
    https://www.thedefensepost.com/2020/03/29/isis-syria-kurds-prison-escape/

    “An unknown number of Islamic State detainees escaped from a prison run by the Kurdish-led administration in the northeast Syrian city of Hasakeh on Sunday, March 29.

    The escape was confirmed to The Defense Post by two sources in the Syrian Democratic Forces, which controls Syria’s northeast in partnership with the U.S.-led Coalition against Islamic State.

    “ISIS terrorists took complete control over the ground floor of Hasakeh prison,” Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF press office, tweeted. “Some of them managed to escape and we are searching for them,” Bali wrote.

    “The prisoners broke down the internal walls of the prison and removed the internal doors. The situation is tense inside the prison and the counter-terror forces are trying to control the situation. We have sent reinforcements and more counter-terror forces to the prison,” Bali wrote in a second tweet.

    Coalition warplanes flew low over Hasakeh as Asayish (police) and SDF forces deployed in the city, according to the Rojava Information Center.

    The international Coalition is assisting the SDF with aerial surveillance, “as they quell an uprising at Hasakah detention facility,” Coalition spokesperson U.S. Army Colonel Myles Caggins tweeted. “The facility holds low-level ISIS members. The CJTFOIR [international Coalition] does not staff any detention camps in Syria,” Caggins wrote.

    An SDF source told The Defense Post that prisoners began smashing security cameras after taking control of the ground floor, and that the prison had been fully surrounded by SDF counter-terror units as of midnight local time (9:00 p.m. GMT).

    “There’s an ongoing security investigation by the SDF and prison guards,” the source said, declining to be named because he was not authorized to speak to media on the developing situation.

    “So far there’s no definite information on the exact number of escaped prisoners, but a number have indeed escaped,” the source told The Defense Post, declining to speculate when asked why the riot began.

    “This has happened several times in the last year or so, but this was the biggest.”

    There are some 10,000 suspected male Islamic State members in makeshift SDF-run prisons across northeast Syria. More than 60,000 suspected family members of ISIS fighters are interned in the sprawling al-Hol and Roj camps under SDF control.

    Most of the detainees were captured in the final months of the SDF’s Coalition-backed war against Islamic State.

    Guards at both al-Hol and the Hasakeh prison emphasized to The Defense Post in November their fears of impending breakouts and said they were badly undersupplied and staffed.

    More than 100 ISIS prisoners escaped from other facilities as a result of Turkey’s military incursion against the SDF last year, though U.S. officials have said they believe most of them were recaptured.

    The Pentagon has called the indefinite internment of ISIS prisoners of war in northeast Syria “not sustainable,” but so far, few countries have shown any willingness to take back their citizens.

    The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, the political affiliate of the SDF, has been in discussion with European Union member governments over obtaining international oversight for locally-held trials inside northeast Syria, though no firm agreement has yet been reached, AANES officials have told The Defense Post.

    This is a breaking story and will be updated as further details emerge.”

  4. Iraq Shi’ite pilgrims returning from Syria test positive for coronavirus: officials
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-iraq/iraq-shiite-pilgrims-returning-from-syria-test-positive-for-coronavirus-officials-idUSKBN21G0UE

    “Some Shi’ite pilgrims returning to Iraq from Syria have tested positive for coronavirus, raising concern that such pilgrim travel could be a source for a larger spread of the disease around the country, a senior Iraqi official and health officials said on Sunday.

    So far, Iraq has recorded 547 coronavirus cases and 42 deaths, most of them in the past week.

    Health authorities said there were at least 11 cases of coronavirus in the Shi’ite holy city of Kerbala among pilgrims who returned last week from Syria after visiting a Shi’ite shrine there, according to the governor of Kerbala.

    “Everyone who recently returned back from Syria has been quarantined to make sure he’s not infected with coronavirus,” the governor, Nusayif al-Khitabi, said in a video posted on Facebook.

    Khitabi said the central government should have included Syria among countries where Iraq banned entry to travelers…”

  5. LIVE: Punjab, G-B, K-P report casualties as Pakistan’s COVID-19 death toll rises to 17
    https://tribune.com.pk/story/2186704/1-live-pakistans-covid-19-tally-soars-past-1500/

    35 booked across Karachi for defying ban on congregational prayers
    https://tribune.com.pk/story/2186525/1-35-booked-across-karachi-defying-ban-congregational-prayers/

    Hyderabad mosque sealed after teenager tests positive
    https://tribune.com.pk/story/2186865/1-hyderabad-mosque-sealed-teenager-tests-positive/

    Sindh mulls releasing convicted prisoners
    https://tribune.com.pk/story/2186997/1-sindh-mulls-releasing-convicted-prisoners/

    Second doctor tests positive for coronavirus at Islamabad hospital in three days
    https://tribune.com.pk/story/2186994/1-second-doctor-tests-positive-coronavirus-islamabad-hospital-three-days/

  6. Govt. releases 500 inmates to prevent virus pandemic
    http://www.afghanistantimes.af/govt-releases-500-inmates-to-prevent-virus-pandemic/

    “Officials in the western province of Herat say that 500 prisoners would be released based on President Ahsraf Ghani’s decree aimed to prevent further outbreak of Coronavirus and to save their lives.

    Herat was the first place where the virus infected people with the refugees transferring it from neighboring Iran.

    Meanwhile, in charges in the provincial prison say they took practical measures to fight the virus spread in jail.

    According to presidential decree, inmates with less than five year’s remained service period are to be released…”

  7. Somali military claims killing 142 militants
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/somali-military-claims-killing-142-militants/1784169

    “Somali National Army (SNA) said on Sunday that it killed over 142 Somali-based al-Shabaab militant group members in the ongoing military operation in southwestern province of Lower Shabelle.

    The operation that started on March 18 against al-Shabaab mainly took place in the strategic agricultural-rich town of Janaale and its surround areas, according to the state media.

    Col. Osman Shabel, a military spokesman, told media that 28 militants were also wounded and 18 others were captured alive since the start of the operation.

    “During the operation, we liberated Janaale and several villages in lower Shabelle region from terrorist group al-Shabaab. The Somali National Army didn’t suffer any casualties,” Shabel added.

    Janaale, an agricultural town located 95 kilometers (59 miles) southwest of the capital Mogadishu, had been under the control of al-Shabaab for many years.”

  8. BuzzFeedNews – Italy’s Far-Right And Nationalist Leaders Are Pushing Debunked Conspiracy Theories About The Coronavirus To Millions Of Followers

    Struggling for attention, Italy’s former deputy prime minister and others are sharing false claims the virus was engineered in a Chinese lab.

    Opposition parties are going to oppose. Populists will be populists. But in the middle of a global pandemic, misinformation can spread panic and even cost lives.

    As the coronavirus swept through Italy, infecting tens of thousands of people and killing more than anywhere else in the world so far, the country’s nationalist and far-right parties have struggled for attention.

    […]

    But with attention still running thin, the attacks have become relentless — and the content posted by Salvini and Meloni increasingly extreme.

    On Wednesday, the two leaders took a conspiracy theory doing the rounds in some WhatsApp groups and pushed it to their millions of followers on Facebook and Twitter. The discredited and unsubstantiated theory claims that a news programme aired in 2015 about a Chinese lab’s experiments and research on other coronaviruses was proof that the novel virus had originated in that same lab.

    “INCREDIBLE!!!” Salvini tweeted, in all caps, “2015, the Chinese created a supercoronavirus with bats and mice!!!”

    “WE WANT THE TRUTH!” Meloni said on the social networking platform.

    Both leaders called for the government to answer questions in parliament.

    The conspiracy theory has been debunked by Italian fact-checkers and several news outlets, including Il Post and La Repubblica. In short, the 2015 research had nothing to do with COVID-19.

    A director at the Italian National Research Council (CNR) told La Repubblica: “The current virus does not originate from the first version of Sars, and not least did it come from mice. Therefore it [COVID-19] absolutely cannot be the virus created in the Chinese lab that is discussed in the [2015] programme.”

    The magazine Nature, which published the 2015 study on which the TV programme was based, has also said that the novel coronavirus did not originate in a lab.

    “We are aware that this story is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus,” an editors’ note in the magazine says.

    Numerous other experts have spoken out against the conspiracy theory, some pointing out that the experiments and research conducted in 2015 is how viruses are studied. Asked why the 2015 experiment was conducted, Fausto Baldanti, a virologist at Pavia university told La Repubblica: “To fight the enemy, you need to know it.” Commenting on the conspiracy theory, Roberto Burioni, a highly respected virology professor in Milan, tweeted that “the spread of false information is a dangerous virus”.

    But despite all the overwhelming evidence, the videos shared by Salvini and Meloni rapidly racked up millions of views across social media.

    It recorded over 2 million views on Salvini’s official Facebook and Twitter pages within 18 hours of being uploaded on Wednesday evening, and was further boosted by other big pages affiliated to Salvini and his party.

    Matteo Salvini has over 5 million followers across Facebook and Twitter.

    Since Italy’s first coronavirus case on Jan. 31, the videos on Salvini’s official Facebook page have had 144 million views, according to the social media monitoring platform Crowdtangle.

    The conspiracy theory video also got over half a million views on Meloni’s profiles.

    After Salvini’s post, the video was also shared by some pages which are not explicitly political, including a page with 240,000 followers which usually shares jokes and animal memes. Some right-wing newspapers also shared the video and Salvini’s call for a parliamentary inquiry.

    As the video was uploaded separately by a number of other Facebook pages rather than shared, the overall viewing figure is likely to be significantly higher than 2.5 million.

    Facebook and Twitter have been approached for comment.

    On Wednesday evening, Italy’s foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, wrote a long post on Facebook condemning his former coalition partner Salvini and Meloni.

    “I would like us to stop a second to reflect on the gravity of what has happened,” said Di Maio. “While the state counts the dead and is working round the clock to help medics, they seem to enjoy finding any piece of news that generates panic, to find a culprit, to get a few more Likes, even if it nurtures rage, fear and a feeling of loss,” he added. “They don’t care at all about the country because the truth is that it’s convenient for them to terrorise.”

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/albertonardelli/coronavirus-matteo-salvini-giorgia-meloni-conspiracy
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    ... I guess they are talking about this video : </code