Reader’s Links for September 5, 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

96 Replies to “Reader’s Links for September 5, 2020”

  1. Two French Military Personnel Killed in Operation in Mali (sputniknews, Sep 5, 2020)
    https://sputniknews.com/africa/202009051080377453-two-french-military-personnel-killed-in-operation-in-mali—reports/

    “The two soldiers were killed after their armored vehicle was stricken by an improvised explosive device, the Elysee Palace said in a statement on Saturday evening. According to the statement, a third serviceman was injured in the blast.

    The two soldiers killed were a Brigadier-Chief First Class Sergeant and Hussar Parachutist First Class Arnaud Volpe. They belonged to the 1st Parachute Hussar Regiment of Tarbes.
    The blast took place on Saturday morning in Tessalit province of the northeastern Malian region of Kidal.

    Earlier in the day, a military source said that three servicemen have been injured in an explosion of a French military vehicle.

    Some 4,000 French soldiers have been stationed in Mali since 2013 as part of the Barkhane operation, which is conducted by France in Africa’s Sahel and aims to fight terrorism and stabilize the situation so that the region’s countries can maintain security on their own.”

  2. Niger’s army accused in disappearance of 102 civilians
    https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/nigers-army-accused-disappearance-102-civilians-72835846

    ” Niger’s army is responsible for the disappearance of more than 100 people in the western part of the country late last year, a new watchdog report alleges.

    The National Commission for Human Rights spent months investigating the civilians’ disappearance in Inates zone in the Tillaberi region. The group published its report late Friday.

    “What happened in Inates must not happen again,” said the group’s secretary general, Ali China Kourgueni. “The rest is now up to the judicial authority.”

    The government has received the report, but there has been no response…”

  3. India-China locked in bitter border row, China says ‘India fully responsible’ | LAC Standoff

  4. Iranian Lawyer Putting ‘Life on Line’ in Prison Hunger Strike
    https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2489681/iranian-lawyer-putting-life-line-prison-hunger-strike

    “A prize-winning Iranian lawyer is over three weeks into a hunger strike to draw attention to the plight of political prisoners in the country during the Covid-19 pandemic, as international concern grows over the state of her health.

    Nasrin Sotoudeh, co-laureate of the European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov prize in 2012, is serving a 12-year sentence in Tehran’s Evin prison, imposed last year, after she defended women arrested for protesting compulsory headscarf laws.

    Her husband Reza Khandan said on social media channels that she began the hunger strike on August 11, posting a statement from Sotoudeh saying that the conditions of political prisoners detained on “unbelievable” charges were impossible to tolerate and they were offered no legal hope of release as the pandemic engulfs Iran.

    Sotoudeh, 57, said her strike was to secure the release of political prisoners — who have not benefited from the furloughs that saw tens of thousands of other convicts freed during the pandemic — after the judiciary ignored her written pleas.

    “She has found no means other than a hunger strike and putting her life on the line to advocate for the release of people who should not be in prison in the first place,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director for the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), based in New York.

    “With the Covid outbreak in the prisons, she is directing attention to the plight of the hundreds of political prisoners like her who are like sitting ducks, and the government and judiciary are completely ignoring their situation,” he told AFP.

    Ghaemi said Iran was experiencing a period of “unprecedented repression” with hundreds arrested in the last months on political charges.

    The country has been shaken by the effects of sanctions, along with November 2019 protests over fuel price hikes, which were followed by what activists describe as one of the biggest crackdowns since the shah was deposed in 1979.

    Amnesty International said in a report this week that it had registered testimony from 500 people, arrested after the protests, who were subjected to unfair legal proceedings.

    It alleged that there had been an “epidemic” of torture in prisons, including waterboarding and sexual assault.

    In another report, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran, based in Washington, said the extent of the Covid-19 outbreak was far greater in Iranian prisons than the authorities admit, accusing prisons of failing to observe basic hygiene measures.

    “Prisoners discuss with wardmates, the guards, they talk to prison officials. Then nothing works and they write to the judiciary, they write to officials and nothing works again so they have to go on hunger strike,” said its executive director Roya Boroumand.

    “This is the only means they have,” she told AFP.

    Concern is growing for Sotoudeh’s health as the monthlong mark for the hunger strike approaches. According to her husband, she is weak and has refused injections offered by the prison authorities.

    “We are heartbroken to see Nasrin’s health deteriorate day by day while imprisoned on unjust charges,” said Karin Deutsch Karlekar, director of the Free Expression at Risk Programs at PEN America, which awarded her its 2011 Freedom to Write prize.

    “She is now facing the direst of consequences for her activism and expression,” she said.

    On Tuesday, the German Judges Association (DRB) awarded its Human Rights Prize to Sotoudeh, calling her a “symbol of the Iranian civil rights movement” and saying it wanted to raise public awareness of her fate.

    The risks for Sotoudeh were made all too apparent last month when Ebru Timtik, a lawyer in Turkey detained on terror charges she vehemently denied, died after 238 days of hunger strike.

    Activists say the Iranian authorities have also been directly targeting Sotoudeh’s family with a string of measures aimed at making her give in, including freezing her family’s bank accounts over the summer.

    And in August, her 20-year old daughter Mehraveh Khandan was arrested on charges of assaulting a prison guard while visiting her mother. She was released on bail but still risks being put on trial.

    “They (the authorities) are trying to set a precedent and send a message to others that they are not afraid of going beyond individuals and will collectively punish them,” Ghaemi said.”

  5. UN chief warns of famine risk in Yemen, South Sudan amid coronavirus pandemic
    https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2020/9/5/un-chief-warns-of-famine-risk-in-yemen

    “U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that there is a risk of famine and widespread food insecurity in four countries affected by conflict — Congo, Yemen, northeast Nigeria and South Sudan — and the lives of millions of people are in danger.

    In a note to Security Council members obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, the U.N. chief said the four countries rank “among the largest food crises in the world,” according to the 2020 Global Report on Food Crises and recent food security analyses. But funding to help is very low, he said.

    “Action is needed now,” Guterres said. “Having endured years of armed conflict and related violence, the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yemen, northeast Nigeria and South Sudan are again facing the specter of heightened food insecurity and potentially famine.”

    The U.N. chief said key indicators “are similarly deteriorating” in a number of other conflict-hit countries including Somalia, Burkina Faso and Afghanistan…”

  6. 9 arrested in Saudi Arabia for illegally transferring money abroad
    https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/saudi/9-arrested-in-saudi-arabia-for-illegally-transferring-money-abroad-1.73652146

    “Saudi Arabia has arrested nine expatriates for illegally transferring money abroad, the official Saudi Press Agency reported citing a Riyadh police spokesman.

    The transfers were reportedly made using individual business bank accounts registered under the names of Saudi nationals in exchange for financial commission, SPA reported.

    Those arrested include three Syrian nationals, three Egyptians, one Yemeni national, one Pakistani, and one Turkish national, according to the report. They are aged in their 30s and 50s.

    Authorities seized over 1 million riyals ($266,640) that were in the possession of the group. Upon preliminary questioning, they acknowledged the allegations against them and were referred to public prosecution.

    In August, Saudi Arabia arrested a group for illegally transferring more than 500 million riyals ($133 million) abroad during 2020, SPA reported.”

  7. Controversial Sermon Suggests Saudi Arabia Could Normalize Ties With Israel
    https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2020/09/317499/controversial-sermon-suggests-saudi-arabia-could-normalize-ties-with-israel/

    “The imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca delivered a remarkable sermon on Friday that appeared to signal Saudi Arabia could normalize relations with Israel. Abdul Rahman al-Sudais, the imam of the Great Mosque, spoke on the importance for Muslims to respect other faiths and highlighted several stories about interactions between Jewish people and the Prophet Mohammed.

    Imam Sudais is a senior religious leader in Saudi Arabia. He is the imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca and the president of the General Presidency for the affairs of the Two Holy Mosques.

    In his sermon this Friday, Imam Sudais spoke at length about the prophet’s early days in Mecca and his interactions with people of different faiths. He said the Isamic community needed to “correct and purify the Islamic faith from false and suspicious beliefs.” The imam’s remarks about peaceful coexistence with other faiths are not controversial in any way, but the timing of the sermon amid geopolitical changes in the region sparked online debate.

    Users on social media furiously debated the imam’s speech. Many Israeli users saw the imam’s remarks as a sign of impending change in the Saudi position on Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli media reports suggested the sermon is a clear signal of an approaching normalization agreement with Israel.

    However, that the sermon was well received in Israel made supporters of a free Palestine suspicious of its intent.

    “A zionist tweets, loves and praises the Imam of Makkah,” commented one social media user. Even more sarcastic, another Twitter user posted a picture of Mecca’s Grand Imam with the caption: “I am a rabbi, not an imam.”

    Sudais has made similar remarks about religious coexistence. In 2005 he told the BBC “the history of Islam is the best testament to how different communities can live together in peace and harmony.” However, in the same interview he also described Israeli Zionism as “the worst of the enemies of Islam.”

    If the sermon is indeed a sign of impending ties with Israel, the move would be a significant game-changer in the public stance of the Saudi kingdom regarding Palestine. On August 21, Prince Turki al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia stated the Saudi price for normalization would be a “free Palestine.””

  8. Journalist Shaheena Shaheen shot dead in Turbat
    https://tribune.com.pk/story/2262666/journalist-shaheena-shaheen-shot-dead-in-turbat

    “Shaheena Shaheen, a renowned social activist and a journalist from Gwadar, was shot dead by unidentified men in Turbat on Saturday, officials said.

    The PTV Bolan morning show anchor was brought to a local hospital in critical condition after being shot twice, hospital sources told The Express Tribune, adding that the owner of the vehicle, in which Shaheena was brought, fled soon after dropping the victim. However, the police managed to seize the vehicle later on.

    According to police officials, Shaheena, who was also the editor of Balochi language magazine Dazgohar, was shot at a housing quarter in Turbat and unidentified assailants left her body at the hospital.

    An investigation into the homicide has been launched following medico-legal formalities at the hospital…”

  9. Taliban Returning To Battlefield
    https://www.khaama.com/taliban-returning-to-battlefield-987654/

    “In a press release by the foreign policy: Taliban released prisoners are returning to battlefields as commanders and fighters, which is considered a breach of the Doha agreement.

    According to the article, the majority of released Taliban have taken up arms again in an intention to fight and overthrow the government.

    An unpublished paper written for the Afghan Peace dialogue project at Queen’s University in Belfast, by experts Michael Semple and Flex Kuehn, It is found that the former Taliban detainees were participating in the battle, being killed, taken prisoner again, and in one case an ex-fighter of the group was involved in revenge assassinations.

    The reports indicate that 68% of the 108 former Taliban chosen for the research have reintegrated with the group to actively resume their roles in battles, or are occupying military or political positions linked to Taliban war efforts.

    Foreign policy also stated, that 8 percent of those under the research wished to return to battlefields but were held back through family opposition, the other 24% voluntarily have returned to normal civil life.

    A local official who did not wanted to be identified has told Foreign policy that the findings are “accord to what we have observed”.

    “Some Taliban interviewed understood the stance that prisoners should not return to the ?ght, as a deliberate deception. … They understood that pretending that prisoners would not be allowed to return to ?ght was a necessary price to be paid for ensuring that the prisoner release continued,” the researchers wrote.

    This comes as prisoners swap previously ended, and both parties have released all the prisoners to pave the path for Intra-Afghan talks.”

  10. 2 terrorists neutralized in eastern Turkey
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/turkey/2-terrorists-neutralized-in-eastern-turkey/1963968

    “Security forces neutralized two terrorists in an operation in eastern Turkey, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday.

    The terrorists were neutralized along with weapons during an air-backed anti-terrorism operation in rural areas of the Van province, according to a statement.

    The operation is ongoing, the ministry added.

    Turkish authorities often use the term “neutralized” to imply the terrorists in question surrendered or were killed or captured.

    The terrorists’ affiliation was not mentioned, but the terror group PKK has been active in the region.

    In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US, and the EU – has been responsible for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.”

  11. The Guardian claims Merkel’s 2015 migrant gamble ‘paid off’, but how true is that claim?
    https://rmx.news/article/article/the-guardian-claims-merkel-s-2015-migrant-gamble-paid-off-but-how-true-is-that-claim

    “The Guardian has proclaimed that Angela Merkel’s decision in 2015 to allow over one million migrants enter the country was a “gamble” that “paid off”, but the piece glosses over or completely omits many of the negative impacts the migrant have had on German society and also contains at least one false claim.

    The piece starts off with a success story, pointing to a Syrian refugee who finished at the top of his class, mastered the German language, and plans to study computer programming. While the story will likely appeal to those who believe Merkel made the right decision to open Germany’s borders five years ago, those with a slightly more skeptical take may view the anecdotal story as only one of many individual stories that the Guardian could have shared, many of which could have presented a far more negative picture.

    For example, The Guardian did not choose to share a story about the 19-year-old Syrian refugee and ISIS supporter who has cost the German state €5 million and counting with the 24-hour police surveillance he requires in a small German town in the east of the country. The man, who has required a four-person police detail for the last three years to accompany him to the supermarket, still remains in the country despite his court-designated status as a severe terrorist threat.

    The Guardian also did not tell the story of the 6-year-old child allegedly killed by a Syrian migrant participating in an illegal street race in Dresden last month. Illegal street racing is an increasingly common criminal act that one top prosecutor in Berlin describes as typical perpetrated by young migrant males.

    Although the mass sexual assaults seen in Cologne on New Year’s Eve garnered the most headlines, the issue has not gone away, with similar stories adding up over the years. The Guardian could have told the individual stories of any migrants or victims involved in the various brutal rapes that have shaken the country, including a case involving ten migrant men convicted for gang raping a German woman or another case involving an Afghan migrant who was accused of raping an 11-year-old girl only to be released by a judge to rape an 13-year-old teenager a month later.

    The British paper also did not tell the story of a woman who said she was brutally beaten by a Syrian refugee and left alone with damaging PTSD from what she describes as a life-changing encounter or the elderly German man senselessly beaten into a coma by a Somali refugee only to die alone 11 months later because his family was restricted from visiting him in the hospital due to coronavirus.

    Those stories almost certainly would have cast at least some doubt on the whole idea that the gamble “paid off”, but the paper chose to go with the young Syrian programmer because that probably fit the given narrative.

    Of course, migrants are not the only perpetrators of serious crimes in Germany, but the country has historically been one of the global leaders in a broad range of important metrics that have made it global magnet for migrants across the world, including its low crime rates.

    Have migrants changed that?

    The Guardian does address the migrant crime issue, but frames it within the broader claim that crime has gone down overall in Germany in recent years. What the paper doesn’t mention is that this drop in crime has occurred despite a rising proportion of migrant crime as of 2019. In other words, without Germany’s influx of migrants, crime would be seeing an even steeper crash.

    For the most severe crimes, including murder, rape, and assault, migrants represent a highly disproportionate share of the country’s criminal suspects. For example, in the case of murder, 40 percent of suspects are listed as “migrants’ by the German Criminal Federal Police (BKA).

    The Guardian has proclaimed that Angela Merkel’s decision in 2015 to allow over one million migrants enter the country was a “gamble” that “paid off”, but the piece glosses over or completely omits many of the negative impacts the migrant have had on German society and also contains at least one false claim.

    The piece starts off with a success story, pointing to a Syrian refugee who finished at the top of his class, mastered the German language, and plans to study computer programming. While the story will likely appeal to those who believe Merkel made the right decision to open Germany’s borders five years ago, those with a slightly more skeptical take may view the anecdotal story as only one of many individual stories that the Guardian could have shared, many of which could have presented a far more negative picture.

    For example, The Guardian did not choose to share a story about the 19-year-old Syrian refugee and ISIS supporter who has cost the German state €5 million and counting with the 24-hour police surveillance he requires in a small German town in the east of the country. The man, who has required a four-person police detail for the last three years to accompany him to the supermarket, still remains in the country despite his court-designated status as a severe terrorist threat.

    The Guardian also did not tell the story of the 6-year-old child allegedly killed by a Syrian migrant participating in an illegal street race in Dresden last month. Illegal street racing is an increasingly common criminal act that one top prosecutor in Berlin describes as typical perpetrated by young migrant males.

    Although the mass sexual assaults seen in Cologne on New Year’s Eve garnered the most headlines, the issue has not gone away, with similar stories adding up over the years. The Guardian could have told the individual stories of any migrants or victims involved in the various brutal rapes that have shaken the country, including a case involving ten migrant men convicted for gang raping a German woman or another case involving an Afghan migrant who was accused of raping an 11-year-old girl only to be released by a judge to rape an 13-year-old teenager a month later.

    The British paper also did not tell the story of a woman who said she was brutally beaten by a Syrian refugee and left alone with damaging PTSD from what she describes as a life-changing encounter or the elderly German man senselessly beaten into a coma by a Somali refugee only to die alone 11 months later because his family was restricted from visiting him in the hospital due to coronavirus.

    Those stories almost certainly would have cast at least some doubt on the whole idea that the gamble “paid off”, but the paper chose to go with the young Syrian programmer because that probably fit the given narrative.

    Of course, migrants are not the only perpetrators of serious crimes in Germany, but the country has historically been one of the global leaders in a broad range of important metrics that have made it global magnet for migrants across the world, including its low crime rates.

    Have migrants changed that?

    The Guardian does address the migrant crime issue, but frames it within the broader claim that crime has gone down overall in Germany in recent years. What the paper doesn’t mention is that this drop in crime has occurred despite a rising proportion of migrant crime as of 2019. In other words, without Germany’s influx of migrants, crime would be seeing an even steeper crash.

    For the most severe crimes, including murder, rape, and assault, migrants represent a highly disproportionate share of the country’s criminal suspects. For example, in the case of murder, 40 percent of suspects are listed as “migrants’ by the German Criminal Federal Police (BKA).

    AP Photo
    The Guardian points to data from 2014 to 2016, writing that most of the violent crimes involved happened in refugee shelters where they were mostly housed, however, Germany has since drastically reduced crowding in shelters and moved the vast majority of migrants to permanent housing with more privacy. Despite the move, migrants are still vastly overrepresented in violent crimes.

    In Germany, some crime categories, such as sexual crimes, are actually rising due to migrants, echoing similar patterns seen in countries like Sweden.

    In some areas of the country, the statistics are especially troubling, with police data showing that nearly half of all rape suspects in Berlin are migrants despite their small proportion of the population. It is also unclear how many of the other suspects in the other half are second- or third-generation men with a migrant background.

    Terrorism and Germany’s migrant community
    The Guardian’s piece also touches on the issue of terrorism and Germany’s growing migrant community, and does offer a fair assessment in some respects, but overall, the piece does not provide the reader with a full picture of terrorism in Germany. For one, the article claims that “after a spate of seven attacks with an Islamist motive in Germany in 2016, culminating with a truck driven into a Berlin Christmas market that December, the country has seen no further attacks for the last three years.”

    This is false. Just this month, an Iraqi migrant hunted and rammed motorcyclists in Berlin, injuring six people in various attacks across the city, including on the Autobahn. After the vehicle attacks, Samrad D. got out of his vehicle, screamed “Allahu Akbar!”, and began praying on a mat. He also previously wrote about martyring himself in a vehicle attack in a Facebook post.

    The Guardian does acknowledge that there have been a number of jihadist terrorist plots foiled since 2015, but according to Le Parisien, German police have also foiled a dozen planned vehicle attacks since December 2016, such as the one seen at Breitscheidtplatz Christmas market in 2016 that killed 12 people.

    According to French newspaper, since 2013, the number of Islamists in Germany considered dangerous has seen a fivefold increase and currently stands at 680. The number of Salafists has also doubled since 2013 and is estimated at around 11,000.

    The piece also does not report on the time, effort and resources both police and the courts are directing to the issue. For example, the German Federal Public Prosecutor (GBA) announced that for 2019 that 400 of the total of 663 terrorist proceedings were related to Islamic terrorism, representing 60.3 percent of all cases, a finding that was also reflected in previous years. The GBA data also shows that Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis make up a significant number of these terrorist suspects.

    In the first half of 2020, 151 cases have been pursued against Islamist terrorist suspects in Germany.

    Far-right terrorism has certainly risen in tandem with the influx of migrants into Germany since 2015, but again, those practicing Islam make up a small proportion of Germany’s overall population, but yet play a hugely outsized role in terrorist cases.

    The German state is investing enormous resources, including actively monitoring terrorist threats, to ensure the next Islamic terrorist attack doesn’t happen. Germany is paying a serious price for Merkel’s open door refugee policy, but it is sometimes hard to see just how high a price it is due to the competency of German law enforcement at stopping the various threats the country faces.

    Germany’s social costs and financial costs for migration
    The Guardian cites a number of statistics to support a narrative that integration efforts in Germany have paid off, such as the fact that “more than 10,000 people who arrived in Germany as refugees since 2015 have mastered the language sufficiently to enrol at a German university.”

    It is a significant achievement to obtain proficiency in the German language, but 10,000 is still a small number when talking about over a million refugees who arrived in Germany. Data from 2018 showed that nearly half of all migrants taking language tests for intermediate proficiency ended up failing, and that number was increasing. It is certainly no easy task to learn a foreign language, especially for older migrants who arrived in Germany, but when the prerequisite for many jobs is a strong grasp of German, even for low-skilled positions, the numbers involved quickly becomes a major societal challenge for integration.

    The Guardian also writes that “more than half of those who came are in work and pay taxes”, however, as recently as last year, the German Federal Employment Agency said that around three quarters of all Syrians of working age in Germany received Hartz IV, which are payments from Germany’s welfare system. Hartz IV is also given to those who earn so little that they cannot earn a living from it alone.

    According to Die Welt, 74.9 percent of Syrian refugees received transfer payments from the state, and the unemployment rate for Syrian citizens was 44.2 percent in June of last year. Since 2015, Syrians have regularly made up the largest group of all new asylum seekers and refugees coming to Germany. The report also states that nearly 40 percent of all welfare recipients in Germany are foreigners.

    Germany has also paid enormous costs for training, employing and integrating refugees. In 2018, the German government spent a record €23 billion on migrants, including rent subsidies, jobless payments, language lessons, and other benefits. That figure does not account for what individual states spent either, with Hamburg’s government releasing data showing it spent €5.35 billion on asylum seekers between 2015 and the end of 2019.

    Other studies have also found different results than the employment figures cited by the Guardian, including one released by German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) about a year and a half ago, which found that 65 percent of the 7,500 migrants they interviewed were still out of work.

    There is also the “invisible costs” of mass migration and the associated population increase. They take the form of more crowded kindergartens and schools, more teaching resources directed towards children who do not have German language skills, longer wait times at hospitals, more waste, and more vehicles on the road. In the case of property in Germany, Deutsche Bank cheers the fact that higher migration should help support Germany’s red-hot property market, but for young people trying to buy their first house and potentially start a family, buying a house is more out of reach than ever while rental prices continue to skyrocket.

    There is also the less tangible affect multiculturalism has on the very cohesive society Germany has maintained for decades. Multiculturalism has not only brought positives like Middle Eastern food and a cheap labor force, but has also led to a new reality in Germany, where issues like female genital mutilation now threatens thousands of women for the first time and growing clan crime ties up police resources. Such unique challenges add on to the general challenges any state faces as it tries to provide for its citizens and ensure a smooth running society.

    Do Germans believe Merkel’s gamble truly ‘paid off’?
    The question also arises, if Merkel’s gamble has paid off then why doesn’t she want it to “pay off” again? The Guardian writes:

    Merkel never recanted her words of August 2015, as many even in her own party insisted she should. But she did ensure a situation like the one that followed won’t be repeated on German soil during her tenure.

    Merkel’s efforts to ensure that a migrant wave such as the one seen in 2015 does not occur again appears to be tacit acknowledgment that Germans have little appetite for more migration.

    Polling backs that sentiment up. One poll conducted this week by Augsburger Allgemeine asked Germans about Merkel’s famous 2015 phrase “Wir schaffen das,” which roughly translates to “We can do this” in English, with Merkel using the phrase to assure Germans that the country could manage a refugee influx from Syria. The poll found that “of more than 5,000 people surveyed, more than 50 percent thought her statement was rather or fully inaccurate, while 37 percent said it had turned out to be completely inaccurate.”

    Other polls have shown that when the question of migration is broken down between EU and non-EU migration, Germans are not as welcoming as commonly portrayed. A major EU Barometer poll, for example, showed that Germans are more opposed to non-EU migration than supportive, with 48 percent saying they were against non-EU migration while 44 percent supported it, a finding that has not changed much since 2015. In 2017, a majority of Germans said they could not take in any more refugees and a major YouGov survey this year found that 63 percent of Germans did not trust their government on migration and 61 percent feel ‘insecure” about migration. Another 38 percent listed it as the top security threat the EU faces.

    At the same time, as the Guardian reports, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party still never gained real traction in the country. Merkel’s approval rating certainly remains strong, partly due to the government’s response to the coronavirus issue. But how much of the AfD’s lack of support has to do with Merkel and her policies and how much of it is related the country’s media, educational and political system’s anti-AfD sentiments, which promotes that the party and its supporters are literal “Nazis”, is difficult to parse.

    Regardless of the reason behind the lack of support for the AfD, migration appears to be a top issue for many Germans, and yet only a small minority of the public appears to be able to support the country’s main immigration restrictionist party, unlike what has been seen in other countries like Denmark, France, Austria, and Italy.

    Will Germany’s migrants integrate?
    Much depends on how migrants continue to integrate into German society over the coming years. There is little doubt that situation has improved from 2015 in many regards, but there are still gravely worrying trends.

    Even for Germany’s oldest and largest migrant community, the Turks, there are still stark cultural differences between Germans and even second- and third-generation ethnic Turks.

    Many German Turks are eligible to vote in Turkish elections, with a record 50 percent of Germany’s Turkish diaspora who can vote turned out in 2018. The results are worrying, with 421,845 German Turks voting in favor of Islamic hardliner Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, representing 64.8 percent of all Turks that voted in Germany. The Turkish autocrat received a higher percentage of votes than he received from Turkey’s own population.

    Even more worrying voting totals appeared in other European countries, with 74.9 percent of Turkish voters in Belgium casting a ballot for Erdo?an.

    The voting patterns of the country’s main migrant bloc continue to highlight how elusive integration remains.

    Europe’s Turkish community, including Germany’s, is enthusiastically voting for a man that has implored his compatriots living in Europe to “go live in better neighborhoods. Drive the best cars. Live in the best houses. Make not three, but five children. Because you are the future of Europe. That will be the best response to the injustices against you.”

    He has openly said that democracy was only a tool to be used to usher in Islamic rule. The Guardian itself has labeled him a “dictator” and the NGOs the Guardian loves to cite, such as Human Rights Watch, have documented his autocratic rule, jailing and torturing of political opponents, academics, and secularists, attacks on the press, and the brutal armed conflict he has waged against Turkey’s Kurdish minority.

    Nearly two out of every three Turks in Germany is voting for a man whose interior minister, Süleyman Soylu, said just this year that migration will “bring down Europe” and that “the governments in Europe will change, their economies will deteriorate, their stock markets will collapse” all due to Turkey’s threat of sending one million migrants to Greece’s borders.

    Those voting figures are not discussed much in German media, but if 64.8 percent of Turks are willing to vote for someone who opposes the European values that most Germans say they hold dear, integration has been a failure.

    That is not only the opinion of AfD voters, but in 2010, was also the opinion of Merkel herself. She said at the time that “multiculturalism has failed, utterly failed” and that the onus for integration was on people migrating to Germany. Merkel’s remarks came the same week that Horst Seehofer, who is now serving as the country’s interior minister, called for a halt of all Arab and Turkish migration to Germany. Merkel’s remarks in 2010 still remain difficult to reconcile with her decision just five years later and admit over a million migrants from the Middle East.

    It is also worth taking a look at Germany’s neighbors to understand just how stark the problem of integration is in the Europe. In Denmark, 75 percent of Muslims want to ban criticism of Islam. Sweden has seen a serious uptick in crime, including hundreds of explosions over the last year, which have been tied to the country’s growing migrant population. In France, which has Europe’s largest Muslim population, a survey showed that nearly half of Muslims support sharia law in the country, indicating strong support within the Muslim community to do away with European values and many women’s rights. France also saw 36 percent of Muslims surveyed by Pew saying that suicide bombings could be justified in some instances in 2006, the last time the question was posed.

    Just this week, the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the target of an Islamic terrorist attack in 2015, published results that showed that 74 percent of Muslim youth consider their religious beliefs more important than the “values ??of the French Republic”.

    With Pew research estimating that Europe’s Muslim population could triple to 75 million in the next 30 years, with a significant increase potentially seen in Germany, it is far too early to declare whether Merkel’s decision truly paid off just five years out. After all, Germany will be dealing with her decision for decades to come.”

  12. Niece of Osama Bin Laden Proclaims That Trump’s Reelection is Necessary to Prevent Second 9/11
    https://sputniknews.com/us/202009051080376475-trump-bin-laden-support/

    “Many will likely be surprised to discover the existence of this secret Trump admirer, who also has strongly held views on political correctness, and Rep. Ilhan Omar.

    The niece of Osama Bin Laden has said that another 9/11-style terrorist attack can only be prevented if President Donald Trump is re-elected in November 2020.

    In an interview with The New York Post, 33-year-old Noor Bin Ladin, whose branch of the family spells its name differently to the former Al-Qaeda leader, said that “ISIS proliferated under the Obama/Biden administration, leading to them coming to Europe. Trump has shown he protects America and us by extension from foreign threats by obliterating terrorists at the root and before they get a chance to strike.”

    The niece of the 9/11 mastermind resides in Switzerland but considers herself an “American at heart” and often wears a “Make America Great Again” red baseball cap.

    She also said that she will be supporting the incumbent president in the 2020 race: “I have been a supporter of President Trump since he announced he was running in the early days in 2015. I have watched from afar and I admire this man’s resolve,” she said.

    “He must be reelected … It’s vital for the future of not only America, but western civilization as a whole.You look at all the terrorist attacks that have happened in Europe over the past 19 years. They have completely shaken us to the core … [Islamism] has completely infiltrated our society… In the US it’s very worrying that the left has aligned itself completely with the people who share that ideology.”

    The low-profile Bin Ladin, whose favourite television show is Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” also reserves little sympathy for the so-called “Squad” in the US House of Representatives, made up of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Minnesota.

    Focusing in particular on Representative Omar, Ms. Bin Laden said that, “you do have a situation now in America where you have people like Ilhan Omar who actively hate your country.” She also went on to note how how Omar called for “compassionate” sentences for 13 ISIS recruits from her home state of Minnesota.

    “It’s an honor to be able to go and live in the United States and make the most out of all the opportunities… If she [Omar] hates it so much why doesn’t she leave.”

    Reflecting on how she was just 14 years old when her uncle Osama presided over the 9/11 terrorist atrocity, Noor recalled being “so devastated.”

    “I was so devastated. I had been going to the states with my mom several times a year from the age of three onwards. I considered the US my second home.”

    Noor also slammed the idea that the US is an institutionally racist country.

    “I have not had a single bad experience with Americans despite the name that I carry. On the contrary, I was overwhelmed by their kindness and understanding.””

  13. CBC – Ottawa urged to stop trade talks with Brazil over Amazon fire

    Greenpeace Canada is calling on the federal government to suspend trade talks with Brazil after new data from Brazil’s own space agency shows the fire devastation in the Amazon rainforest is even worse this year than in 2019.

    Most fires are created intentionally by cattle farmers.

  14. Democrats Supporting BLM Riots May Have ALREADY Cost Them The Election As Riots WIPE OUT Poll Gains

  15. How Communist China Weaponized the Waters of Asia—Maura Moynihan on the Three Gorges Dam, Flooding