Reader’s Links on February 14, 2021

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

107 Replies to “Reader’s Links on February 14, 2021”

  1. Biden Calls on Congress to Strengthen Gun Ownership Rules
    By Zachary Stieber
    February 14, 2021 Updated: February 14, 2021
    biggersmaller Print

    President Joe Biden on Feb. 14 urged Congress to strengthen existing laws concerning gun ownership on the third anniversary of the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

    “The Parkland students and so many other young people across the country who have experienced gun violence are carrying forward the history of the American journey. It is a history written by young people in each generation who challenged prevailing dogma to demand a simple truth: we can do better. And we will,” Biden said in a statement.

    “This Administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call. We will take action to end our epidemic of gun violence and make our schools and communities safer. Today, I am calling on Congress to enact commonsense gun law reforms, including requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers who knowingly put weapons of war on our streets.”

    In the afternoon on Feb. 14, 2018, a man identified by authorities as Nikolas Cruz, now 22, walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and opened fire with AR-15 rifle. The shooting left 17 dead, including 14 students. Cruz, who is currently awaiting trial, could face the death penalty.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-calls-on-congress-to-restrict-gun-ownership_3696206.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-02-14-2

  2. Louisiana Republican Party Unanimously Censures Sen. Cassidy After Vote to Convict Trump
    By Jack Phillips
    February 14, 2021 Updated: February 14, 2021
    biggersmaller Print

    The Louisiana Republican Party on Saturday unanimously voted to censure Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) after he voted to convict former President Donald Trump in an impeachment trial.

    The Epoch Times has reached out to Cassidy’s office for comment.

    “The Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Louisiana has unanimously voted to censure Senator Bill Cassidy for his vote cast earlier today to convict former President Donald J. Trump on the impeachment charge,” state GOP said in a statement on Saturday night.

    In a statement after the trial, Cassidy said that the “Constitution and our country is more important than any one person,” and that he “voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty.” The Republican senator hasn’t issued a statement following the GOP’s move to censure him.

    Louisiana state Sen. Stewart Cathey Jr., a Republican, said that Cassidy’s vote “really caught people off guard.”

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/louisiana-republican-party-unanimously-censures-sen-cassidy-after-vote-to-convict-trump_3696188.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-02-14-2

  3. The Lincoln Project, Facing Multiple Scandals, is Accused by its Own Co-Founder of Likely Criminality
    Glenn Greenwald
    16-20 minutes
    Lincoln Project founders from l to r: Mike Madrid, Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, Reed Galen (credit: 60 Minutes screen capture)

    The group of life-long Republican Party consultants who, under the name “The Lincoln Project,” got very rich in 2020 with anti-Trump online messaging has spent weeks responding to numerous scandals on multiple fronts. Despite the gravity of those scandals, its conduct on Thursday night was in a whole new category of sleaze. It not only infuriated their long-time allies, but also constituted the abuse of Twitter’s platform to commit likely illegal acts.

    That the primary effect of the Lincoln Project was to personally enrich its key operatives by cynically exploiting the fears of U.S. liberals has long been obvious. Reporting throughout 2020 conclusively demonstrated that the vast majority of the tens of millions of dollars raised by the group was going to firms controlled by its founders. One of its most prominent founders — GOP consultant Rick Wilson — personally collected $65,000 from liberals through GoFundMe for an anti-Trump film he kept promising but which never came; to this date, he refuses to explain what he did with that money.

    https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-lincoln-project-facing-multiple

  4. Melissa DeRosa, Cuomo aide in nursing home cover-up, is related to top fed prosecutor
    Fox News
    5-6 minutes

    If the Department of Justice investigates the Cuomo Administration’s refusal to turn over data on nursing home deaths, a huge conflict would arise if the case were handed to the powerful Manhattan federal prosecutor.

    That’s because Audrey Strauss, the US Attorney for the Southern District, is the mother-in-law of top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa, the figure at the center of the emerging scandal.
    FILE- In this July 2, 2020 file photo, Audrey Strauss, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks during a news conference in New York, to announce charges against Ghislaine Maxwell for her alleged role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

    FILE- In this July 2, 2020 file photo, Audrey Strauss, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks during a news conference in New York, to announce charges against Ghislaine Maxwell for her alleged role in the sexual exploitation and abuse of multiple minor girls by Jeffrey Epstein. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

    The clamor demanding a probe into the cover-up of thousands of deaths have intensified after The Post reported DeRosa’s stunning admission that the Cuomo administration withheld the information from state lawmakers over the summer because it was worried federal prosecutors would “use it against us.”

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/melissa-derosa-cuomo-aide-nursing-home-cover-up-related-top-fed-prosecutor

  5. Scoop: Lincoln Project co-founder resigns
    Lachlan Markay
    2-3 minutes

    Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt is resigning from the group’s board amid a series of scandals that has rocked the high-dollar anti-Trump super PAC, Axios has learned.

    Why it matters: Schmidt, a veteran Republican operative, is the latest and most high-profile departure from the group, which is reeling from revelations that another co-founder, John Weaver, used offers of professional advancement in a series of attempts to solicit sex from young men.

    Background: Schmidt’s resignation comes amid a wave of damaging stories for the Lincoln Project.

    https://www.axios.com/lincoln-project-co-founder-resigns-ad554687-f2d1-4b7c-ac0c-5aa555fb312f.html

  6. 7 Republican Senators Who Voted to Convict Trump Face Backlash From Within Party
    By Zachary Stieber
    February 14, 2021 Updated: February 14, 2021
    biggersmaller Print

    The seven Republican senators who called former President Donald Trump guilty of inciting an insurrection are already facing backlash from within the GOP, where Trump remains a popular figure.

    The Louisiana GOP’s Executive Committee unanimously voted to censure Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) over his vote, the party said in a brief statement.

    The state party had said earlier this week that it was “profoundly disappointed” when Cassidy sided with five other Republicans and all Democrats in the upper chamber to declare the trial constitutional.

    Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), another guilty vote, was condemned by the North Carolina Republican Party.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/republicans-who-voted-to-convict-trump-face-backlash-from-within-party_3696114.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-02-14-1

  7. Impeachment Based on Political Differences Becoming the Norm: Lindsey Graham
    By Jack Phillips
    February 14, 2021 Updated: February 14, 2021
    biggersmaller Print

    Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that impeachments based on partisan differences appear to be becoming normalized, suggesting that future presidents will face impeachment challenges.

    “I hope I will be proven wrong, but it seems that impeachment based on partisan differences seems to be becoming the norm, not the exception,” Graham wrote on Twitter.

    “I fear that if this model is followed in the future—impeachment to disqualify one from holding office based on partisan hatred—will become the norm,” the Republican from South Carolina added.

    It came after former President Donald Trump on Saturday was acquitted in the Senate 57-43, with seven Republican senators joining all Democrats. The Senate requires a 67-vote threshold to convict a president.

    Graham suggested that during the impeachment trial, there were key processes and practices that were omitted.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/impeachment-based-on-political-differences-becoming-the-norm-lindsey-graham_3696162.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-02-14-1

  8. Minneapolis to Spend $6.4 Million to Recruit More Police Officers
    By The Associated Press
    February 14, 2021 Updated: February 14, 2021
    biggersmaller Print

    MINNEAPOLIS—Minneapolis is planning to spend $6.4 million to hire dozens of police officers, at a time when some City Council members and activist groups have been advocating to replace the police department following George Floyd’s death.

    The City Council voted unanimously Friday to approve the additional funding that police requested. The department says it only has 638 officers available to work—roughly 200 fewer than usual. An unprecedented number of officers quit or went on extended medical leave after Floyd’s death and the unrest that followed, which included the burning of a police precinct.

    With new recruit classes, the city anticipates it will have 674 officers available at the end of the year, with another 28 in the hiring process, the Star Tribune reported.

    Floyd died during an arrest on May 25 after former police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck even as he said he couldn’t breathe. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter and is scheduled for trial March 8. Three other former officers are charged with aiding and abetting, and are scheduled for trial in August.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/minneapolis-to-spend-6-4-million-to-recruit-more-police-officers_3695981.html?utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-02-14-1

  9. SPAIN – Catalans vote in polling station for voters quarantining or with Covid-19

    Catalans vote in a special polling station for quarantining voters, including those with Covid-19, as the region holds tight general elections.

  10. truedaily.news
    Facebook Alternative Minds Given 24-Hour Notice By Google – True Daily
    True Daily Staff
    1-2 minutes

    Minds is a social media site once designated by the left wing media outlet Wired as the “Anti-Facebook“. Minds does not sell user data in the way that Facebook, Google, and Twitter do, additionally Minds is blockchain based and community owned.

    Minds has been the latest alternative social media site to be attacked by a conglomerate of tech companies(Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Twitter). The site received a 24 hour notice from Google which threatened to remove the app if content on the platform was not cleaned up. Minds’ developers have quickly moved to remove search, comment, and discovery functionality to comply with Google. These features are extremely important to any social media site and this will likely do irreparable harm to the application.

    The app is also looking to move away from Amazon following the news that Parler was shut down due to Amazon pulling server support from the application.

    https://truedaily.news/2021/01/16/facebook-alternative-minds-given-24-hour-notice-by-google/

  11. UAE Swears in Country’s 1st Ambassador to Israel
    https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2805196/uae-swears-countrys-1st-ambassador-israel

    “Dubai’s ruler and The United Arab Emirates’ Vice President Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has sworn in the country’s first ambassador to Israel, Mohammed Mahmoud Al-Khaja, the Dubai Media Office said on Sunday.

    The UAE’s cabinet last month approved the establishment of an embassy in Tel Aviv in Israel.

    The UAE and Israel agreed to normalize relations in August.”

  12. Syria Kurds hand Iraq 100 alleged Islamic State fighters: Reports
    https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/syria-iraq-kurds-hand-alleged-islamic-state-fighters

    “A US-backed Kurdish force in northeast Syria handed over 100 alleged Islamic State (IS) group fighters to Baghdad this week, a senior Iraqi security source told AFP on Sunday.

    The Iraqi fighters were being interrogated before being transferred to the judiciary, the source said.

    But an official with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) denied the handover had taken place.

    The semi-autonomous Kurdish administration is sometimes reluctant to discuss issues related to IS fighters or their families held in SDF prisons and camps.

    The Kurdish force has already handed over around 900 Iraqis caught fleeing the last remnants of the “caliphate” in 2019.

    Around 1,600 Iraqis were still detained in northeast Syria at the end of last year over allegedly fighting for IS, according to a United Nations report released this month.

    Iraq has tried thousands of its nationals for belonging to a “terrorist” group, which carries the death penalty according to the country’s 2005 Counter-Terror Law.

    Hundreds of them have been condemned to death, but only a small portion of the sentences have been carried out as they require presidential approval.

    Current President Barham Saleh is known to be against capital punishment…”

  13. Greece calls migrant pushback claims ‘fake news’
    https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2021/2/14/greece-calls-migrant-pushback-claims-fake-news

    “Greece’s migration minister on Sunday dismissed fresh claims that migrants are being illegally pushed out of the country as “fake news” promoted by Turkey.

    He was reacting to reports by rights groups that thousands of people had been forced back into Turkey in recent months in violation of their right to asylum.

    “These are part of a broader fake news strategy promoted by Turkey, through certain non-government organisations and smuggler networks,” Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi told To Vima weekly.

    “Investigations until now by (EU border agency) Frontex and the (Greek) coastguard have not confirmed any of the claims,” he said.

    Greece has consistently denied claims by migrant support groups that it is illegally returning migrants to Turkey in violation of international law, including two reports this past month.

    Berlin-based rights group Mare Liberum said Friday it had documented 321 incidents from March to December 2020 involving more than 9,000 people.

    They had been “violently pushed back to Turkey and thus deprived of their right to asylum”, said the group.

    Another group, Legal Centre Lesvos, said earlier in February that it had been in contact with more than 50 survivors of 17 collective expulsions.

    Mitarachi on Sunday insisted that Greece’s borders were being guarded “under the framework of international law and European values”.

    Since its election in 2019, Greece’s conservative government has strongly prioritised border security and adopted a tough migration policy.

    Mare Liberum’s report on Friday said that in addition to the Greek coastguard, Frontex and ships under NATO command were also involved in “systematic and illegal expulsions”.

    Frontex is currently under investigation by OLAF, the EU’s independent corruption watchdog, over the issue.”

  14. Nigeria’s president calls for calm after clashes in southwest Oyo state
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nigeria-security/nigerias-president-calls-for-calm-after-clashes-in-southwest-oyo-state-idUSKBN2AE0UH

    “Nigeria’s president appealed for calm on Sunday following reports of intercommunal violence between ethnic groups at a market in the southwestern state of Oyo.

    Clashes between traders from the Yoruba and Hausa ethnic groups broke out on Saturday at Shasha market in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo, the state governor’s spokesman said. Most Yoruba live in southwestern Nigeria, while the Hausa are concentrated in northern states.

    Tensions have increased in southwestern states in recent weeks amid claims by public figures that nomadic cattle herders from the mainly northern Fulani ethnic group are carrying out violent crimes, which the pastoralists have denied. Many of the herders have moved south in search of dwindling grazing land.

    Usman Yako, chair of the Hausa traders association at Shasha market, told Reuters by telephone at least 11 people from his ethnic group were killed in clashes at the market on Friday and Saturday that followed an argument between Yoruba and Hausa traders.

    President Muhammadu Buhari appealed on Twitter to religious and traditional leaders, as well as elected leaders, “to join hands with the federal government to ensure that communities in their domain are not splintered along ethnic and other primordial lines”.

    “We will not allow any ethnic or religious groups to stoke up hatred and violence against other groups,” he wrote.

    Oyo state police did not immediately respond to calls requesting comment.

    “The attacks, which led to the loss of lives and properties, must be investigated and perpetrators brought to justice,” rights group Amnesty International said in a statement, referring to the violence at Shasha market.

    Nigeria’s security forces are already stretched by armed gangs of kidnappers in the northwest and an Islamist militant insurgency in the northeast.”

  15. Secret Textile Factories in Morocco Supply Zara, Mango
    https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2021/02/334933/secret-textile-factories-in-morocco-supply-renowned-european-brands/

    “Despite working illegally and subjecting their workers’ to inhumane conditions, clandestine Moroccan textile companies supply renowned European brands, including Zara and Mango.

    Spanish news outlet Cadenaser put a spotlight on the recent Tangier tragedy, an event that claimed 29 people.

    On February 8, floods stormed a residential villa that hosted an illegal sweatshop.

    A short circuit caused the death of 28 workers.

    Dozens of men and women worked at the clandestine textile factory.

    The incident caused uproar among Moroccans, with the event making international headlines.

    The situation also brought attention to the lack of monitoring in textile factories.

    Cadenaser blamed the tragedy on European coveted brands.

    “Behind all this are the big European clothing brands,” the Spanish newspaper reported

    The news outlet quoted an activist who said that such textile companies supply renowned brands, including Zara, Mango, and other multinational companies.

    It also cited NGOs in Morocco denouncing exploitation and the inhumane working conditions in illegal textile factories across the country.

    The NGOs describe the working conditons as “very close to slavery.”

    The organizations also called on Europe to push for a law that will end such tragedies.

    A 2018 report by the General Confederation of Enterprises in Morocco (CGEM) said that the informal sector represents 20% of the country’s gross domestic product.

    The report shows that at least 2.4 million Mooccans work in dire conditions without social security or medical insurance.

    The textile industry makes up 54% of Morocco’s informal sector.

    The statistics indicate that more than one million textile workers in Morocco, including mostly women could be working in “secret” sweatshops.

    In 2014, a Spanish documentary recorded footage of three similar underground sweatshops that do not respect safety regulations.

    The documentary shows businessmen overwhelm employees with working in clandestine establishments.

    “My workers will work day and night to prepare your order,” one of the employers told the Spanish journalist after he inquired about the possibility of making a large order under a tight deadline.”

  16. Turkey: 39 suspects nabbed over alleged links to PKK
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/turkey/turkey-39-suspects-nabbed-over-alleged-links-to-pkk/2144462

    “Turkish forces arrested 39 suspects over alleged links to the PKK/KCK terrorist organization, security sources said on Sunday.

    Anti-terror police teams in the eastern Van province arrested 27 suspects who were allegedly in preparation of violent protests with stones, Molotov cocktails, fireworks, and handmade explosives, on the anniversary of PKK ringleader Abdullah Ocalan’s capture, according to a statement by the provincial police department.

    Ocalan was captured on Feb. 15, 1999, and remains the sole inmate of an island prison off Istanbul since his capture.

    The suspects were nabbed in raids to different addresses, where blank guns, materials used in explosives, and many digital materials were seized in simultaneous operations.

    In Turkey’s northwestern Kocaeli province, gendarmerie teams held simultaneous operations against the suspects who were found propagating the message of the terrorist organization PKK/KCK.

    During the operation, four suspects were held, while digital materials and banned publications were seized.

    In another operation in northwestern Yalova province, police teams arrested eight suspects, who were found propagating for the terrorist organization PKK/KCK, in raids at different addresses.

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

  17. German students face Islamophobia after meeting CDU deputy
    https://www.dw.com/en/german-students-face-islamophobia-after-meeting-cdu-deputy/a-56563465

    “Muslim students say they became the targets of a vicious online campaign after a digital meeting with the high-ranking Christian Democrat Norbert Röttgen.

    Nada Knani and her fellow scholarship holders had prepared well for their February 7 digital meeting with Norbert Röttgen, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU). The university students had worked on various topics in small groups: environmental policy, the CDU after the Merkel era and managing the coronavirus pandemic. They had a lot of questions ready.

    But these beneficiaries of the Avicenna Studienwerk, a German scholarship organization for Muslim students and researchers, were not at all prepared for the torrent of online hostility, hate and provocation that they would face after the discussion. Röttgen had posted a picture of the digital meeting on social media platforms, showing 25 young people, some wearing headscarves.

    “Once it had started, we knew it was not going to stop,” Nada Knani, a 22-year-old organizer of the meeting, told DW. “More and more comments came, many of them full of hate,” she said. “Things like that are shared in far-right groups; they organize concerted action there. It was an inferno.”

    Knani and her fellow students asked Röttgen to obscure the names of the participants. He then deleted any posts that allowed the students to be identified. “It is unbelievable what hate is directed at young people because of their beliefs,” he wrote. “I found our discussion very fruitful and recommend such exchanges to everyone.”

    But the mockery continued. It appeared that for some, a headscarf was enough to disqualify the wearer from being regarded as human.

    “It doesn’t matter how much you invest in your education, in your career,” she said. “You are still reduced to being a Muslim woman. You are just the woman with the headscarf.”

    Prejudices against Islam
    Yasemin El-Menouar heads the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Religion Monitor, which examines religion and societal cohesion. “Muslims who can be recognized as such by their appearance, through wearing a headscarf, for example, are particularly liable to face such hostility,” El-Menouar told DW. “And that has nothing at all to do with how well they fit into the society. A lot of Muslims in Germany are confronted with this from childhood on.”

    El-Menouar said the Religion Monitor surveys had revealed widespread prejudice against Muslims. “Over the last 10 years, skepticism about Islam has taken root in half the population,” El-Menouar said. “And that often leads to prejudices not being recognized as prejudices any more.” Islamophobic sentiments are expressed with greater openness and freedom in such a climate, El-Menouar said: “The internet definitely plays a role here because the common rules for social interaction are basically not in force.”

    Real-life violence has followed online racism in the past. On February 19, 2020, a man killed nine people in shootings at two hookah bars in the central German town of Hanau after publishing a racist manifesto on the internet.

    “That is why it is important for us to make it clear that we do not accept it when people stir up hatred online,” the German government’s integration commissioner, Annette Widmann-Mauz, told DW. “The law enforcement authorities have to be able to follow up on such serious cases of insult and defamation in social media early on and of their own accord. It mustn’t be a case of victims having to lodge a complaint themselves. State prosecutors have to take action on their own account.”

    Hate speech law
    A new law on hate speech is intended to make this easier. The German government had taken the issue to the highest political level with its Cabinet committee on right-wing extremism and racism, Widmann-Mauz said. In addition, she said, there were plans to set up a help hotline for those who have received hateful comments online, and to collect more data to create a barometer on racism and Islamophobia.

    “We have to combat this form of Islamophobia much more strongly so that people don’t let themselves be intimidated when living out their faith,” Widmann-Mauz said. She said she hoped that more concrete proposals would be put forward next year by a group on Islamophobia set up by the government.

    El-Menouar is one of the members of this group. She said her research had found that non-Muslims have fewer prejudices when they have more personal contact with Muslims. “We have to make encounters possible and address these issues early on, even at school,” she said. “And that is still happening too little.”

    ‘Hit by Islamophobia’
    Knani, who studies international relations and development policy in Duisburg, said it was the first time that she had faced such vicious hostility. She, a believing Muslim, does not wear a headscarf and grew up in regions where lots of people had a history of migration. But many of her fellow scholarship holders have had negative experiences already.

    The managing director of the Avicenna Studienwerk, Hakan Tosuner, also took part in the digital meeting with Röttgen and saw firsthand the anti-Muslim backlash that followed. “We had never experienced it to this extent before,” Tosuner told DW. “But it was only a question of time before we were also hit by Islamophobia in this way.”

    “We were all shocked and frustrated,” Tosuner said. “We were actually doing something very normal, something that young people in Germany should do: exchange views with politicians and decision-makers and enter into a constructive, critical dialogue with them. That is why it is simply very sad that something like [the talk with Röttgen] on social media has such consequences.”

    Knani said she had learned from the ordeal. “It is obvious that you shouldn’t hide yourself,” she said. “But, on the other hand, there are these hate-filled people in front of their screens. That makes things hard. But we have to learn to deal with it with self-assurance. We shouldn’t beg for tolerance from a position of fear. Acceptance is not a matter of charity: We can demand it.”

    Tosuner has now made it a priority to shield scholarship holders from hostility. But, he said, discussion is now going on at the Avicenna Studienwerk on to how to more strongly combat Islamophobia. “You can also learn from such crisis situations, from these bad experiences, and try to steer them in a positive direction, by exchanging ideas and taking joint action against hate,” he said.

    But, Tosuner said, it is important that Germany not only pay attention to young and talented Muslims when issues of Islam and hate speech come into play. He noted that Avicenna’s scholarship holders also have plenty to say about genetic technology, educational justice and the coronavirus pandemic.”

  18. STUFF YOU CAN’T MAKE UP –

    NATO chief suggests battle tanks with solar panels as militaries go green

    Nato should examine how it can power tanks and jets with alternative energy, such as solar panels, to reduce its carbon emissions, the alliance’s secretary general said.

    Reducing reliance on fossil fuels would also make troops less vulnerable to attack because they would not have to rely on long supply lines getting fuel to the front line, Jens Stoltenberg said.

    The Nato chief suggested that militaries should advance research into low-emitting vehicles because of the advantages they bring, at an online seminar titled New Ideas for Nato 2030.

    “Nato should do its part to look into how we can reduce emissions from military operations,” he told the Chatham House event. “We know that heavy battle tanks or fighter jets and naval ships consume a lot of fossil fuel and emit greenhouse gases and therefore we have to look into how we can reduce those emissions by alternative fuels, solar panels or other ways of running our missions.”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/14/nato-chief-suggests-battle-tanks-with-solar-panels-as-militaries-go-green/

    • Strongly suggest to non-NATO forces that they attack at night. I hope what I just wrote doesn’t constitute treason. These days you never know. Literally, never know.

    • Report: Iran concealing weapons stockpiles in UN containers at Damascus airport

      Tehran is using UN containers to conceal weapons stockpiles at the Damascus International Airport, according to a report in the Voice of Damascus, a news site aligned with Syrian rebel fighters.

      According to a source employed at private company, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have set up a dummy container terminal adjacent to the airport. Containers at the site bear the names of the UN and international shipping company DHL.

      The Iranians are using the new terminal as a temporary distribution center for storing weapons, in particular missiles and missile parts, prior to their distribution throughout Syria. According to the source, the terminal is situated just 200 meters (yards) from the airport, which was targeted by Israel in the past for its use by the Revolutionary Guards to arm Hezbollah and other pro-Iranian militias and Hezbollah.

      The facility is guarded by members of the Revolutionary Guards, according to the report, and airport workers are prevented from getting near the site. The terminal holds over 25 containers formerly used by the UN.

      https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/02/14/report-iran-concealing-weapons-stockpiles-in-un-containers-at-damascus-airport/

    • Twitter can’t bring itself to ban those calling for Israel’s genocide on platform

      Twitter “cannot predict” what, if any, action will be taken against world leaders who call for the genocide of the Jewish people on its platform, a Twitter representative told a special Knesset committee hearing Wednesday.

      “Let me ask you, please, squarely: Is and are calls for the genocide of Israel in the public interest as a statement of foreign policy?” asked Arsen Ostrovsky, an international human rights lawyer.

      In response, Twitter’s public policy representative Ronan Costello said that the area was “developing.…”

      Member of Knesset Michal Cotler-Wunsh said, “That answer happens to be unsatisfactory as a Jew whose genocide is being called for.”

      https://worldisraelnews.com/twitter-cant-bring-itself-to-ban-those-calling-for-israels-genocide-on-platform/

      • FYI- The FBI can prosecute an American company that knowingly publishes a call to murder an American. Caroline Glick should make a first person report; anyone else can report, too, but the form assumes personal involvement so is geared to the person under threat.