Islam - Current Day - 400 Nigerian Girls Kidnapped; Brother Helped Terrorist at Ariane Grande Bombing; Danish Pension Fund and Yemen; Model Refugee - Murderer; Austrian Laws

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Nigerian police/military hunt for hundreds of missing students

after school attacked

Employee says roughly half of the school's 800 students remain missing

Thomson Reuters · Posted: 

Dec 12, 2020 12:51 PM ET 

People walk near the Government Science secondary school in Nigeria's Kankara district on Saturday,

a day after it was attacked by armed bandits, in northwestern Katsina State. (Abdullahi Inuwa/Reuters)

Bandits armed with assault rifles attacked a secondary school in Nigeria's northwestern Katsina State late on Friday, police said, and two local people told Reuters hundreds of students were missing.

The gunmen stormed the Government Science secondary school in Kankara district at about 9:40 p.m. local time, and police at the scene returned fire, allowing some students to run for safety, police spokesperson Gambo Isah said in a statement.

Police said they were working with the army and air force to determine how many pupils were missing or kidnapped, and to find them. One officer was shot and wounded in the exchange of fire with the gang, they said.

There were chaotic scenes at the school on Saturday as desperate parents and security personnel gathered to search for roughly half of the school's 800 students who were still missing, one parent and a school employee told Reuters.

Katsina, the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari, is plagued by violent bandits who regularly attack locals and kidnap for ransom. Attacks by Islamist militants are common in northeastern parts of the country.

Violence and insecurity across Nigeria have enraged citizens, particularly after scores of farmers were killed, some beheaded, by Islamist militants in northeast Borno state late last month.

Buhari, who arrived on Friday for a week in his home village some 200 kilometres from Kankara, was scheduled to brief the country's National Assembly on the security situation last week but cancelled the appearance without official explanation.

Jailed terrorist Hashem Abedi admits helping brother plan

Ariana Grande attack which killed 22

7 Dec 2020 13:36

Undated file photo issued by Greater Manchester Police, of Hashem Abedi, younger brother of the

Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi. © Greater Manchester Police via AP

A convicted terrorist has finally admitted his role in planning the deadly attack in which his brother detonated a bomb at an Ariana Grande concert, killing 22 people and injured 800, many of whom were children.

On Monday, a public inquiry into the Manchester Arena bombing was told that Hashem Abedi, a convicted terrorist and brother of the Manchester bomber, had finally admitted his involvement in planning the attack. 

The 23-year-old made the admission in the autumn as part of ongoing investigations into the atrocities which were committed on May 22, 2017. 

The public inquiry’s legal team told the hearing that they had interviewed Abedi on October 22. 

“During the course of that interview, Hahem Abedi admitted that he had played a full part, and a knowing part, in the planning and preparation for the Arena attack,” said Paul Greaney QC. 

Abedi was arrested in Libya shortly after his brother carried out the suicide bombing. Abedi did not give evidence during the trial at the Old Bailey earlier this year and refused to face his victims’ families in court. 

Instead, he provided a defence statement denying his involvement and spoke of his “shock” on hearing the actions of his brother. 

In August 2020, Abedi was sentenced to 55 years in prison, the longest minimum term ever given by a British court. 

Hashem's brother, Salman Abedi detonated a “large home-made improvised explosive device” in the foyer of the Manchester Arena during an Ariana Grande concert on May 22, 2017. 

Twenty-three people, including Salman Abedi perished. 

Stories like this are great ammunition for radical Islamist recruiters.

War profiteers: Danish pension funds accused of financing war in Yemen

11 Dec 2020 10:14

Smoke rises as people inspect damage at the site of air strikes in the city of Saada, Yemen 

Reuters / Naif Rahma

New research by Oxfam IBIS revealed that Denmark’s 16 pension funds have together invested almost 3 billion Danish kroner ($500 million) in foreign arms manufacturers supplying weapons to countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Those weapons were most likely used in the war in Yemen, as Saudi Arabia and the UAE are heavily involved in the conflict there, said the report. It has accused the pension funds of "profiteering.”

One of the 21 companies that received Danish pension fund money is US missile manufacturer Raytheon. The fund that gave the money said it didn't invest in companies that produce so-called unconventional weapons, such as landmines and cluster munitions. Nevertheless, it assured that it “follows the situation in Yemen very closely.”

“I think many pension customers will be shocked when they discover that their pension savings right now are helping to keep the world's worst war alive. That is completely unacceptable,” said Kristian Weise, Secretary General of Oxfam IBIS.

He pointed out that the war and the accompanying humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen will only be kept alive as long as the flow of weapons to the warring parties continues. “In Oxfam IBIS' opinion, these arms deliveries should be stopped immediately. To that extent, the Danish pension funds have an ethical and moral responsibility that they should take on,” Weise added. 

Denmark halted all exports of weapons and military equipment to the UAE and Saudi Arabia in 2018. However, “Despite the fact that there is a political desire in Denmark that we should not in any way contribute to keeping the war in Yemen alive, we are still part of it through our pension funds,” said Weise. “It must be stopped because, as it is now, several million Danish pension customers are helping to keep the war in Yemen running, and I think that very few Danes actually want to have their pension remunerated by contributing to war and murder in Yemen,” he added.

Nearly 230,000 people have died since 2015 as a result of the war in Yemen between the Saudi-led coalition and the local Houthi rebel movement. It is estimated that 80 percent of Yemen’s 28 million population requires desperate emergency aid. The United Nations has described the situation as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

Now, let's not forget that the Houthi's are backed by Iran, and that this is a proxy war. Iran would have Saudi Arabia half surrounded if they got control of Yemen, as they do Syria.

Germany: Muslim Migrant Hailed as ‘Model Refugee’

Murders Handicapped Man

DEC 10, 2020 6:00 PM 

BY ROBERT SPENCER

Jihad Watch

Stand up and take a bow, Chancellor Merkel. My latest in FrontPage:

The facts at hand presumably speak for themselves, but a trifle more vulgarly, I suspect, than facts even usually do. The German-language news outlet Bild reported Monday that “the almost blind and handicapped ex-cook Helmut K. († 50) from Kaufbeuren made an appointment on the gay dating platform ‘Planet Romeo’ on March 14th at 4.30pm with the username wandalalaland.’” Then “at 9:01 p.m., the heavy metal fan was tied up and gagged in his bedroom, which is above the popular escape room ‘Countdown,” and was “gagged so hard that he choked on his dentures.” Helmut K. ultimately died, and “the man whom prosecutor Andreas Slach suspects to be behind ‘wandalalaland’ is now sitting in the dock at the Kempten Regional Court.” The perpetrator is a Muslim migrant who once won praise as a “model refugee.”

The 29-year-old Karam A., according to Bild, “has lived as a model refugee in Kaufbeuren since 2015, but is said to have killed people in his home country of Syria, according to investigators.” Why was he let in to Germany if he had been known to have killed people in Syria, and if this was not known, why wasn’t he deported when it was discovered? Bild doesn’t bother to take up such questions.

It does report, however, that the death of Helmut K. was the result of careful planning. “Together with Hazem K. († 21), A. is said to have forged the murder plot that cost the life of Helmut K., who was in need of care and had a heart condition. Hazem K. knew from the neighborhood that the early retiree was hoarding 8,000 euros in cash in his apartment.” It was Karam’s friend Hazem who “developed the idea for the robbery with a fake account. During the police interrogation, he confessed to everything, incriminated his accomplice Karam A. seriously, but then hanged himself in his cell in August.”

Karam puts all the blame on Hazem: “He screwed the police, religion and his lawyer.” Religion? What does his religion have to do with this? Were Hazem and Karam plotting to murder a homosexual because of Sharia’s death penalty on such activity? He doesn’t explain, and Bild once again doesn’t ask.

I suspect Karam was referring to the suicide, not the murder since his lawyer was included in the list. Hence, the police would have been 'screwed', and he would have missed out on Paradise for having suicided.

Bild was more interested in Karam’s flair for melodrama: “Theatrically he tried to convince the judge of his innocence: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, there are many things in life that are unbelievable, so that’s not impossible.’ Judge Christoph Schwiebacher ended this bizarre performance: ‘Don’t tell any more stories, stop the show!’”

One of the most commonly repeated elements of the Leftist/Islamic supremacist rap sheet against me,  (Robert Spencer) supposedly establishing that I am an “anti-Muslim extremist,” is that I said that there was no reliable way to distinguish between peaceful Muslims and jihadists, and no distinction between the two in Muslim communities. This statement doesn’t mean that all Muslims are terrorists; it means that peaceful Muslims aren’t separating themselves from the terrorists.

And that is demonstrably true. All too many jihadis have operated freely in American mosques without being put out. After a Muslim who supported the Islamic State shot a police officer in Philadelphia, the local mosque leaders initially denied knowing him, but then it turned out they were lying, and the jihadi attended the mosque frequently. The same thing happened after jihadis attacked our free speech event in Garland, Texas: the mosque they attended in Phoenix denied knowing them, but it turned out they were regular members.

In a similar vein, this Karam A. was hailed as a “model refugee” for his success in assimilating into German society. But it seems as if he still carried within him some of the attitudes and assumptions created by a culture of violence that mandates the execution of homosexuals.

This could be an overreaction in this particular case since it does not appear that it was an execution as much as a robbery gone wrong.

Yet no one could have predicted that this would happen, as there is, here again, no reliable way to distinguish between peaceful Muslims and violent ones. Instead of heaping abuse upon those who point this out, genuinely peaceful Muslims should be working hard to establish such a distinction, in Germany and elsewhere, because of course, no one would dream of actually doing something so radical as seriously vetting the migrants.

‘Deliberate stigmatization’: Austria’s top court overturns headscarf ban

in primary schools

12 Dec 2020 05:01 

FILE PHOTO. ©  Global Look Press / Daniel Schaefer

Austria’s Constitutional Court has lifted a ban on wearing headscarves in primary schools that was in force since 2019, arguing that it targets Islam and hinders the integration of Muslim girls.

The court declared the ban unconstitutional in a Friday ruling, saying it violates Austria’s principles of religious and ideological neutrality. “The school is based, among other things, on the basic values of openness and tolerance,” the court’s president, Christoph Grabenwarter, said, adding that, by focusing on a specific religion, the legislation infringes upon this principle of equality.

The regulation… marginalizes Islamic origin and tradition as such.

Passed in May 2019, the law does not explicitly mention Muslim head coverings. Instead, it prohibits primary school children from wearing “ideologically or religiously influenced clothing, which involves covering of the head,” while making specific exemptions for the Jewish kippah and the patka headdress worn by Sikhs.

How did they ever think they would get that through the courts?

The legislation, supported by the Conservative People’s Party (OVP) and the right-wing Freedom Party (FPO), which at that time retained a majority in the parliament, was met with skepticism as its opponents called it “populist” while people ridiculed it on social media.

Austria’s Islamic Faith Community (IGGO) said the law violated religious freedom as well as parents’ rights to educate their children in their faith. The IGGO then filed a formal complaint with the court in January this year.

The government argued that the ban is aimed at protecting Muslim girls from “social pressure” when it comes to wearing religious clothing. The court, however, dismissed such reasoning as insufficient, and said that the legislature’s real effect is detrimental to the nation’s integration efforts, which is the opposite to what its authors supposedly sought to achieve.

“The ban on the Islamic headscarf, which selectively covers a specific religious or ideological clothing, deliberately stigmatizes a certain group of people,” the court ruled. “It carries the risk of making it more difficult for Muslim girls to access education or marginalizing them socially.”

The judges also rejected the argument that wearing headscarves in schools could lead to religious conflicts, adding that the ban applied to girls that “do not disturb the peace at school” anyway.

Seriously? It's been a while since the judges went to school, I think.

Following the court’s decision, the IGGO said that “our trust in the rule of law and our patience have paid off.” The news was also welcomed by most of Austria's opposition parties. The Social Democrats called on the government to “respect” the ruling as well as to develop an integration concept that “no longer sees integration as a populist plaything but as a socio-political task.”

The government, which is still led by OVP’s Sebastian Kurz, said it would “of course” accept the ruling. Still, Susanne Raab, the minister for women and integration, noted that she finds it “regrettable” that young girls would have to wear headscarves in school from now on. The OVP’s former coalition partners from FPO denounced the decision as a “sad day for children’s rights.”

There is obviously a significant difference of opinion as to what 'integration' means between the courts and the government. 

#Ozzone 3-18 > Are You Transforming Your Natural Life into a Spiritual Life? Will You Go Up Higher?

 

Liberal Doctor Breaks Ranks to Vote Against Gov't Assisted, Instant Death Bill; Trudeau's Absurd "Balanced" Cabinet

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Liberal MP and doctor says he'll vote against assisted death bill

Kathleen Harris · CBC News · 

Posted: Dec 09, 2020 4:00 AM ET

Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski, who has worked for decades as a medical doctor and has law degrees, says he will vote against Bill C-7 unless there are changes to it. (Jeff Walters / CBC)

A Liberal MP and medical doctor says he will vote against his government's contentious medical assistance in dying (MAID) bill, warning that it could allow people suffering from deep but temporary despair to end their lives.

Marcus Powlowski, who represents the Ontario riding of Thunder Bay-Rainy River, already voted against Bill C-7 at the report stage in the legislative process — the only member of the government caucus to do so. He told CBC News he will "regrettably" do so again unless it's amended.

"I don't like voting against my party, but as someone with a medical background and somebody who has dealt with this issue over the years a lot, I think morally it's incumbent upon me to stand up when it comes to issues of health and life and death," he said.

Powlowski has practised medicine in Canada, Africa and the South Pacific. He has two law degrees and a master's degree in health policy and has helped develop health law and policy for the World Health Organization and several governments.

So, why isn't this remarkable man Canada's Minister of Health? See below.

Powlowski — who insisted he is not opposed to MAID in principle — said a Quebec court ruling required the Liberal government to craft "very difficult legislation" to strike a balance between two starkly different views of MAID.

My biggest concern ... is that we don't end up using MAID

for people who don't really want to die

- Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski

He said he worries the resulting legislation may not address people who are "transient" in their wish to terminate their lives, such as someone who has a permanent disability or who now needs chronic care. Those feelings of anguish can fade over time as they adjust to a changed reality, he said.

"My biggest concern, as someone who has spent my whole life trying to avoid accidentally killing people, is that we don't end up using MAID for people who don't really want to die," he said.

"I think, with a bit of time, people may come around to the fact that there are reasons they want to live."

The government introduced C-7 in February in response to a September 2019 Superior Court of Quebec ruling which found that the law's precondition for obtaining a physician-assisted death — that the individual seeking it must face a "reasonably foreseeable" natural death — was unconstitutional.

The bill proposes to remove that requirement. It also disqualifies those whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness from obtaining an assisted death.

Lametti urges swift passage of bill

Justice Minister David Lametti is urging MPs to pass the bill "expeditiously" in order to meet a court-imposed Dec. 18 deadline.

The government already has received two extensions on the new legislation due to disruptions caused by the global pandemic. While it could request a third extension, the government says its priority now is getting the legislation passed.

After all, it's more important that it gets done quickly than it gets done properly - Liberal philosophy

The Conservative opposition and groups advocating on behalf of Canadians with disabilities say the bill removes safeguards, but Lametti has maintained the legislation strikes the right balance between protecting the vulnerable and giving Canadians the right to end needless suffering.

Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole has said that, instead of giving people a "tool" for assisted death, the government should develop a stronger framework to help people live better lives with better supports, housing and care. He also has accused the government of trying to rush a fundamentally important bill after wasting time by proroguing Parliament.

At the report stage, 16 Conservative MPs voted in support of C-7, including Conservative House Leader Gerard Deltell.

The current law requires that a patient seeking assisted death wait 10 days before obtaining it in cases where the death is "reasonably forseeable." The proposed new legislation omits that waiting period, although it maintains a 90-day waiting period for patients whose deaths are not considered reasonably foreseeable.

Senate pre-studying C-7

Conservatives had proposed amendments to keep the 10-day waiting period and to extend the 90-day period to 120 days. Both amendments were rejected in the House of Commons.

The bill has been undergoing a pre-study in the Senate.

Conservative Sen. Denise Batters, vice-chair of the Senate's legal and constitutional affairs committee, said the committee heard from 81 witnesses and most did not support the Liberal government's approach.

She called C-7 "deeply flawed, poorly considered and likely unconstitutional."

Quebec Sen. Chantal Peticlerc will sponsor C-7 when it reaches the Red Chamber.

If the bill doesn't clear the Senate by next Friday's deadline, and if the government does not seek (or is refused) another extension by the courts, that would leave a disconnect between the law in Quebec and elsewhere. People in Quebec would have a legal right to assisted death without foreseeable death being a requirement, while the rest of Canadians would not have access to the broader eligibility.

If the Senate decides to propose amendments, the bill would return to the House of Commons.

While sharing concerns about the legislation's swift pace, the NDP and Bloc Quebecois are expected to support C-7.

The NDP says it supports the right of Canadians to obtain medically assisted death to avoid unnecessary suffering at the end of life — but the party is also calling on the government to introduce a new national income support program to address concerns raised by disability advocates.

A July report from Health Canada on medical assistance in dying in Canada showed that nearly 14,000 Canadians had received MAID since 2016. In 2019, MAID accounted for 2 per cent of deaths in Canada.

A planned parliamentary review of the regime was delayed due to COVID-19, but is expected to begin next year.

===========================================================================================

Why is Dr. Powlowski not Health Minister for Canada. With that extraordinary resume, he should be an easy choice. 

Powlowski has practised medicine in Canada, Africa and the South Pacific. He has two law degrees and a master's degree in health policy and has helped develop health law and policy for the World Health Organization and several governments.

But Trudeau wanted a balanced cabinet - not talent, or ability-wise, but appearance-wise. He chose his cabinet based on sex, sexual preference, colour, and religion (as long as it wasn't Christianity). 

So, Dr. Powlowski was never in the running for a cabinet position because he has that heinous attribute of being a white male. Consequently, Patty Hajdu, was named Health Minister. Patty's only listed training is in graphic arts. That more than qualifies her since Trudeau's only real work experience was as a drama teacher. I'm inclined to think he is still practicing that calling.

Now, to be fair, Patty has a B of A, and a Masters in Public Admin. No medical background whatsoever! Astonishing, isn't it. Talk about absurdly wasted talent. The good Doctor will probably be chastised for voting against this bill.

Another disgraceful decision, back in 2015, was the appointment of the Minister of Defence. The highly qualified LtGen Andrew Leslie, another unfortunate white male, was passed over for a Lieutenant Colonel, Harjit Sajjan. Sajjan is brown and Sikh! 

Sajjan was a highly praised intelligence gatherer who contributed greatly to NATO's Operation Medusa in Afghanistan. However, in 2017 he twice claimed to be the architect of Medusa. He was a Major and such operations were planned by those with higher ranks, though he contributed greatly. Taking credit, whether it is due or not, is not the sign of a leader.

His expertise in intelligence gathering should have been the focus of his career, but Trudeau made him Minister and ignored the much more qualified Leslie.

Leslie didn't bother running in the 2019 election. The writing was on the wall. Another talented man wasted.

Don't forget the ministers and MPs who have had to step down because of sexual indiscretions. Chosen for their appearance, not their character or talents.

Nor should we forget the three women who displayed excellent character; two of whom were very talented ministers. All were forced to resign because of their integrity. Trudeau doesn't want character, talent or ability in his cabinet. He just wants them to look colourful and do what they are told. Most do. 

I applaud you, Dr. Powlowski, for standing up for your principles. It was nice knowing you.

Contrary to Climate Alarmism and Media Coverage, Reef Islands are GROWING Despite Rising Sea

9 Dec 2020 11:13

Jeh Island today, with its 1943 outline in red. © USDA

Against all odds, low-lying reef islands actually appear to be growing in some parts of the world, despite rising sea levels, increasing their footprint and defying doomsday predictions.

Geomorphologist Murray Ford from the University of Auckland in New Zealand led a team of researchers who examined Jeh Island, one of the 56 islands that make up the Ailinglaplap Atoll in the Marshall Islands, itself one of the most endangered nations on Earth. 

Ford and his team pored over aerial and satellite imagery of the island from above and made the startling discovery that not only has Jeh increased in total land area by 13 percent since 1943, it may actually have once been four separate islands which have now morphed together due to net land-mass gains.

World is literally a greener place than it was 20 years ago, according to NASA data

“Counter to predictions, popular media coverage and political proclamations, recent studies have shown the majority of reef islands studied have been stable or have increased in size since the mid-20th century,” the research team from the University of Auckland in New Zealand, led by Ford, explains.

According to the geomorphologist and his colleagues, the more dire sea-level rise predictions were based on the assumption that islands are static and unchanging and would therefore simply drown once the tides rose enough. 

The research team found that the islands grew courtesy of recently generated organic material formed by the reef and not sediment washed inland by the tides.

Jeh Island in 1943, with today's outline in red. © US National Archives

“The coral reefs which surround these islands [are] the engine room of island growth, producing sediment which is washed up on the island shoreline,” Ford explains. “Healthy coral reefs are essential for this process to continue into the future.”

No land-loss on coral reefs

Research dating back as far as 2018 found that among 30 coral atolls, accounting for over 700 islands in total, 88.6 percent remained stable or increased in size in recent decades, while none lost land overall.

The Maldives, the poster child of fear by climate hysterics, is the lowest country on earth. Consisting of 1192 islands with an average elevation of 1.5 meters and a maximum elevation of 5.1 meters is expected to disappear any day now. But the curious thing is, not one island has been lost. 

Islanders began leaving their native country in droves, convinced that it would not exist for their children (sound like a familiar theme?). But recently they have stopped leaving, planning to fight the demolition of their archipelago, or, perhaps, waiting to see some evidence that it is more than just hysteria. 

Jeh Island

The Media is the Message - Russian Presidential Candidate Calls Out RFE/RL for Being CIA Mouthpieces

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Ex-Russian presidential candidate Sobchak lashes out at ‘CIA officers’ running

US state media RFE/RL after top journalist fired

8 Dec 2020 09:31

FILE PHOTO © Sputnik / Ekaterina Chesnokova

Journalist, liberal society fixture, and former presidential candidate Kseniya Sobchak has launched a blistering attack on US state media operating in Russia, after it fired a journalist for “criticizing Alexey Navalny.”

“The real VGTRK [Russia’s state broadcasting company] is now in Prague,” said of Current Time TV’s parent company RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty). “Of course, there is no longer any free press in America – at least for foreign markets. So, shame on Current Time.”

On December 3, Timur Olevsky was sacked after publicly discussing a conspiracy theory that Navalny’s now-deceased father-in-law had been a security services agent living in London. Olevsky apologized to the well-known opposition activist, but lost his job in any case, for digging into the family’s private life.

“Olevsky is a noble man,” Sobchak wrote on Telegram. “And those old ex-CIA officers who rule Current Time and Radio Liberty are not.”

Sobchak accused the US government-run outlet of “firing their most famous journalist for criticizing Navalny,” and thereby “throwing a bone to the dumbest propaganda.”

According to the former socialite, Olevsky did nothing wrong by “blurting out” stories about Navalny, likening the activist’s very private social life to that of President Vladimir Putin.

In her post, Sobchak lambasted the Prague-based US-government mouthpiece for being worse than VGTRK, the broadcaster of most of the country’s most popular TV channels. She also took aim at the editor-in-chief of RT, Margarita Simonyan.

Sobchak is the daughter of Anatoly Sobchak, the former mayor of St. Petersburg and erstwhile ally of Putin. In the early 2000s, she was known as the host of reality show ‘Dom-2’. She quit the program in 2012, turning away from low-brow entertainment and towards serious journalism, and eventually hosted a show on liberal TV Rain and MTV Russia. In 2018, she ran in the country’s presidential election, coming fourth. Sobchak is now the host of a wildly successful YouTube show, which regularly garners a million views per episode.

The Media is the Message - Grayzone Releases OPCW Emails Admitting Political Bias in Reporting on Douma

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OPCW director worried truth about Syria ‘chemical attack’

report would feed ‘Russian narrative’

7 Dec 2020 23:57

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) tags inside a damaged house in Douma, Syria, April 23, 2018. ©  REUTERS/ Ali Hashisho

By Nebojsa Malic, senior writer at RT

As you can see this report is from RT (Russia Today), and so I feel I must include a warning as to its partiality. At the same time, the facts listed here seem to be accurate, and most certainly, I believe, are the assertions.

The reference to 'feeding the Russian narrative' strikes me as being very hypocritical. 'The Russian narrative', or, perhaps, 'The Anti-Russian narrative' in NATO, the USA, UK, and France is 'Russia bad; western weapons good!' Anything that counters that narrative is counterintuitive to the Military-Industrial Complex and the completely unnecessary sale of extremely expensive weapons.

While praising the OPCW whistleblower’s integrity and professionalism, one director worried that seeking truth about the altered report on a ‘chemical attack’ in Syria might help Russia, which he denounced as the enemy.

“I fear there is little one can do since the report is final and out – unless one wants to feed in the Russian narrative and that I would never do as they really are not bona fide friends of this organization, that’s for sure,” was the message of one director to Dr. Brendan Whelan, one of the whistleblowers who challenged the ‘interim’ report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as doctored for political purposes.

This is according to emails published on Monday by *Grayzone, an investigative outlet that has been following the OPCW whistleblower story since the beginning.

The director – whose name was redacted to protect his privacy – is the same one who in 2018 praised Whelan for his initial objections to the report, saying his email was “very carefully crafted, without emotions, not accusing anybody but laying out the facts and concerns very clearly.” Whelan’s June 22, 2018 email “took all the steps to maintain your moral and professional integrity,” he added, according to documents published by Grayzone.

Robert Fairweather, a British diplomat who was OPCW chief of cabinet at the time, requested that Whelan’s email be “recalled” – erased from the organization’s documents and archives – without explanation, having previously said the report was not “redacted” at the behest of the OPCW director-general, and that he only asked “that the report did not speculate.”

The “core” team, appointed from new OPCW hires, was then tasked with writing the final report, but apparently waited until Whelan’s term at the organization expired in September 2018 to publish its version of the report. Ironically, it did nothing but speculate – conveniently omitting any evidence actually gathered by the Douma inspectors to blame the government of President Bashar Assad in Damascus for what might have been a “chlorine” attack on the town held by Jaysh al-Islam militants. Fairweather was later made an officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for “services to international relations.”

Four whistleblowers have since come forth to challenge the OPCW’s alterations of the initial report. The organization’s response has been to defame them as disgruntled employees, while NATO-affiliated narrative management outfit Bellingcat actually doxxed Whelan.

The 16-year veteran of the organization, who was praised for his professionalism and integrity by multiple directors – as Grayzone documented – was thus hung out to dry because challenging the report would help “Russian narratives.”

He wasn’t the only one. In October, OPCW’s founding director general Jose Bustani was blocked from addressing the UN Security Council by the US, UK and France – the same countries that launched missile strikes against Syria without waiting for the Douma investigation, and have been accused of pressuring the OPCW into publishing the report retroactively validating that action.

The OPCW director mentioned above also told Whelan that talking about the report was “difficult to pursue out in the open, knowing that it is already being played by parties who are decidedly not bona fide supporters of the [Chemical Weapons Convention].” This is according to an April 17, 2019 email.

The “parties” reference here are highly likely to be Russia, which the UK had accused of a chemical attack on a former spy in Salisbury, without any evidence but Bellingcat speculation. The US didn’t exactly object, choosing to take London’s word for it.

Western governments are trying to politicize the OPCW and “in fact, turn it into an obedient tool to realize their military and political agenda,” Russia’s envoy to the OPCW Alexander Shulgin told RT last month. These emails appear to support his assessment.

Meanwhile, mainstream media coverage of the OPCW whistleblower complaints has consisted of repeating the official defamatory claims about them or citing Bellingcat, leaving the job of digging for actual documents to outlets like the Grayzone and other independent journalists.

Mainstream media, if they cover this story at all, takes the acceptable anti-Russian narrative. They are not interested in finding the truth, indeed, they would probably be in big trouble if they even started looking for the truth. 

Search this blog for 'Douma' for a number of articles to support my position on this atrocity.

*Grayzone

Max Blumenthal (born December 18, 1977) is an American journalist, author, blogger, and filmmaker. Blumenthal established The Grayzone in December 2015; he is the website's editor and one of its contributors. 

Blumenthal is a regular contributor to Sputnik and RT. He was formerly a writer for The Nation, AlterNet, The Daily Beast, Al Akhbar, and Media Matters for America, and has contributed to Al Jazeera English, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. He was selected as a Fellow of the Nation Institute.

Blumenthal has written four books. His first, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party (2009), made the Los Angeles Times and New York Times bestsellers lists. He was awarded the 2014 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Notable Book Award for Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, which was published in 2013.

Islam - Current Day - 19 Traffickers Arrested in Italy; 800 Incidents in France in Month; Madrassa Vandals in Bangladesh; Battle for Soul of Islam; Turkey Recruits Mafia

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Italian police arrest 19 in migrant trafficking probe

The Associated Press

Posted: Dec 05, 2020 7:52 AM ET 

Migrants board a coast guard ship that will take them to a ferry moored off Lampedusa island, Italy on Sept. 5 , 2020.

Italian officials have used chartered ferries and put other measures into place to fight severe overcrowding at

migrant centres on the tiny island of Lampedusa. (Mauro Seminara/The Associated Press)

Italian police on Saturday arrested 19 suspects, dismantling what authorities say was a criminal organization that moved migrants from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Pakistan to Italy and then into northern Europe.

The investigation, led by prosecutors in Catania, Sicily, unveiled a network that involved hired or stolen sailboats transporting migrants via Turkey and Greece to Italy. Some then travelled north to the French border and were smuggled by vehicle into France, thanks to human smugglers based in border towns, police said in a statement.

The arrested suspects included Iraqi Kurds, Afghans and Italians, police said.

One of the alleged ring's bases was in Bari, southern Italy, where false documents were issued indicating the migrants had housing, a requirement for residency permits. Other bases were in Milan and Turin in northern Italy as well as in the town of Ventimiglia, near the French border.

Others allegedly involved in the scheme falsified work contracts so the migrants could successfully apply for permission to reside in Italy, authorities said.

The investigation began in 2018, triggered by the arrival of 10 boats near the eastern Sicilian city of Syracuse. The boats had sailed from Turkey and Greece in the Eastern Mediterranean, and not from Libya, from where for years the majority of the hundreds of thousands of migrants had set out for Italy in traffickers' unseaworthy vessels.

The investigation ascertained the activities of a network of Italians and foreigners, most of the latter holding residency permits issued on grounds of international protection, the police said. The ring was "dedicated to facilitating the entrance, stay and transit toward northern Europe of migrants coming from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan."

One suspect, police said, was about to transport migrants from the railroad station at Ventimiglia into France, one of the preferred destination countries for those being smuggled.

Skippers who were engaged to sail the boats to Sicily were paid about 800 euros ($1,200 Cdn)  per crossing, while migrants each paid about 6,000 euros ($9,300 Cdn) to be smuggled from Asia, via Turkey and Greece, into Italy, the police said. The smuggling ring cracked by Italian authorities was an "essential link of connection with criminal groups active in Turkey and Greece," police said.

Almost 800 incidents of ‘threats & terrorism justification’ reported in France over month during tributes to beheaded teacher

44 students permanently expelled

6 Dec 2020 22:53

FILE PHOTO. ©  Reuters / Benoit Tessier

Tributes to the slain teacher, Samuel Paty, have been disturbed by nearly 800 incidents ranging from threats to outright justification of terrorism over the past months, the French Education Ministry has said.

The murder of a schoolteacher continues to send shockwaves through France. The killing that took place in mid-October has given rise to a whole series of disturbing incidents in various French education facilities throughout November, the nation’s education ministry revealed in a recent report.

Almost 800 times minutes of silence held in honor of the teacher were disrupted by various incidents in November, the report says. More than a half of all cases took place during the initial commemorative ceremonies held on November 2 and 3. Additional incidents happened during the rest of the month.

Nearly half of all incidents took place in colleges while almost a quarter involved primary schools. The vast majority of such acts was committed by students while parents were involved in more than seven percent of all cases. Sometimes, the ceremonies were disrupted by third parties, including one municipal staff member.

One fifth of all cases were described by the ministry as “provocations” while another 20% referred to the cases when people thought a minute of silence was a good time to start a discussion. Twelve percent of cases saw students refusing to participate in the event. However, sometimes the incidents were much more serious as 17 percent of the cases involve open justification of terrorism and another five percent included “threats.”

Suspensions and expulsions

As a result, 286 reports were filed with the police and 136 complaints were filed with the public prosecutor’s offices. More than 130 students were temporary suspended from studies and 44 were “permanently expelled.”

Samuel Paty was beheaded by a radicalized Chechen refugee after the teacher showed his class caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed as part of a lesson on free speech. His killing was followed by a series of terrorist attacks in France and beyond. Nearly two weeks later, three people were killed in a knife attack in Nice.

Following the teacher’s killing and other incidents attributed to religious extremism, the French government introduced a plan to crack down on religious radicalism. A mosque accused of inciting the hate that led to Paty’s murder was closed at the end of October. Nearly 80 other mosques across France were flagged as potential security threats and now face potential closure.

The legislation proposed by the government also involves stricter control over children’s education. Under the new rules, each child in France would be given an identification number that would be used to ensure that they are attending school. Parents who prevent their children from attending the education facilities could face fines or jail time. The measures are to be applied to all children regardless of their religious or any other background. The bill is expected to be reviewed by the government next week.

Bangladesh: Bangabandhu statue vandals in Kushtia are ‘from a madrasa’

Senior Correspondent,  bdnews24.com

Published: 06 Dec 2020, 08:31 PM BdST

Police have detained two students and two teachers of a local madrasa over the vandalism of an under-construction sculpture of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Kushtia.

The detainees are Abu Bakr and Md Sabuj Islam Nahid, students of Ibne Masud Madrasa at Jugia Poshchimpara in the town, and teachers Al Amin and Yusuf Ali.

Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal revealed the information to journalists at the Secretariat in Dhaka on Sunday after the police said they had identified two vandals from security camera footage. “If someone thinks they have become very powerful, they are wrong,” he said amid a clamour from Islamic extremists to stop building statues of the Father of the Nation.

Students Bakr and Nahid were the men seen defacing the statue in the footage, said  Khandaker Mohiuddin, deputy inspector general of police.

The men, clad in Panjabis and skull caps, could be seen walking towards the under-construction statue before climbing up a ladder and defacing it around 2am Saturday.

“They used hammers under the cover of the night. They got out of Ibne Masud Madrasa to do this (vandalism),” said the home minister.

The Kushtia Municipality took the initiative to build three statues of Bangabandhu at the site. Work on the statue targeted by the vandals was almost complete. The right hand, face and parts of the left hand of the statue at a five-road intersection in Kushtia Municipality were damaged by the miscreants.

The act of vandalism has drawn howls of protests from different groups and organisations after it came to their notice on Saturday morning.

‘HIFAZAT MISLEADING YOUTHS’

The home minister said leading youths onto the street by inciting them with false information is “unacceptable”. “We will look into the issue,” he said.   

He warned the Islamist leaders of Hifazat-e Islam and other groups who have threatened to tear down Bangabandhu’s statues.

“We, who are in charge of ensuring peace, won’t allow anarchy or vandalism,” he said. A certain quarter is running a disinformation campaign on social media, according to him.

“I saw a little boy claiming on Facebook that Hifazat sacrificed more blood than the freedom fighters did in the Liberation War. They are drilling false, misleading information into the heads of the youth,” Kamal said.

Hifazat conducted mayhem in Dhaka’s Motijheel on May 5, 2013 for several demands, including punishment to “atheist bloggers” after Shahbagh-based Ganajagaran Mancha launched movement for capital punishment of all war criminals.

The radical Islamist group said a number of its supporters were killed in clashes with the law enforcers on that day, but could not prove it. “We had asked them to send us a list of the people (said to be killed) with names of their madrasas and addresses. We haven’t got the list yet. This is the reality,” he said.

A reporter asked him whether the Hifazat leadership will face legal action as instigators of the vandalism in Kushtia. The home minister responded that it will depend on the investigation. “All those whose name will come up in the investigation will be made accused,” he said.

He declined to comment on whether the government will accept Hifazat’s demand for a halt on the construction of a statue of the Father of the Nation in Dhaka’s Dholaipar to mark his birth centenary.

The plan angered the Hifazat leaders who subsequently expressed opposition to all sculpture in the Muslim-majority country. “It depends on the government whether it will review its decision. We (home ministry) will do our job of ensuring security,” he said.

“Bangabandhu is the Father of the Nation, the greatest Bengali of all time. The people will never accept that his memory will not be preserved,” Kamal said.

Kushtia, BD

France, Belgium and Austria move into the frontline of a battle

for the soul of Islam

Written By: James M Dorsey WION

New Delhi, Delhi, India 

Published: Dec 06, 2020, 02.45 PM(IST)

UAE flag Photograph:( Reuters )

The UAE’s footprint is visible across the globe, most recently in France, the latest arena in what amounts to a battle for the soul of Islam, as well as in US disclosures about the nature of Emirati intervention in Libya.

Punching above its weight, the United Arab Emirates is wielding a combination of religious soft power, commercial and economic sway, and hard power in its bid to counter political Islam in ways that potentially could threaten pillars of Western democracy as well as US and European strategic interests.

The UAE’s footprint is visible across the globe, most recently in France, the latest arena in what amounts to a battle for the soul of Islam, as well as in US disclosures about the nature of Emirati intervention in Libya.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia appear to have been lobbying for a tougher French policy towards political Islam prior to the crackdown initiated by President Emmanuel Macron in the wake of the gruesome killing of a schoolteacher in September and subsequent attacks, including on a church in Nice.

The lobbying, emphasising common interests in countering political Islam and Turkey, with which France is at odds in Libya and the eastern Mediterranean as well as on the issue of political Islam, aligned themselves neatly with Macron’s domestic and international agenda.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia in effect gave the French leader welcome Muslim cover to target political Islam and Turkey more than six months before the attacks this fall as he gears up for an election in 2022 in which Marie Le Pen, the leader of the far right, nationalist and anti-immigration National Rally, looms large.

Speaking in the French city of Mulhouse in February, Macron laid out his strategy to combat political Islam represented by the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists who in his words insist that Islam’s legal code supersedes the laws of the French Republic and emphasise what he calls “Islamist separatism” and “Islamist supremacy.” The UAE and Saudi Arabia have both declared the brotherhood a terrorist organisation.

Austria last month started cracking down on the brotherhood following a shooting rampage in the heart of Vienna in which four people were killed.

Kuwait and Qatar are funding the construction of an Islamic religious and cultural centre in Mulhouse. The UAE and Saudi Arabia alongside Bahrain and Egypt have been boycotting Qatar economically and diplomatically since 2017, alleging that the Gulf state is a prime supporter of Islamist groups.

Some Islamist expectations for France

“In the Republic we cannot accept that we refuse to shake hands with a woman because she is a woman. In the Republic, we cannot accept that someone refuses to be treated or educated by someone because she is a woman. In the Republic, one cannot accept school dropouts for religious or belief reasons. In the Republic, one cannot require certificates of virginity to marry,” Macron said.

Qatar has backed the brotherhood in the past and is home to Yusuf al-Qaradawi, widely viewed as a one of the foremost influencers of the Brotherhood, a catch-all for a multitude of aligned Islamist groups that bicker among themselves.

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Qatar as well as mediator Kuwait expressed hope in recent days that talks in advance of a Gulf summit in Riyadh later this month would produce at least a first step towards an end of the boycott.

Macron’s crackdown involves tighter legal control of Muslim organisations and aims to centralise the formation and accreditation of Muslim religious leaders in the country.

Critics, including United Nations experts, charge that a new security law introduced in parliament undermines democratic freedoms by implicitly targeting Muslims, imposing a wider ban on home schooling and controls on religious, sporting and cultural associations, and introducing degrees of surveillance and limits on freedom of expression.

Macron “does not want to see Muslims ghettoized in the West and he is right. They should be better integrated into society. The French state has the right to explore ways to achieve that,” UAE minister of state for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash said in November.

Playing on Macron’s differences with Turkey that are shared by the UAE, Gargash suggested that the French president was drawing a line in the sand for his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “It is only when he is shown the red line that he shows himself ready to negotiate," Gargash asserted.

Mohammed al-Issa, head of the Muslim World League, a one-time major vehicle for the global propagation of past Saudi ultra-conservatism that now projects the kingdom’s undefined notion of moderate Islam, insisted last month that the law would defend French secularism against Islamic radicalism.

Speaking earlier at an inter-faith conference in Paris co-hosted by the League, Al-Issa stressed that religion needed to be protected from political exploitation to safeguard youth against extremist groups.

Much of Macron’s thinking appears to be informed by French Muslims who maintain close contact with both the French and Emirati governments.

Hakim El Karoui, the French-born son of an anthropologist of Islamic law and nephew of a former Tunisian prime minister, has long advocated notions of a French Islam that are reflected in Mr. Macron’s thinking.

This includes an undifferentiated view of political Islam, the notion of Islamists being secessionists or separatists, and the belief that Middle Eastern funding and political manipulation of faith rather than of domestic and economic factors primarily drive support for political Islam.

An advisor to former French prime minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, university lecturer, investment banker, geographer and author of several reports on Islam in France, El Karoui has long projected the UAE as a model of best practice in countering political Islam and fostering a moderate form of the faith.

The UAE promotes a concept of state-controlled Islam that preaches absolute obedience to the ruler.

Yeah, like that's going to happen in France!

“I think that France and the UAE must engage more in a religious debate. The positions of the moderate Muslims in France can be close to the ones of the UAE,” El Karoui told an Abu Dhabi-based newspaper in 2018.

French Middle East scholar Francois Burgat noted in an interview that “arguments put forth by El Karoui are enthusiastically embraced by authoritarian leaders in the Muslim world. They absolve them from responsibility for problems in their own societies.”

Macron’s UAE and Saudi-backed campaign is producing unintended advantages for the two Gulf states in their battle for the soul of Islam. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are in competition with one another but also frequently see their interests aligned.

In a parallel development, the Belgian government, acting on the advice of security services, this month rejected a request of the once Muslim World League-controlled Grand Mosque in central Brussels to be recognized as a faith community.

Justice minister Vincent Van Quickenborne said the application had been rejected because agents of the intelligence service of Morocco, a competitor for ownership of the definition of a moderate form of Islam in Europe and West Africa, had gained control of the mosque since Saudi Arabia handed it back to the government in 2018.

“I cannot and will not accept that foreign regimes hijack Islam for ideological or political motives, try to call the shots here and prevent Muslims in our country from developing their own progressive Islam,” Van Quickenborne said, echoing Macron’s approach.

(Dr James M Dorsey is an award-winning journalist and a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute.)

Mafia Becomes a Partner in Turkey's Islamist-Far-Right

Governing Coalition

by Abdullah Bozkurt

Nordic Monitor

December 1, 2020

The originally published version of this article, titled "Mafia Becomes a Partner in Islamist and Far-right Alliance in the Governance of Turkey," features downloadable supporting documentation.

Alaattin Çakıcı (right), Turkey's most notorious mafia boss recently released from prison, poses in June 2020

with Devlet Bahçeli, leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), a major partner

in Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's ruling coalition.

Alaattin Çakıcı, Turkey's most notorious mafia leader who was convicted and served time on multiple charges from organized crime to drug trafficking, has now become part of the de facto coalition government in Turkey run by a trio of Islamists, far-right elements and neo-nationalists.

The mob boss, after his recent release from prison thanks to a government amnesty, has been trying to improve his public profile, commenting on a range of domestic and foreign policy issues and openly threatening critics of the government. Çakıcı's background in the far right Grey Wolves (Bozkurtlar or Ülkü Ocakları, as they are known in Turkish) and his secret missions overseas suggest Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his allies want to put a known crime machine at work running an intimidation campaign both at home and abroad.

Çakıcı, now 67, had worked with Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) since 1987 in running clandestine operations both in Turkey and abroad before he was detained in France. He served a six-month sentence in Nice before being extradited to Turkey in December 1999 and is now back at the center of politics. He was involved in carrying out unsolved murders on behalf of dark forces nested in the security and intelligence branches of the government.

Erdoğan has turned to mafia groups to intimidate opponents

and sustain a climate of fear.

As the rule of law has effectively been suspended in Turkey in recent years, the Islamist government of Erdoğan and its nationalist partners has turned to mafia groups to run the country, intimidate opponents and sustain a climate of fear. Since his release from prison on April 16, 2020 by an amnesty secured by the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and endorsed by Erdoğan, Çakıcı has been busy in consolidating various mafia groups on behalf of the government and issuing threats to opposition politicians.

There is much more on this story. Please visit the link at the top of this story.