Reader’s links Sept. 3, 2017

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About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

72 Replies to “Reader’s links Sept. 3, 2017”

  1. FOX News is reporting a 6.3 Earthquake in North Korea, some of the the reports are saying it is an explosion, if this was a nuke test it was the largest to date and may be an indication that North Korea does have a thermonuclear weapon. There isn’t a good time for this news but there could be worse times although this timing is bad with the Texas Flood and the left working to insure that Trump can’t govern. Things aren’t looking good for the semi peace we now life in to last much longer.

    • The (ADSR) envelope of a nuclear detonation is typically rather easy to distinguish from your run-of-the-mill earthquake. On rare occasions (e.g., the 6.8 magnitude 1994 Northridge event in Los Angeles, CA) abrupt lateral or vertical accelerations can create a really fast “rise time” or “knee” (i.e., attack wave form—see previous link). However, the incredibly sharp—or near-vertical—seismic spike caused by a (successful) nuclear detonation is relatively simple to discern.

      For one thing, nuclear detonations of any size ring this planet like a bell; with several resonations that travel completely back-and-forth through the entire earth. As it is, we should know soon enough as seismic monitoring stations outside of North Korea begin reporting their measurements of this event.

      Sidebar: When I posted similar information to that written above (at another website) regarding North Korea’s original “dud” test on October 3, 2006, a participating ex-CIA agent asked if I had worked as a geoseismologist in the Texas oilfields. Their use of explosives to profile geological strata and potential oil-bearing deposits relies upon this same sort of waveform interpretation.

    • North Korea Says It Tested a Hydrogen Bomb Meant for Missiles

      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/03/world/asia/north-korea-tremor-possible-6th-nuclear-test.html

      SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea carried out its sixth and most powerful nuclear test in an extraordinary show of defiance against President Trump on Sunday, saying it had detonated a hydrogen bomb that could be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile.

      The test, which the North called a “complete success,” was the first to clearly surpass the destructive power of the bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

      Mr. Trump threatened last month to bring “fire and fury” to North Korea if it continued to threaten the United States with nuclear missiles, but the country and its leader, Kim Jong-un, has appeared unmoved, with the test on Sunday preceded by the launch last week of a ballistic missile over Japan into the north Pacific.

      • North Korea says 6th nuke test was H-bomb, ‘perfect success’

        https://apnews.com/aab7c6bbda234179990b310a1bea8922

        TOKYO (AP) — North Korea announced it detonated a thermonuclear device Sunday in its sixth and most powerful nuclear test to date, a big step toward its goal of developing nuclear weapons capable of striking anywhere in the U.S. The North called it a “perfect success” while its neighbors condemned the blast immediately.

        • UK says North Korea nuclear test is reckless, could bring a “new order of threat”

          Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-4848344/UK-says-North-Korea-nuclear-test-reckless-bring-new-order-threat.html#ixzz4rcZ9ru1q
          Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

          LONDON, Sept 3 (Reuters) – North Korea’s latest nuclear test could represent a new order of threat, Britain’s foreign minister Boris Johnson said on Sunday.

          “There’s no question that this is another provocation, it’s reckless,” he told Sky news. “They seem to be moving closer towards a hydrogen bomb which, if fitted to a successful missile, would unquestionably present a new order of threat.”

          Pyongyang conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test earlier on Sunday.

          He said Britain’s preference was for a diplomatic solution and that none of the military options relating to North Korea were palatable. (Reporting by William James; editing by John Stonestreet)

          Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-4848344/UK-says-North-Korea-nuclear-test-reckless-bring-new-order-threat.html#ixzz4rcZM4m8E
          Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

        • NKorea missile fear sets pre-emptive strike debate in Japan

          TOKYO (AP) — Japan is debating whether to develop a limited pre-emptive strike capability and buy cruise missiles – ideas that were anathema in the pacifist country before the North Korea missile threat.

          With revisions to Japan’s defense plans underway, ruling party hawks are accelerating the moves, and some defense experts say Japan should at least consider them.

          Japan has a two-step missile defense system, including interceptors on destroyers in the Sea of Japan that would shoot down projectiles mid-flight and if that fails, surface-to-air PAC-3s on land.

          http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_JAPAN_NKOREA_PREEMPTIVE_STRIKE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-09-01-23-30-16

            • Yup, they have placed us in the position where we have to move on North Korea or receive the threat either we pull our of South Korea and Japan or get nuked. We can’t let this stand.

              Even worse this means that Iran now has nuclear weapons possibly including a H-Bomb and missiles that let them threaten or launch on any okace in the world.

              We know that China was very involved in the North Korean development of their nukes but the big question is how much was Russia involved? Putin ordered all Russians out of North Korea and evacuated them from the North Korean Russia border after the last missile test. This is an indication that he new something about the coming nuclear test.

              The use to be Free World can’t tolerate a nuclear armed North Korean and Iran, if we let them get away with their violating the treaties and give in to their blackmail every little tim pot dictator ion the will start buidling or buying nuclear weapons and missiles so they can blackmail the rest of the world. Welcome to the world that the last three US Presidents have created for us. I would say last 4 US Presidents but I don’t know what George ! knew aobu the Korean nuclear program.

              • NK is China’s perfect foil.

                It’s time to lay this mess at Beijing’s feet. As in: America threatening to default on all of its Chinese-held bonds, for instance (all other holders will be honored).

                Also—short of fabricating high-performance solid state microprocessors—miniaturization of thermonuclear weapons is one of the biggest technological challenges there is. I find it very difficult to believe that North Korea did not receive assistance from Red China, Russia or Pakistan as part of overcoming this massive engineering challenge.

                As I (and many others) have predicted, Pyongyang’s continued belligerence will drive the entire Northeast Asian quadrant over to nuclear capability. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan all are prime candidates for going nuclear in a matter of months. That is, if they don’t already have “a bomb in the basement”.

                Something tells me there’s going to a spike in overseas sales of Aegis combat and ballistic missile defense systems. For those who are unfamiliar with this advanced form of radar, it is one of the most brilliant sensor designs ever created.

                Traditional rotating radar emitter/detector systems have a serious limitation in that they spend a lot of time “looking away” from wherever a genuine threat is originating (as they execute a 360 degree sweep).

                Aegis (named after the war shield of Zeus) is a stationary flat panel that contains thousands of small high-frequency transceiver elements. Known as Phased Array Radar, precise control of pulse distribution timing to these tiny (X band) microwave emitters takes advantage of electrical inductance and attenuation effects in order to “steer” the beam. By “strobing” the array, it can alternate between “send” and “receive” modes. By doing so, this one unit serves as both a “output” and “input” platform of unbelievable resolution.

                Land-based or maritime vessels merely need four orthogonally-placed arrays to monitor their entire surrounding environment. Thus, without rotating or “looking away”, the outgoing beam can be swept nearly 180 degrees. The sensitivity and discriminative capabilities of these systems defy comprehension. As in, the largest version’s detection abilities are limited only by the earth’s curvature.

                From: How Things Work: Phased-Array Radar

                At 282 feet in height, two football fields in area, and 50,000 cubic tons in volume, the Sea-Based X-Band Radar inspires description in the mold of “Your mama” jokes: SBX is so fat it couldn’t fit through the Panama Canal. SBX is so tall it could straddle the Goodyear Blimp. SBX is such a superstar, it has its own self-propelled, semi-submersible oil-drilling platform as a ride.

                The near-$900 million structure, operated by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA), is by far the largest phased-array radar system on Earth. It is 16 times more powerful than the previous champ—its own prototype—and capable of determining if a baseball-size object thrown into space from another continent is a slider, a curve, or a knuckleball.

                Depending upon processing capacity, these systems can simultaneously track and monitor between 100 and 256 individual targets (if not more).

                In an era of MIRV (Multiple Individual Reentry Vehicles) ICBMs, the ability to dependably resolve many different ballistic trajectories—as in, determining between incoming decoys and functional warheads—is crucial.

                While the Aegis system does not have offensive capabilities, it is nonetheless, able to perform the ranging, coordination, and positional determinations needed with breathtaking speed and precision. This processing power can be used to guide aircraft and interceptor missiles in ways that no other defensive “umbrella” is capable of.

                It may be a supreme irony that the ostensibly “peaceful”, diplomatic-based procrastinations of Clinton, Bush 2.0, and 0bama ended up fueling America’s Military-Industrial Complex to such an unprecedented degree. Especially when confronted with the notion of expending yet more blood and treasure on another foreign shore in the name of National Security.

                That this crisis—similar to what we have seen with militant Islam—has its shared roots in limp-wristed Western response makes the avoidability and outlandish scale of now-necessary preemption something that should offend the sensibilities of anyone with more than a handful of functioning neurons.

                • Another irony in the coming war is that the groups that don’t want the US in space are causing the war that will drive the US into space to stay. Instead of the international space station we will see the rotating station that Wernher von Braun wanted. Although he may have stolen the idea from the SF of the 30s and early 40s, I do know that during the war he got issues of the US SF magazines shipped to Sweden and then forwarded to him in Germany. The left has been doing all they can to keep the US out of space but now the war they have caused by weakening the US is going to drive us into space to do all that the old SF authors wrote about.

                  I wish I was young enough to see th colonization of the Solar System and the push into Interstellar space.

                • We would also have to refuse to pay any bonds that China sells to other nations after we stopped paying China.

                  But as I have said many times I don’t think we have the time for this to hurt China enough for them to move.

                  • But as I have said many times I don’t think we have the time for this to hurt China enough for them to move.

                    Better to hurt them in whatever way we can than let this sh!t go unchallenged.

                    The moment we default on our Chinese-held bonds, they will become unsaleable. There won’t be very many second-tier buyers that we’d have to reimburse.

                    Letting Communist China call the shots (as it were) is not an option. Either Beijing stomps on the psycho cockroach or they take a monumental financial hit.

          • Pay close attention to this debate, Japan has built a lot of naval vessels but so far hasn’t tried to man them, now they are talking about building a first strike capability.

            Remember after WWII Japan renounced war and the use of force in anything but self defense on their territory. Now two weak US Presidents (Clinton and Obama) and continued Chinese and North Korean actions are forcing them to rearm. The world should remember what an armed Japan is like and decide if they want them rearmed or if they want the US to act?

    • BBC –

      North Korea says it has developed a more advanced nuclear weapon that can be loaded on to a ballistic missile.

      The state news agency released pictures of leader Kim Jong-un inspecting what it said was a new hydrogen bomb.

      International experts say the North has made advances in its nuclear weapons capabilities but it is unclear if it has successfully miniaturised a nuclear weapon it can load on to a missile.

      The report carried pictures of the leader inspecting the device. It described the weapon as “a multi-functional thermonuclear nuke with great destructive power which can be detonated even at high altitudes”.

      Defence expert Melissa Hanham, of the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in California, said that the North’s claims could not be verified from the photographs alone.

      “We don’t know if this thing is full of styrofoam, but yes, it is shaped like it has two devices,” she said on Twitter. Hydrogen bombs detonate in two stages.

      She added: “The bottom line is that they probably are going to do a thermonuclear test in the future, we won’t know if it’s this object though.”

      http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41138834

  2. One of the rumours as to why Ghadafi was offed was because he was preparing to trade oil straight for euros, thereby undermining U.S. dollar hegemony in the worldwide commodities trade. He presumably was then read the riot act by U.S. authorities and quickly abandoned the scheme while doing all that he could to capitulate and save his skin.

    Now we see how quickly the world turns, for the liquidated threat of a North African two-bit tard has become this, which, to the uninitiated, is another nail in the coffin of U.S.dollar reserve currency status. And I do not think these dictators will be dispatched with such Hillary-styled elacrity:

    http://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/China-Readies-Yuan-Priced-Crude-Oil-Benchmark-Backed-By-Gold.html

    This is huge.

    • This may have been part of Obama’s decision but it was mostly to give Libya to the MB and al Qaeda. Personally I don’t see Obama doing anything that would protect the US or the US Dollar, He was raised to hate the US and wants to destroy all freedom in the US, the destruction of the US dollar and US economy would help achieve this goal.

      • Bankers are apolitical as long as you don’t touch their money or their system. Obama new this and true to cowardly form would never go so far. Trump knows it too, but will usurp all enemies with a Reset on his own terms.

        • The US military industrial Complex is going to get very rich during the war as will the aerospace industries. We will see the large rotating space station of Wernher von Braun (as I said before he may have stolen this idea from SF stories, he was an ardent fan and got the German Government of subscribe to all of the US magazines during the war having them shipped to Sweden and the forwarded to him.) As an aside he read all the Robet Goddard wrote and built on it, Goddard was teh father of US Rocketry who is all but forgotten these days.

  3. North Korea says it successfully tested hydrogen bomb; Trump denounces its ‘hostile’ behavior (abcnews, Sep 3, 2017)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/63-magnitude-explosion-detected-north-korea-usgs/story?id=49591865

    “North Korea said Sunday that it successfully conducted a test of a hydrogen bomb meant to be loaded onto an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

    The announcement was made on state-run television. A news reader called the test a “complete success” and said the “two-stage thermonuclear weapon” had “unprecedented” strength. North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un ordered the test, according to the announcement.

    It is the rogue nation’s sixth, and most powerful, nuclear test.

    President Trump responded on Twitter, commenting on North Korea’s continuing “hostile and dangerous” actions toward the U.S. and its being a “great threat and embarrassment to China.” The president also said South Korea’s “talk of appeasement” with its northern neighbor won’t work.

    North Korea’s announcement of the test came a few hours after a 6.3-magnitude “explosion” was detected at 12:29 p.m. local time in North Korea, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) announced Sunday.

    According to the USGS, the seismic activity occurred 24 kilometers east northeast of Sungjibaegam, North Korea. “Possible explosion, located near the site where North Korea has detonated nuclear explosions in the past,” read a statement on the USGS website, before confirmation that it was indeed a nuclear test.

    The USGS said that a second, 4.1-magnitude seismic event occurred 22 kilometers east northeast of Sungjibaegam. “Seismic event collocated with the larger possible explosion 8 minutes and 32 seconds earlier,” read a statement on USGS’s website. “This significantly smaller event is likely a secondary feature (possibly a structural collapse) associated with the larger event.”

    U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster spoke with his South Korean counterpart, Chung Eui-yong of the country’s National Security Office, for 20 minutes in an emergency phone call following the test, according to the South Korean presidential office.

    Eui-yong said Sunday that President Moon Jae-in will seek every available diplomatic measure, including new sanctions from the United Nations Security Council. He said Moon will also discuss with the Trump administration ways to deploy the “strongest strategic assets” the U.S. has.

    Speaking at a press conference Sunday at the South Korean Ministry of Defense, Cho Han-kyu, the director general of operations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military “strongly condemns North Korea in conducting ICBM-level missile launches and nuclear tests, even stronger than those conducted in the past, regardless of our government’s suggestions to ease military tension and bring peace to the Korean peninsula.”

    Han-kyu added, “the South Korea-U.S. alliance, in closest cooperation ever, has all the capability to punish North Korea and we will show our action demonstrating a strong response of the South Korea-U.S. combined forces (against North Korea).”

    Condemnation of the test came from China, Russia and France, as well.

    China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has once again conducted a nuclear test in spite of widespread opposition from the international community. The Chinese government resolutely opposes and strongly condemns it.”

    The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Sunday that North Korea’s nuclear test “deserves absolute condemnation,” adding that immediate dialogue and negotiations are necessary. It says that’s the only way settle the Korean Peninsula’s problems, “including the nuclear problem.”

    The statement continued, “This yet another example of Pyongyang’s outright disregard of the demands of respective UN Security Council resolutions and international law deserves absolute condemnation.”

    The ministry said Russia is willing to participate in negotiations, “including in the context of the implementing of the Russian-Chinese road map.”

    French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement he “calls on the members of the United Nations Security Council to quickly react to this new violation by North Korea of international law.”

    Macron continues, “The international community must treat this new provocation with the utmost firmness, in order to bring North Korea to come back unconditionally to the path of dialogue and to proceed to the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear and ballistic program.”

    South Korea’s weather agency, the Korea Meteorological Administration, said on Sunday that the apparent nuclear test appears to have been several times stronger than its previous test.

    The agency estimated that the nuclear blast yield of the presumed test was between 50 to 60 kilotons, or five to six times stronger than the North Korea’s fifth test, conducted in September 2016.

    Prior to North Korea’s announcement, Japan confirmed that the rogue nation conducted a nuclear test. “It is absolutely unacceptable if North Korea did force another nuclear test, and we must protest strongly,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said.

    And South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff had also “presumed” that North Korea did indeed conduct a sixth nuclear test, before its neighbor to the north made the announcement. When news first broke of the seismic activity, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the seismic activity was artificial.

    South Korea’s presidential office said it will hold a National Security Council meeting chaired by President Moon Jae-in.

    The North Korean government released photos earlier Sunday of Kim Jong Un talking with his lieutenants as he watched a silver, peanut-shaped device that was apparently the purported thermonuclear weapon destined for an ICBM. What appeared to be the nose cone of a missile could also be seen near the alleged bomb in one picture. The photo could not be independently verified. Another photo showed a diagram on the wall of a bomb mounted inside a cone.”

      • To slightly modify a Churchill quote, they had a choice between dishonor and war, they chose dishonor and will get war. Clinton, W and Obama paid the blackmail to North Korea to keep them quiet. Now we are facing a nuclear armed North Korea with the capabilities to hit the US, the question isn’t war of more appeasement but when will the war start? Before or after Kim launches a nuke at US territory?

        • Too right!!

          I’m genuinely glad to see Conservatives finally getting over their love affair with Bush 2.0. He was a Communist-infected Ivy League product of the Eastern Liberal Educational Establishment and his family’s financial dependence on Middle East oil made him—with his “Religion of Peace” bull-hocky, and “They’ve hijacked a great religion” disinformation—a tool of the Tranzi Globalists and not much else.

          May Clinton, Bush 2.0, and 0bama all rot in everlasting hell.

                  • The fact that someone has not made a movie of Niven’s Inferno is IMO the greatest lost opportunity of Hollywood history. Its an amazing book with brilliant social commentary. Somoene should make it as he wrote it, and then, in his same spirit, make it with updates so we can see where Obama and the current pope would all be in hell. Make it contemporary again.

                • Incidentally, please look into the works of Peter Hamilton. Speaking as an old-school SF connoisseur (e.g., Clarke, Bradbury, Asimov, Lovecraft, and Pohl/Kornbluth), Hamilton’s works are some of the best new works there are.

                  I would also suggest perusing the early masters of fantasy, such as Lord Dunsany, William Morris, William Hope Hodgson (“The House on the Borderland”, “The Night Land”), Hannes Bok, H Rider Haggard (inventor of the “Lost Race” genre), George MacDonald, and August Derleth.

                  Be sure not to miss the works of Clark Ashton Smith (“The City of the Singing Flame”). Some of his literary passages are almost psychedelic. HP Lovecraft so admired Smith’s (often macabre) work that he devoted an entire story cycle to a high priest named, “Klarkash-Ton”.

                  Literary street-creds don’t get much better than that.

  4. Byron York: Standoff brews between Senate, FBI over Trump dossier

    Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Charles Grassley and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, want to interview two high-ranking FBI officials about some key aspects of the bureau’s role in the Trump-Russia investigation — the Trump dossier, the firing of James Comey, and more. But the FBI doesn’t want those officials to talk — even though the Judiciary Committee has oversight responsibility for the FBI, and even though the request is bipartisan, and even though there appears to be no conflict with the ongoing Trump-Russia investigation conducted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller.

    A standoff could be developing.

    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-standoff-brews-between-senate-fbi-over-trump-dossier/article/2633288

  5. Migrant drug dealer tried to smuggle his pregnant wife into UK on stolen passport (express, Sep 3, 2017)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/849128/Migrant-drug-dealer-smuggle-pregnant-wife-UK-stolen-passport

    “A DRUG-dealing African migrant has been condemned for causing a burden to taxpayers after he smuggled his heavily pregnant wife into the UK.

    Ali Camara flew to Zaragoza in Spain to collect Gambian-born mother-to-be Oulimatoo Touray and gave her a stolen passport to try to sneak through customs at Stansted Airport. But the couple, who met online, were stopped by officials and Camara was arrested.

    Touray, 23, who was seven months pregnant, had been granted permission to stay in Spain. After giving birth to a daughter in this country, she has now been given temporary leave to remain in the UK. Within days of appearing in court for the immigration offence in May, Camara was arrested for selling drugs.

    Newcastle Crown Court heard the 25-year-old was spotted acting suspiciously in the city’s Granger Market and was searched by police, who recovered 18 bags of cannabis, worth over £600, along with £180 cash.

    A further £1,970 worth of cannabis was found at his home. The court was told Guineaborn Camara, who was granted British citizenship last year, had been working as a welder earning £14,000 a year. He pleaded guilty to assisting unlawful immigration and supplying cannabis, which he claimed to have been doing for around three months while claiming benefits after quitting his job…”

  6. Schoolgirls as young as five-years-old are wearing a Muslim hijab for school uniform in UK (express, Sep 3, 2017)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/849458/Muslims-in-UK-wearing-hijab-headscarf-in-primary-schools-girls-aged-5-Ofsted-UK-London

    “SCHOOLGIRLS as young as five are wearing the Muslim religious headscarf the “hijab” to school, a study has found.

    But the decision to allow the head covering in state primary schools has angered Islamic campaigners who believe the children may be bullied for looking different to other pupils.

    Many are also furious because the garment is often seen as one of sexual modesty for adolescent teens – and say that out of context it can be seen as sexualising little girls.

    Gina Khan, a children’s right campaigner in Birmingham said: “Schools are allowing it because they are afraid of being called Islamophobic and they have been told that this is a religious garment.

    “But they need to support Muslim girls to have free choices, not to be set apart from other children.”

    According to a study conducted by The Sunday Times, nearly a fifth (18 per cent) of 800 primary schools – including Church of England primaries – surveyed in 11 regions of England now allow the hijab as part of school uniform.

    The figures suggest that among the country’s 17,000 schools, thousands of children are wearing the hijab to school.

    In Birmingham, 46 per cent of 72 primary schools allow the hijab as part of school uniform, according to their websites.

    In Tower Hamlets, 34 per cent of 68 primary schools had an online hijab policy and in Luton the figure was 36 per cent.

    But oddly, in areas with large Muslim communities, the amount of children who opted to wear the hijab to school was significantly lower.

    Only six per cent of 77 primary schools in Leicester allow the hijab in schools. In Manchester, eight out of 133 schools allowed the hijab.

    And the practice wasn’t just confined to Muslim schools or religious schools. Church of England Schools have also implemented policies to accommodate Muslim school children.

    However Islamic campaigners are calling on the Government to roll out one policy for everyone.

    Amina Lone, a former Muslim Labour candidate told The Sunday Times: “In an Islamic context, the hijab is commonly understood as being for females after they reach the age of puberty. There are very few Muslims who would say a child should be covered.”

    The Department for Education said that it was for schools to decide their own policy on school uniforms.

    But Ofsted, the school’s watchdog fired back.

    “While it is for schools to determine their uniform rules in accordance with the law, there is growing concern about the hijab appearing in a primary school uniform list,” an Ofsted source told The Sunday Times.

    “We are looking at whether there is evidence that schools are facing external pressure to adapt their policies.””

  7. Suspected militants kill 2 police in attack on Kenyan church (abcnews, Sep 3, 2017)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/suspected-militants-kill-police-attack-kenyan-church-49594166

    “Kenya’s police say two officers were killed when gunmen attacked them at a church they were guarding by Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast.

    Coast Police Chief Larry Kieng said Sunday gunmen on a motorcycle shot the two officers, killing one on the spot and the other died of injuries at a hospital. He said the gunmen took the officers’ guns and drove off.

    Somalia’s extremist group al-Shabab is suspected as it has carried out similar attacks in Kenya in revenge for Kenyan troops fighting the extremist rebels in Somalia. Kenya’s security forces have managed to limit al-Shabab’s attacks to areas near the Somalia border in the past year.”

  8. Public School Teachers Behind Violent Antifa Group
    Photo of Peter Hasson
    Peter Hass

    Public school teachers are behind a leading far-left militant group that is part of the Antifa network that federal officials say is committing “domestic terrorist violence.”

    By Any Means Necessary, which has played a key role in riots in Berkeley, Sacramento and elsewhere, has dozens of public school teachers among its members, including among its most prominent leaders.

    http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/01/public-school-teachers-behind-violent-antifa-group/

  9. Report: Iran sent warnings to US aircraft twice in 6 months

    TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s Arabic language TV station al-Alam is reporting that the country’s air defense base sent two warnings in the last six months to U.S. spy aircraft that approached Iranian airspace.

    The TV’s website quoted the country’s chief of air defense, Brig. Gen. Farzad Esmaili, as saying Iran warned a U2 reconnaissance aircraft on March 21. He did not mention the location.

    He also said the country’s air defense warned an American drone on Aug. 26.

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_IRAN_US?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-09-03-06-39-58

  10. Italy police nab refugee as last suspect in beach gang rape (abcnews, Sep 3, 2017)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/italy-police-nab-refugee-suspect-beach-gang-rape-49594064

    “Police in Italy say they’ve arrested a Congolese refugee as the fourth suspect in gang rapes at a beach resort.

    Rimini police chief Maurizio Improta says the man was caught Sunday morning on a train about to leave a nearby town. On Saturday, the other three suspects, all minors, including two Moroccan teenage brothers, were detained in the rape of a Polish tourist, the savage beating of her companion and the rape of a Peruvian woman shortly after the first attack.

    Improta said the brothers turned themselves in after surveillance camera video showing the suspects was made public. The third suspect, from Nigeria, was detained Saturday night near Rimini.

    Sky TG24 TV said the Congolese man arrived in Italy as a rescued migrant in 2015.”

  11. More Rohingya pour into Bangladesh; camps at full capacity (abcnews, Sep 3, 2017)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/rohingya-pour-bangladesh-camps-full-capacity-49593270

    “Aid officials said relief camps were reaching full capacity as thousands of Rohingya refugees continued to pour into Bangladesh on Sunday fleeing violence in western Myanmar.

    Some 73,000 people have crossed the border since violence erupted Aug. 25 in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees spokeswoman Vivian Tan.

    The violence and the exodus began after Rohingya insurgents attacked Myanmar police and paramilitary posts in what they said was an effort to protect their ethnic minority from persecution by security forces in the majority Buddhist country. In response, the military unleashed what it called “clearance operations” to root out the insurgents.

    Another aid official said Saturday that more than 50 refugees had arrived with bullet injuries and were moved to hospitals in Cox’s Bazar, on the border with Myanmar. Refugees reaching the Bangladeshi fishing village of Shah Porir Dwip described bombs exploding near their homes and Rohingya being burned alive.

    Both Myanmar’s security officials and Rohingya insurgents are accusing each other of atrocities. The military has said nearly 400 people, most of them insurgents, have died in clashes…”

  12. Moscow Muslims gather in front of Myanmar Embassy in solidarity with Rohingya (WATCH LIVE) (RT, Sep 2, 2017)
    https://www.rt.com/news/401869-moscow-muslims-myanmar-solidarity/

    “Moscow Muslims have gathered in front of the Myanmar Embassy in solidarity with Rohingya Muslims who claim to be persecuted in the troubled northwest of the country, according to photos and videos on social media.

    Heavy police presence near the embassy is seen in the photos and videos.

    There have been no violations of public order during the protest, the Moscow police press service told TASS news agency. At least 800 people reportedly gathered near the embassy.

    Demonstrators are seen performing a Muslim prayer (‘salat’ or ‘namaz’) in front of the building, YouTube videos show…”

    • Yemen’s al-Qaeda calls for attacks in support of Myanmar’s Rohingya (memo, Sep 3, 2017)
      https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20170903-yemens-al-qaeda-calls-for-attacks-in-support-of-myanmars-rohingya/

      A senior leader of al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has called for attacks on Myanmar authorities in support of minority Rohingya Muslims, the SITE monitoring centre said on Saturday as thousands fled what they say is a government assault on their villages.

      Myanmar’s roughly 1.1 million Rohingya pose one of the biggest challenges facing leader Aung San Suu Kyi, accused by Western critics of failing to support the Muslim minority that has long complained of persecution.

      In a video message released by al Qaeda’s al-Malahem media foundation, Khaled Batarfi called on Muslims in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Malaysia to support their Rohingya Muslim brethren against the “enemies of Allah.”

      Batarfi, who was freed from a Yemeni prison in 2015 when Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) seized the port city of Mukalla, also urged al Qaeda’s Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) branch to carry out attacks.

      “So spare no effort in waging jihad against them and repulsing their attacks, and beware of letting down our brothers in Burma (Myanmar),” Batarfi said, according to the US-based monitoring centre…”

  13. Will Trump stop U.S. refineries run by Venezuela from being turned over to Russia?
    By LU Staff September 2, 2017

    Three U.S. refineries run by a Venezuela state-owned oil company could be turned over to Russia’s PAO Rosneft unless President Donald Trump actively blocks the switch, The Wall Street Journal reports.

    Refineries in Illinois, Louisiana, and Texas run by the Venezuela’s Cisgo Petroleum Corp may be turned over to Rosneft as collateral for a $1.5 billion loan the state-owned Russian company paid Cisgo in 2016.

    U.S. officials and lawmakers are urging the Trump administration to block the transfer using powers established under laws of national security. The Treasury and State Departments and Congress fear that Russia’s leverage over Cisgo may result in all of Cisgo’s U.S. assets — including nine pipelines and nearly 50 petroleum platforms — falling under Russian control, according to the WSJ.

    Cisgo’s parent company, Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), is $60 billion in debt with the risk of default growing higher, exacerbated by U.S. sanctions on the Venezuelan economy. Rosneft executives are rushing to find new ways for PDVSA to pay off its debt if Trump blocks Cisgo’s assets from being used as collateral.

    One U.S. official blames a lack of Russian foresight for Rosneft’s trouble.

    http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/09/02/will-trump-stop-u-s-refineries-run-venezuela-turned-russia/

  14. Did Antifa rise to power under Obama? FBI and DHS both say so
    By Ben Bowles September 2, 2017

    Now that that Antifa’s brutal and barbaric physical attacks on a peaceful, right-wing rally has prompted the Left to revise its view of the group as “peace activists,” law enforcement can turn its attention to monitoring them in the same way it does other extremist organizations, such as the KKK and the neo-Nazi movement. (It’s beginning to appear that Donald Trump’s initial reaction to the events in Charlottesville, which many on the Right considered a “moral disgrace,” many not have been as tone-deaf as originally deemed.)

    One proposal some Americans have made via White House petition is officially classifying Antifa as a terrorist organization.

    That actually already happened. The Department of Homeland Security formally classified the group’s activities as “domestic terrorist violence” in April 2016, according to Politico. The same article notes

    http://libertyunyielding.com/2017/09/02/antifa-rise-power-obama-fbi-dhs-say/

  15. Last major pocket of ISIS terrorists’ resistance in central Syria eliminated – Russian MoD (RT, Sep 3, 2017)
    https://www.rt.com/news/401860-syria-hama-isis-terrorists-eliminated/

    “Syrian government forces, supported by Russian air power, have wiped out the last major pocket of terrorist resistance in central Syria, liberating the strategic town of Akerbat in Hama governorate, Russia’s defense ministry has announced.

    “The units of the 4th tank division of Syrian government forces, in collaboration with the 5th Volunteer Corps and military intelligence unit (Mukhabarat), liberated the town of Akerbat,” the ministry said.

    “The operation to destroy a large group of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) fighters in the eastern part of the Hama province was carried out with the active support of the Russian Air Force.”

    Russian planes destroyed terrorist strongholds and their armored hardware. The jets also targeted IS artillery positions, control points and communication outposts…”

  16. Migrants block the street along the Italian-French border and demand open borders. At the end of the video one car driver panics and hits the gas. It is said a “French reporter”, had to be carried away to the hospital. The driver is said to have been a Polish.

  17. RAW: Moscow Muslims gather in front of Myanmar Embassy in solidarity with Rohingya

    allahu ackbar !

    • Russia: Hundreds of protesters decry persecution of Rohingya Muslims outside Myanmar embassy

      Hundreds of protesters rallied in solidarity with Rohingya Muslims outside of the Myanmar embassy in Moscow on Sunday.

      Protesters urged Myanmar’s government to take immediate action over the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in the northwest of the country.

      SOT, protester (Russian): “We want the killing of Muslims to stop. Do you know which country? – Myanmar.”

      Protester (Russian): “All Media are silent.”

      SOT, protester (Russian): “They are killing women and kids, burying them alive, tearing them apart whilst they are still alive, showing on film how they are torturing toddlers. Why is everyone keeping silent, don’t you know what’s happening? Or are you waiting until they come to your house? They won’t stop. They’ve already tasted blood and they will keep on going. And you’re just going to wait.”

    • Pure fucking evil!

      Like an empty vessel.” (07:32)

      Old Christian Syrian saying:

      Into an empty jar can go anything.

  18. Europe: Jihadists Posing as Migrants
    “More than 50,000 jihadists are now living in Europe.”

    by Soeren Kern
    September 3, 2017 at 6:00 am

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10929/europe-jihadists-migrants

    German authorities are hunting for dozens of members of one of the most violent jihadist groups in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, but who, according to Der Spiegel, entered Germany disguised as refugees.

    The men, all former members of Liwa Owais al-Qorani, a rebel group destroyed by the Islamic State in 2014, are believed to have massacred hundreds of Syrians, both soldiers and civilians.

    German police have reportedly identified around 25 of the jihadists and apprehended some of them, but dozens more are believed to be hiding in cities and towns across Germany.

    In all, more than 400 migrants who entered Germany as asylum seekers in 2015 and 2016 are now being investigated for being members of Middle Eastern jihadists groups, according to the Federal Criminal Police (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA).

  19. Tajikistan bans women from wearing veils ( hijab )

    DUSHANBE: Legislation requiring people to “stick to traditional national clothes and culture” has been introduced in Tajikistan – a move widely interpreted as an attempt to stop women from wearing Islamic clothing.

    Women in the central Asian country traditionally wear a scarf tied behind the head, rather than a hijab, which wraps under the chin. Despite being a majority Muslim country, Tajikistan’s minister of culture, Shamsiddin Orumbekzoda, told Radio Free Europe Islamic dress was “really dangerous”.

    He said that “everyone” looked at women wearing hijabs “with concern, worried that they could be hiding something under their hijab.”

    Although the legislation -an amendment to an existing law on traditions in the country -did not mention the hijab specifically, authorities have previously said the Islamic veil represents an “alien culture”.

    Under existing laws, women wearing hijabs are already banned from entering the country’s government offices. At the beginning of August, officials approached more than 8,000 women wearing hijabs in the capital of Dushanbe and ordered them to wear their scarves in the Tajik style. The new legislation does not introduce a penalty for breaking the rule, but some have claimed that fines could be introduced at a later date.

    http://m.timesofindia.com/world/rest-of-world/tajikistan-bans-women-from-wearing-veils/amp_articleshow/60333423.cms

  20. What we can learn from France’s failed deradicalization center

    Political, rushed center cost the country 2.5 million euro and did not deradicalize a single individual

    It was a national première, the first of its kind, and probably the last. France’s unique deradicalization center, or Center for Prevention, Integration and Citizenship closed a few weeks ago, and here’s what we can learn from it.

    In September 2016, France’s first experimental deradicalization center opened in the small village of Beaumont-en-Véron, a township of less than 3000 inhabitants in the Loire region. The Pontourny center was designed as a boot camp for individuals in the process of being radicalized. The project was supposed to be the first of 12 others around the country, but it ended up being quite short-lived – less than a year later, on July 28th, the Ministry of Interior issued a press release:

    ‘’The experimentation of an open center, working on a voluntary basis, has shown its own limit,” the release said,” the Government has thus decided to end the experimentation taking place in Pontourny.’’

    As attendance was voluntary, the government explained the decision by the lack of participants. There are currently about 15,000 individuals in France believed to be in the process of radicalization, and as the country is moving towards a different approach, looking back at Pontourny means learning from a rushed, political and expensive center that had no magic solution to France’s problem.

    Shock therapy: Wrong approach

    The Pontourny center was named after the family that donated the 18th Century castle to the French state at the beginning of the 20th Century, on the premise that it would be used for a charitable organization. It hosted different types of centers, and started its new life in September about a year ago.

    Behind the doors of that large, white domain was a center with a full capacity of 30 people, with 25 employees surrounding them. Local authorities around the country could refer individuals they believed were radicalizing and then these youths could decide to go or not.

    The program was supposed to be ten months long, where young adults aged 18-30 would meet with psychologists, psychiatrists, special educators, and Imams to help them redress their thinking and behavior. Participants would discuss philosophy, history, religion and Internet, and had to take part in physical activities to prepare them or their return to their normal life.

    ’Patients’ had to wear the same uniform, take part in military drills and sing La Marseillaise, France’s National Anthem. This type of strict daily routine is used in other types of centers in France, for young offenders. The only difference with Pontourny: these are not voluntary.

    ‘’Young being part of a cycle of violence are not like alcoholics on rehab, how could someone go to this type of center on its own will?’’ explained Senator Esther Benbassa, from the Green Party, author of the report on deradicalization and reintegration in France.

    Michael Dantinne is a criminologist, and works in a center of study on terrorism and radicalization in Liege, Belgium. He believes radicalization is a word often used, rarely defined. He argues radicalization is a long process in which an individual rejects the world, the society he lives in and adheres to a new ideology, in this case radical Islam. While these youth reject French society, Dantinne believes it is absurd to believe that an idea like Pontourny could work:

    “Obviously, trying to counter-radicalize these individuals exclusively through the frontal confrontation with democratic values is ineffective,” he says, “what we have to do, I believe, is to work where the sources of the problem are and on prevention efforts.’’

    As these young citizens have rejected the country in which they live, Dantinne believes it is unlikely that they will, for example, listen to an Imam hired by the State:

    ‘’In the prison context, for example, what happens when these youths are confronted to moderate Imams? They do not even want to be in contact with them, because they see them as representatives of the State and are the symbol of a rogue Islam.’’

    Jihad Academy: Wrong concept

    ‘’I think that the very idea, the concept in itself wasn’t right, it was off’’ Milena Uhlmann, an expert on radicalization from Germany, said. ‘’It is rather clear that there was no deeper understanding of the issue of radicalization and extremism beforehand.’’

    Uhlmann predicted the failure of the center before it opened, as she believes the structure was wrong. She feared that regrouping vulnerable individuals in the process of radicalization could have the opposite effect, and could become what she called in an interview about the center before it opened a “Jihad Academy.” If one patient at Pontourny were charismatic enough it could instead become a center where Jihadists meet and form a stronger identity based on Islam. That problem was later addressed in the Senate report:

    ‘’Worse, it even sparked a phenomenon of hold, by concentrating individuals in the process of radicalization,” the Senatorial report wrote, “As an example, three residents self-proclaimed themselves ‘The rigorist Salafist band’, and the forced departure of one of them sparking the one of the two others, which is a paradoxical phenomenon in a center that is supposed to fight exactly this.”

    Milena Uhlmann was not the only person to fear that domino effect, and the case became highly controversial.

    A Rushed process

    When the Government announced the creation of Pontourny, many citizens from Beaumont-en-Véron felt unsettled by the idea of having a “Jihad Academy” next door. Local authorities, including the city mayor, weren’t consulted beforehand, and criticized the Government’s decision. Concerns escalated in September, when a local newspaper in the Nord-Pas-De-Calais ran an article on a young ‘’Fiché S’’ wanting to start over by going to the center. ‘’Fiché S’’ means an individual that is a threat to national security.

    When the government announced the creation of Pontourny, citizens reacted by creating an association called radicalement digne de Pontourny, or radically worthy of Pontourny, to denounce the high cost of the Center, its inefficacy, as well as the threat to the village’s security.

    “The Government made a mistake in this process because it wasn’t discussed beforehand with people living there and this is actually something of importance in the prevention work area,” Uhlmann said, “They have to be authentic and all stakeholders have to be involved.”

    When Senator Esther Benbassa visited the center to write her report on deradicalization efforts in France in February 2017, there were 25 staff working for only one last patient. That last individual ended up being arrested a month later for ’’apology of terrorism,’’ a term related to sympathy with terrorism acts.

    By the end of February, under political turmoil and a lack of participants, the center was running without any patient in it, and it was the beginning of the slow death of Pontourny. However, with an electoral campaign on the way, the agony of the center was prolonged until a new President was in office.

    Business of radicalization: An expensive solution

    The Pontourny center opened after a wave of terrorist attacks that have taken 234 lives in 18 months, after which the Government was criticized for being too soft on the matter.

    “France fell in the same trap other countries have: it made strong decisions upon the emergency of a wave of terrorist attacks, that were not well thought through and based on an electoral logic with the fear that people criticize that nothing was done,” explains Dantinne.

    The center was part of an action plan adding new measures to fight radicalization in July 2016. The French government then earmarked 40 million euro for the matter for two years, 2.5 million of which went to Pontourny. ‘’We started seeing more and more self-proclaimed experts on the matter, who said what politicians wanted to hear,” said Dantinne.

    • And as more money was being invested in anti-radicalization measures, more individuals got interested, and specialized, in the matter. This phenomenon created what Senator Benbassa calls the business of radicalization. In France, many association struggled to get money from the government in the last few years, and new associations were created because the government was pouring money in that field.

      “At some point some vendeurs de miracles (miracle sellers) emerged in France,” Dantinne says, “and they were successful in convincing leaders that their model worked without having clear proof of their success.”

      The field of deradicalization was and still is a new one and even experts today do not agree on how to best address the issue. Even the world ‘’deradicalization’’ is controversial in itself. Still, Pontourny was created on the premise that one ideology could replace another.

      The power of thinking things through

      Last July, Senator Benbassa and her colleague from the Republican Party Catherine Troendlé released their report, and dug the grave of Pontourny. The report called ‘’’Radicalization’ policies in France: Changing the paradigm, recommended “putting an end to Pontourny’s experiment, and renouncing to its generalization.”

      On July 28th, the Ministry of Interior issued a press release announcing its closure. Now, the country is looking at what else it can do on the matter, and the report is setting the tone for it. It suggests looking abroad. Milena Uhlmann believes that an individualized approach, like Denmark’s and Germany’s, have proven more successful, and they also tend to be much cheaper for taxpayers. This approach, of course, also avoids the ’’Jihad Academy’’ problem. Experts also believe the prevention work need to address the deeper roots of radicalization in society.

      France’s case has issues unique to the country, or at least some that are more problematic than in others. The report suggests a more holistic approach to the problem.

      “An urgent reflection on city policies, in this case on the banlieues, job creation to reduce unemployment among this youth category, urban or rural, an investment to reduce school failure, the creation of a proximity police are part of prevention policies that we cannot ignore anymore,” the report states.

      This is an issue that, according to Uhlmann, has been ignored for decades, but that France is now trying to address as a prevention measure. “France’s situation is much worse because there’s a bigger segregation of society, elitism is stronger, and there is such a big emphasis in France of assimilation and notion of laicité. It makes it hard for people that do not belong to mainstream identity,” the expert on radicalization said.

      Addressing this issue, Dantinne believes, means politicians need to change their approach to the matter.

      ‘’They need to learn critical thinking at school and this is a concrete policy that prevents radicalization, but it is less attractive than opening a deradicalization center or a prison, because results are hard to measure. They are efforts that require 15 or 20 years, which is unattractive for politicians,” Dantinne explains.

      The way forward

      France’s experiment may be considered as a failure by many, but it is also a learning opportunity. The center showed how reactionary policies in issues as deep-rooted as radicalization and deradicalization cannot work. Deradicalization it is part of a prevention work, and addressing the issue of marginalization requires time and vision. As many other countries, like Italy, move forward towards having their own anti- radicalization policies, experts note they should focus on the prevention aspect of it:

      “There hasn’t been a terrorist attack yet in Italy. Before such an attack there is still some time to think things through in a serious manner. But it would not be advisable to act without proper knowledge of the situation. In Italy’s case it is late, but not too late,” Ulhmann says.

      http://www.lastampa.it/2017/09/02/esteri/lastampa-in-english/what-we-can-learn-from-frances-failed-deradicalization-center-s126MYkCYw329OcwUd1UcJ/pagina.html

  21. BREITBART – President Donald Trump Sets Internet on Fire, Retweets Hilarious Slam on Hillary Clinton’s New Book

    On Saturday evening, President Donald Trump set the Internet ablaze by endorsing a hilarious tweet trolling Hillary Clinton and the title of her new book, What Happened.
    After spending most of the day helping survivors of Hurricane Harvey on September 2, Trump took a few minutes off Saturday night to fire up Twitter, as he so often does.

    The president retweeted a message from a Trump fan account called Team_Trump45. It was a meme image featuring the cover of Clinton’s campaign autopsy book, What Happened. Next to the image of Clinton’s book cover was a similar but fake book cover with a large photo of a smiling Donald Trump under the words, “I Happened.”

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/03/president-donald-trump-sets-internet-fire-retweets-hilarious-slam-hillary-clintons-new-book/

    https://twitter.com/Team_Trump45/status/904162667547549696