RUTHFULLY YOURS

Is there any other person you trust to decide which ideas and speech you are entitled to hear — or which are too dangerous for you to hear?

The thin-skinned government of Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has in the past two years opened at least 1,845 cases over insults to the president.

Turkey’s World Press Freedom Index ranking has plummeted to 149 out of 180, below Zimbabwe (131) and Burundi (145).

Despite the ruling of Turkey’s judicial system that Erdogan could not eliminate access to Twitter, he nevertheless continues to advance his agenda of censorship. He pledges to “eradicate Twitter” which, according to him, encourages “blasphemy and criticism of the Turkish government.”

Is there any other person you trust to decide which ideas and speech you are entitled to hear — or which are too dangerous for you to hear?

Is there any other person you think should have the ability to decide what criticism of the Government is respectful enough?

Would you cede your autonomy to decide what you to hear to a Government? Probably not.

Police, ambulance and fire brigades are not game to enter Islamicised enclaves in France, Germany, Belgium – just about everywhere, in fact, where welfare payments and crime underwrite the aggressive separatism of communities openly contemptuous of their Western benefactors.
Croissant pouvre is a French term for the suburbs least likely to be settled by the European middle classes. Translated literally, it means ‘poor crescent’. This description has nothing to do with the perennial breakfast favourite — it is a word-play on the origin and favoured symbol of the majority of residents in these suburbs. Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berlin – most large European cities have these ‘no-go’ areas, which also have another description – ‘zones sans-droit’: zones without law. Simply put, the law of the land does not apply. Instead, Sharia is firmly in control. France has about 30 zones sans-droit, all of which share three three characteristics.

all are largely populated by the unemployed, unemployable and un-integrated Muslim migrants from Africa and the Middle East and their descendants;
all are blighted by organised crime, with the narcotics trade, associated violence and prostitution dominate the civic landscape;
all have connections with, and supply, the recruits for jihadi activities overseas and terrorism at home, being a shelter, safe haven and breeding ground for organised crime and politically motivated terror.

The previous non-migrant, non-Muslim residents have mostly been squeezed out by threats, implied or real violence, intimidation, crime and plummeting property values. With few exceptions, shops operated by Jewish or Christian owners had closed their doors by 2013. Non-Muslim women, not wearing street clothes in accordance with the Sharia law, are routinely and openly accosted, insulted and manhandled by the self-proclaimed Sharia patrols or Islamic purity enthusiasts. The generous social security benefits paid to the residents of these suburbs are regarded as Jizziya – a head tax on dhimmis. These benefits are treated as an entitlement. This approach helps resolve the theological conundrum, which states that Muslims should not live in lands ruled by non-Muslims. Being paid Jizziya establishes the hierarchy of primacy and subjugation, justifies the contempt and disregard towards local laws and customs and supports the notion that the present situation is a transition towards full control.

After the war, the new Federal Republic went to great lengths to make sure public campaigns of vilification against defenseless minorities would be difficult-to-illegal. But what began as a measure to protect the Jews has now morphed into a mechanism to defend Islamic supremacy:

One of the founders of the German anti-immigration group PEGIDA went on trial Tuesday, charged with incitement over Facebook posts in which he allegedly called foreigners “cattle” and “trash.”

Lutz Bachmann’s trial at the district court in the eastern city of Dresden is scheduled to last until May 10. Incitement can carry a prison sentence of up to five years. Bachmann is accused of trying to incite Germans against refugees with the social media posts in September 2014.

Bachmann expressed regret shortly after the postings – and photos of him posing as Adolf Hitler – surfaced. He described them as “ill-considered comments that I wouldn’t make in this way today” and apologized for harming PEGIDA. Bachmann has denied the charges, saying the trial is “purely politically motivated” and meant to discredit him and the group. His lawyer, Katja Reichel, rejected the charges in court Tuesday, saying he didn’t write the postings attributed to him.

The impeachment of Brazilian president Dilmah Roussef is an example of what happens when a political ecosystem collapses. Just a few years ago, Brazil was hailed as the wonder model of the developing world. “It was called the ‘Brazil model’, or simply ‘the Lula model’, back when this country’s economy was roaring and its president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was a superstar of the developing world. By balancing support for big business with big social-welfare programs, the union boss turned statesman presided over an era of growth that lifted tens of millions of Brazilians out of poverty. Lula’s presidency cut a new template for a Latin American left that had long insisted class struggle and revolution were the only road to fairness.”

Then the wonder model ran out of money for reasons that are easy in retrospect to understand. Brazil’s boom years attracted corruption on a massive scale. Soon the leeches were sucking more blood out of the host than its body could replace. Once the economy collapsed and the middle class had been beggared an angry public went looking for a scapegoat and found one in current president Dilma Roussef.

The same catastrophe maybe happening on a global scale. The music has stopped and the petrostates who have long bankrolled Western politicians have run out of money. “The petrostates assembling in Doha to discuss a potential output freeze two days from now aren’t coming together in a show of solidarity or out of some sense of duty towards one another, but rather as an act of desperation. Bloomberg ran the numbers, and found that the oil price collapse has collectively cost the 18 countries involved in this meeting nearly one third of a trillion dollars.”

The Washington Post says OPEC “has lost control of the oil market.” Caught between the desire to cut production to raise prices and pump to earn ready cash, the oil producers are unable to cut production for long term gain with some members, like socialist Venezuela, forced to keep pumping at all costs to barely keep afloat. What’s different about the present situation — and why it represents a political ecosystem collapse — is that Saudi Arabia and Russia are essentially in the same boat with Venezuela.

Saudi Arabia has reached out to Russia, primarily to discuss the war in Syria but also to discuss oil. Russia is also producing oil at near-record levels, but top officials said earlier this week that Moscow is not contemplating cuts.

“Clearly Saudi Arabia needs the money and so does Russia,” said Kenneth Rogoff, an economic professor at Harvard University. “Russia is really hurting. The standard of living has plummeted and if it lasts that will eventually undermine [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s poplarity no matter how effective his propaganda.

“But Saudi Arabia has its failed war in Yemen, gigantic population growth and all kinds of internal political problems. So neither place is in a fantastic position to cut back.”

On 14 April 2016, by a vote of 257 to 50, Ukraine’s Parliament elected Volodymyr Groysman prime minister, replacing Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who was forced out by public dissatisfaction and allegations of corruption surrounding his government.

At 38, Mr. Groysman is the youngest Ukrainian prime minister ever elected and the first Jew to hold such a high position.

Here are some basic facts about him:

– Born in Vinnytsia into a Jewish family on 20 January 1978.

– Grandfather Isaac survived the Holocaust by pretending to be dead after being dropped into a mass grave by Nazi troops.

– Started his career in 1994 as a commercial director of the small private business company “ОКО” and as a commercial director of the private enterprise “Youth.”

– 2003 graduate of the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management with a specialty in jurisprudence.

– Elected mayor of Vinnytsia in 2006.

– 2010 graduate of the National Academy of State Administration with a specialty in community development management.

KABUL—The Taliban claimed responsibility for a large bombing Tuesday outside a Kabul government building that Afghan officials said killed at least 28 people and wounded 327 others, the deadliest attack in the capital in months.

The Islamist militant group said it had detonated a truck laden with explosives, though the report couldn’t be immediately confirmed by Afghan officials. It announced the start of its annual spring offensive last week and has since intensified attacks across the country.

The bombing targeted a compound used by Afghanistan’s Secret Service, flattening part of its perimeter wall. Taliban gunmen disguised in military uniform stormed it shortly after the explosion and were still battling Afghan security forces hours later.

The blast shattered buildings and windows in the area, trapping people under the rubble. Hospitals around the city were inundated. CONTINUE AT SITE

MADRID—Police say they have arrested a Moroccan man with alleged strong links to the Islamic State group and who was allegedly pushing for attacks to be carried out in Spain and elsewhere in Europe.

A statement said the man was arrested Tuesday in Palma de Mallorca city on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca where he lived.

It said the detainee poses “a clear threat to national security” given that he used the Internet to promote recruitment for IS, help send potential combatants abroad and encourage attacks in Spain and elsewhere in Europe. It said he maintained close contact with IS leaders in Syria.

Spanish police have arrested dozens of suspected jihadist recruiters in recent years.

How does European humanitarianism become a road to moral surrender? In Germany, they’re beginning to find out.

Jan Böhmermann is a German political satirist—think of a younger version of Jon Stewart—who, on his TV show last month, read aloud a lewd poem about Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The verse was replete with mocking references to the Turkish president’s anatomy, his alleged relations with farm animals, and his mistreatment of religious and ethnic minorities.

Was it funny? My wife, who’s German, puts it in the category of “so puerile you laugh.” But Mr. Böhmermann had a serious point, explicitly framing his poem as an example of Schmähkritik, or abusive criticism, and therefore not necessarily protected by German law. His larger aim was to test the limits of free speech, much as the American comedian George Carlin did in the 1970s with his notorious “seven words you can’t say on TV.”

The ploy succeeded too well. The Turkish foreign ministry made a formal request of the German government to prosecute Mr. Böhmermann under a Wilhelmine-era law (known as Section 103 and previously used by the Shah of Iran and Augusto Pinochet of Chile) forbidding insults against foreign leaders. Mr. Erdogan has also filed a private suit against the comedian, who is now under police protection in consideration of the recent fates of European satirists who ran afoul of Muslim sensitivities.

None of this is surprising: The Turkish government is pursuing nearly 2,000 criminal cases against Turkish citizens accused of insulting Mr. Erdogan, some of which involve school-age children who posted material on Facebook. Mr. Erdogan’s bodyguards also recently roughed up some demonstrators protesting him in Washington, D.C. It’s in the nature of political thuggery to recognize no boundaries, moral or territorial.

It’s also in the nature of the liberal West constantly to seek an accommodation with the thugs. ZDF, the German public broadcaster that carries Mr. Böhmermann’s show, immediately pulled the offending clip from its website, though it promises to foot his legal bills. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that she found the poem “deliberately hurtful,” a comment her spokesman went out of his way to disclose. CONTINUE AT SITE

Notwithstanding all of the commentary to the contrary, the Iraqi army assisted by U.S. Special Forces is putting the Islamic State on the defensive in Iraq. In fact, the Iraqi army is poised to retake the northern province of Nineveh and may soon gain control of Mosul, the province’s largest city and a militant stronghold. This is the good news, but it is not the whole story.

Up until recently the goal of ISIS was to acquire and hold territory, to build a Caliphate under a state structure. However, with that state structure in disarray, the strategy has changed and with it, the potential terrorist danger has increased. It is now the case that ISIS has involved adherents in the spread of its extremist ideas and encouraging acolytes to attack wherever they might be.

The message from the Brussels’ murders reinforces the warning from Paris – four months earlier – that the Islamic State not only has the capability of deadly terrorist attacks in the heart of Europe, but that these attacks are part and parcel of a revised strategic vision.

From outposts remaining in Iraq and, most significantly, in Syria, ISIS can use refugee flows into Europe as a method for embedding terrorist cells. Moreover, these terrorist “sleepers” can easily find “safe houses” in sanctuary neighborhoods like Molenbeek in Brussels. It is estimated that about 5,000 Europeans have travelled to Iraq and Syria to train and several hundred have since returned.

A Look Back at this Croatia-News-Heavy Month…in Election Year 2008

Restaurant honours mass murderer (Herald Sun, April 13, 2008)

An acclaimed Melbourne restaurant has sparked multi-ethnic outrage for paying homage to a fascist warlord and mass murderer.

The plush Katarina Zrinski restaurant attached to Footscray’s Croatian Club has been branded “disgusting” for its celebration of genocidal World War II Croatian leader Ante Pavelic.

Pavelic, who historians say was responsible for the deaths of up to 500,000 Jews, Serbs, Muslims and gypsies, has been described as the Heinrich Himmler of the Croatian nation.

The popular restaurant during the week displayed a big portrait of Pavelic on its wall and T-shirts depicting Pavelic for sale at the bar.

The T-shirts also showed two commanders of the Ustashe’s notorious Black Legion, which murdered thousands of civilians, and Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, who was jailed for collaborating with the Ustashe.

Drinkers at the bar were also toasting “The Poglavnik” – the name fascists use for their Fuhrer – and on Thursday the restaurant commemorated Hitler’s establishment of the puppet state of Croatia on April 10, 1941.

On Tuesday the restaurant was reviewed in a Melbourne newspaper’s food section, with its “large, airy downstairs dining room perfect for large, extended family groups”.

Dr Bob Miller, a Balkans expert at the Australian National University, has hit out at the club’s feting of Pavelic.

“It’s disgusting. This would be the equivalent to the German community honouring Himmler,” he said.

“Even the Nazis found the Ustashe regime’s actions so brutal as to be counter-productive.”

Serbians in Victoria have also expressed their distress.

“How can they do this?” George Marinkovic, publisher of the Serb Voice, said.

“Can someone explain this? We are in one beautiful country and you are going back and promoting fascists from the Hitler era. I cannot understand it.”