Reader’s links for September 2 – 2016

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In order to preserve the flow of conversation about various posted items, and also in order to make it easier for visitors to find the list of related links being shared by other readers, regulars and interested parties in one place, each day a post is automatically created at a minute past midnight ET.

This way, under the various posts of the day, conversation can take place without as much ‘noise’ on the various links and articles and ideas in the main posts and all the news links being submitted can be seen under these auto-posts by clicking on the comments-link right below these ones.

Thank you all for those that take the effort to assist this site in keeping the public informed. Below, typically people can find the latest enemy propaganda, news items of related materials from multiple countries and languages, op-eds from many excellent sites who write on our topics, geopolitics and immigration issues and so on.

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 September 2 – 2016”

  1. Turkey vows to treat Brits fighting with Kurds as TERRORISTS & ‘will OPEN FIRE on troops’ (Express, Sep 2, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/706475/Turkey-British-troops-terrorists-ISIS-Kurdish-Recep-Erdogan-fighting-Syria-Daesh

    “TURKEY will treat any Britons fighting alongside Kurdish groups in Syria as terrorists and could open fire on them, a government spokesman has revealed.

    A host of British volunteers are currently in Syria battling depraved Islamic State jihadis as part of US-backed People’s Protection Unit (YPG), which has been considered a terrorist group by Turkey.

    Yunus Akbaba, spokesman for the Turkish prime minister Binali Yilderim, said: “These are terrorist groups and anyone fighting under their banner will be considered terrorists…”

  2. CALAIS WARZONE: Riot police fire tear gas to hold back HUNDREDS of UK-bound migrants (express, Sep 2, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/706372/Calais-warzone-riot-police-tear-gas-hold-hundreds-UK-bound-migrants

    “RIOT police fired tear gas into the notorious Calais “Jungle” yesterday to hold back hundreds of UK-bound migrants.

    Marauding gangs attempted to storm the motorwaey leading to the port as the crisis in the town spirals out of control.

    Refugees lit fires and barricaded the road as they tried to ambush traffic heading to the ferry terminal.

    The chaos forced traffic to a standstill for over an hour as heavily armed officers desperately battled to restore order.

    The tense stand off saw riot police in body armour and carrying shields fire tear gas into the shantytown as balaclava-clad refugees taunted them.

    One officer said: “This is happening regularly – the migrants try to get on to the motorway.”

    The Daily Express was able to capture the striking images after being caught in the gridlock just a mile from the docks…”

    • France: Calais refugee camp will be ‘completely dismantled’ – Cazeneuve

      French Minister of the Interior Bernard Cazeneuve held a press conference in Calais on Friday, dealing with the question of the refugee camps in the coastal town.

      The minister declared his intentions to “completely dismantled” the Calais refugee camp and that he was “determined to lead” the operation. He also discussed the “need to accommodate migrants in decent conditions elsewhere than Calais.”

  3. Anger at two migrant centres in UPMARKET Paris street where homes are worth £3m (express, Sep 1, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/706359/Anger-two-migrant-centres-UPMARKET-Paris-street-homes-worth-3m

    “PARIS residents reacted with fury to the building of new camps in the city that are set to be full of thousands of UK-bound migrants by next month.

    It came as a £4m centre designed primarily for vulnerable women and children reached completion in one of the city’s most upmarket districts.

    Two wooden buildings containing 24 housing units each have already gone up next to the Bois du Boulogne, in the 16th arrondissement.

    It is situated next to palatial apartments worth up to £3m each – prompting intense anger from neighbours.

    Many have openly threatened officials working for the Socialist city council, and delivered a 50000 signature petition to see the units torn down.

    A local businessman who asked to be identified solely as Etienne said: “These units have been forced on us with no respect for democracy, and will soon be filled with people who have no connection to the area at all.

    “There will be hundreds of them, and many more are likely to want to set up camp in the Bois du Boulogne. That’s how these situations develop – as we saw in Calais.

    “The prices of our homes are going to crash in value, and all kinds of undesirables are going to turn up. It is a disgrace.” …”

  4. TICKING FINANCIAL TIME BOMB? Deutsche Bank ‘refuses’ customer demands for gold withdrawals (express, Sep 1, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/706396/Deutsche-Bank-Germany-customer-demands-gold-withdrawals

    “DEUTSCHE BANK is ‘refusing’ to hand its OWN customers gold they have purchased through an investment venture.

    Germany’s biggest bank has been accused of breaking the terms of bond sales by financial experts.

    The trouble-hit bank is reportedly currently contemplating a merger with Germany’s other mega-bank, Commerzbank.

    Clients who have invested in the exchange-traded commodity “Xetra-Gold” have said they are having problems with the bank, according to German analytic website Godmode-Trader.

    Xetra-Gold is a bond on the Deutsche Börse commodities market, and Deutsche Bank is a designated sponsor.

    When purchasing the commodity in the virtual sphere, customers are told for every scrap of the precious metal they buy, the same amount of physical gold exists.

    On the website, Xetra-Gold says its clients have the right for physical delivery of the gold when they please.

    But customers have said they have asked for it – and have been denied by Deutsche Bank.

    The physical gold is reportedly held in custody for the issuer in the Frankfurt vaults of Clearstream Banking AG, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Börse.

    On its website, Xetra-Gold states: “In order to facilitate the delivery of physical gold, the issuer holds a further limited amount of gold on an unallocated weight account with Umicore AG & Co.”

    Godmode Trader quoted a German who “sought physical delivery of his holdings of Xetra-Gold”.

    It stated: “For this he approached, as instructed by the German Börse document, his principal bank, Deutsche Bank.”

    However, he was told that “the service” was no longer available for “reasons of business policy”.

    It is not yet clear whether other banks are still delivering gold through Xetra…”

    • This isn’t good, it sounds like they sold a lot more gold then they had. If this is the case we can expect more people to demand the gold they have purchased which could cause a massive increase in the price of gold and possibly the crash of some banks and gold companies if/when they can’t deliver all of the gold.

      If you are going to invest in precious metals insist on have physical possession of the metals.

  5. Turkish President to EU on Migrant Deal: Where Is the Money? (abcnews, Sep 2, 2016)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/turkish-president-eu-migrant-deal-money-41818452

    “Turkey’s president accused the European Union on Friday of failing to deliver funds it promised as part of a deal to stop migrants crossing the Aegean Sea. The EU rejected the charges.

    Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the EU had pledged 6 billion euros ($6.7 billion) in support of some 3 million refugees Turkey currently hosts.

    “What happened? The support given until now is 183 million euros,” Erdogan asked.

    “And they did not give it to us, they gave it to UNICEF. No country can stand alone in this crisis. Unfortunately the promises on this issue are not kept,” he said…”

  6. 2 Attacks in Iraqi Capital Kill 8 People, Wound 23 (abcnews, Sep 2, 2016)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/attacks-iraqi-capital-kill-people-wound-23-41820960

    “Iraqi officials say attacks in Baghdad have killed eight people and wounded 23.

    A police official says at least three rockets landed in eastern Baghdad Friday morning, killing five people and wounding 15. The attack hit as pilgrims descended on the Kadhimiya shrine in Baghdad to commemorate the martyrdom of the ninth Shiite Imam, but the attack did not injure pilgrims or hit near the shrine.

    Police and hospital officials say a separate roadside bombing in a commercial area in western Baghdad killed three civilians and wounded eight.

    All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to brief the press.

    No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks. The Islamic State group often claims responsibility for large-scale attacks targeting Shiite civilians in the Iraqi capital.”

  7. Pakistan blast at court leaves several dead in Mardan (BBC, Sep 2, 2016)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37253739

    “A suicide bomber has attacked a court in the northern Pakistani city of Mardan, killing at least 12 people and injuring more than 50, officials say.

    The attacker threw a hand grenade before running into the court area and detonating a bomb, police told the BBC.

    Also on Friday, four suicide bombers targeted a Christian neighbourhood near Peshawar before being shot dead.

    Both attacks took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, and were claimed by Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar…”

  8. Katie Hopkins says lectures from Alan Kurdi’s dad are worthless as he ‘left family’ to die (express, Sep 2, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/706584/Katie-Hopkins-lectures-Alan-Kurdi-s-dad-worthless-left-family

    “KATIE Hopkins has caused a social media storm after tweeting how she will not take lectures about migrants from tragic Alan Kurdi’s father who “left his family at the bottom of the sea”.

    The outspoken commentator, speaking a year since the Syrian toddler’s lifeless body was photographed being carried from the sea.

    His father Abdullah, the only surivor in his family, yesterday blasted world leaders for allowing the Syria war, and migrant crisis, to continue.

    He said: “At first the world was anxious to help the refugees. But this did not even last a month. In fact the situation got worse. The war has escalated and more people are leaving.”

    He urged the UK to take more migrants and for world leaders to stop the war in Syria.

    But outspoken Katie Hopkins today tweeted: “Lectured on caring for migrants by a man who left his wife and child at the bottom of the Med? No thank you Mr Kurdi.”…”

  9. Seven accused of aiding the Islamic State in Virginia this year
    Federal prosecutors in Virginia allege that these seven men have aided the Islamic State. Here are brief descriptions of each case.

    Joseph Hassan Farrokh

    Woodbridge, Va.

    Farrokh, 29, was born in Pennsylvania but moved to California when he was in middle school. Raised by a Christian mother and an Iranian-immigrant Muslim father who were often at odds, he struggled to fit in. He followed his father to Northern Virginia in 2012 to try to kick an opiate addiction, and finding Islam helped him do so. In 2015 he met Mahmoud Elhassan, who authorities said encouraged him to become more radical, and he began watching propaganda videos. In January, he attempted to travel to Syria to engage in jihad and was arrested at the Richmond airport.

    Farrokh in March pleaded guilty in pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide material support to the terrorist organization.

    Mahmoud Elhassan

    Woodbridge, Va.

    Elhassan, 26, was born in Sudan and became a legal U.S. resident in 2012. According to his brother, he was a Northern Virginia community college student and a cabdriver. He is accused of planning with Farrokh to join the Islamic State abroad and driving his co-defendant to the airport. Farrokh has said that Elhassan knew the Koran well, spoke Arabic and shared with him outrage over the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

    Mohamad Jamal Khweis

    Alexandria, Va.

    Khweis, 26, was unknown to law enforcement until he was picked up by Kurdish forces in Iraq in March. According to court documents, the son of Palestinian immigrants began researching the Islamic State in 2015. He traveled to Turkey in December and found his way to Islamic State territory, he has said. He ended up in Mosul, Iraq, undergoing religious and military training. But he “found it hard” to live there, he told Kurdish television, and soon escaped into Kurdish territory.

    Mohamed Bailor Jalloh

    Sterling, Va.

    Jalloh, 26, a U.S. citizen and native of Sierra Leone, was allegedly inspired to quit the Army National Guard last year after listening to the sermons of deceased radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. In March, he was introduced to an FBI informant, according to court documents, and began discussing a possible domestic terrorist attack. He was arrested in July after buying an assault rifle.

    Yusuf Wehelie

    Fairfax, Va.

    Wehelie, the 25-year-old son of Somali immigrants, was detained in Egpyt six years ago with his brother after a trip to Yemen. He was arrested in July on a charge of possessing a weapon as a felon, after allegedly making comments about his desire to join the Islamic State or commit a domestic terrorist attack to undercover agents.

    Haris Qamar

    Burke, Va.

    Qamar, a 25-year-old born in Brooklyn, allegedly tried to join the Islamic State in 2014 but was stopped because his parents took his passport. According to court documents, Qamar came to the attention of the FBI because of his enthusiastic Twitter promotion of the Islamic State. He was befriended by an FBI informant, who he allegedly told of his desire to kill enemies of the Islamic State here or abroad. At the informant’s suggestion, according to authorities, Qamar took footage for a video encouraging attacks on D.C.-area landmarks.

    Nicholas Young

    Fairfax, Va.

    Young, 36, a convert to Islam who grew up in Northern Virginia, has been watched by the FBI for the past seven years after concerns were raised by his co-workers in the D.C. Metro police. Young had been in and out of touch with undercover informants and agents, according to court documents, and was arrested in August after buying gift cards he thought would be used for mobile messages in support of the Islamic State.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/seven-accused-of-aiding-the-islamic-state-in-virginia-this-year/2016/09/01/d8170140-663f-11e6-be4e-23fc4d4d12b4_story.html

  10. France on ALERT: Police officer stabbed in throat and one dead in Paris shootout (express, Sep 2, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/706605/Police-officer-stabbed-in-throat-in-Paris-attacker-shot-dead

    “A POLICE officer has been seriously injured after she was stabbed in the throat during a shootout in Paris and her attacker has been killed.

    The attack took place this morning in Vincennes after a 29-year-old man tried to attack a nurse, the Le Figaro newspaper reported.

    When police arrived at the scene, the man then attacked a female police officer with a knife and reportedly injured her throat.

    A 29-year-old suspect allegedly knifed one female officer in the throat.

    He was shot and killed on the spot…”

  11. As Vancouver’s Housing Market Implodes, Furious Chinese Envoy Slams Real Estate Tax
    Some time in the early days of August, Vancouver’s housing bubble burst with a bang, not a whimper, just days after the July 25 announcement by British Columbia of a 15% luxury real estate tax, whose purpose was first and foremost to stop the Chinese “hot money” invasion. It succeeded. As we reported two weeks ago, what happened next was dramatic: at least in the first days after the tax was implemented, the local market essentially imploded, with the average City of Vancouver home price dropping to $1.1 million, down 20.7% over a period of only 28 days and down 24.5% over the last three months.
    Confirming that the market has found itself in a state of paralyzed shock, there were only three home sales in West Vancouver between Aug. 1 and 14 this year, compared to 52 during the same period last year. That was a decrease of 94% (full details here).
    Needless to say, while most Vancouverites had long been priced out of the domestic real etate bubble – and some say were hoping for the recent substantial pullback in prices, if not outright crash – the biggest losers from this sudden, dramatic collapse, were foreign buyers, mostly the Chinese, whose aggressive, “buy at any price” money laundering “purchase tactics” have been duly documented on this website for the past year.

    The result was swift: as Bloomberg reports, China’s top envoy in British Columbia slammed the Canadian province’s new 15% tax on foreign home buyers, questioning the justification behind the hastily imposed measure.

    “Why a 15 percent tax? Why now? Why this rate? What’s the purpose? Will it work?” Liu Fei, China’s infuriated consul general in Vancouver, said in an interview with Bloomberg. “The issue is how to help young people afford housing,” she added. “I’m not sure even a 50 percent tax would solve the problem.”
    Ah, ye olde redirection “think of the young people who can’t afford housing” trick… just ignore the not so young Chinese money launderers who have been scrambling to funnel billions in (mostly illegally obtained) funds into local real estate to avoid the ongoing, and accelerating, Chinese currency devaluation. As for “solving the problem”, we would say a 20% drop in one month has done a rather admirable job of just that

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-29/furious-chinese-envoy-slams-vancouver-real-estate-tax-local-housing-market-implodes?utm_content=buffer60dc7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

    It is worth to read all of the above article.

  12. Migrants in Calais turn violent as population rises (BBC, video, Sep 2, 2016)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37254135

    “Violent, desperate gangs and a rising tide of robberies, vandalism and assaults – that is the latest depiction of the camp known as the Jungle on the edge of the northern French port of Calais.But, according to the French interior minister, the camp will be gradually dismantled, with accommodation provided elsewhere in France to unblock Calais.Gavin Lee reports.”

  13. Enjoying your European vacation? Tourists visiting Lake Como are forced to step over migrants at the train station rather than mingle with the Clooneys as up to 500 are sent back to Italy from Switzerland

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3768919/Tourists-forced-step-migrants-picturesque-Lake-Como-s-train-station-500-sent-Italy-Switzerland.html#ixzz4J6hGZnZr
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

    They came for an idyllic getaway in Italy’s picturesque Lake Como where A-list stars such as George Clooney own property.

    But tourists may have been shocked to find that the northern Italian town was not just busy with sun seekers this August – it’s also become a temporary home for up to 500 migrants who’ve been turned away from Switzerland.

    Covering the path outside Lake Como’s train station are sleeping bags and the few possessions belonging to the refugees.

    Tourists are pictured sitting alongside the migrants’ makeshift beds with their luggage as they wait for trains.

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3768919/Tourists-forced-step-migrants-picturesque-Lake-Como-s-train-station-500-sent-Italy-Switzerland.html#ixzz4J6hV9x2G
    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

  14. Jack Ma: Wars start when trade stops

    Jack Ma has a warning for those who see globalization as a problem: When trade stops, wars can follow.

    “We should keep on going along the path of globalization,” Ma said Friday in Hangzhou, China. “Globalization is good… when trade stops, war comes.”

    The executive chairman of Alibaba (BABA, Tech30) said he hopes the anti-globalization fervor that currently grips much of the world will ease after U.S. elections in November. China, in particular, has been a target of heated rhetoric.

    “Every time there’s an election, people start to criticize China. They criticize this, they criticize that,” Ma told CNN’s Andrew Stevens. “[But] how can you stop global trade? How can you build a wall to stop the trade?”

    http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/02/technology/jack-ma-alibaba-g20/index.html

    • As Pat Buchanon points out, the superpower PRC is the direct result of the hollowing out of American industry in favor of cheap labor abroad and cheap labor H-1Bs & worker ant/drones from South of the Border. Forcing economic activity back into the US via new trade & economic policies aka “American System” will have unforeseen effects upon the ChiMerica economic axis that has come about in the 30 years due to Corporate America not thinking America First.

      • What isn’t mentioned in that argument is the way the Unions had pushed the hourly wage so high that to make a profit (usually about 7% after taxes) the companies had to raise their prices so high the number of sales was dropping. The Union involvement in the job movement isn’t mentioned since it makes them and not the companies the villains. FYI when a companies profit margin drops below 5% after taxes the investors leave sell their stock and move it to a different company.

  15. Yes and no, trade is fine, the worlds economy has been based on international trade for an incredibly long time. Columbus was trying to find a quicker route to the Far East when he stumbled on the Americas. Globalization of trade will always exist, what people are objecting to is the forced unlimited migration that is destroying Western cultures, a fact that the left is well aware of, not that they will admit this. For all of my life the left has warned about the forced destruction of the foreign cultures by the “Ugly American” and many are probably thinking that what is happening with the Islamic invasion is simiply justice fur us working to spread the rule of law and not man.

  16. Chinese government flexes muscles with Uber, DreamWorks probes

    SHANGHAI/HONG KONG (Reuters) – The Chinese government said on Friday it was investigating two high-profile takeover proposals involving U.S. companies, the latest sign of its growing influence on whether deals are approved – even those appearing to have little impact in China.

    The Ministry of Commerce said at a briefing on Friday it was probing ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing’s planned acquisition of U.S. rival Uber Technologies Inc’s China unit and Comcast Corp’s proposed purchase of movie studio DreamWorks Animation.

    The scrutiny, announced the day before world leaders descend on China’s eastern city of Hangzhou for a meeting of the G20, underscores the ministry’s increasingly tough stance on companies that strike deals without seeking its approval.

    There had not been a filing for the Didi-Uber deal, the ministry said last month. Comcast already said it had completed the deal for DreamWorks, which may indicate it didn’t think it needed to wait for Chinese approval.

    The ministry requires companies to notify it of transactions before they close if those merging have combined global turnover in the previous year exceeding 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) or their combined China income exceeds 2 billion yuan.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinese-government-flexes-muscles-uber-dreamworks-probes-124042976–finance.html

    • This one bothers me, especially the comcast dreamworks deal, this doesn’t have very much impact on China and they shouldn’t have any say on the merger. It looks to me like they are trying to gain control of international trade by forcing every merger of sale to be approved by the Chinese government. This would probably translate into bribing the right officials to get the deals approved. Where there is socialism there is corruption, look at the Clinton Crime Family for a real good example.

        • Their screams sound like those of the Japanese in the early 90s, during the 80s they bought up US real estate like crazy and the predictions were that we would all end up working for the Japanese. Real Estate prices dropped and they were stuck with loans on property that were no longer worth what was owed (they were underwater). In Japan and China property values never officially drop and the people from those nations have trouble grasping the idea that over here land prices fluctuate.

        • The thing in that article that struck me was the fact that they are devaluing the Yuan. The Chinese have been playing international exchange games for a long time by keeping the Yuan pegged to the Dollar at a cheaper price then what reality said it was. This made their products cheaper and kept companies building things in China. Then unrest in the countryside required greater welfare payments and the Chinese government started requiring a higher percentage of the sales price for things made in China and exported. Companies started leaving China for Singapore and Malaysia. Now China is devaluing the Yuan trying to bring companies back to China.

          I doubt if the devaluation will work long term especially since their banks have such a high dollar amount of bad debts. The loans were often made to high ranking party members who then sent their kids and grandkids to western nations, they took the money with them (A lot of the money they are trying to launder) and have stayed over here. Other money is from the Triads and the investment managers are afraid the triad leaders will get mad.

  17. Putin Says DNC Hack Was a Public Service, Russia Didn’t Do It

    Vladimir Putin said the hacking of thousands of Democratic National Committee emails and documents was a service to the public, but denied U.S. accusations that Russia’s government had anything to do with it.

    “Listen, does it even matter who hacked this data?’’ Putin said in an interview at the Pacific port city of Vladivostok on Thursday. “The important thing is the content that was given to the public.’’

    U.S. officials blame hackers guided by the Russian government for the attacks on DNC servers earlier this year that resulted in WikiLeaks publishing about 20,000 private emails just before Hillary Clinton’s nominating convention in July. The documents showed attempts by party officials to undermine her chief Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders, and led to the resignation of the head of the DNC, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-09-02/putin-says-dnc-hack-was-a-public-good-but-russia-didn-t-do-it

    • New York Times launches McCarthyite witch-hunt against Julian Assange

      The New York Times Thursday published an article entitled “How Russia Often Benefits When Julian Assange Reveals the West’s Secrets.” The 5,000-word piece, covering three columns of the top half of its front page, boasts three bylines. Presented as a major investigative news article, it is a piece of pro-government propaganda, whose style and outright character assassination against the WikiLeaks founder seems to have been cribbed from the vilest McCarthyite smear jobs of the 1950s.

      Stringing together half-truths, innuendos, totally unsubstantiated assertions presented as facts and vicious ad hominem attacks on a man who has been persecuted and is effectively imprisoned because of his exposures of the crimes of US imperialism, the article has essentially three related purposes.

      The first is to brand Assange as a “dupe” if not outright agent of the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

      The second is to discredit in advance any forthcoming information from WikiLeaks exposing the sordid and potentially indictable activities of the favored presidential candidate of both the Times and the US military and intelligence complex, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

      And the third and most essential is to advance the relentless propaganda campaign mounted by the New York Times to prepare public opinion for military confrontation with Russia and intimidate and undermine the broad popular opposition of the American people to war.[…]

      […]The other noteworthy byline is that of Steven Erlanger, the newspaper’s London bureau chief and a 30-year veteran of the Times. In addition to his reporting duties, Erlanger serves as a governor of the Ditchley Foundation, which organizes Bilderberg-style, closed-door conferences of top state officials and big business figures to discuss strategic issues of concern to US and British imperialism. Other governors include the former head of MI6, the British secret intelligence service, various bank chiefs and the senior director of Goldman Sachs. Honorary governors include former Tory prime ministers David Cameron and John Major. The chairman of the group is Lord (George Islay MacNeill) Robertson, a senior advisor to BP and former secretary general of NATO.

      In the kind of secret talks held by the Ditchley Foundation, the subject of how best to dispose of Julian Assange would certainly not be out of place.

      That such “journalists” should sit in judgment of Assange, after indicting him, based on no evidence, as an asset of the Kremlin, is an obscenity. Their entire article stands as a devastating self-exposure of an American media that functions as a quasi-official state propaganda organ, mobilized in the buildup to war and in which outright intelligence agents play a decisive role.

      http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/09/02/wiki-s02.html

      • I see that the facts of history are still ignored, McCarthy didn’t smear anyone, the Verona intercepts and the KGB files released after the fall of the Soviet Union prove that everyone McCarthy said was a communist agent really was a communist agent. And no he didn’t say the the newsman Murrow was a communist, he said that one of his sources was a communist agent.

        Having defended the facts of history let me say that anyone who believes the NY Times without out at least 4 other sources (not other liberal outlets) are incredibly naive.

  18. FBI found extensive evidence Hillary emails violated federal records laws

    Though it was not their primary mission, FBI agents who investigated Hillary Clinton’s email collected significant evidence suggesting she and her team violated federal record-keeping laws, including persisting to use a private Blackberry and server to conduct State Department business after being warned they posed legal and security risks, government sources tell Circa.The evidence was compelling enough to convince FBI Director James Comey that the Clinton team had not complied with record-keeping laws and to cause at least one witness to raise their Fifth Amendment

    http://circa.com/politics/accountability/fbis-hillary-clinton-email-probe-found-evidence-of-effort-to-evade-federal-records-law

  19. Security robots are already patrolling parking lots; next, our neighborhoods

    William Santana Li imagines a future where robots will keep Americans safe.

    Communities, he dreams, will take security into their own hands by investing in wheeled machines that patrol streets, sidewalks and schools — instantly alerting residents via a mobile app of intruders or criminal behavior.

    “What if we could crowd-source security?” said Li, co-founder and chief executive of a robotics company, Knightscope, that hopes to eventually do just that.

    His question is like many posed by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs seeking to modernize, privatize and monetize services once entrusted to the government — and it’s one that has intrigued venture capitalists who have pumped $14 million into his start-up.

    http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-robots-retail-20160823-snap-story.html

  20. Turkey pushes west in offensive against Islamic State in Syria

    ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey renewed air strikes on Islamic State sites in Syria on Friday, extending operations along a 90-km (56-mile) corridor near the Turkish border which Ankara says it is clearing of jihadists and protecting from Kurdish militia expansion.

    Turkey’s 10-day-old offensive, its first major incursion into Syria since the war started five years ago, has alarmed the West.

    The United States has voiced concerns about Turkish strikes on Kurdish-aligned groups that Washington has backed in its battle against Islamic State. Germany said it did not want to see a lasting Turkish presence in an already tangled conflict.

    Turkey has said it has no plans to stay in Syria and simply aims to protect its frontier from Islamic State and the Kurdish YPG militia, which it sees as an extension of the outlawed Kurdish PKK group fighting an insurgency on Turkish soil.

    “Nobody can expect us to allow a terror corridor on our southern border,” President Tayyip Erdogan told a news conference.

    Washington says Turkish action aimed at the YPG, part of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition, risked undermining the broader goal of ridding Syria of Islamic State, which has attacked Western and Turkish targets.

    http://www.oann.com/turkey-has-cleared-islamic-state-kurdish-force-from-area-of-north-syria-president/

  21. China criticizes U.S. case against ex-Air China worker

    BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Foreign Ministry on Friday criticized the U.S. indictment of an ex-Air China Ltd employee for smuggling packages on behalf of Chinese military personnel stationed at China’s U.N. mission in New York.

    Ying Lin, 46, a resident of New York’s Queens borough, was previously arrested in August 2015 and charged for structuring financial transactions. She pleaded not guilty.

    The new indictment alleged Lin, while working for Air China at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, helped smuggle packages onto flights from Chinese military officers at its U.N. mission and employees at China’s consulate.

    In return, Lin received discounted liquor from diplomatic duty-free shops and tax-exempt electronic device purchases, prosecutors said.

    http://www.oann.com/china-criticizes-u-s-case-against-ex-air-china-worker/

    • I wonder what items were being transported. I met a guy years back who was trying to sell PVS-7 Night Vision to a PRC state railroad agency but the US government refused to approve it.

  22. Mass panic as hundreds flee train station over fears of terror attack in Barcelona (express, Sep 1, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/706692/Mass-panic-as-hundreds-flee-train-station-over-fears-of-terror-attack-in-Barcelona

    “TERRIFIED passengers caused a mass stampede in Barcelona where people were running for their lives following fears over a terror attack.

    An incident at the Sagrera station in Barcelona caused complete panic among passengers at a time when terror fears are running extremely high across Europe.

    Passengers, who are on high alert following a string of attacks across the continent, thought that the fight was terror-related.

    The chaotic scene was captured on a journalist’s mobile phone, who filmed hundreds of people running away from the platform even jumping over turnstiles to escape what they thought was a deadly terrorist attack.

    The passengers were screaming in fear of what they thought could be happening.

    According to the Spanish transport authorities, the chaos began when someone, probably drunk, shouted at other passengers…”

  23. Uzbek President Karimov has died: diplomatic sources

    ALMATY (Reuters) – Uzbek President Islam Karimov has died aged 78 after suffering a stroke, three diplomatic sources told Reuters on Friday, leaving no obvious successor to take over the Central Asian nation.

    The Uzbek government did not immediately confirm the reports. Earlier on Friday it said the health of Karimov, who has been in hospital since last Saturday, had sharply deteriorated.

    Long criticized by the West and human rights groups for his authoritarian style of leadership, Karimov had ruled Uzbekistan since 1989, first as the head of the local Communist Party and then as president of the newly independent republic from 1991.

    “Yes, he has died,” one of the diplomatic sources said when asked about Karimov’s condition.

    Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim became the first foreign leader to offer condolences over the death of Karimov. The two countries have close ethnic, cultural and linguistic ties.

    Karimov did not designate a successor and analysts say the transition of power is likely to be decided behind closed doors by a small group of senior officials and family members.

    If they fail to agree on a compromise, however, open confrontation could destabilize Uzbekistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan and has become a target for Islamist militants.

    Uzbekistan is a major cotton exporter and is also rich in gold and natural gas.

    http://www.oann.com/uzbek-president-karimov-dies-diplomatic-sources/

    • The Jihadis haven’t been active in that region yet, with the death of the strong man leader this may change. Especially if there is much of an internal struggle over who is to take over.

  24. Germany: Steinmeier says Bundestag’s Armenian genocide motion not legally binding

    German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier stressed that the German parliamentary resolution defining the Turkish massacre of Armenians in 1915 as genocide was not necessarily legally binding. The minister made the statement during a presser with Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg after their meeting in Berlin, Thursday.

    SOT, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German Foreign Minister (German): “When it comes to relations with Turkey, I have to explain that at the moment there are many fields of friction. Not only since the attempted coup took place, and the aftermath of this that is currently taking place in Turkey, there was some friction before as well, and some new fields have opened up. It is of course the task of foreign policy to reduce the fields of friction where ever they exist and to try and find possibilities of maintaining relations with Turkey and this with perspective for the future.”

    SOT, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German Foreign Minister (German): “Yesterday we discussed with Turkey the respect of the agreement on refugees as well as many other issues. Amongst them, the resolution of the German Parliament and it’s binding character. The German Parliament has voiced an opinion on this itself many times – firstly the German Parliament has the right and the freedom to express itself on political issues. But the Parliament also states itself that not every resolution has legally binding character.”

  25. Tensions rise in Germany’s Turkish diaspora, mirroring splits in Turkey

    BERLIN/COLOGNE, Germany (Reuters) – Ercan Karakoyun has long played a prominent role in Berlin’s Turkish community, promoting education and dialogue among Muslims and Germans of other faiths.

    Now, however, whenever he can, Karakoyun avoids the bustling streets where many Turks live in the German capital. He says he has received six death threats via email and Facebook that are being investigated by police.

    “One message said: ‘We know where your daughter goes to school’,” he added.

    Karakoyun heads the Foundation for Dialogue and Education in Germany, a movement that supports Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based cleric Turkey blames for July’s attempted coup.

    The group has been active in Germany for many years, operating 150 tutoring centers in the country, 30 government-recognized schools and a dozen interfaith dialogue projects. It has long been seen as a moderate Islamic group although it has faced criticism over a lack of transparency.

    http://www.oann.com/tensions-rise-in-germanys-turkish-diaspora-mirroring-splits-in-turkey/

  26. Here is one for the stupid liberal files:

    Liberal activists organize petition to ban fracking in Florida … just one problem

    More than hundred Florida political candidates have signed on to environmentalists’ petition calling for a statewide ban of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking … despite the fact there’s no actual fracking occurring in the state.

    “The bottom line is that there’s no fracking in Florida. The geology of the state doesn’t work for it,” Dave Quast, Florida Director of pro-energy industry group Energy In Depth, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

    Environmentalists in the group Floridians Against Fracking (FAF) claim that fracking is radioactive, highly toxic, causes earthquakes, and leads to droughts. But their petition mainly focuses on alleged risks of groundwater contamination and damage to the state’s air quality. FAF did not return requests for comment.

    “I think what we’ve been seeing pretty consistently is that green attempts to ban fracking fail spectacular when they try to do it in places that actually have fracking,” Quast said. “Fear-mongering and scaring people about threats that don’t exist is the environmentalist business model.”

    A five-year long study by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that fracking has “not led to widespread, systemic impacts to drinking water resources.” The idea fracking can contaminate aquifers defies “basic geology [which] prevents such contamination from starting below ground,”according to the science magazine Popular Mechanics.

    http://libertyunyielding.com/2016/09/02/liberal-activists-organize-petition-ban-fracking-florida-just-one-problem/

    I don’t know if the protesters are as stupid as they seem or if they think we are that stupid. I do know that all of the studies done including those done by groups t hat are skeptical about fracking say it doesn’t harm the enviorment.

  27. Belgium arrests ‘watch list’ Frenchman, finds photos of Brussels airport taken before March attack (RT, Sep 2, 2016)
    https://www.rt.com/news/358058-brussels-attack-photos-suspect/

    “The laptop of a French citizen arrested in Belgium has been found to contain pictures of Brussels Zaventem Airport taken before the terrorist attacks there in March, local media revealed.

    The man, identified as Omar B, 24, a resident of the Val-de-Marne deportment in central France, was arrested in Brussels Zaventem Airport on Wednesday, French TV channel M6 Info reports.

    The suspect was wearing an electronic bracelet, apparently because he was on the “Fiche S” list, an indicator used by France to flag those considered to be a threat to national security. Those on the list are not arrested, but are thoroughly monitored by the authorities….”

  28. The Veil Erases the Woman and Her Mind

    Jordanian Author Zulaikha Aburisha: The Veil Effaces (Erases) the Woman and Her Mind

    In a TV interview, Jordanian author Zulaikha Aburisha said that there is no consensus about the woman’s hijab among jurisprudents and that the niqab “effaces the woman and her mind.”

    Speaking on the A1 Jordan TV channel on March 10, she said that “the writing off of women, their effacement, the insistence upon covering women with veils, and the focus on the details of their body… are all manifestations of the sexual inhibitions experienced by our Arab societies.”

    • Morano: “Celle qui porte un voile intégral et qui récidive, je lui supprimerai les allocations”

    • BREITBART – German Mayor Apologises After Posting Picture Of Cucumber That ‘Looks Like Burka’

      A German mayor and member of Angela Merkel’s conservative party has been forced to apologise after posting a picture of a cucumber which looks like an Islamic burka on Facebook.

      The image was captioned ‘Gurka’ – a play on the German word ‘gurke’, meaning cucumber.

      “It was a humorous post, no more, no less. Perhaps the timing of the post yesterday was unfortunate. But I still find it amusing,” insisted Mayor Simone Stein-Luecke (pictured left).

      http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/09/02/german-mayor-apologises-saudi-funded-jihadi-school-gurka-photo/

  29. Swiss politician arrested for helping 4 refugee children illegally enter the country (RT, Sep 2, 2016)
    https://www.rt.com/news/358029-swiss-politician-arrested-migrants/

    “A Swiss politician was arrested after she helped four African children enter Switzerland illegally. Her actions were supported by a number of politicians and social media users who called her “Mother Teresa” and “a politician with a heart.”

    Lisa Bosia Mirra, a politician from the Socialist party in the parliament of Ticino canton, southern Switzerland, was arrested on Thursday and charged with illegally smuggling migrants, police said.

    She was detained at an unguarded border point in the Stabio municipality along with a 53-year-old man from the canton of Bern.

    The man was “driving a van with Bern license plates containing four minor African migrants,” police said.

    The 43-year-old politician was soon released but police said she is “still under investigation for breach of the Foreigners Act, in particular aiding and abetting illegal entry.” The man who accompanied her remains in custody.

    Mirra has been critical of Switzerland’s policy towards refugees, according to Ticino newspapers and her Facebook page. She is reportedly a founder of the Firdaus Association, which aims to raise funds for migrants.

    She also works at SOS Ticino, a humanitarian nonprofit organization which covers such areas as unemployment and migration…”

  30. Muslim family ‘treated like aliens, branded terrorists’ on trip to English seaside town (RT, Sep 2, 2016)
    https://www.rt.com/uk/357915-muslim-terrorists-tell-mama/

    “A Muslim family say they were accused of being terrorists and stared at as if they were “some kind of aliens” while on holiday at the Lincolnshire seaside town of Skegness.

    The group of 12, seven of whom were wearing hijabs, visited the town for the first time last week and say they will not be returning.

    One woman reported her experiences to Tell MAMA, an organization that records Islamophobic hate crimes in the UK.

    “Once we reached the main area where there were shops, we noticed a lot of people just staring at us as if we were some form of aliens. It didn’t really bother us until we walked past the pub and a man shouted ‘terrorists,’” she said.

    “As we went to the beach again, a lot of people continuously stared at us. We just smiled back, but it made us think how ignorant these people are.

    “We then went to buy some seaside ‘rock’ and the lady at the shop said, ‘Don’t you get hot in them?’ referring to our hijabs. My sister replied ‘no’ and [said] they were not that thick and showed her the material of her hijab. She did not say anything after that and we left the shop.”

    She added: “It really made us sad and made us miss the area we are from and also made us reflect on how different people are in England. It opened my eyes to the nasty comments Muslims get.”

    Tell MAMA told local media it is concerned about the way the family was treated…”

  31. Droves of African Migrants in Mexico Awaiting U.S. Asylum Under Secret Pact

    Herds of African immigrants are being housed in shelters in the Mexican border town of Tijuana while they await entry into the United States under what appears to be a secret accord between the Obama administration, Mexico and the Central American countries the Africans transited on their journey north. A backlog of African migrants is overwhelming limited shelter space in Tijuana and Mexican officials blame the slow pace of U.S. immigration authorities in the San Isidro port of entry for granting only 50 asylum solicitations daily.

    Details about this disturbing program come from Mexico’s immigration agency, Instituto Nacional de Migracion (INM), and appear this week in an article published by the country’s largest newspaper. “Mexico is living through a wave of undocumented Africans, due to a humanitarian crisis on that continent, that has saturated shelters in Tapachula, Chiapas, and generated pressure on shelters in Tijuana, Baja California,” the news article states. The African migrants’ journey begins in Brazil under a South American policy that allows the “free transit” of immigrants throughout the continent. Ecuador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama facilitate the process by transferring the concentration of foreigners towards Mexico based on an agreement that Mexico will help them gain entry into the U.S. so they can solicit asylum.

    The Africans are mostly entering Mexico through the southern state of Chiapas, which borders Guatemala. This week alone 424 Africans arrived at the Chiapas immigration station, which is situated in Tapachula. Shelters in Tijuana currently have 154 migrants from African countries waiting on their U.S. asylum solicitations, according to figures provided by the INM. “The undocumented don’t want to stay in Mexico,” the news article clarifies. “They want to make it to U.S. territory to solicit asylum based on the life conditions that prevail in the continent.” Authorities in Tijuana are offering support to migrants from El Congo, Somalia, Ghana and Pakistan to facilitate entering the U.S. through the San Isidro crossing, according to the news story. San Isidro is the largest land border crossing between San Diego, California and Tijuana.

    The Obama administration has done a great job of promoting its various back-door amnesty programs, which include perpetually extending a humanitarian measure designed to temporarily shield illegal immigrants from deportation during emergencies. It’s known as Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and in the last few years migrants from several African countries have received it so the new influx is not all surprising. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone got TPS back in 2014 over the lingering effects of the Ebola Virus and earlier this year Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson extended it. The administration cited the “continued recovery challenges” the African countries face for the extension.

    Last summer Johnson extended a TPS for Somalians until March 17, 2017, which could have served as a driving force behind the sudden surge via Latin America. A notice in the Federal Register says the extension was warranted because the conditions in Somalia that prompted the TPS designation continue to be met. “There continues to be a substantial, but temporary, disruption of living conditions in Somalia due to ongoing armed conflict that would pose a serious threat to the personal safety of returning Somali nationals, as well as extraordinary and temporary conditions in the country that prevent Somali nationals from returning to Somalia in safety,” the notice states. “The Secretary has also determined that permitting eligible Somali nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is not contrary to the national interest of the United States.”

    https://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2016/09/droves-african-migrants-mexico-awaiting-u-s-asylum-secret-pact/

  32. WaPo – FBI releases Hillary Clinton email investigation documents

    The FBI on Friday released a detailed report on its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, as well as what appears to be a summary of her interview with agents, providing the most thorough look yet at the probe that has dogged the campaign of the Democratic presidential nominee.

    The documents released total 58 pages, though large portions and sometimes entire pages are redacted.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-releases-hillary-clinton-email-investigation-documents/2016/09/02/21bd3682-704c-11e6-8365-b19e428a975e_story.html

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

    Hillary R. Clinton

    Hillary Rodham Clinton served as U.S. Secretary of State from January 21, 2009 to February 1, 2013. The FBI conducted an investigation into allegations that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on a personal e-mail server she used during her tenure.

    https://vault.fbi.gov/hillary-r.-clinton

    • Hillary Clinton’s Team Lost a Laptop Full of Her Emails in the Actual Mail

      A laptop filled with Hillary Clinton’s emails is missing, the FBI just revealed. It makes the stink around Hillary’s private account even worse.

      A laptop containing a copy, or “archive,” of the emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server was apparently lost—in the postal mail—according to an FBI report released Friday. Along with it, a thumb drive that also contained an archive of Clinton’s emails has been lost and is not in the FBI’s possession.

      The Donald Trump campaign has already called for Clinton to be “locked up” for her carelessness handling sensitive information. The missing laptop and thumb drive raise a new possibility that Clinton’s emails could have been obtained by people for whom they weren’t intended. The FBI director has already said it’s possible Clinton’s email system could have been remotely accessed by foreign hackers.

      The revelation of the two archives is contained in a detailed report about the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s private email account. The report contained new information about how the archives were handled, as well as how a private company deleted emails in its possession, at the same time that congressional investigators were demanding copies.

      The archives on the laptop and thumbdrive were constructed by Clinton aides in 2013, using a convoluted process, before her emails were turned over to State Department officials and later scrubbed to determine which ones had classified information and should either be withheld from public view or could be released with redactions. The archive of messages would contain none of those safeguards, potentially exposing classified information if it were ever opened and its contents read.

      The FBI has found that Clinton’s emails contained classified information, including information derived from U.S. intelligence. Her campaign has disputed the classification of some of the emails.

      The archive was created nearly a year before the State Department contacted former secretaries of state and asked them to turn over any emails that they had sent using private accounts that pertained to official business. A senior Clinton aide, Huma Abedin, told the FBI that the archive on the laptop and thumb drive were meant to be “a reference for the future production of a book,” according to the FBI report. Another aide, however, said that the archive was set up after the email account of a Clinton confidante and longtime adviser, Sidney Blumenthal, was compromised by a Romanian hacker.

      Whatever the rationale, the transfer of Clinton’s emails onto two new storage devices, one of which was shipped twice, created new opportunities for messages to be lost or exposed to people who weren’t authorized to see them, according to the FBI report. (The Clinton campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request to comment for this story.)

      The FBI found that in the spring of 2013, just after Clinton left the Obama administration, aides for Hillary and Bill Clinton worked together to create the archive.

      Justin Cooper, who handled technology matters for the former president, provided Hillary Clinton aide Monica Hanley with an Apple MacBook laptop from the Clinton Foundation. Over the phone, Cooper “walked Hanley through the process of remotely transferring Clinton’s emails” from the server she’d been using as secretary of state, located in her home in New York, to the new “Archive Laptop,” as the FBI called it, as well as to the thumb drive.

      “Hanley completed this task from her personal residence,” the FBI found.

      The two copies of the Clinton email archive were supposed to be stored in Clinton’s homes, in New York and Washington, DC. But, Hanley later told the FBI, that never happened, because she “forgot to provide the Archive Laptop and the thumb drive to Clinton’s staff following the creation of the archive.”

      According to the FBI, months later, in early 2014, Hanley found the “Archive Laptop” at her personal residence and worked with another person to transfer the the emails to a technology company, Platte River Networks, which the Clintons had hired to manage the email system. (The name of the person helping Hanley is redacted in the FBI report, but appears to be an employee of Platte River Networks.)

      After trying unsuccessfully to remotely transfer the emails to a Platte River server, Hanley shipped the laptop to the employee’s home in February 2014. He then “migrated Clinton’s emails” from the laptop to a Platte River server.

      That task was hardly straightforward, however, and ended up exposing the email archive yet again, this time to another commercial email service.

      The employee “transferred all of the Clinton e-mail content to a personal Google e-mail (Gmail) address he created,” the FBI found. From that Gmail address, he downloaded the emails into a mailbox named “HRC Archive” on the Platte River server.
      Hanley told the FBI that she recommended Platte River “wipe the Archive Laptop” after the emails were transferred onto the company’s server. But the employee told investigators that while he deleted the emails from the laptop, he did not “wipe” it.

      Emails deleted from an application might not be permanently erased. In fact, the FBI found nearly 15,000 emails that Clinton never turned over to the State Department, some of which had been deleted over time and were never found by Clinton’s lawyers. They ended up, among other places, in the “slack space” of servers Clinton had used, according to FBI Director James Comey.

      The Platte River employee told the FBI that he deleted the emails from the Gmail account, but that turned out not to be entirely true. Investigators later found 940 emails sent or received in 2010 that, as of this past June, were still in the account. The FBI found that 56 of them have been identified as being currently classified at the “confidential” level.

      After the employee deleted emails from the “Archive Laptop,” he shipped it by U.S. mail or UPS (he apparently couldn’t remember) to an unidentified Clinton aide at an office location. (The precise address is redacted.)

      But that aide never received the laptop. She told the FBI that “Clinton’s staff was moving offices at the time, and it would have been easy for the package to get lost during the transition period.”

      The thumb drive containing the second copy of the archive also was never found.

      “Neither Hanley nor [the Platte River employee] could identify the current whereabouts of the Archive Laptop or the thumb drive containing the archive, and the FBI does not have either item in its possession,” the FBI report stated.

      The FBI’s inspection of the Gmail account used to shuttle Clinton’s emails also turned up other concerns. Of the 940 emails still in the account, 302 “were not found in the set of e-mails” that Clinton eventually turned over to the State Department in December 2014, following the request that former secretaries produce their emails. Those may be some of the 15,000 emails that the FBI later discovered.

      The FBI also found other instances in which Clinton emails were intentionally deleted. In or around December 2014 or January 2015, two of Clinton’s lawyers—Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson—decided they wanted to remove copies of Clinton’s emails on their own laptops. The copies has been placed there months earlier during a remote transfer from Platte River.

      The FBI found that an unidentified individual (who again appears to be the Platte River employee) used a program called BleachBit “to delete e-mail related files so they could not be recovered.” The employee also told the FBI that an “unknown Clinton staff member” directed him to remove a backup file of the emails on the Platte River server. It’s not clear from the FBI report who that Clinton staffer was and why he, or she, decided to remove the backup, known as a .pst file, from the company’s server.

      But after Clinton turned over copies of her email to the State Department, at the end of 2014, Mills decided to implement a new policy for keeping emails in the future.

      According to Mills, who had also been Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department, in December 2014, “Clinton decided she no longer needed access to any of her e-mails older than 60 days,” the FBI found. “Therefore, Mills instructed [the Platte River empoyee] to modify the e-mail retention policy on Clinton’s clintonemail.com e-mail account to reflect this change.”

      But the Platte River employee didn’t make that change until the following March. Near the end of the month, in an “‘oh shit’ moment,” he told the FBI, he realized he’d forgotten to put the 60-day policy into effect. He then deleted the Clinton archive from the Platte River server and used BleachBit to delete any .pst file he had created containing Clinton’s emails. The FBI also found evidence that an alternate cloud backup had been manually deleted during the same timeframe.

      This was not the best time to be erasing copies of Clinton’s emails. Earlier that month, the New York Times had first revealed that Clinton used a private server, and her email practices became a controversy that has dogged her campaign ever since. At the time, Clinton sought to downplay the issue, telling reporters in remarks at the United Nations,“I did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. So I’m certainly well-aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material.”

      But Clinton was under intense pressure to produce copies of her emails and prove she had never sent or received classified information; a claim that she frequently repeated but was later eviscerated by the FBI’s investigation.

      But lawmakers were also curious about Clinton’s email system. The day after the Times story ran, the House committee investigating the 2010 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, asked Clinton’s lawyers to produce all emails related to her private accounts. And a week later, on March 9, Mills sent an email to the Platte River employee referencing that request.

      The FBI appears to have investigated the question of whether the employee was directed to delete emails after the committee asked for them. Investigators discovered a “work ticket, which referenced a conference call on March 31, 2015, with Platte River, Mills, and David Kendall, Clinton’s longtime attorney who oversaw the process of separating her work emails from personal messages. It was Kendall’s firm, Williams & Connolly, that the Benghazi committee contacted when it wanted those official emails.

      Platte River’s attorney advised the employee “not to comment on the conversation with Kendal based upon the assertion of the attorney-client privilege,” the FBI found.

      Mills told the FBI “she was unaware that [the employee] had conducted these deletions and modifications in March 2015.” Clinton stated “she was also unaware” of the deletions.

      But what exactly was discussed in that conference call, the FBI never found out.

      http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/02/hillary-clinton-s-team-lost-a-laptop-full-of-her-emails-in-the-actual-mail.html

  33. Migrant crisis: Hungary police recruit ‘border-hunters’ (BBC, Sep 2, 2016)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37259857

    “The Hungarian police are advertising for 3,000 “border-hunters”, who will reinforce up to 10,000 police and soldiers patrolling a razor-wire fence built to keep migrants out.

    The new recruits, like existing officers, will carry pistols with live ammunition, and have pepper spray, batons, handcuffs and protective kit.

    The number of migrants reaching Hungary’s southern border with Serbia has stagnated, at fewer than 200 daily.

    The new guards will start work in May.

    The recruits will have six months’ training, they must be over 18, physically fit and must pass a psychological test, police officer Zsolt Pozsgai told Hungarian state television.

    Monthly pay will be 150,000 forint (£406; $542) for the first two months, then 220,300 forint.

    Hungary is in the grip of a massive publicity campaign, launched by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s right-wing government ahead of a 2 October referendum.

    Voters will be asked to oppose a European Commission proposal to relocate 160,000 refugees more fairly across the 28-nation EU…”

  34. Italy will pay millions of teens ‘culture bonus’ to reject terrorism: ‘We love art’

    Italian politicians have a new plan to combat the threat of terrorism as refugees flood its borders: $500 “culture bonuses.”

    The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that over 150,000 refugees arrived in Italy by sea in 2015 and another 115,000 thus far in 2016. The Italian government says it will counter the cultural changes that new arrivals bring by offering more than a half-million 18-year-olds vouchers for movies, concerts and trips to museums.

    Tommaso Nannicini, the official in charge of the program, said this week that teenagers will be sent “a message” that culture is “crucial,” The Washington Post reported Wednesday. The program will run through 2017.

    “[Islamic radicals] imagine terror, we answer with culture. They destroy statues, we love art. They destroy books, we are the country of libraries,” Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said last year when the policy was announced, the newspaper reported.

    Roughly 20 percent of Italy’s new immigrants come from Nigeria, with others flowing in from places such as Sudan, Somalia and Mali. Officials expect to spend $300 million on the program depending on the numbers of eligible citizens who apply. The bonuses are technically available to all 18-year-old European Union citizens living in Italy.

    “It is hard to say what is the best approach. But what we can say is what is the wrong one: a spying system that stigmatizes and excludes people,” Maina Kiai, the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, said during a recent forum on countering extremism, The Post reported.

    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/1/italy-will-pay-millions-of-teens-culture-bonus-to-/

    • If those people end up running to either Canada or the US please give them an IQ test before even thinking about letting them in.

  35. Clergy in Britain Advised Not to Wear Collars in Public
    The advice comes as counter-terror experts in the UK warn that churches are ISIS’ new prime target and that an attack on a church ‘is coming.’

    Vicars in Britain have now been advised not to wear their collars in public to avoid being targeted by an Islamist terrorist.

    Other new security measures recommended include stationing a security guard outside churches, installing CCTV cameras and having vicars carry personal attack alarms.

    The guidelines, issued by National Churchwatch in a 12-page document, say that smaller churches in rural areas have an increased risk. Churches are advised to make sure it’s doors can be bolted and that parishioners are educated to be alert to any suspicious happenings.

    One vicar, who spoke anonymously to the Daily Mail, said “I’ve also been told not to be alone in the church but it would cost too much to pay someone to come with me to open up each day.”

    The UK recently announced that it was allocating £2.4million ($3.2 million) to increase safety in all places of worship.

    https://www.clarionproject.org/news/clergy-britain-advised-not-wear-collars-public

  36. Islamist Abuse and Bullying Tactics: Foul Play in the West
    Unable to win on the battlefield, Islamists are waging a psychological war in the West using tactics right out of the bullying playbook.

    “Bullies know that the key to dominion always lies in the first conciliating act of submission.” –Bret Stephens, Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and foreign affairs editor of the Wall Street Journal.

    When Palestinian official Murad Al-Sudani called a booth for the upcoming Jerusalem Wine Festival an attack on Jerusalem’s Islamic heritage he knew exactly what he was doing.

    Al-Sudani, the registrar for the National Palestinian Committee for Education, Culture and Science blasted the upcoming erection of a booth for the Jerusalem wine festival at an upscale open air mall on the grounds that part of the mall is built on an old Palestinian cemetery.

    He asserted the site was of historical and religious significance since it contained the bones of some of Mohammed’s companions and accused Israel of attempting to “bury” the Muslim history of Jerusalem.

    Al-Sudani further termed the move “a dangerous escalating step” by Israel.

    Never mind that the mall is frequented by Jews, Arabs and tourists from around the world, or that restaurants and bars sell alcohol there regularly and have done for years.

    https://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/islamist-abuse-and-bullying-tactics-foul-play-west

  37. France Convenes Muslim Leaders for Talk on French Islam
    The French state has called together Muslim religious leaders to form an “Islam of France” which is compatible with French secular values.

    French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve convened a one-day conference of Muslim religious and civil society leaders to discuss the creation of an “Islam of France” in the wake of terror attacks this summer.

    Cazeneuve told the Catholic newspaper La Croix that Muslims must be “committed to a total defense of the Republic in the face of terrorism, in the face of Salafism.”

    Tensions between Muslims and broader society have risen recently after 30 beach towns banned the burkini, a modest swimming costume for Muslim women which resembles a wetsuit with a hood.

    France’s highest court, the Council of State overturned the ban on Friday. Cazeneuve described the burkini ban as “unconstitutional.”

    He called on Muslims to “continue to engage with us over gender equality, the inviolate nature of the principles of the French Republic, and tolerance in order to live together in peace.”

    The approach of engaging with the clerical leadership of a minority group in order to enforce French secular values are upheld by the minority community has been tried before in France when Napoleon sought to integrate France’s the Jewish population into the new-found Republic.

    https://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/france-convenes-muslim-leaders-talk-french-islam

  38. Philippines – DND tags Abu Sayyaf Group in Davao City blast

    The Department of National Defense has pointed to the Abu Sayyaf Group as the perpetrator of the deadly explosion that rocked Davao City on Friday night that left at least 12 people dead and at least 60 others injured.

    Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said he has ordered all the commands of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to be on high alert “especially in urban centers for possible other terroristic act attempts by this group.”

    Lorenzana indicated that the bandits launched the attack to get back in retaliation for the intensified operations ordered by President Rodrigo Duterte that the Armed Forces of the Philippines launched against the Abu Sayyaff over past week.

    “While nobody has come up to own the act we can only assume that this was perpetrated by the terrorist group Abu Sayaff that has suffered heavy casualties in Jolo in the past weeks,” Lorenzana said.

    “We have predicted this and has warned our troops accordingly but the enemy is also adept at using the democratic space granted by our constitution to move around freely and unimpeded to sow terror,” he added.

    Davao mayor

    Duterte had been mayor of Davao for most of the past two decades, before winning national elections in a landslide this year and being sworn in as president on June 30.

    Duterte became well known for bringing relative peace and order to Davao with hardline security policies, while also brokering local deals with Muslim and Communist rebels.

    However, in 2003, a bomb attack blamed on Muslim rebels at Davao airport killed more than 20 people.

    As president, Duterte quickly launched peace talks with the Communists, who last week agreed to an indefinite ceasefire.

    Duterte has also in recent weeks pursued peace talks with the two main Muslim rebel groups. Its leaders have said they want to broker a lasting peace.

    However, Duterte also ordered a military offensive against the Abu Sayyaf, a small but extremely dangerous group of militants that has declared allegiance to Islamic State and vowed to continue fighting.

    Fifteen soldiers died on Monday in clashes with the Abu Sayyaf on Jolo island, one of the Abu Sayyaf’s main strongholds about 900 kilometers from Davao.

    Suspected shrapnel

    Lorenzana said the Eastern Command in Davao City had been directed to assist the Philippine National Police in maintaining peace and order in the city and in the apprehension of the perpetrators.

    Army investigators have recovered a suspected shrapnel at the site of the blast.

    “They will also aid in gathering intelligence information and in conducting investigations to get to the bottom of this unfortunate incident,” Lorenzana said.

    Lorenzana asked the public “to remain calm but alert and vigilant, and cooperate with our security forces.”

    http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/579981/news/nation/dnd-tags-abu-sayyaf-group-in-davao-city-blast

    • President Duterte visits Davao blast site, declares ‘state of lawlessness’

      President Rodrigo Duterte visited early Saturday morning the Davao City site were an explosion killed some 12 a few hours and declared a “state of lawlessness” over the city.

      Duterte emphasized that the state of lawlessness had nothing to do with martial law, but was a heightened security footing in which searches would be conducted to flush out those responsible for the bombing and security checkpoints would be setup.

      The president also made it clear that citizen’s movements would not be controlled as this would be “fascistic.”

      Duterte added that Davao City was safe, and that the explosion was a police matter with investigators exploring several leads on who was behind the bombing.

      Duterte would not reveal any other details on the leads, though he did reveal that there had been a threat of reprisal from the Abu Sayyaf Group because of the military operations against the group. —

      http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/579984/news/nation/president-duterte-visits-davao-blast-site-declares-state-of-lawlessness

    • Duterte has no time to meet with UN chief

      He’s fully booked.

      President Duterte has turned down the request of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon for a meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Laos next week.

      The reason, Manila insisted, was not because Ban had earlier issued a strong statement of concern over the spate of drug-related killings in the Philippines since Duterte assumed power.

      Duterte has also questioned what he said was the UN’s silence on mass killings in other countries, and recently issued harsh words against the UN special rapporteur for human rights, who wants to visit the Philippines.

      Assistant Secretary Ma. Hellen dela Vega yesterday confirmed that the UN had requested for a meeting between Ban and Duterte. But she explained that the President’s schedule at the summit is tight and he cannot accommodate the request.

      About nine heads of state, including US President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin, have been scheduled so far for bilateral meetings with Duterte.

      “I think the President has a very tight schedule and there are very clear priorities,” Dela Vega said.

      Duterte challenges journalist

      Duterte remains unmoved by the growing international criticism of his bloody campaign against drugs.

      Yesterday, he invoked national sovereignty in his fight to rid the country of the drug menace.

      “I am the president of the Republic of the Philippines. And I must solve decisively this problem or else the 3.7 million (drug users) will compromise the next generation of Filipinos. That is the thing that worries me, not the international community. They can always talk and talk. I am invoking sovereignty. No interference. We never interfered in anybody’s business,” he said in a press conference in Davao City.

      Asked by Mathew Sullivan of National Public Radio in Washington if he was concerned about the clamor to address human rights violations, Duterte reiterated that there is a crisis that needs to be addressed to prevent drugs from destroying the next generation.

      “No, not at all. Not a bit because there is a crisis,” he said at a briefing last night during the inauguration of the Davao International Container Port.

      “I stake my life, my honor and the presidency, any time. Any time, they can impeach me. They can kill me. I am 71 years old. I have to protect the nation, with the sheer number of people (of drug users) without money,” he added.

      Duterte also challenged Sullivan to work in Davao to see for himself the peace and order situation in the city.

      In Manila, Duterte told Sullivan to just give him a call and he would have the journalist escorted to join anti-drug operations, to negate reports that police are violating human rights. “If you want, if there is an operation against drugs, you bring your camera and go with them, and you will see the truth,” Duterte said.

      He pointed out that in one region alone, there are 100 policemen in the drug pushers’ list with their brains shrunk by drug abuse.

      The President also noted that unlike the United States, which can afford to bring drug users to rehabilitation, the Philippine government does not have enough funds to address the magnitude of the crisis, with over 600,000 drug users so far surrendering to the police.

      “I said, do not f**k with me. Do not f**k with our children. We cannot afford the rehab centers of America given free. We do not even have the materials… Just don’t f**k with the next generation,” he added.

      Duterte almost lost his temper as his press briefing wound down and asked the audience to be quiet.

      “At the end of the day, you listen, do not let me shout, God damn it, I will shoot all of you. At the end of the day, it will be your love for your country and it will be for the generation of Filipinos,” he said.

      Anti-drug pamphlets

      At least 500 pamphlets explaining the anti-drug war of the Duterte administration will be distributed to journalists covering the 49th ASEAN summit in Laos next week.

      Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said the production of the 40-page pamphlet is an effort to make the international media “understand” the war on drugs that Duterte is waging.

      The pamphlet, entitled “Winning the First Phase of the Drug War,” was launched in Davao City yesterday. Abella and Communications Secretary Martin Andanar have yet to show a copy of the pamphlet to the President.

      Andanar said the pamphlet was Abella’s “baby,” following consultations with various groups and sectors.

      The pamphlet contains the following sections: Introduction, The Drug Menace, Drug-Affected Barangays, The Role of Local Government Units, Anti-Illegal Drugs Campaign of the Philippine National Police, Assessment by the PNP, and Conclusion.

      According to the pamphlet, there are 42,065 drug-affected barangays in the country.

      Also featured are statistics on shabu, cocaine and Ecstacy tablets seized by authorities as well as the number of extrajudicial killings and the number of policemen killed in the war on drugs.

      http://thephilippinestar.ph/articles/2016-09-03/news/duterte-has-no-time-to-meet-with-un-chief/166027

  39. SYRIA – Free Syrian Army claim to have downed Russian helicopter

    Jaish al-Izza have claimed to have downed a Russian helicopter near Khattab town in north Hama countryside with a US-supplied TOW missile.

    Jaish al-Izza are a Free Syrian Army group fighting with internationally designated terrorist groups like Jund al-Aqsa in northern Hama countryside against government forces.

    The group claimed to have hit the helicopter while it was landing at Khattab base.

    There have been no reported casualties so far and Russian officials are yet to make an announcement.

    https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/free-syrian-army-claim-downed-russian-helicopter/

  40. Migrants must END violence against women or face strict punishment, warns former minister (express, Sep 2, 2016)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/706795/Immigration-migrants-violence-women-punishment-Germany

    “IMMIGRANTS have been warned to end violence against women they deem “dishonourable” or face tough punishments under German law.

    As the nation marks a year since Chancellor Angela Merkel famously said “we can do this” over the influx of migrants, a new social debate has been launched into the future of refugee policies in Europe.

    Now a former family minster has expressed her concerns over the integration of migrants who fled from Islamic countries.

    Kristina Schroeder said Muslim culture holds honour and masculinity above women’s rights – which is incompatible with the western way of life.

    She said: “This alleged honour is then often defended by force and that indirectly affects women unfortunately.”

    According to Ms Schroeder, dishonourable behaviour is allowed against a woman who has been dubbed “dishonourable” herself.

    Now she has sparked calls for a debate on the way Muslim refugees integrate into German society, saying: “This archaic idea that mocks the equality of men and women, requires urgent attention.”

    She also demanded an “uninhibited debate about violence against women”, and called on muslim groups to openly discuss these issues.

    Ms Schroeder said: “We must make clear statements of what the values ??of coexistence in Germany are – that the values ??of the Basic Law require unconditional respect.

    “Last but not least consistent policing and strict punishments have to be a part.”

    However, she warned suspended sentences were tough enough on offenders as “these are then not considered as a second chance, but as proof that the German government is not to be taken seriously”.

    Instead, she called for a ‘warning shot arrest’ for eloquent immigrants, which would see an immediate imprisonment of a maximum of four weeks, saying the measure is used to hesitantly in some states.

    The demands come as Merkel faces calls to ban the burqa in Germany, in line with France’s 2010 law prohibiting facial coverings in public including some Islamic coverings and balaclavas.”

  41. I reckon we need a guide to what Muslims should do if they witness Muslim harassment of infidel women and girls.

    Latest victimology guide:

    \http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/everyone-should-read-this-guide-about-what-to-do-if-you-see-islamophobia–bJWvwnNH_W