Reader’s Links, May 15, 2018

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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.

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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

153 Replies to “Reader’s Links, May 15, 2018”

  1. Amid Italy Coalition Talks, Populist Leader Blasts EU for ‘Unacceptable’ Immigration Interference (breitbart, May 15, 2018)
    http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/05/15/despite-promises-coalition-italy-without-government-parties-stall-time/

    “The leaders of Italy’s two largest political parties remain in negotiations over the form and direction of a potential coalition government despite assurances made on Sunday that an agreement was just hours away, while European Union leaders in Brussels dictate that Italy should not pursue any radical policy changes…

    Salvini said Tuesday: “From Europe, we have the umpteenth unacceptable interference by unelected officials.

    “We have received and maintained too much. Now is the time for legality, security and push-backs,” he concluded in remarks reported by ANSA…”

  2. Italy breaks up Syrian jihadist funding ring

    A network suspected of financing al-Qaeda-linked jihadists in Syria has been dismantled, Italian police say.

    Fourteen people were arrested on the island of Sardinia and in parts of northern Italy.

    Police said 10 of those detained were suspected of money laundering and of illegally distributing money from across Europe to the jihadists.

    Another four are described as militants in Sardinia suspected of being part of a support cell for al-Nusra Front.

    Al-Nusra Front was the official affiliate of al-Qaeda in Syria. It later said it had broken off formal ties with al-Qaeda and merged with other jihadist groups to form the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance.

    The operation by anti-mafia police and anti-terror officials targeted two separate cells, in Sardinia and the northern city of Brescia, and involved searches in 20 properties.

    Eleven of those arrested were of Syrian origin and three were from Morocco. Among other suspects was the Italian wife of one of the detainees who is being investigated for acting as a courier.

    Police said money was raised in Muslim communities across Europe and moved around by an informal transfer system known as hawala, creating a “secure channel for money laundering” that did not involve traditional banks.

    Money was collected in Italy, Sweden, Hungary and Turkey, largely from Syrian nationals, and moved to Austria, Germany, Holland and Denmark, as well as the Middle East.

    Transfers involved hundreds of thousands of euros and some were bigger than €2m (£1.7m; $2.3m) officials said.

    The money would then go to al-Nusra Front or jihadists affiliated to the Salafist group.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44057652

  3. US hits head of Iran’s central bank with terror sanctions
    By JOSH LEDERMAN
    20 minutes ago
    WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States designated the head of Iran’s central bank as a terrorist on Tuesday and barred anyone around the world from doing business with him, escalating financial pressure on Iran in the wake of President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal.

    Valiollah Seif, the governor of the Iranian central bank, was named a “specially designated global terrorist” along with another senior official, Ali Tarzali, who works in the central bank’s international division. The Treasury Department accused the men of secretly funneling millions of dollars through an Iraqi bank to help Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant network that the U.S. considers a terrorist group.

    https://apnews.com/amp/e54a1e06677248cabff426099327acc9?__twitter_impression=true

    • The United States designated the head of Iran’s central bank as a terrorist on Tuesday and barred anyone around the world from doing business with him…

      Sanctions? What sanctions? We don’t need no steenkin’ sanctions.

      This is an exceptionally brilliant move. Simply go for the one chokepoint on all major financial transactions and squeeze.

  4. Gen. Michael Flynn didn’t cut a deal with U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller because he was necessarily guilty of lying to the FBI, or any crimes, according to sources close to the retired general.
    Flynn was muscled and coerced into a plea deal, several sources said.
    Flynn plead guilty after Mueller threatened Flynn’s family, including his son Michael Jr. According to sources close to Flynn family, Mueller threatened Flynn on multiple occasions that if he did not plead guilty to lying to the FBI, Mueller would investigate other Flynn family members.
    Including his son. And rack up thousands more dollars in legal fees.
    “I didn’t do anything illegal so this notion that one of the thing the Special Counsel could do to get my father to accept a plea deal was threaten me has always been odd,” Michael Flynn Jr. told True Pundit.
    Odd but true nonetheless.
    A close family associate said Mueller and his team even threatened Flynn Jr. during a meeting with Gen. Flynn in the same room. Mueller’s apparent goal with the threats was to cause additional stress in the Flynn family as well as hike Flynn’s legal fees which were already bankrupting the family, sources said.
    “Between the threats and the finances, he (Gen. Flynn) had to make a deal to put the brakes on this,” a family associate said. “This has nothing to do with guilt. This was survival.”

    http://archive.is/mShts#selection-5051.0-5083.182

  5. Michael Avenatti, the Deep State Tool
    Don’t even think about investigating me, Stormy Daniels’ lawyer warns Daily Caller reporters.
    May 15, 2018
    Matthew Vadum

    Trump antagonist and left-wing character assassin Michael Avenatti, whom Tucker Carlson has taken to calling “that creepy porn lawyer,” is threating to sue journalists for a conservative-leaning media outlet for defamation for daring to report on the attorney’s highly questionable ethics and business dealings.

    Avenatti’s uncharacteristic loss of self-control could indicate that the attorney is beginning to realize his vexatious lawsuit against President Trump to free plastic surgery-addicted X-rated film star Stormy Daniels to talk about the alleged affair she had with Trump – that she has already talked about at length over and over and over – is about to collapse.

    The media-savvy attorney who has become a household name across America has to know he has close to zero chance of succeeding in his own defamation lawsuit because he is now a hugely famous public figure who no longer enjoys the same civil law protections he enjoyed when he was relatively unknown.

    Or all of this could be an act, a kind of political theater aimed at an ulterior objective such as continuing to generate adverse publicity for President Trump to distract from his many impressive policy achievements.

    The evidence continues to accumulate that Avenatti’s relentless assault on President Trump and his personal lawyer Michael Cohen is part of the Barack Obama-led anti-democratic insurgency to oust the duly elected 45th president of the United States from the White House.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270191/michael-avenatti-deep-state-tool-matthew-vadum

  6. IS presence growing in Afghanistan despite ‘Mother of All Bombs’ | ITV News

  7. Neo-Nazis and Commies Condemn Israel
    May 15, 2018
    Daniel Greenfield

    Who said that the Hitler-Stalin Pact was as dead as Der Fuhrer?

    German neo-Nazis expressed their solidarity with Palestinians on Monday by showing an antisemitic banner and waving PLO flags.

    A banner with the colors of the Israeli flag that said “The state Israel is our misfortune” was held by neo-Nazis in the city of Dortmund, a city in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia with a population of about 600,000 people. The protest appears to have been held against both the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem and the founding of the State of Israel.

    They may have misplaced their, “Welcome Our New Islamic Overlords” banner.

    The Greek Commies are on board.

    A symbolic demonstration in protest of the killings and the U.S policy in the Middle East was held on Monday in Athens outside the Israeli embassy by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), affiliated labor unions, and organizations.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/270189/neo-nazis-and-commies%C2%A0condemn-israel-daniel-greenfield

    • German neo-Nazis expressed their solidarity with Palestinians on Monday by showing an antisemitic banner and waving PLO flags.

      Nice bit of publicity for the PLO, there. It’s difficult to imagine much better advertising with regard to what the “Palestinians” truly stand for.

  8. Deep-State Standoff
    The FBI spy in the Trump campaign, and a lot more, must come in from the cold.
    May 15, 2018
    Lloyd Billingsley

    Gina Haspel’s appearance last week before the Senate Intelligence Committee created a certain buzz but was hardly the biggest spy story in town. That prize belonged to the snoop the FBI had planted in the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. This was not a new story and veteran observers had been keeping close watch.

    Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, Andrew McCarthy wrote in National Review, had been “dead-on accurate” in his testimony that the FBI had a spy inside the Trump campaign for the stretch run of the 2016 race. In his Senate testimony on August 22, 2017, Simpson explained that Steele had met with at least one FBI agent in Rome, and the FBI had intelligence from an internal Trump campaign source, a human source inside the Trump campaign.

    This was an explosive revelation and, following the publication of his testimony on January 9, 2018, Simpson did his best to walk it back. The revelations are now the subject of the ongoing battle between the House Intelligence Committee and the DOJ. Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal has been keeping close track on that front.

    The DOJ had finally “agreed to brief House Intelligence Committee members about a top-secret intelligence source that was part of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign. Even without official confirmation of that source’s name, the news so far holds some stunning implications.” The DOJ knew full well it should have turned this material over to congressional investigators last year, “but instead deliberately concealed it.”

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270184/deep-state-standoff-lloyd-billingsley

  9. 5 Takeaways from Israel’s ‘Operation House of Cards’
    A humiliating defeat for Iran.
    May 15, 2018
    Ari Lieberman

    It began shortly passed midnight on Wednesday, May 9, with a Quds Force-initiated barrage of 20 rockets directed at Israel’s Golan Heights, and ended the following day with the destruction or near-destruction of some 50 Iranian targets throughout Syria. Syrian anti-aircraft missile batteries that challenged the Israeli Air Force were reduced to expensive heaps of scrap metal. Twenty-seven pro-regime fighters, including 11 Iranians and 6 Syrians were killed.

    After months of covert operations and military deployments, Israel and Iran threw their gloves off and duked it out on Syrian soil but Round 1 unmistakably went to Israel. The Israelis clearly seemed satisfied with the results of their operation – appropriately codenamed House of Cards. The Iranians on the other hand, are smarting from their wounds and lashing out with the usual banal rhetoric about the “Zionist entity” but aside from nonsensical bluster about destroying Haifa and Tel Aviv, they have remained largely passive.

    It was the largest military operation undertaken by the Israel Defense Forces in Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and there are at least five takeaways from this brief but significant skirmish.

    A Triumph of Israeli Intelligence, tactics and technology: Operation House of Cards demonstrated that the IDF excelled and dominated In terms of technology, tactics and intelligence. For all their bluster, the Iranians were hopelessly outmatched.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270183/5-takeaways-israels-operation-house-cards-ari-lieberman

  10. Russia: Uncle of Paris knife attacker recalls ‘shy lad’ *EXCLUSIVE*

    Shamsadi Berbetov, the uncle of Paris knife-attacker Khamzat Asimov, recalled the “shy lad” he knew in an exclusive interview in the Russian city of Argun on Tuesday.

    “He went away sometime in 2002. We kept in touch. Sometimes he came home. He was a shy lad or still is. We do not know for sure whether he is alive or not. We know what is being said on TV. We do not know anything else,” he said.

    Speculating on the reasons behind the attack, Berbetov said “most likely, it was some sort of fight, probably, in a café, in a bar. We do not know. Maybe it was a terrorist attack. We do not have any idea. So, we have nothing to say.”

    On May 13, the knife-attacker, identified as 21-year-old French national Khamzat Azimov, who was born in Chechnya, assaulted passers-by, killing one person and injuring four more. The attacker was shot dead by police.

    French authorities have opened a terrorism investigation into the stabbing attack, responsibility for which was claimed by the self-proclaimed Islamic State

  11. VICE News – This Is Why Evangelical Christians Love Israel

    Thomas Morton joined a group of born again Christians as they toured the Holy Land and found out the real reason why they support Israel.

  12. VICE News – Why Palestinians Are Willing To Risk Their Lives During Protests On The Gaza Border

    Hamas called for thousands to amass along the border with Israel to denounce the U.S. embassy’s move to Jerusalem — and demand an end to the blockade on Gaza.

    Tens of thousands of Gazans answered that call today — and the Israelis responded with overwhelming force. But the more than 50 deaths today could be a reality check, and the body count in the morgue at Gaza City’s main hospital was higher than it’s been since the last war with Israel.

    For many here, a decade-long Israeli blockade has made life so hellish, that they’re readily willing to risk their lives and the large turnout for these protests is a victory in itself.

    Israel and the Trump Administration have already cut the militant group out of talks on a peace plan — a deal that will reportedly offer up four Jerusalem neighborhoods to the Palestinian Authority. But that means there’s nothing to lose if the violence escalates.

  13. White House: Hamas is provoking deadly Gaza protests

    Israeli Deputy Minister for Diplomacy Michael Oren on the deadly protests in Gaza and the U.S. moving its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

  14. Ramadan 2018 – AUSTRIA – WIEN – 16 y o Chechen kills 7 y o girl
    ===============================================
    Mord an Hadishat († 7): Es war der Nachbar!

    Im Mordfall der kleinen Hadishat hat die Polizei einen verdächtigen Nachbarn festgenommen. Der eingebürgerte Tschetschene hat die Tat gestanden.

    http://www.heute.at/oesterreich/wien/story/Mordfall-Hadishat-Ditteshof-Doebling-Verdaechtiger-hat-Tat-gestanden-59060621

    ==============================================
    16-Jähriger tötet Siebenjährige in Wien wegen “starker Wut“

    Ein Bekannter der Familie hat die siebenjährige Volksschülerin in einem Gemeindebau in Wien-Döbling getötet und anschließend in einem Müllcontainer abgelegt. Laut Polizei ging er mit brutaler Gewalt vor.

    http://www.tt.com/panorama/verbrechen/14360183-91/16-j%C3%A4hriger-t%C3%B6tet-siebenj%C3%A4hrige-in-wien-wegen-starker-wut.csp

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

    Tote Siebenjährige – Tatverdächtiger erst 16 Jahre alt

    https://www.welt.de/vermischtes/article176365486/Wien-Doebling-Tote-Siebenjaehrige-Tatverdaechtiger-erst-16-Jahre-alt.html

  15. Seattle approves ‘head tax’ on large businesses despite Amazon’s opposition

    https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/seattle-approves-head-tax-on-large-businesses-despite-amazons-opposition

    The Seattle City Council on Monday approved a pared-down version of the “head tax” on the metro area’s largest employers to fund efforts to battle homelessness despite public criticism from local businesses, including e-commerce giant Amazon.

    Approved by a vote of 8-1 on the amended version, the measure will go into effect in January 2019 and tax companies that earn $20 million or more in annual sales 14 cents per employee hour, or $275 per employee annually. The tax is expected to raise roughly $50 million per year toward outreach efforts for the homeless, including affordable housing and emergency shelter.

    Proponents on the city council reluctantly agreed to reduce the scope of the bills, which originally called for a tax of 26 cents per employee hour to raise about $75 million annually. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan had vowed to veto the larger tax.

    Richard: Most towns and cities give tax breaks to companies to bring large employers into town to get more jobs for their people. Seattle is trying to drive companies out of town.

    • Kill business! Kill business! Kill business!

      What more needs be said?

      • This will drive out the big employers, other regulations will drive out the middle to small employers. Will the rest of the state pay their bills?

  16. The Strzok-Page Texts and the Origins of the Trump-Russia Investigation
    By Andrew C. McCarthy

    May 14, 2018 5:10 PM

    Peter Strzok and Lisa Page’s texts shine a highly redacted light on how the Trump-Russia investigation began.

    It was July 31, 2016. Just days earlier, the Obama administration had quietly opened an FBI counterintelligence investigation of Russian cyber-espionage — hacking attacks — to disrupt the 2016 election. And not random, general disruption; the operating theory was that the Russians were targeting the Democratic party, for the purpose of helping Donald Trump win the presidency.

    FBI special agent Peter Strzok was downright giddy that day.

    The Bureau had finally put to bed “Mid Year Exam.” MYE was code for the dreaded investigation of Hillary Clinton’s improper use of a private email system to conduct State Department business, which resulted in the retention and transmission of thousands of classified emails, as well as the destruction of tens of thousands of government business records. Strzok and other FBI vets dreaded the case because it was a go-through-the-motions exercise: Everyone working on it knew that no one was going to be charged with a crime; that Mrs. Clinton was going to be the next president of the United States; and that the FBI’s goal was not to be tarnished in the process of “investigating” her — to demonstrate, without calling attention to the suffocating constraints imposed by the Obama Justice Department, that the Bureau had done a thorough job, and that there was a legal rationale for letting Clinton off the hook that might pass the laugh test.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/strzok-page-texts-trump-russia-investigation-origins/

  17. Alert: Kilauea Volcano Eruption Spreads Again, Sends ‘Lava Bombs’ 500 Feet In The Air

    • Jewish blogs flagged this Millière essay as a challenge to Soeren Kern’s status as The Most Depressing Author at Gatestone.

      I’d say Ingrid Carlqvist is the runner-up.
      Kern writes more articles than both, so he can’t be beat.
      It’s {volume + consistency = depressing²}.

  18. Richard:j Anyone in the Gun World that thinks they can give the gun control groups the military looking weapons and buy them off is not thinking straight. The Gun Controllers are already saying their goal is to outlaw all firearms. That means the rifles that are shaped like the tradicitnal hunting rifle as well as those that are military looking.

    The Camp Chasm: New Fight over Guns Ignited; Is That the Plan?

    A newly-rekindled fight over guns and the Second Amendment within the outdoors, hunting and shooting community has erupted, and the timing – with a critical midterm election just over the horizon – is curious

    Hostilities between “hunters” and “gun rights activists” were rekindled by a recent open letter in the Huffington Post published under the byline of Daniel Ashe, who served as USFWS Director in the Obama administration from February, 2011 to January 2017, when Donald Trump moved into the Oval Office. This “Open Letter from Hunters about Gun Reform” seems almost designed to create a chasm among shooters and hunters, who ought to be on the same side in the fight to protect Second Amendment rights.

    Viewed from a skeptical perspective, one just might wonder if that is the plan.

    The Ashe letter was signed by a 11 other high-profile names in the outdoors including outdoor writers and three former presidents of the Outdoor Writers Association of America (OWAA). That organization issued something of a tepid statement when critics suggested that the people identifying themselves as OWAA associates might create the impression that OWAA tacitly approved their remarks.

    http://libertyparkpress.com/the-camp-chasm-new-fight-over-guns-ignited-is-that-the-plan/

  19. North Korea threatens to cancel Trump-Kim summit over South Korea-US military drills

    Dictator Kim Jong-un was set to meet with U.S President Donald Trump on June 12 in Singapore but the meeting is now reportedly at risk

    North Korea has threatened to cancel the much anticipated Trump-Kim summit over the South Korea-US military drills.

    The communist country scrapped high-level talks with officials form their neighbouring country which had been planned for later today.

    And the summit between US President Donald Trump and dictator Kim Jong-un is also now under threat.

    It is the first major roadblock relations between the two countries have hit since Kim began attempting to improve relations with the outside world following crippling sanctions.

    South Korean news agency Yonhap has reported: “The North’s Korean Central News Agency said the Max Thunder drills between the South Korean and US air forces are a rehearsal for invasion of the North and a provocation amid warming inter-Korean ties.

    “The high-level talks were meant to take place on the southern side of the truce village of Panmunjom to discuss follow-up measures to the two Korean leaders’ summit last month.”

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/north-korea-trump-kim-summit-12541844

    • Kim and Xi are stalling for time, wonder what they are going to do when Trump says stop stalling?

    • North Korea threatens to cancel Trump-Kim summit over South Korea-US military drills

      Here it comes … exactly as I predicted.

      If I was an (even bigger) Alpha Hotel, I’d brag about how , “I told you so!”

      Except that all of us know how this is par for the course with North Korea and anyone who thinks otherwise has a dozen knives that won’t cut butter (just made that up!).

    • Pay close attention to this video, it tells why China is in massive economic trouble.

  20. OIC to impose political and economic sanctions on supporters of US Embassy move (memo, May 15, 2018)
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180515-oic-to-impose-political-and-economic-sanctions-on-supporters-of-us-embassy-move/

    “The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has said that it will impose economic and political sanctions on countries, officials, parliaments, companies or individuals who support the US Embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The OIC condemned “in the strongest terms” the illegal US decision.

    “This is an attack on the historical, legal, natural and national rights of the Palestinian people,” said the OIC, “which undermines the standing of the United Nations and rule of international law and thus represents an affront to international peace and security.”…”

    • Muslim Brotherhood: Palestine, Jerusalem are Arab and Islamic (memo, May 15, 2018)
      https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180515-muslim-brotherhood-palestine-jerusalem-are-arab-and-islamic/

      “Palestine and Jerusalem are Arab and Islamic and we will never waive an inch of their soil, Muslim Brotherhood spokesperson, Talaat Fahmi, said yesterday.

      “Palestine will remain an Arab and Islamic country, and we won’t give up on any inch of its soil,” Fahmi said in an official statement.

      He hailed the Palestinians’ Great March of Return which called for mass protests along the Palestinian-Israeli border to support the rights of the Palestinian people…”

      • Former CIA director: Trump and Netanyahu responsible for Gaza massacre (memo, May 15, 2018)
        https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180516-former-cia-director-trump-and-netanyahu-responsible-for-gaza-massacre/

        “A former director of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) held US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responsible Israels massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, Monday.

        John Brennan, who was the head of the CIA between March 2013 and January 2017, tweeted that the “Deaths in Gaza result of utter disregard of Messers Trump & Netanyahu for Palestinian rights & homeland.”

        He went on to critique moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and explain that the president has “Destroyed” the US’ role as “peacemaker”….”

  21. Jihadist extremism in Spain a home-grown affair (ansamed, May 15, 2018)
    http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/nations/spain/2018/05/15/jihadist-extremismssin-spain-a-home-grown-affair_cf9ec832-d4a6-4dbc-970c-ccbdc5d89f98.html

    “Madrid – Jihadist extremismin Spain is no longer the prerogative of foreigners but is increasingly becoming a home-grown affair, particularly amongst second-generation Moroccans, a study by the Elcano Royal Institute of Strategic Studies has said.

    Research by Fernando Reynares and Carola Garcia-Calvo shows that 7 out of 10 jihadists who were arrested or died in Spain the the period 2013-2017 were of Moroccan origin.

    Of these, three quarters were born in Spain, particularly in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Islamic extremism is concentrated on the poor outskirts of the two enclaves in Morocco, where social exclusion has created fertile ground for Salafism to take hold.

    However, there are also extremist elements in outlying urban areas of Catalonia. Nearly 40% of the over 800 Moroccan foreign fighters who travelled to Syria at the end of 2013 came from the regions surrounding Ceuta and Melilla. In addition, four of the six extremist Islamist cross-border networks dismantled by Spanish and Moroccan security apparatus in anti-terrorism operations between 2013 and 2017 were rooted in the enclaves. (ANSAmed).”

  22. Time to step up? Irish sound off on request to host refugees amid severe housing crisis

    The Irish Red Cross have asked citizens to “put empty space to better use” and house refugees from the Middle East who the government offered asylum to in the middle of a national housing crisis. But are the Irish prepared?

    • Oh goodness, this reminds me of the video spoof done in France where the ones who said, “yes, great idea” were presented with a dirty looking refugee to take home straightaway and suddenly changed their minds.

      There are countless “do-gooder” Germans with horror stories about having helped, housed or supported “refugees” who ended up bankrupt, with destroyed properties or lives – as a result of physical or mental abuse.

      The hundreds of millions in tax payer money is being wasted on “helping” these economic migrants in the name of humanitarianism – is just robbery of the citizenry.

  23. Russia investigation is a political coup: Chris Farrell

    Judicial Watch Director of Investigations Chris Farrell on former FBI Director James Comey’s claim that his conversations with President Trump weren’t leaks. Farrell also discusses the scope of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

  24. Austria: Schwarzenegger calls on Trump to ‘join us’ on climate action

    Former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger urged US President Donald Trump to join action in supporting renewable energy, during a summit organised by his R20 climate NGO in Vienna on Tuesday.

  25. Belgium: ‘We don’t have a lot of time’ to save nuclear accord – Iranian FM

    Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said there was not “a lot of time” to reach an accord on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JPCOA) after the US exited the deal, when speaking to the press in Brussels on Tuesday.

    Following a roundtable meeting with EU Foreign Policy Chief Frederica Mogherini and the foreign ministers from the UK, France and Germany, Zarif said “an appropriate action has been started.”

    • Belgium: EU, Tehran ‘determined’ to salvage nuclear deal – Mogherini

      EU Foreign Policy Chief Frederica Mogherini Frederica Mogherini stated that the European Union was “determined” to keep the Iran nuclear deal “in place,” when speaking at a press conference in Brussels on Tuesday.

    • Germany: Merkel throws weight behind Iran nuclear deal

      German Chancellor Angela Merkel reaffirmed her government’s support for the Iranian nuclear deal, despite the recent US withdrawal, in a speech from Berlin on Tuesday.

      “The agreement regarding the nuclear weaponisation of Iran is an agreement that, while surely having weaknesses, is still an agreement that we must stand by,” Merkel told delegates at the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) conference.

      Merkel acknowledged that European-US relations had been damaged following the decision of US President Donald Trump to withdraw from the 2015 deal, signed between Iran, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France – and Germany.

      Under the deal, known formally as the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), Iran stopped producing enriched uranium and handed over the majority of its stockpile in return for the lifting of sanctions.

  26. UK: ‘History will never forgive’ US for embassy move – Erdogan

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced the US embassy move to Jerusalem, saying that “history will never forgive” Washington for inflaming violence in the region, during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May in London. on Tuesday.

    • TRT – Turkey-UK Relations: Turkey, Uk want to increase collaboration

      President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has wrapped up a three day visit to the UK. On Tuesday he met with the Queen and held political discussions with Prime Minister Theresa May. The trip was designed to bolster economic and security ties, but events in Jerusalem and Gaza were also discussed. Simon McGregor-Wood has more.