Reader’s Links on July 2, 2018

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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

142 Replies to “Reader’s Links on July 2, 2018”

  1. Chicken of the trees: Eating Florida’s iguanas

    http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/environment/fl-reg-eating-iguana-south-florida-invasive-20180627-story.html

    “While many people view South Florida’s invasive iguana population as an annoyance at best and a pandemic at worst, Ishmeal Asson sees something else: lunch.

    The Fort Lauderdale resident and native Trinidadian considers eating iguanas to be a way of life. Growing up, Asson learned to roast the island critters at roadside and backyard gatherings. Iguana is a staple in the Caribbean, where the reptiles are a native species and are known as “pollo de los árboles,” or chicken of the trees. Their meat contains more protein than chicken, and members of some cultures believe it has medicinal properties.

    (continue at link)
    [posted in response to last week’s invasive iguanas stories]

  2. A little old but IMO quite relevant: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2016/08/moderates-and-radicals-in-islam-and-left.html

    The core strategic problem we face is two conflicts with two ideologies that operate subversively until they are in power. That is, instead of stating their agenda openly, Islam and the left operate as false fronts maintaining a friendly moderate image while pursuing a far more radical agenda.

    The distinction between moderates and radicals is at the heart of the debate about Islamic terrorism. Much as it used to be at the heart of the debate about Communism and its fellow travellers. Everyone will concede that there are indeed radicals, if only ISIS and Stalin. What they will deny is the extent of the complicity and, more significantly, the fact that the radicals were pursuing the same ends as the moderates, an Islamic Caliphate or a Communist dictatorship, only more rapidly and ruthlessly………………………………….

    • Such govt forces will also become targets for vigilantes.
      They’ll be harder to take down, but “liberating” their equipment will be a plus.

  3. Macron Removes France’s Envoy, Who Praised Hungarian PM’s Anti-Refugee Stance (sputniknews, Jul 2, 2018)
    https://sputniknews.com/europe/201807021065960256-hungary-france-macron-migrant/

    “In a confidential document which was leaked to the French media, the recently-dismissed French Ambassador to Hungary called Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s migration policy a “model” and stated that his “populism” was fabricated by the media; Orban has been slammed by France and Germany for his anti-refugee stance.

    French President Emmanuel Macron has removed his ambassador to Hungary days after a scandal which started with a confidential note the diplomat wrote to the Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, which was published by the investigative site Mediapart. Eric Fournier, former France’s envoy in Budapest, is being replaced with Pascale Andreani, and will take on other functions, according to the released presidential decree.

    The memo, addressed to the President’s office and the Foreign Ministry, defended Orban’s stance on migration, and slammed the Western media and many politicians for “Hungaryophobia.”…”

      • Not to nit pick but our language is being so manipulated by leftists that I feel I have to.

        Anti-illegal border crashers are called “anti-refugee” by the press.

    • Macron replaces French ambassador to Hungary after pro-Orban memo leaked

      PARIS (REUTERS) – President Emmanuel Macron replaced the French ambassador to Hungary over the weekend after a confidential memo in which the envoy praised Hungarian leader Viktor Orban’s migrant policy was leaked to the press.

      Mr Pascale Andreani was named as the new ambassador to Budapest to replace Mr Eric Fournier, who will take on other functions, a decree published in the official gazette on Saturday (June 30) showed.

      In the confidential note dated June 18, which was addressed to Mr Macron’s office and was published by investigative website Mediapart, Mr Fournier said Hungary was a “model” for dealing with migrants and that accusations of populism against Mr Orban were media fabrications.

      The former ambassador also wrote that French media, by accusing Hungary of antisemitism, were seeking to distract attention from the “real anti-antisemitism” coming from “Muslims in France and Germany”.

      Asked about the note on Friday, Mr Macron said he did not share the ambassador’s views and that the confidential note did not represent official French policy.

      “Had this ambassador said this publicly, he would have been dismissed immediately,” Mr Macron told a news conference in Brussels.

      Mr Macron, a fervent europhile, has traded barbs with Mr Orban and other eastern European leaders, accusing them of not respecting democratic values and refusing to take in migrants.

      The Hungarian leader said that people criticising his tough stance on migration belonged to Europe’s inefficient old guard.

      Last year, he called Mr Macron a “new boy” who had not made a promising start.

      https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/macron-replaces-hungary-ambassador-after-pro-orban-memo-leaked

      • Mr. Orban is visiting Israel this week, I think.
        Israelis love Hungary. It’s a big tourist destination.
        Significant Jewish community, no stares for those who wear kippot. Comments:
        ‘It’s so clean!’
        ‘Beautiful architecture survived the Commies!’
        ‘Pretty girls, not so many tats or piercings.’

  4. Salafist Scare in Sweden as Report Points to Avalanche Growth of Radical Islam (sputniknews, Jul 2, 2018)
    https://sputniknews.com/europe/201807021065959845-sweden-salafism-radical-islam/

    “The number of Islamist extremists in Sweden has risen tenfold, the Swedish Defense College wrote in a new report on the Islamist threat commissioned by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB). The report was called “one of a kind” as it mapped out the jihadist environment in Sweden and its methods of influence.

    According to the report, named “Between Salafism and Salafic Jihadism,” the number of Islamist extremists has grown tenfold over the past decade.

    In less than a decade, Sweden’s extreme Islamist environment has grown from 200 members to 2,000, with Salafism playing a vital role in the spread of violent Islamism in a number of Swedish cities, including Gothenburg.

    In the report, Salafism is described as a literal interpretation of Sunni Islam and an anti-democratic ideology with a demand for total submission to God’s will.

    Senior terrorist researcher Magnus Ranstorp stressed the previous lack of studies on the Salafist-jihadist ideology in Sweden, emphasizing that Salafist missionaries are proactive in social media, using websites such as YouTube and Facebook to reach out to new audiences.

    “Salafism has in some cases proved to be the foundation of jihadi extremism. All Salafists are not jihadists, but all jihadists are Salafists,” the report said, estimating that the Salafist propaganda has spurred more Swedish citizens into joining various jihadist movements, predominantly in the Middle East.

    The Defense College highlighted the extensive support to the jihadist cause in, for example, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and Syria, as well as the terrorist attacks that happened in Stockholm in 2010 and 2017, as the most notable events linked to the Salafists.

    At the same time, many things have been happening below the public radar, the report indicated. According to the report, Islamist imams have divided the country geographically to try and influence Muslims based on their interpretation of Islam. Hateful messages about women, gays, Jews and non-believers are said to be recurrent themes in the imams’ sermons, as is the importance of not integrating into Swedish society. Particular hatred is said to be directed against the Shia branch of Islam, which the Salafists describe as “invented by Jews in order to undermine the Muslim community from within.”

    Early indoctrination was identified as one of the key methods enabling the spread of the extremist ideology.

    “Salafists believe that an important and decisive step towards building a proper Islamic character is early education efforts in the Quranic schools and the lower secondary school,” the report said, urging the authorities to pay closer attention to this practice.

    In conclusion, Salafist propaganda was said to be going stronger in Sweden’s “exclusion areas” and was primarily aimed at fellow Muslims, especially women and young people.

    The exact number of Muslims in Sweden is a matter for debate due to the absence of religion-based statistics. A 2017 Pew report, however, estimated the proportion of Muslims at 8.1 percent of Sweden’s population of 10 million — which is the highest percentage in Scandinavia and one of the highest in the entire EU.”

  5. London shop criticised for flying England flags responds by putting EVEN MORE flags up (express, Jul 2, 2018)
    https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/982502/World-Cup-2018-news-England-flag-St-George-flag-London-shop-latest

    “A LONDON shop faced abuse for flying St George flags in support of England in the World Cup – the business responded to the complaint by covering the shopfront in even more flags.

    A shop in the east London town of Ilford received a letter stating its England flags should be removed because the owners are from India.

    The letter said the family had the “wrong flag” outside their shop and “should know that you don’t forget your motherland country”.

    In response to the letter, the shop owners vowed to put even more St George flags up as they rallied behind England.

    Sagan Mangat, Director at GMS Ltd, told the BBC: “I know I’m Indian but I’m also English. It’s got nothing to do with what football team I support.”

    The shopfront is now plastered in England flags with World Cup bunting wrapping its way around the building…”

  6. Alleged Islamic State ‘Morality Police’ Female Enforcer Arrested in Germany (breitbart, Jul 2, 2018)
    https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/02/alleged-islamic-state-morality-police-female-enforcer-arrested-in-germany/

    “German authorities say they have arrested a 27-year-old German woman suspected of being part of the Islamic State group’s “morality police” in Iraq.

    Federal prosecutors said Monday that Jennifer W. traveled to Iraq via Turkey and Syria in September 2014, where she joined the extremist group.

    In a statement, prosecutors said she patrolled parks in Fallujah and Mosul, ensuring that women adhered to the dress and behavior codes imposed by IS.

    W., whose surname wasn’t released for privacy reasons, was arrested by Turkish police in January 2016 after applying for a passport at the German embassy in Ankara. She was deported to Germany days later.

    Prosecutors said she was arrested in southern Germany on Friday and her home in northern Germany searched. She’s accused of membership in a foreign terrorist organization.”

  7. Ugandans angered by new tax for using social media (abcnews, Jul 2, 2018)
    https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/uganda-implements-tax-social-media-56309414

    “A new tax on social media has taken effect in Uganda, angering many who see the revenue measure as an attack on free speech.

    The tax on users of sites such as Facebook was first proposed by long-time leader Yoweri Museveni, who complained of online gossip in a March letter that urged the finance minister to raise money “to cope with the consequences.”

    In addition to the usual data fees, social media users now must pay upfront a daily levy of Shs200 (5 cents) to access all social media websites.

    Service providers, including regional telecom giant MTN, said in a joint statement Sunday that starting July 1 the levy would be charged on “Over The Top services,” including access to websites such as Instagram, Twitter and even LinkedIn. The tax will be deducted by service providers that will then pay to the government revenue service.

    Many Ugandans are “bitter” because the tax “was brought in bad faith,” said Ladislaus Rwakafuuzi, a prominent human rights lawyer.

    “The reasons for it were anti-people, were anti-social, not development-oriented,” he said Monday.

    From the social media levy the government hopes to collect about Shs400 billion (about $100 million) in the current financial year.

    About 17 million of Uganda’s 41 million people are active internet users, according to government figures.

    This is not the first time Uganda’s government has taken actions widely seen as curbing social media use in the country…”

  8. Amnesty: Indonesian forces behind unlawful killings in Papua (abcnews, Jul 2, 2018)
    https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/amnesty-indonesian-forces-unlawful-killings-papua-56305952

    “Indonesia’s police and military are responsible for at least 95 unlawful killings in the easternmost Papua region since 2010, including targeted slayings of activists, Amnesty International said Monday, condemning a near-total absence of justice for the mainly indigenous victims…”

  9. Human rights group denounce France’s military sales to Egypt (abcnews, Jul 2, 2018)
    https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/human-rights-group-denounce-frances-military-sales-egypt-56306904

    “Human right groups alleged in a report Monday that the French government and several private companies have supplied military and surveillance equipment that the Egyptian government uses to silence its citizens.

    The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights and three other groups called for an immediate end to the sales and for a parliamentary inquiry in France.

    They alleged in the report that the French products “have helped establish” a system of surveillance and control “that is being used to eradicate all forms of dissent and citizen action.”

    France has sold warships, fighter jets, armored vehicles, missiles and surveillance technologies to Egypt in recent years.

    The Egyptian government has fiercely cracked down on dissent since the military overthrow of an elected and divisive Islamist president in 2013. Thousands of Islamists have been arrested along with secular pro-democracy activists, many of whom are now in prison.

    General-turned-President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi was elected to a second term in March.

    The French government has argued that security and military cooperation with Egypt is needed to fight the extremist groups that encourage acts of terrorism and to prevent further destabilization of the region…”

  10. Turkish Army accused, yet again, of starting forest fires in southeast (theregion, Jul 2, 2018)
    http://theregion.org/article/13765-turkish-army-accused-yet-again-of-starting-forest-fires-southeast

    “The Turkish military has deliberately started forest fires which have lasted for a month now in the municipality of Rubarok near Semdinli, according to ANF News, and has destroyed thousands of hectares of forest in the process. The initial shape of the forest fire is said to have been drawn with gasoline poured across the forest in the form of a star and a crescent.

    The population of Rubarok have apparently attempted to prevent the forest fires from enshrouding their villages in smoke, but the military has prevented them from doing so.

    “The forests and gorges between Derecik and South Kurdistan are completely covered by forest” residents of the region bordering Iraq told ANF News, “The soldiers destroy both the forests and the living beings in them. We call all humanity for help. They must stop this inhumane practice immediately.”

    Semdinli, bordering Iran and Iraq, has long been a flashpoint between the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Turkish military. In 1984, the PKK launched its first raid in Semdinli, and the area continues to bears symbolic significance.

    Turkey has, in the past, prohibited intervention that would extinguish these fires, and has been accused by human rights organizations of using helicopters to ensure that these fires continue to burn.

    According to scholars Joost Jongerden, Hugo de Vos, and Jacob van Etten, the burning of forests was a strategy that the Turkish military developed called the ‘field domination doctrine’. During the 1990’s in particular, which led to the displacement of millions of Kurds, forest destruction was an essential strategy in the so-called war against the PKK which led to the destruction of hundreds of villages.

    In 2010, IPS news reported that the Turkish General Directorate of Forestry was simultaneously claiming to combat forest fires while “passively observing the Turkish army ignite forested areas in the country’s predominantly Kurdish southeastern region.””

  11. Belgian Police Detain Two People Accused of Plotting Attack on Iranian Conf. (sputniknews, Jul 2, 2018)
    https://sputniknews.com/europe/201807021065963101-belgium-detention-terror-attack-plot-iranian-conference/

    “The prosecutor has revealed that two Belgian citizens of Iranian origin were plotting a bomb terrorist attack on the Iranian conference which took place in France on June 30.

    The two suspects carrying 500 grams of a home made explosive were arrested by Belgian police on Saturday. In addition, an improvised explosive device was found in their vehicle.

    “The Federal Prosecutor’s Office launched an investigation into the terrorist plot on the basis of information from the state security service. As part of this investigation, Amir S., born on April 26, 1980, and his wife Nasime N., born on September 20, 1984, both Belgian nationals of Iranian origin, were placed under arrest by a court investigator from Antwerpen specializing in terrorism cases,” the ministry’s statement reads.

    The suspects were charged with attempted terrorist assassination and plotting of a terrorist offense.

    According to the Belgian prosecutors, the suspects were plotting a bomb attack on a conference, which was held in the French city of Villepinte on Saturday by an Iranian left-wing organization, banned in Iran. The event was attended by nearly 25,000 people.”

    • Two charged over plot to attack Iran opposition rally in France

      Belgium on Monday charged a husband and wife over a plot to bomb a weekend rally by an exiled Iranian opposition group in France where close Donald Trump ally Rudy Giuliani was in attendance. Three arrests were also made in France.

      Amir S., 38, and Nasimeh N., 33, both Belgian nationals, “are suspected of having attempted to carry out a bomb attack” on Saturday in the Paris suburb of Villepinte, during a conference organised by the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, a statement from the Belgian federal prosecutor said.

      The couple, described by prosecutors as being “of Iranian origin”, were carrying 500 grams (about a pound) of the volatile explosive TATP along with a detonation device when an elite police squad stopped them in a residential district of Brussels.

      Belgian prosecutors said an alleged accomplice was under arrest in France, while two others were released after questioning by French police.

      Three people were also being held in France on Monday, a legal source told AFP.

      “The investigations aim to determine the relations they might have with the suspects arrested in Belgium” on Monday.

      The Belgian statement said that an Iranian diplomat at the Austrian embassy in Vienna, a contact of the couple, was also arrested in Germany.

      Police carried out five raids across Belgium on Saturday linked to the affair, authorities said, though they refused to detail any results of the operation.

      Iranian opposition group the National Council of Resistance of Iran accused Tehran of being behind the alleged plot.

      “The terrorists from the Mullahs’ regime in Belgium assisted by its terrorist-diplomats planned this attack,” said a statement sent to AFP.

      The developments came on the day Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived to Switzerland for a trip Tehran said was of “crucial importance” for cooperation between the Islamic Republic and Europe after the US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear agreement.

      President Rouhani is also due to visit Austria, the country holding the six-monthly presidency of the EU.

      At the rally, Trump allies Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani urged regime change in Iran, saying the prospect was closer than ever after the Islamic Republic was hit by a wave of strikes and protests.

      Former House speaker Gingrich and ex-New York mayor and lawyer Giuliani also told opposition supporters that Trump needed to turn up the heat on European countries still seeking to do business with Tehran despite reimposed US sanctions.

      The Belgian statement said about 25,000 people attended the rally in France.

      The People’s Mojahedin (MEK), formed in the 1960s to overthrow the shah of Iran, fought the rise of the mullahs in Tehran following the 1979 Islamic revolution.

      It earned itself a listing as a “terrorist organisation” by the US State Department in 1997 and was only removed from terror watchlists by the European Union in 2008 and Washington in 2012.

      Belgium has been on high alert since the smashing of a terror cell in the town of Verviers in January 2015 that was planning an attack on police.

      https://www.thelocal.fr/20180702/belgium-charges-two-over-plot-to-attack-iran-opposition-rally-in-france

      Iran diplomat among four arrested over suspected plot against Iranian opposition meeting

      […]Two arrests linked to the Belgian case were made in France and Germany. The person arrested in Germany was a diplomat at the Iranian embassy in the Austrian capital Vienna, the Belgian statement said.

      Staff at the embassy said the ambassador was not immediately available for comment. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is due to visit Austria on Wednesday.

      The Belgian statement gave no further details about diplomat, other than saying they were suspected of having been in contact with the Belgian pair arrested. It gave no details about the fourth suspect, arrested in France.[…]

      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-attacks-belgium-iran/iran-diplomat-among-four-arrested-over-suspected-plot-against-iranian-opposition-meeting-idUSKBN1JS1C3

  12. Egypt refuses EU call for migrant reception centers
    Egypt and four other countries have said they will refuse to host migrants aiming for the European Union. The “reception centers” are part a broader plan to more evenly distribute asylum seekers in Europe.
    Egypt said on Sunday that it will not build refugee camps for migrants deported from the European Union if asked. The announcement came after details of a new EU-wide migration deal revealed that bloc leaders will seek to build centers for asylum seekers in “partner countries” in the Middle East and Africa.

    “EU reception facilities for migrants in Egypt would violate the laws and constitution of our country,” Egyptian Speaker of the House of Representatives Ali Abdel Aal, to Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
    Aal, who co-authored Egypt’s 2014 constitution, said that his country “already has about 10 million refugees from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, Sudan, Somalia and other countries,” and that as all asylum seekers are entitled to free health care and education, Egypt was already at capacity. The only exception, Aal said, was migrants who arrived in the country legally.

    The leaders of Albania, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria have also said they will refuse to build reception centers for migrants attempting to reach the EU.
    https://www.dw.com/en/egypt-refuses-eu-call-for-migrant-reception-centers/a-44476682

    • EU – Never send migrants back to Libya

      Against our values, international and EU law

      European Commission spokesperson Natasha Bertaud said Monday the EU would never send migrants back to Libya because of the inhumane conditions in Libyan migrant detention centres. “There will never be repatriations by the EU to Libya or European ships sending migrants back to Libya,” she said. “That is against our values, international law and European law. We are well aware of the inhumane situation for many migrants in Libya. The UN is working to improve their conditions, and there is a mechanism of urgent transit, to evacuate these persons from Libya”.

      http://www.ansa.it/english/news/politics/2018/07/02/never-send-migrants-back-to-libya-ec-3_66f8aeea-fef9-488b-ba9c-a9bda55d31bf.html

    • euronews – View from Vienna – migration set to dominate Austria’s EU presidency

      • zero hedge – Atrocity Porn And Hitler Memes Target Trump For Regime Change

        […]images of wailing children

        […]audio of distraught toddlers

        […] caging of children

        […]Some images of small children have become veritable icons

        […]a little boy in a cage

        […]The reality behind the pictures doesn’t matter, though. More important are the images themselves and their power, along with dishonest media spin, to produce an emotional response that short-circuits critical thinking.

        […] Children are suffering ! We need to “do something”!

        […]“Aleppo Boy,” his pathetic dusty image immediately went viral

        […] human props in what is known as ‘atrocity porn’

        […]Atrocity propaganda has long been a part of warfare

        […]Atrocity porn dovetails closely with another key meme, that of Hitler-of-the-month.

        https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-23/atrocity-porn-and-hitler-memes-target-trump-regime-change

      • channel 4 – They fled the Nazis as kids – now they’re helping Europe’s refugees

        The migration crisis is shaping politics and influencing elections across Europe, and although the number of people seeking a new life on the continent has slowed, people are still coming by the boatload.

        One of the countries under the biggest strain is Greece. They’ve had over 500 new arrivals on their islands since Friday.

        We went to Greece, along with a group who know all too well the plight of escaping persecution – Jewish people brought over as children on the Kindertransport rescue effort during the Nazi era.

        We visited the island of Lesbos, which is host to more than 10,000 people stuck in camps, both official and unofficial, and had over 250 new arrivals just today.

        + YT comments on the page

    • Germany: It’s a penalty shootout! – Maas calls for EU consensus on migration

      German Minister of Foreign Affairs Heiko Maas met with his Bulgarian counterpart Ekaterina Zakharieva in Berlin on Monday where the two diplomats discussed the current migration situation in the EU.

      “Currently, we find ourselves already out of the game, and not even in extra time, but in a penalty shootout,” Maas said, calling for a constructive decision on migration crisis to be made and highlighting the fragility of the situation.

    • BREITBART – Irish PM: Crisis Facing Europe Not Mass Migration But Rise of Patriotic Parties

      Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has declared that the crisis facing the EU is not mass immigration, but European resistance to importing large numbers of migrants from the third world.

      “This isn’t so much a migrant crisis as it is a political crisis,” the Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) said of disagreement within the EU over how to deal with illegal immigrants arriving to the continent.

      “Europe needs migration,” he insisted, claiming the belief that hundreds of thousands of migrants from the world’s poorest countries arriving in boats and storming the EU’s frontiers is a problem that has been invented by right-wing parties for political gain.

      […]“But we have a political crisis because of the fact that anti-immigration and populist parties have been very electorally successful in Italy and central [and] eastern Europe.

      https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/07/02/irish-pm-eu-crisis-patriotic-migration/

      • Ireland is vying with Spain for The Garbage Can of Europe Award. Flies the “Pal” flag, BDS, ‘welcome-jihadis’.
        Maybe it will be formalized as the “Soros Prize”.

    • Financial times – Populism – Fearless Matteo Salvini’s threat to the EU establishment

      In Italy and beyond, far-right populists’ ambition is to destroy the bloc from within

      The EU faces two existential challenges: one from Donald Trump and one from Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s far-right League. The threat posed by the US president is obvious, direct and brutal.

      Trade tariffs for European cars will probably happen. The EU is paying a price for its over-dependence on the US as an absorber of export surpluses and for external security.

      But the threat posed by Mr Salvini may be more potent if not quite so direct. Since he agreed to join a coalition with the Five Star Movement, he made two politically cunning decisions: the first was to suspend the talk about an Italian euro exit. The second is to use his role as interior minister as a bully pulpit with terrifying success.

      Italy is playing a good-cop, bad-cop game with the EU. Mr Salvini is the bad cop. The good cop is Giuseppe Conte, Italy’s prime minister. He got a bad deal from the European Council, which agreed a few minor measures well short of what he demanded. The EU committed itself to setting up refugee camps inside its external borders and will devote more resources to protecting the periphery. And boats from non-governmental organisations will find it harder to pick up refugees.

      But Mr Conte did not get anywhere with Italy’s central demand to reform the Dublin regulation — the rules that assign responsibility for refugees to the first EU country of arrival. Mr Salvini reacted with scepticism to the outcome of the summit, not surprisingly. The crisis is not over. All the difficult decisions on immigration have yet to be taken.

      For the EU’s populists, this is fertile breeding ground. One of the reasons the leftist Greek insurrection against the EU’s establishment failed in 2015 was a lack of allies. The populists of the right have a different strategy. They work from inside the EU by forming alliances. Their ambition is to take over the EU institutions, and destroy the EU from within. Mr Salvini has his eyes set on the European elections in May 2019 and his chances look good.

      It is possible that the main centre-left and the centre-right groups in the European Parliament will be swept away by two challengers. One of them could be a new pro-European liberal group, led by Emmanuel Macron, French president. The other would be an assorted group of populists and nationalists. They could stage a reverse takeover of the European Peoples’ party, the centre-right group. Or huddle together in a separate European party. Either way, they will find ways to assert their influence.

      One often hears the argument that the populists in Italy, Austria and Bavaria have incompatible interests. The Germans want to send refugees back to Italy. The Italians want to dump theirs on Germany. And Austria does not want immigrants to pass through in either direction.

      But the reference to competing interests misses the more important point that the populists are united in their wish to renationalise policy. This could happen in two ways. They might win the European elections, giving them a say over the next Commission president and a hand on the levers of power in the EU’s institutions. Or the centrists might capitulate and agree to a partial re-nationalisation of immigration policy, with all the negative implication this would have for open borders. A comprehensive EU-wide migration policy would be the best solution of all. But it is the least likely outcome, nevertheless.

      I also expect that Italy, with Mr Salvini as back seat driver, will become more assertive in other areas and challenge Franco-German dominance in all aspects of EU policy. In the past, Italy was driven by fear of isolation. The country often agreed to legislation that was against the national interest. Examples of this self-sacrifice include the rules underpinning the European Stability Mechanism or the bank recovery and resolution directive.

      What makes Mr Salvini’s threat to the EU’s established order so potent is his fearlessness. He is the first modern Italian politician without an emotional need to be among friends in Davos or Brussels. And while the more experienced EU leaders managed to ensnare the relatively inexperienced Mr Conte, the political reality is that Mr Salvini can pull the plug on the coalition at any time. He will probably wait until after next year’s European elections.

      Remember that Italy is the country where the EU’s two crises come together — immigration and eurozone. A majority of Italians still support the EU, but Euroscepticism is rising. The EU will need to deliver solutions to both problems, not just paper over the cracks as it did last week.

      The trouble with the EU is that its stability depends on the likes of Mr Salvini and Mr Trump never coming to power. It risks becoming the Weimar Republic of our times — a construction fit only for a temperate political climate.

      https://www.ft.com/content/c1c31e24-7ba5-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c475

      • Italy: ‘The Germans should preoccupy themselves with the Germans’ says Salvini

        talian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said of the German governmental crisis that “the Germans should preoccupy themselves with the Germans,” speaking in Milan on Monday.

        The crisis, which was prompted by opposing views on asylum policy within the ruling coalition, was interpreted by Salvini as a consequence of migration policies in recent years. He stated: “migration that is out of control is not sustainable and not accepted by anyone.”

        Commenting on his views of the wider European political situation, he said: “Europe, misgoverned until now, is a Europe based on precariousness, on fear and on mass immigration. We simply want to focus again on the right to work, the right to life, to security and happiness.”

        “Therefore, those that should fear are the ones that have been freeloading until now,” he added.

    • euronews – Captain of the Lifeline ship feels wrongly targeted

      It’s after a court hearing in Malta on Monday after rescuing around 230 migrants. The prosecutor says the ship was not properly registered

      • Malta: Captain of Lifeline rescue ship faces registration charges in Valletta

        The captain of the Lifeline humanitarian rescue ship was summoned to court in Valletta on Monday over claims of the vessel was not properly registered.

        Activists wearing t-shirts reading ‘Save Lives’ protested in front of the Law Courts building as Lifeline captain Claus-Peter Reisch entered.

        Police claim that the captain’s sea license was limited to coastal waters, while the Lifeline undertook rescue operations in international waters.

        Reisch, a German national, has been granted bail on a personal guarantee of €10,000 ($11,600) but cannot leave the country.

        “What we hope is that this case is not a symptom of the current climate in the Mediterranean where governments are closing the EU’s border and targeting rescue NGO’s who are doing what governments must be doing,” one of Reisch’s lawyers said.

        The Lifeline ship stranded at sea for five days with more than 200 migrants, including five children, on board, before it was allowed to enter the port of Valetta on Wednesday.

    • Deutsche Welle – Two survivors from Ethiopia and Somalia tell of mystery migrant shipwreck

      An Ethiopian and a Somali say they were on two boats heading to Italy from Libya when one of the vessels sank. The UN refugee agency says up to 500 people may have drowned in the tragedy.

      Visibly shaken from their ordeal, the two men – 25-year-old Muaz Mahmoud Aymo and 28-year-old Mowlid Isman – described how they were among 200 people aboard a small boat when smugglers forced them onto a larger vessel, which already had 300 people on board.

      “When we moved to that boat, the big boat fell into the water and my baby (of) two months and my 21-year-old wife, and all died in the middle of the ocean,” Aymo told reporters at the offices of the Greek charity Praxis.

      “Only 41 made it, we swam to save our lives to the small boat. And I saved two persons,” he added.

      The two said although they managed to get back on board the smaller boat, the smuggler refused to wait and help others struggling in the sea.

      Isman, who said his two sisters and her baby died in the tragedy, said “We saw the dead people with our eyes.”

      When the small boat’s engine broke down, the smuggler was picked up by a third boat and promised to return.

      “We were three days in the ocean,” the 25-year-old Aymo said, adding that they had nothing to eat or drink on board.

      By chance, the survivors found a mobile phone on board with only one number saved in the memory. Aymo called it, and it was the Italian police.

      The 41 survivors – 37 men, three women and a three-year-old baby – were picked up on Saturday by a passing cargo ship and transferred to Greece.

      Stories match

      The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said it had interviewed some of the survivors, and their testimonies matched those heard by reporters. Up to 500 people are thought to have drowned.

      It remains unclear where the sinking might have taken place and neither the Italian, Greek, Libyan or Egyptian coastguards have confirmed the sinking. To date, there are no reports of bodies or debris washing ashore.

      If confirmed, the shipwreck would be one of the deadliest migrant boat sinkings in the Mediterranean.

      Migration rights groups have warned that with new restrictions placed on migrants entering Europe from Turkey, the continent is witnessing a large number of attempts to cross by boat from North Africa to Italy.

      https://www.dw.com/en/two-survivors-from-ethiopia-and-somalia-tell-of-mystery-migrant-shipwreck/a-19207092

    • BBC – Germany migrants: Interior minister Seehofer will not resign

      […]Mrs Merkel says a good compromise was found,

      https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44685727

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

      Deutsche Welle – Chancellor Angela Merkel and Horst Seehofer agree on a migration compromise

      German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has agreed to a deal after threatening to resign over a rift over asylum policy with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fellow conservatives. DW has the news as it happens.

      […]The cornerstone of Seehofer’s so-called “master plan” insists on refusing entry to migrants who have already been registered in another EU country

      […]They made a last-minute deal, agreeing for Seehofer to stay in his position and to set up transit centers at the German-Austria border.

      […]22:36 Merkel expressed her satisfaction with the agreement, saying they had found “a really good compromise after a hard struggle.”

      “This (deal) preserves the spirit of partnership in the European Union and at the same time is a decisive step towards organizing and controlling secondary migration.”

      […]22:34 The content of the deal is as follows:

      1) At the German-Austrian border there should be a new border regime, it should ensure “that we prevent asylum seekers whose asylum procedures are the responsibility of other EU countries from entering the country”.

      2) Transit centres will be set up. From there, asylum seekers should be sent directly to the responsible countries. However, this should not be done without a consensus, but on the basis of administrative agreements, for example.

      3) In cases where such agreements can not be reached, they would nevertheless be rejected – “on the basis of an agreement with the Republic of Austria.”

      https://www.dw.com/en/chancellor-angela-merkel-and-horst-seehofer-agree-on-a-migration-compromise/a-44485481

      =========================================
      PIC :

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e3ee5b9be46eb20a8f2f7507e3bdf5276da63cffdd8154a3acd816ecaf8662bb.jpg

    • Europe is using smartphone data as a weapon to deport refugees

      European leaders need to bring immigration numbers down, and metadata on smartphones could be just what they need to start sending migrants back

      Smartphones have helped tens of thousands of migrants travel to Europe. A phone means you can stay in touch with your family – or with people smugglers. On the road, you can check Facebook groups that warn of border closures, policy changes or scams to watch out for. Advice on how to avoid border police spreads via WhatsApp.

      Now, governments are using migrants’ smartphones to deport them.

      Across the continent, migrants are being confronted by a booming mobile forensics industry that specialises in extracting a smartphone’s messages, location history, and even WhatsApp data. That information can potentially be turned against the phone owners themselves.

      In 2017 both Germany and Denmark expanded laws that enabled immigration officials to extract data from asylum seekers’ phones. Similar legislation has been proposed in Belgium and Austria, while the UK and Norway have been searching asylum seekers’ devices for years.

      Following right-wing gains across the EU, beleaguered governments are scrambling to bring immigration numbers down. Tackling fraudulent asylum applications seems like an easy way to do that. As European leaders met in Brussels last week to thrash out a new, tougher framework to manage migration —which nevertheless seems insufficient to placate Angela Merkel’s critics in Germany— immigration agencies across Europe are showing new enthusiasm for laws and software that enable phone data to be used in deportation cases.

      Admittedly, some refugees do lie on their asylum applications. Omar – not his real name – certainly did. He travelled to Germany via Greece. Even for Syrians like him there were few legal alternatives into the EU. But his route meant he could face deportation under the EU’s Dublin regulation, which dictates that asylum seekers must claim refugee status in the first EU country they arrive in. For Omar, that would mean settling in Greece – hardly an attractive destination considering its high unemployment and stretched social services.

      Last year, more than 7,000 people were deported from Germany according to the Dublin regulation. If Omar’s phone were searched, he could have become one of them, as his location history would have revealed his route through Europe, including his arrival in Greece.

      But before his asylum interview, he met Lena – also not her real name. A refugee advocate and businesswoman, Lena had read about Germany’s new surveillance laws. She encouraged Omar to throw his phone away and tell immigration officials it had been stolen in the refugee camp where he was staying. “This camp was well-known for crime,” says Lena, “so the story seemed believable.” His application is still pending.

      Omar is not the only asylum seeker to hide phone data from state officials. When sociology professor Marie Gillespie researched phone use among migrants travelling to Europe in 2016, she encountered widespread fear of mobile phone surveillance. “Mobile phones were facilitators and enablers of their journeys, but they also posed a threat,” she says. In response, she saw migrants who kept up to 13 different SIM cards, hiding them in different parts of their bodies as they travelled.

      This could become a problem for immigration officials, who are increasingly using mobile phones to verify migrants’ identities, and ascertain whether they qualify for asylum. (That is: whether they are fleeing countries where they risk facing violence or persecution.)In Germany, only 40 per cent of asylum applicants in 2016 could provide official identification documents. In their absence, the nationalities of the other 60 per cent were verified through a mixture of language analysis — using human translators and computers to confirm whether their accent is authentic — and mobile phone data.

      Over the six months after Germany’s phone search law came into force, immigration officials searched 8,000 phones. If they doubted an asylum seeker’s story, they would extract their phone’s metadata – digital information that can reveal the user’s language settings and the locations where they made calls or took pictures.

      To do this, German authorities are using a computer programme, called Atos, that combines technology made by two mobile forensic companies – T3K and MSAB. It takes just a few minutes to download metadata. “The analysis of mobile phone data is never the sole basis on which a decision about the application for asylum is made,” says a spokesperson for BAMF, Germany’s immigration agency. But they do use the data to look for inconsistencies in an applicant’s story. If a person says they were in Turkey in September, for example, but phone data shows they were actually in Syria, they can see more investigation is needed.

      Denmark is taking this a step further, by asking migrants for their Facebook passwords. Refugee groups note how the platform is being used more and more to verify an asylum seeker’s identity.

      It recently happened to Assem, a 36-year-old refugee from Syria. Five minutes on his public Facebook profile will tell you two things about him: first, he supports a revolution against Syria’s Assad regime and, second, he is a devoted fan of Barcelona football club. When Danish immigration officials asked him for his password, he gave it to them willingly. “At that time, I didn’t care what they were doing. I just wanted to leave the asylum center,” he says. While Assem was not happy about the request, he now has refugee status.

      The Danish immigration agency confirmed they do ask asylum applicants to see their Facebook profiles. While it is not standard procedure, it can be used if a caseworker feels they need more information. If the applicant refused their consent, they would tell them they are obliged under Danish law. Right now, they only use Facebook – not Instagram or other social platforms.

      Across the EU, rights groups and opposition parties have questioned whether these searches are constitutional, raising concerns over their infringement of privacy and the effect of searching migrants like criminals.

      strong>“In my view, it’s a violation of ethics on privacy to ask for a password to Facebook or open somebody’s mobile phone,” says Michala Clante Bendixen of Denmark’s Refugees Welcome movement. “For an asylum seeker, this is often the only piece of personal and private space he or she has left.”

      Information sourced from phones and social media offers an alternative reality that can compete with an asylum seeker’s own testimony. “They’re holding the phone to be a stronger testament to their history than what the person is ready to disclose,” says Gus Hosein, executive director of Privacy International. “That’s unprecedented.”

      Privacy campaigners note how digital information might not reflect a person’s character accurately. “Because there is so much data on a person’s phone, you can make quite sweeping judgements that might not necessarily be true,” says Christopher Weatherhead, technologist at Privacy International.

      Bendixen cites the case of one man whose asylum application was rejected after Danish authorities examined his phone and saw his Facebook account had left comments during a time he said he was in prison. He explained that his brother also had access to his account, but the authorities did not believe him; he is currently waiting for appeal.

      A spokesperson for the UK’s Home Office told me they don’t check the social media of asylum seekers unless they are suspected of a crime. Nonetheless, British lawyers and social workers have reported that social media searches do take place, although it is unclear whether they reflect official policy. The Home Office did not respond to requests for clarification on that matter.

      Privacy International has investigated the UK police’s ability to search phones, indicating that immigration officials could possess similar powers. “What surprised us was the level of detail of these phone searches. Police could access information even you don’t have access to, such as deleted messages,” Weatherhead says.

      His team found that British police are aided by Israeli mobile forensic company Cellebrite. Using their software, officials can access search history, including deleted browsing history. It can also extract WhatsApp messages from some Android phones.

      There is a crippling irony that the smartphone, for so long a tool of liberation, has become a digital Judas. If you had stood in Athens’ Victoria Square in 2015, at the height of the refugee crisis, you would have noticed the “smartphone stoop”: hundreds of Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghans standing or sitting about this sun-baked patch of grass and concrete, were bending their heads, looking into their phones.

      The smartphone has become the essential accessory for modern migration. Travelling to Europe as an asylum seeker is expensive. People who can’t afford phones typically can’t afford the journey either. Phones became a constant feature along the route to Northern Europe: young men would line the pavements outside reception centres in Berlin, hunched over their screens. In Calais, groups would crowd around charging points. In 2016, the UN refugee agency reported that phones were so important to migrants moving across Europe, that they were spending up to one third of their income on phone credit.

      Now, migrants are being forced to confront a more dangerous reality, as governments worldwide expand their abilities to search asylum seekers’ phones. While European countries were relaxing their laws on metadata search, last year US immigration spent $2.2 million on phone hacking software. But asylum seekers too are changing their behaviour as they become more aware that the smartphone, the very device that has bought them so much freedom, could be the very thing used to unravel their hope of a new life.

      http://www.wired.co.uk/article/europe-immigration-refugees-smartphone-metadata-deportations

  13. Google Is Building a City of the Future in Toronto. Would Anyone Want to Live There?

    It could be the coolest new neighborhood on the planet—or a peek into the Orwellian metropolis that knows everything you did last night.

    TORONTO—Even with a chilly mid-May breeze blowing off Lake Ontario, this city’s western waterfront approaches idyllic. The lake laps up against the boardwalk, people sit in colorful Adirondack chairs and footfalls of pedestrians compete with the cry of gulls. But walk east, and the scene quickly changes. Cut off from gleaming downtown Toronto by the Gardiner Expressway, the city trails off into a dusty landscape of rock-strewn parking lots and heaps of construction materials. Toronto’s eastern waterfront is bleak enough that Guillermo del Toro’s gothic film The Shape of Water used it as a plausible stand-in for Baltimore circa 1962. Says Adam Vaughan, a former journalist who represents this district in Canada’s Parliament, “It’s this weird industrial land that’s just been sitting there—acres and acres of it. And no one’s really known what to do with it.”

    That was before Google.

    https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/06/29/google-city-technology-toronto-canada-218841

  14. Tech mobilizes against California privacy law

    The tech industry is mobilizing against a new California privacy law, likely the toughest in the country.

    The California Consumer Privacy Act was rushed through the state legislature, where it was approved unanimously, and quickly signed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D).

    The new law requires websites to show users what data is collected on them, what the data will be used for and to identify third parties who have been given access to the data. Internet users will also have the right to opt out of having their data collected and sold and to request that their information be deleted.

    http://thehill.com/policy/technology/394928-tech-mobilizes-against-california-privacy-law

  15. Illegal immigrant is arrested for ‘starting dozens of wildfires in Colorado that forced hundreds to evacuate and destroyed 38,000 acres of land’, as video shows blaze rapidly engulfing one of the many decimated homes

    A man was arrested on Saturday on charges of starting a forest fire in Colorado that has destroyed structures and forced hundreds to evacuate their homes in one of dozens of wildfires raging across the drought-hit U.S. southwest.

    Jesper Joergensen, 52, was taken into custody last Saturday for the suspected arson that started the Springs Fire, according to Costilla County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page.

    Joergensen is not a U.S. citizen and will be handed over to ICE once he has faced arson charges, said a Costilla County detention officer.

    The officer could not immediately say what nationality Joergensen held.

    The fire has scorched over 38,000 acres (15,378 hectares) between the towns of Fort Garland and La Veta in southern Colorado, forcing more mandatory evacuations of homes and ranches on Saturday in a mountainous area of public and private land.

    Dylan R Brown Agency – Farmers Insurance captured video of the wildfire as it devoured a home on Forbes Park in Fort Garland.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5905453/Illegal-immigrant-arrested-starting-dozens-wildfires-Colorado-destroying-38-000-acres.html

  16. Artificial ovary could allow women to become mothers after cancer treatment without risk, say scientists

    Immature egg cells can develop successfully on an ‘ovarian scaffold’ stripped of the DNA and components that make up its living cells

    An artificial ovary that can grow immature eggs into a fertilisable cell fit for implantation could one day let women become mothers after fertility-destroying cancer treatment, scientists have said.

    Researchers from one of the leading fertility centres in Europe, Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, say they have demonstrated the world’s first working “bio-engineered” human ovary in early animal trials.

    Currently women will have eggs frozen before chemotherapy or radiotherapy, which can destroy the viability of the cells.

    Prepubertal girls or women who need urgent treatment before they produce eggs, rely on ovarian tissue, which contains thousands of immature eggs in fluid-filled sacs called follicles, to be preserved instead with the aim of transplanting it after treatment.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/artificial-ovary-cancer-transplant-fertility-ivf-risk-women-eggs-embryo-a8425691.html

  17. Several signs are pointing to North Korea still working on its nuclear program

    Nearly three weeks since North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un committed to complete denuclearization, multiple signs have emerged of expanding activity at his country’s nuclear facilities.

    If the reports are true, that would mean Kim has yet to take concrete steps to fulfill the pledge he made at a historic summit with U.S. President Donald Trump on June 12.

    On Saturday, U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News that Pyongyang may have recently increased production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites. It’s possible that Kim’s government may be attempting to hide those pursuits as it seeks more concessions from the Trump administration, the officials continued.

    Meanwhile last week, commercial satellite imagery from research group 38North — part of Washington-based think tank The Stimson Center — showed infrastructure upgrades at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, which is located north of Pyongyang. The improvements include completed modifications to a plutonium production reactor’s cooling system, newly erected small buildings and continued construction on various support facilities, 38North said.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/02/signs-of-activity-at-north-korea-nuclear-facilities.html

  18. WIGS OFF! Maxine Waters tears into Chuck Schumer: ‘Will do anything’ to protect power

  19. Girl from the Bronx’ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who beat high-ranking Democrat Joe Crowley, faces questions over her ‘working class’ background after it’s revealed she grew up in a wealthy suburb north of New York City

    The hardscrabble biography of Democrat Congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been called into question after the revelation that she grew up mostly in wealthy Westchester County.

    Though Ocasio-Cortez, 28, was born in and currently lives in the Bronx, county land records show her late father Sergio Cortez-Roman bought a quaint three-bedroom in Yorktown Heights, New York in 1991, when she was about two.

    It is an apparent contradiction with the candidate’s official biography, which states in part: ‘The state of Bronx public schools in the late 80s and early 90s sent her parents on a search for a solution. She ended up attending public school 40 minutes north in Yorktown, and much of her life was defined by the 40 minute commute between school and her family in the Bronx.’

    Ocasio-Cortez also boasted on Stephen Colbert’s late-night show that President Donald Trump, born in Queens, wouldn’t know how to handle ‘a girl from the Bronx’ such as herself.

    The candidate did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com on Saturday evening.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5905247/Girl-Bronx-Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez-actually-grew-wealthy-Westchester-County.html

  20. Putin: Crimea is Not on Agenda for U.S.-Russia Summit

    OAN Newsroom
    UPDATED 6:44 AM PT — Mon. June 2, 2018

    The Kremlin said Crimea is not a topic on the agenda during the upcoming U.S.-Russia summit.

    In a statement Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Crimea is an inseparable part of the country, adding, he does not plan on discussing the subject with President Trump.

    The Crimean peninsula was annexed from Ukraine in 2014, which resulted in U.S. sanctions against Russia.

    http://www.oann.com/putin-crimea-is-not-on-agenda-for-u-s-russia-summit/

  21. Mexico leftist vows no tolerance on corruption after historic win

    MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s new president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he would pursue friend and foe alike in a crackdown on corruption after voters handed him a powerful mandate for government with a landslide election victory on Sunday.

    Lopez Obrador, the first leftist president since the end of one-party rule in 2000, won between 53 and 53.8 percent of votes, according to a quick count by the electoral authority, more than double the total for his nearest rival.

    That would be the biggest share of the vote since the early 1980s, and would give Lopez Obrador a strong platform both to address Mexico’s internal problems and face external challenges like the threat of a trade war with the United States.

    Going into Monday it was unclear whether Lopez Obrador had done enough to secure the first outright majority in Congress in over 20 years, with pollsters’ early estimates suggesting he was close in the lower house but farther away in the Senate.

    Speaking to reporters after his win, Lopez Obrador identified corruption as the “principal cause” of inequality and the criminal violence that has bedeviled Mexico for years, and said he would spare no one in his commitment to root it out.

    http://www.oann.com/mexico-leftist-vows-no-tolerance-on-corruption-after-historic-win/

    • Of course communists see “profit” and “capital” as corrupt and immoral. ALPO’s reassurances need to be translated to commilingo.

      Don't be a wiseguy, Mr. Radish!

  22. EU opens new legal case against Poland over Supreme Court changes

    BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Commission opened a fresh legal case against Poland on Monday over changes to the Supreme Court that it fears will further undermine judicial independence in the largest ex-communist member of the bloc.

    The European Union’s executive arm gave Poland a month to respond, which means it will not stop changes entering into force on Tuesday under which one-third of Supreme Court judges will retire unless granted an extension by President Andrzej Duda, an ally of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party.

    “The Commission is of the opinion that these measures undermine the principle of judicial independence, including the irremovability of judges,” it said in a statement.

    The Commission has challenged several changes to Poland’s judiciary since the nationalist PiS won power in late 2015, saying they weaken democratic checks and balances. The government says they are needed to reform a system which dates back to communist times.

    “This law is currently binding and we will not be changing anything here … For the time being our stance is that we are right,” Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said on public television on Monday.

    He added that Poland would argue in the European Court of Justice that changes to the judiciary are the responsibility of national governments.

    “We are waiting for the decision. Until today Poland has always observed the court’s ruling, including the one on logging in the Bialowieza forest,” Czaputowicz said, referring to another dispute that has soured relations between Brussels and Warsaw.

    In April the European Union’s highest court said that Poland broke environmental laws with large-scale logging in the ancient forest.

    http://www.oann.com/eu-opens-new-legal-case-against-poland-over-supreme-court-changes/

  23. White TV writer for NBC, Amazon, Cartoon Network advocates white genocide
    By Joe Newby July 2, 2018

    Last Monday, Taylor Cox, who at the time identified herself in a Twitter bio as a writer for NBC, Amazon Studios, and Cartoon Network (since amended to plain “TV writer”), issued a tweet in which she expressed despair that the extinction of the white race isn’t happening fast enough to suit her. Judging from her profile photo (reproduced above), Cox herself appears to be white.

    “[T]he only anxiety i have about white extinction is that it’s not happening faster,” she wrote.

    The tweet has since been deleted, although an archived version of the message still exists:

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/07/02/white-tv-writer-for-nbc-amazon-cartoon-network-publicly-advocates-white-genocide/

  24. IG report indicates tarmac meeting by Lynch, Bill Clinton WAS planned by protective details
    Samantha Chang, BPR

    [Ed. – And there you go. The claims by Clinton and Lynch that the meeting was happenstance were never credible, for two VIPs who travel inside 24/7 security bubbles. Now a passage from the DOJ IG report shows there was prior coordination for a meeting.]

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/07/01/ig-report-indicates-tarmac-meeting-by-lynch-bill-clinton-was-planned-by-protective-details/

    Page 203 of IG Report says Loretta Lynch-Bill Clinton tarmac meeting was planned via Secret Service, FBI

    Stunning revelations from the IG report of DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz (an Obama appointee) suggests that the 2016 tarmac meeting between then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton was coordinated — contradicting their claims that the meeting was accidental and coincidental.

    In 2016, Lynch — the U.S. attorney general under Barack Obama — secretly met for 30 minutes with Bill Clinton on an airport tarmac in Arizona. At the time, then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was being investigated by the FBI over her 30,000 deleted emails and her destroyed government-issued phones, which she and her team smashed with hammers.

    https://www.bizpacreview.com/2018/07/01/page-203-of-ig-report-says-loretta-lynch-bill-clinton-tarmac-meeting-was-planned-via-secret-service-fbi-650094

  25. euronews – French Muslims apprehensive and alienated

    Since the Paris attacks and the slaughter in Nice Muslims in France are growing apprehensive and fear a backlash.

    Boubekeur Bekri is the vice-president of the Regional Muslim Council:

    “The Muslim community has been taken hostage and the most vulnerable members of the Muslim community are radicalised …”

  26. Ohio man accused of plotting terror attack on Cleveland July 4th parade

    The FBI said on Monday it has arrested an Ohio man accused of planning an al Qaeda-inspired terror attack on the July 4th parade in downtown Cleveland.

    Demetrius Nathaniel Pitts, also known as Abdur Raheem Rahfeeq, was arrested Sunday morning in connection with the plot, said FBI agent Stephen Anthony. He is charged with attempted material support of a foreign terrorist organization and is expected to appear in court Monday.[…]

    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/jul/2/demetrius-nathaniel-pitts-accused-plotting-terror-/

    Suspect plotted to park van with explosives in Cleveland for large-scale attack on Fourth of July

    http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/38553811/suspect-plotted-to-park-van-with-explosives-in-cleveland-for-large-scale-attack-on-fourth-of-july

  27. BREITBART – No Reward for Terrorism: Australia Ends Aid to Palestinian Authority

    The Palestinian Authority will no longer received direct financial aid from Australia because donations could increase the self-governing body’s ability to financially reward terrorist violence.

    Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Monday that funding to a World Bank’s trust fund was cut after she wrote to the Palestinian Authority in late May seeking assurance that Australian funding was not being handed directly to the families of deceased terrorists.

    She said in a statement she’s concerned that providing further funds allows the authority to use its own budget to spend on anti-Israel terrorist activities that “Australia would never support.”

    […]The money will now be redirected to the United Nations Humanitarian Fund for the Palestinian Territories. Ms Bishop said this fund helped 1.9 million people, with about three quarters of the money to be spent in Gaza.

    https://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/07/02/no-reward-for-terrorism-australia-ends-aid-to-palestinian-authority/

  28. “D’Souza exposes the secret history of LBJ”
    Dinesh D’Souza – Published on May 9, 2018

    • “‘Death of a Nation’ Trailer | Official Theatrical Trailer HD, In Theaters August 3”
      Dinesh D’Souza – Published on June 29, 2018

  29. “Sunday with Charles – 50 Shades of Black and F#€K!NG White” Jason Goodman – July 1, 2018

  30. “UN admits ‘refugees’ are ‘replacement migration’ for Europe and other low-fertility countries”
    By Dr. Eowyn – April 20, 2018

    Excerpt:

    Note that, unlike Europe and other developed countries, the United States is a lone exception. Instead of population decline and ageing, our population is projected to increase by a quarter in the next 50 years.

    That means America does not need to open our doors to immigrants, migrants and refugees. In fact, the UN report concludes that we only need to bring in 1,300 migrants per million inhabitants per year.

    https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2018/04/20/un-admits-refugees-are-replacement-migration-for-low-fertility-countries/

    Refugee Resettlement Watch
    by Ann Corcoran – July 2, 2018
    https://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/

    • Related: “WHY IS ABORTION SO IMPORTANT FOR THE LEFT?
      Allan Dos Santos & Jeff Nyquist
      Terça Livre – June 30, 2018

  31. CNN – Van Jones asks group what it’s like to be Muslim in the US

    CNN’s Van Jones talks with a group of Muslim Americans to discuss the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold President Donald Trump’s so-called “travel ban” — arguing that the chief executive has the power to limit entrance into the US from seven countries

    • “Jamie Glazov Moment: Why is Maoist Van Jones on CNN?”
      The Glazov Gang – December 9, 2016

  32. BOISE, Idaho — A man who had been asked to leave an apartment complex in Boise returned the next day and stabbed children celebrating a 3-year-old girl’s birthday, authorities said Sunday. Six children, ages four to 12, were injured in the attack, along with three adults who rushed to their defense. Boise Police Chief William Bones said the victims are alive but some are gravely injured.

    Timmy Kinner, 30, of Los Angeles, was arrested and charged with nine counts of aggravated battery and six counts of injury to a child, CBS affiliate KBOI-TV reports. Police said they had not yet identified a motive.

    The attack took place at an apartment complex home to many refugees. Kinner is not a refugee, police said, but he temporarily lived at the complex until he was asked to leave on Friday. Kinner returned Saturday when the girl was having her party a few doors down from where he had stayed, police said.

    “Our victims are some of the newest members of our community. They’re victims of their past homes who have fled violence from Syria, Iraq and Ethiopia,” Bones said at a news conference Sunday. “This was an attack against those who are most vulnerable — our children.”

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/idaho-stabbing-suspect-timmy-kinner-arrested-in-mass-stabbing-that-injured-9/

    Note: not sure of the relevance of this, just posting it because the MSM has strangely been quiet about it

  33. What are Dubai Porta Potties?
    JULY 3, 2016 BRITMANNIA25 COMMENTS
    For those yet unplugged, or recently unplugged, the tale of Dubai Porta Potties may be a disturbing read. But it is necessary to illuminate just how far Western women, and by extension – Western society – has fallen.

    The website, Tag The Sponsor, reveals the hidden secret behind the new generation of Instagram models who, for frivolous short-term material gain, are willing to ruin the rest of their lives.

    These “models” get their designer clothes, exuberant shopping sprees, flashy cars and money in the bank. They get to put “London/Dubai” in their Instagram profile and have their pictures taken in stunning locales. All they have to do is get defecated on by groups of Arab men.

    https://britmannia.com/2016/07/03/dubai-porta-potties/

  34. An explosive report by investigative journalist John Solomon on the opinion page of Monday’s edition of The Hill sheds a bright light on how Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and then-FBI Director James Comey collaborated to prevent WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange from discussing “technical evidence ruling out certain parties [read Russia]” in the controversial leak of Democratic Party emails to WikiLeaks during the 2016 election.

    A deal that was being discussed last year between Assange and U.S. government officials would have given Assange “limited immunity” to allow him to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has been exiled for six years. In exchange, Assange would agree to limit through redactions “some classified CIA information he might release in the future,” according to Solomon, who cited “interviews and a trove of internal DOJ documents turned over to Senate investigators.” Solomon even provided a copy of the draft immunity deal with Assange.

    But Comey’s intervention to stop the negotiations with Assange ultimately ruined the deal, Solomon says, quoting “multiple sources.” With the prospective agreement thrown into serious doubt, Assange “unleashed a series of leaks that U.S. officials say damaged their cyber warfare capabilities for a long time to come.” These were the Vault 7 releases, which led then CIA Director Mike Pompeo to call WikiLeaks “a hostile intelligence service.”

    Solomon’s report provides reasons why Official Washington has now put so much pressure on Ecuador to keep Assange incommunicado in its embassy in London.

    http://www.wcvb.com/article/terror-suspect-plotted-july-4-explosion-in-cleveland-fbi-says/22018092

  35. FBI Agent Stephen Anthony said Monday the agency began investigating the suspect, identified as Demetrius Nathaniel Pitts, back in 2017. Pitts was arrested for attempted material support of a foreign terrorist organization.

    Investigators say they received tips that Pitts, also known as Abdur Raheem Rahfeeq, had made statements in support of Al-Qaeda. Pitts, an American citizen with an extensive criminal background, also expressed a disdain for the U.S. military.

    Anthony said Pitts spoke to undercover agents about the impact an explosion would have on Cleveland’s upcoming July 4 parade.

    Pitts told the undercover agent he had surveyed Voinovich Park, the U.S. Coast Guard Station in Cleveland and had scouted locations to park an explosives-filled vehicle that would be detonated during crowded Independence Day festivities, Anthony said.

    http://www.wcvb.com/article/terror-suspect-plotted-july-4-explosion-in-cleveland-fbi-says/22018092

  36. ive children 15 and younger were among 23 people shot during a scorching weekend in Chicago.

    From Friday afternoon to early Monday, 21 people were wounded and two people were killed, including a 14-year-old boy who was shot early Saturday while walking in the Washington Park neighborhood, according to police.

    About nine hours earlier, another 14-year-old boy was shot in the Loop. He was coming up stairs at the corner of Wabash Avenue and Wacker Drive when he was shot in the leg Friday evening, police said.

    Late Sunday night, three girls ages 5, 14 and 15 were shot while sitting in a parked car with their mother in the East Garfield Park neighborhood, police said. Three other people were injured in the attack, which that police said was gang-related.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-chicago-weekend-violence-201800702-story.html

    Note: Where is the outrage over the carnage Mexican drug gangs are inflicting in Chicago?