In order to preserve the flow of conversation about various posted items, and also in order to make it easier for visitors to find the list of related links being shared by other readers, regulars and interested parties in one place, each day a post is automatically created at a minute past midnight ET.
This way, under the various posts of the day, conversation can take place without as much ‘noise’ on the various links and articles and ideas in the main posts and all the news links being submitted can be seen under these auto-posts by clicking on the comments-link right below these ones.
Thank you all for those that take the effort to assist this site in keeping the public informed. Below, typically people can find the latest enemy propaganda, news items of related materials from multiple countries and languages, op-eds from many excellent sites who write on our topics, geopolitics and immigration issues and so on.
Here is a statistic search for those so inclined: as ~20% of the US supposedly consume “recreation” drugs, estimate the percentage who are antiTrump, As broadly speaking, only yuppies can afford regular use of cocaine while most of the heavy stuff(ice, heroin etc.) precludes regular employment, then we have two main groups: progressives and chronic welfare recipients. So IMO it should be >90% if not 99%. If I am correct this says much about the state of the west and why beating the Left is a Sisyphean endeavour.
Don’t forget the small but influential demographic that runs Silicon Valley. They’re all microdosing LSD:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/opinion/elon-musk-burning-man-drugs-lsd.html
Think about that next time you use social media!
90 to 99% of the US citizens do not use drugs.
NY-slimy statistics.
Maybe they’re polling their decadent readers.
Very patriotic of you Richard and while I do appreciate the many sources you drop on here and your views as a whole, I think that you only speak for part of the US(? the Trump part) and certainly not its youth. That estimate may well include casual users, but you would be surprised to see just how many have been just that and IMO 20% does NOT even closely cover it. Today’s youth all too often see drugs as no worse than alcohol or nicotine.
Don’t forget that the Trump part is roughly 50% of the people, take out the fraudulent votes and it is probably 51 to 52%.
Israel says an MSF nurse SHOT at its troops on the Gaza border and slams the charity as ‘Terrorism Without Borders’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6094123/Israel-says-MSF-nurse-shot-troops-Gaza-border.html
Fits in a disturbing trend of infiltration and subversion of of NGOs:
https://www.unwatch.org/130-page-report-unrwa-teachers-incite-terrorism-antisemitism/
German President Declares There are ‘No Native Germans, We are a Nation of Immigrants’ (breitbart, Aug 25, 2018)
https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/25/germans-immigration-country-president/
“German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has declared Germany “is a nation of immigrants and will remain so”, asserting: “There are no half or whole Germans, no biological or ‘new’ Germans”.
Speaking at Berlin’s Bellevue Palace, where a small group of people with Turkish heritage had been invited to share their views on immigration, integration, and xenophobia in Europe, the German president strongly denounced “exclusion of and discrimination against people with foreign roots”…”
GoV has an essay reflecting on that quote by Seneca III:
Surrender, High Treason and Language Fatigue
https://gatesofvienna.net/2018/08/surrender-high-treason-and-language-fatigue/
Swedish Radio Broadcaster Launches Election Debates and Seminars… in Arabic (breitbart, Aug 25, 2018)
https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/25/swedish-radio-broadcaster-launches-election-debates-and-seminars-in-arabic/
“Swedish public radio broadcaster Sveriges Radio has announced a new series of debates and workshops for the Stockholm area which will be exclusively in Arabic to “reach out to new arrivals”.
The project, which began this week, will see the broadcaster invite Arabic-speaking members of Swedish political parties to debate issues ahead of the national election next month, Sveriges Radio reports…”
Nearly One in Three Crimes In Italy Committed By Foreigners (breitbart, Aug 25, 2018)
https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/25/nearly-one-three-crimes-italy-committed-foreigners/
“Italian figures show a substantial rise in the number of crimes committed by foreigners, who now account for 31.9 percent of criminal suspects despite only making up eight percent of the general population.
The new figures, which were released by the Italian Interior Ministry this week, reveal that in the first six months of 2018 foreigners made up 31.9 percent of criminal suspects, up from 27.4 percent for the same period last year, Il Giornale reports.
Foreign suspects in specific crimes are also on the rise: For sexual offences, the number of foreign suspects has increased by 5.7 percent, for thefts by 5.1 percent, and for drug crimes 5.2 percent.
In 2016, the Italian Confcommercio group had released a report predicting that an increase in immigration would lead to an increase in crime. The study suggested that legal immigrants were twice as likely as native-born Italians to commit crimes and that up to half of illegal migrants were engaged in some form of criminal activity…”
Migrant Smugglers with ‘President’ and ‘Prime Minister’ Organising Violent Attacks on Spanish Border Guards (breitbart, Aug 25, 2018)
https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/25/migrant-smugglers-president-prime-minister-organising-violent-attacks-spanish-border/
“Criminal people-smugglers with their own ‘president’ and ‘prime minister’ are training massed bands of African migrants to attack Spain’s borders with Morocco in exchange for money.
Confidential police reports seen by El Pais indicate that the crime gangs are charging migrants £16 ($20) to participate in violent, organised attacks on the border between Morocco and Ceuta, a Spanish exclave on the coast of North Africa.
The police reports suggest the traffickers send out scouts to “inspect the [border] and collect updated information on the security measures implemented by the Spanish and Moroccan security forces,” with bands of migrants sometimes hundreds strong charging the fences where weak points are discovered.
The migrants are trained to take out any border guards who attend by hurling bottles of burning quicklime, battery acid, and human excrement at them — as they did on August 22nd, when more than a hundred men, some draped in European Union flags, breached the fences, injuring seven guards.
Migrants who do not may the £16 fee are not allowed to approach the border.
The number of people arriving in Spain via Ceuta and its sister exclave, Melilla, was already up 130 percent between January and July compared to the same period last year before the recent mass breakthroughs…”
Racist Tweets from a NY Times Editor?
China Uncensored posted a video very critical of some of the Chinese leaders and youtube censored it. You can find the video at http://www.chinauncensored.tv/ it will be on the 8/24 comment which is several videos combined.
Scott Morrison sucks BUT this RACIST is the REAL DANGER
The Creepy Line Trailer
Facebook Censors Articles from Conservative Outlets About Manafort, Cohen
Multiple posts sharing articles by prominent conservatives have been temporarily censored on Facebook under the excuse that they “look like spam.” Both articles dealt with the Paul Manafort conviction and the Michael Cohen guilty plea, arguing that these events were not nearly as damning to President Donald Trump as the media supposed.
First, Facebook blocked Salena Zito, CNN contributor and author of the groundbreaking book “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics.” On Wednesday afternoon, Zito published a New York Post article explaining “why Trump’s supporters won’t care about Cohen and Manafort’s convictions.”
https://pjmedia.com/trending/facebook-censors-articles-from-salena-zito-jenna-lynn-ellis-saying-they-look-like-spam/
‘I have the right to defend my property by force. And I will’: EXCLUSIVE – White farmer who is set to become the first to have his £10m game reserve seized says South Africa’s land grab policy is THEFT
The owner of the first South African farm lined up to have his land seized without payment or fair compensation blasted the government today saying: ‘Whichever way they dress it up it is theft’.
Johan Steenkamp who co-owns a £10million game farm in Limpopo province, has been ordered to hand over his land, following a ten-year battle to stop the government buying it for a tenth of its value.
Mr Steenkamp says President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plans of redistribution of white-owned land toSouth Africa’s black poor is just a cover so that the government can get their hands on valuable coal deposits found under his farm land.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6094565/White-farmer-set-game-reserve-seized-South-Africa-calls-theft.html
Why Chicago violent crimes go unsolved
Chicago desperately needs to end the plague of gun violence that shatters lives and destroys neighborhoods. To stop the bloodletting, and restore sanity to areas of the South and West sides, would require building up broken families and neutering gangs. A complex task.
The simpler imperative is solving crimes when they occur, but Chicago falls woefully short on this obligation too. Last year, the Chicago Police Department solved only about 17 percent of the homicides committed. The clearance rate, as it’s called, for nonfatal shootings was an abysmal 5 percent.
This is a disaster for the city.
Target a victim with a gun in Chicago and you’ve got a good chance of getting away with your crime. Each shooting without an arrest means a miscreant stays on the loose, available to hurt and kill again. That convinces other would-be offenders they have little to fear by taking up arms.
In one August weekend of mayhem in Chicago, 75 people were shot, a dozen of them fatally. That’s a lot of victims sent to the hospital, or the morgue. Meanwhile, CPD went to work. How many of these crimes got solved? Three weeks later, according Tribune reporters Jeremy Gorner and Annie Sweeney, the police have charged one person in one shooting, plus made some progress on a handful of other investigations. That’s all: 75 shooting victims, one charged.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-clearance-chicago-violence-shootings-murder-20180824-story.html#
WE WANT TO STAY’ NASA reveals plans for PERMANENT moon base as agency declares ‘we want lots of humans in space’
The space exploration agency boss Jim Bridenstine said that the ambitious ‘Gateway’ programme of orbiting spacecrafts around the moon could also allow easier exploration of Mars in the future
By Josh Salisbury
NASA chief Jim Bridenstine has revealed hopes for a permanent base on the moon.
At a meeting at the Johnson Space Center in Houston this week, Mr Bridenstine gave details on plans to build ‘Gateway’ modules to orbit the moon and close gaps in space exploration.
NASA chief Jim Bridenstine gave details of the ‘Gateway’ plans to reporters at a meeting at the Johnson Space Center in Houston
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/7097412/nasa-reveals-plans-for-permanent-moon-base-as-agency-declares-we-want-lots-of-humans-in-space/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGI-8_G7dQY
3-minute cut https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJnjcmxzpOs
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/vice-president-pence-talks-future-human-space-exploration-at-nasa-s-johnson-space
Vice President Mike Pence, with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, will visit NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston Thursday, Aug. 23, to discuss the future of human space exploration and the agency’s plans to return to the Moon as a forerunner to future human missions to Mars.
John McAfee: I keep a gun in my hand while showering, sitting on toilet
By Mike Moffitt, SFGATE Updated 3:02 pm PDT, Friday, August 24, 2018
John McAfee wants you to know that he never goes anywhere unarmed.
The controversial tech mogul, who claims to have been targeted by numerous bad actors in the past, is protected around the clock by his own security team, but should they be comprised, he’d be more than ready.
In a Twitter post this week, he revealed just how ready.
His sidearm never leaves his hand, he wrote.
Not when he sleeps. Not in the shower. Not when he’s sitting on the toilet. Not even when he makes love.
“Puts a kink in foreplay but some women love it.”
https://www.sfgate.com/weird/article/John-McAfee-guns-shower-toilet-Belize-SEC-13180721.php
Chinese Military Joining Russians for Nuclear War Games
Pentagon closely watching Beijing, Moscow forces in upcoming Vostok-18 exercise
Russia and China will hold a large-scale military exercise next month that will include simulated nuclear weapons attacks, according to American defense officials.
The People’s Liberation Army will send more than 3,200 troops, 900 pieces of military equipment, and 30 aircraft to Russia for the exercise known as Vostok-18, or East-18, the Chinese Defense Ministry said, noting the exercises will involve practicing maneuver defense, live firing of weapons, and counterattack.
“We urge Russia to take steps to share information regarding its exercises and operations in Europe to clearly convey its intentions and minimize and potential misunderstanding,” Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon said when asked about Vostok-18.
Additionally, the joint Russian-Chinese exercises scheduled for Sept. 11 through 15 will include military forces from Mongolia for the first time.
Mongolia, aligned with the Soviet Union until 1990, in recent years has sought closer ties to the United States, despite being located between Russia and China.
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/chinese-military-joining-russians-nuclear-war-games/
Chinese Communist Party Funds Washington Think Tanks
United Front Work Department conducts aggressive influence operations in U.S.
China’s Communist Party is intensifying covert influence operations in the United States that include funding Washington think tanks and coercing Chinese Americans, according to a congressional commission report.
The influence operations are conducted by the United Front Work Department, a Central Committee organ that employs tens of thousands of operatives who seek to use both overt and covert operations to promote Communist Party policies.
The Party’s United Front strategy includes paying several Washington think tanks with the goal influencing their actions and adopting positions that support Beijing’s policies.
“The [Chinese Communist Party] has sought to influence academic discourse on China and in certain instances has infringed upon—and potentially criminally violated—rights to freedoms of speech and association that are guaranteed to Americans and those protected by U.S. laws,” the report says.
https://freebeacon.com/national-security/chinese-communist-party-funds-washington-think-tanks/
Think-tanks – what Ben Rhodes
[yech, poo]called the “Blob” – have inordinate influence in Washington. Together with lobbyists, they write legislation and formulate foreign policy._Humongous_ influence that is not exactly “America First”. The Chamber of Commerce (Washington, D.C., not local) is China First. I don’t know for certain which of the others, but I’m pretty sure the Council of Foreign Relations is another.
The US Government Is Updating Its Nuclear Disaster Plans And They Are Truly Terrifying
“We are looking at 100 kiloton to 1,000 kiloton detonations,” a FEMA official said.
Amid concerns over North Korea, federal emergency managers are updating disaster plans to account for large nuclear detonations over the 60 largest US cities, according to a US Federal Emergency Management Agency official.
The shift away from planning for small nuclear devices that could be deployed by terrorists toward thermonuclear blasts arranged by “state actors” was discussed on Thursday at a two-day National Academies of Sciences workshop for public health and emergency response officials held at its headquarters across the street from the US State Department.
“We are looking at 100 kiloton to 1,000 kiloton detonations,” chief of FEMA’s chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear branch Luis Garcia told BuzzFeed News. The agency’s current “nuclear detonation” guidance for emergency planners, first released in 2010, had looked at 1 to 10 kiloton blasts — smaller than the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs that killed more than 200,000 people at the end of World War II. Those smaller size detonations had seemed more reasonable after 9/11, with high concerns about an improvised terrorist bomb.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/north-korea-nuclear-bomb-fema-plans
U.N. agency sees Venezuelan exodus nearing a crisis point
GENEVA/CARACAS (Reuters) – The exodus of migrants from Venezuela is building toward a “crisis moment” comparable to events involving refugees in the Mediterranean, the United Nations migration agency said on Friday.
Growing numbers are fleeing economic meltdown and political turmoil in Venezuela, where people scrounge for food and other necessities of daily life, threatening to overwhelm neighbouring countries. Officials from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru will meet in Bogota next week to seek a way forward.
In Brazil, rioters this month drove hundreds back over the border. Peru this month tightened entry rules for Venezuelans, requiring them to carry passports instead of just national ID cards, though a judge in Ecuador on Friday rolled back a similar rule enacted there.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/crisis-moment-approaching-venezuelan-exodus-u-n-agency-140101719.html
https://www.yahoo.com/news/crisis-moment-approaching-venezuelan-exodus-u-n-agency-140101719.html
Atlanta Neighborhood Charter School Principal Lara Zelski decided students will no longer recite the Pledge of Allegiance during the school’s morning meeting agenda, which she described to parents as “an effort to begin our day as a fully inclusive and connected community.”
eagnews.org/parents-fight-back-after-school-drops-pledge-of-allegiance-for-student-authored-oath-to-global-society/
My fifth-grader’s class recited it in Spanish and in English. It’s waiting for your kids, too!
Watch our second grade dual language classes recite the Pledge of Allegiance in both English and Spanish! Dual Language Pledge of Allegiance
Colleges will no longer ask for criminal history, but they’ll still ask ‘if you’ve been good’
By Daily Caller News Foundation August 25, 2018
An application form used by more than 800 colleges dropped its section asking applicants for their criminal history in August, but maintains a part inquiring about school discipline.
KaiserDillon PLLC lawyers Scott Bernstein and Justin Dillon argued that if Common App removed the former section, it should also remove the latter one, in a column Thursday for The Washington Post. The lawyers said that while criminal courts require guilt to be proven “beyond a reasonable doubt,” schools rule on a “mere preponderance of the evidence.”
The Common App removed its criminal history section to make its application better conform with the organization’s dedication to “access, equity, and integrity,” spokesman Daniel Obregon told The Atlantic. But Obregon also cited the growing gap between colleges in how they use criminal history details to inform admission decisions.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/08/25/colleges-will-no-longer-ask-applicants-for-criminal-history-but-theyll-still-ask-if-youve-been-good/
Finally, proof of Russian collusion — just not the sort the Left was hoping for
By LU Staff August 25, 2018
So far, despite casting an ever-wider net, Robert Mueller’s search for evidence of Russian collusion has come up empty. The special counsel has managed to bring in a couple of smaller fish to appease the ravenous appetites of the salivating masses on the Left, but those who lust to dine on fillet of Trump continue to go hungry.
Now at last evidence of collusion with Russia has surfaced, though it’s not quite what the Trump haters had in mind.
Jordan Schachtel, national security correspondent for the Conservative Review, has uncovered the fact that Michael Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, “is on the payroll of a pro-Moscow Ukrainian oligarch with direct ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/08/25/finally-proof-of-russian-collusion-just-not-the-sort-the-left-was-hoping-for/
Notting Hill Carnival RING OF STEEL: Knife-detecting arches installed for first time (express, Aug 25, 2018)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1008265/knife-detecting-arches-installed-at-notting-hill-carnival-london-for-first-time
“KNIFE arches are being installed at Notting Hill Carnival for the first time in a bid to reassure visitors. After a wave of violent crime in the capital in recent months, the arches will be placed at “strategic points” along the route of the West London street party…”
We face the ‘Mother of all Midterms’ – and ‘impeachment’ is its father
By Myra Adams August 24, 2018
Well before Tuesday’s bombshell legal news when President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen revealed that then-candidate Trump directed him to break campaign finance laws, I considered November’s election the “Mother of All Midterms.”
This moniker resulted from the observation that elevated levels of passion and energy among midterm voters are more akin to those preceding a presidential election.
Reinforcing my observation, last month former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon framed the intense vibe of the midterm electorate, telling Fox News’ Sean Hannity, “I think this is President Trump’s first reelect.”
Meanwhile, on Tuesday night after it was clear that Cohen’s ground-shaking accusations have the potential to place President Trump in legal jeopardy as a co-conspirator, Bannon stated to Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs, “Today clarifies that November is a referendum on impeachment — an up or down vote.” Adding, “Every Trump supporter needs to get with the program.”
Now I have revised my moniker to read, “Impeachment is the Father of the Mother of All Midterms.” No longer are the midterms just about Trump’s presidential performance — “his first reelect” — but Bannon, an astute strategist credited with engineering Trump’s come-from-behind presidential victory, has blatantly and honestly repositioned the midterms as a “referendum on impeachment.” This is new territory for Republicans. Or is it?
https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/08/24/we-face-the-mother-of-all-midterms-and-impeachment-is-its-father/
WHITE HOUSE PRESS BRIEFING” — A Bad Lip Reading
How White House press briefings sound in Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ head..
VICE News – Reality For Transgender Kids Using School Bathrooms In Texas (Preview)
Last season, VICE investigated the complicated lives of trans kids and their families as they navigate decisions over medical transitions and how best to support their children’s identity.
A year later, life for transgender Americans has become more uncertain as politicians dismantle key federal and state protections and introduce a slew of anti-LGBT bills.
VICE correspondent Gianna Toboni returns to Texas to see how the transgender community there is fighting to win acceptance and protection.
German-Egyptian Scholar Hamed Abdel-Samad: Arabs Enslaved Africans More Than Any Other Nation Did
German Egyptian scholar Hamed Abdel-Samad dedicated an episode of his Box of Islam show to slavery in Islam.
Abdel-Samad said that 29 verses in the Quran endorse slavery and that “the Arabs enslaved the Africans more than any other nation did.”
He added that while Abraham Lincoln led an army of white men to fight other white men in order to liberate slaves, but no similar initiative was taken by Muslims. The show aired on May 27.
How and Why Silicon Valley Gets High
Everyone’s hoping a little LSD can lead them to the next billion-dollar idea.
Over the past year, at lunches with various Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, I have been told at least four times that magic mushrooms will help me become a better reporter (maybe) and three times that Ecstasy will make me a nicer person (doubt it). I have also been offered several chances to microdose on LSD (pass!) and now that it is legal in California, weed, weed and more weed in every conceivable delivery method (yum, gummy bears!).
And, of course, ayahuasca, a brew made from plants that includes the hallucinogen DMT. The well-known tech exec (who, like most people I interviewed for this article, asked not to be named, for obvious reasons) who urged me to try it with him was nearly ecstatic on the subject. “It is the thing to reach the next level of innovation,” he said. “And you don’t throw up that much.”
He had me until vomiting. Thanks, but no thanks.
Last week The New York Times reported that some on the board of Tesla were worried that the company’s founder and chief executive, Elon Musk, “has on occasion used recreational drugs.” Some were blaming the possible use of Ambien for a series of his ill-conceived and possibly actionable tweets.
Now Burning Man, the annual gathering in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, is about to begin. Techies and many others will flock there to look at art, dress in costumes, burn things and perhaps discover the next great start-up idea with the help of a tiny bit of ketamine.
This confluence of events made me curious about what is actually going on when it comes to drugs in the tech world these days. While the use of mind-altering substances here is nothing new, I spoke to just over a dozen people who all said consumption was increasing once again. Obviously, there are major problems with addiction to opiates and alcohol here, as elsewhere. But people in Silicon Valley tend to view drugs differently from those in places like, say, Hollywood and Wall Street. The point is less to let off steam or lose your inhibitions than to improve your mind.
“No one can afford to lose a step here anymore, so they want to hack the experience to make it work for their time-constrained schedules,” said one techie. “You want to be super lucid now.”
Another tech executive compares it to what Bradley Cooper did in the movie “Limitless,” about a man who uses a mystery drug to become much smarter than anyone else. “It was a terrible movie, but the idea of a having a heightened sense of awareness and also being totally functional appeals to people now,” he said. “Whatever can get you to that place without a lot of downside — like addiction — is preferred.”
That is why everyone he knows microdoses, saving the longer-acting drugs like Ecstasy for the rare occasions when they want to party and relax. As always, Adderall is often used to plow through work.
And marijuana, he told me, had become more like drinking a glass of wine, noting that he sees people openly vaping at tech events. Why? “No one does a stupid tweet on weed like they might on alcohol,” he said. “The most that happens is that you get lazy and eat badly.”
EDITORS’ PICKS
Love Filled Their Trip. On Day 369, ISIS Struck.
Opinion
The Gift of Menopause
A ‘Generationally Perpetuated’ Pattern: Daughters Do More Chores
It is all, another tech worker said, about the “intellectualizing of drug use as a stimulant for the brain.”
Michael Pollan, whose recent book, “How to Change Your Mind,” talks about the resurgence of psychedelic drugs, told me in an interview that the exploration of drugs by tech workers remains part of the industry’s “hacking ethos.”
In a podcast I did with him in May, Mr. Pollan traced the trend back to the 1950s, when a group of engineers at the electronics company AMPEX got involved with Al Hubbard, the “Johnny Appleseed of LSD.” He convinced them its use would make their jobs easier and wanted to try out this premise on the “best and brightest and have the wisdom trickle down to the populace.”
“Scientists answer specific questions, but engineers deal with complex irreducible variables that you need to find patterns in,” Mr. Pollan said. “LSD helps with that.”
His book also discusses new studies being done on the use of psychedelics to treat depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, which are getting big financial support from techies. That research might eventually move the category of drugs from their turn-on-tune-in-drop-out heyday in counterculture San Francisco to the mainstream.
Mr. Pollan is not surprised that Silicon Valley is behind that push. He points to a range of other tech-fueled efforts — fasting, food-hacking, nootropics (drugs meant to stimulate memory and cognitive function) and attempts to stop aging and even death — that are on trend right now.
“It is all about finding a technology to improve biology,” said Mr. Pollan.
He recently met someone who had just made a fortune selling his start-up and was now experimenting with mind-altering drugs.
“He told me he had discovered art and he never knew how to look at it until he used these drugs,” said Mr. Pollan. “His entire life as a young kid was looking at a screen, and it was like he was in a tunnel the whole time and now was not.”
While I was inclined to make some Grateful Dead reference here (“Casey Jones, you better watch your speed”), Mr. Pollan posited that these drug dabblers were more practical.
“They have taken something like microdosing and kind of made it into a product,” he said. “You take a moment of inspiration and adapt it to capitalism.”
In other words, to make more money. Pass the Ambien.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/opinion/elon-musk-burning-man-drugs-lsd.html
Eid al Adha Day 4 — Saudi Arabia – Mecca
Mecca :
at home …
Gaza
India
Pakistan
They eat camels!?
Yeah it is the first time I have ever been on the camel’s side.
London bloodbath: Elderly woman stabbed outside PLAYGROUND in Bow (express, Aug 25, 2018)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1008435/London-news-bow-stabbing-woman-playground-chariot-close
“A WOMAN in her 60s was stabbed on the way back home from buying fish and chips in Bow as the London crime wave continues to spiral out of control, it has been revealed this afternoon.
Officers were called to Chariot Close at approximately 9.50pm on Friday, August 24.
A woman in her 60s was stabbed in the leg after being attacked by a male suspect.
He is described as a black male in his 40s with a chubby build.
The woman was taken to an east London hosptial…”
UK: Thousands march on London protesting animal abuse
Thousands of animal rights activists took to the streets of London on Saturday to protest against animal rights abuses.
Protesters held colourful banners and flares as they marched through Whitehall demanding am to end to animal suffering.
Associated Press – Concern grows for 150 migrants stuck on ship for 10th day
ROME (AP) — Concerns mounted Saturday about the medical and psychological health of 150 migrants who were spending their 10th day stuck aboard an Italian coast guard ship while the government insists that other European Union nations must take them.
The health minister requested an onboard visit by doctors to the Diciotti coast guard ship, which is docked in Catania, Sicily. After it was done, authorities decided that 16 migrants should be taken off the ship for medical reasons, two of them for suspected cases of tuberculosis and three for pneumonia, Red Cross officials said.
The standoff prompted an impassioned appeal by the U.N. refugee agency’s chief, asking Italy to let them disembark and urging EU countries to take responsibility for the asylum-seekers, most of them young men fleeing harsh conditions in Eritrea.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, speaking in Geneva, said it’s time to end a “race to the bottom on who can take the least responsibility for people rescued at sea.”
He urged European countries “to do the right thing and offer places of asylum for people rescued from the Mediterranean Sea in their time of need.”
But Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has been adamant that the migrants be kept on the ship until fellow EU nations pledge to take them.
Meanwhile, Sicily-based prosecutors took their investigation of the migrant standoff to Rome. Prosecutor Luigi Patronaggio on Saturday left without speaking to reporters after questioning two Interior Ministry officials at the Italian capital’s prosecutors’ office, the Italian news agency ANSA said.
Prosecutors could decide to investigate suspected kidnapping, after the government’s rights office for detained persons concluded this week that the migrants were being unjustly held by the government
Salvini, who leads the anti-migrant League party, has said he’s ready to defend his reasons for ordering the migrants kept aboard.
“If someone wants to investigate me, investigate me,” Salvini tweeted.
Prosecutors would have to seek the government’s permission to question a minister.
Local Italian Red Cross official Stefano Principato told reporters that Italy’s health minister ordered an inspection of sanitary conditions for the migrants, who have been sleeping on the ship’s deck and coping since Aug. 16 with a baking sun and limited toilet facilities.
After the medical exams, Catania’s maritime health office ordered all 11 women aboard and five of the men to disembark, Principato said, and authorities awaited completion of paperwork so that could happen.
On Friday, many of them refused their meals in a sign of frustration for not being allowed off the ship. But on Saturday, migrants could be seen taking their lunch given to them by some of the Diciotti’s 40 crew members.
Doctors have said many of the migrants on the ship have scabies but “more than a health emergency, it would be better to speak of a psychological emergency,” Principato said.
Many of the migrants, including 27 unaccompanied minors who were allowed to disembark earlier in the week, have told Italian authorities they endured beatings and other cruelties while in Libyan detention facilities for months or even years, waiting to leave in human traffickers’ unseaworthy boats toward Europe.
At least they have reached a European port. The International Organization for Migration says over 1,520 people have died so far this year trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe.
https://www.apnews.com/75f8d8ba0a09485ab40e2b1682a27a93
===========================================================
Italian church will take most migrants from ship
10:45 PM -Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte says the Italian Catholic church will take most of the migrants who have been stuck aboard an Italian coast guard ship for days.
Conte’s office quoted him as saying Saturday night that the Italian bishop’s conference will take 100 of the migrants and Albania and Ireland will take 20 each. The move ends a standoff Italy had begun earlier in the week with the European Union over the migrants’ fate.
Fifty others of the 190 people rescued at sea on Aug. 16 by the Italian coast guard were previously left off the ship, many for health reasons. Most of the migrants are from Eritrea.
Conte also expressed his displeasure that more EU nations didn’t offer to take in the migrants. He said Italy wouldn’t approve the EU-multi-year budget unless policy changed.
============================================
10:15 PM Italian state TV says Italy’s interior minister is being investigated for his role in forbidding migrants rescued at sea to disembark in Italy.
Minister Matteo Salvini indirectly confirmed the report Saturday night, tweeting that a Sicilian prosecutor asked him for his personal data and that “if he wants to interrogate me or even arrest me because I defend the borders and security of my country, I’m proud.”
Salvini added that he’ll soon allow the nearly 140 migrants he had kept aboard an Italian coast guard ship for days in Sicily to disembark. He says besides the 20 asylum-seekers that Albania has pledged to take in, the rest will be hosted by Italian bishops.
A few dozen of the 190 migrants rescued on Aug. 16 in the Mediterranean Sea were earlier allowed to leave the ship.
===================================
9:30 PM- Italy says Albania has offered to take in 20 migrants from the Italian coast guard ship that rescued them Aug. 16.
The foreign ministry tweeted Saturday that Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi thanks Albania for the sign of “great solidarity and friendship.”
Nearly 140 migrants are still aboard the ship, docked in Sicily.
Italy says they can’t disembark until other European Union nations agree to take them. So far none have and Albania is not in the EU.
The coast guard rescued the migrants from a foundering boat that had been launched into the Mediterranean Sea by human traffickers based in Libya.
Italy says it doesn’t want more migrants to land because some 600,000 rescued migrants have been brought to Italian ports in the last few years.
https://www.thestate.com/news/nation-world/world/article217330455.html
=================================================
the guardian – Matteo Salvini formally investigated over migrant ship standoff
Italian deputy PM allows migrants on the Ubaldo Diciotti to disembark, after he was placed under investigation over their detention
Italy’s deputy prime minister has relented over the fate of over 100 refugees and migrants forcibly kept on a docked rescue ship, after being formally placed under investigation for possible illegal detention and kidnapping.
The Ubaldo Diciotti has been docked since Monday at the Sicilian port of Catania, initially with 177 migrants on board. Matteo Salvini, who is also the country’s interior minister, had said that no one would be allowed to leave the boat until he received guarantees that other European nations would take most of them in.
Following the announcement on Saturday night of the formal investigation, Salvini finally gave permission for the remaining 134 migrants on board of the Diciotti to disembark. The Italian government announced that Albania would take in 20 of them, while Ireland would take 25 migrants. The Italian church said it would take in the rest to “put an end to this dramatic situation and sufferance”, said a spokesman for the Episcopal Conference of Italy.
A few days into the standoff, Salvini had allowed a group of 27 children travelling alone to disembark, and on Saturday doctors identified 16 people in need of immediate medical care, who were also allowed to leave the vessel. Two of them had possible symptoms of tuberculosis.
However, that left 134 people on board the ship, which is less than 100 metres long. Prosecutors announced on Saturday evening that they were investigating Salvini, a far-right populist, for holding all 177 hostage.
Italy had appeared to be in violation of the European convention on human rights, which states that any asylum seeker detained for more than 48 hours should be released and given the opportunity to apply for refugee status.
An investigation into the detention of the passengers on the ship was first launched on Wednesday, by Luigi Patronaggio, chief prosecutor for Agrigento, who visited the ship and questioned its passengers. Magistrates travelled to Rome on Friday to question Salvini, members of his staff and at least two high-ranking officials in the ministry of the interior.
Prosecutors slowly worked towards the highest levels of the minister’s command structure. At first, the magistrate did not rule out questioning Salvini himself, but after interviews with his staff, prosecutors decided it was not necessary, sources told the Guardian.
“I heard prosecutors asked for my details. Here you go. I was born in Milan, March 9 1973, in Milan. I’m ready and proud to be arrested because I’m fighting to defend the Italian border,” Salvini wrote on Facebook as the news emerged about the investigation.
The Diciotti crisis began on 15 August, when the vessel rescued 190 people from an overcrowded boat off the Italian island of Lampedusa. Thirteen were evacuated for emergency medical treatment, and after the boat was turned away by Maltese authorities, it was allowed to dock in Sicily. However, Salvini said he would not allow those on board to disembark until he was assured all would “go elsewhere”.
The case drew fierce censure abroad, but Salvini hit out against critics in Europe, threatening to suspend the country’s financial contribution to the EU if Brussels did not intervene to redistribute the people on board. The European Union described the threats as unhelpful.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/25/matteo-salvini-formally-investigated-over-migrant-ship-standoff
Italy’s far-right interior minister faces probe over stranded migrants
Prosecutors in Sicily on Saturday opened an inquiry into Italy’s far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini for “illegal confinement, illegal arrest and abuse of power”, reports said, over his refusal to allow over 100 rescued migrants off a coastguard ship.
At the same time, Salivini suggested that an end to the drama could be in sight telling a political meeting “the migrants on board the Diciotti ship will disembark in the coming hours”, adding that they would be taken in by the Italian church “by bishops who are opening their doors, their hearts and their wallets”.
Authorities earlier allowed a dozen migrants to leave the Diciotti where they have been stranded for days, as it also hailed Albania for offering to accept some of those on board.
Rome has blocked most of the migrants from stepping off the boat which docked at the port of Catania in Sicily on Monday night, leaving them trapped as Italy pushes other EU nations to take them in.
Their fate has sparked a fresh immigration row between Italy’s populist government and the EU, with Rome on Friday threatening to pull some of its funding for the bloc as a “compensatory measure” if it refuses to help.
Prosecutors in Sicily said that they were now investigating Salvini in connection with the migrants’ plight. The minister earlier brushed aside reports of a broader inquiry into who was responsible saying late Friday that officials were following orders issued by “the director — that is to say me”.
Out of a total of 150 people on board, health authorities authorised 17 — 11 women and six men — to leave the ship on Saturday.
But only 12 disembarked, after several women refused to leave if it meant being separated from family members still on board, media reported.
Italy’s Foreign Ministry praised Albania “for its decision to welcome 20 refugees from the Diciotti, a sign of great solidarity”, in a tweet.
Albania, which is not an EU member, is the only country so far to offer to host some of those on board the ship.
The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) called on EU member states to “urgently” provide places for those stranded on the ship.
“In the meantime, UNHCR urges Italian authorities to allow the immediate disembarkation of those on board,” it said.
– ‘Borders of Europe’ –
Migration is a hot-button issue in Italy, where hundreds of thousands of people have arrived since 2013, fleeing war, persecution and poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Under EU rules people must seek asylum in their country of arrival, but Rome has increasingly barred boats from docking at its ports.
A high-level meeting of a dozen EU member states in Brussels on Friday failed to produce an immediate solution for the Diciotti migrants.
“The European Union has decided to turn its back on Italy once again,” Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio wrote on his Facebook page.
“They want the 20 billion euros ($23 billion) paid by Italian citizens? Then let them demonstrate that they deserve it and that they are taking charge of a problem that we can no longer face alone. The borders of Italy are the borders of Europe,” he added.
Brussels quickly hit back at Di Maio’s “threats” on Friday.
EU figures for 2016 say Italy contributed just under 14 billion euros to the EU budget — less than one percent of its gross national income — while the bloc spent 11.6 billion euros in Italy.
– Far-right boost –
Salvini stopped the majority of the migrants disembarking from the Diciotti after they were rescued on August 15, but he allowed 27 unaccompanied minors off the boat on Wednesday.
Opinion polls suggest that Salvini’s stance has boosted his far-right League party’s approval rating to around 30 percent — a more than 10 point jump from its showing in March’s election.
It is now level with the Five Star Movement with which it has governed Italy since early June.
According to Salvini’s own ministry, migrant arrivals are more than 80 percent down on the same period last year, with just over 19,500 arriving up to August 23, compared to 98,000 in 2017.
https://www.afp.com/en/news/23/italys-far-right-interior-minister-faces-probe-over-stranded-migrants-doc-18k7cd10
Sessions Slams Chinese Nationals with 43-Count Indictment for Trafficking Fentanyl
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is charging two Chinese citizens for manufacturing and trafficking fentanyl into the U.S. linked to two fatal overdoses in Ohio.
Sessions announced the 43-count indictment Wednesday in Cleveland, Ohio, which accuses 43-year-old Fujing Zheng and his father, 62-year-old Guanghua Zheng, of operating an international network trafficking synthetic opioids and 250 other drugs into 25 countries and 37 U.S. states, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The pair, based in Shanghai, China, operate the Zheng drug trafficking organization, which officials say has “shipped deadly fentanyl analogues and other drugs around the globe for a decade.”
“Fentanyl and its analogues are the number one killer drug in America today, and most of them come from China,” Sessions said Wednesday.
“That’s why the Department of Justice under President Donald Trump has taken historic new steps against the threat of Chinese fentanyl.”
https://www.westernjournal.com/sessions-slams-chinese-fentanyl/
Investigating the collaboration between feds and the SPLC
https://video.foxnews.com/v/5826647855001/?#sp=show-clips
10-year-old punished for calling teacher ‘ma’am’
TARBORO, North Carolina —
Parents of a fifth grader are concerned after their child was punished for referring to his teacher as “ma’am.”
Teretha Wilson said she noticed something was wrong Tuesday when her 10-year old son Tamarion got off the school bus from North East Carolina Preparatory School.
“I asked him what happened. He said he got in trouble for saying ‘yes ma’am’,” explained Wilson.
Confused by his response, Tamarion pulled out a sheet of paper with the word “ma’am” written on it four times per line on both sides. He says his teacher told him to write the word on the sheet because he kept referring to her as “ma’am” despite her instruction not to. As part of his punishment, Tamarion had to have the paper signed by a parent.
https://abc13.com/education/10-year-old-punished-for-calling-teacher-maam-/4041937/
The Diversity of Illegal Immigration
by Victor Davis Hanson
Thursday, August 23, 2018
I live on a farm beside a rural avenue in central California, the fifth generation to reside in the same house. And after years of thefts, home break-ins, and dangerous encounters, I have concluded that it is no longer safe to live where I was born. I stay for a while longer because I am sixty-five years old and either too old to move or too worried about selling the final family parcel of what was homesteaded in the 1870s.
Rural Fresno County used to be one of the most ethnically diverse areas in the United States. I grew up with first-, second-, and third-generation farmers—agrarians of Armenian, German, Greek, Mexican, Japanese, Portuguese, Punjabi, and Scandinavian descent.
Race and ethnicity were richly diverse; yet assimilation was the collective shared goal—made easier because immigration was almost entirely a legal and measured enterprise. No one much carried for the superficial appearance of his neighbors. My own Swedish-American family has intermarried with those of Mexican heritage. My neighbor’s grandchildren are part white, Japanese, and Mexican. The creed growing up was that tribal affiliation was incidental, not essential, to character.
https://www.hoover.org/research/diversity-illegal-immigration
The figures in the Fresno Bee must not include the clean-up on the Hanson homestead.
It’s the latest of several steps the city is taking to clamp down on the volume of trash that gets dumped illegally in Fresno – more than 1,348 tons that city crews had to clean up over the past two years. https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article194458994.html
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/pf4atn/picture194458989/alternates/FREE_768/dumping%20heatmap
Macron’s Partition of France?
by Yves Mamou
August 25, 2018 at 5:00 am
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12909/macron-partition-france
In a confessional book, “A President Shouldn’t Say That…”, published in 2016, a few months before the 2017 French presidential election, France’s then President François Hollande admitted that France has “a problem with Islam. No one doubts it,” he wrote. He wrote as well that France has a problem with veiled women in public and with mass immigration. Then he added: “How can one avoid a partition? Because that is still what is happening: a partition”.
The “partition” about which Hollande was talking was the partition of France — one part for Muslims and another for non-Muslims.
Hollande’s successor, President Emmanuel Macron, elected to office in 2017, appears to think that this risk of partition is actually the solution. Looking at what he has said and done since his election, one can say that the division of the country is in progress. Officially, of course, Macron continues to be the guardian of the Constitution, which embodies national unity. But step by step, a strategy of the partition of France appears to be at work.
The first step of this partition process was, it seems, to create a new adversary. For Macron, the adversary was not radical Islam, which some see as having murdered hundreds of people in France in recent years, but radical secularism, which has never murdered anybody. In December 2017, for instance, a few months after his election, Macron organized a meeting with the representatives of six religions (Catholic, Protestant, Eastern Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist) at the presidential Elysée Palace. At this meeting, Macron reportedly “critically questioned the radicalization of secularism.” Not much filtered out of this meeting beyond that little quote — presumably on purpose. In October 2016, before his election, Macron had denounced the defenders of “a spiteful vision of secularism.” After his election, however, the presidential creed has never varied. According to it, political Islam is a not the problem; the resistance to it is.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12909/macron-partition-france
Khan’s London: Muslims Caught Butchering Animals in Backyard for Eid (breitbart, Aug 25, 2018)
https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/25/london-muslims-butchering-backyard-eid/
“Authorities have confirmed that environmental health officials are investigating after they were sent footage of a family chopping up animal carcasses on a tarpaulin outside their house in Dagenham.
Neighbours alerted the council after they saw large quantities of raw meat being hacked in the backyard of a residential address in the London borough, according to The Sun.
The newspaper said there was no information as to whether the family had slaughtered living animals at the property or were just cutting up their carcasses, but claimed that a woman at the address confirmed meat had been chopped as part of Eid celebrations…”
Yusuf Aka Gets Short Sentence for Stabbing Stranger, Attacking Wheelchair User, Trashing Hospital A&E (breitbart, Aug 25, 2018)
https://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/08/25/yusuf-aka-sentence-stabbing-wheelchair-trashing-hospital-ae/
“Yusuf Aka has received a short prison sentence for his knife rampage at a hospital in multicultural Leicester.
The 22-year-old stabbed a complete stranger in the back with a large knife outside Leicester Royal Infirmary, before storming into the hospital’s accident and emergency waiting room and sending staff and patients fleeing in terror as he trashed a number of hospital computers, hurling one of them at a wheelchair user.
But it the judge only saw fit to sentence Aka to five years on a charge of Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH), with two shorter sentences for affray and possession of an offensive weapon “to be served concurrently“.
Why he was not prosecuted for attempted murder is not made clear in Leicestershire police force’s report on the sentencing.
It should also be noted that his “five year” sentence may actually involve as little as two and half years behind bars, as criminals receiving standard determinate sentences in Britain are automatically released back into the community on licence halfway through — or, more rarely, two-thirds of the way through — their prison terms…”
There’s a lot about this that doesn’t make sense. Weirdest is there’s no mention of motive. If there was none, he should have been psychologically evaluated. Seems like a dangerous nutter who should not be released back into society.
London bloodbath: Man stabbed multiple times in huge brawl in Tulse Hill (express, Aug 25, 2018)
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1008130/London-news-london-stabbing-tulse-hill-roupell-road
“LONDON has been hit by another night of knife crime horror after a man was left in a critical condition after being stabbed in Tulse Hill.
Police said they were called to Tulse Hill to reports of a group of men fighting.
They found a man suffering from “a number” of stab wounds. He is now in a critical condition in hospital.
A spokeswoman for the Met Police said: “Police were called to reports of a group of males fighting at 1717hrs on Friday, 24 August at Roupell Road, SW2.
“Officers attended. At the scene a 23-year-old male was found suffering a number of stab wounds.
“The suspects had fled the scene.
“The injured male was taken to a south London hospital where his condition is currently critical.
“Lambeth Police investigate. At this early stage there have been no arrests.
“A knife has been recovered by officers.
“Anyone who witnessed this incident, has footage or can identify those involved is asked to call Lambeth Police quoting CAD5375/24AUG, Tweet @MetCC, or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.””
Egypt officials say 4 police, 4 militants killed in Sinai (abcnews, Aug 25, 2018)
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/egypt-officials-police-militants-killed-sinai-57397895
“Egyptian security officials say four policemen and four militants have been killed during clashes in the restive northern Sinai Peninsula.
The officials said that militants armed with explosives and RPGs attacked a checkpoint at the entrance to el-Arish city on Saturday. They said another 10 policemen were wounded.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
Egypt’s state-run MENA news agency quoted an unnamed official as saying that police thwarted the attack and confirmed the militants’ death. It didn’t report any casualties among the police. It also said other militants fled after the attack…”
‘It’s Really Quite Disgusting’: Shapiro Slams Attacks on Pence’s Christian Faith
Bongino: Time to ‘Consider Firing Bob Mueller’ If Trump Wants to See a Fair Russia Probe
Police have reportedly arrested 10 men involved in kidnapping, raping, torturing, tattooing, and holding captive a 17-year-old in central Morocco.
https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/08/252558/10-men-kidnap-rape-torture-17-year-old-girl-in-central-morocco/
“One case among thousands”
Don’t worry. Justice will be done. According to at least several astute commenters on the video testimony, “the Jews” are responsible for this. So is the King.
Will America Be the Next South Africa?
Wow that was removed fast. Any idea why? What did it say? Can you find it anywhere else?
No and it appears that I didn’t download it like I normally do.
I have tried bitchute and tried with Duck Duck Go I will keep trying but I’m not hopeful.
I can’t find it on any video sharing site, sorry
I think this video is being shadow banned, it came up as recommended to me but I can’t post an active link to it. If you are interested try getting up on You Tube and paste Will America Be the Next South Africa? into the You Tube search.
“Woman Fest has been created to bring the phenomenal work of Women together. We are a place of celebration in all that makes us potently female, a deep prayer for the Earth, and a reconnection to the ancient pulse of sisterhood that stands at the very crux of how we will define our world in years to come. When Women gather, magic happens.”
https://www.womanfest.co.uk/about.html
A deep prayer tor Earth.
Is this euphemism for the capitulation into a hormone-driven life? Worshipping that phenomena of ‘those who stay together, ovulate together?’ This is called their sisterhood? And then doesn’t this mean they have excluded all the wombless feminized-males who laid claim to be real females (in the eyes of the Law Makers); those cucks who want to be ducks?
Such confidence in Identity of a gland-excretion needs to be shared with Islam.
South Africa in CRISIS: Boer Legion – Civil Defence Training
Spain Incurs Public Criticism for Deporting Migrants to Morocco (moroccoworldnews, Aug 25, 2018)
https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2018/08/252597/spain-incurs-public-criticism-for-deporting-migrants-to-morocco/
“The Spanish government has sparked public outcry for returning to Morocco 116 migrants who stormed the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on Wednesday.
In an unprecedented move, Spanish and Moroccan authorities agreed Thursday for Spain to send back to Morocco the 116 migrants who “violently” crossed the land border from Morocco to Spain on Wednesday, August 22. Spanish authorities confirmed the deportation in a statement: “The 116 sub-Saharan migrants who illegally entered Spain through Ceuta have been readmitted by Moroccan authorities.”
The statement added that the deportation process had been done “legally” in accordance with international and European norms as well as a 1992 bilateral agreement between Madrid and Rabat. “All [migrants] benefited from a lawyer, an interpreter and medical help,” according to the Spanish Ministry of the Interior.
The decision has, however, provoked a storm of criticism in the country, with a coalition of 48 Spanish NGO and human rights advocacy groups describing the move as “scandalous.”
Walking Borders, a Madrid-based advocacy group, said that the mass deportation on arrival was both illegal and unmindful of international law regarding the rights of migrants. The decision “constitutes a gross violation of human rights.”
Proactiva Open Arms has also cast doubts on Spain’s recent reputation as a welcoming destination for migrants refused in other EU countries. “The most concerning,” the NGO said, “is that if the government is capable of such a move before the eyes of the world and in front of the cameras, we can imagine that what they do at deep sea is much worse.”…”
Senator John McCain, ex-POW and political maverick, dead at 81: statement (reuters, Aug 26, 2018)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mccain/senator-john-mccain-ex-pow-and-political-maverick-dead-at-81-statement-idUSKCN1LB00C?il=0
Italy disembarks stranded migrants, Salvini under investigation (reuters, Aug 25, 2018)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-italy/italy-disembarks-stranded-migrants-salvini-under-investigation-idUSKCN1LA0IF?il=0
“Italy on Sunday disembarked all 150 migrants from a rescue ship that had been docked for five days in a Sicilian port, ending the migrants’ ordeal and a bitter stand-off between Rome’s anti-establishment government and its European Union partners.
The migrants, mainly from Eritrea, had been stranded in the port of Catania since Monday because the government refused to let them off the boat until other EU states agreed to take some of them in.
Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said Albania had offered to accept 20 of the migrants and Ireland 20-25, while the rest would be housed by Italy’s Catholic Church “at zero cost” to the Italian taxpayer.
“The church has opened its heart and opened its wallet,” Salvini, from the right-wing League party, told supporters at a rally in Pinzolo in northern Italy on Saturday evening.
Salvini, who has led a popular crackdown against immigration since the government took office in June, also announced that he had been placed under investigation by a Sicilian prosecutor for abuse of office, kidnapping and illegal arrest.
“Being investigated for defending the rights of Italians is a disgrace,” he said.
On Saturday, the United Nations called for reason from all sides after a meeting of envoys from 10 EU states in Brussels a day earlier failed to break the deadlock.
“Frightened people who may be in need of international protection should not be caught in the maelstrom of politics,” the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said in a statement…”
Russia renews claims regarding unidentified helicopters arming ISIS in Afghanistan (khaama, Aug 25, 2018)
https://www.khaama.com/russia-renews-claims-regarding-unidentified-helicopters-arming-isis-in-afghanistan-05819/
“The Russian government has renewed claims regarding the delivery of arms and munitions to the ISIS militants by unidentified helicopters in northern parts of Afghanistan.
“We again draw attention to flights by ‘unidentified’ helicopter in northern Afghanistan to deliver arms and munitions to the local ISIS militants and the Taliban cooperation with this terrorist group. Superficially, Afghan media and local residents claim that these flights have been recorded in the Sar-e-Pol province,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia said in a statement.
The statement further added “We note that this is happening in the direct vicinity of Central Asia states’ borders and many ISIS militants in Afghanistan hail from these countries. There is no reaction to these events either from Afghan security defense and law-enforcement agencies or the command of the US/NATO contingent deployed there.”
This comes as the Afghan officials had earlier rejected reports regarding the unidentified helicopters arming ISIS militants in Afghanistan.
The latest claims by Russia follow amid ongoing operations against the ISIS and other militant groups in several parts of the country, including key Northern provinces.
The Afghan government and security officials yet to comment regarding the latest claims of Moscow.”
Could very well be coming from al-Q in the Arabian Peninsula. AQAP is doing very well in the northern part of Yemen. Money, weapons, training. Courtesy of our “allies” in the Gulf.
And our help directly: weapons purchased from us, training we’ve provided to their people. (Most of the latter are mercenaries from all over the world and include Americans.)
That’s a direct link to Afghanistan, as the original al-Q evacuated to Yemen in 2005. Brought by head of the MB in Yemen. Also very tight with the Pakistani military. Who play both sides of the Taliban.
Since the election, Pakistan and Saudi are all kissy-face again. Paki was worried because PM Modi got such a friendly visit to Riyadh. India will be replacing most of the oil it bought from Iran with Saudi crude.