Reader’s Links for August 24, 2020

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

103 Replies to “Reader’s Links for August 24, 2020”

  1. Shipwreck Off Libya: IOM Warns Against Delays in Rescue of Migrants
    https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2020/08/316403/shipwreck-off-libya-iom-warns-against-delays-in-rescue-of-migrants/

    “The International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced that the Libyan Red Crescent retrieved the remains of 22 migrants and refugees off Libya’s coastal city of Zwara, 102 kilometers west of Tripoli.

    IOM expects that the remains to be from a shipwreck that took place last week.

    Last week IOM reported a wreck off Libya’s coast that caused the death of at least 45 refugees and migrants, including children.

    IOM and UNHCR expressed “deep” sadness over the tragic death on August 17.

    “Some 37 survivors – mainly from Senegal, Mali, Chad and Ghana – were rescued by local fishermen and later detained upon disembarkation. They reported to IOM staff that 45 others including five children lost their lives when the vessel’s engine exploded off the coast of Zwara,” UNHCR said.

    The incident, according to IOM, is the worst shipwreck of migrants reported this year off Libya’s coast.

    The UNHCR and IOM also expressed “deep concerns” due to the delays in rescue and disembarkation.

    “We urge states to swiftly respond to these incidents and systematically provide a predictable port of safety to people rescued at sea. Delays recorded in recent months, and failure to assist, are unacceptable and put lives at avoidable risk.”

    The spokesperson for the IOM in Geneva, Safa Msehli, explained in a statement on Sunday to the AFP that the 22 bodies might be from the same incident.

    She said that the bodies were all African males, but no details of their nationalities are available yet.

    Over 300 people have died trying to cross from Libya to Europe this year.

    Libya is one of the destinations that migrants, including Moroccans, traverse to reach Europe.

    In recent years, hundreds of migrants from Morocco found themselves stranded in Libya while attempting to cross the country’s coast to Italy.

    The stranded Moroccans shared videos from detention centers, calling on King Mohammed VI to intervene.

    Morocco’s government launched a series of repatriation trips to bring back undocumented Moroccan migrants trapped in Libya.

    In addition to Moroccans, a massive number of other African migrants have also found themselves trapped in detention centers across Libya in recent years.”

  2. Seven schools destroyed within 40-day
    http://www.afghanistantimes.af/seven-schools-destroyed-within-40-day/

    “The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) said that seven schools were damaged within the past 40 days in Afghanistan.

    Two of the schools in northern Takhar province, an average of one school in Badghis, Faryab, Balkh, Ghazni and Wardak provinces have been torched or damaged.

    Based on information, two of these schools were damaged by the Taliban in Takhar and Balkh provinces but five other schools were damaged by some unknown armed men.

    The commission called the attack on public infrastructures and educational centers a war crime and an obvious violation of international laws. Attack on the educational centers was considered as violation of law of having access to education and information based on constitutions, the commission added.

    The commission demanded the government to detain the perpetrators, who are behind the schools’ torching and damaging, and hold them accountable.

    The Taliban in many of the areas under its control opposes the educational facilities for girls such as schools and other courses. The militants have been seen in videos that they are setting schools on fire and chanting anti-education remarks.”

  3. Spain will build highest border wall in the world to stop migrants from Africa
    https://rmx.news/article/article/spain-plans-to-build-the-highest-border-wall-in-the-world-to-stop-migrants-from-africa

    “The Spanish government plans to build 10-meter-high (32-feet) cylindrical walls around its North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla to stop raids by migrants and individual attempts to enter the country, the Italian daily Il Giornale reported.

    These are set to be the highest fences against migrants in the world, with the U.S. border wall standing at 30 feet in some sections.

    The new border structures should significantly increase the efficiency of the existing fencing around these two Spanish cities on the North African coast, which is only three, somewhere over four meters high and topped by barbed wire. Their construction was financed by the government of former Prime Minister Luis Zapatero.

    To prevent injuries to migrants who may be able to reach the top of the wall, it will be equipped with a steel cylinder, which should also make it impossible to cross the wall.

    The project has now been unveiled after a crowd of about 300 migrants attacked the Melilla enclave on Thursday morning. According to local security forces, about 50 migrants managed to enter Spanish territory, which also means they made on to European Union soil.

    According to the authorities, the migrants were mostly from sub-Saharan Africa. In April, a group of about 250 people tried to cross the fence as well.

    Since January, about 11,500 migrants have arrived on Spanish territory through various routes, many of whom arrived by boat in the Canary Islands.

    Spain’s Canary Islands, which lay approximately 100 kilometers off the West African coast, are fast becoming a top destination for migrants despite the dangers involved with reaching them.”

  4. Sweden: Trial begins for Somali citizen accused of attempted rape of woman in her 70s
    https://rmx.news/article/article/sweden-trial-begins-for-somali-citizen-accused-of-attempted-rape-of-woman-in-her-70s

    “The trial has begun for a 23-year-old Somali migrant who is accused of attempting to rape a woman in her 70s in Sweden on the day after Christmas in 2019.

    The attempted rape occurred in Swedish city of Sölvesborg near the city’s castle, according to Swedish news outlet Nyheter Idag. The man is accused of grabbing the woman’s arms and holding his hand over her mouth. He allegedly hit her in the fact until she was bleeding and pulled her down to the ground. The man is also said to have told the woman, “I will f**k you,” and threatened to throw her in the water if she screamed.

    The migrant has Somali citizenship but has also earned Swedish citizenship, making him ineligible for deportation.

    The indictment in the case claims the man “showed particular ruthlessness and threats of violence against the older and physically weaker woman.”

    People passing by in the area alerted the police and then the man fled. He was arrested three days later.

    The man denies committing the crime.

    This month, the Swedish government was accused of ignoring the link between migration and rising crime rates, including crimes linked to sexual violence.”

  5. German police: Syrian migrant hits and kills 6-year-old boy with Mercedes during illegal street race in Dresden
    https://rmx.news/article/article/german-police-syrian-migrant-hits-and-kills-6-year-old-boy-with-mercedes-during-illegal-street-race

    “A 31-year-old Syrian man ran over and killing a 6-year-old boy during an illegal street race Saturday evening in Dresden, According to police, marking a spate of deaths tied to illegal street races, which authorities say are usually conducted by young men with an immigration background.

    In this case, eyewitness reportedly claimed the 6-year-old Syrian boy died because of an instance of illegal street racing, according to police.

    “Both cars were going at a very high speed,” confirmed police chief Lutz Milker to Bild on Sunday morning.

    The Syrian boy wanted to cross the lane at the level of Schweizer Strasse with two other children, but he was hit by a Mercedes, thrown against the bus stop and through its window, Der Westen reported.

    The child was treated by rescue workers and immediately taken to a hospital, but the doctors could no longer help him, and shortly afterward, the boy died in the clinic.

    At the wheel of the Mercedes was a 31-year-old Syrian man who, according to initial investigations, is said to have engaged in an illegal car race through downtown Dresden with a 23-year-old BMW driver of the same origin.

    The traffic accident department of the Dresden police is now investigating the two speeders. The 31-year-old Mercedes driver is accused of negligent homicide and dangerous interference with road traffic.

    Both him and the 23-year-old BMW driver are also facing a preliminary investigation into a prohibited motor vehicle race. The driver’s licenses of both Syrians were seized.

    Germany plagued with foreigners conducting street races
    In an interview with Die Welt, Berlin Public Prosecutor Andreas Winkelmann, who has made a name for himself cracking down on illegal street races, said that the majority of offenders are young men with an immigration background.

    “Most of the perpetrators are male, in their early 20s and have a migration background,” he said.

    His office has cracked down hard after Berlin created a law against illegal street car racing, with 413 proceedings initiated against illegal street racers, with some being sentenced up to 22 months in prison.

    In another instance in Berlin that made national headlines, a Serbian asylum seeker, 31-year-old Djordje S., sped into a mother and her 5-year-old daughter at high speed while he was trying to get away from the police. The mother and daughter were on their way to kindergarten at the time, and both victims were critically injured.

    Djordje S. came to Germany in 1991 and had his asylum request, The man had been deported a number of times, but he always managed to come back to Germany. He also served five years in prison in Germany for aggravated gang theft but once again returned to Germany after being deported.”

  6. Report Ties Ship That Carried Explosive Material in Beirut Blast to Hezbollah
    https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/08/24/report-ties-ship-carrying-explosive-material-causing-beirut-blast-hezbollah/

    “The German newspaper Der Spiegel published a report this weekend claiming that the ship suspected of bringing 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate to the Port of Beirut in 2013 had ties to a bank involved in laundering money for Hezbollah, the Iran-backed terrorist organization and Lebanese political party.

    Authorities believed the ship in question, MV Rhosus, belonged to a Russian businessman named Igor Grechuskhin who declared bankruptcy not long after coast guard officials in Lebanon impounded the ship for mechanical violations and transferred its dangerous cargo of chemical fertilizer to a warehouse, where it remained until it exploded in early August, killing over 120 people and damaging half the city.

    Der Spiegel, in cooperation with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), argued the true owner of the Rhosus was not Grechuskhin but a Cypriot businessman named Charalambos Manoli.

    Manoli appears to have taken some pains to conceal ownership, but he admitted to OCCRP that while Grechuskhin offered to buy the Rhosus from him, the deal never actually went through. In Der Spiegel’s telling, Grechushkin chartered the ship for the ill-fated shipment of ammonium nitrate and managed the voyage, but Manoli owned the vessel all along.

    Der Spiegel’s report further challenged the narrative that the Rhosus was on its way from Russian Georgia to Mozambique when it failed a port inspection in Beirut and got stuck there, its cargo seized after Grechushkin failed to pay its bills. Instead, the investigative report suggested many details of the Rhosus’ voyage were staged or fabricated and its true purpose was to deliver the highly explosive ammonium nitrate to Hezbollah.

    A key piece of evidence presented by Der Spiegel to tie Manoli to Hezbollah is that unlike Grechuskhin, the Cypriot businessman has business ties in Lebanon, and in 2011 he took out a $4 million loan to buy another ship from a bank based in Tanzania called FBME.

    “FBME isn’t just any bank. American investigators have accused the institution of acting as a money launderer for Hezbollah. Another of the bank’s customers was a suspected Syrian front company that had been involved in the country’s chemical weapons program. It was to this bank that Manoli owed money,” the article said.

    “Internal FBME documents show that Manoli still owed the bank 962,000 euros in outstanding debt in October 2014. Manoli denies any connection between his debts and the fact that the freighter was stopped in Beirut. However, one investigator notes that FBME is notorious for pressuring defaulting borrowers into doing favors for dubious customers like Hezbollah,” Der Spiegel added.

    FBME issued a statement for publication denying any untoward activity and denying that it sought to use the Rhosus as collateral for another loan, although it confirmed that it has done business with Manoli and his company, SeaForce Marine Ltd.

    Two other suspicious details unearthed by Der Spiegel are that the purported buyer of the ammonium nitrate in Mozambique, a company called FEM, has been investigated for ties to Islamic terrorism, and that no one has actually stepped forward to claim ownership of the ammonium nitrate cargo — Lebanese officials never even formally confiscated it. Roughly $700,000 worth of dangerous chemicals supposedly sat in a warehouse for six years, as forgotten as the Rhosus, said to have succumbed to its many leaks and sank outside the Port of Beirut in 2018, claimed by neither Grechushkin nor Manoli.

    Some customs officials in Beirut did care about the abandoned cargo, and they very much wanted to get rid of it, but Der Spiegel reported that petitions to remove the chemicals were “sent to the wrong court so persistently that it is difficult for lawyers involved to believe in mere incompetence.”

    The implication is that Hezbollah wanted the substance to remain at the port so they could use it for bomb-making. As Der Spiegel and OCCRP investigators noted, there is no way to be certain all 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate were present and accounted for when the explosion struck; some of it could have been siphoned away for nefarious purposes over the years. The last time the abandoned cargo was inspected in the spring of 2020, the inspectors noticed “one of the warehouse’s gates was missing and there was a large hole in the south wall,” but apparently no one checked to see if any of the ammonium nitrate was missing.

    Furthermore, European intelligence officials have estimated the stupendous explosion that horrified the world was not big enough to represent 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate blowing up. The Beirut blast appeared to involve 700 to 1,000 tons, meaning more than half of the Rhosus cargo is unaccounted for.

    AFP found Hezbollah in a precarious position in Lebanese politics, with public anger growing so intense after the Beirut blast that formerly untouchable leader Hassan Nasrallah has been mocked and hanged in effigy.

    “A widely shared meme had a screen grab of Nasrallah choking back tears over the killing of Iranian spymaster Qasem Soleimani in a US drone strike in Iraq earlier this year, contrasting with another of him looking composed and smiling after the Beirut blast,” AFP reported, referring to Nasrallah’s emotional response when a U.S. strike killed Iranian terror mastermind Gen. Qassem Soleimani on Iraqi soil in January.

    The Times of Israel (TOI) cited another report from last week that Iran provided Hezbollah with about 670 tons of ammonium nitrate in 2013. This report speculated the Rhosus cargo might not have been directly ordered or held by the terrorist organization, but instead Hezbollah loyalists working at the port might have hoarded it because they thought Hezbollah would be interested in it.

    “A Channel 13 report earlier this month claimed Hezbollah planned to use the ammonium nitrate stockpile that caused the blast at Beirut’s port against Israel in a ‘Third Lebanon War’ that may come in the future. It did not cite sources,” TOI added.”