Reader’s Links for March 28, 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

84 Replies to “Reader’s Links for March 28, 2021”

  1. Identity politics, like a toxic ooze, has crept into the U.S. Federal Reserve. This means the people who run the world’s economy will prioritize “DIVERSITY” over economics. This will hasten the end of Keynesian economics as we know it, so it’s a good thing. It will also enhance out planet’s multipolar power centers, which means our enemies will continue to grow in strength. Watch as the Fed’s self-made trap disallows it to raise interest rates to control inflation while economic activity does a head fake bringing on stagnation:

    https://youtu.be/LpIuTbDbVLQ

    • When Zuckerberg said it was a big mistake to suspend Trump from media platforms, he should have added the suspension of Trump supporters also was a big mistake. And that is why Trump needs his own platform. He’s no longer a hostage to a few ultra-powerful people.

      Jack will have a problem in that Trump will be present on Twitter as people will copy and post links from Trump’s platform to their Twitter account. Sweet irony.

  2. News Alert: Philippines accuses China of swarming presence | Philippines VS China | English News

  3. News Alert: Defence Chiefs of 12 Nations condemn violence by Junta | Myanmar Coup | English News

  4. WE DON’T FEAR US! US-China tensions rise as Beijing says its military is not afraid of any challenge

  5. News Alert: United States pulls up China on Uighurs abuse | Latest World English News | WION

  6. United States: Horrified by Myanmar Military’s reign of terror | Myanmar Coup | Latest English News

  7. Suez Canal Blockade: Efforts to re-float ship underway
    118,233 views
    •Mar 27, 2021

    • LIVE UPDATES: Two additional tugs reach Egypt’s Red Sea to help re-float Ever Given ship

      The tugboats will nudge the 400-meter-long Ever Given as dredgers continue to vacuum up sand from underneath the vessel and mud caked to its port side

      2:00 SCA chairman Osama Rabie said two local tugboats, dubbed Abdel Hamid Youssef and Mostafa Mahmoud, are set to be dispatched to participate in the tugging attempts.

      The two tugboats have a tugging power of 70 tonnes, he added.

      Rabie revealed that the dredging operations executed by the authority’s Mashhour dredger reached 27,000 cubic meters of sand, with a depth of 18 meters.

      1:30 Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has ordered preparations for lightening the giant container ship Ever Given, which is stuck sideways in the Suez Canal, Osama Rabie, the waterway chairman, told Extra News TV channel on Sunday.

      Offloading the ship is currently the third option for dislodging the massive vessel. The first two options are towing the ship from both sides using tugs, while the second is digging out sand and mud from beneath the bow using dredgers.

      According to Rabie, the president has opted to start preparations for the third option in case the first two options fail.

      11:30 Egypt rushes vets to examine cattle aboard ships stuck in Suez Canal.

      The country’s Ministry of Agriculture said in a statement on Sunday that three veterinary teams have been sent, in cooperation with the Suez Canal Authority (SCA), to examine the animals and provide needed fodders.

      The step comes amid concerns that the vessels carrying livestock run out of supplies as the blockage enters its fifth day.

      10:30 Two additional tugs reach Egypt’s Red Sea to help re-float Ever Given ship.

      The Dutch-flagged Alp Guard and the Italian-flagged Carlo Magno, called in to help tugboats already there, reached the Red Sea near the city of Suez early Sunday, satellite data from MarineTraffic.com showed.

      The tugboats will nudge the 400-meter-long (quarter-mile-long) Ever Given as dredgers continue to vacuum up sand from underneath the vessel and mud caked to its port side, said Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, which manages the Ever Given.

      […]

      https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/407823/Egypt/Politics-/LIVE-UPDATES-Two-additional-tugs-reach-Egypts-Red-.aspx

      Sisi orders preparations for offloading Ever Given in case initial attempts to free it fail

      Offloading the cargo is currently the third option for dislodging the massive vessel

      Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has ordered preparations for offloading the giant container ship Ever Given, which is stuck sideways in the Suez Canal, Osama Rabie, the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) chairman, told Extra News TV channel on Sunday.

      Offloading the cargo is currently the third option for dislodging the massive vessel. The first two options are towing the ship from both sides using tugs, while the second is digging out sand and mud from beneath the bow using dredgers.

      According to Rabie, the president has opted to start preparations for the third option in case the first two options fail.

      “As long as the third scenario is on the table, we [should] provide its equipment in case we need it,” El-Sisi said, according to the SCA chairman.

      “We will talk with the Americans to provide the vessels [needed] for evacuation just in case we [resort to offloading],” the chairman added. The United States is among the countries that have offered to help dislodge the container ship.

      According to experts, offloading the ship is the worst-case scenario as it is expected to take the longest time.

      With additional equipment arriving earlier today, tugging and dredging operations are continuing for the sixth day in a row in an effort to dislodge the ship, whose bow is stuck in the sandy canal bank.

      The 400-metre-long, 59-metre-wide ship Ever Given, which was coming from China, veered off course and ran aground as it was traversing the international trade route on Tuesday morning.

      The incident has caused around 321 vessels to be queued at the waterway or at anchor awaiting transit.

      About 12 percent of world trade passes through the Suez Canal, which is the fastest water artery between Europe and Asia.

      The canal is a main source of foreign currency for Egypt, bringing in $5.6 billion in revenues in 2020.

      The strategic waterway is losing $12 to $14 million daily in revenues due to the incident, Rabie said during Saturday’s presser.

      https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/407958/Egypt/Politics-/UPDATED-Sisi-orders-preparations-for-offloading-Ev.aspx

    • the guardian -Stranding of Ever Given in Suez canal was foreseen by many

      Analysis: As ships ballooned in size, worst-case scenario was flagged up by organisations such as OECD

      Authorities have blamed strong winds, possible technical faults or human error for the stranding of the Ever Given in the Suez canal.

      But the running aground of the “megaship” – which salvage teams continued to try to free on Sunday as preparations were made for the possible removal of some of its containers – and the disruption of more than 10% of global trade, has been in the making for years longer according to analysts, who say an accident of this magnitude was foreseeable and warnings were ignored.

      Over the past decade, out of the sight of most consumers, the world’s container ships have been quietly ballooning in size. A class of vessels that carried a maximum of about 5,000 shipping containers in 2000 has doubled in capacity every few years since, with dozens of megaships now traversing the ocean laden with upwards of 20,000 boxes.

      Container ships have become huge fast, especially over the past decade. Other than the result of technological advances, analysts say the trend is a hangover from the high oil prices of the 2000s – which led shipping outfits to seek to maximise economies of scale – and the low-interest rates that followed the 2009 financial crash, which allowed companies to borrow the vast sums required to build vessels as long as skyscrapers are high.

      When the trend of ever-growing ships received popular attention, it was often through colourful press releases and awestruck news stories lauding the size of the vessels, the many Eiffel Towers’ worth of steel they required and the profits they promised the world’s shipping giants.

      Comparatively less attention was granted to warnings of the risks such gigantic ships entailed, says Rory Hopcraft, a researcher at Plymouth University’s maritime cyberthreat research group.

      “The ships are not just larger, they’re carrying more goods,” he said. “So rather than spreading the risks over three or four smaller ships, all your eggs are in one basket – it’s all tied up in one big ship.”

      The ships’ rapid growth has outstripped the capacity of marine infrastructure to follow. The Panama canal was expanded at a cost of more than $5bn (£3.6bn) more than a decade ago to meet the size of new container ships – only to be left behind as even larger vessels rolled out of Asian shipyards.

      “Half the world’s ports can’t even deal with ships this size,” Hopcraft said, describing a trend that leaves the overall supply chain more exposed to a range of threats including piracy and cyberattack. “If those terminals that can [accommodate megaships], aren’t able to service them for whatever reason – local power cuts or military action – then these ships can’t be serviced at all.”

      The Suez canal has been in the process of expansion to allow for larger ships and two-way traffic at its northern end. But its southern side was still one-way and narrower: vulnerable when one of the largest container ships in the world tried to pass through on a windy morning.

      Megaships have been described as a “bet on globalisation” made in the heady days of the mid-2000s, as a rising China and a US apparently at ease with outsourcing helped to drive a boom in global trade. Shipping companies expected the era would last and invested in new, vastly larger ships to accommodate it.

      Then came a financial crash, a populist western backlash against free trade and a lingering coronavirus pandemic that has put millions out of work.

      Yet shippers have increased their bet, continuing to order giant new vessels that allow them to move more stuff with less fuel and crew, even as organisations such as the OECD have questioned the rationality of the trend.

      There was a “complete disconnect of ship size development from developments in the actual economy”, the organisation said in a 2015 report, pointing out that ships were growing larger in “an economic climate that is generally depressed and at best stagnating”.

      “The trade growth to absorb ship developments is currently absent,” the OECD paper said. “Shipping lines are building up overcapacity that will most likely be fatal to at least some of them.”

      It also warned of what is becoming clear on the banks of the Suez: that bigger ships are harder to salvage, requiring more time and more tugboats and dredgers than what has been required in the past with small vessels.

      Should floating cranes be required to lighten the Ever Given by removing some of its 20,000 containers, they too would need to be large and work for longer, extending the salvaging process – and the blockage of one of the main arteries of global trade – for weeks at least.

      It is a worst-case scenario that many saw coming. “As the ship gets bigger, everything just gets a little bit more complicated,” Hopcraft said.

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/28/analysis-ever-given-suez-canal-foreseen-by-many

  8. INDONESIA – About 20 injured after suspected suicide bombing at Indonesian church

    JAKARTA: Two suspected suicide bombers blew themselves up outside a Catholic church in the Indonesian city of Makassar on Sunday morning (Mar 28), the first day of the Easter Holy Week, police and witnesses said.

    The two suspects are confirmed dead and about 20 people were injured as of Sunday evening, said Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mahfud MD.

    “Maybe there will be more if we find people who report themselves being injured as a result of the explosion,” he said in a televised press conference.

    The minister said he has ordered the police and military to increase security in places of worship throughout Indonesia.

    He also urged people to be patient as authorities work to uncover the network behind the attack.

    National police spokesman Inspector General Argo Yuwono said at a press conference in Jakarta that the injured suffered injuries around their necks, chests and legs. Some had blisters on their hands and feet.

    https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/two-suspected-suicide-bombers-indonesia-church-injured-makassar-14509726

  9. ‘Show your Voter ID before you vote,’ Georgia’s foolproof voting law makes Biden very angry

  10. Biden official asked GOP senators visiting border to delete photos they took – Liberty Unyielding
    LU Staff
    3 minutes

    Biden official asked GOP senators visiting border to delete photos they took

    border facility at Donna, Texas (Image: Mike Braun)

    One of the most revealing moments in last Thursday press conference came when one reporter asked Joe Biden when he would commit to transparency, which defined as allowing journalists to see “the facilities in which children are packed together to really give the American people a chance to see that.”

    Here was Biden’s answer:

    I will commit to transparency as soon as I am in a position to be able to implement what we’re doing right now.

    Give the man credit. You can’t get much plainer or more transparent than that. He was in effect saying, “Never. You will never get to see the mess that I have created (and am blaming on the previous administration) because that would make me look bad. I will let you journalists in (i.e., ‘commit to transparency’) when — and perhaps I should say ‘if’ — my administration is able to rectify this situation.” Maybe this is what Biden meant when he said during the 2020 presidential campaign, “We choose truth over facts.”

    Trending: CNN thinks progressive laws override the Constitution

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2021/03/28/biden-official-asked-gop-senators-visiting-border-to-delete-photos-they-took/

  11. Jihadis siege town in Mozambique, shoot random people:

    As Islamist Siege in Mozambique Drags On, Natural Gas Project Scrambles to Evacuate
    U.S. says deadly insurgency is an Islamic State franchise in region where $20 billion foreign investment project is led by Total
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-islamist-siege-in-mozambique-drags-on-natural-gas-project-scrambles-to-evacuate-11616858201

    Two Britons rescued as insurgents lay siege to Mozambique town
    https://news.sky.com/story/mozambique-civilians-fleeing-besieged-hotel-ambushed-by-suspected-islamists-12258216

    Confusion reigns as convoy of fleeing civilians attacked in besieged Mozambique town
    https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20210327-over-180-people-trapped-in-mozambique-hotel-after-jihadist-siege

    VIDEO
    Insurgents Seize Mozambique Town, Killing Several People; Fate of Hundreds Unknown
    The attack by hundreds of militants trapped nearly 200 people, including foreign workers, in a hotel in Palma, Mozambique, site of a major gas project.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/27/world/africa/27mozambique-insurgents-attack.html

    Human Rights Watch says ‘authorities must take back control’ after Mozambique jihadist siege
    https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/human-rights-watch-says-authorities-must-take-back-control-after-mozambique-jihadist-siege/ar-BB1f36fe

  12. VIDEO
    Human Rights Watch says ‘authorities must take back control’ after Mozambique jihadist siege

  13. Some interesting recent news videos:

    Suspected suicide bombing targets Indonesian Catholic Church on Palm Sunday
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmmpGB6UPHk

    Confusion reigns as convoy of fleeing civilians attacked in besieged Mozambique town
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbcoty-5sM8
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhTrPoOywHw
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThfabbzzuEA
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqiNtdmApvA
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK8WyNp1RTg

    Women in Turkey rally against Erdogan decision to exit domestic violence treaty
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAeevLOTLyM

    Turkish ex-police chiefs jailed for 2007 killing of journalist Hrant Dink
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BZKTqbddZ0
    Verdict on Turkish-Armenian journalist’s assassination case
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT_8pphO3Ao

    NB: Hrant Dink wrote about the armenian genocide and was shot for it:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Hrant_Dink

    Turmoil in Turkey: Central bank boss fired as economy faces challenges

  14. VIDEO
    Belgium pays homage to the victims of 2016 Brussels terrorist attacks
    https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20210322-belgium-to-pay-homage-to-the-victims-of-2016-brussels-terrorist-attacks
    The king and queen of Belgium led tributes Monday to the victims of the suicide bombings that killed 32 people and injured more than 340 in the Brussels subway and airport exactly five years ago. Sixteen people were killed at the airport and another 16 died shortly afterwards in another explosion at Maelbeek metro.
    King Philippe and Queen Mathilde started the commemorations at Brussels airport alongside Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, meeting victims and their relatives before laying flowers in front of a memorial plaque.
    They continued their journey to the Maelbeek metro station in downtown Brussels, observing another moment of silence at 9:11am local time, the moment the explosion went off.
    The suicide bombings were claimed by the Islamic State group.
    Then Belgian prime minister Charles Michel – now the president of the European Council – said the events of March 22 were a “terrible shock” that had a lasting impact, in an AFP interview Friday.
    “The country is not the same after those attacks. A threat that until then we’d thought of as theoretical is now very real,” said Michel, a liberal leader who was Belgium’s prime minister between 2014 and 2019.
    Salah Abdeslam, a 31-year-old alleged French jihadist charged in the 2015 Paris attacks, was among 10 defendants who will be tried in 2022, after a separate French trial.
    ‘I didn’t want my life to end’
    For Belgian Sebastien Bellin, who was seriously injured in the attacks, “rebuilding” is still an ordeal.
    “I will be disabled for life, it is not easy but I have accepted it. It’s a gift to have a second chance,” said the 42-year-old, a former professional basketball player, at his home in Tervuren near Brussels.
    Bellin, who has turned to technical design after his sports career, was supposed to catch a flight to New York that morning for a meeting with the US investors who had just bought his company. They were eager to meet him, he told AFP, and he brought his trip forward by 24 hours from Wednesday to that fateful Tuesday.
    Bellin found himself on the ground, his legs bleeding, in the middle of debris and dust. The image of a dead woman next to him remains in his mind.
    “I can still see the rings on her fingers and her face, the blanket she was covered with,” he said.
    “Of course my two daughters came to mind – I didn’t want my life to end,” he said, adding: I “remained calm, instead of panicking and losing the energy I needed to survive”.
    He waited an hour and a half before being taken away in an ambulance, and does not like to dwell on his suffering as those minutes ticked by.
    As he waited, Bellin managed to pull his 2.05-metre frame up onto a trolley, carrying the dead weight of his immobile legs. He compressed the bleeding as much as possible with makeshift tourniquets.
    Today, his right femur and left tibia are replaced by metal pins. He can no longer feel his left leg and, to move, he must compensate with his right leg.
    Five years on, Bellin’s life is still punctuated by physiotherapy sessions and legal limbo over the medical expenses incurred for part of the treatment.
    “The state could have made a much greater effort, but after five years we still don’t have a tangible solution,” he said.
    Bellin trains intensively in the forest of Tervuren to prepare for this year’s edition of the “IronMan” triathlon in Hawaii, one of the most famous in the world, scheduled for October.
    “Being disabled is not an end in itself – a handicap can be improved, just like in golf!” he joked.
    “The handicap will not beat me. I am going to win.”

  15. Massachusetts – – The most vaccinated county sees a high spike in COVID cases.

    Professor Delores Cahill
    Cytokine Storm or immune priming or immune super priming.
    The messenger mRNA starts expressing the virus. Then when it comes across a naturally circulating Coronavirus, a month, a year or two down the road, people get very, very sick quickly, with cytokine Storm.

    When you inject the mNRA genes vaccine into your body, you will bypass all natural immune response to prevent the virus. your immune system sees the virus in your body as something that shouldn’t be there and mounts an immune response. The shocking thing is that normally your body can get rid of the virus particles.

    When you inject it, the reason the mNRA is so deadly, it is now expressing in your genes. It starts simulating the immune response from inside your body, and literally you can’t get rid of it because the source of the viral protein you now have, becomes like a genetically modified organism.

    Your body is expressing the virus protein, and slowly your immune system tries to get rid of it. You try to mount the exquisite antibodies to get rid of it, but you never can because it is now part of who you are. It is integrated.

    The people that get the “vaccine”, will become a genetically modified organism, that will be making a virus protein as well as their own human protein. The virus triggers an antibody response that normally happens over 2 weeks. The antibody response will now activate and realize that this viral protein is in every cell in your body. Antibodies will start attacking our cells and organs…….

    Dr. Andrew Wakefield has studied viruses for 30 years.

    The new generation of vaccines on the market, are indeed, not even vaccines.
    It is a misnomer to call them vaccines, they are genetic engineering. They are injected into your body to be taken up by your own cells.
    They have never been used in humans before. These mNRA viruses mutate very rapidly creating an ecological niche for them. New strains will form rapidly. These vaccines are imperfect.
    More contagious virus – we did the wrong thing.

    People investigating this spike, should report the number of people with the virus who are already vaccinated.

  16. europravda – Stars join Bono to launch animated series raising awareness of importance of vaccine access

    Pandemica features stars such as Penelope Cruz, Michael Sheen and David Oyelowo as various characters stuck in situations where they are prevented from getting the vaccine.

  17. Germany: Police disperse anti-lockdown demonstration in Chemnitz</b

    Police in the east German city of Chemnitz prevented a group of COVID sceptics from holding a protest against social restrictions aimed at curbing community spread of coronavirus on Saturday.

    Footage shows scuffles between officers and some demonstrators.

    A number of people were detained as the rally was banned by the local authorities.


  18. Bangladesh violence spreads after Modi’s visit, attacks on Hindu temples, train

    COX’S BAZAR (Reuters) – Hundreds of members of a hardline Islamist group attacked Hindu temples and a train in eastern Bangladesh on Sunday, police and a local journalist said, as violence spread across the country in the wake of a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

    Local police and doctors have said at least 11 protesters have been killed since Friday in clashes with police during demonstrations organised by Islamist groups against the Indian leader’s visit. Violence has raged on since Modi’s departure as anger has swelled over the deaths.

    Modi arrived in Dhaka on Friday to mark the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh’s nationhood, and he left on Saturday after gifting Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina some 1.2 million COVID-19 vaccine shots.

    Islamist groups accuse Modi of discriminating against minority Muslims in Hindu-majority India.

    On Friday, dozens of people were injured in the densely-populated capital Dhaka as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters.

    Thousands of Islamist activists marched down streets across Bangladesh on Sunday.

    Activists with the Hefazat-e-Islam group attacked a train in the eastern district of Brahmanbaria, resulting in ten people being injured, a police official said.

    “They attacked the train and damaged its engine room and almost all the coaches,” the official told Reuters, declining to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

    Several government offices, including the land office and a government-sponsored music academy, were set on fire and several Hindu temples were also attacked, said Javed Rahim, a journalist in Brahmanbaria town.

    “We are in extreme fear and feeling really helpless,” Rahim told Reuters by telephone, adding: “Even the press club was attacked, leaving many injured, including the press club president.”

    One protester, who sustained an injury during Saturday’s clash in Brahmanbaria, died on Sunday, a doctor said.

    Islamist activists also set alight two buses in the western district of Rajshahi on Sunday, while hundreds of protesters clashed with police in several places, pelting them with stones, three police sources in three districts said.

    Protesters used electric poles, timber and sand bags to block roads and police retaliated with rubber bullets and tear gas, leaving dozens injured in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka, one police official said.

    Protesters also vandalised and burned several buses in Dhaka as they blocked many roads, a police official said.

    The protests have flared into wider demonstrations against police killings, and the Hefazat-e-Islam enforced a nationwide strike on Sunday.

    “Police opened fire on our peaceful supporters,” Hefazat-e-Islam’s organising secretary Azizul Haque told a rally. “We will not let the blood of our brothers go in vain.”

    https://news.yahoo.com/bangladesh-violence-spreads-modi-visit-093850448.html

  19. Jinping and Biden come together to make Iran the superpower of Middle East, but there’s a big catch
    6,576 views
    •Mar 28, 2021

  20. “Papers Please! New York Experiments with Stasi-Style COVID Passports”
    Styxh – March 28, 2021

  21. Xi Jinping prepares a plan to take over the USA and Joe Biden is actively helping in achieving that
    5-6 minutes

    At TFI we have comprehensively covered how China is executing actions to take over the USA. However, as a leading Chinese professor, who is also an adviser to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), laid out a comprehensive plan for the communist regime to overthrow the United States as the world’s superpower, it becomes necessary to take it seriously. However, the more concerning part is, how Joe Biden is actively helping China achieving it.

    Professor Jin Canrong’s multi-pronged strategy involves a range of malign actions to subvert the United States while strengthening the Chinese regime. They include: interfering in U.S. elections, controlling the American market, cultivating global enemies to challenge the United States, stealing American technology, expanding Chinese territory and influencing international organisations. “We want to be the world leader,” Jin said, explaining Chinese Leader Xi Jinping’s desire for a “national rejuvenation” of the country.
    Joe Biden, Xi jinping, USA, China

    https://tfiglobalnews.com/2021/03/28/xi-jinping-prepares-a-plan-to-take-over-the-usa-and-joe-biden-is-actively-helping-in-achieving-that/

  22. Egypt’s al-Azhar denounces display of blasphemous cartoons in Britain

    Egypt’s al-Azhar, the Sunni Muslim world’s foremost religious institution, has strongly denounced the display of offensive cartoons against prophet Muhammad in Britain, which had been earlier republished by the disgraced French satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo.

    In a statement released on Sunday, the Cairo-based institution’s Observatory for Combating Extremism described the caricatures as a “disgraceful act” which amounts to “hate speech”.

    “This is an unjustified provocation of the feelings of nearly two billion Muslims around the world,” it said.

    Al-Azhar said it was “saddened” by the incident, stressing its “total rejection” of such behavior.

    “They [blasphemous caricatures] have become a clear embodiment of a serious defect in those societies,” the statement added.

    On March 22, in the British town of Batley, a local grammar school caused major controversy after a teacher showed a blasphemous cartoon of Islam’s holy prophet to students during a religious studies class.

    Outraged parents of Muslim students began protesting outside the school gates, demanding the school take action against Islamophobia.

    Batley Grammar School reacted quickly, suspending the teacher and launching an investigation and apologizing to the parents. However, the British press and politicians have opted to condemn the protesters instead, adding further fuel to the fire.

    In September, Charlie Hebdo republished offensive cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) on the eve of the trial of suspects in a deadly attack on the paper’s office five years ago.

    French President Emmanuel Macron later publicly attacked Islam in defense of the publication of derogatory cartoons.

    He made the remarks at a national memorial for a school teacher who was murdered by a teenager of Chechen origin after he showed his students the caricatures of the prophet , earlier published by the magazine Charlie Hebdo.

    Macron’s comments angered not only the Muslim community in France, but all Islamic nations, leading to protests and boycott calls.

    In January 2015, two terrorists attacked the magazine’s offices in Paris, killing 12 people, many of whom worked for the publication. The attack, condemned by Muslims across the world, was allegedly a response to the magazine’s offensive cartoon of the prophet of Islam a few years earlier.

    Many French journalists and politicians at the time were quick to defend the French magazine’s blasphemous actions under the pretext of freedom of speech.

    However, many have argued that Charlie Hebdo focuses disproportionately on mocking Muslims while steering clear of touching on certain issues and interest groups.

    https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2021/03/28/648260/Egypt-al-Azhar-Britain-English-Town-of-Batley-Muslims-Charlie-Hebdo–

  23. RSF sues FB for dissemination of virus’ hate speech

    The press watchdog Reporters sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) announced on Tuesday that it has filed a lawsuit against Facebook, claiming deceptive commercial practices for allegedly allowing “large-scale dissemination” of hate speech and false information regarding COVID-19 to flourish on its networks.

  24. Insurance Companies, Reaping Benefits from Protests, Get in Line with Black Lives Matter – Washington Free Beacon
    Aaron Sibarium
    5-7 minutes

    Following the death of George Floyd, the world’s largest insurance companies spoke up in favor of Black Lives Matter. Even as they were paying out unprecedented claims due to the destruction caused by Black Lives Matter protesters and those seizing their mantle, the companies issued statements and coughed up donations to support the movement.

    This summer’s unrest cost the industry more than a billion dollars in riot damage, the largest such loss in U.S. history. Those losses are now in danger of affecting employees’ pay, industry insiders said, but not their employers’ stance: As of February 18, Chubb was planning a panel with Black Lives Matter whose promotional materials included a pro-Black Panther documentary and an enjoinder to “stay woke,” according to emails reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

    https://freebeacon.com/coronavirus/insurance-companies-reaping-benefits-from-protests-get-in-line-with-black-lives-matter/

  25. 14 States Ask Supreme Court to Let Them Defend Immigrant Self-Sufficiency Rule
    By Matthew Vadum
    March 28, 2021 Updated: March 28, 2021
    biggersmaller Print

    Texas and 13 other states have filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court asking to be allowed to defend the so-called public charge rule in court proceedings after the Biden administration decided not to defend it in court.

    The public charge rule, which requires prospective immigrants to be able to support themselves financially, has been very heavily litigated in federal courts. The Supreme Court stayed a lower court’s injunction against the rule in January 2020, allowing it to be enforced, pending disposition of the government’s appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.

    Over vigorous left-wing opposition the Trump administration revived the rule which had largely fallen into disuse in recent years. Critics say the pro-taxpayer rule is xenophobic and discriminates against poor aliens.

    The public-charge principle, that is, the idea that immigrants should have to demonstrate they can get by without becoming wards of the government, has been part of the American experience for centuries.

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/14-states-ask-supreme-court-to-let-them-defend-immigrant-self-sufficiency-rule_3752500.html?&utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-03-28-2&mktids=c7b6589839ab42cc2954160390aef0ec

  26. Biden Staffer Blocks Ted Cruz From Taking Video at Border Facility
    By Jack Phillips
    March 28, 2021 Updated: March 28, 2021
    biggersmaller Print

    Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he was told by a Biden administration staffer that he could not record a video at a Border Patrol facility along the U.S.-Mexico border.

    “Please give dignity to the people. Please give dignity to the people. … Please respect the people, the rules,” the so-called staffer told Cruz while blocking the camera with her face, according to a video he showed Fox News.

    “So you work for the commissioner, you’re a senior adviser, you were hired two weeks ago and you’re instructed to ask us to not have any pictures taken here because the political leadership at DHS does not want the American people to know it,” Cruz said in response to the official. She did not disclose her identity, and The Epoch Times has contacted the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for comment.

    The staffer then told him: “Please don’t treat the people as such,” to which Cruz responded that “your policies are unfortunately trying to hide them.”

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_breakingnews/biden-staffer-blocks-ted-cruz-from-taking-video-at-border-facility_3752657.html?&utm_source=newsnoe&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-03-28-2&mktids=c7b6589839ab42cc2954160390aef0ec

    • The INSANITY OF HR 1 w/ John Fund, Hans von Spakovsky, and Jay Ashcroft”
      David K. Clements – March 27, 2021

      This is only 1 hour of 7 HOURS on the issues of election integrity.
      You can find links to the full presentation at:

      https://www.regent.edu/misc/analyzing-american-election-integrity/

      John Fund – National Affairs Reporter for National Review Online, Senior Editor at The American Spectator; authored Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy, and co-authored (with Hans von Spakovsky) Who’s Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk

      Hans von Spakovsky – Former member of the Federal Election Commission, Manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative, Senior Legal Fellow at the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies; co-authored (with John Fund) Who’s Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk

      Jay Ashcroft – Missouri Secretary of State; Organizer of the first National Election Security Summit; Member of the Elections Committee and former Executive Board Member of the National Association of Secretaries of State

  27. Erdoganistan: The New Islamic Superpower?
    Giulio Meotti
    14-18 minutes

    Europe, the US, NATO and the Free World might start worrying. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems aiming to be the new Islamist wolf in sheep’s clothing. Pictured: Erdogan speaking in Ankara on September 17, 2020. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)

    “It was a very special day, July 24 [2020],” said France’s leading expert on Islam, Gilles Kepel.

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17202/erdogan-turkey-islamic-superpower

  28. Lessons from the Middle East
    Pierre Rehov
    9-11 minutes

    The Biden administration’s designation of Robert Malley as special representative for Iran has rekindled the concerns of Israelis and Saudis. Malley was not only involved in the conception of the JCPOA, he was “kicked off of Obama’s first presidential campaign after reports emerged he had met with members of the Hamas terror group.” Pictured: Malley (right), then Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz (center) and then Secretary of State John Kerry during a negotiation session over Iran’s nuclear program in Lausanne, Switzerland on March 20, 2015. (Photo by Brian Snyder/AFP via Getty Images)

    Far from the memory of the too numerous wars that have marked the Middle East, the temptation is strong to think that diplomacy should replace force, and that a good negotiation, even if it means coming out a loser, is better than a conflict. This is more or less the philosophy that seems to inspire the “not so new” American administration, such as that for former US President Barack Obama.

    Former President Donald J. Trump, for his part, had no doubt learned some lessons from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and more from the miserable double-cross offered by Hitler to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier, which would lead, a year later, to the Second World War. Daladier and Chamberlain were so opposed to the use of force that they preferred to sacrifice Czechoslovakia to Nazi appetites rather than stand firm while there was still time. The rest, unfortunately, is well known.

    Other have been inspired by the Roman general, Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus: “Si vis pacem, para bellum” — If you want peace, prepare for war.

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17148/lessons-middle-east

  29. We have not heard much from Sweden lately…that land of liberal wokeness that used the CCP virus to get rid of their elderly citizens while refusing to deport foreign-born rapists.

    Here, AngryForeigner gives us a glimpse into the mindset of these politicians. And, yes, the woke politician truly and honestly does not see how he did anything wrong, but is very angry that he was asked some rather mild questions: