Reader’s links for January 12 – 2017

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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

89 Replies to “Reader’s links for January 12 – 2017”

  1. Prankster convicted after he tells black woman ‘I hate black people’ inside slavery museum (express, Jan 12, 2017)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/753281/Prankster-Liverpool-Slavery-Museum-black-people-jibe

    “A SELF-DESCRIBED prankster who told a black woman “I hate black people” at a renowned slavery museum in Liverpool has been convicted of racially aggravated harassment.

    James Slattery also asked the woman if her family was “from a tribe” but later claimed it was part of a “social experiment”.

    The amateur actor secretly filmed the offensive comments and later uploaded the video to the Youtube channel Trollstation.

    The 36-year-old also made offensive comments to visitors and another actor who posed as a guest at the Liverpool Slavery Museum on March 28, 2016.

    Slattery said he was trying to highlight racism – but the prank backfired when victim Sharna Sinclair called the police.

    In the video, the unemployed builder can be heard saying to his black friend, who is posing as an actor inside the museum: “You were slaves for a reason.

    “Black people were better at being slaves because they had that natural build, that work build.”

    At one point, a passing woman steps in and calls Slattery a “bigot” and says “nobody is interested in your opinions”.

    It’s later revealed at the end of the footage it was a “social experiment” to demonstrate if people who witnessed racism would intervene.

    Liverpool Magistrates’ Court heard how the group tried the experiment again on the same day, with Ms Sinclair as an unknowing participant.

    Prosecutor Amanda Cullen said the victim had been visiting the museum, described as a place to “hear the untold stories of enslaved people”, with her husband.

    The 26-year-old old heard Slattery say on the phone: “‘Is this a joke? I’m trying to get away from black people and you have sent me to a floor full of them’.”

    Magistrates were told how Slattery then turned to Mrs Sinclair and said: “Can you believe it? My friends have set me up because I hate black people.”

    He also asked her: “Can I ask you a question, are your family from a tribe?”

    The court heard how Ms Sinclair was left “extremely humiliated” by the incident at Liverpool’s Albert Dock.

    Louise Bauress, defending, said her client was not racist and had been trying to “raise awareness” that racism still took place.

    Slattery pleaded guilty to racially aggravated harassment on Wednesday.

    He was sentenced to eight weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, and told to attend a rehabilitation course with the Probation Service to address his “thinking skills”.

    He was also ordered to pay £200 compensation to Ms Sinclair and £85 prosecution costs.

    Express has contacted the Liverpool Slavery Museum for comment.”

    • A SELF-DESCRIBED prankster who told a black woman “I hate black people” at a renowned slavery museum in Liverpool has been convicted of racially aggravated harassment.

      James Slattery also asked the woman if her family was “from a tribe” but later claimed it was part of a “social experiment”.

      Time for a little thought experiment: If the Black woman had approached James Slattery and said, “I hate White people”, then asked, if his family was “from a clan”—would we even be reading this article right now, much less my comment?

  2. Mayor may face criminal charges after ordering ALL asylum seekers to obey NYE curfew (express, Jan 11, 2017)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/753127/Mayor-Netherlands-criminal-charges-asylum-seekers-curfew

    “A MAYOR may face criminal charges after decreeing all asylum-seekers in his town had to obey a curfew on New Year’s Eve and stay inside their compound.

    os Heijmans, the Mayor of Weert, a city in the South of the Netherlands, issued the emergency decree forcing all asylum seekers to stay inside the compound of the local asylum centre as he feared a group of 26 North Africans would run amok during New Year’s Eve celebrations.

    Now a union that represents people convicted of crimes has filed a criminal complaint against the mayor.

    The Union of Lawbreakers’ secretary Christiaan Bekema said: “We are talking about an illegal restraint order.”

    He said that if the judge agreed with the measure being disproportionate, the asylum-seekers could seek compensation.

    The Centre for Public Order and Safety, a research institute of the University of Groningen in north-eastern Holland, deemed the restraining order illegal and stated that only a judge could issue it, not city authorities.

    Mayor Heijmans responded: “The public prosecutors and all kinds of other institutes are great in talking a lot and doing little. But as mayor I am responsible for public order and safety.”

    The mayor announced that most of the group of North African asylum seekers would be deported to Germany within two weeks.

    Local media reported that the asylum seekers from Morocco and Algeria, who have almost no chance of getting asylum in the Netherlands, have been committing multiple thefts and robberies, as well as pickpocketing and intimidating citizens…”

    • Union of Lawbreakers!! This sounds like the old thieves guild stories.

      Throughout all of history there have been orginized criminal gangs that tried running the criminal elements in towns and cities. These were normally broken up when the authorities found out about them. Some of these criminal organizations started out as resistance movements to invaders. The MAFIA started out as loosely connected groups fighting the Islamic occupation of Sicily.

  3. ‘Everyone will be Muslim because of our stupidity’ Catholic leader blasts ‘WEAK’ church (express, Jan 12, 2017)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/753326/Everyone-will-be-Muslim-because-of-our-stupidity-Catholic-leader-blasts-WEAK-church

    “A PROMINENT figure in the Catholic church has controversially suggested that everyone will “soon be Muslim” because we live in an increasingly secular society amid increased migration.

    Monsignor Carlo Liberati, an Italian Archbishop, gave the warning after observing the growing number of detention centres opening up in Europe, suggesting it was a sure fire way to have the Islamic faith become mainstream.

    He said: “In 10 years we will all be Muslims because of our stupidity. Italy and Europe live in a pagan and atheist way, they make laws that go against God and they have traditions that are proper of paganism.

    “All of this moral and religious decadence favours Islam.”

    He added: “We have a weak Christian faith. The Church nowadays does not work well and seminaries are empty.

    “Parishes are the only thing still standing. We need a true Christian life. All this paves the way to Islam. In addition to this, they have children and we do not. We are in full decline.”

    Italy, along with the rest of Europe, has become a hotspot for immigration in the past decade.

    Figures show that there were 5,014,437 foreign nationals resident in Italy as of January 1, 2015, an increase of 92,352 on the previous year.

    Italy has also seen a sharp rise in the number of illegal immigrants who dock on its shores after making the dangerous boat ride from North Africa across the Mediterranean sea.

    And there has been a growing number of Eastern Europeans and Romanians migrating to the country since the expansion of the European Union.

    Liberati claims Italy’s desire to help other nationalities is leaving its own country’s poor people destitute.

    He added: “We help without delay those coming from outside and we forget many poor and old Italians who are eating from the trash. We need policies that take care of Italians first: our young people and the unemployed.

    “I am a protester. If I were not a priest, I’d be out there demonstrating in the squares. What is the point of so many migrants that instead of thanking for the food we give them, they just throw it, spend hours with their cell phones and even organise riots?”

    Liberati even accused the Catholic church of donating too much money to the recent migrants.

    He said: “Giving money to migrants wandering around town is not only wrong, but morally harmful because we encourage their behaviour and they get used to that, not mentioning the fact that we already feed them.

    “I think sometimes this creates a beggars’ network. I remember that my father went to work very hard as a migrant in Australia so I could go to the seminar. So he has experienced in his own skin the discomfort of poverty and the noble virtue of gratitude.””

    • In 10 years we will all be Muslims because of our stupidity.

      However obliquely, it’s certainly encouraging to see someone, anyone, equating Islam with stupidity.

  4. Koran sung in Arabic at SCOTTISH church service contradicts Christian teaching about Jesus (express, Jan 12, 2017)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/753180/koran-passage-sung-st-mary-episcopal-cathedral-glasgow-arabic-scottish-church-service-god

    “A KORAN passage which denies Jesus is the son of God has been reportedly sung aloud at a cathedral service in Scotland.

    The congregation at St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Glasgow, heard the Islamic version of the Virgin Mary’s conception of Jesus, sung from the Koran’s Surah 19 to mark the feast of the Epiphany.

    The verse, sung in Arabic at the cathedral, claims that Mary was “ashamed” after she gave birth to Christ and that Jesus miraculously spoke from his crib and claimed he was a “servant of God” – both details which were not recorded in the Bible.

    Verse 23 of the translated verse reads: “She said, ‘I am so ashamed; I wish I were dead before this happened, and completely forgotten.’”

    The girl singing the passage finishes by reciting verse 35 and 36, which translates as: “It does not befit God that He begets a son, be He glorified. To have anything done, He simply says to it, ‘Be’, and it is.

    “He also proclaimed, “God is my Lord and your Lord; you shall worship Him alone. This is the right path.”

    A post on the cathedral’s Facebook page said the service was a “wonderful event”.

    It added: “The congregation was also reminded during the service that it is not only Christians who give honour to Jesus. We were joined by friends from two local Muslim communities.”

    The event, which celebrates the Jesus as the Son of God, was criticised by retired Anglican Michael Nazir-Ali.

    The former Bishop of Rochester said: “The authorities of the Scottish Episcopal Church should immediately repudiate this ill-advised invitation.”

    He also called for Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to distance the Church of England and the wider Anglican communion from the event.

    He added: “Christians should know what their fellow citizens believe and this can include reading the Koran for themselves, whether in the original or in translation. This is not, however, the same thing as having it read in Church in the context of public worship.

    “It is particularly insensitive to have this passage read in Church on the Feast of the Epiphany when we celebrate not only Christ’s manifestation to the gentiles but also his baptism and the divine declaration, ‘you are my beloved son in whom I am well pleased’.”

    The church has previously entered the foray of politics, and held a “forum conversation” regarding the EU referendum last year.”

  5. Parents of muslim convert go on trial accused of funding terrorism (express, Jan 12, 2017)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/753319/jihadi-jack-parents-trial-funding-terrorism-john-letts-sally-lane

    THE parents of a Muslim convert known as “Jihadi Jack” will go on trial today accused of funding terrorism by sending him money.

    Jack Letts, 20, is believed to be the first white Briton to have joined so-called Islamic State in Syria, leaving his Oxford home to join the terror group in the war-ravaged country in 2014.

    He reportedly goes by the name Abu Mohammed and married an Iraqi woman with whom he has a son, Muhammed.

    His parents, John Letts, 55, and Sally Lane, 54, are accused of sending hundreds of pounds to their son between September 2015 and January last year and will appear at the Old Bailey.

    The pair, of Chiswell Road, Oxford, have pleaded not guilty to three counts of making money available knowing or having reasonable cause to suspect that it may be used for a terrorist purpose.

    Lane is also charged with two further counts of attempting to provide money knowing it may be used to fund terrorism.”

  6. GERMANY NO-GO ZONES: Merkel faces lawless society after open-door immigration (express, Jan 12, 2017)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/753251/Germany-no-go-zones-police-Angela-Merkel-crime-immigration

    “ANGELA Merkel has been warned she could face a lawless society in Germany if she does not tackle the rise of dangerous no-go zones where even the police are attacked.

    Police Union chief Rainer Wendt claimed authorities are unable to enforce the law thanks to the rise of dangerous no-go zones caused as a result of mass immigration.

    In a scathing attack, he demanded German politicians get crime levels under control or risk “police-free zones in Germany”.

    The police chief said the no-go areas could end up being ruled under criminal laws or even Sharia law, rather than those set out by the German government.

    He added: “The year 2017 must be a year of law enforcement. And indeed the most consistent prosecution for those who believe not to abide by the laws in Germany.”

    In a bid to combat crime, Mr Wendt suggested the government boost its technology usage – including installing more CCTV cameras in public areas so police can stop crimes before they even happen.

    By linking it to facial recognition software, officers would also be able to better identify suspects.

    Many police officers have denied the existence of no-go zones – but Chief Commissioner of Criminal Investigation Ralf Feldmann said the situation was very real.

    He claimed three members of the Kurdish-Lebanese community told him last year “the police would not win the fight with us because we are too many”.

    As many as 40 places have been named as no go zones in confidential police reports, according to a report by US think-thank Gatestone Institute…”

    • Inside Germany’s No-Go Zones: Part I – North Rhine-Westphalia

      by Soeren Kern
      November 7, 2016 at 5:30 am

      https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9279/germany-no-go-zones-nrw

      Mass, unvetted immigration from Africa, Asia and the Middle East is turning parts of Germany into no-go zones — lawless areas where the state has effectively lost control and where native Germans, including the police, increasingly fear to come.

      German authorities steadfastly deny the existence of such areas, but confidential police reports, testimonies from police on the ground and anecdotal evidence from local citizens all confirm that parts of major German cities have descended into pockets of lawlessness where criminal migrants have usurped control of the streets from German police.

      Observers say the problems are being exacerbated by the German government, which has relocated hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and refugees into these areas.

      The newspaper, Bild, and the newsmagazine, Focus, among others, have identified (here, here and here) more than 40 “problem areas” (Problemviertel) across Germany. These are areas where large concentrations of migrants, high levels of unemployment and chronic welfare dependency, combined with urban decay, have become incubators for anarchy.

      In an article entitled “Ghetto Report Germany,” Bild describes these areas as “burgeoning ghettos, parallel societies and no-go areas.” They include: Berlin-Neukölln, Bremerhaven-Lehe/Bremen-Huchting, Cologne-Chorweiler, Dortmund-Nordstadt, Duisburg-Marxloh, Essen-Altenessen, Hamburg-Eidelstedt, Kaiserslautern-Asternweg, Mannheim-Neckarstadt West and Pforzheim-Oststadt.

  7. Mosul casualties ‘three times higher’ than expected in conflicts (alaraby, Jan 12, 2017)
    https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2017/1/12/mosul-casualties-three-times-higher-than-expected-in-conflicts

    “Nearly half of casualties in Iraq’s battle for Mosul are civilians, the UN has said, more than triple the number expected.

    Some 47 percent of the victims of the three-month war against the Islamic State group have been Iraqis caught in the crossfire, the international body estimated.

    The figure comes as around 750,000 remain trapped in the western part of the city, still under IS control.

    “You would expect in a conflict like this that the number of civilian casualties would be around 15 percent, a high of 20 percent.

    “What we’re seeing in Mosul is that nearly 50 percent of all casualties are in fact civilians,” UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq Lise Grande said…”

  8. Number of Nigerian women trafficked to Italy for sex almost doubled in 2016 (theguardian, Jan 12, 2017)
    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/jan/12/nigerian-women-trafficked-to-italy-for-sex-doubled-2016

    “The number of Nigerian women travelling by boat from Libya to Italy almost doubled last year, with the vast majority of new arrivals victims of sex trafficking and exploitation, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

    The IOM believes approximately 80% of the 11,009 Nigerian women registered at landing points in Sicily in 2016 were trafficked, and will go on to live a life of forced prostitution in Italy and other countries in Europe…”

  9. Cameroon uses witchcraft to fight Boko Haram (usatoday, Jan 12, 2017)
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/01/12/cameroon-uses-witchcraft-fight-boko-haram/96480570/

    “In the war on terror, guns and bombs just haven’t been enough. So Cameroon is trying spells and curses too.

    About a year ago, Cameroonian President Paul Biya urged citizens to use witchcraft against Boko Haram, the Islamic State-affiliated militants who have terrorized West Africa for years.

    “We expect every village to have brilliant actions in this direction,” said Midjiyawa Bakari, governor of the Far North region of the country, echoing the president. “We want to hear that this or that village has wiped out or limited the sect’s damage through witchcraft. Fight for your country.”

    Many viewed the move as a sign of Biya’s desperation as the jihadists continue their rampage of suicide attacks, pillaging and kidnapping throughout Cameroon, as well as in Chad and Nigeria. The three countries have made headway against the group — some commercial routes between Cameroon and Nigeria that had been closed due to the violence have reopened, and some of the people displaced from villages near the Nigerian border have been able to return home. But there is much more left to do.

    And locals in Mora, a remote mountainous district in the Far North province near Nigeria, said they would try anything to end the Islamic State’s reign of terror…”

  10. Turkey lawmakers brawl in parliament (CNN, Jan 12, 2017)
    http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/12/europe/turkey-parliament-brawl/index.html

    “Lawmakers in Turkey brawled during a debate over constitutional amendments that would expand presidential powers, according to state news agency Anadolu.

    The fight broke out on Wednesday shortly after opposition lawmaker Özgür Özel told ruling party lawmakers “You are trying to destroy yourselves when the TV is off and nobody sees. We won’t let it happen,” according to Anadolu…”

  11. Le Pen in New York for Unannounced Visit During French Race

    French National Front leader Marine Le Pen is in New York on an unannounced visit less than four months before France’s presidential election, according to a senior campaign official.

    Le Pen, who leads in the latest opinion poll for the presidency, is making a private visit to New York, her campaign chief of staff, David Rachline, said in a text-message exchange. Donald Trump had no plans to meet with Le Pen, according to an aide to the president-elect, who asked not to be identified without authorization to speak publicly.

    “It’s not on her public agenda,” Rachline said, when asked if she planned a meeting with Trump or officials close to him. “We don’t communicate about private visits.”

    Le Pen is set to launch her official campaign on Feb. 4 in a meeting with supporters in the French city of Lyon. She has repeatedly said she was supportive of Trump’s policies for the U.S. and called him “a sign of hope” for European anti-establishment politicians in a press conference this month.

    Trump has met on several occasions with Nigel Farage, the former leader of the U.K. Independence Party, most recently in December.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-12/le-pen-in-new-york-for-unannounced-visit-during-french-race

  12. Le Pen’s world: French nationalism at heart of campaign

    PARIS (AP) — France is partnered with the United States and Russia in a global battle against Islamic militants. Francs, not euros, fill the pockets of French citizens. Borders are so secure that illegal immigration no longer fuels fears of terror attacks or drains public coffers.

    That is France as envisioned by far-right leader Marine Le Pen, a leading candidate for president in the spring election: no globalization, no European Union, no open borders. The nation is its own master.

    It’s a vision that holds increasing appeal for voters once put off by the image of Le Pen’s anti-immigration party as a sanctuary for racists and anti-Semites. A series of deadly extremist attacks, 10 percent unemployment and frustration with mainstream politics have helped

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_FRANCE_LE_PENS_WORLD?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-01-12-07-46-03

  13. Police Reveal Fears In National Survey

    DALLAS (CBS11) – The Pew Research Center released results from the National Police Research Platform survey of 8,000 police officers and sheriff’s deputies.

    They were offered questions about attitudes and experiences of their work environment.

    “Do we feel we’re targeted right now? Yes,” said a 12-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department after a question about police safety. The question was posed after the release of the national survey.

    In one segment of questioning, 93 percent of polled officers surveyed said they were more concerned about their safety today than in the past.

    “Yes, it’s more dangerous, now you have officers watching their backs, even with your family, because the bad guys get to know you, they may see you at the mall, the movies, there’s a heightened awareness,” veteran Dallas PD officer George Aranda said.

    http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2017/01/11/police-reveal-fears-in-national-survey/

  14. China launches new electronic intelligence naval ship

    BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Navy has launched a new electronic reconnaissance ship, state media said on Thursday, the latest addition to an expanding fleet and as Beijing’s new assertiveness to territorial claims in the South China Sea fuels tensions.

    The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) now operates six electronic reconnaissance vessels, the official English-language China Daily newspaper said, noting that the PLA “has never made public so many details about its intelligence collection ships”.

    Last year, the PLA Navy commissioned 18 ships, including missile destroyers, corvettes and guided missile frigates, the paper said.

    China has also said it is building a second aircraft carrier. China’s only carrier is the second-hand, Soviet-built Liaoning, which this week unsettled neighbors with drills in the disputed South China Sea.

    The new electronic reconnaissance ship, the CNS Kaiyangxing or Mizar, with hull code 856, was on Tuesday delivered to a combat support flotilla of the North Sea Fleet at the eastern port of Qingdao, the China Daily said.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-launches-electronic-intelligence-naval-ship-063221681.html

  15. China turns to robots as workers age

    Wuzhen (China) (AFP) – Flat, orange robots glide under stationary cars and ferry them to empty Chinese parking bays, using space more efficiently and, their creators say, reducing driver stress.

    It is one of a number of elegant — and expensive — mechanical solutions China is turning to as it faces an ageing population, which, even in the world’s most populous country, is making workers harder to come by.

    With an eye on the rising numbers of cars on Chinese roads, Hikvision has been testing a robotic parking system in Wuzhen, 130 kilometres (80 miles) west of Shanghai.

    “The technology and scale of the industry is still at a very early stage,” said Wu Yonghai, the company’s head of robotics.

    “This is about finding a solution to the car parking problem.”

    Most firms in the sector focus on industrial robots rather than service robots, the kind which might sweep an apartment floor or act as a companion for elderly people.

    https://www.yahoo.com/tech/china-turns-robots-workers-age-032102496–finance.html

    • In western nations the robots are being introduced because wages have been forced up to the point that the businesses can’t make a profit with human workers. It is either robots, or shutting down the businesses.

  16. Kremlin says U.S. military build-up in Poland a national security threat

    MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Thursday it was concerned by what it described as a U.S. military build-up in Poland, saying the move represented a threat to its national security.

    Addressing reporters on a conference call, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia regarded the move as an aggressive step along its borders.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/kremlin-says-u-military-build-poland-national-security-111330103.html

    • READY FOR WAR US Army moves 2,500 tanks, trucks and military vehicles into Europe in the biggest troop transfer since the Cold War

      Troops arrive to respond to Russian aggression in the region after annexation of Crimea in 2014

      THOUSANDS of heavily armoured US military vehicles have arrived in Germany to respond to Russian aggression in Europe.

      The military brigade of 3,500 troops is the largest to be deployed to the continent since the end of the Cold War.

      https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2590015/us-army-moves-2500-tanks-trucks-and-military-vehicles-into-europe-in-the-biggest-troop-transfer-since-the-cold-war/

      • Trump’s Pentagon pick says U.S. must be ready to confront Russia

        WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon told Congress on Thursday the United States must be ready to confront Russian behavior in areas where the two countries cannot cooperate, even as he backed Trump’s bid to engage with Moscow.

        The remarks by retired Marine General James Mattis in written responses to questions from Congress are likely to set the tone for a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing that began at 9:30 a.m. ET (1430 GMT).

        “We engaged with Russia even during the darkest days of the Cold War, and I support the President-elect’s desire to engage with Russia now,” Mattis wrote.

        “At the same time, when we identify other areas where we cannot cooperate, we must confront Russia’s behavior, and defend ourselves if Russia chooses to act contrary to our interests.”

        Due to enter the White House in eight days, Trump on Wednesday acknowledged that Russia likely hacked the Democratic National Committee and emails of top Democrats during the 2016 presidential election campaign, a conclusion reached by U.S. spy agencies.

        http://www.oann.com/russia-iran-likely-focus-at-hearing-on-trump-pick-for-defense-chief/

      • Kremlin says U.S. military build-up in Poland a national security threat

        MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Thursday it was concerned by what it described as a U.S. military build-up in Poland, saying the move represented a threat to its national security.

        Addressing reporters on a conference call, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia regarded the move as an aggressive step along its borders.

        http://www.oann.com/kremlin-says-u-s-military-build-up-in-poland-a-national-security-threat/

    • Mexico’s peso continues free-fall, sinking to 21 to $1

      Published November 11, 2016 Markets Associated Press Opens a New Window.

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      MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s peso continued its steep decline against the U.S. dollar, falling to a record low of 21 to $1 on Friday, as Mexican officials prepared for a possible wave of Mexicans returning from the United States.

      The peso had already broken the psychological barrier of 20 to $1 earlier this week, following the victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential elections.

      The Mexican currency fell by almost 13 percent this week, its steepest one-week drop in at least a decade.

      The peso traded as low as 21.26, before recovering slightly to an interbank rate of 20.95.

      http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/11/11/mexico-peso-continues-free-fall-sinking-to-21-to-1.html

  17. Tillerson says China should be barred from South China Sea islands

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of state has set a course for a potentially serious confrontation with Beijing, saying China should be denied access to islands it has built in the contested South China Sea.

    In comments expected to enrage Beijing, Rex Tillerson told his confirmation hearing on Wednesday before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee that China’s building of islands and putting military assets on those islands was “akin to Russia’s taking Crimea” from Ukraine.

    Asked whether he supported a more aggressive posture toward China, he said: “We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.”

    The former Exxon Mobil Corp chairman and chief executive did not elaborate on what might be done to deny China access to the islands it has built up from South China Sea reefs, equipped with military-length airstrips and fortified with weapons.

    Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for specifics on how China might be blocked from the artificial islands.

    http://www.oann.com/trump-nominee-says-china-should-be-denied-access-to-south-china-sea-islands/

    • We should have deployed ships to that region and stopped the theft of land and control of the local waters a long time ago.

  18. Bonfire of the credibilities: Trump ‘dossier’ rings false – and falsely convenient
    By J.E. Dyer January 12, 2017

    A key problem with the “information” communicated in the now-infamous dossier supposedly compiled by an ex-MI6 operative on Donald Trump is that it’s asinine.

    Not all of it is asinine. But there’s enough of it that’s asinine to justify qualifying the whole dossier in those terms.

    Let’s backtrack briefly to set the dossier in the proper timeline. Although the majority of Americans only heard about it yesterday (Wednesday, 11 January 2017), most of it was actually provided to the FBI prior to the end of October 2016. And portions of it were known to left-wing journalist David Corn, who wrote about it for Mother Jones, by 31 October. At that time, he reported that the ex-MI6 operative had been providing the FBI with the dossier’s memos “in recent months.”

    The dates in the dossier’s collection run from 20 June to 13 December 2016. The timeline dovetails with reporting from numerous sources that compilation of the dossier was first commissioned by Trump opponents in the GOP, and then was sought by the Democrats as well. The Republican and Democratic political customers were reportedly acting through at least one unnamed firmed in Washington, D.C. to solicit the services of the ex-MI6 man, who was identified today as a Mr. Christopher Steele, co-founder of Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd. in London. Steele has reportedly gone into hiding now.

    http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/01/12/bonfire-credibilities-trump-dossier-rings-false-falsely-convenient/

    • Translation: Either Steele was played big time or he knew that the info was false but knew his customers would believe it. Also the fact that the FBI had it for months and didn’t do anything says they couldn’t find any evidence to confirm the report (meaning it was probably false) but instead waited until a time when the release would damage Trump.

      This whole affair says that the swamp is dirtier, nastier and with worse swamp critters then previously thought.

        • This is what we are going to get until the civil wars start and probably for the entire time they are being fought. The lefts propaganda machine will be working overtime to think up new lies about him and his people.

      • Former Brit spymaster who is not a spymaster for a Brit rent a spook company.

        Steele has gone into hiding saying he is afraid of the Russians, I really doubt that it is the Russians he is hiding from.

        The retired spooks in the US seem to be pretty much on the same page about this being a disinformation (slimming job) campaign. I wonder what the politics of the man doing the explaining of what is happening?

      • How can PET trust the people who have already been proven to change intel reports so they say what Obama wants said not what reality is?

        This mess is just the beginning of what the Propaganda Media in all nations will be doing, combine this with the Soros paid protesters and rioters and we have a situation that the alt left has designed to create a civil/race/class war. It going to be a low intensity war of shadows with assassination squads killing all conservative leaders that can be reached. Once it has reached its highest intensity there will probably be conservatives who are playing tit for tat with the Propaganda media playing those attacks up and ignoring the alt left attacks. Rather like how they ignore reality to push the BLM agenda.

      • Why is he perplexed? When Hitler was taking over the German government he used false charges (usually of homosexuality) to drive his political opponents out of government and often to prison.

  19. #GoldenShowerGate: We’re in for a long four years
    By Howard Portnoy January 12, 2017

    http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/01/12/goldenshowergate-long-four-years/

    On the same day that former Obama press secretary Jay Carney added his two cents to the developing legend of Barack Obama as a president whose administration was scandal-free, the latest attempt by the Left to diminish the incoming president has hit the virtual newsstands — not to mention a new low.

    “Engulfed in a major scandal less than 10 days from his inauguration,” blares IBT, “President-elect Donald Trump could face even more disturbing allegations as reportedly more than one intelligence source was aware of the so-called Golden Shower Gate details, Raw Story reported Wednesday.”

    And what exactly is Golden Shower Gate, which already has its own hashtag on Twitter? It is the allegation from the now-discredited “dossier” that Trump arranged to have Russian prostitutes urinate on a bed in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Moscow previously used by Barack and Michelle. Obama.

    The details, which follow in a tweet by BuzzFeed’s Alice Workman, mention the president-elect’s “personal obsessions and sexual perversions.”

    • Former Intelligence Officer: Buzzfeed’s Russia-Trump Documents are Fake – Here’s the Proof

      As a former intelligence officer, it pains me greatly to see the utter chaos and wild speculations coming from the leaders of the intelligence community regarding Russia and its alleged interactions with Trump.

      As you likely have already seen, CNN reported senior intelligence officials have informed Trump, Obama and Congress of “unverified reports” saying Russia has gathered compromising personal and financial material on him. The synopsis of this information was attached to a report on Russian interference with the election. Speculation by the intelligence officials is that the Russians had damaging information on both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but only released the information on Hillary Clinton.

      Apparently the two page synopsis was constructed from this document published by Buzzfeed, from which all has originated.

      It is a professionally done series of reports, with the mysteriousness of having been photocopied and having certain items blacked out and other’s highlighted. We have a mixture of “insider” information with the damaging stuff, with a smattering of things you might know if you read the news in depth. Enough to make you go “hmmmmmm…”

      But these are fake.

      I’m calling fake on these for a very simple reason. No professional intelligence analyst would EVER reveal enough information in a report to compromise a source. If you compromise a source, you lose that source. An analyst would much prefer to provide a bland report, than to have the slightest risk to a source.

      http://punchingbagpost.com/former-intelligence-officer-buzzfeed-russia-trump-documents-are-fake—here-the-proof

  20. TORONTO – Board To Allow Muslim Sermons In Schools, And Protesters Aren’t Happy

    Local residents expressed their anger Tuesday night at a decision by a school board in a suburb of Toronto, Canada to reverse its policy on monitoring Muslim sermons.

    Last September, concerned about the potential for radical Islamic propaganda infiltrating religious meetings, the Peel Regional School Board had insisted that students read prayers and sermons from an approved text. The board’s decision to allow students to write their own sermons resulted in angry residents storming a public meeting held to discuss the policy change.

    Protestors were told to remove their signs because they were deemed anti-Muslim and one woman was taken outside by police after she interrupted the meeting with her objections.

    Anger over the move was evident on social media. Protestor John Goddard wrote: “Anti-sharia activist Sandra Solomon, born a Palestinian Muslim in Ramallah but [who] left Islam, disrupt[ed] a Peel District School Board meeting on Tuesday night. The board tabled a staff report recommending expansion of Muslim religious privileges in public schools.”

    Muslim students in the province of Ontario are entitled to hold weekly prayer meetings, held on Friday. These “Jumm’ah” prayer and sermon sessions have been the focus of intense criticism as the provincial public school system is not supposed to be promoting any religion or hosting any religious instruction. Many schools will not even host Christmas music concerts in deference to non-Christian faiths who may be offended by the observance.

    Board members justified the policy reversal by insisting it represented a commitment to inclusiveness:

    “The board has always been committed to an inclusive approach in all activities related to religious accommodation for students and staff of all faiths,” director of education Tony Pontes said in a statement released Tuesday night.

    Muslim students and their parents argued the ban on personalized sermons negatively impacted the religious freedom of the students while suggesting a stereotyped view of Islam.

    “This was about creating a safe space for students, for students to feel equal to the rest of their peers,” high school student Zoya Alam said. “So, this is a positive step for the school board to be creating this safe space and inclusive community.”

    Though the sermons are spoken in English — the Qur’an is quoted in Arabic. The prayer meetings will continue to be supervised by a school staff members, according to the new policy.

    Peel police came to the meeting after some Muslim students claimed they had received undisclosed “hate speech” messages.

    http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/11/board-to-allow-muslim-sermons-in-schools-and-protesters-arent-happy/

  21. OTTAWA – From refugee to cabinet: First Somali MP named immigration minister

    Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen’s Canadian journey started from the most humble place possible when he arrived, by himself, as a 16-year-old refugee.

    The Somali-Canadian, first elected in 2015, is now in charge of the same program under which he came to Canada from Mogadishu in 1993. Since then, he pumped gas to put himself through York University, according to a 2015 Toronto Star profile, worked at the Ontario Legislature, and did his law degree at the University of Ottawa.

    “I’m extremely proud of our country’s history as a place of asylum, a place that opens its doors and hearts to new immigrants and refugees, and I am especially proud today to be the minister in charge of that file,” Hussen told reporters on Parliament Hill Tuesday.

    All MPs and cabinet ministers enter public life informed by their experiences, he said.

    “I’m no different in that sense. I’ll bring my experience as an immigrant to Canada, but also as an immigration lawyer, someone who worked many, many years before running for office as a community activist, a community organizer and a community advocate. So I will bring those experiences to the table as I take on this new challenge in my life.”

    Hussen co-founded the Regent Park Community Council in 2002, helping to secure $500 million to revitalize the area and add additional subsidized housing units to the plan. Regent Park is a neighbourhood in downtown Toronto that started as Canada’s first public housing project in the late 1940s and is now a community with a broader mix of incomes. Hussen said the community includes people of 65 different ethnic origins.

    He went on to be the president of the Canadian Somali Congress, which advocated on issues of importance to Canadians of Somali heritage, according to a press release from the Prime Minister’s Office.

    Former immigration minister Jason Kenney, now running for the Alberta PC leadership, praised Hussen on Twitter.

    “Congratulations to my friend @AhmedHussenLib on being named minister of immigration,” Kenney wrote on social media Tuesday.

    “Ahmed is a thoughtful, intelligent [and] dignified leader.”

    Hussen, who is fluent in English, Somali and Swahili, dismissed the idea that his story has some broader significance.

    “I’ve always prided myself as a Canadian. I’m also proud of my heritage, but I think the two can work together. I think Canada is one of the few countries that that can actually happen so I’m especially proud to be given this role.”

    http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/from-refugee-to-cabinet-first-somali-mp-named-immigration-minister-1.3237528

    From refugee to immigration minister: Ahmed Hussen appointed cabinet role

    […]The rookie MP for the Toronto riding of York South-Weston is also the first Somali-Canadian to hold a seat in Parliament; his election made news across the world, including on BBC Africa and Al Jazeera.

    […]Mr. Hussen went on to attend the University of Ottawa’s law school and began practising in the areas of criminal defence, immigration, refugee and human-rights law. He continued to maintain links to his heritage as national president of the Canadian Somali Congress and, in that capacity, testified to the U.S. Homeland Security Committee on radicalization within the Canadian Somali community in 2011.

    […]Mr. Hussen comes into his new role amidst growing anti-immigrant sentiments south of the border, as U.S. president-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office next week. Ruby Latif, a long-time friend of Mr. Hussen who worked with him at Queen’s Park, said Mr. Hussen is exactly who Canada needs as immigration minister at this time. “The portfolio really needs somebody who understands what’s happening to vulnerable people in vulnerable communities, especially with what’s happening across the border,” Ms. Latif said.[…]

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/from-refugee-to-immigration-minister-ahmed-hussen-appointed-cabinet-role/article33573878/

  22. French Ambassadors Declare War on Israel

    by Yves Mamou
    January 12, 2017 at 5:00 am

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9754/france-ambassadors-israel

    Do not forget these names: Yves Aubin de La Messuzière; Denis Bauchard; Philippe Coste; Bertrand Dufourcq; Christian Graeff; Pierre Hunt; Patrick Leclercq; Stanislas de Laboulaye; Jean-Louis Lucet; Gabriel Robin; Jacques-Alain de Sédouy and Alfred Siefer-Gaillardin.

    These men are retired French ambassadors. They are apparently well educated, very polite and aristocratic people and they regularly publish op-eds in Le Monde. However, they publish in Le Monde only to threaten Israel.

    Their most recent op-ed in Le Monde on January 9, 2017, was to explain how an international conference on the Middle East, the one which scheduled for January 15 in Paris, would be beneficial for the “security” of Israel. Their text is a discouraging enumeration of traditional clichés of France’s hypocritical diplomacy.

    Example: “For the Palestinians, nothing is worse than the absence of a state”. In which way is it the worst? As Bret Stephens wrote this week in the Wall Street Journal:

    • India’s Best Friend: Protector of the Free World

      by Jagdish N. Singh
      January 12, 2017 at 4:00 am

      https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9752/india-israel-friendship

      Ever since former Indian Prime Minister P. V. Narsimha Rao decided in January 1992 to establish full diplomatic ties with Israel, relations between the two democracies have flourished in all fields. Socially, there have been unprecedented people-to-people exchanges. Today over 40,000 Israelis travel to India annually. Since the Israeli poet Amir Or translated the famous Indian epic he Mahabharata into Hebrew in 1998, more books of Indian poetry have been translated into Hebrew.

      Economically, technologically and militarily, relations between India and Israel also have moved from strength to strength. In 1992 trade between the two nations stood at a meagre $100 million. Today this stands at $5 billion with the possibility of its being tripled if a free trade agreement is concluded between the two nations.

      Israel has always been appreciative of New Delhi’s security imperatives. Jerusalem stood by India in its wars in 1965, 1971 and 1999, and The was helpful to India in winning the Kargil war of 1999.

      During India’s “Kargil War” of 1999, Israel came to India’s assistance. Since then, India has increasingly turned to Israel for advanced weapons systems.

      • Israel is looking for trading partners beyond Europe. The future for relationships with rapidly Islamicizing Europe doesn’t look promising.

  23. Belgium: Far-right activists rally against Merkel receiving honourary doctorate

    Dozens of far-right Flemish and French activists gathered in front of ‘The Egg’ venue in Brussels, to protest against the award a title of honourary doctorate to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

    Protesters rallied in front of the entrance to the venue with banners and placards, before they were moved on by police who cordoned off the area to make way for the attendees.

    The rectors of University of Gent Anne De Paepe and University of Louvain (Leuven) Vincent Blondel awarded Merkel with honorary doctorate title for ‘political efforts and defending common European values.’ Prime Minister of Belgium Charles Michel and Minister-President of Flanders Geert Bourgeois were also present at the ceremony.

    • Belgium: EU must take on more global responsibility – Merkel

      German Chancellor Angel Merkel urged the European Union ” to take more responsibility in the world in the future,” during a ceremony where she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Ghent and the Catholic University of Leuven in Brussels on Thursday. The honour was bestowed on the German leader for her role in improving Europe’s political strength.

      SOT, Angela Merkel, German Chancellor (German): “For me, the event today is most of all an expression of the appreciation between the people in Belgium and Germany, between mine and your country. I deeply thank you for this special gesture of friendship and alliance.”

      SOT, Angela Merkel, German Chancellor (German): “Concerning our traditional partners, there is no eternal guarantee for close collaboration with us Europeans. We should elaborate this as Europeans. That’s why I am convinced that Europe and the European Union will have to learn to take more responsibility in the world in the future.”

      SOT, Angela Merkel, German Chancellor (German): “We have to stop congratulating ourselves in the member states when something goes well, after which we point to Brussels in the member states when we have difficulties and say that it’s Brussels’ fault.”

      SOT, Angela Merkel, German Chancellor (German): “The attacks in Brussels, as well as in other cities – lately in Berlin – are exactly pointed at our community, our way of living, and we must do everything to guarantee security in liberty to our civilians.”

      • “We must DO EVERYTHING to guarantee security” HA! HA!

        Everything except the obvious. Stop flooding Germany/Europe with the 3rd world riff raff and deport those who are not real refugees.

        Just read an article today about a Somali migrant controlled on a train from Paris. He had several identities from several countries and must be collecting Asylum benefits in each country (German, French, Greek, Hungarian and Turkish Asylum identity cards)

        http://www.pi-news.net/2017/01/kehl-warum-nicht-verhaftet-und-abgeschoben/

    • I really hope they can find some crime that he can be tried on and spend several years in the pen, preferably a maximum security pen.

  24. Fake News Media Go To War With Trump
    CNN and Buzzfeed go all in on unsubstantiated dossier of anti-Trump “intelligence.”

    The leftwing online “news” outlet Buzzfeed disgraced itself by publishing a widely discredited document making unsubstantiated charges against President–elect Donald Trump, purporting to tie Mr. Trump to compromising information that the Russian government had allegedly collected on him. The allegations regurgitated by Buzzfeed came from a “dossier” which, Buzzfeed said on its site, was “compiled by a person who has claimed to be a former British intelligence official.” The site tried to cover itself with a warning: “The allegations are unverified, and the report contains errors.” Buzzfeed’s own editor, Ben Smith, admitted that he has “serious reason to doubt the allegations” in it. Nevertheless, Buzzfeed went ahead and published the unverified allegations with the flimsy rationale “that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the US government.” Ben Smith tried to put lipstick on his pig by claiming that “publishing this dossier reflects how we see the job of reporters in 2017.” If the job of reporters is to knowingly publish completely unsubstantiated, sensationalist stories whose only “value” is to further polarize the country, the media are in big trouble. Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly,” which Gallup has been polling since 1972, will continue to hit new lows.

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/265440/fake-news-media-go-war-trump-joseph-klein

  25. Obama Shortlists Traitor Bradley Manning for Commutation
    January 12, 2017

    Remember how outraged the Dems were roughly 5 seconds ago about Wikileaks and the Russians? Remember how that was treason? But that’s only when important things, like Hillary Clinton losing an election, come up. Not petty things like national security.

    Obama has put Bradley Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst serving a 35-year sentence for leaking classified material, on his short list for a possible commutation, a Justice Department source told NBC News.

    A decision could come as soon as Wednesday for Manning, who has tried to commit suicide twice this year and went on a hunger strike in a bid for gender reassignment surgery.

    Manning — then known as Bradley — was locked up in 2010 after swiping 700,000 military files and diplomatic cables and giving them to Wikileaks.

    And Obama Inc. is moving along the process. Because for all the chest pounding, they don’t object to the release of information that compromises national security, just the release of material that compromises the Democrats.

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/265443/obama-shortlists-traitor-bradley-manning-daniel-greenfield

  26. Obama Advances Arafat’s Agenda
    The Radical-in-Chief’s war on Israel ensues unabated.

    At the Camp David talks in July, 2000 hosted by President Clinton, Yasser Arafat rejected the proposals for a final status agreement put forward by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and offering Arafat virtually all the territories beyond the pre-1967 armistice lines. He rejected as well Clinton’s suggested amendments to Barak’s offer. Nor did Arafat submit any alternative proposals.

    The reason for Arafat’s tack was not difficult to discern for anyone who had been paying attention to what the Palestinian leader had been saying and doing since the inception of the Oslo Accords in 1993. It was not that he was unwilling to take control of more territory and add to the forty percent of the West Bank and most of Gaza already handed him by Israel. Rather, the problem for Arafat was that the Camp David talks were cast as “end of conflict” negotiations. It was understood that any territorial agreement would be accompanied by Arafat signing away all further Palestinian claims against Israel, and this was something Arafat had no intention of doing.

    Arafat had made clear his goals for the Oslo process at its very inception. On the night of the signing of the initial Oslo agreements on the White House lawn in September, 1993, he was on Jordanian television from Washington explaining to his fellow Palestinians and to the wider Arab world that Oslo was the first phase of the Palestine National Council’s 1974 program. This was a reference to the so-called Plan of Phases, according to which the Palestine Liberation Organization would acquire whatever territory it could gain by negotiations, then use that land as a base for pursuing its ultimate goal of Israel’s destruction. Arafat made at least a dozen references to this perception of Oslo within a month of that broadcast, and he and his associates referred to it many times thereafter. Once established in Gaza in July, 1994, Arafat also became involved in promoting the increased terror to which Israel was subjected in the ensuing months.

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/265390/obama-advances-arafats-agenda-kenneth-levin

    • Tolerance is a two way street, their intolerance is the cause for the tension, not hatred for them hatred for their intolerance.

    • Obama has cheapened a medal that is suppose to honor people who are dedicated to freedom, not be given to every Tom, Dick and Harry communists that ask for it.

  27. NYT -N.S.A. Gets More Latitude to Share Intercepted Communications

    WASHINGTON — In its final days, the Obama administration has expanded the power of the National Security Agency to share globally intercepted personal communications with the government’s 16 other intelligence agencies before applying privacy protections.

    The new rules significantly relax longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may do with the information gathered by its most powerful surveillance operations, which are largely unregulated by American wiretapping laws. These include collecting satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that cross network switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that cross domestic network switches.

    The change means that far more officials will be searching through raw data. Essentially, the government is reducing the risk that the N.S.A. will fail to recognize that a piece of information would be valuable to another agency, but increasing the risk that officials will see private information about innocent people.

    Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch signed the new rules, permitting the N.S.A. to disseminate “raw signals intelligence information,” on Jan. 3, after the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., signed them on Dec. 15, according to a 23-page, largely declassified copy of the procedures.
    Continue reading the main story

    Previously, the N.S.A. filtered information before sharing intercepted communications with another agency, like the C.I.A. or the intelligence branches of the F.B.I. and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The N.S.A.’s analysts passed on only information they deemed pertinent, screening out the identities of innocent people and irrelevant personal information.

    Now, other intelligence agencies will be able to search directly through raw repositories of communications intercepted by the N.S.A. and then apply such rules for “minimizing” privacy intrusions.

    “This is not expanding the substantive ability of law enforcement to get access to signals intelligence,” said Robert S. Litt, the general counsel to Mr. Clapper. “It is simply widening the aperture for a larger number of analysts, who will be bound by the existing rules.”

    But Patrick Toomey, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, called the move an erosion of rules intended to protect the privacy of Americans when their messages are caught by the N.S.A.’s powerful global collection methods. He noted that domestic internet data was often routed or stored abroad, where it may get vacuumed up without court oversight.

    “Rather than dramatically expanding government access to so much personal data, we need much stronger rules to protect the privacy of Americans,” Mr. Toomey said. “Seventeen different government agencies shouldn’t be rooting through Americans’ emails with family members, friends and colleagues, all without ever obtaining a warrant.”

    The N.S.A. has been required to apply similar privacy protections to foreigners’ information since early 2014, an unprecedented step that President Obama took after the disclosures of N.S.A. documents by the former intelligence contractor Edward J. Snowden. The other intelligence agencies will now have to follow those rules, too.

    Under the new system, agencies will ask the N.S.A. for access to specific surveillance feeds, making the case that they contain information relevant and useful to their missions. The N.S.A. will grant requests it deems reasonable after considering factors like whether large amounts of Americans’ private information might be included and, if so, how damaging or embarrassing it would be if that information were “improperly used or disclosed.”

    The move is part of a broader trend of tearing down bureaucratic barriers to sharing intelligence between agencies that dates back to the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In 2002, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court secretly began permitting the N.S.A., the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. to share raw intercepts gathered domestically under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

    After Congress enacted the FISA Amendments Act — which legalized warrantless surveillance on domestic soil so long as the target is a foreigner abroad, even when the target is communicating with an American — the court permitted raw sharing of emails acquired under that program, too.

    In July 2008, the same month Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act, President George W. Bush modified Executive Order 12333, which sets rules for surveillance that domestic wiretapping statutes do not address, including techniques that vacuum up vast amounts of content without targeting anybody.

    After the revision, Executive Order 12333 said the N.S.A. could share the raw fruits of such surveillance after the director of national intelligence and the attorney general, coordinating with the defense secretary, agreed on procedures. It took another eight years to develop those rules.

    The Times first reported the existence of those deliberations in 2014 and later filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for documents about them. It ended that case last February, and Mr. Litt discussed the efforts in an interview at that time, but declined to divulge certain important details because the rules were not yet final or public.

    Among the most important questions left unanswered in February was when analysts would be permitted to use Americans’ names, email addresses or other identifying information to search a 12333 database and pull up any messages to, from or about them that had been collected without a warrant.

    There is a parallel debate about the FISA Amendments Act’s warrantless surveillance program. National security analysts sometimes search that act’s repository for Americans’ information, as do F.B.I. agents working on ordinary criminal cases. Critics call this the “backdoor search loophole,” and some lawmakers want to require a warrant for such searches.

    By contrast, the 12333 sharing procedures allow analysts, including those at the F.B.I., to search the raw data using an American’s identifying information only for the purpose of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence investigations, not for ordinary criminal cases. And they may do so only if one of several other conditions are met, such as a finding that the American is an agent of a foreign power.

    However, under the rules, if analysts stumble across evidence that an American has committed any crime, they will send it to the Justice Department.

    The limits on using Americans’ information gathered under Order 12333 do not apply to metadata: logs showing who contacted whom, but not what they said. Analysts at the intelligence agencies may study social links between people, in search of hidden associates of known suspects, “without regard to the location or nationality of the communicants.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more-latitude-to-share-intercepted-communications.html

    • Looks like a 4th Ammendment violation, but I’m no lawyer.
      I’d like a Court ruling on it. Strict constructionist but sensible about national security in the digital world.

      • From what I remember from prior decisions as long as one party in the conversation is over seas and under suspicion it isn’t a 4th Amendment violation. However this seems to be saying that the NSA can listen or intercept any message and turn it over to any Federal police or intel agency. That is a 4th Amendment violation. This is a very fine line that is being walked and we have to be on constant guard that the people in power don’t cross over that line. Since Obama is doing this at the last minute he is either doing something illegal so PET will reverse it and then they have something to beat him over the head with after the nest terror attack. Or it is legal and once again they have something to beat PET over the head with.

  28. Germany to return new asylum seekers to Greece from March (thelocal, Jan 12, 2017)
    https://www.thelocal.de/20170112/germany-to-return-new-asylum-seekers-to-greece-from-march

    “Germany will begin returning asylum seekers to Greece from mid-March, an interior ministry spokesman told AFP on Thursday, essentially lifting a five-year suspension on such transfers because of poor conditions there.

    Under the EU’s so-called Dublin rules, would-be refugees must file for asylum in the first member-state of the bloc they enter, often the Mediterranean nations of Greece and Italy.

    If asylum seekers have travelled on to other EU nations, they are to be returned to their first port of call.

    But that requirement had been halted for Greece, which together with Italy has been the main point of entry for the more than one million immigrants who have entered the bloc since 2015 fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa…”

  29. Denmark looks to block access to online ‘terror propaganda’ (thelocal, Jan 12, 2017)
    http://www.thelocal.dk/20170112/denmark-looks-to-block-access-to-online-terror-propaganda

    “The Danish Justice Ministry on Thursday released a plan that it said would prohibit radicalization but which could lead to free speech concerns.

    The ministry announced a four-point plan that includes blocking access to “websites with propaganda for terror organizations”.

    In a law proposal submitted to parliament, the ministry writes that decisions on blocking certain websites would be decided “by the court after a police request”.

    Other elements of the proposal include making the dissemination of terrorist propaganda a criminal offence and forcing radicalized inmates to undergo a so-called ‘exit programme’ as a condition of their parole.

    Radicalization in prison has been in focus since the February 2015 terror attack in Copenhagen, in which gunman Omar El-Hussein opened fire at a cultural centre, killing one, before killing a volunteer security guard at the city’s main synagogue…”

  30. Migrant relocation quotas ‘unacceptable’ – UNHCR (ansamed, Jan 12, 2017)
    http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/politics/2017/01/12/migrant-relocation-quotas-unacceptable-unhcr_075b9ada-4236-4598-9acf-6afa95f20418.html

    “- BRUSSELS – The director of the Europe bureau of UN Refugee Agency UNHCR, Vincent Cochetel, on Thursday told an audition of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) at the European Parliament that quotas for the relocation of migrants and asylum seekers are ”too low, really inacceptable”.

    ”Making relocation work on a large scale is not the only aspect of solidarity but it is a fundamental component”, he said…”

  31. Armed groups announce the seizure of 3 ministries in Tripoli (ansamed, Jan 12, 2017)
    http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/generalnews/2017/01/12/armed-groups-seize-3-ministries-in-tripoli-al-arabiya_10ddbcc4-96d7-4945-8f6d-b02a45b2dac1.html

    “Armed groups announced on Thursday that they have taken control of the ministries of defense, justice and the economy in Tripoli, but the Italian ambassador to Libya Giuseppe Perrone said he was “not aware” of a coup underway in the north African country.

    “The institutional headquarters from which the Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Fayez al-Sarraj operates are continuing to function,” Perrone told ANSA.

    Local media said the armed groups were linked to Khalifa Ghwell, the former premier of the dissolved Libyan Islamist National Salvation Government that attempted an unsuccessful coup against the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord in October. “